As the teaser articles roll out I find myself increasingly excited for Pathfinder 2.0. I've certainly enjoyed my time with D&D 5E, but I continue to admit that there has always been something really special about the years I delved deep into Pathfinder (and 3rd edition before it), warts and all. The idea of a streamlined, retooled version which (it seems) dropped the weird stuff from the playtest I didn't like has me really excited.
Yeah, I hope that the final product holds up to this excitement, too! I would hate to go all in (as I plan to do) and then find myself bummed out at the final product.
We shall see, though....I have a good feeling about this one, don't know why, I just like the cut of Paizo's gib, y'know?
The product will probably only fail for me if it does more than one of the following:
1. Integrate too deeply into the default world of Golarion making it hard to use the game with my own settings;
2. Did not actually get rid of annoying and cumbersome rules seen in the playtest (such as the essence mechanics for magic items);
3. accidentally introduces too many new rules in the name of streamlining that are counter-intuitive for verisimilitude-focused play (the "4Eification" of PF2.0 if you will; a valid concern since the devs have occasionally suggested that 4E had its influences here).
I don't want to be disappointed though....I really want a viable, interesting, intuitive but more flexible and detailed game system that provides me with a permanent alternative to D&D 5E. Again....I am not denigrating D&D 5E, I am just saying that I want something that innovates in this space and moves forward in new and fun ways for me as a jaded veteran gamer. I'm a "old gamer who wants to see interesting new ways and mechanics to play in the D&D space," essentially...and I'm betting my chips on Pathfinder 2.0 doing this.
You're asking the wrong group of people (Paizo and WOTC) to innovate tabletop RPG's. They're far to set in their ways and spend more time with their marketing department designing their games than they do actual gamers. Or am I being overly cynical? At best, they'll only tweak things to boost sales. Maybe someday, another Gygax and Arneson will come around.
ReplyDeleteWell, I'm probably using innovate incorrectly here, anyway. My idea for innovating (what I want) is mostly just a more robust character design mechanic with a lot of diversity, coupled with a really easy to use suite of GM tools. I think it's hard to get too far from the D&D formula when it comes to real innovation in design without leaving the core conceit of what it means to be D&D behind. For actual innovation I think Monte Cook Games is my bread and butter these days.
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