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A while back I posted on various boards how to persuade a newbie to check out the Pathfinder RPG. Stipulations on said newbie are:
1) The last system s/he played was Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition or earlier.
2) S/he has only played Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition.
3) S/he has never played any version of Dungeons and Dragons.
NOTE: S/he is not interested in OOP books or illegal pdfs.
Well, at least one person has expressed interest. Now I discover -- as both a 3.x/Pathfinder GM and Dungeons and Dragons* DM -- I don't know how to answer their question ;-(
Help!
*Refers to the current version unless otherwise stated
A while back I posted on various boards how to persuade a newbie to check out the Pathfinder RPG. Stipulations on said newbie are:
Okay, let's go through this in order....
1) The last system s/he played was Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edition or earlier.
It's much more similar to 1st and 2nd ed than to the system called 4e. Most of the core magic items and spells are the same, and likewise the classes and races, but they've been tweaked and updated with a lot of stuff that people have been playing with as house rules for over twenty years. For example, the old 1st edition cantrips? Wizards can use those as at-will powers without running out. I did that twenty years ago as a house rule for my own game. Now it's in an actual published book, because it was a popular enough house rule in a lot of games.
2) S/he has only played Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition.
Pathfinder is a lot more roleplaying friendly. Rather than having players think about "Strikers," "Controllers" and other game jargon, they instead get to think about rogues and sorcerers and other fun things. Plus there are lots of abilities like crafts and such that add a lot more color and texture to a character.
Plus all the rules for the players are in one big book. You don't have all the main classes and races broken into multiple books so you have to buy more to get a complete game. Or buy a supplementary book for your wizard to get a familiar.
3) S/he has never played any version of Dungeons and Dragons.
This is pretty much the sum of the Dungeons and Dragons experience. All of the old fun stuff everyone loved back in the 80s, all of the fun house rules and variants people came up with in the time being, put together into one big book with some beautiful artwork and fun new additions.
NOTE: S/he is not interested in OOP books or illegal pdfs.
Pathfinder has a full line of new supplements, PDFs of back issues, and third party publishers are making new stuff all the time.
Also, much of the older OOP material from 3.5 still has copies in stores, especially online stores, and we're not even talking used. You can get new copies of many of the older books for less than cover price, and Pathfinder was designed for backwards compatibility, so if you find some older supplement you want to use, you can.
Well, at least one person has expressed interest. Now I discover -- as both a 3.x/Pathfinder GM and Dungeons and Dragons* DM -- I don't know how to answer their question ;-(
Help!
*Refers to the current version unless otherwise stated
Those would be my answers.
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I would go by calbur of who made it. I would point to the people behind the wheel. Paizo has always been about adventure first. If you look back to AD&D, it was always about that. Paizo in spirit carries the AD&D torch.
Can't help you with 2nd edition folk, but Paizo would never go to war with its customers. They have a very generous OGL policy that benefits those that love diversity and new ideas. I would also tell the AD&D and 2nd Edition crowd that Paizo is very hands on when it comes to answering their customers questions. They give timely rulings on their game products over the internet.
4th Edition crowd has to experience an adventure from Paizo. Good chance, they have never had anything like Paizo quality adventuring. This is the reason PFRPG exists really, so Paizo can continue making adventures with an available ruleset. Paizo is all about storytelling. I have heard that 4th edition games are made around their new rule system, but there is a restrictive straight jacket to the kind of stories you can tell that is built into that system.
If one has never played, you need to bring them into the right group of people. Period. If you bring them into the wrong crowd, they will always bail. RPG gaming for a new person isn't about being excited about the next rule system. Whatever system it is, it is too complicated. When someone can't speak the language, they look to other people as the "real reason" they go down into the basement.
<everything Kevin said>
+1 :)
So this is the 4e player?
Mention that Pathfinder is unfettered. Meaning: Pathfinder is a lot freer with character creation. While there certainly are classes, they don't force any builds on you, and you can often play a class in many ways to serve many concepts, and can play a concept with several different classes. A lot more choice. Plus, with skills and feats the way they are, you have a lot capabilities that aren't tied strictly to your class.
Also, classes aren't always just an incarnation of a single role. While fighters are, well, warriors (and have no extraordinary competence in other areas), there are classes like rangers (who are warriors, but can also be skill experts, and so on).
Note that Pathfinder is strong out of combat. Sure, there is combat (more on that later), but there's also more. Not just tolerated, but actively supported and encouraged.
One of the things I personally hate about 4e is that a lot of rules are there without a good (or any) connection to the game world. They're rules for rules' sake. This doesn't make them feel like a system that tries to recreate an authentic-feeling fantasy world, but more a game. It's like in chess: The Knight moves two steps forward and one to the side. He can't fall short and only move one step, because that's the rule.
Pathfinder, on the other hand, tries hard to help you imagine the characters and villains really being like that. It's a story come to life!
One of the design goals in 4e was to enforce the "Points of Light" campaign model, and to make people play either in the normal 4e world or in worlds that have been altered to resemple said world.
Pathfinder, on the other hand, supports virtually endless styles of play and game worlds. Play high fantasy, romantic fantasy, gothic (or other) horror, swashbuckling adventures, political intrigue, adventures inspired by east Asian folklore... you name it. Want to catch the flair of a certain movie or novel you read? Pathfinder can help you!
That's a huge argument for Pathfinder: All the other great Pathfinder products that work well with it. In fact, some, like Pathfinder Adventure Paths (which are among the best adventures out there, and for many players the very best bar none!) are written using PF RPG rules. Pathfinder Chronicles, a great setting that really deserves the "Best of all possible worlds" mention, is tied to PF (though you could use it with other games, too, of course).
Paizo won't treat you like a child. They won't try to tell you that the world is really roses and villains are people who don't like to share or something. Their villains are villains. Not Saturday-morning-cartoon-villains (though that might no longer be fitting - has been some time since I watched cartoons on Saturday morning), but real Villains. Right bastards you will really hate.
Yes, bad, terrible things happen in Pathfinder. People (including children) are brutalised, violated, murdered, eaten, raped. Sometimes in that order.
It's not the cleaned-up version for 5-year-olds. It means your heroes can be true heroes because their villains aren't just some misunderstood social misfits who commit vaguely unnice crimes.
Pathfinder is not afraid to handle mature themes in general. Sexuality, including sexual preference, is only one of the many themes Paizo handles with bare hands rather than 20-foot-poles with gloves at the end.
In the end, while ou might have to clean up some of the adventures a bit if your kids play, too, this way to handle mature themes makes the stories so much more authentic.
PF RPG can be used by creative minds to create great new stuff using a very friendly and open license which encourages rather than discourages it. And if someone just wants to do fan contributions (without making money off this stuff), he can use not only Pathfinder's rules, but Pathfinder's world, as a basis for their work.
Paizo is a customer's dream come true! Beyond what you can infer from the points above, they really care about the gaming community, work hard to give to this community, listen to this community.
Best example: Pathfinder RPG open beta! You were able to just go and download a great PDF for free (or buy it as print edition at cost), and tell them what you like and what you don't - and they listened to you!
That's one of those points: They listen to customers. They're active here on the boards, they make it part of their duty to come here and personally answer people's questions. And by answer, I mean a real, honest answer, not something sent through the Spin Department.
Unlike a lot of other companies, they believe that the best way to make people give you money is work hard to give them what they want. "A satisfied customer is a paying customer" or something like that. That's not that common these days.
Those are only some of the reasons why I like Pathfinder.
Since she doesn't know D&D, it will probably be pointless to tell her how Pathfinder manages to stay true to its more than 30 years of history while at the same time coming up with amazing new ideas.
You can play a gnome illusionist without needing to buy three rulebooks or a $100/year subscription.
You can customize and tinker with your character to make him or her just like you want. Every character has more options.
It's more than a boardgame.
It's compatible with previous editions of the game, and the adventures that are published for it are better than what Wizards puts out.
Kingmaker!
