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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Making minis that sell well, but NON RANDOM
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<blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 5642858" data-attributes="member: 3586"><p>Interestingly, Wizards were going to release a couple of thematic sets (an orc warband and a... bandit warband, iirc) shortly after the initial release of D&D Miniatures back in 2003, but cancelled it due to lack of distributor interest.</p><p></p><p>There's also the possibility that it would cannibalise the sales of their main minis line. It's an interesting thought: although we say we want the rares, it's often the common orcs and goblins that we are actually using. When the commons are no longer useful (due to them being available in non-random packs, or due to product saturation), a large part of the value of the product disappears.</p><p> </p><p></p><p></p><p>There are two basic problems with that strategy. The first relates to production times: there is a much, much greater lead-time on mini releases than adventure releases. It's likely you need to nail down the mini set six months to a year before the adventure is finished. This obviously presents problems. (Why not delay the adventure a year? Mainly because the writer wants to be paid...)</p><p></p><p>The second just comes down to cost. D&D (and Pathfinder) adventures are astonishing for the wide range of monsters they use. It's a far greater range than in most RPGs. (Take Star Wars - a few creatures and a lot of stormtroopers handles most of what you need for a typical campaign during the Rebellion era. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />)</p><p></p><p>Having 100+ monsters in a typical adventure - and often they'll be unthemed, so they don't come under #1 above - means that any such "complete" product is completely infeasible, and - to makes things worse - would only sell to a small number of people. Assuming I was running an adventure for which one of these packs was produced, why would I want to spend $200+ on the pack? I'd be better off using my existing set of minis and proxying. (Which is what I do all the time).</p><p></p><p>Producing smaller packs of minis that cover the key unusual monsters of an adventure sounds better, but then raises the problem of audience again: only a subset of people who bought the adventure, and adventures (typically) don't sell that well. Paizo's sell better than about everyone else, but I do wonder at how many are bought to be <em>read</em> rather than <em>played</em>. (I've currently got 36 or so Pathfinder adventures at home, and it seems unlikely that many will be played).</p><p></p><p>Cheers!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MerricB, post: 5642858, member: 3586"] Interestingly, Wizards were going to release a couple of thematic sets (an orc warband and a... bandit warband, iirc) shortly after the initial release of D&D Miniatures back in 2003, but cancelled it due to lack of distributor interest. There's also the possibility that it would cannibalise the sales of their main minis line. It's an interesting thought: although we say we want the rares, it's often the common orcs and goblins that we are actually using. When the commons are no longer useful (due to them being available in non-random packs, or due to product saturation), a large part of the value of the product disappears. There are two basic problems with that strategy. The first relates to production times: there is a much, much greater lead-time on mini releases than adventure releases. It's likely you need to nail down the mini set six months to a year before the adventure is finished. This obviously presents problems. (Why not delay the adventure a year? Mainly because the writer wants to be paid...) The second just comes down to cost. D&D (and Pathfinder) adventures are astonishing for the wide range of monsters they use. It's a far greater range than in most RPGs. (Take Star Wars - a few creatures and a lot of stormtroopers handles most of what you need for a typical campaign during the Rebellion era. :)) Having 100+ monsters in a typical adventure - and often they'll be unthemed, so they don't come under #1 above - means that any such "complete" product is completely infeasible, and - to makes things worse - would only sell to a small number of people. Assuming I was running an adventure for which one of these packs was produced, why would I want to spend $200+ on the pack? I'd be better off using my existing set of minis and proxying. (Which is what I do all the time). Producing smaller packs of minis that cover the key unusual monsters of an adventure sounds better, but then raises the problem of audience again: only a subset of people who bought the adventure, and adventures (typically) don't sell that well. Paizo's sell better than about everyone else, but I do wonder at how many are bought to be [i]read[/i] rather than [i]played[/i]. (I've currently got 36 or so Pathfinder adventures at home, and it seems unlikely that many will be played). Cheers! [/QUOTE]
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