Ok this is very simple:
1) Would you be interested in seeing a combination service of DungeonADay.com and World's Largest Dungeon and making it all free online to use?
2) Would you be willing to pay for a PDF version of each level of this mash-up if it was full color and 20 to 30 pages in length and cost $4.99?
3) Who would have to do work on it to make it an automatic purchase?
Thank for your help with this.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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1) I would be interested, but would want to know how this would interact with the current DaD subscribers/kickstarter backers.
2) might be helpful to indicate how many levels are in DaD and in WLD, as well as if there would be a bundled price discount for all levels in both or either dungeons.
3) Honestly, at this point anyone who has some professional experience and could do a reasonably good job updating to Pathfinder (most of DaD is already done).
I think Louis meant something new that is like... DungeonADay.com + World's Largest Dungeon.
I could be wrong but he often pitches an idea X by comparing it to a combination of other established ideas.
I think Louis meant something new that is like... DungeonADay.com + World's Largest Dungeon.
I could be wrong but he often pitches an idea X by comparing it to a combination of other established ideas.
BINGO! It would not be Dungeon A Day.com but that kind of feel.
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Something like Dungeon-A-Day, but with actual new content being updated regularly? Maybe even on a website where I don't have to sign-in again after every single g*!$#$n link I follow?
To be honest, not really. I like your company, and I'd hate for you to end up on the list of publishers I have no intentions of doing business with again like Super Genius, Rogue Genius, and Monte Cook Games, due to the horrible mishandling and lack of communication with Dungeon-A-Day.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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Ah, that would be cool too - I had thought you meant something that put both DaD and WLD up together.
As for a new daily dungeon room mega dungeon, I would be interested, but my biggest concern after DaD would be continuity. A daily room takes a long time to get a 1-20th level mega dungeon complete - what happens if the writer quits after 2 years or if managing the website costs more than expected and there's issues keeping it up once someone has made the investment?
I'm not asking these questions to be a downer (since I really did like DaD), but these things did happen for DaD, even with writers who had very strong pedigrees.
To make this an automatic purchase for me it would need to have someone as the creative director of the project who had an outline of the entire project, and had a team of writers, which would mitigate consistency issues if individuals couldn't keep up with the project for whatever reason over the long haul.
The price point seems reasonable, but ideally there would be a way to bundle the price for multiple levels or the entire project. Also, if there are ancillary materials, such as detailing a nearby town, glossary of NPCs, gods, and other important figures, etc., I'd prefer that those support products be either free as part of a player's/GM's guide, or if charged for in a PDF, including more "crunch" like tailored traits feats, archetypes, that fit with the dungeon.
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To briefly threadjack:
Whether or not people want to be upset with me (and I totally understand those who are -- I'm not happy about how things turned out either), I'd ask no one blame Monte cook for how things ended. SGG bought DaD from Monte Cook. We promised to honor all his existing customers, and we promised to finish Dragon's Delve (which I believe is the largest rpg dungeon in existence). We did those things, as Monte pitched in from time to time.
Most problems came later, after Monte was totally uninvolved. As one of the people who does get hate mail and threats over this (apparently the price for trying to make myself accessible back when I was part of SGG), I don't lay any of the blame at Monte's feet. Creators don't always stick with their work. He made sure the big thing he started was finished, and by then he was truly out. He certainly had nothing to do with the Kickstarter.
If anyone wants to call me out on Dungeonaday any further, can we start a new thread for that? I don't want to take up any more of Louis' space. :)
1) I am a sucker for mega-dungeons, so yes, color me interested.
I would reiterate some of JoelF847's concerns about writer burnout, if you are planning a "room a day" arrangment; I was in on DaD from the beginning, and that became an issue at a few different points.
2) Yes, I would be willing to purchase offline versions of the dungeon levels. The price point looks good, though depending on the physical size of the dungeon level, I don't know how much background you will be able to fit into 20-30 pages (assuming background information is part of the plan, of course).
3) As for a writer wish list, Monte Cook would be great (yeah, he's doing his own thing right now, but still...). Richard Pett would be a lot of fun. Greg Vaughn, Tim Hitchcock, Christina Stiles, and others who I'm sure I will think of later on. I don't know if Robin Laws has ever worked the "crunch" side of Pathfinder, but I enjoy his writing.
Good luck getting this off the ground, if you decide to do it; you had me at DaD + WLD!
Something like Dungeon-A-Day, but with actual new content being updated regularly? Maybe even on a website where I don't have to sign-in again after every single g%~@#@n link I follow?
My idea is to have everything online as a website with no need to log on to any thing. All you have to do is come to the site and go.
To be honest, not really. I like your company, and I'd hate for you to end up on the list of publishers I have no intentions of doing business with again like Super Genius, Rogue Genius, and Monte Cook Games, due to the horrible mishandling and lack of communication with Dungeon-A-Day.
I would be looking at doing a room a day 5 days a week. I expect each level of the dungeon to have between 30 to 40 rooms. And since the site is COMPLETELY FREE it doesn't cost you anything just you time to come check it out.
Ah, that would be cool too - I had thought you meant something that put both DaD and WLD up together.
Sorry about that
As for a new daily dungeon room mega dungeon, I would be interested, but my biggest concern after DaD would be continuity. A daily room takes a long time to get a 1-20th level mega dungeon complete - what happens if the writer quits after 2 years or if managing the website costs more than expected and there's issues keeping it up once someone has made the investment?
As I stated above, the site is COMPLETELY FREE it doesn't cost you anything just you time to come check it out.
I'm not asking these questions to be a downer (since I really did like DaD), but these things did happen for DaD, even with writers who had very strong pedigrees.
Well one of our big difference is that I will be hiring ou many freelancers for this one in the realm of 5 to 10. This is more of a logistics issues, the way I see it.
To make this an automatic purchase for me it would need to have someone as the creative director of the project who had an outline of the entire project, and had a team of writers, which would mitigate consistency issues if individuals couldn't keep up with the project for whatever reason over the long haul.
Since there is nothing to buy, I see I would have you as a fan.
The price point seems reasonable, but ideally there would be a way to bundle the price for multiple levels or the entire project. Also, if there are ancillary materials, such as detailing a nearby town, glossary of NPCs, gods, and other important figures, etc., I'd prefer that those support products be either free as part of a player's/GM's guide, or if charged for in a PDF, including more "crunch" like tailored traits feats, archetypes, that fit with the dungeon.
The information online will be 100% free to access, look at and use. The PDF for sale will be the same material that is available online PLUS more in depth bonus material to make the area scaleable for different levels, item cards, and additional player and GM material.
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It was probably unfortunate that Dungeon-a-Day was mentioned at all in the original post since it did make it seem as if LPG was in some way getting involved with Dungeon-a-Day, which is not at all the case.
What I'm curious about is, if you are going to hire people to write this yet you say the site will be free ... how will you not lose money on this, let alone make any?
Is it safe to assume you plan to try and make your money on advertising.
What I'm curious about is, if you are going to hire people to write this yet you say the site will be free ... how will you not lose money on this, let alone make any?
Is it safe to assume you plan to try and make your money on advertising.
I imagine the plan is to recoup some (certainly not all) costs through sales of the dungeon levels in PDF, but yeah, barring information we don't have right now, it looks like advertising on the site is a given. Which I'm OK with, as long as it's not ridiculously intrusive.
It was probably unfortunate that Dungeon-a-Day was mentioned at all in the original post since it did make it seem as if LPG was in some way getting involved with Dungeon-a-Day, which is not at all the case.
If Hyrum answers the email I sent him, this comment may be changing and become more of a reality.
What I'm curious about is, if you are going to hire people to write this yet you say the site will be free ... how will you not lose money on this, let alone make any?
If the focus is the "Dungeon" as being the only thing of value, then I can see how you might not see how money can be made. But if looking at how many webcomic series like like PvP, Evil Inc or Sheldon they give away the "content" of their daily strip for free and monetize other factors of what they have created. Webcomic normally sell trade paperbacks of their collected work, they also sell the original artwork, posters, plushes of the chracters, even creating a maquette.
I think the freemium business models works were well with this idea and explanding it in very non-traditional RPG ways can only help with it's acceptance. For example what if you offered retail store special soourcebook and material that tied in with this website that was only available from certain stores based on location. Hell, what if you were able to crate a comic based off of this "dungeon"? There are so many infinitely different and interesting ways to generate money with and idea like this if you think about it.
Is it safe to assume you plan to try and make your money on advertising.
That is one why to generate money, but of course not the only way to with an idea like this.
1) Would you be interested in seeing a combination service of DungeonADay.com and World's Largest Dungeon and making it all free online to use?
Yes. I own WLD, have been a member of DAD for a very long time, and have a number of other Megadungeons.
2) Would you be willing to pay for a PDF version of each level of this mash-up if it was full color and 20 to 30 pages in length and cost $4.99?
Tricky. Would depend on a few things.
1. Exclusive content. Something like 2-3 extra encounters or something in addition. Or suggestions for re-visit encounters. Something a little extra to make the purchase feel necessary for completionists.2. High quality map and pictures. Again, exclusive. If I have the choice of using a bare-bones grid and something that shows some terrain, furniture, etc, to be used on a virtual tabletop, I want the detailed one, and will pay for the extra quality. Also, player version and GM version of maps.
3. Very easy to export the map and pictures to virtual tabletop.
I'll also add, I would be rather motivated to purchase physical copies of levels, either separately or collected into a massive book.
3) Who would have to do work on it to make it an automatic purchase?
Any regular Paizo AP writer. Monte Cook would be amazing and I have a fair amount of "throw money at him" loyalty, been impressed with Ptolus and DAD.
If Hyrum answers the email I sent him, this comment may be changing and become more of a reality.
No offense to Hyrum, but it would be amazing to have someone who was passionate about it to take over the site at this point. Especially someone who is looking at the idea of hosting a megadungeon website for free, which I've felt should be the goal of DAD for a while, because it's great content that current limited to such a few people. Seriously, if you took over DAD and did something awesome like that with it, that alone would probably by my monetary support on the project.
As I keep thinking more and more about doing this project which I am calling tentatively, "Infinite Dungeon", the big issue I see is that should have the dungeon levels 1 thru 20 and stop and start ANOTHER dungeon in a different place (A la Adventure Paths) OR just keep adding more and more to this dungeon and keep adding levels to infinity? What would you, as the fans of Pathfinder, want?
As I keep thinking more and more about doing this project which I am calling tentatively, "Infinite Dungeon", the big issue I see is that should have the dungeon levels 1 thru 20 and stop and start ANOTHER dungeon in a different place (A la Adventure Paths) OR just keep adding more and more to this dungeon and keep adding levels to infinity? What would you, as the fans of Pathfinder, want?
I would prefer going 1-20, then essentially going 1-20 again, with suggestions of how to make them alternate routes and add them in, or to run as it's own seperate dungeon. Maybe occasionally going higher level, but the vast majority of people aren't going to play above lvl 20. But I think I'd find it more useful if I could easily pull a dungeon of the appropate level from multiple options.
That being said, it would be clever and a good use of Pathfinder rules to have a regular dungeon, and then the next 1-20 include mythic rules with suggestions of what mythic rank PCs should be and such like that. Mythic is likely to be the new way to have high powered characters instead of going above level 20 very far.But yeah, I think it would be best to have an almost Rappan Athuk evolution. New dungeons added don't necessarily have to be more dangerous, just new routes that are discovered or something. Also, 'dungeons' don't necessarily need to be part of the main dungeon, but landmarks or areas that are part of the environment the dungeon is apart of. This is good to have some variety of terrain and feeling of exploration. What if in order to find the key to a particular area of the dungeon, the adventurers must venture above ground to a long-lost temple a day's travel away that has been taken over by a Hag's coven and a bandit gang that they've aligned with?
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Call me crazy, but as long as it makes sense, I like the old megadungeon sandbox concept. I once put together a honeycombed mountain, chock full of goblin tunnels...added a giant ant colony...there were long purple worm tunnels...here and there were actual cut chambers. I've forgotten how many rooms there were...it was over 800, iirc,.but most were very basic.
Sadly, nobody ever set foot in it...but it was there.
I like the idea of related 1-20 dungeons, for continuity within a campaign world. Just adding level after level, ad infinitum, I think I would reach a point where I would be thinking "well, this will be fun to look at, but I'll never use it."
Here is a question for you all: Would you rather gain XP as normal OR after the completion of each dungeon level?
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I like the idea of a full mega-dungeon that has event-based leveling. And those that prefer XP can simply calculate it as per normal.
Not all dungeon levels would need to be 1 dungeon level = 1 character level, either. Some might have 2-3 levels (or sublevels) to level up, some bigger levels might have you level up twice on the same dungeon level.
And because the previous sentence didn't use the word enough:
level level level level level level level level level level level level
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32
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What about a "modular" dungeon - add/combine sections to one another to form a mega-dungeon... each "module" goes on a particular level. Or maybe each module could belong in a range of levels, like 2nd-4th or 8th-10th, giving GMs a bit of flexibility as to when they introduce a particular "section" of the dungeon. GMs could skip modules if they want, or even add in their own content, but the site would provide tons of modules creating countless different dungeon possibilities. Some GMs might place the "lair of the moss monsters" module next to the "tomb of the lost necromancer," while others might place them on different levels entirely.
Just some ideas. In any case, I'd be happy to support such a project, and I'd love to contribute to it.
Here is a question for you all: Would you rather gain XP as normal OR after the completion of each dungeon level?
This is a tricky question, because I think it really depends on GMs too much and what they use it for. Those who use the dungeon modularly will probably want to use regular XP gain. Those who want to use it as a megadungeon might be more towards the completetion based.
I think, it's best to leave it as simple normal XP with maybe some sort've Blog article discussion the possible variants and dungeon design assumptions.
That being said, don't make a whole bunch of wimpy encounter rooms becuase you're splitting one level's XP to thin. Go with the slow XP progression, or just ignore it and make level appropriate encounters. GM's will be able to figure it out and follow what assumptions you put in if they wish or not.
Several of the GM's I've known/played with don't even deal with XP; they just have everyone level after an appropriate plot point. I think what Kthulhu said would probably be a good compromise; make it level/event based for those using it as a mega-dungeon, those using it in pieces can use XP as they see fit.
I run dungeonaday and I give out a flat 50% for XP. It levels the group up pretty well. The group picks how far down they go, understanding the risk/reward curve. Overall, that's worked well for me.
Nick