Hohenstadt's page

Good news! Found a GM to take over PFS OP at our local game store. He will be doing all the paper work and such. I will assist as necessary as a favor to the store and friends playing there. We had 2 tables last session of 6 each players. Had 3 others show up to get characters generated. The outgoing PFS OP GM that does all the paperwork now, helped them with that. The new GM and I ran the the 2 tables.

I have decided to continue on as PFS OP GM for the fun and enjoyment of others plus support of my FLGS as long as needed. And yes I will abide by the standards and rules as I have been for OPs I've ran thus far.

Thanks all.

Hi all and thank you for all your comments, suggestions and help. All have been informative and kind to an old school, crusty GM. Making characters on stone tablets was a real pain.

After 3 more or so sessions of PFS OP GMing, I'm gonna get someone else to do it. If not, I'll just switch over to my style of GMing and give up on OP. It is just not for me. I will still use the Pathfinder 3.5 books and products, as I like the system.

I have about 800+ rpg books that I have read and used and draw from. To limit me to just a very narrow module goes against my nature.

Thanks all..............

Okay, let me approach this another way.

Would someone please tell me is there any room at all for any deviation or creativity on the GM part with Official Organized Play modules? If so, is it written some where? If there is room, how far? More treasure? Anything?

I'm looking at this from another perspective, because it's such a strange question.

Hohenstadt, if it was up to you and you could set this up however you wanted, how would you do it?

A good compromise for me would be:

The modules of OP would just give a basic outline of the setting and the missions. Suggested NPCs and Monsters but not required to be used. The story and plot on how to accomplish the missions would be up to the GM. Prestige Point goals suggestions for factions.

I would still have the ability to GM on the fly a lot more than now.

Also, it was mentioned earlier that OP gives all players the same experience across the world. Why is that necessary? To me, that's like saying all of us have to have the exact same life experiences across the world. I look at each adventure or session should be an unique experience to the party at hand. As long as the XP and PP is all the same for each OP module, why should it matter if all do the exact same module as it is strictly written?

My thoughts on the matter. Hope I am explaining myself well enough.

Dear Hohenstadt,

Now if bookkeeping is not your gig, I have to be the polite reminder and say that all campaigns have bookkeeping involved. You have to write the story, the encounters, the XP rewards, the treasure, the general dos and don'ts for players, build restrictions.. There's always going to be bookkeeping. PFS just did a lot of the work for us, but as a result we have a bigger paper trail. Not a bad or good thing, but a small food for thought.

Thank you for your kind words and blessing.

In my home games. I do not write any story or any adventure or any encounters. It is all made up in my head as I go. No notes or writing of anything. I give what ever XP per session I deem appropriate. I rarely have any build restrictions at all. I make up treasure as I go also. The dos and don'ts I tell the players. I have zero bookkeeping. I do not plan anything ahead of time on paper, all in my head. I have run as many as 4 different RPGs a week keeping track of all of them without notes. The only item I have ever draw out ahead of time is several maps on graph paper. But, now I have so many drawn out over the years, I really don't need to do that now.

1st thanks all for their comments and suggestions.

2nd I apologize if I have offended anyone. That's was not my intent. Sorry.

The number one issue I have is pre-gen modules or adventures. There's little or no room to deviate from the set plot. When I am GMing an official PFS session, I feel very confined in what I can do as a GM. I am basically just reading a story to the players. Yes, I spice it up here and there. Use 3d terrain I have made or maps. Make the battles last a little longer or shorter depending on how the party is doing. Add in an interesting side NPC in their travels and such.

My imagination is going wild when I do this. Wish I could do this here or attack with this monster or it would be great if this happened now. Official play doesn't allow it.

If I had the leeway to do that, the other stuff I could do.

Hohenstadt wrote:

I don't like pre-gen modules or adventures. I only like GMing on the fly.

I don't want to do paper work or keep track of id#'s.

Don't like point buy systems. I only like real dice rolling up of characters.

You seem to dislike the things that differentiate organized play from regular play.

There is a very straightforward solution to this.

Yes, don't GM organized play. But, some of the players I am GMing with Official PFS modules now want the points and such.

I think that, from here is the closest you will get as part of PFS play.

Thanks. That blog you listed read like bunch of lawyers' contracts. I guess I'll just have to tell the store and guys if they want official PFS sessions, have to count me out.

To bad Paizo just doesn't let us have fun with it and still get credit for it.

Is there away to GM organized play without all the paper work, using modules and/or adventure paths?

I don't like pre-gen modules or adventures. I only like GMing on the fly.

I don't want to do paper work or keep track of id#'s.

Don't like point buy systems. I only like real dice rolling up of characters.

Some friends of mine I have been GMing official PFS at local game store have encouraged me to get involved more into this.

However, with all this paper work and modules and point buy and online character generators my fun of GMing has dropped to zero.

I'm an old school pencil and paper and real dice and real books GM. Been GMing for 35+ years.

I really like Pathfinder 3.5 RPG as a game system.