Intro adventures

[SnowDog]

I don't know how feasible it would be but here's an idea. I like intro adventures but after one run they are pretty much useless and take a much needed space from the book. I think many of you agree on this. Intro adventures are good to set the atmosphere of the setting and can provide stock NPCs and even locations for later use. All good fodder.

On the other hand like I already mentioned those adventures take precious space from the book. So, what's the solution?

Actually there are two choices.

1) Free downloadable adventure. The problem here is that not everyone has an internet connection and even if they do the printing of the adventure can be problematic.

2) Make a print version of the adventure. Soft covers etc. but otherwise similar to how it would look inside the book. Then get it to stores as either promotional material or an add-on for every rulesbook bought. Now, I don't know how much extra this separate booklet would cost.

 

[Shadow Queen]

For B5 There is "Final Flight" and "Cold Equsions"

the first has 6 pregenerated Pc's

 

[SnowDog]

So, are those adventures printed and free of charge and not included in the rulebook? Or are they in another medium entirely?

 

[Shadow Queen]

nothing in the rulebook, you may want to put the same question on the B5 Rpg area

 

[SnowDog]

Well, I am not specifically interested in B5 although I liked the show. I posted this topic here because to a layman it sounded like a nifty idea in general. Thanks for the reply, though Shadow Queen!

 

[Myrm]

On the other hand like I already mentioned those adventures take precious space from the book. So, what's the solution?

1) Free downloadable adventure. The problem here is that not everyone has an internet connection and even if they do the printing of the adventure can be problematic.

2) Make a print version of the adventure. Soft covers etc. but otherwise similar to how it would look inside the book. Then get it to stores as either promotional material or an add-on for every rulesbook bought. Now, I don't know how much extra this separate booklet would cost.

Ok Ive snipped out the points I'm answering.

When you say precious space in the rulebook you have to decide what else would go in there in place of the adventure.

I have assorted RPG rulesets going back 25 odd years and they vary dramatically in whether they had intro adventures (my first two RPG purchases ever were AD&D with no adventure in the core book and Maelstrom which had an intro adventure - my latest 2 RPG purchases 20+ years later fit the same ratio happily [B5 RPG with no adventure and Kobolds Ate My Baby with an intro].)

At the point I got B5 I picked up the Cold Equations for a grand total of £4.50 - I would probably spend close to if not more than that printing a PDF on my inkjet and I would not get anything like the production quality. I was quite happy for that, because it is also considerably more substantial than most intro adventures. Also any players in my campaign who buy the book won't have the adventure to hand.

1) Free downloadables do run the risk of having the target population who dont have ready internet access and printing facility feeling that somehow they have missed out on something that should be included. I've seen companies provide lite tasters this way, and also supplementary support material later in the development phase but not generally the basic intro adventure.

2) A separate book for the game seems to me to be a non-starter as a general rule, you have to ship it with the rulebook and hand it out with the rulebook....why not just put it in there in the first place, the cost of generating such an item with the cover and cover art costs seems to me to make this non-viable.

So I think it comes back to - you have a lot of marketing, game design and printing decisions that probably override any general rule on intro adventures.

 

[SnowDog]

Yes, finally an opinion! Thank you for that, really.

About pdfs, I kind of agreed on that one already. Not everyone had internet connection and your comment about printing costs and quality was spot on.

Separate adventures seem to be the only option but as I said, I don't know how much it would cost to print an intro adventure separately compared to put it to the rulebook. What you said, made sense and I am certain that I am not the first one to think about that...

The precious space in rulebook is just that. Often a reason given for the omission of some rule or piece of data is that there was no room in the book. Now if you have more pages left because the intro adventure is a separate book, you have more pages to use for stuff that is probably useful later on.

 

[AKAramis]

My preference (when I buy physical books) is to have a bound-in cdrom with a variety of PDF goodies.... including an introductory adventure or three.

 

[SnowDog]

An interesting idea. I have seen a CD-ROM in couple of products but I don't remember if there were ever an adventure in it. On the other hand my experience can be quite limited...

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

For that matter Aramis, you could put the entire book on the CD, so you had a book and a way to reprint certain pages, as needed for personal use. Once you add the cost of a CD, what goes on it should have trivial additional expense.

 

[AKAramis]

An interesting idea. I have seen a CD-ROM in couple of products but I don't remember if there were ever an adventure in it. On the other hand my experience can be quite limited...

Tunnels and Trolls 7E has a lot of added materials on its CD.

Including a dungeon.

 

[SnowDog]

Tunnels and Trolls 7E has a lot of added materials on its CD.

Including a dungeon.

Ah, I haven't seen that one. Thanks for the pointer!

 

[Loz]

Its always a difficult issue.

There's one camp that decries the lack of published scenarios and another that doesn't want scenarios taking up valuable space in a rulebook, prefering them to be released as separate publications. S&P is one avenue, but as its PDF, it comes back to the (well made) points at the start of this thread relating to internet connections and printing.

Personally I like scenarios being included in book, as long as they're concise and illustrate the main concepts the book is getting across. Some ideas are often better handled as a scenario rather than as straight text, and, if the book is a supplement, rather than core rules, a scenario can be a great 'value add' (as long as there IS value being added).

 

[AKAramis]

PDF on CD is probably the best compromise.

I have bought several games over the years with inclusions on diskettes. Even if it isn't a pressed CD, but a burned one, it is still a viable method.

 

[Gauntlet-]

Possibillity I haven't seen suggested;

Seperate intro adventure/scenario Book. IE more than 1 scenario... I could easily see buying a 20-30$ book for an RPG that has 10 nicely made intro adventures. I find it much easier to have seperate books than one big one filled with things I don't need.

 

[IanBruntlett]

I like the idea of putting "one-shot" material (specifically adventures) onto a CD as PDF files.

How about pushing it a bit further and including material that is posted by players on the internet?

I'm going to have my first game of B5 ACTA this week. I'm hoping to keep playing while getting up to speed with the B5 RPG. I would be *really* grateful for some material to help newbie games masters run a game. You don't have to produce it yourself, you could just provide a bibliography That kind of material would be ideal for a CD provided with rule books.

 

[SnowDog]

All extra material is of course more than welcome but including a fan based material to CD is a bit iffy considering copyright issues etc. I'm not a lawyer so I could be wrong but that's where I see the possible problem.