D&D Realms: Pathfinder

It's been a while since we've booted up the ol' Dungeons & Dragons, like - since before 4th Edition was announced.  I don't really remember my last D&D session, but it must have been some time in early 2006.  As I remember, the Dungeon Master had a hard time of working my companion and I into the game.  Apparently, his group was not quite used to our "tactical" and "aggressive" playstyle.  His group dissolved, which left just us.  So we started playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay instead.  As I recall, it might have been Forgotten Realms.   Or maybe not, but last I heard that particular DM has been playing 4th Edition for a long time now.

I know there are differing schools of thought on the subject, but I'm going to let you know that I simply consider Pathfinder to be a different edition of Dungeons & Dragons.  It's pretty much the same.  The rulebooks have a lot going for them, being as pretty as they are...they are color, glossy, hardcover and well formatted.  That last bit, for me, is the best part.  Just the same, it's pretty much good ol' D&D.  So, why are we all up in it?

Pathfinder is sort of a psuedo-3rd Edition, and I consider it a campaign setting like Ravenloft or Spelljammer.  It has it's permutations to the ruleset, conveniently located in the rulebook.  Imagine that.  The Golarion campaign setting has had a plethora of materials published in slick looking books, which brings us to the crux of the matter.

Why play this particular edition / setting when we also play 2nd Edition, 3.0 Edition, and 4th Edition?  I don't know if you've taken a look at 4th Edition lately, but it's not looking so good.  You probably somehow disagree with me on that, but hey.  Whatever.  The point isn't whether it's selling, look at the design of the line and the products.  You have to have a PHD in RPG History to decipher where to get to have the amount of material you're used to in your games.  Even then, you'll probably decide to go with 4th Edition material that isn't even in production anymore.

The main reason that Pathfinder is just as (if not more) relevant that the other editions that will be running is that it's alive.  It's breathing.  What I mean by that heavy metaphor is that it's currently in production by the parent company (those responsible!), and more material is on the way. That alone is incentive enough to get into this new edition.  Add to that an entirely new world with it's own themes and twists, and that's a lifetime's worth of adventure.

Not only that but at least two of our Game Masters will be using this ruleset to run their games.  One will be set in Golarion, the official setting of Pathfinder Adventures, and the other will be a homebrew campaign set in the Stone Age.  We'll get to use a lot of the published campaign material, and other material from 3.5 Edition.  Oh yeah, did I mention?  Pathfinder is backward compatible with most material from 3rd Edition, so there's a lot of material that can be used to add further permutation to the game experience.

I don't feel that this edition replaces any of the older editions, or even the newer one.  Rather, it adds to the spectacle.  We play so many settings and games here at the Wargate, it would be remiss of us not to include all the portals to other places that Pathfinder offers.  As a campaign option, it's concise and well organized.  There are a lot of attractive campaign materials, and 3rd party publishers are back via the D20 System Resource Document and Open Game License.

Long live Dungeons & Dragons.