D&D 5E Wizards Should Hire Paizo

[billd91]

...First, let me state that I am not commenting on the quality of any edition or upon print vs. digital format. I am also not commenting on the quality of any business decision made by either company.

...I doubt that Paizo would be willing to work for Wizards again. They did a good job turning out quality Dungeon and Dragon magazines during 3rd edition. When 4th edition came out, Wizards took back both magazines and went digital with them.

...Pathfinder was, in large part, the result of Wizards leaving Paizo without much in the terms of marketable products. I just don't think that Paizo would be willing to hitch the future of their company to a Wizards project again.

Yeah, I think any long term relationship with Paizo being dependent on WotC licensing is a non-starter. They got burned by it once, they won't get burned by it again.

I could see individuals from Paizo doing some freelance work for WotC, though. I could even see Paizo putting some resources into writing adventures or other materials that are reasonably compatible with both D&D and PF - dual stat, substantial conversion notes, and so on. But I think any of that would probably be dependent on an open-enough license with D&D that Paizo has the ability to control the resulting IP and work at their own schedule. Alternatively, setting up a limited term, very specific license to do some specific work for a specific time might be worthwhile for Paizo. I'm thinking of the Green Ronin license to do DC Adventures - 4 books and the license was done. I wouldn't mind Paizo getting involved in a contract like that to do a hard cover compiled edition of Age of Worms or Savage Tide - in PF and D&D5 versions. But, again, this would have to be a specific, limited contract and not something to build a long-term business model on.

 

[DMZ2112]

I've noticed that WotC and Paizo have slightly different design styles, as well as different ideas about balance. I'm actually not certain the two working together at this point is a good thing; their differences may actually translate to being worse products.

Really, it's an area where the two companies have evolved in different directions.

This. Keep your chocolate out of my peanut butter. Pathfinder is Pathfinder, and D&D5 is D&D5. If there is an OGL this time around, and Paizo fielded a D&D5 development team, I would hesitate before buying any of their material where I would not necessarily hesitate to buy a Pathfinder product. They are very different games with very different design goals.

 

[Mistwell]

More like pixar and Disney teaming up

Disney owns Pixar. More like Dreamworks Animation outsourcing 'How to Tame Your Dragon 3' to Disney Animation.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Instead of hiring Paizo, I would like Wizards to forget the whole adventure path stuff and write stand-alone sandbox adventures.

Yep, give me a location with cool maps and encounters I can fit into what I'm already doing.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

This boat sailed in 2008. The biggest mistake WoTC made back then was not keeping Paizo in the D&D fold, and basically giving them no choice but to create Pathfinder to survive, creating their own biggest competitor out of their own lack of foresight. No one else had the chops to produce a product that could rival WoTC.

Unless Pathfinder craters for some reason, I can't imagine WoTC and Paizo working together on anything other than an extremely occasional basis.

 

[Gadget]

Despite what many fanboys seem to think, I don't see a whole lot of evidence that there is this fierce competition, other than on message boards. Paizo would not be 'tying themselves' to WOTC by being contracted out to produce an adventure like Kobold Press has done. It would be a one and done deal, as I understand what has happened with other outsourcing projects in 5e. If it is successful, both parties could consider further collaboration in the future. The problems would be, as others have mentioned, bandwidth and producing material for a 'competing' brand.

The other thing it that the Pathfinder system is really something Paizo was stuck with when WOTC went to 4e. Their bread and butter has been their adventure path and subscriptions. They had to do Pathfinder to keep that going. Now they have diversified a bit over the last couple of years with novels, miniatures and such to make their business more healthy and not to dependent on one thing.

 

[ren1999]

Well, the players would just be a small selected group and they wouldn't have the written material of the adventure, just the statistics.

Paizo and Wizards can benefit from working together.
The Legends of Balder's Gate comic is a good story but they need an RPG section like the also excellent Pathfinder comics.

Wizards needs the excellent publishing design of Paizo and its beautiful organization, badly.

Paizo needs this excellent 5th edition game system Wizards has developed with help from its myriad of fans.

My Javascript 5E Game Tracker
..just now adding a few class features, playing with the format, be patient..
http://dnd5.weebly.com

 

[ren1999]

Here is a list of positive things about Paizo and Wizards.

Wizards has the backing and financial power of Hasbro, the Umbrella Corporation of the toy world.
Wizards play-tested its latest RPG system for years with the help of millions of fans.
5th Edition is playable all the way up to 20th level. It breaks down in only a few places and that can be fixed with Variants.
Wizards(owns the rights to Greyhawk and Mystara). Gygax and Goodman authored and played the most interesting adventures even to this day.

Paizo has the most advanced game format based on actual game play.
They organize the encounters well and the encounters are play-tested by someone, perhaps the authors.
Unfortunately the best encounters are all low level. The high level encounters consume too much time.
Many of the statistics are in shorthand form requiring less looking up in the core rulebooks.
Class features, which 5th Edition also now has, is very well organized and easy to read.
The instructions are clear and detailed. Easy to read.
Paizo's Adventure Path series are really the best adventures I've seen.
Paizo has a hassle free subscription system.
They have good advertising.
They have a loyal customer base.
They could benefit by ditching the 3.5 bulky system for the new 5E system.

Edited to ask, can I put my chocolate bar in your peanut butter?

 

[Kaychsea]

Instead of hiring Paizo, I would like Wizards to forget the whole adventure path stuff and write stand-alone sandbox adventures.

Like what? I mean, lots of people say this, but while they are happy to say what they don't want there aren't a lot of examples of what they do.

 

[Mistwell]

Like what? I mean, lots of people say this, but while they are happy to say what they don't want there aren't a lot of examples of what they do.

The stand-alones they wrote for the D&D Next Playtest were all pretty darn good. In fact, I'd say they were all better than the 2 AP's they've endorsed since then.