Pathfinder 1E Paizo being mysterious

[Admiral Caine]

James Jacobs said in chat last week to make sure we attend today's chat. In the days following that chat other Paizo staff have said they have not received the GSL yet.

Although... I was present for that chat Takasi. As I recall, James said "if you want a spoiler about the 4th AP, make sure you come to chat next week. By then Wes and I should have something concrete that we can share with everyone."

I think this development is unrelated to what he said.

However, all things considered.. it should be a packed house tonight indeed.

Admiral Caine, aka Watcher

 

[bramadan]

I want to know where the new players are coming from.

3e brought a lot of people back to D&D.

4e will apparently leave a lot of 3.5e folks behind.

Taking for granted the subset of "Finally got fed up with 3e and ready to come back again to 4e" players, who are the new new players, and how will WoTC attract them?

Me and my group are those very players Wulf. We tried 3ed, played it for about two years, decided it sucks and thought we are through with DnD for good. Everything we have seen about 4th ed says it is worth coming back to DnD for it. I don't think we are such a lonely example.

 

[keterys]

Surprised no one's commented how they'll be gaining new players from Video/MMO/Card/Board/Anime fans... after all, it's not an RPG but it is all those other things, so clearly it's tapping all kinds of new markets

 

[Admiral Caine]

Don't think it's a gag

I don't think this is a stunt or a gag...

I will say it's damn clever marketing, but hey...

The Paizo community has been really really on edge waiting for a decision, I don't think they would risk the potential aggravation that a hoax would generate.

Rather I think this is the real deal, one way or another....

 

[Mistwell]

I have suspicions that Paizo feels differently about GenCon than you do.

Sure, it's useful. I am not saying GenCon is useless.

However, I am saying this idea that if you cannot release it at GenCon then it's useless is false. And that is essentially what some folks are arguing.

In the past, GenCon was so important because everyone was releasing at GenCon, at the same time. But this time, that cannot be the case as pointed out - the GSL will not be released in time for people to get their new products for 4e released by GenCon in all likelyhood. Hence, the real competition will come later, and getting a jump on that competition (releasing post-GenCon) will be important.

That, and I still dispute this idea that there is insufficient time to release by GenCon. If they are smart and making rules-lite books right now waiting to fill in the rules-heavy portion once they decide if it is 3.5/d20 or 4e, then there should be enough time (with some overtime hours) to release a high quality product by GenCon. Heck, with what we know from D&D experience, you can even make some rules-medium stuff right now. Most of the broad concepts of 4e are known, and hence some detail can be filled in even on a rules-lite product already.

 

[AZRogue]

Me and my group are those very players Wulf. We tried 3ed, played it for about two years, decided it sucks and thought we are through with DnD for good. Everything we have seen about 4th ed says it is worth coming back to DnD for it. I don't think we are such a lonely example.

My group is the same. We liked a lot of what was in 3E and what it tried to do but the things we didn't like piled up and then the release of 3.5 finished us off and we went back to playing other games. I wouldn't be paying any attention to DnD at all if it wasn't for 4E. I'd just still be playing my AD&D, d20 Modern, and Rolemaster/MERP.

 

[Filcher]

IMO, the difference between building a home game off of the D&DXP materials, and designing a published adventure is vast. Hard to do art requests when you don't know what monsters will be available for 3rd party use.

 

[zoroaster100]

I will be keeping my fingers crossed that Paizo decides to make a 4E adventure path. I would love to run my first full 4E campaign with support from a Paizo path. And I think 4E will benefit greatly from having the Paizo folks creating great monsters for 4E and a great setting for 4E. Because Paizo has put out such great product lately, I feel bad for whoever loses out on Paizo's support (us 4E folks, or the folks sticking with 3.5, depending on Paizo's decision).

 

[drjones]

I suspect a lot of 1e players who quit and are thinking of coming back with the death of Gary Gygax in the news.

This is almost exactly me, I have not played dnd (outside of NWN) since 2nd ed. but I will be running the raiders of oakhurst adventure this Sunday with a group of my buddies who usually play DDM and other board games.

I don't know how it will go of course but so far everyone is very excited. I think one thing that is helping a lot is that we have already played ddm 2.0 and since there are not 1000pgs of rulebooks yet it seems less overwhelming.

I realize we could have done the same with 3.5 but the fact is we never did.

I am still however very dubious of the Dungeon axing and their online initiative hand waving. Thats why I for one am hoping Paizo is going to make at least some of their products 4.0 near the release of the game: I want quality adventures I can read in the bathtub. Fullstop.

 

[Rauol_Duke]

Sure, it's useful. I am not saying GenCon is useless.

However, I am saying this idea that if you cannot release it at GenCon then it's useless is false. And that is essentially what some folks are arguing.

Paizo wants a big hit at GenCon. Last year it was Pathfinder #1, this year it will be the Pathfinder Campain Setting, which will be largely systemless, and possibly the first issue of the third AP. Of course they can release products outside of GenCon, but saying that the smart decision is to go with 4E when Paizo hasn't even seen the GSL is premature, since Paizo doesn't know if the GSL will allow them to make the kinds of products that have made them successful in the past.

James Jacobs has stated before that the deadline for Paizo to start on AP 3, The Second Darkness was January 1st. Obviously, there's lots of stuff you can figure out without knowing what rules you're going to use, but we're 2 and a half months past that deadline. Eventually, they have to make a decision and start plugging rules into the AP, especially if they're going to try and get back on track with the schedule and have the first issue of the third AP ready at GenCon (which is an important event to them).