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Is It Time for PF2 "Essentials"?
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<blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 8230922" data-attributes="member: 2205"><p>To be fair, I'm not sure that I understand exactly what the typical Pathfinder customer actually wants. I started playing 3e when it was new, and it brought me back to D&D specifically when I had previously expressed little interest in D&D for many years, wandering around in other systems on some kind of quixotic Grail Quest for my ultimate game or system or whatever. And for the most part, I was pretty happy with 3e (including 3.5.) As the 3e era was coming to a close, I was still playing 3e, although I had long decided that I had some issues with it, especially at higher than mid-level. And I watched the whole 4e and Pathfinder launches, but as a guy who was still mostly playing 3e for a while, until my gaming group all moved around and lost touch with each other.</p><p></p><p>From my perspective, neither 4e nor Pathfinder fixed the problems that I had with 3e; in fact, they both went the opposite direction, although in radically different fashion from each other, and made most of the problems I had with the system worse, not better. Not to suggest that there weren't some interesting developments within the Pathfinder system, especially as we got to subsequent rules books, new classes, ideas like archetypes, etc. Although it always struck me that all of that could have been implemented on top of 3e. I was never really quite sure who the market was for the Pathfinder <em>system</em> specifically, or why they needed a new system that was 3e... except even <em>more </em>3e-ish, if that makes sense. I've long suspected that the Paizo fanbase was a combination of people who didn't care as much about the system, but who really like the adventure path model and wanted more of that, and people who felt let down by the direction WotC was going with 4e, and wanted an alternative that was going to publish stuff that "felt like" D&D to them in ways that 4e did not, and people who just kinda stuck their gamer identity on being Paizo guys, or something. I feel like few of them really needed a new system, and mostly only picked it up because without it, they weren't going to be able to continue to consume Paizo adventure paths as easily. Plus, like I said, the system <em>did</em> do some clever stuff here and there.</p><p></p><p>But given that I don't understand and am sceptical of the system wants of the typical Pathfinder player and their demands from a system, I admit to being even more confused by the launch of 2e and who exactly it's meant to cater to. I don't pretend to know the system well, or understand how it plays, but it's clearly quite a bit different than 3e, which was the core conceit of Pathfinder in the beginning, and the key to their attracting their initial player base; people who wanted to play something much more like 3e than 4e. It's also clearly quite different than 5e... and that's probably smart; if you're going to compete with 5e, at least stake out some territory that's not too similar to it. </p><p></p><p>But I suspect that 5e competed head to head with Pathfinder 1e for the exact same demographic; people who wanted an experience much more like 3e than 4e. Whereas Pathfinder didn't fix many of the problems with 3e, and in fact exacerbated them, 5e made a deliberate effort to be "like 3e but without many of its problems." That's gotta have been hard for Paizo; 4e didn't really directly compete for the same segment as Pathfinder, because the segment of players who played Pathfinder were exactly those who didn't like the kind of game that 4e was. But 5e did, and it did so pretty well and effectively, it appears. So, they needed to release a 2e—but who exactly is the segment that 2e caters to? I'm not sure; honestly, I don't know the system well enough, and I'm pretty out of touch with what kinds of vocal "factions" there are in D&D player segmentation anymore. But the fact that I can't really readily identify a segment that 2e is catering to is, to me, a somewhat worrying sign for the business model of Paizo. If they don't have a segment that they're clearly catering to, and that will be the obvious customers for 2e, then who's going to get into it? Just the people who do whatever Paizo does because it's Paizo? Plus a few others here and there who like the system for whatever other reason? I dunno. I'm just not quite sure where 2e's place in the market is.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Desdichado, post: 8230922, member: 2205"] To be fair, I'm not sure that I understand exactly what the typical Pathfinder customer actually wants. I started playing 3e when it was new, and it brought me back to D&D specifically when I had previously expressed little interest in D&D for many years, wandering around in other systems on some kind of quixotic Grail Quest for my ultimate game or system or whatever. And for the most part, I was pretty happy with 3e (including 3.5.) As the 3e era was coming to a close, I was still playing 3e, although I had long decided that I had some issues with it, especially at higher than mid-level. And I watched the whole 4e and Pathfinder launches, but as a guy who was still mostly playing 3e for a while, until my gaming group all moved around and lost touch with each other. From my perspective, neither 4e nor Pathfinder fixed the problems that I had with 3e; in fact, they both went the opposite direction, although in radically different fashion from each other, and made most of the problems I had with the system worse, not better. Not to suggest that there weren't some interesting developments within the Pathfinder system, especially as we got to subsequent rules books, new classes, ideas like archetypes, etc. Although it always struck me that all of that could have been implemented on top of 3e. I was never really quite sure who the market was for the Pathfinder [I]system[/I] specifically, or why they needed a new system that was 3e... except even [I]more [/I]3e-ish, if that makes sense. I've long suspected that the Paizo fanbase was a combination of people who didn't care as much about the system, but who really like the adventure path model and wanted more of that, and people who felt let down by the direction WotC was going with 4e, and wanted an alternative that was going to publish stuff that "felt like" D&D to them in ways that 4e did not, and people who just kinda stuck their gamer identity on being Paizo guys, or something. I feel like few of them really needed a new system, and mostly only picked it up because without it, they weren't going to be able to continue to consume Paizo adventure paths as easily. Plus, like I said, the system [I]did[/I] do some clever stuff here and there. But given that I don't understand and am sceptical of the system wants of the typical Pathfinder player and their demands from a system, I admit to being even more confused by the launch of 2e and who exactly it's meant to cater to. I don't pretend to know the system well, or understand how it plays, but it's clearly quite a bit different than 3e, which was the core conceit of Pathfinder in the beginning, and the key to their attracting their initial player base; people who wanted to play something much more like 3e than 4e. It's also clearly quite different than 5e... and that's probably smart; if you're going to compete with 5e, at least stake out some territory that's not too similar to it. But I suspect that 5e competed head to head with Pathfinder 1e for the exact same demographic; people who wanted an experience much more like 3e than 4e. Whereas Pathfinder didn't fix many of the problems with 3e, and in fact exacerbated them, 5e made a deliberate effort to be "like 3e but without many of its problems." That's gotta have been hard for Paizo; 4e didn't really directly compete for the same segment as Pathfinder, because the segment of players who played Pathfinder were exactly those who didn't like the kind of game that 4e was. But 5e did, and it did so pretty well and effectively, it appears. So, they needed to release a 2e—but who exactly is the segment that 2e caters to? I'm not sure; honestly, I don't know the system well enough, and I'm pretty out of touch with what kinds of vocal "factions" there are in D&D player segmentation anymore. But the fact that I can't really readily identify a segment that 2e is catering to is, to me, a somewhat worrying sign for the business model of Paizo. If they don't have a segment that they're clearly catering to, and that will be the obvious customers for 2e, then who's going to get into it? Just the people who do whatever Paizo does because it's Paizo? Plus a few others here and there who like the system for whatever other reason? I dunno. I'm just not quite sure where 2e's place in the market is. [/QUOTE]
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