The Gaming Den

With all that experience I don't have, I'd say core rule books (still keeping in mind that some shit is bad enough not to sell. Like 4e) would usually be a safe bet for mass printing and putting in metal boxes. Then the further something moves from core, the more likely you want print-on-demand (so something like the Complete series (first 4) would probably be mass print runs, "Dragons of Faerun" sounds like a print on demand thing, and then somewhere between them you draw the line).

With minis, the line is seriously "Right at the start". Because you are not going to be selling crateloads of minis on opening day, or opening year. Maybe when you've become big and famous (-ish), you can start keeping popular sets in crates, but even then, you're still probably better off printing them on demand, because you'll have no idea when someone needs/wants a new box of PsiTechnoGoblins or whatever.

Yes, that bit there assumes PsiTechnoGoblins are your EQ of Space Marines. Even the fucking Space Marines sit there for ages and ages, because there are not new kids coming in every single week wanting to start a new SM army (note: more than everything else combined, but still not that often), and even if they did, you don't know if they're getting a Battleforce (these boxes need dusting, it's that bad), several individual boxes over time (so they can just take their favourite units and pay it off bit by bit), or buy the Battle of _____ to split with their best mate.

And the annoying little kid who wants to play Space Marines also happens to be the exact kind of person who wants his minis ready-assembled (painting isn't such a big deal - if he doesn't like painting, he'll use the infamous "Plasteel-Grey Marines, made for urban stealth") and to have his own face on the commander. Possibly with a huge cock.

hogarth wrote:Agreed 100%. That's why I'm saying that print-on-demand is a poor idea for a company like WotC (as Lago suggested), because they're in the business of making real money. Print-on-demand works just fine for hobbyists or others who are doing it as a sideline or a labour of love.

Hey now. I didn't say print on demand for surefire money books like a PHB, I meant just for their (WotC's) miniatures line if they ever start to revive that project.

The difference between a hobby product and a cash cow product is one of scale. And I don't think it would be prudent for WotC to go balls-out and have a huge trumpeting miniatures line. Even if they did get their shit together and produce a product that people may actually want to buy, the fact is that D&D has profits in the tens of millions of dollars. Which while having a great investment return, is chump change. For something as small as TTRPG companies, it's simply not wise or probably even possible to build a complex cash cow franchise from scratch with their assets on hand.

I really don't see WotC making much more waves in the miniatures line then any other small time company. At least at first. I mean, even if they could make them on the cheap there's no way they could dethrone GW short of astonishing incompetence on the latter's end and an amazing product on their own. With that in mind, WotC (or anyone, really) should be looking at starting modestly and building up from there. And that's where on-print demand and 3D printers will come into play.

Lago PARANOIA wrote:So. As mentioned in PL's rant thread, 3D printers are chugging along at a respectable rate in design. As far as traditional games--card games, board games, TTRPGs, wargames--go, the appeal of this is that it reduces the barrier to entry to have a miniatures line because you don't have to have great sculptors in order to get your warmage going or your board game better. You just need good 3D artists, which is a more common skill. And people do like to Collect 'Em All.

Even though the technology is not there yet and probably won't be for another decade, it is worth speculating how this invention will affect these games I think.

The artiste in my game group and the ex-gamer geek who lives down the way are very excited about the potential and seriously looked into putting together a Fab-at-Home Rig about a year back.

That went nowhere, but the artiste has a bunch of foam-core and new-and-improved nonshrink sculpey plus a fancy new set of files and brushes.
and the geek did some fancy hacks to his wireless network that I don't even understand.

Lago PARANOIA wrote: I really don't see WotC making much more waves in the miniatures line then any other small time company. At least at first. I mean, even if they could make them on the cheap there's no way they could dethrone GW short of astonishing incompetence on the latter's end and an amazing product on their own. With that in mind, WotC (or anyone, really) should be looking at starting modestly and building up from there. And that's where on-print demand and 3D printers will come into play.

I disagree. If they want to start in a small way, the smarter idea is to sell some other company (that already has the equipment and expertise for making miniatures) the license to create miniatures on their behalf. That way there are no start-up costs or operating costs for WotC at all and there's more synergy for a miniature company to increase production than there is for WotC to start a tiny miniature division from scratch.

For instance, that's what Paizo has done with "official" Pathfinder miniatures.

hogarth wrote: I disagree. If they want to start in a small way, the smarter idea is to sell some other company (that already has the equipment and expertise for making miniatures) the license to create miniatures on their behalf.

What good will that do? Nobody has this technology yet. Sure, if WotC wanted to open up a miniatures line like RIGHT NOW that would be the way to go, but when 3D printing gets good enough to make a decent set of miniatures for a reasonable price it'd make more sense for WotC to bypass all of that bullshit and get the equipment themselves.

The only real hiccup really is grabbing people experienced in 3D design to do this. But I'm willing to bet that the pool of people able to use this technology competently is bigger than the pool of people able to sculpt/mold properly.

So sorry about the necro, but my friend got his printer (his 'robot', as he calls it in the tones usually reserved for a lover). He's finishing the assembly this weekend, and we're already kicking around ideas for a board game that we could use the printer to make prototypes with. More on that later.

More discussion on the economics of the mini business here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/pa ... OpenLetter

One thing I noticed is that people in that thread are generally clamouring for pre-painted plastic minis. The print-on-demand bit doesn't help with that aspect.

Jigoku, did your buddy whip up anything interesting with his new robo-lover?

Well, I don't know about interesting... so far he has successfully made a series of mustache rings, heart-shaped boxes, and dodecahedrons. There's a steep learning curve, though, and I think he is really hoping an affordable plastic garbage recycler robot comes on line soon.

We were discussing it, and the resolution of the heads is still wonky... a fraction of a millimeter is still noticeable on contours. I might take a stab at finishing some of his models with acetone or a dremel or something.

Might I suggest a Brandyland set?

Nice!

One thing I was going to mention is that the plastic is much stronger than I had heard. Which is good.

Maybe there's a future in this somewhere. Back in high school, I had a tenant who was one of the world's top metal mini painters. No, really.

To get visually smooth contours the resolution probably has to go to ~10 micron ... for tactilely smooth probably to ~1 micron.

The grooves make a nice zippy sound when you scratch them. Just recently I noticed these: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/ba78/

Now you can make edible miniatures.

hogarth wrote: One thing I noticed is that people in that thread are generally clamouring for pre-painted plastic minis. The print-on-demand bit doesn't help with that aspect.

1) The print-on-demand argument still holds mostly to eliminate storage and shipping costs and of course distributors incorrectly guessing the demand for the product.

2) Are they clamouring for pre-painted plastic minis because they think that all miniatures should be completely uniform such that all Male Elven Ranger minis should have red hair... or because it's a pain in the ass to have to paint minis by hand? If it's the former then it won't help, but if it's the latter it'll be a tremendous selling point of 3D printers. Save money and time on paints!

Lago PARANOIA wrote:2) Are they clamouring for pre-painted plastic minis because they think that all miniatures should be completely uniform such that all Male Elven Ranger minis should have red hair... or because it's a pain in the ass to have to paint minis by hand? If it's the former then it won't help, but if it's the latter it'll be a tremendous selling point of 3D printers. Save money and time on paints!

The latter. Can you explain how print-on-demand somehow eliminates the need to paint minis by hand for those who want painted minis?

In theory the printer can just print colored plastic as the surface with the same accuracy as anything else. So if you have 10 micron accuracy the printer can print unit patches on the shoulders that would be legible with a microscope.

kzt wrote:In theory the printer can just print colored plastic as the surface with the same accuracy as anything else. So if you have 10 micron accuracy the printer can print unit patches on the shoulders that would be legible with a microscope.

Wow, I didn't know that. I thought the resulting miniatures would be monochromatic. Is there a different print head for each colour of plastic?

There would have to be. Otherwise you'd go through a time- and resource-consuming flush process.

As I understand it you can generate composite colors so that you need some lesser number of heads to get a full range of colors than the 256 you might expect. I don't think it's as good a ratio as the 3 color heads you need for laser printing, but it might be.

-Username17

I'd imagine the more sophisticated industrial ones are like that, but for a persnickety wood case MakerBot, you're pretty limited.

Color laser printers took something like 20 years to become common household items after B&W lasers were ubiquitous in commercial settings, so it's likely to work something like that. In theory a 4 color printer (CYMK) can reproduce all the visible colors. In practice it might not. We'll have to see where this goes, there are lots of cool looking tech toys that seemed to have a bright feature that never really took off.

On the miniature front, Paizo is now teaming with WizKids (the HeroClix folks) to get prepainted plastic miniatures for Pathfinder. Still no print-on-demand, though.

A propos of nothing in particular, Paizo and WizKids have jumped into the randomized D&D(ish) miniatures game.

http://paizo.com/paizo/v5748eaic9oam

Lago, now is the perfect time for you to bust out your awesome business plan and eat Paizo's lunch.

hogarth, I never said that D&D's old miniatures plan would allow them to make bank. I specifically outlined three major mistakes that I think they made (not-interesting factions, not reaching for the upmarket, and RANDOMIZED MINIATURES HOLY SHIT NO) and from that bullshit to be making the exact same mistakes--making their miniatures line an extension of the TTRPG, plastic miniatures, and that randomized crap.

What I said is that on-demand 3D printing would allow someone who didn't have their head up their ass to compete. The problem right now is that even if you do have a good idea for a miniatures/wargaming line, you need a lot more capital than you would need to start in the TTRPG market so the barrier to entry to higher. Which is why GW is more entrenched as market leader than WotC.

EDIT: To remove an immature insult.

hogarth wrote:Wow, I didn't know that. I thought the resulting miniatures would be monochromatic. Is there a different print head for each colour of plastic?

At the moment, yes ... there are no CMYK 3D printers yet AFAIK.