Charles Ryan on Adventures

[Doc_Klueless]

Edit: Deleted because I don't know how it got into this thread. Guess I should cut back on the cough syrup.

 

[Vigilance]

It's worth considering how well these games fit into the existing framework.

If you replace the PHB with Iron Heroes, does your Monster Manual become obsolete? I suspect not - the power levels are on the same level.

However, can the same be said about Conan?

Cheers!

As someone who has actually RUN Conan- Id say yes.

Chuck

 

[MerricB]

As someone who has actually RUN Conan- Id say yes.

Thanks - that's good to hear.

Cheers!

 

[Banshee16]

Thank you, BiggusGeekus, for the mention! I'm glad Indie Press Revolution is starting to get noticed! We are trying our best to get great product out there directly to customers... and now retailers!

It is not an easy job. We are trying to get retailers to order from us, but many just stick to WoTC and then a few of the major d20 publishers. WoTC, as pointed out earlier, has it all really.

I do want to point out that the statement Charles Ryan made about hard-cover quality is not entirely true. While overall WoTC may produce the best hard-covers, I know that Denizens of Avadnu has probably the highest production quality ever seen in the industry. There is so much color in this book that it almost screams at you! And the content KICKS ASS! It is really better than any monster book out there.

That said, it still only sold a tiny fraction of what the most minor WoTC supplement sold.

There are a few companies out there with high-quality hardcovers....I think the Privateer Press hardcovers fare well against WotC. They're durable, the art is more consistently of high quality, and they're written very well.

Banshee

 

[Dinkeldog]

This is an interesting topic. It would be a shame if the discussion had to be curtailed because people couldn't maintain civility.

 

[Banshee16]

No. What I was saying is that I don't know if WotC's intent from the get-go was to essentially produce a new edition or whether that was an unintentional by-product of the design process. I know from my time at WotC that the original 3E plan did not involve a revision in 2003. That was decided on later. So did the folks in charge say, "We really need to do a new edition but there's no way the fanbase will go for it 2003. Let's call it 3.5 and pretend it's more of a revision than a new edition"? Or did the design process start with the goal of a revision and just go too far? I'd say the latter more likely than the former, but either one is possible.

In any case, several important factors contributed to the decline of the d20 market, as I mentioned before. The upshot of all this is that two years after 3.5 there are maybe a half dozen print publishers still supporting d20 in a meaningful sense. I would not be surprised if even this small number drops next year. If 2002 was the height of the glut, I believe we are approaching the nadir. The Green Ronin d20 strategy in 2004-2005 was to hang tough, keep putting out the quality books we are known for, watch a lot of our competition fade away, and then reap the benefits. Well, here we are, still supporting d20 with new lines like Thieves' World (and product #2 of that line is an adventure no less) and even doing a new d20 Modern setting (Damnation Decade), but we have yet to see the Great d20 Rebound.

2006 will be an interesting year.

Well Chris, not to be a fan-boy or anything, but IMO, Green Ronin is one of the best D20 companies out there. I've got the Black Company Campaign setting, several of the Mythic Vistas books, and several of the class ones. I'm very much looking forward to the book coming out with the Black Company magic system adapted to regular D20 gaming.

You guys are on the right track, and Green Ronin is one company I'd be pleased to see stick around with D20.

On that topic, you may want to check your distribution channels in Canada. Right after Blue Rose came out, my local stores stopped being able to order Green Ronin merchandise. It's been about two months now since I've seen a Green Ronin book hit my area, which is frustrating. I ended up needing to order Eternal Rome from EBay, and it's 3 weeks since I paid and it still hasn't arrived.

My regular store told me that Canadian Distributors has ceased supplying Green Ronin. I don't know if they're just giving me bogus info, or if there's some truth to the statement.

I think there was a definite glut to the D20 market, but several companies....Malhavoc, Green Ronin, Sword & Sorcery Studios, RPG Objects, Fantasy Flight Games (Midnight), and Privateer Press are all companies putting out fantastic work. Apparently some WotC people may not realize it, but I think there will always be a market for non-WotC sourcebooks. Ever since 3E came around, WotC appears to have gone somewhat "lowest common denominator". They have released many interesting books, but they're often so generic that it's frustrating. And the "cheese" factor, especially in 3.5 is something that I personally find very dissatisfying it. I don't remember this in older games like Birthright, Planescape, and Dark Sun. It seems these days that the only companies that offer a solution to that are non-WotC publishers. Settings like Iron Kingdoms and Midnight help to fill that hole, and alternate rules etc. like Iron Heroes, Arcana Evolved etc. help to deal with that.

Maybe I'm getting old, but I find increasingly the "cheese" factor in many WotC books really turns me off. I don't find myself buying nearly as many anymore. Probably about 40% of my purchases are WotC, and 60% are from the above-mentioned companies. But I find it very difficult to get my players to make the jump. Most either don't know about D20 publishers, or are unwilling to buy anything but WotC.

On the topic of adventures.....I do think they're necessary. However, small adventures are pretty well covered by Dungeon. What I'd love to see is more large-scale ones, or books with strings of them that can be combined into longer campaigns. I don't typically purchase many of the individual adventures.....but the big ones, like The Great Modron March and Dead Gods are ones that I've gotten a lot of use out of.

I think that several of the companies (including Green Ronin) that release campaign settings....like for Midnight, Iron Kingdoms, Skull & Bones etc. don't support the products enough afterwards. Midnight as an example gets lots of supplements. But there's only been one adventure. I'd totally be into purchasing other modules for that setting, but nobody seems to feel like producing them. But as the GM of that game, having adventures makes it easier for me to run the game, which increases the length of time my players will play in that setting, and increases the chance that they'll purchase Midnight supplements, for example. Though only one GM in the group buys the adventure, the fact that I'm running the game may lead to other sales of the other books in the line. But all of the companies seem to be in the same boat....poor, overworked GMs don't get any of the love

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

I have a 1st printing of the 3e PHB. The one that produced almost as much errata and clarifications per chapter as Mythus. 3.5 was necessary. Wizards had a problem, Wizards had to do something about it, or risk seeing the market collapse as people turned their back on D&D because of all the mistakes.

I remember 3e. Even if you think the basic premise of the design was valid it still had enough mistakes to make it unviable in the long run. Without 3.5 Wizards would be a card game publisher and we'd be posting at RPG Net about the next D&D wannabe from Whoneedsenglishcompositionskills LLC.

How Wizards did it was wrong, but it needed to be done.

I'd tend to disagree. With a few exceptions where we've used some rules from 3.5, we're still running 3.0, and the game isn't "broken".

WotC created a perceived need and basically forced everyone down that path. Why they did it is up to conjecture. They maintain it's because the rules were broken, others of us believe it had as much to do with bumping sales back up. Who knows what the truth was? Maybe it lies somewhere in between.

IMO, 3.5 was a step backwards in many ways, but I'm sure many will disagree. In any case, it went in a direction that I personally didn't like.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

I'm playing, or interested in playing in the future, five different d20 games, and none of them are called Dungeons and Dragons.

What some people consider reinventing the wheel I consider novel approaches that satisfy more of my interests as a gamer.

Bingo.

WotC's idea of what I'm supposed to consider "fun" has diverged significantly from what I find fun.

Some of the variant stuff out there is really cool. Much of it my players aren't aware of, unfortunately, but usually once I've shown it to them, they "get it".

I still like some WotC stuff.....Heroes of Battle, many of the Eberron books, and some of the FR stuff....but much of it is too vanilla these days. Everyone has their own poison, I guess.

I don't think that D20 companies are always reinventing the wheel, anyways. I've seen shared material. My copy of the Witch's Handbook from Green Ronin uses the ritual rules from Relics & Rituals I, for instance.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

I agree. It even works both ways - I never switched to 3.5, and I still constantly use 3.5 Dungeon adventures and WotC sourcebooks. All the numbers might not be correct, but the things still mean the same. Believe it or not, 3.0 and 3.5 rangers can co-exist

This is what I've done as well....my game uses 3.0 rules, but the 3.5 ranger, variant rules from Anger of Angels for celestials, Monte Cook's variant sorcerer, and several of the 3.5 WotC books.....it all works together.

The game hasn't fallen apart at the hinges, it's feeling more like I want it to, and everyone's having fun....which is the point.

Banshee

 

[Banshee16]

Yeah, that's why you never see politicians using negative campaigning and washing powders never compare themselves with "another leading brand." :\

Politicians are a bad example. They're pretty disreputable folks right off the bat Many of them aren't that bright. Book-smart, maybe, but...I *think* negative campaigning is more common in the U.S. than in Canada. The last major time I saw an example of it here was Kim Campbell vs. Jean Chretien. Everyone remembers the advertising that made fun of his drooping lip. Incidentally, she was smoked in that election, and that negative campaigning arguably was one thing that led to the defeat.

That's another topic, and I don't want to get into politics

There's a difference between sales and marketing. Marketing supports sales, but it's not the same thing. A company can compare themselves against a competitor.....but insult the competitor, and you usually lose the sale. It's more effective to sell on one's own strengths, than to insult your competition.

Banshee