Black Gate

Since Pathfinder Second Edition is a complete revamp of the Pathfinder rules system, they have balanced supplement releases that focus on the rules with those that provide Second Edition expansions of their Lost Omens setting on the planet of Golarion. That setting has been explored in depth by Paizo for over a decade, in supplements for D&D 3.5 that predated the release of Pathfinder First Edition, so they have a large foundation to build upon with new setting material for Second Edition.

While some of those – like Lost Omens: Gods and Magic and the Lost Omens: World Guide – have had a lot of mechanics that can be incorporated into game play, their main focus is narrative, providing setting information that Gamemasters can use in planning out a story set in the world of Golarion. Their two most recent supplements in the Lost Omens line have focused a bit more on the narrative.

In Absalom: City of Lost Omens (Paizo, Amazon), the emphasis is on a single city. The “city at the center of the world,” Absalom is the largest, most cosmopolitan city in the entire Lost Omens setting. A variety of adventures and scenarios have been set there, including the entire Agents of Edgewatch (Paizo, Amazon) adventure path, so there’s no shortage of previous material for them to draw on in this 400-page tome about the city. …

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I recently covered Pathfinder‘s exploration of the magical arts in my review of their Secrets of Magic rulebook. At the more physical end of the spectrum, the Guns and Gears supplement explores the role of firearms, clockwork devices, and other forms of impressive technology from the Pathfinder world, including the introduction of rarer classes into Pathfinder Second Edition: the Inventor and an update on the Pathfinder classic Gunslinger class.

With this book, they’ve definitely recognized that these two mechanical systems are in many ways very different, and might have very different audiences. While some might want a character to walk around with a gun, they aren’t interested in going full steampunk (or even clockwork punk) by incorporating this level of technology into the game setting on a regular basis. On the other hand, a player might want the technological aspects of steampunk, but feel that the firearms themselves don’t fit with their play style. As such, they book really splits these two sets of rule systems apart, so you can use the portion of the book you want to as see fit, or adopt all of these rules for your game. …

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Earlier this week, I spoke briefly about attending my first Origins Game Fair event in Columbus, OH, over last weekend, and about the Origins Awards they handed out for best game products of the year. But I wasn’t there for the awards, of course. I was there for the games themselves.

Origins gave the one of the first real opportunities in the wild to see the upcoming Pathfinder Playtest in action. (It has previously been available at GaryCon, PaizoCon, and the UK Games Expo.) We have previously discussed the announcement by Paizo to release a public playtest at GenCon 2018 for their Second Edition, which will then release at GenCon 2019. Unfortunately for me, those events were fairly consistently sold out, and busy enough they didn’t want too many loiterers around the table to slow down the game for those actually playing. The tables were in a fairly accessible location, though, and the people playing seemed to be really enjoying themselves, but my attempt to get a glance at the character sheets were consistently thwarted. (I am signed up in one of the first Playtest slots at GenCon, though, so that I can provide feedback at that point.)

I’ve been following Paizo’s releases about the Pathfinder Playtest on their blog with interest, though, and was able to have a discussion with Paizo’s John Compton and Tonya Woldridge, to get some answers to the questions I had about how this would all play out … so to speak. John and Tonya are focused on the Pathfinder Society (and Starfinder Society) Organized Play program, so that’s where we spent the majority of our conversation. But before getting into the Organized Play questions, I wondered what to expect from a story-based perspective: Will Pathfinder Playtest (or Pathfinder 2nd Edition) come with a realm-shattering storyline?

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