(DMing) What do you do when you stop caring?


Advice

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Liberty's Edge

So in my gaming group, my turn to DM is coming up in a couple of months. Initially I wanted to run a thing I called 'The Gear Wastes", a homebrew section of my, well, homebrew world full of industrial dwarven ruins inhabited by all manner of mundane creatures comprised of clockwork and metal.

And then (after several questions of "Oh I thought you were going to run something normal" and their previous "urgings" to run something premade and "normal") I opted instead to run the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path despite my dislike of premade adventures.

So I'm sitting here having sent a text to the players involved that, because I know that the players would inevitably come up with SOMETHING I'd object to, they have access to all the Paizo stuff and any 3rd party stuff they opt to use (provided they bring me a copy) with the only "no" being templates.

And honestly, I think it's because I just...don't care about the integrity of the Adventure Path. I mean, this is only the second actual long term gaming group I've been in, but at least two of the players make me want to leap across the table to pistol whip their teeth in and the rest....It's a bad group from what damn near everyone's said. And...I don't really care enough to take these paths seriously because I'd put money on the PCs not taking it seriously either.

So what can I do? The obvious answers that I'd like to acknowledge are 1) find a new group and 2) don't DM if you don't care, so I'd appreciate it if we could just bypass those two...


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At that point I would make it clear to my players that no, I won't run a "normal" campaign... They have to choose between my homebrew or find sone1 else to gm. I would let them know, that for me to have fun gm'ing I want freedom of creativity which I don't find running premade stuff...

I would offer a compromise that my weird ideas form the overall plot, but promising to put in "normal" scenarios...

Silver Crusade

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If you feel no enthusiasm for running CotCT you won't get through it. So basically it's pointless starting.

Your group wants traditional fantasy and that's OK. Traditional fantasy doesn't have to be boring.

My advice? Come up with an idea and pitch it to your players. The bottom line is that both GM and players need to have buy in to the game, otherwise it's not going to be fun.


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Well, it is burnout in some respects.
You want to run Your campaign, not some adventure path.

Tell your PCs that you've running your "The Gear Wastes" scenario, module, adventure path or campaign and then run it. If they don't want to play that then someone else can DM if you don't want to run a premade.

It sounds like your PCs take issue with your homebrews. Is there some sort of design flaw that they don't want to be exposed to?
For example: my homebrews tend towards brutal difficulty and severely punish stupid or characters that are over specialized in a non-combat role at the exclusion of his combat responsibilities. (E.G. someone who makes an old bard to get his Cha up to 22 and his int decent only to leave his physical statistics at 7, then uses his feat to take Skill Focus: Diplomacy. It is forgivable with a Wizard or a Sorcerer since that 22 would make them extremely powerful in a limited sense, but bards? I guess he can sing a lot.) Rests are something that has to be earned in an extremely hostile dungeon that is filled with recursive enemies—bloody skeletons are a favorite—that revive and often times hunt down the PCs afterwards. My content is not for the weak or faint of heart, however I do provide premades that can quite handily handle the hazards.

It boils down to this:
You must enjoy DMing to DM effectively. If you are miserable then that misery is holding you captive and breaking your legs, while demanding that you finish your work.
TTRPGs are a collaborative experience. Ask your players what they want in their game. Once you know this you can implement this into your homebrew.

So, TL:DR:
Ask why they don't want to play your homebrew. Correct issue within design. Ensure you have wonderful and memorable characters—an outrageous paladin who yells his lines and charges forward to smite evil with seeming infinite bravery and endurance is great, but when the PCs realize he is doing it to run away from that traumatic event in his past that haunts him relentlessly he becomes a character who is interesting—and have them show up every now and again to help the heroes win a difficult encounter. This can solidify the idea that the PCs exist in a living world, and it also allows that Diplomacy stacked character to try and convince these NPCs to join them for another battle, with a mandatory diplomacy check after each battle.


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Taku expressed perfectly what i would have suggested.


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Taku Ooka Nin wrote:

So, TL:DR:
Ask why they don't want to play your homebrew. Correct issue within design. Ensure you have wonderful and memorable characters—an outrageous paladin who yells his lines and charges forward to smite evil with seeming infinite bravery and endurance is great, but when the PCs realize he is doing it to run away from that traumatic event in his past that haunts him relentlessly he...

Reminds me of a favorite NPC from many years ago. The dungeon was an insane asylum, and we came across a sort of Inigo Montoya character, only without the revenge motif. But he was, he said, the greatest swordsman in the world, and had the most wonderful sword ever known. He would reach down to his waist, where a scabbard would hang, and then extend his arm as if dramatically drawing a sword. But his hand was empty. He was genuinely puzzled why we couldn't see it. Plus he would occasionally attack opponents only he could see or hear.

The party took him on as a sort of guide to the place, and the first time we hit combat he jumped right in - and started laying waste to all kinds of opponents with his invisible sword.

I think we found a potion that would cure insanity, and had some debate over whether to give it to 'Inigo', since we were afraid his sword would disappear once we did. I don't remember how we ever resolved it, but what a great character. Some excellent GM roleplaying.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Silus wrote:

So in my gaming group, my turn to DM is coming up in a couple of months. Initially I wanted to run a thing I called 'The Gear Wastes", a homebrew section of my, well, homebrew world full of industrial dwarven ruins inhabited by all manner of mundane creatures comprised of clockwork and metal.

And then (after several questions of "Oh I thought you were going to run something normal" and their previous "urgings" to run something premade and "normal") I opted instead to run the Curse of the Crimson Throne Adventure Path despite my dislike of premade adventures.

So I'm sitting here having sent a text to the players involved that, because I know that the players would inevitably come up with SOMETHING I'd object to, they have access to all the Paizo stuff and any 3rd party stuff they opt to use (provided they bring me a copy) with the only "no" being templates.

And honestly, I think it's because I just...don't care about the integrity of the Adventure Path. I mean, this is only the second actual long term gaming group I've been in, but at least two of the players make me want to leap across the table to pistol whip their teeth in and the rest....It's a bad group from what damn near everyone's said. And...I don't really care enough to take these paths seriously because I'd put money on the PCs not taking it seriously either.

So what can I do? The obvious answers that I'd like to acknowledge are 1) find a new group and 2) don't DM if you don't care, so I'd appreciate it if we could just bypass those two...

Sometimes the obvious answers ARE the only good ones. You and your players are in serious dissonance, and if you don't resolve that, then you're not even stepping up to bat, much less have any hope of seeing home plate.

You and your players need to have a sit down and see if you can reach a common page. Maybe instead of adventure paths, one off modules are more suited to your group's style of play, or maybe PFS scenarios instead. (You can run them without being formal PFS players.)


Silus wrote:

... And honestly, I think it's because I just...don't care about the integrity of the Adventure Path. I mean, this is only the second actual long term gaming group I've been in, but at least two of the players make me want to leap across the table to pistol whip their teeth in and the rest....It's a bad group from what damn near everyone's said. And...I don't really care enough to take these paths seriously because I'd put money on the PCs not taking it seriously either.

So what can I do? The obvious answers that I'd like to acknowledge are 1) find a new group and 2) don't DM if you don't care, so I'd appreciate it if we could just bypass those two...

I'm breaking the rules since #1 seems to be what you need to do. I would suggest your problem is not how much or little you care about the "integrity of the adventure path," but rather how little you seem to like your fellow players. Why are you playing with people you don't appear to like very much and have no respect for? No choice or approach to DMing (in a play or content sense) will solve that problem. Either you change your attitude about them or you change them (good luck!) or you find another group (easier said then done, I know.)

Scarab Sages

Be honest and discuss your feelings with the group.

Anything else is just going to make things worse.

Liberty's Edge

Why play a game that you know will not be fun for you? You will end up miserable and the game will probably be doomed doomed to fail.

If you take some time and cannot come up with something that will keep you interested, you really should not run. Just tell your group that you are not looking forward to running an AP and then talk about alternatives.

Perhaps someone else could take the next turn while you figure out what you would like to do; or you could just run a module instead of an entire AP; or maybe it's time to try something different like another system of a board game (Descent 2nd ed?).


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The Gear Wastes sounds cool.

Sovereign Court

Maybe their is a compromise here. How married are you to your homebrew? Maybe you can get better aquainted with Golarion and run your "gear waste" game in golarion instead of running an AP.

Liberty's Edge

Taku Ooka Nin wrote:

Well, it is burnout in some respects.

You want to run Your campaign, not some adventure path.

Tell your PCs that you've running your "The Gear Wastes" scenario, module, adventure path or campaign and then run it. If they don't want to play that then someone else can DM if you don't want to run a premade.

It sounds like your PCs take issue with your homebrews. Is there some sort of design flaw that they don't want to be exposed to?
For example: my homebrews tend towards brutal difficulty and severely punish stupid or characters that are over specialized in a non-combat role at the exclusion of his combat responsibilities. (E.G. someone who makes an old bard to get his Cha up to 22 and his int decent only to leave his physical statistics at 7, then uses his feat to take Skill Focus: Diplomacy. It is forgivable with a Wizard or a Sorcerer since that 22 would make them extremely powerful in a limited sense, but bards? I guess he can sing a lot.) Rests are something that has to be earned in an extremely hostile dungeon that is filled with recursive enemies—bloody skeletons are a favorite—that revive and often times hunt down the PCs afterwards. My content is not for the weak or faint of heart, however I do provide premades that can quite handily handle the hazards.

It boils down to this:
You must enjoy DMing to DM effectively. If you are miserable then that misery is holding you captive and breaking your legs, while demanding that you finish your work.
TTRPGs are a collaborative experience. Ask your players what they want in their game. Once you know this you can implement this into your homebrew.

So, TL:DR:
Ask why they don't want to play your homebrew. Correct issue within design. Ensure you have wonderful and memorable characters—an outrageous paladin who yells his lines and charges forward to smite evil with seeming infinite bravery and endurance is great, but when the PCs realize he is doing it to run away from that traumatic event in his past that haunts him relentlessly he...

The general consensus regarding my Homebrew games is that, while interesting in concept, they'd be better off in a different system, or I'm changing too much. The Homebrew world I've got that I've been working on since the first trainwreck of a campaign I ran for them (They're all older more experienced, cynical and jaded gamers and assumed that I had some years of DMing experience under my belt when it was only my second campaign) has:

Prevalent guns (Early guns = Martial weapons)
No Gods (Effectively killed off during the apocalypse)
After-The-Apocalypse feel (1000 years after when civilization is getting back on its feet)
Steampunk/magitech
High magic, low fantasy (Druid cities, quasi-deities, and magocracies, but low on creatures outside the mundane. So no dragons for example)
Switched up races (Orcs are shamanistic, Drow are neutral mad scientists and (Lesser) Centaur and Harpies are playable)

And know what? I'm trying to make it work. It ain't polished, but a little bit of "Ok I can see what the DM is trying to do let's just go with it" would be of so much help that it wouldn't even be funny. But the players seem to revel in the whole "Oh the DM screwed up let's abuse it" or flat out say "Why don't you just run something normal? Homebrew worlds take a lot of work to make" (Which is why I want to get started now when I'm young so when I'm older I have a nice polished world to run games in).

Latrecis wrote:


I'm breaking the rules since #1 seems to be what you need to do. I would suggest your problem is not how much or little you care about the "integrity of the adventure path," but rather how little you seem to like your fellow players. Why are you playing with people you don't appear to like very much and have no respect for? No choice or approach to DMing (in a play or content sense) will solve that problem. Either you change your attitude about them or you change them (good luck!) or you find another group (easier said then done, I know.)

Well there's the issue of trying to find a new group of players to play with. Outside of PFS which I don't really go to any more it's mostly just posting want ads in the local gaming stores.

I am starting up college classes soon, I may be able to wrangle up a group from scratch if I'm lucky.

RedDogMT wrote:

Why play a game that you know will not be fun for you? You will end up miserable and the game will probably be doomed doomed to fail.

If you take some time and cannot come up with something that will keep you interested, you really should not run. Just tell your group that you are not looking forward to running an AP and then talk about alternatives.

Perhaps someone else could take the next turn while you figure out what you would like to do; or you could just run a module instead of an entire AP; or maybe it's time to try something different like another system of a board game (Descent 2nd ed?).

Problem is, I can come up with quite a few things to run off the top of my head.

Inter-planar MIB trying to stop reality from unraveling.

Multi-generational horror game where things are stalking your kids and you have to break out your old adventuring gear to stop it.

Getting sucked into a massive underground labyrinth/cave complex with only the gear on your back and a scavenger hunt type list which must be filled to escape.

Downside though is either the players won't cooperate and will go out of their way to ignore or cock stuff up (Like the MIB which generally requires teamwork and more or less good alignments), they won't get into the "feel" of the thing (The horror game relying on "Oh crap my kid's possibly possessed/in grave danger what do I do?") or that they're just against it (Scavenger hunt in the Underdark).

Grimmy wrote:
The Gear Wastes sounds cool.

If you'd like, you can read what I've compiled here.

Pan wrote:
Maybe their is a compromise here. How married are you to your homebrew? Maybe you can get better aquainted with Golarion and run your "gear waste" game in golarion instead of running an AP.

The problem is that the Gear Wastes isn't really a plug-and-play location. I mean I could probably do it but it'd take quite a bit of altering. Most of my want of running my homebrew stuff is that I have the concept down for it, but it sorely needs playtesting to iron out the many kinks. I suppose there's other non-homebrew things I could run. A couple of adventures from the old Dungeon magazines may work.

Sovereign Court

Well good luck to you Silus and hold on to your homebrew dream. Mine died a quick death to player dis-interest and im not going to push people through something they dont care for. I have gotten over my hang up at published settings being all the rage for my players. The modern gamer in me urges you to forget about your homebrew an get with Golarion, but the homebrew dreamer in me hopes you keep it alive!


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What I have found has worked best for me in a homebrew game is having fewer details.

Have the broad scope. Put some work into their first location and then maybe 2 or 3 other locations, and then draw a map.

Once you have your map leave lots and lots of blank space on it.

Now, let you players make characters. Whatever they make is right. Your players cannot make a mistake there isn't a something that does not exist in your world, find a way to make it work.

By doing this, you empower your players to help build the world. They get to help decide what the world looks like and how it operates.

I will give an example - about two years ago I was just starting a game and explained that to my players. One of them decided that he wanted to be a salesman from Earth, that somehow got magic powers. I turned that concept into a driving plot point in the game - I never intended for that to ever be in the world I was making. However, he wanted it so I made it work. That character has now showed up in about 2 other campaigns because of his impact on the world we - as a group - have created.

If all you do is try to make a world and then have super tightly scripted rules and don't allow the players to take part in its creation, then you would be better off writing a book.

The more open your homebrew is - in my opinion - the better it will be, and the more fun everyone will have getting to make it with you.


Unfortunately, it sounds like it might be a bit too late to try to convince your players to give you a chance with the Gear Wastes, at least with this upcoming session. I feel like trying to push it further might annoy the players, just as them pushing you has clearly annoyed you. However,to echo Ubercroz, try to get the players involved. Tell them that you want their help creating the world, even if not to play and you might be able to win them over with the concept. Taking a queue from Dungeon World, "Draw maps and leave blanks." In other words, make sure the players are integral in creating the world you imagine. It can be hard opening up and letting people into you precious world, but in my experience, it is an incredible adventure.

A lot of the advice here is good advice, and I dont want to repeat it, so here's another alternative. Try introducing a different system. Start fresh with a new setting, new rules and new characters. This can help to wipe the slate clean of any hard feelings as you all venture I to uncharted territory together. A system that I would highly recommend is Dungeon World. It is incredibly simple with a huge emphasis on cinematics and narrative. There is an srd for it that's freely available, or pdf versions for $10. It's a game that can be played with zero prep and really brings everybody together.

Aside from that, it seems you are in a tough situation. Send them all a text and let them know you aren't feeling very excited about the adventure path and if you're not excited, it won't be fun for everyone, and that you want to be able to provide a fun experience for everyone. Ask for suggestions on a compromise and propose some of the ideas suggested above. I hope everything works out!

Liberty's Edge

laughmask21 wrote:

Unfortunately, it sounds like it might be a bit too late to try to convince your players to give you a chance with the Gear Wastes, at least with this upcoming session. I feel like trying to push it further might annoy the players, just as them pushing you has clearly annoyed you. However,to echo Ubercroz, try to get the players involved. Tell them that you want their help creating the world, even if not to play and you might be able to win them over with the concept. Taking a queue from Dungeon World, "Draw maps and leave blanks." In other words, make sure the players are integral in creating the world you imagine. It can be hard opening up and letting people into you precious world, but in my experience, it is an incredible adventure.

A lot of the advice here is good advice, and I dont want to repeat it, so here's another alternative. Try introducing a different system. Start fresh with a new setting, new rules and new characters. This can help to wipe the slate clean of any hard feelings as you all venture I to uncharted territory together. A system that I would highly recommend is Dungeon World. It is incredibly simple with a huge emphasis on cinematics and narrative. There is an srd for it that's freely available, or pdf versions for $10. It's a game that can be played with zero prep and really brings everybody together.

Aside from that, it seems you are in a tough situation. Send them all a text and let them know you aren't feeling very excited about the adventure path and if you're not excited, it won't be fun for everyone, and that you want to be able to provide a fun experience for everyone. Ask for suggestions on a compromise and propose some of the ideas suggested above. I hope everything works out!

I do suppose I could straight up ask them "What kind of game do you want to play?". Granted last time I asked that all I got in response was "Something normal". Sooooo start in a tavern, kill goblins and wolves and eventually kill a lich-king that's been threatening the kingdom or something?

"It was a dark and stormy night and you all were meeting with a mysterious cloaked figure in a shadowy corner of a local tavern."

I mean, I've got a couple conceptual places in my homebrew world that I've not touched beyond "Here's a brief blurb about this place to give the general feel and maybe one or two notable locations".

But yeah, I'll have a talk with them at least, try to figure out what I want to run and what they want to play and see what matches up. 'Cause other than that all I see myself doing is running a snarky, passive aggressive Adventure Path and relegating the PCs to Unusually Uninteresting sights.

Sovereign Court

Silus wrote:

But yeah, I'll have a talk with them at least, try to figure out what I want to run and what they want to play and see what matches up. 'Cause other than that all I see myself doing is running a snarky, passive aggressive Adventure Path and relegating the PCs to Unusually Uninteresting sights.

Do you have a good reason for not liking the APs or published adventure material? Or are you annoyed that your players are not biting on your homebrew? I find the APs to be a bit of fun and have to do quite a bit of personalizing for the table. I am not have poured the foundation of the adventure, but there is an ass load of my ideas in those adventures when they hit the tale. Just sayin APs dont have to be a drag.

Liberty's Edge

Pan wrote:
Silus wrote:

But yeah, I'll have a talk with them at least, try to figure out what I want to run and what they want to play and see what matches up. 'Cause other than that all I see myself doing is running a snarky, passive aggressive Adventure Path and relegating the PCs to Unusually Uninteresting sights.

Do you have a good reason for not liking the APs or published adventure material? Or are you annoyed that your players are not biting on your homebrew? I find the APs to be a bit of fun and have to do quite a bit of personalizing for the table. I am not have poured the foundation of the adventure, but there is an ass load of my ideas in those adventures when they hit the tale. Just sayin APs dont have to be a drag.

It's mostly just any published thing. It's not that I find them bad or anything (There's a few from the old Dungeon magazine I really wanna DM at some point) it's just that...I dunno, it just feels weird. Like "Ok out of this block of text what do I tell the players? Oh this is underpowered for the group how do I fix it without screwing things up royal?" etc.

And my first time playing an Adventure Path didn't end too well (We had like 7 PCs all fighting for space in the 5-ft-wide hallways in Rise of the Runelords and the DM had restricted us to only using Core stuff).

The snarky, passive aggressiveness would be with regards to the players, mostly picking on their seemingly constant character choices (2-dimensional character motivated by greed and power, the extremely manipulative character that the player keeps highly secret, etc.).

Sovereign Court

Silus wrote:
Pan wrote:
Silus wrote:

But yeah, I'll have a talk with them at least, try to figure out what I want to run and what they want to play and see what matches up. 'Cause other than that all I see myself doing is running a snarky, passive aggressive Adventure Path and relegating the PCs to Unusually Uninteresting sights.

Do you have a good reason for not liking the APs or published adventure material? Or are you annoyed that your players are not biting on your homebrew? I find the APs to be a bit of fun and have to do quite a bit of personalizing for the table. I am not have poured the foundation of the adventure, but there is an ass load of my ideas in those adventures when they hit the tale. Just sayin APs dont have to be a drag.

It's mostly just any published thing. It's not that I find them bad or anything (There's a few from the old Dungeon magazine I really wanna DM at some point) it's just that...I dunno, it just feels weird. Like "Ok out of this block of text what do I tell the players? Oh this is underpowered for the group how do I fix it without screwing things up royal?" etc.

And my first time playing an Adventure Path didn't end too well (We had like 7 PCs all fighting for space in the 5-ft-wide hallways in Rise of the Runelords and the DM had restricted us to only using Core stuff).

The snarky, passive aggressiveness would be with regards to the players, mostly picking on their seemingly constant character choices (2-dimensional character motivated by greed and power, the extremely manipulative character that the player keeps highly secret, etc.).

Oh yeah 7 PCs would be a handful in an AP. We have 5 in Jade Regent which we just started and have been fighting to get to the enemies as well. To combat the 2D-PC problem you could check out the AP players guides and ask them to take campaign traits to tie them to the game. Though if this is how they roll it wont much matter how the adventure is generated im afraid. To be honest I'd probably be more upset running my homebrew with murderhobo players than running an AP. If I think of anything else that might help Ill drop it here for ya. Good Luck.


@ Taku: I can get a Bard with over 22 Charisma and still make him a walking tank who can buff the frontliners while being a pure support character that can pull his weight in combat. Not really a solid example when Charisma is that class' #1 statistic, the same as a Sorcerer. I think you mean if say, a Rogue did it.

@ OP: As everyone said, you need to have "the talk" with your players. If they're having you GM, you, as a GM, need to set the stage and set the ground rules for the players to play by. Whether the players will accept it is another matter, but it's as you said, if you're not running your homebrew, you'll simply cause more problems than solve them. Expressing those concerns are important in convincing your players to go along with it.

I'm with the deception method, as others have pointed out, ironically enough. It's not one that I really endorse, but it's one that will get the best results for you. In other words, you throw out your homebrew as a "published module" or something, and state that you aren't comfortable running that AP, as you've had experience running your homebrew module "The Gear Wastes," and rather enjoyed it a lot, and expect the players will too.

Don't profess it as your homebrew until after the fact, so you can give the players the assumption that they are running a full-fledged adventure path/campaign/whatever. Worst case scenario, the players will see the deception, show their true colors and if they get real nasty about it, chances are they are players you don't want to play with. (You did expressly admit to wanting to smack them upside the head and all, so it sounds like there are players you can stand to replace, simply due to your lack of tolerance towards them.) Best case scenario is that they'll be surprised at your ability to GM and customize your world, and not question your methods ever again (hopefully).

It's a gambit of sorts, but it's a test toward your players and their feelings towards you and your ability to GM. All I can say is, at least you had the decency to come to the boards to ask for advice on the matter, before one of the players made an account and complained in a thread about how you ruined a game (when it probably wasn't the case).


I think it is within the scope of this discussion to say that "normal" does not have to mean "generic."

What it sounds like, to me, is that you want to do something outside of the box creative and non traditional fantasy. While your players are really looking for something more along the lines of the traditional fantasy setting.

You can have a story in a more traditional setting that is not "you start in tavern, you fight goblins...blah blah blah." Though, I think there is room for it. Especially if you can do it very well and with a high level of polish.

I definitely understand not wanting to run prepackaged stuff. My favorite games are always my homebrew games. I have played some AP's,
and modules, and do PFS. None of that is as satisfying as the homebrew.

What I have personally found is that an interesting setting can never make up for a good story. Whether it is for the GM or the players.

Make a good story, if your players trust you to do that, then you can get away with a lot. If you need some inspiration, steal heavily from other material or other GM's. I'd be happy to give some of what I have used in making campaigns that I thought were pretty fun.


Darksol the Painbringer wrote:
@ Taku: I can get a Bard with over 22 Charisma and still make him a walking tank who can buff the frontliners while being a pure support character that can pull his weight in combat. Not really a solid example when Charisma is that class' #1 statistic, the same as a Sorcerer. I think you mean if say, a Rogue did it.

That is nice, but it is completely and utterly irrelevant. Its sort of like when someone says, "People make bad decisions, like this for example" you then wave your hand around saying, "Well I can make that work just fine and do exactly what you said it can't!"

APs use 15 point buy. The specifics what I said were:

Taku Ooka Nin wrote:
E.G. someone who makes an old bard to get his Cha up to 22 and his int decent only to leave his physical statistics at 7, then uses his feat to take Skill Focus: Diplomacy.

So feel free to make a character who has 7 str, 7 dex, 7 con, 10 int, 10 wis, and 22 cha be a front line bard. My point is that you're going to die pretty much as soon as you get hit with your 6 hp, and with -2 to AC from Dex, I doubt you're going to be doing much of all on the front lines.

Furthermore, at level 1 the only way to get Cha to 22 is to first take a race that can bestow +2 to cha, and then to be old. -3 to all physical statistics, +2 to all metal statistics. This means you don't get 4 point buy for each physical statistic being at 7, but if you drop them to 4 you will.


Silus wrote:
I do suppose I could straight up ask them "What kind of game do you want to play?". Granted last time I asked that all I got in response was "Something normal". Sooooo start in a tavern, kill goblins and wolves and eventually kill a lich-king that's been threatening the kingdom or something?

Well, I don't know about asking them that. Less of what do you want and more of what do we want. It has to be a compromise, so ask instead, "What could we do to compromise? I could change the setting to Golarion and keep the story/themes, bring of some of the setting ideas into the game and we build a story for it?"


Since you ruled out the two most useful pieces of advice, I'm at a bit of a loss here.

The idea of running the path all passive aggressive is nice if you want to make being unhappy a team sport. But, that's never a good idea.

It looks like you're planning on having no fun doing something you don't want to do. That's called a job, not even a good or decent job but a bad one.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Silus wrote:

The general consensus regarding my Homebrew games is that, while interesting in concept, they'd be better off in a different system, or I'm changing too much. The Homebrew world I've got that I've been working on since the first trainwreck of a campaign I ran for them (They're all older more experienced, cynical and jaded gamers and assumed that I had some years of DMing experience under my belt when it was only my second campaign) has:

Prevalent guns (Early guns = Martial weapons)
No Gods (Effectively killed off during the apocalypse)
After-The-Apocalypse feel (1000 years after when civilization is getting back on its feet)
Steampunk/magitech
High magic, low fantasy (Druid cities, quasi-deities, and magocracies, but low on creatures outside the mundane. So no dragons for example)
Switched up races (Orcs are shamanistic, Drow are neutral mad scientists and (Lesser) Centaur and Harpies are playable)

And know what? I'm trying to make it work. It ain't polished, but a little bit of "Ok I can see what the DM is trying to do let's just go with it" would be of so much help that it wouldn't even be funny. But the players seem to revel in the whole "Oh the DM screwed up let's abuse it" or flat out say "Why don't you just run something normal? Homebrew worlds take a lot of work to make" (Which is why I want to get started now when I'm young so when I'm older I have a nice polished world to run games in).

Here's the problem I see with a lot of home-brews that don't make it.... you're trying to do too much. You've got so many themes with no commonality between them, which is especially hard to do as a novice DM. Your campaign is like a stew in which a cook simply threw everything that they thought tasted good into the pot. It's really best to start with the basics and make your changes small in number and subtle, and harmonious with each other.


When you GM it should be something you at the very least dont mind running, and something the players dont mind playing. I would tell him honestly that you are not happy running an AP. I would then sit down and try to talk them and find a compromise.

Another idea is to make the AP your own and modify it into something you would like.

What types of games have you run in the past, and how did the players like those?


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LazarX wrote:
Here's the problem I see with a lot of home-brews that don't make it.... you're trying to do too much. You've got so many themes with no commonality between them, which is especially hard to do as a novice DM. Your campaign is like a stew in which a cook simply threw everything that they thought tasted good into the pot. It's really best to start with the basics and make your changes small in number and subtle, and harmonious with each other.

I have to completely agree with you.

What Silus is attempting to do is more or less to create his own world for the players to live in, create rich environments and such, and also make a campaign out of it. It is doable, yes, but one of the major things to remember about world building is that it takes a long time. Golarion's initial release, which I believe was only the Inner Sea, took three years—or so I recall, probably is wrong since I haven't researched it.—

The OP could still do his idea on Golarion. The party finds an ascending room (old name for elevators) that is actually more of a descending room. It takes them down into the bowels of the planet and deep into the lowest level of the Darklands.

Down here life has remained the same since since Earthfall happened ≈ 10,000 years ago. The people who lived there might have died off, but the clockworks who exist there have learned how to propagate their "race". Maybe they have steampunk technology. In the areas around them the "lesser" races (E.G. Humans, Orcs, Drow, Centaur and Harpies) live in their own areas that are hazardous to the clockworks while livable to these biological races.

This works because of how Orv (The lowest level of the Darklands) works. There are caverns so large that they have their own climates, faux stars, and in some of them one might think that they are on the surface. Essentially they can be so big that you can treat them as demiplanes with multiple gateways exiting them.

On the note of demiplanes, they are also a fantastic option.

The greatest issues that I find with homebrews is that they don't know what story they're trying to tell. In TTRPGs story and design tend to build on one another.
For part 1/6 I want the main characters to run an establishment after being hired by the person owning it. By the end there needs to be a twist that leads the players into 2/6.
For part 2/6 I want the PCs to be secluded in an "overland exploration" setting where they can move where they want. Have another twist that leads into 3/6.

Also, throughout each part, have a mystery that is in question at the beginning, but that is answered as the game goes on. A mysterious cloud that hangs in the sky over a city. The sudden death of a king after killing someone.
You want motifs, and most of all the beginning and end, so part 1/6 and 6/6 should be analogous in some major ways. The question should be what the AP or campaign is trying to answer, but that is more or less going into story theory.

The point here is that dividing things into parts makes it easier to control everything. Imagine if Curse of the Crimson Throne, Kingmaker or Second Darkness were all just one volume each instead of 6.

My recommendation is to make a "Player's guide" to your campaign, and then give that to the players.

Wraithstrike wrote:
Another idea is to make the AP your own and modify it into something you would like.

This is a great idea, and honestly something DMs should be doing anyway.

I made Riddleport in Second Darkness more oppressive than Devil's Elbow, because at least there they were mostly alone. In Riddleport they were surrounded by people who would live fat on selling the gear of the players if they could get it from them.

Shadow Lodge

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Man, I'd kill to get into a homebrew game where the whole thing was the GM's labor-of-love.


Sir Thugsalot wrote:
Man, I'd kill to get into a homebrew game where the whole thing was the GM's labor-of-love.

I know. Its his wet dream to make this world happen, and all people have to do is live there.


Personally, I don't like adventures where there is no adventure, and the GM just talks about all the 'cool original stuff' in their homemade world. I'm also not a fan of Steampunk and guns in a fantasy RPG.

Maybe your players want a more traditional DnD game world. Use your creative energy to make good stories and memorable characters that fit within the more typical fantasy setting.


I also find (from what you said) your homebrew setting weird, and from the ideas you had for other games it does seem that you might be better served with another game system.
But in any way you shouldn't run a game you don't want to, if the players don't want to play what you want to run, then you either find something that you want to run and your group wants to play or someone else DMs.


This has probably already been said, but the answer is fairly simple.

"Look, guys, this is the game I'm interested in running. If you aren't interested, one of you can run whatever it is that you'd like."

Don't be preachy, or snarky, or condescending about it, just direct and honest. Lying to them and yourself by running a game that you don't want to run isn't going to go well, be fun, or end well. Nobody will enjoy you droning through a module like Ben Stein, not you or the players.

If you DM, you set the terms, and it's up to players whether or not they agree to them. You could open up specific issues to compromise, but if they don't like any part of your offer, and they want to make every decision, then they want to run.


Taku Ooka Nin wrote:
I know. Its his wet dream to make this world happen, and all people have to do is live there.
Demontroll wrote:
Personally, I don't like adventures where there is no adventure, and the GM just talks about all the 'cool original stuff' in their homemade world. I'm also not a fan of Steampunk and guns in a fantasy RPG.

There's a lot of ascribing motive going on here. Maybe, at its core, OP's intended campaign wouldn't be any different from a normal one. Just because the world was made by one person instead of a dev team doesn't mean the party wouldn't be allowed to influence and affect it throughout the game.

Demontroll, have you considered the possibility that you're letting your prejudice affect your judgment? That your dislike of steam tech and guns in fantasy worlds is causing you to see anything that uses them as automatically without merit?


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A game has to be fun for everyone-- including the GM. If you're not enthusiastic and excited to run a campaign, then you probably shouldn't do it.

When I'm in that situation, I'll usually suggest running a few one-shot or two-shot games in either your regular or a different game systems, just to shake things up. How bout a short session with the PCs as pirates raiding the seas. Or a crazy one-shot high-level game where the PCs have to kill a demon lord. Maybe a short 1930s pulp scenario in Savage Worlds, or a cyberpunk adventure using Fate, or a session of Fiasco.

Or maybe it's time to step away from campaign play altogether-- run a bunch of short things for the foreseeable future. Some games will be amazing, others less so, but you won't have to do a lot of world-building, and you can get really creative. And if your players don't like this week's session, next week's will be completely different.

Good luck!

Liberty's Edge

demontroll wrote:

Personally, I don't like adventures where there is no adventure, and the GM just talks about all the 'cool original stuff' in their homemade world. I'm also not a fan of Steampunk and guns in a fantasy RPG.

Maybe your players want a more traditional DnD game world. Use your creative energy to make good stories and memorable characters that fit within the more typical fantasy setting.

Numeria, Alkenstar and the Mana Wastes say hi. But, to each their own. It'd be nice if my group would just straight up say "Yeah we don't care for non-traditional fantasy". Then I'd know to run more Forgotten Realms type things and less Eberron.

Taku Ooka Nin wrote:
Sir Thugsalot wrote:
Man, I'd kill to get into a homebrew game where the whole thing was the GM's labor-of-love.
I know. Its his wet dream to make this world happen, and all people have to do is live there.

Or at least for people to stop actively look to break the world that I've been trying to construct on my own for the last year or so. Better yet if they'd (the players) help me fill in the gaps. Fact is, I need assistance on the setting if I wanna make it actually solid for campaigns and such, and the people in my group haven't really been helpful in that regard.

LazarX wrote:


Here's the problem I see with a lot of home-brews that don't make it.... you're trying to do too much. You've got so many themes with no commonality between them, which is especially hard to do as a novice DM. Your campaign is like a stew in which a cook simply threw everything that they thought tasted good into the pot. It's really best to start with the basics and make your changes small in number and subtle, and harmonious with each other.

If I do a Player's Guide like Taku suggested, I think I'll slip in a bit about the overarching themes I'm trying to go for (I can't brain right now but it involves reemerging tech, ruins of the past and how past actions will help shape the future). Or at least put a thing together for each major area or something...

Haladir wrote:

A game has to be fun for everyone-- including the GM. If you're not enthusiastic and excited to run a campaign, then you probably shouldn't do it.

When I'm in that situation, I'll usually suggest running a few one-shot or two-shot games in either your regular or a different game systems, just to shake things up. How bout a short session with the PCs as pirates raiding the seas. Or a crazy one-shot high-level game where the PCs have to kill a demon lord. Maybe a short 1930s pulp scenario in Savage Worlds, or a cyberpunk adventure using Fate, or a session of Fiasco.

Or maybe it's time to step away from campaign play altogether-- run a bunch of short things for the foreseeable future. Some games will be amazing, others less so, but you won't have to do a lot of world-building, and you can get really creative. And if your players don't like this week's session, next week's will be completely different.

Good luck!

Well I DO have the FATE book, and someone from Giants in the Playground linked me the thing to help with collaborative storytelling that jives well with the FATE system...Only issue is leaning the system, and Lord knows I have time to do it. *Looks over at bookshelf* Also got D20 Modern, Call of Cthulhu, OWoD, Cthulhu-Tech, Monsters and Other Childish Things and Eclipse Phase to choose from.

As a matter of fact, I also have the old 3.5e Warcraft D20 book, and I know that world and the history more or less like the back of my hand, and I'd be on board with running it too =D

Neurophage wrote:


There's a lot of ascribing motive going on here. Maybe, at its core, OP's intended campaign wouldn't be any different from a normal one. Just because the world was made by one person instead of a dev team doesn't mean the party wouldn't be allowed to influence and affect it throughout the game.

*Laughs* I'd love it if the PCs had gotten involved with influencing things when I debuted the world in my first DMing session with them. Their main involvement was complaining about things I hadn't though of (Again, no help making the world) and trying to kill a high level NPC because they thought she was "a b***h" despite her being quite nice. On a related note, that campaign is what's gonna make me mandate no evil alignments in any of my campaigns EVER AGAIN.

Edit: Honestly the main reason I want to get this homebrew campaign world up and working properly is not due to any drive to publish (I couldn't care less) or to show off (Never works anyway), but because at least to me, this is the sort of world I'd love to do a campaign or three in as a player: Emerging technology built on the foundation of a lost age, the new civilization living amongst the ruins, having made them their own, with adventurers delving into the places that were once seen as "taboo" or "dangerous" to discover what the previous age held and possibly clues (for the shorter lived races) of what exactly happened to cause the world to be the way it is.


Silus wrote:

Prevalent guns (Early guns = Martial weapons)

No Gods (Effectively killed off during the apocalypse)
After-The-Apocalypse feel (1000 years after when civilization is getting back on its feet)
Steampunk/magitech
High magic, low fantasy (Druid cities, quasi-deities, and magocracies, but low on creatures outside the mundane. So no dragons for example)
Switched up races (Orcs are shamanistic, Drow are neutral mad scientists and (Lesser) Centaur and Harpies are playable)

None of this is foreign to Pathfinder as a system.


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Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

This thread reminds me of when I first read the Call of Cthulhu rpg and wanted to add unspeakable abominations and sanity checks to our D&D game. All the players said "Nooooooo!" so I never did.

Much, much later, Green Ronin did a wonderful job integrating the two in Freeport. Never got round to really playing in that setting, though.

Great advice in this thread. Seems to come down to this: if you don't want to DM anything except for the Gear Wastes, and the players don't want to play in it at all, even to try it on for size for a session or two, then you should avoid DMing for the time being. But you can still keep hinting that they could at least try it. If you write up a cool players guide, maybe they will relent and accept one day.

Liberty's Edge

Buri wrote:
Silus wrote:

Prevalent guns (Early guns = Martial weapons)

No Gods (Effectively killed off during the apocalypse)
After-The-Apocalypse feel (1000 years after when civilization is getting back on its feet)
Steampunk/magitech
High magic, low fantasy (Druid cities, quasi-deities, and magocracies, but low on creatures outside the mundane. So no dragons for example)
Switched up races (Orcs are shamanistic, Drow are neutral mad scientists and (Lesser) Centaur and Harpies are playable)
None of this is foreign to Pathfinder as a system.

True, but when you mix it together people apparently think it's strange. I honestly don't see how it's a hard concept to grasp. Way I see it, Pathfinder, and the whole D20 system in general, allow for quite a bit of customization if you're willing to put the work in to do it.

Wheldrake wrote:

This thread reminds me of when I first read the Call of Cthulhu rpg and wanted to add unspeakable abominations and sanity checks to our D&D game. All the players said "Nooooooo!" so I never did.

Much, much later, Green Ronin did a wonderful job integrating the two in Freeport. Never got round to really playing in that setting, though.

Great advice in this thread. Seems to come down to this: if you don't want to DM anything except for the Gear Wastes, and the players don't want to play in it at all, even to try it on for size for a session or two, then you should avoid DMing for the time being. But you can still keep hinting that they could at least try it. If you write up a cool players guide, maybe they will relent and accept one day.

It's actually less about them not wanting to play it and more about them tearing down the setting by picking apart the things I don't think of, and less in a "No my precious setting!" and more in a "Stop asking so many questions I don't have the answers gimme a friggin' minute to think of an answer that works". Though now I've learned from the first campaign to circumvent some of those questions.

"Why doesn't the Queen have a standing army?"
"That's a good question. Anyway, moving on..."
"You didn't answer my question."
"Yes, I know."


demontroll wrote:
Personally, I don't like adventures where there is no adventure, and the GM just talks about all the 'cool original stuff' in their homemade world.

That's what raising the red flags for me.

In everything Silus says about the game he wants to run I'm hearing "setting" not "campaign". The two are different things and for a game the second is much more important and needs to be the focus. That's what the pitch should focus on.

I'm sensitive to it because it's a mistake I've made before. So focused on the coolness of the world I hadn't paid much attention to what the party was actually going to do in it.

Liberty's Edge

thejeff wrote:
demontroll wrote:
Personally, I don't like adventures where there is no adventure, and the GM just talks about all the 'cool original stuff' in their homemade world.

That's what raising the red flags for me.

In everything Silus says about the game he wants to run I'm hearing "setting" not "campaign". The two are different things and for a game the second is much more important and needs to be the focus. That's what the pitch should focus on.

I'm sensitive to it because it's a mistake I've made before. So focused on the coolness of the world I hadn't paid much attention to what the party was actually going to do in it.

Well with the Gear Wastes itself, I'd tried building the area with freeform adventuring in mind. The first section I had created, The Queens Lands, ended up hosing a fairly story and RP heavy campaign. The players apparently didn't care for that, so I decided the next area I'd go with would be one for them to get their murder-hobo on.

So in truth for the Gear Wastes, there is no set campaign plot. Just "Ok here's the playground, have fun" with a few mini-plots scattered about for the PCs to nibble at if they are so inclined (Restarting a Dwarven Forge, discovering the cause of the clockwork creatures, figuring out why the dwarven nation fell and preventing it from happening again, big game hunting for prestige and profit, etc)

I can come up with a campaign or plot or whatever easy enough, but I feel that I need a setting to host it in, if only to have answers for the PCs when they start asking questions about the setting (unless it's one that's already laid out like Golarion).


Silus wrote:

. . .

Well I DO have the FATE book, and someone from Giants in the Playground linked me the thing to help with collaborative storytelling that jives well with the FATE system...Only issue is leaning the system, and Lord knows I have time to do it. *Looks over at bookshelf* Also got D20 Modern, Call of Cthulhu, OWoD, Cthulhu-Tech, Monsters and Other Childish Things and Eclipse Phase to choose from. . . .

It's funny you should mention OWoD. One of my players vastly prefers the d10 storyteller system, and I'm adapting two different post apocalyptic stories to the system to make her happy.

Take this idea following idea with a grain of salt.

Pick a traditional myth or two that suite their idea of fantasy. Then switch some pieces out to play with their perceptions. Then refluff everything and exaggerate it a bit, like Aspirin's Myth series, Anthony's Xanth series, or David's Sir Apropos of Nothing series. You'd have a Scary Movie version of a traditional fantasy. Play it to the hilt and laugh it up as you mock the genre.

As an aside, I really like the idea of The Gear Wastes. It makes me think of Xenogears brought down to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly level... though I might not be getting the true gist of it. I imagine the lesser centaurs and harpies are somewhat magical or natural mutations over the course of centuries?


Silus wrote:
demontroll wrote:

Personally, I don't like adventures where there is no adventure, and the GM just talks about all the 'cool original stuff' in their homemade world. I'm also not a fan of Steampunk and guns in a fantasy RPG.

Maybe your players want a more traditional DnD game world. Use your creative energy to make good stories and memorable characters that fit within the more typical fantasy setting.

Numeria, Alkenstar and the Mana Wastes say hi. But, to each their own. It'd be nice if my group would just straight up say "Yeah we don't care for non-traditional fantasy". Then I'd know to run more Forgotten Realms type things and less Eberron.

You're ignoring demontroll's first sentence and focusing on the second. Regardless, just because Paizo has some steampunk/gun areas in their world doesn't mean your players aren't as turned off by those areas as the ones in your homebrew.

Quote:
Taku Ooka Nin wrote:
Sir Thugsalot wrote:
Man, I'd kill to get into a homebrew game where the whole thing was the GM's labor-of-love.
I know. Its his wet dream to make this world happen, and all people have to do is live there.
Or at least for people to stop actively look to break the world that I've been trying to construct on my own for the last year or so. Better yet if they'd (the players) help me fill in the gaps. Fact is, I need assistance on the setting if I wanna make it actually solid for campaigns and such, and the people in my group haven't really been helpful in that regard.

It's a truth that nobody will ever care about your world as much as you do. Think about that. How long you've been constructing it is meaningless to anyone but you. Imagine you've been writing a novel. Only a few of your friends are even going to be willing to read the darned thing. "I don't read horror." "I only read non-fiction." "I like vampire books where they're portayed sympathetically and I can't stand it when their traditional abilities are messed with, so... good luck but pass." Very likely NONE of them are going to be willing to collaborate with you on it.

There's a LOT going for homebrew, but it's not for everyone. Just keep in mind that the bits you're most proud of, the bits that are your pride and joy, may not even been "okay, I guess" to other people.

Quote:
LazarX wrote:


Here's the problem I see with a lot of home-brews that don't make it.... you're trying to do too much. You've got so many themes with no commonality between them, which is especially hard to do as a novice DM. Your campaign is like a stew in which a cook simply threw everything that they thought tasted good into the pot. It's really best to start with the basics and make your changes small in number and subtle, and harmonious with each other.
If I do a Player's Guide like Taku suggested, I think I'll slip in a bit about the overarching themes I'm trying to go for (I can't brain right now but it involves reemerging tech, ruins of the past and how past actions will help shape the future). Or...

You have to talk to your players.

1} Do you object to a homebrew?
2} If not, do you object to my homebrew?
3} If so, what are the parts you object to?

See, maybe they just really, really don't want to mess around with steampunk topics AT ALL. Maybe they do. Dunno. Or maybe they want to be able to dip into the dozens of Paizo PDFs for background and world-building material in order to flesh out their characters, and a homebrew denies them ALL of that material. Or maybe they just don't like the idea that "the gods are all dead". Or maybe they want a beer & peanuts hack-up-some-evil-orcs game and know you throw in a lot of moral choices.

You want to run your homebrew. They want you to NOT run your homebrew.

One way or the other, you're not running things the way you planned. Maybe some things can be salvaged, maybe not.

I do have a BIG suggestion before you give up on the group though:

I hear you that you don't want to run an AP. I can respect that. So maybe... don't. Seriously, instead maybe just grab an existing module or two, and invent interstitial material to link them. Run prepared materials some of the time, in the existing Golarion setting, but also add your own material to that. Make it your own. That's impractical for a full AP, but for linked modules there's LOTS of room for a DM to invent. This could be the best compromise any of you has ever tried. They get a safe and familiar setting, you get to creatively stretch your wings. They don't have to play material they don't want, and you don't have to run a campaign you hate.

Think about it, and good luck.

Liberty's Edge

Anguish wrote:

It's a truth that nobody will ever care about your world as much as you do. Think about that. How long you've been constructing it is meaningless to anyone but you. Imagine you've been writing a novel. Only a few of your friends are even going to be willing to read the darned thing. "I don't read horror." "I only read non-fiction." "I like vampire books where they're portayed sympathetically and I can't stand it when their traditional abilities are messed with, so... good luck but pass." Very likely NONE of them are going to be willing to collaborate with you on it.

There's a LOT going for homebrew, but it's not for everyone. Just keep in mind that the bits you're most proud of, the bits that are your pride and joy, may not even been "okay, I guess" to other people.

The issue is more that I can't even seem to get any feedback of value from either the players or the internet it seems regarding the setting. Even little things like "Any glaring holes I'm missing? How can I make this work/better? Does this work the way I have it laid out? If not how can I fix it?" General peer review stuff.

Honestly I'd friggin' kill for someone to be like "The Gods being dead thing doesn't work as written because X but here's a suggestion to MAKE it work while keeping the feel you're trying to go for". 'Cause honestly the only advice I've gotten from my players is to scrap/shelf the homebrew setting due to the time required to make it good and run something else.

Anguish wrote:


I do have a BIG suggestion before you give up on the group though:

I hear you that you don't want to run an AP. I can respect that. So maybe... don't. Seriously, instead maybe just grab an existing module or two, and invent interstitial material to link them. Run prepared materials some of the time, in the existing Golarion setting, but also add your own material to that. Make it your own. That's impractical for a full AP, but for linked modules there's LOTS of room for a DM to invent. This could be the best compromise any of you has ever tried. They get a safe and familiar setting, you get to creatively stretch your wings. They don't have to play material they don't want, and you don't have to run a campaign you hate.

Think about it, and good luck.

I suppose I could give that a shot. At least have the modules as a testing ground for some of the more flexible aspects of the homebrew, like the race changes, to see how they go over. At least that'll net me some practical feedback that I can use to tweak and adjust.

I suppose I'll have to look through the modules, though I gotta say that Carnival of Tears is pretty high on my list currently.


Silus wrote:

The issue is more that I can't even seem to get any feedback of value from either the players or the internet it seems regarding the setting. Even little things like "Any glaring holes I'm missing? How can I make this work/better? Does this work the way I have it laid out? If not how can I fix it?" General peer review stuff.

Honestly I'd friggin' kill for someone to be like "The Gods being dead thing doesn't work as written because X but here's a suggestion to MAKE it work while keeping the feel you're trying to go for". 'Cause honestly the only advice I've gotten from my players is to scrap/shelf the homebrew setting due to the time required to make it good and run something else.

I think you've got your answer, as unpleasant as it is. If they are stonewalling regarding what they don't like, it's probably beyond salvaging. Kind of like asking me "what about this rap song you don't like? Is it the lyrics or the instruments or the tempo or the topic or the name or the rapper's voice?" and getting the answer "uh, why don't you write a song that's rock and roll?"

If they refuse to give feedback, it's because they really don't like it. That doesn't mean it's bad. Just don't try feeding lobster to people who don't like seafood.

Anguish wrote:

I suppose I could give that a shot. At least have the modules as a testing ground for some of the more flexible aspects of the homebrew, like the race changes, to see how they go over. At least that'll net me some practical feedback that I can use to tweak and adjust.

I suppose I'll have to look through the modules, though I gotta say that Carnival of Tears is pretty high on my list currently.

Carnival of Tears was fun. I've run it. Mind you, the whole point of this thread is that things are subjective, but hey... data point. Up to you how to use the data. <Grin>

But again - and honest, I'm trying to be helpful here - I strongly expect you should try to focus your creative energy on plot, not setting. I'm working with very little info here, but I get the impression your players take issue with your world, not your story-writing skills. That's why I suggested running modules in Golarion, where they can use reams of Paizo's setting canon and you play with the story. Hence compromise.

'Cuz personally, if a DM started telling me how excited they were about their world where elves are manifestations of a demonic legacy and trolls are actually the embodiment of the remains of an ancient angelic army, watching over us all, but gnomes, man, gnomes are actually one hive-mind entity plotting to assimilate all life in the world... I'd probably respond with "hey, that's cool and all but, um, why? Why don't we just play the thing where trolls are monsters and demons are demons and gnomes just suck in general? I mean, kudos for you but I don't really feel like memorizing all that stuff." I'd probably say it with more tact, but you get the point.

I found it really hard to switch from Forgotten Realms to Eberron when the latter came out. I'm really glad we did because Eberron is a really, really awesome setting and those of my friends (and I) that played there loved it. It's still "home". But it was so hard to un-remember the FR-isms and memorize the new lore of the new world. Blah blah, then 4e happened and ultimately we all moved into Golarion, which has been hard too. Psionics from Riedra or Vudra? Keep forgetting. Heck, we keep sometimes mis-remembering rules that were 3.0 and removed in 3.5 let alone Pathfinder. The best way to learn a setting is to stick to it. Repetition. Personally I stick to Golarion because I "get it". I've got years of contact with the lore to lean on and feel like my character makes sense. In a homebrew I'd be lost, only knowing what I thought to ask the DM, or the DM thought to tell me. And a PC should feel grounded in a setting, like they're a real person in a real world, with complexity and nuance. Not like a statblock because I don't really know what I don't know.

Again, not trying to defecate on your parade, just trying to help with perspective that may or may not be shared by your players.


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Silus wrote:

It's actually less about them not wanting to play it and more about them tearing down the setting by picking apart the things I don't think of, and less in a "No my precious setting!" and more in a "Stop asking so many questions I don't have the answers gimme a friggin' minute to think of an answer that works". Though now I've learned from the first campaign to circumvent some of those questions.

"Why doesn't the Queen have a standing army?"
"That's a good question. Anyway, moving on..."
"You didn't answer my question."
"Yes, I know."

Here is a great opportunity for you to get them in on the world creation aspect. You said you wanted to, so here's your chance. When they start asking questions and you don't have answers, turn the question on them.

"Why doesn't the Queen have a standing army?"
"That's a good question. You tell me."
"I don't want to."
"I guess it's a mystery to you and the realm then." *queue devious smile*

You have to look for every opportunity with homebrews to get the players involved if that's what you want. There are constantly opportunities popping up and you have to learn how to see them. When a player says, "I worked for a noble as a squire where I learned the basics of horse mounted combat." Your immediate response should be, "Who was the noble? Describe him." And write it down. The players will see that you're serious once you start noting what they say. Don't just ask and listen, and ask and dictate. Write it up in a Google Doc and send it to them to show you are listening.

Google Docs is a great tool for collaboration. You could write up the setting you have in mind for it and leave blanks for the players to go in and complete. "10,000 years ago a _________________ wiped the majority of life on the surface world." Or, make a spreadsheet with multiple questions that they can answer in the next column. Build a column for each player and you can track all of their input.

I wouldn't suggest doing an AP when your turn comes around because then you are going to be tethered to a massive story and campaign arc that you may never see the end of, meaning no homebrew for you. Instead, just do a one shot that you can get out of the way and hope your players will be more receptive to your ideas in the future. But don't stop trying. The Gear Wastes Players' Guide would flip my s!+~ if I saw that sent to me from my GM. It would show your dedication and you could really have some enticing things in it.


Anguish wrote:
If they are stonewalling regarding what they don't like, it's probably beyond salvaging.

There are many success stories where people ignored the advice of their peers only for their ideas to become amazingly successful. The 'just give up' line of advice is cheap. If nothing else, Silius, flesh out your ideas fully. Take your time. It may be 6 months to a couple years before you have your opening sequence together. That's okay. Then, just play it. Pose it as a one off and spin it as you trying out a few custom monsters and want to see how it works against x, y, and z classes. Even challenge them to 'really break it.' Work everything else behind the scenes. If they like it, awesome, if not, then no sweat. You got your chance at the very least.


Buri wrote:
Anguish wrote:
If they are stonewalling regarding what they don't like, it's probably beyond salvaging.
There are many success stories where people ignored the advice of their peers only for their ideas to become amazingly successful. The 'just give up' line of advice is cheap. If nothing else, Silius, flesh out your ideas fully. Take your time. It may be 6 months to a couple years before you have your opening sequence together. That's okay. Then, just play it. Pose it as a one off and spin it as you trying out a few custom monsters and want to see how it works against x, y, and z classes. Even challenge them to 'really break it.' Work everything else behind the scenes. If they like it, awesome, if not, then no sweat. You got your chance at the very least.

That's fine and true but completely out of context. This isn't a case of one guy with a vision that if only his employees do what he says, he can make a working aircraft. This isn't a case of "you're the football player, I'm the coach, run the runs and we'll win."

This is a case of "we are all part of a musical group together, so... trust me, let's play some jazz." Only the rest of the group doesn't want to play jazz. No amount of "just trust me" is going to change that non-jazz aficionados shouldn't be part of this band.

D&D is a cooperative game. As in, the game being played should be a cooperative effort and when four of five participants don't want X, "stick to your guns" is poor advice.


Silus wrote:

*Laughs* I'd love it if the PCs had gotten involved with influencing things when I debuted the world in my first DMing session with them. Their main involvement was complaining about things I hadn't though of (Again, no help making the world) and trying to kill a high level NPC because they thought she was "a b***h" despite her being quite nice. On a related note, that campaign is what's gonna make me mandate no evil alignments in any of my campaigns EVER AGAIN.

Edit: Honestly the main reason I want to get this homebrew campaign world up and working properly is not due to any drive to publish (I couldn't care less) or to show off (Never works anyway), but because at least to me, this is the sort of world I'd love to do a campaign or three in as a player: Emerging technology built on the foundation of a lost age, the new civilization living amongst the ruins, having made them their own, with adventurers delving into the places that were once seen as "taboo" or "dangerous" to discover what the previous age held and possibly clues (for the shorter lived races) of what exactly happened to cause the world to be the way it is.

Have you actually told them their actions can influence your world? If not then that may help. Many GM's dont allow influence so that may be why they are so resistant.

Another thing is that while you may enjoy X as a player, the players may not. I have tried to add things into a game that I thought were cool, but the players wanted no part of it.

However before stepping away from your idea sit down with them to see what the actual problem is.


I had an experience kinda like this. I have a homebrew world I've been working on for quite some time. It has a bunch of unique limitations and possibilities.

The group I tried it with was not at all interested and it fell apart within a few sessions. It almost ended the group entirely. Now when I GM, I just run modules that I may or may not heavily modify for that group.

But I will admit, I don't find it nearly as much fun since I had little to do with the creation of it.
On the other hand it uses up much less of my limited free time to prep. And if I'm feeling really creative, I can always modify things very extensively.

FallofCamelot wrote:

...

My advice? Come up with an idea and pitch it to your players. The bottom line is that both GM and players need to have buy in to the game, otherwise it's not going to be fun.

This.

I would say to suggest something in between. "I'm not interested in running an AP. So I will make something up. But I will set it in some corner of Golarion and I won't make a whole bunch of house ruless unless you guys also agree they are a good idea. If you guys don't like that idea, it probably won't be a good idea for me to be GM at this time. I just don't do well with purchased stuff that I didn't create."

That way you can get creative and make up almost anything you want. But they don't have to worry that it will be sooo wierd they don't know what to do.

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