Pathfinder 1E Pathfinder Chronicles setting: what does it offer?

[EATherrian]

This would be pretty funny.... if it weren't for the fact that most of the cultural regions are lifted straight out of our own world's past. Was there some overarching metaplot to earth when the Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Mayans, Aztecs, Romans, Egyptians, Persians, Zulu, Goths and Vandals were cohabitating the planet all at the same time?

Sounds like an awesome Civ game! I personally have been trying to figure out how to put all the things I love into a setting and I'll admit Paizo has done it better than I would have.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I'd say one of the defining differences is the sense of otherness in Golarion.

Golarion elves have less to do with Tolkien and more to do with the old tales. They're mercurial, they can be petty, their primary deity is the goddess of lust and revenge. Drow aren't a subrace but more a external manifestation of going to the dark side (not just being evil, but comppletely and totally embracing evil). Gnomes are more tied ot the world, goblins are crazy, ogres are terrifying, oger-kin are sickening (and part of why ogres are terrifying). The red and green planets have been pulled from Barsoom and Venus. The underdark is the begining of the dangerous scary places under the workd (there's two more below that, each weirder and more dangerous).

Now you see, this is what I'm looking for. This describes how the elements are different from other settings, and now I can look at those elements and think about how'd they feel when I hold them in my mind.

And on a different note: this doesn't make Golarion sound at all fresh. Darkness is being done by everyone these days, especially dark fey. It's become stale already.

 

[Odhanan]

I really like Golarion's flavor, as a generic setting where pretty much anything may go, depending on the area you choose as your campaign base.

The background is interesting, but here's the issue to me: I would run Pathfinder using the setting book, maybe a tidbit from this or that supplement, but I would never try to even think in terms of "canon" with it.

There's already WAY too much information published about the setting for my tastes. It's like in a matter of a couple of years it managed to become a 2nd edition AD&D setting already. In this, this is definitely not an "old school setting". Some people will absolutely love that. I don't.

Now, fortunately, all the APs, all the modules are pretty much independent. With or without just the setting book, I'm all set, I can run them, relocate them in my own setting, or just make Golarion my own. That's cool, and I'm a customer of these products. The setting stuff? Way too much detail for my taste already.

 

[JeffB]

Excellent description except that, to me, it does come across as a hodge-podge or crazy-quilt setting....
Its not Greyhawk. Its not the Realms. Its closer to Mystara, where each country had a distinct character - Arabland, Vikingland, Magicuserland etc.
.

I very nearly just plunked down my cash after seeing it on the shelf, but after browsing through the setting book at the store for a whil,e thats the same (disappointing) conclusion I came to: kind of like latter day kitchen sink Mystara when I was under the impression from a thread over at the Paizo boards it was more like early GH or OGB Realms.

AFAIC, the 3E D&D Gaz (32 pager), the OGB Realms, or even the few pages in the back of the C/M Expert book and X1 do a better job at that type of thing (generic D&D setting built around the rules) than Golarion, but of course thats all IMO, YMMV,etc.

 

[Krensky]

And on a different note: this doesn't make Golarion sound at all fresh. Darkness is being done by everyone these days, especially dark fey. It's become stale already.

In all honesty, I have never seen ogres presented as crazed mutant mountain folk ala Deliverance or The Hills Have Eyes before. Elves aren't dark, they're borderline uncanny.

If you want a good view of the world, get the player's handout, er, I mean the gazetteer. The PDF's something like $13.

 

[Twowolves]

Depends who you ask, and those cultures span a very long period, many of them were not around at the same time. The Zulu and the Central Americans, for instance. Japan in the time of the Roman empire is largely unrecognizable to modern eyes.

Most of those cultures wouldn't be very recognizable to "modern" eyes. My point is that our own world had vastly different cultures and ethnicities during it's past, all concurrent and not at all "overarcing" nor "cohesive". Why should a campaign setting for a role-playing game be seen in a poor light for mimicing that reality?

That said, a campaign world doesn't have to make sense. The real world doesn't. Then again, the difference between the two is that fiction needs to be believable.

Wait a minute, FICTION about a FANTASY world needs to be BELIEVABLE?? Internally consistant maybe, but believability...

Otherwise I agree with you. A campaign world doesn't have to make perfect sense at all. Just enough to not make suspension of disbelief a burden.

 

[Twowolves]

If you want a good view of the world, get the player's handout, er, I mean the gazetteer. The PDF's something like $13.

Or the free PDFs of the first two Adventure Paths, Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne. That and the Pathfinder Society Organized Play Guide. It has a nice bit of flavor and basic info about the 5 nation/factions around Absolom.

I don't even own the CS, but from reading the first two APs and the PDFs mentioned above, I have a pretty good feel for what I like and what I don't about the setting.

 

[Krensky]

Wait a minute, FICTION about a FANTASY world needs to be BELIEVABLE?? Internally consistant maybe, but believability...

It's an old chesnut of advice to a novice writer. Probably even a cliche. I can't remember who said it, but the quote is something like this:

"The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction needs to be believable; reality obviously operates under no such restraints."

I want to say MarK Twain or Walt Whitman.. Emmerson? Roy Rogers? Anyway. It's true.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

In all honesty, I have never seen ogres presented as crazed mutant mountain folk ala Deliverance or The Hills Have Eyes before.

You didn't say that in the paragraph I quoted, only that they were terrifying, which many others have done in the name of "making the world scary again".

Elves aren't dark, they're borderline uncanny.

If it's presented as something that's supposed to make you feel scared it's dark. If it's just supposed to make you feel odd then it's not dark, but its still something that too many people are doing with their elves these days for anyone to claim that it's fresh.

If you want a good view of the world, get the player's handout, er, I mean the gazetteer. The PDF's something like $13.

I don't think a good summary should have to cost anything. I'm not asking for the entire contents of the gazeteer for free, I'm just asking for a short paragraph on how specific things are done for the Golarion world that aren't done for similar settings when people write their reviews.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Or the free PDFs of the first two Adventure Paths...

Where are these? I couldn't find them.