The Supplement Treadmill vs. The Alternatives

[Imaro]

Has any company ever been successful doing this? This seems a much harder sell than supplements. You basically need to generate a new fanbase from scratch each time. And developing a new game each month has got to be a bigger investment than supporting a single one.

Okay, I think the "game every month" bit is a little too much, but I think the general point is a good one. As mentioned above, White Wolf is doing the mini-game structure and so far it seems to be doing pretty good. As of now they have the nWoD mortals line & it's spin-offs(Mage, Vampire, Werewolf, Promethean, Changeling,...) along with the Exalted line, & the Scion limited line.

I'd really like to see perhaps FR and Eberron as continous settings and maybe a new "4 or 5 book run setting" in a different genre (maybe a "real" swords and sorcery, or dark fantasy setting) or with a different feel every year. I can honestly say I'm bored with new rules, and they don't help me make my games more exciting or fun, YMMV of course.

I miss the sense of wonder I got from reading through the Planescape, or Dark Sun settings, it showed me different genres of fantasy and helped to broaden my understanding of just what D&D could do. I don't buy the whole "splitting of the fanbase" argument either, otherwise White Wolf would have crumbled long ago, sheesh the OwoD had: Mage, Vampire, Werewolf, Wraith, Changeling, Kindred of the East, Mummy, Demon, Hunter, as well as a whole line of Dark Age spin-offs of most, and more. These were all seperate games with their own lines of supplements. Now I will quickly admit that if a game was less popular it got scaled back or even cut, but that's just good business sense.

 

[Mark CMG]

I miss the sense of wonder I got from reading through the Planescape, or Dark Sun settings, it showed me different genres of fantasy and helped to broaden my understanding of just what D&D could do.

Do you think your sense of wonder is still the same or that the newer material does not have the ability to evoke the same response?

 

[Mark CMG]

I have no objection to a company making money. Thats what they exist for, after all. However, I do object to unnessecary changes (4th edition, for example). Release new product for different gamers needs, but refrain from making changes just for the sake of money making (again, 4th edition, I'm looking at you).

I feel the same. I'm perfectly happy to support additional games if they are made but don't make unnecessary changes to one I like just to tear most of the player base away from me and a game that is perfectly fine (in most respects) as is. That's when I start to get pissed off at a corporation and wonder if they deserve my continued support at all.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Also, I'm specifically talking about the newer model they are trying with Scion as well as Promethean and Changeling(these lat two you do need the nWoD main book for, but they're still a "complete game" with a maximum of five books published for it.

Promethean: The Created was limited to five books - the core and four supplements - but Changeling: The Lost hasn't been suggested by White Wolf staff to be following the same model.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Chaosium may not be the model to follow if you want to become a megacorp (or even a stable business -- they've had some serious ups and downs), but I really like their approach to the new edition/supplement cycle.

You mean rereleasing the same version of the game without meaningful errata or fixes as a new edition several times in a row?

Yeah, really . . . no thanks.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

You missed an option: new games. How does a video game or boardgame company make money? Not, primarily, by producing add-ons to existing games, or new editions of existing games (though, in both cases, there's some of that), but by producing whole new games.

This is true, and in fact this is pretty much exactly how White Wolf is diversifying. They're committed to the supplement model for the Big Three World of Darkness games, but Promethean was limited, Scion is limited . . . the sixth World of Darkness game will probably be limited too.

On the other hand, we don't exactly know if this is going to work out for them in the long term.

 

[Imaro]

Do you think your sense of wonder is still the same or that the newer material does not have the ability to evoke the same response?

I really have to say I think it's the latter, only because I've gotten some 3.x third party stuff that did invoke that sense of wonder, Dark Legacies is one example, a really cool take on "D&D", that had me actually reading through the two books without geting bored or my mind wandering. Sometimes I feel like D&D is focused on being a text-book rather than "fun". All IMHO of course.

 

[Imaro]

Do you think your sense of wonder is still the same or that the newer material does not have the ability to evoke the same response?

I really have to say I think it's the latter, only because I've gotten some 3.x third party stuff that did invoke that sense of wonder, Dark Legacies is one example, a really cool take on "D&D", that had me actually reading through the two books without geting bored or my mind wandering. Sometimes I feel like D&D is focused on being a text-book rather than "fun". All IMHO of course.

 

[Imaro]

Promethean: The Created was limited to five books - the core and four supplements - but Changeling: The Lost hasn't been suggested by White Wolf staff to be following the same model.

Yes it has, go check out the forums and live journal. In fact it's almost a given, since they've released the titles to the first two supplements that each supplement is based off of a season. Autumn Nightmares and Winter Masks have been "spoiled" so far.

 

[woodelf]

Do you think your sense of wonder is still the same or that the newer material does not have the ability to evoke the same response?

Not that I'm Imaro, but i'm gonna have to go with "it's the material that's changed, not me". I'm still buying and loving tons of RPG stuff--and even tons of stuff that i consider "D&D", just nothing from WotC. Malhavoc, Green Ronin, Goodland Games, AEG, and others--all have managed to produce stuff that makes me want to play right damn now. Heck, i know that most instantiations of D20 System are really crunchier than i prefer, but i've still bought plenty of high-fantasy D20 System books that i just can't wait to play with.

With the WotC stuff, i have one of two reactions: i'm never interested in the first place (D&D3E PH, frex--i read it to give the game a fair shake, and because i was playing in a campaign, not because i wanted to); or i start out completely hyped, and then, the more i read, the more the book sucks the life out of whatever the concept was that interested me in the first place. Manual of the Planes, [Expanded] Psionics Handbook, Incarnum, and Tome of Magic were all like that--topics i love, concepts that intrigued me, stuff i want in my D&D games, and yet the actual details completely leave me cold. To the point where, in most cases, i end up not wanting to use them in my game. Contrast that with DragonMech (just picking a semi-random example), where, the more of it i read, the more i want to read more, and the more i want to play it. Or Iron Heroes and Arcana Unearthed, both of which i pretty much couldn't put down once i started reading them. The former has provided the only combat i've ever played under D20 System--or any version of D&D--that didn't bore me. The latter caused me to change my opinion of D20 System, and run a long campaign.

Routinely, WotC books start with all the factors in their favor, and then when i start reading them, they completely fail to deliver. While I've run into several products from other companies that start out with the odds stacked against them (in terms of my preferences/interests), and yet completely suck me in. Spycraft is probably the best example of this: i don't like high-crunch systems, i don't like lots of fiddly detail in equipment and such, i generally don't like the espionage genre, i don't generally like D20 System, i don't care for strict classes for defining characters; yet I ended up loving Spycraft, and have been dying to play a game since the original came out (and finally played a one-shot a few weeks ago).