Post AwrofXUcZ1E5amycV6 by SiriusBusiness@mas.to
(DIR) More posts by SiriusBusiness@mas.to
(DIR) Post #AwmNXBqpTUYVbOMKiO by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T02:54:26Z
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#TTRPG #DrawSteelLook, I get it that people are excited that MCDM's Draw Steel has finally gone up on a marketplace where you can order it. But that price point? Look, we can do better. I have some words.https://grimtokens.garden/Thoughts/Draw+Steel+Draws+Blood+With+That+Price+Point
(DIR) Post #AwmV4vmGRSCFH9GAoC by dawngreeter@dice.camp
2025-08-03T04:18:55Z
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@lextenebris I am perpetually puzzled about this guy's audience.
(DIR) Post #AwmVjrgKZfUARi0GvI by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T04:26:23Z
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@dawngreeter I get the parasocial relationship with podcasters and streamers. I've seen it 10,000 times. That part doesn't surprise me. The fact that he has an audience that's willing to throw down $80 for PDFs for a game that's not actually released, that's gone through some major revisions, and probably needed a couple more from the beta that they had last—I don't know, man. This deeply confuses me, especially at a time when there are a ton of really good games out there that you can have for right next to nothing, if not nothing. I always have to wonder if part of his audience are just people that have only played D&D and only imagined that D&D was the only game there was, but they were exposed to this one thing that's new and somewhat different, and it's blown their minds wide open. That's all I've got.
(DIR) Post #AwmVx2d3BVJCA7kgjo by GreatBigTable@mastodon.social
2025-08-03T04:28:41Z
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@lextenebris yikes. That is a lot of money.If you want the always hits mechanic, you can also try out Cairn (the full pdfs are free from its website and the POD physical books from Lulu are very cheap).
(DIR) Post #AwmW7AIXWe34qMzAxM by dawngreeter@dice.camp
2025-08-03T04:30:34Z
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@lextenebris Even the Kickstarter was basically, give me money and I will probably invent a new game system. And then they gave him a lot of money.Look. Look. I don't care if people spend a lot of money on RPG books. I do it. I have a bunch of collector's editions on my shelves for games I will never play. So from the perspective of a person buying pricey books - I absolutely don't get parting with so much money for this product.
(DIR) Post #AwmYDV0XdkEyifiPKK by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T04:54:09Z
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@dawngreeter God knows I have an entire library of tabletop RPGs in this room. Seriously. Well more than 40 feet of shelving at this point. And I have a display table in another room with a bunch of hardbacks and beautiful first editions. I am totally down for spending way too much money on RPGs. I understand that.But I'm not going to spend $80 on a PDF. I at least want to have something to show off for my money. You are absolutely correct that the Kickstarter was completely mad, and I want to be clear I'm not entirely complaining about the system that they eventually, after much trial and error and ripping off PBTA, Cypher, and Ironsworn, they ended up with. It's just that it could have been a $20 book with a fifth of the art budget and a lot less money sunk into flash and glitz and stuff that doesn't actually add to playing the game. Plus, they could have had it in their players' hands by now.Honestly, very little makes sense about this game, and I don't really expect it to have much in the way of legs—not even as much as Daggerheart, which also took some pretty strong inspiration from PBTA and Ironsworn.Draw Steel is basically the Star Citizen of TTRPGs. There are fanatical devotees who are willing to sink stupid amounts of money into it for a glorified tech demo.
(DIR) Post #AwmYMsaRLLAySFymRc by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T04:55:51Z
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@GreatBigTable Sure, that's a fine choice as well. I didn't list all of the possibilities in my article.There are some really good ones—Shadowdark, if you're looking for that old-school B/X experience with a focus on the tactical and the deadly. It's not a game I would be interested in playing necessarily, but I can absolutely understand wanting it. Plus, it's beautiful, well laid out, and comparatively inexpensive.You can seriously gouge people on a beautiful hardback. I get it. That makes sense. You're paying for a luxury good. But gouging people for the PDF? That just hurts me in every bit of sensible long-term marketing brain that I have left.
(DIR) Post #Awn1fK6GgXsHfY0tzU by rolerunner@dice.camp
2025-08-03T10:24:05Z
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@lextenebris £49 for two huge PDFs seems about industry standard for the big names, which this is? The one gripe I do have (as a pretty big fan of MCDM) is that the core rules are across two books instead of one. That's the cash grab part for me.I'm one of those who is willing to spend that money on it because I'm very excited by the system and am very likely to enjoy the hundreds of hours I'll get out of it. That said, I'm very intrigued by the other systems you've mentioned too!
(DIR) Post #AwnK6C1ec0ldcWokM4 by pictor@dice.camp
2025-08-03T13:50:36Z
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@lextenebris no that’s not just the pdf. You’re wrong in you’re opening paragraph.
(DIR) Post #AwnR9XwwFsqeAF9reK by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T15:09:43Z
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@pictor I made it very clear in the text of the article exactly what it was I was talking about. Nobody who actually wants to run/play the game is going to pick it up without the bestiary, and they probably aren't going to want it without the hero book either. So the bundle is going to be their first stop.That's $80 for the PDFs. That's it. That's all you get. It's just the PDF. That's full electric madness in terms of price point. That's the kind of price point that says, I want to capitalize on the cult and not build a product with legs.But let's assume for the sake of argument that all you want to do is be able to do Kerrigan. You don't care about the bestiary, you don't care about the dynamic objects, you don't care about instructions on how to structure your adventures. All you want is the core text, which contains the basic rules and character generation.That's a $40 PDF, not a $40 printed book. It's a $40 PDF.Anybody that wants to run this game is going to have to be in at the minimum for $70. Anybody that's just interested in picking up the game to check it out is going to be in for the minimum of $40. They're essentially charging $40 each for what might as well be effectively referred to as the Player's Guide and the DM's Guide and giving you a $10 break on the bundle.
(DIR) Post #AwnR9z3FUWwGDdJmjY by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T15:09:49Z
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@pictor This isn't just bad pricing, it's insane pricing. Again, a reminder, we're talking about pure PDFs, not hardcovers, not softbacks. That's crazy pricing.That's before we start talking about the form factor, where these are large format, 8.5x11, art-heavy, small font books, which are going to be really difficult to use at the table in an electronic format like PDF.If you're seriously going to be running this, you're going to want the books, which takes us up to $135 and $70 respectively in what is, at best, a luxury hobby.There's nothing about this pricing that is a good idea. It's not even barely justifiable.
(DIR) Post #AwnRMCvfihGgjdbRA0 by pictor@dice.camp
2025-08-03T15:11:59Z
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@lextenebris I think it's pretty fair pricing for a well written, well edited book with good art, and well compensated writing staff. I don't have the least reservation about their price point.
(DIR) Post #AwnRPT3SDpWBcGnVKq by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T15:12:35Z
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@rolerunner Like I said, I'm not going to tell you how to spend your money. I'm still waiting on $350 board games, which haven't completed production in several years, though they do keep saying they will be boxed up and on-site "soon."I'm no stranger to popping out thick wads of money for good product.But I would challenge you to find another system which is charging $40 for just the Player's Guide PDF—just the PDF, not the hard copy. That's the price to get in the door, even if you don't want a book at the table.That's insane, especially when there are 10,000 other games out there that you could play right now.
(DIR) Post #AwnRd19sjjlz9SGUyW by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T15:15:03Z
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@pictor And then there's everybody else who likes to do things like continue to eat and sleep indoors. Yes, it's a luxury product. Yes, it's a luxury hobby. But I can get well-written, well-edited books with good art and well-compensated writing staff elsewhere for far less. And that really is the crux of the matter. That's the understanding of the competition. It's had so much money sunk into production that it just isn't worth the experience that you're likely to get out of it. Maybe it will be for you. Maybe it's the magical one game you'll need for the rest of your life. But for everybody else, they can buy 4 to 6 well-played, well-written lovely games for the exact same money. That's it. That's the bottom line.
(DIR) Post #AwnRxhAEGpnDDmHsVE by pictor@dice.camp
2025-08-03T15:14:30Z
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@lextenebris and that's not even taking into account that 8.95 gets you a pretty beefy adventure, a copy of the quick start rules (everything you need to get started), monster stat blocks for the adventure, pregen characters, handouts... 8.95 will see you through quite a lot of gaming sessions, before you ever need to decide if you want to pay more.
(DIR) Post #AwnRxhnZuXGhBohIps by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T15:18:45Z
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@pictor Actually, that's a really good point. For $9, you get an adventure, a copy of the Quick Start rules, just enough monster stat blocks to cover the adventure, a set of pre-generated characters for that adventure—and it costs you $9.Something that absolutely, positively, without question, should be a free giveaway and has been for years as the standard. The hook to get people addicted to the drug you want to sling, they are charging $9 for.Again, this is broken thinking. This is not how you do this. $10 is, well, more expensive than several of the games that I listed as reasonable competitors—whole games, not single adventures. And it's kind of unreasonable to pitch a beefy adventure with monster stat blocks as sort of an added luxury because that's part of the adventure, same as the pre-generated characters, same as the handouts, same as the quickstart rules. All of that should be considered a single thing, which is the least you can do.And it should be given out for free to get people hooked on what they can get as an example of the production value, the rules, and the quality of the content.Instead, they're selling it for $9, which is part and parcel of the core complaint about not understanding pricing. It's ludicrous.
(DIR) Post #AwnSLCmurLSjxgaqaO by pictor@dice.camp
2025-08-03T15:23:00Z
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@lextenebris I find it wild that you think this should be free. I think making it free is beyond ridiculous. I am tempted to think they undervalued it, but that's their call. I guess keeping it below 10 is probably a tactical decision. I simply can't get on your world view if you think for a second that it should be free.
(DIR) Post #Awne9pcrplyaOGEhiS by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T17:35:24Z
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@pictor It's also hard to imagine why a drug dealer would give away the first serious high for a new customer for free, but it certainly sells the drugs. Why do they give it away for free, even though it clearly has significant value? Because it lets the potential buyer know what exactly it is that they could get out of it. It lets them experience what the seller believes to be the best part of what they have on offer. It's a clear demonstration of good faith, even such that the seller is saying, "I know you'll like this so much that you'll come back and buy more from me."If you make people pay for that first hit, it communicates the opposite. What it really says is, "I don't actually believe that you're going to come back for my experience that I'm peddling, so I'm going to sell it to you and take as much money from you as I can because I'm not going to see you again."The more valuable the giveaway up front appears to be and actually turns out to be, the more likely a customer is to come back and slip you some more money for some of the good stuff you've got in the back.That's why it should be free. That, and the street is lined with guys secure enough in the value of the product they're slinging that they're handing it out for free.
(DIR) Post #AwneA96zO0MOpBTWnw by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T17:35:29Z
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@pictor If I want that kind of thing, I can just walk on down the street and get another one that is free. And if it tickles my pickle, I come back and buy some more from him. If I don't like that one, I go to the next guy that has it for free. Rinse and repeat. But I don't go back to the guy who's trying to push the first dose for $10. That's just not good business.In the absence of competition, you can get away with selling the first hit. But in a world where other really good games are being slung out there with a decent vertical slice being handed out for free on the street corner, you can't do that anymore. It's not good business.
(DIR) Post #AwnjURe0gwRXrgQ3Ki by rolerunner@dice.camp
2025-08-03T18:35:04Z
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@lextenebris All fair. I see it as two PDFs for £25 each rather than £49 for one. The Heroes book is £28 on its own, which feels comparable. I agree that having to spend £49 on a digital product is a lot, but like you say, to each their own :)
(DIR) Post #AwnlgJdEVXDOOiqNfM by GreatBigTable@mastodon.social
2025-08-03T18:59:43Z
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@lextenebris I get it, I was just pointing out another cheap option that included a similar mechanic that MCDM has been touting.
(DIR) Post #AwnpFGqh96gnlTV42y by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T19:39:40Z
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@GreatBigTable Let me be clear, you were absolutely right to do so, especially at that price point.Free is shockingly good when it comes to the tabletop RPG. Free is the best price—you can get an entire lifetime of pleasure out of a good game, especially if you happen to pick it up for free.Where's the downside? There isn't one.
(DIR) Post #AwntEeFT3qTxre2uTA by GreatBigTable@mastodon.social
2025-08-03T20:24:20Z
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@lextenebris it is nice that the Print on Demand books are also very cheap.
(DIR) Post #AwnxagCqrWC27jaDlQ by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T21:13:09Z
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@GreatBigTable Cheap print-on-demand is a godsend. So is the fact that Lulu will let creators have their books printed with coil bindings, which is great if you expect people to use it at the table and keep it laid open to a certain set of pages. An underused feature.Print on Demand absolutely changed the RPG hobby and continues to be an excellent target to design for.
(DIR) Post #Awo5aQkF99hFnvat2O by GreatBigTable@mastodon.social
2025-08-03T22:42:45Z
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@lextenebris oh yeah. I bought the coil bound and perfect bound soft covers of both Cairn 1e and 2e. Soft cover for carrying around and learning. Coil bound for using at the table.
(DIR) Post #Awo73fAigbZUtvTtYW by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-03T22:59:15Z
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@GreatBigTable One of my favorite things in recent publication history is the fact that Sundered Isles, which is an expansion for Starforged, was released as two coil-bound books. It's amazing how much more pleasant that is to spend time with. Over the years, I have had many books rebound with coil bindings, comb bindings, and otherwise, but I love it when that's the way they come in the first place.At some point, we're going to get back to distributing games in three-ring binders so that you can insert your own content. Until then, we have low-cost, full-color printing and our own three-ring binders.
(DIR) Post #AwrofXUcZ1E5amycV6 by SiriusBusiness@mas.to
2025-08-05T17:52:01Z
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@lextenebris @GreatBigTable Its also pretty good for Reconstructionist oriented Pagan practices, but for some reason a lot of the Occult publishing community thinks they are above that.
(DIR) Post #AwrphvKizrHq4735Iu by SiriusBusiness@mas.to
2025-08-05T18:03:40Z
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@lextenebris I won't judge the owners for not handing it out for free, I am just puzzled by the pricing for an intended franchise for its first books.It would have made sense, to me at least, if these companies started small, used POD publishing and B&W art, Paperback instead of hardcover, open source software for book and file making, etc to save on costs in order to build a following over a decade or too. Most of these people w/these Kickstarters aren't patient or thinking long term.
(DIR) Post #AwrpvnakZn6Q6rA1gG by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-05T18:06:12Z
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@SiriusBusiness @GreatBigTable Do you want the honest answer? It's because a lot of the occult publishing community is just a masturbatory vanity press, and the idea of mass market publishing denigrates what they think of as their world-changing ideas. The fact that most people don't buy it, in part because they don't see the price point value, is considered a positive boon in their world.No, there's nothing flattering about the occult book market or most of the people that write them.
(DIR) Post #Awrq5gc1NfLxMJTCGe by SiriusBusiness@mas.to
2025-08-05T18:07:58Z
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@lextenebris @GreatBigTable Yeah, pretty much.
(DIR) Post #Awrq5o01uniWGnkyA4 by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-05T18:08:01Z
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@SiriusBusiness The irony is that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of small print tabletop indie RPGs that complete a reasonable Kickstarter for reasonable costs and then go on to continue to move more books because they have a competitive price point for what people perceive to be the value.I'll point out that MCDM made fat wads on their Kickstarter—millions of dollars. They've already taken that money in, so actually selling the product afterwards is, in a sense, just gravy. They could afford to waste money irrationally, but it doesn't position the product for growth in the market if no one new can afford to buy into it. Then the only people they have are the people they already suckered.This is kind of an issue for them, not for us.
(DIR) Post #Aws5w3DU5AbDprQ7X6 by SiriusBusiness@mas.to
2025-08-05T21:05:30Z
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@lextenebris I just looked at their fundraiser account, it’s a little over 4.6 million bucks.
(DIR) Post #Aws7KzbyiqptqgKn20 by lextenebris@social.vivaldi.net
2025-08-05T21:21:14Z
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@SiriusBusiness Yeah, there are things in the world that make me doubt any hope in humanity, and that's one of them.On the other hand, they had an extremely popular podcast which piggybacked off of a lot of the popularity of D&D before they decided to start doing their own thing. And, as I said before, a lot of that parasocial relationship translated over, which is great but doesn't say anything about the game design. Unfortunately, they raked that money in before they even solidified the game design. The people who popped that money weren't paying for a game—they were paying for a promise.And here we are.