BlackDiamond's page

Ironically however, I was more willing to buy hardcopies of 5e core when it first came out and 5e stuff on release from a gamestore than online. I of course am not all...

It's not just customers, retailers generally despise Paizo for a) selling direct, b) having an online discount store, and c) feeling organized play is designed to feed back to their direct sales. I buck the trend, but it's because we have a strong Pathfinder community.

So retailers REALLY want D&D to succeed. They have religious FAITH in D&D. They need D&D to be a win.

I felt my ears burning. A couple things.

I like ICV2. I'm one of those retailers who regularly gets interviewed by ICV2. However, ICV2 numbers are based on informal phone surveys of a handful of retailers. They are not remotely scientific or definitive of what's going on. It's more a mood than a quantitative analysis.

But the premise is still valid. How long will D&D 5 top Pathfinder in sales? It's kind of complicated. On one hand, they only have core books and will only have these core books and some minor accessories for most of this year. On the other hand, I can sell 80 Pathfinder core rulebooks a year, every year, since about 2010. In fact, 75% of my Pathfinder sales come from just hardcover rulebooks, which account for a dozen titles of the 300+ that I stock.

So D&D 5 has no extended content, but those core books might have legs. Those core books are REALLY good too. That said, if Wizards of the Coast doesn't start producing some traditional "popular" content, sales will fall. When I talk to third party publishers who have tentatively ventured into 5E publishing, they have no faith WOTC will deliver. I call it D&D 5: The Stable IP Edition, because I think it's basically a place holder for developing money projects, video games and movies.

--gary

Black Diamond Games

You have to be direct and tell him to his face that the place smells, that this comes from a place of kindness and you want him to succeed. There is a strong likelihood that he's entirely unable to perceive the smell.

We used to have an all male staff and as we hired women, we finally hit a critical mass and they banded together to let us know that our standards of cleanliness would have to be improved if we hoped to attract and retain female customers. It was a shock, since by my own standards, the store was pretty clean. It wasn't nearly clean enough it turned out. "Pretty clean" is not clean.

It costs actual money to keep a store clean. Ours requires about 5 hours a week of intensive cleaning and an hour a day of maintenance, along with maybe another 5 hours a month of "projects," like carpet cleaning or painting the walls. When we weren't making money, those hours seemed like madness, and they never felt like they were enough to get the job done. But you have to do it.

It also requires that everyone agree on standards of cleanliness. One person can't be responsible for keeping the whole place clean. Just ask your mom. ;)

Hey folks,

Someone asked for a copy of my notes, so I wrote this up with more detail than I would normally include for myself (but less detail and polish than something you would expect to be published). The extra work turned out to be helpful for my thought processes, which will be of great benefit at the table. It's one more way you guys provided assistance.

This was also the first time I've done a digital dungeon map (Dungeonographer) which went well with my overland map (Hexographer). This made it especially easy to drop the maps into a Word doc and create a PDF.

Finally, there is likely some proprietary stats in this document, such as the Salt Mummy from WOTC and various stolen graphics. The Salt Golem is from Kobold Quarterly. Everything else is cut and paste OGL or mentions of new stuff from Ultimate Equipment (which will likely become OGL). So, you know, for personal use only.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

The adventure has half a dozen encounters, a few traps and hazards, and potentially huge campaign implications if they can liberate a salt mine. Feel free to post corrections or questions. I won't be running it for at least a month.

POWER LEVEL: My sandbox group is large (6-players), of mixed level from 4-6, with way more magic and gear than normal. So BIG WARNING, my encounters don't follow what might be safe or survivable in standard adventure design. There are EL 11's and such (that Salt Golem). My guess is this might work best for a standard 7th level party of four characters. You might want to tone down the Salt Golem or beef up the Salt Drake if you're going for that true, balanced feel. If you do, please post your stats, as I might want to do the same.

Anyway, it is here:

http://blackdiamondgames.com/downloads/SaltMine.pdf

Ghost slugs are hilarious, even if I don't make them attack. Or better yet, "Wait until I get to you...."

It is, in fact, based on the Wieliczka mine. I've got a little temple to a Norse mining god and an old sanitarium area. I like the caryatid column or gargoyle idea. I know just where to use them too.

Ropers do seem weird and cool, but I have that in a little mini adventure close by (before or after, depending on where they go).

Undead fish may have to replace the spiders....