Everything is viable but there is still room for game mastery at the edges. Wand of Tailwind is considered a requirement for some tables, a ton of magic items and consumables never scale their DCs unless you have a certain class or archetype feats, etc. which are sometimes worth it and sometimes...
A rather subjective thing. Daredevil is clearly based heavily on action comedy and non-magical brawling that fits a variety of non-assassin improv-based heroes. Slayer is pretty bluntly about gaining power from your fallen foes, though outside of games this tends to be a theme for creepy...
Pathfinder 2E is nowhere near as balanced as 4E, it just has a ton of options, it just balances out the top options and has enough options that you still have enough good options to choose from.
But you can still have feat choices of "Talk to cows" at the same level as "turn a d6 bite attack to...
Pathfinder Society play has quite a bit centered on hero points, with various boon effects based on your faction.
Pathfinder actually has a lot of systems that try to create narrative that's not possible using combat rules, with varying effectiveness of implementation.
There's not really a "has to be" here. One might prefer something but ultimately this is about emotional attachment to fiction, just as the response to Gandalf with a disco outfit would be.
The Drizz't novels alone brought a lot of people to D&D. Plenty of folks have shelves full of D&D novels and comics, and just like gestures at Dragonlance.
While I would believe it about WotC products, and especially 5E, I don't think most RPGs are designed with the intent of the game world being incohesive and disposable.
Dragonlance basically drags you through a novel series.
Regardless of intent, people will feel the way they feel.
Varies, but some folks read RPG books as fiction in itself. Having a story you've been reading - possibly for decades - get retconned can be quite obnoxious as it breaks the flow of the story and worls you've spent a long time learning. Enough changes and a story you've been invested in is now...
I played and ran 2E, 3.XE, and especially 4E, read but didn't play PF1, had a ~6 year long gap between playing RPGs, studied up on 5E24 during the playtests, and found PF2R effortless to pick up once the fiasco hit.
It's a standard d20 system with balance so while it's more complex than 4E you...
Notably Pathfinder has a lot of narrative in their supplements (in contrast with Lost Omens, which are Lore). There is often a story being told through the chapters, and sometimes they even sneak in a mini adventure path.
They frequently have very small amounts of mechanics. The Tian Xia stuff even came in two books so they could cram all the player stuff in the second book and leave the main book pristine.
Edit: You can actually check the Sources section of the Nethys wiki and see what mechanics show up in a...