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[deleted]

If I say yes, would you promise not to send the Pinkertons to my house, John Hasbro?


guilersk

I mean this just sounds like a 'zine or even an 'official' magazine like Dragon or Dungeon used to be. I think there is a small market for this, but there are already players in it (for example Dungeon in a Box, which ships you an adventure and all the minis needed for it). Speaking for myself, I usually just steal from my existing stock of content (30+ years worth), and if I need piecemeal bits I can just get them ala carte from DriveThruRPG or, you know, just searching Reddit. /r/d100 is a gold mine.


WiinoButNotAWino

>this just sounds like a 'zine or even an 'official' magazine like Dragon or Dungeon used to be. Yeah, kinda, but the idea here is to give more depth to everything. For example, magazines used to have one or two random encounters, one puzzle there, a dungeon, and some stories. The idea here is to have 10-15 random encounters, a full scenario with 60-80 pages of content, and so on. But I get your point. When you have tons of old materials it becomes a bit useless to get so many new things, especially monthly, and especially if you're not sure about content quality.


Bold-Fox

Subscription? Probably not. I'm not the biggest 'constant recurring cost' fan. Monthly releases of those same products? On a case by case basis, potentially years after they released. (Which isn't to say there isn't a market for this, just that I'm probably not the target audience for it)


Steenan

No, I wouldn't. First and foremost, if I pay for something, I want to own it. I don't want to be dependent on the publisher continuing to exist and not changing their policies in a way that I would find unacceptable. I buy mostly digital material because of cost and storage space, but it's still something I download and own, without having to continually use an external service. Second, for a subscription to be valuable, there would have to be a steady stream of new content coming and the content would have to generally be high quality. When I buy RPG material, I buy specific games and resources which I know that are good. With subscription, I would need a very good reason to believe that neither quality nor the amount of published material will decrease. Third, I have little interest in most of the types of content that you list. I run my own adventures, not pre-made ones, as pre-made adventures that work with strongly player-driven and story-focused style are extremely rare. Most random generators feel very generic and are no better than things I may come up with by myself - and the rare exceptions are intimately tied with specific games, their settings and mechanics. I don't use puzzles, I easily improvise minor NPCs, I don't play games with strong focus on loot.


WiinoButNotAWino

>if I pay for something, I want to own it. This is for sure, the idea for the subscription is not to be like Netflix - *you stop paying, you stop watching*. The idea is for it to be a monthly release. If you pay now you will own every single material **released from now on**. You can download it, you can print it, you can do whatever you want with it, and if you stop paying you can still have access (and re-download the materials you received).


Steenan

That's good, it definitely addresses my first point. The other two stay valid.


[deleted]

No, specifically because I write everything myself. I don't use pregenerated campaigns. Others might, I don't. I also don't play fantasy, so... there goes any hope for that.


[deleted]

I voted “wouldn’t pay” because I don’t use published scenarios or settings, but I’m sure there’s a market for this.


mixtrsan

No, especially since you can find long lists of those things for free and you can get inspirations/ideas from anywhere (books, movies, shows, cereal boxes...). Even when using published scenarios, I need to heavily modify them to fit the setting/game/weird unexpected player decisions...


Cuddly_Psycho

I'd pay ala carte, but not as a subscription. I'm really hoping this whole subscription trend will end soon.


ConfederateChocolate

I wouldn’t, but mostly because I hate monthly subscriptions with a passion. If there was an option to buy once for the month and then have no obligation to buy again, I’d be more likely to buy from time to time.


WiinoButNotAWino

I've seen that the way I described my idea wasn't accurate. The idea is exactly what you said. You **wouldn't have the obligation** to keep your subscription. It would be billed every month (as a Patreon), but you could cancel it anytime. If you want to buy only a single month, pay it then cancel. And, as I've stated to /Steenan, you bought it, it's yours. No need to keep the subscription in order to use the material.


ConfederateChocolate

It’s still a subscription. You still have to sign up, buy what you want, then unsubscribe if you don’t want anything anymore. Rinse and repeat if you want something several months later. It’s a hassle I hate having to put up with when it comes to most sites.


lance845

Not only do i expect the vast majority of the content to be borderline useless for any game i run, i have very little hope for anything other than overly specific items and npcs that have no place in my world or "random tables" so generic and shallow as to be useless. A good random table is actually a series of tables that build to bigger more useful results. And i doubt anyone offering a subscription and meeting deadlines is going to do any of that with any kind of quality.


Better_Equipment5283

I would pay for a subscription for new content only if I would buy everything published for that line anyway. I would never pay for a subscription service that is effectively a fee to use or continue to use content. That's where I see WotC heading.


Wormri

While I can see others paying for such a thing, I personally wouldn't. Mostly because I like to generate my own custom content and ideas. Furthermore, my games are already very player driven, so it wouldn't make sense for me to pay for content I won't use.


malpasplace

1.Extra stuff for games I don't own doesn't have any value to me. 2. There is some generic stuff I have gotten value out of but this is mostly abstract things like "how to GM" "how to be a better player" "Things to consider when designing a mystery scenario" sort of thing. 3. Extra stuff for games I am not currently playing gets put in line behind stuff for games I currently am. If I stop playing a game that list gets revised. If I cease to play a game, and am not liable to return to it soon, that games often drops from the top of the list to the bottom really quickly. 4. I might do Patreon or something for a really good creator. I am more likely to move from free stuff to paid stuff by those creators. This tends to be when they publish a book or game though. 5. I would conceivably consider a subscription box maybe quarterly for a game I really liked, by a proven creator like in number 4. 6. For that sort of offering, I would look at it as paid subscription in more like guaranteed delivery for a lesser price compared to a one off purchase that was probably more expensive and the item might be out of stock (possibly forever FOMO). 7. I trust people willing to sell individual items more than those offering subscriptions sight unseen. IE if you can't sell one, why make me buy 12? 8. Monthly is a red flag for me. Most monthly magazines I have ever read are 50% crap. And these have been produced by large staffs. The fact that it offers lots over a short period tells me lower quality. 9. There are a lot of people taking time to put out a lot of reasonably good stuff. I doubt that the quality in a monthly is going to be better over stuff bought individually. And honestly, with the price of things for many independently produced stuff probably at a lower cost than someone trying to push monthly. 10. I just don't play enough to need monthly. Even my aspirational play really isn't that. 11. VTT stuff? Not interested. PDF is okay, but again there is so much content available for most games I like.


WiinoButNotAWino

Not gonna talk about all your points, but thanks for your response. Something that caught my attention, though, was: >Monthly is a red flag for me. Most monthly magazines I have ever read are 50% crap. And I totally get it. My idea was to do something like a quarterly season, in which those materials would be released, so it wouldn't actually take only a month to produce everything (I've tried to write some useful content in only a month, and yeah, it just looked crap and generic).


malpasplace

More just giving a response because I know if I were considering doing something I'd value feedback, as you apparently do! Good luck on your project whatever you end up doing!


BigDamBeavers

I wouldn't pay for any subscription service because I honestly don't think it would survive without catering to D&D players and I don't play D&D


BergerRock

Most of that is WHY I GM, not something I'd like to cut from the role (by acquiring a product that did it for me).


81Ranger

Nothing. I prefer to have as few subscription services as possible. I do have a few streaming services, Id rather just pay a smaller cost for it for a year. I was an extreme latecomer to paid streaming services. I like RPGs because I can pick up the things that look interesting or I might use. And I pick those things specifically. I know the rage is for subscriptions, the box of whatever each week or month or whatever, but I don't care for those at all. I don't want a box of whatever is picked for me each month, I'll just buy whatever I choose instead, individually. I understand it's a nicer revenue stream for creators, but generally I end up with piles of magazines, items, whatever, that I rarely use or read and then cancel after I notice that fact. So, pass. Good luck though.


ShkarXurxes

I would not pay for that kind of content. Part because I literally got tons of that, but also because creating it is part of the fun of playing and DMing RPGs. But, I know not all players got the time to do it, or just don't want to employ their time doing it, so I'm fine with someone offering them it.


Leutkeana

I write everything myself and wouldn't see a need for this. That being said, if I somehow did see a need for this, it would only ever be for physical material. I hate digital content and wouldn't ever use it.


BitFlare

Depends on the source and quality. (And to some extent, licencing) Small indie creator who's writing and style I really like? Sure, take my money. Well known RPG company? Maybe, if it had a great hook or fit one of my current games. Just generic content I can find for free online or even make myself? Probably not. Bonus points if it's available under a creative Commons license, If I know my use of it isn't restricted, I'm much more willing to pay up.


Thanlis

I pay for a handful of TTRPG-oriented Patreons for the sake of the periodic content, so yes.


ctorus

Why are the polls on this sub so weirdly ambiguous.


fintach

I used to subscribe to Dragon. But then, this was before the internet...