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Have the third-party d20 publishers failed?
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<blockquote data-quote="Faraer" data-source="post: 1729968" data-attributes="member: 6318"><p>I'm seeing some of the old 'real DMs don't use modules' snob-rhetoric.</p><p></p><p>The books which people remember and which contribute to the culture of the game are modules and setting sourcebooks. Those are the height of what this industry produces as products. No one gives a damn about most of the interminable 'option' books in a year's time, let alone ten. So I think producing modules is one of the implicit goals of the d20 industry, and yes it's failing as a whole.</p><p></p><p>I don't want to demean publishers who've honestly tried to publish modules profitably and failed, and I appreciate the qualifications that have been made, but still I think some people are parleying circumstantial appearances of the market into permanent verities. William Goldman's 'Nobody knows anything' is an accurate description and a healthy attitude. And if publishers stear clear of less obviously profitable books, doesn't that just show they're in it (odd as that might sound for the RPG industry) for the money? Poetry anthologies are much less profitable than novels, but the trade publishing industry would certainly be failing if it largely ceased publishing poetry.Castle Greyhawk wasn't created with an eye on publication; Gary's other modules were, and playtested sometimes in his campaign (T1-4), sometimes in tournaments (GDQ). Dragonlance was created as a commercial property, but the final modules and the novels arose from playtesting (though Jeff Grubb, Doug Niles, and others were as important in its birth as Weis and Hickman). But yes, there's a great difference between material made up to meet a schedule and material that arises organically over years out of a real campaign. Gary's great dungeon is finally being published; on the other hand, the vast amount of adventure material Ed Greenwood's generated over the 25 years his campaigns have run for is mostly mouldering in his myriad lore-boxes -- most of the levels of Undermountain, the Dungeon of the Crypt, dozens of smaller dungeons, to name only the most transferrable stuff. Yet someone at Wizards decided it was better to hire Jason Carl to design a new Dungeon of Death than to use Ed's. I suspect that it doesn't save all that much time to use such existing adventures, but the quality is generally higher.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Faraer, post: 1729968, member: 6318"] I'm seeing some of the old 'real DMs don't use modules' snob-rhetoric. The books which people remember and which contribute to the culture of the game are modules and setting sourcebooks. Those are the height of what this industry produces as products. No one gives a damn about most of the interminable 'option' books in a year's time, let alone ten. So I think producing modules is one of the implicit goals of the d20 industry, and yes it's failing as a whole. I don't want to demean publishers who've honestly tried to publish modules profitably and failed, and I appreciate the qualifications that have been made, but still I think some people are parleying circumstantial appearances of the market into permanent verities. William Goldman's 'Nobody knows anything' is an accurate description and a healthy attitude. And if publishers stear clear of less obviously profitable books, doesn't that just show they're in it (odd as that might sound for the RPG industry) for the money? Poetry anthologies are much less profitable than novels, but the trade publishing industry would certainly be failing if it largely ceased publishing poetry.Castle Greyhawk wasn't created with an eye on publication; Gary's other modules were, and playtested sometimes in his campaign (T1-4), sometimes in tournaments (GDQ). Dragonlance was created as a commercial property, but the final modules and the novels arose from playtesting (though Jeff Grubb, Doug Niles, and others were as important in its birth as Weis and Hickman). But yes, there's a great difference between material made up to meet a schedule and material that arises organically over years out of a real campaign. Gary's great dungeon is finally being published; on the other hand, the vast amount of adventure material Ed Greenwood's generated over the 25 years his campaigns have run for is mostly mouldering in his myriad lore-boxes -- most of the levels of Undermountain, the Dungeon of the Crypt, dozens of smaller dungeons, to name only the most transferrable stuff. Yet someone at Wizards decided it was better to hire Jason Carl to design a new Dungeon of Death than to use Ed's. I suspect that it doesn't save all that much time to use such existing adventures, but the quality is generally higher. [/QUOTE]
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