A new campaign, requesting a little feedback.

[EFX]

Hello. I'm new to pathfinder, and new to GMing, so I thought it would be best to just jump right into a custom campaign =).

Now, the reason I'm doing this, is that I want to run Slumbering Tsar (already bought) and eventually Rappan Athuk (dropped money on the kickstarter), but there isn't any Pathfinder converted material for the other Necromancer Games modules.

There's info out there where other players have converted some of the material, but I'm itching to draw, write, and map out an adventure as well.

With all that being said, I've already had one session with this party using what I've built so far. Only four encounters, and already hot on the trail of serial killers. Most of the encounters were WAY too easy, and I know I'm going to have to beef it up a little bit.

Here is the source material I've generated so far Google Docs Folder, and I'm working on more. Any pointers would be welcome, Thanks.

[Sean, DarknessSMK]

I'm not feeling much in the way of hooks and motivations. As a PC, presented with what you have there -- essentially, there's a big unexplored desert, and the native are getting restless -- I'm left with a big "Huh," and no motivation to do anything but find a nice cozy tavern and a wench and some way to make my daily coin right here in Farentanock.

I'm presuming the vague meeting with the Captain will involve some sort of conscription into the campaign, which leaves me nonplussed as a PC, but I'd probably just roll with it to get the game going.

I assume there's a bunch of stuff in your head that hasn't made it to the page yet. I strong urge you to get it all down. This is all pretty sparse.

Even if you just go with the forced conscription into adventuring, you need to make it personal with your PCs. For each character, you need to find multiple (2-3) hooks to really motivate your players. You've cut off a bit of the options for this, by having your PCs all arrive after a long voyage, which means they are very far from family and loved ones who can be easily imperiled or used as a drag or foil on your PCs, so you're not going to be able to get any milage out of that.

Barring the good emotional pain motivations (beyond just brute force), you'll need to find some other motivations. I highly recommend the use of MacGuffins. Important and/or powerful things or people that the PCs must chase after, or hold onto and protect. What they actually are or do are utterly unimportant in any way (but you must NEVER let your players know that). Think the falcon in The Maltese Falcon, or the glowing golden briefcase in Pulp Fiction, or the island on Lost.... What does it MEAN? What does it DO? What is it FOR? Utterly unimportant. What matters is it's there, and you MUST respond to it, or be destroyed/all is lost/devils will kick kittens.

As for beefing up your encounters, you need to throw MORE at them, not just tougher. More than anything as a GM, you need to understand economy of actions. If you are running a party of four players, and you throw a single creature or even only two, it really doesn't matter if the CR is appropriate or not. Each round, your monster(s) will only get one action, maybe two. Then your players will unload four attacks (or possibly many more). If your creature gets a second round of actions, it will likely be its last.

When I write encounters for my players, the bad guys outnumber the PCs two to one, at a minimum. I have, on occasion, run them through running battles that lasted the entire session, and featured basically unlimited numbers of bad guys, ranging along insanely varied terrain. And I promise you, my party is not a mindless hack-and-slash troupe. They're role players. They just.... got themselves in a situation, and I was not about to let them off lightly.

Anyway, I'm sorry if this sounds overly critical. I don't mean to be. It is all meant to be constructive.