Official ICE Forums
Systems & Settings => Shadow World => Topic started by: Terry K. Amthor on September 07, 2019, 07:40:30 PM
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The Haunted Village https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/288169/Shadow-World-The-Haunted-Village?src=newest (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/288169/Shadow-World-The-Haunted-Village?src=newest)
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This a 12 page adventure set in SW Emer, all new, with layouts and stats, and some info on the working of Jinteni Portals. It is pay-as-you-want, but please be generous, and review when you can. If this does well, we will do more mini SW adventures to fill in between the big books. Emer IV is still going well.
Any feedback is of course welcome!
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Looking forward to downloading it; just been a bit busy lately.
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I just picked it up and am looking to using it soon. I play almost every other week now in a fun campaign.
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Just downloaded the file and gave it a quick look-over. Fantastic work. The amount of detail and info is excellent. I think I'm going to have my party get to the location via an earth node. I've been wanting to have them stumble across one and this is a good adventure to send them on via earth node. I've also been wanting to send an aether storm at them too. This could be the trigger to accidentally trigger the earth node.
Great module!!
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Hi all,
There have been nearly 100 downloads in just a few days, most people paying nothing. One person paid $0.05. That is unfortunate. Also there has only been one rating, and that was 3 out of 5. My products usually get a 4.5-5, so this is disappointing. I don't think we will be doing 'pay what you want' again as there are so many moochers. I imagine that if we will do similar adventures/mini sources of similar size again, we will be asking $2-$4. :-\
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Hi all,
There have been nearly 100 downloads in just a few days, most people paying nothing. One person paid $0.05. That is unfortunate. Also there has only been one rating, and that was 3 out of 5. My products usually get a 4.5-5, so this is disappointing. I don't think we will be doing 'pay what you want' again as there are so many moochers. I imagine that if we will do similar adventures/mini sources of similar size again, we will be asking $2-$3. :-(
PWYW has a purpose and its place. Mostly it works best for independent creators who have a strong personal following. People are more likely to 'give' or 'donate' if they know exactly who the money is going to and they want to support that writers work.
For a business free works better than PWYW if you just want to use the product as a try before you buy for a more expensive investment.
If you want or need to make money or make back your investment then you should put a price on the product.
Many free or PWYW products get low or poor ratings. Stars but no textual review. There are simply plenty of review trolls that will mark down every product just so that their own will rank higher. The 3 star review was probably not a reflection of the product at all, they probably didn't even download the book. As soon as they have 'purchased' the book for nothing they are able to rate it.
You could withdraw the product from sale, by making it private.
Recreate the product as a $2 download with the same name. Put a note at the top of the description that is is the same adventure as was previously sold PWYW. That would scrub away the 3* review and give you a clean slate.
Personally, I would just treat it as a loss leader but ask people on the forums to download it and leave 5* reviews to counter balance the trolls.
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Tried to even out the pay what you want abit :D
And hope it can be converted to Jaiman :)
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Tried to even out the pay what you want abit :D
And hope it can be converted to Jaiman :)
Thanks! You could probably place it on the northern border of Zor with a cooler climate and make the native grass-dwellers mutants.
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Hi all,
There have been nearly 100 downloads in just a few days, most people paying nothing. One person paid $0.05. That is unfortunate. Also there has only been one rating, and that was 3 out of 5. My products usually get a 4.5-5, so this is disappointing. I don't think we will be doing 'pay what you want' again as there are so many moochers. I imagine that if we will do similar adventures/mini sources of similar size again, we will be asking $2-$3. :-(
Not cool... paid 5$ myself. Will finish reading it and then will post a review!
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Many will download PWYW simply because they can get it for free. Interest in the setting or product is irrelevant, and it may never even be looked at. There also seems to be one individual rating every single PWYW supplement they pick up - for free - at 3 stars. Which is annoying to say the least.
$2-3 for these supplements is a perfectly reasonable price. You also get people paying a minimum amount, sometimes only 1 cent, for PWYW because they don't quite feel comfortable paying nothing.
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Tried to even out the pay what you want abit :D
And hope it can be converted to Jaiman :)
Thanks! You could probably place it on the northern border of Zor with a cooler climate and make the native grass-dwellers mutants.
Cool!
Ill just pass the PDF to my GM, cant rate it before he uses it some day :)
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One person paid $0.05. That is unfortunate.
No, that's just douchey and insulting. I would find it less offensive if the person just paid nothing at all. I did download and i did pay, but i didn't leave a review yet as I haven't played it out, but that doesn't mean I can't leave a review of what I've read and what I think so I'm off to remedy that now.
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Hi all,
There have been nearly 100 downloads in just a few days, most people paying nothing. One person paid $0.05. That is unfortunate. Also there has only been one rating, and that was 3 out of 5. My products usually get a 4.5-5, so this is disappointing. I don't think we will be doing 'pay what you want' again as there are so many moochers. I imagine that if we will do similar adventures/mini sources of similar size again, we will be asking $2-$3. :-(
Not cool... paid 5$ myself. Will finish reading it and then will post a review!
Thanks! Much appreciated. :)
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One person paid $0.05. That is unfortunate.
No, that's just douchey and insulting. I would find it less offensive if the person just paid nothing at all. I did download and i did pay, but i didn't leave a review yet as I haven't played it out, but that doesn't mean I can't leave a review of what I've read and what I think so I'm off to remedy that now.
Thanks!
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I think that Nicholas and I will confer about how to release the next mini-adventure. I am glad to hear the positive responses here, and I think this is a good way to maintain interest in RM and SW between huge modules (Haalkitaine: almost done except for RMSS stats; many new NPCs and of course many all-new adventures). PWYW is clearly not the way to go, with a raft of people paying nothing. For 12-18 pages of material, I am thinking $2 -$4. In future adventures, I think I can include suggestions for placing it in other locations than the original setting. Many will include Portals, so get your Jinteni crystals ready!
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I think that Nicholas and I will confer about how to release the next mini-adventure. I am glad to hear the positive responses here, and I think this is a good way to maintain interest in RM and SW between huge modules (Haalkitaine: almost done except for RMSS stats; many new NPCs and of course many all-new adventures). PWYW is clearly not the way to go, with a raft of people paying nothing. For 12-18 pages of material, I am thinking $2 -$4. In future adventures, I think I can include suggestions for placing it in other locations than the original setting. Many will include Portals, so get your Jinteni crystals ready!
Good stuff. It's too bad people can be such scumbags. Probably should have saved it for Guild Adventurer #5 (or do those only come along once every 7 years?).
Thanks,
--Desty
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I think that Nicholas and I will confer about how to release the next mini-adventure. I am glad to hear the positive responses here, and I think this is a good way to maintain interest in RM and SW between huge modules (Haalkitaine: almost done except for RMSS stats; many new NPCs and of course many all-new adventures). PWYW is clearly not the way to go, with a raft of people paying nothing. For 12-18 pages of material, I am thinking $2 -$4. In future adventures, I think I can include suggestions for placing it in other locations than the original setting. Many will include Portals, so get your Jinteni crystals ready!
Good stuff. It's too bad people can be such scumbags. Probably should have saved it for Guild Adventurer #5 (or do those only come along once every 7 years?).
Thanks,
--Desty
Yeah i think that model no longer works, with small pdfs avaiable rather than asking a buyer to pay for a magazine with a lot of materials they have no interest in. Come to think of it, maybe we should release a PDF of just the SW material from those books...?
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I think that Nicholas and I will confer about how to release the next mini-adventure. I am glad to hear the positive responses here, and I think this is a good way to maintain interest in RM and SW between huge modules (Haalkitaine: almost done except for RMSS stats; many new NPCs and of course many all-new adventures). PWYW is clearly not the way to go, with a raft of people paying nothing. For 12-18 pages of material, I am thinking $2 -$4. In future adventures, I think I can include suggestions for placing it in other locations than the original setting. Many will include Portals, so get your Jinteni crystals ready!
I normally price PDFs at $0.20/page so $2-$4 is spot on.
PWYW has its place but it is a very specific tool. What it isn't is an 'honesty box' if you know that concept. It also is not Pay What It Is Worth.
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I think that Nicholas and I will confer about how to release the next mini-adventure. I am glad to hear the positive responses here, and I think this is a good way to maintain interest in RM and SW between huge modules (Haalkitaine: almost done except for RMSS stats; many new NPCs and of course many all-new adventures). PWYW is clearly not the way to go, with a raft of people paying nothing. For 12-18 pages of material, I am thinking $2 -$4. In future adventures, I think I can include suggestions for placing it in other locations than the original setting. Many will include Portals, so get your Jinteni crystals ready!
I normally price PDFs at $0.20/page so $2-$4 is spot on.
PWYW has its place but it is a very specific tool. What it isn't is an 'honesty box' if you know that concept. It also is not Pay What It Is Worth.
Thanks Peter. Wish we had consulted you guys before posting the adventure. But we're learning.
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i remember the time that Paizo let you pay for alpha and beta versions of the Pathfinder PDF (at 33-50% the full price).
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@Terry,
You are not stuck with the adventure being PWYW. It is really simple to log in, untick the PWYW box and type in a selling price.
I use PWYW for beta test versions of games. I also make it clear what the money will be spent on. Normally, this is for paying for print proofs to produce final books. A playtest is not about making money and a full set of print proofs if you for a discount B/W, softcover premium colour and a top end hardcover should come in at under $200 even if you need a couple of reprints, which I never have so far. In this model the hundreds of free downloads and the relatively small number of paid copies balance out. You get lots of play testers and your production costs met.
That model works as a one person indie developer. For a brand like ICE that tries to present itself and a premium brand with a long history I don't think that would work. You cannot be a giant of the industry and expect sympathy donations.
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I think that Nicholas and I will confer about how to release the next mini-adventure. I am glad to hear the positive responses here, and I think this is a good way to maintain interest in RM and SW between huge modules (Haalkitaine: almost done except for RMSS stats; many new NPCs and of course many all-new adventures). PWYW is clearly not the way to go, with a raft of people paying nothing. For 12-18 pages of material, I am thinking $2 -$4. In future adventures, I think I can include suggestions for placing it in other locations than the original setting. Many will include Portals, so get your Jinteni crystals ready!
Good stuff. It's too bad people can be such scumbags. Probably should have saved it for Guild Adventurer #5 (or do those only come along once every 7 years?).
Thanks,
--Desty
Yeah i think that model no longer works, with small pdfs avaiable rather than asking a buyer to pay for a magazine with a lot of materials they have no interest in. Come to think of it, maybe we should release a PDF of just the SW material from those books...?
I think I have brought that up before. You could have a series "Adventures in Emer" or "Adventures in Jaiman", etc. Publish the adventures by themselves at first (and perhaps alter them slightly so that they are linked), and then when you have a certain page count, say 128 pages or so, publish a book "Adventures in Emer, Vol. I". In glorious hardcover, of course. ;)
I think it would work very well.
Just a thought...
Thanks,
--Desty
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I think that Nicholas and I will confer about how to release the next mini-adventure. I am glad to hear the positive responses here, and I think this is a good way to maintain interest in RM and SW between huge modules (Haalkitaine: almost done except for RMSS stats; many new NPCs and of course many all-new adventures). PWYW is clearly not the way to go, with a raft of people paying nothing. For 12-18 pages of material, I am thinking $2 -$4. In future adventures, I think I can include suggestions for placing it in other locations than the original setting. Many will include Portals, so get your Jinteni crystals ready!
Good stuff. It's too bad people can be such scumbags. Probably should have saved it for Guild Adventurer #5 (or do those only come along once every 7 years?).
Thanks,
--Desty
Yeah i think that model no longer works, with small pdfs avaiable rather than asking a buyer to pay for a magazine with a lot of materials they have no interest in. Come to think of it, maybe we should release a PDF of just the SW material from those books...?
I think I have brought that up before. You could have a series "Adventures in Emer" or "Adventures in Jaiman", etc. Publish the adventures by themselves at first (and perhaps alter them slightly so that they are linked), and then when you have a certain page count, say 128 pages or so, publish a book "Adventures in Emer, Vol. I". In glorious hardcover, of course. ;)
I think it would work very well.
Just a thought...
Thanks,
--Desty
Writing adventures is really hard work and in the grand scheme of things they do not sell very well. Rolemaster is aimed at the more experienced GM and they are the ones who are most likely to home brew everything and take pride in their creations.
Take Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn, it has sold between 250 and 500 copies in 4 years. Taking the upper bounds, ICE is probably making $8 a book after print costs and DTRPGs cut. That is something like $1,000 a year. If the sales are nearer the 250 mark then you are only looking at $500/year and that must be trailing off as the book is far from new. That is revenue, you need to take off the cost of the art from that.
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Hi all,
There have been nearly 100 downloads in just a few days, most people paying nothing. One person paid $0.05. That is unfortunate. Also there has only been one rating, and that was 3 out of 5. My products usually get a 4.5-5, so this is disappointing. I don't think we will be doing 'pay what you want' again as there are so many moochers. I imagine that if we will do similar adventures/mini sources of similar size again, we will be asking $2-$4. :-\
I contributed a bit more to make up for the moochers. I value your work, and the effort you put in. Can't rate it yet, but I will.
I'll pay $3 -$4 for something like this no problem.
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Thanks for all the support (and generous purchases)! As someone pointed out, adventures are hard to write. I'd much rather just write background/sourcebooks. Hence the early Emers and Haalkitaine which had few or no adventures, and why I am struggling to finish the adventures section in Haalkitaine II (but there are a lot of them!) Anyway, I am already starting a new mini-adventure. which we will not release as PWYW! ;)
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I think I have brought that up before. You could have a series "Adventures in Emer" or "Adventures in Jaiman", etc. Publish the adventures by themselves at first (and perhaps alter them slightly so that they are linked), and then when you have a certain page count, say 128 pages or so, publish a book "Adventures in Emer, Vol. I". In glorious hardcover, of course. ;)
This is an idea I like, but for it to work you would need people to buy both the adventures and the compilation. The problem is people might ignore one or the other.
Writing adventures is really hard work and in the grand scheme of things they do not sell very well. Rolemaster is aimed at the more experienced GM and they are the ones who are most likely to home brew everything and take pride in their creations.
Take Tales from the Green Gryphon Inn, it has sold between 250 and 500 copies in 4 years. Taking the upper bounds, ICE is probably making $8 a book after print costs and DTRPGs cut. That is something like $1,000 a year. If the sales are nearer the 250 mark then you are only looking at $500/year and that must be trailing off as the book is far from new. That is revenue, you need to take off the cost of the art from that.
Even though I tend to write my own adventures, I do find value in pre-written adventures because they are still a gold mine of character concepts, lore, and ideas. They can be useful as drop ins too.
The current thing I am working on is conceptually based on the original Grand Campaign, but incorporating the modern books and my own plot ideas.
@Terry,
You are not stuck with the adventure being PWYW. It is really simple to log in, untick the PWYW box and type in a selling price.
Imho that is something worth thinking about.
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The adventure finally made copper. Apparently only when someone actually pats money does it count towards metal ratings, or it would be past silver already. ::)
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Yep, you need someone to pay at least 1 cent for a sale to count as a sale!
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It is also paid orders not the number sold. Occasionally someone will buy more than one copy, probably a slip of the mouse. Even if they buy 10 at once it will still count as one for your metal count.
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Might be coincidence, but it seems like perhaps the adventure has inspired sales of other SW products. Five are now in the top ten, not including the adventure: Jaiman (2), Emer III (4), Cloudlords (6), Eidolon (8), and Xa-ar (9).
Rolemaster Classic rules fill out the top 11 with the exception of HARP.
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Probably not a coincidence; new products draw attention to older ones in the range and knock on sales are very common. Especially if existing customers are emailed about a new product, and older related products are linked to from the same email ("Related supplements you may have missed.").
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Probably not a coincidence; new products draw attention to older ones in the range and knock on sales are very common. Especially if existing customers are emailed about a new product, and older related products are linked to from the same email ("Related supplements you may have missed.").
I don't think we have a shadow world email list, but it might be cool to have one, like the Director's Briefing. I could do a summary of product progress like I do here, and maybe even solicit question to answer in later email releases. Maybe I'll ask Nicholas about that.
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There's an email feature built into One Book Shelf where you can email everyone down to people who have bought a specific category or product. It's useful.
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There's an email feature built into One Book Shelf where you can email everyone down to people who have bought a specific category or product. It's useful.
Sounds lke only Nicholas as the admin can access this. I do not admin RPGNow.
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For any relative newcomers, the SW Atlas 3rd edition is still a valuable resource.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/93284/Shadow-World-Master-Atlas-3rd-Edition?manufacturers_id=461 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/93284/Shadow-World-Master-Atlas-3rd-Edition?manufacturers_id=461)
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And doesn't have giant black borders!
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I don't think we have a shadow world email list, but it might be cool to have one, like the Director's Briefing. I could do a summary of product progress like I do here, and maybe even solicit question to answer in later email releases. Maybe I'll ask Nicholas about that.
I would like to see something like this. The director's briefing is fine for hitting the highlights, but it would be nice to have regular status updates on ShadowWorld.
As far as boosting sales, maybe it is worth occasionally releasing something that is PWYW in order to give people a feel for the setting and your work.
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As far as boosting sales, maybe it is worth occasionally releasing something that is PWYW in order to give people a feel for the setting and your work.
I think that is a good way to look at it: not just at the direct sales, but the indirect interest it generates in other publications.
I finally got a chance to pay, download, and skim the adventure. It looks quite fun. I think I will reserve it as a curveball adventure for when the players get too complacent in using fast travel. This will definitely throw them for a loop!
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Fantastic! I bought it sight unseen, simply because I've never been disappointing by anything Mr. Amthor has put his hand to. Damn well payed more than the $1 for it, but who cares. If we can't support good efforts, we'll never get any.
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And doesn't have giant black borders!
LOL! It does not! I had little-to-no input in the 4th edition, and consider it non-canon. However there was a very nice Bay of Izar map and some adventures, which I have transplanted into Emer I 2nd edition.
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I don't think we have a shadow world email list, but it might be cool to have one, like the Director's Briefing. I could do a summary of product progress like I do here, and maybe even solicit question to answer in later email releases. Maybe I'll ask Nicholas about that.
I would like to see something like this. The director's briefing is fine for hitting the highlights, but it would be nice to have regular status updates on ShadowWorld.
As far as boosting sales, maybe it is worth occasionally releasing something that is PWYW in order to give people a feel for the setting and your work.
I will ask Nicholas about a SW email list, with monthly updates from me, and a few SW products featured each month, with RPGNow links.
As for small modules, I like the idea of releasing more like this one between the large ones. But Nicholas and I agree with some of you here, PWYW does not work for us. We will probably charge $1-$2 per pdf adventure.
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I don't think we have a shadow world email list, but it might be cool to have one, like the Director's Briefing. I could do a summary of product progress like I do here, and maybe even solicit question to answer in later email releases. Maybe I'll ask Nicholas about that.
I would like to see something like this. The director's briefing is fine for hitting the highlights, but it would be nice to have regular status updates on ShadowWorld.
As far as boosting sales, maybe it is worth occasionally releasing something that is PWYW in order to give people a feel for the setting and your work.
I will ask Nicholas about a SW email list, with monthly updates from me, and a few SW products featured each month, with RPGNow links.
As for small modules, I like the idea of releasing more like this one between the large ones. But Nicholas and I agree with some of you here, PWYW does not work for us. We will probably charge $1-$2 per pdf adventure.
It is a case of it is the right tool for very specific tasks.
If you want to put a taste of Shadow World into the hands of people who have never read a book or played in the setting then PWYW is perfect. If you want to pay the rent then PWYW is not a good option.
I am using it as a 'no stress' alternative to Kickstarter. I have a draft document up as PWYW and a goal. The free downloads are building the mailing list for that project, as egdcltd talked about, and the trickle of income is working towards the goal total. So far my community has raised enough for the print proofs and now the money is going towards art. That is one example of it working well.
It is no stress because there is no end date when everyone will be clamouring for their books and no deadlines.
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PWYW might work for some Shadow World supplements, but not adventures, due to the amount of work. Say, 1-2 page supplements that add something minor; lore, a briefly-detailed shop in Sel-Kai, a magic item with a legend, that sort of thing.
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However there was a very nice Bay of Izar map and some adventures, which I have transplanted into Emer I 2nd edition.
That's good to see. I did like the Bay of Izar as a starting area, and in fact might be making it the starting area of my next campaign.
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PWYW might work for some Shadow World supplements, but not adventures, due to the amount of work. Say, 1-2 page supplements that add something minor; lore, a briefly-detailed shop in Sel-Kai, a magic item with a legend, that sort of thing.
A shadow world calendar would be a perfect example.
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PWYW might work for some Shadow World supplements, but not adventures, due to the amount of work. Say, 1-2 page supplements that add something minor; lore, a briefly-detailed shop in Sel-Kai, a magic item with a legend, that sort of thing.
A shadow world calendar would be a perfect example.
They could later be collected into a PDF and print book.
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PWYW might work for some Shadow World supplements, but not adventures, due to the amount of work. Say, 1-2 page supplements that add something minor; lore, a briefly-detailed shop in Sel-Kai, a magic item with a legend, that sort of thing.
A shadow world calendar would be a perfect example.
They could later be collected into a PDF and print book.
I am thinking that all the SW adventures from the Guild Adventurer PDF magazines could be compiled into one book large enough to print, adding a new adventure if necessary.
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I don't think we have a shadow world email list, but it might be cool to have one, like the Director's Briefing. I could do a summary of product progress like I do here, and maybe even solicit question to answer in later email releases. Maybe I'll ask Nicholas about that.
I would like to see something like this. The director's briefing is fine for hitting the highlights, but it would be nice to have regular status updates on ShadowWorld.
As far as boosting sales, maybe it is worth occasionally releasing something that is PWYW in order to give people a feel for the setting and your work.
I will ask Nicholas about a SW email list, with monthly updates from me, and a few SW products featured each month, with RPGNow links.
As for small modules, I like the idea of releasing more like this one between the large ones. But Nicholas and I agree with some of you here, PWYW does not work for us. We will probably charge $1-$2 per pdf adventure.
Ordered at a fair price. I'd also value an email list as I'm bad at keeping up with the various fora that I belong to so having the odd digest email to update me on product releases would be great!