Pathfinder 1E What is Paizo going to do when 5E comes out?

gamerprinter · Sep 26, 2012

N'raac said:
Adventures aren't the big sellers any more.

I think Paizo would beg to differ. The Adventure Path line, by Paizo's own admission is the primary product line that drives their business. While the Core rulebook is their leading product, the APs follow closely behind.

I've heard the stated "adventures aren't big sellers any more." and that seems to be what WotC thinks, yet the lessening of success after initial release of an edition can be directly pointed at the lack of good adventure material. I'm more inclined to think WotC is clueless regarding how best to support their products - Paizo is not.

While it's true that many GMs prefer to create their own campaigns and adventures, many of those GMs lack the time to properly prepare for weekly or biweekly gaming schedules. So, well written adventures are sought after more these days than one might suspect.

Of the Kaidan (Japanese horror) products from Rite Publishing, that I develop including guide books, supplements and adventure material - the adventures are what sell the most. So IMO, whoever says "adventures aren't big sellers," don't know what they are talking about.

pauljathome · Sep 26, 2012

As long as you have players that you trust a huge amount of the system mastery and book load can be distributed.

I regularly run PFS adventures with just the core rulebook and bestiary. In theory the players are supposed to bring the Ultimate Magic, Combat etc entries that they are using. In practice, they know what they need to know and I just trust them to get it right, only looking things up if they pull something REALLY weird. Somebody will have the rule if required (often on the online srd) but I nearly never need to look.

Yes, GMs do have to prep by reading up on monsters and stuff in adventures. But this isn't that big a deal in general.

In todays world, expecting SOMEBODY to have access to the electronic rules at the table really isn't unreasonable. Sure, there will be an occassional exception. But they're just that.

Where I think things are getting bloated is in the sheer number of options a player or GM has. Selecting the right spell, or feat, or even class/archetype can take too long. But that really only takes time if you want it to. A character from just the Core rulebook is still very competitive.

Consonant Dude · Sep 26, 2012

Starfox said:
Are Paizo going to carry on with pathfinder if 5E comes out?

If 5E is successful?

What ought they do?

I suppose it is kind of a stupid question - they have their own game now and I suppose they will stick to it come rain or come shine. But someone out here might have something more than speculation - or at least some interesting speculation.

Paizo became rather successful by playing it safe (for better or worse, depenidng on who you ask) and sticking to the 3rd edition philosophy while WotC was exploring new territory.

WotC have decided yet again it is time to explore new ways, in the process trying to incorporate some of the old ways.

The jury is out on what the actual result will be but they will no doubt attract players. Some will come from 3.X, Pathfinder, 4e, OSR games and a bunch of other games out there.

The new direction will also turn off some players from WotC products. Some of those may stick to 4th edition. Others will swear off the company entirely like they did when 4th edition became a reality. These people may move to other games, other companies.

So yeah. After Next's release, we will see how many people move around. And companies like Paizo will wait to see how many customers they lose and how many they gain in the process.

And in turn eventually they may make some change in part inspired by what's currently on the market and what they think might be needed, which will in turn garner fans from other companies like WotC as well as anger existing customers who will go to other companies like WotC.

And the world will keep on turning.

frankthedm · Sep 27, 2012

What is Paizo going to do when 5E comes out?

Make an office betting pool on when 5.5E and 6E will be announced.

But on a serious note, if 5E has a fair and intuitive Gaming licence, I'd say they'll likely copy and paste a Golarion setting together for 5E.

Jester David · Sep 27, 2012

gamerprinter said:
I've heard the stated "adventures aren't big sellers any more." and that seems to be what WotC thinks, yet the lessening of success after initial release of an edition can be directly pointed at the lack of good adventure material. I'm more inclined to think WotC is clueless regarding how best to support their products - Paizo is not.

There are adventure modules and adventure paths, and WotC's problem is the design the former, even when making the later. The big 1-30 campaigns they've done (Scales of War and the untitled series of modules that started 4e) had many stand-alone parts. And the stand alone modules, which work best when they can be dropped into any campaign, had a lot of world building or ties to the "default" Points of Light world. WotC seemed uncertain if they wanted generic adventures or to build this campaign setting over time

Jester David · Sep 27, 2012

Here's something else to get speculation going.

The 5th printing of the Core Rulebook was released at the end of 2011, almost a year ago. That's five printings in two and a half years. Now, even if they opted for a massive print run that's still a long time, especially for the "best selling RPG" on the market. And there was some expected changes - such as the Stealth skill revision - that never happened.
They might be waiting to see how 5e takes before committing to more Core books, or thinking of a revision after supplies of the Core book dwindle.

Drowbane · Sep 27, 2012

Paizo? They will continue to make a superior RPG product, I suspect. If 5e is backwards compatible enough, people will buy PF modules to run with 5e.

Some of us might not even notice 5e's release.

N'raac · Sep 27, 2012

Jester Canuck said:
There are adventure modules and adventure paths,

I think that's a significant change over the past several years - a group can easily become committed to the Path as a campaign where individual adventures have to fit the ongoing campaign, so the AP gets better sales.

Jester David · Sep 27, 2012

N'raac said:
I think that's a significant change over the past several years - a group can easily become committed to the Path as a campaign where individual adventures have to fit the ongoing campaign, so the AP gets better sales.

And yet name three WotC APs. Instead they tend to go for modules and mega-adventures.
(Although, it would be neat to see a Paizo mega-adventure, a big adventure too big for a module or single AP book let not enough to fill an entire AP.)

APs also have the benefit of being readable. They're almost a novel, and the product is crammed with other stuff, such as fiction and world lore, so even if you don't plan on running a particular adventure or even AP the product might be fun.

Cybit · Sep 27, 2012

A lot of it depends.

I think part of the reason 4E did not transition over as well as previous editions was because people were not ready for move on from 3.5, and PF offered a slightly new take on a familiar system. That said; it's now been 4 more years since then, and Paizo has the unfamiliar position of potentially being the big kid on the block for the next two years as 5E gets revved up. I think the biggest issue Paizo may have is just general burnout from 3.5/PF sets in, as people will have been playing the system for more than 10 years by the time D&D Next comes out.

If D&D Next is wildly successful, I expect Paizo might go more into publishing adventures & universe books for D&D Next. If D&D Next is not very successful, PF will probably keep going on, probably moving towards PF2 (which will be very interesting, if they try to keep the 3.5 core, or move towards actually making their own d20 system). Paizo's most...interesting decision will be if D&D Next is successful enough to pull a decent amount of PF players away, but not enough to completely take over the market. Then they are in that weird position of either a) switching support over to D&D Next and possibly being the tipping point for the edition, or b) being a distant second place.

Honestly; I'm curious to see how PF evolves and how the PF player base evolves over the next two years. I think there will be a lot of unexpected results from Paizo being on top of the d20 mountain for two years.