Pathfinder 2E What's the deal with 3rd party PF2E Adventure "support"??

[dmccoy1693]

what I can see is that that market is basically 5e with very little lifting of other publishers.

That's what it was back when the OGL started and with the exception of some 2e and 4e timeframes, that's how it has always been. WotC started the OGL for several reasons:

1) Goodwill. TSR has a reputation for suing their customers that put their homemade D&D stuff on websites. WotC didn't want to have to do that so they made the OGL and told homebrewers to just add an OGL to their website and all is good.

2) Allow WotC to focus on more profitable books. Stuff like adventures are generally seen as a necessary loss (they don't sell very much, but without them, the profitable core books won't sell nearly as much). So they decided to let smaller companies sell what would be a loss for WotC but be profitable for others, all the while not have to deal with official licensing problems.

3) Start a farm team. WotC was able to hire people that already had experience with their system instead of new hires having no experience whatsoever in writing professional-level material for their system.

It was seen as a win-win, and still is. Did they need to do it, no. But they felt they could go farther with it than without it. And frankly, they were right.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

WOTC specifically also has more resources to do that kind of legal vetting as well, Paizo runs a tight ship, all things considered-- you can tell from the way their warehouse team discusses the logistics of their job.

I would also say that as a corporate strategy DM's Guild suits WOTC way more than Paizo, specifically WOTC's role in the market with 5e is just to consolidate their hold, by driving third party to their platform and creating community and engagement with 5e, they can create natural incentives not to diversify. We're seeing this play out with youtubers and such who ultimately stand to lose a lot from switching systems too because of their reliance on that 5e 'we don't play other systems' crowd, DMs Guild as a platform for acquiring and engaging with content, that only allows DND in the first place, serves to create an incentive to emphasize that 5e content-- compared to if it was multi-system.

I think we'll continue to see a slow build of 2e content both third party and on youtube as the market grows, but the 5e hold is hard to break, in the short term it would either take some major WOTC scandals to make them even more radioactive than recent events have made them such that a big part of the youtube audience looks for an alternative to their products, or a major content creator jumping and taking their fanbase with them.

I'll be honest, when I say 'major content creator' it would pretty much have to be Critical Role, if say, Matt's next campaign were in a system like Pathfinder 2e, that would be a goddamn seismic shift in the balance of power. Its hard to imagine since he's literally partnered with WOTC at this point for published products like Wildmount, but if either WOTC went radioactive or he just really decided he liked the system, it would be possible-- he actually tweeted a heavily signed copy of the CRB the Paizo team gave him and he was a big 1e fan before the stream started. If nothing else, I'm kind of surprised they haven't done a one shot in it like they have for other systems.

 

[darjr]

 

[Parmandur]

WOTC specifically also has more resources to do that kind of legal vetting as well, Paizo runs a tight ship, all things considered-- you can tell from the way their warehouse team discusses the logistics of their job.

I would also say that as a corporate strategy DM's Guild suits WOTC way more than Paizo, specifically WOTC's role in the market with 5e is just to consolidate their hold, by driving third party to their platform and creating community and engagement with 5e, they can create natural incentives not to diversify. We're seeing this play out with youtubers and such who ultimately stand to lose a lot from switching systems too because of their reliance on that 5e 'we don't play other systems' crowd, DMs Guild as a platform for acquiring and engaging with content, that only allows DND in the first place, serves to create an incentive to emphasize that 5e content-- compared to if it was multi-system.

I think we'll continue to see a slow build of 2e content both third party and on youtube as the market grows, but the 5e hold is hard to break, in the short term it would either take some major WOTC scandals to make them even more radioactive than recent events have made them such that a big part of the youtube audience looks for an alternative to their products, or a major content creator jumping and taking their fanbase with them.

I'll be honest, when I say 'major content creator' it would pretty much have to be Critical Role, if say, Matt's next campaign were in a system like Pathfinder 2e, that would be a goddamn seismic shift in the balance of power. Its hard to imagine since he's literally partnered with WOTC at this point for published products like Wildmount, but if either WOTC went radioactive or he just really decided he liked the system, it would be possible-- he actually tweeted a heavily signed copy of the CRB the Paizo team gave him as a thank you for everything he's done for RPGs and he was a big 1e fan before the stream started. If nothing else, I'm kind of surprised they haven't done a one shot in it like they have for other systems.

I would not say that PF2E really has a very streaming friendly structure, compared to Call of Cthulu or Honey Heist. The PF1E one-shot back in the day was rather rough viewing.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I would not say that PF2E really has a very streaming friendly structure, compared to Call of Cthulu or Honey Heist. The PF1E one-shot back in the day was rather rough viewing.

I would say its much better for it than pf1e, but maybe not as much as some other games.

 

[Parmandur]

I would say its much better for it than pf1e, but maybe not as much as some other games.

Probably fair. 5E was really accidentally optimized for it, and other old school games seem to work well for the format, as do rules lite modern games.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I will say though, from what I've watched and listened to (like the Drunken Geek Podcast! love the bite sized episode format), its not much worse than 5e for that kind of content-- its options dense so character building is a little bit more of an investment, but the actual moment to moment rules aren't really that much more elaborate, players have more options in a turn too, but the critical role cast are too good of performers to really let themselves sit their debating what to do for long periods of time anyway.

Pretty much all of the other systems would just be tools for Matt to use behind the screen, like he already does for some stuff-- like fitting exploration activities to what the players say they're doing is pretty much the same as translating Marisha's elaborate descriptions of narrative kung fu into actual checks and actions.

 

[Disgruntled Hobbit]

I will say though, from what I've watched and listened to (like the Drunken Geek Podcast! love the bite sized episode format), its not much worse than 5e for that kind of content-- its options dense so character building is a little bit more of an investment, but the actual moment to moment rules aren't really that much more elaborate, players have more options in a turn too, but the critical role cast are too good of performers to really let themselves sit their debating what to do for long periods of time anyway.

Not familiar with that Podcast. Is it edited or raw audio?

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Not familiar with that Podcast. Is it edited or raw audio?

Mostly RAW audio, each episode is basically 49 minutes, my understanding is that they break a session into multiple episodes.

If you have spotify, it can be found here.

 

[teitan]

That's what it was back when the OGL started and with the exception of some 2e and 4e timeframes, that's how it has always been. WotC started the OGL for several reasons:

1) Goodwill. TSR has a reputation for suing their customers that put their homemade D&D stuff on websites. WotC didn't want to have to do that so they made the OGL and told homebrewers to just add an OGL to their website and all is good.

2) Allow WotC to focus on more profitable books. Stuff like adventures are generally seen as a necessary loss (they don't sell very much, but without them, the profitable core books won't sell nearly as much). So they decided to let smaller companies sell what would be a loss for WotC but be profitable for others, all the while not have to deal with official licensing problems.

3) Start a farm team. WotC was able to hire people that already had experience with their system instead of new hires having no experience whatsoever in writing professional-level material for their system.

It was seen as a win-win, and still is. Did they need to do it, no. But they felt they could go farther with it than without it. And frankly, they were right.

Yes I’m aware. Thanks.