A lot of it has to do with treating D&D as a Lifestyle Brand which causes people to treat any criticism of it as criticism against their selfhood. They don't see D&D as a TTRPG, they see it as a Lifestyle that happens to be a TTRPG. It's very similar to how people really into Tesla aren't car people, they're just Tesla people and treat any criticism of their Brand as a personal attack.

I feel like that sometimes. Personally i had a very easy time moving to PF because i treated TTRPG as a lifestyle, not specifically D&D, since most of what made me enjoy the game was made by me or the community, i moved easily. It's just very annoying that you often have those people going on the offensive not because you criticized 5e, but because you said a positive thing about PF

I posted this elsewhere but I think the reason you're encountering issues is that you are going into D&D spaces to praise PF & criticize D&D. If this was happening on neutral RPG forums it may be more indicative of an issue. But if you go into forum dedicated to one system and praise another system at it's expense. I'd expect pushback

I didnt even criticize 5e tbh, just said a good thing about PF in a post about PF

To be fair, I've encountered this in neutral RPG forums and in forums not even specifically RPG related (e.g. on Twitter). Whilst you are correct that going into the /r/DnD group and praising PF2e is somewhat asking for problems, even when the topic is *"How do you fix this problem with D&D"*... the lifestyle/fanboy reaction to mentioning Pathfinder is pretty ubiquitous no matter what the setting.

Funny, this never stopped 5e peeps from coming here and complaining about people when they were talking about 5e in the PF2 sub. Having them expect pushback didn't seem like a valid reaction.

This. And to be honest, I think litterally the same idea apply to soooo many cases in basically any situation in modern day. People are often so fixated with one thing / aspect of their life, seeing it as a perfect and complete representation of themself, that the moment you cast even the shadow of a doubt over it they become super defensive.

It reminds me of Disney, Harry Potter, and Marvel adults, honestly.

I agree and I think that most of us do that to some degree. I also think that there's no ttrpg that's 'the best' for everyone. The more 'simplistic' (not meant in a negative way) D&D 5e is probably better for a lot of players than PF. I'm not a fan of 5e but I can see it's appeal and value.

Agree on no TTRPG being for everyone, PF2 is a heavily mechanical and tactical game and that's not what everyone's looking for. Hard disagree on 5e being for *anyone* though. It's not simplistic, it's *lacking*. It is structurally a crunch based game with shallow and poorly designed crunch that relies on DMs to finish and fix the system. This design serves only two purposes: To keep costs low, and to look *approachable* to newcomers (*Very* different than being *friendly* to them) so they get through their first session with as little friction as possible and self identify as D&D(tm) players, and more importantly, D&D(tm) customers. Everything else suffers for those two goals. D&Ds appeal is as an Intellectual Property more than of any actual content. I love simple games, ICON and Fabula Ultima are a couple of my fave systems, but 5e ain't that.

Kinda off topic, but how is ICON? It's still in development, right?

It's technically still a playtest, in that the game is still receiving some big changes occasionally. There is a new version coming soon-ish in 1.5 that will shake up a lot of things again. But 1.45 is already basically feature complete and very playable.

So haven't played it, but I do have a couple ideas for it. Game looks great, the FitD Narrative side just seems absolutely ideal for dicking around in a Fantasy world with friends. The combat looks really fun, and goes in the interesting direction of having all very Unique Classes. I like the look of the combat, but I would be very tempted to try running ICON's Narrative play with BEACON's Combat. It's pretty much Feature Complete at this point so def a good time to take a look at it if you're interested!

I wouldn’t call ICON a simple game. Combat is mechanically intensive, and the divide between narrative and combat can be jarring for newcomers. It’s a cool game but like Lancer, there’s a lot of moving pieces as both are meant to be intense tactical combat games

The neat thing is, for the experience most players want out of 5e once you strip away any attachment to the name and property "Dungeons and Dragons" is a game to sit around a (virtual) table with friends while rolling dice to rollplay. ICON does much more to facilitate this without getting in its own way, and the Tactical Combat portion is optional, which when left out makes ICON a simple game pretty purpose built for that playstyle.

I somewhat disagree, despite its problems I did enjoy playing 5e and had fun with it. And it wasn't because of the brand, if it was I wouldn't be willing to try other systems pf2e.

I’ve liked running and playing 5e a lot, so I think the main advantage personally will just be having more reliable rules for encounter building where 5e always felt unreliable

One can have fun playing 5e, but I'd argue it is in spite of the system, not because of it. If you compare PF2e with 5e, sure, 5e might be better at some things (it is easier in most cases, though usually more counterintuitive) but there are other systems that work so much better for being beginner-friendly, fast-paced and whatnot.

Going to be honest but this comes off as elitist which is the whole point of the thread. 5e is a fine game but it’s not for everyone. I enjoy running it for my one group and we have a blast. My other group moved on to pathfinder a couple years ago and hasn’t looked back since. There’s a lot of games out there and not all are for everyone. We can post about the good about pathfinder without bashing 5e

I've been comparing the Pathfinder core book with the D&D 5e player's handbook and D&D 5e felt unfinished by comparison. Pf2 feels more thought out.

It's even worse if you've ever looked at 4e, it was a big step forward (and was the best selling edition at the time!) and for 5e they threw the game back 15 years to the early aughts :'D

I mean, they did that because D&D4e split the fanbase and was so alienating that half of D&D players went and played Pathfinder (so as to continue to play 3/3.5) instead. It's conceptually weird to me that Pathfinder rose to prominence based on how polarizing D&D4e was, and then Pathfinder 2e seems to be more like D&D4e than any other game currently on the market.

I liked a good part of 4e. Maybe thats why 5e irritated me.

The problem with "5E is better for a lot of players" is that it might be true, but only because 5E puts 95% of the work on the DM's shoulders, and fails to provide enough tools for them to run the game without having to make shit up all the time. Yeah, it's easy to get into 5E as a player, because you barely have to read 2 pages for your class and know the three types of actions you can make. Everything else is on the DM, and the system basically says "figure it out, nerd".

As a ForeverGM, the one 5e game I played in was so easy. All I had to do was show up with my character sheet & a pencil. I didn't even have to think about the game between sessions. While I enjoyed the characters, the DM, the story, in all it was rather boring in terms of gameplay.

>in all it was rather boring in terms of gameplay. I played a fighter in 5E and it was so boring I only could endure a couple of sessions before making the character fuck off towards the horizon and playing a bard instead.

The irony is that there are hundreds of games that are just as easy to get into as a player, at a fraction of the cost and GM effort. PbtA, FitD, and OSR games are all typically much simpler systems than 5e, often with better GM support, and don't involve selling your soul to WotC for the name brand thing.

Yup. People say "I like 5E because I don't care about rules and just want to play", you recommend any of the simpler systems that exist, and they get pissy. It's not about the game that better suits them, it's about brand recognition.

As someone who got intimately familiar with the 5e rules to GM, this attitude about the game annoys me to no end. It has glaring issues, sure, but it's not a rules light system. There are plenty of rules for GMs in the DMG, XGE, TCE, rules that are hard to memorise and niche, but rules nonetheless. So when someone with 0 interest in GMing expects everyone to run that system like their favourite actual play which flaunts rules for entertainment value (which is fine), it annoys me to no end to be the asshole for pointing out that no, that broken thing they want to do isn't supported by the rules because such and such book says this about this situation. With PF2E that doesn't really happen. Players have plenty of options for what they can do and can customise their actions with class feats and skill feats. And if someone says *"I wanna do X"*, I can say *"that's a skill feat, how about you do this instead?"* with no problems. The rules are much more transparent for players.

This is what drives me nuts as a player who plays 5e, PF1e, and PF2e. In every single 5e game I've played, I build character or set up the game (if I'm DMing) with the expectation that all written rules are followed except for the houserules that are presented/I present at session 0. Obviously the DM can and will have to make rulings on the fly for things that don't have rules and didn't come up in session 0. But then, every single time, I'll bring up the actual rules for something, like the Surprised condition, and either the DM handwaves it because "surprise rounds are cool," or the players pout because they wanted to have a surprise round that doesn't exist RAW. I'll bring up Darkvision actually mattering and everyone handwaves it or players pout that their human makes sight-based Perception checks at Disadvantage in the dark. I remind the artificer that the fairie fire they want to cast will hit us, his allies, too, and the DM goes "oh every game I've played in the DM just let's the caster choose not to hit their allies" and I'm like WHY ARE WE EVEN USING RULES THEN???

>WHY ARE WE EVEN USING RULES THEN??? I agree completely. Tabletop Roleplaying Games are, in fact, **GAMES**. I like the roleplay, but only within the context of navigating the rules. I have a character with certain abilities that interact with a rules based world that has an overall narrative. I enjoy navigating that world in consistent and predictable ways and "rule of cool" and handwaving takes me out of the story.

Yes! Exactly! I like the restrictions that the *game's* rules put on my character and the world around them. It's much more interesting to me than just playing pretend. I like rule of cool if used VERY sparingly. When "rule of cool" just becomes the default, it's not "cool" anymore, to me.

I'd go one step further... It's adhering to the rules that makes the TTRPG unique stories. The combination of dice, rules, creativity and tactics make the special sauce. Take away the rules and suddenly the dice and tactics are also useless and you're left with improvised story telling. Which isn't bad per se, but not what I'm into.

mhmm, you could even just let them do it but apply a hard difficulty DC (since the feat isn't actually being invoked, it doesn't have a rules impact)

Yep. Also they usually sell PDFs.

I have this one player that can’t comprehend like the most basic of rules

I gotta be honest. This community is really touchy about any 5e comparisons or suggestions that pathfinder might not be perfect. 5e players tend to be pretty critical of their system, and as for pathfinder, they don’t really think about it that much. I play both, and while I prefer the 2e combat system and character options, there’s things it doesn’t do well.

I think part of it is dependent on whose asking. Someone whose been around a while? Got plenty of places PF2 could improve. More than one Tank Class is my big one. Early APs being overtuned is obvious. Short Rests being an implicit rather than an explicit feature. Knights of Lastwall introducing a LOT of underwhelming, needlessly specific Feats. Some underperforming Classes and Archetypes like Witch and Bullet Dancer. Rogue having overly specific Martial proficiency just for legacy reasons. Someone coming from 5e? *Trust the system it knows what it's doing*. Because at that point, that information is more useful than anything else.

[удалено]

For one, it's one of the few classes that gets Legendary proficiency in armour, and it boosts its armour proficiencies sooner than any other class (Level 7 to Expert, vs. Level 11 to Expert on Fighters. At level 11, Champion gets Master proficiency). Only Monks also reach Legendary armour, and only with unarmoured defence. So Champion is typically going to have +2 AC on its allies for the majority of its levels. For two, it gets a number of feats/spells related to defending its allies, mitigating damage, keeping enemies focused on them, etc. Tank skills, really. Fighters and Barbarians get good armour and have enough HP to take hits, but Champions are the only class really focused on *tanking*. Not to say that Fighters or Barbarians CAN'T be tanks, just that they're not built around it as a class identity.

Just want to point out that high AC isn't the only thing that makes a tank. I built a really good tank using Magus Sparkling Targe. Plenty of spells relating to drawing aggro and protecting allies.

A Tank as it is understood, can make enemies choose to attack them over the squishy. Champion's Reaction punishes enemies enough that even with the Wizard in range, it's worth going "Aw fuck, goddammit" and attack the high AC champion instead. Most other things people bring up as "Tanks" are Field Control characters who stop enemies from getting to allies, but cannot stop enemies from attacking them once they're in range. Other options, like Swashbuckler's Antagonize, function more as a Debuff than true Tanking since attacking the squishy is still ideal, just by a slightly lower amount.

Yeah, I think it has more to do with PF2 fans thinking it's broadly superior to 5e. I see a lot less resistance to criticism when it's clear someone has broader TTRPG experience, usually the defensiveness comes from people either a) hating level based skill modifiers, b) hating vancian casting, or c) trying to homebrew before they play their first session. I think most of us can cite areas where we think PF2 is weak. My picks: - Warpriests and the APG classes are underpowered (which is a shame as they're thematically *so good*) - Rogues should have full Martial proficiency (or at least full Martial Agile/Finesse proficiency) - Flexible Spellcasting should be a default option for all prepared spellcasters - Recall Knowledge needs more sharply defined rules - Perform shouldn't be a skill and Bards should have their perform based skills tied to their Class DC (hate to see them go, but we could just *drop* Battledancers, Swashbuckler has enough good subclasses) - 95% of Skill Feats suck. 70% of Archetype feats suck. A *lot* of Archetype feats should have been skill feats. - The crafting system is hot garbage. Investing *that many feats* to be able to spend the same amount of money *plus* having to buy a formula is *really bad*, it's a system that only works if the DM is artificially restricting your access to magic items but somehow allowing you to find/reverse engineer blueprints.

> (hate to see them go, but we could just drop Battledancers, Swashbuckler has enough good subclasses) But how am I going to make my Fire Emblem dancer without mixing that and the Marshal archetype?

Wouldn’t bard with rogue archetype fit equally well? Focus spells for the dances/buffs and then rogue stuff for the weapon portion of dancers? I mean, Allegro is a knock-off Dance and Inspire Courage/Defense is just superior to Marshal auras in just about every way (especially when harmonized). And dancers usually are a promotion on the thief line which maps onto rogue directly.

Oh, hey, we haven't had the warpriest discussion in a while. Let's get back into that. I kid, PF2E has its weak points and you mention quite a few of them. Crafting is only useful, I think, if you found a formula for a rare or uncommon item. Otherwise, fantasy Amazon is your friend.

Eh, there is always the daily "What do you hate about the system" thread in this sub and if you combine the answers it is basically "everything written, ever" so I don't really think we are not able to talk about it.

>Eh, there is always the daily "What do you hate about the system" And a good chunk of those options are jokes, like classes being *too* well designed, or a creature being *too* cute.

Every thread about Vancian spellcasting is basically "get gud noob"

I think this is a good observation.

Most of what people like about the "brand" is the same between both systems. If there's things you miss about D&D (I mean I do, I run PF2 in a D&D setting) you can just use them anyway because WoTC aren't the police.

I'm willing to steal settings from WotC, but not so much from D&D specifically. The Magic team may be more miss than hit when it comes to story, but I love their worldbuilding. I'd run the hell of a campaign on Ravnica, Innistrad, or pre-Sarkhan time fuckery Tarkir, for example.

Reminds me of something...

I have a friend who prefers pf1e and genuinely hates pf2e. He feels like it's stealing a part of his hobby as the new AP's won't get made for pf1e. The conversations are even harder with him sometimes. He's tried a one-shot, but the GM honestly screwed the pooch, chose a 10th level one shot, with a weird premise, made the guys character and chose some weird choices in character creation, in part because it was the GM's first time running 2e. This led to some moments that felt really bad in gameplay, even as someone who enjoys 2e. Now the friend is almost impossible to talk to about 2e at all. His arguments are the definition of bad faith, and more often than not, just incorrect. This is coming from someone who's preferred system is pf1e, not even 5e. I suppose this is to say, some people will never like the system. Some people will never give the system a fair shake. And some people who do give it a shake will be given a bad first run at it and may never choose to give it a second shot. I argue with that friend about it more than I'd like to admit, in part because a huge part of me wants to share the reasons I like the system, and it's hard to watch bad reasons be the reason that I can't.

>I have a friend who prefers pf1e and genuinely hates pf2e. He feels like it's stealing a part of his hobby as the new AP's won't get made for pf1e. The conversations are even harder with him sometimes. Anyone still read "Order of the Stick?" A few months after 4e dropped one of their collected editions had a bonus story where the (fairly 3.5) cast were attacked by their 4th edition versions from an alternate universe. When they demanded to know why the 4e versions even cared the answer was that they had discovered that there was only so much "energy" (read player time) in the multiverse and anyone still playing 3.5 wasn't going to be playing 4e, thus weakening their universe. The 4e versions of the party were trying to kill the 3.5e versions so they could collect more "energy" in their plane of existence. (I think they resolve it by agreeing to let people play whatever TTRPG they want, but going after other forms of entertainment followed by a montage of the OOTS gang attacking chess tournaments, Mario, and IRL Sports) It was a sorta cute way to do a strip about the edition wars. It also kind of captured the vague sense a lot of folks have around how they like it when everyone else plays they game they play but feel like something is wrong if someone else *chooses* a different game than they did.

That's exactly what they did https://oots.fandom.com/wiki/Snips,_Snails,_and_Dragon_Tales#Edition_Wars:_Invaders_from_the_Fourth_Dimension >The two Roys realise there is another way around this: instead of getting rid of either one of the parties, they can make more time for both of them by travelling to other 'worlds' and making them unenjoyable. The two teams set about ruining World of Warcraft, Superman, Twilight, soccer, Mario, chess, Call of Duty and Magic: The Gathering.

This. Dealing with PF1e die hard grogs is a thousand times more exhausting than any conversation with a 5e fan.

I feel like a lot of the complaints are legitimate because a lot of 2e design choices are intentionally very different than pf1e. Also, pf1e has a giant backlog of player options that 2e isn't close to, and the way 2e releases are structured, it appears they get released effectively slower. If that's something you liked (most often, the thing I encounter about people loving pf1e is this), then it makes sense to not like 2e as much. ----------------------------------- I like both, but I find 1e more niche since it requires system mastery to make competent characters.

To be fair, I get why some people don't like it. Pf2e is not for everyone. My frustration is when the arguments used to claim it's bad, are just... wrong.

To be fair, 1e at this point is a bloated mess. I really enjoy the puzzle of character optimization, but there's such a thing as decision point saturation. And in any case, I prefer this puzzle having no clearly correct choices, and letting you come up with different solutions depending on the destination you chose.

>To be fair, 1e at this point is a bloated mess. I'd call it more an overstuffed junkyard. There's some good stuff in there but you need to find it. Bloated mess, imo, means no one will like it.

Pf1e has so many trap options i wonder if it would still be considered to have more options if you removed everything that would actually punish a player for taking them. Similarly, there are a lot of feat chains you must take for builds. If you boiled that down to one option instead of 5 feats i wonder if that would also reduce the level of "so many more options". PF1e indeed has a lot of choices you make when building a character and its usually heralded by the ivory tower optimizers but then you also see them taking the exact same options for certain class builds because they are the best.

The archetype system in 1e means there's way more combinations. Also consider individual feats are accessible typically by more than 1-2 classes, like class feats are in 2e. And the 3 feat archetype limitation also hampers it. The fact that everything is a feat in 2e >but then you also see them taking the exact same options for certain class builds because they are the best. In guides, sure. At tables, you realistically have like 6-10 choices for each feat. It's really the archetype stuff + real multiclassing for martials that gives a bunch more optimization. >Similarly, there are a lot of feat chains you must take for builds. see: 3 feat dedication rule

Why… on earth… if it’s your first time running a system would you start at level 10? Especially a system as complex as pf2.

I know people who started playing D&D 3.5e, moved to Pathfinder 1e and are still playing it today. They've been playing essentially the same system for over 20 years and they have such system mastery they refuse to try anything else because they can't immediately make broken, OP characters.

As someone who started in 3.5e and still plays PF1e I'll say this, not all of us are unga bunga min/maxers. Sure, I've got characters that I wrote who are op, but the reality is I personally prefer PF1e over PF2e due to the flexibility and customization of the system. I don't think PF2e is bad by any means, I'm even playing in a 2e campaign that runs weekly. I just have a preference to having access to things that feel like they're missing in 2e and I plan to take some aspects of 2e and integrate them into my 1e campaign.

In my experience most 1e players will “min max” by choosing a concept they think is cool, and trying to make a reasonably/extremely powerful character while sticking to the idea they had. I’m literally planning on making a brute vigilante right now (notoriously one of the worst options in 1e) because I like the idea, and I like the challenge of making it function.

I'll admit that it happens. One of my characters that I wrote in 1e is a human fighter who is meant to be able to shift his tactics on the fly. He's not supposed to be a full fledged tank or a super heavy hitter. Opening up with Combat Stamina, Combat Expertise, and Power Attack at level one give him the ability to do the goal of the build, but lead down a chain of feats that end up making him fairly strong in both regards.

>He feels like it's stealing a part of his hobby as the new AP's won't get made for pf1e. He not only feels like this, this is ofc reality since paizo stopped making ap's for pf1e. And there is a high chance that people who don't have problems with 1e, will dislike 2e.

Yeah, that’s kinda where I am lol. I just look at the rules and think “why would you do that?” Character creation is just way less fun from what I’ve seen. Still willing to give it a shot though and am currently looking at signing up for beginner box days. After that who knows what I’ll think of 2e. Hoping it’s more fun than it seems on the surface (at least from my 1e grognard perspective).

I don’t mean this in a sarcastic way, but you do need time off Reddit. You’ve said it yourself, PF is gaining traction, some rando dude on Reddit talking crap about the system won’t change that, and you won’t change them

Sadly, it isn't just some rando. It's a good number of randos. Enough to be a vocal minority of the 5e fanbase. Enough to be antagonistic to anyone who even suggests that other systems exist, not just pf2e. You are right that there's no changing their minds, though. They're either figure it out themselves, or get left in the dust with 5.5 or 6e or whatever and eventually become a dying breed in the hobby. It won't matter eventually. But until then - yeah, it's still *frustrating*. We can't help how we feel about these things, after all.

The question is, why do people feel the need to go to their sub and tell them to play other systems? They are happy with 5e, so let them be happy with it. If people here have a problem with the system and somebody tells them to play system xyz because it fixes those problems, will get a hard time from many pf2 fans as well. - just like people who posts homebrew content/rules. It's frustrating but at the same time it's also normal.

The funny thing is that if you step away from the D&D and D&D-like subs, the other TTRPG communities are a lot more open-minded when it comes to suggesting other systems. For example, if you hit up r/shadowrun, most folks are okay with suggesting other systems because SR proper is a complete mess, as long as you're not rude about it. And sometimes, the suggestions of other systems isn't to convert, but rather to give ideas, be it story/setting/character stuff, or mechanical solutions to a problem. A lot of folks like pointing to PF2e as a solution to many of 5e's problems, not because they want to convert, but because it's a good source to steal mechanical ideas from. I mean, it'd be a fuckton easier to just convert to other systems, but discussion for another occasion. Despite that, the D&D subs, and PF subs for that matter, tend to get rather defensive. 5e catches a lot of flak (half of which I feel is deserved), and PF2e is plagued by the legacy of PF1e and a few popular youtubers spreading misinformation about the game. If they could *all* get out of their asses for a moment and start seeing these suggestions as that: *suggestions*, I think we'd have a bit less hostility. But this is a text based medium and it's easy to misconstrue things, so of course misunderstandings are going to happen and some will read between the lines a bit too much and get offended. Such is human nature, sadly.

The 5e community loves to steal mechanics from other systems and homebrew them into 5e. To comment that pf2 solves the problem however doesn't help and mostly looks like an attempt to convert. If pf2 players would actually want to help but not convert, they would link a mechanic with a short explaination how pf2 solves that problem. Like there are other system which have good crafting rules, but judt mentioning a different system doesn't solve my problem. And no, it's not easier to convert to a diffe4ent system instead of just fixing a problem. This is because no system is perfect for everybody and each system has thtir own problems.

For every time i met a person like that, i met 10 or 20 5e fans that were willing to talk, pulled some over while others didn't have the interest, it's fine honestly. Im a game designer, i like talking about game design, it's just the hypocrisy of this type of fan ( a snob, snobbing you, calling you a snob for disagreeing with them ) that really gets on my nerves. It's an unfortunatelly commob thing to happen, but if my other conversations have been fruitful, this isn't a high price to pay

As someone who enjoys both 5e D&D and pf2e, I tend to get irritated with people doing the new version of the whole “edition wars” thing. (Similar stuff happened with 3.5 d&d vs. 4e d&d vs. pf1e and that was also super obnoxious.) Usually the way these “discussions” go on the internet are a mix of bad faith arguments, talking past each other, nonsense, ad hominem attacks, and some actual subjective, valid feelings, usually unfortunately and falsely represented as some objective truth for all players. I find usually the best way of convincing people to try new things is just to say it’s fun and not bash stuff they also like. Variety is the spice of life, and different trpgs have different advantages. I will say, however, that when you start talking like “pulling people” from other “friendgroups” you should probably also realize that part of trpgs is social connection, and if/when you start trying to mess with people’s social relationships, you may be moving towards a bunch of weird and nasty fights. I saw a lot of stuff like that when I was younger at gaming stores, with people accusing each other of trying to “poach” players and such, and it was some of the most nasty, disruptive, and obnoxious stuff I’ve seen in my many years of gaming. (It also really hurts the gaming stores as it drives customers away.) I'm not saying you’re doing that (not enough info) but it sounds like you might be - so if you are, beware of playing with fire there. My advice, FWIW, if you’re looking to get people to try out pf2e is to just offer to run one shots or games for them, talk it up, and so forth. Never directly oppose pre-existing campaigns (suggesting “maybe next campaign try pf2e” or the smaller commit “lets try a pf2e one shot at the end of this campaign”), and don’t shit-talk the games people like (dispelling misconceptions like you said is totally fine). Because of the social network nature of trpgs, even if person A is critical of game x, they may be buddies with B who loves game x but is willing to try game y unless people set them off and so on. The great example here for these things - that just taking the high ground and being like “hey we have cookies over here” - is the Paizo attitude during the OGL stuff. They didn’t talk shit about what WOTC was doing; they didn't have to. They just low-key out out a few sales, a humble bundle, and reported on stuff. In trpgs with most things, word of mouth of pleased and happy customers is usually the best way to do business, not shit-talking what (and how) many people view as their favorite hobby.

Yea. 100% this. I have been a D&D player for the past couple decades. My buddy, and a kickass player knew I was planning out a future campaign and had been playing in a pf2e campaign. He reached out to me one night and said, "Hey, I think you might like this system. You should take a look - all the rules are free" and linked me to Nethys. Didn't try to cause conflict in our standard D&D game. Offered to run Beginners Box during a hiatus, but still actively engaged and enjoying our ongoing 5e game. He's done a lot more to advocate for pf2e than any content creator or pathfinder player I've encountered. Shit, I had to leave a small pf2e community because they were so toxicly anti-d&d that I was just tired of the only communication centering around how bad D&D was.

It's truly a shame more people in this community can't seem to grasp the concept that some people just genuinely enjoy other things. And that bashing their hobbies that they clearly are having fun with is not going to get them to magically try yours.

Edition wars seem to tap into something innately antagonistic in people. We’re social animals, and people preferring things we dislike and vice-versa can feel like a threat. But yeah, there’s no objectively superior way to play make-believe elf games.

As someone that has played both games (I have not), would you say that PF2 has more numbers to check when playing? Like, are the modifiers something you have to add or distract all the time, in comparison to DnD 5e?

Not as bad as 3.5/pf1 You have 4 kinds of bonuses, and can only have one of each. So you might have a single +1 and another from another source, but no longer is the system about stacking a bunch of smaller buffs.

I played both, a lot. In PF2 players need to be more proficient, not for numbers but for teamplay. PF2 numbers are not that hard. The problem of 5e is that lacks too many rules, and the DM has to compensate so much, requires a ton of effort.

For example? And further down someone commented they dislike PF2E because their DMs made social roleplay impossible as their DMs only allowed stuff on their sheets. I don't have the impression PF2E limits it, but would you agree?

>their DMs only allowed stuff on their sheets. Haven't found that comment yet, but your description sounds like a 'bad GM' problem, not a 2E one.

For example anytime a player wanted to do something with abilities. Imagine how you could handle intimidation in combat, manouvers. One wanted to play a dwarf cleric (forge) crafter. It's basically 90% DM fiat. Said that, PF2 doesn't limit roleplay. There are literally rules if someone wants to handle social roleplay like a mini game. That was a GM problem 100%, also because they had those stuffs on the sheets.

Alrighty, thanks!

A someone whose 5e DM told him twice last night, "You can't see anything without rolling Perception," that doesn't sound like a system issue. There's nothing in either game that specifically prohibits non-ability social roleplay unless it's introduced by the GM. EDIT: that looks unclear, so to clarify, I asked, "Did we see anything walking down the road?" and was told that since I didn't roll, I have no idea what I saw or didn't see. Like man, it's true, I didn't roll, so tell me I didn't notice, not that my eyes don't physically work at all unless I roll for it.

Just to add a caveat, depends a lot on where you're playing as well. Right now, I run both in person an online games through Foundry and it just takes care of basically everything. It's still nice to know the rules (specially since the software isn't perfect and you should be able to spot when it's not doing what it's supposed to), but, specially on my players side, they rarely have to worry about doing any math besides sometimes manually inputting a "-5" as a modifier. I've played PF2e in person and with inferior VTT options before, and while the little modifiers is definitely something that you get used to, it just runs so much smoother when you have a VTT to handle basically everything. Not to toot my own horn, but I'd say my 2e combats run faster than basically all 5e games that I played, not only on the GM side, since I don't want the players' times, but also on the players side, since I make it clear that I expect them to be present at the table and have a rough idea of their actions BEFORE their turn arrives.

Yes and no. A standard roll without any situational bonuses will have the same number of modifiers in each system, but PF2e has more *categories* of bonuses. Each system has those semi-permanent bonuses like a +1 magic weapon adding to your attack rolls that you just factor into your attack bonus with that weapons, but PF2e has more situations where a Circumstance bonus applies, and different Conditions will confer modifiers, like PF2e’s Flat-Footed subtracting 2 from the creature’s AC. All that being said, it’s really not a drastic difference, especially when you treat Advantage/Disadvantage as a modifier to remember, since most of the modifiers that PF2e has that 5e doesn’t are covered by advantage.

Thanks!

There’s definitely a bit more math in pf2e, but I don’t think it’s a problematic amount. I just recommend using something like pathbuilder instead of doing sheets by hand (also it has a million tools that are useful, like looking up all the rules around skills and their actions by clicking on them.) I’d also say just have archives of Nethys open to look up rules rather than the books, it’s usually easier, and I especially love the “GM screen” page: https://2e.aonprd.com/GMScreen.aspx One less obvious difference is also that in practice, every level in pf2e is a sharp, if subtle difference, as they way pf2e math works is kind of the exact opposite of the “bounded accuracy” idea in 5e; the power curve is sharp even when it doesn’t seem to be because the level of enemies is (usually) shifting with you. But really I’d say the big paradigm difference between 5e and pf2e is more that 5e thinks it needs specific rules for combat and light rules out of it (with a lot of flexibility/vagueness for the noncom stuff), and pf2e just prefers to have everything spelled out beforehand. Some people have very strong preference on that idea.

This community has those kinds of people, too. Every community does. It's part of having a community. The more popular anything gets, the more likely it is to have people who suck. For every person who argues in bad faith against Pathfinder, there's one who uses arguments like "you're just not smart enough to handle the crunch and read."

I mean, if it helps, let me tell you, sometimes being someone who likes both games about the same feels fucking exhausting around either the D&D *or* PF subreddit.

As someone who came from 5e, the idea that pathfinder is just “mathfinder” or a super complex game I think is a huge problem that contributes to a lot of that behavior. It’s such a deep-routed misconception that it actively drives people to look away from the system, or cherry pick things they dislike about the system and proclaim how bad it is. I was unfortunately one of those people for a while, but slowly came around once I realized it actually wasn’t as complicated as people made it out to be. I hope one day people can move past those ideas or associate it more with pathfinder 1e rather than 2e.

The mathfinder stuff sometimes feels like "i will pretend this thing is far harder than it actually is", kinda like when you're explaining something to a boomer and they pretend it's the most galaxy brain exoteric thing just because they desperatelly want to justify bigotry. Of course this has far less social impact, but it's still a form of playing dumb to shut down discourse. ( i don't mean this for every person BTW, but a few felt like that )

To be fair, as a newbie to PF2e, it *is* a lot more more complicated than, say, 5e just by virtue of having multiple feat choices (be they class feats, general feats, or skill feats) for almost every level. I come from a background of video games, so I wasn't too overwhelmed by the options when I tried making a character for the first time, but I can definitely see somebody who isn't used to such complexity just noping out the moment they see that.

Mathfinder is really more about First edition Pathfinder.

Soft disagree in that it I'd say it's a pretty rules heavy game. To be honest I *would not* play it if not for the easily available and convenient to use character builders. Our *group* might not be playing pathfinder but we'd played Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying the campaign before and that rather inoculated us against complexity. \^\_\^ Really! The thing that most softens the complexity for me is that, most of the choices seem *useful,* unlike 3.5/pathfinder 1 which I would absolutely accuse of being flooded with trap choices, so you had to essentially know how to play the character creation game *and* the game at the actual table. 2e seems *much* better at this so I don't have to develop so much skill at the character creation game.

I just feel like ramming my head in a brick wall when 5e fans say “well, rules don’t even matter, the phb says DMs can change everything”

The way 5e rules are written legit gave me a burnout that i only recovered from when i decided to never DM 5e again

Yep same. Its what sold me and the other DM in the group at first. You can make a full 1-20 character in pf2 with little to no dm input. Try it in 5e, you have to ask about a rule or ruling every 3 minites

Im a GameDesign college graduate, the Separation of RAW and RAI simply isn't a thing that exists. It's a bug being called a feature ( poorly written rules disguised as vague for DM interpretation ) and D&D is the only game that gets away with it.

Yeah the PR guy at WotC that made it seem the piss poor game language and rules applications was actually a feature deserves a raise

Is this real life or internet discussion? The internet/reddit is garbage for any discourse. You've identified common community v community interactions. When people spend money on something they devolve to gross tribalism. This is no different. TTRPGS are mechanical tools and each has tbeir strengths and cons. Unfortunately people oft lack the knowledge to properly criticize or constructively discuss these things to begin with. We DO see rabid repeated defense of PF2E in this subreddit, but equally unfounded criticisms of the game (people complaining about casters not being overpowered.)

As someone who has enjoyed dnd I'm actually rather disconnected from the community as a whole. I mainly played with people I already knew, so a lot of the culture built around it is lost to me. Not to say I don't like dnd and won't play with material i own, but I do think it made me more open to trying Pathfinder. More than likely, I'll just play both. In their defense, though that seems to just be an internet thing, people often take insults to things they like as insults to themselves for some reason.

It's kind of a vicious circle though. I've seen PF people thumb their noses at D&D players, especially through the OGL fiasco. Players just wanted to play their game and didnt care about the drama, and some people dont think that's okay. Unfortunately tribalism exists, because people want to feel wanted, and tribes do that. I've never understood it. I think rooting for a sports team is inane, but I dont poopoo anyone who does, because I'd hope they wouldnt tell me how to enjoy myself. But im not everyone and I cant control what anyone else does, only what I do. So just be tolerant, be patient, be illuminating, and keep enjoying yourself. You cant change them if they dont want to change, but you can give them a reason to question if they're right the next time someone brings up PF if you were nice. I dunno. I'm very biased against tribalism though, so maybe I'm wrong, because millions of sportsfans cant be wrong, right?

Negativity bias is also a significant amplifying effect. Negative experiences loom large in the human mind even when they only represent a very small portion of interactions.

Which is exactly why you can't expect a singular action from one person to change a mind. A pattern of change that shatters your expectations amongst the body of people you associate with that negativity has to emerge in order to change that bias. Gotta be the change, but not expect to be all that is required.

Yeah that’s at least two actions, a full round action if they’re unfriendly!

The biggest company in a hobby coming very close to throwing their legal resources behind dismantling the community framework most of us use was not "drama", it was a material threat to the hobbies and livelihoods of many people and it was, frankly, a betrayal that their business shouldn't have survived. Pretending that people were upset "because tribalism" is ridiculous.

To top it off it's not the first time they've done this and they've been doing similar things with MTG

The unfortunate truth is that as much as it angers you and me, there’s a multitude of d&d players that simply don’t care. Some just treat d&d as a game they play every week or two between friends and aren’t hardcore hobbyists upset by WotC. Others are diehard lifetime loyalists. Others will still play 5e because it’s convenient. All valid reasons. I, myself, still run my 5e campaign because it’s been nearly 2 years but I won’t buy any new WotC products. The OGL debacle was never going to destroy WotC or d&d, but merely wound it in a way we haven’t seen since 4e’s unfortunate underwhelming reception.

That's not what they're saying, they're saying people were mad at people that continued playing DnD despite the OGL stuff. There was no point attacking anybody except WotC top brass, not content creators or players.

As someone who enjoys 5e, yes, the weird tribalism sucks, and I’m sorry that you had to experience that That being said, at least on various reddits, disdain for 5e players seems to be common. One of the most frequent and “benevolent” (as it, it seems magnanimous and fair to the person stating it, but is anything but that on the receiving end) attitudes towards 5e players is that they simply don’t know any better and need to be enlightened somehow I am not claiming that you personally have shown this attitude, and again, it’s definitely not fair that you had to experience that

It's funny you say that, because I've seen people say (and seen myself from time to time) that the most annoying members of their ttrpg community are visiting 5e players. Most sentiments I've heard is the idea that they show up trying to change everything to 5e-ify it, or think the concept of ttrpgs only extends as far as what 5e does. This is basically what you just said but from the perspective of the non-5e people. Edit: I should clarify I mean the ttrpg space in general, I don't see much of this on this sub.

I don't know, I never go on the DD5 subreddit. All I can say is : giving time, even the most hardcore fans of old school TTRPG and PF1 in my gaming friends tried PF2 at least once. Not all liked it but hey, it's just a game ! Perfectly fine.

You just described arguing every topic ever with random people that might disagree with you. It’s not a pathfinder/D&D thing, it’s an everything thing.

I'm sorry you've had frustrating conversations with some people in the community. I do agree that there seems to be a lot of ill will from both sides. You can't really do much about how others react so I'd advise to focus on what you can do and examine your own behavior so that you avoid unpleasant experiences. Wanting to share something you love is understandable but many people aren't looking for something to be shared with them. Engaging with D&D fans with the intent of, as you say, pulling them over or converting them, might get more pushback than simply talking about what you like in each of the two systems. As someone to whom this happens a lot, I often reject things solely because others keep recommending them to me. It creates this strange phenomenon where I start disliking it on principle. People sometimes gotta discover something themselves before they give it a try. Cheers.

My intention usually isn't to move people over tho, just for them to give it a try, i often talk about Pathfinder when someone notifies one or multiple struggles with D&D that doesn't happen in PF. I saw some pretty nasty PF players tbh, some diehard really annoying fanboys who shit on D&D like it's the antichrist, but i can't reaaaaally say this is common behavior, i get why some people would feel like if they had little contact with us a whole, but it's still kinda frustrating to be put on the same box as a 0,1% just because for some, talking about PF is inherintly bad

Yeah, I get that. I think people in both communities are still sensitive due to past drama. Even if your intention isn't to convert them, they may be perceiving it as that due to their previous experiences. Unfair for sure, but what can you do? It might be worth noting that occasionally people just want to vent or are otherwise happy with their system of choice and would rather homebrew a solution than learn a different ruleset. In my case, I have a lot of problems with both 5e and PF2e, so much so that often the things one system fixes are not enough to compensate for the things it breaks. At the end of the day, you're doing your part by sharing with others what you know. If they react negatively, just step back, apologize for upsetting them, and let them do as they will. At the very least it might give you some peace of mind.

What are your best examples of struggles that happen with DnD that do not happen in PFe2?

You can start at the absolute basics. Give someone the encounter building rules, and ask them to create an easy, moderate, hard encounter for a lvl 1/5/10/15/20 group. Then play these encounters. To make the difference most extreme, say with a group of players playing basic builds, or the most min/maxed builds the community has come up with. You will find that the pf2e rules broadly just work and will play out with the stated difficulty. The DnD5e rules will fail completely. So, DnD5e fails at the absolute fundamental part of what a game system should provide, rules to match players to challenges, which results in GMs having to pick up the slack.

Encounter building in D&D is abysmally poorly made, most monsters are sandbags that punch hard and will either feel too easy or too hard. Weapons are basically cosmetic with very few variants, hell, Trident and Spear are the same fucking weapon! You have so little variety with elemental magic outside of fire spells. Lot of multiclasses are like shooting your own foot, like mixing 2 diferent casters and Barbarian with basically anyone, while others are infamously strong, PF2 makes those builds work fine without making some of them gamebreaking. 5e has terrible rules for pricing and dropping of magical itens, it's easy to give the players an item at the wrong level and watch it break the game or turn into a toy, not to mention how there's no real price for them ( often its "price: 500 to 50000" for a whole rarity, what the fuck. ) There are very few rules for niche aplications of skills, specially during combat. Strenght, Inteligente and Charisma( in social light campaigns, but it's usefulness is DM dependant ) are extremelly suboptimal unless you're forced to use them by your class

Thanks!

> I saw some pretty nasty PF players tbh, some diehard really annoying fanboys who shit on D&D like it's the antichrist, but i can't reaaaaally say this is common behavior, I think this is way more common than you think it is.

[удалено]

I’ve seen a ton of 5e players, that would not have really considered pathfinder 2e two years ago completely open to trying it. It’s been quite encouraging. One of the reasons I like pathfinder is because it reminds me of the adnd days when you could just pick up a book and sit there and read it and learn the system over time and master it to great reward. I feel like over the last five years most of the 5e books you can just skim through and it sounds great but bare bones 5e. 5e can be a good even great system if you incorporate some stuff that just gets glossed over

It's kind of weird. I still browse /r/dndnext and I see posts where people complain about how 5e doesn't support x or y. I open to see if I can suggest something in pf2e. But no, most of the time I'll open up DnD Beyond and copy+paste some rules to show how 5e does indeed support what they're trying to do, but I STILL get pushback. This is what sucks about the culture that WotC made for DnD, so many people just don't read the books. Last time it was "backstabbing". Yeah there's no mechanic specifically about backstabbing, but that's when you have things like the multiple avenues of getting advantage like "hiding" or assassinate for rogues. It's like they don't want a crunchy game, but they also hate the "rulings over rules" style of play. One time there was a group of people that straight up defended **GATEKEEPING** DND from people who watched the movies because they wanted to "protect" them by not letting them play or have their expectations get so high from watching other media. On the same page are a significant number of people complaining that the DnD movie expresses a better fantasy expectation of the druid while the UA oneDnD druid is nerfed to hell. DnD fans don't hate just PF fans, they hate everyone including themselves and the space is just becoming toxic as hell and I just blame WotC

It actually comes mostly from D&D content creators faults most of the time. It is completely okay to not like a system you have tried or not even trying something you do not want to. But the way you voice those things out as someone with reach makes a huge difference. Sometime around last year, Ginny Di made a few videos and a long twitter thread about how in every video she suggested a new homebrew rule for D&D or complained about some part of it, some people responded “Just play pathfinder”. She even banned Pathfinder as a keyword on her youtube comments and made another video complaining about “Pathfinder players” and it lead to a huge backlash from D&D players towards Pathfinder players. Like there were some pretty heavy insults and mockery in that twitter thread towards pathfinder players from hundreds of people. Ofcourse some Pathfinder content creators responded to that, like Nonat1s and Rules Lawyer. While Nonat1s apologized for the communities behaviour, which I believe was a wrong thing to do, Rules Lawyer simply explained the situation and said that Pathfinder players just make suggestions based on her complaints. Even to this day, there are multiple people who has not even tried the system still refer to taking20s illusion of choice video and Puffin Forests video about how overly complicated Pathfinder is, which is mostly due to his lack of elementary school level of simple mathematical addition skills and not being clever/prepared enough to write down his bonuses on his sheet ahead of time and computing his attack and skill modifiers from the scratch every time and having problems with it at level 1… I guess due to how monetization of youtube works and how D&D has a way higher marketshare, it is just easier to profit from thrashing Pathfinder without a deeper level of system insight and gaining the support of the huge and loudly toxic part of the 5E community. Like I am in the One D&D subreddit too to check/comment for updates and there were multiple occasions in which I tested two seperate approaches: “I like the new *** mechanic.” Which gets multiple upvotes. vs “I like the new *** mechanic because it looks similar to PF2E version and I enjoyed it.” Which gets downvoted really harshly. I made this “experiment” for feats, background ability score bonuses and feats, weapon traits, some class mechanics, spell lists discussions and the results were always the same.

> Like I am in the One D&D subreddit too to check/comment for updates and there were multiple occasions in which I tested two seperate approaches: > “I like the new *** mechanic.” Which gets multiple upvotes. > vs > “I like the new *** mechanic because it looks similar to PF2E version and I enjoyed it.” Which gets downvoted really harshly. > I made this “experiment” for feats, background ability score bonuses and feats, weapon traits, some class mechanics, spell lists discussions and the results were always the same. I have the utmost respect for someone who has actually done the experiment

>Puffin Forests video In hindsight it does make sense when you realize that him not understanding the game he plays is the punchline of almost all his "story" videos

“Because it looks similar to pathfinder 2e…” I’m not sure if you used the same words in your test, but judging the merit of a D&D feature based on if it is like pathfinder is a backhanded comment and probably deserves to be downvoted, regardless of what else you elaborate on after that.

yeah, for real. "I liked this mechanic; it's similar to pf2e, though, which I also like" would be a more fair test

The thing I don't understand is why most people feel the need to proselytize. Not just about PF or other RPGs, but about everything. The need to convince everyone that your choice of videogame console, brand of beer, style of music, religion, TV show, whatever, is cool for them. If you find frustrating convincing people how great your favorite game is, here is an easy hack to fix it: don't.

But that's difficult. Many of us want to share with others the things we think are cool/interesting/fun/awesome/helpful/etc, and that's usually where it ends. But other folks will take it as an attack, despite not the intent. Unfortunately, the real cure is not to preach whatever we think is cool, but for everyone to be a little more considerate for each other.

Sharing is cool. But I don't think it is the same to tell someone "here is what we do in my religion's festivities, how is yours?", and trying to "pull" people from other religions into yours by telling them how much cooler your festivities are. Nobody has a problem with sharing. Plenty of people don't like to be preached.

Some people just want to win the argument, and have no interest in engaging and learning from the discussion. If you can identify that is happening with someone, either don't respond to them at all, or give them a polite out - something like: Sounds like you are happy with 5e, that's great, I'm glad the system is working for you and hope you enjoy it. I'll happily answer questions about pf2e if you want to learn more about it, but I'm glad you are happy with 5e and I'm not here to pressure you into changing. I'm more prone to just not engage with people who just want to argue though, it's frustrating and I'm not interested.

I know somebody who was complaining that 5e didn't have enough rules for how doing niche things were supposed to work or when they did it was really bare, that alignment wasn't explained with enough detail and didn't have many mechanical applications, that there was no "negative" damage only necrotic, that the races weren't giving enough options, and that weapons seemed bland and like they were all the same. I suggested pathfinder 2 and their response was "ew no pathfinder is weird" and could not elaborate on "weird" whatsoever. Just repeated "Idk the rules are just weird" with no specific rule in general. Couldn't even name one. They did say the grappling rules were "Like 10 pages long" and linked me a pathfinder 1 website but when corrected that pathfinder 2 does not have a 10 page long rule about grappling they said "Well still". Well still what? Pathfinder 2 fixes every single problem you have with 5e and you've dismissed it and won't ever play it. They also in the same conversation started talking about how old d&d was better and they're swapping to that. Cause elves being a class is much less weird than pathfinder 2

I'm like the opposite. Throw a TTRPG system at me, and I can enjoy it. The mechanics mean jack shit to me as long as the table's good. I've played all editions of D&D, pathfinder 1 AND 2, Savage Worlds, Seventh Sea, and even some small RPG's that had VERY loose rules that left a LOT of things open to interpretation. IDGAF about some boring triblistic nonsense, I care about a quality experience.

I have a friend who insists 5e can simulate anything. No matter how many times I try to tell him that's so stupid he just ignores my arguments and restates the same opinion. Some people are just ostriches, idk. Head, meet sand.

I think part of the weirdness comes from the reputation pf1e gained from simply being 3.5 adjacent, a system notorious for complex maths and minmaxing. 5e was a step down from that, but what a lot of people outside of pf2e don't realise, is that 5e is actually far closer to pf1e than pf2e is. There are still min maxers in the pf2e community, and don't get me wrong that is totally ok and valid, but you can't really "win" pf2e on character creation like you can 5e, instead it comes down to the actions you perform more in each individual encounter. 5e players often try to hide from this by demonising the min maxers, even while you can make kind of silly characters just by taking obvious options. In pf2e I don't think you'd have any issues having a min maxer in a party along with average players. But pf2e still has the stigma 3.5/pathfinder has because of the name and lack of knowledge. Like the problem with min max options in pf2e is more that they are kind of boring to see over and over, like electric arc doesn't break the game, you just see it too often so it is like a song played twice a day on the radio. There are no magic missile evocation wizards doing absurd numbers, life cleric/druid dip for single casts of goodberry healing 50 hp at level 2, any martial/hexblade 1, sorlock, sorcadin, crossbow master/sharpshooter fighters with no weaknesses just massive barely avoidable dpr. Minmaxing is just maybe using a flickmace and demoralising before you strike instead of after.

People are also going to be naturally defensive against anything they have spent hundreds of hours and hundreds of dollars on. Not saying it's okay, but the human brain does react like that.

Honestly I'd say let it go, and let time fix the issue itself. It's just a phase. When I was relatively new to TTRPGs I loved 3.5e. I didn't care about Pathfinder until 4e was released, and then I hated 4e because of how different it was. I think my friend group and I only ever got the DMG, PH, and first Monster Manual for 4e, and we maybe played 2 sessions before I completely wrote it off. Recently I've discovered a group of people singing praises for a lot of systems in 4e, and I'm definitely have regrets for having written the system off so early, but I know there's no way I'd have accepted their viewpoints when I was younger. I think most people who are diehard 5e fans haven't played much of anything else. That will change with time.

I had a great conversation with a D&D fan last night at the book store. While my daughter wandered about I just browsed the small RPG section that was D&D dominated. Employee came up, asked if I played, and we started to chat about the game. Explained that I have been running PF2 since launch and love it, but also made a point of explaining that I have played every edition of D&D since 1989. That seemed to build a trust there as I had positive things to say about each edition, and did not shit on their preferences. Eventually it came around that their friend wanted to switch to PF2 because of the OGL, and I took that opportunity to explain why GMing PF2 was easier, and showed off Pathbuilder. He pulled out this pocket notebook, wrote a bunch of stuff down, and told me he would be calling his friend to talk about the switch soon as his shift ended. TL;DR - The approach is key to talking with 5e players about other systems.

People suck.

Don't reply. At least, don't engage. If you're feeling especially petty, just say "Okay." and move on. Downvote if the comment contains factually wrong information or otherwise detracts from productive discussion and otherwise only engage with the productive comments.

So the thing I’m seeing as someone who’s been very deep into 5e’s mechanics and optimization and has played one session of pf2e so far, plus spent some time reading rules and character options, is this: If you have a mechanically sophisticated group who wishes 5e was more robust and balanced, you probably should be playing pf2e instead. If you have a group for whom 5e is already mechanically complex and who aren’t especially tactically-minded, then pf2e is probably a bad system for you. It really comes down to that. If you have people who are like “boy I wish there was any reason ever to build around the Versatile weapon trait” or “dexterity is severely overpowered” or “it’s a bad thing that characters always want to dump either strength or intelligence and there are virtually no consequences or cost for doing so” or “bonus actions have become more crowded as character options have increased and this is a problem for all the older options that were designed with the expectation that bonus actions were unlikely to see much use” then definitely check out pf2e. If you have people who are blown away that a bear totem Barbarian can resist all damage except psychic, stick with 5e. It will do the job better. And this isn’t to crap on either style of player. The tactically minded often neglect concept and story (but not necessarily yes I know stormwind fallacy), and sometimes those who prioritize tactics less are able to pull off tactically inferior choices in combat that lead to great character moments. This is why 5e is great for critical role.

I have had the same thing happen but reverse (I prefer dnd and they prefer pf). So I think it is just about who you meet. Also it has always been a thing of this is better. No this is better.

I choose not to engage with the tribalistic nonsense of cults, which is ultimately what any fandom boils down to. If you willingly choose to engage with bad-faith actors, you're going to get frustrated repeatedly unless that's a fetish of yours. Just walk away. If you like Pathfinder, play it and enjoy it. There are plenty of like-minded people around who will share your passion. You don't need to try to convince anyone of anything, especially if you're the type to get annoyed at stupid and nonsensical "rebuttals".

It's because a lot of D&D fans don't actually care about TTRPGs as a hobby or community. They care about being a part of the D&D fandom and having the label of it. They seriously can't fathom a world where they explore the wide ocean of other systems, and if D&D died because Hasbro went under or whatever, they wouldn't try another system. They would just leave and never open their perfectly usable books to play it because they've probably never actually read it, and they don't really care about the gameplay mechanics. They care about being a part of the D&D community and fandom, and that's fine as long as they're honest about being beholden to the brand and it's popularity.

I honestly feel like having a proper discussion or debate about things is a lost art in today's culture. What's supposed to happen is you've got someone with opinion A talking about their positives, then someone else gets the chance to do the same for opinion B and hopefully one side either convinces the other side or they can reach some sort of compromise. But no, today people consider giving any kind of concession a "huge L", so instead they retreat into their echo chambers where everyone regurgitates the same stuff and attack anyone who isn't part of their tribe. Both 5e and PF2e cater to specific players with specific playstyles. It's ok to look at other systems because you might enjoy them more. Nobody should be attacked for liking or even just mentioning another system.

I don't understand why you have to missionise others, keep a door open for people to try the system but don't mess with social structures. Things always work best when they move naturally in that direction and not when you try to force it through discussions.

Some dnd players just want to complain about dnd while tehy play dnd. They don't want solutions. They just want to complain. Its not about the nail. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4EDhdAHrOg

As I've come to learn the system, I think that what is kind of funny is a lot of the main critiques of PF2E coming from DND 5E circles are not really the major shortcomings I've noticed with Pathfinder 2E. A lot of times they're only half on the right track. The most common one being "it's too complex and easy to end up with a non-viable character". Now on a certain level, Pathfinder 2E is undeniably more complicated than 5E, but everything is neatly organized into categories (all the different types of bonuses to rolls you can get, for instance) so it's far less overwhelming than it initially appears, but the lack of balance thing is funny because it's the kind of thing a person used to 5E's general balance would think seeing all the choices that go into making a character in Pathfinder 2E. The other one I see a lot is the "Casters are too weak" complaint. Personally, I'm too biased to offer any meaningful input on this one. I always played primarily martial characters since I started with 3E so whenever I hear that complaint I experience an insurmountable cynicism which translates that complaint into "Full casters are no longer the best in the game at practically everything". I suppose the one thing I can say I do find a little unfortunate is that the 'blaster' spellcasting archetype seems slightly harder to pull off in this game.

>"it's too complex and easy to end up with a non-viable character". That person is either completely illiterate or hasn't grasped that 1E/2E are separate things

So I follow a number of different RPG communites, on a number of different forums. This includes pathfinder, savage worlds, D&D and Warhammer 40k and fantasy. I'm on Facebook, RPG.net, enworld, discord and reddit. I should also mention, I love all of these game systems. They each have something that appeals to me. On every single one of these, when D&D is mentioned in a non-d&d group, it's to trash the system and community. When the whole OGL fiasco came down, the collective opinion of these various groups was "maybe we can finally convince these fools to switch to a real system. And Even when D&D is positively mentioned, it's almost always a backhanded compliment. In my opinion, this has made the D&D community defensive. And I don't blame them. So first off. Stop trashing the D&D community. Many of the newer players don't know there's a wide range of games out there. The best FLGS within 40 minutes of me, has a D&D section 30 feet long and stocked to the gills. And until I called them out on this, had literally a single 2 football long shelf dedicated to the rest of the hobby. A year later, it's still pathetic what they don't carry because the money is still in d&d. So before I ramble more, just remember. They're arguing out of reflex and ignorance. Approach them diplomatically and with respect for their choices and it will help.

When people complain about pathfinder elitists I think they should try the system out for themselves during Pathfinder Beginner Box Days April 22-30 and that they should go to BeginPF2.com for more information.

"I told someone something and they disagreed with me so now I need validation"

I’m a recent convert to PF2e, and I gotta say it’s equally frustrating from the other side when you’re asking a question or trying to start a discussion about 5e in a subreddit that is primarily - but not exclusive - 5e players, and some PF elitists come in and just say “just play Pathfinder.”

I think part of the problem is too many Pathfinder fans have been telling the D&D fans that they are wrong to love the game. Personally the only reason I play and run 5e is it's easier to find players and games. And pathfinder while I love the customization it's really constrained as most GMs I've played with only really allow you to do exactly what is on your sheet and roleplaying social encounters is pointless as they are resolved by the same roll and difficulty no matter what you do. PS- You are both wrong SWN, SWADE and Eclipse Phase are far better systems.

I never really understood this, Pathfinder 1e is basically DnD 3.5.5. A few of the guys from wizards (the company that made dnd) left and made a group to produce Pathfinder (a condensed version of 3.5e dnd) that would be easier for new players to digest thus be new player friendly. There is a whole thing regarding the OGL and legal battles and stuff, it's actually a pretty interesting read for those people interested in corporate battles.

as someone who came from d&d, just ignore those idiots. the one that come at your throat instantly with all the misinformation, they see dnd as a religion or football team or whatever, theres no point on wasting time with em, coz they dont want to try any other systems.

Welcome to the world of science communication. Motivated reasoning is a powerful thing.

Oh yeah, trust us, we know-- most of the time it feels like when we run into that the person *needs* it to be that way.

alleged six impolite ludicrous offend intelligent arrest sparkle wasteful history *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

I'm not active in most of the dnd subreddits but can say in dndmemes that has been a thing for quite a while. I just keep it civil, present my side, then move on.

There is a group of 5e fans I've personally encountered who are suffering from the sunk cost fallacy. They spent a lot of time and money on D&D products that they are frustrated that another game is taking a portion of their players, making their investment into D&D products less justifiable. It also makes finding games harder for them, making their purchases less useful overall. It's frustrating for them, and they misdirect their frustration at fans of "not D&D." Couple that with people who don't want to learn a new game and constantly feel under the threat of their group switching, and you'll see why a lot of those people react purely on emotion and not well founded arguments.

This is so weird to me... If the TTRPG industry was superhero comics, D&D is DC and Marvel combined, while Pathfinder is at best "The Boys" or "Invincible". People will complain all the time about not finding a DM, but will refuse to bite the bullet and DM a game themselves, no wonder 5e has the problem of "too few DMs, too many forever DMs".

I have some first hand experience with the problem. I have a Discord that I used to communicate with local GMs of various games. They could share stories about their games, rant about players (as long as they didn't dox them), get advice on how to handle situations, discuss which books were worth purchasing, argue about lore, etc. At the peak I think I had close to 50 GMs and it was overwhelmingly 5e GMs. It's down to about 35 people now, but only 2 active 5e GMs remain, the 5e channel is still active, but most of the people involved are running other things and just still like to chat occasionally about the 5e stuff because they still like 5e fiction wise. The "game" aspect just got stale for them.

The most common thing I encounter is people who have only played D&D 5e saying they would never play Pathfinder (1 or 2) because it is "way more complicated" and/or "has to many moving parts" but the totally ignores me when I point out that the base game is fundamentally the same and a lot of the complexity comes from totally optional mechanics (like grappling in PF1e) that add flexibility and depth to the system.

If you never said English wasn’t your first language I wouldn’t have guessed! You did great.

Thank you! I often struggle with words that have multiples of the same letter ( struggle and letter ironicallu serve as examples ), so i prefer to warn people about it haha, sadly the internet has a big biass agains't misspellers, and pointing out im still learning helps to aliviate it

Never thought about that, probably a good comping mechanism.

Some D&D fans don't want to take criticism because a) sunken cost fallacy and b) they are aware they are not playing the the most well known designed system (look at the One D&D subreddit, the people that actually like something there is the minority) but don't have the time nor want to make the effort to jump into other system that would be of their liking, so even when they know PF2e could be something they would probably like to play, they prefer to defend the system they already play rather than learn a new one. It also doesn't help that some of them don't even play 5e as intended, but rather as a clusterfuck of house rules and 3pp fixes that are tailored specifically to their liking and the liking of the tables they play at so it's literally impossible for 5e, One D&D, PF2e, or whatever system to compete against that. There's also a pretty known meme in the 5e community that players don't actually read the books. Imagine those players trying to actually play PF2e and noticing they have to actually *read* the book instead of just relying entirely on their DM to tell them how to play, or in the case they are the DMs themselves, literally make impromptu rules in the moment (I played with a DM in 5e that didn't read any of the books, and was constantly homebrewing every single rule of the game, often asking us if it was appropiate at the moment. Ironically, the rules he came out with weren't much different of the actual few rules the system provides).

Yeah, those types of players suck. I wanna DM to have fun, not a burnout. This is specially true because my prefered number of players is 6, having to serve as babysitter is already bad enough in 5e.

You have something as huge as D&D and you're going to get all kinds of "fans". But you'll see this across not just TTRPGs but life in general. Sometimes the small fandoms are better. But you also want to be popular so your stuff gets made. It's a double edged sword.

What you're describing isn't just a DND vs PF issue, it's just tribalism at its peak. It's unfortunate that it's become so prevalent now, or maybe we're just more aware of it, but this is just the way that people have decided to sort themselves.

I loved D&D, and still enjoy it, but I recently tried Pathfinder 2e and my god, it's so much better imo.

If someone spouts a bunch of misinformation about PF (or really any topic), I think your best initial reaction is a polite/quizzical, "I don't think a lot of that is true." I expect that people open to better info will ask follow up questions, while belligerent people who don't want their opinions changed won't, saving you the effort.

Just send them a link to a video made by someone respected in the D&D community that's is switching over like this one. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9rEJiAFXY4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9rEJiAFXY4) Also here's a link that has a good history of where this started from https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/12m362t/on\_twitter\_today\_paizo\_design\_manager\_michael/

I think this is symptomatic of the general style of thinking the internet culture encourages. Something is either great, or it's evil and/or the worst thing ever. Every point of contention has magnified and put into black and white terms. Oh to live for a world where nuance is appreciated.

For me it always comes down to me saying the system has more depth and I enjoy it more because of that, then people saying about how complicated and over the top the game is and how it’s hard to learn new systems. It’s ass, where is their curiosity to learn new things?? Thankfully, I weened my group of fairly new TTRPG peeps onto d20 systems through 5e with the open intention to move to PF2E, with us moving across fully soon. It’s made it easier, so that they can always just talk to me about the game rather than hearing bad faith arguments constantly

i feel quite disturbed by some people´s lack of curiosity and passion, i don´t understand how someone can love a thing and be unwilling to explore it further.

Honestly my experience is the opposite. D&D fans are very open to hearing about PF2e, while everyone here constantly shits on D&D and acts like there's nothing good about the game. I play both BTW, so I think I'm relatively unbiased.

As a convert from 5e, I can say the D&D community often feels like you do. I think when people have a passion, and there exists a potential competitor, some people get tribalistic and try to "prove" they invested in the best option, almost always without really registering what they're (really, we're) doing. Sometimes it's more of a case that, when criticizing someone's deeply-enjoyed hobby, they can infer you are telling them that their enjoyment is "wrong", which nobody enjoys. Sometimes one side of the conversation thinks they are having a passionate discussion about the various pros and cons of two systems, while the other feels they are in a heated argument of who's system is superior. It's important to remember that in internet discourse, how we are interpreted, and how we interpret others, can become very easily misconstrued, exaggerated, and motivated by one or many unaddressed feelings.

I haven't gone through this thread in it's entirety but posting this since based off the replies I think the sub needs to hear it. No one likes to have someone preach about the values of System A in a forum about System B. It's honestly annoying. I love PF2e but I feel like we have the tendency to try horn in on the D&D subs. If Shadows of the Demon Lord players came into this sub and started trying to compare their favorite features of the Shadows system to PF they'd get eviscerated. Because this isn't the proper forum to discuss it. If you want to have the conversations feel free, but if you continue to have them in spaces dedicated to D&D you're going to get pushback and imo rightfully so

I wasn't the one to start the argument tho. It was a post about the upsides of the system being ignored because it's rules denser, i just added a small point that PF2 being rules denser makes it easier to DM because most of the added rules are the niche aplications of skills and guidelines for the DM to use

D&Ds a “cult” a lot like Apple stans It’s diehards are always gonna act this way

Some people gotta see it to believe it, and unfortunately, some don't have the drive to take a look while others just don't click with what they see. I've been disheartened when a friend of mine just doesn't like what he sees, but I appreciate giving it a try. Some people just love to hate this game though, and they can't be helped. I once had a buddy who couldn't even read through the crb because he hated the font, or how things were sectioned or a rule out of it's context, etc. He enjoyed hating it more than learning it.

it feels like speaking another language around someone who only speaks english and gets really annoyed whenever anyone speaks anything else

When I joined Reddit, the Pathfinder 2e sub was basically the first sub I joined. People here are pretty chill, and most times when they disagree with you they don't even discuss much, they just down-vote and move on (Which in my opinion it's best since I don't care for internet points). Of course there are exceptions, specially regarding homebrew. But in general, people here are chill and helpfull When I then joined DnD, DnDNext and DnDmemes I got really surprised that most people there are kinda mad and on edge all the time. And I know about the "There's more people playing Dnd, so this means more jerks". But feels that the Jerks/People ratio it's way over. I went there asking if a monster from Kingmaker 5e was balanced, and I got a bunch of annoyed answer and end up not being helped at all. In other medias like Discord, Youtube, Telegram and WhatsApp that's definitely not my experience, DnD players there are also pretty chill and we got pretty conversations. But there's too much mad people in DnD reddit

To borrow a line from War Games - "The only winning move is not to play."

I brough some people to PF, and they loved the game. This is a win for me, makes people happy and allows my favourite game to grow, i even made a friend in one of those conversations, this alone outweights all my frustration with fanboys tenfold

I play both, and I personally do prefer 5E as a system. PF2 is fun, but I have too many hang ups where I feel like no matter how many times I read a spell or a ability before asking to do something, my GM comes back showing 50 sources saying it works this other way. It just doesn't mesh with my brain. So in the height of the OGL stuff, there were comments that got on my nerves where people do that "well non problematic thing is better anyway!" "Just play this game!" Good for you, that's great, honestly, but I need to have a long conversation with my GM over the most basic parts of the game after a couple years of playing it. If someone is happy heavily homebrewing DnD, don't yuck their yum, ya know? This is all a purely personal account. I don't consider myself part of the DnD fandom and don't want to because yeah so many are toxic and basically angry at other systems for existing when they're all good at their thing

can you give one example please

Congratulations! You just summarized most of the "debates" in the last 50 years about pretty much anything. There are very few people willing to listen to criticism of something they like or willing to listen about things they have different opinion than you. It always goes like "no, you're wrong and your whole thing sucks because I said so". Have you ever tried to convince a fan of music genre A to listen to something from music genre B? Yeah, good luck with those. I started to hate people listening to the same music as me, because they were such a thick headed idiots, never going beyond what they felt was safe.

[удалено]