Press [Kobold Press] State of Play: The Perils of Publishing Multiple Systems and Two Places Where it Works – April 8, 2026

[Marc Radle]

State of Play: The Perils of Publishing Multiple Systems and Two Places Where it Works – April 8, 2026
By Wolfgang Baur

Over the decades, Kobold Press has published game material and adventures for systems from Call of Cthulhu to four editions of Dungeons & Dragons, and from Pathfinder 1E to Tales of the Valiant and RiverBank RPG—and about five more game systems in there as well.

Generally, publishers focus on just one system at a time. The exceptions can be instructive: writing the same adventure with two different sets of stats sounds like a great way to expand the potential reach or audience. And it can be! But often, it’s twice as much work for about 50% more pay, so . . . it’s a rarity.

Let’s take a look through multi-system publishing over time, starting with what might be the greatest multi-system RPG product ever created ....

 

[Lord_Blacksteel]

Thanks for this Marc - I still have my old copy of Thieves' World and yes, where else can you find an adventure with stats for both Traveller and D&D? I appreciate the easy mix-in potential between ToV and 5E/5.5E material. Y'all are doing good work there.

Bonus "Unexpected Crossover Adventure" mention: Reality Storm for both Champions and Silver Age Sentinels roughly 20 years ago.

 

[djotaku]

Very interesting considering the KoboldCon teaser that there's another system to be supported to be announced at the Halloween event. Also, I wonder how the economics change if it's all PDFs because a lot of what Wolfgang mentioned as bad had to do with physical releases.

 

[Marc Radle]

Thanks for this Marc - I still have my old copy of Thieves' World and yes, where else can you find an adventure with stats for both Traveller and D&D? I appreciate the easy mix-in potential between ToV and 5E/5.5E material. Y'all are doing good work there.

Awesome - thanks so much!

 

[Marc Radle]

Very interesting considering the KoboldCon teaser that there's another system to be supported to be announced at the Halloween event.

That IS interesting!

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I find the take of that blog post... weird?

I do agree that multi-system products have most often than not proved to not be a great idea. And it's obvious that having different versions at with lower unit counts is bad money wise.

Two Systems in One Volume: Jealousy​

Uh...

However, MOST of the audience would be jealous and annoyed, in a tribal way, that Kobold Press was “betraying” their preferred game by giving time and attention to other rules system. Those Daggerheart pages or Pathfinder pages would be denounced as “wasted space” and “useless” by people playing TOV or D&D.

Is that really the take here? This feels like a huge disconnect. I have no reason at all to doubt that some people are tribal and will use the word betrayal (I know people like that) just because a publisher supports more than one system. But isn't the obvious take that people don't like it because it's not desirable for most people?

I personally know very few people that have ran, or want to run, the same adventure in multiple systems. I might want to run it in a new system years down the line. But right now, as I'm buying the product, why do I want it in four systems?

And wasted space is put into quote, but it's kinda true. If you, the publisher, think that it's monetarily disadvantageous to have several smaller print runs, why can't I, the customer, think that have extra pages and material that I don't need to be monetarily disadvantageous?

On top of my head, the approaches are:

• Just write lore, rooms descriptions, characters, etc and omit any rules so it's system-neutral. Well, that creates a ton of work for me.
• Have several stat blocks present on the appropriate pages, have boxed text explaining which mechanics from which game to use to solve a situation, etc. This bloats the book, it makes individual pages harder to read because there's multiple stat blocks.

Because every single multi-system project I’ve been part of has had that reaction from a large portion of the fan base. Rather than celebrating the breadth and scope of the hobby, the most common reaction is negative whenever a game book addresses more than one system.

I mean, I celebrate the breadth and the of the hobby in other ways. Notably by owning multiple systems and products for these systems. Do you think people come and buy your product to celebrate the breadth of the hobby? They buy your adventure because they need something to run on Friday.

Also, I'll add, I've rarely seen an adventure or product moved to a different system and be as good. Different systems have different tones, and artistic influences, and different mechanics. Some adventures are very basic and can translate very easily. And some games are very, very close. But, the obvious example, being 5E and Pathfinder 2E. They are very different games. Taking an adventure from one and moving it to the other would work for sure, but it wouldn't pull all the juice that the deeper mechanics that both games can offer. It waters down the product.

The best solution I've seen (from a customer point of view) are games offering conversion guides. Cairn is the best example. You want to run that classic OSR adventure? Then there's probably a conversion guide that tells you exactly how to convert material from one game to the other.

 

[djotaku]

I find the take of that blog post... weird?

I do agree that multi-system products have most often than not proved to not be a great idea. And it's obvious that having different versions at with lower unit counts is bad money wise.



Uh...

Is that really the take here? This feels like a huge disconnect. I have no reason at all to doubt that some people are tribal and will use the word betrayal (I know people like that) just because a publisher supports more than one system. But isn't the obvious take that people don't like it because it's not desirable for most people?

I personally know very few people that have ran, or want to run, the same adventure in multiple systems. I might want to run it in a new system years down the line. But right now, as I'm buying the product, why do I want it in four systems?

And wasted space is put into quote, but it's kinda true. If you, the publisher, think that it's monetarily disadvantageous to have several smaller print runs, why can't I, the customer, think that have extra pages and material that I don't need to be monetarily disadvantageous?

On top of my head, the approaches are:

• Just write lore, rooms descriptions, characters, etc and omit any rules so it's system-neutral. Well, that creates a ton of work for me.
• Have several stat blocks present on the appropriate pages, have boxed text explaining which mechanics from which game to use to solve a situation, etc. This bloats the book, it makes individual pages harder to read because there's multiple stat blocks.

I mean, I celebrate the breadth and the of the hobby in other ways. Notably by owning multiple systems and products for these systems. Do you think people come and buy your product to celebrate the breadth of the hobby? They buy your adventure because they need something to run on Friday.

Also, I'll add, I've rarely seen an adventure or product moved to a different system and be as good. Different systems have different tones, and artistic influences, and different mechanics. Some adventures are very basic and can translate very easily. And some games are very, very close. But, the obvious example, being 5E and Pathfinder 2E. They are very different games. Taking an adventure from one and moving it to the other would work for sure, but it wouldn't pull all the juice that the deeper mechanics that both games can offer. It waters down the product.

The best solution I've seen (from a customer point of view) are games offering conversion guides. Cairn is the best example. You want to run that classic OSR adventure? Then there's probably a conversion guide that tells you exactly how to convert material from one game to the other.

I wonder if Wolfgang is referring to the way people reacted to the Northlands Kickstarter? It is a D&D and ToV product (which is the easiest multi-system since they're both "5e" in the same way as A5e also being "5e") And people got very mad for all kind of reasons including the fact that that the D&D version is coming out first. Obviously there's NDAs and stuff, but from what KP has said publicly in the Discord and hinted at obliquely, this is based on contracts with WotC on when they needed the D&D stuff to be ready so that it could also appear on dndbeyond.

Personally, as a ToV-first person (but I'm not tribal - I have D&D, Pathfinder, Starfinder, and Cosmere) I was a little bummed, but truthfully I'm in the middle of a campaign right now so it doesn't matter too much. I was also a little bummed that it didn't have a Foundry/Shard/Fantasy Grounds component (which the KSers usually do), but that was also a contractual thing. However, given how slow KP's Foundry contractor is (still no MV2 or PG2), it's not the end of the world that it wasn't available on "day 1" either.

Like I said, I didn't care much, but as I've gotten older I've become less and less tribal. (compared to the Sega v Ninendo wars of my youth; or vim vs emacs and so on) If it wasn't because I don't have infinite money or time, I would probably collect even more TTRPGs (I am planning on buying Daggerheart this year even if it's just as a "coffee table book") But some people were VERY annoyed - like to the point where they ALMOST quit ToV. But I'm not in Wolfgang's head so I am not sure what he's referring to.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

I wonder if Wolfgang is referring to the way people reacted to the Northlands Kickstarter? It is a D&D and ToV product (which is the easiest multi-system since they're both "5e" in the same way as A5e also being "5e". And people got very mad for all kind of reasons including the fact that that the D&D version is coming out first. Obviously there's NDAs and stuff, but from what KP has said publicly in the Discord and hinted at obliquely, this is based on contracts with WotC on when they needed the D&D stuff to be ready so that it could also appear on dndbeyond.

Personally, as a ToV-first person (but I'm not tribal - I have D&D, Pathfinder, Starfinder, and Cosmere) I was a little bummed, but truthfully I'm in the middle of a campaign right now so it doesn't matter too much. I was also a little bummed that it didn't have a Foundry/Shard/Fantasy Grounds component (which the KSers usually do), but that was also a contractual thing. However, given how slow KP's Foundry contractor is (still no MV2 or PG2), it's not the end of the world that it wasn't available on "day 1" either.

That's interesting. I didn't follow the reception of that specific product.

To be fair, I kind of understand that people might be bummed. You buy into a company's own flagship system, and you feel like you're getting less (or later) than people buying into the competitor's. Especially when the flagship's system own existence was marketed heavily as an alternative to WotC because WotC is bad.

 

[djotaku]

That's interesting. I didn't follow the reception of that specific product.

To be fair, I kind of understand that people might be bummed. You buy into a company's own flagship system, and you feel like you're getting less (or later) than people buying into the competitor's. Especially when the flagship's system own existence was marketed heavily as an alternative to WotC because WotC is bad.

I showed up after ToV was a thing, but according to their history blog posts, they were already working on their own thing and the SRD scandal just accelerated it. I've heard that about a lot of other D&D alternatives that came out in the last decade, so I'm inclined to believe it.