D&D 5E Are hardback AP's a waste?

[KingsRule77]

I feel like you may have a few misconceptions regarding the costs of PDFs, sailor moon. First of all, selling a copy of a pdf does not mean, "zero costs". There's all the costs you would have had to incur regardless of medium - writing, development, editing, art, and layout; further, electronic distribution incurs site hosting fees and tech support fees (two separate things, even if you're paying e same company for them). So there's a fixed overhead that has a cost.

Then there's the diminishing returns - you suggest selling an adventure for 3 bucks, and a whole AP for 5 and suggesting they'd sell enough to make up for a product they used to sell for 30 or 40? What if your alleged eightfold or tenfold sales increase is only a twofold or threefold sales increase?

Worse, what if it sells LESS? If they drop their print distribution network, and don't get their prodcut in store shelves to be seen, what makes you think they would sell just as much or more? Lower visibility means less eyes actively searching for ways to buy product, as well as losing any and all customers who exclusively prefer print products? That's not me (I own ten times as much Paizo pdfs as printed materials) but i have no illusions about being a typical buyer. Everyone besides me at our table uses honest to goodness paper books - even the people using digital character records are using print books when doing character advancement. I really dont think WotC's customer base is much different on that score. PDF copy costs might be lower, but it's not "zero" - not low enough in opportunity costs and missed sales for WotC to drop all physical print and go e-book only.

And that's pretty much it in a nutshell. You sir, may drop the mic.

 

[Sailor Moon]

And that's pretty much it in a nutshell. You sir, may drop the mic.

Not really because Paizo has proven that my method works and then some.

 

[Gnarl45]

Do you guys have inside information to support your business theories? Because without actual data to back up your claims, you don't know what you're talking about.

If you have companies selling lots of low quality books and others selling fewer higher quality books, the only thing you can conclude is that both are viable business models.

 

[Mercule]

From a consumer POV, I like it, but with caveats.

The first "pro" is an easy one: quality. Whether I re-run the AP or not, I'll read through the entirety before deciding to run it. Then, I'll read through again, making any conversion notes, whether taking a 1E module to 5E or a Forgotten Realms module to Eberron. Then, I actually run it.

While running it, I read it multiple times. Before each session, I read any material that is likely to be needed for the session and skim anything that might be needed. Most of the time, only a third to a half of what I read is used because I prep for multiple paths. During the session, I use the text the players actually need, of course, but I may reference wandering monsters, rooms within earshot of certain noises, etc. After each session, I tend to review what the players did and make appropriate notes and plans for the next session, including any decisions intelligent monsters might make upon discovering the carnage the PCs have wrought (discovery isn't guaranteed, but I at least consider what could happen). Finally, things like new monsters, spells, and magic items are often referenced -- with a softbound book, I'll probably copy the text to somewhere else, where it'll be forgotten, but a hardcover can remain as a reference indefinitely. So, that's a minimum of something like six reads. That's more than many of my sourcebooks have gotten. Really, a good AP ends up having a lot more in common with the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting book than a 32-page "module".

All the above assumes a certain quality of the contents. I was less than impressed by HotDQ and don't even plan to run it; so I don't find the material, itself, to be worthy of a hardcover. It would be easier to swallow if the size had been more substantial, though. Paradoxically, I would probably have been happier to pay more for the entirety of Tyranny of Dragons and not use it than to have paid less for only half that I'm still not using. One the other hand, given my enjoyment of the 1E and 3E installments of the Elemental Evil stories, as well as liking the work the author did on Phandelver, I'm almost guaranteed to buy Princes of the Apocalypse, even though I don't plan to use it, right away.

So, one (maybe even two) well-written, 300-page campaign (AP) hard-covers would be fairly likely to earn my dollars. The two-step approach used by Tyranny of Dragons, especially with (IMO) the poor content, not so much.

The other factor, of course, is how setting-specific the AP is. Phandelver was technically set in the Realms, but it was trivial to file off the serial numbers and toss it into Eberron (or a home brew). ToD was very tightly coupled to the Realms; I eventually gave up trying to convert it to Eberron, and I'm not sure that it could even be dropped into a ground-up homebrew without the homebrew becoming, essentially, a selective copy of the Realms. As someone with a certain amount of antipathy towards the Realms, that's a limiting factor, but it's not inherent in the format.

 

[Sailor Moon]

The problem I'm seeing here is the exaggeration in how people say they handle their books. Unless you go around beating the dog and kids, or leaving it out in the rain, it's not going to fall apart if it's a paperback book. If you are that rough with a book then you are in the minority.

Softback books are not going to fall apart while you are prepping it. I mean what exactly are you doing to the book? Are you opening it up and pressing the front and back covers together so you can read one page at a time while holding it in one hand?

 

[Sailor Moon]

Do you guys have inside information to support your business theories? Because without actual data to back up your claims, you don't know what you're talking about.

If you have companies selling lots of low quality books and others selling fewer higher quality books, the only thing you can conclude is that both are viable business models.

Selling AP's in hardcover only shows you don't plan on putting out many at all so you want to try and make each one count by overpricing it. Also, Wizards knows initial sales will be good because people will want to try out those first fee AP's.

You don't have to have their data to know what works. They don't hold the monopoly on that sort of sales plan.

 

[pogre]

I just prefer hardbacks - even for shorter books. If for no other reason that they are easier to preserve and resell.

 

[Zaran]

I just prefer hardbacks - even for shorter books. If for no other reason that they are easier to preserve and resell.

I want both hardbacks and pdfs. although I wouldn't care if they were soft covers as well.

 

[aramis erak]

My method would actually make them more money. More people would drop less money on a paperback than they would a hardback, especially something that most likely won't be used more than once.

Doubtful. You've not shown any grasp of what they have been doing, so I don't think it's at all likely that you've got the information needed to predict what would or would not make them money.

I will say also that I have run several adventure sequences repeatedly over the decades... D&D's GDQ, Warhammer's The Enemy Within & Doomstones, Traveller's The Traveller Adventure... and I'm running HOTDQ for the second time at present. My copy of TTA is beat to hell. My copy of TEW isn't - even though it's been run more than TTA; hardcovers vs softcover. Doomstones, in softcover, shows as much wear as, with far less use than, TEW. Any my GDQ are pretty pristine... but that's because I copied them for play after the first time.

I prefer hardcover if I'm getting physical books. It just lasts longer. It also stays in better condition on store shelves. And in my briefcase.

 

[Schmoe]

The problem I'm seeing here is the exaggeration in how people say they handle their books. Unless you go around beating the dog and kids, or leaving it out in the rain, it's not going to fall apart if it's a paperback book. If you are that rough with a book then you are in the minority.

Softback books are not going to fall apart while you are prepping it. I mean what exactly are you doing to the book? Are you opening it up and pressing the front and back covers together so you can read one page at a time while holding it in one hand?

Are you trying to convince me I'm wrong, or asking why I would prefer hardback books? Softbound books don't hold up to heavy use at my table. I have 30 years of gaming experience to tell me that's true. Not only that, you are completely out of touch if you think they could sell a soft-cover AP for 5 bucks. My Shackled City hardcover is over 400 pages in full color - there's no way you could sell that in physical form for less than $25-30 unless it's printed on tissue paper. The other option, purely digital, is another canard. You're proposing they could sell a 400 page PDF for $3 and somehow still be able to pay the authors, artists, editors, and the rest of the staff. Even after that, I'd have to spend $20 of my own money just to print the thing. I'm not seeing anything even remotely feasible in anything you've suggested.