The Future of the Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game?

[GM Joe]

Originally Posted by philreed

One campaign, not two. A printed Bestairy has almost no wide value if the boxed game is not available. Just creating a Bestiary without the box would be a poor use of Sean and the team’s time.

So, enough people will have to buy new DFRPG box sets through the Kickstarter to justify a new print run, and only then will we see the Bestiary?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by GM Joe

So, enough people will have to buy new DFRPG box sets through the Kickstarter to justify a new print run, and only then will we see the Bestiary?

The other way around, from what's been said: if the bestiary Kickstarter succeeds, showing that there's still a market for DFRPG, SJG will risk the money to reprint the boxed set.

[philreed]

Originally Posted by GM Joe

So, enough people will have to buy new DFRPG box sets through the Kickstarter to justify a new print run, and only then will we see the Bestiary?

The project will have to meet the financial goal. If that happens, there will be a reprint and a new book of monsters.

[philreed]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The other way around, from what's been said: if the bestiary Kickstarter succeeds, showing that there's still a market for DFRPG, SJG will risk the money to reprint the boxed set.

Not quite. The financial goal will cover both projects. This will be a realistic goal to justify both.

[Andrew Hackard]

Originally Posted by Turhan's Bey Company

At a guess, a single volume would surely be cheaper to manufacture than the box set, but repackaging the set as a single volume has new costs of its own in addition to the manufacturing costs, so you might not ultimately see an improved bottom line.

Revising all the content into a single book would basically mean starting over with an entirely new layout - requiring a fair amount of editorial and production staff time - and then shooting entirely new film for the book, which is its own not inconsiderable expense. Reprinting the box set means sending a check to the factory to make more using the film and files they already have. (It's *slightly* more complicated than that, but that's the gist.)

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by blueFire

Instead of reprinting the entire boxed set would it not be better to do a rules encyclopedia (or something similar) as a single larger book? I am assuming a single book would be cheaper to produce then an entire boxed set but I could be wrong.

Andrew already replied, but I want to amplify:

The physical product would be cheaper, you are right. The editorial and production costs, however, would be formidable. Combined editions are not the quick-and-easy products myth has them to be. They are pure living Hell to create because of all the changes to end matter, layout, page references, etc. . . . plus there's the hidden cost of lost good will in having two different presentations of the same rules out there, which leads to the perception of incompatibility (and often actual incompatibility owing to changes to page references) . . . and the further loss of good will when people buy the new product thinking it's different from the old, only to realize they've bought the same thing twice.

In reality, if you're going to rerelease a product that was originally a bunch of products as a single, combined product, it behooves you to declare a whole new edition, mark that on the covers, ads, and web pages, and wrap it all in new cover art just to be sure. And that's expensive every which way. Plus it isn't an option less than two years after releasing the original edition.

[Juliansl]

Not to mention that it was split into multiple books for a very good reason. It's great being able to have one player check something in exploits while another is looking up something in adventurer.

[Tom H.]

Originally Posted by Juliansl

Not to mention that it was split into multiple books for a very good reason. It's great being able to have one player check something in exploits while another is looking up something in adventurer.

Yes, I'm finding the separation of content into multiple books to be very useful and easy to access.

Sometimes innovation works in spite of those who warn against the departure from tradition and conformity to the current approved style (and industry leaders).

One option I see to some cost reduction in future releases of the DFRPG is to just reprint the existing books and contain them in a slipcase. This avoids the larger box, counters, and dice. Layout and page references do not change. Maybe all that changes is the title pages and slipcase production.

I'm not necessarily suggesting this option for the upcoming Kickstarter with the bestiary but for potential reprints after that.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Tom H.

One option I see to some cost reduction in future releases of the DFRPG is to just reprint the existing books and contain them in a slipcase. This avoids the larger box, counters, and dice. Layout and page references do not change. Maybe all that changes is the title pages and slipcase production.

I'd be interested in understanding the viability of this. My (limited) knowledge suggests that easy repackaging into this format is limited by each sub-book not having its own ISBN. I'm not sure if one can just reprint those books as-is, throw a slipcase on it with an ISBN on THAT, and call it "RPG set" and have it treated as "book" and not "game," which is the most favorable category for customs treatment in many places.

Just to reiterate: this is me saying "I don't know," but I've heard that things that don't already have ISBNs are harder to repackage.

[lachimba]

Im happy to hear that there will be more support for DFRPG.

There were a bunch of people who as soon as DFRPG came out started "lobbying" for the next boxed set to be [insert various GURPS titles here].

I give my standard disclaimer about not giving SJ Games advice. That said I remember being "tut tutted"when I suggested that the next step after DFRPG was in fact more DFRPG.