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MW is currently 50% off at Chaosium.com


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1 hour ago, Rick Meints said:

Out of curiosity, I see a number of people in this thread use phrases like "lots of people" and "loads of people" when it comes to the number of people interested in purchasing MW material.

Pretty sure only Soltakss did, actually - I said “Lots of people post stuff in the forums or to the downloads section.” Which has a somewhat different meaning.

What I’m getting at is I don’t think we (in a general sense) are making the mistake that there’s some huge untapped market for Magic World - I think precisely the issue is the general awareness of how niche it is, and difficult a prospect making a success of any sort of support product would be.

*shrug* Depending on how things go this year with real life ™ I may finally get round to doing something with what I have left from the unpublished Magic World projects I was previously involved with. What I couldn’t say, and it’s equally likely that work or other commitments will eat my time. But MW (or my personal hack of it for SF) is pretty much the only D100 game I play or run these days, so I’m likely to always be lurking on the fringes at least.

 

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In the end, The Chaosium can't sustain a product line on under 1000 sales of each item in that line.

Some simple math: If we pay decent wages to have someone write a book, and decent wages to edit, lay out, and create the art for a book then we are investing $5,000 or more. Printing 1000 copies of even a basic black and white layout book in softcover is another $3000, color hardcover far more. We'd be lucky to sell a lot of a 128 page B&W book for that much.

Let's say that 128 page book sells 1000 copies for $34.95 retail, which yields us $14 for each copy sold through distribution. We sell all 1000 copies and make $14,000 gross.

The numbers get tight on good sellers. A few ok sellers and you don't make anything for all your time and effort. Magic World didn't sell 1,000 copies. Far less.

The money just wasn't there.

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Hope that Helps,
Rick Meints - Chaosium, Inc.

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Gotta go where the profit is. Understand that. God knows I did some work promoting both MW & BRP. Wish I had discovered the wonderful material sooner. I'm an avid Roleplayer with hundreds of books several systems and never picked up a book from either of these two games. How many players are just like I was? I'm betting a lot. When I pushed MW in my group, my local game stores, even on line in PBP games, no one was familiar. I know I hooked a few people on the system but...

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Author QUASAR space opera system: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/459723/QUASAR?affiliate_id=810507

My Magic World projects page: Tooleys Underwhelming Projects

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This is kinda why everybody, including old Chaosium,  dipped into the D&D 3E OLG pool last decade (seems like yesterday). Bigger fanbase, more potential sales. So there is a certain point where the returns aren't worth the investments, financially, and Chaosium isn't owned by a multimillionare who can just keep funding it for years while losing money (i.e. David Brown and Aston Martin in the 70s).

Of course part of this is the higher production values coming back to haunt us, too. The prettier a RPG looks, the more color, art, and the nicer the layout, glossy paper, hardcover, all increase the investment in terms of cost and time, and thus the higher the return required to be profitable. That higher return can be somewhat offset by a higher price tag, but also requires higher volume of sales. So there is a trade off.

Of course if the PDF sales Magic World would to suddenly skyrocket, things would probably change. But the only possible way for that to happen is probably by third party (=fan produced) stuff. 

Maybe someone would like to do a Magic World fanzine?

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Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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14 hours ago, Rick Meints said:

Let's say that 128 page book sells 1000 copies for $34.95 retail, which yields us $14 for each copy sold through distribution. We sell all 1000 copies and make $14,000 gross.

The numbers get tight on good sellers. A few ok sellers and you don't make anything for all your time and effort. Magic World didn't sell 1,000 copies. Far less.

The money just wasn't there.

Thanks Rick! Appreciate the insight... 

Stormbringer! - Exploring the worlds of the Eternal Champion at http://www.stormbringerrpg.com

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54 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

Maybe someone would like to do a Magic World fanzine? 

Nice idea... 

I'd be up for supporting that... maybe its a way to revive my old MW fansite? 

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Stormbringer! - Exploring the worlds of the Eternal Champion at http://www.stormbringerrpg.com

Unbound Publishing - Bringing back the fear - http://www.unboundbook.org

DCtRPG.info - Supporting Dark Conspiracy across the decades - http://www.darkconspiracytherpg.com

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On 1/16/2019 at 11:19 AM, Atgxtg said:

Maybe someone would like to do a Magic World fanzine?

Nice! A product all twelve of us can enjoy 😀

I'd be happy to add some underwhelming projects to it.

Maybe we could call it The Chroniclers Companion.

*ugh still too soon😖*

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Author QUASAR space opera system: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/459723/QUASAR?affiliate_id=810507

My Magic World projects page: Tooleys Underwhelming Projects

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Someone will take a chance on a Magic World license. The problem of course is expectations. There are Stormbringer fans and fans of the MW setting itself.  Everyone will want something a bit different. So navigating that could be intimidating. Still, I think there are plenty of opportunities out there. 

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Its 2300hrs, do you know where your super dreadnoughts are?

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16 hours ago, Sean_RDP said:

Someone will take a chance on a Magic World license. The problem of course is expectations. There are Stormbringer fans and fans of the MW setting itself.  Everyone will want something a bit different. So navigating that could be intimidating. Still, I think there are plenty of opportunities out there. 

Maybe that's where a zine can shine? You can have multiple articles/essays/whatever that touch on a number of things, but are hopefully unified by some sort of theme, for each quarterly/annual release (or semi-decadal as the case may be?). Time permitting, I'd be happy to contribute something to this kind of project.

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1 hour ago, Nick J. said:

Maybe that's where a zine can shine? You can have multiple articles/essays/whatever that touch on a number of things, but are hopefully unified by some sort of theme, for each quarterly/annual release (or semi-decadal as the case may be?). Time permitting, I'd be happy to contribute something to this kind of project.

Totally agree. Magic World is certainly in a good position for a fanzine. 

Its 2300hrs, do you know where your super dreadnoughts are?

http://reigndragonpressblog.blogspot.com/

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I like the idea of focusing on a theme of MW... supporting a particular flavor.
Like pushing the 'Talking Animals' content of MW... or the Fae aspects of the Southern Reaches... or variations of demons, demon relics, summoning and DCC-ish 'Patrons'.
It's aimed at MW fans, but with a bit of luck it might be bait to lure in some new interest.

Edited by Simlasa
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Note also, because of the BRP base articles written for MW would be of some use to players of other BRP games. 

Is there an umbrella fanzine for all BRP games? If so material could be sent there. This would get stuff out there but also increase MW's exposure to a receptive group. Just thinking.

 

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I think new players are the key. MW is positioned in a place where renewed interest might give it a second life, IF a new group of players can be convinced to try it based on products and settings. These days that means some kind of streaming too, not just a decent product. Can it play on Twitch? I think so, but AFAIK it is untried.  But the potential is there. 

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Its 2300hrs, do you know where your super dreadnoughts are?

http://reigndragonpressblog.blogspot.com/

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7 hours ago, Coronoides said:

Note also, because of the BRP base articles written for MW would be of some use to players of other BRP games. 

Is there an umbrella fanzine for all BRP games? If so material could be sent there. This would get stuff out there but also increase MW's exposure to a receptive group. Just thinking.

 

That kind of fanzine could be quite a boon. I could see some adventures that could work for multiple games and have multiple stats. For instance a Magic World adventure is already 90%+ compatible with Stormbringer, and at least 70% compatible with RQ or BRP. A Pendragon adventure could easily be adapted to Prince Valiant, and so forth. . 

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Chaos stalks my world, but she's a big girl and can take of herself.

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Okay, I finally caved in and ordered a copy. I've been sneaking around MW for years (a major part of my rpg upbringing was Stormbringer 1st). I hope it will fall somewhere in my sweet spot between OpenQuest and Mythras in terms of complexity. And the continued fan interest by a small, but dedicated group here did a lot to convince me that MW, despite its problematic history, is actual a very good Iteration of BRP.

Let's see that fanzine, now!

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2 hours ago, Jakob said:

Okay, I finally caved in and ordered a copy. I've been sneaking around MW for years (a major part of my rpg upbringing was Stormbringer 1st). I hope it will fall somewhere in my sweet spot between OpenQuest and Mythras in terms of complexity. And the continued fan interest by a small, but dedicated group here did a lot to convince me that MW, despite its problematic history, is actual a very good Iteration of BRP.

Let's see that fanzine, now!

Congratulations! In my view you are buying  the BEST iteration of BRP!

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Check out our homebrew rules for freeform magic in BRP ->

No reason for Ars Magica players to have all the fun!

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  • 1 year later...
On 1/11/2019 at 6:23 AM, MOB said:

In fact, to mark the new review on RPG.Net, MAGIC WORLD and ADVANCED SORCERY are both 50% off at Chaosium.com:

http://bit.ly/2SNNOml

1765429708_ScreenShot2019-01-11at3_44_03pm.png.a52ebde28397792078f7d51a295ad0b7.png

In fact it is even cheaper now!

There is a lot of stuff on sale on Chaosium.com including both Magic World & Advanced Sorcery. Both of them for 10 bucks each, it's a steal!

Edited by Christoph Kohring
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Guest Vile Traveller
9 hours ago, Christoph Kohring said:

There is a lot of stuff on sale on Chaosium.com including both Magic World & Advanced Sorcery. Both of them for 10 bucks each, it's a steal!

If only there were a DTRPG PoD option (BTW, the DTRPG PDF of MW is still at full price). $10 each is a great price for the books, but it comes with $55 shipping for me.

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  • 2 weeks later...
2 hours ago, jackleg2010 said:

I had been looking at it. The price is nice, so I ordered the print version. They also included the PDF. 🙂 I was wondering, is there any major errata to look for in the book?

The PDF should be edited to include all of the errata. but here's the errata (as of 2016) 

 

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On 5/10/2020 at 2:48 AM, Vile said:

$10 each is a great price for the books, but it comes with $55 shipping for me.

Considering that you live in The Underworld, that makes sense! 😜

Kidding aside, @Vile, did you see that both are available not only from the USA but also from the UK? Maybe one of the warehouse locations is cheaper than the other for shipping to HK?

Edited by Christoph Kohring
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