Re: Preferred format for published adventures?
 

I'd like a more traditional, magazine sized book personally. I appreciate the small booklets that came with the Legacy box, but the print is kind of eye-straining.

Re: Preferred format for published adventures?
 

It sounds like individual adventures are the most practical in a gaming setting, whereas the bound book is best for collecting and displaying the adventures (and probably the most cost effective).

How about bringing back individual adventures that are hole-punched and can be collected into three-ring binders? The worst of all possible worlds. ^_^

Re: Preferred format for published adventures?
 

Cost effective for the consumer.

Costs go up pretty much page-by-page for pre-production (cost-per-page to make the book goes up by word count and graphics content) and production (printing by page or signature, shipping by the pound or kg) for physical goods. The price folks are willing to pay for bigger goods does not go up linearly.

My preference is for adventures to be done separately unless they're related to each other. For example, by the time "More Perilous Journeys" is done, there will be five adventures in the set involving Jok C. Sevantes and the Indhyna League. These 80 pages would make an outstanding "adventure path" type offering because they're all related. If folks like a few of them, they may want a collector's edition of all of them.

(Hmm. . . )

For a hodge-podge, I can easily see folks saying "why make me buy all of them?" I can see this because I've heard it in other contexts.

Re: Preferred format for published adventures?
 

I was thinking it might also be so for the publisher in one way, which is that they don't have to support separate print runs for each adventure. I know that there has to be a minimum order volume to make a print run economic, and with the individual releases that can be harder to plan for than the omnibus edition. But it's quite possible that the individual editions are more economical in other ways, such as material costs. The omnibus edition will generally be large enough that it will require bookbinding, whereas individual 12-page titles could be as simply bound as issues of Hexagram are. I'm not in the business, but I suspect there are a host of factors that determine what format is most practical, and that there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer for anyone.

And I do concur that the omnibus version is not always a win with the customer. Particularly if the volume contains only one or two adventures they really want. In that case it's quite possible to lose potential sales. Again, so many factors go into it all. I'm glad that I don't have to make these calls, especially when it involves real money.

Re: Preferred format for published adventures?
 

I would like an adventure formatted as a series of random procedural generation tables and then npc and treasure cards. The logic of the plot would be built into the random generation tables with named event triggers that cause table transitions. So the first page of the adventure would look like a software block diagram that would include the associated triggers. Each page or column thereafter would be the phased procedural generation tables. Finally, a pile of npc / monster / treasure cards for the necessary stats.

Re: Preferred format for published adventures?
 

Kommisar, I've been working, on and off, on that exact thing for about 6 months.

Not sure I will ever finish, but it seems like a good idea to continue.

Re: Preferred format for published adventures?
 

A manufacturing note. Classic adventures -- with the booklet separate from the cover -- are 1.5 to 2x more expensive to produce.

It's an oddity, but there's extra work required since the cover has to be shrinkwrapped to the booklet, where otherwise a booklet can be a single unit. Additionally, going with the tri-fold cover also adds to the cost. And on top of all of that, there's a base cost to each booklet, regardless of size. A book that includes five adventures will cost less than five separate adventures.

They're cool, but they'll cost more.

For example, the Adventures book costs $35 and is available now at Warehouse 23 -- http://www.warehouse23.com/products/...rip-adventures -- but if we had created this as five separate adventures, each would have been priced around $15. (And that is without trifold covers, just standard-sized covers kept separate from the interior pages.)

So, it's all a balancing act.

Re: Preferred format for published adventures?
 

Yoiks! Reality can be such a downer.

Re: Preferred format for published adventures?
 

There's also the added expense of five covers vs a single cover. Cover art costs more than interior art, so overall expenses also climb when breaking a collection of five adventures into five separate products.

Re: Preferred format for published adventures?
 

How about the economics of hardcover vs. softcover?


As much as I might like the contents, it seems extravagant to have a collection of adventures hardbound, especially it it is relatively slim.


(Rule books, which tend to be thicker and much more frequently consulted, are another matter.)