Quote from: mcbobbo;681353I'm detecting a lack of shouting thus far...

Historically, I mean.  I'm relieved to see others think it'd work, frankly.

I think it would be a cheap publishing alternative for quick-start modules, and these days no one bats an eye at paying $4 or $5 for a comic. Might even get more rpg products into comic shops.

The problem with a gaming club is that people aren't great about paying membership fees and if there's a place to play for free the people will mostly go there instead.

Selling some product lets them spend their gaming dollars at the club and support it at the same time.  One thing that can work is an annual membership fee for a sizable discount.  Another I've contemplated is a table fee and table time cuepons for purchases.

I don't know about a comic book format.  The advantage in price comes at fairly high volumes.  I've seen ash can / little black book sized booklet modules and a few other mini module games..  I have thought that a legal sized cover with an overleaf of counters / foldups would be a good way to go on such a product.  But a comic book sized booklet would be better if you could afford printing on that scale.

I looked pretty closely at publishing Galactic Adventures in a magazine format initially and doing issues to support it.  Even there, a web press run of a 32 page 8 1/2 x 11 booklets was running $5000 - $10000.  And you had to run around 5000 copies or there abouts.  It's ten year old information though.

Quote from: David Johansen;681390I don't know about a comic book format.  The advantage in price comes at fairly high volumes.  

http://ka-blam.com/printing/front/

Ka-Blam prints comics like Lulu prints books.  I can print a 32-pager with color cover, b&w interior for $2.04 per copy.  Full color interior jumps to $3.30.  That's regardless of total # ordered.

The downside I saw was that they need the files in a slightly persnickety way with regard to bleed and stuff; I presume a layout person would understand what they're saying, but what I took away was "don't just send them a pdf".

Anyway, this thread came at a great time; have a few friends starting up a small game shop, and they're definitely Magic-focused stock wise to start, which just makes good sense.  Keeping the right rpg stock is going to be a challenge in that venue, I think.  We'll see what happens.

Interesting, you'd need to charge $6.00 or even $8.00 to sell it through retail.  I wonder what their minimum orders are.

Quote from: David Johansen;681461Interesting, you'd need to charge $6.00 or even $8.00 to sell it through retail.  I wonder what their minimum orders are.

Minimum order is one; they have a sister site where customers can order the comics and you get a cut etc etc.

At the same price?

I wonder what the print quality is?  Still, it's an interesting venture.

Cheap newsprint pages ( like old comics ) in b&w with a colour cover couldn't be too much. Shopping around, one could probably do a decent retail of 5.99-6.99,  which is still at " impulse buy" level. Could probably, if ambitious enough, get them carried through Diamond. Initial investment might be a bit, but certainly less than, say, the format currently used by DCC, and unlike a comicbook series , issues wouldn't " expire" , so initial back stock from a run of say 3000 , would continue to make money with reorders.

At the very least it would be a cheaper alternative to a $10 to $20 module. And I honestly think the format would give it an edge in sales.

My understanding is that newsprint while cheaper in bulk is unsuitable for the low run methods and that even for actual comics it's not cost effective compared to white paper.

Even so, I miss newsprint comics.  And I loved the comic style Mechanoid Invasion Book I.  So I'm not against the idea, I just wonder if it's logistically sound.

It's somewhat like the old saw "Why don't they just do all the miniatures in plastic so they could be cheaper?"  There's a break point at which point the cost of the moulds means the plastic isn't cheaper at all.

Even so, I do think cheaper formats and introductory products are probably the thing that's needed to save the rpg industry.  Minigames...

Actually, Steve Jackson's last Car Wars edition was a good format but he made some mistakes which led him to discard the idea as untenable.  The first was bad cover art.  Pictures of the counters fighting and the logo simply don't cut it.  What happened to Zircher's brilliant, airbrushed Autoduel cover painting?  The second was the whole two cars per booklet model.  The car control sheets could have been black and white and an actual core book with vehicle design and machineguns could have been done.  The last bad issue was the absence of car design and motorcycle design in the core.

Yes, I think the format would have worked if it was more like the original pocket box.  Just like I think D&D would do better as an introductory game if it was more like Basic D&D and less like a cross between Descent, World of Warcraft, and a parking puzzle.

Quote from: dungeon crawler;680562Here is how we met the need in my city. Our FLGS is next to some restaurants mostly family run sandwich shops. We approached one owner and asked for some play space. He was good enough to give us a try. We buy snacks and soda from him and clean up after ourselves. Space can be had we just have to be creative about finding it and support the shops that give us space.

I have to amend this post! Two more Restaurants/watering holes have added game nights. The first one premiered last night and it was packed. Here are the RPG's that I saw played. Mongoose Traveller, D&D Rules cyclopedia, Mutant Future, Savage Worlds, Pathfinder and a neat post apocalyptic game called Atomic Highway. This odes not include the board games and card games (Cribbage and such not a ccg in sight).

Quote from: jeff37923;679899In terms of value to a store, I'm trying to figure out how best to present RPGs in a way that they will be competitive for space with CCGs as things to be run or played. Thing is, from hanging out and observing a few CCG tournaments, I cannot say that it will be money because a CCG draft is a guarenteed group of sales for those involved.

So does anybody have any ideas or suggestions on how to present RPGs in a way that they will be considered viable competitors for space to play in a FLGS?

RPGs will never compete with CCGs. Among other things CCGs are just too convenient; quick setup and quick game play. This is probably the main reason they dwarf all other forms of gaming.

What you want to aim for is to make RPGs (and Board games) a steady profit center for the store.

The big issue (and it doesn't just effect RPGs) is the rise of internet publishing. As RPGs are primarily a book product and Internet publishing strikes  directly at the heart of the viability of RPGs at a game store.  What games stores have that the internet doesn't is a physical presence, and immediate service.

I wouldn't say the two are in competition any more than waterskis are in competition with roller skates. CCGs are more lucrative, however, but then so are video games and board games and just about every other type of game. The thing is, none of those are substitutes for or even comparable tO the experience of roleplaying. The closest would be the How to Host a Murder-type games, and I've advocated previously looking to those for ideas on presenting and marketing RPGs.

I used to play Magic on the tournament circle, and only a small minority of people that also played at the level seemed to be into roleplaying as well. Most of them were aware of D&D but not too interested in it.

There was an article on NBC News today about Magic in it's 20th year.  Looks like it makes a lot of money:

http://www.today.com/tech/20-years-magic-gathering-still-going-strong-not-just-middle-8C11044163

Quote from: deadDMwalking;687342There was an article on NBC News today about Magic in it's 20th year.  Looks like it makes a lot of money:

http://www.today.com/tech/20-years-magic-gathering-still-going-strong-not-just-middle-8C11044163

I got a big laugh out of someone else on the site saying that Hasbro bought WotC for the Pokemon license they had and not Magic. Even though Magic is basically fucking printing money.