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[Neonivek]

Im not suprised by how many of us that play D&D but that there are people who havent played it and actualy have negative things to say.

Generally speaking people who dislike dungeons and dragons are people who dislike the "game" focus of it.

Which to me is what makes it unique. Most systems just go "Gameplay? Psh, we will make the most broken system ever, balance it horridly, and basically make everyone who plays the system ignore the rules".

The fact that you can have "fun" doing something like "Playing the game" in addition to roleplaying it is something only a select few systems have. It is what makes it unique.... Outside the army of d20 systems but I always considered them dungeons and dragons in disguise.

Only MechWarrior (which current systems name I forget... it isn't called MechWarrior right now) is more gamey.

[Rex Invictus]

Which implies that it was not the best-selling RPG for every quarter other than those four.

Which would imply that DnD is still on top.

Pathfinder does NOT need the books, since it has the COMPLETELY free D20PFSRD which contains all non-Golarion focused information (so the rules stuff, not the fluff stuff) from Paizo and a good chunk of the major 3rd party stuff. It also has the PRD published by Paizo, which is more useful for specific Paizo or rules-focused questions but nothing else.

D&D doesn't have anything close to that.

Pathfinder might not sell the most product (although I have no doubt they're making cash hand over fist), but they have the biggest footprint in the RPG community. If you go on Roll20 or wherever, you will see many more Pathfinder adverts than D&D of any sort (although 5e does have a small but sizeable chunk going now).

[Sergarr]

Pathfinder is also the system build under the assumption "magic > everything else".

This basically makes it unusable for emulating any of the standard fantasy stories.

[Neonivek]

Pathfinder is also the system build under the assumption "magic > everything else".

This basically makes it unusable for emulating any of the standard fantasy stories.

Except any of the fantasy stories where magic is better then everything else... Like most fantasy stories with magic.

In fact I am trying to think of exceptions...

[Sergarr]

Pathfinder is also the system build under the assumption "magic > everything else".

This basically makes it unusable for emulating any of the standard fantasy stories.

Except any of the fantasy stories where magic is better then everything else... Like most fantasy stories with magic.

In fact I am trying to think of exceptions...

Really?

I personally don't know of fantasy stories where mages are better at fighting people in melee than dedicated fighters.

[Orange Wizard]

Which implies that it was not the best-selling RPG for every quarter other than those four.

Which would imply that DnD is still on top.

Pathfinder does NOT need the books, since it has the COMPLETELY free D20PFSRD which contains all non-Golarion focused information (so the rules stuff, not the fluff stuff) from Paizo and a good chunk of the major 3rd party stuff. It also has the PRD published by Paizo, which is more useful for specific Paizo or rules-focused questions but nothing else.

D&D doesn't have anything close to that.

Pathfinder might not sell the most product (although I have no doubt they're making cash hand over fist), but they have the biggest footprint in the RPG community. If you go on Roll20 or wherever, you will see many more Pathfinder adverts than D&D of any sort (although 5e does have a small but sizeable chunk going now).

http://www.d20srd.org/

[Rex Invictus]

http://www.d20srd.org/

Which has maybe 3% of the total of 3.5's information. Base classes, psionics and some "alternative classes". There was DnDTools, but that got a C&D. Compare that with the D20PFSRD.

Other than this guy, I have not seen a single group playing 3.5, since it's been replaced in every functional way by Pathfinder.

[Criptfeind]

http://www.d20srd.org/

Which has maybe 3% of the total of 3.5's information. Base classes, psionics and some "alternative classes". There was DnDTools, but that got a C&D. Compare that with the D20PFSRD.

Other than this guy, I have not seen a single group playing 3.5, since it's been replaced in every functional way by Pathfinder.

Maybe that's because there is a bigger libary of 3.5 stuff? I mean, the pathfinder SRD does look like it has more stuff, but the 3.5 SRD is pretty close. Just because it's less of the total doesn't take away that it does have a lot of stuff. Also D&D tools still exists... It was shut down only temporarily, it looks like it's back. Although it's being run by different people now. Can't tell if it's been taken over by WOTC (seems unlikely that they would do something so... aware) or just moved to someone else that is harder to litigate against. (Also there is at least one mirror.)

Anyway, if you want anecdotal evidence to who is playing more, just look in the threads of this forum, there are tons and tons of 3.5 games, and little to no pathfinder games.

Also, noticing this:

go here.
There's others, but this is the biggest, free-est one.

There is also maptools. Which is both bigger, and more free. I'd say map tools is much much better, but it is harder to use (basically, you need to know how to port forward, but that's something worth knowing how to do anyway...)

[Flying Dice]

Pathfinder was the top-selling role-playing game in the second quarter of 2011,[9] autumn 2012,[10] spring 2013,[11] and autumn 2013.[12] It replaced Dungeons & Dragons, which had been the best-selling game since 1974.[13]

You're conflating sales with play time here. Just because it sold more copies in four quarters more than a decade after 3.5e was released doesn't mean people play it more often; most of the people who would play 3.5e already have their books or know someone they can borrow from.

http://www.d20srd.org/

Which has maybe 3% of the total of 3.5's information. Base classes, psionics and some "alternative classes". There was DnDTools, but that got a C&D. Compare that with the D20PFSRD.

Other than this guy, I have not seen a single group playing 3.5, since it's been replaced in every functional way by Pathfinder.

I take it you haven't been to our FG&RP or Play With Your Buddies boards... well, ever. We've got I think two 5e campaigns, two 4e campaigns, around 15-20 3.5e campaigns (plus a dozen more at any given time that don't get off the ground), with most of the latter being houseruled, and precisely zero PF campaigns.

My uni isn't exactly a roleplaying Mecca, but of the group adverts I've seen, one was looking for players for CoC d20, one for 5e, and two for 3.5e.

Given how hard you're pushing PF you're probably heavily invested in the idea of it being the very best that ever was, and if that's the case you're probably only playing with likeminded people in communities of such. Though you haven't even bothered to provide anecdotal evidence of your claims, just meaningless sales.


E: aaaand, when you come right down to it, I said it already: PF is 3.5e with a set of houserules some people liked enough to pay for.

[Tack]

Also, noticing this:

go here.
There's others, but this is the biggest, free-est one.

There is also maptools. Which is both bigger, and more free. I'd say map tools is much much better, but it is harder to use (basically, you need to know how to port forward, but that's something worth knowing how to do anyway...)

So there's maptools, fantasygrounds^{citation needed} and Roll20.

I would Guess that Roll20 is bigger because at a glance it seems to have a larger forum following- but it's difficult to judge the size of these things.
But maptools and Roll20 are both free, though Roll20 does have a patreon-y thingy going on.
So I'd be happy to say it's not the free-est, unless hosts on maptools have to pay for servers or whatnot?

(I only used maptools for one campaign; and it was only because the host was a massive traditionalist- and none of us really knew our way around the tools so we just sat on an empty grass background playing with our tokens all game.)

[My Name is Immaterial]

@ Anecdotal evidence for Pathfinder's popularity: I went to my uni's tabletop gaming event thing once and there was, IIRC, one 3.5, one Pathfinder, one WH40K, one custom system based on SCP and me and another guy, with a 5e game. So D&D still comes out on top by a factor of three.
Also @ Sales figures, 3.5e stopped being published in 2008, so keep that in mind. Basically, those numbers are saying that Pathfinder did beter than 4e.

Just to clarify, what do you mean by "leaving no actual spell effect"?

The original spell was similar to Wish, but at a much lower level and with only known spells as available effects; the automatic wild surge was produced as a backlash effect.

Huh. Interesting concept. So have you considered asking the DM to let you use the 2e mechanics before declaring that you will not be playing 5e?

[Criptfeind]

So there's maptools, fantasygrounds^{citation needed} and Roll20.

I've personally never used fantasygrounds myself, I've heard it's okay, but not really worth it when you already have maptools and roll20. There was also a fourth service that I've played on. But that was like, five years ago, and the group quickly switched to maptools. It was sorta like a worse maptools or a roll20 type thing, but roll20 didn't exist back then. So I have no idea.

I would Guess that Roll20 is bigger because at a glance it seems to have a larger forum following- but it's difficult to judge the size of these things.

unless hosts on maptools have to pay for servers or whatnot?

Ahhh. I see what you mean, I thought you meant biggest as in... Something other then number of people who use it I guess. I have no idea how popular they are in comparison.

And no, on maptools you host your own server (which is what makes it harder to use then roll20 probably)

Actually, you know what. All this talking. There is also the Vassal system. Has anyone used that for D&D? I've never seen or heard of it used for that, but I would presume it is possible.

[Bohandas]

Pathfinder is also the system build under the assumption "magic > everything else".

This basically makes it unusable for emulating any of the standard fantasy stories.

Except any of the fantasy stories where magic is better then everything else... Like most fantasy stories with magic.

In fact I am trying to think of exceptions...

Discworld. But even there it's still more powerful than everything else, it's just dangerous to use; spellbooks spontaneously explode and turn people into animals, folks who miscast spells often get dragged into inhospitable paralell dimensions and chased around by Cthulhu wannabes, and people who use too much of it too frequently have a tendency to go completely insane.

http://www.d20srd.org/

Which has maybe 3% of the total of 3.5's information. Base classes, psionics and some "alternative classes".

It's got everything from the core rules except for descriptions of specific gods and a handful of abberations. But it also has a lot of non-core stuff (psionics and class kits)

[Orange Wizard]

Also, dndtools (there's a clone of it floating around somewhere) is technically illegal.

[Flying Dice]

So's downloading PDFs of obscure 3.5e splatbooks for the text of some class feature or spell, but fuck it. That's one of the best things about what WotC are doing with 5e, making it so you don't need to buy thirty goddamn expensive books just to make the characters you want.