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I typically create PCs in the prime of life: 25-40. If we're looking at spellcasters, they take many years to learn their crafts. I'd assume many didn't start studying until age 14 to 19, so 25 seems a reasonable time for a novice wizard or newly minted cleric to venture into the world. Then...

The casual newbies and the nostalgia crowd probably don't want to learn a new game. But the 5e market is bigger than just those two groups. It includes people who play multiple RPGs and aren't afraid of new systems. The tabletop gaming boom - of which D&D is just a part - has shown that there's...

1) Paizo needs to address the relentless attrition of their existing player-base that all popular RPGs are subject to. The status-quo means decline. A new edition raises the profile of the game and will bring in new blood. 2) Help maintain the existing PF1 player-base by addressing some of...

Exactly this. While 5E is my favourite flavour of D&D, it's getting a bit stale. I've never played PF1, but PF2 has enough interesting things (the 3-action economy, crit success and failure, tactically diverse monster design, cool death and dying rules) that I'm willing to give it a try for a...

In response to the OP: Every time a new edition of a game in the D&D family is announced, commentary is dominated by grognards who don't want to change to a new edition. Every time. So it's not at all surprising that your impression of PF2 at this point is that people don't like it. The people...

As distinct from a more bog-standard fantasy setting like the Realm: * Greyhawk features more shades of grey. Most societies and factions are neither strongly good or strongly evil. And even the 'good' kingdoms tend to be wracked with political factionalism and scheming. Good-aligned PCs cannot...

Presumably both. Existing fans could have areas of the game they'd like to see fixed or improved. Former fans might miss the things Pathfinder did better than 5E, but want a game that's easier to run at the table. And both groups might enjoy new mechanics that were never on their radar but turn...

But is that the way it really works on practice? The kinds of threats that would challenge a level 1 character aren't part of the world for a level 20 Pathfinder character (or even a level 10 character). In typical campaign, such as the one presented in Paizo adventure paths, the challenges...

What does PF2 offer people who came to RPGs from 5E that 5E doesn't? * Much more robust character customization. * More robust tactical combat. * Tactically interesting monsters. * A richer default setting than the vanilla Realms. * Adventure campaigns with industry-leading design and...

For a contrary take on PF2, this long-time D&D player who bounced off PF1 has was impressed enough by the PF2 playtest rules that he's planning to buy the PF2 core book, Bestiary, and new AP, and start a campaign in the Fall.

City of the Spider Queen would work well. It's for level 10+ PCs, and starts with a dungeon on the surface that would be an easy transition for a horror-based game (SPOILER: a tomb complex). Combat-heavy, but features imaginative and cool enemies and locations. And a lot easier to run than...

I think CR definitely has the marketing reach and prominence in the hobby to publish a game that got a large amount of traction. Not to 5E levels, but closer to what Pathfinder is getting these days. Enough to make it the 3rd or 4th most popular game in the hobby. Presumably they'd bring in...

Putting 5E monster stat blocks in the text of the adventure is a waste of space. 5E monsters are complex enough that you want to have the full stats available. Is it really a big deal to flip the MM during play? Or do you want 10-20 per cent of the content in a book you bought to be monster...

Savage Worlds campaigns use a concise writing style with flexible approach (my experience is with the Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane). Deep Carbon Observatory (an OSR adventure) uses a concise writing style and flowcharts. Stonehell Dungeon and the Maze of the Blue Medusa are megadungeons...

Years ago I recall Erik Mona on the Paizo boards commenting that they know half the people who buy an Adventure Path chapter are buying it just to read, and they write the material accordingly. I don't see any reason to believe the market is any different for D&D. If I had to guess a breakdown...

I'll echo the sentiments of others here that my biggest complaint with 5E is the presentation of the game content - how important information is buried in walls of text. It makes it extremely difficult to run their adventures at the table, and usually necessitates hours spent summarising the...

One of the most cherished items in my box of old D&D stuff is a 1E DM's Log filled in with all the adventures we ran in a campaign from around '83 to '85. The names of the adventures and the players. All the PCs listed there, many of them with DEAD scrawled across the entry. The monsters and...

First, in my experience most people who play tabletop games are healthy adults. They have jobs and families and meaningful engagement with broader society. So there's no reason to believe the popularity of tabletop gaming is a sign of declining capacity to function as adults. But the...

I didn't suggest we should stop assigning those sorts of books to teenagers. I was countering a suggestion that we should consider Shakespeare YA material because school curriculums mean most of the people who read Shakespeare are 15 years old.

People who read books for school should be taken out of the equation altogether. They're not picking books they want to read, so those books have no bearing on their taste or their preferences. And believe it or not, there are adults who read Dickens and Melville. And who willingly read/attend...