Wilderlands of High Fantasy: Sucky Maps

[ColonelHardisson]

Well, I have to wonder why someone is making a product to not make any money on it. I'd rather they priced it higher and made money for their trouble.

Clark Peterson and Bill Webb of Necromancer Games have said repeatedly ever since the advent of the d20 movement that they got into the business for love of the game, not to make money. I'm sure they would like to make money, but both of them have good careers going and feel no urgency to up their profits from NG in order to make ends meet. They both seem to genuinely care about producing material that they themselves love, and also seem to care about gamers in general. From what I've gathered from their posts over the years, they made the Wilderlands primarily for long-time JG fans - themselves included. The fact that this boxed set has generated interest and excitement beyond that demographic is gravy. The WIlderlands has been worked on for a few years now, and I've seen posts by them both stressing that they were trying to make the product as complete and as affordable as possible. They opted to provide as much written content as possible rather than go with sturdy, strong, one-sided maps.

 

[Treebore]

The Colonel is correct about Bill and Clark's motivations. They are not stupid, they do want to at least break even on their production costs so their wives won't skin them alive. With this boxed set there was only a print run of either 2,000 or 2,500, I can't remember which. This small of a run costs them more becaq\use they don't get "price breaks" that printers offer for big print runs, plus the decision to go with a boxed set also boosted the productions costs a great amount.

Basically, Bill and Clark did what they could with a financial risk at a level they were willing to take. I love the product, and CSIO, and a I really respect the heck of of Necromancer games. They are definitely a gamer, for gamers, type of company, and they have been successful enough to keep doing it.

Yes, it sucks they couldn't do the maps in their original type of format, but I am darn greatful that they have done what they did do.