So...I'm going to try to keep this short and hopefully there are people out there that understand where I'm coming from and I'm not alone here.
I'm guessing my story is similar to a lot of middle-aged gamers out there. I'm a guy in my 40s who cut his teeth on RPG with the "BECMI" rules and ran campaigns using the AD&D 1e version shortly thereafter. I stopped playing for a while when other necessities grabbed my attention (building a career, girls, etc, not necessarily in that order), but recently have decided that I need a hobby and have come back around to wanting to get into gaming again.
I've picked up some of the Pathfinder material and in general, I like a lot of the changes and additions to the rules since the old school days, with skills and feats, and domain spells for clerics and such, along with the idea to create an "Open Gaming" idea and not be locked into a particular product line. With this in mind, I spent some time thinking about a campaign I'd like to run, creating a "homebrew" world, which to anyone who's spent time in the 1e era, homebrew was highly encouraged back in those days.
I've also been spending time lurking on message boards and listening to real play podcasts to get an idea of how a gaming session is run nowadays. It is here where I'm starting to have some problems. The game, from a player and even a GM standpoint, has really changed, and I have to say, not for the better.
The idea when I was younger when playing was that we could close our eyes and imagine this world we were in. The first time I played, I was eight years old and my cousin was running us through the old classic "X1 Isle of Dread" module. To this day, I can still remember being in that humid jungle, battling against a group of panthers that eventually ended up killing our guide that was preventing us from getting lost. Dice rolls and player stats were absolutely necessary in order to make the game playable, but in our characters' mind, they didn't know what level they were or if they had a 14 in Dexterity. They just were who they were.
This is where the problem has been starting with me. When I read or listen to some real gaming sessions, I honestly can't envision most of the characters that are being described on here. As an example, if I'm a GM and I'm hearing someone with their half-orc "build" where they start off as a bloodrager and then "dip" into a wizard class before moving into taking some levels as a bard, my first question is, "Hold on just one second, how did your half-orc survive the first ten minutes of his life?" Much less what caused this feral barbaric meathead from deciding to take up scholarly work and composing poetry, to say nothing about who would teach him these skills or how long it would take to train his brain to make such a bizarre career change.
What's worse, is that the game rules seem to encourage this type of behavior, and GMs and the rules alike, will actually tend to penalize players who try to develop characters that feel more realistic or at least reasonable.
Is there anyone out there who feels like this or am I alone in thinking this way?
Luckily for you, there's the TableTop OSR movement out there that might catch your fancy. It has a plethora of rulesets that might be of more interest for you- stuff like OSRIC, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Swords and Wizardry, Castles and Crusades, Labyrinth Lord, Beyond the Wall, Adventurer Conqueror King, Darkest Dungeons, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Hackmaster, 13th Age, (even Fourth or Fifth edition!), and many other things that may catch your fancy. ;)
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Luckily for you, there's the TableTop OSR movement out there that might catch your fancy. It has a plethora of rulesets that might be of more interest for you- stuff like OSRIC, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Swords and Wizardry, Castles and Crusades, Labyrinth Lord, Beyond the Wall, Adventurer Conqueror King, Darkest Dungeons, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, Hackmaster, 13th Age, (even Fourth or Fifth edition!), and many other things that may catch your fancy. ;)
Yeah, I've looked at a couple of these systems. Most of them advertise as being "rules-light" like the good old days, but that's not really my problem. I'm not really looking for the bare-bones rule set as much as trying to make a world with more believable characters and settings.
Rules and characters go hand in hand. The rules-heavy systems have decisions tie into the power of the character, and players follow suit. You will find that in general, the less system, the stronger the characterization. Of course, not everyone does this, but in PF etc, the decision not to comes with a cost.
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We dropped the whole "You need to train to gain a level" thing, so I guess that's the cause of some of it. It doesn't really bother me, except for being able to pick up a language every level.
In my experience multiclassing doesn't happen that much. I do have one multiclass build geared to Intimidate, but I don't really use it except for oneshot adventures. If it bothers you, you could try looking for a classless system.
Multiclassing was somewhat penalized in the 3rd edition of D&D but that rule was mostly ignored and got dropped in Pathfinder. (And replaced with an incentive to stick to your class.)
Most games nowadays use a point buy method and the so called standard point buy (15 points) is seen as hard mode by many. (To be honest, roll 4d6 drop the lowest 6 times would average out to 18 points so it is at least a little bit low.)
I think I've played 2 games in which we did the roll 4d6 in order thing. I've heard players object against a core rulebooks only game. I suppose it's a power creep that's spread out over editions. I haven't played much AD&D or BECMI but I know enough about those editions to know that the bonuses (Bonii?) have gotten bigger and bigger over time. Pathfinder has a wealth by level rule which means you need an x amount of magic items to keep up with the opposition, with the big six being a nessecity
So why am I playing Pathfinder then? 3 reasons: The challenge rating system is really useful. The monsters are awesome and my friends won't play anything else.
A rules light system might really help with the whole powergaming thing. D&D 5e doesn't assume a wealth by level standard and focuses a little bit less on bonuses.
We dropped the whole "You need to train to gain a level" thing, so I guess that's the cause of some of it. It doesn't really bother me, except for being able to pick up a language every level.
In my experience multiclassing doesn't happen that much. I do have one multiclass build geared to Intimidate, but I don't really use it except for oneshot adventures. If it bothers you, you could try looking for a classless system.
Multiclassing was somewhat penalized in the 3rd edition of D&D but that rule was mostly ignored and got dropped in Pathfinder. (And replaced with an incentive to stick to your class.)Most games nowadays use a point buy method and the so called standard point buy (15 points) is seen as hard mode by many. (To be honest, roll 4d6 drop the lowest 6 times would average out to 18 points so it is at least a little bit low.)
I think I've played 2 games in which we did the roll 4d6 in order thing. I've heard players object against a core rulebooks only game. I suppose it's a power creep that's spread out over editions. I haven't played much AD&D or BECMI but I know enough about those editions to know that the bonuses (Bonii?) have gotten bigger and bigger over time. Pathfinder has a wealth by level rule which means you need an x amount of magic items to keep up with the opposition, with the big six being a nessecitySo why am I playing Pathfinder then? 3 reasons: The challenge rating system is really useful. The monsters are awesome and my friends won't play anything else.
A rules light system might really help with the whole powergaming thing. D&D 5e doesn't assume a wealth by level standard and focuses a little bit less on bonuses.
I think you really hit on one of what really is just a few things that bother me with the rules for a lot of the games. I actually think the Pathfinder rules would make an excellent campaign with just a couple of tweaks to the rules. Unfortunately, I think those tweaks might strike a lot of people as too major to want to play in the campaign. I feel like if a walked into a group of players and said, "I'm banning multiclassing" I'd probably get thrown out of the window onto the sidewalk without a chance to explain what I feel are very good reasons for doing so.
This thread is screaming to me this simple phrase.
Its going to depend on your group.
If you read the forums it could be easy to assume everyone is a power gamer however in practice this is not true. Their is probably people out their right now looking for the kind of game you want to run The hard part is finding them.
The system has little or nothing to do with powergaming/roleplaying. I cut my teeth on 1e and you know what, the guys who taught me were largely about finding the best weapon, rolling characters until you got a decent array, finding the most effective classes (human multiclass fighter/druids were very popular) your characters 'to hit' was more important than your surname - you know all the things you are worrying about with pathfinder.
These things are much more about the players than the system.
Remembering the humidity of the jungle, the tension at being stalked by panthers etc...is far more about the GMs ability to describe the situation - I have been playing and GMing for over 30 years and my more memorable sessions as GM are coming in the last five years or so as I get to be a better GM.
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Its not about power gaming *goes on to explain power gaming*
The problem with "no multiclassing" is you're going to shut off some fairly iconic prestige classes by choosing that.
Make em take training time and find a teacher to pick up levels in a new class but let people who single class level freely. If its a multiclass for a rp reason they'll rp it out.
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In my group we don't disallow multiclassing, but if a character decides to, he has to have an in-game explanation and he has to roleplay it. No one can be an analphabet feral barbarian and then gain a wizard level just because. How did he managed to gain that level? Who taught him magic? How can he read his own spellbook? If he can answer that questions and he comes with a plausible backstory then he is welcomed to multiclass.
Of course, some multiclassings such as Fighter/Swashbuckler do not need explanations at all. They are close enough concepts.
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You can do some homerules to make the game at your taste.
For example each level up you can limit the class they could choice, or/and skills, feats, spells...
You can limit anything on character creation. Even you can create the characters.
You can hold and hide the papers. And the players cant watch their stats. Only ask you about that, or trying to do things.
(Example. Player havent sheet. He want to climb. You know str 20 and got climb "you think is easy to you)
Yeah gvr2cs, I get it. The character needs to have a central concept. That said, there are times a concept requires something to build you can't do at one.
e.g. say I wanted to play a raging half-orc who used tattoo magic and fetishes. That's a wizard with a Barbarian dip. If I start playing as a Barbarian 1/Wizard 1 then the concept is there from the start. If I start as a 1st level though, then I have to choose which concept to start with. My big challenge is when I do magical smiths. They're all through fantasy, but they require at least 3rd level to do. Before then - well you're something else.
I also agree its not about the rules complexity versus depth.
Might I suggest checking out FATE? That requires you to build your concept first, and then things tie into that. Going from a barbarian to a wizard is possible, but would require chapters (modules) of slowly changing one thing at a time. (And in this episode, Grognar learns reading can be fun. Next episode: Grognar learns to read).
I tend to agree in thinking that absent the forums, you'll find that most players do tend to stick with a character class for some time - or when they do multiclass, it tends to make sense.
As always, things will vary from table to table, but I know that with my gaming group, everyone is currently level 4, and most people have no desire to multiclass anytime soon.
So far as I know, our Magus wants to remain a Magus for her entire career, our Rogue currently has no plans for anything other than being a Rogue, and our Brawler likes to punch things and wants to stick with that.
The only plans I know of currently to change classes is with our Gunslinger, who wants to eventually move into the Grand Marshall prestige class, and our Druid is looking at taking a few levels of Ranger so she can be a more effective front-line combatant (which I think is totally fine, thematically, and I have no plans to force anything from her beyond some RP).
I think that if you were to run a game with the understanding that multi-classing will be rare, and must have a strong central concept behind it and an in-game RP justification, you wouldn't find too much push-back.
...The idea when I was younger when playing was that we could close our eyes and imagine this world we were in. The first time I played, I was eight years old and my cousin was running us through the old classic "X1 Isle of Dread" module. To this day, I can still remember being in that humid jungle, battling against a group of panthers that eventually ended up killing our guide that was preventing us from getting lost. Dice rolls and player stats were absolutely necessary in order to make the game playable, but in our characters' mind, they didn't know what level they were or if they had a 14 in Dexterity. They just were who they were.
This is where the problem has been starting with me. When I read or listen to some real gaming sessions, I honestly can't envision most of the characters that are being described on here. As an example, if I'm a GM and I'm hearing someone with their half-orc "build" where they start off as a bloodrager and then "dip" into a wizard class before moving into taking some levels as a bard, my first question is, "Hold on just one second, how did your half-orc survive the first ten minutes of his life?" Much less what caused this feral barbaric meathead from deciding to take up scholarly work and composing poetry, to say nothing about who would teach him these skills or how long it would take to train his brain to make such a bizarre career change.
What's worse, is that the game rules seem to encourage this type of behavior, and GMs and the rules alike, will actually tend to penalize players who try to develop characters that feel more realistic or at least reasonable.
Why exactly did you pick up Pathfinder? It's probably one of the most character-building driven systems in the RPG business. 5e probably has most of the general rules PF has, while being a less of a build game.
If you're dead set on playing exactly pathfinder, try to keep in mind that for some of us the class, archetype, feats and things like that are just tools you want your character to have, not some life defining things. That's not to say our characters aren't fully characterized with personality, flaws, motivations and goals, it's just that we divest those things from mechanics. We can either totally ignore the default flavor of the class or race and make up our own, or just use it as an inspiration. So my multiclass oracle/barbarian doesn't call himself that in the game, he is a warrior with a curse and magical powers and an agent of Baba Jaga.
Also, there have been tons of settings, RPGs and other forms of fantasy, so inspirations are not dead set to some standard 30 years ago, and your examples of half-orcs that don't survive and meathead barbarians are not universal expectations.
I'm not saying you cannot play the game, but you have to find the group that has the same expectations as you or you have to modify yours to some modern ideas of roleplaying games.
...The idea when I was younger when playing was that we could close our eyes and imagine this world we were in. The first time I played, I was eight years old and my cousin was running us through the old classic "X1 Isle of Dread" module. To this day, I can still remember being in that humid jungle, battling against a group of panthers that eventually ended up killing our guide that was preventing us from getting lost. Dice rolls and player stats were absolutely necessary in order to make the game playable, but in our characters' mind, they didn't know what level they were or if they had a 14 in Dexterity. They just were who they were.
This is where the problem has been starting with me. When I read or listen to some real gaming sessions, I honestly can't envision most of the characters that are being described on here. As an example, if I'm a GM and I'm hearing someone with their half-orc "build" where they start off as a bloodrager and then "dip" into a wizard class before moving into taking some levels as a bard, my first question is, "Hold on just one second, how did your half-orc survive the first ten minutes of his life?" Much less what caused this feral barbaric meathead from deciding to take up scholarly work and composing poetry, to say nothing about who would teach him these skills or how long it would take to train his brain to make such a bizarre career change.
What's worse, is that the game rules seem to encourage this type of behavior, and GMs and the rules alike, will actually tend to penalize players who try to develop characters that feel more realistic or at least reasonable.
Why exactly did you pick up Pathfinder? It's probably one of the most character-building driven systems in the RPG business. 5e probably has most of the general rules PF has, while being a less of a build game.
If you're dead set on playing exactly pathfinder, try to keep in mind that for some of us the class, archetype, feats and things like that are just tools you want your character...
I strongly resist the urge to say "try another game". It is used overmuch in response to someone's tinkering with PF, and it bugs the hell out of me. However, in this case I have to second the thought that 5th Edition D&D may be what you are looking for. There is less customization, and much more "describe what your character does, and I'll ask for a roll", type of play.
It depends on what you like about Pathfinder. If you can tinker a few things, and present your game in such a way as to get from your players what you want, then I support that. But the game you describe would be much easier to achieve with 5E. Not even so much the rules, or how it plays (although, that would help too.), but the feeling the players get as they read the books and build their PCs. It sets the parameters much closer to what you are looking for. If the players are veterans of 3.x/PF, then it is difficult to reshape how they see and use those rules. But, introduce new rules that they aren't as familiar with, and they may be amenable.
Whatever you chose, Good luck, and good gaming!
Wow, a lot of good advice here, I appreciate it all, I certainly feel very new to this all of the sudden. There's diffidently a case for multiclassing, I'm glad to hear that a lot of GMs have their players explain how they multiclass before they allow it.
So a quick explanation as to why I looked favorably on Pathfinder, I liked the addition of a lot of the new rules and I felt as though it does open itself for a lot of customization, there seemed to be a lot of good ideas without needing to lock into hard and fast rules of they don't fit your campaign. In the real world, I'm a computer nerd who works in Information Technology and the idea of Pathfinder being the "Linux of RPGing" makes me warm up to it as well, if anyone understands my meaning.
I'm not completely opposed to multiclassing, the reason why I don't much care for it is because I feel it trivializes how much work would go into developing a skill to the point where even attaining 1st level would take quite a bit of devotion and practice. I've played piano and guitar before, and for anyone who's played an instrument, they can tell you that playing a song without making a single mistake is very difficult to do. I would imagine if a Bard misses a few notes, the whole effect from the song may not work. The idea of, say, a cleric, picking up an instrument one day and creating one of these effects doesn't seem reasonable to me, not without a lot of practice and neglecting their deity at times to do it.
Along the same lines, being able to cast even the simplest of spells would require long and difficult training on how arcane magic works before even attempting to do something useful with it. You couple this in with a world with no public education, no internet, people that have knowledge tend to keep it hidden and don't simply teach it for no reason, this becomes more difficult. That fighter can't just watch a Youtube video on how to cast Magic Missile.
Ultimately though, I'd like the players to play characters they want to play, and I want to tailor my world so that the player's idea for their character and their backstory makes sense in the campaign. If the players want some kind of super character, I'd rather have them work at it than be given this outright, and I certainly don't want to create a scenario where I need to throw five hundred red dragons at a party just to make it a challenge and have to explain why those dragons haven't burnt down any remnants of civilization in the area yet.
I'd also like to explain why, for realism sense, I'd like to ban the Paladin class and replace it with the Cavalier (which I'd call a Knight...why isn't it called a Knight?), but that's an explanation for another day.
While I am against realism in gaming, what you are really asking about is more flexibility in the rules. That a pureblood Orc cannot be a wizard is more a Golarion thing than a Pathfinder thing. In a home game there can be enough intelligent orcs that they form their own tribe.
You can have mutation, adaptation, and evolution in your game. In the bestiary it already defines player character orcs as not having racial hit dice. Even if you keep the ability pluses and minuses, you can build for more int. at the cost of other abilities. With ferocity, your character can still concentrate on a spell even if they reach 0 hit points. Being able to cast the darkness spell makes the most of their darkvision and light sensitivity.
If the GM is open to it, you can have a whole party of mutant monsters, born with open choice as to alignment and class. Maybe Paizo will make an adventure path and call it the dirty half dozen.
As for how they were able to survive the first 10 minutes of life, the orcs may have a tradition of raising cubs till they were on solid food and able to walk. If they still seem different, the abandon them out in the woods. Couples(usually humans) who cannot conceive naturally will adopt abandoned children. All they know of their original tribe might be a brand on their arm.
That a pureblood Orc cannot be a wizard is more a Golarion thing than a Pathfinder thing.
They can't? Is this an Orcs of Golarion thing or something?
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I'm a 40-something, BECMI grad myself (gaming for over 30 years!) and I can honestly say that I don't let the rule cruchiness or character build focus of PF deter me one bit from being flexible with the rules (or flat out ignorning them if I think they're getting in the way).
Fortunately, I GM for a group that is good with my style.
-Skeld
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That style is the default intended play style. The prevalence of Pathfinder Society players on these boards might lead one to think otherwise, but this is still very much a Rule Zero game. Play the way that works for you and your players.
I'm going to agree with a lot of the stuff that's been said already. Having crunch doesn't mean you can't also have an immersive role playing experience.
I'm with you, though. Loot. Builds. Optimization. My players never use these terms, because like you said, it makes things feel trivial and...well, like a game, rather than a story.
Not that my players aren't building decent characters, from a mechanical standpoint. Finding synergy within the rules and making good tactical decisions is satisfying. It just never comes at the cost of the narrative.
I've found that focusing on some of the more gritty aspects of adventuring actually helps produce more reasonable, well-rounded characters. My players aren't nearly as worried about how good their characters are at their best as they are about how vulnerable they are at their worst.
We've talked a lot about what being an adventurer would actually mean. It's like...okay, so you save up enough cash for a sword, a shield, a couple of torches. You venture out into the wild. You are cut, stabbed, bitten, poisoned, throttled, frozen and have your very essence sucked out of you. Several times. A day. But hey! The ones that survived made more money than a farmer will see in his lifetime. You could buy some land. A cozy little cottage. Or...you could buy a bigger sword and some more torches and go out and do it all over again. Honestly, I really doubt I would want to hang with people like that for real. They're dangerous and unstable. But people like that are about SURVIVAL, not doing their one thing really, really well. They want to be as well-protected as possible, from as many angles as possible.
I really think it's a matter of finding the right players. And hey, if you're looking for a game, let me know. Roll20 has made things so much easier for us.
multi classing can bring character concepts together i have a character whom i designed as an unstoppable juggernaut that was also super good at intimidate virtually un-able to be effected by combat maneuvers and pretty good saves that was the theme i was going for and the only way to pull it off was taking levels in 6 different classes
--not quite what most people are talking about when they use the term "character concept".