Creating a compelling tale takes more than just heroes—it requires a complex cast of allies, adversaries, and villains! As the Game Master, your job is to narrate the story, working with the players to imagine an epic adventure. The GM Core is here to help you with every facet of the game, including guidelines on story structure, tips on creating thrilling combat, and amazing treasure to reward your heroes for saving the day! This book has everything you need to become a legendary Game Master.
—GM Core
Pathfinder GM Core releases this November 15 at your favorite local game store, bookstore, and the Paizo Store along with Pathfinder Player Core. As part of the Pathfinder Second Edition Remaster Project, it offers a fresh entry point to the Pathfinder Second Edition roleplaying game for Game Masters!
Customization and support are at the foundation of Pathfinder, and this book provides you with numerous ways to customize your game. Select whatever parts you need for the game you’re running with the toolbox nature of GM Core.
This blog will guide you in navigating the chapters of the GM Core, just like a trusty wayfinder! If you’re brand new to tabletop roleplaying games, read our summary on Archives of Nethys.
Introduction
The focus of every Pathfinder game is the player characters—they’re the stars of the show and appear in every scene that plays out in-game. But what about those scenes? What stories are being told? What old legends are being discovered, and what new ones are being forged? Who are the villains, the allies, the traitors, the lovers, the monsters, and the gods? Who runs the world? When you’re the Game Master, that’s all up to you!
— GM CoreHere you will find the basics of what it means to be a GM and guidance from the authors on how to use the book. They help you choose your tools whether you are a new GM, running a published adventure, making your own, or just need items.
Running the Game
As Game Master, you run each session of Pathfinder, providing the link between the players and the world of the game. It’s up to you to set the scene as the player characters battle monsters, interact with other people, and explore new locations.
— GM CoreThis chapter provides tools to create a welcoming environment, prepare adventures, create characters, and plan and run sessions. You will find one of the best guides in the industry on special considerations, running encounters, exploration, downtime, difficulty classes, and rewards. You will also find sidebars on topics such as Tools for Responsible Play, Collaboration During Play, and more!
Building Games
Game Mastering can be an extremely creative endeavor, and this chapter gives you a suite of tools to make your own campaign or adventure. You can even create your own creatures, hazards, and items to populate your game, or even make your own game world!
— GM CoreThis chapter covers everything you need to build an adventure of your own, from campaign structure to encounter design, world building, variant rules, and more. While you may need to make something from scratch, you can also adapt existing material using the guidance from this chapter. Build your own hazards, items, and creatures using GM Core’s in-depth developer advice and mathematical benchmarks. The Rewards section gives you all you need to distribute Experience Points, Hero Points, and treasure throughout your campaign.
Age of Lost Omens
Ten thousand years ago, the world of Golarion came close to ending. Earthfall, as this extinction-level event came to be known, saw the world pummeled by a shower of falling stars that sank continents, hollowed out new seas, and destroyed civilizations. It took centuries for the world to recover, and centuries more for society to rebuild, but recover it did.
— GM CoreThough the Building Games chapter includes everything you need to create your game world, the Age of Lost Omens is a fully developed setting that’s ready to use and has vast amounts of support across Paizo’s adventures and Lost Omens books. Explore the Inner Sea Region and beyond, learning about the rich cultures, religions, and factions therein. Use tools like nation and settlement stat blocks to understand our locations or flesh out your own realms. This chapter also covers extraplanar setting elements, taking your campaign into the Great Beyond.
Subsystems
When your game goes into uncharted territory or you want to emphasize an element of gameplay that usually gets overlooked or condensed into a single check, you can use a subsystem. As the name implies, subsystems are extensions of the main rules system that allow you to explore a particular topic or style of play at your table.
— GM CorePart of Pathfinder’s robust game engine lies in its ability to explore elements of gameplay that are not always in the forefront. The Subsystems chapter gives Game Masters a diverse set of tools to tackle any in-game challenge and to track progress on tasks using Victory Points. Where some systems may leave you in the lurch wondering “what should my players roll for this?”, Pathfinder’s subsystems provide support for Game Masters and players alike. Subsystems covered in this chapter include Influence, Research, Infiltration, Dueling, and more.
Treasure Trove
Characters acquire treasure from the glittering hoards of their foes, as rewards for defending the innocent, and as favors from the grand personalities they treat with. As they progress through their adventures and improve their station in the world, characters collect ever more fabulous items, from enchanted armor and weapons to spell-infused wands and staves.
— GM CoreThe Treasure Trove is a Game Master’s guide of alchemical and magical items and how to use them. Not only does this chapter cover a large range of treasure—ranging from potions and magical staves to apex items and more—but it’s also a comprehensive guide to reading item stat blocks and understanding how items work.
Finally, GM Core is complete with Treasure Table, Glossary, and Index sections as additional tools for you to use on the fly.
Inside GM Core you’ll find the guidance you need to build and run the fantastic stories you wish to tell!
—The Paizo Team
P.S.
After you’ve devoured GM Core, get started with the Pathfinder Society to find games and hone your skills. Don’t forget to subscribe or preorder today to get Pathfinder Monster Core in March 2024 and Pathfinder Player Core 2 in July 2024!
GM Core Preview: Tell Your Story!
Tuesday, September 26, 2023
