Suggestion for OGL publishers

[danbuter1]

Buy the MM1. Make a list of all the missing iconic/non-trademark monsters. Publish them in a book in the fall. You'll sell a bunch .

Edit: to what I meant. Arrgghhh

 

[Ashardalon]

That sounds more like a recipe to disaster than a great business plan, unless you want 3rd party publishers to fail... :\

Buy the MM1.

Here you're asking the publishers to make an unneccesary purchase. First off, there'll be a SRD, free of charge. Publishers can (and should) use that. Early in the d20 movement, some people have gone so far to suggest that publishers should throw away their core books, in fact, to make sure that the pubilshers don't involuntarily use closed content from them.

Make a list of all the iconic/non-trademark monsters.

Not needed when you use the SRD.

Publish them in a book in the fall.

The monsters on the list? A tad vague, but in the end, also not very good advice. Unless there is an added value to the book(s!), be it better indexing, organizing, art, or anything else, there is no reason to purchase such a product over either the original MM or simply using the SRD yourself. Add to this that your advice calls out to multiple publishers to take this approach, these publishers not only compete against the original products, but also against the copies from the other publishers. In the end, most people will go with the brand name because that is what they know.

A better advice would be to take the SRD, look at what gaps exist with regards to traditional monsters, and provide those monsters.

 

[delericho]

Buy the MM1. Make a list of all the iconic/non-trademark monsters. Publish them in a book in the fall. You'll sell a bunch .

I think Necromancer have already announced that they're doing that, or something very close to that. Certainly, they're planning a "Tome of Horrors 4e".

 

[Ashardalon]

I think Necromancer have already announced that they're doing that, or something very close to that. Certainly, they're planning a "Tome of Horrors 4e".

Well, I'd be glad if I misread danbutler1 so much that your reading (and thus my suggestion) is actually what he meant. It would make much more sense.

 

[Lackhand]

Well played

Isn't this a form of planned obsolescence, though? These are monsters which we *know* wizards is going to republish later. And, if their meaning of core is at all similar to mine, they'll find themselves in the SRD in one way or another. And be more "official", anyway.

I haven't bought any third-party monster books; heck, I've stuck entirely to core/home-brewing new monsters when I needed them. Did this (meaning pre-publishing a monster that was omitted from MM I) happen a lot in 3.X?
What were sales like, especially after the "more official" books were published?

I'd bet it'd work, but those'd be good things to look at.

 

[dmccoy1693]

A better advice would be to take the SRD, look at what gaps exist with regards to traditional monsters, and provide those monsters.

The creature collection did this with 3.0's launch (even had it out before the MM came out) and greatly expanded hag. This is a much better idea.

Really, why wait for the MM's launch to begin work? The SRD will be available to (a few, select, lucky) publishers before the launch. Why not publish a MM that comes out before the 4E MM? Why wait until the fall? Why not look at MM4 and MM5 and figure out what monsters have been generally ignored and have freelancers begin work now coming up with their own variations on those ignored monsters? No the 3rd party publishers can't come up with the crunch right now, but no one's stopping them with writing fluff or coming up with outlines.

 

[The_Universe]

Tome of Horrors 3e is still one of my favorite books, and it did exactly what you're talking about...albeit spread over almost all previous editions of the game, rather than just 2e (or 3e, in your example).

Even though a good number of the same monsters were eventually "officially" updated in MM2, I continued to use most of the stuff from Tome of Horrors.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Also add things like 'iconic foes' to it. Ophidians, Chaostouched frog-like beings, psionic thrallmasters... Mouseferatu did that, and I wish the OGL nature of these critters would have been employed more often.

If a book can provide such material with a MM1-like quality, then the publisher could set a new standard, at least in production value. We still speak highly of the Tome of Horrors!

Cheers, LT.

 

[kenmarable]

Someone somewhere will do it.

If WotC is holding off on certain monsters to include in MM2, etc. (such as the frost giant that was mentioned in the latest podcast) that were in the 3.x SRD, someone will make 4e versions of them. In fact, I bet a lot of people will make their own "fan" versions of them, but some publisher will make an actual book or pdf and probably make a good amount of money. Planned obsolescence doesn't matter when most books see few sales more than 6 months out.

But you'd only get to make this product once (since it's just a filling the gap transition product) and you'd have to either be the only one doing it or be both earlier and better than anyone else doing it or else the 6 month or so shelf-life would get dramatically shorter.

 

[WhatGravitas]

Planned obsolescence doesn't matter when most books see few sales more than 6 months out.

Especially, if you take into account, that the initial print run is usually the most profitable one. As far as I know, the first month are the most profitable ones, afterwards, you only get occasional buys. Toss in other original and good monsters, or a heap of good conversions (like ToH), and you're done. And (re-)established yourself as A-grade publisher.

Sounds like a good deal for me, if you can pull it off.

Cheers, LT.