Enlightened Title: PDF Margins must be higher due to the smaller audience.

[V_Shane]

Pssst! Pogre, there are lots of free adventures available for download on teh internet. Very good souce of cheap adventures.

EXACTLY! another good reason why we don't create adventures , however finding usable art in such adventures is minimal (quantity-wise not quality).
Good hunting!

 

[mroberon1972]

And let us not forget a basic truth about P&P gamers: They like paper. Lots of it. Usually bound in hardback format for durability.

If a gamer has a choice between a PDF of 200 pages for $10, and a print book of 128 pages for $20, they will almost always pick the book. Heck, I've WATCHED it happen.

I've done it.

Are we just acting in tradition? Do we just love books that much? Or do we just not want to have to let ol' sticky fingered Henry touch our laptop/pda/pc?


Mr. Oberon
"I need more Dr. Pepper..."

 

[pogre]

Pssst! Pogre, there are lots of free adventures available for download on teh internet. Very good souce of cheap adventures.

Got 'em all and have used a bunch. I still like to buy adventure modules.

It's discouraging to me that they do not perform well in the marketplace. Probably because they are my favorite thing to write and I hate the thought of what a complete publishing dead end they are.

There's a lot of the d20 publishing I just do not get. I do not understand the endless class books, PRCs, feats, monsters, and weapons options. To me, two things should sell well - Campaign settings (which do seem to fare well) and adventures. Obviously, I am in the minority on this second point.

I say obviously, because just too many things in the last three years have absolutely proven to me that adventures do not sell well. Dungeon incorporated Poly to save it. Dire Kobold failed under its original model and is in the process of restructuring. Finally, company after company has announced they are not publishing any more adventures.

The reasons have been explained to me why adventures do not do well. I was just hoping with the lower overhead in PDF publishing, fresh and inexpensive Adventures could be purchased in this way. That really was what got this whole thread started...

 

[Unseelie]

Got 'em all and have used a bunch. I still like to buy adventure modules.

It's discouraging to me that they do not perform well in the marketplace. Probably because they are my favorite thing to write and I hate the thought of what a complete publishing dead end they are.

There's a lot of the d20 publishing I just do not get. I do not understand the endless class books, PRCs, feats, monsters, and weapons options. To me, two things should sell well - Campaign settings (which do seem to fare well) and adventures. Obviously, I am in the minority on this second point.

I say obviously, because just too many things in the last three years have absolutely proven to me that adventures do not sell well. Dungeon incorporated Poly to save it. Dire Kobold failed under its original model and is in the process of restructuring. Finally, company after company has announced they are not publishing any more adventures.

The reasons have been explained to me why adventures do not do well. I was just hoping with the lower overhead in PDF publishing, fresh and inexpensive Adventures could be purchased in this way. That really was what got this whole thread started...

The big reason, in my opinion, that they don't sell is that there are roughly five times as many players as game masters. Products 'have' to incorporate player bits to sell to the largest portion of the audience.

They're my favorite thing to write as well... which is why I don't buy them. I'd rather write my own. I suspect that's true of a significant minority (or perhaps even majority) of game masters out there.

I've been gaming since '79 and I still have most of my gaming material purchased over the years. The only products I've ever bought adventures for are 1st ed. AD&D, 2nd ed. V&V, Champions, Gamma World, and Twilight 2000. With the exception of Champions, all of those products were very early in my GMing days and I still used published materials. Twilight 2000 also had the advantage of including player bits in the modules, making them more useful for the players. The Champions adventures? Pre-generated villain stats... that's all I ever used them for.

Chaosium is one of the few companies I can think of that's managed to survive publishing adventures almost exclusively. Survived is a good word for Chaosium though... they're barely able to pay the bills and keep their heads above water. Profitable is not a word that would describe them at the moment.

 

[tensen]

The big reason, in my opinion, that they don't sell is that there are roughly five times as many players as game masters. Products 'have' to incorporate player bits to sell to the largest portion of the audience.

I think that is a fallicy.. Players are the largest portion of games... but not really the largest portion of the buying audience. You'll probvably find less than half of the players even owning a Player's Handbook. With the majority of "players" that own other gaming products in a gaming group, also double as DMs elsewhere.

 

[Unseelie]

Perhaps the extended gaming circle I'm in is atypical then... Our group averages (if you include 3.0 & 3.5) 2 copies of the PBH per player. That seems pretty typical with most of the other local gaming groups I interact with. Of course, I'm talking about gamers in their late 20's to late 30's... ones with steady income at that. I'm not sure when the last time I saw someone under the age of 25 playing anything other than CCGs. Not that that means anything other than the fact that I'm old...

And books with player bits do sell significantly better than ones without, so I think there is something to this.