Do you lament the lack of third-party or fan material?

[darjr]

I'm torn. I want more 4e 3rd party stuff.

However I also love that there are more choices for gaming. I love that Paizo is a roaring success with Pathfinder. I love that other games are getting more attention. I think this leads to a healthier industry.

 

[ggroy]

I was a 3.x 3PP addict. I had tons of stuff.
...

But settings, adventures, locations, encounters? I would buy lots of that stuff up.

Back in the early days of 3E during the d20 "3PP bubble", how many good outstanding adventures modules were published?

Looking through old lists of d20 3pp stuff, such as

Third Edition Dungeons & Dragons Archive: d20 System

there were companies that produced tons of pamphlet mini-adventures from 2000 to 2002, such as Alderac and Fantasy Flight. From what I remember of the Alderac and Fantasy Flight stuff I found in the bargain bins years later, many of these mini-adventures didn't look particularly impressive. (I passed on them, despite being 50 cents or a dollar each in the bargain bins).

Other companies produced many D&D style modules until 2002 or 2003, such as Atlas, Avalanche, Fast Forward, Fiery Dragon, MonkeyGod, Necromancer, Troll Lord, etc ... After late-2002 or so, many of these companies exited the d20 adventure modules market and started producing more crunch heavy splatbooks (ie. new classes, races, monsters, prestige classes, settings, etc ...) or simply closed up shop.

There were a few companies which continued producing tons of d20 D&D style adventure modules after 2003, such as Necromancer and Goodman Games. Troll Lord continued with their Gygax authored stuff, and subsequently Castles & Crusades.

Here's an old press release and thread which discussed MonkeyGod exiting the adventure modules business in 2003.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/65487-monkey-god-no-longer-doing-adventures.html

Here's a post by James who ran Fiery Dragon, explaining why they exited the adventure modules business in 2003.

Adventures Don't Sell...Discussion - Opinions - Website Discussion - The Game Mechanics - Message Board - Yuku

More generally, here's a rant by an insider explaining "why adventures don't sell" (first posted back in 2003).

The Game Mechanics: Opinions

Are things today just 16 months after the release of 4E, really that much different than 16 months after the release of 3E (ie. December 2001), in regards to the quality of adventure modules published by 3PPs?

 

[Nightson]

Not really honestly. I make my own stuff and mechanically, making my own stuff is pretty easy. While additional ideas are nice I can't imagine paying for them.

 

[Pseudonym]

No, i wouldn't say I lament the lack of material on the whole. It would be nice to see third parties design settings, but so far what I have seen on that front doesn't do much for me. The Kalamar 4E conversion was a reprint of material I already owned, with updated NPCs that were in many cases flat wrong. Good that old settings are getting a 4E makover, but itd be nice to se someone do something new with WotC's existing material. That way conforming with the Character Builder won't be an issue.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Very unhappy. I find WotC's current stuff uninspiring at best and design-by-committee at worst, and am imncreasingly tired of the piecemeal 'lets milk this as far as we can' approach. I really miss the explosion of creativity and enthusiasm that 3e sparked. Even if it resulted in a lot of drek, it produced some amazing stuff that still has legs.

Yeah I think the rules are mostly fine, the classes especially are good. The modules they put out are inspid and dull. But 3PP (like One Bad Egg) produce a much wider variety of things that I can use in my game. If only 3PP had access to all the Insider Tools then it would be good, but they don't. So my 3PP budget goes now to Paizo, and we will run a PfRPG campaign next or I'll convert it to 4E or maybe FantasyCraft...

 

[MichaelSomething]

What do you mean there's not enough good fluff out there?

 

[Hadrian the Builder]

Agreed.
WotC may be on the cutting edge of 4E crunch and online subscription support, but when it comes to anything else ... ~meh~ to me they look "fair to average" at best.

Agreed. Still, one of the surviving challengers may be creative enough to find a way to compete directly with WotC on D&D with 4E material. No matter how wide the moat is, Wizards could still be vulnerable to an innovator.

 

[deganawida]

I didn't even recall any during 2E, so I didn't use any in 3E. The only one that I'm considering using in the 4E era is the Earthdawn/Age of Legends stuff. I never got to play Earthdawn when FASA released it (everyone was either AD&D or WoD), but I always wanted to play it. So, no, I don't miss 3PP at all.

However, I do miss new games from publishers other than WotC. Personally, I think WotC did the entire gaming hobby and industry a disservice with the OGL, and I feel that the market has contracted as a result. It's similar to what happened in the 90s with comics (if you followed the scene), where Marvel bought up viable competitors and the actual distributors in an attempt to corner the market. What would have been a survivable contraction turned into a disaster, so much so that nowadays if a comic breaks 100k in sales it's considered a runaway success.

IMO, and I'll apologize for being so forthright about it, the industry needs far fewer companies relying upon WotC's products to sell their own. Instead, these creative people (that's not sarcasm, as I firmly believe that they are creative) should be out there making new systems and new worlds. It's a big world out there, and D&D and D20 are not for everyone.

Apologies to anyone offended by my post.

 

[VictorC]

Apologies to anyone offended by my post.

None taken, actually that one of the most intelligent things I've read in regard to 3pp.

 

[JohnRTroy]

However, I do miss new games from publishers other than WotC. Personally, I think WotC did the entire gaming hobby and industry a disservice with the OGL, and I feel that the market has contracted as a result. It's similar to what happened in the 90s with comics (if you followed the scene), where Marvel bought up viable competitors and the actual distributors in an attempt to corner the market. What would have been a survivable contraction turned into a disaster, so much so that nowadays if a comic breaks 100k in sales it's considered a runaway success.

I'm 100% in agreement with you. To me, the focus on making supplements or variant games that were based on the OGL SRD for D&D 3.x has hurt the mainstream gaming market. People love to talk about how the OGL "creates innovation", but it doesn't really do a lot. Even the experimental variant games are way too derivative of one game system. I remember the days when we had strong competition like GDW, West End Games, FASA, etc.

I'd like to see more diversity in the tabletop RPG market again.