Dr Tom's page

Most professional ethics codes include rules designed to avoid the "appearance of impropriety," and I think that this is a good rule of thumb to use for these sorts of questions, as well.

I'm a DM, an Adventure Path Subscriber, and also a player in other people's games. Currently, I'm playing in a Carrion Crown game. When the game started, I had read a good chunk of the first book, and I'd flipped through bestiary material of some of the other books, looking to mine them for ideas for my own homebrew game.

When I joined the Carrion Crown game, I did the following:

1. Full disclosure: I made sure that the GM knew that I had a bit of inside information on the early books, to ensure he was comfortable with it.

2. Avoidance of anything that might look like "insider trading:" In Book 1, there's a particular encounter which turns out to be an ambush, in which the PCs are manipulated to make themselves more vulnerable to the attack. I knew it was coming, and what's more, I knew that my PC was likely going to be the first target. My character is a pretty cautious fellow by nature, and it's likely that that he would have taken precautions during the run up to the attack, but because I didn't want to give the impression of metagaming, I kept my mouth shut and intentionally did NOT put up pre-emptive defenses. My PC nearly died, but no one could have accused me trying to game the system.

3. Cease the potentially abusive practice: I haven't cracked the spine on any of the Carrion Crown books since we started playing. At this point, we're somewhere in book 3, and I've got no idea what to expect.

For me, this was a no-brainer. Part of the thrill of the game for me is the thrill of exploration and discovery, so reading ahead would ruin that aspect of the game. Even when I play video games, I generally play through them once while avoiding any kind of spoilers or walkthroughs, and then use walkthroughs as a way of checking out content that I might have missed the first time out.

I would expect players in my game to observe a similar social contract.

His kid threw a tantrum on facebook.

He responds with a tantrum on facebook. With bullets.

At least you expect 15-year-olds to throw the occasional tantrum.

That's a really good idea.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/icrit/id442011026?mt=8

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ifumble/id442012141?mt=8

No plot twists, though.

EDIT: Too slow...

I'm still waiting for an Android version. I'd snap those up in a heartbeat.

A couple of things:

First, keep in mind that Lawful (the alignment) does not simply mean lawful (the legal term). Many players interpret the Lawful alignment to mean "always obeys the law," but that's a mistake. In truth, the Lawful alignment is a much broader concept, which just happens to often (but by no means always) overlap with the legal term.

Second: alignments are really big bins. Two lawful good characters might each choose different but equally valid responses to the same situation. There isn't a single correct answer.

The last paladin I played would respond to this problem by trying to organize the community around the woman: "This poor woman has fallen on hard times. That can happen to any of us. But as people of Golarion, our strength is in our connection to each other. Alone, we are vulnerable to the whims of fate, but together, we are strong! Won't you stand together to help your neighbor in her time of need?" The idea that by helping the least of us, we help all of us is a very lawful good concept. Maybe the community passes a collection plate on her behalf. Maybe other local people of note can be convinced to exert economic pressure on the landlord by refusing to do business with him or perform work for him. Maybe someone else offers to put the woman up until she gets back on her feet. There are a lot of options.

I can't speak for anyone else, I'd be more likely to mine 5e for elements that I could port into Pathfinder than the other way around.

Plus, it's not like it's binary; I know plenty of people who are invested to some degree in both Pathfinder AND 4e, running multiple games or multiple groups.