D&D 5E Reasons Why My Interest in 5e is Waning

[DaveMage]

They do seem to know how to treat customers, attract and treat talented employees, and how to crank out content. Module-wise the content cranking is stellar. Splat-wise, there is a crunch creep issue than may catch up to them as the years go by. Avoiding the pitfalls of TSR in the long-term will be their greatest challenge.

I like Pathfinder, but crunch "creep"? Have you seen Mythic Adventures? It's a world-record setting, grand canyon-pole-vaulting long jump! Forget about "creep"!

 

[chriton227]

I thought we were talking about DnD?

If DnD was just the company that made it then it died in the 90s.

No, my original comment was about the Open Gaming License, a specific legal agreement pertaining to the authorized use of intellectual property owned by Wizards of the Coast, and whether Wizards of the Coast will be willing to produce another similar license for the D&D 5e intellectual property given the financial and market share repercussions of the release of the original licensing agreement. You are the one who decided that I was talking about the D&D TRPG, and then tried to claim that Pathfinder and D&D are the same thing, which from a intellectual property, business, and branding viewpoint they are not. There is a reason why you don't see mind flayers, beholders, and githyanki in Pathfinder. In fact, Paizo has invested a lot into building the Pathfinder brand, and I'm sure Paizo would prefer that people refer to their TRPG as Pathfinder, not D&D.

 

[Shasarak]

No, my original comment was about the Open Gaming License, a specific legal agreement pertaining to the authorized use of intellectual property owned by Wizards of the Coast, and whether Wizards of the Coast will be willing to produce another similar license for the D&D 5e intellectual property given the financial and market share repercussions of the release of the original licensing agreement. You are the one who decided that I was talking about the D&D TRPG, and then tried to claim that Pathfinder and D&D are the same thing, which from a intellectual property, business, and branding viewpoint they are not. There is a reason why you don't see mind flayers, beholders, and githyanki in Pathfinder. In fact, Paizo has invested a lot into building the Pathfinder brand, and I'm sure Paizo would prefer that people refer to their TRPG as Pathfinder, not D&D.

Actually you are the one trying to claim that DnD was displaced as the #1 TRPG by something other then DnD.

Of course DnD and Pathfinder are the same thing. In fact they are just as close to being the same thing as ADnD, 3e and 4e are the same thing.

I am sorry but just having mind flayers, beholders and githyanki in your game does not make it DnD. Do you have any examples of IP that I absolutely must have in my DnD campaign otherwise it would not be DnD?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

The books you "need" to play Pathfinder is the Corebook and a Beastiary. Everything else is optional.

You have a tendency to throw in all these responses about getting bogged down in options when you are the one who's buying them. We play Pathfinder a lot with just the corebook and a few beastiaries. Limit what you allow if you are getting bogged down.

The players were buying up the splats along with me. I was buying more books thinking they were going to finally fix that dog. But splatless PF/3.0/3.5 are just not very fun games in themselves, bloat and power creep just made a bad situation even worse. And I often found that I was just buying more and more books that were not doing anything for my games or even being used for the most part. My comment was based on the comment that nobody in Mallus' group will run 3e/PF anymore, which made me reminisce about my group and my experiences running it.

 

[chriton227]

Actually you are the one trying to claim that DnD was displaced as the #1 TRPG by something other then DnD.

Of course DnD and Pathfinder are the same thing. In fact they are just as close to being the same thing as ADnD, 3e and 4e are the same thing.

I am sorry but just having mind flayers, beholders and githyanki in your game does not make it DnD. Do you have any examples of IP that I absolutely must have in my DnD campaign otherwise it would not be DnD?

Actually D&D was displaced as the #1 TRPG by something other than D&D, namely Pathfinder, a product produced by one of WotC's largest direct competitors. From a business standpoint Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons are not the same game, regardless of whether the players feel they are the same game. They are mostly compatible, but they are not the same. Just like LEGO and Mega Bloks are compatible building blocks but not the same. When looking at business decisions regarding the brands, you have to take into account the actual ownership. You can bet that the execs at LEGO would care if Mega Bloks products started outselling LEGO products, just like WotC execs care that Pathfinder started outselling D&D.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Actually D&D was displaced as the #1 TRPG by something other than D&D, namely Pathfinder, a product produced by one of WotC's largest direct competitors. From a business standpoint Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons are not the same game, regardless of whether the players feel they are the same game. They are mostly compatible, but they are not the same. Just like LEGO and Mega Bloks are compatible building blocks but not the same. When looking at business decisions regarding the brands, you have to take into account the actual ownership. You can bet that the execs at LEGO would care if Mega Bloks products started outselling LEGO products, just like WotC execs care that Pathfinder started outselling D&D.

Do they care as much? It seems they are declining to get into a content race with PF and seem content to use the game for other monetary opportunities.

 

[Ranes]

Actually you are the one trying to claim that DnD was displaced as the #1 TRPG by something other then DnD.

Actually D&D was displaced as the #1 TRPG by something other than D&D, namely Pathfinder, a product produced by one of WotC's largest direct competitors.

Friends! Friends! Let me share a few wise words...

 

[jamesmanhattan]

If they brought back DUNGEON Magazine it would solve one of these huge issues; lack of adventures of varying lengths and levels.

I don't want super-long adventure paths, those only work for extremely long-term friend groups where one person is the DM for years at a time.

They've also too strongly linked everything to game stores. There's an awful lot of people that don't play at a damn store! No matter how "lovingly supported, your local game store deserves to be"

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Dungeon and stand alones are the final piece of the puzzle for me, hopefully they get that moving before too long.

 

[Trickster Spirit]

Actually you are the one trying to claim that DnD was displaced as the #1 TRPG by something other then DnD.

Of course DnD and Pathfinder are the same thing. In fact they are just as close to being the same thing as ADnD, 3e and 4e are the same thing.

I am sorry but just having mind flayers, beholders and githyanki in your game does not make it DnD. Do you have any examples of IP that I absolutely must have in my DnD campaign otherwise it would not be DnD?

I'm dead center in between the both of you here, and I don't think think the gulf is actually that wide - I'm sure chriton227 understands full well what you mean when you say Pathfinder (or 13th Age, or Labyrinth Lord, or whatever) is very much "D&D", as much as AD&D or 3E or 4E or 5E is. Just as I'm sure you're aware what he's talking about when he points out that from a business and trademark / IP perspective, Paizo's Pathfinder and Wizard's Dungeons and Dragons ARE different properties.

For my part, I think if it Wizards were focused solely on book sales, they'd be emphasizing that difference and promoting themselves more as "official" D&D, positioning themselves in opposition to Pathfinder. Instead, they're focusing on "D&D" the brand, which means conflating the actual tabletop game with the concept of D&D, which very much includes Pathfinder. In that sense, I don't think WotC really minds if you're using 5E to play a campaign set in Golarion, or playing Tyranny of Dragons with 13th Age, or straight up playing a Paizo AP using the Pathfinder ruleset - you're still "playing D&D" in the generic sense, and that means you're a potential customer for a D&D movie or video game. In that mindset, Paizo's not your competition - they're your recruiters.

Paizo on the other hand is focusing primarily on booksales, so from their point of view they want to do as much as they can to differentiate themselves as a separate game, without going so far to alienate their fans.