D&D is dying by the hour

[Charwoman Gene]

But then it would lose one level and be weaker. Unless he casted True Ressurection. Or used Reincarnation and transformerd D&D x.Y into a badger.

or maybe a gnome.

RAWR!

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

What's RC Cola? Never heard of them.

Exactly

 

[Reynard]

Your understanding of the relative scale of both of these companies undermines your credibility. Paizo's financial position is at least an order of magnitude (if not two) smaller than WotC's. If you believe that cutting 5% off of a cake is a "good chunk", then your point is at least coherent.

An important thing to note, though, is that Paizo doesn't need to take a noticable chunk of WotC's player base with them, they only need to take a noticable chunk of WotC's customer base. For all the talk about how internet geeks don't matter and that most D&D players don't even know 3rd party publishers exist, it is likely that the internet geeks and the people who do know 3rd party publishers exist are a disproportionate segment of those that buy books beyond the core. So while Paizo may not make a dent in 4E core book sales, they may well make a dent in supplement sales, by simple virtue of offering support for the previous edition to the people most likely to buy books, where there would otherwise be none.

Now, in order to do this, I think Paizo needs to expand beyond their current publishing scheme. as much as I love the writing and the art of Pathfinder, I have zero use for an adventure path -- I simple don't think having a planned out campaign from level x to level x+12 is a good idea, as one never knows which way players are going to zig or zag. Now, that's just me, but I hardly believe myself that unique a precious snowflake. There must be others who'd love to see Paizo do something similar to the old Dunegon with a few unconnected adventures of varying lengths geared toward various levels. (They could call it Trailblazer -- Make Your Own Path!)

Anyway, the point is that while Paizo fans may not make up a significant percentage of the mythical (or, in Rouse's words, inflated) 5 million players, they probably make up a significant (not majority, not "a lot", but simply significant) percentage of those that spend $$ on D&D books every month.

 

[Glyfair]

Anyway, the point is that while Paizo fans may not make up a significant percentage of the mythical (or, in Rouse's words, inflated) 5 million players, they probably make up a significant (not majority, not "a lot", but simply significant) percentage of those that spend $$ on D&D books every month.

I think most of this is quite reasonable. I certainly can accept that those who spend the most on D&D and related RPGs have a good chance of being among the Paizo customers.

However, you may have stopped a bit too soon in your analysis. Those that spend the most on RPG books are the most likely to buy both Pathfinder and WotC books. That mitigates this condition somewhat.

Add to this those who claim they won't get 4E and stick with Paizo and actually end up getting into 4E after all (look at a lot of those who swore they wouldn't buy 3.5), and I believe WotC won't see any significant direct effect from Paizo's system.

 

[Graf]

It's called a marketing lull. It's designed to build anticipation for the new product.

D&D isn't dead. Not by a long shot. They're just making us salivate and "want more" for a little while before releasing the next glut of preview information.

QFT.
They want to make you insane with desire.
Invest yourself in their toy, chew apart each individual morsel slowly until you're bored with it and you want more.

You find yourself invested in each mechanic, intensely curious to discover whether your version is the version they went with.

Marketing, such as it is, does have access to a few psychological tools.

It's affecting everyone. Even experienced writers like JD are complaining they "they don't have access".
Everyone wants to know; they pre-order, just to tell themselves "I'll know soon".

 

[Hussar]

I think people are saying that because, well, it doesn't. More than that, it is an intended design goal. While this says nothing of the quality of the game that is being produced -- the liklihood is that the game will be very well designed and a lot of fun to play. But that doesn't make it D&D, at least in feel. The sacred cows that have lasted for 30 years have lasted for a reason, and the game was successful for 30 years for a reason.

D&D has been successful for 30 years? Really? When they had to rush publication of the original Unearthed Arcana due to sales falling off so badly? When TSR went out of business? When, up until the release of 3e, the numbers of people playing D&D had steadily declined throughout the 80's and 90's?

That's a definition of successful that I was previously unaware of.

 

[Green Knight]

I think people are saying that because, well, it doesn't. More than that, it is an intended design goal. While this says nothing of the quality of the game that is being produced -- the liklihood is that the game will be very well designed and a lot of fun to play. But that doesn't make it D&D, at least in feel. The sacred cows that have lasted for 30 years have lasted for a reason, and the game was successful for 30 years for a reason.

What sacred cows are you talking about? Cause a lot of them are still there.

• We still have Armor Class
• We still have Hit Points (Unfortunately)
• We still have a class system, with Fighters, Wizards, Clerics, Rogues, Rangers, Paladins, etc
• We still roll d20's to hit
• We still have Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Half-Elves, and Gnomes
• We still have Magic Missile, Fireball, Lightning Bolt, and God knows how many spells
• We still have dungeons, dragons, traps, beholders, orcs, kobolds, hobgoblins, and trolls

D&D was still D&D after the removal of THAC0, negative AC, percentage dice for Thief skills, and saves versus Paralyzation/Poison/Death Magic, Rod/Staff/Wand, Petrification/Polymorph, Breath Weapon, and Spell. It'll still be D&D even after Fort, Reflex, and Will get flipped to static defenses, the advent of Per Day, Per Encounter, and At Will powers, and the introduction of Implements.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Now, in order to do this, I think Paizo needs to expand beyond their current publishing scheme. as much as I love the writing and the art of Pathfinder, I have zero use for an adventure path -- I simple don't think having a planned out campaign from level x to level x+12 is a good idea, as one never knows which way players are going to zig or zag. Now, that's just me, but I hardly believe myself that unique a precious snowflake. There must be others who'd love to see Paizo do something similar to the old Dunegon with a few unconnected adventures of varying lengths geared toward various levels. (They could call it Trailblazer -- Make Your Own Path!)

The Adventure Path had a big appeal for my group. We liked having the guarantee for a supported, cohesive campaign, since several of us just felt they didn't have the time to prepare a campaign (or at least individual adventures) on their own.

But I just came to wonder - was this something more important for 3E? Making up NPCs and monsters took a lot of work. If we reduce this work, might it be possible to run more homebrew adventures?

I am not convincend yet that this is true. I know that my group played published modules even before 3E, and also for different game systems. I know that the work required for 3E sometimes lead me dread preparing a game. But I still did it (basically the "special snowflake" in our group).

 

[Baka no Hentai]

This led to the third big blow for Wizards: The Paizo annoucement of their own RPG / 3.5 compatible.

To arrive at this conclusion, you have to make several key (and, IMO, flawed) assumptions.

The first being that a significant number of people continue to buy WOTC products only because Paizo (or any third party publisher) puts out supplemental material. I think this assumption is way off the mark, as I still hold to my belief that the majority of D&D players dont even know what Paizo *is*, and that of those who do, a very small percentage would stop purchasing WOTC products if Paizo no longer supported WOTC with its own material.

The second assumption that you would have to make is that Paizo is catering to anything more than a niche market. The fact of the matter is, their core customer base for the Pathfinder RPG are going to be those people who dont want to switch to an entirely new edition of D&D, but that *do* want to purchase new rules. This leaves out all of the people who are excited to go to fourth edition, as well as all of the people that are fine with 3.0 and 3.5 the way they are and dont want to make any changes. Not to mention all the people who will download the alpha and beta Pathfinder rules, pick and choose the things they like the most for house-rule additions, then never give Paizo a dime (they would not be doing a single thing wrong in this case, as Paizo is the one releasing this info free of charge.)

Lastly you would have to assume that those people that do purchase the Pathfinder RPG wont also purchase the fourth edition rules. Gaming is not restrictive in that you have to choose one particular game or another and never play anything else. Im sure that many people who are looking forward to playing Pathfinder will also be buying Fourth Edition products either out of curiousity, or to possibly play now and then, or even to have them in hand for when their current 3.5 campaigns that they dont want to scrap come to an end. Likewise, Im sure that a number of people (proportional to the size of the customer base for Paizo) who are pledged to play 4E will also purchase the Pathfinder RPG and/or adventure paths for their "alternative game nights" or to scavenge ideas for their 4E campaigns.

At the end of the day, Pathfinder is going after a niche market. To think otherwise is deluding yourself. That is not to say that they wont do well in that niche, or that they wont do well enough to expand that niche from its current size. I for one hope that they do well, as anything that keeps gamers active is good for the industry as a whole.

 

[helium3]

What he said.

I game with three friends who have never heard of ENWorld, I introduced them to Paizo (which after initially liking, they're rapidly going off) and they are mad keen as anything for 4E. They haven't played since 4E.

What's got them to start disliking Paizo?