Game Pricing

[Frostmarrow]

$100 bucks

Well, you asked (rant):

If I were to invest $100 in a gaming product I would expect a full color, perfect bound version of a module such as RttToEE. But I would demand even more from the module. I would expect the maps to be hand-drawn (or computer rendered in a hand-drawn fashion) in full color and in five feet squares scale. I would demand that there were more role-playing opportunities with information on how to overcome obstacles and monsters without having to resort to violence including guidelines for xp-awards.

The module should be so pretty that I would set it up on my kitchen table for weeks and eat elsewhere. (Not at all unlikely.) I would like to have full color portraits of important NPCs which I could post on the walls of our gaming club. I'd hope the module was epic in scope. With that I don't necessarily mean that it must be a world saving campaign. With epic I mean that I would expect some planar travel, a major battle between thousands of soldiers and an encounter with an actual god. If I could get counters and maps for the battle - so much the better.

I would expect the module to support a coherent setting with PrCs and feats that makes sense. Not just PrCs for the sake of PrCs. I would like the module to have a game altering option built in. For example what if a god has totally cut off all teleport-travel and it's up to the characters to try and convince her to re-open the channel or congratulate her for her effort?

I would expect that the module had lot's of player information too. Such as an Indiana Jones-ish Journal written a long time ago that early on becomes the character's property and can be used as a reference for the players throughout the entire campaign! A diary with scribbled notes, attachments and hand-drawn full color pictures of things the characters are likely to find.

I would like the module to boast a meta-game on top of the regular adventure. What if the players can be drawn into an ongoing play-by-email game where they decide things the characters hold no sway over? For example the players could play out the war and the troop movements inbetween sessions from the general's point of view.

Well, that's sort of what I would expect from such a pricey product. I would love it if the game-designers were to steal a few ideas from excellent computer games such as Metal Gear Solid or Icewind Dale.

MGS: In this game you are expected to think out of the box so to speak. In game you need a telephone number but it's nowhere to be found. Then a character in the game tells you to look at the back of the game's casing. You look at the cassette and there it is! At another point in the game a villain is reading your mind and dodges ALL your attacks. But if you unplug your control unit and plug it in port B the villain can no longer read your mind which makes it easy for you to beat him. Marvelously immersive.

In a RPG-module perhaps you need to search the actual room for some vital clue.

Icewind Dale: Since the computer only offers you a limited number of maps and skins the designers re-use elements in the game. You return many times to the same maps but with different missions. This makes it worth it to put an obcene amount of work into one map. The limited number of skins means that you won't encounter the entire MM but you will encounter more varied monsters of the same kind; such as skeletons and burning skeletons or spell-casting skeletons and so on. Adds flavor.

In a RPG-module perhaps you get skeleton minis that are used in several incarnations throughout the campaign.

 

[King_Stannis]

Re: Re: Re: I'm disappointed

What triple digits??? You know as well as I do that it'll cost $99.99.

yep, good point, henry. or maybe they'll let you pay in "three easy installments of only $33.33!"

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

what's amazing to me..

... is that it seems like most d20 publishers have given up on modules/adventures as a money maker. I disagree. I think there's a lot of potential in these, if done right. More so than with junk like campaign settings.

The way I see it, campaign settings, no matter how detailed, always require work from the GM. Adventures/pre-made campaign are the only thing that could potentially take work away from the GM.

 

[Hard8Staff]

Thorin,

the reason is that adventures don't sell. Ask any DISTRIBUTOR (i.e., the guys that carry ALL the products) and they'll say the same.

IMHO we make damn good adventures, but they don't sell nearly as well as our source material (both for HackMaster and D&D).

I think adventures sold well last year because d20 was new and everyone was a new DM, but now people are comfortable with the rules enough to make their own scenarios with little help.

Regards,

David Kenzer

 

[Setanta]

I'm probably the target demographic for a $100 product. I bought over $400 worth of d20 stuff last month alone, and as a DM I have more money than time or patience. However, I wouldn't buy a $100 product that includes a significant number of miniatures (enough to make me think that some serious portion of the list price was going to miniatures I'll never use). I'm quite happy with FDP's counters, and I wouldn't want to introduce a few random miniatures to the mix.

I would pay $100 for something that makes my life easier. I have Freeport and Bluffside, and like both, but I would have paid $100 for a city supplement that goes much further. For example, more stats for more NPC's, floorplans for every important building, more history, etc. I would want more organizations, and more details on how various NPC's and organizations interract with each other (like the stuff in Penumbra's Belly of the Beast for the NPC's). I want more history. And, I don't want plot hooks spelled out. If the setting is rich enough, the plot hooks will be self evident (that's not a complaint about plot hooks being included in books like Freeport, it's just that by the time I get to the hook at the end of a place description, it's usually obvious to me already). Something very important (to me) in a $100 product would be to include a CD that includes all maps in CC2 format and all NPC's in PCGen format (and hopefully RPM and DMF format as well, but PCGen is good enough). A city the size of Bluffside or Freeport could easily be 500+ pages, with hundreds of fully statted NPC's along with their personalities, motivations, and relationships to other NPC's mapped out.

I don't know that I'd pay $100 for a complete campaign as others have suggested, but I would pay for a complete campaign setting. I love making up plots and stories, but I don't have time for all the details like every relevant NPC's stats. So, I tend to spend my money on products that make my life easier, whether that's a sourcebook or adventure that I can easily incorporate into my plots.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

100 bucks is more than I have ever dropped at one time on any gaming stuff ever. Hell I'd be hard pressed to say when I had ever spent that much in a month, except when I bought the 3e core books.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

adventures don't sell

David Kenzer writes:

IMHO we make damn good adventures, but they don't sell nearly as well as our source material (both for HackMaster and D&D).

David, to be honest I think that it's more a matter of packaging than a matter of your adventures not selling. I've been participating in one of Noah's giveaways, so let me tell you that the content is pretty good, but seriously, who would buy a 32 page adventure for $10, when you could say, get Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil for $28 @ 192 pages of gaming goodness? Especially for something like the Coin series, which is essentially a rail-road and requires 3 purchases.

One suggestion (and I know it's an experiment, but it's worth a try): try packaging several of your adventures together as a mega-adventure, one that would span say, levels 1-8, or 8-14, or something like that, and see if that would sell, at a higher price point. I bet that even if it sold a few copies less than the standalone modules, the increase in markup would make a difference in profitability.

As for people knowing how to make their own adventures, it's not a matter of knowledge, it's a matter of time! If you had all the time in the world you'd never need to buy an RPG product, you'd make your own, but put time into the equation and everything changes.

Besides, I seriously doubt if most of the members of EnWorld, (who are by self-selecting enthusiastic gamers) really know how to construct adventures above 14th level. A campaign that took adventurers from 1-20, for instance, could really entice more gamers into trying the upper levels for a change, and really would be something different.

Just a couple of things for you to think about.

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

$100

However, I wouldn't buy a $100 product that includes a significant number of miniatures (enough to make me think that some serious portion of the list price was going to miniatures I'll never use).

I'm pretty sure minis wouldn't be a big component of a $100 product. They're too expensive, and if they form too big a component of the product, they'd turn away people like you.

I don't buy city supplements. I don't know why, but they seem to be just more campaign setting. The setting material out there is already good enough, and I don't want any more of them. I contend, however, that really well-done pre-made campaigns have not really been explored thoroughly.

Here's an example: I'm the only guy in my gaming group who regularly builds props, makes handouts and documents when DMing. Whenever I hand out my goodies, the players always go OOO and AHHH (especially when I use DM Jeff's excellent fonts from his web-site). But my time is limited and I can only make a few of these. A deluxe adventure would seriously go all out on the props. You'd get enough so that even if you never made any of your own (and most DMs don't), your players would still be amazed.

I was assembling handouts and props for Masks the other evening, and one of them is an empty match-box. My fiance is not a gamer and even she ooh'd when she saw that. It was cool!

That's the kind of stuff I'm talking about.

 

[Setanta]

Besides, I seriously doubt if most of the members of EnWorld, (who are by self-selecting enthusiastic gamers) really know how to construct adventures above 14th level.

IME, this is true. My group is only 9th level, but as I plan ahead it's getting harder and harder. The problem with doing high level adventures, though, is that it seems they're harder to fit into a larger campaign, and to me making that larger campaign is the best part.

I don't buy city supplements. I don't know why, but they seem to be just more campaign setting.

Interesting. I don't really buy campaign settings. I'd rather do my own, but if I can plop in a couple 3rd party well detailed cities, that's great. I've found that campaign settings tend to have too much macro level political stuff going on, which is the stuff I like to come up with. Cities are more likely to have micro level stuff, which I find is easier to fit into the macro stuff as necessary.

I contend, however, that really well-done pre-made campaigns have not really been explored thoroughly.

I agree. I'd love to see someone come out with a really good one, and I'd love to go through it as a player. But, I wouldn't buy it, because as a DM, I like to come up with the campaign stuff myself and use purchased products to fill in details or provide ideas.

I, too, like doing props and handouts. Unfortunately, they usually don't make the cut timewise, so they don't happen as often as I'd like them to. A purchased mega adventure with lots of props and handhouts would be cool, but again, I'm not sure I'd buy it, unless I knew I could work it into my campaign. I've actually used a couple trilogies IMC (Freeport and Witchfire), but I wouldn't have gotten them if they'd come out as one big mega adventure for fear that I'd be wasting money on something that I couldn't use. As trilogies, I was able to buy the first of each and see if I could get them to work, and then invest in the other books once I felt I could work with the adventures (though I ended up not using 80-90% of Shadow of the Exile because it just didn't work for me).

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

I agree. I'd love to see someone come out with a really good one, and I'd love to go through it as a player. But, I wouldn't buy it, because as a DM, I like to come up with the campaign stuff myself and use purchased products to fill in details or provide ideas.

I, too, like doing props and handouts. Unfortunately, they usually don't make the cut timewise, so they don't happen as often as I'd like them to. A purchased mega adventure with lots of props and handhouts would be cool, but again, I'm not sure I'd buy it, unless I knew I could work it into my campaign. I've actually used a couple trilogies IMC (Freeport and Witchfire), but I wouldn't have gotten them if they'd come out as one big mega adventure for fear that I'd be wasting money on something that I couldn't use. As trilogies, I was able to buy the first of each and see if I could get them to work, and then invest in the other books once I felt I could work with the adventures (though I ended up not using 80-90% of Shadow of the Exile because it just didn't work for me).

Here's the deal, it depends on how much time you have right now. For instance, right now you have time to write and build your own campaign, so you only look for adventures here and there to slot into your story.

I barely have time to assemble props. I lean on pre-made campaigns heavily, such as the Temple of Elemental Evil, or Masks of Nyarlathoetep. I don't have to worry about slotting adventures into the campaign, because I work the campaign around the mega-adventure. If you're running low on time (and people who are running low on time tend to have the money to spend --- since presumably one reason they're so busy is that their day jobs keep them so), then such mega adventures are a really good deal.

In some ways, the Freeport and Witchfire adventures have already gotten you hooked. It costs about $30 to get them all, and what do you have to show for it? Maybe 120 pages of material if you're lucky. Compare that to the 192 page Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and you'll see that they are actually much less value for more money.

A 400page adventure for $40 wouldn't be too much, in my opinion, and with a suitable number of props and goodies, that could go to at least a $60 price point. If you don't have time, then that kind of thing would definitely draw your attention (and hopefully money). Obviously, the execution is everything, but that kind of product will stand out in the market today, which is more than I can say of most 32 page adventures.