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I am a "can do" person when it comes to business and service, not the other way around. Its ok to oppose my opinion but it seems to be a pretty prevalent situation based on other threads I have read. They may as well make money from it.
This has nothing to do with be a 'can do' versus a 'cant do' approach to how Paizo is handling their business. It's more of a 'could, but dont think it would be worth the effort to do it to help HeroLab sell more of its licenses.
As, as an internet marketing guy, you surely understand that the people posting on the boards are but a small VERY vocal minority of the player base, right? So the threads on here, while frequent, tend to have the same people on the same sides of the arguement just about every time it comes up.
Im not saying your idea is a bad one, but just cause you think its a good one doesnt make it a good fir for Paizo automatically, no matter your experience in similar situations.
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I guess you are misunderstanding my point.
A couple of things of note based on my experiences and browsing the forum today.
It seems that most DM's have no desire to be the Paizo police so unless they are unclear about a rule they dont ask for a PDF. Yes it happens but some have clearly stated on this very forum they dont care to check and I have seen that in person too.
It is clear many people dont realize that certain items are not "legal" for play even though the rules are available. I didnt until this thread. The only rules I worried about were the rules of playing my PC, so I AM a new "complainer" and I would guess more are not aware and would complain if they know and of course there is a group that wont complain at all but still dont agree. As it is there are plenty of people who are complaining.
It would not be about helping Hero Lab selling product but as a matter of fact they are doing just that by pushing the product on their very own site. The truth is they make something from the data, great! They also want to move the PDF's, great! You can do both in one spot with a little bit of effort.
Now you have compliant PC's (whether they use the PDF or not) and the customer has an easy and convenient way to get all the information they need to make a PC quickly and get the correct products in the unusual event that some DM (who is trying to grow his tables, not shrink them) asks for a PDF to verify a rule.
I want to restate that I dont believe that Paizo should bite the bullet on price, but it still is better to get part of something as opposed to all of nothing, which apparently is going on quite often. I am not opposed to them profiting and I have never stated once that cost was an issue.
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It makes no sense to purchase the same product twice from HL and from Paizo for exactly the same information. HL and Paizo either need to work together or not, no way in hell am I going to purchase the same information twice. Granted I have several pieces of material on hand but there is an item or 2 I purchased on HL. If this is not the case maybe they should offer some affiliate income to HL for the sale of Paizo products, charge for licensing or maybe even come out with their own online tool.My idea of fun (as a new player) is not thumbing through several books or browsing through multiple PDF's in order to put together a PC that will comply with PFS rules.
Thats my 2 copper.
You're not purchasing the same product twice. Paizo is selling rules and setting material, Herolab is selling modules for a character generator. If you find paying for Herolab modules to be unacceptable you have two choices.
1. Handcode it all yourself.
2. Switch to PCGen and accept a slower rate, limited support, and less coverage.
3. Use a paper copy and a pencil.
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It makes no sense to purchase the same product twice from HL and from Paizo for exactly the same information. HL and Paizo either need to work together or not, no way in hell am I going to purchase the same information twice. Granted I have several pieces of material on hand but there is an item or 2 I purchased on HL. If this is not the case maybe they should offer some affiliate income to HL for the sale of Paizo products, charge for licensing or maybe even come out with their own online tool.My idea of fun (as a new player) is not thumbing through several books or browsing through multiple PDF's in order to put together a PC that will comply with PFS rules.
Thats my 2 copper.
You're not purchasing the same product twice. Paizo is selling rules and setting material, Herolab is selling modules for a character generator. If you find paying for Herolab modules to be unacceptable you have two choices.
1. Handcode it all yourself.
2. Switch to PCGen and accept a slower rate, limited support, and less coverage.
The rules are integrated into the PC as you generate them along with explanation. But you probably already knew this.
I have no issue with Hero Labs, I love it to be honest. Makes building a PC a breeze!
And I have more choices than 2, keep doing what I am doing, go back to just core rules and the other books I do have or go to the weekly D and D 3.5 games instead of the bi monthly PFS games at the same location.
I am arguing for a solution that has the usability of Hero Labs and the legality of the PFS gameplay. Everyone seems resistant to the idea of doing a little work which certainly will pay off in the long run.
See some of my points above to understand my POV.
Anyway as I mentioned on another post, no one in this thread can make that change, it comes down to what Paizo and HL wants to do going forward. I emailed Hero Lab and offered the suggestion and maybe they listen, maybe not. Either way I am having fun playing my PC's and I guess if I get called out for having an illegal PC then I will cross that bridge when I get to it, until then I will continue to play them without the PDF's. :)
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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kinglouis.
I think you are misunderstanding the pushback. It is not aimed at you or your idea.
However most of the complainers take the form of:
a. Paizo requires us to own the product we are using
b. I paid money for hero lab.
c. Paizo sells hero lab / gets royalties from hero lab
d. Therefore I have bought paizo's product.
e. Therefore I should be able to use the product in game. (and will do so, even though it violates the rules)
Your arguement is (if I understand it)
a. Paizo requires us to own the product we are using
b. I paid money for hero lab.
c. Paizo sells hero lab / gets royalties from hero lab
d. It would be really nice if the two would get together so that for a higher price, I could pay once and get both things.
All of us are pretty much with you up till here, we are pessemistic, but we agree it would be nice.
e. Therefore until paizo does that, I will play my illegal character until I get caught.
I think e was a joke, but I'm not sure how much of one it was. In either case it pushes you back into arguement one, which many of us are tired of hearing.
Especially since your attitude of "well they won't check so I don't care" results in me having to stop game for half an hour and have a very socially awkward discussion with a player, possibly requiring them to play a pregen or leave the table, when that attitude shows up at a game I run. So many of us are giving you pushback in hopes of checking the spread of that attitude.
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As a local coordinator I am always apprehensive towards HeroLab characters (even though I use mine to death). I love the program, but it is not uncommon to find a little error here and there.
As for DM's policing Paizo material, we do it often. If it is the first time I hear something not in the Core I immediately ask for the pdf/book.
1. This helps me understand the rule, in case the player may have misunderstood it.
2. Proves the player has read it, for the most part.
3. If they do not have the material, they can go immediately buy it, which allows the shop and paizo to make money.
As for combining the two products together...
I am a ITSM Developer/Web Developer and Business consultant who works very closely with our sales team and these types of situations come up from time to time. We always just say no. We do not care if it will be easier for the client or not. It is a big time sink, and big money sink, and revenue would be negligible versus the cost. They already have customers, and they are still getting more. They have no reason to make their customers more happy.
Lone Wolf and Paizo are two completely different companies who I am SURE thought of this. They will never do this though because the system isn't broken. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. Also, LoneWolf does business with so many other companies. If they did this with Paizo, the other companies might ask for the same, and the system would have to be made up from scratch to be able to fit into the other companies IT architecture/security.
Cool idea, but will never happen. Because moneys.
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I used to sell [X-Brand] luxury watches. That company does not sell parts to third party repair shops, so you had to bring your watch back if it needed repair. Other watch repair shops could offer repairs, and usually for a lower cost, but the parts they used would be generic and often come with little or no warranty, whereas we warrantied our work for two years.
We encountered customers all the time who brought us broken watches, complaining that *we* had just repaired them. After opening up the watch it was clear it wasn't us who worked on it last, so we'd issue them a quote for servicing it properly. We always dreaded that conversation, because invariably the customer would get upset over having to pay *again* to have their watch serviced, or would ask for a discount, or get upset at the brand.
I see this conversation as very similar.
It seems ridiculous to me.
Even if Paizo themself sold such a software product, they would still need to charge separate for it, including the cost of the work to enable each newly released product to work with the software. (Each new product may introduce new mechanics of arbitrary variety, that interact in new ways, and that requires specific coding work) None of that cost should be put on the back of people who don't use such products and only want a hardcopy/PDF.
The only valid complaint I can see might be that HeroLab is overcharging for their work.
If true, I don't believe that Paizo has any exclusive relationship with HL,
and anybody can offer a similar product for less if they wish, assuming Paizo doesn't want to enter that business themself.
I would say that it seems reasonable for Paizo to have a clause in their licence to HeroLab that any references to specific products (on website selling the HL add-ons, and inside the HL software itself) must have a direct web link to Paizo's Web Store for those products along with a note that ownership of those products is a requirement of PFS. That just removes any 'confusion' for customers, and would be on par with how Karui Kage's Archive of Nethys presents things.