Pathfinder 2E Pathfinder 2e

[Zaukrie]

Alright, "most people who play 5E and are happy with it" then.

What game could have been made to move people away from a game they are happy with? I'm not sure I understand your argument here.

 

[Parmandur]

What game could have been made to move people away from a game they are happy with? I'm not sure I understand your argument here.

Well, look to @CapnZapp for more on that, he was probably the prime target demographic.

 

[Acolyte of Zothique]

So many assumptions here. I'm a 5e player that is switching 5E is boring to me. You level and get nothing but HPs....and the MM monsters just stand there and swing until they die mostly. I don't know why people feel the need to speak with such certainty about other people and their interests.....

I think pointing out misconceived views on 5e monsters is becoming a habit of mine. If your experience of 5e monsters is they just stand and hit things then, frankly, whoever is running those monsters is doing something seriously wrong.

I find it ironic that you say you don't understand why people speak about other people with certainty. Pot calling kettle black? Just because you find 5e monsters boring doesn't mean this is generally true, that's an assumption which objectively isn't the case in my experience.

I for one, as both 5e DM and player, have been fortunate that I've never encountered or been responsible for boring 5e monsters. I would strongly suggest - based on some years experience of 5e - that boring monsters is due to running them in an unimaginative manner. Perhaps PF2E provides more 'hand holding' in this regard;; that's not a bad thing by the way.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

My objective experience with 5e, not to mention every other 5e DM I know at the Meetups I attend, proves you to be wrong in generalising.

Experiences are not objective. Popularity does not equate to quality. A lot of food is very popular, among those who don't know what's in it.

Why not play up the virtues of PF2E instead?

I'm not certain that PF2 has many virtues. I'm not trying to pull PF2 up by dragging 5E down, or anything. Both games have huge, glaring flaws in them. Of the two, I doubt I could play either, right out of the box. At least 5E is somewhat amenable to house ruling.

Let's just say we agree to disagree on 5e and leave it at that; you've made your subjective personally biased views on 5e more than well known.

My subjective personally-biased views are neither more nor less valid than anyone those of anyone else on these boards. We can drop it for now, but I might have to come back and re-balance the perspective if anyone suggests that 5E is the be-all and end-all of D&D-like game design. Of the differences between 3E and 5E, none are obvious improvements; almost everything is just a trade-off, where a reasonable person could come down on either side.

 

[Acolyte of Zothique]

Experiences are not objective. Popularity does not equate to quality. A lot of food is very popular, among those who don't know what's in it.


I'm not certain that PF2 has many virtues. I'm not trying to pull PF2 up by dragging 5E down, or anything. Both games have huge, glaring flaws in them. Of the two, I doubt I could play either, right out of the box. At least 5E is somewhat amenable to house ruling.


My subjective personally-biased views are neither more nor less valid than anyone those of anyone else on these boards. We can drop it for now, but I might have to come back and re-balance the perspective if anyone suggests that 5E is the be-all and end-all of D&D-like game design. Of the differences between 3E and 5E, none are obvious improvements; almost everything is just a trade-off, where a reasonable person could come down on either side.

Your first comment 'popularity does not equate to quality'. Let me turn that around.

5e edition, while not the end all and be all of D&D style games, is the first to have undergone extensive public playtesting and to have inputs from a variety of different people in the RPG industry. It's also the first edition of D&D to have been in print 5+ years - since AD&D2E - with the PHB still proving a bestseller and all the 5e books still in print. In my personal experience, I've had many new players enjoy the game to the extent they have gone off to play in other 5e games or become DMs themselves. I would strongly argue none of this would have happened if 5E was not a quality game which appeals to a majority. In our social media saturated world poor quality would have killed 5e by now. That quality has also been a factor in it's popularity and enduring appeal. Quality does equate to popularity, the game's commercial success is an objectively incontrovertible measure of this. You don't like 5e? Fine. I don't like Earl Grey tea. You can't please all of the people all the time.

Your views are as valid as anyone elses. I have never argued that they are not. However, they come across as an inflammatory attack on 5e due to the language used - edition warring. So what is the point of that language? Your view appears to be you hate 5e. It's valid but it antagonises people who like 5e. So is that viewpoint really worth expressing?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Your view appears to be you hate 5e. It's valid but it antagonises people who like 5e. So is that viewpoint really worth expressing?

There's a danger in these forums becoming an echo chamber, where one person says that 5E is amazing and nobody is allowed to disagree. That kind of language antagonizes people who don't like 5E, and it serves no purpose. It's not productive. The counter-point still needs to be expressed, of course, for the sake of balance and keeping a fair view. Even though it's equally non-productive.

If we're going to have productive discussion, then we should focus on the individual points, of what each edition does well (or not-well).

 

[Acolyte of Zothique]

There's a danger in these forums becoming an echo chamber, where one person says that 5E is amazing and nobody is allowed to disagree. That kind of language antagonizes people who don't like 5E, and it serves no purpose. It's not productive. The counter-point still needs to be expressed, of course, for the sake of balance and keeping a fair view. Even though it's equally non-productive.

If we're going to have productive discussion, then we should focus on the individual points, of what each edition does well (or not-well).

The ability to disagree is absolutely vital and should be encouraged. However, disagreement couched in inflammatory language provokes hostility, is counterproductive and results in people not listening to your argument.

The objection I have is to the specific language you use, not to your overall message. I argued that 5e is a quality product but nothing is perfect. I'm happy to engage in a discussion about the plus and minus points of a game but not when someone outright attacks that game due to the language used. That is not discussion or disagreement, it is provocation which causes offense.

By the way, a non-productive counterpoint - your own language - is definitely not worth expressing; if it's non-productive what is it going to add to the discussion? Answer, nothing. What would be worth expressing is a counterpoint containing constructive criticism which can then be debated.

I don't see an echo chamber here; my analogy would be a tennis court where one person wishes to have an enjoyable game but the other player hurls abuse at both their own tennis racket and that of the other player.

 

[Campbell]

This is not an attempt to say anything about the relative quality of Fifth Edition.

Law and Order, NCIS, and CSI are widely popular television shows that have a broad appeal. I think contending that their broad appeal means they are meaningfully better television shows than Breaking Bad or Sons of Anarchy would be a massive mistake. The opposite is also true. Popular things can be good, but they are not good because they are popular.

The same is true for Fifth Edition and say Exalted or Apocalypse World.

 

[Acolyte of Zothique]

This is not an attempt to say anything about the relative quality of Fifth Edition.

Law and Order, NCIS, and CSI are widely popular television shows that have a broad appeal. I think contending that their broad appeal means they are meaningfully better television shows than Breaking Bad or Sons of Anarchy would be a massive mistake. The opposite is also true. Popular things can be good, but they are not good because they are popular.

The same is true for Fifth Edition and say Exalted or Apocalypse World.

O.K., your comment above makes little sense but I think you just said that popularity equates to quality. In which case, awesome. Your reverse argument makes no sense though. If we are using the above TV shows as an analogy then try this.

All of the above shows are popular because people like watching them which means they have a certain minimum level of quality of script writing and production value which keeps people coming back. This means ratings remain high so the networks keep producing them until ratings drop or the series end naturally. The main point is people watch them because they are produced to a certain level of quality. Therefore, quality does equate to popularity - a quality item will encourage popularity. Crap TV shows get cancelled or don't make it past the pilot.

My argument was that the quality of 5e has played a major role in it's popularity, not the other way round. 5e is not a quality product because it is popular. That's why your argument makes little sense.

Nice try but no cigar.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

O.K., your comment above makes little sense but I think you just said that popularity equates to quality. In which case, awesome. Your reverse argument makes no sense though. If we are using the above TV shows as an analogy then try this.

All of the above shows are popular because people like watching them which means they have a certain minimum level of quality of script writing and production value which keeps people coming back. This means ratings remain high so the networks keep producing them until ratings drop or the series end naturally. The main point is people watch them because they are produced to a certain level of quality. Therefore, quality does equate to popularity - a quality item will encourage popularity. Crap TV shows get cancelled or don't make it past the pilot.

My argument was that the quality of 5e has played a major role in it's popularity, not the other way round. 5e is not a quality product because it is popular. That's why your argument makes little sense.

Nice try but no cigar.

Your argument does have a major flaw, in the sense that quality isn't always the determining factor in what makes something popular, in fact lower quality items are often more popular because they're cheaper, advertised in such a way as to give the illusion of higher quality, or because they're associated with emotions that have little to do with the experience of actually using the product- ergo "Sex Sells" or the way certain brands entrench themselves in nostalgia for a time either long past, or that never was.

Often the shows that stay on the air the longest are the most "comfortable" ones, whereas shows that have higher quality and more ambition may find themselves abandoned by viewers uninterested in being challenged, but then those same ideas can succeed if only because a niche is being carved out by the ones that came before.

In short, popularity is suspect as a means of ascertaining quality.

Then again, 'quality' is also a meaningless word, because it refers to whatever virtues the person using it tends to value.