-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
You are in charge of what WOTC puts out for DnD.
- Thread starter KenM
- Start date
Arnwyn
First Post
Disclaimer: This post assumes that I am arrogant and selfish - business concerns be damned!
- FR geographical supplement: Island Kingdoms (mostly Lantan and Nimbral, along with Moonshaes, Ruathym, etc.)
- FR geographical supplement: Ice Lands (mostly Sossal and The Ride, along with Great Glacier, Narfell, and the far northern Hordelands)
- Complete Diplomat (good one, heirodule! - see Post #2)
- Fiendish Codex III: Mercenaries of the Waste (from demiurge1138 - see Post #4)
- Spelljammer (FRCS treatment)
- Planescape (FRCS treatment)
- Al-Qadim (FRCS treatment)
- Magic Item Compendium
- 4 mega-adventures (Red Hand of Doom size)
- FR geographical supplement: Island Kingdoms (mostly Lantan and Nimbral, along with Moonshaes, Ruathym, etc.)
- FR geographical supplement: Ice Lands (mostly Sossal and The Ride, along with Great Glacier, Narfell, and the far northern Hordelands)
- Complete Diplomat (good one, heirodule! - see Post #2)
- Fiendish Codex III: Mercenaries of the Waste (from demiurge1138 - see Post #4)
- Spelljammer (FRCS treatment)
- Planescape (FRCS treatment)
- Al-Qadim (FRCS treatment)
- Magic Item Compendium
- 4 mega-adventures (Red Hand of Doom size)
No, we aren't. Of course.Umbran said:
I like pet projects. Especially a Scarred Lands HC with 320 pages of great art and cartography.
kanithardm
First Post
Turanil said:
Now this my friends is an idea.
Reading Stormborn's comment about with the talk about packaging d&d material with anime/manga products gave me an idea that seems almost ridiculous enough to work.
See, what you do is vastly condense the d&d rules, dice them into, say, 4 class-specific segments (Fighter, Sorcerer, Rogue, and...Favored Soul? something spontaneous-divine-casting). Then you hire yourself a manga writer/artist and publish a set of american-release manga-size books. I don't have one on me, but I'd guess they probably weigh in around 100 pages. In each book you have 30 pages devoted to a short adventure story focusing on the class-type represented by the book. Then you have a couple of pages about role-playing games and how the work followed by the miniturized, class-specific rule-set. This makes up 65 of the other 70 pages with lots of art featuring the character from the manga section. The last 5 pages explain the marketing concept so that kids understand what's going on.
Each of these 4 books comes shrink-wrapped with a 4- or 6-mini set containing the hero character for the book and the baddies they fought in the 30-page story. I'm thinking not the iconics for this because, a) they're really not very cool from the point of view of a teenage american manga fan and b) you'd want to publish 2 versions of each in male and female versions.
Concurrent with the 8 male/female class books you release a 'dmg' book. It has a longer story (maybe 40 pages) featuring all four class types and serves as an intro hook for an adventure (the story focuses on some orcs raiding a village, or a mysterious old coot hiring the heroes to explore an abandoned castle, or whatever). We then have 10-15 pages about how to run an adventure, almost entirely focused on the mechanics of being a DM rather than rules crunch. How the adjucate rules questions and use Rule 0, how to make up DC's on the fly, how to run a combat as the monsters. Following this is the rest of an adventure for 2-4 PCs of 1st level, picking up where the manga left off. This book is packed with another minis-pack of the BBEG for the adventure and a couple more baddies, plus a fold-up battle grid with the final fight location on the back. The adventure is structured to use the baddies packaged in the class books.
Now you have a base from which to expand. You can release straight-up manga books with adventures featuring the characters from the class books so that they get some character development and new adventure books with minis, intro-manga-stories, and short adventures in the back. The straight story books you publish at the usual manga rate of $10 a pop, the adventures and class books you push at $15-$20, depending on the price of minis and such.
The concept here is that kids, judging by my younger sisters and what I see in toystores and whatnot, love the hell out of manga and love to collect stuff. Given the success of YuGiOh, Pokemon, and the like it's no problem to get a couple of your friends to sit down and play an abstract game for a couple of hours. The rules are stripped down bare and full of exciting flavor text, and the manga intros make the characters and their adventures seem cool. Also judging by what I see around me, kids have no problem whatsoever convincing their parents to drop $10 on manga pretty regularly, so the price point shouldn't be too big a deal. I'd say $15 is a much better bet than $20 since $15 Seems a lot cheaper and parents are more likely to drop it without thinking. I recommend the Sorcerer and something Favored Soul-esque because spontaneous casters are 1) easier to play, and 2) easier to make short spell lists for.
I doubt this will ever happen, but the more I think about it the more likely it seems that it would work pretty darn well for sucking in new players. So that's what I'd do with my 2 years. The regular WotC release schedule for d&d books and minis, plus a starting set of 9 books (8 classes, 1 dmg) with minis. Then put out... I dunno... maybe a new 'story' book of straight manga every other month and a new adventure book every in-between month.
Hell, I'm 26 and have been playing for half my life and I'd buy these things.
See, what you do is vastly condense the d&d rules, dice them into, say, 4 class-specific segments (Fighter, Sorcerer, Rogue, and...Favored Soul? something spontaneous-divine-casting). Then you hire yourself a manga writer/artist and publish a set of american-release manga-size books. I don't have one on me, but I'd guess they probably weigh in around 100 pages. In each book you have 30 pages devoted to a short adventure story focusing on the class-type represented by the book. Then you have a couple of pages about role-playing games and how the work followed by the miniturized, class-specific rule-set. This makes up 65 of the other 70 pages with lots of art featuring the character from the manga section. The last 5 pages explain the marketing concept so that kids understand what's going on.
Each of these 4 books comes shrink-wrapped with a 4- or 6-mini set containing the hero character for the book and the baddies they fought in the 30-page story. I'm thinking not the iconics for this because, a) they're really not very cool from the point of view of a teenage american manga fan and b) you'd want to publish 2 versions of each in male and female versions.
Concurrent with the 8 male/female class books you release a 'dmg' book. It has a longer story (maybe 40 pages) featuring all four class types and serves as an intro hook for an adventure (the story focuses on some orcs raiding a village, or a mysterious old coot hiring the heroes to explore an abandoned castle, or whatever). We then have 10-15 pages about how to run an adventure, almost entirely focused on the mechanics of being a DM rather than rules crunch. How the adjucate rules questions and use Rule 0, how to make up DC's on the fly, how to run a combat as the monsters. Following this is the rest of an adventure for 2-4 PCs of 1st level, picking up where the manga left off. This book is packed with another minis-pack of the BBEG for the adventure and a couple more baddies, plus a fold-up battle grid with the final fight location on the back. The adventure is structured to use the baddies packaged in the class books.
Now you have a base from which to expand. You can release straight-up manga books with adventures featuring the characters from the class books so that they get some character development and new adventure books with minis, intro-manga-stories, and short adventures in the back. The straight story books you publish at the usual manga rate of $10 a pop, the adventures and class books you push at $15-$20, depending on the price of minis and such.
The concept here is that kids, judging by my younger sisters and what I see in toystores and whatnot, love the hell out of manga and love to collect stuff. Given the success of YuGiOh, Pokemon, and the like it's no problem to get a couple of your friends to sit down and play an abstract game for a couple of hours. The rules are stripped down bare and full of exciting flavor text, and the manga intros make the characters and their adventures seem cool. Also judging by what I see around me, kids have no problem whatsoever convincing their parents to drop $10 on manga pretty regularly, so the price point shouldn't be too big a deal. I'd say $15 is a much better bet than $20 since $15 Seems a lot cheaper and parents are more likely to drop it without thinking. I recommend the Sorcerer and something Favored Soul-esque because spontaneous casters are 1) easier to play, and 2) easier to make short spell lists for.
I doubt this will ever happen, but the more I think about it the more likely it seems that it would work pretty darn well for sucking in new players. So that's what I'd do with my 2 years. The regular WotC release schedule for d&d books and minis, plus a starting set of 9 books (8 classes, 1 dmg) with minis. Then put out... I dunno... maybe a new 'story' book of straight manga every other month and a new adventure book every in-between month.
Hell, I'm 26 and have been playing for half my life and I'd buy these things.
