Would you buy this?

[The_Gneech]

I don't think I'd be likely to buy it, no ... I balked at From Stone to Steel last week, as much as I wanted it, because it was $40. I can't afford so many pricey game things!

Now, if there were miniatures sets that supported specific modules (a la the City of the Spider Queen set) done in the new panited plastic miniatures model, I'd snap those up for just about every module I buy ... all three or four of them.

I just picked up Silver Marches ... I wouldn't mind prepainted plastic figs of a lot of the critters in there!

-The Gneech

 

[LostWorldsMike]

The price you mentioned ($130) would be a steal for something like that when you consider the amount of time that would go into producing it. In fact, I'd imagine a price tag of $200 - $250 to be about right for it.

That said; No, I wouldn't pay that for it. Even though that might be a fair price, it's just too pricey to justify the purchase for me. And it would be a heck of a hard sell in my store.

From a retail standpoint, that would be asking me to put the equivalent of 5 to 10 sourcebooks worth of gaming budget into one item that I'm going to have to wait for the right person to come along and snatch up.

Now, if made some kind of limited edition, signed and numbered deal with a "famous" module and big-name author and artists... Then you might be onto something.

 

[alsih2o]

i probably wouldn't buy it, but i wold want to and you would be my hero

 

[Wormwood]

Add some re-playability (I'm thinking Space Hulk here), add some expansions (more monetsers, rooms, etc), and you'd have a life-long customer.

That would be awesome, and the damn coolest use of the OGL since the d20 t-shirt.

 

[pogre]

Now, if made some kind of limited edition, signed and numbered deal with a "famous" module and big-name author and artists... Then you might be onto something.

It needs something that justifies it's luxury price I hear people saying. Well painted figures and terrain is not enough.

One person e-mailed me to say there is a market for this - just look at the Games Workshop division called Forge World. The Mars Pattern Warhound Titan costs around $500.00. I agreed and said that's why I thought I would start this thread.

BUT, RPG folks and miniature folks are two different groups with admittedly a lot of overlap, but people expect a bargain when it comes to RPGs. Hey me too, when I think about it - that's no insult.

This product would have a limited audience and therefore, the more exclusive I could make it - the better perhaps?

One more thing I was not clear about:

$130.00 would be my approximate cost to MAKE one of these things today. There is no way I could sell one for that. I could probably get some discounts to bring MY costs down, but the price would still be above $130.00 by a fair amount.

Perhaps scaling the idea down might work - a room that would work with Mastermaze and all of the opposing NPCs painted for the encounter.

 

[pogre]

i probably wouldn't buy it, but i wold want to and you would be my hero

It may be worth it for this alone!

 

[pogre]

Add some re-playability (I'm thinking Space Hulk here), add some expansions (more monetsers, rooms, etc), and you'd have a life-long customer.

That would be awesome, and the damn coolest use of the OGL since the d20 t-shirt.

So more of something that would compliment Dwarven Forge's beautiful Mastermaze. Less specific to a given adventure.

Speaking of which, has anybody tried these Master Maze Adventures?

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

It's a great idea... but re-usability is key at that price.

You might also try breaking up the offerings-- some folks might want miniatures they will happily use with their own battle mat, some folks might want the terrain to use with their own miniatures.

At the very least, I bet you could make a decent eBay profit off this. That alleviates a lot of the problems with mass market, not to mention potential OGL/d20 license conflict.

Do a little research with the retailers, find the biggest, baddest, best-selling modules (Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Rappan Athuk, etc.) and go from there... You wouldn't necessarily have to provide enough terrain to lay out the whole thing, but diagrams to show how to lay out every major area with the basic blocks you provide...

And of course the fully painted custom set pieces. The infamous "Inner Fane" and all that...

I think you'd want to pick "mega dungeons" so folks are shelling out for an entire campaign's worth of stuff, not just one adventure that will be done in a session or two.

Could you get $500 bucks for RttToEE on eBay? I betcha could.

But I would also put in a vote for cardstock-- 1 to 1 scale color battlemaps of every room and passage, and color counters. Frankly I don't know what's keeping Fiery Dragon from doing dungeons already...

Of course I know your opinion on cardstock.

Wulf

 

[Zappo]

No way, I'm sorry. It would just be far too costly even if you worked without margin, and the bulk and assembly would be a problem.

 

[TiQuinn]

Let's just say you could buy the following:

A module like Sunless Citadel with the following:

Every monster represented by a figure painted to a decent level.

The entire dungeon constructed out of Hirst Arts blocks painted to a decent level and Dwarven Forge Master Maze. Easily put together from one semi-large box.

Would you buy it?
What would you pay?

I am considering embarking on just such a project and was curious...

I probably wouldn't buy this. I really don't need pre-painted miniatures. Both my players and myself like to paint our own, and we've gotten really good as a result. I judge modules on how much content I get out of the adventure itself. If I have to pay $30 for a module like Sunless Citadel, complete with all that you mention versus paying $30 for a box set module like Night Below, or Return to the Tomb of Horrors, then I'd go with the latter. All in all, I'll get a lot more use and enjoyment out of those modules. The former I may play over the course of a couple of sessions and be done with it.

Since I've already kind of set a hypothetical limit of $30 as a basis of comparison, anything over that would be out of the ball park for me. However, I think that you might have something on the Master Maze stuff that reproduces certain locations in a module. If it's reusable enough, that could really do well. However, I don't know about packaging it altogether.