D&D 5E Could Paizo go 5e?

[JudgeMonroe]

Paizo are sitting (sic) in high cotton. They've been under no obligation to maintain the 3.5 SRD-derived rule set over the last several years but they have done so, and done so while being good stewards of the OGL, which WoTC never was. Every new rule, feat, and class Paizo releases has gone into their SRD; WoTC never released anything beyond the core rules *(and Unearthed Arcana) as Open Content.

If Pathfinder were to evolve, it doesn't need to be into a 5e rule set. They could pull a Hackmaster and go in a completely different direction. Or they could make a more subtle AD&D 1-to-2 shift in their rules given the number of expansions they've made that could result in a new core.

They know they have an intimidating amount of "bloat," as evidenced by the introduction of their Core-only organized play program a year ago. If they do a Pathfinder 2, it doesn't need to be a sea change.

They've also got the IP. Golarion is a ridiculously detailed world at this point. It rivals the Realms in a fraction of the time. Their adventure paths alone can probably generate enough revenue for two companies. How many times have they monetized Rise of the Runelords so far? There's more where that came from. They could issue hardback conversions under the 5e SRD without cannibalizing their own player base if they wanted, but I doubt they do or will.

 

[MerricB]

Paizo are sitting (sic) in high cotton. They've been under no obligation to maintain the 3.5 SRD-derived rule set over the last several years but they have done so, and done so while being good stewards of the OGL, which WoTC never was. Every new rule, feat, and class Paizo releases has gone into their SRD; WoTC never released anything beyond the core rules as Open Content.

Wrong. See Unearthed Arcana.

 

[darjr]

The also did SCAG, right? They've been busy working on 5e stuff!

If your point is that they haven't published any of it themselves, that's certainly true.

ahem... uh... good point. Two products. Then back to their own gamelines.

 

[darjr]

So you've gone from, "Notice any new product from them?" to an ad hominem and moved right away into resetting your own goal posts.

Excellent work, 4/5.

Just trying to clarify my point, after, I think, you totally missed it.

 

[JudgeMonroe]

Wrong. See Unearthed Arcana.

That's true. They didn't port it out to the SRD, though, and some of it came from other OGL sources in the first place, but yes a whole whack of variant rules were Opened in UA. The comparison stands; UA was one book of dozens, and Paizo's SRD still grows with every release.

 

[darjr]

OK. I'll stop trying to be clever. There isn't any reason that Paizo couldn't partner with WotC like Green Ronin did and produce that Giants Greyhawk adventure and then go right back to Pathfinder and not 5e.

Except maybe that they are all very busy just doing Pathfinder. I think their die hard fans, mostly, wouldn't have a problem with that.

 

[darjr]

You mean in the few days since 5e went OGL?

Yea, like they needed the 5e SRD under the OGL to do a 5e product. Sasquatch didn't. Neither did Kobold Press.

 

[Jester David]

I haven't thought this through beyond the 5 minutes it took to type this, but...

Yeah, seriously, what if Paizo goes 5e? It's not as crazy as it sounds. How many more non-AP books does Pathfinder have in it?

...

I guess it all hinges on 4: if you're already looking to re-boot. Put another way, it may not be time to do that now, or maybe Paizo never plans on doing a re-boot, but if they ever do, doing it 5e would make a lot of sense.

Unlikely.

There's a lot of problems.
First is the adversarial relationship between a lot of the fans. People have divided themselves into Pathfinder vs D&D, Paizo vs WotC. While the vast majority don't care, enough do. It's the sunk cost fallacy at work, much like video game consoles. People picked a side and feel the need to defend it to the point of irrationality.

There's also the desire not to change. Pathfinder arose from people liking the rule set and not wanting a new system. While the inherent warts and imperfections are beginning to show for many - as Pathfinder couldn't fix a lot of the inherent problems with the rules - many still don't want a radical change of the system. They want something that feels very similar.
D&D had six different versions of the game to pull from when designing a new system that "feels like D&D" while Paizo only has one version of Pathfinder. It'd be hard to make a new version of Pathinder that feels like Pathfinder without a lot of the 3e-isms.

And there's the paradox of rules content. Fans were accepting of Pathfinder because it let them keep using their old 3e content (for a time). Because they had so much content they hadn't used. Now Pathfinder has slowly crept up in terms of content with 3e, releasing less per year but for far more years and far fewer optional books that are easier to ignore. So the same problem exists. There's too many books, and bloat is an issue, but people are reluctant to leave the system because they've spent so much and don't want to buy it all again.
Without backwards compatibility, a Pathfinder Revised will be a hard sell. But backwards compatibility means upgrading to 5e or a 5e clone will be tricky.

Because many didn't play 4e for long, a lot of the changes and improvements of 5e are less accepted as fixes. Some of the tweaks Paizo is doing to the rules, such as their simple monster rules, seem a lot more like 4e than 5e. Pathfinder is paradoxically evolving in the same direction as 4e. The fans keep suggesting things like minions and reject bounded accuracy and classes with fewer decision points.


Now, Paizo could still do something for 5e. They could release conversions of their Adventure Paths or a Golarion setting guide with monsters and the like for 5e. But that seems like a poor business decision as it's basically competing with themselves.

 

[ssvegeta555]

The one thing I miss when switching for PF to 5e was Paizo quality adventures. That and crunch (5e atm, is a bit light of that front). Even if it were to be a side thing, seeing Paizo stuff for 5e would be awesome.

 

[delericho]

If Paizo put out a Book of Advanced Classes for 5e, I'd get that in a flash. Same with any crunch thing, really.

Do they have to give up doing Pathfinder to do this?

No, but there's an issue of having people to do it - Paizo have a very full release schedule and their staff basically work flat-out to service that. To do a 5e book would require them to either divert some people away from PF for that or hire new people just for the job (but the latter is pretty inefficient, since those new people won't have the experience with the material that existing staff have).

So there comes a question: is it better to produce a supplement for 5e, or would they make more money by keeping their staff on PF 100% (and putting any new staff on PF too).

Obviously, Paizo would need to do that calculation, and we don't have the numbers. But it may well be that being the big fish in their own smaller pool is more profitable than being a relatively small fish in a much bigger one.