Pathfinder is likely best. At least they wont come out with a new “edition” every couple of years, making all your old stuff useless.
The change fro 3.5 to 4th, especially with the “3.5 was stuuupid” propaganda really hurt the player base. Then, when 4th folded, coming out with 5th so soon hurt also.
Gotta admit, I’ve played D&D since 1977. I was getting pretty bored with it when 3.0 came out and it completely rejuvenated me in spirit and my gaming. I mean, Dragons with HUNDREDS of hit points? FINALLY! YES!
4e completely deflated me and I still have a lot of issues with it, but I still play it with one group because the social aspect is more important - I enjoy gaming with those guys.
I’ve bought a ton of Pathfinder books and am playing with creating my own setting, but I have not (so far) lifted a finger to find a game or players.
And yeah, that “won’t be another completely different release in 3 years” is a big thing to me.
Weird–I just checked my shelves, and all my old books dating back to the 1977 Blue Cover edition are still there. I sometimes play 1970s style D&D with buddies at cons, and I know people who still play 1st and 3rd edition. I really don’t think that lack of new editions is an argument in Pathfinder’s favor, since I’m able to induce a lack of new editions in my own game just by not buying them.
I really believe that which version of D&D you like–or whether you play a different fantasy RPG entirely, or ignore the genre in favor of pinochle tournaments–is simply a matter of taste. The reason there are so many different games is because different folks are looking for different things in their games.
Oy, that old chestnut.
Apparently Wizards of the Coast figured out how to install DRM on all the sourcebooks that erase the pages of old editions when new ones come out. Thankfully, my copies appear to be bugged.
Yeah, it’s a well documented fact that older editions of D&D burst into purple flame and burn to pale ashes that smell faintly of owlbear dung whenever a new edition is released.
And yet oddly, Chimera found his interest in the game REVIVED by a new edition.
What is the advantage of there never being a new edition? That you’ll be able to keep giving Paizo your money indefinitely, I guess?
Clearly my opinion is some sort of weird fringe minority, but my ideal RPG is one that DOESN’T say “Wouldn’t you like to spend another $30 on another book?” every six months. And before you say “You can just not buy them!” the answer to that is “Sure, but then I have to tell my players that they can’t use the options from the Book of Ultimate Slashing” and start keeping track of what is and isn’t allowed, and so on. I don’t really need dozens of pounds of books to bring with me to the game, or hundreds of pages to sift through looking for the ideal feat or whatever. These are not things that enhance my gaming experience, and I don’t think they are an advantage for someone learning the game or trying to return it to either.
Indeed, if a game company doesn’t insist on bilking you $30 every few months for a new splatbook, those new editions become much more appealing because you can get whatever improvements they offer without feeling like your “collection” has been invalidated, because you haven’t spend $500 on the previous edition. I certainly didn’t have any problem dropping money on the new edition of Mouse Guard.
I was just quoting their claims.
Certainly you can still play AD&D, but there’s no new stuff. Certainly you can play 3.5- but again, it’s not supported. No FAQ, no errata, no new sourcebooks, etc.
I’m intensely curious. What “New stuff” has value for you? Do you run pre-published adventures? Are you unable to sustain interest in a game without new mechanical features? And even given these critera, can you assert that you have actually exhausted the existing supply of these things for older editions of these games?
As for FAQs and errata, in my experience, they don’t really change that much over time - if a game has been out for five years and hasn’t issued errata for any rules issues that deserve it, it could be argued that that game was in fact NEVER supported, so the problem is not a lack of “ongoing” support so much as the fact that the company never gave a crap in the first place.
Well, right. So you can either stick with Pathfinder, which will probably continue putting out new books every few months at 30 bucks a pop.
Or you can pick up a new edition of D&D and play with that. What’s the difference so long as everyone is having fun?
Pathfinder fans always seem to argue from a point that the new editions of D&D make the old ones “useless,” but I never understood that. I think gaming groups that play the same campaign using the same set of rules for years upon years upon years are the exception rather than the rule.
In my extended gaming circle, just in the last few years, I’ve played FATE Core, Traveller (the original version), D&D 5e, L5R 4e, Warhammer 40k, Pendragon 4e, and the new Fantasy Flight Star Wars. Probably a couple others that I don’t remember.
So sure, if your **only goal **is to pick one single system and stick to it FOREVER AND EVER YEA EVEN UNTO THE END OF TIME, then go with Pathfinder, because at this point they’re kind of beholden to their fans who’ve spent the last decade looking down their noses at WotC for daring to release multiple editions of D&D.
Otherwise, there might be better options. Or maybe not! Pathfinder’s not a bad system. Just particular.
Players like “new stuff”. That’s why that stuff sells like hotcakes.
Well, 3.0. 3.5, 4th, 5th and PF have/had all been issuing FAQ and errata for years. Many of the changes were significant.
I love Pathfinder. I haven’t bought a single book. Full and free release is part of their marketing strategy. I send my GM links to anything weird I want to use; he looks it up in his books, or else online just like I did.
(If you’re not referencing Pathfinder when you talk about constant splatbooks, my apologies).
I include Pathfinder, because they still suffer from the rest of the problems with infinite splatbooks: Power creep, edge cases, huge lists, and making the game into work to keep track of.
Certainly they’re not the only people guilty of it, though most of their competitors have either given up on the model or died, because it’s been shown to essentially kill the business over time. I think Pathfinder is going to have to come up with some radical pretty soon, or Paizo is going to go the same way.
Is that why every company except Paizo that used that business model has either abandoned it or gone belly up?
And I’d bet that they didn’t issue any after five years.
WotC is still in business. Chaosium is still in business. Hero Games is still in business.
Pinnacle is still in business. Steve Jackson Games is still in business. Kenzer & Company is still in business.
Pretty much all of the current top tabletop RPG game publishers use that model.
Its extremely profitable and they all use that business model.
Okay, those are reasons why some people don’t like the game. THey’re very different from “spend another $30 on another book”, “dozens of pounds of books to bring with me to the game”, and “hundreds of pages to sift through looking for the ideal feat or whatever.” The srd obviates all those concerns.
As for power creep, I’m not sure how big an issue that is. Definitely Pathfinder is constantly introducing new options, and yeah, things like the unchained rogue appear stronger to me than the original rogue. But if enemies are scaling at the same time, that’s not a problem for me.
If you don’t like big lists, that’s cool. Some of us enjoy the beancounter aspect :).
Right, which is totally cool. I can see how Pathfinder scratches a particular itch.
It just gets tiresome to hear the same “One System to Rule Them All” thing trotted out repeatedly.
Right there with you. Edition wars are astonishingly pathetic, and I have no patience for them at all.
WotC no longer uses this method - you might not have noticed, but there have been zero “splat” books announced for 5E. Chaosium is trying to recover from near death. Hero Games dabbled in this model but seem to have largely abandoned it.
I’m don’t think Pinnacle counts here, because they are basically following the GURPS model of not releasing supplements for “the same game” but rather broadening the scope of their generic system. Releasing a game that has a Pulp Action Heroes book, a Three Musketeers book, a Transhuman Sci Fi book, and a Fantasy Adventure book is not the same as releasing a game with two dozen class and race supplement books.
Steve Jackson has basically ceased to publish GURPs (which, incidentally, was on the same model as Savage Worlds rather than the traditional splat treadmill); They make all their money on card and board games these days.
Kenzer has produced a lot of editions of their games, but I don’t feel like they’ve actually done many splats.
And almost all of these companies are trying desperately to stay above water except for the ones (WotC and SJG) which basically have other products that bring in all the money and publish RPGs pretty much for the lols from a financial perspective.
And something else that’s interesting? Pretty much every company you rattle off in this list is an aging old-guard outfit; This was the business model twenty years ago and it nearly killed RPGs.
Except say, Evil Hat, WotC, Onyx Path, Mongoose, Catalyst, Burning Wheel, and any of literally hundreds of independent publishers. And if you think that’s meaningless, I think Kenzer, Chaosium, and Hero Games are pretty meaningless too, in terms of number of books moved; They’ve just been around longer.
Not sure I really see the difference. Each of the AD&D 2nd Ed. supplement books broadened the scope in one way or another. If your group wasn’t interested in going that way, you skipped it.
WotC D&D Next has only been out for about a year and a half, and they already have a dozen + products, two of which are splat books of a sort. (“New race options include the aarakocra, deep gnome, genasi, and goliath. Additionally, a plethora of new spells put the elements directly at your command.”)
I “rattled off” the Top Six selling RPG game companies:
They may be “aging” and “old guard” but they are also best selling and even profitable in some cases.
And sure, i like Evil Hat, but they havent made a RPG game that has yet sold enough for a series of splatbooks.
Mongoose puts out Traveler ,which has *many *splatbooks. So does CWoD by Onyx games. Hackmaster has about a half-dozen splatbooks.
If a RPG game is successful, they will put out supplements- as many as the market will bear. That’s where the money is.
Perhaps a different thread wherein we bicker about publisher strategies and who killed off the industry would be a good idea? The question here is which system a particular person might prefer, and unless you’re REALLY an insider baseball person, publisher histories and financial returns aren’t going to be all that relevant.
What would be an edge case in terms of an RPG?
Back to the topic: if you’re going to get into Pathfinder this is the best time, because of the Humble Bundle. Or, it might be that pushing cheap versions of their old stuff is actually going to continue to be a winning strategy for getting people to buy newer material, so something like it will come up again. Otherwise, when the back catalog seems so overwhelming, I would think it would be discouraging to potential new customers.