Friday Publisher Preview: Of Strong Character

you guys couldn't be more wrong about how well an iron gods set would do. you obviously just personally dont care for syfy and you dont want paizo to put out a set that doesnt benifit you. thats understandable, there are other things you want, but your still wrong about how well it would do. ive got nearly 10k in miniatures. i belong to a couple sites with dozens, even hundreds of collectors who have spent double and triple what i have and there are many interested in such a set. i have heard several even comment that they are waiting in line to spend hundreds, in a couple cases thousands, on products out of stock that are nowhere near as cool as what paizo and wizkids would put out. yur right, the crowd of fans is smaller, but the selection those fans have to choose from is crap and the smaller fan base would flock to the only source of good minitures that represent their beloved genre. that smaller fan base would be easily compensated by the current lack of representation. iron gods would do much better than you think.

you can often find more profit in a smaller, hungrier market than you can a larger flooded one

^that goes for steampunk as well. its a smaller niche following, but also hungry and dedicated

While I disliked the WWI Russians, an Iron Gods set would be different for me. I would buy a case and depending on the figures use them in other RPG games as well. I own way more figures than I should admit and I do have a large SciFi showing in my collection. Iron Gods would have a place in my collection.

As for this set, I am really getting excited about this set and I pray the face issues will have been resolved so this set comes out well. There has not been a figure yet in the previews of this set that I would not want.

i wasnt a fan of the russian soldiers either, but thats because they're modern and modern just doesnt stimulate my brain in the same way that things out of my reach do, such as fantasy and syfy

jimibones, I don't think you can flat-out say their opinion is wrong, anymore than I could just say that yours is.

Bottom line, the AP has not even started yet. We have no idea how heavily skewed the encounters are towards sf or fantasy. And it has been said in the past that they prefer to wait for an AP set until after it is complete, so it can be more representative of what actually makes it into the AP.

Personally, I believe that a decent set can be made from any AP, including Iron Gods. I've been trying to put together a Jade Regent list which would work, and the problem is trying to cut out acceptable generic figures. However, any sf elements in Iron Gods would have to be limited to a small percentage of the set. Just like RoW has only the 2 soldiers, and S&S has only 3 figures with guns and the Cannon Golem.

So while I respect people's opinions about how much they want an Iron Gods set, nobody can really be sure until we actually see the books.

Does Paizo collect info from Pathfinder league play about what sorts of characters people are actually playing?

That wouldn't be especially helpful, as PFS has limits about which races you generally can play.

And re: Iron Gods: Erik has already said that we're moving away from AP-themed sets for a bit.

Are there more location based sets on the horizon like the lost coast?

If so, can I request a "people of the north" set?

I'm guessing they would count Reign of Winter as a "people of the North" set they just did.

I'm finding this set to be just as appealing as Legends of Golarion. So I'm quite OK with trending away from the AP scene for a bit. I can't wait for the next preview. I keep waiting for the choices to go against my taste, but so far everything has been quite good.

I'm guessing they would count Reign of Winter as a "people of the North" set they just did.

Quite possible. I'd like some vikings, mammoths and linnorms though.

you guys couldn't be more wrong about how well an iron gods set would do. you obviously just personally dont care for syfy and you dont want paizo to put out a set that doesnt benifit you. thats understandable, there are other things you want, but your still wrong about how well it would do. ive got nearly 10k in miniatures. i belong to a couple sites with dozens, even hundreds of collectors who have spent double and triple what i have and there are many interested in such a set. i have heard several even comment that they are waiting in line to spend hundreds, in a couple cases thousands, on products out of stock that are nowhere near as cool as what paizo and wizkids would put out. yur right, the crowd of fans is smaller, but the selection those fans have to choose from is crap and the smaller fan base would flock to the only source of good minitures that represent their beloved genre. that smaller fan base would be easily compensated by the current lack of representation. iron gods would do much better than you think.

you can often find more profit in a smaller, hungrier market than you can a larger flooded one

I realize with Vic chiming in, this isn't something that needs debated anytime soon. But for the sake of finishing a conversation, I'll respond.

As others have said, whether it sells or not is not something any of us can say for sure. Especially when the AP hasn't even been released yet, so we have no idea if it will be popular or not. I think the AP will prove popular, but the miniatures are a different story. I understand everything that you are saying, and if we were only talking the Adventure Path sales itself, I would agree. But miniatures are a whole other issue.

Paizo has to take several things into account when deciding on miniature lines based off Adventure Paths. The first thing is how many people will the set appeal to in the first place? If the Adventure Path sells poorly, there would be no reason to even bother making miniatures from their pages. But if the adventure path sells well, then it should at least be considered. For the sake of this conversation, let us say that it sells well enough to be under consideration for a Battles line.

The next question becomes how well can they sell cases? I don't doubt that many long-time gamers (and those on this planet for fewer years) might be interested in these miniatures. It's one of the reasons why I've said repeatedly that I HOPE they get made at some point, perhaps as an exclusive line. That way if they turn out more popular than originally believed, re-releases of the exclusive set can be made available at later dates. What I doubt is that the number you believe in your head is truly as huge as you think it is--from the entire potential customer base--as you believe it is.

Unlike the handful of WWI pieces in the last set, the majority of pieces in an Iron Gods line would likely need to be more of the syfy-type to keep the core cult happy. After all, what is the point of making an Iron Gods Battles line if only 1/3 of them represent the uniqueness of the adventure path? The problem is that even that number, which would work out to about fifteen miniatures, is too high for me to consider buying a case. Does my money alone matter? Of course not. But the contingent of potential purchasers that I represent does matter.

I'm part of the contingent that buys at least one of every case. Sometimes, if I like the set enough, I buy two. But the syfy aspect in my Pathfinder/D&D games holds no appeal to me. As I said, perhaps I'll really like the Adventure Path. I'm willing to give that a try because I know that even if I never run the adventure path, I'll still enjoy reading through it. It's not that I don't like Science Fiction-indeed I've been a part of a friend's Star Wars campaign for years, and I love it--I just don't like crossing the two elements in my campaigns.

So I'm in the group that I can say with 100% certainty would never buy a case of Iron Gods miniatures. Maybe I'd cherry pick from it for a couple of "universal" monsters, but that's not going to be worth my $300.00. And if I'm looking for miniatures to help sate my appetite, I'm going to take that money elsewhere. With Wizards of the Coast back in the game of prepainted miniatures to coincide with the new version of their Dungeons and Dragons game, I know there will likely be a few sets over the years with pieces from them that I'm also very interested in purchasing. So if asked to put my money between a Pathfinder Iron Gods case or a Wizards of the Coast Dungeon Crawl set, I'm definitely going to go with the latter.

Chances are that once the next set after Iron Gods is released, I'd be right back with Paizo. But that isn't necessarily a guarantee for everyone in my camp. I know plenty of people that would be completely turned off from Paizo with an Iron Gods set. I don't mean it would sour them on the company itself. Rather, chances are that Wizards will, for the foreseeable future, be producing more mainstream, traditional D&D characters and creatures. If said customers switch to Wizards while they "sit out" the Iron Gods set, where is the appeal to get back in to Paizo? This goes double in this case, as Wizkids is producing the lines for both companies. At worst, one can expect the quality of Wizkids' Paizo line in the forthcoming Wizkids' D&D line.

Now will there be plenty of people buying a Paizo Iron Gods case that have never bought miniatures from Paizo before? Sure. Most definitely. But what happens after that line comes out? Will they all continue betting on Paizo? You said yourself that a good number of those people that have been waiting on a Syfy-type line, or are willing to spend much more on rare, hard to find pieces of syfy miniatures from yesteryear also have massive collections of more traditional miniatures. So if the point you are making is that there are plenty of people waiting in the wings for a one-and-done purchase, I won't disagree. But I must ask, what is their incentive to keep coming back? If the only type of miniature that a majority of these people don't already have can be had in one case, why keep buying future Paizo cases if it means they are buying pieces they clearly don't need/want?

So for the sake of argument, let us say that the amount of people buying the Iron Gods case as their first Paizo case evens out completely with the amount of recurring Paizo customers that would take a break from purchasing a Paizo case with the release of the Iron Gods line. Where is the better business decision? You can hang onto as many of your current customers by producing a more traditional fantasy line, knowing full well you have minimized the chance of breaking a cycle, thus preventing them from taking their hard-earned money to a different company. Or you can produce a more risky set that might draw in a plethora of new customers, many of whom will be one & done, all while risking that a fair number of your current customers might not come back.

I can't stress enough that I'm not against an Iron Gods line, I just don't think it's in Paizo's best interest, from a business perspective, to put it out as part of their main Battles line. Maybe one day, after a handful of more Battles lines, Paizo will completely disagree with my line of reasoning and instead make Iron Gods as part of their battles line subscription series. But in the meantime, I think the best way to get Iron Gods pieces around your table is to wait for the release of the Pawns set.

It's great that the next couple sets won't be tied directly to any one Adventure Path. It will allow Erik to make his selections from a wider base of characters and creatures.

When Erik asked us what Gargantuan we'd like to see, he said "not for the next set, but the set after the next set. Was that referring to the Lost Coast line? I know the She-however it is spelled was among the top three, but has it been confirmed this is the line in which it was voted to appear? I assume it is, but I suppose there is always a chance it isn't, and is instead just a happy coincidence. That means another fan-voted Gargantuan could be on the way.

Yes, the shemhazian demon is for this set (per the PaizoCon announcement round-up).