Christ Centered Gamer

Wondering who else here has had the chance to play it and wanted to discuss what you guys think. Personally I'm DMing a campaign in this system when I can (hasn't happened much as of late lol). I found it has definitely fixed a lot of things from D&D 3.5. Classes and races are the biggest improvements, along with how feats work.

Pathfinder has become my D&D of choice as well. It does feel and play like a refined version of 3.5, and is a pretty solid game.

That being said, I don't think I've ever played any of Paizo's adventure paths set in the Pathfinder game setting. Instead, the GMs I've sat with - and the campaign I'm running - tend to use homebrewed settings with the Pathfinder ruleset.

Neither have I. I run my own campaign world, one I started many years ago in 3.0. Still works out fine, though had to come up with an interesting story of why the deities changed hands.

Personally, I don't care for Pathfinder. And that only comes out of my dislike of D&D. Frankly, I think gaming has come a long way since the binary result you get from a roll of the die D&D and Pathfinder embrace.

It's an anachronistic holdover from the infancy of role-playing games. It's kind of the same reason I don't like anything Palladium publishes, it just feels so antiquated and clunky.

Were I to use a D20-powered game I'd give 13th Age a whirl. It embraces a lot of the indie advancements Pathfinder and D&D eschews.

Personally, for a fantasy game, I'm in love with Shadows of Esteren and I wish more people knew about it. Die rolls still end in a binary result, but how much it de-emphasizes dice rolling altogether is a breath of fresh air. Basically, from a game perspective, if you need to roll a die you messed up. A die roll is your last resort.

Of course, FATE is fantastic and I'd love to do a fantasy game in it. There's also the mechanic that Edge of the Empire uses which also give you a succeed/fail result, but adds a and/but result to the mix. So you can fail a roll and still get something positive out of it, or you can succeed on a roll but have a complication arise. These positives and complications are entirely up to player and GM discretion to determine what they mean (though there are vanilla mechanical outcomes to fall back upon should you desire). I think you'd have to play Warhammer Fantasy to use the mechanic... though I can't think of a reason you can't simply rip out the setting information and use the mechanic any way you like.

I dunno, but whenever I hear someone say they're gonna play D&D or Pathfinder the question "Why?" comes to my mind. There are so many more interesting options out there!

You can check out Book 0 Prologue for Shadows of Esteren for free here. It was unlocked during one of their Kickstarters.

I'm intrigued. I'll have to download that prologue just to see how they handle the game mechanics. My friends and I happen to like the dice rolling aspect of tabletop games (in fact, for the Dark Sun campaign we went through, someone developed a new table just as an excuse to roll more dice!)

selderane wrote: Personally, for a fantasy game, I'm in love with Shadows of Esteren and I wish more people knew about it. Die rolls still end in a binary result, but how much it de-emphasizes dice rolling altogether is a breath of fresh air. Basically, from a game perspective, if you need to roll a die you messed up. A die roll is your last resort.

So do you prefer more of a diceless gaming approach?

selderane wrote: I dunno, but whenever I hear someone say they're gonna play D&D or Pathfinder the question "Why?" comes to my mind. There are so many more interesting options out there!

"Interesting" means "different." And for many people, "different" means "step outside your comfort zone." That's probably why a lot of people prefer D&D / Pathfinder - and why there tends to be such a hue and cry whenever a new edition is announced. Role-playing games tend to have fairly complex rules, so not a lot of people have the time - or perhaps, patience - to learn a new ruleset. They just want to roll up a character and get into the game.

selderane wrote:I dunno, but whenever I hear someone say they're gonna play D&D or Pathfinder the question "Why?" comes to my mind. There are so many more interesting options out there!

You can check out Book 0 Prologue for Shadows of Esteren for free here. It was unlocked during one of their Kickstarters.

I'm not really sure that's fair...interest depends on the game/GM, not the system. I've only very little experience in roleplay stuffs, but I'd say that was pretty true.

I also like dice. Dice provide a random element beyond your control. Plan on stabbinating that goblin king? Your +27 strength and holy broadsword just rolled a 1, meaning you tripped and cut your arm. Yet the weak halfling behind you rolled a 20 with his dagger, meaning he flipped around like Yoda and killed everything. XD

Sstavix wrote:

selderane wrote: Personally, for a fantasy game, I'm in love with Shadows of Esteren and I wish more people knew about it. Die rolls still end in a binary result, but how much it de-emphasizes dice rolling altogether is a breath of fresh air. Basically, from a game perspective, if you need to roll a die you messed up. A die roll is your last resort.

So do you prefer more of a diceless gaming approach?

I don't have a problem with diceless, I've done it before, but my goal is getting more story into a game. D&D, at its heart, is a combat simulator. That's really the least interesting aspect of a role-playing game to me.

That's not to say I don't like it, I just don't want a lot of it and if it's there I'd like it to mean something more than what D&D makes it.

I think Edge of the Empire makes dice rolling very, very cool.

Sstavix wrote:

selderane wrote: I dunno, but whenever I hear someone say they're gonna play D&D or Pathfinder the question "Why?" comes to my mind. There are so many more interesting options out there!

"Interesting" means "different." And for many people, "different" means "step outside your comfort zone." That's probably why a lot of people prefer D&D / Pathfinder - and why there tends to be such a hue and cry whenever a new edition is announced. Role-playing games tend to have fairly complex rules, so not a lot of people have the time - or perhaps, patience - to learn a new ruleset. They just want to roll up a character and get into the game.

A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is far easier to prepare than a steak. I think we'd tell someone who subsists on PB&J solely because it's easy and familiar that there are far better options out there.

If you have several hours a week to dedicate to gaming on a regular basis then you can easily pick up a new game quickly. Rules have, by and large, gotten a lot easier, not harder. Edge of the Empire you'll pick up after a few rolls. Shadows of Esteren too. FATE is super easy.