Pathfinder 1E Paizo Annoucement!

[Azzy]

There is also nothing in the DMG that makes it particularly easy to create fun and interesting encounters. Those of us who have been DMing for years have simply gotten used to the idea that the CR system doesn't work particularly well outside a certain level range and we adjust accordingly. It's difficult for us to see how steep that learning curve is because we've already climbed it. For a new DM it can be fairly daunting.

I can't say objectively how daunting a new DM may find it. Personally, I didn't find it terribly difficult--but I've DMed since 1st & 2nd ed. and there were much fewer guidelines. So, again, I can't say objectively.

After all, isn't that part of the reason Pathfinder adventures are so popular? All that work is already done, and done well, by people who have experience working with the very flawed CR system to create balanced and challenging encounters.

Actually, I thought it was the quality of the stories, NPCs, etc.

 

[Azzy]

I just think it will be of a good use if you/we try to more practically exploit arguments and ideas regarding 3.5. Hey, anyone who is interested in doing so.

Then banging my head against a brick wall here? Yeah, you're probably right.

But, yeah, I've already started throwing some ideas around over there.

 

[Azzy]

I say this as somebody who loves WoD, has played Champs and has thought about playing GURPS at least once: None of these games have any significant recognition outside of the core of RPG hobbyists. Even among gamers, their name recognition is a scant fraction of D&D's (I should have mentioned World of Darkness, I think I omitted it because it doesn't directly compete with D&D). If you go into a bookstore (not a game store) and go to the RPG shelves, you will see a lot of D&D books, a few WoD books, and a scattering of non-D&D/non-WoD books. And so it goes with gaming's recognition. For better or for worse, role-playing games are Dungeons & Dragons to the world at large.

Outside of gamers, you're right. I was just going by self-space (and popularity) at (semi-)local gaming stores. Though WoD and Champs (and sometimes really bad, licensed D20 RPGs--like Ghostdog) do show up at some comic book stores.

 

[Firevalkyrie]

I think that the D&D is not like a standard consumer product. I mean that the way it is introduced is basically from a DM to his players, from players to the next generation of DMs etc. You have the experience of early campaigns, mature campaigns, good and bad campaigns. Think about it. Even if you don't want to admit it, RPG is a hobby game. At a certain level it gets depth and requires people with experience. A big company could want to get millions of new customers tomorrow but this don't respect the nature of the hobby game. A hobby game to flourish may need hobby companies and creative amateur individuals.

I suppose this is the reason of advertising the game as a mostly tabletop game. They are trying to encourage new players to buy it and try to play. Quite reasonable for a company who wants to expand its market. Millions are playing WoW. If WotC could capitalize to a small percent of them by offering something similar to try, they could expand the D&D base with fresh blood.

In my opinion D&D-flavor worlds could be served with the OGL rules. I don't think that the current players desperately need a new system. We will see. On the other hand I don't believe that a lot of people will come to the hobby just because they saw an advertisement.

The real capital of WotC is the FR, the Drizzt, the DL, the dark sun etc The irony is that they saw to us by changing the rules so drastically.

On the other hand, as mature hobby players, I think that what we need is companies to provide us new worlds, new Drizzts, new Raistlins, new grand stories and adventures to play and maybe adapted rules to express the feeling of these new worlds. We could only benefit from a standard system not owned by one company. If a new combat system is nice I may introduce it in my game, if I don't like it, I won't, etc

Dimitris

If it were that simple, there would be at least two and probably many more commercially dominant RPGs. There aren't; there is only D&D and to a much lesser extent World of Darkness - according to CGM, an industry trade magazine, D&D has four times the sell-through of WoD, which itself has four times the market share of the next biggest game, and keep in mind this is at the twilight of an edition, when pretty much everybody has all the books of that edition that they really want. Once 4th Edition comes out, D&D's sales share is probably going to jump back up to its usual amount, which is over half of the RPG industry all by itself.

D&D's sell-through is sixteen to twenty times the next-largest non-WoD competitor. That is a pretty much insurmountable advantage.

 

[Azzy]

Is this really true though? If we talk name recognition in more hardcore gamer circles, sure. But we also need to consider that a large part of the market might not be as industry-savy as the hardcore players. Example, my girlfriend role-plays regularly, is a fan of fantasy literature and total geek. But she wouldn't recognize any of those other games in the slightest.

And the Coke Pepsi comparison, do WoD, GURPS and Champions actually compete for the same market share as D&D? To continue the analogy, this is like comparing Coke to Sunny D, Crush and Brisk. All are drinks, but different kinds.

I don't know--I've been a geek for too long.

Personally I think Pathfinder will find it's niche. I think this will be a small niche, on par with games like True20 or Warhammer FRPG. But to compete against D&D? I don't think so.

Honestly (and I'm a Paizo supporter here), neither do I. There's no way that it can compete with D&D. Which is good that it's not trying to. For its success, it needs to focus on its own niche--unless the unlikely happens it probably won't have as big a presence as GURPS (which I personally lament, not like GURPS). I just hope that there are enough people like me out there so that it has a chance to prosper in its niche.

My other concern is in the design side. I agree with many people that Paizo has a stable of some of the finest story-tellers and adventure-writers in the business. I've spend countless months playing through their previous adventure paths. But is anyone aware of what their design experience is like? Do they have the mathematical background to handle complex game design and analysis? Just something I wonder when trying to improve a game many people recognize as having many small, mechanical problems.

This is the big unknown here. Much of their hard game design has been on a small scale since (monsters, items, feats, prestige class[es?], etc.) the Dragon/Dungeon license evaporated (and everything prior to that went under the scrutiny of WotC R&D). On this, time will tell. Hope springs eternal.

 

[Ingolf]

I can't say objectively how daunting a new DM may find it. Personally, I didn't find it terribly difficult--but I've DMed since 1st & 2nd ed. and there were much fewer guidelines. So, again, I can't say objectively.

Right - so did I. We both draw on a huge amount of experience in that regard, experience that a new DM will lack. My guess is that WotC's goal is to write an encounter-creation system that will make that lack of experience less of a stumbling block. Changing the resource management paradigm for the player characters goes hand in hand with that goal.

Actually, I thought it was the quality of the stories, NPCs, etc.

No doubt - but I did say that the pre-designed encounters were *part* of the reason for Pathfinder's popularity, not the only reason.

And clearly, for at least some 4e early adopters, the storylines/plots are not sufficient reason to stick with Pathfinder. Certainly plenty of people have expressed disappointment with Paizo's move specifically because they want the Pathfinder adventures playable without having to convert them to 4e.

 

[Lizard]

If 3e sucked as hard as certain people are claiming, why did so many people play it for so many years? It's not like there's not a few hundred competing games...

On encounter pacing: In last night's game, the PCs could have rested (and restored their abilities) or pressed on. They were in a race to retrieve the MacGuffin, and so chose to press on. This decision was of dramatic importance, because each battle without rest weakened them. If they were at full strength after every fight, there is no drama in the decision to keep moving.

DMs who set up plots where it doesn't matter how long it takes to achieve a goal make 3x dull, not the encounter system. Those DMs would run dull games in 4e, too.

 

[Fifth Element]

Specifically, they referred to companies reprinting verbatim the SRD as a for-profit product. I'm not surprised they didn't; to most of the world that's called plagiarism.

I don't think that's accurate. They even addressed the sale of the SRD in their FAQ. What they didn't like, I think, is things like Mutants & Masterminds, self-contained systems that used the OGL and SRD. They excluded level progression from the d20 license for a reason - they wanted d20 products to help sell PHBs. But companies used the OGL to exclude WotC products entirely.

And it's not plagiarism if you explicitly have the right to publish it, which the OGL grants.

 

[Fifth Element]

If 3e sucked as hard as certain people are claiming, why did so many people play it for so many years? It's not like there's not a few hundred competing games...

Certain people will always claim things suck really hard, that didn't. But they're the minority. Most people who like 4E also like 3E, but think 4E will be better. 4E can be better than 3E without 3E sucking.

 

[Fobok]

If 3e sucked as hard as certain people are claiming, why did so many people play it for so many years? It's not like there's not a few hundred competing games..

I don't think anybody is saying it sucked. Just:

a) It needs improvement. It's not a perfect system, and we've had 8 years to figure it out.

b) We're tired of it. I stopped buying 3.5 stuff (except FR stuff for fluff reasons) two years ago. It's played out for a lot of us. Is it for everybody? Of course not. But for many, we're ready for a new edition.