Niche Products, Take 2

[d20books]

OK, all the publishers want to know what my customers and I are looking for.

Here is a compiled list from 30 people who gave a damn to respond

1. Solid and Complete books. Sure, it's 300 pages and $40, but it is better than getting involved in an entire line of books that could be hit or miss. Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous is an example. Atlas Games' Nyambe is a particular favorite. I've said it, and the phrase seems to be getting around, "Nyambe should be considered a template for all other source materials of its kind." I've sent email to Chris Dolunt to encourage him to do other fantasy culture books like Nyambe. Middle East? India? Australian Aboriginy? How about Native American (North American) or South American cultures? I know that there is already an "Oriental Adventures" but isn't it just a primer for Rokugan?

2. Creative books. I'm tired of picking up a book and finding material in there I could have thought up on my own. I want stuff that smacks me as brilliant. If I open the book and read it, I don't want to be thinking, "uh huh, uh huh, been there, done that." I want to open the book and go, "Whoa. That's amazing. I wish I would have thought of that!" This is one of the reasons that the Legends and Lairs books keep growing their space on my shelves. Sure, it isn't ALL good, but it sure beats some of the other lines.

3. D20 System Errata. One of the things that keeps me coming back to Malhavoc is the fact that they produce material that is designed to "fix" issues people might have with the basic rules. I don't know why publishers seem to shy away from this. If ONE person sees the problem, aren't there others of like mind?

4. Hard covers. Sure, this makes the book more expensive, but it really makes the book more enjoyable to read. If you build books from suggestion #1, I would hope the would have hardcovers. This is prohibitive to small books, but if you read between the lines of #1, we want big beefy and complete books.

I know that my customers, friends, and I might be out of the ordinary. Maybe we aren't. I guess that's why I'm posting this, so people can be heard and publishers will put out stuff I want to buy (and sell).

Jeff Pawlowski
http://www.d20books.com

 

[d20books]

Nice beefy books

I forgot to mention Monkey God Enterprises' "From Stone to Steel" as another big beefy book that everyone in our group has on pre-order.

It is that type of researched and broad spectrum book that makes the other weapon books pale.

 

[Mangrum]

3. D20 System Errata. One of the things that keeps me coming back to Malhavoc is the fact that they produce material that is designed to "fix" issues people might have with the basic rules. I don't know why publishers seem to shy away from this. If ONE person sees the problem, aren't there others of like mind?

For Ravenloft, we have Ask Azalin, a forum dedicated to answering gamers' questions about various rules and issues in our books, including errata issues. It's our equivalent of Sage Advice, and some of the issues readers have raised there have influenced later books.

 

[jmucchiello]

3. D20 System Errata. One of the things that keeps me coming back to Malhavoc is the fact that they produce material that is designed to "fix" issues people might have with the basic rules. I don't know why publishers seem to shy away from this. If ONE person sees the problem, aren't there others of like mind?

Well, I certainly don't. Chapter 1 of Joe's Book of Enchantment contains several "what's wrong with magic" observations and proposes fixes. Chapter 2: New uses for Skills complains that spotting that you are being scried is a Scry check, a trained, exclusive skill. Why can't a fighter by levels of Scry on a cross-class basis. I think it would be interesting for the high-warlord type to know when he's being scried. That chapter also includes a variant new skill to handle giving conflicting commands to someone with multiple charms on him. The standards rules are, IMO, insufficient in a game with lots of charms, say a Deryni style game.

The real reason you don't see a lot of this is that large systems that need replacing are easier to deal with by using a different game system. Small things are hard to make a whole book about. So they are buried inside books about other things (such as my examples above).

EN-Publishing has Elements of Magic: a replacement spell system for people who don't like the Vancian spell system. There are other alternate spell systems. There are systems for gaining feats with XP. I think there are plenty of system tweaking books. Mongoose's ultimate game design book sounds like what you want, too.

My own Character Customization (still not done yet) twists and pulls at the threads of class creation. Someone could use it to make a classless system backward compatible with D&D if they put the effort into it. (I don't want to delay the book until 2005 (and such an idea was never my intention) so I not doing it.)

 

[Havilor]

Many thanks for your mention of From Stone to Steel. As the project went along I had some dark moments where I wanted to just break it into 3 separate books, especially when I had to tackle the Far East, which had a crippling diversity of items and themes. But I had this dream of a comprehensive sourcebook that embraced its core focus, rather than shy away from it. And each time I felt overwhelmed I'd remind myself that what I was doing was unprecidented and beyond the call. I hated not making the original deadline for this book, but I really believe that the extra time gave me the chance to refine a lot of my mechanics and statistics. The book was a lot of work, but I think it really provides an incredible amount in return.

That said, I really hope you like it!

 

[d20books]

From Stone to Steel

THIS book is what I want in source material.

It is the comprehensive materials that find their way onto my shelf.

I'm a games dealer. I can pick ANYTHING I WANT to put on my shelves. I'm not limited to availability or the whims of the FLGS (mostly not so friendly).

As a dealer, I'm not really that limited to price either.

When you can pick and pull what you want when the only factors are the type of material and the intellectual value, with disregard for availability or price, only the blazing suns shine.

No disrespect to all the Electronic Books out there, but I almost NEVER buy PDFs. I know there is some amazing material out there, but I want real paper in my hands.

 

[jmucchiello]

Re: From Stone to Steel

No disrespect to all the Electronic Books out there, but I almost NEVER buy PDFs. I know there is some amazing material out there, but I want real paper in my hands.

Yeah, but with a print out you not only have paper on your hands but ink too.

Seriously, have you considered working with RPGMall.com to get access to stuff no other retailer has. While my book isn't available there yet, there are a lot of good e-books there available as Print On Demand. And retailers get discounts.

 

[rpghost]

Re: Re: From Stone to Steel

Seriously, have you considered working with RPGMall.com to get access to stuff no other retailer has. While my book isn't available there yet, there are a lot of good e-books there available as Print On Demand. And retailers get discounts.

Thanks for the plug This is exactly the point of www.RPGMall.com ... to get small publisher books in the hands of dealers (online or FLGS). Give publishers who can't get sold through the major distribution channels a chance to be sold on the shelves of the gaming stores. We don't have any minimum orders and the publishers set their own "wholesale" pricing.

http://www.RPGMall.com/retailer.php

Our instructions say we need a picture of your store for you to qualify, but the point of that is to prove you're a reseller and not just some book junky. So we'd accept online stores.

James
Minion Development Corp.

P.S. For the next month we'll be giving away free books from RPGObjects, Bastion Press, Gold Rush Games, SSDC and more just for placing an order with us!

 

[Nellisir]

I know that there is already an "Oriental Adventures" but isn't it just a primer for Rokugan?

No.

If it was, why would the Rokugan book present revised versions of several core classes (samurai and ninja)? Why bother including varana, hengeyokai, spirit folk, korobokuru, sohei, or wu jen, none of which are used in Rokugan?

Why isn't Rokugan mentioned on the cover?

Oriental Adventures is a "tool-kit" sort of book for asian fantasy. It uses Rokugan as a default campaign setting, and presents a bare-bones overview of that setting, but it's not devoted to Rokugan, it doesn't require any Rokugan material, and it's certainly not just a "primer". Nyambe, a similar product, is useful and interesting, but less flexible, less innovative, and more oriented towards a single campaign setting. IMO.

Personally, I think OA is the most overlooked book on WotC's bookshelf. It goes beyond the Chinese/Japanese cultural obsession that frankly, never interested me and actually makes an attempt to be truly asian in scope (monkey creatures and races, ie varana, are a staple of southeast asian folklore, much moreso than in Japan or China). It's a PHB and MM bundled into one. And it gets routinely dismissed as "oh, yeah. That's that Rokugan book WotC did".

Argh
Nell.
Who doesn't run any kind of asian setting, but REALLY wants the OA-SRD before Epic or ANYTHING!

 

[d20books]

Oriental Adventures

I would have normally agreed with you about Oriental Adventures, but there is a bunch of material in Oriental Adventures that is directed specifically for Rokugan.

I have also experienced Nyambe: African Adventures, and have something truly comparative to hold up against Oriental Adventures. My opinion of Oriental Adventures, thus, is not as high as it once was.

As a result, I'm more disappointed with Oriental Adventures and wished there was something else out there. Considering that the Oriental Adventures is WotC, not many publishers would be willing to do such a book.

If there was a new Oriental Adventures put out by Chris Dolunt, I would not hesitate to pick it up. Actually, I would not hesitate to pick up any new non-adventure material by Chris Dolunt.