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I have some questions regarding the Classic PF Scenarios run at Gencon 2011.
1) How is the quality of storytelling and DMing compared to more "prepared" scenarios? The same (as a prepared scenario), slightly worse, or horrible (long delays while playing while DM reads scenario and/or major mistakes made that result in a TPK)?
2) How does it work in practice? If I sign up to one of these sessions, what are the chances you can request a scenario and everyone will be ok with it? (I'm talking "in general", it's obviously going to vary). Does everyone who signs up have a request and a lot of compromising has to be done?
Basically, I'm trying to figure out if I should be playing the "Shades of Ice" series or whether I should be doing some classics, classics that I'll be DMing for my home players in the near future. I'd rather play some of these scenarios first before I read them, for the fun value.
I'm DMing Throaty Mermaid in 2 weeks, and part of me wishes I had the chance to play it first. Ah well! I'm sure other DMs have had similar regrets.
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1) The players and GM should work to find a scenario that the players need to play AND the GM is prepared to run well. GM's are provided copies of all scenarios in advance and in theory should be at least familiar with all of them.
2) Last year I made signup sheets where I asked the players to check off what they've played. The players and GM can decide what to run based off what's left.
Last year there was only one classic table per slot. This year it ranges from 2 to 8 depending on the slot (Sunday has the most). The more tables available, the better your chances of playing what you want.
From a GM perspective, these tables can cause nightmares before the convention. However, once everything is decided, it generally isn't as bad as you fear.
We got rid of them at Origins this year because we found most players with classic tickets were new to the game anyway. So instead we'll just have extra GM's per slot ready to run some of the more popular low-level scenarios.
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Basically, I'm trying to figure out if I should be playing the "Shades of Ice" series or whether I should be doing some classics, classics that I'll be DMing for my home players in the near future. I'd rather play some of these scenarios first before I read them, for the fun value.
Also, you should see if you're available to play at Scotty's (Sports Bar) on Wednesday night. If you are, there's still plenty of time to request specific "classic" scenarios to be run.
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Josh (and I assume Hyrum) put the best of the best GMs at the Classic tables last year, and it goes a long way to making them eminently playable. Most of the 3 or 4-star GMs have run the scenarios at least once, which makes it a lot easier to run it on the fly. From the GM perspective, my game last year at a Classic table was well run.
How it worked at the table I played at is we sat down, discovered that the group ranged from level 3 to 6, and then the GM said "hmmm, that's quite the spread you have there, let me find a 1-7. Have you played The Voice in the Void?" When we all said no, that's the module we played. Unfortunately, two of the players at the table bullied the level 3 into playing up to tier 6-7, which I felt was particularly unfair to said player. Lucky we ran out of time and didn't die, although I still contend we probably would have.
Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau
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Thanks for clearing this up for me; I was assuming that this would be the place for a GM to offer a scenario he is familiar with(past experience!) to offer it to potential new players. I was looking forward to running any of the Blakros series in this forum. I guess it is still possible though!
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau
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I think the DM/GMs who had TPKs in the past few Paizo Cons and Gen Cons should run their respective TPK mods as a special challenge series.
So... I WOULD be running the Blakros series! Excellent! :)
Note: To be fair, my TPKs with them have been local... and legendary! I had to give them over to another GM for the last local convention in so as to not add to my reputation as a "killer GM"!