Read the ENWorld thread - Steel Wind is not only entirely incorrect here, he actively knows it and is trying to stir up anti-4e drama.
There have been bids on Jem and the Holograms (a cartoon and toy line from the mid '80s aimed at female tweens). What Hasbro wanted for the product was always considered outrageous...
Was it TRULY outrageous?
Truly, truly, truly outrageous?
WOTC is not really doing that bad as a company. CCG games are still very popular and have strong sales. However its cornerstone Brand-D&D, is not selling well. Chuck it up to many many marketing missteps, a waning(fleeing) player base, and a lack of company/player interaction.
It may be that D&D will come back in some form as 5e in a few years. Emulating it one-time periodicals company.
If not then I give it about 5 years before the D&D brand is in Paizo's portfolio as an IP and not as a product licensee(they got bit once already).
Either way I believe its a win win for paizo. If gamers leave D&D for organized play they will come to Paizo and if Paizo gets D&D ...well we'll leave that for another day...
I just want them to have the license so they can use monsters like the mind flayers that are not open content. I don't think one monster is worth what they would have to pay to be able to get it though.
[Lawful Evil call for thread to be tyrannically suppressed!]
Now if, in Asmodeus' name, someone would lock this thread please? I've just touched on the likely high-points of the next few chaotic pages if it's left to run on, and I really don't see any merit in it continuing.
[/Lawful Evil call for thread to be tyrannically suppressed!]
There have been bids on Jem and the Holograms (a cartoon and toy line from the mid '80s aimed at female tweens). What Hasbro wanted for the product was always considered outrageous...Was it TRULY outrageous?
Truly, truly, truly outrageous?
CANNOT wait.
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I have full schedules for our Origins and Gencon presence (LFR, AoA, D&D Championship, etc.) once again paid and sponsored by Wotc. I fully expect to run 1,000+ tables of games at Gencon again this year (once again in a room paid for by Wotc, with judges in hotel rooms paid by Wotc, and handing them stacks of judge prize support paid for by Wotc).
I got the impression by the blog post that after this year there will be no more Funds for RPGA coming from WotC, will they still be funding Con play after this year?
Will there be issues in Adventure creation without funds anymore?
...it's turning into a tin foil hat wearing witch hunt.
You give me an interesting combination of images.
"Get the torches! Burn the witch! And keep an eye open for flying saucers!"
CEO
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I can't see it. WotC would be looking to sell a brand, while Paizo would be looking to buy an RPG. I have a really difficult time imaging they could settle on a price. Add Hasbro's well-established penchant for brand hoarding and I think this outcome is very unlikely indeed. Then again, I've been wrong before. :)
If not then I give it about 5 years before the D&D brand is in Paizo's portfolio as an IP and not as a product licensee(they got bit once already).
I agree with you and disagree with you at the same time. IF Paizo were to buy D&D, we would be buying it because of the brand, not because it is an RPG. That said, I think it is more likely that I would close Paizo tomorrow and become a bag lady than WotC would sell the D&D brand to anybody, including Paizo. And I also agree that the price would be insane! :)
-Lisa
I removed a post and the descending replies to it. Really, folks, be civil.
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CEO
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Lot's of cool facts about RPGA at GenCon
Thanks for stopping by, David, and showing that the RPGA isn't dead yet. Matter of fact, she's feeling happy. Maybe she should go for a walk! :)
Also thanks to Pierre for letting us know what is happening with LFR.
I have a strong place in my heart for the RPGA. That is how I got started in the gaming industry. I had my first article published way back in Polyhedron #25 I believe. I used to go to GenCon and game from the first crack of Thursday until the end of the day Sunday and had a blast. Many great friends were created back in those days, and it got my foot in the door, so that when my first company came around, I was ready, willing and able. Without the RPGA, I doubt that I or Paizo would be here today.
Glad to see the old lady is still alive, kicking, and taking names!
-Lisa
A post from WolfStar76 (a LFR Point of Contact admin and cool person) on EnWorld covering a good deal of stuff on LFR because he asked.
I'm pretty sure LFG will be doing fine, but I am more bummed about the way this thread was brought in and how people on both sides have taken shots at the other "side" in the so called "edition war." I'm not really endeared to either other Paizo fans or other WotC fans in either thread.
Agree, Blazej. It's still an ugly situation, even after all this time. But there are level heads, mostly from the management and employees of both companies. I hope we fans can take some cues in civility and tact.
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Read the ENWorld thread - Steel Wind is not only entirely incorrect here, he actively knows it and is trying to stir up anti-4e drama.
No, I wasn't incorrect. I was, in fact, balls on accurate.
Pronouns thrown around without regard to the topic at hand only serve to muddy the waters; not to clarify them.
Moreover, I really *wasn't* trying to stir the pot deliberately over at ENWorld -- or here. I got reports from Azmyth from Dundracon over the weekend that initially seemed to me to be very odd: namely, that they weren't asking for RPGA numbers. I made public inquires, as that struck me as very odd indeed. That's why my question started out tentatively. Initially, the name of the thread on ENWorld was expressed as a question, not as a statement. (I changed it after it was all being confirmed).
Am I sad that the RPGA is apparently no more? Yes. I am. As a past member of the RPGA, that mattered to me. A lot? Perhaps not. But some? Yes.
Does all of this make Pathfinder Society and the support it receives from Paizo look better and better all the time? Yes, it does. I have not been much for organized play in the past. Never have been. It's just not part of the gaming culture in Canada the same way it is in the USA. But the podcast has opened my eyes to some hardcore PFS players. And those guys (and gals) care a LOT about their orgnized play. WAY more than I thought possible. They've invited me to play and GM it -- and so I thought it only right to roll up my shirtsleeves and give it a go.
And no - this wasn't intended to be a salvo in the edition wars. 4E wasn't even mentioned in any of this by me. Nor did I mention the Forgotten Realms reset or anything like it. As far as I can recall, not until this paragraph did I mention the words or even come close to it this thread or on ENWorld. [Edit: I'm wrong. I said "4E land" here. But that's it, as far as I can see.]
The thread on ENWorld was genuine: about the effective end of corporate development for a longstanding brand with incredibly deep roots in gaming, coupled with the effective death-knell of the RPGA as a brand umbrella for organized play for D&D. And it's sad.
The thread here was expressing comparative praise for Pathfinder Society -- posted in the PFS section -- and intended for members of the PFS expressing approval for Paizo's ongoing support of it. This thread was moved here to the 4E section (I presume) by staff at Paizo.
If I truly want to stir the pot and fire a salvo in the edition wars? I can do it easily on the podcast where I am in complete control of the talk and edit buttons. Or on the D20 Radio forums for that matter -- where I'm the moderator.
You can do or say whatever it is that you prefer to do or say (or think) Cirno -- but you are ascribing to me motives and methods I did not have and do not practice.
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So we ran a 500 person show just a few weeks ago packed full of LFR and AoA goodness (our winter version of PaizoCon - I would say though we've been around longer so they can be the summer version of us - take that Jason/Erik). Sponsered by Wotc and attended by a lot of Wotc staff members (including brand and community managers).
I have full schedules for our Origins and Gencon presence (LFR, AoA, D&D Championship, etc.) once again paid and sponsored by Wotc. I fully expect to run 1,000+ tables of games at Gencon again this year (once again in a room paid for by Wotc, with judges in hotel rooms paid by Wotc, and handing them stacks of judge prize support paid for by Wotc).
I am already working on shows for next year (once again with Wotc).
Not saying any of this to bash on Paizo or Pathfinder or any silly edition wars. Just want to get some actual facts out there instead of random assumptions and guesses being tossed out as facts.
Dave C
RPGA Senior GM (DDXP, Origins, Gencon)
Baldman Games (www.baldmangames.com)
David - that's good to hear. Honestly, it is.
Four questions then:
1) Why no asking for RPGA numbers at regional cons this past weekend?
2) Why no information on WotC's site as to how one would join it? (It brings you to WPN, instead)
3) Is there, in fact, any obvious way to join it? (Or any reason or benefit to doing so?)
4) Is this con activity part of the WPN, or is it still under the RGPA banner?
When I asked on ENWorld what the RPGA was doing -- nobody posted the information you have. It was quite contrary to that, in fact. As a consequence, it changed a thread asking questions -- into a thread that was making a statement.
So can you explain what the role of the RPGA is now and what it does?
I will mention that I was at DunDraCon this past weekend and walked through the rooms hosting the RPGA and the Pathfinder Society. (Mixed, and cheerfully.) I did not play either games due to them being over subscribed and waitlisted (more so for the Pathfinder games, but the RPGA ones had a wait list too) but on the side counter, along with the character sheets, I did notice a pile of the new Fortune cards, and all of the cards were the same Fortune card. My assumption was that these were the "thank you" gifts sent from WotC for those who participated in the demo games.
Note: This is an assumption, not a fact, but it seemed to be something related to the RPGA (as the PFS wouldn't be handing out Fortune cards) and it bespoke some variety of corporate support, if just left over from previous cons or sent out before policies changed.
No, I wasn't incorrect. I was, in fact, balls on accurate.
No, it was in fact wildly inaccurate. It's shameful how you hold to your position despite actual facts presented by those involved. And equally shameful that you asked for the ENWorld thread to be closed without even a simple "my bad" for spreading rumors about a campaign that it is quite evident that you knew exactly nothing about in the first place.
I can't see it. WotC would be looking to sell a brand, while Paizo would be looking to buy an RPG. I have a really difficult time imaging they could settle on a price. Add Hasbro's well-established penchant for brand hoarding and I think this outcome is very unlikely indeed. Then again, I've been wrong before. :)
If not then I give it about 5 years before the D&D brand is in Paizo's portfolio as an IP and not as a product licensee(they got bit once already).
I agree with you and disagree with you at the same time. IF Paizo were to buy D&D, we would be buying it because of the brand, not because it is an RPG. That said, I think it is more likely that I would close Paizo tomorrow and become a bag lady than WotC would sell the D&D brand to anybody, including Paizo. And I also agree that the price would be insane! :)
-Lisa
Oh, indeed, the price would be insane. But stranger things have been known in the world of American business, and Hasbro is a huge corporation, so all it would need is something on the order of the Corning bankruptcy to make it consider fire-saling its less profitable assets. And there also might be horsetrading involved, such as when Disney recently reacquired the license to Oswald Rabbit. Would Paizo trade some hypothetical wildly successful future board game, on the order of Trivial Pursuit in the 80s, for D&D brand? Insane price for insane price is an even trade, and if both companies felt it was in their best interest, that's hardly out of the realm of possibility.
I never really got into RPGA or pathfinder society, as I like more focused adventures and/or campaigns. But of course, I know enough people to organize my own groups. In regards to licensing, as long as someone carries on the old and/or new traditions, I would be happy, as everyone can choose what they like. I would hate to see something get buried, in order to remove a choice (for the owner, or whoever takes over).
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No, it was in fact wildly inaccurate. It's shameful how you hold to your position despite actual facts presented by those involved. And equally shameful that you asked for the ENWorld thread to be closed without even a simple "my bad" for spreading rumors about a campaign that it is quite evident that you knew exactly nothing about in the first place.
Agreed and seconded. Not only that he tried to do the same thing in this forum also.
I agree with you and disagree with you at the same time. IF Paizo were to buy D&D, we would be buying it because of the brand, not because it is an RPG. That said, I think it is more likely that I would close Paizo tomorrow and become a bag lady than WotC would sell the D&D brand to anybody, including Paizo. And I also agree that the price would be insane! :)
-Lisa
LOL. I love the bag lady image, but the stories I've heard have you getting a truck-load of money from the Hasbro buyout of WotC.
On a related note, are you looking for a husband? I do windows.
I've said it before and I will say it again: Paizo needs to run it all. Seems, they are the only ones with their fingers on the proverbial pulse of gamers.
Not in the slightest, really. The only thing Paizo really knows how to do is please Pathfinder fans, and Pathfinder is no more s "better version" of D&D than 4E is. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that Pathfinder and 4E are exactly the same.
Pathfinder is built for a niche audience of old-school gamers to go back to a Tolkien mentality of the world (humanlike people good, nonhumanlike people bad!), while at the same time supporting offshoots of D&D that failed for good reason (hello ninja, samurai and gunslinger), and not embracing anything that made the game something other than generic fantasy and lots of vancian repetition. No, words of power, you don't count. In fact, go sit in the corner for being a needlessly complicated "addition".
Pathfinder is generic fantasy. Almost stereotypically so.
4E was built for gamers, as in online gamers, so it drew in a chunk of that niche audience while losing a good chunk of it's core group. Oh, and yes, it does play like a video game. A very repetitive video game.
3.5 is still the only decent D&D game out there, and Paizo never saw why. They're blind to what made it good. The warlock made 3.5 good. The dragonborn made 3.5 good. Psionics made 3.5 good. The race books made 3.5 good. Sword magic made 3.5 good. Being something other than generic fantasy made 3.5 good.
Pathfinder may have the better rulesset, I'll confirm that readily, but it's D&D with all the freshness gone out of it.
So now I walk into the local game store to pick what exotic flavor of D&D I want to play, and there's just one bored clerk there who asks me "So...chocolate or vanilla?"
So, I've gone back to playing 3.5, pretty much indefinitely until WotC releases 5th edition and does it right, or until Paizo removes the stick from their posterior.
Personally, I'm hoping for both. :)
You do realize that almost all of the options that you mentioned came out in the later half of 3.5's active life, right? 3.5 core is very generic, and while a lot of the splat books added a lot to make it feel less generic, they also added a lot of useless junk.
Paizo is starting to get to the point where they have their own ways of diversifying the options available to players. They may not be exactly like the 3.5 splat material, but they don't need to be. That material is already out there, and with only a few minor revisions to skills and such, the good 3.5 splat material transfers over pretty easily; the not so good stuff takes as much effort to make usable in either system, so no difference between Pathfinder or 3.5 there. The warlock, dragonborn, and all the other options can still be used. Psionics, while not an immediate priority for Paizo, is something they plan on doing at some point, and until Paizo does it, there is a 3rd party company that has already put out their version, and from what I understand, it's pretty good. It may not be Paizo, but the beauty of Paizo is that they don't feel like they have to be ones turning out all the rules content. They can let others focus on that aspect, while they focus on adventures and Golarion. The core product line is generic precisely because they create the non generic stuff already in their other lines.
Not to mention that much of the splat material you referred to is not open license, so Paizo couldn't copy it even if they wanted to.
As for the inevitable 5th edition, I don't think people who really dislike 4E are going to be particularly satisfied with whatever WotC comes up with next. WotC, for better or worse, has chosen the path they plan on pursuing, and at this point, it's too late for them to return to the path they were on with 3.5, as Pathfinder and Paizo sit firmly on that path. I just hope that they can learn how to communicate with the audience they do have better than they have in the past. If they can do that, they might just get everyone else to at least give the new edition a chance to stand on its own merits. It will not be 3.5 revisited, and probably not even 4E modified, but it will still hopefully be a solid system in it's own right.
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Pathfinder is built for a niche audience ...<snip>... and not embracing anything that made the game something other than generic fantasy and lots of vancian repetition.
This is something that I always had a problem with. What exactly IS wrong with a Vancian magic system?
Personally, I see the various magic systems (Vancian, mana pool, wide open casting, 4E at-will/encounter/daily) like different ice cream systems. You have your Baskin-Robbins, your Coldstone Creamery, your storebought Bluebell ... they all do ice cream differently, but they all taste delicious to me!
In other words, the different magic systems are thematic in nature and tied into the base assumptions of the game world, and more specifically, the balance of the game rules. Just because that system is a points-buy system as opposed to Vancian memorization doesn't make it inherently any better, it just makes it a different thematic presentation.
At least that's how I see it.
They're blind to what made it good. The warlock made 3.5 good. The dragonborn made 3.5 good. Psionics made 3.5 good. The race books made 3.5 good. Sword magic made 3.5 good. Being something other than generic fantasy made 3.5 good.
No.
So, apparently, Paizo is not blind to what made 3.5 good. How 'bout that?
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3.5 is still the only decent D&D game out there, and Paizo never saw why. They're blind to what made it good. The warlock made 3.5 good. The dragonborn made 3.5 good. Psionics made 3.5 good. The race books made 3.5 good. Sword magic made 3.5 good. Being something other than generic fantasy made 3.5 good.
See that's what made 3.5 bad for me...
Time to go get some chunky monkey
3.5 is still the only decent D&D game out there, and Paizo never saw why. They're blind to what made it good. The warlock made 3.5 good. The dragonborn made 3.5 good. Psionics made 3.5 good. The race books made 3.5 good. Sword magic made 3.5 good. Being something other than generic fantasy made 3.5 good.See that's what made 3.5 bad for me...
Time to go get some chunky monkey
Quite honestly those were a mixed bag for 3.5 and they still are for Pathfinder, since it's made for backwards compatibility.
I personally didn't like the Sword magic books, specifically because they had the "our magic is incomprehensible to your magic but can still hose your magic" cheese which I dislike in any gaming system.
That said, there are people who like them, and I have no trouble with people who like them using them in their games.
There are lots of things in the 3.5 splat books that made me go "Um, yeah, whatever." And that's fine. It's like having extra toppings at a salad bar. Just because I personally think that adding cottage cheese, garbonzo beans, and Oreo cookie crumbs to my salad would ruin it does not mean that someone else isn't free to heap these onto their plate, or that I might not like one of those things individually in the right combination. But everything from the salad and dessert bar dumped onto one plate and stirred together? Ewww....
Pathfinder is built for a niche audience of old-school gamers to go back to a Tolkien mentality of the world (humanlike people good, nonhumanlike people bad!)
I'm not old-school. I didn't get into D&D till 3e was already out.
Nor do I prefer any sort of "Tolkien" mentality as you called it. I run almost exclusively planar, anything goes campaigns in my home games. I can't remember the last time I played a PC who wasn't half-something or another. My last 3 PCs were in reverse order: a tiefling rogue, a shadow-dragon druid, a half-faerie-dragon sorcerer.
Yet I greatly prefer Pathfinder. If it only supported one sort of playstyle, it wouldn't be as successful as it has been. It's capable of doing different things for different people. :)
4E was built for gamers, as in online gamers, so it drew in a chunk of that niche audience while losing a good chunk of it's core group. Oh, and yes, it does play like a video game. A very repetitive video game.
This is something that I always had a problem with. What exactly IS wrong with a Vancian magic system?
Well, nothing, I suppose, since it's really just a long list of daily powers. The problem is that early on you aren't provided with enough slots to really feel like a wizard throughout the entire adventuring day, and that later in your adventuring career you're provided with far too many slots to possibly use during an adventuring day.
A measured number of Vancian slots combined with a less powerful set of at-will, magical attacks to give you some oomph in case you run out or don't want to waste valuable spell slots on encounters that don't require them would be a good way of addressing the issue. I believe Pathfinder addresses the second part of this solution, yes?
I think, when it comes down to it, my problem with both 4E and Pathfinder is pretty simple:
Neither of them actually sits down with me and asks "What do you want to play?"
I think, when it comes down to it, my problem with both 4E and Pathfinder is pretty simple:
Neither of them actually sits down with me and asks "What do you want to play?"
Both games do that (aside from the obviously impossible personification of them sitting down, but personification for the purpose of criticism doesn't accomplish much beyond confusing the argument).
