Yes, I was referring to pre-packaging PF1 Society material for use/sale on the VTTs, as opposed to individual DMs winging it with home-grown material.
Regarding Crypt of the Everflame, yes, I understand that there is a boatload of content already available for use/sale on VTTs, but I am limiting this question to just the PFS material, and just for PF1.
The fact is, the Society material for PF2 is currently being adapted for VTTs (Fantasy Grounds, at least, I'm not sure about others). And this would make sense, given that there is active development and play happening in that milieu. And, of course, much of that play is happening remotely, in the time of the Plague, so VTT makes sense.
My question, which I thought was in keeping with the underlying questions of this thread, is whether it would make any sense to go back to the 10 seasons of PF1 PFS material, and adapt it for use in the same way? Or, has its time, and use, come and gone, and only a very small number of GMs would ever make use of it?
I fear I am not doing a very good job of communicating my question.
In any event, thanks for the responses. If the above helps clarify it at all, and you have further comments, please let me know.
Cheers,
- s.west
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Yes, I was referring to pre-packaging PF1 Society material for use/sale on the VTTs, as opposed to individual DMs winging it with home-grown material.
There is a huge range of space between those two options.
I ran most of the later part of Mummys Mask on Roll20, for PFS credit.
I suggest you look up warhorn. Go to games and set the filters to PFS1. On the first page alone I counted 6-7 mods being run as public games.
Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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I doubt that packaging PFS1 scenarios for VTT sale looks particularly profitable. You'd be taking ever shrinking slices of potential customer base, as you add conditions:
1. Plays PFS
2. Plays PFS1
3. Wants that particular scenario for VTT play
3A. On your particular VTT.
4. Hasn't already converted it themselves and doesn't know someone who has
5. Actually buys pre-converted content ( a LOT of the user base does not)
To meet all of those probably doesn't leave that many paying customers to make each old scenario you convert a profitable product.
Thanks! Very helpful. Those were the kinds of insights I was looking for.
Cheers,
- s.west
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I have a very selfish reason not to want prepackaged tables. There is currently a huge GM lending library of created tables.
Roll20 rules say you are not allowed to share tables of content that competes with their market place.
So if (for example) Roll20 makes a Plunder and Peril Mod available, and puts it up for sale, GMs can't (or at least aren't supposed to) share their personally created Roll20 Tables of Plunder and Peril.
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With how easy it is to setup a roll20 table for play of a scenario I do not think there would be any profit in buying it from companies who have done it for you. In my experience it is easier to setup for a VTT than it is for a face to face game. Maps are often easy to copy/paste into VTT software. Sometimes there is a small challenge with getting the grid to lineup but after having done it a few times it is easy. Having everything else at my fingertips is easier than having to juggle books and electronics for reference at a live table.
I'm not saying that VTT play is superior to face to face play in its entirety but aspects of it definitely are.
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Respectfully disagree on this. I am running Extinction Curse on Roll20 and I purchased the first book. The best money I have ever spent. Top notch setup of a table with EVERYTHING I could have wanted. I would have spent HOURS setting up the table.
For Adventures, I can maybe agree with you. Depending how deep you go into the setup will determine how much time it will take. I personally HATE GMs who don't use character sheets for NPCs and just use the dice roller.
I think prepping for an in-person game takes less time than for a VTT. But I like to have a more complete experience for the players.
Depending on where in-person games are held, I may use a hybrid approaching to in-person gaming.
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Prepackaged VTT scenarios - especially for a campaign that is not producing new material - are a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation. Everyone has made their own since nothing is available. Is there a market for prepackaged scenarios or has it been saturated by the homemade versions?
There are technological conundrums as well. On Roll20 the "Community" sheet seems to be by far the most common for PF1 games. So should they use that or the "Roll20 Official?" Official would give them much better control over troubleshooting and tech changes, but a lot of people would refuse to buy premade tables that weren't using the Community sheet.
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I think there is a market for prepackaged products, just like there is a market for pre-written adventures. Why buy a prepackaged module for roll20 when you can just create it yourself? You could also ask why buy a pre-written module when you can make it all up yourself. I'm running Ironfang Invasion on Roll20 and while buying it prepackaged might sound great, I've discovered I deviate enough that I'm probably doing as much work as if I just build it all myself from scratch.
I'm sure their is a market for prepackaged material for the various VTTs. Of course the question is, how big is that market? I tend to think that if it was as big as some people suggest, the VTT companies would certainly be producing prepackaged adventures. They would be foolish not to. However, its probably more reasonable that the market is not that big and while they generate some content, its not worth it to produce it in greater quantity.
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If I was in charge. . .
I'd run an employment competition of sorts. Pick 3 repeatable scenarios and let anyone who wanted to make a table for those scenarios. Those tables become free to everyone. Let players and GMs nominate their favorite builders. Open voting on the nominees and the top two or three vote-getters from each scenario (so 6-9 total) win a contract from me to make official VTT packages.
Contract Terms:
I assign you a scenario, you build the VTT. You don't get anything up front but you get 50% of the profits from that scenario's VTT sales.
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I agree with TwilightKnight. Anecdotal evidence aside my statement was that I doubted that there was profit in it, not whether they exist or if they are purchased. That takes overcoming overhead and actually having a profit margin. If empirical evidence exists I would be interested in it. Perhaps I am wrong.
I fully understand that profit isn't the only reason to do something. In fact I fully support doing things just for the enjoyment of yourself and others. If there is enough support of these products on VTTs then it helps the product themselves profit too and that is good for gamers in general.
Regarding prep time for adventures ... well, I just can't see it taking longer than physical prep. It might have to do that I work in IT and am a PC gamer as well so spend much of my time at a keyboard. Doing anything on a PC is just second nature to me. But even without that with mapping alone it saves so much time on a VTT. Time into setup can be said for both mediums. I've sat at some tables with pretty intricate setups face to face. I can setup a game quickly and easily enough in roll20 that it just isn't worth it to me to buy it even if it sold for a couple of dollars. It also helps to practice for "home" (we are still playing via roll20 for home games) games.
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On the topic of mapping outside of printed material I have recently found some Steam software that has been really helpful: Dungeon Painter Studio. Hopefully I'm not breaking rules as this isn't really an advertisement (I don't work for the company or anything). It is great software and does exactly what I need it to do. It is considered early access software right now so it is pretty cheap but is a full product as far as I can tell.
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But since APs take more dedication and time to run and play through you're not generally going to see them publicly advertised.
They're more the thing that a close group of friends will get together for.
That's true for (my admitted limited) experience as well. Before the pandemic, our FLGS store discouraged anyone from running APs at the store, because they competed for players and table space with other events at the store, and weren't remotely suited to the kind of drop-in play that helps recruit new OP gamers.
The only time it's actually worked was a few months before the pandemic forced everything to go online, when attendance for one of our two weekly PFS slots was down enough that it was pretty much consistently just our handful of regular GMs. So that night got switched over to the GMs playing an adventure path together. That game doesn't get posted on Warhorn, but we do reserve one night a month in that slot for an openly advertised one-shot (usually SFS) to give the GMs a break. That schedule has remained pretty much intact for the past year.
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Any thoughts on this now with PathfinderInfinite?
From my first read-through of the Guidelines, FAQ, and terms - it does appear that Pathfinder Infinite could provide a jumpstart for a sufficiently motivated individual/group. Mainly because there is now a way to profit off the work put into new material. Even if it's not really a living wage.
Many of the time-consuming start-up efforts required are still in place with Pathfinder Infinite as were there with the CUP. (You can't use Paizo's chronicle sheet format.) As well as some new ones like not being able to use all the logos in the CUP. Including, I think, the PFS logo. (Haven't checked all the released Infinite packages yet.) But again, it doesn't have to be entirely unpaid labor.
It's a brand-new policy so there's still a lot of spaces that need a real lawyer looking at it. (You could write a "PFS1.5" scenario and charge for it, but can you charge nominal fees for campaign participation as a whole?) Some PFS authors have already spoken about how they wouldn't want someone else converting their written adventures and Paizo's response to the legality was an ambivalent "sort-of." (Speaking as a PFS author, I haven't decided how I feel yet.)
And to me the biggest risk is still splintering of the campaign. If anything that risk is amplified now that anyone can try to make a couple of bucks off writing/converting a scenario. Especially if we get a half-dozen individual conversions of each Season 0 scenario put up for sale before anyone makes a real effort at an overarching campaign.
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And to me the biggest risk is still splintering of the campaign. If anything that risk is amplified now that anyone can try to make a couple of bucks off writing/converting a scenario. Especially if we get a half-dozen individual conversions of each Season 0 scenario put up for sale before anyone makes a real effort at an overarching campaign.
Agreed with the risks. I'd be willing to put in a good bit of time to help organize/maintain an "Infinite" campaign, with the same relation to PFS-Standard as Standard is to Core (i.e. once you go beyond Standard, you can't go back).