I started off with DND 5E and still enjoy it, but I started playing Pathfinder 2E a few months ago and just adore it. I think it’s a better system overall and would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys TTRPGs. It’s complicated, probably more so than DND, but it’s worth it imo. The three-action economy, four degrees of success, and sheer amount of character customization are my favorite features.
I’ve played a pretty broad variety of characters. Mechanically, my favorite was my first ever character–a draconic sorcerer. I like blowing stuff up, what can I say. Roleplay-wise, it’s a tie between my swashbuckler rogue and my celestial warlock. All of those were in DND, since I haven’t been playing PF for very long. I’ve liked every character I’ve played, but I tend to enjoy characters with high CHA the most.
Right now, I’m playing a DND campaign and two PF campaigns. My characters are a grave domain cleric, a barbarian with the titan wrestler archetype, and a champion with the sorcerer archetype.
I’ve also played a little Dungeon World and a tiny one-shot called (iirc) The Witch Is Dead. One of my DMs is getting into Daggerheart, so I may be picking up a game in that system soon. I think I may play a rogue.
Tell me about your TTRPG experiences!
I’m not a perpetual DM but I’m the default among my friends. I’ve played D&D editions since 2e in school, up to 5e. I’ve also played some PF, WoD (mage and an ill-fated werewolf campaign) Fate, Gurps, Paranoia and a few others I’ll trim from this list for brevity.
I got fed up with D&D over decades failng to make martial characters feel impactful and interesting, magic characters having overly broad ranges of abilities that obviate martial characters, and with how long it takes for character ability to overpower randomness in the d20 system in general. I ended up writing a far future science fantasy setting and associated fate-like ruleset that I’m running now in a playtest to moderate success. I wrote out a custom VTT character sheet with automated dice rolls and math to ease my players into things, and I got a lot of engagement from them that’s helping me polish.
I’ve always preferred homebrewing for the surprise it brings but I bit off… a lot with this approach. Chewing it is proving difficult. Being able to say yes to my players ideas more often and fleshing out noncombat play more feels worth it though and I’m having a lot of fun.
On the “ding D&D” front…
I don’t really like TTRPGs, though I’ve enjoyed playing CRPGs based on TTRPG systems, and one improvement that I liked about a number of systems — like Fallout’s GURPS-inspired system — is that each stat point feels a lot more meaningful.
I mean, in theory, having each stat point have a small impact should mean that there’s just more precision permitted for by the system. But in practice, I like having a character change feel meaningful, change how I play. Slightly tweaking a tiny number a hair up just doesn’t have the same appeal to me, even if doing it repeatedly does eventually have a meaningful cumulative effect.