D&D 5E A 5e OGL isn't going to cause another Pathfinder scenario and here's why

[sidonunspa]

all depends how they judge and then structure their printing schedule

they already have a good handle of initial sales (through subscription services and recorded show numbers) allowing them to produce a limited run to better gauge the industry…

I think you’re seeing it as a completely new product

The “brake even” point on a converted hard cover is damn low, even including storage (by what I understand, they have their own warehouse, thus the cost is simply existing floor space they are already paying for) and even playing the standards of the book industry, if they produce limited print run (5k) they will control costs and still pull a hefty profit…

especially if they are ready to strike when the iron is hot… personally I know very few GMs that won’t jump at a chance to get the pathfinder bestiary converted to 5e

I'm not a liberty to share our print/storage costs, but trust me... it would be VERY easy for Piazo to do this... I would not be surprized if they alreay have someone looking into/working on it

 

[sidonunspa]

So it's not going to be published? Last I'd heard, it was still set to be published at some point.

not in it's current form (d20) but we never know what the future and future licences/possabilities may hold...

kind of all I can say at this time

 

[delericho]

There is no reason why they could not do both… support their own game, and off handedly gain sales from the 5e crowd who like their story telling.

There's one very good reason they can't do both, and one reason they're unlikely to produce two versions of the books.

The reason they can't do both is simply one of manpower - Paizo have enough staff to do what they're currently doing. If they were to start doing 5e versions of the books as well, they would need more people, and they'd also need people familiar enough with both Pathfinder and 5e to do suitable conversions, people who are in short supply.

The reason they won't do both is that producing two versions means you're competing against yourself - each version needs to justify itself on its own merits, and since very few people will buy both it becomes harder for each to do so. The risk is that you take one moderately-successful product and turn it into two failures.

That was one of the factors that killed TSR (with all the settings), and is something Lisa Stevens is very familiar with.

What they might well do, especially if 5e sales remain strong and/or people start shifting away from Pathfinder in numbers, is to start producing free PDF conversion guides. That way they continue to sell their one 'main' product, but they can also attract custom from 5e players. But that's subject to the manpower issue I mentioned above - they may well instead give official sanction to fan-made conversion documents to the same end.

(Incidentally, that's also why I don't expect to see a PDF-only subscription option for their products, despite that being trivially easy for them to do. A reasonably-likely outcome of that would be the exactly the wrong number of people would convert to PDF-only: enough that the print version needs to rise in price, and so becomes unviable; and simultaneously not enough to justify producing the product for PDF sales only. Further, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that we've just seen exactly that scenario play out with the 4e splatbooks and DDI subscriptions.)

 

[Gundark]

Sales numbers are phenomenal for 5e and a lot of people are playing it now, but we will see down the line when it comes to campaign and game support…

If WOTC pulls off the two campaigns per year (which is equal to two adventure paths) with supplements I suspect we will see 5e sales continue to grow.

Things get real interesting if/when 5e is OGL… real interesting.

Depending on which companies jump on board, and the quality of those products (don’t worry I have not heard a peep about mongoose getting back into the d20 market) we may see 5e’s market share grow to the point that Piazo may not be able to simply ignore it.

Now…….Think about this

We have already seen some unofficial pathfinder to 5e conversions.

Once 5e becomes OGL… how long will it take for someone to produce a published 5e bestiary using Piazo’s OGL monsters? Create a book of 5e feats based off combining some Pathfinder Feats? Convert all those pathfinder classes to new 5e Archtypes?

That’s a lot of potential money Piazo is just sitting on

Let’s just look at a Bestiary,
They have the art (Which commonly the largest part of a project budget) and word count… conversion will take a fraction of the time it took to create it all… the project was paid for and made a profit… with a few hundred books sold directly at conventions the project would be 100% paid off and all additional sales (pdf or otherwise) would be pure profit.

There is no reason why they could not do both… support their own game, and off handedly gain sales from the 5e crowd who like their story telling.

Here is the kicker, and they can’t stop someone else from getting the monsters from their SRD and converting them all to the 5e OGL… so they minus well do it themselves.

This post kinda blew my mind. Definitely some interesting points to consider. I'd considered Paizo producing 5e products to be a bit of a pipe dream by fans for Paizo and 5e, this is the first argument that makes sense. Equally interesting that if Paizo doesn't produce 5e materials that someone might scoop it from under them. Honestly if these conversions where well done I'd consider purchasing them.

 

[sidonunspa]

if they don't do it.. I fully expect to see a 3rd party (4th party??) company step up and reap the rewards.....

heck I know I have already looked at how to convert some of their Archtypes to the new 5e Archtype paradigm.......

Paizo may be forced to make a public annocment either way... due to market pressures...

 

[DaveMage]

I doubt Paizo wants to make a monster book for 5E. And they likely don't have the resources to do it either (unless one of their product lines were sacrificed to do so).

All that aside, though, Paizo has gotten a lot of its monster material from 3PPs already (mostly from the Tome of Horrors complete by Frog God Games). Frog God would probably be happy to do a 5E monster book or two (or three) if the market wants it. And if they do, they'd do it well.

As for other rules books, I'm sure an enterprising 3PP might consider doing some conversions from Pathfinder to 5E, but I don't think Paizo is too worried about it.

 

[Gundark]

There's one very good reason they can't do both, and one reason they're unlikely to produce two versions of the books.

The reason they can't do both is simply one of manpower - Paizo have enough staff to do what they're currently doing. If they were to start doing 5e versions of the books as well, they would need more people, and they'd also need people familiar enough with both Pathfinder and 5e to do suitable conversions, people who are in short supply.

The reason they won't do both is that producing two versions means you're competing against yourself - each version needs to justify itself on its own merits, and since very few people will buy both it becomes harder for each to do so. The risk is that you take one moderately-successful product and turn it into two failures.

That was one of the factors that killed TSR (with all the settings), and is something Lisa Stevens is very familiar with.

What they might well do, especially if 5e sales remain strong and/or people start shifting away from Pathfinder in numbers, is to start producing free PDF conversion guides. That way they continue to sell their one 'main' product, but they can also attract custom from 5e players. But that's subject to the manpower issue I mentioned above - they may well instead give official sanction to fan-made conversion documents to the same end.

(Incidentally, that's also why I don't expect to see a PDF-only subscription option for their products, despite that being trivially easy for them to do. A reasonably-likely outcome of that would be the exactly the wrong number of people would convert to PDF-only: enough that the print version needs to rise in price, and so becomes unviable; and simultaneously not enough to justify producing the product for PDF sales only. Further, I wouldn't be at all surprised to learn that we've just seen exactly that scenario play out with the 4e splatbooks and DDI subscriptions.)

I think it depends on how the sales of 5e turn out and if they start to take away from Paizo. If the industry is healthy enough to support both or if 5e sales lag then yes I'll agree with you. However if 5e sales continue to be good (and grow) and there is demand from the fanbase and it looks like that there's money to be had, then yeah you'll see Paizo suddenly find the resources to start supporting a OGL 5e

 

[Celtavian]

Even given the exact same sequence of events, not everybody is Lisa Stevens. With the same opportunity, I sure as heck would not have been able to build my RPG to be the #1 seller in the world. It would be a mistake to underestimate the team over at Paizo - they're world class RPG producers, with decades of experience between them. They know what they're doing, and they're very good at doing it.

Underestimating Paizo's team twice would be insane for WotC. They basically did something no one in the gaming community thought could be done including WotC.

 

[Celtavian]

I wonder how much Paizo is spending on its online version of the game. That might limit their ability to adjust to competition. They have bet a lot on starting a Pathfinder Online version. Dancey seems absolutely committed to making an Online version of Pathfinder that is better than anything out there.

 

[Jester David]

The reason they can't do both is simply one of manpower - Paizo have enough staff to do what they're currently doing. If they were to start doing 5e versions of the books as well, they would need more people, and they'd also need people familiar enough with both Pathfinder and 5e to do suitable conversions, people who are in short supply.

Of course, if 5e does gangbusters then in a year or two Paizo's sales of Pathfinder books might dip and cutting back the number of those products to manageable levels might make sense. Paizo is producing a ridiculous amount of content each year, fairly comparable to TSR at its height.
That would free up staff to do 5e books (because the alternative is laying them off as unneeded).

And, since this is a few years down the line, that gives plenty of time to get familiar with the mechanics.

The reason they won't do both is that producing two versions means you're competing against yourself - each version needs to justify itself on its own merits, and since very few people will buy both it becomes harder for each to do so. The risk is that you take one moderately-successful product and turn it into two failures.

That was one of the factors that killed TSR (with all the settings), and is something Lisa Stevens is very familiar with.

I echoed your thoughts here earlier in the thread. As you say, Paizo might sell/release conversion guides but they're highly unlikely to release multiple versions of the same product. But new 5e products are another option, such as the aforementioned book of monsters. If they can cobble together enough non-OGL monsters.

What they might well do, especially if 5e sales remain strong and/or people start shifting away from Pathfinder in numbers, is to start producing free PDF conversion guides. That way they continue to sell their one 'main' product, but they can also attract custom from 5e players. But that's subject to the manpower issue I mentioned above - they may well instead give official sanction to fan-made conversion documents to the same end.

I can also see them branching into game neutral campaign setting products. Inner Sea Gods is fairly mechanics neutral for 2/3rds of the book and I imagine next year's Inner Sea Races will be comparable. A lot of their product line already focuses on Pathfinder the World and not just Pathfinder the Game, so continuing in that direction keeps them afloat.