Pathfinder 2E Is It Time for PF2 "Essentials"?

[fearsomepirate]

I mean, we get it. Ya'll didn't like 4e. Cool, but I dunno I think 10 years is enough time for those wounds to heal?

I loved 4e. It was, commercially speaking, a disaster, and Essentials only confused and divided the market it had.

 

[fearsomepirate]

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Except none of what you said is true (quel surprise). Here’s the actual designer talking about the goals.

The first paragraph of this is kind of a reality denial and illustrates the impossibility of what Paizo is trying to do. There is, in some meaningful way, no such thing as "The Pathfinder RPG" with its own, independent existence. What I mean is that, Pathfinder fundamentally is nothing more than a modest modification of D&D 3.5; no amount of supplements can change that. PF2e is an interesting game, but it's not a new version of D&D 3.x. The big major revision to that system, as far as the market is concerned, is D&D 5e. For "a new version of Pathfinder" to really be embraced by the market as one, it would have to be a lot more like the 3rd edition of D&D than not.

Absolutely. Going "outside the D&D sphere" would have doomed them to insignificance.

What never ceases to amaze me is the number of publishers who sincerely believe they can shift the market's tastes. They start out with d20 and then offer up Numenera or Blue Rose or whatever.

Well, it's a lot riskier, which is why we rarely see new things come out of established companies. Whatever the next Vampire, Traveller, or D&D is, it probably won't be made by any of the current players.

 

[transmission89]

The first paragraph of this is kind of a reality denial and illustrates the impossibility of what Paizo is trying to do. There is, in some meaningful way, no such thing as "The Pathfinder RPG" with its own, independent existence. What I mean is that, Pathfinder fundamentally is nothing more than a modest modification of D&D 3.5; no amount of supplements can change that. PF2e is an interesting game, but it's not a new version of D&D 3.x. The big major revision to that system, as far as the market is concerned, is D&D 5e. For "a new version of Pathfinder" to really be embraced by the market as one, it would have to be a lot more like the 3rd edition of D&D than not.



Well, it's a lot riskier, which is why we rarely see new things come out of established companies. Whatever the next Vampire, Traveller, or D&D is, it probably won't be made by any of the current players.

I don’t disagree that it’s a tough task, but at the time, this was their goal, to essentially make pathfinder play better. That’s what they were interested in doing. The 3.x clone of pf1 clearly wasn’t working for them anymore as they wouldn’t have worked on a new edition otherwise.
Whether you think they succeeded in their stated goals, is down to you. But for some to make up ridiculous goals and then say they failed to meet them is asinine.

 

[meltdownpass]

Personally, I like 4e D&D a lot (between the fixing of the monster math in MM3, and the rise of Essentials), but it's a beast of a game to DM. Sometimes I like the challenge, but 5e is far easier to GM and has a lot more mass-market appeal.

Edit: Of course it's fine to like PF2e. It's fine to have niche tastes.

Funny to hear 4E mentioned as a beast to run. To me it's the only edition of D&D I am comfortable running out of the box. I suppose it comes down to perspective on prepping, vs. actual game-time as well as personal preference on how much interaction you have to do with the mathematical system vs. the narrative.

4E prep-work is extremely easy. Setting up encounters is a piece of cake, and it's much easier to plan narratives because player capabilities are much more defined. At the table, it's a lot more math-and-system interaction than most DMs probably like, but that I don't mind-- I have confidence the math (where relevant) is going to work out, so I can instead focus on ensuring my characters & world are reacting appropriately to what PCs do.

That being said, 4E was a pretty flawed game from the player perspective. In my ideal game of heroic fantasy, players aren't going to have a 50/50 chance of hit or miss on an attack. Similarly if my character can cast "Fly" on himself then I expect him to be able to actually fly, not gain +10 to movement speed. (This is a fictional example to demonstrate the philosophical & narrative problem with how many powers in 4E, and effects in PF2E, are written to work.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

The discussion is much more interesting if you accept his premise. It might not be true, but then we can discuss how such a game would look like.

The discussion "should we even be allowed to have this discussion?" on the other hand, is incredibly repetitive and has destroyed many ENWorld threads already.

I never said he couldn't have the discussion. I just said its based on a faulty premise.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Absolutely. Going "outside the D&D sphere" would have doomed them to insignificance.

What never ceases to amaze me is the number of publishers who sincerely believe they can shift the market's tastes. They start out with d20 and then offer up Numenera or Blue Rose or whatever.

The answer remains the same: not interested. What we want is a modern game but once that plays much the same stories as Gygax did.

I suspect this assumes that the people doing Numenera expect to be significantly cutting into the normal D&D sphere. I don't think that's the case.

That's the difference here: someone can start with a basically D20 based system and be aiming it at people not interested in, well, D&D. That's a perfectly viable approach. Its just not going to get the size of sales that WOTC or even Paizo is aiming at most likely. But I doubt seriously most of them expect that big a market, either. That's not what most of the sub-WOTC game companies are expecting or trying for. There's a perfectly viable market outside the D&D sphere as long as you go in with your expectations correct and manage your costs.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I mean, we get it. Ya'll didn't like 4e. Cool, but I dunno I think 10 years is enough time for those wounds to heal?

Have the wounds ever healed with their old grumpiness in the OSR community? People who dislike a particular edition never entirely let it go.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Personally, I like 4e D&D a lot (between the fixing of the monster math in MM3, and the rise of Essentials), but it's a beast of a game to DM. Sometimes I like the challenge, but 5e is far easier to GM and has a lot more mass-market appeal.

Edit: Of course it's fine to like PF2e. It's fine to have niche tastes.

This still makes an assumption that its "niche" that only makes sense if everything but D&D 5e is niche.

 

[Retreater]

The first paragraph of this is kind of a reality denial and illustrates the impossibility of what Paizo is trying to do. There is, in some meaningful way, no such thing as "The Pathfinder RPG" with its own, independent existence. What I mean is that, Pathfinder fundamentally is nothing more than a modest modification of D&D 3.5; no amount of supplements can change that. PF2e is an interesting game, but it's not a new version of D&D 3.x. The big major revision to that system, as far as the market is concerned, is D&D 5e. For "a new version of Pathfinder" to really be embraced by the market as one, it would have to be a lot more like the 3rd edition of D&D than not.

Is D&D 3.x still D&D when it's so different from OD&D, B/X, and AD&D? What about the difference between 4E and 5E?
To me, I see a more fundamental shift in playstyle, expectations of play, and rules between old school TSR era D&D and 3.x than I do with PF1 vs PF2.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don’t disagree that it’s a tough task, but at the time, this was their goal, to essentially make pathfinder play better. That’s what they were interested in doing. The 3.x clone of pf1 clearly wasn’t working for them anymore as they wouldn’t have worked on a new edition otherwise.
Whether you think they succeeded in their stated goals, is down to you. But for some to make up ridiculous goals and then say they failed to meet them is asinine.

While not knowing the specifics, I expect they had reach the diminishing returns part of the product line cycle. This is not exactly an uncommon event in the industry, which is why you get what is sometimes dismissively referred to as "edition churn".