(just try playing any boardgame more complicated than checkers with only 1 or 2 hours to spare)
I'm a big fan of machi koro. The original dominion also works well.
the rules being quick and snappy and most people only getting to roll dice once per turn makes for a much faster paced game without feeling like your brain turned into mush by the end of the session.
There are a bunch of faster paced games. It's why I added "worth playing" to the list of criteria. Tiny d6 plays fast and is super simple, but there's not enough depth to keep people playing for more than a few sessions. I like Knave, but my players don't, again finding it too simple to hold their attention for more than a few sessions. Then there's the refusal to play anything other than 5e we've talked about in the thread.
It really seems like there's a sweet point somewhere between the "complex" games like 5e, and "simple" games like Knave. Or maybe I should just stick to simple games exclusively?
How bad of an idea is it to DM Pathfinder 2e despite having little experience with it? I've played DnD 3.0, 3.5e, 5e, and Pathfinder WotR but not 2e. Reading the player core now and for the most part I like it (I think it's a little crazy that mixed ancestries can get TWO ancestral feats). Still going to be a little while but I was going to study the game til I feel comfortable with the rules. Was thinking for my first time on doing a quick session as a warm up, then moving on to a pre-made module. Afterwards running my own little adventure.
DMing PF2 is doable, provided you give the players some caveats before the game. For me, the main one is I can't help with characters. There are so many possible feats and options that can interact in strange ways that as a DM I throw my hands up and delegate that stuff to the players. Unlike 5e I can't be expected to know everything the PCs can do, so have to trust them to not take the piss.
The other major pit fall for me is conditions. PF2 has a bunch of nested conditions all written in legalese. This can result in a lot of page flipping as you find a spell that does X. X inflicts Y. For Y, see Z. Also, look up the rules for poison and disease, because I've been playing for over a year and I still think I'm doing it wrong.
For pre-made modules. Don't. Or do, but take the base concept and edit it. Paizo's modules are ridiculously over tuned, under tuned, poorly edited, and railroady. Modules from other games don't port 1:1.
- Over tuned. There are encounters that will wipe a party unless they play optimally AND roll well.
- Under tuned. Get the PCs slightly over level and everything is a push over.
- Railroady. Your party is expected to do specific things, in a specific way. Most are fine at first, but fall apart as they progress. Many such cases.
- Poorly edited. Each volume seems to be written by a different writer, who had little or no notes on what to do. Some are fixable (abomination vault) some aren't without a major re-write (outlaws of alkenstar).
- Porting. Some things are obvious problems. The economy of PF2 is different than other games, so treasure has to be completely re-done, or item prices need to use another game. Monsters also differ. Some are basically the same stat wise. Others aren't. A boar in 5e is cr1/4 trash, but a moderate tier threat to a level 2 party in PF2. So a simple random encounter can turn into a near TPK where the only survivor is the wizard who hid up a tree. Guess how I learned this.
That said, if you must go published, I can recommend the Otari series. It's the beginners box adventure, followed by some generic adventures (Trouble in Otari). They aren't special or unique, but they're simple, hard to fuck up, and give some elemental adventuring. I mixed them into Abomination Vault. I simply had the friendly NPC from Abomination Vault be kidnapped by the bad guy of the beginner box adventure.
