Pull Up a Stool (The Rusty Dragon Inn Debrief)

Friday, January 15, 2016

The Rusty Dragon Inn set of prepainted plastic Pathfinder Battles fantasy gaming figures is officially out and available in the wild! You can pick them up from your local retailer order the figures by case or brick, or select your favorites from the list of singles available from the set. I've been hearing from folks with an Ongoing Case Subscription that subscriber cases have begun to arrive, and as you're all opening your minis or deciding which ones to get, I'd like to take a moment to look at the set as a whole and share some of my thoughts about how it came together, and how it turned out.

I've always wanted to do a Pathfinder Battles set themed around a tavern. Most of my own campaigns tend to spend a lot of time in the city, and player characters can't help but get themselves into trouble when they're visiting the local watering hole. Paizo's tavern-themed Flip-Mats almost always sell out soon after we print them, proving that I'm not the only one who says "roll initiative" as often as "what'll you have?" when my player characters enter the tavern.

When we announced The Rusty Dragon Inn set several months ago, I knew that some folks would be concerned that the set was too NPC-heavy, so I made sure to include as many cool monsters as I possibly could, with a slight bias toward creatures I thought worked well in an urban environment (namely, ghouls). We also had a few hold-overs originally intended for earlier sets, like Zilvazaraat, the Large Silver Dragon, and the Gorgon. And, perhaps most importantly, the set gave us a chance to execute an idea I've been kicking around with WizKids for a long time—doing a major terrain piece as a special limited edition "case incentive" figure, in this case the Tavern Bar. Add to this the continuing experiment with dungeon dressing and my first chance to include things like the Cart and Large Cart, and you've got a set I've been excited about for a long, long time. It's finally here, and here are some of my own thoughts from along the way, and especially from opening my own personal case last weekend.

Dungeon Dressing

I'm thrilled with how the dungeon dressing came out for The Rusty Dragon Inn. From a gamer perspective, like a lot of you, I'd prefer more tables, crates, and barrels than are included in a single case, but I'm also sensitive to folks who don't enjoy their monster or NPC figures being swapped out for a piece of furniture. Demand for these pieces is extremely high (I think they all sold out within a couple of days of our first singles release batch), and that's a factor we will continue to weigh with WizKids to determine the best mix in future releases. The next set also contains a bunch of cool dungeon dressing pieces, and I'm eager for you to get a look at them. Beyond that, anything is possible. Please leave a note in the comments with suggestions of additional pieces of dungeon dressing you'd like to see in future sets.

Singles Sales

Singles from The Rusty Dragon Inn have sold incredibly well, with 14 figures already out of stock on paizo.com within the first week of the set's release. That's a phenomenal show of support for the set, and I think it probably bodes well for the overall sales we're expecting to see this time around. We know that the new paizo.com sales strategy for singles (ending sales at the end of the month) caused some alarm with subscribers who did not have their case to know what they might want or need before high-demand singles started vanishing from the site, and I've had a chat with our warehouse and web store team, and I'm confident that we will be releasing at least one more "wave" of singles before the end of the month, timed after we believe most subscribers will have received their cases. Watch this space very closely in the coming weeks for an announcement when this next batch goes on sale. We'll do the best we can to make sure that if you want a single from this set, you'll have a good chance of getting it, so long as you act quickly.

Rusty Dragon Flip-Mat?

In recent comment threads regarding the set, I've seen a lot of suggestions that we release a Rusty Dragon Inn Flip-Mat scaled to the Tavern Bar case incentive and designed for optimal use with the set. I think that's a fantastic idea, and I'm relatively confident that we'll do it—eventually. The actual size and contents of the Tavern Bar set were in flux until very late in the game, and I want to be able to match the scale on this stuff exactly so that everything fits the way it should. Suffice it to say, this is very likely coming, but probably not as rapidly as you might like it to. A good idea is worth taking the time to do right.

Overall Impressions

I'm thrilled with this set overall. As usual when you crack a case, some elements of rarity choices become more clear in your hand and on your table than they did in your head. Had I a chance to do it again, I might move the Bunyip to uncommon, for example, but that's really just a quibble. The paint jobs on the rares are remarkable (especially Allevrah, Elf General), and overall I think the factory did a good job, even on the faces (which is one of the toughest aspects of making these miniatures). I'm really happy with a lot of the figure and rarity choices, and I'm eager to use these figures on the table. I've already used the Half-Elf Enchanter as a conductor leading a little band of a Half-Elf Bard, a small circle of Dwarf Bard drummers, and three Dancing Girls. That's an encounter right there. I love it when random collections of figures from a single set fit so well together.

So, what do you think of the set? What are your favorite figures? Where do you think we could have done a better job? And, as always, what else would you like to see in future sets?

Let's debrief The Rusty Dragon Inn in comments!

I'll bring the beer.

Until next time, I remain...

Erik Mona
Publisher