Pathfinder 1e: Timelines

Can't you just play the old world with the new rules?

I suspect after reading this, most people will - it is easy, the books are readily available, and for most, it will be straightforward to just do a tone change, get group signoff, and play with the old lore instead of Lost Omens - easy-peasy.

Lost Omens feels off, like the TikTok version of Golarion. The tone is all wrong; it goes hard on that: Burning Man, Day of the Dead, Harry Potter, Starbucks, music festival, and neon-pastel aesthetic that culturally appropriates from everywhere and turns it into millennial selfie bucket-list tourism for Instagram. To be honest, many Wizards releases go here as well.

Stop it, please.

There was a time when everyone overused the Day of the Dead festival in every product, and I sat here shaking my head, wondering when they would quit and stop saying 'Us too!' It was cringeworthy and kept happening whenever a cultural festival went 'pop' on social media. At best, it feels like a desperate plea for attention; at worst, it is borrowing another culture's traditions to sell your books.

Where the game's original creators borrowed from every fantasy novel in sight to create the game in the 1970s, today's creators borrow every bucket list fad from social media to sell it.

I know, every Wall Street company does it!

Can't we be better than them? Can't we have creator visions and creations, things we have never seen before? Or are we doomed to culturally appropriate every pop festival and fad on social media as our fantasy worlds?

The rules are great, but the new world is too damn safe, colorful, modern, and happy.

It feels like a fantasy world for people who hate fantasy worlds.

Golarion went from a theme-park world to selfies at theme parks.

Nothing stops me from using 2E to recreate the OG world, and the world is of my making. Most people play in their own worlds and must remember the official setting, which means nothing. If I were playing in my game world, Pathfinder 2E would be a better setup since the core books feel more setting-agnostic than the Pathfinder 1e game.

However, Pathfinder 1e worked hard on blending the rules, setting, supplements, and splat books into the game. I can get a guide detailing one part of the world or organization and get talents, spells, and powers unique to that group.

Does 1e become a slog at high levels where it is easy to break the game? Yes, but this is true about most games, even 5E. But I am not cross-referencing tags for every item, power, feat, and ability. Once you learn the 2E system, it becomes second nature and easier than 5E since the rulings are clear, but having played 3E and 3.5E, my heart is still in Pathfinder 1e. Granted, they still do the hit-point scaling that Wizards introduced to make high levels seem more powerful (multi-attacks and the like), and that slows down the gamer compared to any OSR game.

The Wizard's changes to D&D (3E and on) to damage and AC scaling ruined the game's balance.

The B/X original AC, damage, and hit point scales are D&D.

Of the Wizards scaling, 3.5E is the best (low levels are similar), 4E is the worst (3X), and 5E falls in the middle but is still wrong (2X).

One of the things that makes Pathfinder 1e so amazing is Hero Lab. I bought into this, collecting the books in the system and real life for over 10 years, and the amount of depth and data here amaze me. I usually dislike computerized character creation systems, but this one is complete, especially with community content. The online version of PF 1e is also near-complete (but with no community content), and you can also buy into PF 2 and Starfinder (online only, $25/year). Also, Tales of the Valiant is coming.

Supporting other games is the best of all worlds.

But the new world isn't the same as the old. It is hard to put into words, but it feels empty as I flip through the Lost Omens 2E books. The art is pretty but rarely gives a sense of danger or impending threats. Some entries talk about "tourist economies" of places like the world has mass transit and airports. Many pieces of art float on a page, showing a figure, but they need places where they live.

It all falls flat to me.