Fear!

[ledded]

Unfortunately, I personally dont think we'll see very much in the way of a mainstream mag devoted to non-D&D d20 for quite some time.

The reason? They can't seem to internally garauntee sales to support it. Paizo killed Star Wars Gamer, one of the best game-support mags ever created, because it just didnt reach enough market; they couldnt get enough advertisers to make that almighty dollar figure high enough to justify continuing to put it out, and they certainly have not made good (IMO) on their promise to provide content in their Insider (bleh) and Dungeon/Polyhedron offerings. But, they aren't a gaming company. They are a magazine company, and the only way they (or anyone like them) are going to publish more of this stuff is if they can make a very, very good case for a lot of readership, so they can get the ad space sold well enough to turn a nice buck. Nature of the business, and all that. Just look at the nature of these boards; all of the posts in this forum combined vs. the various D&D posts across the board.

There are a few ezines I've heard about in recent months that promise d20 non-D&D, but I havent checked back in on them lately so I'm not sure what all any of them offer. More likely that is where you may see more non-D&D d20 material, or in some independent small publishing house willing to take a chance on it. But I wouldnt hold my breath.

In the meantime, we have some support for modern through WotC's website, and by numerous talented writers who have put on PDF's on RPGNow. The PDF's aren't as varied as a good magazine, but there is a lot of good stuff out there nonetheless.

 

[Ranger REG]

Okay--let's assume that this is a fair substitute for the now-gone longer minigames like Pulp Heroes. Where is Dark*Matter's support? My dungeon/poly for the subsequent month is in my lap as I type this, and I see no support article to make up for the quickly fading memory of Dark*Matter.

Um, the "Unless..." statement was meant as a suggestion to Paizo on how to support the mini-game with additional material in the following two consecutive issues that have no mini-game. As for PULP HEROES there is like one-year lapse before we saw the latest PULLP HEROES articles which is a d20 Modern conversion of the original mini-game, plus a city setting.

 

[JPL]

As long as I'm telling Erik Mona how to do his job...

Paizo has gotta find a way to keep these minigames in print, if only through PDFs on the website.

A few months after a support article is published, it could be added to the PDF. Buy it once and get the updates for free. Maybe even have some web exclusives.

 

[The_Universe]

I like the idea of pdf support, JPL. It wouldn't cover for what I still think is a fading Polyhedron, but it would be nice if I could pick up the Iron Lords of Jupiter stuff without having to buy a back issue that's mostly Dungeon.

REG--Sorry if I came off a bit short. Pulp Heroes is a good example of providing support EVENTUALLY, but even that was just to "correct" the game for a system that made more sense. The city was hardly fleshed out enough to qualify as a whole campaign...

I understand that there's probably no way to get an independent Polyhedron back...I just wish it got more of the magazine it now shares. I think that Poly is getting the short shrift in every concievable way...the writing for that side of the mag is great, hence my original reason for posting...but there's just not enough of it. The new, creative stuff is ignored so you can get ANOTHER D&D adventure. BLAH!

 

[ledded]

As long as I'm telling Erik Mona how to do his job...

Paizo has gotta find a way to keep these minigames in print, if only through PDFs on the website.

A few months after a support article is published, it could be added to the PDF. Buy it once and get the updates for free. Maybe even have some web exclusives.

But do you seriously think that they will, unless they think they can find a way to get you to pay for it? I mean, *why* should they?

I love the polyhedron mini games. And I love the few issues that were not minigames that had decent d20 non-D&D content.

I, and many others, also loved getting Star Wars content and can't get jack from them anymore except their squealing fan-boy rag Insider or the very, very infrequent inclusion of a ship or something in a polyhedron issue. Not that I'm blaming them; they are a business, not a non-profit organization, and is run as such.

 

[JPL]

But do you seriously think that they will, unless they think they can find a way to get you to pay for it? I mean, *why* should they?

I was unclear --- I expect them to sell these PDFs, not give them away.

Giving them away might, however, stimulate sales. If I download Iron Lords and dig it, I will run out and buy the next Dungeon if there's Iron Lords content.

But selling is more likely.

 

[teitan]

Has anyone thought to maybe publish a magazine dedicated to D20 minigames as maybe a pdf or something? I would certainly subscribe to such a magazine even in pdf... would be cool if it were an actual Mag as well. I would even submit some artwork to use for it if anybody wanted to go with the idea...

Jason

 

[BrooklynKnight]

Rod! I'm SOOO using FEAR in my game!

 

[LightPhoenix]

I think something that we're all overlooking here is the fact that we are indeed a minority, not a majority. We're very involved in the d20/OGL community simply by posting on these boards, let alone actually discussing such things as how to make a good magazine. While this is pure speculation, I would bet that Joe Average 3E player hasn't even heard of a lot of the d20/OGL stuff out there, or even how d20 is connected to 3E. Sure, products are out on the shelves, but that doesn't necessarily translate into people making the connections, or even looking at the books at all.

At first, I was really surprised that there weren't more EZines out there that offered adventures and supplementary material. But again, something I took for granted is that I knew what ENWorld was, despite it being one of the biggest 3E fansites out there. If even 50% of gamers knew what ENWorld was, then even less are going to know where to go to get things like PDFs and EZines. And I'm high-balling the percentage, based on the current number of users and the number joining every day here. Another aspect I easily overlooked is that writers need to get paid - a free EZine doesn't allow for that. Putting together adventures is pretty difficult, and when you balance that against a job, a family, their own games... it's tough to work that in there for money, let alone for free. The EZine approach doesn't work then on either the paid or free level - the former doesn't get enough attention to make it viable to compete dollar-wise with a print magazine, and the latter doesn't get enough support from writers, for very good reasons.

I think Dungeon/Polyhedron would work better if it was simply all adventures, and little else. The problem as it stands now, and Paizo knows this too, is that you can't have a 50/50 split without half of the magazine being for the most part worthless to the 3E players. Which is really the issue - not with those people that play both 3E and other d20 stuff, and not with the non-3E d20 players, because they're in the minority. Personally I would love to see D/P be something like three 3E adventures, and then three Spycraft/Star Wars/d20 Modern/Mutants & Masterminds adventures. But I'm, again, in the minority - most of the fan base plays 3E and only dips into the rest - and thus they're the more important faction.

One final small point... I have doubts about Paizo's claim that Dungeon wouldn't sell well enough on its own. I don't have the numbers, but I would guess that D/P is mainly being bought by 3E players, simply because they're a larger fanbase. And frankly, I think the number of people playing only non-3E d20 systems is rather low. So I don't think the merge was truly to save Dungeon, but rather to salvage Polyhedron until the other games took off more. In fact, I think if they got rid of Poly altogther, the impact would be pretty minor, relatively speaking.

 

[The_Universe]

One final small point... I have doubts about Paizo's claim that Dungeon wouldn't sell well enough on its own. I don't have the numbers, but I would guess that D/P is mainly being bought by 3E players, simply because they're a larger fanbase. And frankly, I think the number of people playing only non-3E d20 systems is rather low. So I don't think the merge was truly to save Dungeon, but rather to salvage Polyhedron until the other games took off more. In fact, I think if they got rid of Poly altogther, the impact would be pretty minor, relatively speaking.

If there was no Poly in Dungeon, I'd drop my subscription in a heartbeat. You hear that Paizo!?!

I think it's ridiculous to assume that ANY of the readership of Dragon and Dungeon are unaware of the rest of the D20/OGL market. I think the assumption that you have to be DEEP into the hobby to be aware that something besides 3/3.5 DnD exists implies a level of casual play and ambivalence that I think is largely absent from RPGs. It's a much more involved hobby than most, and so people pay more attention to the things that happen in and around it than they do in other hobbies.

Anyway, I just think that there is value and market there that's not showing it's buying power because it has not been marketed to...there's just an assumption that we're not really here, and so why try to get our business?

Am I making any sense?