Chris Perkins now Senior Producer, D&D RPG

Actually, I wish Paizo would go with the Delve format. It encourages dynamic encounter design with varied elements, and I think that encounter design is one of the few areas that the Paizo adventures I've read could improve on. I love the Delve format, because I buy adventures to run them. How well they "read" is of secondary importance to how well they run, and the Delve format makes running them easier on me as a DM.

The delve format limits adventure design too much. I agree that Paizo's combat encounters could be improved a bit (particularly compared to their absolutely superb NPCs, background information, and overall adventure structure), but I really don't think the delve is the way to go.

As I always say. Put the (mechanical) strengths of WotC and the (storytelling) strengths of Paizo together, and you have a relentless war machine with only one purpose - bringing the best possible game experience you can have.

(We kinda had that with 3E and Paizo Dungeons, to be honest. But both sides still had to learn... And that learning from WotC resulted in 4E, and the learning from Paizo resulted in the Pathfinder adventure paths...)
 

log in or register to remove this ad

Put the (mechanical) strengths of WotC and the (storytelling) strengths of Paizo together


I would really love this. I dislike 3.x/Pathfinder, mechanically, but I love the way Paizo writes their adventures. I like 4E, mechanically, but I dislike the way WotC writes their adventures. If someone started putting out adventures that managed to combine these two things that I like, I'd be a customer of theirs very quickly.
 

First, Chris Perkins is a machine and will kick a$$ at what ever he works on. Glad to see him movin' up.

Second, Orc Bacon. Apparently there was Orc Bacon sold in Germany at one point. This needs to make a comeback

Mmmm, bacon -

Anyways, I hope Derren is wrong, no offense to Derren, about the Peter Principle. If he can transfer style guidelines into the overall design process, it might make all of his fans happy.
 


As I always say. Put the (mechanical) strengths of WotC and the (storytelling) strengths of Paizo together, and you have a relentless war machine with only one purpose - bringing the best possible game experience you can have.

(We kinda had that with 3E and Paizo Dungeons, to be honest. But both sides still had to learn... And that learning from WotC resulted in 4E, and the learning from Paizo resulted in the Pathfinder adventure paths...)

Absolutely.

WotC basically admits its adventures and (pseudo-) adventure paths aren't up to scratch (Rodney Thompson's thread is evidence of that).

If I owned/ran WotC and was uncertain about opening up the GSL I would be negotiating with Paizo and/or Necromancer Games for a temporary licence for a series of adventures/adventure path where the licence specifically allowed each party to retain its IP (or whatever it is the pettifoggers-in-charge are quibbling over).

Why not experiment with something like this?
 

As I always say. Put the (mechanical) strengths of WotC and the (storytelling) strengths of Paizo together, and you have a relentless war machine with only one purpose - bringing the best possible game experience you can have.

Actually? No. It doesn't work in the medium to long term. The problem is that the "sell lots of Rules" approach to RPG sales ends up breaking your ability to sell compatible adventures. The problem with this approach is demonstrated with what happened to the compatibility of 3.5 and Dungeon Magazine.

When you are Wizards of the Coast, your view your sales to be driven by the release of more and more rules hardcovers. For the most part, these books are directed at the broad mass of players.

When you are Paizo and selling adventures, you are already targeting your products at a smaller slice of the market (DMs). In order to maximize your ability to sell to that smaller slice, you need to maximize your compatibility of assumed Rules - which means you target the Core Rules only. And that's the problem in all of this.

So, what you had was Dungeon Magazine writing adventures based upon the Core Rules only, while at the same time, you had WotC beavering away, MONTHLY, in an attempt to break the game with more and more rules with more and more power creep.

Now, I question whether it is possible for ANY DM to keep up with the release of such new rules on an even footing with the players, who necessarily must only confine their reading and character build exploration to one or two new books...

But whatever the case, once you allow these new Rules hardcovers into the game, you increasingly lessen the utility of using published adventures. And there came a point in time (in my estimation late 2005/ early 2006), where the 3.5 game simply BROKE with the power creep presented in WotC's accessory line.

That's what happened in the final two years of Dungeon Magazine under Paizo. They put out awesome adventure Path products that were enthusiastically received by gamers. And all the while, monthly, WotC was destroying the compatibility of those adventures by releasing books which shifted the power balance in the game radically from that presented in the Core Rules. Paizo's adventure products became broken under this stress.

In the end, DMs were left with a choice: Ban the 3.5 expansion books from use at the table, or rewrite the adventures, sometimes radically, to up the power level of the foes to match the increased power brought to the table by the players.

Either way, you destroy the value in use of either the accessory Rules products or the published adventures. You cannot have it both ways -- not with the ridiculous product release schedule that WotC had in the 3.5 era -- and while it is somewhat lessened in the 4E era, I would argue that the same problem is still present in 4E.

The only way this works is if you SLOOOOOOOOOW down the release of rules, and then deem it an assumed requirement that everybody will buy and use the expansion material.

Interestingly, I asked James Jacobs specifically about this issue last week and he advised me that forthcoming Paizo Adventure Path products and their module lines for Pathfinder WILL make use of the Advanced Player's Guide within the adventure text. Paizo is making the choice to build the APG into their product lines.

Paizo is very sensitive to this issue as they know what happened to their products' compatibility during the 3.5 era. To deal with this issue, it appears that Paizo will build in the "power upgrade" that happens with release of new player material. Paizo can get away with this because they aren't releasing a new rules hardcover for players every month; instead, they are doing so only once a year.

And Paizo, this time, is the beneficiary of sales of the APG, whereas before, they couldn't make up that revenue by excluding some DMs from their market by requiring those products. (How "required" this APG material will be in terms of being able to use Paizo's APs and Modules remains to be seen, of course.)

So that's pretty much the middle ground you have to aim for. You either slow down the introduction of new player focussed rules to the pace we experienced in the 1st edition era so that you don't break your published adventures...

OR

You go Wango Zee Tango like WotC has done with 3.x and (to a somewhat lesser degree) 4.x in terms of your release schedule and say "to hell with compatibility with published adventures".

But you can't do both -- they are mutually exclusive approaches to publishing RPG products.

@Derulbaskul:
@firesnakearies:
@Mustrum_Ridcully:
 
Last edited:

I I dislike 3.x/Pathfinder, mechanically, but I love the way Paizo writes their adventures. I like 4E, mechanically, but I dislike the way WotC writes their adventures..

Quoting just to bounce off this idea and put my thoughts to ...eerrr....paper? :D

I happen to like the way 4E is written ina fluff/story context: minimal but inspirational (to me anyway). But definitely the adventures (i've bought/read) have been lackluster.

But this was a problem through 3rd edition as well, and some (many? all?) of the Paizo crew are the same whom were writing the 3E "story" as well-whether through the mags, or actual stand alone adventures and supplements. I was reminded of this when I grabbed the "egypt" Pathfinder Supplement several months back-I couldn't even get through the whole thing (and it's not very long..32 pages maybe?). I've read through some of the freebie adventures , and browsed through the Golarion book and I just don't get the "pathfinder is great at story" or "much better than WOTC" comments. I tried to see it/give them a fair shake, but I don't feel they are any better, nor much worse than WOTC at all in this area.

However, I think is particularly an issue where I'm much more divided in my old school D&D mentality with newer fangled D&D rules double personality- I cannot stand the concept of adventure paths & highly scripted adventures, or mega campaign setting details. I prefer simple site based adventures of old with little in the way of story or extended plotlines . I also prefer background and campaign material with alot of "here's whats going on now & a bunch of locations/plot ideas" vs. "here's a overly detailed history about things that are not terribly useful to an actual game" (i.e. 2E syndrome).

My point- I'd like to see WOTC improve, but going the Paizo route to me is no improvement (and thats no slight on Erik and crew, just where my tastes dramatically differ on what constitutes good D&D "story" .WOTC is a bit more on point for me in that regard )
 

But this was a problem through 3rd edition as well, and some (many? all?) of the Paizo crew are the same whom were writing the 3E "story" as well-whether through the mags, or actual stand alone adventures and supplements. I was reminded of this when I grabbed the "egypt" Pathfinder Supplement several months back-I couldn't even get through the whole thing (and it's not very long..32 pages maybe?). I've read through some of the freebie adventures , and browsed through the Golarion book and I just don't get the "pathfinder is great at story" or "much better than WOTC" comments.

That's because you are reading the wrong things. Their Chronicles and Companion lines, most especially the stuff written before the release of Pathfinder RPG (and the "Egypt" Companion product, Osirion is pre-PFRPG and is not even a Chronicles product intended solely for GMs), was fluffy and deliberately inspecific.

It's not the stuff people praise.

The stuff people praise are the Adventure Paths. That's what built -- and continues to fuel -- the adventure component of the company.

Pick up part 1 of Rise of the Runelords (.pdf only now as otherwise it's about $140 on eBay for print version), Legacy of Fire or Curse of the Crimson Throne... then you'll understand what people are talking about.

You're just not reading the right stuff to judge what the buzz is all about.
 
Last edited:

But if I don't like APs, WHY would I pick up an AP? If thats where the good stuff is, and they save the not so good stuff for their campaign setting materials...definitely not my kind of product/product line.
 

But if I don't like APs, WHY would I pick up an AP? If thats where the good stuff is, and they save the not so good stuff for their campaign setting materials...definitely not my kind of product/product line.

I didn't say it was good / not so good. You said that. The "Pathfinder is great at story" that people praise? That's the Pathfinder Adventure Path products. The rest of the Pathfinder Companion and Chronicle Product lines principally support and lend context to the story lines in their APs -- or can be used as context for user designed sandbox play.

Point is: if you are looking for the "story driven content" that Paizo is praised for - then you need to read the story driven products -- which is what their Adventure Paths are.

If you don't like APs, but bemoan the lack of "story driven content" in the products you have looked at which are not designed to "tell a story" on their own, rather, principally to support the story being told in the AP products? Huh? I think we've stumbled upon a non sequitur.

I'm curious though. How could you know that "you don't like Adventure Paths" if you haven't read one?
 
Last edited:

Remove ads

Top