Well, where to start...
Having discovered the old worn faded box of AD&D adventures, home-made puzzles/traps, story lines, and character sheets I felt inspired to find some other fellows with inner geeks dying to see the light of day.
I was surprised to find that it wasn't that hard to find people - all of which were already friends of mine! HUGE bonus... You don't know what characters you'll get with a Kijiji ad! YIKES!
Given that I spend WAY more time than I need to in running this adventure, I felt it would be really cool to log it somehow. Having read a bunch of campaign blogs here, I figured I'd give it a shot. (Props to NobodysHome for the encouragement) I mean WHY NOT add more work to my GM week ;) haha
For now, I'll just introduce the setup of our game, my approach to the AP, and next post I'll share the backgrounds of the characters. I'd do it all now but I'm just killing the 25 min before lunch!
(Roll Stealth vs. supervisor's Sense Motive)
THE SETTING - Our Adventure Room
We do the living room type game, two players one the sofa, one on the love seat, one in the rocking chair (the Barbarian LOVES to rock I guess!). A long coffee table houses the flip mat, markers, figurines (although using d6's and d8's is SO much easier to keep track of 8 goblins in the glassworks!). House rules and combat summary notes printed and stored under tha table as well as the Core Rulebook ($30 on Amazon - NEW!). I haul over the dining table, behind the GM screen, under my bad-ass triforce lamp (check it out on Etsy) - thus I've secured the raised sacred realm position in the room ;)
I use notes with info I create to complement the AP (most of my prep-time), a printed version of the Campaign book (thank you office resources!), my tablet running the android apps Masterwork Tools (full quick reference of Paizo materials) and "PF Battle" THIS Battle APP IS AMAZING!! Just try it out!! I use it to manage every encounter's initiate, damage, and hidden perception checks (just setup a battle with stats for Perception instead of initiative and VOILA)! All pre-loaded!
I've also got my mac hooked up to a 47" flat-screen where I display handouts, images of monsters, and maps. For maps I didn't want to just give it all away, so I opened the GM maps from the AP in a presentation program, and I just create objects to overlay the map. As the PCs choose where to go, I uncover a piece of the map - they LOVE it!
Oh, and I have the World of Warcraft soundtrack downloaded on my iPod which works great cause I find it's great ambiance music. I tried the LotR soundtrack but it wasn't the same. Too well recognized, to BIG too much perhaps?
Either way, that's the setting in which we all delve into the world of heroing, bashing, backflipping, and better-than-average-half-elf-cleric-ing. :)
UP HERE IN MY TREE - Into the Mind of the GM
I did A LOT of reading and prep before we had our first session - easily 40-60h. I read a lot on the rules, but specifically house rules and rules that were considered broken by some GM's. Paperandpencils.com had some great articles on skills, encumbrance, and consumables! There's an author C+ who I related to a lot.
With that, I've got a set of house rules which make encounters more FUN and less "Roll d20, here's your result". I spent A LOT of time adding more meat to the bones of the AP. I added playable gambling games, drinking and eating contests, strong man challenges, archery games, etc. All to give the open of the game a real festival feel - rather than just reading text and throwing fire and goblins into the mix.
But I'll get more into that on Post 3 I guess. For now, It's great to meet you... Hello? (echo) Oh...
See you soon!
To quote HangarFlying, WOOT!
If you need a little more variety in your music, try the soundtrack for Sacred Gold. They made it free to download, and also bundled it with any recent release of the game (whether on disc or via GOG).
Dot.
To quote NobodysHome, quoting HangarFlying, WOOT!