Pathfinder 1E Is there something special to Pathfinder?

[Minsc]

Let me start by saying: I will play D&D in any of its forms and enjoy it. It's about role playing. The mechanics for each system are mechanics, but the story is the most fun.

Okay, now that that's out, a little history: I started playing the basic set when I was a kid in the 80's. The one with the red box, then the blue expert box, ect. I've played that, 1e, 2e, and a tiny bit of 3e when it first came out. Then I shelved D&D until about 2 months ago, when I started with 5e.

Anyway, I played my first pathfinder game this past weekend. The story was good and the players were good, so I had fun. But the game was complex. There were a lot of rules and clunky mechanics. I have no doubt that it will come easier to me over time.

What I was thinking though, is "did pathfinder do something right? I mean, something really right? If so, what is it?"

Pathfinder came out shortly after 3.5. Pathfinder survived 4e (a game I never played). And it's surviving 5e still. What's its secret?

I don't know what it is yet, but there must be something special about pathfinder that it survives -- thrives even, when more and more D&D systems are released.

What is it?

 

[Morrus]

The 3.x game base is a good, durable, expandable, popular core. That's one part of it, though arguably loads of games can claim that.

The main thing though is support. It's an incredibly well-supported game in terms of rules, adventures, and third party material.

 

[Minsc]

Interesting.

I joined something called "Pathfinder Society"

I guess it's an organized game or something. Sounds like powergaming to me, but whatever. I can role play a power character too.

Wish me luck!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

What I was thinking though, is "did pathfinder do something right? I mean, something really right? If so, what is it?"

Pathfinder never stopped to ask whether it should. It took a known language - the language of d20 v3.5 - and used that to describe everything. Where there was a substantive difference between any two things, it modeled that difference using the language at hand.

There's something straightforward and honest about that style. There are a ton of ways that they could have simplified, or abstracted things to be easier to use, but they just took the level of abstraction that they were comfortable with and kept running with it. At this point, the greatest strengths of the system are that so many players are familiar with it (having inherited the audience for the d20 OGL craze), and the sheer volume of content.

 

[gamerprinter]

Pathfinder Society uses a limited set of the PF rules for the purposes of organized play - players can join your game and you can guarantee that the PCs they bring to the table rely on a limited set of rules for compatability. Its more than just the Core rulebook, but you have to own the physical book to bring to organized events to allow you to use such rules. Its not really a powergamer's version. I don't play Pathfinder Society, because I allow a lot of third party material in my PF games, and Pathfinder Society rules does not allow third party at all.

 

[delericho]

What I was thinking though, is "did pathfinder do something right? I mean, something really right? If so, what is it?"

No, Paizo did.

The success of Pathfinder is down to Paizo doing a lot of hard work over a long period of time and taking advantage of opportunities at just the right times. They're an exceptionally well-run company who make sure to maintain good relations with their fans.

 

[billd91]

I've said it before, and it bears repeating. There's something about the people working at Paizo - they get me. From the APs to the adventures and campaign settings and the Pathfinder RPG - they seem to understand where I'm coming from as a gamer and their products, mostly, fit right into my preferences. Maybe it's because they've got a lot of midwesterners working for them who started gaming at similar times and amid similar environments. I don't know. They were there when WotC, with their 4e experiment, indicated that my preferences weren't what they were interested in serving, and so they are the ones who benefited from most of my RPG purchases from 2008 to 2014.

It also doesn't hurt that they won my trust and respect with their handling of Dungeon and Dragon Magazines, particularly when Dungeon was undergoing a lot of format/content changes.

 

[S'mon]

What is it? First class art direction.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

The folks at Paizo took a popular platform that WotC had more or less abandoned and the put out tons of support material for it. It continues to be popular among people who like a lot of "crunchiness" (numbers, character optimization, etc.). In my case, I only started playing it because I had trouble finding people in my local area who would play any game except for Pathfinder.

WotC made a serious misstep with D&D 4e. They tried to use it to pull MMO folks into the game, not realizing that the things those folks love about MMOs wouldn't translate into tabletop rpgs. Since a very significant part of the rpg community rejected 4e, Pathfinder continued to thrive.

D&D 5e is a good product, surprisingly, but Pathfinder has a huge lead on it, and WotC is not going to release a lot of support material. It is finding it's place, and will likely continue to add to it's player base, but it's not going to threaten Pathfinder very much. People who like "crunchiness" and support products aren't going to leave that behind. In addition, a lot of other games have grown in popularity over recent years, including generic ones (ex. Savage Worlds and Fate). I doubt we will ever see D&D rise back to the heights of dominance in the community that it once enjoyed.

 

[Kramodlog]

The folk at Paizo are great at communications and they have gathered a lot of good will from the community for that. Just in this thread on ENworld we have one the highest up answering a simple question about a new hire at Paizo. http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...red-at-Paizo&p=6550126&viewfull=1#post6550126

It is not something you will see from WotC employees. Probably not their fault. There is a lot of speculation that it is a WotC/Hasbro policy.