Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Adventure Path: How Successful?

[Jack99]

Also, you can be a 4E fan and still find much to like about Paizo's products. There's a poster on the Paizo boards who is a die hard 4E guy who converts Paizo adventures into 4E, in fact he's the same guy who has posted upthread. Now while I don't particularly care for HIM, his conversion work is EXCELLENT. I totally respect his work. My point is when the crap jumps off in the 4E threads on the Paizo boards, he's in the thick of it taking on all comers AND HE STILL SUPPORTS PAIZO because he likes the product. I gotta think that it's not blind loyalty, that he honestly likes and sees value in the product.

Definitely. I guess I am as big a 4e lover as they come (although less rabid about it than others ) but I still buy a lot of Paizo's products. I don't like their choice of game system, but the fluff they write is very, very good.

 

[Mistwell]

Paizo is as anti-4E as WOTC is anti-EVERYONE else.

I do not think the people who work at Paizo are particularly anti-4e.

I think a disproportionate number of Paizo fans are actively anti-4e, often passionately so.

I do not find fans of any other company passionately anti-anything. If you like Goodman games, you do not tend to dislike some other company or system, for example.

Also, you can be a 4E fan and still find much to like about Paizo's products. There's a poster on the Paizo boards who is a die hard 4E guy who converts Paizo adventures into 4E, in fact he's the same guy who has posted upthread. Now while I don't particularly care for HIM, his conversion work is EXCELLENT. I totally respect his work. My point is when the crap jumps off in the 4E threads on the Paizo boards, he's in the thick of it taking on all comers AND HE STILL SUPPORTS PAIZO because he likes the product. I gotta think that it's not blind loyalty, that he honestly likes and sees value in the product.

He shouldn't have to fight a horde of fans. He should instead be getting lots of praise. The fact that he's in the thick of it taking on all comers again proves my point. Why is that happening? Why does Paizo seem to attract so many people who are so passionately against stuff as opposed to simply for the thing they like? Whatever the answer, that isn't the stuff for me. It's hard enough to buy and support 3rd party products in this economy. Fighting a horde of fans just to talk about what you want to do with that product is simply a turn-off.

 

[Mistwell]

This perception is probably the part about working in the industry that distresses and saddens me the most, because Paizo is not anti-4E, any more than we are anti-GURPS or anti-Chess or anti-Hide and Seek. I admit that there's a pretty strong anti-4E or anti-WotC sentiment among a lot of Paizo supporters, and I do what I can to try to coax them away from that mindset, but the Internet outnumbers me. There's certainly enough room in the industry for both game systems (Pathfinder RPG AND D&D 4E) to flourish.

Our products are as 4E-friendly as Wizards of the Coast's 3rd edition products were, in any event.

I honestly do not think that Paizo, as a company, does what it can to try and coax people away from the anti-4e and anti-WotC mindset. We've all seen what Paizo can do when it actually wants to do what it can to redirect efforts, and what you guys have done in that respect isn't anywhere near your best effort. Now maybe there are good reasons for that - like it's not a high priority, and there just isn't the time for it, and it's not particularly profitable, or whatever. But I have not seen a concerted and real effort from the company as a whole to try and stop or reduce this attitude.

And I really do think it's hurting your products. There are plenty of people like me who would love to check out some finely written adventures from Paizo that they can convert to 4e. But knowing that merely bringing up the topic to others who have read those adventures might result in a huge anti-4e and anti-WotC flame war serves as a major disincentive to want to check it out at all. Few people have the time or inclination to deal with that.

 

[Glyfair]

I do not think the people who work at Paizo are particularly anti-4e.

I can see how this impression gets around though. I read several of the blogs of some of the more visible Paizo staff. I have seen numerous posts devoted to negative comments about different bits of 4E. I have never seen a post praising any bit of 4E (I don't read their forums, largely due to the difficultly navigating the forums).

I think a disproportionate number of Paizo fans are actively anti-4e, often passionately so.

Likely true. That's part of what pulled me away from Open Design. There is a significantly vocal anti-4E crowd among the patrons (or was before I drifted away) and I know the pro-3.5 crowd there out pulls the 4E to see anything but a conversion of an adventure published for a system I know I won't run again.

I do not find fans of any other company passionately anti-anything. If you like Goodman games, you do not tend to dislike some other company or system, for example.

I assume you are talking about D&D/d20 companies (and I am not sure you are right). I can point to numerous examples elsewhere in the hobby companies (Games Workshop, Privateer Press).

 

[ggroy]

Honestly, the fact that you felt the need to respond as you responded kinda proves my point. Nobody mentioned hate. But you took it as an accusation, felt the need to go on the defensive, and bashed 4e fans and WOTC. Paizo fans seem to react like you reacted on a disproportionate basis. It's definitely not all of them, but it's too many of them for my tastes. It creates an inherent barrier to buying the game products.

Why would I want to buy a product which is often (but not always) supported by people who apparently automatically and instinctively feel the need to bash others? Why would I want to walk that mine field?

Before the internet became popular, these sorts of discussions would not have been heard in a widespread manner. If they were heard at all, they were largely confined to betwen friends and/or with people who ran FLGS.

I remember back in the days of the 1E to 2E AD&D transition, the only people I knew in those days who expressed a rabid anti-2E sentiment were almost always people who had already previously purchased a lot of 1E AD&D stuff (ie. hardcover books, modules, etc ...). Some of these same people never even read the 2E Player's Manual and DMG at the time. (A few of them have not even read any 2E core books to this very day!) Essentially in their own minds, they felt like they were being "ripped off" and "wronged" by TSR.

By the time 3E was released, all these sorts of "pro" and "anti" sentiments and arguments were all over usenet and some web pages. Essentially what was once "shooting the breeze" coffee house chatter about (A)D&D editions amongst a friend or two, now became complete international flame fests over usenet. With message boards, blogs, etc ... this has amplified everything to louder and louder levels. In the end, it may very well be several 17 year old high school or college kids posting up all kinds of "noise", just to rile up other people like grognards and rabid supporters and/or detractors of particular editions/games.

 

[Dannager]

He shouldn't have to fight a horde of fans. He should instead be getting lots of praise. The fact that he's in the thick of it taking on all comers again proves my point. Why is that happening? Why does Paizo seem to attract so many people who are so passionately against stuff as opposed to simply for the thing they like? Whatever the answer, that isn't the stuff for me. It's hard enough to buy and support 3rd party products in this economy. Fighting a horde of fans just to talk about what you want to do with that product is simply a turn-off.

When I "fight a horde of fans" over there, it's usually when 4th Edition in general is being discussed. Barring a single incident, that conflict has blessedly left my conversion projects alone. You're right, though. There is a persistent anti-4e attitude over there. It doesn't stay confined to any specific sub-forum, but rears its ugly head wherever 4th Edition might get mentioned.

It's tough to blame Paizo for not doing more to quell the fires, though. Their current business model doesn't provide them with the incentive (since they ideally don't want customers switching to 4th Edition rather than Pathfinder) or resources (since they aren't producing 4th Edition products) to be particularly effective at it.

 

[Starfox]

Was a subscriber to both Dungeon and Dragon, always preferred Dungeon. Now a DDI subscriber and Pathfinder subscriber, but I am considering dropping Pathfinder; I find the second adventure path (Curse of the Crimson Throne) very good, but the others are not so good, and converting these to another system is a lot of work. I also find the fluff material (Golarion world material, fiction, monsters not appearing in the scenario etc) a complete waste of space.

If Dungeon in ddi got up to speed, I'd drop Pathfinder in a heartbeat.

Currently running Rise of the Runelords (in 4e) and Savage Tide (in 3.5). Rise of the Runelords really is much weaker that Savage Tide in every way, but from a DM perspective 4e is much better than 3e.

 

[Maggan]

I can point to numerous examples elsewhere in the hobby companies (Games Workshop, Privateer Press).

Games Workshop is interesting because many fans of the game hate the company. And keep playing the game.

As for WFRP, for example, quite a few fans are flying their flags of D&D "hatred" high and proud. Which is kinda strange to me. A lot of fans seems more hapoy to define their gaming by what games they don't play, instead of those that they do play.

/M

 

[Shemeska]

Why does Paizo seem to attract so many people who are so passionately against stuff as opposed to simply for the thing they like?

Because 4e, and perhaps more importantly 4e's marketing, really ticked off a lot of folks something fierce. Paizo being a major publisher for those interested in 3.x material still, they're liable to see a major influx of the people thusly turned off by WotC with 4e.

 

[Hunter In Darkness]

Because 4e, and perhaps more importantly 4e's marketing, really ticked off a lot of folks something fierce. Paizo being a major publisher for those interested in 3.x material still, they're liable to see a major influx of the people thusly turned off by WotC with 4e.

+1. Many poster that flocked to Paizo got tired of your game suck if your doing x marketing. That more then most things turned my group off to 4e before it was even previewed

Now while paizo does have its hot headed posters on both sides things are not as bad as say wotc forms or RPGnet's d&d section