# Would Paizo Make a Better Steward for Our Hobby?



## Tequila Sunrise

When discussing the industry, it's fun to think about things that will never happen, like "What if Paizo owned D&D"?


*Assuming that Paizo wrote a ruleset that you personally loved (or stuck with PF if you love it)...*


...It's an appealing thought. Paizo seems to be a much better company than WotC, in every way I can think of. It doesn't have annual Xmas layoffs, it doesn't suck at PR, and I even heard that they keep boxes of kittens in the office for anyone who's having a bad day.  If Paizo was in charge of D&D (or PF, whatever), maybe we'd have another edition that broke the decade mark. Maybe we'd have less unwanted rules bloat, and more adventure and setting support instead. (Let's also assume that Paizo is supporting your favorite setting.)


But then again, who's to say that Paizo wouldn't become the next WotC after increasing its revenue stream and seeing the future generation of management? Like how VH1 became the next MTV, after going from MVs to reality garbage just like MTV did. When I see things like that happen, I have to suspect that there's an insidious underlying cause for the pattern. Who's to say that as a big company, there aren't underlying reasons for WotC's behavior other than bad decision-making and callousness?

EDIT: For the purpose of this thought experiment, feel free to interchange Paizo with your favorite non-WotC game company.

EDIT the Second: For the purpose of this thought experiment, assume that JJ and his team care about the design goals you care about. They woke up from the Matrix or something, and now have the power to make exactly the ruleset you want.


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## Wicht

I don't think WotC behavior is because of callousness. I suspect its more a lack of appreciation for the nuances of the RPG market. In which case a company which understands the business is going to do better than a company that tries to market it like a typical commercial product, or which assumes that because the Core books are the best sellers profit will be maximized by continually replacing the core books. 

The idea though that Paizo is going to obtain DnD is a bit of a pipe-dream. It might be nice. I won't hold my breath. And as a conversation its about as profitable as wondering what it would be like if Batman had Wolverine's regeneration, or what would happen if Luke Skywalker got in a fight with Captain Kirk. That is, it makes interesting speculation, but produces nothing of real lasting value outside the conversation itself.


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## ForeverSlayer

I would rather Paizo come up with their own game and develop a name that is just as known and recognized as D&D.


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## Wicht

ForeverSlayer said:


> I would rather Paizo come up with their own game and develop a name that is just as known and recognized as D&D.




I think that, at this point, Pathfinder is very much Paizo's game  and while it may not have the cultural penetration that Dungeons and Dragons has, D&D has thirty or so years headstart. Give it time. The name is already creeping into the boardgame community via the very well received Adventure Card game. There are pathfinder comics, novels, and minis (plastic and metal).

The "why don't they make their own game," was a bit tiresome when it first was trotted out. Four years on, its no less old and even less valid. One might as well tell car companies that unless they replace the old four-wheeled model of automobile design, they are simply failing to innovate.


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## Ahnehnois

I'm lukewarm about their actual writing ability, but I think Paizo has embraced open gaming more than WotC ever did, and succeeded with it. On that basis, I do think they'd do better.


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## Dice4Hire

To be fair, Paizo HAD to embrace open gaming as Pathfinder is built upon that concept. It is not their original game.


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## Ahnehnois

Dice4Hire said:


> To be fair, Paizo HAD to embrace open gaming as Pathfinder is built upon that concept. It is not their original game.



I see nothing that would have prevented them from making all their novel material closed content though. The prd isn't just the SRD revised, it's a ton of new stuff that they made and voluntarily released for free.

Conversely, WotC could have released their supplements in the same way but chose another pass.


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## Wicht

Dice4Hire said:


> To be fair, Paizo HAD to embrace open gaming as Pathfinder is built upon that concept. It is not their original game.




The chestnut that never gets old.

Does it not occur to some people that Paizo might see the OGL as a bonus, not as an albatross to be worn around the neck?  


And as Ahn points out, they have added plenty of new material into the pool. Archetypes, bloodlines, the mythic rules, scads of new monsters, the list could go on and on.  They have taken the 3.x core and made it their own.


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## DaveMage

Yes, I think Paizo would make a better steward for the flagship RPG.


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## JeffB

It is too late for D&D and has been since TSR stopped being  a hobby company run hy enthusiasts who considered it a labor of love in the ealy/mid 1980s.

IOW, Paizo would end up in the same boat as WOTC if they did get the brand. That is the problem, it is no longer just a game..it is a brand. Yuck.


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## Argyle King

I think the question of whether or not another company would want the D&D brand is a valid question to ask.  Certainly, it carries a lot of weight, but it also comes with a lot of baggage.  Look at some of the arguments during D&D 5E discussions and the edition wars.                        What I would like to see is what some of my favorite games would look like if they had the financial support that the D&D brand has.


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## Sunseeker

JeffB said:


> IOW, Paizo would end up in the same boat as WOTC if they did get the brand. That is the problem, it is no longer just a game..it is a brand. Yuck.




I'm not sure what the problem with that is.

D&D books have been popular for decades and are still some of the choice reading within modern fantasy.
D&D toys(such as minis and statuettes) are popular in many circles of D&D.
D&D video games are the basis for most RPGs on the market and several MMOs.

I'm really not sure what the problem is with there being more to D&D than just the TTRPG and it's mandatory accessories(such as dice).  These things only devalue the core product when done poorly.  Wizard's other star product MTG is certainly a brand and the fact that they make a variety of non-game-essential accessories certainly has done it no harm.


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## Tequila Sunrise

Wicht said:


> That is, it makes interesting speculation, but produces nothing of real lasting value outside the conversation itself.



...You mean like 90% of all internet discussions, and 99% of all internet gaming discussions?


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## Zardnaar

Yes they probably would do a better job.


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## MerricB

My feeling is that Paizo would be great for supporting the game with a steady stream of adventures. That'd be great.

However, they'd make a dog's breakfast of the rules.


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## Gundark

I think that there is a tendency for people to say yes to Paizo. I get that Paizo is popular. 

However being neutral to Paizo think that they wouldn't be as great as people think. They would run a large risk of turning of turning into what people dislike.


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## Olgar Shiverstone

They would clearly do better with D&D products, lore, and catering to the current base.

Whether Paizo would have the assets to continue to grow a brand as large as D&D is another question entirely.What I'd like to see is Paizo's creative and business staff married with WotC's resources. 

C'mon WotC -- outsource to Paizo like you did with Dungeon and Dragon.  You know you want to!


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## Tequila Sunrise

Gundark said:


> However being neutral to Paizo think that they wouldn't be as great as people think. They would run a large risk of turning of turning into what people dislike.



You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain?


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## trancejeremy

Yes, I do.

For one, D&D as a game would be their main focus. How important is D&D to WOTC? Not very. How important is it to Hasbro? I guess they care about the brand name, but that's it, and yet they do little to actually promote the brand, because they have so many others.

And making a "dog's breakfast" of the rules would be better than anything WOTC has done lately with them. Based on what's happened with 4e and 5e, D&D could very well disappear as a product line, just kept alive as a brand for Hasbro to license out, and it will be because of WOTC's poor handling of the game.


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## Morrus

I think it would be interesting. I'd bet Greyhawk would become the foremost supported setting if Erik Mona had anything to say about it.

WotC may well knock 5E out of the park. D&D has been overtaken by other games before (White Wolf led it for a long time) and came roaring back with 3E to become to top dog again. If there's one thing that's always true it's that things always change.

Paizo is as concerned with multiple-product branding as WotC is.  Novels, miniatures, plushies, comic books, an MMO, a card game; that's hardly a WotC-only trait.


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## GreyLord

I think PAIZO would do grandly if it were the caretakers of the D20 versions of D&D, aka 3e and 3.5, a little more fuzzy on 4e though.  With the initial D20 versions (3e and 3.5) they could basically have the framework already there with their pathfinder game.

However, as caretakers of the entire brand...remember, WotC at least has recently released the premium core for AD&D as well as some supplemental adventures and left some more of these items for download.

Would Paizo do better then that in supporting something that was NOT PF specific or that type of game specific or would they be like the old WotC (which many were a part of) and drop it like a stone except for the PDF downloads?

I'd be estatic if they'd go beyond downloads and actually support more hardcopy of the older versions (2e and prior) of D&D and maybe even create adventure paths for them.  Would they do that?

I don't know, they may think it would fragment their hold, or take the old WotC light (which as aforementioned, many of them were a part of) which is to try to stamp out the older game in favor of a new game they wrote?

On the otherhand, they DO have multiple game books and other systems for sale and download on their site (in case anyone was curious or interested, there's a LOT more then simply PF that you can buy at Paizo's online store).

If they were willing to reinvest and supplement, and perhaps even push new products for publication (maybe even AD&D's own adventure paths or BECMI's adventure paths?) I'd be absolutely ecstatic.

However, I don't know if they'd actually do that or not.  Some of those there are part of the old guard that killed AD&D in the first place...so as those that would be the stewards of ALL of D&D...I don't know.

Of the 3e and 3.5 versions, absolutely, they'd be wonderful stewards.  I think they probably could do something (at least in continuation of the CB and other items, possibly even for free?) for the 4e gurus.

But when it comes to pre-3e/D20 versions...I'm not so certain that they would be better stewards than WotC is or not.  I think they definitely have the talent and resources to be better stewards for it if they so desired...but I'm not certain if they would do that even if it was handed to them part and parcel.

PS:  Now don't get me wrong, I am a rabid fan of PF, and absolutely love what PAIZO has done and is doing, but when discussing ALL of D&D (not just the post 3e versions) I'm not convinced that it would be the right move or not.  Call me undecided on that portion.


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## DaveMage

GreyLord said:


> PS:  Now don't get me wrong, I am a rabid fan of PF, and absolutely love what PAIZO has done and is doing, but when discussing ALL of D&D (not just the post 3e versions) I'm not convinced that it would be the right move or not.  Call me undecided on that portion.




I believe Erik Mona recently (if not currently) has played in a 1E campaign - and most of them (if not all of them) cut their teeth on pre-3E D&D.

I think they'd be fine for all editions except 4E, which they've already indicated does not let them tell the stories they'd like to tell.  Of course, WotC couldn't succeed with 4E either, so there you go.


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## billd91

Morrus said:


> WotC may well knock 5E out of the park. D&D has been overtaken by other games before (White Wolf led it for a long time) and came roaring back with 3E to become to top dog again. If there's one thing that's always true it's that things always change.




It was my understanding that White Wolf only led it for the time TSR was unable to get anything printed which implies it really overtook D&D by default. That's still an accomplishment, but not quite as significant as Pathfinder reaching parity and then exceeding it while competing head to head.


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## Gundark

Tequila Sunrise said:


> You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become a villain?




Ha! True


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## Gundark

MerricB said:


> My feeling is that Paizo would be great for supporting the game with a steady stream of adventures. That'd be great.
> 
> However, they'd make a dog's breakfast of the rules.




Paizo makes some great products. I'm not a fan of 3e either. If they did take over my fear is that they would keep us stuck to what is IHMO not a great set of rules.


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## Dungeoneer

I think that Paizo would probably do a better job taking care of D&D than TSR or WOTC. It's a low bar.

But I don't understand why people frame this question in terms of Pathfinder. Paizo is not Pathfinder. If they needed to support editions of D&D that differed from Pathfinder, they could simply hire more designers. Logically, the question of what games they currently support has no bearing on whether they are fit caretakers for D&D.

The way I see it, the first job of any caretaker of D&D is to maintain support for the community, because that's what's going to sustain the game over time. Make sure that PDFs and tools for _all_ editions of D&D are available. Make supporting products like dungeon tiles and minis. Hire good designers and writers to create cool new stuff. At minimum, these are the things that a good brand owner would do. 

I'm sure other people can think of things that a responsible steward of D&D would do that I haven't listed here.


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## Blackwarder

Meh, I don't get the hype around Piazo, I got the PF core rule books and several PF adventures and supplements and I'm not impressed. So no, I don't think that they will make a better custodian of D&D that any one else.

Warder


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## dd.stevenson

Dungeoneer said:


> The way I see it, the first job of any caretaker of D&D is to maintain support for the community, because that's what's going to sustain the game over time. Make sure that PDFs and tools for _all_ editions of D&D are available. Make supporting products like dungeon tiles and minis. Hire good designers and writers to create cool new stuff. At minimum, these are the things that a good brand owner would do.
> 
> I'm sure other people can think of things that a responsible steward of D&D would do that I haven't listed here.



I can think of a few things:


Assign realistic project milestones.
Fulfill project milestones.
Identify and engage with key non-employee stakeholders.
Execute product launches integrated across a variety of media, timed with a marketing campaign to inform the public about these products.
The last two and a half product cycles have been pretty weak in these regards, but I'm holding out hope that this time around will be different.


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## Jan van Leyden

Whether it's WotC, Paizo, or anyone else: our hobby isn't unified to any degree, which is a big problem to any publishing company. So what could they publish for "the" game? How to reach sales numbers high enough to support a company? And how to do so for years without selling a new edition?

Stat-less books? Background only? A meta system from which to derive the stats for your favourite incarnation of "the" game?

Frankly speaking, we're much to divided to be targeted by one company. With the rather low threshold to publishing today in conjunction with the OGL idea, the fragmentation will probably increase in the future.

Anyone keen on playing Steward to a sack of rabid fleas?


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## Stormonu

I think initially, Paizo would be a good caretaker.  However, success tends to be a company's worst enemy. Also as the old guard fades out, things change.  People want to make their mark - do it faster, better, stronger.  And basically destroy what brought everyone to the game in the first place.

Sometimes I really think D&D should retire.  No new editions, just sell copies of what already exists.


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## delericho

To the OP: I suspect they would.



Olgar Shiverstone said:


> C'mon WotC -- outsource to Paizo like you did with Dungeon and Dragon.  You know you want to!




I can't imagine that Paizo would consider that deal. The problem is that if they're producing D&D, that basically means ending Pathfinder support, because otherwise they're competing with themselves. But if they've licensed the game, rather than bought it outright, then 5 years down the line they may well lose the license... and then they've got nothing.


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## Jester David

Tequila Sunrise said:


> Paizo seems to be a much better company than WotC, in every way I can think of. It doesn't have annual Xmas layoffs, it doesn't suck at PR,
> If Paizo was in charge of D&D (or PF, whatever), maybe we'd have another edition that broke the decade mark. Maybe we'd have less unwanted rules bloat, and more adventure and setting support instead. (Let's also assume that Paizo is supporting your favorite setting.)



WotC does suffer due to having several different brands, so there's a whole other layer of management added. And WotC is run by Hasbro suits who are not gamers, so the attitude inside the company is very different. Paizo has great communication with its fans and encourages staff to interact with the players via the message boards. 
These do make the company great for supporting the hobby. Gaming is a niche activity so having a strong relationship with your fans is advantageous. 

But Paizo has some other advantages. While Pathfinder lacks the name recognition of D&D it also lacks the negative stereotypes of the name, the continual baggage from the '80s that also keeps books out of many box store shelves. 

Pathfinder is reaching a pretty heavy level of rules bloat though. It's lasting longer than 3.5e before becoming an inescapable black hole of content - because the accessories are being driven by the Adventure Paths - but it's closing in on that mark. The GenCon 2014 product release seems pretty "bloaty". 

The one thing WotC has is settings. But this is a... mixed blessing. Multiple setting support really hurt TSR back in the day, so Paizo is deliberately focusing on a single setting and will likely never add a second. 



Tequila Sunrise said:


> But then again, who's to say that Paizo wouldn't become the next WotC after increasing its revenue stream and seeing the future generation of management? Like how VH1 became the next MTV, after going from MVs to reality garbage just like MTV did. When I see things like that happen, I have to suspect that there's an insidious underlying cause for the pattern. Who's to say that as a big company, there aren't underlying reasons for WotC's behavior other than bad decision-making and callousness?



But the growth of the company has limits. Gaming is a niche hobby so Paizo will only expand so far before growth slows. It's able to offset this a little by branching out into side products like the card game, and it might eventually have some luck with board games. (I'm very surprised we haven't see more Pathfinder specific board games.) But eventually gaming fans will be unable to continue paying money to support the company, having exhausted their disposable incomes. 

Even then I don't see Paizo becoming more like WotC due to the personalities of the management. Paizo is trying to make money, but they're trying to do so by giving us products we want. It has not become a pure profit buisness. 
If the owners and CEO of Paizo sell, I can see this happening. Once they bring in someone who is not personally invested in the company to run things that will change the tone from "act of love" to "business to make as much money as possible." Heck, the CEO once laid herself off and worked for free for a time (during the magazine days) because she didn't want to lay off employees while not being willing to give up her own job.


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## Bluenose

Jester Canuck said:


> But the growth of the company has limits. Gaming is a niche hobby so Paizo will only expand so far before growth slows. It's able to offset this a little by branching out into side products like the card game, and it might eventually have some luck with board games. (I'm very surprised we haven't see more Pathfinder specific board games.) But eventually gaming fans will be unable to continue paying money to support the company, having exhausted their disposable incomes.




Gaming is a niche hobby? That depends how narrowly you define it. Do you think it's impossible for RPGs to match the performance of miniature wargames? How about CCGs? If you do think it's impossible, why?


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## Jester David

Bluenose said:


> Gaming is a niche hobby? That depends how narrowly you define it. Do you think it's impossible for RPGs to match the performance of miniature wargames? How about CCGs? If you do think it's impossible, why?



Tabletop Roleplaying is niche for sure. 

Both wargames and card games (collectible and otherwise) have the advantage of being able to drop in and out. There's no narrative to track, regular play to stay competitive is not required, and the minimum number of participants is lower. 
Wargames and CCGs are also more traditional games: you have a winner and a loser, there's competition, and all players participate equally. There's less explanation needed. You know what you're getting with a board game, you don't know what you're getting with an RPG.
The buy-in of board games, wargames, and CCGs is also lower, both in terms of time and money. You buy the game, read a short rulebook, and can play freely. RPGs often have a high price point, Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons especially, and have the longest rulebooks known to man. And the prep time for the GM is huge, even for simple systems. And the minimum time for a game is measured in hours.

CCGs also have a low shelf space requirement that makes them easily available in non-exclusive venues, like Targets or WalMarts. Booster packs are excellent impulse purchases. Most wargames and other board games are self-contained, being boxed, so it's easy to find shelf space. Loose rulebooks and odd dice are tricky and seem out of place on shelves of boxed games.

All this makes TTRPGs trickier beasts to manage. While it's possible that RPGs could gain ground as more people learn what D&D is and the conventions of role-playing. But the requirements on number of players and time and difficulty only playing one-of games make this harder. You can have a "board game night" with friends and have people over to try a couple different games, but that doesn't work with RPGs. RPGs are almost a lifestyle.


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## Wicht

Jester Canuck said:


> I'm very surprised we haven't see more Pathfinder specific board games.




I'm not.

You know the old joke about how to make a small fortune in RPG publishing?  Boardgame publishers tell a variant of the exact same joke. Games cost money to design, publish and produce, and the boardgame market is not huge (though it is growing at a faster clip than RPGs).  

Paizo has had several forays into Boardgames already, with Stonehenge, Yetisburg, Kill Doctor Lucky, Key Largo, Save Doctor Lucky, and now the Adventure Card Game. They also have their Harrow deck which is, ostensibly, a card game. I get the feeling that they have been feeling their way into the boardgame market, learning lessons as they go. I doubt they made a huge amount with their first few games. I do know that they folded their Titanic Games division, which makes me think the original experiment was not overly successful. However, their subsequent games do seem to have got progressively better traction and the Adventure Card game has been, as far as I can tell from anecdotal surface evidence (and glowing reviews) a phenomenal success (I don't know how that translates into profits, but people like the game.)

This does not guarantee future success, and just because a game is good does not mean it sells well enough to be reprinted. But this holds true for other companies as well. While the DnD Boardgames were good and generally well received, I would not be surprised if the only one of the games made in the last 6 years or so by them to see a reprint was Lords of Waterdeep. A game has to be exceptionally well received to merit that distinction. (*Edit*: Notice that Lords of Waterdeep was well enough received to merit an expansion to the game, a mark of distinction)

Paizo has a good working relationship with Mike Selinker, who does good design work, and I suspect they will continue to roll out new games as they have opportunity, but don't expect them to churn them out at any great pace anytime soon. While not privy to their thinking, I suspect its something along the lines of - they would rather put out 1 or 2 games that are well received and make them money, than half a dozen that they have trouble clearing out of the warehouse when all is said and done.


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## Wicht

Also, in relationship to the boardgame market, there are hundreds of new boardgames being made every year. Its a little bit harder to get traction in the boardgame market than it is in the RPG market, where, while there might be many books, there are only a handful of dominate systems.  With that in mind, Paizo is quite right to keep their boardgame offerings small at the moment.


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## Bluenose

Jester Canuck said:


> Tabletop Roleplaying is niche for sure.
> 
> Both wargames and card games (collectible and otherwise) have the advantage of being able to drop in and out. There's no narrative to track, regular play to stay competitive is not required, and the minimum number of participants is lower.




There's an awful lot of competition play in both tabletop wargames and CCGs. If anything, they're the games where regular play is essential if you want to be competitive. Certainly more so than with RPGs.



> Wargames and CCGs are also more traditional games: you have a winner and a loser, there's competition, and all players participate equally. There's less explanation needed. You know what you're getting with a board game, you don't know what you're getting with an RPG.




Agreed.



> The buy-in of board games, wargames, and CCGs is also lower, both in terms of time and money. You buy the game, read a short rulebook, and can play freely. RPGs often have a high price point, Pathfinder and Dungeons & Dragons especially, and have the longest rulebooks known to man. And the prep time for the GM is huge, even for simple systems. And the minimum time for a game is measured in hours.




Do you know how much a miniatures army costs? How long it takes to paint? Or, with some of the "mega" boardgames, how much time they require? RPG GMs have it easy.



> CCGs also have a low shelf space requirement that makes them easily available in non-exclusive venues, like Targets or WalMarts. Booster packs are excellent impulse purchases. Most wargames and other board games are self-contained, being boxed, so it's easy to find shelf space. Loose rulebooks and odd dice are tricky and seem out of place on shelves of boxed games.




Miniatures gaming takes up a whole wall in my FLGS, the same as the RPG section, and they do a lot more ordering-in of items for miniatures than they do for RPGs. Most of the best selling RPGs are in stock, or at least new items are when they come out. For miniatures, they can't remotely cover more than a fraction of what's available, and don't even have full ranges for the major games like WarmaHordes, Malifaux, or Flames of War. 



> All this makes TTRPGs trickier beasts to manage. While it's possible that RPGs could gain ground as more people learn what D&D is and the conventions of role-playing. But the requirements on number of players and time and difficulty only playing one-of games make this harder. You can have a "board game night" with friends and have people over to try a couple different games, but that doesn't work with RPGs. RPGs are almost a lifestyle.




So is miniature gaming. So how does that niche support so many companies, including ones significantly larger than Paize, and why can't RPGs match that?


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## howandwhy99

It would be nice to see Iquander publishing for Greyhawk again.


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## TwoSix

Bluenose said:


> So is miniature gaming. So how does that niche support so many companies, including ones significantly larger than Paize, and why can't RPGs match that?



One thing miniature gaming, board games, and CCGs all have in common is that they're selling you physical product.  TTRPGs are trying to sell you _ideas._  Sure, those ideas are packaged in a book, and lots of people like buying the package, but they're not necessary to play.  The internet has lowered the monetary barrier to play TTRPGs to virtually nil.


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## Umbran

The title of the thread and the OP are a little at odds.  The thread title is "Would some other company make a better steward for our hobby?" but the OP asks, "What if Paizo (or whatever company) made your preferred ruleset?"

Those are by no means the same question, at all.  Producing my personal favorite and stewarding the hobby are not the same thing.  I don't really have a single favorite game.  I like a variety of different kinds of play, so that no one ruleset is apt to do everything I like well.  So, I won't address the "what if they made your personal favorite game" aspect.

I do think we are well served by having a healthy RPG ecology - there should be one or two really big fish, and a whole bunch of smaller fish.  The role of "steward of the hobby" goes to the Big Fish.  I think anyone in that position will end up looking, for most purposes, just like WotC does to us.  Being the Big Fish implies being a business of some size, and those have issues like WotC does.  Bigger companies lumber.

What if Paizo had it instead?  Remember TSR?  It put out a lot of good stuff.  But as a business, was too small to really keep the top spot, and faltered.  Smaller companies don't have the resources to weather problems well.

The question has a lot of, "the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence," to it.  We have a tendency to look at things we don't like, and think, "If the universe were different, we could have those bad things go away, and not have *any* other bad things crop up."  That's not usually how things work in practice, though.  No company is perfect, at least not for long.


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## Olgar Shiverstone

howandwhy99 said:


> It would be nice to see Iquander publishing for Greyhawk again.




It would be nice to see anyone talented publishing for Greyhawk again.


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## Dungeoneer

Jan van Leyden said:


> Whether it's WotC, Paizo, or anyone else: our hobby isn't unified to any degree, which is a big problem to any publishing company. So what could they publish for "the" game? How to reach sales numbers high enough to support a company? And how to do so for years without selling a new edition?
> 
> Stat-less books? Background only? A meta system from which to derive the stats for your favourite incarnation of "the" game?




This is why I think you need a company that takes the long view. Except for TSR at the very beginning, whoever owns D&D is unlikely to see soaring profits and runaway bestsellers. It takes a pretty minimal investment, just a couple of books and some dice, to pick up a TRPG. And people can play the game with just that investment for years.

But over the long term, a company that had a lot of trust from the community _could _make money. Because churn happens.

Imagine a gaming group that got started with Second Edition. They were very happy with it, so they skipped 3.x. But by the time 4e or maybe D&DN rolled around, they were ready to try something new. Plus they've got more money to burn this time around. The trick for whoever owns D&D is to make sure you own both the original game that got gamers started and the new game they want to try out.

Maybe the above example is a bad one, because it requires the company to wait decades to make money off a gaming group. But in reality churn happens faster than that. Maybe between 2e and D&DN this gaming group tried out Warhammer40K or Vampire or a GURPS game. They don't want a dungeon crawler, they want something different. 

If Paizo owned D&D, the key to success would be to offer a lot of different varieties of games so that when customers 'churn' they're still giving you their money. 

I honestly think D&DN is kind of the wrong direction for WotC to go. You probably aren't ever going to 'unite' D&D gamers under one edition. So the market is fragmented? Embrace the fragmentation. 

A lot of traditional D&D players disliked 4e. I get that, it was pretty different. What if they hadn't called it Fourth Edition? What if they had called it D&D Tactics? Would that have changed gamers perceptions of it? I think it would. People get really bent out of shape when they think WotC is hijacking 'their' game. But if new versions of the game were presented as alternative rule sets, rather than as reinventions of the original game, I think gamers would be willing to give them more of a pass. If someone doesn't like D&D Tactics, well, it's not for them. No big deal. But if they don't like the new edition of the game they're mad because they think WotC is ignoring them.

There's honestly no reason that WotC or Paizo or whoever couldn't support multiple versions of the same game. Because different gamers want different things out of D&D. If you made different versions of D&D for the main gamer demographics, you'd probably wind up with something like this:

- D&D Classic, with cleaned-up versions of the original rules.
- D&D Super-Simulation Edition for gamers who like rules and tables for everything.
- D&D Tactics, as above.
- D&D Storytellers, for the group that really likes to role play.

And yes, the company that made those games would probably need to release some crunch-free books that would work with any of them. Settings books and gazetteers are perfect for that kind of thing. In addition, each version of the game would get a couple books a year that were specific to it to keep it alive. Of course when a new version of the game rolled out, it would get lots of books for a while.

Another bonus to this approach would that the company would virtually always be rolling out a new 'edition' of one of the versions of the game. And we all know that new editions tend to make a lot of money at first. But since there would be several simultaneously-supported versions of the rules, they would sidestep the problem of alienating old gamers with new editions. That's my idea, anyway.

The point is a company can absolutely make money off D&D (IMHO), but it's going to be a gradual process. A corporation that posts quarterly profits is a bad fit for the D&D 'brand'. A company run by people who love the game is a better one.


----------



## MJS

We are the Stewards 
Paizo, WotC, TLG, Palladium... they all have awesome stuff but they are not Stewards, they are in business.


----------



## Jester David

Bluenose said:


> There's an awful lot of competition play in both tabletop wargames and CCGs. If anything, they're the games where regular play is essential if you want to be competitive. Certainly more so than with RPGs.



To be competitive maybe, but you can just show up and play. Or be a casual player. A set played with friends. $30 will get you all the Magic cards to just play. 
But if you don't regularly go to your D&D group you miss the story and - in theory - miss out on XP needed to advance. 



			
				Bluenose;6216697
Do you know how much a miniatures army costs? How long it takes to paint? Or said:
			
		

> I've played Twilight Imperium twice. I know long board games. But I certainly wouldn't consider that "normal" or "average".
> 
> And the miniature painting in war games is nice but technically optional. Just like buying and painting miniatures in D&D, which can be just as expensive and time consuming.
> And not all wargames require painting (and some don't require miniatures). The (potentially collectible) miniature wargame is a subset of that hobby, and one I would concede is equally niche to D&D / Pathfinder.
> 
> However,  miniature games are much easier to explain than RPGs. "This army is trying to beat that army" is pretty simple if the nuances of the story and rules are complex. Pathfinder and RPGs have that extra level of storytelling mixed with open ended action.


----------



## Jan van Leyden

Dungeoneer said:


> I honestly think D&DN is kind of the wrong direction for WotC to go. You probably aren't ever going to 'unite' D&D gamers under one edition. So the market is fragmented? Embrace the fragmentation.




A company can only embrace fragmentation so far. Each product - whether printed or offered digitally only - incurs a base cost, regardless of the number sold. 



Dungeoneer said:


> There's honestly no reason that WotC or Paizo or whoever couldn't support multiple versions of the same game. Because different gamers want different things out of D&D. If you made different versions of D&D for the main gamer demographics, you'd probably wind up with something like this:
> 
> - D&D Classic, with cleaned-up versions of the original rules.
> - D&D Super-Simulation Edition for gamers who like rules and tables for everything.
> - D&D Tactics, as above.
> - D&D Storytellers, for the group that really likes to role play.




WotC management would have to find some creative answers to Hasbro's question why the profit per item is so low.



Dungeoneer said:


> The point is a company can absolutely make money off D&D (IMHO), but it's going to be a gradual process. A corporation that posts quarterly profits is a bad fit for the D&D 'brand'. A company run by people who love the game is a better one.




The point of making money is where we differ from each other. And as for "people who love the game": you outlined four games with apparently incompatible 'lovers'. 

But hey, I'm a German and as such do see doom, gloom, and catastrophy bedhind each corner!  I'd be happy to be proven wrong!


----------



## Mark CMG

Tequila Sunrise said:


> "Would Paizo Make a Better Steward for Our Hobby?"





I don't think I know of a single person who only plays D&D.  I know of many people who don't all play the same tabletop games, some might play D&D and other RPGs, some D&D and board games of one type or another, some board games and card games, etc.  Our "hobby" is decidedly *not* D&D and even if it were RPGs, the owners of D&D would not be the "stewards" no matter who they were.

All that said, I don't think Hasbro is likely to sell D&D rather than just mothball it if it under-performs.  I certainly don't think they would attempt to sell it until they get all of the licencing of it back under their control (movie rights, video games, etc.).


----------



## Neonchameleon

My answer is very simple.

Paizo as far as I know has never developed an RPG of its own - Pathfinder is tweaked 3.5.
Paizo has based much of its appeal on a deliberate rejection of other parts of the hobby.
Paizo has little care for mechanics.
The closest thing to their own RPG Paizo has (the excellent Pathfinder Beginner Box) they adamantly refuse to support (they claim there isn't a market); Paizo have made a play for one large subset of customers and utterly ignore the rest.  Which is the exact opposite to the position a steward needs to take.

Paizo therefore rank somewhere around Palladium in terms of companies I really don't want to see in that position. They do what they do and do it well but what they do is almost diametrically opposed to being stewards.  (Not that Hasbro is going to sell D&D).


----------



## Crispy Critter

Neonchameleon said:


> My answer is very simple.
> 
> Paizo as far as I know has never developed an RPG of its own - Pathfinder is tweaked 3.5.
> Paizo has based much of its appeal on a deliberate rejection of other parts of the hobby.
> Paizo has little care for mechanics.
> The closest thing to their own RPG Paizo has (the excellent Pathfinder Beginner Box) they adamantly refuse to support (they claim there isn't a market); Paizo have made a play for one large subset of customers and utterly ignore the rest.  Which is the exact opposite to the position a steward needs to take.
> 
> Paizo therefore rank somewhere around Palladium in terms of companies I really don't want to see in that position. They do what they do and do it well but what they do is almost diametrically opposed to being stewards.  (Not that Hasbro is going to sell D&D).




Man does this reek of sour grapes.
You know when Paizo first announced its plans for Pathfinder, there was a segment with a vested interest in it failing to happily predict that the game would be the iceberg to Paizo’s Titanic. How could they essentially continue support for 3.5?!? A dead game that no one likes to play anymore!
Three years and significant market share later, the narrative has changed. Now it’s that they really haven’t accomplished anything except house ruling 3.5, and they don’t even understand their own mechanics. Both statements are at best disingenuous as they have innovated within D20’s design space in a variety of ways including archetypes, traits, new base classes, kingdom building rules, mythic rules and smaller sub-systems introduced within their APs which show not only further development of the game but a clear understand of the rules.
I’ve never heard of their comparison to Palladium before but considering that while they owe their existence to the OGL they have continued to keep most of their content free and accessible via their PRD while championing all the publishers who develop products for Pathfinder. This clearly makes them the opposite of Palladium. I’d mention Rifts here in this space but I’m afraid EnWorld would get a cease and desist request from Kevin Siembieda.


----------



## gamerprinter

Neonchameleon said:


> My answer is very simple.
> 
> Paizo as far as I know has never developed an RPG of its own - Pathfinder is tweaked 3.5.
> Paizo has based much of its appeal on a deliberate rejection of other parts of the hobby.
> Paizo has little care for mechanics.
> The closest thing to their own RPG Paizo has (the excellent Pathfinder Beginner Box) they adamantly refuse to support (they claim there isn't a market); Paizo have made a play for one large subset of customers and utterly ignore the rest.  Which is the exact opposite to the position a steward needs to take.
> 
> Paizo therefore rank somewhere around Palladium in terms of companies I really don't want to see in that position. They do what they do and do it well but what they do is almost diametrically opposed to being stewards.  (Not that Hasbro is going to sell D&D).




Why should Paizo or any RPG publisher be required to make their own game? Obviously Paizo didn't think they needed to that (and they didn't), as it was most financially viable to continue to produce a 3.5 extension. To many (like me) Pathfinder is different enough that I don't even want to be reminded of 3.5, Pathfinder is all I need (right now.) If Paizo made their own game, depending on the game, I might not be interested at all.

Many Paizo detractors regularly state that they didn't make their own game. So what, why should they? It's not necessary, riffing off 3.5 seems a lot smarter. Doing so made me their customer. I don't need a new game, I don't want to play.


----------



## Jason Bulmahn

Neonchameleon said:


> Paizo as far as I know has never developed an RPG of its own - Pathfinder is tweaked 3.5.
> ...
> Paizo has little care for mechanics.




Some days the internet just makes me want to drink...

(not to pick on you NeonChameleon.. you are entitled to your opinions)


----------



## Dungeoneer

Once again, what games Paizo has published and what rulesets you prefer have almost no bearing on whether or not they'd be good stewards of D&D. Games are made by designers, and guess what! You can hire designers. Supposing Paizo did acquire D&D, they could easily hire any of D&D's storied designers to make the next version of the game. Problem solved.

The way Paizo markets Pathfinder products and makes money off Pathfinder and how they treat Pathfinder gamers can tell us a lot about how they'd handle being the owners of D&D. The Pathfinder ruleset tells us almost nothing.


----------



## Wicht

Neonchameleon said:


> Paizo has based much of its appeal on a deliberate rejection of other parts of the hobby.




Huh?

What does that even mean? 

So far as I know they haven't rejected board games, miniatures, card games, adventures, maps, computer games, or even cosplay...

Is there some other part of the hobby I don't know about yet. Come-on, I've earned my DM stripes. I'm a high enough level! What secrets are you guys keeping from me?


----------



## Umbran

gamerprinter said:


> Why should Paizo or any RPG publisher be required to make their own game?




In a general sense, they don't.  But, in the context of how a company would do as the steward of the hobby, you are about to answer your own question...



> Pathfinder is all I need (right now.)




The thing is... the world changes.  Players change.  Our understanding of good game design changes.  If Paizo were to be the "steward", they'd eventually need to embrace change.  What's good for right now is fine, but right now eventually becomes the past.

So, then there's two choices - continue as the steward by cribbing from others who use the OGL or a similar license, or create their own.  They cannot depend on someone else creating a game good enough to crib from again in the future, so they would only guarantee their future as stewards by being able to create their own.


----------



## Ahnehnois

Jason Bulmahn said:


> Some days the internet just makes me want to drink...
> 
> (not to pick on you NeonChameleon.. you are entitled to your opinions)



No matter what you do, there will always be someone who's against you. I wouldn't worry about it.


----------



## billd91

Umbran said:


> In a general sense, they don't.  But, in the context of how a company would do as the steward of the hobby, you are about to answer your own question...




Don't think of them as *the* steward of our hobby. No single game company can be that. They are already *a* steward of our hobby. But would they be a good company to be *the* steward of D&D? And the answer to that is, yes. I think they'd do better than Hasbro-owned WotC. Hell, I think an independent WotC looked like it was going to be a better steward of D&D than Hasbro-owned WotC has proven to be, though of course that might never have played out the same had we a chance to rewind history and play through with WotC retaining its independence.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Umbran said:


> In a general sense, they don't.  But, in the context of how a company would do as the steward of the hobby, you are about to answer your own question...
> 
> 
> 
> The thing is... the world changes.  Players change.  Our understanding of good game design changes.  If Paizo were to be the "steward", they'd eventually need to embrace change.  What's good for right now is fine, but right now eventually becomes the past.
> 
> So, then there's two choices - continue as the steward by cribbing from others who use the OGL or a similar license, or create their own.  They cannot depend on someone else creating a game good enough to crib from again in the future, so they would only guarantee their future as stewards by being able to create their own.




This.  Paizo do what they do very well.  Produce a long series of pretty good adventure paths with superb production values that are very enjoyable to read and fun to play.  I do not in any way intend to denigrate what they do here - and they probably do it better than anyone else in the history of the hobby.  They are deservedly the most successful new RPG company since White Wolf by doing what they do very well.  On the other hand they produce only _one_ game.  That there is an ongoing edition war is a pretty clear indication that different people want different things out of RPGs.

And when I point out that this isn't the only skill needed I get accused of sour grapes when my take is the more playstyles supported the better.  Paizo only supports one game and have shown neither inclination nor ability to do more than that so far as I am aware (and there is absolutely no reason they should have to).  And "The steward of our hobby" needs to be trying to help as many as possible - a completely different approach to Paizo's 3.5 Thrives.

(And I'm not replying to Jason Bulmahn unless he actually says he wants a critique; I'm pretty sure he doesn't here).


----------



## Wicht

Neonchameleon said:


> On the other hand they produce only _one_ game.  That there is an ongoing edition war is a pretty clear indication that different people want different things out of RPGs.




They produce only one _RPG _game.  I think that's what you meant anyway, though its not what you said.

Though I'm not sure of the relevance of the point. There are RPG companies which produce multiple games (Green Ronin and Evil Hat both come to mind). And there are publishing companies that publish multiple games (Cubicle 7 for instance). And then there are some tried and true companies that produce only one game (Chaosium). In many cases the support for individual lines is pretty slim when a company diverges into multiple offerings. Likewise, the work put into these other games is no more intense than the work Paizo puts into their products. Doing one primary line, doing it better than anybody else, and growing into the largest or 2nd largest RPG company in the country is a pretty good record to run on, if you ask me. 

As for skill's needed... Is there any other industry leader, excepting perhaps Steve Jackson, that has the breadth of experience to match Lisa Stevens'? If so, the list has to be pretty small.


----------



## Wicht

And I still would like an answer to the question I posed a little earlier...


----------



## GreyLord

Wicht said:


> Huh?
> 
> What does that even mean?
> 
> So far as I know they haven't rejected board games, miniatures, card games, adventures, maps, computer games, or even cosplay...
> 
> Is there some other part of the hobby I don't know about yet. Come-on, I've earned my DM stripes. I'm a high enough level! What secrets are you guys keeping from me?




I'd imagine it's because Paizo has NOT created anything for D&D outside of the Pathfinder and 3.5 lines.  This is my supposition on what the author was thinking of, and in that light, Paizo hasn't really come out in support for what some consider the REAL D&D/AD&D as opposed to D20.

Now, this is what I think he may have been referring to, NOT THAT I AGREE completely with his conclusions.  Taking the devil's advocate here however, he is correct in that Paizo has not really supported anything but the Pathfinder line, and with that, it is questionable whether they would be any better of a steward over D&D.  Remember, WotC at least has the PDF's and REPRINTED the older edition core books.

Now, my thoughts on the matter.  

First, Paizo is under no obligation at this point to support anything but their own products.  In fact, they may get in legal problems if they try to support something that they do not have permission to support.  They DO already have OSRIC and some OSR on their site for sale...that's somewhat promising.   Therefore, I think it's VERY easy to see why they may not indicate great support for the other editions, as that's an easy way for some legal problems with WotC...and that's NOT what they want or need.

Also,aAs I already remarked, I think Paizo would make great stewards over the D20 versions (I think they may even do well with supporting a character builder and such for 4e maybe, and perhaps with better programming than what WotC had).

HOWEVER, with older versions, it's a REALLY iffy proposition.  Many of them were with the WotC that had the aim to KILL OFF our beloved AD&D.  At least, that's how MANY see it, and how many STILL see it, even to this day.  Many of those gamers hadn't bought a book in years (if not decades though) as once you have the core books, why buy new ones or anything more with AD&D?   In fact, even with the new premium releases, I STILL saw that sentiment from many of the older players that WotC lost in it's transition.  Is it really worth trying to get the dollars of a million or two (or more) players that have no interest in the current hobby scheme, hobby shops, or anything that modern RPG's are offering, and typically don't spend money on anything new?

So, though there may be many of them, what they'll buy is another question.  On the otherhand, I think we see the same thing happening with the older (yes, they are older now) 3e/3.5 players.  Many of them bought the core books, and never really bought all the supplements and such that WotC released.  

I think 4e's idea that everything was core was to try to get past this thing which players do, which is buy the core book and never get anything beyond that.

Pathfinder took a different slant, which is to provide adventures (I mean, that's not new rules, that's just additional adventure and stuff you can buy that adds nothing to the complexity or anything else of the game).  I like this model, it's a grand model.

If they did that for older editions, if they were the stewards, it may work, I don't know.  It's that type of support that I'd hope they would have...but I don't know...I have no idea if they would do that or not.



ON A DIFFERENT point...as far as PF creating it's own game...I view Pathfinder as a totally and completely different game than Dungeons and Dragons.  It has it's roots (DEEP and STRONG roots even, basically even the same trunk and branch even) in the 3.5 edition, but there are vast changes in it that I feel make it a better game.  The very way skills are determined at character creation, the way feats have been modified, the way the spells have been modified, how certain classes differ (in regards to hitdice, and other basic factors) in my mind, makes it a very DIFFERENT game than the Dungeons and Dragons that gave it birth.

We consider Palladium a different game than D&D, we consider most of the D20 games different games than D&D, and yet many of them are more similar than PF is to 3.5 to D&D (of course D20 was far more different from AD&D and 4e was far more different from 3e than most of those other systems as an opposition to my opinion, just to present both viewpoints), hence, why don't some consider PF it's OWN system able to stand on it's own.

Sure, it has compatibility, but at the same time, it is different enough, or perhaps we should call it evolved enough, that it truly stands on it's own as it's own game system.

In my opinion of course.


----------



## Gundark

Neonchameleon said:


> This.  Paizo do what they do very well.  Produce a long series of pretty good adventure paths with superb production values that are very enjoyable to read and fun to play.  I do not in any way intend to denigrate what they do here - and they probably do it better than anyone else in the history of the hobby.  They are deservedly the most successful new RPG company since White Wolf by doing what they do very well.  On the other hand they produce only _one_ game.  That there is an ongoing edition war is a pretty clear indication that different people want different things out of RPGs.
> 
> And when I point out that this isn't the only skill needed I get accused of sour grapes when my take is the more playstyles supported the better.  Paizo only supports one game and have shown neither inclination nor ability to do more than that so far as I am aware (and there is absolutely no reason they should have to).  And "The steward of our hobby" needs to be trying to help as many as possible - a completely different approach to Paizo's 3.5 Thrives.
> 
> (And I'm not replying to Jason Bulmahn unless he actually says he wants a critique; I'm pretty sure he doesn't here).



In fairness this response is better than your first one. 

Paizo does market their brand of 3.5 well to their intended audience. Thus people who are in that audience are more inclined to say "yes" to the answer posed by the OP because currently Paizo speaks to what they like. 

Could Paizo market well to those who are not in their intended audience? This is the real question the OP is asking. I'm skeptical on this. Admittedly I’m currently not in Paizo’s target audience so I may be more inclined to be skeptical than a fan of their product. Again they do what they do very well, and I have been constantly amazed at what they have accomplished with that one thing. 
I suspect fiancés play into this. I’m sure that if they had the resources to do so they would have supported both PF and 4e. They had to choose and they chose the more logical option. They also may have tried to support a “PF lite” but most likely were only able to produce the beginner box with the hopes of hooking more people in. Despite being what I hear was a superb product they seem unwilling (for whatever reason) to support this with further products.
However to be the “steward” of D&D they would have to broaden their range and provide products to other play styles. I’m not a Paizo customer because I really despise 3e, and there is a good chunk of people like me (fans of other editions including 4e). How well could they walk this line between reeling people like me in and keeping the fans they have is unknown. It is a real risk to miss-step too far one side or the other, to cut unprofitable lines in favour for another, to be innovative with their products and to attempt to market D&D beyond their current fan base and to bring new customers in. Mistakes will be made, and they could end up shooting themselves in the foot like WotC has at times. People change positions, new Brand managers come and go, and somewhere along the line someone markets something foolishly. Paizo isn’t immune to this.
The interesting time for Paizo will be the years to come when sales of books begin to lag and bloat steps in more, when their Adventure paths begin to feel “samey”.  I’ll be curious to see how well they navigate this and what they do. 
Long story short, yes they do what they do well with what they have. Could they do it across the D&D fanbase? Colour me Skeptical.


----------



## GreyLord

Neonchameleon said:


> This.  Paizo do what they do very well.  Produce a long series of pretty good adventure paths with superb production values that are very enjoyable to read and fun to play.  I do not in any way intend to denigrate what they do here - and they probably do it better than anyone else in the history of the hobby.  They are deservedly the most successful new RPG company since White Wolf by doing what they do very well.  On the other hand they produce only _one_ game.  That there is an ongoing edition war is a pretty clear indication that different people want different things out of RPGs.
> 
> And when I point out that this isn't the only skill needed I get accused of sour grapes when my take is the more playstyles supported the better.  Paizo only supports one game and have shown neither inclination nor ability to do more than that so far as I am aware (and there is absolutely no reason they should have to).  And "The steward of our hobby" needs to be trying to help as many as possible - a completely different approach to Paizo's 3.5 Thrives.
> 
> (And I'm not replying to Jason Bulmahn unless he actually says he wants a critique; I'm pretty sure he doesn't here).




Actually, just FYI,

PAIZO supports more than one game currently.

This is a copy and paste job of the RPG's that Paizo is currently trying to sell from their store...quick look at least

13th Age (1)  
 Aberrant (5)  
 After the Bomb (6)  
 AGE System (6)  
 All Flesh Must Be Eaten (17)  
 Alternity (3)  
 Amazing Engine (5)  
 Angel (3)  
 Ars Magica  (90)  
 Atlas Games, White Wolf Publishing  
Babylon 5 (7)  
 Basic Roleplaying (BRP) (13)  
 Beyond the Supernatural (5)  
 Big Eyes, Small Mouth (2)  
 Blackmoor (5)  
 Blue Rose (OGL) (3)  
 Buffy The Vampire Slayer (5)  
 Burning Wheel (7)  
 Call of Cthulu
Cartoon Action Hour (1)  
 Castles & Crusades (OGL)  (78)  
 Champions (104)  
 Colonial Gothic (12)  
 Conan (OGL) (4)  
 Conspiracy X (5)  
 Corporation (7)  
 Cyberpunk (3)  
Dark Ages (17)  
 Deryni (Fudge/OGL) (3)  
 Desolation RPG (2)  
 Dragonlance (13)  
 Dragonmech (OGL) (7)  
 Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC)  
 Dungeon Crawl Classics (OGL) (57)  
 Earthdawn (17)  
 Engel (OGL) (2)  
 EverQuest (1)  
 Exalted  (54)  
 Fantasia
Fantasy Hero (17)  
 Fate of the Norns (5)  
 Fate RPG (3)  
 Feng Shui
 Fortune's Fool (3)  
 Freeport (4)  
GameMastery™ Compleat Encounters (7)  
GURPS
 Glorantha 
 Full Metal Fantasy (7)  
  HackMaster (7)  
 HARP  
 Hero Kids (8)  
 HERO System  (233) 
 Heroes Unlimited (13)  
 HârnMaster  (62)  
 Imperium RPG (7)  
 In Nomine (1)  
Infinite Power RPG (3)  
Invulnerable RPG (7)  
Iron Kingdoms (13)  
Ironclaw (4)  
  Judge Dredd (d20)
Labyrinth Lord (1E)  
 Legend of the Five Rings (15)  
 Lone Wolf (OGL) (14)  
 Lord of the Rings (1)  
  Mage: The Awakening (22)  
 A Magical Society (d20/OGL) (9)  
 Marvel Universe (1)  
 Masterwork Maps (3)  
 Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes (5)  
 Metal, Magic & Lore (12)  
 Midnight (d20)  
 Mind's Eye Theatre (2)  
 Momentum System (1)  
 Monster Geographica (d20) (5)  
 Munchkin (d20) (1)  
 The Mutant Epoch (5)  
 Mutant's and Masterminds
  Nightbane (5)  
 Ninja Hero (6)  
 Numenera (4)  
 Palladium Fantasy (18)  
 Paranoia (12)  
  QAGS (41
 Recon
Red Dwarf
Rifts
Rune
Rune Quest
Savage Worlds
Serenity (6)  
 Shadow, Sword & Spell (4)  
 Shadowrun  (98)  
 Catalyst, FanPro, FASA  
 SLA Industries (11)  
 Space: 1889 (17)  
 Spacemaster (8)  
 Spycraft (OGL) (6)  
 Star Hero (6)  
 Star Quest (8)  
 Star Wars (d20) (6)  
 Starship Troopers (5)  
 Stormbringer (4)  
 Swords and Wizardry
Talislanta (1)  
 Tephra (1)  
 Thieves' World (d20) (1)  
 Thousand Suns  
 Toon (2)  
Traveller
Trinity
True 20
Unknown Armies (11)  
 Untold (8)  
 Vampire: The Requiem (33)  
 Victoriana (14)  
 Villains & Vigilantes ( 
 Wars (OGL) (1)  
 Werewolf: The Forsaken (13)  
 WitchCraft (4)  
World of Darkness
 Xcrawl (d20)

So...just a wee bit more than just their own game that they support or show support for.


----------



## Neonchameleon

GreyLord said:


> Actually, just FYI,
> 
> PAIZO supports more than one game currently.
> ...
> So...just a wee bit more than just their own game that they support or show support for.




You mean that Paizo acts as an online FLGS?  Yeah, not the same thing.


----------



## gamerprinter

Umbran said:


> In a general sense, they don't.  But, in the context of how a company would do as the steward of the hobby, you are about to answer your own question...
> 
> 
> 
> The thing is... the world changes.  Players change.  Our understanding of good game design changes.  If Paizo were to be the "steward", they'd eventually need to embrace change.  What's good for right now is fine, but right now eventually becomes the past.
> 
> So, then there's two choices - continue as the steward by cribbing from others who use the OGL or a similar license, or create their own.  They cannot depend on someone else creating a game good enough to crib from again in the future, so they would only guarantee their future as stewards by being able to create their own.




I'm just discussing my preferences, not whether Paizo or anyone should be the steward of the game - I have no opinion regarding that. I'm justing pointing out that I have no particular loyalties to WotC, any more than any other company. I would probably still be playing 2e, even with TSR being dead and if nobody saved the game for continual publication. I don't require some commercial entity to serve as a "steward". When I switched to 3x, I wasn't doing so to get an improved game, rather our old gaming group doubled in size and one of the new people owned 100 or so 3x and 3x 3PP books. We switched to utilize the books not for a need for new game, rather to accomodate a new player. So I really don't ever need a new edition to play RPGs.

It was only my desire to publish material in addition to already doing map commissions for publishers, that I went to Pathfinder in the first place - not for the need for a new game. Pathfinder is just where I joined the industry, so for that reason alone, it's my current game of choice.


----------



## DaveMage

Neonchameleon said:


> You mean that Paizo acts as an online FLGS?  Yeah, not the same thing.




Actually, it is the same (if not better).  Paizo has a vested interest in *every* game doing well.  Name one other RPG company that can make that claim.


----------



## Wicht

Neonchameleon said:


> You mean that Paizo acts as an online FLGS?  Yeah, not the same thing.




You still haven't answered my original question.  Can you please explain what you meant by"Paizo has based much of its appeal on a deliberate rejection of other parts of the hobby."  What parts of the hobby?


----------



## Neonchameleon

Wicht said:


> You still haven't answered my original question.  Can you please explain what you meant by Paizo not supporting part of the hobby? What part?




Anyone who gives a damn about balance for starters.  Or wants anything other than a tweaked 3.5 experience.  Which makes sense because their initial advertising campaign was "3.5 Thrives" - i.e. "We will give you more of the same".  They set themselves up in opposition to the changes made by 4e.

I don't blame them for this.  They had the opportunity to take and they took it spectacularly successfully.  And appealing to those who didn't want certain things was part of that.  They built their foundations on the edition war.  And as I say, good luck to them and they did well out of it.  I certainly don't begrudge people enjoying their game.

And other than a shopfront they've given nothing in their ruleset to anyone who likes rules to encourage roleplaying, narrativist style.  There's another chunk they haven't supported.  And I know of nothing they've really done for the OSR.

The core fact is Paizo only have a single game, and it's a game that was developed by employees of Wizards of the Coast in the late 90s and tweaked in the early 00s.  The _only_ people they support with their games are those who like that game with minor modifications. 

Who exactly do you think other than 3.5/PF fans do you think they _have_ been supporting?  Other than by providing a shopfront? (And if that's important, turn everything over to Drivethru - after all they sell all editions of D&D _and_​ Pathfinder)


----------



## Jester David

Neonchameleon said:


> Paizo as far as I know has never developed an RPG of its own - Pathfinder is tweaked 3.5.
> Paizo has based much of its appeal on a deliberate rejection of other parts of the hobby.



True. But they've never needed to design a system before. 



Neonchameleon said:


> Paizo has little care for mechanics.



*Spitake*
What?!? 
Okay, they run playtests annually to make sure their hardcover rulebooks have extra solid systems. Just because 3e has some pretty big mechanical flaws doesn't mean they don't care for mechanics. 
Yes, they could have made further changes between 3e and Pathfinder. But they were limited on time and the initial desire to make things backwards compatible. Backwards compatibility seemed more huge back then, but hindsight is what it is.



Neonchameleon said:


> The closest thing to their own RPG Paizo has (the excellent Pathfinder Beginner Box) they adamantly refuse to support (they claim there isn't a market); Paizo have made a play for one large subset of customers and utterly ignore the rest. Which is the exact opposite to the position a steward needs to take.



There's a market, but there isn't a market equal to their current market sitting around waiting. Two competing product lines is a huge financial mistake. How huge? It drove TSR out of buisness huge. The Beginner Box is what it is, an easy and simpler way to get into the main Pathfinder game.



Umbran said:


> The thing is... the world changes.  Players change.  Our understanding of good game design changes.  If Paizo were to be the "steward", they'd eventually need to embrace change.  What's good for right now is fine, but right now eventually becomes the past.
> 
> So, then there's two choices - continue as the steward by cribbing from others who use the OGL or a similar license, or create their own.  They cannot depend on someone else creating a game good enough to crib from again in the future, so they would only guarantee their future as stewards by being able to create their own.






Neonchameleon said:


> This.  Paizo do what they do very well.  Produce a long series of pretty good adventure paths with superb production values that are very enjoyable to read and fun to play.  I do not in any way intend to denigrate what they do here - and they probably do it better than anyone else in the history of the hobby.  They are deservedly the most successful new RPG company since White Wolf by doing what they do very well.  On the other hand they produce only _one_ game.  That there is an ongoing edition war is a pretty clear indication that different people want different things out of RPGs.



Paizo hasn't made a full RPG because they don't have to. But they've made numerous large subsystems such as mass combat, kingdom building, and Mythic. They certainly have the design chops to design an RPG. 

Here's the thing, Paizo isn't a person. It's a company. It's a company made up of talented designers. And, funny enough, many of those designers worked for WotC. If they really wanted, I'm sure they could hire more WotC allumni with game design experience (as WotC keeps laying them off).  But they have some people on staff (or who regularly freelance) who helped design 3e and/or 4e. Oh, and one person who designed Basic. 
So they're not lacking in experience. 
Oh... plus the CEO of Paizo helped with the design and/or testing of Ars Magica, Vampire: the Masquerade, Magic: the Gathering and was at WotC during the design of 3e. 



Neonchameleon said:


> Paizo only supports one game and have shown neither inclination nor ability to do more than that so far as I am aware (and there is absolutely no reason they should have to).  And "The steward of our hobby" needs to be trying to help as many as possible - a completely different approach to Paizo's 3.5 Thrives.



And how many RPG games does WotC support? One as well. Although they tweak it occasionally with licence and other IP, but it's still the same game.


----------



## billd91

Wicht said:


> You still haven't answered my original question.  Can you please explain what you meant by"Paizo has based much of its appeal on a deliberate rejection of other parts of the hobby."  What parts of the hobby?




Certainly not the fiction considering they're publishing quite a few things with their Planet Stories product line.

And then there are the board games they're publishing with Titanic Games and James Ernest like Kill Doctor Lucky, Falling, and Yetisburg.

And that's not even getting into the game products that are sufficiently generic they can be used with many games like their flip mats.

And that's without even mentioning the way they promote other products on their website for all the Pathfinder players to see.

…. So what parts of the hobby are they rejecting again?


----------



## n00bdragon

You know who would be a better steward for the D&D game? The people who run Magic: the Gathering. Seriously. Kick the game across the hall.


----------



## Jester David

Neonchameleon said:


> Anyone who gives a damn about balance for starters.



There's balance and then there's Balance. Pathfinder, like 3e, ofted for lesser balance but it didn't push balance to the forefront. And, really, making drastic, sweeping changes to the game just for the sake of balance would have run contrary to their design goal: stay true to 3e.



Neonchameleon said:


> Or wants anything other than a tweaked 3.5 experience. Which makes sense because their initial advertising campaign was "3.5 Thrives" - i.e. "We will give you more of the same".  They set themselves up in opposition to the changes made by 4e.



They saw a potential audience: people who were happy with the game system they currently had and did not want to make a switch. So they opted to make a game and products for that audience. 
That makes them poor stewards for the hobby? Giving an audience exactly what it wanted?
They didn't set themselves up to oppose the changes made by 4e. Paizo didn't expect Pathfinder to become the opposition, let alone a replacement. They were hoping for "not a colossal failure". They weren't opposed to the changes so much as just wanted to tell adventures and needed a system that wasn't out of print for those adventures. 



Neonchameleon said:


> I don't blame them for this.  They had the opportunity to take and they took it spectacularly successfully.  And appealing to those who didn't want certain things was part of that.  They built their foundations on the edition war.  And as I say, good luck to them and they did well out of it.  I certainly don't begrudge people enjoying their game.



I wouldn't say they "built their foundation on the edition war". That's a bit much since no one at time had any idea the 3e/4e split would be as nasty as it was. They simply expected some holdouts, because a 100% conversion rate is unheard of, and decided to make their niche catering to that audience. They haven't done anything to further the edition war or sabotage WotC or 4e. 



Neonchameleon said:


> And other than a shopfront they've given nothing in their ruleset to anyone who likes rules to encourage roleplaying, narrativist style.  There's another chunk they haven't supported.  And I know of nothing they've really done for the OSR.



The lack of story manipulation rules is an oversight. But, then again, even WotC hasn't done much with that (outside of vague overtones in _Legends & Lore_). It's certainly worthy of a book. 
OSR is hard to support with Pathfinder without producing a second line. 



Neonchameleon said:


> The core fact is Paizo only have a single game, and it's a game that was developed by employees of Wizards of the Coast in the late 90s and tweaked in the early 00s.



I don't see the relevance of this statement.
And in the late '90s WotC was that company that only had a single game that was a card game.
And in the late '70s TSR was that company that only had a single game that was a miniature war game. 

It's not like there were many people at WotC during the design of 4e who had a lot of hands-on experience with the design of 3e or other games.



Neonchameleon said:


> The _only_ people they support with their games are those who like that game with minor modifications.



And some players who skipped 3e.
And players who just want to play (with groups that prefer PF). 
And likely some players of other RPGs who just don't like WotC.
And new players.



Neonchameleon said:


> Who exactly do you think other than 3.5/PF fans do you think they _have_ been supporting?  Other than by providing a shopfront? (And if that's important, turn everything over to Drivethru - after all they sell all editions of D&D _and_​ Pathfinder)



Again, new players. It started out as 3e fans but since then it has grown. Pathfinder is finding a whole new audience who have never played an RPG. Who have never played any edition of Dungeons & Dragons.
Really, at the start of 4e, who was WotC supporting ​other than D&D fans who didn't like 3e?


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jester Canuck said:


> True. But they've never needed to design a system before.




Indeed.  They therefore don't have the expertise.  Because they haven't needed it/



> *Spitake*
> What?!?
> Okay, they run playtests annually to make sure their hardcover rulebooks have extra solid systems. Just because 3e has some pretty big mechanical flaws doesn't mean they don't care for mechanics.
> Yes, they could have made further changes between 3e and Pathfinder. But they were limited on time and the initial desire to make things backwards compatible. Backwards compatibility seemed more huge back then, but hindsight is what it is.




3.X didn't introduce either the Summoner, the Gunslinger, or the Prone Shooter feat as it was originally written.  Or half a dozen other things I could name.  Pathfinder have tweaked 3.X and improved it to start with (because the flaws were well known) - and then introduced things all of their own.  And that's not even getting into e.g. the kingdom rules in Kingmaker or the perverse incentives I believe are in Jade Regent.



> There's a market, but there isn't a market equal to their current market sitting around waiting. Two competing product lines is a huge financial mistake. How huge? It drove TSR out of buisness huge. The Beginner Box is what it is, an easy and simpler way to get into the main Pathfinder game.




Um... Nothing I've seen said that that's what drove TSR out of business.  Rather than issues with the books, and with not listening to their customers (as Dancey put it down to).



> Paizo hasn't made a full RPG because they don't have to. But they've made numerous large subsystems such as mass combat, kingdom building, and Mythic. They certainly have the design chops to design an RPG.




I own Kingmaker.  And Mythic is online.  They are large subsystems - and that's something I can say about them.



> And how many RPG games does WotC support? One as well. Although they tweak it occasionally with licence and other IP, but it's still the same game.




Hmm... Let's see.  What can you buy things for from WotC at the moment?

Rules Cyclopaedia D&D (And oD&D - not sure if this is in hardcopy)
AD&D 1e
AD&D 2e (not sure this should be separate from 1e ruleswise)
D&D 3.5 (oddly not 3.0)
D&D 4e
Gamma World (Or possibly that's just warehouse copies)

And if you think that the Rules Cyclopaedia D&D is the same as 4e I've a bridge to sell.

And I hardly think that the RPG arm of Wizards is perfect (M:tG has the better designers).  Given my choice I'd go with Pelgrane (13th Age, Hillfolk, Gumshoe, more) or possibly Burning Wheel/Luke Crane if I wanted one person as opposed to a company.  Or possibly Cubicle 7 if I wanted a caretaking and filtering role - but they aren't up to the job yet.

Right now Paizo is a narrow company focussing on one game and one playstyle.  That's great for them but the only people who want Paizo in charge so far as I can tell are those that happen to like that playstyle.  I want a company that does do more than one thing.


----------



## Umbran

Dungeoneer said:


> Supposing Paizo did acquire D&D, they could easily hire any of D&D's storied designers to make the next version of the game. Problem solved.




There's more to creating a game than hiring designers.  There's how you playtest, how you get customer feedback, how you manage the design process, how you manage your R&D resources, how you market... There's lots to creating a major successful game beyond hiring a few designers.  And doing all this on a completely new ruleset becomes rather bigger than if you're ding it on a basically solid ruleset you just want to adjust here and there.

Which isn't to say that Paizo couldn't - Paizo simply hasn't done it yet, so their ability is uncertain.  But it is also true that most companies do it infrequently enough that they don't usually have the full experience from the last time on hand, either, so even those who have done it before may lose some institutional knowledge between tries.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Jester Canuck said:


> They saw a potential audience: people who were happy with the game system they currently had and did not want to make a switch. So they opted to make a game and products for that audience.
> That makes them poor stewards for the hobby? Giving an audience exactly what it wanted?
> They didn't set themselves up to oppose the changes made by 4e. Paizo didn't expect Pathfinder to become the opposition, let alone a replacement. They were hoping for "not a colossal failure". They weren't opposed to the changes so much as just wanted to tell adventures and needed a system that wasn't out of print for those adventures.




Indeed.  They do what they do well.  This is not a problem.  It just isn't anything close to the whole hobby - it's a single approach.  



> I don't see the relevance of this statement.
> And in the late '90s WotC was that company that only had a single game that was a card game.
> And in the late '70s TSR was that company that only had a single game that was a miniature war game.




Um... You might want to look at the thread title then - it's about being a steward of the whole hobby as opposed to one relatively large part.  And you might want to check your history.  In the late 90s (98 onwards) Wizards had Pokemon.  They also had other games like Roborally and Everway (not that that RPG did terribly well).  In the late 70s TSR had Gamma World and Boot Hill as alternative RPGs.  



> Again, new players. It started out as 3e fans but since then it has grown. Pathfinder is finding a whole new audience who have never played an RPG. Who have never played any edition of Dungeons & Dragons.
> Really, at the start of 4e, who was WotC supporting ​other than D&D fans who didn't like 3e?




D&D fans who did like 3e but wanted to try something else.  Friendly Local Gaming Shops through the Encounters program (as well as the more intensive organised play) to draw people in.  People who preferred gamism to simulationism _whether or not they liked D&D._


----------



## billd91

Neonchameleon said:


> Um... You might want to look at the thread title then - it's about being a steward of the whole hobby as opposed to one relatively large part.




Maybe a closer look at the first post is in order. The question really was about Paizo being the steward of D&D, not the whole gaming hobby.


----------



## athos

Paizo was smart enough to see that the market for 3.5 wasn't dead when WotC went to 4e, and they made pathfinder to capitalize on that market.  They are doing pretty well from what I have seen.

WotC on the other hand, took Living Greyhawk and a thriving 3.5 game and threw it all away for 4e thinking they would somehow get the WoW crowd.  They may have gotten some of the WoW crowd, but they lost a lot of hardcore gamers that buy products.  This has to be one of the biggest blunders in RPG history.

Since D&D is owned by WotC, it will never be Paizo's property, so the question is kind of silly.  But I wish WotC would license ALL of 3.5 to Paizo.  Some things, like the YuanTi , I miss with pathfinder.  Oh well...


----------



## Neonchameleon

And on a tangent, one of the problems D&D Next is suffering is very possibly that Wizards have surprisingly few people there who have published a game that isn't on the D20 Core.  Mike Mearls has Iron Heroes and was involved with 4e.  Bruce Cordell has Blue Rose (although not True20 interestingly enough).  Wyatt, so far as I can tell, is mostly writing settings.  But there isn't actually a whole lot of experience developing new games there.


----------



## Neonchameleon

billd91 said:


> Maybe a closer look at the first post is in order. The question really was about Paizo being the steward of D&D, not the whole gaming hobby.




D&D is a whole lot bigger than Pathfinder.  It needs to include 4e and the OSR as well.


----------



## Jester David

Neonchameleon said:


> 3.X didn't introduce either the Summoner, the Gunslinger, or the Prone Shooter feat as it was originally written.  Or half a dozen other things I could name.  Pathfinder have tweaked 3.X and improved it to start with (because the flaws were well known) - and then introduced things all of their own.  And that's not even getting into e.g. the kingdom rules in Kingmaker or the perverse incentives I believe are in Jade Regent.



Are suggesting that some broken elements mean Pathfinder can't design a game?
If so I can point out some amazing mistakes in the 4e update documents. 
Mistakes happen. Bad design happens. The trick is to learn. And when it comes time for Pathfinder Revised Paizo will have some pretty experienced staff.



Neonchameleon said:


> Um... Nothing I've seen said that that's what drove TSR out of business.  Rather than issues with the books, and with not listening to their customers (as Dancey put it down to).



Dancey know because he tasked someone named "Lisa Stevens" with finding out. What does she do now? She owns and runs Paizo.
And she attributes the failure of TSR to spilling the audience via Basic and Advanced and Campaign settings and side RPGs (Marvel, Buck Rogers, SAGA, etc).



Neonchameleon said:


> Hmm... Let's see.  What can you buy things for from WotC at the moment?
> 
> Rules Cyclopaedia D&D (And oD&D - not sure if this is in hardcopy)
> AD&D 1e
> AD&D 2e (not sure this should be separate from 1e ruleswise)
> D&D 3.5 (oddly not 3.0)
> D&D 4e
> Gamma World (Or possibly that's just warehouse copies)
> 
> And if you think that the Rules Cyclopaedia D&D is the same as 4e I've a bridge to sell.



You can buy those from RPGNow not WotC. WotC never takes your money (even DDI is handled through someone else). 
Shoping at DnDClassics.com isn't that much different than buying a used game, save the site makes WotC money. It's not like many people at WotC can take credit for the design of those. 



Neonchameleon said:


> Right now Paizo is a narrow company focussing on one game and one playstyle.  That's great for them but the only people who want Paizo in charge so far as I can tell are those that happen to like that playstyle.  I want a company that does do more than one thing.



Well, they do the Adventure Card game as well. They have a couple board games. They have magazine experience as well as book experience. 
And they can hire people with experience they lack. As the market leader they attract the best talent. 

And Paizo also listens to their fanbase, which is important. That's something I want much more from the market leader than perfect design. It doesn't matter how awesome a game is if it's not what I want. 
Really, this is what made them the company they are. Anyone could publish a 3e retroclone. Anyone had the opportunity to do what Pathfinder did. What made Paizo was their fan and how they interacted with their fans. That' sweat I want from the steward if the hobby.


----------



## Kinak

I'm curious where people are getting this idea that it's easier to update someone else's game than it is to make your own game.

I mean, it's one of those things that seems like common sense, but isn't true at all in my experience. Do other people's experiences differ or are we just running on assumptions?



Jester Canuck said:


> Dancey know because he tasked someone named "Lisa Stevens" with finding out. What does she do now? She owns and runs Paizo.
> And she attributes the failure of TSR to spilling the audience via Basic and Advanced and Campaign settings and side RPGs (Marvel, Buck Rogers, SAGA, etc).



I get to link one of my favorite Lisa Stevens posts twice in one day! Here you go: Lisa totally agrees with Jester Canuck.

Cheers!
Kinak


----------



## Jester David

Neonchameleon said:


> Indeed.  They do what they do well.  This is not a problem.  It just isn't anything close to the whole hobby - it's a single approach.



The idea if anything more than a single approach is new. You can't fault Paizo for this anymore than you can fault WotC for 4e's single approach.



Neonchameleon said:


> Um... You might want to look at the thread title then - it's about being a steward of the whole hobby as opposed to one relatively large part.  And you might want to check your history.  In the late 90s (98 onwards) Wizards had Pokemon.  They also had other games like Roborally and Everway (not that that RPG did terribly well).  In the late 70s TSR had Gamma World and Boot Hill as alternative RPGs.



The point was that OD&D, 3e, and 4e were designed by people who hadn't designed a full game before. 



Neonchameleon said:


> D&D fans who did like 3e but wanted to try something else.  Friendly Local Gaming Shops through the Encounters program* (as well as the more intensive organised play)* to draw people in.  People who preferred gamism to simulationism _whether or not they liked D&D._



The Pathfinder Society is one of the largest if not largest OP programs at present.


----------



## Hussar

Jester Canuck said:
			
		

> The Pathfinder Society is one of the largest if not largest OP programs.
> 
> Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...ter-Steward-for-Our-Hobby/page8#ixzz2kUrUGCfO




Cite please.  Where is the evidence for this.  I know, at one time, the RPGA was running in the 100-150 000 members range, but, my data is way out of date.  I have no idea how many play in OP programs anymore.  I'd be curious to see what people are playing.


----------



## Tequila Sunrise

billd91 said:


> Maybe a closer look at the first post is in order. The question really was about Paizo being the steward of D&D, not the whole gaming hobby.



To clarify, I shouldn't have mentioned Paizo at all, because I really don't care one way or the other about it, and all it's done is sidetrack the discussion. (I was simply miming the sentiments I've seen to the effect of "Paizo is such a great company, wouldn't it be peaches and cream if they owned D&D!") I added those two edits to the OP in a further effort to generalize Paizo into 'your ideal game company.' (Not some Messiah of game companies; just the best one you can think of within the confines of practicality.) Obviously, my efforts failed. 

As to Steward of D&D vs. Steward of the Industry, I left that intentionally vague. Likewise, I use 'steward' simply because I've seen it used by others; I honestly don't know whether I know what it means in the context of gaming. My interest in this topic is merely whether others think that some hypothetical idealized game company would make us generally happier in the long run, or if such a company would end up as everything that we hate about WotC.

Now, by all means, carry on.


----------



## Jester David

Hussar said:


> Cite please.  Where is the evidence for this.  I know, at one time, the RPGA was running in the 100-150 000 members range, but, my data is way out of date.  I have no idea how many play in OP programs anymore.  I'd be curious to see what people are playing.



Sorry, my bad, I missed the word "current". They're hoping to hit 100,000 players by the end of the year/early 2014. Not quite Living City/Living Greyhawk numbers but they haven't gone international to the same extent. But better than LFR.


----------



## GreyLord

Neonchameleon said:


> Anyone who gives a damn about balance for starters.  Or wants anything other than a tweaked 3.5 experience.  Which makes sense because their initial advertising campaign was "3.5 Thrives" - i.e. "We will give you more of the same".  They set themselves up in opposition to the changes made by 4e.
> 
> I don't blame them for this.  They had the opportunity to take and they took it spectacularly successfully.  And appealing to those who didn't want certain things was part of that.  They built their foundations on the edition war.  And as I say, good luck to them and they did well out of it.  I certainly don't begrudge people enjoying their game.
> 
> And other than a shopfront they've given nothing in their ruleset to anyone who likes rules to encourage roleplaying, narrativist style.  There's another chunk they haven't supported.  And I know of nothing they've really done for the OSR.
> 
> The core fact is Paizo only have a single game, and it's a game that was developed by employees of Wizards of the Coast in the late 90s and tweaked in the early 00s.  The _only_ people they support with their games are those who like that game with minor modifications.
> 
> Who exactly do you think other than 3.5/PF fans do you think they _have_ been supporting?  Other than by providing a shopfront? (And if that's important, turn everything over to Drivethru - after all they sell all editions of D&D _and_​ Pathfinder)




Believe it or not NeonChameleon, I see your point and I am not disagreeing specifically on questioning whether they would be good stewards over ALL of D&D (inclusive of OD&D, B/X, BECMI/ AD&D and 2e) or not, as I don't know, I am unsure.

The shopfront is ALL they can do in many instances because LEGALLY, if they promote AD&D or other older D&D like you want to see, they may GET SUED.  That's a pretty big deterent...don't you think.

However, ON THEIR FRONT PAGE, AT THE VERY TOP, Paizo regularly advertises.  Half the time it is for something for Pathfinder, HOWEVER, OTHER TIMES, IT IS FOR SOMEONE ELSE'S WORK OR GAME that they are advertising.  

Now, with OSRIC, the final document that I got, I actually got from Paizo.  It was NOT from a front page ad, but more directed there by the Paizo staff and conversations with a friend.  The friend was interested in it from something they saw on Paizo, downloaded it, and then printed it out and we went over the document with each other to determine whether he would run it or not.

Now my preference is simply to run 1e, since that's what I already own.  That's what we ended up running, but that was MY influence.  If it was from Paizo, it would have probably been OSRIC, which by the way, is part of the entire OSR movement.  

In a nutshell, I'm not disagreeing whether Paizo would or would not be good stewards over the entire namesake of D&D other than to say...they may be, or might not be.  I am unsure.  However, the idea that they don't support other games or writers or game writers or game systems, I feel is flawed.

They CREATE specifically for their system, and that's what you are pointing out.  They have limited resources.  They have something that sells.  Rather than divide those resources and have more costs vs. profit, they decide to create specifically for the product they already have.  That's more of a business situation rather than anything dealing with what they'd desire to do.  We know that they DO promote, and even sell, other 3rd party products.  That's a hopeful sign.

On the otherhand, they have focused all their efforts on their primary product for what they themselves produce (though they do have an open call in regards to freelance work and you or others creating gaming items [as long as you have the proper rights to do so] in order for them to sell that type of gaming material on their storefront) in regards to money and profit.

So, I don't know whether they would be better stewards over D&D or not.  I see your point, and in fact am not going to say that Paizo would be better for D&D or not, as I don't know.  I think they'd be great for the D20 versions, but for anything before that, it's a LARGE question mark.

However, I think when asking and analyzing, one should look at what is already being done by Paizo and give them proper evaluations rather than simply writing it off.


----------



## GreyLord

Kinak said:


> I'm curious where people are getting this idea that it's easier to update someone else's game than it is to make your own game.
> 
> I mean, it's one of those things that seems like common sense, but isn't true at all in my experience. Do other people's experiences differ or are we just running on assumptions?
> 
> I get to link one of my favorite Lisa Stevens posts twice in one day! Here you go: Lisa totally agrees with Jester Canuck.
> 
> Cheers!
> Kinak




I disagree with Lisa, and as opposed to popular knowledge, Lisa and Mr. Dancey are NOT THE ONLY ONES that have seen the balance sheets.

I haven't seen all the account and amounts, but I have seen some.  It wasn't the split of the Basic and AD&D line, and such a supposition is the idea of fantasy.  In fact, if you look (okay, you can't), or if you use logic, the Basic game for BECMI was at one point, THE set that brought people into the game.  It actually propped up sales of the other line (Which is what I also suppose Paizo itself was doing when it created the Beginner Box which also indicates they learned something and perhaps are using that knowledge for Paizo's benefit).

That may go contrary to what she stated, but that's the facts.

I think what she intended to say (and maybe not, but then she probably was lying through everything and anything) was that the line got split into many different fragments.  That is to say, instead of simply having Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms, they had Birthright, The Old World, Birthright, Spelljammer, Al Qadim, Maztica, Dragon Dice, The collectible card game, and more.  This splintered the support for the lines to the point of dilution (at least for some of those lines, others made money...it's the ones that DID NOT but were still supported that she's discussing) where the money put in did not equal the money that came out of the investment.  TSR continued on that line to such a degree that it really wouldn't make sense.

Perhaps the later sets of the D&D introductory sets were meant to be loss leaders, but only were losses, but up until the early 90s...I would say she's wrong in her statements of the division of D&D and AD&D.

Now LATER...I can see her point, but then it really isn't the D&D/AD&D split at all, it's more the dilution of the specific games they are supporting (dozens of campaign settings, several failing game settings they continued to support such as the SAGA, card game, and dragon dice), and other items that were so diluted that they not only did not generate profit, every product produced generated negative income.

So, I could be wrong, but I think she was commenting more on the end of the TSR time, when just about all the dilution affected every product, rather then earlier, because, even without being able to provide profit sheets, I think ANYONE with any iota of common sense can see the parallels between the Basic game (and it was more the basic game as an intro than any of the later sets such as the Expert, Companion, or Masters set) and AD&D and how the D&D game actually contributed and supported the AD&D line. 

In fact, I'd even call Paizo in Poker and point out it is this example that specifically paved the way for the Beginner Box, because they KNEW that there was a direct parallel between the Basic Box and the AD&D game.

IMO of course.

It could be they just made the Basic Box because they thought it was a bad idea...and were catering to fans (though that in and of itself is sort of counter intuitive, catering to people who already are playing your game with a set meant to introduce them to your game isn't exactly perfect business sense...but hey, they ARE the current leaders according to some lists).

Personally, I think a LOT of their rise recently has been doublesided, one from their increase in their sales for Pathfinder via creations of new lines such as campaign and companion books, with the second being the BB being utilized for exactly what it was meant to do...bring new blood into Pathfinder and make it an easy transition.

I know that's exactly how they hooked, line, and sinkered me in.  It was with the beginner box and friends who played PF.


----------



## GreyLord

Tequila Sunrise said:


> To clarify, I shouldn't have mentioned Paizo at all, because I really don't care one way or the other about it, and all it's done is sidetrack the discussion. (I was simply miming the sentiments I've seen to the effect of "Paizo is such a great company, wouldn't it be peaches and cream if they owned D&D!") I added those two edits to the OP in a further effort to generalize Paizo into 'your ideal game company.' (Not some Messiah of game companies; just the best one you can think of within the confines of practicality.) Obviously, my efforts failed.
> 
> As to Steward of D&D vs. Steward of the Industry, I left that intentionally vague. Likewise, I use 'steward' simply because I've seen it used by others; I honestly don't know whether I know what it means in the context of gaming. My interest in this topic is merely whether others think that some hypothetical idealized game company would make us generally happier in the long run, or if such a company would end up as everything that we hate about WotC.
> 
> Now, by all means, carry on.




If we get serious, right now I'm happy with Paizo doing Pathfinder and what they are doing.  I think they are doing a nigh perfect job with what they have.

Leave D&D to Hasbro.

Give Pathfinder enough time and Paizo may become the default leaders of the hobby for a while...who knows, however I'd rather Paizo do it on the back of PF where I think they have a more free hand, than with the weight of D&D on their shoulders.


----------



## Jester David

Neonchameleon;6217820And I hardly think that the RPG arm of Wizards is perfect (M:tG has the better designers).  Given my choice I'd go with [URL="http://www.pelgranepress.com/" said:
			
		

> Pelgrane[/URL] (13th Age, Hillfolk, Gumshoe, more) or possibly Burning Wheel/Luke Crane if I wanted one person as opposed to a company.  Or possibly Cubicle 7 if I wanted a caretaking and filtering role - but they aren't up to the job yet.



I didn't want to comment on this earlier because, well, I had nothing to say. 
But after seeing the front page of ENWorld and Cubicle 7's latest Kickstarter it occurs to me that we might want to entrust the future of the hobby to a company whose successful product delivery is not tied to crowd-sourcing. When Kickstarter inevitably explodes and there's a big enough scandal it would really hurt the industry. 
Just a thought.


----------



## Jester David

GreyLord said:


> I disagree with Lisa, and as opposed to popular knowledge, Lisa and Mr. Dancey are NOT THE ONLY ONES that have seen the balance sheets.



Well... Mrs. Stevens isn't just someone who saw the balance sheets, she combined them. She was the one that pulled together the figures. Dancey knows because he tasked her with finding out.



GreyLord said:


> I haven't seen all the account and amounts, but I have seen some.  It wasn't the split of the Basic and AD&D line, and such a supposition is the idea of fantasy.  In fact, if you look (okay, you can't), or if you use logic, the Basic game for BECMI was at one point, THE set that brought people into the game.  It actually propped up sales of the other line (Which is what I also suppose Paizo itself was doing when it created the Beginner Box which also indicates they learned something and perhaps are using that knowledge for Paizo's benefit).
> 
> That may go contrary to what she stated, but that's the facts.



Possible. But the counter argument is if people hadn't been buying Basic they would have been buying the PHB and the other line wouldn't have need propping up. Or, as Paizo is doing, the Basic set could have been compatible with all the other products and fuelled sales of AD&D. 

The fact that Basic and AD&D survived for so long while competing against each other is really a testament to the popularity of D&D during the '80s. 



GreyLord said:


> I think what she intended to say (and maybe not, but then she probably was lying through everything and anything) was that the line got split into many different fragments.  That is to say, instead of simply having Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms, they had Birthright, The Old World, Birthright, Spelljammer, Al Qadim, Maztica, Dragon Dice, The collectible card game, and more.  This splintered the support for the lines to the point of dilution (at least for some of those lines, others made money...it's the ones that DID NOT but were still supported that she's discussing) where the money put in did not equal the money that came out of the investment.  TSR continued on that line to such a degree that it really wouldn't make sense.
> 
> Perhaps the later sets of the D&D introductory sets were meant to be loss leaders, but only were losses, but up until the early 90s...I would say she's wrong in her statements of the division of D&D and AD&D.
> 
> Now LATER...I can see her point, but then it really isn't the D&D/AD&D split at all, it's more the dilution of the specific games they are supporting (dozens of campaign settings, several failing game settings they continued to support such as the SAGA, card game, and dragon dice), and other items that were so diluted that they not only did not generate profit, every product produced generated negative income.
> 
> So, I could be wrong, but I think she was commenting more on the end of the TSR time, when just about all the dilution affected every product, rather then earlier, because, even without being able to provide profit sheets, I think ANYONE with any iota of common sense can see the parallels between the Basic game (and it was more the basic game as an intro than any of the later sets such as the Expert, Companion, or Masters set) and AD&D and how the D&D game actually contributed and supported the AD&D line.



I doubt she had access to the figures as far back as the early '80s and agree that she was likely only looking at the late TSR era when it was dying. But she's said pretty plainly that it was the result of fragmentation in the D&D brand with Basic and AD&D being increasingly incompatible, but also the settings being incompatible as Greyhawk fans were not buying Dark Sun or Forgotten Realms products. This alone really killed D&D but it was accelerated by mispriced boxed sets, bad investments (Dragon Dice, Spellfire), and side games (SAGA)

She goes into it quite often in her regular Auntie Lisa's Story Hour at GenCon (and now PaizoCon). The past 2 or 3 years can be heard on the 3.5 Private Sanctuary podcast. 

I imagine if Basic and AD&D hadn't drifted so far apart it might have been easier. If there wasn't the Basic campaign setting and the AD&D campaign settings for example. Or if monsters were compatible. Or, during second edition, if things like kits or many accessories had a shared audience. 



GreyLord said:


> In fact, I'd even call Paizo in Poker and point out it is this example that specifically paved the way for the Beginner Box, because they KNEW that there was a direct parallel between the Basic Box and the AD&D game.



In an interview I heard a Paizo staff member going into the details of how they made the Beginner Box affordable. They were sneaky and did things like only using recycled art and having it written by staff rather than freelancers so they didn't need to pay them (as they were salaried). They worked hard to get it into Big Box stores so they could have a larger print run.  

They knew the starter box was important for bringing new people into the game. That's why they worked so hard to make one and adjust the presentation. Because they knew how many people were introduced to D&D via the Red Box. And, as the industry leader, it was their job to introduce people into the hobby. (They often said that exactly. Not just the game, but the hobby. They truly felt it was their responsibility.) 

But they also didn't want to make a second Pathfinder line that sucks sales away from the Core Rulebook. They didn't want to make a Basic Bestiary when people could just buy any of their other Bestiary books. 



GreyLord said:


> It could be they just made the Basic Box because they thought it was a bad idea...and were catering to fans (though that in and of itself is sort of counter intuitive, catering to people who already are playing your game with a set meant to introduce them to your game isn't exactly perfect business sense...but hey, they ARE the current leaders according to some lists).



As said, they really view it as their responsibility to make it easy on new players to start the game. They can't make a new version of the Core Rulebook (although I wish they would) they are doing what they can. And while they're not making a Beginner Box 2 or Pathfinder Basic, they are doing products like the Strategy Guide.


----------



## pemerton

Neonchameleon said:


> Given my choice I'd go with Pelgrane (13th Age, Hillfolk, Gumshoe, more) or possibly Burning Wheel/Luke Crane if I wanted one person as opposed to a company.



I couldn't XP the Luke Crane endorsement, but I think he'd make a good custodian of fantasy RPGing.


----------



## GreyLord

Well, in regards to the Red Box, many of those who were introduced WOULD NOT have gotten the PHB.  I think that's a flub and a mistake that many make.  Introductory products are wonderful specifically because they draw in those who would not be drawn in otherwise.  IT is most definite that the Red Box brought many into the D&D fold and to AD&D who would not have been brought in without it.

I think a similar modern idea would be the Playstation 3 and Blu-Rays.  While you could try to claim that those who got a PS3 and then started buying blu-rays would have gotten blu-rays anyways, that's not necessarily true.  It was because they had the PS3 that they got the Blu-rays, but they would not necessarily have gotten blu-rays if the ability to play them was not already available on the PS3 they already had.

Not the best example, but I'm hardpressed to think of examples at this time of the night that would do justice to how successful the Red Box was in introducing people to D&D, and thence to AD&D.

IF she only saw the late figures right around when TSR was going bankrupt...Perhaps she has a good point.  Then, I don't think D&D as such was really a prominent item at that point anyways, in sales or figures.  It was more prominent earlier in the decade and in the 80s I think (that's an opinion on my part).  During it's hey day though, D&D and AD&D really sort of fed each other...sort of like Popcorn and Movies (theaters) help each other out.


----------



## JamesonCourage

pemerton said:


> I couldn't XP the Luke Crane endorsement, but I think he'd make a good custodian of fantasy RPGing.



Based on some of the few quotes from him I've read, there are much worse choices. He seems capable of appreciating systems for what they strive for. I think his views can be a little narrow (if I'm remembering what I read correctly), but all told, there would be much worse individuals.


----------



## delericho

The thing is, though, that you don't need the Basic/Advanced split to have an introductory product - it would have been entirely possible to do an "AD&D Red Box", and there was certainly no need to have the "Red Box" and then the Blue, Green, and Black boxes as well.

The reason TSR maintained the Basic/Advanced split was due to the fallout of the Gygax/Arneson split - Gygax maintained that Arneson wasn't due royalties for AD&D because it was a separate game from D&D, and TSR maintained the two lines separately to prove it. It was only when WotC bought TSR and made rapprochement with Arneson that the split ceased to be necessary, and the game became just D&D again.


----------



## Kinak

GreyLord said:


> I disagree with Lisa, and as opposed to popular knowledge, Lisa and Mr. Dancey are NOT THE ONLY ONES that have seen the balance sheets.



I wouldn't expect they were the only ones. I mean, everyone needs accountants, to say nothing of other managers.

I'm not one of those people, though, so I really appreciate you sharing what you did see.



GreyLord said:


> So, I could be wrong, but I think she was commenting more on the end of the TSR time, when just about all the dilution affected every product, rather then earlier, because, even without being able to provide profit sheets, I think ANYONE with any iota of common sense can see the parallels between the Basic game (and it was more the basic game as an intro than any of the later sets such as the Expert, Companion, or Masters set) and AD&D and how the D&D game actually contributed and supported the AD&D line.



I don't think she's arguing there shouldn't have been a Beginner's Box. From what I've heard her say, she's actually very proud of it.

The statement she's making there is more about why they're not going to expand the Beginner's Box into a whole product line that competes with the main Pathfinder line. They want it just to be that gateway.

So I'm not sure if there's actually any disagreement, unless you think making Beginner's Box 2 or a line of BB-specific supplements would be good for Paizo.



GreyLord said:


> I know that's exactly how they hooked, line, and sinkered me in.  It was with the beginner box and friends who played PF.



Welcome aboard 

Cheers!
Kinak


----------



## N'raac

Neonchameleon said:


> And other than a shopfront they've given nothing in their ruleset to anyone who likes rules to encourage roleplaying, narrativist style. There's another chunk they haven't supported. And I know of nothing they've really done for the OSR.
> 
> The core fact is Paizo only have a single game, and it's a game that was developed by employees of Wizards of the Coast in the late 90s and tweaked in the early 00s. The _only_ people they support with their games are those who like that game with minor modifications.
> 
> Who exactly do you think other than 3.5/PF fans do you think they _have_ been supporting? Other than by providing a shopfront? (And if that's important, turn everything over to Drivethru - after all they sell all editions of D&D _and_​ Pathfinder)




first, I'd like to get a definition of "supporting".  Clearly, it's not just "making the product available for purchase", which Paizo is clearly doing.  I suggest it requires actively producing new material (rules, updates, upgrades, settings, adventures, whatever) for the game on a regular basis.  I agree Paizo supports only one game, by that definition.  Which companies support more games?  Which games are actually supported at present?

I will add two further qualifications for "support".  The product must be physical (online .pdf only does not count) and it must be distributed to brick & mortar stores,  not just made available for online purchase.  Why?  Because an online only approach caters to only existing games who are already interested in the product.

Finally, the "steward" must make active efforts to bring new blood to the hobby.  That adds two further requirements, a focus on an "entry level" product such as the Basic Box, and actively working to get that product on the shelf at conventional retail stores, not gaming stores, where it will be seen and, hopefully, purchased by non-gamers.  

VERY few companies can claim that level of stewardship.



Neonchameleon said:


> Hmm... Let's see. What can you buy things for from WotC at the moment?
> 
> Rules Cyclopaedia D&D (And oD&D - not sure if this is in hardcopy)
> AD&D 1e
> AD&D 2e (not sure this should be separate from 1e ruleswise)
> D&D 3.5 (oddly not 3.0)
> D&D 4e
> Gamma World (Or possibly that's just warehouse copies)




Are these supported (ie new products) or just offered for sale?  I don't think the "Steward of the Hobby" simply reprints old products, nor is that "supporting the game".  



Neonchameleon said:


> Right now Paizo is a narrow company focussing on one game and one playstyle. That's great for them but the only people who want Paizo in charge so far as I can tell are those that happen to like that playstyle. I want a company that does do more than one thing.




Many comments on this thread have cited the need for a company that loves the product.  Will one company love all playstyles, or is the hobby better off with designers who focus on the kind of game they themselves are passionate about?  What designer, or company, produces and supports games that cater to every playstyle across every major genre (fantasy, science fiction, horror, action/adventure, super heroes, westerns, cyberpunk and I have doubtless missed several)?



delericho said:


> The thing is, though, that you don't need the Basic/Advanced split to have an introductory product - it would have been entirely possible to do an "AD&D Red Box", and there was certainly no need to have the "Red Box" and then the Blue, Green, and Black boxes as well.




Exactly.  An entry level product can stimulate sales of the more advanced line.  A separate game system splits the market.


----------



## Wicht

Neonchameleon said:


> Indeed.  They do what they do well.  This is not a problem.  It just isn't anything close to the whole hobby - it's a single approach.




You are still contentiously saying things that either don't mesh with reality or are so broad as to be meaningless.  

If you mean that Paizo as a company is not selling to every gamer out there, I suppose that you are likely right. However, WotC is most certainly not selling to every gamer out there either, and made a decision with 4e to purposefully cut off a segment of the base in an effort of increasing their brand. They failed to achieve their goal. So if this is a valid area of concern, there is *no *such company selling to everyone. Now, on the other hand, I will point out, and I made this observation publically several times a few years back, that it struck me that while WotC was selling gaming products to primarily the 4e crowd, Paizo was selling products that appealed to both the 3e and the 4e crowd with their map-packs, stories, and the like. That is, there were more, it seemed to me, 4e players utilizing Pathfinder material than there was Pathfinder players utilizing 4e material. I think this is part of WotC problem with 4e, the appeal of the material was far narrower than the appeal of the Pathfinder material in the sensibilities being served.

If you mean that Paizo does not make products for other parts of the gaming hobby (miniatures, board games, card games, etc.), then you are just factually wrong.


----------



## Wicht

As for stewards of the hobby, let me just put in my 2 cents. 

The "steward" of the hobby is going to be the company or companies who, through the market, successfully capture the imagination of the customer base and, by virtue of their success, keep the hobby going. 

WotC was, at one time, the undisputed steward of the hobby. Personally, I think they flubbed it in a rather big way. But the market answered and others (one of which was Paizo) moved in to help keep things going in a rather big way. The rpg gaming community is not dying. But we do not currently have a single "steward." We have two primary companies vying for market leadership and both are, in their own way, "stewards." This encourages me, because it means the gaming hobby is healthier than to require a single steward or company to keep it going and there are some talented people out there who love the hobby, love the history of the game(s), and who have the wherewithal to put out good products. 

I'm not sure I want a single "steward" of the hobby.  I think it far better for a robust market to, through competition, continue to promote excellence in gaming.

Now, on the other hand, I will like it better when the older dungeons and dragons products become public domain, and, if WotC wanted to really show their appreciation for the history and legacy of the game, in my opinion, they would take more steps to preserve the classic modules and make them available once more to the public. Though their recent return to selling them as PDFs was a very encouraging sign.


----------



## delericho

Wicht said:


> Now, on the other hand, I will point out, and I made this observation publically several times a few years back, that it struck me that while WotC was selling gaming products to primarily the 4e crowd, Paizo was selling products that appealed to both the 3e and the 4e crowd with their map-packs, stories, and the like. That is, there were more, it seemed to me, 4e players utilizing Pathfinder material than there was Pathfinder players utilizing 4e material.




I think that's a little unfair - WotC were also selling dungeon tiles, miniatures, and the like that could be used by players of any edition. They had more of some things (minis) and less of others (map packs) than did Paizo, but they both had both. And WotC aren't responsible if the market chooses to use the Paizo 'generics' and not the WotC ones.


----------



## Wicht

delericho said:


> I think that's a little unfair - WotC were also selling dungeon tiles, miniatures, and the like that could be used by players of any edition. They had more of some things (minis) and less of others (map packs) than did Paizo, but they both had both. And WotC aren't responsible if the market chooses to use the Paizo 'generics' and not the WotC ones.




By "stories" I meant the Adventure Path stories and modules. There was no reporting of any Pathfinder player using 4e modules. There was whole conversions of the adventure paths. 

I concede the dungeon tiles, though WotC dropped the minis, and the crossover was always anecdotally favoring Paizo in this regard. But point taken.


----------



## delericho

Wicht said:


> By "stories" I meant the adventure Path stories and modules. There was no reporting of any Pathfinder player using 4e modules. There was whole conversions of the adventure paths.




Ah, I see. I thought you were instead referring to the fiction lines. Given your clarification, you're right.


----------



## Umbran

billd91 said:


> Maybe a closer look at the first post is in order. The question really was about Paizo being the steward of D&D, not the whole gaming hobby.




The thread title and the body of the post are at odds on that.  

If you look closely, the question in the body of the post was about Paizo _*or the company of your choice*_ having D&D _*or whatever ruleset you, personally, feel is perfect*_.

So, I think it is okay for folks to be answering a number of different questions in here - thought we do need to make some effort to keep them straight.


----------



## Neonchameleon

Wicht said:


> You are still contentiously saying things that either don't mesh with reality or are so broad as to be meaningless.
> 
> If you mean that Paizo as a company is not selling to every gamer out there, I suppose that you are likely right.




I mean that Paizo are notably not even vaguely making the effort to make Pathfinder even as broad a tent as 3.5 was.

To illustrate, we can use Ultimate Combat as an example.  Pathfinder is a game about super-powered wizards and their mundane warrior sidekicks with magic items I'm afraid.  Ultimate Combat (as opposed to Ultimate Magic) is where the mundanes were meant to shine.  Which meant that there were three approaches that could be taken.  There were three possible paths here.  The ordinary would have been to look to Complete Warrior for inspiration and have big feats with multiple useful effects to spice up combat like Shock Trooper and the other tactical feats.  The daring would have been to look to the Book of Nine Swords (and in particular Iron Heart) for inspiration, to borrow a few pages out of 4e, and to give the non-mages big if realistic things to do.  The doubling down on Pathfinder thing to do would be to avoid the Book of Weaboo Fitan Magic like the plague, go with relatively uninspired feats and a lot more support for spellcasters who get into combat.

It should surprise no one that Ultimate Combat has around half as many spells as Ultimate Magic.  Even the book that's meant to be about combat is significantly devoted to the already existing and very well supported spellcasters.

This is what I mean about other styles.  I could say the same about Pathfinder's Mythic Adventures and what it notably doesn't do.  Whenever Pathfinder has had the opportunity to either broaden or double down on what it already does, neglecting those it doesn't cover it has doubled down.  4e on the other hand did broaden - we got the simple fighters who just hit things thank goodness.  The Thief is an absolute gem of a class that would be more at home in AD&D than any version of D&D since.



> However, WotC is most certainly not selling to every gamer out there either, and made a decision with 4e to purposefully cut off a segment of the base in an effort of increasing their brand.




I'm pretty sure it wasn't deliberate.



> Now, on the other hand, I will point out, and I made this observation publically several times a few years back, that it struck me that while WotC was selling gaming products to primarily the 4e crowd, Paizo was selling products that appealed to both the 3e and the 4e crowd with their map-packs, stories, and the like.




And Wizards were selling minatures and dungeon tiles aimed at both groups.  Paizo have done well with both I agree.



Wicht said:


> I'm not sure I want a single "steward" of the hobby.  I think it far better for a robust market to, through competition, continue to promote excellence in gaming.




Agreed


----------



## Herschel

delericho said:


> I think that's a little unfair - WotC were also selling dungeon tiles, miniatures, and the like that could be used by players of any edition. They had more of some things (minis) and less of others (map packs) than did Paizo, but they both had both. And WotC aren't responsible if the market chooses to use the Paizo 'generics' and not the WotC ones.




It's also worth noting that the Paizo-licensed minis are pretty much garbage materially and much more expensive than the WotC ones. It makes for a weird comparison.

It's too bad, because I like a lot of them aesthetically.


----------



## billd91

Neonchameleon said:


> I mean that Paizo are notably not even vaguely making the effort to make Pathfinder even as broad a tent as 3.5 was.
> 
> To illustrate, we can use Ultimate Combat as an example.  Pathfinder is a game about super-powered wizards and their mundane warrior sidekicks with magic items I'm afraid.  Ultimate Combat (as opposed to Ultimate Magic) is where the mundanes were meant to shine.  Which meant that there were three approaches that could be taken.  There were three possible paths here.  The ordinary would have been to look to Complete Warrior for inspiration and have big feats with multiple useful effects to spice up combat like Shock Trooper and the other tactical feats.  The daring would have been to look to the Book of Nine Swords (and in particular Iron Heart) for inspiration, to borrow a few pages out of 4e, and to give the non-mages big if realistic things to do.  The doubling down on Pathfinder thing to do would be to avoid the Book of Weaboo Fitan Magic like the plague, go with relatively uninspired feats and a lot more support for spellcasters who get into combat.
> 
> 
> It should surprise no one that Ultimate Combat has around half as many spells as Ultimate Magic. Even the book that's meant to be about combat is significantly devoted to the already existing and very well supported spellcasters.




I think a lot of people are going to have to disagree with your point of view which just further illustrates how separated segments of the market really are on their approach to the game. That last segment I included in the excerpt from your post, I think, indicates this particularly well. 

From my viewpoint, inclusion of new combat options, and classes are best presented with the spells that fit them into an overall game context. After all, classes like the gunslinger shouldn't appear without spells to improve their abilities or counter them since the class wouldn't appear without a context in the game. There should also be support for classes who bridge the martial and spellcaster divide either by being in a class that does that inherently or because they wanted to multiclass.


----------



## TwoSix

billd91 said:


> From my viewpoint, inclusion of new combat options, and classes are best presented with the spells that fit them into an overall game context. After all, classes like the gunslinger shouldn't appear without spells to improve their abilities or counter them since the class wouldn't appear without a context in the game. There should also be support for classes who bridge the martial and spellcaster divide either by being in a class that does that inherently or because they wanted to multiclass.



Well, I think part of the problem is that Pathfinder (and also 3.5) don't support that many classes with no spells whatsoever.  You have the Fighter, the Rogue, the Barbarian, the Cavalier, and the Gunslinger out of the 19 base classes currently in the game.  So even to support some of the more combat-oriented classes like the Paladin or Ranger, you need to add more spells into the game.


----------



## Wicht

Herschel said:


> It's also worth noting that the Paizo-licensed minis are pretty much garbage materially and much more expensive than the WotC ones.




I assume you mean the wiz-kids minis.  Paizo also licenses to Reaper and there are unpainted paizo minis available as both metal and bones material.  But I personally have never had any problem with the wiz-kids minis. Their quality is at least on par with the WotC plastics as far as I can tell, and in some cases they appear superior. ymmv


----------



## Wicht

Neonchameleon said:


> I mean that Paizo are notably not even vaguely making the effort to make Pathfinder even as broad a tent as 3.5 was.




I'm not sure how you arrive at that conclusion.


----------



## Neonchameleon

billd91 said:


> I think a lot of people are going to have to disagree with your point of view which just further illustrates how separated segments of the market really are on their approach to the game. That last segment I included in the excerpt from your post, I think, indicates this particularly well.
> 
> From my viewpoint, inclusion of new combat options, and classes are best presented with the spells that fit them into an overall game context. After all, classes like the gunslinger shouldn't appear without spells to improve their abilities or counter them since the class wouldn't appear without a context in the game. There should also be support for classes who bridge the martial and spellcaster divide either by being in a class that does that inherently or because they wanted to multiclass.




If Ultimate Combat had included the Magus (credit where it's due, that's a good class) I wouldn't be having this problem to the same degree - the Magus' place is definitely arguable.    But there are almost 20 _first level_ sorceror/wizard spells in the book.  Four are gun related (five if you count Jury Rig, six for Air Bubble).  32 second level spells - there's no reason for _Protection from Chaos, Communal_ to be combat as opposed to magic.

And you are making my point.  If we want context, there should be more in Ultimate Combat to support non-casters in beating up casters than there is to support casters being even more awesome than they already were.  This is Pathfinder doubling down on one type of assumption (wizard supremacy) and with the failure to perform of the gunslinger further doubling down on the Fighters Don't Get Nice Things issue of Pathfinder.

Or if we want context your way should the ways to deal with spellcasters without magic be all over Ultimate Magic?  After all we want to put the mages in context.

But that you think further increasing wizard supremacy is the right thing to do for Ultimate Combat is only making my point.  It's a very pathfinder approach that turns many other people off.  And that they do it all over the combat book further indicates that they have no interest in people who don't want magic uber allies.  Limited playstyles supported indeed - your worldbuilding assumptions are whereas mine aren't.  I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with your assumption there, merely _that it is narrow and puts others off_.  There is more than one way to do things, and Pathfinder goes the Pathfinder way rather than trying to broaden the tent where there are obvious opportunities to.


----------



## Imaro

Herschel said:


> It's also worth noting that the Paizo-licensed minis are pretty much garbage materially and much more expensive than the WotC ones. It makes for a weird comparison.
> 
> It's too bad, because I like a lot of them aesthetically.




I don't know about the minis, but I am glad they offered a cheap and readily available alternative with their pawns.


----------



## DaveMage

Minis are licensed - not a Paizo-created product.  (Though they do approve them.)


----------



## Herschel

Wicht said:


> I assume you mean the wiz-kids minis. Paizo also licenses to Reaper and there are unpainted paizo minis available as both metal and bones material. But I personally have never had any problem with the wiz-kids minis. Their quality is at least on par with the WotC plastics as far as I can tell, and in some cases they appear superior. ymmv




Yeah the Paizo/Wiz-Kids plastics are terrible. The plastic is extremely brittle and designed poorly to stand up to use so I stopped buying them. Damage out-of-the-box was ridiculous, never mind table and shoebox durability. 

The metal Reapers were, as one would expect, Reaper quality.


----------



## Cybit

Oy, I regret buying the few PF minis I did - I almost bought a whole case of the Rise of the Runelords miniatures (as I was running a group through it) - glad I did not.  

I want WotC to be the stewards because _we're not screwed if they mess it up_.  They have the resources to try again.  Paizo does not.  In fact, no one else does.  Paizo is a great company, and does a lot of good work (I tend to agree that their mechanics have...issues to put it nicely.  Most PF players just have gotten used to ignoring them completely.  But they do have quite a bit of good ideas, and 3E is favored by players who prefer simulation over balance, so I wonder whether the lack of balance in many cases is a feature, not a bug) on adventures and accessories.  But if they miss the mark on PF 2?  There goes your game.  The industry takes a massive downturn.  

Also, PF is aiming for the "we're already gamers" crowd.  The game is aimed at players who know what they're doing, or are being cajoled by friends & family who already know how to play.  PF is a *terrible* game to give to someone who is completely new to tabletop games.  That core book, while awesome for its' fan base and intended audience, would make any brand new to RPG player go pale.  Even the beginner box is intended to be used by folks who already play TT RPGs to introduce the game to a family member / friend.  

Only a large company like WotC has the ability to take a risk ala Next which goes "OK, we need to start developing the next generation of TT players, and they can't just be the kids of the old players."  I'm not sure PF is really intended to do that.  Nor should they necessarily; they have their market and they should be trying to do what is best for that market.  (Ala, people like me).


----------



## Halivar

Cybit said:


> Also, PF is aiming for the "we're already gamers" crowd.  The game is aimed at players who know what they're doing, or are being cajoled by friends & family who already know how to play.  PF is a *terrible* game to give to someone who is completely new to tabletop games.



As someone who was definitely a WotC partisan in the Great Edition Wars of 2008, I think this statement is demonstrably false. PF has done a good job of crowding out the D&D books at every brick and mortar store I visit. The evocative art on the covers alone draws the eyes more than any of the more decorative WotC covers. The kids don't pick up the WotC books; they pick up the Paizo books. And Paizo is eating WotC's lunch with these kids because they are masters of presentation. THAT is where D&D gets it wrong, and has gotten it wrong, in every incarnation.

EDIT: Let me clarify why the above is so important; yes I think the PF rules inherit all the clunkiness of 3.x... but if a young gamer's imagination is stirred sufficiently by the presentation, they will move heaven and earth to figure it out.

In contrast, 4E was incredibly easy to learn, but it was like reading a dictionary. Who wants to read that? I don't. I only opened the books when I was picking out feats and powers. And the art was definitely lacking. Meanwhile earlier editions? Pathfinder? The books are perfect coffee table books. They beg to be opened and browsed leisurely.


----------



## Cybit

Halivar said:


> As someone who was definitely a WotC partisan in the Great Edition Wars of 2008, I think this statement is demonstrably false. PF has done a good job of crowding out the D&D books at every brick and mortar store I visit. The evocative art on the covers alone draws the eyes more than any of the more decorative WotC covers. The kids don't pick up the WotC books; they pick up the Paizo books. And Paizo is eating WotC's lunch with these kids because they are masters of presentation. THAT is where D&D gets it wrong, and has gotten it wrong, in every incarnation.
> 
> EDIT: Let me clarify why the above is so important; yes I think the PF rules inherit all the clunkiness of 3.x... but if a young gamer's imagination is stirred sufficiently by the presentation, they will move heaven and earth to figure it out.
> 
> In contrast, 4E was incredibly easy to learn, but it was like reading a dictionary. Who wants to read that? I don't. I only opened the books when I was picking out feats and powers. And the art was definitely lacking. Meanwhile earlier editions? Pathfinder? The books are perfect coffee table books. They beg to be opened and browsed leisurely.




YMMV then.  At our local LGS, while PF definitely grabs the eyes, I've seen kids pick the book up, set it down, start trying to read it, go completely cross-eyed, and then put the book back.  In fact, I've never seen anyone under the age 14 *not* do that.  IIRC, the words used in the PFRPG books usually require a HS reading level to get.   

As one of the DMs at the LGS (I do PFS and 4E), the question I most get from parents is "my kid wants to play D&D, is there something simpler than this? <shows PF book>  It's too complicated for me and my kids to figure out."  

That's another aspect; parents have to be comfortable with it.  The art in PF is...graphic to say the least (see: Goblins, arguably the coolest part of PF).  Also, for adults who don't know what a d20 is...PF (and 4E) is a foreign language to them.  Regardless, D20 TT RPGs seem to be at a low in attracting brand new customers.  Unfortunately IPv2 seems to follow the DVD / Movie market when it comes to sales numbers, only relative and not absolute.  

Just my two cents.


----------



## Wicht

Cybit said:


> As one of the DMs at the LGS (I do PFS and 4E), the question I most get from parents is "my kid wants to play D&D, is there something simpler than this? <shows PF book>  It's too complicated for me and my kids to figure out."





That's when you point them to the Beginner's Box.


----------



## Cybit

A) Can't open the beginner box and read through it before they buy it.   

B) Beginner box is deliberately unsupported after level 5 (see the CEO's comments floating around Paizo somewhere as to why; her reasoning is sound and good); players are intended to go straight from the box to full blown Pathfinder.  While it becomes a little easier, the vocabulary barrier is still present.  

The market does seem to be ripe for a d20 game that is easy to pick up and play but hard to master.  The time constraints of the older players (as we have kids, get old, etc etc), and the over-complication of modern rulesets due to the passage of time (as current players will want and deserve more content).

EDIT: Also a game that can be played quickly and episodically in a couple of hours.  While I play both 4E and PF regularly now, my core gaming group is unable to play either as we may get at most, 2.5 hours on a weeknight to do a game.  Neither PF or 4E work well in that short of a time span - PF (like all 3E based games) requires heavy DM prep (you do get super awesome games out of that prep), while 4E becomes a purely combat based game at that time frame.


----------



## Halivar

Cybit said:


> The market does seem to be ripe for a d20 game that is easy to pick up and play but hard to master.



Imagine what 1st Ed would be like without charts.


----------



## Cybit

Halivar said:


> Imagine what 1st Ed would be like without charts.



...5E?


----------



## Halivar

Cybit said:


> ...5E?



That's my greatest hope. I like what I see so far.


----------



## fjw70

Are kids even trying to learn RPGs on their own anymore? The only kids I know that play are only playing with their parents (my kids included). I don't even think my kids would even know what D&D, Pathfinder, etc. were if it weren't for me.


----------



## Wicht

My children (ages 17, 16, 14, and 13) have all played since they were each about 4 or 5. None of them have any difficulty with the Pathfinder Core rule-book. I was reading Gary Gygax's DM's Guide when I was eleven or twelve, so I think the idea that kids can't understand books is overblown. Readers read. Sure not every kid is a reader, but the game is going to appeal more to readers than to non-readers anyway. 

Heh. I find myself asking the kids for rule citations as often as they turn to me anymore. At that age they actually retain the information better than I do at my age.


----------



## Wicht

fjw70 said:


> Are kids even trying to learn RPGs on their own anymore? The only kids I know that play are only playing with their parents (my kids included). I don't even think my kids would even know what D&D, Pathfinder, etc. were if it weren't for me.




It is impossible to know for sure with your own kids after the fact. I think parents are excellent proponents of the hobby with their children and thats a good thing. But at the same time, the new players can't all be the offspring of old players and there are new players out there.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Neonchameleon said:


> And when I point out that this isn't the only skill needed I get accused of sour grapes when my take is the more playstyles supported the better.  Paizo only supports one game and have shown neither inclination nor ability to do more than that so far as I am aware (and there is absolutely no reason they should have to).  And "The steward of our hobby" needs to be trying to help as many as possible - a completely different approach to Paizo's 3.5 Thrives.
> 
> (And I'm not replying to Jason Bulmahn unless he actually says he wants a critique; I'm pretty sure he doesn't here).



See, the problem is that Sour Grapes is precisely what created Pathfinder in the first place.  I was there in the lobby of the hotel at D&D Experience when Jason was on the phone with people back at Paizo after having tried 4e D&D for the first time.  I was just going to grab some food but I recognized him due to my experience with Living Greyhawk and stopped for a second to see what he was up to.  I didn't mean to overhear, but the conversation was pretty much about how he didn't like 4e at all.  I was extremely disappointed as I was a beta tester of 4e, already recruited to be an admin for Living Forgotten Realms, was at the convention running 4e before it even came out for people.  I was really hoping that Jason might be getting back in to help us steward in a new campaign and edition.  I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard and was curious about his whole opinion.

He proceeded to basically say that after one session of 4e, he hated everything about it and had no idea what they should do about that.  I walked away disappointed that the game I was looking forward to was being trashed by someone I looked up to....especially after apparently so little experience with it.  The books weren't even out and he was writing it off.

A couple of days later when Paizo announced that they were creating a whole new game that was based off the rules to 3.5e but with some houserules to fix the problems they had with it...I realized that I might have overheard what was basically the moment that Paizo decided to go ahead with their plans.

It seems to me that the entire impetus for Pathfinder was a snap decision over one bad play experience.  I personally believe that Pathfinder has caused way more damage to the hobby than anything else.  In the past, when a new edition came out there were basically 4 choices: Continue playing with outdated rules out of principle, switch to a new game system, ride the wave of people switching to the new edition while ignoring the stuff about it you didn't like, or stop playing altogether.  Paizo added a 5th option: Continue playing the same edition but with a different name and company with new books coming out.

In the past every option except riding the wave forward was a bad one.  Stick with the same edition and wind up with no one to play with, switch to a lesser popular system and have the same problem, stop playing and you don't get to play at all.  Most people who didn't like 3e still switched to it...because there were no other good options.  And eventually they grew to like it.

The problem with the switch to 4e is that no one had time to get used to it.  Even before the game came out there was the option to bypass it entirely created by a well known company who pretty much said "We hate 4e so much that we can't support it in good conscience."  Which, I believe, led to the situation we have now.

So, in answer to the original question, I believe that Paizo is too intentionally disruptive to be the steward of the hobby.


----------



## Wicht

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I personally believe that Pathfinder has caused way more damage to the hobby than anything else.




Wow.

So not supporting an edition you don't like damages the hobby?  WotC is now synonymous with the hobby?  Consumers shouldn't get to pick which game they prefer?

The gall of Paizo to have the temerity to publish a game other than Dungeons and Dragons (and the gall to be successful with it)!

I'm sorry, but I don't think that not liking the sensibilities of 4e makes one an antigamer.  I get that some people don't like 3e and its offspring, but I would never accuse them of doing the hobby harm by preferring a game other than the one I prefer.


----------



## Cybit

Wicht said:


> Wow.
> 
> So not supporting an edition you don't like damages the hobby?  WotC is now synonymous with the hobby?  Consumers shouldn't get to pick which game they prefer?
> 
> The gall of Paizo to have the temerity to publish a game other than Dungeons and Dragons (and the gall to be successful with it)!
> 
> I'm sorry, but I don't think that not liking the sensibilities of 4e makes one an antigamer.  I get that some people don't like 3e and its offspring, but I would never accuse them of doing the hobby harm by preferring a game other than the one I prefer.




I'm not sure he's saying the people who play PF are causing damage - I think he's saying the splintering of the player base is causing damage.  While 4E most certainly did its' part in this by being such a divergent game from 3E, and created an opening, the splintering of a player base is easily the worst case outcome in such a scenario.  

Mind you, I hold no ill will towards Paizo, as the GSL arguably forced them to go down that route, and they are a business of gamers, they're going to make games that are fun to them and that make money.  Unfortunately it does not seem that PF nor 4E has drawn a new set of gamers to D&D.    

At least I hope that is what he's saying.


----------



## billd91

Majoru Oakheart said:


> It seems to me that the entire impetus for Pathfinder was a snap decision over one bad play experience.  I personally believe that Pathfinder has caused way more damage to the hobby than anything else.  In the past, when a new edition came out there were basically 4 choices: Continue playing with outdated rules out of principle, switch to a new game system, ride the wave of people switching to the new edition while ignoring the stuff about it you didn't like, or stop playing altogether.  Paizo added a 5th option: Continue playing the same edition but with a different name and company with new books coming out.
> 
> In the past every option except riding the wave forward was a bad one.  Stick with the same edition and wind up with no one to play with, switch to a lesser popular system and have the same problem, stop playing and you don't get to play at all.  Most people who didn't like 3e still switched to it...because there were no other good options.  And eventually they grew to like it.
> 
> The problem with the switch to 4e is that no one had time to get used to it.  Even before the game came out there was the option to bypass it entirely created by a well known company who pretty much said "We hate 4e so much that we can't support it in good conscience."  Which, I believe, led to the situation we have now.
> 
> So, in answer to the original question, I believe that Paizo is too intentionally disruptive to be the steward of the hobby.




I think you would be wrong. Paizo put up a few posts on their website asking for the members to comment on what they should do - whether they should go with 4e stuff or do something else. They were, after all, facing a late-coming license (totally WotC's fault) and needed to get product in the pipeline if they were going to support the new product and pay the bills. And this is after they had to face a big shift in their business plan because the Dragon/Dungeon licenses were pulled from them the previous year. I seriously doubt anything about Paizo's approach to 4e was a snap decision based on a first impression... a first impression, I might add, that a lot of the market shares (so even if it was based on a first impression, we seem to have validated the hell out of it by giving PF so much support).

I'd have a hard time calling anything they've done "intentionally disruptive" since it's largely been in reaction to WotC's moves. WotC is interested in farming out the magazines - Paizo forms to pick them up. WotC pulls the licenses for Dragon/Dungeon back in, Paizo is forced to react to survive. WotC puts out a new edition, Paizo reacts by publishing an edition *compatible with the previous edition*. That's disruptive?!? I suppose from WotC's point of view it might be since they were no longer following their lead (and an arrogant viewpoint that would be if WotC held it), but from the point of view of the market at large? I just don't see it.


----------



## gamerprinter

Neonchameleon said:


> I mean that Paizo are notably not even vaguely making the effort to make Pathfinder even as broad a tent as 3.5 was.
> 
> To illustrate, we can use Ultimate Combat as an example.  Pathfinder is a game about super-powered wizards and their mundane warrior sidekicks with magic items I'm afraid.  Ultimate Combat (as opposed to Ultimate Magic) is where the mundanes were meant to shine.  Which meant that there were three approaches that could be taken.  There were three possible paths here.  The ordinary would have been to look to Complete Warrior for inspiration and have big feats with multiple useful effects to spice up combat like Shock Trooper and the other tactical feats.  The daring would have been to look to the Book of Nine Swords (and in particular Iron Heart) for inspiration, to borrow a few pages out of 4e, and to give the non-mages big if realistic things to do.  The doubling down on Pathfinder thing to do would be to avoid the Book of Weaboo Fitan Magic like the plague, go with relatively uninspired feats and a lot more support for spellcasters who get into combat.
> 
> It should surprise no one that Ultimate Combat has around half as many spells as Ultimate Magic.  Even the book that's meant to be about combat is significantly devoted to the already existing and very well supported spellcasters.
> 
> This is what I mean about other styles.  I could say the same about Pathfinder's Mythic Adventures and what it notably doesn't do.  Whenever Pathfinder has had the opportunity to either broaden or double down on what it already does, neglecting those it doesn't cover it has doubled down.  4e on the other hand did broaden - we got the simple fighters who just hit things thank goodness.  The Thief is an absolute gem of a class that would be more at home in AD&D than any version of D&D since.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm pretty sure it wasn't deliberate.
> 
> 
> 
> And Wizards were selling minatures and dungeon tiles aimed at both groups.  Paizo have done well with both I agree.
> 
> 
> 
> Agreed




Interestly I found the Complete Warrior among the worst 3.5 books ever written and feats like Shock Trooper (being multi-use feats) as among the worst feats ever created. Multi-use feats are among the major reasons I cannot stand ToB, nearly all the feats in that book work that way. CW and ToB were banned almost same day the books were in our possession after only a cursory read. I am endless happy Paizo didn't copy those concepts to UC.

I don't think any publisher should be the steward of the hobby - I would only trust a non-commercial organization with no affiliation to any specific system for such a thing.


----------



## TwoSix

Cybit said:


> I'm not sure he's saying the people who play PF are causing damage - I think he's saying the splintering of the player base is causing damage.  While 4E most certainly did its' part in this by being such a divergent game from 3E, and created an opening, the splintering of a player base is easily the worst case outcome in such a scenario.



I think the point is that *for the community* it's better to have one overarching game that's "good enough" for most people to play, rather than 10 games that are each perfect for 10% of the community.  That is, of course, a value statement based on whether you value the overall health of the RPG community (and if you have 5 gamer friends that you like playing with, you might very well not care), and that you feel a community organized around one communally shared game is a healthier one.  A contentious view, but I can see the logic both for and against it.


----------



## gamerprinter

fjw70 said:


> Are kids even trying to learn RPGs on their own anymore? The only kids I know that play are only playing with their parents (my kids included). I don't even think my kids would even know what D&D, Pathfinder, etc. were if it weren't for me.




I bought the Beginner Box for my nephews and ran a single game with them - it's a year later and they have their own group of friends playing weekly. So though it's true they wouldn't have heard of the game if it wasn't for me, but they certainly don't need me to play the game. They are doing that on their own just fine.


----------



## fjw70

gamerprinter said:


> I bought the Beginner Box for my nephews and ran a single game with them - it's a year later and they have their own group of friends playing weekly. So though it's true they wouldn't have heard of the game if it wasn't for me, but they certainly don't need me to play the game. They are doing that on their own just fine.




Despite being a 4e fan I must say that the PFBB is the best basic version of "D&D" is a really long time.  My son did a little DMing for the first time when that box first came out.


----------



## TwoSix

fjw70 said:


> Despite being a 4e fan I must say that the PFBB is the best basic version of "D&D" is a really long time.  My son did a little DMing for the first time when that box first came out.



Yea, it's a shame they didn't do a more simplified version of 4e for kids.  Something like the character sheets this guy did:
http://jamesstowe.blogspot.com/2011/09/dnd-for-8-year-olds.html


----------



## gamerprinter

TwoSix said:


> I think the point is that *for the community* it's better to have one overarching game that's "good enough" for most people to play, rather than 10 games that are each perfect for 10% of the community.  That is, of course, a value statement based on whether you value the overall health of the RPG community (and if you have 5 gamer friends that you like playing with, you might very well not care), and that you feel a community organized around one communally shared game is a healthier one.  A contentious view, but I can see the logic both for and against it.




It might be good for the proverbial "RPG community" for a single over-arching system to prevent fragmentation, I don't think that it is either realistic nor healthy for there to be one-way regarding anything for anyone. It may be true that fragmenting the player base hurts the RPG community overall and may lead to the end of RPGs in the long run - I don't ever want to participate in one way of thinking for anything: politics, religion, gaming, any subject. One game system sounds like monopoly to me, and would rather the community disappear altogether than to cleave to a single system just to prevent the game from becoming extinct.


----------



## Cybit

Anyone noticed we're pretty much stumbling along the same lines of reasoning that probably prompted the creation of the OGL?


----------



## Jester David

Majoru Oakheart said:


> See, the problem is that Sour Grapes is precisely what created Pathfinder in the first place.  I was there in the lobby of the hotel at D&D Experience when Jason was on the phone with people back at Paizo after having tried 4e D&D for the first time.  I was just going to grab some food but I recognized him due to my experience with Living Greyhawk and stopped for a second to see what he was up to.  I didn't mean to overhear, but the conversation was pretty much about how he didn't like 4e at all.  I was extremely disappointed as I was a beta tester of 4e, already recruited to be an admin for Living Forgotten Realms, was at the convention running 4e before it even came out for people.  I was really hoping that Jason might be getting back in to help us steward in a new campaign and edition.  I stopped dead in my tracks when I heard and was curious about his whole opinion.
> 
> He proceeded to basically say that after one session of 4e, he hated everything about it and had no idea what they should do about that.  I walked away disappointed that the game I was looking forward to was being trashed by someone I looked up to....especially after apparently so little experience with it.  The books weren't even out and he was writing it off.
> 
> A couple of days later when Paizo announced that they were creating a whole new game that was based off the rules to 3.5e but with some houserules to fix the problems they had with it...I realized that I might have overheard what was basically the moment that Paizo decided to go ahead with their plans.
> 
> It seems to me that the entire impetus for Pathfinder was a snap decision over one bad play experience.



I don't disagree with this. It is true, from a certain point of view. 

I wouldn't say "snap decision" so much as "forced to make a last minute decision". WotC didn't really leave Paizo much choice, not having the licence ready and not letting them test the game. So instead Paizo had to spend company funds to send someone across _the country_ to play at a convention, all because WotC didn't want to send someone across _town _with the rules and an NDA to get Paizo on board. 
Things might have gone very different had Paizo sent a different staff member, someone whose play style was more in line with 4e. 

Still, it wasn't a decision made in a vacuum. Many of their fans were uncertain of 4e and wanted Paizo to stick with 3e. Again, had WotC done a better job of winning people over there might have been fewer people pushing Paizo to stick with 3e. 



Majoru Oakheart said:


> I personally believe that Pathfinder has caused way more damage to the hobby than anything else.  In the past, when a new edition came out there were basically 4 choices: Continue playing with outdated rules out of principle, switch to a new game system, ride the wave of people switching to the new edition while ignoring the stuff about it you didn't like, or stop playing altogether.  Paizo added a 5th option: Continue playing the same edition but with a different name and company with new books coming out.
> 
> In the past every option except riding the wave forward was a bad one.  Stick with the same edition and wind up with no one to play with, switch to a lesser popular system and have the same problem, stop playing and you don't get to play at all.



I can't say I agree with this. Many, many gamers didn't upgrade from 1e to 2e. While it became harder to find groups it was not impossible. Especially with the internet. And, really, many gamers already had groups so it wasn't a matter of finding players so much as maintaining players.

It's the publisher's job to make people WANT to play their game. They can't just count on people playing because there's no other option. If a game publisher cannot convince people to play than another game publisher will win people over, like White Wolf was doing while TSR was imploding. That's capitalism at work. _Bigby's invisible hand_. Even without another option I think 4e would not have done well. It might have taken longer to collapse but it would have still ended. 



Majoru Oakheart said:


> Most people who didn't like 3e still switched to it...because there were no other good options.  And eventually they grew to like it.
> 
> The problem with the switch to 4e is that no one had time to get used to it.  Even before the game came out there was the option to bypass it entirely created by a well known company who pretty much said "We hate 4e so much that we can't support it in good conscience."  Which, I believe, led to the situation we have now.



Stockholm Syndrom isn't a great way to keep people buying your product.

And 4e had a full year to win people over before Pathfinder was really in stores. The Alpha playtest saw very limited release. And, really, for many 3e players at the time the reaction to Pathfinder could have been summarized as "I already bought the 3e rules twice, why do I want them a third time?" 
And back in 2007, Paizo was not nearly as well known. I was vaguely aware of them as the _Dragon _and _Dungeon _company, but mostly after the news of the licence being lost.
And I don't recall them saying anything like "We hate 4e so much that we can't support it in good conscience." I suppose I could check the archive of their website. 

WotC had every opportunity to win people over to 4e. Instead, people stuck with 3e until they slowly heard about this company that was producing updated 3e products. And they slowly started switching. 
At the end of the day, WotC dropped the ball and was unable to win people over. People like me tried 4e and played for a year but eventually decided I liked 3e more and swapped back.


----------



## Kinak

Majoru Oakheart said:


> See, the problem is that Sour Grapes is precisely what created Pathfinder in the first place.



Seriously, the person you were eavesdropping on has posted in _this thread_. You could ask him what was going on or, if that's awkward, perform some basic googling.

You could find, for instance, his version of the conversation you eavesdropped on:


> I also went to D&D Experience during this  time to check out 4th Edition; after playing the game, and talking to  many of the fans at the show, it became clear to me that we were doing  the right thing for our fans, our world, and the company.




Or the reason he had to go to the D&D Experience to find out about the game:


> Early in 2008, it was becoming apparent that  Paizo was in a bind. We still had not seen 4th Edition (or what would  become the GSL) and we were starting to run into the part of the year  where we were supposed to be working on products for Gen Con. Realizing  that we were running out of time, Lisa called a summit at her house to  discuss our options.




Even if there was nothing else wrong with your statements, the Pathfinder RPG was already under development at the time he played 4e for the first time.

To phrase that a different way: They had to choose whether to support 4th or launch their own RPG _without ever having played 4th_. No one was even sure there would _be_ a GSL, let alone seen it.

But if you want to blame their decision on something that hadn't happened yet, based on a conversation you heard half of, I obviously can't stop you. I'd really rather you didn't, though.

Cheers!
Kinak


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Wicht said:


> So not supporting an edition you don't like damages the hobby?  WotC is now synonymous with the hobby?  Consumers shouldn't get to pick which game they prefer?
> 
> The gall of Paizo to have the temerity to publish a game other than Dungeons and Dragons (and the gall to be successful with it)!
> 
> I'm sorry, but I don't think that not liking the sensibilities of 4e makes one an antigamer.  I get that some people don't like 3e and its offspring, but I would never accuse them of doing the hobby harm by preferring a game other than the one I prefer.



No, disliking 4e doesn't make someone an antigamer.  There were people who hated D&D all along.  They played other games.

My problem wasn't that Paizo published a game.  It's that they published 3.5e D&D...again.  And they published it based on a knee jerk reaction to 4e and an aversion to change.  Aversion to change is a really common human trait.  It rarely does us any good.  However, it's really easy to predict that given the choice to change or stay the same most people will stay the same unless there is a REALLY good reason to change.

So, when 4e came out...the easiest thing for people to do was to stick with what they knew: 3.5e.  But there was a really good reason to switch: No more 3.5e books and the majority of their friends hopping on the 4e bandwagon.  Paizo gave everyone an easy out by making it easy to avoid change: Play their game that was almost identical to 3.5e D&D.

Sure, it was a great strategy for making money.  But it made the community fall apart.  It caused the edition wars to be louder and more angry than they ever would have been without it.

A number of my friends were RIGHT on the edge of playing 4e with us, they had huge doubts about the game because of how different it was but they were willing to give it a try until they heard about Pathfinder.  Then almost all of them decided that it was better to stick with a game system that was more like what they were used to.  A game system that promised it was completely compatible with 3.5e so they didn't even have to buy new books, they could just play characters directly out of the 3.5e PHB(this was later changed, but it was one of the first advertised traits of Pathfinder).  Most of them didn't even try 4e because of that.  They had just "heard bad things" and therefore wouldn't even keep an open mind.  I don't even see half of them anymore because most of the time we spent together was gaming and we no longer play the same games.


----------



## Wicht

Majoru Oakheart said:


> So, when 4e came out...the easiest thing for people to do was to stick with what they knew: 3.5e.  But there was a really good reason to switch: No more 3.5e books and the majority of their friends hopping on the 4e bandwagon.  Paizo gave everyone an easy out by making it easy to avoid change: Play their game that was almost identical to 3.5e D&D.




That's a nice story, but its not actually what happened. Paizo produced Pathfinder and, sure, a percentage of gamers stuck with it, maybe 10-15% of the base at first. But then as time progressed, 4e continued to lose support. We aren't talking people that refused to switch, we are talking about people who switched, didn't like it and then switched over to Pathfinder. The 10-15% grew to about 25-30% and then over about 2 years to 50%.  In the meantime Paizo began to attract _new _players and grow their brand. People,many people did give 4e a try and decided they simply did not like it enough. 

WotC dropped the ball. They were the market leader. It was their ball to drop. Its a bit misguided, imo, to blame anyone else for their poor performance.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Kinak said:


> Even if there was nothing else wrong with your statements, the Pathfinder RPG was already under development at the time he played 4e for the first time.
> 
> To phrase that a different way: They had to choose whether to support 4th or launch their own RPG _without ever having played 4th_. No one was even sure there would _be_ a GSL, let alone seen it.
> 
> But if you want to blame their decision on something that hadn't happened yet, based on a conversation you heard half of, I obviously can't stop you. I'd really rather you didn't, though.



I'm aware of the situation at the time.  There was really no good options for Paizo, I admit.  And WOTC really dropped the ball in letting 3rd party companies in on their plans.  I think they at least partially did this to themselves.  Paizo was one of the most trusted 3rd party companies making D&D products at the time.  If they had given then advanced copies of the rules and maybe even wrote up a preliminary license just for them, I think most of this mess could have been avoided.  They didn't leave Paizo much choice.

Though "Pathfinder" was in development for a while before 4e came out, I'm led to believe by a bunch of comments made at the time that "Pathfinder" as it stood at that time was mostly a set of House Rules that Jason had written up for 3.5e and was using in his home games.  I certainly got the impression that the company was leaning toward supporting 4e when they sent him there.  After all, it was likely that most people would switch to a new edition and developing products to go with the new edition would make money.

However, since they didn't like 4e when they tried it, they simply thought "Great, I'm not going to be playing this new D&D...what am I going to do now?  Well, there's that set of house rules I've been working on to fix 3.5e.  I guess we could publish those and just keep releasing adventures for 3.5e.  Wait, maybe if I spend some extra time thinking about it, we could come up with even more house rules and just release a new PHB with all the bugs fixed.  Let's do that."  Which became Pathfinder.

I certainly don't envy the position they were in and they certainly made the right decision for themselves.  It just had a side effect of causing a larger rift in the community than there would have been without them.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Wicht said:


> That's a nice story, but its not actually what happened. Paizo produced Pathfinder and, sure, a percentage of gamers stuck with it, maybe 10-15% of the base at first. But then as time progressed, 4e continued to lose support. We aren't talking people that refused to switch, we are talking about people who switched, didn't like it and then switched over to Pathfinder. The 10-15% grew to about 25-30% and then over about 2 years to 50%.  In the meantime Paizo began to attract _new _players and grow their brand. People,many people did give 4e a try and decided they simply did not like it enough.
> 
> WotC dropped the ball. They were the market leader. It was their ball to drop. Its a bit misguided, imo, to blame anyone else for their poor performance.



I think both sides are to blame.  A number of my friends didn't try 4e at all.  A bunch of them claimed they were tired of buying books and would never buy another one again because WOTC had screwed them over by selling them a book a month for so many years straight then suddenly coming out with a new edition that made all those books useless.  They didn't care what 4e looked like.  They told me so each and every time I tried to convince them to come out and try it.  They didn't want to try it in case they liked it.  They were just going to keep playing 3.5e forever.  Most of them bought Pathfinder books 2 or 3 years later when the Pathfinder community became big enough that half their group wanted to switch.

Out of the rest of my friends who did switch to 4e, most of them continued playing it until about 2011.  Fatigue set in to a lot of them and they stopped playing altogether and we lost a couple of people to Pathfinder.  The rest of them stopped playing shortly after 5e was announced.  At that point a bunch of people I know felt abandoned again by WOTC.  They still liked 4e, but felt like WOTC wasn't going to support the game anymore so they might as well move on.  They eagerly awaited the next edition coming out right away.  Then when most of them were told it was going to be 2 or 3 years before 5e would come out, they completely lost faith in them.  Almost all of them switched to Pathfinder because that's where all the people are.  Pathfinder Society now runs twice a week at stores in the city and they have a huge population of players.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

gamerprinter said:


> It might be good for the proverbial "RPG community" for a single over-arching system to prevent fragmentation, I don't think that it is either realistic nor healthy for there to be one-way regarding anything for anyone. It may be true that fragmenting the player base hurts the RPG community overall and may lead to the end of RPGs in the long run - I don't ever want to participate in one way of thinking for anything: politics, religion, gaming, any subject. One game system sounds like monopoly to me, and would rather the community disappear altogether than to cleave to a single system just to prevent the game from becoming extinct.



I got into the hobby because there was already a community.  I played my first game of Red Box D&D when I was 12 or somewhere around there.  I liked it, but I only knew one person who played: my next door neighbor.  I didn't like him very much so I never played again....until I was 15 and I found out people were playing D&D on BBSes.  I found a BBS where there were 20 different games of D&D and other RPGs running in message boards.  There were discussion groups for people who liked D&D.  When I realized that this was something that people actually liked and played it felt like there were other people out there who liked the same things as I did.

I met my first real DM on my BBS.  He paged me to ask if he could start a Robotech RPG on my message boards.  We got to talking and he invited me to his weekly RPG group that has 12 people in it and played nearly every RPG.  However, 80% of the time we played D&D as it was everyone's favorite.  Some of the people in that group are still my friends to this day, 20 years later.

I've stayed friends with them mainly by playing D&D.  It's what we have to talk about.  To me, the D&D community is the exact same thing as my friend circle.  We are held together by D&D and a schism in the D&D community means I lose friends.

I have a group of friends that I met through Living Greyhawk.  We all used to travel to conventions and see each other a couple of times a year.  We could talk for hours about our experiences with the adventures that were released and our opinions of certain feats or spells.  Now, we see each other ONLY at GenCon.  When we meet, we go out for dinner and have nothing in common to talk about.  They play Pathfinder, I play D&D Next playtests.  They haven't bothered to try D&D Next and they have no real desire to learn about it.

Without a community, I have very little desire to play D&D at all.  I mean, I enjoy it but it lacks that extra joy that goes along with having people who like the same thing as you do.  I kind of hate WoW, but all my friends play it.  Most of them are the former D&D friends that I don't see anymore because they've abandoned D&D for WoW.  A day doesn't go by that I don't think "Maybe I should just buy WoW because then I'd be part of the community again."

D&D Next really scares me.  I like it a lot.  However, if it doesn't manage to convince some of my friends to return to playing with me...I might have to give it up and just play WoW instead.  Which is disappointing.


----------



## Jester David

Majoru Oakheart said:


> My problem wasn't that Paizo published a game.  It's that they published 3.5e D&D...again.  And they published it based on a knee jerk reaction to 4e and an aversion to change.  Aversion to change is a really common human trait.  It rarely does us any good.  However, it's really easy to predict that given the choice to change or stay the same most people will stay the same unless there is a REALLY good reason to change.



If you try something new and don't like it it's not an aversion to change, it' sand aversion to _that_ change. Change is neither good nor bad, it's just... change. Neutral. There can be great changes and terrible changes and changes that are personally good to you while being personally bad to someone else. 



Majoru Oakheart said:


> So, when 4e came out...the easiest thing for people to do was to stick with what they knew: 3.5e.  But there was a really good reason to switch: No more 3.5e books and the majority of their friends hopping on the 4e bandwagon.  Paizo gave everyone an easy out by making it easy to avoid change: Play their game that was almost identical to 3.5e D&D.



The easiest thing is to stick yes, to keep playing and not buy any new books. An medium change is swapping to a very different system. A hard change is swapping to a *slightly* different system where you kinda know the rules but not always so you have to check and can never be sure if you're remembering the old rule or the new or a house rule. 

Pathfinder is very tricky to swap from 3e from for that reason. And it's hard to convince people to buy the same books yet again. 



Majoru Oakheart said:


> Sure, it was a great strategy for making money.



It's also a great strategy for losing money if your competitor turns out to have a great game. Or people stick with what they have. 



Majoru Oakheart said:


> But it made the community fall apart.  It caused the edition wars to be louder and more angry than they ever would have been without it.



The community was already falling apart. The edition war and split would have happened anyway. It was happening anyway back when Pathfinder was new and few people gave it a second thought. 
If you want someone to blame for the edition war, it's everyone else. Paizo and WotC get alone fine and buy each other's content. The original employees of Paizo were the WotC periodical department, there are 3-4 other WotC refugees hired after layoffs and the CEO of Paizo was the first employee at WotC. 
Really, Paizo is what you get when you apply the Ship of Theseus paradox to WotC...



Majoru Oakheart said:


> A number of my friends were RIGHT on the edge of playing 4e with us, *they had huge doubts about the game because of how different it was* but they were willing to give it a try until they heard about Pathfinder.  Then almost all of them decided that it was better to stick with a game system that was more like what they were used to.  A game system that promised it was completely compatible with 3.5e so they didn't even have to buy new books, they could just play characters directly out of the 3.5e PHB(this was later changed, but it was one of the first advertised traits of Pathfinder).  *Most of them didn't even try 4e because of that.  They had just "heard bad things" and therefore wouldn't even keep an open mind.*  I don't even see half of them anymore because most of the time we spent together was gaming and we no longer play the same games.



Bolded the relevant section. Had they heard "4e is amazing" or "it's the best edition of D&D ever." They might have been more willing to switch. 
Had the presentation and marketing and build up to 4e been better things might have been different. Had 4e been what people wanted Pathfinder wouldn't have sold out its first printing at launch a year after 4e was released. 

WotC didn't give them a reason to switch, didn't encourage and motivate people enough to try their game. They just assume everyone would play and switch because it was D&D. They've said as much in interviews the last few years. 
That's on them and no one else. 

So, really, the best lesson is that WotC might not have been the best stewards of the hobby...


----------



## dd.stevenson

Tequila Sunrise said:


> When discussing the industry, it's fun to think about things that will never happen, like "What if Paizo owned D&D"?
> 
> EDIT: ...
> 
> EDIT the Second: ...



I think, though I'm not certain, that what you're really driving at is: "Given that D&D is the face of our hobby to the rest of the world, and the tone setter within our hobby, do you think we would be better off if someone else other than WotC were managing that brand?"

To which I would have to answer: I'm not certain, because my understanding is that the entire WotC management team responsible for D&D's performance over the last ten or so years has been fired in a career-ending way. And I'm completely uncertain as to the capabilities of the current D&D management team.

Ask me again in two years.


----------



## Kinak

Majoru Oakheart said:


> Though "Pathfinder" was in development for a while before 4e came out, I'm led to believe by a bunch of comments made at the time that "Pathfinder" as it stood at that time was mostly a set of House Rules that Jason had written up for 3.5e and was using in his home games.  I certainly got the impression that the company was leaning toward supporting 4e when they sent him there.  After all, it was likely that most people would switch to a new edition and developing products to go with the new edition would make money.



Your timeline's a little off there.

He'd been working on "3.75" for a while. But, by the time you saw him, had already been tapped to work on "Mon Mothma," the production name for the Pathfinder RPG.

This article covers that year. Jason's section is "The Birth of a Roleplaying Game."



Majoru Oakheart said:


> However, since they didn't like 4e when they tried it, they simply thought "Great, I'm not going to be playing this new D&D...what am I going to do now?  Well, there's that set of house rules I've been working on to fix 3.5e.  I guess we could publish those and just keep releasing adventures for 3.5e.  Wait, maybe if I spend some extra time thinking about it, we could come up with even more house rules and just release a new PHB with all the bugs fixed.  Let's do that."  Which became Pathfinder.



You've got it right here, except for the order. They were already developing Pathfinder as a company by the time he went out there, then he played it and was glad that it looked like Pathfinder was the right call.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> I certainly don't envy the position they were in and they certainly made the right decision for themselves.  It just had a side effect of causing a larger rift in the community than there would have been without them.



That's a hard thing to say for sure. If we assume that most of the people playing Pathfinder now would have played 4e instead, you're probably right.

But it's really hard to say. Those people could be spread across half a dozen retroclones, arguably even worse, or they could still all be playing 3rd, which balances out, or anything in between.

For my part, I'd probably be playing Iron Heroes or nothing resembling D&D at all, so there certainly are people that would have moved further to the fringes if Pathfinder hadn't been created.

Cheers!
Kinak


----------



## gamerprinter

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I got into the hobby because there was already a community.  I played my first game of Red Box D&D when I was 12 or somewhere around there.  I liked it, but I only knew one person who played: my next door neighbor.  I didn't like him very much so I never played again....until I was 15 and I found out people were playing D&D on BBSes.  I found a BBS where there were 20 different games of D&D and other RPGs running in message boards.  There were discussion groups for people who liked D&D.  When I realized that this was something that people actually liked and played it felt like there were other people out there who liked the same things as I did.
> 
> I met my first real DM on my BBS.  He paged me to ask if he could start a Robotech RPG on my message boards.  We got to talking and he invited me to his weekly RPG group that has 12 people in it and played nearly every RPG.  However, 80% of the time we played D&D as it was everyone's favorite.  Some of the people in that group are still my friends to this day, 20 years later.
> 
> I've stayed friends with them mainly by playing D&D.  It's what we have to talk about.  To me, the D&D community is the exact same thing as my friend circle.  We are held together by D&D and a schism in the D&D community means I lose friends.
> 
> I have a group of friends that I met through Living Greyhawk.  We all used to travel to conventions and see each other a couple of times a year.  We could talk for hours about our experiences with the adventures that were released and our opinions of certain feats or spells.  Now, we see each other ONLY at GenCon.  When we meet, we go out for dinner and have nothing in common to talk about.  They play Pathfinder, I play D&D Next playtests.  They haven't bothered to try D&D Next and they have no real desire to learn about it.
> 
> Without a community, I have very little desire to play D&D at all.  I mean, I enjoy it but it lacks that extra joy that goes along with having people who like the same thing as you do.  I kind of hate WoW, but all my friends play it.  Most of them are the former D&D friends that I don't see anymore because they've abandoned D&D for WoW.  A day doesn't go by that I don't think "Maybe I should just buy WoW because then I'd be part of the community again."
> 
> D&D Next really scares me.  I like it a lot.  However, if it doesn't manage to convince some of my friends to return to playing with me...I might have to give it up and just play WoW instead.  Which is disappointing.




Our starts in gaming sound almost identical - even the ages, but I started playing in the late 70's, BBS's didn't exist yet. Except, only knew handfuls of people that played (from a small town), but it was enough to start playing. I've never needed a community, as long as there was enough people to fill one game table, I don't ever need more than that. Now I work in the RPG industry, so things are different for me, but for different reasons.

As I previously stated in this thread, if it weren't for a new player with a ton of 3x books, I'd probably still be playing 2e - I've never needed to jump to the next edition of any game (or anything really). So even if DDN is the best thing since apple pie, there is no attraction for me to even look at it. And regarding my very, very low opinion regarding all digital games, there's no possible chance WoW would ever be on my horizon - ick...


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

gamerprinter said:


> As I previously stated in this thread, if it weren't for a new player with a ton of 3x books, I'd probably still be playing 2e - I've never needed to jump to the next edition of any game (or anything really). So even if DDN is the best thing since apple pie, there is no attraction for me to even look at it. And regarding my very, very low opinion regarding all digital games, there's no possible chance WoW would ever be on my horizon - ick...



I think for me, I love change.  I see the problems in things very quickly.  Even if something is working perfectly fine, I'm always looking to the future to see what might be better.  Then again, I work in the IT industry and I have a love of technology that was born from a desire to see everything improve over time.  When I was 15 along with playing D&D I'd sit in my room and dream of what computers might be like in 20 years.  At the rate they were advancing, computers would have processors with 3 GHZ!  Imagine what you could do with all that processing power!  After all, DOOM had such amazing graphics now, imagine what kind of games would exist in 20 years.  Imagine what technology would allow us to do.  My 15 year old self would still be amazed at how things turned out.  I can just imagine seeing an iPad Air 20 years ago...I'd be flabbergasted.

Yet, still today, I'm always looking for the thing that's just slightly better than the year before hand.  I check 15 different news sites a day to find out what is the next big thing.  This applies to everything I like.  I buy a game and no sooner do I get it than I'm looking at what the thing that comes out next will be that fixes the problems with the current game.

For me, it almost goes without saying that I'll play D&D Next.  If only because I have to at least try the next big thing.  I'm predisposed to look at whatever comes next in the best possible light.  I hate to look backwards.  Once something has run its course, it gets left behind.  Best to try the new thing.  Even if it isn't wholeheartedly better, it's at least different and interesting.

When 3e came out, I'd already been checking Erich Noah's 3e News every day for over a year before hand trying to learn everything there was to know about it.


----------



## gamerprinter

I'm in the graphics industry, and I do freelance cartography and some publishing work in the RPG industry, so I rely on computers to help me create and do my job, but when I play games, it's live in front of people at a table - we don't even allow PCs, IPADs, tablets, nor phones in our game room. I prefer to separate the two activities. I do use PC/internet for game prep, but not for actual play.

My players are prone to come up with creative, out of the box solutions to problems and encounters in game. All digital games are limited to what has been coded into the system - you can't play out of the box if the code doesn't let you. Playing live games with live people that adjudicate rules on the fly to allow out of the box thinking makes tabletop games infinitely allow for any possibility. Until a computer can match the capability to the human brain in lateral thinking digital cannot accomodate my needs, so I don't look there.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Kinak said:


> You've got it right here, except for the order. They were already developing Pathfinder as a company by the time he went out there, then he played it and was glad that it looked like Pathfinder was the right call.



I was unaware of this.  Though, I suspect that had he liked 4e a lot, Mon Motha would have eventually been scrapped as not needed.  It's not a huge surprise that Jason was already working on updates.  He is a guy who was very invested in the D&D rules.  There's a reason that most of Living Greyhawk lived in feat of adventures written by Iuz(Jason)...they were likely to be extremely deadly and bend the rules fairly dramatically to be so deadly.  He knew the rules very well and liked to abuse that knowledge to kill PCs.

I am reminded of Spring Revery Down Under in Australia.  Guest of Honor was Jason.  He was running a Special adventure written by him and they were keeping track of how many PCs he had killed compared to other DMs.  I believe at the end of the weekend it was something like 22 PCs killed by Jason and 6 was the most for any other DM.  Even with the same adventure.



Kinak said:


> That's a hard thing to say for sure. If we assume that most of the people playing Pathfinder now would have played 4e instead, you're probably right.



I think "most" is the key.  If the people who switched to Pathfinder were split between 60% 4e and 40% other, it still would have meant that 4e would have had the staying power to go another couple of years.  I think that 4e with all of these extra people would have SEEMED a lot more dominant to people.  Perception is a big deal.  When people consulted message boards to talk about D&D, instead of 4 people saying "4e is great!", 4 people saying "I think I'm just going to switch to Pathfinder instead" and 2 people saying "I hate 4e and Pathfinder, I'm going somewhere else", it would instead be 7 for 4e and 3 going somewhere else.  New people coming in would have looked and said "Ok, so basically everyone is playing 4e.  I'll buy those books." instead of "I don't know, I'm confused, there's a bunch of people at my store who play this game called Pathfinder, should I buy that instead of 4e?"

I think the perception that 4e had already lost...long before it actually had was part of its downfall.  Which, for a lot of people, started with the announcement that Paizo had tried out the new edition and decided to make an entirely new game rather than write adventures for 4e.  After all, if a company that ran Dungeon and Dragon Magazine for years hated the new edition so much that they felt they needed to make their own game...well, that surely meant the new game was bad.

Having run 4e at that same convention, I can tell you that the response was overwhelmingly positive.  I had one player at one table who insisted on nitpicking the rules and complaining they didn't make any sense and I had one argument with a player at the end of the convention about the fact that square fireballs didn't make any sense and moving on angles being the same speed as straight meant that 4e broke the laws of physics.  However, other than those 2 incidents, I ran probably 50 people through the Dungeon Delve or through the intro adventure and most people ended up really liking the game.  People were lining up over and over again and standing in line for nearly an hour to play the Delve.  I got roped into running it because they needed extra DMs.

It was only the truly diehard people who were opposed to it.  Most of them were people who were mod authors for Living Greyhawk who were annoyed that they couldn't make things like Gelatinous Cube Monks and Animated Object Floors with 1 level of Warrior.  Though, most of these people were good friends with Jason since he was a member of the Circle and dealt with them on a regular basis.

These people are fairly influential in the Organized Play/RPGA community however.  I know most of them and a number of them ran conventions in their home cities with 300 attendees doing nothing but playing Living Greyhawk.  When they came back from D&D Experience talking about how they hated 4e and their friend Jason had their back by keeping 3.5e going, it definitely affected things.  How much?  Who knows.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

gamerprinter said:


> I'm in the graphics industry, and I do freelance cartography and some publishing work in the RPG industry, so I rely on computers to help me create and do my job, but when I play games, it's live in front of people at a table - we don't even allow PCs, IPADs, tablets, nor phones in our game room. I prefer to separate the two activities. I do use PC/internet for game prep, but not for actual play.



Fair enough.  To me, technology has always been a part of enhancing everything about my game.  I bought a touchscreen tablet with a stylus as soon as I could afford one because I thought what was the point of wasting paper if I didn't have to?  That was I also didn't have to carry my heavy character book filled with 50 different characters with me.  Plus all my books.  I haven't actually opened a D&D book now in over a year.  I just read PDFs on my screen instead.

Obviously, the game itself is still about the face to face interaction.  But anything that helps is encouraged.  Though we do have one DM who insists on no technology at all.  It has made him very unpopular and people complain about it nearly every week.



gamerprinter said:


> My players are prone to come up with creative, out of the box solutions to problems and encounters in game. All digital games are limited to what has been coded into the system - you can't play out of the box if the code doesn't let you. Playing live games with live people that adjudicate rules on the fly to allow out of the box thinking makes tabletop games infinitely allow for any possibility. Until a computer can match the capability to the human brain in lateral thinking digital cannot accomodate my needs, so I don't look there.



I don't play the game just for out of the box thinking.  I remember the first time I truly felt marveled by D&D.  It was because my DM described things in so much detail I felt like I was there.  It felt like I could see, hear, taste, touch everything.  To me, the wonder of the game was that it was so immersive.  I felt like I actually was a Drow Ranger who lived in this world.  Even from the first time I played D&D I was consider how it might be improved with super realistic graphics and virtual reality.

It's worth noting that by the time I started playing D&D I already enjoyed multiplayer DOOM for PC, I had played adventure games like King's Quest and Space Quest.  I had already played Final Fantasy 1.  Gaming to me already was digital before I ever picked up dice.  I learned to use computers because I couldn't get games to load on my Commodore 64 without learning enough BASIC to make them work.

Though, even when I started playing D&D(I won't say switched to D&D because I still digital game constantly and I played Everquest for years because it was the closest I had seen anyone come to virtual reality D&D), the rules were the rules and were not to be broken.  "Out of the box thinking" often had another word in our group: "cheating".  If our DM allowed a plan to work that was completely crazy then people would call them soft and make fun of them for allowing players to walk all over them.  The smart DM saw through the player's ploy to get way more power than they should have and simply said no...or made all plans turn out for the worst.


----------



## gamerprinter

Majoru Oakheart said:


> "Out of the box thinking" often had another word in our group: "cheating".  If our DM allowed a plan to work that was completely crazy then people would call them soft and make fun of them for allowing players to walk all over them.  The smart DM saw through the player's ploy to get way more power than they should have and simply said no...or made all plans turn out for the worst.




I don't mean anything goes, everything is kept reasonable even when I'm winging the rules. I do some game development, creating rules PF supplements among other things, so being creative and reasonable is part of the job of DMing, in my experience.


----------



## WayneLigon

Tequila Sunrise said:


> When discussing the industry, it's fun to think about things that will never happen, like "What if Paizo owned D&D"?




As far as I'm concerned, they do. 

Maybe WOTC will pull something good out in 5E. To me, 4E was a poor decision more than likely forced on them by a corporation because some dude in a position of power became terrified at the idea of the OGL. At this point, though, I don't know. I haven't been able to participate in any playtesting for 5E and so haven't read much about it - I want to form opinions based on the finished product at this point.


----------



## Jester David

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I think "most" is the key.  If the people who switched to Pathfinder were split between 60% 4e and 40% other, it still would have meant that 4e would have had the staying power to go another couple of years.  I think that 4e with all of these extra people would have SEEMED a lot more dominant to people.  Perception is a big deal.  When people consulted message boards to talk about D&D, instead of 4 people saying "4e is great!", 4 people saying "I think I'm just going to switch to Pathfinder instead" and 2 people saying "I hate 4e and Pathfinder, I'm going somewhere else", it would instead be 7 for 4e and 3 going somewhere else.  New people coming in would have looked and said "Ok, so basically everyone is playing 4e.  I'll buy those books." instead of "I don't know, I'm confused, there's a bunch of people at my store who play this game called Pathfinder, should I buy that instead of 4e?"



Maybe. Maybe not. 

WotC stopped doing PDFs in early 2009 after PHB2, which might have been an early sign they were worried about sales. This was before the PF Core Rulebook. 
Paizo also started outselling 4e in late 2010 when they had just started coming into their own. That couldn't just be Paizo gaining sales but WotC losing sales. It's doubtful that everyone who stopped praying 4e went straight to Pathfinder.

It's also unfair to put all the blame of 4e's failure on Paizo and competition. Every other edition of D&D had fantasy competition and survived. 
WotC made a couple other errors that could have really hurt, such as making it easy to buy DDI and skip books, errata that devalued the books, the GSL, and accessories that made it easy to skip the core books, and the like. 



Majoru Oakheart said:


> Having run 4e at that same convention, I can tell you that the response was overwhelmingly positive.  I had one player at one table who insisted on nitpicking the rules and complaining they didn't make any sense and I had one argument with a player at the end of the convention about the fact that square fireballs didn't make any sense and moving on angles being the same speed as straight meant that 4e broke the laws of physics.  However, other than those 2 incidents, I ran probably 50 people through the Dungeon Delve or through the intro adventure and most people ended up really liking the game.  People were lining up over and over again and standing in line for nearly an hour to play the Delve.  I got roped into running it because they needed extra DMs.



It's too small of a sample to be representational of the audience, and I'm not people who were excited enough about 4e to travel to a convention are the average.

I remember looking at those files as well and not being wowed, but I wasn't entirely disappointed  by the game until I saw the PHB.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> It was only the truly diehard people who were opposed to it.  Most of them were people who were mod authors for Living Greyhawk who were annoyed that they couldn't make things like Gelatinous Cube Monks and Animated Object Floors with 1 level of Warrior.  Though, most of these people were good friends with Jason since he was a member of the Circle and dealt with them on a regular basis



Really?
Really???
There's no one else? How about: People who don't like gamist rules. People who like strategy over tactics. People in the middle of campaign. People who preferred gritty adventures to heroic adventures.  

I played a lot of LG as well and certainly got tired of that game and 3e at the end. But the experience was really not representational of 3e as a whole. The token warrior level was a running joke in LG but was likely rare in the rest of the hobby.


----------



## Jester David

Majoru Oakheart said:


> Though, even when I started playing D&D the rules were the rules and were not to be broken.  "Out of the box thinking" often had another word in our group: "cheating".  If our DM allowed a plan to work that was completely crazy then people would call them soft and make fun of them for allowing players to walk all over them.  The smart DM saw through the player's ploy to get way more power than they should have and simply said no...or made all plans turn out for the worst.



That is so far away from how me and my friends play I'm at a loss for words...

But so long as you enjoy it all the power to you.


----------



## GreyLord

Cybit said:


> ...5E?




In your dreams.

C&C is far closer to 1e than what I've seen of 5e.

Then again, if you want AD&D, the core books are re-released.  And for D&D, the rules cyclopedia is for sale in PDF format.


----------



## GreyLord

Jester Canuck said:


> WotC didn't give them a reason to switch, didn't encourage and motivate people enough to try their game. They just assume everyone would play and switch because it was D&D. They've said as much in interviews the last few years.
> That's on them and no one else.
> 
> So, really, the best lesson is that WotC might not have been the best stewards of the hobby...




And THIS is the true bitter pill for 3e/3.5 players.  They created the doomsday machine.  

When 3e came out, the brilliant plan was to kill off AD&D and D&D and replace it with D20.  How to do this...simple...don't print anymore material for the older editions.  Make it so that hardcopy is extinct.

Basically, if players want to play D&D, they HAVE to switch to the new edition.  It was said, it was done, so it was history.

It was highly successful.  There was NO reason, or so WotC thought, that they could not replicate this exact feat once again.  They basically did the same thing to 3.5 as they did to 2e/D&D/AD&D.  Exact same playbook, exact same plays.  If you look at the early marketing campaigns for 3e, it's remarkable how closely they mirror 4e's marketing.

If you call 4e's marketing arrogant, 3e's was just as arrogant.

There was one difference though, and you can blame Ryan Dancey for that.  The seeds of what occurred with 4e started all the way back prior to 3e's release, and that was when the idea of an OGL was created.

What 4e's release had to contend with that 3e did not, was an OGL.  That's what made PF possible, that's what made other systems possible, and that's why what worked for 3e's release did NOT work for 4e's release.

IF T$R had release and OGL in regards to AD&D, it's actually quite possible you'd have seen a similar scenario happen with 3e's release.

I point this out to say, I can actually see the idea where if PF was not created, 4e may have been FAR more successful.  I won't say it would have been, but at the same time, I'd say there's precedence for it.

Personally, I'm wildly glad at this point for the OGL and Dancey's idea.   Why?  Because I absolutely love PF and what Paizo has done.

But, the problem with many people is while they complain about how 4e came out, they are blind to their own actions and how 3e was put out, and how that was the pattern that was created for 4e's release as well.

It's basically a...you reap what you sow...type scenario...both for the Players of D&D/PF and for WotC.


----------



## Hussar

gamerprinter said:


> It might be good for the proverbial "RPG community" for a single over-arching system to prevent fragmentation, I don't think that it is either realistic nor healthy for there to be one-way regarding anything for anyone. It may be true that fragmenting the player base hurts the RPG community overall and may lead to the end of RPGs in the long run - I don't ever want to participate in one way of thinking for anything: politics, religion, gaming, any subject. One game system sounds like monopoly to me, and would rather the community disappear altogether than to cleave to a single system just to prevent the game from becoming extinct.




Doesn't this pretty much exactly describe d20 and everything D20 was meant to do?  One system that is applicable to a wide range of games, taking over the hobby to create network externalities that will continue to prop up the hobby and keep it healthy?

Are you saying that D20 was bad for the hobby?  That the OGL was bad for the hobby?


----------



## MichaelSomething

Jester Canuck said:


> That is so far away from how me and my friends play I'm at a loss for words...
> 
> But so long as you enjoy it all the power to you.




Do you think a single steward could create/manage a game both Oakheart and you would enjoy to play(and more importantly, buy books for on a regular basis)?


----------



## billd91

GreyLord said:


> And THIS is the true bitter pill for 3e/3.5 players.  They created the doomsday machine.
> 
> When 3e came out, the brilliant plan was to kill off AD&D and D&D and replace it with D20.  How to do this...simple...don't print anymore material for the older editions.  Make it so that hardcopy is extinct.
> 
> Basically, if players want to play D&D, they HAVE to switch to the new edition.  It was said, it was done, so it was history.
> 
> It was highly successful.  There was NO reason, or so WotC thought, that they could not replicate this exact feat once again.  They basically did the same thing to 3.5 as they did to 2e/D&D/AD&D.  Exact same playbook, exact same plays.  If you look at the early marketing campaigns for 3e, it's remarkable how closely they mirror 4e's marketing.
> 
> If you call 4e's marketing arrogant, 3e's was just as arrogant.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It's basically a...you reap what you sow...type scenario...both for the Players of D&D/PF and for WotC.




I can see where you may get that, but I don't agree with all of your points. For one thing, shifting production from one edition to the next is pretty normal within the industry. GDW stopped production of MegaTraveller material when they published Traveller: New Era (losing the support of third party Digest Group Publications in the event). R Talsorian stopped production of Cyberpunk 2013 in favor of Cyberpunk 2020. Villains and Vigilantes had an adventure in development when they shifted from 1st to 2nd edition and so published stats for both editions in one adventure, but every adventure after that was all 2nd edition. So I don't think it was really arrogance that drove WotC to do the same for materials when going from 2e to 3e. That was simply the standard practice. Why would you split your company's resources on two editions rather than focus on the current, in print one? 

3e was a significant change from 2e's mechanics in many ways, sure, but WotC took steps to ameliorate the problems that could arise from the change. They published a free conversion document that, in many ways, made the conversion fairly easy. The changes to multiclassing meant those characters need more significant reinterpretation. But, overall, game play could often proceed in a very similar manner and I, at least, found the transition to be pretty easy and smooth. Most adventures weren't hard to convert at all. Dragon magazine was also a pretty useful resource at this time with a lot of supporting articles on the new game.

Where you see arrogance in the 3e edition change, I see a company working to smooth the transition and foster the adoption of the new edition rather than simply ramming it down our throats. Moreover, the open license meant someone could produce other materials to ease the transition or provide tips on analyzing and playing the game. They may not have done so with an ant's humility, true, I really can't see what they were about then as being a function of arrogance

Contrast that with the 4e change and I see a company really excited about what it was doing, selling (!) some of its major marketing efforts as books, and making a game that allowed for no easy campaign transition. They were upfront about that, but the company had gone from making a game that was different but allowed for adaptation to one that was different and didn't allow for easy adaptation. If you had a long-running campaign from previous editions, they didn't seem too interested in compatibility. That was info and developments coming from the creative end of the game, but the business end was busy too. They produced an initial license that prevented third party producers from supporting multiple editions or producing dual stat products capable of being used by both the old and new editions. Now *that's* arrogant.

I suspect WotC deliberately went out to try to kill the companies working the OGL in support of 3e assuming that the vast majority of D&D players out there would transition to 4e and cause the OGL product market to collapse. I won't put that on the R&D team at WotC. By pretty much all accounts, they get along fine with companies like Paizo and Green Ronin. But someone devised the GSL and made it pretty toxic, keeping most companies out of 4e material production and keeping companies from fully supporting both editions. Fortunately for those of us who didn't like the way 4e gameplay changed D&D, they couldn't take back the OGL and a company like Paizo was able to produce a version of D&D that we enjoyed.


----------



## pemerton

billd91 said:


> selling (!) some of its major marketing efforts as books



Worlds & Monsters, at least, isn't a marketing effort. It's one of the better GM guides published for any fantasy RPG. The 4e DMG would have been notably better if it had included a lot of the material in W&M.


----------



## Campbell

I'm somewhat nonplussed by the idea that role playing games need a single gate keeper or gateway. There is a remarkable amount of diversity even within the D&D community. It's not really a singular hobby, but a group of interrelated hobbies. If recent history has shown us nothing it's that we think about and play games in incredibly different ways, and I think that's a good thing. Role playing games are a pretty personal experience and as varied as the groups that play them.


----------



## Zardnaar

GreyLord said:


> And THIS is the true bitter pill for 3e/3.5 players.  They created the doomsday machine.
> 
> When 3e came out, the brilliant plan was to kill off AD&D and D&D and replace it with D20.  How to do this...simple...don't print anymore material for the older editions.  Make it so that hardcopy is extinct.
> 
> Basically, if players want to play D&D, they HAVE to switch to the new edition.  It was said, it was done, so it was history.
> 
> It was highly successful.  There was NO reason, or so WotC thought, that they could not replicate this exact feat once again.  They basically did the same thing to 3.5 as they did to 2e/D&D/AD&D.  Exact same playbook, exact same plays.  If you look at the early marketing campaigns for 3e, it's remarkable how closely they mirror 4e's marketing.
> 
> If you call 4e's marketing arrogant, 3e's was just as arrogant.
> 
> There was one difference though, and you can blame Ryan Dancey for that.  The seeds of what occurred with 4e started all the way back prior to 3e's release, and that was when the idea of an OGL was created.
> 
> What 4e's release had to contend with that 3e did not, was an OGL.  That's what made PF possible, that's what made other systems possible, and that's why what worked for 3e's release did NOT work for 4e's release.
> 
> IF T$R had release and OGL in regards to AD&D, it's actually quite possible you'd have seen a similar scenario happen with 3e's release.
> 
> I point this out to say, I can actually see the idea where if PF was not created, 4e may have been FAR more successful.  I won't say it would have been, but at the same time, I'd say there's precedence for it.
> 
> Personally, I'm wildly glad at this point for the OGL and Dancey's idea.   Why?  Because I absolutely love PF and what Paizo has done.
> 
> But, the problem with many people is while they complain about how 4e came out, they are blind to their own actions and how 3e was put out, and how that was the pattern that was created for 4e's release as well.
> 
> It's basically a...you reap what you sow...type scenario...both for the Players of D&D/PF and for WotC.





 Erm 3rd ed did have the OGL to contend with. All those retroclones for example. The push was not there though as 3rd ed did mostly unify the fanbase as it was very popular and swamped the AD&D hold outs. The OSR revival one could argue is partly triggered by 3rd ed players going back to the retroclones as if you get burned out on d20 and did not like 4th ed there is really only one way to go.

 You could have created a clone in 2000 or 2001. I think C&C was the 1st one to turn up in 2004. 3rd ed did have to deal with the OGL, everyone was to busy playing 3rd ed though.


----------



## Weather Report

I am hoping for a 2.5, all the vitriolic 4th Ed avenging naysayers, can, ya know....


----------



## gamerprinter

Hussar said:


> Doesn't this pretty much exactly describe d20 and everything D20 was meant to do?  One system that is applicable to a wide range of games, taking over the hobby to create network externalities that will continue to prop up the hobby and keep it healthy?
> 
> Are you saying that D20 was bad for the hobby?  That the OGL was bad for the hobby?




Is d20 owned by a single company? No, so what I am discussing is not d20/OGL, rather D&D or any specific company owned game system. While D&D and Pathfinder are both based on d20/OGL, each are their own rule systems - correct? Understanding this, should any one publisher of any d20 based game be the steward for all of d20 (and every other non-OGL system)? I think only a not-for-profit, with membership including all/many RPG publishers and player-based entity could serve as 'steward' - not any commercial enterprise. The question regards stewardship of the entire hobby.

Nice way to twist definitions to color my meaning though! Congrats for that!


----------



## GreyLord

Zardnaar said:


> Erm 3rd ed did have the OGL to contend with. All those retroclones for example. The push was not there though as 3rd ed did mostly unify the fanbase as it was very popular and swamped the AD&D hold outs. The OSR revival one could argue is partly triggered by 3rd ed players going back to the retroclones as if you get burned out on d20 and did not like 4th ed there is really only one way to go.
> 
> You could have created a clone in 2000 or 2001. I think C&C was the 1st one to turn up in 2004. 3rd ed did have to deal with the OGL, everyone was to busy playing 3rd ed though.




But the OGL is for D20...NOT AD&D.

Most AD&D folks who didn't like the change either dropped out, lapsed, or stopped playing or were forced to convert.

the actual OGL as an AD&D machine wasn't tested and no one really thought it would be able to be done when 3e came out.

See Bill's post for 3e converter's who are STILL in denial about how 3e went about the same process as 4e.

The turbulence was FAR greater in my opinion when 3e came about in regards to the older players protesting the new system.

It was only LATER that people started thinking about whether or not they could recreate the older editions from D20 OGL's...at least in part.

OSRIC was actually the document wanting to make it so that documents could be made in support of AD&D without offending the trademark (it wasn't actually originally going to be a game in and of itself, just a reference document to enable other material to be made).

It was not based on OGL...but went into an area which no one went.  They are LUCKY in that WotC did NOT pursue legal matters.  They based OSRIC and much of the OSR is based on the idea that you cannot copyright a mechanic and you cannot trademark it.  HOWEVER...formulas and other items in that regard CAN actually fall under some trademark laws (depending on the nation) and even fall under Patent law (which is far more important in regards to math, number tables, and many other items linked into RPGs).  It's not really worth the time to pursue it for WotC overall I think, but in SOME nations a legal case could be made (but even if won, it's not worth it as 100% of 0 is still...0).

So in truth, 3e had the same process and marketing as 4e, and in some ways was even MORE offensive (WotC hatred among many old schoolers is so fierce as that they won't touch WotC products no matter HOW nice WotC is...to the present day even).

However, many of the 3e/3.5 fans do practice hypocrisy when they argue against 4e, because they ignore the precedence for 4e's marketing campaign that was created when 3e came out.  3e's marketing was the template for 4e's marketing.  

People were more experienced and far more invested in OGL by the time 4e came out, and hence the D&D was in actuality competing with itself at that time, as opposed to when 3e came out.

So, 3e had the exact same marketing, and the same offensiveness as 4e, the difference was that there was no real alternative for D&D once WotC killed it off initially.  3e hardcores who hated 2e and older editions though, tend NOT to recognize just how the parallels were between the 3e marketing and the 4e marketing.

I'm not trying to make excuses here for 4e, but there are many who are so in love with WotC and hated AD&D, D&D, and Gygax so much, they've tried to flavor 3e's entrance differently then 4e.

I think if AD&D had continued to be published at that time, 3e and it's release could have turned out far differently.  Hence, arguments that if Paizo (and I would include all the D20 products that continued after 4e was released) hadn't created PF, things may have turned out differently with 4e...I think may hold merit.

I'm not saying 4e would or would not have been more successful, but looking at 3e, which set the precedence (as in a legal sense), I think there may be some backing in regards to that idea.

PS:  And despite what you may think, I am actually a very HUGE fan of PF.  However, I find it rather ironic that when the same tactics were used in marketing 4e in regards to 3e, that you basically get the same reaction.  When 3e was release you DID have the same reactions as 4e, and most of you who were there should be able to recall that.  The difference was that there really wasn't any other alternative in regards to obtaining hardcopy of materials being currently printed for D&D unless you went with 3e.  There WAS no AD&D hardcopy materials or even simulations of it being printed at that time.  The closest would be Palladium, and if you're going to go with Palladium, you might as well do 3e anyways.


----------



## Bluenose

Jester Canuck said:


> Really?
> Really???
> There's no one else? How about: People who don't like gamist rules.




Why would people who don't like gamist rules be playing D&D at all?



Hussar said:


> Doesn't this pretty much exactly describe d20 and everything D20 was meant to do?  One system that is applicable to a wide range of games, taking over the hobby to create network externalities that will continue to prop up the hobby and keep it healthy?
> 
> Are you saying that D20 was bad for the hobby?  That the OGL was bad for the hobby?




The OGL was bad for several games that tried to convert from their existing systems to take advantage of the glut of D20 product that came out in the first few years after 2000. The fans weren't getting new material for the existing system, and D20 was such a poor match for many of the existing systems that the game that resulted was rarely compatible with the existing settings.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Jester Canuck said:


> That is so far away from how me and my friends play I'm at a loss for words...
> 
> But so long as you enjoy it all the power to you.



You have to keep in mind that this group was so slavishly devoted to the rules beyond all else that we had a character who went up 4 levels by picking up one spellbook since our DM was able to be convinced that a spellbook was a collection of scrolls and that we were using the XP for magic items found rule from 1e therefore if we find a spellbook we should get XP as if we found a scroll of every spell in it.  We managed to defeat the Wizard who had the spellbook by rules lawyering the DM's plans.  The mage was supposed to teleport away after projecting an illusion of themselves taunting us and then creating an illusion of the room collapsing.

The full details escape me now, but our Wizard disbelieved both illusions.  Then he pointed out that the range of the spell that projected the illusion was short, so the person who cast them had to be around here somewhere.  I'm not sure if the DM planned on them being around...but our Wizard, Gord pointed out that the enemy Wizard HAD to be nearby according to the rules...so the enemy Wizard was just invisible nearby.  He cast see invisible and then used a Wand of Telekinesis to steal the Rod of Teleportation that the enemy was about to use to get away.  Then, I believe he cast some spell to kill her outright.

The Wizards original plan was to taunt us, then after trapping us under invisible rubble to walk through a secret passage, retrieve her belongings and then teleport out.  We managed to thwart her plans, get her spellbook, and have our Wizard go up 4 levels.  All of which the DM didn't want and was kind of annoyed happened.  The NPC was supposed to become a reoccurring villain and she had to change all her plans.

Another time the same DM said "Don't +1 swords only add to damage?" and one of our players said "No, +1 to hit and damage".  She said "That doesn't sound right to me.  I think it's only damage."  He said "Alright, if I can prove to you that I'm wrong, can I create a character with average equipment for his homeland for your game?"  She said "Sure".  She was wrong.  So, he created a character who rode a dragon and had +5 fullplate and a +5 longsword...since that was standard equipment for the Dragonriders in a city that he invented and added to her game.  He was, of course, one of the dragonriders....at first level.  She agreed to it because she felt she had to, having lost the bet.  The rest of the players thought she was insane for agreeing to both the bet and adhering to it afterwards.

That same DM allowed a Netbook of Spells that was making its rounds on the BBS scene at the time.  One of the spells extended the range of the next spell you cast by turning it into MILES instead of feet.  Our Wizard then used his spells to destroy...I believe it was Luskan from days travel away.  We had a psion who asked if he could invent his his own powers.  She said yes, so he came back with a power called "Lesser Spell" and another one called "Greater Spell".  One let him recreate any Wizard of Cleric Spell of 5th level or lower and the other one let him do 9th level or lower.  She approved them because she liked creativity.  So, he used the one psionic power to create crystal based copies of himself who knew all his powers and could essentially cast every Wizard spell in the book many, many times per day.  He decorated his house with them so no one could break in.

The character I was given as one of my first characters, Majoru Oakheart was originally run by Gord, the Wizard player.  At one point they broke into Menzoberenzan(sp?) and stole a bunch of stuff.  So the Matron of the largest house in the city sent her daughter to get it back.  He used a Rod of Beguiling to charm her and made an amazing roll that worked through the magic resistance.  His command?  Here, put this on.  It was a Helm of Opposite Alignment.  The newly charmed, lawful good Drow princess decided her mission wasn't the best idea anymore.  He then used 2 scrolls of wish he had lying around to Wish both effects permanent.  He then asked her to marry him.

After I took over that character, I started learning to powergame.  I kept trying to get lower and lower ACs.  The problem is, I had already reached -10 and had the best magic items I could find.  So, I asked her if there were such things as Bracers of AC -3 jokingly.  She said yes...and gave me them as treasure.  I said that was fine, but I had reached the limit on AC for the game so they were useless.  She house ruled a new limit of -13.

Overall, all that game taught us was that you shouldn't allow random 3rd party supplements into your game because they break everything.  If you want an NPC to escape, you're the DM...find some way to allow them to escape.  Don't allow everything players come up with simply because you want to say yes, it causes disastrous results.  It also taught me that players will do everything in their power to get more powerful and you should keep constant vigilance to make sure that doesn't happen.  Players will be more than happy to attempt to disguise their powergaming as simply out of the box thinking.

It should be noted that we played at least 8 different D&D games in that group that we switched between weekly.  The only one with the severe problems was her game.  Because the other DMs would just say no to most ideas people came up with.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

Jester Canuck said:


> It's also unfair to put all the blame of 4e's failure on Paizo and competition. Every other edition of D&D had fantasy competition and survived.
> WotC made a couple other errors that could have really hurt, such as making it easy to buy DDI and skip books, errata that devalued the books, the GSL, and accessories that made it easy to skip the core books, and the like.



I'm certainly not disagreeing that WOTC made a bunch of mistakes that hurt them.  I just think those mistakes wouldn't have cost them as much as they did had it not been for Pathfinder.  People are willing to tolerate some missteps when they are really invested in something.  People didn't invest in 4e because they had another option.

I still maintain that other editions of D&D didn't have REAL competition.  When I played 2e D&D, we knew of the existence of Rolemaster, Palladium Fantasy, and the like.  No one seriously considered switching to any of them.  They weren't D&D.  D&D was the first and best game.  The rest, according to most people I knew were simply pale copies that got things wrong.

We felt the same way while were were playing 3e.  It was the true heir to the crown...there were other games, but we always came back to the original.  Not only were we used to the concepts from D&D, but it invoked the flavor we wanted and there were always new players to play with when we needed them.  You could go into a gaming store and say "Anyone want to join my D&D campaign?" and get 3 offers to join.  Try that for any other game and get blank stares.

I think Pathfinder was the first time that people looked at another game and said "Wait...that's just D&D with a different name.  I can play that."



Jester Canuck said:


> It's too small of a sample to be representational of the audience, and I'm not people who were excited enough about 4e to travel to a convention are the average.
> 
> I remember looking at those files as well and not being wowed, but I wasn't entirely disappointed  by the game until I saw the PHB.



Perhaps.  I can't speak to that.  I just know that the hardcore LG community(the ones going to D&D Experience) were also the most hardcore D&D players in general.  These were the people who made trips to other cities in order to spend 72 hours doing nothing but playing D&D just so they could get their character some more XP.  I know, I was one of them.

Most of them were "leaders" of the D&D community in general.  They were the DMs at their D&D gamesdays and local conventions.  They almost all had their own D&D groups with 6 players back home.

In theory, if you convince these people, you convince the community at large.



Jester Canuck said:


> Really?
> Really???
> There's no one else? How about: People who don't like gamist rules. People who like strategy over tactics. People in the middle of campaign. People who preferred gritty adventures to heroic adventures.
> 
> I played a lot of LG as well and certainly got tired of that game and 3e at the end. But the experience was really not representational of 3e as a whole. The token warrior level was a running joke in LG but was likely rare in the rest of the hobby.



I'm sure there were other people outside of the con.  However, I think LG pretty much only attracts those who like gamist rules.  After all, we've agreed to a bunch of rules simply to play LG.  You get 52 Time Units and once they are gone your character can no longer adventure(and adventures took a minimum of 1 TU even if they lasted an hour of game time).  If you find a magic item in an adventure, everyone in the group can buy a copy of it...so that it's fair for everyone.  There is a GP limit on each adventure to make sure everyone advances at the same rate.  Gold over the limit simply vanishes.  No spell continues beyond the end of an adventure.

People who were playing LG on a regular basis understood that some rules were allowed to be gamist to make sure everyone had a good time and that the game and entire campaign was balanced.

It's certainly no coincidence that 4e ended up with the rules it did.  RPGA players were the majority of the primary playtesters.  The most common problems in Living Greyhawk were because of extremely open rules.  So, it isn't a surprise that LG players pushed for a system with more predictability.

So, no, at least at the con, the only people who didn't like the system were people who were heavily invested in breaking the old one using their rules knowledge.


----------



## Majoru Oakheart

GreyLord said:


> PS:  And despite what you may think, I am actually a very HUGE fan of PF.  However, I find it rather ironic that when the same tactics were used in marketing 4e in regards to 3e, that you basically get the same reaction.  When 3e was release you DID have the same reactions as 4e, and most of you who were there should be able to recall that.  The difference was that there really wasn't any other alternative in regards to obtaining hardcopy of materials being currently printed for D&D unless you went with 3e.  There WAS no AD&D hardcopy materials or even simulations of it being printed at that time.  The closest would be Palladium, and if you're going to go with Palladium, you might as well do 3e anyways.



For us the process of going from 2e to 3e and 3.5e to 4e DID go almost precisely the same.

We'd been playing 2e for years, we were all aware of its problems and limitations and they frustrated us on a regular basis.  I was getting tired of DMing and dealing with its issues all the time.  WOTC came along and promised a new game free of 2e's problems.  They had a serious of articles where they pointed out all of the same problems I'd noticed with 2e and said how the new edition wouldn't have those problems.  Obviously, they played the same game I did and learned the same lessons.  So we switched the day it came out.  So did everyone we knew.  Basically, there was only two groups of people we knew: Those who stopped playing D&D due to time constraints and those who switched to 3.5e.

At the end of 3.5e, I was getting tired of running 3.5e D&D.  We were getting bogged down in all its problems..  I didn't even want to DM anymore because I was getting sick of working around all the issues in 3.5e.  Then, WOTC announced 4e and had a series of articles that pointed out the problems with 3.5e and how they were going to fix them in 4e.  They were the same issues I noticed.  Obviously they played the same game as I did and learned the same lessons.  So we switched the day it came out.

Unlike the conversion to 3e, however, there was a large debate over switching amongst a large number of people I played with.  A bunch of them were new players.  They hadn't gone through the 2e to 3e switch and found the idea that they'd have to learn new rules and buy new books appalling.  This was long before anyone knew what the rules were.  Just as soon as it was announced.

I can only guess that after about 5 years of no products coming out for 2e that any of our group actually wanted to buy, we were truly ready to move on.  2e felt over.  The last couple of years of products seemed like filler that nobody wanted.

I also felt the same way about the last year worth of 3.5e products.  The same was done and was being kept on life support.  It could have floundered for another 2 or 3 years like that.  I'm glad WOTC put it out of its misery.  However, I can understand that without that floundering period many of my friends were simply not ready to move on.


----------



## Hussar

gamerprinter said:


> Is d20 owned by a single company? No, so what I am discussing is not d20/OGL, rather D&D or any specific company owned game system. While D&D and Pathfinder are both based on d20/OGL, each are their own rule systems - correct? Understanding this, should any one publisher of any d20 based game be the steward for all of d20 (and every other non-OGL system)? I think only a not-for-profit, with membership including all/many RPG publishers and player-based entity could serve as 'steward' - not any commercial enterprise. The question regards stewardship of the entire hobby.
> 
> Nice way to twist definitions to color my meaning though! Congrats for that!




I wasn't twisting anything.  You claimed that it's a bad thing for any single game system to dominate the hobby.  But, this is precisely what the d20 OGL was meant to do.  Gamers might stray from D&D, but, they'd stay within the d20 family and hopefully drift back after some time.  They wouldn't need to learn new systems.

Heck, while 4e and Pathfinder are their own rules systems, the fact that they are both d20 make them far, far mechanically closer than say, Pathfinder and Savage Worlds.  To the point where it's not that terribly difficult to adapt material from one system to the other.  Whereas trying to bolt on GURPS mechanics to 4e or Pathfinder would be much more difficult.

There's a reason that RPG.Net was so vehemently opposed to D20, and it's exactly for the reason you gave - a single, dominant system that absorbed most of the hobby for quite a while.  It took the bubble bursting and the d20 glut to go away before you started seeing any significant innovation in games outside of d20.  Savage Worlds doesn't make an appearance until 2003, Burning Wheel is 2002.  And, really, it's not until about 2004 or 2005 before you start seeing indie games really start to make an impact.

So, I'll ask again, do you see the OGL as a bad thing for the hobby?


----------



## Kinak

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I was unaware of this.  Though, I suspect that had he liked 4e a lot, Mon Motha would have eventually been scrapped as not needed.



Taking the wayback machine to April of that year, Paizo was interested in doing some 4e products alongside the Pathfinder RPG.

Then the initial version of the GSL was released. And that's all she wrote.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> I think the perception that 4e had already lost...long before it actually had was part of its downfall.  Which, for a lot of people, started with the announcement that Paizo had tried out the new edition and decided to make an entirely new game rather than write adventures for 4e.  After all, if a company that ran Dungeon and Dragon Magazine for years hated the new edition so much that they felt they needed to make their own game...well, that surely meant the new game was bad.



I think you're greatly overestimating that PR hit.

Paizo doing their own thing was certainly fodder for internet arguments, but even then people understood that Paizo would be shy about hitching their wagon back to WotC after what happened with Dungeon and Dragon.

Which isn't to say there weren't a bunch of arguments about dragonborn, the GSL, tieflings, WotC's "tone," square fireballs, the GSL, WoW, AEDU, missing races/classes, and the GSL. Paizo came up, but I honestly remember talking more about Necromancer Games.



Majoru Oakheart said:


> Having run 4e at that same convention, I can tell you that the response  was overwhelmingly positive.  I had one player at one table who insisted  on nitpicking the rules and complaining they didn't make any sense and I  had one argument with a player at the end of the convention about the  fact that square fireballs didn't make any sense and moving on angles  being the same speed as straight meant that 4e broke the laws of  physics.  However, other than those 2 incidents, I ran probably 50  people through the Dungeon Delve or through the intro adventure and most  people ended up really liking the game.



Yeah, if they can't even capture the people who travel to the D&D Experience, they're pretty hosed.

But I think there are simpler answers to why that didn't translate to the rest of the gaming populace than blaming it all on Jason not liking your favorite edition. A lot of people looked at 4e and decided it wasn't for them or Pathfinder never would have gotten off the ground.

It's not scientific, but at least a little illuminating, to look at the "What would you be playing if Pathfinder didn't exist" thread. I don't claim to have percentages, but a lot of people weren't going to play 4th regardless of Pathfinder. Looking through, there's a mix of not spending any money in the hobby and dividing the hobby far beyond a simple 4e/Pathfinder split.

It's entirely possible that, even if Paizo had somehow gotten on the 4e bandwagon (despite the delays and the GSL), we'd be having this conversation about Kenzer or Malhovac or Goodman or Green Ronin or some other company. Someone had to do it eventually, Paizo was just forced to take the initiative.

Would 4e have done better without competition? Basic economics says yes. 

But that's a long way from proving that the game industry as a whole is better run as a monopoly.

Cheers!
Kinak


----------



## billd91

GreyLord said:


> See Bill's post for 3e converter's who are STILL in denial about how 3e went about the same process as 4e.




Well isn't that nice. Because I disagree with you, *I* have a psychological problem.



GreyLord said:


> The turbulence was FAR greater in my opinion when 3e came about in regards to the older players protesting the new system.




And you're entitled to have that opinion. I, however, disagree and it's not like I wasn't involved online in the run up to and publication of the new edition. I remember some heated posts on ADND-L over it. There was a sizeable contingent who didn't think AD&D needed a new, major edition (I was one of them). But the issue died down in relatively short order as people started to figure out what the new edition was about and investigated it.




GreyLord said:


> So in truth, 3e had the same process and marketing as 4e, and in some ways was even MORE offensive (WotC hatred among many old schoolers is so fierce as that they won't touch WotC products no matter HOW nice WotC is...to the present day even).
> 
> However, many of the 3e/3.5 fans do practice hypocrisy when they argue against 4e, because they ignore the precedence for 4e's marketing campaign that was created when 3e came out.  3e's marketing was the template for 4e's marketing.
> 
> So, 3e had the exact same marketing, and the same offensiveness as 4e, the difference was that there was no real alternative for D&D once WotC killed it off initially.  3e hardcores who hated 2e and older editions though, tend NOT to recognize just how the parallels were between the 3e marketing and the 4e marketing.




Hatred and vitriol aren't necessarily indicators of an objective or rational assessment of difference in the campaigns. For one thing, it helps to look at the state of the market. WotC had done a lot of pump priming in the years they owned TSR before 3e's release. Their online policies were different and a lot more permissive compared to TSR's days of C&D letters. They posted free content online. They put the materials that were in the pipeline through to the printer even though they knew they were going to be putting out another edition in a short time. And they were dealing with a market that had taken a few hits because of TSR's money woes.

All of that makes it kind of hard to call the marketing exactly the same. The context in which it was conducted was markedly different. Additionally, the marketing included plenty of bones thrown to 1e AD&D fans over TSR's stewardship of the game during the 2e era. Demons and devils were back as demons and devils. Half-orcs were returned to the core. Even the assassin made a comeback. The Back the Dungeon motto tried to harken back to the days of 1e modules rather than the heavier-handed story pushes in later published adventures.

It doesn't take any hatred of 2e or Gygax to see those differences and think WotC pulled off an edition introduction with 3e better than they did with 4e. 2e was my favorite incarnation of the game - in some ways it's better than 3e. In others, not so much. I'd happily play an edition a bit more like it but with some more of the customization options that 3e/PF have developed (so Next is looking like a positive edition).




GreyLord said:


> I think if AD&D had continued to be published at that time, 3e and it's release could have turned out far differently.  Hence, arguments that if Paizo (and I would include all the D20 products that continued after 4e was released) hadn't created PF, things may have turned out differently with 4e...I think may hold merit.




Maybe, but the point I have is *nobody* did things like this in any significant way. Stopping production on AD&D wasn't borne of arrogance - it was borne of normal procedure, just as TSR did with 2e. Plus, it's not like there weren't alternatives to buying and playing 3e. The activity at Dragonsfoot showed that amply enough - and yet 3e was still a pretty big success.

Even if you do believe that there was a lack of an alternative to 3e once WotC stopped supporting 2e, you can still argue there are differences in the 4e effort. The OGL that wasn't there for 2e was obviously there for 3e. A segment of the market had obviously hived off to form the old school movement with Dragonsfoot and then the OSR-style games. In that environment, wouldn't following the 3e marketing template suggest considerably more arrogance? They had plenty of evidence there would be detractors, a market split of some undeterminable size, and a method of creating a safe haven for their style of gaming - either via messageboard communities or by using the OGL. And they *still* thought people would have no alternative but to upgrade to 4e?

Ultimately, I'm just not seeing much that's persuasive in your point of view.


----------



## Jester David

Bluenose said:


> Why would people who don't like gamist rules be playing D&D at all?



Because "gamist" is not binary with games either being all gamist or all simulationist. 

Not every version of D&D has had the same level of gamist design. Often the gamist design was a simplification of something complex where simulation would break down or be too slow.


----------



## Bluenose

Jester Canuck said:


> Because "gamist" is not binary with games either being all gamist or all simulationist.
> 
> Not every version of D&D has had the same level of gamist design. Often the gamist design was a simplification of something complex where simulation would break down or be too slow.




A game does not have two agendas. And I entirely disagree that there's any particular edition of D&D which is more gamist than any other. Some fake simulationist ideas, but faking it and being it are very different things.


----------



## Jester David

Majoru Oakheart said:


> I'm certainly not disagreeing that WOTC made a bunch of mistakes that hurt them.  I just think those mistakes wouldn't have cost them as much as they did had it not been for Pathfinder.  People are willing to tolerate some missteps when they are really invested in something.  People didn't invest in 4e because they had another option.
> 
> I still maintain that other editions of D&D didn't have REAL competition.  When I played 2e D&D, we knew of the existence of Rolemaster, Palladium Fantasy, and the like.  No one seriously considered switching to any of them.  They weren't D&D.  D&D was the first and best game.  The rest, according to most people I knew were simply pale copies that got things wrong.



The rise of the Internet is another huge factor. I'd barely heard of other RPGs let alone wanted to try them out before the Internet allowed me to preview games. 

Had there been the Internet earlier and people could recommend a Rune Quest or Rolemaster more loudly then earlier editions. 
Which doesn't matter if people are happy or satisfied. If they're not looking for a game recommendations aren't paid attention to. 



Majoru Oakheart said:


> However, I think LG pretty much only attracts those who like gamist rules.  After all, we've agreed to a bunch of rules simply to play LG.  You get 52 Time Units and once they are gone your character can no longer adventure(and adventures took a minimum of 1 TU even if they lasted an hour of game time).  If you find a magic item in an adventure, everyone in the group can buy a copy of it...so that it's fair for everyone.  There is a GP limit on each adventure to make sure everyone advances at the same rate.  Gold over the limit simply vanishes.  No spell continues beyond the end of an adventure.



I think this is a chicken/egg situation. 
LG had firm rules for a crunchy game so it certainly attracted people who liked that and the adventures had to have those elements. But LG players are a very mixed group. Like every other group. They were people who wanted to play more and lack groups or enough groups. 
But to do well and advance they really need to become rule masters or they die. The adventures were too hard not to maximize. The design of 3e an difficulty of adventures pushed people to optimize. Not every adventure required optimization but since the penalty for failure was death and permanent change in your wealth-by-level you were encouraged to power game for those scenarios. 
Then there was the famed arm race. 

I'm not a gamist player. I'm a storyteller with a slight simulation slant. But during my time in LG I learned the rules sideways and managed to turn a bard into a potent character.


----------



## gamerprinter

Hussar said:


> I wasn't twisting anything.  You claimed that it's a bad thing for any single game system to dominate the hobby.  But, this is precisely what the d20 OGL was meant to do.  Gamers might stray from D&D, but, they'd stay within the d20 family and hopefully drift back after some time.  They wouldn't need to learn new systems.




No, I made no such claim. Everything I'm saying is in regards to stewardship by a single company. If you got that I'm saying only a single game system for all RPGs, you are not getting my meaning. I am only referring to game systems owned by game publishers. You've completely misunderstood my posts.




Hussar said:


> There's a reason that RPG.Net was so vehemently opposed to D20, and it's exactly for the reason you gave - a single, dominant system that absorbed most of the hobby for quite a while.  It took the bubble bursting and the d20 glut to go away before you started seeing any significant innovation in games outside of d20.  Savage Worlds doesn't make an appearance until 2003, Burning Wheel is 2002.  And, really, it's not until about 2004 or 2005 before you start seeing indie games really start to make an impact.
> 
> So, I'll ask again, do you see the OGL as a bad thing for the hobby?




I didn't realize you were asking me that. But I see OGL is great for the hobby in itself, what it caused during d20 glut was how many publishers treated it wasn't necessarily good, but it was the actions by these publishers that wasn't good, not the license itself. Now the days long after the d20 bubble burst, OGL is still around and through other systems like Pathfinder it's proving it's worth. The publishers today are using OGL like it should have always been used.

But the OGL is a side issue, in that it doesn't resolve the question (nor really have anything to do with) of who should be steward of the hobby? All my posts in this thread, except for this last post regarding the OGL, refer only to stewardship - so let's return to the question at hand, and drop the OGL red herring.


----------



## Jester David

Bluenose said:


> A game does not have two agendas. And I entirely disagree that there's any particular edition of D&D which is more gamist than any other. Some fake simulationist ideas, but faking it and being it are very different things.



How can you fake simulation?
Again, it's not a binary situation. A game is not either all simulation or not simulation. There can be places the game leans to simulation or has nods to reality or designs a rule to complement realism. 
It's never been perfectly simulationist but the number of instance of mechanics breaking suspension of disbelief might be fewer.


----------



## Umbran

Bluenose said:


> A game does not have two agendas.




Whatever the Forge people might say, Gamers have agendas.  Games are tools we can use to fulfill agendas.

I know some folks say that a given gamer only ever has one agenda.  I think that's silly.  Gamers have a variety of desires, some of them mutually exclusive.  

Some games, therefore, are designed to fulfill multiple agendas.


----------



## marroon69

I think the issue really is based around the ownership...small focused company that dedicates all its time and resources to one thing Vs. huge multi-national company that views it as a money making brand. Not saying Paizo does not want to make money it just seems to me that they understand there customer base better and they can focus on the product. With Hasbro holding the strings of D&D and you can see that it was slowing being changed in hopes of open it to a bigger market and making more profitable. My two cents....


----------



## kitsune9

I'm a little late to this party, but it's hard to say that Paizo would end up making a better steward. They aren't the 800 lb gorilla in the room. I think if they did, even if they did a lot of things right, the dork rage would start popping up.

I could complain about WotC's errors, but I think that dog has been kicked before. I'm a big PF fan (so that's my "perfect" ruleset) and currently I love the direction that Paizo is going and I think their success says much of their strategy and PR outreach.


----------



## Emerikol

Umbran said:


> Whatever the Forge people might say, Gamers have agendas.  Games are tools we can use to fulfill agendas.
> 
> I know some folks say that a given gamer only ever has one agenda.  I think that's silly.  Gamers have a variety of desires, some of them mutually exclusive.
> 
> Some games, therefore, are designed to fulfill multiple agendas.




I believe that a game's rules tend to prioritize design so that G > S > N or whatever.   The actual campaign ran by a particular DM though will take it much farther.  So I do think campaigns have a primary GNS agenda but I also realize that some players will settle for second best because of their limited options.   Typically the DM will set the agenda but I've see other things.


----------



## pemerton

Umbran said:


> Whatever the Forge people might say, Gamers have agendas.  Games are tools we can use to fulfill agendas.
> 
> I know some folks say that a given gamer only ever has one agenda.  I think that's silly.



The Forge people don't dispute that a single person can enjoy different things. And they certainly don't dispute that a given game can serve different agendas (Champions and Tunnels & Trolls are two mainstream games often mentioned in this context).

They tend to favour "tight" design that focuses a game in on one particular agenda, but that's a design norm, not a prediction about extent rulebooks and the uses to which they are being put.



Umbran said:


> Some games, therefore, are designed to fulfill multiple agendas.



I think the main question is, can you fulfill multiple agendas all at once? The Forge says "no". The argument, at least as I understand it, goes roughly like this:

* An agenda is about _the point of play_, as manifested through the sort of behaviour at a given table that is encouraged or discouraged.

* During a given episode of play, it can't be that - at one and the same time - participants are (say) encouraged to subordinate "gutsiness" to fidelity to character and setting concepts, _and_ acclaimed by their felllows for gutsy play.

* Therefore (generailsing the above premise to other differences of agenda), during a given episode of play only one agenda can be pursued.​
I think that there are at least a couple of points where the argument is vulnerable.

One is this: while it is plausible as an argument that simulationinst and non-simulationinst agendas aren't compatible (and I regard this as borne out by practically every thread I've participated on these boards where the contrast between "mainstream D&D" and "indie" play agendas has been discussed!), I'm less sure it is plausible for multiple non-simulatoninst agendas. For instance, it seems to me that, during a given episode of play, it perhaps can be that - at one and the same time - participants are encouraged to play their PCs to the hilt so as to drive conflict to its resolution, _and_ are acclaimed by their fellows for gutsy play. Particularly if the system is designed to require gutsy play as a necessary mechanical condition of driving conflict to its resolution. (Burning Wheel might be an example of this.)

A second point of vulnerability, and I think one that a lot of people (perhaps including Umbran?) have in mind, is to question the monolithic nature of the group.

I think the idea is that you have one participant who derives pleasure from subordinating "gutsiness" to fidelity to character and setting, and another participant who derives pleasure from playing in a gutsy style. WotC seems to favour this sort of idea, with its discussion of "player types" in its DMGs (derived, at least loosely, from Robin Laws' similar ideas, I think).  In D&D, in particular, this tends to be achieved by making one aspect of the fiction - combat - the site for gutsy play, and another aspect of the fiction - social encounters and urban exploration more generally - the site for subordinating gutsiness to fidelity to character and setting. (Mearls certainly echoed these divisions in contrasting combat with "roleplaying". You also see it in the frequently-expressed idea that combat is an alternative to, rather than a site of, characterisation and roleplaying.)

The Forge response to this rebuttal of the "single agenda" argument, and one for which I personally have some sympathy, is that a game in which you have participants looking for different things in this way, is in some sense unstable or "second best". It relies on a high degree of GM control over the game in order for it to work, and is vulnerable to player disruption at many points (most notoriously, the "power gamers" or "munchkins" who try and turn social encounters into combat encounters, or who build PCs that run roughshod over the "roleplayers'" PCs in circumstances where resolution via mechanics, rather than via free roleplaying and GM fiat, is involved).

I think this, as much as the jargon, is why The Forge is regarded as elitist: because the core implication of The Forge's analysis, as I've just sketched it, is that mainstream roleplaying - in which the GM exercises a high degree of control to make sure everyone gets a little bit of what they like, and which is vulnerable to disruption by "power gamers" and "munchkins" - is inherently unsatisfactory. (Or, at least, less than fully satisfactory.)

A second implciation, somewhat relevant to the idea of "stewardship", is that roleplaying would be more appealing to more people if it didn't, at least in its mainstream form, take for granted this rather specific social contract in which people agree to subordinate their own aesthetic preferences for those of others in this systematic yet somewhat arbitrarily adjudicated way.



Bluenose said:


> I entirely disagree that there's any particular edition of D&D which is more gamist than any other. Some fake simulationist ideas, but faking it and being it are very different things.





Jester Canuck said:


> How can you fake simulation?



An example from 3E/PF - introduce the notion of "natural armour" bonus.

Ancient and older dragons have natural armour bonuses somewhere between +29 and +40. A Pit Fiend has a natural armour bonus of +23. This is in circumstances where the most magical of all suits of plate armour grants a bonus to AC of +13. What do those "natural armour" bonuses represent, in the fiction? No one knows, or bothers trying to find out. There are simply mechanical contrivances to ensure CR-appropriate ACs, with a veneer of simulation applied via the "natural armour" label.

Another goes back much further in the game: label a spell that heals a lot of hit points "Cure Critical Wounds" even though there are plenty of critical wounds that can be healed by much weaker spells (eg "Cure Light Wounds" will probably heal any critical wound suffered by a 0-level NPC), and there are plenty of non-critical wounds (like a dragon bite suffered by an otherwise-uninjured high level fighter) which cannot be healed by a single application of any lesser spell.

Once again, what we have here is a mechanical contrivance for the rationing of hit point recovery, with a veneer of simulation applied via the "Cure Critical Wounds" label.

In the context of D&D, I think the most obvious examples tend to come from the combat mechanics, but they can be found elsewhere as well - for instance, the various bonus types in 3E like "sacred bonus", "insight bonus", "luck bonus", "circumstance bonus", "competence bonus", etc - it's quite unclear to me what these all correspond to in the game. How is a sacred bonus - which sounds to me like a blessing from the gods - different from a luck bonus - which sounds like it might be the result of a blessing from the gods? Or how is a luck bonus - which sounds like it might be about fortuitous circumstances - different from a circumstance bonus - which presumably reflects fortuitous circumstances? How does "insight" differ from either "luck" or "competence"? Etc. Once again, no real effort is made to give these notions an ingame meaning. They're mechanical contrivances with labels slapped onto them to create the veneer of simulation.

This is the sort of thing that a lot of people have in mind, I think, when they describe 3E as an "illusionist" game, or describe 4e as - by way of contrast - having "drawn back the curtain". (The Forge also uses the term "illusionism", but to describe something quite different from this fake simulation.)


----------



## Jeff Carlsen

To answer the thread title, Paizo may already be the steward of our hobby, and it got there by being better at it.

They have growth and stability on their side, a popular product that may well be the most popular RPG at the moment (it's hard to know with confidence).

Moreover, they employ many talented game designers, provide tons of material, are careful stewards of their own ruleset, and have found numerous successful ways to expand the Pathfinder brand.

Maybe it's because they've learned from experience. Maybe it's because they don't serve any masters but themselves and their fans. I could speculate all day.

The only thing they don't have is the D&D name. But, that may not be as big a detriment as you'd think. Pathfinder, the brand, may not be as well known, but it also doesn't have any cultural stigma attached.

Don't get me wrong. I love D&D, and I have very high hopes for 5E and WotC moving forward. But they have their work cut out for them if they want the kind of success, appreciation, and loyalty that Paizo has developed these past several years.


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## Jester David

*Questions*

We've discussed the issue for 18 pages and seeing many people agree with the statement that Paizo would be the better steward that WotC, if it has not already become the steward. 

With that in mind, a follow-up question:
*What does WotC have to do to become the steward again? 
*Or, alternatively
*How does WotC retain stewardship and become a better steward for the hobby? *


----------



## Zardnaar

Make a D&D that doesn't suck. Also stop redesigning D&D drastically every 3-5 years.


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## GreyLord

Zardnaar said:


> Also stop redesigning D&D drastically every 3-5 years.




Ignoring the first part...

THIS!!!!!

At least that's a start...

It's still an uphill battle to become noted as the biggest boy without any doubts at all...once more...but at least stop friggen redesigning a new game so often.  They have at least SEVEN DIFFERENT editions that they can choose from at this point without even including NEXT.  Pick one of the more popular ones and embellish on that, build political capital with others again, and play nice once more!!!


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## mlund

The Open Gaming License was as terrible for Dungeons and Dragons as it was good for Hobby Gaming overall. The OGL allowed for the massive fragmentation of the d20 market while eliminating the core change-over incentive that made it possible to cleanly sunset one edition of D&D while releasing another. The snake eats its own tail now, so to speak.

The real question is: "What do you mean by 'the hobby'?"

Do you mean the D&D Brand?

Do you mean d20-based gaming?

Do you mean Swords & Sorcery role-playing?

Do you mean stupid, over-powered Mage-wankery masquerading as "simulationist gaming" to blatantly pander to bookworm nerds who constantly got their heads dunked in toilets by jocks in school?

D&D was originally the be-all, end-all of these things back in "The Day" (TM). That gradually eroded for various attributes, first with the expansion of the RPG market, then with the fragmentation of the OGL, and then with leaving the OGL behind.

To a very real extent there will never be a "steward of the hobby" for D20 fantasy swords-and-sorcery ever again. The diversification of the market it too great. Someone may be the flagship for it in the pop culture. There will be champions of particular play-styles. But there will probably never be a "steward of the hobby" like that ever again.

I'm not say that's a bad thing either.

- Marty Lund


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## Halivar

mlund said:


> The Open Gaming License was as terrible for Dungeons and Dragons as it was good for Hobby Gaming overall. The OGL allowed for the massive fragmentation of the d20 market while eliminating the core change-over incentive that made it possible to cleanly sunset one edition of D&D while releasing another. The snake eats its own tail now, so to speak.



I think an earlier poster was spot on when he remarked that the OGL wasn't good for the TTRPG market... it was good for the _d20_ market. And that market darn near killed everything else. _Everything_ had a d20 version, or conversion, even games that did not really jive with d20.

If 4E did anything, it killed the all-encompassing uniformity of the RPG market. A lot of those d20 conversions went back to their roots (most happily for me, Savage Worlds bringing Deadlands back to the old system), or went in a new, more interesting direction (Iron Kingdoms, in particular, just never felt right as d20).


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## Emerikol

mlund said:


> Do you mean stupid, over-powered Mage-wankery masquerading as "simulationist gaming" to blatantly pander to bookworm nerds who constantly got their heads dunked in toilets by jocks in school?




There has never been a greater lie told than this one in the annuals of roleplaying games.  

I've yet to meet this cabal of wizards intent on keeping the fighter down.   I have met tons of fighter and rogue players outraged that their classes have been polluted with narrativist garbage.  When I play I almost exclusively play martial types with rogue being dominant.  So stop this insinuation.  The rest of your post was reasonable.  This point though is dead wrong.  In fact if I could take bets I'd bet heavily that there is little correlation between class preference and edition preference. It is just your disrespect for the simulationist viewpoint (as you so obviously revealed above) that leads you to assume an alternative theory.   You should get out more.  Lots of people care about simulationist concerns in their games.  So get over it.

/end rant

I just hear this stuff way too much


----------



## Bluenose

Jester Canuck said:


> How can you fake simulation?
> Again, it's not a binary situation. A game is not either all simulation or not simulation. There can be places the game leans to simulation or has nods to reality or designs a rule to complement realism.
> It's never been perfectly simulationist but the number of instance of mechanics breaking suspension of disbelief might be fewer.




It's very easy to fake simulation. Make something that looks plausible, and most people either will not know enough to object or will prefer not to think too hard about it. This is admittedly more of a problem in games that attempt Process-Sim, because their larger number of "moving parts", many of which are only superficially correct, interact in some very odd ways. 



Umbran said:


> Whatever the Forge people might say, Gamers have agendas.  Games are tools we can use to fulfill agendas.
> 
> I know some folks say that a given gamer only ever has one agenda.  I think that's silly.  Gamers have a variety of desires, some of them mutually exclusive.
> 
> Some games, therefore, are designed to fulfill multiple agendas.




Designers apply their agenda to the rules as much as gamers. And when every time there's a decision point they choose to follow a Gamist agenda rather than a Simulationist or Narrativist one.... 

Of course if those decision points aren't consistent, then you end up with a game that elements that are Gamist, some that are Simulationist, and some that are Narrativist. And that sort of game gets house-ruled to remove some of those elements, but those house rules vary so much from place to place in such a way that people end up in long, drawn-out arguments about how their rule interpretation is obviously the right one - it's consistent with these mechanics over here - while other people argue that it is clearly wrong - because those mechanics there contradict it. To use an example unlikely to cause much current aggravation, I know people for whom the "Weapon against Armour" and "Weapon Speed" tables were an essential part of the game in AD&D 1st edtion, and others who disregarded them entirely.


----------



## Ahnehnois

[MENTION=6698278]Emerikol[/MENTION]
True. Simulation occurs on a pretty basic level; one doesn't have to talk about advanced science or minute details to see that some basic notion of reality is reflected in the game.

And in actual play, I've rarely ever had issues with balance between  different character types, and no one has ever, ever come to me saying that a spellcaster was overpowering the nonmagical characters. Conversely, I see the complaints about "that doesn't make sense" and "that's not how it would work" all the time from all types of people.


----------



## Emerikol

Ahnehnois said:


> @_*Emerikol*_
> True. Simulation occurs on a pretty basic level; one doesn't have to talk about advanced science or minute details to see that some basic notion of reality is reflected in the game.
> 
> And in actual play, I've rarely ever had issues with balance between  different character types, and no one has ever, ever come to me saying that a spellcaster was overpowering the nonmagical characters. Conversely, I see the complaints about "that doesn't make sense" and "that's not how it would work" all the time from all types of people.




You sir likely run a simulationist table as do I.  I mean no disrespect to the narrativist tables but I do dislike their insinuations that my view point is intellectually dishonest and that my real agenda is keeping OTHER players down who play martial classes.

I appreciate a lot of what you write Ahnehnois.


----------



## Umbran

Bluenose said:


> Designers apply their agenda to the rules as much as gamers. And when every time there's a decision point they choose to follow a Gamist agenda rather than a Simulationist or Narrativist one....
> 
> Of course if those decision points aren't consistent, then you end up with a game that elements that are Gamist, some that are Simulationist, and some that are Narrativist.




That was the real point - while some RPGs may be designed for a single agenda, I don't think you'll find many such any more.  Heck, I personally think you'd have a hard time proving that Gygaxian D&D was created to serve only one agenda.  And these days where the internet gives designers a great deal of feedback on what the market wants (which is decidedly mixed), and games are often built by teams, rather than by individuals with a focused bias, games are even less focused on just one aspect.

And, by the way, I think that's a good thing.  For pretty much any Forgist agenda, if you really wanted to serve just one, an RPG would not be the best way to serve it.  I think RPGs are, by their nature, mixed.


----------



## billd91

Bluenose said:


> It's very easy to fake simulation. Make something that looks plausible, and most people either will not know enough to object or will prefer not to think too hard about it. This is admittedly more of a problem in games that attempt Process-Sim, because their larger number of "moving parts", many of which are only superficially correct, interact in some very odd ways.




If the inputs (decisions made, factors in the game's environment, etc) are providing reasonably plausible outputs, that's not really "faking" simulation. The process may be fairly abstract and simplified to satisfy the game's usability requirements, but it's still engaging in simulation. It doesn't matter what sorts of gamist constructs are taking you from point A to point B. If it is taking you from A to B because it is following some process in reality or in the genre the game is emulating that is also taking you from point A to point B, it's pretty much engaging in a simulation. Some of the methods involved may be more gamist-oriented than others depending how simple or smooth the designers want the game play aspects to be compared to how true to life/genre they want the simulation to be, but that doesn't mean they're "faking" simulation.


----------



## Wicht

Umbran said:


> Heck, I personally think you'd have a hard time proving that Gygaxian D&D was created to serve only one agenda.




"Agenda"s that come to mind include 
Having Fun
Socializing
Escapism
Projection (Immersion)
Creation
Simulation
Exploration
Progression and Construction

Any hobby which fulfills only a single "agenda" at any given time seems like a rather shallow hobby to me




mlund said:


> The real question is: "What do you mean by 'the hobby'?"




Gaming, specifically the role-playing branch of gaming, including the painting and collecting of miniatures as a sub-branch of the hobby and the collecting of RPG books.


----------



## Ahnehnois

Emerikol said:


> You sir likely run a simulationist table as do I.



I don't know about that. I had significant education in film and theater and writing as a child and came to D&D as a creative outlet. I base a lot of my DMing style on ideas from theater and creative writing courses I've taken, and film and TV commentaries and interviews (as well as, of course, D&D books).

I think that drama comes from truth, even very stylized genre fiction. There's emotional truth as well as rational modeling of reality. I try to make my narratives feel true.

I've had _players_ who might be more strict on simulation issues than me, a history buff, an engineer, among others.

I do, however, agree that "narrativism" would be a massive paradigm shift from the way I use rules. I think a lot about issues like where the spotlight is and how the players can shape the narrative and themes and emotions and messages, but that has little if anything to do with game mechanics in my approach.



> I appreciate a lot of what you write Ahnehnois.



Thanks.


----------



## Dausuul

Umbran said:


> That was the real point - while some RPGs may be designed for a single agenda, I don't think you'll find many such any more.  Heck, I personally think you'd have a hard time proving that Gygaxian D&D was created to serve only one agenda.  And these days where the internet gives designers a great deal of feedback on what the market wants (which is decidedly mixed), and games are often built by teams, rather than by individuals with a focused bias, games are even less focused on just one aspect.
> 
> And, by the way, I think that's a good thing.  For pretty much any Forgist agenda, if you really wanted to serve just one, an RPG would not be the best way to serve it.  I think RPGs are, by their nature, mixed.




This is one of my biggest problems with the Forge approach: The assumption that an RPG should be designed to serve only one agenda. It's like saying that a car should be designed either to be fast, or to be reliable, or to be safe in a collision, and no car design should attempt to pursue more than one of these goals. In fact, any car designer should be paying attention to all three. The mix will vary from car to car--some put a higher priority on speed, others on reliability, etc.--but it _is_ always a mix.


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> The Forge people don't dispute that a single person can enjoy different things.




"The Forge people" is not a well-defined group.  I have heard folks who espouse precisely that - that *really*, a particular player only ever wants one agenda, and is lying to themselves and others when he or she says they want and enjoy multiple things.  





> A second point of vulnerability, and I think one that a lot of people (perhaps including Umbran?) have in mind, is to question the monolithic nature of the group.




I do have that in mind.  I also question the monolithic nature of the individual.  Yes, there are some folks who are hardcore for one agenda all the time, but many (perhaps even most) are not.



> I think the idea is that you have one participant who derives pleasure from subordinating "gutsiness" to fidelity to character and setting, and another participant who derives pleasure from playing in a gutsy style. WotC seems to favour this sort of idea, with its discussion of "player types" in its DMGs (derived, at least loosely, from Robin Laws' similar ideas, I think).




Not just Robin Laws' ideas, but actual data!  Data they paid a goodly sum to collect, so I'm actually kind of happy that they try to listen to it.

http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/BreakdownOfRPGPlayers.html

The research suggests four basic agendas, rather than the Forge's three, and recognizes a mixed "middle of the road" mode as well.



> You also see it in the frequently-expressed idea that combat is an alternative to, rather than a site of, characterisation and roleplaying.)




In D&D, you see such, but games like FATE demonstrate that the two need not be so separated.  Of course, one would also probably argue that FATE doesn't serve gamist needs very well, the "game" part of it being rather simple.



> The Forge response to this rebuttal of the "single agenda" argument, and one for which I personally have some sympathy, is that a game in which you have participants looking for different things in this way, is in some sense unstable or "second best".




And thereby making perfect the enemy of good?  Or, perhaps more importantly, forgetting the social nature of the endeavor, such that being with people may be a more important part of the experience than purity of the activity.

I can analogize to a dinner party.  At such a gathering, perhaps the food may be more perfectly executed if, for example, I have no individuals coming that are gluten intolerant.  As soon as I have any person with any food allergy or restriction, I compromise the integrity of my menu.  I'd argue that the menu is only one aspect of the overall gathering, and being too big a stickler about the food can put a damper on the other aspects.

Which is to say, if my friend is vegetarian, I'm making sure there's food for her at the darn party!  Integrity of the menu can go to heck!


----------



## Ahnehnois

Umbran said:


> Which is to say, if my friend is vegetarian, I'm making sure there's food for her at the darn party!  Integrity of the menu can go to heck!



Oh, if only more people did that (speaking as a vegetarian).


----------



## billd91

Dausuul said:


> This is one of my biggest problems with the Forge approach: The assumption that an RPG should be designed to serve only one agenda. It's like saying that a car should be designed either to be fast, or to be reliable, or to be safe in a collision, and no car design should attempt to pursue more than one of these goals. In fact, any car designer should be paying attention to all three. The mix will vary from car to car--some put a higher priority on speed, others on reliability, etc.--but it _is_ always a mix.




I assume the Forge's approach to agendas is more of an analytic construct rather than a prescription for making a real game.


----------



## Umbran

billd91 said:


> I assume the Forge's approach to agendas is more of an analytic construct rather than a prescription for making a real game.




That would depend who you talk to, and perhaps at what point of Forge history you're considering.  I certainly have run into people (some in the rather distant past) who have claimed that the Forge theory was the only way to make Real Games.  I've also seen folks who think of it only in terms of using it as one framework of analysis, but that should never be used for actual design.  So, I figure opinions vary.


----------



## Jeff Carlsen

Jester Canuck said:


> *Questions*
> 
> We've discussed the issue for 18 pages and seeing many people agree with the statement that Paizo would be the better steward that WotC, if it has not already become the steward.
> 
> With that in mind, a follow-up question:
> *What does WotC have to do to become the steward again?
> *Or, alternatively
> *How does WotC retain stewardship and become a better steward for the hobby? *




From a strategic level, it means treating the D&D brand and its fans with respect. D&D needs to be well supported through high quality products that each serve a clear purpose and provide a great value.

The goal should be to release fewer products, but to have each one heavily anticipated and loved.

Let's look at some Paizo products that exemplify this:

*Advanced Players Guide* - The purpose of this book was to greatly expand the number of character archetypes available to players. It has great value because it's comprehensive. It's a single book that is comparable to the entire line of 3.5 Complete books.

*Pathfinder Pawns: Bestiary Box* - This product contains tokens and stands for every monster in the Bestiary, making it infinitely useful.

*Ultimate Equipment* - This single book compiles all of the equipment from the core and advanced books, and expands the list thoughtfully.

The thing these all have in common is an attempt to be complete and purposeful resources. They are all high value propositions.

If WotC can copy and build upon this model, they will do well.


----------



## Bluenose

billd91 said:


> If the inputs (decisions made, factors in the game's environment, etc) are providing reasonably plausible outputs, that's not really "faking" simulation. The process may be fairly abstract and simplified to satisfy the game's usability requirements, but it's still engaging in simulation. It doesn't matter what sorts of gamist constructs are taking you from point A to point B. If it is taking you from A to B because it is following some process in reality or in the genre the game is emulating that is also taking you from point A to point B, it's pretty much engaging in a simulation. Some of the methods involved may be more gamist-oriented than others depending how simple or smooth the designers want the game play aspects to be compared to how true to life/genre they want the simulation to be, but that doesn't mean they're "faking" simulation.




My experience is that a lot of games, especially ones that attempt to simulate the How (Process Sim games, basically) are much more interested in the individual steps of the how than they are in getting from A to B. And for that reason they often end up at places other than B, and require that I check my sense of what is a sensible outcome at the door or be thoroughly dissastified with the result. The plausibility of an individual step may seem adequate, but when it and the other steps come to a ridiculous final result that's where the problem lies.


----------



## DMZ2112

Generally speaking, any company that is not publicly traded would be a better steward of /anything/ than a publicly traded company.

That said, I have great respect for the products Paizo has created up until this point in time.  While I don't anticipate being let down by the quality of their RPG products in the near future, other initiatives the company has embraced, most notably the terribly misguided Pathfinder MMO, make me understandably nervous about how their management thinks.  Gygax going to Hollywood was the beginning of the end for TSR.


----------



## gamerprinter

DMZ2112 said:


> Generally speaking, any company that is not publicly traded would be a better steward of /anything/ than a publicly traded company.
> 
> That said, I have great respect for the products Paizo has created up until this point in time.  While I don't anticipate being let down by the quality of their RPG products in the near future, other initiatives the company has embraced, most notably the terribly misguided Pathfinder MMO, make me understandably nervous about how their management thinks.  Gygax going to Hollywood was the beginning of the end for TSR.




Paizo is not a publicly traded company - it is completely privately owned. Also Ryan Dancy is doing the Pathfinder MMO with Pathfinder's approval and some of their direction, the MMO is not a Paizo initiative - it wasn't their idea, although they are completely willing to support it. However, Paizo is not dedicating any of their employees to directly working on the MMO. The Paizo staff are writers, designers and editors, not programmers or coders of any kind. They are writing bonus content for the MMO in the form of written releases, as one of the stretch goals to the Kickstarter. Paizo has no actual investment in the MMO, it is completely funded by Ryan Dancy's company. So I see absolutely no reason to be worried as far as Paizo goes - there's no direct connection between the two. The MMO in fact doesn't actually use PF rules, per se.


----------



## DMZ2112

gamerprinter said:


> Paizo is not a publicly traded company - it is completely privately owned.




Yes, I know, and WotC is, and is not, respectively.  That was kind of my point.



> Also Ryan Dancy is doing the Pathfinder MMO with Pathfinder's approval and some of their direction, the MMO is not a Paizo initiative - it wasn't their idea, although they are completely willing to support it. However, Paizo is not dedicating any of their employees to directly working on the MMO.
> 
> ...
> 
> Paizo has no actual investment in the MMO, it is completely funded by Ryan Dancy's company. So I see absolutely no reason to be worried as far as Paizo goes - there's no direct connection between the two.




The two companies are linked at the senior executive level, and while things have gone pretty quiet lately, for a while there I thought I was going to have to unsubscribe from the Paizo and Pathfinder Twitter feeds for all the MMO shilling that was going on.

I mean, I get what you're saying: when the MMO tanks, Paizo is safe.  And that's probably completely true, and definitely a good thing.

But it's a far cry from there to "Paizo has no actual investment in the MMO."  It is pretty clearly all up ons their marketing plans.

My observation is simply that Paizo is growing up, and has begun making decisions like a corporation.  Most game design firms never get that far.  Is it bad?  Not necessarily, but when the question is asked, "Would Paizo make a better steward for our hobby," I feel the need to point out that TSR and WotC were both once completely privately owned, and by men who loved the game.

(Love your map stuff on G+, btw)


----------



## Kinak

DMZ2112 said:


> Generally speaking, any company that is not publicly traded would be a better steward of /anything/ than a publicly traded company.



This is so very true.

In the case of a privately-owned company, it certainly depends on the owners. But in the case of a publically-traded company, you need to forge your entire brand around not being reprehensible... and sometimes that doesn't even work.

Cheers!
Kinak


----------



## pemerton

billd91 said:


> I assume the Forge's approach to agendas is more of an analytic construct rather than a prescription for making a real game.



Not knowing the Forge's leading figures personally, but simply what they write and the games that they influence, I think the answer is "both".

In particular, there is a certain style of RPGIng - what I called (perhaps loosely) "mainstream" in my post upthread - to which they are hostile. What does this style look like? Well, I've just been reading Darths & Droids, and the style of GMing and RPGing it presupposes and advocates in its author commentary is as good an illustration of the "mainstream" as any.

Some features of this approach are: a "campaign" or "story" pre-plotted by the GM, and the related notion of the "sidequest"; secret backstory that affects the fictional positioning according to which the success of player-initiated actions are resolved; an emphasis on "roleplaying" as a distinct activity from "roleplaying"; an assumption that a character sheet is something like a statistical inventory of a character; a focus in that statistical inventory on combat stats and equipment rather than (say) relationships and emotional states; a corresponding focus in the action resolution systems; etc.

One typical cosequence of the "mainstream" style is that the GM exercises a very large amount of control - which may or may not be revealed to the players - over what happens in the game, and the consequences of the players' choices.

Forge design, at least as I see it, is about (i) self-conscious awareness of these features of a game, and (ii) avoiding many of them.



Umbran said:


> while some RPGs may be designed for a single agenda, I don't think you'll find many such any more.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> For pretty much any Forgist agenda, if you really wanted to serve just one, an RPG would not be the best way to serve it.  I think RPGs are, by their nature, mixed.



Based on nothing more than my own experience - which may therefore be pretty limiting - I think one main cleavage in contemporary RPG design is between overtly metagame mechanics and "traditional" mechanics - I hesitate to say "simulationinst" because I think mechanics like "natural armour bonus" and NPC/monster building in 3E more generally are traditional, but aren't simulationist in any clear sense (contrast say RM, RQ or Traveller).

For instance, this cleavage explains about 95% of the 3E vs 4e debates I've experienced; seems to explain about 95% of the current debates around "damage on a miss"; and was replicated in all the debates around Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, including whether or not it had a character build system (my answer - of course it did! It just wasn't a traditional one of either points buy or choosing one item from each of N lists).

But this design distinction bleeds into a lot of other issues as well, such as who has authority over plot, whether resolution is "task based" or "conflict/scene based", etc, which in turn bleed into larger agenda issues.

If you look at MHRP, for instance, it can't be played proccess-sim, nor (as far as I can see) with "step on up" - leaving only high concept sim ("I'm a big damn Marvel hero") or (thematically fairly light) narratvism ("Let's find out what this Marvel hero needs, and whether s/he can get it). I think this is actually not unlike 4e, except 4e, especially in its combat mechanics, also allows for a certain style of (non-Gygaxian) step-on-up.

I don't know if you would call these "single agenda" games, but I think they have a tightness in their design which to my mind makes them closer to Traveller, RQ or RM than (say) 2nd ed AD&D.



Dausuul said:


> This is one of my biggest problems with the Forge approach: The assumption that an RPG should be designed to serve only one agenda. It's like saying that a car should be designed either to be fast, or to be reliable, or to be safe in a collision, and no car design should attempt to pursue more than one of these goals.





Umbran said:


> And thereby making perfect the enemy of good?  Or, perhaps more importantly, forgetting the social nature of the endeavor, such that being with people may be a more important part of the experience than purity of the activity.
> 
> I can analogize to a dinner party.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> if my friend is vegetarian, I'm making sure there's food for her at the darn party!  Integrity of the menu can go to heck!



I think the Forge view is predicated on the assumption that, as an activity, playing an RPG is different from driving a car or having friends over to a dinner party. This assumption may be true or false (I'm sympathetic to it, others obviously are not) but I think it can't be ignored if you want to make sense of the Forge position.

At least as I read Forge ideas, and have applied them in my own gaming, a key premise is that RPGing involves collective generation of a shared imaginary space. Which then gives rise to the question "How do we create that shared imaginary space? And what are the criteria for introducing elements into it?" Certain ways of doing this are incompatible with others.

"Mainstream" RPGing of the Darths & Droids variety basically makes the GM the answer to this question. That relies on a certain social dynamic - about subordinatin of some participants' aesthetic preferences to those of others, often very forcefully asserted once words like "power game" and "munchkin" start getting hurled around - which is itself quite specific but I think also somewhat ubiquitous in mainstream RPGing.

Forge design is therefore, in part, about exploring how other social dynamics might be incorporated into RPGing to allow different approaches to building the shared imaginary space. Different mechanical and system techniques are then interesting not just in themselves, but as ways of doing this.


----------



## pemerton

Jeff Carlsen said:


> From a strategic level, it means treating the D&D brand and its fans with respect. D&D needs to be well supported through high quality products that each serve a clear purpose and provide a great value.
> 
> The goal should be to release fewer products, but to have each one heavily anticipated and loved.
> 
> Let's look at some Paizo products that exemplify this:
> 
> [<snip>
> 
> The thing these all have in common is an attempt to be complete and purposeful resources. They are all high value propositions.
> 
> If WotC can copy and build upon this model, they will do well.



I'm not sure that this is, in itself, very specific advice. Afterall, some people feel that they are not being treated with respect by 4e, or some aspects of Next design (like damage on a miss), or James Wyatt's polls on the website, or sundry other things.

Whereas, the only experience I've had with WotC that would make me think of my relationship to them in terms of "respect" would be dealing with their customer service once, who were very helpful and diligent.

As far as anticipated and loved products, I think this is even less specific. One person's anticipated and loved product can be another's hated one.


----------



## RevTurkey

In my Fantasy Publishing Company I would...

Give the job of writing the rules to Tweet, Heinsoo and Cook.

Give the production of the physical product to Fantasy Flight Games.

License out full blown lavish versions of some settings (to):

Greyhawk...Goodman Games
Forgotten Realms...Paizo
Eberron...Privateer Press

and just for me...a full on glorious production of the Hellfrost setting by Triple Ace Games for D&D. The depth and quality of writing for this setting by Wiggy Williams is outstanding.

Be nice that


----------



## Sunseeker

DMZ2112 said:


> Generally speaking, any company that is not publicly traded would be a better steward of /anything/ than a publicly traded company.




If only it wasn't a law that companies had to go public....


----------



## DMZ2112

Kinak said:


> In the case of a privately-owned company, it certainly depends on the owners. But in the case of a publically-traded company, you need to forge your entire brand around not being reprehensible... and sometimes that doesn't even work.




The neutering of content is just a symptom of a much larger problem: the purpose of any company with shareholders is profit, rather than quality.  Less quality = more profit, every time.



shidaku said:


> If only it wasn't a law that companies had to go public....




This is getting off-topic, but by the time a company can be forced to go public by the government -- at least in the US -- it already has 500 shareholders.  At which point there is already a problem, initial public offering or no initial public offering.


----------



## HardcoreDandDGirl

To answer the question in the thread title: NO.    To be honest I don't get the difference between the two companies at all. If a WotC employee  or ad says something bad about 3.5 (Grapple rules) then it is taken as a huge slap in the face. When Piazo does the same (Fighters have spells) everyone cheers. Someone once wrote if WotC put $100 in every PHB there would be people on the internet complaining the next day it was folded the wrong way.


----------



## GMforPowergamers

AHHHH!!! I hate when people bring up this idea.

I think WotC made a lot of mistakes, and I call them on it when they do. I have still upgraded with every edition since I started.

Piazo almost always strikes me as a good company, but man I can't stand there games. They are not able to be forward thinking enough because they are hideing in the past.  I will never again play pathfinder I would rather go back to 3.5 if it came to it. I have played now in 4 campaigns and 2 one shots of Pathfinder and it is a lousy excuse to sell books.

Way back when they were selling there beta test (Yes all you fans of money grabs they sold a beta test book at gen con) I remember being at gen con in line at the Mcdonalds across the street in a hotel, and having a group of jerks tell my friend reading a 4e book all the reasons why WotC sucks, chief umong them the fact that you always need new books... but they all had there Piazo books... like paying for one company is _WAY_ better then paying for another.

I do admit piazo was smart cashing in on bitter edition wars, but I don't like that they faned the flames for money. They made a system just the same enough to appel to people who don't want change, but just different enough to have to sell more books. 

Every problem I have with any edition can be fixed with house rules... but somehow pathfinder fixed almost none of 3.5s. It did make it so my fixes to 3.5 no longer worked though.


No I don't want Piazo running D&D, I want forward thinking people who are not afreaid to shake things up and try newthings. Like WotC


----------



## DMZ2112

HardcoreDandDGirl said:


> To answer the question in the thread title: NO.    To be honest I don't get the difference between the two companies at all. If a WotC employee  or ad says something bad about 3.5 (Grapple rules) then it is taken as a huge slap in the face. When Piazo does the same (Fighters have spells) everyone cheers. Someone once wrote if WotC put $100 in every PHB there would be people on the internet complaining the next day it was folded the wrong way.




The phenomenon you're describing is just the human fondness for the underdog.  Paizo can mock Hasbro because they're David and Hasbro is Goliath.  Hasbro is a billion-dollar juggernaut and cannot get away with firing back because it looks like bullying.  You're right; it's all nonsense; they're both corporations, not kids in a schoolyard.  Loyalty to a corporation is crazy.  People should be loyal to a product they like, and when they stop liking it, they should find another product.

The only reason why I think Paizo would make a better steward _at this precise instant in time_ is that they are still small and focused enough that their management actively cares about the quality of their product, while Hasbro's management only cares whether the line on the Net Profit graph labeled "Dungeons & Dragons" is trending upward.  Because at the end of the day it doesn't matter how much Mearls and his team care about D&D if the people paying their salaries don't.  

In fact, the more the D&D team cares about their product the less likely it is to survive, in some ways, because they will be unwilling to cut the corners that could save them money and improve their bottom line.  D&D could go away /tomorrow/ because someone doesn't like the look of a chart at a board meeting, and only come back when Hasbro thinks there's nostalgia profit to be made.

I want to be clear that I am not making a moral judgment -- I have strong opinions about this stuff, but what I'm saying here is just the facts.  If you want someone to steward the hobby, you don't want them comparing its margins to GI Joe or My Little Pony.  That is not a fight D&D can win.



GMforPowergamers said:


> Way back when they were selling there beta test (Yes all you fans of money grabs they sold a beta test book at gen con)




Whoa there, Zorro, just to put a gentle yoke on that righteous fury, the book cost money because books cost money.  The PDF was free.  WotC did the exact same thing at GenCon 2013.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

GMforPowergamers said:


> Piazo almost always strikes me as a good company, but man I can't stand there games. They are not able to be forward thinking enough because they are hideing in the past.  I will never again play pathfinder I would rather go back to 3.5 if it came to it. I have played now in 4 campaigns and 2 one shots of Pathfinder and it is a lousy excuse to sell books.
> 
> Way back when they were selling there beta test (Yes all you fans of money grabs they sold a beta test book at gen con) I remember being at gen con in line at the Mcdonalds across the street in a hotel, and having a group of jerks tell my friend reading a 4e book all the reasons why WotC sucks, chief umong them the fact that you always need new books... but they all had there Piazo books... like paying for one company is _WAY_ better then paying for another.
> 
> I do admit piazo was smart cashing in on bitter edition wars, but I don't like that they faned the flames for money. They made a system just the same enough to appel to people who don't want change, but just different enough to have to sell more books.




It's "Paizo".  You can bash them, but please at least respect them enough to get their name correct.  Otherwise I'll be tempted to loan you my hat of d02; it looks like it might fit. 



> No I don't want Piazo [sic] running D&D, I want forward thinking people who are not afreaid [sic] to shake things up and try newthings [sic]. Like WotC




I think that's a fair criticism, but based on sales information that has been hinted at you may be in the minority.  Paizo certainly played it more cautiously than WotC did given the time frame and appears to have come off better for it.  WotC certainly seems to be taking a step away from pushing the envelope with 5E.  Whether that will be a net positive or negative as far as D&D's future remains to be seen.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

First, let me say I don't think Paizo would be better, just different.



> If a WotC employee or ad says something bad about 3.5 (Grapple rules) then it is taken as a huge slap in the face. When Piazo does the same (Fighters have spells) everyone cheers.



When WotC says something bad about 3.5Ed, that is a company bad mouthing its own product.  This is bad marketing.

When Paizo does so, it is a _competitor_ differentiating its product and creating brand identity.

Also, lets _all_ avoid sweeping generalizations.  I don't cheer Paizo because they're an underdog, I don't worship at the altar of Pathfinder- to me, its just another 3.5Ed variant, no better or worse than Arcana Unearthed, Fantasy Craft, and several others...including 3.5Ed itself.  And I don't like it when _they_ do things that I didn't like when WotC did them.


----------



## GreyLord

Dannyalcatraz said:


> I don't worship at the altar of Pathfinder-.




And Woe be unto thee, for thou has committed the unpardonable...fall to thy knees and plead forgiveness...for thou hast forsaken that which is good, and accepted stones for bread.

Thus saith this clergy of PF...and that's PF...not Pfft.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Pfft!


----------



## Sunseeker

DMZ2112 said:


> This is getting off-topic, but by the time a company can be forced to go public by the government -- at least in the US -- it already has 500 shareholders.  At which point there is already a problem, initial public offering or no initial public offering.




This depends on the company, but 500 shareholders isn't spectacular especially if employees are given share options.


----------



## DMZ2112

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Also, lets _all_ avoid sweeping generalizations.




If you insist on being reasonable, I'm going to have to ask you to shelve the pastel firebreak.



GreyLord said:


> and accepted stones for bread




From now on whenever anyone doesn't like something I think is good I'm going to tell them, "Thou hast accepted stones for bread.  Go, and poop no more."



shidaku said:


> This depends on the company, but 500 shareholders isn't spectacular especially if employees are given share options.




If I follow you down this road, we will leave this thread far, far behind.


----------



## billd91

GMforPowergamers said:


> No I don't want Piazo running D&D, I want forward thinking people who are not afreaid to shake things up and try newthings. Like WotC




Well, there was Paizo out there selling their electronic versions of the core rules (and all major rulebooks) for a much smaller amount (9.99) than their print books while WotC turtled up their PDF sales. I consider that a pretty strong play on being forward thinking.


----------



## Sunseeker

billd91 said:


> Well, there was Paizo out there selling their electronic versions of the core rules (and all major rulebooks) for a much smaller amount (9.99) than their print books while WotC turtled up their PDF sales. I consider that a pretty strong play on being forward thinking.




Selling text documents with some art as PDFs was forward thinking in 1995.  Paizo's got to do a little better than that now.  

I'd love to see Paizo develop a character builder, integrate at least the base rules, perhaps add some additional component to their PDFs to integrate them into it as well.

Paizo doesn't strike me as an innovator.  They're not interested in trying something new, just sticking with what works until the hobby dies.


----------



## DMZ2112

Olgar Shiverstone said:


> I think that's a fair criticism, but based on sales information that has been hinted at you may be in the minority.  Paizo certainly played it more cautiously than WotC did given the time frame and appears to have come off better for it.  WotC certainly seems to be taking a step away from pushing the envelope with 5E.  Whether that will be a net positive or negative as far as D&D's future remains to be seen.




I'm not sure innovation is the role of the big four games.  Once you've made it to that level, you're like the engine that powers the hobby.  You draw new players into the hobby, those players try out some indie games, those indie games get good buzz, the big games incorporate some of those indie mechanics into their next editions, and the next editions of the big games draw new players into the hobby.  The cycle continues.

If you're one of the big four and you try to play the indie card, it's like flooding the engine.


----------



## bone_naga

I don't think that Paizo would have been willing to make some sacred hamburger and create 4e, which I happen to enjoy. 

However, making the assumption in the OP that they did create a rule system of my choice, yes they would be a better company. Their marketing and more importantly their customer relations are leaps and bounds ahead of WotC.

I think the fact that they can basically take 3.5, resell it under an off-brand label, and make it competitive with mainstream D&D is partly a testament to their own skill, and partly a testament to WotC's bungling, but both of which indicate that they would probably be a better company to handle the brand name.


----------



## Jeff Carlsen

shidaku said:


> Selling text documents with some art as PDFs was forward thinking in 1995.  Paizo's got to do a little better than that now.
> 
> I'd love to see Paizo develop a character builder, integrate at least the base rules, perhaps add some additional component to their PDFs to integrate them into it as well.
> 
> Paizo doesn't strike me as an innovator.  They're not interested in trying something new, just sticking with what works until the hobby dies.




I definitely can't agree with this. They've done many innovative things with the Pathfinder game and brand:


The subscription model for each of their product lines.
Limiting core books to three per year, but having adventure and setting material on a monthly basis.
The Pathfinder adventure card game.
The token boxes for each of the Bestiaries and NPC Codex.
A randomized miniature structure where buying a full box gets you a full set.
NPC and Item cards.
The magnetic initiative tracker.
The manner in which they fully support each adventure path with maps, cards, setting, and player content.

All of these are innovations, and if not unique individually, certainly they've never been combined in this manner.

Now, if by innovation, you're looking for electronic tools, then sure. But by being OGL, Pathfinder is a default option in most third party tools, so there isn't much incentive.


----------



## Morrus

"Innovation" comes with it the implication of "good innovation".  Not everything new is good, after all. I wouldn't hold "innovation" as the target to head for; "good" should be; and if that good happens to be innovative, then cool.  But it doesn't have to be innovative; it does have to be good.


----------



## Sunseeker

Jeff Carlsen said:


> I definitely can't agree with this. They've done many innovative things with the Pathfinder game and brand:
> 
> 
> The subscription model for each of their product lines.
> Limiting core books to three per year, but having adventure and setting material on a monthly basis.
> The Pathfinder adventure card game.
> The token boxes for each of the Bestiaries and NPC Codex.
> A randomized miniature structure where buying a full box gets you a full set.
> NPC and Item cards.
> The magnetic initiative tracker.
> The manner in which they fully support each adventure path with maps, cards, setting, and player content.
> 
> All of these are innovations, and if not unique individually, certainly they've never been combined in this manner.
> 
> Now, if by innovation, you're looking for electronic tools, then sure. But by being OGL, Pathfinder is a default option in most third party tools, so there isn't much incentive.




1: This is not innovative.  Anyone with an expansive product line and digital access has done this for years.
2: This is not innovation, this is simply ensuring that their players don't get overwhelmed with products.  It's polite, and good business, but not innovative.
3: To be honest, I haven't played it, and actually wasn't aware of it.
4: Which is a nice addition, but again, not particularly innovative.  Cardboard tokens are pretty old.
5: I'm not sure how it can both be random, and get a full set from a full box.  That's nice, no argument.  But this is less innovation and more a polite business strategy.  Buying random minis and NEVER getting the one you want can be very aggravating, so doing this keeps customers happy.
6: Didn't 4e do this?  I'm not sure who did it first.
7: I'll give you this one.
8: Not innovative, but good business.

I wouldn't call them all innovations.  Few of these are new or creative business products or strategies, some of them are just "nice business gestures".  I don't think being a "nice business" is innovative, the fact that so many businesses have forgotten how to do it is the problem.

It's partly digital tools, it's partly new products.  Their overall business strategy seems to be one of support and supplement.


----------



## Ahnehnois

[MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION]
What would you call innovative? I haven't seen much in the past few years from WotC that I would call innovative either. Whatever innovation is happening, IMO is with smaller companies.


----------



## Jeff Carlsen

shidaku said:


> 1: This is not innovative.  Anyone with an expansive product line and digital access has done this for years.
> 2: This is not innovation, this is simply ensuring that their players don't get overwhelmed with products.  It's polite, and good business, but not innovative.
> 3: To be honest, I haven't played it, and actually wasn't aware of it.
> 4: Which is a nice addition, but again, not particularly innovative.  Cardboard tokens are pretty old.
> 5: I'm not sure how it can both be random, and get a full set from a full box.  That's nice, no argument.  But this is less innovation and more a polite business strategy.  Buying random minis and NEVER getting the one you want can be very aggravating, so doing this keeps customers happy.
> 6: Didn't 4e do this?  I'm not sure who did it first.
> 7: I'll give you this one.
> 8: Not innovative, but good business.
> 
> I wouldn't call them all innovations.  Few of these are new or creative business products or strategies, some of them are just "nice business gestures".  I don't think being a "nice business" is innovative, the fact that so many businesses have forgotten how to do it is the problem.
> 
> It's partly digital tools, it's partly new products.  Their overall business strategy seems to be one of support and supplement.




I argue that effectively applying existing models to a new market is a form of innovation. As a company they have evolved and refined their business and products over time.

It's clear that what you're looking for is a different kind of innovation. Something less iterative. Something surprising. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that.


----------



## danbala

Jeff Carlsen said:


> The only thing they don't have is the D&D name. But, that may not be as big a detriment as you'd think. Pathfinder, the brand, may not be as well known, but it also doesn't have any cultural stigma attached.
> .




I agree with everything in your post except this one point. I suspect that the marketing value of the "D&D" name is still considerable despite Hasbro's many missteps. I hope that in the event that 5e does as well as 4e, Paizo will be in a position to buy it. Lets keep our fingers crossed.


----------



## fjw70

bone_naga said:


> I don't think that Paizo would have been willing to make some sacred hamburger and create 4e, which I happen to enjoy.
> 
> However, making the assumption in the OP that they did create a rule system of my choice, yes they would be a better company. Their marketing and more importantly their customer relations are leaps and bounds ahead of WotC.
> 
> I think the fact that they can basically take 3.5, resell it under an off-brand label, and make it competitive with mainstream D&D is partly a testament to their own skill, and partly a testament to WotC's bungling, but both of which indicate that they would probably be a better company to handle the brand name.




This is basically my opinion as well. For me 4e was a hugely positive contribution to the D&D family and 3.x/PF is my least favorite version of D&D, but take the rules out of it and Paizo does a great job with PF.

They do a great job with peripheral products. I don't know if they make much money on them (maybe they do) but they do make them available. With cards, tokens, map packs, and minus (plastic and metal) they really support their product.


----------



## Hussar

Ahnehnois said:


> [MENTION=93444]shidaku[/MENTION]
> What would you call innovative? I haven't seen much in the past few years from WotC that I would call innovative either. Whatever innovation is happening, IMO is with smaller companies.




Umm, 4ed?  Like it or hate it, it is an innovation.  DDI?  Again, first of its kind for the hobby.  Next?  Lots and lots of innovation there.  

What more do you want?


----------



## Zardnaar

Hussar said:


> Umm, 4ed?  Like it or hate it, it is an innovation.  DDI?  Again, first of its kind for the hobby.  Next?  Lots and lots of innovation there.
> 
> What more do you want?




 A D&D that doesn't suck.


----------



## Ahnehnois

Hussar said:


> Umm, 4ed?  Like it or hate it, it is an innovation.



I disagree. What I see in 4e is a mix of all the fringe elements I disliked from earlier versions of D&D, with most of the stuff I do like stripped out, along with a bunch of other things appropriated from other games.

Also, to refer to [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] above, innovation has a positive connotation, and it's more important that something be good than simply different.



> DDI?  Again, first of its kind for the hobby.



The only really innovative thing I see about it is a paywall. Similar resources and compendiums and tools are available for other games, often for free.



> Next?  Lots and lots of innovation there.



I'm not seeing it.



> What more do you want?



Quite a bit.

As I've said elsewhere, I want the same experience I had as a 2e player looking at 3e for the first time. The sense of "why weren't things always this way?". The quantum leap forward of mechanics. The open-ended aspiration to make a game that can do anything. The spirit of open gaming. The company doing actual research and the results being manifestly in the game. The marketing being classy. The books looking decent.

Mostly that first one, though. If I don't crack open the rules and immediately ask myself "why am I not doing things this way already?", it's not good enough.


----------



## Hussar

Zardnaar said:


> A D&D that doesn't suck.




But, that's not the question is it?  It's not, "Do you like WOTC or 4e"?  It's "What innovations has WOTC done in recent years".  Whether or not you happen to like those innovations is irrelevant.  

However, thank you for the drive by edition warring.  That's so useful.  The scales have fallen from my eyes now.


----------



## Zardnaar

Ahnehnois said:


> I disagree. What I see in 4e is a mix of all the fringe elements I disliked from earlier versions of D&D, with most of the stuff I do like stripped out, along with a bunch of other things appropriated from other games.
> 
> Also, to refer to @_*Morrus*_ above, innovation has a positive connotation, and it's more important that something be good than simply different.
> 
> The only really innovative thing I see about it is a paywall. Similar resources and compendiums and tools are available for other games, often for free.
> 
> I'm not seeing it.
> 
> Quite a bit.
> 
> As I've said elsewhere, I want the same experience I had as a 2e player looking at 3e for the first time. The sense of "why weren't things always this way?". The quantum leap forward of mechanics. The open-ended aspiration to make a game that can do anything. The spirit of open gaming. The company doing actual research and the results being manifestly in the game. The marketing being classy. The books looking decent.
> 
> Mostly that first one, though. If I don't crack open the rules and immediately ask myself "why am I not doing things this way already?", it's not good enough.




They did bring back the PDFs I suppose of previous editions. Not really innovative though.


----------



## Hussar

Ahnehnois said:


> I disagree. What I see in 4e is a mix of all the fringe elements I disliked from earlier versions of D&D, with most of the stuff I do like stripped out, along with a bunch of other things appropriated from other games.
> 
> Also, to refer to  @_*Morrus*_  above, innovation has a positive connotation, and it's more important that something be good than simply different.




So, you are the sole judge of quality?  "I don't like it, therefore it's bad" is pretty much what you've just said here.  

Now, how do all these criticisms not equally apply to Paizo, if someone doesn't like Pathfinder?  Does that mean that Paizo is not innovative?



> The only really innovative thing I see about it is a paywall. Similar resources and compendiums and tools are available for other games, often for free.




Really?  Every single 4e book, plus about 2-3000 pages of additional material (between Dungeon and Dragon magazines) in a single compendium, cross linked to a character builder.  You see that in other games?  For free?  About the only thing that comes close is the 3e program whose name I've completely forgotten PCGEN is about as user friendly as a brick.  The one that has lots and lots of the books, but, no character builder and no encounter builder.



> I'm not seeing it.
> 
> Quite a bit.
> 
> As I've said elsewhere, I want the same experience I had as a 2e player looking at 3e for the first time. The sense of "why weren't things always this way?". The quantum leap forward of mechanics. The open-ended aspiration to make a game that can do anything. The spirit of open gaming. The company doing actual research and the results being manifestly in the game. The marketing being classy. The books looking decent.
> 
> Mostly that first one, though. If I don't crack open the rules and immediately ask myself "why am I not doing things this way already?", it's not good enough.




So, anyone looking at 3e and not liking it can say that 3e wasn't innovative?  See, when I looked at 4e, that's exactly the reaction I had for most of the mechanics.  "What am I not doing things this way already".  

That's the problem with mistaking personal preference for actual criticism of something.  Just because you like or don't like something has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it's good.


----------



## Jeff Carlsen

danbala said:


> I agree with everything in your post except this one point. I suspect that the marketing value of the "D&D" name is still considerable despite Hasbro's many missteps. I hope that in the event that 5e does as well as 4e, Paizo will be in a position to buy it. Lets keep our fingers crossed.




When I refer to stigma, I don't mean 4E or the market split. I mean the wider perception of Dungeons and Dragons as a thing pimple-faced nerds play in their parents basement, or its demonic associations. D&D is a known, but disliked brand by society at large.

It may be easier to make Pathfinder into a household brand than it is to remove the D&D stigma.


----------



## Ahnehnois

Hussar said:


> So, you are the sole judge of quality?  "I don't like it, therefore it's bad" is pretty much what you've just said here.



Not really. As I noted above, what I see around me in real life are a group of twenty-something, creative, intelligent people. Most of them know nothing of rpgs, which is a shame. Most that do are strictly 3e players, some play 2e or CoC or some other non-D&D rpg. None of them have played the "current" game for a while, and most of them have never heard of any of the specific controversies associated with 4e or 5e. As far as I know, the typical D&D player (not the typical online message board avatar) isn't even aware of the 5e playtest. These are people who used to call the WotC store daily when a book came out to see if the new release was in, but now they've just decided there's nothing worthwhile there. I think that's a referendum on WotC, and I think it's a shame.

In my social environment, I'm the only one who cares at all about these things. I can only speak to what I know.



> Now, how do all these criticisms not equally apply to Paizo, if someone doesn't like Pathfinder?  Does that mean that Paizo is not innovative?



Sure. I never said Paizo was innovative (in fact, I kind of said they weren't).



> Really?  Every single 4e book, plus about 2-3000 pages of additional material (between Dungeon and Dragon magazines) in a single compendium, cross linked to a character builder.  You see that in other games?  For free?  About the only thing that comes close is the 3e program whose name I've completely forgotten that is about as user friendly as a brick.  The one that has lots and lots of the books, but, no character builder and no encounter builder.



What I see when I look at the pfsrd is roughly 1000% of the functionality I could ever need. It's a very thorough rules compendium with a lot else tacked on. I don't know anything about character or encounter builders; I'm sure there are some but I don't know what someone would use that type of stuff for anyway.



> So, anyone looking at 3e and not liking it can say that 3e wasn't innovative?



Sure. I'm sure plenty of games had numbers that scaled upwards and standardized skill systems. It was innovative specifically from the POV of a vested 2e player. I certainly wouldn't begrudge someone who saw it differently from a different perspective.

To be fair though, any critique in this area must acknowledge that there's nothing new under the sun. Ideas can be put together in new ways and presented differently, but there's very rarely going to be anything completely new hitting the gaming scene.



> See, when I looked at 4e, that's exactly the reaction I had for most of the mechanics.  "What am I not doing things this way already".



Truly mind-boggling.



> That's the problem with mistaking personal preference for actual criticism of something.  Just because you like or don't like something has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not it's good.



How can we objectively judge the merits of any form of entertainment? As far as I'm concerned, this is an internet message board for roleplaying games, and we can either post personal opinions here, or nothing. The best we can do is compose persuasive arguments based on evidence, but they're still ultimately opinions.


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## Sunseeker

Ahnehnois said:


> @_*shidaku*_
> What would you call innovative? I haven't seen much in the past few years from WotC that I would call innovative either. Whatever innovation is happening, IMO is with smaller companies.




New approaches to old things.  Being a "nice business" isn't a new approach, it's an old one people have forgotten.

I wouldn't particularly call WOTC _successfully_ innovative, but I'd say the make a hearty attempt at trying than Paizo does.



Jeff Carlsen said:


> It's clear that what you're looking for is a  different kind of innovation. Something less iterative. Something  surprising. I suppose there's nothing wrong with that.




Yes that's probably pretty accurate.  Making a good car and continuing to make good cars is a fine strategy, it's obviously working quite well.  But sometimes you need to break the mold and try something new, and I just don't get that sort of feeling from Paizo's approach.  Where they are expanding, it's fairly obvious markets.

Innovative is not the same as creative.  Paizo makes a lot of creative products, and those products encourage others to be creative as well.


----------



## danbala

Jeff Carlsen said:


> When I refer to stigma, I don't mean 4E or the market split. I mean the wider perception of Dungeons and Dragons as a thing pimple-faced nerds play in their parents basement, or its demonic associations. D&D is a known, but disliked brand by society at large.
> 
> It may be easier to make Pathfinder into a household brand than it is to remove the D&D stigma.




In listening to podcasts with Lisa Stevens I was under the impression that the D&D brand still brings in a significant number of new players every month -- and that is with virtually no new products or promotion. Its a brand with significant cultural relevance so much so that it has become basically the generic name for role playing games. I understand from your comment that you feel that the brand also has some cultural baggage.  But given how the brand continues to attract new players I would guess that attaching the brand to Pathfinder would be a net positive for both the brand and for pathfinder -- even if it also carried some stigma.

The question is whether Paizo could afford to pay what Hasbro is likely to require. I am fairly sure Paizo would not want to be roped into a new licencing arrangement given how that has turned out for them in the past. And all of this presupposes that 5e under performs. 

Personally, would predict that: (1) 5e makes it to market, (2) it performs well by RPG standards but not well enough by Hasbro standards; (3) Hasbro decides not to sell it off so they can milk the ancillary licensing for video games and movies; and (4)  after 3 years they mothball the RPG line. At that point Paizo buys a limited, irrevocable license for a fixed term to use the trademark of D&D in relation to Pathfinder. Several years later people have forgotten that  Pathfinder (and its decedents) are not technically D&D.


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## danbala

sorry, double post


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## Sunseeker

Hussar said:


> Umm, 4ed?  Like it or hate it, it is an innovation.  DDI?  Again, first of its kind for the hobby.  Next?  Lots and lots of innovation there.
> 
> What more do you want?




Honestly if Paizo could produce a DDI-equivalent product, a searchable index of spells, feats, classes, a tool for finding and adjusting existing monsters and creating new ones, as well as a character-builder tool, I would likely play Pathfinder a great deal more than I currently do (at present, I'd say 1/4 of my games are Pathfinder, the rest are 4e), because plainly put, the biggest detriment to 3.X is system mastery.  DDI overcomes that to a very large extent.


----------



## Morrus

Ahnehnois said:


> As I've said elsewhere, I want the same experience I had as a 2e player looking at 3e for the first time. The sense of "why weren't things always this way?". The quantum leap forward of mechanics.




I think that may be a bit of an unrealistic hope. Not every new game can be a quantum leap forward; sometimes an appropriate evolution or altered take is a perfectly appropriate and desirable outcome. I also don't think RPG rules are like technology - it's not an open ended advancement of better and better rules. It's different rules and different directions, sure, and some find different things personally better or worse, but it's not like computer tech where someone invents a smaller chip or a faster processor every 18 months,

I think the "quantum leap" you're looking for might not take the form of rules; it might be a form factor. Maybe MMOs were a quantum leap (though not one that appeals to me particularly). Maybe the RPG was the quantum leap from wargames.  And maybe open gaming was a quantum leap.  A lot of these things aren't the rules, though; they're things surrounding the game.


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## Dannyalcatraz

I've been using PDAs and Tablets for gaming since @2002-2003, but just as a substitute form of ruled note paper.  I don't have any dedicated gaming apps.

But I think _those_- along with the online character builder, srds and PDFs (back in the day, of course)- are true innovations.  They really do streamline the PC creation process and increase the portability of games.  That's a good thing, regardless of who did the actual programming.

Now, if only I could find gaming apps or spreadsheets for iOS I liked enough to buy...


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## Dannyalcatraz

Postx2


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## Ahnehnois

Morrus said:


> I think that may be a bit of an unrealistic hope.



It may very well be. The good thing is that unlike my phone, my 3e books are not obsolete, despite being a decade or so old. I can hope for a leap forward, but I realize that's a high bar, and if it isn't met then there's no reason for me to switch to a whole new edition. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.



> I think the "quantum leap" you're looking for might not take the form of rules; it might be a form factor. Maybe MMOs were a quantum leap (though not one that appeals to me particularly). Maybe the RPG was the quantum leap from wargames.  And maybe open gaming was a quantum leap.  A lot of these things aren't the rules, though; they're things surrounding the game.



Maybe. I think the concept of roleplaying has a broad appeal that hasn't really been tapped yet. I think the next quantum leap will be something that takes all the people who are fans of genre fiction, who are willing to invest a lot of time and money in hobbies, who are diverse and talented and fun, and gets them to try gaming. I wish I knew how to do that.


----------



## Zardnaar

Ahnehnois said:


> It may very well be. The good thing is that unlike my phone, my 3e books are not obsolete, despite being a decade or so old. I can hope for a leap forward, but I realize that's a high bar, and if it isn't met then there's no reason for me to switch to a whole new edition. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.
> 
> Maybe. I think the concept of roleplaying has a broad appeal that hasn't really been tapped yet. I think the next quantum leap will be something that takes all the people who are fans of genre fiction, who are willing to invest a lot of time and money in hobbies, who are diverse and talented and fun, and gets them to try gaming. I wish I knew how to do that.



 Make it a facebook game like farmville


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## Morrus

Ahnehnois said:


> It may very well be. The good thing is that unlike my phone, my 3e books are not obsolete, despite being a decade or so old. I can hope for a leap forward, but I realize that's a high bar, and if it isn't met then there's no reason for me to switch to a whole new edition. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing.




Much of that is a personal style thing, of course. I don't think most folks progress from one game system to another, always moving "upwards" to a better one. I'm not sure the forward/backward take even applies; at least not to me. Like I said, it's not like technology. It's as much art as science; art doesn't improve, it just changes style.

YMMV, of course. But for me a sideways move is just as valid as a forward move (if there is even such a thing as a forward move). I don't only watch a new TV show if it has better special effects than my current one, for example. (Yeah, I know, silly example).


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## DMZ2112

shidaku said:


> ...plainly put, the biggest detriment to 3.X is system mastery.  DDI overcomes that to a very large extent.




What?  Oh, you're looking at it from the perspective of a player observing other players, aren't you?  I guess I can see how it might seem that way from that point of view.  From my perspective behind the screen, all DDI does is make /everyone/ a powergamer.  Admittedly, that does solve the problem of player capability discrepancy, but it absolutely does not "overcome systems mastery."  

What it does do is free developers up to build an insane cyclopean machine*, safe in the knowledge that all of their players have access to their cross-referenced L-space data repository and can engage their monstrous, unforgivable sin of design as equals.

I don't want to run a game that is made easier by a DDI-like tool.  It's too close to a game that requires a DDI-like tool.  I'll stick with my books and hypertext SRD.

(*No, not D&D4.  D&D4 fortunately never quite reached the point where Lum the Mad was appointed the design lead.)


----------



## Sonny

At this point I don't think any current company is an ideal Steward of D&D. They're all too small and too narrowly focused on their favored edition to represent the breadth and width of all editions of D&D, it's retro-clones and the fans.


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## pemerton

Ahnehnois said:


> I want the same experience I had as a 2e player looking at 3e for the first time. The sense of "why weren't things always this way?". The quantum leap forward of mechanics.





Hussar said:


> So, anyone looking at 3e and not liking it can say that 3e wasn't innovative?



For what it's worth, I didn't find 3E particularly innovative:

* Race/class as the basis of PC build - goes back to AD&D (and I imagine even further back to the Greyhawk supplement, but I'm not 100% sure of that);

* Uniform XP table for classes - goes back at least to Rolemaster;

* Skill built using points with a level cap and class-dependent point costs - goes back at least to Rolemaster;

* Spells memorised via a class-and-level dependent table from a long list - goes back to original D&D;

* Simulationist rather than fortune-in-the-middle saving throws - goes back at least to Runequest;

Monsters presented in the same stat format as PCs - goes back at least to Runequest.​
There are only three real mechanical innovations I can think of in 3E, but I'm happy to be pointed to the game where they originated! One is the use of spontaneous casting to reconcile "Vancian" casting with the flexibiity of mana-point casting; another is feat as a way of giving a class-and-level based game some of the same flexibility in PC build as a points-based game; and a third (but the merits of which are highly contstable!) is using the PC build rules to build all NPCs and monsters.

I can see how 3E might have looked innovative to someone who knew little of trends in RPG design from the late 70s through the 80s, but otherwise it was about bringing D&D up to a level of design that had been pioneered around 15 to 20 years earlier.

I've got most of Monte Cook's Rolemaster books - I'm not sure how innovative they are (mechanically not that much), but he certainly has creative ideas - there's a lot of fun stuff in Creatures & Treasures II (including items that turned up in his D&D work, like the Cape of the Montebank - though the "teleporting in a puff of smoke" spell that the item is based on was not introduced into RM by Monte, but is found in the original Rolemaster Companion which predates his involvement in the game), and his organitech stuff from Banewarrens (?) and Ptolus was anticipated in the Rolemaster campaign supplement Dark Space.

For innovation by Jonathan Tweet, Ars Magica is obviously a clearer example than 3E, but it's hard to think of a more innovative RPG than Over the Edge - which, having come out in 1992, predates 3E by nearly a decade yet still reads like a contemporary indie game. (And it's interesting to see the raving over feature of 13th Age, like backgrounds as skills and One Unique Thing, which Tweet thought up over  20 years ago for that earlier game.)



Hussar said:


> See, when I looked at 4e, that's exactly the reaction I had for most of the mechanics.  "What am I not doing things this way already".





Ahnehnois said:


> Truly mind-boggling.



Huh? Your mind is boggled by the fact that someone might find 4e a game worth playing? Then I think you need to get out more!

I think 4e is more innovative than 3E - it is a version of D&D that, in terms of its mechanics, is basically contemporary with other games being published in 2008, rather than playing catch-up to 1985 like 3E was. I think it's biggest mechanical innovation is showing that crunchy tactical combat mechanics - which traditionally were a staple of heavily process-sim games like RQ, RM, etc - can be used to a quite different, non-simulationist end. (Arguably Burning Wheel had already done this over 5 years earlier, but BW maintains the process sim resolution and then layers non-sim concerns over the top of it, whereas 4e abandons process sim for all elements except positioning.) Skill challenges are also a distinctive approach to complex scene resolution, which have weaknesses compared to some others (in particular, the absence of active opposition can create framing challenges for the GM) but strengths also (once the GM overcomes the framing challenges, skill challenges are less vulnerable to a dropping out of fictional positioning than simple opposed-check systems like HeroWars/Quest extended contests or the BW Duel of Wits).

But I think the biggest innovation in 4e is actually not mechanical at all - it's at the level of story. 4e shows how decades of D&D lore can be consolidated and repurposed to support a non-simulationist game, in the form of a conflict-riven setting in which the PCs (and thereby the players) are inherenlty engaged. It is the Gloranthafication of D&D.


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## Bluenose

Hussar said:


> Umm, 4ed?  Like it or hate it, it is an innovation.  DDI?  Again, first of its kind for the hobby.  Next?  Lots and lots of innovation there.
> 
> What more do you want?




I don't think there's very much innovative in the mechanics of 4e, unless you consider "New to D&D" the same as innovative. In many ways, the mechanical changes seemed like an attempt to get back to results similar to those of earlier D&D, where 2e and (much more so) 3e had moved towards the "Magic is Better" paradigm. Now, some of the setting elements they use do seem pretty innovative. As for DDi, if the apparent original intention had been carried through, then I think it would have set a new standard in terms of integration of computer tools in play. That would in my opinion have been a very good innovation, though since it fell apart in the implementation I'm less inclined to be generous to it.


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## pemerton

Bluenose said:


> I don't think there's very much innovative in the mechanics of 4e, unless you consider "New to D&D" the same as innovative.



That's certainly the only basis by which I could judge _3E_ as innovative.



Bluenose said:


> Now, some of the setting elements they use do seem pretty innovative.



I agree with that (see my post above yours), but I'm not sure if for the same reason. What did you have in mind?


----------



## Ahnehnois

pemerton said:


> and a third (but the merits of which are highly contstable!) is using the PC build rules to build all NPCs and monsters.



Well, that's one that came in stages. One of the major 3.0 to 3.5 shifts was precisely in this area; changing monster feats and skills from formulas to HD-based advancement like a PC. It is a rather large thing, and it does set 3e aside from many rpgs.



> Huh? Your mind is boggled by the fact that someone might find 4e a game worth playing? Then I think you need to get out more!



An odd statement given that my only known source of people who play 4e (or playtest 5e) is my desktop computer.



> I think 4e is more innovative than 3E - it is a version of D&D that, in terms of its mechanics, is basically contemporary with other games being published in 2008, rather than playing catch-up to 1985 like 3E was.



I think, again to reference the above, that game design is not iterative advancement, and newer is not better.

Certainly, when I'm looking for a game that simulates better while maintaining a baseline of simplicity and intuitiveness and gamist satisfaction, I'm not interested in being shown that it doesn't need to simulate at all.


> I think it's biggest mechanical innovation is showing that crunchy tactical combat mechanics - which traditionally were a staple of heavily process-sim games like RQ, RM, etc - can be used to a quite different, non-simulationist end.



Whereas I'd say that a lot of the big problems with 3e revolve around its focus on having a lot of combat mechanics, while not simulating as much as it could under the page count.



> But I think the biggest innovation in 4e is actually not mechanical at all - it's at the level of story. 4e shows how decades of D&D lore can be consolidated and repurposed to support a non-simulationist game, in the form of a conflict-riven setting in which the PCs (and thereby the players) are inherenlty engaged.



Well, those are two things I do my darndest not to care about when conceiving a story: D&D lore, and the PCs.


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## DMZ2112

Sonny said:


> At this point I don't think any current company is an ideal Steward of D&D. They're all too small and too narrowly focused on their favored edition to represent the breadth and width of all editions of D&D, it's retro-clones and the fans.




No game company in the history of games has ever lived up to this standard you have set.  Are you proposing a return to the zine-based rules-trading wargamer communities of the 1960s?



Ahnehnois said:


> An odd statement given that my only known source of people who play 4e (or playtest 5e) is my desktop computer.




Okay, first of all, this thread is not about one's preference for any particular flavor of D&D -- the OP specifically stated that the question he was asking was intended to be edition-neutral.  So we should all dial down the rhetoric.

That said, the one thing that I am completely unable to reconcile in my brain about the quick onset of D&D5 is that since D&D Encounters hit its stride last year or so, my FLGS is packed to the rafters every week with D&D4 players of all ages, genders, and races (I am not among them).  I have /never/ seen such diversity at a D&D gathering short of GenCon, where the sample size is several orders of magnitude larger.

It /must/ be an isolated phenomenon, because if my local experience is any judge, abandoning D&D4 is a /critical/ error on WotC's part.  The owner of the shop and I tried to run a table of the last Encounters season using D&D5, as recommended -- not a single taker outside my usual (tiny) playtest group.

Does ignoring the D&D4 community in favor of courting Pathfinder players make WotC a good steward?  Would it make them a good steward if they buckled down and supported the D&D4 community to the exclusion of Pathfinder players?

The transition between editions of a game is always rough, but did the transition from D&D4 to D&D5 have to be as jarring as it has been?  The content of the games aside, I can't feel like the transition was handled in a very "steward-like" fashion.

This is obviously an unfair criterion -- Paizo hasn't yet had to steward a major revision of their ruleset, while WotC has suffered through two very contentious transitions.  D&D3.5 to Pathfinder was floated on a powerful wave of consumer rage.  Without a D&D4 analogue to rally against, I doubt the transition to Pathfinder 2.0 will be as smooth.



> Well, those are two things I do my darndest not to care about when conceiving a story: D&D lore, and the PCs.




BE CAREFUL!  You're going to give Pemerton an aneurysm!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> That said, the one thing that I am completely unable to reconcile in my brain about the quick onset of D&D5 is that since D&D Encounters hit its stride last year or so, my FLGS is packed to the rafters every week with D&D4 players of all ages, genders, and races (I am not among them). I have /never/ seen such diversity at a D&D gathering short of GenCon, where the sample size is several orders of magnitude larger.
> 
> It /must/ be an isolated phenomenon, because if my local experience is any judge, abandoning D&D4 is a /critical/ error on WotC's part. The owner of the shop and I tried to run a table of the last Encounters season using D&D5, as recommended -- not a single taker outside my usual (tiny) playtest group.




Edition fandom is not universal nor uniformly distributed.  At 4Ed's launch, I could go around my stomping grounds in D/FW and find stores in which the product launch was being met with dread and others in which it was eagerly anticipated.  The same is probably happening today with 4Ed & 5Ed.  I'll be honest with you, I haven't even seen anyone playing 5th in stores, and my own main group wasn't interested in the playtest at all.  (After our only 4Ed campaign sputtered out and died, we're going to back to 3.5Ed.)


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## Dannyalcatraz

2xPost


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## Cybit

Jeff Carlsen said:


> I definitely can't agree with this. They've done many innovative things with the Pathfinder game and brand:
> 
> 
> The subscription model for each of their product lines.
> Limiting core books to three per year, but having adventure and setting material on a monthly basis.
> The Pathfinder adventure card game.
> The token boxes for each of the Bestiaries and NPC Codex.
> A randomized miniature structure where buying a full box gets you a full set.
> NPC and Item cards.
> The magnetic initiative tracker.
> The manner in which they fully support each adventure path with maps, cards, setting, and player content.
> 
> All of these are innovations, and if not unique individually, certainly they've never been combined in this manner.
> 
> Now, if by innovation, you're looking for electronic tools, then sure. But by being OGL, Pathfinder is a default option in most third party tools, so there isn't much incentive.




#5 was done by WotC with the original miniatures lines for D&D IIRC - they moved away from it at some point though.  

If Paizo made electronic tools to the level of character builder / adventure tools; they would have a much better chance of getting newer players IMO.  Younger players are just much more likely to engage with electronic tools (since almost everything else they play with has it to some extent) than they are w/ physical tools initially.


----------



## Halivar

Cybit said:


> If Paizo made electronic tools to the level of character builder / adventure tools; they would have a much better chance of getting newer players IMO.



I would just pimp PCGen in the core books. They've already done all the work, and probably better than Paizo could buy from outsourcing. Certainly better than WotC could.


----------



## pemerton

Ahnehnois said:


> Well, those are two things I do my darndest not to care about when conceiving a story: D&D lore, and the PCs.





DMZ2112 said:


> BE CAREFUL!  You're going to give Pemerton an aneurysm!



My mind isn't boggled by the fact that not everyone plays the game the same way as me, or even plays the same game as me!

But one person's playing preferences doesn't really address the issue of what counts as an innovation, which is what I was discussing in my post.



DMZ2112 said:


> if my local experience is any judge, abandoning D&D4 is a /critical/ error on WotC's part.



I'm not a business person, and I'm certainly not a RPG business person. But I think many posts (not yours) seem to impute mistaken reasons to WotC.

For example, it is common to see posts about 4e having "failed", or being a mistake. But I would be very surprised if WotC has not made a profit on 4e, given that it seems to have generated sufficient revenue to keep the D&D branch of the company afloat through the whole D&Dnext development cycle. It seems to me that the only sense in which 4e has "failed" is that it has not met WotC's profit targets. There's no reason I've ever seen to think that retaining publication of 3.5 (or3.75) would have met those targets either.

If 4e is not meeting its targets, then the presence or absence of big 4e groups in local stores is a secondary issue - they need to publish something that will _sell even more books_, and thereby support sales of other merchandise. (Perhaps D&Dnext is not going to be that thing, but that's a different matter - you can't say they're not trying!)

What I think those 4e groups _are_ relevant too is how long they will keep DDI online: because it's likely that at present DDI is meeting profit margins of subscription income relative to upkeep cost. (But obviously we won't see new content added.)


----------



## Zardnaar

pemerton said:


> My mind isn't boggled by the fact that not everyone plays the game the same way as me, or even plays the same game as me!
> 
> But one person's playing preferences doesn't really address the issue of what counts as an innovation, which is what I was discussing in my post.
> 
> I'm not a business person, and I'm certainly not a RPG business person. But I think many posts (not yours) seem to impute mistaken reasons to WotC.
> 
> For example, it is common to see posts about 4e having "failed", or being a mistake. But I would be very surprised if WotC has not made a profit on 4e, given that it seems to have generated sufficient revenue to keep the D&D branch of the company afloat through the whole D&Dnext development cycle. It seems to me that the only sense in which 4e has "failed" is that it has not met WotC's profit targets. There's no reason I've ever seen to think that retaining publication of 3.5 (or3.75) would have met those targets either.
> 
> If 4e is not meeting its targets, then the presence or absence of big 4e groups in local stores is a secondary issue - they need to publish something that will _sell even more books_, and thereby support sales of other merchandise. (Perhaps D&Dnext is not going to be that thing, but that's a different matter - you can't say they're not trying!)
> 
> What I think those 4e groups _are_ relevant too is how long they will keep DDI online: because it's likely that at present DDI is meeting profit margins of subscription income relative to upkeep cost. (But obviously we won't see new content added.)




Estimates for DDI are around 6 million per year so that is enough to pay the wages for the D&DN development team I assume. Problem is it is the only 4E income left and there are stories of 4E books selling less than 1000 copies. 6 million is a lot but Dancey is on record as saying D&D is a 25-30 million per year business and there is a big difference between 25 million and 6 million. If revenue= players 4E lost over 70% of the 3.5 market and paizo picked up 40% or so by 2012 and at current growth rates will hit 66-80% by 2014 when D&DN launches.


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## Hussar

Bluenose said:


> I don't think there's very much innovative in the mechanics of 4e, unless you consider "New to D&D" the same as innovative. In many ways, the mechanical changes seemed like an attempt to get back to results similar to those of earlier D&D, where 2e and (much more so) 3e had moved towards the "Magic is Better" paradigm. Now, some of the setting elements they use do seem pretty innovative. As for DDi, if the apparent original intention had been carried through, then I think it would have set a new standard in terms of integration of computer tools in play. That would in my opinion have been a very good innovation, though since it fell apart in the implementation I'm less inclined to be generous to it.




Now this I will disagree with.  One of the biggest innovations in 4e is breaking the initiative paradigm.  That's not only new to D&D, but, new to a lot of RPG's.  Yes, I know you had AOO's in 3e.  Sure.  But, that was reactive, not pro-active.  You, the player, could not take an action outside of your turn in initiative.  

4e radically changed that.  Now, every class can take actions outside of their turn in initiative, and, not only that, but can grant other people actions outside of their initiative as well.  

It's a very big shift in play.  Players have to pay attention all the time, because, at any point in time, you can possibly be called on to act.  Previously, you could largely walk away from the table when it wasn't your turn, and, so long as you came back before the DM's turn, you would not miss anything.

3e's big innovation was tying everything to the PC generation rules.  Everything in 3e is made just like a PC.  For D&D, at least, and a lot of RPG's as well, this was pretty new.  The idea of creating a balanced framework for making virtually anything you wanted in the game, either as a PC or an NPC, was pretty unique to 3e.  Gave DM's all sorts of tools that, previously, were largely only seen in point buy games.


----------



## Sunseeker

DMZ2112 said:


> What?  Oh, you're looking at it from the perspective of a player observing other players, aren't you?  I guess I can see how it might seem that way from that point of view.




[begin John Wayne]That's a might big assumption there partner. [/end John Wayne]



> From my perspective behind the screen, all DDI does is make /everyone/ a powergamer.  Admittedly, that does solve the problem of player capability discrepancy, but it absolutely does not "overcome systems mastery."



I have ran 4e games on multiple occasions.  You are confusing "powergaming" with "not sucking", which was the systerm-mastery problem evidence in prior editions.  It wasn't just that there were lots of choices, but there were _good_ choices and _bad_ choices, and players were punished for making decisions they thought were good, even non-powergaming decisions, because those choices were objectively BAD.  We're not even talking about "creative" or "fluff" choices, there were numerous feats and prestiege classes that to an unknowing player were absolutely horrid to pick.

It's not powergaming to want to make good choices.  Powergaming is desiring a powerful character over all other facets.  It is not desiring to be free from detrimental choices.



> What it does do is free developers up to build an insane cyclopean machine*, safe in the knowledge that all of their players have access to their cross-referenced L-space data repository and can engage their monstrous, unforgivable sin of design as equals.



It sounds to me like you're one of those kinds of DMs and players who wants others to suffer for their choices, to _force_ them to master the game or GTFO.  Frankly, that strikes me a disgusting attitude.



> I don't want to run a game that is made easier by a DDI-like tool.  It's too close to a game that requires a DDI-like tool.  I'll stick with my books and hypertext SRD.



There is no difference between the SRD and the tool, aside from the fact that tool is more user-friendly.

Frankly, it sounds like you simply want to make life difficult for people.  I have no desire to make the game difficult by supporting false-choice options and then allowing the game to punish players for simple ignorance.  With the sheer volume of content in nearly every edition of D&D, it's unrealistic to expect players to always know a bad choice when they see it.

And please don't retort with "no choice is ever bad", because yes, some are.  Anyone who has ever played 3.X knows this.  Denying it will not help your case.


----------



## Zardnaar

The one true wayism of 1st ed and BECMI tend to protect you from bad choices.


----------



## pemerton

Zardnaar said:


> there are stories of 4E books selling less than 1000 copies.



I thought that was the Menzoberranzan book, which is actually system neutral. Here is what my thought is based on:



Neonchameleon said:


> Menzobaranzan which was  systemless and if I've read between the lines of the State of the  Mongoose only sold a few hundred copies.






Zardnaar said:


> If revenue= players



Unless you have a subscription service - which Paizo and WotC both have - then my guess is that it doesn't.



Zardnaar said:


> Dancey is on record as saying D&D is a 25-30 million per year business



Is that revenue or profit?

In any event, I assume that a fair bit of that, if not the majority, comes from non-RPG sales: books, boardgames, etc.



Zardnaar said:


> 4E lost over 70% of the 3.5 market



I'm not sure where you're getting your figures for player bases. But are you suggesting that the D&D arm of WotC has had it's revenue shrink by 70% since 2008? That strikes me as pretty unlikely - if _that_ had happened, wouldn't it have been shut down? Not to mention many more layoffs than we've heard about.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> And please don't retort with "no choice is ever bad", because yes, some are. Anyone who has ever played 3.X knows this. Denying it will not help your case.




Personally, 3.X is my favorite form of D&D, and I _am_ of the opinion that no choice is bad as long as it models the way you want your PC to work.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

2xpost


----------



## Zardnaar

pemerton said:


> I thought that was the Menzoberranzan book, which is actually system neutral. Here is what my thought is based on:
> 
> 
> 
> Unless you have a subscription service - which Paizo and WotC both have - then my guess is that it doesn't.
> 
> Is that revenue or profit?
> 
> In any event, I assume that a fair bit of that, if not the majority, comes from non-RPG sales: books, boardgames, etc.
> 
> I'm not sure where you're getting your figures for player bases. But are you suggesting that the D&D arm of WotC has had it's revenue shrink by 70% since 2008? That strikes me as pretty unlikely - if _that_ had happened, wouldn't it have been shut down? Not to mention many more layoffs than we've heard about.




 More or less based on what Dancey said vs what we know DDI would be getting and there is a high and low figure one can go with there as well. We also know how much Paizo is getting and their growth rate. There is only around a dozen people working on D&DN IIRC so the 6 million or so from DDI would cover that. So yes WoTC has lost around 70% of its revenue since 2008 maybe close to 80% depending if you want to go with Dancey's 25-30 million figure which seems in the ball park since D&D is estimated to have earned about a billion dollars in 40 years (avg 25 mill per year) and there are figures for what TSR was earning and D&D was not making massive amounts until 81 or so so Dancey's figure seems to be in the right ball park. I think the the 25-30 million figure was referring to 2006 as the context Dancey was using was the lead up to the development of 4E. 

 You can also work out Paizo's income figures in 2011 when it was official Paizo was outselling 4th ed and they were in the 8-9 million range. As of 2012 around 18 million of Danceys figures are accounted for leaving around 7-12 million unaccounted for which could indicate the number of 3rd ed players who did not migrate to PF or stick with 4E long term. With D&DN being announced in Jan 2012 and 4E for all intents and purposes (outside of DDI) going out of print WoTC seems to have lost 70% of their revenue in the D&D franchise maybe more- close to 80%. Without accurate DDI income figures it is hard to say for certain but DDI does tell you how many people are on it and you can multiply that by the yearly or monthly subscription rates to get a range.


----------



## pemerton

Zardnaar said:


> So yes WoTC has lost around 70% of its revenue since 2008 maybe close to 80% depending if you want to go with Dancey's 25-30 million figure



You seem to be assuming that all of that revenue comes from RPG sales. I don't know why you would make that assumption. It seems pretty clear that a good chunk of that revenue must come from book and non-RPG game sales.

If a unit of WotC had really had its revenue drop by 80% in 5 years I don't think they would have them working on a new edition of the game! They would close them down, wouldn't they?


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Personally, 3.X is my favorite form of D&D, and I _am_ of the opinion that no choice is bad as long as it models the way you want your PC to work.




But, even within that, there are numerous choices that are still bad based on that criteria.  Lots of choices don't actually model the way you want your PC to work because they wind up being trap choices.


----------



## Zardnaar

pemerton said:


> You seem to be assuming that all of that revenue comes from RPG sales. I don't know why you would make that assumption. It seems pretty clear that a good chunk of that revenue must come from book and non-RPG game sales.
> 
> If a unit of WotC had really had its revenue drop by 80% in 5 years I don't think they would have them working on a new edition of the game! They would close them down, wouldn't they?




 Or try and redo it for cheap. They have contracted out the art to China IIRC and DDI will pay the wages of the D&DN crew which is only around a dozen people IIRC. Paizo has over 40 people working there just for a sake of comparison. They did shut it down when 4E went out of print in effect. No new D&D product for 2 years is even longer than the TSR- WoTC transfer and gives Paizo a free 2 years of unopposed sales to grow PF and they were maintaining a 35% growth rate per year while 4E was still in print. All the other ediitons were more or less printed up to 6 months or so before the new one landed, 2 years of no new product is unique in D&Ds history. Well they sold a playtest version at Gencon I suppose but you get what I mean.


----------



## DMZ2112

shidaku said:


> [begin John Wayne]That's a might big assumption there partner. [/end John Wayne]




Perhaps, but your post does not tell me it was incorrect.  I painted your wagon well enough (see what I did there).



> Powergaming is desiring a powerful character over all other facets.




I know optimizers who might disagree with you.



> It sounds to me like you're one of those kinds of DMs and players who wants others to suffer for their choices, to _force_ them to master the game or GTFO.  Frankly, that strikes me a disgusting attitude.




No, but I can see why you might think that.  There is a third option.  I am the kind of dungeon master who, when running D&D4 (or D&D3.5, for that matter), hands his players the PHB1 and says, "This is it.  There is no D&D outside of this book.  Use this book.  Just this one.  All that other stuff?  What other stuff?  This book is D&D.  D&D is this book.  Don't make me stab you in the eye."



> There is no difference between the SRD and the tool, aside from the fact that tool is more user-friendly.




I don't really agree, but I see your point.  It's more the combination of D&D4's design and the character creator that I find distasteful, rather than the character creator in and of itself.  But, to bring this post back into line with the thread topic, I do not necessarily think that an online character generation tool is good stewardship.  I would genuinely rather see those development funds allocated elsewhere.



> Frankly, it sounds like you simply want to make life difficult for people.




Oh, absolutely!  Just not at the table.



> And please don't retort with "no choice is ever bad", because yes, some are.  Anyone who has ever played 3.X knows this.  Denying it will not help your case.




That's certainly not my case.  Systems mastery and powergaming ruined D&D3.5 for me, and it is only by the narrowest of margins that I still find Pathfinder playable.  But I continue to refute the idea that making everyone a master of an unnecessarily complex ruleset is the way to overcome systems mastery as a barrier to rewarding roleplay.  The preferable strategy is to reduce complexity across the board.


----------



## pemerton

Zardnaar said:


> They did shut it down when 4E went out of print in effect.



Now I'm puzzled. Are you saying that WotC drove down D&D revenues by 80% _by publishing 4e materials_, or are you saying that they drove down those revenues _by ceasing to publish 4e material_ and working instead on D&Dnext?


----------



## Zardnaar

pemerton said:


> Now I'm puzzled. Are you saying that WotC drove down D&D revenues by 80% _by publishing 4e materials_, or are you saying that they drove down those revenues _by ceasing to publish 4e material_ and working instead on D&Dnext?




Assuming Dancey's figures are accurate WoTC lost 70-80% of their revenue once 4E went out of print. Why it went out of print and what went wrong between 2008-2012 you can decide for yourself but with the rise of Pathfinder and OSR clones I have a good idea of what to blame. 4E PHB indicated it was going to be 10 years long, its production cycle was cut in half by 2010, same year Mearl's is on record as saying they drove off their own customers, and D&DN is announced around 3.5 years into 4Es run. Something went wrong. Going from 25-30 million a year down to 6 million via DDI is a big hit regardless of how you try and spin it. 

 Paizo has been number 1 since late 2010/early 2011 depending on who you want to believe. Paizos revenue went public (4.4 mill 2009, 11.2 2012) and with the 30%+ growth rate it means PF became number 1 on about 8-9 million in sails. Compare that with Dancey's figures.


----------



## pemerton

Zardnaar said:


> Going from 25-30 million a year down to 6 million via DDI is a big hit regardless of how you try and spin it. .



What proportion of that $25-$30 million was non-RPG related revenue eg books and boardgames? That's still there.


----------



## Zardnaar

pemerton said:


> What proportion of that $25-$30 million was non-RPG related revenue eg books and boardgames? That's still there.




IDK could be a bit more but when Dancey was positng that I'm not sure if D&D was allowed to count tie in products like novels and board games as part of D&D's overall revenue. If that figure does include things like that though D&D has lost even a larger % of players to Paizo though who only recently added things like that to their lineup. We do not know the exact figures and profit/margins etc but as I said in terms of the RPG D&D has never gone out of print for 2 years in effect even during the TSR collapse.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> Originally Posted by Dannyalcatraz
> Personally, 3.X is my favorite form of D&D, and I am of the opinion that no choice is bad as long as it models the way you want your PC to work.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> But, even within that, there are numerous choices that are still bad based on that criteria.  Lots of choices don't actually model the way you want your PC to work because they wind up being trap choices.
Click to expand...



By definition, if you make a choice that doesn't actually model the way you want your PC to work, it fails to satisfy that clause of my statement.  What you call "trap choices" make no sense in that context.


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> By definition, if you make a choice that doesn't actually model the way you want your PC to work, it fails to satisfy that clause of my statement.  What you call "trap choices" make no sense in that context.



In the context of "modelling your PC", I think a trap choice would be (say) a feat called Toughness that doesn't, in actual play, have the mechanical result of making your PC tough.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

pemerton said:


> In the context of "modelling your PC", I think a trap choice would be (say) a feat called Toughness that doesn't, in actual play, have the mechanical result of making your PC tough.




It makes him 3 HP tougher than a PC without it, which is a measurable mechanical difference.  Assuming average HP, it means even a spellcaster will be able to survive at least one more dagger strike than before.  (I almost took that one for a Sorcerer who wore armor and had a Toad familiar, but other aspects of the PC were more important.)  

It is also a prereq for certain feats in PHB2, one of which allows for minor magical healing.  In 3.X, the ability to heal ones HP damage quickly and without the aid of another or a device could arguably be considered "Tough".


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

2(post)


----------



## Bluenose

pemerton said:


> I agree with that (see my post above yours), but I'm not sure if for the same reason. What did you have in mind?




There's a number of areas where I find the setting of 4e rather more original than previous versions. The one that always strikes me as most interesting (and least talked about) is the differentiation between battle magics - the spells that are used in combat - and ritual magics - that are cast outside combat. That is something with large implications for world-building and story-creation, and also something that I rarely see in RPGs. There are some examples, of course, but in my experience most games have either ritual magic or quick magic without having both. That it's also something available to anyone who learns a particular feat is a part of that too, it being something that I don't think I've ever seen anywhere. While there are obvious mechanical implications, the whole Ritual Magic aspect is one of the largest changes for setting implications, and very innovative.



Hussar said:


> Now this I will disagree with.  One of the biggest innovations in 4e is breaking the initiative paradigm.  That's not only new to D&D, but, new to a lot of RPG's.  Yes, I know you had AOO's in 3e.  Sure.  But, that was reactive, not pro-active.  You, the player, could not take an action outside of your turn in initiative.
> 
> 4e radically changed that.  Now, every class can take actions outside of their turn in initiative, and, not only that, but can grant other people actions outside of their initiative as well.
> 
> It's a very big shift in play.  Players have to pay attention all the time, because, at any point in time, you can possibly be called on to act.  Previously, you could largely walk away from the table when it wasn't your turn, and, so long as you came back before the DM's turn, you would not miss anything.




A very good point, one that I hadn't really thought about as innovative. Though as a regular Traveller player (and wargamer) I was already familiar with interrupts through concepts like Overwatch and Suppressive Fire. Still, the scope and extent seems quite a lot larger in 4e, and closer to reality in many ways.



> 3e's big innovation was tying everything to the PC generation rules.  Everything in 3e is made just like a PC.  For D&D, at least, and a lot of RPG's as well, this was pretty new.  The idea of creating a balanced framework for making virtually anything you wanted in the game, either as a PC or an NPC, was pretty unique to 3e.  Gave DM's all sorts of tools that, previously, were largely only seen in point buy games.




Runequest worked like that since the 1970s. It never even occurred to me that making NPCs the same way as PCs was particularly original, or that providing a framework for doing that was unusual.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> In the context of "modelling your PC", I think a trap choice would be (say) a feat called Toughness that doesn't, in actual play, have the mechanical result of making your PC tough.




Actually this is only considered a "trap" choice if you are playing a long-term campaign (in a one shot or short-term game it's not a bad feat to grab at all)... since it doesn't scale.  However that seems to be more of a concern with optimization rather than, as @_*Dannyalcatraz*_ pointed out, whether it makes your character tougher or not, because it does for all practical purposes do that.

Further I think how you and a few other posters are presenting the "trap" choices argument is a mis-characterization of how 3.x was actually designed. In Monte Cook's essay on the matter he isn't saying that there are blatant trap choices, what he was commenting on was the fact that certain options were designed with specific circumstances in mind, (again using toughness as an example it is more beneficial for a first level wizard to take since it almost doubles his hit points or to be used in one-shot/short campaign) but the 3.x books didn't offer the necessary guidance to people in order for them to understand when certain options as opposed to others would be beneficial.


----------



## Imaro

Bluenose said:


> There's a number of areas where I find the setting of 4e rather more original than previous versions. The one that always strikes me as most interesting (and least talked about) is the differentiation between battle magics - the spells that are used in combat - and ritual magics - that are cast outside combat. That is something with large implications for world-building and story-creation, and also something that I rarely see in RPGs. There are some examples, of course, but in my experience most games have either ritual magic or quick magic without having both. That it's also something available to anyone who learns a particular feat is a part of that too, it being something that I don't think I've ever seen anywhere. While there are obvious mechanical implications, the whole Ritual Magic aspect is one of the largest changes for setting implications, and very innovative.




It's interesting that you brought this up since the proto-ritual actually existed in 3.x in the form of incantations in Unearthed Arcana, I think the difference between 4e and 3.x was that 4e made them a mandatory part of the game while 3.x kept them as an option that could be added by the DM.


----------



## Nylanfs

Halivar said:


> I would just pimp PCGen in the core books. They've already done all the work, and probably better than Paizo could buy from outsourcing. Certainly better than WotC could.




Well thanks for the thought but Paizo has an exclusive arrangement with Lone Wolf for Hero Lab, so HeroLab is the "official" character generator for Pathfinder.


----------



## Halivar

Nylanfs said:


> Well thanks for the thought but Paizo has an exclusive arrangement with Lone Wolf for Hero Lab, so HeroLab is the "official" character generator for Pathfinder.



Hah! Thanks for making me aware. Somehow I missed this. Well, I've been using PCGen for 13 years now, so I don't see myself switching over anytime soon.


----------



## pemerton

Bluenose said:


> Runequest worked like that since the 1970s. It never even occurred to me that making NPCs the same way as PCs was particularly original, or that providing a framework for doing that was unusual.



RQ presented monsters using the same statsitical framework as for PCs (and 4e does this too). But I think that 3E _is_ distincitve in using the PC _build_ rules for NPC and monster creation - especially given that it is a class and level game, which means all monster building is done on a class and level paradigm.

Like I said upthread, I'm not sure this is a _good_ innovation!


----------



## pemerton

pemerton said:


> In the context of "modelling your PC", I think a trap choice would be (say) a feat called Toughness that doesn't, in actual play, have the mechanical result of making your PC tough.





Dannyalcatraz said:


> It makes him 3 HP tougher than a PC without it, which is a measurable mechanical difference.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> It is also a prereq for certain feats in PHB2, one of which allows for minor magical healing.  In 3.X, the ability to heal ones HP damage quickly and without the aid of another or a device could arguably be considered "Tough".



Being a prereq is not necessarily a trap, but at that point it's not really modelling your PC. It's a mechanical stepping-stone to somewhere else.

But in more general terms, it's about relativities, not absolutes. The question with a feat like Toughness isn't whether it makes a measurable mechanical difference. It's about whether, in play, it delivers what it says on the tin.


----------



## Imaro

pemerton said:


> Being a prereq is not necessarily a trap, but at that point it's not really modelling your PC. It's a mechanical stepping-stone to somewhere else.
> 
> But in more general terms, it's about relativities, not absolutes. The question with a feat like Toughness isn't whether it makes a measurable mechanical difference. It's about whether, in play, it delivers what it says on the tin.




Well technically it does make you harder to kill...


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

> The question with a feat like Toughness isn't whether it makes a measurable mechanical difference. It's about whether, in play, it delivers what it says on the tin.




Toughness in 3.X (as in real life) can be measured in a few ways, such as having a better Fort save, being resistent to certain damage types, or being able to do physically demanding tasks for longer than others.  Having more HP- which the Toughness Feat 100% delivers- is one such measuring stick.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

2xPost


----------



## Hussar

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Toughness in 3.X (as in real life) can be measured in a few ways, such as having a better Fort save, being resistent to certain damage types, or being able to do physically demanding tasks for longer than others.  Having more HP- which the Toughness Feat 100% delivers- is one such measuring stick.




Well, that is true that it does give you more hit points, therefore making you "tougher".  However, the fact that in only gives you 3 HP makes it a very weaksauce feat (thus the trap option where taking this actually doesn't make my character tougher overall since other feats would make me "tougher") and, in play means that you actually can't take more hits since 3 Hp is overshadowed by 2nd level.  

When bad guys do about 10 HP/CR per round in damage, an extra 3 HP doesn't actually do much of anything.  You still drop in one hit on average.

Then again, are you seriously trying to defend Toughness as a good choice for a character?  Really?


----------



## Morrus

Hussar said:


> Well, that is true that it does give you more hit points, therefore making you "tougher".  However, the fact that in only gives you 3 HP makes it a very weaksauce feat (thus the trap option where taking this actually doesn't make my character tougher overall since other feats would make me "tougher") and, in play means that you actually can't take more hits since 3 Hp is overshadowed by 2nd level.
> 
> When bad guys do about 10 HP/CR per round in damage, an extra 3 HP doesn't actually do much of anything.  You still drop in one hit on average.
> 
> Then again, are you seriously trying to defend Toughness as a good choice for a character?  Really?




I have a quicker way to say what you're trying to say: while it makes you _tougher_ than you were, but it doesn't make you_ tough_.   Like platform shoes make Tom Cruise _taller_, but they still don't make him _tall_.


----------



## pemerton

[MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] and [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] covered this. The Toughness feat barely makes your PC tough at 1st level, and doesn't make your PC tough at levels above that.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Morrus said:


> Hussar said:
> 
> 
> 
> Well, that is true that it does give you more hit points, therefore making you "tougher".  However, the fact that in only gives you 3 HP makes it a very weaksauce feat (thus the trap option where taking this actually doesn't make my character tougher overall since other feats would make me "tougher") and, in play means that you actually can't take more hits since 3 Hp is overshadowed by 2nd level.
> 
> When bad guys do about 10 HP/CR per round in damage, an extra 3 HP doesn't actually do much of anything.  You still drop in one hit on average.
> 
> Then again, are you seriously trying to defend Toughness as a good choice for a character?  Really?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I have a quicker way to say what you're trying to say: while it makes you _tougher_ than you were, but it doesn't make you_ tough_.   Like platform shoes make Tom Cruise _taller_, but they still don't make him _tall_.
Click to expand...


Could the feat have been mechanically better or better named?  Sure.

As to the Tom Cruise analogy, it isn't like the Feat is called "Toughest"- like height, toughness is all relative.  If there were a Feat that called "Smarts" and gave you +2Int, it would be the same issue: it _improves_ the PC in that aspect, but it doesn't necessarily make him a genius.

Or consider a black belt in martial arts.  That denotes a certain level of training within the form.  But not all black belts are equal, and it doesn't mean you're a badass street-fighter.  One can earn a black belt and still be weak, slow, and fragile.

As far as it being a good choice, yes, if it fits the PC narrative.  If you're designing a PC and looking for some extra HP- for whatever reason- and can't afford to boost your Con score, Toughness is the perfect choice.

But why don't we end this tangent in this thread and get back to WotC vs Paizo.  Maybe we can discuss it in its own 30 page thread.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Doubled


----------



## N'raac

Hussar said:


> Well, that is true that it does give you more hit points, therefore making you "tougher". However, the fact that in only gives you 3 HP makes it a very weaksauce feat (thus the trap option where taking this actually doesn't make my character tougher overall since other feats would make me "tougher") and, in play means that you actually can't take more hits since 3 Hp is overshadowed by 2nd level.
> 
> When bad guys do about 10 HP/CR per round in damage, an extra 3 HP doesn't actually do much of anything. You still drop in one hit on average.
> 
> Then again, are you seriously trying to defend Toughness as a good choice for a character? Really?




It seems to me you are conflating two separate issues.  Does it make the character tougher?  Sure.  It gives him more hp, so he is tougher.  Power Attack is a popular feat, but it won't  make my 8 STR Wizard a melee monster - like it says on the tin - will it?

Does it add enough toughness when compared to other options for using that feat?  Well, I can't think of a lot of other feats that give me more hp, so what am I comparing to?  Really, I'm questioning whether my "tough" concept character is mechanically competitive against a character with a different concept.  Is 3 hp enough?   Not for me - I see lots of other things I could do with a feat.  But if my character is on the ground with -8 hp instead of -11, that sure seems significant!



Dannyalcatraz said:


> As far as it being a good choice, yes, if it fits the PC narrative. If you're designing a PC and looking for some extra HP- for whatever reason- and can't afford to boost your Con score, Toughness is the perfect choice.
> 
> But why don't we end this tangent in this thread and get back to WotC vs Paizo. Maybe we can discuss it in its own 30 page thread.




I note that Paizo took the feat and said "not tough enough - how do we make it a viable choice?".  Their solution - you get +1 hp per level, with a minimum of +3.  Is that enough?  Well, I still don't take it, but it's half the benefits of a +2 CON, and the greater half in my view.  Did 4e make a better approach for my character to be tougher?  Does 5e propose one??  How many extra hp before it's "must have", passing "viable choice"?


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## Hussar

Morrus said:


> I have a quicker way to say what you're trying to say: while it makes you _tougher_ than you were, but it doesn't make you_ tough_.   Like platform shoes make Tom Cruise _taller_, but they still don't make him _tall_.




Thank you.  That's what I was trying to say.


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## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As far as it being a good choice, yes, if it fits the PC narrative.  If you're designing a PC and looking for some extra HP- for whatever reason- and can't afford to boost your Con score, Toughness is the perfect choice.



You say "fits the PC narrative", then talk about "lookinf for extra HP", which is a mechanical rather than a narrative conception of the PC.

Once you are thinking of your PC in mechanical terms than, provided that you're capable of doing the mechanical calculations, you will not encounter "trap choices" - because you'll know what mechanical benefits you're receiving, and will choose on that basis.

I think the idea of "trap choices" has more application to players who are thinking of their PC in narrative terms (eg what they want their PC to be like, or to be able to achieve, within the fiction of the game) and who get misled by the failure of mechanics to live up to their superficial narrative promise.


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## Dannyalcatraz

Begone, double post!


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## Dannyalcatraz

This will be my last comment on this in this thread:



> You say "fits the PC narrative", then talk about "lookinf for extra HP", which is a mechanical rather than a narrative conception of the PC.




In an RPG, they are intertwined.  If you say you want your PC to be tough(er), you have to do that with the tools he RP gives you, its rules & mechanics.  In 3.X, making a tough(er) PC can only be done in certain ways, one of which is by increasing HP.  The Toughness Feat does this.

If the other ways of making a PC tough(er) in 3.X are at odds with your PC concept- wrong class, cant improve the PC's Con further, he's not resistant to energy types, etc.- then Toughness may be the _only_ way to go.



> Once you are thinking of your PC in mechanical terms than, provided that you're capable of doing the mechanical calculations, you will not encounter "trap choices" - because you'll know what mechanical benefits you're receiving, and will choose on that basis.




"Trap choices" is not a meaningful term in the context of modeling the PC concept without concern for mechanical optimization.* When your goal is modeling the PC concept first, then tweaking, then there are no "trap choices."






* this is my personal PC design style.


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## Bluenose

pemerton said:


> RQ presented monsters using the same statsitical framework as for PCs (and 4e does this too). But I think that 3E _is_ distincitve in using the PC _build_ rules for NPC and monster creation - especially given that it is a class and level game, which means all monster building is done on a class and level paradigm.
> 
> Like I said upthread, I'm not sure this is a _good_ innovation!




The PC build rules are pretty much how people make NPCs for Runequest. Take a race, add a background, add a prior career, add any other relevant factors like cult abilities, then use a few free points to customise. The race gives stats and certain things unique (and ubiquitous) to that race, such as troll darksense; the background covers things common to people from a particular place such as languages and cultural knowledge; and the career covers what you're trained to do. So if you want a wyvern who is a priest of the Sun Dragon, take a wyvern, add the priest career, stick the cult magic in there, and you're mostly done.

That most people usually prefer to simply eyeball it rather than go through the whole process is one reason why I've never been convinced by the concept. But it's how RQ works, and has for a long time.


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## pemerton

Bluenose said:


> The PC build rules are pretty much how people make NPCs for Runequest. Take a race, add a background, add a prior career, add any other relevant factors
> 
> <snip>
> 
> So if you want a wyvern who is a priest of the Sun Dragon, take a wyvern, add the priest career, stick the cult magic in there, and you're mostly done.



OK, I guess I wasn't thinking of RQ monsters as "races" in the relevant sense - because in 3E a gnoll, say, or a wyvern, even before you get to treat it as a "race" to which you can add class levels, has a "monster level" which dictate its mechanical features.

So in 3E there is a mechanical connection between (say) the gnoll's hit points (via its hit dice) and its skill bonuses and its feats, whereas in RQ those two things are distinct - you can give a monster/race, like a wyvern, a certain stat spread, and also a default skill spread, without having to jump through the 3E-style hoops of explaining how one is related to the other.


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## Bluenose

pemerton said:


> OK, I guess I wasn't thinking of RQ monsters as "races" in the relevant sense - because in 3E a gnoll, say, or a wyvern, even before you get to treat it as a "race" to which you can add class levels, has a "monster level" which dictate its mechanical features.
> 
> So in 3E there is a mechanical connection between (say) the gnoll's hit points (via its hit dice) and its skill bonuses and its feats, whereas in RQ those two things are distinct - you can give a monster/race, like a wyvern, a certain stat spread, and also a default skill spread, without having to jump through the 3E-style hoops of explaining how one is related to the other.




If I'm dealing with creatures that don't have fixed Int, I don't really make a distinction between "monster" and "race" in RQ. Though without anything equivalent to "level", abilities usually just have a base value, which then gets modified according to the stats of the creature in question and any bonuses from careers or prior experience. In practice, it's a lot easier when average values are given, since those are easy enough to modify when the stats deviate significantly from the average. A fat wyvern (higher than usual Size) may have enough bulk to hit harder, but also is going to have penalties to other skills such as Dodge/Evade.


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## N'raac

Hero System has been around in one form or another since the early 1980's, and as a point buy system has always applied the same build rules to PC's and NPC's (other than the occasional "not intended for PC's subsystem, and even there some groups have allowed them for PC's).  "PC and NPC built the same way" was not a 3rd Ed innovation.


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## TwoSix

Dannyalcatraz said:


> "Trap choices" is not a meaningful term in the context of modeling the PC concept without concern for mechanical optimization.* When your goal is modeling the PC concept first, then tweaking, then there are no "trap choices."



There's a school of thought in some games that these two concepts do not have to be orthogonal.  Designing your character to fit your concept is the strongest mechanical option, because the mechanics are built to support narrative.


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## Dannyalcatraz

N'raac said:


> Hero System has been around in one form or another since the early 1980's, and as a point buy system has always applied the same build rules to PC's and NPC's (other than the occasional "not intended for PC's subsystem, and even there some groups have allowed them for PC's).  "PC and NPC built the same way" was not a 3rd Ed innovation.



In fairness, Hussar did basically admit that point that  when he said it was new to non point-buy systems.

(Also, for precision's sake- Champions, the original form of HERO, debuted in 1981.)


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## Dannyalcatraz

Doubled.


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## Imaro

TwoSix said:


> There's a school of thought in some games that these two concepts do not have to be orthogonal.  Designing your character to fit your concept is the strongest mechanical option, because the mechanics are built to support narrative.




Yes, but D&D has never been a game whose mechanics were specifically built to support narrative desires as opposed to gamist or simulationist.  And, honestly I'm not sure it should ever be.


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## billd91

Dannyalcatraz said:


> In fairness, Hussar did basically admit that point that  when he said it was new to non point-buy systems.
> 
> (Also, for precision's sake- Champions, the original form of HERO, debuted in 1981.)




But even non-point buy systems like Villains and Vigilantes built villains like heroes too. So I'm still skeptical that is was really innovative in 3e.


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## Hussar

N'raac said:


> Hero System has been around in one form or another since the early 1980's, and as a point buy system has always applied the same build rules to PC's and NPC's (other than the occasional "not intended for PC's subsystem, and even there some groups have allowed them for PC's).  "PC and NPC built the same way" was not a 3rd Ed innovation.




As DannyA said, I specified new to games that didn't use point buy.  Point buy games have always (pretty much) built everything the same way.  GURPS does it, and so does virtually every non-class based game.

But, I'm strugging to thing of a class based game that builds EVERYTHING in the game using the PC gen rules.  Right from the ground up.  Monster type is treated as a class - BAB progression, Save Progression, Skills, and HP are all based on the number of levels (measured by HD) that that creature has in that particular monster type.

To the point where humanoids are actually advanced specifically using PC rules and not through monster type.  An orc has 4 HP because he's a 1st level Warrior, not because he's an orc.

This is a pretty big innovation for class based systems.


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## N'raac

Well, we certainly have "race and class" structures, but I don't think a dragon, a troll, a succubus, a ghoul or a gelatinous cube is reasonably considered to have been "built using the PC rules". Similarly, point buy games tend not to constrain the adversaries to the same build limits as the PC's, so do they really build NPC's exactly as PC's?

I also cannot think of any class-based game that would build all the monsters as classes. Maybe we could have made that jump instead of dividing race and class way back (Orc as a class, for example), but that ship has long since sailed. Squeezing monsters into "class level equivalents" has never worked that well all round.

Was the innovation (if there was one) 3e deciding you could add levels of Cleric to Goblins (pretty sure we had humanoid shamans before 3e, just not as clearly linked to the PC class rules), or whoever first decided we could have a Lich who is a Cleric, or even a different level Wizard than the standard?


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## Ahnehnois

N'raac said:


> Well, we certainly have "race and class" structures, but I don't think a dragon, a troll, a succubus, a ghoul or a gelatinous cube is reasonably considered to have been "built using the PC rules".



At least in the Savage Species paradigm (which I would call an innovative, if poorly written book), monsters can specifically be seen as classes. With a monster class, you do have some different parameters from the PC classes are designed, but also a lot of it is the same.

Your typical garden variety MM monster becomes one that has maxed out its original class (and can multiclass to become a shaman or whatever else).

Now if you're saying that they're not 100% the same, that's true, largely because of how LA works but also a few other things. Making it all truly one platform would be the next iterative step, and that would be innovative.


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## Hussar

N'raac said:


> Well, we certainly have "race and class" structures, but I don't think a dragon, a troll, a succubus, a ghoul or a gelatinous cube is reasonably considered to have been "built using the PC rules". Similarly, point buy games tend not to constrain the adversaries to the same build limits as the PC's, so do they really build NPC's exactly as PC's?
> 
> I also cannot think of any class-based game that would build all the monsters as classes. Maybe we could have made that jump instead of dividing race and class way back (Orc as a class, for example), but that ship has long since sailed. Squeezing monsters into "class level equivalents" has never worked that well all round.
> 
> Was the innovation (if there was one) 3e deciding you could add levels of Cleric to Goblins (pretty sure we had humanoid shamans before 3e, just not as clearly linked to the PC class rules), or whoever first decided we could have a Lich who is a Cleric, or even a different level Wizard than the standard?




Umm, look at the http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm rules.  How is that not a class system ported directly for monsters?  Demons are build as a "class" with each hit die representing a level.  It determines their skill limits, hit points, advancement for abilities, and a host of other elements.  Every single demon (for example) is built in exactly the same way.


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## Jester David

Hussar said:


> Umm, look at the http://www.d20srd.org/srd/improvingMonsters.htm rules.  How is that not a class system ported directly for monsters?  Demons are build as a "class" with each hit die representing a level.  It determines their skill limits, hit points, advancement for abilities, and a host of other elements.  Every single demon (for example) is built in exactly the same way.



Hit Dice are only half a level. Most monster HD are like adding NPC class levels, which is not a lot of power.


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## Hussar

Jester Canuck said:


> Hit Dice are only half a level. Most monster HD are like adding NPC class levels, which is not a lot of power.




Where does that come from?  I've never seen that concept before.  ((Totally not snark.  Just never seen that before)).

But, even if the HD are like adding NPC class levels, the point still remains.  It's a level system for building monsters, which you generally never saw in a class/level system before.  Doesn't really matter how powerful the individual levels are, it's the fact that Monster X has Y BAB, Skills, and Saves because it has Z HD in it's Type Class.  A Vrock has the skill points it has because it has been built from the ground up as an outsider with it's HD.  Another outsider, with the same HD, will have the same BAB and saves and skill points.


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## Jester David

Hussar said:


> Where does that come from?  I've never seen that concept before.  ((Totally not snark.  Just never seen that before)).
> 
> But, even if the HD are like adding NPC class levels, the point still remains.  It's a level system for building monsters, which you generally never saw in a class/level system before.  Doesn't really matter how powerful the individual levels are, it's the fact that Monster X has Y BAB, Skills, and Saves because it has Z HD in it's Type Class.  A Vrock has the skill points it has because it has been built from the ground up as an outsider with it's HD.  Another outsider, with the same HD, will have the same BAB and saves and skill points.



It's not stated, it's just a pet peeve with the Level Adjustment/Effective Character Level sub-system. As you add HD + LA to get ECL but just HD are akin to NPC classes which are inferior to PC class levels. So it's a little awkward to just say "monsters are build like classes"


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## Dannyalcatraz

Which is why Monte Cook used full-on, full powered racial class levels in his Arcana Unearthed/Arcana Evolved game.


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## Ahnehnois

Jester Canuck said:


> So it's a little awkward to just say "monsters are build like classes"



It is. Monsters are built using the same tools as classed characters, but not necessarily balanced in the same way.


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## Hussar

Ahnehnois said:


> It is. Monsters are built using the same tools as classed characters, but not necessarily balanced in the same way.




For the novelty of it, I agree with Ahn here.  Heck, wasn't this one of the major selling points of 3e that everything is built using the same rules?


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## Wicht

Hussar said:


> For the novelty of it, I agree with Ahn here.




Ahh!  Cats and Dogs, living together!


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## Emerikol

Umbran said:


> That was the real point - while some RPGs may be designed for a single agenda, I don't think you'll find many such any more.  Heck, I personally think you'd have a hard time proving that Gygaxian D&D was created to serve only one agenda.  And these days where the internet gives designers a great deal of feedback on what the market wants (which is decidedly mixed), and games are often built by teams, rather than by individuals with a focused bias, games are even less focused on just one aspect.
> 
> And, by the way, I think that's a good thing.  For pretty much any Forgist agenda, if you really wanted to serve just one, an RPG would not be the best way to serve it.  I think RPGs are, by their nature, mixed.




I'm not that big a forge guy but I believe the following about agenda is true.
Agenda just means the order you prioritize and does not mean a game lacks
any aspect of the others.  It just means when a conflict arises in game design
which agenda wins.  So it is my belief that not having and agenda will create
a game that is dissonant for everybody.

When I think of agendas I use these words which probably means I'm 
totally wrong per the forge.

the World vs the Game vs the Story

My priority goes from left to right.  That is why I say im a Simulationist.  
I'm not simulating anything though.  I just want narrative mechanical 
unity.  I'm immersion sensitive.


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