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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenada" data-source="post: 8265971" data-attributes="member: 70468">I had started to suggest OSR minus all the other bits, but that didn’t feel right. Pathfinder isn’t old-school D&D, a retroclone, or particularly adjacent to those games. Pathfinder 2e does have an exploration mode, but it still lacks most of the techniques one would use to create OSR-style play. Also, based on our prior conversations, your approach to balance is quite different from OSR play (which is itself [OSR play] non-normative for PF2).I’m responding for my own edification since it seems like what’s being described fits with what Edwards describes as “setting-centric Story Now play”. Is the issue that if you aren’t taking a principled approach (e.g., something like what Edwards describes for doing it with a confused game text), that the game risks becoming incoherent?For example, let’s assume we’re going to play a campaign using Pathfinder 2e. We decide on a village on the border between Andoran and Cheliax. Andoran is sort of like a fantasy frontier America while Cheliax is an empire of diabloists. Play starts with various situations like the Church of Asmodeus has come to town, rebels against the rule of House Thrune are causing trouble in the area, and so on. So far, it sounds like we have all the pieces in place to begin our setting-centric Story Now play.Of course, play doesn’t just start at the status quo and then nothing happens. The PCs are going to go out and do things. They’re going to impose themselves on the setting all over the place (break the rebels’ stuff, etc). We’re playing for the emergent story, so that’s the point. However, because there are no principles to keep the GM honest, will a plot <s>emerge</s> arise in the GM’s notes eventually (inevitably?)? And if one does emerge, we’ve ended up playing something different from what we think we’re playing (Story Now vs. Story Before).Edited for clarity: don’t use two different meanings for emergent plot.</blockquote>

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