Last week, my friend and fellow DM Flynn brought Paizo’s Pathfinder announcement to my attention. Since these guys did a great job with Dungeon and they write excellent adventures in their Gamemaster series, I had to investigate further.
Seems they’ve chosen to stay with the core 3.5E D&D rules and go their own way through Pathfinder, similar in concept to Monte Cook’s Iron Heroes and Arcana lines. I guess they sensed how unimpressed many people are with WOTC’s upcoming 4E D&D. Unfortunately, I’m in the negative camp because WOTC’s recent modules and supplements have been previews of their philosophical shift. These have soured my opinion of D&D’s future with Hasbro. The parent corporation most likely ordered this new edition.
From all the news I’ve caught through EN World and WOTC’s official site, I feel that the current design team is turning D&D into tabletop World of Warcraft. If I wanted to play WoW, I’d spend the money on a monthly subscription and trade D&D’s frustrations for the different ones experienced with online RPGs; it’s the primary source for socially retarded gamers lately.
Back to Paizo and keeping Picayune upbeat! There’s a silver lining to this story.
I read the letter from Lisa Stevens (CEO of Paizo) and downloaded the free 60-page alpha version of what designer Jason Buhlman would change in the PHB. He really exceeded my expectations through his fixes and changes to address some of my gripes in the current rules regarding the classes, feats, skills and actions. I only disagreed completely on two (both dealing with the Undead) but these are easily ignored without wrecking the game. If he can actually make the grappling rules for combat simple, satisfying and practical, something WOTC couldn’t solve in eight years, then Pathfinder may be the more worthy successor to D&D. His solutions even cured most of my burn out on gaming; I’ve been inches away from quitting lately due it feeling like an unsatisfying part-time job. Plus WOTC drowned the game in too many supplements, another reason why their decision to do 4E was irritating.
I am now pretty excited to see what the next alpha release holds. The one thing I wish Paizo would do is get a more effective way to collect feedback and answer questions. A message board is a noisy, crappy way to do it. They’re filled with pissing matches involving chest-thumping dorks who don’t know the definition of succinct. How glad I am my time at GDW ended before I had deal with such nonsense, the few letters I had to read were enough.