Pathfinder 1E D&D or Pathfinder?

[VGmaster9]

Which game do you feel has a better looking universe? While Pathfinder just has Golarion, D&D has other worlds like Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dark Sun, etc.

 

[Dice4Hire]

I prefer the homebrew universe, so both are 100% equal.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Mechanically, Pathfinder is great. The Pathfinder setting is basically a kitchen sink setting. There's such a hodgepodge of different elements and so little sense of history/geography/culture/etc. I can't say I recommend it.

Grayhawk never made much of an impact for me, although the Great Wheel is the best comprehensive interpretation of a universe I've ever seen and I can't say I'm attracted by PoL, let alone the nonsensical cosmology surrounding it.

In short, neither. 3e D&D wins by virtue of having the least irritating setting, but I never used it.

If you need anything particular out of a setting, you'll have to ask for that.

The best setting books I've ever read, speaking generally, were 3e Forgotten Realms and Kingdoms of Kalamar (very different).

I homebrew, which is always what I'd recommend.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Heh - 3rd edition Eberron, Pathfinder rules. Rom, nom, nom, nom!

The Auld Grump

 

[smug]

Greyhawk is my favourite setting, but WotC have abandoned that; Golarion is the closest thing to it, with heavy involvement from some of the people that wrote or oversaw some great Greyhawk material, so that's my preference.

 

[VGmaster9]

I prefer the homebrew universe, so both are 100% equal.

True, it never hurts making a homebrew campaign universe that contains OGL stuff from both games.

 

[dagger]

Which game do you feel has a better looking universe? While Pathfinder just has Golarion, D&D has other worlds like Forgotten Realms, Eberron, Dark Sun, etc.

Using Pathfinder rules in FR.....

 

[doctorhook]

Eberron for sure, FR pre-Spellplague (nostalgia, not hostility), and the spirit of PoL are all great. D&D all the way.

That said, I have no love at all for meta-settings that invade closed cosmologies. There won't be any Spelljamming wizards from Krynn in my Eberron, thats for damn sure!

Grayhawk never made much of an impact for me, although the Great Wheel is the best comprehensive interpretation of a universe I've ever seen and I can't say I'm attracted by PoL, let alone the nonsensical cosmology surrounding it.

You may find PoL's World-Axis cosmology nonsensical, but personally I find The Great Wheel to be uber-camp; not bad at all, just ridiculous. My point is that "nonsense" is pretty subjective--to me, the World-Axis cosmology looks more like a believable real-world cosmology than does The Great Wheel, although YMMV.

 

[Elf Witch]

My favorite setting is Kingdom of Kalamar so I guess I would have to say DnD.

I like a lot of the DnD worlds except POL it really depends on the mood I am in.

While I have the core Pathfinder books I have have not picked up the world books yet. I have read several fiction set in the world and the world does seem really interesting.

I do homebrew a lot but I also sometimes like to run in an established world.

The order I would list my favorites goes something like this.

Kingdoms of Kalamar
Dragonlance
Scarred Lands
Eberron
Forgotten Realms not the new stuff
Planescape
Greyhawk

 

[Ahnehnois]

You may find PoL's World-Axis cosmology nonsensical, but personally I find The Great Wheel to be uber-camp; not bad at all, just ridiculous. My point is that "nonsense" is pretty subjective--to me, the World-Axis cosmology looks more like a believable real-world cosmology than does The Great Wheel, although YMMV.

Well, D&D is pretty campy in general. That said, you lost me on "Feywild".

The Great Wheel seems to have some metaphysical logic behind it. The Material Plane is composed of elements, those elements have planes oriented opposite each other. Same for alignments. The transitive planes are distinct and have a very classic feel. Conversely, the 4e cosmology was a revision based pretty explicitly on the idea that every plane should exist as an adventuring location. Who ever adventured on the inner planes, they asked. (I did.) So they condensed them and made them a viable terrain for humans. Who ever visitied the mystical Faerie Plane, they asked? So they made it less mystical and gave it a joke of a name (see above). Who needs five different planes each for good and evil, they asked. They condensed those down to save the reader's feeble minds. I prefer the notions that the universe is built on some logical structure, and that it is hostile and inhuman.

Incidentally, my problems with the PF setting and the 4e setting are similar. Golarion's designers also pretty explicitly say "whatever style you want to run, there's a country to run it in." To me, this is roughly equivalent to marketing a movie by saying it's "fun for the whole family" and "has something for everyone". It makes me feel pandered to, as if the material was created to appeal to the lowest common denominator. I don't believe setting design is about creating adventures; setting design is about creating verisimilitude, making the adventures feel like they matter. You don't have to be Tolkien and create new languages for everyone, but you do have to make an effort at realism. The adventure comes naturally thereafter.

Forgotten Realms prehaps has the kitchen sink issue; perhaps it's simply so entrenched in the collective mind it's now accepted. Kalamar is pretty explicitly built on realistic geography and it shows.