Semantic Nonsese: Finding a New Path

With the dust apparently settled from Wizard of the Coast’s massive bungle regarding the Open Gaming License now resulting in the d20 system being more free than ever (or was that the plan all along?), I thought it would be prudent to reflect on my experience with Dungeons & Dragons in particular, and tabletop role-playing games in general.

And since we didn’t cover the Open Gaming License crisis on the blog and it would be super untimely to delve into it now, I will leave here a link to something better than I could have done, with its own links to follow depending on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.

I spent a lot of my childhood from 3rd grade on playing mostly AD&D 2nd Edition, though I had played all sorts of things as opportunity knocked. From the original D&D to its 3rd edition, Paranoia, World of Darkness, Generic Universal Role-Playing System, Middle-Earth Role Playing, Shadowrun, KULT, Mutants and Masterminds, Marvel Super Heroes, Atomik Fusion, Star Fleet Battles and probably a few others I have forgotten. It may sound like a lot, but aside from D&D most people who are deeper into such RPGs won’t find their game of choice on this list.

Sorry for those looking for Macho Women With Guns, Kobolds Ate My Baby! or Toon.

But for all that playing around, it turned out I never really liked tabletop RPGs. At the time I played them the most, it was something to pass the time. Just what some/most of my friends were up to. But as college came, my group of friends expanded and new ways to pass time were available to me. As the years went on, table-topping failed to compete. It disappeared entirely from my life once the board game craze caught on and I discovered that I enjoyed these games vastly more than role-playing.

But even then, I stayed curious about the goings on in the hobby. I was not perfectly informed, but I was particularly tuned in to D&D and also the OGL and its d20 system that much of what I enjoyed playing the most was based upon. So when Wizards of the Coast leaked a very bad draft of a very bad update to the OGL (and just in time to disrupt the hype cycle for the upcoming D&D movie), it caught my attention.

It also caught the attention of other people in my life, which is how tepid me somehow Palpatine returned ended up back at a table. I was there to help a group of seasoned D&D players test out Pathfinder 2nd Edition (the one that doesn’t rely on the OGL) in case the situation pushed them towards switching systems.

I had heard on many occasions that the original Pathfinder system was like an alternate universe in which 4th Edition D&D was a refinement of 3rd Edition D&D rather than going off in an entirely new direction. But I was never interested enough to go out of my way and try it; I had other things to do. As such, I haven’t the foggiest clue as to whether my observations of Pathfinder’s 2E are any different than what my observations would have been of Pathfinder’s 1E. Nevertheless, I found Pathfinder in its current form had a fixation on refining combat and simplifying non-combat.

The process of playing through an instance of combat was much more meticulous and regimented than D&D. It could go very clearly and smoothly so long as you could remember a dizzying array of actions and reactions and their effects you have on hand. For characters (and classes) that have many possible reactions, you really have to stay on the ball all the time and continuously make decisions about whether a reaction applies and whether you wish to use it. Ease probably comes with experience, but even a low-level character has a lot they need to know.

There is a strong emphasis (both mechanically and strategically) on applying debuffs to enemies — and the enemy applying them to you — going through stages with escalating effects. This is so ingrained into the system that the process for character death is applied as increasing stages of the “Dying” debuff.

Away from the fighting, my experience was much less concrete. Perhaps it was simply the result of a combat-heavy campaign, so I’m not comfortable making a judgment based on that alone. But judging from the handbook, all the meticulousness of the combat system and the parts of the game that feed into it just isn’t there for everything else.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t say there is some gorgeous worldbuilding going on in describing Pathfinder’s generic campaign setting, which contains damn near every campaign setting you’d ever want by just going to a different corner of the vast world. While such worldbuilding is the most optional part of the rules unless you’re playing an adventure straight from the box, I do appreciate the work the writers put in to it.

But enough of that. This is not a review; I’ve barely experienced the thing in creating one character and playing one game session. The real question: Is this experience changing my mind on prioritizing tabletop RPGs? Have the years away from it or the quality of a different system moved the needle on my prior opinion?

While I plan to reserve judgment until I finish this first adventure, I am willing to say that I’ve yet to feel moved. And if that is the fate, then that’s okay. I suppose the last thing I need is another hobby when I can’t very well commit properly to the ones I still have. But I’ll save a greater discourse on the trials and tribulations of time management for another time.