Yes it is... it's a different property owned by a separate company that's effectively a competitor to WOTC. It has close roots to D&D but as of APG, and UM/UC it's now a game in it's own right.Ok.
D&D's serious competition is D&D...and some splats.
Look I get the rah rah we love Paizo and hate WotC, but at the end of the day, Pathfinder is - by design - 90%+ 3.5. It is, as I have labeled it, 3.55. Again, this is by design. It's not exactly a huge shock to say this when it's more or less printed in your core book to begin with.
Also, the other thing to note is that WotC has as of late cut back on how many products they're putting on the market, which would lead to a decrease in the pure number of sales.
It has nothing to do with liking one company or the other. It's recognizing that to the company's involved, Pathfinder is not the same thing as D&D. Just because the two systems have similar roots, and many fans on both sides will treat them as the same brand, at the corporate level, they are competing brands put out by competing companies with the profits of each going to different people. It is easy for you to say that Pathfinder is D&D 3.55. For WoTC, when the profits are going to someone else, its not D&D, therefore if PF is able to secure a significant market share, that is a significant market share that WoTC isn't getting anymore, but did at one time, and that will effect their marketing and product strategy.
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Yes it is... it's a different property owned by a separate company that's effectively a competitor to WOTC. It has close roots to D&D but as of APG, and UM/UC it's now a game in it's own right.Ok.
D&D's serious competition is D&D...and some splats.
Look I get the rah rah we love Paizo and hate WotC, but at the end of the day, Pathfinder is - by design - 90%+ 3.5. It is, as I have labeled it, 3.55. Again, this is by design. It's not exactly a huge shock to say this when it's more or less printed in your core book to begin with.
Also, the other thing to note is that WotC has as of late cut back on how many products they're putting on the market, which would lead to a decrease in the pure number of sales.
Coke and Pepsi are the same thing, too.
It has nothing to do with liking one company or the other. It's recognizing that to the company's involved, Pathfinder is not the same thing as D&D. Just because the two systems have similar roots, and many fans on both sides will treat them as the same brand, at the corporate level, they are competing brands put out by competing companies with the profits of each going to different people. It is easy for you to say that Pathfinder is D&D 3.55. For WoTC, when the profits are going to someone else, its not D&D, therefore if PF is able to secure a significant market share, that is a significant market share that WoTC isn't getting anymore, but did at one time, and that will effect their marketing and product strategy.Yes it is... it's a different property owned by a separate company that's effectively a competitor to WOTC. It has close roots to D&D but as of APG, and UM/UC it's now a game in it's own right.Ok.
D&D's serious competition is D&D...and some splats.
Look I get the rah rah we love Paizo and hate WotC, but at the end of the day, Pathfinder is - by design - 90%+ 3.5. It is, as I have labeled it, 3.55. Again, this is by design. It's not exactly a huge shock to say this when it's more or less printed in your core book to begin with.
Also, the other thing to note is that WotC has as of late cut back on how many products they're putting on the market, which would lead to a decrease in the pure number of sales.
You're still missing what I'm saying.
WotC's competition is Paizo. Yes. I agree!
But D&D's competition is D&D.
You need to be able to separate the two.
Coke and Pepsi are the same thing, too.
I didn't know Coca-cola designed Pepsi!
That is kinda similar to the current crapstorm Apple just created by releasing Final Cut X: 1) it's missing several important features from the previous release, 2) it has no backward compatibility, 3) Apple immediately stopped selling the old version (including site licenses), and 4) there was no advance warning to users that any of this was coming.
I know WotC isn't Apple, but I remember the next-to-no warning when the PDFs were yanked...
Edit: And a couple years ago, Microsoft stopped supporting music files purchased through MSN Music. There was several months advance warning though.
You can download all the written articles and such because it comes in PDFs. As for the tools themselves, well you need to decide if they are worth the price of admission now. If there is a 5E then there will be some kind of large lead up to it, if you don't like the direction that is going and you don't see significant evidence that the 4E toolset will continue then, at that point, you might want to think about getting Herolab or see what the fanbase is doing in this regards.
Good question. I'll just say this, we all saw what happened to the PDF's of previous editions,I hate the fact that WotC pulled PFS but it wasn't edition focussed, they pulled all PDFs including the 4e ones.
That doesn't exactly make the situation better! I can almost understand not wanting to compete against a company's own previous version of a product, but turning even the current product to the chopping block sounds even crazier.
It makes me think of what would happen if a record label completely pulled all MP3's of their artist's music and tried to force only physical record sales. I know, not exactly the same thing since the have all they online tools, but not every gaming group has a computer sitting in the game room either. Or internet access for that matter.
EDIT: Reading back over my post, I just want to make clear I'm not trying to sound like a WOTC hater or Doomsayer. I'm actually looking very forward to 5e, and I know it's not coming for a long time. At the same time, I mean exactly what I say above. Pulling PDF's out of fear of "piracy" is either WOTC being completely stupid or covering something else up.
The majority of pirated PDF's I've seen were from scanned copies of physical books anyway; keeping loyal, paying customers from purchasing them legitimately is just asinine.
You're still missing what I'm saying.
WotC's competition is Paizo. Yes. I agree!
But D&D's competition is D&D.
You need to be able to separate the two.
I get what you are saying, and as a player, I tend to agree with you, but for WoTC, there is no such separation between company and brand name. D&D the formal brand is in competition with Pathfinder. D&D the concept is something entirely different, and is important for historical purposes and to the players, but to the corporate people at WoTC making business decisions based on how well the formal brand is doing, the fact that the concept has outgrown the formal brand matters only in how that effects their sales and the sales of their formal competitors. The fact that WoTC designed 3.5 and passed it on to others is irrelevant to the business decisions that have to be made today by the current executives there, except for the detail that those who picked it up are now formally competing against WoTC.
Disgusting swill?
Coke and Pepsi are the same thing, too.
Neither are good for you, that's for sure. :)
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That doesn't exactly make the situation better!Good question. I'll just say this, we all saw what happened to the PDF's of previous editions,I hate the fact that WotC pulled PFS but it wasn't edition focussed, they pulled all PDFs including the 4e ones.
Oh yes I agree re it being a bad move by WotC and one that won't stop piracy. However I was more trying to indicate that using what they did with PDFs as an inidicator as to what they would do with DDI for 4e once 5e comes out may not be so accurate.
If WotC had just pulled previous edition PDFs then yes I think that would clearly indicate that they would pull DDI for 4e as soon as 5e comes out, but that isn't what they did; their motivations were completely different.
I wish Pathfinder all the success they deserve, but I really see this as WOTC working against themselves, and maybe that is what Professor Cirno is trying to state. Hasbro owns the D&D license, and the OGL (responsible for its creation). Anything they do will either promote that relationship or work against it. I may be totally ignorant of the reality of WOTC from a business standpoint, but my gut feeling states they were building momentum going into Dark Sun, and then I felt like the tires were deflated. The only question I have is will they learn from their mistakes. They are at the same point when they first released 4E if they change directions again. If they are smart, they may actually release different versions of the game, so you can have AD&D, 3.5 and 4E. What does it matter to them, if they can profit from all three? Although it may not be seperate versions, they may build it as a basic set, advanced set, and rules supplments depending on the flavor they want.
If Pathfinder demonstrates a strong market for the product they release, there is no reason to ignore it.
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I smell new Mouthy Upstart fiction.
Pathfinder is D&D?
PREPOSTEROUS!
To even suggest that some upstart company that isn't even listed on any stock market is any way worthy of being compared to a trademark held by the Illustrious Industry Leader?
Really, sad. So very, very sad.
Rah rah rah!
Pathfinder is NOT D&D.
Pretty sure the core rulebook disagrees with you rather harshly.
Pretty sure Paizo would also disagree with you a great deal.
Chief Technical Officer
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Pathfinder is NOT D&D.Pretty sure the core rulebook disagrees with you rather harshly.
Pretty sure Paizo would also disagree with you a great deal.
Pathfinder is not D&D. Pathfinder is an evolution of the 3.5 Edition of the world's oldest roleplaying game.
Is a man an ape?
Not according to Colonel George Taylor or Dr. Zaius.
I may be totally ignorant of the reality of WOTC from a business standpoint, but my gut feeling states they were building momentum going into Dark Sun, and then I felt like the tires were deflated. The only question I have is will they learn from their mistakes. They are at the same point when they first released 4E if they change directions again.
I don't really understand your statement "They are at the same point when they first released 4E if they change directions again."
I'm not saying I don't, in some ways agree with you, I too felt like they had some real momentum going on with the release of Darksun. Not only was the product highly anticipated but they really delivered on it - absolutely one of their best books. I think there where other elements going on here as well that really helped. The edition had matured to the point where a lot of people where beginning to understand the tools and how to use them and that was beginning to really show. I also think that it was about this time that WotC really began to react to the fan bases innovations.
In particular I think Fourthcore really stands out here and we begin to see some of the elements highlighted in the game itself. This element shows off the strength of their high errata, perpetual upgrade, online model for the game because it felt like the fan innovations in Fourthcore created a feedback loop to WotC itself and we got much improved monster designs and a revamp that tended to ramp up the difficulty level of the game. In effect elements of the fan base showed WotC (and other fans) how to make some components of the game better and we eventually see a full on game wide upgrade to the entire chassis underlying 4E to reflect what was in effect a fan based improvement to the model. I honestly can't think of a better endorsement to the perpetual upgrade model then that - the fans eventually show the company how its done and if they are listening the whole game improves.
We also see the Liar Assault in store play experience to go along with their more newbie friendly Encounters and I suspect Lair Assault owes its inception more then a little to the success of the Fourthcore movement (its worth pointing out that I'm not even a big Fourthcore fan - its not where I'm interested in focusing my game, I'm more interested in story...but credit where credit is due and all that).
The problem was there was not really anywhere obvious to go after Darksun - that was something of a high point. Sure in hindsight I could name some elements but that is hindsite and maybe just my personal opinion. Now its worth noting that I think we have continued to see some significant design improvements even after this point. Their recent announcement to rethink the Delve adventure design is a positive move. Their shift to a model that really supports free lancers and provides them feedback both sounds good and looks like it was already, in part, becoming part of their practice since the adventures we have seen over the last two months on the DDI have been an order of magnitude better then most of what they have put out...and I don't recognize the authors so I suspect they are free lancers and WotC is getting more adept at highlighting what is good about a free lancers work.
Its pretty clear that WotC does not care what else the Free Lancer is up to as well. I was a bit surprised to read the Bio on the most recent Save My Game article.
Stephen Radney-MacFarland is a game designer living large in the Seattle area. He was a developer for D&D 4th Edition, a content developer for 3rd Edition organized play, and he has taught game design for the past three years. Stephen currently works at Paizo Publishing as a designer for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, writes "Save My Game," and works on the occasional D&D product. He also runs more games than his wife would prefer.
So WotC is not playing favourites here - they'll work with any freelancer if they think the work is good.
In the end I see a fair bit of room for optimism in much of what they are doing these days. Not perfect of course - I still think they tend to move on to new projects faster then is warranted, I understand that the Virtual Tabletop is great and all, but I would still want to see the new Monster Builder brought up to spec and some more tools for the DDI but there have been some positive moves since Darksun.
Pathfinder is not D&D. Pathfinder is an evolution of the 3.5 Edition of the world's oldest roleplaying game.Pathfinder is NOT D&D.Pretty sure the core rulebook disagrees with you rather harshly.
Pretty sure Paizo would also disagree with you a great deal.
So Pathfinder is not D&D, it's just "an evolution of D&D"
Um.
It can be argued that Dogs in the Vineyard is an evolution of D&D.
Pathfinder and D&D are very different brands with roots in the same game. Paizo has to make that distinction due to trademark law.
I find it interesting that according to the numbers at Black Diamond Games's blog, 4E's numbers are stable while Pathfinders tripled. So 4E is still going strong, and Pathfinder is getting customers from somewhere besides 4E's base.
I find it interesting that according to the numbers at Black Diamond Games's blog, 4E's numbers are stable while Pathfinders tripled. So 4E is still going strong, and Pathfinder is getting customers from somewhere besides 4E's base.
Perhaps folks are playing both? WOTC has only put out 3 books this year. I know I have picked up a couple of Pathfinder products in the last 6 months, including the stunning campaign guide and inner sea primer. As an evolution of the world's oldest roleplaying game, its not hard to see folks who like 4E picking up Pathfinder as well. The campaign material is so well written and crunch light you could port to any system. I am in a Rise of the Runelords 4E game based on Scott Betts excellent conversion and it's great!
Apologies, Thread jack alert!
Completely off track; I started looking at tabletop RPG's last year, after a 16 year hiatus. Bookshop voucher, new Kindle mean't wandering shelves looking for a reference book. Seeing the 4E PHB and a random, on-spot purchase. After reading I remembered that I missed this "thing" from my youth. A bit of research pushed me to the Paizo site, being proclaimed on all review as the "real D&D". UK shipping mean't I bought the Pathfinder core off Amazon UK. The 500+ tome (with tiny writing) was off putting to say the least and I remembered THAC0 and simpler times, so stuck with 4E. 4E was much easier to introduce as a old/beginner to my fortnightly game night group. From poker we now play 4E and really love the system! As a lurker here I know that can be an offence with some but hey!
However, we want to play Pathfinder as well, but that tome, without 3.5 knowledge really is off putting to 6 40+ year old's with kids and long working weeks.
That's why I am so happy about the beginner box. It's perfect for my group. I really think the beginner box will see another upsurge for Pathfinder. I know we will add it in rotation with 4E and move up to the core book, slowly and using a magnifying glass for the print.
Heh, Paedur's comments hit a little too close to home - I'm not as old as him, but getting to the point where extended reading, especially small fonts on PC screens, hurts my eyes and makes things look blurry. =]
The Core Rulebook is a monster, no doubt about it. I've gotten to the point of being near either my desktop or a laptop whenever I run a Pathfinder game, just because a searchable SRD is far more useful to me during play than a 500-page print hardback. I can understand how people coming back to the hobby may find 4E more accessible, comparatively.
This is NOT meant as a slight against 4E but something that appeals to me about the system: it accommodates the lazy (or busy) GM. If I come up with an offbeat idea for an NPC I want to incorporate into a story, chances are it will take me a long time to properly stat it out in PF. I can conceptualize a GM character or monster much more quickly using 4E's framework than I can using Pathfinder's. (Granted, it would be easier if a better monster builder were available, but... *shrug*)
However, the AP line and setting for PF are both strong enough that there is no shortage of fun things to run. Carrion Crown is a great example of this - if you run lots of classic "horrorshow" monsters as I tend to do, you can drag and drop stat blocks for werewolves, Mythos cultists, ghosts, and lots of other stuff too. It's also a pretty easily-re-skinned AP for placing in another world, IMO.
I think your assessment is correct for your gaming group's needs, though - if you want an easier introduction to Pathfinder, maybe go to some Society games for your fix until the Beginner Box comes out and then try it.
Also, because I have never done it before, and wonder if it works inside a spoiler tag - SMURF.
That is another avenue I considered, in regards to 4E stopping at essentials, but continue to release board games and/or card supplements, and then make a major push for VTT. If the game does evolve, it would focus on digital content. It goes in line with sustained profit margins and protecting intellectual property. I wouldn't be adversed to such a model, because I have friends that play all over the place, including out of state. But they can't repeat past mistakes in regards to the character builder, etc.Some of the problem with hoping they don't repeat past mistakes is that we don't necessarily agree on what is and is not a mistake. Lets take the recent heavy errata of the Templar (PHB1 Cleric). There was a bit of a hue and cry with that but I personally loved that they would do this. We get better balanced more refined classes with better balanced more refined powers that work with the system as a whole in a more unified manner. However that is largely because I'm very happy with the idea that the game is in perpetual evolution and that all parts of it are open to constant improvement. I want to be playing a game where, when I start a new campaign for example, I am not just playing with one that has more options then the last campaign I began but where all the parts have been improved in order to work better since the last time I started a campaign. A game, in other words, that is being technically improved upon all the time so that I get a better more refined product each time I sit down and particularly where, when considered over a span of years I have a noticeably improved product overall.
Personally I hope they choose to eschew the idea of doing a new edition for a long time and just keep improving 4E constantly. I'd happily keep paying my subscription fee for that product, especially with continuing support in the form of adventures and articles and an ever improved suite of online tools to make adventures with or build our characters.
That is an interesting perspective. I can now picture the current subscription model as a durable endpoint for D&D. I see the edition treadmill as a natural outgrowth of the business need for future revenues that don't happen when only new players need to buy more books. (The obvious alternative being to drastically scale down the size of the company to a rump of what it used to be.)
Coming from the magazine side of things, Paizo is used to perpetually creating novel content for existing players. If they continue to look at the AP line as their core business, with everything else in a supporting role, then they might not be too overextended when they reach the point where the vast majority of their players have quite enough splatbooks, thanks. Or they might hop on the edition treadmill.
It has nothing to do with liking one company or the other. It's recognizing that to the company's involved, Pathfinder is not the same thing as D&D. Just because the two systems have similar roots, and many fans on both sides will treat them as the same brand, at the corporate level, they are competing brands put out by competing companies with the profits of each going to different people. It is easy for you to say that Pathfinder is D&D 3.55. For WoTC, when the profits are going to someone else, its not D&D, therefore if PF is able to secure a significant market share, that is a significant market share that WoTC isn't getting anymore, but did at one time, and that will effect their marketing and product strategy.Yes it is... it's a different property owned by a separate company that's effectively a competitor to WOTC. It has close roots to D&D but as of APG, and UM/UC it's now a game in it's own right.Ok.
D&D's serious competition is D&D...and some splats.
Look I get the rah rah we love Paizo and hate WotC, but at the end of the day, Pathfinder is - by design - 90%+ 3.5. It is, as I have labeled it, 3.55. Again, this is by design. It's not exactly a huge shock to say this when it's more or less printed in your core book to begin with.
Also, the other thing to note is that WotC has as of late cut back on how many products they're putting on the market, which would lead to a decrease in the pure number of sales.
That is also an interesting point, and now I can picture a future in which WotC and Paizo reach a stable dynamic equilibrium. I see WotC putting out fewer print products due to greater reliance on (and support from) its digital subscriptions, with Paizo dominating the print market due to their superb understanding of (and focus on) that business. It will be interesting to me to see how it works out.
I find it interesting that according to the numbers at Black Diamond Games's blog, 4E's numbers are stable while Pathfinders tripled. So 4E is still going strong, and Pathfinder is getting customers from somewhere besides 4E's base.Perhaps folks are playing both? WOTC has only put out 3 books this year. I know I have picked up a couple of Pathfinder products in the last 6 months, including the stunning campaign guide and inner sea primer. As an evolution of the world's oldest roleplaying game, its not hard to see folks who like 4E picking up Pathfinder as well. The campaign material is so well written and crunch light you could port to any system. I am in a Rise of the Runelords 4E game based on Scott Betts excellent conversion and it's great!
And that is another excellent point, that only reinforces my vision of how things might turn out. Thanks everyone for stimulating my brain!
That is an interesting perspective. I can now picture the current subscription model as a durable endpoint for D&D. I see the edition treadmill as a natural outgrowth of the business need for future revenues that don't happen when only new players need to buy more books. (The obvious alternative being to drastically scale down the size of the company to a rump of what it used to be.)
Some of the problem with hoping they don't repeat past mistakes is that we don't necessarily agree on what is and is not a mistake. Lets take the recent heavy errata of the Templar (PHB1 Cleric). There was a bit of a hue and cry with that but I personally loved that they would do this. We get better balanced more refined classes with better balanced more refined powers that work with the system as a whole in a more unified manner. However that is largely because I'm very happy with the idea that the game is in perpetual evolution and that all parts of it are open to constant improvement. I want to be playing a game where, when I start a new campaign for example, I am not just playing with one that has more options then the last campaign I began but where all the parts have been improved in order to work better since the last time I started a campaign. A game, in other words, that is being technically improved upon all the time so that I get a better more refined product each time I sit down and particularly where, when considered over a span of years I have a noticeably improved product overall.Personally I hope they choose to eschew the idea of doing a new edition for a long time and just keep improving 4E constantly. I'd happily keep paying my subscription fee for that product, especially with continuing support in the form of adventures and articles and an ever improved suite of online tools to make adventures with or build our characters.
I've actually been arguing for this idea since the middle of 3.5, but here we, at least in theory, are in a position to pull it off. The online model already exists and the customers are already used to the idea of constant updates. The key to the whole thing is basically making it so that the subscription model itself is where the lion's share of profits are coming from.
While I'm not certian it would work, I'm certianly not certain that it would not either and there are significant benefits for going down this path. You can see if it works and if not...well you always have the option to try for an edition reboot. If you try an edition reboot and it flops its a lot harder to go back.
Obviously the whole model rests on convincing us that we are getting enough for our subscriptions, but there is lots of time to build that up. I mean they have barely scratched the surface of what could be done with the tools. We have a pretty good character builder and a monster builder that needs some work. Where are the tools for an adventure builder? Where are the tools for a campaign builder? Why can't I modify my campaign to suit my needs? Why can't I take any published adventure and load it up in the adventure builder and then edit it to suite my desires? When will all of these things be in place and work flawlessly with the VTT? I'm not saying I expect all of this tomorrow...I am saying if something like a major component of any of the above came out every six months my bet is we'd practically beg WotC to take our subscription money (well actually we'd likely b!~+& and moan about everything under the sun while promptly coughing up the dough).
Oh and they can keep on bringing us new adventures and new classes of course, and they have hardly plumbed the depths of all the campaigns that WotC owns the rights to. Dragonlance and Grayhawk stand out with their absence for example. Certainly they could continue to improve on monster designs as well and maybe they ought to go back and put out versions 1.1 or 1.X of adventures that have already been released...bring them up to the standards of where ever we are in the games development every so often.
I mean Scales of War is good and all but not every encounter was exactly perfect. Throw it into the forums with a big spoiler tag and let people that have played it argue with each other...then go back and start making improvements...mechanical ones to be sure but story ones as well. The idea is not that this is a completely new version of Scales of War but that part of what we are paying for with are subscriptions is not just new adventures but that old ones that, just like the rules, characters classes and monsters will be improved upon on a more or less constant basis.
My feeling is that quality eventually sells and this model will create extremely high quality material and an extremely high quality game given enough time. I believe that the model would support a real plethora of subscribers for a very long time. I actually think this model is a much safer bet then the hazards of making a full on new edition where you very much risk loosing large chunks of your customer base. A perpetually improving game would, I believe, actually do the opposite - as the tool set grew ever more robust and the adventures became ever better designed I suspect there would be a constant trickle of players adding 4E to their repertoire of RPG games mainly on the basis of quality selling.
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Pathfinder is an evolution of the 3.5 Edition of the world's oldest roleplaying game.
Which is actually teh point. pathfinder echos alot of D&D traditions and history. Something 4e does not do much or very well. Which is why folks DO say pathfinder is D&D.
I get there has to be a distiction due to law and copywrite, but outside the legal realm, it looks from a players POV, which is more the legacy and which is not.
Pathfinder is an evolution of the 3.5 Edition of the world's oldest roleplaying game.
Which is actually teh point. pathfinder echos alot of D&D traditions and history. Something 4e does not do much or very well. Which is why folks DO say pathfinder is D&D.
I get there has to be a distiction due to law and copywrite, but outside the legal realm, it looks from a players POV, which is more the legacy and which is not.
No. It looks this way from your point of view. From my point of view (and from that of many others), 4e embraces the traditions and history of D&D just as much as 3.5/Pathfinder. In fact, many people believe it does this better than 3.5/Pathfinder.
As much as you'd like it to be as simple as "4e is D&D in name only," I'm afraid that's only the case for a certain, vocal group of individuals.
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Blue is my favorite color.
Blue is my favorite color.Blue sucks, everyone knows Pink is the new Black. :)
I thought it was Green.
pathfinder echos alot of D&D traditions and history. Something 4e does not do much or very well. Which is why folks DO say pathfinder is D&D.
I always find this perspective odd, since it's so far from mine. I went from AD&D to other games and came back to it just as (or just after, I can't remember) 4th edition came out.
I think 4th edition is closer to AD&D than pathfinder is. When you're looking at the history/tradition are you evaluating each vs 3.5 or vs something older? (I mean Pathfinder is obviously much closer to 3.5 than 4th edition is, so those who began playing around 3.0/3.5's release would no doubt judge Pathfinder to be truer to D&D's tradition. I have no clue about 2nd edition).
I thought it was Green.Blue is my favorite color.Blue sucks, everyone knows Pink is the new Black. :)
That means yellow and blue are the new black! It is a conspiracy I tell you!;)
Its true though the weird my Starbuck frappuccino is the true iced coffee, compared to your inferior, exactly the same Nero iced coffee with different basic ingredients. You will BURN for saying otherwise!
Both 4E and Pathfinder seem like D&D, even though I have not played Pathfinder only read the Core book. I played Stormbringer, Runequest,Dragon Warriors and others back in the day, as well as AD&D and the boxed sets. The others were fantasy RPGs but were not D&D. 4E is D&D, and true to the spirit, changes to magic included.
That is my opinion but then again I drink tea, not iced coffee :).
pathfinder echos alot of D&D traditions and history. Something 4e does not do much or very well. Which is why folks DO say pathfinder is D&D.I always find this perspective odd, since it's so far from mine. I went from AD&D to other games and came back to it just as (or just after, I can't remember) 4th edition came out.
I think 4th edition is closer to AD&D than pathfinder is. When you're looking at the history/tradition are you evaluating each vs 3.5 or vs something older? (I mean Pathfinder is obviously much closer to 3.5 than 4th edition is, so those who began playing around 3.0/3.5's release would no doubt judge Pathfinder to be truer to D&D's tradition. I have no clue about 2nd edition).
Part of where the discombobulation lies is that 4E is, arguably, very close to a lot of what was found in early D&D. There are clear throwbacks to BECMI for instance...including some of what we see in the cosmology for example. However we are tracing a line from BECMI to 4E directly. If you experienced 3rd edition then the whole thing can feel off because 4E often feels like BECMI layered on top of a d20 chassis. While the rest of the editions had elements that seemed to be direct continuations from the last edition. 1st to 2nd to 2.5 (Skills and Powers) to 3rd to 3.5 to PF. So if your just getting back into the game from 1st then PF feels significantly different from 1st in a way that 4E does not but it does not seem so different if you've been upgrading all along the way.
There are other large elements as well. 3rd and PF pay a lot of respect to what is often considered core D&D tropes, my feeling though is that those core tropes did not, much of the time, really attain the kind of breadth and depth that we often associate with them until well into 2nd edition. Its in 2nd edition that we get elements, especially Planescape that things that often barely got more then a couple of lines in terms of AD&D cosmology fleshed out into strong and iconic ideas.
So again if your coming from 1st and there is no reference to all the material that was built up in 2nd the changes in cosmology are not very striking. By the end of 1st we had a number of different cosmology's all competing for space. There was the World of Greyhawk Cosmology which was something of a default. Most of us had Deities and Demigods and that was full of different cosmology's, lots of us played in some home brews that stole elements from one of the pantheons in that book for the D&D world. Kura-Tur has its cosmology, BECMI had one, Dragonlance has its own, there are smaller ones like Lankmar and Newhon and then there is the Forgotten Realms, which is not so different from Greyhawk. The result is if your coming directly from 1st or even very early 2nd then the idea that 4E has a different Cosmology is nothing really to write home about.
However one of the things that took place over the long period of 2nd edition was that most of these separate cosmologies fell away and were replaced by the a 'one true' cosmology for D&D, plus they they where fleshed out...a lot. There where minor differences between Forgotten Realms an Grayhawk but, the differences actually lessened over the course of the edition - by the end of 2nd there could really be said to be a specific D&D cosmology and 3rd edition was careful not to violate that in any meaningful way and instead preserve it. By the arrival of 4E that particular view of the cosmology was seen as pretty much set in stone and WotCs descision to go back and pretty much use an updated version of BECMI's cosmology was seen as pretty dramatic.
Pathfinder is not D&D. Pathfinder is an evolution of the 3.5 Edition of the world's oldest roleplaying game.Pathfinder is NOT D&D.Pretty sure the core rulebook disagrees with you rather harshly.
Pretty sure Paizo would also disagree with you a great deal.
So Pathfinder is not D&D, it's just "an evolution of D&D"
Um.
Confused about how evolution works, Professor? Man is an evolution of a single celled organism. Doesn't make man a single celled organism. Same concept applies.
Vic Wertz Technical Director probably knows what Pathfinder is and isn't better than you.
Confused about how evolution works, Professor? Man is an evolution of a single celled organism. Doesn't make man a single celled organism. Same concept applies.
Are you confused about evolution?
When something evolves from something else, it never stops being what it evolved from. For instance, both humans and apes evolved from a common primate ancestor - both humans and apes remain primates.
This is all irrelevant, though. In terms of the game itself, Pathfinder is still essentially D&D 3.5 - you can take a Honda Civic and throw on all the aftermarket parts you want, but to anyone who knows what they're looking at, it's still a Civic.
In terms of everything that isn't the game itself, Pathfinder is not D&D.
Take from that what you will.
From my point of view (and from that of many others), 4e embraces the traditions and history of D&D just as much as 3.5/Pathfinder. In fact, many people believe it does this better than 3.5/Pathfinder.
I think 4th edition is closer to AD&D than pathfinder is.
Case in point.
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Wait-? Am I still black, or am I pink now?Why there gotta be a new Black? You tryin' to keep Black down? You colorist!Blue is my favorite color.Blue sucks, everyone knows Pink is the new Black. :)
Well obviously your pink now. That should be obvious I mean come on...
That is my opinion but then again I drink tea, not iced coffee :).
Man, and right up until this point I thought you were cool.
I kid.
As long as you don't drink Chai. Then you're dead to me.
One =! many. ;-)From my point of view (and from that of many others), 4e embraces the traditions and history of D&D just as much as 3.5/Pathfinder. In fact, many people believe it does this better than 3.5/Pathfinder.I think 4th edition is closer to AD&D than pathfinder is.Case in point.
One illustrating exactly my point within an hour of my making it? Probably a good indication that there are more out there who share the same opinion.
Confused about how evolution works, Professor? Man is an evolution of a single celled organism. Doesn't make man a single celled organism. Same concept applies.Are you confused about evolution?
When something evolves from something else, it never stops being what it evolved from. For instance, both humans and apes evolved from a common primate ancestor - both humans and apes remain primates.
And before the primate ancestor, we evolved from a common mammal ancestor too, right? And both we and other evolutions from that remain mammals.
And before the common mammal ancestor?
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One =! many. ;-)From my point of view (and from that of many others), 4e embraces the traditions and history of D&D just as much as 3.5/Pathfinder. In fact, many people believe it does this better than 3.5/Pathfinder.I think 4th edition is closer to AD&D than pathfinder is.Case in point.
I agree with them as well. As a long Time Lurker and Admirer of Paizo/Pathfinders work, I have to agree that 4e plays alot closer to 1e than PF does. Both 1e and 4e are about DM Fiat. They are loose-ish frameowrks to work imagination and excitement on. They are far more freeform than anything 3.x has ever produced.
3.x at it's heart is a simulation game. It seeks to create consistant, if not real world, physics for the fantastic. A Rule for Everything and Everything has it's rule.
Neither are better or worse. I play in a long time 4e campaign with a group that played together for all 8 years of 3.x. Some of us love the ease of 4e. Those players tend to be the more carefree players. Some of the players are interested in PF, because it has mulltiple layers to build upon. These were the players in the 3.x game that built strongholds and temples, complete with floor diagrams and servant income charts etc etc. Both of these play styles are valid and each game is better at one than the other.