CapnZapp
Legend
You don't have to beat yourself up.I guess my "bad mark against it" might originate from my DM/GM ego. I'm very confident in my ability to run a solid D&D-style TTRPG, and I'm aware that's also one of my limitations. I've been running these types of games since the late 1980s, and very familiar with the d20 system since its creation in the early 2000s with 3.0. When a system crashes and burns for a couple of groups that I've GMed for as spectacularly as PF2 has - under a variety of circumstances - I look for a common denominator.
It's true that I am a common denominator. Maybe I'm just not good at running PF2, but I'm fine at running 3.x, D&D 4e, 5e, 13th Age, PF1, etc. I wanted the Abomination Vaults campaign I ran to be proof that I could challenge myself to run a good PF2 game. So I have to look at a) maybe I'm a bad GM; b) maybe the adventure was set up to be not good; or c) there is a flaw in the system.
So when I analyze the end of the campaign (which I do at the end of every campaign), I'm left wondering if you take a GM who wants something to work, really reads and tries to understand the rules and the adventure, has decades of experience running this time of game, with a group of players who actually want it to succeed and are competent/experienced players - with all these factors considered - if the game still doesn't work, where is the issue? If you have a group who likes heroic fantasy in the style of PF/D&D and the game still doesn't work, where is the issue? If you have an adventure written a year after the main rules were made available, by one of the core designers of the system, can it be the fault of the adventure?
These are all questions I'm asking.
PF2 is a very particular iteration of D&D, that focuses on doing a few things well, and other things... well, horrendously complicated and still rather poorly, is one way of putting it.