As any of you who have read my posts may know, I'm running a sandbox set in the Wilderlands, using Paizo Publishing's Pathfinder RPG. While I have no problems with the game itself, or the rules Paizo provides, I've recently come across something that I feel I'm probably not alone in, and that's the navigation of the various Pathfinder product lines.
You see, I use the Pathfinder RPG rules, but my game isn't set in their Golarion world, and so I'm not using their Campaign Setting line. I'm running a sandbox campaign, so I'm not using their Adventure Path line, and since I'm not using those lines, and my game also incorporates 3.x books as resources, it kind of obviates the need for the Player Companion lines (though, I must admit I've not looked too deeply into that line.)
However, when Amazon dot com tipped me off that there's a book coming out about The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, I got excited and started looking, since my current game has some ties to those fellows who ride colorful ponies.
I couldn't recall the name of the book when I went to Paizo's website, however, and it wasn't presented on the home page of the Pathfinder game, so I had to look. I used the search bar and skimmed the entries and thought that perhaps I had been mistaken, since I didn't see the book at first glance...but on my second look at the list, I saw it was #2 in the results, but the title was prefaced by "Pathfinder Campaign Setting:"
That's why I overlooked it in the first place, honestly. I first gleaned Paizo's lore behind the Horsemen in the Bestiary 2, and thought that a book that would highlight a specific type of archfiend would be included in their core line, but that was not the case.
If I had been a lazier person, I would have skipped it altogether and probably just chalked it up to misremembering the Amazon email.
I do understand the marketing reason behind separating the Pathfinder lines. It simplifies the consumer's choices when dealing with specific products, gives them exactly what they're looking for in regards to the type of product they wish to see, and makes it easy to search for the products desired.
However, I feel that they fail in that last task more because some of those products seem to walk the line between categories. I hope I'm not alone in this, but I just felt like this book is something more akin to a specialized bestiary, like the Fiendish Codices were for 3.5, which should put them in the core line, instead of setting material.
It's a small complaint, I realize, but my enthusiasm was taken down a notch at just that minor snag. Combine that with the fact that it being a setting book almost makes me give it a pass, if it weren't for the reasonable price I feel Paizo offers for it (64 pages, $19.99.)
Anyway, am I being ridiculous with this? I certainly don't think so, but then...I like to be a little more frugal with my gaming dollar these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment