Ghostwalk was a setting. A weird, experimental setting by SKR - a man who I will remind you now works for Paizo. While you would be correct that Paizo will not try to get SKR to write Ghostwalk again with the serial numbers filed off, I think you're high if you think SKR won't spend some of his time at Paizo launching some kind of experimental alternate setting or another.

As for the Book of Vile Darkness, Paizo's best selling material leading up to Pathfinder itself was their work on various demon lords and arch devils. I think you are on rather thin ice predicting that Paizo won't do a "Things What Is Evil" book of some kind.

As for experimental mechanics books, I think we've already started to see them with weird crap like the Alchemist and the Inquisitor. They won't make exactly a Magic of Incarnum, because that experiment was a costly failure. But of course Paizo intends to sell their testing to the audience, they already did that with the Pathfinder Beta sales. So yes, they will come up with some out of the box ideas that are only vaguely tested and likely not mathematically sound and sell them to the populace as optional rules so that they can gather feedback from the internet. Which is what Tome of Magic, Magic of Incarnum, and Tome of Battle all were.

Then of course, I think it highly likely that Paizo will release compilations of villains and flavor text for sale (like Elder Evils), because that's pretty much what they are known for as a company.

And I can pretty much guaranty that they will print books focusing on some D&D critter or race or whatever. Whether it will specifically be Drow and Dragons or not I couldn't say. But it will be something, because that's an easy book to write.

So on that whole list of things you don't think they will write, I could maybe give you the Miniatures Handbook. Because Paizo doesn't have a vast miniatures line to try to launch a battle game with. But I think it highly likely that they'll end up doing a book like Heroes of Battle, which is pretty much the same thing even as that.

-Frank

Quote from: ggroy;384722Looking at the 3E/3.5E D&D splatbook list further, there's several titles which would probably be on the "not likely to be done by Paizo" list.

- Book of Vile Darkness
- Book of Exalted Deeds

I bet we'll see something like this from them.

Quote from: ggroy;384722- Tome of Magic: Pact, Shadow, and Truename Magic

Alternate magic seems like something that would be lucrative. I bet we'll see something like it.

Quote from: ggroy;384722- Dragon Magic

Didn't they already put out a dragon book? I don't know if it contained anything about magic, but...

Quote from: ggroy;384722- Drow of the Underdark

Wait. You don't think this is likely? Because it seems highly likely to me. Unless there aren't any Drow in Golarion.

Quote from: ggroy;384722It's probably superfluous and a waste of resources for Paizo to be producing full hardcover books (over 160 pages) covering these topics.  

Ah. Full hard cover books. You're right - I'm sure many of those won't be hardcovers.

Seanchai

Let's examine the less marginal 3E/3.5E splatbooks, and speculate whether Paizo would try doing something similar.


Manual of the Planes, Planar Handbook -> Some planar stuff covered in "The Great Beyond" chronicles.  Wouldn't be surprised to see another chronicles book on planar stuff.

Enemies and Allies -> "NPC Guide" chronicles.

Oriental Adventures -> A Golarion setting book based on Tian Xia.

Stronghold Builder's Guide -> Most likely a chronicles book or content in a future Gamemastery Guide book.

Deities and Demigods -> "Gods & Magic" chronicles.  Wouldn't be surprised to see another chronicles book on this.

Book of Challenges, Epic Level Handbook -> Mostly likely content for the first or future Gamemastery Guides.  (Relatively generic information).

Savage Species -> Most likely some companion books (if they bother).

Arms and Equipment Guide, Weapons of Legacy -> "Adventurer's Armory" companion.  Wouldn't be surprised to see another companion book or two on this.

Draconomicon -> "Dragons Revisited" chronicles.  Wouldn't be surprised to see another chronicles book on dragons.

Underdark (FR) -> "Into the Darklands" chronicles.

Complete * -> Several "Advanced Player's Guides".

Races of Stone, Races of Destiny, Races of the Wild -> Partially done in the Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, Orcs, Halflings, etc ... of Golarion companion books.

Races of Dragon -> Most likely a companion book.

Frostburn, Sandstorm, Stormwrack -> Relevant crunch stuff most likely content in a future Gamemastery Guide.  (Relatively generic information).

Heroes of Battles, Heroes of Horror -> Relevant crunch stuff most likely in a future chronicles book, or content in a future Gamemastery Guide.  (Relatively generic information for mass combat).

Libris Mortis -> Most likely a future chronicles book covering undead.  Some stuff may already be covered in "Classic Horrors Revisited" chronicles.

Fiendish Codex I + II -> "Book of the Damned" volume 1 + 2 chronicles.  Wouldn't be surprised to see a third or fourth book on this.


Once they covered these generic topics in various chronicles, companion, and gamemastery guide books, further stuff will probably become more and more of the marginal variety.

Quote from: Seanchai;384727Wait. You don't think this is likely? Because it seems highly likely to me. Unless there aren't any Drow in Golarion.

Not an entire 160+ page hardcover book on drows.  Perhaps can see it being done as a chronicles or companion book in 64 pages.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384725Then of course, I think it highly likely that Paizo will release compilations of villains and flavor text for sale (like Elder Evils), because that's pretty much what they are known for as a company.

Most likely as several of those "... Revisited" chronicles books, instead of several 160+ page hardcover books.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384725And I can pretty much guaranty that they will print books focusing on some D&D critter or race or whatever. Whether it will specifically be Drow and Dragons or not I couldn't say. But it will be something, because that's an easy book to write.

Most likely as some companion titles for player races, or some  " ... Revisited" chronicles books for critters.  I doubt they will do several hardcover books on these, unless they're compiling a bunch of these companion or chronicles books into one huge hardcover book.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384725So on that whole list of things you don't think they will write, I could maybe give you the Miniatures Handbook.

I did mention at the end of the post, that some of the stuff could end up in some companion or chronicles books of 32 or 64 pages.

I didn't think they would spend entire 160+ hardcover books on such topics individually.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384725As for experimental mechanics books, I think we've already started to see them with weird crap like the Alchemist and the Inquisitor. They won't make exactly a Magic of Incarnum, because that experiment was a costly failure. But of course Paizo intends to sell their testing to the audience, they already did that with the Pathfinder Beta sales. So yes, they will come up with some out of the box ideas that are only vaguely tested and likely not mathematically sound and sell them to the populace as optional rules so that they can gather feedback from the internet. Which is what Tome of Magic, Magic of Incarnum, and Tome of Battle all were.

Most likely this sort of experimental stuff will end up in whatever future open playtests they do for future "Advanced Player's Guide" splatbooks.  Who knows how much of the really crappy stuff will end up in the printed APG books.

Quote from: FrankTrollman;384725As for the Book of Vile Darkness, Paizo's best selling material leading up to Pathfinder itself was their work on various demon lords and arch devils. I think you are on rather thin ice predicting that Paizo won't do a "Things What Is Evil" book of some kind.

The relevant content I suspect may very well end up in present and future "Book of the Damned" chronicles books.

More generally, Paizo's strategy over the last few years seems to be publishing stuff in smaller snippets in 32, 64, or 96 page books.  Several years down the road when they've published several individual books on a particular niche topic, I wouldn't be surprised if the page counts of these individual books will end up being similar to (or even surpassing) the page counts of WotC's equivalent books from the 3E/3.5E era.  Instead of publishing one huge 160+ page hardcover book on a particular niche topic, they're spreading out the content over several smaller books over a longer period of time.

IIRC the cover price of these 64 page Pathfinder Chronicles books are around $20.  The cover price of a typical 160 page WotC 4E D&D splatbook is around $30 ($35+ for more than 200 pages).  For the first two Paizo "Book of the Damned" chronicles books, that's already 40 bucks for 128 pages.  For the upcoming 4E D&D Demonomicon book, it's 30 bucks for 160 pages.

Paizo's strategy of releasing snippets of niche stuff in 32, 64, or 96 page books over a longer period of time, sounds similar to drug dealer selling dope.  The regular customer keeps on coming back for another hit later.  

In the end, the Paizo "supplement treadmill" may very well be more expensive than the WotC 4E treadmill.

I love Ghostwalk. It's a really cool concept. The rules are a bit shaky at times, but nothing a remotely decent gaming group can't fix IMO. The sandbox included in this book is interesting too. Some cool tidbits to pick and choose for a campaign of your own. I have done so for my Arcana Evolved campaign, and it worked admirably well. Good time was had.

Looking at the stuff already released and future scheduled titles for Pathfinder, the vast majority of the Pathfinder books is stuff for DMs and/or people who like to read DM type books.  It seems like Pathfinder's revenue stream is highly dependent on DM types staying on board and buying new stuff every month from them.  Otherwise sales of Pathfinder titles would slump when DM types stop buying.

With that being said, only a few books like the Pathfinder core book, Advanced Player's Guide, adventurer's armory, and maybe some of the other companion titles (ie. elves, dwarves, etc ... of Golarion), appear to be oriented to players.  At several local gaming stores, the owners/managers mentioned the only Pathfinder book which sold well was the core book.  Every other Pathfinder title didn't really sell that well.  (Even the companion titles didn't sell very well).  Typically it was the same few regular customers every month who picked up the new Pathfinder titles (other than the core book).

Perhaps this year, Paizo is hoping the Advanced Player's Guide will be their big payday this year at Gencon.  If it sells well, it would be like a cash infusion shot once a year.  If this ends up happening, I wouldn't be surprised if Paizo ends up releasing a new Advanced Player's Guide every year, largely as a way of attempting to get a cash infusion shot every year.  Though how well this will work in subsequent years, is hard to say.

The company will have problems, if both the DM types stop buying their monthly titles and the player types stop buying Advanced Player's Guide type books.  Being highly dependent on hardcore Golarion fans buying new Pathfinder AP and chronicle titles every month, isn't the best position to be in.  Perhaps this would be similar to a (hypothetical) scenario of WotC being heavily dependent on hardcore Forgotten Realms and/or Eberron fans, buying every new FR and/or Eberron splatbook being released every month or so during the 3.5E era.  (I don't know if things actually happened this way).

Quote from: ggroy;384731Not an entire 160+ page hardcover book on drows.  Perhaps can see it being done as a chronicles or companion book in 64 pages.

I got ya. Between hardcover and softcover, I'd guess that most of Paizo's stuff will be softcover. However, I'd also guess that they're going to pump out tons of shit.

Seanchai

Back to the OP topic.

From an enworld post,

http://www.enworld.org/forum/5198046-post60.html

the unconfirmed 4E titles scheduled for release in March and April 2011 are:

March - "Player's Option: Heroes of Shadow" (6" x 9" trade paperback)

April - "Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium" (alleged to be a hardcover book, but unconfirmed).

So if this information is reliable, then WotC's 2011 winter quarter 4E release schedule will be:

January 2011 - Caverns of Icewind Dale (tile set)

February 2011 - Nentir Vale Gazetteer (6" x 9" trade paperback), Deluxe DM Screen

March 2011 - "Player's Option: Heroes of Shadow" (6" x 9" trade paperback)

April 2011 - Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium


From the looks of it, it appears to be a rather lackluster yawn-inducing release schedule for the first four months of 2011.

The alleged mock up covers for these February -> April 2011 4E titles have a similar style as the older 4E D&D hardcover titles, and not the cover style of the 4E Essentials titles.  (In principle the cover design can be changed at the last minute before the books are printed).

http://www.enworld.org/forum/5198579-post67.html

I suspect WotC is taking a wait and see approach, to observe whether the 4E Essentials titles sell any better than the older 4E D&D hardcover titles.  If the 4E Essentials titles sell half decently (or like hotcakes), it wouldn't be surprising to see them changing the cover style format to that of the 4E Essentials titles.

So all books after Essentials are small paperbacks? And Player's Option? Is that the way they introduce the Shadow power source?

Quote from: ggroy;384982The alleged mock up covers for these February -> April 2011 4E titles have a similar style as the older 4E D&D hardcover titles, and not the cover style of the 4E Essentials titles.  (In principle the cover design can be changed at the last minute before the books are printed).

http://www.enworld.org/forum/5198579-post67.html

I suspect WotC is taking a wait and see approach, to observe whether the 4E Essentials titles sell any better than the older 4E D&D hardcover titles.  If the 4E Essentials titles sell half decently (or like hotcakes), it wouldn't be surprising to see them changing the cover style format to that of the 4E Essentials titles.

So..what would the difference between that and "exactly how they said they would do it" be?