The Supplement Treadmill vs. The Alternatives

[Dannyalcatraz]

You know, I mentioned Green Ronin's brilliant game Spaceship Zero earlier tonight, and someone said "it's a shame it didn't get more support." The same complaint was heard with Call of Cthulhu d20, a book that was designed to be a complete unit. There's a perceived vigor in a product line that continues to publish supplements, and I think that people are reluctant to buy from "dead" product lines.

I was the poster who lamented that Spaceship Zero got no support. I thought the game was good, and had there been supplements in the stores, I'd have purchased them.

It had nothing to do with "dead" product lines- I simply will not buy .pdfs.

That said, other than the "supplement treadmill" I can only think of a few ways to keep an RPG game companies in business (and each has its own problems):

1) Publish new games. NASCAR RPG anyone?

2) Publish new settings for old rulesets. Technically, these are not supplements, and would probably sell almost as well as supplements if each setting introduced modular rules tweeks (as in new feats, new races, new spells). In this world, not only would WotC have produced Greyhawk, FR, DL, Eberron, Rokugan, Ravenloft, Maztica, etc., you'd also see them do stuff from their other games (like Dominaria, Everwhere, or Primal Order) and licenced products from extant fiction (Conan? LotR? Deryini?).

3) Publish rules conversion books (either from old rules to new, or other game systems to yours & back again).

4) Publish a "house-organ" magazine.

5) Publish an industry-wide magazine.

6) Produce game aids: maps, cardboard minis/chits (SJG's Cardboard Heroes), metal or plastic minis, Character background generators (TFG's Central Casting) and the like.

7) Make something collectible, especially if it ties into one of your core games. Imagine, if you will, that WotC published no spells in the PHB, but instead made the spells only available as collectible cards...(WotC, I hope your 4Ed designers are NOT listening)

8) Make your product just fragile enough to need replacing every few years. (Booooo! Hisssss!)

9) Produce spin-off products. Space: 1889 had a boardgame, Sky Galleons of Mars. Going the other direction, Battletech spawned MechWarrior. Many games have minis combat games associated with them, but it's not a universally viable option. Some games have moved into the MMORPG world, though more often than not, they've been preceeded by computer games inspired by their core product. Some (unfortunately) have even had movies made based on their games.

10) Publish rules updates/revisions/new editions on a relatively regular schedule.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I do think there is a middle ground of a slower release rate. I like that we get a few Eberron books a year. I think it is a good pace and we get the extra material the fans want but not the over abundance that can drive fans nutty.

The funny thing is I am sure you will find some people who think that the material isn't coming out fast enough!

You're never going to please everyone unfortunately.

Note: I don't collect any Eberron books so I can't say personally whether or not they are coming out too quickly or not.

Olaf the Stout

 

[Olaf the Stout]

In response to the OP, I don't understand people complaining about the amount of supplements coming out. If you don't want them in your game, don't buy them! No one is forcing you to. For the people that want them, they are there. Everybody wins, right?

I think that some people think that if it has been released for the game, they have to buy it. Either that or they have players that think that because it has been released by WotC, their DM has to let them use all the kewl new stuff in it in his game. If you are a DM in this situation and you don't want product X in your game, tell your players that you won't be using it. They can then either deal with it or find a game that does allow product X in it. (I know in reality it isn't quite that simple, but if you communicate with your players, most things can be sorted out without too much trouble.)

Of course there are some people that complain that instead of WotC releasing a Book about X, they should have instead released a Book about Y. They don't have Book Y, and think that if WotC didn't release Book X they would have it in their hot little hands now. I don't know what you can do to stop these people from complaining.

Olaf the Stout

 

[jdrakeh]

Okay, so this reminded me of Dungeons & Dragons fans bitching about the "supplement treadmill", both in reference to settings being over-detailed and in reference to the Complete series along with books like Player's Handbook II, Tome of Battle, and so on.

Where D&D is concerned, many people complained initially because WotC made a huge to do about how they wouldn't get on the supplement treadmill. They didn't need to. There was much hooha about the strength of the core book marketing push with people (WotC employees at the time) declaring that said agenda made the supplement treadmill totally unnecessary. Of course, that's all it was -- hooha. This is why a lot of people were upset about it then. Why they're upset about it now, I couldn't tell you (after all, supplements are totally optional).

 

[T. Foster]

TSR seemed to have a good model c. 1978-82: each year they would release 1 AD&D hardback, 1-2 AD&D accessories (DM Screen, character sheet packs, Monster Cards, etc.), 4-6 AD&D adventure modules (~32pp each, usually with a couple new monsters, spells, or magic items), 1 Basic D&D introductory module, 1 new boxed/intro rpg (Gamma World, Top Secret, Gangbusters, Star Frontiers, etc.), plus boardgames, wargames, mini-games, a monthly magazine covering all of the above (+ fiction, comics, reviews, industry news, coverage of other companies' games, etc.), and lots of reprints of back-catalogue titles.

GDW over the same time period had a similar release model, on a somewhat smaller scale (appropriately, since they were a smaller company): each year they would release 1 Traveller rulebook, 2-3 Traveller supplements (i.e. accessories - books of pregenerated characters, ships, deckplans, starmaps, etc.), 2-3 Traveller adventures (~48pp each in digest-size format), 1 Traveller-tie-in boardgame (set in the same game universe, or with mechanics extracted/expanded from the rpg system), a quarterly Traveller magazine, plus assorted non-Traveller boardgames, wargames, miniatures rules, and lots of reprints of back-catalogue titles. GDW also licensed several smaller companies (FASA, Judges Guild, Paranoia Press, etc.) to produce their own accessories and adventures "Approved for Use with Traveller," presumably in exchange for a royalty.

 

[jodyjohnson]

I have a certain urge to stay on top of the tread mill in certain product lines just because they are limited issue or the lump sum for catching up later might be prohibitive.

For example, is was easier to subscribe to Dragon and Dungeon as they come out in order to have a complete collection instead of buying back issues.

Or if I normally want about half of what WotC puts out in hardcover, it's better to buy it within a month or two of when it comes out than wait and make large purchases the next year where I'm catching up and getting current releases.

Miniatures is probably the worst. If I bought Star Wars figs it was imperative that they are purchased as they release since they could disappear so fast.

I buy DDM like this. I pretty much have to stay on top of the DDM releases as they happen since there's no guarantee that a set may be available a year later (and even non-random minis are like this i.e. Heroscape).

 

[mmadsen]

In response to the OP, I don't understand people complaining about the amount of supplements coming out. If you don't want them in your game, don't buy them! No one is forcing you to. [...] Either that or they have players that think that because it has been released by WotC, their DM has to let them use all the kewl new stuff in it in his game.

I think it is an issue when the authority, WotC, releases supplements, and the gaming group has to agree on what's in and what's not, because I can see either point of view being reasonable: (1) the DM declares when you can use something new, (2) WotC declares when something is official.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I don't mind supplements galore. I don't mind minis, maps and dungeon tiles or the Digitial Initiative. WotC should put out as much material as the market can absorb. I will continue to pick and choose which things I want and which I don't, and won't lament other people's choices.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

(2) WotC declares when something is official.

This has always been the one thing I have never really understood. The idea of "official" or canon material. I guess it is important if you play in something like a RPGA, but if I'm playing with a group of friends, I don't care if something is official or not. If I move along to another group of people and they don't allow the use of something because it isn't official, I just take it in the same light as a house rule; no big deal, let's have some fun.

 

[masshysteria]

It isn't so much that there is a lot of material being produced, but the fact that adding in all the new material results in a huge mess of rules that are difficult to navigate. Consumers then have to determine what needs to be added and what subtracted, instead of being able to "trust the system." So, the question is how do you keep supporting the system without making it a mess?

So, here's a few alternatives:

Reboot the system frequently/create new versions.

Or

Do limited runs of books for certain campaign settings and then move on to the next, leaving the core as is. Produce 10 Eberron books released over a couple years and then stop making Eberron stuff and move on to the next setting. This allows for new rules and tweaks, but can be set aside when the new setting comes out letting designers start over without having to deal with the baggage of a bunch of additional rules/options. Probably want very different settings in print at any given time.