So, today I learned that the $120 Huge Bundle Thingy ("Preorder Special") for Monte Cook's upcoming D&D setting called "Ptolus" (more at : http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_Ptolus ) includes this huge whopping core book, and FIVE "Player's Guides" ( http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_PG ).

Is it just me, or is this one of the most novel and/or awesome approaches to game packaging/distrubtion we've seen in ages?

In a setting heavy game, like Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, L5R, Tribe 8, Aberrant or whatever (probably high Sim-style games) where familiarity with the setting is key to traditional avenues of enjoyable, immersive play, the traditional thing of couse was to release it all in one big fat giant core book or boxed set.  What about the other players? Well, they need their own core books (which cost money, so most people just rely on the GM/DM) or they need to rely on the GM and other players who have core books to explain setting elements as they come up, else borrow the core book between sessions, in which case only one person at a time can "take the setting home and read it". With the Ptolus preorder, the GM gets this baby-killer of a book and the players get to take home a quick, fast, 32-page "essentials" book to bone up on.  By Session Two, everyone is pretty much on the same page in terms of the major setting elements, locations, major NPCs, etc, and immersive sim play can take off from there.

Now, Ptolus was fueled by a particular necessity: The core book for this Ptolus game is so big that I heard a guy in Reno got crushed to death by a copy. This "Receive 5 player's guides" offer is only for the pre-order, after which you just get the core book for $120.  Asking everyone at the table to spend $40-50 for a Mongoose OGL hardcover to play a campaign is a little hard to swallow, but $120 is downright outrageous.  So I guess, to make a narrative from here, I guess that Monte Cook decided to then make this quick-play 32-page guide for the players to take home with them.

Sure, later they'll be sold seperately.  But packaging 5 of them together to appeal to the traditional 6-player D&D table-toppers (the 6th person, the GM, will be taking home the core book)? Absolute. Fucking. Brilliant. Sure, it was necessity that inspired it, but it was a bit of thought beyond that that to decide to package 5 of them with the core book for this Pre-Order special, rather than just opening up the player's guide seperately. IMO, anyway.

Some RPGNet commentary on the Ptolus set:
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=232947

-Andy

$120?!?! Ouch!

But yes, I've often wondered why this approach hadn't been taken before for exactly those sorts of setting heavy products.

It does point to companies reconsidering what they sell and how they sell it, in terms of how it is divided up. I wonder if other companies will follow suit, for example, releasing setting only books for their games ( pdfs, for example). WW would already have more money from me had they chosen to do this...

That's cool.

For somewhat less...ambitious...projects, I can definitely envision something along the lines of when you buy the book, you get the PDF. Something like you buy the main book with all the shtuff, and you get access to a PDF of the "players guide" info, maybe on a friendly little form where you enter all the emails you want to send it too.

Interestingly enough, I've been working on translating and releasing this Japanese RPG (see sig) in English for a while now. Participants of the last two GenCons have almost all seen the book: How it has the first 20-26 pages as full-color plates that show, in flashy detail, various character options, setting elements, and other general "tantalize as well as get players on board and up to speed" setting elements. 

Well, for about two years I was expecting to partner with this one Major Publisher to publish this game through the traditional Three-Tier.  Lately, I've had second thoughts, and for creative control and simplicity issues have recently been thinking of publishing it totally independently, avoiding the traditional avenues.  Discussions on this thread in particular, with real life stories, Void of Vague Details and favorite the Concrete, have really fucking tore my top off: http://www.indie-rpgs.com/forum/index.php?topic=17722.0 .

I don't fucking want to support that.  And I'm thinking that this game, though it might not end up in Barnes & Nobles like it could under the wing of a traditional publisher (the publisher we were originally working with has their stuff in every traditional bookstore, both in the Game Section and in the rapidly-growing "Manga and assorted manga-looking stuff" sections), it could be a game that, through popular support and enough weight, could really start to chisel at the pillars of the traditional distributors a little. Chip, chip, chip.

Going that route, though, something that I'm going to be very wary of going forward is ways to cut down on printing costs. Asian printers (like the ones that printed the original Japanese game) are generally dirt cheap, but these days unless you're printing a couple thousand up front, you'll get into this EOS-Press style situation that they had with Weapons of the Gods: Chinese printer takes your job and buries it under continuous incoming jobs that make more money, until they finally are pestered enough to get around to it...

Sorry, I'm rambling.  Thing is, this book has like 24 color plates. Gorgeously detailed, if offset by the fact that two of the female pics in the set suffer from the author's big boob fetish. To reduce costs, it makes more sense to print those pages in black and white with the rest of the book, so that:
1) It reduces the cost of printing the core book exponentially, and
2) It could be printed quickly by POD printers like Lulu if I wanted to go that route.

However, taking those gorgeous pics and B&W-ing them would be an utter travesty, so I was looking for a middle ground.

I had been thinking about the very thing that Ptolus is now doing for the past few months:  What if... I took those color plates out of the book, and printed basically a full-B&W core book and couple it with a 24-page full color comic book?  I could then offer the comic book seperately, so that multiple players could buy like this $7-8 "setting primer" so that they're ready to play by Session One (or Two), and don't have to break the spine of the core book by passing it around so that all 4-6 players can read the same 20-24 pages over and over again.

After seeing Ptolus, though, I'm probably going to take it one step further: To have the "Core Package" be three books: A core rules/setting book, a small full-color comic setting book, and a small B&W player's book.  Maybe I'll offer an option where One Core Book, and four color comics and player's books come as a reduced-price set. 

What I'm really thinking since I saw the Ptolus thread, though, is praying that I can take the color plates and add about 20 pages of B&W players' info (like containing things like chargen, setting info and "small rules that are easy to forget, but you should have at your fingertips to draw upon in play"), and produce that alongside a core book.  Core book with color plates would be expensive.  Color comic, plus player's book, plus core book would be cheapest (for me to print).  But Core book plus player's book of Color and B&W pages would be the most accessible for the players, but a little more expensive than the latter option to print... but hopefully not as expensive as printing the entire core book with the color plates... But thinking more on Ptolus, the more that I'm driven to take the character-specific stuff and print them in cheaper, accessible, easy to group packages (set of 1, set of 4, etc), and sell the core book seperately for the GM or Interested Players.

That's ultimately what the Ptolus thread started juicing me up about.

More thoughts later, in a few months, once I'm closer to layout.

-Andy

komradebob wrote:
WW would already have more money from me had they chosen to do this...

Andy wrote:
Sure, later they'll be sold seperately.  But packaging 5 of them together to appeal to the traditional 6-player D&D table-toppers (the 6th person, the GM, will be taking home the core book)? Absolute. Fucking. Brilliant. Sure, it was necessity that inspired it, but it was a bit of thought beyond that that to decide to package 5 of them with the core book for this Pre-Order special, rather than just opening up the player's guide seperately. IMO, anyway.

It is a major oversight IMHO that any core game system or setting does not come with the requisite material to "hit the ground running". Year of the Zombie for example comes with the core setting and rules, plus a mini adventure with 8 pre-generated characters, so from opening the book/pdf you can start playing in a simple and quick to understand adventure.

This worked so well for YotZ, our next YotZ setting, Dead Future, is going to have exactly the same concept applied and include a small adventure to play from the box.

It costs nothing in real terms, allows the publisher to showcase their adventure writing skills as well as rules skills, and can only improve the perceived value of the product.

Needless to say, Monte Cook can get that price point due to name recognition.  On another tack, I have trouble seeing why that much paper is really necessary for any game, but that's probably just my personal preference.

For reference, How to Host a Murder games are set up exactly like this, with a little booklet for each character.  It's a package that works.

Andy, your color plates sound a lot like 7th Sea's color insert in the Player's Handbook, which were the Nation book covers reused (clever publishing).  I don't know about a separate, stand-alone book whose sole purpose is to generate interest in playing the game, however.  That strikes me as a tremendous waste of paper and customer dollars.  Making it a little more functional, as a character-generation device as you suggested, eases my reaction, and would facilitate not only getting readers interested in the game, but take them the first couple steps into playing the game.

Mr. Cook is selling to a devoted nich market. I suspect that RPGA players who only play D+D 3rd edition (or whatever they're on now) will shell out the big bucks. I don't think this is a model for everyone. Monte's name recognition is golden and he worked many years developing it.

I wonder about the printing on this game. He could be doing pre orders to generate the cash to pay for the printing (probably 10,000 units). I've seen this done before, it's a good idea. That way, the distribution sales that follow are all profit. On the other hand he may see that distribution might not want this book (not everyone is a dedicated RPGA player) so he might be doing the whole thing as a print on demand project. That would preclude distribution sales but maybe that is a good plan.

A subscription model works if your product has name recognition or just sounds cool. I'm working now on putting out a hardback version of Howard Whitehouse's miniatures game "Science versus Pluck: or Too much for the Mahdi". They are pre selling 100 copies which may well tap out the market. S v P is a great game but how many people play 1880's British Colonial wargames? PoD is the way to go for this product - 10,000 books would truly be a waste of paper.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press = Engle Matrix Games

I've played quite a bit of D&D and come to realize that it is simply not the game for me. Maybe every once in a while, but certainly not as a regular game. But still, this Ptolus package had my mouth watering. I honestly considered buying it just to have a whole D&D campaign ready to go in one package -- wasting $120 just because it looked good. So, yeah, I'd love to see this style of packaging in some indie games that are more up my alley. I know I'd shell out quite a bit for a Dogs in the Vineyard game packaged like this: nice, hardcover rulebook with more expanded setting information (book of life, pregenerated towns, etc.) and a few setting and chargen overview saddle-stitched books.

Jesus Christ, I just realized -- that book has no rules.  That thing is supposed to work with the D&D3.5 DM and Player Guides, isn't it?

Joshua wrote:
Jesus Christ, I just realized -- that book has no rules.  That thing is supposed to work with the D&D3.5 DM and Player Guides, isn't it?

Indeed. It's all setting and scenario goodness, which could easily be transplanted to Your Favourite System[sub]tm[/sub]. And the $120 price point is actually rather cheap, if you add up what you're getting.

And Andy's right on, with this one: including player guides is a stroke of genius.

Joshua wrote: Andy, your color plates sound a lot like 7th Sea's color insert in the Player's Handbook, which were the Nation book covers reused (clever publishing).  I don't know about a separate, stand-alone book whose sole purpose is to generate interest in playing the game, however.

Andy wrote: They'd be sold together as a set, not seperately or stand alone.  I'd offer it up as a standalone purchase, but it's intended to come with the game...

Heya,

I think the 5 player's guides + Core book is a very interesting model that should be considered, pursued, and experimented with.  But not at $120.  That's a huge chunk-o-change.  Your average GenCon goer maybe bring $150 at most to spend on all 4 days.  Unless he goes in with friends, he's not likely to plunk down his entire stash for one thing.  Also $120 is about a week-and-a-half's net pay at your local Wendy's or Starbucks.  Hard for me to see teenagers or cash strapped college kids getting into to it.  That leaves 20-30 year old adults who may/may not have other responsibilities.

What I'm saying, I guess, is that I think the concept has merit, but at that price I don't think many people except Monte Cook could pull it off.

Peace,

-Troy

Troy_Costisick wrote: Your average GenCon goer maybe bring $150 at most to spend on all 4 days.

Heya,

Nope, sure don't.  That's just based off what I've brought, what my dozen or so friends who go to Origins or GenCon bring, and what I've noticed other gamers I interacted with at both conventions tended to have.  It's based solely off personal observations.  Take it for what you will :)

Peace,

-Troy

This is not the only 'boutique' RPG product out there. Another example which I own and like is The World Book of Khaas: http://www.empcho.bizhosting.com/worldguide.html . They sold out of the first print run of that one, even at that high price.

I think with both the issue is name recognition and cachet. That Arduin product is probably not widely saleable in 2004/5, but it's the size of a telephone book, and there are enough old-school Arduin fans still out there that they can print up a few hundred (maybe a thousand?) copies and make a good profit on it (maybe not on all Monty St. John's time putting it together, which was surely partly a labor of love, but on the object itself).

Gamers who really like something will pay a whole lot of money for it. The same people who bitch about $40 for tRoS or $50 for Conan will pay $100 at the drop of a hat for Ye Olde Cool Unique Setting Product from their respected authors. Hell, I'd drop $100 without blinking for a 100 page Azk'arn setting book from Ron, not that such a thing would ever happen given his proclivities, and Tekumel fans will pay shocking amounts of money for old scraps of M.A.R. Barker's kleenex with a picture of the Janitors of the Petal Throne on them.

I see no reason that established indie designers with a wide enough fanbase couldn't take advantage of this phenomenon.

Anyone know/have examples of how this is being marketed?  It seems that if it was pushed as a group buy it would work, particularly if these player guides are designed for the different DnD play styles, much in the way the classes are designed in Iron Heroes.  I mean, if it is marketed as a book for everyone in your group where you get encouraged to split the price.  $120 split four, five or six ways is cheap, particularly if you don't need any other books.

Keith

Keith wrote: particularly if these player guides are designed for the different DnD play styles

I think that this is a great thing.

$120 is too much for a book that you read and put on a shelf.
It isn't too much for a book that gives you 100 hours of fun.

Personally, I think that busting pricecaps is a great, great thing.

yrs--
--Ben