From the Paizo Newswire:
Pathfinder™ to continue under the 3.5 rules.
Tuesday, March 19th, 2008
Paizo Publishing today unveiled the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, a tabletop fantasy roleplaying game that will serve as the anchor for the company’s popular line of Pathfinder adventures, sourcebooks, and campaigns. Today marks the beginning of a year-long Open Playtest of the new rules, which are based upon the popular 3.5 rules available under the Open Game License. The Pathfinder RPG is designed with backward compatibility as one of its primary goals, so players will continue to enjoy their lifelong fantasy gaming hobby without invalidating their entire game library. The first Pathfinder RPG Alpha release is available now as a free 65-page PDF download at paizo.com/pathfinderRPG. Until the finished Pathfinder RPG’s release as a hardcover rulebook in August 2009, all of Paizo’s popular Pathfinder-brand products will continue under the current 3.5 rules set.
“I’m really excited to work with the playtesters to make this the best game possible,” said Jason Bulmahn, Paizo’s Lead Designer. “In the spirit of the Open Game movement, the Pathfinder RPG is really your roleplaying game. It’s a huge thrill to get to lead the design process.”
Paizo will issue additional Pathfinder RPG Alpha releases in the coming months, covering new changes and additions to the 3.5 rules. Gamers can download, read, and participate in the free open playtest by setting up a paizo.com account and joining the discussion with Paizo’s design staff at paizo.com/pathfinderRPG. The Pathfinder RPG will be backward-compatible with the 3.5 rules, and the staff has kept this goal as a primary focus since design began in 2007.
This coming August, Paizo will release a massive, full-color, softcover Pathfinder RPG Beta release for $24.99. This book will be available on paizo.com, at Gen Con, as well as through hobby distribution at local game stores. Just like the Alpha releases, the Beta release will be available as a free PDF download on paizo.com. As Wizards of the Coast’s core 3.5 rulebooks are expected to go out of print with the release of 4th Edition, Paizo will use the Pathfinder RPG as a replacement for the 3.5 core rules. The Pathfinder RPG Beta release will represent Paizo’s first published take on an updated 3.5 system, and playtesting will continue through spring 2009, when Paizo will incorporate the open playtest feedback and create a hardcover Pathfinder RPG for release in the hobby trade, bookstores, and paizo.com in August 2009.
Paizo hopes to support 4th Edition with fan-created online conversions of its Pathfinder products and a complete line from its partner company, Necromancer Games, a trend-setter in the original Open Gaming movement. Necromancer has already announced a new 4th Edition version of their award-winning Tome of Horrors monster encyclopedia, and has plans for additional player and GM support products.
Today, Paizo also announced the hiring of Nicolas Logue to run the Pathfinder Society organized play campaign, a massive mega-campaign to launch at this year’s Gen Con. The Pathfinder Society will feature events at major conventions, retail stores, and home play as a way to involve thousands of players in a constantly evolving campaign environment fueled by downloadable scenarios released by Paizo. Nicolas Logue is a long-time Paizo contributor to the print versions of Dragon and Dungeon as well as the Pathfinder Adventure Paths and Pathfinder Modules line. He also co-runs an annual competition at Gen Con called Iron DM that will continue to be co-run by Nicolas Logue and his Iron DM compatriots. Nick begins working at Paizo in April.
“Nicolas Logue is one of the most energetic, personable gamers I have ever met,” said Erik Mona, Paizo’s Publisher and the co-founder during his tenure at Wizards of the Coast of Living Greyhawk, the largest organized play RPG campaign in history. “Running a successful organized play campaign involves a magical combination of cool ideas, organizational skills, and enthusiasm. Nick is absolutely the perfect man for the job, and I’m thrilled that he will be joining us here at Paizo.”
I don’t know about you… but this is disappointing. I would have expected Paizo to at least announce 4e support at the same time as this.
From what I read here, they’ll remain 3,5 (at least for Pathfinder), expect fan conversion to 4e (for free) and check how Necromancer Game does with it’s 4e Tome of Horrors…
My gut feeling is that Paizo will soon announce another product line for 4e (it would make sense), but I would have liked a crossover of Pathfinder to 4e.
If you have any more news on this (I don’t want to trawl the Paizo forums just yet, I need to go to bed) please feel free to share.
Yup, disapointing.
What say you?
I dunno. I think Paizo got royally screwed once by WotC, and they’re wary of it happening again – so they’re basically reducing their dependence a bit.
And I say this as someone who stopped buying any Paizo products after Dragon got cancelled. Not because I have anything against them – just because nothing they were publishing was of any interest to me. To be honest I wasn’t that big a fan of Dragon under Paizo control (dumping the April Fool theme, getting rid of Dragonmirth), but I wanted to complete the set. 🙂
Hey there Gazza, Welcome on the Blog.
I think Paizo was notified quite in advance about what WotC was planning and the Pathfinder products were planned well ahead of the announcement.
Like I said, my gut feeling tells me they’ll have a 4e line. You can’t ignore the biggest player in the field when you were made (forcefully I’ll concede) as a tier-1 3rd party supplier.
Love it or hate it, chances are 4e’s Core books will be the highest selling RPG books of all time.
Yeah, I’m sure they were informed, but I still don’t think it was very nice of WotC. Looked at cynically, it went something like this:
“We’re losing money on Dragon and Dungeon. Let’s sell them.”
“Hmm, those guys are MAKING money from them. That makes us look bad. Let’s cancel their license.”
I’m not really seriously suggesting that it happened like that, but it can’t have been good news for Paizo.
And yes, I’m sure you’re right about a 4e line. I’m neither in the “love it” OR “hate it” group there – I play D&D more or less because that’s what my mates want to play, and 4e sounds – at best – like an improved version of “same old” to me. So I’ve no doubt I’ll be playing it, but I have considerable doubt that it will suddenly change my opinion of D&D. It’s kind of a shame that games like Amber and HeroQuest aren’t more popular, but I guess everyone has their pet favourites.
I think this just makes business sense for Paizo. They spent a fair amount of time building this brand and then WotC using this ‘buy-in’ to 4e as a way to squeeze the smaller companies to get in the door early to produce stuff. Right now I feel like there is a HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray here as there seems to be a sizable camp that is remaining 3.5 so why not keep the brand and develop a nice set of in-house rules that you control?
No doubt there would be plans for a 4e line (they are a business after all) but I wonder how quickly they would launch it? Would a simultaneous release muddy the waters on the direction of the company? Would people be hesitant to buy into a 3.5 compatible product if the same company was jumping into the 4e waters? The staggered buy-in for 4e works in Paizo’s favour I think. If the edition takes off Paizo can release in ’09 with much fanfare as a company with a proven track record releases new material. If the edition flops (unlikely) or doesn’t connect with a portion of the 3.5 audience, they have a product line that is well established and supported with new product. I think its a smart move on their part.
Agreed on all accounts Deadshot… very plausible analysis.
They are designing a game and making it available for free. In my books, that is strictly a good thing, even if it will be a highly derivative game.
Well, they’re making the Alpha and Beta available for free. Final product, if it ever becomes non-beta, may not be so.
In any case, I was intrigued and downloaded the alpha, and I can only describe it in one word.
Underwhelming.
I liked some of the stuff, but it’s all stuff that I was already using. Other stuff I wouldn’t bother adding to an ongoing game, and would have to consider hard before adding to a new game. And some other things were just extra layers of complexity that I would never bother using in the first place.
Oh well. There will be an audience, I suppose.
What interesting times we live in, eh? 🙂
I can understand Paizo not wanting to hang on WoTC’s coat tails, definitely. I reckon Paizo will wait a while for the dust to settle before releasing a 4e product, but I’m certain that plans will have been made. I’ll predict that 4e will be errata’d to hell and back over the first 12 months, meaning fast-track publishers will be bitten by the same bugs. Yes, just like what happened with 3e.
My first reflex after reading the announcement was to think “oh no, not another 3.5e knock-off”, but I reckon Paizo really can pull it off. They know what players want, and consistently deliver to that standard (as opposed to, say, WoTC, who have a habit of delivering what marketing wants).
For it to succeed though, Paizo need to improve their distribution channels. A move away from 4e means they could approach one of Hasbro’s competitors and get Pathfinder into every bookstore, toystore and magazine rack there is. Certainly here in the UK, that hasn’t happened and Habro’s push of the D&D brand has been underwhelming in the extreme. With D&D becoming more of a net-centred product, Paizo could jump right in and get role-playing back on the bookshelves – where it belongs.
Just my thoughts, anyhow.
I am pleased they are attempting this myself. I am with the other folks who suspect Eric and crew felt shafted, once when the dungeon and dragon licenses were not renewed, and yet again with the holding back of the new OGL.
It helps keep their current product catalog viable.
They can now answer folks honestly that things will be supported in the future (if this works for them).
They can justify continuing with additional 3.5 content they had queued up.
They can thumb their nose at WOTC 🙂
Honestly the products Wizards have been churning out remind me of the really bad days of 2nd edition when Gary turned the company over to that woman who nearly killed the game. The current product/marketing crew appear to be struggling. Pulling Dragon and Dungeon print, turning them into online features and doing it with a new goopy (or whatever silly name they came up with) . The name does not stick in my mind so it has to be a bad name. I gave them a short about of faith initially and gave it a try but the site was really pretty bad for navigation and retaining login info. The “blogs” there are nothing but forum posts.
So, back on track ..
Paizo has to stand and try to run a business on their terms, not at the whim of WOTC/Hasbro, and more power to them for doing it.
Gleemax. Yeah, it’s a pretty awful name, though it does have some history behind it.
But Dragon and Dungeon online are not a part of Gleemax in any way.
All fair comments based on WotC’s less than stellar PR practices.
Although Buzz, some late WotC books were anything but stellar… but at one to 3 hardcovers a months, some were absolute stinkers, agreed.
I think Paizo is setting up to play both sides of the fence (which is fine by me)… I just hope they’ll announce 4e support when the time comes… they remain my favorite 3rd party publisher since Monte retired.
Graham, I think we’ll have to have a shared post on this whole Win XP/3.5 Vista/4e thing as everything I read in people’s meets this analogy head on!
I like it. It’s supposed to be boring! If it’s revolutionary, it won’t be backwards compatible. And that’s the big win, here: People get to keep and use their books, where as they get to continue publishing. Everybody wins.
Small improvements are ok. Making money is not a priority, however. All they care about I hope is a set of rules that can replace D&D 3.5 once D&D 3.5 is no longer in print. “Don’t have those olde D&D books? Looka here!” Works for me.
As for house rules, I’ve been thinking about what exactly to do for my next campaign, and I might go with Book of Experimental Might, or Pathfinder, or Conan, or my own set of house rules. I don’t know, yet. All I know is that there is a publisher that will keep publishing adventures for me while I stick to third edition.
I’m subscribed to both Pathfinder and GameMastery modules.
I am simply overjoyed at this decision. I have been less than impressed with WotC and 4th ed. Add the 4ed. GSL specifically prohibits using the previous ruleset, read: using one invalidates the other, and they had a tough choice.
In the end, they held several polls and votes and their community overwhelmingly chose to stay with 3.X. They will sell packaged 4E products, but an actual pathfinder line probably won’t happen for a year or two, as they will have to discontinue all 3.5 OGL support to do it.
Bad budiness? Goos business? We’ll see in just a couple of months. IMO WotC has once again shot itself in the foot.
On a slightly related note – I believe the Chatty one mentioned he’d be sticking his books up on eBay once 4th edition came out.
Towards the very end of their lifecycle, WotC finally started releasing their books as PDFs. If that trend continues, how many of you will even bother with physical books?
The primary benefit of physical books is that they’re easier to read. Got a novel? Give it to me in paper or hardback; I’m not interested in reading it on a computer screen. But this is much less true of reference material. I’m a computer programmer; electronic copies of computer texts are a lot more useful than physical ones because they can be searched. I submit that your average RPG book is going to be used as a reference more often than as reading material… certainly hauling a single laptop to a session is easier than a metric tonne of books.
Sorry Chatty, I disagree. More detail on my site, but I think this could be a good move for Paizo.
Trask
Where did you hear this?
The companies haven’t even recieved their copies of the GSL yet. How do you know this is in it?
First up, I’m really surprised at the perceived 180 degrees turn I see between the D&D experience and the Pathfinder announcement.
The main reason why I beg to differ on the whole ‘3.5 lives’ is that after 8 years, I’m tired of the game and wish to move on.
4e Seems to address my needs. Had it not been announced for this year, I would have brought my players toward Monte’s Arcana Evolved or some other RPG like Mutants and Masterminds.
So just so we’re clear. I’m cool with those who are happy with the announcement. I just don’t share your feelings on this.
Actually, it appears that Paizo, through their partnership with Necromancer games, will be burning their candle at both ends:
http://www.enworld.org/showpost.php?p=4115487&postcount=10
As for Paizo’s move, I’m not sure they had much choice. Their Pathfinder products take six months to complete a run, and require a certain amount of lead-time to produce. At this point Paizo could either make the leap to 4.0 and hope that what they wanted to do would be allowed by the GSL that WotC *still* apparently hasn’t finalized yet, or stick with the 3.5 game that’s been the cornerstone of their success so far, and won’t have to be reworked at the last minute when they find out that the rules they were publishing under were not as they’d assumed.
Frankly, this looks just like what Paizo’s done, and done well, for a while now: they’ve made lemonade from the lemons WotC has thrown at them. Understand, I’m not claiming that WotC is acting maliciously or anything like that. I’m saying something far, far worse. WotC fumbled here, and fumbled badly. Those folks really need to get their act together.
– Brian
Woot great news Brian. Thanks!
Oh I understand Pathfider’s decision, what with the established system, clear feedback that fans wanted to stay 3.5 on their boards and the Game System license being late for those who did cough up the dough for it.
I just hope that this apparent support will NOT vanish in a puff of smoke when 4e rolls.
I wouldn’t worry about it. Despite the apocalyptic scenarios being bandied about about how 4th edition will splinter the community… I don’t buy it. Yes, there are still some people that think even 1st edition was a mistake, but they’re hardly a majority, and in any case they’re used to supporting their own stuff. (Or maybe they play Hackmaster now).
4th edition would have to suck fairly hard for it to not completely supplant 3rd edition in a matter of months, the same way that 3rd edition did to 2nd, and so forth. WotC have made some questionable decisions in the past, but I strongly doubt they’ve misjudged their audience to that degree. And they know who their audience is – there will almost certainly be some sort of 4th edition upgrade rules that theoretically would mean the 3.5 Pathfinder series ought to be easily adapted; I’d be surprised, in fact, if Paizo didn’t include notes for using future adventures with 4th edition.
Of course if 4th edition DOES turn out to be a Jump the Shark moment, well, Paizo is still covered there, too. So it makes sense – I doubt the company that loyally decided to keep Dragon and Dungeon afloat is doing this out of any mean spirited corporate greed.
I’ve returned to the world of D&D after like a 10 year hiatus. Its really interesting to see what the world of RPGs is up to these days.
I was initially excited about 4e but the more I hear, the more it sounds like they are trying to create a WoW environment that can be run at the table. <– this from listening to all the WotC podcasts and taking a look at just about every scrap of info on 4e that they’ve published so far.
Maybe I’m just a crusty old-school D&D guy. From the amount of RPG themed podcasts out there that I listen to though, Im not the only one. There seems to be just as many people out there who are not thrilled with what 4e looks like as there are people who are pumped up about it.
That said, Paizo is making a smart move by catering to that segment of WotC’s market that is going to essentially get left behind when 4e hits the streets.
At the very least the ‘crusty old-school D&D guys and girls are being very vocal about it.
This is going to be a fascinating summer indeed. Our very own HD-DVD/Blu-Ray, Win XP/Vista format war.
🙂
You might want to read some of this post, from a friend (also an old-school gamer) who was at the XP, and is in no way associated with WotC.
Relevant part:
“But a teleport in place of a regular move doesn’t really change the character of the D&D game very much.”
That is just WRONG on so many levels….
Oh yeah – hey you kids get off my lawn!
LoL
The main point, however, being that 4e doesn’t feel like an MMO or video game at all.
The teleport issue is a separate thing. It’s actually no different from what we have now, where characters can blink all over the place, not provoking AoOs.
MY BAD. I took a comment out of context during a forum discussion.
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/4thEdition/archives/4EOGLLeaks
Unfortunately I may prove correct. Why would WotC want competition at all? Much less from an obsolete version?
While you do have a point, WotC has two things to consider.
1) Including something like that would estrange many customers and many third-party developers. Even if they had no intention of playing 3.X ever again, it is an example of an unreasonably strict rule, and evidence that even more strict rules may arise.
2) There is no way to enforce it. If a company signed the GSL which didn’t allow them to do 3.X, they can always just create a second company, as a subsidiary of the first, which does 3.X. Or vice versa, depending on wording. Both the company and the subsidiary have the same employees, adress, and bank account, but they are technically separate entities.
In any case, there is no good reason for them to do so.
(By the way, the speculation that the GSL and OGL won’t be compatible merely means that you may not be able to release a 4e product under the OGL, or a 3e product under the GSL, not that a company can only use one or the other. This does make sense.)
This news made me very happy. I am so glad that a major publisher isn’t towing the WoTC line. It gives me hope for the future of D&D. Which 4E certainly hasn’t.
As for physical books vs. PDFs…? I have never bought a gaming PDF (or any PDF for that matter) and I don’t have any plans on doing so. I want my gaming books in my hand. I have picked up a couple of free (legal) PDFs online and I have had MAJOR hassles getting them printed and bound. Books don’t need power to be read and I can grab them and take them anywhere I wish. I don’t much like reading long passages on a computer screen.
Paizo’s take on where D&D should go after 3.5 leaves me a little cold. Which disappoints me since Wizards’ 4th edition also does not appeal to me. But there are real positives to this enterprise. The most important is the public design and playtesting of Pathfinder. Although I wouldn’t have proceeded in identical fashion, it’s sure to generate some buzz. It also positions Paizo firmly as a different company from Wizards, taking a different road to game production.
Also, as much as people want to see Paizo and WotC as competitors, there’s more than that. There’s room for more than one roleplaying out there. We know that. In fact, there’s room for tons of fantasy RPGs despite the overlaps. D&D co-existed with Iron Heroes, Conan and many others. All this to say: I think people will be surprised that there is a fan base willing to buy both.
Hey Martin: Welcome on the blog.
I actually think that Paizo and WotC’s business relation is actually very good… apart from the 4e licence being so late.
Regardless of what happens, I’m now very curious to see if 3.5 will get sufficient support from fans when 4e comes out to allow Paizo to support it… that would be a 1st in the history of RPGs.
While there are still players of older editions of D&D, I don’t think that anyone is actually making money supporting them…
Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong on that one…
Thing is, Chatty, this is the first version of D&D that third parties could actually make money supporting, thanks to the OGL.
Hell, TSR even went after fansites.
As for whether thay can profit doing so, I think they can. They don’t need a huge audience, as they’ll have lower production costs.
It wasn’t possible before now, though. Besides the lack of legal right to do so, at the 1e/2e and 2e/3e switch the infrastructure just didn’t exist.
At 1e/2e there was little in the way of internet. Thus your audience was vastly diminished, and paperless publishing wasn’t really possible.
At 2e/3e, the internet was there of course, but paperless publishing wasn’t seen as a viable business model. In addition, the fan communities were (at most) in their infant stages, so the audience was still low.
Now, we have the legal right, the audience (and methods to increase said audience), and the viability of a paperless model established.
(Note, yes, that Paizo will be publishing actual books as well. Much of their profit will still come from pdfs, though. And without their net presence, community, and reputation they would be pretty much unable to do this as a paper business. The public playtesting, especially, is based solely on the viability of a paperless model.)
Phil, at first glance I would be tempted to say you are right: few companies will support 3.5 and make much profits.
Graham is raising interesting points. This is indeed the first time we see such a thing happen. We have few reference points because of the impact the internet boom and the OGL have had. Those two issues alone change the landscape radically.
Something to keep in mind: 3.5’s strongest ally, the d20/OGL license, is also its worse enemy. Because everyone has a right to modify the system, once there is no “company line” to follow (in effect, once WotC drops out of the picture) everyone is free to go in different directions. This makes it difficult for everyone to be on the same page.
Want an example? Paizo says they want to continue to support 3.5 but look at Pathfinder: The Alpha release is *not* directly compatible with 3.5. Characters are much stronger, making it difficult to “plug and play” Paizo stuff into your good old 3rd edition collection without conversions.
Essentially, despite claims to the contrary, Paizo’s Pathfinder *is* their own take on 4th edition. And unless they can garner support from other companies, each major player is going to go in a different direction. Making it unlikely that 3.5 will remain a unified big player in the RPG world once 4th edition is upon us.
Still, that will not prevent anyone from playing it from the comfort of their homes. That’s the thing I love about roleplaying products. One of the best bang for the buck I can imagine! Countless of us gamers are still using roleplaying products that are decades old and having fun. They can cease support of a game but nobody will knock at my door and take my Basic Red Box from me.
Every product is a gift we can use forever. And the OGL is nice in that it allows us to keep on sharing between us more material forever. I think beyond the business use of the OGL, that’s where its value really is. In sharing.
Totally glad to be here, BTW. Your blog kicks butt and I can’t wait to read your take on Robin Laws of gamemastering. It’s an amazing book. I’ve considered the DMG II for a while but still haven’t bought it. You’re tempting me 🙂
I see what you mean CD. In regards to Paizo’s incompatibility issues, I think that design drift is inevitable with the current 3.5 ruleset. The designs choices that were made in 1999-2000 aren’t necessarily in line with more recent rules evolution (I have yet to read the Alpha rules… but I don’t think it’s worth my effort just yet unless 4e turns out to suck big time… which I highly doubt).
What I was driving at is that I’m convinced in my guts that a lot of the people who went ‘Huzzah!’ when Paizo announced that bold move will abandon them when 4e gets out…
What I believe we all agree on is that a sizable portion (hopefully a profitable one) of the market will remain with Paizo… and it should… Paizo is a 1st tier supplier of RPG products, they’ve got great people working there and they plan to do what’s the most important thing in out hobby: PROVIDE SUPPORT WITH NEW PRODUCTS!!!!
I just hope the customer remain loyal in the onslaught of products and coolness that WotC promises… (and I remain doubtful of the Digital initiative… as I’m a long time customer of WotC digital products and I have yet to be impressed…. but that’s for a later post).
Oh and thanks for the nice feedback man! Much appreciated! Heck you live in Montreal, I could probably lend the DMG II book to you… I’m not worried about getting back.. I have a few minions in that city too 😉
Phil, want to elaborate on continuous support in the form of new products being so vital? I have pretty different perspective and would be interested in hearing yours.
By support I mean adventures, sourcebooks and related accessories.
The top commercially successful RPGs are, in my mind, D&D, World of Darkness (all game lines combined) and Gurps. Rifts also comes to mind.
All these games have in common the continued publishing of new material. While one does not have to buy any of them to enjoy the game, the plethora of available material (by the parent company, or licensed 3rd parties) have made the game sustainable and occupy a constant presence on the shelves.
A lot of the games I played were like that: Paranoia, BESM and the aforementioned ones.
By creating new material, they created continued interest for those games. At least it did for me
Now the PDF market allows to create and produce material with very limited production costs (i.e. printing, shipping and inventory management) so the process becomes easier for smaller companies.
I have very limited time to prepare role playing games now… and I do have the discretionary expense money to buy supplements… the presence of support material makes me a happy customer and a happier GM.
For example, my friend Franky’s McWod game is suffering precisely because there isn’t a lot of support material to help him build a game on the limited time ressources he can pour in the game.
Okay. Commercial success is not something I care about, since it does little to affect my gaming.
The combination of prep-heavy game and busy life are the relevant combination here, I think.
Personally, I care more about a living (fan) community on the internet; that way, I can get responses to any questions and see what problems others have and so forth.
Both aren’t mutually exclusive… as I’m sure you agree. You are right that a healthy/active fan base is possibly one of the best type of support for a game…
The internet truly is an astounding ressource… however, it is largely ignored by a significant portion of a game’s clients…
How many D&D players never looked at gaming forums or won’t even touch positively reviewed 3rd party products.
Good point, but counterpoint.
How many people who don’t actively follow the business of Paizo (likely on the internet) will have even heard of the new Pathfinder RPG, let alone play it?
Most companies try to build a community around a product. Paizo is building a product on a community that is already strong. Paizo is in a unique position, such that they’re able to come at it from the opposite direction.
This will be interesting to watch, even if the product isn’t for me.
How many people who don’t actively follow the business of Paizo (likely on the internet) will have even heard of the new Pathfinder RPG, let alone play it?
I don’t play it, but I’ve heard of it – courtesy of my local gaming store and my local ChattyDM – though I haven’t been near Paizo for more than a year. 🙂 (time)
I actually find the concept of ‘support’ for a gaming system somewhat bewildering – I keep picturing people phoning a helpline because they can’t get the book to install 😀
LOL! That goes with the geeky simile that D&D 3.5 is like Windows XP and that 4e is shaping up to look like Vista!
And, considering some of the Sage Advice questions, isn’t all that far off…