Is the cost of Daggerheart books too low?

[Morrus]

50%?

My experience has always been 80-20. 80% development with 20% print and distribution.

Yes. Distribution in the hobby book trade is about 50% of the cover price. Maybe a little more or less, but distribution is never 20% of the cover price.

The distributor buys your book for about 50% of the cover price. Then it sells it to retailers, at a price between that and the cover price. And then the retailer sells it at cover price. That's the basic three-tier system the industry works under.

If you've found a secret distributor who buys at 80% of the cover price and then sells into hobby channels, then damn, man, let us know! The entire TTRPG publishing industry will be bashing their doors down by tomorrow.

(Actually, no, just message me with their details--I don't want the competition!)

 

[Belen]

Yes. Distribution in the hobby book trade is about 50% of the cover price. Maybe a little more or less, but distribution is never 20% of the cover price.

The distributor buys your book for about 50% of the cover price. Then it sells it to retailers, at a price between that and the cover price. And then the retailer sells it at cover price. That's the basic three-tier system the industry works under.

Ah! Ok, I was confused by distribution. I, mostly, work in publishing where we’re our own distributor. Print and mailing costs us about 20% of the cover price.

 

[Morrus]

Ah! Ok, I was confused by distribution. I, mostly, work in publishing where we’re our own distributor. Print and mailing costs us about 20% of the cover price.

Direct sales are not distribution. Yes, we all do direct sales also. But getting the products into stores requires a distributor. And that service costs you 50% of your cover price.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I found the Daggerheart Core set overpriced by dint of unnecessary bundling. Sure, I got a lot for the money, but it wasn't all stuff I valued or wanted because I think the cards are pretty unnecessary. Yes the domain cards are kind of handy when I'm playing, but then I've got to haul them around and not lose them from the set. My group is coming back from a long hiatus and now I need to find the trading card binder I had to make for my character to keep it organized, which obviously I didn't carry around in my ttrpg backpack for the last six months when we weren't playing. Meanwhile my character sheets for every other game I've played the last couple years are still in there ready at a moment's notice. And for this questionable convenience of cards the game clearly had rather constraining word limits on laying out the rules of its abilities. My Wizard casts Wall of Flame from the Book of Grynn card; when and how does this effect end? Meanwhile having cards for things like race (with my two racial features or whatever that every other rpg just had me write down on my character sheet once) is just silly, and clearly only done because, well, we're using cards for everything else in this one. But I wanted to try playing Daggerheart so now I own all these silly cards.

Alright, that was more of a rant about cards than I intended. To be clear my main point was supposed to be that they would seemingly only sell me the core book, something I actually (thought I) wanted, with the cards, something I suspected (correctly) I wouldn't care for, wouldn't really need, and never would have bought as a seperate product.

 

[zakael19]

My Wizard casts Wall of Flame from the Book of Grynn card; when and how does this effect end?

...this is handled in the core rules universally on p. 107 under the header "Ongoing Spell Effects." It's an exception based game, like so many - the Domain Cards only handle exceptions to the core rules.

I think all but one of my players loves the card-based setup, including all of my in-person players. But we're using one person's physical set.

 

[Clint_L]

It feels like the OP is suggesting that Darrington Press has a moral duty to help its competitors at the expense of its customers. As one of its customers, I find that the suggestion doesn't sit right.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

I think all but one of my players loves the card-based setup, including all of my in-person players. But we're using one person's physical set.

Sure. My anecdotal experience is also that most people who love Daggerheart seem to love the cards. I personally, however, think they're a kind of silly thing I would have appreciated being able to not buy as a package deal with the core book. But then, I do not love Daggerheart, I just think it's an okay game with some strong design ideas, some big design misses, and generally an underbaked feel, whereas I keep encountering people who are wildly enthusiastic about it and there is clearly some appeal I just fundamentally don't get. Maybe its really just for people who love cards.

I was really into D&D spell cards for about 18 months when I got into 5e, and then I found I actually knew almost exactly what enough of the spells did that I really didn't find them worth the effort anymore. So perhaps some people's card love will fade with time; this game is still young. Or perhaps not.

 

[Vael]

Sure. My anecdotal experience is also that most people who love Daggerheart seem to love the cards. I personally, however, think they're a kind of silly thing I would have appreciated being able to not buy as a package deal with the core book. But then, I do not love Daggerheart, I just think it's an okay game with some strong design ideas, some big design misses, and generally an underbaked feel, whereas I keep encountering people who are wildly enthusiastic about it and there is clearly some appeal I just fundamentally don't get. Maybe its really just for people who love cards.

I was really into D&D spell cards for about 18 months when I got into 5e, and then I found I actually knew almost exactly what enough of the spells did that I really didn't find them worth the effort anymore. So perhaps some people's card love will fade with time; this game is still young. Or perhaps not.

Why I love the cards:

1. Table management. As I noted, I've managed an ongoing campaign with only a single Core Set and never had players touching the book, all their powers and capabilities were on their cards and character sheets.
2. Collaboration. During the leveling up process, players are talking about their characters and planning out, if two characters share a domain, who will take a certain card. Would I like a duplicate set so players didn't have to share cards? Yes, but I'm actually also happy with how my tables talk out their choices and such. Leveling up (and char gen) tends to be a less singular experience, at least at my tables.
3. Keeps high level play easier. I don't know how high a level you got to, but a rule that you don't see in play until late Tier 2, Tier 3 is that players can only have 5 active Domain cards at a time, the others are in "The Vault", accessible, but at a cost. That tends to keep down the option paralysis that can happen and keeps play moving.
4. Limited space on cards makes for a brevity of text. You can't fit the text of a lot of DnD spells onto Domain cards, and I think that limitation helps make design work cleaner and clearer.
5. I do like the cards. Yes, I'm an MTG player, and yes, sleeving up all these cards was fun. But the art is evocative, and it's right there during play, not back the the PHB. I find the cards aesthetically pleasing. I like that some cards can hold tokens to track usages, there's a tactile quality to play with them.

 

[definiteFreakyFishGuy]

Direct sales are not distribution. Yes, we all do direct sales also. But getting the products into stores requires a distributor. And that service costs you 50% of your cover price.

My partner is in publishing and was shocked by the 50%. They are used to something like 20%, but I guess "regular" books and game books are treated differently.

 

[Random Task]

I wonder if Daggerheart has a streaming revenue stream possibility baked into the pricing. Would Critical Role streaming Daggerheart to the seemingly growing player base enough of a revenue stream to makeup for any money they've left on the table by "underpricing" books?