I think there also needs to be a substructure for controlling game balance and control the power creep that third edition saw.

Quote from: Haffrung;686657But to hobby wargamers, Axis and Allies is to real wargames as, well, I don't think there is even an equivalent in RPGs. Even Savage Worlds is a big, difficult game to learn for a 12-year old opening by himself and hoping to play with his buddy on Friday night.

The Pathfinder Beginner Box sounds like it's fine, as far as it goes. It still asks a lot of a new player. And it's a big, big jump to full Pathfinder, a jump that many casual gamers will never want to make.

A lot of D&D fans suffer from the same assumption that wargamers do: that if you want to get someone into your brain-burning, option-rich hobby, all you need is an intro game to get them hooked, and then they'll progress the way you did to the full monty. But not everyone wants more and more options, more and more complexity. Some just want something quick and accessible, and that's all they'll want. Only a small fraction of people who play Axis and Allies ever go on to World in Flames.

I'm one of those people who prefer A&A over WiF any day, and I've been to the mountain:  I've got Empires in Arms sitting around on a shelf.

The thing is, the best way to get someone into playing isn't just to make a product, it's also to provide an outlet to play the product.  When Paizo released the Beginner Box, they had a big Beginner Box Bash at a lot of FLGSs.  People who play Pathfinder Society showed up to demo the game with a very basic adventure --the players could pick from one of four adventures-- that lasted about an hour.  All it took for my kids to get hooked on Pathfinder was to go to the Bash and play for an hour to hour and a half.

As much as I like the Beginner Box, if WotC has figured out how to capture lightning in a bottle again with Next's Basic Set, they'll have the one intro game that they've been needing.  The thing is, for production values the Pathfinder Beginner Box has set a high bar.  (Hell, so did the Mouse Guard set, but I don't think Luke Crane has bothered to do a reprint.)

Quote from: David Johansen;686735I think there also needs to be a substructure for controlling game balance and control the power creep that third edition saw.

A baseball bat to hit 'power creeps' with?

But seriously, how would that work? Would this be just clearer design guidelines as to what damage/bonus/whatever abilities should give, so newly made thingies don't drift upward in power over time?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;6866750The 1983 Basic Set completely and utterly nailed this product. Coincidentally, it has reportedly sold more copies than any other core rulebook for the game.

I also prefer Moldvay to Mentzer, and even Holmes was not terrible at this job.  I also think that it is easy to understate just how critical Keep on the Borderlands was to my figuring out how to play the game.  It's not that the module is perfect, but that it gives a lot of choices up front and makes it obvious what the key tropes of the genre really are.  A surprising number of clichés show up, but that is perfect for an introductory product.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;686644The next version will be 'more' of what makes 3.x fun - because they've had plenty of time to experiment.  You're going to see MORE feats, not less, but reducing the 'char-op' because feats will be more freely available with less 'non-organic' character design.  You'll also see a whole bunch of feats just become something everyone can do.  There are a lot of Feats that should be universal options, but they were created in an environment when 'making a feat' was seen as a solution.  

People like me admire 3.x because it has more of what I like than any other system - but it's not perfect.

Why?? How?? Cite your sources! You've made a big man cry now! (I am taking my ball and going home......)

Quote from: flyerfan1991;686540Paizo isn't going to buy D&D; that'd be like killing off Pathfinder.  If anything, I'd expect WotC and/or D&D would be sold to a partnership of rich geeks (like Silicon Valley rich) who want to rescue the brand.  

This is basically what happened after the Hero Games/R. Talsorian/Cybergames deal fell through, except that the Hero Games partnership wasn't quite rich enough.

JG

Quote from: flyerfan1991;686742I'm one of those people who prefer A&A over WiF any day, and I've been to the mountain:  I've got Empires in Arms sitting around on a shelf.

The thing is, the best way to get someone into playing isn't just to make a product, it's also to provide an outlet to play the product.  When Paizo released the Beginner Box, they had a big Beginner Box Bash at a lot of FLGSs.  People who play Pathfinder Society showed up to demo the game with a very basic adventure --the players could pick from one of four adventures-- that lasted about an hour.  All it took for my kids to get hooked on Pathfinder was to go to the Bash and play for an hour to hour and a half.

As much as I like the Beginner Box, if WotC has figured out how to capture lightning in a bottle again with Next's Basic Set, they'll have the one intro game that they've been needing.  The thing is, for production values the Pathfinder Beginner Box has set a high bar.  (Hell, so did the Mouse Guard set, but I don't think Luke Crane has bothered to do a reprint.)

Empires in Arms and World in Flames  I forgot about those two.

I realy love Empires in arms, but it takes literally longer than a human lifespan to play.

I have been tempted to buy the computer game version.

Quote from: Bill;686827.I realy love Empires in arms, but it takes literally longer than a human lifespan to play.

Me and some friends have a plan to play the big EiA campaign when we get older and the kids move out. Unfortunatly, at that time, we will not have enough lifetime left to finish it.

Quote from: DKChannelBoredom;686832Me and some friends have a plan to play the big EiA campaign when we get older and the kids move out. Unfortunatly, at that time, we will not have enough lifetime left to finish it.

I was fortunate to play about five grand campaign games when I was a student and therefore able to simply not go to class and flunk out to have time for Empires in Arms.

The campaign games were glorious, and we even had seven players.

In one game the main Russian army starved to death trying to march into sweden when a british army snuck in by fleet transport and cut the russian supply lines.

Moral of the story is protect your supply lines, and don't march into sweden in the winter

Anyone who thinks Paizo's just going to go on as-is indefinitely in an endless golden age is just fooling themselves.  Sooner or later they have to change, and that's a stickier wicket for them than most because their whole marketing strategy with Pathfinder was based on NOT changing.

Quote from: RPGPundit;687398Anyone who thinks Paizo's just going to go on as-is indefinitely in an endless golden age is just fooling themselves.  Sooner or later they have to change, and that's a stickier wicket for them than most because their whole marketing strategy with Pathfinder was based on NOT changing.

They are doing a lot more though than just rules. They have:

• Book franchises around Golorian (and other book stuff)
• Various figure deals
• Card game - in the works or whatever, I didn't get a good look at it at Paizocon
• This online game thing with cross ownership between companies

I imagine they will do a 2nd edition at some point; there are just so many other things they are working on that isn't directly dependent on the current rules set.

Quote from: RPGPundit;687398Anyone who thinks Paizo's just going to go on as-is indefinitely in an endless golden age is just fooling themselves.  Sooner or later they have to change, and that's a stickier wicket for them than most because their whole marketing strategy with Pathfinder was based on NOT changing.

I am under no delusion that Pathfinder is in some 'golden age'. I will support Paizo so long as they continue to produce material I like. The day they stop doing that, I will walk away. They haven't done that yet. Paizo's model has been based on supporting the fans of the OGL that Wizbro threw under the bus.

Quote from: RPGPundit;687398Anyone who thinks Paizo's just going to go on as-is indefinitely in an endless golden age is just fooling themselves.  Sooner or later they have to change, and that's a stickier wicket for them than most because their whole marketing strategy with Pathfinder was based on NOT changing.

Well, sure. And the sun will go supernova, and we'll all eventually die. So it can't go on forever. But 3.x (in one form or another) has been pretty much dominating gaming for 13 years, (except for a brief blip with 4.x) and I don't really see that changing any time soon. Paizo might publish another iteration of (mostly compatible) 3.x at some point, but to just abandon it? Now? In 2 years? In 5 years? Honestly, it will still be going strong even 5 years from now. In fact, Pathfinder will probably still be going super-strong when WoTC is talking about 6e (yes, 6e). They've got a winning formula going on here, and it's stronger than ever. Why agonize about 5e, when it will possibly be replaced by 6e via the "planned obsolescence model" in only a few years after that?

The rpg hobby is more fragmented now than ever before. Do you think 5e will magically fix that and change that? I don't. WoTC would have to adopt some startlingly different business philosophies for that to happen, but they no longer have it in them to do that. 5e is a weak band-aid for a cancer of their own creation. At this point, WoTC would be better off selling D&D to someone who actually knows how to manage it. Now....will they do that? Fuck, no. That would be too sensible for them to consider. :pundit:

Anyway, Paizo and Pathfinder has been continually providing tons of gamers with material that they actually want. So yeah, Paizo's gonna do fine. :cool:

P.S. And for the record, I also think that the OSR and "old school" games have more of a future than 5e ever will. Just throwing that out there.

I believe they will announce Pathfinder Next in three-four years, but not before they actively support Pathfinder Beginner and see how that goes.

Quote from: RPGPundit;687398Anyone who thinks Paizo's just going to go on as-is indefinitely in an endless golden age is just fooling themselves.  Sooner or later they have to change, and that's a stickier wicket for them than most because their whole marketing strategy with Pathfinder was based on NOT changing.

However, they don't necessarily have to change the game in the radical way WOTC has done with every edition. They could a new edition that was fairly compatiable with the current edition like TSR did with AD&D 2e. Or one that expands but is mostly compatible with what they have now as TSR did when moved from B/X to BECMI.