Pathfinder 1E This is why pathfinder has been successful.

[SlyDoubt]

D&D isn't just used to refer to that specific game. It's often used to refer to fantasy roleplaying games in general.

PFRPG clearly targeted people coming from 3.5. They even state it and it's all OGL material. I don't think it tries to appear as D&D the brand so much as it appears as a fantasy rpg. Which in doing so invariably means it is connected to D&D. You can't escape that.

The cover thing is pushing it a bit. It's showing an iconic sort of scenario to anyone who has played a fantasy rpg. Is that also an iconic D&D scene? Absolutely but that's more because D&D and fantasy rpg are so similar to each other.

 

[lucek]

Let's compare how the core book of several games compare. Here is the first thing the game designers thought to put in their books,

Pathfinder,

It started in early 1997. Steve Winter, Creative Director at TSR, told a few of us designers and editors that we should start thinking about a new edition of the world’s most popular roleplaying game. For almost three years, a team
of us worked on developing a new rules set that built upon the foundation of the 25 years prior. Released in 2000, 3rd Edition started a new era. A few years later, a different set of designers made updates to the game in the form of 3.5.

Today, the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game carries on that same tradition as the next step in the progression. Now, that might seem inappropriate, controversial, or even a little blasphemous, but it’s still true. The Pathfinder RPG uses the foundations of the game’s long history to offer something new and fresh. It’s loyal to its roots, even if those roots are—in a fashion—borrowed.

The game’s designer, Jason Bulmahn, did an amazing job creating innovative new mechanics for the game, but he started with the premise that he already had a pretty good game to build upon. He didn’t wipe the slate clean and start over. Jason had no desire to alienate the countless fans who had invested equally countless hours playing the game for the last 35 years. Rather, he wanted to empower them with the ability to build on what they’d already created, played, and read. He didn’t want to take anything away from them—only to give them even more.

One of the best things about the Pathfinder RPG is that it really necessitates no “conversion” of your existing books and magazines. That shelf you have full of great adventures and sourcebooks (many of them very likely from Paizo)? You can still use everything on it with the Pathfinder RPG. In fact, that was what convinced me to come on board the Pathfinder RPG ship. I didn’t want to see all the great stuff that had been produced thus far swept under the rug.

Now, my role as “design consultant” was a relatively small one. Make no mistake: the Pathfinder RPG is Jason’s baby. While my role was to read over material and give feedback, mostly I just chatted with Jason, relating old 3rd Edition design process stories. Jason felt it valuable to know why things were done the way they were. What was the thinking behind the magic item creation feats? Had we ever considered doing experience points a different way? How did the Treasure Value per Encounter chart evolve?
And so on.

It was an interesting time. Although I sometimes feel I have gone on at length about every facet of 3rd Edition design in forums, in interviews, and at conventions, Jason managed to ask questions I’d never been asked before. Together, we really probed the ins and outs of the game, which I think is important to do before you start making changes. You’ve got to know where you’ve been before youcan figure out where you’re going. This is particularly true when you start messing around with a game as robust and tightly woven as 3rd Edition. The game’s design is an intricate enough matrix that once you change one thing, other aspects of the game that you never even suspected were related suddenly change as well. By the time we were done hashing things out, we’d really put the original system through its paces and conceived of some interesting new ideas. Jason used that as a springboard and then went and did all the hard work while I sat back and watched with a mix of awe and excitement as the various playtest and preview versions of the game came out.

The Pathfinder RPG offers cool new options for characters. Rogues have talents. Sorcerers have bloodline powers. It fixes a few areas that proved troublesome over the last few years. Spells that turn you into something else are restructured. Grappling is simplified and rebalanced. But it’s also still the game that you love, and have loved for so long, even if it was called by a different name.

I trust the gang at Paizo to bear the game’s torch well. They respect the game’s past as much as its future. They understand its traditions. It was my very distinct and sincere pleasure to play a small role in the Pathfinder RPG’s development. You hold in your hands a truly great game that I’ve no doubt will provide you with hours and hours of fun.

Enjoy!

Monte Cook

Vampire the Requiem,

Would you like to dance?” she asked me. I died that night.

It was cold, winter, but though the outside cold never touched us, the inside cold eclipsed the warmth of the fire blazing on her terrace, growing outward to meet the chill of the season on its own terms. We danced, my hand on the small of her back, yet she led me nonetheless. The music came from... somewhere. Strings. A piano. That was all. I never saw the players, though I heard their tune. It was a strange piece to dance to: a dirge, almost a requiem.


The wind moved the curtains. We danced and she moved in close, as if to kiss my neck. It was not a kiss, however, but the sweetest damnation. She took my life, then, and I felt the vitality ebb from my throat in a crimson bloom.

And then she gave it back.

Dread

I remember watching the mugs as I gingerly attempted to carry the coffee to the bereaved, without spilling it on their immaculate living room carpet. Within a breath, the steam disappeared and the dark fluid frosted over. A chill crept across my neck and I looked up to see poor, little Lucy standing just outside the window. For a moment it all seemed a horrible mistake. It was not her body the police found alongside that hateful highway. She had simply been lost, as we first suspected, and just now found her way home.

I was about to relay the good news to the Kohlmans and the reverend when I saw their faces blanch as they stared at me ... rather, just beyond me. That was when I realized that it wasn’t Lucy outside, but her reflection against the darkened window. Soon I would learn that both the police and I were correct. That was Lucy’s body in the ditch, and she did indeed find her way home.

Engine Heart

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound; And frogs in the pool singing at night, And wild plum trees in tremulous white; Robins will wear their feathery fire, Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire; And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done. Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, If mankind perished utterly; And Spring herself when she woke at dawn Would scarcely know that we were gone.

It turned the scrap of paper over and quickly scanned the back side. None of the information was directed at it, so the robot dropped the paper and let the wind carry it across the lot, where it flapped against the side of the single remaining Roadboy. The boxy triwheeler squonked in surprise and paused for a moment, before it slid forward in its continued attempt to remelt old asphalt in the section of the parking lot deemed most important to maintain.

The lot helper hadn’t always been capable of littering. The ManageMaster system had long ago decided that the store had better things to use its daily draw from the four remaining solar panels on than recharging the escort every time it brought in a load of trash (and for the first thirty or forty years after the emergency rewrite, there had been so much trash).

The lot helper now spent its day-cycles simply patrolling the cratered remains of the parking lot, accosting the deer that sometimes passed through in the hope that they needed help entering the SavR-Mart.

From this we can clearly see were the authors intensions lie.

Ok. That wasn't fare to PF. Let's give it a 2nd shot,

from page 7 of Pathfinder core book.

The dragon roared in triumph as Valeros collapsed into the snow, blood spurting from the terrible wound in his belly. Kyra rushed to his side, praying that she wasn’t too late to save his life.

“I’ll hold the beast off!” Seoni cried as she stepped up to the dragon, her staff flaring with defensive fire. Merisiel looked to the hulking dragon, then at the delicate sorcerer, and shook her head sadly.

The adventure had just barely begun, and judging by this fight alone, they weren’t getting paid enough for the job.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

The first example is the best writing of any of your quotes - it explains why, without having the over wrought prose of Vampire, or the pseudo noir of Dread and Engine Heart.

Not the reaction you want, I am certain, but I will take they 'why' over the prosey fanfic, every time. Mind, the example chapter fiction from Pathfinder isn't great, either, but....

The Auld Grump

 

[Rogue Agent]

That's not true. Not saying your LGS might not have had 3.5 books, but they weren't supposed to. WotC ordered all 3.5 books removed from the distribution channel, including books in existing LGSs, a year before Pathfinder was released.

Um... No. That didn't happen.

WotC may have stopped shipping books to distributors, but they never tried to recall product.

D&D is the only fantasy RPG, and indeed the only fantasy fiction, that used the notion of chromatic dragons. Even to someone who didn't know about 3.5, a poster in a store showing some adventurers fighting a red dragon might scream "D&D".

Wait... what?

 

[pemerton]

That's not true. Not saying your LGS might not have had 3.5 books, but they weren't supposed to. WotC ordered all 3.5 books removed from the distribution channel, including books in existing LGSs, a year before Pathfinder was released.

I don't know the details of the contractual relationship between WotC and its distributors. But my understanding of retail game stores is that they purchase their stock from distributors, and take free and clear title. At which point WotC would have no basis for recalling it.

When it comes to bookstores, my understanding is that they generally take stock on consignment (and so are entitled to return it if unsold). I don't know if that contract permits the supplier to recall stock, but I would be a little bit surprised if it did.

Um... No. That didn't happen.

WotC may have stopped shipping books to distributors, but they never tried to recall product.

That fits better with my undestanding of the contractual relationships, yes.

Wait... what?

Obviously I'm out of touch with fantasy (or at least fantasy illustrations)! In the hobbit, though, Smaug is not red like a D&D red dragon, is he? He's described as red-gold. Maybe my conception of the "blockiness" of D&D dragons is mistaken, but it's never occured to me that, under the right viewing conditions, a red dragon would be mistaken for a gold one! Whereas Smaug, presumably, could be?

 

[pemerton]

PFRPG clearly targeted people coming from 3.5. They even state it

Which is my main point. On a widely distributed promotional poster they refer to the game as "3.5 Thriving". In the preface quoted by lucek, they have Monte Cook describing the game as a compatible successor to 3.5.

Do me it beggars belief that this is in dispute! Paizo didn't create the market for their product. They captured it from their main business rival - WotC - by beating WotC at their own game.

 

[S'mon]

The legal structure of PF and OSRIC etc might be similar (though that itself is arguable, as there is a respectable view that OSRIC is not lawful under the OGL)

WotC/Hasbro's IP lawyers would appear to disagree with you, given that no breach-of-OGL notification has been issued. I have not seen any 'respectable' (ie argued with evidence) basis for such a claim, just some vague spluttering or from Clark Peterson of Necromancer a view that it was 'not nice'. Maybe there's a respectable view that it's not nice (I disagree, the Mongoose Pocket Players Handbook and similar SRD cut & pastes are much more 'not nice' IMO), but that is not the same as there being a respectable view that it's not lawful.

 

[S'mon]

The OSR retroclones are about hobby gaming. PF is a commercial product. The OSR retroclones are not (Castles and Crusades apart, but for that very reason - plus others - I woudn't categorise it as a retroclone).

There used to be lots of OSRIC adventures on sale in my FLGS, in prominent lower shelves that are now occupied by 4e stuff - Pathfinder having now occupied the prime upper-shelf real estate that 4e had previously had, 4e was relegated to the lower tier in 2010 I think. Anyway, that was the whole point of OSRIC originally - to support the commercial sale of 1e AD&D adventures. IMO the OSRIC publishers of that era (several years ago) may have made a mistake in only publishing high-level adventures suitable for long-running 1e campaigns, rather than level 1 introductory stuff, but they certainly were publishing stuff.

I think the gap between 'hobby' and 'professional' is smaller than you think. Paizo is clearly a big professional company, but the gap between 'hobby' Goblinoid Games - which sells Labyrinth Lord at my FLGS, I bought it there - and 'professional' Troll Lord Games, is pretty tiny.

 

[Imaro]

Since referencing the 3.5 system (as opposed to D&D proper) is, in the oppinion of some posters, drawing on the name recognition of D&D itself...I'm confused on how one let's it's consumers know that it is using the 3.5 version of the (open) d20 system... without in any way refering to 3.5 (especially seeing as there is more than one version of the d20 system)? IMO, this is clearly using system recognition and not D&D name recognition since no mention of D&D specifically is made by Paizo. That this is in dispute is what I find beyond belief.

I also find it amazing how the original statement has been willfully twisted by certain posters to obfuscate what was originaly stated... which was that Pathfinder drew on D&D name recognition as opposed to system recognition. Now we're discussing how Pathfinder's art suggests D&D and it's market was once D&D's as proof it used D&D name recognition... Huh??

Oh, and as far as the "red dragon battle scene" goes apparently Palladium also draws on the name recognition of D&D...

 

[pemerton]

that was the whole point of OSRIC originally - to support the commercial sale of 1e AD&D adventures.

I was under the impression that those adventures were being produced mainly by Expeditious Retreat and Goodman. Were there others?

WotC/Hasbro's IP lawyers would appear to disagree with you, given that no breach-of-OGL notification has been issued. I have not seen any 'respectable' (ie argued with evidence) basis for such a claim, just some vague spluttering or from Clark Peterson of Necromancer a view that it was 'not nice'.

He called it not just "not nice" but infringing. I think (maybe I should say I infer) that his view is based on violation of the Product Identity provisions of the OGL.

You're a better commercial and IP lawyer than me. So is Clark Peterson, I suspect. Is jurisdiction relevant? I have a vague recollection that OSRIC's publisher is in the UK, not the US, and that that was thought to be of some signficance at the time.