Time to change the supplement-driven business model for D&D (and other RPGs)?

[Argyle King]

A company needs to make supplements that I want; not supplements that I feel like I need. For example, I bought GURPS Low-Tech because I wanted it; I wanted the more detail that the book provided, but I didn't need it to be able to play. Likewise, I purchased Manual of The Planes for D&D 4th Edition because I wanted it; it added more character options and mechanics, but I bought it because I wanted it, and not because I felt like I needed it. In contrast, I picked up Divine Power and MM3 for D&D 4th because I felt they were necessary for the game to work the way it should in respect to monsters and paladins. Though, in the case of MM3, it also had a lot of cool ideas that would have made me like the book anyway.

I think that's the trick to supplements: making the customer feel like they are a want rather than a need. It's a concern that I have for D&D 5th Edition that much of the modularity will involve things I feel I need for the game rather than feeling like things I want.

While it's inevitable that things will get missed in games such as rpgs because of how complex they are, and there will always be some "patches" which come later in the life cycle of a game, I never want to feel as though I'm required to buy a "supplement" to get the game to work properly or to get it to work the way I feel it should.

 

[S'mon]

I think RPG publishers who want to make money are always going to publish supplements. There is a specific problem with the WoTC model of tons of player-splat and weak GM support. It worked ok for a while with 3e because the OGL encouraged third party GM support, but with the loss of 3rd party support in 4e it resulted in an unbalanced game. Likewise there is a problem with WoTC's "new game under D&D brand" model, which resembles Games Workshop's approach of discouraging backwards compatibility. This drives some sales, but also discourages existing players from moving over, as we saw with 3e > 4e. It works for GW as GW is happy to alienate older players while attracting new younger players, but with RPGs you really need to retain the older players and keep them buying.
Paizo's subscription model centred around the Adventure Paths seems to work better. They publish player splats too, but unlike WotC they're committed to keeping a partyicular ruleset in print, and presumably "Pathfinder 2e" will have strong backwards compatibility so that old APs can be used with the 2e ruleset, just as 3e APs can be used with Pathfinder. This approach keeps a core set of loyal fans buying stuff, those fans also act as recruiters to generate new customers.
Personally I prefer 4e to 3e/PF and I wish WoTC could have adopted a similar model to Paizo, but it takes a lot of talent to write or commission those APs, and a longer term focus than WoTC-Hasbro seems capable of.

 

[TrippyHippy]

Thanks for some thoughtful responses.

Just to counter the point of 'why change if it's working?' - I think my perspective is that the model hasn't been working for some time. The market who buys into RPGs has shrunk year upon year, and as I see, the thing that keeps it afloat is a reduced number of buyers spending more each year. I just don't think that is economically sustainable - and rpgs need to branch out into bigger markets to be able to grow the hobby.

That said, I'm no more qualified to speculate than anybody else here!

 

[Morrus]

Just to counter the point of 'why change if it's working?' - I think my perspective is that the model hasn't been working for some time. The market who buys into RPGs has shrunk year upon year,

Has it?

Even if it has, the counterpoint to it isn't to stop making supplements for people to buy, it's to do what companies like WotC are doing - trying to bring new people into the hobby via in-store programs (like Encounters) and gateway products (like the boardgames).

 

[Umbran]

The market who buys into RPGs has shrunk year upon year

As others will say: citation needed. One should not consider a change in business model without real data.

 

[Iosue]

One thing WotC should abandon is new editions that are largely incompatible with old editions. I think a 2e-era model would work well, with a lot more control over the line, and much sounder business practices than TSR was practicing at the time. Even the proposed 3e model wasn't really wrong -- release edition, make money. 5 years down the line, release update of the core books -- still entirely compatible, but now with errata. 5 more years down the line, release the next edition. Make new editions like they used to be -- only slight changes, but new presentation, and these days taking advantage of new digital technology. But maintain continuity. You keep the old fans who can make use of the new material without having to buy all new core books if they don't want to, and you get the new blood with the release of a new edition. And for God's sake, keep to the schedule. 5 years for a revised-with-errata release and then 5 years after that for a new edition is perfectly fine from a end-user point of view. An X.5 release only three years after the original edition release, and then a whole new game 5 years after that is not a winning strategy.

 

[Umbran]

But maintain continuity.

I'm not convinced that this is really important. This site has a whole lot of long-time gamers. And sure, they'd love to see continuity. But, I'm not sure they are a large enough segment of the market for this strategy to be crucial.

If you keep the game backwards compatible, those old gamers don't need to buy new core rulebooks. They could continue buying supplements and adventures, and just adjust a bit for the revisions, sure. But, they can be saturated - if those same old gamers are homebrewing adventures, and already have so much material for that old edition that they don't need new supplements, they aren't a strong buying force. Catering to them ceases to be an imperative, in a business sense.

I like the analogy to comic books. My recollection is that, for comic book readers, there's a window of a couple of years (usually during junior high and high school) in which a particular person pics up comics, reads them pretty fanatically, and then drops off - the average reader has a lifetime of only a couple of years. Maintaining plot continuity on timescales longer than that is not a business imperative. In fact, shaking up that continuity will tend to hold readers for a little while longer. Thus you see continuity changing and world-shaking events in comic book lines every couple or few years.

I imagine the same likely goes for RPGs. There's likely a window during which a player is a major customer, buying up huge amounts of content. But once he or she has bought as much as they need, they may still continue the game, but as a customer they tend to drop off.

In addition, maintaining continuity is a major design burden - it means you cannot adjust the game to take advantage of new ideas and designs, which is a major handicap.

 

[billd91]

I like the analogy to comic books. My recollection is that, for comic book readers, there's a window of a couple of years (usually during junior high and high school) in which a particular person pics up comics, reads them pretty fanatically, and then drops off - the average reader has a lifetime of only a couple of years. Maintaining plot continuity on timescales longer than that is not a business imperative. In fact, shaking up that continuity will tend to hold readers for a little while longer. Thus you see continuity changing and world-shaking events in comic book lines every couple or few years.

I don't know. Maintaining continuity over really long periods of time (40+ years) can be very difficult without a lot of really stupid retcons and bizarre stories, but I am not convinced this is necessarily so and think it may depend more on the publisher trying to saturate more and more of the market. For example, I find it relatively easy to sort back through Avengers continuity from the 1960s through even the 1990s, but then, the comic has a modestly shifting membership so no single character or cluster has to bear the whole burden of unfolding continuity and the group changes helps refresh the comic as a whole. By contrast, the X-Men was relatively easy to follow... until the late 1980s saw a big proliferation of X-titles as Marvel tried to further exploit its most popular properties. Today, the idea of sorting through it is too daunting for me to really bother - yet it isn't for the Avengers (though the multiple titles in the 2000s make it a bit harder).
I suppose it is possible that the window of comic book following has narrowed a bit compared to the 1960s-80s with the proliferation of competing entertainment options. Increased competition would also help account for the summer blockbuster crossover events as well, not just the life cycle of the average comic reader.

In addition, maintaining continuity is a major design burden - it means you cannot adjust the game to take advantage of new ideas and designs, which is a major handicap.

At that point, are you really still talking about the same game or same brand? There are people out there who don't see 4e (or even 3e) as the same game as the edition that preceded it and that, ultimately, seems to have caused problems for the game line's sustainability. The rumblings about the same issue between 1e and 2e seemed a lot smaller as I recall. Certainly, the idea that the editions were different games was a lot easier to put to rest because of the easy compatibility between rule sets.

 

[Umbran]

I suppose it is possible that the window of comic book following has narrowed a bit compared to the 1960s-80s with the proliferation of competing entertainment options. Increased competition would also help account for the summer blockbuster crossover events as well, not just the life cycle of the average comic reader.

I don't have a quote, but the analysis I saw traced teh phenomenon back into the 1980s. Note, also, that print publishing in general has been taking a huge beating since that time.

But, the specific reasons aside, the picture painted does have some merit. Sure, some folks do game into their 30s and 40s and beyond, but how many are really only gamers starting in high school, maybe into college, and then move on to other things?

At that point, are you really still talking about the same game or same brand?

That's an excellent question. I think the answer is only relevant because we insist that it is.

There are people out there who don't see 4e (or even 3e) as the same game as the edition that preceded it and that, ultimately, seems to have caused problems for the game line's sustainability.

I personally think more damage to the game's sustainability was done by gamers in the Edition Wars than by the actual rules changes.

 

[Morrus]

. The rumblings about the same issue between 1e and 2e seemed a lot smaller as I recall.

Of course they were. They were amongst a dozen or so gamers that you knew personally. The rumblings between 3e and 4E were between a million gamers with keyboards and broadband!