There's also the Glass Cannon Network, which produce some great content for official Pathfinder/Starfinder AP lines. However, much like the game itself, things are really starting to slow down at higher levels (the third/fourth books of Giantslayer have been a particular drag). I would have given up listening a looong time ago if not for the banter between Troy and the players.
I will be maintaining my AP subscription and look forward to converting these new campaigns to Savage Worlds.
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I don't know if this contributes to the discussion, but I've been wanting to say this, and this seems like a good place to say it. I've been a Paizo customer since the Dragon and Dungeon magazine days. I was sad to see the magazines disappear, but transferred my subscription credit to the new Pathfinder subscription on faith. Since then, I've gradually expanded my subscriptions. I subscribe to most of the print lines at the moment, and I own every print product Paizo has produced for 3.5 or Pathfinder except the 2E playtest materials. At the end of the last 1E adventure path, I'll cancel my subscriptions. I've played with the same group since 2003. People have moved, but the group has hung together. At this point, I'm the only person who still lives in the city where we started. Some people drive in, some phone it in via Google Hangouts, but much of our original group is still together.
We aren't really interested in a new edition. Maybe we are old, maybe we are set in our ways. I felt betrayed for a while with the announcement of 2E, but now I just feel like it is a time of change. I'll save some money every month. I have enough Paizo and 3rd party content to last me another 15 years, which is probably longer than the group will last. I wish Paizo all the best, but the only money I'll spend with them in the future is on accessories and maybe miniatures.
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I don't know if this contributes to the discussion, but I've been wanting to say this, and this seems like a good place to say it. I've been a Paizo customer since the Dragon and Dungeon magazine days. I was sad to see the magazines disappear, but transferred my subscription credit to the new Pathfinder subscription on faith. Since then, I've gradually expanded my subscriptions. I subscribe to most of the print lines at the moment, and I own every print product Paizo has produced for 3.5 or Pathfinder except the 2E playtest materials. At the end of the last 1E adventure path, I'll cancel my subscriptions. I've played with the same group since 2003. People have moved, but the group has hung together. At this point, I'm the only person who still lives in the city where we started. Some people drive in, some phone it in via Google Hangouts, but much of our original group is still together.
We aren't really interested in a new edition. Maybe we are old, maybe we are set in our ways. I felt betrayed for a while with the announcement of 2E, but now I just feel like it is a time of change. I'll save some money every month. I have enough Paizo and 3rd party content to last me another 15 years, which is probably longer than the group will last. I wish Paizo all the best, but the only money I'll spend with them in the future is on accessories and maybe miniatures.
I’m a charter AP subscriber as well. I plan on cancelling my subscription at the end of PF1 too. I’ll buy the new book and read it over, but if it is similar to the material I have playtested, that’s the end of my run with Paizo.
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I’m a charter AP subscriber as well. I plan on cancelling my subscription at the end of PF1 too. I’ll buy the new book and read it over, but if it is similar to the material I have playtested, that’s the end of my run with Paizo.I don't know if this contributes to the discussion, but I've been wanting to say this, and this seems like a good place to say it. I've been a Paizo customer since the Dragon and Dungeon magazine days. I was sad to see the magazines disappear, but transferred my subscription credit to the new Pathfinder subscription on faith. Since then, I've gradually expanded my subscriptions. I subscribe to most of the print lines at the moment, and I own every print product Paizo has produced for 3.5 or Pathfinder except the 2E playtest materials. At the end of the last 1E adventure path, I'll cancel my subscriptions. I've played with the same group since 2003. People have moved, but the group has hung together. At this point, I'm the only person who still lives in the city where we started. Some people drive in, some phone it in via Google Hangouts, but much of our original group is still together.
We aren't really interested in a new edition. Maybe we are old, maybe we are set in our ways. I felt betrayed for a while with the announcement of 2E, but now I just feel like it is a time of change. I'll save some money every month. I have enough Paizo and 3rd party content to last me another 15 years, which is probably longer than the group will last. I wish Paizo all the best, but the only money I'll spend with them in the future is on accessories and maybe miniatures.
I'm a charter subscriber too. I'm going to (probably) buy the PF2 PDF when it releases, just to check out the game and so what it's like, but that's as far as I plan tomorrow into PF2.
However, I do plan to keep my AP sub, and maybe Modules. Over the past 2-3 years, I've become very disillusioned with PF's rule content. The adventure content I'm just as happy with as when I started. With that said, if the quality of the AP starts to slip, I'll consider ditching it as well.
-Skeld
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Since folks are saying what they're doing with subscriptions here...
I'm going to write a small novella on my background as a gamer and my subscription plan, apparently.
While I bought individual issues of Dungeon and Dragon from stores, I never subscribed. I didn't come to Paizo until the playtest for PF1e. I liked their general responsiveness to customers (which from where I am sitting is as good as it ever was; YMMV) and high production standards and decided to stick around.
I have always been a frugal gamer, since I started buying gaming books when I was 12 or so (would have been around 1988). Mainly I tend to buy core books and a rare few books of particular interest to me. I began GMing 3.x late in its era but never bought a module for it. I am the opposite of the "gotta catch'em all gamer" who just wants every book their favorite publisher makes. I only buy it if I REALLY feel it's worth my money and my time. (Disclaimer: my stating that I exist is not an effort to discount or devalue the type of customer who buys everything, and I realize that type of customer is the one most publishers is going to really want to appeal to. I am just noting where I stand here.)
Pathfinder to me was so interesting, so well written and produced, and I was so excited about running it (even more than its predecessor 3.x) I subscribed to the roleplaying game line. This is the ONLY system in 30 years I have ever purchased every main rulebook for (I was even lucky to be an independent contract editor for a couple later ones so I got those for free, but the vast majority I bought). I've also bought a few APs, though seldom was a subscriber (I am subscribing right now--these last two APs looked really good). I subscribed to maps for awhile (LOVED them but had to stop because I wasn't using them enough to justify buying them, especially as I began to play online more). I bought modules for the first time in my life. Paizo is the first and only game company I've bought a huge collection of books from--no, still not all the books (I have very few companions/campaign books).
It was also worth my while to buy these books because early on, at least, I had friends in my area eager to play Pathfinder and the supplementary books were well written and balanced enough I felt it was worth buying and using them. I loved this system, and they did too.
However, over the last 10 years, my life has changed, and so have that of my friends. We're all going into middle age. I don't have kids but many of my friends now do, and that eats into time people have to play. When those of us who want to play RPGs pick up a newish system, it tends to be a fairly barebones, easy to learn system (which 2e is not), because we don't have time to pore over a 500 page rulebook like we used to. I seldom play Pathfinder at a real table and play PBP instead.
I was not at all surprised 2e was announced. In my obviously very personal opinion, I feel like 1e is at the end of its development life. Even "new" books contain a lot of recycled content (if revised)--this is fine for me because usually it's from books I didn't buy, but I cannot think of ANYTHING that needs to be published in this system at this point that hasn't already. Yes, Paizo could have a room of monkeys type up some gibberish and publish it as the "Big Book of Feats, Classes, and Monsters" parts-one-through-eleventy billion and someone would buy those books, but I truly don't believe they could keep publishing 1e rulebooks in the same quality consistent with past products. They could keep publishing APs, maybe, but I think without new rules to explore, those too would grow stagnant. It makes absolutely perfect sense to me, personally, that they would decide to transition to a new edition at this point--ESPECIALLY since on top of what I just said, I am well aware Pathfinder books are not selling the way they used to.
I am probably NOT going to subscribe or purchase as enthusiastically 2e books, but it is not out of anger or a sense or betrayal or because the world is ending or because suddenly my large, by my standards, collection of 1e books will spontaneously burst into flame. I believe indeed that Paizo is probably making a good business decision so they can put out fresh new product that hopefully new gamers will buy. I accept that I, the now middle-aged, busy gamer who is too preoccupied with the rest of existence to learn a new complex system am not their target audience. Life will go on, and so will pretendy funtime games. I indeed, want Paizo to be successful, even if I myself will probably not play 2e much.
I'm probably going to buy the final core rulebook when it comes out. Maybe I'll try it out in some PBPs. But I'm not going to subscribe to any 2e books (I reserve the right to change my mind if I am blown away by the final product), APS, rulebooks, campaign materials, or otherwise. And that's just because I 1) find the system too new and complicated to learn (even accepting that some changes will come between now and the final product), and 2) I don't have anyone to play with anymore. All my friends also aren't interested in learning this new system, and/or have burned out on classic fantasy play, or we're playing something simpler, or playing board games.
I DO subscribe to the Starfinder rulebook line and probably WILL subscribe to some of the APs once my Pathfinder 1e subs run out. Starfinder is similar enough to 1e it's easy for me to pick up and play, and different enough in feel while easy enough to learn (being more similar to 1e) I can convince some of my buds to try it out.
I may also eventually succumb to my maps addiction again someday, which will end when you receive a news report that a nerd in her 40s was found dead, crushed under the weight of a million flip-mats.
But in other words, I will not be fully gung-ho and onboard for 2e, but I will not cease being a Paizo customer, and I wish them every success.
Lots of typically great thinking there DQ. I think “pretendy funtime games” deserves a special call out. :)
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Thanks. IIRC I picked the phrase up from a time playing freeform online journal-based games; while my time probably infinitely could have been better spent elsewhere, I received some excellent advice, that went along the lines of: "Whenever you are feeling yourself filled with uncontrollable rage over what just happened here, repeat to yourself 'pretendy funtime games' over and over until it passes." I love gaming of course, and I am not ashamed of being passionate about it, and certainly not of the friends I have made through. Still, sometimes when I get myself worked up over something to do with RPGs, I say to myself outloud, "I am extremely outraged over this optional hobby where I, a grown adult, get to pretend to be an elf!" and lo, the emotions tend to regulate a bit better. (When I fail to do so, that's when the trouble happens. :) )
CEO
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Regarding PF1 print productsThere is a difference between printing books and keeping them in print. While they are certainly not going to suddenly throw all the 1E materials in the trash like most publishers essentially do when a new edition is released, I am not convinced that they will order fresh printings of 1E books after 2E is released. IMO, their commentary is just to affirm that they will continue to sell the 1E books which is rarely done by a publisher who wants to "push" the new product. They already rarely reprint material except in the case of popular hard-covers and even then in significantly reduced quantities from the original order and that's for books for a fully-supported edition. I will be quite surprised if they actually print much if anything of 1E after 2E launches, but as JJ said, "we'll see"
Be prepared to be surprised. Our plans are to continue to keep our pocket editions in print for Pathfinder 1.0 even after 2nd edition launches as long as it remains profitable to do so. I expect that bar will be met for quite some time for the core books like the Core Rulebook, Bestiary 1 and GameMastery Guide. Probably also the Advanced Player's Guide. The other books, which normally have lower sell through, may reach the point where it is unprofitable to reprint them. But if they don't, I am happy to reprint them for years to come if there are people who want to buy them.
-Lisa
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I'm fairly sure I'm the target audience for 2nd edition. Paizo has already sold me more 2nd edition stuff than I have purchased in the last 2-3 years for 1st edition.
I really enjoyed 1st edition when it was released, but as more options have been made available I find it increasingly hard to run the game. Improvisation, my preferred style for running a game, is increasingly hard because my middle aged brain simply can't keep up with what all of the feats and abilities do. This means that even the monsters in the later Bestiaries, some of which are quite cool, don't get used because it is simply too much work. I don't want more 1st edition content. I won't use it, so spending my money is a waste.
2nd edition is an opportunity to start again with a smaller pool of abilities. I may or may not invest heavily in the game. There are definitely some areas where I'm not happy with the direction taken in the playtest. I've made my opinions known in the surveys and we will see what changes upon release. I like enough of what they have done that I will definitely buy the core book and see if enough has changed to make me happy. If not, I'm no worse off than I was before (not buying much, if anything)and Paizo has made a little money off of me that they wouldn't have made otherwise. But if I like it I'll support it until the game again becomes too complicated to keep in my head.
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So where do you draw the line between "too much content" and "enough content" for you?
In my opinion, that's the single worst justification for a new edition. If it's too much content, control the content allowed into your game. End of problem.
Oh, noes, here comes the Advanced Players Guide again. Yeeeargh. Too much content.
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So where do you draw the line between "too much content" and "enough content" for you?
In my opinion, that's the single worst justification for a new edition. If it's too much content, control the content allowed into your game. End of problem.
Oh, noes, here comes the Advanced Players Guide again. Yeeeargh. Too much content.
Given the existence of Internet, d20pfsrd and Archives of Nethys, the "you just pick from this and this book" argument feels like a bit stuck in the XX century.
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Given the existence of Internet, d20pfsrd and Archives of Nethys, the "you just pick from this and this book" argument feels like a bit stuck in the XX century.
Given the existence of the Internet, Amazon, eBay and more Amazon, the "kids, you can't have candy for dinner" argument feels a bit... wait, no, this doesn't make sense.
We draw lines and make agreements as to what is or is not allowed in life - and in games - all the time. It's not okay to use steroids and participate in professional sports. Formula One race cars have very specific restrictions on actual performance improvements. Exploding Kittens has an optional NSFW add-on. Non-unchained summoners aren't allowed at my Pathfinder tables.
Yes, some people will complain, or at least attempt to negotiate change. That doesn't change that it's not somehow... elderly... backwards... wrongthink... unenlightened... whatever the precise slight you intend with "stuck in the XX century" is.
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Given the existence of Internet, d20pfsrd and Archives of Nethys, the "you just pick from this and this book" argument feels like a bit stuck in the XX century.Given the existence of the Internet, Amazon, eBay and more Amazon, the "kids, you can't have candy for dinner" argument feels a bit... wait, no, this doesn't make sense.
We draw lines and make agreements as to what is or is not allowed in life - and in games - all the time. It's not okay to use steroids and participate in professional sports. Formula One race cars have very specific restrictions on actual performance improvements. Exploding Kittens has an optional NSFW add-on. Non-unchained summoners aren't allowed at my Pathfinder tables.
Yes, some people will complain, or at least attempt to negotiate change. That doesn't change that it's not somehow... elderly... backwards... wrongthink... unenlightened... whatever the precise slight you intend with "stuck in the XX century" is.
What I actually meant is that with the open content model of Pathfinder and availability of rules online, the whole vetting process requires you (the GM) to pretty much know the entire system. All the feats. All the spells. Content control becomes pretty much impossible. It's not 1988 when the player needed to buy Compleat Fighter and bring it over while you could review the whole book and check what's fine and what's not. It's 2018 and the entire Pathfinder material is in your pocket.
And the "let's just allow books X and Y and nothing else" solution generates another problem. Playing Pathfinder Core Only means that casters are sitting pretty while every class that massively benefits from non-core material (Unchained for Rogues, Weapon Master's Handbook for Fighters, for example) is shafted. Not to mention that playing a game whose major strength was the sheer number and diversity of options in a Core-only way invites the question as to why the hell not just play 5E, because it's far superior when it comes to "no splats" type of gaming.
Okay.
I don't agree with the end result, but not enough to draw out the discussion. Score up a "you're right enough" and call it a day.
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Like many, I've been playing and DMing for a couple decades now. And I can totally understand the need to shift from Pathfinder 1 to Pathfinder 2. From a business perspective, it's a matter of survival. Stagnation is never good for business. Companies that survive always do so when they keep one eye on the future; Whether you like it or not, Wizards deserves a lot of credit for quickly realizing their 4e was a bust and moving on to something that better captured what they thought their target audience would want, for example. In that same vein, Paizo deserves plenty of credit for realizing it's time for them to move on.
As others have said, this means folks like me, that have primarily thrived in the 3.5-Pathfinder systems over the past 20 years, have choices to make. Do we continue with what we know? Can we? My groups didn't immediately jump to Pathfinder, instead we played mostly 3.5. But a few friends were able to show us enough from Pathfinder that we made the switch. As folks grew up and life took members elsewhere around the globe, I started DMing more and more. I've been slow to jump to 5e not because of any distaste, but because Paizo has kept me entertained and happy.
Is there another Paizo out there to pick up the slack from PF1? With Paizo putting all their eggs in the PF2 basket, it forces me to choose something new (PF2, 5e, or perhaps something new out there), or stay stuck in the 1.0/3.5 world forever. But because RPG's like this include new players coming through the proverbial gates every year, eventually my world will be phased out. And while I'll likely never lack for PF1/D&D 3.5 players, given my location on the map, the same can't be said for everyone. Furthermore, part of my enjoyment over the years had been luring new, young players away from their open world video games and into the wide-open world of tabletop fantasy games. I do a lot of DMing for young folks, and evolution into new systems--or at least systems for which new content is still created--is a requirement to stay viable.
Part of what has made Pathfinder so great for me is all the options. From the Core Rulebook on, it appears their goal has been to give players and DMs as many options as possible. It's been up to us to choose what we want in our own systems. With literally hundreds of books full of things to choose from over the years, it does at times get overwhelming. But the reality is much of it is just variation on their own themes; and in essence I'm paying for them to "do the work for me", when it comes to reshaping things. Fair enough.
While I'm caught in the vast net of whom I think the intended target audience is for PF2, that doesn't mean I'm an automatic lock to sign up. Sure, I'll be buying the PF2 Core Rulebook, DM Guide, and Bestiary 1 like everyone else that runs a game. And I'll most likely stick out 6 months of my Adventure Path subscription, to get a real taste of how the system plays in an "intended" setting. But Paizo delivering quality content to flesh out their amazing world is not the issue. They sold me on that years ago, and its why I've kept coming back. What it all boils down to is whether or not I like the new system.
After several unforeseen delays, I'll be play testing next weekend for the first time. I'm apprehensive. I've been looking over the material, and I can't say that I'm enthused. I'm always excited to try new things, but it feels like some of these changes are only going to continue what I considered weak areas in the Pathfinder 1 system. I'm most concerned about:
Pathfinder bloat: Pathfinder 1's blessing was also it's curse. They gave us loads of new Feats, some better than others. But Feat progression was hell. "Do you have a Feat for that?" was a common joke at my tables early in our adoption of Pathfinder. "Can you excuse me? I need to use the bathroom" always provoked such a joke. And the player often returned to "How many feats did you need before you could wipe yourself?" These jokes were definitely rooted in some truth. Paizo shot themselves in the foot, offering so many different Feats to help players better develop aspects of their character, while at the same time preventing some of the more interesting ones from every seeing play. Paraphrasing one of the most common comments/complaints I received at my table early on, "I really want to take this to flesh out her tendency to be so __, but I can't because it means I can't take Power Attack until level X, and that sets my combat progression back too much."
One of the biggest shocks for new players at my table already familiar with Pathfinder is how much I change or rip out from the core rules regarding certain "bloat" areas. After reading Michael Iantorno's 2012 blog post, "The Elephant in the Room: Feat Taxes in Pathfinder", I quickly adopted every change. In six years I've yet to look back. I've had exactly zero problems. Furthermore, changing the game this way let me realize that most players will better appreciate the ability to flesh out their characters instead of simply seizing the opportunity to maximize every mechanical aspect. I've made additional changes, some tweaking or waiving Feat pre-reqs, other times combining two similar, weak Feats together. I've also incorporated a system where in addition to handing out traditional RPXP, I reward players whose role-play in a session goes above and beyond. They can use these rewards immediately, often in the form of one additional die roll the following session. Or they can stack them over time and trade them in for new Feats, Spells, etc. from a list I've pre-selected. Regardless, it puts some of the fun and excitement back into the game that original Pathfinder bloat removed.
As I mentioned, there is concern for more Pathfinder Bloat in version 2. I appreciate the vast amount of Feats characters get, with the different types of Feats forcing players to flesh out and even balance their characters a bit more. But many of these Feats seem weak, and these starting Feats often seem to incorporate only parts of what once was freely given to new players. Not only does this seem to weaken the flavor of difference between races at the start, I worry it negates the reason for so many new Feats. Giving X amount of additional Feats compared to PF1 seems good, until one realizes the strength of 1 Feat in PF2 often equals a half-Feat in PF1. And anything that impedes character development--especially early on, is troublesome. Another example is, while I could be reading it wrong, it now costs a precious early Feat just to be able to play as a Half-Elf or Half-Orc? Why on earth does it cost additional resources to play what was once freely given? What's the incentive for a player to choose one of these two races, or heritages now? Perhaps I'm missing something, but consider me concerned.
Magic Castration: There is a difference between nerfing something and completely cutting off the cajones. Paizo nerfed the 3.5 Druid when converting it to PF1 rules. But PF2's magic system seems to revamp much of the way magic functions, at least from a mechanical standpoint. Ever since Paizo released the Summoner, it seems to be on an apologetic mission to balance out magic users with martial classes. They even released an entire book aimed to boost the prowess of martial classes while nerfing that of the Summoner. Zoinks! I get it. People seem obsessed with finding a balance. But realistically speaking, in fantasy (or extrapolated to our real-life world), why does balancing out magic and martial classes make sense? I thought my worst nightmare would come true, in that Paizo would try and balance the classes by making Martial characters much more powerful. Admittedly, I've only spent about an hour so far looking over the magic system. But so far it seems to me that Paizo's goal is to balance out all the classes by making them less powerful overall. I'm not really a fan of the balancing act to begin with, but we'll see how this method works out during actual play.
Resonance: I'll have to re-read this, as I'm a bit unsure what the point of it is. It seems to address a problem I've never really had, with too many slotless magic items? Perhaps the goal is to make them more interesting?
Going back to Feats, there appears to be some sort of weird lock on certain Feats now. So Fighters can no longer Cleave until higher levels? And Barbarians must wait for Power Attack? This seems so...anti-fun? Anti-roleplay? Why get all weird by locking in basic functions to specific classes. Instead of making those classes more fun to play, it makes every other class less fun to play. It's strange. This, along with the continued Feat bloat/taxes, could be the ultimate deal-breaker for me.
I'm reserving full judgement and grading until I've played through everything, both as player and DM. But some of these concerns are pretty big; we'll see how it all plays out.
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I am one of the people that will be stopping their Pathfinder subs. Promised my wife, back then roommate, that when Pathfinder switched editions, I would stop my subscription. 1.) This was my reward due to quitting smoking. As long as I didn't smoke, I bought material from Paizo. 2.) While being sad that PF1 is coming to an end, so to speak, it has became time for it. The material has become too much. As one person posted, it is harder to remember all the fluff (feats and etc.).
However, will probably switch it to Starfinder. May not do it for 12 years, like I did with PF1, but only time will tell.To all of you that is ready and excited, hope it is everything you want it to be. To Paizo, thanks for all the great products you have put out and will continue to do so! Please don't think I am hating on Paizo, that is the last thing I want others to think. Other than 4 of their first AP's, have purchased every single book through subscriptions for the past 11 years, will be 12 by the time it stops. Set for life on gaming material. I just can't justify spending all that money on another version. Will still follow Paizo, though, and who knows--They may lure me in again. <3
OP, thanks for the Subject. Paizo, thank you for the goods, the fun, and best luck to you in the future! :)
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Paizo dropped the ball by not simply expanding the Beginners Box and a line dedicated to it. It was the simple version of the game that works for the new generation of gamers that think RPGs should be boardgames and served to funnel players into the advanced full version of Pathfinder.
And then there's Herofinder for a third property that could have been expanded. Slow down monthly production of Pathfinder by adding Starfinder and Herofinder. Keep the Beginner's Box line live for new players.
Instead, we get told to go along with the change or "So long and thanks for all the fish!"
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I for one will be keeping all my Pathfinder subscriptions. I know there are some issues with the 2E rules but overall I think that they are making it more accessible for everyone.
I recently starting DMing Pathfinder 1e for the first time and teaching it to my players and it is complicated! Pathfinder 1 is not an easy system to learn and master. I can see how 2e is an effort to make it more accessible.
More than just the rules, Paizo has been providing amazing writing and stories that I've been reading for 10 years so I'll 100% stay with Paizo because I'm invested in their world and I want to know more.
So I hope that Paizo takes my money for years to come :P
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Instead, we get told to go along with the change or "So long and thanks for all the fish!"
To be fair, I have not seen that message from ANYONE at Paizo. Quite the contrary, actually. Moreover the fact they are going to keep any 1.0 books in print, is pretty cool.
Sounds to me like, you, perhaps are the one saying, "So long ...", which is fine, but let's not get too far out.
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Death of the FAQs. Death of erratas. Ignoring rule sets that people like such as Mythic. It sends a pretty clear message.
How does keeping pocket sized books of hardcovers I bought in first run benefit me in the slightest?
Paizo dropped the ball by not simply expanding the Beginners Box and a line dedicated to it. It was the simple version of the game that works for the new generation of gamers that think RPGs should be boardgames and served to funnel players into the advanced full version of Pathfinder.
And then there's Herofinder for a third property that could have been expanded. Slow down monthly production of Pathfinder by adding Starfinder and Herofinder. Keep the Beginner's Box line live for new players.
Instead, we get told to go along with the change or "So long and thanks for all the fish!"
This is exactly my feeling - Beginners Box was an excellent line for bringing newbies into the fold - no matter what the age. I let my 7 yr old take a peak and his eyes just lite up! I still think he may be a bit young for it, but that'll be the start of Pathfinder for him. But he's already got the basics down pat. It was that easy and intuitive for him. Once he's mastered that, we move onto the full blown version of PF1.
Who is bringing new players into the fold? Well, one of the groups is going to be your old guard, your longterm fans of PF1 that have been with you since the beginning. Beginner Box was a perfect fit for the newbie niche - yet it's pretty much abandonware by Paizo.
Opportunity missed, I think.
So what am I asking for? I'd like erratas for the books I purchased. I'd like to see reasonable FAQs answered. I'd like to see products that utilize the Mythic ruleset that I invested in have suggestions for using said ruleset. I find it highly disappointing that Tyrant's Grasp is freezing out mythic gameplay. Bulhman wrote Mythic Adventures. Paizo published it. I bought it. I'd like to use it with their products. Tar Baphon was statted as Mythic, but when asked about including Mythic gameplay, the answer has been "I'm not going to answer questions about that."
Leave those issues unresolved and I will be disgusted - probably for quite a while with Pathfinder. I'm sure there are plenty of other people that feel the same. I don't want to come here and start flame and edition wars.
I just want to use the products sold to me.
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If we’re talking about organized play, I can understand, but generally speaking I never saw much use with FAQ. All the rules are optional in free/home play. Interpret ambiguity however you want. I don’t need Paizo or anyone else to explain how a rule will work in my campaign. I/we decide that for ourselves.
Generally speaking, the vast majority of errata is already published. If it’s something that has been pending for a number of years, it wasn’t gonna get fixed anyway no matter how long we waited.
Mythic is an option. Most products do not use them. It is left to the individual to use them as they want. Incorporate them however they work for you. That’s the way optional rules work. They are rarely incorporated more than once into some “highlight” material. We have an entire Adventure Path that includes it.
They are simply not going to be able to make every single customer happy. Unfortunately, you are one they are going to miss with their targeting. It’s an inevitable result.
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So what am I asking for?
I hear your angst and it's legitimate, but I think what you ask for isn't reasonable.
First, we all know that what we pay for when we buy a book is that book. We're not entitled to anything beyond what we paid for. I paid for Mythic Adventures, I got it as advertised, and the transaction is done. Sure, the most fun campaign I ever played was using it and sure, I'd love to see more, but there were enough very loud negative voices that the topic became a bitter one, and regardless of how good sales were or weren't, nobody wanted to hear the people who disliked it tell us all again*. But again, you and I were never entitled to more than the book.
As for FAQs and errata, well, again we were never entitled to that. Sure, it's nice, and it's helpful, and it makes us all appreciative, but it's labour that we didn't pay for. And clearly Paizo couldn't keep up with it even when PF1 was their primary bread-winner. To expect it now isn't reasonble, I think.
That said, the one and only thing I'm really unimpressed about is the totally dropped ball that is the Shifter. As published it wasn't any good, and several designers including Jason admitted such, and released some updates, and specifically said that they weren't done with the chassis, and promised it was going to be fixed. Only... they'd been working on PF2 for a year and a half and had to have known they were about to announce the playtest, and that they were never again going to touch that class. It's unfinished and will forever remain so. I don't think this was deliberate... I expect time just ran out, but letting it happen isn't cool. Still, despite that we weren't entitled to the content of Ultimate Wilderness being good.
So I'm sorry... while I'm as distraught by the end of PF1 as you are, and while I'd love to see continued support, I don't think that it's realistic or even a good idea for Paizo.
*This is the main reason why I won't bash PF2. Sure, it's (currently) not the product for me, and sure, I voiced why in a couple on-topic threads, but I refuse to be the kind of person who would bash a product or those people who enjoy it.
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Anguish pretty much nails it.
Brother Fen, remember when some people embarked on a crusade against Mythic, which, likely combined with less-than-expected sales, ultimately led to Mythic falling by the wayside? Remember how frustrated you were (and still are, apparently) with how those people buried what you liked and cared for?
Well, if you do, don't be that person towards 2e.
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Since folks are saying what they're doing with subscriptions here...
I'm going to write a small novella on my background as a gamer and my subscription plan, apparently.While I bought individual issues of Dungeon and Dragon from stores, I never subscribed. I didn't come to Paizo until the playtest for PF1e. I liked their general responsiveness to customers (which from where I am sitting is as good as it ever was; YMMV) and high production standards and decided to stick around.
I have always been a frugal gamer, since I started buying gaming books when I was 12 or so (would have been around 1988). Mainly I tend to buy core books and a rare few books of particular interest to me. I began GMing 3.x late in its era but never bought a module for it. I am the opposite of the "gotta catch'em all gamer" who just wants every book their favorite publisher makes. I only buy it if I REALLY feel it's worth my money and my time. (Disclaimer: my stating that I exist is not an effort to discount or devalue the type of customer who buys everything, and I realize that type of customer is the one most publishers is going to really want to appeal to. I am just noting where I stand here.)
Pathfinder to me was so interesting, so well written and produced, and I was so excited about running it (even more than its predecessor 3.x) I subscribed to the roleplaying game line. This is the ONLY system in 30 years I have ever purchased every main rulebook for (I was even lucky to be an independent contract editor for a couple later ones so I got those for free, but the vast majority I bought). I've also bought a few APs, though seldom was a subscriber (I am subscribing right now--these last two APs looked really good). I subscribed to maps for awhile (LOVED them but had to stop because I wasn't using them enough to justify buying them, especially as I began to play online more). I bought modules for the first time in my life. Paizo is the first and only game company I've bought a huge collection of books from--no, still not...
Kind of this. I will buy the Core Book and first Bestiary and then stick to Starfinder. Been gaming D&D ish stuff since Advanced D&D (over 40 years). Pathfinder Legacy Edition is the best system I have ever played. Got enough APs to last until I am cold in the ground (and then some).
You have to draw the line somewhere. But I understand why they have to change and wish them nothing but success. Don’t want to live in a Paizoless world.
And there is always Starfinder.
I'm not sure why it is a do or don't, black and white type issue.
For me, at least when PF2e comes out will probably continue my subscriptions (that's the plan currently).
I'm leaning more towards staying with PF1e, but trying to play the new PF2e APs with PF1e rules.
Right now it looks like it is doable. Unlike what some say, it takes a minimal amount of conversion, at least with the playtest materials.
PF2e MAY be something we play, but right now it just seems too overwhelming for the group (yes, I said it, I play PF1e and the PF2e just seems a too overwhelming for them to adapt to right now) when they do let me GM PF. [So people can understand my statement more, we didn't have many problems at first, but once we hit around the 10th level range there were a lot of things we just had difficulty remembering and/or implementing. It wasn't that the rules were bad, but we just couldn't keep up, which is why I say it was overwhelming for us].
Thus, I plan on staying with PF1e, but do not see why (as long as it remains somewhat compatible, as it has with the Playtest) that would prevent me from using the PF2e material.
In addition, if we do get new players, as PF1e is in print (at least currently) and will be for the foreseeable future, if they want copies they can always buy hardcopy or come here and buy the PDFs.
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Lastly, the changed spell levels and rarity of priorily commonly available spells (Teleport, Fly, etc) changes base assumptions of how an AP will unfold, which GM's who want to rework the new AP's back to PF1E need to actually rewrite.
Not to besmirch the PF1e APs, but they are the APs that actually poorly anticipate commonly available spells such as teleport and fly. We recently finished Strange Aeons. In Book 5 or Book 6 it apparently went on for a few paragraphs to explain the terrain and the difficulties in traversing it. Except we all had perma-fly buffs going for the entire adventuring day (one of us was limited to a phantom steed from memory until we entered battle and actually cast a proper fly spell on them) making all of that flavourful terrain meaningless. We had a "scary monster" coming at us, but it couldn't fly so we cast reverse gravity on it and then peppered it with at-will fireballs and scorching rays (courtesy of our fire kineticist).
Jade Regent famously boiled down to "either the party travels overland or they don't sign up to the Jade Regent AP" which is not an unreasonable stance to take (it'd be like playing Second Darkness and refusing to go into the Underdark/Darklands), but it does show how PF1e magic gets in the way of the PF1e APs. There's also often timing issues with the latter half of APs that is caused by teleporting (which the enemies aren't necessarily assumed to be using). Fortunately the need to go shopping often negates any time saved via teleportation.
This isn't to say that PF1e is bad or that the PF1e APs are bad. It's simply responding to the idea that the PF1e APs work smoothly with the reality of PF1e magic. They often don't and require some massaging to get them to do so (although that said if you ever played with a sorcerer as your arcanist and they didn't choose teleport as a known spell then it would often make the APs work much better).
The problem I see here is that terms like “vocal minority“ and “silent majority“ get thrown around by the pro-2E crowd as if they were actual facts instead of the same type of guesses my side of the argument is making.
This is the first time I've seen these mentioned in this thread and to be honest both sides have been equally guilty of this. It has been kept to a minimum though which is actually quite impressive.
So where do you draw the line between "too much content" and "enough content" for you?
In my opinion, that's the single worst justification for a new edition. If it's too much content, control the content allowed into your game. End of problem.
Oh, noes, here comes the Advanced Players Guide again. Yeeeargh. Too much content.
I had done that. I played a shaman with great reluctance and annoyance (I wanted to play an occult healer). I didn't even buy the ACG. I just ran it off the PRD. My attitude towards content post Ultimate Combat/Advanced Race Guide was "eugh." Occult Adventures got me intrigued, but I need to look at it a bit more closely.
Assuming I'm not the only one and others were taking the advice you just said, that's bad for Paizo. A new edition with new mechanics is another chance for Paizo to convert all the people who had "stopped buying books because Pathfinder had too much content." It won't convert all, it also won't convert all "still buying everything that is PF1e" people, but they have chosen to do something to try to get more market. I personally think an evolution of PF1e would have been the safer option and would have certainly had the same desired effect for me. But we will have to see if their revolutionary approach pans out.
Given the existence of Internet, d20pfsrd and Archives of Nethys, the "you just pick from this and this book" argument feels like a bit stuck in the XX century.
The "everything goes" approach is one of the largest factors responsible for my fatigue in any game system. I know of no game company that produces balanced content 100% of the time, and with how Pathfinder 1e was developed there were sometimes entire books that were unbalanced.
What I actually meant is that with the open content model of Pathfinder and availability of rules online, the whole vetting process requires you (the GM) to pretty much know the entire system. All the feats. All the spells. Content control becomes pretty much impossible. It's not 1988 when the player needed to buy Compleat Fighter and bring it over while you could review the whole book and check what's fine and what's not. It's 2018 and the entire Pathfinder material is in your pocket.
You don't need to know the whole system. You need to know the books you're allowing. "Everything from Ultimate Combat except guns and the optional rules is allowed" doesn't require you to know ACG, OA, Ultimate Intrigue or Ultimate Wilderness. Access to additional material isn't really relevant. What's relevant is what you've allowed.
And the "let's just allow books X and Y and nothing else" solution generates another problem. Playing Pathfinder Core Only means that casters are sitting pretty while every class that massively benefits from non-core material (Unchained for Rogues, Weapon Master's Handbook for Fighters, for example) is shafted.
Books X, Y and Z are allowed except for elements A, B and C in no way equates to "core only" and it's strange you would try to link the two.