So, this was my last session with my church youth group before we take a break for the summer. They have collectively asked me about a million times if there are more modules with pirates in them, so I told them that I had purchased the first book of Skull and Shackles to run when we start up again in the fall. They immediately get distracted from today’s game, talking about what characters they want to play in the pirate game.
Kid 1: I want to make a dwarven gunslinger.
Dad who plays with us: I’m thinking of making some kind of brawler.
Kid 2: I want to make Warmachine. Can I have a suit of armor with a cannon on the shoulder?
It’s not a horrible idea, but I think it may have some unintended consequences of encouraging the same experienced GMs to run games all the time. If a new GM, who is just learning the ropes, gets slammed with some critical reviews early on, that person may just get discouraged, decide they’re a bad GM. Maybe they just needed 10 or 20 games to get comfortable and they would have become a good GM eventually.
If this system existed, the PFS community would need to be very intentional about encouraging new GMs, saying “Look, people are giving you constructive criticism to help you get better. Don’t be discouraged. Learn from it and don’t take it as a personal attack.” Hopefully we are encouraging of new GMs anyway, but we would have to do that even more if players got to rate the GMs, because someone would write “stupid noob, doesn’t even know the rules for grappling” and someone would get upset and stop running games because of that.
I run a monthly game for some of the youth in my church (and one super helpful dad, who helps me herd the cats). Since they are relatively young, and new to role-playing, they are usually good for a couple of good quotes, or humorous strategy that’s outside of what I expected. These are from The Frozen Fingers of Midnight, but the context is not super important:
“So, our goal is to kidnap this guy, and steal his stuff, but not look like criminals?”
While discussing a plan to sneak into a warehouse, one player turns to the player with the Harsk pregen. “Not you! You’re too short and fat for sneaking!”
Teenage boy, “Well, you’re a hottie.”
That player’s sister, “Please ignore him. He doesn’t speak for all of us.”
3-01 The Frostfur Captives is pretty straightforward, and if you can play up the Goblin's antics, it's a great romp. It's one of the first scenarios I played, and the one I probably remember the most simply because the GM made the Goblins as entertaining as possible, even if it broke some of the rules.
I have recently started running a monthly PF game for some of the teenagers at my church (and one Dad who used to play RPGs back in the day). I ran this, Sunday afternoon, based on Kwinten’s suggestion and it was a lot of fun. Much hilarity watching some relatively new role-players threaten and cajole their goblin prisoners. Giving each gobbo a name and one sentence of personality was totally prep time well spent.
I have not read the entire thread, so forgive me if I am being repetitious. In my real life work as a college professor I have seen numerous situations where a student knew something once and then couldn't recall it correctly in a pressure situation. I'm assuming that fighting a demon is roughly equivalent to taking a calculus test ;-)
A small gnome, carrying a shield emblazoned with the symbol of Sarenrae, stops to add to the conversation. "Don't underestimate the power of forgiveness, Master Hojoin!"
"However, if you wish to find Venture Captain Dreng, Miss Bloodrose has reminded me of a useful stratagem. Simply lay down your head, close your eyes and announce that you don't intend on putting your life in danger any more until the morrow. For myself, I have taken certain vows against speaking dishonestly, but the method has proven most effective in drawing the old fellow's attention on several occasions when I was legitimately tired and wished to sleep through the night.'
A tall aasimar paces back and forth, growing seemingly more agitated.
"They do say in the River Kingdoms - that's where I'm from - slavery is an abomination. But we've never had it. Everyone just agrees that it's wrong, and if anyone starts trying to take slaves we give them a good beating."
She slows down, becoming more thoughtful.
"Changing the laws? That's just the sort of diplomicizing talky stuff my mother would be good at. How would she handle this . . . are you sure there's not a part where we stage a daring rescue and ride off on fast horses?"
if i argue that vivisectionists, undead lords and gravewalker witches should be allowed using this same exact argument, how does that make me look?
I really need to answer this question:
Tobi, The Masked One wrote:
Why do we trust players being paladins not to be jerks but don't trust players to be Vivisectionists, Undead Lord clerics, allowing witches to have certain hexes, allowing Blood Biography, etc.? Its public perception. Neutrality leaning towards good and banning evil will always be more accepted than true neutrality banning extremes, and that is the true bias here.
Tobi has hit on a key point. The campaign, and the people who have official powers to decide what is legal within PFS, is trying to be neutral, leaning towards good. When the paladin is causing trouble, it is usually because he is doing something like being honest, or trying to stop party members from killing a defenseless prisoner. If an undead lord is being disruptive is is usually because he is desecrating corpses that were "resting in peace". I think that goes deeper than just public perception. There's a significant moral difference between those two things.
Why is the campaign not "neutral, banning extremes"? I feel like the weight of precedent in Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder style games (and certainly the overwhelming majority of large, organized play campaigns) has been on playing the good guys, and going out into the world to combat evil. You can be shiny good guys (Sir Galahad, Superman, Michael Carpenter, or Ollysta Zadrian) or darker, edgier good guys (Robin Hood, Batman, Harry Dresden, or Colson Maldris) but you don't get to play the bad guys. If the campaign authors are going to write a module, with some bad guys in it for you to oppose, they want to assume you fall within some broad category of people who would oppose undead running amok in Absalom, or demons pouring out of the World Wound.
I've played in individual games that permitted evil characters. I've played in games that were entirely evil characters. Those can be quite enjoyable, but I don't think they hold up well on the scale of PFS. You want some sort of assurance that the random cast of characters that show up at your table is on the same side, and willing to work together. One way to encourage that is the "no evil" rule. Evil doesn't have to be psychopathic, I know, but it generally comes with a "doesn't play well with others" vibe. Another way to encourage that is the Pathfinder creed, "Explore, Report, Cooperate". If your paladin is so tight to the code that he can't cooperate, then he's not a good Pathfinder either. My personal opinion (and we may just have to agree to disagree if it comes down to opinion) is that a paladin is easier to make fit the system than an evil character.
yes, you can roleplay LG, but you don't have a class restriction forcing you to do so. GM fiat is pretty much what allows paladins to be played at all. Roleplaying restrictions from other classes such as swashbuckler/gunslinger acts of derring-do are not enforced in society, are paladins meant to be hand-waved as well?
While I don't agree with your original argument, that Paladins need to be banned, I kind of agree that PFS does force both players and GMs to treat them a little differently than you would in a home game. That's just the necessary price for being able to throw together lots of random tables of different GMs, players and characters, and still get it all done in four hours.
It's a little on the player. If you want to play a Paladin in PFS, know that you will not have the time to finish (and you're not going to make many friends at your table) if you cause major drama of every possible moral issue. Pick your battles, quickly role-play your objections, and if the rest of the party wants to do it anyway, know that you can't fight them.
It's a little on the GM. Don't spend the whole game, watching the paladin and looking for an excuse to make him fall. Just as the paladin shouldn't make mountains out of molehills, neither should the GM. If you think the paladin is doing something really outrageous, let him know he's putting a foot over the line, but don't nit-pick. For example, if the paladin objects to water-boarding the prisoner, but the rogue does it anyway, don't blame the paladin for finishing out the adventurer with the rogue. It's kind of a jerk move to say "Go wait in the corner for two hours, until the next game starts, or your paladin falls."
And it's a little on the rest of the players. The paladin should make some effort not to completely de-rail your game, but you can also make some effort not to start fights with the paladin. Don't metagame the fact that you, the player, know that the paladin is not allowed to smack you in the head if you do too many whacky evil hijinks.
To me, it really all comes down to the "don't be a jerk" rule. Can you have long, game de-railing arguments about paladins? Sure, but PFS kind of assumes you will act like a reasonable, cooperative person and try not to have those arguments because you want the next four hours to actually be fun.
Regarding the target audience for PFS, I think a good analogy is that PFS is like the McDonald's of gaming. Is it the best burger you ever had? Probably not. Can you go to lots of different locations, in lots of different cities and get a pretty consistent burger? Yes. Are there people who look down their nose at McDonald's because they only like burgers from The Holy Ground Irish Pub? Sure, but there's only one Holy Ground and if you don't live in New Orleans it's probably too far out of your way to get a burger. Do lots of people enjoy going to McDonald's every day? Yes, but it's not everyone's idea of a good time.
So, to specifically answer some of the OPs questions, does it favor gamers who move around all over the country? Sure. It's a good fit for people like that, or for people who can't commit the time to a game that runs every week. It's good for accommodating people who play all the time, and people who play only occasionally at the same table.
Does it favor optimizers? I think one of the qualities of a big organized play campaign is that you have to define, in more detail, exactly how the rules work. You want that consistency from one game to another. However, if the rules are more strongly defined, and the GM has less power to say "that's ridiculous, we're not using that in MY game" then it's easier for an optimizer to work. If you've min-maxed your character with a very obscure weakness, an optimizer might never (or only rarely) run into their problem situation.
Is it welcoming to new players? That probably varies from group to group, but it should be. You are less likely to end up at that table with five guys who have been gaming together since 1987, with their laundry list of in-jokes and house rules. It gives you a chance to try the game for four hours without making a commitment to show up at every session from now until the end of the campaign.
Is it adversarial? It shouldn't be, but I think because the rules are more strongly defined, sometimes GMs feel backed into a corner. It may feel like their putting their metaphorical foot on the neck of your character, but they're trying to stay true to what the module says to do. Different GMs seem to vary in how much they will stray from what was instructed - ymmv.
Is there any role-playing, or just combat? There are games that have more role-playing, and if that is your favorite thing about rpgs, then perhaps PFS is not the best fit for you (some people don't like McDonald's). The two things that seem to cut down on role-playing are that you sometimes get thrown together with a bunch of strangers (and you have no idea how much THEY want to role-play) and you're generally trying to get through a game in 4 hours. I think this varies widely, from table to table, depending on who else you are playing with. I have had some very fun RP in PFS sessions, and I have some where we spent most of the time fighting.
Wow, that turned out longer that I meant it to be. I hope I said something intelligent in there somewhere . . .
I'm inclined to agree with Thod. If you can look at yourself in the mirror, with a clear conscience, then you did not abuse the aasimar/tiefling grandfathering process. If the little voice in your head says, "Maybe you're taking this a little too far", then you probably are.
If you are looking for a number so that you can wag your finger at other people, then I think you have to ask yourself, "Is it really THAT important to me that some guy in Des Moines has 27 tiefling PFS characters?"
As for me, I already have a tiefling character, so I don't feel the need to make another one. I don't have any aasimar characters in PFS, so I'm going to try to get one in before the deadline. It would not offend me if someone had two or three (or even twelve) cool concepts that they wanted to grandfather in.
P.S. I have nothing against Des Moines, it's just a random place far away from where I live.
I have a character who would join the nature faction if it existed, but I'm not going to cry myself to sleep if it doesn't happen.
Right now she is in Grand Lodge because she doesn't care about the politicking of any of the other factions. As a wise man once said, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
Legal Disclaimer: I counted dead and retired characters, but not things you are planning to play in the future. I probably mis-counted somewhere. I probably won't update this when more people add to the thread. I'm not sure why I decided elemental races needed to be their own category. If you want better/more statistics, do it yourself!
You sit down at a certain "investigate the cult and pretend to join them" scenario and the total charisma modifier is -11.
This. Actually. Happened.
It is only marginally better if you have a very high charisma and diplomacy character, but that character is a paladin. "I don't exactly want to join your cult, but if you don't mind me asking politely, what kind of evil shenanigans are you planning?"
I know that the general rule of thumb is that party conflict and PVP is bad, but some of my best role-playing stories involve characters getting into hijinks without the rest of the party knowing.
The time I faked my PC's death:
The background to this story is that a group of bad guys had taken over the capital city of the PC's country. Not everyone realized that they were bad guys, because they weren't being openly antagonistic, but the party was stuck inside the city and they weren't letting anyone leave.
The rest of the party wanted to stage an escape, while my character (a rogue) wanted to stay in the capital and stir up a rebellion. Not wanting to be the jerk who holds up the rest of the group, I conspired with the DM to fake my character's death, have my rogue become an NPC, and bring in a new character that would be more willing to go along with the rest of the party.
We cooked up a plan where most of the party snuck out of town in the middle of the night, while the rogue stayed behind. I was supposed to mis-direct any search parties that went after the party, and then meet up with them later (because I actually had stealth and disguise and those sorts of skills). The druid was supposed to fly back into town as a bird, and tell me the location of the secret meet up after everything calmed down.
When the druid came back, there were bad guys waiting outside my door. They came busting in, disrupting the meeting. The druid flew away, with archers shooting at him and the last thing he saw was my character failing a save and falling unconscious. My new PC met up with the party as they were fleeing the capital, and none of them realized the old PC was still alive and working on underhanded schemes, off camera.
The time I tried to get one of my players to sell out the party:
I was running a game in the Wheel of Time setting, and one of the characters was a male channeler who had been stilled (cut off from his magical power). Their boss was actually one of the major villains of the game (a black ajah), and kept trying to buy that character's loyalty by offering to give his power back. He played along long enough to get a fraction of his magic back.
At the end of the campaign, he had a reasonably good opportunity to throw the rest of the party under the bus during the climactic showdown. I had actually prepared for things to go either way because I didn't know what he would choose. He helped the party survive, and then just walked away to join Rand's training program for male channelers, because he had revealed that he had somehow got his magic back and didn't want to answer the awkward questions.
I gave my player a chance to be a backstabbing murderhobo, and he decided to turn it down!
...another player brings a barbarian to anything with heavy roleplay/social occasions.
This one really annoys me because then they get bored and start complaining. Well...guess what...IT WAS ADVERTISED AS A SOCIAL OCCASION!
. . . another player brings a barbarian, and his animal companion, to anything with heavy roleplay/social occasions.
GM: Damian Blackros comes downstairs, clearly half-dressed for the upcoming feast. "Please remove your dinosaur from my house, or I will remove both you and the dinosaur from my house."
Other PCs: Please, please, PLEASE take the dinosaur out to the stables because we don't want to fail the mission after 20 minutes!
I think that, even if you are 99.5% sure that you know the rules and the other player is doing it wrong, asking "how does your character do that?" is a good, non-threatening way to start the conversation. It sounds more cooperative to say "let's figure out how the works properly" instead of "I'm going to tell you how you're doing it wrong" even if you get to the same result in the end.
"While no one would purchase tickets to see me dance," says the shark-like teifling, "I am pleased to see that The Sacred Sting is receiving the attention in the artistic spotlight that she deserves."
"Best of luck in your future theatrical endeavors, Ms. Twilight! And if you encounter any unappreciative critics, or unruly patrons, who are in need of a bit of vengeance, well, I am always happy to be about Our Lady's work."
The spoilered conversation would not be overheard by any other characters (except those with remarkable eavesdropping capabilities) but it may provide the out of character participants a little explanation of who Cat is, and how she came to be at the Winter Masquerade.
Most notably, “Lord Tiger” is not a character of mine, but rather a means for delivering Cat to the party. If anyone wants to rescue him from talking to other boring NPCs by the punch bowl, feel free to take him for a spin around the dance floor, or tell him about your latest outing to the opera. Once he gets a drink or two in him, I’m sure he’ll relax and have a good time . . .
A Conversation Five Minutes Prior to Arrival:
”Don’t fidget so!” Cat laid her hand on the man’s arm. ”It would be highly impolite to withdraw your invitation at this point and, just think, it’s a win-win situation for you. If I don’t embarrass you, and I won’t, then you will be the talk of the party. Who was that charming young lady who was dancing with Lord Corbray? She had an unusual accent? Where is she from? You’ll have the ultimate piece of juicy gossip to share with your friends and rivals.”
“And if I do embarrass you, which I won’t, then you have the ultimate in deniability.” Cat smoothed the whiskers on her mask. “I had no idea who she was behind he mask. I thought she was Lady Taldoria, honored guest from Oppara, who could slay a troll by dropping her genealogy of noble ancestors out of second story window. She’s not even Taldan – who invites that sort of riff-raff to a party, anyway?”
Cat continued, without giving her companion time to object, ”Just because I’m a Pathfinder doesn’t mean I make a habit of stabbing random strangers for the contents of their purse. I was at the wedding of Michellia Blackros, and I managed to make it through the entire ceremony without knifing a single guest. Furthermore, I’m told that I acquitted myself with a modicum of grace on the dance floor. Trust me, everything will be fine.”
The young Lord Corbray did not seem entirely convinced, but he offered Cat his arm and helped her descend from the coach. The two of them approached Chrysanthemum House looking every part the happy couple . . .
The young couple approaching Chrysanthemum House have clearly coordinated their outfits for the evening’s festivities. The young man’s mask is that of a fearsome white tiger. If it is not a real tiger’s head, then it is the work of a highly skilled craftsman for it is correct down to the smallest detail. The remainder of his outfit is striped in the likeness of a tiger. The young woman, on his arm, wears a slightly smaller mask, in the form of a tigress. Her dress is also patterned with tiger stripes, and the tasteful fur trim helps to ward against the winter cold.
”We’re, umm, here for the Winter Masquerade . . .” begins the young man, with a touch of nerves. He searches briefly for his invitation, flustered.
With a barely perceptible motion, the young woman produces two invitations from . . . well, it is not entirely clear from whence she produced them. ”Lord Tiger,” she gestures to the young man. “Surely even this far removed from the Mwangi Expanse you have heard of his reputation for grace and ferocity in the hunt. If you have any gazelles, or eligible young ladies, on the dance floor then I fear for their safety.”
“As for myself, you can call me Lady Tigress, or the Masked Cat. Just, please, don't call me a kitten.” She gives a graceful curtsy as she hands the invitations to the Master of Ceremonies. The young man’s nerves seem to calm as the pair is ushered inside.
Don't we kind of judge people like this in real life?
Suppose you walk into class, on your first day of college. On your left is a big strong guy, who plays defensive tackle for the football team. On your right is a scrawny looking guy, wearing glasses. Who do you want to study with before the test? Maybe the football player has. 4.0 and is studying nuclear physics, but a lot of people are going to assume he's a "big dumb jock".
I'm sure you get those sorts of stereotypes in a fantasy world too. "Hey, here comes another big dumb mercenary fighter. Use small words, and try not to make him angry." Or if you want to go the other way, "The guy in the wizards robes can probably curse us out in eleven different languages, but if we just hold him down and give him a wedgie, he'll be helpless to stop us!"
If I had not already invested a good deal of time and effort into my current career (math professor) I would love to work in the gaming industry. I actually teach a course for non-majors called Math of Games, where I use games to explain probability and logical decision making.
I tried designing my own card game a couple years ago, and got as far as making a mock up deck on index cards and running a couple of playtests, but it kind of died due to lack of time.
Both of these seem like really useful abilities for a rogue. I have a multi-class rogue who gets a lot of use out of mage hand and silent image as well, but you'd either need to multi-class or take the magical rogue talents to get those.
I did play in one PFS module where we were trying to get into a warehouse, but there was a guard sitting outside. The gnome in our party cast ghost sound, for the sound of breaking glass, and then said to the guard, "Did you hear that? I think someone is trying to break into your warehouse around that corner - you'd better go check it out." I believe the DM asked for a bluff check to cover both the spell itself, and the gnome's follow up line.
Short version – dragons dominate most of the world, aided by their minions, the dragonsworn. The only groups to successfully oppose the dragons' onslaught are the orcs and trolls inhabiting the mountainous highlands, and the merfolk who live under the sea. Fierce tribes of raider orcs still ride the open plains, though the indirectly serve the dragons’ purposes by restricting travel between dragon-controlled cities.
History:
The gods had a gentlemen’s agreement. Each was welcome to grant miraculous powers to their priests, raise up great temples, and inspire mighty heroes, but no god was to manifest physically in the world. The destruction would simply be too great if the gods walked, and battled, among mortals. So all the gods refrained from such actions. All except one . . .
Ashrak, the god of dragons, took the form of a mighty dragon and led his people in a devastating war of conquest. The other gods either would not, or could not oppose Ashrak directly, and so dragons came to rule supreme over all the lands. Either directly, or through their dragonsworn minions, dragons came to control all aspects of life. No army was raised without a dragon to lead them into battle. No alliance was formed without the approval of the dragons. No trade caravan traveled from one city to another without paying steep tribute to those dragons whose territory it crossed. Only in the mountainous highlands, and in the depths of the sea does any resistance remain to the draconic domination. And those who wish to remain on the good side of the dragons are quick to point out that nobody would really want that territory anyway.
Dragonsworn:
Few, if any, humans remain that have not sworn loyalty to Ashrak. To be merely human is seen as a weakness and a curse, and the most loyal servants of Ashrak are blessed with signs of his favor. Minor blessings might be exhibited as a few scales on the face, or clawed toes on the feet (and such a dragonsworn would gladly go without shoes to show off his draconic features). Greater blessings include golden dragon eyes, that can see through the darkest night, or a limited ability to breathe fire. Dragonsworn traits are often passed on from parents to children, and so there is a nuanced caste system where dragonsworn endeavor to marry, and bear children with, other dragonsworn of roughly equal draconic character.
The great heroes of the dragonsworn stand head and shoulders over either men or orcs. They fight with fearsome claws, and fiery breath, and their thick scaly hides protect them from blows in battle. They are nearly invincible to any except the dragons they call master, and they lord it over those who are not so blest. These are the generals that fight the dragons’ wars, the mayors that oversee the dragons’ cities, and the high priests who carry the word of Ashrak to all those who were not so fortunate to be born a dragon.
Plains Orcs:
The plains orcs are skilled riders and raiders, traveling quickly from one place to another on their wyrmling mounts. Wyrmlings are not true dragons (no dragon would condescend to be used as a mount for lesser beings, like orcs) but large lizards that roam the grasslands. Wyrmlings are approximately the size of bison, and have sharp teeth and claws and a nasty temperament. The plains orcs are only able to train them for riding when they can procure wyrmling eggs, and train the young lizards from birth.
Any tribes of plains orcs that would not swear fealty to the dragons were methodically hunted down and killed. The orcs’ speed, which allowed them to dominate the open plains, was slow compared to a dragon on the wing, and the plains orcs’ distrust for all things magical left them vulnerable to the priests and wizards who served Ashrak. Though some tribes fought bravely, they were quickly overmatched. The remaining tribes still roam the plains in between the dragons’ cities, but they know not to attack any travelers who bear signs of the dragons’ protection. They do serve as an additional deterrant to any who would attempt to move from town to town without the dragons’ approval.
Mountain Orcs:
When the mountain orcs chose to resist the coming of the dragons, they enjoyed two advantages over the plains orcs. First, they could retreat to their labyrinthine tunnels inside the mountains, where the dragons could not reach them, and could only attack via proxy. Second, the mountain orcs employed shamans, who prayed to the trickster god, Nyx, for aid. Though no god would opposed Ashrak directly, none has done more than Nyx to oppose the dragon god indirectly, and with his aid the mountain orcs have been able to largely nullify any magical attack brought against them.
Once a people with a proud warrior heritage like the plains orcs, the mountain orcs have reinvented themselves as a people of stealth and trickery. They strike against the dragons, and then fade back into the mountains to regroup and mount another assault. They do not appear to have made a significant impact on the dragon-ruled lowlands, but they remain a threat that the dragons cannot completely eliminate. As such, they serve as an inspiration to all others who might dare to oppose Ashrak and the dragons.
Mountain Trolls:
The mountain trolls have long been enemies of the mountain orcs, and one of the dragons’ early attempts to eliminate the mountain orcs was by forging an alliance with the trolls. It appeared to be working well in the beginning. The natural strength and toughness of the trolls, directed with the cunning strategy of the dragons took a heavy toll on the orcs. However, while individual trolls are slow-witted, large groups of trolls are capable of a group intelligence greater than any individual troll. As the dragons gathered more trolls together to make focused strikes against the orcish resistance, the trolls realized that they were being used as sacrificial shock troops in the dragons’ armies.
In several engagements, large forces of trolls dramatically broke from fighting with the orcs and turned on their supposed allies, the dragons and the dragonsworn, inflicting heavy losses. The dragons responded with equal violence, killing many trolls with their fiery breath, but the alliance was broken beyond repair. The mountain regions are now divided between three sides – dragonsworn, orcs and trolls – none of which trust the others. The trolls continue to meet in large gatherings, called Trollmoots, to bring their best thinking and problem solving skills to bear on their current predicament.
Merfolk:
The other area that has not fallen under the control of the dragons is under the sea, where the merfolk have built their empire. Their cities are protected under vast magical domes that, so far, have repulsed all attacks from the dragons and their allies. The dragons insist that they have not actually tried very hard to break through the merfolk defenses, and they don’t really care about what happens under the water. For now there exists and uneasy peace between the two, but little diplomacy takes place between them.
It is in the underwater cities of the merfolk that much of the surface lore has been gathered for future generations. Treatises describing the weaknesses of various dragons (heretical texts in the eyes of Ashrak) are carefully preserved and studied by the merfolk. The merfolk libraries also contain many holy books for gods once worshiped on the surface, and there is something of a fad for creating cults to lost gods. Thus, it is not uncommon to see merfolk sporting symbols of gods once worshipped by other races, and trying to recreate forgotten rituals.
I don't think mind control is "bad form" but if you keep wrecking your players with the same thing over and over again, don't be surprised if they start meta-gaming against it.
I played in a Werewolf game in college where every random mook and thug had silver bullets, or a silver knife, or something very anti-werewolf that you wouldn't expect most people to be carrying. As characters died, everyone made up new characters with the silver immunity advantage, because you basically needed it to survive in that game. The DM got mad because silver immunity is supposed to be a very rare and special trait for a werewolf, but I feel like by running the game the way he did he brought the situation on himself.
If you don't mix it up, so that some baddies have mind control, but many don't then you may find you end up with a party that is all boosted up on wisdom and will saves in a rather unrealistic fashion.
Even NPC Pathfinders make fun of Sheila Heidmarch (though not to her face):
Quote from Sanos Abduction (you can probably read it unless you are very OCD about not seeing anything from a mod you haven't played):
The gnome, Ignizi Dinneletter, addressing the PCs. "You lot with the weapons, unpack this horse, build a nice fire, and pull up some turnips from the garden. Then come have a drink and tell me how fat Sheila's gotten."
I'd like to give a shout out to Matt, the western PA venture captain, for a bit of spontaneous NPC background creation when he ran the mod this weekend at GASPCon. I was playing my rogue/sorceress who had been pretty successful at influencing people at The Blackros Matrimony, and she took it upon herself to work on Senator Naran. Here was a suitable challenge for her diplomatic wiles, but she was initially rebuffed with a pat on the butt and a crude joke.
I decided to try a different tactic, and started talking to Mrs. Naran (even in Golarion, women don't go to the restroom by themselves). Matt then ad libbed a wonderful background story about how she came from a poor background, and don't I dare judge her, she was just doing what she had to do to make it in this world. I got to commiserate that my character had also risen from a poor background, and might totally have done the same thing were their positions reversed. If she ever needed a friend in the Pathfinders, like maybe to push Naran down a well, and speed up the inheritance process, she should contact me. It didn't get us any influence credit in the end, but it was a fun bit of rp with someone who apparently only gets the briefest of mentions in the written mod.
We've had a couple of characters die in our Kingmaker game, and only two have been raised from the dead. The reactions to different character deaths were quite interesting.
One character was not raised because he got turned into a zombie. He was first level, and we probably couldn't have afforded to have him raised even if we wanted to.
Two characters were not raised because it was adjudged that they died in a suitably heroic fashion and "that's how they would want to go out". One was an Ulfen who died in combat, the other was a fighter who started out as a CN bravo and capped off his transition to CG by not backing down from defending a helpless NPC when he should have run away.
One character was raised, with the raise dead bankrolled by a bunch of Varisians. They finagled a bunch of trade concessions out of us, and the revived PC married one of the Varisians in a political marriage (and so we have a baby gnome who will some day rule the kingdom if we can keep it together that long).
One character was raised, with the raise dead bankrolled by the Calistrian temple in our town. The temple had just been damaged by events at the end of Rivers Run Red, and the Calistrians wanted to make sure that they were at the top of the list for getting their building repaired. The DM also used this raise to deliver a special assignment from Pharasma, "I'm sending you back so that you can deal with an undead menace - you'll know it when you see it."
I feel that this has kept a good balance where not all deaths are permanent, but if you do get raised you know it's going to come with an asterisk.
So, reading this thread makes me more confident that my PFS paladin made the right choice in NOT going after an NPC who detected as evil . . .
Frozen Fingers of Midnight:
Near the end of the mod, we had fought our way through a bunch of undead in the frozen ship and encountered Natalya. Being somewhat suspicious that "normal" people don't just hang out in a frozen ship full of undead, the paladin detected evil - she was. However, she was also not doing anything hostile towards the party, and her main goal seemed to be that she wanted to go home. The paladin decided that this was a woman who needed help instead of smiting, but I was always a little nervous that I had released some big bad back into the world.
A thing that I think is important to a good campaign, but kind of a challenge to do in practice, is to keep the right amount of focus on where the campaign is going in the future.
If you start the campaign with some idea of where you want to end up long term, you can start planting clues and recurring npcs early on. That sort of thing makes it feel much more like a campaign and less like a disjointed sequence of adventures. You can also plan for which parts of the story will give each PC a chance to shine.
On the other hand, remember that you are not a movie director, with complete control of how the story goes. If your PCs ignore a clue, or decide they don't want to talk to an npc, let them have some influence on how things play out. It can be a campaign killer if the players feel they are marching from point to point, acting out scenes the GM has already written. Give them important, campaign influencing, decisions to make and being willing to go in whatever direction they decide to go.
This is a longish thread. I'm going to try to collect all of my responses into one post, here, so it may jump around a little.
1. I think whoever made the analogy with the Joker, from The Dark Knight, made a very good point. In that movie, the Joker tries very hard to put Batman in a position of "go against your code or innocent people will die" similar to what the OP is trying to do to his paladin. Does Batman go against his code? Does Batman let the people die? No, he uses all of his gadgets (his cool adventuring loot, if you will) and finds a third option. As long as there is the possibility of the Batman option, then this dilemma is not nearly so bad as some people are making it out to be.
2. I feel it is OK to give a paladin tough choices SOMETIMES. Don't make one player feel like you are picking on him (or her) but a good campaign should shine the spotlight on each character from time to time, and give them a chance to use their unique powers or show off some interesting part of their character or backstory. One of the interesting things that you can bring up when you shine the spotlight on the paladin is that they are held to a higher moral standard than most other characters.
3. I had a paladin of mine put in an interesting moral dilemma once (and actually, now that I think about it, this also happened between the Joker and Batman). The bad guy had set up a situation where I had to choose between saving my mentor, who had recruited me into being a paladin, or saving a bunch of innocents in a burning building. At first, it seemed like kind of a contrived lose-lose situation, but it made me think about my character more carefully. I realized that to save my mentor was the selfish choice, and if she was at all serious about me being a good paladin then she would actually want me to go save the innocents. And it sure did make me hate the bad guy!
4. Arguing about CN characters seems pretty much at a tangent to the main focus of this discussion, but I feel obliged to throw in my two cents there also. In my opinion, using your alignment (any alignment) as a substitute for having an interesting character with more complex motivations is likely to end up with a pretty boring and 2-D character. CN characters can have hopes and dreams, friends and enemies, likes and dislikes just as much as anyone else. Do people sometimes use CN as an excuse for making pseudo-evil characters? Sure, but if your character concept is "I'm CN, I go around being chaotic" then I think the problem is that you haven't made a very deep character, not your alignment.
Finally, if there is a shortage of GMs, players need to start GMing. It's really that simple. "Being a GM" isn't some mystical quality, you just pick up a scenario and run it. Being a good GM is something you achieve through practice, which requires that first step of picking up a scenario and running it.
This is a really good point because I think the existence of living campaigns like PFS make it much easier than it used to be to jump into GMing. It takes a lot of work to put together an adventure or campaign of your own creation, but if you have an already created module then someone else has helped you with a bunch of that work. If you are particularly nervous about being a first time GM then I would suggest:
1. Pick a module that you have played before as a player. You've seen that mod before, so even before you start prepping to GM you have a rough idea of what's supposed to happen.
2. Make sure there is a friendly, experienced player at the table with you who can help you answer rules questions when they come up. Nobody has the rules memorized for everything, so don't be afraid to ask "Does anyone remember the penalty for fighting with your shoelaces tied together?"
I feel like GMing is one of those tasks where, if one person has to do it all the time, it becomes kind of a nuisance and that person gets burnt out. However, if it gets shared between a bunch of people then nobody actually has to do it that much and everyone gets a chance to play their characters in addition to sitting behind the screen. We have a good system for rotating GMs in my local gaming group, which I think is one of the reasons why we keep going strong. It sounds like that is not always the case in other areas . . .
