Tabletop Gaming

As a D&D hater, I don't think this is a problem of the game, or even of the forums. Your partner doesn't seem like the kind of person that can handle someone disliking something they like, and considering everything that has been happening in the past few years - or really, ever - with Wizards of the Coast and D&D, there's no place where you won't find people - rightfully - criticizing it.

If he truly loves it, just find people with similar taste and play with it them, taking opinions from random online folks so seriously to the point of considering dropping his hobby is a terribly harmful outlook, and not just centered on tabletop gaming.

Agreed that there are folks who are toxic towards 5E in PF2E forums and that that's not ideal. Your partner is absolutely correct about that.

The thing to keep in mind is that that's not a solvable problem, at its root. Complaining about toxicity in online forums is like complaining that rain is wet - you can't stop it from being so, no matter how much you wish things were different. Which is not meant to be dismissive of your partner's accurate observation but moreso shift his mindset from "this is unfixable" to "what can I do to make my experience better?"

So if we assume that online toxicity is something your partner or you are unable to do anything about, what are things you actually can do?

Mainly, your partner can address how he reacts to that toxicity. Take on the mindset that, "These are internet strangers! Their opinions aren't truth!" And I'm not trying to say that he should completely ignore these people; some of them likely have valid opinions. In fact, he both can and should do his own research and, most importantly, develop his own opinions.

Someone says that "5E is just for auto-win stuff"? Okay, does that match his experience? Has he ever been challenged in his games? Seen a PC die? If he has then maybe that random internet stranger is wrong.

Someone says that WotC is a shitty company? Okay, do some research. Damn, they hired the Pinkertons to go after someone? Maybe they're not actually a company your partner wants want to give money to.

And so on. Maybe the simplest way to do this is, when your partner tells you, "I read someone being mean about 5e" you just ask, "Do you agree with them?"

I think the main issue with 5E is that it's so dominant and well-known people have been trying to make 5E into the game they want rather than seek a system more similar to their desires. 5E can be difficult, but at the many tables I've played at it's almost guaranteed every party member will survive almost everything to preserve the narrative. It's a system as forgiving as the table wants, and the table usually wants it to be forgiving.

It's easy for one person to learn an entire system, but it's easier for a DM to find players who already know 5E than to find a group of people willing to learn a new system. It can make people feel trapped by 5E.

Personally, I love the system but hate what Hasbro has done to the RPG community. While I'll still probably play 5E since I've already had it for years, any purchase I make in the future will be from a third party or from a different publisher.

There isn't one best tabletop RPG system, or one best edition of tabletop RPG system. There's nothing inherently better about using one system over another. The only real difference is your own preference.

Like, Pathfinder, the first one, is a really interesting and robust system. It's great if you know it, but if you don't know it there are a lot of pitfalls and trap feats built in, and it can be hard to make a character that keeps up with the curve if you don't know what you're doing. Kind of reminds me of Magic: the Gathering in that; lots of options that seem good out of context, but aren't really. That's fine for some groups, for others it's a lot of extra headache.

Does D&D 5e treat your characters as being more robust and capable than, say, AD&D 2e? Yes, absolutely. But like, even that is just the default behavior of the system. That factors in, but a competent DM can run a ruthless game in 5e too, it's just a matter of shifting the numbers.

If your partner feels like 5e is too much of a power fantasy for his tastes, I'd recommend trying Dungeon Crawler Classics. You generate a handful of random level 0 characters and take like 4 per player into a dungeon that's an absolute meat grinder for them. They progress, you add new level 0s if you need to, and you keep going. It's a lot of fun watching your shitty little level 0 farmer grow into a fighter or a wizard or something. DCC is an absolutely ruthless system though, so be prepared to lean into it.

On the other hand, there is still plenty of AD&D 2e material out there. Maybe more than 5e, I'm not really sure. It was pretty robust, though, and less forgiving than 5e without being quite as bad as DCC, but your little level 1 wizard with 4 health can still get one-shotted by pretty much anything.

Of course, you can always just tune these systems to do what you want. Want to play 2e but don't feel like figuring out how THAC0 works or ever bothering to calculate it? Great! Don't. Just slot modern AC and hit rolls in. Start AC at 10 and when 2e says to go down, go up instead. Whenever something would make your THAC0 go down, treat that thing as an attack bonus instead. Hey, check it out, we've just stumbled into 3e's Base Attack Bonus system.

Tabletop rule sets aren't a god for you to worship, they're a tool for you to make as flexible as you need it to be. Take the pieces you want, toss the pieces you don't, add your own stuff. That's how any of this stuff got made to begin with, and it's how it progresses.

Want to make 5e more ruthless? Design an injury system and implement it.

But don't just get sad that some people have some milquetoast criticism about the one edition you happen to have stumbled across first. Who cares? Check out some other systems and develop your own opinions and contexts.

I hope your partner sorts it out!

Everyone has their favorite system for tabletop gaming and some people like to define themselves by their hatred of other systems.

I've played a lot of systems. Savage Worlds, Gurps, ADnD, 3.5, Pathfinder, 4e, Pathfinder 2E, DnD 5E, the list goes on and on.

I do have preferences but I'm not going to hate on other systems.

Too many people can't seem to enjoy something without hating on other people's enjoyment of things.

This sounds like a difficult problem if he wants to continue browsing the Reddit community for pathfinder. I have seen these kind of people on D&D subreddits too, and it also put me a bit off trying pathfinder during the OGL drama.

Maybe there are other communities outside of Reddit that are able to provide the answers to questions, but I doubt you will escape this hate on the larger TTRPG subreddits.