Mearls' Legends and Lore (or, "All Roads Lead to Rome, Redux")

[pawsplay]

No. I'm saying that some people who were not initially enamored of 4e would have eventually come to view active support as a selling point unto itself, and would have made the switch to the new edition, doing everything they can to fix their perceived problems with it. Are you really going to tell me that you don't think anyone views active support as a big enough draw to pull that one guy who didn't have enough of a reason to try 4e over the edge?

Everyone agrees with what you have just said here. Everyone. The problem is seem to be implying or hedging something beyond that, namely, that it's enough people actually impact Pathfinder's market share.

Few people who play Pathfinder agree with your intimation, because (I am speculating, but I think I am safe ground here) those same people know they would be playing 3e or something else. True, we are polling ourselves, but I have yet to see more than two or thee people ever say on these boards, "I play Pathfinder now, but if it hadn't come out I would totally have abandoned 3e and just switched to 4e." That slice would be larger among casual players, but again, probably not enough to impact the 3e market hugely, and probably not enough to keep an alternate universe Pathfinder from coming to market. If I am mistaking your intent, please correct me and let us all you know you were not thinking what I have suggested in this paragraph.

What you initially claimed was an absolute: that there wasn't anyone who decided to stick with the 3e-generation solely because of Pathfinder. I'm challenging that absolute.

No, that's just wrong. You seem to be mistakenly reading general nouns as though they were categorical definitions.

 

[Dannager]

The first portion of that quote can be read two ways.

1. (your flexible version) Paizo making Pathfinder isn't the only reason people chose not to move from 3E to 4E . . .

- or -

2. (Dannager's absolutist interpretation) Paizo made Pathfinder, therefore people are choosing PF (and not 3E) over 4E . . .

For D's version to be the way to read it, the reader would really need to ignore the second sentence, IMO.

Neither is correct. My interpretation was:

The fact that Paizo produced Pathfinder was not seen as a pull on those undecided on whether or not to stick with 3e.

I think, given the language used, the above is a pretty reasonable interpretation to take away. And I disagree with that statement. If you disagree as well, that's great, we have no argument here, we can move on.

Let's be honest, though, guys. The reason Paizo produced Pathfinder in the first place was to keep a current set of 3e-compatible rules in print. If they hadn't concluded that a lack of current support in the form of in-print core rulebooks wasn't important to their market share (and to the continued participation of the community in 3e-compatible games), Paizo wouldn't have produced the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The fact that Pathfinder exists is evidence of active support playing a significant role in deciding what system people play.

Again, to be clear, if it was all about the fact that people just wanted to stick with 3e over 4e, Paizo wouldn't have had to produce their own version of the game. They could have continued selling their adventure paths with no problems, because people were just sticking with 3e for the rules, and current support would just be icing on the cake. I'm sure some of you do see current support as icing on the cake. Paizo, however, clearly anticipated that for a significant chunk of their potential market, current support was a great deal more than just icing.

 

[Mark CMG]

Whatever, D. If someone says you misread their post, you probably need to take them at their word.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Far and away the number one reason people are not playing 4E is, quite simply, they don't want to. Anything else is just a kind of wishful thinking.

Pretty much this. Pretty much the same reason why some 3.5 gamers arent playing Pathfinder OR 4E. Same reason some old school holdouts are playing their respective games.

 

[pawsplay]

Let's be honest, though, guys. The reason Paizo produced Pathfinder in the first place was to keep a current set of 3e-compatible rules in print. If they hadn't concluded that a lack of current support in the form of in-print core rulebooks wasn't important to their market share (and to the continued participation of the community in 3e-compatible games), Paizo wouldn't have produced the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. The fact that Pathfinder exists is evidence of active support playing a significant role in deciding what system people play.

This paragraph is riddled with logical errors. First, Paizo is selling the Pathfinder game in no small part to sell a core game to people who are already their customers. Even if the market remained exactly the same, that's money in their pocket. Second, their concern could be losing market share to another third party. Third, if 3.5 is going to become 3.75, someone has to write it. Irrespective of relative market share, Paizo apparently decided to crown themselves the publisher of 3.75. There is no question that an itch to revise 3.5 was growing. Fourth, it could be a hedge, to attempt to weaken WotC's position and try to get them to open 4e under the OGL. Fifth, you are making the very questionable guess that 3e players will not need new rulebooks; even without any rules changes at all, someone had to figure out a profitable way to reprint something resembling the 3.5 core books. In this case, active support is evidence of... active support.

You are correct in that publishing Pathfinder clearly serves Paizo's interests, but you are incorrect in implying a 3pp continuation of the 3e game lineage exists only because Pathfinder wants to sell modules. The clearest reason for Paizo to puplish Pathfinder is because they could. They are a game company; if it suits their financial and creative ends to publish something, they will.

You're painting a picture of Paizo as a blade-and-razor type operation, but that's inaccurate. The core books themselves are money makers, and thousands of "razors" are already out there. Even without the Pathfinder RPG, Paizo could have continued to sell modules as long as someone kept the core rules in print.

 

[Dannager]

You are correct in that publishing Pathfinder clearly serves Paizo's interests, but you are incorrect in implying a 3pp continuation of the 3e game lineage exists only because Pathfinder wants to sell modules. The clearest reason for Paizo to puplish Pathfinder is because they could. They are a game company; if it suits their financial and creative ends to publish something, they will.

From James Jacobs, in an interview with RPG Blog II (in answer to the question "For the uninitiated, can you briefly state an overview of the main design goals for Pathfinder?"): "When Wizards of the Coast switched to 4th edition, the previous edition of the game went out of print. The core rulebooks would still be available in stores, but not forever; they would eventually sell out and be gone. And at that point, even though the rules were still totally viable (and indeed, readily available online for free as the SRD), you can't maintain a line of RPGs without having a core rulebook in print."

Emphasis mine. Their "line of RPGs" is their Pathfinder campaign setting. I have seen the Paizo guys explain, explicitly, on more than one occasion, that one of the primary reasons they published the Pathfinder RPG was because they felt they needed to keep a version of the rules in print so that they could keep selling their adventures. They certainly used it as an opportunity to tweak parts of the game they felt could be improved, but I very much doubt they would have felt the need to do so were they not the publishers of a line of compatible adventures that they were doing quite well selling.

I'm not sure why you're presenting this as a novel or even an unwelcome idea. It's intelligent, and it makes perfect business sense, unless you're of the hardened opinion that support isn't a significant deciding factor in what people play.

You're painting a picture of Paizo as a blade-and-razor type operation, but that's inaccurate. The core books themselves are money makers, and thousands of "razors" are already out there. Even without the Pathfinder RPG, Paizo could have continued to sell modules as long as someone kept the core rules in print.

I'm not painting Paizo as a blade-and-razor operation in the sense that they are selling razors for cheap and charging oodles for the blades. Their prices are all pretty reasonable. But they do maintain the model and concept of "Our Adventure Paths are what keep people coming back for more, and we need to provide those Adventure Paths with a level of support adequate enough to ensure that people will continue to play them."

I'd love to have one of the Paizo guys chime in on this, because I'm almost positive I have seen James Jacobs or Erik Mona say, almost verbatim, "We created the Pathfinder RPG so we could keep selling our adventures."

 

[pawsplay]

I'm not sure why you're presenting this as a novel or even an unwelcome idea.

Ok, you've made some weird arguments before, but you have completely lost me here. I cannot figure out what point you are driving at in this post. It's like you're pretending to disagree with me, while repeating my own arguments which you have seemingly adopted over the course of two pages of posts. What is it you want me to understand that you think I'm not getting?

 

[HolyMan]

@James Jacobs maybe he will respond maybe not.

The point of this thread is the life expectancy of 4e isn't it? And if 4e goes the way of all the other edition the real question on my mind and probably others is will there be a 5th edition or will we see...

"A world without D&D!" -

HM

 

[Raven Crowking]

@James Jacobs maybe he will respond maybe not.

The point of this thread is the life expectancy of 4e isn't it? And if 4e goes the way of all the other edition the real question on my mind and probably others is will there be a 5th edition or will we see...

"A world without D&D!" -

HM

"We'll always have Rome."

 

[Argyle King]

Perhaps this was covered somewhere in the 23 pages of this thread or one of the previous threads; honestly, I haven't read every response...


I'm curious how those who now view their D&D experience as coming from a different game fits into the idea of 'Rome.' In the past few years, I've met more than a few groups who seem to feel that a different game (GURPS, Hero, Hackmaster, Savage Worlds) 'feels like D&D' to them moreso than 4E or Pathfinder. In what way do these groups fit into the idea of this rpg Rome?