Pathfinder 1E Paizo Bites- A Rant

[diaglo]

Paizo has apologized for not discussing the changes with Dave [but not the changes themselves --- they had both the right and the responsibility to make changes as they saw fit]. If Dave would just step up and say, "Apology accepted", could we at least drop the moral outrage and get down to the REAL issue: that some of us didn't like the freaking article in the freaking magazine about the freaking game?

where the heck was the apology? i think i missed it.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Sigh, this reminds me of the purist/pragmatist debate concerning Peter Jackson's LOTR.

Barely an equal comparison...

Now, if Peter Jackson had Humans, Elves, and Dwarves unite into one big army, march up to Mordor, and Frodo took down the Dark Lord by using the ring to blast fireballs from his arse, then we'd have a comparison...

 

[Umbran]

But I really think that Dark Sun players want their old dark sun to just be re-tooled.

Hm. You say that Paizo may not understand what the readers want. Have you considered that you might be a bit off on who the readers are? There are a lot of people who read Dragon who were not Dark Sun players of old. Perhaps some consideration was (and should have been) given to those readers?

Simply put - Dark Sun was popular, sure. But it apparently wasn't popular enough to merit a full treatment in it's own product. I don't know if it was popular enough to dedicate large portions of a general D&D magazine to fans alone. Paizo really doesn't need readers going, "This issue was crap, all this Dark Sun stuff I can't use". The articles may have been aimed a bit more broadly - to give something to old Dark Sun players, and to pique the interest of folks who had not before done much with Dark Sun. It would then fail to be a perfect representation of the old stuff, but be of greater general value to Paizo.

 

[Guillaume]

Hm. You say that Paizo may not understand what the readers want. Have you considered that you might be a bit off on who the readers are? There are a lot of people who read Dragon who were not Dark Sun players of old. Perhaps some consideration was (and should have been) given to those readers?

Simply put - Dark Sun was popular, sure. But it apparently wasn't popular enough to merit a full treatment in it's own product. I don't know if it was popular enough to dedicate large portions of a general D&D magazine to fans alone. Paizo really doesn't need readers going, "This issue was crap, all this Dark Sun stuff I can't use". The articles may have been aimed a bit more broadly - to give something to old Dark Sun players, and to pique the interest of folks who had not before done much with Dark Sun. It would then fail to be a perfect representation of the old stuff, but be of greater general value to Paizo.

This I can agree with.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Hm. You say that Paizo may not understand what the readers want. Have you considered that you might be a bit off on who the readers are? There are a lot of people who read Dragon who were not Dark Sun players of old. Perhaps some consideration was (and should have been) given to those readers?

Simply put - Dark Sun was popular, sure. But it apparently wasn't popular enough to merit a full treatment in it's own product. I don't know if it was popular enough to dedicate large portions of a general D&D magazine to fans alone. Paizo really doesn't need readers going, "This issue was crap, all this Dark Sun stuff I can't use". The articles may have been aimed a bit more broadly - to give something to old Dark Sun players, and to pique the interest of folks who had not before done much with Dark Sun. It would then fail to be a perfect representation of the old stuff, but be of greater general value to Paizo.

I, too, agree with this, but arrive to a different conclusion: If the conditions of the game world had to be changed so radically in order to better ensure popularity, than it probably shouldn't have been done in the first place.

 

[Liminal Syzygy]

now i don't know if they are sending me 1 or 2 copies...as both the phone and email customer service responded.

At least they respond to you. Count yourself lucky. Three emails ignored.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I really don't think the game world was changed as radically as that.

It's still a brutal game of survival where the world was eradicated by wizards in a long-ago time, where life is brutish, short, nasty, where everyone looks out for themselves, and heroes are those who climb to the top of the food chain. A world where psychic energy has all but replaced the dangerous magic.

It's DS to me.

 

[diaglo]

At least they respond to you. Count yourself lucky. Three emails ignored.

that's what fame and notoreity will do for you....i mean me.

 

[FraserRonald]

Speaking as an artist, not as a writer, I could care less if someone takes a crap on my art after they buy it or blows it up with dynamite really.

James, that is so freakin' perfect! Speaking as a writer, not as an artist, when I'm doing work-for-hire, that is exactly my sentiment. Sometimes, I'm writing about someting I think is really cool. Sometimes, I'm not. In the end, I'm doing it because someone offered me money to do it. If I don't want what I wrote destroyed by editors, I don't sell it to them. If I already have a contract, well, tough luck for me. I knew going into it that they can do whatever they darn well please with this, including wiping their nether-regions with it.

The stuff I write for my own game, for my own campaign world, well, that's different. And that's why I don't shop it around, because I don't want someone to relieve themselves on it.

But really, I'm just repeating what James very concisely presented. And hiliariously too!

Edit: And this is definitely going in my sig

 

[BryonD]

Hm. You say that Paizo may not understand what the readers want. Have you considered that you might be a bit off on who the readers are? There are a lot of people who read Dragon who were not Dark Sun players of old. Perhaps some consideration was (and should have been) given to those readers?

Simply put - Dark Sun was popular, sure. But it apparently wasn't popular enough to merit a full treatment in it's own product. I don't know if it was popular enough to dedicate large portions of a general D&D magazine to fans alone. Paizo really doesn't need readers going, "This issue was crap, all this Dark Sun stuff I can't use". The articles may have been aimed a bit more broadly - to give something to old Dark Sun players, and to pique the interest of folks who had not before done much with Dark Sun. It would then fail to be a perfect representation of the old stuff, but be of greater general value to Paizo.

The feedback that is being provided does not seem to imply that I am off.

You are clearly correct that the Dark Sun setting is not popular enough for its own full setting. I'm fairly confident that a significant fraction of Dragon readers don't really care about Dark Sun, so do not care if they "got it right" or not.

But I strongly doubt that the fraction of Dragon readers who did not care about Dark Sun but are now interested in it thanks to this issue approaches anywhere near the fraction who were already fans of Dark Sun and were hoping for a faithful upgrade.

And anyway, why can't and upgrade of the old setting generate just as much interest as a re-invention? Why only service the new players when you can service the old and new at the same time? You said the article was more broad, but I fail to see how that is true. Discarding elements that made Dark Sun what it was to the old fans does not equate to "broadening".

To go back to my prior anology, if you want to get new fans into an old civil war game, you don't do it by turning it into a WWII game.