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I read through *most* of the playtest rulebook, and I really liked what I was seeing. The design of the game seems a lot more unified and holistic in its approach, which I liked, and I'm excited to see if playing it at the table offers the moment-to-moment interesting choices that I hope it might. The ability score generation was a real stand-out improvement to me; this is a lot more evocative than point-buy or rolling scores.
The moment that really tipped it over for me, though, is when my partner and I went to a bar to create her character for the playtest.
I need to back up for a second, though. My partner has been playing roleplaying games with me for five years. She had played once before we were together, and it was an awful experience. I started getting her playing 5e initially, since I figured it would be a good starting game, and that's when she learned to hate character creation.
It was an overwhelming experience for her. There were too many options, and she frequently ran into decision paralysis. Once we actually got to playing, she'd do great at bringing life to a character, but the mechanics (and the character creation it stemmed from) continued to feel byzantine to her.
When we switched to Pathfinder, it got even worse. She couldn't wrap her head around everything that her unchained rogue was capable of, partially because she knew the themes that represented what she wanted to become, but the process of getting there was more than she was willing to deal with. And I couldn't really blame her; even though I've been playing 3.5 and Pathfinder for a combined eight years or so, I still rely on character builds to help me navigate the ocean of choice. I love running Pathfinder, and we're nearing the end of our Curse of the Crimson Throne, but it remains that my partner still has difficulty with the character - a lot of which stems back to her inability to deeply understand the character creation portions of the game. We've made it work great in our campaign, but she hates that she still doesn't get it when she's so excellent at other aspects of the game.
I was delighted, then, that she grasped a lot of the concepts in the playtest character creation so quickly. When I explained that proficiency and training worked the exact same way across spells, attacks, saves and skills, she grinned and laughed. It all made sense! Guiding her through this process was painless - and when so many of our other attempts to make characters had ended in frustration and tears? I was euphoric. When we'd finished with her elven ranger (with ostrich companion, using the deionychus stats), she said, "That's it? Really? I understood everything we did!" She's excited about making a more complicated character for chapter two of the playtest!
So thanks, Paizo. I already love the playtest, and I haven't even run a game yet. My partner already loved playing your games, and I'm so happy that she's invested and excited about building and maintaining her own characters for the first time.
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I have so say that Me, Myself, and I are really happy with how a PLAYTEST version has come out. Lots of the forum people are complaining about layout for the book, while I on the other hand find it very simple to follow through to make a character. I don't have to go to 7 different chapters to find feats in an overall listing that most of which don't even pertain to my character, and have to spend tons of skill points, figure traits, etc.
Step-by-Step this is very well done and for newer people I think it's a great way to go. I just wish that people would let go of their previous habits and muscle memory pertaining to a previous version and take this in with new eyes. I've been a GM/DM/Storyteller/A&O for over 18 years now and this is highly refreshing to me.
This version feels almost like a nod to the old white wolf character creation in Werewolf: TA, and I love that. Even new players that have never played an RPG can pick up the creation in under an hour.
Thank you for sharing this with us.
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The problem is, if this is a game for people who find 5e character creation overwhelming, it's not going to be the game for the people on these boards who love PF1's massive variety of options...
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I have so say that Me, Myself, and I are really happy with how a PLAYTEST version has come out. Lots of the forum people are complaining about layout for the book, while I on the other hand find it very simple to follow through to make a character. I don't have to go to 7 different chapters to find feats in an overall listing that most of which don't even pertain to my character, and have to spend tons of skill points, figure traits, etc.
Step-by-Step this is very well done and for newer people I think it's a great way to go. I just wish that people would let go of their previous habits and muscle memory pertaining to a previous version and take this in with new eyes. I've been a GM/DM/Storyteller/A&O for over 18 years now and this is highly refreshing to me.This version feels almost like a nod to the old white wolf character creation in Werewolf: TA, and I love that. Even new players that have never played an RPG can pick up the creation in under an hour.
I agree, the character creation rules and how it is written is outstanding in the Playtest rulebook. It really is stellar.
The problem is, if this is a game for people who find 5e character creation overwhelming, it's not going to be the game for the people on these boards who love PF1's massive variety of options...
I'm guessing the process is just much more organic and intuitive than PF1 version (maybe even the 5e version, I don't know), which if it's more understandable for new players I'm genuinely glad. The number of options doesn't seem lesser from PF1 (except in the race department), but options themselves are so bland and uninspiring (especially the backgrounds) for me.
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In response to a lot of what's written here:
Yeah, I think the character creation process is simply a lot more organic, and the system itself is built off of a better core framework so that you don't need to learn eight different mechanical expressions for growth on a character. It's easy for veterans to shrug at things like point-buy and choosing a starting feat from a massive list of options, since we're old hands at this. Even 5e's character creation is not the most intuitive process; it feels very similar to making a character in 3.5, with some of the harder edges shaved down.
A lot of its success for new players is asking them not to make a choice between a hundred choices, but rather 4-10 choices at any given time. I used to run Pathfinder for middle schoolers, and I would have been delighted to have this creation method. There are so many fewer moments of having to pause and explain game concepts in the current set-up, and any game would be blessed to have a character creation as simple and easy as the playtest has right now.
Yep. Out with the old and in with the new who like it simple.
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Yep. Out with the old and in with the new who like it simple.
Accessibility is not the same thing as complexity. Something can be both intuitive and flexible. I've made a few characters now and found the process incredibly intuitive and saw the potential for more complex character concepts. YMMV
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A lot of its success for new players is asking them not to make a choice between a hundred choices, but rather 4-10 choices at any given time. I used to run Pathfinder for middle schoolers, and I would have been delighted to have this creation method. There are so many fewer moments of having to pause and explain game concepts in the current set-up, and any game would be blessed to have a character creation as simple and easy as the playtest has right now.
Which is fine for the playtest. But you do know that by eighteen months after launch and following the first two-three accessories plus the player companions, classes will all have 12-16 options every other level.
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A lot of its success for new players is asking them not to make a choice between a hundred choices, but rather 4-10 choices at any given time. I used to run Pathfinder for middle schoolers, and I would have been delighted to have this creation method. There are so many fewer moments of having to pause and explain game concepts in the current set-up, and any game would be blessed to have a character creation as simple and easy as the playtest has right now.Which is fine for the playtest. But you do know that by eighteen months after launch and following the first two-three accessories plus the player companions, classes will all have 12-16 options every other level.
This assumes that Paizo will maintain the current rate of splat. Which is something that we don't know as of now. If they assume a Starfinder/5e rate of splat generation, things might end up looking very differently.
The problem is, if this is a game for people who find 5e character creation overwhelming, it's not going to be the game for the people on these boards who love PF1's massive variety of options...
Well, the number of human beings outside these forums dwarfs the number of people on these boards, so that might be a net positive, or not, depending on how much of these people Paizo gets to recruit to fill the gaps of those in these forums that might not like the change.