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I'm first time DMing with Carrion Crown. Immediately after the funeral and wake the PCs decide to go to Harrowstone. They stay for the will reading, then ask how the professor died, why he was at Harrowstone, and how it burned down.

They wanted to go before and after questions. I managed to distract them with loot with the church, but they didn't want to bother with the townspeople and went straight to the mausoleum.

The session ended just after checking out the town statue and being accused of desecrating it. They have no interest in The Whispering Way even though they are going to avenge Petros's death. They know nothing about the five prisoners,which make up most of the atmosphere.

What do I do?

Jenn Taylor wrote:

137. NPC's don't matter. Neither does the plot. What matters is that your character found a boyfriend.

Suddenly realizes that two of my last three characters ended up married in the campaign epilogue, and the third ended up magically bound to his love interest across reincarnation cycles...

138. Never give your PCs any significant relationships. The GM will just use them against you.

140. Never care if your rpg relationship is making other players or characters uncomfortable.

141. Let your real-life fetishes determine how your character acts in a game. You can't go wrong.

142. The DM should not care if a person is being mistreated by other players. It's their fault and the DM should tell them so. Games are about making everyone happy, so if they're picking on you, they have a good reason.

(132-142 all happened in the same game)

143. Clerics shouldn't be in melee.

144. Never put points in heal. Healing is for magic.

Alignment in the core (at least first edition, I don't know of any erratas) is a personality thing, not a definite action.

Good and evil can be presented in a myriad of ways and even overlap and agree on things. There's many degrees and interpretations of alignments.

There's also a huge difference between a character and a player of a certain alignment and evil players (or chaotic neutral ones) are far less fun than characters of the same alignment.

There's also a huge difference between intelligently being evil or neutral or good and intelligently being evil or neutral or good.

What works best is what works with the party and the story, which varies.

I feel like I'm behind in managing my armor and weapons. I'm told essentials are expensive things like enchanting my weapon, getting masterwork everything, and grabbing at least one wand if I can use magic.

But all that is a serious drain on expenses that loot doesn't make up for and I prefer to buy useful stuff or items for character flavor.

I joined my campaign for plot, but all we've been finding is food, clothes, and non-magical rods.

Is this something to expect? How much should I focus on making sure my armor and AC and HP are at their best? At what level should I focus on them? At what level can I focus on looking at other equipment?

122. Being confused about what the DM says is happening, not being psychic about what you'll encounter when you prepare spells, and hoping to roleplay instead of successive monster battles means you don't know how to play a character.

123. Why did you buy a bag of holding? Buy a Handy Haversack.

124. Why give your cleric charisma?

(These were all said by the same DM)

125. If you want to be good and have darkness, don't play a cleric.

126. A cohort is in no way an opportunity to roleplay

127. It's stupid to want leadership, but not followers

128. Always buy the heaviest armor you can

129. Don't choose a profession. It's a waste of skill points and time.

130. Never play a ranger

131. Druids must hate cities.

132. Fire is the only worthwhile elemental damage

133. The only motivation one should have is money.

134. Never play a good character

135. It's mean to ask a party member they're name.

136. Play a drow. The person already playing a half-elf will have no problems with it whatsoever.

137. NPC's don't matter. Neither does the plot. What matters is that your character found a boyfriend.

138. Any player who would rather adhere to the plot than watch you powergame, have sex, or throw a party is 'splitting the party' and is thus a bad player.

Weird. About half my characters are human.

I have a half-elf, an undine, and three humans.

Could work for what I'm doing, but I wish there were a few more, even with a feat or something.

Aasimars and (I think) half-elves can take feats and cast spells where the prerequisite is 'human' (with the right racial features).

Does this mean they can take human-specific archetypes of classes?

Are there ways other races can qualify as humans, such as feats, spells, or items?

Cavaliers are great in tandem with each other or--despite Paizo's hype about them as leaders--make awesome squires or cohorts.

Most of these are great options, some are more situational than others. A good DM will tell you if a Cavalier or Ninja wouldn't work and usually just ban them because of that.

The only one I haven't found to be awesome and versatile (a cavalier can get down and walk and STILL do awesome stuff) is a straight bard, but the archetypes are very useful.

I hate leveling these days. Too many feats, too many bonuses to remember at seemingly random levels to keep track of, HP is a headache.

I prefer to use money to make my character effective instead. Besides, how I get the money and how I use it is a lot more fun and less abstract than a point that changes no modifiers or hitpoint amounts.

Alchemist (feels too broken)
Straight Bard (too minstrelly or too Mary Sue)
Cavalier (it's not that I don't like the class, I just prefer the Mounted Fury or Dragoon)
Inquisitor (Why not just be a cleric?)
Ranger (why not just be a Druid or Fighter?)
Druid (Yeah, nature's cool Captain Planet, but I like houses and soap and bread. Besides, why not just be a nature cleric?)
Rogue (I can do that with other classes)
Monk (I can do better with other classes and a weapon)

Prestige classes other than arcane archer or dragon disciple. I don't understand the point of most and the ones I do understand are too situational and 'meh'.

I'm thinking of never playing a caster again, though I liked roleplaying them. Concentration takes me out of the game, metamagic feats suck, and every time I try to prepare for every event, we're in a dungeon where nothing I have can be applied.