At this point, lack of a response is the response. Precisely what I said in another thread. They know best, and simply aren't interested in hearing anything to the contrary. :-/ At this point all I can really hope for is that someone higher up the food chain recognizes the current death spiral for what it is and steps in before it is too late.
Disappointed in the lack of response to all the feedback from the August update with the changes to how PFS is going to work. After this long, it's pretty hard to not take the lack of response as the response, if you know what I mean. :-/ On the plus side, last weekend I attended a great little local con, and I finally got to play both Vaesen and Mothership. Yay!
It's kinda crazy that there hasn't been any comment on this from Paizo.
I have the same problem with 3 of my 4 GM stars. I hope you have better luck getting an answer than I have.
That is definitely not what I meant but you read my words as you wish. Alternatively, you might consider the possibility that I don't have an agenda, and you're just not sending the message you intended. Because I honestly don't know what else you meant with declarations like this:
Not only do you explicitly state that Paizo "have the full picture and we do not" -- which I have explained is not the case -- but you very much come across as "Paizo can do no wrong, so keep your feedback to yourself." Also, point of order: Whether or not these changes will ultimately hurt PFS isn't actually a matter of opinion, but of fact. While it's true that we'll never know for sure either way, it remains useful to differentiate between a matter of fact (albeit one about which we lack perfect information) and a matter of opinion ("vanilla ice cream tastes better than strawberry ice cream"). For instance, it is possible to be wrong about the former, but not the latter.
As I said, it's only an opinion and we will likely have to wait a few months more to know the whole of it. The truth is that nobody will ever truly "know the whole of it," because perfect information simply doesn't exist. How could it? Even if the reporting system and underlying database weren't poorly designed — and to be clear, for those who know what to look for, they absolutely are — how would one even collect data about tables that didn't happen...from every GM at every game day, everywhere? That is manifestly impossible. Consequently, it seems to me that what you are in effect doing is summarily declaring invalid any analysis that is not based on a (non-existent) complete dataset. Which is not a hill I'd choose to die on, but you do you. Personally, I'll rely on (admittedly incomplete) personal observation coupled with deduction. And yes, I could still be wrong...but not all arguments are created equal.
We don't need to wait and see how that will play out because we can look at what just happened and see how the new rule would have applied. The answer is badly. Yup.
I'm a little slower to ascribe malice. I think its one of those gamer things where solution A is not perfect therefore solution B must be the right answer. This goes double when someone assigns a rule, and the rule starts to seem like an unchangeable fact when rules are very changeable. (IE, making the treasure in a scenario balance out to the payout was (is? I think they changed that?) Was an enormous fiddly nit picky PITA that provided only the pay out of.. a little bit of immersion and complying with the rule? I think the immersion could have been solved with a check and or a Bill for in game damages... To be clear, I don't actually believe that someone at Paizo is trying to kill organized play. I do, however, believe that removing stat blocks is such a comically bad idea that I can understand why someone might. I think Paizo more often than not gets things right, but occasionally they get obstinate about sticking with really boneheaded decisions (like say, Pathfinder Online). I did a few years as a software engineer right out of college in the late nineties, and it was blindingly obvious that Paizo really had no clue what they were biting off with that one (though they at least had the sense to eventually spin Goblinworks off so it wouldn't take the whole company down with it). The stat block decision seems similarly clueless...no matter how I come at it, it just makes no earthly sense.
On the other hand, if you wanted to hold a pillow over the face of organized play so it dies a slow, quiet death, then this would be a great way to do it. As I've said before, I can live with the narrower level bands, and with the shorter scenarios (and hey, at least the price is coming down correspondingly). But no stat blocks is a deal killer, and will absolutely ravage the PFS GM pool. Putting aside the question of whether aggressively pursuing cost savings for PFS scenarios (i.e. marketing) is really even a good idea, cutting stat blocks is just an incredibly short-sighted way to go about it.
I've very sorry for your loss. I'm glad you got to say goodbye; that's no small thing. When I lost my mother several years ago, she went quite suddenly (pulmonary embolism).
I don't think its a big deal since APs already work this way, but it has been pretty convenient to have everything already included. To me, APs and PFS scenarios are very different beasts. For instance, I'm currently running Seven Dooms, for which I have a pretty beefy desktop PC, effectively limitless power, and very good (and redundant) Internet access. Not to mention I'm using a Foundry package for the adventure, so all of the stat blocks are right there. Contrast that with my PFS experience, nearly all of which takes place in a game store, where I typically have much less space, rarely have access to AC power (so no beefy laptop, even if I were willing to bring such an expensive item to use in a public venue), and where Internet access that is often iffy (doubly so for conventions, which is where I play the rest of my PFS). Finally, I often have significantly less prep time for PFS. YMMV, but to me personally that just isn't a very useful comparison. To be fair, I'm much less frustrated now that Erik Mona has clarified that the new PFS scenarios will be $6 rather than $9 (i.e. this isn't a stealth price hike), which means I'd actually resume buying them...but pulling the stat blocks is overall too big a blow to my QoL as a PFS GM. My own situation aside, it strikes me as inherently inefficient, because work that could be done once and included with the scenario now has to be done many times (I know there are shared resources available, but I also know that not everyone will use -- or even know about -- those resources). Overall it just kinda feels like buying a car without tires, only to then be told it's not a problem because tires are available separately.* :-P * And yes, I do understand this is a flawed analogy. All analogies are, in fact, imperfect -- literally by definition. ;-)
One other small point of order is I believe PFS1 scenarios started and remained at $3.99 ($4) for the vast majority of PF1s lifetime. I don't think they ever cost $3. I just went back and looked at my order history, and I stand corrected. I blame my old man memory. ;-)
Thank you. That is indeed a key piece of context that was previously missing, and it dramatically improves the value proposition. We appreciate the dialogue and will continue to listen. We're not ready to make a decision one way or the other on the stat block issue mentioned here, but again, the conversation is very helpful. Whatever you decide, thank you for letting us know that you are listening.
Given how otherwise inferior organized play scenarios are to Paizo's own APs/modules, the removal of statblocks is just a bridge too far IMO. Hi HMM: I apologize; it was not my intention to be hurtful. I hold both your opinion and your work in high regard. To be clear, I wasn't faulting the writing; rather the relative value. In fairness, I do think it's hard to argue that the trade dress, art, supporting materials, etc. are up to the standard set by the APs/modules. Which was totally understandable when scenarios were $3, or even $6. They're just a tough sell at the current $9, which I strongly suspect the revenue numbers will support.
Starfinder 2e already made the switch to 2-3 hour-long scenarios, which got a price drop to $5.99. I don't see anywhere that it suggests the price would be any different for the shorter PF2e scenarios coming out next year. Did I miss something? Not that I know of; it's just that neither announcement mentioned a price change, which would seem to me to be a pretty glaring oversight! Reducing the price would certainly go a long way toward addressing the value complaint.
I appreciate that many folks are skeptical about my assertions regarding Paizo expecting PFS scenarios to turn a profit. Please understand that I do not claim to have any special insight or insider information. It’s just that, to me, the signs seem crystal clear (sequential price hikes, talk of “sustainability,” etc.). Overall it’s a pattern of behavior and messaging that I’ve seen many times, both in my career and in higher education (I have an undergrad business degree). But putting Paizo’s potential motivations aside for a moment, I want to talk about an experience I had yesterday. Before I do, I want to mention that while I only appear with one star as a 1E GM, if you click on my profile you’ll see that I’m actually a four star 1E GM, with a bit more than one hundred tables of credit. I’m also a 2 glyph 2E GM, with a table count in the low thirties. (No, I don’t know why my star count is busted. Yes, I’ve emailed customer service as well as posting on the boards s about it; no reply. I’ve given up on fixing it, and what's important to my point is how many tables I've actually run). I really, really enjoying GMing; far more than I do playing, in fact. I especially like GMing PFS, because: 1. As a retired person, it gets me out of the house.
So yesterday I ran a table (Lost Maid of Anactoria from season 2) at a FLGS in a neighboring city about 90 minutes from my house. I had a blast, and I think my players did, too (perhaps one of them might even chime in here). I'd like to look at how PFS has changed over the last few years – and how it will be changing again – through the lens of this experience. First, we had a table made up of characters of levels 4, 5, and 6. The new scenario model simply wouldn’t have supported this table. The other table was folks in 1-2, meaning no matter what, someone would have been turned away under the the new, narrower level bands. Second consider the stat blocks. I was traveling, and other than the physical bits (GM screen, combat pad, dice, maps, etc.), I brought with me only my 2019 CRB. Had stat blocks not been included in the scenario, I would have to also brought Bestiary 1 and Bestiary 2, tripling the amount of hardbacks I had to carry, not to mention find space for at the table (which in a crowded gaming store that was also hosting a Pokemon tournament would have been difficult to say the least). And even if there were space, there is the inconvenience of having to switch between books for the stat blocks in an encounter, or sometimes even having to reference two monsters in the same book at once, which means constantly flipping back and forth. To borrow a phrase from the forward to the AD&D 2e PHB, that would be “physically and intellectually unwieldy.” Third was the price of the scenario, which in this case was $6. Back in the 1E days, PFS scenarios were $3 (that is to say clearly priced as a loss-leader), so when the local VO wanted me to run something, I’d just buy it without a second thought and I was off and running. Later, after the price was hiked multiple times, ultimately to $9 (which as I have pointed out is terrible value compared to Paizo’s other products; but I digress), I transition to running only scenarios which I already owned, or that the VO was able to provide in hard copy (which I don’t do often, because it very frequently means a separate trip to go and pick up said hard copy if I want sufficient prep time). So in this case, if I hadn’t already owned an appropriate scenario? The table simply doesn't happen. Taken together, the PFS GMing experience has simply gotten progressively worse over the last few years, and is poised to get worse still. So much worse, in fact, that if I didn’t know better, I’d be tempted to conclude that Paizo is actively trying to discourage PFS GMs...a situation which seems genuinely crazy considering that PFS GMs are volunteering to essentially demo Paizo's flagship product line. The foolish price point and narrowed level bands I can probably work around much of the time (although I don’t really feel I should *have* to), but not including stat blocks will actually be a complete deal killer for me – I will simply stop GMing FPS altogether. And since I prefer GMing to playing, that really means I’ll simply stop participating in PFS altogether. Finally, since I’d no longer be participating in PFS, I’d move on to other systems, which would very likely mean the Pathfinder 2E campaign I’m currently running (Seven Dooms for Sandpoint) would be my last. Kinda a network effect, if you will. Am I *that* atypical? I’m not sure, though several PFS GMs in other threads have said they will also leave PFS behind if the changes go through as planned, and many others have said they will give leaving serious though. To me, driving off any non-trivial number of volunteers means you that you done f*cked up. YMMV, of course. ;-) I am not trying to pick a fight with Paizo staff. I am not complaining for fun, or to make myself look clever. I am simply trying to preserve a thing that I enjoy because I believe it is at risk of being mismanaged into oblivion.
Wow; now that is not a reply I was expecting! Here's the thing: there has been a pattern of repeated price hikes for PFS scenarios over the last few years far outstripping inflation, and now they're cutting them down to "2-3 hours" (see the Sept 2025 OP blog post). Which is, of course, another price hike (less content per $; shrinkflation, if you will). They are also dropping stat blocks entirely in order to cut development time (and therefore development cost). These changes, coupled with the fact that they have NOT dropped the price of scenarios correspondingly, make it hard for me to see said changes as anything other than largely financial. Do I 100% know that? I do not, but I encourage you to read some of the older blog posts, especially this one about "pricing and sustainability," which is clearly about the bottom line. With respect, as someone all too familiar business-speak, that blog post alone makes it plainly evident that PFS, over the last few years at least, has been managed primarily by spreadsheet -- which is having the effect of drowning it in a bathtub. :-(
I’m writing this in response to both the recent changes in SFS and the recently announced changes coming to PFS. At the risk of being patronizing, organized play is marketing. Marketing is traditionally viewed as a cost center. Expecting OP scenarios to earn a profit is like expecting advertisements to turn a profit – not by driving sales – but in and of themselves. Imagine if Anheuser-Busch expected this year’s Superbowl ad to turn a profit; not by driving beer sales, but directly, as if they expected people to pay to watch the ad. That is, in effect, what you currently expect of organized play scenarios. To be fair, organized play scenarios looks very much like your other adventure products. They need writers, editors, play testers; art, layout, and trade dress. Because of this, you have fallen into the trap of expecting them to earn a profit like your other adventure products. This is mistaken. That is not what they are for. They exist to hook people you otherwise wouldn’t have reached. And in my experience, they work. Now, I do understand that the promotional value of OP is difficult to quantify (as is often the case with marketing, as opposed to say, sales), but the fact remains that trying to treat it like a profit center is misguided. And even if it weren’t, your current practice of charging $9 for a four (soon to be two to three) hour scenario is fundamentally flawed, because you have priced scenarios too high in comparison to both the larger market and your own non-OP adventures. They are so overpriced, in fact, that you have almost certainly decreased overall revenue (please take a moment to Google “price elasticity of demand” – seriously). The recently announced move to shrink scenarios is effectively the third price increase in a handful of years. Prices increases didn’t work the last two times...why do you think the third time will be the charm? In short, not only are you are pursuing a mistaken objective (make OP scenario profitable), you’re doing so in a fundamentally flawed manner, as you’ve priced yourself out of the market. What you're doing now to make PFS "sustainable" isn't working. Perhaps instead of tripling down on higher prices and less content, it's time to change course. Keep the current 4-hour scenario length. Keep the wider level bands. Keep the statblocks. Find a way to continue sanctioning Starfinder adventures (HMM make an excellent suggestion for how to accomplish this). Finally, drop the price of PFS scenarios back down to a level where they represent reasonable value (~$5). Trust that the promotional value justifies the associated costs, even if you struggle to directly measure it. Or don’t...but in that case, what exactly is the point of OP, anyway?
"Huge ball of whining negativity"? I see you've moved on to insults. Very cool. Ad hominem attacks aside, you remain incorrect: Paizo has not addressed the concerns that many have expressed in this thread...other than to say that they're discussing the matter, and to ask that we give them time to respond. Which I had been doing, until you apparently decided it was time to white knight for Paizo (which is just kinda weird, btw). Edit: I just noticed you're a venture captain. Holy crap; get it together, man.
I get that we are on Paizo's own forums, and there are some passionate fans of the company here. But trying to shut down criticism does not help Paizo - if anything, it hurts them.
If I weren't also a fan, I wouldn't bother. I comment because I don't want to see PFS continue to decline.
Here's the thing, though: James shared Paizo's thinking with respect to the AP changes. That's really all that is being asked for here: some insight into why they're making what appear to be unpopular and problematic changes to PFS. I don't think that's an unreasonable request. And for the record, I don't actually expect them to change course, either...though I obviously wish they would, because PFS has been struggling for years, and the announced course seems very much like more of the same (cut, cut, cut -- which clearly has yet to work).
I have, and I doubt that is the case. Yes, the people here are only a sample, but how do you suppose literally all polling works? Spoiler alert: they're samples. No one actually asks 300 million+ Americans who they're going to vote for. Nor do I see any reason to believe that the opinions expressed in this thread should be materially different from the player base as a whole. But even if I'm wrong and these changes are popular, why would that make a lack of response from Paizo better?
You claim there is a "pretty strong case to be made that OP is not really bringing in enough business to justify the costs for sustaining it," yet you haven't made such a case; more importantly, neither has Paizo. Quite frankly, the evidence I see (both from personal observation and reading Paizo's prior blogs on the subject) really makes it seem like they don't have a good way to quantify the impact of organized play, because they have apparently decided PFS scenarios should be profitable (which is just silly, and I've already covered why). I'm encouraged that James has said they are still discussing the matter, and I hope that, if they don't change course, they'll at least give an idea behind the thinking here (as they did for the AP changes). As to why you felt the need to scold people for "complaining" (read: expressing an opinion you do not share), I'm honestly not sure,but I'm certainly not going to be made to feel bad for providing negative feedback to a company I patronize. Honestly it's kinda wild that you apparently think I should.
Still radio silence from the powers that be on the (overwhelmingly negative) feedback on the (overwhelmingly unpopular) Society changes. I wish I could say I’m surprised. :-/
I agree with the video...it is weird that Paizo didn't market this as a starter set. I wonder if that has to do with marketing and/or merchandising? So let's get this out of the way, because there is no way around it: there is plenty of cost-cutting in evidence here. Paper mats instead of flip mats; cardboard "bases" for the pawns (rather than plastic); thinner paper. We probably just need to accept that his is the new normal in a post-tariff world. Now that said, I believe this product still represents good value. Pawns, maps, dice, three adventures, etc. It is very self-contained for $35, even if seems a bit odd that they went with tokens for Starfinder, but kept pawns for this. I think I get it -- Pathfinder 2E uses pawns, and swapping in tokens mid-edition might cause strife -- but an overall move toward tokens might become inevitable for cost reasons. In any event, the included cardboard "bases" seem like clever compromise while that mess shakes out. I will say this probably isn't worth it for the adventure alone, but well worth it if you'll use the extra stuff. It seems particularly ideal for introducing new people to the game with a lower buy-in that the Beginner Box (as well as maybe sneaking into places the BB won't reach?). And the thematic green dice are a neat touch (though I can't help but wonder if Paizo was able to source a bunch of sets of green polyhedral dice on the cheap and then wrote the adventure around 'em). ;-)
Which is why I called it "if the madness takes you" Sounds like we're on the same page, then. :D
I mean, we're in what...year 7, and if I'm not mistaken I think there is one scenario for above level 12? I'm fairly certain level 20 just isn't in the cards (but I'd love to be wrong; maybe a 2E seeker arc?).
So in light of the recently announced AP changes, Stand-alone adventure paths, maybe with some light suggestions toward how they might be linked (think Rusthenge --> Seven Dooms) when possible seems like the way to go. Facilitate GMs stringing paths together, but don't link paths closely in either theme or plot.
Page count would be easier, too. Currently, all three modules in an adventure path have the same length. But with all three in a single book, the length could vary. If the middle 2nd-module section needs to run long to tell its story well, cuts could come out of the 1st module or 3rd module rather than the 2nd module to fit the page count. The is a very good point, and one that had not occurred to me. The more I sit with the AP changes, the more I think they are very much a net positive.
As someone who was involved deeply in planning a transition between venues in the last few months, a 3-hour scenario makes working with our venues infinitely easier, as more sites are going to be happy with watching a group of people eat up table real estate for 3 hours as opposed to 4-6 hours (especially places like taprooms, which actually seriously depend on table turnover to make money). And even game stores are closing at 8-9 PM on weekday nights now instead of 10 PM or later. A 3-hour scenario might seem shorter in terms of word count and page count, but in practice we've already had to cut down longer scenarios to fit that kind of time constraint in the real state of play over the last 2-3 years. Putting the economic arguments aside, to my mind this simply isn't the sort of change than can reasonably be made in the middle of an edition. For instance, in order to make three hours slots work, are you just only ever going to schedule the newer, shorter scenarios? If so, you lose access to almost all of the campaign's six-plus years of existing content, which seems like a non-starter, at least for most folks. If not, your schedule still has to accommodate the longer scenarios...in which case I can't see how this is going to help. What am I missing?
The SFS one went from $9 to $6 when they changed the length and level range for SFS2, hopefully the same will happen here. That's great! I wasn't aware of that, and I completely agree: hopefully the same will happen here. Though if that *is* the plan, leaving such critical information out of the announcement would be an...interesting choice (though not one that inspires confidence).
So you do know Paizo severely undercharges for certain PDFs and quite honestly all you have done is point out that they really should charge more for the $20.00 one. ...which, even if true, changes nothing. The market is the market; PFS scenarios have to exist in it. In a perfect world, that wouldn't be the case: PFS would be viewed by Paizo as a promotional tool, with the understanding that the value of PFS scenarios is difficult to quantify by looking at direct revenue alone. But, since Paizo seems determined to viewing PFS scenarios in purely economic terms, I believe it makes sense to point out that they are already not viable at $9. What better way to do that than by comparing them to Paizo's other products? And now the size (3 hrs instead of 4), scope (no stat blocks), and utility (level ranges) of scenarios are all decreasing? Madness.
(╥﹏╥)
But seriously, with respect to PFS course-correcting, let's look at the $9 PFS scenario. I recently bought Claws of the Tyrant for $20. 128 pages of AAA RPG adventures. Tons of great art, great custom trade dress, great editing. Custom maps. Very often a cool backstory, custom plot hooks, adventure tool box full of supporting material. Meanwhile, look at your typical PFS scenario. $9 for ~20 pages. Consistently bad editing. Recycled mediocre trade dress. Probably a flip mat, lots of recycled art. Often a threadbare story. No supporting material. But wait, one might say: the adventure sells many more copies. Economies of scale and all that. Of course they do! In fact, the whole point is that PFS scenarios are priced right out of the market that Paizo itself has had a very large hand in creating. And so, as PFS continues to struggle to be "sustainable" in the wake of a comically ill-conceived price hike, what happens? Prices are increased *again*, of course! (Wait, sorry: the price is the same, just for less content; same difference.) Because surely this time it will fix things! And so I do not have much optimism with respect to PFS decision making. The hubris is too strong. In fact, it brings to mind an old saying: There are two ways to learn: The easy way, and the not-so-easy way. At least as far as PFS is concerned, Paizo seems absolutely wedded to the not-so-easy way. And yes, I know: more flies with honey than with vinegar. But at some point exasperation is the only appropriate response.
And if this change ends up being a wrong move, as so many predict, I am sure PFS will quickly see the light and adapt. That makes one of us. ;-)
Is there perhaps an unboxing or preview anywhere? I love boxed sets, and I'd very much like to get a closer look at the contents.
The PFS part...ick. I sometimes wonder about getting back into PFS, but every time I do Paizo manages to dissuade me almost immediately. You and me both. I come and go -- mostly go the last few years -- but I so want it to be good. It certainly used to be! Unfortunately nowadays Paizo just can't seem to get out of their own way with respect to PFS.
Also, I find it hard to believe that this wasn't a problem for people before because truth be told I never scheduled high level content for the same exact reason. So...if a problem already exists, there is no reason not to make it worse? Respectfully, that doesn't follow. That said, this entire conversation is moot. If Paizo had been interested in our input, they would have asked for it before announcing the PFS changes.
Which means less people will buy it. Not more.It would be very interesting to know what’s changed here. Paizo has been doing monthly Adventure Path episodes for the best part of twenty years; I can think of plenty of potential advantages of the shift, but none that wouldn’t also have been advantages 5, 10, 15 years ago. I believe there are several reasons for the first issue of APs selling the best: 1. As James has already pointed out, there is no concern about "starting in the middle"; you can't have missed anything, because the AP is self-contained. 2. The first issue of an AP was almost uniformly of higher quality than subsequent volumes. Perhaps because it got the longest lead time, and suffered from the least time crunch? I'm not entirely sure why this was the case, but it clearly was. 3. The first issue (very often; and always in the early days) started at first level, by far the most popular level of play in basically every level-based TTRPG ever. I personally feel like the new format completely solves #1, and may help with #2. Overall the changes to the AP line seem well thought out, and I think they will prove to be a net positive.
You do know the game doesn't work correctly with the level band system right? I know people are clamoring for it but very often it either results in a wonky cases where either one player is completely dominating the encounters on his own or players are struggling to do anything. Whereas now those tables -- not to mention many others -- won't be legal, and thus simply won't happen at all. This does not feel like an improvement.
At the end of the day, Paizo is a business and needs to stay profitable. It sounds like the PFS scenario changes are all business related. This appears to be Paizo's mindset with respect to PFS, and honestly, it just doesn't make sense to me at all. Pathfinder Society is a promotional tool. The point is to bring in new players in order to increase sales. And the best way to bring in new players? Offer an awesome game play experience so they have a great time, associate that great time with the game, and then buy in. If PFS accomplishes this, it doesn't matter whether the individual scenarios are profitable! Yes, it can be difficult to directly attribute revenue to PFS, but trying to make PFS scenarios "profitable" just completely misses the point, and frankly reeks of classic management-by-spreadsheet. This is also the third effective price increase for PFS scenarios in a handful of years, greatly outstripping inflation. By failing to understand basic economic principles like price elasticity of demand, Paizo has, in effect, priced PFS scenarios out of the market and put the entire line into a death spiral. Personally, I think the writing was on the wall when scenarios were priced at $9 in a misguided (and now clearly failed) attempt to make them "sustainable," but that's another rant. :-) Ok, so in the interest of not being totally negative (confusing for me, I know!), how would I go about fixing this? 1. First and foremost, drop the price of PFS scenarios back down to no more than $5. This is a cost borne entirely by your volunteer GMs, upon whom you are 100% reliant on to provide the aforementioned awesome game play experience; stop punishing them! $9 a scenario is comically bad value, especially compared to Paizo's other adventure products. 2. Keep challenge points and multiple level bands. As everyone on the ground is telling you, both are absolutely necessary to actually make legal tables go off. 3. Retain the scenario stat blocks! Yes, they makes development more expensive, but the goal here -- again -- isn't to make PFS scenarios profitable. It is to encourage people to run them, and run them well, and so GM quality-of-life matters. @Paizo, I understand there is no shortage of armchair quarterbacks on the Internet. But as it happens, I have an actual business degree. I'm a former VL. I have run a ton of PFS (and Living Greyhawk before that). This isn't just some uninformed rant. But you don't have to take just my word for it! Every PFS GM in here -- every single one of whom wants you to succeed -- is telling you these changes are a terrible idea.
TLDR: Trying to make PFS profitable not only misses the entire point of PFS, it risks eventually killing it off entirely. [/soapbox] P.S. If I'm a bit too invested in this, so be it, but it has been just heart-breaking to watch PFS be mismanaged over the last several years.
Yeah...it is just a pretty large obstacle to forming legal tables. I want to believe there is some motivation here beyond "cut costs," but to be frank it is hard to imagine what it might be (and, unlike the AP changes, Paizo did not share their thinking).
My biggest problem is with the level range reduction on PFS scenarios. It's going to be a lot more common for a scenario to come up that I don't have a character in range for, and higher level tables are going to be even harder to fill. This one is gonna hurt for sure, especially at the lower levels. Our little lodge often has to combine players from 1-2 and 3-4 to make a legal table. Plus it seems (to me) like simply an attempt to reduce the amount of work that goes into a scenario while keeping the same price -- "shrinkflation" if you will -- rather than something intended to actually benefit the player base. Unless, of course, the benefit is avoiding a further reduction in the number of scenarios produced. Either way...feels bad, man.
Face it. Spending an hour just blindly rolling dice to get past a series of skill challenges is not fun. It's not roleplaying, it's rollplaying. I don't think many people would debate that, but it is unclear to me why you apparently believe shorter scenarios will necessarily mean higher quality.
I understand that it isn't an official Paizo term, James. What I'm saying is that, given how branding typically works, maybe it should be -- especially since it is literally the term that came to mind for you! Calling a single adventure (of whatever length) a "path" is unclear at best, because that is simply not how the term "adventure path" has ever been used, by Paizo or by anyone else (at least as far as I'm aware). And so you risk creating expectations for the product that will never be met. Which is kinda the opposite of how branding is intended to work. Ok, I'm done beating this dead horse. ;-)
In his post, James refers to them as "campaigns." Maybe that or "campaign-length adventures"? Given Paizo's subscription-centric business model, I can see keeping a separate product line; just don't call that product line "adventure paths," because, well, they aren't. I mean, obviously Paizo can call them whatever they want (hell, they could make cars and call them boats, but people might get upset when they don't float).
Are they going to keep the Adventure Path branding, I wonder? I mean, if they are releasing APs in a single volume then they are functionally similar to, if longer than, the Pathfinder Adventures line of modules.Yes. The format is changing, but the function and role of the Adventure Path is not changing. They'll continue to offer 9 to 11 levels of play (depending on the story) while the standalone adventures will continue to focus on shorter things or anthologies. Paizo should retire the "adventure path" branding. Starting all the way back with Shackled City, the defining feature of an adventure path has always been multiple installments. When the defining feature of a brand goes, the brand itself really should follow. To keep it around is to risk confusing (or even angering) your customers. This product is now, after all, just a longer format adventure, especially now that adventures will all be released in hardcover. Finally, "Pathfinder" as a TTRPG is certainly well enough established that you don't need to keep the separate "adventure path" branding around (in case that was a concern). TLDR: KISS, especially where branding is concerned. "Path" no longer applies; drop it.
Sadly, if Erik Mona's recent comments on Reddit are anything to go by, AP pawns will likely remain a thing of the past. Personally I'm hoping Paizo makes a go of tokens instead of pawns, and that doing so changes the cost structure enough to allow AP token packs to become a thing.
Adventure path change seems overall like a win, though it might be time to drop the "path" moniker. It's really just a big adventure at this point, no? Especially since pretty much everything will be hard cover now. The name "Pathfinder" is recognizable as its own thing; you don't need the name "adventure path" around. Overall, this seems like a great opportunity to simplify your branding. The PFS changes I like much less. Removing stat blocks from scenarios means either extra prep work, more books to carry, or both. But my bigger concern is that this is 25% less content for the same price -- and said content only supports half the level band. I'm sure they'll be easier to produce, but this is, in effect, shrinkflation (and therefore really yet *another* price increase for PFS scenarios in the last few years, tripling down on the fundamentally misguided, not to mention baffling, strategy of trying to make a promotional tool profitable). Scenarios were already relatively overpriced at $9; now they'll be 25% smaller, and less flexible to boot. At the end of the day, these changes make things more painful and costly for society GMs, which seems very unlikely to end well for anyone.
The tokens were also specifically mentioned as a test, to see how they woould be received. So I guess your feedback on them will be very welcome. I don't personally have any interest in Starfinder, but Pathfinder also needs to maintain a cost-effective means of tactical representation. If pawns can no longer fill that niche due to production costs, then tokens seem like a great alternative. Not only can more be printed in the same space -- at least for medium size creatures -- but pawns can often feature different creatures on two sides (especially for rare or unique creatures). If further costs savings become necessary, Paizo could do what WotC did back in 4e: make large the largest size pawn, and include "rings" that fits around the outside to represent huge or bigger variants. So much potential here. I really hope we see this tried for Pathfinder. Edit: Maybe there would even be a way to save on distribution costs if tokens could be shipped as printed bound matter? Perhaps attach the sheets as a means of storage..?
Tariffs have to be legislated... For the most part, that is not actually the case in the U.S. All the president needs to do to unilaterally impose tariffs is decide that the imports in question are “fostering U.S. dependence on unreliable or unsafe imports.” There's also the fact that the president-elect doesn't have a record of caring one whit about formalities like legality, but that's dancing pretty close to politics, so I'll leave it at that.
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