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

[delericho]

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.

Aye, it's not impossible. But if, as it seems is the case, WotC's release schedule remains very light going forward, then it seems unlikely Pathfinder will see sales drop too much - if anything, they may be helped as people pick up their Adventure Paths (which, apparently, are their core business) for conversion purposes.

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.

All good points.

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.

Maybe. I wouldn't be surprised, though, to find that they start to reach saturation point on their world materials as well - there's only so much you can say before you're into niche topics and/or retreads, both of which will see lower sales. Though how much their subscription model mitigates this remains to be seen.

I actually don't think I would like to be Paizo right now, as it does seem they're going to need to do something with both their rules system and their setting before too much longer, and yet it's not at all clear what that "something" will be. Still, they've got really smart people running things over there, so I'm confident they'll come up with the answer.

 

[billd91]

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

I doubt we'd be able to characterize Paizo starting to produce materials for 5e as "suddenly" finding the resources. They've been pretty open about their moves and we'd probably get some discussion or blog post about them investigating the possibility of working on some 5e material before they committed lots of resources to it.

And, despite their desire to not tie themselves to another license, I can see them making use of an OGL to make a 5e-based sourcebook to provide 5e support for their campaign setting and AP lines. I doubt, from a conceptual point, it would be that hard to do, just time consuming - probably equivalent to one of their major rulebook additions like the Advanced Class Guide. Most of the campaign lore stuff isn't ruleset exclusive and some of the things that are (like the Harrower prestige class) could receive 5e-based treatments.

If Paizo doesn't do anything, since the Pathfinder rules are all OGL, I'm sure we will see fan-based or 3rd party-based versions of PF material put into a 5e format. Someone will work up a witch, summoner, gunslinger, or cavalier for 5e. It's mostly a question of who it will be.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If Paizo doesn't do anything, since the Pathfinder rules are all OGL, I'm sure we will see fan-based or 3rd party-based versions of PF material put into a 5e format. Someone will work up a witch, summoner, gunslinger, or cavalier for 5e. It's mostly a question of who it will be.

I would love to see a gunslinger conversion...

 

[Gundark]

I doubt we'd be able to characterize Paizo starting to produce materials for 5e as "suddenly" finding the resources. They've been pretty open about their moves and we'd probably get some discussion or blog post about them investigating the possibility of working on some 5e material before they committed lots of resources to it.

I know that Paizo had probably considered doing 4e materials at one point, and it was deemed to be not viable with the resources they have. What I meant by suddenly is that if the fanbase was requesting it, and 5e turns out to be OGL, and it looked like it would be viable from a financial standpoint I suspect we'd see them reverse their stance pretty quickly. I'm not saying that they'd do it on an impulse (Lisa and Co. seem too smart to do that), but if the conditions were right they'd shift the necessary resources to do it.

Now they might throw "feelers" out their ahead of time, but I think we'd only see that if PF sales were starting to falter. Paizo has been seeing some big growth over the last while. The bubble has to pop eventually, but I can only think they'll push on with their own stuff. Given their current state I don't see them touching 5e unless their was some pretty serious demand from their customer base.

 

[MerricB]

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.

Frog God (well, as Necromancer) are doing a 5E monster book, a 5E adventure book and a 5E spell book, funded by a recent kickstarter.

Cheers!

 

[Hussar]

Really, I don't foresee another Pathfinder scenario, by anyone other than perhaps Paizo, for the simple fact, no one in the industry has the following to do it. No one else has even remotely the customer base that Paizo has. Not that it's terribly accurate, but the fact that WOTC's 4e game stayed second on the ICv2 lists for, what, a year and a half? after they finished publication, shows just how far the #2 and #3 spots are apart. It wasn't until you started seeing previews for 5e that 4e finally dropped off the list.

Who else could have the built in base to leverage to create a new game that would rival D&D? There were a metric ton of d20 games out there. Some were pretty popular like Mutants and Masterminds. Five years later, I don't hear any buzz about M&M at all. Is anyone even making new d20 based games?

So long as WOTC doesn't create its own competition, an OGL would likely help them in the long run. Particularly if they are going to keep to this very sparse publication cycle.

 

[Rygar]

Really, I don't foresee another Pathfinder scenario, by anyone other than perhaps Paizo, for the simple fact, no one in the industry has the following to do it. No one else has even remotely the customer base that Paizo has. Not that it's terribly accurate, but the fact that WOTC's 4e game stayed second on the ICv2 lists for, what, a year and a half? after they finished publication, shows just how far the #2 and #3 spots are apart. It wasn't until you started seeing previews for 5e that 4e finally dropped off the list.

Who else could have the built in base to leverage to create a new game that would rival D&D? There were a metric ton of d20 games out there. Some were pretty popular like Mutants and Masterminds. Five years later, I don't hear any buzz about M&M at all. Is anyone even making new d20 based games?

So long as WOTC doesn't create its own competition, an OGL would likely help them in the long run. Particularly if they are going to keep to this very sparse publication cycle.

It wasn't really about followings, it was a direct response to 4th edition. People aren't going to mass convert to a new company unless something major happens to their existing system to cause them to want to leave.

As far as the lower positions go...

IIRC it wasn't 4th edition that held onto the position for a year and a half, it was D&D. It's quite possible that the sales were 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition reprints more than 4th edition books.

Also, IIRC, Numinera(sic) made a comment a few months ago about selling 15,000 units. If that's what sales are like if you're not D&D, then you're absolutely right, there's nothing out there with a following large enough to be a concern for D&D except for Paizo and their version of D&D.

Though quite honestly, I think D&D is destined to lose this battle if they don't start generating quality adventures. Relying on 3rd parties isn't going to get them to the point where they can challenge Paizo, and its my opinion that adventures are the key to success in this industry.

 

[Warunsun]

I think if the folks at Paizo had the capability of putting 5E compatible statistic blocks in their scenarios I bet they would. It could be as simple as using PDF conversion documents with their printed or PDF scenarios. Why wouldn't you want to sell your Adventure Paths to more people? I don't think they will abandon their version of v3.5 and I also doubt they would create a lot of rules heavy 5E style books. But only the folks at Paizo know for now. Even if they have already made deals or had discussions with the fine folks at Wizards of the Coast I do believe they would be under NDA agreements until the OGL is officially announced. Good things can happen.

 

[Warskull]

Remember the OGL was great until the end of 3.5E when Wizards decided to launch a new product without the OGL and without bringing major third parties on board. Paizo what put in a situation where they had to create something like Pathfinder or they would cease to exist.

The fact that many players felt that 4E didn't feel like D&D also helped them.

Paizo is very clearly a well run business. I think they treat their customers a bit better than Wizards and have a better business sense (as demonstrated by the success of Pathfinder.) However, creating a Pathfinder 2 based off 5E would be an overall losing proposition for them. First off, they are making tons of money from Pathfinder. They have little reason to abandon it at the moment (bird in the hand vs two in the bush.) Second making a clone of 5E would have to content with all the momentum 5E has going for it. They would have to convert existing 5E players and doing so in large quantities is quite difficult.

If anything the OGL for 5E stands to bring Paizo and other third parties back into the fold. Why not convert some adventures to 5E? Recycle some content, make some money.

 

[aramis erak]

It wasn't really about followings, it was a direct response to 4th edition. People aren't going to mass convert to a new company unless something major happens to their existing system to cause them to want to leave.

As far as the lower positions go...

IIRC it wasn't 4th edition that held onto the position for a year and a half, it was D&D. It's quite possible that the sales were 1st, 2nd, and 3rd edition reprints more than 4th edition books.

Also, IIRC, Numinera(sic) made a comment a few months ago about selling 15,000 units. If that's what sales are like if you're not D&D, then you're absolutely right, there's nothing out there with a following large enough to be a concern for D&D except for Paizo and their version of D&D.

Though quite honestly, I think D&D is destined to lose this battle if they don't start generating quality adventures. Relying on 3rd parties isn't going to get them to the point where they can challenge Paizo, and its my opinion that adventures are the key to success in this industry.

Numenera is not what "typical" sales are like. Most indy games are lucky if they break 5K. Few break 10K. 90% of games released don't sell more than 10K lifetime on dead tree... Hell, most don't hit 10K total, counting PDF...

Numenera had 4658 backers. Of those, some 300 didn't get copies of the whole game. And set a record for RPG kickstarters. It also happened to be by one of the biggest names in the industry: Monte Cook. And it was at least 15K units in the initial run, because they had 12,000 units ordered before delivering the KS... not all of those through the KS. Plus PDF sales. It's made MCG part of that second tier... along with SJG, Mongoose, FFG, White Wolf, and Hero Games....

Palladium routinely has print runs in the 10K-20K units, as well... and often goes to reprint. TMNT and Robotech both had more than 120K units sold during their lifetime. Rifts has, since 1990, sold over 270K units.

The pricing for a print run pretty well flattens out between 5K and 15K units... the next significant drop is about 40K-60K units.

The estimates I've seen put the print run around 50K-100K units for the 5E PHB, and a reprint already needed.

Back in 1999, they stated a print run size in excess of 50K units for the 3.0 PHB, and that by use of chinese printers and large initial volumes, they were able to keep the price down to $20 for the core book... They also used it as a nearly break-even product, planning on making up for it with splatbooks.