Quote from: S'mon;1033645Yes. I think without the OGL still many people would have stayed with 3e, many would have left the hobby (as happened during 2e era) and few new gamers would have been recruited. I don't believe 4e would have been a success just because it lacked an in-print alternative. It's too much of a niche market and bears too little resemblance to original D&D. In particular IME it lacks a viable Exploration play mode.

The RPG industry almost was dying regardless because of The Great Recession and other factors, and if brand-name D&D had gone down, it sure wouldn't have helped.

JG

Quote from: James Gillen;1033729The RPG industry almost was dying regardless because of The Great Recession and other factors, and if brand-name D&D had gone down, it sure wouldn't have helped.

JG

   I still think everyone underestimates how badly that hitting just as 4E launched hurt things, especially since 4E gave the impression of needing a whole lot of additional material (maps/tiles, miniatures, etc.) And the Essentials line being designed largely for mass-market bookstores and then hitting just when those more or less collapsed was probably the death blow.

Quote from: CRKrueger;1033292The OGL made WotC money hand over fist until...

1. Some idiots at Hasbro wondered why other people were making money from the WotC rules.
2. These same idiots didn't realize what the OGL actually was, did, or meant.
3. They stepped away from the 3.0/3.5 ruleset in order to design a game so divergent from the current version of the game that it couldn't be reproduced with the OGL.
4. Foolishly thought a marketing campaign firing their existing customer base and the new forge-theory inspired design of 4e would bring them younger video game players.
5. Gave Paizo the kiss off.
6. Were actually surprised at the result.

Yes, the OGL was a double-edged sword for WotC.  It guaranteed them a place as the market leader as long as they stayed with an OGL compatible ruleset.  But...they had to actually keep putting out good product and accept minor competitors using their ruleset, and most importantly, they had to keep holding the tiger by the tail and not let go.

They let go.

What was the alternative though? Come out with 3.75 that "fixed" 3.5 but somehow didn't come off as a giant ripoff?? Sure its what Paizo did but Paizo isn't WotC and didn't burn any bridges with a shotty 3.0 version. Not to mention how saturated, congested, and utterly mired in shit the 3.5 ruleset had become to the point that more supplements weren't the answer. Investment in more settings or adventures would've maybe bought them a year or two at most.

Besides, without 4th edition we wouldn't have learned the problems and worked out a system that is highly successful like 5th Edition has become.

I appreciate the irony of this thread at the Paizo boards where multiple people express the sentiment that PF2 is the spiritual successor of 4e.

Yes, the 4e that drove hordes to PF1 in the first place.

Quote from: Batman;1033784What was the alternative though? Come out with 3.75 that "fixed" 3.5 but somehow didn't come off as a giant ripoff??

Alternative: stick with OGL, make a simpler and better balanced system - 5e, basically, I guess probably minus the few 4e-isms in 5e. The Pathfinder Beginner Box shows in several areas how this could be done, with much simpler & better designed monster stat blocks, streamlined PC creation, and good class balance within its 1-5 range.

5e completed the solutions with eg the Proficiency Bonus/Bounded Accuracy design, the 3 Item Attunement Limit, and spell Concentration. There are some problems with the 5e MM monsters lacking offensive punch, but the core of 5e design is extremely robust - they got it right. And those elements didn't require 4e, even if 4e was the kick up the pants needed to motivate the design work.

Quote from: Batman;1033784What was the alternative though? Come out with 3.75 that "fixed" 3.5 but somehow didn't come off as a giant ripoff?? Sure its what Paizo did but Paizo isn't WotC and didn't burn any bridges with a shotty 3.0 version. Not to mention how saturated, congested, and utterly mired in shit the 3.5 ruleset had become to the point that more supplements weren't the answer. Investment in more settings or adventures would've maybe bought them a year or two at most.

Besides, without 4th edition we wouldn't have learned the problems and worked out a system that is highly successful like 5th Edition has become.

Here's what always got me, for all the bitching that people did when 3.5 came out about how WoTC is a money grubbing corporation, invalidating your books with a new edition, but close enough to the old one...  Paizo turns around, effectively does the EXACT same thing, and gets praised for it.

Gamers...

Quote from: S'mon;1033812Alternative: stick with OGL, make a simpler and better balanced system - 5e, basically, I guess probably minus the few 4e-isms in 5e. The Pathfinder Beginner Box shows in several areas how this could be done, with much simpler & better designed monster stat blocks, streamlined PC creation, and good class balance within its 1-5 range.

5e completed the solutions with eg the Proficiency Bonus/Bounded Accuracy design, the 3 Item Attunement Limit, and spell Concentration. There are some problems with the 5e MM monsters lacking offensive punch, but the core of 5e design is extremely robust - they got it right. And those elements didn't require 4e, even if 4e was the kick up the pants needed to motivate the design work.

Short rest mechanics drive a lot of sub-path and class design, something that PF has practically nothing of.

Non-magical healing is something that PF has nothing of but (besides sleeping) and is a nod to 4E's surge system by utilizing Hit Die.

At-will magic, while being present in PF, doesn't hold the same weight in design because it's not supposed to maintain spell casters through most combats. Not only that, but it doesn't scale with character level, thus if you multi-class your Cantrips end up doing nothing.

Alignment based mechanics and restrictions haven't had a reason to exist in almost two decades but still persist, for some reason, because of nostalgia in PF.

Feat design is no longer exemption based, because of 4E. 5th edition carry this over by making Feats bigger and worth their salt through most levels of play. PF still continues to treat Feats as Band-Aids to penalties of doing stuff everybody should be able to do already.

Lastly, attack progression/ iterative attack penalties - for some reason PF still considers this old, outdated system worth using. A major flaw in why 3.5 / PF combat slows down so much is because the more attacks you make the more penalties you take and each roll has different math to calculate. Not only that, but if you're a spell caster you might as well forget about using any weapon ever because of the way AC scales. 4th edition introduced a flat bonus to attacks and saving throws that everyone utilizes at the same rate of progression, and now so does 5th edition.

All of these are huge systemic changes that 5e had adopted from 4E that don't seem to have any bearing to what PF does. And judging by the way 2nd edition Pathfinder is turning out, these concepts are still alien to their design team.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1033815Here's what always got me, for all the bitching that people did when 3.5 came out about how WoTC is a money grubbing corporation, invalidating your books with a new edition, but close enough to the old one...  Paizo turns around, effectively does the EXACT same thing, and gets praised for it.

Gamers...

It sure is a head scratcher. I haven't purchased anything from Paizo but still play in an occasional PF campaign all 100% free due to the OGL. The classes, 3rd party base classes, and Prestige Classes are all spelled out, thus not needing any book to buy or reference.

But I'm not going to shell out hundreds of dollars for a homebrew 3.5 system. I'll buy 4E because I like it and its different. I'll buy 5E because its simpler and easier to convert older modules to and write content for. But PF.....nah man I got the OGL and I'm A-OK with that.

Quote from: S'mon;1033812There are some problems with the 5e MM monsters lacking offensive punch, but the core of 5e design is extremely robust - they got it right.

Robust?

Encounter pacing alone can make the combat system very wonky and unfun.

Not to mention "busting 5e" (in ways that are broken for 5e) is fairly easy with multiclassing or feats or large parties or levels with 2 numbers in them.

The combat can be long and boring, the skill system encourages the DM to ask for rolls for every little thing (I would much rather not have a skill system or have a very limited one like in RC D&D than what 5e did), the monsters are boring HP sacks, the spell system breaks down while being extra boring with cantrips and concentration so you are encouraged to find exploits to just not be bored.

Yeah you can get some magic going in 5e and actually have fun, for me it peters out around level 4 when the systematic problems start to accumulate, but I also prefer high level play in general and 5e offers a worse experience than PF.

We actually finish campaigns in PF while we've had to euthanize every single 5e one. Maybe that's because any GM willing to run PF is clearly willing to put in a lot of effort, but I think it has more to do with PF actually being a decently robust system (which it can be achieve that with just how versatile monsters are that the GM has tools beyond fiat to address PC shenanigans)

Quote from: Franky;1033183Pushing a 6e any time soon would be a colossal screw up. I doubt any C-level sort at WotC would be dumb enough to green light a 6e.   Just checking 5e sales on Amazon:  PHB is #30, ~3.5 years after first released.  This is in overall book sales, not some niche sub-category.  DMG is #48.  By any reckoning that I hear about, 5e is raking in the cash.  WotC is not going to do anything to stop the money train, at least until it starts to slow down a bit.

I don't see a PF2 slowing it either.

I'm sure they are already working on 6E. Doesn't mean it will be out soon but they are working on it. I have a feeling we will start hearing about the next edition around the end of next year for a 2020 or 2021 release.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer;1033137Actually, "Ancestry" was a term I was considering to replace "race" for design purposes several months before this. Part of it is that race is an unnecessarily hot-button term, part of it that ancestry's a broader term that enables more design space for 'human, but one of my ancestors was a fairy/wood spirit/water nymph/demon/Creature from Beyond' stuff for a more fairy-tale/folklore/legendary kind of game, part of it is that it enables a nice 'ABC' mnemonic--Ancestry, Background, Class.

Can you help me understand why "race" is a hot-button term? With whom? And where?

Dwarves are a race. Elves are a race. Humans are a race. I just don't understand how changing it to "ancestry" does anything when the common colloquial usage won't change. Who are you trying to talk off the edge with the change?

Quote from: Ulairi;1033827Who are you trying to talk off the edge with the change?

Well, to play devil's advocate, who are you talking to? Who exactly is this excited person that is making this big deal? Because both 'sides' (as if there were two clearly delineated sides) are acting like it's the other that is making the big deal.

Honestly, if Gary had, between oD&D and AD&D changed 'race' to something like 'creature type'* and said something in a Strategic Review or Dragon like "Look, I don't know if anyone cares, but I'm changing this term so that no one ever mistakes the discussion for discussing real-world human-type Caucasian/Asian/Etc.-type races, just in case that were ever to be an issue" this whole thing would be over and done with a long time ago.
*Which has the advantage in that it works for monstrous characters or NPCs as well (sure, elf is a race, why not? But vampire?)

I doubt, off the internet-- where people (on both sides of any issue) go out of their way to try to make-things-into-big-deals -- there really is much worry about it. OTOH, I have introduced new people to table top rpgs, and when I said, "and next you pick your 'race'--human, elf, dwarf, etc. ...' they have said, "really? They decided to call that race? No I'm not offended, but that was honestly what they landed on?" It was, in all honesty, a very-minorly-foolish decision that very-unlikely-but-not-impossibly could cause problems and/or misunderstandings. It makes all the sense in the world to ditch it. I just wish it had been done back sometime in the past when the very act of ditching it wasn't seen as a political action.

Quote from: Ulairi;1033827Can you help me understand why "race" is a hot-button term? With whom? And where?

Dwarves are a race. Elves are a race. Humans are a race. I just don't understand how changing it to "ancestry" does anything when the common colloquial usage won't change. Who are you trying to talk off the edge with the change?

No one in particular, I just don't see the need to hang on to an old term that carries some baggage (especially when 'race, class' sometimes feels like you're likely to follow up with 'gender' and start the Revolution ), when there's a broader term that does all the work and allows for 'human, but with something else in there' as well. And since this is not likely to get past idle daydreaming and at most a few online postings, don't worry that I'm part of some grand effort to subvert the hobby.

Quote from: Rhedyn;1033825Encounter pacing alone can make the combat system very wonky and unfun.

QuoteIf you're trying to run on-rails APs, sure, but on-rails APs are stupid.

QuoteNot to mention "busting 5e" (in ways that are broken for 5e) is fairly easy with multiclassing or feats

Optional for this very reason.

Quoteor large parties or levels with 2 numbers in them.

Your #1 complaint this whole time is your DM let you kill a pit fiend, which apparently he should have run a TPK instead. Which was entirely possible, but you've got it into your head that a pit fiend dealing with invaders by hiding in a cave (or whatever it was "you" did to "ensure" that it never found you before you cornered it in the bathroom or whatever) is actually due to a total failure in RAW. Also that a pit fiend should be untouchable by a 9th-level character's attacks because that's how it worked in 3.5.

QuotePF actually being a decently robust system

:rolleyes:

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1033830Well, to play devil's advocate, who are you talking to? Who exactly is this excited person that is making this big deal? Because both 'sides' (as if there were two clearly delineated sides) are acting like it's the other that is making the big deal.

Honestly, if Gary had, between oD&D and AD&D changed 'race' to something like 'creature type'* and said something in a Strategic Review or Dragon like "Look, I don't know if anyone cares, but I'm changing this term so that no one ever mistakes the discussion for discussing real-world human-type Caucasian/Asian/Etc.-type races, just in case that were ever to be an issue" this whole thing would be over and done with a long time ago.
*Which has the advantage in that it works for monstrous characters or NPCs as well (sure, elf is a race, why not? But vampire?)

I doubt, off the internet-- where people (on both sides of any issue) go out of their way to try to make-things-into-big-deals -- there really is much worry about it. OTOH, I have introduced new people to table top rpgs, and when I said, "and next you pick your 'race'--human, elf, dwarf, etc. ...' they have said, "really? They decided to call that race? No I'm not offended, but that was honestly what they landed on?" It was, in all honesty, a very-minorly-foolish decision that very-unlikely-but-not-impossibly could cause problems and/or misunderstandings. It makes all the sense in the world to ditch it. I just wish it had been done back sometime in the past when the very act of ditching it wasn't seen as a political action.

It's cool that you're gaming with unicorns in Minnesota.

I'm glad I've never had the luck to play with somebody that when asked what race they want to play complains about the term race when talking about elf games.