Did WotC underestimate the Paizo effect on 4E?

[malraux]

I've heard a number of people state that they tried 4e, didn't like it, and switched to Pathfinder. How is Pathfinder not stealing customers from 4E? It is stealing them. We just don't know how many it's stealing.

Presumably they'd not like 4e even if pathfinder existed. The only people that pathfinder steals are the ones that decide they don't like 4e because pathfinder came out.

 

[carmachu]

I think this is a good point, but WotC has put out some excellent adventures (Red Hand of Doom immediately comes to mind) but if I remember the folks who put together the adventures I enjoyed for 3X, they tended to be the Paizo people, so I don't necessarily know if they have the talent in-house at the moment to make them.

Some is a stretch. RHoD is pretty much the best one they put out, and Return to the TOEE was the only other one that I think qualifies. After that there's really not anything else.

 

[Reynard]

Presumably they'd not like 4e even if pathfinder existed. The only people that pathfinder steals are the ones that decide they don't like 4e because pathfinder came out.

I think you are underestimating the "shininess" effect, especially among GMs. While there are certainly those that have been playing with their same original 1E PHBs and DMGs, I think most GMs like having new stuff. They LIKE spending their money, because gaming -- specifically, D&D gaming -- is their hobby, and people spend money on their hobbies. This creates a powerful internal motivation to adopt the new edition of a favorite game. I love old school D&D, for example, but the retroclones have allowed me to spend money on shiny new D&D stuff, and this pleases me.

But Pathfinder isn't a retro-clone. it is "current D&D" competing directly with official D&D, simply because it exists. Many of those people that don't like 4E may well have stuck with it if it was the only currently published and supported D&D, but because of Pathfinder it isn't. That means that the GM can get their "shiny" fix and not have to conform to a kind of D&D they don't like.

I think it is important to differentiate Pathfinder from the FantasyCrafts and True20s and even Conans. While those are all great fantasy games based on the OGL, none of them are D&D in the way that Pathfinder is. D&D 3.x lasted nearly 10 years. That is a lot of time to build a dedicated following and create a whole generation of D&D players who, like the old school and my own "middle school", identify D&D as this particular kind of play and game -- plus convert and hold a bunch of earlier fans.

Certainly more players moved on to 4E than switched to Pathfinder, but I don't think anyone is claiming that Pathfinder is bigger than 4E. Rather, I think the suggestion is that Pathfinder is *significant* in a way that no other OGL fantasy game is (I say it that way because I think M&M is a truly significant OGL game, but that's a different issue) and its success is going to impact 4E. Those pointing out the "grognardization" of Essentials are spot on.

And here's one last anecdote: I run Pathfinder because the people I play with had absolutely no interest in 4E and preferred to stay with 3.5. I lobbied for Pathfinder because I wanted the shiny, as well as wanted a few "fixes" to 3.5. These guys have been playing D&D since 1981 or so. To them, Pathfinder *is* D&D now, and 4E might as well not exist at all. What's more is that we have introduced one new player via 3.5/Pathfinder in the 4E era, and one player and myself both have kids just about to make their first forays into gaming -- and we're not going to tell the kids that they can finally play Pathfinder with us grown ups; we're going to tell the kids they can finally play D&D with us and we're going to do so via Pathfinder.

 

[Markn]

I think this is a good point, but WotC has put out some excellent adventures (Red Hand of Doom immediately comes to mind) but if I remember the folks who put together the adventures I enjoyed for 3X, they tended to be the Paizo people, so I don't necessarily know if they have the talent in-house at the moment to make them.

I think 4E is incredibly easy to write the mechanics of an adventure for. You pretty much have a road-map for the encounters and treasures spelled out for you in the DMG's encounter creation rules.

What's more difficult, and has mostly eluded the 4E adventure writers is the story, whether that's an interesting backstory for the adventure, well motivated villains, or even exceptionally interesting set pieces for the adventures.

My group still talks about the gnome village that was the first adventure for Shackled City. The WotC adventures just haven't had something to match that kind of backdrop. Frankly, they haven't had something as interesting as EnWorld's Fire Forest either.

Is that intentional? I hope not, but what I do know is that when my group finishes up Burning Sky (and that's going to take a while...) I don't have a similar replacement for them. That saddens me greatly.

I can only think that an incredible adventure path as a kick-off for the new edition would have sold a lot of people who were on the fence at the time.

--Steve

I agree with you on everything you said.

I will just add, that Red Hand of Doom is an adventure that came out near the end of 3.5. As product options dry up, WotC seems to invest a lot more in module design and this seems to be where they have the most success with modules.

And FWIW, I feel your pain on what to run. As it stands, I plan on converting a lot of Pathfinder stuff myself. I find conversions pretty simple.

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

As an aside, James Jacobs was one of the primary authors of Red Hand of Doom.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Presumably they'd not like 4e even if pathfinder existed. The only people that pathfinder steals are the ones that decide they don't like 4e because pathfinder came out.

I guess most Paizo customers are ones who would not have liked 4E in any case.

And those who do not stick with WOTC 3.5, whether because of balance issues, or just wanting a supported game. It is a complicate equation, but it is not so simple, as Mairaux says.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I would recoil in horror?

No, you'd roll your eyes in annoyance.

I think that the folks saying that there are new players who's first experience being Pathfinder is where the competition kicks in may have the right of it, that and the folks that they in turn either bring into the hobby or convert from 4.0.

I run a Pathfinder game for teens once a week or so, there was one temporary player (over for a visit) who was hard set on 4e, and wouldn't play 3.5. He was more than willing to play Pathfinder though.... (I admit it - I do not understand his reasoning.) He now has his own Pathfinder set, and plays both PF and 4e. The rest do not play 4e at all, though I think two of them do own the core three for 4e. For most of them Pathfinder is their first game, and the only one that they own books for.

The Auld Grump

 

[SteveC]

Some is a stretch. RHoD is pretty much the best one they put out, and Return to the TOEE was the only other one that I think qualifies. After that there's really not anything else.

This is very definitely a situation of personal tastes, but as I look on my gaming shelf, I also like the Ravenloft and Greyhawk books that were put out, again largely by folks at Paizo.

I think that the skills necessary to write an excellent module are very different from those for writing game rules or even game background fluff. It's clearly something that the folks at Paizo have, and something that the folks at WotC lack (or, as some have suggested, are deliberately not using in the same way).

Again it's all my opinion, of course...

 

[Hussar]

/snip
What's more difficult, and has mostly eluded the 4E adventure writers is the story, whether that's an interesting backstory for the adventure, well motivated villains, or even exceptionally interesting set pieces for the adventures.
/snip

Is that intentional? I hope not, but what I do know is that when my group finishes up Burning Sky (and that's going to take a while...) I don't have a similar replacement for them. That saddens me greatly.

I can only think that an incredible adventure path as a kick-off for the new edition would have sold a lot of people who were on the fence at the time.

--Steve

I honestly think it's 100% intentional. I think that WOTC modules are using the old 1e modules as a model - backstory limited to about a page (if that) and not a whole lot else for the most part.

I think the reason for this is a belief that many 4e players are very inexperienced gamers and that bombing them with as much backstory as say, Shackled City, would scare them off. After all, how does a new player know what is important and what isn't?

Running a bare bones module is simply easier than a fully fledged one. The downside is that those of us who expect a fully fledged module are not going to be particularly happy with the stripped down ones that WOTC produces.

But, at the end of the day, I do not think that most of the people who are posting in this thread, whether they like 4e or not, are the target audience for most of WOTC's modules.

Which is why I think Paizo modules are so much better received by experienced gamers. We have the experience to be able to take these very flavour heavy adventures and use them. We want all these details (or at least a lot of us do) about setting and history and whatnot.

Expecting a 16 year old DM who's been gaming for six months to be able to pick up the Shackled City AP and run it well is too much IMO. And that is the DM WOTC modules are aimed at.

 

[billd91]

I honestly think it's 100% intentional. I think that WOTC modules are using the old 1e modules as a model - backstory limited to about a page (if that) and not a whole lot else for the most part.

I think the reason for this is a belief that many 4e players are very inexperienced gamers and that bombing them with as much backstory as say, Shackled City, would scare them off. After all, how does a new player know what is important and what isn't?

Running a bare bones module is simply easier than a fully fledged one. The downside is that those of us who expect a fully fledged module are not going to be particularly happy with the stripped down ones that WOTC produces.

Eh, there's a middle ground here. A bit of backstory actually makes some elements of an RPG adventure easier to run. I'd recommend anyone contrast experiences with Keep on the Borderlands, definitely bare bones as far as NPC characterization and story, with Return to Keep on the Borderlands. The latter I found much easier to deal with because there is a lot more detail - it was just organized and written for a beginner with a lot of advice and clarity.