| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Personally my favorite thing about roleplaying is the social experience - getting together with your friends and imagining fun and interesting situations together.
That said, I could easily be playing something else. I play Pathfinder because it's familiar, and most people in my group know the rules because it's based on one of the oldest and most popular RPGs.
What keeps you coming back to Pathfinder instead of one of the MANY table top RPG experiences available?
What keeps you coming back to Pathfinder instead of one of the MANY table top RPG experiences available?
'Instead of' ? Nothing, really. In the group I am playing with, PF is one of several systems we are playing.
What keeps you coming back to Pathfinder instead of one of the MANY table top RPG experiences available?'Instead of' ? Nothing, really. In the group I am playing with, PF is one of several systems we are playing.
There's still an "instead of" implied there. Even if you're playing other systems, you're still making room for Pathfinder.
The amount of GM-side material (APs, modules, 3PP stuff, accessories) that makes running Pathfinder so much easier (despite the fact that the system itself is rather complicated).
The community + having writers and designers answer questions at hand.
I actually created a very simplified system to use with a campaign idea I had, and ultimately came back to pathfinder because of the bestiary.
What keeps you coming back to Pathfinder instead of one of the MANY table top RPG experiences available?'Instead of' ? Nothing, really. In the group I am playing with, PF is one of several systems we are playing.
I play many systems with multiple groups (two and a half extended groups at the moment). I GM Pathfinder for one of them and I play 3.5 and Earthdawn with them. With the other group I play a bit of Warhammer 40K, Fading Suns, Aphalon, sometimes other games (but time is serious constraint so it is rarer than I would like).
I just finished playing Mage campaign with half of the first group so no WoD for some time. With the second group we played large Legend Of Five Rings campaign that came to a permanent hiatus and I don't think we return to it but we might gladly start another L5R game in the future.
Also, saying "coming back to Pathfinder" would not be true - I am only one who GMs it and I just started campaign - it was no more than one year since we started and the party hadn't even moved past mid-point (they reached level mid-point as they are 5th level out of 10).
Never had much interest in anything else, to be honest. I've tried GURPS once, Mutants and Masterminds once, WoD (Mage+Vampire+Werewolf+Genius) once, 4E two or three times, and d20 Modern a couple of times; of the lot, only the last seemed like something I'd want to get into on a regular basis, and even then not enough to put 3.5/Pathfinder aside to play it. I'd actually just rather use the PF ruleset (or my group's more common 3.5/PF Hybrid) in a modern setting than the Modern ruleset, and do everything else with flavor and fluff.
I guess mostly because it was the first PnP system I learned, it's what I'm used to, it's what I know enough of to DM and teach others to play, and it's what most of the gamers I've encountered know. No real drive to play anything else as a result.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Why?
To me, it's not "broken", and it's fairly balanced, which makes it easy to play. Another ease of play item: the GM Fiat rule helps a lot.
Oh, and I find the APs to be really involving from a PC perspective.
That's why I'm gonna keep playing this system as long as I can.
|
Pathfinder Society Organised Play is what keeps me coming back to Pathfinder - its a chance to play a favourite character in a system that is close to 3.5, at conventions at least there is a sense of community and no shortage of games being run, plus when I did GM a couple of times it was a chance to use my Flip Mats and Map Packs!
Unfortunately my chances to play PFS are very infrequent at present, last time I played was at a convention in January. I GMed a game locally in February with a the one Meetup guy who is running Pathfinder hoping he would take up the challenge of running some PFS so I could play - alas that has not happened either. And to top it all off PaizoCon UK has been scheduled for the same weekend as another convention that I had signed up to well beforehand.
So its likely to be next January when I get to return to PF, PFS and Grelow my half-orc druid :(
|
|
My group started with 2nd Ed AD&D, then moved to 3.0/3.5. We didn't play anything else because I don't think we realized there were other options out there. We are with PF now because we made a decision to not switch to 4.0. Now, more than any other reason,, we play PF because we don't have enough time in our lives to play more than one game.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
As others have mentioned, the Organized Play keeps me coming back. As to why Pathfinder?
- Rules are familiar (and IMHO, improved)
- Golarion is a fun sandbox
- Community is active and support from the owners/designers/developers is amazingly open.
- Support of the community is excellent and not just online. I mean look at their history of recent hires, (not to mention freelancers) they are us. Between that and the embracing of the OGL that allows all these small publishers (and mooks like me) to write/sell/post new ideas and content, it is amazing.
- Selling those same 3pp product on the site. I can buy Rite Publishing, Super Genius Games, Frog God Games, etc. right here. The end impression is that Paizo doesn't see them as competition as much as collaberators. Heck, even 5 years in, new 3pp is still working its way into the official adventure paths!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I like the Adventure Paths better than homebrew campaigns, in general.
The culture of the company, I think.
|
|
AP's
I'd love to play some L5R or Mutants and Masterminds AP's because I love those systems even more than Pathfinder (and I love Pathfinder). The fact is however that I can't juggle a full time job, family commitments, conventions, LARP's and writing a game to the level of creativity and enjoyability that Paizo produces on a regular basis. One has to go and AP's make that easy.
That said if there was another game (particularly the two I've mentioned) that produced Paizo quality AP's then I would have serious thoughts about hopping onboard with that.
That's not to say I would stop playing Pathfinder but variety is good.
The APs and the fact that everyone in our group knows the rules and between us we own all the books.
We've been playing PF for a while though so when we finish Skull & Shackles we're considering going to White Wolf's Scion system for a bit.
AWESOMENESS!!!
The culture of the company, I think.
It's quite probably that, without the nice atmosphere here on messageboards and the involvement of developers I wouldn't bother with Pathfinder - well, that and my nefarious plan of converting my D&D group to PF. They still want to play 3.5, however in addition to PF.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
For me, I've been playing D&D since '81 when I was very little. And unlike pretty much everyone else out there that enjoys gaming, I never played anything else (more than an occassional session here or there).
All I've ever played was D&D. Not even video games or computer games for me -- and never Vampire or Rifts or Gurps or Warhammer or Pokemon or Magic or anything else. Just D&D.
And I'm a LOOOONG time subscriber to Dungeon Magazine, FOREVER my favorite part of D&D.
So when WotC killed off D&D, forcing Paizo (the Dungeon and Dragon magazines publisher) to create the next edition of D&D -- called Pathfinder, of course, since WotC still owns the D&D IP -- I obviously play "Pathfinder" (which is really just D&D, of course) -- because I've played D&D my whole life.
You ask why I play this as opposed to something else -- but there IS nothing else.
I started playing RPGs with the release of 3rd edition, and that was the only thing I played for a long time.
Eventually, I started playing other things; groups changed, tastes changed, new games came out.
I haven't played a d20-based game since before the Pathfinder beta. But, after so long, I want to find a Pathfinder group, because the d20 system did something that I haven't seen in other games.
A lot of RPGs these days are designed to consistently provide good play experiences - but rarely result in really incredible play experiences, and those experiences are usually the result of player influence. The d20 chassis doesn't always result in great play - sometimes bad dice can just make things unfun - but it also provides for the opportunity for one-in-a-million chances, things that nobody could have seen coming. d20 games are the games that result in stories with phrases like "And then I rolled max damage on 15d6" and something so spectacular happens that it would never fly in a game less dictated by the dice.
And that's why I came back to Pathfinder.
3rd Edition DnD was what I played with my friends most of the time and it was the first RPG of which had some sort of comprehensive understanding of the rules.
Pathfinder is 3rd edition but better and the fantastic content that keeps coming out for the system keeps me wanting more. The variety of races and classes in this game is awesome. Sure some games let you make your own "race" and "class" by giving you a free range of features to choose from, but with those systems it always felt insubstantial and artificial to me, there is no clear distinction between which of your abilities are your own biology, which are trained skills, which are other types of abilities or where those come from and I don't like that.
Also this game has the summoner which is the coolest thing ever for an RPG-loving artist.
I'll have to admit that, being quite new to RPGs in general, I don't really know many others aside from... like, two, none of which would have enough players in my group. So it's partially about how we're all already familiar with it, and partially how I'm not really willing to spend time learning another set of rules.
I also don't think that an RPG that I'd say is perfect actually exists, so that keeps me from looking.
As others have mentioned, the Organized Play keeps me coming back. As to why Pathfinder?
- Rules are familiar (and IMHO, improved)
- Golarion is a fun sandbox
- Community is active and support from the owners/designers/developers is amazingly open.
- Support of the community is excellent and not just online. I mean look at their history of recent hires, (not to mention freelancers) they are us. Between that and the embracing of the OGL that allows all these small publishers (and mooks like me) to write/sell/post new ideas and content, it is amazing.
- Selling those same 3pp product on the site. I can buy Rite Publishing, Super Genius Games, Frog God Games, etc. right here. The end impression is that Paizo doesn't see them as competition as much as collaberators. Heck, even 5 years in, new 3pp is still working its way into the official adventure paths!
This entire list pretty much sums up my thoughts. The world is engaging, the content from Paizo as well as 3PP gives a vast array of fluff and crunch for virtually anything we'd want to do.
|
You know, I had transitioned from 3.5 to 4E and been playing for a few years before I wandered over to Pathfinder, and something about it just clicked. We started by running a 4E game one weekend, Pthfinder the next, and now it's pretty much just Pathfinder. Which is sad, cause there's a few hundred dollars worth of 4E books sitting on my shelf collecting dust right now.
Spells that are more than flat mathmatical formulae with Fluff draped over the top is one. In 4E, you could remove the flavor text and focus (weapon, totem, holy symbol, etc) requirements from a power, and it would be extremely difficult for someone who wasn't familiar with the system to tell you who that power belonged to. In Pathfinder, not only is there a distinct feel to each class and their associated abilities, but the fact that spells are constructed of more than just x number of die plus y effect is a big one for me. Our first night into Pathfinder I was trying an (admittedly fairly ambitious for a first run) aquatic campaign, where the party druid used a hide from animals spell to allow the party rogue to slip through a nest of vicious eels to steal the treasure from the wreckage in their midst. When things went wrong, they ended up using another spell (can't recall which) to launch the party surfaceward and away from the eels.
It was interactions like that, which I'd never even seen my players attempt in 4E that really got us into Pathfinder. It just seems to lend itself to a level of interactive immersion lacking in most other rules-heavy rpgs, while keeping enough structure to keep things involved, on course, and well-balanced, unlike some of the rules-lite stuff
3.5 was always the favorite where I play, and Pathfinder is essentially 3.5 but more interesting in every way so it was an easy choice... still wish I could get to play World of Darkness again as my first ever game was Hunter the Reckoning reskinned as Call of Cthulhu. It. Was. Awesome... and then there was the Supernatural based WoD I played in where we tended to be the worst hunters ever through the DM not pointing out things that our characters would know and just letting it ride. Was still one of the most fun games I played :D
I've played a few systems and have read through alot more- but I think alot of coming back to D&D for me is the nostalgia of it all.
Despite it being attack rolls rather than ThacO and such- it still *feels* like that same familiar game.
Sure, some of the details are different but generally it still feels the same.
And I like that :)
I also *love* Paizo. I love that they are here on the boards, and that they care not just about money (though make no mistake- they *do* care about making money) but also about the game. They are lovers of the game and you can tell that in their presence here on the boards and also in the products they make. There is a distinct difference in the product created by someone who's doing so to make a bottom line, and in the product created by someone who loves the game and wants to make it better and/or expand on it.
I read through games and some products are clearly just attempts to garner money without thought to the game.
Paizo isn't like that.
And I love it :)
-S
I think if you distill it down to the core themes and ideas, games like D&D and Pathfinder tap into the myths, fairy tales and stories that enchanted us in our younger years. The typical gamer knows pretty much what dragons, giants, knights, castles, magic swords, spells and evil witches are/do without much description from the GM. If you read Jack and the Beanstalk you know about Cloud Giants and where they live. If you read the Arthurian legends you know about knights, castles, and epic item quests. And if you have read and enjoyed Tolkien, it is pretty much the starting step to fantasy RPGs.
As a game, I like Pathfinder because of the many choices and generally good quality of the books. At this point, any fantasy character that a player can come up with can probably be represented quite closely by an existing pathfinder class. There are a huge variety of sourcebooks and adventures published by Paizo and others (even more if you count the D&D books that can be reworked for PF).
Why Pathfinder?
The rules make sense most of the time; it all fits together. The developers are professional rpg authors with lots of creativity, discipline and experience.
The german game systems I know are mechanically flawed and too complex; tactical combat is one of the big strengths of Pathfinder. All these options!
Still, I just begin to adapt to the steep power curve of character development/strength in D&D (as opposed to RuneQuest, Midgard and others). And I don't like the christmas tree effect.
I hope one day Pathfinder will come up with an alternative take on WBL (inherent or training bonusses for abilities, AC, saves - I don't mind the lure of building or a magic weapon, but the belts, headbands and cloaks you can't live without). And yes, I know there are already hundreds of methods around doing that, but I want a Pathfinderized version, please. Ultimate Advanced Player Options IV.
Characters that lose everything but their lives in an adventure should still be fun to play.
We are still playing in the Forgotten Realms, but I hope the next campaign will take place on Golarion. I am tired of Elminster and his buddies. Golarion seems to be grittier than Faerun.
I am tired of Elminster and his buddies.
I know what you mean. After hearing about how great he is for so long it makes me just want to move to a different region and tell him to spend one of his 9th level spells that he probably gets 30 per day of to save the place as we're obviously not needed.
|
|
As to why Pathfinder?
- Rules are familiar (and IMHO, improved)
- Golarion is a fun sandbox
- Community is active and support from the owners/designers/developers is amazingly open.
- Support of the community is excellent and not just online. I mean look at their history of recent hires, (not to mention freelancers) they are us. Between that and the embracing of the OGL that allows all these small publishers (and mooks like me) to write/sell/post new ideas and content, it is amazing.
- Selling those same 3pp product on the site. I can buy Rite Publishing, Super Genius Games, Frog God Games, etc. right here. The end impression is that Paizo doesn't see them as competition as much as collaberators. Heck, even 5 years in, new 3pp is still working its way into the official adventure paths!
In a nutshell, this.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I came for the OGL.
I stayed for the adventure content.
The company culture is also amazing.
I still do play other games, because I do have some issues with Pathfinder's rules. But there are some things that those rules do better than any other game, too.
Pathfinder for me combines the best aspects of my two favorite editions of D&D. It has the rules of 3rd edition with some improvement and even more flexibility than before. It has a lot of setting flavor and ideas that tickle my imagination similar to 2nd edition, but without the inconsistencies and rules problems that 2nd edition had. The fact that the game is growing but in a controlled fashion (2-3 new rulebooks a year rather than 2-3 every month) means that I can enjoy the feel of the game without getting bogged down in a rapid rush of rules.
In terms of the rules, having everything available online is a huge boon. That way, rather than having to carry around multiple rulebooks, I can copy and paste what I use for a game from the PRD or just print out the relevant pages of a PDF.
Those are all reasons I continue playing Pathfinder, though. The reason I'm playing it at all in the first place is that Paizo did a heck of a job marketing the game. I had generally decided to stick with 3rd edition D&D perpetually when I took notice of the playtest rules, incorporating some of those into my game as house rules. Then the fact that the production values were so good and the game was what I felt to be a legitimate improvement over D&D kept me watching. With the Core Rulebook looking so nice and the PDF available at only $10, I picked up both a hard copy and a PDF and have enjoyed it ever since.
They do market things well, you're right. Their commitment to high production values is another huge draw card for me.
I come back, have a look, steal some ideas and adventures, and then head back to the 3.5 bat-cave.
Actually liking All Flesh, Lace and Steel, and a few other game systems. Warhammer fantasy roleplay I dislike quite a bit.
Because I can't convince enough people to take part in my highly realistic and historically accurate FATAL campaign.
One day we will get this sorted and lose 2d20 sanity points.
*groink*
I generally prefer running Pathfinder due to familiarity with the system. I enjoy playing Pathfinder because most other games have completely different tones of gameplay associated with them. Basically, whenever I want to play a mid-high fantasy setting, I opt for an iteration of D&D (which at the moment is either 2E or PF). The real draw for me at this point is a competent company that seems genuinely interested in maintaining both a working product and a good relationship with their fanbase. They're in it to make money, sure, but they don't let profit-margin-tunnel-vision ruin their design goals. That's what I, as a consumer, look for in a product.
If I were forced to pin down a favorite system based solely on the mechanics, ignoring all of the setting content and fluff material? I'd probably go with Savage Worlds (although I'll conceded I still like Pathfinder's spell system better than the power points approach) at this point. If we're talking samurai stuff, L5R wins it hands down.