If Paizo had gone 4E ...

[JVisgaitis]

I'm buying some of Paizo's material now and I'm stictly 4e. If they went 4e, I would definitely be getting their Adventure Paths as I prefer Paizo's art direction and graphic design over WotC. For production values and bang for the buck, you can't beat Paizo.

One thing I do want to say, Paizo is a business. They will make a very good living pushing Pathfinder RPG and going that route, but I would not be surprised in the slightest if WotC released a more relaxed GSL and Paizo came on board.

You do what is best for your company as a business and you go the direction that will help you thrive. Nothing against 3.x, but in the long run 4e will win out and I'm sure a lot of publishers will adapt to the industry then.

 

[Starfox]

One of the good things about 4e is that its easy to convert to. I can bye the 3.5 Pathfinder adventures and be pretty confident that I can run them in 4e. The opposite would not be true; converting a 4 ed adventure to 3.5 would be an enormous hassle.

 

[Arnwyn]

Nothing against 3.x, but in the long run 4e will win out and I'm sure a lot of publishers will adapt to the industry then.

"Win out"? What do you mean?

4e, published by the 800 lb gorilla, "won out" the moment it was announced. Or do you mean something else?

 

[DaveMage]

Nothing against 3.x, but in the long run 4e will win out and I'm sure a lot of publishers will adapt to the industry then.

Says the man whose company is completely 4e.

However, in my gaming library, 3.5 is leading 4E in books, by an approximate count of 1,500 to 1*. 4E will be unable to win out there, even in the long run.




*I did buy the Dungeon Survival Guide which used the 4E font on the cover.

 

[Henrix]

If Paizo went 4e I'd go for it like a comet! Love their AP's, but I would not want to DM a high-level 3.x campaign again.

 

[Gothmog]

If Paizo published 4e stuff, I'd sure look at it and consider buying it. If they decide to stick with 3.5/Pathfinder, I really have no interest in their products. 3.5 and Pathfinder have too many problems, and don't let me run the kind of games I enjoy.

That said, I don't think Paizo will publish much, if anything, for 4e- simply out of self-preservation rather than a business decision. I get the feeling from many of the comments I've seen here and on Paizo's boards if they did go 4e, the die-hard Pathfinder folks would hunt them down, crucify them, and burn them alive.

 

[JVisgaitis]

Says the man whose company is completely 4e.

My company going 4e has nothing to do with it. I just think that eventually the whole 3.x market is going to dry up to nothing and most people who are holding out will eventually convert.

Another scenario is that if the GSL is relaxed enough, its certainly possible that someone could change the rules to fit more along the lines of 3e and pull back a lot of the changes that so many people are against.

Who knows, maybe the changes will allow conversion material for 3.x users. That would be a definite way to get publishers to convert. I have nothing personal against 3e at all, I'm just bored and want something different. Clearly a lot of people are happy with things as is. That's fine too.

 

[DaveMage]

Who knows, maybe the changes will allow conversion material for 3.x users.

Actually, if the new GSL allows companies to produce 3.5 stat downloads, I would indeed be purchasing some 4E products (especially adventures).

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If Paizo had gone 4E ...

They might be out of business, at least temporarily. I mean - what products where they supposed to put out, while waiting for the GSL, that was constantly delayed?

Of course, they could have done what they did, minus the Pathfinder/3.75 stuff, but who would sales go if Paizo fans felt that 3E was dying out if their publisher would cease supporting it so soon?

As much as I'd love Paizo on the 4E bandwagon now, I think they made the business decision that was best for them. Considering that they did get that right, I suppose that they will also notice soon enough if 3E/Pathfinder is no longer enough and switch gears again. But I won't take any bets on when that happens... If Rifts is still around, 3E should stay around longer.

 

[Erik Mona]

We're going to sell out all of the copies of the Beta we brought to Gen Con within 10 minutes of the hall opening tomorrow (we fell _just_ short of a complete sell-out today). We just launched what looks to be a very successful organized play campaign with more than 40 tables over the course of 8 hours. Many, many gamers purchased 4 or 5 copies of the Beta for their entire group.

I think we'll be sticking with 3.5 for a good long while. I couldn't be happier with how things are turning out.

--Erik Mona
Publisher
Paizo Publishing, LLC