I'm not sure why a proposal to "blow up" Golarion is seriously being countenanced. I'm late to the club (having joined the tabletop RPG community in 2010), but in hindsight it seems like the massive changes to Forgotten Realms coincident with 4E had more to do with (1) phasing in the new character races in the Player's Handbook and (2) creating a clean slate to make the setting appeal to the new, younger audience they hoped would flood in with 4E. WotC considered the massive detail and complexity as a lead weight and a barrier to new GMs to jump into the setting.
As for Golarion, it looks like there are several other continents yet to explore! And the Shattered Star AP showed that it's possible to take incremental steps forward in the timeline.
I think that advancements in the timeline will be dictated by -- it feels silly to say this -- time itself. As we drift more and more years past the last events in the Inner Sea World Guide timeline, as more and more events are suggested in the accumulating series of APs and PFS seasons and they circle back to the same geographical territories, then Paizo will need to advance the timeline 10 or 15 years maybe... when we reach that point in time in the real world.
But to blow up a world to conform with a new set of mechanical rules? To wipe the slate clean in order to try to a new theoretical demographic? Paizo is not owned by a Hasbro, and I just don't see this happening... Thank God.
Blowing up the setting (i.e. a giant event which changes the whole world and pantheon considerably) is also a bad idea in my opinion. Advancing the timeline to take into account the results of all those adventure paths is just allowing the natural evolution of time to take place.
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Personally, I have a big box of WOTC 4E stuff that is pretty much useless now. I think that WOTC has a credibility problem that will not just go away with the release of DnDNext. I would stay the course and not do anything drastic if I was Paizo.
I just really don't get that attitude. That box will not be useless. Nobody is going to prevent you from playing 4E. WOTC isn't going to take your books away.
Personally, I have a big box of WOTC 4E stuff that is pretty much useless now. I think that WOTC has a credibility problem that will not just go away with the release of DnDNext. I would stay the course and not do anything drastic if I was Paizo.
I agree in principle - and it's that principle that has me here playing Pathfinder now so my 3.5E stuff can be useful again.
People will argue, and are right to some degree, that just because the edition is finished and done with that it doesn't mean you can't still use it. (EDIT: And while I was writing this, Kthulhu above proved me right). They'll also argue - and again are correct - that a finished D&D edition has a ton of material and you don't really need to worry about ongoing support. In fact, I'd probably put Pathfinder in that category too, now that there's more than enough material that we could happily keep playing it even if Paizo closed tomorrow (heavens forbid, of course).
However, there's an intrinsically "safe feeling" when you're playing a game that still has that ongoing support. Even if you don't really need it. I can't really quantify it, but it's something that makes a big difference to me. Perhaps it's more the feeling that there's some big surprises still out there to be revealed (more of a campaign setting thing than rules, obviously). I get the same way about long-running TV shows, too :)
I've kinda strayed away from what I actually posted to say though - and that is to remember that even though the rules themselves may be pretty much useless to you now, most if not all of that rich setting material can still be recycled happily into other systems. It's something I did when I moved to AD&D from the five D&D boxed sets, as I was in love with the Mystara setting. I then carried the setting over yet again into 3E. Changing stat blocks to new versions was the simple part for me, I've always felt the real work was in getting the setting and the story right, with the numbers just being a secondary thing you can figure out with elementary mathematics ;)
I'm one of those people that will happily sit down and enjoy reading campaign setting books cover to cover like novels. I collected a ton of 3E and 4E Forgotten Realms stuff (and I really regret eBaying my 2E boxed sets along with Planescape and Spelljammer, grr) even though I had zero intention of ever using the setting.
IMO Paizo should release Pathfinder Basic. The Beginner Box extrapolated through to 20th level, more or less. Essentially Red box Basic + Expert + Master (IIRC?) but in one hardcover.
I like this idea. I'm running Beginner Box with my kids, but the Core Rule book at 500 pages + all the other things is just too much.
I'd love to see a "Basic" without much more than 5-6 classes and without all the complexity of a zillion feats, traits, skills, etc., but which also goes up to 20th level so the characters can do many adventures.
One which is still compatible with (although more limited than) Core.
While we're at it, my daughter would like a race of Ponies. :)
I'd love to see a "Basic" without much more than 5-6 classes and without all the complexity of a zillion feats, traits, skills, etc., but which also goes up to 20th level so the characters can do many adventures.One which is still compatible with (although more limited than) Core.
While we're at it, my daughter would like a race of Ponies. :)
If the number of releases wasn't an issue, I'd love to see a set of beginners class books. Each one would be a complete rulebook that covered just the rules needed for that one class, with a selection of spells/feats/traits/etc chosen to be useful for them. The second half of the book could contain "things you can expand to later" such as prestige classes. It'd be perfect for beginners as it'd only have the things they specifically needed to know. Print them in a smaller softcover format and you've got the ideal book for people to take to PFS games, too.
Problem is I doubt they'd sell enough and would flood the beginners market a bit with too many choices.
The suggestion of a basic rulebook is a good one though!
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The hard part with an old "finished" setting is not that you can't play it. The rules are there, the material is there (if you can get it-- really tough for old stuff that wasn't released PDF).
The hard part is finding people to play with. Games with active support also build player bases. You can find lots of people who play Pathfinder. If Paizo either stopped publishing Pathfinder, or put out some highly modified Pathfinder 2.0, then, yeah, sure, you could keep playing Pathfinder 1.0 indefinitely. Indeed, the existence of the PRD means that you can bring new players into it without worrying about nobody being able to get the rules. But, the player base would dwindle. Before very long (within a couple of years at most), it would be much harder to find people willing to just pick up and play Pathfinder as compared to right now.
While we're at it, my daughter would like a race of Ponies. :)
I put this in with a warning: Avert your eyes all who do not want to see Ponies!
I only skimmed this thread, so if this has already been mentioned then just add my vote to whatever is already there.
I agree that we don't need a whole new rule set. Where Paizo really shines are the setting and adventure path books. So instead of redoing their rules they should look at relaunching their setting of Golarion.
I am talking about a Cataclysm (World of Warcraft) type relaunch. Assume that every adventure path has been successfully completed. How has all of that changed the world? Then there is a "Big Event" with an epic level Adventure Path. It would start at a level where most others end. Players could pick from their retired characters which ones they would want to take on the new epic quest. At the end of the adventure path the entire world of Golarion will have changed.
After the "Big Event" Paizo can go back and revisit all of the old settings with new 1-12 or 15 level APs that explore the new situation with possible cameos from old favorites NPC (or perhaps offspring of NPCs) and familiar but now changed locations.
Now, there are great ways to advance a setting, change things up, what have you. 4E Realms had the right idea! Make the setting more accessible while incorporating other aspects. But in the end, it created a fanbase fissure bigger than the San Andres fault resulting from the feeling that the old fans are no longer supported or welcome.
But, the past is long since buried as the Sundering is looking awesome. Now, The Sundering is how you should tackle metaplot (save for a few awkward retcons that match up to spellplague level of weird.) The heroes write the story through their actions. Now, Murder in Baldur's Gate has a flawed approach to this (and I refuse to say ANY spoilers on why. If you buy it or play the current Encounters season, you'll find out), but still it's an attempt to make the players valid in a changing world rather than nuke everything and kill your cast and crew from all your campaigns. Yes, I'm still a tad... passionate about what happened to the Realms, but the Sundering gives me hope and so far sets an example on how to advance things (at least on the player inclusive perspective)
Beware of World Shattering Events/metaplot. Sometimes they move the game forward in awesome ways... other times, we're stuck with what happened to Dark Sun, Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and World of Darkness.
I digress from that tangent, alt-history splatbook or a new setting with PF rule set? I'm totally down with that. Now, as for advancing the setting through APs? This is risky business, but there's a chance it might just work.
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Have not read the thread, sorry if anything has been mentioned before.
Aboleths. We've heard a number of times that they have something planned for the aboleths, typically when mentioning how they keep shooting down races being connected to aboleths because something is planned and they want everyone to be in attendance.
An underwater ans/or darklands AP is probably the place that would happen, but there might be a hardcover Environment book tied to that. A big revision and update of all the environment (and hopefully weather) rules. Lots of terrain, both mundane and magical. Rules for deserts and arctic and more.
Thanks for this. I so appreciate those who put their thinking caps on and contributed. Makes for such a fun thread.