Kobold Press's Margreve Kickstarter

[Rellott]

Kobold Press launched their Kickstarter for Tales of the Old Margreve: 5th Edition Forest Adventures on September 27th. The Kickstarter is intended to fund two books - a campaign set in the titular forest (which is itself set in Kobold Press's Midgard setting) and a player's guide containing information about the setting, backgrounds, races, etc. The Kickstarter funded in mere hours, and as I type this has garnered over 33 thousand dollars out of the 15 thousand dollar goal.



The Kickstarter has generated significant backlash from fans of Kobold Press, however, for their decision not to provide PDFs of the books - they are only offering hard copies and virtual tabletop versions (for both Fantasy Grounds and Roll20). Many of the comments on the Kickstarter revolve around the lack of PDF availability, and the debate has also spilled over onto the Kobold Press & Midgard Facebook group.

In addition to the more trivial concern over incomplete collections, statements in support of PDFs range from concerns over shipping ("Without the PDF and living in EU the Kickstarter losses much of it's value unfortunately because of the shipping price") to varying prep styles ("I do buy the physical copies of books but for me I need pdf for prep as well as for running my home games") to versatility ("everyone can use a pdf whether you are playing home game roll20, fantasy grounds, or just over voice").

In the comments of the Kickstarter, Kobold Press has stated "Wizards of the Coast seems to do fine without PDF support, but with huge VTT support in the form of D&D Beyond. So, we figured we should at least try one project in this mold. If the feedback is that we should do PDF more than VTT, then we end our VTT efforts and focus on other things." They went on to clarify why they didn't offer both PDFs and VTT support, saying "On the publisher side, VTT and PDF are totally different workflows involving different companies, different technologies, and different teams. For Kobold Press, the idea of supporting three formats well is more daunting than supporting two. For KP, it's three different projects."

You can check out the Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/350683997/tales-of-the-old-margreve-5th-edition-forest-adven/

What do you think about Kobold Press's decision regarding PDFs? Are they destined to be outdated by VTTs? Can D&D Beyond truly be considered a VTT, at least enough to warrant comparison to Fantasy Grounds or Roll20? Are we entering an era where we must choose D&D content providers based on their outlet, like we have done with video games on their various consoles or with movies and TV shows on the various streaming services?

 

[CrimsonCarcharodon]

It's a really strange move, considering their Warlock Patreon is almost entirely PDFs. If not for a PDF option, I wouldn't have backed the Midgard Kickstarter a while back.

I get why they want to try a hardback only option, to emulate WotC. That said... I really wish WotC did official PDFs. Tying it to a specific VTT means that A) if that that VTT folds, so does all your game content, and B) means it's more difficult to play with people who prefer a different VTT.

A lot of the time, I prefer PDFs if I'm going to play somewhere other than my home, too. I already kinda have to pack the three core books, and often other books like Xanathar's or Volo's. But, I can use my iPad for PDF adventures, the Tome of Beasts, all the DMs Guild stuff I have, etc. It's just really convenient to have PDFs available that way.

I wouldn't shun Kobold Press for something like this, but it's one of a few reasons I'm likely not going to be backing this particular Kickstarter. And I really, seriously hope they go back to putting out a bunch of PDFs.

 

[Morrus]

Nothing wrong with trying something and saying “let’s let the market decide this one”.

 

[Rellott]

Nothing wrong with trying something and saying “let’s let the market decide this one”.

As someone who has published PDFs and physical products, Morrus, I’m curious if you share their sentiment about separate teams and workloads.

 

[Morrus]

As someone who has published PDFs and physical products, Morrus, I’m curious if you share their sentiment about separate teams and workloads.

I don’t really have any insight into how their company is arranged.

 

[Jester David]

Uncertain if I buy the explanation that they can do VTT or PDFs but have trouble doing both. Especially as books are laid out in InDesign, which can save as PDFs. It’s some work to format a good PDF (adding hyperlinks, bookmarks, finding a balance between image size and file size) but that’s a much smaller workload than doing a VTT copy.

I wonder if piracy is a factor. Their books are pretty quickly available to pirates, but delaying things for a physical release might slow that down. Especially as the more dedicated fans will be the ones getting it initially: the ones willing to Kickstarter.
I’ll accept this explanation more. As a small publisher, each pirated copy is a surprisingly high percentage of lost sales. When you only sell 5000 copies or a book, a few hundred pirated copies noticeably reduces profits.
(As a minor-publisher who works through DMsGuild, even my stuff has been pirated. Repeatedly. And it costs 50 cents a pop and you can preview the full text or my books prior.)


I like PDFs. Especially with adventures, so I can look up the information on two places at once. Or read at work during my break. I often read on my iPad in bed, as it’s easier to hold up that device than a 300-page hardcover. I’ve probably barely looked at my physical copy of Creature Codex.

But, honestly, I could manage. No PDF is not a deal breaker for the adventure book.


However, no PDFs make the player’s guide functionally unusable.
Yeah, I shouldn’t share PDFs between my players... but it’s convenient. And I can share with everyone at once. I can’t share a physical book with 5 people at once, and lending out my physical book is asking for it to come back battered as . Books are great to reference at the table, but it’s nice to have people show up with characters ready rather than spending a quarter of the first session building PCs.
But, even for groups that can and do spend the session building characters at the table, that’s not a lot of time to read the lore in the book. I can’t have the players show up an hour early to take turns reading an introduction.

 

[ArwensDaughter]

I'm really confused by their description of DnD Beyond (aka DDB) as a VTT. DDB is many (good) things, but a VTT is not one of them; they were up front from the beginning that they did not intend to be a VTT. Every few months (or more frequently), someone posts on DDB's forums asking them to add VTT functionality. The current response from Badeye, the project lead, is that it is not currently on the roadmap, but they will keep listening to what is needed in the community. (Badeye also recently said DDB was looking to provide things that weren't available digitally yet; there were already multiple VTT services, so it hasn't been part of their plans)

They are well within their rights to offer or not offer what they choose, but I'm another one who would be most interested in PDFs. The one DnD related Kickstarter I have participated in was for the Lazy Dungeon Master returns, and I opted for the pdf only choices; I likely wouldn't have participated if my only choices were print copies.

 

[Jester David]

For the record, I'm not backing this Kickstarter, in part because there's no "PDF only" option.

The problem for me is a big fey forest only half fits my campaign setting, and I already have my next campaign or two very loosely planned. This book has no purpose for me. I can't justify the expense for something that's going to sit on the shelf. (Especially since I'd already done that for the Midgard Campaign Setting.)

However, I would pick it up a PDF for review purposes. But that's not an option...

 

[epithet]

...
In the comments of the Kickstarter, Kobold Press has stated "Wizards of the Coast seems to do fine without PDF support, but with huge VTT support in the form of D&D Beyond. So, we figured we should at least try one project in this mold. If the feedback is that we should do PDF more than VTT, then we end our VTT efforts and focus on other things." They went on to clarify why they didn't offer both PDFs and VTT support, saying "On the publisher side, VTT and PDF are totally different workflows involving different companies, different technologies, and different teams. For Kobold Press, the idea of supporting three formats well is more daunting than supporting two. For KP, it's three different projects."...

I find this disingenuous. I have no idea how content creation for Roll20 works, but I know for a fact that SmiteWorks, the company that makes Fantasy Grounds, takes the print file for a D&D book and converts it into a module for WotC. I also am reasonably certain that converting that same file to a marketable pdf is mostly a matter of reducing the file size by de-rezzing imbedded graphics. The idea that you can't, as a publisher, be bothered to both provide the print file to SmiteWorks and tweak your imbedded art to get your pdf to a reasonable size is not one I'm willing to take on faith.

This seems like an interesting product, but one which I'll probably pick up as a pdf on RPGnow when it is, inevitably, released there. I might also grab the Fantasy Grounds version, but probably not until I can get a pdf of it. Wizards of the Coast doesn't "do fine" because of their lack of pdf support, they do fine in spite of it. The fact that they do fine despite the rampant proliferation of unsanctioned scanned pdf versions of the 5e product line makes their refusal to actually sell pdfs all the more ridiculous, but as the owners of the D&D brand they can get away with making dumb choices. Kobold is a relatively big 3rd party publisher, but they're still a 3rd party publisher, and they need to quit trying to be clever with this crap. People obviously want pdf versions of the books, and SmiteWorks makes it super easy for them to release a Fantasy Grounds module on the FG storefront, so this move smells like a load of BS to me.

Hell, you want to know just how much a load of BS this is? If they just release a pdf, and don't release VTT versions of the product immediately, there are pro-level members of the Fantasy Grounds community that will approach them to do the conversion on their behalf. No, as someone who has backed just about every 5e product Kobold has kickstarted so far, I am more and more turned off by this the more I think about it.

 

[epithet]

...

I wonder if piracy is a factor. Their books are pretty quickly available to pirates, but delaying things for a physical release might slow that down. Especially as the more dedicated fans will be the ones getting it initially: the ones willing to Kickstarter.
I’ll accept this explanation more. As a small publisher, each pirated copy is a surprisingly high percentage of lost sales. When you only sell 5000 copies or a book, a few hundred pirated copies noticeably reduces profits.
(As a minor-publisher who works through DMsGuild, even my stuff has been pirated. Repeatedly. And it costs 50 cents a pop and you can preview the full text or my books prior.)

...

I'm sure piracy is the factor. They specifically refer to Wizards not producing pdfs, and that's Wizards' rationale. The dumb part of that, though, is that you can look at WotC as an example of why that approach doesn't make sense. If people want a pdf of your product, they'll get it. If you don't sell it to them, they'll download it for free. Right or wrong, that's the world we live in. Sure, some folks are scrupulous and won't use your product if they haven't bought it. Sure, some folks are unscrupulous and will wait for the pirate version regardless of how easy you make it for them to buy it legit. I think there is a lot of area in between, though, where people will get what they want and prefer legitimate means, but are somewhat open to other options.

Another case in point is the material created by Gary Gygax for Troll Lord Games. There are a lot of people, I'm sure, who would love to have the opportunity to spend money on that stuff and support the Gygax family. Since they can't do that, it just gets downloaded.

There will always be piracy. Companies like Kobold press have a substantial base of loyal customers, though--like me--who have paid up front to support the development of their products. They need to focus on making it straightforward for us to buy their stuff in the format we want, making it easy for us to give them money for it. Pirates are gonna pirate, there's nothing to be gained by antagonizing the rest of us.