Right now I'm running a game of Pathfinder only, using a bunch of third party material, we're in space. The group goes through a lot of games with about five going on a month and recently one playered claimed that mine was the best current campaign, so I'm proud of it. I'm also doing some one shot adventures with kids and soon I'm playing in a Galt campaign. I have a bunch of books out to see what I wanted to do and once I came to some decisions I started putting my books away, along with some new RPGs I had gotten into while I couldn't play online due to my computer being busted. Here I ran into a problem. I have a shelf for all my Pathfinder hardcovers and Player Companions. After getting back some borrowed stuff this shelf is overstuffed. I went 'fine I'll just take out the hardcover campaign settings and put them on the other shelf with the other Campaign Settings which share a shelf with my APs and modules since these are Golarion-specific.' because I like to stay organized. But, uh oh, this doesn't fit. That's okay I'll just put them on the other shelf that has all my hard copies of third party material. But wait, that doesn't fit because that shelf shares a shelf with my other RPG books. So finally I now have four shelves of RPGs. Three of them Pathfinder. The visuals prompted a long thought process where I had to come to a few decisions about things that have been bugging me lately and so I wound up writing and posting this to my blog.
The short version is that I have a lot of stuff for Pathfinder. A lot of stuff that I like and intend to use but because I don't give access to every book on a given campaign I just don't use it. Plus I'm sure I have at least two grand worth of stuff on my shelves. So I thought, enough's enough. Whatever I want to do that Pathfinder as a system can support I can just do it. I have Ponyfinder, Thunderscape, and Aethera coming soon. I can throw ponies in space with magitech clockwork arms coming out of their backs that shoot lasers and they all fly through Stargates in a TARDIS to fight Galactus (LPJ's Crisis of the World Eater). What else do I really need at this point? Plus Starfinder is coming out which I'm 100% likely to get.
So as a kind of 'begging for a life preserver' gesture I'm asking; Do I just have too much stuff? Is there something to look forward to with Pathfinder where its worth keeping another shelf open?
Now these aren't 'Oh, Pathfinder is too bloated' questions. I like having all these options, and I'm sure as hell not jumping ship by not playing altogether. I just think that I probably have enough. Unless I'm seriously missing something. Some grand niche that is leads to new territory and new kinds of games that the game currently don't support but definitely could. And this is a serious question so I would like some sincere answers and I hope that this can lead to some serious thought about how Pathfinder can extend it's reach by producing more worthwhile material that I could look forward to buying.
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Pathfinder seems to have taken a design philosophy from other kitchen sink settings before them. They will continue to produce content for different genres and situations, as that is the main attraction of their system. OGL ensures they'll have very little in the way of serious competition.
Personally, I hate it for the reasons you seem to like it in your OP post. More to the point: I don't think there is too much stuff in Pathfinder, but I do feel that they've started to stray away from what I think the systems strong points are.
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When you have a serious collection of core rule books, and people keep mentioning stuff that comes from obscure books you've never even heard of, and you already have trouble remembering where any given feat is from, even when it's a product you have in the first place ... yeah, there's likely too much stuff.
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This question comes up from time to time. The answer is that it depends on who you ask. Some people still want more. Others feel like we have had enough for a few years now. Personally I like having more material to get info from, even if I might not run a campaign in that part of Golarion.
As an example, if there is some rogue's guild or ninja clan in a certain area, I can borrow that info. Why they are doing business in some area that is far from their base of operations? Trying to find out that out can be a good subplot. It can also be a break from what they are normally used to. Having someone with tech gear show up in Magnimar is another example.
Paizo has to produce more stuff in order to keep the lights on (more power to them). Historically in this industry a lot of time a company has run out of books they care to publish (or think would sell), they release a whole new game or they do a revised edition of the game that ran out of steam.
It's pretty unlikely that Paizo is going to stop with Pathfinder until they ahve to, and it's almost unthinkable that they're going to do a 2nd edition (as much good as it might do.)
But "I own too many books" is just a core part of the hobby. I started with tabletop RPGs at the tail end of the 80s and one time when I moved across town I could not fit all of the boxes of RPG books in my car, so I had to take multiple trips just for RPG books. Eventually you just get choosier with what you buy.
This question comes up from time to time. The answer is that it depends on who you ask. Some people still want more. Others feel like we have had enough for a few years now. Personally I like having more material to get info from, even if I might not run a campaign in that part of Golarion.
As an example, if there is some rogue's guild or ninja clan in a certain area, I can borrow that info. Why they are doing business in some area that is far from their base of operations? Trying to find out that out can be a good subplot. It can also be a break from what they are normally used to. Having someone with tech gear show up in Magnimar is another example.
Well in my case I don't add everything at once. I have some bonus Ninja stuff and some steam punk stuff but I'm not going to break that out during my space campaign or even allow it. I just add whatever is relevant to the campaign and will even ditch third party books if I don't think it's relevant enough.
To clarify, I'm not overwhelmed by the stuff I have, I just think I probably have enough to do whatever I want that the d20 backbone can support. What I have isn't daunting to me and isn't over-flooding my games due to my tendency to sort out what I will use on a campaign to campaign basis. I just don't want to steer the conversation towards whether or not Pathfinder is too huge and mindboggling, because my primary concern is concept representation and my dwindling ability to find new ground. (With the caveat that it would have to roll with Pathfinder's framework in general. For example; I'm sure as hell am not going to run teen highschool drama with Pathfinder.)
Paizo has to produce more stuff in order to keep the lights on (more power to them). Historically in this industry a lot of time a company has run out of books they care to publish (or think would sell), they release a whole new game or they do a revised edition of the game that ran out of steam.
It's pretty unlikely that Paizo is going to stop with Pathfinder until they ahve to, and it's almost unthinkable that they're going to do a 2nd edition (as much good as it might do.)
But "I own too many books" is just a core part of the hobby. I started with tabletop RPGs at the tail end of the 80s and one time when I moved across town I could not fit all of the boxes of RPG books in my car, so I had to take multiple trips just for RPG books. Eventually you just get choosier with what you buy.
Amen to that!!!
The 3rd party material is some of the best stuff John, Paizo plays wayyy too close with their rules. Not enough awesome outside of vancian magic.They play it close to reduce the content overload the op is experiencing.
If he wants to cut out the amount of stuff he has to keep track of, cutting 3rd party is a good way to do it.
Again, to clarify, I'm not overloaded. Reducing the material used is more for the players and the setting than for me. I deemed steampunk too anachronistic for the setting and just used scifi stuff, spheres of power and Anachronistic Adventures. Everything else was just a distraction from the setting and adventure at the expense of players having to go through a bunch of stuff so I just cut it.
The only way that it is overwhelming is that I got a bunch of adventures I'm not finishing fast enough, I have to organize my shelves, and I have to deal with new players that don't know the regular rules well enough yet. My issue is that I ran out of new stuff to do.
This question comes up from time to time. The answer is that it depends on who you ask. Some people still want more. Others feel like we have had enough for a few years now. Personally I like having more material to get info from, even if I might not run a campaign in that part of Golarion.
As an example, if there is some rogue's guild or ninja clan in a certain area, I can borrow that info. Why they are doing business in some area that is far from their base of operations? Trying to find out that out can be a good subplot. It can also be a break from what they are normally used to. Having someone with tech gear show up in Magnimar is another example.
Well in my case I don't add everything at once. I have some bonus Ninja stuff and some steam punk stuff but I'm not going to break that out during my space campaign or even allow it. I just add whatever is relevant to the campaign and will even ditch third party books if I don't think it's relevant enough.
To clarify, I'm not overwhelmed by the stuff I have, I just think I probably have enough to do whatever I want that the d20 backbone can support. What I have isn't daunting to me and isn't over-flooding my games due to my tendency to sort out what I will use on a campaign to campaign basis. I just don't want to steer the conversation towards whether or not Pathfinder is too huge and mindboggling, because my primary concern is concept representation and my dwindling ability to find new ground. (With the caveat that it would have to roll with Pathfinder's framework in general. For example; I'm sure as hell am not going to run teen highschool drama with Pathfinder.)
There are areas in Pathfinder that are being expanded on with regard to lore. That should help as things move forward if that is what you mean by "new ground".
There are areas in Pathfinder that are being expanded on with regard to lore. That should help as things move forward if that is what you mean by "new ground".This question comes up from time to time. The answer is that it depends on who you ask. Some people still want more. Others feel like we have had enough for a few years now. Personally I like having more material to get info from, even if I might not run a campaign in that part of Golarion.
As an example, if there is some rogue's guild or ninja clan in a certain area, I can borrow that info. Why they are doing business in some area that is far from their base of operations? Trying to find out that out can be a good subplot. It can also be a break from what they are normally used to. Having someone with tech gear show up in Magnimar is another example.
Well in my case I don't add everything at once. I have some bonus Ninja stuff and some steam punk stuff but I'm not going to break that out during my space campaign or even allow it. I just add whatever is relevant to the campaign and will even ditch third party books if I don't think it's relevant enough.
To clarify, I'm not overwhelmed by the stuff I have, I just think I probably have enough to do whatever I want that the d20 backbone can support. What I have isn't daunting to me and isn't over-flooding my games due to my tendency to sort out what I will use on a campaign to campaign basis. I just don't want to steer the conversation towards whether or not Pathfinder is too huge and mindboggling, because my primary concern is concept representation and my dwindling ability to find new ground. (With the caveat that it would have to roll with Pathfinder's framework in general. For example; I'm sure as hell am not going to run teen highschool drama with Pathfinder.)
By 'New Ground' I mean simply concepts and story that I couldn't do before. Like for the most part Pathfinder doesn't really have steampunk so I got myself Pure Steam so we can have some steampunk adventures. At some point I wanted some magitech with the steampunk so I picked up Thunderscape and some victorian equipment stuff. Then later I wanted Airships in this setting so I back and recieved Skybourne and another thing. Then later I wanted these airships to go under water, so I picked up Cerulean Seas for some underwater physics. Because we're there I wanted to players to be dolphins that are also psychic, so I get Ultimate Psionics and everyone is a dolphin psionic now. Later I want this to go into outer space because I used to play Ecco the Dolphin, and also they will time travel. All kinds of stuff with that. Eventually I go on like that until I ran out of stuff. And I'd like to think I'm a pretty genre-savvy person. So this is a pretty harsh wall for me. Only thing left to me right now is the stuff that Pathfinder as a system can't really handle.
Your title makes it sound like there is too much, but your last comment makes it seem like you want more variety.
I think Pathfinder is a kitchen sink game, but it more along the lines of traditional fantasy. Time traveling is likely to always be a plot device and playing as animals is not likely to be a normal thing.
I will make the same observation I've made in every other "Paizo makes too many books thread." Telling a publishing company to stop publishing isn't going to get much traction.
Your title makes it sound like there is too much, but your last comment makes it seem like you want more variety.
I think Pathfinder is a kitchen sink game, but it more along the lines of traditional fantasy. Time traveling is likely to always be a plot device and playing as animals is not likely to be a normal thing.
Its not just wanting more variety, but wanting more variety that didn't happen already. Actually it's not exactly a complaint either. I'm not angrily screaming that I've had enough of this Pathfinder junk. I'm just calmly saying that I'm done. Its someone who has conquered the world and governed it into his perfect utopia with no more enemies and then says "Now what?" The only choice left is to enjoy what he has on his hands, but if there's some alien planets to conquer next then that would be nice too.
Oh, I'm not suggesting Paizo stops what it's doing. There's enough of you guys not buying third party material where base Pathfinder has a lot of room to go. Besides all the 5th edition people near me are buying up Pathfinder APs so between Pathfinder and D&D players, the APs must be doing gangbusters. In fact I'd love to collect most of the APs after I'm done with all the ones I have along with the adventures and modules from third party sources. You guys don't have to slow down on my account.
I'm just personally at the point where I feel like everything on the horizon is stuff I can already do. For example; there's a new bestiary out. Cool, I like Bestiaries. But I backed the Talented Bestiary and I have the Advanced Bestiary, and some other bestiaries from third party sources in addition to the five bestiaries I've got. I think I'm good. I think I can make people fight any monster that has ever existed and will be imagined in my lifetime either written up or only a template away. I ate from the extra snack tray and I'm full.
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Do you have an option to play as an energetic bunny cop and delightful fox conman?
The 3rd party material is some of the best stuff John, Paizo plays wayyy too close with their rules. Not enough awesome outside of vancian magic.They play it close to reduce the content overload the op is experiencing.
If he wants to cut out the amount of stuff he has to keep track of, cutting 3rd party is a good way to do it.
Best PF campaign I ever played banned Paizo material (with feats and magic items as the exceptions.)
Psionics, Path of War and Spheres of Power mostly, with a bit of random Rogue/Super Genius Games material mostly.
I think we had one person with a Rite Publishing or Kobald Press class.
That is beautifully ironic. Maybe 1-shot material for our group - after Spheres I have a feeling the guys won't want to try anything else for extended periods of time.
"Bloat" is one of the reasons I keep to Paizo only. No 3PP at our table and we can always find a way within Paizo content to play the character we imagine.
Do you have an option to play as an energetic bunny cop and delightful fox conman?
Yes. Produce a race using Fursona and roll up an Enforcer and Luminary from Anachronistic Adventures.
That is beautifully ironic. Maybe 1-shot material for our group - after Spheres I have a feeling the guys won't want to try anything else for extended periods of time.The 3rd party material is some of the best stuff John, Paizo plays wayyy too close with their rules. Not enough awesome outside of vancian magic.They play it close to reduce the content overload the op is experiencing.
If he wants to cut out the amount of stuff he has to keep track of, cutting 3rd party is a good way to do it.
Best PF campaign I ever played banned Paizo material (with feats and magic items as the exceptions.)
Psionics, Path of War and Spheres of Power mostly, with a bit of random Rogue/Super Genius Games material mostly.
I think we had one person with a Rite Publishing or Kobald Press class.
Actually Spheres of Power is responsibly for a lot of this. Recently my wife wanted to run a Sailor Moon campaign but wasn't satisfied with the Sailor Moon RPG using the Tristat system and Pathfinder was almost all she knew. Before settling on OVA I wound up modding up a vigilante that uses spherecasting and using a modified relationship system from Ultimate Campaign had my character gain spell points equal to my total relationship scores among NPCs so helping people and making them feel better boosted my magic by making a deeper connection with them. Wound up not doing that because my wife has a hard time with all the numbers and book keeping involved so we went with a rules lite system that caters to the genre.
Do you have an option to play as an energetic bunny cop and delightful fox conman?Yes. Produce a race using Fursona and roll up an Enforcer and Luminary from Anachronistic Adventures.
I think you've got everything covered then.
I've been looking at Spheres/Path of War, and they seem very, very neat, but I'm currently setting up to run some Frog God Games content (specifically, Rappan Athuk), and I don't feel the two would mesh well. At least, without some revision to enemy stats.
Plus, most of my players are newbies who haven't been playing long enough to care about bloat and the martial/caster disparity. We're at the point where the Rogue has been performing the best in the party, due to having a particularly clever player, while the casters haven't moved very far beyond "blaster" and "party healer". And he's an *Archer Rogue*, no less. The other martials in the party are perfectly happy playing characters that don't do much more than make attack rolls and roll damage. So as much as I see Spheres and Paths as beautiful revisions of a flawed system, I kinda want to let the kids have their fun with the basic game without ruining it for them.
Pathfinder is a modular system. The ability to add (and take away) is one of the big strengths of the system. And there is always more rules, genres, whatever to explore.
I kinda want to let the kids have their fun with the basic game without ruining it for them.That is one advantage of such a huge and multi-faceted game. So many different types of game available.
Yeah, I agree. Still, it's something I have to tell myself every time I read those rules- just because they're great rules doesn't mean it's necessarily a good idea to use them yet. I figure it's best to keep PoW/Spheres in my pocket until enthusiasm for PF starts to lag.
In the meantime, I really need to find myself a game that allows PoW/Spheres. I myself can't wait to use the systems.
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I never touch third party products. There are gems amongst them I am sure but I remember the great bloat of third edition D&D. These days I prefer to stick to purely Paizo for my books.
Now that said, I do think that at the moment there are too many books out of Pathfinder and more constantly adding to the mechanically bloat of rules, spells, feats and the like. I personally would much rather see Paizo focus on the campaign setting rather than more and more rule books. We still need countries, continents and the bits in between fleshed out in further detail not just the Inner Sea Region.
There's enough stuff for me to use or no use. I like having more options not less. I don't have to use them all but I like them being there. That's what I hate about new game system or game version updates. You need to buy all the same stuff again and are left waiting for books to come out. At the same time if you wait the cost of buying all the book later is expensive, better buy them over time. Problem is I have enough in Pathfinder that if Pathfinder stopped releasing book I'd be able to game for years to come. So I think they have enough and more is welcome.
Looking forward to Starfinder though.
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but most of the splatbooks have one or two good feats or spells, the rest are trash.
Well, apart from the stuff that doesn't interest me thematically, I find most of the stuff worthwile and have no qualms picking it when it fits my character, my game or my setting. But then, I like goblins and those little critters are known for making use of other people's trash.
And no, that doesn't mean that I anyhow agree with the trash part.
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As an Australian who doesn't want to deal with shipping costs, I just get PDF's of Pathfinder books. My digital shelf definitely has enough space for many more future pathfinder releases.
Oh, I'm not suggesting Paizo stops what it's doing. There's enough of you guys not buying third party material where base Pathfinder has a lot of room to go. Besides all the 5th edition people near me are buying up Pathfinder APs so between Pathfinder and D&D players, the APs must be doing gangbusters. In fact I'd love to collect most of the APs after I'm done with all the ones I have along with the adventures and modules from third party sources. You guys don't have to slow down on my account.
I'm just personally at the point where I feel like everything on the horizon is stuff I can already do. For example; there's a new bestiary out. Cool, I like Bestiaries. But I backed the Talented Bestiary and I have the Advanced Bestiary, and some other bestiaries from third party sources in addition to the five bestiaries I've got. I think I'm good. I think I can make people fight any monster that has ever existed and will be imagined in my lifetime either written up or only a template away. I ate from the extra snack tray and I'm full.
I appreciate the difference in your point compared with the more usual "Is PF bloated?" debates. Personally, I think the limit you've identified is a function of you and what you're looking for, rather than of the system.
It sounds like you may have reached your limit (or be nearing it anyhow). Others would have reached it much earlier - personally, I still enjoy my subscriptions turning up (even though when I run PF games, we generally stick to CRB only).
I don't think there is a "right amount of stuff" really - some people will want more. Some newcomers will snaffle up all the new stuff because they don't have access to the older books.
I think the only real objective measure is if they remain profitable whilst churning out new books - so so far, nope!
@Malwing: I get the distinct feeling that most of the people reading and responding are either misunderstanding you or have a +4 axe of chip on the shoulder to grind. Possibly a slightly striated and speckled broken ioun stone of incomprehension.
It may be that a lot of no-3PP savants here are misreading Paizo for Pathfinder.
Too much? As TOZ says: yep.
Also: Never!!!
As you already mentioned, you are your own moderator, and you are in full control of your campaigns.
What I took from your OP was: "What else is their that I might want to explore bold new concepts, mechanical or storywise for future awesome games?"
I know from your OP and other posts that you have most of the toys, and don't seem to need much else. The 3PP industry is studded with luminaries and concept-drivers like never before, with fantastic editors, developers, publishers, layout gurus and illustrators/cartographers/artists.
But in a way, you are right - there are not too many products that really push my buttons or the conceptual framework.
I just backed the Interface Zero KS - plenty of sci-fi, net running, transhumance to
complement Aethera, Skybourne and Starfinder...
I guess every now and then something will come up. But you don't seem to need much. Wanting is determined by your lack and desire to overcome it. More power to you, I enjoy your posts.
Or: pretty much what Steve said more eloquently, concisely and without the snark toward the no-3PP crowd.
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Most of the options are released are false options, basically unpickable, regardless of theme considerations.
If all the feats and stuff released were sweet I'd be fine with how much content paizo produces but most of the splatbooks have one or two good feats or spells, the rest are trash. Its like MTG or Hearthstone style releases which is very annoying to me
Agreed and seconded. Beyond a few feats and some decent material. Most of it fall into the trap of "great fluff but not enough crunch". Fluff is good and all it does not make up for poorly designed mechanics imo.
As to the Op point. No I don't think their too much material in Pathfinder. First off no one is holding a gun to anyone head to use it all. Second the same material ensures we get more of it and pays the bills.
Yeah, if you think you have enough stuff, doesn't hurt to sit back, though I'd still suggest keeping a loose eye on what's coming out...after all, you really never know when some new interesting product might pop up with something you never knew you needed, or perhaps an intriguing Kickstarter. Or at least more for whatever subsystems you prefer...more spherecasting, veilweaving, or whatever.
One issue I have that's somewhat separate is that I'm usually the only gm Running 3pp so aside from play testing I rarely get to play with my stuff. So running through material can get slow.
Given your support and energetic use of 3pp material I am not really that surprised that you feel all the niches are filled. Just looking at steampunk alone, there is very little in Paizo produced content for support, but it sometimes feel like there is a new 3pp released each month in that niche. And conceptually I don't actually think there is much of anything that is completely unfilled niche wise from the player perspective, depending on how picky you are on rules or flavor.
I'm pretty choosy and conservative (although supportive) of 3pp material, so there is still plenty of niche space that Paizo can grow into for me. For instance I loved Horror Adventurers and thought it did a good job of expanding on that niche of Pathfinder. Someone who has a lot of content or mostly looks at things from a player perspective may not agree.
I'd say as long as you are happy and and as long as your players are happy, do whatever makes sense for your interest and wallet
To answer the topic question, I'm gonna say "No, there is not too much stuff in Pathfinder". There is only what you are willing to spend your money on or not.