My Pathfinder Renaissance

I’m going to deviate from my typical posts here for a moment and talk about myself personally instead of my company. I am going through what I can only describe as a Pathfinder Renaissance. What do I mean by that? Dan Rydell (played by Josh Charles) of the underappreciated Aaron Sorkin TV show Sports Night described his New York Renaissance as, “I have lived in New York my whole life. This is the time I should be sick of it, but I’m not,” and then he proceeds to tell everyone about how he wants to do classic New York things like riding the Staten Island ferry or getting a hot dog and going for a walk in Central Park.

So what do I mean by I am having a Pathfinder Renaissance. I love Pathfinder 1e. I have been supporting the game now for 11 years. At this point in my life, I should feel this is old hat, like I have played this game out and I should be have moved onto 2e or D&D 5e, 13th Age, or Traveller, but Pathfinder 1e is the game in my head as my mental default for gaming and I am loving it.

Where is this coming from, you ask. There are two main sources. First off, is all the work we at JBE are doing with Pathfinder these days. We have been hard at work at producing the upcoming Book of Beasts: Character Codex that I am falling in love with all the options available to characters again. No other game we support has the number off character choices available to them from the main publisher. Add in 11 years of compatible publishers creating other choices and you have a wealth of options that are simply unmatched in today’s game market. This level of freedom to make the character you want is something I am finding irresistible at the moment.

Add in to that the other main source of my Pathfinder Renaissance: a recent episode of Fear the Boot. If you are unaware, I joined the crew of Fear the Boot last year and am having tremendous fun being on this podcast. Our most recent episode we talk about supplements (or the term that the other hosts use, “splat books”). Listen to the episode and the other parts of it when they are released since we went long. But in that episode I defended supplements as a wonderful thing because they add variety and flavor to a game, giving players and game masters ideas for their games. But recording that episode reminded me of how much I love to just sit back and read a supplement filled all kinds of flavor and ideas and enjoy the thoughts of characters and adventures presented in those books. I had not done that in so long, and I am doing that again and am enjoying every moment of it.

Do you love Pathfinder as much as I do? Share your love in the comments below.

If you are sticking with Pathfinder 1e because you love this game as much as I personally do, check out our books at the JBE Shop, DriveThruRPG, Paizo, and the Open Gaming Store. with the GM’s Day sale going on now, you can grab our books for up to 40% off the regular price. Grab our books today.