So remember my bemoaning a lack of used Pathfinder material on the shelves?
Today there's a raft of it.
Wonder what happened? :)
I think it's natural Pathfinder will have a dropoff. I'm also pretty sure they've built up enough momentum to keep things going. This is a company that doesn't release any book without a cost-analysis. They've got a pretty loyal fanbase--I'm betting they will be ok.
it reinforces my belief that a lot of gamers stuck with PF because it felt like D&D and 4e wasn't even close. Now that 5e feels like D&D again, only without the huge feat trees and numbers bloat of PF and 3e, I suspect this will be a common scene
People to apeshit for 3.75. For a good portion of gamers, that's what they think of when someone says "old-school."
I'd say it is a bit early to be calling it one way or another on pathfinder and how it will fair. I don't play the game, but it does seem to have a substantial player base in my neck of the woods. Whether 5E can overtake that, we'll see. Third edition offers a pretty specific thing, something 5E seems to shy away from a bit, so i suspect there will be a harcore base that remains with pathfinder. Also Paizo has pretty strong brand identity with their modules and WoTC doesn't have a strong reputation on that front, so interest in the modules alone might be enough to set them apart. In the end, it may not be as simple as one game ruling them all. That happened with 3E because of the open license. But if other companies remain in competition with 5E, it might look more like the 90s and 80s with plenty of alternative systems to choose from (actually might prefer that).
Paizo's really good at what they do. I'm pretty sure you can bet the farm that Pathfinder will be OK.
Yeah WotC has yet to release a module they wrote themselves. Paizo is the house adventures built.
Quote from: mcbobbo;764961So remember my bemoaning a lack of used Pathfinder material on the shelves?
Today there's a raft of it.
Wonder what happened? :)
It's summer.
I'd hazard a guess that Pathfinder fans are radicalized to about the point Warmachine fans are.
The might dabble back to D&D and there's sure to be some leakage on the fringes in both directions but I predict the solid core of Paizo's fan base will never go back to Wizards of the Coast.
So Paizo's market share will probably drop off. That's no reflection on them right now. They saw a niche, they exploited the hell out of it and they'll continue to be a player.
Quote from: mcbobbo;764961So remember my bemoaning a lack of used Pathfinder material on the shelves?
Today there's a raft of it.
Wonder what happened? :)
Correlation not equaling causation and all that jazz but still it's VERY interesting timing.
Quote from: Sommerjon;765013It's summer.
by that logic, every RPG should hit the used shelves during summer. Do they?
I am not a Paizo fan and I'm not betting against them.
Also, our FLGS has had plenty of PF/3e/4e used books in rotation on the sale shelf for years now.
The judge of 5e vs. PF will be GenCon's 2015 game schedule. Let's see the table numbers a year from now. My bet is that PF loses 10% of its tables, maybe less.
David, the Warmachine fan analogy is probably a good one. I got chastised by a Warmachine fan for still playing 40k. I can't defend WFB vs. WM anymore, but damn the crazy little fucker was trying to make noise about 40k! :)
Quote from: Sacrosanct;765032by that logic, every RPG should hit the used shelves during summer. Do they?
Yes.
Quote from: David Johansen;765023I'd hazard a guess that Pathfinder fans are radicalized to about the point Warmachine fans are.
The might dabble back to D&D and there's sure to be some leakage on the fringes in both directions but I predict the solid core of Paizo's fan base will never go back to Wizards of the Coast.
I doubt many established Pathfinder fans will switch to 5E. But the real battle is for the new players, the ones you need to replace the customers who attrit away relentlessly in a hobby like RPGs. And there, Paizo will be in tough. It wouldn't surprise me if they have a plan for extending the Beginners Set to the full level range if it looks like 5E is pulling away.
(shrugs) Pathfinder's been very popular. So a lot of copies have been printed. So there are folks who don't need their copies any more and would like to get some cash for them, and there are a lot more of those copies than there are (say) used Dogs In The Vineyard corebooks.
Simple numbers.
Quote from: Sacrosanct;764975it reinforces my belief that a lot of gamers stuck with PF because it felt like D&D and 4e wasn't even close. Now that 5e feels like D&D again, only without the huge feat trees and numbers bloat of PF and 3e, I suspect this will be a common scene
Right. While I feel certain Pathfinder will remain significant and provide the much needed prod of market competition, overbearing crunch is currently falling out of fashion and GMs are especially exhausted by Pathfinder's burden on them. Where the GMs go, most players will follow.
Things are going to get even dicier now that Paizo is contemplating a "3.85" edition, which is sure to sour some of its fans.
As much as I like the new 5e rules, I don't discount the immersive power of Wayne Reynolds' art to keep people in the PF camp.
There's Reynolds art in 5E too, though?
(https://scontent-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/q81/s720x720/10325260_10152496571526071_8983892837449015744_n.jpg?oh=588bb760a7adeaa87c5e4fb770414448&oe=54320542)
That doesn't look like a Reynolds to me, do you see an artist credit somewhere?
You're right, somehow I had the impression that that was a Reynolds piece, but there's no credit to be seen.
Quote from: thedungeondelver;765026Correlation not equaling causation and all that jazz but still it's VERY interesting timing.
Yes, this is absolutely correct. It's hard to map the two events together, except perhaps in my own bad luck/timing/etc.
As for the material itself, some of it was brand new and unopened. I snagged a pack of pawns for less than Amazon.
The rest was clearly used adventure material, and they had duplicates of some of the AP volumes. So that's probably more than one player cashing them in...
That said, it may take a week or so for traded-in items to hit the shelves, and they pretty clearly didn't trade for 5e.
But still coincidences are fun.
As for market share itself, I'll go 5e if I can. I play Pathfinder to play 3e D&D, and functionally, for me at least, 4e never existed. I've tried to get in to it - posted about it here, even - but it never happened. So 5e represents 'actual D&D' to me, even while I've been enjoying Pathfinder.
I can't be alone in that.
Quote from: mcbobbo;764961So remember my bemoaning a lack of used Pathfinder material on the shelves?
Today there's a raft of it.
Wonder what happened? :)
Pity you live in Texas. I've never seen any used Pathfinder stuff in New England.
Really the company that should bring out a 4e clone is Palladium. 4e's changes already resemble Palladium in many places and at its heart Palladium's got a very nice little mechanic that would adapt well to a tactical grid. Hit points based on con, saves based on wizard level, hand to hand skills that resemble 4e's power stacks, not that 4e's not a whole lot cleaner and more modern but heck, Palladium could use a little cleaned up and modern.
Of course, Palladium's got a bit of a reputation, but I bet a nice cool box full of old school RAFM miniatures in vinyl with a rulebook in the box would do okay.
That or I'm just trying to figure out a way to get Palladium to back RAFM's floundering kickstarter. Who knows, I'm mercurial. :D
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...ldier-game-and
Quote from: Tetsubo;765167Pity you live in Texas. I've never seen any used Pathfinder stuff in New England.
I got a used copy of Ultimate Combat at Pandemonium in Cambridge MA, but I betcha there's more of a player base there due to population.
Quote from: mcbobbo;765166As for the material itself, some of it was brand new and unopened. I snagged a pack of pawns for less than Amazon.
That's from distributors liquidating stock, most likely. When 4e came out, there was a sudden flood of new, shrink wrapped 3e starter sets at the local Half Priced Books.
It was a pretty sweet deal on what amounted to a box of tiles and minis.
Quote from: Spinachcat;765060The judge of 5e vs. PF will be GenCon's 2015 game schedule. Let's see the table numbers a year from now.
That is the most odd way to judge such a thing that I've ever heard. A single convention, with massive variables based on geography, cost, promotion by individual company, space purchasing by individual company...why on earth would you use that to judge anything other than who is playing what at that Con?
GenCon is for hardcore RPGers, and the hardcore does not in general represent the larger population of gamers. I doubt most of my players have even heard of GenCon, nor ever been to a game convention of any kind.
In fact I know that. Of the 6 of us in my current game, only two of us have been to a game convention (myself and one other), and both of us went to GenCon purely because we were invited and GenCon paid for us.
Hard to predict how this plays out, but I'm expecting a big surge in 5E players and proportional loss of interest in PF and (especially) 4E. It is not worth arguing about which of these games most deserves to 'win' the market; I'm just thinking of the common tendency of table top gamers to hop systems every few years, and the attraction of a nicely made, well supported, easy-entry new game. Unless WoC fucks the dog on their release schedule or product quality, a lot of people will think it just sounds like a fresh, fun change for the group to give it a try. And if the product is solid and new materials hit the shelves every month, they will stick with it for at least 6-12 months. This dynamic has driven rapidly churning turnover in the rpg industry for many years. Of course there will always be devoted fans of each system. But the proliferation of new systems has always been a trend in this hobby, and I can't imagine a well done new edition of D&D staying in the back benches for long.
Don't worry. Wizards will fuck it up somehow.
Quote from: AaronBrown99;765155As much as I like the new 5e rules, I don't discount the immersive power of Wayne Reynolds' art to keep people in the PF camp.
I hate most of his art. Maybe it's just the style Paizo wants, I've seen some of his stuff that I do like, but I generally don't care for his cartoony anime style, at all.
Quote from: Mjollnir;765292I hate most of his art. Maybe it's just the style Paizo wants, I've seen some of his stuff that I do like, but I generally don't care for his cartoony anime style, at all.
Anime!?:confused:
Quote from: Shipyard Locked;765294Anime!?:confused:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-LDv2Ol81O_k/Ul6J5K13twI/AAAAAAAAAok/jw7Hk_7U2AI/s640/PicsArt_1381884132046.jpg)
While not all of his stuff is, I think much of it certainly touches on anime. Oh sure, they have noses, but....
Where PF and 4E were largely separate armed camps I seems great deal more movement back and forth between PF and 5E. I can totally see people running adventure paths with 5E.
Paizo will be fine but if 5E is perceived as a much better solution to 3E's issues than their 3.75 paint job they could lose a fair chunk of market share. Which would mean they probably go right back to focussing on adventure writing and maybe even producing a 5E line.
Trends in fantasy artwork might be a significant driver for generational differences in taste among all these games. The visual style of most commercial products for 3E, 4E and PF makes my skin crawl. I'm sure it is just an age thing, but whenever I see a well done, more toned-down and realistic drawing, like the artwork in The One Ring, I am much more comfortable with and interested in a game. Actually, my favorite is the sort of line drawing used in the margins of Burning Wheel or the wildly imaginative artwork in Dungeon Crawl Classics. I'm sure 5E won't approach any of these, but so far it is less like a garish video game and more like Alan Lee, so I'm liking it.
Quote from: JeremyR;765303(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-LDv2Ol81O_k/Ul6J5K13twI/AAAAAAAAAok/jw7Hk_7U2AI/s640/PicsArt_1381884132046.jpg)
While not all of his stuff is, I think much of it certainly touches on anime. Oh sure, they have noses, but....
That sword is pure anime and over the top but I do like the elf to the right.
Even the art, Katamari Damacy edition... just say no. :nono:
What is wrong with anime? I mean at least they are not shoving in giant eyeball cat girls with their heads about x2 their whole body at us. I mean this appears to be pretty decent.
Quote from: Snowman0147;765354What is wrong with anime? I mean at least they are not shoving in giant eyeball cat girls with their heads about x2 their whole body at us. I mean this appears to be pretty decent.
I don't think there is anything wrong with anime. I like it. But anime is cartoonish and I guess I find overly cartoonish art doesn't really inspire me in the direction of D&D style fantasy. I like the anime style in anime movies. Not a huge fan of it in d20 fantasy books.
Quote from: Marleycat;765317That sword is pure anime and over the top but I do like the elf to the right.
I like the one on the left. ;)
Quote from: Larsdangly;765311Trends in fantasy artwork might be a significant driver for generational differences in taste among all these games. The visual style of most commercial products for 3E, 4E and PF makes my skin crawl.
I actually don't think 4e should be included in that list- art was one area where 4e was a big improvement over 3e/Pathfinder.
Take, for example, the 4e dungeon master screen vs. the pathfinder game master screen.
4e- bunch of monsters who want to kill/eat the PCs, hanging out in a dungeon:
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs37/f/2008/241/5/2/52eb2e0d38cbd3dd98706060e2397114.jpg
Pathfinder- bunch of ugly-ass "iconic" PCs floating in nothing:
http://www.paperspencils.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/DSCF27981.jpg
I like the Pathfinder barbarian's sword. In her backstory, it says she got it from killing a frost giant and that she can only use it effectively when raging.
Quote from: hexgrid;765480I actually don't think 4e should be included in that list- art was one area where 4e was a big improvement over 3e/Pathfinder.
Take, for example, the 4e dungeon master screen vs. the pathfinder game master screen.
4e- bunch of monsters who want to kill/eat the PCs, hanging out in a dungeon:
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs37/f/2008/241/5/2/52eb2e0d38cbd3dd98706060e2397114.jpg
Pathfinder- bunch of ugly-ass "iconic" PCs floating in nothing:
http://www.paperspencils.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/DSCF27981.jpg
Definitely. 4E artwork - especially the later stuff - isn't all that bad. Pathfinder art is just appalling - it's all about the special snowflake anime PCs striking dungeon-punk poses. I have no idea why Paizo and WotC both went with art style they did. It's not as though fantasy artwork in general has gone all video-gamey on us. Just look at the art for Lord of Rings and A Game of Thrones books, calendars, games, etc. D&D could only dream of being as popular as those properties.
(http://wallpaperswa.com/thumbnails/detail/20120617/knights%20fantasy%20art%20axe%20artwork%20game%20of%20thrones%20medieval%20a%20song%20of%20ice%20and%20fire%20tv%20series%20swords%20bar_wallpaperswa.com_70.jpg)
Quote from: JeremyR;765303(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-LDv2Ol81O_k/Ul6J5K13twI/AAAAAAAAAok/jw7Hk_7U2AI/s640/PicsArt_1381884132046.jpg)
While not all of his stuff is, I think much of it certainly touches on anime. Oh sure, they have noses, but....
I used to hate Amiri's sword to no end --it just looked like pure Final Fantasy stuff to me-- but that sword is actually a frost giant's sword, not "generic barbarian sword". Her backstory is that she killed the frost giant and took the sword as a token, but she can only wield it effectively when she's raging.
GoT and ToR artwork is just fucking awesome. If I were in charge of a big-print-run commercial game like 5E I would totally jack their shit.
Quote from: dragoner;765361I like the one on the left. ;)
The Swashbuckler?
Quote from: flyerfan1991;765502I used to hate Amiri's sword to no end --it just looked like pure Final Fantasy stuff to me-- but that sword is actually a frost giant's sword, not "generic barbarian sword". Her backstory is that she killed the frost giant and took the sword as a token, but she can only wield it effectively when she's raging.
Taken in that context I guess it's ok then.
Quote from: Marleycat;765534The Swashbuckler?
Is she? Then yes. :)
Quote from: Marleycat;765536Taken in that context I guess it's ok then.
Yeah, only in context does it make sense. If you just saw it out of a random perusal of the Core Rulebook, however, it's completely over-the-top anime.
Quote from: Zeea;765489I like the Pathfinder barbarian's sword. In her backstory, it says she got it from killing a frost giant and that she can only use it effectively when raging.
That's pretty neat.
Quote from: AaronBrown99;765155As much as I like the new 5e rules, I don't discount the immersive power of Wayne Reynolds' art to keep people in the PF camp.
Immersive?
Are you kidding me?
Anime/dungeonpunk travesty is what it is.
The very antithesis of immersive.
Quote from: Zeea;765489I like the Pathfinder barbarian's sword. In her backstory, it says she got it from killing a frost giant and that she can only use it effectively when raging.
It's still pretty stupid carrying a huge weapon that you can't even use unless you're in a berserk frenzy.
Quote from: 1989;766666Immersive?
Are you kidding me?
Anime/dungeonpunk travesty is what it is.
The very antithesis of immersive.
Okay, I'd like to see your examples of immersive RPG art. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.
Quote from: Mjollnir;766688It's still pretty stupid carrying a huge weapon that you can't even use unless you're in a berserk frenzy.
It's stupid from a char op standpoint, but not from a "my character won this damn thing when people said I was a wuss and a nobody, and it's MINE!" standpoint.
Quote from: flyerfan1991;766735Okay, I'd like to see your examples of immersive RPG art. Different strokes for different folks, and all that.
I think this is very subjective. Some people here hate the larry elmore art for the 80s, I love it. I can't get too worked up over art. For D&D, anime-esque stuff isn't my cup of tea, but it also isn't the end of the world. Heck my favorite art is the stephen fabian black and white for ravenloft and that gets pretty cartoony at times. Yet it hekps get me immersed. People associate different things with different styles.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;766750I think this is very subjective. Some people here hate the larry elmore art for the 80s, I love it. I can't get too worked up over art. For D&D, anime-esque stuff isn't my cup of tea, but it also isn't the end of the world. Heck my favorite art is the stephen fabian black and white for ravenloft and that gets pretty cartoony at times. Yet it hekps get me immersed. People associate different things with different styles.
I'm assuming it's very subjective, which is why I asked.
I know a few people think of immersive art as Frazetta-esque, and others who think Errol Otus as the same. Me, I prefer Larry Elmore and WAR both. Overtly cartoonish art, such as that by John Kovalic or Rich Burlew or Otis, isn't immersive to me, but I do appreciate it for what it is.
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;766750I think this is very subjective. Some people here hate the larry elmore art for the 80s, I love it. I can't get too worked up over art. For D&D, anime-esque stuff isn't my cup of tea, but it also isn't the end of the world. Heck my favorite art is the stephen fabian black and white for ravenloft and that gets pretty cartoony at times. Yet it hekps get me immersed. People associate different things with different styles.
HELL YES!!!!
Stephen Fabian's art is what got me into playing D&D in the first place (entry point was Ravenloft, obviously).
Also, I love me some Larry Elmore from the 80s and early 90s. His newer, more anatomically correct stuff doesn't interest me as much :(
Quote from: flyerfan1991;766756I'm assuming it's very subjective, which is why I asked.
I was agreeing with you. Apologies if it sounded otherwise.
Komarck curbstomps Reynolds anyday, even though Reynolds did do good work for Osprey.
Spoiler
(http://i.imgur.com/ov3SMNt.jpg)
(http://www.komarckart.com/new_03.jpg)
Quote from: BedrockBrendan;766750I think this is very subjective. Some people here hate the larry elmore art for the 80s, I love it. I can't get too worked up over art. For D&D, anime-esque stuff isn't my cup of tea, but it also isn't the end of the world. Heck my favorite art is the stephen fabian black and white for ravenloft and that gets pretty cartoony at times. Yet it hekps get me immersed. People associate different things with different styles.
I'm almost sorry that Paizo didn't try to get Elmore for their art, as I always liked his art as well.
But if they did get him, they'd have hordes of people screaming and rage-quitting because they decided Elmore's style isn't compatible with Pathfinder. Which'd be false but when have gamers ever been sensible?