Comments on: Review: "Medieval Bestiary: Anthropophagi" and "Feudal Characters: Noble"

By: Four Concepts Adrift in D&D | Critical Hits

Four Concepts Adrift in D&D | Critical Hits — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 12:24:29 +0000

[...] fluff, the concept is prevalent enough that there should be some meat to the idea. We have reviewed products that use multi-classing as a fix, but this does not deal with the idea of possessing land, title, or the background skills that [...]

By: Alea Noble - EN World D&D / RPG News

Alea Noble - EN World D&D / RPG News — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:32:26 +0000

[...] did a review of it and APG’s other release here: Review: “Medieval Bestiary: Anthropophagi” and “Feudal Characters: Noble” | … __________________ Dave Chalker Editor in Chief, Critical-Hits.com, Executive Director of the RPG [...]

By: jraynack

jraynack — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:43:45 +0000

Dave: Thanks again for taking your time to review our products – it makes for better content.

Jonathan: The Medieval Bestiary has three pages of content. The Noble class has 14 pages of content including the power cards for each power.

We are updating our Noble product to include an at-will power for paragon paths – it’s the best thing about publishing .pdfs. It allows us to make updates without recharging the consumer – so be on the look out next week.

As for the philosophy behind small .pdfs (at least for us) – overall, bigger products do sell better, but as a small company it takes us so long to put out a large product (60 or more pages). The smaller products allow us to do a few things: pay for the artwork for our bigger products, gain recognition for our bigger or upcoming products, and being so focused – it allows our customer base to react so we can easily make changes to improve ideas that will appear in our bigger products.

In our upcoming Feudal Lords Campaign Setting we will have paragon paths, epic destinies, feats, and noble titles – all of which support the noble class. We will also have specific noble families that will allow noble characters access to unique bloodline powers. So expect more in the near future from us – we tend to tie our products together and our mission for 4th is no different.

Anyway, thanks again and happing gaming.

By: Wyatt

Wyatt — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:28:45 +0000

Indeed. I do think there should be a healthy minimum. To paraphrase Dave in the post above, if you're going to sell a single monster, it better be groundbreaking. So I think it'd be best for everyone involved if there was a minimum of 10 or 20 pages, with at least 3/4 devoted to content, and that if you're going to do a "small package" deal, broaden the "small package" a bit. Even for a modular product, 5 pages is just too little. That's more like a nano-module. Wyatt´s last post: Strike Witches Episode 9: Defend At All Costs

By: jonathan

jonathan — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 21:02:22 +0000

THREE PAGES?? I did not realize they were THAT short... maybe they should have a minimum; maybe 10 pages? Not to sound too critical, but that's like selling the ideas I had while mowing the lawn (which usually stay in my head) for two bucks a pop. wait... it IS genius! =D jonathan´s last post: Open Game Table: Clarification and Discussions

By: The Game

The Game — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:48:37 +0000

Wyatt: And only 3 of those pages actually have content. Still, it seems like there’s a market for that kind of thing…

Jonathan: Yeah, true, but I personally would prefer a bigger PDF that is also high rated. I understand others feel differently however.

By: jonathan

jonathan — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:38:47 +0000

I figure, once these smaller developers have a couple of well designed templates put together it must be much easier for ideas to make it to print..err.. PDF. Personally, I think it is a great idea. Pick and choose what you want, and allow people to RGPNow to rate the products. Hopefully, the good stuff will float to the top of the list, and you wont have to buy a $12 or $20 PDF to get only part of something that you might want. jonathan´s last post: Open Game Table: The 2008 Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs

By: Wyatt

Wyatt — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 18:58:11 +0000

I'm rather intrigued by this concept. I was never a follower of the third party scene in 3e, but I never conceived that someone would be trying to sell five page PDFs! That's very surprising to me. I can't tell whether it's stupidity or genius. Wyatt´s last post: D&DMech Fantasy (Well, not yet, really.)