Elaundar's page

Ok, so I'm going to do my best to express my feelings without it becoming a rant. I am someone who has had a subscription for several years to 4 product lines (as a significant number of us since the WotC OGL). Likewise, I am someone who has had to spend a good half hour to see how the new Paizo "plus" system would affect me. Ultimately I've come to the following conclusions:

1. I have no interest in doing any of the gold earning tasks. I considered making the decision to review every product with one star and a statement "i have reviewed this", but while GenX pettiness might be fun, I have better things to do.
2. I appear to have the 15% level of discount for the next year. Discovering this information was non-trivial FYI as "My Account" is not where that info was located.
3. I appear to have the gold to obtain the free society modules for the foreseeable future - but the mobile gamification of using pretend-dollars is confusing (thus why it is used).

IF at any point my price increases by the 15% OR i don't have the gold to obtain the society modules, I cancel. If at any point I feel like I can get a better price via Nexus + Amazon, I cancel. If at any point the hassle of adding the modules to my cart pushes my "this is enshitification" buttons just a bit too far I cancel.

Hopefully this didn't come across as a rant. I likewise hope that the CEO will observe that there are definitely unintended consequences for making a game out of what was a loyalty program: when you play games with a loyal customer, their loyalty fades quickly.

When the OGL drama happened 20 months ago, I made a big switch. My group and I left behind a campaign we’d spent years on, packed up our 5e books, canceled our DnDBeyond subscriptions, and started playing Pathfinder 2E. We did this because Paizo’s open approach was a breath of fresh air compared to the restrictive changes Wizards of the Coast was pushing. We wanted to support a company that seemed to truly care about its players and were willing to learn a more complicated system to do it.

Now, it feels like déjà vu. Paizo’s recent changes to the CUP are starting to look a lot like what we saw with WoTC. The reasons might be different, but the result is the same: more control and less openness. It’s disappointing to see history repeating itself with these corporate moves.

The impact is clear. Besides a few tools like Pathbuilder, AoN, and Foundry, we’re not going to see any new player tools. Until you read the FCP you don't realize how much like the OGL revision it really is.

Section 2 specifically kills ALL digital tools that make even a passing reference to a proper name. As pointed out during the WoTC debacle its not clear this is even legally enforceable, but they have the lawyers and we won't. (The only way around this is to systematically delete every reference to anything even remotely lore based. After this rug-pull, I cannot rely on them being fair about it either.)

Paizo could have addressed the OGL issue while keeping kept CUP permissive - but instead, they’re going in a more limiting direction to drive content to Pathfinder Infinite that that profit from. That is today, who knows how much more restrictive it will become in a year when they "need to protect themselves again".

They point out content on it can be free, true, but they are banking on it having a cost. That is why the "easily distributable pdf" is called out - they want a cut of the action. This isn’t the first time we’ve faced this kind of issue in two years. WoTC made its OGL moves specifically to monetize their 3rd party developers. How is this different?

Paizo is relying on the loyalty of current players, and that might work for now. But new players who hear about these changes and see Paizo acting like WoTC will be turned away. How do we convince others to try Pathfinder 2e when its just another shade of the same thing?

The more Paizo starts to look like the company we moved away from, they end up missing out on attracting new fans to the game. I am desperately hoping they backtrack like WoTC did. What good is it to keep Golarion (and other IP) safe from thieves when no one is there to fight them?

As of now, both the Player Core and GM Core are both part of the rulebook subscription. ...

Will it customer service be able to let us skip all 4 of these books without affecting our 4x advantage? (I'm getting the sketch cover version from a local store). I just hate wasting the paper for the 2nd physical copy of each.

For everyone else who didn't get their subscriptions. I recieved this from customer support:

| Apologies, We are currently aware of a software bug where some customers aren't seeing their free monthly society scenarios populate on their account as well as applied Paizo advantage discount for certain orders at this point in time we ask that you request any order be put thru with that discount thru customer service moving forward as we can manually set that promotion on the order and submit it from our end properly until we have a resolution for this issue or a recommended workaround from our tech team. as for your scenarios if you could link me to product pages of the ones your missing I'd be happy to get those on your account for you moving forwards. we appreciate your patience while we get this issue sorted out.

I'd recommend following that advice when you contact them. I know this makes the subscription system pretty inconvenient (some might say horribly broken), but if you want to subscribe you pretty much have to tell them monthly what to do.

Any update?

Thanks Steve!, I've sent a similar message - I put it here since its more of a bug report than anything.

What is really weird is that the 37195243 order did ship with all 4 sub titles with the discount and the next one didn't. Hopefully they can sort it out, in the meantime I'll just keep an eye on it and email them when a new order is created if I have to.

I have a theory that I'm going to share here in case one of the unfortunate developers on the site come across it. I think the discount is not being applied because there is a conflicting (and equal) discount still lingering on my account that has not been removed despite it expiring.

Here is the timeline:

- Jan 14 (Order 37194412): used two discount codes 'holiday23' and 'OPENGAMING' which expired on Jan 18 and Jan 25 respectively.

- Jan 21 (Order 37195243): ordered 4 subscriptions which resulted in the Paizo Advantage (15% discount) being applied immediately.

- Feb 2 (Order 37194420): part of the first order was combined with 2 of the subscriptions. (No discount on the 2 subscriptions, despite a line showing it was discounted - just by 0%). Aside, this caused the CRB from the first order to go out of stock.. grrr

- Feb 13 (Order 37341840): everything from the prior order was moved besides the CRB so I wouldn't have to wait months. (no discount still on the 2 sub items).

Account settings - shows that I should have Paizo Advantage under "My Subscriptions", and when I open Manage Subscriptions I see this under upcoming subscription shipments:
* 2 Items (the first one has the discount - applied twice so I see Firebrands with 39.99->33.99->33.99 and AP189 36.99->22.94->22.94)
* 1 Item (AP190) this one shows the 0% discount: 26.99->26.99
* 2 Item (AP191, Enmity Cycle) also both have 0% discount: 24.99->24.99 and 26.99->26.99

----
So here is the theory:

The 'holiday23' code is incorrectly stuck on my account preventing the PaizoAdvantage discount from working. The Holiday23 one and PaizoAdvantage are both 15% off so only one can apply - since Holiday23 was first, the PA one is filtered out of the list. Then the Holiday23 has expired so a 0% discount is applied.

If I am right, all you have to do is this: remove the expired code before filtering. If you do that you should be able to clear up all of these weird-discount-doesn't-apply issues,

I suspect the underlying reason is that the system cannot delete the holiday23 code until the last of the order (in this case the CRB) ships. Since that doesn't apply to me now that I have the PA discount anyway, feel free to try it on my account. Worst case I'll bug customer service again. :)

In case anyone is having this issue still and went looking in the forums for an answer, here has been my experience.

I subscribed to 4 subscriptions at once - that immediately applied the 15% discount (yeah!), and the first order (that included all 4 subscription items) was actually discounted (yeah again!).

However, the subscription titles in 2nd order (shipped 1 day later) did not include the 15% off (bad). I reached out before and after that order (37341840) shipped but still got charged the full amount. I now see that only 1 of the 3 future orders will have the discount (???)

In fact, I've now sent 4 emails to customer service will a canned response of:

| "certain orders at this point in time we ask that you request any order be put thru with that discount thru customer service moving forward as we can manually set that promotion on the order and submit it from our end properly until we have a resolution for this issue or a recommended workaround from our tech team."

(That was not edited by the way).

I've tried again with lots of bold, underline and caps asking for the refund of what they over charged, but /shrug who knows if they will honor their discount promise.

I am beyond frustrated - the point of the subscriptions was to just automatically get the new items without any effort. The point of getting 4 was to get the discount to make up for the high shipping costs.

My recommendation for anyone considering the subscription - don't until they announce the issue is fixed for everyone. Its not worth the hassle if you are one of the unlucky ones.

Apparently my Core Rule Book and Beginners box were split out from my original order (37194412) and turned into a new one for the first of my subscriptions. This created a new one (37194420) that is now showing up as product not in stock. I guess that moved me out of my place in line. As far as I can tell, now I won't get the items or the subscriptions.

/sigh had I known I wouldn't have signed up for the subscriptions.

Curious - does the inventory issues affect orders already placed before this announcement?

i.e. I have an order from 1/14 that included the core rule book (and beginner box) and since it is close to the 20 day mark, I was wondering if that shipment might be delayed until the restock or if there was enough for the earlier orders.

I too believe there should not be a morality clause in the ORC. (Writing this made me think about the morality of orcs, which sounds like a Batman alignment)

Because of the issues raised above in many posts.

I do not like the voting for morality with your wallet idea and leaving things to the wisdom of the free market. But it's not really an issue actually.

Because in all countries, there are already morality clauses at work. We call these laws.

Now, we might disagree with some of those. But it's definitely not the place of a private company, no matter its good intentions or lack thereof, to decide what is moral and what is not.

I agree with every point. I would prefer that the marketplace decides, but if (and only if) the big publishers required something, then I would rather the terms be for a disclaimer than a revocation. (I'm assuming it would take >50% of the 5-9 biggest publishers so it would be rare just because no one would bother unless it was particularly bad.)

As a DnD refugee (and excited new PF2e GM), I would like to offer my unsolicited advice for a potential morality clause should the publishers want it.

The backlash against the "O"GL 1.2 section 6f has made me realize how hard a good morality clause is - especially in the hands of an organization with financial gain at stake.

Obviously the Wizard approach isn't a good solution, but there is one that could work for the broader ORC license that would discourage "hateful" content without preventing questionable content. (Freedom of speech isn't free unless it can offend someone after all).

NOTE: This isn't a criticism of PF2e similar clause - just a suggestion for the ORC license.

My suggestion is that instead of *removing* a license from particularly un-inclusive or offensive content (which could prevent allegories and morality gray areas) - Instead the license could require a highly visible disclaimer in future publications & web pages that state "... does not meet community standards and is disavowed by the ORC licensing body." Publishers could voluntarily place this warning if they choose.

Its sort of a middle ground that allows for a "review board" that can publicly shame objectionable content without the complications of revoking a license.

Again, its just an idea from a former DnD DM that hopes ORC solves all this mess :)