Pathfinder 1E Paizo Annoucement!

[GoodKingJayIII]

Hm...

Is it possible to be excited for both the Pathfinder RPG and 4e without invoking the apocalypse?

Because, I kind of am...

 

[GVDammerung]

As someone who disliked 3x enough to be for 4e when being for 4e wasn't cool, and who then found Wotc's "vision" of 4e unappetizing, especially as it was not backwards compatible, I'm pleased as punch that Paizo has pulled the sword from the stone.

People seem to forget or not to have noticed that the OGL is forever, that you can modify those rules, improve them and release a NEW version of The World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game. The OGL is a sword. Paizo will now wield it. And Paizo is NOT Fast Forward Games.

Paizo has a very loyal fan base to start and produces the highest quality of products, easily the equal in quality of Wotc. The open playtest will draw people into the Pathfinder RPG and refine the RPG. Paizo has a very solid shot of making this work.

Wotc has a name - D&D. 4e. Its based on the d20 system. So will be the Pathfinder RPG. So Wotc's "advantage" is the name - D&D. Systemically both 4e and Pathfinder will be d20 variants.

And Wotc goofed in the sense of setting this up for Paizo:

1) The jetisoned the backstory of D&D, leaving the name but not alot of the accumulated backstory behind that name;

2) The made 4e non-backwards compatible when they knew or should have known that gamers had a TON of 3x material they had invested in that would be invalidated;

3) The original OGL;

4) The cancellation of Dungeon and Dragon Magazine leaving Paizo with time on their hands; and

5) There utter failure to be able to deliver the GSL in any timely manner.

Paizo may be the next White Wolf level company to storm the RPG stage.

 

[BryonD]

Third, my prediction is that in the short term this will do well, and in the long term it will prove an unwise move. Eventually most people will move over to 4e, and leave the vestiges of 3e behind. I suspect in two-three years we will see someone like Necro buying out Paizo for pennies on the dollar.

I bet you are wrong.

Step back and look at the big picture. 18 months ago Paizo was doing quite well on a fraction of WotC's sales. No one else is ever going to get close to WotC's sales under any scenario. Now 4e is coming. And you are certainly correct, most (>50%) players will switch. But it is very clear that WotC has alienated a meaningful fraction of the current fan base. (Dungeon/Dragon cancellation, on-line content, rules preference, to soon to change, etc...) So if Pazio goes to 4E, they will still have a fraction of WotC's sales. But it will be a fraction of a smaller pie. And I think the fraction would be smaller also. Between whatever tighter reigns the GSL places on things and the simple is better movement, I think 4e fans as a group will be less inclined to buy lots of add-ons and even further less inclined to buy non-"official" stuff. On the other hand, if they stay with 3.5 they have just positioned themselves as THE SOURCE for OGL D20ish gaming. They are king of their own little mountain. And as little as that mountain may be, it is probably bigger than the second tier sales for 4e. And their fan base will be a hell of a lot more loyal than WotC's. (Kinda a "300" of geeks )

Could I be wrong? Hell yeah, I could be wrong. But I think there is a very reasonable chance I am right. And even if I am wrong, Paizo is in no danger of going down by the path you described. They will have their toe in the 4e water with Necromancer and they are not going to be blind to the world around them. The worst case scenario is that they get a short term major rush of sales from being the rally point for 3X. So in the next 12 months they almost certainly do better than they would as one of a list of 4e extras. When/if that run ends, they can still work their way into the 4e side of things. If that provides enough revenue to keep anyone afloat.

 

[ki11erDM]

Just canceled. Very sad .

Was a bit over priced to begin with and if I have to convert everything to 4e it just wound not be worth it. I really love the guys at Paizo but I just can’t support this.

 

[Wormwood]

I think Paizo just reduced 4E's initial sales by at least a quarter. Possibly as much as by half.

Really? That would be impressive.

Do you think this migration away from 4e will be reflected on this very forum?

 

[Simplicity]

Good enough for 4e!

Not sure what this means... Turning doesn't heal party members in 4e. ???

Anyways, 4e is a different scenario entirely. Undead monsters are redone in 4e. They may have powers to account for changes there. 3.5 monsters do not. Plus balance is less of an issue when you don't claim to be backwards compatible.

 

[JoshuaFrost]

Hm...

Is it possible to be excited for both the Pathfinder RPG and 4e without invoking the apocalypse?

Because, I kind of am...

QFT

 

[Spatula]

Possibly true mouse, I would say, after all this how sucessful would they be in courting back the 4e crowd?

...wut?

Gamer A: "Hmm! A new 4e adventure in an appropriate level range for my group! Published by... Pazio... haven't I heard good things about their adventures?"

Gamer B: "Yeah, but they didn't publish any 4e stuff when the new edition launched."

Gamer A: "Oh, never mind then! They'll never get my money!"

I think Paizo just reduced 4E's initial sales by at least a quarter. Possibly as much as by half.

This is pretty silly as well. Half of D&D players probably don't even know who Pazio is.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

QFT

Yes! I've been QFTed by a representative of a major RPG publisher. My life is complete!

Seriously, as someone who was (and still is) very excited about 4th Edition, I can't wait to see what Paizo will do with Pathfinder. I'm downloading the Alpha rules right now, and expect to place an order for the Beta version come August.

I may find a goldmine for my 4e stuff. Or I may decide it's a completely separate entity. Either way I'm expecting a very interesting product, and I don't think I'll be disappointed.

 

[jeffh]

So Paizo decided to betray 4E?
They won't get my money anymore.
I'm just moving my Paizo bookmark from the RPG/D&D folder into the RPG/Others folder.

Besides its mean-spiritedness, I find this post very puzzling. How can they "betray" something they've made a point of not making any commitments to or promises about in the first place? Paizo, both as a company and as a somewhat diverse group of individuals, has consistently made it clear that they had serious concerns about 4E and that certain conditions needed to be met for them to support it, not the least of which was having the rules in hand well before now. If anyone has violated their commitments to anyone - though "betray" is far too strong a word for it - it's WotC for failing to get the GSL or the rules out to third-party developers, especially their probably-unintended but nevertheless damaging "we'll have the OGL for you within a couple weeks / oops, we're still revising it more than two months later" hijinks, which from Paizo's viewpoint has got to look rather like a bait-and-switch.