Mearls says adventures are hard to sell [merged]

[MarkB]

This is exactly why I buy published adventures. Working a full time job and running my own sole proprietorship takes up most of my day. Getting players to commit to meeting once every two weeks for four hours is enough of a hassle already. Fortunately, I have a store of adventure material I made in my earlier days. But still, new adventures are something that makes my gaming much easier.

Agreed. I recently had to snuff out my last self-made campaign (an online play-by-forum game set in Eberron) because, having restarted full-time work, I simply couldn't find the time to keep up with creating new NPCs, locations and challenges for the players. And that was just at the slow pace of an online game.

On the other hand, I am currently running two online and two tabletop games, all from published adventures, and managing to keep up with them reasonably well. I love DMing, but without published material I simply wouldn't have the time.

 

[Felon]

He didn't say they wouldn't sell. he said they were a hard sell.

And more to the point, he didn't say they were hard sells, he said they were notorious as hard sells. Notoriety and actuality are frequently not the same thing.

Case-in-point, note how Sammael here expresses his viewpoint so matter-of-factly:

(1) Adventures sell only to GMs (or players who buy them to their GMs to run, but that's pretty much the same). There goes 75% of the market.

Now, 75% is just thrown out there as if it were an accurate, supported statistic, but it's not. D&D is not broken up into nice little categories of "DM's here, players here". There's plenty of room for cross-over.

More to the point, a book targeted at DM's might actually outsell a supplement targeted at players, even with the latter comprising a more numerous subset of gamers. It can happen if a greater percentage of DM's are in "buying mode" than players (how many guys you know who barely own a PHB and every Complete book is mooched out of the DM's pile?). Red Hand of Doom might have a borader spectrum of appeal to DM"s than the Complete Scoundrel does to players (and in my group, there is only copy of either, and the same goes for most other books, adventure or no).

 

[I'm A Banana]

More to the point, a book targeted at DM's might actually outsell a supplement targeted at players, even with the latter comprising a more numerous subset of gamers. It can happen if a greater percentage of DM's are in "buying mode" than players (how many guys you know who barely own a PHB and every Complete book is mooched out of the DM's pile?). Red Hand of Doom might have a borader spectrum of appeal to DM"s than the Complete Scoundrel does to players (and in my group, there is only copy of either, and the same goes for most other books, adventure or no).

Which doesn't even address the idea of trying to turn players into DMs with easy-to-run adventures...

 

[Thomas Percy]

I prefer adventures than rulebooks.
I have only 6 rulebooks (plus some bindeed photocopies of several pages from the rest) and nearly 30 3-3,5e adventures from various publishers. And War of the BurnSky probably will be next.
So, present policy of WotC is a blessing for me.

 

[GeorgeFields]

I'd appreciate it if somebody could clarify the above issues for me.

Mike Mearls isn't always right?

 

[Agamon]

I love taking adventures and messing with them to make the plot fit in my campaign. Or taking an AP and messing with the NPCs and setting to make it my own and increase RP possibilities.

As a creative DM that doesn't have loads of time anymore, I love published adventures. They include the stuff I don't like doing (maps, stat blocks, etc) and allow me to make them my own.

I'm glad WotC is going the route they are. And while the first few years of 3E saw little good come in the way of adventures from Wizards (Sunless Citidel and RttToEE being the notable good ones), recently, they've done well with RHoD, SGoS and EtCR. I'm looking forward to the new Expeditions and the new FR adventures.

 

[trancejeremy]

I think WOTC is starting to do them now simply because they are running out of other things to do.

I mean, sure, compared to say, a popular class sourcebook (like fighter or wizards), sales of adventures are probably pretty low. But having done class sourcebooks for just about everything, and down to obscure stuff , adventures sell better.

And in this case, they are either charging huge amounts of money ($20 for 64 pages, apparently), or $35-40 for 160 (more reasonable, but apparently padded with the new stat format), which makes it a good deal for them.

However, they (along with Paizo's new line of adventures) might end up pushing out what remaining d20 companies there are (ie, Goodman, Green Ronin), or at least hurting their sales (Goodman has a loyal fanbase, but Green Ronins's Bleeding Edge line will likely run into trouble)

 

[Dire Bare]

Mike Mearls isn't always right?

What? Yes he is!

 

[Voadam]

(I might grab Grand History of the Realms, but it's pure fluff and it's FREE online to download, so I might not grab it at all)

Link?

 

[Erik Mona]

It turns out _good_ adventures aren't that difficult to sell.

When this conventional wisdom was first established, we're talking about the all-time creative nadir of TSR, pre-25th Anniversary, pre-Wizards of the Coast, pre-quality.

I've seen the sales figures for all of the first edition modules. You'd have to be a grade A chump to assume that "modules don't sell" based on those figures.

Obviously, Joe Goodman is doing something right. Dungeon's numbers are great. I suspect WotC's latest offerings are selling well, and I know the first couple adventures from their proto-"Adventure Path" (Sunless Citadel, etc.) sold in phenomenal numbers. I'd be willing to bet "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" was likewise a strong seller (even if it does get repetitive and boring at the end, sorry Monte!).

So, lame adventures are a difficult sell. Good adventures, not so much.

--Erik