Pathfinder Second Edition is off to the printers, and Perram and Ryan talk about stats, generating them, and disagree on the importance of low numbers and campaign setting material in this week’s Know Direction.
Know Direction 196 – Ability Scores, Backgrounds, and Concepts
Very interesting conversation!
Ryan: From your description of how you like to play RPGs—especially your amazing ability to improvise in-the-moment, and your distaste of having to be beholden to a backstory— I wonder if a different kind of system would be more suited to your tastes.
If you can, I would really recommend that you try out the RPG “Dungeon World”. It’s a rules-light RPG in the “Powered by the Apocalypse” family of games that seeks to emulate many of the tropes of D&D. The mechanics of character creation are much, much simpler from a rules perspective, yet character design is entirely open to the player’s vision. Character backstories are created on-the-fly during play. There are loose mechanics for the PCs’ inter-personal relationships (called “Bonds”) which often come into play.
I find DW to be a real breath of fresh air after decades in the OGL/3.x ecosystem… so much that I’m finding it VERY hard to go back!
It’s possible I enjoy Dungeon World, you present a strong argument for it. The thing is, I’m not looking for another system, and rarely try new RPGs. I have a system I really like, with access to friends that I can play it with.
Socially speaking, I haven’t had to find a group for an RPG since high school. I’m sure there are plenty more tools now for that, but I’d need to find those tools to use them. All in an effort to replace a game I still enjoy ten years after deciding I like it enough to podcast about it.
As usual, a great show to watch.