Running a campaign for newbies.


Rise of the Runelords


Hi all, as the title says, Saturday I am running a first time game for 2 players, one player who is vaguely familiar with PnP RPGs, and one who's played a handful of times.

I want to lay out my thoughts here and see if I can get some help / advice from some more experienced GMs.

I am starting with the beginner set, using the pregen characters to teach everyone how to play.

I am giving the option of rolling a custom character afterwards, or else keeping the loot from the beginner's box and advancing the pregens.

After the beginner box module, I am going to probably return them to Sandpoint, and get them to "retrieve a holy flame for the opening ceremony of the new temple" - Basically this means that they will be running the Crypt of Everflame and then rolling right into the goblin attack to kick off Rise of the Runelords upon their return.

I want to keep track of their XP and level them at my pace in order to run side modules in between the main campaign of ROTRL. Does anyone have any suggestions for good low level modules that I can keep them doing small yet rewarding adventures as they become the heroes of Sandpoint to build up the ties to town that would make them the people the sheriff and mayor would keep seeking out to advance the runelords story?

One thing I am thinking of changing to the ROTRL is to swap out the red dragon in the path for a reappearance of Blackfang from the beginner box.

Any help or advice is appreciated, thanks!


I'd highly suggest Feast of Ravenmoor. Its a 3rd level moduel but it starts out in Magnimar assuming the players have gained some nortoriety. So with some slight regiggering of encounters it would probably work well at the end of book 1 of ROTRL


1 person marked this as a favorite.

I used Feast of Ravenmoor at the end of book 1 in my RotRL camp, and it went great.

I recommend this thread, Haldir has a nice list of modules and add ons for all levels of RotRL.


Modifying Hollow's Last Hope is an idea I've been kicking around. Its a first level adventure set in a town smaller than Sandpoint (if I remember right) where the party is sent out to find the ingredients to a cure for a disease that is sweeping through the population.


Thanks guys, great stuff. Do you think the idea of just leveling them as appropriate instead of tracking xp is good for a beginner group?


For this, you might just as well level them as you want, unless they like to know how close they're getting to levelling, and so will need to see their xp. Doing without the calculations for xp will save you effort, and should stop them metagaming it, should that be an issue.


I have a slew of new people, nearly all of which are new to pathfinder, well over half of which are completely new to RPGs. Also running Runelords. I'm leveling them when appropriate and so far no one has had issues with it, though some of the younger guys have shown signs of a video game mentality where they're expecting rewards for kills. Hasn't been an issue yet, as no one has been acting entitled, just some confusion on how table top RPGs work, or at least how things are ran at my table.

Honestly it could go either way. New people might be overwhelmed by having to track xp, or they might get it in their head to kill everything and ask questions later unless you're going out of your way with the story rewards...or on the other hand they might feel that they're not seeing any return for their efforts.

Having plaid in campaigns where the GM leveled us as needed, one thing I noticed that I didn't like was a very arbitrary advancement. Having not gone through and calculated myself, I can't say for sure, but I will say it definitely seemed as though some levels took an awfully long time, while others came rather quick. Just something to keep in mind. I've tried to be very upfront with my group about how close they are to when they're going to level, and been trying to keep a careful eye on demeanors during and after the game to see if people are frustrated with their progression.

Grand Lodge

Something that might be fun for your players...

Run the basic adventure to get them familiar with things...

Then run We Be Goblins, a FREE PDF module where the players are goblins near Sandpoint. They get to have FUN as "bad guys," and explore the insanity that is goblins!

Then bring them into Rise of the Runelords, either with their first characters or brand new ones that meet their old characters in Sandpoint.

For XP, there are a couple of choices. First the AP is designed for FAST XP so you can either slow it down and award actual XP, or Second you can just level them up by GM fiat when they are supposed to. I prefer GM fiat... SO MUCH EASIER!


Gm fiat was my thought , for, two reasons. One, I can run more level one and 3 modules that way, and second, it gives them time to learn the game before having to learn a bunch of been powers if i fast level them as the path says to.


Honestly, in my opinion, there really isn't a need to track XP anymore since the rules have done away with things that cost XP (i.e. no XP loss for item creation, etc.) As you say, this allows you to add in extra quests, adventures, etc. without worrying about having to rewrite everything in the later books because now your party is too high a level.

The only real trick is, as Fraust indicates, to make sure that your leveling progression does not appear to be arbitrary. As long as you more or less designate spots ahead of time for where to level the group up though you should be ok. Essentially level ups become story rewards.

The thing I particularly like about leveling up without XP is it really does make it easier for the GM to let the PCs play in the sandbox. There's no worry if the PCs decide they want to go and hunt down more goblins, or dire boars, etc. Using an XP system, the GM might be tempted to steer the party back on course in order to avoid awarding too much XP and thereby making the party too powerful. Here though, you can let them hunt down those other critters, or follow those other leads and simply reward them with minor treasure, etc. Players feel like they got something ("Hey, this goblin had a neat little set of loaded dice!") and the GM doesn't have to worry about her campaign getting blown apart.


Here is one reason FOR keeping XPs: You can use experience points as rewards to players who effectively roleplay or have some truly innovative ideas. I've had players absolutely surprise me during the game. And sometimes they act truly in character even when it might harm them otherwise (for instance, if players returned all the treasure captured by the ogres in the Runelords campaign to the Black Arrows). In these instances the XPs serve as a means of encouraging this sort of behavior in the future.


That is one thing I occassionally miss from using standard experience, but at the same time I found a lot of the time the rewards were heavily biased. In the ogre example, would neutral or evil PCs get the same reward for returning the goods? If so, why? Not trying to attack your game Tanget. Just an example.

I do like it for particularly good ideas, but normally I prefer to think the fact that a particularly good idea is what means the difference between a success and failure on a particularly dangerous undertaking. So it becomes it's own reward.

That being said, I do like to support people acting in character, and support the party interacting with NPCs and all that. I told my group's cleric he and father Zantus could do a small ritual with the cloak of bones found in boneyard, to purify the necromantic item...and that it would give him a small boon (by small I mean small, it is after all an expended necromantic item...I'm thinking a +1 on a cure spell result, usable once). Mostly to encourage him, being a good cleric, to do so with other items later on. Items the party's fetchling slayer might be interested in...

I'm also going to be looking up the NPC boons, though I forgot which book they're in.


Bear in mind that xp is not the only reward the PCs will get from side quests. They will presumably get (or at any rate, expect) treasure, which will make them correspondingly more powerful. But provided you keep a handle on that you'll be OK.


There are other ways to reward pc's for playing well; reputation, contacts and such are some other ways to encourage the pc's to play in character or keep coming up with good ideas.

"Why, you must be the heroes who slew the ogres! I heard you even returned the stolen loot to the Black Arrows - 1st round of drinks is on the house for such brave and noble heroes!".....


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Tangent101, I'm actually using hero points for rewards. It might make them a bit unbalanced, but it gives them more options to do heroic stuff. The beginner module went pretty good, so I'm setting them up for the crypt next game after the holidays.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, especially on modules to run.

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder Adventure Path / Rise of the Runelords / Running a campaign for newbies. All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Rise of the Runelords