Modules, it turns out, apparently DO sell

[ggroy]

Honestly paizo reminds me a bit of White Wolf in it's early days. Back then I use to buy white wolf's world of darkness books just because they was good reads, even when I never used some of their books.

I completely missed White Wolf in its early days. I was on a 15+ year hiatus away from tabletop rpg gaming at the time.

At the present time, Paizo does sort of remind me of Forgotten Realms back in days of late 1E AD&D to early 2E AD&D (circa late 1980's). One can see the setting world emerging in the supplement books and modules being released over a period of several years.

 

[billd91]

Are you saying that you have to pay to purchase the modules for Pathfinder Society? That completely blows my mind. Maybe it is just my own experiences in the other living campaigns, but having the adventures for it as items for sale rather than freely available for all gamers is just not something I would have expected.

They're only $3.99. Not exactly bank breakers. And you don't have to go through the hassle of reporting an event on the website to get the PDF and the code to unlock it like I remember doing for LG.

 

[Treebore]

Paizo is no fluke, they are simply a business who did everything right. They only sell profitable products, which can mean anything from they sell enough to pay for the costs of making it to they actually make enough extra to re invest in the company. They pay attention to keeping their balance sheets balanced.

Above all, as several posters have pointed out, the thing Paizo does better than everyone else is produce top quality products that ALSO contain top quality content.

THATS why Paizo is successful, and the only reason it can be called a fluke is because so many companies, in all areas of business, fail to do this. So they fail, or limp along until they figure out how to be a better business, or fail.

So since they only sell modules/adventures because they make money off of them, the OP is correct modules do sell well, especially when they are made top notch in every way, production values, content, and value to the consumer with their subscription plans, talking to their customers every day via their message boards, from the CEO on down, etc...

Every single RPG company would do well to emulate Paizo as much as they possibly can, because Paizo is doing everything right, even maintaining friendly relations with competitors.

Simply put, Paizo is a smartly run business, and every smartly run business succeeds, that is no fluke, just fact.

 

[Treebore]

Wait - I can't really comment on the main topic here (as a player who buys far more rulebooks than adventures), but I'm a bit confused by this point. It was my understanding that Pathfinder Society was the living campaign for Pathfinder (similar to Living Greyhawk in 3rd Edition, and Living Forgotten Realms in 4E).

Are you saying that you have to pay to purchase the modules for Pathfinder Society? That completely blows my mind. Maybe it is just my own experiences in the other living campaigns, but having the adventures for it as items for sale rather than freely available for all gamers is just not something I would have expected.

Well, to be fair, in comparison to these modules that PAizo produces, the freebies WOTC and others have always made available for free sucked 80% of the time. Paizo still gives us great content, with great presentation, and still do it cheaply, for about $2.00 to $3.00 per module. 95% of the time.

So even though I would have liked for them to be free, the quality of content makes the small fee far from painful. In fact it makes them worth while. To me at least, but I have always been an adventure whore and always will be. So the fact that I am getting top notch quality content for a couple of bucks makes me tingly all over.

 

[Dannager]

Uhm... yet WotC's "big-budget opuses "... don't seem to be satisfying "as wide of an audience as possible.". In fact, IMO, they seem to be loosing more and more of their audience. Anecdotally... I bought Thunderspire and Pyramid... but with those two adventures (compared to Paizo's) WotC lost me as a purchaser of adventures. It would take one heck of a review by someone I trust to ever get me to buy another adventure from them. Honestly, sometimes first impressions count.

Isn't the whole point of what he was saying that the experienced, seasoned DMs that make up the vast majority of ENWorld (and other D&D forum community) members wouldn't find WotC modules especially groundbreaking? I mean, when someone points out that you're nowhere near a representative example of the larger D&D gaming body, you can't really counter with something like "IMO, they seem to be loosing more and more of their audience." Not only is that not actually an opinion - at best, it's an educated guess about a factual measure - but the point is that you don't come from the mainstream (as mainstream as your average D&D player can get, anyway) viewpoint to begin with.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Wait - I can't really comment on the main topic here (as a player who buys far more rulebooks than adventures), but I'm a bit confused by this point. It was my understanding that Pathfinder Society was the living campaign for Pathfinder (similar to Living Greyhawk in 3rd Edition, and Living Forgotten Realms in 4E).

Are you saying that you have to pay to purchase the modules for Pathfinder Society? That completely blows my mind. Maybe it is just my own experiences in the other living campaigns, but having the adventures for it as items for sale rather than freely available for all gamers is just not something I would have expected.

Yes. You buy the modules for play. They cost $3.99 a pop. Unlike the old RPGA modules, these are full color and profesisonally illustrated with a quality Paizoesque map.

You can use them for organized play -- or just borg them and adapt some aspect of the module for use in your home campaign. The value the adventures presents is a very good one -- and the people writing them are not just newbie authors (like most of the RPGA and Star Wars Living Force modules are/were).

If you want quality and name talent for modules like this -- and especially to pay the artist for the map -- someone's got to pay for that work. In this case, that someone is you.

At $3.99 they present a great value, imo. You may have a different view.

 

[Stormonu]

Yeah, if anything, the Pathfinder RPG rulebook is a loss leader for the modules, APs, and campaign setting materials.

Here's a thing to consider. The statement attributed to WotC that "modules don't sell" is what, almost a decade old at this point, and just because it described WotC publishing strategy and the RPG market circa 2000 doesn't mean it applies to the current situation. Also, its not like WotC is neglecting the adventure business. Dungeon is again a house organ, there is a series of 12 published adventures, 2 setting specific adventures (with two more on the way, i.e. Dark Sun and the Gamma World supplements), a new series of softcover adventures (the HS series), two hardcover books of adventures (Dungeon Delve and Revenge of the Giants, with another on the way), and plenty of LFR content.

To me, the statement "Modules don't sell" was nothing but a cover for other issues with the adventures that were being pushed. Beyond what Paizo is releasing, Goodman's DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) produced a line over 50 modules long - nearly building their entire business on modules. Likewise, AEG had a popular line with the Adventure Keep line, that was even reprinted into two full-sized products. All of these even while Dungeon magazine was rolling along in the background. The statement "Modules don't sell" is BS. The real truth is "Modules that suck don't sell".

 

[Beginning of the End]

Well in my oppinion you and WotC are vastly underestimating what people new to the game can handle. I personally believe it is more than fight after fight after fight (Since most people can get that from videogames)... but maybe I'm wrong, and new gamers can only handle simple, basic adventures for 30 levels and also maybe WotC asked for help with their adventures because they are doing great. However for some reason I just don't think that is the case.

This, to me, is the insanity of WotC's current marketing approach. They see a threat from video games and their response has been to design their products to incorporate the elements that they think make video games appealing to their potential customers.

But that's exactly the wrong way to do it: You can't compete with the strengths of video games. You want a combat simulator to provide fight after fight after fight? Tabletop RPGs effectively lost that market years ago. Video games have better graphics and better soundtracks; they do the boring math for you and speed up the pace of the hack and the visceral appeal of the slash; they even let you play solo.

 

[Treebore]

Yes. You buy the modules for play. They cost $3.99 a pop. Unlike the old RPGA modules, these are full color and profesisonally illustrated with a quality Paizoesque map.

You can use them for organized play -- or just borg them and adapt some aspect of the module for use in your home campaign. The value the adventures presents is a very good one -- and the people writing them are not just newbie authors (like most of the RPGA and Star Wars Living Force modules are/were).

If you want quality and name talent for modules like this -- and especially to pay the artist for the map -- someone's got to pay for that work. In this case, that someone is you.

At $3.99 they present a great value, imo. You may have a different view.

Ah, yeah, it is $3.99, I was confusing it with recent purchases I made from Rite Publishing. Those are $1.99 PDF's!

 

[Imaro]

Isn't the whole point of what he was saying that the experienced, seasoned DMs that make up the vast majority of ENWorld (and other D&D forum community) members wouldn't find WotC modules especially groundbreaking? I mean, when someone points out that you're nowhere near a representative example of the larger D&D gaming body, you can't really counter with something like "IMO, they seem to be loosing more and more of their audience." Not only is that not actually an opinion - at best, it's an educated guess about a factual measure - but the point is that you don't come from the mainstream (as mainstream as your average D&D player can get, anyway) viewpoint to begin with.

All I can say to this is... anytime you are coming on to various message boards asking us "non-mainstream D&D players" how you can make your adventures better... maybe this mythical "mainstream" or "average" D&D player (especially as we are talking about DM's for the most part) isn't that far from us "non-mainstream" DM's in what makes an adveture fun or interesting enough to spend cash on. Crazy talk I know, but maybe... just maybe there's something to this line of thought.