Saturday, March 3, 2007

Product Line Ideas

Just my own random brainstorming here, but I'd like to see the following things blossom beneath the Tricky Owlbear umbrella.

Sci-Fi Bits: I suppose we could use d20Future for this line but I'm also leaning toward system-less bites of information for any science fiction game. Random crew generation of a starship and so forth (not to step too much on the Ronin Arts pdfs for this type of thing). In the same vein, but more grand in scope, is my newest dream of a mega sci-fi adventure which just throws the PCs into one harrowing encounter after another with one or more planets hanging in the balance. This thought comes after viewing 80s artwork for such games which usually feature grand collages of a setting's main components.

Behind the Monsters: Your favorite monsters from the SRD exposed like never before! Using the first product on the owlbear as a starting point, this line would actually be player-focused. Where did the creature come from? Does it have one or more weak spots and how does one go about exploiting them? Once the monster is dead, can its corpse bring more to the PC than simple experience?

Campaign Theme Pack: This was the original title for my Dread Codex book from Adamant Ent. before it grew into its current larger, all-encompassing, form. I'd like to draw from the copious amount of open content I own to develop smaller products that each feature a single monster type (undead, plant, ooze, etc.). You would get a handful of monsters, related items, and a generic sample lair typical of the monster type.

Behind the Spells: I can't see not contributing the ocassional pdf to this already-established line. There's still plenty of knowledge left in Maxolt!

OSRIC: Almost forgot! I absolutely want to help scratch the 1st edition itch of myself and others with some OSRIC adventure material. The market is out there, no question.

Titles and content of the above are all subject to change, of course. :)

9 comments:

Mike said...

I was thinking about the "Behind the Monsters" line while driving home last night ... I think it'd be good to have some (or at least one!) available for sale whenever the free owlbear .pdf gets made available. That way, if people like what they see, they might be inclined to spend money on a similar-themed product.

I'd be willing to work on this one - maybe go for the bullette or the manticore (or both!) Just let me know when you work out the basic structure/format for the line. For example, if there's always a section on stuff to use as spell components after it's dead, lairs, top 5 ways to kill it, etc.

And you already know my basic ideas for d20 future. :)

Rabid Gerbil said...

How about something that DMs can use in an adventure or campaign as a location? Sort of along the lines of the ol Foul Locales Bret, but not necessarily foul.

Could be called Campaign Locations or Location Dropins or Locations, Locations, Locations or just Locales or something along those lines.

For example:
-A general store/inn type location that can be used on the road as a resting point, fully detailed with NPCs, stats, maps, plots hooks, and a short adventure, etc.
-Probably come in at around 15-20 pages with NPCs, artwork, maps and such
-Price it around 5 bucks; buyer would be getting maps they could reuse, a short adventure, NPCs they can use in other ways, items, etc

I have other ideas for stuff, but I'll post then later.

Bret said...

Warren: Since I've already kind of committed to doing this with Daniel at Highmoon, that's why I didn't include a locales line here. Although, if I wasn't writing them, then maybe it would work (I think my stuff starts to look the same after a while).

Mike: I'll let you know on the Behind the Monsters once I have a format down. Hopefully you'll trust Scot and I enough that we can work out payment details later. :)

Mike said...

Oh, at the very least the first one will be gratis - my contribution to getting the Tricky Owlbear up and running in good fashion. From there ... like you said, we'll work on the details later. :)

Bret said...

Thanks, Mike! I'm in the middle of a few things now but as soon as I have a BtMonsters template I'll send it to ya.

Rabid Gerbil said...

Yea, I didnt realize this until I saw the post from Daniel about it on ENWorld. I actually read the post like 10 minutes after I posted the mesaage on here...lol. Oops....

Bret said...

No worries, Warren. I just handed in my draft for the Museum of Infamous Heroism.

Anonymous said...

I do like your proposed product line ideas. In particular “behind the monsters” sounds like fun. To help gain a following, your initial releases could focus on a theme or genre. “If you’ve got the first edition itch, check out Tricky Owlbear.”

What did you have in mind for the first product? It should be something that shows off your talents, maybe a robust module. The simultaneous release of a free short story teaser might help advertise it.

Heather

Bret said...

Hmm, I'm not sure that short fiction will grab people's attention enough but it's not a bad idea to stretch out the word count, Heather. The first product was originally going to be a Behind the Monsters: Owlbear but we've since decided to launch with a few products at once. Those have yet to be determined. :)