New adventures from Wizards - policy reversal!!!

[Doctor Futurity]

I am very pleased to see this decision; I don't run Forgotten Realms, for example, but my co-GM does, and he only uses published resources, so we've been trapped in 1st and 2nd edition conversions for years now. I love Eberron, and think it needs module support to aid in a progressive world development of the storyline.

My suspicion is that Wizards figured out that the D20 3rd party publishers have been going with the exact same strategy that they were pursuing: the big hardbacks and core books are the money-makers, the modules not so much so. Consequently, very few modules now being done, but plenty of big fat books out there. Too many, in fact. What a weird reversal!

Still, I love those Goodman Games Dungeon Crawl Classics. Encore!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Good news; let's hope the quality of the adventures are up to it.

I think it's important for WOTC to produce adventures. Since they tend to have such a wide distribution, they provide a shared experience across a wide spectrum of gamers. Look at the number of folks who have posted here with good stories and common experience from Keep on the Borderlands, or Isle of Dread, or Sunless Citadel. I think it's important to continue that, even if only a handful of adventures are published each year.

Personally, I'd like to see a couple of level 1-20 campaign compilations, perhaps in a hard cover. But whatever -- adventures are my favorite product.

 

[DaveMage]

The first adventure path series was a mixed bag. Hopefully the quality will be higher all around. I'd like to see them produce larger adventures, and eventually do Undermountain complete.

 

[dargoth3]

hmm

I wonder if this just means more modules for Eberron, or will other WOTC settings get modules to?

 

[MerricB]

My guess would be Eberron (mainly), then Generic followed by Forgotten Realms.

Cheers!

 

[Steel_Wind]

My guess would be Eberron (mainly), then Generic followed by Forgotten Realms.

Cheers!

Reading about WotC's belief that "many buckets" and fragmenting worlds contributed to the death of TSR, it is not surprising that they have shied away from crafting adventures and focussing only on Rules.

I expect this decision has more to do with the observation that there is simply only so much CRUNCH one can sell to a given market. Their consumers have reached the point of Crunch exhaustion.

How many rule books can you sell?

But whatever the case, I expect WotC will concentrate on only 1 world - possibly 2 to develop adventures for - if indeed - they make any which are setting specific.

 

[Rauol_Duke]

I have to agree that I have more variant races, feats, prestige classes, etc. than I or my players will ever use. Adventures, I could use more of...

I hope that WotC will publish adventures that are worthwhile. While I can see the usefulness in publishing adventures designed for a specific setting, I hope that the majority of them are generic in nature, or at least adaptable.

 

[the Jester]

*Renews hope for Return to the Barrier Peaks*

 

[Banshee16]

"Wizards of the Coast is planning to put out more adventures in the future, as there has been a perceived reduction in publication of them in the d20 market. They said they had shied off from putting out many adventures in the past, as there were many d20 publishers putting them out. But with a reduction in the number of adventures being produced lately, this is an area where they feel they can provide service by re-filling that niche."
- from Gaming Report article

Wow! Fantastic!

Now, all they need are some decent adventures...

Cheers!

This is a good thing.....not nearly enough good adventures out there. Hopefully, a mixture of some small ones, as well as bigger monster-modules, like Return to the Tome of Horrors and Dead Gods..

Banshee

 

[RFisher]

Sunless Citadel was the 1st Wizards module for 3E - you'd really have to look at sales figures of the later modules and compare them.

Yeah, but I figure The Sunless Citadel put the kibosh on sales for later modules.

I think if WotC (or anyone else, really) wants to have any decent success selling adventures they have to:

1. Recognize that different people want different things from adventures.
2. Figure out how to categorize & identify those differences.
3. Market the adventures based on those categories.

If a third of the market wants type A adventures; a third, type B; & a third, type C. If you publish a type A adventure without identifying it as type A--making it clear that it might not be for everybody--pretending that one size fits all, then you've just discouraged two thirds of your market from buying future adventures from you, even though they might be type B or C. Then the people who liked the type A get annoyed when they buy the next one & its a type B.