Hey guys.

For the last four years I have been publishing material for the OSR, but my focus has always been on providing stuff gamers can use at their gaming table. I know that many gamers are also collectors and that some may be more collectors than gamers. A number of my online friends have encouraged me to start offering at least one or two products a year geared towards collectors.

Honestly, I am not sure what they mean. So I thought I would ask this open-ended question here.

What can I do as a hobby publisher that would appeal to collectors? What kinds of things are you looking at my level of publishing? Are there things I could just incorporate into my current lines of products?

If anyone feels compelled to share with me off the forum, shoot me an email @ john@bravehalfling.com.

Thanks.

Even though I still game on occasion, I am primarily a collector these days. That being said, the collector in me prizes 1st Edition AD&D-compatible modules with a retro-feel to them, both in terms of artwork, typsetting, and trade dress, not to mention the actual gaming content itself.

This means that in a perfect world I would like to see a module printed at a traditional off-set printing facility complete with a detached gatefold cover with the maps printed on the inside in blue ink ala TSR of old. I would also prefer that the heavy cardstock cover have a matte finish and not the glossy look in vogue these days. Of course, having one of TSR original artist do at least some of the interior illustrations and, I know such may not be financially feasible, the full-color cover art would be ideal as well. From a personal preference, from the classic artists still working today, I would choose either Erol Otus or Jeff Dee, both of whom do great work. I would also prefer that the pages of the interior booklet have a high rag content ala the early TSR module. If you will remember, the paper TSR used in the early days was extremely thick and durable. Heck, most of my old TSR modules look as good as the day I purchased them.

As far as gaming content goes, I would prefer that the writer of the module perform his craft in a vacuum of sorts wherein every so called "gaming innovation" introduced into the hobby after Gygax's ouster from TSR be completely ignored. Basically, this means that the designer of the module would basically ignore all gaming products released after 1983. Being a bit of module designer myself, I employ such a strategy with every new module I write.

In short, I feel that insofar as new modules are concerned, a publisher satisfying the above requirement would certainly make me stand up and take notice.  

--Alphonso Warden

John Adams wrote:What can I do as a hobby publisher that would appeal to collectors? What kinds of things are you looking at my level of publishing? Are there things I could just incorporate into my current lines of products?

Echoing some of the above...

The visual presentation is a big thing. It's good when the new things visually remind us of the vintage items.

Thematic & "code" relationships with the vintage items. Thorkhammer's various Giants / G-series modules are a great example. Castle Zagyg is another.

New products by authors & artists who were active back in the day.

New publication of material that was previously written back in the day (but which was never published) can sometimes be a motivator, even if it's not by a well-known author.

Series of products. If you have a series of 10 modules which all share a product code and visual design, there are folks who will buy the other 9 just to have the whole series, even if they only truly like one of the modules. Maybe this is "collecting" at its most fundamental level, and I wager module sales increase arithmetically (not linearly!) with the size of the series. So if you have 3 modules in a series, you might sell 300 copies total. But if you have 5 modules, you'll sell 1000 total; and 10 might sell 5000 total. The size of the series increases the number of collectors you will catch, and also increase the number of items each collector will buy.

And the quality always needs to be good.

Munafik wrote:Even though I still game on occasion, I am primarily a collector these days. That being said, the collector in me prizes 1st Edition AD&D-compatible modules with a retro-feel to them, both in terms of artwork, typsetting, and trade dress, not to mention the actual gaming content itself.

This means that in a perfect world I would like to see a module printed at a traditional off-set printing facility complete with a detached gatefold cover with the maps printed on the inside in blue ink ala TSR of old. I would also prefer that the heavy cardstock cover have a matte finish and not the glossy look in vogue these days. Of course, having one of TSR original artist do at least some of the interior illustrations and, I know such may not be financially feasible, the full-color cover art would be ideal as well. From a personal preference, from the classic artists still working today, I would choose either Erol Otus or Jeff Dee, both of whom do great work. I would also prefer that the pages of the interior booklet have a high rag content ala the early TSR module. If you will remember, the paper TSR used in the early days was extremely thick and durable. Heck, most of my old TSR modules look as good as the day I purchased them.

As far as gaming content goes, I would prefer that the writer of the module perform his craft in a vacuum of sorts wherein every so called "gaming innovation" introduced into the hobby after Gygax's ouster from TSR be completely ignored. Basically, this means that the designer of the module would basically ignore all gaming products released after 1983. Being a bit of module designer myself, I employ such a strategy with every new module I write.

In short, I feel that insofar as new modules are concerned, a publisher satisfying the above requirement would certainly make me stand up and take notice.  

--Alphonso Warden

I agree with every word of this post.

John, just got Village of Larm yesterday, was only able to read part of it last night.
Already glad I bought it.
Thank you for putting out good products.

Thanks for the suggestions, guys! You have given Me some ideas I will get to working on.

For me? No more new monsters thanks. There are enough in MM/FF/MM2 to last a hundred campaigns a hundred lifetimes. And using magic items from the DMG will also interest me.

On that note, it always surprised me that I never saw a series of modules using the Artifacts & Relics listed in the DMG (yes I know the hut, the hand/eye and the cup/talisman got a run-out, but a series might fly).

vosarnath wrote:On that note, it always surprised me that I never saw a series of modules using the Artifacts & Relics listed in the DMG (yes I know the hut, the hand/eye and the cup/talisman got a run-out, but a series might fly).

I think the problem is that once they are in the hands of the players, you've pushed the power level too (?) high.  Unless you come up with a compelling reason for them to hand the artifacts over, it's hard to continue.

Serian wrote:

TheHistorian wrote:I think the problem is that once they are in the hands of the players, you've pushed the power level too (?) high.  Unless you come up with a compelling reason for them to hand the artifacts over, it's hard to continue.

If you play artifacts and relics properly, they provide their own reason to dispose of them.

Dungeon Masters Guide wrote:Many of these items tend to make their possessor reclusive, secretive, arrogant, and/or greedy. These effects are best to handle through manipulation of the player by means of powers, non-player characters, etc.
Finally, whatever befalls the possessor of an artifact or relic, or the effects he or she causes by use of the prime powers (or even the major powers in some cases), is permanent and usually irreversible by the most powerful of spells - including wishes, for example - or even by deities.

or in short ... artifacts and relics tend to destroy their possessor ... alienating their friends and associates ... sometimes screwing up abilities, physical appearance, and/or mental capacity ... eventually eliminating the poor sap in favor of some new possessor "more suited" to handle the item ...

Yup.. all of this.

Not quite on the same scale, but I was recently able to convince the PCs in one of my home games to part with a Good aligned Magical Two Handed Sword +2/+5 vs Evil dragons and Evil dragonkind.
Although it was not an artifact or relic and the PCs (levels 3-4 at the time) would have been greatly aided later on by keeping the weapon as part of the groups armament.
This was a very special weapon, when used against Evil dragons and Evil dragonkind it would always do max damage when rolling a natural 18, 19 or 20.
It also had a few other minor properties as well.
Instead the PCs actually traded it to the head shaman of an evil horde of Lizardmen!
Of course the lizardmen destroyed the weapon soon after acquiring it and gained HUGE karma points from their god for doing so.

As bad as the above actions look for the PCs they also gained from the swap, karma from the good aligned gods (depsite allowing an evil entity to destroy a powerful weapon of good) and good will from the village whose children were about to become sacrifices....

It was fairly obvious that the PCs had ZERO chance of saving the children from being sacrificed without a sacrifice to replace them.
The shaman and cheiftan (with more than 150 lizardmen warriors) were actually being very generous in allowing the swap since the small group of PCs were standing in the midst of a HUGE swamp on a small island which was serving as the lizards camp.

benjoshua wrote:

Serian wrote:or in short ... artifacts and relics tend to destroy their possessor ... alienating their friends and associates ... sometimes screwing up abilities, physical appearance, and/or mental capacity ... evenutally eliminating the poor sap in favor of some new possessor "more suited" to handle the item ...

Yeah, but if that's true, then Acaeum collectors who have more level five rarity D&D stuff would suffer correspondingly with increasing levels of deformities and decreasing life levels, loss of hair, increasing wrinkles, bad gall bladders.....  

Just kidding......I hope.  :?

Have you met Bracton and Stratochamp?  

::running and ducking::