Why the lack of 3rd party adventures

[Hussar]

One of the problems is, even though you may be using a third party adventure, your players are still using WOTC books.

I've been playing the World's largest Dungeon for the last year. Everything in there is 100% SRD. Yet, my adventuring group consists of a Favoured Soul, a Goliath, a monk/paladin, a warmage and a halfling roge. 1 character out of 5 is OGL. This completely changes the feel of the adventure. If you run a d20 adventure more or less "as is", then the players aren't going to interact with anything that remotely looks like them.

I too would love to see the SRD given some loving. Or, even better, for the D20 publishers to contribute to the SRD so that other companies can start cross feeding. If classes from Arcana Unearthed, say, were available in the SRD, then you could have AU classes in an adventure. Means that adventures could be an awful lot more interesting without having to reinvent the wheel every time.

 

[James Heard]

I'm in the "Dungeon does it better" camp, or rather Dungeon might not do it better but it does it consistently and persistently with great art, talent, and exposure. What might be interesting would be if Paizo pushed for more subscriptions/sales with access to some choice pdf adventures that for whatever reason won't make it into Dungeon. I don't have a clue what producing a Dungeon adventure costs, but I think slapping the Dungeon name on something and getting it even a little bit of the Dungeon treatment (and branding) could only help.

 

[Mandos]

What might be interesting would be if Paizo pushed for more subscriptions/sales with access to some choice pdf adventures that for whatever reason won't make it into Dungeon. I don't have a clue what producing a Dungeon adventure costs, but I think slapping the Dungeon name on something and getting it even a little bit of the Dungeon treatment (and branding) could only help.

It looks like the deal between Paizo and Wizards doesn't allow Paizo to sell PDF versions of their adventures before the magazine issue is out of print. Your idea of publihing in PDF some adventures not "paper published" before is a good one, but wouldn't it look like a "buy what didn't make it to Dungeon"?

It's sad, as I am part of the busy DMs who prefer to buy high quality adventures (WotC or Dungeon) and DM's with a laptop at the table, so PDF is the way to go. I don't have enough time to create the whole thing anymore (I've created full campaigns in the old days, but I had so much more time available in these days...)


I had left 3rd Ed because of the too lengthy preparation time, and just went back after buying Son of Gruumsh, Red Hand of Doom (one small campaign to go, started) and decided to give a try on Adventure Path 3, Savage Tide (one other campaign to go, starting in october). I am currently playing AP2, after having finished AP1 a few months ago and I had to "take a ticket" to DM AP3, as many DMs were ready to go for it in my gaming circle.

 

[kenobi65]

Yet, my adventuring group consists of a Favoured Soul, a Goliath, a monk/paladin, a warmage and a halfling roge. 1 character out of 5 is OGL.

I count two out of the five being "OGL", unless there's something funky about the monk/paladin or rogue, but that's a nit.

If you run a d20 adventure more or less "as is", then the players aren't going to interact with anything that remotely looks like them.

True, though I'm not sure that I understand why that's an issue. So you don't see another warmage...does that lessen the game experience?

 

[The Sigil]

Ok, I'll bite. What's the product name and where can I get it. If I have enough in the paypal balance, I'll buy it.

Thanks,
Rich

Fair enough. The product name is "Trouble in the River City" - you can get it for $4 from either:

The ENWorld GameStore: http://shop.enworld.org/index.php?productsid=1483
or RPGNow.com: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=4365

I didn't want to "pimp my product" with a link until someone asked for it, though - bad form, IMO.

 

[The Sigil]

Going back to the original poster's question... I should also note I just spent one minute on RPGNow.com going through their d20 Fantasy menu to get to the adventures sections.

http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?cPath=1_260_269& == 110+ low level adventures
http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?cPath=1_260_352& == 27 mid-level adventures
http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?cPath=1_260_274& == 30 high-level adventures

By my count, that's nigh on 160 adventures you can go out and grab, right now.

Even if you go by the "90% of everything is crap, 10% of everything is excellent" rule, that's still 16 adventures that are excellent (of course, the trick is figuring out which ones those are).

So, with at least 160 adventures available to be found in 30 seconds if you know where to look (it took me 30 seconds to figure out where to look, then another 30 seconds to grab the above links), what, exactly, was the number of adventures that need to be out there for you not to need more?

 

[Andre]

Actually, I inquired to WOTC licensing about something similar last year. I was told in no uncertain terms that the only thing they want to see are 100% official "Dungeons & Dragons" products from WOTC, or "d20 System" OGL stuff from 3rd parties, and to never mix the two in any way.

This fits with what we've heard over and over from unofficial sources - that WOTC is not exactly enamored of the OGL and is giving it very limited support. And to be honest, I don't see the benefit to WOTC in adding significantly more material now. The hobby is way past the point where OGL is growing the player base - as others have said, many, many gamers buy only WOTC products. All non-WOTC material put together doesn't come close to matching WOTC's sales.

Add in that many gamers have so much material that sales are down for everyone, including WOTC. Throwing more of their proprietary material into the public realm just creates a situation where other companies are better able to compete (however minimally) for those gamer dollars. While I personally would love to have everything in the SRD, I can't fault WOTC for keeping their material to themselves.

 

[The Thayan Menace]

Myconids Über Alles!

Dungeon needs adventures!

It's funny that you mentioned this; I'm currently preparing a myconid-related query for them.

-Samir

 

[Voadam]

Going back to the original poster's question... I should also note I just spent one minute on RPGNow.com going through their d20 Fantasy menu to get to the adventures sections.

http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?cPath=1_260_269& == 110+ low level adventures
http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?cPath=1_260_352& == 27 mid-level adventures
http://www.rpgnow.com/default.php?cPath=1_260_274& == 30 high-level adventures

By my count, that's nigh on 160 adventures you can go out and grab, right now.

Even if you go by the "90% of everything is crap, 10% of everything is excellent" rule, that's still 16 adventures that are excellent (of course, the trick is figuring out which ones those are).

So, with at least 160 adventures available to be found in 30 seconds if you know where to look (it took me 30 seconds to figure out where to look, then another 30 seconds to grab the above links), what, exactly, was the number of adventures that need to be out there for you not to need more?

Look more closely at the individual "high level ones" from there. Many are misclassified and not even their definition of high level. Trying to find stuff for a 16th or 17th level group is still not easy.

 

[Imruphel]

(snip) 16 months ago, I released an adventure in PDF. It was world-neutral. It had tons of interesting NPCs. Re-used bits of OGC from a dozen different sources, and had no small amount of new stuff in it, too. To date, it has sold a whopping 16 copies. (snip)

Well, make that 17 copies. I buy a lot of stuff from RPGNow and have never seen your adventure before. Anyway, the flash preview looks great so I've bought a copy.