Pathfinder Adventure Card Society Update

I had a blast during the PBP ACG card game that Tyler and Andrew did for me and my friend Kyle. Although I discovered that ACG is not my thing, Kyle became a true convert. One of my favorite memories was when Kyle brought an ACG character into Jen McTeague's glorious fake scenario where you travel into the Tapestry to try to steal rulebooks from the Paizo offices, and battle Paizo employees. Jen had Starfinder, Pathfinder and ACG characters all in the same game, and somehow balanced it all. And watching Kyle bring his ACG wiliness to the game and his character -- oh man. It was AMAZING.

I also have fond memories of being the Overseer for a PBP special, and watching the card game tables kick ass and take names. It was not ever my game, but I loved that ACG was in my universe, and seeing the adventures that blended the ACG and RPG lines.

I am glad to hear that the ACG VOs are continuing, but sad -- even as a relative outsider -- to see this vibrant game transition to a legacy program.

ACG Lem is the best Lem.

I really hope that Paizo might consider a kickstarter for another adventure path to go with the Core Set.

Just my opinion:

As a former games store employee and owner, as well as someone who has played rpg's for four decades, this decision is terrible. Before D&D 5E released, Paizo & Pathfinder was riding high as the world's #1 rpg. The 1st edition PAC was terrific. My wife and I enjoyed literally hundreds of hours of gaming with it. Buying into the latest edition was a no-brainer for us. The store I worked at (Ettin Games in Humble TX) sold lots of copies and players were excited. The lack of additional content support caused a fade of excitement, however.

I don't play online games. Period. Ever. Gaming is inherently a social experience. Seventy to ninety percent of communication (social element) is nonverbal and does not pass well through the interwebs. Additionally, my wife and I do not play Pathfinder. In fact, I know of no one who does. My former employer has relegated Pathfinder products to the bottom shelf as sales have plummeted below publishers such as Chaosium and Goodman Games.

Cancelling a solid product, that is unique in its mechanics will just make Paizo that much more irrelevant in the gaming market. I guess I'll see if Wizards will fill the void.

Just my opinion.

Can't make a solid product if the people who made it solid no longer want to make it, however. I think there is money being left on the table but I can't gainsay them looking at their own data and deciding not to chase a market.

The way this was announced is so strange. We have a clear indication that Organized Play is ending, phrased as though it's not the first we're hearing of it. Then we have some speculation that the product line itself is ending, without anyone in the know confirming or denying. This is all in a thread where the first post is from a Lone Shark employee.

Could we please have some official, clear word that nothing will follow Curse as a set?

Keith Richmond wrote:

I look forward to having fun with folks at PaizoCon, both playing games and just chatting.

Does this mean we will not get any more core sets ever? :(

That will make me very sad. I was hoping for an Extinction Curse game eventually.

Jared, We play in Omaha on Monday nights. When we get done with Season 6, we may be convinced to play Extinction Curse!

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

Keith Richmond wrote:

I look forward to having fun with folks at PaizoCon, both playing games and just chatting.

Does this mean we will not get any more core sets ever? :(

That will make me very sad. I was hoping for an Extinction Curse game eventually.

Jared, We play in Omaha on Monday nights. When we get done with Season 6, we may be convinced to play Extinction Curse!

I think Jared was saying he would have liked to see Extinction Curse made into a PACG Adventure Path at some point. :)

Cancelling a solid product, that is unique in its mechanics will just make Paizo that much more irrelevant in the gaming market. I guess I'll see if Wizards will fill the void.

Just my opinion.

For the record, Paizo doesn't make the ACG. Lone Shark games makes it.

And they haven't stopped making it, they just decided to stop paying Paizo to license Paizo's IP, and are now making it under their own brand, with their own IP.

Gary Bush wrote:

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

Keith Richmond wrote:

I look forward to having fun with folks at PaizoCon, both playing games and just chatting.

Does this mean we will not get any more core sets ever? :(

That will make me very sad. I was hoping for an Extinction Curse game eventually.

Jared, We play in Omaha on Monday nights. When we get done with Season 6, we may be convinced to play Extinction Curse!

I think Jared was saying he would have liked to see Extinction Curse made into a PACG Adventure Path at some point. :)

I am currently GMing Extinctions Curse for my daughter. I might see what I can do about building an Extinction Curse ACG AP on my own.

DNR0D wrote:

Cancelling a solid product, that is unique in its mechanics will just make Paizo that much more irrelevant in the gaming market. I guess I'll see if Wizards will fill the void.

Just my opinion.

For the record, Paizo doesn't make the ACG. Lone Shark games makes it.

And they haven't stopped making it, they just decided to stop paying Paizo to license Paizo's IP, and are now making it under their own brand, with their own IP.

I think you have incorrect information here, Jared. Paizo is the publisher for the PACG, with Lone Shark Games doing the design work (and getting paid by Paizo to do so). Lone Shark designed Apocrypha long before PACG, and published it during the time that PACG was being published by Paizo.

I stand corrected then. My comments were based solely on external perceptions as a customer, and you clearly have better information on this than I do. In that case I am very disappointed that Paizo chose not to continue it.

I'll just chime in to say that it might *still* be because Lone Shark doesn't have the resources to design it anymore, and Paizo can't publish something nobody is making.
We'll probably never know which side had to drop this, or if it was a mutual decision. Because in any way, that would just give ammunition for people to push "blame".

(That is, *if* the core game is stopped, and not just the Org Play service. And if so, I'll personally assume it was mutual.)

This saddens me. PACG's a great game.

But I can't say I'm surprised. Paizo neglected the game. They never even properly released required support materials (character sheets, checklists) for the last round of 1st edition materials. Then the change to 2nd edition (Core; and no, you can't deny it's an edition change) came with a fanfare but, that was it. They didn't do a good conversion run of the characters ("leave it to the fans"), and just left it to die.

A glut of too much (because of the way old APs were done piecemeal), then too long between releases killed the buzz, and the lack of proper support outside of "organized play" adventures made it clear the game was just never a priority at all. I also suspect the way they painted themselves into a corner with "core" (a bad idea -- just make each AP stand on its own like 1st edition did for proper maximum flavor) made it hard to produce more without burning fan good will should they have or being too expensive.

It's all the sadder because non-RPG tabletop slow-burn/campaign/story games are getting increasingly popular, and modular ones like PACG are a good one. At least I still have AH:LCG for now too, but I sadly suspect there are going to be shenanigans there, too. I only went to AH:LCG because I had seen the writing on the wall for PACG.

The D&D license had Dragonfire as an attempt into the market [produced by Catalyst], but it was a terrible game. They also went all in on making it not replayable with stickers and disposable sheets and just a huge amount of content just at release that it was overwhelming. (And the game itself was just not fun or evocative.)

I can't say I'm particularly surprised. The core set's release was a kick in the teeth to a lot of people. The turmoil surrounding existing boxes, class decks, etc was troubling. The only thing that kept my group interested was the idea that over time, with new content, the rough edges of the "totally not doing ACG 2.0" situation would smooth out and it'd just be a bump.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Core set and expansion was a fantastic product on its own, but its theme, card design, and updated rules didn't mesh well with existing content at all. Swapping cards into class decks and juggling mechanics just doesn't make for a fun and relaxing time for a lot of people. I am betting sales were just down because of this. Only one of the 8 or so people in my local group bought Core. The rest were holding out until they saw how it would pan out in the long run.

I'm convinced that the Core set wasn't designed with much (if any) thought to incorporating with the existing content. It certainly didn't play like it when it hit the shelves. The way society was handled didn't exactly build confidence either.

We can't even blame Covid for the situation either. There should have been content slated for release before it hit. At the least, we should have heard something 6 months after it released. We barely got a Society guide in 6 months. So, to be frank, I think the ACG's been on life support for nearly 2 years. The core set put off a number of invested players and it hurt sales more than a bit. This latest revelation is just finally flipping the switch and turning out the lights on an already dead project.

I'll miss it. I've had a lot of fun teaching people how to play and made a number of friends at conventions. Playing at home with family will still exist, but it's not been the same since the Core set dropped and the uneasy feeling never fully went away.

Well, this sucks. I don’t do online gaming and this really was what my family played all through the pandemic. Plus I have gotten several coworkers interested in playing now that folks might be able to get together again. This game has been our go to for most family game night for years. Played through the other sets and some of the society scenarios as well, and we were all so excited that there seemed to be much more on the horizon in 2019. I really hope that Paizo sees some of the love here and realizes that maybe there is more of a market than they might have realized. I don’t know what their sales numbers are like but maybe as some on here have suggested, crowdfunding might be a way to go to fund future expansions. I for one would back another AP.

Just to echo what's been said already...

Not surprised after the long silence, but extremely saddened, considering that PACG is my all-time favorite board/card game. Personally I really liked the new Core set design and was looking forward to more AP's for it. I'll still play all the sets (ordered another class deck the other day, in fact), but I fear the spark will be gone sooner, now that there's not much to look forward to.

I really do hope that PACG is given a chance to continue and expand in some form (other than fan content). Be it crowdfunding an AP, selling rights to another company (should there be interest) or whatever.

I don’t normally kick start games, however I would DEFINITELY back new physical card being developed for the game e.g another AP for core (preferred) or boon packs for characters (less preferred)

It's unfortunate they released the Ultimate series of addons right before they put out Core. A lot of the issues with incorporating Core rules and Class decks could be fixed with Ultimate-style addon decks that were designed with Core mechanics changes/card changes in mind. It just screams that there were two teams working on things and not communicating about what was happening.

Sad news, glad I got in on the ground floor. I've got 4 complete sets to play and I'm sure the alternate adventure paths will keep me entertained for a while, but I'm sad it didn't grow.

Starfinder Adventure Card Game.... really hoped for that one....

Jared Thaler - Personal Opinion wrote:

Keith Richmond wrote:

I look forward to having fun with folks at PaizoCon, both playing games and just chatting.

Does this mean we will not get any more core sets ever? :(

That will make me very sad. I was hoping for an Extinction Curse game eventually.

Unfortunately, that is my understanding. Trust me, you're not the only one who's disappointed with this result, but we will make the best of the situation!

That would be disappointing if that is the case. Not sure why they did the core game revamp then. Guess it must not have made that much money, but it seemed like it did well though. Would like to see Paizo give an official update on how this announcement effects the physical product if at all.

very sad news, this is by far one of my favourite solo game

The core set's release was a kick in the teeth to a lot of people. The turmoil surrounding existing boxes, class decks, etc was troubling.

Don't get me wrong, I think the Core set and expansion was a fantastic product on its own, but its theme, card design, and updated rules didn't mesh well with existing content at all. Swapping cards into class decks and juggling mechanics just doesn't make for a fun and relaxing time for a lot of people. I am betting sales were just down because of this.

I was in the same boat in terms of not being too sure about the new set's card design, and I'm not sure it's as much my favorite - but the new Core set is, in general, the best this game has ever been. Lots of cards now that can help other players - in the past, it was largely only possible to help if your character was designed to help. For organized play, the idea of making "packs" from the existing content to make a pseudo "class deck" out of was brilliant, ingenious.

In many ways I think they learned a lot from the "1.0" stuff and that "PACG 2.0" was turning out to be the best version of the product ever. Cut down in its prime, for sure.

There was a comment on Discord that Mike Selinker has been invited to share his thoughts on the cancellation of PACG. So there's more information to come, hopefully, even if it's just a fond farewell.

No timeline was set, but I look forward to the eventual posting.

Definitely keen to see Mikes thoughts.
Also keen to see if the door is open to kickstarting future expansion boxes for core

Just my opinion:

As a former games store employee and owner, as well as someone who has played rpg's for four decades, this decision is terrible. Before D&D 5E released, Paizo & Pathfinder was riding high as the world's #1 rpg. The 1st edition PAC was terrific. My wife and I enjoyed literally hundreds of hours of gaming with it. Buying into the latest edition was a no-brainer for us. The store I worked at (Ettin Games in Humble TX) sold lots of copies and players were excited. The lack of additional content support caused a fade of excitement, however.

I don't play online games. Period. Ever. Gaming is inherently a social experience. Seventy to ninety percent of communication (social element) is nonverbal and does not pass well through the interwebs. Additionally, my wife and I do not play Pathfinder. In fact, I know of no one who does. My former employer has relegated Pathfinder products to the bottom shelf as sales have plummeted below publishers such as Chaosium and Goodman Games.

Cancelling a solid product, that is unique in its mechanics will just make Paizo that much more irrelevant in the gaming market. I guess I'll see if Wizards will fill the void.

Just my opinion.

It’s a good point, and honestly, this decision is enough that I simply won’t support Paizo at all anymore if they can’t make some changes.

If they were to run a KS for multiple new adventures, I’d support that, and that would make sense as opposed to just giving up.

Imagine stretch goals that include promo cards!

Well, gaming group finally deciding to come out hiding as things improve. We're old school, so online play simply hasn't happened. Came back to the site today and ran across this. Rather disheartening, but understandable. Going to have to see what the group wants to do card wise going forward. We have some seasons to finish, but will have to see where we go from there.

It's been a wonderful, fun ride. We'll see what the future holds.

( -_-)旦~!