Ok, so I've been eyeing PF for quite some time. I have a complete Forgotten Realms 3.0+3.5 collection. I'm *considering* selling it for new shinies that is the Paizo Golarion setting or just adding to my D&D collection... Not sure which. I'm also well versed with Dragonlance setting material as well, though I just own the core for that one.
So, I would appreciate CONTRASTS (avoid bashing please, I hate that) with FR or DL on the finer points of Golarion. Thanks. :)
Edited to add: I've also played/read/am familiar with Exalted's "Creation", oWoD, Ars Magica's Mythic Europe, Eberron, and Scarred Lands as other points of comparison.
-Golarion is a low-power campaign setting. Characters above 15th level are true rarities, characters of 20th level can likely be counted on one hand, and few to none of them are good guys.
-The Gods in Golarion do not have statistics.
-The setting draws from gritty, pulp-fantasy style roots.
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Golarion is lower in magic and power scale than FR. It has more of a pulp fantasy feel to it. Of the published worlds I would say it is closest to Greyhawk or early FR(aka first grey box), but I think it is a better personally.
NPC levels tend to be lower than FR, magic is less common, it is slightly more gritty. It also has a little bit of everything including the kitchen sink tossed into the setting, yet it is blended well and oddly feels like it fits. I was a big fan of the old grey box of FR and Golarion reminds me a bit of that.
Golarion's got a lot more mystery.
I love FR, but it's been around for ages and has been the subject of more articles, supplements, and novels than I can begin to count. Often it feels like the whole place has been mapped out. Its major personalities, like Elminster and Drizzt and the Seven Sisters, are long-familiar faces. There's not a lot of mystery left. Golarion, by contrast, has mysteries peeking out from every corner.
It's also lower magic, as the previous posters have said. In Golarion it doesn't feel quite as much like your PCs are always going to be overshadowed by NPCs who have already shaken the continents and slain the gods and otherwise been-there-done-that about every epic adventure you can imagine. I like that, as an issue I had with some of the FR stuff was that power creep reached what felt, to me, like absurd levels. (IIRC, in one of the novels, there were beholders nailed to boards so that they could be used as living wands o' doom... and this was a minor weapon, mass-produced and disposed of in a paragraph or so, during a battle of so-epic-it's-silly proportions. Personally I like my big monsters to have a little more gravitas.)
And it's generally darker. There is lots of evil crawling around this world. There is not much good in the setting as written (although there's some; it's not a total crapsack world by any means). When good does exist, it tends to be a little more complicated than most D&D settings portray (see: Hermea, eugenicist gold dragon ruler thereof). I like complications and inflicting knotty choices on my PCs, so that part appeals to me a lot as well.
Finally, the APs and written modules tend to be impressively deep. If your playing style is roleplay-heavy, and you/your group tend to like a lot of investigation, background material, hows-and-whys of NPC backstory and motivation beyond "he's an evil orc and he has 100 gp of loot," there's a lot of very good support for that style in the setting. That probably sucked me in faster than anything else; I am a total junkie for that stuff.
Golarion has built-in design considerations that ensure it will always be a good place to run games. Canonical NPCs are avoided. The world itself is "lying in wait" as I like to say — every module and AP ever published is presumed to not-have-occurred. YOUR party is the party the will live through the greatest adventures. You never get the sense that your setting is just the leavings of someone else's great campaign.
It's a little like navigating a planned city when you are used to living with cowpaths (like Boston). Everything is inexplicably easier, because they were anticipating certain needs instead of just playing their own games and seeing where it lead them.
Of the published worlds I would say it is closest to Greyhawk or early FR(aka first grey box), but I think it is a better personally.
+1 on this.
Reading the original Golarion world book for the first time really reminded me of the feeling I had reading the very first FR boxed set. (Although I would say the Golarion book is technically better in almost every respect, it's ~22 years later and I have higher standards so that part's kind of a wash.)
But basically, I get that same feeling of: there's this huge world with all these interesting bits and all these cool locations I want to hang parts of a campaign around.
I loved FR for a long time, but eventually I feel like it became calcified and dragged down by the weight of canon and its own popularity. There was just too much detail and too many super-powered characters added -- it came to have a feel to me of a world in which every corner was mapped out, every nation had three mediocre novels written about it that I'd never get around to reading, and every bit of the world had a half-dozen epic casters that I'd have to somehow disappear in my campaign's plot or one of my FR-canon-fanatic players would inevitably seek them out to beg for help against the hill giants they were facing.
Golarion feels to me like the cool parts of FR before it got ridden into the ground or, god forbid, filled with dragonborn for some reason. Not to say it's in any way a copy of FR -- it's definitely its own animal, but it's great in a lot of the same ways.
Golarion, how do I like thee...
I've been playing the game for over 20 years, and have played in many campaign settings since then. It's something that I can barely put my finger on, but find it very hard to describe, but Golarion makes me recall the wonder and excitement that I had when I first starting gaming.
A land full of old ruins and few authorities to lay down the law? Varisia (and the Mwangi Expanse).
Need to get your Ravenloft on? Ustalav.
Two magic-strong nations constantly butting heads? Geb and Nex, with the magic wastelands of Alkenstar between them.
Feel the urge to yell "Lords of Light"? Head to Numeria.
Or the urge to crush your enemies and hear the lamentations of their women? The Land of the Linnorm Kings.
Want to duel wits with genies of the elemental planes? Head towards Qadira.
In short, every possible genre I want to dabble with is at my fingertips - and that's just the Inner Sea. Other things await in the hinted at expanses of south Garund and Casmaron to the east, not to mention the lands of Vudra, Tian Xia, Sarusan, and Arcadia. Psionic creatures await on the planet Castrovel, the red deserts of the planet Akiton, and other things lurk in Golarion's solar system.
So many possibilities, so little time!
I was a huge fan of FR. But even back in the Grey box, I felt I was playing in someone elses homebrew campaign. Our characters were just visiting. With Golarion, it feels like WE are the ones doing things.
Our group was not really wanting to change over to Golarion. We had used many settings, and FR always seemed to be the best for us. But one of my friends got a used copy of the campaign book, and I read it. I had him read it. We got the others to read it. We loved it. The world works. Many times one reads backgrounds of countries and it seems two dimensional. Not for us with Golarion. And there are so many different areas to use. I am certain there is a place that will spark interest for your group.
Greg
History: Golarion has a long history full of interesting hooks for stories, yet the books do not assault you with minutiae. The framework is laid out for you to tinker with, fill in or not fill in, etc as you please. The history mostly makes sense, too. You can tell that some thought was put into this.
Grit: It ain't Warhammer or The Black Company, but Golarion is notably less Disenyfied than some other commercially produced settings. The cruelty of war, squalor, urban decay, drug dealers, gangsters, whores, charlatans, evil cults, savage acts of vengance and hate, bigotry, etc- it's all present. The world is far from being a hopeless hell zone, though. There are good people, good places, things for which it is worth fighting. Some regions are written as being grittier than other regions.
Themed regions give variety : As Lillith has noted, the various regions all have themes. Each nation/region has a tagline that sums up the basic concept of the area. Of course, you can run all sorts of adventures in any given region, but certain areas are clearly set up to work well for cetain types of adventuring. The world is not a homogenous mix of 'vanilla fantasy' or a chaotic kitchen sink that makes no sense. You are essentially getting a batch of well-integrated, fully cross-compatible mini settings.
A starting point: Like the WoG boxed set or the Old Gray Box for FR, Golarion is not 'filled in' to a level that requires the DM to constantly make decisions about what to keep, what to modify, and what to ditch.
Not much metaplot: There doesn't seem to be a concerted move towards building a huge, complicated, NPC focused metaplot that will be ignored or altered by most DMs because it won't fit with their campaigns, as it is written. Seems that they learned something from the Greyhawk Wars, Time of Troubles,the second or third time that the fickle gods blew up Krynn, etc. :)
Instead, the designers seem to be operating with the excellent notion that the DM and his players will make the setting their own, and that the PCs' adventures are the adventures/plot/stories that matter most of all.
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I feel like Golarion presents the most coherent fantasy campaign world from a geo-political and cultural standpoint. While speculating on how a world with magic and 10,000 years of history would operate is difficult at best, Paizo does a good job of it.
I enjoy medieval studies, and have attempted to run campaigns in historically accurate settings. I find that they can be frustrating for everyone who does not share the same passion for the period. Golarion eschews pseudo-historical realism for a culture with more modern sensibilities and medieval/renaissance flavor. Something more enjoyable for players and less worries for GMs trying to shoehorn their concepts into a medieval mindset.
I like what has been said above. Its all what I would have said :) And I like the Pathfinders. The Pathfinder Society is the 18C British Explorers Club. Except open to women ;) The world of Golarion is full of ancient civilizations that date back 11,000 or more years back and their ruins are still being dug up, explored, languages being deciphered etc. The Pathfinder Society is open to anyone regarldess of race or alignment or class, as long as they have something to offer the society in the way of skill sets. Ie Librarians, scholors, historians, archaeologists, fighters for guarding, rangers for exploring, bards and rogues for archaeologist and anthropologist, wizard for decyphering magical things etc... If you like being Dr. Livinston, Indiana Jones, Sherlock Holmes or any other such character this is a good bunch to get involved in.
And they are not the only group to belong to...
Golarion is a kitchen sink setting filled with all sorts of standard High Fantasy elements with some extra stuff like Science Fantasy (ala Expedition to the Barrier Peaks) thrown in.
Basically the current focus of the setting is the Inner Sea which is a fairly standard Fantasy Europe, North Africa, Middle East. Each region is pretty much branded with separate design elements that correspond to standard Fantasy fare. Examples include Irrisen (Basically Fantasy Russia with extreme cold and Baba Yaga), Cheliax (High Fantasy evil empire), Taldor (Renaissance Empire decaying into ruin), Andoran (Fantasy Democracy), Kyonin (Insular Elven Kingdom), etc.
I feel that Golarion is basically a new take on Greyhawk and Blackmoor, which isn't exactly surprising given the role that various Paizo employees have taken in developing more recent Greyhawk lore.
It doesn't have a huge feel of Steampunk (Eberron seems to have cornered the market for that currently) but instead has most of the standard High Fantasy elements but tends to deconstruct some of them and amp up others.
In general I would say it's fairly dark for a D&D setting. Not quite as grimdark as say the From the Ashes boxed set where it seemed like the defeat of Weal by Iuz was imminent but more gritty than Mystara or Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance.
I think for the most they are aiming for the 1e feel ala the FR grey box or the original WoG boxed set. Areas are painted very generally leaving a ton of room for future expansion via APs or by DMs customizing the world.
I also like that it seems completely devoid of an overarching metaplot. Metaplot fatigue has really hampered my enjoyment of the Realms and Creation (Exalted's setting). Having a more static world makes me in charge of the setting rather than being at the mercy of the developers.
I also like that the innate power level of most of the characters depicted in the setting is fairly modest. FR novels in particular tended to focus on the affairs of Demigods rather than the affairs on low to mid-level adventurers doing heroic things.
Overall it's definitely solid and shows significant promise as a shared setting.
Back in the day there were these bad guys that ruled the world, they were wizards, all 20th level. Actually, they ruled something like the western part of a continent roughly like the western part of the US. The area they ruled was the size of western US. But that was 11,000 years ago in ancient Thassilon, and now we Pathfinders and the Cyphermages try to figure out all we can about that lost empire :) But that is just one thing that you can do, with many a varied plotline :)
And then there is the Psionic options from Dreamscarred press, who just did 3.5 psionics over to Pathfinder rules :)
Ok, so I've been eyeing PF for quite some time. I have a complete Forgotten Realms 3.0+3.5 collection. I'm *considering* selling it for new shinies that is the Paizo Golarion setting or just adding to my D&D collection... Not sure which. I'm also well versed with Dragonlance setting material as well, though I just own the core for that one.
So, I would appreciate CONTRASTS (avoid bashing please, I hate that) with FR or DL on the finer points of Golarion. Thanks. :)
Edited to add: I've also played/read/am familiar with Exalted's "Creation", oWoD, Ars Magica's Mythic Europe, Eberron, and Scarred Lands as other points of comparison.
We have to get one thing clear: Golarion is a kitchensink setting, and any quick reading will net the image of a Forgotten Realm/Greyhawk cousin. And, in truth, it is. But that is not necessarily bad. If I had to put it someway, I'd say Golarion "Is similar enough not to stray too far, but different enough to be worth giving it a try". Pretty much like what Pathfinder is to D&D.
That said, there are some key elements that I have come to see as really identifying of the setting, such as its androcentric focus (humans are, by far, the norm, other races being very exceptional in general. I like this), the whole "Omens Gone Horribly Wrong" theme that pervades the world (which really makes for a great situation, where people are no longer sure what to believe in), the inclusion of themes not normally seen in fantasy settings (there is a lot of Age of Elightment-like content, from French Revolution-inspired nations to entire societies built over extreme rationalism and social experimentation) and the "Calm Magic" style (I prefer to say "Calm" rather than "Low Magic", since the latter implies there is a very mundane outlook, while Golarion has a lot of fantasy going on, but the level of power is low).
Besides that, I also like the fact that Golarion is fresh, without far too much baggage and lots of room for growth, which lends it to expectations and mystery.
I havnt had as much fun in play in a setting for a long time, and Golarion gave that to me in Varisia the first area developed in the Pathfinder books that came out in Rise of the Runelords :) The Goblins were stupid little freaks, the town was fairly real. From there they led us into a ghost story, and into hillbilly ogres, and other horrible things, and into an amazing treck into a lost city :) All over 6 adventures :) all across a large map with numerous cities and rivers and such. And this was only one country in One area of Golarion.
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+1 to pretty much everything everyone else has said.
I enjoy the Drizzt books, they are some of my favorites in fact, but one of the things I like more about Golarion than Faerun, as previously said, is that Faerun seems almost entirely mapped out, so there is always some sort of regional superpower who can come to the aid of the little guy.
Along the Sword Coast, the Lords of Waterdeep keep things under control until you reach Luskan (or what was Luskan) being controlled by the Pirate Captains, with Neverwinter growing in between the two now.
In Golarion, you dont have this kind of thing so much, it seems to me. There are lots of smaller towns out there that really have no one but themselves to depend on.
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+1 to pretty much everything everyone else has said.
I enjoy the Drizzt books, they are some of my favorites in fact, but one of the things I like more about Golarion than Faerun, as previously said, is that Faerun seems almost entirely mapped out, so there is always some sort of regional superpower who can come to the aid of the little guy.
Along the Sword Coast, the Lords of Waterdeep keep things under control until you reach Luskan (or what was Luskan) being controlled by the Pirate Captains, with Neverwinter growing in between the two now.
In Golarion, you dont have this kind of thing so much, it seems to me. There are lots of smaller towns out there that really have no one but themselves to depend on.
It depends on the region. Varisia (the "showcase" region for Golarion) is pretty much every one on his own with three competing major cities, but you will find much more FR-like regions.
But the beauty of Golarion is that you have all this at once, and you can go where the backstory, culture and politics suits you the best. Golarion is the ultimate kitchen sink setting - it has something for everyone. I can hardly imagine a classic fantasy trope that doesn't have a place there.
Golarion, how do I like thee...
I've been playing the game for over 20 years, and have played in many campaign settings since then. It's something that I can barely put my finger on, but find it very hard to describe, but Golarion makes me recall the wonder and excitement that I had when I first starting gaming.
A land full of old ruins and few authorities to lay down the law? Varisia (and the Mwangi Expanse).
Need to get your Ravenloft on? Ustalav.
Two magic-strong nations constantly butting heads? Geb and Nex, with the magic wastelands of Alkenstar between them.
Feel the urge to yell "Lords of Light"? Head to Numeria.
Or the urge to crush your enemies and hear the lamentations of their women? The Land of the Linnorm Kings.
Want to duel wits with genies of the elemental planes? Head towards Qadira.In short, every possible genre I want to dabble with is at my fingertips - and that's just the Inner Sea. Other things await in the hinted at expanses of south Garund and Casmaron to the east, not to mention the lands of Vudra, Tian Xia, Sarusan, and Arcadia. Psionic creatures await on the planet Castrovel, the red deserts of the planet Akiton, and other things lurk in Golarion's solar system.
So many possibilities, so little time!
+1 to all this. In older games and settings, if u wanted different flavor of worlds, you had to go to a different campaign setting. In this, I get essentially Egypt, Ancient Aztec, Roman type areas, Vikings, etc. And with the release of Tian Xia, we get oriental (I'm not too big on oriental, but its nice flavor and nice to have.) And I don't have to switch games or campaigns and learn dieties for other games. Its all Golarion, and I like it. I also like the fact that its all one world, with seperate books for separate continents, not seperate hardcover books for other parts of the same continent.
I forgot the Worldwound...where reality itself is splitting apart and unleashing the hordes of the Abyss one dretch at a time, where all one has is one's sword and one's faith against the corrupting evil - yes please! (I still want to run a party of all paladins of differing faiths in a quick Worldwound game.)
The theme of Aroden's death and the failure of omen and prophecy - what a fun idea! The things that happened, EPIC and world-changing things, when Aroden died: the Eye of Abendego formed (an eternally churning hurricane), the fall and corruption of Cheliax by House Thrune, the decline of Taldor, the formation of the Worldwound...MAN.
Most everything about Golarion is amazing, but I'll just say one word and be silent afterwards: Proteans!
They're awesome! They're beyond awesome! They're True Chaotic outsiders done right! Not these wannabe slaadi who most of the time got evil in their chaos. From the warrior type naunets that bodily attack the planes to rip them to shreds, over the imenteshs, ambassadors of entropy trying to dissolve the order in the hearts and minds of people, to the keketar, priests of the Speaker in the Depths, constantly interpreting the apparently random ramblings of this mysterious god-figure.
Okay, I wasn't silent afterwards.
LOL
So, what you're saying is that the setting used to be ruled by some wizards of the coast?
They are ancient history for soooo loooong now...
Hey everyone!!
Thanks for the helpful information. I'm still not sure what I'll do yet, my group has opted for a month or so of one shots, and after that it may be a Mass Effect game modeled by Green Ronin's DC Adventure's system (M&M3E).
I'm now kind of wonder just how intentional that was.
Wasn't the Thassilon Europe-sized or something like that? It would be hard to say that rulers of such large nation are wizards on the coast unless it is specifically stated that they lived on the coast, so I would say that it is rather accidental.
Anyway, no one can prove anything against Paizo in the court of law!
He he he...
Yeah since Thassilon sunk into the Coast ;)