Pathfinder 1E IF Paizo was planning a Pathfinder 2.0 what signs would we see?

Emerikol said:

I think it might be the appearance of threads like these all the time.

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By that metric, they'd had been working on Pathfinder revised since the day the Core Rulebook came out. In all seriousness, these threads have been a constant feature of Pathfinder fandom since day one.

Which, to be fair, they have sort of been working on it. I mean, I'm sure Jason Bulmahn and the other developers each have an ever-growing list of stuff they'd want to fix. That comes with the job.

But, like most Pathfinder rules upgrades, I don't think we'll see a revised edition until the Adventure Paths need it.

I'll content myself with waiting for an announcement some year at GenCon, but I'd look for problems in the AP line if I were going to be gazing at tea leaves.

Cheers!
Kinak

Gundark said:

Lets pretend that in alternate Earth-72 Paizo IS planning a new edition. What signs would we see?

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They'd tell us.

Paizo have been very good at communicating with their fans, and they've gotten a lot of credit for involving those fans in playtests, for listening to feedback, and so on. So when Paizo start working on PF 2.0 in earnest, I fully expect them to be open and upfront about it, and to get their fans involved in the process early.

That said, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Paizo's designers weren't noodling around a few ideas. In fact, I would be very surprised if they hadn't been even before Pathfinder was released. In particular, that "backwards compatibility" thing served to limit what they could really do with the game, and I expect those handcuffs must have chafed in at least some places.

So I suspect "Pathfinder: Unchained" is something of an outworking of some of those ideas. And it may serve as a first step towards PF 2.0... but if so, it's the first step in a very long road - and it may be years before they take a second such step.

(If nothing else, PF:U will inform the design of any eventual PF 2.0, for the simple reason that if people love it then any new edition will adopt the changes, and if people change it then they'll do something else instead.)

Given that they are coming out with their new class book next month, I doubt they're going to rewrite the rules anytime soon. They also have an upcoming module which details races from some of the worlds surrounding Golarion. Thus, they have ample fodder for new settings. I am under the impression they're taking the 2nd ed. approach, making their money off of new settings/adventures rather than completely retooling the rules every 4 or 5 years.

I think Pazio is more likely to change to 5E (if it gets an OGL) than to make Pathfinder 2. And the reason is, Paizo is not primarily a publisher of game rules - they are primarily about all the peripherals - adventures, sourcebooks, novels. As long as the Pathfinder rules can be addended to be the rules they need for their peripherals, I don't think there will be a new edition.

Signs of a new edition would be:

* An adventure path that goes back to basics - basic dungeon with basic classes

* A focus on a single, basic part of their game world, like Varisia.

* An offical announcement

I think the first two have about the chance of a snowball in hell.

If 5E is a HUGE success, I can see Pazio starting to publish adventures and supplements for it.

Starfox said:

I think Pazio is more likely to change to 5E (if it gets an OGL) than to make Pathfinder 2. And the reason is, Paizo is not primarily a publisher of game rules - they are primarily about all the peripherals - adventures, sourcebooks, novels. As long as the Pathfinder rules can be addended to be the rules they need for their peripherals, I don't think there will be a new edition.

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Hmmm I admit I had not considered this (either here or Earth-72). I suppose I could see this happening IF(big if) 5e goes OGL, and Pathfinder sales for the game and APs decline sharply, and 5e sells like crazy.

Although it would save costs of development of a new system as their current set of rules age.

PF 2 seems like a more likely senario

I could see PF supporting 5e with adventures, but the license really would have to be right. An OGL-style one would probably be favorable but anything like the GSL would, I'm sure, be rejected. Paizo has been burned too many times on licenses they can't control to not be careful about accepting future ones.

While anything is possible, I highly doubt Paizo wants to regress to being dependent on another system to sell their products - especially when a new ruleset from that other company could appear at the drop of a hat.

The lesson of the Penumbra Fantasy Bestiary comes to mind as why any dependence on another company's rule system is very risky for an established publisher.

Gundark said:

Signs I'd be looking for:

- Rules Bloat
- Experimental Books
- Growing complaints from fan base around rules

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I dunno about on Earth-72, but here on Earth-616 this is already happening. Whether that means Paizo is up to anything, I have no idea.

More seriously, I think it's going to be exceptionally hard to tell if Paizo has a plan for a new edition/revision for now. The company is in a very unique position, probably more like WotC in 1999 than any prior versions of itself. (It's not a perfect comparison, so don't read too much into that one.)

Paizo been around for, what, a decade now? They were a small-time RPG publisher doing well with a big-time contract up until 2007; after that fateful year, Paizo's role changed completely. They transitioned to underdog-challenger, and by 2011 they were the new market leader. Given that their core product line was spawned from the discontinuation of another product line by another company, Paizo has to acknowledge that many of their players are people who didn't want to change to a new edition. Paizo is now in a position pretty similar to the one WotC was in in 2005/06; they've produced enough Pathfinder stuff by now that they have reach further (either in terms of products or customers) to sustain their revenue. (One consequence is that Paizo is now guilty of producing a lot of the same kinds of products that Paizo fans used to criticize WotC five years ago.)

The real question is what happens now. For all of Pathfinder's success, D&D is still the most recognizable brand (despite not being the top-selling one), and WotC is on the cusp of releasing the first new edition since the one that Paizo dethroned. 5E is already being much better received than 4E was, and can be considered a direct attempt to regain their dominant market share. If 5E is a success it could be a huge blow to Paizo, so for the time being they'll want to focus directly on retaining their customer base; this likely means producing more of what PF fans already like, and very little gambling with new systems.

Ask again in a couple years.

The OP question is hard primarily because I think we've got signs it won't happen, not just soon, but ever. Based on what I'm seeing of the fifth edition of you-know-what and the reaction to it, edition wars may be obsolete. No, I'm not saying D&D is about to take over. But I do think they've managed to make a sixth edition unlikely. That's because any hypothetical 6th edition could be treated as more of the swappable options in 5th, just as if they had created the current base game afterward and were trying to create options for it that hypothetical game's style. Since multiple edition fracturing of the base is a major threat to any game, games going forward are going to at least in some way have to follow 5e in terms of making a core with flavor options.

Luckily for the folks at Paizo, and Pathfinder fans like myself, this does not threaten Pathfinder in any way. The 3e it's based on was very much based on pick and choose menus, modular elements that could be swapped out just like they were selected from, so they can follow suit on this. In fact I think they are; that's what "Pathfinder Unchained" is. You think the current Monk is too weak, and/or the current Summoner too strong? When it's clear that enough people think that way, an alternative option will come out. Over time, much of the game could be made of alternatives that each gaming group can pick or choose from around core mechanics. Eventually, it will be that asking when Paizo will come out with a 2.0 is like asking when the Athenians will replace Theseus's ship.

Then again, as a fan of Pathfinder pretty much as it is but always liking to see new ideas and improvements, there may be a wishful thinking bias working here on my part.

Paizo is smart. Throwing a "surprise" edition at people did not go over well before, and since they do playtesting I think they would tell us. In advance of such an event I think a optional rules would be presented more that iron out some of the 3.5/PF problems.