Blizzard has strung me along for years. I don't give a flying fuck about WoW. I want my Starcraft: Ghost and my Diablo 3!

My question for the gaming history buffs: when was the last time an RPG was "tied" with Dungeons & Dragons in the hobby channel?

Quote from: Endless Flight;409583My question for the gaming history buffs: when was the last time an RPG was "tied" with Dungeons & Dragons in the hobby channel?

I can't remember if that ever happened, actually. Good candidates would be CoC and Vampire: the Masquerade in their respective glory days, but I don't think either of them beat D&D in the hobby channel. Just gut feeling on my part.

Quote from: Benoist;409588I can't remember if that ever happened, actually. Good candidates would be CoC and Vampire: the Masquerade in their respective glory days, but I don't think either of them beat D&D in the hobby channel. Just gut feeling on my part.

I'd say the only candidates to be in the ballpark would be V:tM or Star Wars, 2nd edition. And that's only because they both had very good years, when TSR wasn't doing so hot.

But now the only threat to D&D's continued stranglehold on the RPG market is...  D&D under a different name.  

I see no need for Pathfinder as I never liked 3.x all that much to begin with, and have enough 3.0 stuff to suit me just fine.  (And most of that has been replaced by Essentials for swordyman things, and L5R 1st edition for Samuraiman things.)

Nothing but love for some of the OGL titles though.  I absolutely adore Castles & Crusades and X-Plorers.

Paizo was a parter with WOTC and WOTC got greedy.  They told Paizo to fuck off.  And they effectively told most of their 3.x fans to fuck off (the ones not pissed off by 3.5's moneygrab already) and they both did.  And built their own game with the blackjack and hookers as the saying goes.

New incompatible editions tend to cause a split.  In ages past this led to ever smaller enclaves of older ed players who ended up going away entirely or at least having fuckall to do with the larger game community.  Now they at least still have reasons to go to the store and buy shit, maybe running into new players once in a while and seeing new product.

Quote from: Captain Rufus;409622But now the only threat to D&D's continued stranglehold on the RPG market is...  D&D under a different name.  

Now, that would be a completely different discussion deserving its own thread, but I do believe that in part at least, the reason why D&D is such a popular game, has been for so long, and still is, is not only due to the brand name, but the game's very core design. There is something about D&D that relegates IMO most RPGs out there as games that basically trim stuff OFF the D&D experience to make it a different game, rather than creating a completely new game experience of their own. There might be exceptions and all, but ultimately, I do think that the D&D game is king because it is a complex alchemy between different game play components including character impersonation, dungeons and wilderness adventures, facing monsters, gaining treasure and XP, gaining levels, world-building and more.

The only threat to D&D's stranglehold on the market are alternate forms of entertainment. Unfortunately, these threats are substantial and growing.

Quote from: Abyssal Maw;409516Wizards isn't getting beaten. Wizards just put out a boxed set in Target, three months before Christmas. Is Pathfinder going to do that well in the future once people get over the realization that they aren't playing D&D anymore? Maybe yes, maybe no. It's supporters seem to like it, which is good. But some of it's supporters are more or less "in spirit only" because they just want to see someone beat Wizards. That can't be good for the long term, because there are only so many spiritual support gestures you can make at $75 a volume.

Seriously? I don't think anyone is buying Pathfinder out of a desire to see wizards "beaten".
I have some serious issues with Wizards, but I've never so much as considered buying Pathfinder.  The people who are buying Pathfinder are just those who liked 3e D&D and want something that is true to that, rather than a very alien game that barely resembles D&D at all.

You can find a lot of people in this hobby, I'd wager, who might NOT buy something out of spite, but I can only think of a couple of  groups who WOULD buy something out of spite: the Forge Swine, and the Anti-Pundit fanatics (if comments on my reviews and comments on here are to be believed).  

So yeah, until such time as I formally review Pathfinder and declare it to be shit, I don't think you have many people buying it out of spite.

RPGPundit

Quote from: Novastar;409616I'd say the only candidates to be in the ballpark would be V:tM or Star Wars, 2nd edition. And that's only because they both had very good years, when TSR wasn't doing so hot.

Allegedly, V:tM briefly beat out AD&D at the point in the 1990s when TSR had managed to utterly destroy itself as a company and AD&D as a popular game.
So yes, this situation now is pretty significant. The mere fact that someone is coming close to beating D&D in any sales-related area is a very telling sign of the alienation of D&D to the hobby and the weakness this is causing in the hobby.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;409959I don't think anyone is buying Pathfinder out of a desire to see wizards "beaten".

Please. Check out the Paizo boards around the time 4e and then Pathfinder was released. I'm sure the vast majority folks buy it because they like it, but there's definitely an element of screwing WotC in the mix.

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;409968Please. Check out the Paizo boards around the time 4e and then Pathfinder was released. I'm sure the vast majority folks buy it because they like it, but there's definitely an element of screwing WotC in the mix.

Seanchai

I think that there's a strong element of resentment toward WoTC among pathfinder fans, but it doesn't follows that people who purchase pathfinder products do so BECAUSE of resenting WoTC.  Nor does it follow that someone who resents WoTC will become a Pathfinder fan.

I have resentments toward WoTC, but I'm not a pathfinder fan.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;410086I think that there's a strong element of resentment toward WoTC among pathfinder fans, but it doesn't follows that people who purchase pathfinder products do so BECAUSE of resenting WoTC.  Nor does it follow that someone who resents WoTC will become a Pathfinder fan.

And when those same fans say, "I'm voting with my money!" and "I'm giving my money to a company that cares about me!" I suppose that's no indication that resentment had anything to do with their purchases either...

Seanchai

Quote from: Seanchai;410142And when those same fans say, "I'm voting with my money!" and "I'm giving my money to a company that cares about me!" I suppose that's no indication that resentment had anything to do with their purchases either...

Personally I'm not particularly impressed by Pathfinder.

But I do pick up the monthly Pathfinder AP book, for the reason that imho they are a better read than 4E D&D's online monthly Dragon/Dungeon magazine.

Personally I had a lot of resentment towards WotC for various reasons, but I still bought 4e when it came out. Just because I was upset with the company, I wasn't ready to abandon the game I'd been playing for 20+ years. Then I played 4e and that made me go back to 3.5. I gave the game a chance and just didn't care for it.
As a 3.5 fan as well as a Paizo fan I got on the Pathfinder wagon early and have not regretted it. I gave WotC & 4e another chance when Essentials came out and have honestly been happy with the Essentials products. The changes weren't too drastic, but they were enough to make me play a current edition of D&D and like it.
As for the Pathfinder and D&D tie, and this is all conjecture on my part, but there was a lot that wasn't taken into consideration. For D&D they didn't figure in DDi or online sales such as Amazon. Which since I have no shop in my town is where I buy all of my current (Essentials) D&D products. So I would say that they still hold the majority of sales in bookstores and on Amazon. Then you have to add on their DDI sales.
As for Pathfinder, I imagine that they sell very little in conventional bookstores or on Amazon. The largest portion of their sales probably comes from game/comic shops or through their own online store.
Now their online store not only moves a lot of Pathfinder product, but they also offer subscriptions to every part of the Pathfinder line. So not only do you have people people coming on the site and buying product, but you have a dedicated group that is buying each and every product in at least one line (I subscribe to two lines), which seems to be a lot of people.
While I may play both games, I think that as long as Paizo keeps up the good relationship with fans and keeps putting out quality products for those fans, they may not only remained tied or in a close second to WotC, they could conceivably take the #1 spot for a while. If not longer.

Quote from: ggroy;410144Personally I'm not particularly impressed by Pathfinder.

It's hard for me to tell. I don't have any use for Pathfinder, so I haven't purchased it. I'm not in a Pathfinder group and I own almost every WotC book made for 3e and 3.5, so I don't feel a burning need to pick it up.

I like Paizo's material. I have their older stuff from when I played 3.5 and I have a couple of new APs/setting material. It's all very nice.

Seanchai