Is Pathfinder 2 Paizo's 4E?

[Parmandur]

So you've got a smaller sample size. But, yes, you do get a lot more new & casual gamers in-store than at conventions, for instance, and stable groups are quite another story.

In my area the last play-in-store what we'd now call an FLGS, The Game Table, closed in, I think '87, yeah, that sounds right. In that one there was D&D, Champions, & Traveler being played regularly (among many other things irregularly - and wargames were still significant, M&M, SFB &c - I didn't pay that much attention, but M&M's hard to miss, they take up a lot of space), and only Traveler was run TotM, D&D was painted minis on a grid, Champions! cardboard heroes (standies, I think we'd call 'me now) on a hex battlemat.
It started coming back in the oughts, but just outside my stomping grounds - I worked conventions with a club that was centered round a shop like that in Oakland (cheaper rent, I guess), for instance, but nothing to speak of in the South Bay. By the time I joined Encounters, 2010, there were three FLGSs in the area - two running Encounters, one Warhammer & PF(S? I think it was a thing by then?). One of those closed, but Isle split off from Illusive in early 2014 because gaming had outgrown the space (we'd have one or two tables of Encounters overflow outside) in what was originally a comics shop.

In college the groups I was in also tended towards TotM, for one compelling reason: no space. I even ran Champions! without a battlemat.


Isle of Gamers, Santa Clara! I'm actually back to gaming more or less regularly (not quite every week) after a pretty terrible year, health-wise.

I'm sorry to hear that about your health: hope things are looking up.

I live equidistant between Isle of Gamers and Game Kastle, and I usually get stuff at Game Kastle due to my good experiences with them from when I lived in the East Bay: tend to get my comic material at Treasure Island, though, and I did get Curse of Strahd and Tome of Beasts at Isle of Gamers. Good store.

Honestly, any one person's experience is a woefully limited data set: that's where big data can come in. I have been fairly surprised by what WotC has claimed they found about playstules, preferences,and how people get onto the game even though it does match my personal experience. But the rising popularity does seem to bear out the hypothesis. It seems that, actually, way more people are buying the Starter Set at Target and starting with some friends than going even to FLGS...

 

[Parmandur]

Oh really? Thanks. I thought the point was about feet being intuitive or not.

You are welcome.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm sorry to hear that about your health: hope things are looking up.

Thank you, yes.

Honestly, any one person's experience is a woefully limited data set.

True, and whatever one of us puts forth, another can usually come up with the exact opposite.

I'm a big fan of theater of the mind myself, but I find it difficult to employ in 5e. All ranges and area of effects specified in feet make me constantly feel like I'm getting it wrong. Something like zones or range bands from other games make it a lot easier to deal with.

A map, even a very crude one on graph paper, behind the DM screen helps.
(OK, and it pushes my nostalgia buttons because that's how I ran D&D back in the day.)

But 5e works just fine on a 5'=1" grid using 3e/4e prepainted plastic, or old-school minis (if you have the good, real lead ones from back in the day, like Ral Partha's, more power to you), or any other kind of token. Just divide by 5.

Divide by three.

Or, if you're using a game with a scale, like 1"=10' or 1sq=5' or 1 hex=2m, multiply.

Scales that facilitate play on a surface in no way prevent TotMing in feet (or other unit of choice), just come up with a simple enough conversion.

Non-scaled Zones/Range Bands, abstract 'engaged' conditions, and the like, OTOH, actually do facilitate TotM…


So, you can get:

"How far away is he?"

"He's 'Close'"

"OK, I cast..."



... instead of:

"How far away is he?"

"About 30 feet."

"Like almost, or like just over."

"Like, you don't have a laser rangefinder or anything."

"I ask because my spell has a range of 25,' but I can up-cast it to 50, do I need to up-cast?"

"Nah, let's just say 25, then. Close enough."

"OK, I cast..."

 

[Aldarc]

Those sort of systems can work, but feet are fairly intuitive.

Amen. I grew up with American Imperial. But having lived in Continental Europe for four years and gaming with people who grew up with metric, dear lord, I would prefer games in metric.

Divide by three.

Use metric.

 

[Parmandur]

Amen. I grew up with American Imperial. But having lived in Continental Europe for four years and gaming with people who grew up with metric, dear lord, I would prefer games in metric.

Use metric.

I would agree, actually: and for maps, use metric hexagons. It just makes more sense. Still, a foot is a fairly easy to use measurement, no more difficult to divide in three to figure out meters on the fly than most overhead in D&D.

 

[Aldarc]

I would agree, actually: and for maps, use metric hexagons. It just makes more sense. Still, a foot is a fairly easy to use measurement, no more difficult to divide in three to figure out meters on the fly than most overhead in D&D.

IME, this is easier said than done.

 

[Parmandur]

IME, this is easier said than done.

Maybe by 6E, Metric will have reached the US of A.

 

[Kurviak]

IME, this is easier said than done.

And with spells that talks about square feet for area or cubic feet for volume ....

 

[Aldarc]

And with spells that talks about square feet for area or cubic feet for volume ....

I know people don't like the "gamist" feeling of squares and hexes, but at least people could pretend that a square represented their preferred unit of measurement.

 

[Parmandur]

And with spells that talks about square feet for area or cubic feet for volume ....

Simple hack, even if it is improper math: make every five feet a meter, so 50 square feet becomes 10 square meters. Close enough for government work, and a square meter tile actually makes more sense than five foot square anyways.