airwalkrr
Adventurer
I may not have a degree in business, but I happen to be an excellent business man, having worked successfully in retail for over 8 years, always moving up. I would propose the following business model for 4e. Even though I know WotC already has a business model, this idea might generate some buzz.
First of all, think about what drives D&D? Adventure. Without adventure there is no D&D. There may be a few people who like creating characters, advancing monsters, and crafting traps, but without adventures, people would not buy the game in sufficient amount to guarantee profit. Now some adventures are crafted by DMs, but in the Western world (where I would gamble that the vast majority of D&D players live) people are busier than ever. The rarest commodity at my FLGS is DMs who have time to create a campaign. I believe this has a lot to do with why adventure paths are such a huge hit. Everyone (including WotC) is seeking to emulate Paizo since they came up with the Shackled City adventure path. It is not hard to imagine why adventures are popular. D&D had its heyday back in the early 80s when adventures were the meat of available products for the game.
At the same time, there is a critical part to WotC's success with 3.5. They found something more profitable than TSR's previous business model under 2e (which wide consensus considers a failure, a thesis supported by TSR's financial difficulty before the WotC buyout). Namely, WotC took their highly successful business model for Magic: The Gathering and implemented it with D&D via D&D Miniatures. My proposal is simple. What worked for minis can work for source material.
I think it is quite simple to understand why sourcebooks (not monster manuals) tend to sell better than adventures. They are usuable by all D&D players, whereas monster manuals and adventures really only appeal to DMs. Players rarely buy adventures. They would much rather buy tools to help their characters survive and kick ass than buy tools to help their DM kill their precious characters.
But there is another element to consider in this plan that I propose. Many of the old gamers these days who played D&D in its heyday no longer play for various reasons. Now I haven't done any statistics, but there can be no denying that things like family and job promotions, things that almost invariably get more complicated over time, are big deterrents. Having the time available to devote to a consistent campaign is difficult for a lot of the older grognards. Many have the time to play occassionally, but not on a regular basis such as the ubitquitous "weekly" campaign.
Finally, the Living Greyhawk campaign has been enormously successful, based in part on the ability of players to pick up and put down the campaign as their schedule allows. The campaign appeals to those who have lots of time because they can level their characters as quickly as they can find available games in their area. It also appeals to those with limited time because it does not require frequent participation to enjoy. At the same time there is a consistency within the campaign and a shared sense of community that players enjoy.
In summary, adventures sell, but they have a small target audience (DMs only). Collectibles sell, period. Many old players would play, but would need a game designed that was compatible with occassional play, a game that didn't require them to show up each week to an ongoing campaign. So how do all these things come together? Here's how I propose it happen.
1) To expand the audience of adventures, they ought to include collectibles that appeal to players. Adventures should include random treasure in the form of randomly assorted items, as well as random feats or spells the players can learn from parts of the adventure. For example, location A in an adventure might have a sword master who can teach characters a random martially-oriented feat while location B might contain a treasure chest with a random magic item and location C would contain a book containing a scroll of a random spell. Items would be represented and collected by players on standard-size playing cards of varying rarity schemes.
2) The game would be designed to facilitate fast combat, the longest and most involved part of the game. Rules like grappling would need to be streamlined if not overhauled completely. A basic version of the game that contains the most commonly used rules would be quite helpful for more recreational players and advanced rules should build upon the basic rules rather than supplant them. This would have the end result of making the game play faster so that more could be accomplished in a shorter amount of time. Towards this end, adventures should be designed to be completeable within a single 4 to 5 hour period. An expected play time should be listed on adventures, such as 2, 4, and 6 hours to indicate the average expected play time for the adventure. Both of these would attract older players who find the game is more accomodating to their schedule.
3) Adventures should be released as series adventures, or different levels of a dungeon. Castle Greyhawk, for example, could be released as individual levels from the three towers. This would give players a sense of continuity and shared experience. They could all talk about their experiences in Castle Ravenloft. Different adventure series could highlight different campaign settings, and grant access to different kinds of items, feats, and spells to retain setting flavor.
4) To provide variability to adventures and allow DMs the ability to customize their adventures, randomized packs of monsters and villains (and only monsters and villains) would be available for each adventure series including a number of creatures suitable for substitution within the adventure.
5) Expansion sets including items, feats, and spells serving as suitable replacements for those in the adventure would be sold. Additionally, DMs would be able to allow cards from these expansions in character building, but adventures would contain unique items that couldn't be found within the expansion sets to give people a reason to use them.
6) To improve the appeal of the collectible character building tools available, character classes should be designed to be more customizable, such as those in Star Wars. Collectible character building tools like feats and such would indicate which classes they were usable by on the card so it wouldn't be necessary to have lists like fighter bonus feats.
I think a business model like this would sell like hotcakes, as well as being incredibly fun to play. The pocketbooks of gamers might be smarting, but do you ever pay for stuff that you don't really want or at least need? MtG wouldn't sell so well if it wasn't such a fun and compelling game.
First of all, think about what drives D&D? Adventure. Without adventure there is no D&D. There may be a few people who like creating characters, advancing monsters, and crafting traps, but without adventures, people would not buy the game in sufficient amount to guarantee profit. Now some adventures are crafted by DMs, but in the Western world (where I would gamble that the vast majority of D&D players live) people are busier than ever. The rarest commodity at my FLGS is DMs who have time to create a campaign. I believe this has a lot to do with why adventure paths are such a huge hit. Everyone (including WotC) is seeking to emulate Paizo since they came up with the Shackled City adventure path. It is not hard to imagine why adventures are popular. D&D had its heyday back in the early 80s when adventures were the meat of available products for the game.
At the same time, there is a critical part to WotC's success with 3.5. They found something more profitable than TSR's previous business model under 2e (which wide consensus considers a failure, a thesis supported by TSR's financial difficulty before the WotC buyout). Namely, WotC took their highly successful business model for Magic: The Gathering and implemented it with D&D via D&D Miniatures. My proposal is simple. What worked for minis can work for source material.
I think it is quite simple to understand why sourcebooks (not monster manuals) tend to sell better than adventures. They are usuable by all D&D players, whereas monster manuals and adventures really only appeal to DMs. Players rarely buy adventures. They would much rather buy tools to help their characters survive and kick ass than buy tools to help their DM kill their precious characters.
But there is another element to consider in this plan that I propose. Many of the old gamers these days who played D&D in its heyday no longer play for various reasons. Now I haven't done any statistics, but there can be no denying that things like family and job promotions, things that almost invariably get more complicated over time, are big deterrents. Having the time available to devote to a consistent campaign is difficult for a lot of the older grognards. Many have the time to play occassionally, but not on a regular basis such as the ubitquitous "weekly" campaign.
Finally, the Living Greyhawk campaign has been enormously successful, based in part on the ability of players to pick up and put down the campaign as their schedule allows. The campaign appeals to those who have lots of time because they can level their characters as quickly as they can find available games in their area. It also appeals to those with limited time because it does not require frequent participation to enjoy. At the same time there is a consistency within the campaign and a shared sense of community that players enjoy.
In summary, adventures sell, but they have a small target audience (DMs only). Collectibles sell, period. Many old players would play, but would need a game designed that was compatible with occassional play, a game that didn't require them to show up each week to an ongoing campaign. So how do all these things come together? Here's how I propose it happen.
1) To expand the audience of adventures, they ought to include collectibles that appeal to players. Adventures should include random treasure in the form of randomly assorted items, as well as random feats or spells the players can learn from parts of the adventure. For example, location A in an adventure might have a sword master who can teach characters a random martially-oriented feat while location B might contain a treasure chest with a random magic item and location C would contain a book containing a scroll of a random spell. Items would be represented and collected by players on standard-size playing cards of varying rarity schemes.
2) The game would be designed to facilitate fast combat, the longest and most involved part of the game. Rules like grappling would need to be streamlined if not overhauled completely. A basic version of the game that contains the most commonly used rules would be quite helpful for more recreational players and advanced rules should build upon the basic rules rather than supplant them. This would have the end result of making the game play faster so that more could be accomplished in a shorter amount of time. Towards this end, adventures should be designed to be completeable within a single 4 to 5 hour period. An expected play time should be listed on adventures, such as 2, 4, and 6 hours to indicate the average expected play time for the adventure. Both of these would attract older players who find the game is more accomodating to their schedule.
3) Adventures should be released as series adventures, or different levels of a dungeon. Castle Greyhawk, for example, could be released as individual levels from the three towers. This would give players a sense of continuity and shared experience. They could all talk about their experiences in Castle Ravenloft. Different adventure series could highlight different campaign settings, and grant access to different kinds of items, feats, and spells to retain setting flavor.
4) To provide variability to adventures and allow DMs the ability to customize their adventures, randomized packs of monsters and villains (and only monsters and villains) would be available for each adventure series including a number of creatures suitable for substitution within the adventure.
5) Expansion sets including items, feats, and spells serving as suitable replacements for those in the adventure would be sold. Additionally, DMs would be able to allow cards from these expansions in character building, but adventures would contain unique items that couldn't be found within the expansion sets to give people a reason to use them.
6) To improve the appeal of the collectible character building tools available, character classes should be designed to be more customizable, such as those in Star Wars. Collectible character building tools like feats and such would indicate which classes they were usable by on the card so it wouldn't be necessary to have lists like fighter bonus feats.
I think a business model like this would sell like hotcakes, as well as being incredibly fun to play. The pocketbooks of gamers might be smarting, but do you ever pay for stuff that you don't really want or at least need? MtG wouldn't sell so well if it wasn't such a fun and compelling game.
