Pathfinder 1E WotC desperately needs to learn from Paizo and Privateer Press

[Garmorn]

Add another divine apparently, between people who think that books can only be for reading or "using", and those of us who firmly believe we can have it both ways.

I believe that these two sets of requirements are at odds with one another, and that in the universe of limited resources that is the book publishing world, one has to be able to hammer out priorities.

There are three ways to do books. Lots of crunch, lots of fluff, try for a balance.
Personally I skip any book that tries for a balance or lots of fluff. Other can skip the crunch books. WotC is going for the crunch market, others or going for the more fluff part of the market. Neither are wrong or they would be changing to meet our requirements.

I have the opposite problem. I find crunch the easy part, and a rather mundane not so interesting part of DMing. What I'm not as proficient at, is creating and dealing with fluff.

I quite understand and have played under a DM like you. The only difference for the players is what books the DM used at the table.

And I'm not singling out gamers- I think that this lack of breadth in reading is societal, and gamers (while better read than average people) just reflect that. I can't cite any actual evidence about modern readership, of course, just personal anecdotes.

When I was in law school, for instance, the fact that I read anything besides the newspaper & textbooks came as a surprise to my classmates. Our profs were much more broadly read, and I often found myself explaining classical references (such as "Sword of Damocles") to classmates in study sessions.

Among the gamers in my overall social group, the only ones who DM are the ones who read more than a few books a year.

Have you checked out the number of movies the younger generation watch now a days? My daughter routinely watches four to six movies a week if she has time. She has anecdotes, and quotes from dozens of sources that I don't even begin to recognize. It is these kids that don't have patience to read the are driving the PD, face book and other things.

Your experience with book reading contradicts mine. Back when I had a group, the least read members are the one most likely to DM. Of course out side of me the tended to watch far more movies and tv.

I can't stand most fantasy from the 60 to the 80. They are contrived, unreal infeel of the world. This has led me to read very few. On the other hand modern fantasy like the The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon or the Sword Sworn by David Weber.

 

[Windjammer]

Is there really a correlation between fans of BECMI and 4e fans? Is there a similar correlation between haters of the two?

It doesn't appear to me that all BECMI lovers are lovers of 4E. But it seems clear to me that for a great many of them 4E is the edition that comes closest to and for some, really captures, what they most like about D&D in a way that earlier follow-ups to BECMI/RC never did. (Three instances of this I can recall straight off: WotC' own Steve Winter, one of the WotC layoffs in 2009 (I wish I could recall who!), and Greywulf - see here.)

My comparison of the Topi to the Witherling tried to show why that may be the case, but it would be certainly far fetched to claim that the comparison holds true for all or even most 4E monsters out there.

 

[celloshane]

Here I will have to say is a big difference in style/approach or maybe it is the old left brain/right brain function argument. Most fluff bores me. I hinders my creation of new adventures and simple wastes my time. I can't listen to music, look at art and become inspired. I am more a system creator. Step 1. what is the society like? 2. Who wants to change/twist/take over? How and why? What does the PC see? What does the average person see/know.

That is how my mind works. Top down general to detail. Inspiration from music? Not me I need a quite room with no interruptions and blank screen or paper.

For us the MM is great. The world books horrible.

That's the first explanation that's truly made sense IMO. However, I'm certainly on the opposite side of that split. I'm occasionally internally inspired, but most of what I create starts as something external.

The main reason I need fluff though, is time. Given enough time I suppose I could adapt enough unrelated fluff to the game, but I'll never have enough time. There are simply too many constraints on my time to be able to create all or even most of the fluff I need on my own. I'm perfectly willing to buy the fluff I need, but Wotc seems to be buying into the opinion that it shouldn't be created at all. While 3pp's can create AP's full of fluff (like WotBS), I expect more before I'm going to start running a new system and Wotc regains a customer. So, am I simply on the opposite side of the split and thus forced to leave the new system behind, or are there options available to make this system more accessible for those like me?

Add another divide apparently, between people who think that books can only be for reading or "using", and those of us who firmly believe we can have it both ways.

This I certainly agree with. There's no reason the books can't be written to be used by both types, but the question seems to be whether or not anyone will try. The format for stat blocks seems to be working, but I'd say the format for MM enties still needs some work.

 

[Garmorn]

That's the first explanation that's truly made sense IMO. However, I'm certainly on the opposite side of that split. I'm occasionally internally inspired, but most of what I create starts as something external.

The main reason I need fluff though, is time. Given enough time I suppose I could adapt enough unrelated fluff to the game, but I'll never have enough time. There are simply too many constraints on my time to be able to create all or even most of the fluff I need on my own. I'm perfectly willing to buy the fluff I need, but Wotc seems to be buying into the opinion that it shouldn't be created at all. While 3pp's can create AP's full of fluff (like WotBS), I expect more before I'm going to start running a new system and Wotc regains a customer. So, am I simply on the opposite side of the split and thus forced to leave the new system behind, or are there options available to make this system more accessible for those like me?


This I certainly agree with. There's no reason the books can't be written to be used by both types, but the question seems to be whether or not anyone will try. The format for stat blocks seems to be working, but I'd say the format for MM enties still needs some work.

I have yet to really look at the monster manual. I have been using the encounter maker on line. Nor have I had a chance to look at the wold books but I think the world books are closer to what you want/need.

Can any one tell us if there is 3rd party putting out 4e background stuff besides EnWorld? I mean a series of PDFs by Enworld with nothing but fluff would add a lot of value to the game. While I am best with out I still find my self having to use it incases where I don't have time to create my own.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

The idea that teens in the 80's were bigger readers than today is something I just don't buy. Given the ENORMOUS amount of fantasy available to today's new GM compared to someone starting in 1982, I highly, highly doubt there is really all that much difference.

Wow. That fewer teens read for pleasure now than in the 80s seems to me obviously, all but undeniably, true.

Half of the kids today that are playing console games and handheld video games would be spending that time reading fantasy and science-fiction, instead, in the 1980s. Geekdom has outlets today that simply didn't exist two -- er, three -- decades ago, and fantasy and science-fiction video gaming is only one example of that.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Can any one tell us if there is 3rd party putting out 4e background stuff besides EnWorld? I mean a series of PDFs by Enworld with nothing but fluff would add a lot of value to the game. While I am best with out I still find my self having to use it incases where I don't have time to create my own.

I seem to be referencing myself too much in this thread.

The Pathfinder chronicles stuff is meant to be used for Pathfinder but since it's largely crunch free I imagine that it would be easy to use in a 4th Edition Game.

 

[Garmorn]

I seem to be referencing myself too much in this thread.

The Pathfinder chronicles stuff is meant to be used for Pathfinder but since it's largely crunch free I imagine that it would be easy to use in a 4th Edition Game.

I meant why not write up as fluff all of the monster from the various MM. That is the type of publication I was talking about. Things created just with the various 4e books in mind.

 

[Stoat]

Add another divine apparently, between people who think that books can only be for reading or "using", and those of us who firmly believe we can have it both ways.

Games Workshop does a good job of delivering crunch and fluff in the same book. They use three tactics.

1) Separate crunch and fluff into different chapters.

2) Make copious use of side bars, chapter headings, margins, etc. to convey fluff in the form of stories, "documents" etc.

3) Art that tells a story.

 

[Dire Bare]

Wow. That fewer teens read for pleasure now than in the 80s seems to me obviously, all but undeniably, true.

Tell that to Harry Potter.

When folks go off about how kids just don't read today, to me it just sounds like the same old cliche, "Well, back in the old days, things were better! These gosh darn kids today, just don't understand 'em!"

When I was growing up in the 80s, I had video games to distract me just like I do today. And out of the kids I knew, I was one of the few avid readers.

I'm not worried about reading as an activity dying out anytime soon. If anything, the increased entertainment options with the internet and such don't so much distract from reading as they distract from physical activity, playing!

 

[Rechan]

There are many fluff books out there that I don't care for. Take for instance the Slayers Guides. Those were 95% fluff, and it only told one story. If you didn't like that story, you're up the creak.

Which is just how it is with WotC fluff: If the flavor doesn't suit your needs or excite you, then it's wasted text. It doesn't matter what the book said about Draconians, for example - I found the suggestion here that Draconians = failed Super Soldier project by the Tieflings or the Dragonborn way more evocative and cool than "They're mucked up dragon eggs". This suggestion came from Mouseferatu in the thread discussing the Draconomicon.

This is why I find ENWorld far more useful than the books. You have tons of creative people bouncing ideas off of one another, rather than one.

For me, it's not fluff I have a problem with so much as coming up with the details of adventures. No book helps with that.