PF2 Remastered - Formal or Informal Community Involvement - Yes or No?

[Red Griffyn]

James Jacobs wrote:

You can think of everyone playing the game for the past 4 years as the playtest for the remastered rules if you want, I guess.

Hi James,

I appreciate the comment. I grasp what you're inferring, but if it isn't too much bother can you be more directly clear in your response instead of leaving us to infer what you're implying. Could you give a quick response to the original four questions (restated below)? Any rationale you could also provide would be good as I'd rather hear it from 'paizo representatives' vs. having only assertions from vocal community members.

Original 4 questions:

1.) What books/content are set in stone? What elements, classes, etc. aren't?

2.) Will the community be engaged in a formal way to either playtest or to provide survey feedback on changes?

3.) Are the new threads/forum discussions about what should be changed being culled by Paizo Game Designers for these changes or is it only legacy Forums/Threads that may have driven any changes?

4.) If there are surveys or playtests will we get a post-engagement breakdown on the results and lessons learned?

[PossibleCabbage]

I'm just not clear on how feedback would be helpful here.

Like one of the reasons that they want to playtest classes, is that the people who are going to be aware of the playtest are your most tuned in, online, and passionate fans. These folks can absolutely do their best to "break" whatever you offer them and you can get good data on "how powerful/satisfying it is". This is in effect stress testing the rules.

But one of the main reasons to do the Remaster to begin with is that they understand that the Core Rulebook is more of a Technical Operations Manual than an effective tool for teaching people the game rules. Effectively they're reorganizing the information that already exists across 5 books and condensing it into 4 books with, say, everything you need to build a character in one book, and everything the GM needs to know to run the game in a different book.

[Kobold Catgirl]

He may not be able to give firm statements like that yet because a lot of it is probably still being decided--hence not all the classes being in Player Core 1. I'm sure we will know when they do and are ready to tell us, and repeatedly asking him to "be more clear" isn't going to make it happen any faster. He obviously saw your original post. This is the answer he gave.

EDIT: Also, what PC said. Literally, this is just an errata with some label-changing thrown in. They didn't do a playtest when they changed alchemist; why would they do one now?

[Ashbourne]

Red Griffyn wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

You can think of everyone playing the game for the past 4 years as the playtest for the remastered rules if you want, I guess.

Hi James,

I appreciate the comment. I grasp what you're inferring, but if it isn't too much bother can you be more directly clear in your response instead of leaving us to infer what you're implying. Could you give a quick response to the original four questions (restated below)? Any rationale you could also provide would be good as I'd rather hear it from 'paizo representatives' vs. having only assertions from vocal community members.

Original 4 questions:

[b]1.) What books/content are set in stone? What elements, classes, etc. aren't?

Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project .

[Ashbourne]

Red Griffyn wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

You can think of everyone playing the game for the past 4 years as the playtest for the remastered rules if you want, I guess.

Hi James,

I appreciate the comment. I grasp what you're inferring, but if it isn't too much bother can you be more directly clear in your response instead of leaving us to infer what you're implying. Could you give a quick response to the original four questions (restated below)? Any rationale you could also provide would be good as I'd rather hear it from 'paizo representatives' vs. having only assertions from vocal community members.

Original 4 questions:

[b]1.) What books/content are set in stone? What elements, classes, etc. aren't?

That's already been answered by Paizo

Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project .

[Vardoc Bloodstone]

I think all the talk of Pinkerton and ORC is a non-issue here.

First, why does Paizo need to run EVERYTHING through a playtest committee? Delay implementation of any changes they want to make by a year? Have questions divide the community until they do what they wanted to in the first place already? Or can they not make good decisions on their own?

Second, changes such as eliminating alignment are like adding LGBTQ+ content to the game. Paizo has no intention of listening to opposing opinions. It’s their right to decide what type of game they create, and the whole issue of alignment has already been WIDELY debated in the public sphere.

And lastly, like James Jacobs implied above, the remaining changes are merely quality-of-life changes along the lines of simple errata. Years of PFS have given them ample data to draw from.

[Ezekieru]

Red Griffyn wrote:

Its dismissive to assume I'm stamping and fuming/have a bee in my bonnet. My mental state is calm, rationale, and based on on single principle:

- Community engagement in changes are better than no community engagement.

But... the community HAS been engaged. For four whole years. And when the designers are hearing the same complaints over and over again across these forums, Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Discord, their livestreams, and their live events, I'm pretty sure they've heard the messages loud and clear.

So, the designers are aware of the issues. Now, whether or not they implement the exact solution the community rallies behind in these Remastered books is a whole other bucket of fish. Paizo designers have stated for their playtesting methods, they often listen to how people felt about how a mechanic or narrative was being implemented, but they wouldn't often agree with any proposed solutions. The Design Team will often be conscious of certain aspects of the game the community doesn't talk about, and so they would instead opt to try and solve any feelings of dissatisfaction in a way to preserve the balance they are striving for.

So while I'm sure there will be extensive changes, Paizo designers have said this is basically an "errata+". And if it's only a more heavy, extensive errata, I trust the designers will fix the issues without a need to push out a public playtest. They got the four years worth of play data already, after all.

[Red Griffyn]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I'm just not clear on how feedback would be helpful here.

Like one of the reasons that they want to playtest classes, is that the people who are going to be aware of the playtest are your most tuned in, online, and passionate fans. These folks can absolutely do their best to "break" whatever you offer them and you can get good data on "how powerful/satisfying it is". This is in effect stress testing the rules.

But one of the main reasons to do the Remaster to begin with is that they understand that the Core Rulebook is more of a Technical Operations Manual than an effective tool for teaching people the game rules. Effectively they're reorganizing the information that already exists across 5 books and condensing it into 4 books with, say, everything you need to build a character in one book, and everything the GM needs to know to run the game in a different book.

Again: engagement can take many forms. Everyone is hyper-focused on a full scale playtest. There are many shades of grey between that and no community engagement.

Again: I'm not advocating for community engagement on remaster elements that include 're-organization', 'superficial edits', or 'OGL descoping' that has no mechanical impacts. Clearly there are more substantial edits like 'alignment', 'focus point changes', '4 classes getting revisited'. Those are just the ones that they mentioned.

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

He may not be able to give firm statements like that yet because a lot of it is probably still being decided--hence not all the classes being in Player Core 1. I'm sure we will know when they do and are ready to tell us, and repeatedly asking him to "be more clear" isn't going to make it happen any faster. He obviously saw your original post. This is the answer he gave...

If it is still not firmed up then the answer should say that. Like "No, there isn't any planned opportunities for community engagement, but we'll have an internal discussion and more formally discuss it at the PaizoCON event". Asking him to more plainly answer the question directly in a polite manner is hardly 'repeatedly asking him to be more clear'.

Ashbourne wrote:

...

Yeah, linking one of two interviews/videos doesn't answer question #1. It isn't just what is being edited as a list of 'content to be changed', but how mutable that list of content to be changed is it. Obviously the follow-up to that 'it isn't 100% set in stone' are the other questions regarding whether the community, a closed group of community, or an open group of community engagement will happen.

Vardoc Bloodstone wrote:

...First, why does Paizo need to run EVERYTHING through a playtest committee? Delay implementation of any changes they want to make by a year? Have questions divide the community until they do what they wanted to in the first place already? Or can they not make good decisions on their own?

Second, changes such as eliminating alignment are like adding LGBTQ+ content to the game. Paizo has no intention of listening to opposing opinions. It’s their right to decide what type of game they create, and the whole issue of alignment has already been WIDELY debated in the public sphere.

And lastly, like James Jacobs implied above, the remaining changes are merely quality-of-life changes along the lines of simple errata. Years of PFS have given them ample data to draw from.

Its a straw-man to say they have to run everything through a playtest. See my responses above/in the thread. I think community engagement can benefit all changes, and picking the right kind of community engagement method commensurate with the change (yes, that includes methods that aren't just a massive playtest) can be utilized.

Can they make good decision on their own? Can they make bad decisions on their own? The answer is yes to both. The point of community engagement is to bias the result towards 'good' not 'bad'.

Again: I'd guess a playtest of the big changes is max 2-3 month delay. So tossing out a year is likely hyperbolic.

Again: The 'big' changes that are announced 'so far' are alignment, focus points, and changes to 4 classes. So it isn't just alignment. I 100% reject the comparison of alignment changes to improving inclusivity by adding LGBTQ+ content. Those aren't even remotely the same thing and saying they are is another straw-man argument. Removing alignment isn't what you would collect feedback on. It would be on the direction they want to go with it (i.e., they've said that edicts and anathemas will replace the alignment system). So why can't we have an open discussion, survey, or focused engagement on that system. For example, while edicts and anathemas can capture far more nuance than alignment, it also means much more bookeeping for GMs who have to know these nuances/deviations between deities, barbarian sublcasses, or champion sub-classes,etc. My anecdotal experience with edicts and anathemas is that people just ignore it when they play and focus wholly on the simpler alignment. I don't know if that is representative of greater play or not, but its probably worth a discussion with the community to see if that system in its current form is the 'best' form from ease of use, accessibility to new players/GMs, meeting design goal, etc.

The fact that you think what James said implies "remaining changes are merely quality-of-life changes along the lines of simple errata" is exactly why I asked him to speak more plainly and clearly. I would not have ever concluded that that was what he was inferring from the statement: "You can think of everyone playing the game for the past 4 years as the playtest for the remastered rules if you want, I guess." He doesn't even talk about the simplicity of change or type of change at all. A more clear answer from Paizo will prevent confirmation bias like this.

Ezekieru wrote:

...

The comparison of playing the game for 4 years as a pseudo playtest is a bad comparison. A real playtest has:

- Specified goals (playing the game generically does not)
- Tests a specified solution (this is similar)
- Tests against specific stressors to test specific weakness (play the game generically does not do this)
- Asks for feedback in a planned, systematic, and analytical way to identify popularity, identify strengths, identify weaknesses, and identify performance of the specified solution against the specific stressors (antectodal experiences from completely different encounters at different levels with different party compositions, with different GM instructions, with different A to Z conditions... etc. doesn't pass the muster here.
- Categorizes feedback into those who didn't play, those who played, those who played the specified playtest scenarios, what levels they played, what kind of build composition they might have had, etc. (disparate social media posts don't allow for you to categorize/parse feedback in this manner to assess how much weighting to provide it).
- Asks participants to pay particular attention to things they normally wouldn't during normal play (clearly not done in normal play because you're relaxing and having fun, GMs could be fudging in your favour because you're facial expression is showing you hate your life, etc.).
- Actually tells participants that they are participants (A key to collecting reliable data!)

The last 4 years are more like fumbling in the anecdotal dark and claiming you've assembled enough anecdotal critical mass by scrubbing social media to do 'something' else. Clearly that is not a robust method for making changes. Could you assemble your anecdotal critical mass and make a change that would improve things? Could you assemble your anecdotal critical mass and make a change that would not improve things? The answer to both is yes. The point of community engagement is to bias the result towards improvement and hopefully increase the magnitude of improvement in the end result.

[Dancing Wind]

Red Griffyn wrote:

Asking him to more plainly answer the question directly in a polite manner is hardly 'repeatedly asking him to be more clear'.

Most of us in this thread have found his answer to be sufficiently clear: there isn't going to be a playtest for any of the material in the newly announced Remastered books.

The public reason is 'we've had four years of playing this edition, and for the purposes of these changes that has given us sufficient information to make our decisions'.

Quote:

A real playtest has:

- Specified goals
- Tests a specified solution
- Tests against specific stressors
- Asks for feedback in a planned, systematic, and analytical way
- Categorizes feedback
- Asks participants to pay particular attention to things they normally wouldn't during normal play
- Actually tells participants that they are participants

So far, there is zero indication that Paizo is even attempting to meet your critera for a "real" playtest. And, so far, there's not much community support for such a playtest.

Your enthusiasm for a playtest is obvious. Paizo's lack of enthusiasm is equally obvious

[Rysky]

Red, you’re the one being hyperbolic with the doomer nihilism coming out of left field that has nothing to do with anything in the conversation.

WotC has shown they employ they Pinkertons, that’s a fact.

After the OGL kerfuffle and that, Paizo has decided to expedite their shedding of the OGL from their use, that’s a fact.

A Playtest now would severely slow down things, that’s a fact.

You’re not gonna convince them to put the breaks on removing the OGL from their products just so you can have a Playtest of suspect validity.

[Kobold Catgirl]

RedGriffyn wrote:

If it is still not firmed up then the answer should say that. Like "No, there isn't any planned opportunities for community engagement, but we'll have an internal discussion and more formally discuss it at the PaizoCON event". Asking him to more plainly answer the question directly in a polite manner is hardly 'repeatedly asking him to be more clear'.

That's a very precise promise to expect him to make off-the-cuff.

[Captain Morgan]

It's not happening bud.

[PossibleCabbage]

I am at a loss to how one would playtest "no more alignment". Like I'm in 2 games right now and running one myself and you could drop alignment in each of them and I'm not sure anybody would notice.

Like if someone was casting "Divine Lance" regularly, we would just use the "aligned damage" suggesting in the alignment variant in the GMG where "only things with intentions opposed by the source of your spells would take damage." Given that the GM is the arbiter of "what the gods think" this is remarkably easy to institute in practice.

[Ashbourne]

I filled out the alignment line on my character sheets for 44 years and can't remember ever using it once in gameplay. I don't think playing another game to formally playtest removing it will add anything useful.

Paizo developers and employees have now been playing the game for four years. Combined with public feedback, I feel that is more than enough to make small updates to the game. The only time Paizo needs to do a playtest is when a new edition or a new class comes out because they don't have years of in-house gameplay and public comments on the new content.

[RexAliquid]

Yeah, I don't see what sort of information would be valuable from a playtest.

Statistical analysis is handy for extrapolating from a short playtest window, but doesn't hold a candle to four years of feedback from full campaigns and the conversations and common complaints and homebrew fixes that come from the community.

[Richard Lowe]

Red, how long do you think a playtest should be? 4 weeks? 8 weeks? 12? How many months? Then there's collecting, collating feedback, and examining all the data and messages. That's going to take a few weeks at minimum. Next we have internal playtesting of any changes, finalising edits and changes to the books, which obviously means layout for the entire thing has to be redone along with deciding if cuts need to be made, and then eventually after all that sending it to print... before it even starts to get made.

Do you think that it's perhaps possible that delaying their brand new, easy format, attractive to new player remastered rules for what 4, 5 months, maybe longer, is a sound business decision right now? Cause if you agree it's probably not then you're literally asking Paizo to tank their business because you think it might make the rules a little bit better.

Does that seem reasonable to you?

[Vardoc Bloodstone]

Still on an island, Red.

[Red Griffyn]

Dancing Wind wrote:

Red Griffyn wrote:

Asking him to more plainly answer the question directly in a polite manner is hardly 'repeatedly asking him to be more clear'.

Most of us in this thread have found his answer to be sufficiently clear: there isn't going to be a playtest for any of the material in the newly announced Remastered books.

...

So far, there is zero indication that Paizo is even attempting to meet your critera for a "real" playtest. And, so far, there's not much community support for such a playtest.

Your enthusiasm for a playtest is obvious. Paizo's lack of enthusiasm is equally obvious

Its great that his answer that wasn't an answer to my 4 questions was clear for you. It is doesn't really answer my questions or the nuance in them. You do you!

My enthusiasm is in defending my points from fallicous thinking/accusations. People keep saying you think/feel "x". I wanted to hear directly from Paizo from a sliding scale of 0 to "this other thing" what kind of community engagement can we expect. Its all the 'non-paizo' commenters trying to strawman me as needing/wanting/advocating for a 12 month + hyperbolic playtest. Jame's response doesn't really say that much.

Rysky wrote:

Red, you’re the one being hyperbolic with the doomer nihilism coming out of left field that has nothing to do with anything in the conversation.

WotC has shown they employ they Pinkertons, that’s a fact.

I responded to your hyperbolic statements with more hyperbolic statements because you're not engaging as a good faith interlocutor. You're using one datapoint and extrapolating that data point fallaciously. I don't agree with your assessment of the risk and I don't agree that even if that was the case that we should all live in fear. There is literally nothing stopping anyone (including WOTC) from hiring Pinkertons to do the exact thing your afraid of once Paizo has magically published under the ORC licence. It would be illegal with OGL published material and illegal with ORC published material. So your entire point is moot. The sky is falling argument doesn't any hold water.

Kobold Catgirl wrote:

That's a very precise promise to expect him to make off-the-cuff.

It is an example. I don't expect him to say that response verbatim. He could just say a clear and resounding "no there will be no community engagement". That would be a much better response then what was given in terms of clarity and I'm really trying to be polite here in my treatment of James (but at the end of the day it wasn't a clear message). He hasn't said yes or no at this point but has likely implied no. If they are reconsidering their stance about it because I brought it up, then cool, but if they wanted a month to talk about it before confirming no.. then just say that? I promise this thread wasn't a trap? I legitimately wanted to know if Paizo planned for community engagement or not and 'if yes' to what extent.

If an employee from Paizo was literally the first responder on this thread with a clear answer the thread would have died a quite death on the weekend. As it stands I have a bunch of people taking strawman potshots at me for even 'wanting' community engagement as if that is some kind of useless/bad/necessarily evil thought.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I am at a loss to how one would playtest

Ashbourne wrote:

I don't think playing another game to formally playtest removing it will add anything useful

RexAliquid wrote:

Yeah, I don't see what sort of information would be valuable from a playtest.

Richard Lowe wrote:

Red, how long do you think a playtest should be? 4 weeks? 8 weeks? 12? How many months? Then there's collecting, collating feedback, and examining all the data and messages. That's going to take a few week

You are all conflating my defence of "4 years being a playtest" with wanting a playtest. If a Playtest has characteristics A,B,C..., and Z and the 4 years of playing a game don't have those characteristics then the 4 years wasn't a playtest. The complete lack of any objectives, structure, analytical techniques, standardized testing methods or data collection methods means the 4 years are not a playtest. If you can't understand that then I can't help you and you need to take some courses in statistics, scientific test planning, survey design, and much more.

I'm not advocating specifically for a playtest. Do I think it could be a useful tool, yes. However, I'm advocating for community engagement in some way. It just so happens that a playtest is a typical way that Paizo engages the community. Its everyone else saying that I only want a playtest. Can you think of a way that the community can be engaged without a playtest or are we as a community truly that one dimensional? Here are some ideas:
- A General Survey (with no playtest!)
- A Designer Stream like what many patreons do to design elements live.
- A closed townhall
- A open townhall
- A post your best ideas on this 'limited scope' to this new forum channel and we'll look at them and cull the best ideas (only one way discussion)
- Release of the full list of intended changes instead of broad brush strokes (currently planed for PaizoCon in a month)
- Do only limited in scope or closed playtests as opposed to massive open ones
- Utilization of Larger Social Media Channels (e.g., Rules Layer, Roll for Combat, etc.) to disseminate stuff or have the 'conversation' for the community out in the open (i.e., have brand/remaster champions as the touch points)
- Reddit AMAs
- Run a community competition for a cool new beast or item to replace the OGL ones that are getting de-scoped (how cool would that be!).

The list goes on and on! If you can't think of an idea, I bet google will provide. I'm not crazy for asking 'what if any' kind of community engagement will take place.

NOTE: Just because you can't conceive of how you would playtest something doesn't really matter. As stated above you wouldn't playtest no alignment, but playtest edicts/anathemas in a more robust way then what we do today (i.e., from my experience people 100% ignore it).

Vardoc Bloodstone wrote:

Still on an island, Red.

I can't control what other people say. But I will continue to defend my ideas on their merit and call out the shenanigans.

[Vardoc Bloodstone]

Red - now you’re just being argumentative.

I get that you passionately believe your points are valid. Now, you just seem to be lashing out against people that disagree with you. I engaged with you in good faith, and you responded by accusing me of straw man arguments. Hardly polite.

I think at this point, 13 posts in, it’s time to recognize that you’ve said everything that needs to be said. Recognize that we all have a right to feel differently. And having a different opinion does not mean people are up to ‘shenanigans’.

[James Jacobs]

Red Griffyn wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

You can think of everyone playing the game for the past 4 years as the playtest for the remastered rules if you want, I guess.

Hi James,

I appreciate the comment. I grasp what you're inferring, but if it isn't too much bother can you be more directly clear in your response instead of leaving us to infer what you're implying. Could you give a quick response to the original four questions (restated below)? Any rationale you could also provide would be good as I'd rather hear it from 'paizo representatives' vs. having only assertions from vocal community members.

Original 4 questions:

1.) What books/content are set in stone? What elements, classes, etc. aren't?

2.) Will the community be engaged in a formal way to either playtest or to provide survey feedback on changes?

3.) Are the new threads/forum discussions about what should be changed being culled by Paizo Game Designers for these changes or is it only legacy Forums/Threads that may have driven any changes?

4.) If there are surveys or playtests will we get a post-engagement breakdown on the results and lessons learned?

I can't. I'm not actually on the team doing the actual work on this project, so those aren't my questions to answer (although as folks have mentioned upthread, there are ansowers for some of thies out there already). Paizo will have more information when the time is right—I suspect the next big batch of info will be at Paizocon. In the meantime, please be patient.

[graystone]

Red Griffyn wrote:

He could just say a clear and resounding "no there will be no community engagement".

Why would he say "no there will be no community engagement" when by posting, he already IS engaging the community?

[Ashbourne]

Red Griffyn wrote:

- A Designer Stream like what many patreons do to design elements live.

They did that last year at Paizo Con for Starfinder, but just for fun, not something that got published. They may have done something similar for Pathfinder, but I was mostly interested in Starfinder then.

Red Griffyn wrote:

- Utilization of Larger Social Media Channels (e.g., Rules Layer, Roll for Combat, etc.) to disseminate stuff or have the 'conversation' for the community out in the open (i.e., have brand/remaster champions as the touch points)

Eric Mona was on roll for combat on the day after the announcement. Jason Bulmahn and Logan Bonner were on Paizo's official Twitch and Youtube the day of the announcement. Paizo, in general, is good at keeping us informed through social media. And often takes live questions.

Red Griffyn wrote:

- Run a community competition for a cool new beast or item to replace the OGL ones that are getting de-scoped (how cool would that be!).

Paizo passed RPG super start contest on to Battle Zoo to run. You still have time to enter monsters for this year's competition.

Paizo Con is only 25 days away, that's normally when They make some of the biggest announcements of the year. There's also lots of community engagement.

[Red Griffyn]

James Jacobs wrote:

Red Griffyn wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

You can think of everyone playing the game for the past 4 years as the playtest for the remastered rules if you want, I guess.

Hi James,

I appreciate the comment. I grasp what you're inferring, but if it isn't too much bother can you be more directly clear in your response instead of leaving us to infer what you're implying. Could you give a quick response to the original four questions (restated below)? Any rationale you could also provide would be good as I'd rather hear it from 'paizo representatives' vs. having only assertions from vocal community members.

Original 4 questions:

1.) What books/content are set in stone? What elements, classes, etc. aren't?

2.) Will the community be engaged in a formal way to either playtest or to provide survey feedback on changes?

3.) Are the new threads/forum discussions about what should be changed being culled by Paizo Game Designers for these changes or is it only legacy Forums/Threads that may have driven any changes?

4.) If there are surveys or playtests will we get a post-engagement breakdown on the results and lessons learned?

I can't. I'm not actually on the team doing the actual work on this project, so those aren't my questions to answer (although as folks have mentioned upthread, there are ansowers for some of thies out there already). Paizo will have more information when the time is right—I suspect the next big batch of info will be at Paizocon. In the meantime, please be patient.

Cool. I appreciate the time taken to double back. I'll wait until Paizocon.