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I am going to repeat myself a bit here, but I don't think I'm alone in that fault :)
Confessions: in the past I have
1/ Fudged some damage rolls or ignored some crits in the case of a brand new group, or someone starting new characters after a TPK.
2/ Changed tactics of some intelligent foes when the listed ones are invalidated by PC actions (eg not cast a Summon when the caster is surrounded by Pathfinders; use that handy Firestorm that's listed nowhere in the suggested tactics, but fits the spirit)
However, I usually roll openly, and stick pretty tightly to the script.
Changing anything in a scenario is something that should be done sparingly, and with great caution.
First, I know that everyone posting here is incapable of error ;) but there are GMs out there who are not. And carte blanche to change scenarios sets a very bad precedent.
Second, I think that people have to stop focusing so much on individual scenarios/encounters, and look at the campaign as a whole. The scenarios are designed to get progressively harder as you increase in level, not just an increase in CR but a relative increase in CR. So if a GM decides to make an encounter in a low-tier scenario more "challenging", it may not have an immediate impact on the group, and may have the desired effect of making that adventure more fun. However, the cumulative effect may cause characters to burn through more expendible items, more gold, more PA. So by the time they get to the level where they are playing the scenarios which are already designed to be more challenging, they have fallen behind on the expected wealth/item curve. And that can go very badly.
Lastly, I still believe that players should have similar experiences when going thru the same scenario. Obviously, the sub-tiers and varying GM styles will stop the experience from being equal, but I hate it when players are talking about their same level characters playing a scenario and they faced entirely different challenges.
My unofficial, unsanctioned opinions :)
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I think we all do this, but it doesn't help with walk-ins. The worst thing you can do is turn away a potential new player who didn't read our attendance/signup sites. That player may never try to play again.
I also put a lot of planning into my sessions. I have a Warhorn site and make sure that players understand that X GMs means Y seats. I make sure that I advertise well in advance, and I organize player/GMs who are ready to run a module at a moment's notice, but who can play if not enough players show up. Yes, this kind of thing requires planning, but it's a good way to mitigate large table sizes.
For the record, we had a rookie show up outta the blue in the middle of our game.
He sat down with us, created his character, and showed up at the next session.
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Andrew Christian, Callarek, Ogre, you all make good points, but I'm not sure if we're talking apples to apples. The essence of what i am saying is that the GM must be both prepared and flexible.
Preparation...
If you are well-versed in the scenario and know what the main theme is, along with the build and tactics of the encounters, then you can predict, to some extent, what the typical PC's actions might be. Of course you cannot forecast all of them, but you can have contingencies for many of the potential issues.Flexible...
The party mix has more impact on the play of a scenario than anything else, IMO. So you have to be ready to adjust to any eventuality. Sometimes, this will require a change in tactics by the party's enemies. Sometimes, it might force a change in the relationship between acts, NPC's, etc. In a very rare occasion, it might require that you adjust a stat block slightly. We all seem to agree, however, that this is the most dangerous of the "free-lancing" and should be avoided whenever possible.This being said, IMO, the most important job of the GM is to provide an enjoyable game to the players. If your group is a "roll" playing group and they steam-roll all the encounters, did they have fun? Maybe, maybe not. Or if they prefer "role" playing, perhaps some of the combats can be handled cinematically so they can focus on more NPC interactions.
I see no hubris in applying your experience as a GM to attempt to provide the players an appropriate challenge and, hopefully, an enjoyable, stimulating gaming experience. As a matter of fact, we have an entire GM board with threads for nearly every scenario discussing how to implement and improve, i.e. "free-lance" the encounters to make them work so the players get maximum enjoyment.
I agree that PC death must be a real potentiality (i.e. no softballs). However, it should occur for legitimate reasons. Things like luck/unlucky dice, bad tactical decisions, poor PC builds, etc. It should not occur because the challenge is beyond the...
TK, if I get what you are talking about:
You are essentially talking about being prepared and flexible. Both excellent traits for a GM.
In those two paragraphs, nothing you said (except modifying stat blocks) would I consider freelancing. Obviously, the only thing you can be assured that players will do, is something you hadn’t counted on. As such, you have to take those things into account in how you have your NPC’s interact with them. This isn’t freelancing. This is using the rules of the game insofar as the rules cover social interaction.
But the flexibility of a GM should stop at a certain point. There is a line that crosses into freelancing that I don’t think (my opinion of course) is ok. If casting a summoning spell is in the tactics for the main bad guy on round 2, but in round 2 that would be suicide, it makes perfect sense to not have the bad guy do that. I don’t think anyone would expect a GM to follow the tactics so close to the letter that they allow encounters to be self-defeating. If the PC’s find a creative way to get around an encounter socially that is designed to have no social interaction, the Pathfinder Society guide suggests you find a way to allow this. That again, is not freelance, because the rules of the game allow for it.
But when you actually start changing the way the module is written, because you think you know better. That’s where hubris sets in, and it is definitely a slippery slope. I’m not saying that some of these changes make for a more enjoyable table for some players or that some of the changes might actually be for the better. But for equity across the entirety of the organized play environment, this shouldn’t happen.
Sorry, if a module sucks, it sucks. And it should be allowed to stand on its own merits. Within the rules of the game and within the confines of how the module is written, do what you can as GM to make it enjoyable. I’ve done so, and been lauded by players for giving them an enjoyable time even though they thought the module sucked.
But I don’t feel there are any excuses for freelancing outside what the rules of the game actually ask you to do.
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I don’t feel there are any excuses for freelancing outside what the rules of the game actually ask you to do.
After 153 posts, this is what I am trying to understand. When does "expected variation" become "freelancing?" That interpreted line seems to differ depending on whom you ask.
Is changing tactics in preparation to the game considered bad, but changing them in response to PC actions is okay?
If the party at your table has no way of gaining the clues to follow the scenario plot because none of them have the relevant skills, what do you do? Do you let them fail on their own merits (or lack thereof)? Or do you create NPC's that give them, for free, what other PC party's had to earn?
These are mostly rhetorical questions and I am not necessarily asking for them to be answered directly. Just thinking out loud. Outside of the obvious stat block changes, what do you (the community) think constitutes "freelancing?"
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After 153 posts, this is what I am trying to understand. When does "expected variation" become "freelancing?" That interpreted line seems to differ depending on whom you ask.
Agreed, this is the crux of the matter.
Is changing tactics in preparation to the game considered bad, but changing them in response to PC actions is okay?
My opinion, yes.
If the party at your table has no way of gaining the clues to follow the scenario plot because none of them have the relevant skills, what do you do? Do you let them fail on their own merits (or lack thereof)? Or do you create NPC's that give them, for free, what other PC party's had to earn?
I try to give them an alternative way of doing so, but wouldn't create an NPC. I might use the ones already placed to give it to them. In the end, the PCs chose to bring the character they did. It may be unfortunate that a certain group of people who lack the required skills got sat together, but in the end it was their player choice to create who they did.
These are mostly rhetorical questions and I am not necessarily asking for them to be answered directly. Just thinking out loud. Outside of the obvious stat block changes, what do you (the community) think constitutes "freelancing?"
Just giving my opinions. Perhaps the new guide will have more info on where we can stretch the rules as judges. As was posted above, there are those that will go so far as to ensure characters always survive, and there are those that will let the dice fall where they may. The dichotomy of the two doesn't sit well with me. IC actions should have IC repercussions, even if the action was simply deciding not to go in stealth and you wander into a horrible situation.
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I don’t feel there are any excuses for freelancing outside what the rules of the game actually ask you to do.
After 153 posts, this is what I am trying to understand. When does "expected variation" become "freelancing?" That interpreted line seems to differ depending on whom you ask.
Is changing tactics in preparation to the game considered bad, but changing them in response to PC actions is okay?
If the party at your table has no way of gaining the clues to follow the scenario plot because none of them have the relevant skills, what do you do? Do you let them fail on their own merits (or lack thereof)? Or do you create NPC's that give them, for free, what other PC party's had to earn?
These are mostly rhetorical questions and I am not necessarily asking for them to be answered directly. Just thinking out loud. Outside of the obvious stat block changes, what do you (the community) think constitutes "freelancing?"
Rhetorical, but excellent questions.
Where is the line? I'm not sure I'm entirely qualified to answer that. I do have a bunch of experience as a player (not nearly as much as some) and GM (not nearly as much as some) and as a developer/coordinator for a living campaign. As such, I can tell you from a player's perspective, that I want my decisions to matter. If I make crap decisions, and you as a GM did a great job, I just screwed up, I should take the consequences of that.
If as a GM, your freelancing to create a more challenging encounter ended up killing my character, I'd be pissed as all get out. I've played in a 0-slot game before, where the writer of the module ran the game. We were portaled to another world (this was Living Dragonstar before I became coordinator) and had to figure out the computers to get back or we'd die by the hands of an orc horde. Well during the battle in the computer center, one of the players tossed a grenade in.
Without even looking up the rules for how an item might take damage from a grenade, he ruled the computers were ruined and we had no way to get back to our world, and so it was a TPK. I was pissed.
If as a GM, I see a module that's really, really poorly designed, I'd probably ask not to run it. If it was for a game day that I wasn't coordinating, and the coordinator asked me to run that module, I'd prepare as best I could to create an enjoyable event, but I'd run the module as written as best I could. Why? Because that is what is expected of me. Not every GM would "freelance" the same way, and if one freelanced an easy module with no chance of character death, and another freelanced a difficult module with increased chance of character death, how is that fair to the 8 to 14 people playing at those two tables? I'd be pissed as a GM at the writers and at the developers for allowing such a crap module to make it live, so to speak. But I'd do my best to run it as written.
IMHO if a module is written where solving it is dependent on a skill roll, then its a very, very poorly designed module. Would I freelance this? No. Rules of the game indicate that if the players come up with a creative way to solve the encounters, then you reward them by allowing them to solve the problems and give them full reward for doing so. As such, rules of the game allow GM's to determine if the players have come up with a suitable work around for this type of design flaw. now of course its your call as to what may or may not constitute a creative enough work-around. And of course, without adding or subtracting from the module, you can always try to nudge the players into making creative decisions.
As a coordinator or developer, I'd be embarrassed if a module, by design, created a situation in which it couldn't be solved because of a skill roll or lack of particular piece of equipment. I took my job as coordinator (I was the module editor and in charge of assigning writers) very seriously, and would rewrite these types of issues in modules. And if any of these types of situations made it through my microscope, I was embarrassed by them. If the module ran fine as written, and a GM freelanced it because they liked their version better, I wouldn't ask that person back to GM at conventions again (or at the very least I'd caution them not to do that anymore.) As coordinators and developers, we know that modules are typically designed certain ways for particular reasons, and those reasons can't always be illuminated within the modules. We hope that the GM's trust us enough to know that we can't divulge all the secrets to them and that they will run the encounters as written. There may be a particular clue in the way a module is written, for subsequent modules. If as a GM, you go and change those things because you think they are silly or poorly written, you might ruin the clue for the players for those subsequent modules.
So, as such, you have to be very careful about crossing that line. Where is it?
I'm not sure where the line is exactly, but I do know that if you do your best, no matter how poorly the module seems to be written, to stick with the module as written, you will be less likely to cross the line than if you allow hubris to take over and think you know better.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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First level human fighters get 3 feats (1 has to be a combat feat).
True. Well now I fell silly.
So I guess my trouble is that I don't see what is funny or strange about this then:- 1st level Fighter with Power Attack, Furious Focus and Step Up
What is so funny about taking three legal feats? They all have +1 BAB as a requirement.
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First level human fighters get 3 feats (1 has to be a combat feat).True. Well now I fell silly.
So I guess my trouble is that I don't see what is funny or strange about this then:
- 1st level Fighter with Power Attack, Furious Focus and Step Up
What is so funny about taking three legal feats? They all have +1 BAB as a requirement.
The feat combination is a bit... funky.
And adds yet another build the local GMs have to "bear in mind" when they try to prep alternatives depending on what the PCs will do.
This build makes life ... difficult ... for the normal run of casters, since they can't just 5' step to cast, then, even at 1st level.
Which brings up one of my pet peeves, and I admit that I sometimes fall into this trap, although I try not to: Meta-gaming the PCs' abilities when you GM.
Example:
NPC Cleric gets tripped by one PC, then another PC wielding a pole-arm winds up standing next to the prone opponent. Prone cleric has not, yet, seen the pole-arm wielding PC making unarmed attacks as AoOs, but the GM has seen this tactic earlier in the mod.
Cleric decides to cast defensively while remaining prone. Why? Normal pole-arm wielders wouldn't be able to make AoOs against adjacent targets.
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Remember that, under normal rules, a table can consist of anything from 3 PCs and a pregen through 7 PCs (ignoring those GMs who dislike 7 player tables, or exercising the option of splitting 7 players into two tables with 3 PCs and a pregen each...), and that the PC mix, ignoring the pregens, could go anywhere from a basic "classic" group of 4 (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue & Wizard) through a party of 7 characters all from the same class (whether or not they also have the same build is another question).
Second table I ever GMed for PFS (ran Master of the Fallen Fortress) for a party consisting of 1 Paladin, 1 Rogue (who had to leave half-way through), and 3 Bards.
That was interesting, lol.
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Which brings up one of my pet peeves, and I admit that I sometimes fall into this trap, although I try not to: Meta-gaming the PCs' abilities when you GM.
IMO, this is not a freelance issue and the GM should know better. If you, as the GM, cannot separate in-game vs. out-of-game knowledge, don't expect your players to either.
In a home-game environment, I occasionally design a BBEG with the player's abilities/weaknesses in mind. It can be good to take them out of their comfort zone and make them use alternate tactics. Of course, their opponent will not meta-game the knowledge. He is either aware of the party, having observed them in some fashion, or is just built with certain tactics in mind.
However, I never do this in OP. The stat blocks stand on their own and I only make adjustments to that when there are mechanical errors in the data. In the example of the barbarian, although it pains me, I have not changed his weapon choices the four times I have run the scenario. The tactics of his supporting staff have been slightly different each time I've run it, but that is due to vastly different approaches by the PC's.