Pathfinder Second Edition Readthrough, Part 2: The Introduction to the introduction, where I decide to get angry at a stubby-nosed dragon.

Disclaimer: I was not a fan of the PF 2e dev diaries, or of the play-test. This does not mean I'm going to do nothing but bash this book, and I legitimately hope to be pleasantly surprised, but keep in mind this read-through is likely to be very biased. A fair bit of it is also for comedic purposes. It is by no means a declaration that people should not play PF 2e, that people are wrong for enjoying it, or anything along those lines.

Chapter 1: Introduction

Section 1: More Art, and actual text. Hoorah!

Two more pieces of art on the way to this chapter from the end of the table of contents, including a two-page spread. Honestly I hope this is not indicative of the rest of the book, because I am not a trained artist. Anyway, since I will critique them despite that, the first piece of art is a trio of Iconics facing off against some Kobolds while a giant insect that I think is an off-brand Umber Hulk bursts through the far wall. Considering we have yet to see the iconic four man party I will hope that it's just the druid's animal companion, in which case 2e gets points for handing off-brand Umber Hulks out as animal companions. (Yes I know it's a giant beetle). As another note, some of the kobolds are fighting the heroes with slingshots...I suppose anything is a challenge at 1st level.

The next piece of art has some fluff text to go along with it, three heroes again (Not even a four person party? This group must get wiped a lot). Them vs a necromancer (not pictured here) and his group of zombies.  It's a classic scenario (If a tad annoying in actual play because of sheer numbers an length of time to resolve, especially if they never actually pose an actual threat), and the artwork is nice and moody, complete with dagger going right into a zombie's eye...which spurts blood for some reason. Despite being zombies from a 'forgotten battlefield'. Eh. The necromancer is the Whispering Tyrant, which is a nice callback to Tyrant’s Grasp, the last 1^st edition adventure path.

Anyway, onto the actual introduction, and PF 2e immediately starts by saying that the game is one of your and your friends gather to tell a tale of heroes and villains, with an emphasis on character choice. Decent intro. I'm a gray and gray guy but this is fine.  Anyway, Pathfinder takes place in the Age of Lost Omens, which from what I can tell doesn't actually involve Omens. It's your typical TTRPG fantasy universe, Anicent empires, sprawling city-states, and countless dungeons of various types. No words yet on if the steampunk gun country is around and how nobody else has those guns yet. Or if that portal to world war 1 Russia is still closed. World fluff will hopefully answer that, otherwise I get to sic my zombie dieselpunk communists on my group and have it work in-universe.

The What is a Roleplaying Game section is the usual bit, talking about how it's a group of Player Characters and a Game Master set in adversarial roles against each other. While personally I hate that it's always adversarial, fine, this is how RPG's have been defined for decades. We go from this to a definition of the flow of the game, which really just says that stories can be one or multi-session and can be straight fighting or a mixture of all kinds of encounters and interactions outside of fight.

We then get a definition of players, as the people besides the GM who only controls one character in the world and shares the role of protagonist with every other PC. It also suggests this for first time players, so that's good. The GM section also does a good job, and doesn't focusing on being an adversary to your players, which is good. It also covers the social contract, that everyone has fun, which is also fine. It then covers the additional resources you will need as well, which is around what you expect.

We have two side bars, one is on the dice needed to be used in the game, which is fair. The second is rule zero: If you don't like a rule, just change it and don't worry about it. As is I will set that on fire and leave it on the road to be run over by a car in the night, because obviously the best way to cover possibly bad rule design is make your customers design the game for you.

We also have every two pages a picture of the dragon's head from the cover in the upper left. This accomplishes two things. First, it makes it look like the dragon is trying to set the contents of the pages on fire. Second, it's a constant reminder of why I hate stubby nose horns on dragons. Also, it’s beady orange eyes. Also the fact that it doesn’t look like it has an upper jaw. Why did I give this artwork a pass on the title page again?