Hey everyone has their preferences but these posts gatekeeping what’s called an ttrpg always confuse me. And I’m even more confused by choosing to call it a video game. But you do you. Pf1 wasn’t a fun system to me 🤷♂️
these posts gatekeeping what’s called an ttrpg always confuse me
This isn’t gatekeeping. This is authorial intent. The companies that produce these games have increasingly co-mingled their staff with video game studios, with a very intentional and explicit eye towards making the conversion to CRPGs easier.
Mechanics in the system that are fuzzy to implement in a video game environment get cut or edited into a numerical effect. Characters and monsters that exist or behave in ways that are difficult to conceptualize as a computer game get re-engineered. Non-combat features and more artistic roleplaying elements get beveled down. And the end result is a game that ports much more easily to a digital medium.
I don’t begrudge the studios for the transition, particularly given how much more money there is digital gaming. But when I’ve already got a stack of older edition books and mods and half-written home brews, there’s no rush to jump ship. Not when I’ve got my eye on an even older stack of Unknown Armies and 2e Mage: The Ascension books and I’m hoping to wrangle some players into a game that’s even more abstract and esoteric.
The companies that produce these games have increasingly co-mingled their staff with video game studios
Like who?
I mean, in the case of D&D, maybe. But PF2e was written by Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, and Mark Seifter; they have a combined zero years of video game studio experience between them. In fact, most of them have been making tabletop RPGs for literally their entire professional careers, including stints at Wizards of the Coast.
For fun, I went to the Pathfinder wiki, which has brief profiles of all of the authors and contributors to Pathfinder; and I can’t find a single person on any of the game’s recent sourcebooks that has worked for a video game company before working for Paizo. In fact, most of them have worked for Paizo in some capacity for 5+ years, or are freelancers who have worked for big tabletop RPG publishers for ages.
You’re probably right for D&D 5e 2024 (or whatever it’s being called). The main focus was the virtual table top subscription service. As the other commenter says though, this isn’t true for most other systems.
Also, I don’t even think it’s necessarily a bad thing. Table top inspired video games. It’s not bad for the influence to flow the other way too. It just needs to be considerate of the format.
So first of all, if you like D&D 3.x or Pathfinder 1e, I’m glad! It’s a fun system. I have many great memories of amazing campaigns in that system, and I think it’s most important that you play the game you like. But I’ve been hearing this “video game” thing for half a decade now, which means I’ve got a whole big rant prepared. I’m…I’m sorry.
Ok. So. Yes, 5e filed off all of the stuff that was interesting, the big numbers that make people feel powerful, the stuff that made characters unique, etc. in its pursuit of making D&D like a video game. But Pathfinder went the opposite direction.
You can make 238,140 mechanically distinct level two characters based on ancestry, class, and archetype alone (that’s not a random guess, I did the math); and while they won’t all have the same power level, they will all likely be able to contribute meaningfully. And that’s not even counting all the class-specific choices and options, or the other feats you could take. Paizo is six years into PF2e right now, and even though they had to waste a bunch of time dealing with WotC’s OGL nonsense, they’re up to nearly a quarter million different combinations; but 3.x didn’t get anywhere near that level of meaningful customization until Pathfinder debuted archetypes in the APG in 2010—a full decade after 3.0 came out.
The 3-action economy is so much easier to play and explain than “wait, what’s a ‘swift’ action again?” (I’ve taught a seven-year-old how to play successfully), but it doesn’t feel like a video game like 5e does because there are actual, meaningful choices you can make with each of your three actions. While 5e (and 3.x before it) often devolves into “conga line of death” (surround the bad guy for flanking, whomp him with your biggest weapon twice per turn, don’t move because he’ll AOO you into powder), you can do essentially whatever you want with each of your three actions and make a difference.
Plus, where 5e aimed at making things even more same-y with “bounded accuracy,” PF2e leaned into crits so hard that they had to lean into crit fails, too, in order to balance them. You can crit succeed and fail at skill checks, and the APs have rules for what happens when you do. Some weapons are built around crits, and they’re not a 1-in-20 chance anymore. You can do them quite often with the right build.
As far as setting, the Forgotten Realms were probably interesting back when Greenwood came up with them, but putting a billion authors into the world has made it into the same bland, boring, Wal-Mart-Brand-Middle-Earth that Greyhawk was; but Golarion has something like three different continents for every possible type of fantasy setting you might want (that is a random guess, and probably an exaggeration).
And with the addition of Starfinder to the system a few weeks ago, all of that gets doubled or more.
Plus, it’s so much easier to run as a GM than the 3.x games were. I remember the first time I put a “hard” encounter together for PF2e. I looked at it and was like, “whoa, that can’t be right, I’m gonna have a TPK!” So I nerfed the encounter, and the players stomped it in two rounds. When I built an encounter the next week using the rules as written, it was a fun and dynamic encounter that lasted the entire session. One character went down. Everyone used their consumables and resources. It worked perfectly. Ever since, I trust that the encounter math knows what it’s talking about. When was the last time you were able to say that in 3.x?
Doesn’t help that we’ve got metric tons of content in the old system.
A lot of the really good stuff has been updated for the new system, either officially or by the community.
Why retrofit what didn’t really need fixing?
I mean…3.x was kind of janky. Yeah, it was better than AD&D, and yeah, it was awesome in its time, but it’s based on a 25-year-old system. People know a lot more about game design now, and it shows. Pathfinder 1e did noble work trying to make everything fit together, but they deployed a lot of duct tape over the nine years they were essentially “in charge of” the d20 system. When the “Pathfinder Unchained” classes came out, and you could see the difference between a modern approach and an original approach at the same table, it was like night and day. Some tables even banned Unchained classes because they would outshine the PHB/CRB classes, even though their damage output was still balanced.
I don’t think Pathfinder 2e is a perfect system. But it’s definitely better than the 3.x rules. That thing did, in fact, need fixing.
Like I said, if you still like 3.x, I’m glad! Enjoy what you enjoy. I think it’s most important that people play the game they like at their tables. But 2e didn’t make it “video game-y.”
2e did the 5e thing of filing down a table top game to a video game.
Doesn’t help that we’ve got metric tons of content in the old system. Why retrofit what didn’t really need fixing? Just give me more APs.
Hey everyone has their preferences but these posts gatekeeping what’s called an ttrpg always confuse me. And I’m even more confused by choosing to call it a video game. But you do you. Pf1 wasn’t a fun system to me 🤷♂️
This isn’t gatekeeping. This is authorial intent. The companies that produce these games have increasingly co-mingled their staff with video game studios, with a very intentional and explicit eye towards making the conversion to CRPGs easier.
Mechanics in the system that are fuzzy to implement in a video game environment get cut or edited into a numerical effect. Characters and monsters that exist or behave in ways that are difficult to conceptualize as a computer game get re-engineered. Non-combat features and more artistic roleplaying elements get beveled down. And the end result is a game that ports much more easily to a digital medium.
I don’t begrudge the studios for the transition, particularly given how much more money there is digital gaming. But when I’ve already got a stack of older edition books and mods and half-written home brews, there’s no rush to jump ship. Not when I’ve got my eye on an even older stack of Unknown Armies and 2e Mage: The Ascension books and I’m hoping to wrangle some players into a game that’s even more abstract and esoteric.
Like who?
I mean, in the case of D&D, maybe. But PF2e was written by Logan Bonner, Jason Bulmahn, Stephen Radney-MacFarland, and Mark Seifter; they have a combined zero years of video game studio experience between them. In fact, most of them have been making tabletop RPGs for literally their entire professional careers, including stints at Wizards of the Coast.
For fun, I went to the Pathfinder wiki, which has brief profiles of all of the authors and contributors to Pathfinder; and I can’t find a single person on any of the game’s recent sourcebooks that has worked for a video game company before working for Paizo. In fact, most of them have worked for Paizo in some capacity for 5+ years, or are freelancers who have worked for big tabletop RPG publishers for ages.
You’re probably right for D&D 5e 2024 (or whatever it’s being called). The main focus was the virtual table top subscription service. As the other commenter says though, this isn’t true for most other systems.
Also, I don’t even think it’s necessarily a bad thing. Table top inspired video games. It’s not bad for the influence to flow the other way too. It just needs to be considerate of the format.
It was true for 3.5. Nevermind 4e, which was a naked play to shoehorn D&D back into the then-lucrative war-gaming miniatures market.
I don’t think it’s bad either. I just find it’s a design decision that shifts how the game is played.
You lose a lot of the more avant guard aspects of table top RPGs in favor of a ridge, easier to export system.
D&D is one system.
Eh? It absolutely did not do that thing.
So first of all, if you like D&D 3.x or Pathfinder 1e, I’m glad! It’s a fun system. I have many great memories of amazing campaigns in that system, and I think it’s most important that you play the game you like. But I’ve been hearing this “video game” thing for half a decade now, which means I’ve got a whole big rant prepared. I’m…I’m sorry.
Ok. So. Yes, 5e filed off all of the stuff that was interesting, the big numbers that make people feel powerful, the stuff that made characters unique, etc. in its pursuit of making D&D like a video game. But Pathfinder went the opposite direction.
You can make 238,140 mechanically distinct level two characters based on ancestry, class, and archetype alone (that’s not a random guess, I did the math); and while they won’t all have the same power level, they will all likely be able to contribute meaningfully. And that’s not even counting all the class-specific choices and options, or the other feats you could take. Paizo is six years into PF2e right now, and even though they had to waste a bunch of time dealing with WotC’s OGL nonsense, they’re up to nearly a quarter million different combinations; but 3.x didn’t get anywhere near that level of meaningful customization until Pathfinder debuted archetypes in the APG in 2010—a full decade after 3.0 came out.
The 3-action economy is so much easier to play and explain than “wait, what’s a ‘swift’ action again?” (I’ve taught a seven-year-old how to play successfully), but it doesn’t feel like a video game like 5e does because there are actual, meaningful choices you can make with each of your three actions. While 5e (and 3.x before it) often devolves into “conga line of death” (surround the bad guy for flanking, whomp him with your biggest weapon twice per turn, don’t move because he’ll AOO you into powder), you can do essentially whatever you want with each of your three actions and make a difference.
Plus, where 5e aimed at making things even more same-y with “bounded accuracy,” PF2e leaned into crits so hard that they had to lean into crit fails, too, in order to balance them. You can crit succeed and fail at skill checks, and the APs have rules for what happens when you do. Some weapons are built around crits, and they’re not a 1-in-20 chance anymore. You can do them quite often with the right build.
As far as setting, the Forgotten Realms were probably interesting back when Greenwood came up with them, but putting a billion authors into the world has made it into the same bland, boring, Wal-Mart-Brand-Middle-Earth that Greyhawk was; but Golarion has something like three different continents for every possible type of fantasy setting you might want (that is a random guess, and probably an exaggeration).
And with the addition of Starfinder to the system a few weeks ago, all of that gets doubled or more.
Plus, it’s so much easier to run as a GM than the 3.x games were. I remember the first time I put a “hard” encounter together for PF2e. I looked at it and was like, “whoa, that can’t be right, I’m gonna have a TPK!” So I nerfed the encounter, and the players stomped it in two rounds. When I built an encounter the next week using the rules as written, it was a fun and dynamic encounter that lasted the entire session. One character went down. Everyone used their consumables and resources. It worked perfectly. Ever since, I trust that the encounter math knows what it’s talking about. When was the last time you were able to say that in 3.x?
A lot of the really good stuff has been updated for the new system, either officially or by the community.
I mean…3.x was kind of janky. Yeah, it was better than AD&D, and yeah, it was awesome in its time, but it’s based on a 25-year-old system. People know a lot more about game design now, and it shows. Pathfinder 1e did noble work trying to make everything fit together, but they deployed a lot of duct tape over the nine years they were essentially “in charge of” the d20 system. When the “Pathfinder Unchained” classes came out, and you could see the difference between a modern approach and an original approach at the same table, it was like night and day. Some tables even banned Unchained classes because they would outshine the PHB/CRB classes, even though their damage output was still balanced.
I don’t think Pathfinder 2e is a perfect system. But it’s definitely better than the 3.x rules. That thing did, in fact, need fixing.
They have! And they’re great! You just have to play PF2e, or convert them to your system, in order to play them. Or you can play third-party adventures, which are still coming out for PF1e/3.x as recently as yesterday.
Like I said, if you still like 3.x, I’m glad! Enjoy what you enjoy. I think it’s most important that people play the game they like at their tables. But 2e didn’t make it “video game-y.”
It’s only a TTRPG if you can win it in character creation. Everything else is just sparkling video game.