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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Merlin the Tuna" data-source="post: 6346402" data-attributes="member: 55638">You're likely right that Paizo & WotC aren't saying prayers that the other company crashes and burns. But the "competition makes things better" refrain is oversimplifying the situation and leads to dubious conclusions like "everybody wins if WotC & Paizo win."In terms of what I think will happen, Pathfinder has cemented itself as a major player in the market even if I don't think it can quite stand up to D&D's brand strength. Between the two systems, they'll continue to own 90% or whatever of the market. Whether that takes the form of 60/30 D&D over PF or 50/40 PF over D&D, I don't know and don't really care. Neither is going away or becoming a small-fry.But in terms of what I'd like to see happen? I'd like to see the D&D brand, style, & business model (including PF in the latter 2) release its stranglehold on the RPG market. And that pretty much doesn't happen unless 5E totally poops the bed. (And the indie scene surges to pick up the pieces rather than the whole industry dying in obscurity, of course.)I don't think it's a bad system, even if the playtest did feel like Twitch Plays Pokemon: Game Design Edition. And honestly I'd sooner play 5E than PF. But the systems are incredibly similar in being rules-heavy, sim-heavy, combat-heavy fantasy RPGs carrying a lot of the same baggage that Gary brought with when he adapted the original from Chainmail. There's room for that in the RPG market, and I'm not ashamed to say that there are times I want to bust out a battlemat and throw down some 4E. But right now you pretty much must answer yes to "Do you want to fiddle with a ton of numbers and cast Fireball on owlbears?" to survive first contact with the community, and frankly I think that kinda sucks. Yes, there are lots of other great games out there, but it's sort of like going grocery stores all your life and only seeing Vanilla and French Vanilla ice cream in the freezers. Sure, there might be specialty ice cream shops scattered around that have 31 other flavors you might like. But if you don't like vanilla & vanilla is synonymous with ice cream for you, why would you go in?Again, the games themselves are fine and I don't think anyone is having wrongbadfun by playing one, the other, or both. But them monopolizing the market is, in my eyes, partly responsible for its marginalization. And that monopoly gets broken much more dramatically by actual-D&D floundering than by PF doing so.</blockquote>

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