Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Lesson? Is one big honkin book intimidating?

[Holy Bovine]

The only drawback to the 500+ page PF book is the poor binding that has my (seldom used) copy starting to pull away from it's own cover. The thing is barely 6 months old. Not impressed by that at all. A $50 book should be able to hold together much better than that.

What is perplexing to me is the fan response to this - laughing it off. 'Oh just buy another one' - heard that MANY times over on paizo's forums

 

[IronWolf]

The only drawback to the 500+ page PF book is the poor binding that has my (seldom used) copy starting to pull away from it's own cover. The thing is barely 6 months old. Not impressed by that at all. A $50 book should be able to hold together much better than that.

What is perplexing to me is the fan response to this - laughing it off. 'Oh just buy another one' - heard that MANY times over on paizo's forums

Not sure if there were different bindings or what, my core book is doing fine after two to two and half years of frequent use, including that of IronPup who likes to swipe it from the shelf and study it. Mine has been toted in backpacks from gaming table to gaming table and looks to be going strong.

Have you by chance emailed or contacted Paizo's customer service? Not sure if they would be able to offer any recourse for you, but certainly might get you further than trying to take the problem to the fans who can certainly offer you no recourse.

 

[malkav666]

The only time I have ever been intimidated by the PF rulebook was when this lady we game with threatened to beat me with it and try and insert into my unmentionable areas for poking fun at her new facial piercings and various studded apparel by referring to her as a "masterwork girl" for all of her obvious combat upgrades. I don't remember the exact wording the threat used but it made our group stop and have a good laugh at the logistics of it. But the imagery the threat provided me made me really odd understand of how big the PF rulebook is. Which if someone is threatening to use the book as weapon against you makes it much more intimidating than something like the pocket PHB or some such book.

But alas, in the end despite its size the rulebook, it had everything we needed to play and we had fun. No one was beaten and the girl ended up with a nickname that ended up sticking around to this day. She actually ended up liking the nickname, which not surprising to me when I go back and take a look at some of the other titles my group refers to one another as.

love,

malkav

 

[delericho]

The next version is supposed to meet a multitude of play styles.

IMO, trying to do that in the Core Rules is a fool's errand. They should be presenting a solid core game first, and then expanding it to accomodate the other play styles.

but what about the people that want all the dials turned to complex? It will be much harder to address that crowd with a 300 page book including a small bestiary in 300 pages.

It is easy to release a supplement that adds to the complexity of the game. It is nigh-impossible to release a supplement that removes complexity from the game.

That suggests that the way to go is to present the game in its simplest form first, in the Core Rulebook, and then expand it out with supplements for those who want the dials all turned up to 11. If there is room in the Core Rulebook, it might be no bad thing to present a small number of optional modules, if only to show how the system will be expanded (alignment would be a prime candidate), but these should not be embedded into the Core.

(And, yeah, I know that that means that players favouring 'complex' are stuck buying lots of supplements. Unfortunately, it's the only way to support everybody.)

 

[IronWolf]

(And, yeah, I know that that means that players favouring 'complex' are stuck buying lots of supplements. Unfortunately, it's the only way to support everybody.)

I snipped quite a bit, as I don't disagree with you necessarily. I do think if they release it in this supplement style that they will catch a lot of grief by making the folks that want complexity pay more for it.

This is one of the things I am quite curious about, how they plan to address each camps needs - both from how the rules will accommodate and how the product will physically be released. It should be interesting!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Size of the rulebook is less critical in my mind than having all of the basic options I need to play be present in one book (for players) and relatively few books (for DMs). I'd rather one 320-page book than the current 4E PHB1 and PHB2, for example, since a lot of the races and classes I consider to be baseline D&D got stuffed into PHB2.

 

[DonTadow]

Pathfinder was able to get away with it because they were not trying to advertise to new players. They were also simply enhancing an already established system. So a lot of that material needed to go into it. They didnt have the luxuary to truly think about designing a system from the ground up.

The fact of the matter is, folks are content with the 4 and pathfinder divide. So if you want to sell another book, price is going to be a factor.

Book should come in at 100 to 200 pages. The closer to 100 the better. To achieve this goal, simplicity and module build should be strong.

Classes should be but a handful that can be expanded using one form of enhancement (no need for prestige classes, feats, special abilitie4s, traits, etc, just choose one and go for it), Races should be a handful (i don't care if folk want to play old races create a book at a later date, skills, stay combat but keep social and knowledge skills this time around, keep fluff to a minimum, you will have a chance to do this in other books.