Have the third-party d20 publishers failed?

[Vigilance]

I'm just a customer who's sick of non-innovative source books. Now I would argue that RPGO has done some very innovative things with Darwins World and Blood and etc lines. Your products seems to fill niches in the d20 market. According to many, Darwins World covers what people have wanted in a post apocalyptic world ala old school Gamma World. Blood and "Fill in the Blank" serve a very underserved D20 Modern crowd.

My next purchase is will probably be Darwins World since the setting looks damn cool. One of the big reasons is that you've got some adventures to support it because I certainly don't have time to write things like the good ol days.

Nah I wasn't angry- its just that RPGObjects is like most successful, small businesses. We operate in the thin line between profitability and DOOOOOOOOOOOM lol.

Im glad you're looking at Darwin's World and believe in supporting it with adventures. In fact we're finishing off a major trilogy by the world's creator Dom Covey, his Wastelords trilogy, and putting out more adventures in PDF.

But that's the rub.

The vast majority of adventures we do will be PDF. Beyond the Wastelords trilogy there is no plans for adventures in print that I know of (Im not the owner just d20 Modern guru who writes the Blood stuff lol).

Having experimented with print adventures for the first edition of DW, we're now trying again.

I think most publishers are in this group. Belen's initial posts seemed to indicte we'd thrown our hands up, put boxes on our heads and walked away. People I talk to are trying to figure out all the time how to do adventures profitably.

So we're trying

Chuck

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

...3rd party stuff. And a lot of craptastic stuff too...

I've also seen quit a bit of craptastic WotC stuff. Just because the own the title does not mean everything they do is a home-run hit out of the park.

 

[Staffan]

I guess I got that idea from the idea that WOTC wanted someone else to make their adventures for them, and assuming it wasn't because they were profitable

I think WOTC were thinking more along the lines of "A Paladin in Hell", or "The Deva Spark" when talking about non-profitable adventures, rather than the early 1e classics.

 

[Ed Cha]

A lot of people don't know how to use adventures properly. That's why many players don't like them.

 

[scourger]

Third party publisher haven't failed...

Consumers have. Reading this thread made me think about where I spend my money and what I actually use in play. The only way to influence the market as a consumer is with money spent to encourage certain products and not spent to discourage certain products. So, I will refocus my spending on adventures. I might buy a setting or sourcebook if it has adventures that I can also buy. This is the way I've been shopping for the past few years, but I'll keep in mind now that every dollar spent encourages some action. Thanks for the discussion. Here's hoping for more modules to buy.

 

[smilinggm]

I do not post here much but after reading this thread I would like to point out a 3rd party D20 publisher that has come upon a different but so far successful model: Paradigm Concepts. www.Paradigmconcepts.com
Paradigm Concepts is the company behind Living Arcanis. Living Arcanis is one of the RPGA's faststestes growing living campaings. Paradigm Concetps started life by creating their own campaign world, then they published 2 classic modules and a sourcebook of their world. Next Paradigm released a classic RPGA module. Thier next step was in Creating a new RPGA living campaing. Over the past 3 years the number of people playing in this campaign have grown by leaps and bounds each year. At this years GenCon Indy LA held one of the single largest evnets at the con and they LA shows no signs of slowing down. Over the past 3 years Paradigm has currently released 70 moduled that are free to download via the RPGA and on average 2 new modules are released each month. All of these free modules are set in the world of Arcanis The world of Shattered Empires. The modules are tiered for play for 4-6 characters from 1st - 13th level and they are designed to be played in 4-5 hours. (As a side not, the higest level characters in the campaign are only 13th level. All that you have to do to download on of the modules is to goin the RPGA, and then take the Herald level test. The modules build a story and they should be played in order to enjoy the story.) The free modules have driven Paradigm's sales. Typically after playing only 1 or 2 of these free mods the player then starts to buy the published campaign material.
In addition to Living Arcanis (LA) Paradigm Concepts has also teamed up with Green Ronin Publishing to produce the OGL interlink series. And Green Ronin's Freeport is "officaially" placed in Arcanis, and several of the LA mods have taken place in Freeport. And on top of all this they are working with AEG to publish material under the Spycraft banner. Admidittly Paragdim is a small but growing publisher. But there model of publishing free modules via the RPGA is working for them.

 

[Mouseferatu]

A lot of people don't know how to use adventures properly. That's why many players don't like them.

Ed, any chance we could get you to expand on this? I'd love to know precisely what you mean, and how you think an adventure should properly be used.

(That's not a challenge. I'm genuinely curious.)

 

[Ed Cha]

Ed, any chance we could get you to expand on this? I'd love to know precisely what you mean, and how you think an adventure should properly be used.

(That's not a challenge. I'm genuinely curious.)

Well, it depends on the person, but modules usually shouldn't be just used word-for-word. You've got to "own" the module. Thoroughly read it in advance and digest the material: the plot, the NPCs, the encounters, the treasures, etc. Create your own twists and modify the adventure to suit your own campaign's needs.

It's true. There have been a lot of poorly-produced d20 modules, but even the worst ones have something that can be salvaged. There's always an interesting thing or two you can use. Sometimes it's just a strange illustration. The look on the face of a character in a drawing can inspire me to further detail that NPC. It can be the way the tree in a picture is twisted and sinister-looking. That's why I think good art is very important, especially in modules.

You've got to expand on the ideas hinted in each module. For example, in my own adventure settings, I include various little clues and foreshadowing.

Here is a very intelligent review of one of my adventure settings that includes a playtest cap showing how important it is to pick a good module:

http://www.silven.com/adnd.asp?case=show&id=302

The reviewer says:

"The module ran well, even for players who hate modules. They said they enjoyed it, and it never felt like a module, but like a normal campaign. I would like to associate that with my DMing skills, but having run WotC modules with these players before (and them hating them) I have to fully credit the module. Everything was there, and whatever wasn´t was easy to add without changing anything."

In this case, the reviewer used the module almost exactly as it should have been used with the exception of adding some Unearthed Arcana rules. Yet, he still had to modify it for use with his own players. Sure, using a module takes work, but you've got the bones to flesh out the skeleton rather than having to work from the same scratch.

So it's not necessarily the module that is bad. It's you. Sorry to sound harsh, but that's a fact. You don't have to use a module 100% or even 10%, just put in your own play skills and run with it. If it goes bad, you can't blame the module.

Personally, I own literally hundreds of modules and I've only used a handful in actual play. I like to read them for fun and then use any ideas in there inspiration in creating my own adventures. It's like a book. You can't write a book without ever reading one. Read more books and you're likely to be a better writer.

Lately, I've noticed a lot of DMs saying, "I don't use modules. I'm creative enough to create my own!" That's fine, but that doesn't mean you should stop reading them. Anyhow, I've seen A LOT of poorly run games these days. I can't help but attribute that to the lack of use of modules and that there have been some bad ones made as of late.

See how others do it and look at new ways of doing it. You can't stop being innovative! One reason why there is DM burnout is because people are doing the same thing over and over. Like anything, you need to look around you for sources of inspiration and a professionally-produced module often has that. There are a lot of creative DMs out there, but also many, many creative module designers. Tap into that resource!

 

[Belen]

Well as for never having heard of us, we primarily make d20 Modern products. If you don't play that game or spend a lot of time in the d20 forum you probably won't have heard of us.

However we have gotten a lot of great reviews and been nominated for 6 Ennies in the last two years, so it seems like a reasonably active ENWorlder would have heard of us.

As for an overabundance of companies being an "industry fault" and "leading the industry to doom"...

Well in the first place there isn't a membership card to start a small business. Your comments about how in most businesses you prove you can make money is just balderdash.

People open small businesses with their own money all the time.

And most of those businesses will fail.

However some grow and thrive. Its called the american way. Apple was started in a garage by some buys welding circuit boards. By your standards, since they couldn't prove their ability to make money, someone should have stopped them.

RPG companies are failing, and they are succeeding too.

It isnt the market's fault and it doesn't mean that everyone below the success level of Green Ronin or Mongoose is "one of those d20 companies that are failing".

Also a heads up on another aspect of your post- if you think the SATURATION is bad- that isnt the fault of the small publishers.

Compare the number of products made yearly by Green Ronin, Mongoose, and WOTC to the products made by smaller publishers.

RPGOjects averages 4-6 print books ayear. But to listen to some people talk every small publisher that goes under is a gleeful event and good for the marketplace.

Chuck

Well, I have a minor in economics, granted I graduated in 99, but I reckon I know something about the basics.

Honestly, I am not focusing on small publishers or RPGobjects. I am commenting on the market as a whole, which includes big publishers throwing out useless filler.

 

[JoeGKushner]

How much better would the market have been if the d20 publishers had concentrated on 4 big books per year, but provided 8-12 adventurers that utilized those products!?.

Probably wouldn't be here. Adventurers tend not to sell as highly. Even companies that focused on adventurers have scaled back or had limited print runs.

Now, we have a flood of products, but there is no way to use a lot of them because weekend warrior GMs do not have the time to create adventures and use non-WOTC source material.

I've never had this problem. One character in my campaign has armor from a book from a publisher long out of print (Materia Magica), another is using a two-handed sword from The Game Mechanics. I don't expect a publisher to have to hold my hand. D&D is generic fantasy and at least 80% of the sourcebooks focus on, yes, generic fantasy. Heck, better tell those people playing FR that they should stop because there aren't a lot of new adventurings telling them how to use WoTC material.

For example, Green Ronin's Blue Rose setting really needs a few support adventures. You cannot create a setting targeted at the ladies and not give them any idea of how to run the game. Or the Book of Iron Might....how cool would it be to have a short adventure using some of that stuff. That way, a GM can use the darn book without having to read it cover to cover and master it and still provide a game on the weekend!

But how many people are going to buy Book of Iron Might? And what's worse, how is the publisher going to indicate the material from the book? Are you going to have to have two, three, of four books open at one time? Imagine is Green Ronin decided to publish a city sourcebook that used all of their race and class books. It would be a nightmare.

IMO, the third party d20 market has failed new GMs and failed to help grow the hooby in their mad dash to grab profit. If they had taken some time to help grow the pie, then more money would be there.

IMO, the publishers have failed many new GMs not through poor products or bad ideas, but by not getting the word out enough. I'm one guy and I try to get the word out to my fellow players. I also post reviews here and I've even been an Ennies judge.

I think in some aspects, Wizards has also failed the publishers. They've provided the d20 license, but didn't use their own tools enough to promote awareness of how great some of the third party material is. Sure, Dungeon/Polyhedron did a few bits here and there, but that's the stepchild of Wizards. Unearthed Arcana used all OGC, but didn't really go into detail about why those mechanics made the cut and what made them stand out above similiar material.

Another thing is that we, the consumers, have failed the companies. I discussed this on another post but gamers often complain about wanting 'fluff' and then complaining when a book of 'fluff' comes out and it's not what they want. They complain about not having innovative settings, but then don't buy those innovative and different settigns because "it's too different. Dinosaurs in the west in space during a civil war style game is just silly!" Look at all the complaints about the Ennies.
"I've never heard of this publisher or these products."

"Well sir, many of those pdf publishers are having sales on their products."

"But I've never heard of them before!"

"Well sir, I can't help you as apparently, you're incapable of going to their website or doing a Google search for reviews outside of those on EN World, of which there are several."

If people arent' spoon feed the details, they don't care. I can't blame them for that as it's apparently something in the water and to a limited extend, I'm guilty of it too. Just try to introduce me to a new game system when I'm still picking up stuff for HARP, Hero, and occassionally Exalted.

The sad truth I suspect, is that if it doesn't have the WoTC label on it, that it's invisible to the masses. This isn't always true as several companies like Malhavoc, Green Ronin, Necromancer, and Mongoose seem to move along with little signs of slowing but for others it seems much more a struggle. T

he most ironic part of people complaining about these small companies to me, is that three years ago, almost all D20 publishers were small including Green Ronin, Malhavoc and Necromancer. "I don't want to try Blue Devil Games, Dog House Games, Ronin Arts, because they're new! I can't take the time to judge them when I have quality coming from Publisher Y!" Hate to say it, but Publisher Y doesn't always have quality.