The 5-min adventuring day is more of a “poor GM management” problem than anything. If time effectively stands still when the PC’s rest, of course they’ll rest at every opportunity. But yes, PF2 has a bit less of powers per day and a few more powers-per-short-rest (well, PF2’s equivalent of a short rest, anyways).
Pathfinder absolutely can be used to tell a great story. In fact, I think it’s better at that than most of the so-called “narrative systems” out there. But perhaps that’s because most of the narrative systems out there run into some of my own pet peeves - namely encouraging metagaming via player abilities that are entirely divorced from the character you’re playing as. Some other pet peeves include giving players the ability to retcon/declare things as an ability, or having mechanics that explicitly assume that the world only exists insofar as the PCs interact with it.
In my personal opinion, player’s choices only feel important if they have real consequences. This means that the GM must, at a minumum, have enough mechanical ‘rigging’ to work with that players can reasonably predict the likely outcomes of a given course of action, and see those consequences ripple out into the world in the thousand tiny ways that make the game world feel real.
Plus, there are dozens of ways to streamline a crunchy system and make it easier for new players to handle. But there just aren’t that many (good) ways to add complexity to a game that’s transparently simple on it’s face. I find that simpler rules systems paradoxically encourage power-gaming in this way - if you know you can solve any problem with a +8 Tomfoolery skill and a pile of “story points”, why would you ever do anything else? But if you have to choose your approach based on its consequences - not just based on what number is higher - then all of a sudden he decision of whether to bribe, lie to, persuade, sneak past, or assassinate the guard becomes a whole lot harder. And there’s no way to weasel out of it because the skills have extremely defined uses that can’t be bent to mean something other than what they mean.
(Sorry, that reply kinda ran away with me there 😅)
(But if you would like thoughts/help/advice on how to run a crunchier system in a way that produces very “story focused” results, I have a lot of practice with that. It’s both very rewarding and not as hard as it seems. Anyone who reads this and wants to chat, please do. My dms are open.)
The 5-min adventuring day is more of a “poor GM management” problem than anything. If time effectively stands still when the PC’s rest, of course they’ll rest at every opportunity.
I think it’s partly poor GM management , but it’s also what players want clashing with what DND-likes are. Players want to use their cool powers. The game wants them to save them for when it “matters”. There’s no squaring that. So that’s why you get players blowing all their cool powers in the first couple scenes, and then wanting to rest. The GM can add consequences (eg: the villains plot advances), but that’s punishing players for how they want to play.
There are some players who truly, sincerely, naturally enjoy the resource management aspects. They are a minority. People pick wizard to do wizard stuff, not to use a crossbow for three hours.
In my personal opinion, player’s choices only feel important if they have real consequences
I am inclined to agree. One of the games I like, Fate, has a mechanic literally named Consequences. It’s still pretty open ended. Players make up consequences as seem appropriate, rather than looking them up in a book. It’s up to the table to enforce them. If you took a consequence “broken arm”, you have to remember that means you can’t swing your greatclub around like before.
I’m not sure I’ve seen a lot of people trying to weasel their skills in Fate. I’ve had “sure, your best skill is Fight so you can totally body slam the bouncer to get into the club, but then you’ll have body slammed a bouncer and people react appropriately”.
I’m not sure what your advice for making crunchier systems work for non-crunchy players would be. I tried to do Mage and the one player that never really learned the rules was always lost and frustrated. They had a strong power set but they didn’t understand it, so every challenge didn’t work. I didn’t want to have someone else back seat driving them, but they didn’t understand how to solve even problems tailored to their character’s strength. And then they didn’t understand the tradeoffs of the different options.
I feel like there’s two poles of the RPG experience. At one end, there’s the writer’s room “let’s tell an awesome story together”. At the other, there’s “I am my character and I am in the world”.
I am super far in the writer’s room direction. I don’t want to “immerse” in my character. I want to tell a cool story about my character. So for me, when I try to jump onto a moving train and flub the roll, having input into what happens is great. I like being able to say “what if I land and roll and my backpack falls, so I lose all my stuff?”, or “what if I crash through the window of the wrong car, and it’s like a room full of security goons having dinner??”. If the GM just unilaterally does that, by contrast, it feels bad to me. I like having input.
It’s probably no surprise I GM more than play.
I imagine at the other end of the spectrum, thinking about that stuff gets in the way of trying to experience the character.
The “writer’s room” stuff is, by definition, not role-playing. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely enjoy it, but if you tell me we’re role-playing and then hit me with that, I’ll be upset at the whiplash.
I feel like games like FATE need to pick a lane. Either we’re all writers telling a story together, or we’re trying to role-play as characters and be immersed in the world. But you can’t accomplish both things at once.
And if we’re doing the writer’s room thing, we should just play Microscope. It’s my favorite improv-game so far (although I’m open to trying others).
I can see why you might feel that way. Playing in that mode still has some properties of roleplaying- you’re often focused on one character and thinking about the world through their perspective - but you’re not trying to be them the whole time.
Maybe it’s like being an actor and director at the same time, for a film or play? You drop into the character but also zoom out for the bigger picture. I don’t think anyone would say like “Branagh wasn’t acting because he was also directing”
I don’t agree with “can’t accomplish both at once”, but this is a reasonable thing to disagree on. It can definitely be a mode of play people don’t enjoy!
I’ve heard nothing but good things about Pathfinder 2e. I initially ignored it because I really disliked 1st edition.
I really intensely dislike powers-per-day and the five minute adventuring day, but I think PF2e has less of that?
The players available to me are probably more of a lightweight narrative game crew, though.
The 5-min adventuring day is more of a “poor GM management” problem than anything. If time effectively stands still when the PC’s rest, of course they’ll rest at every opportunity. But yes, PF2 has a bit less of powers per day and a few more powers-per-short-rest (well, PF2’s equivalent of a short rest, anyways).
Pathfinder absolutely can be used to tell a great story. In fact, I think it’s better at that than most of the so-called “narrative systems” out there. But perhaps that’s because most of the narrative systems out there run into some of my own pet peeves - namely encouraging metagaming via player abilities that are entirely divorced from the character you’re playing as. Some other pet peeves include giving players the ability to retcon/declare things as an ability, or having mechanics that explicitly assume that the world only exists insofar as the PCs interact with it.
In my personal opinion, player’s choices only feel important if they have real consequences. This means that the GM must, at a minumum, have enough mechanical ‘rigging’ to work with that players can reasonably predict the likely outcomes of a given course of action, and see those consequences ripple out into the world in the thousand tiny ways that make the game world feel real.
Plus, there are dozens of ways to streamline a crunchy system and make it easier for new players to handle. But there just aren’t that many (good) ways to add complexity to a game that’s transparently simple on it’s face. I find that simpler rules systems paradoxically encourage power-gaming in this way - if you know you can solve any problem with a +8 Tomfoolery skill and a pile of “story points”, why would you ever do anything else? But if you have to choose your approach based on its consequences - not just based on what number is higher - then all of a sudden he decision of whether to bribe, lie to, persuade, sneak past, or assassinate the guard becomes a whole lot harder. And there’s no way to weasel out of it because the skills have extremely defined uses that can’t be bent to mean something other than what they mean.
(Sorry, that reply kinda ran away with me there 😅)
(But if you would like thoughts/help/advice on how to run a crunchier system in a way that produces very “story focused” results, I have a lot of practice with that. It’s both very rewarding and not as hard as it seems. Anyone who reads this and wants to chat, please do. My dms are open.)
I think it’s partly poor GM management , but it’s also what players want clashing with what DND-likes are. Players want to use their cool powers. The game wants them to save them for when it “matters”. There’s no squaring that. So that’s why you get players blowing all their cool powers in the first couple scenes, and then wanting to rest. The GM can add consequences (eg: the villains plot advances), but that’s punishing players for how they want to play.
There are some players who truly, sincerely, naturally enjoy the resource management aspects. They are a minority. People pick wizard to do wizard stuff, not to use a crossbow for three hours.
I am inclined to agree. One of the games I like, Fate, has a mechanic literally named Consequences. It’s still pretty open ended. Players make up consequences as seem appropriate, rather than looking them up in a book. It’s up to the table to enforce them. If you took a consequence “broken arm”, you have to remember that means you can’t swing your greatclub around like before.
I’m not sure I’ve seen a lot of people trying to weasel their skills in Fate. I’ve had “sure, your best skill is Fight so you can totally body slam the bouncer to get into the club, but then you’ll have body slammed a bouncer and people react appropriately”.
I’m not sure what your advice for making crunchier systems work for non-crunchy players would be. I tried to do Mage and the one player that never really learned the rules was always lost and frustrated. They had a strong power set but they didn’t understand it, so every challenge didn’t work. I didn’t want to have someone else back seat driving them, but they didn’t understand how to solve even problems tailored to their character’s strength. And then they didn’t understand the tradeoffs of the different options.
FATE is my favorite least favorite system. I love so much about it, but find about half of it absolutely intolerable.
For example - players making up their own consequences. It’s so metagamey that it immediately kills my immersion.
Edit - Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of the Consequences system, but it rubs me the wrong way for the players to be the ones choosing them.
I feel like there’s two poles of the RPG experience. At one end, there’s the writer’s room “let’s tell an awesome story together”. At the other, there’s “I am my character and I am in the world”.
I am super far in the writer’s room direction. I don’t want to “immerse” in my character. I want to tell a cool story about my character. So for me, when I try to jump onto a moving train and flub the roll, having input into what happens is great. I like being able to say “what if I land and roll and my backpack falls, so I lose all my stuff?”, or “what if I crash through the window of the wrong car, and it’s like a room full of security goons having dinner??”. If the GM just unilaterally does that, by contrast, it feels bad to me. I like having input.
It’s probably no surprise I GM more than play.
I imagine at the other end of the spectrum, thinking about that stuff gets in the way of trying to experience the character.
The “writer’s room” stuff is, by definition, not role-playing. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely enjoy it, but if you tell me we’re role-playing and then hit me with that, I’ll be upset at the whiplash.
I feel like games like FATE need to pick a lane. Either we’re all writers telling a story together, or we’re trying to role-play as characters and be immersed in the world. But you can’t accomplish both things at once.
And if we’re doing the writer’s room thing, we should just play Microscope. It’s my favorite improv-game so far (although I’m open to trying others).
I can see why you might feel that way. Playing in that mode still has some properties of roleplaying- you’re often focused on one character and thinking about the world through their perspective - but you’re not trying to be them the whole time.
Maybe it’s like being an actor and director at the same time, for a film or play? You drop into the character but also zoom out for the bigger picture. I don’t think anyone would say like “Branagh wasn’t acting because he was also directing”
I don’t agree with “can’t accomplish both at once”, but this is a reasonable thing to disagree on. It can definitely be a mode of play people don’t enjoy!