# Third Party:  If So, Then What?



## GMSkarka (Sep 28, 2009)

Recently, there's been discussion of the impact of 4E on third-party support.   Not many signed on, due to the terms of the GSL, and those that did (or chose non-licensed support) saw that official WOTC tools like the DDI had an adverse effect on sales -- as has been said, there's no point in doing character or rules options if they can't be reflected in the DDI.

We've seen a lot of companies cancel their 4E lines entirely, or just shut their doors, and in recent threads on the topic, a large percentage of 4E fans have expressed no interest in third-party product at all.  


For those 4E fans that do want third-party support, however --- I'm sure that my fellow publishers would love to know:   Given the status quo (no implementation into DDI, etc.), what exactly would you like to see from third-party publishers?


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## GreatLemur (Sep 28, 2009)

Well, what I'd _really_ like is for WotC to open up the Character Builder's API to us all, but assuming that ain't gonna happen, I think it only makes sense for third-party publishers to focus on producing adventures, adventure components (monsters, traps, skill challenges, terrain types / map features, etc.), and campaign settings.

Really, I think there's a dire need for a big skill challenge tool kit book (featuring both sample skill challenges and big menus of possible success and failure effects to spice up custom challenges), and I'm kinda shocked WotC hasn't published one already.  Also, I really dig the gimmick terrains from the DMG2, and think that we could really do with a hell of a lot more to choose from.  Why not sell a big book of those complete with map tiles?

Unfortunately, the Character Builder really locks third-party publishers out of the (much larger) non-DM segment of the D&D 4e market.  All I could suggest for players would be non-mechanical PC aids like collections of character portraits or books of character concept ideas and other roleplay inspiration.


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## ScorpiusRisk (Sep 28, 2009)

I'll reiterate a bit from a recent thread. There are a few big things I expect in a third party product in order for me, personally, to be interested.

I don't want more player options, unless it's heavily themed or maybe interesting items/vehicles. Feats, classes, Paths, powers are all to hard to keep track of an implement, and we've got a multitude of options in the DDI.

I expect it to be cheaper than a WotC product. If that means cheaper paper, binding or that its a download, that's ok.

I need to be able to preview the content online. That does not mean a summary, it means being able to see actual pages or sections from the book.

Finally, it needs to be heavily themed or offer something Wizards of the Coast does not. I don't have a problem buying Monster books, but they can be such a grab bag that I want to make sure I can use them. A book of ghosts, desert creatures, or alien menaces are much more appealing than a general selection of Monster I hopefully don't already have.

Some examples of things WotC doesn't do would be something like the Toolbox from AEG, which is primarily a prep or improvisational tool. Or even something that Wizards does but only in small amounts. A guide to designing and populating cities would be interesting. Or a guide that lets players build fortresses and towers with pricing.


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## Jack99 (Sep 28, 2009)

I want 3pp's who actually understand the rules they are writing for. Way too many of the products released for 4e have been of pretty shoddy quality, crunch-wise. 

After that, I would love adventures and settings.


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## ggroy (Sep 28, 2009)

I would be interested in more 4E adventure modules produced by 3PPs.  Though in terms of content and quality, I would be looking for modules that are at least as good as the 4E modules Goodman Games has produced so far (ie. Dungeon Crawl Classics, etc ...).

To a lesser degree, I may be interested in 3pp 4E settings which are not excessively heavy with 3pp specific crunch.  At the present time, I'm using the non-4E Pathfinder Golarion setting for my 4E game.  Many of the Golarion setting supplement books are relatively crunch lite, such as the region books.

I will probably pick up the upcoming 4E Freeport Companion book, and use it with the system-free Freeport books.  For other upcoming 4E 3pp setting books, I'll have take a look through them before deciding whether I'm interested.  My main determination is whether I can use a setting straight out of the box, or whether there will be resistance due to lots of 3pp setting specific crunch being absent from the DDI.  For the players in my 4E game, they've been so spoiled by the DDI character builder that a lot of player specific 3pp crunch has been largely "invisible" to them.  If something is not in the DDI character builder, they will not use it at all.


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## Crothian (Sep 28, 2009)

GMSkarka said:


> what exactly would you like to see from third-party publishers?




I don't know.  Back in 3e days I didn't know I wanted Goodman games to give the DCC line or Necromancer to do their great modules.  I didn't know I wanted Green Ronin to do those great historical books as well as give me the greatest Super Hero game.  I'm looking for the publishers to give me something I don't yet know I want.


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## Obryn (Sep 28, 2009)

I've said it before, and it may be a pipe-dream, but I like non-standard, non-generic settings.

My favorite purchases under the OGL/d20 STL were settings and supplements for those settings.  While I have no use for generic character crunch, I love character crunch for new settings that fit in with a setting's themes.

I have *zero *use for generic player-oriented crunch.  (No new classes, Paragon Paths, feats, or races that aren't designed for a specific new third-party setting.)  DM-oriented crunch is dandy, but you have to convince me it's giving me something more - or something better - than I'm getting from WotC.  This means reasonably solid mechanics, unique flavors, and fresh perspectives.  I don't have any use for 100 poorly-made monsters, or 100 more monsters which offer me nothing more interesting than I've already gotten from WotC.

I like modules, so long as I have a reason to run them.  If I'm getting no better than I'm getting from WotC, odds are I'll just stick with the stuff I'm getting from WotC.  I also buy them on an as-needed basis; if I don't need one, I won't buy one.


For illustration, my favorite stuff I bought under the OGL/d20 STL were...

* Wilderlands Box Set (+ several supplements for it, one of which is a Least Favorite)
* Arcana Unearthed/Evolved (most of the product line for both, one of which is a Least Favorite)
* Monte Cook's Chaositech (DM crunch with awesome and unique flavor)
* Black Company Campaign Setting
* Testament
* A few DCC's.
* Tome of Horrors

My least favorite, least-used stuff I bought under OGL/d20 STL were...

- Complete Book of Eldritch Might
- Arcana Evolved Spell Treasury (although it was part of the above, it also broke many things)
- Wilderlands Player's Guide (reprinted information, and shoddy mechanics)
- Pretty much all non-Tome-of-Horrors 3rd-party monster books, including Creature Catalogs.

Everything else was pretty middling stuff that I may have enjoyed but which I never used.  I would be unlikely to buy more stuff in this category, either - WotC is doing a better job of giving me stuff I want this edition than it was last time around.

So yeah.  Basically, I want something I'm not already getting from WotC.  But it also has to be high-caliber, with solid mechanics.

-O


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## Henrix (Sep 28, 2009)

I'd be interested in adventures that aren't like WotCs - i.e. not just dungeon crawls.

(Nothing wrong with a good crawl, but a little variation is fine.)


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## Mistwell (Sep 28, 2009)

Adventures.


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## Zephrin the Lost (Sep 28, 2009)

Encounters! 4e encounters rely on terrain, hazards, and encounter groups. Strong encounters can be hard to do off the cuff. Dungeon Delve was great but something with even more generic, yet adaptable encouters would be great- an urban ambush, or some quick lairs, etc, scaled for different levels, that DM's could not only drop in anywhere but learn from (that last part means they need to be great stuff).


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## davethegame (Sep 28, 2009)

I agree with most of the posters above. I don't need new classes, feats, powers, items... I don't even care that much about new monsters (and if a product does include new monsters, it would be awesome to have those available as downloads to import into Monster Builder, but I have no idea of the legality of that.)

I need new adventures and settings. Use the abundance of rules and options that WotC already has out instead of adding to it with often imperfect results. I'd be perfectly happy buying an adventure with an interesting story that used nothing but Monster Manual monsters. 

Also, I love poster maps and similar, so anything that includes that gets an automatic bonus from me.

After a first few 3rd party products that I obtained (some of which for free for review purposes) I decided I didn't need to touch 3pp at all due to some very questionable quality and understanding of the rules. But I would love some more takes on how to use the existing rules for my game.


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## physicscarp (Sep 28, 2009)

I'd like to see some strong thematic adventures. I was really interested in Adamant's announced _Against the Air Pirates_, but that seems to have disappeared.


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## Mouseferatu (Sep 28, 2009)

I'll echo the "adventures and campaign settings" call, not only as a consumer, but as a designer. Specifically, adventures and settings of a sort that Wizards isn't currently producing. Whether that means non-traditional fantasy, more of a "mature" focus, different cultures, different assumptions, whatever. These should have _some_ new mechanics, but they should be heavily focused on the themes/details of the adventure or campaign setting.

I (obviously) have no idea if such things would sell, but I know that I'd love the opportunity to work on such things, and that it's these that I'd consider buying from a 3rd-party company.


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## GreatLemur (Sep 28, 2009)

Now that I think about it, there are some places where 4e could use some new subsystems that wouldn't be in much danger of stepping on WotC's toes.  Things like a crafting system, or rules for naval combat, etc.



Zephrin the Lost said:


> Encounters! 4e encounters rely on terrain, hazards, and encounter groups. Strong encounters can be hard to do off the cuff. Dungeon Delve was great but something with even more generic, yet adaptable encouters would be great- an urban ambush, or some quick lairs, etc, scaled for different levels, that DM's could not only drop in anywhere but learn from (that last part means they need to be great stuff).



This is a great point, here.  Encounters--clever little set pieces complete with statblocks and interesting maps--could be a lot more widely useful than adventures.  DMs could string them together to make adventures, or keep them on hand for random encounters.  Notes on how to adjust each encounter for higher or lower levels would be extremely handy, of course.


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## JeffB (Sep 29, 2009)

Printed adventures THAT ARE NOT ADVENTURE PATHS 

Thats my only real priority,  though the "right" campaign helper type supplements would be considered  i.e. Generic city/town or a generic  "adventure region" like Bards Gate from Necro,  The Haunted Highlands from TLG, etc.


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## Truename (Sep 29, 2009)

Another call for really great adventures or encounters, particularly those that are more sophisticated than WoTC's. I'm currently running Scales of War, which is fine as far as it goes, but I'm starting to get an urge for something with more there there. (The recent Epic level adventure by David Noonan was a massive disappointment. Took a brilliant setting and turned it into generic mush.)

I don't want crunch because I don't trust 3pps to get it right. I don't need fluff because I'm running an adventure path. I want new adventures that will inspire me with better ideas about how to run the game, even if I don't ever run them, and that I can potentially drop into my SoW game in place of some of the more craptastic episodes.


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## garyh (Sep 29, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> I'll echo the "adventures and campaign settings" call, not only as a consumer, but as a designer. Specifically, adventures and settings of a sort that Wizards isn't currently producing. Whether that means non-traditional fantasy, more of a "mature" focus, different cultures, different assumptions, whatever. These should have _some_ new mechanics, but they should be heavily focused on the themes/details of the adventure or campaign setting.
> 
> I (obviously) have no idea if such things would sell, but I know that I'd love the opportunity to work on such things, and that it's these that I'd consider buying from a 3rd-party company.




I'd also enjoy such products as a consumer.  Ideas are much more valuable than crunch, especially since crunch can't be integrated into WotC's DDI tools.


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## Glyfair (Sep 29, 2009)

GMSkarka said:


> Recently, there's been discussion of the impact of 4E on third-party support.   Not many signed on, due to the terms of the GSL, and those that did (or chose non-licensed support) saw that official WOTC tools like the DDI had an adverse effect on sales -- as has been said, there's no point in doing character or rules options if they can't be reflected in the DDI.



I noticed that much of the early 4E third party content was player oriented.  Some of that may have been the OGL theory that if you give content to players you have more potential customers.  

I admit, I saw that content and gave it all a pass, regardless of the company.  I didn't want the classes, races, etc. for 4E.  WotC gave me enough, and the only "player" product I bought was the _Advanced Player's Guide_ (which I bought, and offered my players use of, and none took me up on it).  




> For those 4E fans that do want third-party support, however --- I'm sure that my fellow publishers would love to know:   Given the status quo (no implementation into DDI, etc.), what exactly would you like to see from third-party publishers?



So, that leads to the main question.  I have answered it before, but I will reiterate it, and expand perhaps a bit.

I want adventures.  The OGL gave us a lot of adventures that grabbed you, especially early on (Freeport, Witchfire Trilogy, half of Atlas Games products, most of Necromancer games).  I really haven't seen that at all.

I also don't really want adventures that ignore the 4E parameters.  That doesn't mean don't experiment.  However, don't decide you dislike all the core assumptions of 4E adventure design that WotC set up and just write a 3E (or older) adventure with 4E stats.  Pick and choose where you go in a different direction.  Also, when you break away, don't always go back* in D&D history.  try going in different directions.  Go forward to ground breaking territory, or go sideways into areas that have been covered in other games but not D&D.

I want products that support running a campaign that aren't directly adventures.  Personally I am not interested in campaign settings, but I might be interested in smaller campaigns (cities, valleys, etc).  Others might want campaign settings, though, and it certainly is an area that WotC hasn't discouraged too much.

Some of my favorite OGL products were things like Atlas' _En Route_ series, Necromancers' _Book of Taverns_ (thanks Clark), and similar books.  Give me things I can drop into my existing homebrew, or published setting without too much work.  

Also, don't forget the creative non-systemic products.  Paizo has dominated this area, I admit (partially by snapping up distribution of those other companies have developed).  Adventures or locations with battle maps, tiles, miniatures, 3D terrain, etc. with 4E stats can gain traction if creative enough, and priced correctly.


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## darjr (Sep 29, 2009)

There was a bunch of buzz, on the net and locally, for BlackMoor. The living campaign is what helped me here locally generate some buzz, I have players waiting for the campaign to start and the new book/books to come out.

So... a living campaign. I'll buy the books to support it, and I'll probably get a few others to as well.

The other thing I'd very much like to see is adventures. I am really spoiled by the WotC RPGA. I mean really. Something like Dungeon a day but more spread out. Something that would start to flesh out a sandbox hybrid with some interwoven stories. 

Maybe a mini path or two in that sandbox, but also lots of encounters and short adventures I could pull, yoink, or mix and match.


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## Holy Bovine (Sep 29, 2009)

Adventures and campaign settings are about the only thing I would look at for 3PP.


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## Mercurius (Sep 29, 2009)

In reverse order of preference:

4) Adventures.
3) DM aids like random encounter tables, fleshed out encounters for every occasion.
2) Settings. We can never have enough interesting, flavorful settings out there (aren't you doing Mieville's world?).
1) My number one wish would be to see something like a cross between the Ultimate Toolbox and the Random Dungeon Generator, sort of an "Ultimate Dungeon Generator" book that helps you build dungeons from scratch or on-the-fly with little prep required.

I will second (or third or tenth) the lack of interest in more crunch books. We don't need no more freakin' feats/powers/classes/etc.


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## mevers (Sep 29, 2009)

Zephrin the Lost said:


> Encounters! 4e encounters rely on terrain, hazards, and encounter groups. Strong encounters can be hard to do off the cuff. Dungeon Delve was great but something with even more generic, yet adaptable encouters would be great- an urban ambush, or some quick lairs, etc, scaled for different levels, that DM's could not only drop in anywhere but learn from (that last part means they need to be great stuff).



This!

But even better if you can link 3 or 4 of these absolutely awesome encounters into a short side trek adventure that I can easily drop into my existing campaign, and that will leave a few plot hooks dangling that the players can or choose to run with if they want.

Price them at about 2 or 3 bucks for the pdf download, and I would snap them up in a heartbeat. Bonus points if you include a monster builder file for me to easily import the monsters.

Goodman Games Critter Encounters: Bugged Out! was a good start, but I would prefer something a little more.... sophisticated.


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## mevers (Sep 29, 2009)

My first double post.


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## ggroy (Sep 29, 2009)

A better question is what type of people have been buying 4E 3PP books, whether in print or pdf/print-on-demand.

Of the 4E DMs and players I know or have met over the last year or so (here locally and at conventions), I got the impression it has been mainly the hardcore DMs which have been regularly buying 4E 3PP modules and some player specific splatbooks.  The only players I know of who bought any 4E 3PP player specific splatbooks, were almost always the powergamer "munchkin" type players.  Though in the case of 4E powergamers, some have stopped buying any 3PP splatbooks when the DM of their games have banned many 4E 3PP player specific splatbooks for being too "overpowered" or some other unspecified reasons.

At the present time, I have no idea how many munchkin powergamers are still buying any 4E 3PP player specific splatbooks.  At several nearby FLGS, the owners have mentioned that the Mongoose 4E "Quintessential ..." books have sold very few copies.

If there is reason to believe that many 4E players and DMs will not buy any 4E 3PP products, it would not be surprising to see that the main customers left for 4E 3PP products are the hardcore DMs and maybe a few munchkin powergamers.  I don't know what percentage of 4E DMs would be in the "hardcore" category, but a 4E 3PP market catering primarily to hardcore 4E DMs may possibly be the only viable market left at this point for 4E 3PP publishers.


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## vagabundo (Sep 29, 2009)

WotC is doing a great job of producing tonnes of player options.

I'm not overwhelmed by their adventure quality though. Paizo have some real classic adventures, ironically I think the 4e ruleset is more flexible and could handle some fabulous stories and settings elegantly.


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## Monkey King (Sep 29, 2009)

Open Design is producing some award-winning 4th Edition materials and adventures (Halls of the Mountain King, Wrath of the River King, Courts of the Shadow Fey).

Yet the Pathfinder versions of adventures are consistently outselling the 4E versions. I suspect that the 3pp support will continue to be stronger for Pathfinder than for 4E. I can't say whether that's for licensing reasons, or because of the strength of the DDI in crunch support.


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## Jack99 (Sep 29, 2009)

ggroy said:


> At the present time, I have no idea how many munchkin powergamers are still buying any 4E 3PP player specific splatbooks.  At several nearby FLGS, the owners have mentioned that the Mongoose 4E "Quintessential ..." books have sold very few copies.




Those books were not only full of overpowered (read broken) content, but they were poorly written and overall far from impressive. I am not surprised that they sold poorly. Most reviewers I heard/read about shared the opinion I expressed above.


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## ggroy (Sep 29, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> Those books were not only full of overpowered (read broken) content, but they were poorly written and overall far from impressive. I am not surprised that they sold poorly. Most reviewers I heard/read about shared the opinion I expressed above.




I haven't read any of these Mongoose 4E "Quintessential ..." books yet.  I don't own any of them.

But if it is true that they are very overpowered and broken, then I wouldn't be surprised at all that quite a number of 4E DMs have explicitly banned them from their games.  I know one 4E DM locally who has explicitly banned the already released 4E "Quintessential ..." books from his game. Several "munchkin" powergamers in one of his games wanted to use these books, but he explicitly banned them after reading through the books and not liking what he saw.  (Too much overpowered stuff).


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## Obryn (Sep 29, 2009)

Mongoose's Quintessential series earned its bad reputation early on.  They have been bad, boring, or broken since the early d20/OGL days.  Frankly, I have no idea how they continued to churn them out.  Someone must have liked them, I suppose. 

It's not even a little surprising to me that Mongoose's sales of a new 4e Quintessential series sucked.  I'd consider it a mercy killing, frankly.   Bad reputation + zero advertisement + bad reviews = Failure.  It's the kind of product that may have been golden back in the heady days of 2000 & 2001, but the market has moved away from books such as these.

-O


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## Greg K (Sep 29, 2009)

If I were running 4e,  I would purchase the following

Advanced Player's Guide (Expeditous Retreat)
Plague (Expeditous Retreat)
Critter Caches (Blackdirge/Goodman Games)
Some of Adamant's Pact Books

I'd also welcome a 4e From Stone to Steel, alternate class features and mechancis.


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## ggroy (Sep 29, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Mongoose's Quintessential series earned its bad reputation early on.  They have been bad, boring, or broken since the early d20/OGL days.  Frankly, I have no idea how they continued to churn them out.  Someone must have liked them, I suppose.




Maybe the munchkin powergamers really loved them for being overpowered and broken?


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## The_Gneech (Sep 29, 2009)

It's been said already, but it bears repeating. 

Adventures. Stand-alone, non-"WotC-feeling" adventures.

To push my personal buttons, go strong Howardian sword-and-sorcery _or_ strong Tolkienish literary fantasy ... but don't mix both into the same adventure.

-The Gneech


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## Greg K (Sep 29, 2009)

The_Gneech said:


> It
> To push my personal buttons, go strong Howardian sword-and-sorcery _or_ strong Tolkienish literary fantasy




I want alternate mechanics and suggestions for tweaking the game to better caputure the feel of those.


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## ggroy (Sep 29, 2009)

Greg K said:


> I want alternate mechanics and suggestions for tweaking the game to better caputure the feel of those.




What's the likelihood of a 4E Unearthed Arcana book of alternate rules, ever seeing the light of day?


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## ggroy (Sep 29, 2009)

Monkey King said:


> Yet the Pathfinder versions of adventures are consistently outselling the 4E versions. I suspect that the 3pp support will continue to be stronger for Pathfinder than for 4E. I can't say whether that's for licensing reasons, or because of the strength of the DDI in crunch support.




Is it possible that Pathfinder has attracted more of a hardcore player + DM crowd, than 4E D&D?

Over the years I got the impression that the more casual and less hardcore players + DMs, were not really interested in buying many splatbooks, modules, and other supplements (both WotC and 3pp).  Even during the 3.5E D&D years, quite a number of casual players I knew did not even buy the 3.5E player's handbook.

These days, some of the more casual 4E players I've come across will just borrow somebody's computer with a DDI character builder, to make a character and print out the character sheet with all the power descriptions, etc ...  Some of them have not even purchased the 4E player's handbook yet.


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## thecasualoblivion (Sep 29, 2009)

Making your own adventure is much less work in 4E than it is in 3E. Buying a 3E module saves you a lot more work than buying a 4E module does. As for Paizo specifically, they were primarily a module producing company before the release of Pathfinder, and fans of their modules were a built in audience for Pathfinder, and I'd be surprised if a higher percentage of Pathfinder RPG people wasn't also buying modules.


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## dmccoy1693 (Sep 29, 2009)

ggroy said:


> Is it possible that Pathfinder has attracted more of a hardcore player + DM crowd, than 4E D&D?
> 
> Over the years I got the impression that the more casual and less hardcore players + DMs, were not really interested in buying many splatbooks, modules, and other supplements (both WotC and 3pp).  Even during the 3.5E D&D years, quite a number of casual players I knew did not even buy the 3.5E player's handbook.
> 
> These days, some of the more casual 4E players I've come across will just borrow somebody's computer with a DDI character builder, to make a character and print out the character sheet with all the power descriptions, etc ...  Some of them have not even purchased the 4E player's handbook yet.




I've been wondering the same myself. Players/DMs that I know *that didn't even know about third party publishers* and only owned a few WotC books were more apt to go 4E than those that had a book case full of WotC book sitting right next to their five book cases full of 3pp material.


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## darjr (Sep 30, 2009)

dmccoy1693 said:


> I've been wondering the same myself. Players/DMs that I know *that didn't even know about third party publishers* and only owned a few WotC books were more apt to go 4E than those that had a book case full of WotC book sitting right next to their five book cases full of 3pp material.




I must be the trend breaker. I think I owned more third party than WotC for a good great deal of time. I only had the first three books for 3.5. I have a ton of 3.5 setting books. Nary a WotC one. Mostly they were licensed settings.

I've got a ton of 4e books and subscribe to DDI, but I'm still on the lookout for third party settings and licensed settings... waiting for that 4e Freeport crunch book.


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## karlindel (Sep 30, 2009)

I'll echo some others and say that third party player supplements are worthless to me.  The Compendium and Character Builder have plenty of options in that regard, and adding third party material of that nature is more trouble than it's worth.  I am similarly uninterested in monster supplements unless they are heavy on fluff that I could mine for ideas.

I would love to see good third party 4E adventures.  The Wizards adventures are rather lackluster, and it would be nice to see more variety here.  Drag and drop encounters with interesting terrain features and the like would also be useful.  It's easy to put a basic encounter together, but adding cool set pieces to take it to the next level requires more effort.

A supplement of complex and detailed skill challenges that are handled well would also be worth looking into.  I prefer skill challenges that involve interesting skill mixes, lots of secondary skill options that unlock side pieces, and where the skills used significantly impacts the nature of the success.  Multi-layered and interlocked skill challenges are a lot of fun, but can take a lot of time to work on, and a supplement I could just pull them out of would be great.

Additional rules options are lower on my list, but good rules for expanding the 4E system into other genres (such as low fantasy or horror, rather than high fantasy) could be useful.


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## Greg K (Sep 30, 2009)

darjr said:


> I must be the trend breaker. I think I owned more third party than WotC for a good great deal of time. I only had the first three books for 3.5. I have a ton of 3.5 setting books. Nary a WotC one. Mostly they were licensed settings.




For 3e, the only WOTC books I own are: the 3.0 Core, Unearthed Arcana, MM2, Fiend Folio, and Book of Vile Darkness.  The only other 3e WOTC books that I would buy are Heroes of Horror, Fiendish Codex 1, Lords of Madness, Stormwrack and, maybe,  Complete Mage, PHB2, and Sandstorm.  Generally, I was not a fan of the material published by WOTC during 3e.

In contrast, I own a lot of 3pp stuff with the printed material  being, primariily, Green Ronin.  The only other 3pp printed DND material being  Experts 3.5, Book of Templates, Iconic Bestiary, and Noble Steeds (If not for funds, I would own more).


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## ggroy (Sep 30, 2009)

karlindel said:


> I'll echo some others and say that third party player supplements are worthless to me.  The Compendium and Character Builder have plenty of options in that regard, and adding third party material of that nature is more trouble than it's worth.  I am similarly uninterested in monster supplements unless _*they are heavy on fluff that I could mine for ideas*_.




I've been using the Pathfinder supplements in the chronicles and companion series of books, to mine for ideas for my 4E sandbox game.  Some Paizo people have mentioned that they have been writing the Pathfinder chronicles and companion books to be relatively crunch lite, or sometimes even almost system-neutral (such as some of the region books for the Pathfinder Golarion setting).  The Pathfinder re-imagined monster and race books have a bit more crunch than the region books, but are nevertheless very much fluff heavy.


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## pawsplay (Oct 1, 2009)

I blogged about this topic.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/pawsplay/1967-niches-mirror-may-smaller-than-they-appear.html


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## darjr (Oct 1, 2009)

The Anarchists Gamemasters Cookbook is the kind of thing I'm after. Something like it with 4e as a focus would be very cool.

Sinister Adventures


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## Truename (Oct 1, 2009)

karlindel said:


> Drag and drop encounters with interesting terrain features and the like would also be useful.  It's easy to put a basic encounter together, but adding cool set pieces to take it to the next level requires more effort.




WoTC's adventures are lackluster, but Dungeon has included some great set-piece encounters that are pretty darn close to drag-and-drop, thanks to the Delve format. Just add adventure-appropriate monsters, and done.

(Actually, an rated index of Dungeon encounters would be an awesome resource. Too bad I don't have the time for it.)


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## ggroy (Oct 1, 2009)

I'm always on the lookout for new 4E books in print at my local FLGS, where I recently saw a paper book version of "Scarrport:  City of Secrets" published by Reality Deviant Publications and Mongoose.  My first thought was combining it with Freeport would make an interesting game.

(No offense is intended to the authors of Scarrport, if they are lurkers or posters on here).

I looked through the Scarrport book and noticed it had a new class (the elementalist), with half of the book taken up by new paragon paths, epic destinies, races, feats, equipment, and monsters.  The rest of the book describes the town of Scarrport.  I knew right away this book would be almost next to useless for my present 4E players.  The fact that the player specific crunch is not present in the DDI character builder, may very well doom this book to having a lot of resistance from my players who have been totally spoiled by the DDI.  I ended up putting the book back onto the shelf.

I don't like having to say this, but my impression is that any future 4E 3pp setting and/or adventure books where my first gut reaction is knowing that it would be almost next to useless for my players (ie. due to 3PP player specific crunch being absent from the DDI character builder), may very well doom these books to be permanently off my shopping list.  These days I will not buy any rpg books which will not see any use in my games.  The crappy economy doesn't help much either, where I find myself spending less in general.

I don't know what the 4E Freeport companion guide will look like. But if it resembles the Scarrport book where I get a gut reaction that it will be almost next to useless for my players, then it will probably change my mind about buying it.  The same can probably be said about other already announced 4E 3pp settings in the pipeline for future release, such as Amethyst, Nevermore, Age of Legend, Scarred Lands, etc ...

In the bigger picture, the DDI character builder has such a huge hegemony over the 4E 3PP market that the only supplement books I will still presently buy and use in my 4E game, are mainly setting and adventure type books which can be used "out of the box" with the DDI character builder (ie. no new classes, no new races, no new feats, etc ...).

I find it amazing that we're even having such a discussion in the first place, just a bit over a year after 4E D&D was first released, and how fast this has happened.  In contrast back in the early 3E D&D days, it took almost 2 or 3 years for the "d20 3pp bubble" to pop.  This time around for 4E, there wasn't much of a "3pp bubble" to speak of.


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## Hjorimir (Oct 1, 2009)

Radically different settings. They don't even need to feel like D&D, they just need to work within the 4e ruleset. I'm tired of WotC's philosophy of "everything must fit into each of our settings" way of making settings.

Then take said setting and only add the crunch needed to support the fluff (less is more here).

Think mini-settings.


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## Jack99 (Oct 1, 2009)

ggroy said:


> I find it amazing that we're even having such a discussion in the first place, just a bit over a year after 4E D&D was first released, and how fast this has happened.  In contrast back in the early 3E D&D days, it took almost 2 or 3 years for the "d20 3pp bubble" to pop.  This time around for 4E, there wasn't much of a "3pp bubble" to speak of.




I do not find it amazing. GSL combined with an amazing quality in most the WotC products has made the need for 3pp stuff a lot smaller.


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## BryonD (Oct 1, 2009)

ggroy said:


> I find it amazing that we're even having such a discussion in the first place, just a bit over a year after 4E D&D was first released, and how fast this has happened.  In contrast back in the early 3E D&D days, it took almost 2 or 3 years for the "d20 3pp bubble" to pop.  This time around for 4E, there wasn't much of a "3pp bubble" to speak of.




4E appeals to a different gaming style.

Even before the GSL disaster I predicted that a game marketed on simplicity and minimal prep time would run contrary to 3pp appeal.  If a 3pp runs in tune with this approach (makes adventures) they can do ok, but even that is going to be limited.

That doesn't make 4E bad in any way.  Just different.


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## AllisterH (Oct 1, 2009)

Might also be more advertising done by Paizo itself.

If you're a PAthfinder fan, you check paizo's homepage every day and what do you see.

At the top of the page is a blurb for new product paizo is selling and many a time, it is ALSO a 3pp product. 

I honestly was amazed that there were so many 3pp products released for 4e (in the One Bad Egg lthread) since I knew only of Wraith Recon.


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## mudbunny (Oct 1, 2009)

I would like to see towns/cities/countries/interesting areas that I can pick up and plop into my campaign.

Either small, self-contained areas that can be placed down and, with only a little filing of the edges, placed in beside other ones, or large, world-spanning things that can be overlaid over the campaign world.


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## tyrlaan (Oct 1, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I've said it before, and it may be a pipe-dream, but I like non-standard, non-generic settings.
> 
> My favorite purchases under the OGL/d20 STL were settings and supplements for those settings.  While I have no use for generic character crunch, I love character crunch for new settings that fit in with a setting's themes.




I best get cracking on my project then - I'm trying to do exactly this!


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## Angellis_ater (Oct 1, 2009)

The 3PP are, as far as I can see, generally moving over towards Pathfinder, or spreading out with their own systems, own ideas and generally abandoning ship with 4E. Those who focus on producing Adventures and Settings, as noted again and again in these discussions, seem to be the ones with a chance.

Personally, I've moved away from trying to make MONEY off 4E and we turned our 4E projects into a 4E Design House under DSP where we can house "hobby" projects (hobby in the sense of "probably not gonna turn a profit and must thus cost little to produce") since I still like designing.


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## pawsplay (Oct 1, 2009)

If I were going to do a major 4e product, it would be a campaign setting. But I can think of few reasons why I wouldn't be better off doing it in Pathfinder. The only reason to do such a thing would be if you were particularly attuned to the 4e mechanics and did not feel you or someone you could hire would be able to produce something different but equivalent in-house. Since you are so far afield of the 4e mainstream, publishing a unique setting reallys puts you in competition not only with 3.5 and Pathfinder, but D6, Runequest, Fudge, and the rest. If the setting itself is the selling point, every way in which your design is constrained by licensing is going to make it a worse product.


----------



## thecasualoblivion (Oct 1, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> If I were going to do a major 4e product, it would be a campaign setting. But I can think of few reasons why I wouldn't be better off doing it in Pathfinder. The only reason to do such a thing would be if you were particularly attuned to the 4e mechanics and did not feel you or someone you could hire would be able to produce something different but equivalent in-house. Since you are so far afield of the 4e mainstream, publishing a unique setting reallys puts you in competition not only with 3.5 and Pathfinder, but D6, Runequest, Fudge, and the rest. If the setting itself is the selling point, every way in which your design is constrained by licensing is going to make it a worse product.




On the other hand, 4E has potentially a larger available market for a well made setting.


----------



## ggroy (Oct 1, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> Might also be more advertising done by Paizo itself.
> 
> If you're a PAthfinder fan, you check paizo's homepage every day and what do you see.
> 
> At the top of the page is a blurb for new product paizo is selling and many a time, it is ALSO a 3pp product.




Paizo is probably smart enough to realize they can't do everything they want in house all at once.  It's probably better for them to have some 3PPs on their side, in the remaining 3.5E niche market.

Who knows?  For example, maybe that 3pp effort at producing a Pathfinder psionics system with a completely open playtest, could possibly end up in a year or two from now as the "semi-official" Pathfinder psionics system if there is a good reception.



AllisterH said:


> I honestly was amazed that there were so many 3pp products released for 4e (in the One Bad Egg lthread) since I knew only of Wraith Recon.




Me too.  I wasn't aware of many of the pdf and print-on-demand 4E 3pp publishers at first.  I was only really aware of the printed 4E 3pp stuff I've seen at local FLGS, mainly titles from Mongoose, Goodman, and Expeditious Retreat Press.


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## catsclaw227 (Oct 1, 2009)

Count me in with the people with a ton of 3PP 3.x supplements.  I read and/or used them a lot, especailly adventures, campaign settings and "locales".

For 4e, I would love to see a book of common skill challenges scaled by tier, NPCs, books like the 3.x "Foul Locales" series and some mini regions and organizations.  Small scale, like towns, villages, taverns for regions and guilds, merc groups, cults, for organizations.


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## catsclaw227 (Oct 1, 2009)

And eventually, if WOTC opens up Monster builder (Adventure Tools) API, then some companion datasets for said applications.


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## jmucchiello (Oct 1, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> pawsplay said:
> 
> 
> > If I were going to do a major 4e product, it would be a campaign setting. But I can think of few reasons why I wouldn't be better off doing it in Pathfinder. The only reason to do such a thing would be if you were particularly attuned to the 4e mechanics and did not feel you or someone you could hire would be able to produce something different but equivalent in-house. Since you are so far afield of the 4e mainstream, publishing a unique setting reallys puts you in competition not only with 3.5 and Pathfinder, but D6, Runequest, Fudge, and the rest. If the setting itself is the selling point, every way in which your design is constrained by licensing is going to make it a worse product.
> ...






tyrlaan said:


> Hjorimir said:
> 
> 
> > Radically different settings. They don't even need to feel like D&D, they just need to work within the 4e ruleset. I'm tired of WotC's philosophy of "everything must fit into each of our settings" way of making settings.
> ...




I don't get this. Every other post on this board is "No character stuff since it won't be supported by DDI." That should be a huge mallet to the head for anyone thinking about doing any kind of setting that requires crunch. Anyone seriously considering making a new setting should take to heart all the "But my players won't use it if it isn't in DDI." Imagine a setting like 3.0's Nyambe or Arcana Unearthed/Evolved. The whole point of the setting is use the local classes to give your game a new feel. If players aren't going to embrace the new fluff (requiring new crunch) the setting becomes less than it should be.

Similarly, new settings should have rules like "There are no arcane classes." But that goes against the 4e philosophy of allowing everything. I ask anyone who said they want new settings to state whether they thing their players would embrace new non-DDI classes/races in a new setting.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 2, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> I don't get this. Every other post on this board is "No character stuff since it won't be supported by DDI." That should be a huge mallet to the head for anyone thinking about doing any kind of setting that requires crunch. Anyone seriously considering making a new setting should take to heart all the "But my players won't use it if it isn't in DDI." Imagine a setting like 3.0's Nyambe or Arcana Unearthed/Evolved. The whole point of the setting is use the local classes to give your game a new feel. If players aren't going to embrace the new fluff (requiring new crunch) the setting becomes less than it should be.
> 
> Similarly, new settings should have rules like "There are no arcane classes." But that goes against the 4e philosophy of allowing everything. I ask anyone who said they want new settings to state whether they thing their players would embrace new non-DDI classes/races in a new setting.




Its possible to take an existing paradigm and build a unique setting with a minimum of new crunch. Eberron is proof of that.


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## pawsplay (Oct 2, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> On the other hand, 4E has potentially a larger available market for a well made setting.




I don't think that's a very realistic view. There is a large market for a 4e-compatible setting that can be supported by the online tools. The market for a setting that cannot be supported by the tools is much, much smaller. The market for a setting that discards many 4e elements is smaller. The market for a setting that discards many 4e elements and requires crunch support that does not exist in the online tools is so small... it's probably smaller than the Pathfinder market.

The hypothetical buyer:
- Loves 4e crunch and prefers it to other options
- Is willing to move outside the implied 4e setting
- Does not feel new crunch needs to be supported on the computer
- Has heard of your game
- Knows other people who fit the above

I'm going to guess wildly and say you are talking about 1000-1500 people in North America.


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## pawsplay (Oct 2, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> Its possible to take an existing paradigm and build a unique setting with a minimum of new crunch. Eberron is proof of that.




A 3PP Eberron would be crippled. The "minimum of new crunch" you are talking about would include, at the time, a new base class, numerous new feats, the equivalent of new paragon paths, at least three new races, and several new types of magical items. Realistically, I don't think the 4e market for such a thing is much bigger than the Pathfinder market, and depending on competing 4e options, could be a good deal smaller. 

If you want to be a 4e publisher, here's what you do:
- Get together with a half-dozen of your favorite 4e would-be 3PP friends
- Find, hire, or enslave two or three programmers to make an open source, non-infringing, offline character creator tool
- Spend your own resources to create the module needed for your setting to work in aforementioned tool


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## ggroy (Oct 2, 2009)

Let's make a list of what may be viable and what isn't for 4E 3pp products.

no-go (or almost no-go)
-----------------------

- new classes
- new powers
- new races
- new feats
- new paragon paths
- new epic destinies


Maybe?  Maybe not?
--------------------

- new equipment
- new magic items
- new treasure
- new monsters
- alternate rules on the DM side


Could be viable
--------------

- new skill challenges
- new encounter delves (which can be used out of the box, drag and drop)
- new maps, terrains, etc ...
- new traps

If adventures and settings are primarily desirable from 4E 3PP companies, the "straitjacket" of working within the 4E crunch constraints of the DDI character builder pretty much excludes almost everything in the above "no-go" list and maybe even some of the "maybe?" list.

I'm not quite sure what new campaign settings can be produced with such heavy constraints, which does not look like a clone of Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dark Sun, etc ... or for that matter, even a clone of a 3pp setting like Pathfinder's Golarion or any other (almost) system-neutral setting.  These days I'm not particularly interested in another Forgotten Realms, Eberron, or Golarion clone.

If a new campaign setting insists on having its own distinctive player specific crunch, perhaps the writers may very well be better off writing their own original system of mechanics or writing it for Pathfinder (if they insist on shoehorning it into the d20 style ruleset).

So what's left if one is not interested in clones of FR or Eberron?  Better written adventures similar in style to adventures in Dungeon magazine or WotC's H/P/E adventure modules?  That's not a whole lot of options.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 2, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I don't think that's a very realistic view. There is a large market for a 4e-compatible setting that can be supported by the online tools. The market for a setting that cannot be supported by the tools is much, much smaller. The market for a setting that discards many 4e elements is smaller. The market for a setting that discards many 4e elements and requires crunch support that does not exist in the online tools is so small... it's probably smaller than the Pathfinder market.
> 
> The hypothetical buyer:
> - Loves 4e crunch and prefers it to other options
> ...




Why is the ability/freedom to rewrite 4E required for producing a setting?


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## Truename (Oct 2, 2009)

ggroy said:


> So what's left if one is not interested in clones of FR or Eberron?  Better written adventures similar in style to adventures in Dungeon magazine or WotC's H/P/E adventure modules?  That's not a whole lot of options.




Not sure where you're getting "similar in style" from. The requests I'm seeing (including from me) are for adventures that are NOT similar in style to WoTC's. I've had quite enough beat-em-up dungeon-crawls, thank you very much.


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## ggroy (Oct 2, 2009)

Truename said:


> Not sure where you're getting "similar in style" from. The requests I'm seeing (including from me) are for adventures that are NOT similar in style to WoTC's. I've had quite enough beat-em-up dungeon-crawls, thank you very much.




The "similar in style" quote was meant to be sarcastic.   

I'm thinking of what type of different adventures can be made with the 4E D&D ruleset, which does not resemble generic dungeon crawls and which do not require additional new rules to be added (whether player specific or DM specific).


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## jmucchiello (Oct 2, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> If you want to be a 4e publisher, here's what you do:
> - Get together with a half-dozen of your favorite 4e would-be 3PP friends
> - Find, hire, or enslave two or three programmers to make an open source, non-infringing, offline character creator tool
> - Spend your own resources to create the module needed for your setting to work in aforementioned tool




A non-WotC sponsored character creation tool would be half-baked at best. The 4e-SRD does not have the rule text in it like 3e does. So your tool might allow the user to add powers to a character sheet. But the user would have to read the power descriptions from the books to know what they do.

Besides, the GSL forbids this vociferously. Even if it didn't WotC can unilaterally and without warning revoke your GSL license. If they found out you hired the programmers, I'd expect your access to the GSL to disappear. If lots of 3PPs supported such a program, supporting it would become strictly forbidden by the GSL. I'd like to think I'm way off base here. But WotC has put too many eggs in the DDI basket for me to be less negative about what they might do in this scenario.


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## Obryn (Oct 2, 2009)

As I said way back in my own posts, I am great with new character crunch if it's tied into a new and unique setting.  While the Character Builder is an incredible tool, I'd be willing to forego it with the right mix of fluff and crunch in a brilliant setting.

What I don't want is new, _generic_, player-specific crunch.  On the other hand, I'd be all over something like Arcana Evolved, character builder or no character builder.

-O


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## ggroy (Oct 2, 2009)

Obryn said:


> On the other hand, I'd be all over something like Arcana Evolved, character builder or no character builder.




Do you believe something like a 4E Arcana Evolved will ever see the light of day?  Or is it more likely that a Pathfinder Arcana Evolved will be produced than a 4E version?  (Or for that matter, Arcana Evolved being redesigned from the ground up with its own original ruleset reflecting the settings' own idiosyncrasies).


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## pawsplay (Oct 2, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> Why is the ability/freedom to rewrite 4E required for producing a setting?




It's not. I was laying out the logistics for writing a setting that wasn't a Greyhawk/Eberron pastiche. Provided your new setting requires no new races, classes, or paragon paths; does not require major alterations to equipment, magical items, wealth, or alignment; and does not require any new subsystems, you are golden. Now all you have to do is explain what benefits, exactly, the buyer can expect to derive from your game setting.


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## pawsplay (Oct 2, 2009)

Obryn said:


> What I don't want is new, _generic_, player-specific crunch.  On the other hand, I'd be all over something like Arcana Evolved, character builder or no character builder.




But it would be difficult to develop, and you are one of a probably small demographic interested in the final product. Cost/benefit does not look very good for a 4e Arcane Evolved.


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## Obryn (Oct 2, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> But it would be difficult to develop, and you are one of a probably small demographic interested in the final product. Cost/benefit does not look very good for a 4e Arcane Evolved.



In fairness, I don't think we have any clear indication what the demographic for a product like this would be, because we _haven't seen it yet_.  Your cost/benefit equation is completely imaginary, since there are zero actual numbers to base it on.  Honestly, the only third-party setting I can name for 4e is Wraith Recon - and that was a pretty clear rush job.  (_And_ it was Mongoose.)

When/If Earthdawn 4e comes out, that'll be a much better measuring stick.

Until we see someone produce a high-quality and unique setting, and then actually _market it_, I don't think we'll have any idea how many potential purchasers are out there.  Much like with Cirno's pronouncements about the overlap of 4e fans and Dark Sun fans, you have no evidence that the number of potential purchasers is small.

Also, keep in mind - I'm simply saying what a product would have to be like in order for me to purchase it.  It very well might be a flop - again, I don't have any evidence, either.  Sadly, we're past the days where companies could rush out any old thing, sell it for a tidy profit, and then work towards better stuff.  (And even the companies who produced some good stuff were mostly working on things that I and others didn't really want or need, and really didn't market or publicize it very well at all.)  The entry bar is higher, and so is the risk.

-O


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## BryonD (Oct 2, 2009)

Obryn said:


> In fairness, I don't think we have any clear indication what the demographic for a product like this would be, because we _haven't seen it yet_.  Your cost/benefit equation is completely imaginary, since there are zero actual numbers to base it on.



You are correct.

But I would advise against making any wagers in favor of success.


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## pawsplay (Oct 2, 2009)

Obryn said:


> In fairness, I don't think we have any clear indication what the demographic for a product like this would be, because we _haven't seen it yet_.  Your cost/benefit equation is completely imaginary, since there are zero actual numbers to base it on.




Speculative, not imaginary.


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## mudbunny (Oct 2, 2009)

In an interesting coincidence, the ever amazing Alexis of Tao of D&D posted the following:

The Tao of D&D: Selling Out


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## Obryn (Oct 2, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Speculative, not imaginary.



Speculation without a firm foundation from which to speculate is, indeed, imaginary.

You might think comparing generic character crunch to a full-fledged setting is comparing Granny Smith to Golden Delicious, but I think it's comparing Granny Smith to Valencia.



			
				ByronD said:
			
		

> But I would advise against making any wagers in favor of success.



[dude]Well, that's just like, your opinion, man.[/dude]

I, on the other hand, would not.  But - I can't stress this enough - it needs to be both made well _and_ marketed well, because the days when neither were necessary are past us now.  We're looking at a WotC which is both putting out quality books with wide 4e player-base appeal (as opposed to a narrower setting-based appeal) on a monthly basis; and which is actually continually supporting them.  A 3pp would need to make something of similar quality _and_ give people like me a reason to buy.

The marketing is especially important, IMO.  If most 4e players on ENWorld - one of the hubs of the 3pp world - have no idea your product exists, you probably need to do things a bit differently.

-O


----------



## pawsplay (Oct 3, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Speculation without a firm foundation from which to speculate is, indeed, imaginary.




We've heard several reports that 4e third party products are underselling Pathfinder products for some publishers. We also know 4e, overall, seems to be fairly healthy, if not a complete runaway hit. This should give you pause. Ordinarily, we would expect that the game with more sales would have more customers buying 3PP products. 

Given that most PDF sales of anything usually run 300 copies or less, given that Pathfinder products are equalling or outperforming 4e third party stuff, given that under the best circumstances, few original settings "make it"... I think I can say I have the firm basis to say that someone who thinks there is a 4e market waiting to be tapped for original settings is fooling themselves. Now, it might be possible to create the market with the right product, but such breakthroughs are difficult and unpredictable.

If all it takes is a great product, where is Midnight? When did the new Krynn ever look like it was going to take off?


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## BryonD (Oct 3, 2009)

Obryn said:


> But - I can't stress this enough - it needs to be both made well _and_ marketed well, because the days when neither were necessary are past us now.  We're looking at a WotC which is both putting out quality books with wide 4e player-base appeal (as opposed to a narrower setting-based appeal) on a monthly basis; and which is actually continually supporting them.  A 3pp would need to make something of similar quality _and_ give people like me a reason to buy.
> 
> The marketing is especially important, IMO.  If most 4e players on ENWorld - one of the hubs of the 3pp world - have no idea your product exists, you probably need to do things a bit differently.
> 
> -O



Of course.
And I'd wager that a company could overcome ALL of that and still probably flop trying to sell 3PP line for 4E.  

Again, Keep It Simple and crank out ready to run adventures, as Goodman as shown, can work if the quality is there.  But the best quality and best advertised My Little Ponies in the world won't sell well at a lumberjack convention.


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## ggroy (Oct 3, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Of course.
> And I'd wager that a company could overcome ALL of that and still probably flop trying to sell 3PP line for 4E.




For something like an Arcana Unearthed, Arcana Evolved, etc ..., the most I can see it going 4E at this point would be if it was done as a "patronage" type of project.


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## ggroy (Oct 3, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> If all it takes is a great product, where is Midnight? When did the new Krynn ever look like it was going to take off?




Even a setting with a "big name" backing it, can fall flat and not take off at all.

For example, the Castlemourn setting by Ed Greenwood (of the Forgotten Realms fame) hasn't published anything much beyond the campaign setting book and a player's guide several years ago.  (There was allegedly a "free rpg day" book which consisted of Castlemourn ported to the Cortex system, which I haven't seen yet).

Going back further in time, there was Gary Gygax's Cyborg Commando which didn't exactly take off either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyborg_Commando


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## Sir Robilar (Oct 3, 2009)

I'd really like to have a sandbox style adventure/small setting like "Vault of Larin Karr" for 4E.


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## catsclaw227 (Oct 3, 2009)

Sir Robilar said:


> I'd really like to have a sandbox style adventure/small setting like "Vault of Larin Karr" for 4E.



Oooo.  That would be nice.  

But, I imagine for the masses, it would have to come with some electronic doodads to take it over the top.  Like a Monster Builder export of the custom monsters or digital maps at 1" scale.


----------



## Obryn (Oct 4, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> We've heard several reports that 4e third party products are underselling Pathfinder products for some publishers.



Yep, and a big part of that is that Pathfinder basically _is_ a third-party product.  I mean, what percentage of Pathfinder players were aware of Paizo beforehand and buy things from RPGNow?  I'd wager it's a good number.



> We also know 4e, overall, seems to be fairly healthy, if not a complete runaway hit.



driveby troll fail
Accusations of trolling are not welcome.  If you think a post is problematic then report it.  Otherwise address it on its own merits.  If you have questions about this then contact a moderator. - Rel


> This should give you pause. Ordinarily, we would expect that the game with more sales would have more customers buying 3PP products
> ....
> If all it takes is a great product, where is Midnight? When did the new Krynn ever look like it was going to take off?



Er, I have _no idea_ where the new great setting is.  That's kind of my point - IMO, it's one of the few 3pp products that would sell.  Nobody can buy it if nobody is selling it.  The invisible hand doesn't write gaming books.



			
				ByronD said:
			
		

> Of course.
> And I'd wager that a company could overcome ALL of that and still probably flop trying to sell 3PP line for 4E.



Maybe and maybe not.

My contention is that a main reason 3pp products aren't selling for 4e is because they're the wrong products, and they're either not marketed at all, or only marketed to forum-going gamers.  4e players aware of the 3pp world don't want third-party classes and feats.

It very well may be that there's no right product, in which case I'll be proven wrong.  But until we actually see a 4e 3pp setting that's of high quality, different from what WotC's providing, marketed to the right people, and compelling enough to use, I'll stand my ground.

-O


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## ggroy (Oct 4, 2009)

Obryn said:


> It very well may be that there's no right product, in which case I'll be proven wrong.




If this indeed turns out to be the case, I wonder if this would be considered "mission accomplished" by WotC in regard to the 4E GSL as planned.

I guess it wouldn't be too surprising if their intentions all along was to have the 3PPs mainly producing adventure modules, while they have almost a complete monopoly on the crunch (especially player specific crunch).  This sounds a bit like the early TSR days, with 3PPs like Judges Guild.


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## Obryn (Oct 4, 2009)

ggroy said:


> I guess it wouldn't be too surprising if their intentions all along was to have the 3PPs mainly producing adventure modules, while they have almost a complete monopoly on the crunch (especially player specific crunch).



I had no use for generic player-oriented 3pp crunch under 3e, either.  This is par for the course for me.   The only player-oriented crunch I used was for specific (and interesting) settings.

One of the keys to making it work right, IMO, would be providing copyable/printable power cards for any new class's complete 30 levels.  It would take a few extra pages, but IMO it would go a long way to persuade players to cut the Character Builder apron strings.

-O


----------



## pawsplay (Oct 4, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Er, I have _no idea_ where the new great setting is.  That's kind of my point - IMO, it's one of the few 3pp products that would sell.  Nobody can buy it if nobody is selling it.  The invisible hand doesn't write gaming books.




Your argument is that some as-yet-unwritten 3PP setting for 4e can succeed where some of the best-written 3PP settings written by respected developers have generally not. On what exactly are you basing this supposition?



> ...4e players aware of the 3pp world don't want third-party classes and feats.




And how do you write a setting book worth having without classes and feats?


----------



## ggroy (Oct 4, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> And how do you write a setting book worth having without classes and feats?




A crappy 5th rate clone of Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Golarion, Greyhawk, Mystara, etc ...?


----------



## pawsplay (Oct 4, 2009)

ggroy said:


> A crappy 5th rate clone of Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Golarion, Greyhawk, Mystara, etc ...?




You melt me when you say it that way.


----------



## Obryn (Oct 4, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Your argument is that some as-yet-unwritten 3PP setting for 4e can succeed where some of the best-written 3PP settings written by respected developers have generally not. On what exactly are you basing this supposition?



No, I am saying that it is what *I* would buy and have bought in the past, and that there is zero evidence it would be a massive failure.  I believe it would succeed because it would be offering 4e players something that WotC itself is not offering at this time.  (As opposed to setting-generic crunch, which has been the main non-adventure portion of 3pp releases for 4e, and which WotC basically owns right now.)



> And how do you write a setting book worth having without classes and feats?



I perhaps should have repeated "generic" in that sentence, so I'll just point you to a few other posts in this thread so you have some context.



			
				me said:
			
		

> As I said way back in my own posts, I am great with new character crunch if it's tied into a new and unique setting. While the Character Builder is an incredible tool, I'd be willing to forego it with the right mix of fluff and crunch in a brilliant setting.






			
				me said:
			
		

> The only player-oriented crunch I used was for specific (and interesting) settings.
> 
> One of the keys to making it work right, IMO, would be providing copyable/printable power cards for any new class's complete 30 levels. It would take a few extra pages, but IMO it would go a long way to persuade players to cut the Character Builder apron strings.




-O


----------



## ggroy (Oct 4, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> You melt me when you say it that way.




Joking aside.  

Offhand, I can't think of many viable settings if non-DDI 3PP crunch is strictly forbidden.


----------



## ggroy (Oct 4, 2009)

Obryn said:


> No, I am saying that it is what *I* would buy and have bought in the past, and that there is zero evidence it would be a massive failure.  I believe it would succeed because it would be offering 4e players something that WotC itself is not offering at this time.




If a 4E Arcana Evolved was offered by Malhavoc (or somebody else approved by Monte Cook) as a patronage project where one pays upfront, would you personally sign up?


----------



## Obryn (Oct 4, 2009)

ggroy said:


> If a 4E Arcana Evolved was offered by Malhavoc (or somebody else approved by Monte Cook) as a patronage project where one pays upfront, would you personally sign up?



It would depend on the price.  $50?  Easily, 100%.  $75?  Probably.  $100?  Possibly, but unlikely.

-O


----------



## ggroy (Oct 4, 2009)

Obryn said:


> It would depend on the price.  $50?  Easily, 100%.  $75?  Probably.  $100?  Possibly, but unlikely.




Only way I would pay $100 or more into a 4E Arcana Evolved patronage project, would be if the final product is something like a 1000 page book or two 500 page books.  Essentially a 4E conversion and compilation of most of the already published Arcana Evolved splatbooks, with better organization and editing.


----------



## catsclaw227 (Oct 4, 2009)

ggroy said:


> Only way I would pay $100 or more into a 4E Arcana Evolved patronage project, would be if the final product is something like a 1000 page book or two 500 page books.  Essentially a 4E conversion and compilation of most of the already published Arcana Evolved splatbooks, with better organization and editing.



I love Arcana Evolved.  I really do, but even this wouldn't be much use to me and my group if we can't use the CB to make the PCs, and I didn't have use of the DDI tools to help plan my encounter.

I am really hoping that WoTC opens up their API to allow for the use of 3PP datasets.


----------



## AJCarrington (Oct 4, 2009)

With the release of the new Heroforge software over the weekend, there now is a potential way to blend 3PP data/crunch with core material from the DDI (I think).  Of course it means another subscription (selling model for Heroforge), but for me, it's something I'm considering.  A huge selling point (again, for me) would be if there was some way to get official 3PP support for it, but I don't know if licensing/reality really supports this.

AJC


----------



## ggroy (Oct 4, 2009)

AJCarrington said:


> With the release of the new Heroforge software over the weekend, there now is a potential way to blend 3PP data/crunch with core material from the DDI (I think).  Of course it means another subscription (selling model for Heroforge), but for me, it's something I'm considering.  A huge selling point (again, for me) would be if there was some way to get official 3PP support for it, but I don't know if licensing/reality really supports this.




Good question.  If they're able to pull this off without WotC's attorneys shutting them down, this could possibly break the hegemony of the DDI character builder.


----------



## drothgery (Oct 4, 2009)

AJCarrington said:


> With the release of the new Heroforge software over the weekend, there now is a potential way to blend 3PP data/crunch with core material from the DDI (I think). Of course it means another subscription (selling model for Heroforge), but for me, it's something I'm considering. A huge selling point (again, for me) would be if there was some way to get official 3PP support for it, but I don't know if licensing/reality really supports this.
> 
> AJC




Looked over at the web site out of curiousity. Why is it so hard to make a character builder that follows the Windows software design guidelines that have been in place for nearly a decade? A frigging character builder should never need to run as admin. D&Di needing to for updates is bad enough, but for regular operation? Crazy.


----------



## catsclaw227 (Oct 4, 2009)

drothgery said:


> Looked over at the web site out of curiousity. Why is it so hard to make a character builder that follows the Windows software design guidelines that have been in place for nearly a decade? A frigging character builder should never need to run as admin. D&Di needing to for updates is bad enough, but for regular operation? Crazy.



I wonder if it is because the software is trying to write temp files to a protected area (like the worst culprit c:\ )?  And if so, why would it be writing temp files anyway? There are ways around this....  Just like there are folders set up for this purpose already anyway.


----------



## darjr (Oct 4, 2009)

From all that I've read and know the BlackMoor 4e setting has been a great success. Player crunch and all.

In large part, for me, because it'll have a living campaign component. This weekend was a big local con and I had inquiries about running it on a regular basis from surprising corners of local fandom.

I have players chomping at the bit and already have built characters sans the builder, and these are all folks who have and like the DDI. January can not come fast enough.

I think this is a great model, for me anyway, I have a bit more room for more of this kind of thing. For instance I'd LOVE to run Metamorphosis Alpha 4e.


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## Glyfair (Oct 4, 2009)

catsclaw227 said:


> I am really hoping that WoTC opens up their API to allow for the use of 3PP datasets.



While this is on my wish list as well, I have to admit, it's probably something that would only come with a price.

A character builder that allowed the flexibility to add classes that will have the variety third parties will need, will probably cause instability issues.  The general stability of the Character Builder is probably the strongest advantage this character creation software has over any of the previous variations in all systems.


----------



## Upper_Krust (Oct 4, 2009)

Hey Sir Robilar! 



			
				Sir Robilar said:
			
		

> I'd really like to have a sandbox style adventure/small setting like "Vault of Larin Karr" for 4E.




A friend of mine is DMing this for 4E at the moment (S'mon on these forums). I got to play a bit when I visited London on my holidays recently. He also commented that he much prefered the flexibility of the sandbox style approach.

I have my own 3PP company (Eternity Publishing) and I have three 4th Edition products in various stages of development. One of which is an adventure pencilled in as *"Against the Reptile God"* (not entirely sure I'll be able to get away with that title). 

I had the basic adventure designed in WotC adventure path format; roughly linear with some bits of branching. However, I have been trying to think of it in more of a sandbox style, but it just seems to me that the two flaws of that style are the lower level of detail and the lack of narrative.

I'm sort of torn between the two styles, so the compromise I will probably reach is something akin to nine mini-adventures of between approx. 3-5 encounters each. With notes on how each could be linked to form one big adventure, or even how the mini-adventures could themselves be expanded.

Does that format sound appealing?


----------



## ggroy (Oct 5, 2009)

Upper_Krust said:


> I'm sort of torn between the two styles, so the compromise I will probably reach is something akin to nine mini-adventures of between approx. 3-5 encounters each. With notes on how each could be linked to form one big adventure, or even how the mini-adventures could themselves be expanded.
> 
> Does that format sound appealing?




I could get into something like this.

Are you planning these modules as print or pdf/print-on-demand?


----------



## kaomera (Oct 5, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> Your argument is that some as-yet-unwritten 3PP setting for 4e can succeed where some of the best-written 3PP settings written by respected developers have generally not. On what exactly are you basing this supposition?



As an aside, what 3PP settings are you referencing? I think I've been missing out on a lot of 3PP stuff with 4e because the FLGS just doesn't carry it. With 3e you had Necromancer putting good quality books out right off the bat, with 4e I've seen Wraith Recon and the Blackdirge monster book, an that's it. Neither of those products really grabbed me, and Blackdirge at least seems to be languishing in quite some numbers at several local stores (I saw 5 copies at B&N just today).

Actually, I do remember that Goodman was supposed to be doing a book of mini-settings, IIRC, but I haven't seen it in print. I might have to hunt that down.



> And how do you write a setting book worth having without classes and feats?



There are plenty of classes and feats in the core books. Tell me how they fit into the campaign world, which have special places within it - socially or in terms of being "secrets" held by a specific group or faction, which are rare or just don't exist. The core books contain a bare minimum of fluff, expand on or replace that.

While I'm sure I'm in the minority (at least) in that I don't really want any more crunch at this point. But with WotC putting out more each month I don't see why you need still more in a campaign setting in order to make it valuable.


----------



## Primitive Screwhead (Oct 5, 2009)

What would I like to see from a 3PP?

World detail.. conversions of books like Penumbra's Demagogues {social combat}, Wildscape {rules for adventuring in different terrain}, Golem-Craft {rules for building your own homuculi and Golems, town demographics and building rules {to include guilds and black market}, Poisen-crafters guide, expanded herbology/healing, naval adventuring, Guilds...

And if it can ever be figured out how to do it, Elements of Magic 4E 

Ya know, stuff WoTC wont touch in detail.


----------



## On Puget Sound (Oct 5, 2009)

I want settings and environments that are not well (or at all) supported by WotC.  Aquatics, both seafaring and underwater.  3D combat aids for flying or underwater battles.  Terrain-specific or genre-specific ecologies and cultures, and adventures set in them, with just enough crunch to make the flavor stand out.  Some specific settings:
An urban political morass - Medici Florence meets Byzantium as done by White Wolf

A military campaign book - constructing a party as a military unit, with rules for sieges, artillery, skill challenge examples for leadership and tactics, etc.

Rules and ideas for a total wilderness or stone age campaign, where players must make or find everything.  Not just no magic shops, but no civilization at all to fall back on.

Fantasy versions of interesting mythical or historical settings.  Pharaonic Egypt, Three Kingdoms China, Aztec and Mayan empires.

An occasional feat or power in these is OK, even though it won't fit in Character Builder, but not a whole build or paragon path.


----------



## pawsplay (Oct 5, 2009)

kaomera said:


> As an aside, what 3PP settings are you referencing? I think I've been missing out on a lot of 3PP stuff with 4e because the FLGS just doesn't carry it.




A list of 3pp settings with fairly substantial fan bases, which eventually faltered, which is a redundant distinction, since they virtually all did:

Midnight
Dragonlance
Scarred Lands
Blackmoor
Dragonstar
Iron Kingdoms
Kingdoms of Kalamar
Everquest
World of Warcraft


----------



## Mouseferatu (Oct 5, 2009)

What definition are you using for "faltered"? Sure, they all ended _eventually_, but many of them had runs long enough that they can only be called "successful." Blackmoor 3E was being published right up until 4E came out. Scarred Lands had more releases than many of TSR's own 2E campaign settings. Kalamar and Dragonlance aren't far behind.

I'm wondering what it takes for you to consider a campaign setting a "success."


----------



## mevers (Oct 5, 2009)

Upper_Krust said:


> I'm sort of torn between the two styles, so the compromise I will probably reach is something akin to nine mini-adventures of between approx. 3-5 encounters each. With notes on how each could be linked to form one big adventure, or even how the mini-adventures could themselves be expanded.
> 
> Does that format sound appealing?




This sounds EXACTLY like what I am looking for. I have been dying for someone to produce 3 - 5 encounter adventures. Even better, in this model they come with a plot already linking them.

Do it well, and I will even be able to space the encounters out over 3 - 4 levels (I don't mind leveling them that far myself), effectively running a module during the course of 2 - 3 other adventures.

you could even release each mine adventure on it's own, and offer a bundle version if someone wants to buy all 9.

But please, make each of the encounters interesting, with good use of terrain and great encounter spaces.


----------



## ggroy (Oct 5, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> Scarred Lands had more releases than many of TSR's own 2E campaign settings. Kalamar and Dragonlance aren't far behind.




I've always wondered whether Scarred Lands or Kalamar would have been as prolific as they were, if there was no OGL and the d20 system license for 3E did not exist or was considerably more restrictive (ie. even more restrictive than the first version of the 4E GSL license, for example).


----------



## jaerdaph (Oct 5, 2009)

I am now totally convinced that the only viable 3PP for 4e would be an Evony Campaign Setting.

SAVE YOUR LOVER!!!! PLAY NOW MY LORD!!!!


----------



## Obryn (Oct 5, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> I'm wondering what it takes for you to consider a campaign setting a "success."



Yeah, looking through the list, I'm thinking, "Wow, I'd consider these very successful settings, actually."  I mean, I've heard of, seen products for, and purchased products for a sizable chunk of all of those - and each was at least successful and profitable enough to support follow-up supplements.

I guess I'm puzzled, because I don't think a setting needs to be supported forever to be a success.

-O


----------



## ggroy (Oct 5, 2009)

Obryn said:


> What I don't want is new, _generic_, player-specific crunch.  On the other hand, I'd be all over something like Arcana Evolved, character builder or no character builder.




How much work do you believe it will take to convert Arcana Evolved to 4E?

I don't have any of the Arcana Evolved books.  At the moment I can't seem to find my copy of the Arcana Unearthed Player's Handbook, but I did find my copy of "The Diamond Throne".  Looking through the prestige classes, for example I'm not quite sure how some of the somnamancer's abilities will translate easily to the power structure of 4E classes.


----------



## Obryn (Oct 5, 2009)

ggroy said:


> How much work do you believe it will take to convert Arcana Evolved to 4E?



More than I'd be willing to put into it.   And it's moot anyway, because I doubt Monte would allow it to be done.



> I don't have any of the Arcana Evolved books.  At the moment I can't seem to find my copy of the Arcana Unearthed Player's Handbook, but I did find my copy of "The Diamond Throne".  Looking through the prestige classes, for example I'm not quite sure how some of the somnamancer's abilities will translate easily to the power structure of 4E classes.



I think any attempt at a 1:1 translation for any setting from 3e to 4e is doomed to failure.  The key is keeping the same flavor, while phasing out old elements and phasing in new ones.

-O


----------



## ggroy (Oct 5, 2009)

Obryn said:


> I guess I'm puzzled, because I don't think a setting needs to be supported forever to be a success.




Case in point:  Greyhawk.


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## ggroy (Oct 5, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> A list of 3pp settings with fairly substantial fan bases, which eventually faltered, which is a redundant distinction, since they virtually all did:
> 
> ...
> 
> ...




As an official tabletop rpg 3pp setting, perhaps I could agree about these two settings faltering.  But as a setting for MMORPG video games, I would greatly disagree.


----------



## GVDammerung (Oct 5, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> I'll echo the "adventures and campaign settings" call, not only as a consumer, but as a designer. Specifically, adventures and settings of a sort that Wizards isn't currently producing. Whether that means non-traditional fantasy, more of a "mature" focus, different cultures, different assumptions, whatever. These should have _some_ new mechanics, but they should be heavily focused on the themes/details of the adventure or campaign setting.




I will agree with this entirely but from, maybe, a different angle.  I don't play 4e.  I am, however, willing to buy 4e products that I can adapt to my game of choice, just as I've purchased non-D&D material for every edition that I thought was cool and that I thought I could adapt to my D&D game.  Practically, this means somewhat less crunch and somewhat more setting development.  Not sure that "adapters to other editions" is a viable market by itself, but maybe tossing adapters a bone might be part of some other overarching approach.


----------



## pawsplay (Oct 5, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> What definition are you using for "faltered"? Sure, they all ended _eventually_, but many of them had runs long enough that they can only be called "successful." Blackmoor 3E was being published right up until 4E came out. Scarred Lands had more releases than many of TSR's own 2E campaign settings. Kalamar and Dragonlance aren't far behind.
> 
> I'm wondering what it takes for you to consider a campaign setting a "success."




I consider them all successes, and hence a warning.


----------



## Upper_Krust (Oct 5, 2009)

Hey there ggroy! 



			
				ggroy said:
			
		

> I could get into something like this.
> 
> Are you planning these modules as print or pdf/print-on-demand?




There will be pdf and print versions. Eternity Publishing operates under the Mongoose' Flaming Cobra imprint 'umbrella'. So I publish the pdfs myself and they publish the print versions.

I may break the module down into three smaller chunks, each with three min-adventures just to make it available a bit sooner.


----------



## Upper_Krust (Oct 5, 2009)

Howdy mevers! 



			
				mevers said:
			
		

> This sounds EXACTLY like what I am looking for. I have been dying for someone to produce 3 - 5 encounter adventures.




Well I can't take all the credit for this. My inspiration basically came from Open Grave (in my opinion the best 4E book released so far) which has these tiny 2-3 encounter adventures.



> Even better, in this model they come with a plot already linking them.




Okay, I can take the credit for this. 



> Do it well, and I will even be able to space the encounters out over 3 - 4 levels (I don't mind leveling them that far myself), effectively running a module during the course of 2 - 3 other adventures.




I was toying about with the format last night and I think having a spread of different Encounter Levels (roughly spanning 3-4 levels as you suggest) within each mini-adventure is probably the way to go.



> you could even release each mine adventure on it's own, and offer a bundle version if someone wants to buy all 9.




Thats a possibility. I was thinking perhaps releasing them in groups of three, but your idea might be even more expeditious.



> But please, make each of the encounters interesting, with good use of terrain and great encounter spaces.




Don't worry, it'll be good. 

My problem has never been the end product, its always been the time taken getting to the end product.


----------



## Baron Opal (Oct 5, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> A list of 3pp settings with fairly substantial fan bases, which eventually faltered, which is a redundant distinction, since they virtually all did:
> 
> Midnight
> Scarred Lands
> ...



If I produced a 4e 3pp setting that had the longevity as one of the above, I can't see how you could possible consider it anything other than a success.

_However_, I think it would be difficult to produce the first three lines since they had minor to significant levels of PC class changes. Midnight in particular. Given some of the setting assumptions with Scarred Lands, I think that they could give it a respectable go. Most of their changes would be at the Paragon Path level and some feats. I'm only vaguely familiar with Kalamar, but I seem to remember that they had fairly little class changes.

The real question is how many 4e gamers utilize the DDI? Is that even a knowable or deduceable value?

Monster books, particularly themed monster books, would be a useful resource. Making custom monsters with the Monster Builder is nifty, but if you have a themed package that lets you photocopy two particular pages for an evening's fun, that would work.


----------



## pawsplay (Oct 5, 2009)

> _However_, I think it would be difficult to produce the first three lines since they had minor to significant levels of PC class changes. Midnight in particular. Given some of the setting assumptions with Scarred Lands, I think that they could give it a respectable go. Most of their changes would be at the Paragon Path level and some feats. I'm only vaguely familiar with Kalamar, but I seem to remember that they had fairly little class changes.




Kalamar had some timing going for it. It was a non-licensed 3PP setting before 3e came out, and then was able to come in on the ground floor, with a sweetheart D&D license, at the time of the D&D 3e launch. It was also published by the publisher of a very successful comic book and had the "Hackmaster" crowd lining up behind it even before there was a Hackmaster game. It had a nice little run, then, as far as I can tell, receded in popularity once there were other substantial offerings. Because, in the end, Kalamar amounted to a Greyhawk homage with some variants on human and humanoid cultures. But it came in a nice box, or later, an attractive hardback.

If you could get a Kalamar out in the next six months, you might have a shot.


----------



## ggroy (Oct 5, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> If you could get a Kalamar out in the next six months, you might have a shot.




There already is a 4E version of Kalamar done by Kenzer, but it is only available as a pdf.  

Kenzer & Company

Though it seems to have been a snoozer so far, in terms of promotion and advertising.


----------



## Obryn (Oct 5, 2009)

Yep, and the few mechanics I saw were ... poor.

-O


----------



## pawsplay (Oct 6, 2009)

ggroy said:


> There already is a 4E version of Kalamar done by Kenzer, but it is only available as a pdf.
> 
> Kenzer & Company
> 
> Though it seems to have been a snoozer so far, in terms of promotion and advertising.




So even Kalamar isn't a Kalamar. Hmm.


----------



## Obryn (Oct 6, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> So even Kalamar isn't a Kalamar. Hmm.



Yeah, it's shocking, but 4e players did not flock to a barely-advertised PDF-only overpriced re-release of old material with shaky mechanics.

-O


----------



## pawsplay (Oct 6, 2009)

So it would seem that Kalamar maybe does not fit the criteria laid out above for a good 3pp generic setting.


----------



## Obryn (Oct 6, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> So it would seem that Kalamar maybe does not fit the criteria laid out above for a good 3pp generic setting.



The 3e version was great when it was released, and its popularity and success were aided by actual physical products with the D&D logo on the cover.

The 4e release wasn't a good 3pp setting, for the reasons I laid out above.  It's basically the opposite of what I'd consider a good new release.

This isn't 2000/2001 anymore.  Experienced gamers are more jaded towards third-party releases than they used to be, and inexperienced gamers might not even know there's a PDF market out there.

-O


----------



## ggroy (Oct 6, 2009)

Obryn said:


> This isn't 2000/2001 anymore.  Experienced gamers are more jaded towards third-party releases than they used to be, and inexperienced gamers might not even know there's a PDF market out there.




I wasn't even aware of much of the 3pp market, until towards the end of the 3.5E era.  I completely missed the heady early days of 3E.  (I was still on my very long hiatus away from gaming at the time).

Back in the day, the only 3pp I was aware of was Judges Guild.  Their modules looked kind of amateurish compared to TSR's offerings back then.


----------



## Jack99 (Oct 6, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Yep, and the few mechanics I saw were ... poor.
> 
> -O




Poor doesn't cover it. My dog could have written more solid stuff..


----------



## Joshua Randall (Oct 6, 2009)

Fascinating discussion here, but I think a lot of people are taking for granted that the mere existence of the DDI, specifically the Character Builder (CB), somehow locks all third-party publishers out of the "crunch creation for players" game.

I don't think that is true, at all. The CB is a fantastic tool; but it just that, a tool. As Obryn has said several times, if you make a good enough setting, with good enough player-crunch tied to compelling fluff, then you can surely convince the players to put up with the minor inconvenience of not being able to use the CB with your product. (At least, not out of the box; of course you can add custom elements yourself.)

As an aside, my anecdotal evidence* seems to indicate that the use of the CB is far from 100% among the 4e players I know. Some players don't want to pay for the DDI; some players don't like the DDI or CB for whatever reason; some players just prefer an alternate "output" -- so while they might use the CB, they don't print out the power cards or character sheets; they write things by hand. And if you're going to write things by hand, then using third-party stuff is no big deal.

* Yes, I'm well aware of the dangers of anecdotal evidence, and I frequently rail against it, but it's all I've got. Heh.

One thing I do agree with, that has been said by various people in this thread, is that these days you cannot simply churn out some barely competent third-party product and expect it to sell. First, you have to compete with the seemingly newly invigorated Wizards of the Coast, which has the might of being official, the economies of scale, and top-notch production values. 

Second, you have to compete with the other third-party companies that are veterans of publishing for D&D (since the 3e days), and many of which have production values on par with WotC's.

So if you want to launch a product these days, and you expect it to be a "big success" (whatever that means), you'd better bring your A game. And I for one am eager to see people do this, because more competition, more new products, more new ideas, makes the game better and more entertaining for everyone.


----------



## pawsplay (Oct 6, 2009)

Joshua Randall said:


> As Obryn has said several times, if you make a good enough setting, with good enough player-crunch tied to compelling fluff, then you can surely convince the players to put up with the minor inconvenience of not being able to use the CB with your product. (At least, not out of the box; of course you can add custom elements yourself.)




Actually, their friend can convince them of that. You have to convince their friend to buy the book. What value are they getting for their money? Quality matters only in relation to a product they want.


----------



## ggroy (Oct 7, 2009)

Looking back into recent history, one question to ask is what type of people were buying a lot of 3PP stuff during the heady 3E days of 2000-2002.

Besides the obvious case of compulsive completionists who bought (almost) everything, was it mainly hardcore DMs and powergamers who regularly bought 3E 3PP stuff?  How often did less hardcore players/DMs buy 3pp stuff?

For example, how many less hardcore players/DMs actually bought stuff like Kingdoms of Kalamar, Scarred Lands, etc ... back in 2001-2003?


----------



## jmucchiello (Oct 7, 2009)

Joshua Randall said:


> As an aside, my anecdotal evidence* seems to indicate that the use of the CB is far from 100% among the 4e players I know. Some players don't want to pay for the DDI; some players don't like the DDI or CB for whatever reason; some players just prefer an alternate "output" -- so while they might use the CB, they don't print out the power cards or character sheets; they write things by hand. And if you're going to write things by hand, then using third-party stuff is no big deal.




Can you cross-reference your anecdotal friends by how much 3pp stuff they have bought in the past? And if you can, could you compare that with what camp they are in among your sample reasons not to use the DDI: won't pay, don't like DDI/CB and/or prefer alt output? I realize you might not have this much statistical analysis but it would be interesting if we could find out.


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## JoeGKushner (Oct 7, 2009)

I've offered Goodman Games Forgotten Heroes and the Expetidious Retreat Press material.

No takers.

We've got one guy who uses the cards and no DDI.

One brand new player to 4e and someone else made his character.

The other three and myself all have DDI. I will NOT be writing out all of that stuff by hand. At best, I'd keep the book onhand and just use post it flags to note what abilities I had.


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## ggroy (Oct 7, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> I've offered Goodman Games Forgotten Heroes and the Expetidious Retreat Press material.




For these two particular titles, Goodman and XRP probably knew from the beginning that they would have a relatively short shelf life, especially once the 4E PHB2 was released.  At several FLGS nearby, the owners mentioned that these two books have largely been collecting dust ever since they were first released.  At the bigger FLGS, the owner mentioned only 3 people so far have actually purchased either of these two books.


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## Obryn (Oct 7, 2009)

ggroy said:


> I wasn't even aware of much of the 3pp market, until towards the end of the 3.5E era.  I completely missed the heady early days of 3E.  (I was still on my very long hiatus away from gaming at the time).
> 
> Back in the day, the only 3pp I was aware of was Judges Guild.  Their modules looked kind of amateurish compared to TSR's offerings back then.



It was a different market back then.  For one thing, WotC wasn't releasing books very quickly, and third-party publishers filled the void.  (For example, the S&S Creature Catalog came out before the actual 3e Monster Manual.  )  For another thing, the whole idea of third-party content was new and fresh.  Finally, the production standards were way lower...  AEG put out pamphlet modules, other companies' mechanics were less than solid, and there was kind of a wild west feel to the whole thing.

And, importantly, the initial third-party rush gave the success stories a good quantity of cash to make more stuff.  The ones who are still around today took their success and branched outwards - so Green Ronin has M&M; Mongoose has Paranoia, Runequest, etc.; Paizo had the magazines and a whole line of edition-neutral products, and so on.  Production values improved, less competitive companies dried up, and by the mid-end of 3.5, everything being produced and sold was of a pretty high standard.

We're still at that point.  Standards are high.  There's an expectation that 3pp's understand the mechanics they're writing for.  Full-color is almost demanded nowadays, too.  A 3pp needs to be able to compete with WotC on their home turf, and that's frankly a pretty tall order.

-O


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## Joshua Randall (Oct 8, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> Can you cross-reference your anecdotal friends by how much 3pp stuff they have bought in the past?



This ended up pretty long and rambling... using s-blocks to avoid the Wall of Text effect.

But to answer the question,
[sblock]The majority of my sample consists of dudes who play Living Forgotten Realms (LFR), the 4e RPGA campaign. At the store where I play, there is a good sized group, about 30 people. About one-third are old-timers (started with AD&D 1e or earlier), one-third started with 3e, and one-third are new to D&D.

Note that if you exclusively play LFR, there is very little reason to buy third-party stuff _for 4e_, as you can't use it in LFR. But, that said... and bear in mind this is pretty speculative on my part, and I'm going to use a lot of weasel words so you can't pin me down on anything

* 9 out of the 10 old-timers regularly bought third-party stuff in the past, especially during the 3e days. There is one bad-tempered guy who "refused to buy any of that crap", and goes around griping about why we aren't playing 1e instead... I'm not even sure why he plays LFR, frankly. I think because his friends do.

* 4 or 5 out of the 10 3e-era guys bought third-party stuff. They had some kind of ongoing (3e) campaign at the game store, so they were exposed to it all the time anyway. Of the other half, I think they knew about it but just weren't into the game enough to buy much more than the 3e PH, if that.

* 0 out of the 10 "new to D&D" guys used to buy third-party stuff. Obviously.  But technically some of them have bought third-paty stuff for 4e: that one-buck adventure that Goodman (?) was selling, and Level Up magazine (also prominent in the store).

Now, you wanted to know how this matches up with "use of the CB", so here goes.

* Old-timers: I think all but one of them (us) use the CB, even the angry guy. Perhaps it is because this group skews older, and has been playing longer, so we don't get as much of a thrill as we used to out of laboriously filling out character sheets by hand.

The one guy who doesn't use the CB is the local Point of Contact for the LFR! Go figure. (He uses some character sheet / power tracker he found online and writes it out by hand.)

* 3e guys, subset who bought third-party stuff: hmm... two definitely use the CB, not sure about the other two or three.

* 3e guys, subset who didn't buy third-party stuff: again, I think two or three do use the CB, the others don't.

Of the ones who don't (both subsets), "don't like the format" is the most frequent complaint I here.

* New with 4e guys: now strangely, only 4 out of the 10 seem to use the CB regularly. I think some of the others started to when it was free (beta), but didn't want to shell out for the DDI subscription. But honestly I don't know the newbies that well (big age difference), so I'm not sure why they don't use the CB.[/sblock]



> And if you can, could you compare that with what camp they are in among your sample reasons not to use the DDI: won't pay, don't like DDI/CB and/or prefer alt output?



Kind of answered above, but to put another spin on it:

[sblock]* I think "won't pay" is primarily a factor for the new-with-4e guys, because they are younger, less committed to the game, have less disposable income, and more free time to spend filling out character sheets by hand. They would rather spend their X dollars / month (that would've gone towards the DDI) on beer or movies or whatever.

* I think the "prefer alt output" is primarily a factor for the old-timers and the hardcore 3e-guys. We've been around, we're used to memorizing rule, so we don't need the full CB power card output, just something to trigger our memories, and the relevant math. The CB output has _too much_ information for our old, tired brains. However! We do have the disposable income to pay for the DDI, so we probably use the CB to check our math.

* I think the "don't like DDI" isn't much of a factor for the crowd I play with. By definition, it's a 4e crowd, so those who _really_ dislike the DDI (and by extension 4e) are not in the sample.[/sblock]

= = =

Now one thing I touched on above is the RPGA. As a third-party publisher, this is basically an impossible market to get into, because by fiat an RPGA player can only use official content (meaning WotC stuff).

But there are two reasons for a third-party publisher to hope. (IMUO -- U = uninformed.) One, I think the number of players who _only _play RPGA is pretty small -- anecdotally (again) the vast majority are also in an non-RPGA campaign. So you can still sell them stuff to use in their home campaign.

Two, you can take a page from Paizo's book and make your own organized play campaign. (Maybe. I have no idea of the legality of doing this with 4e, nor do I really want to speculate on that aspect.) 

Or, make it less "organized play" and more like what WotC used to do with the Dragon magazine adventures: have a way for the players and DMs to report when they've played one of your third-party adventures -- which of course has tie-ins with other player-focused products you sell -- and then give them some kind of tracked "points" or "frequent gamer miles" that they can trade in for goodies of some sort.

Again, I think if you give people a sufficient reason to buy (and use) your product, the barrier posed by the CB can be overcome. It's just a matter of finding something that appeals to people enough to get them to overcome the annoyance of not using the CB.


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## MatthewJHanson (Oct 8, 2009)

Joshua Randall said:


> Two, you can take a page from Paizo's book and make your own organized play campaign. (Maybe. I have no idea of the legality of doing this with 4e, nor do I really want to speculate on that aspect.)
> 
> Or, make it less "organized play" and more like what WotC used to do with the Dragon magazine adventures: have a way for the players and DMs to report when they've played one of your third-party adventures -- which of course has tie-ins with other player-focused products you sell -- and then give them some kind of tracked "points" or "frequent gamer miles" that they can trade in for goodies of some sort.




I think the second option is more viable for 3PP. If a publisher were to launch their own organized play it would have to offers something the WOTC does not. Paizo offers a different system. I'm not sure what else a small publisher could do to complete with LFR.


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## dangerous jack (Oct 8, 2009)

Upper_Krust said:


> [...]something akin to nine mini-adventures of between approx. 3-5 encounters each. With notes on how each could be linked to form one big adventure, or even how the mini-adventures could themselves be expanded.
> 
> Does that format sound appealing?




Yes.  This is exactly what I would buy (even if one adventure is something akin to "travel through the fire swamp and avoid its three dangers").  The caveat being that the encounters need to do something that I can't do quickly myself: mix interesting terrain with interesting monsters, and make sure the interesting parts actually come into play.


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## Upper_Krust (Oct 9, 2009)

Hey there dangerous jack! 



			
				dangerous jack said:
			
		

> Yes.  This is exactly what I would buy (even if one adventure is something akin to "travel through the fire swamp and avoid its three dangers").




I will point out at this stage that the adventure I am working on, "Against the Reptile God" is Epic Tier, technically its against Set, although you could translate that as Zehir I suppose. 

The final 'Delve' where you take on the (Greater) God himself will be beyond Level 30 PCs, however, success in the preceeding delves will lead to a bunch of mitigating factors that will reduce him in power through various means, making him just about beatable.



> The caveat being that the encounters need to do something that I can't do quickly myself: mix interesting terrain with interesting monsters, and make sure the interesting parts actually come into play.




I have some interesting stuff planned, I'd love to spill the beans on it but probably best if I keep tight lipped for now.


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## Angellis_ater (Oct 10, 2009)

So, how many SETTINGS have been released for 4th Edition?


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## Obryn (Oct 10, 2009)

Angellis_ater said:


> So, how many SETTINGS have been released for 4th Edition?



Non-WotC?

I can only name Kalamar and Wraith Recon.

-O


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## ggroy (Oct 10, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Non-WotC?
> 
> I can only name Kalamar and Wraith Recon.
> 
> -O




Other 4E settings:

Scarrport  - Mongoose Publishing : For All Your Gaming Needs ...
Scarred Lands - only 4E version of Creature Collection released
Blackmoor - Zeitgeist

Amethyst - Amethyst
Nevermore - Expeditious Retreat Press
Freeport - Green Ronin/Expeditious Retreat Press

Age of Legend (Earthdawn) - RedBrick Limited • Raising Your Game


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## ggroy (Oct 10, 2009)

Obryn said:


> Production values improved, less competitive companies dried up, and by the mid-end of 3.5, everything being produced and sold was of a pretty high standard.
> 
> We're still at that point.  Standards are high.  There's an expectation that 3pp's understand the mechanics they're writing for.  Full-color is almost demanded nowadays, too.  A 3pp needs to be able to compete with WotC on their home turf, and that's frankly a pretty tall order.




I wouldn't be surprised if this is one big factor in keeping the 4E 3pp market relatively small, especially with respect to print products in FLGS and bookstores.

This time around there is also the mature pdf and print-on-demand markets, which didn't seem to be as prevalent back in 2000-2001.  I suppose back in 2000-2002, the one obvious route to sell one's products would be to have printed books in FLGS and bookstores.  Today it's probably easier for a smaller 3pp company to sell its titles at pdf retailers (like drivethrurpg), than to print up books and convince skeptical distributors and retailers to stock it.  I suspect part of the relatively underwhelming market for 4E and Pathfinder 3PP titles so far, is that a lot of stuff never shows up in print and is only available as pdfs or print-on-demand.  In the eyes of less hardcore gamers, sight unseen (at FLGS and/or bookstores) becomes almost synonymous with "it does not exist".

Besides the hardcore gamers who keep up with the pdf/pod markets, less hardcore gamers don't seem to be aware of nor even that interested in rpg titles sold through the pdf/pod market.  Of the gamers I know locally, it's mainly some of the hardcore gamers who are avid purchasers of pdf or print-on-demand rpg titles.  Hardly anybody else is interested in pdf rpg titles.  (Free pdfs do not even interest many less hardcore gamers I know).

Perhaps this time around the pdf/pod market has created sort of a "ghetto" where smaller 3pp publishers have gravitated to, instead of the traditional print/distributor/FLGS channel.  Some of the better selling 3pp titles may end up in print, such as the "Tome of Secrets" book for Pathfinder.  (I saw "Tome of Secrets" at a local FLGS today).  On the other hand, a title which sells 100 pdf copies or less, is probably not worth the trouble of printing up and dealing with the headaches of convincing distributors and FLGS to carry it.

Whatever "3PP bubble" there was for 4E, it's probably been more or less deflated or popped by now.

There doesn't appear to be a 3PP "bubble" for Pathfinder so far.  (Though it may be still too early to tell).  With a purported significantly smaller market size for Pathfinder (compared to 4E D&D), I doubt a Pathfinder "3pp bubble" of any significant size will occur.  Who knows?  Maybe "Tome of Secrets" was the peak of the "Pathfinder 3pp bubble"?


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## CapnZapp (Oct 10, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I blogged about this topic.



Sorry, but that read pretty much as the standard 4E bash, only thinly veiled. 

You're making it out to be that 4E gamers are of a different kind than 3E gamers, which is balderdash. If the GSL and the economy was friendlier I'm sure we'd see more 4E 3PP products.


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## CapnZapp (Oct 10, 2009)

mudbunny said:


> In an interesting coincidence, the ever amazing Alexis of Tao of D&D posted the following:



Tried to read. Didn't understand. How is that blog post applicable to this discussion...?


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## CapnZapp (Oct 10, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> We've heard several reports that 4e third party products are underselling Pathfinder products for some publishers. We also know 4e, overall, seems to be fairly healthy, if not a complete runaway hit. This should give you pause. Ordinarily, we would expect that the game with more sales would have more customers buying 3PP products.
> 
> Given that most PDF sales of anything usually run 300 copies or less, given that Pathfinder products are equalling or outperforming 4e third party stuff, given that under the best circumstances, few original settings "make it"... I think I can say I have the firm basis to say that someone who thinks there is a 4e market waiting to be tapped for original settings is fooling themselves. Now, it might be possible to create the market with the right product, but such breakthroughs are difficult and unpredictable.
> 
> If all it takes is a great product, where is Midnight? When did the new Krynn ever look like it was going to take off?



Good point.

I believe 3PPs would be wise to stay clear of doing player-oriented material, instead focusing on adventures and other DM prep materials (mostly that use and reorg existing elements).

Yes, that sucks for sales, but thems the breaks.


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## pawsplay (Oct 10, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> Sorry, but that read pretty much as the standard 4E bash, only thinly veiled.
> 
> You're making it out to be that 4E gamers are of a different kind than 3E gamers, which is balderdash. If the GSL and the economy was friendlier I'm sure we'd see more 4E 3PP products.




If you want to blame the economy, explain why 3pp products for a smaller market (Pathfinder) are outselling 4e. 



			
				Blog post in which I supposedly claim 4e gamers are of a different kind than 3e gamers said:
			
		

> Let's look at the 4e versus 3.5 Pathfinder split in practical terms. Now it's probably safe to say that in most major respects, the 4e and 3e crowds are similar, and it's important to keep in mind that a lot of players play both.




Let me know if it is still somehow unclear I am talking about generalties, not species of gamers. 

Your GSL/economy theory is interesting but seems directly contradicted by the evidence presented in the OP.


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## CapnZapp (Oct 10, 2009)

Sir Robilar said:


> I'd really like to have a sandbox style adventure/small setting like "Vault of Larin Karr" for 4E.






catsclaw227 said:


> Oooo.  That would be nice.
> 
> But, I imagine for the masses, it would have to come with some electronic doodads to take it over the top.  Like a Monster Builder export of the custom monsters or digital maps at 1" scale.



I would too love a VoLK-like product for 4E. 

But I don't understand the focus on new campaign worlds discussed lately in the thread.

I think most lock-out issues would go away if you limited your scope to writing a series of "Points of Light"-compatible* adventures, where the focus was on story and encounter design. 

And not on new monsters or new player options.

At least; this is what I understand will work best given the constraints of the GSL. (And not coincidentally, this is precisely what WotC wants you to do)

*) That is, adventures you can fit into any campaign world.


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## pawsplay (Oct 10, 2009)

CapnZapp, the problem with creating very generic scenarios is that it's a little hard to get past orc-and-pie in terms of story and challenges. That is why every version of the game has an implied setting, whether it's Greyhawk or the Known World or the implied setting of AEG's Mercenaries or the Scarred Lands. It's going to be hard to write something that works in the Forgotten Realms as well as Dark Sun.


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## CapnZapp (Oct 10, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> CapnZapp, the problem with creating very generic scenarios is that it's a little hard to get past orc-and-pie in terms of story and challenges. That is why every version of the game has an implied setting, whether it's Greyhawk or the Known World or the implied setting of AEG's Mercenaries or the Scarred Lands. It's going to be hard to write something that works in the Forgotten Realms as well as Dark Sun.



I think the larger issue is that being relegated to supplying WotC with adventures is not what most 3PP have in mind.

Writing good adventures is hard in general. Writing a good adventure that is very generic is very hard, but I didn't say you had to do that. 

Place them in PoL-land instead. Unless I'm mistaken, the point of that "world" is that it doesn't disallow you from making up the village of Huntington or Count Yourdoom. 

If you keep the larger picture sufficiently hazy (and perhaps use generic labels for gods such as the God of Knowledge, the God of Piracy) most DMs should find a place for your stories in their own campaign world.



It might be worth repeating why I'm notthinking custom-made campaign worlds: this is because this sets up the promise of new mechanics and new monsters. A promise 4E 3PPs currently can't deliver on.


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## catastrophic (Oct 10, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> CapnZapp, the problem with creating very generic scenarios is that it's a little hard to get past orc-and-pie in terms of story and challenges. That is why every version of the game has an implied setting, whether it's Greyhawk or the Known World or the implied setting of AEG's Mercenaries or the Scarred Lands. It's going to be hard to write something that works in the Forgotten Realms as well as Dark Sun.



You've set up a deliberatly stark contrast there, in fact i'd be hard pressed to imagine any other combination of D&D settings where that point is valid.

Most adventures written for say, Greyhawk or FR can be adapated to another setting with relative ease. Maybe not dark sun, maybe not a real to the hilt style of L5R, but what, Kalamar? Birthright? Al-quadim? 

You don't need a setting to create an interesting premise. And your premise does not have to be dependent on the trappings of the setting to the degree you seem to be suggesting.

If I create a scenario based around a feud between two families who each control a tavern in a city that sees a lot of trade, I can put that feud in any number of different settings, and the DM running those settings can do so too, especially if I offer some advice on doing so. 

Maybe they're running oriental adventures, and perhaps they don't feel the rowdy drinking and gambling that dominates the taverns in my scenario fits with their setting. That's cool, they can put in a different kind of tavern instead, like the Weiqi parlor from the movie Hero. Most of the scenario can still be a great asset to them. 

Maybe they're in Dark sun, and they feel the look of the battles maps isn't right. That is a problem, but the encounters and the macinations of the feuding families can still work with a bit of adaptation.

And those are extreme examples. In most settings there's going to be stuff like taverns, trade, families, feuds, ale, and gambling. And the essential character and appeal of the scenario will be there regardless of the setting.


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## CapnZapp (Oct 10, 2009)

One more point: yes, writing an adventure that works in both, say, Dragonlance and Dark Sun is probably a real challenge.

But this is more because Dark Sun is so special than anything else. 

Call me ignorant, but most other settings have enough of the "faux-medieval-Europe" feel to them that PoL works as a substitute.

Discussing Dark Sun and how to support that world w/o auto-disqualifying yourself from all other worlds, on the other hand, is probably a topic worthy of its own thread...

_Edit:_ What C said


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## ggroy (Oct 10, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> I think the larger issue is that being relegated to supplying WotC with adventures is not what most 3PP have in mind.




A better question is why some 3PPs dislike being relegated to supplying WotC with adventures.

If I had to guess, are adventures to least profitable part of the rpg business?  This seems to be a popular meme, but I haven't seen any hard numbers to show one way or the other.


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## Jack99 (Oct 10, 2009)

ggroy said:


> A better question is why some 3PPs dislike being relegated to supplying WotC with adventures.
> 
> If I had to guess, are adventures to least profitable part of the rpg business?  This seems to be a popular meme, but I haven't seen any hard numbers to show one way or the other.




It takes time to write an adventure. It requires maps and a lot of other things. Making up a race or some weird alternate rule is much easier.

Regarding being the least profitable part of the business, Paizo would probably disagree with you.


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## CapnZapp (Oct 10, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> If you want to blame the economy, explain why 3pp products for a smaller market (Pathfinder) are outselling 4e.



Perhaps because Paizos home turf is much more welcoming* to 3PPs than WotC's? 

*) Remember that it pretty much have to be. After all, it's WotC's old turf they're playing on.

I didn't say the economy was the sole reason.

Anyway, it's not me that have to come up with alternatives. It's you who need to answer for posting an "explanation" that effectively denigrates 4E gamers, not me.

But feel free to do that elsewhere. We're far off topic as it is.


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## ggroy (Oct 10, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> Perhaps because Paizos home turf is much more welcoming* to 3PPs than WotC's?
> 
> *) Remember that it pretty much have to be. After all, it's WotC's old turf they're playing on.




Paizo could be attracting more of a hardcore gamer crowd who spend more on books/pdfs, than the less hardcore + casual gamers?


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## CapnZapp (Oct 10, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> It takes time to write an adventure. It requires maps and a lot of other things. Making up a race or some weird alternate rule is much easier.



This is exactly why I value adventures much higher than a new feat or sumthin'.

I don't need more player options. I need more (good) adventures to use or steal from.

So in a way the current circumstances might result in some good, if the creative energies of 3PPs can be channeled into creating adventures instead of imo being wasted on Yet Another Complete Fighter's Handbook.

(yes, I said so in the other thread too)


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## CapnZapp (Oct 10, 2009)

ggroy said:


> Paizo could be attracting more of a hardcore gamer crowd who spend more on books/pdfs, than the less hardcore + casual gamers?



That's a variant of pawsplay's theory, which I don't buy.

Perhaps the WotC crowd is more discerning, having moved on from the generally low quality of d20 stuff? 4E does demand a higher standard of presentation.

(Not saying this is so. Just offering an equally unfounded counter-view)


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## Jack99 (Oct 10, 2009)

ggroy said:


> Paizo could be attracting more of a hardcore gamer crowd who spend more on books/pdfs, than the less hardcore + casual gamers?




As I have stated on numerous occasions before, I think it not a matter of hardcore or not, but more of a "OGL-fan or not"-thing. Sure, those who buy a lot of OGL-products are usually "hardcore" buyers, but there are plenty of others (and probably a lot more) who buy everything WotC puts out and who can thus be considered just as "hardcore". And they probably went with 4e for the most part 


PS: Using the word hardcore with regards to gaming made me chuckle..


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## ggroy (Oct 10, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> Perhaps the WotC crowd is more discerning, having moved on from the generally low quality of d20 stuff? 4E does demand a higher standard of presentation.




By the time it was late-2005/early-2006, I remember seeing a lot of the crappier d20 stuff in the bargain bins by then.  The newer 3pp stuff being released by then, was mostly the higher quality stuff.


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## ggroy (Oct 10, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> PS: Using the word hardcore with regards to gaming made me chuckle..




Some people treat gaming as more than just a "game".

These are the people who get angry at the DM whenever their character loses too many hit points, and throw a beer bottle at DM when their character dies.


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## Upper_Krust (Oct 10, 2009)

pawsplay said:
			
		

> If you want to blame the economy, explain why 3pp products for a smaller market (Pathfinder) are outselling 4e.




Could that be (and I'm just surmising) because Pathfinder is just 'new and shiny', coupled with the thinning of 3E support over the previous 12-18 months meaning gamers were in effect, 'starved' of it. 

Might be more interesting to see if 3pp for Pathfinder is outselling their 4E counterparts 6-12 months down the line.


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## Shemeska (Oct 10, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> That's a variant of pawsplay's theory, which I don't buy.
> 
> Perhaps the WotC crowd is more discerning, having moved on from the generally low quality of d20 stuff? 4E does demand a higher standard of presentation.
> 
> (Not saying this is so. Just offering an equally unfounded counter-view)




Being more discerning shouldn't have any meaning really, since we've moved well past the early days of everyone and their brother producing d20 OGL and making a quick buck. 4e is arguably in its own GSL glut*, with random people producing stuff with varying degrees of quality, while the market has already made its influence known on the quality front with OGL publishers. In fact, the entire RPG industry has as a whole IMO massively improved production quality in the past three years or so, OGL, 4e, and non-d20 as well.

*using the term for convenience since virtually nobody is actually using the GSL among people making 3pp 4e 

On that note, looking at the entire RPG spectrum, WotC is IMO firmly in the middle of the pack now in terms of production values, artwork, cover design, etc. Full color interiors aren't rare anymore, and for many publishers it seems increasingly standard (Paizo, Cthulhutech, Catalyst, WW's vampire clan books). It's less WotC slipping than literally the entire marketplace is producing at a much higher level than it was a decade ago in terms of art and production values, and we're all to benefit from that.


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## pawsplay (Oct 10, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> You've set up a deliberatly stark contrast there, in fact i'd be hard pressed to imagine any other combination of D&D settings where that point is valid.




I just picked the first and latest WotC settings. If it's a stark comparison, it's certainly not by contrivance. You've got Dark Sun, Eberron, and Forgotten Realms. I could probably write a "desert adventure" that would fit any of them, but I would have to provide alternative encounters for all three. Dark Sun stuff is very different, as best as I can recall, FR and Eberron don't have the same kinds of critters and cultures in the desert regions as each other. If I want to do a "city of the elves"... that's not going to happen. Too different. In theory, I could write an adventure that could for Thay or the Dragon Kings, in the general, but all the stuff is going to have to be modular.

If I write a Generic Medievalish, it's probably not going to work with any of the published settings. So who do I sell it to? 4e fans who don't play in any of the published settings? In practice, I have to pick one of the settings and write for it, with adaptation to other settings being of secondary concern. 

And that brings me back to this: I can't use their fluff, but I have a limited ability to write my own without making my product uncompatible. And FR doesn't need a generic Waterdeep, since it already has the real thing.


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## ggroy (Oct 10, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> If I write a Generic Medievalish, it's probably not going to work with any of the published settings. So who do I sell it to? 4e fans who don't play in any of the published settings? In practice, I have to pick one of the settings and write for it, with adaptation to other settings being of secondary concern.
> 
> And that brings me back to this: I can't use their fluff, but I have a limited ability to write my own without making my product uncompatible.




Wonder if WotC ever anticipated something like this happening, in how "non clone" 4E 3PP settings are not quite so popular anymore due the hegemony of the DDI character builder.  Certainly it was easy to see that a DDI character builder hegemony, could pretty much squelch the player specific splatbook market.


----------



## catastrophic (Oct 10, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I just picked the first and latest WotC settings. If it's a stark comparison, it's certainly not by contrivance. You've got Dark Sun, Eberron, and Forgotten Realms. I could probably write a "desert adventure" that would fit any of them, but I would have to provide alternative encounters for all three. Dark Sun stuff is very different, as best as I can recall, FR and Eberron don't have the same kinds of critters and cultures in the desert regions as each other. If I want to do a "city of the elves"... that's not going to happen. Too different. In theory, I could write an adventure that could for Thay or the Dragon Kings, in the general, but all the stuff is going to have to be modular.
> 
> If I write a Generic Medievalish, it's probably not going to work with any of the published settings. So who do I sell it to? 4e fans who don't play in any of the published settings? In practice, I have to pick one of the settings and write for it, with adaptation to other settings being of secondary concern.




Again, you're cherry-picking ideas that are difficult to fit between the settings. And a 'generic medievilish' adventure would certainly work for either of those settings, and possibly dark sun, also.

You can draw an arbitary line to support your argument, but that doesn't mean anything. I can think of dozens of scenarios that would fit well in either Eberron or FR or Krynn, Greyhawk, ect, ect. A substantial subset of DMs have their own world, but adapt scenarios and other details to it based on existing source material. How do you think these people operate?

In practice, as a developer or DM, you certainly don't have to pick one of the published settings, and that's quite abundantly clear from how people use them and build them, and the years in which generic scenarios and dungeons have been on offer. You are arguing that it is not feasable to do something which people, both publishers and DMs, have been doing successfully for decades.

This is also all, WOTC's stated approach to modules in most cases. It's also their stated approach to their world design! A third party producer does not face any distinct issues which make it harder for them to create scenarios that can be adapted to various settings. There may be related issues like deity names, ect, but frankly those issues are trivial compared to the essence of good scenario design.



> And that brings me back to this: I can't use their fluff, but I have a limited ability to write my own without making my product uncompatible. And FR doesn't need a generic Waterdeep, since it already has the real thing.



This is once again simply false. There's nothing stopping you or rather, a DM, from adding your city to their Faerun, or Eberron, or Toril, or Krynn, or whatever. And they are likely to be able to do so with minimal conversion. Almost all settings have room for this kind of thing, and FR and Eberron make a point of it.

And writing fluff, even detailed fluff does not render a product incompatible except in a minority of cases. If I write a detailed history of an ancient temple to the sun god which is now in ruins, guess what? It could fit in any of those settings. If I invent a knightly order, complete with laws and chapter houses, ect, no matter what you may argue, the average DM can and will slot that order into their Silver Marches or their Solamnia just fine.


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## pawsplay (Oct 10, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> A substantial subset of DMs have their own world, but adapt scenarios and other details to it based on existing source material. How do you think these people operate?




By writing their own modules, or doing a fair amount of conversion work.



> This is once again simply false.




Are you saying it's false I can't use their fluff, false that there are limitations on how much I can change something before it becomes incompatible, or false that Waterdeep exists in the FR? Because if you are saying any of those things, I think you and I have different definitions of the word "false."


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## darjr (Oct 10, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> PS: Using the word hardcore with regards to gaming made me chuckle..





Laugh it up milk boy! I am HARD CORE!


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## ggroy (Oct 10, 2009)

Upper_Krust said:


> Could that be (and I'm just surmising) because Pathfinder is just 'new and shiny', coupled with the thinning of 3E support over the previous 12-18 months meaning gamers were in effect, 'starved' of it.
> 
> Might be more interesting to see if 3pp for Pathfinder is outselling their 4E counterparts 6-12 months down the line.




It could possibly be worse in the next year or so, such as a scenario where the 3PP markets for 4E and Pathfinder are both completely down in the toilet.


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## Riley (Oct 10, 2009)

Mouseferatu said:


> I'll echo the "adventures and campaign settings" call, not only as a consumer, but as a designer. Specifically, adventures and settings of a sort that Wizards isn't currently producing. Whether that means non-traditional fantasy, more of a "mature" focus, different cultures, different assumptions, whatever. These should have _some_ new mechanics, but they should be heavily focused on the themes/details of the adventure or campaign setting.




Yeah, this.  Which may be why I love these 4e GSL products most out of what I've seen so far:



Monkey King said:


> Open Design is producing some award-winning 4th Edition materials and adventures (Halls of the Mountain King, Wrath of the River King, Courts of the Shadow Fey).


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## jmucchiello (Oct 10, 2009)

CapnZapp said:


> I would too love a VoLK-like product for 4E.
> 
> But I don't understand the focus on new campaign worlds discussed lately in the thread.
> 
> I think most lock-out issues would go away if you limited your scope to writing a series of "Points of Light"-compatible* adventures, where the focus was on story and encounter design.



If all the 3pp are writing PoL adventures how do they distinguish themselves from one another. A setting like Midnight allowed GR to distinguish Midnight material from other "generic" material in a way that certainly helped earn GR a reputation for good products.

Likewise, if all I can do is PoL adventures, I would become extremely bored. Most 3pp writers do this because it is fun. (There's no real money involved.) Fun is making the feats and races and classes and variants that make the game interesting or that make the reader think outside the box. Writing PoL adventures is going to be boring eventually.



CapnZapp said:


> Perhaps the WotC crowd is more discerning, having moved on from the generally low quality of d20 stuff? 4E does demand a higher standard of presentation.
> 
> (Not saying this is so. Just offering an equally unfounded counter-view)




If this is true the WotC crowd also will not by adventures from 3pps since they regard them as d20 hacks.



			
				pawsplay said:
			
		

> If I write a Generic Medievalish, it's probably not going to work with any of the published settings. So who do I sell it to? 4e fans who don't play in any of the published settings? In practice, I have to pick one of the settings and write for it, with adaptation to other settings being of secondary concern.



Huh? 3pps can't write for FR, Dark Sun or Eb. None of that stuff is in the GSL.


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## BryonD (Oct 10, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> As I have stated on numerous occasions before, I think it not a matter of hardcore or not, but more of a "OGL-fan or not"-thing. Sure, those who buy a lot of OGL-products are usually "hardcore" buyers, but there are plenty of others (and probably a lot more) who buy everything WotC puts out and who can thus be considered just as "hardcore". And they probably went with 4e for the most part



 I think you would find your self quite surprised.  I think it is far from "a lot more" who just bought everything WotC.  And I also think "for the most part" going to 4E could be quite a bit off.  I'm not saying they all went to Paizo by any stretch. But the "we blindly follow whatever the new version of the game is  AND we buy everything that WotC publishes" group is a pretty small piece of the gaming community.

They is a ton of common ground for both "4E is making a lot of money" and "4E could be making a whole lot more money for WotC", not to mention "4E could be making a whole lot more money for WotC plus 3PPs".



> PS: Using the word hardcore with regards to gaming made me chuckle..



I don't know that hardcore would be my choice of word.  But if we are using it as the opposite of "casual", then it fits.


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## catsclaw227 (Oct 10, 2009)

Joshua Randall said:


> As an aside, my anecdotal evidence* seems to indicate that the use of the CB is far from 100% among the 4e players I know. Some players don't want to pay for the DDI; some players don't like the DDI or CB for whatever reason; some players just prefer an alternate "output" -- so while they might use the CB, they don't print out the power cards or character sheets; they write things by hand. And if you're going to write things by hand, then using third-party stuff is no big deal.
> 
> * Yes, I'm well aware of the dangers of anecdotal evidence, and I frequently rail against it, but it's all I've got. Heh.



In my F2F group, I believe I am the only one with a DDI account, except maybe one other player is made, but in my online VTT game, almost everyone has a DDI account.  So, there you go with my anecdotal evidence.  Incidentally, in these same two groups, only one or two of them are active on D&D boards and maybe half don't even know the names of some of the main 3PP companies.



ggroy said:


> I wasn't even aware of much of the 3pp market, until towards the end of the 3.5E era.  I completely missed the heady early days of 3E.  (I was still on my very long hiatus away from gaming at the time).
> 
> Back in the day, the only 3pp I was aware of was Judges Guild.  Their modules looked kind of amateurish compared to TSR's offerings back then.



I am the opposite.  My first 3.0 campaign was the Freeport Trilogy from Green Ronin.  The PCs then jumped to the mainland and entered The Banewarrens from Malhavoc.  I have DMed Midnight, Oathbound, Scarred Lands.  Rappan Athuk and Lost City of Barakus set in the Wilderlands from Necromancer,  In that one I replaced the city of Endhome in Barakus with Warwick in Wilderlands.  It worked awesome because I started them in a Goodman Games 1st level adventure. Another time I ran the first 20 levels of Drow War series (1-30 AP) from Mongoose, and did Savage Tide and Age of Worms. It was awesome and I loved it.  I don't think I did one WoTC adventure for 3.x all the way through....

So, I was 3PP all the way... I bought PDFs, a ton of them in the early years, from everyone.  Bluffside, Phil Reed's "A Dozen....." series from Ronin Arts... it was all good.

I wish the 3PP 4e market was like that.  But it would require a finely linked and standardized data standard to work well.  Then data could be shared by applications.  The same kind of tools that are supposedly pushing out the 3PP market.


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## catsclaw227 (Oct 10, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> If all the 3pp are writing PoL adventures how do they distinguish themselves from one another. A setting like Midnight allowed GR to distinguish Midnight material from other "generic" material in a way that certainly helped earn GR a reputation for good products.



Ummm.  Green Ronin didn't do Midnight.  Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) did Midnight.

But I understand the point you were trying to make.


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## catastrophic (Oct 11, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> By writing their own modules, or doing a fair amount of conversion work.



The amount of work is really quite small. A lot of the time all a DM will have to do is plonk the module down in their world and maybe change a deity name or two. You're trying to exagerate a factor which is at best, a minor issue. 

If somebody is interested in buying 3pp at all, then they're not going to sweat changing all the 'Sun God' mentions to 'Pelor' or 'Lathander'.



> Are you saying it's false I can't use their fluff, false that there are limitations on how much I can change something before it becomes incompatible, or false that Waterdeep exists in the FR? Because if you are saying any of those things, I think you and I have different definitions of the word "false."



I am saying it is false that you have limited ability to write your own fluff without making the product incompatible. You can write boatloads of fluff without this happening, and compatability issues are further negated by the DM's ability to adjust their version of the setting.



jmucchiello said:


> If all the 3pp are writing PoL adventures how do they distinguish themselves from one another.



A setting is not the only way you can make a product diverse, and you can insert your own 'mini setting' into the scenario- in fact drop-in locations are one of the other products people have been talking about on these threads. 

Even if you don't do that, you can make a module unique in any number of ways, based on the situation the module is based around. You could do a module based around thieving and skulduggery, or byzantine plots, or vengance, or a particularly type of monster(make them good enough and the DM won't miss the monster builder that much), there are all sorts of different ideas and content that can go into a module to make it unique, distinctive, and entertaining.

Frankly if somebody is doing a module and it isn't distinctive and full of it's own character, then they're probably not making a very good module.


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## pawsplay (Oct 11, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> The amount of work is really quite small. A lot of the time all a DM will have to do is plonk the module down in their world and maybe change a deity name or two. You're trying to exagerate a factor which is at best, a minor issue.
> 
> If somebody is interested in buying 3pp at all, then they're not going to sweat changing all the 'Sun God' mentions to 'Pelor' or 'Lathander'.




I am trying to be honest about my perception. If you think my opinion is wrong, just say so. No reason to accuse me of trying to exaggerate or whatnot. You don't know me.



> I am saying it is false that you have limited ability to write your own fluff without making the product incompatible.




I feel like I'm having a hard time understanding. You're saying I have an unlimited ability to write fluff without making a product incompatible?


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## jmucchiello (Oct 11, 2009)

catsclaw227 said:


> Ummm.  Green Ronin didn't do Midnight.  Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) did Midnight.



I blame old age. 



catastrophic said:


> A setting is not the only way you can make a product diverse, and you can insert your own 'mini setting' into the scenario- in fact drop-in locations are one of the other products people have been talking about on these threads.



A setting is not .... you can insert your own mini setting? The more you make your mini setting "interesting" the more likely it is your adventure loses the ability to be just dropped in to any campaign. The whole point of the PoL adventure is that the surroundings are bland (from a writing point of view). Every town has dangerous woods and strange hills and distant perilous mountains. The more you detail these places, the less your customers are able to pickup and run the adventure in their home campaigns.


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## Jack99 (Oct 11, 2009)

BryonD said:


> I think you would find your self quite surprised.  I think it is far from "a lot more" who just bought everything WotC.  And I also think "for the most part" going to 4E could be quite a bit off.  I'm not saying they all went to Paizo by any stretch. But the "we blindly follow whatever the new version of the game is  AND we buy everything that WotC publishes" group is a pretty small piece of the gaming community.




It's amazing that you can't help yourself with the snide comments. But I have to reject your version of reality. Buying all books does not equal blindly following. I leave that to _the people who cannot remember the forum rules_.

As for who is bigger and/or  has the bigger number of "hardcore" buyers, you may be the one who could find yourself surprised. Either way, we will probably never know.


----------



## catastrophic (Oct 11, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I am trying to be honest about my perception. If you think my opinion is wrong, just say so. No reason to accuse me of trying to exaggerate or whatnot. You don't know me.



I've repeatedly said that I think your opinion is wrong. And I think it's fair to say that you're exagerating a minor issue, or rather, an issue that all products face. Every DM adapts to some degree, all products must take that into account to some degree.



> I feel like I'm having a hard time understanding. You're saying I have an unlimited ability to write fluff without making a product incompatible?



No, I am saying it is false that you have limited ability to write your own fluff without making the product incompatible. 

The ability to write your own fluff without making the product incompatable is not limited, it is in fact quite substantial. I am not saying that it is unlimited, and by suggesting that you are being deliberatly obtuse.

When you originally used the term 'limited' you most certainly did not mean it as 'not unlimited'. You meant that there was only a small degree of fluff a writer could create, as indicated by your broader argument. This assertion is false. 

You can write plenty of fluff for an adventure without running into the problem that you described, to the point where the problem you described is a minor issue at best, or more accuratly, the issue of adapting modules is ever-present and no more problematic for 3pp creators than other creators.



jmucchiello said:


> A setting is not .... you can insert your own mini setting? The more you make your mini setting "interesting" the more likely it is your adventure loses the ability to be just dropped in to any campaign.



This is simply not true. 

It doesn't matter how interesting I make a module based around a murder mystery, it's not going to be incompatable with FR or eberron unless I include major elements that conflict with those settings. 

It doesn't matter how cool and interesting the background of a spooky family in a module is, that spooky family can still exist in Oerth or Krynn or wherever with few problems, unless they're activly clashing with the setting. For instance, a group of people who can spontaniously create water and iron would not fit in Dark Sun- but that's how far you'd have to go to really get the kind of clash you're suggesting. 

Sure, mood is an issue, but not as much as people may claim. And there is planety of space for different moods and subgenres in most generic settings. You can run a horror adventure in Krynn, you can run a romance subplot on Athas. A decent campaign tends to vary the mood anyway- doing so is an asset to the game.



> The whole point of the PoL adventure is that the surroundings are bland (from a writing point of view).



Rubbish. 



> Every town has dangerous woods and strange hills and distant perilous mountains. The more you detail these places, the less your customers are able to pickup and run the adventure in their home campaigns.



That simply isn't true. Most settings have wilderness, and most make it pretty dangerous. Even the ones who don't can use a pol adventure, and the pol ones can still make use of the majority of adventures that are, for instance, set in a city, or a town, or on a trade route, or in the woods, in a desert, ect, ect. 

If you detail a forest, that doesn't prevent people from picking up your product. After all, there's plenty of room for forests! and plenty of wilderness areas described in existing 4e WOTC products and modules.

The most pol assumes is that there aren't any overly large kingdoms or nation-states, but there are still city-states and cities of reasonable size.


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## ggroy (Oct 11, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> The most pol assumes is that there aren't any overly large kingdoms or nation-states, but there are still city-states and cities of reasonable size.




Couldn't one just create a whole entire new island, continent, or planet, to accommodate an overly large kingdom or nation state?


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## jmucchiello (Oct 11, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> If you detail a forest, that doesn't prevent people from picking up your product. After all, there's plenty of room for forests! and plenty of wilderness areas described in existing 4e WOTC products and modules.




The more detail you add to a forest, the more likely it contains elements that don't mesh with the forests the party has already encountered. The DM can't drop a new forest into an existing campaign willy-nilly. If his forests are bugbear infested your adventure with formians controlling vast forest areas will be out of place. 

Now, granted, in 4e, you could easily run the adventure using the formian statblocks but calling the monsters bugbears, but I don't think that is why the DM bought the adventure.



			
				jmucchiello said:
			
		

> A setting is not .... you can insert your own mini setting?



You missed the point of this sentence. In the front of the sentence you said you don't need a whole new setting to make your adventures diverse. In the end of the sentence you suggest that creating a mini-setting helps with diversity. This was a WTF moment for me. Which is it? Make a setting or don't make a setting?

Also, please don't take my stance as an absolute. I get the sense that you feel I think it is impossible not to create a whole setting in order to create an adventure. That's obviously false. It is entirely possible to write hundreds of adventures with no implied setting. I just say that doing so would be (potentially) boring, that it would be hard to differentiate them in the market.

The point is that 3pps are not flocking to 4e and writing a lot of adventures. Why? Ultimately they've decided to either do something more appealing (where appealing could range from monetarily more valuable to intellectually more valuable) or do nothing at all. Writing 4e adventures puts has restrictions that other RPG writing does not have. Apparently these restrictions are significant enough to impact the number of adventures being written for 4e.


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## Mark (Oct 11, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> 3pps can't write for FR, Dark Sun or Eb. None of that stuff is in the GSL.





That's the bottom line in this discussion and the reason why most people won't buy 3PP adventures.  WotC's isolationist stance, restrictive GSL and policy of driving everything toward their DDI has created a near-impossible task for a 3PP that wants to be tied to D&D.  (Oddly, that policy might also be why non-core WotC books seem to be having trouble selling.)


To the OP, have you seen anything in this thread yet that gives hope to 3PP's sales?  I've yet to read something new or potentially effective.  A site like EN World has a huge amount of 4E support and barely 150 people (out of a needed 1000) have signed up to spend a measly $3/month (and there's no real telling if that's all 4E resource users).  Honestly, I think the whole 3PP community has to reinvent itself completely separate from 4E if it wants to flourish (not just even survive, which is in question).  As to EN World, it would appear that it will either close its doors at the end of the year or need to move away from depending on (reporting on? supporting at all?) 4E, as well, and find a way to garner support from a segment of the community that is willing to step up and pay for the resource of having her around.


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## Jack99 (Oct 11, 2009)

> (Oddly, that policy might also be why non-core WotC books seem to be having trouble selling.)



Based on..?


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## AllisterH (Oct 11, 2009)

I always thought WOTC wanted 3PP to make adventures....nt so much things like Conan and Monster guides.


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## ggroy (Oct 11, 2009)

Mark said:


> (Oddly, that policy might also be why non-core WotC books seem to be having trouble selling.)




By "non-core WotC", are you referring to books like Open Grave, Draconomicon, Dungeon Delve, Manual of the Planes, Divine Power, Martial Power, etc ...?  At several local FLGS, the owners have mentioned that these particular titles were not particularly hot sellers, compared to the original core books and PHB2.

Or is there something more problematic going on, such as these "non-core WotC" books only selling 2 or 3 copies at many popular FLGS?



Mark said:


> Honestly, I think the whole 3PP community has to reinvent itself completely separate from 4E if it wants to flourish (not just even survive, which is in question).




Do you envision seeing something like what happened in the 80s and 90s, with different publishers doing their own thing independently of one another?  Some of the d20 veterans have already been moving that direction and away from d20, such as Mongoose and Green Ronin.


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## ggroy (Oct 11, 2009)

Mark said:


> That's the bottom line in this discussion and the reason why most people won't buy 3PP adventures.




The only 4E 3PP adventures I have purchased regularly over the last year, are the Goodman Dungeon Crawl Classics modules.  I haven't really bought many other 4E 3PP modules.  (I did pick up the first two Lands of Darkness modules by Expeditious Retreat Press, but didn't find them particularly useful for my campaign.  I don't think I'll be buying any more of them anytime soon).

If there is another upcoming 4E 3PP company publishing adventures in print, they would have to be at least as decent as the 4E Dungeon Crawl Classics modules released so far, for me to more than just skim through them.

Recently I skimmed through the "Scarrport:  City of Secrets" book at a local FLGS, but found that it would be almost next to useless for my present campaign due to the presence of new 3PP classes, races, etc ...  (I didn't buy it, and put it back on the shelf).

Mongoose Publishing : For All Your Gaming Needs ...

The players in my 4E game are not receptive at all to any new non-DDI 3PP classes, paragon paths, etc ... About year ago, I even offered them the use of some 4E 3PP books like "Forgotten Heroes:  Fang, Fist, and Song" (by Goodman) and "Advanced Player's Guide" (by Expeditious Retreat Press) before the 4E PHB2 was released, but there were still no takers.

A year ago back in the summer and fall of 2008, I was more receptive towards 4E 3PP books whether they were adventure modules or crunch heavy splatbooks.  With the DDI character builder achieving such a huge dominance very quickly over the last year or so, today I don't even bother anymore with 4E 3PP crunch heavy splatbooks which are player specific.



Mark said:


> To the OP, have you seen anything in this thread yet that gives hope to 3PP's sales?  I've yet to read something new or potentially effective.




I'm not the OP, but so far not many announced 4E 3PP titles in the pipeline look all that compelling to me.  At this point, I'll be taking a "wait and see" approach for the upcoming announced print 4E 3PP titles like:  Freeport, Nevermore, Amethyst, Age of Legend, Scarred Lands, etc ...  If any of these books have too much stuff that my DDI character builder "addicted" players will object to, I don't think I will be buying many of them.

I simply won't buy any more books which will sit on my bookshelf collecting dust, which have very little to no use in my game (beyond just reading the book once).  The crappy economy isn't helping much either, where I've been spending less overall in general.


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## BryonD (Oct 11, 2009)

Mark said:


> That's the bottom line in this discussion and the reason why most people won't buy 3PP adventures.  WotC's isolationist stance, restrictive GSL and policy of driving everything toward their DDI has created a near-impossible task for a 3PP that wants to be tied to D&D.



I really don't think not being able to publish FR or Ebb material has anything to do with it.  You couldn't do that under the OGL either.

The GSL (even the "improved" version) certainly is a problem.  But the bottom line is that a viable market isn't there.


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## jmucchiello (Oct 11, 2009)

Joshua Randall said:


> This ended up pretty long and rambling... using s-blocks to avoid the Wall of Text effect.



Perhaps this is why I missed this when it was posted.  Thanks for answering....

A few over half of 30 Living FR players use DDI and a little over half buy 3pp products and the split between those that do both or one is relatively even. This implies that 3pp purchasing is orthogonal to DDI usage. But I doubt the sample size is statistically valid (nor the data collection statistically sound either).

You pointed out that a flaw with this group is they can't use 3pp products in the LFR game. I think the other flaw with this group is they all play LFR so they are not representative of "normal" gamers. It probably takes a bit more dedication than average to the hobby to join a living campaign. But I admit that is just a guess.

It would be interesting if we could get sample data outside LFR to support or disprove that DDI versus 3pp purchasing is orthogonal.


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## JoeGKushner (Oct 11, 2009)

Mark said:
			
		

> A site like EN World has a huge amount of *4E support *and *barely 150 people *(out of a needed 1000) have signed up to spend a measly $3/month (and there's no real telling if that's all 4E resource users).




What does 4e have to do with supporting EN World, which also has a large Pathfinder/OGL group? Or people who play both? Or neither and prefer Burning Wheel?


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## Ariosto (Oct 11, 2009)

jmucchiello said:
			
		

> It is entirely possible to write hundreds of adventures with no implied setting. I just say that doing so would be (potentially) boring, that it would be hard to differentiate them in the market.



I think you mean "explicit" setting, at least as I understand the terms; the 4e core books give an implied setting (with notable bits of explicit detail in some areas).

If your scenarios depend on variant character classes or the like, then you're effectively binding people to your game (e.g., *Empire of the Petal Throne* or *Metamorphosis Alpha* rather than just "D&D").

I understand that has had some success for TSR and WotC -- but the more generic, implied-setting approach has been successful as well (and maybe more so in terms of units sold, profits, and/or years sustained). Even TSR's Forgotten Realms modules did not necessarily require departures from baseline AD&D.


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## ggroy (Oct 11, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> It is entirely possible to write hundreds of adventures with no implied setting. I just say that doing so would be (potentially) boring, that it would be hard to differentiate them in the market.




There's also the option of taking stuff from modules from older editions (or even other rpgs), and "retrofitting" them into the ruleset of the present edition.



jmucchiello said:


> The point is that 3pps are not flocking to 4e and writing a lot of adventures. Why? Ultimately they've decided to either do something more appealing (where appealing could range from monetarily more valuable to intellectually more valuable) or do nothing at all. Writing 4e adventures puts has restrictions that other RPG writing does not have. Apparently these restrictions are significant enough to impact the number of adventures being written for 4e.




If this assertion is true, I wonder if WotC ever anticipated things falling into this state of affairs so soon, where even writing 4E adventure modules is considered "undesirable" by some 3PP companies.

With the way the 4E 3PP market has become already, it looks like Goodman Games may very well become this generation's "Judges Guild".


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## jmucchiello (Oct 11, 2009)

ggroy said:


> If this assertion is true, I wonder if WotC ever anticipated things falling into this state of affairs so soon, where even writing 4E adventure modules is considered "undesirable" by some 3PP companies




I don't think WotC cares one way or the other. They decided that it would be too expensive for WotC to churn out a lot of adventures so rather than cut off the OGL completely, they baleful polymorphed it into the GSL and hoped someone might take up the slack.

Okay, I don't really mean to qualify it that way. I just wanted to use baleful poymorph in a sentence. Seriously....

WotC didn't want a Mutants and Masterminds-style 4e clone to become the next breakthrough product for the next Green Ronin clone. So they crafted the GSL to make innovation IMPOSSIBLE. Let me rephrase that: The GSL is DESIGNED to make INNOVATION impossible.

Creative types wilt when their ability to innovate is squelched. So all these limitations on what you can do result in an unsatisfying environment for 3pp 4e designers. There are exceptions. There are always exceptions. But the way the world works I would expect that after then galaxy loads of folks who attempted to be 3pps during 3e that the number would be even bigger during 4e. It is not. It is smaller. There is something keeping people from scratching their RPG design itch with the 4e GSL. And that is because it is designed to keep out the innovators who would make the actual D&D books unnecessary.

I hope you enjoyed the yarn I've just spun. Let me repeat my main point though: WotC doesn't care if 3pps ever make another adventure.


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## catastrophic (Oct 11, 2009)

Mark said:


> A site like EN World has a huge amount of 4E support and barely 150 people (out of a needed 1000) have signed up to spend a measly $3/month (and there's no real telling if that's all 4E resource users). Honestly, I think the whole 3PP community has to reinvent itself completely separate from 4E if it wants to flourish (not just even survive, which is in question). As to EN World, it would appear that it will either close its doors at the end of the year or need to move away from depending on (reporting on? supporting at all?) 4E, as well, and find a way to garner support from a segment of the community that is willing to step up and pay for the resource of having her around.



Frankly I think the opposite is true. I think the negativity and drama coming from people who hate 4e is driving people away and making them less likely to contribute to the broader comunity. Blaming 4e for enworld's problems is an example of the negativity i'm talking about.


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## catastrophic (Oct 11, 2009)

ggroy said:


> Couldn't one just create a whole entire new island, continent, or planet, to accommodate an overly large kingdom or nation state?



Yes, you could, easily. So you could say that the grand duchy of blarg survived the fall of nerath but it's in some distant province and here's an adventure in it- maybe some people won't like your adventure, but it's not the huge barrier people are claiming.



jmucchiello said:


> The more detail you add to a forest, the more likely it contains elements that don't mesh with the forests the party has already encountered. The DM can't drop a new forest into an existing campaign willy-nilly. If his forests are bugbear infested your adventure with formians controlling vast forest areas will be out of place.



This is absurd. You can have a forest with different stuff in it than other forests. Unless you are playing in _Forestia Homogenous: the Land of lots of Identical Forests_ you're never really going to have this problem. 

You're talking about a level of setting-obsession that is well and truly beyond how most people run their games.



> You missed the point of this sentence. In the front of the sentence you said you don't need a whole new setting to make your adventures diverse. In the end of the sentence you suggest that creating a mini-setting helps with diversity. This was a WTF moment for me. Which is it? Make a setting or don't make a setting?



There's no contradiction here. Every adventure has a setting. It's just a smaller setting than the one provided in a world book. And an adventure's small setting can be dropped into a larger world with a minimum of fuss in the majority of cases. 



> Also, please don't take my stance as an absolute. I get the sense that you feel I think it is impossible not to create a whole setting in order to create an adventure. That's obviously false. It is entirely possible to write hundreds of adventures with no implied setting. I just say that doing so would be (potentially) boring, that it would be hard to differentiate them in the market.



And as i've said, this isn't true, because you can make distinctive unique settings without colliding with the world in some bizarre way. 



> The point is that 3pps are not flocking to 4e and writing a lot of adventures. Why? Ultimately they've decided to either do something more appealing (where appealing could range from monetarily more valuable to intellectually more valuable) or do nothing at all. Writing 4e adventures puts has restrictions that other RPG writing does not have. Apparently these restrictions are significant enough to impact the number of adventures being written for 4e.



That's not true. The restrictions you describe are trivial at best. Settings don't work like that; and the average DM can integrate most adventures into their settings just fine.


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## pawsplay (Oct 11, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> I've repeatedly said that I think your opinion is wrong. And I think it's fair to say that you're exagerating a minor issue, or rather, an issue that all products face. ... I am not saying that it is unlimited, and by suggesting that you are being deliberatly obtuse.




How about you stop casting _detect thoughts_ and assume for a second I am posting in good faith.



> When you originally used the term 'limited' you most certainly did not mean it as 'not unlimited'. You meant that there was only a small degree of fluff a writer could create, as indicated by your broader argument. This assertion is false.




Tis not.



> You can write plenty of fluff for an adventure without running into the problem that you described, to the point where the problem you described is a minor issue at best, or more accuratly, the issue of adapting modules is ever-present and no more problematic for 3pp creators than other creators.




I know that from the first glimpses of 4e, I realized it would be practically impossible to convert my existing campaign. The span from one 3e setting to another is, in many cases, far less than from 3e FR to 4e FR. Virtually very monster, spell, or character class has a close analog between all editions from OD&D through 3.5 and Pathfinder. When we get to 4e, the ground rules change substantially. 

Let's use a quick example. Assume for a moment you want to include a magical elven city. One possible adventure scenario involves rescuing a half-orc from a jail cell. Now, the first thing that might occur to you is that in 4e, elves are nature types who uses bows, not arcane casters. Now, you could make your elves different, but the resulting NPCs would be a little off. So you make them eladrin. Now, looking at the jail, you notice you have a different problem. Jails for eladrin have to have sustantial pits and barriers to keep eladrin from teleporting out. Your half-orcs needs a new backstory, since half-orcs in 4e are not strictly half-breeds, or not assumed to be. Finally, the jailbreak has to be reconceived, replacing a series of barriers and locks, representing a freeform obstacle, with a proper skill challenge.

4e is a different game set in a different world than previous D&Ds. 

So let's come back to the matter at hand. So you decide to create your Eladrin city. Now, FR is already home to a number of settlements, so you can either design an alternative or decide your creation largely replaces some existing city. Eberron is going to look a little different. Because the religions of Eberron (religious mystery) versus FR (gods everywhere) are rather different, you have to make the religious aspects of the city somewhat modular.

So you decide to forget the city and just focus on the jail. You write a brief summary of what kind of city this is, which means it's easy to drop into an existing setting or to handwave, and you focus on the adventure at hand. Since we have a half-orc in an Eladrin jail, we skim the maps of Eberron and FR and make sure that's vaguely plausible. 

We write up some NPCs, keeping any clerics purposefully vague as to their activities, we draw a physical design for the jail and we write up the half-orc and the jailers. The result is not a module so much as a scene.

This is why I GMd for years, honed my skills at adventure writing, and learned a game system inside and out, to write a _scene_? My 3pp product, originally envisioned as a city trek with a daring jailbreak, has been reduced to the equivalent of filler for Dungeon. 

It certainly is POSSIBLE to do more than this, but is it enticing? Is it practical? Is it rewarding? Is it lucrative? Is it anything, in short, other than mostly frustrating?


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## catastrophic (Oct 11, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> How about you stop casting _detect thoughts_ and assume for a second I am posting in good faith.



So what you were saying was that the potential for innovation is _non-infinite_? Well golly, that's a very important point i'm glad you made it, I hope you see your way clear to asserting the non-infinite nature of the other issues under discussion. 



> I know that from the first glimpses of 4e, I realized it would be practically impossible to convert my existing campaign. The span from one 3e setting to another is, in many cases, far less than from 3e FR to 4e FR. Virtually very monster, spell, or character class has a close analog between all editions from OD&D through 3.5 and Pathfinder. When we get to 4e, the ground rules change substantially.



This has very little to do with making 4e modules for 4e games using 4e settings. I'm sorry, I think when i said adaptation you thought i meant across editions; i'm talking about a given DM adapting a module to the setting they play in.



> So let's come back to the matter at hand. So you decide to create your Eladrin city. Now, FR is already home to a number of settlements, so you can either design an alternative or decide your creation largely replaces some existing city. Eberron is going to look a little different. Because the religions of Eberron (religious mystery) versus FR (gods everywhere) are rather different, you have to make the religious aspects of the city somewhat modular.



You can still have a temple either way. 



> So you decide to forget the city and just focus on the jail. You write a brief summary of what kind of city this is, which means it's easy to drop into an existing setting or to handwave, and you focus on the adventure at hand. Since we have a half-orc in an Eladrin jail, we skim the maps of Eberron and FR and make sure that's vaguely plausible.
> 
> We write up some NPCs, keeping any clerics purposefully vague as to their activities, we draw a physical design for the jail and we write up the half-orc and the jailers. The result is not a module so much as a scene.
> 
> This is why I GMd for years, honed my skills at adventure writing, and learned a game system inside and out, to write a _scene_? My 3pp product, originally envisioned as a city trek with a daring jailbreak, has been reduced to the equivalent of filler for Dungeon.



Only if we follow your guidelines, and frankly they're spurious. You can put plenty of stuff in, even if the temple has to be a bit ambiguous (and you're drawing a long bow there). You can detail the city, the thieves guild, you can make the half orc an outcast halfbreed if you like. You can detail the jail, and make the eladrin qualities part of the fun.

You can do plenty, if you're intending to create a solid, versatile 4e module. If you're intending to pretend that can't be done. .  .not so much.



> It certainly is POSSIBLE to do more than this, but is it enticing? Is it practical? Is it rewarding? Is it lucrative? Is it anything, in short, other than mostly frustrating?



Yes it is, because your argument is simply not sound. Once again you're presenting a scenario designed to support your argument, but everybody here knows you don't have to forgo descirbing the city in order to drop it into the forogtten realms.


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## pawsplay (Oct 12, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> So what you were saying was that the potential for innovation is _non-infinite_? Well golly, that's a very important point i'm glad you made it, I hope you see your way clear to asserting the non-infinite nature of the other issues under discussion.




You seem to be saying that just because creative freedom exists, design constraints are of no concern. If so, you are wrong. I struggle to find some other reading. 

I can't see much to respond to in your post. You are welcome to test your ideas in the publishing arena. I would discourage someone from havin unrealistic expectations, but I would never tell someone they cannot try.


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## Mark (Oct 12, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> Frankly I think the opposite is true. I think the negativity and drama coming from people who hate 4e is driving people away and making them less likely to contribute to the broader comunity. Blaming 4e for enworld's problems is an example of the negativity i'm talking about.





You seem to be relatively new here but the proof appears to be in the numbers.  All I know is what dominates the news and threads as compared to wha used to do so, alongside the turn out of the recent appeal to the community.  It's apparently not footing the bill.  Of course, I see an opportunity for you to step up, so feel free to walk the walk along with the talk.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> Frankly I think the opposite is true. I think the negativity and drama coming from people who hate 4e is driving people away and making them less likely to contribute to the broader comunity. Blaming 4e for enworld's problems is an example of the negativity i'm talking about.



Breaking News:  Wet streets found to cause rain.


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## ggroy (Oct 12, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> So they crafted the GSL to make innovation IMPOSSIBLE. Let me rephrase that: The GSL is DESIGNED to make INNOVATION impossible.




The GSL and 4E marketing plans may very well be the sum total result of lessons learned by WotC over the last 30+ years:

1E/2E (A)D&D TSR era
- don't bother cranking out too many modules
- don't bother cranking out too many settings

3E/3.5E D&D WotC era
- don't give away the house so easily
- don't let somebody else flood the market with tons of 3PP "crunch heavy" splatbooks (ie. Mongoose, Fantasy Flight, etc ...)
- don't bother cranking out too many setting specific splatbooks and modules


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## Mark (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Breaking News:  Wet streets found to cause rain.





Could just be someone pissing on your leg.


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## Eridanis (Oct 12, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> Yes it is, because your argument is simply not sound.




You've spent a lot of time in this thread deconstructing other people's arguments. Let's get back on topic, everyone, and keep posts focused on the discussion and not on reading tea leaves.


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## ggroy (Oct 12, 2009)

jmucchiello said:


> I hope you enjoyed the yarn I've just spun. Let me repeat my main point though: WotC doesn't care if 3pps ever make another adventure.




Wonder if 4E was designed from the beginning such that novice players can easily design their own adventures and move into the DM chair very easily.  If such a scenario passes muster, WotC adventure modules could very well be made superfluous and/or are used as "proof of concept" examples as a guide for less experienced DMs.  This may be suggestive from the last Worldwide D&D Game Day event for DMG2, in the exercises of designing encounters.

Where this leaves 3PP adventure modules, is anybody's guess.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 12, 2009)

Mark said:


> You seem to be relatively new here but the proof appears to be in the numbers.  All I know is what dominates the news and threads as compared to wha used to do so, alongside the turn out of the recent appeal to the community.  It's apparently not footing the bill.  Of course, I see an opportunity for you to step up, so feel free to walk the walk along with the talk.




Historically, this place has been a hub of news and discussion on D&D and particularly the OGL that accompanied it. Since the launch of 4E, there haven't been as much exciting goings on coming from 3PP, either from the OGL or GSL. Pathfinder has been an out of character blip on what is otherwise a steady decline. It stands to reason that ENWorld might decline similarly to the decline of its core focus.


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## AllisterH (Oct 12, 2009)

ggroy said:


> Wonder if 4E was designed from the beginning such that novice players can easily design their own adventures and move into the DM chair very easily.  If such a scenario passes muster, WotC adventure modules could very well be made superfluous and/or are used as "proof of concept" examples as a guide for less experienced DMs.  This may be suggestive from the last Worldwide D&D Game Day event for DMG2, in the exercises of designing encounters.
> 
> Where this leaves 3PP adventure modules, is anybody's guess.




You know...this is an interesting theory...

Look at the WOTC page and also things like the DMG1, DMG2 and DDI. Hell, even the much maligned "Part-time sorceress" column and the focus on the website with the opening graphic.

If 3.x was player focused, 4e seems REALLY focused on making the game easier to run for a DM.

re: Adventures
As an aside, elves make pretty damn good wizards. You do realize that elves actually make better control wizards than eladrins right? Not having a negative to an ability score kind of means that it is pretty easy for any race to be any class.

The only thing I think you would really have to change in adventures is the size and number of people involved.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> It stands to reason that ENWorld might decline similarly to the decline of its core focus.



Pretty much hits the nail on the head.    
Welcome to the era of simple to DM D&D.


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## AllisterH (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Pretty much hits the nail on the head.
> Welcome to the era of simple to DM D&D.




And then the question is, "Is this a bad thing?"

Personally, I would say no. For all the complaints about how 4e isn't a roleplaying game, the DMG1 and DMG2 have more useful information in actually encouraging DMs to put on that roleplaying hat.

I've been a player since 1e and a DM since 2e, and while the crunch has always been adequate in modifying the game for DMs, I never found D&D to be especially strong much less decent in actually encouraging/teaching the art of being a DM.

I look at 4e DMG 1 (best DMG ever for teaching a newbie to relatively new DM) and DMG2 (great resorce for intermediate and even old pros) and I look at all the way WOTC designed 4e.

They intentionally tried to make it more easy for DMs since I believe WTC has realized that the biggest impediment to D&D isn't the players (Really, finding players has never been a problem IMO) but actually getting one of the poor suckers to be a DM.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> What does 4e have to do with supporting EN World, which also has a large Pathfinder/OGL group?



Hey, its pretty cool to see non-4E gaming suddenly get equal billing here!!!!!



But, with all the smashing success that 4E is, it does seem odd that throngs of adoring 4E fans don't seem to provide the financial support that was demonstrated on several occasions in years past.  Something seems different now.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Hey, its pretty cool to see non-4E gaming suddenly get equal billing here!!!!!
> 
> 
> 
> But, with all the smashing success that 4E is, it does seem odd that throngs of adoring 4E fans don't seem to provide the financial support that was demonstrated on several occasions in years past.  Something seems different now.




Maybe because 4E doesn't really need ENWorld like the OGL movement did. 4E has WotC's forums(even with their current ugliness), and we have RPGnet(actually has the best 4E discussion these days IMO) as well. ENWorld isn't the flagship 4E forum like it was the flagship OGL forum.


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## JoeGKushner (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Hey, its pretty cool to see non-4E gaming suddenly get equal billing here!!!!!
> 
> 
> 
> But, with all the smashing success that 4E is, it does seem odd that throngs of adoring 4E fans don't seem to provide the financial support that was demonstrated on several occasions in years past.  Something seems different now.




And in and of itself, may that very notion, support on multiple occassions be the 'real' problem?


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> And then the question is, "Is this a bad thing?"



Depends on what you want.   If you want to have a thriving 3PP market with a lot of different points of view and ideas.  Then, it looks like the answer is "yeah".  If you want to get 1,000 new subscribers before Christmas, so far the answer appears to be "yeah".



> Personally, I would say no. For all the complaints about how 4e isn't a roleplaying game, the DMG1 and DMG2 have more useful information in actually encouraging DMs to put on that roleplaying hat.
> 
> I've been a player since 1e and a DM since 2e, and while the crunch has always been adequate in modifying the game for DMs, I never found D&D to be especially strong much less decent in actually encouraging/teaching the art of being a DM.
> 
> ...



Shrug.  I've been through all this too many time already.
Putting the ball on a tee doesn't make the hitter any more talented.

If you are playing a game designed to make it "easy" on the "sucker", then you've already given in.

If you need easy, then you need easy.  Cool.  But if you don't need easy, why be shackled to it?

Honestly, the concept of a DM being a "poor sucker" is alien to my experience.  But it fits perfectly with my negative views on 4E.  The great DMs I've known loved DMing even when they were newbies, learning the ropes the hard way.  And then they become great DMs in a system for great DMs.  So much better than your "poor sucker" getting by because the system has been ratcheted down to his level.

The bottom line is, if someone *needs* the simplicity of 4E to DM, and isn't comfortable taking the helm for a more advanced system, then I don't really want that person DMing for me in any system.  

But, the on topic point is, the KISS players are going to (as a group) be a lot less interested in increasing the variables.  So the value of things like 3PP and on line communities goes down.  And you get what we got.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> Maybe because 4E doesn't really need ENWorld like the OGL movement did. 4E has WotC's forums(even with their current ugliness), and we have RPGnet(actually has the best 4E discussion these days IMO) as well. ENWorld isn't the flagship 4E forum like it was the flagship OGL forum.



Perhaps.  But those places were around during 3E as well.  The circumstances fit the model, so to me it is pretty easy to see.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> And in and of itself, may that very notion, support on multiple occassions be the 'real' problem?



No.  Those occasions were largely the result of growth and the need more more and better.

As Morrus said, this time it is about revenue drying up.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Perhaps.  But those places were around during 3E as well.  The circumstances fit the model, so to me it is pretty easy to see.




The difference is that ENWorld has had a stronger OGL/3PP focus than those other places.


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## AllisterH (Oct 12, 2009)

*Heh*

You make it sound like you're a superhero if you're a DM BryonD.

It shouldn't be IMO.

4e is a game at its heart and should be one that makes it fun for both players and DMs. I really found that D&D always threw DMs into the deep end and seemed to think "ok, you're a great DM if you can survive that".

Personally, I don't believe that's necessarily true. Teach, make it easier for players and you'll get more people willing to take a chance and with a higher pool of DMs, you'll actually GET more great DMs.

You're also forgetting that many a complaint over the years of players being stuck with BAD DMs but not feeling comfortable to try and become one themselves.


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## Mark (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> As Morrus said, this time it is about revenue drying up.





And the on topic point apropos to that is that EN World is essentially a 3PP support product, a sort of shareware model, but a support product nonetheless.  It primarily supports the most recent version of D&D, by default, and other things besides like PF, some GSL 3PP companies, some OGL companies, other RPGs, etc., but primarily supports the most recent version of D&D.  The question of the thread is "Third Party: If So, Then What?" which assumes first and foremost that 3PPs can exist but if the most central 3PP product, EN World, cannot muster enough interest to get more than 15-20% of the return support needed to exist, then I have to question the premise of the thread, or at least question the premise of EN World.  If it is true what was posted upthread in regard to 4E not needed EN World, then is it perhaps time to wonder if EN World needs 4E?  And can something else bring enough support to EN World to replace it?  And would that opportunity even exist or does a lack of enough return support from 4E simply mean no more EN World period?


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

AllisterH said:


> *Heh*
> 
> You make it sound like you're a superhero if you're a DM BryonD.



Quite the opposite.  You are the one who flat out said they were "poor suckers".  I'm just holding them to a higher standard than that.




> 4e is a game at its heart and should be one that makes it fun for both players and DMs.



Ok.
3E is a game at its heart and is one that makes it fun for both players and DMs.



> I really found that D&D always threw DMs into the deep end and seemed to think "ok, you're a great DM if you can survive that".



Kinda like baseball? The rules of baseball don't change just because you are new.  You might play tee-ball to learn some, but you move on to baseball as soon as you can.  If 4E is the beginner game and WotC has a secret plan to release a game for experienced DMs in the near future, then I take everything back.  But 4E is still newbie teeball no matter how long you play.




> You're also forgetting that many a complaint over the years of players being stuck with BAD DMs but not feeling comfortable to try and become one themselves.



I'm not forgetting that.  I'm just saying that a bad DM is still a bad DM, even if the system is brought down to them.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> The difference is that ENWorld has had a stronger OGL/3PP focus than those other places.



Ok.  Circular argument.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

Hey Mark,

I wish I knew the answers to your questions.


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## pawsplay (Oct 12, 2009)

If ENWorld used to be the go-to place for D&D news, it kind of raises the question: what is ENWorld's brand now?

I can offer my personal preferences, but if they aren't shared a few thousand other people, it's moot. For any commnity to survive, there has to be a critical mass of interest. For ENWorld to survive, work has to be put into making something ENWorld distinct and positively regarded. 

Same applies to a 4e creative community. 

In many, many ways, the rpg hobby exists apart from D&D the retail product. 3pp products are for hobbyists, not the mall.


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## Mark (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Hey Mark,
> 
> I wish I knew the answers to your questions.





I think one potential answer is for EN World to create a 4E specific forum, like the PF forum, and get the General forum back to being an actual General forum.  4E and PF threads would be moved over to them as they arise, until people get used to the idea that it is inappropriate to post either in the General forum.  Of course, in conjunction with that, you make all specific forums (4E, PF, Rules, etc.) Community Supporter access only.  There's two sides to every equation and if revenues aren't going up, then costs need to come down. That would at least be a solution short of closing the whole site.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Ok.  Circular argument.




I don't get your reasoning here.

Historically, ENWorld has been the best place to discuss and find news of 3PP/OGL D&D products. Its kind of what set ENWorld apart. I asserted that the 3PP/GSL/OGL scene has diminished in recent years, and that the discussion that followed it also diminished. Since 3PP/OGL was a large part of the discussion and focus here, it would stand to reason that ENWorld would be similarly diminished. Since ENWorld was more strongly focused on 3PP/OGL than other sites that had existed in the past(RPGnet's main focus would be non-d20 games, while WotC is strongly focused on WotC alone), it would stand to reason that ENWorld would be more diminished than those other places. 

As for 4E, while there is some good discussion in ENWorld's 4E section, it isn't as interesting as what goes on at RPGnet(IMO), and it doesn't compete with the sheer volume of posting at WotC. In addition, ENWorld's reporting of RPG news is in competition with WotC's own D&D site, and frankly WotC has been blowing ENWorld away in terms of 4E news. Even scoops from DDI articles get echoed in the WotC forums in fairly short order. Its definitely where I go. ENWorld just doesn't dominate in terms of being "the place to be" for 4E, not like it did for the OGL.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 12, 2009)

Mark said:


> I think one potential answer is for EN World to create a 4E specific forum, like the PF forum, and get the General forum back to being an actual General forum.  4E and PF threads would be moved over to them as they arise, until people get used to the idea that it is inappropriate to post either in the General forum.  Of course, in conjunction with that, you make all specific forums (4E, PF, Rules, etc.) Community Supporter access only.  There's two sides to every equation and if revenues aren't going up, then costs need to come down. That would at least be a solution short of closing the whole site.




Charging for specific forum access would be the death of this place.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> Historically....



I think I have a different point of view on it.
I remember when Eric announced that he was going to be adding message boards to his 3E news page.
This place has always been a D&D board to me.
The fact that the OGL made D&D open to virtually anything was an extension of that.

The main boards were D&D talk right up until 4E was announced.  Yeah, there were lots of other places as well.  But this was D&D 3E central.


But, the lack of support for 3PP and the lack of support for this kind of site are related, so blaming one for the other is missing the larger picture.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> Charging for specific forum access would be the death of this place.



What will not getting enough support be?


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## Mark (Oct 12, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> Charging for specific forum access would be the death of this place.





That would appear to be happening anyway, but I would only suggest that it would make the place considerably more exclusive.  Perhaps there could be some sliding scales where access to heavy traffic forums like 4E would be at the high end, say $5/per month while access to lower traffic forums could be $1/month.  This way the patrons incurring the higher site costs would be the ones providing the greater part of the necessary revenue.  Of course people who simply have no interest in supporting the site might leave but that would help reduce the costs, too.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

Mark said:


> I think one potential answer is for EN World to create a 4E specific forum, like the PF forum, and get the General forum back to being an actual General forum.  4E and PF threads would be moved over to them as they arise, until people get used to the idea that it is inappropriate to post either in the General forum.  Of course, in conjunction with that, you make all specific forums (4E, PF, Rules, etc.) Community Supporter access only.  There's two sides to every equation and if revenues aren't going up, then costs need to come down. That would at least be a solution short of closing the whole site.



You may have a very good point regarding the General forum.
However, it may be too late for that.  And it may have never been viable in the first place.  It may just be that what is left of the 3E base combined with the existing 4E base just isn't enough support to go around and no amount of arrangements can change that.  It may be like having 64 pennies and trying to stack them so that they add up to a dollar.

We may need a 64 cent board.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> I think I have a different point of view on it.
> I remember when Eric announced that he was going to be adding message boards to his 3E news page.
> This place has always been a D&D board to me.
> The fact that the OGL made D&D open to virtually anything was an extension of that.
> ...




What is the larger picture?

So, are you saying that ENWorld's attempt at embracing or at the least making room at the table for 4E either hurt itself or the 3PP discussion community as a whole? I'm trying to understand this. I see a few things here:

1. I don't find the reasoning that the OGL was an integral part of D&D, or that discussion of OGL/3PP was discussion of D&D universal. I never really held that opinion, and during my 3.5E days I basically refused to bother with anything not released by WotC, and I didn't really consider OGL books D&D. I spent most of my time online at WotC's forums during 3.5E's tenure, and that was the prevailing opinion there, and it was a large community. I only began checking ENWorld when this place had better news about 4E prior to its release.

2. The OGL made D&D open to almost everything, but 4E changed all of that. A big part of the D&D community is 4E, and 4E is most certainly not open. 

3. I don't know that this place was objectively D&D central. WotC's forums certainly beat ENWorld out in terms of volume. 

4. What was the talk on ENWorld after 4E was announced? Was it not D&D talk anymore?



> But, the lack of support for 3PP and the lack of support for this kind of site are related, so blaming one for the other is missing the larger picture.




I'm not really sure exactly what you mean here. Are you saying that ENWorld's decisions had something to do with the root cause of the lack of support for 3PP and in turn the lack of support for itself? I had said that I believed the decline in 3PP/OGL has influenced the decline of ENWorld. If not this, then what?


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## Mark (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> We may need a 64 cent board.





I'm guessing two 32 cent boards would be better and more condusive to growing at least one of them into a $1 board.  It appears we know which one is more likely to support that growth.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> What will not getting enough support be?




No forum is good enough to pay for the privilege. Why pay for ENWorld when you can go to WotC or RPGnet for free? I have no issue with asking for donations, or supporting a place that you believe in. Making the place require payment to use is another story.


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## JoeGKushner (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> No.  Those occasions were largely the result of growth and the need more more and better.
> 
> As Morrus said, this time it is about revenue drying up.




And I'm just throwing the arguement out here.

How many times can you go to the well?

In the past, En World has been fortunate, very fortunate, to have some fantastic donations. Huge numbers. What's the likelyhood of those donations coming again in the same numbers, especially as the general economy in America continues to tank for the average worker? I can't say with any certainty of course but I would think not as high.


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## JoeGKushner (Oct 12, 2009)

ggroy said:


> Wonder if 4E was designed from the beginning such that novice players can easily design their own adventures and move into the DM chair very easily.  If such a scenario passes muster, WotC adventure modules could very well be made superfluous and/or are used as "proof of concept" examples as a guide for less experienced DMs.  This may be suggestive from the last Worldwide D&D Game Day event for DMG2, in the exercises of designing encounters.
> 
> Where this leaves 3PP adventure modules, is anybody's guess.




To me, this is one of the reasons I'd probably never go back to 3rd edition. 4e is just easier for me to GM.

Stat blocks are smaller, monsters have specific roles, characters have specific roles, etc...

It's not that I couldn't GM something that requires more prep time, it's just if I did, it would be Hero, not D&D.


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## Mark (Oct 12, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> 3. I don't know that this place was objectively D&D central. WotC's forums certainly beat ENWorld out in terms of volume.





This is where you and some others are missing the point.  I don't think anyone believes that EN World is D&D central, but rather that EN World is D&D focused, and by default currently D&D4E focused.  The problem is that it doesn't feed the kitty.  Objectively, that requires a rethink of what the focus of EN World needs to be to survive at some level, if at all.




thecasualoblivion said:


> No forum is good enough to pay for the privilege. Why pay for ENWorld when you can go to WotC or RPGnet for free? I have no issue with asking for donations, or supporting a place that you believe in. Making the place require payment to use is another story.





I disagree and have been a supporter of EN World since the beginning.   It's going through a rough patch but I am guessing that it will turn things around and likeminded people will be here longterm, supporting the community and having fun.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 12, 2009)

Mark said:


> This is where you and some others are missing the point.  I don't think anyone believes that EN World is D&D central, but rather that EN World is D&D focused, and by default currently D&D4E focused.  The problem is that it doesn't feed the kitty.  Objectively, that requires a rethink of what the focus of EN World needs to be to survive at some level, if at all.




So the question would be if there was a way to feed the 4E kitty(or do you mean 4E feeding the ENWorld kitty?), or if moving focus away at this point from 4E could support the site?



Mark said:


> I disagree and have been a supporter of EN World since the beginning.   It's going through a rough patch but I am guessing that it will turn things around and likeminded people will be here longterm, supporting the community and having fun.




The problem with that is that requiring payment for access kills the future recruitment of new members. Being loyal enough to donate to the upkeep of a forum takes time.


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## Mark (Oct 12, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> So the question would be if there was a way to feed the 4E kitty(or do you mean 4E feeding the ENWorld kitty?), or if moving focus away at this point from 4E could support the site?





I have read this three times and cannot seem to divine what you are saying.




thecasualoblivion said:


> The problem with that is that requiring payment for access kills the future recruitment of new members. Being loyal enough to donate to the upkeep of a forum takes time.





There are a lot of scenarios one could claim cannot work but all we have to go on is what we know has worked in the past and what we see is apparently not working right now.  Naturally, you can prove me wrong and make me eat my words by signing up yourself and 743 of your closest friends but judging by your posts I am guessing you have neither the inclination to sign up nor that many friends.


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## darjr (Oct 12, 2009)

I think paying for access is a bad idea.

I think that the general forum should be made more so and that the pathfinder forum should be folded back into the main.

I also think that there are plenty of folks who love D&D in it's many forms and don't really have a place other than ENWorld. Where does a guy who loves 4e and 1e go? The WotC forums are very 4e specific. RPGNet is as well. Dragons foot is decidedly not 3e or higher.


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## Mark (Oct 12, 2009)

darjr said:


> I think paying for access is a bad idea.





Not worse than no EN World at all, IMO.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 12, 2009)

Mark said:


> I have read this three times and cannot seem to divine what you are saying.




Ok, I'll try to clarify:

I was wondering if one of the following three things were true or even possible

1. ENWorld needs to better serve 4E fans for them to support ENWorld in greater numbers.
2. 4E fans need to support ENWorld more to help ENWorld survive
3. ENWorld needs to move focus away from 4E, and get the support it needs from non-4E fans.



Mark said:


> There are a lot of scenarios one could claim cannot work but all we have to go on is what we know has worked in the past and what we see is not apprently working right now.  Naturally, you can prove me wrong and make me eat my words by signing up yourself and 743 of your closest friends but judging by your posts I am guessing you have neither the inclination to sign up nor that many friends.




I'm more of a transient poster who appears now and again than a regular. I go to other places, and I post more at WotC and theRPGsite than I post here, and spend more time reading posts at RPGnet than here though I rarely post there. I don't really support any of them financially.


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## Mark (Oct 12, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> 2. 4E fans need to support ENWorld more to help ENWorld survive.





This seems to be the situation or . . .




thecasualoblivion said:


> 3. ENWorld needs to move focus away from 4E, and get the support it needs from non-4E fans.





. . . this is a possible alternative.




thecasualoblivion said:


> I'm more of a transient poster who appears now and again than a regular.





1000+ posts in less than two years is way above average.


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## darjr (Oct 12, 2009)

Mark said:


> Not worse than no EN World at all, IMO.




Well yes. I do think that the first will lead to the second.


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## pawsplay (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> What will not getting enough support be?




A) A wake up call to embrace a more modest vision. 
B) A chance for someone else to subsidize the site, assuming it's for sale or adoption. 

Take your pick. Morrus has basically said this isn't as fun a pet as it used to be and he would like to be compensated for the presumably satisfying yet taxing responsibility of maintaining the site. If, hypothetically, he didn't feel that way, things would go on much as they always have.


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## ggroy (Oct 12, 2009)

*** slightly offtopic ****

Just dug up an interesting ancient thread/poll from January 2002, on what 3PP d20 companies to watch for during the coming year of 2002.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/1117-who-d20-system-publisher-watch.html

A lot of the 3PP companies mentioned in that ancient thread, I have never heard of before.  (I wasn't gaming at all back in 2002).

Gives a completely different perspective of 3PPs, compared to today's lack thereof.


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## FireLance (Oct 12, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> A) A wake up call to embrace a more modest vision.
> B) A chance for someone else to subsidize the site, assuming it's for sale or adoption.
> 
> Take your pick. Morrus has basically said this isn't as fun a pet as it used to be and he would like to be compensated for the presumably satisfying yet taxing responsibility of maintaining the site. If, hypothetically, he didn't feel that way, things would go on much as they always have.



To be fair to Morrus, I think this is more an issue of responsibility than fun. He's going to get married soon, and he feels (quite reasonably, IMO) that he ought to be contributing more equally with respect to finances. This means that if he can't turn ENWorld into a viable business, he will give it up.


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## drothgery (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> But, with all the smashing success that 4E is, it does seem odd that throngs of adoring 4E fans don't seem to provide the financial support that was demonstrated on several occasions in years past. Something seems different now.




Morrus is trying to get a large number of people to sign up for $3/mo, indefinite subscriptions, rather than to conduct a one-time fundraising drive like he's done in the past. And he's trying to do this in the midst of a very poor economy in the primary markets for D&D. It's further complicated because many of those who would sign up for such thing already have long-term CS accounts that won't expire for years (frex, mine's good until 2011).


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## Jack99 (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Hey, its pretty cool to see non-4E gaming suddenly get equal billing here!!!!!
> 
> 
> 
> But, with all the smashing success that 4E is, it does seem odd that throngs of adoring 4E fans don't seem to provide the financial support that was demonstrated on several occasions in years past.  Something seems different now.






pawsplay said:


> A) A wake up call to embrace a more modest vision.
> B) A chance for someone else to subsidize the site, assuming it's for sale or adoption.
> 
> Take your pick. Morrus has basically said this isn't as fun a pet as it used to be and he would like to be compensated for the presumably satisfying yet taxing responsibility of maintaining the site. If, hypothetically, he didn't feel that way, things would go on much as they always have.




Yes Bryon - it's not that the people have changed, that 4e is not successful or any of the other fun tales that you try to spin. 

Maybe it's because other places have improved vastly, while ENworld hasn't moved much. I still think it's the best place, but I fear that the constant attacks 4e and 4e fans were under for almost a year drove a lot of them away.


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## catastrophic (Oct 12, 2009)

Mark said:


> You seem to be relatively new here but the proof appears to be in the numbers. All I know is what dominates the news and threads as compared to wha used to do so, alongside the turn out of the recent appeal to the community. It's apparently not footing the bill. Of course, I see an opportunity for you to step up, so feel free to walk the walk along with the talk.



On the contrary, I was considering becoming a comunity supporter, but I decided not to because I don't like the way the mods operate. Am I supposed to support the comunity no matter how the comunity acts? I'm supposed to 'step up' so you and your buddies can go on and on and on about how 4e killed your dog and ruined your forum?

Why should I support a community which is so enthusiastic about damaging itself? I'm not going to pay to get lectured in red text because I have an improper opinion. That's not 'stepping up', that's bending over.

People join comunities like this because they feel welcome. They contribute financially because they feel positive about their experiece. If enworld is having a problem with it's comunity supporters, then it should look at the experience people are getting, and the perception people take away from their visit.

That said, I think enworld's problems have more to do with the ongoing expenses relating to the server and the forum software. This effects all sorts of things. For instance, there have been a lot of crashes and downtime, and even if that's in the past, I think that has limited the turnover of new members, the type that might not already be a comunity contributor. It might be that what enworld needs is a dedicated tech to run and fine tune the place and cut back features if need be.


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## Maxboy (Oct 12, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> On the contrary, I was considering becoming a community supporter, but I decided not to because I don't like the way the mods operate. Am I supposed to support the community no matter how the community acts? I'm supposed to 'step up' so you and your buddies can go on and on and on about how 4e killed your dog and ruined your forum?.




Agree 100%

There are people in this thread, that make it a big turn off even coming to the site anymore.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> Yes Bryon - it's not that the people have changed, that 4e is not successful or any of the other fun tales that you try to spin.



shrug.  

yeah yeah,   "no it isn't  no it isn't no it isn't" is such a strong rebuttal.  Whatever should I do?

For the record (yet again) 4E is successful.  
But not all successes are created equal.

Are you honestly claiming that the same people are here as used to be?  That is just absurd.


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

drothgery said:


> Morrus is trying to get a large number of people to sign up for $3/mo, indefinite subscriptions, rather than to conduct a one-time fundraising drive like he's done in the past. And he's trying to do this in the midst of a very poor economy in the primary markets for D&D. It's further complicated because many of those who would sign up for such thing already have long-term CS accounts that won't expire for years (frex, mine's good until 2011).



I understand that.  Do you think he should punt this approach and make another "one time" drive?  Would that work?


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## jaerdaph (Oct 12, 2009)

I'm betting the OP stopped reading this thread about half way down page three...


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> I'm supposed to 'step up' so you and your buddies can go on and on and on about how 4e killed your dog and ruined your forum?



Before 4E the community was pretty unified.  I don't think we would have agreed at the time, but everything is relative.  

Now there are people who strongly dislike 3E and people who strongly dislike 4E.  

Of course deflecting any actual criticism as "killed your dog" isn't exactly unifying.


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## Jack99 (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> Are you honestly claiming that the same people are here as used to be?  That is just absurd.



The same people? Maybe not, but maybe it's just new people? I have no numbers but those that are available to everyone.

AFAIK; the numbers of members has only kept rising. 4e brought a +25% jump within a relatively timeframe.

The 3e rules forum has 530.000 posts since February 2002 - that's an average of 5780 posts per month - The 4e rules forums have 330.000 posts since August 2007 - that's an average of 12700 posts per month. Seems there is some interest - still. Because even if people stopped posting in the 4e rules forums today, it would still have a better average in two years.

I will however concede that you could be right. While I have been coming here for 10 years, I only really became active when 4e was announced. Mostly because I can't be arsed to spend time on a site solely to discuss a game that isn't my thing. So if you tell me that it is evident that there used to be more people here, in the good old days, I just have to believe you


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## BryonD (Oct 12, 2009)

Jack99 said:


> The same people? Maybe not, but maybe it's just new people? I have no numbers but those that are available to everyone.
> 
> AFAIK; the numbers of members has only kept rising. 4e brought a +25% jump within a relatively timeframe.



Can someone stop being a member?  Of course total membership goes up.



> The 3e rules forum has 530.000 posts since February 2002 - that's an average of 5780 posts per month - The 4e rules forums have 330.000 posts since August 2007 - that's an average of 12700 posts per month. Seems there is some interest - still. Because even if people stopped posting in the 4e rules forums today, it would still have a better average in two years.



I don't think comparing averages over these time periods is meaningful.  Prior to 4e, the general forum was the primary discussion place.  "3e rules" was one of the back room forums.  It was very active.  But nothing compared to general.  The forums have also been revised and re-org several times since 2002.



> I will however concede that you could be right. While I have been coming here for 10 years, I only really became active when 4e was announced. Mostly because I can't be arsed to spend time on a site solely to discuss a game that isn't my thing. So if you tell me that it is evident that there used to be more people here, in the good old days, I just have to believe you



Well, my main point was that it was not the "same".  However, I also believe that traffic is down.

I know alexa gets questioned but...

enworld.org - Traffic Details from Alexa


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## AllisterH (Oct 12, 2009)

I simply think there are more venues available for fans to congregate.

When this site was launched, it _WAS_ the premiere site for D&D chatter. RPGnet being the only other one around and that had more of a "anything but D&D vibe"

(People think WOTC's boards are bad now, but the original webboards where Eric and I used to hang out? When they still had the Beholder/TSR logo on the frontpage? Now that was a crappy board..I'm not even sure I'd call it a board but more of a usenet interface)

I honestly don't think it was 4e that caused the split so much as OTHER places becoming just as interesting...If anything, the Dragonsfoot creation (the anything but 3.x board) was the first time when we actually saw a split in the community.


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## Umbran (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> I understand that.  Do you think he should punt this approach and make another "one time" drive?  Would that work?




Whether that would work for the short run or not is probably immaterial.   I don't speak for Morrus, but I cannot fault him for turning away from short term, one-off solutions.  That just sets us up for the same stress and worry all over again in the future.  Who needs that?

EN World sits in a funny sort of place.  It is far too big to support out of one's own pocket as a hobby site.  But, EN World isn't a big publisher, that can fund the site as a sideline expense as support for other business.  We have big-board costs without real business revenues.  That just isn't supportable in the long term.

This is what remains to be seen - is the content EN World delivers worth roughly one cup of high-end coffee per month to it's users?


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## drothgery (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> I understand that. Do you think he should punt this approach and make another "one time" drive? Would that work?




When unemployment among under-25s in the US is nearly 50%? Probably not.


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## Mark (Oct 12, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> I'm supposed to 'step up' so you and your buddies can go on and on and on about how 4e killed your dog and ruined your forum?





Apparently the notion that 4E players can have this opinion eluded you.  Besides, it isn't a matter of "ruining" its a matter of the forum closing if the current focus doesn't support it.


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## pawsplay (Oct 12, 2009)

catastrophic said:


> On the contrary, I was considering becoming a comunity supporter, but I decided not to because I don't like the way the mods operate. Am I supposed to support the comunity no matter how the comunity acts? I'm supposed to 'step up' so you and your buddies can go on and on and on about how 4e killed your dog and ruined your forum?




People are entitled to their opinions. 3.5 fans got to hear a months-long campaign, largely spearheaded by Wizards itself, to tell us how much 3e sucked. You seem to be implying this site is some sort of holdout for anti-4e grumblers; speaking for myself, if anything, I think the board was probably biased toward 4e in the beginning. Possibly with good reason; you can't run a web site intent on squashing the new shinies. This is a D&D site primarily, after all.

If you don't want to hear criticism of 4e, then you should probably stick to 4e-focused forums.


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## thecasualoblivion (Oct 12, 2009)

BryonD said:


> shrug.
> 
> yeah yeah,   "no it isn't  no it isn't no it isn't" is such a strong rebuttal.  Whatever should I do?
> 
> ...




I don't think 4E's success is the issue. The D&D scene is different than it was before, and ENWorld hasn't exactly kept up. It isn't that D&D has grown or shrunk, but that it has fundamentally changed. ENWorld hasn't entirely changed with it.



BryonD said:


> Before 4E the community was pretty unified.  I don't think we would have agreed at the time, but everything is relative.
> 
> Now there are people who strongly dislike 3E and people who strongly dislike 4E.
> 
> Of course deflecting any actual criticism as "killed your dog" isn't exactly unifying.




I don't think the community taken as a whole was as unified as you think. Some embraced the OGL, some completely ignored it. There are many ways to play 3E, which often flatly contradict one another. People didn't argue like they do now, and mostly just ignored each other though, because possession of the game wasn't in question. No matter their differences, people could feel they "possessed" and were a part of D&D. That isn't so clear anymore, and its what people fight about.

Among all forums I frequent, ENWorld is kind of unique in maintaining this divide. Other forums seem to have as a whole taken one side or the other in terms of the 4E change. There's still argument, but there is a noticable prevailing opinion. RPGnet and WotC strongly skew towards 4E, while Paizo is firmly 3E. This place has always seemed like it was split right down the middle.


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## Wicht (Oct 12, 2009)

thecasualoblivion said:


> I don't think the community taken as a whole was as unified as you think. Some embraced the OGL, some completely ignored it. There are many ways to play 3E, which often flatly contradict one another. People didn't argue like they do now, and mostly just ignored each other though, because possession of the game wasn't in question. No matter their differences, people could feel they "possessed" and were a part of D&D. That isn't so clear anymore, and its what people fight about.
> 
> Among all forums I frequent, ENWorld is kind of unique in maintaining this divide. Other forums seem to have as a whole taken one side or the other in terms of the 4E change. There's still argument, but there is a noticable prevailing opinion. RPGnet and WotC strongly skew towards 4E, while Paizo is firmly 3E. This place has always seemed like it was split right down the middle.





Prior to the 4e announcement the _ENWorld _community was more unified, which I think was the point being made.

This conversation has taken an interesting turn and I really appreciate some of Mark's observations.  I think he is right.  Prior to 4e, what made EnWorld a such a good place to go was that it was the center of the OGL community.  I could come here and learn of new companies, new products, and new ideas for the OGL.  More than that, there was an air of creativity that was almost contagious.   It made a person want to write, design, even publish.  We wanted to share our ideas and our games.  It was this atmosphere that first really drew me into the community.

I fell away for a while do to a computer crash and a series of real life moves but when I came back, the community had changed.  4e was in the air and so was divisiveness.  Everything was focused on what WotC was designing or releasing.  The failure of WotC to support the OGL seemed to make it even worse.  There has been a general disdain on the part of many for that very thing that had made this such a unique community - the OGL.

EnWorld, which once had been the hub of the OGL universe (even more so than WotC) is no longer.  In fact, if I want to find out what is going on in the OGL world, Paizo is a better place to go.  There I find a community which again makes me want to write, design, and even contemplate joining in with publishing.  

I have made a decision however to support ENWorld and even sent in my first subscription payment a few days ago.  I think it was the revival of Iron DM as much as anything that made me decide to do this.  I sincerely hope that ENWorld can find a way to thrive but I suspect that unless it can find a way to better support the gaming community (not just the 4e community) that it may indeed see itself waning.   Because I am afraid that it has been my observation from very early on that those most supportive of 4e were those that were least supportive of things not directly released and approved of by WotC.


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## pawsplay (Oct 13, 2009)

I'm hoping to spread a little contagious creation myself, besides trying my hardest to be generally civil, congenial, and fun.


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## darjr (Oct 13, 2009)

pawsplay said:


> I'm hoping to spread a little contagious creation myself, besides trying my hardest to be generally civil, congenial, and fun.




and that is awesome.

I hate the divisiveness and the back and forth because I'm caught in the middle. I love 4e. I love 3.5, in many ways it is my second red box and it absolutely is my kids red box. I love AD&D 1e and the actual red box.

I fell in love with ENWorld because it seemed to straddle this divide. Huge long threads with Gary on an ostensibly 3.5 forum? It gave me goosebumps.

I don't know why 3rd parties are having a tough time with 4e, all I see is potential, I aim to do my part in supporting 3rd party 4e material by voting with my dollar. I have not yet surpassed my count of 3.5 3pp books with my 4e ones yet, but I aim to try.


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## JoeGKushner (Oct 13, 2009)

Well, a lot of the 'big' names of the OGL have moved onto other things than D&D clones.

Mind you, some like Monte are still involved with the Dungeon a Day bit but others like Mongoose gained a notorious reputation for delving into crap for D&D products and binding and other things, but have a fanbase for other games like Runequest, Traveller, etc... Green Ronin's Mutants and Masterminds is probably more popular than their Freeport line and even though it's using the OGL, it's not a D&D clone. Other companies have folded due to the 3.5 hit or the Osseum hit.

It could also be that the 3.5 crowd that went to 4e doesn't want any third party support as the amount of 4e official support is huge. I know in my tail end of playing 3.5 that the GM automatically vetoed 99% of all third party material.

It could also be that the brand new 4e crowd doesn't really care about 3rd party support having avoided all of it entirely with the new edition and see no need for it. There's not a lot of 3rd party support for 4e in book stores. When White Wolf was in the ring with the Scarred Lands and other bits, you could go to Borders or Barnes and Nobles and see what was new and going on.

With the PDf support, yeah, there might be more direct sales but if 4e people are mainly bookstore buyers, and with WoTC complete lack of concern for the PDF market, that may be a huge factor. 

Outside of Goodman, how many 3rd party publishers have put out any products with high production values that can be found in Borders? Any?


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## BryonD (Oct 13, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> It could also be that the 3.5 crowd that went to 4e doesn't want any third party support ....



Any of your reasons could be right.  At the end of the day, it makes no difference WHY the product isn't in demand.  It only matters that it isn't.


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## ggroy (Oct 13, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> Mongoose gained a notorious reputation for delving into crap for D&D products and binding and other things




Are you referring to all those Slayer's Guides, Encyclopedia Arcana, Quintessential, Ultimate Guides, etc ... titles?  Last time I checked out the bargain bins at several FLGS, it was filled with tons of these particular Mongoose titles.  Wonder how many d20 adventure modules Mongoose made in those years.



JoeGKushner said:


> When White Wolf was in the ring with the Scarred Lands and other bits, you could go to Borders or Barnes and Nobles and see what was new and going on.




Wonder if White Wolf got really spooked by the d20 3PP market glut crashing, and subsequently downsized Sword & Sorcery greatly to a shell of its former self. 



JoeGKushner said:


> Outside of Goodman, how many 3rd party publishers have put out any products with high production values that can be found in Borders? Any?




Nobody.  (So far).


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## JoeGKushner (Oct 13, 2009)

And don't mistake me, I'm not saying that being a 3rd party that is actually in stores would be easy.

I think right now the only ones that COULD do it with any degree of success would be the ones who aren't; Green Ronin, Paizo and White Wolf. All of them have their own thing. 

In some ways, it's a chicken egg thing. Without someone like Osseum around (and they did a lot of damage on their way out) or another distributor that can get stuff into the stores, the PDF sales are likely the only way we'll see 3rd party stuff and for many PDF's aren't worth while investments.


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## Wicht (Oct 14, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> And don't mistake me, I'm not saying that being a 3rd party that is actually in stores would be easy.
> 
> I think right now the only ones that COULD do it with any degree of success would be the ones who aren't; Green Ronin, Paizo and White Wolf. All of them have their own thing.
> 
> In some ways, it's a chicken egg thing. Without someone like Osseum around (and they did a lot of damage on their way out) or another distributor that can get stuff into the stores, the PDF sales are likely the only way we'll see 3rd party stuff and for many PDF's aren't worth while investments.




I'm not sure I fully follow you.

Paizo, Green Ronin and White Wolf are all in book stores.  I can go to the local Books-A-Million and find both Paizo APs and Green Ronin's True-20 .


Edit:  And I also believe Paizo works with Diamond Book Distributors


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## ggroy (Oct 14, 2009)

JoeGKushner said:


> In some ways, it's a chicken egg thing. Without someone like Osseum around (and they did a lot of damage on their way out) or another distributor that can get stuff into the stores, the PDF sales are likely the only way we'll see 3rd party stuff and for many PDF's aren't worth while investments.




Googling around, found this article about Osseum imploding in 2004.

[Publishing Horror Stories] The Osseum Debacle | The Collective Endeavour

Osseum had a "who's who" client list of smaller d20 3PPs from that time period.

- Green Ronin
- Thunderhead/Mystic Eye Games
- Fast Forward Entertainment
- Bad Axe Games 
- Mythic Dream Studios
- Paradigm Concepts
- Bastion Press
- Bard's Productions

Taking Osseum out of the equation and also compounded by the d20 glut crash, I can understand why many of these companies are not doing much these days.


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## ggroy (Oct 14, 2009)

Digging up old archived pages of www.osseum.com at the "wayback machine" and other googling, this is what I found for Osseum's client list.

Auran - d20
Bad Axe Games - d20
Bard's Productions - d20
Bastion Press - d20
BlackWyrm Games - M&M
Contested Ground Studios
Dark Portal Games - d20
Eos Press
Fast Forward Entertainment - d20
Gaslight Press - d20
Ghazpork Industrial
Green Knight Publishing - Pendragon
Green Ronin Publishing - d20
Heresy Gaming
Living Imagination - d20
Louis Porter, Jr. Design - M&M
Mystic Eye Games - d20
Mythic Dreams Studios - d20
Paradigm Concepts, Inc. - d20
Perpetrated Press - d20
Red Spire Press - d20
RPG Objects - d20
Second World Simulations - d20
SkeletonKey Games - d20
Thunderhead Games - d20
Twin Rose Software - d20
Tynes Cowan Corporation
United Playtest, Inc - d20
Valar Project, Inc. - d20
Visionary Entertainment Studios, Inc.

A total of around twenty d20 3PP companies represented by Osseum Entertainment back in 2001-2004.  With Osseum out of the picture by 2004 and the d20 bubble bursting, it's no big surprise many of these d20 companies dropped out of sight shortly thereafter.  Osseum wasn't there anymore to convince now-skeptical distributors to carry their clients' products.


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## JoeGKushner (Oct 14, 2009)

Wicht said:


> I'm not sure I fully follow you.
> 
> Paizo, Green Ronin and White Wolf are all in book stores.  I can go to the local Books-A-Million and find both Paizo APs and Green Ronin's True-20 .
> 
> ...




Yes, they are all in there. Which one of them is a 3rd party for 4th edition? My bad in not getting that through that all of the people who could get into the chains aren't supporting 4e.


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