Pathfinder 2E Is It Time for PF2 "Essentials"?

[GreyLord]

Is there anything to be agreed upon here concerning PF2? Assuming I'm acting in good faith and would like to see Paizo succeed, when I comment that it seems to me that things could be improved (at least to me and those like me), what are things the community could do to help?
I'm volunteering to run a virtual game for new players to show off the system and dispel my own negative first impression. I'm trying to engage the community into some positive discussion.
I don't say throw out the whole system, but maybe there's a better (more newbie friendly) way of presenting it? Maybe there's hope for more quality 3PP material?
So how do you do it? I think if those who like the system do nothing, it's not going to get the needed traction without word of mouth.
Systems that are a big departure from the previous editions (4e, WFRPG 3E) need fan buy-in, or we see what happens. I don't think Paizo has the resources to weather an equivalent of 4e.

I don't know how the sales of PF2e are actually doing. We have all sorts of opinions in this thread.

Some of them really do not seem as trustworthy as others (for example, the guy suggesting that Paizo is non-profit because the rules are also available online with their approval...stuff like that just makes me say...really? you want me to take that seriously??).

Others are worth considering. Appearances seem to indicate that sales of PF2e may be down from what PF1e had been from what I have read with actual evidence in the various threads on these subjects...BUT (and that's a big BUT) Paizo itself has had some things that they've stated over the past few years on the subject (and where some of my items regarding their focus from AP to game rules have come from...though I don't really want to go through the trouble of finding the actual quotes and then posting the links here).

From what I can tell from Paizo is that they are not doing so badly. I recall a few years ago (I think it may have been right near where they were deciding to end 1e) that they had said that they were doing pretty well with sales. That the D&D 5e popularity had raised the sales of ALL RPGs including theirs, and while it may seem that they were doing worse in comparison to D&D sales, in truth, their own sales were up and they were doing better and selling more than before.

I have no idea if this applies to 2e, but it could be a similar thing has happened. If Paizo had 2 million sales (a number I came up entirely at random, it has no basis in reality, it is only being used as an example) vs. 3 million in D&D sales...they were doing pretty good. Then, when D&D has 15 million sales...that's good for Paizo. Now, some of those D&D sales are interested in other systems and buy Pathfinder as well. This means that Paizo now has 5 million sales. This is over 2X what they sold before. However, compared to D&D, percentage wise it is only 1/3 where as before they had 2/3 of the percent. To an outward eye it may seem their sales have decreased, but in truth, even if the share of the market has gone down to the enormous jump in market size, they are doing better than they did before. This is just an example to illustrate the idea of what I understand Paizo said how they were being affected a few years ago...the numbers are nonsense that I put here, but hopefully the idea is understood.

Once again, no idea if this has extended to 2e (I think this was said in reference to 1e a few years back), but if it has continued in that same trend, the overall percentages may be deceiving in regards to how well they are actually doing with their sales numbers.

It could be worse, or may be better, I don't know, but just something that I've heard (actually, it was more like read about...but I think you get the idea).

 

[Desdichado]

Appearances seem to indicate that sales of PF2e may be down from what PF1e had been from what I have read with actual evidence in the various threads on these subjects...BUT (and that's a big BUT)

I like those, I cannot lie. All you other brothers can't deny.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In those terms, then, my point is that building a product lifecycle, i.e. a revenue model, on this, is customer-hostile. There is some number of pages of rules at which point people don't want more rules. The reason is that rules are durable goods, while adventures are consumable goods. People will play with the same rules over and over, sometimes for decades, but they will typically play an adventure once.

Consumers want durable goods to last as long as possible; producers would prefer they break down as quickly as the consumer will tolerate.

Depends on what sort of core system you have. In an exception based system, I'm not convinced a thing that supplies the customer with new mechanical widgets is abusive, as long as you're doing the playtesting to make sure that the mechanical widgets work right. You could make an argument that exception based design is intrinsically abusive I suppose, but presumably customers that agree with that migrate to effect based designs, and those are hardly the dominant run in the market, even if I prefer them.

I also think there's at least some excluded middle between purely-rules based items and adventures. Monster books, for example, land in this middle to me as do sourcebooks and setting material.

 

[wakedown]

I don't know how the sales of PF2e are actually doing. We have all sorts of opinions in this thread.

I feel like folks don't seem to grasp that the sales don't matter.

Again this is about the people not Paizo LLC. Paizo isn't part of a public company with shareholders like Hasbro/Wizards with consequences not hitting sales targets.

They were a small operation that burst in a window of opportunity which enabled their founders (Lisa Stevens and Vic Wertz) to announce they are formally stepping out of operations and transferring operating the company to Jeff Alvarez in this past year. There's all sorts of vehicles for founders/majority shareholders to have setup an early retirement - they could have paid out dividends during the glory days to themselves and set themselves up for a slightly early retirement. Clearly for them to step away now, their goals have been achieved and revenue from sales figures aren't materially to their personal plans going forward. It's murky who actually owns and is on Paizo's cap table but I imagine early co-founder Johnny Wilson may have some ownership or have transferred that. They'd have to have given some to early contributors like Mona, Bulmahn and Jacobs for those guys to pour so much sweat into Pathfinder.

The company can likely run in perpetuity with a skeleton crew of just those four contributors and they can launch PF3E through PF5E over the next 20 years. Or it could be possible Alvarez has been shopping the company so Stevens & Wertz can finally cash out completely and buy a boat or diversify their holdings and the pandemic was a big hiccup in navigating those waters. There's really not a whole lot of precedent for a Paizo "exit" - they'd possibly have to carve up their ecommerce operations and domain separate from their Pathfinder/Starfinder IP and the question is who would acquire that now, versus let PF2E run it's course another 18-36 months before tendering an offer.

Ultimately if you want a Pathfinder edition that is a passion product with something tied to a real attempt at impressive sales figures, there would need to be a majority shareholders driving that, otherwise there is nothing wrong with the company having a smaller staff of heavily invested folks with junior contributors/community players contributing art or adventures as long as they are feeding enough demand within their ecosystem. Those are really the two paths for 2025 - the core team is producing content for the current PF2E or a new PF3E or new ownership has emerged with ideas on how to use their IP, which would come with a new edition to merit the ROI of the expense.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I feel like folks don't seem to grasp that the sales don't matter.

Again this is about the people not Paizo LLC. Paizo isn't part of a public company with shareholders like Hasbro/Wizards with consequences not hitting sales targets.

You can't say this without knowing how much Paizo is spending to service liabilities. If it's a little, a significant drop in sales won't mean negative cash flow. It's a lot, a big sales drop will have their creditors calling.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I also want to step in again to say that comparison of PF2e to PF1e sales is, I think, fundamentally going at it the wrong way. I don't believe it'd have been possible for anything Paizo to do to duplicate those at their peak for reasons I've mentioned before.

 

[transmission89]

I mean the money they get from all the rules they sell in their 39.99 to 59.99 USD rulebooks.

es, the rules (well, most of them) are put online for people to read and reference, but it's the book sales that are driving what Paizo has focused on and the money it brings in.

IF you are implying that the rulebooks are not their major money maker these days and a major focus of Paizo...well...that is NOT a way to impress me that you have legitimate reasoning in your discussion.

OR...If you are implying that Paizo is a non-profit organization...well...that's a pretty skewed bias you have there.

No I’m not implying they are non profit. And thanks for the straw manning of me in a further post (real cute). I have not claimed they are non profit or a charity. Nor am I here to try and impress you.

What I am saying is that your argument for their publishing rule books to satisfy their “cocaine like addiction to money” doesn’t really stand up to scrutiny or even the most casual of glances at what they do

If I desired to make a profit, and I decided that my business is reliant on making rules to generate that profit and sustain my company, I’d be pretty stupid to give them away for free wouldn’t I?

This is further supported by the fact that their PDF of the CRB is a loss leader with a relatively cheap buy in.

Now yes, obviously, they make money from rule books they sell. The fact that they also give away these rules pretty much day and date with publication of the rule books indicate that this is not their main driver for profit.

Their main focus is on subscriptions to their adventures (in which the rules support the things they want to do) and lore books.

 

[Aldarc]

Even Runehammer (ol Hankerin Ferinale) agrees on that - we need a stripped down PF2.

Who cares what he thinks about PF2? I do mean that with respect to the guy. But Hankerin Ferinale would likely not play it even if it existed, as he has abandoned 5e D&D entirely, basically dumped his own ICRPG system, and is currently having a love affair with OSE.

 

[transmission89]

Is there anything to be agreed upon here concerning PF2? Assuming I'm acting in good faith and would like to see Paizo succeed, when I comment that it seems to me that things could be improved (at least to me and those like me), what are things the community could do to help?
I'm volunteering to run a virtual game for new players to show off the system and dispel my own negative first impression. I'm trying to engage the community into some positive discussion.
I don't say throw out the whole system, but maybe there's a better (more newbie friendly) way of presenting it? Maybe there's hope for more quality 3PP material?
So how do you do it? I think if those who like the system do nothing, it's not going to get the needed traction without word of mouth.
Systems that are a big departure from the previous editions (4e, WFRPG 3E) need fan buy-in, or we see what happens. I don't think Paizo has the resources to weather an equivalent of 4e.

Again, the language you’re using suggests a conclusion that it is in trouble (which is the point of contention).

“Would like to see Paizo succeed”

who says they aren’t succeeding and what are the success criteria?

“It’s not going to get the needed traction...”

Again, how are you measuring the traction (beyond the already disputed conclusions you have drawn using Roll20)?

This does little to suggest you are acting in good faith. Assuming you are however, To help, the community is already doing what it needs to. Playing games, talking about it etc. There are apps that people are making to make character building a breeze, Paizo is putting out digital bite size modules to easily sample for players, their fantasy grounds set up is amazing in the vtt space.
What doesn’t help is alarmist and sensationalist posts that claim it is in trouble or is a complete failure with little evidence to support it (beyond pointing dramatically at the market aberration that is 5e).

 

[Retreater]

Who cares what he thinks about PF2? I do mean that with respect to the guy. But Hankerin Ferinale would likely not play it even if it existed, as he has abandoned 5e D&D entirely, basically dumped his own ICRPG system, and is currently having a love affair with OSE.

I'm having a trist with OSE as well, and while also seeing 5e and PF2 on the side. I'm also looking at PF Savage Worlds. I guess I'm in an RPG open relationship.
I have a feeling that he gets into a system for a bit, switches when something else catches his attention.