Pathfinder 1E Is PAIZO becoming the next Wizards?

[BryonD]

I like Pathfinder. But it isn't innovative - it is very explicitly derivative. It looks to me like Paizo's a well-run small business, but as a business they aren't doing anything that the other game shops of comparable size haven't done each in their turn.

There is a difference between PF being innovative and Paizo being innovative. I think the AP approach, subscription based product lines and heavy focus on print+pdf formats are rather innovative. Not at all to claim that none of these exist elsewhere or even before Paizo, but that Paizo has established a position of industry leadership in these areas.

PF itself is, of course, highly derivative. It was never intended to be wildly innovative. To the contrary, its purpose is to keep the game system (and OGL) that Paizo wanted to support running. But even with that, there is specific examples of innovation. IMO, sorcerer bloodlines are an outstanding innovation that greatly improves the expression of various kinds of intrinsic spellcasting characters, which were lumped into a more narrow range under 3X. CMB is a good innovation. PF is highly derivative, but specific examples of innovation exist within it, and Paizo's innovation is far greater than PF innovation.

 

[bagger245]

I like how Paizo is turning out. It is good to have another company that is like a secondary leading rpg company and also producing D&D. I will say that Paizo's strength is it's fluff. I Their adventure paths, modules and campaign setting is the fluffiest in the market right now, reminding me of 2e AD&D era. Now, I don't really care about their Pathfinder rpg and have nothing against them that they are "using someone's else game system". It is good to keep 3.5 in print, just like how the retro clone movement is doing the same for the older D&Ds.

 

[dmccoy1693]

I'm honestly curious, as maybe I'm missing it, but what are they doing that you feel earns them the title "industry leader?"

Getting the rules early:
Wizards said they were going to send a copy of the rules to publishers that wanted to produce material for their game. They failed to do this.
Paizo said they were going to send a copy of the rules to publishers that wanted to produce material for their game. They did this.

License:
The GSL is very rigid when compared to the d20 license. It is clear that Wizards wants greater control over what others are producing with their system. While they have the RIGHT to do that, it stifles creativity. Stifling creativity is not a mark of a leader.
The Pathfinder Compatability license is comparable to the d20 license. They choose to afford their licensees as great a degree of flexibility with their material. Additionally, the license allows someone to simply remove the PF compatible logo from the book and still sell their product.

PDF and electronic books:
Wizards shut down all pdf sales despite the fact that all PDF sales are the fastest growing sector of the market (granted they are not the same size as print books, but it will continue to get larger).
Paizo not only gives away PDFs to subscribers, those PDFs are fully book marked and the system books are internally linked for even quicker reference for important terms. Paizo has also said they are looking into the epub format for their fiction line. They are willing to deliver the content their fans want in the form they want.

Electronic Tools
Wizards does have the edge in this respect, mostly. Their character builder is quality. You don't need to own a book with it.
Paizo does not have a similar product as the character builder. But they do have their system fully on the web. Additionally their community use license is such that it allows a fan to create their own web reference guide (and actually be better than Paizo's). All the open content is available on the fan's reference site. Paizo has even said that their bestiary 2 will be fully open content and allowable for the previously referenced fan reference website.

3rd Party Market Penetration
Several publishers have stopped producing material for 4E because the sales are not what they need. Pathfinder's 3rd party sales are rather healthy.

Accessibility
I miss Scott Rouse. He was a good man and even though he was not frequently on ENWorld, he was here. I will admit that I do not spend as much time in this area of ENWorld much these days (I spend more time in the PFRPG area), but I do not see many people from Wizards here when I am here. I will admit the possibility that they post here regularly and I am simply missing them.
Paizo's people I see regularly. Paizo understands that one of the things that helps drive their fan base is how accessible their designers and editors are on the web.

Compatible with Another Company's Product
Paizo choose to make their system backwards compatible enough that you could use existing material for it. When most people sit down an old system for a new system. Paizo choose to make their system work with a system that was abandoned by its original owner. This made a library of 8+ years of book non-obselete to those that followed. They were not the first to do this. OSRIC, LL, and others all did this. But Paizo did it on a scale not seen before. They lead a different direction than what had been done before. And others followed their lead.

There are others, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[ruemere]

I like Pathfinder. But it isn't innovative - it is very explicitly derivative. [...]

Paizo is much more than just Pathfinder.
Latest keywords: China Mieville. Piratecat.

Regards,
Ruemere

 

[billd91]

The discussion about leadership reminds me of why I think disappointment with WotC is so sharp. It's not because it's the #1 company in size (though I'm sure that draws some people's ire). For me, it's the lost potential. WotC used to show some really visionary and ballsy leadership. They changed how TSR's old R&D operated by conducting market studies. They spun the magazines off to a small company willing to experiment with the form and structure. They released D&D, the biggest prize in the RPG industry, with an open game license giving away rights to use the rules for free.

The company simply isn't showing the same degree of industry leadership anymore.

 

[Garnfellow]

My, this discussion certainly took a fascinating turn. Evidently novelists who write books in existing genres and in existing languages are completely un-creative and lazy.

Someone please wake me only when some innovative author finally produces a truly original work in an entirely new language and ideally, using a completely new medium of communication. That alone will be worthy of my attention.

All Hail the Forthcoming "Twickodockelogue im Jugglebat Nur," a masterpiece available only on psychostero and 12-track.

Now that the scales have fallen from my eyes, I can see that pretender Shakespeare for the utter hack he is, riding on the coattails of other more innovative people like that guy who invented English or that lady who came up with drama. And to say nothing of the fellow who developed the codex!

Yes, let us all now praise true innovators.

 

[Dannager]

The discussion about leadership reminds me of why I think disappointment with WotC is so sharp. It's not because it's the #1 company in size (though I'm sure that draws some people's ire). For me, it's the lost potential. WotC used to show some really visionary and ballsy leadership. They changed how TSR's old R&D operated by conducting market studies. They spun the magazines off to a small company willing to experiment with the form and structure. They released D&D, the biggest prize in the RPG industry, with an open game license giving away rights to use the rules for free.

The company simply isn't showing the same degree of industry leadership anymore.

I disagree.

The most expansive digital suite of tools for a tabletop RPG yet?

A robust organized play program that is constantly innovating to find the right formula?

An active support of the blogging community?

Outreach to gamer-friendly media sources like Penny Arcade?

Rumors of official support for the SurfaceScapes project?

That leadership is pretty clearly still there. The examples you mentioned were experiments, and some went better than others. They spent an entire edition trying out the OGL thing, for instance. In the end, they decided it wasn't working for them. Similarly, they had another company doing Dragon and Dungeon magazines, and when it became clear that a print version of the magazines wasn't going to work going forward, they turned it digital and brought it in-house instead of shutting them down entirely.

When examining the "industry leadership" of a company in the present as compared to the past, you can't simply pick out all the things they're no longer doing as evidence of a lack of leadership while ignoring all the things they are doing that they weren't doing before.

 

[dmccoy1693]

The discussion about leadership reminds me of why I think disappointment with WotC is so sharp.

Sadly, I have to agree with this. When i think of Wizards these days, I think of how we found out about the license for Dungeon and Dragon mags got cancelled. I think of dragonborn in the forgotten realms and other similar examples that I really don't want to think about.

When I think of Paizo, I think of a thread I started like 2-3 years ago where I asked what would people like to see from Paizo and how someone thread necroed it a month or two ago and we saw how many suggestions on that thread are now Paizo product lines.

On a very gut level, I am disappointed with Wizards. It saddens me that that is the case.

 

[Bluenose]

Fluff. Is the idea of fluff innovative, no. If the fluff they come up with innovative, yes. Paizo's material is far more evocative and imaginative than any 4E book I've read. If I had a free 30 minutes (I can only dream of such) and I had to choose to read either a 4E book or a Paizo book, I'd go Paizo every time. Wizards books read (to me) like a text book. I do not get any imaginative elements that I can latch my imagination onto. Paizo's book are rich with such elements.

Is Paizo's fluff innovative? There's a lot of it, but there's a lot for other games too including older editions of D&D. Otherwise Golarion is pretty much a generic kitchen sink D&D setting. Though the production quality is generally high. But if you're looking for innovative in it, you're looking for something that I suspect isn't even the aim.

 

[carmachu]

Is Paizo's fluff innovative? There's a lot of it, but there's a lot for other games too including older editions of D&D. Otherwise Golarion is pretty much a generic kitchen sink D&D setting. Though the production quality is generally high. But if you're looking for innovative in it, you're looking for something that I suspect isn't even the aim.

Yes actually it is. The campaign book itself is generic enough for anyone, but once you start delving into the fluff of various places in specific its very innovative.