Have the third-party d20 publishers failed?

[Razuur]

Well I have to come in on the publishers side as a consumer.

I think adventures are really neat. How many have I bought? Next to none. Why? I have such a hard time finding an adventure that fits the "flavor" of my campaign world.

Lets take Atlas Games, for example. Easily one of my top ten companies. They made a slew of adventures in the early d20 days:

I bought one of them. Why? Looking at them, I could tell that they were all great adventures - but they didn't fit my world. One was heavy psionics - nope. One was regarding time travel - nope. etc. etc. Fianlly, one of them: Unhallowed Halls fit my world and GM style. Were the others bad? Heck no. Did they fit my style heck no.

Now ask me what other Atlas games products I have bought:

Occult Lore, Nyambe, Fantasy Bestiary, Dynasties and Demigogues, Crime and Punishment, Love & War, Black Monks of Glastonbury, Seven cities, Seven Strongholds, Seven Sacred sites... All of them teemed with ideas and inspiration that I can create multiple adventures.

Do the math. What did Atlas make money on with me?

I can do the same with countelss other companies. I will agree that I like Bastion's (and others) inclusion of adventures in their source books. not becuse I run them, but becuase I pull things from them to use in my adventures!

Products like RPG Object's "Legends of Excalibur" by RPG Objects do loads fo me in inspiration, and provide the tools I need to make my own adventures. And adventure is much harder to sell because of the limited utility.

And based on WOTC's previous attempts at 3.X adventures - I won't be holding my breath about deciding between them and a 3rd party sourcebook.

Just 2 cents.

Razuur

(Typos edited)

 

[Ed Cha]

Ed,

Is your website down or changed? The hyperlink to your sigs not working and when I type it in directly....no dice.

The Web site was down for a few days, but it's back up now:

http://www.openworldpress.com

We're also now taking orders through the pre-launch site of Indie Press Revolution:

http://www.indiepressrevolution.com

There will be a ton of great new independent releases on this site when it is officially launched later this month, but we can take orders now. It's kind of a like a co-op for quality writers and artists. There are already a few award-winning publishers who have signed on.

 

[Ed Cha]

Well I have to come in on the publishers side as a consumer.

I think adventures are really neat. How many have I bought? Next to none. Why? I have such a hard time finding an adventure that fits the "flavor" of my campaign world.

Products like RPG Object's "Legends of Excalibur" by RPG Objects do loads fo me in inspiration, and provide the tools I need to make my own adventures. And adventure is much harder to sell because of the limited utility.

Can you explain specifically how "Legends of Excalibur" appealed to you and helped your game more than the other modules out there? Was it because it is more generic and low-magic? I didn't quite understand. Thanks.

 

[Jupp]

While I see the arguments that most D20 publishers have against creating modules for a setting (in the end it is all about earning money or not) I see another point that would perhaps speak for adventures. I always saw adventures as a way to define and extend a setting in some way a source book could not do. Looking through the posts and threads on this board I see again and again references to old modules that "everybody" played back in those days. They are the iconic things that people remember and that defined a certain setting for them. Be it adventures like Keep on the Borderlands and Temple of Elemental Evil for Greyhawk, Feast of the Goblyns for Ravenloft or Dead Gods and Modron March for Planescape. At least they somehow defined what the seetings are for me. I think those adventures are something lots of people will think back about with that warm and homely feeling. While a sourcebook or an accessory can show a DM how the world is built an adventure can show the style of play in a more personal way. Now, thats not so say that DMs should generally stick to the play style in a certain world just because a module does it in that way, but it can be of help if you want to.

I also see adventures as a good way to learn the mechanics of D&D. If you give someone that is new to the hobby the PHB and the Forgotten Realms campaign book he will probably not be able to run an adventure with his friends from acrosss the street. He will most likely give up after about 2 hours of trying to read through the campaign setting because he does not see how to actually make an adventure out of it. But if you give him the PHB and a printed adventure then he will be able to run a game in a short amount of time. I think the kids of today have a shorter attention span where you can bring a new thing to them so they get hooked up by it. So you have to make the entry to the hobby as easy and clear to them as possible. Then give them some more printed adventures and after some time they will develop their own play style and their own adventures. And even later they will find their way to ENWorld and start to contribute to it with creative posts and they will give their opinion about how they play today, which is perhaps a totally different style compared to how they started in this hobby.

 

[buzz]

Looking through the posts and threads on this board I see again and again references to old modules that "everybody" played back in those days. They are the iconic things that people remember and that defined a certain setting for them.

To play Devil's Advocate (or just be a jerk), I'd wager that much of our fond remebrances of some of these classics is simply nostalgia. I mean, Keep on the Borderlands was pretty much zero help to me as a newbie DM. The whole premise is very tenuous, like most of the classic adventures ("There's a dungeon nearby. You decide to explore"), and the keyed descriptions were basically mammoth blocks of unbroken text with all kinds of details and stats just crammed next to each other. Running those modules was next to impossible for me.

I honestly think that many of the contemporary adventures do a much better job. The much-belittled Sunless Citadel, IMO, has a good premise, nifty locations, and is very newbie-friendly. It does a good job of walking you through how to run a prepared adventure. The keyed descriptions are also easy to read, with all the major parts broken out into their own sections.

But if you give him the PHB and a printed adventure then he will be able to run a game in a short amount of time. I think the kids of today have a shorter attention span where you can bring a new thing to them so they get hooked up by it. So you have to make the entry to the hobby as easy and clear to them as possible. Then give them some more printed adventures and after some time they will develop their own play style and their own adventures.

Again, I ask, why does this responsibility to the new generation have to be dumped completely on shoulders of the small, third-party d20 companies? It's not their product that's in the mainstream stores where these kids are buying their first D&D books. It's WotC's.

And, thankfully, WotC is taking care of this. They're making a new Basic set (and had one for 3.0) that has everything you need to get started with D&D. They offer free adventures on the Web. They made a whole adventure path series that specifically targeted newbie GMs. And then there's Dungeon. And the new modules for Eberron.

I don't want the small publishers I love going bankrupt trying to serve some nebulous goal of training the next generation of DMs. I want them to make great products that keep them in business, and that they enjoy making. They have not failed, because there simply is no great demand for the products they are accused of failing to provide. The whole premise of this thread is erroneous.

 

[Michelle Lyons]

Just as an aside. I think you're confusing FASA with West End Games.
FASA shut down because the owners just wanted out.
WEG is the only company that comes to mind that fits the scenario you describe.

Actually, FASA shut down because they had lines that weren't making money and because suddenly a distributor payment or two didn't come through on time, and there was no money left for anything, including creditors. That's why they closed. Or at least, that's the explanation we were given along with our pink slips.

 

[Cerubus Dark]

I like some of the 3rd party stuff. Look at the slayers guides they are great spots for ideas and new ways to use old foes. Although there are a few books that should have the writers slapped silly. Look at Factory, that book is useless out side of something like Dragonstar or a Cyberpunk/Shadowrun ripoff.

 

[Psion]

I like some of the 3rd party stuff. Look at the slayers guides they are great spots for ideas and new ways to use old foes. Although there are a few books that should have the writers slapped silly. Look at Factory, that book is useless out side of something like Dragonstar or a Cyberpunk/Shadowrun ripoff.

I find slayer's guides next to useless. The Yuan ti one had some okay stuff, and Dragons was pretty good, but many of them provided little more than obvious exposition and stat blocks that did not fit the rules.

And I made great use of Factory for my Japan-analog in my Second World game. Which is definitely not Cyberpunk or Shadowrun. (Final Fantasy and BGC ripoff, yeah.)

 

[Vigilance]

Can you explain specifically how "Legends of Excalibur" appealed to you and helped your game more than the other modules out there? Was it because it is more generic and low-magic? I didn't quite understand. Thanks.

Author of RPGObjects' Legends of Excalibur here

Excalibur isn't a module, its an Arthurian campaign setting. I think (and correct me if Im wrong Razuur) that what he's referring to is the "campaign guide" which provided a ton of NPCs (I think close to 50) three complete campaign backgrounds (complete with adventure hooks, plot threads and campaign specific NPCs), and three "quests" that were basically detailed adventure synopsis (again including some NPCs).

So while no canned module was included, we did the grunt work for at least three campaigns.

My hope was to provide something that would be more useful than a single canned adventure, but to make GMing Legends of Excalibur easy and pain-free if not effortless.

Chuck

 

[Psion]

Excalibur isn't a module, its an Arthurian campaign setting. I think (and correct me if Im wrong Razuur) that what he's referring to is the "campaign guide" which provided a ton of NPCs (I think close to 50) three complete campaign backgrounds (complete with adventure hooks, plot threads and campaign specific NPCs), and three "quests" that were basically detailed adventure synopsis (again including some NPCs).

Which is a nice model. I think I have come to prefer "adventure toolkits" to "adventures." I mean to me, the useful bits of the adventures are:

- motivations
- situations / plots / conflicts
- players / opposition / obstacle

Much of the "connecting the dots" and making that into an adventure is relatively pedestrian, but has to be switched up to fit a specific campaign. So to me, just giving you the components and letting the GM fit them together is a very nice arrangement.

I think I derive much more value from Requiem for a God than I ever have from a "complete adventure" of the same size.