Solutions for D20 Industry?
Now, with that in mind, what are ways that publishers can ameliorate the negative impact of these trends?
(1) The gaming industry does not have the legal might to chase down file sharers and, moreover, doing so would alienate a broad portion of their customer base. So, rather than fighting the trend, they can join it. This means more than just producing PDF’s of their books—the file sharing gamer will still seek out a ‘free’ copy in favor of a costly copy. I have had ardent music file sharers admit that they no longer illegally download music because iTunes and similar providers have made it so easy to buy the music. They don’t have to look through endless lists of files for quality tracks (illegal file sharing) or buy a whole album in digital format. They just goes to a site like iTunes, finds the track they want, pay a small fee, and then have the songs they want.
This is the sort of victory that has little to do with legal action and everything to do with smart marketing. The roleplaying industry can do the same thing—offering portions of books in digital format for a much lower price. The material is already easily broken up into smaller pieces—prestige classes, magical items, descriptions of a particular region, etc. The DM who know that there is a really cool prestige class in Lords of Madness can simply buy it for a $1 or $2. If they want the ‘extended track,’ with historical backstory, they might pay a little extra for that. If a DM plans to set her campaign in a single region of a published setting, she may spend $20 or $30 dollars for all the published accounts of its history, geography, economy, etc. rather than having to buy five or six forty dollar books and sift through them. Don’t force content on them, let them tailor it to their needs.
(2) Create sourcebooks with this ‘plug and play’ mentality in mind. Mike Mearls has noted (August 9 & 13, 2005 entries of his blog) that many iconic D&D monsters did not catch on because of the elaborate backstory TSR provided, but because the monsters themselves were just so cool and suggestive. The details didn’t say too much, but allowed individual DM’s to tailor the creatures to their own game. I would suggest that much of the so-called ‘fluff v. crunch’ debate relates to exactly this point. Those who criticize ‘crunchers’ for being uncreative misunderstand them—most crunchers like bare bones material because it gives them more freedom to exercise their own creativity.
This goes back to the point about a lot of gamers being anti-establishment. They don’t want a lot of product, they want tools to produce their own product. Here I have to say that the WotC Design & Development column is a stroke of sheer brilliance—it provides exactly the sort of thing so many gamers want to see. Don’t give them a house, show them how to build it. Then show them that your material can be used to make a sturdy house.
(3) If you are going to give them a setting, don’t overdo it. Give them just enough to get going and let them run wild with it. The setting should be mechanically interesting, not just another set of clothes for the core system. Green Ronin’s Mutants & Masterminds and Blue Rose, as well as Malhavoc Press’s Arcana Evolved and Iron Heroes, do this admirably.
Green Ronin seems to have developed Blue Rose with this in mind. They wisely didn’t get caught up in the trap of sinking resources into the production of an endless line of supplements that, in the end, only make it less likely that someone will pick up the setting. The more books needed to get going, the less likely they will buy any one of them. If the product is solid then, despite the lament of gamers begging for ‘official support’ (see discussion of this here), the devotees of the game will provide the support it needs online. Which leads us to…
(4) Help the creative gamer find others of their ilk who will help them be creative. Provide forums (with designer participation) where they can discuss rules, variants, fixes, and tweaks. Malhavoc Press does a wonderful job with this, giving fans the chance to develop official content (see the Diamond Throne for Arcana Evolved and the Iron League for Iron Heroes).
(1) The gaming industry does not have the legal might to chase down file sharers and, moreover, doing so would alienate a broad portion of their customer base. So, rather than fighting the trend, they can join it. This means more than just producing PDF’s of their books—the file sharing gamer will still seek out a ‘free’ copy in favor of a costly copy. I have had ardent music file sharers admit that they no longer illegally download music because iTunes and similar providers have made it so easy to buy the music. They don’t have to look through endless lists of files for quality tracks (illegal file sharing) or buy a whole album in digital format. They just goes to a site like iTunes, finds the track they want, pay a small fee, and then have the songs they want.
This is the sort of victory that has little to do with legal action and everything to do with smart marketing. The roleplaying industry can do the same thing—offering portions of books in digital format for a much lower price. The material is already easily broken up into smaller pieces—prestige classes, magical items, descriptions of a particular region, etc. The DM who know that there is a really cool prestige class in Lords of Madness can simply buy it for a $1 or $2. If they want the ‘extended track,’ with historical backstory, they might pay a little extra for that. If a DM plans to set her campaign in a single region of a published setting, she may spend $20 or $30 dollars for all the published accounts of its history, geography, economy, etc. rather than having to buy five or six forty dollar books and sift through them. Don’t force content on them, let them tailor it to their needs.
(2) Create sourcebooks with this ‘plug and play’ mentality in mind. Mike Mearls has noted (August 9 & 13, 2005 entries of his blog) that many iconic D&D monsters did not catch on because of the elaborate backstory TSR provided, but because the monsters themselves were just so cool and suggestive. The details didn’t say too much, but allowed individual DM’s to tailor the creatures to their own game. I would suggest that much of the so-called ‘fluff v. crunch’ debate relates to exactly this point. Those who criticize ‘crunchers’ for being uncreative misunderstand them—most crunchers like bare bones material because it gives them more freedom to exercise their own creativity.
This goes back to the point about a lot of gamers being anti-establishment. They don’t want a lot of product, they want tools to produce their own product. Here I have to say that the WotC Design & Development column is a stroke of sheer brilliance—it provides exactly the sort of thing so many gamers want to see. Don’t give them a house, show them how to build it. Then show them that your material can be used to make a sturdy house.
(3) If you are going to give them a setting, don’t overdo it. Give them just enough to get going and let them run wild with it. The setting should be mechanically interesting, not just another set of clothes for the core system. Green Ronin’s Mutants & Masterminds and Blue Rose, as well as Malhavoc Press’s Arcana Evolved and Iron Heroes, do this admirably.
Green Ronin seems to have developed Blue Rose with this in mind. They wisely didn’t get caught up in the trap of sinking resources into the production of an endless line of supplements that, in the end, only make it less likely that someone will pick up the setting. The more books needed to get going, the less likely they will buy any one of them. If the product is solid then, despite the lament of gamers begging for ‘official support’ (see discussion of this here), the devotees of the game will provide the support it needs online. Which leads us to…
(4) Help the creative gamer find others of their ilk who will help them be creative. Provide forums (with designer participation) where they can discuss rules, variants, fixes, and tweaks. Malhavoc Press does a wonderful job with this, giving fans the chance to develop official content (see the Diamond Throne for Arcana Evolved and the Iron League for Iron Heroes).
posted by Ian | 10:55 AM
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