Pathfinder 1E Paizo = Play WoTC = Pay?

[radferth]

I would tend to agree that WotC is gearing 4e toward folks who like to make their own adventures, while Paizo is out to sell to folks who like adventure paths. (Indeed, the impetus for creating Pathfinder was that they wanted to keep on selling adventure paths, and felt they needed an in-print game system to do so). However, this in not the only preference in play. The systems are different enough that many (most?) folks have a strong preference there as well. Paizo has people who like adventure paths and like 3.x covered, and WotC has folks who like 4e and like to make their own adventures covered. No one in particular is support 3.x fans who like to homebrew, but there is so much out there already, this isn't a big deal. Folks who like the 4e system, but who would like some high-quality, dead-tree adventures are out of luck. Please, someone prove me wrong on my last point and point me at some good 4e adventures. There was one 3pp 4e adventures I played a year ago that was quite good, I don't know the name or who published. We fought a lot of evil dwarves. All other 4e adventures I have read, played, or heard of from friends have been quite lacking.

To circle back to the OP. I'd say Paizo is trying sell us modules, and they've got some rules to go with those. WotC is trying to sell us rules, and they've got some modules we can use if we want. If this were some sort formal competition, I'd give Paizo higher marks, because I like their rules better than WotC's modules. WotC: you got a lot of my money in 3.x days, because there were a lot of cool modules I could use your rules on. That's not the case now. If you want me to keep a DDI subscription and buy the occasional rule book, get some better adventures in circulation.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Paizo has certainly ignored the player splat book option, to great success it seems. But really, when PF is advertised as being compatible with 3.5, there's already about 6 gajillion options for players out there anyway... years and years of WotC- and 3pp-produced splat that (presumably) PF players can just slot right in.

In any case, we'll see where they go in the next couple of years. I suspect their product profile will change a bit.

This is a good point. The ability of third parties to fill the player itch seems to be proven on the Pathfinder side as well.

But... if adventurers slow down, I can't necessarily see Paizo doing the player supplement trend. I think we'd see a second edition before that happened. But I easily admit I could be wrong.

Some of the areas that Paizo does that haven't been touched on, include their stat free materials like the flip maps, the tile maps, and the various cards including item cards and cards for quick NPC illustration.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I agree with your first paragraph, less so the second. Most WotC adventures are meant to be fitted into people's existing games, and don't come with much implicit background. They almost can't, without reducing the potential audience. Paizo write on the assumption that people buying the adventures are using them in Golarion, and if you aren't then you have to adapt them yourself (or not use them at all). I'm not sure that makes them necessarily more complex, and story-driven can equally be considered 'railroady' and a bad thing. Not that homebrew adventures don't sometimes also become story-driven.

That's not necessarily true though. Even the 'great' adventurers had a default assumtpion to them. There are also different branches of adventures Paizo offers. They have the Adventure Path and the single modules. Some of those singles are very easy to slot into a 'standard' fantasy setting.

Will people complain that the WoTAC adventure use the Vale setting when that comes out next year? Will they claim that they can't use those adventures in the setting?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Just wanted to try to point out some of why I posted in the first place.

I was organizing my books. yeah, I know, going on 4 months and I'm still not organized? WTF right?

And I noticed that while I own all the print adventures of WoTC and do not own the Paizo ones, that I still have more of the Paizo.

And that got me thinking about shared experiences. In my opinion, a lot of the enjoyment of role playing games, including online ones, is the shared experiences of performing the same action but not necessarily the same way. This is one of the reason why some of the older adventurers, perhaps despite poor actual adventure design, are so well known and well loved. They've been played over and over and people can talk about them over and over and build on that shared experience.

I don't think 4e has that. I may be completely wrong on that field. I occassioanlly here someone talk about the 1st adventure, Keep, as it's online for free and has some supplemental material, but it seems that the online supplemental material stopped around P1? My apologies if I'm wrong on that but I recall bits to augment the adventure, bits to put it into FR or Eberron and other bonus material.

By focusing so much on the player side of things, sure, you get people talking about their characters, but if those characters aren't engaged in shared experiences, is it still the same common ground?

With Paizo, I see that. People tend to talk about their adventures a lot. People ask about which ones are best. Many replies, often with advise based on actual game play.

WoTC doesn't necessarily have those options yet because despite the timline the game has been out, while we've got three Player's Handbook, there's only one printed advneture path and it's quality... well, the game system itself has shifted under those adventurers and it's not uncommon to read about players bitch slapping Orcus around.

I'm not saying WoTC is a bad company, I just don't see the same bit to grow the 'shared' experience. I think that the new advnetures with the old titles are one effort in that vein but don't think that it went as well as it could have as Against the Gaints is generally pointed out as bad on many levels. The Tomb is too new to hear much that's useful.

I think that by focusing on adventures in print, that Paizo has an edge in creating the shared player experience.

Does that make more sense?

 

[NewJeffCT]

I have to agree with this one. The 4E DMG even has a section for GMs on "what to do when you have 6 hours of prep time"... "what to do when you have 3 hours of prep time"... "what to do when you have ONE hour of prep time" (answer to the last one: grab a module, skim, and play. You really have no choice if you're gonna run anyway.)

In 3.X I used to put far too much thinking into encounters over 6th level or so - figure the feats, skill points, neat tricks and synergies, etc. And comparatively little time to plot or motives for NPCs, etc. I soon learned to fudge the heck out of my NPCs to save time, but it was a large learning curve. Now I create NPCs the way I used to back in AD&D, and the math works out about the same.

At the time I really enjoyed the "sub-game" of creating NPCs, but over time I got tired of it.

That was really my experience with 3.5 as well, almost exactly.

Then, when my players hit level 12+, it was almost like a second full-time job for me to just design encounters that would challenge my large group of players (myself, plus 7 regular players and one part-timer) and be somewhat original.

Unfortunately, because of that, I was not able to focus nearly as much on player development, NPC personality, working in backstory ideas and making the world come alive to the players. I had to spend so much time just learning all the abilities (spell-like, spells, class/race, prestige class, template, etc), skills, feats, magic items, etc that it was not humanly possible to do that and have a family and a job.

While Paizo & PF did clean up some of the rules, they also added in a layer of complexity by beefing up the base classes (and, my campaign had a straight fighter 18, a straight cleric 18 and a straight sorcerer 18 at the end...) that kind of killed my interest in PF. Plus, when my 3.5E campaign ended earlier this year, there was nothing out there like Heroforge to help me build my bad guys - sure, PF is somewhat backwards compatible, but there were enough changes that I would worry about the accuracy of Heroforge (I had asked on the PF forum here and got a negative response)

So, I have switched to 4E because building encounters is so friggin' easy, it will allow me to focus more on player development and giving my NPCs more personality instead of 4-5 pages of stats from Heroforge & Spellforge.

However, I do like Paizo's products and if I had a smaller group of experienced gamers who knew the PF rules, I would love to run a PF game. I think PF retains the feel of older editions of D&D more than 4E and I'm running a modified Paizo Adventure Path to start my current 4E game.

 

[Holy Bovine]

Yeah. This thread is going to be a fun one. What a loaded initial post! The funny thing is, I happen to like both companies... is that a bad thing?

Not bad - just impossible

 

[Herschel]

Probably it's related to one of the most significant differences between the companies. WotC is owned by Hasbro, which is a publicly traded company that needs to please stockholders. Paizo is a small company that only needs to please its customer base.

The reeks of falsehood more strongly than night time cable "news" commentators on certain networks.

Rule #1: You only need to please your customer base. (That's where profits are made and profits are what keep a company going, public or not).

Rule #2: If you make profits, stockholders will be happy whether they know what the product is or not.

You make it sound like WotC is a faceless book factory that cares about nothing and Paizo makes product out of the goodness of their hearts. WotC has more resources and can do what they do, and they do it well. Paizo doesn't have the same resources but does what they do well too.

At the end of the day we gamers win, regardless of which game we prefer because there's people getting things out we want.

 

[Herschel]

I think if I opened my fridge and there was a clown in there, I just might pee myself.

Clownicide: Get them before they get you.

 

[Jor-El]

Clownicide: Get them before they get you.

Can't sleep Clowns will eat me.
Can't sleep Clowns will eat me.
Can't sleep Clowns will eat me.
Can't sleep Clowns will eat me.
Can't sleep Clowns will eat me.
Can't sleep Clowns will eat me.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Its funny how arguments change.

When Paizo first went their own way, the detractors were saying; "They're choosing a loosing path with diminishing returns. Appealling only to a few troubled grognards who will soon convert to 4e. Makes me sad."

Now, the argument appears to be; "Paizo chose an easy path with no risks. Well of course they were successful; they were building with someone elses toys and didn't have to do any work at all. Not that they sell much though."

At what level?

It was an incredibly bold move to actually break away from current D&D and remain with 3e, and it paid off far more spectacularly than I ever expected. On the other hand "We're staying with the old edition with nine years worth of playtesting and a massive history" is hardly risky behaviour as far as game design is concerned - it just amounts to more of the same. Wizards, on the other hand, have happily not just thrown the old sacred cows on the barbeque but are busy throwing the apparent sacred cows from the current edition (the power structure) on the barbeque to make a tastier game - and more power to them because of it.