Poll: What should be included in the D&D Bundle

[ddavison]

Let me know what you think so we can adjust the bundle appropriately. I know that a lot of people already bought the bundles, and we would like to find out what makes the most sense.

[spite]

Not included, but obviously also things like new PHBs, DMGs, and other core rulebooks is something that should be.

[Seya]

I would like bundles of the other adventures also. Even if it's just for ease of buying, and not discounts. It's hard to find all the modules for a campaign sometimes.

[JohnD]

Seems to me that these are 4e content being repurposed for 5e. Can they be used with other rulesets as well?

It would be nice if sets like this could get rid of the generic letter tokens many MM entries have.

[Galach]

I don’t know if this is possible, but instead of including tokens and maps on the D&D Bundle, you could create a “Gamming Accessories Bundle”, with tokens and maps. That way, people interested in purchasing a big “bag” of this kind of accessories could do it with a discount, same way as they are doing with D&D 5th Ed., without mixing both and getting “aggroed” customers… lol

Again, I don’t even know if that is possible because the variety of authors, or how you will be able to manage it, but it is an idea.

[BlueDrake]

The tokens are a big turn off for me. Even with the bundle discount the price for tokens is too high. They look pretty, but they just don't offer the same value as a digital version of one of the books. I think the bundle should be limited to the new 5E books only. Maybe you could offer an extended bundle, or an accessories bundle on the side. I've been buying my modules directly from the Fantasy Grounds site, but the inclusion of the tokens in the bundle makes buying the modules I want on Steam during a sale more appealing. Please reconsider.

[ddavison]

I think the Poll shows that enough users want them excluded, that it will make more sense to remove the token packs (current and future planned ones) from the bundle. Similarly, there are some map packs that we will release that we will keep separate as well. These are all going to be official D&D releases but they pull from older editions of D&D and not from newly released 5E content. On the plus side, they will be accessible within all rulesets.

I'm going to leave them up for another day though so that if anyone wants them as part of the bundle, they should consider doing it now. After I remove them, they will be back at full price.

[callahan09]

I think the token pack should be repurposed as a 4e product and include the stats that were included in the actual manual that those tokens are sourced from. Let the tokens remain compatible for all games, but why not include the 4e stats when the tokens come from a 4e book? In general, I *GREATLY* support the notion of past editions of D&D having official releases on FG. I understand the challenges involved and that it's not likely, but I personally think it'd be nice.

[ddavison]

That was our original request but our license does not extend to previous versions. These were actually part of various boxed sets and came with a mini adventure and map.

[Varsuuk]

I stand by not wanting them in "the bundle", but out of curiosity, would having these 2 packs cover all or all but teen fraction of Official MM "letter tokens"?

If so, I come closer to buying even though that much for Tokens (limited use vs a module) is off-putting to me... but if fully fleshed out 5E MM...maybe...

[Fudly]

I was really turned off by the bundle when I saw it included these:


Legacy of the Crystal Shard
Scourge of the Sword Coast


Everything I've read says these take 1-2 sessions to finish. I'm not paying $15 for one session.

[Fudly]

If I were you, I would just bundle the core classes, dm's guide, and monster manual. With everything else, there's too much potential for dead weight. Like I played through LMOP before learning about Fantasy Grounds. That's $15 in your bundle that would be completely wasted for me. That would make the bundle feel like much less of a deal even if it's still much better than buying everything individually.

Maybe you could just have a bulk discount. 4 or more 5e products over $10 and everything is 25% off. That should be tempting for most people.

[Nickademus]

I was really turned off by the bundle when I saw it included these:


Legacy of the Crystal Shard
Scourge of the Sword Coast


Everything I've read says these take 1-2 sessions to finish. I'm not paying $15 for one session.

I may be wrong, but weren't these half adventure/half setting information about a place in Forgotten Realms? I don't think the $15 is for just the play session.

[LordEntrails]

25% is a big discount. I would expect that to offer such, SW would need it to be on a large bundle, not just on the 3 core books/products that are the most popular. It incentives us to buy more, not to buy cheaply that which we already are likely to buy.

[Myrdin Potter]

I would prefer that the bundle be limited to official 5e D&D content. I bought the token packs to give me some more variety, but what I would love to see is a project to replace all the letters in the monster manual now with pictures instead.

[ddavison]

Thanks to everyone who participated in the poll. The results were pretty clear. People really wanted a bundle that focused exclusively on D&D fifth edition content that was released after the official launch of the edition.

Instead of a bundle with 14 D&D items, the bundle can now be completed with just 10 items. The other 4 items are still available outside the bundle.

To that end, we have pulled the earlier D&D Next playtest adventures that we had converted to be fully compatible with the latest fifth edition rules and we also pulled the newly released token pack volume 1 and volume 2. These are all still great additions to your D&D game, but they will no longer be a requirement to get the discounted bundle. The Token Packs help fill in a few gaps in the tokens available from the Monster Manual (Complete Core Monster Pack) and will also provide additional variety in imagery for some of the monsters. Those token packs can be used with any ruleset where fantasy creatures are needed. We may even add a 2nd bundle with this supplementary list of items as we add more of them over time.

We will be sure to run periodic sales on these other modules for those who would really like to get them at a discount.

[Answulf]

I guess there are no plans to have a core book bundle, without all the modules?

[JohnD]

Of course now you will have people who only bought the removed products to complete their bundle and get the discount, with no intention of using them. Can't make everyone happy!

[Varsuuk]

John, I doubt (but cannot know, of course) that anyone ho DIDNT want to ever use the tokens bought them as soon as they were out. I was in boat of not really wanting them so of course I waited until next product to come out to see if it was impressive enough to see if I'd continue with complete collection series or not and eat the $30-25% or not.

There is always the chance that someone right AFTER the big 25+25% off sale first discovered FG in the 1-3 days that was in the bundle but hey... buying that many at once, it becomes less of "wasted money" if didn't want and more "slightly reduced discount overall"...IMO...

[JohnD]

John, I doubt (but cannot know, of course) that anyone ho DIDNT want to ever use the tokens bought them as soon as they were out. I was in boat of not really wanting them so of course I waited until next product to come out to see if it was impressive enough to see if I'd continue with complete collection series or not and eat the $30-25% or not.

There is always the chance that someone right AFTER the big 25+25% off sale first discovered FG in the 1-3 days that was in the bundle but hey... buying that many at once, it becomes less of "wasted money" if didn't want and more "slightly reduced discount overall"...IMO...

Oh yeah no argument there. No argument anywhere for that matter. Simply observing that no matter what you do there will always be someone who thinks you should have done it differently.

Over the last 4+ years I've spent a significant amount of $ on FG purchases. Some I consider extremely high value/utility for the outlay, others not so much. Someone out there could have the exact same selection of purchased items and have an entirely different viewpoint.

[Answulf]

What I don't like about the bundle is that it's not new-customer friendly. You basically have to buy about 2 years worth of gaming products.

[spite]

I think the bundle is extremely new-buyer friendly. Since buying the two years gets a (generous) 25% off. You wont find that sort of discount on other product lines elsewhere. If someone wants to buy something piecemeal they can but the bundle discount is the best value for catching up.
Anything else would just be SW reducing cost of all modules by 25% for no reason.

[Nickademus]

I don't think the idea of 'the bundle' has ever been new-user friendly. The point is to reward someone for making a large investment. A new-user friendly move would be to have a few assets free for trying things out (which there are free things in the Store, just not 5e things). Then the user could choose to make the leap and benefit from the bundle or just buy a couple products at full price.

[Fudly]

Let's be real here. The point of discounts is to convince customers to spend money they wouldn't under normal circumstances. The mass majority of new D&D players aren't going to buy all of the 5e content in the store when buying one $25 campaign is all the content they need in a year. The problem is the bundle isn't meeting sales expectations (or this poll wouldn't exist).

I suggest making much smaller bundles. While selling $300 bundles must be nice, realistically, for every $300 bundle you sell, you could have sold 10 $100 bundles.

[spite]

I don't think that's accurate. This poll likely exists because of the negative reaction to the adding of the tokens to this bundle on the announcement thread. I don't pretend to know the sale rate of the bundle, but know that the reaction in the announcement was what sparked this discussion.
For content that costs 30-40 a piece, selling in bundles of 100 is only 2 steps away from a blanket discount on product.

[Mellock]

I think this specific bundle wasn't really aimed towards the new user who would get a product or two. It was more of a thank you to people who buy every 5e product anyway.
For new users, looking to dip their feet in, there are usually at least the winter sale and the summer sale (same time as steam) and sometimes a sale or two in between during the year (although mostly on products that are not 5e).

If you just want to dip in your toes, just take the free rules for a spin for a few sessions. By then a few months have passed and you'll have the winter sale going on.

[midas]

I always saw it as a combination of all of the things:

- There a number of people who've posted on the forums that when they bought into FG they went ALL in and got everything. This bundle will appeal to those users by giving them a discount on a bunch of stuff they were going to buy anyway.
- There are a number of people that buy some things, but not all--either because of costs or because they weren't sure they'd use it. This bundle can appeal to those users by either reducing the costs (in the case of the former) or lowering the price point so they say, "ah, what the hell" (in the case of the latter).
- There are a number of people who buy pretty much everything. This bundle will appeal to them as maybe they only need to pick up one or two more things to complete the bundle, and get discounts on everything released going forward.

I personally am in the last group there. What's become clear recently is that a good number of folks who are in that group (including myself) really only consider officially released 5e stuff by WotC to be "essential." We/they are not super interested in getting migrated content from previous editions, and I certainly have little interest in 3rd party adventures or supplements unless they come highly recommended from a number of sources. That's where the disconnect appears to have been, and Smiteworks quickly addressed the issue in the best way they could--they asked the customers what they thought.

I think it was a great idea to offer from a business standpoint. As for not being appealing to new users, that would apply to the other group I didn't mention above--those that will only by the few things they need, and probably wouldn't buy all the other stuff anyway, even at discounted prices. In that case the bundle isn't really losing Smiteworks any money as they probably wouldn't have sold that content to those individuals anyway.

I do like the idea some people have posited where there are some different bundles, like a "Core" bundle with PHB, MM and possible the DMG, maybe a "Campaign" bundle with the various adventure modules, etc. The issues I see with that are that not only does WotC have to approve this kind of stuff, but they'd also have to price it out in such a way to make it "fair" that if you bought the Core bundle today, and then the Campaign bundle a couple of months from now that you're not paying a significant amount more or less than those who did the "Full" bundle. Since the pricing of the existing bundle has already been set it could be complicated to sort of put that genie back in the bottle if they introduced other, smaller bundles and needed to adjust the price of the full bundle that currently exists. Just a lot of headache, and I don't know if it'd be worth all that effort from a financial standpoint.

[damned]

The whole "complete the bundle" (at least as far as RPGs go) I think started on RPGNow/DriveThruRPG and it is a good way to both reward your biggest customers and maybe encourage them to spend a little more.
Im personally surprised at how many people DO this - which is a good thing!
I think there is room for everyone on this scale as posters above have said. You can have a great 5e experience with zero additional spend and you can be the collector/fan-boy/non-stop-gamer and need/want it all and you are catered for. If you buy just some - you can buy what you want when you want and there are several sales during the year where you can grab that content at decent discounts.
Im seeing lots of wins here all round.

[Varsuuk]

It's always been referred to as a "loyalty discount", it has always been great for those that mostly get everything (especially great for those who ALWAYS get everything) because it likely ends up cheaper for them even getting one or three things they might not have thought to get. I may be out on a limb, but my guess is many of these "I wasn't jumping at it" (for me Strahd, since I've played Ravenloft 1e with our group except son, he is 9, and it wasn't a hit with anyone except one of the members who is no longer playing with us (might be messy... ex-fiancee from 80s) :)

Now, looking at it, I've found it cool to read. I still likely won't run it - BUT I may now be able to lift things from it for use in something I might write for us. Or not, the money I saved was more than the price of that module.

Is it newbie "friendly"? Well, depends, if the newbie tried out FG with demo for a while as a player and then wanted to DM - it is MEGA newbie friendly because they can get EVERYTHING from the start at 25-50% off. I had PHB, MM, DMG, LMoP, SCA, and Scourge already by the time they added "Complete your..." bundle. I still consider myself lucky - a little longer and I'd probably have only saved on one or two other modules.

If you read the forums, the consensus seems to be to DM pre-mades you "need" just the PHB and a module (e.g., LMoP) and that's it. Now, if a newbie who wasn't already sure he wanted it all or wanted to save for it - well, he could "give up" the discount on just 2 purchases (one which was less expensive) and then when ready could put their money down (figuratively) for the rest :)

Win-Win.

I would have SEVERELY doubted this poll had to do with any lackluster sales of the bundle even had their not been obvious context which explained the poll. I, myself, was one of those that felt perhaps adding "generic" and really totally "optional" art was perhaps too much.

[spite]

Argghh, what is this. This thread keeps jumping to the top saying Varsuuk posted today. I've checked this same post about 10 times now lol

[damned]

It just means someone else has voted...

[spite]

Ahhhhhhhh that explains it

[JohnD]

Argghh, what is this. This thread keeps jumping to the top saying Varsuuk posted today. I've checked this same post about 10 times now lol

Me too.

[ddavison]

I closed the poll since we found the answer we were looking for. Thanks again to everyone who shared their opinions and thoughts.

This poll wasn't created because of low sales of the bundle -- in fact, the bundle does very well and is quite popular. This poll was created specifically due to comments from people who preferred not to have to buy the new token modules in order to retain the "loyalty discount" that the bundle basically provides. This seemed to be the consensus, so we made changes to allow for that. We try to listen to our customers and take feedback seriously. It is never going to be possible to satisfy everyone's desires, so we aim to satisfy the majority of customers while still listening to all customers.

[gqwebb]

And we thank you Doug! Keep up the great development track!

https://i.imgur.com/d3Os2lG.gif