Paizo & Pathfinder

Taking the Game Beyond Edition 3.5.
As this year draws to a close, I suppose it is appropriate to look back on what has recently passed in our gaming lives and also ahead to what the future may bring us in the coming year. I recently wrote about my experience with the 4th edition, mentioning briefly some of the controversies that are frequently associated with that version of the World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game and offering some of the reasons I still like the edition. Closely associated with the era of 4e in my thinking is Paizo's Pathfinder RPG. The 3rd edition of D&D is famously associated with the Open Game License which allows anyone to use the Standard Reference Document as the basis for a roleplaying game - giving appropriate credit as is due, of course. The OGL as it is often referred to, quickly became the basis for many roleplaying games, several remain with us today. Pathfinder is one of those.

Paizo Inc. began life as a publisher of the Dragon and Dungeon magazines. Founded during the 3e era (in 2002), Paizo during that time produced some of my favorite RPG magazine content of any era. The magazines published under Paizo's production were colorful and the art quality was top shelf. The writing was excellent and their adventures were often better than those being produced in-house by the brand holder and company publishing that famous parent game. Of course this is all just my humble opinion. YMMV - as the saying goes.

What is more a matter of record is that during that 3e era Paizo developed a loyal following and when the trade-mark brand holder decided to drop Paizo as their magazine publisher in 2007, the folks at Paizo struck out on their own and begin publishing their popular line of adventure paths on their own that continue to feature excellent writing and stellar fantasy art right up to the present. 

Without the contract to publish Dragon and Dungeon, Paizo soon began developing their own game based on the OGL and with significant fan-based playtesting and feedback. The finished product (seen by many as a successor to 3e) was published in 2009 as the Pathfinder RPG. For many of us in the hobby, Pathfinder arrived at a time when we were looking for a game that would scratch the itch we were feeling to play something that felt more like a familiar fantasy roleplay system than we were experiencing with 4e.

As I have been mentally walking down 4e memory lane, I find myself once again at the end of that journey standing before Pathfinder - and the Pathfinder memories come flooding back. As a smile breaks across my face, I recall the many new friends I made while playing Pathfinder, as well as  a number of the fun adventures (many of them published by Paizo) that we have shared together while playing this now older and so familiar version - we played Pathfinder for a number of years almost to the exclusion of all other games. Yes, Pathfinder has been a very good FRP experience for me, even though the system (much like 3e before it) eventually became bloated with so many supplements in print that it was almost impossible to master all the content. Then came a new playtest version followed by release of a second edition in 2019.

Prior to the pandemic, I was running and playing a lot of Pathfinder 2e, more so than of any other FRP game. The pandemic affected gaming for many of us hobbyists, often in surprising ways! An increase in solo play and playing online replaced regular game night gatherings as we sought to keep our group FRP gaming interests alive by changing our way of  engaging with our hobby and of "getting together". As I enter this new year, and face-to-face gathering again, I find that I am experiencing a great desire to resume some regular play of Pathfinder. It really is a good game in both its editions.