Lago's Kickass D&D-Book Marketing Strategy!

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 5:59 pm

Yugo, I don't agree with that at all, because there have been some accessory books that have been well received by the gaming population.

For 3E, here are some books that made people cheer or do a backflip:
Sword and Fist
Oriental Adventures
Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting
Epic Level Handbook
Monster Manual II
Unearthed Arcana
Book of Vile Darkness
Book of Nine Swords

Some some of these had a suck factor that was legendary. But it didn't matter, because people--get this--actually liked them. Now while we give books like Unearthed Arcana and the Epic Level Handbook a lot of well-deserved shit, you have to admit that they at least sparked peoples' imaginations and got them interested in aspects of the game beyond the core rules. One of these books, Oriental Adventures, kicked so much ass that they're recycling artwork from that book over 6 years later.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 6:32 pm

I would say that they should split the A materials from the B materials into a different company. Having a different imprint would reduce the exposure both financially and reputationally for production B products, which are more risky and lower profit. I mean, printing and selling a crap book like Magic of Feyrun or Elder Evils can damage the company, so creating a spinoff grindhouse to make monthly crap is ideal.

Firing Paizo and bringing Dungeon and Dragon in-house was the worst plan ever. Everyone knew that the stuff in there was sketchy, and people got it because it had a cool thing in it from time to time. No one expected to be able to use anything from that stuff without clearing it with their DM and possibly getting a line item veto passed across it. And that was fine, because it was grindhouse material.

The main company should bring out A material and gaming aids (minis, dice, character sheets, battle maps, etc.) only. And then it should have a couple of grindhouses that are officially licensed to produce official D&D material and make the B and C materials. Have an actual playtest crew go over your A material and bring it out once a month or less. Let the grindhouses keep whatever schedule they feel like and kick back licensing fees to the parent corp. If one of the grindhouses oversteps itself or prints enough crap in a row that they go down, let them.

So the A material would be stuff like Frostburn and Oriental Adventures. Theme books that have a lot of material for every character role and (sigh) power source. Don't make B material like Races of Short, put your Dwarf material into A material like It's Not Outside. When you throw down a book like "Cavern Fever: High Adventure Below Ground" and it has stuff on traps and dwarves and drow and poisons and underground ecology and spells and monsters and dungeoneering prestige classes and so on and so forth, that's A material. If you chop that up so that you have a whole book just on Dwarves or just on Traps, you've relegated it to B or C grade.

-Username17

ggroy · Post by **ggroy** » Sat Jul 11, 2009 6:46 pm

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 12:47 am

So you have to ask yourself, what is an A product, and what's a B product? The answer is that an A product is a headliner that you cold expect to at least interest every group. With Eberron, Forgotten Realms, and Rokugan competing with each other as well as Greyhawk, Mystarra, Kalamar, Golarion, and peoples' homebrew the fact is that a majority of people are not going to give a rat's ass about your world book. The only reason anyone gives a rat's ass about Shining South is to possibly back convert some rules into something they could use in their own world. Which means that yes, every setting book you make is a B product. Most setting expansion books are C products. Crap like Dragons of Eberron is shit only a fanboi even notices and is probably a D product.

So here's how you do it: Spinoffs! Forgotten Realms is now its own company, called Feyrun Publishing or something. I don't even care. That company gets some seed money from WotC and pays "royalties" to WotC for all the D&D product it ships out the door. It gets to give some vanity post like "Senior Editor" and throw it to Ed Greenwood so that you can claim that he has "creative control" or something. Fans of the setting will support it, and I honestly don't care. If FR does well or poorly the company as a whole is shielded. It also means that you can drop the FR 5e core book within a week of the main book without straining your in-house publishing or getting your company marked down by distributors because the Forgotten Realms Worldbook doesn't sell nearly as much as what the PHB does in the initial edition hype. That segregation keeps distributors excited about your next offerings.

You can frankly do the same thing thing for Eberron. Eberron fanboys would probably be happy if you gave what's his name with the god damn Dragonmark tattoo some "creative control." And you can set up a similar licensing deal with anyone who wants one. We already know that Paizo would pay actual money to stamp "official D&D product" on their Golarion crap. Let them. It's no work for you, it doesn't much tarnish your reputation if it sucks, and it's actual money. Bonus points for getting them into a legal contract where you can use any of their mechanics and reference any of their places or whatever without paying them any money. Word it properly and it's actually to their advantage. Point out that people who play ball and do well may well get shout outs to their worlds in little sidebars scattered through later material. I mean, Paizo would wet themselves if your upcoming book "Lands of Dread" had a brief discussion about undeadness in Golarian right between the new undead monsters and a discussion about goblin and hobgoblin PCs.

So what do you do about the official inhouse setting? Why, you make it the example in the world building section of the DMG! Ta-da! The world building section has an example fantasy world in it with its own example map, and you subsequent A-level products all have "examples" showing how to tie the stuff in there to the sample setting out of the DMG. This way you can get almost everyone up and playing the same world again like it was 1978, but without pissing people off by actually telling them to their face that their world is discontinued.
Release Schedule:

First Month: PHB, MM, DMG. You want these things to hit stores a week apart so that people don't feel like they are being hit for $120. This means that you'll want to deliver a quickstart adventure that is free. You also want to coordinate with your grindhouses to get at least the Forgotten Realms Worldbook and the Eberron campaign setting out the door no later than 3 weeks after the PHB hits the shelves.

Now you have an aggressive release schedule that is a lot less aggressive than the 4e schedule. One major A grade book per month. Each one based in a terrain type. So the underground one gets stuff not only about underground monsters and undergroundish powers and underground races... but it also has some tie-ins to some underground shit in the new core setting and the really important thing: it's written slowly enough that it is fucking playtested.

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:11 am

Ideals for A-grade books

Tunnels and Trenches: Underground Stuff
Forests and Fields: Grassland/Temple Forest Stuff
Jungle Japes: Jungle Stuff
Sand in my Pants: Beach/Desert Stuff
Atlantis Antics: Underwater and Ocean Crap
Fields of War: Mass combat and siege minigames
SimCity1200: Building cities and bullshit, organizations and all
Unearthed Arcana: Alternate Rules and Junk

Huh. You know what, Frank? The problem with this strategy is that I can't seen any of these books being more exciting or selling better than, say, Dragonlance's Players Guide. If I was a shortsighted Hasbro executive and I saw that the campaign setting book for the Eberron was selling better than Stormwrack, I'd start wondering why in the hell did I agree to such a strategy and start revoking licenses.

Of course, we know the real answer to the question is because while the first Faerun book will get a guaranteed number of fans, Unapproachable East and Faiths and Pantheons are both inevitable and destined to becoming bargain-bin material. So how would you make this strategerie work?

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:45 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Now while we give books like Unearthed Arcana and the Epic Level Handbook a lot of well-deserved shit, you have to admit that they at least sparked peoples' imaginations and got them interested in aspects of the game beyond the core rules.

ELH had some very nice art. Lockwood Dragons for a start, other monsters and so on. It takes much longer to realise the rules are shit than to realise the art is shit. I definately agree with you on the pics front.

Yugo · Post by **Yugo** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 4:58 am

Frank got the gist behind my short and some what truncated post. Letting third party companies or spin-off companies/brands do the niche products was implied yet unwritten portion of my post.

My vision of the business is only somewhat different than Frank's. I actually want a somewhat hard restriction on the main-branch company's publications after the 3 core rule books. I don't want to see too many add-on products from the main-branch companies. The original game designers would then be transferred to the spin-off companies or 3rd party companies (preferably widely separated). This should fix the mentality of "Every WotC product is core!" that was very, very evident in the later era of 3.5E products.

sake · Post by **sake** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 5:47 am

FrankTrollman wrote:I am totally unconvinced that they aren't Trying to encourage piracy.

-Username17

Indeed... I think it took all of two days before someone simply transcribed all the Psion stuff to a single html file, meanwhile their actual paying subscribers are stuck begging for a printable version of the class.

Caedrus · Post by **Caedrus** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 6:28 am

FrankTrollman wrote:I am totally unconvinced that they aren't Trying to encourage piracy.

-Username17

The hell? What are these WotC business executives on? And how can I start getting paid an unnecessary salary for it?

virgil · Post by **virgil** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 7:36 am

They're very likely on the same stuff that software and music business executives are on, if you recall some of the stupid anti-piracy practices done there. I haven't looked at the news on such recently, so I don't know if it was more prevalent in those fields five years ago or something or not.

Absentminded_Wizard · Post by **Absentminded_Wizard** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 7:43 am

Frank's business plan makes a lot of sense, though I'm not sure that A material shouldn't be on something more like a once per two months schedule, especially given WotC's skill level.

ggroy · Post by **ggroy** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:25 pm

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 2:41 pm

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:Frank's business plan makes a lot of sense, though I'm not sure that A material shouldn't be on something more like a once per two months schedule, especially given WotC's skill level.

The problem is that WotC thinks everything they publish is "A" material (with the possible exception of setting-specific stuff). That includes Cityscape and Races of Destiny, for instance. Or "Swampsquish: Adventuring in the Middle of a Bog".

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 6:56 pm

Well, Races of Destiny was shit because no one gives a fuck about half elves and no one is going to start thinking that half elves are a major anything whether they're playable or not. But Cityscape? Horror Mire? Those could be awesome.

Cityscape throws down with an alternate major social events minigame, a couple of layouts of some major cities in radically different parts of the 5e campaign world, rules for mobs and a discussion of shadowing. An entire section on shapeshifters of various levels. Some random bones thrown to human characters and some statted up NPCs. An indepth discussion of the economy in D&D land. And some base and prestige classes that people might want to use based on the civilization theme. Beguiler, Assassin, Archivist, and Knight.

Horror Mire throw down with a thing on swamp and horror adventures. A thing on goblin and hobgoblin characters and NPCs. A whole deal on undead monsters and PCs. A section on Necromancy. And some classes that are again based on the theme of the book. Dread Necromancer, Scout, Spirit Shaman, and Shadow Warrior.

And so on. Making a theme book good should be no problem if you have a compelling theme.

Frank

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Sun Jul 12, 2009 7:07 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:The problem with this strategy is that I can't seen any of these books being more exciting or selling better than, say, Dragonlance's Players Guide. If I was a shortsighted Hasbro executive and I saw that the campaign setting book for the Eberron was selling better than Stormwrack, I'd start wondering why in the hell did I agree to such a strategy and start revoking licenses.

Of course, we know the real answer to the question is because while the first Faerun book will get a guaranteed number of fans, Unapproachable East and Faiths and Pantheons are both inevitable and destined to becoming bargain-bin material. So how would you make this strategerie work?

The solution, as I see it, to this would be to do the initial setting books in-house, at least nominally, and sell them to your grindhouses after you've released the setting books. Alternately, create the grindhouses and retain ownership of them until after the setting books are released, then cut them loose (nominally). Then you get the profits from the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, and are protected from having your name on Dragons of Faerun.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 6:15 am

So here's a question for you.

For generic A-type material, do you think that should be the point where we sneak in setting-specific stuff to it?

For example, if you're doing a Maltheopia sourcebook (evil theocracies, magocracies, and necropolises), you could 'bait the hook' so to speak by making the books themselves generic but also introducing Ravenloft-specific material. If there's a demand for the material then you get some assholes together and create a grindhouse for it.

For example, here's how some of this would go:

Maltheopia: This book gives material on crafting evil cities and civilizations. It has organizations in it like the Hextor Secret Police, the Murder Hall where vampires force slaves to fight for their lives and the winning vampire gets to feast on the souls of the loser, so on. It has examples of laws for these evil cities and examples of monsters you might find in these evil cities, such as a pack of Mooncrazed Rats who prowl the streets a random night every season that eat any of the homeless caught out on the streets.

Setting that tries to get snuck in under the door: Ravenloft.

The Silent Desert: It'd be like It's Hot Outside! except not suck. This has a lot of rules for the monsters you might find in the deserts, like undead purple worms and Ultra Mega Mummy. Organizations could be the Ravagers (like from Sword and Fist/Complete Warrior) and the Gravekeepers who punish people who rob and desecrate tombs. Introduces for the first time Psionics, which doesn't have their own mechanics. Psionics in the Silent Desert is crystal and ectoplasmic-flavored spellcasting.

Setting that tries to get snuck in under the door: Dark Sun

Oriental Adventures: Uh... while the book had some dodgy mechanics, this book for 5E would pretty much be the same.

Setting that tries to get snuck in under the door: Rokugan. Duh.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 6:42 am

Absolutely. Every book contains some maps and some places and background story for your "example" 5e world. In addition, every book has a chapter on making that book's theme a core part of your campaign and ties in directly to an extra campaign setting.

So yeah, Horror Mire has an entire chapter on Ravenloft. a lot of people won't use it, but by using it as a world building example those people don't have a lot of position to complain. And it makes the people who get pissy when their favorite setting is never getting supported happy. And it ties brands in to the main line and makes those licenses more valuable.

Endless Frontiers can be your planar travel book and have crap for tieflings and why not do a Planescape chapter?

-Username17

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 7:46 am

Frank's plan is exactly how DC comics operates.

DC is one of the few companies to always be operating its comics in the black.

-Crissa

TavishArtair · Post by **TavishArtair** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:28 am

As a random comment I especially felt resentful of the decision to fire Paizo and bring D&D in-house because that reduced the ability of writers to get in the door of WotC, and conversely reduced the ability of WotC to get in new writers when it needs them.

Because from what I understand, what happens is that good (or at least prolific) writers can publish both major books for WotC and still write random crap for Dragon, and sometimes the latter lead to the former, whereas sometimes the former lead to the latter. Obviously they have more editing in the official WotC product instead of in Dragon, and thus suck less (unless the editor is actually a demon instead of a good editor, in which case it's the reverse). And Dragon and Dungeon both would consider submissions from fans if they were especially well written. So while now I really don't want anything to do with WotC as a company now, in the heyday of 3e when everything seemed fairly awesome even if they did do stupid things from time to time, that option was open, trying to get published in Dragon or Dungeon, which would give me a leg up however slight in actually making those connections with the actual D&D publishing engine. And I know that there is a totally new generation enamored with 4e for some reason I cannot personally comprehend but Wizards is shooting itself in the foot by isolating them from production.

Roy · Post by **Roy** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:37 am

...Can you explain why you went from 'firing Paizo is a bad thing' to 'blocking good writers is a bad thing' as if these two were somehow related?

TavishArtair · Post by **TavishArtair** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:44 am

Roy wrote:...Can you explain why you went from 'firing Paizo is a bad thing' to 'blocking good writers is a bad thing' as if these two were somehow related?

You say that like having Dragon published by Wizards of the Coast with in-house devs alone somehow makes it better.

Psssssst.

Got news for ya.

Yeaaaaaaaaaaah no.

RandomCasualty2 · Post by **RandomCasualty2** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 6:32 pm

Absentminded_Wizard wrote:Frank's business plan makes a lot of sense, though I'm not sure that A material shouldn't be on something more like a once per two months schedule, especially given WotC's skill level.

Honestly if they listened to their playtesters, instead of just fucking ignoring them, they could solve so many problems early. DDI has already proven that a lot of people will fucking pay to playtest WotC products, and that's fucking awesome for them. So you're getting playtest feedback for nothing. All you have to do is fucking listen to it.

Naturally they got that part ridiculously wrong somehow, as shown by pretty much everything they've ever done, starting with the 3.5 revision.

I really blame it on their devs being arrogant cocks who hate to admit they fucked something up. Took them forever to admit polymorph was fucked up and that was only when they were writing the PHB2 to try to sell it with some bullshit "we got it right this time, trust us" line.

Only they should have known it was fucked way back when they were writing 3.5 if they'd just listened to like anyone who has ever cast the spell in a real game.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jul 19, 2009 12:26 am

Funny you should mention that, RandomCasualty2.

Andy Collins wrote:

Today, we posted a new version of the Class Acts: Ranger article that originally appeared on July 13, 2009.

To put it bluntly, the previous version of the article was of unacceptable quality. You, the readers, correctly pointed that out and we agreed. Hence, these revisions.

We apologize for this lapse in quality.

Though we believe that this particular article is an isolated failure in our mission to provide D&D Insiders with high-quality, exciting content every month, we still take this failure very seriously.

We're confident that the new version of the article adheres to our (and your) high standards for all published game material -- whether that material comes to you on paper or via the digital format.

We're also reviewing our process for designing, developing, and editing Insider content to identify places where additional time or training are required to avoid such errors in the future.

We appreciate the trust that you place in us, and we'll strive to continue to justify that trust.

Thank you, and good gaming.

Andy Collins
RPG Development & Editing Manager
Wizards of the Coast R&D

Wow, an apology for material in Dragon? That's a first. Too little, too late.

Anyway, the original article is a waste of time. It's a three-page Class Acts that only has one new magical item, no new feats, and no paragon paths or epic destinies in it. When Andy Collins said that it was beneath the quality of 4E, he was not kidding.

So did they actually put more stuff in the article? No. They fixed a major typographical error fuck-up (the action for every encounter attack power was an immediate interrupt with no trigger), redid the effects of powers to be more in line with the PHB2's revision (which didn't actually change what the power did, just standardized the typeface), and nerfed a bunch of powers.

For example, original article:

Bending Branch Ranger Utility 2
You absorb your foe’s energy, and like a great tree swaying in a storm, you snap back and assault your foe instead.
Encounter * Martial, Weapon
Immediate Interrupt Personal
Requirement: You must be wielding two melee weapons.
Trigger: You are pushed, pulled, or slid
Effect: Negate the forced movement and make a basic attack against any adjacent foe.

Updated Version:

Encounter * Martial
Immediate Interrupt Personal
Trigger: You are pulled, pushed, or slid
Effect: You negate the forced movement. In addition, you gain a +2 bonus to your next melee attack roll before the end of your next turn.

Original

Death Threat Ranger Utility 6
In a spray of blood, you bring down your quarry. With its death still reverberating in your skull, you fix your eyes on another.
Encounter * Martial, Psychic, Weapon
Free Action Personal
Trigger: You drop a creature marked by your hunter’s quarry to 0 hit points
Effect: You deal ongoing 5 psychic damage (save ends) to a different creature within 5 squares of your hunter’s quarry.

Updated

Death Threat Ranger Utility 6
You bring down your quarry and then fix your hunter eyes on another foe.
Encounter * Martial
Free Action Personal
Trigger: You reduce your quarry to 0 hit points
Effect: Choose one enemy within 5 squares of you. You designate that enemy as your quarry, and you gain combat advantage against it until the end of your next turn.

Original

Verdant Silence Ranger Utility 22
You call upon the peace and calm that lives at the heart of the lodge where the masters sit in age-long meditations. In that peace preceding violence, you throw off your aggravations.
Encounter * Martial, Weapon
Free Action Personal
Effect: Spend a healing surge. Instead of regaining hit points, end every adverse effect on you that a save can end.

Updated

Verdant Silence Ranger Utility 22
You call on the peace and calm that lives at the heart of the forest, where the Masters of the Verdant Silence meditate.
Daily * Martial
Minor Action Personal
Effect: You spend a healing surge but regain no hit points. You instead end each effect on you that a save can end.

Original

Mirror of Steel Ranger Utility 16
Your glittering play of blades is more than a hypnotizing dance—it can create a deflective surface that redirects a foe’s attack.
Encounter * Martial, Weapon
Immediate Reaction Personal
Requirement: You must be wielding two melee weapons.
Trigger: You are missed by an attack.
Effect: The triggering attacker rerolls the attack against one enemy adjacent to you.

Updated...??

Earthguard Warden Utility 6
Primal power from the earth fortifies your body and mind
Daily * Primal, Stance
Minor Action Personal
Effect: Until the stance ends, you gain a +1 power bonus to all defenses.

Err, whoops, sorry. Wasn't supposed to reveal the extreme suckitude of 4E powers with this one.

Updated, for reals this time.

Mirror of Steel Ranger Utility 16
With your glittering play of blades, you deflect attacks.
Daily * Martial, Stance
Minor Action Personal
Effect: Until the stance ends, you gain a +1 bonus to all defenses against melee attacks and ranged attacks while you are wielding two melee weapons.

You notice a pattern to these powers? That's right, the utility powers, lame things such as 'deal ongoing 5 psychic damage' or 'at level 22 spend a healing surge as a free action and end bad effects on you' were deemed too powerful and nerfed.

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Sun Jul 19, 2009 12:45 am

As a side note, one of my life goals (well, more like: If only, if only) is to make enough money to buy WotC and then hire people from this forum to interview and hire people and, you know, actually make good stuff. And then stay the hell out of the way.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sun Jul 19, 2009 12:57 am

Oh and by the way, guess who was the author of this article? Bruce Cordell. Gee, where have I heard that name before...