Tabletop games have seen a serious boom in recent years. As the hobby’s popularity skyrockets, every publisher strives to answer one crucial question: “How can I introduce new people to games?”. Pathfinder Quest, a board game inspired by the legendary tabletop RPG, is Paizo’s newest solution to the age-old problem of ‘onboarding’.
“Pathfinder Quest is meant to be a game that is very approachable”, Jason Bulhman, Paizo’s director of games, tells Wargamer. It’s a co-op fantasy adventure board game where one to four adventurers hack, slash, and talk their way through a campaign’s worth of scenarios.
Unlike the Pathfinder RPG, there’s no Game Master involved. Simply choose an interesting-sounding encounter on the map, decide how to resolve its conflicts, and flip through a tome of scenario outcomes to find out what happens next. It’s reminiscent of old-school choose-your-own-adventure games like Fighting Fantasy, with a little HeroQuest, Sleeping Gods, and Descent thrown in.
Unlike hefty dungeon crawlers like Gloomhaven, Pathfinder Quest aims to juggle strategic depth and ease of use. “You can sit down and make a character within four or five minutes and get playing shortly thereafter”, Bulmahn says, “but it is a game that’s designed to have a bit of tactical tooth to it.”
According to lead designer Joe Pasini, you don’t even need to read the rules before playing. “We have a tutorial adventure that you start off with”, he explains. “There’s two pages for making your character, which is a couple of choices, and there’s even pre-made characters if you want.” “People really can get right into it with minimal experience or knowledge.”
Pathfinder Quest is a very different beast from its older brother, the rich and rather complex tabletop RPG. You can still see the family resemblance if you squint, though. The board game uses the same three-action structure for its turns, and you’ll find nods to both lore and rules throughout. Plus, Pathfinder Quest is all about storytelling. Pasini says that the game constantly explores “the consequence of choice”.
This is most obvious in a resource that the board game introduces: time. “In every adventure, the actions that you take spend time”, marketing manager Rue Dickey explains. “There are consequences for taking too much time. Monsters may attack you, or something might burn down if you don’t work fast enough.” “But on the flip side of that sword, if you don’t take the time to help people on the road, if you don’t take the time to clear a path, there are consequences for those later”, they add.
Pathfinder Quest personalizes your adventure based on character choices like ancestry or background. It also offers plenty of decisions that can shape the outcomes of your campaign. “There’s no right answer”, Pasini says, “just what your group decides to do and what your story ends up being”. “I think that’s what will set this apart from a lot of other games.”
These slight similarities, coupled with Pathfinder Quest’s approachability, make it an ideal bridge between board games and roleplay. It’s a board game first, but it certainly sounds like a great stepping stone for roleplay-curious board gamers.
This is a trend we’ve seen plenty of in 2025, from Dungeons and Dragons‘ new, component-stuffed starter set to Daggerheart‘s card-based character creation system. Bulmahn reminds us that tabletop games haven’t always been this simple to get to the table – and roleplaying games are definitely taking notes from board games. “The easiest way to approach a play space is to make it simple, to make it tactile, to make it something that steps away from ‘here is a 300-page rulebook that you have to read and reference'”, he says.
“I love roleplaying games. I’ve loved roleplaying games since I was a child, and I have a deep passion for them, but I’m pretty honest with the fact that learning a new game can feel like homework.” “It’s a task”, he continues, “and it’s one that I happen to enjoy.” “But that doesn’t mean it’s what everyone enjoys, and it’s that barrier to entry that I think board games – and board-game-like presentations – are ready-made to step past. They get you straight to the fun.”
“Cards are very useful in that regard, as is a simple dice system”, Bulmahn says. “Make something visually appealing, with maps and miniatures, and create an environment that helps enable everyone’s imagination to get them to the play as quickly as possible. I think that approachability is an evolution in the tabletop industry over the past 40 or 50 years, and it’s a good thing to see.”
Despite being the most definitively ‘not a tabletop RPG’, Pathfinder Quest is particularly attractive to new roleplayers – perhaps even more so than Daggerheart or the new D&D starter set. Those systems still require a GM to show up and run the games. Thanks to Pathfinder Quest’s monsters, that daunting job is done for you.
Pathfinder Quest’s varied bestiary is also its biggest appeal for more experienced gamers. “Since this is a GMless game, monsters have an action list of things they can do”, Pasini explains. “We can tweak that to make things more difficult. For instance, there are some wolves that will specifically go after the lowest HP character. You really have to plan around that – or just watch the Wizard.” “Then there’s their special abilities that trigger randomly”, he adds. “Those can get really nasty. And, of course, if you roll poorly, things can go south very quickly.”
“There’s one encounter in particular that I’m pretty fond of”, Bulmahn says. “When you fight it, one of the monsters will yank one of the characters across the battlefield.” “You’ll be like ‘Oh no! Now they’re all by themselves, and we have to go save them’, and they’re in a tactically disadvantageous area.”
Beyond its campaign mode, Pathfinder Quest offers an endless adventure mode that randomizes its encounters. This challenging gauntlet gives you a chance to showcase your strategic thinking and see how long you can survive. “The margin of error vanishes as you go up in level”, Bulmahn explains. “You need to start planning things tactically if you’re going to succeed.”
Pathfinder Quest is crowdfunding over on Backerkit until October 18. The new board game – as well as its deluxe edition and hundreds of optional minis – have already raised over $500,000.
What do you think is the best gateway to the tabletop gaming hobby? Let us know in the Wargamer Discord. Or, for tabletop recommendations, check out our guide to the best board games around.