Ed Cha
Community Supporter
The other thread was getting too long, so I've decided to post this message here. Of course, this is just my opinion. 
Here it is:
From what I understand, adventures do not sell "well" for the following reasons:
1. The market is geared towards players, not GMs. There are more players than GMs. Thus, there are more products geared towards players or players/GMs, not just for GMs. The third edition (now 3.5) rules are also designed to be player-friendly. So, that means lots of products that are aimed at players or players/GMs: splat books, monster books, etc.
2. At first, there weren't enough adventures. Those first few adventures, though generally mediocre in quality (some quite poor actually), sold VERY well. Then, there were too many. I can tell you that there are no adventures selling more than a few thousand copies today. Sure, some companies are doing "well", but NOBODY is selling more than a fraction of what the earlier adventures sold. A mediocre adventure that came out early and had excellent distribution selling tens of thousands of copies would only sell a thousand copies or more today. Even the good or great adventures would have difficulty breaking through the lower thousands in sales. Sad, but true.
3. Many of the adventures published during the early days of d20 were just plain bad. The art was bad, the writing was bad, the editing was bad, etc. There are only a handful of companies that spend much time/energy/resources producing a good adventure. The others either don't have enough money for the high production values that are expected by consumers, don't have the talent/skill/experience, or don't invest the time for something that earns so little money.
4. Consumers like hardcovers. Hardcovers sell better than softcovers. Nearly all adventures are softcovers (as they should be). That means lower sales almost all of the time. Even though many consumers complain about hardcovers falling apart because of shoddy binding, they continue to buy them. So, publishers continue to produce them. Even if margins have to be expanded, fonts increased, and a lot of bad art included to fill white space (so one can expand 128 pages of work into 192 pages), if a publisher can make more money with a hardcover, it will be produced.
5. The average GM these days makes it a point to say proudly, "I don't buy published adventures. I homebrew." That's fine and dandy, but you know what? I've seen some of your homebrew games and frankly, they are not very good. Some GMs produce GREAT homebrew campaign worlds. Often, they are also the ones who buy published adventures and read them and get ideas or inspiration and create really interesting adventures and worlds on their own.
I own literally hundreds of adventures and yet I've only run a handful of them. But they give me ideas on how other people have created adventures and how I can create my own. They show me how a typical gnoll settlement looks like, so that I can develop my own version. They show me how a good spike trap works, so I can devise a better version. They show me how a storyline is developed and how it can be taken further.
I can understand why some people don’t buy published adventures though. It’s because they’ve been turned off by the ones coming out over the past 15 years or so, which brings me to my next point.
6. Many people have bought and ran adventures from the early 80’s. The GDQ series, the Slavers series, White Plume Mountain, Tomb of Horrors, Ravenloft, Village of Hommlet, etc. Not all of these were good adventures, but some of these were really great stuff. By today’s standards, they look done in a rather amateurish way, but they’re STILL good. They command higher prices on eBay than adventures just coming out not only because of their collectible value, but because people STILL like to read them and RUN them. I’m always amazed at how many people who are in their teens or early 20’s (too young to have bought them when they first came out) are running Keep on the Borderlands now. Sometimes, they don’t even bother with the newer adventures.
The fact is that many of the adventures during the latter days of TSR and the early days of d20 were simply bad. Now, there are better and better adventures coming out, but fewer people are buying them. Not only because the excitement over the advent of third edition rules is over, but because there are also a lot of people who are turned off by the bad adventures they wasted their money on before. I don’t blame them, but they should keep an eye out for some good ones coming out because they are only getting better.
7. Writers working for TSR were often paid salaries. Writers today are mostly freelancers getting paid by the word. Is there a connection with adventures quickly being pushed out with lots of wordiness and poor writing today? I think so. Again, there are a few publishers that invest the time to produce good adventures, but for most publishers, their focus is on more profitable products: splatbooks, monster books, and ANY kind of hardcover. That’s why you see some companies produce a few adventures for a campaign sourcebook, then stop supporting it so they can produce another campaign sourcebook.
8. A lot of people say, “Well, I’ll just buy X magazine and get adventures from there.” Well, have you noticed that X magazine has fewer and fewer adventures? How many of these can you actually use or get ideas from? One, if you’re lucky, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I think magazines are great, but they shouldn’t be the only resource for adventures.
9. Distributors and retailers will generally order a few copies of anything produced by one of the better known d20 companies. Then they stop. They simply don’t bother to re-stock. Even when a customer comes in to ask for a specific product or even place a pre-order, many just don’t buy any more copies after the initial order. They’ve made a profit, so why risk ordering more? That puts a glass ceiling for even some of the best d20 products out there. They just simply aren’t available to customers. If they’re not on the shelves, most people won’t even know about them.
10. Consumers wait to buy products. Some people will place pre-orders of products, especially hardcovers, that they are looking forward to getting in their hands. Adventures, unfortunately, are not one of them. Pre-orders for adventures are generally low to non-existent. A lot of people think to themselves, “I’ll just wait a few months to pick up that adventure on eBay for a few bucks less.” When the product doesn’t move the first few months, distributors and retailers do not re-order. When they don’t re-order, they don’t re-stock.
As someone who writes and produces “adventure settings” (similar to adventures), I’d just like to ask people to look at these points and give adventures a chance. Don’t just buy them. Buy them early and from a retailer (whether storefront or on-line).
We’ve already seen fewer and fewer adventures produced and this could continue until there are only a couple of companies producing adventures, leaving behind some that were actually producing good stuff.
Thanks for reading.
Here it is:From what I understand, adventures do not sell "well" for the following reasons:
1. The market is geared towards players, not GMs. There are more players than GMs. Thus, there are more products geared towards players or players/GMs, not just for GMs. The third edition (now 3.5) rules are also designed to be player-friendly. So, that means lots of products that are aimed at players or players/GMs: splat books, monster books, etc.
2. At first, there weren't enough adventures. Those first few adventures, though generally mediocre in quality (some quite poor actually), sold VERY well. Then, there were too many. I can tell you that there are no adventures selling more than a few thousand copies today. Sure, some companies are doing "well", but NOBODY is selling more than a fraction of what the earlier adventures sold. A mediocre adventure that came out early and had excellent distribution selling tens of thousands of copies would only sell a thousand copies or more today. Even the good or great adventures would have difficulty breaking through the lower thousands in sales. Sad, but true.
3. Many of the adventures published during the early days of d20 were just plain bad. The art was bad, the writing was bad, the editing was bad, etc. There are only a handful of companies that spend much time/energy/resources producing a good adventure. The others either don't have enough money for the high production values that are expected by consumers, don't have the talent/skill/experience, or don't invest the time for something that earns so little money.
4. Consumers like hardcovers. Hardcovers sell better than softcovers. Nearly all adventures are softcovers (as they should be). That means lower sales almost all of the time. Even though many consumers complain about hardcovers falling apart because of shoddy binding, they continue to buy them. So, publishers continue to produce them. Even if margins have to be expanded, fonts increased, and a lot of bad art included to fill white space (so one can expand 128 pages of work into 192 pages), if a publisher can make more money with a hardcover, it will be produced.
5. The average GM these days makes it a point to say proudly, "I don't buy published adventures. I homebrew." That's fine and dandy, but you know what? I've seen some of your homebrew games and frankly, they are not very good. Some GMs produce GREAT homebrew campaign worlds. Often, they are also the ones who buy published adventures and read them and get ideas or inspiration and create really interesting adventures and worlds on their own.
I own literally hundreds of adventures and yet I've only run a handful of them. But they give me ideas on how other people have created adventures and how I can create my own. They show me how a typical gnoll settlement looks like, so that I can develop my own version. They show me how a good spike trap works, so I can devise a better version. They show me how a storyline is developed and how it can be taken further.
I can understand why some people don’t buy published adventures though. It’s because they’ve been turned off by the ones coming out over the past 15 years or so, which brings me to my next point.
6. Many people have bought and ran adventures from the early 80’s. The GDQ series, the Slavers series, White Plume Mountain, Tomb of Horrors, Ravenloft, Village of Hommlet, etc. Not all of these were good adventures, but some of these were really great stuff. By today’s standards, they look done in a rather amateurish way, but they’re STILL good. They command higher prices on eBay than adventures just coming out not only because of their collectible value, but because people STILL like to read them and RUN them. I’m always amazed at how many people who are in their teens or early 20’s (too young to have bought them when they first came out) are running Keep on the Borderlands now. Sometimes, they don’t even bother with the newer adventures.
The fact is that many of the adventures during the latter days of TSR and the early days of d20 were simply bad. Now, there are better and better adventures coming out, but fewer people are buying them. Not only because the excitement over the advent of third edition rules is over, but because there are also a lot of people who are turned off by the bad adventures they wasted their money on before. I don’t blame them, but they should keep an eye out for some good ones coming out because they are only getting better.
7. Writers working for TSR were often paid salaries. Writers today are mostly freelancers getting paid by the word. Is there a connection with adventures quickly being pushed out with lots of wordiness and poor writing today? I think so. Again, there are a few publishers that invest the time to produce good adventures, but for most publishers, their focus is on more profitable products: splatbooks, monster books, and ANY kind of hardcover. That’s why you see some companies produce a few adventures for a campaign sourcebook, then stop supporting it so they can produce another campaign sourcebook.
8. A lot of people say, “Well, I’ll just buy X magazine and get adventures from there.” Well, have you noticed that X magazine has fewer and fewer adventures? How many of these can you actually use or get ideas from? One, if you’re lucky, in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, I think magazines are great, but they shouldn’t be the only resource for adventures.
9. Distributors and retailers will generally order a few copies of anything produced by one of the better known d20 companies. Then they stop. They simply don’t bother to re-stock. Even when a customer comes in to ask for a specific product or even place a pre-order, many just don’t buy any more copies after the initial order. They’ve made a profit, so why risk ordering more? That puts a glass ceiling for even some of the best d20 products out there. They just simply aren’t available to customers. If they’re not on the shelves, most people won’t even know about them.
10. Consumers wait to buy products. Some people will place pre-orders of products, especially hardcovers, that they are looking forward to getting in their hands. Adventures, unfortunately, are not one of them. Pre-orders for adventures are generally low to non-existent. A lot of people think to themselves, “I’ll just wait a few months to pick up that adventure on eBay for a few bucks less.” When the product doesn’t move the first few months, distributors and retailers do not re-order. When they don’t re-order, they don’t re-stock.
As someone who writes and produces “adventure settings” (similar to adventures), I’d just like to ask people to look at these points and give adventures a chance. Don’t just buy them. Buy them early and from a retailer (whether storefront or on-line).
We’ve already seen fewer and fewer adventures produced and this could continue until there are only a couple of companies producing adventures, leaving behind some that were actually producing good stuff.
Thanks for reading.
