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During the heyday of the D20 era, everyone and their parents where jumping on the Open Gaming bandwagon.  We had great and awesome 3rd party products like Midnight and Mutants & Masterminds, but we also got drek like Deadlands d20 (which did not gel well at all with the system).

At its worst, WotC and 3rd party publishers alike tried to adopt genres and games ill-suited to the mechanics.  Over time the D20 boom became increasingly restricted to fantasy gaming as there were other, better games which could suit desired genres.

Now that Pathfinder/Paizo is "3rd Edition lives again," I can't help but notice the same trend happening again.  Go onto Drive-Thru RPG and put Pathfinder into the 'rules system' search, and you'll find hordes of 3rd Party Publishers.  Need 101 female orc names?  How about a post-apocalyptic game with the Pathfinder rules set in the modern world with no magic?  Still not convinced, what about a slew of "adult" products which make the Book of Erotic Fantasy look highbrow and tasteful?

It's possible that I might be unreasonably cynical, but my brain just has to make patterns out of this.

Yup. The splatbook cycle is rinse & repeat in whatever edition, tenfold in the age of the OGL. And in the case of Pathfinder, all the 3e and 3.5e publishers can rehash their 2002 PDF for resale in 2013 as a Pathfinder product.

And that's fine. Good stuff usually floats upward from the ocean of crap.

Yeah I think this is a kind of free market working as intended.

Quote from: Libertad;681063Go onto Drive-Thru RPG and put Pathfinder into the 'rules system' search, and you'll find hordes of 3rd Party Publishers.

I think you find so many 3rd parties because you're not searching paizo.com.

I do think that Pathfinder is creating an edition cycle for itself.  This was something that started in late 2E and has been a very mixed blessing for the hobby.  Basically, as the number of books increases, new entry into the game gets more and more challenging.  Sure, you can play "core only" (for example)and that nicely solves the problem.  

But if a group likes including new options, the "catch-up" cost is daunting.

I am way less worried about 3PP games.  Some of them will be wild successes but most of them will be small, niche offerings.

Pathfinder is shit, so I hope they burn themselves out quickly and have to make up a new edition, one that has people who can do math on the team.

Quote from: Votan;681081I do think that Pathfinder is creating an edition cycle for itself.  This was something that started in late 2E and has been a very mixed blessing for the hobby.  Basically, as the number of books increases, new entry into the game gets more and more challenging.  Sure, you can play "core only" (for example)and that nicely solves the problem.  

But if a group likes including new options, the "catch-up" cost is daunting.

I am way less worried about 3PP games.  Some of them will be wild successes but most of them will be small, niche offerings.

The foundation of Paizo's business is the Adventure Paths, and they don't require any books besides the cores and the bestiaries.

Quote from: Haffrung;681087The foundation of Paizo's business is the Adventure Paths, and they don't require any books besides the cores and the bestiaries.

Care to respond to what he wrote, as opposed to what you wish he wrote?

Yes and no.

You see a lot of smaller company support on RPGNow and such, but you don't have the bigger companies shoveling out stuff in print.

At their peak, AEG, Mongoose, and FFG put out 2-4 sourcebooks a month each. And then you had companies like Green Ronin, Bastion and White Wolf putting out probably 1 a month.

What companies are putting out print products for Pathfinder? (Not print on demand, but just print?)

So basically now you have all the small press stuff like you did in d20, but you don't have the flood of physical products that you did.

edit: And personally, I thought Deadlands d20 was pretty good. Actually playable, unlike regular Deadlands and Savage Worlds (ugh)

Quote from: Mistwell;681088Care to respond to what he wrote, as opposed to what you wish he wrote?

Care to go fuck yourself?

He claimed that Pathfinder has a splat bloat problem. I pointed out that you don't need splat books to play adventure paths, the real core product of Paizo. For a new group sitting down to play Rise of the Runelords, the Pathfinder splat books pose no barrier to entry.

Quote from: Haffrung;681087The foundation of Paizo's business is the Adventure Paths, and they don't require any books besides the cores and the bestiaries.

Actually, this is what first got me noticing this with Pathfinder.  I subscribe to the Adventure Paths and have (enjoyably) completed one from start to finish as DM.  I really liked the latest path (Reign of Winter) but, as the books went on, I started noticing more and more feats and items from things like the advanced players guide, ultimate equipment, and (at the end) Mythic Adventures (see Baba Yaga).  

It's not that you could not rejigger the paths to work with the core rules.  It was more the experience of "I wonder what that feat is and what it does" followed by an inventory of the books required to not redo the stat blocks (the piece I am willing to pay the most for).

Now don't get me wrong -- they do good books and that will lengthen the time to a problem developing.  But the adventure paths feed into this issue instead of ignoring it.

Quote from: Votan;681097Actually, this is what first got me noticing this with Pathfinder.  I subscribe to the Adventure Paths and have (enjoyably) completed one from start to finish as DM.  I really liked the latest path (Reign of Winter) but, as the books went on, I started noticing more and more feats and items from things like the advanced players guide, ultimate equipment, and (at the end) Mythic Adventures (see Baba Yaga).  

It's not that you could not rejigger the paths to work with the core rules.  It was more the experience of "I wonder what that feat is and what it does" followed by an inventory of the books required to not redo the stat blocks (the piece I am willing to pay the most for).

Now don't get me wrong -- they do good books and that will lengthen the time to a problem developing.  But the adventure paths feed into this issue instead of ignoring it.

I didn't realize that - I only have the first three books in a couple APs. So I stand corrected. My apologies.

Mistwell - you can still fuck off.

Quote from: Votan;681097It's not that you could not rejigger the paths to work with the core rules.  It was more the experience of "I wonder what that feat is and what it does" followed by an inventory of the books required to not redo the stat blocks (the piece I am willing to pay the most for).

I'm not a Pathfinder expert, but all of the expansion books rules content from Paizo is available free on the web, legally.  I'm personally fond of http://www.d20pfsrd.com/, but there's probably other sites.

Heck, I'm running an adventure path, and I haven't had to buy a single book to do it with.

Quote from: Votan;681081Sure, you can play "core only" (for example)and that nicely solves the problem.  

But if a group likes including new options, the "catch-up" cost is daunting.

Quote from: Haffrung;681096I pointed out that you don't need splat books to play adventure paths, the real core product of Paizo.

Care to explain how "you don't need it" is a response to "but if a group likes including new options"? I mean, if "you don't need it" were a good response, then no edition of D&D (or any other game that suffered from the same issue) could ever have that bloat issue.  Obviously, it's been a real issue in the past, the issue is related to optional player material that is published (regardless of whether it's material making up the foundation of a company's business model or not), and Paizo has been putting out lots of optional material (even if they put out even more adventure material).  So, why would they be immune from the impact of bloat?

Then add on that they now do include those optional rules in their adventures these days, and I think they stopped printing their beginner box set, and that just piles on the problem.

Quote from: jcfiala;681103I'm not a Pathfinder expert, but all of the expansion books rules content from Paizo is available free on the web, legally.  I'm personally fond of http://www.d20pfsrd.com/, but there's probably other sites.

Heck, I'm running an adventure path, and I haven't had to buy a single book to do it with.

I have noticed it.  But one of the splat problems is complexity, which access to this resource doesn't amend.  

It also helps a lot of you have internet at the gaming table.  Otherwise you end up printing out a ton of stuff, as they pull from all 3 of their monster books and include classes that I wasn't familiar with (one of the major NPCs in book 5 is a gunslinger, for example).  

So it is a work-around but it still doesn't make the paths immune to the growing depth of the line.  I am not saying that there is any answer, either, as focused fans of the system enjoy seeing the new cool options being showcased.

This was a problem with late 2e products as they assumed one had the P.O. books.

Quote from: Votan;681081But if a group likes including new options, the "catch-up" cost is daunting.

There are three reasons this is (or at least was) less of a problem for Paizo than for WotC:

(1) Paizo not only releases their material under the OGL, they also go out of their way (http://paizo.com/prd/) to make that material easily accessible online. Your player wants to use a feat or class from the latest Paizo supplement, but you don't have the money to buy the book? Doesn't matter. The feat or class is trivially available online for free.

(2) For a long time, Paizo managed to maintain a minimal rules-based supplement approach. This remains true for the big hardback releases, but the monthly Player's Companion series seems to be prone to glut.

(3) Paizo doesn't necessarily need rule supplements to continue selling in order to remain profitable. The heart of their business model are the adventure modules and as long as that remains true if the rule supplement market ever reaches a point of glut they can simply phase those products out.

As noted, I think the monthly Player's Companion releases over the last year represent a significant shift in Paizo's historical business model.

I also haven't looked at the last couple adventure paths in detail. And if they are, in fact, relying more heavily on the splatbooks that also represents a shift in Paizo's historic model. (If all the content you need to play is still presented in the books themselves, however, I wouldn't necessarily view that with alarm.)

Either way, I still think seeing a new edition of Pathfinder earlier than 2016 is extremely unlikely (and that's assuming that D&D Next actually ships in 2014). If I was betting, though, I'd say that a new edition before 2020 is very likely, although that edition will be iterative rather than a reboot. (Unless D&D Next pulls off a miracle and somehow manages to completely disrupt the PF customer base.)

Quote from: mcbobbo;681072I think you find so many 3rd parties because you're not searching paizo.com.

Paizo actively supports 3rd party products and lists them on their site for sale. (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatible)

Quote from: Libertad;681063Now that Pathfinder/Paizo is "3rd Edition lives again," I can't help but notice the same trend happening again.  Go onto Drive-Thru RPG and put Pathfinder into the 'rules system' search, and you'll find hordes of 3rd Party Publishers.  Need 101 female orc names?  How about a post-apocalyptic game with the Pathfinder rules set in the modern world with no magic?  Still not convinced, what about a slew of "adult" products which make the Book of Erotic Fantasy look highbrow and tasteful?

Game product makers are following the money, and that's not so much on Paizo.com. Are you finding Paizo downloadable products anywhere but on paizo.com?

Quote from: Justin Alexander;681125There are three reasons this is (or at least was) less of a problem for Paizo than for WotC:

(1) Paizo not only releases their material under the OGL, they also go out of their way (http://paizo.com/prd/) to make that material easily accessible online. Your player wants to use a feat or class from the latest Paizo supplement, but you don't have the money to buy the book? Doesn't matter. The feat or class is trivially available online for free.

(2) For a long time, Paizo managed to maintain a minimal rules-based supplement approach. This remains true for the big hardback releases, but the monthly Player's Companion series seems to be prone to glut.

(3) Paizo doesn't necessarily need rule supplements to continue selling in order to remain profitable. The heart of their business model are the adventure modules and as long as that remains true if the rule supplement market ever reaches a point of glut they can simply phase those products out.

As noted, I think the monthly Player's Companion releases over the last year represent a significant shift in Paizo's historical business model.

I also haven't looked at the last couple adventure paths in detail. And if they are, in fact, relying more heavily on the splatbooks that also represents a shift in Paizo's historic model. (If all the content you need to play is still presented in the books themselves, however, I wouldn't necessarily view that with alarm.)

Either way, I still think seeing a new edition of Pathfinder earlier than 2016 is extremely unlikely (and that's assuming that D&D Next actually ships in 2014). If I was betting, though, I'd say that a new edition before 2020 is very likely, although that edition will be iterative rather than a reboot. (Unless D&D Next pulls off a miracle and somehow manages to completely disrupt the PF customer base.)
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I don't think we are in deep disagreement here.  

I actually only noticed the use of (non-referenced) classes, items, and feats in the last adventure path (where I started looking stuff up way too often) so it could well be a more recent shift.  I know for sure this was not true of either Rise of the Runelords or the Serpent's Skull, both of which I have successfully run using the core book.  I notice the next path (about the World wound) is built around Mythic adventures.  But this might be a feature of one or two paths.  

Another major advantage that Paizo has is that it has been really, really tight on the quality control for the hardback rulebooks.  I was deeply impressed by the NPC Codex, which was both inventive and supplemental in the best sense (you did not need it to run your game but you would be delighted to get it).  Some of the characters in the book are really smartly developed and showcase directions that PCs could also be developed.  This sort of approach really extends the lifecycle of the product line and so .  

But an incremental upgrade that tries to tighten up the rules on the basis of play experience might well be possible.

Given that Paizo was all about following the 3e mold, and as far as I can see did nothing to resolve the fundamental design flaws of that mold (I'm not talking about problems in RPG mechanics, i'm talking about things like the nature of 3e being about character-building, splatbooks with feats/prestige-classes/etc), it would seem an inevitable outcome that eventually, sooner or later, Pathfinder would run into the same Massive Bloat problem that 3e did.

Quote from: RPGPundit;681968Given that Paizo was all about following the 3e mold, and as far as I can see did nothing to resolve the fundamental design flaws of that mold (I'm not talking about problems in RPG mechanics, i'm talking about things like the nature of 3e being about character-building, splatbooks with feats/prestige-classes/etc), it would seem an inevitable outcome that eventually, sooner or later, Pathfinder would run into the same Massive Bloat problem that 3e did.

While this is true, the quality of the products and the innovation in content (NPC Codex, Ultimate Campaign, Beginner Box) will slow he rate at which the decay happens.  I do not think it was an accident that Paizo won so many Ennies today for both company and product.  

That being said, making the next adventure path all based around Mythic Adventures isn't a good sign.

Quote from: Teazia;681116This was a problem with late 2e products as they assumed one had the P.O. books.

Offhand the only PO-based adventure I can recall was Gates of Firestorm Peak (which used mostly Combat & Tactics). The three Player's Option books & the GM Option High Level Campaigns had references to each other to some extent, but not to the point where you had to catch them all to play.
If there are any others I want them :)

Quote from: Haffrung;681087The foundation of Paizo's business is the Adventure Paths, and they don't require any books besides the cores and the bestiaries.

Agreed, and they're good stuff.

Hell, I hate D&D.  I have for decades.  I've never played Pathfinder, and I never will.  But Pazio's setting material is well executed, and it doesn't take very much work to strip out the game mechanics and insert the system of your choice.

I see the 3.5 era of third party material with fond memories. I am thrilled to see folks doing the same for Pathfinder. Will it all be gems? Nope. But does it mean we will have some great or at least interesting things to play with? Yep. The more the merrier.

Quote from: Ravenswing;682234But Pazio's setting material is well executed, and it doesn't take very much work to strip out the game mechanics and insert the system of your choice.

And the there are those who lament that the newer paths are dependant on specific sourcebooks...

Sometimes I really wonder just when the DIY spirit was abandoned by the RPG community.
Or if there were certain games or products that served as the "wrong" role models, effectively "excorcising" the spirit of DIY from the hobby.

Similar to how 3e's CR, delve format, and builds, and 4e's "encounterd4tion" taught a whole generation of gamers a way to play which is very hard to unlearn. But then, every D&D had its zeitgeist-y "badwrongfun", from monty haul to railroads to level-appropriate encounters.

Sorry, I've been playing D&D. What exactly is a 'Paizo'??

It's only a problem if you buy the damn books. Don't like rules bloat? Don't by anything but the core rule books. Jesus. How hard is that to figure out?


 I have a friend who owns every 3.5 book out there (or at least all the WotC books) and as soon as you get away from the core books shit gets broken. It looks to me that all those books were for munchkins. Most of them are just terrible.

A few years back I bought PF core rules and ran it for about 18 months I guess.
I wasn't really a PF fan, but you're pretty much guaranteed to be able to find players for that compared to any other RPG.
 
For the first year I just used the Core rules and a couple of bestiaries.
I ran various linked adventures using it.

In the last 6 months I ran it I and a few other people who played in the campaign bought into the expansion books at the time.

Looking back I think I enjoyed running PF with just the core rules and a couple of bestiaries more than when we got the various splatbooks available at the time.

If I were to run PF again (which I doubt, as I run other RPGs now),  I would just stick with the core rules.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;682312Sometimes I really wonder just when the DIY spirit was abandoned by the RPG community.

It seems modern gamers have a different ideas of what, exactly, that DIY should be.

For my generation it was writing up adventures and tweaking the system. For a lot of today's gamers, the do-it-yourself part is taking a bunch of books home and building a powerful, unique character. From their point of view, we were dull, lazy players for spending only 5 minutes to make a generic Dwarf fighter.

But playstyles aside, as the hobby ages the hobbyists tend to have less time. If you're 42, with a serious career, a spouse who works, two kids, and some kind of social life outside of gaming, it's pretty hard to find the time to simply play once or twice a month, let alone create your own world setting and write up a level 1-20 campaign.

I have no problem with the idea of adventure paths. I just can't stand Paizo's cheesy pop-culture kitchen sink fantasy milieu, with its teen punks, Victorian asylums, top-hatted serial killers, kickass anime heroines, modern family melodrama, and comically anachronistic whitebread American shlock.

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;682312And the there are those who lament that the newer paths are dependant on specific sourcebooks...

Sometimes I really wonder just when the DIY spirit was abandoned by the RPG community.
Or if there were certain games or products that served as the "wrong" role models, effectively "excorcising" the spirit of DIY from the hobby.

The DIY model is fine.  But if I am going to take that road, Pathfinder is not really the optimal choice.  The point of an adventure path is to take the scut work out of a lot of customized NPCs in the framework of a adaptable and interesting story.  The original versions worked well and the DIY was involved in adapting and enriching the story.  

True, I could just run critters out of the monster book.  Or develop them myself.  My issue was that the thing that these books added that was the most useful was a series of set piece encounters that can be deployed as part of ongoing campaign.  

If I have to do a bunch of research and downloading to figure out the encounters, it starts to look like about as much work to just develop my own material.  Which is fine, but then I start looking really hard at things like B/X D&D or Savage Worlds or (heavens above help me) 4E where the preparation is a lot less complicated.

If you like making Pathfinder NPCs then more power to you.  If you just take them out of the existing books and knit them into stories that is also cool.  I find Pathfinder on the complex side for my own tastes as a GM, and so the Paths that integrated with the core rules were appreciated.

Quote from: Haffrung;682463as the hobby ages the hobbyists tend to have less time. If you're 42, with a serious career, a spouse who works, two kids, and some kind of social life outside of gaming, it's pretty hard to find the time to simply play once or twice a month, let alone create your own world setting and write up a level 1-20 campaign.

Exactly.

What you're paying industry professionals for is time. The time to develop a setting well, the time to playtest the system, the time to develop their skills beyond the level of "Well, any asshole could do this. And you have."

Hobbyist DIY time investment is best served by long running campaigns — prep once, run forever. Players who like to change up settings and systems tend to either have rotating GM's, much lower quality (which doesn't really matter — your game, your fun), or insane geniuses at the helm.

But the industry needs quality, and that takes time and hence money.

When I did my 2 year delve into running D&D 3e, I ran it with the 3 core books and we had plenty of fun. I didn't want nor need any other books at the table.

But that takes a strong GM!

Quote from: tzunder;682473When I did my 2 year delve into running D&D 3e, I ran it with the 3 core books and we had plenty of fun. I didn't want nor need any other books at the table.

But that takes a strong GM!

In my case, my players neither buy nor read RPG books. So the pressure to add new crunch is nil. However, I understand that's not common in this day and age.

They certainly learned a few lessons from WoTC and have been smarter and more careful about trying to slow down the pace of the bloat and inevitable decline.  But when the whole model has that design flaw, all you can really do is slow things down.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPundit;682781They certainly learned a few lessons from WoTC and have been smarter and more careful about trying to slow down the pace of the bloat and inevitable decline.  But when the whole model has that design flaw, all you can really do is slow things down.

RPGPundit

Unless of course you see that 'bloat' not as bloat at all but as variety and options. 3.5 ended far too soon for my taste. I imagine so will Pathfinder. I just doubt anyone else will pick up the banner and carry it forward. And our hobby will be the worse off for it.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;681125Paizo actively supports 3rd party products and lists them on their site for sale. (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/compatible)

Yes sir, sorry if I wasn't clear.  I meant to say, searches on sites other than paizo.com turn up zero Paizo products.  Except for language translations, I don't think I have seen anything from them on, say Drive Thru.

Point being, 'where you search' has a big impact on the ratio.

Quote from: Ravenswing;682234But Pazio's setting material is well executed, and it doesn't take very much work to strip out the game mechanics and insert the system of your choice.

Some of this is just good mojo, though.  For example, RotRL has some pretty sever problems for something that's been played so much and saw an Anniversary Edition.  Their treatment of Magnimar, too is far more lean than it appears.  Imagine you had the three or four products that mention that city, including the novel. Now take their city guide, and use a red pen to strike through everything that you already know about.  You're left with maybe ten pages of material. Maybe.

I still recommend them, but some of their excellence is skin deep.

Quote from: Tetsubo;682922Unless of course you see that 'bloat' not as bloat at all but as variety and options. 3.5 ended far too soon for my taste. I imagine so will Pathfinder. I just doubt anyone else will pick up the banner and carry it forward. And our hobby will be the worse off for it.

Bloat isn't bloat when there's a mechanism to void the excess and keep only the valuable bits. CCGs do this arbitrarily.  With 3e the players are supposed to do it via "rules mastery".  With that conceit, you can't remove the junk/trap options.  Bloat becomes inevitable.

"Bloat" is when conflicting rules that overlap and give bad consistency. That was/is a major problem with 3.x/PF.

"Feats" are just a mechanical jargon for abilities that a character accrues - tacked onto the larger core system. Ultimately it's no different than by building them into a class. Of course the issue is that most of these abilities are balanced by level, cost, or ability vs. other such things within the mechanics of the system that fulfill the same roll. In this case (of 3.x/PF) - spells.

You can almost see the silly logic that eventually spawned the 4e abomination. Rather than admit the balance is all kinds of fucked up, WotC went more meta-mechanical and abstracted all these abilities as "class powers" and built a skirmish boardgame around it.

I have no problem with the concept of Feats etc. The problem I have is that Paizo's implementation of them as well as other parts of their system are mechanically shitty. Great on appearance. Dogshit in actual play in my long-term campaigns.

Bloat is when you need more and more books to play published adventures.

Quote from: Haffrung;683109Bloat is when you need more and more books to play published adventures.

Bloat is when you have to carry more and more books to the game, or when you have to wade through more and more pages to find that one rule that applies to a given situation.

I'm sure that if ten of us replied to the question, "What is bloat?" there'd be twelve different answers.

Quote from: mcbobbo;682938Yes sir, sorry if I wasn't clear.  I meant to say, searches on sites other than paizo.com turn up zero Paizo products.  Except for language translations, I don't think I have seen anything from them on, say Drive Thru.

Ah, I see. Yes, I read your post completely backwards. Apologies!

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;683186Bloat is when you have to carry more and more books to the game, or when you have to wade through more and more pages to find that one rule that applies to a given situation.

Keeping in mind that nobody is making players buy anything beyond the core books. It's not a publisher's fault that some fans are OCD completionists or obsessive char op freaks. For those who aren't helpless addicts, bloat is only a problem when more and more discretionary products require other discretionary products to use. To use an example from Paizo, the existence of the Advanced Players Guide is not in itself bloat. The dependency of an adventure path on that book is.

Quote from: mcbobbo;682941Bloat isn't bloat when there's a mechanism to void the excess and keep only the valuable bits. CCGs do this arbitrarily.  With 3e the players are supposed to do it via "rules mastery".  With that conceit, you can't remove the junk/trap options.  Bloat becomes inevitable.

It never had bloat problems with 3rd edition, then of course, I applied the common sense theory of gaming.  Don't allow something into the game that ruins the game.  If someone comes up to you and wants to play an undead red dragon death knight, just say no, then show them what will be allowed in the campaign. "Rules mastery" is a must for a game master (it's even in the title).  So it makes no sense for someone who wants to run a game to snub their nose at "game mastery."  It's your job.  It's like someone wanting to be a pilot and not wanting to bother with learning to fly.

Quote from: hamstertamer;683207It never had bloat problems with 3rd edition, then of course, I applied the common sense theory of gaming.  Don't allow something into the game that ruins the game.  If someone comes up to you and wants to play an undead red dragon death knight, just say no, then show them what will be allowed in the campaign. "Rules mastery" is a must for a game master (it's even in the title).  So it makes no sense for someone who wants to run a game to snub their nose at "game mastery."  It's your job.  It's like someone wanting to be a pilot and not wanting to bother with learning to fly.

I agree. I'm usually open, but not everything goes in my campaigns. I only allow stuff that is appropriate for my campaign. So....no undead red dragon stripper ninjas. :)

Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb;683214So....no undead red dragon stripper ninjas. :)

And undead red dragon stripper pirates?

Quote from: hamstertamer;683207It never had bloat problems with 3rd edition, then of course, I applied the common sense theory of gaming.  Don't allow something into the game that ruins the game.  If someone comes up to you and wants to play an undead red dragon death knight, just say no, then show them what will be allowed in the campaign.

I call this the "are you fucking kidding me" principle and you need to be able to apply it if you're going to run 3e in a vaguely sane manner. That said, bloat can still be a problem in terms of the sheer quantity of stuff you have to audit; the bloat truck hit me sometime around The Complete Scoundrel or whatever that 3.5e book was that introduced the idea of Skill Tricks.

Quote from: Imp;683253That said, bloat can still be a problem in terms of the sheer quantity of stuff you have to audit

My approach for handling that is to audit individual items, not entire sourcebooks. I don't, for example, go through the Complete Scoundrel and highlight every item that I'm OK with. Instead, I have a short list of "everything in this book is OK" and then the players are free to bring me anything else they want.

This doesn't work with every system. But in something like D&D/PF it's virtually impossible for the players to overwhelm me with requests. Even if all of the players wanted non-standard everything, that translates into me reviewing a half dozen classes and races at the beginning of the campaign and maybe an equal number of feats or similar options every few sessions.

(Spells, particularly cleric or druid spells, can be more problematic. If necessary, set a cap for how many spells you're willing to review per character level or per session.)

Some players will balk at this. I've had a few problems in the past. I usually win them over the first time I say something like, "This feat you've brought me is interesting... but it's totally gimpy. Let's pump it up a bit." (And this happens with surprising frequency.)

I'm lucky because I generally have reasonable players. As a result, they're generally bringing me reasonable character concepts and it's relatively easy for me to work with them to figure out how to mechanically realize those concepts. Sometimes it's incorporating stuff from splatbooks (either stuff I've found or stuff they've found); sometimes it's designing new stuff.

Quote from: Haffrung;683109Bloat is when you need more and more books to play published adventures.

Agreed.  So the lowest level adventure in the current path references:

Advanced Player's Guide
Bestiary
Bestiary 2
Bestiary 3
GameMastery Guide
Lords of Chaos, Book of the Damned, Vol. 2
NPC Codex
Paths of Prestige
Ultimate Combat
Ultimate Equipment
Ultimate Magic

In addition to the Core rules.  I can predict that the mythic rules will be required next based on the (well advertised) plan of the adventure path.  It isn't a ridiculous number of books and things can be searched for.  But this is the sort of thing that I found unfortunate, much more so that players asking for things.  Whenever that has been an issue, it wasn't the game at fault.

QuoteMy approach for handling that is to audit individual items, not entire sourcebooks. I don't, for example, go through the Complete Scoundrel and highlight every item that I'm OK with. Instead, I have a short list of "everything in this book is OK" and then the players are free to bring me anything else they want.

I'm afraid the bloat truck hit me mainly because I'm bad at ignoring new material – a new book comes out for a game I'm playing/running and I want to check it out because maybe the new stuff is good! But then at that point in 3.5 there was just too much stuff and my eyeballs melted out of my head which is a thing I can't recommend personally.

In re Pathfinder bloat, a) aren't most of the new rules/ feats available on the online SRD and b) if that's the case, shouldn't they just reprint the new stuff in the adventure paths in which they use it? Or do they use so much of it that it's impractical to do that?

Quote from: hamstertamer;683207"Rules mastery" is a must for a game master (it's even in the title).  So it makes no sense for someone who wants to run a game to snub their nose at "game mastery."  It's your job.  It's like someone wanting to be a pilot and not wanting to bother with learning to fly.

I put that in quotes because it isn't a general term, the way I used it, but rather references a WotC design paradigm they developed for MtG.  The goal is to create a meritocracy where those who consume the most products have more effectiveness in game.

A GM has zero need for this.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;683366My approach for handling that is to audit individual items, not entire sourcebooks. I don't, for example, go through the Complete Scoundrel and highlight every item that I'm OK with. Instead, I have a short list of "everything in this book is OK" and then the players are free to bring me anything else they want.

Do you often find undesired consequences during the game?  And do you/can you make adjustments?

We used to do this back in the day.  "Let's try it and see" followed by the "Um, no, that needs to be changed."

I still dream of the system that has checks and balances built in to make those decisions less risky.

Quote from: Imp;683376In re Pathfinder bloat, a) aren't most of the new rules/ feats available on the online SRD and b) if that's the case, shouldn't they just reprint the new stuff in the adventure paths in which they use it? Or do they use so much of it that it's impractical to do that?

It is available, even in their own 'PRD'.  But they don't like to waste pages, and quite honestly do encourage you buy their books.  I don't know if you know this already, but they have subscriptions for their splat books.  As if it were a magazine.  Except they're $40 instead of $4, and the sub itself typically does not give you a discount.  It's a rather different assumption than I've seen anywhere else.

In my view, though, their real problem is power creep.  There's not much effort being put towards not obsoleting existing content.  This will, invariably, push them towards a new edition, which could have been prevented.

Quote from: Votan;683373Agreed.  So the lowest level adventure in the current path references:

Advanced Player's Guide
Bestiary
Bestiary 2
Bestiary 3
GameMastery Guide
Lords of Chaos, Book of the Damned, Vol. 2
NPC Codex
Paths of Prestige
Ultimate Combat
Ultimate Equipment
Ultimate Magic

In addition to the Core rules.  I can predict that the mythic rules will be required next based on the (well advertised) plan of the adventure path.  It isn't a ridiculous number of books and things can be searched for.  But this is the sort of thing that I found unfortunate, much more so that players asking for things.  Whenever that has been an issue, it wasn't the game at fault.

Huh. I didn't realize it had gotten that bad. The last AP I bought was the Serpent's Skull.

Quote from: Haffrung;683863Huh. I didn't realize it had gotten that bad. The last AP I bought was the Serpent's Skull.

I ran the Serpent's Skull through to the end and it was definitely less dependent on additional material.  The last episode of the previous path was just as bad, though (it was the one that had me wondering).

I honestly don't "get" the whole AP thing.

Granted I've been GMing a long time... AP's (and I've been gifted with several - Kingmaker, the new Pirates one and a couple of others) strike me as generic themed "campaigns" for:

1) GM's that are unimaginative
2) GM's that have no time, will, or desire to run their own campaign
3) GM's that are so novice they are too "intimidated" by owning their game.
4) Players that like scripted or "on rails" content.
5) Players that are unimaginative and like having their adventures dictated to them.

Take your pick of the above.

It's not that I don't think these things are bad... they're not. Every GM and player goes through those phases of being a "novice" and not necessarily thinking of the big-picture, or in a more excusable sense - the GM doesn't have the time to put into doing a proper campaign (I do get that).

But when I read the "good AP's" as I've had people tell me - I just look at them as canned spaghetti. I don't find them particularly exciting or even runnable with my players (who are all old-school players) - they would blow half the premises apart within the first adventure. I often wonder what people get out of them that a GM, that really owns their campaign and puts in a little elbow-grease, can't do fantastically better.

These things are just... pap filler to me. I think the only things I've ever used from them are a couple of maps.

Of course I realize I'm not the one these things are marketed to either. But shit - even the new guys that play with me, are past this level of play within a few months. It's amazing to me that people base their whole campaigns around this stuff. But of course if it's fun for you - game on. Ultimately that's what it's about.

Quote from: tenbones;684145I honestly don't "get" the whole AP thing.

Granted I've been GMing a long time... AP's (and I've been gifted with several - Kingmaker, the new Pirates one and a couple of others) strike me as generic themed "campaigns" for:

1) GM's that are unimaginative
2) GM's that have no time, will, or desire to run their own campaign
3) GM's that are so novice they are too "intimidated" by owning their game.
4) Players that like scripted or "on rails" content.
5) Players that are unimaginative and like having their adventures dictated to them.

Take your pick of the above.

It's not that I don't think these things are bad... they're not. Every GM and player goes through those phases of being a "novice" and not necessarily thinking of the big-picture, or in a more excusable sense - the GM doesn't have the time to put into doing a proper campaign (I do get that).

But when I read the "good AP's" as I've had people tell me - I just look at them as canned spaghetti. I don't find them particularly exciting or even runnable with my players (who are all old-school players) - they would blow half the premises apart within the first adventure. I often wonder what people get out of them that a GM, that really owns their campaign and puts in a little elbow-grease, can't do fantastically better.

These things are just... pap filler to me. I think the only things I've ever used from them are a couple of maps.

Of course I realize I'm not the one these things are marketed to either. But shit - even the new guys that play with me, are past this level of play within a few months. It's amazing to me that people base their whole campaigns around this stuff. But of course if it's fun for you - game on. Ultimately that's what it's about.

The APs I've seen are badly written shlock full of massive stat blocks, absurd anachronisms, and lengthy NPC backgrounds that will never play any part in a game.

However, what they hold out is the possibility of having everything you need to run an entire campaign for a year or two. For some of us who barely manage the time to play once or twice a month, let alone prep whole adventures and campaign settings, that's a very appealing prospect.

Basically, Paizo twigged onto the fact a big cohort of D&D's player base are now middle-aged guys with jobs, houses, families, and not a lot of free time. They also recognized that most RPGs products are read but never used in play; APs are meant to be enjoyable to read, in a way that a traditional site-based module typically isn't.

Quote from: tenbones;6841451) GM's that are unimaginative
2) GM's that have no time, will, or desire to run their own campaign
3) GM's that are so novice they are too "intimidated" by owning their game.
4) Players that like scripted or "on rails" content.
5) Players that are unimaginative and like having their adventures dictated to them.

Take your pick of the above.

6) GM's who would like an assortment of planned encounters that they can weave into their own plot (loosely based off of the path) without developing stat blocks for each NPC or creature involved.  

A well run Adventure path is also a similar experience to the GDQ series -- no game is precisely the same but they all bring out some common memories and experiences.

That said, if I am not running something as complex as pathfinder (and it isn't my preferred system) then they would be unnecessary (in say B/X D&D, 1st Ed AD&D or Savage Worlds).

Quote from: tenbones;684145I honestly don't "get" the whole AP thing.

Granted I've been GMing a long time... AP's (and I've been gifted with several - Kingmaker, the new Pirates one and a couple of others) strike me as generic themed "campaigns" for:

1) GM's that are unimaginative
2) GM's that have no time, will, or desire to run their own campaign
3) GM's that are so novice they are too "intimidated" by owning their game.
4) Players that like scripted or "on rails" content.
5) Players that are unimaginative and like having their adventures dictated to them.

Take your pick of the above.

It's not that I don't think these things are bad... they're not. Every GM and player goes through those phases of being a "novice" and not necessarily thinking of the big-picture, or in a more excusable sense - the GM doesn't have the time to put into doing a proper campaign (I do get that).

But when I read the "good AP's" as I've had people tell me - I just look at them as canned spaghetti. I don't find them particularly exciting or even runnable with my players (who are all old-school players) - they would blow half the premises apart within the first adventure. I often wonder what people get out of them that a GM, that really owns their campaign and puts in a little elbow-grease, can't do fantastically better.

These things are just... pap filler to me. I think the only things I've ever used from them are a couple of maps.

Of course I realize I'm not the one these things are marketed to either. But shit - even the new guys that play with me, are past this level of play within a few months. It's amazing to me that people base their whole campaigns around this stuff. But of course if it's fun for you - game on. Ultimately that's what it's about.

Think of it with this analogy: not everyone knows how to cook, and need lessons. The APs do exactly that (for better or worse).

On a more sophisticated level, I've found that very few GMs in my area actually produce their own content. Most rely heavily on the APs, the Pathfinder Society modules and the single adventure lineup; almost none of them are ready or willing to put the little bit of extra effort necessary into doing their own thing, not least of which is because for many it's a daunting task; the process of creating content is actually a lot tougher for many people than is the process of reading and memorizing a module. Shockingly so, it seems.

So when I wonder about Paizo's success with PF, I need only look to the other GMs around here running their APs and PFS modules to realize why this game does so well: it's spilling over with support for amateur or average GMs, and the pros can take the core and do what they want with it.

Quote from: Haffrung;684151Basically, Paizo twigged onto the fact a big cohort of D&D's player base are now middle-aged guys with jobs, houses, families, and not a lot of free time. They also recognized that most RPGs products are read but never used in play; APs are meant to be enjoyable to read, in a way that a traditional site-based module typically isn't.

Yeah also this.



EDIT: Although at least around here I am shocked at how many people run the published APs and modules. A metric ton of high school kids regularly buy and run APs at the local Hastings, for ex...and the older guys, though fewer in number, buy them, hoard them, and a few brave ones actually run them. I only know of two PF GMs, myself and one of my players who has his own game night as GM, who run our own user-created settings and modules. And even he uses Midgard as his base.

To the OP: the deal with cheap and prolific PDFs at rpgnow and drivethrurpg to remember is that if you don't go there and see them, they might as well not exist. Even Paizo has their catalogue in their godawful site parsed out such that you have to seek the 3PP content out, and can miss it if you aren't trying to locate it. FWIW when you look at what PDFs offer these days they are usually highly specific topics aimed specifically at GMs or players who need "exactly that piece of information or stat block, right now." This is a real contrast from the old print glut of products no one asked for or wanted back in the heyday of D20 publishing.

Modules/adventures were usually good sellers when I worked at a gaming store in the early 00's.  I never heard that they don't sell well until I started reading rpg forums in the late 00's.  I have a feeling that the people who don't like pre-made adventures started the rumor and then megaphoned it.  Making it a "fact." Then everyone was surprised when Pathfinder's sold well, and were confused by it.

Quote from: hamstertamer;684214Modules/adventures were usually good sellers when I worked at a gaming store in the early 00's.  I never heard that they don't sell well until I started reading rpg forums in the late 00's.  I have a feeling that the people who don't like pre-made adventures started the rumor and then megaphoned it.  Making it a "fact." Then everyone was surprised when Pathfinder's sold well, and were confused by it.

I can kinda see why WotC backed off adventures. TSR published a massive glut of crap adventures for 2E, and unsurprisingly they lost money on a lot of them. Then with the OGL, the adventure market for 3E was glutted again, much of it also crap.

But Paizo has shown what happens when you have pretty much one publisher releasing a modest number of high-production value adventures for a popular game, and you know how to promote and support those adventures. Ka-ching. People want a common game experience. It's not my cup of tea, but I completely understand the appeal of wanting your group to tackle the Rise of the Runelords after reading about dozens of other groups playing it.

Quote from: hamstertamer;684214Modules/adventures were usually good sellers when I worked at a gaming store in the early 00's.  I never heard that they don't sell well until I started reading rpg forums in the late 00's.  I have a feeling that the people who don't like pre-made adventures started the rumor and then megaphoned it.  Making it a "fact." Then everyone was surprised when Pathfinder's sold well, and were confused by it.

I think that "modules don't sell" as received wisdom really just comes from the idea that modules don't sell as well as splat books (that is, the sales aren't necessarily bad in absolute terms, but they may not represent the best return on investment for a publisher). And you can certainly see the logic that a book targeted at all players of D&D has a higher sales potential than a book for GMs using a certain setting only.

The fact that WW couldn't sell modules either (on account of all theirs being crap) will have compounded the perception.

The funny thing is of course that you could support D&D forever with modules and settings without creating "bloat" and therefore needing an edition change.

Quote from: Haffrung;684222I can kinda see why WotC backed off adventures. TSR published a massive glut of crap adventures for 2E, and unsurprisingly they lost money on a lot of them. Then with the OGL, the adventure market for 3E was glutted again, much of it also crap.

But Paizo has shown what happens when you have pretty much one publisher releasing a modest number of high-production value adventures for a popular game, and you know how to promote and support those adventures. Ka-ching. People want a common game experience. It's not my cup of tea, but I completely understand the appeal of wanting your group to tackle the Rise of the Runelords after reading about dozens of other groups playing it.

I agree for the most part, I think, but I don't see how a crap adventure would stop people from buying a good adventure. No one stops buying novels because they bought a bad novel.  You can pretty much say there is a continuous glut of bad novels in the book industry, yet people still buy novels and read them all the time.  Just go to the book section of a Wal-mart.  I would consider most of that crap, or at least stuff I would never buy or read, but they are still made, printed, and some people must buy them sometimes. So I don't think that having a glut of material, even if a lot of is bad, would stop people from buying. I think it's another reason.

Quote from: Grymbok;684226I think that "modules don't sell" as received wisdom really just comes from the idea that modules don't sell as well as splat books (that is, the sales aren't necessarily bad in absolute terms, but they may not represent the best return on investment for a publisher). And you can certainly see the logic that a book targeted at all players of D&D has a higher sales potential than a book for GMs using a certain setting only.

The fact that WW couldn't sell modules either (on account of all theirs being crap) will have compounded the perception.

The funny thing is of course that you could support D&D forever with modules and settings without creating "bloat" and therefore needing an edition change.

Yeah, I think it's that WOTC didn't want to publish quality adventures for whatever reason.  I do think that their adventures sold just fine.  It's combination of an attitude "who cares about adventure modules" and let's go for the highest profits possible.

Quote from: hamstertamer;684234Yeah, I think it's that WOTC didn't want to publish quality adventures for whatever reason.  I do think that their adventures sold just fine.  It's combination of an attitude "who cares about adventure modules" and let's go for the highest profits possible.

For me, I didn't want adventures, I wanted rule books and settings and equipment books and terrain books and monster books. The things I could use to create my own adventures. So the whole Adventure Path line of PF material is lost on me.

Modules are full of NPCs, maps, set pieces, plot threads, traps, sometimes new spells, monsters, goodies and setting info.

Every published module for me is like getting another Lego kit.  I can use it as is just fine, but it's way more useful thrown into the mix here and there.

Quote from: Tetsubo;684239For me, I didn't want adventures, I wanted rule books and settings and equipment books and terrain books and monster books. The things I could use to create my own adventures. So the whole Adventure Path line of PF material is lost on me.

I have no doubt it is lost to you.  That's why there is a nasty rumor on the internet by certain RPG fans that modules/adventures don't sell.  If a person sees no use in something, then they can't understand why someone would buy it.  Some game designers have adsorbed this attitude as well, and it shows by their reluctance to create modules/adventures.

Quote from: hamstertamer;684229I agree for the most part, I think, but I don't see how a crap adventure would stop people from buying a good adventure. No one stops buying novels because they bought a bad novel.

You might stop buying novels by that author, however.  And with the RPG industry, all too often "publisher" is substituted for "author".  

I think this happened with WOTC 3e modules. That started out well.  Bruce Cordell's "Sunless Citadel" was good.  Rich Baker's "Forge of Fury" was good. And then James Wyatt's "The Speaker in Dreams" was just meh. And John D. Rateliff's "The Standing Stone" was not good.  And it all kinda went downhill from there with "Heart of Nightfang Spire" and the other three in that adventure path, and I think people just assumed WOTC modules were not worth buying.

Quote from: hamstertamer;684214Modules/adventures were usually good sellers when I worked at a gaming store in the early 00's.  I never heard that they don't sell well until I started reading rpg forums in the late 00's.  I have a feeling that the people who don't like pre-made adventures started the rumor and then megaphoned it.  Making it a "fact." Then everyone was surprised when Pathfinder's sold well, and were confused by it.

I too worked in a game store in the late 90s and early 00s. My experience is the absolute inverse of yours. We co-workers used to watch the modules bleach in the sun along with jigsaw puzzles. Scratch that, we'd have annual sales of jigsaws and watch them cycle off the shelves around Christmas. But the modules remained.

The age of splats was still holding court in those days.

Quote from: Opaopajr;684306I too worked in a game store in the late 90s and early 00s. My experience is the absolute inverse of yours. We co-workers used to watch the modules bleach in the sun along with jigsaw puzzles. Scratch that, we'd have annual sales of jigsaws and watch them cycle off the shelves around Christmas. But the modules remained.

The age of splats was still holding court in those days.

I guess it must be regional thing then.  I remembered people looking for and buying modules all the time.  No one every said, "There are too many adventure modules, I will stop buying them."  Never happened, and never made sense.

Quote from: Mistwell;684298You might stop buying novels by that author, however.  And with the RPG industry, all too often "publisher" is substituted for "author".  

I think this happened with WOTC 3e modules. That started out well.  Bruce Cordell's "Sunless Citadel" was good.  Rich Baker's "Forge of Fury" was good. And then James Wyatt's "The Speaker in Dreams" was just meh. And John D. Rateliff's "The Standing Stone" was not good.  And it all kinda went downhill from there with "Heart of Nightfang Spire" and the other three in that adventure path, and I think people just assumed WOTC modules were not worth buying.

I think that you are just applying personal preference.  I guess, for me, I didn't like the sunless citadel or the early ones all that much but liked the older ones better.  Weird, I think how that works.  

We did have a prominent carousel to display modules, while other gaming stores in the area keep them on a shelf somewhere out of immediate sight. I imagine that there was a bit of ideology in the assignment of where they were displayed.  I once took a bunch of back stock of D&D books and created a display in the window, we sold out of everything I showcased in a weekend. Weird right?

So in my experience, game store employees/owners only push what they like and then judge what sells or doesn't based on that.  In this sense, you can't rely too much on game stores for an accurate reading.  I definitely remember people coming in once a week looking for a new book or a new module/adventure.  So I honestly believe that the "module/adventures don't sell" idea is fraudulent.  Put out good quality stuff and people will buy it (even if they never play it).  

If game store employees hide it and down talk it, and say it sucks, then people won't buy.  And usually game store employees are very opinionated.  Which is why I think that, if WOTC is smart, they will sell their products at wal-mart and target, exclusively.  Gaming stores are passé. Screw them I say.

Quote from: Kellri;682338Sorry, I've been playing D&D. What exactly is a 'Paizo'??

Something that had a chance to take the good of 3.5 and make it better by discarding the flaws, and failed fucking horribly.

Quote from: hamstertamer;684229I agree for the most part, I think, but I don't see how a crap adventure would stop people from buying a good adventure. No one stops buying novels because they bought a bad novel.  You can pretty much say there is a continuous glut of bad novels in the book industry, yet people still buy novels and read them all the time.  Just go to the book section of a Wal-mart.  I would consider most of that crap, or at least stuff I would never buy or read, but they are still made, printed, and some people must buy them sometimes. So I don't think that having a glut of material, even if a lot of is bad, would stop people from buying. I think it's another reason.

I've certainly stopped buying during glut times. In the early AD&D days, I could pick up a TSR adventure and be pretty sure it would good (T1, B1-4, G-series, D-series, S-series, C-series, A-series). Hardly any duds in the bunch. By around 1985, they were churning out a lot of crap. Rahasia was the last TSR module I bought for many years. I had hit a point where a module I bought was likely to be so bad I wouldn't run it.

Same thing with the 3e glut. I never did like the WotC adventures, but Necromancer Games hit the ground running with Crucible of Freya, Tomb of Abysthor, and Rappan Athuk. Then they started to turn out larger volumes of crap. Once bitten, twice shy. I picked up a couple adventures by other third-party publishers and they were terrible. Figured Goodman Games' DCC would be a good fit; nope. Mediocre at best. Filler. With two DCCs on my shelf that I will never use, there's not much chance of me risking a third.

Now compare that with Paizo. Before an adventure is even released they have teasers. Threads that the publishers post to outline the adventure and its tone. At release you get reviews, user comments, ratings, and session reports. The adventure paths themselves have a huge amount of material out there - reviews and GM tips, support material. You can easily do 2-3 hours of research on an adventure path before taking the plunge.

Whatever the problems with the railroaded format, and the cheesy setting, you know with Paizo you'll be getting top-notch layout, maps, and production values. They tend to attract the best freelance writers in the industry, and adventure path chapters are reserved for the ones who have proven themselves. This is all because they keep a strict limit on how many adventures and AP chapters they turn out a year. That means quality control.

Since the third-party modules for Pathfinder are sparse on the ground, someone picking up a Pathfinder adventure or setting book has a very good chance of buying a very good product. The quality is consistent enough that their bread and butter is subscriptions. You wouldn't have that many people buying books sight-unseen if the adventures were of dubious quality.

I posted a remark based on the OP comments along these lines.
 
I could see the creep of crap that ruined DND3.5 starting to infect Pathfinder.
 
The secret I found was not to support 3rd party products unless they added value rather than rehash material previously published for 3.5.

Quote from: camazotz;684188Think of it with this analogy: not everyone knows how to cook, and need lessons. The APs do exactly that (for better or worse).

I used to think this too. I'm not as certain about that analogy any longer. Ironically you point out the very reason why I'm shifting my view...

Quote from: camazotz;684188On a more sophisticated level, I've found that very few GMs in my area actually produce their own content. Most rely heavily on the APs, the Pathfinder Society modules and the single adventure lineup; almost none of them are ready or willing to put the little bit of extra effort necessary into doing their own thing, not least of which is because for many it's a daunting task; the process of creating content is actually a lot tougher for many people than is the process of reading and memorizing a module. Shockingly so, it seems.

1) GM's that just use this pre-canned stuff don't want to put in the effort.

2) It corners them into fairly unsophisticated campaigns.

It's different if you're an experienced GM and are just using AP's to fill in time for a casual game, than say - a relatively green GM "learning" from running AP's exclusively. Until you start going "off road" and doing your own thing, I think there is a cap to your GM skillset that will simply never grow by dint of the fact that no AP can account for your specific tastes (obviously).

so the question for me is - in Ye Goode Olde Days, we got our modules we ran them, then when the modules were done, we had to improvise. Is the glut of AP's prolonging the birds "staying in the nest" so to speak? What do you think?

Quote from: camazotz;684188So when I wonder about Paizo's success with PF, I need only look to the other GMs around here running their APs and PFS modules to realize why this game does so well: it's spilling over with support for amateur or average GMs, and the pros can take the core and do what they want with it.

/total agreement on this last point. Paizo has set a good standard for what an RPG company should do to support its line - regardless of what you might think of the game.

Quote from: hamstertamer;684340I think that you are just applying personal preference.  I guess, for me, I didn't like the sunless citadel or the early ones all that much but liked the older ones better.  Weird, I think how that works.  

We did have a prominent carousel to display modules, while other gaming stores in the area keep them on a shelf somewhere out of immediate sight. I imagine that there was a bit of ideology in the assignment of where they were displayed.  I once took a bunch of back stock of D&D books and created a display in the window, we sold out of everything I showcased in a weekend. Weird right?

So in my experience, game store employees/owners only push what they like and then judge what sells or doesn't based on that.  In this sense, you can't rely too much on game stores for an accurate reading.  I definitely remember people coming in once a week looking for a new book or a new module/adventure.  So I honestly believe that the "module/adventures don't sell" idea is fraudulent.  Put out good quality stuff and people will buy it (even if they never play it).  

If game store employees hide it and down talk it, and say it sucks, then people won't buy.  And usually game store employees are very opinionated.  Which is why I think that, if WOTC is smart, they will sell their products at wal-mart and target, exclusively.  Gaming stores are passé. Screw them I say.

If you look at the published sales numbers, they match my opinion at the time.  Sales of those modules drastically went down after Standing Stones.  This was back when enough people were tracking daily and even hourly Amazon numbers that you could measure what was going on.

Also, both Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury won critical acclaim at the time. In addition to high ranks in reviews, for example The Forge of Fury was ranked the 12th greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004, and Dungeon Master for Dummies lists both Sunless and Forge as one of the ten best 3rd edition adventures.  The later modules in that series did not enjoy such critical acclaim.

This thread inspired me to re-read Forge of Fury last night, and it really is an excellent dungeon adventure.  It follows most of the rules laid out by Benoist for crafting a good megadungeon.  It's not a railroad, it's a living changing setting, there are many ways to get into the dungeon, lots of opportunities for creative thinking for the players, lots of realistic relationships between the denizens of the dungeon, it's just a really dynamic and flexible dungeon setting.

Quote from: Tetsubo;684239For me, I didn't want adventures, I wanted rule books and settings and equipment books and terrain books and monster books.

I am completely the other way around.
Every RPG system that only is supported by sourcebooks is lost on me.
I never buy books that extend the rules (new classes, new spells), I hardly ever buy monster books (unless the rule book doesn't contain any at all), and I almost never buy pure regional campaign setting material (apart from the occasional basic setting box; I bought the grey FR box but I didn't buy FR1 Waterdeep and the North and similar products).
They bore me to death and I have no need for them.

The reason is exactly this:

Quote from: CRKrueger;684241Modules are full of NPCs, maps, set pieces, plot threads, traps, sometimes new spells, monsters, goodies and setting info.

Every published module for me is like getting another Lego kit.  I can use it as is just fine, but it's way more useful thrown into the mix here and there.

Seeing those bits in context (as opposed to a textbook catalog) serves me better.
To continue my FR analogue, I really liked FR5 Under Illefarn that was a mix of regional sourcebook and module.

So theoretically the Adventure Paths would be products I like, but Paizo ruins them (for me) by too much fluff text, a rule set that uses too large stat blocks, and, counter to Haffrung's experience...

Quote from: Haffrung;684447Whatever the problems with the railroaded format, and the cheesy setting, you know with Paizo you'll be getting top-notch layout, maps, and production values.

... unusable map material: too colorful, too dark; try to photocopy them to use them in your own adventures...
The production values are all eye candy that screams "buy me". They are aimed at being read, not played.

(So I don't even criticize their railroady-ness as I won't use the adventures anyway, as written.)

Quote from: hamstertamer;684281I have no doubt it is lost to you.  That's why there is a nasty rumor on the internet by certain RPG fans that modules/adventures don't sell.  If a person sees no use in something, then they can't understand why someone would buy it.  Some game designers have adsorbed this attitude as well, and it shows by their reluctance to create modules/adventures.

If I had known I had such power I would have taken over the world! To our lair Pinky!

Quote from: Warboss Squee;684364Something that had a chance to take the good of 3.5 and make it better by discarding the flaws, and failed fucking horribly.

Surprisingly, not everyone agrees with that. *waves hand*

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;684708... unusable map material: too colorful, too dark; try to photocopy them to use them in your own adventures...
The production values are all eye candy that screams "buy me". They are aimed at being read, not played.

They have these things called scanners these days.  And color printers.

Quote from: Warboss Squee;684364Something that had a chance to take the good of 3.5 and make it better by discarding the flaws, and failed fucking horribly.

Wow, and I bet that shows in its sales and market domination, doesn't it?

Quote from: Mistwell;684535If you look at the published sales numbers, they match my opinion at the time.  Sales of those modules drastically went down after Standing Stones.  This was back when enough people were tracking daily and even hourly Amazon numbers that you could measure what was going on.

Also, both Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury won critical acclaim at the time. In addition to high ranks in reviews, for example The Forge of Fury was ranked the 12th greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine in 2004, and Dungeon Master for Dummies lists both Sunless and Forge as one of the ten best 3rd edition adventures.  The later modules in that series did not enjoy such critical acclaim.

This thread inspired me to re-read Forge of Fury last night, and it really is an excellent dungeon adventure.  It follows most of the rules laid out by Benoist for crafting a good megadungeon.  It's not a railroad, it's a living changing setting, there are many ways to get into the dungeon, lots of opportunities for creative thinking for the players, lots of realistic relationships between the denizens of the dungeon, it's just a really dynamic and flexible dungeon setting.

So you are saying then the reason for the drop in sales was because of a drop in quality, not a increase in quantity.  That's pretty much what I said earlier, when i supposed that it was not the " glut of materials" out that caused people to stop buying.  I believe, and I think I'm correct, that making high quality adventures/modules would sell very well.  Also note I was not talking just about just WOTC materials either.  So the idea, "Modules don't sell" is just a myth, and you actually agree with that in a round about way.

Quote from: hamstertamer;684929So you are saying then the reason for the drop in sales was because of a drop in quality, not a increase in quantity.  That's pretty much what I said earlier, when i supposed that it was not the " glut of materials" out that caused people to stop buying.  I believe, and I think I'm correct, that making high quality adventures/modules would sell very well.  Also note I was not talking just about just WOTC materials either.  So the idea, "Modules don't sell" is just a myth, and you actually agree with that in a round about way.

Yes, I am saying there was a drop in quality for WOTC adventures, and that may be why their sales dried up.  But now do you see why a crap adventure would stop people from buying a good adventure from the same publisher?

Quote from: Mistwell;684941Yes, I am saying there was a drop in quality for WOTC adventures, and that may be why their sales dried up.  But now do you see why a crap adventure would stop people from buying a good adventure from the same publisher?

Do you now see why that's irrelevant to the rumor that "adventures/modules don't sell?"

If Hollywood puts out a good movie one summer and it's successful, then they put out a bunch of bad movies next year and they were not successful.  It would not be reasonable of Hollywood executives to conclude "movies don't sell anymore." And this is universal for any type of product.  Did people stop buying shoes because there are too many shoes being made, and some of them are of lower quality then others. No, of course not.

Quote from: Mistwell;684535This thread inspired me to re-read Forge of Fury last night, and it really is an excellent dungeon adventure.  It follows most of the rules laid out by Benoist for crafting a good megadungeon.  It's not a railroad, it's a living changing setting, there are many ways to get into the dungeon, lots of opportunities for creative thinking for the players, lots of realistic relationships between the denizens of the dungeon, it's just a really dynamic and flexible dungeon setting.

I'm going to check the Forge of Fury again regarding some of the points you mention, like the dynamism of the place and the like, but I'd like to point out that the relative linearity of Forge of Fury was discussed in Melan's comparison of Dungeon layouts (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=21794), which is one of the essays I am referring to when discussing the topic of linearity versus open dynamic environment and exploration in the dungeon:

Quote from: MelanTurning back to my original point, how do Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury stack up to other introductory modules in the maps department? Do they represent design which encourages and rewards exploration, which presents mysteries and which doesn’t constrain players with a pre-written script? In my opinion, they do not. There are hints of good game design in there, but not enough to call the modules better than average (I could list other reasons as well, but that is outside the present subject). Both of these modules miss „something” many classics have, something which is closely linked with avoiding railroading - constructing a map which isn’t a straight line, but rather one which has side-tracks, circular routes, opportunities to approach a given location from multiple directions, opportunities to demonstrate one’s mapping skills (without it getting tedious) and maybe more. Citadel and Forge are disturbingly linear, and are no less railroady than your usual 2e module. (To preclude derailing the thread, I freely admit that many 1st edition modules are just as guilty of the same sin, especially those designed for tournament play.)

To compare the WotC introductory modules with various other introductory products from the 70s and 80s, I used a graphical method which „distils” a dungeon into a kind of decision tree or flowchart by stripping away „noise”. On the resulting image, meandering corridors and even smaller room complexes are turned into straight lines. Although the image doesn’t create an „accurate” representation of the dungeon map, and is by no means a „scientific” depiction, it demonstrates what kind of decisions the players can make while moving through the dungeon. Briefly going over basic forms, a dungeon may look like any of the following, or be made up of several such basic elements:

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v198/Melan/BasicForms.png)

In the end, a dungeon without any real branches would look like a straight line (A.), or a straight line that looks slightly hairy (B.). The Slaver modules or Lost Tomb of Martek would fall into this category. Branching dungeons (C.) are a bundle of straight lines (often with sidetracks), sometimes resembling trees. White Plume Mountain is a good example of a branching dungeon. Finally, dungeons with circular routes (D.) are the most complex, especially when these routes interlock and include the third dimension. Again, Paul Jaquays is the undisputed master of this area, with modules like Caverns of Thracia, Dark Tower and Realm of the Slime God. In my opinion, including the second two forms without being overwhelming makes a dungeon map much better than a straight affair.

Let us now look at the modules. I selected six modules aimed at beginners for my analysis and supplemented them with two for high levels (these were included for comparative purposes also). Of the eight, four modules were written by Gary Gygax, which could have skewed the sample a bit. Then again, the aim wasn’t strict „science”, just a fun comparison. ;) On these maps, dashed lines represent secret passages/connections and broken lines represent „level transitions”.

Sunless Citadel

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v198/Melan/SunlessCitadel.png)

Sunless Citadel’s layout is the perfect example of an almost completely linear dungeon. This isn’t apparent on first sight, because Bruce Cordell introduced a lot of twists to the corridors so they would look more organic, but in the end, it is still a straight line with the „choice” of either going through the kobolds or goblins, woo hoo. Sunless Citadel is, all claims to the contrary, not a classic dungeon: it is designed to be a story, and it plays like a story. Unfortunately, player choice isn’t high in it outside combat tactics... which, granted, are fun. But a good map it is not.

Forge of Fury

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v198/Melan/ForgeofFury.png)

Our second module (author Richard Baker) is more promising on first sight, but eventually reveals the same structure: straight line layout, definite beginning and definite end in the form of a boss monster. Little player choice. The only thing that makes Forge’s maps better designed is the presence of optional detours. It is interesting to see the thought process behind them: the big detours lead to „mini-bosses”, a roper and a succubus, respectively.

See the link above for further comparisons.

Those are some interesting diagrams.

Quote from: hamstertamer;684944Do you now see why that's irrelevant to the rumor that "adventures/modules don't sell?"

It's absolutely relevant.  For WOTC, adventurers/modules DIDN'T sell.  And so examining the way of that is highly relevant.

QuoteIf Hollywood puts out a good movie one summer and it's successful, then they put out a bunch of bad movies next year and they were not successful.  It would not be reasonable of Hollywood executives to conclude "movies don't sell anymore." And this is universal for any type of product.  Did people stop buying shoes because there are too many shoes being made, and some of them are of lower quality then others. No, of course not.

Again, examining how the company behind a set of adventures gets replaced in the minds of gamers with the author behind that adventure was my point.  And why it's a highly relevant discussion.  

People didn't buy Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury because they saw Bruce Cordell's and Rich Baker's name on the cover (for the most part) - they bought them because they saw WOTC's name on the cover.  And when that adventure series started to go bad, they stopped buying them for the same reason - WOTC's name on the cover.

This is not something applicable to movies - with rare exception (like Pixar), people don't say "I am going to see a new movie produced by Warner Brothers, yay!".  They might go see it from the subject matter ("superhero"), or director ("Whedon"), or writer ("Coen Brothers"), or actors ("Depp"), but almost never because of the name of the production company ("Paramount", though with the rare exception mentioned earlier).

Quote from: Benoist;684957I'm going to check the Forge of Fury again regarding some of the points you mention, like the dynamism of the place and the like, but I'd like to point out that the relative linearity of Forge of Fury was discussed in Melan's comparison of Dungeon layouts (http://www.therpgsite.com/showthread.php?t=21794), which is one of the essays I am referring to when discussing the topic of linearity versus open dynamic environment and exploration in the dungeon:



See the link above for further comparisons.

He absolutely 100% gets some of that wrong.  There are four potential entrances to the Forge of Fury dungeon: Front Door, Chimney, Orc Tunnel, and Water Cave.  These allow you to enter any level of the dungeon to begin with, and even multiple places within that level for most levels.  There are also rules for what happens after a raid by PCs, how long it takes for reinforcements to arrive, what those reinforcements are likely to do, etc..  He calls the dragon an ending boss, but there is no reason at all for that to be true - you can start the adventure entering through the Dragon's water cave and encounter the dragon first.  That whole analysis felt to me like a guy who started with a conclusion, and then tried to force the module to conform to his conclusion.  It's not accurate.

I think modules and adventures would sell if they did not suck.

Quote from: Bill;685753I think modules and adventures would sell if they did not suck.

They do, just ask Paizo. Hell, just ask a bunch of 3PP that have made a profit off of good modules like the Dungeon Crawl Classics line or Necromancer Games.

Quote from: jeff37923;685781They do, just ask Paizo. Hell, just ask a bunch of 3PP that have made a profit off of good modules like the Dungeon Crawl Classics line or Necromancer Games.

I personally have bought more modules than any other type of game book.

Quote from: Mistwell;685739It's absolutely relevant.  For WOTC, adventurers/modules DIDN'T sell.  And so examining the way of that is highly relevant.

Um nope, you're still wrong.  There's no truth to the rumor that "modules/adventures don't sell."  Put out a high quality product and people will buy it, put a bad quality and people won't buy it.  You admitted this yourself already.

Quote from: hamstertamer;685825Um nope, you're still wrong.  There's no truth to the rumor that "modules/adventures don't sell."  Put out a high quality product and people will buy it, put a bad quality and people won't buy it.  You admitted this yourself already.

Holy fuck are you being obtuse.  Except no, you intentionally cut the part of my post that made it clear that's not what I am talking about.  So, it's not you being obtuse, just a dick.

I'll repeat: If company X puts out 3 good modules in a row, and then 6 bad ones in a row, it seems that people stop buying modules from company X, even if the 10th module turns out to be good.  Because, at some point, people stop taking it on faith that it will be good, and they simply don't buy them anymore.  THAT is my point.

So yeah, modules/adventures don't sell well AFTER A COMPANY GETS A REPUTATION FOR MAKING BAD MODULES/ADVENTURES, even if they eventually do produce a good module/adventure again.