Hey all,
I’ve been listening to the debate about price, and I thought I’d toss my 2 cents in. For certain, you should discount my 2 cents to 1 cent, because I’ve clearly got an interest in seeing this project fund.
So please, pocket one of those pennies with a grain of salt and mix in a few other metaphors while you’re at it. But here is how I got to thinking when Frog God told me how they’d need to price Razor Coast.
Fair warning: Big Azz Post Ahead. Sorry. Lot of thoughts. On the other hand, this shares a lot of how Razor Coast is designed and what it is and isn’t. So maybe that’s worth trudging through this [pxxt]. Edit: essay.
When FGG told me about the pricing, I tried to make apples and apples in my head by comparing game play. Razor Coast is really a slightly abbreviated Adventure Path plus sandbox, setting-lite combined into one. For the exercise on which I’m about to embark, lets start with Paizo's Skull and Shackles, but imagine it has enough Golarion to ground a setting-newbie.
So, walk with me here: Skull and Shackles gets you from 1st to 13th. Four of those volumes take you from 4th to 11th. By comparison, Razor Coast goes from 5th to 12th. It covers about the same level progression as four volumes.
For certain, four volumes of the Skull and Shackles AP includes more pages than Razor Coast. No doubt. No argument, but there are a couple of reasons for that. The first is: Paizo is Paizo. They write BIG! So, lets give credit where credit is due.
That said, they include ecology and other material. Razor Coast uses part of one chapter and an appendix to deliver straight setting exposition. The rest of the setting is dolloped in with sidebars throughout the book and built into the backstories of nearly every NPC. The design goal was to establish enough setting for GMs to riff like mad. In other words, we built a jazz band instead of a symphony orchestra.
Riff this into your home campaign. Snap it into Golarion. Put it anywhere. Yes, I know most of us do that with the material we buy. But as designers, we were thinking about you doing that while we wrote and revised Razor Coast.
If we did our game designer job, Razor Coast should be easier to adapt. A lot easier. It’s a tough balance to strike – set enough in stone to be clear and valuable, hold back at just the right moments to give the GM room to contribute in a significant way. It’s like trying to collaborate with someone not in the room, but it also means we don’t have to write as much straight setting material. More adventure.
And a different sort of Adventure beast, too. Let’s talk about that. Paizo is the master of story. No doubt. Since Kingmaker it seems they’ve also been introducing greater and greater non-linearity. I’m a fan! At what they do, Paizo is king.
Razor Coast is close, but it isn’t quite the same beast as an adventure path, so it’s a little harder to compare. It’s got everything you need to play it exactly like an adventure path, just from 5th to 12th. On top of that, all the stretch goal material will plug right in as if it had been in the main book from the start. I think that’s pretty cool.
However, Razor Coast is also a toolkit. It’s got sections that say, “put stuff in here” but also say, “stuff like this, or this, and think about re-purposing this, that way…” Or, “Plug those supplemental stretch goal adventures in here.”
More significantly, it’s organized into interconnected encounters. Shuffle them this way and get one story. Shuffle them another way and get a different story. Approach that set of encounters when you share the aims and values of the newcomer’s fighting for the frontier, and the encounters play out one way. Come at them looking to defend the indigenous people from the depredations of the uncaring? The same encounters play out differently -- and lead to different follow-on encounters. Come at the same situations as uncaring mercenaries out for yourselves? It plays out differently again.
In short, we just designed Razor Coast designed to deliver more adventure with less pages.
Assuming we did our jobs right and it works – ultimately only you can judge that – I have to confess: boy would it suck to get penalized for succeeding at packing more playability into fewer pages! Irony. Look it up in the dictionary, it says “see irony.”
I hope what I wrote just now actually explains more than it confuses. I’m always happy to answer questions, but here is one example that may clarify. After that I want to compare those numbers.
Here’s something from Chapter 2 – Build an Adventure Path: the bulk of Chapter 2 is divided by level. When you go to the section that matches the level of your party, one of the things you find is a list of adventure opportunities.
My PCs are 7th level. It says here they can (changed to avoid spoilers)…
Take down a vicious, drug dealer who is halfway to being the next mayor
Rescue a child from the clutches of the boogey man
Stop the nefarious Sebastian from transforming this into a My Little Pony campaign
and more and more and more…
And under each adventure option? The list of encounters, hooks, rumors, and everything else the GM needs to know to understand how that adventure opportunity starts, runs, and fits into the main plot arcs in the book. And how all the adventure opportunities relate and connect to each other. And how they play into the major NPCs of the campaign.
In short, GMs sit down to prep and get to think, “What can my player’s do right now that might interest them?” then assemble the answer from encounters found in different parts of the book. Or just say, "Heck – my players want to go right for one of the (somewhat) more linear main plot arcs. Let’s just do that." And the GM don't have to plan past that or prep more than that -- but they can if they want. All the complexity is baked in. You can trust the adventure to take you from there, just by choosing the kind of adventure you like.
The design goal was short prep time for GMs without sacrificing depth, complexity or player-driven adventuring. So, if we did our design jobs right...
Again, I hope I’m explaining and not confusing. But Razor Coast is a slightly different beastie than a straight AP, and the only way I can think to explain is it packs more arrangements of adventure into fewer pages because of it.
Ok, numbers. I said I’d talk about numbers.
1. For game play I see Razor Coast as equivalent to 4 volumes of something like the Skull and Shackles AP. They both get you from about 5th – 12th level (4th to 11th, same diff, right?). Paizo charges $79.96 for that, plus shipping.
Taste’s Great: But it’s hardcover, its worth more!
Less Filling: But its fewer pages!
Taste’s Great: But FGG pays American printers who sew every 16 pages into packets and then sew the packets together with the hardback cover to create a textbook quality finished product that will last for years. USA! USA!
Less Filling:: But there’s a subscriber discount.
Taste’s Great: But 12th is more XP than 11th...
Call it even? Everyone will have to decide how all that balances out for themselves, obviously.
2. The Player’s Guide is 64pp. That’s about 2 player companions. Paizo charges $21.98
3. Paizo sells their PDFs at about 69.98% of a print book. For our imaginary 4 volumes AP that’s $55.96 for the main book and $15.98 for the player companions.
4. Check my math, but that totals $173.88 for what I believe is comparable game play, set against FGG’s $140 (the $110 deckhand level plus the $30 Player’s Guide).
I could be wrong thinking this way. I really mean that. Frankly, I’ve been so far up Razor Coast’s stern for so long it’s hard to be unbiased. Heck, it’s hard to be unbiased about anything you’ve had a hand in writing, editing, developing, art directing, proofing...
5. Oh wait. What about the character sheets? You get those when you back the FGG kickstarter. How much are they worth?
6. Then there’s the sandbox design and replayability, I shared. That means different things to different people. What price do we put on something like that? I’m not even sure how to figure it. But the book will physically last through multiple plays, I can guarantee that much.
7. Getting Nick’s work out there again. I don’t know how to price that.
8. Or fixing the whole stupid, painful, horrible Razor Coast debacle by making sure the community of pre-order folk can do absolutely nothing more than the amazing, amazing thing they’ve already done: offer support and keep the faith. And they get back a 250+ page book for their 30-odd 2008 dollars. Man, I want to see that. I want the closure of knowing people Got. Their. Books. And now we're into American Express credit card territory, because for me? That's priceless. It’s what I’m here for.
9. And last but not least – have to walk carefully here so I don’t get Frog whupped again – there is a lot of excellent value coming in the stretch and bonus goals. Uh oh. Something dark and squamous shadowed my window. Better stop talking about that now.
10. Ahg, I almost forgot. FGG's $140 includes free shipping for Razor Coast and the Player’s Guide in the US, and they apply that amount to international shipping. So add about $8 to the Paizo side of costs, I figure?
Anyway, for what its worth, that’s how I saw the value equation.
Hope that helped.
PS Frog whupped involves a monstrous slimy tongue. Not fun.