[Pathfinder] More previews up

[RandomCasualty2]

It's impossible to prove how much a game's sales are hurt by "suckiness" as opposed to poor advertising, changing demographics, market fragmentation, etc. But I'm pretty sure that video games are the #1 competitor to "sucky" RPGs and "awesome" RPGs are a distant, distant second place.

Well no. Contrary to what people think, D&D is rarely competing with WoW. Because honestly, the two give out totally different experiences. MMORPGs are grinding games. They have no real story. They're just running around killing shit for lewt.

RPGs offer a different experience, and frankly, nothing gives the experience of playing an RPG like actually playing an RPG. Until I can burn down towns or kill NPCs permanent in WoW, I just don't want anything to do with it. Because that's not telling my story, it's just wandering around a static world where nothing you do actually matters. EVE probably comes closest to actually giving you a world people care about, of course the problem is still grinding. RPGs let you skip the bullshit grinding phase nobody wants to do.

The only competitors to the RPG experience are other RPGs.

Sell many copies compared to what? Arcana Evolved? Iron Heroes? True20? GURPS? World of Warcraft? Bunnies & Burrows?

Well compared to 4E and 3.5 would be the primary thing you'd want to compare it to. Pathfinder is basically creating itself as a 4E alternative, a game for people who didn't like 4E and would rather play a fixed 3.5

And that's actually a pretty decent market. Many groups just didn't like 4E. However Pathfinder has to prove its worth the money buying it over just plain 3.5, because the people thinking of buying PF are people that likely already own 3.0 or 3.5 rulebooks. Many of these people are still upset that 3.5 was such a disappointment. If Pathfinder can't prove to them that it's measurably better, then it's going to fail.

[Leress]

There is no such thing as casuals and hardcores, other than that good point.

[Lich-Loved]

There is no such thing as casuals and hardcores, other than that good point.

Well, the dichotomy is there, so we are just discussing semantics. Use Practicalists/Homongenousists or Green/Red or some other terms if you'd like.

[Username17]

I would go out on a limb and say that D&D is competing against WoW. I've seen player drift out of gaming circles because their EQ guilds were eating up their evenings. That's an anecdote, but it demonstrates a clear competition between one and the other.

Now, WoW does not scratch my D&D itch. At all. In the same way that a mid size sedan does not functionally replace a pickup truck. But the fact is that you have a limited amount of money and a limited amount of driveway, so chances are that the truck and the car are both competing for your wallet in the same way that WoW and D&D are both competing for your evening after work.

-Username17

[virgil]

To add to the anecdotal evidence, most of my players play WoW and there's some competition because they usually give up raiding for that evening for my games, and at least one will forgo D&D for WoW if his job requires him to only have one day off during a week; because it takes too much mental effort for him to play the game or even pay attention when he's at all tired.

[hogarth]

It's impossible to prove how much a game's sales are hurt by "suckiness" as opposed to poor advertising, changing demographics, market fragmentation, etc. But I'm pretty sure that video games are the #1 competitor to "sucky" RPGs and "awesome" RPGs are a distant, distant second place.

Well no. Contrary to what people think, D&D is rarely competing with WoW. Because honestly, the two give out totally different experiences. MMORPGs are grinding games. They have no real story. They're just running around killing shit for lewt.

You're saying that the nerdy kids in 1984 who were playing D&D wouldn't be playing video games instead nowadays? Cause I have to call "bullshit" on that one.

Well compared to 4E and 3.5 would be the primary thing you'd want to compare it to. Pathfinder is basically creating itself as a 4E alternative, a game for people who didn't like 4E and would rather play a fixed 3.5

I agree that Pathfinder won't be as successful as the most successful tabletop RPG on the market.

[Lich-Loved]

I am with the majority on the WoW versus D&D issue. Where I really see the issue is the younger generation (like my kids). I find it very hard to interest them in PnP RPGs with WoW around (though we do get in some Shadowrun and D&D from time to time). They see WoW as limited, but it is a great deal less effort than playing D&D and the distinction is a fairly fine point to them, sadly.

They have a definite emphasis on rapid rewards based on incremental effort. They want to sit down, hook up with their guildies on vent and play for an hour or two and see measurable progress for their character in a material way in that time. D&D is more about the journey than the destination and is a longer journey to boot, so their interest in the PnP game is diminished.

[Roy]

Though to be fair, your character probably will improve in some tangible way in that time. You might not notice yet, because you haven't IDed the loot from the last battle or two, but it's there. Which is more or less how WoW raids work. You are right though, the investment cost is lower with video games, and for many that's enough. Even most of those that play tabletop will still pop in a DVD or DS cartridge or whatever to blow off steam at times.

Different niches. Of course 4.0 tried to compete in the same niche, despite the 'hardware' being all wrong. So eh.

Also, Frank has it right.

[RandomCasualty2]

I would go out on a limb and say that D&D is competing against WoW. I've seen player drift out of gaming circles because their EQ guilds were eating up their evenings. That's an anecdote, but it demonstrates a clear competition between one and the other.

Well sure, but in that sense, D&D is competing with everything. Sports, TV shows, video games, movies, sex, work. You name it. I mean, you could be doing something else on your evenings. So as far as stuff competing for your time that includes pretty much everything.

And I don't really know if D&D should be trying to excessively compete there. You have to design a product for people who want to play an RPG, not designing it with the assumption that they'd rather play Smash Brothers instead. So really you're competing against Shadowrun and GURPS, not so much Smash Brothers and WoW.

[hogarth]

And I don't really know if D&D should be trying to excessively compete there. You have to design a product for people who want to play an RPG, not designing it with the assumption that they'd rather play Smash Brothers instead.

Sure, but don't be surprised that the market share for 6e D&D is less than the market share for 5e D&D which is less than the market for 4e D&D, etc. whereas the market share for Legend of Zelda/Final Fantasy/World of Warcraft/whatever-the-fuck-kids-are-playing-nowadays CCXXVIII gets larger and larger.

[Thymos]

I like what Monte Cook said about this once in defense of the OGL.

DnD's competition isn't the third party publishers. It's real life. So anything that keeps people playing DnD more, even third party books, is a good thing.

There are a few cases of people, but the majority is probably the case where third party publishers kept people playing DnD, so that they bought more books from wizards in the long run than they otherwise would of (more being any).

[RandomCasualty2]

Sure, but don't be surprised that the market share for 6e D&D is less than the market share for 5e D&D which is less than the market for 4e D&D, etc. whereas the market share for Legend of Zelda/Final Fantasy/World of Warcraft/whatever-the-fuck-kids-are-playing-nowadays CCXXVIII gets larger and larger.

3E had more players than 1E/2E did, and 3E had a lot more video games to contend with.

The fact that RPG players are fewer nowadays has more to do with the godawful quality of shit like nWoD and 4E D&D than anything else.

Forget about competition. Those game systems beat themselves.

[hogarth]

3E had more players than 1E/2E did, and 3E had a lot more video games to contend with.

"Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue... AAY!"

The fact that RPG players are fewer nowadays has more to do with the godawful quality of shit like nWoD and 4E D&D than anything else.

Not even close. I don't see a huge rush of young kids running towards other tabletop RPGs, whereas I do see a huge rush of young kids running towards playing video games.

[Username17]

Anyone know where to find that quote from ICE about how they didn't compete against D&D, they road on D&D's coattails? It really is apt. If D&D does well, people will check out other games in the table top RPG genre. If people are out there having fun playing vampire (or whatever), more new players will go play D&D.

D&D is the hobby. If D&D does well, other games rise as well. If D&D isn't doing well the entire hobby suffers. A bad edition of D&D hurts D&D. But it also hurts Champions and Shadowrun.

-Username17

[RandomCasualty2]

Not even close. I don't see a huge rush of young kids running towards other tabletop RPGs, whereas I do see a huge rush of young kids running towards playing video games.

That was true when 3E came out too. Obviously RPGs are still going to be a niche market.

But if their first experience with an RPG (which will probably be D&D) is one they don't like, chances are they won't even try other ones.

I don't really see a huge "rush" lately of people running towards video games. the video game market is pretty much as big as it always has been. Consoles are still popular, that hasn't changed. But fuck, I mean they were around when 3E and 3.5 was released too.

And if consoles were such a drain on RPG players, you'd think that 1E and 2E would have had way more players.

That's just not the case.

Seriously, the numbers just don't agree with the point of view that video games kill RPG sales. If anything games like WoW and Diablo make it easier for you to recruit new people into pencil and paper RPGs because it's more socially acceptable to generate a level 15 necromancer in a game and not look like a weirdo. Back when 1E came out, they thought you were worshipping Satan.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The two biggest reasons (lol Philemon) why MMORPGs have been exploding in growth lately are for three reasons:

1) Videro James nowadays attract a much larger share of the female audience than they used to. There's a reason why the 'there's no girls on the Internet' thing is not only becoming an old meme but a dead meme.

2) Compared to other viderojames, they're really cheap. If you just want to play for a month then it doesn't cost you a lot. Hell, that time period might have actually been free. Granted, it starts to really add up in money after a few months, but c'mon. I own very few games that I have played for more than a span of a month.

3) Probably the biggest one, it's a lot more socially acceptable to play computer games than it used to be. It wasn't very long ago when the hobby of video games was actively looked down upon. But when the Internet got popular then obviously the barrier to playing games went down.

It's still not socially acceptable to play tabletop games. Seriously, if you tell some random person that you play World of Warcraft the most negative reaction you might get is a 'stop looking at Blood Elf tits' comments. But you can still get laughed at for saying that you love Dungeons and Dragons outside the wrong social circle.

Granted, the barriers are certainly breaking down. The leap to pretending that you're a tauren barbarian on the Internet to a gnome thief at a table with several other buddies isn't a stretch of the imagination.

[Starmaker]

While I cannot say that I truly admire the Pathfinder changes or that all of the changes make perfect sense, you are just wasting your time here with this sort of reasoning....This isn't saying that anyone is Doing it Wrong, it is just that approach to the games are so completely different that what you effectively have is a bunch of apples screaming murder at the oranges for being so far off color.

I agree with the points you make, but I don't agree with the conclusion.

1. There are two kinds for players, the first group wants well-written rules and the second makes do with whatever's available.
2. There's no badwrongfun.

So quality of rules is now subjective. One can argue it has always been.

In fact, if Pathfinder had been a standalone game not connected with 3.5 in any way, I'd have agreed with your post in its entirety. But it's not. It's a "fix" for 3.5. Demand for a fix implies recognizing the existence of problems. Pathfinder's target audience was supposed to be "people who see problems with 3.5 and want to fix them but don't know how and oh no not the Tome series please it's too awesome my head will explode".

Fans of PF, had they been allowed to think clearly, shouldn't have had any problems with 3.5. But Wizards started the "3.5 sucks" meme to sell 4e (as they did with 3.0 to sell 3.5) and Paizo jumped on the bandwagon. Because hey, once everyone and their mom knows 3.5 sucks, it's no longer good for Casuals who are suddenly aware of cleric archers and balor mining and the idiocy of LAs despite never having such a problem before.

And Paizo says, "We fixed it. We fixed it. We fixed it. Don't worry. Everything's okay. You can play as you always did." In the opinion of Casuals, there's nothing wrong with Pathfinder (or 4e for that matter), but it being "more balanced" than 3.5 is even more untrue than the cake. Essentially, they were made to go all hardcore on 3.5 and didn't like it. And whoever tries to get them to look at PF/4e in the same light gets his ass banned.

So my conclusion is this: Those who consider PF or 4e to be better than 3.5 are primarily victims of a douchey marketing campaign.

[RandomCasualty2]

So my conclusion is this: Those who consider PF or 4e to be better than 3.5 are primarily victims of a douchey marketing campaign.

Well one reason people may like 4E better is because at low levels, 4E tends to be better. For all it's options, most people never played 3E beyond like level 3 in most games, and your options were seriously limited. As a level 1 wizard, you basically chose between color spray or sleep. That's it.

Fighters almost always just ran up and used the attack action.

In many regards 4E seems to offer people more options up front. If I had to play low level, I'd much rather play 4E. The problem is that 4E stays that way for the entire game. Unlike 3E which rapidly gets more complex, 4E always plays the same.

Problem is that you'd rarely actually see most of that complexity. How often honestly did you see DMs running high level 3E games?

[hogarth]

And if consoles were such a drain on RPG players, you'd think that 1E and 2E would have had way more players.

Video games (especially internet video games) have gotten much better/more popular since 2000. Maybe you live in a cave and you haven't noticed, though.

I bet more horses were sold in 1910 than in 1900, despite the fact that horses had to compete with the Model T Ford in 1910.

[Psychic Robot]

Also, 4e is less broken than 3e. 4e resolved a lot of issues that 3e had (while creating others in the process) that were less "fun" for players--characters dying in one hit at first level, insane crits, an irritating skill system, single-spell autowins, that kind of thing.

[Lago PARANOIA]

This false dichtomy is getting silly.

Look, the reason why more people are playing video games than playing tabletop RPGs is because tabletop RPGs have been for whatever reason doing some hardcore suckage lately.

But if you're just going to go 'video games are a technologically superior medium so they'll always win', it does make me wonder why people continue to invest big bux in that money sink of time and quality known as manga.

[RandomCasualty2]

Video games (especially internet video games) have gotten much better/more popular since 2000. Maybe you live in a cave and you haven't noticed, though.

That's true, but that doesn't mean anything. The claim is that video games take away D&D players. Pretty much all of my D&D players play video games too. They also either go to school or have a job, and surprise! they still play D&D.

Thus far I haven't seen any negative correlation between video games and tabletop RPGs.

The question isn't if video games are more popular than TTRPGs. The question is if the existence of video games is a liability to TTRPGs because it draws away people who would normally play TTRPGs and they play video games instead.

[hogarth]

This false dichtomy is getting silly.

Look, the reason why more people are playing video games than playing tabletop RPGs is because tabletop RPGs have been for whatever reason doing some hardcore suckage lately.

But if you're just going to go 'video games are a technologically superior medium so they'll always win', it does make me wonder why people continue to invest big bux in that money sink of time and quality known as manga.

I never said that at all, so don't put words in my mouth. What I'm saying is that the same demographic who likes tabletop RPGs generally likes video games, too. So they're competing for that demographic's fixed amount of leisure time. But:
(a) you don't need to co-ordinate schedules with a bunch of different people to play video games (although you can if you want);
(b) you don't need a referee to play video games;
(c) video games are more socially acceptable (as you yourself pointed out);
(d) video games have a much faster progression than RPGs do (usually).

Face it -- the average age of a tabletop RPG player is getting older and older. Kids just aren't picking up the hobby like they used to. Any arguments about "hardcore suckage" of games lately are a joke; the 3.5e Player's Handbook didn't get any better or worse over the years, and yet sales dropped off after a while. Why? Because they saturated the nerd market and couldn't break into the larger market (video games). In fact, it went the other way -- video games (like WoW and others) started stealing time away from playing tabletop RPGs.

Not to mention that there are plenty of "hardcore sucking" games that sold plenty of copies in their day (e.g. various flavours of Palladium).

That's true, but that doesn't mean anything. The claim is that video games take away D&D players. Pretty much all of my D&D players play video games too. They also either go to school or have a job, and surprise! they still play D&D.

What percentage of those players started playing D&D since 2005 (say)? Zero percent? Most of the D&D players I know play at least partly out of nostalgia.

[Lich-Loved]

I agree with the points you make, but I don't agree with the conclusion.

1. There are two kinds for players, the first group wants well-written rules and the second makes do with whatever's available.
2. There's no badwrongfun.

I agree with this; this is what I was saying. In fact, I am not really sure where we do disagree. Let's see...

So quality of rules is now subjective. One can argue it has always been.

Well, I am not so sure about this. In the end, I think the Homogenousists have it right. Game rules are objectively good or bad. They either enable one to tell a consistent story or the stand in the way of telling a consistent story. The rules either support the design goals mathematically/logically or they do not. What I do think is subjective is how one chooses to handle this reality. The Practicalists don't care if the product meets the goals and are internally consistent whereas the Homongenousists do care about these things. To use an analogy, your spouse/SignificantOther may have zits over 75% of his/her/its back. It is an objective fact. You may chose to overlook these defects whereas someone that is really bothered by such a thing could not or would not. There really isn't much in the way of subjectivity there, just on how reality is viewed.

I am really not too sure how we are disagreeing for the latter part of your post. Pathfinder (IMHO) is flawed because it is based upon 3.5 which is itself flawed, but it is what it is because the people receiving it are willing to overlook (or are blissfully unaware of) its flaws and because Paizo had no choice but to base it upon 3.5 for business reasons. This doesn't make it less flawed, it makes the flaws not matter from a marketing standpoint. The fact that you see it as flawed only means that you and I are are both Homogenousists and are unwilling to accept it as an improvement over 3.5 because it clearly does not do what it said it was trying to do.

It is really for this reason that I gave up on Pathfinder. I still like Paizo as a company, but the PFRPG was a fool's errand. What truly needed to be done (break backwards compatibility as a design goal, rework problem magic spells, remove reaction multiplicity, and provide powerful boosts to melee types across the board) could never be done practically.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I never said that at all, so don't put words in my mouth. What I'm saying is that the same demographic who likes tabletop RPGs generally likes video games, too. So they're competing for that demographic's fixed amount of leisure time.

So why do videogames win out over attention? The reasons you give below have everything to do with technological superiority. I don't know how that's putting words in your mouth.

But:
(a) you don't need to co-ordinate schedules with a bunch of different people to play video games (although you can if you want);

This is an enormous disadvantage of tabletop games, true, and this is one that will always be in favor of videro james.

Of course, people don't have the same problem with MMORPGs even though it should be one--after all, if you weren't interested in playing with other humans, you would be playing a regular video game. I think the biggest problem with this is that when you play an MMORPG, you don't necessarily have to have all or even any of your buddies around to still be doing something. If no one shows up you can still be fishing or goldsmithing or some shit--and staying around longer increases the likelihood of someone showing up.

(b) you don't need a referee to play video games;

I don't know if this is necessarily a positive or negative thing about tabletop games. From the perspective of actually getting people to want to play the role, I definitely think that there is a demand. After all, people play Sims. However, DMing requires a lot more work than just being the god of a simulation game (which can be mitigated by not having rules that suck so much) and also requires a certain level of commitment from the person; after all, if you get bored in the middle of a game you can't just pack up and leave the rest of your players holding the bag.

(c) video games are more socially acceptable (as you yourself pointed out);

This fortunately is being mitigated by the increasing social acceptance of 'nerd' hobbies so this will no longer be an excuse soon. If the beast is still around.

(d) video games have a much faster progression than RPGs do (usually).

Which may or may not be an advantage. If you're interested in watching your numbers go up and lording over the newbies, sure, tabletop games are a weak substitute, but I definitely think that people do want to indulge their imaginations. The problem is that if you want to do it in a group tabletop games are pretty much the best way to do it. The best progress MMORPGs will ever make is getting people together, which, sadly, is a pretty overwhelming advantage.