# Why D&D is slowly cutting its own throat.



## Celebrim (May 19, 2005)

GURPS is a great game.  I enjoy it.  I bought supplements for it.  But GURPS will never be the industry leader, and contrary to what SJ believes this has nothing to do with GURPS being the more mature product and the market for such a sophisticated game is small.  

The reason GURPS will never be the industry leader is that gaming systems aren't what sell games.  It's my firm belief that the majority of the GURPS products which have ever been sold have never been used in a game.  The GURPS market isn't primarily gamers.   The GURPS market is primarily game masters.   GURPS sourcebooks are themselves toys, because they present simulationist leaning game masters with the very sort of mental toy that simulationist leaning game masters and world builders like to roll around in thier head and play with.   The real value of GURPS sourcebooks is thier ability to inform games by providing consise gamer centered information about a large variaty of topics of interest to gamers - regardless of the game system actually being used.   Thus, the real value of GURPS is not in the game system itself, but in the intellectual property contained within the source books.   

And the problem with GURPS is precisely that.  The real value of a game is not in the game system, but in the intellectual property that it creates.  Virtually all the intellectual property in the GURPS sourcebooks is open source or derived from someone else's intellectual property and is wholly dependent on it.  Over the years the GURPS game simply hasn't created enough valuable intellectual property of its own.

Contrast that with D&D.  Even though D&D lagged GURPS in gaming system sophistication for nearly two decades, over those two decades D&D created intellectual property that is worth literally tens and if not hundreds of millions of dollars.  What is the value of the Forgotten Realms?  What is the value of Krynn?  What is the value of the Tomb of Horrors?  Heck, what is the value of Drow, Mindflayers, Beholders, and even Flumphs?  From Planescape to Darksun, from Keep on the Borderlands to Ravenloft - TSR consistantly spent most of its effort not in improving the game system but in improving the value of its intellectual property.  In the latter years of 2nd edition, one might have believed that D&D and TSR were dying entities.  One might have believed that with long time gamers like me leaving for GURPS that the game industry had just moved on and grown up.   I know I did at the time.  I was very wrong, and in retrospect its easy to see why.  

The problem was simply that TSR had run out of original ideas and had too long left itself shackled to an out of date game resolution system.  Refresh and reinvigorate that game resolution system, and as was seen, D&D 'miracously' recovered.  D&D wasn't just taking pressure from GURPS and other mature gaming systems.   D&D was taking pressure from other games that were spending most of their time developing intellectual property - Deadlands, Vampire: The Masquerade - but which didn't have D&D's 20 year old game resolution system holding them back.   And this is the important point, the problem wasn't that Deadlands or Vampire: The Masquerade had far more valuable intellectual property than D&D - clearly they didn't.   That would have been a serious problem that would have been 'hard' to fix.   I'm not at all trying to downplay the wonderful job that the 3rd edition designers did in recreating the D&D game system, but in a very fundamental way making the game system is the easy part.   You can have the best game system in the world, but if you don't have great intellectual property - if you don't have great ideas and stories - you are likely going to be a flash in the gaming pan and a foot note in gaming history.

Consider just how much value D&D's intellectual property actually has.   If you look back at the D&D Reinassance, alot of the work that is best remembered was just reworking the original intellectual property - Return to the Tomb of Horrors, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil.   New versions of FR sourcebooks.  With all that intellectual property in the background, its hard to go wrong - at least at first.

But ultimately, the danger that D&D now faces is that it will become the next GURPS.   Granted, D&D will probably never be as great of a simulationist toy as GURPS, but I'm seeing a new trend in D&D/D20 in which D&D has become little more than a player toy.   How many books of players options exist out there?  How many prestige classes have been published?  How many feats exist in the game?  How many books with new base classes are out there?   We could go on and on listing these various power gamer toys and rules supplements, but the basic point will always be _none of this is valuable intellectual_ property.  It's just rules.   It's just treating the game system as if it was the thing with value and not the game content.   

Where is the game content?   Arguably, someone at TSR must have realized where the real value lies, and Eberron is a good start but unless Eberron produces the sort of modules and memorable published campaigns that were produced by previous worlds, Eberron is going to eventually face the fate of Birthright or Al-Quedem - settings with tremendous great flavor but no intellectual property of any real value.

Where are the great modules?  Doesn't anyone at TSR realize that the true value of D&D has always been its great modules?  Is all 3rd edition going to be remembered for come 4th edition is 'Sunless Citadel'?   Are we going to need a Return to the Return of the Temple of Elemental Evil?


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (May 19, 2005)

Player options are hardly new for D&D. The period you look at as being the time where TSR created and fleshed out its IP is the same time it was creating player options like crazy. The two are not incompatible.

They are intending to do more modules next year (and are starting later this year) and there are persistent rumors of another campaign setting coming next year.

And you lose 10,000 points for saying simulationist repeatedly.


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## diaglo (May 19, 2005)

i think you want this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=131875
or this one: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=130984
or this one: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=131166
or this one: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=131196


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## diaglo (May 19, 2005)

but for the penultimate thread. go here: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=82335


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## Celebrim (May 19, 2005)

diaglo said:
			
		

> i think you want this thread: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=131875
> or this one: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=130984
> or this one: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=131166
> or this one: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=131196




Err... No.


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## S'mon (May 19, 2005)

Slight flaws in your interesting argument:

1.  A game system can potentially be valuably IP (in the minds of lawyers & businessmen, anyway) - you can license a system for money.  WotC does that with eg Kenzer or Neverwinter Nights.  Even moreso, the OGL with its concept of "Product Identity" has persuaded people to help WoTC expand its IP claims beyond anything a court would likely support - good luck getting an appeals court to share TSR's opinion that "Armor Class" was copyrightable! 

2.  GURPs makes its money off sim-oriented GMs like me, you say.  Yet clearly the WoTc strategy is different, they reason that 4/5 of gamers are players, and they aim to make their money off crunch-oriented players looking for the next Feat or Prestige Class - which, just like the GURPs GM's sourcebook. may never be used in play.  It may be a flawed strategy, but clearly it's not the same strategy.

3. In any case, the fact of the matter is that WotC makes its money off one, particular, valuable piece of Intellectual Property, and it's not copyright at all - it's the Dungeons & Dragons trade mark.


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## Crothian (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Where are the great modules?  Doesn't anyone at TSR realize that the true value of D&D has always been its great modules?  Is all 3rd edition going to be remembered for come 4th edition is 'Sunless Citadel'?   Are we going to need a Return to the Return of the Temple of Elemental Evil?




You mean Wizards of the Coast, not TSR Right?  

First edition was known for its modules.  Second edition was known for the great settings.


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## Mercule (May 19, 2005)

D&D has three settings they can support, Greyhawk, FR, and Eberron.  Granted, the first one is sparse, but there's still a lot to do on all of them.  Plus, they've still got tons of stuff to mine for "new" ideas.  So, assuming your IP = the good, I don't see a problem.  At least let Eberron mature before you start looking for pieces of the sky.

The other point you made, that D&D has become "a player's toy", is actually a positive.  That's probably exactly where they want to be.  If it's a player toy, that means the players are buying books to play with.

Ultimately, though, I don't know that the non-mechanical IP is universally the most valuable part of a game.  Shadowrun, Paranoia, and WoD are the only games I've ever enjoyed for the setting.  Every other game I've chosen to play more than once over the last two+ decades has been for the system.  I prefer to homebrew, as do a lot of D&D players.  I'd actually stop buying D&D if they married the system to a setting -- even one I liked.  I'd just move to Hero and continue homebrewing.


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## Dakkareth (May 19, 2005)

Why not use 'content' instead of 'intellectual property'? It's a more neutral, much less offensive term.


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## philreed (May 19, 2005)

I don't understand. What, in a few short words for the idiots like me, are you saying?


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## DungeonmasterCal (May 19, 2005)

Bloodright???  You mean Birthright?  Right?


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## Storm Raven (May 19, 2005)

Your argument would be cogent, except for the fact that adevtures are not very good money makers. TSR, in its heyday, made its money by selling copies of rule books, not settings. Getting into the setting business was a method to generate sales for the rule books more than anything else.

In point of fact, the same criticism you level at GURPS (SJGames' published material is mostly of interest to GMs) is equally applicable to adventures and settings: they are mostly of interest to GMs. Despite the many fond memories many of us have about things like T1-8, A1-4, and the GDQ series, all the information we have says that they weren't very profitable for TSR.


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## diaglo (May 19, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> I don't understand. What, in a few short words for the idiots like me, are you saying?



his hat of d02 knows no limits...


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## TerraDave (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> GURPS market is primarily game masters.   GURPS sourcebooks are themselves toys, because they present simulationist leaning game masters with the very sort of mental toy that simulationist leaning game masters and world builders like to roll around in thier head and play with.   The real value of GURPS sourcebooks is thier ability to inform games by providing consise gamer centered information about a large variaty of topics of interest to gamers - regardless of the game system actually being used.   Thus, the real value of GURPS is not in the game system itself, but in the intellectual property contained within the source books.




All I can say to that is "guilty", but I was playing D&D at the time...

In terms of the larger premise, I think you are on to something: if the only new "IP" anybody mentions is Meepo, then something is probably wrong.


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## philreed (May 19, 2005)

diaglo said:
			
		

> his hat of d02 knows no limits...




_That_ I've heard before. (I mean, we all have.)

But I was under the impression there was an underlying message beyond that -- a message I wasn't comprehending.


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## Kid Charlemagne (May 19, 2005)

I think his point is "Modules Build Campaign Worlds."  And since WoTC doesn't do modules to any great extent any more, the intellectual property (and how can "intellectual property" be an offensive term?) is lessened.

I disagree - I think Eberron's value as intellectual property is being built by the novels and (especiallly) by the upcoming D&D Online, which is Eberron based.

And if WoTC was cutting its own throat, D&D wouldn't be selling mroe now than at any point in the last 15 years - according to Charles Ryan the D&D Brand Manager, who posted as much around 6 months ago.


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## Umbran (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Where are the great modules?  Doesn't anyone at TSR realize that the true value of D&D has always been its great modules?




I don't think this is at all true, economically speaking.  The whole point of the OGL and the d20 licenses is to allow others to produce the products that aren't big moneymakers - and that includes modules.  Modules may be what nostalgic players remember, but they aren't what earned the big $$.

Not only that, I think the heyday of "great modules" was back during 1e days, rather than "always".  And they're only really great in retrospect, in that my gaming style has greatly changed.  Those modules simply wouldn't cut the mustard for me now.  These days, if I weren't homebrewing, my needs would be better served with well-created and detailed setting materials.


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## Celebrim (May 19, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> I don't understand. What, in a few short words for the idiots like me, are you saying?




My irony detector is buzzing, but if you want everything condenced down to a few short words then...

"The fluff is more valuable than the crunch"

I'm trying to make an argument that even if most of your money is being made at any given time on the crunch, that its the fluff that keeps people playing the game and keeps up peoples appetite for the crunch.   If you neglect the fluff for too long, then you lose out to someone who has got great fluff, even if your crunch is better than his crunch.

So for example, a comment like:

"Your argument would be cogent, except for the fact that adevtures are not very good money makers. TSR, in its heyday, made its money by selling copies of rule books, not settings. Getting into the setting business was a method to generate sales for the rule books more than anything else."

somewhat misses the point.  I'm not arguing that crunch isn't a money maker, and in fact is the best short term investment.   I'm arguing that not enough long term investments are being made, and that your fluff is your long term investment.  Thus the 'slowly cutting its own throat'.   

"In point of fact, the same criticism you level at GURPS (SJGames' published material is mostly of interest to GMs) is equally applicable to adventures and settings: they are mostly of interest to GMs. Despite the many fond memories many of us have about things like T1-8, A1-4, and the GDQ series, all the information we have says that they weren't very profitable for TSR."

Again, maybe not directly, but its _all those fond memories of things like that_ which are primarily responsible for keeping us and bringing us back into the game.  



> his hat[red] of d02 (sic) knows no limits...




Diaglo, you are either trying to be funny and failing, or you are an idiot.   Please tell me that its the former.


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (May 19, 2005)

S'mon said:
			
		

> In any case, the fact of the matter is that WotC makes its money off one, particular, valuable piece of Intellectual Property, and it's not copyright at all - it's the Dungeons & Dragons trade mark.




Perfectly stated.  The trademark and subsequent licensing value allows WotC to generate non-pnp-gaming revenue and interest that can keep the franchise alive through slow periods and the gradual decline of traditional-PnP gaming.  

As I recall, Fallout was going to use the GURPS rules.  When a dispute arose, they dropped that and substituted there own, to no apparent detriment to sales.  If tomorrow Turbine announces they've lost the D&D license, their new MMORPG will most likely bite the dust.

GURPS never generated the IP that D&D did because that was never the intent -- the first letter in the acronym is a dead give-away.  Anecdotally, all but one of the people I have ever known that bought GURPS material bought it specifically to be adapted to other gaming systems, and this was during GURPS supposed heyday.


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## philreed (May 19, 2005)

If this thread is really about D&D as a brand and IP I feel it's very, very short-sighted to even consider the RPG side as relevant to the brand. In my opinion, these days, it's the computer games and novels that are important to the IP. The ONLY reason I can see that modules were important during the early days of 1e was that there weren't novels.

Seriously, how many copies of Neverwinter Nights sold compared to the PHB? What are sales comparisons between the RPG and novels?


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## philreed (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> "The fluff is more valuable than the crunch"




Again, if this thread is ONLY about D&D as a brand then I'll agree with you. But i do not feel the RPG is the source of fluff for D&D these days.


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## Celebrim (May 19, 2005)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> I disagree - I think Eberron's value as intellectual property is being built by the novels and (especiallly) by the upcoming D&D Online, which is Eberron based.




Congradulations.  You've made the one of the first really intelligent responces to me on this thread, and believe me I appreciate it.

I didn't think of that, but there is some merit to the idea.  It's entirely possible that there are alot of good ways for WotC to develop the value of their intellectual property that don't involve publishing memorable modules, because they can make memorable adventures now in other ways.  Certainly for example in the case of FR, arguably more of the value of the intellectual property came from the success of the novels (themselves adventures of a sort) than ever came from things like the 'Time of Troubles' modules.

So, is the age of the module truly dead in your opinion, or has the module transformed by economical necessity into being a primarily an electronic medium?

UPDATE: Phil made about the same point at the same time.


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## Storm Raven (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> "The fluff is more valuable than the crunch"




Not to a publisher. The crunch is what makes money. And what _players_ buy.



> I'm trying to make an argument that even if most of your money is being made at any given time on the crunch, that its the fluff that keeps people playing the game and keeps up peoples appetite for the crunch.   If you neglect the fluff for too long, then you lose out to someone who has got great fluff, even if your crunch is better than his crunch.




Are you kidding? 1e D&D was all crunch - there was virtually no "fluff" anywhere. No settings, no novels, the rule books didn't even have any fluff to speak of. And yet it sold like gangbusters. What keeps people coming back is (a) a playable system, (b) nostalgia, (c) and familiarity.



> somewhat misses the point.  I'm not arguing that crunch isn't a money maker, and in fact is the best short term investment.   I'm arguing that not enough long term investments are being made, and that your fluff is your long term investment.  Thus the 'slowly cutting its own throat'.




No, it doesn't. And no they aren't. They farmed out much of the "fluff", and thus cut their responsibility to produce loss-leaders, while retaining the profitable portion of their business. Which has allowed mammoth volumes of "fluff" to be produced. It was a canny and far-sighted move.



> Again, maybe not directly, but its _all those fond memories of things like that_ which are primarily responsible for keeping us and bringing us back into the game.




But the fond memories aren't generally attributable to the published adventures. Most people spent most of their time playing home-brewed adventures. And even the published adventures didn't generate the fond memories - playing the game did, the published adventures were just a vehicle. Does it truly matter if your 3e memories are driven by playing _The Sunless Citadel_, _Terror in Freeport_, or _Three Days to Kill_? You will still have fond memories of playing D&D, and will keep coming back. Which is exactly what WotC wants.

In point of fact, since you can build your character exactly as you want him to be using the monstrous amount of "crunch" available, you probably had more fun in those than you did back when you played your class straight out of the book with no customization options.


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## buzz (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> You can have the best game system in the world, but if you don't have great intellectual property - if you don't have great ideas and stories - you are likely going to be a flash in the gaming pan and a foot note in gaming history.



HERO system has been around since 1981 without being tied to any massively-popular IP. Sure, the Champions Universe is beloved by many, but it's not a feature of the system. The system is the feature of the system. 

Sure, it's not D&D popular, but nothing is.

The problem I have with what I believe you're saying is that it is a matter of record that the TSR business practices that you're citing as successful were, in fact, not. FR and DL have indeed proven very profitable IP. Planescape, Al-Qadim, Birthright, and Mystara have not. As others have pointed out, TSR was also pumping out ginormous amounts of player-centric crunch books. TSR's insistence on continually creating new settings and adventures was one of the reasons they went belly-up.

FR and DL have been successful becasue they are interesting worlds that were lucky enough to have both good design teams and talented authors pumping out novels. IMO, R.A. Salvatore and Weis/Hickman are the prime movers behind the popularity of their corresponding settings.

And if the recent downturn in the RPG industry has shown anything, it's that IP alone will not make a game successful. Plenty of RPGs have used licensed settings far more popular overall than even FR or DL, and it didn't automatically result in strong sales. Plenty of RPGs tied to popular IP have bombed. E.g., LOTR is probably the most popular fantasy setting on earth, but I don't remember seeing a single Decipher LOTR RPG event on the roster for this year's GenCon. Or, heck... the most recent Marvel or DC RPGs, anyone? I didn't think so. 

The simple fact is, the current business practices of WotC that you are lamenting are far more sound strategically than anything TSR ever did. The vast diversity of settings is there for people who want it, thanks to the OGL: Midnight, Kalamar, Scarred Lands, Arcanis, Oathbound, etc.

And where are the great modules? All over the place: WotC, Necromancer, Atlas, Goodman, Green Ronin, Malhavoc... You just can't get all nostalgic about them yet.


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## buzz (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Again, maybe not directly, but its _all those fond memories of things like that_ which are primarily responsible for keeping us and bringing us back into the game.



This, I think, is the primary fallacy in your argument. I don'y play D&D becasue I liked it _then_. I play it because I like it _now_.

I would also direct you to Storm Raven's post. When D&D was at its most popular was when it had the *least* amount of modules, settings, novels, and other media support. DL didn't appear until 1984, and FR was not published as a setting (never mind novels) until 1987.

Ergo, I think that what you're getting at ("Where are all the classic modules of today?") really doesn't have anything to do with the success or failure of D&D. It's just nostalgia. If TSR had included some module other than "Keep on the Borderlands" with msot of the Basic sets, we'd all be fondly remembering that instead.


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## buzz (May 19, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> If this thread is really about D&D as a brand and IP I feel it's very, very short-sighted to even consider the RPG side as relevant to the brand. In my opinion, these days, it's the computer games and novels that are important to the IP. The ONLY reason I can see that modules were important during the early days of 1e was that there weren't novels.
> 
> Seriously, how many copies of Neverwinter Nights sold compared to the PHB? What are sales comparisons between the RPG and novels?



Just wanted to add a "Booyah!" here.


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## el-remmen (May 19, 2005)

/mod hat

Let's refrain from calling or not so subtly implying that other posters are idiots or any other pejoriative term.

If you want to disagree - please do it respectfully.

Thanks.


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## philreed (May 19, 2005)

el-remmen said:
			
		

> Let's refrain from calling or not so subtly implying that other posters are idiots or any other pejoriative term.




Even if I'm calling myself an idiot?


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## Thornir Alekeg (May 19, 2005)

Most of my fondest memories of the Basic and AD&D games were from the homebrew games that I played.  _But_ most of the nostalgia discussion comes from the published modules simply because all (or at least many) of us can relate and compare our experiences.  It is much harder for people to compare and relate to "the time when I was in high school where my party had to fight through some demons to release a powerful being who had been our patron from level one that we called Drunkard..." than it is to, "the time we faced off against Lolth in Q1"

And I think the modules are not the key content that WotC needs to be developing.  What they need to continue to develop are vibrant settings for which they produce supplements, maybe laced with a module here and there to help DMs with less experience or less time get into using these supplements.  They then also need to have player supplements which add unique flavor for characters playing in these areas so they are not only marketing to the DMs.  

I have never had a subscription to Dungeon magazine, so I have no idea about this: do adventures published in Dungeon contain WotC setting specific information?  Basically what I'm asking, is does Paizo have permission to use WotC non-OGL material in the magazine?  I would contend the best thing for WotC is to allow this (if they don't already).  Let readers submit adventures for the settings.  Each month have a Greyhawk, an FR and an Eberron adventure included along with generic adventures.  This way TSR does not have the expense of publishing modules, but reap the benefits of people buying setting and supplement books.


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## frankthedm (May 19, 2005)

Crothian said:
			
		

> Second edition was known for the great settings.




along with a pile of refuse to rival the million monkeys working a million years on recreating shakespears works.


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## gizmo33 (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim - any sales figure data to support your argument?  GURPS is a tough place to reason from because there are so many variables.  With too many variables, I would say it would be fairly easy to pick and choose the facts to fit a number of different arguments.

Also - what exactly is IP?  One of my uneducated options about this is that DnD continues to hold onto gamers because of some fairly basic ideas and a sense of familiarity.  Magic missle, vorpal blades, drow elves.  These tiny things, taken as a whole, are probably as significant as more grandiose ideas like Dragonlance.  Whether or not the small things constitute IP in some legal sense, I think they create a culture that is familiar and sought by gamers.

Finally (and I save the best to last) - please comment upon the "Network Theory of Usefulness" as it relates to RPGs (and I'm making this term up from some half-remembered idea of someone elses).  The "Network Theory" says that an items usefulness (in this case an RPG) is related to the number of OTHER people that also own the item.  Ie.  a telephone is only as useful as the number of other people that own telephones.

IMO this plays a huge part in the popularity of DnD.  The bulk of the players in my current campaign joined because they had heard of DnD and that I was running a game.  They were gamers that had played some other systems, but had I been DMing something obscure, I wonder if they would have been as comfortable.  I'm pretty sure, all things being the same, that they would have chosen a DnD game over another one.  So I think popularity breeds popularity.  That's my gut feeling as to why DnD has managed to survive some pretty horrible product IMO.


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## JoeGKushner (May 19, 2005)

I must now quote myself from an earlier post...

OMG! The SKY IS FALLING!


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## Crothian (May 19, 2005)

frankthedm said:
			
		

> along with a pile of refuse to rival the million monkeys working a million years on recreating shakespears works.




I was high lighhting the postives


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## Erik Mona (May 19, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Modules may be what nostalgic players remember, but they aren't what earned the big $$.




I don't really want to get into this arugment, in the main. It seems to me that D&D is in a strong business position currently, much to the credit of the current business team.

But I think it's worth pointing out that the quoted passage above, while certainly true now, is most likely untrue across the whole spectrum of D&D's life cycle. Early adventures like Vault of the Drow and Isle of Dread sold in the hundreds of thousands (in the millions in the case of "Isle," which came with the Expert Set), and there is no question in my mind whatsoever that the most popular old modules were also terrificly profitable.

I think, at a certain point in the game's publishing history, that modules _became_ unprofitable, or produced profit margins unattractive to large corporations, but I find it very, very difficult to believe that this was the case during the 1980s "heyday" of D&D.

Just a point of clarification. You may now return to the doom and gloom.

--Erik Mona


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## Templetroll (May 19, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> Even if I'm calling myself an idiot?




He said 







> other posters



 so you are free to call or not so subtly imply about yourself all you wish!


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## Victim (May 19, 2005)

Now, no modules will have sufficient market penetration to generate the IP value you think is required.  Back in the 1e, there weren't all that many DnD products in general, and there weren't too many modules (especially at first).  It's one thing for a module to be a near universal experience when there are only 4 other ones.  Now there are not only bunches of new modules, but those also have to compete conversions of older adventures.  Not to mention that adventures more tailored to the PCs have become a more common style, making the traditional module a bit obsolete.  The module market is also more segmented, by campaign setting, rules expansions, 3.0 v 3.5, and the far wider range of typical levels (and differences in PC power by level).


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## Storm Raven (May 19, 2005)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> But I think it's worth pointing out that the quoted passage above, while certainly true now, is most likely untrue across the whole spectrum of D&D's life cycle. Early adventures like Vault of the Drow and Isle of Dread sold in the hundreds of thousands (in the millions in the case of "Isle," which came with the Expert Set), and there is no question in my mind whatsoever that the most popular old modules were also terrificly profitable.




Didn't the fact that the Isle of Dread was packaged with a set of rule books have a lot to do with it selling millions of copies? In any event, the question is not "does X sell", it is "how does X sell compared to Y, when we can put our resources into publishing one or the other".


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## Morte (May 19, 2005)

oops


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## Janx (May 19, 2005)

Intellectual Property is any idea I can make money off of (as the owner of said IP).  Additionally, preventing the competition from making money by controlling IP is kinda the same as making money.

As some one who gets paid for his ideas, I can say with some certainty that that's pretty much what IP is.  Some of my ideas are patentable, some are trade secrets (ex. we don't want the competition to know about).  Of the patentable, we might license out some of those ideas, or patent to direct prevent the competition from finding an advantage in that space.

In D&D's case, pretty much all the books probably counts as IP.  The OGL/SRD content would be ideas that are given away freely, to stimulate the industry and provide some benefit to Wotc, beyond direct sales to customers.  The D&D brand is valuable, but is a TradeMark and probably not technically considered IP (IANAL).

Now the D&D concept is IP.  And that IP has a history from the beginning to the present.  That means, while 1E had memorable adventures, and 2E had memorable settings, the D&D concept contains all of that.  It's the history, that supports the brand, and that is the concept that is valuable.  Tome of Horrors isn't worth a hill of beans as a product, but its value is the memories of the older players have and the attraction it generates to the current D&D products.

What are those products?  As Phill and somebody else said:
Novels (everybody can read)
video games (some number of non-gamers play, free exposure)
RPG system (all RPG players)
players add-on books (mostly players which is 4/5 of a group)
Campaign settings (mostly DM's which is 1/5 of a group)
modules (dm's only which is 1/5 of a group)

To maximize profit, WotC is likely to put the focus on what's got the most people that are candidates to buy it.  Novels, Video Games, and player add-ons win that.

Now celebrim may be questioning how long player add-ons will last, before all that's doable has been done.  Certainly feeding the less profitable components supports the system, but WotC is going to try to find the balance so they can get the best bang for buck (least development to most sales ratio).  Companies always have a hard time figuring out how much time to spend in the less profitable pools, because the direct sales value is minimal, but it's hard to measure the indirect impact those products have on the major products.  

For example, a computer company makes money selling servers and options.  They may sell desktop machines because it gets brand recognition out there to increase the chance you'll the good stuff later.  They don't make money on the desktops (at least not much if they do).  So one PHB may decide the desktop group doesn't make money, so they spin it off or shut it down.  What's hard to measure is the value the desktop line provided to sales of other products.  Same problem in D&D, just a different industry.

Janx


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## TerraDave (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Congradulations.  You've made the one of the first really intelligent responces to me on this thread, and believe me I appreciate it.




smooth


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## Mark (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> "The fluff is more valuable than the crunch"




This is news?


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## Celebrim (May 19, 2005)

> No, it doesn't. And no they aren't. They farmed out much of the "fluff", and thus cut their responsibility to produce loss-leaders, while retaining the profitable portion of their business. Which has allowed mammoth volumes of "fluff" to be produced. It was a canny and far-sighted move.




I think you have this backwards.  The farmed the crunch of the game via the SRD and the OGL.  The SRD does not contain fluff - or at least it contains as little fluff as WotC can manage.  They retained to themselves the fluff, which they either license (in the case of fluff with percieved low margins of return) to someone else or develop themselves precisely because they recognize at some level that the fluff is more valuable.   Meanwhile, they allow massive amounts of crunch to be released - even though it directly competes with any crunch they might want to print - because they no that there fluff is mainly where the money is in the long term.  But the current product line - sans Eberron which is still waiting for a great module IMO - seems to be emphasising crunch over fluff, which in my opinion is maximizing your short term profit while neglecting your long term investment.

I think the OGL is a great idea, but it will look like the height of folly if some other company out there ends up creating intellectual property (not covered under the OGL) which has move value than WotC's intellectual property and people ultimately leave the game because they find someone elses setting to be more compelling that WotC's properties.  One way to defend against this would be to continue to get near universal penetration of the market the way modules like S1, I6, X2 and so forth have near universal penetration of the market.   Settings are great, but I still think that they need great adventures as hooks.   It maybe that the best way to do that now is with electronic modules like Neverwinter Nights or MMORPG's, but if that is true then it makes me a little bit sad.


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## Celebrim (May 19, 2005)

Mark said:
			
		

> This is news?




No.  Which is why I'm suprised its contriversial.

I'm mostly asking, why aren't there more great adventures out there?  And implicitly, do we love a game mostly because of the adventures that we've had in it?  

I admit to having some biases.   I'm first and foremost a DM; that's how I've spent most of my gaming time.  The only true homebrew I've ever encountered is my own.   Whenever I was a PC, I was playing in some variation of a published setting and often an adventure based on a published module - so this of course strongly influences what I remember as a player.   Second, I'm getting old, I'm about to be a father, and I doubt I'll have time to develop adventures in the way that I used to.   So the lack of modules on the market that I find really compelling is disappointing.


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## philreed (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I'm mostly asking, why aren't there more great adventures out there?




Money.


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## the Jester (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I'm mostly asking, why aren't there more great adventures out there?  And implicitly, do we love a game mostly because of the adventures that we've had in it?




I think there _are_ really great adventures out there if you look hard enough, it's just not usually WotC putting them out.  The Freeport modules, Of Sound Mind, Rappan Athuk, etc.- all are good (at least by reputation).  And don't forget the content of Dungeon.

As to your second question, I'd hazard that we love the game because of the _adventures_ but not necessarily the _modules._


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## Thornir Alekeg (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I'm mostly asking, why aren't there more great adventures out there?




I think there are, but because there is a multitude of publishers now, rather than the one that dominated the market back in the day, no one module appeals to everyone, so you don't hear about it the same way.  Also, the market _ has _ matured; simple dungeon crawls don't have the same appeal as they used to, except in nostalgic value.  I have the "Serpent" trilogy of adventures for the Scarred Lands.  I think they are fantastic modules.  But how many people have used them?  Not many outside of the Scarred Lands players because it to almost too setting specific to transfer to someone else's campaign.  They published them and yet a year or so later, the line came to an end.  Obviously modules were not what was needed to keep the line alive.



> And implicitly, do we love a game mostly because of the adventures that we've had in it?



Of course we love the game for the adventures. I certainly don't love the game for the cool content, or a great cahracter generation system or whatever.  I've had plenty of games with those elements which I have not loved because I never played great adventures in them.  But do we love the game because someone published a great adventure, or because we played in one?  I could care less who wrote it; WotC, my DM, Necromacer Games, Monte Cook.  All I care about is that I had a good time.


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## Celebrim (May 19, 2005)

the Jester said:
			
		

> I think there _are_ really great adventures out there if you look hard enough, it's just not usually WotC putting them out.  The Freeport modules, Of Sound Mind, Rappan Athuk...




You lost me at Rappan Athuk.  If all the early modules were like Rappan Athuk, then dungeons would deserve all the bad reputation that they have with some people.  Granted, there were a few inventive encounters, but mostly it looked like something I wrote back in junior high and it reminded me of my least favorite (at least of those I played) 1st edition module 'S4: Lost Caverns of Tsojconth'.   It seemed really and unnecessarily primitive to me, as if later modules hadn't proved you could hang superdungeons in the framework of a compelling story.  It's exposure to the insides of the Rappan Athuk books (and to a lesser extent Bonegarden) which makes me highly skeptical when people tell me that Necromancer Games is putting out great modules.


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## Tiberius (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Diaglo, you are either trying to be funny and failing, or you are an idiot.   Please tell me that its the former.




It's a reference to this thread:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?threadid=31914


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## diaglo (May 19, 2005)

Tiberius said:
			
		

> It's a reference to this thread:
> http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?threadid=31914




wow... it never occurred to me that people must live under rocks and not have seen that thread before... but i guess, Celebrim proved me wrong.


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## Mark (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> No.  Which is why I'm suprised its contriversial.




Seems obvious to me but my perspective might be skewed by having RPG'd since 1974 (primarily as a DM and with my own homebrew) and my long term interest in my own burgeoning RPG Publishing company.

The mechanics have changed over time but its the flavor that is protected legally and that endures.  IMO, the decision to produce adventures can say a lot about a company.  Is the company in it for the long haul and will they get a correlated return on their resource investment.  If a company has no choice but to watch, or is only interested in, the bottom line, they will certainly find it hard to justify producing adventures.

Adventures require more flavor than mechanics (most of the mechanics are written elsewhere, though you can throw in a few new bobbles).  By their nature they can only appeal to a sliver of the market since they are level-dependant and circumstantially restrictive (i.e. geared toward a type of situation whether it be environmental or philosophical or otherwise).  Adventures are not, as has been said many times before, immediate money makers individually or on their face.

However, for my own part I believe that publishing adventures is important to the long term growth of my company.  I have one available for sale and three for FREE with more to come.

The Whispering Woodwind  2nd-level (easily scalable 1st-4th)

Cooperative Dungeon 01 - Terror and Blasphemy 14th-level

CD 02 - Halls of Anarchy 7th-level

CD 03 - Crypt of Damnation 5th-level

I believe there is a growing section of the market that, much like yourself, has a continuing interest in the hobby but less and less time to devote to the behind-the-scenes prep work required to run a top-notch campaign.  I think that growing segment can be supported with quality materials that aren't all about power creep and shiny new toys creating  obsolescence in the books already on your shelf.  So, congrats on the impending fatherhood and I hope that you find my publishing efforts useful to your needs! 


As always,
Mark Clover
(The Godfather of Gaming  )
www.CreativeMountainGames.com


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 19, 2005)

A few remarks:

1)  Personal biases: I love HERO, I love D20, and I hate GURPS (too many internal inconsistencies).

2)  Where are the modules?  As has been pointed out, they're out there, just not published in great numbers by WOTC.  Look to* Dungeon* and the 3rd party publishers.  (BTW, Judge's Guild is still out there somewhere...)  Let's not forget all those mini-modules that were released- I don't know what kind of profit margin those had- they were mostly bad but some were excellent.  In addition, the trend of DM's doing their own homebrew has strengthened, so any module on the market is competing not only with published, internationally distributed products, but also with thousands upon thousands of people writing their own stuff, some of which winds up online.  And that doesn't even address the issue of the extant, unconverted 1Ed & 2Ed adventures, not to mention conversions of excellent adventures from other games!  In terms purely economic- there are too many substitute goods for there to be much profit in printing new D20 modules.

3)  In addition, as you point out, the quality of some of the new modules is, well, subpar.  This will drive the demand curve down- in other words, people will be less desirous of modules in general because there is a general perception of a lack of quality.  If people think their homebrew is better than a module from the store, they won't buy it.  If they won't buy it, modules don't sell, and wind up in the discount bins.  Eventually, modules stop selling to their breakeven point,  and modules die as a commercially viable product.


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## Sigurd (May 19, 2005)

*IP & the bigger picture*

Intellectual property that is not relevant or popular is not very valuable. D&D made inroads because it was a good game and it was new. Modules seemed like the youth's equivalent of comic books and they enhanced the value of D&D to the extent they were popular.

Your arguements are interesting but you don't have any financial data to back them up. I suspect D&D will always be 'worth' more than Gurps. What other game has a movie, at least one television show, several comics and several computer games to its credit?

I am curious to see what Hasbro thinks of Wizards of the Coast (a book and collectibles production company)? Are profits as good as the typical Time Life series?

I think you have to expand your arguement from modules to include computer games and merchandizing to make them relevant. Its hard to assess value especially of fiction. Don't forget D&D doesn't have a monopoly on Dragons, Elves, Dwarves, gold as treasure or magic. Creative minds aren't forced to deal with WOTC unless it inspires them enough to pay for it. What inspires them, from a business perspective, will be confined to what is popular & what excites potential readers\consumers.


When D&D was hot it was HUGE. Game stores _plural_ opened to sell role playing games. Now even if WOTC is a fair size company, as a percentage of game entertainment choice I think D&D is shrinking. The surviving game store in my city primarily sells miniatures for warhammer and comic books. Video games don't need Dungeons & Dragons and they are a much bigger industry. If the OGL sacrifices a percentage of the pen and paper role playing market but increases interest from the video market WOTC wins. Modules and written dungeons just don't compare as money makers -- base rules and control makes money everything else is small potatoes. Much of it not really profitable at all.

I can easily see a future where even WOTC neglects pen and paper gaming because the market is saturated and/or too small. The Open Content license is a life support for the material that even WOTC benefits from by keeping enthusiasm for their trademark. In some ways D&D properties are like old television shows - spent and unprofitable unless there is a nostalgia boom.

Sorry if that sounds pessimistic - this is only my opinion of the 'big picture'. I don't have any more facts than your post.

I'd love to hear any numbers or other opinions.


S


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## Storm Raven (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I think you have this backwards.  The farmed the crunch of the game via the SRD and the OGL.  The SRD does not contain fluff - or at least it contains as little fluff as WotC can manage.




Except you have it exactly backwards. They farmed out the fluff. By making the OGL, they allow other companies to produce the fluff. That's why you see many, many third party adventures, setting books, and other fluff material being produced. WotC sells the crunch: the Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide, and so on. WotC's development lines have been almost entirely in the "crunch" area: more feats, more prestige classes, more options for characters and monsters and so on.



> _I think the OGL is a great idea, but it will look like the height of folly if some other company out there ends up creating intellectual property (not covered under the OGL) which has move value than WotC's intellectual property and people ultimately leave the game because they find someone elses setting to be more compelling that WotC's properties._





To use the OGL, a product essentially has to use the Player's Handbook. Which is what WotC wants to sell.

_



			One way to defend against this would be to continue to get near universal penetration of the market the way modules like S1, I6, X2 and so forth have near universal penetration of the market.
		
Click to expand...


_
The OGL exists _primarily_ so that WotC doesn't have to bother making adventures. Other companies do that for them. In point of fact, there have been multiple small publishers who do almost nothing other than put out adventures.


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## Celebrim (May 19, 2005)

Mark said:
			
		

> Seems obvious to me but my perspective might be skewed by having RPG'd since 1974 (primarily as a DM and with my own homebrew) and my long term interest in my own burgeoning RPG Publishing company...
> 
> The Whispering Woodwind  2nd-level (easily scalable 1st-4th)
> Cooperative Dungeon 01 - Terror and Blasphemy 14th-level
> ...




So Mark, if you'll indulge me one more time, I'd like to have your opinion as a publisher.   

Could it be that the reason that there are not many good modules on the market is that writing a compelling module is harder than writing up a rules supplement?  Is the good fluff harder to do than the crunch?  

To me, it seems like it is, because I can smith out rules as I need them and feel I'm doing a pretty good job.   I respect a good crunch writer, but generally speaking I don't feel that the quality of the crunch on the market vastly exceeds what I could do myself.  I think if I had the time, I could write up a crunch product - even several products - that might appeal to enough people to sell as a PDF.  But I don't think that I could start churning out modules that appealled to a wide audience, and certainly not as easily.   It could be that this is just because I'm a stronger rulesmith than story teller, but I was wondering whether in your opinion whether this perception that fluff is harder than crunch is more general amongst real game authors?


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## buzz (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I think the OGL is a great idea, but it will look like the height of folly if some other company out there ends up creating intellectual property (not covered under the OGL) which has move value than WotC's intellectual property and people ultimately leave the game because they find someone elses setting to be more compelling that WotC's properties.



As long as said setting requires the players to own a PHB, I don't think WotC much cares, nor should they. The whole point of the OGL is to encourage companies to make products that drive sales of the core books.

Everybody who plays D&D needs a PHB. Only some portion of D&D players will choose this hypothetical setting, and of them only the DMs really even need it. WotC still wins.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> One way to defend against this would be to continue to get near universal penetration of the market the way modules like S1, I6, X2 and so forth have near universal penetration of the market.



"Universal"? Nobody I knew growing up owned I6 or X2. I bought S1 at some piont, but never got a chance to run it.

The quality of the modules and settings had absolutely no effect on my taking up D&D. All the wonderful settings you cited in your first post certainly didn't stop me from totally avoiding 2e. All that mattered was: Did I enjoy the game itself? and Are there people I can find to play with? In 1e's case, the answers were yes. In 2e's case, the answers were no. In 3e's case, the answer tot he first question was a resounding yes, and I made my own answer to the second question by finding some players.

I think you're taking the wrong track if what you're after is new classic adventures. In the current market, adventures don't make money and do little if anything to bolster the popularity of a game system. Your theory doesn't jibe with existing data.


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## Kid Charlemagne (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Could it be that the reason that there are not many good modules on the market is that writing a compelling module is harder than writing up a rules supplement?  Is the good fluff harder to do than the crunch?




It may be partly this, but the main reason that there are not many good modules out there (not that I'm sure that that is an accurate assessment) is that writing modules at this point is not a terribly good way to make money.

It may work for smaller publishers like Mark, and it worked in the very early days of 3E, but most publishers seem to have decided that - like WoTC - modules just weren't profitable enough.  In a previous thread, Chris Pramas of Green Ronin pointed out that Dungeon is a formidable barrier to successful module writing - its so good, and at such a good price that its tough to compete with.

WoTC _has_ seen the point you're making - they announced several months back that due to the lack of adventures in the marketplace they were going to get back into the module business.  I don't think we've seen any product announced to back that up yet, but WoTC's business cycle is slower than the average RPG company due to their size.


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## ThirdWizard (May 19, 2005)

Good fluff is much harder to produce than good crunch. It's relatively easier to write a balanced feat for 3.5 D&D than it is to write something interesting to read. Ask most novelists!

Now, most business strategy these days is short term. You arn't going to see many people these days who even consider where the business will be in 25 years. I don't know myself what is good for D&D long term, but no matter what it is, I doubt anyone at Wizards has seriously considered it. Whether it's modules or something else entirely, they will produce what sells this quarter because that's sadly how things go nowadays.

Personally, I never bought nor played adventures, and I don't particularly see the appeal. If WotC started producing really good modules, how many would sell? If they don't sell (as we know they arn't extremely good sellers at least now), how many would play them? If not many people play them, then what good are they doing? They arn't building anything if the vast majority of gamers don't play them. CRPGs are the new sellers, I think. Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic are the two big ones. And there's more coming.


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## buzz (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> ...there are not many good modules on the market...



I'd honestly like to contest that this assertion is even true.

Sure, there's a lot of crap adventures out there, but that's Sturgeon's Law, and it applies equally to TSR's output. Most of the adventures that have been cited so far are all from this narrow window in the early '80s.

Personally, I think that the entire Penumbra line from Atlas is fantastic. I'm running _City of the Spider Queen_ right now and having a blast. The _Freeport_ series from GR is practially a 3e "classic" now. Lots of people rave about Necromancer's adventures, and Firey Dragon's, and Malhavoc's, and Goodman Games', and Creative Mountain's... and _Dungeon_ pumps out 3-4 excellent adventures every month.

The truth is out there.


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## buzz (May 19, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> I don't know myself what is good for D&D long term, but no matter what it is, I doubt anyone at Wizards has seriously considered it.



Oh, I think the long-term health of D&D is very often considered by the folk at WotC. The OGL alone has insured that even Wizard's deminse can't sink D&D. It's basically public property.


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## Celebrim (May 19, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> Everybody who plays D&D needs a PHB.




Arguably, that's a statement that just isn't true and hasn't been for some time.  The minute that someone releases a variant player's handbook, whether it be for LotR, Wheel of Time, or Diamond Throne, you are no longer married to WotC products.

So the question is, why do inarguably valuable IP's like LotR or WoT not successfully compete, and the answer that satisfies me is that quality published adventures are required to keep a large base of players hooked into a setting.  



> "Universal"? Nobody I knew growing up owned I6 or X2. I bought S1 at some piont, but never got a chance to run it.




As I said, near universal.  I couldn't possibly guess at numbers, but I'm fairly certain that there are examples of fantastically successful early modules where the appelation 'near universal' applies - afterall, many of these had 6+ printings.



> All the wonderful settings you cited in your first post certainly didn't stop me from totally avoiding 2e. All that mattered was: Did I enjoy the game itself? and Are there people I can find to play with? In 1e's case, the answers were yes. In 2e's case, the answers were no.




I can't help but feel that to at least some extent, both those things were driven by the availability of quality modules.  Getting started in 1st edition was easy.   Getting started in 2nd edition without a 1st edition DM to guide you was not so easy.



> I think you're taking the wrong track if what you're after is new classic adventures. In the current market, adventures don't make money and do little if anything to bolster the popularity of a game system. Your theory doesn't jibe with existing data.




Data?  Data?  We don't have data.   We have a bunch of settings which failed, but we can't prove one way or the other why they failed until we have several counter examples of settings which succeeded.   We could bring lots of different successes and failures of past game systems into this, but that just makes things more complicated.  We probably will never end up with a single simple explanation.   If you are looking for me to prove anything of this complexity, then I'm sorry but nothing this complex and abstract in nature is provable.   All I can try to be is compelling, and as far as compelling arguments for me go I believe that the strength of D&D has been modules and 'network utility'.


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## Mark (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> So Mark, if you'll indulge me one more time, I'd like to have your opinion as a publisher.
> 
> Could it be that the reason that there are not many good modules on the market is that writing a compelling module is harder than writing up a rules supplement?  Is the good fluff harder to do than the crunch?




Good?  That's a matter of personal taste and my speaking to that achieves little.  I do think that the overall lack of adventures available is due mainly to what publishers see as a lack of return on their investment.

As to "fluff versus crunch", any writer or publisher can tell you the volume of liquid a bucket can hold and it is accepted, since a bucket can be of any size and it is fair to say that a particular bucket is of any particular size.  Once they begin describing the appearance of the bucket they begin to whittle away the number of people who will find it acceptable to present the same bucket in their game world, the more detailed or unusual, thes less people to whom such a description will appeal.  There's a perceived diminishing rate a return while increasing the level of detail in the fluff in published materials.  I don't know that it is harder to write fluff than crunch but it is definitely more difficult to hold the widest possible acceptance of fluff as it is more clearly defined.


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## Crothian (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I'm mostly asking, why aren't there more great adventures out there?  And implicitly, do we love a game mostly because of the adventures that we've had in it?




There are some great adventures out there, they just aren't made by Wizards and are not so widespread that most people are running them like in first edition.


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## radferth (May 19, 2005)

*Re: Celebrim's post on why GURPs will never be the industry leader*

1) What he said.

2) Every time I have sat in with friends who were playing GURPS, every fight was an extended attempt to shoot, slash, or poke the opponent in the head or eye.


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## Storm Raven (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Arguably, that's a statement that just isn't true and hasn't been for some time.  The minute that someone releases a variant player's handbook, whether it be for LotR, Wheel of Time, or Diamond Throne, you are no longer married to WotC products.




You still need to have the Player's Handbook, because the variant versions don't have some critical elements of the rules.



> _So the question is, why do inarguably valuable IP's like LotR or WoT not successfully compete, and the answer that satisfies me is that quality published adventures are required to keep a large base of players hooked into a setting._





Maybe it is because, as people have told you already, fluff doesn't sell very well.

_



			As I said, near universal.  I couldn't possibly guess at numbers, but I'm fairly certain that there are examples of fantastically successful early modules where the appelation 'near universal' applies - afterall, many of these had 6+ printings.
		
Click to expand...


_
And somehow the fact that piles of adventures have been produced for 3e (vastly more than were ever produced for 1e) doesn't register with you?



> _I can't help but feel that to at least some extent, both those things were driven by the availability of quality modules.  Getting started in 1st edition was easy.   Getting started in 2nd edition without a 1st edition DM to guide you was not so easy._





Which is why WotC farmed out the development of this sort of fluff to third party publishers - so that there would be a steady stream of it being produced that WotC doesn't have to bother spending their resources on. And guess what - piles of adventures have been produced.


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## Kid Charlemagne (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> So the question is, why do inarguably valuable IP's like LotR or WoT not successfully compete, and the answer that satisfies me is that quality published adventures are required to keep a large base of players hooked into a setting.




Have you read Ryan Dancey's takes on why TSR failed, and the theory behind implementing the D20 license?  Because I think those things would answer your questions pretty thoroughly.

In short, D&D succeeds in large part at this point because of its position as THE roleplaying game.  It succeeds due to its network of players, and its preeminence in people's minds - even as part of a market as small as PNP RPG's.  It got to that point for a variety of reasons, but it remains there because of its dominance.  

Your answer may have been the answer to how D&D became dominant, but its not the answer to why it _remains_ dominant.


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## buzz (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Arguably, that's a statement that just isn't true and hasn't been for some time.  The minute that someone releases a variant player's handbook, whether it be for LotR, Wheel of Time, or Diamond Throne, you are no longer married to WotC products.



LOTR was not a d20 product, WoT was not a variant PHB (it was a self contained d20 game), and AU still requires the DMG and MM. Also, plaing AU != playing D&D, per se. If you want to play D&D, you need either a copy of the PHB or access to the SRD. If you want to DM D&D, you need the DMG and PHB, unless you choose to use an alternate level progression and CR system from an OGL product or one you created yourself.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> So the question is, why do inarguably valuable IP's like LotR or WoT not successfully compete, and the answer that satisfies me is that quality published adventures are required to keep a large base of players hooked into a setting.



LotR is essentially dead becasue of Decipher's lack of support. Their production of an entire Moria boxed adventure set didn't do anything to compensate for poorly edited and unsupported products.

WoT was intended from the get-go as a one-off product. Barring massive sales, the core book and the _Prophecies of the Dragon_ *adventure* (!) were all that were planned for the line, IIRC.

As for your hypothesis, I don't see that the lack of published adventures for, say, V:tM hampered it's becoming the second most popular RPG on earth, or _Shadowrun_ becoming as popular as it was in the day. Or M&M's usurping the SHRPG  crown. I dunno; I don't think there's a dreict correlation.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> As I said, near universal.  I couldn't possibly guess at numbers, but I'm fairly certain that there are examples of fantastically successful early modules where the appelation 'near universal' applies - afterall, many of these had 6+ printings.



Sure, but these are a hadnful out of the 220+ modules published for Basic/1e. How well did the others sell? Did "Midnight on Dagger Alley" or "Skarda's Mirror" do anything to contribute to D&D's success?



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Data?  Data?  We don't have data.   We have a bunch of settings which failed, but we can't prove one way or the other why they failed until we have several counter examples of settings which succeeded.



There are extensive accounts of the fall of TSR avaiable on the Web from people ionvolved with the company. We also have had, time and again, publishers come to these forums and state explicitly that adventures don't make any money. We also know that WotC's current business model has been extremely successful. This is what we have available to us. I can only assume that the various publishers who confirm all this know what they're talking about.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> All I can try to be is compelling, and as far as compelling arguments for me go I believe that the strength of D&D has been modules and 'network utility'.



Understood. I just don't really agree and don't feel the theory holds up to scrutiny. I don't think I have ever read commentary from anyone invovled with D&D in it's heyday that attributed its success to quality modules. (Which in no way implies that there were not quality modules, nor that modules may, at one time, have been profitable to produce.)


----------



## WayneLigon (May 19, 2005)

I think the reason D&D remains dominant is that it always has been dominant. There are three main reasons for that: (1) It was First, and for a long long time you had people that would not even look at another RPG. (2) You had the Egbert case, which was basically free nation-wide publicity for D&D. (3) TSR's best (and later, worst) business move ever was the deal with Random House that put D&D products into the national chain booksellers network. Suddenly you didn't have to go into a hobby shop, you could see D&D in a chain bookstore - and let me tell you, more people walk into a high-traffic chain bookstore per hour than into the best FLGS in the nation every week. That visibility can't be discounted in explaining D&D pre-eminance.

I don't think it was because of modules. I can only speak for the groups I've known, but I've never known people to use modules all _that _much unless they were really pressed for time.

I bought 3E because it was a good set of rules. The IP surrounding it has no interest to me. The settings are of marginal interest at best; I can mine some things from them for my own use but I wouldn't miss it if all the fluff vanished tomorrow leaving only the SRD. The novels and other peripheral stuff? No interest. Neverwinter Nights? Come on. No use to me.


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## jmucchiello (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Could it be that the reason that there are not many good modules on the market is that writing a compelling module is harder than writing up a rules supplement?  Is the good fluff harder to do than the crunch?



Actually I think most writers feel they can pound out fluff easily and it is coherent crunch they find difficult. Writing clearly understood, unambiguous crunch is not easy. The actual answer is probably that writing is writing and if you can write fluff you can write crunch and if you cannot write fluff, you can't write period.


> To me, it seems like it is, because I can smith out rules as I need them and feel I'm doing a pretty good job.   I respect a good crunch writer, but generally speaking I don't feel that the quality of the crunch on the market vastly exceeds what I could do myself.  I think if I had the time, I could write up a crunch product - even several products - that might appeal to enough people to sell as a PDF.



Go for it. If it's any good, you'll make a little money. And I mean a little money. What you will find is the money made is not in proportion to the effort made. Thus you will understand that publishers must focus on stuff that makes the most money for the least effort: prestige classes, feats, spells. Not adventures.

But seriously, try to write 10,000 words on a topic, straight crunch, see how easy or hard it is. I think you'll find a lot fluff creeping into those 10,000 words. Especially when you try to describe a PrC or spell or magic item. (Short) Descriptions are always both fluff and crunch.  I'll publish it if it's good.


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## Staffan (May 19, 2005)

Kid Charlemagne said:
			
		

> WoTC _has_ seen the point you're making - they announced several months back that due to the lack of adventures in the marketplace they were going to get back into the module business.  I don't think we've seen any product announced to back that up yet, but WoTC's business cycle is slower than the average RPG company due to their size.



Well, there are the three Eberron adventures (Shadows of the Last War, Whispers of the Vampire's Blade, and Grasp of the Emerald Claw), and they have a FR adventure called Sons of Gruumsh scheduled for September (though in the online catalog, it's labeled an "anthology" - probably a typo when entering it into the database).


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## Aristotle (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I think you have this backwards. The farmed the crunch of the game via the SRD and the OGL. The SRD does not contain fluff - or at least it contains as little fluff as WotC can manage.



He had it right. They instituted the SRD and OGL so that other companies could provide the ever-important, but typically less profitable, fluff. The expectation was that these 3rd parties would create great settings and adventures using the rules provided, allowing WotC to focus on the expansion and refinement of the rules with minimal fluff. The various book series (Complete, Races, Environments, Heroes, and so on) support this.

WotC did not expect the 3rd party publishers to directly compete with them with rules products, although many have, and have since said so. I don't have a link, but a recent release talked about this and how WotC was going to be getting back into producing Adventure Modules to fill the gap they had expected the 3rd party folks to fill.

I think some of the scheduled modules, as well as the Locations series of books are a direct result of WotC seeing a need to keep the quality of the fluff up so that the crunch has some meaning.


I would also say though, that nobody starts out wanting to write a mediocre adventure. Nobody knows when an adventure is going to catch on and become the next great "classic". I have to think all of these module writers are attempting to give you what you want, even if few actually have the talent or concept to deliver.


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## Storyteller01 (May 19, 2005)

diaglo said:
			
		

> but for the penultimate thread. go here: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=82335





What in G*** name wqas that guy thinking!?  I know I'm a 'mini-troll' around this thread, but man...


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## Storyteller01 (May 19, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Diaglo, you are either trying to be funny and failing, or you are an idiot.   Please tell me that its the former.




You have to read the thread he posted. Click on the address. It IS rather funny.


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## toberane (May 19, 2005)

diaglo said:
			
		

> but for the penultimate thread. go here: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=82335




If that is the penultimate thread, where is the ultimate thread?

DEFINITIONS:

Penultimate: Next to last.

Ultimate: Last.


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## Poster Bard (May 19, 2005)

toberane said:
			
		

> If that is the penultimate thread, where is the ultimate thread?





http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=131786


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## ThirdWizard (May 20, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> Oh, I think the long-term health of D&D is very often considered by the folk at WotC. The OGL alone has insured that even Wizard's deminse can't sink D&D. It's basically public property.




Well... d20 maybe, but D&D, no. Even if WotC suddenly went under (not going to happen), I believe the Dungeons and Dragons trademark would not be available. (IANAL)



			
				Storm Raven said:
			
		

> You still need to have the Player's Handbook, because the variant versions don't have some critical elements of the rules.




You can play an Arcana Unearthed/Evolved game without a D&D Player's Handbook. It even has (different) experience tables.


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## Aristotle (May 20, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> You can play an Arcana Unearthed/Evolved game without a D&D Player's Handbook. It even has (different) experience tables.



But, to the best of my knowledge, it doesn't show you how to reward experience (at least the original did not) for different CRs. So you would still need the DMG.


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## MonsterMash (May 20, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> I must now quote myself from an earlier post...
> 
> OMG! The SKY IS FALLING!



Hey! I said that in the 4e thread!


----------



## Wild Gazebo (May 20, 2005)

A long term product needs to be innovative, consumable or pre-obsolete in order to maintain high-profit--which can fabricate demand.  This is the crux of RPGs.


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## Brennin Magalus (May 20, 2005)

diaglo said:
			
		

> wow... it never occurred to me that people must live under rocks and not have seen that thread before... but i guess, Celebrim proved me wrong.




Diaglo:

Did your ignore queue just get longer?


----------



## Orius (May 20, 2005)

Why doesn't WotC publish many modules these days?  There's three answers to that, and they've all been given in this thread somewhere:

1.  Back in the day, the classic modules like the GDQ series or S1 sold a lot of copies because there wasn't a lot of D&D products, so people bought the modules, because that's what was being published.  That stopped being the case in the days of 2e.

2.  Modules are basically DM-only products, and since there are few DMs than players, there are less people buying them.  Thus they're less profitable.

3. Gaming groups have much more diverse characters these days.  In the old days it was easier to just put a party into a module since characters weren't as different as they are today.  An xth-level party likely had similar ability when compared to another party of the same level played by a different group.  As character options increased, it made it harder to just plug a group into a module.  Also, campaigns have become more and more developed over the years, and that makes it harder to stick a module into an already existing campaign.


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## Alzrius (May 20, 2005)

I think Celebrim has a good point. Ultimately, what people remember, enjoy, and in many cases come back to, is the fluff of the game...and 3E has put a lot of that to the axe. When Third Edition first came out, I found it bitterly ironic that they fixed the mechanics of the game, and threw out the many worlds and settings that went with it. 

That said, I don't think that the valuable IPs are necessarily found only in modules, or that they need to be part of an established world. Rather, the fluff is valuable for how well it's presented, and for the shared experience it generates across many diverse players. _Rappan Athuk_ or _The World's Largest Dungeon_ all have proportionally more flavor text than _The Tomb of Horrors_ ever did. The fact that the Tomb was referenced and remembered in other products is secondary to the fact that so many people enjoyed and experienced the module.

It's for reasons like this that the old worlds won't ever die, and why I think we'll eventually see them all republished in some format or another, if they haven't already been. It may divide the fanbase, but ultimately people will go to where the fluff is, and if 3E isn't providing enough, the outcry will last long enough, and grow loud enough, that eventually WotC will hear it. D&D will never "cut its own throat" because like everything in a market, it responds to the consumer demands.


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## TheAuldGrump (May 20, 2005)

Hmmm, looking at my group as an example - I have 6 players, and I am the DM.

Most of the players bought at least one of the 3.0 splat books each, some bought more. I bought all of them. So that is 10 splats plus.

We all have the PHP and I have a spare, 3 of us have the DMG, 2 have the MM - 13 core rule books.

Third party stuff... going with Iron Kingdoms - 6 of us have bought the fluff book, three of us have bought the crunch book. The fluff book was bought by players of WARMACHINE as well as the RPG. They bought it as much for the wargame as for the RPG. The crunch book is less useful to them since it is only for the RPG.

If I am running a premade adventure I will buy 1 copy. But most of my stuff is homebrew. I have bought six 3.x adventures total, and am the only one in the group to have done so. To stay with Iron Kingdoms I have the Witchfire Trilogy.

The money ain't in the adventures!

Back in the day of the modules that Cerebrim mentioned there really was not a lot of widely available competion for TSR, you could go to a bookstore and find D&D, but you had to find a specialist game store to buy Runequest. Where I lived visiting the game store meant travelling sixty miles... TSR outsold their competition because most people didn't even know that there _was_ competition. It was the mid 80s that I started seeng other games than D&D on the bookstore shelves. Even then it was limited, FASA was the one that I remember seeing the most, and then Chaosium's Thieves World boxed set. After that the store finally started carrying Call of Cthulhu, which had been around for quite some time. For anything else I had to take the sixty mile trip, an hour travel each way.

Now WotC has competition, and because they are trying to make their adventures palatable to the widest possible range of customer the adventures are a bit bland, offending few, delighting few, sort of RPG McDonald's. This is my opinion of why WotC has no 'great modules' - they are avoiding anything that is really earthshaking or controversial. But earthshaking and controversial does not make for a best seller.

WotC _does_ realize that adventures help raise interest in a setting, so we will begin seeing more adventures in both Eberron and Forgotten Realms, but they also realize that adventures sell to a limited cross section of their audience, so we will not see very many.

The Auld Grump


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## Melkor (May 20, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Are you kidding? 1e D&D was all crunch - there was virtually no "fluff" anywhere. No settings, no novels, the rule books didn't even have any fluff to speak of. And yet it sold like gangbusters.




Actually, it sold a lot better than Gangbusters. TSR's 1920s RPG didn't do nearly as well on the market as AD&D.


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## TheAuldGrump (May 20, 2005)

Melkor said:
			
		

> Actually, it sold a lot better than Gangbusters. TSR's 1920s RPG didn't do nearly as well on the market as AD&D.




Heh, Top Secret, Gamma World, and Boot Hill sold better than Gangbusters...

I have finally read the Hate of d02 thread... My, my, my...

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* I have carefully changed the spelling of Gama World to Gamma World, and will now pretend that it never happened... Or that there is a game manufacturer's RPG out there somewhere... GAMA World does have a ring to it...


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## Celebrim (May 20, 2005)

TheAuldGrump said:
			
		

> Heh, Top Secret, Gama World, and Boot Hill sold better than Gangbusters...




Gamma World was pretty cool in a wierd sort of way... and it had solid module support.

I never played Top Secret, but the group that introduced me to D&D did play Top Secret.

Boot Hill was fun to think about, and I even ran it once back in high school, but I never could figure out what sort of adventures I was actually supposed to send people on.  I mean, once you've fought off a stage coach robbery, had a gunfight at high noon, chased down the cattle rustlers, and fought of the hostile indians... then what?


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## Umbran (May 20, 2005)

I don't think there's much to the idea that writing good fluff is particularly difficult.  Every single homebrew GM worth his Cheetos writes good fluff.  And there's lots of those homebrewers out there.

What is difficult is writing fluff that is useful to the gaming public at large.  Fluff, by it's nature, tends to be setting specific, so it is difficult to make it useful to someone outside a given setting.  How good it is doesn't matter much if it doesn't fit what I'm doing.  

However, it isn't so easy to write crunch that's really useful, either.  I've got a foot and a half foot tall stack of gaming books next to my chair.  Mostly crunch.  And I use maybe one little tidbit out of each of the books, if that much.  Most of the crunch simply isn't useful to my game of the moment, much as fluff books would be largely useless.  So it looks like a draw to me.


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## Crothian (May 20, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> I don't think there's much to the idea that writing good fluff is particularly difficult.  Every single homebrew GM worth his Cheetos writes good fluff.  And there's lots of those homebrewers out there.




But most don't write it.  They have scattered ideas and biots and pices, but rarely the talent and drive to make a book or equivilant out of it.  I think it would be very hard to take my homebrew and write the fluff in an interesting an informative way.


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## buzz (May 20, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Gamma World was pretty cool in a wierd sort of way... and it had solid module support.



Google says...

1st ed. GW had two modules. 1981 and 1982; GW 1e came out in 1978.
2nd ed. GW had two modules. Both 1983.
3rd ed. GW had five modules, one in 1986, the others in 1987.
4th ed. GW had three modules, one in 1992, the others in 1993.

Over the 15-year printing history of those editions, that's less than one a year. Does that qualify as solid support? Thought GW was never incredibly successful, so maybe that supports your claim.


----------



## Felon (May 20, 2005)

As I posted in the ongoing Iron Lore thread: 



> That's what's really disappointing with the driection D&D is going. D&D continues to become morre and more inbred. Rather than designing a game that will appeal to newcomers who come in with visions of the LotR films or Conan comics in their head, they opt for this completely self-contained magic-intensive system that doesn't bear any resemblence to any kind of heroic fantasy that anyone might be familiar with. When you reach a point where Conan is flying around on winged boots or the Fellowship of the Ring can teleport to Sauron's tower the blink of an eye, and death is just an expensive pit-stop, maybe--just maybe--it's time to back up a step or two.




Ryan Dancey used to repeatedly mention D&D's 90% name recognition as if were a valuable asset. D&D should be branching out into movies and TV, but instead the designers seem to think it should be nothing more than a slow-paced video game. Really, how can D&D be adapted for mainstream audiences in any way that they would find pallatable yet remain at all faithful to the source material? Somewhere there has been a conscious decision that this game should not be oriented around daunting challenges for high stakes, but merely around prudent resource management. There are no stakes. When someone dies in D&D, it's not an emotionally-wrenching experience. It's crossing several thousand gold pieces off a character sheet.

Take a look at room 6 from WotC's series of Undermountain web articles. This is pretty representative of a typical D&D encounter these days. They call it a "puzzle", but take a look at the "solution":



> Trying to lasso the chest won't work; the traps destroy the rope. Spells such as knock, open/close, and telekinesis might prove very useful in moving the chest. However, the spiked chain is the real treasure, and it is firmly bound by a ring set in the pillar that the PCs can't see from the door. PCs might also try to get rid of the traps in the room. They could attack the spikes and scythes or dispel each fire and electricity trap. This should swiftly prove too dangerous and time consuming to be a good solution. Disabling each of them is an even poorer option since a PC may get hit by one of the traps, thus disrupting his concentration on the task. Buffing up one PC with spells and sending her in or sending in a summoned monster is probably the best option.




So, ultimately is this really all that clever or engaging? Nope. It's what Monte Cook calls a spell-bleeder. I'm surprised this style of gaming doesn't alienate more people than it does.


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## Celebrim (May 20, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> Google says...3rd ed. GW had five modules, one in 1986, the others in 1987.




I played 3rd ed. GW (the one with a resolution system similar to Marvel Superheroes), so from my perspective it was 5 modules in a year.



> Over the 15-year printing history of those editions, that's less than one a year.




No.  Each edition was only in print a relatively short time, so you can't really call it one a year.  Generally speaking, each edition was actually a different game from each previous edition - which was probably off putting to people who had played previous editions.  When they were in print though, they were supported by several modules a year.



> Does that qualify as solid support? Thought GW was never incredibly successful, so maybe that supports your claim.




Five modules in a year was more than sufficient in terms of quanity.  Although to be honest the modules were far from perfect in terms of quality, they did have a compelling story arc, good maps, and they did present some idea of how the game should be played and what the Gamma World was like.  I suspect that GW's real problem was that its campy setting didn't tie in well with most peoples notions of what a post-apocalyptic world should be like, compounded by the fact that the fluff writers never could seem to actually decide what GW was about and changed it from edition to edition.  Anthromorphic bunnies and talking plants could be very off putting to people expecting a gritty Mad Max style world.  I suspect that if GW had been more in fluff like Fallout, that it would have been much more successful.


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## Ds Da Man (May 20, 2005)

Hey, sometimes games just get "old". Heck, more and more "burned out on D20/D&D" threads keep appearing. Its just natural that after years of selling the same thing, less will be sold. I also believe that  WotC are geniuses for creating (or allowing the creation therefore of) the SRD/OGL. They have more crap in production, for more genres, then any other company out there, and they don't produce a lot of it! 
 And while your worrying about the demise of D&D, you seem to forget another powerful, brillant move by WotC/Hasbro, the campaign setting search. Man, do you know how many settings were sent in? They have been consistantly making wise decisions regarding D&D, and will be producing D&D for a long, long time!


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## KnightSavant (May 20, 2005)

*The Real Problem*

The problem is one of product vs. art.  The interest these days is in producing a game that sells without any regard for making an artful game.  There simply is little real love in the design anymore and there never will be again.  Those days are over.  D&D was born more out of a deep love for mythology and story telling not out of a desire to make money.  Ask just about any former creative employee of TSR what their salaries were.  Nope.  The scales have shifted entirely over to pure profit.  Now all that matters to the executives at big game companies is making money - same as with the rest of corporate America.  It's all about the quick raid and the cheap marketplace victory.

I have as a result become a class of gamer that is difficult to sell to.  I've made a conscious decision that my gaming needs are finite.  I have the core books.  I'm done.  I have the software I need to design my own game world.  I'm done in that arena too.  I will purchase a finite number of miniatures, paint them and when I have my collection I'll be done there too.  I refuse to make the old men rich.  There may be some smaller creative shops I'll buy from but that's about it.

That's my two silver pieces anyway...   
http://www.awizardindallas.com


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## meleeguy (May 20, 2005)

KnightSavant said:
			
		

> I have the core books.  I'm done.




Exactly.  It is either that or move into the WotC barn and say "Moo".

I've justed playing again after leaving in the early '80s.  I shudder to think what a complete set of rules (and I don't mean just core) costs.  I don't feel like a competitive DM if I don't allow at least the Complete * series.

I can live with the fact the D&D is now under the control of professional capitalists (grow or die), but please do more testing.  3E feels like Windows 3.1.


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## S'mon (May 20, 2005)

What's a competitive GM?  

As a (good, I think) GM I certainly don't feel the need to buy any player-oriented stuff beyond the PHB, though I did get Mongoose's Quint Rogue & Fighter as they fit nicely into my low fantasy setting.


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## TheAuldGrump (May 20, 2005)

meleeguy said:
			
		

> Exactly.  It is either that or move into the WotC barn and say "Moo".
> 
> I've justed playing again after leaving in the early '80s.  I shudder to think what a complete set of rules (and I don't mean just core) costs.  I don't feel like a competitive DM if I don't allow at least the Complete * series.
> 
> I can live with the fact the D&D is now under the control of professional capitalists (grow or die), but please do more testing.  3E feels like Windows 3.1.



As opposed to later 2nd ed. which feels like APL? 

This version actually got a lot more testing than previous editions... Then again, I fill most of my RPG purchase needs with 3rd party publishers. Most of the official WotC stuff (including the Completes) does not engage my interest.

The Auld Grump, now Iron Kingdoms...


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## haakon1 (May 20, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I'm seeing a new trend in D&D/D20 in which D&D has become little more than a player toy.   How many books of players options exist out there?  How many prestige classes have been published?  How many feats exist in the game?  . . .
> 
> Where is the game content?   Arguably, someone at TSR must have realized where the real value lies, and Eberron is a good start but unless Eberron produces the sort of modules and memorable published campaigns that were produced by previous worlds, Eberron is going to eventually face the fate of Birthright or Al-Quedem - settings with tremendous great flavor but no intellectual property of any real value.
> 
> Where are the great modules?  Doesn't anyone at TSR realize that the true value of D&D has always been its great modules?  Is all 3rd edition going to be remembered for come 4th edition is 'Sunless Citadel'?   Are we going to need a Return to the Return of the Temple of Elemental Evil?




I agree.  Some really solid modules set decisively (not halfheartedly) in Greyjhawk would be a very good thing.  Bruce Cordell, Gygax, Kuntz, Roger Moore -- those are the guys to do it, if anyone can anymore.

If I had to vote on the memorable elements of 3e:
The Sunless Citadel
The Standing Stone
Three Days to Kill

That's about it . . .


----------



## James Heard (May 20, 2005)

I'm absolutely certain that the D&D brand is in a lot better shape than the original poster gives it credit for and that d20 only strengthens that brand in a way that GURPS never got respectively strengthened. HERO got sort of strengthened by Champions in a similar way, and I suppose you could even wag a finger at Sembieda's babies as increasing the branding ability for 1E & 2E (in the "Gee, a lot of this looks hella familiar" category). Anyways, it's not about the strength of the product so much when you're marketing the d20 brand, it's about producing something that's a complementary product to a enormous variety of other products based upon a brand (D&D) that's already the market leader. Complementary product sales drive up the sales of their complements, it's basic economics 101. GURPS leans on itself, but the core game just isn't as strong as D&D is. D&D is the substitution product (again, basic econ) for GURPS, so unless GURPS can somehow face down and outbrand the complements AND D&D it's always going to be in a lesser market position. I think there's a good case that White Wolf has been the smartest player in this, since they started with a strong internal brand and also joined in on the complementary branding to keep up their market share until they could revise and get a push from their revision. I admit though, crucial to WOTC's product schedule in this scheme of things is to produce core products at some brisk pace to push the sale of their other stuff like novels. Whether or not it costs a lot of money or not, WOTC will _have_ to print a 4E before too long to start a new sale cycle and force the other publishers to join them. Not a revision of 3E like 3.5 - it will have to be something different enough to distinguish itself from the former products that it will require a substantial investment of some sort.


----------



## haakon1 (May 20, 2005)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> I think, at a certain point in the game's publishing history, that modules _became_ unprofitable, or produced profit margins unattractive to large corporations, but I find it very, very difficult to believe that this was the case during the 1980s "heyday" of D&D.




So, how do we get back to the heyday?  I think Maure Castle was quite popular . . . please, sir, can we have some more of that sort of thing?

Less crunch, less psionic flying interdimensional clockworks that only work in specific settings, more classic rock D&D that kicks orc and works in any setting.  OK?


----------



## S'mon (May 20, 2005)

Hm, I ain't buying 4e before about 2008-09!   People bought 3e because they were unhappy with 2e, in many cases had left D&D entirely.  I don't really see that with 3e, though there clearly are dissatisfactions in terms of 3e being too crunchy, too player focussed, that kind of thing.  There would be a market for a much more streamlined, less tactical, less crunch heavy 4e, but would it be a more profitable market than currently?  I doubt it.


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## Erik Mona (May 20, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Every single homebrew GM worth his Cheetos writes good fluff.




Wanna bet?

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon


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## Erik Mona (May 20, 2005)

haakon1 said:
			
		

> So, how do we get back to the heyday?  I think Maure Castle was quite popular . . . please, sir, can we have some more of that sort of thing?




Ok.

Is the issue that shipped to subscribers today too soon? It has a new level of Maure Castle by Robert J. Kuntz.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon & Dungeon


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## philreed (May 20, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> I don't think there's much to the idea that writing good fluff is particularly difficult.  Every single homebrew GM worth his Cheetos writes good fluff.  And there's lots of those homebrewers out there.




I disagree. If writing good fluff was easy there would be a lot more good novels and stories on the market. Writing BAD fluff is easy, just like writing bad crunch is easy. And even then most people do not have the discipline to sit down and write.

For a fairly large percentage of the population talking about writing is about one million times easier than sitting down and writing. Most people, when push comes to shove, don't have the mental state necessary to write -- and they're definitely unprepared to write for extended periods of time.


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## diaglo (May 20, 2005)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Wanna bet?




are cheetos on the line?

diaglo "i'll be over to collect your Cheetos very soon" Ooi


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## diaglo (May 20, 2005)

Brennin Magalus said:
			
		

> Diaglo:
> 
> Did your ignore queue just get longer?




nope, some people were charter members from days gone by...


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## Umbran (May 20, 2005)

Erik Mona said:
			
		

> Wanna bet?




Sure, Mr. Mona.  So long as we are using _my_ definition of "worth his Cheetos".  And, so long as we both recognize that in my definitions, "good" does not require it to be useful to anyone other than the gaming group for whom it was originally built. 



			
				philreed said:
			
		

> For a fairly large percentage of the population talking about writing is about one million times easier than sitting down and writing. Most people, when push comes to shove, don't have the mental state necessary to write -- and they're definitely unprepared to write for extended periods of time.




I am separating "the task is difficult" from "the person doesn't have the gumption to get it done".  Cleaning my desk is by no means difficult, but my desk is a mess because I don't simply don't care enough to muster myself up to do it.  Given sufficient motivation, the mental state would appear.

Of course, since gaming is a niche market, sufficient motivation (meaning - reasonable chance of impressive monetary return) is going to be darned hard to come by.  

The one time I can think of sufficient motivation coming up to display the point was WotC's setting search.  And, by all accounts, it revealed quite a bit of good fluff running around out there.


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## Felon (May 20, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Sure, Mr. Mona.  So long as we are using _my_ definition of "worth his Cheetos".




Well, if you place a low value on Cheetos, then it doesn't do much to support your assertion that writing good fluff is easy. Good means better than adequate, beyond mediocre. OTOH, if you place a meaningful value on the price of Cheetos, then you're simply wrong, because by-and-large DM's are pretty half-assed about their fluff. It's either highly derivative or nonexistant. 

Of course, we're talking about opinions based solely on empirical evidence. Maybe you've had such splendiferous DM's that you can take them for granted. Or maybe I've just got the market on half-assed DM's cornered.



			
				Umbran said:
			
		

> I am separating "the task is difficult" from "the person doesn't have the gumption to get it done".  Cleaning my desk is by no means difficult, but my desk is a mess because I don't simply don't care enough to muster myself up to do it.  Given sufficient motivation, the mental state would appear.




There is no qualitative value to clearning your desk. Clean desks do not impress. People do not take "creative desk-cleaning" courses in college. Then again, this being your definition and all, I have to inquire if you think "good fluff" requires creativity or other skills associated with good writing?


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## TheAuldGrump (May 20, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Sure, Mr. Mona.  So long as we are using _my_ definition of "worth his Cheetos".  And, so long as we both recognize that in my definitions, "good" does not require it to be useful to anyone other than the gaming group for whom it was originally built.





It looks like you just undercut your own argument - by placing a very low value on 'good'.

Good fluff is fluff that can be read by a total stranger and give a feeling for the world and its cultures. We are after all talking about marketable products in this thread - would you feel that you had purchased 'good' fluff if you bought what you have just described? I would not. 

Though on the subject of the market value of half-assed DMs... what does that translate to in Cheetos?

The Auld Grump


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## haiiro (May 20, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Your argument would be cogent, except for the fact that adevtures are not very good money makers.




Perhaps they can be more like "loss leaders" in the retail industry: some portion of 20% of the gaming population (the DMs) buys a memorable module, and their groups play through that module. This may not make that much money, but it gives those groups a common point of reference -- and an experience that in some ways "defines" D&D, much like Temple of Elemental Evil and the like did in their day.

I get the vibe that the Shackled City adventure path may eventually be thought of in this way, particularly once the hardcover collected version comes out.


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## Janx (May 20, 2005)

Well this topic is breaking down.  I concur with the market.  If modules made money, there would be more modules.  There were a bunch of modules, they didn't make much money.  The cost of making modules may have gone up.

Now for the point about fluff writing, cheetos, and half-arsed DMs.  For a real example, consider this:  I can write 3 pages of text in about 2 hours.  I can write "fluff" and do so in the form of a website and newspaper for my campaign world.  For my adventures in my homebrew campaign (aka, D&D rules, my world, my map, my adventures), I support Mona's statement, what I write for a homebrew adventure is minimal.  

Here's a dump of the last adventure I ran (not claiming to have a good or pretty adventure, I suspect other DMs are equally sparse):

15th Adventure
“Darkness Crossing”
03/26/05

Extra Print-Outs needed:
5x Currents of Tarai
2x Combat Maneuvers


Tool URLs:
Combat Conditions: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/conditionSummary.htm
D20 SRD: http://www.d20srd.org/index.htm

Players:
Lt. Commander Jean Pierre Latour – paladin – Paul
Lt. Viktor Sluchesk – fighter – Greg
? – ? – Jeff
Lt. Commander Darwin DeWare – rogue – Ned
Marie Giavani - wizard - Nicole

Darwin DeWare is captain of the Maiden’s Spear

Fosian and Sindael have been reassigned



The Game:

Current Date: Wenan 30th, 1366
Location:  Island of Karnos, at the port city of Koumos
Ship: Maiden’s Spear

The dreams continue.  Each night.  The flames.  The screams.  The last act.  The light.  Yet the answer to Jean Pierre’s question eludes him.  Was it the hand of Verun, reaching down to spare him?  A visit to the temple of Verun puts it into perspective.  The answer will tend to itself.  Jean Pierre remains.  He has his duty.  He will hold the line.  When the answers come, everything will change.

Viktor trains his marines.  They are like iron.  The Maiden’s Spear is the anvil, and he is the anvil.  When the time comes, they will be ready.

Darwin asks Marie to investigate his sword’s background and powers.  She tells him it will take some time.  While he is waiting, he teaches his Amber and her mother Shelby some swordplay.  This inspires Darwin to go to Ritali and enter the Fencing Trials.  He is easily granted leave by Arama, aside from running a simple delivery errand to Coran.  At the trials, competition is fierce.  Things were going well, until he sprained his ankle when Sharina Adar, one of the skilled competitors, slipped on a wet stair while going to the arena, and Darwin caught her, albeit they both tumbled to the bottom.  Darwin’s injury immediately removed him from the competition.  Sharina felt so bad, she dropped out from the competition.  While Darwin recuperated and skulked, she stopped by Darwin’s room and brought him food.   They became close, though her duties in the Explorer Corps soon called her away.  Darwin and Sharina keep in touch at infrequent visits, where their paths crossed.


Marie studies the spell book that was recovered from the rogue wizard.  It contains mostly summoning spells.  Marie manages to learn a few of the spells, that are within her reach.  In addition, Darwin asked her to research his sword.  The sword’s stony, wet surface is intriguing.  While her own research tells little of the sword, she does get one lead. There is a reclusive wizard with some background in magical blades.  Haraka.


Assuming the party goes to see Haraka:

It takes some time before the Maiden’s Spear gets orders that take Darwin to the vicinity of Haraka.  An island.  A man.  Apparently, no man is an island, unless he has an ego the size of one.  The journey there is uneventful.  The island draws near.  The shore is rocky and jagged, like black blades.  The dock is crewed by heavily scarred workers.  It is unclear what species they are.

The tower of Haraka stabs into the sky like a wound.  The top is flat, with 6 sharp points rising up above it.  The walls of the tower appear to have a black scaly texture, though the scales appear elongated.  An ominous feeling cuts into you, making you uneasy.

The interior walls appear to be made of sword blades, laid together, overlapping.

There are several large brutish creatures about the area (ogres).  The skin is brownish and is covered with the same cuts and scars.
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogre.htm


Haraka stands 10 feet tall.  His bluish grey skin  contrasts coldly with his open black robe.  Beneath it glints the black chain armor he wears.  A red silk belt crosses his midsection.  He wears a greatsword at his side casually, as if it were not there.

Haraka (Lawful Evil Ogre mage)
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ogreMage.htm

Gear:
art
    bizarre  idol,  made  of  serpentine  (960.4  gp)
    carved  harp  of  darkwood,  with  jet  inlay  and  ruby  gems  (1,055.4  gp)
    silver  chalice  with  eye  agate  gems  (55.6  gp)
coin
    102,622  copper  coins  (1,026.22  gp)
potion
    potion  of  blur  (300  gp)
        green-colored
        sweet  odor/taste
        watery,  cloudy  appearance
ring
    ring  of  swimming  (2,300  gp)
weapon
    greatsword  +2  (8,350  gp)
-------------------
Total  Value:  14,047.62  gp


Haraka welcomes the party and invites them to dinner to explain their visit.  He insists on standing on ceremony. He is rather polite.

A mist rolls in around the island.

Haraka insists they stay the night, for their safety.  Wait until morning, when the mist clears.

Things about the Darwin’s Blade:
Zha’Delkar (End of Darkness)
Protection from Fire (at 7th level, -5 damage from fire attacks)
Increases in Plus (per four levels, round down, minimum +1)


Haraka will tell Darwin about his blade, if the party agrees to run an errand for him

There is a tar pit on a nearby island.  Haraka needs a gallon of it for his work.  Naturally, it will be dangerous.  Haraka has no boats of his own, he has supplies brought in twice a year.  The tar pit should be inside a cave.

The Island of the Tar:

The beach is sandy, allowing you to take a launch out to the island.  The rest of the beach is rocky and mountainous, and nearly as inhospitable as Haraka.  Hopefully, this place is merely an extinct volcano.

An ettin is walking the sandy beach
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/ettin.htm
XP: 2242

A quick recon along the beach, reveals there is a cave opening in the side of the mountainside.

The tunnel twists and winds for quite a way into the mountainside.  It’s grows dark quickly, as the bends of the tunnel prevent the light from the entrance from reaching you.

(assume they light a torch)

The tunnel opens up to a large chamber.  There floor is flooded with water, but there is a tunnel exit on the far side of the chamber, though it sits closer to the left.  The ground slopes downward, toward the center of the chamber.  It is slick and uneven.  The chamber is roughly oval shaped and is 60’ by 50’ across.

DC12 reflex save to avoid slipping every 40 feet


Watching the party is an aboleth
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/aboleth.htm
XP: 3051


The tunnel goes on farther, though it seems to be climbing up now.

A choker tries to grab one of the PCs when they pass
http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/choker.htm
XP: 249

After walking for a long time, you finally begin to see light ahead.

The tunnel opens up, into what must be the bowl of the volcano.  You can see the rim soar above you at least a hundred feet.  The bowl itself is two hundred feet across, and you’ve come out a rubble strewn crack near the side.  In the center sits a black pool.

When the party fills their container, the pool starts bubbling.  They broke the surface tension, which was holding back the trapped gasses, and now a cascade event is occurring.

The tar starts bubbling and the smell of sulfur fills the air.  Soon a rumbling sound begins.  The air is getting hot and it is hard to breathe.

If the party tries to climb up, the tar pit catches fire, causing more smoke and breathing difficulty.  -4 to climb checks.  After awhile, the center falls in, and a jet of lava shoots straight up, and sprays the rim side near by.  The tunnel is still safe (unconnected from the main lava tube).


There's some fluff in there.  There's very little flow control.  It's mainly notes to myself on parts I'll need as the PCs get there.  Not enough for a publishable adventure, and I certainly predicted where the PCs (people that I know personally) would go.  For a real adventure, it'd border on railroading.  I simply avoided writing material for stuff I didn't think they'd do.

In conclusion, writing an adventure takes fluff and crunch.  Not rules, but well thought out pacing and options.  I've seen the polls on EN World that reflect that most DMs make up their own adventures.  The result is, modules don't make money.

Janx


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## Storm Raven (May 20, 2005)

haiiro said:
			
		

> Perhaps they can be more like "loss leaders" in the retail industry: some portion of 20% of the gaming population (the DMs) buys a memorable module, and their groups play through that module. This may not make that much money, but it gives those groups a common point of reference -- and an experience that in some ways "defines" D&D, much like Temple of Elemental Evil and the like did in their day.




Which is wonderful for the players, but not much good for the company producing the material, since they presumably want to make money. Loss leaders are useful, but moreof a "necessary evil" than something companies really want to be in the business of producing and selling. WotC farmed out its loss leaders by allowing other companies to use the OGL, which was apretty smart move. There are a wide variety of adventures and settings put out for 3e, certainly much more than WotC could have done on its own.


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## Sigurd (May 20, 2005)

*modules*

Modules don't make money for themselves but I think they train DMs.

Who hasn't looked at a module thinking 'how would I do that?'


Modules also require crunch and rules but not fluff - presumably they supply that themselves.

eg

Libris Mortis will supply a framework for a number of adventures\modules that would not occur to people not reading Libris Mortis.

Modules also make the assumption that players are functional gamers and not just buying a cool library. Only the heady glow of a succesful adventure session will give players\consumers a gratitude to 'Tomb of the Metamorphic Flumph' or make it into anything special. Not all consumers are active gamers and not all modules are successful among those who are. Potentially there are a lot of modules that never get played and dont engender a lot of satisfaction.


I think PDF modules and Dungeon Magazine today are in a much more natural format. Minimize your production costs or gaurantee a subscription base then produce at as low a running cost as you can manage.

I'm surprised that there are not more random adventure generators out there. I think it would be far easier to edit a random adventure into a real one. Connecting threads, tweaking setting, etc...  inside of a computer projected encounter level seems like the way to go.

S


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## buzz (May 20, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I played 3rd ed. GW (the one with a resolution system similar to Marvel Superheroes), so from my perspective it was 5 modules in a year.
> ...
> When they were in print though, they were supported by several modules a year.
> ...
> ...



But your perspective isn't really the issue. The point is that no one edition of GW had more than 2-4 modules produced in its _entire lifespan_.

And, if five modules in a year is more than sufficient, I don't why you're even arguing your point. There were probably 100 modules produced for 3e in just its first year! _From your perspective_, there are more modules available right now for your D&D game than you could play in a lifetime, and out of those hundreds, I'm more than confident you can find five good ones to run each year for the next decade.

The basis for this whole thread is just nostalgia. People complaining about how there are no "classic adventures" being produced any more, how WotC are evil capitalists, how 3e is killing itself...

3e is the most enjoyable version of D&D I've played yet. There are more good products out there than I could use in a lifetime. The gaming life is *good*. 10-20 years from now, you'll all figure that out, too.


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## TheAuldGrump (May 20, 2005)

The PDF market is where I think the future of modules is likely to lie, at least if they are accepted by the populace. (I do not understand the prejudice against PDFs at all, except when the price is the same as the print version...) AS a loss leader WotC puts a fair amount of material on their website, easily accessed by anyone with interest. When production costs are low then the module may be more tempting to the publishers.

The Auld Grump, who is asleep at the keyboard...zzzzzzzz


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## VirgilCaine (May 20, 2005)

> Boot Hill was fun to think about, and I even ran it once back in high school, but I never could figure out what sort of adventures I was actually supposed to send people on. I mean, once you've fought off a stage coach robbery, had a gunfight at high noon, chased down the cattle rustlers, and fought of the hostile indians... then what?




Free California from the scheming governor? 
Free the Mexican village from the bandits tyranny with your band of violent misfits? 
Use your group's varied skills to break into a heavily guarded gold train? 

www.imdb.com



> There are no stakes. When someone dies in D&D, it's not an emotionally-wrenching
> experience. It's crossing several thousand gold pieces off a character sheet.
> 
> Take a look at room 6 from WotC's series of Undermountain web articles. This is pretty representative of a typical D&D encounter these days. They call it a "puzzle", but take a look at the "solution":




Maybe in your game it's a few thousand gold, not in mine.


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## Celebrim (May 20, 2005)

*sigh*



			
				buzz said:
			
		

> But your perspective isn't really the issue. The point is that no one edition of GW had more than 2-4 modules produced in its _entire lifespan_.




Right.  About one year.  



> And, if five modules in a year is more than sufficient, I don't [know] why you're even arguing your point.




No, I don't suppose that you do.



> There were probably 100 modules produced for 3e in just its first year! _From your perspective_, there are more modules available right now for your D&D game than you could play in a lifetime, and out of those hundreds, I'm more than confident you can find five good ones to run each year for the next decade.




Ok, how?  By buying hundreds of PDF's in order to get a feel for what is good?  Then going down to kinkos and spending $0.50 or $1.00 per page (or whatever it is) to get a good printout?  That's economical?  More to the point, you think that nearly 50% of the modules produced for third edition are good?  Funny that the fanbase doesn't seem to feel that way.  Do you know how many 3rd edition modules I've seen glowing reviews for?  Not that many.   Most of them get panned.  Each year, ENWorld nominates the best modules of the year.  Each year, I then go and read the reviews of those modules that were written at the time that they came out.   Each year, I read lukewarm reviews of the module.   Every few weeks, someone on ENWorld asks for module recommendations, and every time the same small number of modules are recommended.   When modules arrive at the game stores and book stores, I pick them up and flip through them, and almost every time I find nothing of interest.   Sure, I find some skilled efforts from time to time (Bonegarden, Blacksails over Freeport) and I respect the effort and craft that went into the production, but they usually have some fatal flaw or the other which makes them ill-suited for anything but a one off campaign with a set of players that can stand the railroading.  Essentially, I'm being asked to pay more for a product that is going to require more work for me to adapt than the old 1st edition modules would require to adapt to 3rd edition and my play standards, and for all their bare bones where actually better examples of the basics of the craft than the very best modules being produced today.  I'm not the only one that feels that way.



> People complaining about how there are no "classic adventures" being produced any more...[/quote[
> 
> Bah, is there anything more tedious than people complaining about other people complaining?  By and large they are right - there aren't any classic adventures being produced anymore.  Even the example of Goodman Games, which seems to 'get it' more than just about any other module publisher is also a counter example.  Goodman Games is able to emmulate the superficial elements of a classic module (blue ink, nice looking retro covers, dungeons), but I can take one look at the maps and excerpts and realize that they don't fully get it.
> 
> ...


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## Henry (May 20, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> I am separating "the task is difficult" from "the person doesn't have the gumption to get it done".
> 
> The one time I can think of sufficient motivation coming up to display the point was WotC's setting search.  And, by all accounts, it revealed quite a bit of good fluff running around out there.




I have to side with Erik and Phil here; from their perspective, and mine, "can't do the work" and "could do the work, but won't" is pretty much the same thing: In the end, no product is forthcoming.

In regards to the setting search (which a friend of mine and I contributed to): Wizards only found 11 people out of 11,000 that they considered worth their time. That's one out of a THOUSAND, from the judges' perspective, worth selling or publishing. Just because I can carry a tune doesn't mean I belong on _American Idol_.


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## francisca (May 20, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> In regards to the setting search (which a friend of mine and I contributed to): Wizards only found 11 people out of 11,000 that they considered worth their time.



You don't know that!  There may have been 111, or 1,111 that were worth looking into, but there are just so many hours in the day.  They went with the 11 that looked good on the surface.


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## Crothian (May 20, 2005)

haakon1 said:
			
		

> So, how do we get back to the heyday?




Get D&D to be one of the few games on the block.


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## Henry (May 20, 2005)

francisca said:
			
		

> You don't know that!  There may have been 111, or 1,111 that were worth looking into, but there are just so many hours in the day.  They went with the 11 that looked good on the surface.




Well, I can either assume that, or I can take Anthony Valterra (and James Wyatt, I believe) at their word, who said that the judges read EVERY entry, and selected those that both captured their imaginations and sounded like they had something to offer more than stock D&D.

I'll accept that there are different degrees of "good" - never said there weren't. But if someone says they "can, but don't have the motivation", it still doesn't matter, other than to their own personal self-esteem - They AREN'T producing. Also, to continue the American Idol analogy, there's _"good to sing in the Church choir"_ or _"good to sing as a house-band at the party"_, and then there's _"Good enough to carry a wide range of songs, be consistent in performance, and make all deadlines and commitments"_, with a capital "G".


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## WayneLigon (May 20, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> In regards to the setting search (which a friend of mine and I contributed to): Wizards only found 11 people out of 11,000 that they considered worth their time. That's one out of a THOUSAND, from the judges' perspective, worth selling or publishing. Just because I can carry a tune doesn't mean I belong on _American Idol_.




I have no idea what process WotC used to choose the winners but I would be willing to bet that there were a set of simple things to look for to advance someone from round one. Those things, I would think, would include some things that were of interest to them as a company looking for a hot new property, not as a company looking to produce the most interesting setting. That sounds kinda bad; what I'm trying to get across is that several of the settings could have been really amazing but they had limited appeal.

I'm also willing to bet that many, many people self-selected themselves out of the process by not following format or directions or by not demonstrating good grammer or spelling. I'd be very curious as to how many entries were discarded virtually unread because of those reasons and the actual number of contestants that made it past the quick scan for grievous errors.


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## Storm Raven (May 20, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> No, I don't suppose that you do.




Nobody else does either. Especially since the facts concerning GW module production so clearly contradict your claim that it had good module support.



> _Ok, how?  By buying hundreds of PDF's in order to get a feel for what is good?  Then going down to kinkos and spending $0.50 or $1.00 per page (or whatever it is) to get a good printout?  That's economical?  More to the point, you think that nearly 50% of the modules produced for third edition are good?  Funny that the fanbase doesn't seem to feel that way.  Do you know how many 3rd edition modules I've seen glowing reviews for?  Not that many.   Most of them get panned._





Many of the "classic" modules got panned in their day too. And many of them get panned now. Trusting reviewers opinions on modules is a risky proposition. What one person looks for in an adventure may be radically different from what you expect.



> _Each year, ENWorld nominates the best modules of the year.  Each year, I then go and read the reviews of those modules that were written at the time that they came out.   Each year, I read lukewarm reviews of the module._





And? Gosh, people are lukewarm on modules, books, supplements, and other gaming material. How many times have you read someone bash a particular product as "utter crap", and then read it only to determine that it is actually quite useful? I've had that experience numerous times.



> _Every few weeks, someone on ENWorld asks for module recommendations, and every time the same small number of modules are recommended._





About 200+ modules were released for 1e, and yet, when people ask for recommendations, the same small number of modules are recommended. I guess things weren't so different back in the "golden age" you are nostalgic for, except for the fact that your memories have become selective.



> _Bah, is there anything more tedious than people complaining about other people complaining?  By and large they are right - there aren't any classic adventures being produced anymore.  Even the example of Goodman Games, which seems to 'get it' more than just about any other module publisher is also a counter example.  Goodman Games is able to emmulate the superficial elements of a classic module (blue ink, nice looking retro covers, dungeons), but I can take one look at the maps and excerpts and realize that they don't fully get it._





You mean, they can't go back in time and insert their module into your lexicon of adventures published circa 1982? That seems to be the sum total of your argument.


----------



## Celebrim (May 20, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> I'll accept that there are different degrees of "good" - never said there weren't. But if someone says they "can, but don't have the motivation", it still doesn't matter, other than to their own personal self-esteem - They AREN'T producing. Also, to continue the American Idol analogy, there's _"good to sing in the Church choir"_ or _"good to sing as a house-band at the party"_, and then there's _"Good enough to carry a wide range of songs, be consistent in performance, and make all deadlines and commitments"_, with a capital "G".




I agree with Henry here.  I wouldn't agree with the assessment that everyone that could do the job already has it.  Just like American Idol, if you do a talent search of DM's you'll turn up some high quality acts.   But I do agree that there is a big difference between running a fun adventure for the boys and being able to excite people enough and excite enough people to get them to buy your product.  

For example, I'm a pretty good writer - so far as we are confining what we mean by 'good writer' to random BBS posts and college essays.  As evidence, I'll point out that both the first post I made on this messageboard and the first post I made on the wizards messageboards were picked up and republished by persons in positions of power.   I'm a much better writer than average.   I might even be 'good'.  BUT, as we start moving up to more and more demanding mediums, then the limitations of me as a writer are going to become more and more evident.   Eventually, my writing is going to appear mediocre and unimaginitive.  That's going to be true of the majority of DM's out there - even the better ones.  If you add on top of that the problem that first I have to get the initiative to write 64 or 128 or whatever many pages of orginal material, edit it, correct it,  work with a publisher on it and so forth, then you are going to find that the number of people with both the will and the abiliity are very small.

Which is why that when I'm highly critical of someone, you should take it only in the context of the level of ability that they are displaying.   I can say with what I feel is perfect truthfulness, that Stephen King is somewhat lacking in ability as a story teller - but that doesn't mean that I don't feel at some level he's a very good story teller.  It's just that I'm comparing him to someone of the level of say Mary Bujold, and Bujold just tells a much tighter story.  Likewise, I might say that Raymond Fiest is lacking in the craft of wordsmithing, but thats only because I have something like Gene Wolf out there to compare him to.  None of that means I don't like Raymond Fiest's works, it just means that I can appreciate Raymond Feist for what he is and not what he is not. 

And I try to hold the craft of adventure design/writing to the same sort of high standards, precisely because I care so much about the hobby.  It bugs me that for all the technical advances we've made in the hobby and for all the higher standards of professionalism that the hobby evidences, that there aren't more good examples of the craft out there.


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## The Shaman (May 20, 2005)

KnightSavant said:
			
		

> I have the core books.  I'm done.  I have the software I need to design my own game world.  I'm done in that arena too.



I agree, *KnightSavant*.

I'm looking real hard at giving up on D&D and moving to C&C instead in large part because of the incredible bloat of player-oriented rules-options, and the sense of entitlement that seems to come with them. I think I'd rather use a system with fewer options so that we can focus once again, as we did in years past, on the adventure and not what neat tricks the PCs can perform.

With that in mind I agree with *Celebrim* as well. For me D&D has cut its own throat: I'm not a gamer who plays lots of different systems, but I'm sufficiently turned off by D&D to consider leaving it behind and playing another game specifically because of the direction that WotC has taken with the game.

I don't for a moment consider myself to be part of WotC's core consumers, of course: I don't buy settings, I buy one or two splatbooks a year at most and use only selected bits of each, I never played _M:tG_, and I'm not interested in running a half-dragon fiendish troll Fighter 3/Wizard 2/Eldritch Knight 7/Order of the Bow Initiate 3. Chances are WotC will never know I'm gone, and wouldn't miss me anyway if they did.


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## Umbran (May 20, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Every few weeks, someone on ENWorld asks for module recommendations, and every time the same small number of modules are recommended.




Gotta be careful there, though.  Is that because only that smallnumber of modules are good, or because the same "usual suspects" keep answering those questions with their personal favorites?  Considering that the number of really active posters around here isn't that large, it may well be the latter, so that data is biased by the sample selection.


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## Storm Raven (May 20, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> I don't for a moment consider myself to be part of WotC's core consumers, of course: I don't buy settings, I buy one or two splatbooks a year at most and use only selected bits of each, I never played _M:tG_, and I'm not interested in running a half-dragon fiendish troll Fighter 3/Wizard 2/Eldritch Knight 7/Order of the Bow Initiate 3. Chances are WotC will never know I'm gone, and wouldn't miss me anyway if they did.




This is an attitude I never understand. Is there something about D&D that would compel you to play such a character, or even use all of the options that make such a character possible? If you don't like supplemental material, is there something that compels you to use it anyway?


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## The Shaman (May 20, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> This is an attitude I never understand. Is there something about D&D that would compel you to play such a character, or even use all of the options that make such a character possible? If you don't like supplemental material, is there something that compels you to use it anyway?



Not at all, and as a GM I have no problem with saying no to players either. However, more and more players are expecting this kind of opportunity to come with the game, IMX, and IMHO too much time is spent even with the core rules as written on working out feat and class combos that players are more interested in showing off what tricks their characters can do than with experiencing the adventure.


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## rogueattorney (May 20, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> About 200+ modules were released for 1e, and yet, when people ask for recommendations, the same small number of modules are recommended. I guess things weren't so different back in the "golden age" you are nostalgic for, except for the fact that your memories have become selective.




Actually, there were only 87 adventure modules made from AD&D by TSR from 1978 to 1988.  Of these only 26 were produced in the 1987-1982 period that is generally thought of as the 'classic' period for modules.  Almost all of the 1e adventures people look back on fondly are among these 26.

If you want to include the Basic/Expert/RC D&D modules, 72 were made in all, from 1978 to 1993, 7 of which were published in the 'classic' period, and 53 were made while 1e was still going.

For the record, from 1989 through 2000, TSR and WotC produced 185 2e adventures.

R.A.


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## Storm Raven (May 20, 2005)

rogueattorney said:
			
		

> Actually, there were only 87 adventure modules made from AD&D by TSR from 1978 to 1988.  Of these only 26 were produced in the 1987-1982 period that is generally thought of as the 'classic' period for modules.  Almost all of the 1e adventures people look back on fondly are among these 26.
> 
> If you want to include the Basic/Expert/RC D&D modules, 72 were made in all, from 1978 to 1993, 7 of which were published in the 'classic' period, and 53 were made while 1e was still going.




You need to include the Role-Aides and Judges' Guild adventures in your count.


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## Storm Raven (May 20, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Not at all, and as a GM I have no problem with saying no to players either. However, more and more players are expecting this kind of opportunity to come with the game, IMX, and IMHO too much time is spent even with the core rules as written on working out feat and class combos that players are more interested in showing off what tricks their characters can do than with experiencing the adventure.




And saying no to options you don't want in your game is a problem because players expect to use them? For a guy who says he doesn't have a problem saying no, you sure seem to hint that you do.

Showing off the tricks their character can do is part of experiencing the adventure. If I (when I am a player, and not a DM), wanted to gaze in wonder at the excitement of the scenario, I'd be reading a book. Players want to _do stuff_, and they should. Its the point of the game in many ways.


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## diaglo (May 20, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> Well, I can either assume that, or I can take Anthony Valterra (and James Wyatt, I believe) at their word, who said that the judges read EVERY entry, and selected those that both captured their imaginations and sounded like they had something to offer more than stock D&D.
> 
> I'll accept that there are different degrees of "good" - never said there weren't. But if someone says they "can, but don't have the motivation", it still doesn't matter, other than to their own personal self-esteem - They AREN'T producing. Also, to continue the American Idol analogy, there's _"good to sing in the Church choir"_ or _"good to sing as a house-band at the party"_, and then there's _"Good enough to carry a wide range of songs, be consistent in performance, and make all deadlines and commitments"_, with a capital "G".




the rules for the setting search made it sorta like American Idol.

they (WotC) said they would widdle it down to 10. but after reading 11000+ they actually couldn't widdle it passed 11. so they took 11.

they then asked those 11 for more info...


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## diaglo (May 20, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> Gotta be careful there, though.  Is that because only that smallnumber of modules are good, or because the same "usual suspects" keep answering those questions with their personal favorites?  Considering that the number of really active posters around here isn't that large, it may well be the latter, so that data is biased by the sample selection.





i know i answer the same for all of those requests. 

B1, B2, etc....

unless they specifically ask for 2000ed or 3.11ed for Workgroups adventures only (w/o conversions)


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## The Shaman (May 20, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Showing off the tricks their character can do is part of experiencing the adventure. If I (when I am a player, and not a DM), wanted to gaze in wonder at the excitement of the scenario, I'd be reading a book. Players want to _do stuff_, and they should. Its the point of the game in many ways.



With all due respect, *Storm Raven*, you're misrepresenting my opinion.

It's the difference between, "I'll attack the demon with my sword!" and "Lessee, with Power Attack I can reduce my BAB by 8 and still hit AC 23, and with the cleric's buffs I can do 2d10+42 damage." It's about stripping away mechanics and making the action its own reward.

As I said, I'm not the core consumer of a game like D&D anymore, a game which specifically and deliberately rewards metagame thinking and character twinking. When I first learned to play the game, a fighter was a fighter was a fighter, and yet somehow we managed to have great fun with no more options available to use than what selection of weapons and armor to use - if you wanted to be truly bold, you might make a Dex-based instead of a Str-based fighter so that you could be an archer instead of a melee machine. My sense of wonder in fantasy roleplay is more than satisfied by taking on the role of a wizard or warrior without layering on so much complexity that character mechanics become an end to themselves.


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## Greatwyrm (May 20, 2005)

The value of anything, IP or otherwise, is what the market will pay for it.  It really doesn't matter how good adventures are if people aren't buying them.  I think the current marketing of fluff, more novels and some in the crunch books, is a pretty good arrangement right now.  Plenty of people buy novels even if they don't play D&D.

As a side note, in 15 years of GMing, I've run 2 published adventures.


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## diaglo (May 20, 2005)

Greatwyrm said:
			
		

> As a side note, in 15 years of GMing, I've run 2 published adventures.




refereeing since the 70's ... i've never run a published adventure.

i have however used them. stripped them down, messed them around and fit them into the campaign.


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## Storm Raven (May 20, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> It's the difference between, "I'll attack the demon with my sword!" and "Lessee, with Power Attack I can reduce my BAB by 8 and still hit AC 23, and with the cleric's buffs I can do 2d10+42 damage." It's about stripping away mechanics and making the action its own reward.




Yes. One is rote, and the other requires thought.



> _As I said, I'm not the core consumer of a game like D&D anymore, a game which specifically and deliberately rewards metagame thinking and character twinking._





Like most games.



> _When I first learned to play the game, a fighter was a fighter was a fighter, and yet somehow we managed to have great fun with no more options available to use than what selection of weapons and armor to use - if you wanted to be truly bold, you might make a Dex-based instead of a Str-based fighter so that you could be an archer instead of a melee machine. My sense of wonder in fantasy roleplay is more than satisfied by taking on the role of a wizard or warrior without layering on so much complexity that character mechanics become an end to themselves._



_

And this was fine and dandy when D&D was just about the only kid on the block. But as the market expanded, people began to chose other options as they became availabale, eroding D&D's market dominance (never eliminating it, but losing market share isn't fun). Most people want to be able to customize their character more than "I'm the fighter with the longsword, not the battleaxe".

In point of fact, TSR saw this too. That's why, for example, the original Unearthed Arcana was basically a bunch of character options. And the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide gave rules for skills (non-weapon proficiencies), and so on. Heck, the original supplements were about introducing new character options like the paladin, rogue, and ranger._


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## buzz (May 20, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Right.  About one year.



Do you mean the lifespan of each edition was one year? I would consider the "lifespan" is the length of time between each edition. GW1e came out in 1978; "Legion of Gold" came out _three years later_. Assuming that TSR was essentially "supporting" the various editions until each one's successor was released, the average GW edition saw a couple of adventures in its first year, and then nothing for the next 6-8. How is that solid support?

I mean, if you started playing WFRP1 last year, you'd probably be amazed at all the sourcebooks and adventures you had avaiable to buy. But if you started back when it was originally released, you'd probably be a bit ticked that you weren't seeing more than about one release a year over the course of 20 years.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> No, I don't suppose that you do.



There's no reason to be uncivil.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Ok, how?  By buying hundreds of PDF's in order to get a feel for what is good?  Then going down to kinkos and spending $0.50 or $1.00 per page (or whatever it is) to get a good printout?  That's economical?



Who is telling you to buy hundreds of PDFs?   



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> More to the point, you think that nearly 50% of the modules produced for third edition are good?



No, you're conflating numbers here. I just guesstimated about 100 modules released for D&D/d20 in its first year. Limiting yourself to just that first year, you could easily find five modules of quality. The Freeport series alone would probably count for half of those, and Penumbra, Necromancer, and WotC could fill out the rest. Then, looking at each successive year, taking into consideration print, PDF, and _Dungeon_, I have absolute confidence that you could find at least five that are as good as anything released for 1e.

Honestly, I'm not sure if the same experiment would have worked back in the 1e days. There were only 5-10 modules total the first few years of 1e's existence (and most all of them were high-level; there was jack squat from TSR for levels 1-5 back when I started; _Village of Hommlet_ was about it, and look how many years it took them to finally release the rest of that series).



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Funny that the fanbase doesn't seem to feel that way.



I would not presume to speak for the entirety of the fanbase. Even the breadth of the ENWorld community is but a tiny slicce of the gaming populace.

I can speak for myself, however, and I found plenty of good adventures. I have also borne witness to other gamers who feel similarly. I enjoyed running _Sunless Citadel_ and _In the Belly of the Beast_, am having fun running CotSQ, and have found many adventures in _Dungeon_ and in the Penumbra line to at least read very well. The Necromancer products that I've been playing through have also been a blast.



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Do you know how many 3rd edition modules I've seen glowing reviews for?



Has every single 3e module been reviewed? If they had, should I really be assuming that you've read them all? Are fan-written reviews the be-all, end-all? Does it matter that I've seen glowing reviews for many adventures? Does this assertion really mean anything?



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> When modules arrive at the game stores and book stores, I pick them up and flip through them, and almost every time I find nothing of interest.



Does flipping through a product really count as a valid assessment?

(Heck, at least they're not shrink-wrapped like the 1e modules were. Buying those was a total crapshoot.)



			
				Celebrim said:
			
		

> Why can't you accept that though something may be good that it might also have flaws?



Why can't you aknowledge that maybe there are good modules out there, but you just don't happen to like them? That it's entirely possible that your tastes may have essentially fossilized, and thus no new product is going to live up to the _memories_ you have of seminal adventures you played 20 years ago when D&D was taking the world by storm?

The simple fact is that there is _tons_ of adventure support for 3e; far more options than were available when I started playing. The assertion that "Yeah, but none of them are classics like _Shrine of Tamoachan_" is meaningless becasue a) we won't know what will become a classic until a decade or two passes, and 2) opinions are subjective. There are plenty of people who found those classic adventures dull and contrived. E.g., given a choice, I'd take _Tide of Years_ over _Tomb of Horrors_ any day.

Face it, nostalgia plays a huge part in your argument. One day, people will be hanging out in the ENWorld cyberspace nexus saying things like "Dude, _Meepo_! I loved Meepo! Man, I miss those old Adventure Path modules..." and "_Shackled City_ was a classic!"


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## Umbran (May 20, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> I have to side with Erik and Phil here; from their perspective, and mine, "can't do the work" and "could do the work, but won't" is pretty much the same thing: In the end, no product is forthcoming.




It isn't the same thing if you need to deal with _why_ the product is not forthcoming. 

The proposed theory was that you don't see much fluff product because fluff is particularly difficult to write.  I am merley suggesting that this theory may not represent reality.  You may not see much good fluff because the market cannot support much of it, and therefore there's little incentive publishers can offer to prospective authors.  



> In regards to the setting search (which a friend of mine and I contributed to): Wizards only found 11 people out of 11,000 that they considered worth their time.




Perhaps, but maybe that doesn't mean quite what you may think it does.

Think about the limitations of time, manpower, and money in processing submissions.  About the fact that due to market realities, no matter how many good submissions they got, only one was likely to see print.  About the fact that WotC has some very particular things they need in their products to get their desired profit margins.  About the fact that the contestants had to try to squeeze entire worlds (meaning 200+ page documents) of fluff down into a single page...

Quite honestly, this all suggests very little about the overall quality of the fluff the 10,989 folks could write.  When there are many competetors, losing doesn't neccessarily mean you aren't good.  

It is more akin to the Human Resources world - in jobs that garner many submissions, rejection can come not because of your qualifications (or lack thereof), but because you chose the wrong font size on the resume, or the HR person had a headache for a while.

To turn this around - in the end, WotC only found _one_ that was worth their time.  But some of the other 10 have been worth other publisher's time, and met with decent reviews, no?  So it isn't like the other 10 were bad, either, even though they "weren't worth WotC's time".  How can you be so sure that so many other submissions would not have ended up of similar quality?  Given, of course, that 90% of everything is crud, and that many feel that the one that did make the cut still wasn't worth the time...


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## buzz (May 20, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> It's the difference between, "I'll attack the demon with my sword!" and "Lessee, with Power Attack I can reduce my BAB by 8 and still hit AC 23, and with the cleric's buffs I can do 2d10+42 damage." It's about stripping away mechanics and making the action its own reward.



This is a player issue, not a system issue. Powergaming/Munchkinism has existed since the dawn of RPGs.


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## rogueattorney (May 20, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> You need to include the Role-Aides and Judges' Guild adventures in your count.




Both did more source books than actual adventures.

Mayfair's Role Aids did 26 adventures from 1983-1993.  These were "generic" adventures (as in, it's "not" AD&D, nod, nod, wink, wink, please don't sue us, Oh, I guess you sued us anyway, we might as well win the suit and then keep doing what we're doing, so there.)

By inexact count, JG did about 20 adventures for AD&D or OD&D through 1981 (about 12 for OD&D and 8 for AD&D) and then about a half dozen "generic" adventures in the last couple years before closing shop.

There were also a number of "generic" modules by Creations Unlimited and others who didn't have enough distribution to even enter into the discussion as they weren't generally available to a wide range of gamers.

So if you add the AD&D1 modules, the D&D modules produced AD&D1's lifetime, all the Judges Guild modules, and all the Mayfair modules, even those produced after AD&D1 was finished, then you arive at close to 200 adventures.

R.A.


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## Storm Raven (May 20, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> Who is telling you to buy hundreds of PDFs?




Has anyone else noticed that Celebrum's criticism seems to have morphed from "there aren't enough adventures for 3e" into "there are so many adventures for 3e that I would have to wade through hundreds of PDFs to find the one's I like".


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## The Shaman (May 20, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Yes. One is rote, and the other requires thought.



One is focused on fast action, the other is focused on extreme precision.

There's no reason to be snarky about it, *Storm Raven*. It's a matter of personal preference. There is no argument to be won here.







			
				Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Most people want to be able to customize their character more than "I'm the fighter with the longsword, not the battleaxe".



As I've stated several times, I'm not "most people," nor do I enjoy gaming with "most people."







			
				Storm Raven said:
			
		

> In point of fact, TSR saw this too. That's why, for example, the original _Unearthed Arcana_ was basically a bunch of character options. And the _Dungeoneer's Survival Guide_ gave rules for skills (non-weapon proficiencies), and so on. Heck, the original supplements were about introducing new character options like the paladin, rogue, and ranger.



I didn't use a lot of the options then, either. Everyone has a comfort zone, *Storm Raven*.

Back in the day, when I was a wargaming grognard, I liked _Squad Leader_. Eventually I reached a cut-off point when it came to adding supplements and new rules - the increase in complexity began to take away from the pace of the game and the fun started to leak away as we spent more time figuring out LOS and hull-down conditions that we did on maneuvering our units. The same is true for me with roleplaying - when interpreting the rules takes up as much time as interpreting the action, there is a problem for me.

If you enjoy the style of game that D&D has become, that's great - have all the madbadfun you can stand and maybe a little more. Please leave me my quiet corner of the gaming universe to enjoy as well, without the disdain and derision that my point of view seems to engender in you.


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## buzz (May 20, 2005)

rogueattorney said:
			
		

> So if you add the AD&D1 modules, the D&D modules produced AD&D1's lifetime, all the Judges Guild modules, and all the Mayfair modules, even those produced after AD&D1 was finished, then you arive at close to 200 adventures.



Ah, so 3e has seen as much or more adventures in a few years what 1e saw in 10.


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## The Shaman (May 20, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> This is a player issue, not a system issue. Powergaming/Munchkinism has existed since the dawn of RPGs.



To a limited extent I agree with you, but players also approach the game with knowledge of and preferences for particular system options, more so now than in the past with the number of systems and the range of options offered by the different systems.

The idea that twinks have always existed overlooks the fact that with a simple system there are simply fewer options to exploit. In 1e _AD&D_, the only way you could 'munchkin' was to fake your ability rolls or overpower you character with magic - every fighter had the same attack progression, every wizard the same spell-casting ability (and every spell the same effects, with allowances for level-dependent variations like duration or area of effect).

I don't think you can separate player issues from system issues as readily as some like to believe.


----------



## buzz (May 20, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> If you enjoy the style of game that D&D has become, that's great - have all the madbadfun you can stand and maybe a little more. Please leave me my quiet corner of the gaming universe to enjoy as well, without the disdain and derision that my point of view seems to engender in you.



Similarly, let's not disdain "what D&D has become", either. For many people, it's not the metagaming exercise you've described. For me, it's an improvement, and I would not consider myself a powergamer.

I think we're at the point where we need a group hug.


----------



## Jim Hague (May 20, 2005)

Just for my obligatory chiming in - _The World's Largest Dungeon_ has, AFAIK, sold very well for AEG and, I think, hearkens back to the early days of D&D.  It's a dungeon hack.  It's a ton of modules stuffed between two covers.  There's story there, for the groups that want it.  It's setting generic.  There's enough material there to play D&D or a compatible game for 2+ years.    And that's _one_ product among the hundreds out there.  

I really don't find Celebrim's argument compelling in the least - when industry professionals like Erik and Phil come on and say how the field look, I trust them.  Both've presented good, cogent arguments and have been summarily ignored by the original poster because it seems those assertations don't fit whatever obtuse point is trying to be made.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 20, 2005)

> Originally Posted by The Shaman
> It's the difference between, "I'll attack the demon with my sword!" and "Lessee, with Power Attack I can reduce my BAB by 8 and still hit AC 23, and with the cleric's buffs I can do 2d10+42 damage." It's about stripping away mechanics and making the action its own reward.




Regardless of system...1Ed, 2Ed, 3Ed, HERO, RIFTS, etc...I tend to say what the character DOES rather than how the mechanics describe the action.  That's a player style issue that has NOTHING to do with the particular RPG in question.



> Originally Posted by Rogueattorney
> By inexact count, JG did about 20 adventures for AD&D or OD&D through 1981 (about 12 for OD&D and 8 for AD&D) and then about a half dozen "generic" adventures in the last couple years before closing shop.




Judge's Guild is still out there kicking butt and taking names.
Judge's Guild


----------



## diaglo (May 20, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> I really don't find Celebrim's argument compelling in the least - when industry professionals like Erik and Phil come on and say how the field look, I trust them.  Both've presented good, cogent arguments and have been summarily ignored by the original poster because it seems those assertations don't fit whatever obtuse point is trying to be made.




i totally agree with Erik and Phil assessments too. and you can ask anyone about my opinion of the current editions.


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## philreed (May 20, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> _The World's Largest Dungeon_ has, AFAIK, sold very well for AEG  . . .





I'd love to hear a real number with "very well." I mean, in this market very well could mean 1,000 copies.

Of course, 1,000 copies of a $100 book is still very well.


----------



## buzz (May 20, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> To a limited extent I agree with you, but players also approach the game with knowledge of and preferences for particular system options, more so now than in the past with the number of systems and the range of options offered by the different systems.



But this would seem to imply that the more options an RPG gives you, the more it engenders twinking and hinders roleplay, and I don't think that's evident at all. Even 3e, with all of its options compared to past editions, is incredibly restrictive compared to most other RPGs. And here you are talking about switching to another system!   



			
				The Shaman said:
			
		

> The idea that twinks have always existed overlooks the fact that with a simple system there are simply fewer options to exploit.



I'm not sure I see how that matters. Just because it was obvious in 1e that you either played an elven f/m-u or used the stat-rolling method for humans from UA in order to make an uber PC doesn't mean that people didn't do it. Heck, every gol-dang character one of my buddes played in 1e was an elven f/m-u dual-weilding a longsword and shortsword.

And, really, calling 1e "simple" is just wrong.  Simpler than 3e in many ways, maybe.



			
				The Shaman said:
			
		

> I don't think you can separate player issues from system issues as readily as some like to believe.



IME, there are player types, and they will act according to type no matter what system you use. Certain systems may encourage some behaviors more than others, but I've always found that it always starts with the person.

YMMV, I suppose.


----------



## Storm Raven (May 20, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> One is focused on fast action, the other is focused on extreme precision.




As I said, one requires thought, the other doesn't.



> _There's no reason to be snarky about it, *Storm Raven*. It's a matter of personal preference. There is no argument to be won here.As I've stated several times, I'm not "most people," nor do I enjoy gaming with "most people."I didn't use a lot of the options then, either. Everyone has a comfort zone, *Storm Raven*._





And your comfort zone appears to be "minimalist rules", which makes me wonder why you played D&D to begin with - since it has always been one of heavier rule sets out there.



> _If you enjoy the style of game that D&D has become, that's great - have all the madbadfun you can stand and maybe a little more. Please leave me my quiet corner of the gaming universe to enjoy as well, without the disdain and derision that my point of view seems to engender in you._





In that case, it seems odd to me that you would jump into a discussion that centers on whether "WotC is slitting its throat", and cite your own dissatisfaction as a data point in that argument. If your tastes are as idiosyncratic as you believe they are, doesn't the fact that the game is not to your liking kind of support the idea that others with more "mainstream gaming" tastes will like the direction the game is going?


----------



## The Shaman (May 20, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> Similarly, let's not disdain "what D&D has become", either.



Expressing one's disdain for the game-system isn't unreasonable - expressing disdain for another poster's opinions in a snarky way is, at least with me, which is why I asked *Storm Raven* to dial it back a bit.


----------



## philreed (May 20, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> I really don't find Celebrim's argument compelling in the least - when industry professionals like Erik and Phil come on and say how the field look, I trust them.  Both've presented good, cogent arguments and have been summarily ignored by the original poster because it seems those assertations don't fit whatever obtuse point is trying to be made.




Dude, it's the internet. If information pops up that hurts your theory -- no matter how factual it is -- ignore it. 

The internet is an awesome tool. Anyone with a keyboard and a connection can spout off about anything he knows or doesn't know. Hell, I'm spouting now. Where's that damn switch?


----------



## Storm Raven (May 20, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Expressing one's disdain for the game-system isn't unreasonable - expressing disdain for another poster's opinions in a snarky way is, at least with me, which is why I asked *Storm Raven* to dial it back a bit.




Your arguments got the response their quality deserved.


----------



## The Shaman (May 20, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> But this would seem to imply that the more options an RPG gives you, the more it engenders twinking and hinders roleplay, and I don't think that's evident at all. Even 3e, with all of its options compared to past editions, is incredibly restrictive compared to most other RPGs.



First, I never said anything about the current rules hindering roleplaying. My dislike for D&D in its current incarnation is about adventure prep and pacing.

Second, that's exactly what I'm saying - the more mechanical complexity, the more a gamer is invited to focus on expanding mechanical advantages. Some gamers enjoy that - I'm not a member of that set. It doesn't make them good, me bad, or any permutation of the two - it's just personal style and satisfaction.







			
				buzz said:
			
		

> Just because it was obvious in 1e that you either played an elven f/m-u or used the stat-rolling method for humans from UA in order to make an uber PC doesn't mean that people didn't do it. Heck, every gol-dang character one of my buddes played in 1e was an elven f/m-u dual-weilding a longsword and shortsword.
> 
> And, really, calling 1e "simple" is just wrong.  *Simpler than 3e in many ways*, maybe.



As with the _Squad Leader_ analogy, it's a continuum for me, a point of diminishing returns inversely proportional to system complexity.

I didn't game with a lot of folks like your buddies, I guess - I can't remember anyone in our circle selecting characters for stats so much as playing a particular fantasy archetype.







			
				buzz said:
			
		

> IME, there are player types, and they will act according to type no matter what system you use. *Certain systems may encourage some behaviors more than others*, but I've always found that it always starts with the person.



Re-read what I emphasized in your quote, and you'll understand my point.







			
				buzz said:
			
		

> YMMV, I suppose.



It usually does.


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## Plane Sailing (May 20, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Your arguments got the response their quality deserved.




Storm Raven, play nicely please. This last post wasn't really worth making.

Goes for everyone else too - I know this is a topic which has the possibility of people taking sides and getting annoyed at other peoples points (or the way that they have expressed themselves), but everything works *much* more nicely if we remember to stay civil towards one another.

Thanks for listening
</ moderator >

Regards


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## Janx (May 20, 2005)

I keep hearing the same refrain, "there are no new classic adventures"

I think that's the flaw.  Classic implies old.  Meaning from many years ago.  Many years ago, some DMs ran Tomb of Horrors at some conventions.  Lots of people remembered it.

Right now, some DMs ran Sunless Citadel.  But enough time hasn't passed for it to become "classic"

Celebrim, if you want to make modules, go do so.  Even better, do some market analysis and put together a business plan on the profitability of modules.  There may be a lack of good modules out there.  But that doesn't mean you can afford to make good ones.  Your competition is Dungeon Magazine and all the DMs who write their own adventures for their group.  good luck.

Janx


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## buzz (May 20, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Re-read what I emphasized in your quote, and you'll understand my point.



Oh, I do understand, I just differ with you on the player:system effect ratio is all.

<Purely_anecdotal>
I play HERO regularly, and it's one of the most flexible --and rules-heavy-- systems out there. FWIW, the campiagns I've played with it have been some of the most narrative, metagaming-free games I've experienced. Other people have told me they found the system a twink-fest. IM0, it's experiences like this that make me weight the player side of the above ratio more heavily.
</Purely_anecdotal>

Out of curiosity, is there another system or systems that you've found that better matches what you want out of your games? Just previous editions, or are there current ones you're leaning towards?


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## Jim Hague (May 20, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> Dude, it's the internet. If information pops up that hurts your theory -- no matter how factual it is -- ignore it.
> 
> The internet is an awesome tool. Anyone with a keyboard and a connection can spout off about anything he knows or doesn't know. Hell, I'm spouting now. Where's that damn switch?




Heh, true, too true.  As for your question about numbers...well, I can't speak to official sales numbers, being only a freelancer for AEG during the time of WLD, but here in the Austin market,  Dragon's Lair sold between 6 and an even dozen copies of WLD.  Aside from a few niche d20 games like Midnight, I've _never_ seen a d20 product sell like that.  I sure as hell wasn't expecting it.  Extrapolations can be made, but using the unusual market here as an example would likely lead to shaky numbers.  The last time I spoke with jim pinto, he'd said that somewhere in the market of 1300-1400 copies had been sold and AEG was going for a reprint when their initial run ran out.  Take with a grain of salt, YMMV.


----------



## Rodrigo Istalindir (May 20, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> I'd love to hear a real number with "very well." I mean, in this market very well could mean 1,000 copies.
> 
> Of course, 1,000 copies of a $100 book is still very well.




FWIW, going by Amazon sales rankings:

WLD - #24,679
Vampire:  The Requiem - #41,902
Frostburn - #34,860
GURPS Basic Set: Characters (4th Ed) - #23,916

WLD might skew high on Amazon due to the high discount, but that still seems pretty respectable.


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## philreed (May 20, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> The last time I spoke with jim pinto, he'd said that somewhere in the market of 1300-1400 copies had been sold and AEG was going for a reprint when their initial run ran out.  Take with a grain of salt, YMMV.




NOTE: The following numbers ARE MADE UP. They're based on past experience but they're completely MADE UP!!!


Okay, if we assume 1,500 have sold that's $60,000 for AEG (rough numbers here, assuming typical distributor terms). If we assume an average of 700 words/page at 800 pages we get 560,000 words. Paying $0.04/word would cost $22,400 just for the writing. Probably $8-$10/book for printing (just a guess based on previous experience) is another $12,000 if we go with the lower number. $1,000 for a cover. I have no idea how much interior art is in there but if we assume 1 full page/10 pages we get 80 full pages. $100/image (low) is $8,000.

So now we're at $42,400 and we haven't even discussed editing costs, cartography costs, shipping, marketing, or any other expenses that we're likely involved (such as overhead).

Hopefully AEG can sell about 2x and hit 3,000. 

I would expect the biggest impact would have been on cash flow -- unless everyone was paid 30-90 days after publication AND enough copies were sold on release to cover expenses.


----------



## Crothian (May 20, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> I would expect the biggest impact would have been on cash flow -- unless everyone was paid 30-90 days after publication AND enough copies were sold on release to cover expenses.




From what I understand they sold out at Gen Con last year, so that probably helped cover expenses they had to pay at the time.


----------



## philreed (May 20, 2005)

Crothian said:
			
		

> From what I understand they sold out at Gen Con last year, so that probably helped cover expenses they had to pay at the time.




Sold out of the print run or the copies they took to the show? Without numbers it's hard to determine anything.


This concealing of information is, in my opinion, the game industry's biggest weakness. Novels, computer games, CDs, DVDs -- numbers of units sold for these we can find. Even movies report ticket sales on a regular basis. I feel game companies hide their sales data out of fear that others will know just how poor their sales are.


----------



## Crothian (May 20, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> Sold out of the print run or the copies they took to the show? Without numbers it's hard to determine anything.




Copies they took i'd guess, but I think I heard 600 copies.  Take that with a grain of salt though.

How do you think revealing sale numbers would benifit the industry?


----------



## philreed (May 20, 2005)

Crothian said:
			
		

> How do you think revealing sale numbers would benifit the industry?




It would help customers to understand _why_ things are the way they are. If people knew that publishers were only selling 500 copies of a new product on release they'd better understand that it isn't greed driving higher prices and product decisions.


----------



## Crothian (May 20, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> It would help customers to understand _why_ things are the way they are. If people knew that publishers were only selling 500 copies of a new product on release they'd better understand that it isn't greed driving higher prices and product decisions.




Do you think the understanding would lead to more sales as the customers would be more willing to spend money with that knowledge, or do you think that would just quell the complaints?


----------



## The Shaman (May 20, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> Out of curiosity, is there another system or systems that you've found that better matches what you want out of your games? Just previous editions, or are there current ones you're leaning towards?



Of the non-WotC products, _Mutants and Masterminds_ is one that I've played and like and I'm giving _Castles and Crusades_ a close look - the latter will probably be the system-of-choice for my next fantasy setting.

Given its close relationship to 3e, it may seem odd that I think d20 _Modern_ is the most enjoyable roleplaying game I've ever played. There are a few differences between 3e and Modern that I think make the latter cleaner to play. The adventure prep time is much less as the 'setting' is already written (i.e., our world) and there are fewer stats to be concerned with in most of the games I run - arranging lots of interaction with normal people is much easier than filling up a fantasy landscape with monstrous critters. The nature of combat in the game tends to discourage the kinds of twinkiness that comes with melee-heavy fantasy games, and FX (magic or psionics) is extremely rare and limited in my Modern games. The level of character detail that can be achieved in this genre is less cumbersome as a result, so it doesn't have the same drawbacks in actual play as D&D.


----------



## philreed (May 21, 2005)

Crothian said:
			
		

> Do you think the understanding would lead to more sales as the customers would be more willing to spend money with that knowledge, or do you think that would just quell the complaints?




I don't think it would improve sales any* but I do think it would help cut down on the number of "greedy publisher" statements. If people knew how close a lot of publishers are to going out of business I think that there would be more of a fan movement to squash any "X is ripping me off by charging Y" complaints.


* Though it might. Witness the GOO incident earlier this year. If people had known earlier what was happening the company may have enjoyed better sales and not been forced to run a giant sale. Or, for that matter, FFG. How many more people would have bought FFG Legends & Lairs products if they had known sales were so low the company had no choice but to end the line?


----------



## TheAuldGrump (May 21, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> Dude, it's the internet. If information pops up that hurts your theory -- no matter how factual it is -- ignore it.
> 
> The internet is an awesome tool. Anyone with a keyboard and a connection can spout off about anything he knows or doesn't know. Hell, I'm spouting now. Where's that damn switch?




[Academician Prokhor Zakharov] The internet is _not_ an information superhighway! It is a _communications_ highway, and one with a large noise to signal ratio.[/Academician Prokhor Zakharov]

Sorry, been playing Alpha Centauri again...

For me flavor is better defined by the setting material than the adventures, but adventures help define the setting. But it is interesting that the argument seems to have shifted, even from the original poster. In a formal debate that would be called 'losing'. 

In my estimation there are better adventures now than during the 'classic' period. I do not purchase many, but I didn't then either. I do not think that D&D is 'cutting its own throat', and unlike TSR in its later days WotC shows signs of listening to their customers. And yes, customers like crunch. I can find you reviews of The Iron Kingdoms World Guide where people complain that there is no crunch, only fluff. (Wonderful fluff in my estimation!) There are adventures that interest me that TSR would never have produced.

In some ways we are comparing old time radio shows to television, when the listener (or DM) has to provide his own mental image he becomes attached to it and has warm feelings. Television (3.x) provides more of the actual image, so the DM may not feel as attached to the final product. (Mix those metaphors! Go for it Grump! ) New stuff just does not have the resevoir of nostalgia that the older stuff has built up. 

Anyway, I seem to be losing coherence, so it is likely time for me to take a nap...

The Auld Grump


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 21, 2005)

*Odds & Ends*

First:  Somewhere in THIS big-ass thread there is a brief discussion of the sales figures for RPG products, including commentary from figures in the know (not by me, however).  As I recall the thread's content, a typical good product sells between 5-10K copies.  In other words...not a lot.

Second: It seems to me that the current economics of the hobby do not support adventure modules in the same form or amount as we have come to expect them based on our experiences with 1st and 2nd edition D&D-  Too much competition from old product conversions, Dungeon and homebrew, too small a market (DM's only).  Mini-adventures like AEG's or multiple, near-campaign sized adventures bound into 1 book will become more typical of products offered for sale.

Third:  As stated by many others, for an adventure to be considered a classic requires time and experience.  Enough players and DMs must experience the product and rate it favorably...and it must withstand the test of years of parties going through it- all in the harsh spotlight of being compared to the adventures of the past.  The adventures we experienced in 1st and 2nd edition are classics because people still want to play them.  The adventures of today?  I'm enjoying adventuring in RttToEE right now.  It reminds me of older modules, and I can see myself running it to another group of gamers in the future...perhaps even in a D20 Modern setting.  On the other hand, most of the 3Ed campaigns I've been involved with were pure homebrew.

I (or others) may have said it before, but it bears repeating:  Part of the greatness of those other modules is that they came _first_.  They were written to fill a void.  There is no void anymore.  Any adventure written today cannot be _merely_ good to become a classic, it must be *great*.  It isn't going to be compared to the average adventure that you may own but only ran once (or not at all)...it will be compared to the best of the best, the ones that captured our interest and etched themselves in our minds.

So, _of course_ the current crop of adventures will seem anemic to you.  Your expectations are much higher than when you first discovered role-playing.

Think about the rock band The Yardbirds.  In succession, that band had Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page playing lead guitar.  Imagine if they were still around today with "some guy named Joe" playing lead.  Unless he were Joe Perry or Joe Satriani, he'd have nothing but left-handed complements and ulcers _at best_.


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## National Acrobat (May 21, 2005)

*Interesting*

This is an interesting post, and as a very established old gamer  I find it to be something that I would like to see as well.

I love the published adventures.

Some of the old stuff was great just to read even if you didn't use it.

I play in a group of 9 people. I generally DM pretty much all of the time, have for the last 15 years of our group.

Since 3E and Castles and Crusades both came out, I have been the only DM for the group.

Others have wanted to DM, but the answers are always the same.

The other guys all want a fleshed out, detailed campaign setting that they have to do no work for, they want premade modules, preferably a total campaign that they have to do nothing to, so that they don't need to put any time into prepping beyond reading the material.

Anyone else have this problem?


----------



## Jim Hague (May 21, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> NOTE: The following numbers ARE MADE UP. They're based on past experience but they're completely MADE UP!!!
> 
> 
> Okay, if we assume 1,500 have sold that's $60,000 for AEG (rough numbers here, assuming typical distributor terms). If we assume an average of 700 words/page at 800 pages we get 560,000 words. Paying $0.04/word would cost $22,400 just for the writing. Probably $8-$10/book for printing (just a guess based on previous experience) is another $12,000 if we go with the lower number. $1,000 for a cover. I have no idea how much interior art is in there but if we assume 1 full page/10 pages we get 80 full pages. $100/image (low) is $8,000.




Aha, I can answer this!  Ok, interior art on WLD is extremely sparse - no full-page art, and aside from small maps at the beginning delineating Regions or the occasional helpful diagram, there's nothing.  Mind, this is offset by the frankly beautiful full-color maps that come with the book.  Wordcount is somewhere over 1 million - that's some small text on those 840 or so pages.





> So now we're at $42,400 and we haven't even discussed editing costs, cartography costs, shipping, marketing, or any other expenses that we're likely involved (such as overhead).
> 
> Hopefully AEG can sell about 2x and hit 3,000.
> 
> I would expect the biggest impact would have been on cash flow -- unless everyone was paid 30-90 days after publication AND enough copies were sold on release to cover expenses.




I can't speak exact numbers here due to contract, but the 30-90 days after publication is spot on, and we were paid less that $.04/word.  It seems like a gyp, but myself and a lot of the other writers were new to the business or first-timers.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 21, 2005)

Jim, does your contract include a royalties clause of any kind?

If so, you can probably approximate the sales of anything to which you've contributed.


----------



## Jim Hague (May 21, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Jim, does your contract include a royalties clause of any kind?
> 
> If so, you can probably approximate the sales of anything to which you've contributed.




Boy, I wish.  But no - freelancers got paid a flat per word fee, minus any penalties as specified in the contract.  It wasn't big money by any stretch, and it was work for hire - AEG owns the stuff I wrote, as well as what other freelancers wrote, lock stock and barrel, save for OGC, which is a fairly hefty chunk of the WLD.  Work for hire (as Phil, Erik or any of a number of full-time pros can tell you) is the most common way to work freelance in the industry.

I'll say this, as an aside, and off-topic - anyone who says that writers, editors and game companies are greedy and out to screw the customer...well, they're full of it.  The pool's too small too be greedy, and the vast majority of game companies aren't run like businesses; they're labors of (sometimes misguided) love, hobbies.  I, being a freelancer and more importantly a gamer, find myself wishing that more companies were run like businesses - that way the customer gets a better product, the writers, editors, artists and other folks that work on books could get paid a livng wage (and while I can't discuss what I got paid for WLD, I can say it wasn't even enough to buy a good home theatre system or a beat up car, for 80,000+ words).  _Then_ I think we'd see some real movement and a Renaissance in gaming.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 21, 2005)

That's what I figured.  That's a lot like the rates you'd see getting something published for the first time in a fiction digest.


----------



## S'mon (May 21, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Boy, I wish.  But no - freelancers got paid a flat per word fee, minus any penalties as specified in the contract.  It wasn't big money by any stretch, and it was work for hire - AEG owns the stuff I wrote, as well as what other freelancers wrote, lock stock and barrel




Copyright query - I think I'm right that US "work for hire" doctrine is that the employer is default first owner of copyright in work by employees.  But you're not an employee, you're a freelancer.  I think what you're saying is that you signed a contract which transferred your copyright in the work to the publisher?  Practically it may have the same result in USA, but it's an important distinction in other jurisdictions - eg if you transferred copyright you could still sue for infringement of the moral rights in your work in certain other jurisdictions; say if Gez publishes a derogatory treatment of your work in France.   
Most importantly it also means you likely retain copyright in your pre-publication preliminary drafts of your work (much as the publisher might wish otherwise!) whereas under true work-for-hire all preliminary work is also owned by the employer.


----------



## Jim Hague (May 21, 2005)

S'mon said:
			
		

> Copyright query - I think I'm right that US "work for hire" doctrine is that the employer is default first owner of copyright in work by employees.  But you're not an employee, you're a freelancer.  I think what you're saying is that you signed a contract which transferred your copyright in the work to the publisher?  Practically it may have the same result in USA, but it's an important distinction in other jurisdictions - eg if you transferred copyright you could still sue for infringement of the moral rights in your work in certain other jurisdictions; say if Gez publishes a derogatory treatment of your work in France.
> Most importantly it also means you likely retain copyright in your pre-publication preliminary drafts of your work (much as the publisher might wish otherwise!) whereas under true work-for-hire all preliminary work is also owned by the employer.




Good question!  The answer is that the contract states that the work done under contract for AEG is property of AEG, with the exception of OGC stuff, which is quite a bit.  If you cruise over to the World's Largest Dungeon in Play thread, I've posted a 'cut' piece of material that's fully OGC.  It's rough stuff, even for a first-time writer, but...

Given the success of the WLD - as much a result of a vocal and enthusiastic fanbase trying it out as the marketing or the product, which I think's fairly great, even ego aside - I think the argument that the original poster made is moot.  I can point at this one book out of literally hundreds of quality products out there and say it's got enough content for 2+ years of play.  It's a dungeon with story, an ecology that makes sense within that story, and on top of that it's modular.  I don't get one thin dime from promoting it, but I do so because I think it's a good product.  It might not be for everyone, and that pricetag can be a bit of a shock...but the number of adventures you get (assuming only 1 plotline per Region is followed), it comes out to something like 2.95 or so per adventure.  And you get color maps, monsters, NPCs...you can't beat that with a stick.  and that's just a single product.

Nobody's throat is getting cut, slowly or otherwise.  And despite Joshua Dyal's assertations to the contrary, plenty of folks are still playing in the dungeon.  _Roleplaying_ in it, even...and if you don't believe me, Joshua, go pick up WLD and look at Region H - not one I wrote, but one that is almost exclusively story and plot and NPC interaction.


----------



## S'mon (May 21, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Good question!  The answer is that the contract states that the work done under contract for AEG is property of AEG




Interesting - in UK a court would probably interpret that term to mean that you sold your copyright in the _published_ (or paid-for) work to the publisher; but I think at least some US courts might treat a contract for commissioned work (ie the contract is signed before the work is written) as you being an employee of the publisher for this purpose (there was a case re Playboy on this AIR).  It may be even fuzzier than that - I'm not a US lawyer but I teach IP law in the UK & I like to try to understand the current US approach/culture, which seems to have changed a lot since the '80s/early '90s, when publishers generally accepted that freelancers owned their copyright unless they sold it to the publisher.


----------



## Hussar (May 21, 2005)

I find it somewhat ironic that, in a thread bemoaning the lack of published modules, there's an ad running at the top of the screen advertising Malavok's 5th anniversary free module - Looking Glass Deep.

Good grief.  Not enough modules out there?  How many do you need?


----------



## jmucchiello (May 21, 2005)

philreed said:
			
		

> I disagree. If writing good fluff was easy there would be a lot more good novels and stories on the market. Writing BAD fluff is easy, just like writing bad crunch is easy. And even then most people do not have the discipline to sit down and write.
> 
> For a fairly large percentage of the population talking about writing is about one million times easier than sitting down and writing. Most people, when push comes to shove, don't have the mental state necessary to write -- and they're definitely unprepared to write for extended periods of time.



I don't disagree with how hard it is to write in general but in the context of this thread, the question was which is EASIER fluff or crunch. My contention was that the fluff was easier than the crunch. Writing compelling fluff is more natural than writing rules that are compelling to read.


----------



## jmucchiello (May 21, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> And I try to hold the craft of adventure design/writing to the same sort of high standards, precisely because I care so much about the hobby.  It bugs me that for all the technical advances we've made in the hobby and for all the higher standards of professionalism that the hobby evidences, that there aren't more good examples of the craft out there.



Ok, let's back up. You say there are no good adventures being written for 3E and yet you hold the writing of classic modules and something to strive toward? Have you read a classic module lately?

But I don't want to debate that. I want to ask you for some information so perhaps we can point you to a module for 3E that you would like. Please name a classic module that you think all new modules should aspire to be and explain WHY that module is so good. Since you put such a value on construction of writing you should have no trouble explaining what a module must have and what new modules lack. Do not use the words fluff or crunch in your response.


----------



## philreed (May 21, 2005)

Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Aha, I can answer this!  Ok, interior art on WLD is extremely sparse - no full-page art, and aside from small maps at the beginning delineating Regions or the occasional helpful diagram, there's nothing.  Mind, this is offset by the frankly beautiful full-color maps that come with the book.  Wordcount is somewhere over 1 million - that's some small text on those 840 or so pages.




By full-page I didn't mean real full-pages, just equivalent.

And the word count is about twice what I estimated, so even if the pay was $0.02/word  the writing costs are roughly the same as my estimate.


----------



## philreed (May 21, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Jim, does your contract include a royalties clause of any kind?




1. I'm not Jim.

2. I've never worked on RPG products for royalties (my own publishing efforts don't count) but I do have some game designs out there that still pay me royalties.

3. Not many RPG publishers pay royalties.


----------



## philreed (May 21, 2005)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> I don't disagree with how hard it is to write in general but in the context of this thread, the question was which is EASIER fluff or crunch. My contention was that the fluff was easier than the crunch. Writing compelling fluff is more natural than writing rules that are compelling to read.




Ah. I missed the "easier" statement. Yes, fluff is easier than crunch. If writing fluff I can write 1,000-2,000 words/hour. Crunch is roughly 250-750 words/hour.


----------



## buzz (May 21, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Given its close relationship to 3e, it may seem odd that I think d20 _Modern_ is the most enjoyable roleplaying game I've ever played.



I love d20M. I think a big part is that d20M doesn't have all the magic that D&D does. Magic is what complicates things. I'e found d20M much easier to run than D&D (though I still like to run D&D). 

This is also why I hate it when people use "d20" as interchangeable fr "D&D" when making criticisms. D&D is it's own beast, and there are plenty of d20 games that don't share its quirks and complications.


----------



## Whizbang Dustyboots (May 21, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Congradulations.  You've made the one of the first really intelligent responces to me on this thread, and believe me I appreciate it.



Just because you disagree with a response doesn't make it not intelligent. That's standard Internet nonsense, but more importantly, it's a good way to ensure no one gives you any other response you deem "intelligent."


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (May 21, 2005)

National Acrobat said:
			
		

> The other guys all want a fleshed out, detailed campaign setting that they have to do no work for, they want premade modules, preferably a total campaign that they have to do nothing to, so that they don't need to put any time into prepping beyond reading the material.
> 
> Anyone else have this problem?



Moongoose Publishing is certainly hoping so. They'll have three "Complete Campaigns" that give every single bit of non-core content necessary to run a, well, complete campaign from 1-20 (1-30 in the case of the Drow War) out before Labor Day.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 21, 2005)

> *S'mon*
> Interesting - in UK a court would probably interpret that term to mean that you sold your copyright in the _published_ (or paid-for) work to the publisher; but I think at least some US courts might treat a contract for commissioned work (ie the contract is signed before the work is written) as you being an employee of the publisher for this purpose (there was a case re Playboy on this AIR). It may be even fuzzier than that - I'm not a US lawyer but I teach IP law in the UK & I like to try to understand the current US approach/culture, which seems to have changed a lot since the '80s/early '90s, when publishers generally accepted that freelancers owned their copyright unless they sold it to the publisher.




I am a US attorney.  Essentially, you have it right.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (May 21, 2005)

If actual attorneys start posting on the Internet, a lot of message boards are in real trouble.


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## S'mon (May 22, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> I am a US attorney.  Essentially, you have it right.




Thanks Danny.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 22, 2005)

Better that we post instead of merely lurk...


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## Sholari (May 22, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> I don't think there's much to the idea that writing good fluff is particularly difficult.  Every single homebrew GM worth his Cheetos writes good fluff.  And there's lots of those homebrewers out there.




I think that is entirely the problem.  In my experience most homebrew GMs think they can put together a better gaming experience than if they used a module, but I've only seen one guy that could actually pull it off.  Most of the homebrew games I have sat in have ranged from marginal to terrible.  If more GMs used some of the better quality modules out there, I think it would make for a better roleplaying experience for their players overall.


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## The Shaman (May 22, 2005)

Sholari said:
			
		

> In my experience most homebrew GMs think they can put together a better gaming experience than if they used a module, but I've only seen one guy that could actually pull it off.  Most of the homebrew games I have sat in have ranged from marginal to terrible.  If more GMs used some of the better quality modules out there, I think it would make for a better roleplaying experience for their players overall.



As a perpetual hombrewer, I'm very curious about this, *Sholari* - what makes published modules better than the homebrew adventures (and campaign-settings?) you experienced?


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## Wild Gazebo (May 22, 2005)

Yes, that is the exact opposite of my experiences.


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## Jorren (May 22, 2005)

Sholari said:
			
		

> I think that is entirely the problem.  In my experience most homebrew GMs think they can put together a better gaming experience than if they used a module, but I've only seen one guy that could actually pull it off.  Most of the homebrew games I have sat in have ranged from marginal to terrible.  If more GMs used some of the better quality modules out there, I think it would make for a better roleplaying experience for their players overall.




I think that's being a bit too generous.  Most homebrew 'fluff' that I've seen is abysmal, and I'm talking about playing with good GMs that put time and effort into it. The situation is even worse when you consider homebrew campaign settings. For the most part, it's the same thing you see from professional publishing, without the polish.  That being said, it's possible to have just as much fun with a slapped together homebrew as with a professionally done module or setting. In other words, good fluff does not necessarily equal a fun game.


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## Pielorinho (May 23, 2005)

Jorren said:
			
		

> I think that's being a bit too generous. Most homebrew 'fluff' that I've seen is abysmal, and I'm talking about playing with good GMs that put time and effort into it. The situation is even worse when you consider homebrew campaign settings. For the most part, it's the same thing you see from professional publishing, without the polish. That being said, it's possible to have just as much fun with a slapped together homebrew as with a professionally done module or setting. In other words, good fluff does not necessarily equal a fun game.



Interesting.  I'm not claiming any great status for myself as a DM, but I've found consistently that my players have the least fun when I work from a prepared module, to the extent that I had one player more or less tell me she didn't want to play in any campaign arc involving a published adventure.  Perhaps it's just a different playstyle--for myself as a DM, it'd be much easier to work from published material, but I just don't seem to be able to pull it off very effectively, at least not with my group.

(When I have gotten published stuff to work well, it's usually involved even more work totally rewriting the adventure than I would have done if I'd started from scratch).

Daniel


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## Psion (May 23, 2005)

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> Interesting.  I'm not claiming any great status for myself as a DM, but I've found consistently that my players have the least fun when I work from a prepared module,




Yeah, I've gotten comments to that effect before.

The more I remodel and the less faithfulness I feel towards the "intent" of a published model, the better a time we seem to have.


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## Dannyalcatraz (May 23, 2005)

I bet the "fun" factor from homebrews comes from a few characteristics:

1) The perception of more flexibility.   Many gamers have a perception that commercial modules, deservedly or not, are railroad fests.  After all, the thing IS completely scripted, right?  (Nevermind that the homebrew probably is as well- its perception that matters.)

2) The "home-made" factor.  Your Mom's  fried chicken is "better" than store bought, not because its tastier (it may be- but that's not the issue) but the fact that she took the time to make it _for you_.  When you get homebrewed adventures, you _know_ your GM put in some serious time on it (whether he did or not)!  That perception probably leads to a predisposition to judge the adventure favorably.

3)  The "Tailor-made" factor.  Your GM knows better than the pro writers what_ you_ want.  If you're a hacker, his adventures will be all killer, no filler.  If your group is full of amateur thespians, everyone will get their chance in the spotlight, and combat occurs only when absolutely neccessary.


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## francisca (May 23, 2005)

Pielorinho said:
			
		

> Interesting.  I'm not claiming any great status for myself as a DM, but I've found consistently that my players have the least fun when I work from a prepared module



Same experience here.

I think it comes from the fact that as a DM writing an adventure, or massively retrofitting an existing module, you tune it a bit for your table.  In my case, I think it's largely subconscious, but I'm pretty dang sure I'm doing it.


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## Umbran (May 23, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> 3)  The "Tailor-made" factor.




This one surely is true.  And it is part of the reason I keep saying that much of teh "good fluff" out there isn't very applicable outside of its home turf.  Often enough, it is created for a specific audience, with specific needs.  A really fine tailored suit is great for the person it was made to fit, but not of much use to anyone else.

And, conversely, a decent suit that isn't well taiored to fit the individual is not particularly satisfying either.  Doesn't matter if the suit is fluffy or crunchy.


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## Sholari (May 23, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> As a perpetual hombrewer, I'm very curious about this, *Sholari* - what makes published modules better than the homebrew adventures (and campaign-settings?) you experienced?




Anyone can slap together a homebrew and there is nothing to ensure any level of quality, so you are really only going to get the product of the GMs skill.  I would say that most GMs out there aren't as good as they think they are.  For a published adventure there tends to be a higher level of quality control, depending on the level of investment required and the sophistication of the publisher.  For PDFs they are a lot easier to put out there and so they are not much better that what people can put together as a homebrew.  For something like Dungeon magazine there is a lot more of a quality control and you are essentially competing against a bunch of other potential authors to get published.  For those people who have sworn off published adventures I would say they have probably never been through a good quality published adventure or the GM just doesn't know how to run a published adventure very well.


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## The Shaman (May 23, 2005)

Sholari said:
			
		

> Anyone can slap together a homebrew and there is nothing to ensure any level of quality, so you are really only going to get the product of the GMs skill.  I would say that most GMs out there aren't as good as they think they are.



Well. Okay, there's probably some element of truth in this.







			
				Sholari said:
			
		

> For a published adventure there tends to be a higher level of quality control, depending on the level of investment required and the sophistication of the publisher.  For PDFs they are a lot easier to put out there and so they are not much better that what people can put together as a homebrew.  For something like Dungeon magazine there is a lot more of a quality control and you are essentially competing against a bunch of other potential authors to get published.



Having a professional editor or two review the work is unquestionably a benefit.







			
				Sholari said:
			
		

> For those people who have sworn off published adventures I would say they have probably never been through a good quality published adventure or the GM just doesn't know how to run a published adventure very well.



I would be careful about making such a broad and unfounded judgement in this regard. I've run a grand total of two published adventures in my life: one was a little-known gem called _The Lost Abbey of Calthonwey_ and the other was the G/D/Q series - both are excellent adventures, I had no problem running them, and my most critical audence, my players, said they enjoyed the experience.

That said, I've been told many times over the years by players that they enjoy my homebrew adventures and settings as well - it's never been suggested to me that I should try published modules instead, at least until now.  

Personally I don't think that professional designers and writers have the market on imagination cornered simply by virtue of the fact that they get paid for what they produce. I think there are more than a few GMs out there who could be published if they were willing to devote the time and energy to developing the writing discipline and with a little good editing assistance. Lest we forget, Eberron, the Realms, and Greyhawk all started off as "somebody's homebrew."

Forgive me, bu you still haven't answered by question, *Sholari* - you've described why you think professionally published modules are better than homebrews, but you haven't mentioned anything about your personal experience in this regard. I'm guessing you've been through both published and HB adventures and settings - what in particular made the former superior to the latter?


----------



## Sholari (May 23, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Forgive me, but you still haven't answered by question, *Sholari* - you've described why you think professionally published modules are better than homebrews, but you haven't mentioned anything about your personal experience in this regard. I'm guessing you've been through both published and HB adventures and settings - what in particular made the former superior to the latter?




Well here is my personal experience.  The best campaign I played in was a homebrew, because the individual was particuraly talented.  However, the typical homebrew I've played in seems to be fairly devoid of asthetic detail, more simplistic, less imaginative, and you can see the plot coming from a mile away.  When a couple of these not-so-good GMs started filling in the gaps with published material it improved their games substantially.  I'd say that there are 5% of GMs out there that are truly talented and they should not be using published adventures, because they can deliver a better end product, but the other 95% would be better served by integrating the quality of people more talented than them.


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## The Shaman (May 23, 2005)

Sholari said:
			
		

> *snip*



Thanks very much - you've answered my question.


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## mmadsen (May 23, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> Having a professional editor or two review the work is unquestionably a benefit.



I think the real "benefit" is that a bad adventure won't ever get by a good editor/publisher.  That's how the "real" publishing industry has always worked -- as a filter.


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## The Shaman (May 23, 2005)

mmadsen said:
			
		

> I think the real "benefit" is that a bad adventure won't ever get by a good editor/publisher.  That's how the "real" publishing industry has always worked -- as a filter.



That's certainly one step, but an editor can also tighten up hazy concepts - writing anything usually puts you too close to the material to sit back and say, "That's not as clear as it could be," which I've always found to be very helpful. Editors also clear up typos, loose threads, and so on.

Of course, I've seen some real [expletive that means the same thing as faeces] published by 'reputable' gaming publishers, so there are no guarantees.


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## Mark (May 23, 2005)

Sholari said:
			
		

> I'd say that there are 5% of GMs out there that are truly talented and they should not be using published adventures, because they can deliver a better end product,...





_Thank you, sir.  You're quite kind to say so..._


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## Astraldrake (May 23, 2005)

Wow, huge thread thusfar. Dozens of very good points.

A WotC rep once told me, "This is the same company that puts out a new edition of Magic every two years." Several people have admitted that D&D 4 is already pretty much on its merry way, possibly next year. In short, the corporate muckitty-mucks see a new edition as a constant refreshment of their intellectual property. New core rules/base system changes sell books, although the paradigm may shift when D&D 4.0 arrives.

Module writing is, IMO, dead at WotC. Even the RPGA is drying up when it comes to modules. The thing is, most DM's end up modifying pre-packaged mods on some level anyway. More often than not, I just find it easier to write my own material because it takes less time and caters to my PC's more closely. If you like modules, Necromancer games and Goodman Games are putting out a lot of exciting stuff right now.

Part of the module problem also lies in that WotC, going back as far as the old TSR days, does not/ will not accept solicitations for adventure material unless you are a well-published author or have lots of RPGA clout. Even Dungeon magazine is cutting back on modules, becoming more of a DM's magazine. Unfortunately, the last round of published modules WotC did  (i.e. Standing Stone, etc,) were not resounding financial successes. Yes, they have done some Eberron modules, but those are to support that setting. Hasbro has basically forced WotC out of the module-writing business because the numbers just aren't there in all likelihood and they aren't in any hurry to accept new submissions.

The drive that prompted the setting search that gave us Eberron is still alive and well today. New worlds, even new game systems are starting to sprout up all over the industry. Take a look at Secrets of Zi'Ran, the new Warhammer FRP, and Deathstalker 2 for examples. People are starting to crave new, exciting fantasy realms, which means D&D is again starting to leave some of us flat. 

I suspect much of this comes from the fact, and I've said this for years, that Greyhawk, FR, etc are still very much been-there, done-that gaming worlds. While definitely not boring, they are not exactly new-gamer friendly because of their incredibly long lineage and ludicrously powerful NPCs. A new setting needs unexplored territory to be viable.

Eberron is over-hyped. I think much of Eberron's success is due to the fact that we're constantly being told that it's a huge success by WotC's Marketing department and it's easy to be a success when the majority of the current effort is being directed toward that product line. 

While I'm not the world's biggest GURPS fan, as a generic engine, it does do one thing exceptionally well- It branches into every kind of gaming style, setting and genre almost effortlessly. IF D&D is going to continue to thrive, the people at WotC need to learn that lesson. They not only need to start coming up with new fantasy settings, but branch out into other settings as well. While they have half-heartedly attempted this with D20 Modern, they need to put some serious effort into some new settings.

Oh, and how many of us would like to see them do something with the STAR WARS RPG??? I'm not trying to be a troll, but I wish WotC would focus a little less on miniatures and a little more on writing RPG's. These days it seems a lot of very brilliant, talented game designers at WotC are getting thrown at every project but RPG's. What made Dragonlance, FR, Ravenloft, Planescape, Star Frontiers, Top Secret, Gamma World and so many other game settings a resounding success- they had never been done before. Why? Because the writers at (then) TSR were encouraged to come up with new ideas, and someone was willing to take a chance on it making money. Stagnation leads to profit loss as much as any bad idea. (Just ask anyone who owned GURPS Russia and remembers SJG declaring bankruptcy.) The main point of this thread rings very true. WotC is likely headed for extinction at Hasbro because they're not doing anything new. Not evolving.

In closing, I think what would bring the industry out of its current "funk" is a NEW well-supported D&D fantasy setting that appeals to new gamers and old veterans alike. I think we all need a good dose of new, unexplored RPG territory.


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## Hussar (May 23, 2005)

To be fair, when you think of published modules, they are going to be a lot cleaner than something I write for myself.  At least hopefully.  There are some truly bad ones out there, but, on the whole, most are decent.  My adventures tend to be the same as the prep that was posted a couple of pages ago.  Shorthand notes for what I think will happen, some notes on critters and treasure.  That's about it.  Hardly professional quality.  But they don't need to be.  I know my players, I know what they'll like and I have a pretty good idea what I need to do to get it done.

I use published modules and I use homebrew.  I've never really noticed a huge difference in my player's reactions to either.  If they like the adventure, they like it, whether I wrote it or some other guy did.  My goal is to find adventures that they like.  I couldn't give two figs about where it comes from.

While I don't play Eberron, could it possibly be that the success of the setting is because this is the first time WOTC has put its full weight behind something that isn't just a reprint?  I mean, for the past five years or so, most of the campaign books that have come out of WOTC have simply built on existing campaigns - primarily FR.  We know that WOTC employs some very talented writers and letting them finally stretch their legs and develop a completely new setting that isn't tied around the great, huge anchor that is FR might be a reason that new people are buying the setting.

I mean, if people weren't following FR by now, they never will.  But, with a completely new setting, now they can draw on the entire market instead of catering to a section that likes the Realms.

Just a thought.


----------



## Henry (May 23, 2005)

Astraldrake said:
			
		

> ...Several people have admitted that D&D 4 is already pretty much on its merry way, possibly next year.




Do you have specific sources, please?



> People are starting to crave new, exciting fantasy realms, which means D&D is again starting to leave some of us flat.




However, people always come back to D&D. It's natural and expected for people to get tired of the same genre all the time, and drift to other things is inevitable. The majority of players, however, are still either sticking with D&D, or will likely return to it within 6 months or so; it's the cycle I've noticed on these very boards over the years, as well.



> Eberron is over-hyped. I think much of Eberron's success is due to the fact that we're constantly being told that it's a huge success by WotC's Marketing department...




I disagree; Eberron is good because it's good; looking over at the WotC forums and here, one finds lots of gamers speaking out about how it's reinvigorated their D&D gaming, and how much they enjoy its setting. Not all of it is good, however; I returned Races of Eberron because its amount of new information was surprisingly small, and the rest was filled in with new PrC's and feats. The Core Book and Sharn, however, are excellent products.



> Oh, and how many of us would like to see them do something with the STAR WARS RPG???




*raises hand*

It does sadden me that there's a brand-new hot movie out, and not one product tie-in has been announced other than minis.



> In closing, I think what would bring the industry out of its current "funk" is a NEW well-supported D&D fantasy setting that appeals to new gamers and old veterans alike. I think we all need a good dose of new, unexplored RPG territory.




I disagree on those grounds, because NOTHING will appeal to old gamers and new alike universally; too disparate taste between the two in my opinion.


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## MerricB (May 23, 2005)

Henry said:
			
		

> *raises hand*
> 
> It does sadden me that there's a brand-new hot movie out, and not one product tie-in has been announced other than minis.




I'm still waiting on August Hahn to pass down some information on the fate of Living Force, btw.

Cheers!


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## MerricB (May 23, 2005)

Astraldrake said:
			
		

> Module writing is, IMO, dead at WotC.




I guess you are just ignoring the three Eberron adventures, the upcoming Forgotten Realms adventure, the ongoing series of free online adventures (including the new one from six days ago), and the two Fantastic Locations (map/adventure products)?

Yes, there's nothing like making completely unsupported assertions.


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## JoeGKushner (May 23, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> As a perpetual hombrewer, I'm very curious about this, *Sholari* - what makes published modules better than the homebrew adventures (and campaign-settings?) you experienced?




Done. The adventure is done. I've been in many games that had to stall as the GM didn't know what the next move was.

Maps. Most GMs I've seen couldn't make a map to save their own life.

Level Balance: The baseline is there. Once again, another case where a GM not sure of what CR/EL is killing off too many players. (Been there, done that.)

Items: Same thing as the baseline is following standard D&D treasures so to speak and you don't have to worry about finding Black Razor in the 1st level dungeon.


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## Umbran (May 23, 2005)

Sholari said:
			
		

> I'd say that there are 5% of GMs out there that are truly talented and they should not be using published adventures, because they can deliver a better end product, but the other 95% would be better served by integrating the quality of people more talented than them.




I'm sorry, but I have to ask - is your experience in gaming so broad that you think you've played with enough GMs that you can actually put numbers on the estimate and have any prayer of accuracy?


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## diaglo (May 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> I guess you are just ignoring the three Eberron adventures, the upcoming Forgotten Realms adventure, the ongoing series of free online adventures (including the new one from six days ago), and the two Fantastic Locations (map/adventure products)?




what if you want to ignore the Eberron Railroad?


----------



## Felon (May 23, 2005)

Astraldrake said:
			
		

> Module writing is, IMO, dead at WotC.




Ryan Dancey laid it out for us a couple of months back. One of the big gains of the open-game license was supposed to be that WotC could step back from adventure publication and let third-party publishers go nuts cranking out modules for the consumer. It was not an illogical decision, after all, because they'd just be publishing material that countless DM's had already gone to the effort of putting together. Surely every DM has their pet-project that they wish they could share with the community at large and bask in their appreciation. 

But a great deal of the third-party publishers aren't doing that. They're publishing their own settings with supplemental rules material, loaded chock-full of ill-conceived and poorly-designed feats, spellls, and PrC's. But they're not writing adventures.

So, according to Dancey, WotC will wind up stepping into that void once again. This time, they will make their products minis-friendly. I'm loving it.



> Even Dungeon magazine is cutting back on modules, becoming more of a DM's magazine.




Not sure what you're talking about. Dungeon cast off Polyhedron and is standing fast with their three-adventure format. And that's a pretty ideal balance of quantity versus quality.



> Eberron is over-hyped. I think much of Eberron's success is due to the fact that we're constantly being told that it's a huge success by WotC's Marketing department and it's easy to be a success when the majority of the current effort is being directed toward that product line.




Yeah, Eberron turns me off, turns a lot of folks off. The last thing D&D needed was to ratchet up the magic level another a couple of notches. D&D seems to have a commitment to making D&D as over-the-top and inaccessible as possible. But giving credit where it's due, I do like the way that Eberron adventures are paced like a three-act movie, with some investigation and some scenes designed specifically to build tension.


----------



## Testament (May 23, 2005)

Astraldrake said:
			
		

> A WotC rep once told me, "This is the same company that puts out a new edition of Magic every two years." Several people have admitted that D&D 4 is already pretty much on its merry way, possibly next year. In short, the corporate muckitty-mucks see a new edition as a constant refreshment of their intellectual property. New core rules/base system changes sell books, although the paradigm may shift when D&D 4.0 arrives.




In other news, the sky is falling.  Magic is reset every two years to ensure that new players can enter the Standard and Extended environments and not have their owning ensured, the paradigm is completely different.



> Module writing is, IMO, dead at WotC. Even the RPGA is drying up when it comes to modules.




What colour is the frickin' sky where that's the case?  The RPGA is continuing to provide us with modules on a regular basis (I just played through three excellent Living Greyhawk mods on the weekend, I highly recommend "Atonement"), and Wizards is re-entering the adventure market, albeit on a limited basis, this year.


----------



## Felon (May 23, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, but I have to ask - is your experience in gaming so broad that you think you've played with enough GMs that you can actually put numbers on the estimate and have any prayer of accuracy?




He's likely speaking in the same general terms that you were a couple pages back when you were insisting good fluff isn't all that hard for DM's to come up with. Granted, there is a difference in that he's actually guessing at a number rather that using a cryptic qualifier like "any DM worth his Cheetos", but the former is preferrable to the latter.


----------



## The Shaman (May 23, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> *snip*



With the exception of mapmaking which is largely a function of artistic ability, everything you're describing is part of the learning curve of GMing - it sounds like you're suggesting that most GMs have little experience and should default to adventures so the players don't have to suffer through the GM developing these skills.

This of course begs the question, if GMs rely too much on published adventures for their game content, will they have the opportunity to gain these skills?


----------



## MerricB (May 23, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> This of course begs the question, if GMs rely too much on published adventures for their game content, will they have the opportunity to gain these skills?




Well, given the amount of material Wizards produce to _help_ DMs produce their own adventures, I don't think that is a problem.

The DMG, Sandstorm, Frostburn, Heroes of Battle, DMG2, Lords of Madness - all of those are books produced by WotC that are particularly suited to that purpose.

Cheers!


----------



## MerricB (May 23, 2005)

diaglo said:
			
		

> what if you want to ignore the Eberron Railroad?




Still new adventures apart from those. 

Actually, I just finished running "Whispers of the Vampire's Blade" - it was a lot less railroady than it read. Believe it or not, 4th level PCs have a lot of trouble catching up to a vampire who doesn't want to be caught. 

Cheers!


----------



## Rodrigo Istalindir (May 23, 2005)

diaglo said:
			
		

> what if you want to ignore the Eberron Railroad?




I thought the whole point of a railroad is that you couldn't ignore it?


----------



## The Shaman (May 23, 2005)

MerricB said:
			
		

> Well, given the amount of material Wizards produce to _help_ DMs produce their own adventures, I don't think that is a problem.



I don't either, which is why I find the opinions expressed by *JoeGKushner* and *Sholari* so troubling.

Are there really that many bad, clueless GMs out there? GMs who can't write an exciting, balanced adventure or an interesting, rich setting?


----------



## Celebrim (May 23, 2005)

JoeGKushner said:
			
		

> Maps. Most GMs I've seen couldn't make a map to save their own life.




I'll agree on this.  Good map making is one of the rarest skills amongst DM's.  It takes alot of practice, exposure to good technique (on reason to buy modules with good maps), and many DM's find it too boring to put the effort required into it.   Alot of DM's just want help with the maps, and they figure that they can take it from there (and some of them can).

There are several other reasons why most DM's should rely in part on published material.  First, most DM's have neither the time nor the willingness to put the amount of time required in to preparing thier adventures from week to week.   This leaves alot of DM's relying largely or totally on extemporaneous development, and while this is sometimes fun, most DM's cannot pull it off consistantly at a high level of quality.   It's just hard to pull out a high level of detail, creativity, variaty, and consistancy from thin air.   Extemporaneous development is good for some things, but not for everything.  It's virtually impossible to draw a good map extemporaneously, or to foreshadow future developments, or develop good puzzles on the fly.   It also tends to make the campaign rely too heavily on you, since you've never decided ahead of time what's what, it's hard to be truly fair to the PC's.

That said, no DM should rely wholly on published material either.  Even if you bought a module, you still should put in perparation time to make the game your own - and that means more than just quickly reading through the module.  The game isn't going to run itself.


----------



## The_Gunslinger658 (May 23, 2005)

Hi-

Yes the sky is falling!!

seriously; I write my own modules but borrow much from the published stuff, I'm too lazy to work up stat blocks on minor bad guys.
I also think 4E is already out in the form of UA and soon The DMG II IE modify your game to your liking. Also, with 3.5 being so complete, It would be crazy for WotC to come out with another edition, Heck, how many players are still playing 1E, 2E and 3E? To put 4E out would further segment the RPG community.


Scott


----------



## JoeGKushner (May 23, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> With the exception of mapmaking which is largely a function of artistic ability, everything you're describing is part of the learning curve of GMing - it sounds like you're suggesting that most GMs have little experience and should default to adventures so the players don't have to suffer through the GM developing these skills.
> 
> This of course begs the question, if GMs rely too much on published adventures for their game content, will they have the opportunity to gain these skills?




Now I wasn't saying those are the reasons why everyone should run pregenerated adeventures, just a few.

1. Time: Working 40 hours a week and having a s/o and other hobbies.

2. It's cool. No shame in using something if it's actually cool. I still bust out White Plume Mountain every now and again for some of the neat little things in there in terms of organization.

3. It's a new setting: Man, how do I use this crazy Dragonmech? What type of game is Eberron supposed to be?

4. Production Values: Man, this is a pretty book! Dungeon is awesome with it's full color contents and other bits to help a GM out!

There are many reasons to run a pregenerated adventure. Some pregenerated adventures, like Warhammer's Rough Night at the Three Feathers, aren't even really adventurers as much as adventure outlines.


----------



## palleomortis (May 23, 2005)

Joe, I hope your reading this bout now. You said that you would get back to me with a  list of minis that you would trade. You may want to do that. I am about to start trading off my minis, and would like you to at least get to get an offer out there befor it is too late. (WANTED: HUMAN(OID) MINIS  under the trading section.)


----------



## buzz (May 23, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> Yeah, Eberron turns me off, turns a lot of folks off. The last thing D&D needed was to ratchet up the magic level another a couple of notches.



Eberron doesn't increase the level of magic in the game so much as aknowledge the level of magic inherrent in the D&D ruleset. I appreciate this, as it makes Eberron unlike all of the other settings that have the veneer of one type of fantasy but are still D&D with its omnipresent magic underneath. Consequently, it has become one of my favorite settings.


----------



## Felon (May 23, 2005)

The Shaman said:
			
		

> I don't either, which is why I find the opinions expressed by *JoeGKushner* and *Sholari* so troubling. Are there really that many bad, clueless GMs out there? GMs who can't write an exciting, balanced adventure or an interesting, rich setting?




Not everyone is destined to write the Great American Novel. That you think the ability to develop exciting adventures or interesting, rich settings is a skill that can be taken for granted is puzzlibng.  Or, for that matter, you'd think any DM without that skillset is "bad" and "clueless". How about DM's that are just...mediocre?

And that's not even taking into account the DM's who happen to not be a college student or working at a job that provides ample free time. DIY is not for everyone.

A lot of DM's do have a great deal of trouble finding hooks that work for a group that's too smart or just too chaotic to be led by the nose. It is hard to arrange encounters where the PC's don't launch into attack immediately, inadvertantly killing the wrong NPC or destroying clues. Conversely, it can also wind up being hard to conceal information from PC's and create a sense of mystery because D&D's sspells are designed to support a "cut-to-the-chase" philosophy. 

No, a lot of DM's just know how to fill rooms with monsters. Of course, that's all a lot of players want, but that's another thread...


----------



## Felon (May 23, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> Eberron doesn't increase the level of magic in the game so much as aknowledge the level of magic inherrent in the D&D ruleset. I appreciate this, as it makes Eberron unlike all of the other settings that have the veneer of one type of fantasy but are still D&D with its omnipresent magic underneath. Consequently, it has become one of my favorite settings.




I see what you're saying. For instance, I have noticed that D&D as presented in the DMG does send players off to dungeons to find rare and fabulous magic items that, in 5 levels or so, players should be able to buy off the rack in a major city.

But Eberron certainly does ratchet up the magic level. The addition of a bonded-and-licensed spellwright class, the addition of elements like magical bullet trains--these things do push magic even farther over the top.


----------



## JoeGKushner (May 23, 2005)

palleomortis said:
			
		

> Joe, I hope your reading this bout now. You said that you would get back to me with a  list of minis that you would trade. You may want to do that. I am about to start trading off my minis, and would like you to at least get to get an offer out there befor it is too late. (WANTED: HUMAN(OID) MINIS  under the trading section.)




Have to find 'em. Curse moving I say. Curse it to the sky!


----------



## buzz (May 23, 2005)

Astraldrake said:
			
		

> Module writing is, IMO, dead at WotC.



WotC has an archive on its site of free adventures for 3e that's as long as your arm. They just added a new one a few days ago. The Adventure Path for 3e consituted more adventures than 1e had accumulated in it's first four years or so. And then there was RttToEE and CotSQ. Now we've got an "adventure path" going for Eberron and a enw one starting up for FR.



			
				Astraldrake said:
			
		

> Part of the module problem also lies in that WotC, going back as far as the old TSR days, does not/ will not accept solicitations for adventure material unless you are a well-published author or have lots of RPGA clout.



Given that WotC (and TSR before it) is the largest RPG publisher on earth, I don't really see this as being a big surprise. They have their pick of the litter, and they take the top authors.



			
				Astraldrake said:
			
		

> Even Dungeon magazine is cutting back on modules, becoming more of a DM's magazine.



As someone else pointed out, this is incorrect. _Dungeon_ has not cut back on adventures; they've simply replaced _Poly_ with DM-centric articles. The magazine is still overwhelingly adventures, and each month provides more than the average D&D group could use in that time. Not to mention, they publish matierial from both high-profile authors (Keith Baker, Mike Mearls recently) and submissions from Joe Gamer.



			
				Astraldrake said:
			
		

> Hasbro has basically forced WotC out of the module-writing business because the numbers just aren't there in all likelihood and they aren't in any hurry to accept new submissions.



IIRC, the OGL decision predates Hasbro's acquisition of WotC. WotC used the OGL to farm out module-writing to third-parties becasue even a successful mdoule doesn't really make them any money. Amazingly, they still produce adventures; see the top of this post.



			
				Astraldrake said:
			
		

> Take a look at Secrets of Zi'Ran, the new Warhammer FRP, and Deathstalker 2 for examples. People are starting to crave new, exciting fantasy realms, which means D&D is again starting to leave some of us flat.



Or that publishers are hoping either that D&D leaves some players flat or that their ideas will prove interesting to gamers regardless of the overall opinion of D&D. Lots of people play D&D *and* other systems. (I.e., the existence of products that are not D&D doesn't necessarily mean that there was a demand for said products.)

If anything, sales show that gamers in general are as happy as ever with D&D.



			
				Astraldrake said:
			
		

> Eberron is over-hyped. I think much of Eberron's success is due to the fact that we're constantly being told that it's a huge success by WotC's Marketing department and it's easy to be a success when the majority of the current effort is being directed toward that product line.



I don't aee any evidence whatsoever that a "majority of current effort" is being directed at Eberron. E.g., only four out of the fourteen upcoming products listed on the ENWorld news page are Eberron-related. The lion's share are core (non-setting) D&D products. If anything, WotC's Eberron release schedule is very conservative compared to past setting efforts. I also don't really see much of an Eberron hype machine. The adventures and articles in _Dungeon_ and _Dragon_ are overwhelmingly setting-neutral .



			
				Astraldrake said:
			
		

> IF D&D is going to continue to thrive, the people at WotC need to learn that lesson. They not only need to start coming up with new fantasy settings, but branch out into other settings as well. While they have half-heartedly attempted this with D20 Modern, they need to put some serious effort into some new settings.



So they can go out of business like TSR did?

It's been said before in this thread, and many threads before: if you really want oodles of settings, look to the OGL. Midnight, Scarred Lands, Dawnforge, Kalamar, Oathbound, Arcanis, Wilderlands, Morningstar, Ravenloft, Slayers, Tekumel, Game of Thrones...

Not everything needs to come from WotC. This whole thread has basically been people acting as if the OGL didn't exist.



			
				Astraldrake said:
			
		

> These days it seems a lot of very brilliant, talented game designers at WotC are getting thrown at every project but RPG's. What made Dragonlance, FR, Ravenloft, Planescape, Star Frontiers, Top Secret, Gamma World and so many other game settings a resounding success- they had never been done before. Why? Because the writers at (then) TSR were encouraged to come up with new ideas, and someone was willing to take a chance on it making money.



I think the above makes a lot of assumpitons about the financial success of various properties and inner workings of WotC to which we are not privy. Other than the first two (maybe three), I don't think any of the products you listed could be called a "resounding success".



			
				Astraldrake said:
			
		

> In closing, I think what would bring the industry out of its current "funk" is a NEW well-supported D&D fantasy setting that appeals to new gamers and old veterans alike. I think we all need a good dose of new, unexplored RPG territory.



I repeat, this is already being done via the OGL. I would also argue that Eberron is exactly what you're describing; that it doesn't tickle your fancy in particular doesn't really matter.

Recurring themes in this thread: nostalgia and OGL-blindness.


----------



## DragonLancer (May 23, 2005)

In reference to using Dungeon as a source of adventure material I have this to say... Dungeon is a great resource for cheap, fair quality adventures suitable for an evening's game or just dropping into an established campaign. However, for the size of the magazine you could get two or three modules which would be larger, (potentially) better, and with more detail. 

I like using Dungeon but I also like buying decent published modules, and I do wish that WotC would put out new modules much like TSR did (though of higher quality than some TSR ones). At the moment I feel that Necromancer Games has the best modules out there (you guys may disagree), but WotC shouldn't be leaving it up purely to 3rd party companies to put out adventures.

Now I know that WotC say that modules aren't all that profitable and sure I can understand where they are coming from, but modules are a part of the D&D game (and legacy really) and I would like to see more of them on the market.


----------



## buzz (May 23, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> But Eberron certainly does ratchet up the magic level. The addition of a bonded-and-licensed spellwright class, the addition of elements like magical bullet trains--these things do push magic even farther over the top.



Elements like the magewright simply provide an explanation for the broad access to magic items D&D assumes, I think. I.e., instead of the ubiquitous "Ye Olde Magic Shoppe" present in every D&D world, the PCs head for the local magewright or relevant House instead. I certainly like this better than sort of ignoring where all those CLW potions come from that are laying all over the place. 

The lightning rail, while mainly a nod to the "noir", seems a pretty reasonable outgrowth of D&D's magic-pervasiveness, and isn't really out of line with similarly fantastical contraptions featured in other settings. A few years back, I played in a 1e adventure originally published in _Dragon_ or _Dungeon_ that featured a a large cargo boat powered by a bound water elemental. D&D allows it; Eberron's just running with it. It's not like FR isn't packed to the gills with magic...


----------



## buzz (May 23, 2005)

DragonLancer said:
			
		

> WotC shouldn't be leaving it up purely to 3rd party companies to put out adventures.



They're not.


----------



## DaveMage (May 23, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> WotC has an archive on its site...




Great post, Buzz...


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## DragonLancer (May 23, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> They're not.




WotC focuses on sourcebooks most of the time these days, and supporting their settings. It really does seem the case that its 3rd party publishers who are putting out the modules.


----------



## buzz (May 23, 2005)

DragonLancer said:
			
		

> WotC focuses on sourcebooks most of the time these days, and supporting their settings.



True, as that's what earns them the best return on their investment. But you said "purely 3rd party publishers", and that's simply not true. The free adventure archive on the WOtC site has about 54 adventures you can grab, only one of which is tied to a specific setting (FR). They seem to add roughly one a month. Add to that 13 published adventures since the release of 3e, more on the way, and and average of 36 adventures published in _Dungeon_ each year (so, maybe over 150 since 3e came out), and you've got a *ton* of adventures they've had their hands in.

That's getting close to every module published for 1e and 2e *combined*, and we haven't even touched on the OGL products yet.

(Why don't the OGL products ever count in these arguments? My gosh, WotC has provided a way for *anyone* to publish adventures for the world's most popular RPG. Sure, this invites a lot of mediocre entries from Joe Blow, but it also allows for anyone with a good idea to bring it to the D&D fanbase. No suits from accounting need be vetoing ideas that don't look profitable. The OGL allows smaller operations who make a product *purely becasue it's a cool idea* to join the fray. This is bleedin' awesome!)



			
				DragonLancer said:
			
		

> It really does seem the case that its 3rd party publishers who are putting out the modules.



Putting out more of them than WotC, yes. That was one of the intents of the OGL, and we have all benefitted from it.


----------



## buzz (May 23, 2005)

DaveMage said:
			
		

> Great post, Buzz...



Thanks.


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## palleomortis (May 23, 2005)

Find what? BTW, I have a list of the ones I found that I want. If you see any you know you have that you want, then go ahead and say. The one offer that has been up by several different people is for the Hook Horror, (about twelve mixed common and uncommon) But that is the only one that they have started asking for. Post there and I will be sure to get back to you. I am in there as much as I am in the general of the house rules forums.



(THIS POST MENT FOR JOE UP THERE)


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## Umbran (May 23, 2005)

Felon said:
			
		

> Granted, there is a difference in that he's actually guessing at a number rather that using a cryptic qualifier like "any DM worth his Cheetos", but the former is preferrable to the latter.




Sorry, I'm scientist-trained.  For me, the former is not preferrable.  Numbers are for quantitative analysis, when you've got actual reasonable data.  Unless you've got clear claim to "expert credentials", one shouldn't expect others to take your numeric estimates as meaningful, unless you can give some basis for them.

Also, I don't feel I was being cryptic.  Vague and qualitative, perhaps, but I was addressing a qualitative measure of "goodness".  If I were cryptic, you'd have to wonder what I meant.  What I meant in general was reasonably clear, but left open the details of the standard.


----------



## Mark (May 23, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> It's been said before in this thread, and many threads before: if you really want oodles of settings, look to the OGL. Midnight, Scarred Lands, Dawnforge, Kalamar, Oathbound, Arcanis, Wilderlands, Morningstar, Ravenloft, Slayers, Tekumel, Game of Thrones...





_...Grymvald..._


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 23, 2005)

Really, what this entire thread boils down to is perception, at least as far as commentary on homebrew.

I doubt many of us has reached double digits in the number of GMs played under stat- so our experiences never reach beyond the level of anecdotal evidence, not statistically meaningful evidence, one way or the other.

However, as many have pointed out, adventures are out there for the buying, or in some cases, for the free downloading.  If you can't find adventures, perhaps you're not looking hard enough.

I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex.  I have been going to the same game store, Lone Star Comics in Irving, Texas (one store out of a local chain) since it opened 22 or so years ago.  However, I know the chain doesn't carry everything, so I also make sure I hit Generation X Games in the mid-cities and Games Chest at the Valley View mall in Dallas.  AND STILL I shop online at places like New Wave Entertainment and even at the sites for particular game publishers.

Quite simply, there's a lot out there, and nobody carries it all.


----------



## buzz (May 23, 2005)

Mark said:
			
		

> _...Grymvald..._



Oo! More info!


----------



## Sholari (May 24, 2005)

Umbran said:
			
		

> I'm sorry, but I have to ask - is your experience in gaming so broad that you think you've played with enough GMs that you can actually put numbers on the estimate and have any prayer of accuracy?




Yes.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 24, 2005)

> Quote:
> Originally Posted by Umbran
> I'm sorry, but I have to ask - is your experience in gaming so broad that you think you've played with enough GMs that you can actually put numbers on the estimate and have any prayer of accuracy?
> 
> ...




So, you've had more than 30 GM's?

Slut!


----------



## Stone Dog (May 24, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> So, you've had more than 30 GM's?
> 
> Slut!



Remember, when you are gaming with somebody, you are gaming with everybody else they ever gamed with.  Play safe.


----------



## diaglo (May 24, 2005)

Stone Dog said:
			
		

> Remember, when you are gaming with somebody, you are gaming with everybody else they ever gamed with.  Play safe.





ouch... i never thought of it like sex before... but i guess it goes to show you YMMV.

diaglo "call me the Wilt Chamberlain of D&D" Ooi


----------



## buzz (May 24, 2005)

The following seemed approrpiate to most of this thread (and to most threads, really):



			
				Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860) said:
			
		

> Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 24, 2005)

Diaglo, I'm the Gene Simmons to your Wilt Chaimberlain.


----------



## woodelf (May 25, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> HERO system has been around since 1981 without being tied to any massively-popular IP. Sure, the Champions Universe is beloved by many, but it's not a feature of the system. The system is the feature of the system.
> 
> Sure, it's not D&D popular, but nothing is.
> 
> ...




Well, i think part of the disagreement is over whether we're talking about D&D-the-RPG, or D&D-the-brand. LotR and Marvel Comics continuing to be successful despite the failure of  their respective RPGs is, i think, a point in favor of the original poster: it's the "fluff" that's of primary interest to the fans, and keeps them coming back. OTOH, it's, of course, not a particularly good comparison, because they started out as fluff, whereas non-licensed-IP RPGs either start with crunch, or start with a mix of crunch and fluff. Nonetheless, the current development of the D&D brand is similar: 

despite significant differences at the basic level, most agree that D&D3E is "D&D", just as much so as AD&D1/2. I think this is because of the continutiy of fluff: same roles (race/class), same feel of magic (both fire-and-forget, and what spells are available), same monsters, etc.
despite significant similarities at the mechanical level, HackMaster is rarely considered "D&D". Again, i think this can be traced to the radical shift in the fluff, both in tone and content.
As others have pointed out, the elements of the D&D brand have grown into a lot of areas besides RPGs. I suspect that D&D-related novels continue to outsell RPGs by orders of magnitude. 
"D&D" has always had a dual, maybe even triple, meaning: to RPers, it's a specific set of conventions, both mechanical and setting-wise (and it may be broad, encompassing all sorts of variants, published and unpublished, or specific, referring to a very particular ruleset and sort of setting); to the general public, it primarily encompasses a bunch of IP (though, depending on the lense through which they see it (i.e., the D&D movie), the IP they think of may have precious little in common with the IP in the actual game)--and, to further complicate matters, some think of it as a synonym for "RPG", unaware either that it is setting-specific, or that there are other RPGs out there.

IOW, it's the fluff that really defines "D&D", IMHO. Make relatively minor changes in the fluff with essentially no changes in the crunch, and people insist on referring to it as a new game; make radical changes to the crunch while retaining the basic fluff, and most call it "D&D with houserules".

In response to which, i posit a couple related questions: 

if there were no longer D&D-branded products being published, but tons of D&D-compatible D20 System books, would D&D be "dead"?
If there were no longer D&D RPG products being published, but tons of D&D-branded novels, computer games, card games, movies, a TV show or two, coming out on a regular basis, would D&D be "dead"?


----------



## Henry (May 25, 2005)

woodelf said:
			
		

> In response to which, i posit a couple related questions:
> 
> if there were no longer D&D-branded products being published, but tons of D&D-compatible D20 System books, would D&D be "dead"?
> If there were no longer D&D RPG products being published, but tons of D&D-branded novels, computer games, card games, movies, a TV show or two, coming out on a regular basis, would D&D be "dead"?




In my opinion, Yes, and Yes.

Yes to the first, because the brand name is what is synonymous to the public; d20/OGL has such a smattering of the larger D&D market that were D&D brand name to die overnight, the public at large would think of it as "that game people used to play back in the 80's." Heck, the majority still do! Its current players would call it "that game that went out of business in 2005."

Yes to the second, because D&D is NOT a novel like, or a card game, or TV show. Even the general public knew this 20 years ago, because if it were merely some card game, it would not have stirred up such anti-D&D fervor. Parents and activists didn't know WHAT it was, they just knew it was something different.

D&D is not just "Eberron" or Forgotten Realms" - D&D incorporates those things, but it is not those things.


----------



## buzz (May 25, 2005)

woodelf said:
			
		

> Well, i think part of the disagreement is over whether we're talking about D&D-the-RPG, or D&D-the-brand. LotR and Marvel Comics continuing to be successful despite the failure of  their respective RPGs is, i think, a point in favor of the original poster: it's the "fluff" that's of primary interest to the fans, and keeps them coming back.



The original post was within the context of RPGs: "D&D-the-RPG will die if they don't start releasing more modules."

That LotR and Marvel are successful regardless of the success or failure of their respective RPGs doesn't support the original point when viewed from the RPG perspective. It just reiterates the fact that RPGs are a niche market that doesn't have much of an impact on the world at large.

On the contrary, they and the countless licensed RPGs that have failed before them show that fluff alone will not sell a game.



			
				woodelf said:
			
		

> I think this is because of the continutiy of fluff: same roles (race/class), same feel of magic (both fire-and-forget, and what spells are available), same monsters, etc.



The continuities you're pointing out are largely mechanical. That 3e shares the basics of D&D's implied setting as well as levels, classes, races, saves, spell levels, spell slots, magic items (a +1 sword does exactly what it did in previous editions), experience points, rounds, initiaitve, hit points, armor class, rolling a d20 to-hit, same stats and stat range, etc. is the source of the continuity. If the design team had married D&D to a point-based 3d6 system with three stats, I don't think the transition would have been as smooth, flluff or no fluff.

Lord knows there have been plenty of RPGs that married D&D-isms to different systems; that didn't make them D&D in anyone's eyes.



			
				woodelf said:
			
		

> IOW, it's the fluff that really defines "D&D", IMHO. Make relatively minor changes in the fluff with essentially no changes in the crunch, and people insist on referring to it as a new game; make radical changes to the crunch while retaining the basic fluff, and most call it "D&D with houserules".



I don't know. There have certianly been a fair share of settings published under the OGL (and before, by TSR) that bear no resemblance to the "implied fluff" you refer to. Is _Planescape_ not D&D? It uses all the same rules. _Ravenloft_? _Masque of the Red Death_? _Oathbound_? _Dark Sun_? _Iron Kingdoms_? I mean, _Eberron_ adds a new core class, action points, races, and downplays alignment... apparently, it's still D&D.


----------



## woodelf (May 26, 2005)

Storm Raven said:
			
		

> Not to a publisher. The crunch is what makes money. And what _players_ buy.
> 
> Are you kidding? 1e D&D was all crunch - there was virtually no "fluff" anywhere. No settings, no novels, the rule books didn't even have any fluff to speak of. And yet it sold like gangbusters. What keeps people coming back is (a) a playable system, (b) nostalgia, (c) and familiarity.




But the question is, why the nostalgia, and what is the familiarity for? The original poster is positing that the nostalgia is for the fluff, and the familiarity is for  the fluff. It's purely  anecdotal, and probably coincidental, but i had essentially zero exposure to any of the fluff beyond the PH Back In The Day, and have essentially zero nostalgia for D&D. [And what little fluff i did have exposure to, i almost universally disliked.]

Anyway, his point isn't that the fluff is the big seller, but that it is the fluff that keeeps customers interested at all, in the long term, even if it's the crunch they mostly buy.



> No, it doesn't. And no they aren't. They farmed out much of the "fluff", and thus cut their responsibility to produce loss-leaders, while retaining the profitable portion of their business. Which has allowed mammoth volumes of "fluff" to be produced. It was a canny and far-sighted move.




And it may be the primary flaw in the original poster's conclusion. I see no reason why, even assuming the reasoning is sound, the fluff that keeps people coming back has to (1) be produced by the same company as the crunch or (2) be D&D-branded. Not to mention, the D20 System logo may have become closely-enough associated with the D&D brand to sidestep point 2. Anyway, i think the idea that the fluff is what keeps people coming back is correct, but that the fluff in question isn't that found in the rulebooks: it's the fluff that people want to recreate by gaming. And that might be the fluff of a D&D book, or a D&D novel--or their favorite TV show.


----------



## Gentlegamer (May 26, 2005)

Originally Posted by Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.

Didn't he also write "suicide is the triumph of the intellect" . . . ?


----------



## drakhe (May 26, 2005)

*Current market regards RPG differently*

You're partly right Celebrim, the modules are the game, the system merely supports the game. It has nothing to do with IP, both rules and modules are to some extent IP. Problem nowadays is the focus is not on modules but on crunch. People care less about adventure and care more about feats and skills and PRC's. The sesions I enjoy most is with this group where we all but ignore rules and dice and characters and whatnot. A map, a pad of paper to take notes and a whole lot of imagination... and epic adventures in far and unknown countries.

THATS WHAT RPG's ARE ABOUT!


----------



## Celebrim (May 26, 2005)

drakhe said:
			
		

> You're partly right Celebrim, the modules are the game, the system merely supports the game. It has nothing to do with IP, both rules and modules are to some extent IP. Problem nowadays is the focus is not on modules but on crunch. People care less about adventure and care more about feats and skills and PRC's. The sesions I enjoy most is with this group where we all but ignore rules and dice and characters and whatnot. A map, a pad of paper to take notes and a whole lot of imagination... and epic adventures in far and unknown countries.
> 
> THATS WHAT RPG's ARE ABOUT!




Heh.  You should have been here for the rule zero argument in the rules forum.   You would have gotten a kick out of all the people claiming that RPG's were about the rules - adventure and imagination be damned.   Or maybe not.  The very best RPers I've had the priviledge to referee were people who learned who to play the game a long time before they learned the rules.  To some people, that's a contridiction.   I doubt you see it that way, and I expect you'd be a very entertaining player or DM.

-----



			
				woodelf said:
			
		

> Anyway, his point isn't that the fluff is the big seller, but that it is the fluff that keeeps customers interested at all, in the long term, even if it's the crunch they mostly buy.




Exactly.



			
				woodelf said:
			
		

> And it may be the primary flaw in the original poster's conclusion. I see no reason why, even assuming the reasoning is sound, the fluff that keeps people coming back has to (1) be produced by the same company as the crunch or (2) be D&D-branded.




I don't see any reason why it _must_ be either.  My point is a little more complex than that.   First, that the other companies are now mostly producing crunch as well, and if profitable publication becomes only a crunch contest its possible that WotC could lose out to a system that for whatever reason gamers found more compelling then D20/D&D.  For example, its entirely within the realm of possibility that Malhavoc's or Green Ronin's products could eventually depart from D20 to the degree that say 3rd edition Iron Lore or Blue Rose is not a D20 product.  What then is to stop future gamers, ten years from now from coming back exclusively for the non-D&D products?   To me what will really decide this is whether more gamers find 'Eberron' fluff more compelling than 'Diamond Throne' fluff or 'Aldis' fluff because its not the crunch that is the real strength of an RPG in the long run, precisely because RPG's aren't really about the rules but about the adventures.

And the homebrewers out there are probably much more likely to stop being dependent on WotC for either crunch or fluff.   Certainly this was true to a large extent during 2nd edition, as many 1st edition gamers just more or less ignored the 2nd edition because it wasn't compatible with thier existing crunch or fluff.   In my own gaming of the time, about the only 2nd edition product that I remember influencing anyone's game was it was decided that 2nd edition dragons worked better than 1st edition ones.  Everything else was largely ignored.


----------



## buzz (May 26, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> First, that the other companies are now mostly producing crunch as well, and if profitable publication becomes only a crunch contest its possible that WotC could lose out to a system that for whatever reason gamers found more compelling then D20/D&D.



The key thing being ignored here is that D&D has never been tied to a particular setting. The commonalities between D&D gamers' eperiences always comes down to the core ruleset; even with individual house-ruling, it's the basic rules that we all have shared, not adventures or settings. (I've been playing D&D since 1980, and I can probably count on one hand the number of "classic" published adventures I've played.)

The implied setting elements (races, currency, nature of magic, monster demographics, role of adventurers) of D&D establish a baseline familiarity that allows any D&D player to join a campaign set in any setting or adventure locale and know basically how things work and what their options are. The core rule elements produce a game that's based on strong archetypes, group play, that is goal-oriented, that retains enough "gamist" bits that ease the transition from conventional games to D&D's RPG style, and that is both rigorous enough to survivve a bad DM and get out of a good DM's way.

All of these things contribute to D&D's lasting poularity. "Fluff" in terms of adventures and campaign settings _figures in somewhere_, but is not nearly as important as the _style of play engendered by the *rules*_. D&D has a *feel*, and it's that feel that brings people to the game.

Also, there have been systems that are more compelling (in some sense) than D&D since Runequest came out in 1978. This has not affected its popularity.

Adventures are not inconsequential to the conitnued success of D&D, but neither are they the be-all, end-all.


----------



## Driddle (May 26, 2005)

I'm looking for the "The Ranger is Broken" thread. I took a left turn at "Senseless Gnome Racial Revisions Through the Years," then got off on "Half-Dragon Templates Applied to Dragons" ... And lost sight of the Interstate within just a few blocks.

My wife made me stop for directions.

Anyone? Anyone, please?


----------



## Mark (May 26, 2005)

Driddle said:
			
		

> I'm looking for the "The Ranger is Broken" thread. I took a left turn at "Senseless Gnome Racial Revisions Through the Years," then got off on "Half-Dragon Templates Applied to Dragons" ... And lost sight of the Interstate within just a few blocks.
> 
> My wife made me stop for directions.
> 
> Anyone? Anyone, please?





_Can't post there from here..._


----------



## The Shaman (May 26, 2005)

Driddle said:
			
		

> I'm looking for the "The Ranger is Broken" thread. I took a left turn at "Senseless Gnome Racial Revisions Through the Years," then got off on "Half-Dragon Templates Applied to Dragons" ... And lost sight of the Interstate within just a few blocks.
> 
> My wife made me stop for directions.
> 
> Anyone? Anyone, please?



Wow, I laughed so hard I think I passed a little urine...


----------



## Mokona (May 26, 2005)

woodelf said:
			
		

> As others have pointed out, the elements of the D&D brand have grown into a lot of areas besides RPGs. I suspect that D&D-related novels continue to outsell RPGs by orders of magnitude.




Doesn't WotC claim that 6 million people currently play D&D?  If that many people were actively buying WotC fiction then those novels would be #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list every month.

As an anecdote, no D&D gamers I know buy WotC books but most buy at least the Player's Handbook.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 26, 2005)

There are a few gamers in my group who buy the D&D novels.

I'm not one, and probably never will be.


----------



## diaglo (May 26, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> There are a few gamers in my group who buy the D&D novels.
> 
> I'm not one, and probably never will be.



i own all of them. from the first one printed to the most recent.


----------



## Pramas (May 26, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> For example, its entirely within the realm of possibility that Malhavoc's or Green Ronin's products could eventually depart from D20 to the degree that say 3rd edition Iron Lore or Blue Rose is not a D20 product.




Blue Rose is already not a d20 product. It's a stand alone RPG that strips down the D&D rules considerable and departs from them in some major ways. 



> What then is to stop future gamers, ten years from now from coming back exclusively for the non-D&D products?




The fact that the lion's share of the D&D audience never moves beyond it.


----------



## diaglo (May 26, 2005)

Pramas said:
			
		

> The fact that the lion's share of the D&D audience never moves beyond it.




and some of us never leave the One True Game.


----------



## ThirdWizard (May 26, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Heh. You should have been here for the rule zero argument in the rules forum. You would have gotten a kick out of all the people claiming that RPG's were about the rules - adventure and imagination be damned. Or maybe not. The very best RPers I've had the priviledge to referee were people who learned who to play the game a long time before they learned the rules. To some people, that's a contridiction. I doubt you see it that way, and I expect you'd be a very entertaining player or DM.




Whoa, there...

If the published adventures are the game, then I have never played Dungeons and Dragons. Oh wait, I have played Dungeons and Dragons. Published adventures must not be the game. Unless it is your ascertation that I only think I've played it, but actually havn't.

I have never bought a module. I never will buy a module. I write my own adventures. And, I like D&D. I don't care if _Keep on the Borderlands_ is highly acclaimed by everyone here. I look at it and I simply see a dungeon crawl that doesn't interest me in the least. I cannot fathom how these old bare-bones modules _are _the game. The game is the Core rulebooks. I can play D&D with them, and I can't play it without them. That's like saying you arn't playing D&D unless you're playing in a published campaign setting. I can't imagine anyone saying that with any serousness.

I'm all for modules for the people that want them. Just not for me. I play D&D 3E after all these years (instead of, say, Vampire), so there must be something beyond the modules keeping me here. Perhaps its the fact that the rules are _*gasp*_ good?


----------



## Orius (May 26, 2005)

Driddle said:
			
		

> I'm looking for the "The Ranger is Broken" thread. I took a left turn at "Senseless Gnome Racial Revisions Through the Years," then got off on "Half-Dragon Templates Applied to Dragons" ... And lost sight of the Interstate within just a few blocks.
> 
> My wife made me stop for directions.
> 
> Anyone? Anyone, please?




Take a left at the next alignment thread....


----------



## The_Gneech (May 26, 2005)

Watch out for the "DM has it in for my paladin" thread, it's full of plotholes.

   -The Gneech


----------



## Celebrim (May 26, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Whoa, there...




I could say the same to you.



> If the published adventures are the game....




I think I will.  'Whoa, there.'  

If I had meant 'published adventures' I would have said published adventurers, or even modules or something.   What I said was that the game was adventures and not a set of rules (or at least not a fixed set of rules).  What adventures that those happen to be doesn't really matter to me.



> The game is the Core rulebooks. I can play D&D with them, and I can't play it without them.




See, there is were we actually disagree.  I don't care what campaign setting you are using - homebrew or published.  But as long as we are looking at hyperbole, I can't imagine anyone saying with any seriousness that the game is the core rulebooks, but then there it is.  That's like saying that you aren't playing D&D unless your playing with the official published rules, and how bizarre of a notion is that.


----------



## diaglo (May 26, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> That's like saying that you aren't playing D&D unless your playing with the official published rules, and how bizarre of a notion is that.



i'll say it.

you aren't playing D&D unless the referee is using the 3 booklets.

OD&D(1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are just poor imitations of the real thing.


----------



## ThirdWizard (May 26, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> If I had meant 'published adventures' I would have said published adventurers, or even modules or something. What I said was that the game was adventures and not a set of rules (or at least not a fixed set of rules). What adventures that those happen to be doesn't really matter to me.




Then why are published adventures so important? Everyone plays adventures.



> See, there is were we actually disagree. I don't care what campaign setting you are using - homebrew or published. But as long as we are looking at hyperbole, I can't imagine anyone saying with any seriousness that the game is the core rulebooks, but then there it is. That's like saying that you aren't playing D&D unless your playing with the official published rules, and how bizarre of a notion is that.




Okay lets say there's an adventure called. "Orc Uprising." I play it twice. Once under Rolemaster and again under D&D rules. In one instance I'm playing Rolemaster and in the other I'm playing D&D. The difference being the rules. The rules arn't important to roleplaying in general, but they are important to Rolemaster and D&D.

So D&D isn't the adventure. D&D is the rule system.


----------



## buzz (May 26, 2005)

Mokona said:
			
		

> If that many people were actively buying WotC fiction then those novels would be #1 on the New York Times bestsellers list every month.



There have been many FR novels that have been on the NYT list. Practically everything Salvatore writes makes the NYT list. In the fantasy category, at least...


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 27, 2005)

While I don't read them, I know that stat is pretty accurate- lots of people DO read those books.


----------



## Hussar (May 27, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> *snip*
> See, there is were we actually disagree.  I don't care what campaign setting you are using - homebrew or published.  But as long as we are looking at hyperbole, I can't imagine anyone saying with any seriousness that the game is the core rulebooks, but then there it is.  That's like saying that you aren't playing D&D unless your playing with the official published rules, and how bizarre of a notion is that.




I'll second Diaglo on that one.  If you're playing a game that in no way refers to any of the three core manuals, (depending on edition), you aren't playing DnD.  DnD is a set of rules.  Those rules can be applied to homebrew or published material, but, the rules remain.  It isn't the published modules that make people stay with the game, it's the rules.  If rules didn't matter at all, then people would play entirely without them.  Since you cannot play DnD without at least referring to the rules slightly - be it with character creation, combat, critters, whatever - I fail to see how saying, "you aren't playing D&D unless your playing with the official published rules" is not accurate.  While a group may not play with ALL the published rules, there is going to be at least a nod in the direction of the core rules whenever you're playing DnD.

In other words, if you were to sit at a gaming table without knowing what game they are playing, how would you find out which game they are, in fact, playing.  Well, if you see people rolling a bag full of d10's, then it's likely Vampire, if it's a handful of d6's, it's something from Steve Jackson, and, if it's a d20, then, if it's fantasy, it's most likely DnD.

The game is made by it's rules, not by the settings or the modules.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz (May 27, 2005)

D6's could also be HERO, Space 1899, the original Prime Directive from Task Force Games or something from FASA (Shadowrun, Earthdawn, MechWarrior).


----------



## S'mon (May 27, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I can't imagine anyone saying with any seriousness that the game is the core rulebooks, but then there it is.  That's like saying that you aren't playing D&D unless your playing with the official published rules, and how bizarre of a notion is that.




Um... of course the game is the core rulebooks - well, in 3e really the core of the game is the Player's Handbook and maybe a few bits from the DMG, but the full standard game is in the PHB DMG & MM... I'm not sure if you were kidding or not... :\


----------



## MonsterMash (May 27, 2005)

diaglo said:
			
		

> i'll say it.
> 
> you aren't playing D&D unless the referee is using the 3 booklets.
> 
> OD&D(1974) is the only true game. All the other editions are just poor imitations of the real thing.



Applauds Diaglo's persistence


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## MonsterMash (May 27, 2005)

To me D&D is a game with a ruleset with certain standard tropes(dice based resolution of actions, level based advancement, characters defined by a standard set of abilities, fire and forget(Vancian) magic) set in a a pseudo-medieval world, everything else is a pale imitation.


Seriously though if I use the D&D rules in a modern setting to me that's a game with D&D rules not D&D per se due to the setting - I stress this is in *my opinion* YMMV.


----------



## Hussar (May 27, 2005)

^ Well there's some truth in that.  If you took the characters out of a pseudo-European setting and played them using DnD rules, it wouldn't really be all that DnD anymore.  Of course, it probably wouldn't make a whole lot of sense either.  Trying to play a ranger in a Star Trek setting wouldn't be all that much fun I'm thinking.  Nor would playing a Barbarian in a Spycraft game.  So, to apply DnD mechanics to a completely different genre, you'd have to massively redo basic rules.  And, you wouldn't be playing a DnD game anymore.  You might be playing D20, but you're not playing DnD.

Some of those mechanics are pretty much hardwired into DnD.  The basic classes for example.  While you can still play DnD without those classes, there is always the realization that you are playing a variant of core rules.  When you play in an Oriental Adventures setting, the players realize that, while it's DnD, it's a somewhat different sort of DnD.  How far you can stray from the base and still call it DnD is different for each person.  Personally, I have no problem saying Hackmaster is DnD.  Nor do I have a large problem with Arcana Unearthed being billed as a DnD game.  Others might.  

The trick is, the baseline is ALWAYS the core books.  Anything else is a build from that same starting position.  Every time a new "variant" rules system get's trotted out by this or that company, they are always going to build from the same base - now being the SRD.  Until Malhavok decides that the Arcana Unearthed stuff is OGL, no one else is going to publish stuff for it.  However, you've got umpteen companies publishing stuff for DnD.  DnD will always be the baseline, because that's the mechanics and assumptions you have to start with if you're going to stray away from that baseline.


----------



## buzz (May 27, 2005)

ThirdWizard said:
			
		

> Okay lets say there's an adventure called. "Orc Uprising." I play it twice. Once under Rolemaster and again under D&D rules. In one instance I'm playing Rolemaster and in the other I'm playing D&D. The difference being the rules. The rules arn't important to roleplaying in general, but they are important to Rolemaster and D&D.



Indeed, if anything is portable between systems, it's adventures. If I convert _Keep on the Borderlands_ to *Burning Wheel*, am I still playing D&D? Of course not. Ergo, it's not the adventures that make D&D D&D.

Really, the fluff and surface feel of D&D has been changing constantly over the course of its history. Blackmoor is not quite Greyhawk is not quite Forgotten Realms is not quite Ravenloft is not quite Planescape is not quite Dark Sun is not quite Eberron (and we're not even touching OGL settings). Yet it's all been D&D, even across multiple editions, because the core rules assumptions and goals (even from OD&D to 3.5) have remained essentially the same.



			
				Hussar said:
			
		

> It isn't the published modules that make people stay with the game, it's the rules.



And if it was all about adventures, system wouldn't matter, and poeple woudl flock to whatever adventure was the best. I.e., we'd all be playing WFRP's _Enemy Within_ campaign, and D&D would be a distant memory. 

(That or, Atlas' Penumbra line would be the most popular d20 products out there.)


----------



## Mark (May 27, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> Indeed, if anything is portable between systems, it's adventures.





And between settings, to a great degree.


----------



## Arnwyn (May 27, 2005)

buzz said:
			
		

> That's getting close to every module published for 1e and 2e *combined*, and we haven't even touched on the OGL products yet.



Well now, let's not get carried away and ruin what credibility you have on this topic. If you insist on including _Dungeon_, then the above statement isn't very accurate, and your premise untrue.


----------



## Staffan (May 27, 2005)

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> D6's could also be HERO, Space 1899, the original Prime Directive from Task Force Games or something from FASA (Shadowrun, Earthdawn, MechWarrior).



Note: Earthdawn doesn't use the "fistful of d6" system Shadowrun does. Instead you roll a combination of "exploding" (reroll and add on max) d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20, possibly in multiples, depending on how good you are at what you're trying to do (the average of the roll is supposed to be equal to your skill level). So if you have a Dexterity "step" of 4, and 2 ranks in Melee Weapons, your Melee Weapons "step" is 6, and you roll a d10 to try and hit someone.


----------



## buzz (May 27, 2005)

arnwyn said:
			
		

> Well now, let's not get carried away and ruin what credibility you have on this topic. If you insist on including _Dungeon_, then the above statement isn't very accurate, and your premise untrue.



Point taken, though I have to wonder whether it would still be true if we had an accurate count of all the PDF publishers who've produced adventures figured in.

Leaving out _Dungeon_, 3e is way ahead. Including _Dungeon_, 3e is comparable, and within a shorter timeframe. The overall rate of release is higher.. It will be interesting to compare once 3e hits the 10+ year lifespan of the previous editions.


----------



## Arnwyn (May 27, 2005)

Including PDF adventures, I'd hazard a (wild) guess and say that 3.xe surpasses all the previous editions in number of adventures.

(But, when people complain about "no adventures", they are excluding PDFs. There are a number of people who don't care for that sub-market.)


----------



## Sholari (May 28, 2005)

arnwyn said:
			
		

> Including PDF adventures, I'd hazard a (wild) guess and say that 3.xe surpasses all the previous editions in number of adventures.
> 
> (But, when people complain about "no adventures", they are excluding PDFs. There are a number of people who don't care for that sub-market.)




More important I'd say 3.x has really lowered the bar for quality of adventures.  The result is a glut of poor quality adventures that most people can whip out with their eyes closed.  In contrast their have been a couple sources of really good quality adventures... Freeport, Iron Kingdoms, Dungeon magazine, and a few others.

However, this is still quite a bit better than 2e, which was the absolute pits when it came to decent adventures.  It is really the whole Dragonlance era of adventures (except for the very first Dragonlance module) and 2e modules, which contributed to their demise in popularity.  These modules usually wavered between too generic, too haphazard, or too railroading to be useful in most campaigns.  It is because of the bad module design during these times, that a lot of people became turned off to them.

Funny thing is this also correlates with Lorraine Williams taking over the helm at TSR.


----------



## Celebrim (May 28, 2005)

Sholari said:
			
		

> However, this is still quite a bit better than 2e, which was the absolute pits when it came to decent adventures.




I'll agree with that.  The thing is, if you were a fan of quality adventurers, you could just about see the glorious recovery of the game that 3rd edition represents coming.  Right there at the end of 2nd edition, there was a sudden flurry of good products - mostly epic scale adventurers.  Whenever people talk about great 2nd edition adventures, they are either talking about Planescape or the big boxed set adventurers that came out around the time of the silver anniversary.  That reinnasance in dungeon design lasted through the early years of 3rd edition with modules like 'Sunless Citadel' and RttToEE.

And I can't help but think that is the influence of Monte Cook and company.  I could read a module like Axe of the Dwarven Lords and see Skip's same frustration that I felt with the old out of date mechanics, and see even the author's frustration with try to cludge a 'fix' together.  And yet, Axe of the Dwarven Lords was a wonderful module.  The criticism it most frequently recieves revolves solely around its end run around the mechanical limitations of 1st/2nd edition.  But at the same time, for the first time in years you were seeing really good products coming out for D&D - Rod of Seven Parts, Axe of the Dwarven Lords, Return to the Tomb of Horrors, Planescape, etc.  For the first time I since I was a young DM was seeing things being published which I felt were as good or better than what I could do on my own.

I hate to dump on anyone, but as long as we are blaming people for the downturn in product quality during 2nd edition, you have to add Ed Greenwood to the list.  To me, Ed never struck me as more than a mediocre hack and slash DM - where as Monte is an extraordinary hack and slash DM.  I mean, I'm sure that if your sitting at his table, Ed Greenwood is a blast to play with.  You can tell that much from his work.  But as far as the creativity and the inventiveness goes, he's just not in the same league IMO as EGG, Tracy Hickman, or Monte Cook.  

Small company that it is, you can't help but feel that TSR/WotC is basically influenced by the visions of a small handful of DM/players.  Sometimes these are amongst the best DM's in the country, but its not really being extraordinarily talented and creative that gets you the job and gives you creative control over the company.  To a large extent, its even more important that your just willing to do the work and be productive.

There has been alot of list going around lately celebrating the products, but if you were building a hall of fame for game content writers, who would you put in it?


----------



## ColonelHardisson (May 28, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Rod of Seven Parts, Axe of the Dwarven Lords, Return to the Tomb of Horrors,




Good taste, but I'd add A Paladin In Hell and The Shattered Circle. Plus, I've never been much of a Planescape fan.


----------



## Celebrim (May 28, 2005)

ColonelHardisson said:
			
		

> Good taste, but I'd add A Paladin In Hell and The Shattered Circle. Plus, I've never been much of a Planescape fan.




I've never had a chance to read either, much less play them.  I will note that you selected a Monte Cook and a Bruce Cordell adventure though, and that doesn't surprise me in the least considering that Bruce wrote 'The Sunless Citadel' and Monte wrote 'RttToEE'.


----------



## woodelf (May 30, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> Could it be that the reason that there are not many good modules on the market is that writing a compelling module is harder than writing up a rules supplement? Is the good fluff harder to do than the crunch?




IMHO, yes. In addition to my own abilities/experiences, i bring as evidence the D20 System market: First, there seem to be a lot more books with good fluff than good crunch. Second, there's just way more crunch than fluff, period--and i think part of that is production issues, as well as market demand. Third, really good fluff seems to stand out more than really good crunch, and i think that's in part because it's rarer.


----------



## woodelf (May 30, 2005)

Aristotle said:
			
		

> But, to the best of my knowledge, it doesn't show you how to reward experience (at least the original did not) for different CRs. So you would still need the DMG.




Unless you're using some other method of XP award--such as story awards, or any of numerous systems talked about here.


----------



## woodelf (May 30, 2005)

Janx said:
			
		

> Now for the point about fluff writing, cheetos, and half-arsed DMs. For a real example, consider this: I can write 3 pages of text in about 2 hours. I can write "fluff" and do so in the form of a website and newspaper for my campaign world. For my adventures in my homebrew campaign (aka, D&D rules, my world, my map, my adventures), I support Mona's statement, what I write for a homebrew adventure is minimal.
> 
> Here's a dump of the last adventure I ran (not claiming to have a good or pretty adventure, I suspect other DMs are equally sparse):
> [snip]




That's "sparse", huh? I'd be surprised if i have that much info written out for 10 sessions , combined.


----------



## palleomortis (Jun 1, 2005)

Hey Joe, you forget bout me? the whole mini trading deal?


----------



## Celebrim (Jun 1, 2005)

woodelf said:
			
		

> That's "sparse", huh? I'd be surprised if i have that much info written out for 10 sessions , combined.




Whereas, by contrast, that's less than I write out for each intended hour of play.

But so long as you can handle it, then whatever works for you.


----------



## Swordsage (Jun 1, 2005)

Celebrim said:
			
		

> I hate to dump on anyone, but as long as we are blaming people for the downturn in product quality during 2nd edition, you have to add Ed Greenwood to the list.  To me, Ed never struck me as more than a mediocre hack and slash DM - where as Monte is an extraordinary hack and slash DM.  I mean, I'm sure that if your sitting at his table, Ed Greenwood is a blast to play with.  You can tell that much from his work.  But as far as the creativity and the inventiveness goes, he's just not in the same league IMO as EGG, Tracy Hickman, or Monte Cook.




"Mediocre hack and slash DM"? You obviously have absolutely no idea about the way Ed Greenwood runs a game do you? His games are quintessential ROLEplaying: combat, dice - heck, even rules - are secondary to plot, performance and story. What 2E adventures have Ed's moniker on them were HEAVILY edited by TSR (and the most cited examples - the Avatar Trilogy he did only because TSR said "If you don't do them, we'll get someone else to do them." - think of it as an attempt at damage control) and didn't in any real way show his talents as a writer or designer.

EGG for all his talents, was and is THE hack and slash DM, Tracy Hickman writes good stories and bad, railroading game products and Monte writes good, soulless, story-light rules-oriented products. Ed beats them all for creativity and inventiveness - and he was doing it before ANYONE (other than EGG) was writing 'fluff' to go with the crunch. Without Ed, DRAGON would never have had "Pages From the Mages"-type articles, story-oriented "Ecology of ..." articles, magic items with meaning rather than just plusses, the list goes on.

Waiting now for the inevitable anti-FR and Ed Greenwood diatribes about 'munchkinism', Chosen of GodX and abuse of game power levels: all aspects of FR that were instigated and introduced to the setting by TSR/WotC, NOT Ed Greenwood.

-- The Swordsage


----------



## Celebrim (Jun 1, 2005)

Swordsage said:
			
		

> "Mediocre hack and slash DM"? You obviously have absolutely no idea about the way Ed Greenwood runs a game do you? His games are quintessential ROLEplaying: combat, dice - heck, even rules - are secondary to plot, performance and story.




First, you are completely right.  I've never set at his table, and so I don't know.

However, in my defense I wrote that Ed Greenwood probably ran a might fine table, and your response only confirms that.  As I said, you can tell from his stories that he runs a mighty enjoyable game.  However, running a mighty fine table and producing a mighty fine role playing product are two completely different things.



> What 2E adventures have Ed's moniker on them were HEAVILY edited by TSR (and the most cited examples - the Avatar Trilogy he did only because TSR said "If you don't do them, we'll get someone else to do them." - think of it as an attempt at damage control) and didn't in any real way show his talents as a writer or designer.




If Mr. Greenwood is the victim of the suits at TSR then I highly sympathize with him.  If in fact 'The Huanted Halls of Evenstar' were as he produced them a fine peice of dungeon craft and setting building, and only after some hack editor got a hold of it was it turned into a mess (and not just a mess far and away the worst RPG product I ever bought) then I completely sympathize with him.  But the fact is, as you've pointed out, the only way I know Ed Greenwood is through the products with his name on them and I frankly would have been ashamed for that product to have my name on it. 



> Ed beats them all for creativity and inventiveness...




Now that I'm afraid will have to remain a matter of opinion.



> Waiting now for the inevitable anti-FR and Ed Greenwood diatribes about 'munchkinism', Chosen of GodX and abuse of game power levels: all aspects of FR that were instigated and introduced to the setting by TSR/WotC, NOT Ed Greenwood.




All I know of the FR is the products I bought and read.  If he so lost complete creative control over his product that it ended up completely different than his desires - and somehow I think that that is something of an exaggeration - then that at the least says something about his ability as a game writer.  But actually, while munchkinist fluff is a serious complaint in and of itself, those charges would not be foremost in my mind if I were to launch into a diatribe.  Whatever crunch was added to the setting, even if every bit of crunch was added by TSR, FR remains a fundamentally flawed setting at a level below the crunch.  It always struck me as one of those brilliantly realized bottom-up campaign worlds designed basically to serve the needs of the campaign he was running as they arose and with very little in the way of planning.  While such a thing is a worthy accomplishment for a DM, a campaign world that is that strictly bottom up is going to lack alot in terms of creativity, cohesivenes and depth.  FR is superficial in its cosmology.  FR is superficial in its cultural settings, since basically every culture in the forgotten realms is no more than Earth.   FR land masses and climates are no more logically arranged than Mystra, and the old X1 map was the first thing I thought of when I saw FR's map.  Every climate is arranged for conveince of the DM, not to convey any sense of realism.  It all works at some level because it is convienent for a DM, and because as Mearls pointed out it really understands the default story of a D&D game.  At one level, it is a great place to go and kill things and take thier stuff.  It has lots of things to kill and lots of stuff to take.  

Mr. Greenwood is extremely prolific (an underrated trait) and probably a fun guy, but as a rulesmith, as a setting designer, and as a dungeon designer he's merely mediocre.  As DM, I'll happily accept your word that he's one of the top in the business.


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## diaglo (Jun 1, 2005)

Swordsage said:
			
		

> Waiting now for the inevitable anti-FR and Ed Greenwood diatribes about 'munchkinism', Chosen of GodX and abuse of game power levels: all aspects of FR that were instigated and introduced to the setting by TSR/WotC, NOT Ed Greenwood.



i'll agree. ElMunchkin is a product of Ed and the design team during 2edADnD and later editions.


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