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- March 31, 2015 at 3:39 am #151720AnonymousInactive
Hello,
I split this off from the original thread so as not to derail….
A:CSE I feel is the opposite direction and could use 1-2 more produce releases per year (Origins and another around Christmas or January).
This brings up an interesting question.
It was mentioned in the aforementioned thread that Pathfinder had bloated rules-wise requiring a large number of splatbooks (rules) to stay competitive. That leaves only two other types of books: Adventures and sourcebooks.
Since we’re giving away adventures, it’s been shown that they normally don’t sell well.
Sourcebooks are fine, but they are usually purchased by GMs or completists. They are thus of more use if said GM was running a home campaign, but I have been told that those are few and far between.
So given the above, what type of products is it that you want to see/buy?
March 31, 2015 at 4:03 am #266839AnonymousInactiveA 32/48 page sourcebook running about 2/3 fluff to 1/3 crunch. The key is to keep the price-point low enough for impulse purchases.
* Nationalities
* Race (non-human)
* Locations (The Blessed Lands is done; Carnival of Swords sort of does this)
* “Grand Campaign” event; major war or conflict, such as the 5th Crusade or a Ssethregore incursion. Just a list of high-points with a ‘gm box’ of suggested encounters (no stat blocks).Any new rules items can be collated and re-published in a later ‘Codex of Heroes 2′.
My favourites for this sort of thing is the old AD&D “blue book’ series.
:edit: and the Battletech “House” series of books (the original 3025 ones!)
March 31, 2015 at 4:11 am #266840AnonymousInactiveHello, my name is Cody, and I’m a sourcebook whore.
I love the things, where you have lots of fluff, history, conspiracy theories, character bios, force levels, etc. I personally would love to see more of the Codex Geographia type books like the forthcoming Blessed Lands, the rerelease of Ssethregore, and the promised Kio book. As a fan of Battletech, I loved the Field Manual and House Book series as it let you look into a society, with all the biases that it shows. Hell, there is no need to break from the present paradigm of only giving biased half-truths for history, just have a detail of their culture and their own view of how it got there.
March 31, 2015 at 5:06 am #266841AnonymousInactiveI love the things, where you have lots of fluff, history, conspiracy theories, character bios, force levels, etc. I personally would love to see more of the Codex Geographia type books […]
I agree with everything Cody said!I also appreciate Henry’s stance on not wanting too much bloat with too many new rules too frequently.
March 31, 2015 at 5:55 am #266843AnonymousInactiveSourcebooks are great. More adventures would be good too (either more current mods or the long-mentioned rereleases of the older mods updated to A:RPG (like So Shall Ye Reap)).
I agree that 2/3 fluff and 1/3 crunch seems to be a good ration in sourcebooks. The two sourcebooks I am most awaiting are the two already promised (Ssethregore and Kio). Others I could see being interesting: Dwarves (either all or one per clan), Elorii (but it seems like a lot of things are intentionally kept secret about them), Undir, region books for the various nations, etc.
March 31, 2015 at 9:40 am #266844frootsnaxParticipantHi Cody, my name is Eric. I share your addiction.
@ Henry. I can appreciate not wanting to bloat the campaign with a collection of books that have crunch which eventually few will use … or want to keep track of. At the same time Arcanis as a system is far away from such a point. IMO. We have (hard backed) 2 books. Not two dozen (which would be too much). I think its safe to say there is some room to grow.
Top 2 picks of things I would like to see:
(1) A book of magic (again). This would contain plenty of splat for players (new spells). It might also talk about the Arcanum and recover some of the “onion theory” put forward by Nerius. The is definitely room to expand what it means to practice a tradition. Something on the awakening ceremonies for psions. And exploration of primal powers (as it stands now both an infernal worshiping witch and a nature oriented shaman work off the same spell lists…that feels wrong to me). You could also look at alternatives to how magic is practiced in the known lands. Were the Myrantian Necromancers eldritch? Primal? Something unique to themselves? Could also be a place for the Suromar to resurface as a path. Final something on combined casting out of caombat in a ritualized manner.
(2) A second monster manual. This time with rules for creating traps and environmental hazards. IMO a serious omission from the rules set that should be filled in. There are lots of things already stated from the campaign that could go in there so I suspect content should be fairly easy to produce.
Others things I’d like to see:
(A) The Kio book we’ve been promised through Kickstarter.
(B) A geographic volume/book for Almeric
(C) A geographic volume/book for KhitanFinally…adventures. It’s still my belief that the biggest challenge of the new campaign is lack of adventures…so…
(i) Adventures like Carnival of Swords (I know these haven’t sold well in the past, but I suspect you could kickstart/indiegogo them now and have them a profitable endeavor).
(ii) The BIs that are no longer going out to the public could be sold as PDFs. I know in Portland there is some sadness that they’ll never be part of the fight at Tultipet.March 31, 2015 at 1:00 pm #266847AnonymousInactiveAs others have pointed out, there are still lots of things the player base would love to see expanded, whether it is races, regions or histories. 2/3 fluff and 1/3 crunch sounds right to me. There is always benefit for a system like this in adding additional backgrounds/flaws/paths/etc.
While Arcanis should continue offering modules for free, I do think that there would be a market for paid ‘mega-adventures’.
I’m not certain exactly what has caused publishing delays up to this point, but whatever it is this would need to be addressed. Henry, have you considered having others write for you, under your guidelines? I have seen you state repeatedly that you do virtually all of the sourcebook writing…can’t imagine it is a quick process to do it all solo.
With the pseudo-rabid fanbase (meant in only the nicest way) you have for Arcanis, I guarantee that there would be people interested and capable of helping you with something like this.
March 31, 2015 at 1:17 pm #266848drafitParticipantHello Akira,
With the pseudo-rabid fanbase (meant in only the nicest way) you have for Arcanis, I guarantee that there would be people interested and capable of helping you with something like this.
I agree that there is an excited fanbase, but that doesn’t equate to people producing material. If so, we’d be awash with adventures and that just isn’t the case.
March 31, 2015 at 2:28 pm #266849AnonymousInactiveWhat I want is everything that has been promised and things in the rumor mill. I think you have great ideas already and you’ve experimented with other products that didn’t work, and have already moved away from them.
Racial, national or city, sourcebooks.
Like what you have in the pipeline. Ssethregoran and Kio.
The old campaign had ones for Dark-kin (Sealed Lands), Cancari, Nishanpur, Old Coryan, and Ssethregoran.
Nishanpur had a 3 year storyline and a Bi.
Old Coryan had a 3 year storyline, then was turned into an Invisible King Domain for the last 2 years.
I don’t know sales but those city books (that also had an adventure in them) sounds like they were fan favourites.The Magic of Arcanis and Psionic Unbound were great source books. They were built for players and GMs.
I heard talk about 2 books the Codex of the Divine and Codex of the Arcane, to give both types of magic their own book.Personally I’d love the old BIs in their 3.5 format. I run my friends through the old campaign, some had to leave Arcanis early, came back with A:RPG and are looking to fill in the gaps, some a want to pick up on those Easter eggs you find in the new arcs, but because they are brand new players it goes over their head. I run the 3.5 campaign to let them know what happened 40 years ago. What ever you would charge for those unreleased BIs, I’d open my wallet in a heart beat.
I know there are plans to re-release the old arc in the new format. But I’d buy that up as well when it comes out. Because each format has their uses.
March 31, 2015 at 2:35 pm #266850AnonymousInactiveI agree that there is an excited fanbase, but that doesn’t equate to people producing material. If so, we’d be awash with adventures and that just isn’t the case.
I’m not suggesting that everyone who plays Arcanis should rush out with book proposals, but I have a hard time believing that there aren’t at least a small group of people in the campaign you could trust to co-author with you. I don’t want to put anyone on the spot, but a few names spring to mind for me quite quickly.I’m not certain what your creative process is currently, but I suspect that were you to write up a detailed summary on a topic (for instance, a dwarven enclave) you should be able to then send it to someone you trusted to flesh it out for a source book. Surely by reviewing/approving their work the end result would be a quality book in a much faster time frame.
I know that you don’t have the luxury of devoting your full time to the campaign, what with working on a career and ‘real-life’. It is understandable that you would want to maintain control over the direction of the campaign, but I know that I am not the only person who would be encouraged to see more people be permitted to work with you on it.
Don’t try to do everything yourself
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March 31, 2015 at 3:35 pm #266852AnonymousInactiveWhat I want to see is a set of products that covers an idea (eg a race, region, country or secret faction) and that covers to such a point that there doesnt seem to be more to add.
let me deomonstrate what I’m talking about with an actual example:
I want product based on the Western lands (and by extension that covers Kio and Undir to some degree) Things that I would expect to be produced might include:
a Western Lands geographical primer
some new backgrounds for characters from the westernlands
a description of the history of the westernlands
a description of the current political machinations going on in the westernlands
some secret societies specific to the westernlands
a “mega adventure” set in the westernlands
some new stuff, like posions or alchemical items or unique weapons.Out of that I could see in the terms of books
“The Western Lands” a Hard back (maybe) that has a bunch of the things from above
“The Sky People, The Origins of the Kio” a softcover that has a few of the things above OR minor versions of the things above
“The Water People, the Slavery of the Undir” like kio but for Undir
“The Scary thing Joe Thought Up” a Mega Adventure set in the Westernlandsand then Importantly module support, maybe 6 or 7 mods set in the westernlands over the next couple of years.
March 31, 2015 at 3:53 pm #266855AnonymousInactiveI agree that there is an excited fanbase, but that doesn’t equate to people producing material. If so, we’d be awash with adventures and that just isn’t the case.
I’m not suggesting that everyone who plays Arcanis should rush out with book proposals, but I have a hard time believing that there aren’t at least a small group of people in the campaign you could trust to co-author with you. I don’t want to put anyone on the spot, but a few names spring to mind for me quite quickly.As (presumably) one of those small group of people, and one directly involved in the adventure writing/editing/releasing process, I can assure you that Henry’s right: Just because someone’s excited and passionate doesn’t mean that they have the time, inclination, or ability to write something (either as an adventure or as a part of a sourcebook). Those who do have all of the above are the ones who are contributing… there’s just so few of us, and those of us who do also tend to be the GMs, the forum contributors, the campaign staff, etc…
March 31, 2015 at 5:06 pm #266864AnonymousInactiveI would love to see some smaller books produced aimed at players of certain types. These could be as small as 12 pages to as big as around 32 or so. They should be narrow in scope so that they are quick to turn out, but broad enough that more than 1 person will be interested. Some examples:
1) Sourcebooks for Major/Minor Cities that include some background, recent events unique ‘crunch’ (Backgrounds, Paths, Talents, etc) and some colorful NPC’s that represent that area…
Examples: New Althre, Savona, Censure2) Sourcebooks for Archetypes that include build/character ideas based upon different regions (How do the Arcane Warmages of Coryan differ from the Arcane Alchemists of Altheria, etc), with some ‘crunch’.
3) Sourcebooks for Races that give some new history or perspective on a particular event or historical period, some colorful NPC’s that represent different ideas, and some ‘crunch’ to modify characters with
4) A Historical Timeline that shows thing nice and visually with ‘game hooks’ if you want to run an adventure in a certain period of history or in a certain place.
5) Sourcebooks on Secret Societies with their motivations, key players, major safehouses, and some ‘crunch’ for characters playing those characters
Hope this helps!
John
March 31, 2015 at 5:10 pm #266865AnonymousInactiveThere are allot of good ideas on the board and more to come as well i am sure, however i want to emphasize the importance of the three major books that come out for almost every system of play in one format or another before you start to look at other books…
Arcanis has done a great job creating the first two books and with some polish i think that they have created an excellent system and one that can be expanded upon!
However The third book i feel has yet to be offered in full. We are many years into the campaign already and most company’s push this third book out quickly, i am not certain why more effort hasn’t been made to detail this book.
1. Players Handbook or guide or simply the players book. The book that tells characters a bit about the game and how to make characters and has most of the crunch in it that is required to play the game for the player.
The Arcanis’s Players book has so much detail and crunch in it that you need a spreadsheet to truly create your character, it offers allot of freedom in creating your character in the beginning however in later levels i find myself often trapped in some of my builds and i feel like a book to expand on backgrounds and paths and perhaps even a new archetype or two would be great book ideas.
2. The Dungeon Master’s Guide or Game Master Manual. The book with additional rules for the Guy running the game. I think the details here are great there are some rules which need better definition and they have been covered in many of the errata’s yet there are still more to go over…
3 And last but not least the Monster Manual or Big Book of Bad Guys! This books gives players and game masters so much insight to the world they are in. Its importance should not be overlooked!
Within each entry you set the stage for interesting encounters yet to be made, give background on places far and wide and the things that inhabit them! It represents so many possibilities i cannot detail how many times i have paged through a monster manual and found an interesting creature which suddenly sparked an idea for an entire event much less an encounter.
In my opinion our current Arcanis game is lacking this third and very important book. Having a Monster Manual i believe will not only increase the interest in the game but i think you will find that it makes it easier for your player base to write events of their own whether it be a home game or writing for the “”Living” Campaign.
My two cents.
~Tony
March 31, 2015 at 11:48 pm #266880AnonymousInactiveI like Cody, Eric and others very much enjoy consuming information about the world. For me it is helpful to provide a deep and rich character background for the story, or more for the story itself. In terms of products, I’m going to focus on ones that aren’t already being written such as the Kio sourcebook and the Ss’ethregoran Empire conversion.
1. Information about the Khitani Empire. I could see this as part of an updated Codex, or even as it’s own source book. There’s already a ton there to cover from the various ul families, the Sleeping Emperor that it could be a rich source of both story and crunch.
2. The Keys of Man – I am still as stoked about this story and finding out what happened to them as I was when Henry first mentioned the idea years ago. There’s a part of me that wants this as a mega adventure or possibly ongoing series to purchase, and another that would be quite content if the current campaign simply led into that for the living campaign.
3. “Armies of Arcanis” – A guide to the Legions, Knightly Orders and similar organizations throughout the Known Lands. The Order of the Phoenix is a good example. I expect though that these would be better served to be presented as a single guide or series of guides to help increase sales.
4. Religions of Arcanis – There were some Paths that were excluded from the Codex of Heroes I believe in part because they were viewed as part of a larger work on the religions. This provides a great opportunity to highlight the differences between the Pantheonistic flavors, possible differences in the Western Lands and the ways that the Elemental Lords, spirits, etc. are worshiped.
There are a lot of other good ideas in this thread that I’d be happy to see as well.
With a sweep of his hat,
Paul
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