innerdude
Legend
You also asked in the OP if Pathfinder is really the game you want to be playing / running--really, only you can answer that question, but I will say this, there's never been a better time than now to look around at other systems.
I GM-d Pathfinder two years ago for about 7 months, and while the campaign overall was wildly successful (beyond what I could have ever hoped for), by the end of it, I was close to reaching "max capacity" for managing the game--and the party was only 8th level. I made a comment on these boards that I finally understood why the "old school revival" movement was in vogue, because "rulings, not rules" makes for a much faster, less stressful game for the GM.
To be honest, I've sort of dropped off the Pathfinder "bandwagon" for the moment as well, in favor of Savage Worlds (if I want fast, easy to run games) or Fantasy Craft (if I want the detail and crunch inherent in 3.x, but I want that crunch to make sense and with vastly simplified NPC creation).
I've also looked at FATE, The One Ring, Cortex+, and Adventurer Conqueror King, and Radiance RPG. The only thing I'll say is, play a system that lets you run the kind of games YOU want to run. Don't run something just because your players expect you to. If running Pathfinder is getting to be too much of a load, it's not going to make for a great experience for anyone at the table. It's like a lot of things, when things are going good, it's easy to keep them going because you're invested in it. When things aren't going well, it's going to get increasingly hard to "get up" for game prep, because in the back of your mind it feels like a waste of time.
I GM-d Pathfinder two years ago for about 7 months, and while the campaign overall was wildly successful (beyond what I could have ever hoped for), by the end of it, I was close to reaching "max capacity" for managing the game--and the party was only 8th level. I made a comment on these boards that I finally understood why the "old school revival" movement was in vogue, because "rulings, not rules" makes for a much faster, less stressful game for the GM.
To be honest, I've sort of dropped off the Pathfinder "bandwagon" for the moment as well, in favor of Savage Worlds (if I want fast, easy to run games) or Fantasy Craft (if I want the detail and crunch inherent in 3.x, but I want that crunch to make sense and with vastly simplified NPC creation).
I've also looked at FATE, The One Ring, Cortex+, and Adventurer Conqueror King, and Radiance RPG. The only thing I'll say is, play a system that lets you run the kind of games YOU want to run. Don't run something just because your players expect you to. If running Pathfinder is getting to be too much of a load, it's not going to make for a great experience for anyone at the table. It's like a lot of things, when things are going good, it's easy to keep them going because you're invested in it. When things aren't going well, it's going to get increasingly hard to "get up" for game prep, because in the back of your mind it feels like a waste of time.
