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I struggle to imagine how you think that equals "Everything is explored".
I mean in the sense that a lot of us know a lot of the secrets and histories, details, people and who-runs-whats of the world, and it's a bit overwhelming for new players in the same way the FR is. Not to the same extent, but I get the same sense of frustration and annoyance from newer players. That's just my opinion from my experience, and I think the issue is that game line and the setting line are too closely linked.
I also think it's a bad idea to produce a major edition overhaul right on the heels of 5E.
I agree, and my understanding is that Paizo has a decent relationship with WotC, so that would be kind of a jerk move on my part. I was trying t say at least a year or two after 5E (D&D Next just seems incredibly cheeze of a name to me, so 5E) has had a chance to work, thrive, and do it's thing. Optimally, 3-4 years from now is a good time frame, in my opinion.
I would say, best case scenario...4 years until a new edition, and even then I don't think it will be a major overhaul, but a tweaking. More likely 5-6 years
I guess what is a major overhaul vs a tweak is a matter of opinion. We have had some tweaking that is a major overhaul, (a few Monk things, stealth rules, and various hot topics). I do not mean a complete rewrite of the rules, per se, but just another patch like an errate, yet another reprint, and including some FAQ issues is exactly what I do not want. Nor do I want a brand new system as far from the existing PF game as PF was from 3E. Somewhere more in the middle, but where maybe some of the original material takes advantage of newer matarial, (Grit mechanics, the spell lists are adjusted/rebalanced a bit, Rogue & Ninja are made one class, and little things like that).
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I never said people would no longer be playing 3.0/3.5. Just that like 2E their would no longer be support. Or very little. The OGL gave the fanbase a opprtunity to get more material for a a edition of D&D they like and want to play. No OGL would mean no more new material. That does not mean that one could no longer play 3E. Just that to me imo 4E would have been more popular. Many 2E fans imo went from 2E to 3E because in their neck of the woos no one was playing 2E longer. Like me they also like a game to continue being supported. Since 2E was no longer being supported they again made the switch. If Wotc had no strong competitor wuth Paizo I'm sure the landscape of D&D rpgs would be different.
I do agree though that it should not be will we see a PF 2 but when. It will come eventually. After awhile the current version will no longer sell as well. It would be dumb for Paizo to keep losing money just for the fanbase imo. As much as gamers do not want change in rpgs well everything changes. Call of Cthulu the rpg by which no major changes in editions was measured is getting a 7E. Unlike previous versions 7E is going to be more than a rehash with cosmetic differences. Not a completely new edition yet the dev realized they had to change and fix certain aspects of the rpg. Espcially when a compeitor Trail of Cthulu sold well and fixed a few issues that COC had. Shadowrun is getting a 5E. The 4E version is 8 or is it 9 years old.
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First off yes, I admit it. I'm the kind of guy who don't like change.This is really where the OP should have ended. The whole sentiment is identical to any "old man rants about new things and hates change" sentiment that's ever been presented:
1. There's nothing wrong with what we have.
2. The things that are wrong with what we have are hard/impossible to fix.
3. If we fix what's wrong with what we have, some new issues are bound to creep up.
4. I have to get the new thing because everyone else is stupid and doesn't use the old thing.
5. I don't like change.Conclusion: it's never worth developing or improving anything because that means we might have to change or learn something new. Also new things cost money and I hate to pay for stuff, especially in this economy/with these prices/a can of coke cost 2 cents when I was a kid.
The thing is, this argument always comes up whenever there's anything new. Some people just hate change, even though they eventually, just like the OP, come to accept it.
Why would I want a vinyl player when there's perfectly good music on the radio?
Why would I want a HDTV, I can already see everything on my old CRT?
Why would I want the new Windows when my old version can handle 16 megs of RAM perfectly?
That's not what he said nor did any of the other "not now/soon" votes. That was about as narrow-minded a depiction you could have arrived at.
Some of us don't want a 3-5 year edition treadmill. Some of us don't play twice a week and "play out all the options" (which is bs anyway) a month after a book is released.
Pathfinder came out in August 2009! It's barely 3 years old.
Innovation is good. Change for change's sake is not.
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A good example of why a rpg needs a new edition is Palladium books. Gamers don't beleive it yet many ears ago they used to be in the top ten of rpgs. right up rhere with TSR and White Wolf. No major changes to the rules in more than 20+ years. Rpgs that awere better written and easier to run and can do the same if not better. As well while they were right in protecting their IPs they kind of became similar to TSR in that regard. Rge main fix among the company and it's more devoted fans is to ignore any problems with the rules and houserule to your hearts content. A valid fix except that houseruling is imo and never will be a major selling point. Whne I buy a rpg I want to use as much as RAW. Houseruling when need be and very much secondary. People don't want to be told why buy a new car when you can buy a cheaper used one that you can fix up. Sure it may not work as often as the new one and in the long run cost you more than buying a new one. Now they are having financial troubles. Not going under. Yet no longer having as many fans as well as moving less product and making less money.
Here is something I posted a ways back, might still be relevant.
======================================
Let's consider. Any game system that produces new material on even a semi-regular basis is going to increase in complexity. Complexity of mechanics and/or fluff. Now, if you start off on the ground floor, you are building on knowledge you already know. You can deal with it on a step by step basis, in a natural fashion. In that case, the increased complexity isn't a huge burden for the person who has been invested in it from the beginning.
But what about the newcomer. With each new product that comes out, that is another thing they have to deal with to catch up. It may be that they are only able to consumer products at the rate at which new ones are produced. This means they will never make any headway, they will always be far behind of the cutting edge of the system.
Now that can be pretty frustrating to the gamer, especially if they want to play in organized play. But consider the position of a new developer. For this new employee (and you will always have some turn over, even without "evil" reasons, marriage, death, retirement, change of career, progression of career), not only do they have to make new product, but they have to make it legitimate in light of all of those previous products. They have to consume all of those, let's say they do in a timely fashion (they are already fairly knowledge about the system to begin with), they are now hamstringed by the mechanics and the fluff that preceded them. That can be stifling to a designer. Anyone that has ever run their own homebrewed world probably has experienced this with just their own material.
So what is the answer then, you have a very complex system. Much of the complexity is now a burden to the new material and to bringing in new players. Old players are decreasing (death, change of system, grown out of gaming). Changing the dynamics of the system and the setting seems a very intuitive response to me. Start over from scratch, wipe the slate clean. Learn from the things that worked, drop the things that just added complexity but did not improve the experience. Of course this is going to be frustrating to those that have invested so much of their resources (time, money, sweat, etc) into the old systems, now they have to start over from scratch. But it is a natural way for companies to stay alive.
What about backwards compatibility? Again, that is just continuing the burden of complexity, the more backwards compatible the system is, the more added complexity from day one must be added in. Read some of the discussions about the Alpha and Beta testing for PF. There were people saying that they should abandon the idea of backwards compatibility because it was too restrictive, it didn't allow PF to make the changes that needed to be done (drop magic down and boost melee up) and that it remains as "broken" as 3.5.
The really only other choice is stagnation. To reach a point where the mechanics and fluff do not increase anymore and the company just maintains its products (doing reprints every so often). I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing for a big company, look at Monopoly, how much has it changed in the last 30 years? Still everyone pretty much has a copy of it, even if you never play it. But for small companies, they have to continue to make product. Thus they continue increase their complexity. And thus at some point it is untenable to maintain anything remotely coherent. And thus the new system.
Here is something I posted a ways back, might still be relevant.
======================================Let's consider. Any game system that produces new material on even a semi-regular basis is going to increase in complexity. Complexity of mechanics and/or fluff. Now, if you start off on the ground floor, you are building on knowledge you already know. You can deal with it on a step by step basis, in a natural fashion. In that case, the increased complexity isn't a huge burden for the person who has been invested in it from the beginning.
But what about the newcomer. With each new product that comes out, that is another thing they have to deal with to catch up. It may be that they are only able to consumer products at the rate at which new ones are produced. This means they will never make any headway, they will always be far behind of the cutting edge of the system.
Now that can be pretty frustrating to the gamer, especially if they want to play in organized play. But consider the position of a new developer. For this new employee (and you will always have some turn over, even without "evil" reasons, marriage, death, retirement, change of career, progression of career), not only do they have to make new product, but they have to make it legitimate in light of all of those previous products. They have to consume all of those, let's say they do in a timely fashion (they are already fairly knowledge about the system to begin with), they are now hamstringed by the mechanics and the fluff that preceded them. That can be stifling to a designer. Anyone that has ever run their own homebrewed world probably has experienced this with just their own material.
So what is the answer then, you have a very complex system. Much of the complexity is now a burden to the new material and to bringing in new players. Old players are decreasing (death, change of system, grown out of gaming). Changing the dynamics of the system and the setting seems a very intuitive response to me. Start over from scratch, wipe the...
This is certainly the case with WOTC, but have we reached that point in Pathfinder?
Since Pathfinder was released, splat book wise besides the core rulebook we have the APG, Ultimate Combat, Ultimate Magic, and the ARG. That to me doesn't seem like all that much, especially since presumably every player will not need stuff from every book. I could definitely see new GM's getting overwhelmed however
Yeah, Ultimate Magic/Combat were kind of rehash books.
For players they were. I personally love the construct rules, the firearms rules, the performance combat rules, and the vehicle rules. I can take or leave piecemail armor and the wounds and vigor systems, however. I'd also like Words of Power more if there was more to support it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy
Why is this still happening
Well... I think there could be some changes made for the better, most changes would be for the worse. I think a lot of changes from 3.0 to 3.5, and also from 3.5 into Pathfinder was for the worse. At this stage I believe Pathfinder is overall better than previous versions though.
I would personally like to change a lot of things about pathfinder myself, but it would be in the oposite direction of the general consensus of this fine community. That is the reason I made this thread in the first place (little things like nerfing many SOD spells[example: finger of death]). So overall, because I fear any new edition would only screw the game up even more (in my eyes), I'm 100% against any new editions EVER!
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It's an extreme stand to take I know, but if the general concensus of this forum is anything to judge by, then the ideal new pathfinder edition of most people wold be the first new edition of the game that would be substantially worse than the previos one.
I trust in the good people of Paizo to make better decisions than this though, but the climate in this forum has gotten me worried. Hence this thread.
Because most of the things people replying to this thread have suggested that they would want for a new edtion of the game I would not want to see. For me it would cheapen the game.
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Yeah, Ultimate Magic/Combat were kind of rehash books.For players they were. I personally love the construct rules, the firearms rules, the performance combat rules, and the vehicle rules. I can take or leave piecemail armor and the wounds and vigor systems, however. I'd also like Words of Power more if there was more to support it.
Pretty sure I've seen rules for all those things in 3.5, but maybe not from WotC.
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It's an extreme stand to take I know, but if the general concensus of this forum is anything to judge by, then the ideal new pathfinder edition of most people wold be the first new edition of the game that would be substantially worse than the previos one.
Er, there's only ever been one edition of Pathfinder. So I'll assume you mean continuing on from D&D. In which case I wonder why you aren't playing 4E, since it came later than 3.5.
I disagree that the game has consistently gotten better.
Original D&D vs 1E AD&D are very similar, with AD&D being somewhat better organized, and almost the entirety of Original D&D and all it's supplements contained within just the core rules of AD&D. AD&D 2E continued to improve the organization, but it also watered down some things in response to the anti-D&D fervor of the 80s. It's also where splatbooks really started. All in all, other than organization, most agree that 2E just didn't live up to 1E.
And now we get to the controversial parts. D&D 3.0 essentially flushed the existing system down the toilet. YMMV on whether or not d20 was an improvement over the older system...I don't think it was. It truly became the caster edition of the game. It's ironic, since one of the balance issues that has existed since the very beginning is that at high levels, spellcasters have been more powerful than other characters...yet 3.0 stripped away or watered down all of the spellcaster's weaknesses. I actually think that 3.0 and it's legacy (3.5 and Pathfinder) are the LEAST balanced versions of the game.
It's an extreme stand to take I know, but if the general concensus of this forum is anything to judge by, then the ideal new pathfinder edition of most people wold be the first new edition of the game that would be substantially worse than the previos one.
Er, there's only ever been one edition of Pathfinder. So I'll assume you mean continuing on from D&D. In which case I wonder why you aren't playing 4E, since it came later than 3.5.
I disagree that the game has consistently gotten better.
Original D&D vs 1E AD&D are very similar, with AD&D being somewhat better organized, and almost the entirety of Original D&D and all it's supplements contained within just the core rules of AD&D. AD&D 2E continued to improve the organization, but it also watered down some things in response to the anti-D&D fervor of the 80s. It's also where splatbooks really started. All in all, other than organization, most agree that 2E just didn't live up to 1E.
And now we get to the controversial parts. D&D 3.0 essentially flushed the existing system down the toilet. YMMV on whether or not d20 was an improvement over the older system...I don't think it was. It truly became the caster edition of the game. It's ironic, since one of the balance issues that has existed since the very beginning is that at high levels, spellcasters have been more powerful than other characters...yet 3.0 stripped away or watered down all of the spellcaster's weaknesses. I actually think that 3.0 and it's legacy (3.5 and Pathfinder) are the LEAST balanced versions of the game.
1E was better organized than the original game, but it could be tediously longwinded about things in an attempt to define the one true way to play the game. We pretty much all ignored that. Pathfinder still suffers from the need to define RAW explicitly (which is only intermittantly succesful), but, courtesy of Rule 0, allow changes to be made. You could argue about that being either the best or worst of both early editions.
I don't think that there is any doubt that in an attempt to make casters mmore survivable at low levels and give caster PCs more to do at low level 3.x has erased the weaknesses of the caster that helped counterbalance his eventual power. High level casters were always the top dogs but low level casters used to be much "squishier" :)
I think 3.0 and it's successors did add some good ideas, but they also brought some problems in with them. I have begun to think that porting some of the new ideas I like to the older system might be a better way. For me, anyway...
The rambling arguments over some fairly nitpicky points that recur on this site over WBL, crafting, "brokenness", character builds and other issues have been leading me to this conclusion. Or maybe I'm just getting old and nostalgic :D
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It's an extreme stand to take I know, but if the general concensus of this forum is anything to judge by, then the ideal new pathfinder edition of most people wold be the first new edition of the game that would be substantially worse than the previos one.Er, there's only ever been one edition of Pathfinder. So I'll assume you mean continuing on from D&D. In which case I wonder why you aren't playing 4E, since it came later than 3.5.
I disagree that the game has consistently gotten better.
Original D&D vs 1E AD&D are very similar, with AD&D being somewhat better organized, and almost the entirety of Original D&D and all it's supplements contained within just the core rules of AD&D. AD&D 2E continued to improve the organization, but it also watered down some things in response to the anti-D&D fervor of the 80s. It's also where splatbooks really started. All in all, other than organization, most agree that 2E just didn't live up to 1E.
And now we get to the controversial parts. D&D 3.0 essentially flushed the existing system down the toilet. YMMV on whether or not d20 was an improvement over the older system...I don't think it was. It truly became the caster edition of the game. It's ironic, since one of the balance issues that has existed since the very beginning is that at high levels, spellcasters have been more powerful than other characters...yet 3.0 stripped away or watered down all of the spellcaster's weaknesses. I actually think that 3.0 and it's legacy (3.5 and Pathfinder) are the LEAST balanced versions of the game.
And so Kthulhu joins the long line of people who commit the intellectual equivalent of visiting a vegetarianism forum to post "MEAT ROCKS, VEGGIES BLOW" stuff.
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Oh, discussing whether we need a new edition of Pathfinder is something entirely different from coming to a d20 board to continually remind us how d20 system is the worst that happened to humanity since Adam and Eve got cast away from the Garden.
Besides, I always get the kick out of discovering what long journey did some people make.
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Oh, discussing whether we need a new edition of Pathfinder is something entirely different from coming to a d20 board to continually remind us how d20 system is the worst that happened to humanity since Adam and Eve got cast away from the Garden.
Besides, I always get the kick out of discovering what long journey did some people make.
When I made that post, I was really only considering "living" systems. OSRIC existed, and maybe one or two other retro-clones, but the OSR really hadn't kicked off in any major way...the pre-d20 editions were essentially dead. I also was far less knowledgeable about the hobby as a whole...the three systems I listed were, aside from the "dead" editions of D&D, pretty much the only ones I had any experience with.
Since that time, however, a LOT of support for pre-d20 editions and various retro-clones has come out. Enough that they can really once again be considered viable systems in that type of a discussion. Hell, even WotC itself has reprinted 1E, with plans to reprint 2E. I'd wager we see the Rules Cyclopedia come along eventually, as well.
I like Pathfinder. I think it's the best implementation of the 3.X ruleset to date. But I do NOT think that the system is above reproach, and I damn sure don't consider it to be the holy untouched word of God that so many on these forums make it out to be. Maybe I just skipped the day that Paizo handed out the Kool-Aid, I dunno.
I'd actually probably be far less critical of Pathfinder if I didn't like it. I don't really like 4E, and as such I generally don't have much to say about it at all.
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Good thing that D&D didn't originally evolve from a miniatures wargame.
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Good thing that D&D didn't originally evolve from a miniatures wargame.
This. I started out in 1974, after playing chainmail medieval and fantasy miniatures for several years. It always amuses me when people think 3.x wedded D&D to miniatures / the battle mat. We always used miniatures. People who didn't (in the 1970s) were in the minority. We measured our inches in outdoor encounters and used cardstock halls / rooms / buildings etc. gridded out in one inch squares for dungeon / city. Come to think of it, we still do :)
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This. I started out in 1974, after playing chainmail medieval and fantasy miniatures for several years. It always amuses me when people think 3.x wedded D&D to miniatures / the battle mat. We always used miniatures. People who didn't (in the 1970s) were in the minority. We measured our inches in outdoor encounters and used cardstock halls / rooms / buildings etc. gridded out in one inch squares for dungeon / city. Come to think of it, we still do :)
Good thing that D&D didn't originally evolve from a miniatures wargame.
I wouldn't say minority. I played/DM'ed for over 30 years too and my AD&D days rarely saw a battlemat. It was fairly optional. We occasionally broke out the minis for pivotal battles, even had mini painting sessions (Julie Guthrie mini days) every now and again, mostly to have a mini representation of our character at our seat for visual flavor.
Exact squares were never needed to resolve much beyond the areas of AoE spells.Also some of us didn't want to stop the story every room to erase and draw out every combat. Then there's us older folk who may lead busy lives and simply can't afford to waste whatever game time we have stopping and drawing/redrawing maps. The higher level rules and options already take significant prep time as well as time to run. I'd rather take time to resilve those rules and keep playing then stopping the game at every room's door to erase and draw something.
So yeah 3E/3.5/PF did marry miniatures this time around. D&D may have evolved from a tactical board game, but that must have been for a reason. If it didn't evolve from that I know my ad&d days would have ended very quickly.
Again, I'm not against using a battlemat with minis. I just prefer that as an OPTION for those that want it, just not married to the ruleset.
On the going OT topic of good iterations of d20, I've lately fantasized about seeing what a streamlined, Pathfinder/True20 Hybrid would look like.
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Put me down for a reorganized, updated version of the existing rules.
A revised edition would hopefully include some of the best mechanics from the non-core releases with the intention of letting people enter the game with fewer books to buy.
There's a lot of "wasted space" in the CRB that could be used to make the game a better book for players of the game. It was a great product for its time, but it is just a total beast for new players.
There's a ton of tabular data that just doesn't function. Scrap all that, include the same items without the random gen tables.
Use the room that you save to include the best non-core material, and the new classes.
Put a focus on re-organizing the rules for ease of play. There are a great deal of changes that could be made to the presentation without changing the rules much at all.
A new edition with no new rules, think about it.
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I would be more interested in a new edition with few new rules and minimal revisions, but I largely agree with where you are coming from EL.
Paizo's bread and butter is the AP line, they would be foolish to obsolete a back catalog. That being said, I think the reason rules turn over in such cycles is that is about how long it takes for creep to set in and the system to become unwieldy.
I think if you put out a new core, with some compilation books of what is being carried over from 1.0 (with appropriate revisions) seems like what they did to 3.5 and what the next logical step going forward should be.
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Honestly, I would welcome a Pathfinder 2e. Not in some snarky sarcastic way, I mean I would genuinely like to see what the dev's at Paizo come up with together, when not tied to the marketing tag line of "backwards compatibility." If there ever were an actual PF 2e, I would like to see something completely unrelated to d20. Something fresh and new, where they can take their notions of class balances(or no classes at all) and just let loose. Build a completely new Monk/Fighter/Whatever from the ground up, not a rework of someone else's take from 12 years ago.
And if it were something fresh and original, and if I found it interesting, I'd jump in on day-one. Personally, I'm not a big fan of PF anymore, mostly because of the gazillion little changes that feel like glorified houserules and sidegrades; unnecessary added complexity to what was already a pretty complex system.
I'll admit when I first heard about PFRPG, I was all about it. I started integrating rules into my own 3.5 games since Beta. I was the first one in my gaming group to get the CRB, and pushed for others to check it out and give it a try. But, the longer I used the rules, the more head-scratching moments kept popping up. The more things just got frustrating and the less actually compatible 3.5 was. For all the hoops I found myself jumping through, it would've been easier to just write up new things from scratch. Eventually, all my gaming buddies switched up to Pathfinder, and nobody allows any 3.5 material due to the clunky conversion process. Yay backwards compatibility. Might as well have gone with 4e since my 3.5 library would be getting just as much (non)action.
PF feels like someone handed them a painting from over a decade ago, that's been repainted and touched up so much that it's hardly the same picture anymore. Scrap it and grab a new canvas, already. Even if it's under an entirely different name, I'd just like to play something different and new, not a side-grade of a ruleset to relearn how to play the exact same game for the Nth time.
I disagree with you, Josh. (Don't get upset, this is just where I write my counterpoint) There are plenty of game systems that are not D20, already. Some of them do quite well. For Pathfinder (specifically) to abandon one of the important factors of their success is just un-capitalist. That said, it is us- the consumers- who ultimately suffer. Not to take a hard-ass stance or anything, but if you don't want to play a D20 based PFRPG...don't.
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I disagree with you, Josh. (Don't get upset, this is just where I write my counterpoint) There are plenty of game systems that are not D20, already. Some of them do quite well. For Pathfinder (specifically) to abandon one of the important factors of their success is just un-capitalist. That said, it is us- the consumers- who ultimately suffer. Not to take a hard-ass stance or anything, but if you don't want to play a D20 based PFRPG...don't.
And at times I haven't. I've played some other systems, and it makes me wonder what PF would be like if it were truly it's own thing, not hiding in 3.5's shadow.
I think you missed my point. I love d20, it's my preferred system. But, I'm stuck(the rest of my group all play PF now) playing a system that's been manhandled and reworked/fixed/tweaked so many times it's not even the same system anymore. I'm curious what JJ and friends could do if they were let off the BC leash and really had at it. Even if it's just a one-time project with a very limited run. Not even PF version 2, per se, but maybe a different named thing.
Pathfinder RPG has been out for a couple of years now, and I've seen what their idea of 3.5 "should be," and frankly I don't agree with a lot of it(opinions are just opinions, not trying to start a war). But, I do see a lot of creativity and a lot of talent. I vastly prefer to just stick with 3.5. But that doesn't mean I'm closing myself off from future offerings.
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Liz! You've been voting in Pathfinder Superstar?!
Does that make you ... a ninja star voter?
*Spongebob grins*
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Pathfinder 2nd edition will have to happen at some point, and I welcome the advancement as long as it is similar to the advancement between 1st and 2nd editions of AD&D. Even though Pathfinder streamlined 3.5 and launched 3.75, there is stuff to fix and ultimately an evolution to what 4th edition SHOULD have been.
Compatibility will be the main point of contention between the first and second editions and the publisher should strive to be as backwards compatible as possible.
That being said, there definitely is room to improve, streamline, and tidy up things that are broken in the system (as well as hopefully ditching spells like "bulls strength, owls wisdom" - I HATE those spells...what a contrived bunch of garbage) as well as giving us new artwork, new monster artwork and a reason to buy new core books as our 1e books are wearing out.
I will be an early adopter of PF 2nd edition.
I would like if the devs decide to make a new edition. But i think they should wait and release everything that suits this edition. Done that, move on. I believe that would need, maybe, about 2 to 4 years? I dunno...
Also they could start to make some experiences with something like their own version of d20 modern. A modern d20 setting by paizo would rock. A different line, with different ideas, rules, etc...
Just throwing my coppers...
This. I started out in 1974, after playing chainmail medieval and fantasy miniatures for several years. It always amuses me when people think 3.x wedded D&D to miniatures / the battle mat. We always used miniatures. People who didn't (in the 1970s) were in the minority. We measured our inches in outdoor encounters and used cardstock halls / rooms / buildings etc. gridded out in one inch squares for dungeon / city. Come to think of it, we still do :)
Good thing that D&D didn't originally evolve from a miniatures wargame.I wouldn't say minority. I played/DM'ed for over 30 years too and my AD&D days rarely saw a battlemat. It was fairly optional. We occasionally broke out the minis for pivotal battles, even had mini painting sessions (Julie Guthrie mini days) every now and again, mostly to have a mini representation of our character at our seat for visual flavor.
Exact squares were never needed to resolve much beyond the areas of AoE spells.Also some of us didn't want to stop the story every room to erase and draw out every combat. Then there's us older folk who may lead busy lives and simply can't afford to waste whatever game time we have stopping and drawing/redrawing maps. The higher level rules and options already take significant prep time as well as time to run. I'd rather take time to resilve those rules and keep playing then stopping the game at every room's door to erase and draw something.
So yeah 3E/3.5/PF did marry miniatures this time around. D&D may have evolved from a tactical board game, but that must have been for a reason. If it didn't evolve from that I know my ad&d days would have ended very quickly.
Again, I'm not against using a battlemat with minis. I just prefer that as an OPTION for those that want it, just not married to the ruleset.
Did you play miniatures before D&D? We did. The initial group of players tended to be miniature wargame players. It's what TSR hobbies was founded on (and the various rule sets that predated TSR - published by Guidon Games where Gygax worked iirc). Our first Chainmail set was by Guidon... 1971-2 I think. Anyway, by the time of AD&D, it started to pull in non-miniature gamers.
We had hundreds of painted minis before D&D was a glimmer in Gygax and Arneson's eyes. Chainmail ruled! My "D&D" campaign started as a map sketched out for Chainmail fantasy supplement miniature games. It carried over into our D&D. We mapped our adventures on graph paper and brought out larger stuff for battles. We were used to measuring inches and using templates for area of effects. We didn't (and I don't) erase mats. I have modular sections I lay out for dungeons, miniature terrain etc. that I use for outdoor / cavern areas and a lot of buildings laid out (permanently) on cardstock (hand drawn with 1" grids penciled over).
The erasable battle mat is just an evolution of where the hobby started - on the miniature table. I agree that the game can be played without (and should be playable without) miniatures, but the origin of the game was with miniatures.
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Personally, before 3.5 (possibly later into 3.0?), I tended to draw maps on paper and try to use some sort of counters to represent characters, if anything. It really wasn't until the 3.5 official Mini's came out that we used them. Before then, it was mostly for a semi-accurate character representation.
Then WOTC decided to call some other game D&D.
You can just as easily say the same about 3.X.
Maybe so, but I was able to move my campaign from the original game to 1E to 2E to 3E to 3.5E... and stopped dead at 4E. It would have required me to demolish my setting. Hence my interest in PF (I was just going to stay with 3.5). I'm not saying it didn't take work to move it from 2E to 3E btw, just that it was "doable". Having the latest release of D&D Next, I can tell you that would be possible as well. 4E was a no go. 4E was the opposite of backwards compatibility and they made it that way on purpose imo. Now they have stepped back away from that and tried to reconnect with the older editions. I think they see the value in that now. My 2 cp on that, ymmv.
RPGs need a new "killer app" to break out of this self-defeating paradigm. I have been thinking for years that the killer app would be a fully on-line gaming system with flexible role playing opportunities, awesome graphics, full immersive interactivity, persistent character history, full character mobility (meaning my character could go into anyone's campaign) and the ability for GMs to create custom content that was fully consistent with existing content for an infinitely expandable gaming universe.
The technology is just about there. But I don't see anyone pulling this all together yet.
I still think they will. And when they do, the paper based game will become the refuge of true grognards.
They did, they have, it is.
Sorry Adamantine Dragon but WoW blew the lid off the roleplaying scene. We're all just to shell shocked to really appreciate it. At its peek WoW had 12 million subscribed users. How many forum members does Paizo have currently? While not nearly the same number I don't think any pen and paper RPG can boast a player adoption level of 12 million over almost a 10 year run. Has D&D ever had what is basically 3% of the US population?
Minecraft is virtually there. In another year or so if they get their modding API working and can somehow wrangle Microsoft into letting people download 'sanctioned' mods it's got almost all the tools for what you've described. Adventure maps, and the tools that have been added to make them work are effectively new infinitely expandable content. There are even RPG style mods out there. Perhaps the only remaining thing is some level of AI/NPC puppetry for "game masters" or builders.
In 5 years mobile devices will have almost caught up to requirements need for current full desktop version of Minecraft and will be able to get in on all this as well, and not in the rather more limited current form.
But you were right, technology wasn't quite there before as laptops at the gaming table were not very practical and networking capacity was also fairly limited.
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Maybe so, but I was able to move my campaign from the original game to 1E to 2E to 3E to 3.5E... and stopped dead at 4E. It would have required me to demolish my setting. Hence my interest in PF
I guess part of the reason why 4e may have felt like D&D or not to people is whether it could handle an existing campaign setting being run under another edition, and that in turn depends on which aspects of the system the setting relies upon or emphasises.
For me, 4e feels like D&D to me, I can tell the same sort of stories in it as I can in 3.5. Eberron is my preferred setting, so with the 4e Eberron books I was happy to offer to run an Eberron campaign to a local group running under 3.5 or 4e whichever they preferred (they went for 4e).
I wouldn't even try to run Eberron using Pathfinder however, because the Eberron specific support isn't there, and whilst there is some level of backwards compatibility between 3.5 and PF I would rather run under 3.5 than have to do any amount of conversion (if I did decide to do some conversion I would probably use FATE to run Eberron) :)
Chance, I don't doubt the origins. I was just in disagreement about the game being married/not married to the rules. Fwiw, I never got into miniature war games, chain mail, etc. I started with the Pink Basic Set (Moldvay iirc). :)
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Maybe so, but I was able to move my campaign from the original game to 1E to 2E to 3E to 3.5E... and stopped dead at 4E. It would have required me to demolish my setting. Hence my interest in PFI guess part of the reason why 4e may have felt like D&D or not to people is whether it could handle an existing campaign setting being run under another edition, and that in turn depends on which aspects of the system the setting relies upon or emphasises.
For me, 4e feels like D&D to me, I can tell the same sort of stories in it as I can in 3.5. Eberron is my preferred setting, so with the 4e Eberron books I was happy to offer to run an Eberron campaign to a local group running under 3.5 or 4e whichever they preferred (they went for 4e).
I wouldn't even try to run Eberron using Pathfinder however, because the Eberron specific support isn't there, and whilst there is some level of backwards compatibility between 3.5 and PF I would rather run under 3.5 than have to do any amount of conversion (if I did decide to do some conversion I would probably use FATE to run Eberron) :)
Piggybacking on the whole conversation here, not just responding to DigitalMage:
4e was not compatible with my campaign setting as I wrote it, and I didn't want to take the time to try and convert and adapt it. That was definitely a big factor in why I don't play 4e. Pathfinder was much, much, much easier for me to use. A setting like Eberron I can see why you would stick with it, especially when you have support elsewhere (obviously, only I support my homebrew game ;) ). (Though I've seen great efforts made to Pathfinderize Eberron effectively.)
I didn't like 4e's writing style; I played it a couple times and I didn't like the feel of play (just a personal preference, not going to go into heavy analysis). I would never say that it's NOT D&D though. It wasn't a version of D&D I wanted to play, but there's also older versions of D&D that I don't care for anymore, and I'd still call them "D&D." I think the game had the appropriate fantasy adventure feel, just wasn't for me and that is what it is.
Backwards compatibility is always a bugbear to wrestle with. If you don't have enough, some people who worked long and hard with one setting may not want to try the new one. If you have "too much," you end up with artefact-rules that might have been better off eliminated or revised, but the devs were afraid to eliminate because of compatibility issues (Pathfinder, as much as I like the revision of the rules that it is, suffers from this problem. There's a number of times on these boards someone has asked "why do we have x clunky rule?" or "x inexplicable class feature?" and the designers have responded, "because backwards compatibility"). And no matter what, there are people who will be unhappy with whatever level of backwards compatibility there is--it will always either be too much or not enough for them. Revising a ruleset is really an area is where you cannot please anyone.
That's why I think the best thing to do is, if and when the time comes, to work on the rules as the devs see fit, fix what they feel needs fixing, keep what works, and follow their instincts as to what needs to be changed and what doesn't. Whatever is compatible at the end? Great. What isn't? Probably didn't need to be kept anyway. Will people be ticked off? Absolutely, and there is no scenario where they wouldn't be (even if they made no changes, there'd be people clamoring for a new edition like some folks are here). Will some people stick with the older version or switch to another game? Yup. Absolutely. I am certain there is probably someone out there still playing out of the white box, because it is the one true D&D. Will others switch and be happy with it? Yes to that too, and those are the people you have to make sure they get the best support possible as they're your paying customers. Make it good enough and they'll word of mouth you to success as well.
And there'll also be madmen who'll play the new version AND still go back to older versions they like and even play different games sometimes entirely. Crazy world we live in.