In-game explanation for change in movement speed from 1e to 2e

[Nietenhase]

Hey there, as I've finally transitioned one of my two PF-groups to 2E I started to notice a very big difference (from a tactical standpoint):
While Gnomes, Goblins and Halflings got 5 feet faster (just to name a few), humans got 5 feet slower when looking at their movement speed.

I can understand, that this was probably a design choice, which had something to do with balancing and the new action economy, but is there an in-game explanation for it, or did all the Gnomes, Halflings. etc. just wake up one morning in Arodus 4719 and decided "Oh ****! The Whispering Tyrant is back, we better start getting a little bit faster", while the humans where so shocked by those events, that they all started walking slower, 'cause they thought that Tar-Baphon would not notice them, when they move slower?

I would love for someone to explain that to me ^^

[NorrKnekten]

Pretty sure it was just a design decision to put the default speed at 25. Especially with the new action economy. It makes more sense to that Gnomes, Goblins and Halflings who are rather nimble races should probably outspeed the average Dwarf. And Humans likewise would not match Elves.
From a balance point, All ancestries typically give something up in order to get something more. Which in this system means the themes an ancestry is able to fill.

Orcs are naturally sturdy but don't have much in terms or heritage or feats to benefit spellcasting or diplomacy.

Humans dont really have any benefits appart from their very powerful feats and heritage.

Elves are faster and have plenty of mental feats but are naturally frail.

Dwarves are slow but resilient. Their feats typically lets them ignore things that would slow them down, Difficult terrain, armor penalties etc.

Gnomes, Goblins and Halflings too have their themes around magic, luck/perception/stealth and just being annoying. But their size make them unsuitable for strength builds looking to use athletics against creatures.

[Master Han Del of the Web]

Down this path madness lies! I've seen it before! The Starfinder 1e boards were rife with 'Why can't anyone cast 9th level spells anymore? What's the in-world explanation!?' and 'Is god 'x' dead now?' posts!

More seriously though, mechanical changes between editions don't really need explanations. As far as the Pathfinder 2e characters are concerned, the average movement speed of each ancestry has always been what it currently is and there has never been a change. Outside of advancing the metaplot of the setting between editions, character have no other experience of the edition change as it mostly exists for us in the real world.

If you need an explanation for why the base movement speeds have been tweaked, then you also need one for why Bards are suddenly 9th level spellcasters, why alignment is no longer a thing, why a large and seemingly random selection of (WotC-owned) creatures are on the decline, etc, etc. Unless you want to be incredibly meta with the humor at your table, which can be a hell of a lot of fun in its own way, I wouldn't bother. If you are shooting for the incredibly meta humor, the more ridiculous the explanation the better.

[Master Han Del of the Web]

Here's one.
Gym teachers are, in fact, a little known but fairly common type of demon. With the Worldwound closed, they no longer have easy access to Golarion. Students across the land can breathe a sigh of relief now that Coach 'Skull-Gnawer' is on an indefinite 'sabbatical'... but it does mean they've got no one invested in having them run laps to harvest their suffering.

[Arcaian]

I do agree with people saying not to try to interrogate this too closely. In this particular case, I'd also point out that you can move 3 times/turn now, not 2 like in PF1 (barring running in a straight line) - so the average move speed of ancestries tends to be reduced 25 to account for the greater number of times you can move that distance.

[Claxon]

I was trying to think of a witty joke to make, but I'm a little slow this morning.

Anyways...there isn't one. Don't try to assign a reason. The devs changed the speeds of creatures because they redesigned the system from the ground up and felt this worked better with the whole of the new system, probably a lot to do with 3 action system.

[QuidEst]

Humans aren't even actually slower, despite lower move speed. Before: they could move sixty feet in a round with no restrictions on straight lines, etc. Now: they can move seventy-five feet in a round with no restrictions.

[Dhaise]

I would join in with the "don't bother explaining it'. rounds is abstract already and most people don't live their life in 6 second intervals.

[moosher12]

Master Han Del of the Web wrote:

Down this path madness lies! I've seen it before! The Starfinder 1e boards were rife with 'Why can't anyone cast 9th level spells anymore? What's the in-world explanation!?' and 'Is god 'x' dead now?' posts!

More seriously though, mechanical changes between editions don't really need explanations. As far as the Pathfinder 2e characters are concerned, the average movement speed of each ancestry has always been what it currently is and there has never been a change. Outside of advancing the metaplot of the setting between editions, character have no other experience of the edition change as it mostly exists for us in the real world.

If you need an explanation for why the base movement speeds have been tweaked, then you also need one for why Bards are suddenly 9th level spellcasters, why alignment is no longer a thing, why a large and seemingly random selection of (WotC-owned) creatures are on the decline, etc, etc. Unless you want to be incredibly meta with the humor at your table, which can be a hell of a lot of fun in its own way, I wouldn't bother. If you are shooting for the incredibly meta humor, the more ridiculous the explanation the better.

Reminds me of when I heard a dev say that the reason Starfinder characters could not cast 9th level spells anymore was simply because their was not enough pages in the book to take spells up to that level.

Kind of amusing to imagine that the reason people lost the ability to cast 9th level magic, and suddenly now will have the reason to cast 10th level magic, has nothing to do with lore, but simply the fact a deific book that is the underlying law of the universe simply was too small to accomodate high magic, and now it suddenly is more than big enough to accomodate high magic.

[WatersLethe]

There are so many more narratively disruptive changes than this that are (rightly) left unaddressed that I'm a bit surprised to see someone focus on this one.

The three action economy means that suddenly even wizards can attack with a staff three times a turn.

Suddenly everyone except fighters forgot how to hit someone moving through their threatened squares.

There's a 10th rank of spells now.

Huge swathes of magic items just vanished overnight.

People suddenly discovered they could only wear a certain number of magic items, and way more rings than they could before for some reason.

...

I'm just surprised 5ft of movement getting shifted around in the mix to a 3 action economy raised an eyebrow.