Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Bigger Ancient Dungeon

Oooh! I’m really excited for this one.

So when is this supposed to be released? It seems to have no date on it.

Is this perhaps supposed to be an April 2020 release? The only gap I can currently see in the subscription schedule is for that month.

They finally dated it, and it looks like you guessed right!

I would really like these maps, especially the dungeons to start being included as some of the dungeons in the APs. Then they would serve two purposes.

I would really like these maps, especially the dungeons to start being included as some of the dungeons in the APs. Then they would serve two purposes.

Agreed.

We like having all-new maps in Adventure Path products, but we do regularly use Flip-Mats in our Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society scenarios.

We like having all-new maps in Adventure Path products, but we do regularly use Flip-Mats in our Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society scenarios.

Thanks for the reply.

I could really, REALLY use these in my APs, so I don't have to draw out massive dungeons in my limited time. I really like the AP, but this disconnect is just odd to me, there's no point in me buying these flip mats, even though they look awesome, because I have no use for them. But every flip mat that goes with an AP or even a module I've bought, like Emerald Spire and the related maps.

I don't think I'm alone in this, and it would increase your sales of flip mats, which is good for us all. Additionally if you had configurations of flip tiles in APs to match some of the maps, Flip Tile sales would increase greatly too.

You can’t really put a whole AP dungeon on a flip mat.

You can’t really put a whole AP dungeon on a flip mat.

I'm not asking for all AP dungeons to be on flip-mats, I'm just asking that the flip-mats actually be usable in the APs, and that a few of the dungeons/places be in the AP.

Really generic things like forests are useful, but dungeons are not useful to me in any way if they are not in the adventures I'm running. So I'm trying to tell them how they could make more money. Just make one of the dungeons in an AP be this exact map, pretty simple really.

They even tend to make things in the same theme as APs but then user a different version that doesn't appear in the AP. What's the point of that? May as well put it in the AP. Like the Ghost Ship in Starfinder or Tech Dungeon. If the Ghost Ship map was used in the actual Dead Suns AP, there would be far more sales of the map.

Because the dungeon setup as needed by the adventure most likely changes until it is finalized and published, and they wouldn't be able to put a map out before having the art, which would defeat the purpose of your suggestion, having to wait so long after the installment was released for the flip mat for it.

As for having the map beforehand that would be more constraining for the writers of the adventure.

And that's without even getting into the fact that such a niche market (Specific AP area specific maps) would likely not sell very well.

We like having all-new maps in Adventure Path products, but we do regularly use Flip-Mats in our Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society scenarios.

I really do like the quality and effort Paizo puts into their flip-mats. I'm just making a suggestion here, to help improve customer experience with and the profitability of flip-mats.

I really like what was done with Crypt of the Everflame and Rise of The Runelords.

Both products had maps that where of areas in the adventures, but these maps were released as stand-alone products. Allowing the maps to appeal to both the purchasers of the modules/APs and people looking for maps to use in their own home-brew campaigns.

This is ideal as the maps can be sold to two different types of consumers.

Both maps were reprinted as part of the Flip-Mat Classics line, which means they must be selling well in their own right to warrant a reprint. Yet I see reviews by people on Amazon recommending them to anyone running their respective campaigns.

If maps are tightly coupled to adventures in the way they are named then home brewers will be less likely to buy the maps. So the naming helps set them on their own. For example I doubt anyone not running the Fall of Plaguestone will buy the maps associated with that adventure, because they don't really know what they are by the name alone. But if two of the tombs from The Mummy's Mask where made into a map called Mummy's Tomb, it would appeal to both consumer segments.

Producing generic flip-mats that also went along with adventures was done around ten years ago, and I would really love to see this again, I'm sure there are other consumers who would happily buy flip-mats that go along with the adventures they are running, but are not interested in buying Flip-mats of dungeons that do not appear in APs.

For reference:

Crypt of the Everflame:
https://paizo.com/products/btpy89c9?Pathfinder-Module-Crypt-of-the-Everflam e

Flip-Mat Dungeon:
https://paizo.com/products/btpy9gsc

Rise of the Runelords:
https://paizo.com/riseOfTheRunelords

Flip-Mat Townsquare"
https://paizo.com/products/btpy9gsd?Pathfinder-FlipMat-Classics-Town-Square

That Town Square one is generic enough to use pretty much anywhere though.

...

You are 100% right about everything.

I don't personally know anybody who wants the 25th generic dungeon map, whereas a lot of people i meet in my local FLG store (Germany's largest game store) ask for the maps in the adventure paths.

The only reason that these generic flip-mats are being made is that they are used in Pathfinder & Starfinder society adventures, imo.

Paizo is being pretty adamant about not doing maps that go with APs - the Town Square one for Rise of the Runelords AE is the only exception they made - but they are making them for their Second Edition adventures (aka modules).
The ones for "Crypt of the Everflame" and "The Fall of Plaguestone" sold out very fast and have both being reprints (the later one immedeately).
If that continues with the next two adventure-specific flip-mat products (The Slithering & The dead gods hand), they may change that stance, but D&D may have to show them first that these kinds of products sell very well, like they did with the Bestiary cards, which i pitched for Pathfinder before they were done for 5e.

blazestudios23 wrote:

...

You are 100% right about everything.

I don't personally know anybody who wants the 25th generic dungeon map, whereas a lot of people i meet in my local FLG store (Germany's largest game store) ask for the maps in the adventure paths.

The only reason that these generic flip-mats are being made is that they are used in Pathfinder & Starfinder society adventures, imo.

Paizo is being pretty adamant about not doing maps that go with APs - the Town Square one for Rise of the Runelords AE is the only exception they made - but they are making them for their Second Edition adventures (aka modules).
The ones for "Crypt of the Everflame" and "The Fall of Plaguestone" sold out very fast and have both being reprints (the later one immedeately).
If that continues with the next two adventure-specific flip-mat products (The Slithering & The dead gods hand), they may change that stance, but D&D may have to show them first that these kinds of products sell very well, like they did with the Bestiary cards, which i pitched for Pathfinder before they were done for 5e.

It only makes sense that someone that doesn't have time to make up their own adventures would also want to save time by not drawing out every dungeon.

I wold actually prefer if they would just print all the maps on poster paper, and not just have maps of the towns in the map packs, but 1" scale maps of all dungeons, I'd happily pay $30-$50 for it. They could even make a box with all 6 APs, maps, Pawns, face cards and equipment cards. I bet it would sell, it would be like the old D&D boxes. And I would prefer just buying a complete set, because I don't plan on running just one part of an AP once I start it, but one or two of the parts of older APs are sold out and selling for over $100 each, making it very hard to run these adventures.

What's even more annoying to me is that they make maps themed off the APs that are not usable in the APs. When I first got into Starfinder I bought all the maps thinking they correlated with the parts of the adventure about that subject, but the Catina, Ghost Ship and Astriod in Dead Suns do not match up to the Maps with the same names.

So I have maps sitting here that have never been opened, and will never be, since I'm not planning on making up adventures just to use them in.

I've started printing my own maps as Architectural docs which turns out to be pretty cheap. Color 3' X 4' for $12, laminated for $17, black and white for $7.

Ultimately they are making products for the customer, so they should do what most benefits the customer, which in turn will benefit Paizo through sales. What helps me the most are maps I can actually use for dungeons, I don't actually need them to be fancy, poster paper is fine, but having to draw them all out takes considerable time, having to print them myself takes less time, but still takes up some of my time. So I would happily pay to save that time, so I could play more and fiddle around less.

That's a whole lot of assumptions there.

I wold actually prefer if they would just print all the maps on poster paper, and not just have maps of the towns in the map packs, but 1" scale maps of all dungeons, I'd happily pay $30-$50 for it.

Not a viable product, and certainly not at a $30-50 price range.

The chance is pretty much zero. The maps of locations we publish in every adventure are big. As an experiment back in the day, I calculated how many pages a minis-scale map would entail for the big castle in the penultimate Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure.

It turned out that a minis-scale map of all of the levels of Castle Scarwall would make a map approximately the size of a parking lot. A year later, someone actually printed out ONE LEVEL of the castle at that scale, and it more or less covered the entire floor of his living room. And Castle Scarwall had like 6 levels.

Pagecount wise, this would be a map pack that would consist of I think it was about 350 pages or thereabouts, if I recall correctly.

The cost to produce 350 pages of maps doesn't change based on a map's scale—it costs just as much to print a 350 page minis-scale map as it does to print 350 separate pages of different dungeons. Which means that what we'd have to price that product would be insanely high. I wouldn't be surprised to see such a product end up costing close to a hundred bucks, honestly, if not more, since the cost to do that is several times more than the cost to do a 320 page hardcover book.

And remember, that's just for 1/6 of an adventure path. To do products like that for all six parts means that you'd have to shell out several hundred dollars more per Adventure Path.

I'm not sure many folks would go for that...

They could even make a box with all 6 APs, maps, Pawns, face cards and equipment cards. I bet it would sell, it would be like the old D&D boxes.

Also not viable, in Vic Wertz's judgment, though as he points out, you can buy the component pieces and throw in your own box. :)

Jrcmarine wrote:

...what are the chances of a boxed set product as mentioned above? :-)

Boxed sets are hard to create and—because the costs are really high—hard to make money on.

Let's look at the Greyhawk "From the Ashes" box set, which contains:

• Two 96-page books (a setting book and an adventure book, more or less)
  
• Three 32x21 maps
  
• Five monster sheets
  
• 20 reference cards
  
• A box
  

Now, let's model a Pathfinder equivalent.

• 96-page books are the size of an AP volume. We sell those for $22.99.
  
• Our Map Folios that contain 3 33x22 maps sell for $19.99.
  
• The best equivalent for "monster sheets" and "reference cards" would be our Campaign Cards, which sell for $10.99.
  
• We sold our Treasure Chest empty box directly from paizo.com for $2. (That actually has very little markup from cost—boxes are expensive; if we had to cover our costs on that through the distribution chain, it would be higher; for this exercise, let's call it $3.03 because it gets us to a retail price that we could actually use.)
  

Would you pay $79.99 for that?

And even if you would... do you think game stores or book stores would be thrilled to invest $48 (that's 60% of retail) for each copy on their shelf that may or may not sell for ages if at all?

Do you think there are people who can't budget $80 for a game product at one time, but would buy the parts over time?

Or people who wouldn't buy the whole box, but would buy just the campaign setting book, or just the adventure, or just the maps, or just the cards, or any combination of the above?

The truth is, we actually do plan a lot of our products as if we were making box sets—we just sell the components individually. When we release a new AP, we usually plan one or two books in the Campaign Setting line that work with the AP. We release a Map Folio, and a card set, and now eventually a token set, and maybe tie in a Flip-Mat or Map Pack or two. And we usually do a Player Companion that ties in as well.

And now that we're changing the Modules line into something more event-driven, you'll see that there as well. Look at The Dragon's Demand, and The Dragon's Demand Campaign Cards, and the Dragon Slayer's Handbook Player Companion and the Dragons Unleashed Campaign Setting book. It's a boxed set—just without the box.

And I would prefer just buying a complete set, because I don't plan on running just one part of an AP once I start it, but one or two of the parts of older APs are sold out and selling for over $100 each, making it very hard to run these adventures.

This encourages purchase of Paizo's new APs.

Finally, there's the notion of self-competition. If we give our customers too many similar products to buy, each of those products will sell fewer copies. Say a new player is looking to start playing an Adventure Path. If you have ten to choose from, odds are good that each one of those will garner about 10% of the new players. If you have five to choose from, each one will garner about 20%. Now, while our oldest APs are already profitable, our newest APs are just starting to contribute to the bottom line—if we don't get enough sales on the new ones to cover the costs, the line dies.

So the fact that our non-evergreen products do have a limited lifespan actually works for us in that respect. We need them to eventually get out of the way for the new guy, as it were.

And in the next post:

Brutal Ben wrote:

Personally I would mind the option of spending $79.95 - $99.95 for a complete adventure path set in hardcover. Probably would be about as thick as the PFRPG core rules though.

Offering a collected volume of each AP would be encouraging people *not* to buy volumes as they come out. If there's one thing you should take away from everything I've said in this thread, it's that that's a *very* bad strategy for us.

Also, your proposed price point would pretty much ensure that nobody bought it any other way, because the six volumes cost $119.94 as separate volumes ($83.94 for subscribers). Quite seriously, if we offered a product like you describe, we'd go out of business.

I keep getting these all or nothing responses. Basically you can't print all the maps because some are just too big, so then you can't print any of them. How does this make sense? There is a third choice you know? Print some.

In the aforementioned Starfinder Dead Suns part 1, there are three maps, all would fit on one side of the normal sized flip-map, why can't these be printed on the same paper used for Map Folios? Mass produced these three maps would run somewhere around less than $5 in printing costs. A map that's too big to fit on a table would need to be broken up into perts, and if those parts are more than a certain size it's just not feasible to print it. I understand that, I was a graphic design for 10 years and know quite a bit about printing, costs and the whole production process. I've also run my own business, I get those things.

But I see people all over the place asking for maps, or at least print ready PDFs so they can print them themselves. Those are people just waiting to throw money at Paizo, but Paizo has some strange idea that it's impossible to print any maps for APs, or even sell files to people so they can print the maps themselves. There's numerous people on the Interactive PDF products that say they would buy them print ready PDFs if they were available, or asking how to turn them into printable PDFs after purchasing them. The only cost in this product is have artist make maps at proper scale and then having someone create a PDF, this is purely digital and would be a great money earner as it takes up not warehouse space.

As far as the boxed set goes (maybe just a package would be better), you are already spending upwards of $150 for an AP, pawns and map folio. I understand why they are broken up, as for many people it's easier to digest at $20 a spend once a month. But there's already package deals on the site for some AP which include maps, all AP books and Pawns for $70. Look in the clearance section under Pathfinder 1.

Now a good way to do it would be wait six months to a year after the AP has come out and then sell them as a package for say $100. Anyone that's already playing the AP won't wait. And those that are waiting looking for a deal are going to buy the APs from a third party vendor at a greatly reduced price, not on this site, this way the money goes straight to Paizo not some discount outfit. It's definitely worth testing anyway and seeing how sales go.

As far as similar products, they are already offering too many in my opinion, I can't get through the APs as fast as they put them out I have never even played a Modules even though I own many, because I have so many APs to do that it will be years before I finish that APs. But I would buy any map that appears in an AP. I'm not even sure why this brought up, I'm not asking for new kinds of content just better supported content.

I keep getting these all or nothing responses. Basically you can't print all the maps because some are just too big, so then you can't print any of them. How does this make sense? There is a third choice you know? Print some.

1) No one has claimed that at all.

2) Paizo already is/has done your “solution”.

It’s probably best to stop making assumptions about how much something costs and how well it will sell as well. You can throw in a rather nebulous claim of being in this market and knowing how things work as a defense for your unviable wants, but the actual people producing the product have stated multiple times how such things would not be profitable.

As for the bundles Paizo has you kinda defeated your own point. They’re P1 products. In the clearance section. Paizo is taking a hit to move them.

Now a good way to do it would be wait six months to a year after the AP has come out and then sell them as a package for say $100.

And then no one buys the APs and Paizo has to lay off a bunch of their staff since one of their main sources of income just got cut.

And those that are waiting looking for a deal are going to buy the APs from a third party vendor at a greatly reduced price, not on this site, this way the money goes straight to Paizo not some discount outfit.

Please point out what other site sells Paizo PDFs.

It's definitely worth testing anyway and seeing how sales go.

It’s not. In the slightest. But continue to tell publishers how to publish.

As far as similar products, they are already offering too many in my opinion, I can't get through the APs as fast as they put them out I have never even played a Modules even though I own many, because I have so many APs to do that it will be years before I finish that APs. But I would buy any map that appears in an AP.

You do realize your suggestion would lose Paizo money right? Maps don’t make Paizo money. Adventures and Rulebook do.

They have the schedule they do for APs and other Adventures because not every adventure is for everyone, so they have the pace so you’re not waiting a year or more hopefully for something you might like.

I'm not even sure why this brought up, I'm not asking for new kinds of content just better supported content.

Bundling things at a loss and producing more niche maps isn’t better supported content, especially if it costs other content in the process. You’re acting like people want maps more than adventures. Not everyone does. I don’t care about the maps (not to diss the maps, I just never use them).

I like art books. I also realize art books don’t sell in the slightest. I’m not gonna ask Paizo to screw themselves and their other customers over to put out more art books.

If maps made more profit than Adventures I can safely say Paizo would be aware of that.

@blazestudios23

Rysky is right about one thing:

It makes no sense for Paizo to collect their APs on a regular base, because a lot of people would wait for the collected Edition and Paizo is financing it's business model through monthly products.

They should (and probably will) collect these from time to time, like they did with the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, Curse of the Crimson Throne and the upcoming Kingmaker hardcover collection.
But i wouldn't expect a fourth collection before another 3 years have passed.

All other points you have made remain 100% viable.

D&D 5e is selling maps for their hardcover Adventures and they sell very well, even the deluxe versions from Beadle & Grimm.

Hundreds of Pathfinder players have asked me over the years if there are maps for the APs which they could buy.
Especially newer players who don't make their own adventures (yet) or older players who have full-time jobs and don't have the time want these products.

I know of people who have made a business of printing the maps out on paper, like you said and selling them to the interested.
They charged about $60 for all maps in one adventure path issue and there were quite a few people who paid them that.

Paizo has been making a lot of money with Flip-Mats as it seems.
I have bought every Pathfinder & Starfinder flip-mat so far, but i have used maybe 15% of those.
I am not buying everything anymore - i am not designing Adventures around a dungeon flip-mat, after all.

But i would buy ALL flip-mats depicting either key areas from adventure paths or multi-packs making up large dungeons from APs.

While it isn't viable nowadays to produce boxed sets, prices, technology and tastes have changed a lot in the last years.
What hasn't changed, is people asking for the right sized miniature maps for the Adventures they are playing.

blazestudios23, you're probably better off looking to the community for the content you want than waiting for Paizo to produce it. Many (most? all?) Paizo APs have threads on this forum where community members freely share content that they've created, including maps scaled for miniatures. Take a look around, you might like what you find.

blazestudios23, you're probably better off looking to the community for the content you want than waiting for Paizo to produce it. Many (most? all?) Paizo APs have threads on this forum where community members freely share content that they've created, including maps scaled for miniatures. Take a look around, you might like what you find.

Thanks Fumarole, I will do this.

I know of people who have made a business of printing the maps out on paper, like you said and selling them to the interested.

They charged about $60 for all maps in one adventure path issue and there were quite a few people who paid them that.

For the record, it's a breach of copyright laws to simply print out the maps and sell them (just in case anyone reads that and thinks it sounds like a viable business model).

Marco Massoudi wrote:

I know of people who have made a business of printing the maps out on paper, like you said and selling them to the interested.

They charged about $60 for all maps in one adventure path issue and there were quite a few people who paid them that.

For the record, it's a breach of copyright laws to simply print out the maps and sell them (just in case anyone reads that and thinks it sounds like a viable business model).

I am not sure that is always the case.

You are allowed to photocopy stuff you own for your own personal use, aren't you?

It is another thing if you do that for a living/to make a profit, of course.

Steve Geddes wrote:

Marco Massoudi wrote:

I know of people who have made a business of printing the maps out on paper, like you said and selling them to the interested.

They charged about $60 for all maps in one adventure path issue and there were quite a few people who paid them that.

For the record, it's a breach of copyright laws to simply print out the maps and sell them (just in case anyone reads that and thinks it sounds like a viable business model).

I am not sure that is always the case.

Both the person who photocopied and printed out the the maps in a copyshop and the person who paid them owned print copies of the adventure path issues in question.
They also were player & gamemaster in the same rpg group initially.

You are allowed to photocopy stuff you own for your own personal use, aren't you?

It is another thing if you do that for a living/to make a profit, of course.

Selling something you have copied is pretty much the definition of not for your own personal use.

Steve Geddes wrote:

Marco Massoudi wrote:

I know of people who have made a business of printing the maps out on paper, like you said and selling them to the interested.

They charged about $60 for all maps in one adventure path issue and there were quite a few people who paid them that.

For the record, it's a breach of copyright laws to simply print out the maps and sell them (just in case anyone reads that and thinks it sounds like a viable business model).

I am not sure that is always the case.

Both the person who photocopied and printed out the the maps in a copyshop and the person who paid them owned print copies of the adventure path issues in question.
They also were player & gamemaster in the same rpg group initially.

You are allowed to photocopy stuff you own for your own personal use, aren't you?

It is another thing if you do that for a living/to make a profit, of course.

A product discussion thread isn’t the right place to debate it, so I won’t say anything more beyond pointing out that this:

“I know of people who have made a business of printing the maps out on paper, like you said and selling them to the interested.“

isn’t personal use.

“... there were quite a few people who paid them that.”

I'm oK with more generic dungeons. As long as they match up with previous releases, it gives me more options.

If I want to make something from an Adventure Path, I usually have to draw it, as they're just too specific and unique to match any of the preprinted maps directly. If I want to recreate it somehow, then I usually have to combine flip mats combined with pieces of map packs and colored paper used as fog of war to cover the unused sections.

For the most part, I use generic maps for everything that's not covered by a module or adventure path. If there's a random encounter, then I plop down the proper ambush sites map. I recently used the new and improved flip mat version of the "Ambsuh Sites" series for the first time. The players noted how there was fog in the streets making it extra creepy.

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