Comments on: Roll Perception Plus Awareness: Pathfinder RPG

By: bryant

bryant — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:32:28 +0000

Another interesting contrast between the two is the format: Pathfinder is available as a PDF (a PDF that is kept current with changes in the rules, I believe), Dungeons and Dragons 4e is not.

Wizards of the Coast experimented with PDFs, but stopped after concerns about piracy.

This is one of those instances where the mass and inertia of Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro are keeping them from being as nimble as the much smaller Paizo (though at this point, I'd posit that Paizo is the second biggest publisher of RPGs in the US). WotC needs to convince a massive body of shareholders--most of whom traffic in tangible toy goods--to the value of meeting new media demands; Paizo (who made their name and lucre selling both tangible and intangible goods for WotC) is already convinced of it.

By: Paul (@princejvstin)

Paul (@princejvstin) — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 11:29:29 +0000

Hi Aldo.

I felt that I had to start on the most familiar ground before branching out to less well known games. Thus, I always planned to do D&D and Pathfinder early, so readers would have a degree of familiarity.

Now that I've covered D&D (and its greatest imitator). I feel free to branch out. I have a whole shelf of games in my bookcase to talk about...

By: Aldo Ojeda

Aldo Ojeda — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 02:26:39 +0000

I haven't played Pathfinder, but for what I've seen it indeed looks more accecible than other D&D editions. But talking about d20, I prefer D20 Modern and Star Wars Saga. Mainly because the setting is is so different from fantasy, wich honestly I'm tired of it in RPG's. By the way, when are you going to talk about other games, like Traveller, Gamma World or Paranoia?

By: John Stevens

John Stevens — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 20:15:25 +0000

I haven't gotten to play for awhile, but I find the Pathfinder/D&D 3.5 hybrid to be a good structure for role-playing, especially, as you noted, in a fantasy/sword-n-sorcery setting. I've used it once for a campaign that was cut short, but I thought that, with a few homebrew rules we added in, the system worked well and, as you also noted, was quickly engaged by the other players, all of whom came from a D&D background. I was not enamored of 4th Edition, although shifting from the Vancian magic system sounds like a good idea. Before the campaign stopped I had started working on a new magic system (taking some ideas from the 3.5 Warlock) that gave lo-level mages a bit more power.

I somehow missed the OGL aspect of Pathfinder; thanks for bringing that up and linking to their SRD.