I've been wondering how Paizo sees the way forward - what the intentions are behind a 2E, especially when the first edition of Pathfinder was a "let's keep 3.x alive" feel, and P2 seems a bit of a divergence.
Since 5e is back to the things D&Ders missed about 3e, there's no viable being-D&D-until-D&D-comes-back strategy open to them, obviously.
so challenging D&D is out. The 10 ton coelacanth is back in the wading pool. Frankly, I think Paizo should've just re-attached itself like a proper lamprey. They could have leveraged their rep as the caretakers of True D&D during the 4e/Essentials/Next interregnum, and done something other 3pps can't generally seem to make money on: publishing 'crunch' - splatbooks and the like - for the current ed of D&D. Y'know, something of quality players wouldn't be afraid to take to their DMs, begging approval, unlike rifling through DMsG.
I browsed through the book for a few minutes yesterday, have read and listened to a few reviews, but haven't dived into the book or system in any great depth. But one thing I've noticed is not just the level of detail relative to 5E, but how many little touches that add not only detail and granularity, but flavor.
So why "boutique?"
Prior to d20 re-taking the hobby, RPGs had gotten very 'niche' - I think that's the same meaning you're going for. You can't compete with D&D, because very few people are ever going to hear of or try your product, so you make it as unique & appealing as possible, even if that means making it appeal to a very narrow wedge of the potential market, and count on the few converts you get to introduce it to the few like-minded individuals they know personally, and carve out a little niche for your product. It means needing to be very specialized, and very good.
Ever been to one of those gelato shops that sells flavors tike Laverndaer Bliss or Burnt Caramel Bourbon?
Lavender ice cream is way better than one might expect, BTW.
What brought me to this question was listening and reading reviews and hearing about any number of design detail that I couldn't help but think, "That's a good idea - wish that was in 5E."
... I am just wondering if this is what Paizo had in mind.
A left-handed way of supplementing 5e? It's not a crazy idea, 13th Age did that, too, it had some great, innovative, mechanics that were specifically design & presented in such a way they'd be easy to 'lift' for other games (not necessarily 5e, since it was out a year ahead of that ed, but any d20 game, certainly including Next/5e...).
So if 5E was designed to both bring back the player base and create an evergreen version of the game that can draw in new fans, while embodying the classic feel of the game--all design goals that they hit out of the ballpark
Maybe I'm just more cynical... OK, 'maybe' is the wrong word... but 5e is very much a compromise ed, designed to
avoid offending any faction of the fanbase enough to edition war against it - most especially, the factions that already /did/ edition war against D&D - and it sacrifices quite a bit of accessibility and draw to new players in order to get there. The point is not to 'draw in new fans' - the D&D name will do that - but merely not to repel them before they can even try it. Because there's no use being accessible and meeting new-player expectations if you're going to be surrounded by a firestorm of nerdrage few potential new players have the asbestos personalities to brave.
could it be that Pathfinder 2 was designed to create a boutique D&D play experience?
It's a simple explanation: with the hobby back to being totally dominated by D&D, the options are hitch your wagon to it, or carve out a tiny specialist niche.
I'd've thought Paizo well-positioned to do the former, rather than the latter, but it's their business...
The "boutiqueness" has more to do with the thing itself - the quality, both in terms of how well it does what it seeks to do, but also the uniqueness and flavor of the experience.
Nod. You can't compete on name recognition, so you compete on quality - you get only the choosiest customers, who are hard to please, but you get customers.
Interesting. But again, I don't think this makes it boutique. It sounds like you prefer a more tactical, detailed rules system - or at least are enjoying it in contrast to the free-wheeling approach of 5E.
D&D has traditionally had rules that ranged from sketchy, to Baroque, to bloated, to broken, to <redacted>, to consciously DM-centric.
Other games carve out niches for themselves with rules that are better than D&D, and they compete with eachother by doing something /specific/, preferably unique, that not just every other RPG that's strictly superior to D&D's Paleolithic mechanics can do. I doubt 'more tactical/detailed,' alone, would do that, however much an improvement they may be over 5e. Unless there's still some of that True D&D sheen left on PF2, I suppose.
So in that respect, Pathfinder is and always has been more "boutique" for those that like rules granularity. It has been "Advanced D&D" for those that want an "advanced" (in terms of rules complexity) experience. But it isn't necessarily any more or less boutique in terms of story or setting.
PF 2 /could/ have been an 'Advanced' alternative to 5e, I think. But that wasn't what PF1 was in any sense, it was a continuation of 3.5, a line in the sand, as it were, to say D&D can has come this far, but no further. 5e backed away from that line, and PF can no longer be what it was. Heck, 5e backed up so far that PF1 could have just started being promoted as the 'advanced' D&D alternative, without a PF2.
The last thing I want to do is imply that complexity is synonymous with boutiqueness.
Austere simplicity, preferably to the point of elegance, also works.
5e stakes itself out as 'rules lite' (compared to 3.5/PF), so when a disillusioned gamer acclimated to it finds a genuinely simple, yet functional, system it can be quite the revelation.