Pathfinder 2nd Edition

Heaven's Thunder Hammer · Sat Apr 14, 2018 8:24 pm

So, it is happening.

https://thegaminggang.com/game-news/tak ... ugust-2nd/

August starts the open play test for 2E.

I'd like to hope that you know, they'd actually take a serious look at fixing things. But... I've been burned too many times by other systems and companies to be very hopeful.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Sat Apr 14, 2018 9:03 pm

I object to the word "other" in that sentence.

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Sat Apr 14, 2018 9:14 pm

I don't think my vowels will be able to produce enough shit to fling at four hundred pages of drivel, but I'm not one to turn down free comic ideas.

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sat Apr 14, 2018 9:17 pm

Dogbert wrote:I'm not one to turn down free comic ideas.

It'll take up your time and all of us only have a finite amount of that to spend before we perish

Dogbert · Post by **Dogbert** » Sat Apr 14, 2018 10:11 pm

OgreBattle wrote:It'll take up your time and all of us only have a finite amount of that to spend before we perish

Ikr? It's just sad to see that, between dnd5 and pf2, d&d is officially dead. No big-name alternatives, murderhobo enthusiasts are all back to square one, scribbling proto-systems and heartbreakers in their garage.

d&d is dead, and pf2's beta is going to be its death certificate.

Pariah Dog · Post by **Pariah Dog** » Sat Apr 14, 2018 11:31 pm

Well perhaps with it's death one of those murderhobo enthusiasts (I'm stealing that) can put out the next big thing to rise from the ashes.

Shrieking Banshee · Post by **Shrieking Banshee** » Sat Apr 14, 2018 11:36 pm

Pariah Dog wrote:Well perhaps with it's death one of those murderhobo enthusiasts (I'm stealing that) can put out the next big thing to rise from the ashes.

That can happen, but it will take a long time if it does because of the fallout.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sun Apr 15, 2018 4:55 am

We're definitely in a "decadence of TSR" period like the 90s when a 3rd party can become the biggest game by eclipsing D&D. White Wolf did it with Vampire, and it could be done again.

I'm having a bit of a failure of imagination at the moment as to how that gets done. Vampire got out there by having very high production values for the time period. Currently washed up has-been systems like SR5 have glossy full-color hardcovers. Even non-contenders like Onyx Path put out 400 page tomes filled with funky fonts and decent art.

It seems obvious that with all the top RPGs being so weak that it is time for a new system to take over like it was 1995 with Vampire's high quality production values or 2000 with 3e D&D's unmatched accessibility. A decent game system could hammer a stake into the heart of any of the major RPGs thrashing about at the moment. But I have no idea how one gets there. Probablyit requires a company that's big in some other area to give it a marketing push.

Sadly, I think really that the next big game is going to be some licensed thing. Some new version of Star Wars or Marvel Heroes or something. Those have a pretty bad history of being good as games, but they generally sell better than some rando's homebrew. And I don't see how any game is going to be treated as anything other than some rando's homebrew in the current market.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Apr 15, 2018 7:10 am

FrankTrollman wrote:But I have no idea how one gets there.

Aside from hitting those baseline high production values that are straight-up expected of everything, it's probably going to have to be "something that actually does what D&D4Ed promised to do with the online presence and subscription". With actual daily content and the ability to submit your own stuff for people to thumbs-up and so on. More of that and less of "weekly patch notes".

OgreBattle · Post by **OgreBattle** » Sun Apr 15, 2018 2:12 pm

I feel Fantasy Flight could take DnD and PF's place, their Star Wars RPG looks fun and it's easy to understand

Shrieking Banshee · Post by **Shrieking Banshee** » Sun Apr 15, 2018 3:47 pm

OgreBattle wrote:I feel Fantasy Flight could take DnD and PF's place, their Star Wars RPG looks fun and it's easy to understand

I generally feel like you can't really have a game focused more on in-plot immersion where your die rolls are literally linked to narrative convenience.

Not saying that's a bad thing, but that's more like FATE then D&D.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Sun Apr 15, 2018 11:18 pm

You could probably get away with killing a lot of 80s sacred cows at this point.

There's not a lot of hardcore enthusiasm for 5e at this point, just a resigned acceptance that both 4e and 3e are bloated, broken messes that require piles of doublethink to function.

As is though you're still losing to video games.

DenizenKane · Post by **DenizenKane** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 12:52 am

The way I see it,

The next edition that really succeeds is going to being to a cross between a video game and a TTRPG. The whole game will be within a client. Where you can build your character, build monsters, connect with friends, and play with graphics and action resolutions handled by programming. Like Roll20 with a team behind it developing content like League of Legends.

Wiseman · Post by **Wiseman** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 1:53 am

That's something I've always wanted, but at the rate things are going, it seems like it would be easy to fuck up.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 4:27 am

DenizenKane wrote:The way I see it,

The next edition that really succeeds is going to being to a cross between a video game and a TTRPG. The whole game will be within a client. Where you can build your character, build monsters, connect with friends, and play with graphics and action resolutions handled by programming. Like Roll20 with a team behind it developing content like League of Legends.

That's called a MMO, and the market's kinda already saturated with them.

Granted none does all that you ask, but good luck finding investment to start and keep it running and then making yourself heard in the market.

Not to mention, being a MMO, balance is mandatory accross all levels if you want to survive, so yeah good luck with that. You can't afford any "High levels don't matter lol" noise.

Remember that even Pathfinder tried to do a mmo a few years ago and even they ended up just canning the idea and going back to books and pdfs.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 4:30 am

The quality of the rules of the latest offerings from all the various tabletop RPG major companies have been extremely bad to the point that enormous amounts of mind caulk and house ruling is required to make pretty much anything happen. While Tabletop RPGs do have the advantage that they can accept literally any amount of mind caulk and continue to be playable no matter how many divide by zero errors they contain - computer games do not.

The more the game is "automated," the more the really shit level of the rules is going to matter. Anything that causes the computer to choke on a dick is a potential crash bug. When an MC sees an irresistible force hit an immovable object they just declare a result and the game fucking moves on, when a CPU sees that, it needs to be rebooted.

Even games we praise tend to lean very heavily on Oberoni and/or Page 42. Computers do not and cannot. All the parts of the game that you automate need to have the expectation of working without house rules of any kind. I can't think of a single RPG for which that is true.

-Username17

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 4:41 am

Clearly the sign of a true AI should be when one can run a tabletop RPG session without crashing.

Pariah Dog · Post by **Pariah Dog** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 4:46 am

I think that 4th edition DnD MMO (Neverwinter?) tried its hand at some of that (with the user generated content dungeons) but I didn't stick around very long in that game to find out.

As fun as that sounds you'd be limited to what the game already has hard coded into it so when you want to whip up some kind of home made custom baddie, it falls apart. I already have Owlbears, but I want Bearowls (had these in a "mad geneticists" wizard's lab in an Ebberon game once) or other random houserule fuckery.

Shrieking Banshee · Post by **Shrieking Banshee** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 5:12 am

Videogames are competition for Tabletop RPGs like Cars are competition for horseback riding.

As in maybe a long time ago but now the latter is mainly for people not looking for the former experience.

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 7:09 am

Alas, the "people not looking for the former experience." are fewer and fewer. Cars/video games are just a lot more efficient, and in particular modern lifestyles make it much easier to use cars/video games.

3e hit that sweet spot where you could mass produce quality books at affordable prices but just before the internet and mmos started taking off and computers becoming mainstream.

Nowadays you need to somehow integrate your stuff online, or you're pretty much doomed to failure or a very niche market at best.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 2:13 pm

FrankTrollman wrote: Even games we praise tend to lean very heavily on Oberoni and/or Page 42.

That's the first time I've seen that reference. I know the Oberoni fallacy, but what is "page 42"? Some well-known page in some DMG that says "the DM's word is final", or something?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 2:31 pm

RobbyPants wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote: Even games we praise tend to lean very heavily on Oberoni and/or Page 42.
That's the first time I've seen that reference. I know the Oberoni fallacy, but what is "page 42"? Some well-known page in some DMG that says "the DM's word is final", or something?

Page 42 is the page of the 4e DMG covering "Actions the Rules Don't Cover"

And has things like "just add +2 to the DC" and "just roll literally any skill at all against the DC we wrote in a table below that scales with level." And thus the idea that any given task gets harder as you level in the exact amount your bonus gets bigger so that all tasks remain the same difficulty whether you are level 1 or 30.

Shrieking Banshee · Post by **Shrieking Banshee** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 7:48 pm

Fundamentally as much as you people may scoff: That's why we play these games at all.

If I want to play a Tabletop game its because the game is ultimately flexible.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 8:05 pm

Hot Take: If you think people make fun of PG 42 of your favorite edition because of it's "flexibility" instead of because how it literally tells you shit that is worse than nothing and rule 0 would be better, you are incorrect.

deaddmwalking · Post by **deaddmwalking** » Mon Apr 16, 2018 8:40 pm

Shrieking Banshee wrote:Fundamentally as much as you people may scoff: That's why we play these games at all.

If I want to play a Tabletop game its because the game is ultimately flexible.

I have to agree with Kaelik here. I was working on a reply, but work got in the way. Flexibility is great. There are always going to be situations where the physics engine breaks down and the table is going to have to figure out how to proceed. But if the following table produces better outputs than your game system, your game system is a misnomer:

Roll a d20:
15+ You succeed
11-14 Argue with your DM for success
6-11 You fail, unless you can create a convincing reason otherwise
1-5 You fail, full stop.

Having something like that as the 'resolve any problems undefined in the rules' is certainly okay. Having that as your 'game' isn't the worst thing - it's still better than percentile roll under 90% of the time, but you can have it for free. If the rules don't provide anything better than that, why are they even there? They're just getting in the way.

It's not like that's a particularly high standard. Rules should be better than Magic-Tea-Party. If they're not, then they won't be used, and they don't belong. If your rules are magic-tea-party but you're rolling dice for the simple sake of obfuscation, you can save a lot of complexity by just making it Magic-Tea-Party.

And nothing about that reduces flexibility or limits creativity.