D&D 4E What was Paizo thinking? 3.75 the 4E clone?

[FourthBear]

I assume when Paizo says they want it to be compatible, they mean it; and I know it's possible.

I think that's a very safe assumption. One area of concern is the very nature of open design, since by nature people are going to be submitting many, many house rules, alternate systems and rebuilt mechanics. In every case of this I can recall, such open calls lead to opposing camps of designs. If the Pathfinder RPG has to be reigned in for the final version to keep it compatible with 3.5e, there could very well be "splinter groups" formed during the design process that run off with their own version of 3.75. It may very well be possible to come up with a 3.75e that satisfies the urge for all game designers to "do it right" and still allows the adventures published for such a system to be completely compatible with 3.5e. It should be an interesting 18 months as we see what emerges from that design challenge.

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

I suspect that, come 2010, there will be significantly more people playing the D&D 3.5 RPG than the Pathfinder RPG.

I doubt that. 3.5 is as dead as Latin, without quality support.

By 2010, with respect to D&D, it will be Pathfinder or 4e, in which the amount of Pathfinder players are significant only with respect to Paizo-- but a drop in the bucket to 4e.

This isn't about the game, it's about the hobby. To fully engage in the hobby, you need a steady supply of quality product to excite you about spending money, and you need a community of like-minded individuals.

It doesn't matter how good the game is, if you are not spending money on it, you are not engaged. The act of spending money on a regular basis turns games into hobbies.

The number of people playing 3.5 and not actively engaged as a hobby are as significant as the number of people playing 1e or 2e-- similarly dead systems.

I think that's a very safe assumption. One area of concern is the very nature of open design, since by nature people are going to be submitting many, many house rules, alternate systems and rebuilt mechanics. In every case of this I can recall, such open calls lead to opposing camps of designs.

I completely agree. Quite a while back when this "3.75e" conversation first came up, I among others remarked that it would be impossible to find two people with the same vision of what 3.75 had to fix.

But I think it's possible (and obviously preferable) to find some baseline agreements. It is much easier for me to add to the baseline (say, Action Points that drive a per-encounter system), than it is for someone else to strip that out of "their" core.

These are pretty obvious concerns. I assume Paizo is on the ball.

 

[Psion]

These are pretty obvious concerns. I assume Paizo is on the ball.

One would assume so, but it never hurts to chime in.

 

[hong]

I gotta say, it's fascinating how Paizo, in one fell swoop, seems to have taken ownership of the "3.75E" concept. If this continues to hold over the coming months, it will be a case study for marketing courses for years to come.

 

[The_Gneech]

I gotta say, it's fascinating how Paizo, in one fell swoop, seems to have taken ownership of the "3.75E" concept. If this continues to hold over the coming months, it will be a case study for marketing courses for years to come.

Well, in many ways, they're the natural candidate. They were the publishers of Dragon and Dungeon, they've got a strong reputation for quality work, and they're masters of interacting with the gaming community in a positive way. I suspect that Monte Cook might have been the only other entity who could have done it -- and he ain't playin'.

-The Gneech

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

One would assume so, but it never hurts to chime in.

I wrote a huge post on "The Fifteen Minute Adventuring Day" over there yesterday, and their forums ate it.

Seriously, it was close to an hour of work.

I'm still recovering from my annoyance.

I'll be back.

 

[Lacyon]

I gotta say, it's fascinating how Paizo, in one fell swoop, seems to have taken ownership of the "3.75E" concept. If this continues to hold over the coming months, it will be a case study for marketing courses for years to come.

Wizards of the Coast guaranteed that this would happen 8 years ago when they created the OGL.

It's (IMO) the best gift they could possibly have given to the players of D&D. Thanks, WOTC

 

[Bugleyman]

I don't understand people who are canceling Pathfinder subscription after the news.

Before the announcement it was already known that Paizo wouldn't have been able to put out 4e material before GenCon...

First of all...here's another lost charter subscriber.

I had already decided to keep my Pathfinder sub through the end of Crimson Throne whether they went with 3.5 or 4. What I wasn't prepared for was a 3.75. And after further thought, I find "3.75" to be an incredibly bad idea...and so, since it became clear that Paizo wasn't a company I'd be doing business with in the long term, I cancelled my subscriptions (4 of them, to be exact).

If they clue in and pull Pathfinder back toward 3.5 compatibility, I might come back...but a system that isn't really 3.5 compatible? No chance. This mainly serves to cement my resolve to move forward to 4E.

 

[Ourph]

I doubt that. 3.5 is as dead as Latin, without quality support.

By 2010, with respect to D&D, it will be Pathfinder or 4e, in which the amount of Pathfinder players are significant only with respect to Paizo-- but a drop in the bucket to 4e.

I don't see the need to bring 4e into this, it's not significant to the point I'm making.

I honestly don't see how Pathfinder can compete with the 3.5 holdouts. Right now, every D&D player who's not playing some earlier version of D&D (a drop in the bucket) or testing 4e with the preview material (another drop in the bucket) is playing D&D 3.5. Paizo has the opportunity to sell adventure material and even game books (supplements based on the 3.5 RAW) to those people who continue to use D&D 3.5 (either alone or in conjunction with playing other games like 4e). People are already familiar with the 3.5 rules. They already own a lot of gaming material for use with that system. Based on the fact that they are currently playing it, they obviously enjoy it. By coming out with another game system and switching their adventures to that ruleset, Paizo is foregoing all of the advantages that go along with continuing to support 3.5 (ready made player base, brand recognition, etc.).

I agree, in general, with your thesis that people need to be able to spend money on their hobby in order for it to be said that they are actively engaged in the hobby (at least from the viewpoint of retailers). My point is, I think the number of people who are going to be willing to continue spending money on 3.5 material (if it is made available by retailers) is vastly larger than the number of people who will pick up the Pathfinder RPG and play it. If having rulebooks in print is a necessity, Paizo could easily reprint the 3.5 RAW as contained in the SRD and rebrand it as Pathfinder, while keeping all of their adventures 100% compatible with the 3.5 RAW (so that people who continue to use their 3.5 material have no conversion issues). By doing so, they would essentially be assuming the mantle of heir to the 3.5 D&D throne (with all the advantages that go along with it) and doing so in what amounts to a complete vacuum of competition (who else, that even comes close to the level of Paizo in terms of OGL publishers, is going to be sticking with 3.5?). Heck, they could print the standard (3.5 RAW) Pathfinder RPG, then print an alternate PHB (like Unearthed Arcana) with all of their 3.75 tweaks if they wanted and sell 2 rulebooks instead of one. But my main point is about their adventure paths. I think it's ridiculous to convert the APs to some ruleset other than 3.5 RAW. I can't even begin to understand how that helps them sell APs. By creating a derivative rulesystem that's "mostly compatible" they've just taken a bunch of the advantages that WotC has handed to them on a silver platter by switching to a new edition while leaving the guts of the old one available for 3rd party exploitation, and thrown them out the window.

I just don't see how any significant deviation from the 3.5 RAW with their products is going to be beneficial. If they aren't moving to 4e, then the next best thing, IMO, is to just keep making 3.5 material.

 

[occam]

Glancing through the alpha document, I immediately think of Monte Cook's comments about 3.5, in which he said that a lot of the changes were good ideas to help the system and flavor, but there were so many small tweaks that his mastery of 3.0 actually caused problems, since he couldn't always remember which rules had been changed and to what degree. I'm seeing that same issue here.

Exactly. Despite switching over completely to 3.5 shortly after it was released, I still get hung up occasionally on using a 3.0 rule.