|
(reposted from the other thread)
Read the “History and Design Goals” section under “From the Lead Designer” bit on the PathfinderRPG main page. In fact, probably the entirety of the main page should be read. That sets the goals of the project. I suppose it is similar to a vision document.
As for what system it is supposed to support – primarily the Pathfinder line of products, the ‘feel’ of which has already been quite well established. (edit)But also I suppose whatever style of games people now play using the core 3.5 rules.
EDIT Link: Pathfinder RPG
|
|
Test post to see if this causes the thread to appear.
It worked. Alright, I posted this to the other thread, but since this thread is back.
Re player / playtest / community involvement, I found a couple of things after a few minutes searching. I'm sure there are more.
Greetings and welcome to the Pathfinder RPG General Discussion forum.
This is the forum for general comments about the Pathfinder RPG and discussing the system with other fans. This is also where we will post announcements about upcoming Alpha releases and opportunities to play the game.
This forum should also be used to post up new rules and suggestions about parts of the system that have not yet appeared in an Alpha document.
We need your help to make this the best game possible. Thanks for checking out the Pathfinder RPG and welcome aboard.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Hello again,
Welcome to the Pathfinder RPG Alpha release 1 forum. This is the forum for posting specific observations, queries, and concerns about the rules in release 1.
When starting a thread, please list rules in question and a page reference in the subject line of the thread. Please take a good look through all of the threads first to see if there is already one in progress about the rules in question. As future Alpha releases become available, new forums will be created to support those releases.
Thanks again for checking out the Pathfinder RPG. I look forward to reading your feedback.
Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
We want your feedback. These rules are not yet
f inalized, and we’re turning to you to help us
polish them into the game you want to play. To
help us accomplish this, we will be unveiling the
Pathfinder RPG rules in a number of releases (this
is Alpha release 1). Over the coming months, all the
rules will be revealed, culminating in the off icial Beta
release, available this August. Your playtesting and
suggestions will help shape the Beta release and the
eventual f inished product.
sUbmitting Feedback
Once you’ve read through the rules and played a few
games with them, go to paizo.com/pathf inderRPG.
On the messageboards are forums for Pathfinder RPG
playtesters. Use these forums to post your own feedback,
read the feedback of others, and to talk to the Pathfinder
RPG design team.
General Discussion: This forum is for general
comments about the Pathfinder RPG and discussing
the system with other fans. This is also where Paizo
will post announcements about upcoming releases
and opportunities to play the game. You can also post
your ideas and suggestions for new rules to this forum.
While much of the game is already in design, we will be
monitoring this forum for good ideas and suggestions
as we move forward.
Playtest Feedback: This forum is for posting specif ic
observations, queries, and concerns about the rules in
current release of the Pathfinder RPG. When starting
a thread, please list the rules in question and a page
reference in the subject line of the thread. Take a good
look through all of the threads f irst to see if there is
already one in progress about the rule in question. As
future playtest releases become available, new forums
will be added to cover those releases.
Finally, the Pathfinder RPG design and development
staff would like to thank you for participating. This is a
big endeavor, and it would not be possible without your
support. Thanks!
It seems they have assumed that we all understand the flavor they want.
I suppose this is understandable to a certain extent, with all the grognards here. But a clear articulation would be really useful and might narrow the kind of feedback given in the forums and also limit the time people spend making comments that fall outside the vision.
Hello Frank.
|
|
I think the fact that we are using the 3.5 rules as a base, and that Paizo has been / is developing the Pathfinder Golarion setting to be used with both the current 3.5 and the new PFRPG rules gives us a pretty good base as to what sort of feel the rules / setting should have and what a player / character should be able to do.
Personally (and this is only a personal opinion – it should not be construed as a challenge or an insult to anyone) I don’t see the need for the sort of rigorous testing process you suggest. Firstly, I don’t think that the 3.5 rules are so broken that their modification requires this sort of testing. Secondly, I trust the Paizo designers to do a pretty good job of things, in conjunction with the (useful bits of) the feedback they get from the community through various people’s opinions, experience and playtesting.
I’m not expecting that we will get the perfect game system here. In my opinion, if we get a system that is slightly better than the current 3.5 system, we have a success. I completely expect that we will end up with a system that is quite a bit better than the current one. We will not achieve a perfect system (at least not one that is perfect in everyone’s opinion).
However, I’m not the expert. I would be interested to hear what Jason or some of the other designers thought of this idea.
|
|
It seems they have assumed that we all understand the flavor they want.
I suppose this is understandable to a certain extent, with all the grognards here. But a clear articulation would be really useful and might narrow the kind of feedback given in the forums and also limit the time people spend making comments that fall outside the vision.
I'd certainly agree with that.
Part of the problem I think might be the use of 3.5 as a baseline, because that game has baggage which people (myself included) are likely to carry forward into any analysis of a 'related' system.
Using 3.5 as a baseline is almost unavoidable, given the design goal of backwards compatibility with existing 3.5 products.
|
|
Using 3.5 as a baseline is almost unavoidable, given the design goal of backwards compatibility with existing 3.5 products.
Oh yeah, sorry for my crap explanation of that point. I agree, just that it makes the vision of what you want 3.P to look like more important, 'cause otherwise people will project their baggage from 3.5 onto the closely related product.
No worries mate.
I’m not trying to project any snarkiness or elitism here, but I think that vision may be at least somewhat clear to the longer term and regular forum members and Paizo customers, because it sort of coincides with the types of things Paizo’s been doing for a while (right – unless I’m completely wrong in what the vision is!). But that doesn’t much help someone who’s coming into this new and wondering what’s going on and how they can contribute.
I would concede that there may not be one location on the site where all the questions you’re asking – a vision statement for the system, the setting and a clear indication of how the community can contribute – can be found. Except, perhaps, in the actual playtest document itself?
Maybe things could be presented more clearly somewhere.
Creative Director
|
To a certain extent... we're learning as we go as well how to do something like this. But the basic goal is to generate a set of RPG rules that are, in the end, relatively similar to the 3.5 rules we have now. We're not looking for wild and crazy revisions, by which I guess I mean a brand new magic system, for example, or new ability scores. In fact, I think that a fair amount of the rules we're testing out in the alpha might go "too far" afield from what we need the core game to do.
In the end... that core game, the Pathfinder RPG, needs to do what 3.5 is doing now, but with certain areas that, over the past several years of "playtesting" 3.5, most gamers have come to agree are broken, underpowered, or overpowered. The grapple rules are a favorite horse to beat there... but also, things like the bard class (which is underpowered), the fact that wizards have to spend XP and gold and time just to maintain their baseline abilities, the fact that there's no really reason to take a 20th level in rogue, and the fact that some spells (awaken, polymorph, blasphemy, etc.) could stand to be rewritten or clarified.
In the end, look at the types of adventures we've been doing in Pathfinder and the modules. THOSE are the stories we want to tell, and the 3.5 system works more or less for those stories. But it can be tinkered with and improved... more to the point, by this time next year, the 3.5 books won't be in print anymore, and since we're sticking with this edition of the rules, we had to take SOME sort of step to keep them in print. Which felt like a good time to get in there and tinker with things.
And finally, the open nature of the playtest and development is just that; open. We want our customers to have full visibility into what we're doing, so that they can not only understand WHY we're making some of the changes we're making, but perhaps more importantly, so they can catch things we miss or mess up before it all gets locked down for the final print version. Which is due for Gen Con 2009... so we've got a LOT of time to make it the best rules set we can all make it!
The thing we're NOT really interested in doing is a 100% community-driven reworking of the rules. Because the nature of something like that would more or less ensure that it would never be finished, since people would still be tinkering forever. That's part of the nature of being a gamer. Instead, we have a fairly good idea of what we want (a close to 3.5 ruleset that allows players of that game to continue using those rules if they want, but also allows new players in the future to still have rulesbooks to buy), and we're using the playtest to make sure that it's what our customers want as well.
In the end, will the Pathfinder RPG game be perfect? Maybe to some folk. Probably not to a lot. I fully expect there to be house rules for things here and there for the game in various groups... but again, that's part of the fun of the hobby.
The overall goal is, though, to make a game that WE at Paizo want to support, and make a game that you our customers want to play.
|
|
Well said James!
I am hoping that when all is said and done, what we have is an improved 3.5 ed with some specific flavor fluff thrown in as well as some optional rules added to enhance play. I do think there are some general areas which are well recognized that need some updates, and these are the areas that I am expecting Paizo to address. I am not expecting a complete re-write of the rules.
If I want to play something that is very different, I will play 4th ed.
|
|
Thanks for the reply James.
See, this is what I love, and this is one of the reasons, despite any squabbling and bad blood that might go on from time to time in the forums, PFRPG is going to work; when one of the designers will take time out at, what, 3am or so his time? to write a very detailed and informative reply to something like this.
|
|
What have the Pathfinder Alpha releases so far attempted to do:
1) Add a little oomph to the races, trying to rebalance them in the process.
2) Added more (or different) options to the classes, trying to rebalance them in the process, and possibly bring the core classes up to the power level of some splatbook classes.
3) Revised skills. Some combined, skill points eliminated, then reinserted and modified.
4) Added new Feats, attempted to recode combat feats into trees, withdrew that and modified them again.
5) Altered some spells that have been "proven" unbalanced.
6) Addresses game mechanics deemed "difficult", "unbalanced", or "sucky", such as sombat manuevers and xp loss.
... and a bit more, for sure.
That a "rigorous mathematical analysis" of 3.5 has "proven" some "bugs" inherent in the system should not be ignored if they can be addressed, especially if they can be addressed as simply as changing one line of the script. Mind you, the stuff that would take "reinventing" the game to "fix" probably has too high a cost to benefit ratio, especially in light of both deadlines and divisiveness over backwards compatability.
I'd say much of this can and should be a little more hammered out once the Beta book is out this summer. A more "try to break these rules" style playtest should be in order, with the math behind the team's ideas seriously being challenged and results reported on. A Beta testing that is more structured along the lines you suggest could certainly help the final product, especially when opened up to Gen Con attendies who may not have a currently strong online presence.
What exactly fits this 'backward compatible' goal, anyway? The barbarian has a slew of new options and an entirely new class mechanic. An entire new class of feats that can only be used one at a time have been introduced, which has almost no precedence in function, and pulled vital build feats into its fold (ex. rapid shot).
I can understand polymorph and its change, since leaving it alone does more harm than changing it to a dozen spells with a seperate resolution mechanic.
|
|
What exactly fits this 'backward compatible' goal, anyway? The barbarian has a slew of new options and an entirely new class mechanic. An entire new class of feats that can only be used one at a time have been introduced, which has almost no precedence in function, and pulled vital build feats into its fold (ex. rapid shot).
I can understand polymorph and its change, since leaving it alone does more harm than changing it to a dozen spells with a seperate resolution mechanic.
Whenever I broke this rule, it was because the other guidelines took precedence
Other Guidelines being:
a) Improve the game.
and
b) More options.
Backwards compatability is only one of the three "guidelines" for the Alpha. Also, by its nature, the Alpha should be throwing changes at us, which can then be dialed back for the Beta. Several Paizo employees have already said in numerous threads that the Alpha was pushing the envelope, by design.
What exactly fits this 'backward compatible' goal, anyway? The barbarian has a slew of new options and an entirely new class mechanic. An entire new class of feats that can only be used one at a time have been introduced, which has almost no precedence in function, and pulled vital build feats into its fold (ex. rapid shot).
I can understand polymorph and its change, since leaving it alone does more harm than changing it to a dozen spells with a seperate resolution mechanic.
I assume part of being backwards compatible is that you could use the old barbarian in the new system with nearly no problems. The new barbarian having more abilities doesn't leave you unable to use the old barbarian as written.
|
I’m not trying to project any snarkiness or elitism here, but I think that vision may be at least somewhat clear to the longer term and regular forum members and Paizo customers, because it sort of coincides with the types of things Paizo’s been doing for a while (right – unless I’m completely wrong in what the vision is!). But that doesn’t much help someone who’s coming into this new and wondering what’s going on and how they can contribute.And this is rather the problem. I was sent a link here weeks ago and 3.P sounds like a good idea. But I don't have a clear idea what role backwards compatible is intended to have. As the barbarian example shows the changes can be quite in depth and render 3.5 NPCs vastly out of step. Its hard to tell what rationale is used to determine when something needs to stay due to backwards compatibility. I'm not sure when its worth suggesting something be changed.
It's always worth suggesting - its the alpha test after all. Just don't be to dissappointed if your suggestion isn't liked by other members of the community or if it isn't implemented in the finnished game - I'm quite sure that, if the suggestion isn't completely ballooney it will be read and somewhat considered (alas only as one of many, many suggestions).