Pathfinder 2nd edition - Aug 25

…Now about that Pathfinder bit that I have promised to talk about earlier this summer, about its’ transfer from the 1^st edition to the 2^nd. What can be said about it?

Firstly, the obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes your neighbor from across the street starts to play the blues and you want to kill them before you kill yourself, just because you’re in that sort of a mood and you don’t know as to how to get out of it. What next?

The Pathfinder transfer in and of itself was clumsily done; it took place with the ‘Pathfinder Campaign Setting’ companion piece on the land of Druma, and unlike the previous installments – about Osirion, Cheliax, Belkzen, Andoran, Nidal, etc. – this piece felt less helpful to gamers who wanted to play in Druma, and more like an extra from the ‘Inner Sea Races’ core book. The latter is one of the less successful 1^st edition Pathfinder core books, BTW. It is four-fifths filler and the rest is nothing that could not be found in the Advanced Race Guide core book, for example. The piece on Druma reads the same – the enthusiasm that you could find in other PCS pieces just is not there; it’s still written well enough, but nothing more.

…And the same can be said about the new releases – the new adventure module, the new installment in the Age of Ashes campaign. They are written well enough, and there is a lot of exposition in them, but-

But while there is no denial that Pathfinder was always big on exposition, especially when compared to the 5^th edition D&D, for example, somehow they always made it work, (in the 1^st edition, that is), and it looked good. Here and now – the 2^nd edition Pathfinder – not so much. There is an excess of information, crammed together with none of the care, consideration, pacing, etc. that marked Pathfinder the initial version, but just various RPG notes that may be considered helpful when planning a new Pathfinder campaign (or whatever), or it may not.

…Yes, this balance – rules vs. fun – is always important when designing an RPG rulebook, regarding an RPG world or otherwise. We are currently playing a Space 1889 campaign, whose rules are quite different from both Pathfinder and 5^th edition D&D, and have a more ‘5^th edition d20 modern’ feel, we think. …Not that there is too much similarity between d20 modern and Space 1889, but still. What next?

Nothing. Right now, we are playing a campaign that is set in Space 1889 setting, on Venus. (In Space 1889, it’s a tropical world, if anyone cares). Currently, we are trying to figure out how to deal with a cranky old T-Rex that decided that it likes to eat people. Our PCs are civilians – settlers and the like – do not have sufficiently powerful firepower to defeat it in a straight down face-off, so we are trying to figure how to deal with it otherwise. Oh and there’s a bunch of Venusian Lizard-People running around, doing their own things… fun. Sometimes to have it you just need a change in perspective, or something similar, no?

Anything else? D23 (let us call it that) has also presented a trailer for the upcoming CGI reboot of ‘the Lady and the Tramp’. No, it is not about Lady Liberty’s interactions with her Donald the POTUS; it is a love story of two dogs. Yes, not unlike the LK franchise we are talking about animals here, but because they are animals living in a human world, (the human characters did not look CGI in the trailer, so I am assuming they are not), it works, because it is a story about two dogs that are living in a human world. The end. So far, the viewers’ attitude towards this is friendly, unlike the remake of ‘Mulan’ (coming in 2020), as the actress of the titular heroine made some politically obtuse statements, pretty much worthy of the abovementioned Donald himself, and now the potential audience is pissed; there’s a talk of boycotting and what-not. Of course, given that this is still only late August 2019, there’s still plenty of time for tide to turn regarding ‘Mulan 2020’, but given that real life sucks, let’s not be overly optimistic.

Well, this is it for now; see you all soon!