Ryan Machan's page

As of this past Saturday (November 6, 2010), yes. A group of friends who has never played Dungeons & Dragons or any other roleplaying game before constitute most of my players. One of them has played in a Pathfinder game. The Castle Ravenloft board game brought them in, particularly the thoughts that they could make their very own characters and engage in adventures with a sense of continuity.

Everyone made characters using the new Red Box set, I just altered the way the solo adventure sounded in order to make it suitable for a group.

We all had an incredibly fun time and the players wanted more. The limited selection of races worked out well. For anyone who didn't know what dwarves or elves might be like I was able to tell them to imagine those races as they appeared in the Lord of the Rings films.

I plan to continue using only the Essentials products until we bring the red box adventure, and the additional adventures found in the Dungeon Master's kit, to their conclusion.

I wouldn't allow it. The weapon proficiency that elves have is cultural. While they highly esteem the play of fine swords such as rapiers and longswords so much that every single elf knows how to use them, this doesn't extend to any other melee weapon. You get proficiency with longswords, rapiers, and bows of all kinds. That is all. No wizards with bastard swords or rogues with a greatsword unless you want to spend the feat or take other class levels.

The only way I could as a GM be persuaded to alter this is if I was building a campaign world in which elves esteemed different weapons instead, such as a powerful empire that considered only staff combat to be a true artform, or only greatsword combat, etc.

And perhaps I'm just cranky from so many years as GM, but I'm generally disinclined to allow players to deviate from the book. If they can't use what's there to creative effect I don't see why they ought to foist it upon me to incorporate a special version just for them and add to my own paperwork. One might argue that a good GM should be as permissive as possible, but a really good GM knows when to say no because the players need to be responsible and carry their own weight too.

This is a case where the rules do exist to allow you to get exactly what you want, just by spending a feat. Since the rules do already exist, I see no reason why your GM needs pestering just so you can get a freebie and be a sorcerer with a bastard sword without spending the feat.

I think Crosswind's words make a good deal of sense. I don't know if I agree with them, but I think you should take time to consider to yourself: "If every opponent we came across failed the saves against my spells, would the other players still have fun and feel a sense of achievement on their own?"

If the answer to that question is anything other than a firm and instant yes, perhaps you should talk to your GM about the fact that you feel like your Wizard is a little useless since his best features are getting resisted a lot. Tell him that you realise save or suck can take the oomph out of his single enemy encounters.

Ask your GM if he has been giving the NPCs inflated scores to deal with you because he knows it wouldn't be as fun for the other players. Don't accuse him of fudging the rolls, ask him if he's been giving them better bonuses to saves. The one says to the GM "You're a terribly unfair cheat!" and the other says "I think you give the NPCs better bonuses than I feel they really deserve".

If your GM is open with you and admits what you suspect, then you can have a frank discussion about ways to give you what you want without making it hard for all the other players. Maybe he can toss in a few lower level henchmen on top of the regular encounters. It gives you or the group more to deal with, and gives you other important targets for your save or suck spells so that the fighter gets to be the one who strangles the big bad guy.

Maybe he doesn't like those options but is willing to allow you to revise your character a little bit to get a better group dynamic.

Your GM probably shouldn't fudge NPC rolls all the time, because clearly even if it's working for the other players it's coming at your expense, and it needs to be fun for everyone. That means you too. You deserve to have fun also, despite some of what I see here in other posts. But starting the conversation in a confrontational way is generally just a good way to get someone's defenses up. You want to come in from the side, thinking about everyone, or best of all from the position and situation of the GM themselves.

If your GM has a good sense of humour (don't do this if he doesn't), you can try making your point with a gift, such as buying him a new d20 and complaining that his current one rolls too high and you need the big bad guys to fail a few of those will/reflex/fort saves now and then. That can help break the ice and open a discussion.

I agree largely with what has been said. Now, truth be told, just about any premade adventure can be quite good. I would give a few of the following tips for the totally new DM regardless of the module to be run:

-Photocopy the map or dungeon layout and scribble your own notes with a brightly coloured pen on the rooms to help you remember what monsters are where. When you are DMing it sometimes slips your mind just exactly what is behind that next door. Write "Here be skeletons" and have an arrow pointing exactly where.

-If the adventure module you are running doesn't have the monster stats listed right there on the relevant room page for each encounter, make a seperate page of basic stat blocks (just use some grid paper) that you can lay on the table or paperclip to your DM screen. It doesn't need to be detailed. Hitpoints and attack value only is fine, it will usually jog your memory. It really beats having to pause the game while you flip through your module or monster manual. You can just glance over at your little 'cheat sheet' for a reminder of how hard a goblin hits and how well it avoids being hurt.

-Read the whole module from start to finish before running it. If you think you could describe a room in a better way or think that something doesn't make sufficient sense to you, write a little note about it. If something confused you as a DM, it is probably going to confuse your players even more. Work it out.

-Players have a hard time visualising 'matter of fact' descriptions. I'll give two examples.
Here's method (1). Most people don't get a good mental image from it. "You enter the dungeon room, it's about 10' by 10' square. In the northwest corner there is a bookshelf. In the southwest corner is a broken table. There are books and debris all over the ground".
Here's method (2). "You enter the dungeon room and are greeted by the smell of aged wood and rotted papers. Rat-chewed books and filth litter the floor, and a now-empty bookshelf and broken table sit in the corners of the room".
Players will imagine the placement of things on their own in the second example, and generally get a better mood out of method two, even though it actually contained less data. If they want specifics, they'll ask, unlike method 1, where most players will never ask "What does it smell like in here?" or "What kind of ambient noise is there?" despite how powerful of a descriptive tool it is. That said, different players have different needs.

-When the game is over, don't let everyone walk away immediately. Take five or ten minutes to get everyone discussing what they want to do in the next game. Maybe they want to try checking out those items they just looted. Maybe they need to run back to town for supplies. It helps you know what you need to prepare for and what you can safely ignore.

-Put a player in charge of writing down initiative order for combat at the table to save yourself some work.

-If you forget the real rule, and no one knows, make one up. Play the rest of the game with your made up rule. After the game and before next session you can all spend time finding the real rule.

-And lastly, this is the most important one of all - talk to your players about co-operation and character death BEFORE you play your first game.
Explain that characters are getting involved in very dangerous activities, and could be killed. Sometimes it's a good idea to run away. Tell them what happens to a character's loot if she dies. Maybe she is buried with it. Maybe it is automatically sold to represent how the new character they're rolling up got the dough they needed to have gear of the right level. Maybe you let them divide it amoung themselves and risk the chances of an overgeared party.
If you're not comfortable running a group where the characters are pickpocketing each other, have opposing motivations, or other friction, say so.
Tell your players right from the beginning that they're creating a group of friends or at least very trusting mercenaries who have been together a long time, and that they should stick together and share and discuss loot with each other.

there are some quizzes that are supposed to do just that, but what we are seeing is that people disagree wildly on what those letters stand for...

I could not agree with you more on this statement. I think Alignment's real problem is that it isn't given the "Psych 101" section that I personally feel that it deserves in the book that says:

"Hello game master and players. When we talk about Lawful persons, we aren't talking about the laws of men. We're talking about structure and orderly behaviors. Does your character have an obsessive compulsive disorder? That's a lawful trait. That's why we said monks should be lawful, because they have such strict self discipline to master their own bodies and minds. On the other hand, maybe that same character is also emotionally driven, and trusts their instincts over a set of accepted rules and behaviors as much as possible. That's a chaotic trait, and we thought it was necessary that Barbarians not stray too far from this and become lawfully aligned. Take a look at your personality traits according to the table below, and compile your scores to see whether your character has a strong enough tendency in any one direction to possess that alignment."

People are still going to disagree, but I think we would have fewer disagreements if the game designers devoted a section to alignment to discuss what their intention was and to get people on the same page. People will still say "I don't like that" but so many more will go "Ah, I see where you guys are coming from."

Excuse me for the act of threadomancy, but Alignment threads are a pet peeve of mine. Anyone here familiar with psychology?

Even if you're not, I'm sure you've heard of the Myers-Briggs personality assessment, because of the simple and easy understood nature of it.

A professionally administered, and truthfully answered, Myers-Briggs test will come up quite accurate. If it makes ten statements about an individual, nine of them will be correct, if not all ten.

While it has a rather diverse sixteen categories, as opposed to nine, the point here is that virtually all people, even the exceedingly rare types, can be described with analytical tools.

Now the test can't describe your entire personality. It can't spell out your life history. But it can say "You tend to be controlled more by your emotions than by your rationality" and be correct. It can describe inidividuals and their placement on an axis of introversion/extraversion, intuitiveness/sensory dependance, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving.

It creates a matrix more complex but really of no different nature than the alignment axis.

Alignment says, according to your patterns of behavior, you are located *here* on the dartboard of good/evil and orderly/impulsive behaviors. Like the aforementioned test, it gauges you on a matrix of the characteristics it was designed to measure.

Alignment says, overall, according to the definitions of good and evil, lawful and chaotic we have provided, your character tends to be lawful and does not have a decided history of good or evil behavior strong enough to commit to either end of the spectrum.

It doesn't measure how good of a mother you make, and never said it would, so the arguing fact that it can't describe your entire essence(or alternatively, does) and blaming it for doing so is building up a straw man just so you can have an easy opponent to knock down.

I have never seen a good reason why people should have so much trouble with this simple descriptive tool. It is incredibly handy for players (to remind them of who they would like to try and be) and GMs (where it provides a quick n' easy general disposition for creatures).

Sure, you could make a game of nine million alignments. It doesn't change the fact that you are still going to also all fit into sixteen, or nine, or any number provided by an analytical tool.

Would it be possible to argue that the IP of mindflayers is shared with Square meaning they could allow Paizo to develop these iconic monsters?

It's just a thought... what do you all think?

Mind Flayer = Cthulhu minus wings, with a leather fetish.

Odds are Final Fantasy simply outright stole the idea, and it wasn't seen as something worth or even possible to go after at the time.

I think Paizo could do something much more interesting than the mind flayer, which, sadly, is rarely illustrated or described with the level of horror that such a Lovecraftian being should command.

First of all, I'm glad for what Caineach said. It is often forgotten that the reason for avoiding poison is because Paladins have always been assosciated with chivalrous behavior, and poison is a cowardly and underhanded tool because it is ignores the contest of martial prowess between opponents. It's like doping in sports - it shames you. Even if you won, it wasn't because you were good enough on your own ability - you had a dirty trick. It says that you lack the ability to tackle your opponent head on, with the might of your sword arm and the courage of your heart, and in doing so, fail to live up to the chivalrous nature of the Paladin.

I think there's a few too many 'must' lines, to be completely honest. The difficulty with 'must' lines is that if you have too many of them it can create some pretty huge group gameplay problems.

For example, let's take the first one. Must heal all those who ask for it. There's some good intent here, but also some potential for abuse by you as the DM. A wicked creature who has learned of the Paladin's code may use it against them to preserve themselves. A completely irredeemable creature, the very essence of wickedness and suffereing, and to whome the Paladin should respond with all the vigour of attacking a cancer, can say 'Mercy! Heal me!'. What situation does this place the Paladin in now?

Perhaps you never use this as a DM, but it may well weigh on your player's mind in the background anyways, and take the fun out of things. A Paladin is, after all, a warrior. We can never ignore the fact that the class represents great martial training and dedication, unlike a Cleric which can go either way. There must be an avenue which allows the viewing of wicked things as cancerous, having no place in the world, and deserving of destruction, no matter what tools such a being might use in the Paladin's own code against them.

I think if you are still going to use the word 'must' a lot you should be much more specific with it, or else find another term that is not quite so strong.

On the positive note, I think you did still manage to capture an excellent flavour with your code. I think it just needs some really deep thought on the exact wording you choose to use.

edit: post edited to correct a typo, add a missing phrase.

Dwarves in Golarion actually aren't going to be all that involved with guns. That starts to tread too much on Warcraft's thing.

I remember the good ol' days when folks called that Warhammer's thing, 'cause making metal that won't crack under at all that pressure takes some real knowin'. Sad days to be a dwarf it is when people confuse yer proud and ancient heritage with modern sons who tuck their beards away everytime they put a helmet on.