D&D 4E Paizo and 4e - Vive le Revolution!

[GVDammerung]

I can virtually guarantee that the answer to this is no. Right now Paizo can sell to any player of D&D. If they shot off and made their own system they'd only be able to sell to a limited audience. This is a complete pipe dream.

Fair enough. Now play out the full scenario.

Monte Cook is heading up the 3.75 rules that are compatible with 3.5 and 3.0 (at least as compatible as 3.5 was with 3.0). Necromancer Games and Goodman Games are supporting the Paizo launch of 3.75. And Paizo is leveraging its Pathfinder fanbase to promote it as well. The flavor is "old school," "Great Wheel" D&D.

Still so limited an audience that it is a pipe dream? I think there is a critical customer mass here to make this a realistic possibility at least likely enough to make it worth considering for Paizo and company.

Oh. And I bet Wotc would take such a venture VERY seriously. Likely Wotc would be on the phone to all concerned looking to see how they could "help" them better support 4e. Bet.

Paizo. Necro. Goodman. Cook. With them leading off at the top of the order, it would be like the "Murder's Row" of the old Yankees. Or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for Wotc. Same result if Paizo pulled it off, don't you think? Imagine the upside for a moment.

 

[Paraxis]

MMO's and Tabletop are two completly different things. I like both alot, that being said I don't like Guild Wars, I don't like DDO, I DO like D&D. So them making a good MMO based on 4E sounds great to me.

*Note: I am going to call it right now. The first computer/video game to be labelled as being based on the 4E ruleset -- you know it is already in development -- will be a Guild Wars clone.

From your keyboard to WoTC's decision makers, I would buy that game in a heartbeat and love to play it.

 

[Celebrim]

In a much older thread I made a comment (which was panned at the time) about how WotC's 3rd edition OGL made an implicit pledge that future editions of the game would be 'backwards compatible', and if they violated that pledge they would do so to thier harm.

This is exactly what I meant at the time. The srd helped revive D&D and made D20 the biggest thing in gaming since D&D itself. But it is also a constraint on mucking around too much with D&D, because if they muck around too much the SRD and the OGL essentially become WotC's own competition.

The OGL is the 2nd amendment of the gaming world. You govern by consent of the fans. If you go against the wishes of the fans and split the community, not only can they go in revolt but they are inherently empowered and armed when they do so. Players are no longer tied to the edition WotC chooses to publish if they want support. The game can get up and leave, and has the capacity to defend itself when it does. This break in continuity is an enherently risky proposition for WotC, and like I said at the time, there is a good chance that they will find a portion of thier market just will not dance to thier tune.

 

[The Little Raven]

Monte Cook is heading up the 3.75 rules that are compatible with 3.5 and 3.0 (at least as compatible as 3.5 was with 3.0).

Monte's last RPG book (supposedly) was Monte Cook's World of Darkness. I doubt he'd come back to do a revision of a revision of what he worked on years ago.

The flavor is "old school," "Great Wheel" D&D.

Most of the planes of the Great Wheel are WotC IP, which is why they're not in the SRD, as is Greyhawk, which is what most people think of as old school D&D.

Still so limited an audience that it is a pipe dream?

Well, considering your two big factors are total pipe dreams, absolutely.

Paizo. Necro. Goodman. Cook. With them leading off at the top of the order, it would be like the "Murder's Row" of the old Yankees. Or the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for Wotc. Same result if Paizo pulled it off, don't you think? Imagine the upside for a moment.

And if Superman and Galactus teamed up, they'd be nigh unstoppable!

...but it's not going to happen.

 

[Kunimatyu]

I think there are too many friendships among all the people in question for them to ever seriously consider it.

Besides, Paizo supporting 4e doesn't have anywhere CLOSE to the risk that splitting does. If Paizo splits and it doesn't work, then they go belly-up.

 

[Wormwood]

My quiet little dream is that 4E falls flat on its face because ...

...aaand stopped reading right there.

 

[Celebrim]

Well, considering your two big factors are total pipe dreams, absolutely.

Perhaps, but most of the best adventure writing for 3.X did not come out of WotC, but out of other parties. Goodman games as got a good thing going with 3.X modules that in style could have been ripped out of the early '80's. I seriously doubt that interest in those is just going to dry up, and I'm willing to bet its the 'grognard' audience that has been thier primary buyers. Companies like Green Ronin, Necromancer, and Paizo were enormously influential.

I've got more GR material than I have from WotC, which increasingly seemed to not be interested in my concerns for the game and insisted on offering me alot of stuff I didn't want for every page of rules that interested me. It got where only about 5% of thier books material I would have used, which amounted to about $2 a page. It was alot easier to just put the book back on the shelf and steal the idea.

4e seems to be going even farther in that direction, offering to 'fix' alot of things I didn't feel were problems, ignoring alot of things I thought were problems, and making broad proclamations of how somethings I would like to see fixed will be fixed but providing zero evidence for it. Plus, lots and lots of new pages of flavor that just isn't to my taste. Couldn't they save that for a setting supplement?

There is definately room for a 3.75 updating of the rules. How about let's call it the 'Advanced Edition'.

 

[The Little Raven]

Perhaps, but most of the best adventure writing for 3.X did not come out of WotC, but out of other parties. Goodman games as got a good thing going with 3.X modules that in style could have been ripped out of the early '80's. I seriously doubt that interest in those is just going to dry up, and I'm willing to bet its the 'grognard' audience that has been thier primary buyers. Companies like Green Ronin, Necromancer, and Paizo were enormously influential.

I'm not disputing that.

I'm disputing that Paizo, Green Ronin, Necromancer, Goodman, or even White Wolf have a chance if they went head-to-head with Wizards in order to basically take over D&D.

It was alot easier to just put the book back on the shelf and steal the idea.

Hey, good thing about stealing ideas is that you don't have to have the creativity to think of any yourself, nor give their creators their proper due.

making broad proclamations of how somethings I would like to see fixed will be fixed but providing zero evidence for it.

How many times does it have to be brought up that there are preview books coming with all this (which I'm sure you'll just read on the shelf, then put back) before it actually sinks in?

Couldn't they save that for a setting supplement?

Couldn't they save all that Greyhawk and Planescape for setting supplements?

There is definately room for a 3.75 updating of the rules.

You can believe that, but Erik, Clark, and their crews probably won't drink your Kool-Aid.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Folks seem very eager to risk other companies' money. If people feel so strongly about this, I suggest you start working on a set of rules, put samples out there, build support and create an alternate product along the lines of True20, Micro20, OSRIC and any of the other countless variants, make it MORE POPULAR THAN ANY OF THEM, and then worry about convincing Erik and Clark to toss their cash at your idea.

Agitating for other people to lose their shirts isn't likely to inspire them to follow you, especially when you want them to both lead and follow.

 

[Reynard]

You can believe that, but Erik, Clark, and their crews probably won't drink your Kool-Aid.

Yet, you've gone whole hog on the 4e flavor.