Quote from: jgants;445290They haven't changed the status quo at all as far as I can see - they are basically still a growing little upstart company that has had one good year of sales.

The status quo has changed - I'm just not sure I'd Paizo are the ones who changed it. Two things have occurred: For the first time, it's been..."profitable" to stick with an older edition of D&D and WotC has changed their model from print products to electronic products.

Quote from: jgants;445290Pathfinder is going to find itself in the exact same position in a few years - maybe it will wait a year or two longer, maybe the rule changes will be a little less controversial, but it will happen.

The rules changes will have to significant enough that people are inclined to get the new edition, otherwise, what's the point? If you're going to kick off a new product lifecycle with a new edition, you've got to get the majority of your customers to move to the new product. If they can still use their old rulebooks - core rulebooks being the cash cows of the system - you're not going to be successful.

Seanchai

Of course WotC can get its audience back. Most people don't care about companies; WotC could even just clone Pathfinder, to the extent that would be legal, add a few fixes, and declare that to be the new edition. People would buy it.

Paizo wouldn't care. Their add-on products would still be compatible. In fact they might be happy to see the market re-unified and the core game promoted & manufactured by Hasbro/WotC, because now they could sell their stuff to even more people.

Hasbro/WotC on the other hand will have to either satisfy themselves with a very different approach to selling core books (slow/steady/evergreen), or compete head to head with Paizo, and anyone else who jumps back into the d20-compatible supplement market.

You're assuming they follow the forum wisdom that the correct strategy for Wizards is to go back to 3.x for the model for next edition.

It isn't.

It's true they need another 3.x, but more in the sense that it's a revolutionary new edition of the game that grabs back everyone.

Reprinting 3.x with "5e" on the cover this time won't do that.

Release a whole new edition though, built from scratch to cherry pick the best of the old editions while moving it forward in line with game design developments in the rest of the hobby, like 3.0 did, but leave out that nonsense OGL, and Paizo not only loses their audience, they can't even go back to riding Wizards' coattails unless they want to face their legal wrath.  

Sure Mayfair eventually won the Role-Aids fight last time, but it almost bankrupted them to do it, and they were one of the bigger hobby companies around originally.

Actually, I'm assuming that there's really something to the rumors that Wizards isn't happy with 4e sales, that 3rd parties aren't producing, and that Pathfinder is seriously cutting into 4e sales, if not outselling them.

Let's see, suppose Wizards comes up with a 5e that isn't compatible with 3e. Well, first of all, it would have to be really great. 4e wasn't (objectively, based on the assumptions above).

So you've got a bit of a problem, since radical changes of the sort designed to make the game utterly incompatible are (a) unpopular just because they're changes, and (b) at risk of being unpopular because the core of D&D really is pretty good (objectively).

I mean, for example, I saw a stack of Earthdawn books at HBP yesterday and leafed through them out of curiosity. It's conceptually similar to D&D at a broad level, but every detail is different. Not only would D&D purists turn up their noses at something like that being called 5e, but the simplicity & elegance of the fundamental engine, still present in 3.x, including classes, levels, hit points, armor class, spell slots, and the numbers & algorithms associated with them--is hard to beat. You can simplify it down to Labyrinth Lord (or even more), or you can dirty it up to 3e, but there's still a lot of commonality.

So I'd think that 5e would need to be much more recognizably D&D than 4e is.

On top of that you've got the OGL sitting around, something Mayfair didn't have on its side. Also, Kenzer has already shown that you can release a 4e-compatible product without worrying about a license.

So I don't think the third parties would be threatened by 5e.

Nor do I think WotC needs to feel threatened by them, unless Wizards wants to be able to sell subpar (or overpriced) accessories to a captive market.

Quote from: J Arcane;445347Reprinting 3.x with "5e" on the cover this time won't do that.

I agree.

The few hardcore 3.5E D&D holdouts I know of locally, are very much like "grognards" now.  They absolutely refuse to play Pathfinder, and don't buy any Pathfinder books whatsoever.  (One won't even allow any non-WotC d20 3PP supplement books in their game).

If WotC just reprints the 3.5E core books with "5E" on the cover, they would most likely just laugh and think it's a joke.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;445363So you've got a bit of a problem, since radical changes of the sort designed to make the game utterly incompatible are (a) unpopular just because they're changes, and (b) at risk of being unpopular because the core of D&D really is pretty good (objectively).

So I'd think that 5e would need to be much more recognizably D&D than 4e is.

I agree on that.  What I meant by revolutionary was probably more "evolutionary", the way 3e was.

3e was so great because it was still the core of D&D, but with saner modern mechanics that was easier for new and old to get into.  It fell down some at later times by getting rather overcomplicated at high levels, and with all the loopy splats but it was a solid game.

I think 5e, if they're smart, will do much the same thing.  Get back to the core of D&D, and take inspiration from the older B/X with a touch of 3e, more accessible but with the complexity there if you want it, and of course without the faux-MMO mechanics and a bit more straightforward vanilla implied setting.

Basically, I see them essentially doing something like what HackMaster 5 has done, but with clearer descent of terminology and themes.

And for god's sake, bring back the original alignment system for fuck's sake.  It's so iconic even non-D&D-playing 4chan nerds know about it, ditching it was stupid.

Quote from: J Arcane;445347Release a whole new edition though, built from scratch to cherry pick the best of the old editions while moving it forward in line with game design developments in the rest of the hobby, like 3.0 did, but leave out that nonsense OGL

The hard part is figuring out what exactly to cherry pick, without driving away even more players.

Quote from: J Arcane;445347and Paizo not only loses their audience, they can't even go back to riding Wizards' coattails unless they want to face their legal wrath.

The question is whether Paizo has their own faction of hardcore "grognards".  If there is a large enough established group of hardcore Pathfinder grognards, in principle they may very well continue playing Pathfinder and not paying any attention to WotC at all.  Such a business model may very well end up resembling Palladium or Chaosium.

Quote from: ggroy;445367Such a business model may very well end up resembling Palladium or Chaosium.

Not really a victory, imo.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;445363Actually, I'm assuming that there's really something to the rumors that Wizards isn't happy with 4e sales, that 3rd parties aren't producing, and that Pathfinder is seriously cutting into 4e sales, if not outselling them.

Why? For the sake of argument- or have you seen something more credible than rumors?

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;445363Nor do I think WotC needs to feel threatened by them, unless Wizards wants to be able to sell subpar (or overpriced) accessories to a captive market.

This would seem to be a pretty logical desire, especially if you can make it  work in the long term.

Quote from: J Arcane;4453663e was so great because it was still the core of D&D, but with saner modern mechanics that was easier for new and old to get into.  It fell down some at later times by getting rather overcomplicated at high levels, and with all the loopy splats but it was a solid game.

The problem with this is that WOTC's corporate masters seem to want WOTC D&D to be something that they control all the IP on. Unfortunately, the core of D&D is in the open content 3.x SRDs -- to the point that they can be used to clone any version of D&D except 4e. I think that any future version of D&D that everyone would agree is an evolution of core D&D would also be clonable via OGL material. In fact, I'd say that any version of D&D that isn't mostly clonable from 3.x OGL material would be too far from core D&D for most of the people who do not think 4e is "core D&D".

IMHO, the goal of producing a D&D that 90% of those who have ever played D&D would agree is an evolution of the OD&D to 3.x line is incompatible with the goal of having a D&D where WOTC controls all the IP.

Well, tough shit for Wizards.  The alternative is a move that would be deliberate suicide, especially considering that so much of the popular zeitgeist for the game right now is tied up in classic D&D mythology.

Abandoning core D&D materials would basically destroy every shred of goodwill they have both with the grognards, and the wider fanbase.  They're already pushing it as it is, with some of their biggest public supporters like the Penny Arcade folks pushing away from it.

You deal with clone RPGs the way you deal with clones of anything else, by making the real thing so much better, and making it abundantly clear it IS the real thing, and by throwing your weight around in the market to ensure that no one else can compete on your level, only nip at your heels.

There were never any serious sales for actual copied rulebooks of the current edition of the game, so that's hardly a threat, and worrying about them copying it later when 6e comes along is I think putting the cart before the horse.

Y'all are forgetting that they are fucking Wizards of the Coast, the heir apparent to TSR, and the owners of the actual D&D brand name, and that's the thing that matters the most because that's the thing that literally defines RPGs for the outside audience.  That's the thing that has it's own MMO, it has it's own T-shirt lines, and jokes in popular TV series, and video games and card games and minatures and boardgames and on and on and on.

Pathfinder may be selling well in the nerdstores, but in mindshare D&D will always rule the roost.

In principle Hasbro can just take the D&D tabletop rpg off the market for several years or decades.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;445329Of course WotC can get its audience back. Most people don't care about companies; WotC could even just clone Pathfinder, to the extent that would be legal, add a few fixes, and declare that to be the new edition. People would buy it.

The hard part would be swallowing the pride.

Quote from: Aos;445369Why? For the sake of argument- or have you seen something more credible than rumors?

Nope, nothing more than rumors and anecdotes. Well, that and the fact that WotC seems to be scrambling.

QuoteThis would seem to be a pretty logical desire, especially if you can make it  work in the long term.

Of course, any business would like to lock in customers if they can. Then they can cut development costs and production costs, raise prices, etc.

But if you live in an environment where customers have alternatives, then walling off your garden doesn't work very well unless you offer superior value. If you don't offer superior value, and you wall off your garden, then it actually works against you, because all the other producers who make things that are compatible with each other are collectively increasing the value of their products.

I think 3e suxxors, but I firmly believe Paizo can suck a good 5 years out of Pathfinder and a decent 10 years before launching an overhaul about the time D&D 6e arrives.

Quote from: J Arcane;445313If 5e comes out, they'll be rushing back into the waiting arms of WOTC, and Paizo will be left holding the bag.

Just like 4e there will be an initial excitement.  

And then, regardless how good the 5e game may be, the older game groups will migrate back to whatever edition promises their endless summer.  And regardless how bad the 5e game may be, the hardcore D&Ders and the RPGA members will stick with it.

D&D-isms and roleplaying-isms is so ingrained computer games so if the young kids wanted to get into pen and paper tabletop RPGs, we would have seen it already.

Quote from: J Arcane;445366And for god's sake, bring back the original alignment system for fuck's sake.  It's so iconic even non-D&D-playing 4chan nerds know about it, ditching it was stupid.

I'd rather alignment options for the GM to choose.  I personally love Moorcockian Law / Neutral / Chaos far more than the 9 AD&D aligns.  Also, 4e's definition of Non-Aligned is good stuff and more interesting than Neutral.

Quote from: RandallS;445370The problem with this is that WOTC's corporate masters seem to want WOTC D&D to be something that they control all the IP on.

And if you can't control your IP, you are fucked in the 21st century marketplace.   Because if you don't control it, somebody else is going to do a 10% change-o-fix-o and they will control it.

There was no reason for the SRD to contain any iconic spell, monster or magic item.  

Quote from: ggroy;445375In principle Hasbro can just take the D&D tabletop rpg off the market for several years or decades.

Better yet, fuck the tabletop.   Leave it to Paizo and the 80s kids.  

Refocus the game for online play, web-enabled TV and console play.   Make it something you play on your tablet, smartphone and combine the power of graphics, music, sound F/X with the power of a human DM and human player interaction.

WotC could take D&D to where the kids actually are now and will be in the future, instead of expecting the kids to retrograde their lives to find D&D.