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

[GVDammerung]

Golarion's biggest strength is that it is more or less a generic 3rd edition D&D setting. They basically made a list of any kind of adventure a D&D player could want to have and made a place for it. There's an Egyptian setting, a jungle setting, a place where a sci-fi spaceship has crashed, devil-worshipping nations, Arabian Nights, black powder using peoples, frontier lands, Viking lands, major metropolises, three flavors of Underdark, etc. etc.

And somehow they manage to do this without it coming across as a complete hodge-podge like some D&D settings I could name.

Excellent description except that, to me, it does come across as a hodge-podge or crazy-quilt setting.

There are few connections between the regions that overarch the setting and thereby unite it into a coherent whole. Its too much like every region exits in a semi-vacuum. This makes it easy for a DM - "Jungle adventures go HERE. Horror adventures go THERE. etc." But there is very little verisimiltude overall as a result of this overt cubby-holing sort of design philosophy. Its doesn't feel to me like a consistent whole; the sum of the parts are just the parts, nothing greater.

Its not Greyhawk. Its not the Realms. Its closer to Mystara, where each country had a distinct character - Arabland, Vikingland, Magicuserland etc.

The individual regions of Golarion are almost universally well done but taken as a whole, Golarion is a patchwork, crazy quilt, hodgepodge, soapball made up of little slivers of leftover bars of soap, choose the term that suits.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Considering the vast amount of territory and different themes covered in the Pathfinder campaign setting, maybe it would be better for you to explain what you are looking for in a setting. Golarion ranges from traditional D&D realms to Egyptian, Arabian, and Asian-style nations to places inhabited by demons and pseudo-robots. Some areas are more detailed than others, so maybe knowing what you're looking for could give people an idea of what to recommend (or not recommend) regarding the setting.

The truth is I couldn't tell you what I'm looking for in a setting (and I couldn't even "just look at it and say 'Nope, not this one, just a gut feeling' ").

But I know what I want in a review: a description of the contents of the product. And I wasn't getting that from the reviews of Pathfinder, so I asked here in a manner I hoped was detailed enough to strip away all the extraneous material that simply informed me of peoples' opinions. Then I could make my own informed decision about whether the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting contained things I liked enough to warrant giving it a try.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I remember going through the Setting book trying to come up with a character concept, and looking into how closely the various human ethnic groups there, resemble human ethnic groups in our world...

Almost would have played a Vudrani Bollywood Bard as some sort of bad joke.

 

[malkav666]

How much quality a product has means nothing if one doesn't actually like what the product does. I've read enough reviews about RPG products to know that I could have absolutely no use for what the product describes, not wanting it in any way, but someone else will still go on about how great it is. Someone saying how great a product is meaningless if that's all they do. It leaves those of us in the dark about what the product actually contains having no context for their "greatness" speech.

And that's all the people who've written reviews about Pathfinder do: say that the product is great. It could be "Exact Generic D&D Fantasy Clone #3278" and I wouldn't know. I need to know what's in it, and be told in such a way that I can understand what parts are causing people to single it out in comparison to similar settings.

Perhaps this would be a little easier if you told us what you liked?

Let me tell what i have gathered from the PF campaign setting book.

1. It is broken down by region, and most of those regions are unique enough to be good seeds for campaigns in and of them selves. As far as variety of theme on the regions? There are some that seem to be homages to various themes and places found in the old D&D campaigns themselves, to popular themes in fiction and fantasy themselves, to completely original concepts. And to be fair, even the regions that feel like an homage still have a good bit of original and quality flavor to them.

This modular nature makes the setting great for insertion into whatever fantasy gaming system you are into. And it has been my experience thus far that the quality of writing found in the books, and the presentation of the fluff make them excellent reads in and of themselves.

2. The setting has pretty good support in the terms of modules and small optional materials. There are map folios, stand alone adventures, fluff books on cities, sites, and monsters. It has its own pantheon, and planar cosmology. In fact there are many aspects of the setting itself that are fairly detailed, but not so much in way that says: "You have to tell this kind of story". Rather I find that most of the material is rather open and supportive of telling your own story. Its kind of a framework. A lovingly detailed framework, but a framework none the less. There are no real uber NPCs that drive the story. All of the material is kind of offered with the idea that the players and DM drive the story. Even the modules and such offer ideas how to get off the beaten trail, and usually offer tips for what to do if the players kill a story NPC to help them find their next objective.

3. It is still in print. You will not have to pay collector prices for it. You will be able to get it for cover price or less. It also is supported by a pretty decent community, and a company who seems to interact with that fanbase fairly regularly.

But all in all I would imagine there is a place in Golarion for you to tell the stories you want to tell. Because most of the places and neat stuff in the setting isn't detailed down to a razor's edge (there is plenty of detail offered, but its not usually presented in such a manor that feels counterproductive to original stories) it leaves a lot of room for creative storytelling and original storytelling for your groups.

In some of the classic settings for D&D it often seemed as though the characters were on the sidelines and the real story was about the history of the setting and its major NPCs, and unless you stray far from what is presented it often can feel like the players are the supporting cast for the settings story (though this is not always the case).

The way Golarion is presented, it is interesting enough to catch the interest of the players and often be exotic (for example the very first module of the very first AP supporting Golarion has the group adventuring inside of a gigantic stone head left over from some ancient civilization. It was enough for my players to all be very interested in the site. But the ancient civilization itself, aside from a few specifics needed for the module, was not very detailed, so I could kind of mold them into whatever fit the mood of my story the best), but not so detailed that there is no room for a DM to change elements of the setting. No place or NPC is crucial to the setting to a point where tinkering with them effects the whole place.

In short Golarion offers everything. Paizo's fans pretty much decide what the course of the setting is, through interaction with the developers, and community participation. There is no unique theme that defines the setting, but do to how it is presented in a modular fashion there is no reason why you could not add overarching themes to the setting without having to basically recreate it from scratch. It functions as a canvas that stays firmly in the background, but is interesting enough make the story more alive.


love,

malkav

 

[ggroy]

For one, there's consistency in the Paizo staff.

Paizo's staff seems to have more of an eye to detail, which has helped so far.

Hopefully they will continue to do this.

Though anything can suddenly change in a dime. For example, imagine a scenario where most of the top management, editorial staff, and other "shotcallers" at Paizo ended up suddenly dying in, say, a huge automobile pileup on the freeway, a devastating earthquake, a huge fire engulfing their offices where they couldn't escape on time, etc ...

A case of something like this happening in the past was when Don Kaye suddenly died of a stroke in 1975, who was Gary Gygax's business partner in starting and funding TSR. In various interviews, Gygax mentioned he thought TSR would have became a completely different company if Kaye had not suddenly died.

 

[Krensky]

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).

Paizo takes lots of old and worn creatures and stock settings and makes them fresh and new in their products. It's a setting that's consiopusly made for gaming, but manages to work and not seem stale or cliched.

 

[Twowolves]

Excellent description except that, to me, it does come across as a hodge-podge or crazy-quilt setting.

There are few connections between the regions that overarch the setting and thereby unite it into a coherent whole. Its too much like every region exits in a semi-vacuum. This makes it easy for a DM - "Jungle adventures go HERE. Horror adventures go THERE. etc." But there is very little verisimiltude overall as a result of this overt cubby-holing sort of design philosophy. Its doesn't feel to me like a consistent whole; the sum of the parts are just the parts, nothing greater.

Its not Greyhawk. Its not the Realms. Its closer to Mystara, where each country had a distinct character - Arabland, Vikingland, Magicuserland etc.

The individual regions of Golarion are almost universally well done but taken as a whole, Golarion is a patchwork, crazy quilt, hodgepodge, soapball made up of little slivers of leftover bars of soap, choose the term that suits.

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?

 

[EATherrian]

If it suffers from anything it's that the creators like too much fantasy literature. Thanks to their love of mythology (both ancient and contemporary), they've been tossing in everything from arcanotech to H.P. Lovecraft. They've got aliens from space, dinosaurs from the lost lands, and urban legends from right next door. You could seriously encounter a Hound of Tindalos just minutes after fighting off a pack of chupacabra.

For me this is a selling point. I like that so many pulp, fantasy and sword and sorcery ideas and themes are present in Golarion. Plus as a huge Lovecraft fan the amount of tie-in to that mythos makes me very happy.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Perhaps this would be a little easier if you told us what you liked?

A setting that doesn't take itself seriously. A setting that isn't afraid to do things because they seem cool rather than because they make sense. A setting that doesn't present its problems in a way that makes their solution "sit on the sidelines and watch the world burn".

1. It is broken down by region, and most of those regions are unique enough to be good seeds for campaigns in and of them selves. As far as variety of theme on the regions? There are some that seem to be homages to various themes and places found in the old D&D campaigns themselves, to popular themes in fiction and fantasy themselves, to completely original concepts.

What are the regions? At least what themes do they homage to?

2. The setting has pretty good support in the terms of modules and small optional materials.
............................
3. It is still in print. You will not have to pay collector prices for it. You will be able to get it for cover price or less. It also is supported by a pretty decent community, and a company who seems to interact with that fanbase fairly regularly.

These things are unimportant to me. So long as the setting has good ideas it can be dead for all I care.

In some of the classic settings for D&D it often seemed as though the characters were on the sidelines and the real story was about the history of the setting and its major NPCs, and unless you stray far from what is presented it often can feel like the players are the supporting cast for the settings story (though this is not always the case).
...................
In short Golarion offers everything. Paizo's fans pretty much decide what the course of the setting is, through interaction with the developers, and community participation. There is no unique theme that defines the setting, but do to how it is presented in a modular fashion there is no reason why you could not add overarching themes to the setting without having to basically recreate it from scratch. It functions as a canvas that stays firmly in the background, but is interesting enough make the story more alive.

I'm also not worried about this. I'm perfectly willing to wrestle any overgrown setting -- and its canon-lawyers -- to the ground, it just has to be worth doing that.

But all in all I would imagine there is a place in Golarion for you to tell the stories you want to tell. Because most of the places and neat stuff in the setting isn't detailed down to a razor's edge (there is plenty of detail offered, but its not usually presented in such a manor that feels counterproductive to original stories) it leaves a lot of room for creative storytelling and original storytelling for your groups.

This doesn't make it sound as if the setting is necessary. You've made more a case for making my own setting than buying Pathfinder. I'm not going in for a setting that let's me make up stuff I could make up without the setting, I'm looking for one that gives out ideas that haven't been done to death and done to death while claiming to be fresh.

 

[Krensky]

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?

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.

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.