3pp: what can they sell?

[fireinthedust]

I'm thinking about the way 3rd party producers will be able to market their stuff in 4e. With the Character Builder, it's easy enough to use WOTC material only (all of it Core) and difficult to put in homemade or 3pp player options into games. I can't put in entire character classes I made up myself, for example. So what do 3pp, and fansites even, have left to sell?

Obviously modules and adventures are the big thing. Skill challenges can be made up, and Monsters used or made up according to GSL rules, right?

Battle Mats, that's another one. And minis speak across edition borders. Dice, that's good for any product just about.

Is that it? Is there anything that 3rd parties can do? Is there stuff they can do better than WOTC?

 

[Scribble]

I've been thinking about this myself...

I think for 4e if 3pp want to support it, then they need to rethink the idea that only crunch sells.

During 3e the idea seemed to be if it didn't contain lots of new crunch, then people wouldn't buy it. Maybe that was true? But I will say that one of my all time favorite books for 3e (and ever) was the relatively crunch free Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe book.

I found/find myself going back to that book time and time again for new ideas and ways to approach how I setup my campaign and kingdoms.

This is an approach I think 3pp need/can take if they want to sell me 4e stuff.

If you're selling a campaign setting, and the setting contains Wizards... Why make up an all new Wizards class or paragon path? Instead why not just use what exists already and just give me good flavor for it? Tell me HOW or suggest a good way to fit what exists into my game.

This is exactly what MMSWE did well for me... It wasn't a book full of feats and classes designed to emulate the feudal society. It just gave me an overview of how the feudal society worked, and let me decide how est to fit the existing rules into one.

Another one of my all time favorites was Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns.

While this book was pretty much all crunch, the crunch was... ummm "Weird?"

It was crunch that wasn't really something I was going to need on a regular basis... It was stuff that I would plunk into the game every now and again as almost a break from the normal campaign... Instead of "saving the world" tonight we would have a drinking match between a PC and an Ogre or something.

So if something from a 3pp shows up with a similar idea (outside the normal game, not just more drinking rules) I might be interested... IE rules that don't need to be in the DDI because I won't need them on a regular basis.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Morrus]

I think for 4e if 3pp want to support it, then they need to rethink the idea that only crunch sells.

We don't decide what sells! The customers decide that.

During 3e the idea seemed to be if it didn't contain lots of new crunch, then people wouldn't buy it. Maybe that was true?

It was!

But I will say that one of my all time favorite books for 3e (and ever) was the relatively crunch free Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe book.

If you're selling a campaign setting, and the setting contains Wizards... Why make up an all new Wizards class or paragon path? Instead why not just use what exists already and just give me good flavor for it? Tell me HOW or suggest a good way to fit what exists into my game.

Because, with all due respect, there's no market for it. Or we'd be churning them out!

Another one of my all time favorites was Tournaments, Fairs, and Taverns.

While this book was pretty much all crunch, the crunch was... ummm "Weird?"

Yay! One of ours.

It was crunch-filled; and I think what you've hit on might be the way forward - different spins on crunch.

So if something from a 3pp shows up with a similar idea (outside the normal game, not just more drinking rules) I might be interested... IE rules that don't need to be in the DDI because I won't need them on a regular basis.

How about TFT: 4E Edition? Would that appeal? Because I've been wondering whether to write it.

 

[Umbran]

I'm thinking about the way 3rd party producers will be able to market their stuff in 4e. With the Character Builder, it's easy enough to use WOTC material only (all of it Core) and difficult to put in homemade or 3pp player options into games. I can't put in entire character classes I made up myself, for example. So what do 3pp, and fansites even, have left to sell?

I think people who come to EN World vastly overestimate the number of folks who use WotC's computer tools.

There are, by the best estimates we have, millions of gamers. How many DDI subscribers? Thousands? Maybe tens of thousands? That still leaves the vast, overwhelming majority of players quite open to things that aren't incorporated into WotC's coputer tools!

 

[drothgery]

I think people who come to EN World vastly overestimate the number of folks who use WotC's computer tools.

There are, by the best estimates we have, millions of gamers. How many DDI subscribers? Thousands? Maybe tens of thousands? That still leaves the vast, overwhelming majority of players quite open to things that aren't incorporated into WotC's coputer tools!

But the set of people who are even aware that there are third-party D&D-compatible products and the set of D&Di subscribers has far more overlap than that.

 

[Scribble]

We don't decide what sells! The customers decide that...

Well with that I agree. What I meant was that maybe it's time to re-look at what the customers want. I see some saying there's no market for 3pp after they publish what seems to be the same thing they always published just with the serial numbers filed off. Markets change...

Also just because the market tells you what it wants doesn't always mean the market actually has 100% knowledge of what it's actually asking for.

There may be certain ways of doing things that would make my life easier that I didn't know could be done.

It was!

People wanted crunch heavy supplements. Is this still the case? It seems to be no because it won't work with the DDI.

Because, with all due respect, there's no market for it. Or we'd be churning them out!

Maybe? Have you tried with 4e? I think that's my main point- because it was true in the 3e time period, doesn't mean you can/should automatically apply it to the 4e time span.

Really as a customer, I still want/need 3pp products that will help my game, but right now 3pp crunch doesn't do that. It actually hinders it- so my example was my own idea of something I feel WOULD help my game, and WOULD attract my gaming dollars.



(Maybe it's the type of gamer I am though? This was also somewhat true in 3e for me as well. For instance I LOVED the Malhovac Press stuff, but almost never used the rules. I had a sort of love/hate relationship with all of Monte Cook's work... I really really really loved his flavor ideas, and concepts as a whole, but the crunch was almost always too cumbersome for my tastes.

X amount of new crunch/powers/feats/classes just aren't going to attract my attention these days- in fact they'll probably push me away before I even get into the heart of your product.

Which leads me to my next point-

Yay! One of ours.

It was crunch-filled; and I think what you've hit on might be the way forward - different spins on crunch.

If you ARE going to go the way of crunch, different spins doesn't just mean (in my eyes) different ways to do the same thing... IE I don't need another take on the Wizard or something.

How about TFT: 4E Edition? Would that appeal? Because I've been wondering whether to write it.

I'm not sure... It peaks my interest- but I guess it depends on how you approach it.

I don't think I'd be all that interested in the same product with just some numbers updated... But if you gave me the same concept but updated the idea with some of the new 4e concepts (like skill challenges) that would be pretty cool... (I think you were kind of onto a prototype skill challenge with the DS stuff actually.)

 

[Umbran]

But the set of people who are even aware that there are third-party D&D-compatible products and the set of D&Di subscribers has far more overlap than that.

That, sir, is merely a question of marketing.

Which is not to say that marketing is easy. The point is simply that the D&D market in general is not equivalent to the DDI market, and if you can find a way to reach those others, you can sell whatever you want to them.

 

[darjr]

I think the key is finding out what players AND DMs would buy.

Right now I'd kill for something that would take that darn CB xml and let me output a character sheet like the D&D game day ones or one of the many great ones posted on ENWorld and elsewhere or at least to something other than a darn form.

I've mucked about with it and just might have to go and do it myself.

 

[Vartan]

Let me say that I think there are two question in the OP's question: "What can they [3PPs] sell," and "What can the sell that is going to be worth their time to produce?"

This is complicated, as the OP points out, by the Character Builder: 3PP crunch is going to be difficult to sell for 4E because it can't be incorporated into CB, and CB is an insanely attractive feature of 4E.

So what can 3PPs sell that will be worth their time to produce? 3PP crunch has to be so good that it makes a player want to ditch the Character Builder. That, or it has to appeal to everyone who doesn't use CB. That's the hurdle for crunch.

Adventures and (to a lesser extent) campaign settings are another option for 3PPs. Both of these options are labor-intensive, which is a hurdle, but I can't say that they're more or less labor intensive than writing new crunch. I can say that writing good crunch requires a different skill-set than writing good adventures/settings. Lots of writers can do both, but others are more proficient at one or the other.

3PP publishers have sold fine 4E products, but can they sell enough to make it worth their effort? For better or worse, WotC made their position clear with the GSL: Mutants and Masterminds takes too large a piece of their pie, but the Dungeon Crawl Classics line is just right. The lack of support for "homebrew" crunch in the Character Builder might be due to a lack of programming resources on WotC's part, but regardless of intent or reason the net result is that 3PP crunch is less profitable than it was under the OGL.

IMO, if there is money to be made then it is in adventures and campaign settings. Whether or not such products will yield enough profit to motivate talented designers is a question that has yet to be answered. From what I've read there is a lot of room to work with in this space: the pre-fab WotC modules don't appeal to every gamer, and there are more than a few players who are looking for something other than "Points of Light" or the new Forgotten Realms.

"What can they sell?" Most of the same sorts of things they used to sell.

"What will sell well enough to make it worth their time?" That question will only be answered over time.

 

[jdrakeh]

Whipping up adventures and settings requires considerable time investiture, where whipping up feats and classes is fairly easy by comparison (which is part of why I think 3PP drifted more toward that kind of content under 3x).

I don't have a lot of free time, so I'm more interested in buying products that I can't quickly and easily throw together myself (i.e., I'm more interested in 3PP adventures and settings). I'd like to think that a market for such things exists.

I don't even play 4e, but I'm open to buying adventures for any system, as I can convert them to my own system of choice (which is still easier than building them from the ground up).