Pathfinder 2, Dark Times

The game gets involved in a controversy.

People on both sides jump in and defend or attack the game.

People pretending to be on both sides rabble-rouse and keep the anger boiling. I swear, many people I see in Pathfinder 2 on social media are people I have not seen before, and it seems like they are just "using the moment" to swing in and destroy the community.

We got this.

We "saved" you.

Here is some more hate and anger.

You can thank us later.

Even some posts by people pretending to want to return their books are just trolls. They post some of the dumbest lunacy you have ever read, and then they get both sides in their posts, arguing, making points, fighting, and calling each other names. Some play different games and likely want to "drop by" to destroy a game that takes players away from them.

If a community ever got like that, and I was the owner and moderator, I would delete the group and walk away. Who cares? Why do I want "ownership" of a place that spreads hate and ruins the game for so many? Deleting the group is the best option at this point. The trolls will make their own group, and wasting your life energy trying to stand in front of a burst dam isn't helping all that much.

The Pathfinder 2 team does the right thing by saying the designer does not speak for the team. It is all they can do at this point. They can hope Wizards makes a colossal mistake to "save" them from this "outrage of the week."

But this is what happens when a team lacks discipline, and the individual members lack self-control. What you say reflects on the people you work with, for good or bad. Sometimes, people I have worked for have asked me to "watch my tone" and to "avoid saying things that could make people angry."

Yes, you have a First Amendment right, but as someone employed by an organization, you must think before you open your mouth since everything you say could come back on them, too—and the people you work with and the thing you are building together. What you say publicly reflects on your team.

This isn't rocket science.

This is how the workplace has been for centuries.

Other game companies also follow this line, and some are highly progressive and socially conscious. They have the discipline and foreknowledge to avoid letting their company fall into the mud-filled gutter of Internet culture and political arguments. And they still keep their values while smiling and delivering a product for everyone to enjoy. Even Goodman Games, a company built on old-school values, manages to walk this line well and shows respect to everyone. I see Pride merch in their store, but it is meant to include everyone and doesn't tell people to 'return the books.' This is a good company with solid values and runs a tight and disciplined ship.

Shadowdark's Arcane Library is another company that runs an amazingly inclusive and tight ship. Companies like this aren't unicorns, and they exist everywhere. These are the ones worth supporting. These games will keep their value and will not make you feel like you have wasted your money.

I still hope Pathfinder 2 can get through these dark times. The team that worked hard on this did a good job. It would be a shame if this is how it ended for them. I am keeping my subscriptions for the next year, but I am moving the game to a secondary shelf to avoid negativity.

Pathfinder 2

Recently, some dumb things were said by the game's designer.

The tweet was taken down.

I am not quitting the game or putting this in storage, but the entire episode is disappointing. There is very little respect or self-control on social media. Every moment like this is fuel for the fire and a reason for the other side to go on a tirade. The wounds here are self-inflicted.

Pathfinder 2 is a great game. A considerable team put a lot of work into this. Episodes like this, where the already small and fragile community is divided again, hurt the games we love. I am still keeping my Paizo subscriptions. I will give them a while and see what happens. In a year, I will reconsider.

Shadowdark manages to walk the line in the current year just fine. The meek shall inherit the Earth, and they shall inherit gaming. Shadowdark is the better game. Everyone can play. This "be a good person" culture is part of the Shadowdark community.

This game is one of the few exceptions in the modern era of gaming.

How are we supposed to talk with each other and change the minds of others if we can't even sit at the same gaming table?

And my thoughts go back to D&D 3.5. Nobody cares to gatekeep a dead game. Perhaps D&D 3.5E is superior to Pathfinder 2 for this one reason alone.

There comes a point when I am so sick of "current year stupid" that I cease to care about the hobby at all. This hobby is so infected and diseased that every new book published today is suspect. They will let you down. Someone will say something. The culture vultures will descend from both sides. You will be forced to pick a side and be labeled something.

Current-day gaming is mostly a trap.

Stay away from it.

Play dead games.

Or the very few that keep their tables open to all.

Influencer Culture

I get the feeling Wizards pays YouTube to drown out every alternative gaming video to D&D, and thus, this paid influencer culture on that site keeps thriving and spreading like a colony of mold. I see some very nice coverage of Pathfinder 2, but most D&D channels have crawled back into the cave, and all I see are D&D videos.

And I saw videos there that said, "D&D gets so many more views! Thus, no other game is worth covering!"

Also, recently, "The mainstream media is attacking D&D! We have to protect D&D!"

When the recommended video push cash runs out, we will have a better view of the actual market. Money is being burned to keep the hot air flowing into the balloon. I don't see YouTube as a truthful indicator of what's popular other than the fact that paying them tips the scales, and we know nothing about what game would be the most popular if that money were gone.

There is a lot of coverage; in reality, VTT numbers better indicate what is being played and popular. It is still D&D, but it isn't as lopsided as YouTube would have you believe. Call of Cthulhu is the 2nd most popular tabletop game (by VTT rankings), but I see fewer videos than GURPS videos, so YouTube as a "reality metric" is heavily biased and skewed.

I am unsubscribing from my D&D influencer channels because of their constant noise. Every week, it is Wizards drama, or even the lack of drama is drama, and I just get the feeling the entire D&D influencer culture is getting desperate again. Can we cover something else in 5E YouTube besides optimization guides, tier rankings, and drama? Maybe review adventures? Do inspiration or lore discussion? World building?

All those "class tier lists" that D&D influencers make mean nothing if nobody loses the game. What does it matter how high my DPT is when no character dies? I can pick D or F-tier classes, spells, and gear and still win the game. Nothing matters. Even if most of the party is sub-optimal, chances are there will be a few hardcore optimizers at the table, and what you do won't matter much anyway.

In fact, picking bad choices may make the game more challenging and fun for the rest of the table.

I get it; even the channel owners who are honest about their views and share the data say the drama receives ten times more views than "useful game content." There comes a point when "useless information is useless," and I no longer care about the drama and hype. I don't care about ranking charts for games I don't play. Whatever dumb thing Wizards does next is the next dumb thing I don't care about, nor do I want to invest any time in my life caring about dumb things Wall Street companies do.

Why is everyone wasting their time?

Oh, clicks equal money.

Some creators have been mocking the clickbait titles, which is probably healthy. However, I have lost interest even in the situation's humor. It is all noise. I would prefer to create and play rather than engage in this endless, pointless, circular discussion. There was a point of 5E videos with mild interest, then cuteness, disinterest, and now aversion.

Blogs died 15 years ago, and ad money can't be applied to blogs anymore. I am not an influencer of anybody, nor do I get money for views. I keep this blog up out of my love for blogs like the classic Grognardia, an excellent endless stream of thoughts and experiences that inspired me to start this one.

Even my thoughts shift and change, and I rediscover games I had put in my garage and try them again. I gave Pathfinder 2 a lot of heat for the first books of the second edition, and the tone of their world is off some of the games I like. There is too much technology in some books. The game was challenging for me to learn since the books I got for it were too big, had too many classes, and had too much stuff in them. I bounced right off and could never grasp the system to the point I was comfortable with it.

I swear that someday, I will make yes/no checklists for these books as a "campaign crafting guide" just so I can better organize my thoughts and have something I can hand players to say, "This is in, and that is out."

Yet, here I am again with the remaster, giving it another try. The remaster is ten times better without the OGL and SRD content, and we finally have a game that fits the fantasy theme but has new stuff in it. The ideas are fresh. The new monsters we have not seen before. The spells are different.

I give it another try since I am fair, and people are having fun with this. I need to see if I can, too.

Don't listen to people who say the remaster books aren't needed. They are the better and more focused game.

Every game that dumped the OGL and SRD has gotten better. From Castles & Crusades to ACKS II, the designers are forced to show us "their ideas," suddenly, the game isn't "D&D with alternative rules." When I have SRD stuff, I default to it because I am lazy. Oh, hey, here is, uh ...the green dragon! Yeah, that green dragon. With the new monsters and breaking of the SRD, I am reading the new monsters and liking them better. The door is open for me to make my own. The players' expectations and assumptions about the world are broken.

What is out there?

We don't know.

They said a dragon was in the hills; what type do you think it is?

I have no idea. This world isn't SRD. For all we know, it could be a death's head dragon, and who knows what that does?

All of a sudden, I feel a sense of dread and fear. Even though Pathfinder 2 is a new-school game, that feeling of fear and dread is very old-school. Also, it is possible for characters to TPK and die in Pathfinder 2, which makes it an actual roleplaying game instead of play-acting rules.

The remastered books are also better for your own campaign worlds. The Core Player's book does not include GM information or a world guide. It is just a player's book. This empowers me to fix the campaign world and adopt more old-school "settings" to fix the world to my liking. I could do that with the earlier books, but not if the game was such a beast to learn I did not even want to start.

Grimdark Pathfinder 2: Rules

I want a darker, more horror-infused game full of suspicion and hard times.

Pathfinder 2E defaults to a lighthearted world mood, sort of an "everyone gets along" neutral-positive setting where no controversial subjects exist, everyone gets along, there is universal acceptance for every point of view, and controversy and conflict - in the setting - are written out of the rules. This broadens the game's age range, so eliminating many of these topics extends the game's range and longevity.

I get it; the game is a neutral base, blank sheets of paper that make no assumptions about your world. The Remaster books are much better setting-neutral rulebooks with the OGL stripped out and binned. If you don't like the presentation of a particular Remaster monster, reskin and rename it. Designing new monsters is easy, so we are back in D&D 4E, where groups were expected to develop their own monsters and build encounters that way.

And I am done with 5E; the more dungeon-focused games of 3.5E and the better experience of Pathfinder 2E are where my tactical dungeon gaming is these days. If it isn't that, then the first-edition rules speak to me the most. Also, I have tried setting-neutral 5E, and once you start mixing in 3rd-party content, things start to break down since every book attempts to rewrite the core rules to make setting-specific ideas work with the rules. Setting-neutral 5E seems to gravitate back towards "Wizards reality," and I can't get that feeling out of the game.

I am coming to see the OGL and SRD as chains, not expressions of my imagination.

Ideas and concepts that come from outside the tabletop gaming community are superior. Too often, we endlessly recycle the same dog food of "things in old games" and convert it to new rules, never ask questions, and endlessly repeat the past. When I saw the work the Paizo team did in the Monster Core Remaster book by "doing their own thing" with the monsters they supposedly "lost," I was shocked.

Then new stuff is ten times better since the team actively put their imagination into rebuilding these and, in many cases, went back to the original lore and made something more faithful to the myths and legends than a 50-year-old SRD hand-me-down.

If we enshrine the past too much, it becomes a tomb of dreams and ideas that we end up living inside.

This is the "rot" that lives within the hobby. Gygax and his team pulled ideas from "outside roleplaying" to make the first edition D&D game. The entire "Appendix N" thing comes into the discussion here. When those ideas first went in, they were new—fresh from outside sources.

Every edition of D&D past AD&D was a rewrite that included the previous edition without adding too much new. As we enter the "nostalgia era" of D&D, where they endlessly recycle a cartoon and mass-market strategy that nearly bankrupted the company in the 1980s, we get more of the same. The same 50-year-old ideas are recycled, and nothing fresh is pulled in. The game becomes a buffet of artificial and recycled foods. Nothing fresh. Nothing new. Nostalgia is recycled and repackaged. The 50-year-old mutant ideas, once the "original source derived," are seen as more authentic to the myth than the original myths themselves.

You can reprocess food so much that it turns into poison.

I am trying to fund this mythical Pathfinder 2 Grimdark game, but I must reflect deeply on my inspirations and sources. Once upon a time, I saw other horror games as inspirations. Now, I know those are false sources. They are a few times removed from the original sources of horror, fear, suspicion, and the darkness inside the human spirit.

These games also need to be stripped of their whitewashing and happy-game narrative style. As for the guardrails and safety tools, I don't need them, and they will get in the way.

This is why I like the first edition and OSRIC; they are one level removed from the original inspirations, and Appendix N is in there, so I can go back to those works and "find them for myself." Every future edition tried to hide these and present these "nostalgia pass-downs" as the original IP. Appendix N is the Rosetta Stone, so I can look those things up and find what they mean to me.

I love Dungeon Crawl Classics, but that, again, is Appendix N written through someone else's eyes when it is always better to return to the source and find meaning for yourself. My ideas, pulled from an original source and translated into any game of my choice, are always superior to a game trying to translate them for me. Or worse, going back to the SRD, which has ideas passed through hundreds of designers and now an unrecognizable blob of numbers and text that maybe has "the flavor" of the original idea but no soul and nothing else.

But Grimdark Pathfinder 2 is more than Appendix N. That is just an example and a warning to not rely on sources inside the hobby too much, to lean on nostalgia, and to ignore the truth you can only find in reading an original source and creating new ideas through that synthesis.

The goal of today's entertainment companies is to strip your imagination away, deeply plant the seeds of nostalgia, turn the past into golden calf idols, and instill a culture of dependency on them as the primary source for your imagination. D&D 5.5, with its booze-like nostalgia-infused imagery, pours those feelings down your throat and shamelessly recycles your memories into reprocessed factory food.

Parts of the OSR are just as tied to nostalgia, so this isn't just a Wall Street thing. It is a more profound idea that we don't question or submit to without thinking. Yes, I love my nostalgia, too, but I understand how it can turn into a diet of the past and never think about the future—or even the things inside myself.

Seeing OGL-free games breaks the chains in my mind.

New myths and legends exist.

You can pull in ideas from original sources, run them through your mind a few times, and create something more meaningful to your truths and feelings than this endless stream of nostalgic drool.

Grimdark Pathfinder 2

I like games and campaigns that have grit, a feeling of darkness, despair, and a sense of life being hard. Modern games lean into the cute so much that it is hard to convince people the world isn't some happy, colorful place filled with anime monsters that look like Pookie dolls from carnivals. Even the Lost Omens books fight you at this, as they are filled with happy, colorful, overly clean, and hopeful art that looks like vendor stalls at a Burning Man festival.

No, thank you. Please reduce the saturation of these colors to 10% in Photoshop and add a few grunge layers. You are the rule books and have no right to be happy or tell me to be the same. Adventurers will find poverty when they head into a town; most everyone is broke, there is nothing good for sale, and all those smiling pictures of happy people in the rulebook are lies.

The imagery of the books gives me the feeling everyone is wealthy, able to afford the best clothes dyed in the richest hues, with an abundance of food on the table, and a fat, lazy, prosperous society of 'have it all.'

In a way, it feels overly Disney.

Non-threatening, safe, too comforting, happy, and colorful, and there is little need to go adventuring outside these rich, opulent, no-problems, have-it-all places of civilization.

This society is ripe for the pickings. It is fat, lazy, and too rich to care about defending itself. This is a world ready for a hard fall down the civilizational ladder.

Evil, and the concept of evil, exists. Every society can be torn down. Just read the news. Peace and happiness are not "natural states" in nature. Land that is not defended is taken and ruled by savagery.

Wealthy, unprotected civilizations are seen as piles of wealth to plunder by the barbarian hordes. These days, they ride in on pickup trucks and take over their peaceful neighbors.

Tens of thousands of years of history don't lie. Nor does the world outside our window.

I get it; people play this game to escape the real world. Still, too happy a game world gets to be an opiate, a false place, and it feels fake and unreal. There is no compelling story, fight, or struggle, and nothing to work toward.

The Highhelm book is endemic in its use of pictures of happy, smiling dwarves, complete with a fourth-wall-breaking selfie on the cover. When I think of dwarves, I want a grittier, more challenging life. The cover tells me very little, and some of the fantastic interior pictures in this book would have made better covers. I would not mind this picture inside the book as the book between the cover and the pages, but when I think of a cover of a book, I reach for when I think of dwarves; this isn't the cover I would go for.

I get what they were going for on the cover of this book; it is a comparison between what you thought dwarves 'were' versus what they 'are' in this setting. You may have thought dwarves were giant dour stone heads carved into mountains, but look again! They are just like you. I get it thematically; this is the message you wanted to send, and the book delivers that message. The cover isn't misleading the book's content. But it doesn't speak to me.

But there don't seem to be many "great enemies" of this civilization. Why do they need to be in fortresses? Why do they need to mine? I am still reading the book, but from the art, these dwarves don't seem to be locked in an eternal battle with anything for survival - at least from the art.

I want drama and a call to action.

I don't want comfort imagery.

I don't want to see 'happy for no good reason.'

I know the enemies they face are up to me. Sometimes, I miss the old Orcus-worshipping orcs from AD&D and throwing a few hundred thousand of those at the mountain fortresses of the dwarves where no stone goes unsoaked in the blood of the fallen.

There are moments when I feel I can't tell those stories in Pathfinder 2 because the art tells everyone, "NO."

That is a problem.

Many of the Lost Omens books have an overly happy tone. The options inside them are great, and many interior pictures shine. It is just too darn delightful and colorful, page after page. I feel the designers aren't taking their world seriously; they care more about presenting non-threatening environments than a world filled with evil trying to destroy all that is good.

And you can define 'good' however you want, traditional or progressive! My problem isn't the definition of what is good; it presents a credible threat against it and calls us to action.

The remaster books do a better job of splitting Golarion from the game, as the player book no longer has an implied setting. The rules are more "setting neutral" now.

When you fight a game more than it serves as a tool of expression, there is a problem. This is when you reach for another game that enforces the tone you are looking for. I can get this tone quickly in games with a more neutral base, such as GURPS or OSRIC.

OSRIC is the community implementation of the greatest RPG ever written. When all else fails you, first edition will be there.

I like games like GURPS, which are more for world builders and assume nothing about the default world. Modern games focus more on delivering fantasy sandboxes instead of core rules, and D&D 5E (2014) does a better job presenting a neutral base world than Pathfinder. This is likely because the company never wants to release a setting book again and expects players to keep reusing  3.5E books for setting guides.

My two best tactical figure combat games are Pathfinder 2 and GURPS. The first is because it is the best mainstream option (and a tremendous 5E replacement), and the second is a legendary game that gives me complete control.

But Pathfinder 2 can be played as a darker, more gritty game. I own the books. I can do what I want with them. If I wish to create a grimdark world, I say it is a grimdark world, and we go from there. Nothing in the core books precludes that, and the Lost Omens "sample world" in the GM Core book can be ignored. Most of the content in Lost Omens can also be ignored or picked and sorted through as potential character options. For the most part, just stick to the core rulebooks.

I understand what they are trying to do with the art, making the fantasy genre more relatable to the social media crowd. But this is following, not leading.

You will never pander enough to anyone to make yourself "cool."

You must always be the "next big thing" by presenting something people want to see themselves in. And this doesn't happen by making what you have familiar. You must break through, present a world nobody has seen before, and show them the way.

Make the audience "want to be you."

Never make yourself look "more like the ordinary."

Pathfinder 2: Remaster Contents

I was driven away by the Pathfinder 2 remaster. When I started to learn the game, they announced the remaster, and I wasted all this money on an edition I couldn't use. It cut my enthusiasm in half, so I moved on to learn 5E, which was a mistake. 

5E is a sea of Kickstarter grifts, false promises, and Wizards cutting the legs from under you since they own the game and platform. Nothing works well together. The exploits are legendary. You don't have a choice since there is always the best one. You can buy six shelves of books of 5E and never be happy; the more you buy, the less happy you will be. You can't use most 3rd-party books since D&D Beyond doesn't support them. You are always excited about that next book, then let down, and you shift those hopes to the next thing.

5E is predatory consumerism to the nth degree.

And those hopes always get shifted to the next thing. Or maybe someone else writing 5E. Or this book that makes it hardcore. Or maybe...

I broke free of the 5E book addiction, so I know, oh, do I know.

To its credit, Pathfinder 2 also supports the old editions, and only five books were invalidated: the player's guide, the GM book, the first bestiary book, the Advanced Players Guide, and (more recently) Guns & Gears. The last is more of an errata reprint than a remaster in the first four books, and people who purchased it will get the updated PDF for free (from what I read).

Getting the remaster books in the Humble Bundle changed my mind about the game, and it helped me see some of the problems I had when I tried to learn it.

Part of my problem learning the game was that there was too much to it. The first book had to "do it all" and suffered greatly. Do we have magic items and treasure lists (88 pages)? GM Information (48 pages)? Information on the world (26 pages)? Twelve classes? The book was a "first release," so people needed to be able to play and have everything they needed, but the days of 642-page rulebooks have come and gone. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but this book felt like an impossible mountain to climb.

The remaster player core strips out almost all that and presents eight classes in a more complete and focused format. The book is 466 pages, 176 pages shorter than the first book, and a lot easier to use and reference at the table. The GM information was moved to the GM book, including all the treasures, magic items, GM advice, traps, hazards, starting world info, and anything else for the GM.

And having eight classes is excellent. I am not trying to juggle learning twelve in this book. I can understand these and then move on to others. Each of those eight classes has a good amount of customization, too! Less is more.

The remaster GM Core book is 338 pages, compared to the old one's 258 pages, an increase of 80 pages. The new GM book has traps and treasure tables, which makes it far more helpful to me as a GM. The only thing we lost is the NPC gallery (48 pages), but we can still use the old one, and an NPC-focused book is coming, which will be a better use of a book and that page count. NPCs are so important they deserve an entire book, just like a bestiary. Those extra 48 pages lost by the NPC information were used well, and the information moved over feels right where it should be, just like the classic DMG's content.

The remaster books were "rebalanced" and made more useful to players and GMs. Now, I can open that GM book and use it instead of flipping through a nearly 700-page player book to find a magic item or trap. Thank you for making playing, learning, and managing the game easier.

Also, moving the world information out of the player book made the remastered game much more friendly to homebrewed worlds. These 40 pages now resemble more of an "example world" in the GM book than a "setting you must use" in the player book. This is a massive tonal shift, and moving this information out of the remaster player book "opens the door" to homebrew worlds since player expectations now come from a neutral starting point.

The remaster is much less the "Golarion Roleplaying Game" than it felt like it was. I could convert the classic TSR settings to the remastered rules, which would be much more straightforward. I like the classic world the best, and this also opens the door to playing in the classic world with the new rule books much easier than having to retcon a part of the player book every time I start a session.

Less is "nailed down" in the remastered books, which is good when you use the book outside of the Lost Omens content. I would also like to see a "Lost Omens Legends" line of remastered books that convert over the old adventures, present the original world as was, and be an alt-setting that could be used alongside the current timeline. This would compete with the 1E books but also move them forward and save all that content in case of a "Wizards flip out" again when they are eventually sold or bought by someone who wants to revoke the OGL entirely and control the market.

Don't laugh. We live in a stupid timeline where stupid things happen.

We lost four classes in the player book remaster, but those would be better served by being in the Player Core 2 book, where they would be given room to breathe and have all their options fleshed out. We have eight more classes in this volume. Eight is the perfect number of character classes for an expansion hardcover, and it allows the book to have room to focus on each without cramming too much in or feeling too sparse.

Do I wish the champion class was in the first book? Yes, that is what I am used to, but thematically, let the cleric be the first book's "holy warrior," while Player Core 2 presents the champion class as an alternate option. I can see why the witch was moved to the first book since the class is popular and unique to the game, almost a defining part of the Pathfinder experience.

Plus, moving the alchemist to a book where you can include all the supporting information on alchemy is also a good choice since this will be the book I reach for if that class is used at a table. Similarly, other classes that rely on a lot of supporting information are in Player Core 2, like the monk, sorcerer, and investigator. Classes that are straightforward and well understood should be in the first book, while others that need more space to properly present should be in expansions.

You don't see this reorganization and focus on "book flow" in 5E. Controlling page count while balancing that with presenting the best options and no filler makes the remaster books so good. The first Pathfinder 2E book under the OGL was good for a one-book game that only needed a bestiary, but we have moved on from needing that anymore. I would rather have better-organized books at this time that are each highly useful and focused.

Bigger isn't better.

Better is better.

I like that philosophy.

Pathfinder 2: OGL vs. ORC

I like the Pathfinder 2 Remaster ORC books better than the original Pathfinder 2 OGL ones. The new books have better art, a more refined layout, and a general maturity in presentation compared to the original edition, which feels like a 5E book. Much of the art is the same, but a few new pieces stand out. The ones that distracted me are gone, and the game seems "settled," if that is how I can put it.

The official world is still okay with me, but it is not how I prefer a fantasy world. If I ran this, it would be my own world. I would simplify things to the traditional choices and make the design feel more grounded. I get where Lost Omens is going, but I have my own tastes in settings and what I like. To each their own.

The tactical battle rules are why you pay admission to the game. If you like D&D 3.5E's feeling of "put it on the table," you will have a blast here. The game is not "soft story gaming," if you have a build, you need to master it on a map with tokens. You can roleplay, but the dice and rules decide whether your character lives or dies. In story games like 5E, there is a tendency to roleplay to increase your power level with soft RP fluff and words, and Pathfinder 2 shakes its head and says, "Prove it."

Unlike D&D 3.5E, the game isn't broken at the high levels, and the power level between martial characters and casters is addressed. Some don't like that and want overpowered casters, so they should stay in D&D. The expectation problem still exists, and if you come in expecting traditional roles for every class to be the same, you will be disappointed. The game was designed for teamwork and for everyone to play a role, just like D&D 4E was.

Also, good riddance to the OGL content. I am finding every game that gets rid of OGL content comes out better, from ACKS2 to Castles & Crusades; forcing designers to part ways with the OGL and come up with monsters, spells, and magic unique to their worlds and vision makes the game so much better. Even Swords & Wizardry Revised, forced to use the Creative Commons content, is still a better game. Ditching the OGL is the best way forward. Suddenly, you see the designers' imagination at work, and we are "forced out of the cave," and the "tried and true OGL standards" are gone. We explore new worlds, see new magic, and find new treasures in these places.

Every game that ditches the OGL is 100% better. Too often, we "fall back on what we know from D&D," and our games become "D&D clones using another set of rules."

Even games like Dungeon Crawl Classics get it; monsters and things we have never seen before should be unique. PF2 gives you tools to build your own monsters; from what I hear, it isn't difficult. So why not create your own monsters and develop your own bestiary? Your players will probably thank you and feel the thrill of not knowing what they are fighting or its relative power level based on OGL knowledge.

Those strange floating spore things that zapped us with lightning? Who knows what they were, but this is the first time we have seen something like that. That was fun. We didn't know what to expect.

Meanwhile, D&D and the OSR are sitting over there pushing nostalgia and member berries. It is okay if that is what you expect, but remember, when the hobby started, all those monsters were new to us, and we had no idea what they were.

We still have three legacy bestiaries with the OGL monsters, which work - so we still have everything. The ORC PF2 still has a "cavern elf" heritage, so there is your "drow, but just change their names." Most of the time, what you miss will have a new name without the "flavor," - so if you want drow, you got them; just say they are and play.

The character sheet is drastically better. It does not look like a tax form anymore.

Ditching the 3-18 ability scores was a good move. Why did we need the old stats? We aren't rolling against them, so just using the modifier as the ability score streamlines the game. We don't have to remember that "this score is a +2" or that we need to write another number down. Again, ditching the D&D and OGL standards and tropes improves the game.

They had a solid base of "what worked," they took years of feedback and then mixed that with pulling out the OGL. Yes, the remaster came early in the game's lifecycle, and some feel like this came way too early. But Paizo should thank Wizards for pulling the OGL scheme on the community.

They ended up with a better game.

Pathfinder 2 Remastered

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/pathfinder-second-edition-happy-birthday-remaster-bundle-from-paizo-inc-books

There is still a day to get the Pathfinder 2 Humble Bundle, and you can pick up the PDFs of the remaster books and support charity. I bounced off Pathfinder 2 pretty hard; the learning curve here, especially for a solo player, is significant - especially if you run multiple characters alone.

Learning and mastering GURPS was far easier for me because all characters in GURPS work the same, and there isn't specialized lingo and class mechanics for every class. The game was better for group play. If all you play is bards, then all you have to worry about is understanding and playing your class, and you can contribute to a group much better.

I am still trying to figure out how to learn this game and play it solo. There is a lot here.

The one thing that sets Pathfinder 2 apart is that the game delivers on the original promise that D&D 3.0 made in 2000. For 25 years, Wizards has been flailing, trying to provide the "balanced tabletop dungeon game" that works from level one to twenty, that provides tactical clarity and options, where every choice is valid, and that plays the best on a map.

With D&D 5? They gave up. The fifth edition is a glorified story game. They were burned by D&D 4 and abandoned tactical play. There isn't any "tight map play" where the choices you make on your character matter that much. The action system is soft and better suited to the theater of the mind. The resting system is far too generous. Resources constantly replenish. Nobody dies.

If you want a tactical dungeon board game with roleplaying class builds, you play D&D 3.5E. There isn't getting better than this, and you could say D&D 3.5E is "Advanced D&D 5E." Just open the D&D 3.5E book, and you will see grids, line-of-sight charts, spell templates, examples of on-map play, and diagrams that help you play the game. It isn't a coffee table art book with pretty filler and fluff.

But, like all Wizards games, it must be fixed past level 10. You homebrew, patch, ban builds, and begin repairing the game now, and you are on your own. If you love the game, great, you accept this and make the game your own creation.

With Pathfinder 2, someone finally "did it."

They delivered a tactical dungeon tabletop game, with every choice valid, no broken high-level play, and adjustable difficulty from trivial to near-impossible play. Granted, they needed many rules, structures, tags, conditions, and rules inside classes to pull this off. The work required to deliver that "dungeon board game" dream, and the number of interactions between layered rules, is pretty hefty.

Spending time mastering D&D 3.5E could be better spent learning something that works and delivers on its promise. This is true if nostalgia weren't a thing. D&D 3.5E is just as in-depth, with many more modifiers and special circumstance rules than Pathfinder 2E. The design of D&D 3.5E needs to be more streamlined and unified, whereas Pathfinder 2E is designed as a solid, sensible core system.

And there is no need to fix the game. Someone isn't going to walk into your game with a cheese build they read on an Internet forum, or it will happen a lot less here. There are "whirlwind attack" cheese builds in D&D 3.5E that do hundreds of points of damage per turn, and people think they are brilliant for wanting to develop and use those in your game when all they are trying to do is waste weeks of your time building to the moment they wreck your game during one session and laugh.

D&D is notorious for these "thank you for wasting our time" builds that ruin the investment, time, and enjoyment of everyone else at the table. They are a real problem the company refuses to address and, in some cases, encourages to get more book sales. The overall health of the D&D game could be improved.

Pathfinder 2 gives you greater "idiot protection" than D&D 5E or D&D 3.5E. I hate putting it that way, but it is true. If I am playing at a hobby store, with random online others, or with people I don't know as well - Pathfinder 2E is the better choice. People's choices are protected; no one is going to "cheese in" and ruin the game for the table, and the game will work all the way to the highest level, thus protecting the time investment of the table.

The remaster player guide cover sums it up best. That dragon that barely makes a lick of sense, how does it live with those horns and the jagged, spiky, threatening design? That isn't a dragon. That is a loudmouth, rules-lawyer, cheat-the-game idiot trying to ruin your table's game. The game protects you from that threat heroically.

But the rules say I can!!!

Is Pathfinder 2E perfect? No. People still complain about a few classes not living up to their ideal of how the class should play or the role they want it to take. "It isn't like what the other game does" is a common criticism of the classes and their roles in PF2E.

Pathfinder 2 is better than the alternatives and much better for groups than any of the D&D games.

Like D&D 3.5E? Play Pathfinder 2

Like map-based tactical combat and balanced rules that work as advertised to level 20? The fatal flaw of D&D 3.5E is Pathfinder 2E, which delivers all that. Wizards of the Coast does not write games that work great past level ten, and they have been trying and failing since D&D 3.0.

I like D&D 3.5E for other reasons, one being nostalgia, a few others relating to the last, best versions of the world books that the 3.5E team made, and the legendary designers behind the game.

You can be serious about D&D 3.5E and make it work, but the game that is supported and much less hassle is Pathfinder 2E. It works. It works on the tabletop. It works all the way to a high level. The game is balanced, and all the choices are valid.

Due to the messy divorce Wizards of the Coast forced on the gaming industry, the OGL and SRD content has been removed or renamed from the PF2E remaster version. I have the original game and I am not in the market for the remaster, and I want to wait an edition to see fixes and patches. Then again, I am asking to put myself back into a pricy book and electronic character sheet market, and it didn't feel (back then and now) that I would get enjoyment out of that investment.

I am not a fan of the Pathfinder 2E world. With the removal of OSR elements, the guns (I know they are optional), the steampunk aesthetic, and the modern feeling don't speak to me. If someone made a traditional-art version of Pathfinder 2E's main rules with old-school nods and support, I would look into that.

Part of me is eternally happy with OSRIC. There are fewer books, fewer rules, and fewer modern-day distractions, and the classic and original AD&D sourcebooks are legendary documents. I always ask, why do I need a new game?

The incremental minor upgrades are what draw me to modern games, and they are primarily worthless. They are tiny increments you could just "write in" to a game like OSRIC, have it all, and not be drained of money from the publisher or character design software. Today's games are designed to have thousands of trivial options that are meant to lock you in and force you to buy books. They "gamify" things that should be left to the story and the natural progression of character, and doing it yourself is always better than relying on someone else's half-baked design.

This is always my battle with newer games. The original works just fine and, in many cases, better. The best part of PF2E is the tactical combat, which is the selling point. D&D 5.5E leans heavily into social and roleplay, and the game fails at tactical combat. They want to sell the game as a "social platform," which falls flat for me since I am not in those circles.

Why should I play if I don't buy into D&D 5.5E's identity gaming social platform? A few unsupported campaign settings and nostalgia aren't enough.

They still need to answer this question.

PF2E delivers a tested, working, one-to-twenty tabletop game. D&D 3.5E tried to do this but failed because of the broken nature of high-level play. You will get a fun run to level seven, and then you will fight the rules and broken builds for the rest of the campaign. This has always stayed the same in 25 years of D&D.

Pathfinder 2E is supported, works, and has an active community. D&D 3.5E is all but dead, except for a few die-hard fans (like myself). You will be happy if you want tabletop, map-based, tight tactical play? Go Pathfinder 2E. I still like D&D 3.5E, but this needs to be said to temper my coverage and enthusiasm.

OSRIC and AD&D will be here forever and will always be my default choices.

Pathfinder 2: Goodbye

I tried.

With the book prices going up to 80 dollars for the revised edition, I am selling my Pathfinder 2 (OG) collection. This is a series of me selling things and explaining why these games never worked for me. Perhaps people looking for non-revision books will find fun with these, which is what I hope.

I never played this (outside of the PF2 Beginner's Box, which I am keeping for the maps and pawns), and it felt like it strayed too far away from what made Pathfinder 1 so special to me. The danger of the world, the epic fantasy, the 3.5-like 'better Greyhawk than Greyhawk' world, and the feeling the world was grounded yet fantastic.

I am keeping my Pathfinder 1 collection.

Solo play with this level of rules complexity hurts this game tremendously. I can't do it and keep everything straight. I immediately feel like Atari 2600 with too much on the screen, and everything in my brain starts blinking in and out of frame as I try to figure out what rule to read next. The Beginner Box did not prepare me for the whole complexity level of the game.

The PF2 character sheet killed this game in my play sessions; I could never create a character without Hero Lab. The sheet looks worse than many tax forms and is a complete failure in game design. People play on VTTs or use Hero Lab to make it manageable (shout out to the excellent Pathbuilder). I am not an apologist for this terrible sheet; it makes Rolemaster look simple.

The revised edition purging the OGL and eliminating the classic monsters and races is also a huge negative. The dark elf race is always a part of my vision of Pathfinder; that 'better Greyhawk' feeling needs them, and people say, 'house rule them in' to have their memory holed from canon feels wrong. Erasing a race from lore is wrong, no matter how you present it.

It is funny since ACKS 2 is doing the same thing, purging the OGL and doing their own thing. I applaud that since that game and world were never too linked to the original OGL universe, and it feels right they break loose and create their own identity. ACKS always had its own world, and cutting free the OGL baggage lets them find that identity - otherwise, they will always be compared to B/X. With Pathfinder 2, the promise of continuing what we loved about 3.5E feels like it is being broken with the revised edition and is the end of an era.

I commend Paizo for merging the game with Starfinder 2 and wish them well. This needed to happen a long time ago, and letting Starfinder limp along with 3.5 rules (even though I like 3.5 better) was a huge mistake.

The world has also moved on to a more steampunk tech level, and it does not feel like a fantasy world. The art feels heavily censored and toned down from the original Conan-feeling art of the first edition, and the game's world feels too safe for my tastes. I also have an issue with the game getting too 'cute' and fan service with many choices.

I could live with all that, but playing this solo is too much for one person. This game is better with others, where each player knows their class and is an advocate who knows the rules and tricks for that class. Continually referencing chained tags to apply effects feels like D&D 4E, and it is horribly slow. PF2 is the Advanced Squad Leader of fantasy gaming.

3.5 was the best version of D&D we had since the year 2000. It is a horrible mess, but removing B/X from the equation, the 3.5 edition still feels enough like classic D&D to pass as the game. 3.5E is a mess, but it is easily understood and has clear rules. This can be played solo.

This is the big "if" with my Pathfinder 1e collection. I have better fantasy games than this: Old School Essentials, Swords & Wizardry, Castles & Crusades, and Dungeon Crawl Classics offer more fun for fewer books. If I had to keep one game? Dungeon Crawl Classics. There isn't much difference in what I do and how I play DCC vs. PF 1e.

Pathfinder 1e feels like the game I loved, but it got replaced by better games that do the same things easier. I do not have to work as hard in DCC to get the same tone and flavor as how I ran Pathfinder 1e. With Pathfinder 1e it is:

• List of special rules for a gonzo tone
• Characters designed a certain way
• Lists of situations that come up
• World designed for the flavor and tone
• Lots of RP assumptions
• The ban list

With DCC, that is all baked in. With 5E and PF 2, forget it, the default tones of those games are already in place and take over the game. 5E has a 'cosmopolitan planar' setting that takes over the game, while PF 2 has a 'steampunk modern aesthetic' that rules how worlds act and are built. It takes even more effort with these games to get them to work and feel right for a custom setting, and you have to ban a lot of character options since they do not fit tonally.

The one game that changed everything for me is the Savage Pathfinder game. Savage Worlds is a better set of rules than 3.5E, and it removes the cumbersome rules while keeping the 1e feeling and flavor. The world and characters are young again, and the fantasy world feeling is there. This version of the world and rules feels fresh to me, and it does not have that historical baggage the 2E game puts on the original. I hope this product line continues with the classic adventure paths, but I can see why it wouldn't if it gets popular and competes with the new stuff.

Still, my big 'so what' with Savage Pathfinder is I want to do my own thing, and the new savage Fantasy Companion fits the style of games I want to play with the system. If the world and PF 1e style were necessary, I would play Savage Pathfinder. How do I use the Savage Worlds game? Fantasy Companion and a DIY world.

Still, I have the boxes on order, and I will assemble the sales slips for my PF 2 books soon. The game is getting shipped out. I was excited about this game, but it wasn't for me, and it did not work out. Hopefully, others can have more fun than I did with these books, and I send them into the wild to be loved and treasured by others. Since the OGL version of PF 2 will be a collector's item someday because it will go out of print, these will find a lovely home somewhere.

If you are having fun, more power to you. My story with this game ends here.

Too Much Tuning

One of the problems of highly tuned games is they are far too fragile for sandbox and story-based gaming. While you can run sandbox or story-based games in these systems (we did for years with 4E), they start to show their weaknesses and begin to break down when the assumptions you have about "how the game world works" runs against "how the game was designed to play."

Of course, the town guard are level one!

Why are they getting slaughtered so effortlessly by a level 4 monster?

Admittedly, 5E has less of a problem with this than Pathfinder 2 or D&D 4; it just happens later. 5E has another problem of 40 level 1 archers being able to kill high-level monsters, so there is a strange problem in another way.

You see tightly balanced systems like this typically in board games like Heroquest or Descent. Part of the design goals around D&D 4E was the board game explosion of the 2010s, so they said, "Let's make D&D more like a board game!" The designers at Wizards never could pull it off, and outside of Magic: The Gathering, they are still terrible at balancing and maintaining tabletop games.

Significantly few people can balance games with this level of complexity, and it often takes years of iterations and changes (impossible for printed books). The MtG card ban lists are proof of this; they can ban a card - you can't really pull back a paragraph in a printed book. We were there for the D&D 4E errata; by the time a book hit the shelf, it was obsolete, and the errata was already available to download.

So we got 5E, a sound system, but again, this system is still tightly tuned around the same +/- 4 level encounter range as 4E. Bounded accuracy reduced the math but at the cost of making everything difficult to balance and referee. Without bounded accuracy, balance is accessible and becomes more like a JRPG. That monster is a -10 to hit, and I have a +10 to hit - this is balanced. All you are doing from there is adjusting DPS and healing for both sides while keeping an eye on turn-denial mechanics. If I go in with only a +5 to hit, that will be a near-impossible encounter.

You pull in those numbers too tight, and strange stuff happens. Any JRPG designer knows this; too tight a system creates exploits and unintended consequences.

If I throw a group of four goblins at level 4 B/X characters? That is still a threat. They can focus on short-bow fire and take out a supporting character. Add slow damage or weakness poisons, a few traps, and terrain; the encounter is deadly. B/X balance and "CR ratings" are something you learn after years of play, and I feel that sort of math - while handy - pushes the game too far into tabletop video gaming.

And we have a very tightly tuned game on the market, which has come closest to the tabletop dungeon crawl dream - Pathfinder 2e. This has the same problem that D&D 4E has, you get a party of level 5 adventurers and have them fight level 1 town guards - and it is crit-fest slaughter. We had an encounter like this in D&D 4E with orcs and a party 4 levels above them; there was a point where we stopped and said, "This isn't fun; we are feeling sorry for the orcs."

This is the same MMO feeling where a level 60 adventurer walks through a level 1 starting zone and sneeze-kills groups of monsters in the blink of an eye. Your mind starts to say, "The Pathfinder 2e world isn't real; it is more like living inside an MMO."

That isn't bad since we enjoyed that part of D&D 4E for years. But it did break immersion, sandbox play, and it put a strange qualifier on roleplaying. A level 5 character could laugh at town guards, but that was their world. That isn't true in 5E anymore, but 5E has a problem with massed fire from low-level ranged fire being far too deadly - even to a level 20 character.

My issue with Pathfinder 2e is complexity. I like hard games, but complexity - for a solo player - kills my experience. The game is better with a group where each player can be a class advocate and expert. Playing a group, plus GM-ing, plus knowing classes and party synergy? Way too much for me.

If I want a challenging game, I will play Old School Essentials. All the challenge with 1% of the complexity. And if I want options, I will mod them in. This is how it used to be done. Many of the options presented in these newer games aren't options when the optimizers get to the game. They are fake choices, and for a given build (or party), there are only a few - or one - choices to make. Yes, you can play with a non-optimal build. But the players did not make the game to be a tabletop dungeon-crawling game; the designers did.

You emphasize difficulty and challenge, and you will attract players looking for that experience. And this is a competitive game, so that brings in all the optimizers. This happens in video games, so there is no saying sorry or making it easier. The game's appeal - what sells it - is that challenge and dynamic. One thing I wished for in PF2 was 'difficulty tuning' - in the characters and builds. Keep all CR and encounters in adventures the same, but modify the characters to set difficulty.

If I want a less complicated game without optimizing, I will play 5E with the Level Up A5E version. This is the best version of 5E at my table, and it combines 5E and OSR concepts very nicely. I can also play and ignore predatory 5E companies, which is a nice feeling that gives me peace of mind.

To be ethical and "on the right side of history," stop ignoring predatory corporate behavior and vote with your wallet and choices. Otherwise, you are part of the problem. This is good old-fashioned Vermont activism speaking and part of my upbringing. When I was growing up, there were boycotts of General Electric for supplying weapons to wars in Central America, to other companies doing business with an Apartheid government, to everyone other company engaged in unethical practices.

Is it really any different now?

If I want a game I can mod and play with, having 90% of the 5E experience, I will play Castles & Crusades. I am working on an amazing mod that gives you more options than 5E, all while staying easy to play and create characters with. Most of this mod uses options from the CK Guide, a 5E race guide, and a few "laser pistol" cantrips from the SRD.

Starfinder 2 Announced

 https://paizo.com/starfinderplaytest

Two days after I wondered about this, they announce it. Starfinder 2 will be 100% compatible with Pathfinder 2e (remastered) next year.

This fixes many of the mixed feelings I had with the remaster of Pathfinder 2e. I can put Pathfinder 1e's world in the past and play a science-fantasy mix of Pathfinder 2R and Starfinder 2. We aren't losing anything, evolution is happening, and we can put the old content in the past and move forward.

This aligns the system more with a Dungeon Crawl Classics mix of fantasy and sci-fi, and it feels right to me. I would play all in one world, with a fantasy world existing under the stars and the space tech coming from the ruins of lost civilizations. Sort of like a Numenera-style world, but with a stronger fantasy core.

Pathfinder 2e: Utterly Alien

I have mixed feelings about the Pathfinder update to a "2.5" version. I am happy with the 2.0 books and do not plan on buying the remasters. I miss the classic dragons, drow, and other fantasy staples - and the replacements feel like something entirely alien.

I get it; they need to be their own masters, be able to create video games and VTTs without worrying about Wizards, and do their own thing.

And I know, your table is your table - I get it.

It is hard to discuss feelings about the whole situation since the toxicity is very high everywhere, with the remaster dividing the community. People feel the classic dragons and fantasy standards would be a part of the game - and they still are - but they are not in the new books. And the community wants to stop player loss, so they lean into calling people who feel "I am losing something" as stupid and unreasonable (to silence them and prevent the feeling from taking hold), which drives people feeling this way away for good.

Here's a hint, if people in the community have fears and concerns - don't attack them or call them dumb.

Some places that were the best and most inviting in the Pathfinder community are mocking people with these feelings instead of discussing them and working things out. If that happened to me, I would walk from the game and community and never return. The books would get sold the same day. And I see it happening, and it is the moderator's fault for letting this go out of control. The community is losing people for good with every thread that turns into a flame fest.

Nothing much is changing, and you can still have everything as it was. Everything is fine. This is one of those rare cases of the game being okay but the narrative and community spinning wildly out of control.

If I were a third party producer?

Here comes the Kickstarter for Classic Monsters and Character Options for Pathfinder 2 Remastered!

Seriously people. That is an easy win. Easy. Somebody do that and END THIS.

Seriously.

They are chasing people out of the Pathfinder 2 community for good - for no good reason other than them wanting to win an argument and get likes. They should be leaving, not the good people we are losing.

And the fears are justified.

More fallout from Wizards and more reasons to never go back to them. They are still hurting communities months later. I also feel Paizo is being unreasonable by memory-holing so many familiar terms and fantasy standards. The game will be more challenging to transition into, and you will find more people sticking with one or the other instead of trying both.

It is a mess.

But on a more "look and feel" level, Pathfinder no longer feels familiar. I entered that world with 1e, and I like that edition's style and mature fantasy feeling. Pathfinder 2's art feels a bit too "pop" to me, with photobombs, selfies, Pokemon pets, and other Internet meme elements entering the art and style, with way too much steampunk standing in for modern technology.

I am too used to the pseudo-3.5E the original game started as, and I feel, "That was the promise to me." So, no, Pathfinder 2e's world, and even more so, the 2.5e world, does not feel the same. It is not a fantasy one anymore; this is steampunk. The lore is changing, too, from "generic fantasy" to "Paizo fantasy." I like the lore, but this limits the game's usefulness to me, in the same way using a Star Wars RPG would play in my own sci-fi settings. I will play generic fantasy with OSR games, C&C, or non-Wizards 5E.

The language of Pathfinder is changing too. What was familiar because of 3.5 is now a step removed in terminology. This is another barrier to entry for the rest of us used to things meaning commonly accepted meanings and having a product line with redefined words all over the place. The average consumer isn't going to be able to grasp that, and I know how easy it sounds - but things have failed to resonate with consumers for less than this.

They should have just gone with Creative Commons and the 5.1 SRD. The ORC license feels like it backed them into a corner, and they have to change the game too much.

At this point, I would be more excited about the setting if they mixed Starfinder and Pathfinder into one setting (and set of rules) and did an epic science-fantasy blend of the two. Make Starfinder optional, but combine the settings and rules. This way, you could do "magi-tech" instead of steampunk, and the game's technology would work the same way.

That would feel highly compelling and give the world purpose and reason.

Starfinder should be an optional setting expansion for Pathfinder 2.5 with no main rulebook but expansion books focusing on classes, tech, and powers. Unify the magic systems and rules. Import the ancestries' and backgrounds.

And the alien aspects of the new 2.5 world would feel right for a science-fantasy universe. Dungeon Crawl Classics pulls this off nicely, and they show you can have a science-fantasy world and still have it feel like fantasy.

Give me one game with one setting in one world - and the science-fantasy part as the optional expansion content. That would feel right to me and help me get over these feelings of things changing. You could have a modernized and clean Pathfinder 2.5 and a brand-new Starfinder under one roof and system. Everything could work and play together nicely, and we would have a bigger game and sandbox.

But otherwise, this is a dark time, and it is worsening.

I hope things get better in the Pathfinder community and they can work this out. The feelings and fears are valid. How the community addresses them is a considerable challenge; from what I see, they need to rise to the occasion.

Pathfinder 2: Stepping Back

This is a better game than 5E, just because it clarifies everything. The number of rules needed to run a tactical wargame like this approaches the old Advanced Squad Leader, so the game is 600+ pages to cover every topic and contingency.

In 5E, you are told to "wing it," leading to a network of unwritten rules where there is a "Reddit ruling" you need to look up to play the game and have a consistent, community-approved way of handling a situation or combination that breaks the game.

Pathfinder 2? It is all in the book.

This is why people see the game as more complicated yet say it is easier to run.

In 5E, you are referencing several spells to define a term like "sunlight." Some spells say they make daylight but not sunlight. There are no official rules for sunlight and what it does and counts as; they are hidden in spell and monster descriptions.

You figure it out.

Pathfinder 2 will have a tag on the spell to tell you what it does. Sometimes it will have a few. Look up the rules for the tag, and you are 100% playing the game by the rules without having to Google D&D rulings (that may need to be updated).

I understand; you play enough 5E (or Pathfinder 1e), and Pathfinder 2e looks like a genius-level clarification and simplification. I suspect most 5E players only loosely follow if you play by the rules.

But I don't have time and would instead stick to rules-light games. 5E can be played "rules light," but you will ignore most of the rules. For 5E, I am sticking to the "Kobold-Verse" with their edition of K5E, Tales of the Valiant. ToV is 5E from now on, and it is a company I can support and believe is a good steward of the game and its community.

The Kobold-Verse is my 5E, just like the Paizo-Verse was my 3.5E. I am done with Wizards, which insulates me against game-breaking changes in the rules. I can use the 3rd-party 5E books I didn't sell with K5E and not worry about the game-changing.

But I hope Kobold Press cleans up 5E instead of leaving it as-is in its messy state, or else I am revisiting the original PF 2e. That would be a deal-breaker. 5E could be better, and I hope a new company can clean up the rules and make them easier to play. With Wizards, too much is "left up to you" - so much the game becomes broken and unplayable in some situations.

A lot in ToV will likely be worked out in the playtest, so if you want the game to be cleaned up, join the playtest and give your feedback.

I know, coming from an OSR guy, that sounds funny. But with games like 5E, where builds and strategies matter, balance and combos rely on precise rules and clean presentation - which is where Pathfinder 2 shines. As for Pathfinder 2e? I am taking a break until the revisions but will miss the SRD content. They may come up with something cool, but I am waiting to see what happens next. If I play PF 2e, it will be with the books I have.

I don't want to make a huge commitment without seeing the revised edition.

Right now, lovely collection, but wait and see.