5e & PF2 - Why Choose the Same Approach?

[pemerton]

Probably a nitpick, but wasn't "Keep on the Shadowfell" also 4e's second adventure - the first being "Kobold Hall" in the DMG? (Which, granted, was also dire.)

I thought KotS came out before the core rule books?

 

[darkbard]

I thought KotS came out before the core rule books?

It did, complete with its own "quick start" rules, a very paired-down rules set that allowed players to level up the prefab characters provided with the adventure.

 

[Pauper]

I've had so many conversations with people that will describe how they don't like this or that "gamey" mechanic of 4E but when asked what they prefer in 3.5 or 5 mostly just describe the same thing but with a higher word count, more steps and/or less clarity.

This here is precisely my main irritation with people who blindly criticize 4E as a 'bad game'. Thanks.

--
Pauper

 

[delericho]

I thought KotS came out before the core rule books?

Ah, yes, you're right. I'd forgotten about that. Hard to believe that was ten years ago next month!

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ah, yes, you're right. I'd forgotten about that. Hard to believe that was ten years ago next month!

Yeah, 10 years, we should be seeing a 'fifth edition' pretty soon....

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

The same recipe but by two different cooks from two different restaurantes will not be the same. D&D and PF are enough different, but not too much, and now people is use to the movies of the lords of the rings (11 oscars!!), Conan the barbarian, and videogames like World of Warcraft. D&D 5th is better for new players and PF is for players who would rather an "advanced" version. And the open licence and the SRD have helped a lot.

If Disney knows movies of marvel superheroes are blockbusters and gold mines, Hasbro also notices D&D could be also its own gold mine with the rest of franchises. And D&D has a better future because this franchise isn't only the books. Paizo shouldn't worry too much because PF is one of the three blockbusters of RPG industry, with D&D and World of Darkness by White Wolf/Onyx Path (and this last one isn't for all public).

Other matter is Paizo is publishing a lot of books more, adding more classes and things like this while WotC is "recycling" a lot of old things, and RPG industry is changing by the sell of pdf, despite the illegal copies.

 

[Parmandur]

Ah, yes, you're right. I'd forgotten about that. Hard to believe that was ten years ago next month!

The weird part is that the Lost Mines Starter Set is still a top seller nearing four years after release: Keep on the Shadowfell was not in print after four years.a

 

[Tony Vargas]

The weird part is that the Lost Mines Starter Set is still a top seller nearing four years after release.

Not that weird. The starter set was the biggest seller in the fad-years, too - the entry point that many people never went beyond. The famed Red Box sold 1.2 million copies, I think it was - or maybe that was one specific 'edition' (printing?) of the red box? I forget, exactly but it was apparently the single best-selling D&D product ever. The come-back having a similar pattern to the fad only makes sense.

 

[Parmandur]

Not that weird. The starter set was the biggest seller in the fad-years, too - the entry point that many people never went beyond. The famed Red Box sold 1.2 million copies, I think it was - or maybe that was one specific 'edition' (printing?) of the red box? I forget, exactly but it was apparently the single best-selling D&D product ever. The come-back having a similar pattern to the fad only makes sense.

Which is why they mad ethe product: but assumedly that is why they did the Keep on the Shadowfell set and the Essentials box, too, and those did not have the staying power of the Lost Mines of Phandelver.

Don't know too much about the Basic Set years, as both B/X and BECMI were released before I was born.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Which is why they mad ethe product

It's why they cloned the cover of the Red Box for Essential, too, but that went over like a lead balloon. Timing is everything. And, with a nerd-beloved franchise like D&D, walking that tight-rope between fan-acceptable and mainstream-accessible is critical. 5e erred on the side of acceptability, with good results.

the Keep on the Shadowfell set and the Essentials box, too, and those did not have the staying power of the Lost Mines of Phandelver.

You mean the starter set, since the module in question was just in it, not being sold separately. I don't even recall if KotSf was physically in a starter set, or not (again, having not cracked open a starter set since 1980), but the Essentials Red Box was prettymuch redundant to the other Essentials offerings (which, heck, had a certain level of redundancy in HotFL/HotFK, which shared a lot more than just the first 4 letters of their goofy-sounding acronyms). Starter Sets just weren't that necessary, the game was more accessible to new players in that period, especially if they just walked in and started playing Encounters, they were a lot more likely to pick up a PH or a DDI subscription than a 'try the game for the first time' set for a game they'd just tried for the first time. ::shrug:: And it certainly was no tragedy when KotSf left print - the tragedy was it stayed up on line to afflict more players with it's suckiness. ;P

Don't know too much about the Basic Set years, as both B/X and BECMI were released before I was born.

In the fad era, no PH sold half what the Basic Set did. Of course, the two-prong strategy and the Expert Set probably contributed to that, as well, but it was just a very baroque and inaccessible game. Later eds, PHs were the top sellers, if there even was a basic set, because they were selling mainly to established players, the mainstream having lost all interest and virtually all awareness of D&D.
Oh, I should mention: D&D in the fad years was selling 3 different versions. The old 0D&D booklets were still being re-printed (and an unauthorized clone, Arduin Grimoire was out there, as well). The Basic Set was meant to lead into the Expert Set (B/X) and later the rest of BECMI as it was released, while, at the same time, Advanced D&D had been published since '77 (complete since '79 - you think 5e releases are slow, 1e started out going a book a year, even for the core 3!), and lots of people seemed to assume that the path was Basic -> Advanced, not Basic -> B(X/E)CMI. Supplementary products weren't that carefully labeled, either. So it was an age of chaos, really.

In spite of that bizarre shelf presence, the fad still fadded along with great success.
But, yeah, the Basic Set, as the obvious starting point for the curious, moved the most units, fad or come-back.