dmdave
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Poll #315 - What do you want in book format?
🕑 Added 2023-02-21 07:36:03 +0000 UTCThe good news: Helkara is up and running and I'm pretty proud of the first book that I wrote, edited, and published all in the span of a couple of weeks. However, the reception has been somewhat lukewarm.
Of course, I know why—you all have your own worlds! I've built my following on content that's easy to drop into your worlds. Therefore, when I try to create my own world and share it, it always does only kinda so-so. And that's fine.
(I recognize this is probably, like... the third time in 12 months I've come to this realization, but I digress.)
Anyways, I wanna keep making these little books.
But I want to make sure that it's something that you all want.
First up, I know I'm going to be publishing the Dungeons & Lairs books and probably grouping them by terrain since that'll be, in my mind, the biggest common uniter.
So expect some of those soon.
But I want to make some other cool stuff, too.
And don't worry... Helkara isn't on hold. I just have to make sure book 1 hits a certain sales threshold before I invest too much more time in a book 2. As of right now, I've got three more completed manuscripts for it.
Help me come up with a new series of useful books for you.
Below are some ideas sort of in-line with the Dungeons & Lairs' format. Vote for the ones that you like the best.
Drop-in Settlements. A series of books featuring different towns, villages, cities, etc., that you can easily install into any campaign. Each book will probably feature 6 different towns, each one with approximately 3,500 words detailing it.
Random Encounters. A series of books featuring random encounters in different types of terrain built for multiple levels. These will mostly be random lists, but hey. They're super useful!
Drop-in Sandboxes. A 25 x 25 hex area of territory with cities, towns, sites, of interest, etc., that the players can explore freely with enough notes on each one to be dangerous.
Uncommon Adventures. Need a break from 5e? Here are some bite-sized lightweight games that you can learn to play and run in four hours. Perfect when someone doesn't show up or you've got some non-5e friends hanging around who wanna try roleplaying. Genres will range from everything from zombie survival to time travel to luchadors.
Drop-in Villains. A book of villains, their schemes, roleplaying notes, the type of henchmen that they'll use, and a whole bunch of other useful details to add to your campaign.
Planar Deepdives. Books featuring notes on the different planes, including new rules for each one, the types of monsters that are there, etc. I usually pull from 2e when I go this route, so they get pretty detailed.
Monster Books. Monsters, monsters, monsters! We could all use some more monsters, ammarite?
Traps & Hazards. A big ol' book featuring tons of new traps and hazards that you can toss into your own dungeons, the wild, and so forth.
Rules Expansions. Books that expand on certain concepts, such as sea battles, mass combat, getting followers, building strongholds, and so forth.
Comments
James Tindall
Planar Deepdives is the top of my list, especially since my 5th Edition D&D campaign is heavily influenced by my many 2nd Edition AD&D books. Your guide on the Ethereal is great. I am using it, in Roll20, as one of the two themes I am emphasizing. Anything involving one or more of the planes that connect to the ethereal would be greatly appreciated. :)
James Geluso
I really like drop-in villains most, but I voted for sandboxes because I can’t think of anybody else doing that. Your planes and monsters would be awesome, but I already have lots of those.
Hisham ElShakhs
Just did my pre-order!
Hisham ElShakhs
Ugh, never mind. I had checked kickstarter and dmdave.com, but now I just did a google search for “Helkara preorder”. I honestly didn’t know it was out there for a pre-order.
Hisham ElShakhs
Is there already somewhere to pre-order the Helkara books? I’ve been downloading everything, but haven’t seen anywhere to put in a pre-order. Or are you judging the response some other way (# of downloads)?
DM Dave
Right now it looks like I'm going to do a settlements book first, then villains after that. We'll see where we go after that!
Gravy
The elemental plane of Air seems to be lacking in a lot of material. If you were to do a deep dive I’d like to see you do one there.
Gravy
I prefer if you keep making modular and easily portable material. I voted for each of the drop in options as I think they are the best ones.
Frank Moore
I've downloaded everything I've seen for Helkara so far but, like you said, having my own homebrew world, present a challenge. That said, one of the things that I did in my world was leave some places "unexplored" so that I can include cool stuff later. My goal is to wait for Helkara to mature a bit (and for my own schedule to open up somewhat) and then I'll work some parts of it in.
I'm based in the UK and do like to get hard copies... but it makes sense for me to wait until you have a few items published... otherwise shipping becomes cost prohibiitve. So I'm not luke warm... I'm just waiting in the wings ;0)
Roosevelt Cooper
Helkara is awesome! Surprised it's not getting as big of a response as you anticipated. I didn't buy a physical book primarily because I'm running out of space so it's mostly PDFs for me these days. However, I'm definitely downloaded the PDF version and will be using it!
DM Dave
Interesting!
DM Dave
I have fun with most things I do 😅
John Kagebein
The villains book is one I’d buy immediately. On that note, a series of fleshed out NPC books of different sorts would excite me. Villains, Townsfolk, Sidekicks, Rival Adventurers, Etc. I’d buy all those the day they dropped and eagerly anticipate the next.
Jairlyn
Separate comment on the lukewarm reception. You are right that we have campaigns. If Ed Greenwood pitched dozen or two page preview of one book for forgotten realms it too would probably be mildly received. You'll eventually hit a threshold where there is enough printed pages where people will make the jump. Don't give up on this one especially as you seem to have so much fun with it.
Jairlyn
You have combat well covered already with your 4+ times a month adventures so no random encounters or unique adventures. Continue to have the side gray stat block in those and say yourself work for Helkara. What I would like to see are small settlements and NPCs of villages just before the party hits a dungeon or cave they are off to explore. Maybe with additional tie ins or quests for their next adventure to give non combat objectives to your regular . e.g. They have save x # of NPC villages held captive in the D&L they are about to do. Or they need to recover X lost items randomly spread out across the map. I like your patron table for reasons for why the party is headed to the adventure, I'd like to see RP things like that added in. Drop in villains would work too. As GMs we start with say the Fire Giant Mine. But then we take your Deep Gnome merchant who is also there conducting trade when the players arrive. If its drop in and modular it should still be usable by a wide amount of your customers and tailorable for many needs.
Holy Pickle
Do one book per outer plane pleaseeeeeee. Give a good update to the old schools planes of existence book. Environments maps monsters feats spells subclasses. I’m here for it, take my money
