I write workhorse products . . . Should I?

[philreed]

Long time TSR employee and Wisconsin Harold Johnson was given the job of developing the locations into an adventure. He also added some additional locations. One of them was a village of anthropomorphic cheese people. They lived next to a lake made of liquid cheese, into which was sunk the Mighty Servant of Leuk-O (apparently because I had used Lum the Mad in one of the sites).

I've got my next adventure idea!

Do I hear Primus?

 

[Spell]

all things being equal, i would say (knowing nothing of the economics of the RPG design market) that workhorse product would sell more.
moreover, simply because you are not writing a 300 campaign sourcebook, it doesn't mean that you can't have your say on deities, calendars, mysterious places and so on. after all, in the beginning, the forgotten realms were just a bunch of short articles on dragon magazine.

then, if you realise that there is enough market for bigger, more focused books on specific topics (planar adventures/ description, campaign settings, what has you), you can always change your publishing policy!

 

[Kelleris]

I'm one of the people who reviewed Future:13 Mecha Devices and commented on the items not being in d20 future. I don't think giving it 4 stars is "knocking" it. I liked it, I really did. But I could not bring myself to give it 5 stars.

I think I was being unfair myself in that comment. What I meant, and should have said, was that it's unfair that Ronin Art's products suffer in their reviews from being "workhorse products." I feel that it would have been improper for Phil to have done oddball or creative mecha devices when there were many basic ones that still needed to be covered. Thus, it is a pity that he suffers in the critical reviews for something that he is in a sense obligated to do.

That said, it was Roudi's 2-star review that actually had me riled up. It does seem unfair to rate something as below average when it is simply presenting essential material well. If it were my product, I certainly would not be disappointed at your 4-star review. Though I would likely start planning something with more zip on the spot.

 

[Crothian]

Going back to the orginal post, I always perfer creative products but Phil, your work horse ones are pretty damn helpful as well.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Well I don't know about workhorse and steam.

What I do know is that 101 Spell Components was bloody brilliant.

 

[mythusmage]

When correctly viewed anything can be an adventure seed.

Moonwalker Horse.

A bog standard horse about the size of most breeds of riding horse. It has a most singular talent in that it can walk upon water, so long as the water's surface is illuminated by the light of the full or near full moon.

Adventure Seed: The breed is rare. Some people would do almost anything to own one. Some of these care nothing for legalities or similar trivialities. How do you track a horse that could, on the right night, walk across a lake or river?

 

[SpiralBound]

This thread provokes in me two thoughts:

1) I've got to check out some of your pdfs. I've noticed your publications for some time and they've all seemed to be solid stuff, but the praise that you're getting from everyone here is making me wonder what I'm missing out on by not owning your "workhorse" material...

2) Why are you even asking this question? (feel free to treat this part as a retorical question for you to answer to yourself privately rather than something that you're obligated to publically respond to) Are you dissatisified with what you're writing? Are your sales slumping? Losing creativity/focus/motivation/etc? Feeling bored with your next few ideas? Worrying that you're not writing "enough" strictly creative material over the workhorses and that this might be tempting the "use it or lose it" rule to enact itself upon you? Feeling underappreciated and needing some reasurances that people like what you're doing? Worrying that there is a massive "untapped sales potential" for you in areas that you're currently not persuing? Some other reason entirely?

Just what is it that's making you feel that you need to re-examine and disect your entire business model. It really looks like you're doing the equivalent of being a burger joint who's polling their customers to see if they should turn into a coffee house. Such desire for a drastic change like that usually is caused by some event or external factor exerting an equally drastic pressure upon the business in question. Perhaps asking yourself why you're questioning what you're currently doing is more important than getting a definitive answer to "practical workhorse vs. creative flight of fancy".

Since my second point above could be viewed as being critical of or confrontational towards Phil, let me clear the air on that one. I'm not implying anything with my questions above. I have no negative opinions towards Phil or Ronin Arts. I'm only presenting some things to think about, not trying to make a case for or against him, his products, or the validity of his original post. This disclaimer may be unnecessary, but I don't want people to think I have some hidden agenda or axe to grind because I don't. From everything I've ever seen both Phil and Sonin are fine upstanding members of the RPG community with the well-earned respect of their customers and peers alike.

 

[jerichothebard]

You have no idea how close this came to reality.
... I remain in her debt for ensuring that the "adventure with the cheese people" was not released under my name.

See, and that's why I read this board - where else would you have heard this story? Besides a bar with Chris and a lot of beer, of course...

 

[Wycen]

You have no idea how close this came to reality.

Unsurprisingly, Harold's development didn't fly. The book was reassigned to Jennifer Clarke Wilkes, who did a much better job. I remain in her debt for ensuring that the "adventure with the cheese people" was not released under my name.

Wow. That made me laugh, truth be told, but wow.

 

[philreed]

2) Why are you even asking this question?

I'm asking because I've always been open with the creation, marketing, and sales of PDFs and recent reviews, e-mails, and chats involved discussions regarding the type of material that I write. Since I was thinking about the subject I thought I'd get some input from others.

One thing I've tried to do since I started writing PDFs was to keep an open, honest line of communitcation with those that buy and use my stuff. From messageboard posts to the conversational tone I try to use in my PDFs I want to remain available to those that have questions or suggestions. I think that open style has helped others to better see where I'm coming from.

Thanks for taking the time to write such a long post, though. And I in no way took it as an attack on me or my work.