Quote from: kosmos1214;873857...i rather liked the 3.x deluge my self

Ditto. The more the merrier. The 3e OGL tidal wave had it's share of bad or mediocre products but they were easily avoided by the discerning buyer and the great OGL stuff we got made the whole thing well worth it.  

Worried about a "Flood of crap"? Read reviews before you buy.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;874047Adventures don't sell compared to splatbooks. I've seen this as a truism across enough publishers and game lines that it seems pretty certain at this point.

But what also seems to be pretty clear at this point is that high quality adventures are the lifeblood of an RPG.

Furthermore, although they don't sell well compared to splatbooks at the beginning of a game's product line, it's a lot less clear that this remains true: Adventures get used up and need to be replaced with more adventures. Splatbooks accumulate into collections until people have enough of them and stop buying. (Individual thresholds are different, but over time this leads to a reduced number of sales per book.)

So it's quite possible that "adventures don't sell" is true, while it's simultaneously true that you should absolutely be building your game's product line of support products around strong adventure material.

That seems like a good analysis.

Also, Paizo sells lots of adventures to people who will never use them through their magazine subscription model - the Paizo AP series is just Dungeon magazine without the adverts & costing more. It comes out monthly, 96 pages, nearly half of it is non-adventure stuff like fiction, and core sales are based off the monthly AP subscription, shop sales are gravy. Of course that's not an easy model to emulate.

Quote from: rawma;874037But if those are the reasons, maybe it will be an unfortunate thing, not because the adventures are bad, but because it creates incentives for them to discourage making your own world and adventures (so they can sell more adventures) and to try to make new areas of indispensable rules using different mechanics (to get out from under past OGLs).

Not everybody is equally proficient at creating adventures or specific types of adventures. Nor everybody has the same level in creating adventures. My view the fact that Paizo (along with Wizard copying them in their own way) finally figured out a way of making adventures one of the main focuses of their product line is a good thing and will expand the audience for RPGs.

As for discouraging people from creating their own, RPGs by their inherent nature encourage people to tinker. The only way to discourage this is by creating a highly focused and limited game in which case it would be more things like Elder Signs than something recognizable as a RPG. D&D 5e and Pathfinder are both certainly do not discourage people from creating their own material.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;874047Furthermore, although they don't sell well compared to splatbooks at the beginning of a game's product line, it's a lot less clear that this remains true: Adventures get used up and need to be replaced with more adventures. Splatbooks accumulate into collections until people have enough of them and stop buying. (Individual thresholds are different, but over time this leads to a reduced number of sales per book.)

So it's quite possible that "adventures don't sell" is true, while it's simultaneously true that you should absolutely be building your game's product line of support products around strong adventure material.

I think you are basically correct however I would add that in some ways that adventures are like film and television. Just how many films can be made from a tried and true plot like "Boy meets Girl"? You think with a hundred years of filmmaking and centuries of theater that it would be exhausted, yet nearly every year there are films with variations on that theme.

Adventures are inherently limited in their audience to referees of campaigns. But compared to splatbooks potentially unlimited in what type of experience they can depict. Unlike splatbooks there probably no upper limit to amount of good adventures the fans of a product line can consume.

Quote from: estar;874078Not everybody is equally proficient at creating adventures or specific types of adventures. Nor everybody has the same level in creating adventures. My view the fact that Paizo (along with Wizard copying them in their own way) finally figured out a way of making adventures one of the main focuses of their product line is a good thing and will expand the audience for RPGs.

I'm not arguing that there shouldn't be adventures; certainly I don't have the time to create anything better than even mediocre published adventures. My concern is that there might be "reduced support" for building your own; in fairness, I think the DMG for 5e is pretty good as far as how to build your own campaign.

QuoteAs for discouraging people from creating their own, RPGs by their inherent nature encourage people to tinker. The only way to discourage this is by creating a highly focused and limited game in which case it would be more things like Elder Signs than something recognizable as a RPG. D&D 5e and Pathfinder are both certainly do not discourage people from creating their own material.

Yes, they would just hurt themselves to make the game so limited. But far short of that, an RPG can make it more or less work to make appropriate encounters.

But my other concern still seems in play; a short-sighted response to the existing mechanics being under the OGL would be to rush out some new rules that aren't under the OGL; yes, lots of people would ignore them, but some would probably filter into the perception of what the game is, and (from my point of view) to its detriment. (OK, bring out the doll and I'll show you where Unearthed Arcana touched my campaign in a bad way.)

I think I would like to see those "5e-compatible" supplements released before the SRD came out to be updated to correct 5e rules. Fifth Edition Foes (a conversion of some monsters from the Tome of Horrors) was a disaster and it was funded through Kickstarter.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;874047So it's quite possible that "adventures don't sell" is true, while it's simultaneously true that you should absolutely be building your game's product line of support products around strong adventure material.

Well stated. It's table stakes. I had to publish several critically acclaimed games and settings with low sales to prove that to myself.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales;873964You don't suppose Paizo et al would cheat and produce content for 5e converted from Pathfinder, do you? 5e isn't perfect, but it's better than 3.x (including Pathfinder) while being similar enough that it wouldn't be completely unfeasible to convert 3.x material. I love books like Path of War and Spheres of Power, but I would love 5e conversions of those even more.

honestly im not sure they would the 3.x fans are all ready happy with it and i havent heard much talk of leaving 3.x for 5e

Quote from: CRKrueger;874058Rules bloat will eventually collapse under it's own weight.  You can never have too many good, hell even decent, adventures.  Even if you never run them, just mine them, they're useful.

yes and no 3.x is still going strong and look at the amount of content  

Quote from: Just Another Snake Cult;874059Ditto. The more the merrier. The 3e OGL tidal wave had it's share of bad or mediocre products but they were easily avoided by the discerning buyer and the great OGL stuff we got made the whole thing well worth it.  

Worried about a "Flood of crap"? Read reviews before you buy.

yah and if at all possible look at the in side even if its only a preview