Product Idea: Drop-In Locations

[Giant2005]

I prefer proper books like we are getting.
Granted, the less demanded settings aren't getting as much attention as we like but I think possibly lowering the quality of the books would be a pretty bad patch job for the issue.
I think a better method is making more books that are less setting specific and can be applied to all settings fairly easily, much like the Mysteries of Magic book is but taken even more to the extreme. Ditch the PF tag and make it even more generic and you will have something equally valuable for anyone that enjoys the Megaversal System, regardless of their setting preferences.

[Jorel]

I think a middle ground could be good. I don't really care for the tiny books. Something the size of a Rifter at the least I would think, but not all that wasted ad space.

[Jorel]

Exactly and then the bloat will still likely keep it under 200 pages.

[Grug]

I think it's a good idea. Even though I'm kind of meh about smaller books. What I think would be a good middle ground is the drop-in location source books as pdfs only. Slap $5-10 on them as a pdf and I would be sold.

[Jorel]

That was what I meant. And I don't see a lot of bloat happening to smaller books.I really don't think 120 would get up anywhere close to 200 pages.

[ffranceschi]

A truly excellent idea...actually this could help all the lines in one year by giving them something!

[Jorel]

However most of the books Kevin has slated are not laid out in that fashion. Beyond Arcanum will be a big book I assume. Same with some of the fantasy books. I know they are splitting up the Splicers but I bet it is massive and will still be big once it is broken up.

[Scott Gibbons]

So, thoughts? Anyone like this? Anyone not a fan? It’s something I’d personally like to see, but I’m curious to see what people think.

An excellent suggestion. I liked (and bought) all four of the mini books for the Chi-town Burbs. I'd love to see some of these for the magic zone, a village in Shemarrian territory, the ruins of Seattle or San Francisco or some other West Coast place, a city in South America, a necromancer dominated city in the New Egyptian empire, and.. and... and...

Gosh, I think I'd buy a book (or many of them) that were like this.

[Jorel]

So, thoughts? Anyone like this? Anyone not a fan? It’s something I’d personally like to see, but I’m curious to see what people think.

An excellent suggestion. I liked (and bought) all four of the mini books for the Chi-town Burbs. I'd love to see some of these for the magic zone, a village in Shemarrian territory, the ruins of Seattle or San Francisco or some other West Coast place, a city in South America, a necromancer dominated city in the New Egyptian empire, and.. and... and...

Gosh, I think I'd buy a book (or many of them) that were like this.

Those are great suggestions.

[FluidicAztec]

I wasn't a big fan of the Adventure Sourcebooks, but I think your idea has merit. It would probably work better as a PDF in order to turn a profit on such a small book.

[Tiree]

I wasn't a big fan of the Adventure Sourcebooks, but I think your idea has merit. It would probably work better as a PDF in order to turn a profit on such a small book.

I'm with you on this. But indo think it is better than has merit. I think it's a great idea.

[The Oh So Amazing Nate]

I prefer proper books like we are getting.
Granted, the less demanded settings aren't getting as much attention as we like but I think possibly lowering the quality of the books would be a pretty bad patch job for the issue.
I think a better method is making more books that are less setting specific and can be applied to all settings fairly easily, much like the Mysteries of Magic book is but taken even more to the extreme. Ditch the PF tag and make it even more generic and you will have something equally valuable for anyone that enjoys the Megaversal System, regardless of their setting preferences.

I think i understand what you're getting at Giant, but I'm not 100% sure how it would work. The M.o.M. book is just info, if I recall, it isn't setting. How would you (suggest) go about making a generic setting book? I mean each game line has themes that set it apart from the others. To write something that generic (that it crosses platforms with little to no hiccup) sounds like (to me) it would be ultra-vanilla to point of being uninterestingly bland.

I'm not criticizing your idea by any means, more asking how it would work.

[Greyaxe]

I fee the OP had the solution in hand with his suggestion of the Rifter and more official material. If each Rifter dedicated 40% of the publication to officially sanctioned material I feel that could fill the gap between larger sourcebooks. It could be varied from Rifter to Rifter and or generic enough to adapt to any game line with stats for SDC/MDC like Hades and Dyval were.

[Jorel]

I'd prefer they have more fan stuff in the Rifter and have Official sourcebooks.

[bielmic]

So, thoughts? Anyone like this? Anyone not a fan? It’s something I’d personally like to see, but I’m curious to see what people think.

I think it is a good idea for the Palladium of the future but a bad one for the present day Palladium. The company needs to focus on clearing its plate of the existing massively delayed projects that they've already taken money for beyond just pie in the sky preorders (Lemuria in 1998!). Once that is done, I agree that sensible portions on the next trip to the RPG buffet would be a good idea to explore.

[Cybermancer]

I would love to see small books published more frequently. They could do adventure books or small scale setting books. They could even do small 'teasers' on other world settings. Keep them to the bare minimum and reference existing books for things like rules, OCC's and equipment as required. Palladium might possibly be able to squeeze out a few of these books a year in addition to their usual releases.

If they published it as optional material or less vital canon material, they could loosen the reigns a little bit and let some freelancers take up the slack.

Personally I like the idea of "City" books. Do books that detail one town, city or organization for an existing setting.

Actually, this has given me a couple of ideas.

[Tiree]

I'd prefer they have more fan stuff in the Rifter and have Official sourcebooks.

I would prefer that they make the current "Official" material in past Rifters, into their own compilation book.

[Jorel]

Similar line of thought.

[Spinachcat]

48 page books that are location supplements with adventure seeds would be good. I could see a line of them being successful. But maybe 96 page, aka Rifter size may make more sense for the price. But certainly modules seem to sell fine for other companies.

[Cybermancer]

The smaller modules seem to be doing okay for Dead Reign. No reason to think it wouldn't work for other books. Used to work for TMNT as well.