DMs to pay for D&D Encounter materials?

[darrell_uk]

You may need to skip more than just this one then I'm afraid, it appears that it's the first of five Sundering adventures to be run back-to-back. Assuming they're all the same length, it locks Encounters in for the next fifteen months.

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[the Jester]

While I think the phrase "bait and switch" is a bit harsh, I agree this does change completely the way Encounters worked. Players will still be able to play for free, but someone (like the DM) will have to pay for the adventure. I understand why some DMs are not going to like having to pay for something that was free. However, some of that money is going to a local game store which gives an incentive for the game store to participate. This will lead to more game stores connecting with local GMs to facilitate an Encounters game day and strengthen the network of gamers at the local level.

None of which changes the fact that the dms who have been donating their time to run Encounters game are now being asked to pay to donate their time to run Encounters (and thereby strengthen the network of gamers).

Even if the LGS does pick up the Encounter game in order to encourage people to play it, they're not likely to just eat it. I wouldn't be surprised to see Encounters start charging.

The whole reason I used to play in Encounters was that it was a simple, no-hassle, no-charge setting where we just got to play an easy game of D&D and help new people lean the game.

I'm certainly not gonna drop $35 bucks to run it, and I'm not going to demand my stores do either. The "stuff" that is included seems utterly unnecessary.

Right- making the cost barrier to entry the same as it is to buy a good adventure to run at home with one's friends and regular players seems counterproductive to me. $35 to run a game with strangers who, a fair amount of the time, may include Captain Odoriferous and Socially Retarded Man? No thanks.

And I know, that may not be entirely fair; not every FLGS has Capt. O and SRM lurking in their gaming area, but plenty enough do.

 

[Alphastream]

And I know, that may not be entirely fair; not every FLGS has Capt. O and SRM lurking in their gaming area, but plenty enough do.

Stephen Radney McFarland? ;-)

I think that's the biggest issue with the changes. DMs can easily find it worthwhile to buy the adventure but may lack incentive to run it at the store (instead of at home). I will be surprised if over time Wizards doesn't sweeten the benefits for running from the store.

 

[Sunseeker]

Right- making the cost barrier to entry the same as it is to buy a good adventure to run at home with one's friends and regular players seems counterproductive to me. $35 to run a game with strangers who, a fair amount of the time, may include Captain Odoriferous and Socially Retarded Man? No thanks.

And I know, that may not be entirely fair; not every FLGS has Capt. O and SRM lurking in their gaming area, but plenty enough do.

Stinky morons aside, I don't see why I'd play for D&D material just to run a public game.

 

[D'karr]

I've been organizing these games since well before the first season, and if they have not been selling product is because of silly restrictions and rules imposed by WotC not because people are not willing to buy products on the stores.

When Essentials came out the focus shifted entirely to Essentials. The "restriction" became all characters must be from Essentials products. Well if people have the other books and want to play how does that help, specially if there are still some of those non-essentials products on the store shelves? How do these restrictions "help" the stores? We lifted the restrictions and the store kept selling both core 4e and Essentials materials. What a surprise!

WotC is not selling product because they have not put usable product for their "program" in over a year.

This way of promoting their product(s) seems ass backwards. I have volunteers that are willing to run games, they do it now - for free. Now WotC wants them to pay for the "privilege" to showcase their product? I'll talk to the store and see if they will get promo copies for this program so that the volunteers can continue to run games without paying to promote the store and WotC. If the volunteers want to purchase and run, I'm not going to stop them, but this is another asinine idea in a long line of asinine marketing ideas from WotC.

I'm not saying the adventures might not be good and worth the $35 price tag. I just seriously doubt that this is going to bring more people to play if the stores are not willing to "eat up" the cost of the product for the volunteers that are essentially bringing people to their store.

 

[Alphastream]

I've been organizing these games since well before the first season, and if they have not been selling product is because of silly restrictions and rules imposed by WotC not because people are not willing to buy products on the stores.

Wizards is not alone in this problem. The RPG industry is plagued by a simple problem: you really only need one person at the table to own a set of RPG books. At the same time, fans demand a high quantity of material to support the rules. And yet, each supplement you publish will only appeal to a subset of your customer base. It's the catch-22 of the industry: publish too little and you lose fans, publish too much and you are deep in debt. No company has figured out a way to change that paradigm over the long term. It's the reason why editions exist - core books are for many RPG companies the only product that make a profit.

We can debate individual policies or strategies Wizards has deployed, but we really can't fault them for trying new approaches. They are the largest RPG company in an industry where basically no one has figured out a strategy for long term profit. They have families and needs like any of us. They have to try new ways of selling product.

 

[thepriz]

They are the largest RPG company in an industry where basically no one has figured out a strategy for long term profit.

This is not really the case anymore. Paizo has surpassed Wizards in sales. Their model is working great. They have been selling their equivalent for 5 seasons and start their 6th soon. It is about $100 dollars a year to buy all the Scenarios. They are not as complete as a module, but they are designed to be played in 4 hour session. They are not poorly designed and a lot of work is put in making them. I have played the recent Drakolich playtest, the material included was excellent. I may buy them, if it includes all the material.

 

[Alphastream]

Paizo has almost certainly surpassed WotC in revenue, but they haven't fundamentally changed the RPG business equation. It is very hard to find out the financial picture of either company. How many subscribers to Paizo? How many to DDI? How many brick-and-mortar sales? How many on DnDClassics? How many directly from the Paizo store? What are the costs to run all of these sales vehicles, and what is the resulting profit (if any)?

It really isn't clear how well Paizo is doing and whether any success is sustainable across multiple editions. Another edition of Pathfinder is likely inevitable - we can see that many of the "ultimate" products resemble those at the end of an RPG's lifecycle.

Anyway, it is all to say that companies should experiment with different models and adjust over time, because this is an industry where historically there has been very little profit. I expect Wizards will over time adjust this Encounters module to make it more likely for a DM to keep running the adventure at the store. And, we don't know if/how this might link to any living campaign efforts they might start up.

 

[skotothalamos]

Let's say I hear an adventure is really good and I want to run it for my regular home group. I'd rather pay $35 to a store than $125 to some dude on ebay, which is how it currently works.