Data scientist, video game analyst, astronomer, and Pathfinder 2e player/GM from Halifax, Nova Scotia.
No, archetypes are not subclasses. They're a whole system of character modifications, most of which can be taken by any character as long as they meet the prerequisites. They usually modify some base element of your class (eg the Flexible Spellcaster archetype changes how casters select their spells, use their spell slots, and how many spells they get). There are a subset of archetypes (Class Archetypes) which are locked to specific classes, and which more deeply alter the class's base abilities. The changes can be quite significant. This is where the presteige classes are rearing their heads.
No one complains more about a product than long-time fans of the product. They're the ones who have had the time to feel betrayed by something, be it minor design choices, or things the owners have done, and who also feel a deep sense of ownership over the product.
Haters are just fans that feel alienated somehow, and can't move past it.
The baker's dozen is 13, because one of them is sacrificial.
Win if you can, lose if you must, but always TPK.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
Bingo. Especially when what they've done to trigger the comments telllimf them to "play something else" is ask how to extend the thing they already like, or to replace some subsystem that is so clealy not core to the game.
But with 5e, there are also just so many third party releases that you can also replace core systems, like magic, with little difficulty, and people know it.
They don't want to play something else. They're not ready to try something else. They want to keep their dragon ampersand and their dis/advantage rolls, and telling them they're doing something wrong by holding on to that isn't convincing. It just communicates that other games are played by fucking assholes with boundary issues.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
Ok, but these discussions aren't happening at you're table. "Well, fuck them then" isn't exactly helpful.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
Aye. NodeBB and Lemmy have a couple of rough edges here and there.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
Sute, but the thing they like is "D&D", and D&D isn't just a game anymore, it's an identity signifier. Pointing people to other games before establishing yourself as firmly not attacking their identity is going to trigger a fight.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
alexanderthedead@lemmy.world said in A lesson so many need to learn: > Anyone who wants to make the claim that the system is bad will have bang their subjective arguments against the steel wall that is its popularity.
Yes, but this is a thing that people want to do. They want to try and dent that popularity, and they want to shift some of it towards their own preferences. It doesn't matter that it's a subjective opinion on what is better or what is bad, it doesn't feel subjective to the person interjecting.
They believe their preferred game is better, they probably have had this discussion numerous times with people who have ignored them or chewed them out for trying to evangelize, and they are infinitely frustrated that others won't see the light.
People who leave popular things behind for niche things often just have this habit of having to bury the thing they left behind. It can't be good. The new thing is better, but the new thing is better both because it is better, and also because the old thing was just objectively bad.
People do this with a lot of things. TV shows, ice cream flavours, toys they used to play with as kids. There's a sense of shame attached to having liked the old thing, not just a sense of joy of having found the new one. It's one of the reasons the people they evangelize to get so defensive: They can sense that they are being judged.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
But they definitely can do the thing, because it's a game of make-believe. Again, this is not hammering in a screw, it's mental systems for deciding how imaginary doings transpire.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
They didn't ask the wrong question, though. You're seeing a solution they do not want and do not care about then blaming them for not listening to the unsolicited advice.
The problem isn't on their end.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
It's not on them, though. They didn't ask if there was a Dragon Age RPG, they asked if they could play Dragon Age in D&D.
Those are different questions.
And here's the thing. You can't really tell them "no", because they know it's an imagination game where the rules are whatever the table decides upon. They're not asking if, they are asking how.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
The thing is, this applies much less firmly to an imagination game where you can easily bolt on a sub-system to do that one thing you wanted to do differently than, say, if someone wants to beat in a screw with a hammer.
And yes, maybe there are people who want to gut their whole game and rebuild it from scratch for some reason, just because they really love sailing on their ship of Thesus, and would be better served by trying a new system. But if they don't want to do that, someone trying to redirect the conversation in that direction are going to be viewed as hostile and smug, not helpful.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
I've also found that it's really easy to convert D&D 3.x and PF1 modules to the system. Not so easy that thought and care doesn't need to be put into it, but most creatures are based off of the 3e monsters, and there's a similar philosophy of DC adjustments. So, you get both Paizo's catalogue of well designed adventure books, as well as a massive back catalogue of classic favourites that you can dig out for a relatively modest effort.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
Fair. I definitely haven't engaged with the 5e community to the same extent I have with the PF2 one. I never became a special interest to me the way Pathfinder has.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
It definitely trips up people who usually just look at RPGBot to build their characters out from levels 1 - 20 before the first session. That's how I made my build choices, and it was a pretty significant stumbling block for me when I made the switch.
The blue options aren't always the best options, because the best options depend on what everyone else is doing.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
Exactly this.
The game's rules are, mostly, simple, intuitive, consistent, and predictable. In fact, the rules very often seem to follow from the fiction presented at the table! Sometimes, they do it too well, even -- I've seen people complain about Trip being Athletics vs Reflex rather than Acrobatics or Fortitude, but as someone who's taken judo and karate lessons, Athletics vs Reflex is 100% right.
The rules follow the fiction at the table, and that means 9 times out of 10, if you know the fiction being presented, you can just ask for the roll that makes sense to you. No need to look anything up.
The game is also moderately systematized, and functional. That is, a lot of what 5e DMs would just treat as "roll skill against DC" is formalized into an "Action" with a concrete name. These actions act like mathematical or programming functions, in that they can take parameters. So, it's not "Trip", it's "Trip (Athletics)". If your character comes out of left field and does something acrobatic, or even magical, that I think would cause a creature to stumble and fall, then I will leverage "Trip (Acrobatics)" or "Trip (Arcana)", which now makes it an Acrobatics or Arcana roll vs Reflex. This means "Trip (x)" is actually "Roll x vs Reflex. On a success, the target falls prone, on a... etc."
Super flexible, and super intuitive. But formalized, and only presented with the default option, so it looks both complicated and rigid.
I started running the game for 8 year olds, though, and they picked it up very quickly. I do my best to run sessions totally in-fiction, but that honestly gets broken every other turn or so.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
Yeah, I'm mostly just... warning people to be prepared. The Paizo forums and the subreddit both house a significant number of people that actively chase people away for treating the game as a general purpose fantasy RPG. And as someone who champions PF2 as a really solid roleplaying game, and not just a tactical combat game, I've been repeatedly and harshly told I'm doing it wrong.
- JumpDeleted
Permanently Deleted
Mortals & Portals is very good. They made the decision to use PF2e like 2 weeks before they started recording, and learned the game on the fly. Sometimes they trip over the rules, but they also illustrate how to fail forward in that regard.
They also run it as a Theatre of the Mind game, which a lot of people will try to convince you isn't really feasible. They fease it just fine, so I like it as an example.
Narrative Declaration also has several campaigns on YouTube. Rotgrind and Rotgoons are campaigns set in a gritty homebrew world. They had an aborted Abomination Vaults campaign that started off with the game's beginner box. They're currently running Rusthenge, which is a different beginner's adventure. They also have a series of "teaching Pathfinder 2e to VTubers" campaigns, which... They're good, but they're just the beginner's box over and over again, with different cartoon variety streamers. They use Foundry, and play gridded combat.
It's not available yet on iOS (though an iOS port is in development). You can find it on the web at pathbuilder2e.com. Mobile and web apps don't sync, though. The paid versions allow you to save characters to Google Drive, which you can use to sync them.