Well I've just written up an adventure idea I had last night. I'm hoping to get a couple of playtests of it soon so Ican flesh it out as required. The thing is it's quite delibarately a one shot, there is no way you could fit it into a campaign at either the beginning or end.
So my wonder is, is there a market for a such a game? Should I try getting a PDF up on the various sites and see if people are interested or should I just give it away a free material to get myself noticed?
Thoughts anyone?
You can give it away for
Submitted by Joe Murphy on Thu, 27/03/2008 - 16:01.
You can give it away for free and charge for it.
I believe there's a market for such products. I've seen some decent figures on RPGNow/DTRPG.
Is it for an existing system or does it include a system?
It's systemless, or can be
Submitted by scimon on Thu, 27/03/2008 - 16:22.
It's systemless, or can be run with a system but the details of the story mean the system is less than important.
I don't want to give too much away as i'm hoping to playtest it with a few people from here soonish.
Simon Proctor
Cognoscite aliquid novum cotidie
The received wisdom is that
Submitted by Joe Murphy on Thu, 27/03/2008 - 17:57.
The received wisdom is that system-free stuff doesn't interest people so much. But I don't know exactly why or if that be changed. Generally, people don't want to put work into a module, so want as much system stuff as possible.
In Denmark, I believe convention scenarios have in-built systems and tend to be published in annual books.
Me, I'd never buy a module as it doesn't make sense for what I want out of gaming. Ad I wouldn't buy a book that didn't focus on system as a means of producing story. So I don't know your potential market well.
Market? Yes. Huge profits? No.
Submitted by Destriarch on Thu, 27/03/2008 - 17:58.
There's definately plenty of rooms for stuff like this. I produced a PDF selection of mini-plots for use with any RPG, and sold a decent amount considering I'm strictly a small-timer, and the big players in the field sell a hell of a lot more. I wouldn't be quite so confident to say that there's definately a profit in it, and I am very uncertain of whether it'd be wise to make a printed, distributed edition, but there is certainly a market for it.
Ash
Homilies
Submitted by Graham W on Thu, 27/03/2008 - 18:09.
Two things I've been told, which I think are true:
1. You can't really give it away for free, then decide later you want to charge; but you can charge, then decide later to give it away for free.
2. People often take products more seriously if they have to pay for them.
Graham
Re Danish scenarios
Submitted by Per Fischer on Thu, 27/03/2008 - 18:24.
Danish con scenarios have traditionally been "system less" (ie: the GM is the system and is a filter for the author's vision/idea), and only very occasionally connected to a RPG system. And if they are system based, it's often setting-wise and they will normally be playable without system knowlegde. Most of my own scenarios in the 90s were loosely Storyteller-ish.
Most Danish scenarios from the last ten years are very 'professionally' produced and of a print/design quality surpassing most indie games I've seen. The 100 'best' of them from roughly the last 10-15 years are collected here, where you can get an idea of what they look like from their front pages:
http://rlyeh.trc.dk/pub/oversigt.php3?sort=grafik
Three of them are mine :)
This is now changing rapidly, and this year's batch from one of the most important Danish cons showed a large part of them having their own system, though I haven't read any of them yet.
But I believe overall, the Danish convention scenario is mostly without system, and if with, then it's a simple localised system to enhance the individual scenario.
We did try to publish the six best or so in 1995, but the project fell apart due to lack of funding and fucked up management, and it was never revived.
http://darkplaces.squarespace.com
PDFialidocius
Submitted by Tim Gray on Thu, 27/03/2008 - 19:05.
There's definitely a market for all kinds of material, and you can price it as low as one dollar if you want. The challenge is to get noticed amidst the tide!
I have a gut feeling that systemless won't shift so well, and that you might be better to include notes for one or two relatively well known systems as appendices.
Can you at least give us an idea of genre and style/theme? (E.g. "fantasy, towards the darker end, with lots of suspense".)
Have you published anything before, yourself or through other publishers?
Tim Gray
Silver Branch Games
www.silverbranch.co.uk
More on the game
Submitted by scimon on Fri, 28/03/2008 - 08:01.
Well Tim, it's modern day horror with a psychological twist. It's really meant to be a stand alone game, the PC's don't know each other at the start and there is a pretty definite ending.
I've not got anything published yet, I have got 'I can has XP' almost ready for playtest if I can get on the computer in the evening and I think my 24 minute game from Conpulsion could do well but this was just something that came to me that I think might be interesting.
Simon Proctor
Cognoscite aliquid novum cotidie