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

[Sigdel]

Lets see if anyone else follows my line of thinking here: WotC is in control of D&D. Lets call it "D&D-Prime." If things go down the bad path for Necro then they are going to create D&D 3.75. We'll call this one "D&D-2."

So we have D&D-Prime and D&D-2. Are they revolving on opposite sides of the sun? If the continuity get to confusing in both versions, will we see a massive one time event in the RPG industry where WotC and Necro tries to clean the continuity holes in the game? Will it be called Crisis on Infinite Book Covers?

I guess we will have to wait and see...


Oh, and you better let the Joker play. The dudes freakin nuts

 

[Arkhandus]

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

Dude!!!!!!! Superman as Galactus' herald, wielding the Power Cosmic?!?!!! You just blew my mind!

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

.....and then there was much weeping.....

 

[Maggan]

In another thread ...

I posted a reply there before reading this thread.

Basically, when thinking about it my take is this:

Paizo could come out with the best rules set in the entire existence of roleplaying games, they would still have to beat the D&D brand.

And you don't beat a brand solely based on a good game and some astute followers. It takes a lot more than that.

/M

 

[Tharen the Damned]

Not a pipe dream at all. (but I will credit you that I may not be taking your comment as you meant it. If you are saying 3.75 is a pipe dream as the best long term strategy, I agree with you. but it is the second best strategy and, depending on what wotc does, it might be the ONLY strategy, and if that is the case it is not a pipe dream it may well happen).

Clark

Clark,

lets play out the worst case scenario (which I hope will not happen): WoC is very late with the SRD and all the OGL and other legal stuff. Necromancer, Paizo and other companies (?) go 3.75.
How long would you support it?
I mean it would be only logical to switch as fast as possible to 4th.
So even calculating with one year for a product lifcycle from idead to book that would mean that you could switch to 4th sometime in May 09, maybe even earlier.

 

[Reynard]

Clark,

lets play out the worst case scenario (which I hope will not happen): WoC is very late with the SRD and all the OGL and other legal stuff.

That's not the worst case scenario. The worst case scenario is that WotC decides they don't want to enable their competition the way they did with 3E and provides a very limited license to 4E third party support.

While no individual d20 company was capable of unseating WotC, the sum total of alternate materials out there must have hurt them to some degree. After all, they stopped supporting the SRD immediately after UA.

 

[DaveMage]

Interesting stuff, this thread.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

See, you define success as making a product you like. I define success as beating your intended competitor in market penetration, sales, and revenue generation. There's no point trying to discuss this when your entire metric is based on something completely subjective like that.

If the only metric for success is having more market penetration than WOTC, then no 3rd party publisher has been, or likely ever will be, successful.

Many publishers have shown time and again that it isn't necessary to "beat" WOTC to be successful. Mutants and Masterminds is successful. Monte Cooks AU/AE is successful-- and it is even more a direct competitor to D&D. Mongoose has any number of completely divergent, indisputably successful lines.

Paizo could come out with the best rules set in the entire existence of roleplaying games, they would still have to beat the D&D brand.

And you don't beat a brand solely based on a good game and some astute followers. It takes a lot more than that.

You don't have to beat D&D to be successful.

If you want to run a company the size of WOTC, with the overhead of WOTC, you would have to beat WOTC.

If you want to run a company the size of Paizo or Mongoose, you need to get a little closer.

If you want to run a company the size of Necromancer, Malhovoc, Goodman Games-- all very successful by their own standards-- then, in fact, you only need a "good game and some astute followers."

 

[Shroomy]

I think Orcus was spot on when he called any prospect of 3.75e (could you even call it that?) would be "marginally successful." And lets not forget that the main competitors of this hypothetical 3.75e would not be WoTC D&D, it would be Castles & Crusades, True20, Conan OGL, OSRIC, etc. none of which I would consider serious threats to D&D's dominance.

 

[Rechan]

I think Orcus was spot on when he called any prospect of 3.75e (could you even call it that?) would be "marginally successful." And lets not forget that the main competitors of this hypothetical 3.75e would not be WoTC D&D, it would be Castles & Crusades, True20, Conan OGL, OSRIC, etc. none of which I would consider serious threats to D&D's dominance.

This.

 

[Maggan]

You don't have to beat D&D to be successful.

I know. I run a successful business, and we're not even among the top thousand companies in my field of work world-wide. Or even among the top ten thousand.

But the OP intrduces the idea that if Paizo would release 3.75 it could seriously challenge WotC as the most popular game in town.

And I don't think that is possible.

Is it possible to create a game and enjoy success without taking on WotC? Of course, but as I read it, the OP wants Paizo to actually take on WotC, and beat them. Or tie them, as the words were expressed in the related thread.

EDIT:

If you want to run a company the size of Necromancer, Malhovoc, Goodman Games-- all very successful by their own standards-- then, in fact, you only need a "good game and some astute followers."

Yes. But I didn't say that you couldn't have a successful company with that lineup. I said, and I stand by it, that you don't topple the dominant brand with that kind of lineup.

/M