A challenge to the d20 publishing community

[Mark]

Hi Aaron!

I largely agree with what you say though my own impression of the numbers might be a bit different. It's worthwhile for me to further clarify my own reasoning for agreeing with you, as well.

Here is the rational behind my challenge:

In the d20 market your customer base is the DM. There is nothing else really to sell to.

Conventional wisdom is that 20% of the market is DMs but that they make, or influence, 80% of the purchases. What they will allow in campaigns largely guides the marketing and product development of Third Party Publishers.

Players by the minimum of what they need. That is ussually the PHB. So you can't look at your market as everyone who plays d20, it is in reality those who run the games.

Additional purchases made by players can also include Players' Guides to (Campaign Setting), anything with crunchy bits geared toward player characters, and (as you mention) anything that helps a player transition into the role of DM.

The population of this market is small generally being generous we would say 20% of the market for the PHB.

It might be closer to 10% or lower, from what I understand (perhaps 20% for electronic publishers).

If we make tools that make DM preparation time similar to character creation time, you will grow the DM population, in fact it may very well become one and the same. Such an event would equate to more sales in the d20 market.

"We do the work, so you can play!" is the motto at Creative Mountain Games for that reason, among others. I agree completely that assisting DMs to run games is an excellent way to target the largest portion of the market, and that a healthy business attittude should be one that reaches out to the player population and helps ease conversion to the DM chair. It has a number of residual affects that are good not only for an individual company's sales, but also for the RPG industry as a whole. (The more DMs, the more people that can play. With more chairs at the table, the more that can be filled from outside of the current player ranks, thus increasing the market, etc.) This is a good long-term attittude for any RPG producer that serves to ensure their logevity.

It's worth further addressing that there are a number of reasons why the market plateaus around that 10%, perhaps chief among them being the hurdle from "Official" products to "Third Party Publisher" products. It is unlikely that Third Party Publisher advertising budgets will allow for that barrier to directly be broken in a significant way, which is why I further agree with what you suggest as being a great approach. The more "new" DMs that come to the table already accepting of Third Party Publisher products, the easier it is to spread the message that those products can be very useful to the games being played.

The toughest single thing for any new company is weathering the lean times from inception through becoming a self-sustaining entity. It is my hope that consumers will give companies like Creative Mountain Games the ability to get through the tough periods and eventually grow into that "middle tier" where it is possible to further produce materials that help to grow the hobby as a whole. To that end Creative Mountain Games does everything it can to support the community (assisting great sites like EN World and the people who comprise the community, helping with conventions and gamedays, producing materials to make playing less of a chore, etc.), and hopefully garner the respect and support of the of the community in return, as has been the case thus far. Thanks to everyone who appreciates CMG products and services. The continued success of CMG is a good example of consumer purchases directly effecting how the hobby and market grows!

 

[philreed]

The 101 Series

A good example of what I mean is 101 Spellbooks. Right up the alley. So in a sense what we (I guess I am speaking for people who may or may not want me speaking for them...) want is 101 wilderness location maps (you know, glades, old ruins, tors, graveyards, burial grounds, etc.) or 101 humanoid bands. 101 dungeon rooms, 101 important non-magical items... I think you see what I am saying.

Thanks! The 101 series of PDFs has been fun to write but they don't come easily. I was actually working on 101 Dungeon Rooms but as I got deeper in I realized it would be 100+ pages (and with all of the maps the PDF would have probably been 15+ MB).

I am considering a series of "A Dozen Dungeon Rooms" PDFs in order to keep the files sizes down.

You want 101 non-magical items? What about two PDFs for a total of more than 200 non-magical items?

101 Mundane Treasures http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=300&

Another 101 Mundane Treasures
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=716

Some other ideas I've had for the series include 101 Pockets Picked and 101 Dungeon Dressings. Any interest in these?

 

[jester47]

Thanks! The 101 series of PDFs has been fun to write but they don't come easily. I was actually working on 101 Dungeon Rooms but as I got deeper in I realized it would be 100+ pages (and with all of the maps the PDF would have probably been 15+ MB).

I am considering a series of "A Dozen Dungeon Rooms" PDFs in order to keep the files sizes down.

You want 101 non-magical items? What about two PDFs for a total of more than 200 non-magical items?

101 Mundane Treasures http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=300&

Another 101 Mundane Treasures
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=716

Some other ideas I've had for the series include 101 Pockets Picked and 101 Dungeon Dressings. Any interest in these?

I would say "yes!"
But, then again, I am me.

I forgot about mundane treasures! Dungeon rooms would be good...

To help you out on that, I would point out that there are a few standard dungeon room shapes. If you could set yup a short hand and a few standard maps, you could cram 101 of them into a file and not use that much space.

Aaron.

 

[der_kluge]

Some other ideas I've had for the series include 101 Pockets Picked and 101 Dungeon Dressings. Any interest in these?

Consider them sold, especially if the "pockets picked" entries all include plot hooks.

 

[kingpaul]

One thing that would be way cool (but I wouldn't want to work on because of the sheer tediousness of it) is a book of nothing but NPC stat blocks. All the core classes in about 3 variations, level 1 to 20, 1 or 2 examples of all the perstige classes, the most commonly used monsters with levels in their favored classes, and some for templated creatures.

So, we're talking a book that has, under 3.0 rules: 3 NPCs, levels 1-20 for 11 core classes (Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue, Sorcerer, Wizard (do you want to see specialists for these?)) and 5 NPC classes (Adept, Aristocrat, Commoner, Expert, Warrior), for 960 NPCs (1110 if you do 1 for each specialist wizard). Then, at least 1, preferably 2, NPCs, levels 1-10 for 5 PrCs (Arcane Archer, Assassin, Blackguard, Dwarven Defender, Loremaster, Shadow Dancer), for 60-120 NPCs.

If you go under 3.5 rules, you add 9 PrCs (Arcane Trickster, Archmage, Dragon Disciple, Duelist, Eldritch Knight, Hierophant, Horizon Walker, Mystic Theurge, Thaumaturgist), for an additional 90-180 NPCs.

This doesn't include your monster request.

Would backstory be requried for each character?

In the same book (assuming that we haven't used up all the space available yet), have stat blocks for all the open content traps known to man. I feel that a product like this would eliminate a large amount of the usual prep work necessary for adventures.

Wow. That would require having many books to compile that beasty. Probably have to be its own book, as you're hundreds of NPCs.

Do I have the request down right?

 

[Cergorach]

Do I have the request down right?

That would be about it... Oh wait Don't forget the character portraits! ;-)

 

[kingpaul]

That would be about it... Oh wait Don't forget the character portraits! ;-)

*snort*

Do you want stick figures or stick figures?

 

[jezter6]

I've been working on something for the skyscraper idea that I was debating publishing in the near long term future...instead of 100 detailed floors, there's just a main 'core' size of the building, and 10 or 15 templates that can be applied in any order. Want 10 of the same office config, then 10 apartment configs, then 10 of another office config...you can just print em out and put them in any order you want, instead of one big skyscraper done how *I* want it. It was one of the many ideas I had, but never got around to doing. I have about 2 or 3 different floor molds, but it's not quite as detailed (with crawl spaces) as one poster requested...but it does have...umm....floors and floorplans

 

[kingpaul]

One thing that would be way cool (but I wouldn't want to work on because of the sheer tediousness of it) is a book of nothing but NPC stat blocks.

Is something along these lines what you're looking for?

Vragak, Male Half-Orc Fighter1 CR 1; Size: M Type HUMANOID; HD (1d10)+3; hp 13; Init +1 (+1 Dex, +0 Misc); Spd Walk 20'; AC 15 (flatfooted 14, touch 11), Axe, Orc Double -2;-2 S/S(1d8+5/1d8+2 20/x3/3 Two-Weapons L ) or Axe, Orc Double (Head 1 only) +6 S (1d8+7 20/x3 Two-Weapons L ) or Axe, Orc Double (Head 2 only) +6 S (1d8+7 none/x3 Two-Weapons L ) or Crossbow, Light +2 80' P (1d8 19-20/x2 Carried S ); SA: Orc Blood; Vision: Darkvision (60'), Normal AL: CE; Sv: Fort +5, Ref +1, Will -1; Str 20, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 9, Wis 8, Cha 6

Skills and Feats: Climb +3, Jump +3; Exotic Weapon Proficiency, Power Attack
Possessions: 1 Axe, Orc Double, 1 Coin (Silver), 1 Backpack, 1 Bedroll, 1 Blanket (Winter), 1 Bolts, Crossbow (10), 1 Crossbow, Light, 1 Outfit (Explorer's), 1 Rations (Trail/Per Day), 1 Scale Mail

 

[darklight]

I google'd around a bit, trying to find skyscraper floorplans... www.greatbuildings.com has info and pictures of many buildings, including quite a few skyscrapers, but only a few of those includes drawings (which are generally of a less-than-good quality.) Apparently many of them has drawings included on their Great Buildings CD-rom, but I can't vouch for the quality. The blurp says:

750 buildings from around the world and across history
320 leading architects and architecture firms
2200 photographic images, dozens of digital video clips
2500 architectural drawings, including plans, section, elevations, and perspectives
300 live 3D building models, with 3D walkthrough software included
120 maps of building locations, historical timeline from Stonehenge to the present

If you're looking for floorplans/maps of houses both www.globalhouseplans.com and www.coolhouseplans.com has tons of different houseplans (10.000+!) and www.globalhouseplans.com even has nice 3D renderings of their houseplans, including furniture!

Oh, and I agree wholeheartedly with jester47's

Originally Posted by jester47
Give us a book that will help experienced DMs prepare an adventure in the time that it takes a player new to the game to make a character.

I love spending time on planning and preparing rpg stuff, but our group tends to play very irregularly, so it would be nice to be able to whip up an adventure on short notice when some of us feels like playing.

darklight