IanBear said:

I'm sure there's someone out there for whom moving to Minnesota to line-manage WFRP for $27K/year would be a dream job, but remember, the last line manager suffered a heart attack at 38, the guy before him swore off WFRP afterwards, and the guy before him burnt out within 2 years…just saying.

phild said:

The real value of scenarios can't be measured in sales revenues alone though. Scenarios shape casual players' impressions of the game, and help them decide whether or not to buy into the product line. Granted, a bad scenario can also hurt the product line by failing to showcase the system/setting favourably, so it's a risky venture. But I don't think D&D, CoC or WFRP would have become legacy RPGs if they weren't supported with good scenarios.

Herr Arnulfe said:

Oh, I totally agree! But some people have done this. I think the guy that took over Dark Heresy was essentially a long time fan writer and playtester? Despite the fact I'd love to write for the line more, I'd never want the boss' job! Endless abuse from fans, regardless of quality, managing the demands of said fans, GW and FFG and a miriad of freelance writers all together. No thanks. But still, it needs to be done by someone for a line to survive!

IanBear said:

Does 40KRP have a dedicated line manager currently? One of the special guest freelancers at GenCon did seem to be a "senior writer" (not sure if he liases with GW though). Several GW staff writers have also worked on the 40KRP lines recently, IIRC, so maybe GW is taking a more direct approach with 40K. If FFG was to hire an off-site, part-time WFRP line developer, someone like Dave Allen would be a good candidate, having previously worked for GW himself, assuming he'd actually be interested in spending his days reviewing proposals, editing and planning instead of writing.

Herr Arnulfe said:

I think it takes a REALLY bad scenario to hurt a line. We're talking like late-TSR, Lorraine Williams-bad quality. Most GMs can turn any scenario into something more passable than a kidney stone.

Scenarios always help a line. Nobody's going to remember ordinary crunch products. imo.

jh

Emirikol said:

I think that's very true. When we talk about games, we usually talk about the adventures, published or otherwise, not the rules. Sometimes we fondly remember spectacularly good or bad dice rolls, but usually only when they made a difference to a character or the story. We talk fondly about The Enemy Within, The Keep on the Borderlands, Masks of Nyarlathotep, The Great Pendragon Campaign, or sourcebooks like Marienburg: Sold down the River or Delta Green. Lots of people like rules and special powers, but rule-based supplements don't seem become remembered as much-loved classics. (Anyone, feel free to pitch in with examples of popular rules classics.)

However.

Scenarios and campaigns are apparently unprofitable, especially for the amount of work that goes into them. It's that old problem of scenarios only selling to GMs, the minority group in the RPG market. Books packed with exciting new powers sell to players. Under the circumstances, I think FFG have approached the problem as best it can. What would have helped would have been more support for the fans who could have provided scenarios at no cost. FFG might be the problem here, but I am more inclined to think GW just doesn't want fans using its IP and sharing their own twists and idea. I doubt FFG has that much say in the matter.

Cheers

Sparrow

James Sparrow said:

That's why they need to solicit for scenario contests. FFG dropped the ultra-successful scenario contest in the past (hence why I'm propping it up this year.) I disagree 100% that GW is worried about IP being shared through that, as they were the direct sponsor of the old contest in 2e.

It costs FFG nothing more than a hamburger to sponsor scenario contest. They just don't have the willpower to care. There's no leadership.

If GW was worried about IP, they'd us shut down Liber Fanatica.

jh

Emirikol said:

Actually, if a scenario is bad enough then it won't get played at all, which is better IMO than a scenario which looks promising but ends up being "meh". There are too many games out these to waste time playing mediocre scenarios. As a GM, I get annoyed if I spend the time to read a scenario, organize the players, and then end up wasting everyone's time on mediocrity. When a game falls flat, it's usually 75% the scenario's fault and 25% the system's fault in my experience (disregarding player and GM issues). Now, if a product line has dozens of great scenarios available then a couple of duds in the mix won't hurt, but in general I think published scenarios need to go big or go home.

Emirikol said:

GW are a bit weird and inconsistent.

Cheers

Sparrow

On a related note some eagle eyed person noticed this…

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/847161/dice-packs-no-longer-being-stocked-at-ffg

Dice no longer stocked: store.fantasyflightgames.com/productdetails.cfm

The Enemy Within seems to have been just stretched to the end of the year. I'm prophesying that they will continue to put out the occasional pod and stretch 1-2 more 'boxes' out over the next two years. This is pure conjecture however and based loosely on the Kentucky Fried Chicken I had tonight when I noticed that the mashed potatoes looked a lot like a double-tailed comet, whilst th e copious amounts of chicken fry-grease only managed to stain two drops onto my pants.

jh

is that a boon or bane? The chicken dripping, that is.

Emirikol said:

(in my best Monty Python-esque dirty groveling peasant voice) Sigmar be praised! All hail the return of our greasy and starchy lord!!

But really. The lack of dice being in stock could just as easily be FF changing up the format that the game is delivered. Maybe they're going to allow people to order dice by type (ala POD), or maybe they're working on a new type of player's vault/tool-kit.

What I would LOVE to see would be a better version of the dice roller app. made to look and work much like the newer Star Wars dice roller app.

Or maybe a kit that only contains basic actions, character sheets, and enough dice for one player, sans the extra careers.

GoblynKing said:

Or if anyone seen/used the Arkham Horror Toolkit, that's an immensly useful gaming app. It lets you draw all encounter cards in the app, tracks health, sanity stances, clue tokens, money and details all the investigators in the game, shows maps over arkham and all the other areas from the expansions. Oh, and it rolls dice as well.

The bizarre thing is, it cost the same as the WFRP toolkit.

But more on topic, I really hope FFG provides us some news soon, or releases a POD.

Emirikol said:

Given that scenarios are usually bought by people who already love (or at least like) a game, and that they're usually just bought by the GM rather than rulebooks, splatbooks and campaign guides which may be bought by multiple people within a group, I'm not sure that they contribute a huge amount of positivity above and beyond their sales revenue. And as I said before, if cost of production exceeds revenue generated, then that scenario ultimately harms the line.

If it were me (and if I had the huge lottery win that I'd need to take the risk on running a games company!), I'd outsource scenarios to the community - run regular scenario competitions for fans, meaning you have a steady, officially endorsed, low price supply of freely available online scenarios. That keeps the positives of scenarios without too much of the negatives. But what do I know, so take this with a huge pinch of salt! :-)

[edit] should've finished reading the thread. This has all already been said. Move along, nothing to see here! [/edit]

Seems like the topic strayed off for a few pages there, so I feel comfy going along with it.

When FFG first announced the game I thought it looked and sounded incredible. Unfortunately, there were a lot of very vocal people who hated it and shouted it down…based on the announcement alone. One of the posters had an avatar of 3 hanged men and said it was indicative of all three versions of WFRP. Once again, based solely on the announcement of the game and a few photos. There was hand-wringing and screeching about it being more like Descent than an RPG (which ironically, D&D 4th is actually more Descent than traditional RPG).

That geekspasm alone cost the game a lot of credibility and gave it a ton of free bad publicity. I would not be surprised if people did not give it a second look after reading the comments on the announcement page. I was kind of surprised at the level of rage, but I liked the Rat Catcher's Tale so much I wanted to hear more.

The next big problem that FFG has never overcome, is that to even test drive the game someone has to buy the core set.

Whether it's the store copy for the Day Late, Schilling Short scenario or whatever, somewhere along the line that big box has to be purchased. That is a steep price for curiosity. I still do not understand why they did not package up a $30 box with a minimal amount of dice, pre gens with a few cards or pages of actions, a few counters, an abbreviated rule book ( no stance changes, no advancements, just basic rules) and an Eye For An Eye or a Rat Catcher's Tale kind of a scenario as a starter box. At that price I think a lot more would have at least given this really great system a try.

Pages of anger and mocking comments and a $100 MSRP sticker shock undoubtedly pushed some people away who may have ended up liking it.