Being poisonous (not venomous)

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by tantric

As a suggestion, when someone asks a rules question that could have reasonably been covered in the core books but wasn't, wouldn't it be better just to answer it than to refer the questioner to a specialized book that is unrelated to the question?

In the specific context of a generic, universal RPG, the problem with that logic is that every gamer has a personal definition of "reasonable" that corresponds to a preferred genre and mode of play . . . and since the game strives to cover all the possibilities, the upshot is that a core that covered all "reasonable" content would be a set of encyclopedias that comes with its own pack mule. Thus, some content necessarily gets shunted to supplements. And since every gamer does have a personal definition what's reasonable, useful, worth buying a book for, etc., if we gave away the answer to every question that wasn't answered in the core, we would end up giving away much of the system.

Originally Posted by tantric

Very few people are going to spend $30 to read 5 lines.

That rather presupposes that we release crappy books with nothing much in them. Our working premise is that people come for the five useful lines and stay for the 500 useful lines. This is why we do not upload items for sale without also posting previews containing the table of contents, index, and several chunks of interior text.

Originally Posted by tantric

The other option might be something like "New Traits" published every other year or so with just game stats and no text or background, which would function like annual update to the core books. 4e Compendium?

If we had the resources for that, we'd do it . . . but current sales do not give us the means. Perhaps if fewer people had cynical attitudes about the utility of books whose title doesn't immediately scream "USEFUL TO YOU, PERSONALLY, RIGHT NOW!", we'd have enough sales to support compilations. Right now, we do not. The Power-Ups series is all we can manage.

Originally Posted by tantric

One of the things that turned me off DnD forever was the collectible card game marketing strategy, where the person with most splat book had the most powerful character, both in terms of new races/classes and new rules in obscure places. I'm a lifetime convert because GURPS doesn't milk their customers (card game people want to be milked, that's different) - well, that and the research, the adult audience and a dozen other things.

However saintly the game system might be, the basic sales model of all RPGs is "the core at a near-loss, plus many times the core's word count in follow-up materials to earn a profit." This is not some new strategy that reflects the evil inherent in the system. It's pretty much how RPGs work. That's why we put attractive, high-value rules in supplements and don't just give them away. Models different from that really aren't a good way to earn a living selling RPGs.

—

For instance, I'd never in a hundred years consider "dangerous to eat" a commonly useful trait. Most games are about badasses hacking or shooting stuff, and inasmuch as stuff gets chomped on, it's the heroes. Oddities like "Critter A is poisonous to Critter B if Critter B takes a bite" rarely if ever intersect PC-space in the classic action-adventure RPG. If somebody is silly enough to eat something dodgy, the system already has rules for poison: "Roll vs. HT or bad stuff happens." That's all that's needed, since non-PCs don't require traits with point values.

Now it's quite true that a generic, universal system will attract gamers who do want to stat it all out with point values, because their genre or setting calls for creatures to go around eating one another. But that's a niche, and so it goes in a niche supplement, not the core. That isn't an especially weird or unfair judgment call on our part.

And to be honest, a book on entities famous for going around eating people – zombies – isn't an off-the-wall place to put such rules. In fact, it's a downright sensible place for such rules. But the rules aren't brief, and giving them away would be devaluing the supplement. Yes, were Power-Ups 2: Perks released this year instead of when it was, it would encompass the relevant perks . . . but it came before Zombies. So it goes.

Even if we were to relent and just give away the rules, though, it would be a death of a thousand cuts. The next person would want horde rules, the one after that would want rules for generic undead, and further queries might pertain to inventing diseases and cures, or handling contagious curses, or the features that make a monster unholy. All of these things are reasonably located in Zombies, and though it might seem fair to give away any one of them, it isn't as if one is more suitable as a freebie than the next. Thus, we cut off free content at the product's preview.

[tantric]

Then what do you do with things like RPM? What on earth does RPM have to do with monster hunting? For a very long time, if you wanted to understand that you had to buy a book that while entertaining to read (they always are) would not be useful. It belonged in Thaumatology II. A lot of people bought MH just to get that, and now need to buy the actual booklet (I'm supposing the booklet is more complete, that would follow in line). Why not publish RPM before MH?

Aside from the fact that I asked the same question about being poisonous four years ago (it's a central issue in rainforest furry-dom), Poisonous belongs in Bestiary. Bestiary doesn't exist yet. That's really nobody's fault, but still, to expect someone to buy Zombies to get a line of game code is silly. It's not the 'death of a thousand cuts' - that's over the top melodrama. It's *customer support*. You can't print a Compendium, so you do little fixes here and there. Did your response in this thread A)cause people to run out and buy Zombies or B)irritate otherwise loyal fans? If you go all Kevin Siembieda with your IP, you end up with nothing. I've bought many of your works, but I do so because they are genius and I want you to prosper and continue to make more more. I'd think that keeping your customer base loyal and devoted is far more important than securing every tiny bit of IP, which, fundamentally, you cannot do.

And no, you don't have to give anyway the goat. That was the point of my suggestion. If they ask for rules about undead, tell them to buy Zombies. That's topical. If they want the stats for an octopus that happens to be in DFn or THS, give them the stat block. If Bestiary existed, it would be reasonable to refer them to that, but it doesn't.

For poison dart frogs: Toxic Attack 1 (Touch; Blood Agent; Cyclic (1 minute interval) (+2); Retching; No Physical Attack; Onset (Delay 1 minute);
Resistible (HT-2)) [3]

That's from my IP (and now that I look at it, it could use some fixing, but it's also four years old). It's one line. The toxic when eaten would be the same length. You spent FAR more effort defending the idea than you would have creating a Poisonous trait, not to mention the emotional energy involved in being defensive and rightfully offended or whatever, as opposed to the positive feeling of being helpful.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by tantric

Then what do you do with things like RPM? What on earth does RPM have to do with monster hunting? For a very long time, if you wanted to understand that you had to buy a book that while entertaining to read (they always are) would not be useful. It belonged in Thaumatology II. A lot of people bought MH just to get that, and now need to buy the actual booklet (I'm supposing the booklet is more complete, that would follow in line). Why not publish RPM before MH?

Because it didn't exist? Are you under the impression that GURPS releases are edited selections from the Complete Book of GURPS that Kromm sneaks a look at during his weekly hikes up to Plato's Cave on the Ashekic Plane?

Also, most game companies fail to employ enough precognitive economists to reliably determine which pieces of any given proposal are going to be the most popular bits they might be able to make more money selling separately. And you'll note that if it had been done that way, then anybody who actually did want both Monster Hunters and the magic system it required would end up paying *more* for it, since they would be forced to buy both. It's not so obvious making the customers who wanted it separately happy while infuriating the customers who just wanted to play the setting as written is a win. And yes the cost of the sum of two smaller separate pieces is going to be more than a single larger one of the same total page count even in PDF, since there are still some per work costs, though much less of a problem than for paper.

[Dalillama]

I have to agree that Zombies is a reasonable place to find these sorts of traits, although if there's ever a 4e Bestiary they should definitely be reprinted there as well. This partially answers tantric's objection, in that many rules are reprinted in multiple books if they're relevant; e.g. there's significant overlap between Gun Fu and Tactical Shooting, and it's my understanding that Monster Hunters, DF and Action also share printings of numerous cinematic traits/rules, although I haven't got any of them so I don't know for sure. For most questions like this the short answer 'It's usually a Perk' or is pretty much sufficient for my purposes, although I appreciate the folks who did worked examples using IA rules. I'm usually willing to wing things like that (frex, I've not got Thaumatology, but I can still use RPM with conditional terminations; it might not be exactly RAW, and I wouldn't mind having the RAW, but I can infer enough to make it work even if it's not exact. It probably wouldn't be anyway, because I like to mess with things.

[tantric]

I really don't think that snark helps. Seriously, it doesn't. I've notice that many people on this website are unable to discuss anything that might affect their livelihood with distance, which, I suppose, is understandable if not helpful.

RPM was a chapter in the first MH. It was a chunk of text that obviously had widespread use outside of MH. Since it was already edited and play tested, could it not have been publishes separately? Why package something that has widespread appeal inside a very limited genre book? Though you have a point in that it might not have been expected to be wildly popular, but really, that's what playtesting is for. Besides, these guys are real gurus and generally know when something is sexy. RPM is sexy from the start (for everyone else, the path names bugged me). That's a totally separate issue, sorry I brought it up.

My point was that instead of jealously guarding every bit of IP, it would likely be a good marketing strategy to make gaming enjoyable for the gamers by helping people. I always thought that was the purpose of this website - to help gamers grow and evolve their gaming experience. Kromm's response, to me, came off as kind of 'neener neener' (and I'm saying this out of love, but it did sound bad). I have this weirdo belief that in the age of ubiquitous illegal copying and downloading, it is better to make your fans love you and want to support you rather than trying to suck out every penny, because ultimately, they don't have to part with that penny. I see digital publication as evolving into a cooperative venture between fans and writers, rather than the mercantile world of paper publishing. I was attempting to suggest a reasonable guideline, to whit: if the question is about something generic and the information exists in a specialized book, supplying the stats only (not the text, not the background) would be a kindness that is unlikely to impact sales.

In short, I was noting that as a customer of 20yrs, who has converted several others, I would be more likely to go on being a happy customer if Kromm had given up a line a game stats than trying to force sell a book to someone who had no use for it in general. This was an attempt to be helpful and I don't think it deserved the snark or the defensiveness. I guess the real test will be when my own stuff goes out, which looks to be about a year from now, though I've never expected to make money from it.

I'd like to hear the OP's opinion on this....

[Dalillama]

Originally Posted by tantric

I'd like to hear the OP's opinion on this....

...It's the post above yours.

[Vaevictis Asmadi]

Back on topic,

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

Immunity to one specific poison is a perk. If it's a racial poison, they would need a perk to be immune to their own species.

Is this stated in RAW somewhere, or is it mostly your interpretation? It just seems counterintuitive to me.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by tantric

Why not publish RPM before MH?

First, because we believe in letting writers write what they write, when they write it. If a cool concept appears in a supplement, we are not going to put that supplement on hold, single out the cool part for its own supplement, and put the new product ahead of the old one on the schedule. That kind of stopping and starting would kill a product line and dampen the sales of supplements the author was banking on selling in part or in whole on the strength of a nifty idea. It would be a terrible way to do business.

Second, because we can't see the future. Nobody here thought that RPM was going to catch on like it did. If we had that gift, I can tell you now that we would only ever release bestsellers!

Originally Posted by tantric

It's not the 'death of a thousand cuts' - that's over the top melodrama. It's *customer support*.

We'll have to disagree on that. I've been doing this for a living for two decades. One lesson I've learned is that yes, you can indeed give away too much of a product. That's why SJ Games carefully selects its preview pages and doesn't excerpt authors' cool ideas from their manuscripts and sell them separately, to the detriment of the original project. This isn't about being possessive; this is about ensuring that (1) freelancers earn a royalty, and (2) staff-written projects pay for themselves.

Originally Posted by tantric

If they want the stats for an octopus that happens to be in DFn or THS, give them the stat block.

Again, we'll have to disagree. SJ Games is in this business to earn a profit. The problem with your logic is that everybody has a different thing they think should be given away, because the audience for a generic, universal game is very, very diverse. And spending a lot of time judging which giveaways are justified and which are not would be a headachy job that would waste talent better put to use writing.

Originally Posted by tantric

You spent FAR more effort defending the idea than you would have creating a Poisonous trait, not to mention the emotional energy involved in being defensive and rightfully offended or whatever, as opposed to the positive feeling of being helpful.

My effort was on my own time, while my response wasn't defensive or offended, but simply informative: "Here's why not." It boils down to businesses doing business. Publishers publish and sell content, and for RPGs, the most marketable content has always been "the rule that sells the book," so to speak.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by tantric

My point was that instead of jealously guarding every bit of IP, it would likely be a good marketing strategy to make gaming enjoyable for the gamers by helping people. I always thought that was the purpose of this website - to help gamers grow and evolve their gaming experience. Kromm's response, to me, came off as kind of 'neener neener'

The majority of what I write on these forums is (1) answers to questions, and (2) explanations of creator intent. I think that qualifies as helpful. And yes, when a small bit of rules text would help, I've been known to give it away! You can search through my posts and find dozens of examples. However, the trait in question this time is a three-paragraph, 250-word section tied into a bunch of other rules, not a standalone sentence or two. So I drew the line there. I think there is some over-dramatizing going on here, but not by me.

Originally Posted by tantric

I see digital publication as evolving into a cooperative venture between fans and writers, rather than the mercantile world of paper publishing.

My personal opinion on that is irrelevant because I work for a publisher that has IP lawyers, a "digital piracy" policy, and a belief that its goods are worth money regardless of whether they're digital or on paper. I can choose to uphold their views or I can find another job. Thus, I cannot share your views and stay employed. So it goes.

[Kromm]

Originally Posted by Vaevictis Asmadi

Back on topic

Sorry about the derailment. If it continues, I'll move it elsewhere.