Pathfinder 2E What's the deal with 3rd party PF2E Adventure "support"??

[MaskedGuy]

I have to agree with this. I pioneered the "scratch-off the serial numbers" method with the Book of the River Nations that other Pathfinder compatible publishers used, but there was so much more we couldn't do that we wanted to do. We wanted to make side quest adventures, details about specific locations, etc. None of that happened because we felt that the amount we'd have to scratch out to make it generic enough to work license-wise would make it so generic that no one would know what we were referencing. Ultimately, we did monsters, assassins, and rules reprinting with our own additions.

Players and GMs don't want to switch away from a setting they know and love. So its a choice between generic setting (which is BORING) or making my own and trying to convince people to switch to your less supported setting (which is frustrating).

I love publishing for Traveller. Know why (besides working in a setting I personally enjoy)? Because I don't have to convince anyone to play my stuff. GM's know it is for the setting they already know. From there, it's just a matter of demonstrating the quality of our products. Do I hate the fact that I am (essentially) paying for the license as opposed to a free license, that I can only sell at DriveThruRPG, that (other annoying stuff about the license), yes. But I will GLADLY take them over making more genericness any day.

While I don't publish DMSGuild, we did consider it. Very much so. I think our number of 5e releases reflects our enthusiasm for the generic.

That sounds like one of those things where only option is to comment about it to paizo until they decide to change how license works. Though I dunno how big 2e 3rd party customer base is so dunno how much noise could be made about the subject

 

[Marc Radle]

I have early 5E 3pp 5E stuff. Frog God did Quests if Doom and 5Evstuff came out very near release.

Kobold Press also did PDFs.

Did?

 

[Zardnaar]

Did?

Southland Heroes, MidgardHeries etc iirc.

I was buying a bit of stuff before DMGuild landed.

 

[amethal]

The point of the OGL is to drive creation. The whole idea is that you do, indeed, create your own setting.

That's a good point.

Also, Paizo staff are very invested in their setting. They probably don't want other people messing around with it (and perhaps coming up with products like "Puppy-Kickers of Golarion" which would taint their brand even if they pulled the license as soon as they found out about it).

I have a lot of sympathy for people who like particular settings and want to set adventures there. But Paizo have made all their rules open. I completely respect their decision to keep the rest of their IP to themselves.

And for those who want to write "Golarion-compatible" adventures, it is very easy to make sure that the setting details you provide can be easily translated into Golarion if your customers want to do so. Golarion is often referred to as a kitchen-sink setting (usually as a criticism, but for me that is one of it's main attractions) and was explicitly designed to allow as many different genres as they could reasonably fit in.

 

[dave2008]

Southland Heroes, MidgardHeries etc iirc.

I was buying a bit of stuff before DMGuild landed.

I think @Marc Radle was responding to the past tense, imply they are no longer making 5e content.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think @Marc Radle was responding to the past tense, imply they are no longer making 5e content.

Oh idk what they're up to. Kobolds still making 5E stuff.

 

[amethal]

Paizo's site is a pain in the butt, especially the publisher side of things. Not only that it offers the least details about sales, details that can help make sales. That would be forgivable if the sales are there, which they are not anymore and haven't been since they redesigned their website. Frankly I suspect that the biggest thing that hurt sales at Paizo's site is the elimination of the store blog. Before the website design, they had a daily blog advertising some product in their store and links to the recent blogs were emailed to their entire customer base every week. They had a regular 3PP Roundup blog that made a difference in getting sales there. They stopped doing that not long before the website redesign. When that ended, sales dropped.

DriveThruRPG has tools in their site to get noticed: banner ads, featured products, an email customers tool, etc. The Open Gaming Store has d20pfsrd, the 5esrd, the 13thAgeSRD, and more that let a publisher post their material on their site, in a "try before you buy" idea. The only thing Paizo offers is their forums. With customers shifting towards Facebook and Discord, a forum alone is not as useful as it use to be. Their tools for encouraging sales at their site are not keeping up with the times.

That's very interesting. I always like finding out about the nuts and bolts of RPG publishing.

I suppose it is inevitable that DriveThru would pay more attention to selling (3rd party) PDFs than Paizo, since it is their entire business rather than a peripheral service. Also, the Paizo messageboards are not what they were; it seems like the traffic has dropped off a lot.

 

[amethal]

I have to agree with this. I pioneered the "scratch-off the serial numbers" method with the Book of the River Nations that other Pathfinder compatible publishers used, but there was so much more we couldn't do that we wanted to do. We wanted to make side quest adventures, details about specific locations, etc. None of that happened because we felt that the amount we'd have to scratch out to make it generic enough to work license-wise would make it so generic that no one would know what we were referencing. Ultimately, we did monsters, assassins, and rules reprinting with our own additions.

I wish there was more scope for putting the serial numbers back on, in some cases. In particular, if 3rd party adventures could have a "where in Golarion" sidebar. "In Golarion, the default is that this adventure is set on the border between Cheliax and Andoran, but if you wanted more of a "hot war" you could set it between Molthune and Nirmathas. If you wanted more of a mutant wasteland theme, with some reskinning you could set it in the Mana Wastes."

Obviously, having the "River Nations" is more "lightly obscuring" the serial numbers than scratching them off. It's a fine product, and I'm sure I'll get round to running Kingmaker eventually!

Since you don't use DM's Guild, presumably you don't do anything similar for 5th edition adventure paths? You could put "Beyond the Tomb of Annihilation" right on the cover.

 

[Marc Radle]

I think @Marc Radle was responding to the past tense, imply they are no longer making 5e content.

Correct ...

 

[Retreater]

So wait. Are we saying Kobold Press is no longer making 5e? Or Frog God?