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Old 06-30-2006, 02:59 PM   #33
tbug
 
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Victoria, BC Canada
Default Re: superior write ups

Quote:
Originally Posted by milliken
As for a five-book adventure cycle, all I can say is that the going wisdom is that adventures sell poorly, and I think all the data available reinforces that. A lot of people don't want to spend money on stuff that has effectively one use; also, technically, only GMs should be buying adventures, greatly reducing the potential sales.
I've been thinking about this a lot. Enough has been said about what was wrong with the Revelations Cycle that I don't feel the need to go over it. If we'll agree that it wasn't implemented the best way that it could have been then we can discuss a cycle that's done well.

It's true that adventures sell poorly; a glance at the What's Hot list confirms this. I've bought all of the books except Anime and GURPS IN (and those two don't apply to my game), yet the only e23 adventure that I've bought is "City on Fire", and the odds are pretty good that I'm not going to run it.

I really want another cycle (done right this time). It sounds like the only way for this to happen is for the adventures to sell well, which I don't think they're ever going to do. At some point I might just start buying the e23 adventures even though I have no real need of them, but I'm not yet at that point.

I enjoy running adventures that other people have written. I almost always modify them extensively, but there's something fun about taking someone else's work and fitting it into my intricately-crafted story arc. It sometimes takes a lot of scheming to keep it thematically consistent, but the scheming is a big part of what's fun for me. That being said, occasionally the core concepts of the game are too far removed from what I'm doing that I just mine it for ideas or cool NPCs and then set it aside. (This is what happened with "City on Fire", which was a lovely scenario but has way too many Tethers in one place to fit with my game.)

Every other IN adventure being sold on e23 is available in a simpler form (much simpler in the case of "Strange Bedfellows") somewhere else that I've already read. Since I always do big rewrites anyway I haven't bothered purchasing someone else's rewrites. I may yet do this, but it's not a high priority for me.

If another cycle (or mini-cycle) were announced I'd be counting the days until it got released. Cycles are exciting, and they're the only way we're going to get answers to the Big Mysteries. I expect that if "Superiors: Janus" got released then it would sell well (including to me), but I don't think that it would necessarily generate excitement the way I remember everyone reacting to the announcement of Fall of the Malakim.

What's Eli up to? What's the real relationship between Janus and Valefor? What's Lilith's destiny? What's the real story behind the Grigori? Is there any hope for Gabriel? This is exciting stuff!

Who do we need to convince before a mini-cycle gets the green light? I just don't think that it's fair to judge how it would do by the current sales figures on the existing adventures.
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