This is just the break Paizo has been waiting for!
It’s worth remembering that Musk had to be sued by Twitter to force the sale. He didn’t enter into it to change the name and post the world’s dumbest memes – those were the consolation prize after the lost the lawsuit to get out of the deal. You’d think the experience would make him (or at least other investors) a bit more cautious about joke offers and I seriously doubt anything will come from this besides Musk farming praise from the usual fanbois.
If he DID, in some sad universe, buy it out then see Line One of this post.
None of this should imply that I think Hasbro is doing a bang-up job. I just don’t see Musk going through on his idle Twitter trolling and think it would be even worse than Hasbro if he did.
I mostly don’t take it serious, but, yeah, given Musk’s behavior over the last few years I won’t entirely discount it. I’m not sure he can actually muster the resources to buy Hasbro though and even if he did I could live with it. I wouldn’t buy anything from WotC if he owned it but I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it either.
2024 revision to the 5th edition rules replaces races with species.
NYT gifted article. It’s not that great. I’m trying to figure out the underlying story.
Ok, so few people play 4th edition rules, 3.x rules are still popular, and 5th edition rules are… ??? Have I got that right? What’s the story with the 5th edition rules update?
Pathfinder works off of 3.x, right?
ETA: Ok I was wrong about 3.x, if you believe the 2021 Orr market report. Which you may not.
ETA: I probably should have posted this in the other thread. Apologies:
As noted, Pathfinder (first edition) was based on D&D 3.5, which Paizo could do due to the nature of the 3.5 Open Game License. However, it is a different game – they did change some rules from 3.5, and expanded on it a lot; as @DrDeth notes, Pathfinder 1 was, in essence, “3.75 D&D.”
When 4E D&D came out, in 2008, WotC stopped supporting 3.5, and the lion’s share of players who really liked 3.5 switched to Pathfinder (which also came out in 2008). For several years there, prior to the introduction of 5E D&D, Pathfinder was, from industry numbers I saw back then, outselling 4E.
5E (and things like the Critical Role series) both brought veteran players back to D&D, and brought in a lot of new players, and thus, as shown in your chart, 5E regained market dominance, in a big way.
By the time of that chart (2021), 3.5 had been unsupported and out of print for over a dozen years; given the presence of Pathfinder for players who preferred 3.5 (over 4E or 5E D&D), it doesn’t surprise me that few were still playing 3.5.
Yes, but my informal poll showed that Critical Role didnt bring in new players- after all why watch a show with talking head about D&D unless you are really interested or already play?
Oddly my poll did show a modest number of new players due to Stranger Things. Other TV shows like Big Bang Theory and Community also attracted new players.
Interesting point, and I suppose it makes sense. OTOH, I do wonder if it attracted RPG players, who had moved away from D&D during 4E, to “come back home.”
That report is just based on people logging into Roll20 and playing their games there. It’s a reflection of a specific, narrow section of gamers as a whole. That said, I don’t think it’s a bad yardstick by which to measure the popularity of games. I would expect 5th edition to be far more popular than the next popular game.
While I think it’s a silly change, I don’t really care and I’ve started calling it species instead of race. It doesn’t fundamentally change the game in any meaningful way. I’m sure in 20-30 years when species becomes unacceptable for some reason they’ll change what word they use again.
I’ve heard the same, but then I’ve heard from others that this wasn’t actually the case. But Pathfinder was certainly an attractive alternative for people who weren’t interested in 5th edition. Behind D&D, Pathfinder is probably the next most popular game sold at my local game store. Although Call of Cthulhu might be close.
And, we played PF1, and it was a good game- like 3.5 but fixed. We only went to 5e as we got some new players, and Paizo had gone to PF2- which I am not a fan of, but I admit I only played it once. Looks okay, mind you.
I’ve long liked “species” because we’re not talking about differences between indigenous humans from central Africa and indigenous humans from northern Canada, but the differences between humans in general and completely alien beings coming from other worlds, separate planes of existence, hand-crafted by deities, etc. The only issue that should exist in saying [Fantasy Species A] is smarter/stronger/tougher/etc than [Fantasy Species B] is one of game mechanics and balance.
It’s ironic then that they finally chose to go with “species” while making the options increasingly homogeneous. But, hey, I approve of the term. It’s not very fantasy sounding but neither is “hit points”, “spell levels”, “saving throws”, etc. As a mechanic term, it’s superior or “races” and, in game, I just assume it’s abstracted to “kinfolk” or similar.
I wanted it to be true for Paizo’s sake, because while I did play 4E for a while, I switched to PF1 around 2011 when 4E wasn’t fun for me anymore. My understanding is that 4E sold 2x as much as PF1 at the lowest. 5E is something like 10x more.
I do think that PF1 was better than 3.5 in most, if not all, ways. I think the best was bloodlines to sorcerer and fighters actually being the best with the bonuses, or reduction of penalties, they get in PF1.
Having said that, when I run PF1, I do want many ideas from 5E in it. I like how 5E has sorcerers doing metamagic feats and wizards creating items. I like how they did memorization in 5E for wizards. (I’m surprised PF2 hasn’t done something like that.) If we were still using this and in person, I would use those as house rules.
Well, no and yes. Words mean something. Each person will have things that don’t work for them. Species sounds more scifi to me, which is why I like ancestry or heritage better but it’s not a game breaker for me. I also like that in LU that it’s possible to be a human, raised by dwarves, and have some traits of dwarves due to that. I mean, why not? It’s fantasy.
What snaps me out of fantasy is the term psionics. To me, that’s SciFi. Psionics as a term never worked for me in DND. However, Occult as Paizo used in PF1 and now PF2 works for me even if it’s the same thing.
Other points.
I was listening to a Roll for Combat stream and I was very happy when they brought up GNS (Gamist, Narrativist, Simulationist) theory. WoW is based on DND. I don’t think it’s a controversy to say that. However, to get players to play every class and race, which keeps them in the game for longer, WoW needs the choices all balanced. (Same as MK1 from what my brother tells me.) Sure, an elf wizard might be .1% better than the dwarf wizard, and when the numbers get higher that makes a bigger difference, but percentage wise, they aren’t that different. That is what WotC took back from WoW and tried to do in 4E.
For those that don’t know, quite simply, 3.5/PF1 is more simulationist. Again, I think we can agree that some people are better at athletics, acrobatics, or history. It can be based on ability scores or aptitude (feats) or training and experience (levels). That certainly made sense to me and is in the 3.X/PF1 mechanics. The reason high level play is difficult in PF1 is because in being simulationist, the numbers are too far apart. The reflex save of the rogue is ten points higher than the fighter. The fighter’s attack is ten points higher than the rogue’s, much less the wizard. Both are ten points behind the wizard’s will save. I have seen a lot more difference, to be clear. I think in my last PF1 game at level 15, there was a twenty point difference. That means that when the DM is picking monsters, skill challenges, or anything to mechanically use against the players, whatever they pick, one character will defeat it easily and another will struggle. It’s tough to balance encounters.
4E lowered those differences. It had other problems but from that standpoint, it works.
5E has defined bounded accuracy. The numbers don’t get very high. It removes tough math (Hence Pathfinder being called Mathfinder with some of the things that need to be calculated) and keeps things moving. More than that, though, as this was another point in the Roll for Combat stream, is that it is tough to die in 5E and the xp requirements are such that after one session, the character will probably level up. After the second session, they will probably level up again. Then it slows down. This is very important.
I know many people who tried DND back in the 80s and 90s. DMs, not knowing better, followed the (simulationist) rules and characters died. To a wargamer, losing a unit didn’t matter, they rolled up a new one and kept going. A lot of people starting to play DND in the 80s and 90s weren’t wargamers, so didn’t have that view. Character death isn’t fun, especially when you are first learning the game. I think that’s why a lot of people didn’t stick with DND. They spent an hour creating a character only to have it die in an hour of gaming. Creating a character isn’t that fun that they want to do it again already!
Flash forward to today and there are old school gamers who say it’s tough to die in a 5E game. That’s by design. That’s what keeps people coming back to the table and playing the game. It’s fun. It’s why a lot of the “save or die” mechanics have been removed. A few are still there, and a few spells in 5E can kill instantly as well, but those are higher level. As we have discussed, 5E doesn’t tend to play at higher levels, so they can leave those alone. It makes it look like those things are still in the game but in reality, they aren’t.
What PF2 did, then is merely create 4E with a sliding bounded accuracy. It’s 4E because it uses a lot of keywords that define how things interact with each other. The bounding accuracy slides because character’s add their level to all statistics, including saves and AC. That’s what allows a PF2 character to mow down low level threats at higher levels, because the low level threats won’t hit as often and won’t get crits without that nat 20. Sometimes, not even then. There are optional rules in PF2 to remove the level adder. It still isn’t 5E with the keywords and other aspects but the numbers look similar to 5E.
I do think that Critical Role brought more people into 5E until Stranger Things. Then I think that brought more people into the game. I have no evidence of that, it’s my opinion based on my reading and listening to others.
Due to early TSR psionics, where you could get a fairly powerful psionic PC just by “rolling” extremely well- which of course people did, amazingly, and then psionics got ten actions to regular PCs one, allowing the non psionic players to go out for pizza- I have hated psionics in D&D. Still do, even tho the two/three “psionic” 5e subclasses are really very psionic at all.
Yep. On the WotC boards a small group of posters (several of whom admitted they didnt even play D&D anyway) were screaming for more balance among the classes- altho others didnt care and it wasnt needed. (Fighter and Rogue were still two of the most popular classes, even tho at high levels, any spellcaster was far more powerful). So WotC listened to the small but vocal minority and did 4e- where indeed- all the classes were almost perfectly balanced. And of course that small but vocal minority- hated 4e.
Mind you for all the 4e hate, our DM bought the elite DM package for his computer and we had a great and fun 4e campaign. I will admit, it was gonna be hard to play with pencil and paper, however.
There is still a core of so called DMs, plus some idiot who calls himself a “professor” on YT who delight in having deadly games where PCs drop like flies.
In our 5e games, we dont have many deaths- in one long campaign, I think it was 4 deaths over 14 levels- mind you we had Revivify so several Pcs “died” but were brought back quickly.
Like i said, we had some sessions at Barnes & Noble for new players- and no one said that CR brought them in. And I thought about it- why would you even watch CR unless you were interested in D&D?
I concur. In my nearly five decades of DMing I have had it happen only twice- once with a small- three member- party of 1st levels in AD&D and again with a 2 person party of 4th level PCs who insisted on going deeper into the dungeon that was advisable for their level. Again AD&D.
I saw an almost TPK when the DM sent a swarm of some sort of demon hornets- in 3.5- swarms being really hard to kill in 3.5. One PC got away- they chased us.
TPKs aren’t a good thing. But the possibility of them is. The whole point of a game is for the party to overcome risks. There’s two parts to that: They have to overcome, of course, but also there has to be risk.
I used the 4E character maker and agree it was required. I think it’s too bad it can’t be used anymore. I think Hero Lab Classic is needed for PF1. I’m bummed they went to Hero Lab Online. I used to love that company but they annoy me now with licensing. Their handling of Realm Works also pissed me off.
I’m torn on him. I can’t tell if he is a “killer DM” or not. I know he trolled with a recent clickbait video but I haven’t watched that one. I can see how he can be annoyed that his clickbait gets over 100k videos and his painting videos, videos that people tell him they want, get 20k views or less. His reviews of other games are also low. (I say this but not having much of a social media presence, 20k sounds like a lot, much less 100k.)
I admit I want to meet a lot of the current social media DND people (Ginny Di, Glicker, Professor, Bob World Builder, Mann Shorts (although they had to quit), DND Shorts, and a few others) and see what they are like in real life. However, that requires a con, which is expensive, and then expensive tickets to get that kind of time with them. In the end, I would rather spend that money on other things.
ftr, all of my groups have had a TPK in a campaign that ended it.
For me, it’s expectations. I’m telling a story about this group in a particular area of my FR. If they die on a boss monster or the BBEG, it’s a good story. If they die from some random encounter, it’s annoying. When combat starts, though, I let the dice decide. My players have routinely shown they can take extreme encounters and win. The one thing I have done for decades is that if a character goes down, even if they should die by the rules, the party has a round to react and get them some magical healing to save them. It distracts at least one character as they work to do this, so I think it’s fair.
In the past, prior to running PF2, they would end up with overpowered characters who would easily defeat the big bad. I’m still adding my own things to PF2 that are probably overpowered but fun. I’m also hoping to take the PF2 games to high levels because I think it will be easier to run a high level game in PF2.
All that to say I agree that the threat of failure, or TPK, is there but it’s not the norm.
I’m running for adults with families who choose to be at my table so I do what I can to make it worth their time.
Thanks for the discussion and reading my ramblings!
A… little bit? Everquest was based off D&D. It’s all over the game’s DNA from fake beholders and gelatinous cubes to alignment systems to racial/class barriers to monks getting Feign Death and Safe Fall as skills while Rogues got Pick Locks and Detect Traps. Everquest was made to be simulationist in a bunch of ways, trying to be like living in a fantasy campaign world. It also had tons of grindy aspects and things that made it inaccessible to casual players and was mired by “The Vision” set by Brad McQuaid to keep it as it was.
WoW looked at that and saw a popular core with a bunch of less popular barriers to player fun so they carved most of those off and created a much more streamlined and player-friendly experience. WoW is an MMO based off a game that was based off D&D. Which makes it more interesting to see 4e design choices. EQ tried to make a fairly direct port of D&D and suffered for it as a video game. 4e tried to make a pretty direct port of some MMO mechanics and suffered for it as a tabletop game.
Of course, there was also an official d20/3.5e conversion of Everquest which I doubt anyone played much and completely failed to capture the feel of either game.
