NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jester David" data-source="post: 7663630" data-attributes="member: 37579">Ah yes, the "adequate support" buzzword, a vital part of the "not enough product drinking game". Because there's an amount of support that is exactly adequate and will make everyone happy. No one seems to know what that is or agree, but they know the almost monthly products we've seen are not "adequate" and we need to keep churning out product like Goldilocks with an eating disorder testing porridge until everyone is agreed we have reached "adequate" for everyone. Do you have an example of a game with a low release being detrimental to one with an adequate fanbase? Actually, I find new classes detrimental, as they dilute the archetypes of the core classes and generally lead to overspecialization. I was exceedingly happy with Paizo when they said they were going to limit new classes and exceedingly disappointed when they decided to reverse that decision and churn out new classes.And, there's no shortage of classes already in the game for me to test. More than I will ever be able to use. With a dozen classes and at least two subclasses for each, you could run four 1-20 campaigns without seeing a subclass repeat itself. And I very much doubt anyone will be able to run four 1-20 campaigns before WotC releases an expansion. Heck, according to their last survey, most people haven't even hit level 10 and they've already released one new archetype and seven new races. Pathfinder took the #1 spot in part because it was solid and in part because people were leaving D&D. More people just left D&D than went to Paizo. Had all the people who left D&D but didn't switch to Pathfinder had instead bought, say, 13th Age, that would have handily become the #1 RPG. And Paizo managed to take the #1 spot before they switched to monthly content. Heck, they held onto the #1 spot for well over a year before they opted to make the Player Companions monthly.Pathfinder reference. And drink!  Paizo grew into monthly releases (beyond APs). It did not start with them. When they launched the RPG and took the #1 spot they were barely releasing more content than 5e is (and much of that was world specific). And the monthly content from Paizo has become increasingly unnecessary. I've all but stopped buying Player Companions as the content I'll use in them has dropped to zero. Pathfinder is a success for Paizo. It's a success for a company that has set the bar much lower and is happy with whatever they get for as long as they get. Paizo the company almost went under several times before Pathfinder, and things looked very bad when 4e was announced. Any month they remain in business is a triumph. WotC likely views D&D with slightly higher expectations than "not going under" or "lasting one year longer". 5e needs to last as long as possible. I doubt WotC will give the D&D RPG a fifth chance to succeed. Has it held it back in the short term? No.Has it held it back in the long term? Maybe. Pathfinder is running out of steam. After this coming summer, there's not a lot of need for new hardcovers, and the player companions, monster books, and most of the campaign books have already become unnecassary. The edition is pretty much done (if not already tapped out). All they have left is their setting; Paizo has become the Golarion company. Had they held off on monthly releases, they could have survived for a couple more years before they had to gamble on a revised edition. And boy will that be a gamble.And that's the catch. An RPG can support a finite number of releases. There's no hard number, but a game cannot continue indefinitely without revision. The faster you release product the faster you hit that finite number and the game collapses in on itself. Settings can last longer, as can adventures. But the game itself can only manage so many books.And that seems like a perfectly *ahem* adequate amount of content. And there's a very real possibility that's what we're getting. I would not be surprised if they yanked all the sublasses from the Adventurer's Handbook to release a larger (and much more tested) Big Book of Subclasses and options this summer. Really, a single book of subclasses expanding on the PHB is really all we need and cover all the basic archetypes and concepts. And in 2016 the crunch book could be psionics. Well, I don't think we need an annual Monster Manual. Pathfinder has managed to do a good job keeping those going by having NPC and monster statblocks, but that wouldn't work as well for 5e. After 3 monsters books things get a little ridiculous and the books become pure filler. A new monster book every other year would be fine.Which gets back to my "board game style releases" thread, where, after a certain point, they should just stop releasing new accessories and try alternate products. When you're trying to cobble together a Magic of Incarnum or pad out the monsters for a fifth Monster Manual the content is just no longer worth it. What it adds is no longer benefitial.</blockquote>

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