BlackJill's page

My group was TPKd after deciding to push onward when resting was an obvious choice. We are doing a full restart with new characters and a better understanding of the mechanics and playtest rules.

So basically you ran the dungeon a second time? Did you weave it into the narrative somehow (i.e. Keleri sent a second group of her acquaintances to look for the first) or simply pushed the "reset" button and sent the second group in as if it had been the first?

So I'm getting ready to start DD next Saturday with my group and I've been reading about all the innocent adventurers' lives claimed by The Lost Star already... and this had me wondering - how ARE you suppose to proceed in case of TPK in the first part?

Not only because of subsequent parts in which the same PCs would be featured, but also because of the feedback. In case of a party that gets TPKd early in the game, we won't be able to answer some parts of the survey. Do we reset the party and go into the fray again in case of TPK?

Sincere question: is this an issue of having internalized the old mechanics vs explicitly working through new/unfamiliar ones?

Sincere answer: I've considered more than once that might be the issue. My group played fantasy RPG in 3.5 before Pathfinder came about and it was brought to the table as "like 3.5 but..." I suppose we may have expected P2 be "like Pathfinder but..." and we're somewhat resisting P2 because we keep comparing it to the first edition instead of seeing it as a new system.

What I'm hoping will happen is that as the system becomes familiar so will the players (and the GM) feel more at ease and focus on the narrative, as happened in systems before this. That's why I wanted to run the encounter simulations to begin with, before we tackle the AP: I wanted to get everyone familiar with the way the game is played, so when we got to the AP we could simply play it.

Hm, if someone earns a Hero Point for taking notes or mapping the dungeon, is that for merely promising to take notes at the beginning of the session, or is that Hero Point given out uselessly at the end of the game session?

In Warhammer 40K we had the Fate Points, and I'm told in Shadowrun (which I never played, but my husband did) you had Karma Points, and both carried over. The Hero Points are more closely related to the Fate Points I believe, only Fate Points were handed for outstanding achievements in-game. The big difference being they carried over. In both cases, to my understanding, they existed to counter the system's lethality - so they're basically butt-savers for buying rerolls or stave off death. Considering what little I've experienced of the lethality of P2 at lower level simulated encounters, I don't think they're really expendable.

As for map-keeping, snacks-handling and so, we usually see it as part of playing the game. Invariably we have someone in charge of notes, someone with book in hand to consult rules, someone on drinks duty - sometimes one of us writes session logs or their character's journal. I did for Kingmaker in fact - it's more like part of playing the game. I'd much rather Hero Points were handed out for thinking outside the box in-game, for instance, and carried over for the next session like Fate Points did. They might even serve as a good incentive for the shyest players to act more often.

I am writing this post as venting more than anything else. I've yet to run Part I of the AP since my group can only gather once a week - in the meanwhile, I gathered two of my players and we decided to roll up some characters and fiddle around with the combat mechanics a bit. And here I realized that as a GM, my work just tripled. My opinion may sway yet on running the AP, but bear with me.

There is a lot more to keep track of than there was in P1. Every piece of maths went out the window in favor of pools and points. The monster stat blocks are simpler to use, yes - they look very much like the crib notes I made for myself on simple or recurrent enemies in a given adventure. On the other hand, since I don't have the breakdown of all the numbers, they sometimes make no sense to me.

I have no standard of XP to give - instead, I should give XP, from what I've gathered, based on how difficult I think the combat was... but that leaves a lot to my ruling. I can be benevolent and give a Medium encounter Major XP because the rolls weren't that good. I can decide four goblins with crossbows is not that big a challenge and the players simply chose their tactics wrong, and this is a Minor event. Despite the fact one of the characters died.

Treasure is also a problem. Instead of having monsters drop stuff, I feel like I have a budget of items and currency to give out - which of course I will have to tailor to the adventure or the player. I feel like I'm handing out stuff mechanically, instead of allowing players to pick up, keep or sell whatever they want.

I feel like I have to make more decisions on the fly, instead of planning for them.

And then there's the mechanics itself. In P1 a player would tell me something like, "I'll run here and tumble past the ogre to get at its back." and from the simulations I got mostly "First action I'll Stride here, second action I Strike this guy and third action I'll Stride away from him again". Which feels somewhat less organic, like programming a machine, rather than incorporating a character.

Like I said, I'm yet to run the AP - I've read some of it, I'm loving the story, but I fear it might pale or get pushed back when worked through with the mechanics. Maybe because it's a new kind of game... but I feel somewhat like the roleplay will drown in page after page of Feats of all sorts.

Hero Points in particular confuse me: when do I give them out? Am I giving out too many or too little?

I don't feel like a "game master" at all - instead I feel a prisoner of the uncertainty and the complexity. Both players who simulated those combats with me (one of which is my husband) are veterans of fantasy RPG and they feel equally perplexed.

Is anyone else a little lost?