Why adventures (alegedly) dont sell
I am happy to address that topic. Since adventures are our bread and butter, I think I know a little bit about the topic. In addition, I have discussed the issue with no less than Monte Cook, Ryan Dancey, Erik Mona (from Dungeon), and even Gary Gygax himself. Perhaps a bit broader of an experience base than the author of the net article that started this thread.
If adventures dont sell, its because publishers dont understand them. That is the core problem.
The market data (gathered by WotC and disseminated by Dungeon Mag) indicates that people overwelmingly want generic adventures (over 80%) for two level groups--low (1-3) and mid (5-10).
That is not surprising. Generally, people want a hand starting a campaign (thus the low level) and back when the data was collected those of you who played 1E may remember that it took FOREVER to get past 10th level. Thus, since people spent a vast majority of time playing from 5th to 8th and up to 10th, adventures for those levels are very popular.
So we should be able to use those numbers and match today's market, right?
WRONG. And that is publisher error number one.
To some extent people still need the "start my campaign" adventures. To date, Crucible of Freya is our best selling adventure (the numbers are insane, well over 20,000 copies). But that was one of the first serious d20 modules (along with Freeport and a few by Atlas and an outstanding few by Fiery Dragon that came a bit after).
But the problem is, people dont just want an "adventure" to start their campaign. That is why Freeport and Crucible of Freya have been the best adventures, because they provided an adventure along with a small setting. And this is key. A small enough setting that it is discreet (village in Crucible, small port town in Freeport) that can be dropped into any campaign. But enough material to help the DM get past the first night of fun.
This is a key issue and came to be the driving force behind our change in design concept. Our adventures now include what I call "mini-campaigns." They have a small setting area--a valley in the Vault of Larin Karr, the village and surrounding area in Crucible, the citadel and local area in Grey Citadel, the city and accompanying ruined city in Lost City of Barakus (upcoming release next month). By design, our "mini-campaigns" are not closed universes. They are designed for PCs to come and go in and out so they fit better in your homeworld, but give you enough that they can spend all there time there if they want. Also, by design, our mini-campaigns have to cover about 4 to 5 levels worth of advancement. That gives you bang for your buck.
Similarly, 5th to 10th isnt so much the key adventure "bottleneck" any more. In fact, now I would say the best module range is 8th to 12th. That is just the way 3E plays. But people were stuck in the old mentality. Why? Because most publishers initially were converting old home adventures. Those adventures were most likely written for AD&D and targeting level ranges that were relevant for AD&D. You have to realize that level concentrations are different now with 3E. A subtle difference, but a big one. Most people, IMHO, reject modules because they are for the wrong level set.
So, what are the normal problems with adventures?
1. Too short. The old paradigm of 16 to 32 pages just isnt enough for the modern purchaser. They say, heck I could do that myself. At 32 pages, that may be true. At 96 pages, I dont know about that.
2. Too low level. People have started their campaign. Too many low level modules crept into d20. Why? Because people copied the successful products. Green Ronin, me, and others made low level modules because we knew people would need them. But a few months into 3E and people were 5th level already. Nobody needed "another 1st level module."
3. Not understanding 3E advancement. You just cant build a good adventure to handle 1 level of advancement. You shoot up levels too fast in 3E (from a design standpoint, not from a PC standpoint
). You dont get enough mileage from a short, single level oriented module.
4. A lot of them sucked. Frankly, a lot of this is WotC's fault. Their adventure path modules really sucked, except for a few notable excpetions. Dwarven Forge was salvagable, so was the Iron Fortress one. And so did a lot of d20 modules.
5. Dungeon Magazine. Basically, you have to justify to the consumer why they should spend 8 bucks for your module when they could get 3-4 adventures from Dungeon for 6 bucks. That is a killer. If you as a company cant answer that question, you are dead making adventures. Most companies failed to answer that question. We didnt. We answered it. The answer is fourfold (1) Reliability. Give them something they know will be good. With Dungeon, you might get 4 adventures but we all know 2 will suck, 1 will be for the wrong setting and that leaves you with 1. With our modules, a purchaser knows us and knows what we do and knows they will get something that does not suck. (2) Size. Dungeon can give you 4 adventures, but they dont have the size to do mini-campaigns. That was our key. That is how we out Dungeon'd Dungeon. (3) Flexibility. We build our adventures so you can tell your story in our setting. Its like I say, "we give you the death star, you tell star wars." We give you the city and the dynamics and adventures seeds and areas of adventure and lairs and you as the DM decide how to use it. Dungeon doesnt have the space for that type of flexibility. They generally have adventures based on a tight story line. We dont. (4) Crunchy bits. Dungeon is catchin on, but all our adventures now have a new skill, or feat, or magic items or spells or monsters or something new to bring something different to the table.
Whew. Let me take a break for a minute.
Those are all design issues. Let me back up and talk all historical and point us to the number one problem with adventures.
Back in the day, there were few adventures. And everyone played in them. There was a funny sense of community about adventures because they were so few, they were a shared experience. For example, everyone can talk about what their party did in the Giants modules, because everyone went through them. Everyone can talk about Homlett or Keep on the Borderlands. Or, today, Freeport or our free intro one nighter Wizard's Amulet, or Temple of Elemental Evil. But there are hundreds and hundreds of adventures now. And that leads us to the problem....
"Marginal utility". If you have no adventures, getting your first one is very valuable. If you already have 20 adventures, the marginal utility of the 21st is very low. Adding 1 more is probably not going to get your blook pumping. This is the dilemma that hits modules.
The first sell like gangbusters, later ones dont (we did, though, and I will say why later).
So modules are not an indicator of the pulse of the industry or the health of a game or an industry at all. They will, however, tell you how "saturated" an industry is, because of the marginal utility that I talked about above. DMs are "full" of adventures. That can slow sales.
Foolishness of series modules. This is another problem. It comes about for a number of reasons. (1) publsierhs want to get a module out the door so they do "Part 1" while they finish part 2. But this leads to problems. It closes the door on the person from getting directly into part 2 unless they have part 1. customers hate that.
This is another example of people falling for the errors of the past. Publishers say, "hey, the best modules were G1-3 so we should do a series!" WRONG. That was from back in the day when there were hardly any modules and purchasers would wait for modules, because they had no choice. Today, it doesnt work well (ok, we had great and I mean GREAT success with Rappan Athuk which was a 3 parter, but that had its own reason).
So the reason for module failures today is that publishers follow the wrong forumla.
They target the wrong levels.
They try to make series modules.
They dont cover the right amount of "ground" with the module.
They dont give a reason why their module should get a kid's 10 bucks instead of Dungeon.
They are generally too short.
So do those modules sell? HELL NO.
So I guess if the article was titled "Are modules that are poorly planned and not at all geared to 3E dead?" My answer is YES. They are. And they wont sell for crap.
But you an be smarter and make modules that do sell and that sell well.
Our modules sell as well as anyone else's splat books.
Why? Becasue we didnt fall into the traps I noted above.
Our modules are for the right levels.
We give you a mini-campaign that is flexible and designed specifically to mesh with your home campaign with minimal fuss.
We give you something that you really cant do yourself without a ton of work.
We make sure to cover 4-5 levels of advancement so that you get bang for your buck.
We give crunchy bits that are fun and cool and that survive beyond the adventure itself
We provide tons of product support. In fact, we give away so much stuff it is sick.
We dont have the adventure end when you hit the last page. There are always ways to keep things going in directions that are appropriate for your campaign.
Here is a biggie--we create the most memorable villans. Nothing makes an adventure outlive itself than a nemesis that sticks with the party. Dark Natasha from Tomb of Abysthor. Heck, the very dungeon of Rappan Athuk itself is an enemy.
We understand the way 3E is played and we make adventures that fit that. We are gamers, not just game designers. You will find a lot of publishers (particularly smaller adventure publishers) that are re-fitting old adventures. While we have done that, we specifically take advantage of the current gaming system. Of course it helps to be friends with Monte Cook and to know Gary Gygax and Steve Wieck and Erik Mona (who is, by the way, the totally underrated guy in all this) to bend their ear and understand module design.
We dont do the same thing over and over. Look at our stuff. From the world's hugest dungeon (Rappan Athuk) to an incredible sweeping high level campaing by Gygax (Necropolis) to a self-contained above ground and underdark mini-campaing (Vault of Larin Karr) to the murder mystery of Rainbow Mage to the swelling evil of What Evil Lurks. It is all something new.
So can adventures sell? Heck yeah. If you do them right. I got the cash in my account to prove it.
It really comes down to this. I love adventures. I LOVE them. So does my partner Bill. So does everyone on our staff. And that shows.
There are a lot of companies out there who either:
1. do adventures cause they think they have to (example, WotC thought they had to do an "adventure path" series"
or
2. Do it because they think it is a short quick buck.
Let me tell you, the WotC guys hated doing those adventures for the most part. Why? They look at themselves as game "designers" not adventure writers. They want to design new rules and systems and stuff. They dont want to make a tower of orcs. And some people just want to capitalize on the quick cash.
And let me tell you, it shows. It shows real bad.
I think that is why our adventures sell and continue to sell and we continue to sell them.
I wont kid you, we do a few other things. I am GEEKED for example to do our setting from Judges Guild, the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. But that isnt because I dont like adventures. It is because I LOVE the Wilderlands and jumped at the chance to do it.
I am here to tell you, GOOD adventures, like anything else, sell just fine. Particularly if you use the wisdom of listening to what the market wants. Which I did.
Hope that helps.
Clark
