Quote from: Jaeger on December 16, 2020, 02:55:50 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on December 16, 2020, 02:01:29 PM
Is there any hard evidence, or even medium level evidence, that PF2 isn't selling well?

It's not that I don't believe it. It's that I would like to see some evidence.

Not selling well in relation to what?

No one here has inside access to Baizuo financials, or their original sales projections for PF2.

As to 'Evidence'...

'Evidence' = Proof to whatever standard you feel satisfied with?

Or

'Evidence' = according to the dictionary definition of the word?

Just trying to firmly nail down your goalposts here.

I don't really have goal posts. It's not really an argument. I'd just like to see something more concrete if it exists. Not really a dictionary definition of evidence, just more in line with whatever standard I'd be satisfied with, which would be things like "PF2 sales are rapidly decreasing on Amazon's sales list" or "PF2 games are being played less on Roll20 of FG" or Paizo is laying people off" or "Paizo employee X let slip that things are grim around there" or "Paizo is having to pivot to a different forcus away from PF2" or things like that. Sort of things which are similar to those we've heard when game companies are seeing problems with a major line of products, or worse.

Quote from: Shasarak on December 16, 2020, 02:49:06 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 16, 2020, 08:32:31 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on December 16, 2020, 01:18:33 AM
Ah, if you like it then its different and not derivative at all.

Where is the toast guy with his heart breaker?

If you rip the engine out of a pickup, bolt a seat to the hood and rig horses to pull it, is it still functioning as a pickup truck or is it now a wagon? If I take the head of an axe and use fire and hammer to reshape it into a knife blade... is it still an axe head?

Is Palladium Fantasy still D&D because it uses a d20 to hit and for saves, other polyhedrals for damage rolls and has hit points?

At a certain point sufficient changes have been made to something such that it is no longer the previous thing and is now something different.

Now, one can argue that changing something to look identical to something that was first created by someone else isn't terribly creative and that something was just a previous iteration of the thing changed that it's still that thing... but that's something you'd have to assess a bit more individually.

"Stars Without Number" for example, uses base mechanics in line with TSR editions of D&D, but it's redirection towards the science fiction genre marks it much more as an original work than as just D&D.

Since when has Palladium Fantasy been considered to be OSR?

Where exactly are you trying to move those goal posts?

What goalposts? You act as if I started this discussion.

My point about Palladium Books is that it shares many similarities with D&D; owing largely to it starting from Kevin's own D&D house rules if my understanding is correct; but at a certain point those changes added to the game were sufficient that it could no longer rightly be called D&D. It became its own thing.

As this relates to the OSR. SOME parts of it (ex. Stars Without Number) have made sufficient changes to the base that they can't just be called a "rip-off" of D&D as you seem to wish to insinuate that all parts of the OSR are.

Personally, I think using the combo of 3eSRD and OGL to create a carbon copy of a previous edition of D&D (particularly when charging for it) to be a bit dubious; particularly efforts launched AFTER the original games became easily re-available (thus I also make allowances for those who underwent the effort of doing so PRIOR to that re-availability... particularly when their efforts were non-profit endeavors; those were people who wanted to share a game system they loved that was no longer easy to find in print, not those seeking to profit off other people's works).

That said, there is also no real set line where something stops being a copy with the OGL as a legal cover and when any changes added to it are sufficient to make it its own thing... but, as with Palladium Books not being just a house-ruled D&D, you'll know it when you see it.

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 15, 2020, 10:45:15 AM
So expressing a preference for certain mechanics over others is "edition warring"?  Interesting take.  So I guess saying that mechanically 1e>5e>3e>4e is a downright jihad...

Most gamers know at this point that Pathfinder 1E or at least the core is a rehash of 3.5 D&D. It's just that some in the hobby insist on wanting to make PF1E out to be a completly different rpg when it's not imo. The core at least is 3.5. flaws and all with some house rules. I might say "hopefully we can play D&D tonight" followed by some Pathfinder purist who will "it's not D&D it's Pathfinder" or something similar. I had to leave one PF campaign because the DM and group could not stop shitting on D&D or Wotc. Let the same person who said the above as they awlays and I mean always had to draw a line in the sand between both rpgs even when asked then told not to do so many times.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on December 16, 2020, 09:48:59 AM
You know, the more I think about it, the more I think 3E was a massive downgrade in overall power for martial classes.

I wonder if many PF players sometimes either played earlier editions or just tend to forgot that earlier editions had followers as well. As some of them have fits when it comes to Leadership. Your supposed to have followers in name only and not use them for anything. So I have to give up a precious feat slot so that all the npcs I receive are just going to sit around playing with spoons. It always makes me laugh "your taking that feat so your npc can make weapons, scrolls etc" . Me: yeaahh why would I take the feat if it's not going to benefit me somehow. Yet Wizards and other full level casters are not an issue. What gets me is when told how many classes used to have access to followers in earlier editions you can see their heads explode. Ranger followers can be pretty powerful I don't have a book yet I think one was a Satyr another Nymph. Yet their are complaining about NPC XYZ cranking out items. 

Quote from: sureshot on December 16, 2020, 05:30:56 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 15, 2020, 10:45:15 AM
So expressing a preference for certain mechanics over others is "edition warring"?  Interesting take.  So I guess saying that mechanically 1e>5e>3e>4e is a downright jihad...

Most gamers know at this point that Pathfinder 1E or at least the core is a rehash of 3.5 D&D. It's just that some in the hobby insist on wanting to make PF1E out to be a completly different rpg when it's not imo. The core at least is 3.5. flaws and all with some house rules. I might say "hopefully we can play D&D tonight" followed by some Pathfinder purist who will "it's not D&D it's Pathfinder" or something similar. I had to leave one PF campaign because the DM and group could not stop shitting on D&D or Wotc. Let the same person who said the above as they awlays and I mean always had to draw a line in the sand between both rpgs even when asked then told not to do so many times.

Yeah the distinction is somewhat arbritrary - although not completely meaningless.  By late Pathfinder you have a lot of classes that never existed in 3.5 and you have an emphasis on character customisation via archetypes rather then prestige classes, and nailing down one or the other tells players which version of the SRD to look at for spells and feats.

Ironically if you want to play 3.5 on Roll20 you are much better of using the Pathfinder character sheet as it's much better designed.

Quote from: Mistwell on December 16, 2020, 04:43:45 PM
...I don't really have goal posts. ... Not really a dictionary definition of evidence, just more in line with whatever standard I'd be satisfied with,...

Moveable goalposts, and words meaning whatever you want them to mean to fit your narrative...

At least you're upfront about framing your questions in bad faith. I'll give you that.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 16, 2020, 04:45:47 PM
What goalposts? You act as if I started this discussion.

Well, Pathfinder and OSR are literally DnD rules and Palladium Fantasy is literally not-DnD rules.

So yeah Palladium is different.

Quote from: Shasarak on December 16, 2020, 08:19:39 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 16, 2020, 04:45:47 PM
What goalposts? You act as if I started this discussion.

Well, Pathfinder and OSR are literally DnD rules and Palladium Fantasy is literally not-DnD rules.

So yeah Palladium is different.

The point you seem to deliberately miss is that not all OSR is the same. Again I refer you to Stars Without Number as an OSR game that is NOT D&D.

At a certain point the changes made to a chassis are sufficient that it is no longer in the same category (example: the horse drawn pickup frame is clearly now a wagon and not a truck).

Palladium started out as D&D house-rules; just because it diverged 40 years ago doesn't change that. There is no hard and fast line, but some of the OSR has sufficient changes to them that they aren't 'just' D&D clones.

I'm not sure you can say a game that came out in the early 80s as an OSR game considering it is just plain Old School.

Quote from: sureshot on December 16, 2020, 05:30:56 PM
I wonder if many PF players sometimes either played earlier editions or just tend to forgot that earlier editions had followers as well. As some of them have fits when it comes to Leadership. Your supposed to have followers in name only and not use them for anything. So I have to give up a precious feat slot so that all the npcs I receive are just going to sit around playing with spoons. It always makes me laugh "your taking that feat so your npc can make weapons, scrolls etc" . Me: yeaahh why would I take the feat if it's not going to benefit me somehow. Yet Wizards and other full level casters are not an issue. What gets me is when told how many classes used to have access to followers in earlier editions you can see their heads explode. Ranger followers can be pretty powerful I don't have a book yet I think one was a Satyr another Nymph. Yet their are complaining about NPC XYZ cranking out items.

Looking back through old 1E and 2E books, the ranger could have a copper dragon or storm giant as a follower (1E), or treants and werebears (2E). Also, I would note that having a fae follower could be parlayed into getting an introduction to the local dryad, nymph or other fae ruler in the area -- a little smarts and good roleplay here could be quite useful. "Yes, Tinsel, please tell the Forest Queen I'll be happy to accept her invitation. I'll bring flowers."

I would like to note that several game devs, both WotC and Paizo, have admitted there were feats in the books that had minimal to no purpose and were deliberately left in to screw with people.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on December 16, 2020, 11:09:01 PM
I would like to note that several game devs, both WotC and Paizo, have admitted there were feats in the books that had minimal to no purpose and were deliberately left in to screw with people.

If you're referring to the Monte Cook essay what he actually said was that many feats were circumstantially useful and that they didn't tell the players what the circumstances were but left them to figure them out.

The example he gave was Toughness which a good feat to have if you were playing a one shot as a 1st level wizard but a bad choice for a long term campaign.  The example was probably not the best one, since a good case could be made that Toughness was flat out badly designed, but that was not the point he was making.  The reading of that article was extremely uncharitable.

Mastery as a motivation is not on its face entirely a bad thing.  As Cook said this was one thing people enjoyed about playing Magic, and the pleasure of mastery is one of the big things that motivates people - especially when playing games - but when you couple this with a complex system it can have unfortunate repercussions for the more casual player.

It's also amusing that this fed into so much 3e/4E edition war as this kind of design is at the heart of 4e as well.  4e was more forgiving of different levels of mastery but it was still very much there.

I lost much respect for Monte Cooke when he went on that semi-rant in the PF 1E intro where for one thing who taught having one of the guys who worked on the product shill the product in the intro was a good thing. Second from what I can see in that intro he hated what Wotc did with 4E might as well throw stones to make sure it sells less. If I ever do a review I will either leave that part out remove one point. It did sour me on reading the rest of the book. It amounts to Pathfinder is good because of monte cooke reasons and feels.

Quote from: TJS on December 16, 2020, 11:47:12 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on December 16, 2020, 11:09:01 PM
I would like to note that several game devs, both WotC and Paizo, have admitted there were feats in the books that had minimal to no purpose and were deliberately left in to screw with people.

If you're referring to the Monte Cook essay what he actually said was that many feats were circumstantially useful and that they didn't tell the players what the circumstances were but left them to figure them out.

The example he gave was Toughness which a good feat to have if you were playing a one shot as a 1st level wizard but a bad choice for a long term campaign.  The example was probably not the best one, since a good case could be made that Toughness was flat out badly designed, but that was not the point he was making.  The reading of that article was extremely uncharitable.

Mastery as a motivation is not on its face entirely a bad thing.  As Cook said this was one thing people enjoyed about playing Magic, and the pleasure of mastery is one of the big things that motivates people - especially when playing games - but when you couple this with a complex system it can have unfortunate repercussions for the more casual player.

It's also amusing that this fed into so much 3e/4E edition war as this kind of design is at the heart of 4e as well.  4e was more forgiving of different levels of mastery but it was still very much there.

I think you are missing the point of the objections to this design principle.  People weren't angry because 3e included feats and options that only had niche applications.  They were upset because the designers purposely include options that had few, if any, applications for the express purpose of rewarding careful planning (in the building of your character) and punishing players who did not build with such optimization in mind.  Because of the mechanics of 3e, you quickly became either excellent or incompetent in any skill/test/challenge as the bonuses to skills skyrocketed.  By mid-tier, you could have specialists with +10 to +20 on specific skills.  This meant that anyone who did not narrow their focus to target what they wanted to be really good at would quickly find they couldn't do anything of note in the party, just because of the math.  Jack-of-all-trades was really hard to do in 3e, and required just as much system mastery as specialist.

So people were angry because they could pick a feat that seemed to do something, find out it was so niche as to be worthless, and then find their character lost their utility in the group.  Remember, this is a group game.  Very few people have the makeup to be happy when everyone around them can do what they want to do better than they can.  The combination of bonus inflation and feat trees made such an outcome very likely, unless you spent a lot of time planning your character's build.  And then your options were to beg the DM for a respec, trash the character, or play eternal catchup, sometimes with a character that had taken months to get where it was.  The problem wasn't that some feats were "circumstantially useful"; the problem was that too many were like Toughness and not well designed at all.  And Monte seemed to be justifying that through a particularly snide caveat emptor.

P.S. And Pathfinder doubled down on this approach.  The several years I spent playing PFS, I probably spent more time planning characters than I did playing them.  There's something wrong with rolling a skill check that is effectively your bonus, plus a d20, rather than a d20 plus your bonus...

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 17, 2020, 09:01:50 AM
P.S. And Pathfinder doubled down on this approach.  The several years I spent playing PFS, I probably spent more time planning characters than I did playing them.  There's something wrong with rolling a skill check that is effectively your bonus, plus a d20, rather than a d20 plus your bonus...

Thats more to do with the swingy nature of the d20. I for one hate the 5e feeling that my skill bonuses are near pointless in terms of variance. I don't feel like a specialist at all, even if I specialize as much as I can.

While people dump on 3e for allot of its deserved reasons, there are other reasons why it continues to recieve play. Though I find it (and most of D&D) have been surpassed in quality by adaptations.

Stars Without Number has feats for instance, but they are all great. And skills, but uses a 2d6 system.

Yes, there is a difference in kind here, not just degree.  Specifically, these things are different in kind:

A. We, the authors, had certain themes in mind or a feel or a certain aspect of the game itself wasn't important to us.  So we didn't spend a lot of time on the other stuff, neither design time nor checking the math nor even much play testing.  We expected GMs to adapt that stuff themselves or ignore it.

B. We, the authors, knew that we had screwed up certain elements that we were working on but we needed a widget to check off a box.  So rather than fix it or exercise some editorial judgment we made up reasons after the fact for why a key aspect of the design that we screwed up was actually a feature not a bug.

The first one may make you not care much for the game if you want the things the authors didn't want to spend time on, but you can still respect whatever they did do on its own merits and according to how well it meets the design goals the authors did care about.  I don't know about anyone else, but the second causes this reaction from me:  "Very well.  If it is all that much trouble to try to do a good job with whatever you goals are, I'll take you at your word that you don't know how to produce anything useful to me."

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on December 17, 2020, 09:17:19 AM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on December 17, 2020, 09:01:50 AM
P.S. And Pathfinder doubled down on this approach.  The several years I spent playing PFS, I probably spent more time planning characters than I did playing them.  There's something wrong with rolling a skill check that is effectively your bonus, plus a d20, rather than a d20 plus your bonus...

Thats more to do with the swingy nature of the d20. I for one hate the 5e feeling that my skill bonuses are near pointless in terms of variance. I don't feel like a specialist at all, even if I specialize as much as I can.

While people dump on 3e for allot of its deserved reasons, there are other reasons why it continues to recieve play. Though I find it (and most of D&D) have been surpassed in quality by adaptations.

Stars Without Number has feats for instance, but they are all great. And skills, but uses a 2d6 system.

See, that's why I think the argument can be made that SWN is a different "game" (a difference in kind and not degree, as one poster put it so elegantly above).  When 3e has me rolling 27 + 1d20, I've reached the point where my skill overwhelms the randomness (and I've become an expert who hardly ever fails).  But it also means that, to challenge me, the DC of the check needs to be 35+.  My companions, who might have +10, are now noobs with a 75% chance of failure, even though they may have made some investments to get to that +10.

SWN, with each bonus having more impact on the chance of success, gives that level of expertise without crippling the folks that have a little skill, because +6 to 2d6 is dramatic, while +2 is still more than a standard deviation at the margins.  So There is a fundamentally different relationship between the mechanics and the play, with a different feel.  So I think the argument that both OSR and PF are the same, as iterations of D&D, falls flat (not that you made that argument, but I find your comment helpful in illustrating that).

Edit: Oh, and I agree with your criticism of 5e.  I have a 14th level monk with a passive perception of 20 (+10 to Perception).  He should see everything, pretty much.  But anytime we roll, I have a 45% chance of scoring less than my passive score, which means that I have a reasonable (25%) chance of not even scoring above 15.  So my expertise, which I have spent proficiencies and ability scores on, can be defeated frequently by the roll of the dice.