This came from a different thread (which I didn't want to derail). The quote got me thinking, what could Piazo have done (beyond not go woke). Pathfinder 1 + 3E had a really long run. Could they have stetched that even longer without a Pathfinder 2? Can a game really survive after a certain point or will bloat take it down.
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on April 28, 2025, 03:55:03 PM...and they're already struggling with the bloat of systems they created for 1st edition in order to extend the lifetime of the game without going to a new edition, only to end up going to a new edition anyways, which has shed off some of the people who enjoyed pathfinder.
Quote from: Ruprecht on April 28, 2025, 09:19:37 PMThis came from a different thread (which I didn't want to derail). The quote got me thinking, what could Piazo have done (beyond not go woke). Pathfinder 1 + 3E had a really long run. Could they have stetched that even longer without a Pathfinder 2? Can a game really survive after a certain point or will bloat take it down.
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on April 28, 2025, 03:55:03 PM...and they're already struggling with the bloat of systems they created for 1st edition in order to extend the lifetime of the game without going to a new edition, only to end up going to a new edition anyways, which has shed off some of the people who enjoyed pathfinder.
Looking forward to reading the replies.
Pathfinder 1E is / was very crunchy, but it is a huge playground for almost anything. From Goblins, to Cthulhu.
I can't speak on second edition, haven't played it, nor do I want to, but I have a lot of beef with 3rd/3.5, and by extension more with pathfinder 1E. there is a long list of grievances I could go through, but the games munchkin optimizer play culture speaks for itself, pair that with all paizos political soapboxing.
despite these facts, I'd say it inherently has a lower shelf life, given it's always going to be the Pepis to D&D's Coke.
That said I wanted to at some point go through the class options and wade through the swamps of bloat and see if there are any interesting gems that could make for interesting OSR classes or mechanics.
Quote from: Ruprecht on April 28, 2025, 09:19:37 PMThis came from a different thread (which I didn't want to derail). The quote got me thinking, what could Piazo have done (beyond not go woke). Pathfinder 1 + 3E had a really long run. Could they have stetched that even longer without a Pathfinder 2?
I think so. RPGs are in a great situation where players at the table can tinker with the rules all they like. There's a certain baseline expectation, but you don't have to buy every single Pathfinder book and try to jam them all into one campaign. Eventually you do want to do a new edition that spruces up the line, but you don't have to bulldoze everything that came before it in the process.
Quote from: Banjo Destructo on April 28, 2025, 03:55:03 PM...and they're already struggling with the bloat of systems they created for 1st edition in order to extend the lifetime of the game without going to a new edition, only to end up going to a new edition anyways, which has shed off some of the people who enjoyed pathfinder.
Edition churn is a thing. I think companies look to it at some kind of solution to market saturation. But they don't seem to take into account that a new edition is also an off-ramp. The most likely reason Pathfinder even exists is because players followed the 3rd edition ruleset instead of sticking with the D&D brand.
It's kind of ironic that they're making the same mistake. From all I've heard, Pathfinder 2nd edition wasn't a big hit.
1- Build on Pathfinder 1 instead of flushing it all. I strongly suspect they wanted to flush it for three reasons- they had too much to try to polish with top-down fixes, they wanted to sell new product that didn't have to compete with their old stuff, and they wanted a clean start with their own conception of things.
But ultimately their own conception of things was never adequate. Pathfinder 1 succeeded so hard because it was a better version of 3.5 (to most players around at the time). It was, in fact, D&D. The forums always had players willing to grouse about the fact that their elves were weird dorks instead of cool D&D elves. Where did trance go? Oh, Golarian elves don't do that. Every time Pathfinder, which was there to be D&D, failed at being D&D, there were confused and sad players. I don't think this is because you have to be D&D to be great- but if you advertise yourself as D&D, leaving out things that D&D players want and expect leads to disappointment.
2- Less weird mechanical designs. PF2E went all in on mathematical elegance. I don't know which man sat up late at night figuring out their subsystems, but he did a great job. It also was very hit and miss, but this wasn't the fault of the developer, it was the fault of the design. The things you associate with elves are in a pile of feats, over there. Please pick just one now; you'll become more elfy later. Your abilities require a lot of thought and synergy; focus on those things so you can excel. Anything else you will never actually affect an enemy with. Be sure to remind your DM about expected magical progression; you'll be behind the math curve if he doesn't remember, or uncomfortably above should he be too generous with loot.
This was, I want to be clear, not a failure. It just wasn't a big success. It's part of why it's not a hugely popular game, and I'm not sure what could have been done right. Something about it lacked just some of its flavor.
3- No one plays in Golarian, bro. Where's the ninja? The samurai? The bladesinger? Missing real world things is tragic, but missing fictional things from other media (or their obvious inserts) is also not great. The few they did have were less mainstream than they should have been, like the demigod Hawaiian guy from that Disney movie or whatever.
That's I think why PF2E didn't hit as hard as it should have. I want to point out that it kinda got worse, with their furious desire to walk away from OGL stuff (legit, sure, but maybe they could have done it better?) resulting in everything being renamed, stats being replaced with modifiers, all of the old books requiring a ton of mental translation to use with the new stuff (using pre-revised content is extremely compatible and it's not really a new version, the terminology changes is enough to make you want to punt the books).
Finally, OP mentions "besides the woke". But lets not excuse that entirely. Pathfinder goes out of its way to harass you on this. From useless renames away from "race" to weird comments to make it clear that traditional gamers should be on notice, to finding out that phylacteries in your games make you an antisemite (5e just copied them here) to screwing up their own setting to avoid talking about slavery (again, in a setting where slavery was always evil), you can play the game without being bothered by this, but it requires you to dodge a couple wrenches thrown in your direction. It's a legitimate and real complaint and while I seriously doubt it contributed to PF2E's underpeformance, it's still sand in the damned gears to comply with some wacky online crybabies and it makes the game a little bit more bitter for normal people.
A mountain of PF 1E content still exists, and always will. That game will always, still be an option.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 28, 2025, 11:38:23 PMFrom all I've heard, Pathfinder 2nd edition wasn't a big hit.
I don't know if PF2e was a big hit or not. But they essentially re-did 2e to get around the OGL issues, created their own license, and mid-stride WOTC dumping their IP into the CC took the wind out of their sails. Now few are using their new license, third party support is torn because they can't as easily support PF2e and 5e simultaneously due to multiple licenses (you can, it's just more work), and it just seems like they created an unnecessary mess for themselves.
I think it would have done better if they had just stuck to the game they were creating with the OGL that they'd playtested with their audience, flipped it to CC if they needed to, and not completely gone their own direction once they realized there was no longer a need to do so. But they had all these rants and standing on principle speeches they'd given during the OGL debacle and stubbornly stuck to that path once the facts changed assuming audiences were completely with them. Some were, but many just didn't care and the sudden shift in terminology to get around the OGL was yet another off-ramp for players.
I personally was only playing pathfinder around 2009-2012, so a lot of the stuff that was tacked on is stuff I missed, but. Looking at the list of books in the 1e set, there's... the core rulebook, GM guide, Bestiary #1-#6, Advanced class guide, advanced player's guide, advanced race guide, adventurer's guide, strategy guide, occult adventures, pathfinder unchained, villain codex, monster codex, horror adventures, mythic adventures, NPC codex, ultimate campaign, ultimate combat, ultimate equipment, ultimate intrigue, ultimate magic, book of the damned, ultimate wilderness, planar adventures.
Those are just books that are for rules and options for players and GMs. That is a lot of bloat from my point of view. My perception of what happened is they started with classes, then delved into fleshing out prestige classes, then they did something like.. mythic classes? mythic paths? Because they didn't want to delve into epic levels. They fell into the trap of just adding more and more options.
They did make adventures/pathfinder paths and whatnot which should have been their focus, but still were tempted by the lure of munchkining out. And from outside appearances they did fairly well as a company, and even though people on the left might enjoy the wokeness, their "labor union focused" minds have also flagged Paizo for bad working conditions and/or contracts for workers.
I think what they possibly could have done to extend things, particularly in light of 5e in 2014, would have been to do a new "Essentials" core book that had streamlined versions of the races and classes and feats and spells that remained 100% compatible with the earlier material.
Basically, work with the existing framework, but make it a book that was entirely "best foot forward" elements that someone could buy as a sort of fresh onramp where all the brambles of options had been cleared. I use Essentials as a term because that's essentially what 4E did with its Essentials line. It presented massively streamlined classes and cleaned up versions of some of the best feats in that edition (to the point that barring truly specific desires, we limited feat selection to just the Essential player book list). All of which was 100% compatible with the older material and adventures... but was good enough you didn't really need to older player material outside of very specific concept desires.
There's a lot in 4E and 5e that actually came from 3e; 3e really just needs the cruft scraped away to have a smooth and streamlined system. If PF had gone that route they probably still would have lost the top spot to 5e because of the D&D name, but their market share probably would be larger than it is now because all the older players could still use the new adventure paths and options released after the Essential book instead of just hunkering down with what they already had.
When I was growing tired of 5e - okay, it was actually long after that, I had to get my players willing to try something new - I got into PF2e. The biggest sell for me was how well integrated with Foundry it was. We've played it a bit - I like it better than 5e in some ways - but the politics of it have put me off and the setting just does nothing for me. Still, it wasn't 5e and it was something some of my players were willing to try. I've since found a group willing to really try other things and I'm less interested in PF2e now. I certainly wouldn't run it without all the automation built into Foundry. I much prefer lighter rules now.