They really did seem to imply the system as it stood was only using OGL as a formality for sharing content, and that a future version of the CRB would just swap the OGL page for ORC with the remainder of the book being the same. There was no implication that "in the future, we will make sure our books are 100% divorced from OGL-derrived content."
I can sort of see what you are saying there, but that's not quite what the argument is about, either.
If I can put on a tinfoil hat for a minute. Pathfinder 1e was a D&D clone that sold itself as being more D&D than D&D was at the time. They hewed very close to the D&D tropes because that was profitable for them. When they came to making PF2e, that wasn't as viable a strategy since D&D had returned to form. So they wanted it to be more their own thing rather than a clone. But they wanted it to feel like a continuation of PF1e and Golarion as well, and that meant keeping some of the bigger tropes to keep it somewhat familiar. Now, four years later they have shown their system is successful, and the OGL is a perfect opportunity to purge the last remnants of D&D out of the system. I have few doubts that they considered removing alignment or ability scores earlier but kept them to create continuity with PF1e and any refugees from D&D. Now, such legacy elements are more of a hindrance and this is their attempt to remove them and further distinguish their game from WotC's.
I am more curious about what legacy monsters and spells get axed or changed. We know about magic missile getting a name change and dragons getting an overhaul, but I wonder about other monsters like owlbear or the selection of giants. Couple that with the problematic ones, I can see a not small part of the bestiary getting changed in some way. That in turn will end up retconning Golarion as it has been known. (For example, many planar monsters, or drow).
But ultimately, it will probably be good for Paizo to tear the scab off and make Pathfinder as distinct as possible by ditching legacy elements. And I can understand people who will be upset by that. I mean, people were upset when WotC changes lore in settings or monsters, I imagine Paizo will be similar.
At a certain level, it feels like PF had a niche as "What if you wanted
all the options" along with the "classic" D&D design. 5E eventually came around towards the latter part (compared to 4E, at least), so PF had to take the first part and find a new niche for the second. What it ended up on was, ironically, something closer to what they had made their money being the opposite of: a more balanced, tactically-sound version of the d20 experience.
As it stands, this was probably the best time to cut the ties off stuff which have started to become dated. Unlike 5E, PF2 character building isn't really built around rolling 3d6 anymore, so keeping the ability scores is more questionable compared to how it was. Alignment... well, another ironic continuation of what 4E felt like it was doing. I do wonder what they are removing from the books, but since I already have the originals, I'm just not all that worried. I also wonder how much of it will get renamed (Will they take out Owlbears or just rename them something like "Strigursa"?) rather than straight up removed.
My post about whether Paizo should release new books was actually on the Paizo forums, not EN World. The title of the post is "Pathfinder Next Edition Thoughts." Several posters responded they did not want new books.
I mean, there will always be people who don't want to move on. Totally within their right. Doesn't really make something a conspiracy, though, and their game isn't invalidated at all with the new books.
I was critical of Wizards when they attempted to deauthorize the OGL, but my post in the D&D thread is about streamers basically looking to create a scandal and grow their channels by scouring every single thing Wizards does to see if they can spin it into something dastardly. In that post, I concede the OGL scandal and the use of the Pinkertons by Wizards were both unacceptable.
I mean, I don't really care about all this because I think we really shouldn't be talking about Wizards in this post at all.
I took some liberties in assuming that Paizo hid their decision to print a Remastered edition later this year on purpose to sell out their old inventory. I can't prove this statement and inform anyone reading that the only statements I know of made by Paizo are from Erik Mona on Roll for Combat where he stated they had been working on Pathfinder Remastered for a few months. He does not give a specific definition of the timeframe and instead leaves it very vague. Each reader can draw their own conclusion as to what a few months means. If anyone has a more exact date when the Remaster project was given the green light, I would greatly appreciate it.
Working on something doesn't mean anything nefarious, nor does it mean they were keeping something from you. The idea that they were working on new Cores doesn't mean they had intended to release them any time soon. As they basically state, the OGL moved up their timeline on this so that they are doing it now when more people are getting into the game and there is a more pressing need to protect themselves.
I concede the January 12 statement is not a lie by omission if you will concede that nearly all the people who read that statement did not think Paizo was referring to a Remastered edition because most of them would not have considered 4 years a long enough time. I also concede people may have thought that the Core Rulebook may have some slight changes since this is normal.
I don't see a reason to concede anything. My statement is self-evident: nothing in there even vaguely handwaves at such things. There's no lie by omission because you'd have make a deceptive statement in there and I can find none.
Further confusion can be found earlier in the January 12 statement when Paizo states:
"By the time we went to work on Pathfinder Second Edition, Wizards of the Coast’s Open Game Content was significantly less important to us, and so our designers and developers wrote the new edition without using Wizards’ copyrighted expressions of any game mechanics. While we still published it under the OGL, the reason was no longer to allow Paizo to use Wizards’ expressions, but to allow other companies to use our expressions."
This also infers that 2E product does not use Open Game Content when it does. I concede it does not express specifically that Paizo did not use Open Game Content, but it does strongly infer it.
No, it does not imply that it
doesn't use OGL content
. In fact, it outright states they still
do, but that it is significantly
less important than it was previously. While they are at less risk, that is not the same as
no risk.
I'm not angry at Paizo. I am disappointed that this statement, which was probably on of the most read statements by Paizo during the OGL scandal, ended up being a very unclear statement that could have been misinterpreted. Thousands of people interpreted the statement as Paizo assuring them the current 2E books as of January 12 would not need any significant change to be reprinted and might only include errata updates. Those people then assumed that at least if the Core Rulebooks and other products were reprinted later in the year there would not be a significant difference.
I did buy both the Pathfinder Beginner Box and several of the rulebook pdfs, and I assumed those items would be reprinted for several years going forward with minor alterations to include some errata at most.
Again, these books get reprinted with errata, and some of that errata has been more significant. However, it's worth noting that none of these books are being
invalidated: they will still work with the system. You'll be able to get the rules updates for free online. If you want all this information in one nice place, then you can go to the new Core books. You don't need to buy anything more if you don't want to.
www.enworld.org
