Pathfinder 1E Wizkids should take the Pathfinder 1.0 ruleset and publish their own RPG.

[Parmandur]

Thats why you hire writers who have worked with the system before. I'm saying that with the connections Wizkids has in the industry and the size of their company that they could financially back the project and get the right people to do it.

But why would they bother?

 

[Xenonnonex]

I'm sorry that the analogy is lost on you.

No not lost on. Your analogy is irrelevant. But it does highlight a cognitive dissonance.

I try to do so, but the people who seem to be advocating that every company and freelancer should write things for 5e and homogenize the market is only exacerbating the problem.

How does it stifle creativity? Only you can make it a problem if you want it to become a problem.

How do you know that it is?

Anecdotally people profess their love for 5e in Twitter. Some people have said they went back into roleplaying after a long hiatus because of 5e.

I don't know. I'm seeing a similar effect in the market. You can, by the way, easily find 5e compatible books on DriveThruRPG for running 5e Modern, 5e Future, 5e Cyberpunk, or a 5e Supers. There is a 5e compatible book by Sandy Peterson for the Cthulhu Mythos.

Or people are calling for Paizo to abandon their Pathfinder lines to write for 5e. On the Carnival Row thread, some guy said that they would not look at it because it's not 5e. (Not because it was Cypher System, but because it wasn't 5e.) And while not Star Wars or Conan, Lord of the Rings has a 5e adaptation, and we learned this year that a 5e adaptation for Stargate is in the works. Star Wars is tied up in FFG's licensing, but do you not think that 5e a conversion would not be up for consideration otherwise?

So while we are not necessarily seeing one-for-one correspondences in the trend, I hope you can understand or be sympathetic to my worry about 5e's effect on the creative diversity in the market.

But how is any of that stifling creativity? In fact with a lot of the supplements you mentioned they all put their own spin on things. They are in fact innovating mechanics.

You are confusing market ubiquity with stifling creativity. As I made a point in another post we are seeing the demand because the public wants more 5e material. This is directly a result of Wizards' slow release cycle. The fans drive the demand presumably because they are having fun and liking what they are playing.

I am sympathetic to your concern. My solution is simple as since it seems to be personally affecting you. Play other systems. Some friends of mine do not like 5e so we do not play 5e at all. We play a host of other systems. It is that simple. Again only it can affect you only if you want it to affect you.

I am not sympathetic to your hyperbole.

 

[Arilyn]

D&D is the gateway game that brings in new players, and sometimes these players try other games, or discover games they like better. Many companies claim that their success can often be attributed to the popularity of D&D. It's delicate balance, however, because if D&D swamps the industry too much, smaller games can struggle to stay afloat. Kickstarter has been a boon, but there are worrying signs that 5e may be swinging into a phase of hurting more than helping other companies. The hobby needs variety.

The frustration that some of us feel, is that D&D has never objectively been a particularly well designed game in any edition. It's fun, serviceable, and easy to find, but it's not groundbreaking, except, of course, for launching the idea of role playing. I totally understand Aldarc's frustration with gamers wanting everything to come out as 5e, or refusing to try other systems, or assuming D&D has locked down the best the hobby has to offer. It's frustrating seeing supposedly experienced GMs on You Tube unfairly critisizing a game, simply because they have little experience outside D&D, so aren't really grasping other mechanics. It can be maddening watching someone try and twist 5e rules into a genre it's not suited for, but refusing to use a system that will better serve their needs.

And yes. people are free to play what they want, and if that's 5e exclusively, who are we to argue. Sometimes, however, you just feel like crying about all those missed opportunities.

 

[Parmandur]

D&D is the gateway game that brings in new players, and sometimes these players try other games, or discover games they like better. Many companies claim that their success can often be attributed to the popularity of D&D. It's delicate balance, however, because if D&D swamps the industry too much, smaller games can struggle to stay afloat. Kickstarter has been a boon, but there are worrying signs that 5e may be swinging into a phase of hurting more than helping other companies. The hobby needs variety.

The frustration that some of us feel, is that D&D has never objectively been a particularly well designed game in any edition. It's fun, serviceable, and easy to find, but it's not groundbreaking, except, of course, for launching the idea of role playing. I totally understand Aldarc's frustration with gamers wanting everything to come out as 5e, or refusing to try other systems, or assuming D&D has locked down the best the hobby has to offer. It's frustrating seeing supposedly experienced GMs on You Tube unfairly critisizing a game, simply because they have little experience outside D&D, so aren't really grasping other mechanics. It can be maddening watching someone try and twist 5e rules into a genre it's not suited for, but refusing to use a system that will better serve their needs.

And yes. people are free to play what they want, and if that's 5e exclusively, who are we to argue. Sometimes, however, you just feel like crying about all those missed opportunities.

Does the hobby "need" variety? At any rate, there is definitely variety, as much as there ever has been.

 

[Aldarc]

Sure, of course it wouldn't have been as successful without branding. That's obvious.

But it wouldn't have been as successful if WotC didn't spend years figuring out the best way to make a presentation that doesn't gum up the works at the table. See 4E, they didn't do that and had the branding angle and failed.

It mostly tried to appeal to OSR, go back to something more closely resembling 3e/Pathfinder, claim to be an edition for all editions while pretending that 4e never happened. By accounts of many, it had a fairly low bar to cross: do not be 4e. And it happened to have released in time to ride a wave of '80s nostalgia and board game hype. However, just because the system "doesn't gum of the works at [your] table" does not really mean that it can do everything. It means that it can do what it was meant to do: D&D. 5e is a fairly mediocre system that works well enough for most for its main purpose.

Does the hobby "need" variety? At any rate, there is definitely variety, as much as there ever has been.

It's honestly hard for me to believe you are asking this question from a position of good faith.

Only you can make it a problem if you want it to become a problem.

This sort of nonsensical platitude is worthy of being fortune cookie wisdom.

Anecdotally people profess their love for 5e in Twitter. Some people have said they went back into roleplaying after a long hiatus because of 5e.

A non sequitur to both our respective questions, no? Anecdotally people may profess their love for 5e, but the issue is not that people may love 5e but how inexperienced a fair number these people are, anecdotally and all that, with games outside of 5e.

But how is any of that stifling creativity? In fact with a lot of the supplements you mentioned they all put their own spin on things. They are in fact innovating mechanics.

I have not seen all that much in the way of innovative mechanics come out of the 5e compatible lines. A lot of retreading of similar ideas with reskinned ideas and mechanics. So I'm not sure if "creative" comes to my mind when I look through 5e compatible materials. There is arguably more innovative mechanics that have come out of OSR than 5e. But maybe you have some innovative mechanics in mind that I am not aware of.

You are confusing market ubiquity with stifling creativity. As I made a point in another post we are seeing the demand because the public wants more 5e material. This is directly a result of Wizards' slow release cycle. The fans drive the demand presumably because they are having fun and liking what they are playing.

I skeptical that if Wizards increased their release cycle that 5e Stargate or many of these other 5e products that I had mentioned would not exist. The market ubiquity is connected with the stifling of creativity. There are a lot of overlapping products doing the same thing with little actual mechanical innovations.

I am sympathetic to your concern. My solution is simple as since it seems to be personally affecting you. Play other systems. Some friends of mine do not like 5e so we do not play 5e at all. We play a host of other systems. It is that simple. Again only you can affect you if you want it to affect you.

I do play other systems (outside of D&D). Cypher System. Blades in the Dark. Fate (Accelerated). Dungeon World. Savage Worlds. Fantasy AGE / Blue Rose. Index Card RPG. And hopefully I can get around to Invisible Sun, Afterlife: Wandering Souls, and possibly Pathfinder 2, but I can't play everything at once. But you know, if I only play some more systems then my reading of 5e's effect on the market will somehow be forgotten or something.

 

[Parmandur]

It mostly tried to appeal to OSR, go back to something more closely resembling 3e/Pathfinder, claim to be an edition for all editions while pretending that 4e never happened. By accounts of many, it had a fairly low bar to cross: do not be 4e. And it happened to have released in time to ride a wave of '80s nostalgia and board game hype. However, just because the system "doesn't gum of the works at [your] table" does not really mean that it can do everything. It means that it can do what it was meant to do: D&D. 5e is a fairly mediocre system that works well enough for most for its main purpose.

That's underrating what 5E's release has accomplished by a cosmic degree. Stating that the system is "mediocre" does not make it so.

It literally can be used for just about any story you can imagine: as proof, look at those very attempts to use it as such that you are referring to.

It's honestly hard for me to believe you are asking this question from a position of good faith.

There is an unspoken assumption in the post I quoted that mechanical variety is neccessary for a healthy RPG hobby. I don't see that it is neccessary, frankly, though there is in fact plenty of variety on the market currently in reality, handwringing about imagined "harm" to the hobby aside.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

That's underrating what 5E's release has accomplished by a cosmic degree. Stating that the system is "mediocre" does not make it so.

Stating that it is any better than mediocre also does not make it so.

It literally can be used for just about any story you can imagine: as proof, look at those very attempts to use it as such that you are referring to.

With judicious house ruling, it can be bent into a form where it delivers a satisfactory play experience, for certain types of campaigns. The quality of the outcome does not generally justify the amount of work required to reach it, unless you're suffering from an extreme bias in favor of that system; and that becomes more and more true, as you try to move further and further from its design intent.

 

[Parmandur]

Stating that it is any better than mediocre also does not make it so.

With judicious house ruling, it can be bent into a form where it delivers a satisfactory play experience, for certain types of campaigns. The quality of the outcome does not generally justify the amount of work required to reach it, unless you're suffering from an extreme bias in favor of that system; and that becomes more and more true, as you try to move further and further from its design intent.

Well, that's why the pros are getting paid in various Kickstarters to do the dirty work, I reckon

I'll take the critical and popular reception of the system, in addition to my own experiences, as adequate basis for moral certitude that 5E is not a "mediocre" game.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'll take the critical and popular reception of the system, in addition to my own experiences, as adequate basis for moral certitude that 5E is not a "mediocre" game.

I never said that 5E was or was-not mediocre. I said that popularity and opinion are just those. Simply saying something does not make it objectively true.

Personally, my opinion of 5E is that it is a garbage fire, and a shining example of how not to do D&D. Since my perspective is informed by critical analysis, I feel at least as confident in my opinion as you do in yours; even though they are both merely opinions.

 

[Parmandur]

I never said that 5E was or was-not mediocre. I said that popularity and opinion are just those. Simply saying something does not make it objectively true.

Personally, my opinion of 5E is that it is a garbage fire, and a shining example of how not to do D&D. Since my perspective is informed by critical analysis, I feel at least as confident in my opinion as you do in yours; even though they are both merely opinions.

Okey-dokey pokey, I'll just enjoy my garbage fire.