To Publishers: Adventure Paths?

[teitan]

I was wondering why no one else has picked up on the idea of doing a series of connected adventure like the Adventure Path series and the Dungeon Adventure Path material. They seem to be very popular and with the right support could be very successful.

I know some of you have made series of modules like the Witchfire series or Rappan AThuk, but what about an epic story that spans more than the traditional trilogy? Why hasn't anyone done a GDQ or T1-4 type series?

Jason

 

[jmucchiello]

I can't speak for anyone else but there are several obvious (or seemingly obvious) reasons not to do such a thing.

1) Adventures don't sell as well as other books in the first place. So making a series of adventures will not do as well as doing an adventure and an other type of book. Or just a bunch of other types of books.

2) A series labelled part 1, part 2 will probably see part 2 sell less than part 1 since people will not buy part 2 if they did not see/like part 1. Also, some people will not buy part 1 until part 2 and 3 come out so they aren't left hanging if the publisher fails to put out the last part.

3) Some people will complain about the cost of buying 3-4 32 page adventures and all the overhead involved with that and ask why the company didn't just make a mega-module out of it. Others will wait for an inevidible mega-module to come out. Still others will complain, why can't people release shorter modules. Based on what publishers produce, the shorter, connected module is not really in a lot of demand.

4) Remember that the RPG business was very different when GDQ and T1-4 were first created. Buyers had fewer options. One shot adventures have fewer risks than connected adventures.

My 2 cents.

 

[trancejeremy]

Well, if the Adventure Paths were such a great deal for WOTC, they'd be publishing them for 3.5, not having them in Dungeon magazine.

Still, I think there are some giant adventures. Isn't the Lost City of Barakus book from Necromancer/Troll Lord a mega-super-giga-adventure? And I think maybe Black Sails over Freeport is like that as well.

 

[cleaverthepit]

We here at troll lord game have just the answer, but you will have to wait until December 04 for that answer. We are doing an adventure that takes the party from first to twentieth level. We could break it up into modules, but will put it all in a 200+ pagebook. The up front cost is higher but the long end cost is lower both on production and in the consumers pocket.

It is called the Cult of Yex. I will write up somespecks on it soon and keep ya'll updated.

Davis Chenault
Troll Lord Games

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Bad Axe Games will be publishing several epic length adventures to take characters from 1st through 20th level.

Billed as "adventure sourcebooks" they contain all the information you need to run a complete campaign, including additional rules and setting information.

Our first adventure sourcebook, Slavelords of Cydonia, will be available in early Summer 04.


Wulf

 

[malladin]

We're planning to do something similar for DarkLore.

There are six supplements planned, each is part adventure, part gazeteer and part class book. The adventures in the books will provide the GM with three metaplot threads to choose from to take their characters through from level 1 to 20+, and involve major world-shaking events (the end of, if the players mess up ).

I hope this format means that the books get better comercial support as they will be good for those buyers who want the class goodies, go for those who want the adventures and also good for those who want to run their own DarkLore world based campaign in the different regions covered by the book.

It's, to my knowledge, a pretty different approach to a campaign setting expansion supplement, where mostly these three aspects are split over different books, or you might find two in one bopok, but I can't think of anything where all three are found in the same book.

Ben, Malladin's Gate Press
www.malladinsgate.com

 

[Arnwyn]

Exciting news from a bunch of publishers on this thread!

Bring on the adventures!

 

[thundershot]

Hell, I just can't wait for the World's Largest Dungeon from AEG.

I think, though, that adventures should be intertwined like that without HAVING to have them connected. But have some kind of bonus for those that do them all in a row.


Chris

 

[Ceresco]

Paradigm Concepts has already written two source/adventure books. The first is Carnival of Swords: An Adventurers Guide to Old Coryan. It has a detailed history and lots of useful information about the city of Old Coryan in the world of Arcanis. Not only does it have a great adventure, it alos gives many threads for future adventuring in Old Coryan.

The second book is going to be out this summer and is called City of Secrets. It is similar to Carnival of Swords in content but details the evil city of Nishanpur in the dark theocracy of Canceri. Both adventures are fully RPGA compatable with free downloads from PCI or the RPGA.

At one point PCI was considering a series of adventures that fully detaild some local of Onara, the site of their Living campgaign in Arcanis. Though each of these are not 1-20th level adventures, they combine setting, source and adventure all inbetween two covers.

I don't know if I personally would like to have an entire campaign scripted out for me. That's part of what I enjoy as a GM. I do like the idea of larger plots that detail something interesting and take many sessions to accomplish. Every once in a while I feel the need to step back and take a breather from running every detail of the game and have a long stretch of time with less prep time. That would be cool. The idea of these campaign length adventures sounds over the top to me. Not that I don't like long prescripted gaming, I've been in the RPGA for a long time and play Living games as well as Classics. I just see the market even smaller than for regular adventures. Good luck.

Edward Kopp
Assistant Editor, Silven Trumpeter
Silven Crossroads
www.silven.com

We're planning to do something similar for DarkLore.

There are six supplements planned, each is part adventure, part gazeteer and part class book. The adventures in the books will provide the GM with three metaplot threads to choose from to take their characters through from level 1 to 20+, and involve major world-shaking events (the end of, if the players mess up ).

I hope this format means that the books get better comercial support as they will be good for those buyers who want the class goodies, go for those who want the adventures and also good for those who want to run their own DarkLore world based campaign in the different regions covered by the book.

It's, to my knowledge, a pretty different approach to a campaign setting expansion supplement, where mostly these three aspects are split over different books, or you might find two in one bopok, but I can't think of anything where all three are found in the same book.

Ben, Malladin's Gate Press
www.malladinsgate.com

 

[malladin]

I don't know if I personally would like to have an entire campaign scripted out for me. That's part of what I enjoy as a GM. I do like the idea of larger plots that detail something interesting and take many sessions to accomplish. Every once in a while I feel the need to step back and take a breather from running every detail of the game and have a long stretch of time with less prep time. That would be cool. The idea of these campaign length adventures sounds over the top to me. Not that I don't like long prescripted gaming, I've been in the RPGA for a long time and play Living games as well as Classics. I just see the market even smaller than for regular adventures. Good luck.

What I want to achive with our metaplot is not so much a fully prescribed campaign, but a description of the story arc and ideas for how the characters can get involved in it, along with some more rudimentary adventure stuff; dungeon crawls, beefed up encounters, city based mysteries for the PCs to solve. I see the metaplot more as a backdrop to the real adventuring. The GM then has lots of different options presented to them. If they want they can run all of the adventures and encounters in sequence, they can tie in some metaplot elements or they can write their own adventures using the metaplot. They could also simply use any one or more of the adventures in their own settings or as one-offs. White-wolf's original Trinity game had a really good metaplot running throughout the supplements and adventures they did for it, and I was really inspired by that, even though I didn't use the adventures in the plot lines that I ran (my PCs were on the other side of the galaxy

Ben