Ashrem Bayle
Explorer
ehren37 said:
It was five unpainted and unassembled metal drow minis for $25.00. That's ludicrous.
Perhaps a less insane approach would have yielded a better result.
Return of Boxed Sets?
- Thread starter Ashrem Bayle
- Start date
It was five unpainted and unassembled metal drow minis for $25.00. That's ludicrous.
Perhaps a less insane approach would have yielded a better result.
Jefe Bergenstein
Legend
Ashrem Bayle said:
The basic game can largely be looked at as a loss leader. You didnt get enough information to really run the game, and the rules were somewhat different than a players handbook. They sold it cheaper to get people to buy into D&D as a whole. And judging from the number of these suckers I've seen at bargain bins and half priced books, it didnt sell all that well either.
I'm well aware of the cost it takes to make minis. And maps. And DVD's etc. And how companies sell items that cost pennies to make at incredible markups.
Jefe Bergenstein
Legend
Ashrem Bayle said:
I'll also give you that they were incredibly poorly cast and made of brittle porous metal. However you will note that drow are among the most popular monster races out there, and that this miniature and game had a book tie in by RA Salvatore. It tanked, and tanked hard. So its not completely useless as evidence of how something will turn out. The continuation of the icons line is heavily tied to how well the Drizzt/Icingdeath pack sells. WOTC seems somewhat leery of breaking the 30-40 dollar price point for supplemental materials.
Ashrem Bayle
Explorer
ehren37 said:
Maybe it's just me, but I'm not sure the world loves drow as much as WOTC loves drow. And maybe that's the problem here.
It stands to reason that sets that feature non-drow minis would sell better simply because not everyone features drow in every adventure they run.
Jefe Bergenstein
Legend
Ashrem Bayle said:
From what I understand, RA Salvatore books routinely make best seller lists. I dont know if the players handbook has, but sales of drow/drizzt related books arent exactly an imagined phenomenon. SOMEONE is buying em.
I'm personally not a huge fan myself, since their society is often depicted as incredibly unrealistic and a cartoonish cariciature of villainy. But its not like WOTC is just catering to a few vocal fans if they crank out drow related items.
Ashrem Bayle
Explorer
ehren37 said:
The problem is that so many of the people buying those books don't play the game. So they may be slobbering drow fans, but why would they pay $25 for a set of 5 unpainted minis that they'll never do anything with?
For those to sell, the customer has to be:
A D&D player.
Love drow
Decide that just any unpainted elf mini won't do, they must be official drow.
Be willing to pay $25 for them.
Be willing/have time to paint them.
Be stupid...
So you can see why they didn't sell well. It was for an uber-niche. They'd have been better off trying to sell Drizzt Breakfast Cereal.
Oh no... I hope WOTC doesn't read that last part... :\
Mercule said:
Actually, yes I did. Mainly because when I have a family get together it's nice to have something simple to break out and play with my brothers and sisters and their spouses.[*] And I thought I'd use it with some of the kiddies, but I'll probably end up buying a 5e version of the Basic set by the time my son or any of my nieces and nephews are ready to learn to play the game.
However, that's not quite what I'm talking about for this kind of product. The tiles in the Basic Set aren't generic enough to be useful for this type of game - I'd want something more like a set of the Dungeon Tiles with corridors, rooms of a few different sizes, some doors, statues, etc. And I'd prefer it if the monsters picked for miniatures were the "good" monsters - some fun distinctive-looking monsters and not just a bunch of orcs, kobolds and the like - that's what the tokens would be for (the small blue dragon in the Basic set is a nice touch, though). Also, the box would need to focus much more on an adventure setting, and not so much on "here's how you play".
[*] Shockingly, I've never been able to get my parents to sit for a D&D session. Amusingly, though, my little brother who hated role-playing in general and always kind of fit the "jock" sterotype ended up marrying a gamer. Let me tell you, playing D&D at Christmas is much, much more fun than playing Monopoly, which is what we used to play before everyone started marrying gamers...
$60 might be a bit high, but I would consider it for what was listed. At least some of the miniatures would have to be for monsters that were more interesting than Orcs and Kobolds, though. I could see having a number of miniatures that were re-used throughout the long adventure. After all, you don't need a different guardsman mini for the different guards, even if they have different stats.
The adventure would have to be a solid one, though. I would not spend that kind of money on a dungeon-crawl type adventure. It would have to include solid roleplaying, puzzles, and variety. It would need to be something that would keep my interest as a GM and my players' interest as well.
As far as the Spider Queen minis, I had not even heard of them. I wasn't interested in the War of the Spider Queen adventure, myself, since I'm not a big fan of Drow in general. I did like the early Drizzt books, but I haven't read any of the recent ones. I would not even consider spending $25 on 5 unpainted metal drow minis. I prefer prepainted plastic miniatures, as they do not have the assembly problems, hold up well, and do not require my time and limited talent to paint them.
I also think that it would sell better as a Box Set. I personally would be unlikely to purchase the miniatures or the maps for the adventure on their own unless they looked like a very good value on their own. However, if I were looking at the overall adventure with miniatures and maps, I would be much more likely to buy them all in a bundle.
The adventure would have to be a solid one, though. I would not spend that kind of money on a dungeon-crawl type adventure. It would have to include solid roleplaying, puzzles, and variety. It would need to be something that would keep my interest as a GM and my players' interest as well.
As far as the Spider Queen minis, I had not even heard of them. I wasn't interested in the War of the Spider Queen adventure, myself, since I'm not a big fan of Drow in general. I did like the early Drizzt books, but I haven't read any of the recent ones. I would not even consider spending $25 on 5 unpainted metal drow minis. I prefer prepainted plastic miniatures, as they do not have the assembly problems, hold up well, and do not require my time and limited talent to paint them.
I also think that it would sell better as a Box Set. I personally would be unlikely to purchase the miniatures or the maps for the adventure on their own unless they looked like a very good value on their own. However, if I were looking at the overall adventure with miniatures and maps, I would be much more likely to buy them all in a bundle.
TwinBahamut
First Post
I would be interested in a Boxed Set kind of adventure module, but I probably wouldn't bother with it if it included miniatures and miniature scale maps... It would increase the price too much, for something that I don't feel is necessary. However, having adventure materials organized in a more useable format than a hardbound book would be useful enough for me to get a boxed set.
TwinBahamut said:
Actually, if you're not including the minis there's no need for a box at all. The "folio" format like they used for the Slaughtergarde adventure last year works great for bundling together a diverse group of books and maps. Those should be doable for a price much cheaper than a boxed set.
I kind of wish they'd gone this route for the big "campaign adventures" in the "Expedition to..." line. A book with the encounters in the new "encounter format" separate from the room-by-room writeups would make the new encounter format easier to use.
