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A game that requires a group of new players to spend X hours researching trap options AND doesn't even tell them that - is a bad backbone of your business if your biggest competition is a game which you can pick up and make your character without worrying about shooting yourself in the foot with stuff like setting out to play a or a multiclass Monk/Druid/Rogue.
In other words, a game that hands you a 576 page rulebook and you're also expected to read guides and forums to enjoy it without worrying yourself about jarring discrepancies between people who, by pure fluke, made better and worse choices in building their characters, will always lose to a game that doesn't do that - and it does, as we can see with 5e trouncing PF1.
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A game that requires a group of new players to spend X hours researching trap options AND doesn't even tell them that - is a bad backbone of your business if your biggest competition is a game which you can pick up and make your character without worrying about shooting yourself in the foot with stuff like setting out to play a or a multiclass Monk/Druid/Rogue.
In other words, a game that hands you a 576 page rulebook and you're also expected to read guides and forums to enjoy it without worrying yourself about jarring discrepancies between people who, by pure fluke, made better and worse choices in building their characters, will always lose to a game that doesn't do that - and it does, as we can see with 5e trouncing PF1.
How is 5e trouncing PF1? Is this a reference to outselling PF1? I think you're arguing that 5e is superior or more accurately, has broader appeal and offer economic measures as evidence. But economic success may not be entirely attributable to product quality. Other qualities like brand recognition and marketing influence sales success as well. You could get a good chuck of people (in the US anyway) to buy refried cow manure if the marketing campaign used Beyonce in a bikini but that wouldn't mean refried cow manure tasted good.
Of course I think you're right 5e is both easier to pickup (but for me not more interesting) and has name recognition. But that only suggests Paizo is more dependent on its existing customer base (as opposed to expanding to new customers) and they had better hope a hefty percentage of them follow to PF2 or they could be in trouble. I hope PF2 is wildly successful because that increases the chance they'll continue to let dinosaur, stick-in-the-muds like me continue to buy the electronic versions of PF1 material (and maybe the occasional print version as well.)
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I'm arguing both that PF1 got kicked squarely by 5e in sales at this point, it's third behind Starfinder. but is also a far more approachable game.
If Paizo decided to make PF2 that is different from PF1 to a degree where, knowing how the fanbase works, they could assume that there will be a significant percentage of that player base will burn their PDFs in anguish (sorry, Anguish) it means only one thing - the PF1 customer base has shrunk to a point where making a new edition that will hopefully attract new players is a better business proposition.
And regarding your comments as to marketing and brand recognition - 4e did have the brand recognition and marketing, it faltered on the other counts and lost to a less-known PF1.
Using sales figures to determine popularity fails to account for market saturation of the older system. How many times does your book or pdf wear out and have to be replaced? It DOES affect profitability, and that affects the Paizo Business, and ability to keep going. As has been said over and over people have years worth of untouched product, in part due to the rather successful prescription program. There is also the common practice of using material from different systems, even different genres, as support material for their games. This is of course not so profitable for Paizo, but it hardly makes them irrelevant.
Bah, subscription not prescription system, wish you spotted it earlier Bob, but thanks.
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I have a question regarding first time players and trap options. Are the GMs just not doing their job and helping them build/accommodate? Are other players just letting other just choose bad stuff with no tips or support?
The GM's job is to provide an adventure in a game world full of characters and monsters.
The player's job is to create a character in advance so we don't have to wait for them at the table before we can begin the adventure. (Unless we're doing a Session 0, and rolling up characters together, but that ought to be optional.)
The player's job is vastly easier than the GM's, especially given the wealth of internet resources available to guide you.
The game's job is to make sure this system works.
As GM I've tried to help a player by saying, "Don't make that character, it's bad. Make it like this instead." The result was, he ended up with an effective character he didn't want to play.
So, for the 10' away melee attacker scenario, seems like the only real solution is to try to be more realistic and allow unused fractional actions to be allocated to another action type. In other words, because really only a small part of a move action was used, the remainder of that action should be applied to the standard action to allow more attacks because that is what would happen in real life.
I can't think of any other satisfactory way to solve this problem.
5e's solution is to always allow a full attack whether you move or not. That works pretty well as long as 'full attack' isn't too powerful.
PF2's solution is that you can stand still and attack at +0/-5/-10, or move up to your movement distance and attack at +0/-5, or move up to twice your movement distance and attack at +0.
Thanks for that. Given that, I think I like PF2's solution a bit better because it distinguishes between moving and not moving.
Between PF1 and 5e, maybe it's a toss up. PF1 distinguishes, but also a move action takes less time than a standard action, so I can also see the 5e solution.
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there will be a significant percentage of that player base will burn their PDFs in anguish (sorry, Anguish)
WHO summons me?!?
Oh. Hi. Never mind.
Using sales figures to determine popularity fails to account for market saturation of the older system.Maybe true.
I can't speak for other people, but in my city I've not seen a public announcement for a PF game in years, it's all 5e now.
Only a little bit serious here. Perhaps 5e is the only game that has to advertise for players.
You all do recognize that what is a "trap" feat or what is a "must have" feat can vary a lot by playstyle, right? Having imperfect characters is often not the end of the world, and retraining exists when something doesn't suit. Throwing this all on the GMs shoulders as a judgement against them is hardly fair or even realistic. In my experience different tables tend to focus on different things, and pretty much ignore well over half of the content, and the game supports thi fairly well. As. Long. As. Everyone. Is. On. The. Same. Page.
If you want to minimize severe variations in playstyle, pathfinder may have gotten too big for you, if not, maybe not. Whatever your preference, you are just talking preference. At this point you aren't going to be finding your preference become obsolete anytime soon.
You don't have to be right, you aren't going to lose anything.
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You all do recognize that what is a "trap" feat or what is a "must have" feat can vary a lot by playstyle, right? Having imperfect characters is often not the end of the world, and retraining exists when something doesn't suit. Throwing this all on the GMs shoulders as a judgement against them is hardly fair or even realistic. In my experience different tables tend to focus on different things, and pretty much ignore well over half of the content, and the game supports thi fairly well. As. Long. As. Everyone. Is. On. The. Same. Page.
If you want to minimize severe variations in playstyle, pathfinder may have gotten too big for you, if not, maybe not. Whatever your preference, you are just talking preference. At this point you aren't going to be finding your preference become obsolete anytime soon.
You don't have to be right, you aren't going to lose anything.
A Rogue with Power Attack is not a playstyle. That's an error (except for some corner cases of hyper specialised builds). The game doesn't tell you that it's an error.
A Rogue/Monk or a Druid/Sorcerer mutliclass *should* have been a playstyle ... but it's a trap. You're not "being imperfect", you're a dead weight and a liability for other people at the table.
Retraining is not part of core rules. So there's that.
The game should be standardised to a point where you can pick the core rulebook and build a viable character without having, perfectly plausible, multiclass Rogue/Monk/Sorcerer (a student at a monastery of magical arts turned temple thief) incredibly BAD at pretty much anything compared to a perfectly plausible archer Ranger come level 5 or so.
When I first encountered Pathfinder there were a lot less rules in print and the game seemed better to me.
But it is a successful game and it is produced by a company trying to make money. Which is done by producing more rules. This is really always going to be the case.
And every time a new single rule is printed there is the possibility of an unintended and broken interaction with some other rule in print. Which leads to FAQs, things banned from Pathfinder Society play and so on.
Another factor is if you want to sell expansions to players, one thing they want is options to play, especially powerful options.
I think that RPGs becoming bloated over time if they are successful is more or less inevitable for commercial reasons.
What follows is a quote by a professional game developer that says similar things in more detail. Very much worth reading imho.
GM Stormy: I saw your latest post while in the process of writing this. I'm so sorry for you. We'll all be here if you need to take time off to help or anything.
~~~~~~~~~~
This is part of a trend in gaming history...
(Full disclosure: I am a professional game designer, and have been in the industry for over 20 years.)
(WALL OF TEXT INCOMING, CRITS FOR 9,000 DAMAGE)
Early D&D and D&D-alike games had a very limited rule set and an exhortation for the DM to make things up as the game went along, but this style of gameplay was almost immediately challenged, in part because of early D&D's focus on tournament play. (Early on, Gygax thought that the standard format that most people would encounter D&D in was in tournaments at game conventions. This is not surprising when you consider D&D's wargaming roots, which was also mostly played in tournaments at conventions.) To make tournament play "fair" everyone has to use the same rules, so you don't have a lot of leeway for interpretation by the DM.
Fast forward several years and it becomes very clear that most people are playing D&D and other RPGs as home games with their friends, and making up their own rules as needed. This actually annoys Gygax because he makes money by selling books, and leads to the commentary that he writes about playing "real D&D" using only the rules that TSR publishes, while at the same time writing out the other side of his mouth about how you should never be beholden to doing what someone says is quoted in the rulebook but instead as a DM should be the authority who decides on how to rule on the game for the sake of fun. (Gygax specifically calls out game systems from the spin-off game Arduin in one of his essays about "true D&D," without calling out the game itself by name; it's clear, though, if you've ever played Arduin, that he's specifically calling it out as "not real D&D.")
Fast forward several years and it becomes very clear that most people are playing D&D and other RPGs as home games with their friends, and making up their own rules as needed. This actually annoys Gygax because he makes money by selling books, and leads to the commentary that he writes about playing "real D&D" using only the rules that TSR publishes, while at the same time writing out the other side of his mouth about how you should never be beholden to doing what someone says is quoted in the rulebook but instead as a DM should be the authority who decides on how to rule on the game for the sake of fun. (Gygax specifically calls out game systems from the spin-off game Arduin in one of his essays about "true D&D," without calling out the game itself by name; it's clear, though, if you've ever played Arduin, that he's specifically calling it out as "not real D&D.")
Fast forward another few years and we get to 2nd edition, which is designed to create a more uniform experience and a more standardized version of the game. Part of this involves cutting out elements that they consider problems, like the assassin class.
Turn the clock ahead again past the fall of TSR and the WotC buyout and you get to 3rd edition, the direct predecessor of Pathfinder. Three major things happened here:
* 1st, TSR collapsed due to overextension in the fiction market and the splitting of its own game market with all of its D&D settings. WotC had different priorities when they bought the property.
* 2nd, the RPG market had changed, with the rise of games like Shadowrun and Vampire. People were primed for a coherent game system and many players had moved to a more story-driven style of gameplay. 2nd edition AD&D had been out since '89 and was growing old and stale.
* 3rd, (A)D&D had become a huge social market and a big part of this was through organized play - groups like the RPGA that made it possible for people to find games if they didn't have a regular group of after-school buds. But one of the repeated refrains was that people were being driven away by bad DMs. So there was pressure to create a new version of D&D that would mitigate the worst DMs and guarantee that you always got at least some minimum standard of experience.That confluence of events gave us 3rd edition and the d20 system, pioneered by Jonathan Tweet (the creator of Ars Magica, along with Mark Rein-Hagen - no surprise when you realize that the d20 + stat + skill resolution system is the exact same resolution system as Ars Magica, except that ArM uses a d10).
The goal of "provide a certain minimum floor" was met by making the rules super comprehensive. There was a rule for everything, and every rule fit into a coherent model. Instead of lots of exceptions and one-off rules and weird edge cases, the system was designed to be as generalized as possible. This way you never get a scenario where a DM just makes up a rule or misinterprets a rule or reads something wrong and ruins the experience for the table.
Unfortunately this leads to logocentrism: The belief that the book is more important than the group. People wind up in arguments about "what the rules say" and lose sight of the fact that what's most important is what is fun for the group as a whole. In the worst form you get these folks in Twitter or on forums who treat developer statements as "Word of God" as if a developer you don't know, who's never been in your group, who knows nothing about them, has a say that is more important than the negotiation between players and GMs for their own personal needs.
Pathfinder 1e is stuck in the rut of mid- to late-'90s game design: You make a comprehensive rule set, and then every month you publish another book with more rules. That way people have to buy everything if they want to be up on everything. The problem of course is that eventually you have so many books that your game is unapproachable, and your rules are so comprehensive that they are vast and unwieldy, and you've covered everything and there's nothing more to sell. Then you make a 2nd edition - which is super-risky, because you now alienate everyone who bought all of your old books, and you split your market, and then some competitor swoops in and eats your lunch. (That's what happened to D&D: People liked 3e, so when 4e came out, those people just kept playing Pathfinder instead. Now D&D 5e has reversed the situation once more.)...
Maybe for noobs, but I typically don't enjoy playing with them anyway. Also, minimalist isn't always best. 5e is pretty minimalist and I've never been more bored in a game then when my group tried out 5e.
5e's publishing model proves that you don't need a barrage of splatbooks to be successful. Of course, time will tell if Paizo will adopt a more timid approach to publishing supplemental material.
I don't think this is so. Or maybe it is half true. 5th ed is WoTC trying to come back from the absolute, total and unqualified commercial disaster that was 4th ed. I don't think 4th ed was a bad RPG, but the real D&D fans literally hated it as it wasn't their game. And Pathfiner took over for a long time.
WoTC is not a small gaming company and owns Magic the Gathering, which must produce a lot of $$$. And WoTC is in turn owned by Hasbro, one of the world's largest companies.
I think WoTC is trying very hard to re-establish 5th ed D&D as the preferred form of, well, D & D. And they are placing an emphasis on quality and avoiding 5th ed becoming huge, bloated and overly complex like 3.5. And 1st ed Pathfinder.
But this is a response to a particular situation, 4th ed losing it's followers and being big and cashed up enough to play a longer game.
It does not follow that other RPGs from less cashed up companies won't respond to the same commercial realities that leads to more and more expansions.
Finally, don't get me wrong, I like Pathfinder a lot. It would just be better if there was rather less of it.
Starfinder is doing great despite a timid, compared to PF1 and rapid, compared to 5e, publishing schedule. I think Paizo hit the sweet spot with SF (monthly AP + 2 hardcover books/year) and I'd love for them to do exactly the same in PF2.
I’d prefer considerably more flavour. I agree that the rate of producing mechanical options in Starfinder is about right.
You all do recognize that what is a "trap" feat or what is a "must have" feat can vary a lot by playstyle, right? Having imperfect characters is often not the end of the world, and retraining exists when something doesn't suit. Throwing this all on the GMs shoulders as a judgement against them is hardly fair or even realistic. In my experience different tables tend to focus on different things, and pretty much ignore well over half of the content, and the game supports thi fairly well. As. Long. As. Everyone. Is. On. The. Same. Page.
If you want to minimize severe variations in playstyle, pathfinder may have gotten too big for you, if not, maybe not. Whatever your preference, you are just talking preference. At this point you aren't going to be finding your preference become obsolete anytime soon.
You don't have to be right, you aren't going to lose anything.
A Rogue with Power Attack is not a playstyle. That's an error (except for some corner cases of hyper specialised builds). The game doesn't tell you that it's an error.
A Rogue/Monk or a Druid/Sorcerer mutliclass *should* have been a playstyle ... but it's a trap. You're not "being imperfect", you're a dead weight and a liability for other people at the table.
Retraining is not part of core rules. So there's that.
The game should be standardised to a point where you can pick the core rulebook and build a viable character without having, perfectly plausible, multiclass Rogue/Monk/Sorcerer (a student at a monastery of magical arts turned temple thief) incredibly BAD at pretty much anything compared to a perfectly plausible archer Ranger come level 5 or so.
It has been almost two decades since 3E came out, that laid foundation for 3.5 and Pathfinder. After all this time any Pathfinder group you point at will have at least one experienced player that will be able to help others build their characters. Pathfinder was successful because 3.5 was successful, without it and OGL Paizo wouldn’t be top dog on the market that it is today. Also, Pathfinder was always considered advanced game system for d20 veterans, not so inclusive like some rules-light games out there, but nonetheless successful. And there is nothing bad about it; there are games and hobbies out there that cater to people with more sophisticated tastes and those people play Pathfinder. It’s not the best game for fresh RPG groups or people that last time played 30 or 40 years ago, but it is a good game for experienced D&D players that are looking for more - more of everything.
I personally believe you are overly obsessed with 5e. You mention this system in every argument, almost every post, but Pathfinder was never made to compate with 5e. It did compete with 4e and it has won that battle, but after 11 years (20 years if you are like me here since 3E) it starts to show its age. This and the fact that Paizo officially stopped supporting 1E (in a way that they won’t produce any new material) means that the sales are now much lower. On top of that all rules are free to use due to OGL and no one needs to pay Paizo anything in order to play this game.
I can also tell you that no matter what they do, PFRPG 2ed will be less successful than D&D 5, even if it is better game by all degrees. Reason for that is simple; it’s called marketing and brand recognition. Paizo knows this and they don’t want to compete with D&D 5 as they’ve said on numerous occasions. Pathfinder 2 will be to D&D 5 what AD&D was to Basic D&D - less popular, but more advanced game system for people with more sophisticated tastes.
You also mention often splatbook release schedule, saying that 5e’s way of doing is so much better than PF’s and this reflects on system’s popularity (or so I understand it that way). You somehow forget that there are hundreds of RPG systems out there, both complex and rules light with release schedules similar to 5e, but not a single one of them is even half as popular as D&D is. WotC can do this, because they have tremendous (on industry scale) amount of money that they can pump into marketing and they already have brand recognition on top of that. If Paizo was following same release scheme then they would probably earn less and it wouldn’t make their game more popular or better in any way.
But hey... of all top 3 RPG titles out there two belong to Paizo and that’s quite impressive if you ask me. Also both run on almost 20 years old engine that had been broken by thousands of players in the past. ;)
True, there is a competition between TTRPGs to some extend, but not every fantasy TTRPG caters to the same group of people that D&D 5e does. PFRPG in some way does that, because it grew out on D&D roots, but Pathfinder niche is/was complex rule system that has more to do with simulationist nature of gameplay rather than narrationist -- something that 5E tries to balance and it does that well. I'm not entirely sure if Paizo wants to keep it that way (that is - keeping its niche), although after reading some of the designers' posts I'm pretty sure they don't want to go into D&D 5's territory (which is a good thing) and this is what I mean by direct competition. They simply can't win, no matter what they do. They won't win back most of the players that they've lost, because many of these players were casual to begin with and D&D 5e is heaven for all types of casuals and they don't really need any new edition or rule system -- they'll stay with 5e for as long as it is supported and some even longer.
Look, the reason why Pathfinder took over D&D 4 was very simple. WotC didn't listen to their customers, they've made big marketting failure by advertising that system as a direct update over D&D 3.5, which it had very little to do with. Although the rules weren't bad, they've presented them in a way that the game seemed as if it had very little to do with Role Playing part of RPG and when they did fix this with DMG 2 it was already too late. WotC after 4e had such a bad opinion that when they've announced 5e and public tests many were reluctant to even look at them.
5e is far from excellent. In fact I know many Fantasy TTRPGs that are better than both Pathfinder or D&D 5e. Hell, you could even take Castles & Crusades, rebrand it as Dungeons & Dragons and it would out-sell Pathfinder. Dungeons & Dragons is a brand that has been most popular TTRPG for almost all of its 45 years of existance and it has influenced computer games, books and pop culture so much that as long as they will listien to their fans they will continue to be TOP 1. Pathfinder was TOP 1 TTRPG for a short time and it is just an exception to the rule. It says more about how bad 4e is rather than how good Pathfinder is.
This is the reason why I don't buy arguments like -- let's do what 5e did, give it some Pathfinder flavour and we will Make Pathfinder Great Again!
A game that requires a group of new players to spend X hours researching trap options AND doesn't even tell them that - is a bad backbone of your business if your biggest competition is a game which you can pick up and make your character without worrying about shooting yourself in the foot with stuff like setting out to play a or a multiclass Monk/Druid/Rogue.
New players won't even look at Pathfinder regardless of how easy or complicated it is. To most TTRPG == D&D. It has been entry point to the hobby for generations now and it will continue to be. The best thing Paizo can do is to make sure that players that grow tired of D&D 5 will come to them. Hopefully PFRPG 2e will meet their needs.
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Starfinder is doing great despite a timid, compared to PF1 and rapid, compared to 5e, publishing schedule. I think Paizo hit the sweet spot with SF (monthly AP + 2 hardcover books/year) and I'd love for them to do exactly the same in PF2.
I think a big difference is that everybody who played PF1 has a handful of "favorite things" they would like to get back in PF2 ASAP. So I think a slightly more brisk hardback schedule for PF2 while we fill in gaps for things which people want, but really do not belong in core, would be appropriate.
Like the other day I was thinking "I sure would like to see an AP set in Nidal someday" and then thought "well, but not before I have rules to play a Caligni kineticist" (since Nidal is the one place above ground where there is any kind of concentration of Caligni.)
Starfinder didn't have "I can't wait to play an Urog Vanguard" people chomping at the bit when it released since nobody knew what those things were yet.
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After all this time any Pathfinder group you point at will have at least one experienced player that will be able to help others build their characters.
"Needs at least one experienced player in order to fully enjoy the game" is a rather crap entry bar these days.
Also, Pathfinder was always considered advanced game system for d20 veterans, not so inclusive like some rules-light games out there, but nonetheless successful. And there is nothing bad about it; there are games and hobbies out there that cater to people with more sophisticated tastes and those people play Pathfinder.
O hai "my game is more sophisticated than yours" elitism. That'll get you far.
I personally believe you are overly obsessed with 5e. You mention this system in every argument, almost every post, but Pathfinder was never made to compate with 5e. It did compete with 4e and it has won that battle, but after 11 years (20 years if you are like me here since 3E) it starts to show its age. This and the fact that Paizo officially stopped supporting 1E (in a way that they won’t produce any new material) means that the sales are now much lower.
I'm not obsessed, I'm just noticing the fact that 5E started punching PF1 out of the market 4 years ago back when PF1 was going strong. That alone makes it kind of an elephant in the room. There's plenty of evidence for that, from the dwindling forum through roll20 stats and icv2 polls. PF1 didn't have a prayer in this fight from the day it was clear that 5E is, actually, a very good and very well marketed game.
Also, Critical Role kind of won the battle for WotC. Fun fact: they were playing initially Pathfinder, but switched to 5E because PF1 was too fiddly.
I can also tell you that no matter what they do, PFRPG 2ed will be less successful than D&D 5, even if it is better game by all degrees. Reason for that is simple; it’s called marketing and brand recognition. Paizo knows this and they don’t want to compete with D&D 5 as they’ve said on numerous occasions. Pathfinder 2 will be to D&D 5 what AD&D was to Basic D&D - less popular, but more advanced game system for people with more sophisticated tastes.
Oh, you've just made a circular argument, tee hee. PF1 could beat 4e *despite* WotC brand recognition and marketing but PF2 will *never* beat 5e *because* WotC brand recognition and marketing?
You also mention often splatbook release schedule, saying that 5e’s way of doing is so much better than PF’s and this reflects on system’s popularity (or so I understand it that way). You somehow forget that there are hundreds of RPG systems out there, both complex and rules light with release schedules similar to 5e, but not a single one of them is even half as popular as D&D is. WotC can do this, because they have tremendous (on industry scale) amount of money that they can pump into marketing and they already have brand recognition on top of that. If Paizo was following same release scheme then they would probably earn less and it wouldn’t make their game more popular or better in any way.
Sure they would earn less but Paizo is a medium-sized privately owned company, it does not answer to the parent company who answers to shareholders and has financial goals and benchmarks on an entire different level. And these days they have Starfinder and PFACG rolling along, so I'm timidly hopeful that PF2 can live on a more relaxed schedule. I think that's perfectly achievable within the goals Paizo needs to meet to pay the bills, feed the mouths and expand.
Let's savage apart *cough* politely address your second post while at it because you're wrestling with a pig in the mud and only now finding out that I like it.
(4e) rules weren't bad // how bad 4e is
You could at least make up your mind as to what you think about 4e.
5e is far from excellent. In fact I know many Fantasy TTRPGs that are better than both Pathfinder or D&D 5e. Hell, you could even take Castles & Crusades, rebrand it as Dungeons & Dragons and it would out-sell Pathfinder.
Aaand yet Pathfinder outsold a game called Dungeons & Dragons for a couple of years. Seems like you need to make up your mind regarding how important brand recognition is, because in one place you say that you could take a random game, call it D&D and outsell PF while in fact PF did outsell a game called D&D.
Seems to me like you're trying very hard to build the argument without admitting that 5e is a solid game. Face it cowboy, it is a very solid game. It's superior to PF1, because the areas where PF1 is better (more player-side options, better adventure/setting support) are outweighed by PF1's crippling weaknesses compared to 5e, namely the entry bar, the bloat, the quagmire of trap options and the mind-numbing awkwardness of simulationist areas of the ruleset.
New players won't even look at Pathfinder regardless of how easy or complicated it is. To most TTRPG == D&D. It has been entry point to the hobby for generations now and it will continue to be. The best thing Paizo can do is to make sure that players that grow tired of D&D 5 will come to them. Hopefully PFRPG 2e will meet their needs.
For starters, if that was true, there would be a sound RPG industry because people wouldn't play anything besides D&D. Yet there is a whole slew of successful RPGs that ain't D&D. Heck, there are dozens of successful fantasy heartbreaker RPGs that ain't D&D. Warhammer. DSA. Runequest. Conan. Exalted.
Paizo's best shot is to take advantage of the rising D&D tide lifting all ships and getting new players coming into a hobby who want to play a fantasy heartbreaker but prefer more player-side options than 5e has 5 years after its debut AND has a better setting/adventure support. On the other hand, you can't pack that in a ruleset that has a "you need to be this tall to enter our sophisticated circle of basement-dwelling elite who know that Paizo printed not one but two feats called Skulk Quietly, one in Dancing Halls of Golarion and the other in AP 223" written all over it.
Yep, I get it, you don't like 5e and are trying very hard to say that it's a game that's all about marketing and brand recognition and Paizo should just keep on trucking because 5e's quality doesn't matter. Except, it does, and it's just good enough to blow PF1 apart.
Oh, you've just made a circular argument, tee hee. PF1 could beat 4e *despite* WotC brand recognition and marketing but PF2 will *never* beat 5e *because* WotC brand recognition and marketing?
It won't beat 5e, because WotC did much better job this time. This + brand recognition and marketing. I thought it was pretty obvious.
Let's savage apart *cough* politely address your second post while at it because you're wrestling with a pig in the mud and only now finding out that I like it.
Don't worry, this feeling is mutual, Mr. Gorbacz.
O hai "my game is more sophisticated than yours" elitism. That'll get you far.
There is room for "more sophisticated games" and elitism. Look up Games Workshop or even MtG. Same thing with TTRPGs - AD&D was way more complicated than Red Box, it didn't sell as well, but it did had huge impact and was successful.
"Needs at least one experienced player in order to fully enjoy the game" is a rather crap entry bar these days.
What kind of entry bar? D20 had been played for almost 20 years by now.
You could at least make up your mind as to what you think about 4e.
Let me get it straight. It's a pretty good game, but terrible Dungeons & Dragons. It was so terrible for WotC that this "more sophesticated" game for "elitist" players called Pathfinder had become more popular and remember that Pathfinder never was an easy game, even back when it was just CRB. 90% of its complexity lies within core rules, not splatbooks.
Also AFAIK Pathfinder was outselling D&D 4e in 2011, so it was like 3 years after release and I believe they've stopped their product cycle in 2012 or not long after that, because they were already working on new edition.
Aaand yet Pathfinder outsold a game called Dungeons & Dragons for a couple of years. Seems like you need to make up your mind regarding how important brand recognition is, because in one place you say that you could take a random game, call it D&D and outsell PF while in fact PF did outsell a game called D&D.
You probably have no idea what Castles & Crusades is. It was a game that Gygax said it would be AD&D 3e if he was still in charge. Nevertheless the game is waaaaaaay less popular than both Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons 4e. The reason is simple - it was made by small, privately owned company that had a small, but loyal fanbase. Funny thing is; C&C is very similar to D&C 5e with its lightweight design. Go look it up, you'll be suprised how familiar this game will be to you after playing Pathfinder and D&D 5e.
Pathfinder was successful, because people were disappointed with 4e. It was compatible with 3.5, which was still hugely popular back then, so people that invested money into 3.5 rolled with it.
Seems to me like you're trying very hard to build the argument without admitting that 5e is a solid game. Face it cowboy, it is a very solid game. It's superior to PF1, because the areas where PF1 is better (more player-side options, better adventure/setting support) are outweighed by PF1's crippling weaknesses compared to 5e, namely the entry bar, the bloat, the quagmire of trap options and the mind-numbing awkwardness of simulationist areas of the ruleset.
Yes, it is a very thought-out game. It caters to a lot of tastes and the community around it is huge. It's "everyone's second favorite edition" for a reason. It's like pop music; a game made for crowds. But like I've said; far from excellent, at least from my point of view.
And how is PF2 going to win back first spot, I have no idea. Please enlighten me, because going right into 5e's territory is a suicidal mission, especially when the new design kinda... dishearten some of Pathfinder's loyal fans.
For starters, if that was true, there would be a sound RPG industry because people wouldn't play anything besides D&D. Yet there is a whole slew of successful RPGs that ain't D&D. Heck, there are dozens of successful fantasy heartbreaker RPGs that ain't D&D. Warhammer. DSA. Runequest. Conan. Exalted.
At least 50% of the market is owned by WotC and Paizo.
I've runed all of the games you've mentioned and many more. Some of them (like the newest Runequest) are exceptionally good, yet their market-share pales in comparsion to D&D. Most people start with D&D and most of them stay with D&D, this might not be the case in every country, but that's how it is in most of the so called Western World. Yes, there are plenty of players playing other games (and most of them played D&D at one point), but that doesn't change the fact that WotC has almost monopoly on fantasy gaming in TTRPGs.
Yep, I get it, you don't like 5e and are trying very hard to say that it's a game that's all about marketing and brand recognition and Paizo should just keep on trucking because 5e's quality doesn't matter. Except, it does, and it's just good enough to blow PF1 apart.
I actually DM 5e alongside Pathfinder. It's not my favorite edition, but it is good enough. I'm just saying that going into 5e's territory is a suicidal mission and I don't feel convinced by your arguments.
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I don’t really know what you two are arguing about. Gorbacz doesn’t think PF2 is going to outsell 5E, nor does he think Paizo should try and “go into 5E’s territory”.
This feels to me like an argument straining to find a point of difference.
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After all this time any Pathfinder group you point at will have at least one experienced player that will be able to help others build their characters."Needs at least one experienced player in order to fully enjoy the game" is a rather crap entry bar these days.
You know... it suddenly occurred to me that Sportsball is the same, and that's generally accepted.
I mean, sure, a bunch of people otherwise inexperienced can buy gloves, a bat, and a ball and Google the rules to Sportsball, but they're going to be incredibly bad at it and the experience may be frustrating.
Sure, a bunch of people otherwise inexperienced can strap ice skates on their feet, rent a rink, buy some sticks and a puck and look up the rules for Sportsball, but again, they're going to spend a lot of time sitting on the ice because nobody taught them how to skate... or any other skill in the game.
Sure, a bunch of people can pick up a ball and some body-armor and look up the current rules for American Sportsball, but someone's going to the hospital.
And if they try to play Rest Of The World Sportsball... with the round ball and no body armor and you can only use your feet unless you're the guy everyone's trying to kick the ball at... nobody's going to teach them how to pretend they've been injured by other players who never came near them, and cry fake tears for the referees' sake.
Tongue-in-cheek here, 'cuz I realize kids teach themselves Sportsball all over the world every day. But... they objectively suck at it, because they don't have coaches to teach them how to do it properly, how to do it well, and how to do it without getting hurt. Just a thought.
Yeah, maybe I’ve got carried away a little under time pressure, but Gorbacz did argue that complexity is the main reason Pathfinder was beaten by D&D 5e. He is ignoring the fact that the game was build on 20 years old chassis, which after all these years some people might get bored of and hence they move on. Also brand recognition and marketing means that instead of going to Runequest, C&C or WFRP 4ed, they’ll go to D&D 5 which is recognized by many as a much better system than 4e.
Also I want to talk a little about so called trap options. I really believe that if any rules system doesn’t present you with bad options then there are no real options to begin with. Let me just quote one blog post I totally agree with (it was about 3E, but it also applies to Pathfinder):
“The biggest issue for many people has been balance between classes. My response to that is simple; if you’re more concerned with every character being equal in a fight, you’re not looking for a roleplaying game; you’re looking for a battle game, and there are plenty of those. Third edition rightly focused on creating interesting characters of diverse talents. If your bard isn’t as good in a fight as a barbarian, guess what? He’s a bard! His time to shine is in social situations, not combat.”
So yeah, picking rogue might not be the best idea if you picture yourself as Altair from Assassin’s Creed, but it is a class of many talents and it can shine in many situations.
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I don’t really know what you two are arguing about. Gorbacz doesn’t think PF2 is going to outsell 5E, nor does he think Paizo should try and “go into 5E’s territory”.
This feels to me like an argument straining to find a point of difference.
Well, duh, exactly.
And to add something people keep missing from the context: pen and paper RPGs are experiencing something of a transformative moment and are expanding as a hobby. The Icv2 reports clearly show that the RPG market is growing. The pie is getting bigger but Paizo isn't, so it can satisfy its financial goals without having to overtake WotC or take away 5e players. All it needs is a % of new people coming into the hobby. Heck, this % likely needs to be smaller than the % WotC gets.
Also, thanks mostly to Critical Role and other streamers as well as WotC marketing 5E as a game for everyone, RPGs are on the verge of becoming socially acceptable. How many of you who are past 30 would admit at friends and extended family dinner that your hobby is pretending to be a kitsune sorcerer? Not many, because that's a kids' hobby, not serious for a man of your age who should be into football, cars, politics, tech and well, since it's Murica, guns.
One element of toxic masculinity/femininity is segregating hobbies into "worthy" and "unworthy" of a grown man/woman but fortunately, with the society shifting, this is slowly going away. Soon you'll be able to bring up running a game of Vampire at a dinner at country club and no longer have people ask your mom when you'll grow up. Mainstream popculture icons get to record them running the game. Joe Manganiello goes global news when he visits a hospital to run D&D games. Deborah Ann Woll, just off Daredevil and Punisher, will be running her own D&D campaign. The RPGs are coming out of the basement and opening up the market for people who actually don't care how much true D&D is the game they pick up, what they care is how easy is it to pick up that game and play.
5E is easy to pick up and play. PF1 isn't. 5E isn't a game where a bard is better at being rogue than a rogue. PF1 is. 5E isn't a game where you can accidentally build a character that is crap at anything they try to do. PF1 is. Game over, PF1, step aside. Sure, PF1 has advantages over 5E - the number of ways you can customize your character to begin with - but those were advantages 10 years ago, when PF1 and 4E were fighting for slices of the cake that was 90% American male RPG veterans. 10 years later, the cake is looking increasingly different and PF1 is simply no longer up the task of drawing new people into the hobby. Because it sure as hell won't win 5E players back.
Tangentially, the mainstream-ization of RPGs causes an issue which I think got prominent during the playtest - there's a cohort of hardcore fans who vehemently oppose the change to status quo and would rather prefer things to remain the way they are and not get "polluted" by "casuals" who "don't understand what true D&D is" and "are after something derogatorily simple, not a sophisticated elite game" and won't honor traditions and rituals and will walk over the sacred cobblestones and will do horrible, bad, not good stuff to the cherished hobby. That's a backlash that happens every time a niche hobby goes mainstream - just look what happened when video games started drawing in women and the #gamergate backlash from "true" fans happened.
That's an horrible quote, especially if you use it for a game where the bard outfight and outrogue the rogue at the same time.
Again; in the battle game that could matter, but since it is a role playing game and everyone is working towards common goal you can pick rogue and be valuable at the same time. It all depends on team composition.
At the same time in 5e everything that rogue does can be done by virtually any other class. Not even opening locks is this class theme and that is supposed to be cooperative game. Back in AD&D rogue was even worse and people didn’t complain, because without internet no one was concerned about flavor of the month build. Quote is perfect and your reaction to it is perfect example of what role playing community has become.
@Gorbacz
Yeah, pie is getting bigger like it historically did every time new D&D edition came out. Hobby is getting more mainstream, that’s true and just like with video games you’ve mentioned - there is a place for both casual and hardcore gamers. It’s hard to make a game that caters to both aforementioned groups of players, but if Paizo manages to pull that off with PFRPG 2 Ed then good for them. Otherwise they’ll alienate one group over the other and they will end up with maybe slightly bigger market share but nothing really to contest current leader.
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I don't think so.
Most of the backlash against PF2 is emotional, not rational. Promises, honour, truth, hopes ... that's not the language of level-headed people assessing a ruleset. Instead we got stuff along the lines of: why does something we like need to be altered, you would be perfectly fine just slightly refining things, you PROMISED never to put out a new edition, you're BETRAYING our TRUST just like WotC did, we are KEEPING YOU TO YOUR SACRED WORD. Pitchforks, cheap pitchforks.
That's language of people who are hurt emotionally. Contrast that with, say, Deadmanwalking. Rational critique of the ruleset devoid of emotions and a genuine interest in PF2 being successful, not in getting it undone and having an official apology issued for the emotional distress caused by rocking the status quo.
Part of that is, of course, a consequence of Paizo marketing themselves as SAVIOURS of D&D and Pathfinder as THE GAME THAT WILL HONOUR YOUR FEELINGS. Figures they have a bunch of highly emotional fans. And we find out that those fans loved Paizo and were invested emotionally only so far as the company did everything the way they wanted. Now they're more than happy to trash talk the company and people behind it.
But WotC faced the same, it lost some of "fans" with 4E and it lost more when they axed the official magazines and more when they killed the D&D messageboards and yet, here they are, standing tall with 5E being crazy successful. In the end, "betraying" the "true believers" didn't really make a dent in the business. And I'm pretty sure that many people who wrote emotional treatises about how WotC failed to respect their feelings quietly returned to the fold and are now enjoying 5E.
I think anybody watching the forums closely for several years knew that there were (for some reason) people who absolutely wanted no 2nd edition of Pathfinder no matter what.
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Most of the backlash against PF2 is emotional, not rational.
Citation required. No, seriously. If you want to use "most", you need to back it up with statistics. Because the "most" that I observed were a pile of explanations about what specifically the new rules contained that wasn't enjoyed, and those things were quantified. The hand-wringing you describe did happen, but the walls of text about "tight math", "gated skills", "nerfed spellcasters", "overcomplicated death mechanics", "boring magic items", "magic weapon requirement", "why is resonance a thing", and even "but Goblins have a rich established history as iconic sociopathic monsters, not PCs" weren't emotional reactions.
Much of the rest of your post is salient. But this stuff... not so much.
It's easy to paint those who aren't a fan of PF2 as... grognards I think the term is. But your brush strokes are overly broad, I believe.
Liking or not liking stuff is always primarily emotional- there's no "purely rational" way to interact with art.
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Most of the backlash against PF2 is emotional, not rational.Citation required. No, seriously. If you want to use "most", you need to back it up with statistics. Because the "most" that I observed were a pile of explanations about what specifically the new rules contained that wasn't enjoyed, and those things were quantified. The hand-wringing you describe did happen, but the walls of text about "tight math", "gated skills", "nerfed spellcasters", "overcomplicated death mechanics", "boring magic items", "magic weapon requirement", "why is resonance a thing", and even "but Goblins have a rich established history as iconic sociopathic monsters, not PCs" weren't emotional reactions.
Much of the rest of your post is salient. But this stuff... not so much.
It's easy to paint those who aren't a fan of PF2 as... grognards I think the term is. But your brush strokes are overly broad, I believe.
You do realise that I will now walk through every use of "most/many/few/none/all" etc. in your posting history and call you out to provide citations? Double standards and all that. I could start here, where you state that mostly all boards readers know that PF2 has got to be a fiscal necessity to Paizo. (Which, actually and seriously I doubt is true because the average forum user has time and time again displayed what little they know about the business side of things.)
So are we doing this the hard way where I dig for my data and you dig for yours or we're fine here, because you're one of the level-headed people who didn't lose their peanut the moment PF2 was announced. Let me know.
By the way, my data would be faulty right away, because there's a ton of particularly vitriolic stuff that got axed in moderation.
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You do realise that I will now walk through every use of "most/many/few/none/all" etc. in your posting history and call you out to provide citations? Double standards and all that. I could start here, where you state that mostly all boards readers know that PF2 has got to be a fiscal necessity to Paizo. (Which, actually and seriously I doubt is true because the average forum user has time and time again displayed what little they know about the business side of things.)
So are we doing this the hard way where I dig for my data and you dig for yours or we're fine here, because you're one of the level-headed people who didn't lose their peanut the moment PF2 was announced. Let me know.
By the way, my data would be faulty right away, because there's a ton of particularly vitriolic stuff that got axed in moderation.
I'm sure you'll catch me out somewhere, but you didn't there.
My words: "I think we (mostly) all know that PF2 has got to be a fiscal necessity to Paizo." Yup. "I think." In fact, I repeatedly speak in that post as if I positing a believe I have, and lay out the rationale behind it.
I try very hard to do two things when posting here. One is to avoid generalizations when I can. The other is to pay attention to the number of times I use the word "I", because I'm not part of the Facebook generation and know that while my opinion is valuable to me, it's less so to other people, so should be avoided unless the topic invites opinion.
But this is getting into derailment territory, so if you'd like to take one last parting shot, I'll let you have the last word.
you state that mostly all boards readers know that PF2 has got to be a fiscal necessity to Paizo[/url]. (Which, actually and seriously I doubt is true because the average forum user has time and time again displayed what little they know about the business side of things.)
Sorry to interupt your flame war, but I would have thought Paizo was finacially healthy because Starfinder was doing really well.
Is PF 2 really a financial necessity for Paizo? What is your basis for saying so?
you state that mostly all boards readers know that PF2 has got to be a fiscal necessity to Paizo[/url]. (Which, actually and seriously I doubt is true because the average forum user has time and time again displayed what little they know about the business side of things.)
Sorry to interupt your flame war, but I would have thought Paizo was finacially healthy because Starfinder was doing really well.
Is PF 2 really a financial necessity for Paizo? What is your basis for saying so?
Starfinder in isolation is doing at least ok and making money. Pathfinder is employeeing a lot more people to make books for a system that is pretty much played out for major rules addition with broad appeal. They could axe a large portion of their staff and switch to just APs plus a few player companions and a couple of campaign settings per year, I guess, but that would be accelerating the decline in revenue while trying to slash enough to stay ahead of it. It's eventually a losing game. I'm sure they'd rather keep their fixed costs where they are and increase revenue.
