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Okay so here's the deal. My players are getting bored because I have high combat scenarios and high role play scenarios. But I'm not so good at finding the balance between two. Right now my biggest problem is that I've got the night in a haunted forest more like a creepy one it's kind of a bit of everything but its are very combat head they're literally going from one combat to another.. And I'm trying to find a balance and a way to keep my creepy forest creepy and not have them be so bored. Does anybody have any ideas

Liberty's Edge

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It sounds like you posted in the wrong forum. This forum is for Pathfinder Society Organized Play discussion, and what you described sounds more like home game issues. That said, many of us have hundreds of hours of GM experience both in organized and home play.

For keeping creepy creepy try some RL ambiance: dim the lights a bit, ban phones and laptops, get a creepy soundtrack as background music, and try to cut down out of character table talk. Throw in some completely non-combat encounters just to mess with them. Something hideously over their CR that is just feeding off their fears, stalking them but no intention of killing them. Take your time with combats, really get into the descriptions of the creepy. Even lowly ghouls can be terrifying if you set the scene. Everything in horror should be run slow until you get to the straight-up combat stuff. If the party is tracking something through the haunted forest make sure those tracks aren't just footprints, but leftover body parts. Make that cleric really regret too many ranks in heal when he starts to add up how many fingers he's found on the trail.

Most of your issues will work themselves out with good old fashioned play time. Being able to merge different genres in one game is an art form that just takes practice. You might look to some of the season 5-7 PFS scenarios that have both RP and combat instructions in the encounters as a guide. I won't spoil any of those specifically, but reading how an encounter can start and resolve diplomatically, but still have combat stats and tactics for when things go wrong might help you out. You'll notice in most modules and scenarios the antagonists usually have an awful lot of backstory, tactics, and motivations that the PCs will rarely have the opportunity to discover. Most of that is for the GMs benefit to make your baddies feel like more than just combat #6 of 12.

Likewise, if you are writing your own adventures, make sure your badguys have established motivations and goals rather than just MUAHAHAHAH world domination let's roll initiative. Even the lowliest thug #3 might have a reason for joining the evil cult and could turn a mindless combat encounter into a RP hook with some interrogation rolls or even a boxed-text soliloquy with his dying breath. Even if your PCs are just slaughtering everyone, a journal handout in the thug's gear can provide the same info, and possibly nudge the players into a little more investigating and less hack-n-slash.

Sczarni

Long story short, if you wish to make something creepy and exciting, you have to build up the excitement before the fighting starts. You can't add a bunch of combat encounters to make it creepy. You have to create a good atmosphere and story around it. There is tons of useful books and articles in how to provide a good atmosphere and story before initiating combat.

And yes, this is completely in a wrong forums section.

Lantern Lodge Customer Service Manager

Moved thread.

Sovereign Court

If you're still learning to GM - I'd recommend grabbing a couple of modules - the bulk of them have a good mix of RP and combat. (there are a few outliers in both directions - so read the reviews if you want to be sure to get a mix of the two)

I know that the first decent session I ran was a pre-written module - the adventure in the back of the Eberron book in 3.5. The villain who got away played a recurring role a couple of times later until the party finally smashed him. (Nothing makes a party happier than finally beating down a good recurring villain. :P Just make sure that they have a decent shot of finishing him off each time and don't Deus Ex Machina him away.)

I think of modules as training wheels for GMs. Of course - I'm back to mostly running modules - but that's because I'm lazy and don't have the time to write my own that I used to. :P

Dark Archive

Grolloc wrote:
Throw in some completely non-combat encounters just to mess with them. Something hideously over their CR that is just feeding off their fears, stalking them but no intention of killing them.

Argh.

He's named the damnable Will-o-the-Wisp that's stalking us across the Stolen Lands in his KM campaign. >.<


Sie wrote:
Okay so here's the deal. My players are getting bored because I have high combat scenarios and high role play scenarios. But I'm not so good at finding the balance between two. Right now my biggest problem is that I've got the night in a haunted forest more like a creepy one it's kind of a bit of everything but its are very combat head they're literally going from one combat to another.. And I'm trying to find a balance and a way to keep my creepy forest creepy and not have them be so bored. Does anybody have any ideas

Have dream encounters.

Stuff that doesn't have to follow rules, cause it's all in their head...

When they wake up, they realize it's a communal dream... and have some element of the nightmare carry over, like a wound being still there, or an item found in the dream manifests in reality...

It gets progressively worse each night, then something follows them back to the real world...

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