Pathfinder 1E What is Paizo going to do when 5E comes out?
Book Creep is an issue for any long-lasting game. The players and GM's want new options, so rules books sell. If they aren't then incorporated into the support material, like adventures, then the players and GM's wonder why they bothered to buy those new books as they aren't getting any support.
Back in the '80s, how often did games release new rules? Most releases were adventures and adversaries. Dungeons & Dragons had a PHB and DMG for a lot of years, with lots of modules and the occasional monsters book, campaign setting book, etc. Then Unearthed Arcana came out - and the publishers discovered new rules sell.
2nd Edition brought us regular splatbooks, and the publishers learned that those sell better than adventures and monster books. 3rd Ed saw a much greater focus on rulebooks.
Adventures aren't the big sellers any more. GM's buy them, and the group will run through the adventure only once, so a group with 3 GM's equates to 3 sales only if they like reading adventures. But all the players buy new rulebooks. Kudos to Paizo for keeping adventures on the market, but I doubt they're the top revenue driver for Pathfinder.
Mythic will be an interesting challenge, I think. If the support material doesn't support it, then it becomes an outlier book sitting on the shelf, rarely used. But an AP in the Mythic mold will require Mythic be used, as it ups the power scale, so it will have no appeal to those not using Mythic. Some crossover will exist, as some will be willing to convert, but Mythic will push closer to "a different system" from "some options".
That's not unprecedented. "Armor as Damage Reduction" and "Magic as Words of Power" would both require considerable source material conversion if implemented. But the whole Mythic book will either be in use, or not, depending on whether any given game is Mythic.
Back in the '80s, how often did games release new rules? Most releases were adventures and adversaries. Dungeons & Dragons had a PHB and DMG for a lot of years, with lots of modules and the occasional monsters book, campaign setting book, etc. Then Unearthed Arcana came out - and the publishers discovered new rules sell.
2nd Edition brought us regular splatbooks, and the publishers learned that those sell better than adventures and monster books. 3rd Ed saw a much greater focus on rulebooks.
Adventures aren't the big sellers any more. GM's buy them, and the group will run through the adventure only once, so a group with 3 GM's equates to 3 sales only if they like reading adventures. But all the players buy new rulebooks. Kudos to Paizo for keeping adventures on the market, but I doubt they're the top revenue driver for Pathfinder.
Mythic will be an interesting challenge, I think. If the support material doesn't support it, then it becomes an outlier book sitting on the shelf, rarely used. But an AP in the Mythic mold will require Mythic be used, as it ups the power scale, so it will have no appeal to those not using Mythic. Some crossover will exist, as some will be willing to convert, but Mythic will push closer to "a different system" from "some options".
That's not unprecedented. "Armor as Damage Reduction" and "Magic as Words of Power" would both require considerable source material conversion if implemented. But the whole Mythic book will either be in use, or not, depending on whether any given game is Mythic.
gamerprinter
Mapper/Publisher
I can't disagree here, but then I've never used electronic devices for my gaming needs, and really carrying around a lot of bulky books has been the way of things for 30 years - what's new about that? I'm used to this being the way things have always been...
Scrivener of Doom
Adventurer
Actually, Paizo could be doing its fan a favour with all of the heavy books. After all, how many of us need to work on developing some muscle tone? 
Dark Mistress
First Post
One thing you can do is do what I do. I go threw what ever adventure, AP etc i plan to run. I then copy and past the stat blocks onto a doc, make sure everything I need about that encounter is there. Put the T1 or what have you there so i know which location it is from the map. Then I print that out and take it with me. Then I never need my bestiary books etc. You don't even need to own them with the PRD or d20pfsrd which I actually like better, because all the rules are there for free.
That takes a couple of hours to do it sure, but once done I don't need to do it again till we start the next AP book or next adventure, which comes out to needing to do it maybe once a month.
Now if you don't have a printer or access to one, then that could be a problem. But I have found doing that really cuts down on the books I need to bring. Can do the same thing with other stuff, like use Perram's spell book to print out all the spells the PC's use or NPC's.
I ended up with a folder of printer paper but it is a lot lighter and easier to haul around than a bunch of books.
Dark Mistress
First Post
I don't recall the exact quote but I believe it was James said any AP that uses Mythic rules can be run with out them the PC's will just need to be I think it was 2-3 levels higher per Mythic Tier they should have. So a AP that assumes level 1 Mythic Tier 1 could be run with normal PC's at level 3-4 etc.
Or the opposite you could run a level 15 adventure with level 9 characters with Mythic Tier 2 and it work. It sounds like they are planning so you can use the same adventures regardless of if you use mythic rules. While they can use Mythic Rules for monsters in any of the books to make them just tougher.
We will see how well they pull it off but this is the first "Epic style" of rules I have actually been interested because of the above.
VanceMadrox
First Post
You'd be wrong.
paizo has said time and time again that their Adventure Path line is their bread and butter, they get more income form that than any other line.
I will respectfully disagree with you.
All of us have the books, so regardless of where we play, we have them. Some of us also have laptops.
Mastery ? Well, we are willing to wing it, and when it does actually cause the problem, we will agree with our two rules lawyers just to shut them up and resume killing orcs.
And adventures ... well you said it yourself. No hope here.
Jester David
Hero
I wonder about that.
Most of the groups I see have the 1-2 players that buy all the books - often the GM - and the other players just use that material. Other than the core books there aren't a lot of guaranteed sales.
Books are sold because people want them and want physical copies. There's the collector or fan that supports the company and buys their products for that reason.
But for actually making characters I think many people go onto websites (where all the feats are there) rather than slowly flipping through 3-5 books. Or use a character builder.
This hit WotC hard as a lot of people just used the Builder and skipped the books, as there was so little content other than crunch in the books. There wasn't the 2-3 books per group being sold like they were expecting. And the dedicated fanbase is smaller. There are many players and people who buy books, but there are far, far fewer people who love the company.
I've often said that people play Pathfinder because of Paizo and that people play D&D despite WotC.
