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.