Pathfinder 1E This is why pathfinder has been successful.

[The Human Target]

That's an inaccurate statement, IMO -- mainly because maybe 50% of the full body of Pathfinder rules, probably less by now, comes from the d20 SRD. Not only did they do significant changes on the base rules (with community input and playtest) but the Advanced Player's Guide, Ultimate Magic, and Ultimate Combat comprise more rules work than the Pathfinder Core book at this point. I've seen comments occasionally like this, as if the Pathfinder RPG is just some reprint like Mongoose Pocket Player Handbook or something, but it's not true. It's the whole "Ship of Theseus" thing again.

Oh for sure they added plenty of stuff.

But the base game was given to them, and given to the general public.

So to me its easier to give an altered version of that out.

 

[pemerton]

That strikes me as a weird suspicion. It could be that a lot of people do get the APs to read and plumb for ideas. I've done that with many adventures and RPGs over the years.

This came up on a thread some months ago: [MENTION=3887]Mallus[/MENTION] suggested that a lot of PF subscribers must be reading more than playing, the suggestion was queried, and then the pagecount of material that a subscriber would be getting was put forward. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I seem to recall many 100s of pages of scenarios per year.

EDIT: Here is the relevant sequence of posts from that earlier thread (which was nearly a year ago! - time flies):

It seems what Paizo's done --and more power to them for doing so-- is to successfully steal a big portion of the "D&D completist" segment away from WotC. People who are now buying adventures they won't get to run instead of books of class crunch for PC's they won't get to play.

How do you think they did this?

By producing products the higher-spending segment of the market wanted to buy.

<snip>

how many adventure paths does your average, aging, time-pressed D&D group have time to actually play out? Given the volume of material Paizo publishes, it's hardly a stretch to suggest that a portion, if not a significant portion, is, at best, being read and not played. And the same is true for WotC's books full of additional PC mechanics.

Consider for a moment the sheer volume of adventure material that Paizo puts out in a given year:

12 x 96 pp. Adventure Paths
6 x 32 pp. stand alone Modules
~25 x 16 pp. Pathfinder Society Scenarios

That's ~ 1,744 pages of adventure material per year that Paizo publishes.

Thanks for the facts and figures, SW! And Bryon scoffed at presumption that some Paizo customers might not be playing the adventures they purchased...

 

[S'mon]

Here is the relevant part of the quote:

The APs need to be written for the full RPG. We need that broad range of characters, monsters, and player options to tell those stories. And that means that we need people to play the full RPG.

To be frank, the point of the Beginner Box is to bring new players to the full RPG, and to our Adventure Paths. So once people are comfortable with the basic concepts from the Beginner Box, we want them to move to the full RPG as soon as possible​

From which I infer that they cannot make APs that will sell enough copies to be worthwhile, if they confine those APs to the Beginner Box norms. And I suspect that part of the reason for this is that more of the APs they sold are read than played, and they wouldn't read so well (to the relevant customer base) if those readers couldn't get the "full" PF/3E experience from reading through them.

Hm, I strongly suspect you are right about "more read than played!" I think Paizo came up with a wonderful way to sell an RPG/leisure magazine for £15 an issue, by packaging it as a series of adventures. The two AP issues I have, the actual adventure is less than half the content.

I wasn't expecting them to confine the AP to BB norms: the APs should be unchanged, but give a BB an expansion that lets you run the AP without needing the full core rules. Mostly this just means being able to take BB classes to 12th or 15th, and perhaps some more conversion notes - there are already some in the BB.

I have to say though, I'm tempted to see if it's possible to just use the PRD to take BB PCs above 5th level. The great beauty of the BB for me is the way it strips out cruft like Attacks of Opportunity, from one perspective those 'missing' bits could perhaps simply be treated as house rules for the main game.

 

[S'mon]

I am GLAD Paizo is successful. How many people buy their adventure paths? I think it is a big enough seller to make them money.

Let's say they have 30,000 people that are devoted to buying their adventure paths.

That pays out ~600,000 a month? That would be 7.2 million a year.

That's saying they all get the hardcopy at $20 a month.

Let's be super generous, let's say they actually have a 50,000 customer base that all buy hardcopies at $20 a month.

That's a million dollars a month? Right? That's only 12 million a year.

That looks to be in the same ballpark as what WotC makes from the D&D brand. WoTC is a bigger company - it has Magic: The Gathering - but reasonable estimates of Paizo total income look comparable to reasonable estimates of WotC D&D income. Paizo Pathfinder sells more in hobby stores & (recently) on amazon; they also have their subscription income. WoTC D&D sells second-most via hobby stores & amazon, then has significant DDi income.

 

[pemerton]

HmI wasn't expecting them to confine the AP to BB norms: the APs should be unchanged, but give a BB an expansion that lets you run the AP without needing the full core rules. Mostly this just means being able to take BB classes to 12th or 15th, and perhaps some more conversion notes - there are already some in the BB.

OK, I get that. If that isn't profitable, I would see it as tending to reinforce my intuition that the market is more a market for readership than play.

I have to say though, I'm tempted to see if it's possible to just use the PRD to take BB PCs above 5th level. The great beauty of the BB for me is the way it strips out cruft like Attacks of Opportunity, from one perspective those 'missing' bits could perhaps simply be treated as house rules for the main game.

I don't know enough about the BB to know how hard this would be.

So instead I'll take friendly issue with your description of AoOs as "cruft". In a turn-based (rather than continuous) initiative system, they're pretty important for reducing the sense of a stop-motion world.

 

[pemerton]

That looks to be in the same ballpark as what WotC makes from the D&D brand.

Areyou including novels and board games here? I would have assumed that the income from these - and especially from novels - would be more than the RPG. Maybe I'm wrong. Or do these "counterbalance" Paizo's income from its online store?

 

[S'mon]

So instead I'll take friendly issue with your description of AoOs as "cruft". In a turn-based (rather than continuous) initiative system, they're pretty important for reducing the sense of a stop-motion world.

Eh, what actually happens in 3e/PF is that people worry too much about provoking them, they lead to careful square-counting, static combat, and a much slower game. It's not quite as bad in 4e because in 4e basic attacks tend to be a smaller proportion of total hp. Then you also have the Concentration roll for casters which lets them cast in melee *anyway*.

Anyway the BB has no AoOs, but you can't cast spells (except touch attacks) or make ranged attacks while in melee. Simple, elegant & old-school.

 

[S'mon]

Areyou including novels and board games here? I would have assumed that the income from these - and especially from novels - would be more than the RPG. Maybe I'm wrong. Or do these "counterbalance" Paizo's income from its online store?

My ballpark guesstimates would include board games but not novels. From what Ryan Dancey has said, total D&D brand income excluding computer games looks to be around $25 million pa, give or take $10 million. Paizo's total income looks to be in the $12-$20 million range, though of course only they know for sure.

 

[Maggan]

The idea that you don't make money on adventures is ... misguided.

In my case, the idea is based on actual experience working with Drakar och Demoner, the dominant RPG in Sweden during the 80's and 90's (over 100 000 copies of the core rules were sold).

Supplemental rulebooks sold 5 times the amount of what the adventures did. In comparison many of the adventures were loss leaders to push the rules.

So, there was a mix of rules and adventures, and rules sold the best by a wide margin. Also a magazine akin to White Dwarf was produced, which had middling sales numbers, but a vocal fan base.

Now, Paizo has managed to build a solid business on selling adventures. Kudos to them, but I see them as an exception, which can hopefully serve to show others how it can be done.

But I still think that the maxim "adventures don't sell" holds, if compared to sales of rules.

/M

 

[Maggan]

This came up on a thread some months ago: [MENTION=3887]Mallus[/MENTION] suggested that a lot of PF subscribers must be reading more than playing

I remember a thread where someone from Paizo, I think it was James Jacobs, basically confirmed that they write adventures partly from that assupmtion: they should read well, since many just read them and don't run them.

Now, many do run them, I'm running Kingmaker now, but there are a lot of stuff in there I consider waste of space for me when running it, but great for me when reading it.

/M