Pathfinder 1E Paizo Announcement and Prognostication

[Umbran]

But the very fact that PF is now huge without actually BEING D&D is a huge change that will probably never be undone.

Folks said that back in the 1990s, with White Wolf. But, when 3e rolled around, D&D was once again the 800 lb. gorilla.

I think there's a basic failure of logic in saying, in one breath, "Hey, look how unexpected changes happen!" and in the next saying, "This will never change."

Companies rise and fall and rise again. Games come, go, and revive. If the world isn't static, then it *isn't static*, and no particular pattern can be relied upon.

If WotC (or, since we don't know the future, some other company) is smart, and makes a really good game, and markets it well, and other companies are experiencing a lack of inspiration at the time, resurgence to market domination is entirely possible.

 

[Mark CMG]

Agreed.

I think 4E's loses have brought the bar down and the OGL supporting 3E has provided that one contender the foundation to reach the bar.

For me, I still count PF as part of the "D&D" baseline and not the field, because that existing foundation is a huge part of how we got here.

If you call it part of the field then obviously I agree D&D does not outweigh that field.

But the very fact that PF is now huge without actually BEING D&D is a huge change that will probably never be undone. If an awesome new game comes along next month, I don't think the lack of the name D&D will be as big a problem as it used to be. It will still be a burden, but the playing field has dramatically changed.

It's tough to draw a line when considering non-D&D as D&D-offshoots. I'm sure some would want C&C or Hackmaster included (maybe others), though I can see why you would draw the line just past PF. Some might say use of the SRD and Gary Gygax working on C&C legitimized it as a form of D&D, others would point toward the many former WotC employees at Paizo and their extensive use of the 3.5 SRD as maing PF a form of D&D. Heck, Hackmaster even sported the brand logo for a time (Do they still?). I tend to strictly draw the line based on the actual brand name as produced by the IP owner as that seems easily delineated for discussions about the market. I'd probably draw the line elsewhere when discussing design (or maybe avoid lines at all! ).

 

[BryonD]

Folks said that back in the 1990s, with White Wolf. But, when 3e rolled around, D&D was once again the 800 lb. gorilla.

I think there's a basic failure of logic in saying, in one breath, "Hey, look how unexpected changes happen!" and in the next saying, "This will never change."

Companies rise and fall and rise again. Games come, go, and revive. If the world isn't static, then it *isn't static*, and no particular pattern can be relied upon.

If WotC (or, since we don't know the future, some other company) is smart, and makes a really good game, and markets it well, and other companies are experiencing a lack of inspiration at the time, resurgence to market domination is entirely possible.

I did say "probably".

If anything I was reaching out for agreement and you are spinning relative comments and statements with conditions made toward that agreement as if I made absolute proclamations.

I don't think it is the same as the WW situation because this really is an alternate baseline fantasy RPG.

But if 5E came along and blew everyone's socks off then we would snap right back to where we were. I don't doubt that. But I think 3E was an unlikely achievement and repeating is even less likely.

And I also said "it would still be a burden". The brand is still the brand and that WAS the point that I've been making in every prior post. The D&D name is Huge. Maybe it used to be huge squared and now it is just huge, but it is still huge.

The playing field *IS* changed. That isn't to say level. Not at all.


But I guess I also presumed that 4E will continue to be the one and only D&D for at least another couple years. And I will predict that the course won't change under that watch. Even if Paizo implodes somehow. (not predicting or expecting said implosion)

 

[Dannager]

So you are saying that 4E didn't get a fair consideration from enough people?

No.

This is a total red herring which has nothing to do with the point.

That's absolutely true.

The point is, people who don't like 4E won't play 4E.

Unless they have another overriding reason for playing it, like the fact that 4e is the only game in their area, or because they like official support over dead games (remember, we were discussing a hypothetical situation in which Pathfinder RPG never happened), or because their friends convinced them to give it another shot, or...

And this does nothing to change the point that this will favor the more popular game. If we assume that 4E is more popular then more DMs will prefer it and therefore the net balance of players playing against their first choice will benefit 4E.

You don't think this supports the argument that one's personal relative opinion of a game doesn't necessarily dictate whether or not they will play that game?

If you are saying this hurts 4E because PF is more popular than 4E then I will agree.

I think it hurts 4e because Pathfinder is more popular amongst the hardcore tabletop gamer than it is among the casual gamer, and the DM falls into the hardcore tabletop gamer category overwhelmingly more often than your average player does. There are any number of reasons why that is the case, many of which are speculative on my part and so I won't bother discussing them here.

Why would they play a game they don't like?

There is a difference between not liking a game, and liking a game less than another game. It stands to reason that a huge number of Pathfinder players (or 3.5 players, as the case may be) don't actively dislike 4e, but instead merely prefer 3.5 or Pathfinder.

It is entirely reasonable that, in our Pathfinder-less example, a person could try 4e and decide he likes 3.5 better (even if he doesn't dislike 4e). He might eventually decide, however, that the difference between the two is outweighed by the ever-increasing active support for the current edition, and grow tired of the stagnant 3.5. Or his tastes may change. Or he may discover he didn't get a good look at 4e the first time around. Or his friends may want to play 4e. Or any number of things.

A person's initial decision to continue playing 3.5 over 4e does not in any way guarantee that they will never make the switch to 4e.

What I'm saying, here, is that the fact that Pathfinder was created removed some of those reasons a player might eventually make the switch - active support, an end to stagnation, etc. This is turn undoubtedly led to some people - who might have otherwise eventually switched to 4e for those reasons - instead switching to Pathfinder.

There are a ton on 4E detractors who also dislike PF and still play 3.5. They are a perfect test group for your theory. If you were right that group would be steadily migrating to 4E.

Not necessarily, since (again) some of the reasons for this migration were obviated by Pathfinder's creation. The ones remaining with 3.5 are doing so because, clearly, the prospect of a currently-supported game is not a large concern for them. They would have to be provided with other reasons to switch.

It isn't happening.

I don't think that you have any way of knowing this, and I've actually heard of some people who have switched directly from 3.5 to 4e in the last two years.

This is because you theory is wrong. Your theory is wrong because it fails to account for the fact that people will leave the hobby altogether before they will play a game they don't like.

I really don't think that this is the case for most people. I think that most people have nowhere near the strong opinions about Game X or Game Y that your average internet edition warrior does. I think your average tabletop gamer is way more casual than you give them credit for, and plays primarily as a social experience (and is accordingly flexible to the desires of his gaming group). I think it is very unfortunate that there undoubtedly are some people like you describe, who would give up a hobby before playing a game they like perhaps a little less than another, but I don't think they make up the huge group you must think they do.

And even without PF there are tons of great alternatives that beat leaving the hobby.

I don't think there are, really. The alternatives are basically unadvertised outside the internet and a (woefully small) word of mouth basis. They don't have anywhere near the level of support that either D&D or Pathfinder have. They might be great from a gameplay standpoint, but if that's all that it took for a game to be popular I think the hobby would look very different right now.

This is just a thinly veiled insult that amounts to little more than "people don't play 4E because they fear change.". It is BS.

I'm sorry you choose to see it that way, but that is absolutely not how it was intended (and I actually don't think it's even supported by a liberal reading of what I wrote). I simply meant that those who stuck with 3.5 did so because they liked 3.5, and were comfortable with it, and when the option arose for them to move to a supported game that was very, very similar to the unsupported game they were already playing, many of them made the logical decision to jump to Pathfinder.

I don't think you should be reading things as though they were intended to be insulting by default, especially from me. I think my intent was very clear, and there's no way I would have written that to mean that the people who stuck with 3.5 are afraid of change.

I'm not. 3.5 would not be nearly what it currently is without the influence of PF. You and I agree 100% on that.

Where we disagree is that you then take a wild leap and presume that without that PF option that everyone would ignore their own tastes and become RPG lemmings throwing themselves into 4E.

No. This is a distortion of my position.

I'm saying that, without Pathfinder, some of the people who were playing 3.5 would eventually be presented with reasons to switch to 4e, and some of those people would find those reasons persuasive enough to actually make the switch. And I'm saying that Pathfinder removed some of those reasons by offering them to 3.5 players in a different package - one that many of them found more appealing because it was more in line with the sort of game they liked to play.

You cannot discount the tremendous determent that not liking a game has on playing that game.

It has some level of deterrence associated with it, certainly. But I firmly believe that most gamers (the "internet hardcore" excluded) don't really give a rat's ass about the edition wars, don't really have particularly strong opinions one way or the other on 3.5/PF/4e, and if given the choice between playing their 2nd-favorite game or playing no game at all, they'll sit down and roll dice and still be pretty happy about the whole thing as long as they're cool with the people they're playing with.

I respect you opinion.
I don't respect any of the reasons you have provided.

And that's fine, but please take a moment to consider that my reasons and my argument are not as extreme as you've made them out to be. You've used a lot of very absolute terms in your rebuttals, and I don't think that this is the sort of discussions where those are appropriate.

 

[Azgulor]

Ruminations on some of Danager’s statements:

If most gamers are casual gamers that are simultaneously NOT invested enough to have a strong enough opinion about a game that they wouldn’t stop playing a game they didn’t like; why wouldn’t they continue to play a game that lacked active support? I mean if I play for the social aspect, do I really care (by way of extrapolation) if there’s new Magic booster pack, Settlers of Cattan expansion, or Risk: Lord of the Rings edition?

If I’m a casual gamer, am I really someone who’s likely to invest in a DDI subscription? Or am I more likely to buy a PHB or Essentials box and call it a day?

If the casual gamer isn’t as “invested” in the game being played as the “hardcore tabletop player – who also usually happens to be the GM”, wouldn’t it be prudent business sense to ensure that the “hardcore tabletop player” be marketed to in a such a way that the majority would wish to subscribe to your new subscription model and play your shiny new edition instead of saying "let's go get that pile of casual gamers"?

If Pathfinder appeals to the hardcore tabletop gamer more than 4e, and that gamer used to be WotC’s customer, and thus PF is therefore “hurting” 4e, how is that Paizo’s fault? Shouldn’t WotC have known who their most profitable customers were? There's an axiom that it's easier to keep an existing customer than it is to attract new customers for a reason, y'know...

If, as Umbran correctly states, companies & games rise and fall in popularity/success, why should Paizo have settled for the crumbs the GSL might have afforded them instead of developing a different business plan that address the needs/wants of the hardcore gamer while simultaneously leading them to a previously undreamed-of-level-of-success?

Finally, as a counterpoint to “what if Pathfinder hadn’t existed”, I present the following:
I think it far more likely that there will be a time when 4e is no longer actively supported and I believe that it will occur before Pathfinder is not actively supported.

I know this theory is in fact, well...., a fact because I posted it on the Internet without a single shred of proof. However, it is my opinion, and should therefore be taken as fact. I’ll pretend not to notice that even God doesn’t get cut that kind of slack these days, but in preparation of our eventual assimilation into the digital consciousness, I think everyone should just take it on faith that it is true.

Carry on, citizens...

 

[Votan]

Folks said that back in the 1990s, with White Wolf. But, when 3e rolled around, D&D was once again the 800 lb. gorilla.

I think there's a basic failure of logic in saying, in one breath, "Hey, look how unexpected changes happen!" and in the next saying, "This will never change."

Companies rise and fall and rise again. Games come, go, and revive. If the world isn't static, then it *isn't static*, and no particular pattern can be relied upon.

If WotC (or, since we don't know the future, some other company) is smart, and makes a really good game, and markets it well, and other companies are experiencing a lack of inspiration at the time, resurgence to market domination is entirely possible.

It is true that the "brand strength" of D&D make it a constant contender for a come-back after a period of stagnation. It is also the case that WotC is trying to find new channels for the game. While I have not been a fan of the specific decisions that they have tried, recently, that sort of approach can also really pay off.

In the long run these strengths make it hard to write D&D off.

While I am a pathfinder fan, Paizo is just reaching the "rules bloat" stage now (in terms of the number of books aimed at character creation -- now 4) and it will be interesting to see if they manage to avoid the issues that this brought in 3.5E or not. Paizo is a good company and I would never bet against them but it is a new phase for the company.

So you are right -- much can change. Heck, White Wolf could still make a come-back (spurred on by a success in another form of media, for example).

 

[Aberzanzorax]

Folks said that back in the 1990s, with White Wolf. But, when 3e rolled around, D&D was once again the 800 lb. gorilla.

I think there's a basic failure of logic in saying, in one breath, "Hey, look how unexpected changes happen!" and in the next saying, "This will never change."

Companies rise and fall and rise again. Games come, go, and revive. If the world isn't static, then it *isn't static*, and no particular pattern can be relied upon.

If WotC (or, since we don't know the future, some other company) is smart, and makes a really good game, and markets it well, and other companies are experiencing a lack of inspiration at the time, resurgence to market domination is entirely possible.

This is true.


Also true, however, is that if "Happy Days" somehow became old and "Joni loves Chachi" (sp) became the "bees knees"...then something has gone awry.


I'm attempting to point out that it's one thing for Lost to supersede The Tonight Show, and a very different thing for Angel to supersede Buffy the Vampire Slayer.


It is common for competitors to vie for top position.

It is uncommon for spinoffs to supercede the source from which they've spunoff.



It is very rare for a spinoff to be better than the source.

 

[BryonD]

No.

Then please explain your prior point to which I posed this question. Because if you are saying enough people DID try it, then you prior point seems lacking.

Unless they have another overriding reason for playing it, like the fact that 4e is the only game in their area, or because they like official support over dead games (remember, we were discussing a hypothetical situation in which Pathfinder RPG never happened), or because their friends convinced them to give it another shot, or...

I'm not talking about "giving it a shot". I gave it a shot, a ton of people "gave it a shot". I'm talking about being an on-going player that supports the system. And, no, I don't believe those other so-called overriding reasons will cause any meaningful number of people to play a game they don't like. (Though I find it highly entertaining that you are arguing that 4E is hurting because people have alternatives to being compelled to play a game they don't like.)

Remember, I pointed out that:
(A) GURPS, Warhammer, and Bad Axe's early versions of Trailblazer were options. Your suggestion that there are not alternatives is simply absurd. and
(B) I pointed out the 3E fans who don't play PF STILL don't play 4E.

You don't think this supports the argument that one's personal relative opinion of a game doesn't necessarily dictate whether or not they will play that game?

You are not getting the point here.

First, lets just assume for the moment that in some alternate universe there is not a single person playing the game of their DM or groups preference despite their own. Now, let's come to another alternate universe in which 4E is clearly more popular than PF and people do sometimes play the game their group prefers. Because 4E is more popular a lot more groups are playing it. The frequency of people playing games they don't prefer will be fairly distributed across all groups so it will be much more common to find the stray PF find stuck playing 4E than a 4E player stuck in one of the less frequent PF games. And you can flip that in a universe with a more popular PF over 4E. The point is that IF you claim holds water, it will HELP the more popular game at the expense of the less popular game.

If 4E is more popular then you are claiming it is harmed by a result that in fact helps it.

If you are saying PF is more popular than 4E, then I agree with you.

I think it hurts 4e because Pathfinder is more popular amongst the hardcore tabletop gamer than it is among the casual gamer, and the DM falls into the hardcore tabletop gamer category overwhelmingly more often than your average player does. There are any number of reasons why that is the case, many of which are speculative on my part and so I won't bother discussing them here.

I thought casual DMing was a strength of 4E.

You are tap dancing more than a bit here. Do "hardcore tabletop gamers" (overall) actually prefer PF to 4E? You haven't actually said *that*. But the implication is there and your point falls apart if it isn't.

And, for the record, I agree with you. In particular I've noticed that of the people I'd considered "really good" DMs before I ever heard of 4E, roughly 90-95% have NOT switched to 4E and the rest play both. That isn't the same group as "hard core gamers", and I don't think that group is AS skewed, but it isn't far behind. As you said "overwhelmingly" is a good word.

But, the flip side doesn't apply. I won't claim that PF is "overwhelming" amongst causal players. But I've seen no evidence that 4E has any lion's share there either. I'd tag casual as a wash and hard core as big win PF.

There is a difference between not liking a game, and liking a game less than another game. It stands to reason that a huge number of Pathfinder players (or 3.5 players, as the case may be) don't actively dislike 4e, but instead merely prefer 3.5 or Pathfinder.

I agree that there is a difference. And there probably is a huge number of PF fans who, like me, don't actively dislike 4E. But, there is also a HUGE number who really do "DISLIKE" 4E. You can't get around that.

It is entirely reasonable that, in our Pathfinder-less example, a person could try 4e and decide he likes 3.5 better (even if he doesn't dislike 4e). He might eventually decide, however, that the difference between the two is outweighed by the ever-increasing active support for the current edition, and grow tired of the stagnant 3.5. Or his tastes may change. Or he may discover he didn't get a good look at 4e the first time around. Or his friends may want to play 4e. Or any number of things.

A person's initial decision to continue playing 3.5 over 4e does not in any way guarantee that they will never make the switch to 4e.

What I'm saying, here, is that the fact that Pathfinder was created removed some of those reasons a player might eventually make the switch - active support, an end to stagnation, etc. This is turn undoubtedly led to some people - who might have otherwise eventually switched to 4e for those reasons - instead switching to Pathfinder.

You are still ignoring GURPS, Warhammer, Hero, etc... You are even ignoring NOT playing.

And the flip side of your argument remains: If 4E has attracted throngs of fans there would not have been a foundation begging for a PF to happen. The market was there.

Not necessarily, since (again) some of the reasons for this migration were obviated by Pathfinder's creation. The ones remaining with 3.5 are doing so because, clearly, the prospect of a currently-supported game is not a large concern for them. They would have to be provided with other reasons to switch.

Now you are just talking is circles. You flat out said that without Pathfinder people would switch to 4E. Need for support is NOT the controlling factor for these non-PF players. Go ask them. They don't like PF. They are a perfectly valid control group. Declaring the ENTIRE group invalid without any basis is CLASSIC sour grapes.

If you can agree that this ENTIRE group isn't swayed by the lack of support then you have no basis to claim that any meaningful group of the PF fans would be any different.

I don't think that you have any way of knowing this, and I've actually heard of some people who have switched directly from 3.5 to 4e in the last two years.

I'm sure you have. I made no claim that no one has switched from 3.5 to 4E in the past two years. I know of some. a LOT of people have turned away from 4E in the past two years. The NET change is exactly as I describe it.

I really don't think that this is the case for most people. I think that most people have nowhere near the strong opinions about Game X or Game Y that your average internet edition warrior does. I think your average tabletop gamer is way more casual than you give them credit for, and plays primarily as a social experience (and is accordingly flexible to the desires of his gaming group). I think it is very unfortunate that there undoubtedly are some people like you describe, who would give up a hobby before playing a game they like perhaps a little less than another, but I don't think they make up the huge group you must think they do.

I don't think there are, really. The alternatives are basically unadvertised outside the internet and a (woefully small) word of mouth basis. They don't have anywhere near the level of support that either D&D or Pathfinder have. They might be great from a gameplay standpoint, but if that's all that it took for a game to be popular I think the hobby would look very different right now.

HEH

So you are brushing off the ENTIRE RPG industry now?

Ok. I guess your position forces you into that corner.

I'm sorry you choose to see it that way, but that is absolutely not how it was intended (and I actually don't think it's even supported by a liberal reading of what I wrote). I simply meant that those who stuck with 3.5 did so because they liked 3.5, and were comfortable with it, and when the option arose for them to move to a supported game that was very, very similar to the unsupported game they were already playing, many of them made the logical decision to jump to Pathfinder.

Look at what you actually wrote and you will see I gave a fair interpretation of the words. If you say you didn't mean it that way I accept that. God knows I've posted things that didn't come out right at all.

But, again, BEFORE PF was announced there was a major chuck of audience looking for something other than 4E. Calling it simple comfort fails to read the market correctly. It was not "I'm happy here", it was "I don't have interest in going THERE". The "edition wars" significantly predate PF.

No. This is a distortion of my position.

I'm saying that, without Pathfinder, some of the people who were playing 3.5 would eventually be presented with reasons to switch to 4e, and some of those people would find those reasons persuasive enough to actually make the switch. And I'm saying that Pathfinder removed some of those reasons by offering them to 3.5 players in a different package - one that many of them found more appealing because it was more in line with the sort of game they liked to play.

Well yeah, they played the game that was more like the game they wanted to play. If 4E had *been* that game they wanted to play things would be completely different.

It has some level of deterrence associated with it, certainly. But I firmly believe that most gamers (the "internet hardcore" excluded) don't really give a rat's ass about the edition wars, don't really have particularly strong opinions one way or the other on 3.5/PF/4e, and if given the choice between playing their 2nd-favorite game or playing no game at all, they'll sit down and roll dice and still be pretty happy about the whole thing as long as they're cool with the people they're playing with.

And that's fine, but please take a moment to consider that my reasons and my argument are not as extreme as you've made them out to be. You've used a lot of very absolute terms in your rebuttals, and I don't think that this is the sort of discussions where those are appropriate.

You are whitewashing. Even just sticking in the "2nd-favorite" is a major faulty presumption.

You are way undercounting the active dislike population.
And on top of that you are rounding the differences in preference far to charitably. Even after the dislike crowd there are so many people out there for whom there are four or five better options that the chances of a whole group agreeing "yeah, lets spend time playing our 6th favorite game" is nil.


You call me absolute, but you are the one dismissing the entire industry. That is just silly.

And even if you focus on casual gamers, if you are counting on casual players who don't care as you fan base, you don't have much to work with.
And casual players may be more than happy to play 2nd favorite, but they will still prefer 1st favorite.

If 4E had been 1st favorite for a hell of a lot more people, ever bit of this would have never happened in the first place.

Your argument is built around casual fans playing their second favorite game. That speaks volumes.

 

[carmachu]

Everything I've seen over the last three years seemed to indicate that, although sales of 4th Edition have dropped off significantly recently, taken all together initial and subsequent 4e releases sold more than 3.0 and 3.5 combined.

I have to see that. NOTHING I have seen has remotely shown that 4e sales have hit the 3.0 sales when released. Let alone including 3.5 items.

3.0 was the high point, as Goodman pointed out, a perfect storm that folks were ready for alot of change, that drew players back in. Where as the split because of the OGL/GSL fiasco sheered off a number of old players and didnt quite bring in the new.

 

[Dannager]

Then please explain your prior point to which I posed this question. Because if you are saying enough people DID try it, then you prior point seems lacking.

My "prior point" was that I don't believe that most gaming groups have the knowledge, inclination, or time to explore the sea of fringe gaming options available to them as an alternative to Pathfinder or D&D.

I'm not talking about "giving it a shot". I gave it a shot, a ton of people "gave it a shot". I'm talking about being an on-going player that supports the system.

So am I. I was simply providing reasons for which a 3.5 player might eventually decide to play 4e again. Whether or not he becomes an ongoing player is another matter, but it's certainly possible that he will. I've heard of tons of people who did exactly that (dismiss 4e after their first experience with it, then try it a year or two later and suddenly enjoy the hell out of it).

And, no, I don't believe those other so-called overriding reasons will cause any meaningful number of people to play a game they don't like.

That's fine. I really don't feel that this is an outlandish claim. I'm basically saying nothing more than that opinions can change, and that people play games for reasons other than the fact that the game in question is their favorite game ever.

(Though I find it highly entertaining that you are arguing that 4E is hurting because people have alternatives to being compelled to play a game they don't like.)

Why do you find this highly entertaining? 4e is hurting because it has an actively supported competitor. Is this truly something that you don't believe, or is this just disagreement for its own sake?

Remember, I pointed out that:
(A) GURPS, Warhammer, and Bad Axe's early versions of Trailblazer were options. Your suggestion that there are not alternatives is simply absurd. and

I do not believe that Trailblazer is an alternative to 3.5 in the same way that Pathfinder is an alternative to 3.5. If you do, that's up to you to reconcile.

(B) I pointed out the 3E fans who don't play PF STILL don't play 4E.

Sure, some do. Hell, I've run 4e games for people who would have rather been playing 3e or Pathfinder.

So, I mean, there goes that argument.

You are not getting the point here.

The point is as follows:

1. People have many reasons for playing a game. "It's my favorite game," is one of those reasons, along with many others. Not all of those reasons have to be present in order for a person to play a game.

2. Active support is a major draw for a game. This is pretty much inarguable, and is the sole reason Pathfinder RPG exists - Paizo created it so that their adventure path customers would have a currently-supported system with which to play their adventures. We can safely file "active support" under the reasons for which people play certain games.

3. When 4e came along, 3.5 was no longer supported. Some people chose to keep playing 3.5 instead of 4e, because they liked 3.5 more than 4e. Eventually (and we know this to be true because you and I have both seen it with our own eyes on this very forum on numerous occasions), some of those 3.5 players would eventually end up playing 4e, for any of the reasons alluded to in point #1.

4. Given that "active support" is one of those reasons, we can agree that some of the people who would eventually migrate from 3.5 to 4e would list "active support" among their reasons for doing so.

5. Pathfinder is an actively supported game. Someone who might have previously moved to 4e from 3.5 because 4e provides active support now has the option of moving to Pathfinder instead.

6. Since we already know that these people prefer 3.5 to 4e, it stands to reason that they would prefer Pathfinder to 4e (it is universally accepted that Pathfinder more closely resembles 3.5 than 4e does). Accordingly, if they were willing to make the switch to 4e, they should also be willing to make the switch to Pathfinder.

7. Given that Pathfinder undoubtedly is a more enticing choice of game to them than 4e is, rational choice leads us to conclude that these people would switch from 3.5 to Pathfinder instead of switching from 3.5 to 4e. Thus, Pathfinder's existence has prevented these players from becoming a part of 4e's ongoing player base.

I cannot explain it more clearly than that, I'm afraid.

I thought casual DMing was a strength of 4E.

It is. Ease of DMing is a strength of a number of systems. Ease of DMing alone does not guarantee popularity with DMs.

You are tap dancing more than a bit here. Do "hardcore tabletop gamers" (overall) actually prefer PF to 4E?

I believe that the hardcore tabletop gaming crowd (read: the guys who are so into it that they come online to talk about it with other people who are so into it that they come online to talk about it) prefers Pathfinder to a disproportionate degree when compared to the tabletop RPG player base as a whole. And, of these people, most are DMs.

But, the flip side doesn't apply. I won't claim that PF is "overwhelming" amongst causal players. But I've seen no evidence that 4E has any lion's share there either. I'd tag casual as a wash and hard core as big win PF.

I think that this is an easy mistake to make (and one a lot of Pathfinder enthusiasts clearly do). The player base for D&D is much, much larger than you give it credit for, and I don't think the majority of D&D gamers have more than a passing awareness that something called Pathfinder exists.

I agree that there is a difference. And there probably is a huge number of PF fans who, like me, don't actively dislike 4E. But, there is also a HUGE number who really do "DISLIKE" 4E. You can't get around that.

Yes, there are, and no, you can't. But I'm really not talking about those people (aside from the handful who really dislike 4e but will still play it anyway and grumble about it the whole time).

You are still ignoring GURPS, Warhammer, Hero, etc... You are even ignoring NOT playing.

All of these are options. I don't believe that they are particularly popular options, and I don't think that they would be particularly popular options if Pathfinder didn't exist.

And the flip side of your argument remains: If 4E has attracted throngs of fans there would not have been a foundation begging for a PF to happen. The market was there.

Absolutely. I'm not doubting that. But all this proves is that people want to have their cake and eat it too. If Pathfinder hadn't panned out, a lot of them would have lowered their expectations accordingly.

Now you are just talking is circles. You flat out said that without Pathfinder people would switch to 4E.

Yes, some of them would.

Need for support is NOT the controlling factor for these non-PF players.

Obviously. If need for support were a big deal for these people, they'd be playing a game with a high level of support, like D&D or Pathfinder.

Go ask them. They don't like PF.

Some of them don't. Some of them are ambivalent. Some like it but don't want to invest in a whole new set of books for what they feel is a marginal improvement. Some have other reasons. You keep casting groups in monolithic lighting: "3.5 players don't like Pathfinder," "Pathfinder didn't steal any market from D&D," etc.

I'm sure you have. I made no claim that no one has switched from 3.5 to 4E in the past two years. I know of some. a LOT of people have turned away from 4E in the past two years. The NET change is exactly as I describe it.

I'm pretty sure that you have absolutely no way of knowing what the net change actually is, at all.

HEH

So you are brushing off the ENTIRE RPG industry now?

No, just the niche games. Which, of course, is most of them.

Ok. I guess your position forces you into that corner.

It doesn't force me into anything. I don't believe that non-D&D RPGs come anywhere close to the level of popularity of D&D-based RPGs, and that the only current D&D-based RPG with any substantial level of exposure (that isn't actually a D&D game itself) is Pathfinder.

Look at what you actually wrote and you will see I gave a fair interpretation of the words.

I did, when I responded. I still don't think there's any way you could have reached that conclusion unless you came into this discussion actually believing that to be my position.

If you say you didn't mean it that way I accept that. God knows I've posted things that didn't come out right at all.

But, again, BEFORE PF was announced there was a major chuck of audience looking for something other than 4E.

Sure. I don't think they'd figured out what they were going to do yet, though (as a collective group). Most people were saying they'd just stick with 3.5 (or whatever D&D they'd been playing).

Calling it simple comfort fails to read the market correctly. It was not "I'm happy here", it was "I don't have interest in going THERE". The "edition wars" significantly predate PF.

Right, it's "I don't have interest in going there, and I'm happy here, so I don't really see the need to look elsewhere right now."

Well yeah, they played the game that was more like the game they wanted to play. If 4E had *been* that game they wanted to play things would be completely different.

Sure. That's neither here nor there, though. Different discussion for a different day.

You are whitewashing. Even just sticking in the "2nd-favorite" is a major faulty presumption.

It was an example for the sake of illustration. You can replace 2nd-favorite with 3rd-favorite or 4th-favorite or on down the list. The important thing is for you to understand that not being 1st-favorite does not mean being disliked.

You are way undercounting the active dislike population.

I don't think I am. There's a lot of them, but there's a lot of other people too.

And on top of that you are rounding the differences in preference far to charitably. Even after the dislike crowd there are so many people out there for whom there are four or five better options that the chances of a whole group agreeing "yeah, lets spend time playing our 6th favorite game" is nil.

Groups don't really have collective 6th-favorites.

You call me absolute, but you are the one dismissing the entire industry. That is just silly.

I dismissed the less popular ones because they're (way) less popular, and because I don't believe that any of them would have risen to the position that Pathfinder did in the event of its nonexistence. That's all.

And even if you focus on casual gamers, if you are counting on casual players who don't care as you fan base, you don't have much to work with.
And casual players may be more than happy to play 2nd favorite, but they will still prefer 1st favorite.

Absolutely.

If 4E had been 1st favorite for a hell of a lot more people, ever bit of this would have never happened in the first place.

Absolutely.

Your argument is built around casual fans playing their second favorite game. That speaks volumes.

I don't think it speaks any more than that I think people will play their second-favorite game under certain circumstances.

I think the majority of our disagreement comes down to differing perceptions of how large certain groups of gamers are. I don't think there's anything that either of us can do to convince the other that their perception of the community is far off, so it's probably best just to leave it at that.