...the REST of our gaming groups

[scadgrad]

a very fortunate DM am I

Greets gang! Good topic.

My group consists of about 6 players all in the mid 20's to late 30-something range. I am the very fortunate DM. We have an artist/univ prof (myself), a high school science teacher, a legal/insurance type, a nuclear engineer, a computer systems guy & a self-employed guy.

Out of that group I am probably the most obsessive collector though one of the guys comes in a close second. Everyone has the PHB & I believe everyone has the DMG. Maybe half of them own the MM. And most have a couple of the WotC splatbooks. There are at least 3 copies of the BoEM floating around & it is the most commonly owned d20 product. There are 2-3 of us who regularly buy d20 products. 2 of the players, though very enthusiastic players w/ over 20 years playing experience each, seem quite content with 2-3 core books & little else.

In terms of EnWorld activity, we're at about 4/6 though I think most of us simply lurk.

I think that the d20 supplements are a DM & collectors market since these are the buyers who will most directly use these products. That's still a pretty big market, but for d20 sales to climb I think the best answer is to see more gaming groups form rather than to expect existing players (ie players ONLY, not those who occasionally DM) to rush to their LGS to buy the latest Elf book or what have you. More DMs will most likely mean more d20 product sold.

JMO

 

[Ulrick]

I know the same people Victim does. When I first came to Ames I wanted to play 3e, but the group I hooked up with only want to play 2e. With good reason, the main DM had the Core Rules program and everything else it seemed on his labtop computer.

Another group runs 1e.

Last year I've started a 3e campaign that's been going strong.
Currently, I think all of the players in the group have the Player's Handbook. Three have subscriptions to Dragon. A few have splatbooks from WotC related to their character class. One was a DM and he has MM, DMG, PHB, and some splatbooks.

But mostly from what I've seen is that my group tends to stick with WotC material. I don't blame them. They play because its a hobby and have other things to do. To research third party products can take time.

I've let them page through some of the my third party material but they don't seem all that interested in it.

I've talked about Enworld but I don't think any of them have been here.

Ulrick

 

[der_kluge]

Samothdm said:

<Begin Rant>
I don't think a group can get any more casual than ours. I would love to play every week, but the others couldn't (wouldn't) possible find time for any more than once every three weeks max. On top of that, saturdays and sundays are more or less banned, since they might want to go out the night before and get drunk, and so wouldn't wanna play the next day This means that we have to play from approx. 6pm to, maybe, 11pm on a weekday, and since we usually eat together first, and about one third of the time is spent on non-rpg-related chit-chat, there is very little actual gaming going on. All in all, this really messes with any kind of campaign continuity

darklight

I gamed with some people like that - briefly.

They wanted to only game on like Thursday nights because the brother was more interested in getting drunk on the weekends, and the other brother was into his career and didn't want to stay up too late to hinder himself the next day. I didn't play with them very long.

I'm with you - find a new group.

 

[der_kluge]

I was actually pretty impressed with my group on Saturday. I told them about this thread, and then I quizzed them on which D20 publishers they could name.

The one that was our DM to begin with, could name the most, as he is the one that I would consider to be the most diehard fan among us (aside from myself, of course). Our current DM could at least name the company I write for (Thunderhead Games, now Mystic Eye Games), but that was about it.

Of the ones that he could name (in case anyone is interested) were (in no particular order):
WoTC (of course)
Mongoose
AEG
Iron Crown (which isn't listed in the publisher list here, but he was just sure that they were a publisher)
Pirate-something, which I deduced must be Privateer Press, to which he agreed.
Green Ronin
and I think he mentioned Troll Lord games as well.

So, not great, but I was glad that they could at least name a few of them.

I was going to send them a link to ENWorld's publisher page just so that they could see how far off they were!

 

[WizarDru]

All of my players read ENWorld, and most of them have all three core rulebooks. Most of them have at least one splatbook, if not all of them. The more expensive WOTC books, like the PsiHB and MotP are only owned by a few, based on curiousity and campaign need. Everyone has the Epic Level Handbook, and this was immediately bolstered by my annoucement that I would extend the game into the Epic levels, if everyone was interested in doing so (and they were ).

My players tend not to buy 3rd party d20 products because of the uncertainty that I'll allow the material. One former player tended to browse the material, and then ask if I'd allow a particular piece of information (such as a PrC). If I said 'No', then he wouldn't buy it.

Generally speaking, my feelings are that Sword & Sorcery actually harmed the burgeoning d20 market, not the other way around. Yes, they were first, and yes, they got some good sales early on...but most of the folks I game with didn't see the quality there. While I think that S&SS has released some good material, a large portion of the d20 material (especially the early releases) were poorly balanced and rushed. Therefore, many swore off anything but modules and campaign settings for that reason.


The trick here is so-called 'casual' gamers need to want to desire new releases to maximize their enjoyment of the game. If the player only wants to show up and play (which is a valid and potentially rewarding style of play), then they're not going to be waiting at the WOTC store, waiting for the UPS boxes to be opened. It's as simple as that.

In our case, my players accomadate my schedule necessities (which is that we have two children and we all have full time day jobs). Hence, our games are usually Friday or Saturday from 8PM to 1AM, with a little allowance in either direction. I take it as a vote of confidence that my players are willing to work under those hours to play.

 

[Davelozzi]

Great topic. I have a group that includes myself (DM) and nine players (in two groups for now). Of everyone, I'd say only one (maybe two) of those guys consider themselves gamers, although they're mostly into computer games rather than pen & paper, outside of my campaign. These two guys share an apartment and own one PHB between them, one also owns a Psionics Handbook and a set of dice and the other owns a copy of Relics & Rituals, although he just bought it to have access to extra spells and he generally leaves it at my place anyway. The first guy has his own website and has created a section of it devoted to my campaign, but he just posts stuff that I send him. Of my other players, two own PHBs and the the remaining five own nothing, although one is my wife, so she has access to my gaming library, which is substantial (21/2 bookshelves worth). Oh yeah, my wife also has her own set of dice.

I actually was pleasantly surprised with this situation. In past campaigns, I was generally the only one with any materials. In fact during the 2e era, I had to buy a second copy of the core books so that we weren't constantly passing them around during play.

I always considered this fairly normal, so I was kind of surprised a few years ago when WotC started changing their focus to produce more products aimed at players. Of course it makes sense, but I always just took it as a given that the RPG industry was supported 95% by GMs.

I've talked about this site with my players a little. I don't think any of them ever come here, although one of them will read an occasional thread of interest if I point it out.

 

[der_kluge]

So... based on the feedback here, I'm curious if anyone has any ideas as to what kinds of books or products players would be interested in? It seems that 90% of gamers are just casual PHB-only kinds of gamers that have no interest in purchasing products beyond that.

Aside from dice, of course.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

Books for the less-than-motivated

The first thing I can think of off the top of my head is a sort of PHB-Lite -- something that covers the basics and provides important tables, in something like 32 or maybe 64 softbounds pages. My players didn't want to dump $20 (it's up to $25 now, right?) on a book right away, but they might have spent 5 or 7.50 on a handbook that covered the basics.

If you stick to mostly summaries and tables from the PHB you could make this work, but as much as this might help, I don't know if it makes publishing sense -- I mean, how much can you make on a book like that, and how much is it going to interfere with the discounted PHB sales.

The other thing that might help for groups that are much more interested in role playing is a setting-lite book -- skip the rules and just focus on least the players need to know about the world their characters live in. Could you summarize FR in 32 pages? I think it could be done, and that might be a useful tool, but I still don't know if players would actually buy it.

But there is another option -- a couple of my players are just not motivated to do much reading outside of the game. They're there to have a good time, etc. Give them a handout and it doesn't get read. But they just might sit back and watch a 20 minute video about the game.

That may be totally nuts to think about, but it would be interesting to see a sort of DVD product that would provide short 5-10 minute films on how to play each of the classes, some of the basics of the game, and then some material on the settings.

You'd want to sell it pretty cheap. Maybe make it something other than a DVD, a CD-rom maybe, so they would have to watch it on their computer, that might reach more people. But that might provide a way to get information about the game and the setting to the more uncommitted players in form they might actually digest.

It needn't be live-action. Characters could be represented by iconic minis. The other graphics on the page could focus on the character sheet, some art, and maybe a few details from the PHB.

-rg

 

[WizarDru]

So... based on the feedback here, I'm curious if anyone has any ideas as to what kinds of books or products players would be interested in? It seems that 90% of gamers are just casual PHB-only kinds of gamers that have no interest in purchasing products beyond that.

Aside from dice, of course.

Then I guess you and I came away from this discussion with different impressions. I'd also not try and garner an opinion about the whole of the gaming community from the limited feedback here. Heck, even if the entire ENWorld community replied, it still would be a small non-random sample of the gaming community at large.

My experience with my current group and other groups runs exactly counter to your conclusion, and this has usually been true for my gaming experiences for decades. Which is no more indicative than your conclusion, of course, which is my point.