Forums/Pathfinder Second Edition: General Discussion: Asked A Friend Why They Always Get Drawn Back To *competitor*

You know the one. As in you know the competitor, not you know my friend. They prefer Pathfinder's systems, that less rules require GM fiat, that most Pathfinder players can focus a bit more, other brown-nosery things. Their end-all, be-all major reasoning, one they came to after hours of mulling it over? Settings. They appreciate that Golarion is so fleshed out and expanded upon, but they like the idea of so many worlds or planes. Obviously, I pointed out that there are planes and other worlds in Pathfinder (amd Starfinder, don't worry, ad team, I'm a shill), but they said that's not what they mean. Not the presence of interconnected and overlapping places, but the idea of having wholly separate places with their own lore, takes on existing material, and so on. That there's 20 different interpretations of what an elf is before even getting into other types of elves within the same setting, that so many are responses to the very tropes or cliches that were already present or even established by that very game, expanding on or playing with content to branch off into unique takes that are still within the working order of the universe (and system) while offering something fresh or at least a little different until they want to go back to the "normal" elf in the "main" setting. That they always go back to "home" but enjoy seeing the "world," as it were. Hell, one of their favorite aspects of the "main" setting, they said, is that almost every adventure seems to take place within about a thousand miles with only the occasional globetrotting because they enjoy the idea of such massive scale meaning there's so much more of the world left to explore. Bringing up the Inner Sea or the existence of literal planets was just met with a shrug. So, basically, they seem to like starting new games in the equivalent of modpacks and exploring a little bit, seeing that there's potentially infinite of that world still left, finishing an adventure, and then go off to find another modpack to do it all over again. Same game, new vision. As far as I can understand it, at least. I think that's fascinating and wanted to know if anyone else has come across a player or group that has a similar approach or preference? Where what they like isn't merely character creation - I'm sure we all know somebody who enjoys a bit of theorycrafting, whether for fun or for glory - but world exploration without necessarily expanding on said world(s) beyond a rare revisit.