Mearls says adventures are hard to sell [merged]

[rgard]

I'm planning to carry on buying the large adventures WotC bring out, even though I've got enough adventures to keep my group going until 2088.

I like buying and reading adventures. I get Dungeon every month, and I've used precisely two adventuers from it in my entire DM ing career.

("Dragon Hunters" and "Racing the Snake".)

2088? At 127 years old then, i plan to be the oldest living DM.

 

[Faraer]

But, honestly, do we need yet another campaign sourcebook about FR? Come on, between OOP and current releases, you could fill a reasonable sized library with FR sourcebooks. Since sourcebooks aren't really all that system dependent, I don't know what the beef is.

The beef is that there are many millions of words of unpublished Realmslore about the core Realms (which Jeff Grubb called the Heartlands, and is both the most popular and the most fundamental to the setting), and that the last 'detailed' sources on them, the Volo's Guides (which never covered Sembia or the Dragon Coast), only skim the surface of that material, lack detailed historical or political information because of the focus of their coverage, were published more than a decade ago and are only available to the minority aware of the online downloads (as well as the fact that, I think unfortunately, the current timeline is 8–17 years ahead). There is easily enough material for ten 160-page books each on the Dales, Cormyr, the Western Heartlands, etc., and while I love adventures (and they're essential to the health of RPG lines, even when their individual sales are low) and seeing the outlying regions detailed too, Wizards has published no Heartlands regional sourcebooks at all in the six years of 3E.

 

[Felon]

The beef is that there are many millions of words of unpublished Realmslore about the core Realms (which Jeff Grubb called the Heartlands, and is both the most popular and the most fundamental to the setting), and that the last 'detailed' sources on them, the Volo's Guides (which never covered Sembia or the Dragon Coast), only skim the surface of that material, lack detailed historical or political information because of the focus of their coverage, were published more than a decade ago and are only available to the minority aware of the online downloads (as well as the fact that, I think unfortunately, the current timeline is 8–17 years ahead). There is easily enough material for ten 160-page books each on the Dales, Cormyr, the Western Heartlands, etc., and while I love adventures (and they're essential to the health of RPG lines, even when their individual sales are low) and seeing the outlying regions detailed too, Wizards has published no Heartlands regional sourcebooks at all in the six years of 3E.

I own most of the 3e sourcebooks and have ejoyed most of them, but I've also learned to accept that maybe the Forgotten Reams is supposed to have large regions that aren't covered by "official" source material. Maybe it's a good thing that the DM can pick certain areas and build on the framework set for him by the FR Campaign Sourcebook without any preconceptions.

 

[Faraer]

If Wizards meant to turn the Heartlands into what were called 'blank lands' in Glorantha, as Sembia was for a few years... I think that would be a very bad idea for many reasons that don't pertain to this thread. But they could, in that case, and I don't think it's so, at the very least tell us.

 

[Umbran]

It's worth noting that TSR had to "compete" with Judge's Guild in the early days of D&D, and Judge's Guild produced a great deal more adventure product (and much, much thicker in presentation) than TSR.

If I might ask - "a great deal more adventure product" could mean they had more titles, that they sold a greater number of individual copies, or both. Which do you mean here.

I understand your point, and I don't strongly disagree, but in the period from the very beginning to the "heyday" of first edition around 1983, TSR was far from the only company selling modules. There were a ton of non-D&D options at the time, too, most of them far more appealing than the average d20 sourcebook in terms of paving new ground and excitement.

I expect we don't have numbers, of course...

My impression was that Judge's Guild and the like were rather in the fringe, but I suppose that could have been a local phenomenon. Certainly by the time I started playing D&D (the winter of 1982, I think), there were darned few non TSR titles on the shelves near me - I ought to know because our group bought everything they could lay their hands on.

 

[Umbran]

The trick is figuring out how to create the circumstances that will create a success.

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? Nobody can. It would be the equivalent of being able to plan and execute Cabbage Patch Kids and Beanie Babies, instead of having them just happen.

Good products can be done by design. Runaway sales hits seem to happen by luck.

 

[dcas]

Certainly by the time I started playing D&D (the winter of 1982, I think), there were darned few non TSR titles on the shelves near me - I ought to know because our group bought everything they could lay their hands on.

That was around the time JG lost their license to make (A)D&D modules.

Personally, I never had an FLGS or comic store near me, so I saw very few TSR modules.

 

[T. Foster]

At the time I was coming up in 1984-85 (right at the tail end of the D&D/rpg boom) toy stores (Kay-B, Toys R Us, etc.) and discount department stores (Kmart, etc.) tended to only carry TSR stuff. Mass-market bookstores (Waldenbooks, B. Dalton, etc.) carried the same TSR stuff (usually in greater quantity) plus material from Mayfair (both D&D-compatible Role Aids and (a little later?) their own DC Heroes line) and I.C.E. (MERP and Rolemaster) and I think that's about it. To get stuff from other rpg publishers -- Chaosium, GDW, West End, Flying Buffalo, FASA, etc. -- you had to go to a specialty shop, which in those days was typically a "hobby shop" that also sold resin models, model train, airplane, rocket, and radio-control car stuff, and Avalon Hill bookcase games.

 

[Vigilance]

In short, lame adventures are a hard sell, always have been and always will be. Good adventures are not a hard sell, so one can't apply the modifier "always" to modules being a hard sell.

The problem is though, that sourcebooks exist on the same "lame-brilliance" axis as adventures. Sure a lame module will sell less, and a lame sourcebook will sell less.

But I'd be willing to bet, based on my own subjective experience, that X amount of time and effort and creative energy yields more money when spent on a sourcebook than when spent on a module.

So that's the rub. If you spend a month working on a module, with a great module writer who delivers great content, you can make X dollars and it might be very profitable.

But if you spent the same amount of time on a sourcebook with a great sourcebook writer, you'd make X+.

So it's more of an opportunity cost thing. Both can make you money, but one makes you more money over the same time.

 

[Hussar]

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? Nobody can. It would be the equivalent of being able to plan and execute Cabbage Patch Kids and Beanie Babies, instead of having them just happen.

Good products can be done by design. Runaway sales hits seem to happen by luck.

I would say yes and no. Sure, it can be pretty difficult to predict the next Tickle Me Elmo, but, you can be pretty sure that Tickle Me Elmo Extreme is going to do pretty well.

I would say that that is what marketing is for. Determining where the next big thing will possibly be and being the person to give it to the public. Look at Ptolus. It seems to have done very well. Compare that to the World's Largest City which has apparently surfaced and sank.

Marketing played a huge role there IMO.