Wrunner
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 18
Preferred Game Systems: Star Wars (FFG), Fiasco, Wild Talents, Golden Sky Stories
Currently Playing: Pathfinder (because it's the unquestionable center and true means of roleplaying, according to my gaming group ... unfortunately)
Currently Running: Star Wars: Age of Rebellion (soon! ... just have to "solve" another dire Pathfinder campaign situation by swinging our swords at it enough times ... then it will be MY turn to GM!)
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Post by Wrunner on Apr 27, 2012 13:48:00 GMT -8
I was curious if anyone has had experience with the Pathfinder Adventure Paths as a GM.
As my gaming group has made the decision to "evolve" from 3.5 to Pathfinder, we elected to first try it out by playing the first chapter of an Adventure Path entitled, "Second Darkness." This will be our first store-bought/pre-designed campaign experience. For our 10 years of playing together every Sunday, we have always played in campaigns of the GM's original design.
I've been the GM, and we're just about to finish up this first chapter. I must say, it's been quite a unique brand of fun.
My initial assumption was that it was just going to be some good ol' straightforward gaming. Y'know, a typical here's-a-dire-setting-in-need-of-a-band-of-willing-heroes sort of thing. I absorbed the material, took notes, and envisioned how it would all play out. Fortunately for the sake of the campaign's depth, I was able to get started on this process months before we actually got playing, so I was really able to absorb the material. Pathfinder did a really good job of providing ample and interesting non-player characters and locations and their interplay/relationships in this harbor-city setting. Impressively enough, not all of them had a role in the Adventure Path, they were just there for the sake of the city's depth.
Even the city itself became a character, with a sort of "wretched-hive-of-scum-and-villainy" charm. This enabled me to roll with the PCs' whims. If they wanted to explore down this street and see who was in this building, I already knew who she was and the role/story she played in the city. The more I got to know my PCs, the more I've been able to interpret how the NPCs would view them. As a result, the more that we've been playing, the more that a sort of organic process has been taking place. The material provided by Pathfinder has been evolving and changing. Behind the screen, unknown to the players, they've been taking a part in the particulars. I've truly been surprised at the amount of collaboration that has occured with this pre-written adventure.
The biggest take away for myself as a GM from all this has been the strengthening of my willingness to just roll with it. I feel I've been able to do this each session with increasing ability, but - especially at the onset - I was so excited to present these scenes or encounters in a particular way, or I was so keen on not leaving out any detail, motivated by my enthusiasm for the material provided, that I would find myself getting bogged down.
"You know your NPCs, you know your town," I would tell myself. "Now let them take on a life of their own with your PCs and have fun with the excitement with how they can surprise you."
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SirGuido
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Posts: 2,127
Preferred Game Systems: L5R, Traveller, Fate Accelerated, Masks
Currently Playing: Nothing.
Currently Running: Nothing.
Favorite Species of Monkey: Anything in a Cage.
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Post by SirGuido on Apr 27, 2012 18:08:02 GMT -8
From what I can tell, having read a few AP's but never actually running one(though I have played in three now)... Paizo is very good at giving you lots of information and sketching out scenes then letting you fill in the blanks.
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Post by fray on Apr 28, 2012 9:17:16 GMT -8
I just finished the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path, almost 5 years long. I agree with what you're saying, the AP give you so much information. My party probably interacted with 75% of the NPC's and about 85% of the dungeon encounters/monsters. I also liked to put in my own custom material/encounters to enhance what was going on. A couple of times I added an encounter based on the party's table talk about the game, using the NPC's in the adventure path to integrate into the story better. It worked out really well.
I am currently in a Carrion Crown game that we just started. 1st level witch! (Going to multiclass with rogue.) I've read Rise of the Runelord and enjoyed the material. I want to read Legacy of Fire but I am hoping to play in it someday.
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Nolinquisitor
Journeyman Douchebag
Next Project: BrigadeCon, RPGS 2 Your Science Fantasy Toolkit Supersetting
Posts: 162
Preferred Game Systems: GURPS, M&M, 7th Sea, Cypher System
Currently Playing: Playing is for the weak.
Currently Running: Cypher System, D&D 5E + Freeport
Favorite Species of Monkey: Dr. Zaius
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Post by Nolinquisitor on Apr 28, 2012 17:44:53 GMT -8
Yep. Paizo do avery good job at giving you plenty so that you may use what you want. I have GM Rise of the Runelords (1, 2, 3 and 4) and Second Darkness (1 and 2). They were pretty fun and pretty personal after a while. I was able to inject in those AP enough stuff to make these mine and play with the story. So, how did your players reacted to Vancaskerkin's betrayal? My group didn't saw it coming and they were pretty pissed off. Vancaskerkin even managed to escape but he was later killed by Depora. My group's final duel with Depora on the Cyphergate at dusk, with her falling in flames into the bay, with seconds later the meteorite falling on the Devil's Elbow... was frikkin epic! Everyone had a good time.
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Post by ironnikki on Apr 30, 2012 7:02:46 GMT -8
I've played in a couple modules of Curse of the Crimson Throne, and read them after playing through them. I was very impressed with the level of detail they provide. I never finished the whole Adventure Path, but the group I was playing with is still going (I think this is the second or third year that they're playing it.)
Let me know how you like the witch, fray! I'm playing a witch who recently hit second level, and I'm still on the fence on whether or not I'm a fan, haha.
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Wrunner
Initiate Douchebag
Posts: 18
Preferred Game Systems: Star Wars (FFG), Fiasco, Wild Talents, Golden Sky Stories
Currently Playing: Pathfinder (because it's the unquestionable center and true means of roleplaying, according to my gaming group ... unfortunately)
Currently Running: Star Wars: Age of Rebellion (soon! ... just have to "solve" another dire Pathfinder campaign situation by swinging our swords at it enough times ... then it will be MY turn to GM!)
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Post by Wrunner on Apr 30, 2012 9:37:54 GMT -8
Séb, To answer your question, we just had the session last night dealing with Saul's betrayal! Leading up to this point, the party had really grown to like Saul for three key reasons: (1) Clegg Zincher's antagonizing and bullying Saul really rallied the players be on his side; (2) one PC has ambitions to someday start a shop for his bows and arrows, so he sympathizes with Saul's struggles as a businessman; (3) another player is especially good-aligned, and she is particularly invested in keeping Saul on the right path and not falling back into his old "gangster" ways. Leading up to the betrayal, I was having a really hard time envisioning my players just straight-up wanting to KILL Saul ... and even how to play Saul as a character who suddenly wanted to straight-up kill them. Saul is selfish, but this party of adventurers is quite a bridge to burn, y'know? While there is the notion that it was more or less Depora's pressuring Saul to betray them, I still felt there should be more motivating Saul's "addiction" to being such a chronic turncoat. Then I remembered Old Scratch. The Adventure Path doesn't really do anything with him as a character in the story, so I decided to develop him into a sort of Wormtongue to Saul. Using the combination of an Imp's telepathic abilities and his Suggest and Invisibility spells, Old Scratch worked in the shadows to keep Saul making those wrong decisions that would motivate is entrance to Hell upon his demise. In the Bestiary, this is described as an Imp's primary goal when meddling with mortals in the material plane. With all that said, the PCs returned to the Gold Goblin after the Boneyard Ambush and instead of kicking in the front door, they snuck in the back. They manage to get past all the guards unnoticed via the kitchen, and next thing I know, they're knocking on the door to the dining room upstairs. I had decided ahead of time that this is where Saul would be. After some great tense dialogue between the PCs and the guards in the dining room - with Saul succeeding on Stealth rolls as he hides under the table - one PC steps out to the catwalks and spooks one of the archers out there into combat. This in turn alerts the guards downstairs on the game floor into rushing upstairs. Saul hears the action break out and tries to make a break for it; he runs into another PC in the next room and darts off to his office, making to flee out the window. Just as he gets there, the good-aligned character mentioned earlier succeeds with a Charm Person spell. Saul fails his save. A conversation begins to unfold and Saul was about to reveal Depora's influence in the whole matter. At this moment, Old Scratch has had enough and - after his Suggest spell fails on Saul (Saul happened to roll a 20 on his save and yells out, "Get out of my head!") - the Imp decides to pull the plug on his mission of corruption with Saul, revealing himself from Invisibility as he stabs Saul in the back with his poison stinger. Saul lets out a scream just as the guards downstairs reach the upstairs hallway. So now for a few satisfying rounds, a brief pandemonium has broken out: Old Scratch is going ape-shit, fighting the PCs as he tries to make his escape, the guards down the hallway have heard Saul scream in pain and presume it's the PCs who are responsible and try to fight their way to him, and Saul has been severely drained of his DEX from Old Scratch's poisonous sting. I decided for those few rounds he'd be so sluggish that his attempts to call off his guards came out as little more than soft babblings. Eventually, though, the scene cooled down, Old Scratch was destroyed with a combination of a successful Daze Monster spell, and some successful attacks, and they all talked it out. Saul revealed the records of him funneling resources to "D.A." and lead them to the trap door leading to Depora's water caves. While it might seem kind of anticlimactic, I was satisfied that all that they had invested in Saul wasn't lost. He's still kind of in a tight spot: if the PCs fail, he's got Depora's wrath to worry about; if they succeed, he's gonna kinda be their bitch. hehe ... But all in all, I think it served to further amplify their motivation to confront this antagonistic force awaiting them below the Gold Goblin. As he stands looking down into the caves with the trap door open, Saul's last words to the party are, "PLEASE kill that bitch..." hehe We ended our session last night with them just entering the caves ...
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