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System Switch

I’ve not been an avid player of traditional fantasy RPGs since D&D 2nd edition (and, briefly, HackMaster). I purchased a large number of Pathfinder books in 2017, but in mid-2019 I made the switch from Pathfinder back to D&D 5e.

Moving Into The Society

When I made the decision in May of 2017 to move to Portland, Oregon, I knew the fastest way to meet players would be to engage in some open table, organized games. While I hadn’t yet signed a lease, I had a general idea of the neighborhoods I was targeting. I examined what would become my Friendly Local Games Store’s calendar to see what D&D Adventurer’s League, Pathfinder Society, and/or Shadowrun Missions groups they had. There seemed to be more Pathfinder Society games being run than anything else, so I started stocking up on Pathfinder books and building potential characters. (Shadowrun Missions were exceedingly rare, so I dropped that as an option entirely.)

I had some minor experience with organized play from my trips to GenCon. I knew I was dealing with a hard rule-set and would be engaged in pre-written scenarios with a specific time window of play. There’s a lot of good to be said about organized play structures. It’s usually easier to find a game; everyone is (basically) on the same playing field; all growth is accountable so one can bring their character to any adventure. The down sides with open table organized play are that the group is rarely the made of up the same players or the same players are rarely playing the same characters from game to game. Even worse is that with a limited time window and grand adventures, role-playing and character interaction often takes a back seat to the expediency of completing the adventure (with combat).

After a year of feeling unsatisfied and unable to find players or a group looking to meet outside the organized play missions, I decided that Pathfinder and Starfinder Society didn’t give me enough of what I was looking for in a game. In late 2018 I decided to take a chance on running an original campaign using a slightly less, but still popular RPG system of Call of Cthulhu. This became my Bag of Nails campaign.

New Editions, New Campaigns

My overall discontentment with Society play was exacerbated by the announcement of Pathfinder Second Edition. I had invested quite a bit of money into first edition, but couldn’t say I was fully enjoying the games I played. I purchased a copy of the preliminary ruleset of the new edition and it also didn’t suit my style of play. Ultimately, I decided to not move forward with the purchase of additional Pathfinder Second Edition materials.

In 2018 one of my gamer friends in Chicago had also been running an online D&D 5e campaign. I joined in and purchased the Player’s Handbook in order to create a character with no expectations on growing my D&D library further.

Streamlined Decisions

Having jumped into Pathfinder late in its release cycle, there were plenty of options for play, though some races and characters were arbitrarily blocked by Society rules—another issue I had with Pathfinder Society. A large number of options meant that character creation could become a bit cumbersome, but I was used to that with late-stage D&D 2e; and now there were computer programs that could help with official Society-compliant character builds.

When I read the preliminary ruleset for Pathfinder Second Edition it was no longer buried under the weight of hundreds of expansions, but still had much the same fiddly mechanics for both character creation and gameplay. This was a contrast to the more recent version of D&D, which released in 2014 but still remained relatively streamlined (for a traditional fantasy tabletop RPG that still showed its roots as a tactical combat game).

The choice became clear, for me. I sold the majority of my Pathfinder library and acquired some additional D&D books. But my shelf space was still much emptier than it was with all my Pathfinder books. And, in late 2019, I added the D&D topic to my site and created Bernard Bedinard, the Bumbling Bard.

Future Columns

Prior to the switch, I’d only written three Pathfinder columns and it’s unlikely that I’ll write much with a D&D focus. But some of my upcoming adversaries/monsters will be written with multiple systems in mind and, when I do include traditional fantasy TTRPGs, those stats will use D&D 5e rather than the Pathfinder systems.