John Kerpan's page

I did not see this anywhere else, but: how are you adjusting the combats in the APL to account for a 6-player party instead of the intended 4?

A few posts ago, someone talked about how some words mean something negative to some people, but a different group sees it completely differently.

The term in discussion there means "a bundle of wood", and gets used in the UK for cigarette, and is a slur towards homosexuals in the US. The question was is he wrong for using a word he always has used, with a non-offensive meaning, in the US.

The answer should be: he says it a few times, and each time, people look shocked or annoyed. He asks why, and they explain what the word means here. They give him some leeway for being foreign, and he starts to use a different word out of respect.

Well, we now have a few people for whom ROLLplay is perfectly OK, talking to a chatroom of people saying "I do not like it" or "It is offensive" etc.

Maybe would should give people some slack, let them explain what they mean, but let them know why it is offensive, and see if their sense of pride can be won over by everyone else's concern :)

I like the idea.

1) what would a rigid cannibalistic hierarchy look like? Everyone lines up, and the cult elders get the choice bits while the initiated get toenails?

Also, Rhuelords sound suspiciously like Runelords, including the whole old culture destroyed with ruins, and lords who can be reawakened to cause trouble. I am sure there is another way you could go to distinguish what you are coming up with.

Despite the gutter that many people went down, the hill with the druids circle looked like a Sharingan eye to me. Wondering if that was intentional or not.

1) Color almost always helps, as it adds a new dimension of design and organizational space to an image.

2) Labels and titles for the places on the map. "Druid Circle" might not need to be keyed if there is a label "Ceremonial Circle" next to it on the map. For the labels to not clutter the map, things need to be more clearly delineated (hence using color to east the visual burden)

3) The filler. Are there smaller trees, or have they been clear-cut to make room for the (lower-class??) ground-dwellers. Are the squiggles on the hill flowers, bushes, small trees? Are there trees surrounding the village, or is it just a copse in the middle of grassland?

4)Zoning. the sod-huts seem to be the central hub of the village, with three roads and a river converging there. Is this a market area, housing for non-elves, a business district or what? There seem to be clusters of tree-houses too without any hint given as to what they are: is the center octagon a palace, are the clusters by family, by class, by zone (commercial, industrial, residential), or by chance (the trees happened to grow like that). The lack of small intervening trees makes it seem like the whole village is managed, so the clusters seem deliberate.

5) What does the river add? Transportation, food? Should there be warehouses for storing trade goods, or boats, more docks, customs area?

Just some thoughts. In all I really like the map and the setting.

Here is a good read on how to incorporate traps a little more logically into your game. There is some general theory on how to let your players (not the characters) interact with traps, rather than reducing them to an arbitrary dice roll, as well as ways to incorporate rogue abilities so they do not feel useless.
Also, a great resource for cool, weird, and interesting types of traps!
Hackslashmaster

Sexualized women has become the expectation. Clothing ads, toys, movie characters, TV characters, etc. are all getting more and more sexualized, and it is becoming more and more acceptable.
Children (boys and girls) are taught from an early age that girls are supposed to be pretty, and that they have value based on other people's perceptions of them.

However, there is nothing wrong with a person who is comfortable with their sexuality. The problem is that that should be doing it for themself, not because they have been taught since childhood to do it for others. Judging other people by your own standard of appropriate sexuality is wrong in both directions, whether you are telling someone to cover up, or whether you are telling someone to expose more.

For this reason, I think the approach that Paizo has towards all their characters is pretty great. Most worry about practicality, but there are some who have other priorities. Jessica's analysis of the CRB pictures is a pretty objective assessment, and while Seoni might be "too sexualized" for some, and while the rest might not be sexualized enough for others, the fact that there is such diversity is the important part.

Right, but I mean, in this fight, they can steal one man from the other team to join them, if they can convince him he has been doing wrong.

So if they can convince the Paladin he is working for the wrong side, it is really a party of 8?

A lot of what I think about this has been said before on this thread:
1) Lots of options will necessarily have to be worse than other options. Many options will have to be better than other options. If every options is identical, are there really options at all.
~~~
2) I like the comparison to MtG, a game where it is pretty common knowledge that some cards are really good, some are really bad, and most will never see competitive Constructed tournament play. Why do they print them all? Players who like mastering rules analysis get to win tournaments, players who like big creatures can smash stuff, players who only look for crazy combos can find them. If you can remember that the cards are not only made for Standard Constructed Tournaments, the existence of bad cards is fine. In fact, MtG has made formats where bad constructed cards can shine as good draft options, and where the fact that the same mediocre creatures show up with different names and pictures in different sets is welcomed by the players.

Pathfinder is no different. Some people want to be the most mechanically proficient ever. Some people want to have a great story. Some people want to have a super-specialized character. Lots of options give everyone a little of what they want.
~~~
3)GMs need and want options too. Just because a PC would never take a feat does not mean that there will not be an NPC who has a very unique flavor, a super specialized non-combat role, or might just want a sub-optimal but surprising flavor on an ability to stump the PCs.
~~~
4) Traits are repetitive because not everyone wants to have been a bullied child in order to get that +2 to their initiative. The traits are supposed to help you come up with an interesting character background, and the rewards are bribery (as JJ has said). Since a skillful GM can make a fun campaign for a poorly optimized party too, your decisions can be made for less than optimal reasons, or the GM can be sure to include the decisions as part of the campaign, giving a much more compelling reason to have interesting characters than a +1 to Reflex saves.
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5) Bloat is a super-loaded term. Especially when discussing DD3.5. Does Pathfinder continue to get new rules and options, yes. Bloat is in the mind of the individual though. Is their content much less focused on crunch than DD3.5, very likely. Do they provide people with many fun but not particularly overpowered options, many under-powered but flavorful options, and a few options that can interact weirdly with past options, sure. On top of this they provide a lot of information about the setting, and make very high quality, regular adventure paths.

Torres Glitch:
If I am not mistaken, the "Trickster" refers to the mythic path, not the Arcane Trickster.

1. As for the negativity versus positivity thing: It is not just toddlers. When trying to encourage or correct your mistakes, telling your brain "don't panic" reminds your brain of panicking, while "stay calm" does not. Using positive reminders and encouragement with yourself at any age will be more effective than negative ones.

2. If everyone followed the rule of post constructive criticism, not hate-speech, then the constructive criticism posts would be fine, and the hate-speech threads might actually get down to the real issue.

People post inappropriately angry threads for a variety of reasons:

A. The ability to control other people helps them feel better about any number of personal problems in their life. -- If people reply civilly and try to respect them as a person, while still offering criticism, they might not need to act out in such as way as often.

B. People are passionate about something, and see different view points as attacks against their own character. -- If people reply civilly, and do not end up attacking the person for either their views or for their expression of those views, the situation can de-escalate much more easily.

C. People post too quickly, letting brief flashes of emotion turn an entire discussion off track. -- Replying civilly gives them the chance to calm down, and does not give them further fuel.

Be a bard with great knowledge stats.
Every time you see a building, person, monster, or plant, ask to roll the appropriate knowledge roll.

Torm, the problem is that you assume the adventure you the GM present is in fact what the characters will do. While this is of course a fine way to play, especially if the players generally like your plots, the players always have the option to do whatever they want to.
Many GMs (as it seems from listening to people who like posting complaints on the internet) have a preconceived notion of what the story will be. They know where they want the players to go, what they want the players to do, heck some even eschew experience and decide when in the pre-planned plot the players are going to level up. This sort of game, wherein you force the players to play out your story, and reward them with levels for doing what you want, and punish them with boredom or railroading if they try to do something else, leads to the necessary reminder that the "story" is what happens after characters interact with setting, and cannot be planned beforehand.
Another aspect of the story being a product of what happened, not what the GM wants to happen, thinks will happen, or will make happen no matter what, is the fudging of dice rolls. If the GM has a planned way the story needs to pan out to make the game "fun", then the players are not actually doing anything, because one way or another the GMs story will be told. If they accidentally would have discovered that the town fool is really the BBEG, then either the information is suppressed, or it is some other unassuming friendly NPC who gets changed into the bad guy. If some of the characters would be killed by a lucky goblin, then you fudge the attack roll. If the characters would luckily kill the BBEG before he can use his carefully staged escape plan, then the roll is fudged. It is these sorts of situations where it seems like the GM needs to remember that his job is not to write the story of the game, but is there to provide a setting with cool enough features that the players will like the story created simply by them picking things to do and doing it.

Consider them writing a back story that makes the related somehow, or makes them likely to be in whatever situation you want them to be in.

Another mage, seems like the author is saying that "evil" is the lack of empathy? They still do not wake up in the morning and tell themselves "I will go out and be evil today". They have a very different perception of the world than maybe you or I, and that causes behavior we cannot understand.

Feytharn, that is the challenge. You need to understand that you 100% disagree with them, you are offended by them, and they are being rude, and get beyond that. A lot of people say things like that not out of actual dislike of any one person personally, but because they are not able to realize what they are doing, or they have been misinformed, or they have strong previous beliefs that have not been critically thought about. To get both sides to a stage where they can progress (overcoming your distaste on both sides, no matter how justified you are), you must be calm.

People doing cruel, thoughtless things out of fear, ignorance, or lack of critical thought is not usually what the people who are going to be posting about online here are talking about. Kicking a child out of your home while you are their guardian is illegal, so the moral debate is moot. Beating someone to death is illegal, similarly moot. The controversial posts here that get moderated are usually due to poor etiquette, inconsiderate behavior.

Making the actions "less socially acceptable" by calling people out on it and attacking them for it makes the groups more insular and resistant to change (see the problem with simply labeling someone as a "progressive" or as a "traditionalist" as a way to write off their opinions.

For example, simply by moderating posts here, the "wronged" side can turn it from an issue involving personal behavior (which should be examined) into an us-versus-them issue. Once it becomes polarized in this way, there is no impetus for either side to change or consider the position of the rest.

TheJeff, those are the views that should be able to be discussed. People who think gays should not be allowed around children do not deserve to be hated on message boards. People should be able to have discussions with them. They have that view because it is what they were taught, they had or heard about someone with a particularly traumatic experience, they are conflating gayness with pedophilia, or some other reason.
Also, in individual situations (without power involved), that person's opinions are harmless. As soon as that person has any power (being the head of a school board, a scoutmaster, a priest, a politician, a parent), and uses that power to force everyone to act on their position.
However, these causes of this belief can only be discovered, whatever it might be, if there is respect on both sides of the discussion. It is often out of ignorance that people hold on to lies as fact (that gays are more likely to abuse children), but once rooted, it is hard to force a change of mind. Instead they need need to accept it, something that will not happen when being flamed on a forum.

The personal belief system I try to base my responses (written and mental) is simply that "evil people" do not exist. People get very upset if others do not agree with them, and that turns the issue into a simple disagreement into "right versus wrong". If you think that gay people are sinners, that does not make you evil. If you think that Paizo should censor material they want censored, it does not make you evil. If you go around insulting everyone and stepping on their toes, it does not make you evil.

On the other hand, people can easily be internally inconsistent. If you think that gay people are sinners, and are somehow worse than any other sinner, you are in fact showing a lack of internal consistency. Similarly, you are betraying the tenets of your faith by taking it upon yourself to judge other people. If you think censorship on the forum is good when your detractors get censored, but bad when you get censored, and blame censorship, you are being internally inconsistent.

The problem is that everyone uses English differently, so people try to use their own definitions to prove other people wrong, even if they are using the same words differently (as someone astutely pointed out with the word "theory"). So it is easier to assume that someone else is simply evil, mean, wrong, wicked, and stupid than it is to acknowledge that they disagree with you but that is ok.

It becomes a different issue entirely when you move out of the realm of personal interaction and policy though. If one side typifies its behavior through exclusion of other, problems start. Just because a majority of people believe gay people should not be able to get a (non religious) marriage, it somehow becomes the law. Even though it is an internally inconsistent position, if people do not come to realize that, a prejudiced majority can cause actual harm to other people. Imagine if straight white Christian became an actual minority in power, and suddenly the majority decided to punish them for being different by deciding they could not vote, marry, have kids, or gain citizenship. Only then would the complaint of "majority rulings are not necessarily the correct rulings" make sense to the majority.

The main issue I have discussing these problems on a forum is that everybody is quick to attack and rip apart people different than them, and if the majority on a forum does this, how should the minority feel? If you love Paizo, but disagree with the majority of its customers, does that mean you should be attacked? In turn it creates a very defensive atmosphere, which only heightens the attack. On the other hand, one should always be open to critical thought, and not be so resistant and defensive that no thinking occurs. This is why the particular majority of "Progressive" has such a negative reaction to "Traditional". It is an inherent truth that Traditionalists cling to traditions, and the danger is that by doing so they stop thinking and considering new facts. When somebody argues, disputes, or challenges them, it is easy to write them off as radicals looking for attention, but without respect for the past. Similarly, a group of Progressives will react very strongly to a Traditionalist majority, writing them all off as stuck in their ways and unwilling to think. The middle ground, and the only route to understanding is sincere dialog, something that does not happen on a forum like this It is too easy for the majority to silence the minority, and the hyper-defensive nature of the minority makes it easy to ban their posts, since they are unlikely to be friendly and kind if the writer thinks everyone is out to get them.

Everyone views alignment differently. I think so much is clear after the 200+ posts of this thread, and the millions on similar threads before. It seems like many posters take all opinions that do not agree with theirs, and try to force other people to agree. Like a soldier, a doctor, and a teenager are going to have the same views on the morality of killing?

My own thoughts:
Neutral is not just an average of either axis. Anyone who tries to "balance" evil acts that they enjoyed committing with "good" acts, like donating to a orphanage, is in fact evil pretending to be good or neutral.

If somebody unwillingly, or out of necessity commits evil acts, and does their best to counteract the evil with an outpouring of good, then they are good. So a lawful good servant of an evil tyrant may be forced to do evil things (sentence a mother and father to death for stealing food for their family), but will then take care of the children to the best of their ability.

Also, the alignments all look different from each character's perspective. Lawful Good characters might equate their lawfulness with their goodness. So, LG citizens of a LG country that has rules against spitting might view a LG citizen from a LG country without such laws a "worse" if he spits.

If you are from a LG country that allows for slavery, you might identify more closely to the LE citizens of a LE country that allows slavery than you would with the LG city that has banned slavery and refused to import from slave owning countries.

So if the characters themselves have trouble discerning what counts as good or not, good luck everyone else.

Right, but in the Mana Wastes (the other place where technology has thrived). It is still easier to say that you will not be including all the options from all the player companions, rather than hope that Paizo does not develop options that ze does not approve of.

EDIT: Missed your reply because I did not refresh the screen :)

Hayato Ken, IANJJ, but do you mean that it is getting more steampunk'd by including things like Numeria? Seems like simply leaving out the parts of Golarion you do not like seems simpler than denying those parts to everyone who might like them?

He means would you enforce monsters taking equally determined amounts of time for their turns :)

Jaelithe, thank you for your reply. I am quite satisfied by what you said. ~~~~~
I did not go back for any reason other than to see what you had previously stated (since you suggested I check it out), and in fact I agree with most of what you said (notice, the entire first paragraph had nothing bolded :P). The reply to my initial comment however, and the use of hyperbole to conflate my position with several of the ones you were taking a position against in that previous post in your next reply, was what prompted me to ask in what manner I was engaging in those behaviors I had bolded. Since I was not (aware that I was) doing any of the things you disapproved of, I was wondering why you were employing the same rhetoric as if I was. Similarly it was that confusion of mine which prompted me to assume your direction of me to the previous point was to explain what you thought I was trying to do.
I now realize that you were not in fact accusing me of those behaviors, and so I apologize for any untoward aggression that crept into my post because of my assumption.
~~~~~
Your campaign setting sounds quite impressive. As a classicist I am still trying to find ways of incorporating the Pathfinder system and as many player options into a early Roman Empire-themed world, which of course gives me a rather different in-game perspective of the prevalence and ease of presenting homosexuality.

Yes, Hama, I think you are doing great. I think I said so too, but just in case, I will say it again :) You are doing great!

Jaelithe, once you know something is an issue that concerns people (not necessarily the people you are playing with, but maybe even a society as a whole), pretending it does not exist is a choice.

"Requiring that inclusion in some highly noticeable fashion simply "because it should be there!" is in my opinion pushy at best and oppressive at worst."
--> more hyperbole for effect?
1) Simply existing is highly noticeable? Having even 1 in 10 taverns/shops/inns/etc manned by two women (heh) or run by two men counts as "addressing [homosexulatily] more in depth" "in a highly noticeable fashion"?
2) Nobody is forcing anyone to do anything. The question was if you realize that any sort of exposure that brings a sense of normalcy and acceptance to a marginalized and discriminated against cultural group, and all it would take is changing the name of an in-game NPC to "Paula" instead of "Paul" and switching the M to an F on the notes, why not take that opportunity every now and then. Adding talk about forcing and requiring and pushing reflects some internal thought-process of your own.
3) Hyperbole is a technique use to win over crowds in an public debate. Its appeal is the impact of the exaggeration more than the actual content or opinion it represents. If you are replying to an actual comment, hyperbole shows a marked lack of concern about the actual position someone else holds, preferring to win rhetoric points.

As to your previous position, I did read the thread, but it is hard to link names with statements. Looking back, I find

John Kerpan wrote:

The danger with not including homosexuals in the game world is that it shows that you consider homosexuality something weird, unusual, and that you have to think about to even remember. It makes the assumption that "normal", "default" people are straight, and not being straight is (if not bad) an unusual thing that only happens for cool plot purposes (like hiding the identity of a secret lover).

Again with this. I simply do not think about an NPCs sexual preference untill it becomes important. And then i flip a coin.

To me, homosexuality is simply normal and i do not dwell on it at all. It doesn't concern me and i don't pay it any heed, unless a guy tries to chat me up or someone asks me about my opinion. Or if there is a poll or a protest of some kind.

And Hama, that is perfectly fine. To say it is normal, and include it is the only thing I suggested. That was not against you in any way, though you did seem to think it was.

As to Jaelithe, that sort of comment is not very helpful for a number of reasons.
1) What plot? I simply said ignorance of a problems leads people to not realize there is a problem. I also said the reactions to being told there is a problem can range from unconcern to denial.
2) Do you think there is a problem with raising awareness? Describing an appeal to (if it is not a big deal to you) make sure to remember a group of people when playing a game as an attempt to "portray unconcern as some insidious plot to demean grows tiresome" seems like a little bit of an extreme paraphrase?

In general, people are very unwilling to look past their "comfort zone". That means when people's comfort zone is wildly out of sync with the real world, they prefer to ignore the problems and differences in the real world.

People actually think that racism is dead in America
People actually think that sexism is dead in America.
Some people even think discrimination against sexual preference is not a concern.

The danger with not including homosexuals in the game world is that it shows that you consider homosexuality something weird, unusual, and that you have to think about to even remember. It makes the assumption that "normal", "default" people are straight, and not being straight is (if not bad) an unusual thing that only happens for cool plot purposes (like hiding the identity of a secret lover).

The argument that "I do not include sex" means gayness is not an issue is similarly short sighted. It means that you actually consider having sex as the important part of a (different than your) sexual identity. Since sex is not being shown, might as well assume all people are straight. Since straightness is normal, it does not even register that being straight involves just as much required discussion of sex as being gay does. This is why (for example) banning the discussion of "non-traditional" families in elementary schools is such a scary thing. When a teacher teaches about families (having a mommy, a daddy, and sometimes you even have brothers and sisters!), it is perfectly alright, but there is a huge number of people who refuse to let a teacher say that all families are different (some have two daddies, some have two mommies, some have one daddy and two mommies, many have one mommy and one daddy, but sometimes families even have only one parent) somehow involves teaching children about the sin of homoerotic sexy-times. This point has been very astutely pointed out many times!

Now, I understand that some people who did not realize their unconscious biases (remember, it is possible to be biased and not be a bad person) have a very strong reaction when it becomes presented to them. The easiest reaction is denial, and even more common online is outright attack, claiming that somebody saying that it's prejudiced against "differently-sexual" people to ignore everyone but straight people somehow constitutes an attack against the "goodness" of the person. It is not. If you were not aware how limited your world was, if you unconsciously equated homosexuality with sex rather than sexuality, if you thought not including gay people was ok because all your players were straight, you were being prejudiced. Now it has been pointed out, and there is an opportunity for you to very easily and without any problem work to lessen on an individual basis the prejudice that occurs, and the bias that is present against non heterosexuals. Make a few NPCs gay, in a way just as unobtrusive as every single other NPC is a non-sexually deviant heterosexual NPC: give them a partner, give them a family, have them talk about how hot some other NPC is, or whatever it is your normal NPCs do. Surely, unless are not actively anti-gay or truly think that homosexuality is a sin, you can make that small change to your world. It will not occupy any more important a place than your characters' sexuality did before. What it will do is make the world (the real world) a place that is slightly more aware, slightly more tolerant, and slightly more open and welcoming to people who are being pushed to the fringes of society, stereotyped, discriminated against, and (most sadly) ignored.

EDIT: there was a word-order issue that drastically changed my point in the last paragraph!

Kudaku, he also said that other players pull similar shenanigans with their characters, and none of them have been threatened with being booted. If this is true that others engage in similar behavior (I see no reason to believe why not, given the details about the cursed/diseased character ditching), and it is true that none of them have been told if they make a new character who occupies a different role, then the DM is using game continuity as an excuse for another reason, as everyone else's general approach to the game causes the same issues, but no one else is being singled out.

Just a few things that have been said that do not seem to have been addressed:
@Elvis Aron Manypockets: Where did you get the line abour RD chafing at having to keep his characters? Seems like he is perfectly willing to do what is asked, but thinks it is rather unfair and that they target him specifically.

@Steve Geddes: Using the argument of "what if everyone did it, how would that affect the game?" is not quite valid, seems to fall on the slippery slope side of things. Lots of individual possibilities get lost if you assume everyone doing the same thing. Imagine you are playing monopoly, and one player always keeps five $100 instead of cashing it in to a $500. It works great and nobody would say he is destroying the game. However, if all of the players in an eight player game tried it, the bank would run out. Just because all players should not do something does not mean that no player can do it. Maybe a better question to ask him would be "how would you feel if you were still powering through with your initial martial character and somebody died and built a crazy optimized for level 10 martial character?" There are still problems with the scenario, but it is closer.

@Sitri: If people are playing PF to be "top-dog", or think that some other players character affects how much fun they can have, they are approaching a cooperative game from a very unfortunate angle. That said, if I am playing a specific character (combat specialist fighter) and somebody else built a combat specialist monk who could do everything better than me, I might feel like I was not doing very well. Rather than tell them to stop being better at a game than me, I would ask them to help me build better characters in the future.

@ many people: RD claims not to kill his characters off intentionally, and said that he usually plays them until they happen to die, or if there is a easy plot point to have them leave. RD also said that other players get fed up with their characters and switch without any official provocation (I got cursed, etc). That means it is not an issue with the behavior of switching characters midstream, or even of plot continuity. The issue is that other people think switching from martial to caster is too "unfair". If considered a convincing argument, there are many five-year-olds who think that anyone winning in a game is "unfair", and many teenagers who think that having to go to school is "unfair". That type of nonsense reasoning shows that the people engaged in the discussion are not emotionally mature enough to actually discover and deal with the causes of their negative feelings.

Gauss, sorry for the delayed reply.

If I am a player who bought a +5 bonus to AC item for 50k gold, that will forever be deducted from my Appropriate Wealth.

If I am a player who bought consumable potions that add +5 to my AC, and everything else is the same as the first option, I will always be slightly under Appropriate Wealth.

Since you audit every other level to see how your players stack up against WBL, option one will not get as many goodies as option two, even though they are effectively the same.

Gauss, so a character in your games would be penalized for buying a permanent +5 bonus item in Diego's scenario.

You would do your audit every other level, and the person who has the +5 bonus would have 50,000 gold of his WBL used up, while the tricky exploiter would not, even though he is getting the +5 bonus every time he needs it.

You are right in that WBL is a construct for creating characters. Once the characters are in the game world, they cannot really be governed by WBL. If they chose to find ways of getting money other than waiting for loot to be dropped on them by a beneficent GM (trade, crafting, theft, sidequests, looting, performing), unless the GM is being a real control freak, they will exceed the WBL limit. Penalizing players by who are entrepreneurial (put effort, skills, feats etc. into making money) by removing future treasure seems similar to penalizing a character who invested in getting a high AC (bought nice armor, feats, traits, etc.) by fudging die rolls against them, or all of the enemies suddenly having touch attacks.

Ilja, was that a gender-neutral third person pronoun! First time outside of Dinosaur comics I have seen someone write that :)

About Timekeeping:
I am very bad at keeping time. You can always break all their movement into six second periods of course, but when it comes to how long people are talking/standing around etc., maybe just keep a stopwatch.

Weenks, in that case, checking out the module Addemup posted might be what you are looking for :)

Do you want a pre-existing module, or are you trying to make up your own story?

If you are looking for a pre-existing story, I am sure there are many people here would can give far better advice than I (such as Addem Up already).

If you are looking to write your own story, I can help a little more :)
First, you can come up with a very broad plot ideas:
- [Quest Object] has [gone missing/been stolen/run away/stopped working] and the adventurers need to fix the problem

- [Big Bad] has been causing trouble in a neighboring region, and people fear it will affect your own dear region.

- [Strange Event] has just happened, and it is up to the party to figure out [how/why].

Once you come up with a general overview, try to incorporate as much information from your character's backgrounds into the mix. You can have them come up with Explosive Plot Hooks for a few examples.

I find myself in the same camp as mkenner. In the sandbox world I ran, I made sure to provide the characters with level appropriate hooks, but any self-motivated exploring would have to make sense for the world, not the party.

So it is mandatory that this character be undead?

One thing you could consider is writing some sort of preoccupation into your character, and allotting some of your skills, traits, and equipment into fleshing out that aspect of your character. For example, you could be trying to write an epic story of your own accomplishments: you would need to buy materials to write with, as well the gear required to transport it safely, and then you would spend time actually writing down reports of each battle (or, even better, hire a scribe to follow you simply to record the results of the battle). You could put skill points into profession writer, and even into craft(book), so you can make copies of your books as you enter new towns. You can then take a few feats that enhance your craft/profession skill, or some to help you manage and keep your hireling safe. Heck, you can even spend some of your money on the hireling to keep him well equipped and comfortable.

By adding this as a part of your character, you are in essence having to optimize more than one thing, and by making one of those things purely fun, you will be "weaker" than if you were optimizing for purely mechanical benefit, and hopefully you can find a side-obsession that adds to the overall game experience.

I have a series of shops with a strong merchant's guild.

The randomly generated items are seeded throughout different shops (at random or hand-picked), and if PCs want something else, they would be able to find it sometimes, and order it if they cannot find it.

It might help if the OP came back to answer some of the questions being asked of him or her.

This has been said, but bears saying again:

Pathfinder RPG assumes a very magic heavy world, where even the smallest of thorps have access to a few magic items, and any magic item of a certain price has a high chance of being found in a town. Crafting seems to be a common and viable profession, and getting many magic items is very easy.
In my mind, going to any town and finding a Cloak of Resistance (assuming the purchase limit is high enough) would be like walking into any reasonably sized town and purchasing water-proof boots. Seems normal to us, but for someone who has never seen water-proofing, it would be crazy, and the idea that you could go almost anywhere and find them would be crazy.
Magic is simply that omnipresent in Pathfinder.

So the question becomes, how can you make magic more special if you want to?
1) Having crafter NPCs who will make things if you pay them enough, and assuming they know the spells. One way to cut down on immediate availability would be to not allows the CR increase for missing crafting components. The other would be to make simple +X items available, but making the enchantments on the not. All items with enchantments would need to be items with history, created for a specific purpose, with a past.
(I have seen the suggestion that players come up with backstories for unusual magic items before, and sometimes it seems effective, other times a stopping block)
2) Modify the assumptions a lot. Make all magic rare, limiting the number of possible crafters. Then you would have to scale back the abilities/frequency of monsters: if getting a +1 dagger is a rare and special event, then running into monsters that require a magic weapon to damage should be rare too. This is the idea of dungeons though: most people will die right away, adventurers will survive longer, but might not be able to explore the entire thing right away.
3) Make the world a sandbox, allowing players to choose the type of activity they think they are able to handle: if they do not have magic weapons to deal with undead, they might pass up the requests to handle local graveyard troubles.

Northbrb, this would be an excellent question to ask James Jacobs himself in the Ask James Jacobs anything you want thread of the off-topic section of the forum.

1. A nymphs AC due to her "unearthly grace" as a deflection bonus
-- The idea here is that she has such a force of personality and confidence that she can dodge attacks more often through sheer confidence.
2. Your ability to use magical items
-- ...without knowing the spell. If you have enough gumption, you can override actual magic with force of personality
3. Most creatures ability to cast SLAs
-- Comes from their sense of self, otherwise they would not be spell-like abilities, but would instead be spells.
4. A Sorcerer's, Bards, Paladin's, Summoner's, and Oracle's ability to cast spells
-- Again, the ideas is that the magic power is not coming from an outside source, but it being generated internally
5. The Ki-Pool of a ninja
-- Not sure here, never played or thought about ninja mechanics
6. The duration and effectiveness of a ninja's, paladin's, and a bard's abilities
-- The more confidence they have, the longer they are able to persist in what they are doing.
7. A Druid's and a Hunter's ability to influence animals
-- This one seems to obvious to actually comment on (personal magnetism and force of personality).

Charisma is force of personality that stems from an inner confidence in oneself.

P.H.Dungeon, that sounds like an excellent game!

And this is why the GM and the players need to establish some basic ground rules and expectations before they start playing. If you can align everyone's expectations (I will be running this at 3+APL, so be careful; I will be running this as a sand-box, there will be random encounters; this will be a social based campaign all set in one city), you are less likely to run into these issues.
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For players who have only played super-combat hyperoptimization, they might need it explained to them that since social rolls will be a part of the game, someone who always fails the rolls will lead to the party's downfall just like a fighter who puts all skills into fleshing out their backstory in an APL+3 game. Also, letting people know that it will be at APL, so they have room to invest some points and feats into outside interests is perfectly fine.

Right, but Matt a player used to lots of player permissiveness will be seen as a trouble-maker in a adherence group, and a strict adherent will be seen a problem in a permissive group.

1) The stat arrays given in the book are suggestions for easiness in character generation for NPCS. If you are creating each NPC using the character creation rules, then there is going to be a lot more variability in the stats. Even if you are not, the PCs of any given story are 1 in 1,000,000. So having a bard who is way more charismatic than most people will ever be, but a lot less able to plow fields every day makes a lot of sense.

2) Optimization does not and cannot happen in a vacuum. If you have a "killer GM" who runs encounters at 3+APL, has no magic marts, etc, you need every number advantage you can get. If you have a GM who tailors your encounters perfectly, so you all can be playing with a 10 point buy and still have a fun game, then you do not need every numeric advantage you can get. Optimization for all circumstances is different than optimization for one aspect, and both are extremes.
If one is in a sandbox style game, they can seek out challenges they think they can defeat, and only occasionally run into random stronger enemies, so any power level is ok. The only problem with optimization is when the party is out of whack; you cannot have all players contribute when their ability to contribute is impaired.

3) I agree that there are two scales, one for RP ability, one for mechanical ability. I think that Gardner would say there are lots of axes: social ability would be a different axis, ability to picture what is being said is a different axis, organizational ability, preparation ability, auditory comprehension etc. All in all PnPRPGs require a lot of different skills, and it is almost impossible to master them all. All it takes is to be majorly deficient in one area and some people will assume you are a problem player

You can have a monotheistic religion exist in a polytheistic world the same way Christianity did in its beginning, where through omens augurs would communicate with their gods, and through visions prophets would:
Declare the source of their power to not be from gods, assume that the gods of theirs who are like yours in fact are yours. Wasn't the original Pelor made with that in mind?

I could care less about mathematics degrees, or statistical distributions across a population, or anything else. In the d20 system, a character with a 7 in a stat is EXACTLY 10% less likely to succeed at given task than a character with a 10 in the same stat, all else being equal. No more, no less.

Moro, it all depends on the target task's DC

DC -----%chance with 7 Stat -----% chance with 10 stat
5 ------ 70% chance (7-20) ------ 80% (5-20)
25 ------ 0% chance (18 max) ----- 0% chance (20 max)
0 ------ 95% chance (1 fails) ----- 100% chance (no fails)

So when you check the middle, 10% is common, but depending on the target it can change. If you look at my earlier post about Bob and Robert, you will see that as the rolls get more complex (Diplomacy to affect attitude in that case), the results become even less clear then simply saying "-2 makes it 10% worse"