Quote from: Doom;747093I heartily endorse that Pathfinder beginner box. Yes, it's not the "full game", but there's tons of play value and pure fun in it.

It's a fine set. But it goes to level 3, and if you want to continue you have to learn and run one of the most complex RPGs on the market. It won't be a rival to Next as an accessible fantasy RPG unless Paizo extends it to a full level range.

Quote from: Haffrung;747073. The Pathfinder Beginner Box is crippleware that is sold under the premise that everyone who plays it will want to move on to full-blown Pathfinder.

Sorry, the Pathfinder Beginner box is not Crippleware... Yes, it is written under the assumption that once you are done with the content of the set, that you would move into "full blown Pathfinder". However, once you do reach 5th level from the Starter set you can seamlessly move from the Starter right into the full game without rerolling your character. Once you reach 6th level, the only difference with changing to the full game is that you now have every option at your fingertips.

You cannot do that with the 4e Red Box... Not only is it incompatible with 4e/Essentials, they even expressly state that if you wish to continue with 4e past Level 2 you now need to make a new 4e compatible character... Now that was Crippleware... And a huge slap in the face to any new player...

Thankfully the Pathfinder Beginners Box didn't do that.

Quote from: Haffrung;747099It's a fine set. But it goes to level 3, and if you want to continue you have to learn and run one of the most complex RPGs on the market. It won't be a rival to Next as an accessible fantasy RPG unless Paizo extends it to a full level range.

Have you actually even read the Pathfinder Beginners set? Character Level goes from 1-5...

Maybe you should look at the product before you start talking bad about it...

I am not a fan of Pathfinder, but Paizo did a good job with their intro box. WotC could learn from it.

Hopefully the 5e intro box will get something unheard of in the RPG world...something strange called advertising and marketing.

I doubt 5e will have much effect on Paizo. Pathfinder is a great game for 3e fans and gives them what they want.

The question is whether 5e draws in non-playing D&D fans to come back to the hobby.

Quote from: xech;747040Although I am not sure that would be the prime reason of rules bloat, yes there are structural matters in the system that push it to go there.
The game presents limits as it gives very specific themed options of what players can do. And thus it gives a lot of space for more and more options to cover for it.

totally.

As soon as the class template was used to define specific literary heroes  "Aragorn as The Ranger" a Pandora's box was opened of class based mechanical options.

As I have mentioned prevously I think one of the lofty ideals of 2e was to stop that process and pare the game down to 4 classes with kits to provide the character colour but to limit the mechanical bloat of new classes.
However, they didn't have the stones to follow through and remove paladins and rangers and allow fighters at high levels to opt into magic as part of the class nor to open up rogues to allow the bard as a rouge with limited magic (which would have opened up a host of other rogue/magic hybrids as valid options). So you ened up with some special mechanics for certain classes and more was wanted and 2e kits basically became classes and added in mechnaical options and subsystems until they thought fuck it here is Skills and Powers

Anyway yes because new races and classes can introduce new mechanical options the d20 model is always going to be prone to bloat. Introduce enough options and stuff like feats and you end up with inevitable charop.

Quote from: Larsdangly;747036The mention of Pathfinder's imminent 'bloat' brought to mind something I've often wondered: why does every edition of D&D seem to undergo system drift and bloat when lots of other games don't? The whole BRP family of games are pretty close to the same and none have moved much from Runequest ca. 1978. You could say the same for GURPs, which has editions but they are pretty much the same game, and no edition really bloated when it comes to systems mechanics. I wonder if there is something structural about the way D&D works that drives system metastasis.

It has nothing to do with the game. Its the execs running it. You see the same disease eating away at comics and other formats.

Quote from: Haffrung;747099It's a fine set. But it goes to level 3, and if you want to continue you have to learn and run one of the most complex RPGs on the market. It won't be a rival to Next as an accessible fantasy RPG unless Paizo extends it to a full level range.

I think you're confusing the 4E redbox (which I believe only goes to 3) with the PF one (which goes to five).

Quote from: Spinachcat;747106I am not a fan of Pathfinder, but Paizo did a good job with their intro box. WotC could learn from it.

Hopefully the 5e intro box will get something unheard of in the RPG world...something strange called advertising and marketing.

I doubt 5e will have much effect on Paizo. Pathfinder is a great game for 3e fans and gives them what they want.

The question is whether 5e draws in non-playing D&D fans to come back to the hobby.

To answer your question yes.Ben called it 2 years ago. I am their market. Johanna lasped gamer that wishes for a DnD I want to run and play without going to a game with no support (FantasyCraft). Give me RC Mordern and I am in.. I suppose I CAN stay with MtAw though?
.Hi.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;747089I forgot about Empire, and was really only considering what the RTal put out themselves...but, yeah.

Empire and Road Striker are expansion and setting books, not new editions. I've got both.

Quote from: Spinachcat;747106I am not a fan of Pathfinder, but Paizo did a good job with their intro box. WotC could learn from it.

Hopefully the 5e intro box will get something unheard of in the RPG world...something strange called advertising and marketing.

I doubt 5e will have much effect on Paizo. Pathfinder is a great game for 3e fans and gives them what they want.

The question is whether 5e draws in non-playing D&D fans to come back to the hobby.

To answer your question yes.Ben called it 2 years ago. I am their market. Johanna lasped gamer that wishes for a DnD I want to run and play without going to a game with no support (FantasyCraft). Hi.

Then again I suppose I could give all my money to Onyx Path?

Quote from: tanstaafl48;747119I think you're confusing the 4E redbox (which I believe only goes to 3) with the PF one (which goes to five).

No. The Red Box only goes to level 2.

What was said by someone who had looked at the box set was that it went up to level 3. What they probably meant to say was that you can play all of 1st level and all of 2nd up to 3rd, then to level to 3rd you'll need to get more books.

looking back at their quote I realized later what the were saying. But at the time, before the red box came out, it sure darn looked like they said it had 3rd level in the box. It does not.

Quote from: Endless Flight;747084If that box is "crippleware", then I wonder what the boxed sets WotC have put out in the last twenty years are called.

Heh, that's the problem for WoTC - the PBB is a great little 5-level intro game offering a few months of play; WoTC starter pay-to-preview sets only give you a couple sessions at most, and no real taste of the full game. By the time you've exhausted the PBB, you've already played more than most RPGs ever get played.

I'm sure 5e will be a much better game for new players than Pathfinder, but WoTC has a proven track record of incompetence at hooking those players.

There's a kind of virtuous spiral that goes on, I think.

Assertions:
People play what their friends/groups play.
Groups/friends play what the DM wants to run.

Theories:
I suspect the DM learning curve to PF wasn't hat big after 3.5, and the addition of the Adventure Path things made it easy for DM's to run PF.


WOTC needs DM's. DM's are hardcore. They need a hardcore system. 4E for everyone!

Err, I mean ... I Have no clue.

Quote from: YourSwordisMine;747101Have you actually even read the Pathfinder Beginners set? Character Level goes from 1-5...

Maybe you should look at the product before you start talking bad about it...

It's a great product... as an introduction to a very complex RPG. The context of my original comment was that if WotC is interested in broadening the appeal of D&D outside the hardcore gearhead market it has targeted for the last 10 years or so (and its looks like it is), then Pathfinder is no threat. Paizo is aiming at a different audience. Even the Beginners' set is just an intro to a much more complex game.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;747046Maybe it's my browser, but I don't see any events listed on Origins' web site.  Do you have another link somewhere that has the breakdown?

Was this ever provided?