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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 5046489" data-attributes="member: 7635">What's a publisher to do?Go where the money's at.The first question I'd ask is which systems, exactly, is he intending to support? He mentions 4e, Pathfinder, C&C, Fantasycraft, the retros, etc. Which does he actually want to support, because a module built for 4e's game-style doesn't mesh with C&C (or S&W, or BFRPG, or OSRIC, etc). Also, how big of a following DOES FantasyCraft or Dragon Age have? Is it big enough to factor into your calculus?Next, your going to have design for some native system. Which is it? Every game has different parameters and design philosophies, so which are you going to take into account. For example, lets say you want to have an encounter with the city guard. How you gonna handle it? In 4e, it might be a skill challenge (with successes failures, DCs and level). In 3e, its a diplomacy roll (Just set a DC). In C&C is a attribute check (just set a level). In OSRIC, its simply a charisma check (with no modification except the PCs score). It'd be maddening (if not pointless) to try to come up with ALL of those contingencies. Another Example? Make a pit trap. Simple, 10' drop with spikes. What are its stats? Well, in 4e it has an attack modifier to hit the PCs reflex defense, while in 3e its has a reflex save DC, but in S&W its a saving throw vs dragon breath, etc. How bout an encounter? Well, 5 orcs vs a 1st level party is a fine encounter in 4e (where every fight is assumed to be 5 vs. 5 or equivalent) but in Pathfinder that's a CR 4 "Epic" encounter! And that doesn't begin to touch available resources, NPC stats, "world info" (aka the races and classes of the PCs and NPCs) treasure distribution, etc. The alternative to make modules so generic as to be pointless. I buy a module, I expect it (and I'm spoiled) to have monsters, treasure, stats, and everything ready. While I rarely run "out the box" I don't want some assembly required. If a DCC is reduced to "A city guard has info, if the PCs convince him to talk..." or "The hall has a 10 foot pit trap" or "This room contains several orcs, ready to fight." Its a waste. Its a map and some flavor text. Its not a module, its an adventure suggestion.My personal (and biased) opinion would be spin off DCCs into two lines, one for 4e, one for "d20" with an eye toward conversion to additional systems. Most Retro people are accustomed to going at it alone, so perhaps a PDF of "stats" by room would be all that you need to take a 3e module and bring it to retros. However, I think 4e's design philosophy is too radical to consider in the equation; if you want to support 4e then make it its own thing. Its not as difficult to take a 3e-based module and run it in OSRIC or LL (mostly by ignoring large swaths of system-junk) than it is to make a module for LL run in 3e or ANYTHING compatible with 4e. (Ask Necromancer Games how easy it is to convert 3e stuff to 4e...)That's the opinion of a long-time Goodman fan whose saddened he's not bought anything GG since 4e...</blockquote>

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