Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder outselling D&D

[Dannager]

Really? You said, that I would have a hard time arguing my point. So I mentioned several, but the example of 2e is one product. I don't need to list a thousand games, just one to prove my point. And I did. It wasn't a difficult argument at all. Show me one RPG with balanced mechanics that has lasted 20 years. Just one please, if you can (though I know you can't).

Again, no RPG has lasted 20 years in a sense that matters to the company that created it - the company responsible for the design decisions. 2e was not sold for 20 years. It was sold for a while, the company that made it crashed and burned for any number of reasons, and then it was replaced with the next iteration - one that made balance more of a priority, in fact.

And the only reason 2e is off the shelves was a design decision by its owner, not that it needed to be moved off the shelves.

If its owner chose to remove it from the shelves, that's all the reason you need. If they felt it had staying power that outweighed the cost of improving the game, they would have let it sit. They didn't, so it didn't.

Remember the "no more PDFs from WotC issue", why was that an issue, most of the products being lost were the older editions including 2e. Obviously it wouldn't be such a stink, if nobody cared about 2e products... so your small, proud, 'thriving' community line is like most of your arguments - anecdotal. My evidence is real, 2e was on the shelves for 20 years, that's a fact.

No, it wasn't. AD&D 2e was sold in some form on shelves for 11 years (and was revised halfway through). That is a fact.

 

[Dannager]

As for long lasting non-balanced games, there is Hide and Seek, Marco Polo, and other such "it" games.

Your examples of long-lived unbalanced games are games that are passed down from six year-old to six year-old and aren't actually sold anywhere? Not to mention the fact that I can't see how you can make the claim that they have no concern for balance.

Regardless, RPGs are not generally competitive.

Which is why there has been precious little push for balance concerns in the RPG industry to date.

They are much consistently designed designed to be cooperative.

Yes. This means that they can afford to care about balance less, and they do. If you compare the attention that 4e receives with regards to balance and the attention that regulation football receives with regards to balance, they aren't even on the same level.

 

[gamerprinter]

Most RPG games change over its lifetime, but I didn't see a 2.5, it was always 2e for its entire lifetime. The added books 11 years into it weren't mandatory, nor were the previous 11 years of books rescinded and pulled off the shelves when it happened. When I was playing 2e, and I was playing it still well into 3x, our gaming group looked at the Player Options books (that came out after 11 years on the shelves) and thought, "These ideas suck" - I still think that. I only bought Skills and Options, and stopped right there, though I was buying most of the setting box editions, as that was the main products TSR was offering that I still wanted to buy.

From 3e to 3.5 core books were replaced. When the Player Options books were released, they in no way replaced the core books, they used the same core books throughout the entire 20 years.

And the designers decision to pull it off the shelves - is your explanation the real reason? As far as I can tell, they didn't reveal the real reason, they just up and did it. It could be what your saying, but again, as anything you say - its anecdotal or an educated guess. Its not fact, however.

I offer facts, can you use a few yourself, instead of making up everything you suggest? I don't know why they decided to end 2e and start 3x - your guess is as good as mine, but its only a guess. And unlike you, I won't stake an argument based on a guess.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>


Yes. This means that they can afford to care about balance less, and they do. If you compare the attention that 4e receives with regards to balance and the attention that regulation football receives with regards to balance, they aren't even on the same level.

No, it means the games can allow for the concept of specialisation of team members. A goalie is not balanced against the forward. The concept is meaningless to the team's success. The team can decide to not have a goalie and add an extra forward if it thinks that will improve their odds, but the specialisation exists because it helps the team generally.

 

[prosfilaes]

I understand your opinion quite well, because your opinion is the same as pretty much everyone who has ever raised the "More Balance Means More Sameness!" flag.

And is your refusal to respond rationally pretty much the same as everyone who disagreed?

Also, the idea that a game must be perfectly balanced in order to wear the label of "balanced" is ridiculous. Experts agree that first-move advantage is responsible for as little as 2% of victories, so it's clear that Chess remains well-balanced in spite of any advantage you might have in going first

Ignoring the real question whether balance in competitive games has anything to do with balance in cooperative games, I think it notable that virtually every balanced competitive game I can think of does so by making every player the same.

(and ignoring the fact that determination of first-move advantage can be randomized, eliminating any native player advantage).

(A) You've just removed the only asymmetry in the game. To achieve more balance, you removed what little difference there is between the players in Chess.

(B) This can be done in any RPG; we randomly pick classes for people at the start of a D&D game.

(C) It sucks as a solution; competitive games are not improved as a general rule by making a big part of the game play depend on a single coin flip at the start. If one side usually loses, then all adding a coin flip at the start does is mean who wins and who loses is dependent on one coin flip.

 

[Nagol]

Again, no RPG has lasted 20 years in a sense that matters to the company that created it - the company responsible for the design decisions. 2e was not sold for 20 years. It was sold for a while, the company that made it crashed and burned for any number of reasons, and then it was replaced with the next iteration - one that made balance more of a priority, in fact.

If its owner chose to remove it from the shelves, that's all the reason you need. If they felt it had staying power that outweighed the cost of improving the game, they would have let it sit. They didn't, so it didn't.

No, it wasn't. AD&D 2e was sold in some form on shelves for 11 years (and was revised halfway through). That is a fact.

CoC has sold for more than 20 years; GURPS is over 20 years; Traveller went 19? before changing hands. Hero is mostly the same game today as it was in 1982; some fiddly bits around pricing has changed, but DarkStar, my first CHAMPIONS character, would still be recognisable as a CHAMPIONS character today. Aftermath is still on the same revision as the '80s. These games do exist.

 

[gamerprinter]

CoC has sold for more than 20 years; GURPS is over 20 years; Traveller went 19? before changing hands. Hero is mostly the same game today as it was in 1982; some fiddly bits around pricing has changed, but DarkStar, my first CHAMPIONS character, would still be recognisable as a CHAMPIONS character today. Aftermath is still on the same revision as the '80s. These games do exist.

While I never played an Iron Crown Enterprises game, Rolemaster with several iterations, but all are actively played has been around almost as long as TSR - its still sold and played.

Agreeing with you, there are many, many game systems of dubious states of balance that started long ago and are still being purchased and played today.

While the list of socalled 'balanced' systems is a very short list, and my next door neighbor's five year old is older than all of them. (I don't mean to eschew more balanced games like GURPS, they still don't follow the 'balance is the way' philosophy, as some today think is the primary goal.)

As I've repeated throughout my posts balance is not a bad thing.

To me, from a game publishers point of view, making a fun game is goal one, serving a fanbase is goal two, making one that earns a profit is goal three, balance it's somewhere beneath that competing with options, exciting concepts, reasonable mechanics, and marketability. Its one of my concerns, but not the prime directive, and thus balance could always be more balanced, it would be something I hope to include, but not before a host of other issues. Balance might even suffer in an attempt to be more flexible, which is another goal.

Note I co-design settings for publication and not systems per se, but balance does come to play regarding my work.

 

[Nagol]

While I never played an Iron Crown Enterprises game, Rolemaster with several iterations, but all are actively played has been around almost as long as TSR - its still sold and played.

Agreeing with you, there are many, many game systems of dubious states of balance that started long ago and are still being purchased and played today.

While the list of socalled 'balanced' systems is a very short list, and my next door neighbor's five year old is older than all of them. (I don't mean to eschew more balanced games like GURPS, they still don't follow the 'balance is the way' philosophy, as some today think is the primary goal.)

As I've repeated throughout my posts balance is not a bad thing.

To me, from a game publishers point of view, making a fun game is goal one, serving a fanbase is goal two, making one that earns a profit is goal three, balance it's somewhere beneath that competing with options, exciting concepts, reasonable mechanics, and marketability. Its one of my concerns, but not the prime directive, and thus balance could always be more balanced, it would be something I hope to include, but not before a host of other issues. Balance might even suffer in an attempt to be more flexible, which is another goal.

Note I co-design settings for publication and not systems per se, but balance does come to play regarding my work.

I would have included Rolemaster, but I thought it didn't survive the ICE melt down in the '90s.

Serving the fan base seems to be a major touch point as to general popularity. As I wrote upthread, the only games that act as leadership challengers tap into or develop wide fan bases for the fluff component of the game, mechanics be damned.

 

[Dannager]

And is your refusal to respond rationally pretty much the same as everyone who disagreed?

If you feel I have respond in a way that is less than rational, you are free to demonstrate that.

Ignoring the real question whether balance in competitive games has anything to do with balance in cooperative games,

It does.

I think it notable that virtually every balanced competitive game I can think of does so by making every player the same.

See: nearly every team sport ever, most team-based video games, trading card games, some board games, etc.

(A) You've just removed the only asymmetry in the game. To achieve more balance, you removed what little difference there is between the players in Chess.

I didn't bring up Chess to demonstrate the difference between balance and homogeneity. I brought it up because it's a classic example of game balance.

(B) This can be done in any RPG; we randomly pick classes for people at the start of a D&D game.

Go for it. Let me know how that swings your margin of victory.

(C) It sucks as a solution; competitive games are not improved as a general rule by making a big part of the game play depend on a single coin flip at the start. If one side usually loses, then all adding a coin flip at the start does is mean who wins and who loses is dependent on one coin flip.

Which is why, as I pointed out, first-turn advantage is responsible for as few as 2% of game victories.

It's also why most sports games tend to have built-in mechanics for equalizing the first-turn advantage part-way through the game (switching at halves/quarters, for example).

 

[gamerprinter]

I would have included Rolemaster, but I thought it didn't survive the ICE melt down in the '90s.

Serving the fan base seems to be a major touch point as to general popularity. As I wrote upthread, the only games that act as leadership challengers tap into or develop wide fan bases for the fluff component of the game, mechanics be damned.

Iron Crown is under it's third owners as of this year, though some of the IP from the first owners are still in litigation or just not available. They have a more recent system called HARP (High Adventure Role Play) that came under their second owners.

I am hoping to 'act as a leadership challenger' by tapping into both feudal Japan inspired fanbase, and the horror/ravenloft fanbase with my made for Pathfinder - Kaidan: a Japanese Ghost Story setting. My first mini-arc, The Curse of the Golden Spear (3 adventure set) with the third and final adventure has been released on PDF just today! The printed versions will be available by Gen Con from Cubicle 7 and distributed worldwide.

Though my setting also includes some very cool mechanics, specifically for it.

Sorry for the plug - but your views on the fluff, forced me to say it!