Quote from: joewolz;1053316Does anyone know why there haven't been any good copycats of this model? Even with lesser production values, the model should work.

For many companies, the idea of putting out products at the rate that Paizo pushes adventure paths is frightening. Some, like FFG, have trouble getting out more than a handful of RPG products in a year (having to get Lucasfilm/Diney approval for everything doesn't help, but it's mainly a printing and shipping issue).

My group does not play bookkeeper oops I mean pathfinder. I see no reason to fill their pockets with my money.

Quote from: joewolz;1053316Does anyone know why there haven't been any good copycats of this model? Even with lesser production values, the model should work.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1053317For many companies, the idea of putting out products at the rate that Paizo pushes adventure paths is frightening. Some, like FFG, have trouble getting out more than a handful of RPG products in a year (having to get Lucasfilm/Diney approval for everything doesn't help, but it's mainly a printing and shipping issue).

I think Paizo running Dumgeon/Dragon magazines for a while under WOTC gave them a leg up in this format.  Their APs are just 6 monthly magazines, with a single adventure (Dungeon) and extra campaign world info/new rules systems (Dragon) inside.  When you look closely at a number of the individual adventures, they are very generic with a coat of "Current AP" paint on them.  This doesn't make them bad as such, it just shows the periodical format.  Other companies could do it.  I just think Paizo has an advantage due to experience.

As for 2E.  I think they are a couple of years too late.  They should have started when they released "Unchained".  2e Pathfinder isn't going to attract new players (in any meaningful numbers) and this will only divide their base between players who don't want to pony up the cash for a new edition and those who have to have the "new" version.  They will get more people to switch because of Society play, but that isn't adding NEW people.

Quote from: moonsweeper;1053330I think Paizo running Dumgeon/Dragon magazines for a while under WOTC gave them a leg up in this format.  Their APs are just 6 monthly magazines, with a single adventure (Dungeon) and extra campaign world info/new rules systems (Dragon) inside.  When you look closely at a number of the individual adventures, they are very generic with a coat of "Current AP" paint on them.  This doesn't make them bad as such, it just shows the periodical format.  Other companies could do it.  I just think Paizo has an advantage due to experience.

Yeah. Exactly. The reason is their subscriber base, inherited from when they ran Dragon & Dungeon. They are able to publish what is effectively Dungeon magazine, and charge for it like it was Keep on the Borderlands/Isle of Dread/Castle Amber. Which at the time cost around 5 times as much as a magazine issue (in the UK £4.95, vs 95p for Dragon) for a third the page count. Of course, those are high quality modules packed with content, whereas Pathfinder Adventure Path...  ...well PF #1 Burnt Offerings was quite good, but the overall average quality is mediocre at best.

The whole thing with the APs looks good at first. It gets expensive REALLY fast imo. The whole AP plus maps comes out to at least for me 130-140$ plus tax. One two three aps how many people do anyone here know who can keep buying them on a regular basis. Not to mention 8, 9, 10 aps their is a point where one has enough to last them for a lifetime of gaming. The issue with the APs is that the npcs in most of them are so poorly designed imo that even a minimally optmized group can mop the floor with most encounter. Yes I can houserule and modify as needed BUT I bought the APS to reduce prep time not increase it. Yes they are helpful just not worth the price tag imo.

It's so funny they so want to make Goblin a playable race that they are going against the lore of their own rpg. +2 to DEx makes sense since Goblins at least in PF1 have always been nimble insane bastards. The +2 to Cha it's like a big WTF moment for me. If you read the lore of the world they are deranged, sociopathic, psychotic, bloodthirsty more than insane maniacs. That no one in the right mind and not in the right mind likes. Yet now they make the best race for Paladins. I would have made Kobolds a playable race given that they are almost nothing like Goblins and Lawful Evil vs putting the Crazy Chaotic back into Chaotic evil. Then again they ruined a iconic monster in Pathfinder the Ogre. Think a cross between Deliverance and the Hills have eyes. I can only assume they thought no one would notice.

Quote from: S'mon;1053340Yeah. Exactly. The reason is their subscriber base, inherited from when they ran Dragon & Dungeon.

Exactly. I recall reading an interview with Lisa Stevens a few years ago, and she said straight out that the making of Paizo happened when WotC decided to let them take the Dragon and Dungeon subscriber lists with them. She said that those lists were worth their (virtual) weight in gold.

As well the fanbase have repeatedly asked that they don't make specific style feats once again they don't and most likely won't listen. It's nice that their is a ancestry ability that a +2 bonus to Perception checks. Not so great imo when it's only to notice charmed or possessed creatures. My preference is more to something that will be useful all the time like a +1 bonus to damage with slings.

Quote from: sureshot;1053414The whole thing with the APs looks good at first. It gets expensive REALLY fast imo. The whole AP plus maps comes out to at least for me 130-140$ plus tax. One two three aps how many people do anyone here know who can keep buying them on a regular basis. Not to mention 8, 9, 10 aps their is a point where one has enough to last them for a lifetime of gaming. The issue with the APs is that the npcs in most of them are so poorly designed imo that even a minimally optmized group can mop the floor with most encounter. Yes I can houserule and modify as needed BUT I bought the APS to reduce prep time not increase it. Yes they are helpful just not worth the price tag imo.

I agree with the number of APs.

Another issue that I constantly came across, later in the line, is that the description of the feats are scattered everywhere.  At some point I have to make notes on what all of the feats do for a particular NPC.  That is the opposite of time saving.  And there is no solution, except possibly a web site, as new books bring out new feats which show up in new adventure paths.  Sometimes I did not own the book.  

In this sense, D&D 4E was actually better because they printed the properties of abilities in the stat block so it was easy to figure out what an NPC could do.

From the playtest material, this game is going to be utter shit. And it won't please most current Pathfinder players either. It's a recipe for reducing one's market, just to get some up-front rulebook sales (at the cost of long-term bankruptcy).  These are people who learned nothing at all from White Wolf's mistakes.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1053273That's the thinking of the last decade (or the one before that), but it's not really how things work today. If it gets 'stability' it also gets stagnant.

Well there's a middle ground between standant an edition treadmill. You want a situation in which the bulk of the playerbase is ready for a new edition and relatively unified about what they want fixed otherwise you'll lose too may people.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1053568From the playtest material, this game is going to be utter shit. And it won't please most current Pathfinder players either. It's a recipe for reducing one's market, just to get some up-front rulebook sales (at the cost of long-term bankruptcy).  These are people who learned nothing at all from White Wolf's mistakes.

I'm just not sure what I'd do in their shoes. They got a big influx of new players who were pissed at 4ed and 3.5ed with some bells and whistles was enough for them. But that's not a constant source of new customers and I don't see PF well-positioned to bring in people who started with 5ed and are ready for something new without pissing off the 3.5ed diehards. If they don't make a new edition they'll slowly wither away, if they do make a new edition they at least get and influx of cash before withering away so I'm not sure that doing a new edition of PF is a bad idea as their raison de etre is going away in either case as 4ed becomes just a memory.

Of coures "make their design not suck so much" would help but from a business perspective I'm not sure what course they have going forward to avoid bleeding marketshare.

Quote from: Daztur;1053569Well there's a middle ground between standant an edition treadmill. You want a situation in which the bulk of the playerbase is ready for a new edition and relatively unified about what they want fixed otherwise you'll lose too may people.



I'm just not sure what I'd do in their shoes. They got a big influx of new players who were pissed at 4ed and 3.5ed with some bells and whistles was enough for them. But that's not a constant source of new customers and I don't see PF well-positioned to bring in people who started with 5ed and are ready for something new without pissing off the 3.5ed diehards. If they don't make a new edition they'll slowly wither away, if they do make a new edition they at least get and influx of cash before withering away so I'm not sure that doing a new edition of PF is a bad idea as their raison de etre is going away in either case as 4ed becomes just a memory.

Of coures "make their design not suck so much" would help but from a business perspective I'm not sure what course they have going forward to avoid bleeding marketshare.

They're a D&D publisher. They do D&D. 5e D&D has an SRD. 5e is very popular. If they want to stay in business long term they should be publishing for 5e, just as they published for 3e.

Paizo's strength is pumping out glossing looking adventures at a fast rate and getting people to buy them. Their strength has certainly never been at rules-fu. They correctly decided not to support 4e because there was no OGL or SRD for 4e, just a terrible licence. 5e reversed course and is hugely successful, but WoTC's 5e adventures are still not very good. That's where the gap in the market is - back where they started.

Quote from: S'mon;1053576They're a D&D publisher. They do D&D. 5e D&D has an SRD. 5e is very popular. If they want to stay in business long term they should be publishing for 5e, just as they published for 3e.

Paizo's strength is pumping out glossing looking adventures at a fast rate and getting people to buy them. Their strength has certainly never been at rules-fu. They correctly decided not to support 4e because there was no OGL or SRD for 4e, just a terrible licence. 5e reversed course and is hugely successful, but WoTC's 5e adventures are still not very good. That's where the gap in the market is - back where they started.

I just wish they had just done a somewhat simpler version of Pathfinder, it's not bad, but it's too clunky.

I think there's a publishing gap for that.  Smooth out and condense some of the skills, simplify a few of the feats, improve the fighter, eliminate Darkvision from the core races- low light vision only- a pet peeve of mine (so that going into the dungeon is actually scary- any race that has Darkvision should automatically have light sensitivity), cut out some of the wasteful "do nothing" feats that are nonsense prereq's, simplify encumbrance (use either the LoTF or Starfinder system- both are easy to use in game to track), maybe make AoOs something that only fighters/warriors do as a class ability or certain monsters so the whole damn combat isn't taken up with trying to position your mini and track your squares...  

Or just play another system.  Whichever.

I think they could have done an Unchained Core Rulebook with a baked in new action economy, a baked in inherent bonus system to create math parity with the rest of the game and prevent the need of GM to manage WBL, along with reworked classes, spells, and feats to be simpler and cooler without adding much math. They have 10 years of designing to rethink in one book, they can drop most of the feat chains.

Paizo could have appeased their fans by converting their oldest APs to 5e and contracting out most of that work, while at the same time eating some 5e money.

Instead they did this... It's not what I wanted a second edition to be. It's not a system interesting enough to bother learning. It doesn't fill a different niche like 1e does compared to my primary game Savage Worlds. It's not different enough to be appealing for it's differences like 4e.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1053585Paizo could have appeased their fans by converting their oldest APs to 5e and contracting out most of that work, while at the same time eating some 5e money.

Yes, the easy money route is in converting their best received APs to 5e hardbacks, while continuing to support 3e/Pathfinder, perhaps put out a very mildly revised version with back-compatible statting (like 1e AD&D to 2e AD&D). Going over to a new incompatible 2nd edition of Pathfinder is just splitting their player base and giving less committed adherents a good jumping off point to go over to (mostly) 5e; ie a short term revenue boost for long term loss.

Quote from: S'mon;1053586Yes, the easy money route is in converting their best received APs to 5e hardbacks, while continuing to support 3e/Pathfinder, perhaps put out a very mildly revised version with back-compatible statting (like 1e AD&D to 2e AD&D). Going over to a new incompatible 2nd edition of Pathfinder is just splitting their player base and giving less committed adherents a good jumping off point to go over to (mostly) 5e; ie a short term revenue boost for long term loss.

Man, if only Paizo had some conservative, hesitant of change, diverse perspectives in their meeting rooms, they might have taken a more measured approach to living with 5e rather than spending 3(?) years or so dumping talent and effort trying to reinvent the RPG wheel with 2e.