Doug Hagler
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I have a friend who is coming from only playing small press indie games and wants to GM a game of Pathfinder with his group, none of whom know how to play either. I tried writing out how I run Pathfinder, to describe how to do it for someone who has never been in a d20 style game before. It's pasted below - a little long, but I'm just looking for any feedback. If I cleaned this up and revised it, would it be helpful for others new to the game?
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Preparation
Assume that you will spend at least as long in preparation for a game as you will spend running the game. In the beginning, you will likely spend significantly more.
Your job is to lay out not only the significant events of the game, but also the reasons for these events. The game console metaphor works well here, I think. You are the Xbox; the players are holding the controllers.
First, setting is your job. The physical surroundings where the adventure will take place. Make it a box canyon, but don’t make it clear. If it takes place in a town, what is important about the town? As a player, what would you want to know?
Second, situation is your job. What is going on? Why do the PCs get involved? The ‘bang’, in the Ron Edwards/Sorcerer sense, comes from you. You provide the inciting action. What is it?
Third, NPCs are your job. These come in three varieties.
1. Sketches: “Frank is the inkeeper. He’s about 50, has a receeding hairline, is skinny for an innkeeper. He’s got an illness that he’s hiding from his daughter, who also manages his legers. He has no mind for numbers since his wife died 10 years ago.” 3 details are enough for a given NPC sketch - two things and then a third secret or surprising thing.
2. Abbreviated stat blocks: “The city watch is composed mostly of 1st level Human Warriors. They have 8 Hit Points, an AC of 14 (+1 Dex, 2 from leather armor, 1 from small wooden shields) and they carry shortswords (+2 attack, 1d6+1 damage)
3. Full stat blocks: Only have these for things you are definitely going to throw at the PCs during the course of the adventure.
Create a chain of events - something like this:
1. The PCs arrive in town, wander around talking to whoever they want, resupply at the dry goods store, get rooms at the inn, etc. People seem worn down - many yawn as they go about their daily work - but they cheerfully deflect any questions for now.
2. The PCs are awakened by a scream the night they arrive. There is a dead body and a hysterical woman who had snuck out to meet her boyfriend without her parents knowing.
3. The constable comes to the PCs to talk to them in private. He’s been run ragged by a string of murders, and he needs help. He offers them whatever might motivate them - money, their thanks, being promoted to deputy constables (power), or something the PCs needed when they arrived - a map for a quest they’re on, directions to find the scary hermit they are looking for, whatever.
4. After the talk with the constable, the PCs are followed around and watched. They can make Perception rolls to notice this (vs. DC 18, 10 + the skulking NPCs’ Stealth skill) or the NPCs can roll Stealth against their passive Perception score (10 + character’s Perception skill)
5. The PCs are attacked at night by thugs. If they kill them, they find a clue on one of the bodies. If they keep some alive and question them, they find out what the clues would tell them.
6. Whoever is committing the murders has a hideout in or near the Mayor’s mansion outside town.
7. The killer is the Mayor, who is a Vampire Spawn. At the end, there is the question - who is the Vampire who created him? Is this the end of the trouble? Of course not!
Looking through your chain of events, decide what you need to know rules for; write-ups for monsters and NPCs the PCs might fight, skill rules for other challengs (breaking and entering, interrogation, lying, eavesdropping, sneaking around at night and calming down terrified townspeople all might be involved in the above)
Decide how you will indicate to the PCs where they are to go next without just telling them.
Look at the fights you have planned - are they too tough for the PCs? (Remember, you can always change things in the middle of a fight. They don’t know that the goblin they’re fighting just lost 10 hit points and had his attack bonus cut in half - or doubled, or whatever) Things should be tough enough that they’re worth playing out - the PCs will get hurt, have resources drained, but not likely to be killed. (There can also be easy encounters that are quick - once it’s clear the PCs will win a fight, you can just fast-forward and let them narrate how they finish the baddie and move on.)
Just like video games, Pathfinder sessions should climax with a ‘boss’ fight of some kind. Who’s the big bad? There’s about an hour left in our session, so it’s time to kick his ass.
Lastly, imagine you are a smart, creative, slightly resistant player. How would you sabotage this chain of events and go off the rails? Prepare for those eventualities :) Key warning sign: if a player creates a character who is a Rogue or who is Chaotic Neutral in alignment, look out. They will try to steal and/or slap random people around. In games I run, apart from one-shots, I’ve just banned Chaotic Neutral and any Evil as alignments. You can just say “all of you must be some kind of Good. I mean come on. You’re heroes.”
Actually running the game
Pathfinder is incremental, and the increments are defined by narrative, tasks and turns.
Narrative is just when you’re describing something happening, or something like a montage or cut-scene, when dice aren’t rolled and where the PCs don’t have anything actively at stake. You travel through the forest...until! A week passes while you explore the valley...until! You walk into town and this is what the town is like. Etc. It is what comes between inputs that the characters have to respond to somehow.
Tasks are when a player wants their character to do something - they respond to an input by defining their intended task (I want to sneak up on this guy; I want to climb the wall; I want to scare the kobold into telling me where the traps are hidden). If the task is easy (I want to go to the tavern and drink; I want to talk to this NPC) then it just happens. RP the conversation, do whatever, and move on. If a task is challenging, then they should be rolling dice, either for a skill check, a save, an attack roll, etc. Some, like saving throws, are automatic. These are just triggered - it’s assumed a PC is always trying to resist being hurt.
Tasks come on the players’ turns. Outside combat, you can just go around the table in whatever order makes sense. What are you doing? Ok, what are you doing? Now you? Etc. In combat, or other time-sensitive action scenes (fleeing lava, carrying orphans across the rope-bridge while being shot at, etc.) this is determined by Initiative. Write down the PCs and the other NPCs in initiative order (highest to lowest) on your notes and go down the line. Rinse, repeat. PC - PC - monster - PC - monster, etc.
You’ll find some kind of rhythm - you narrate new events or the beginning of a new scene, the PCs will then mess around in that scene doing tasks. When it’s time for a fight, say “Roll initiative!” That’s the ritual phrase that begins a turn-by-turn combat scene at most tables :) Once one scene isn’t interesting anymore, you the GM narrate a new one.
Dungeon crawls are the kind of thing that D&D is about - partly because they are so simple. The event/choice tree is right there out in front of you. Use the ‘fog of war’ to only reveal parts of the dungeon that the PCs have explored, and keep in mind how far they can see based on the rules for illumination and low-light vision or darkvision, as well as how far the baddies can see. (Drow are scary because they can see twice as far as others with darkvision, meaning they can stand out in the dark and shoot you and lob spells at you out of nowhere). Have some logic to the ‘dungeon (basement, tower, temple ruin, natural caverns colonized by angry kobolds, whatever), place some traps, decide which rooms house Bad Things, and go.
Experience points should come at the end of the game. Some GMs give it out bit by bit, but this just leads to players erasing on their character sheets and doing math over and over again.
Each combat should also serve a purpose - it reveals a clue, or reveals something about what they’re facing later (foreshadowing a Dragon with dragon-worshipping cultists), or the PCs receive some kind of treasure (the NPCs/monsters had a hoard, or collection of shineys, or were carrying valuable items or cash, whatever). Looting the dead is a core activity in most trad games.
Specific narration is what I’m calling what GMs do. You are the narrator in the story, and you are generally responsible for saying what each task looks like, whether successful or not. This might be best expressed with an example. Here, Pete is the Gm and Doug is the player, whose character is a Halfling Rogue named Thorn.
Peter: Ok, you come up to the door to the Mayor’s cellar. It’s a little high up for you, but the lock is right near eye-level. You’ve seen some locks in your day - this one is a pretty nice lock for a cellar.
Doug: Yeah, that’s weird. It makes me want to break in even more. Ok, I’m going to try to pick the lock once I’m sure no one is nearby.
Peter: Make a Perception check (thinking: DC is 15)
Doug: (rolls a 19) I got a 19.
Peter: You don’t see anyone, or hear anyone nearby.
Doug: Cool, ok. Picking the lock.
Peter: Roll Disable Device (thinking - this is an ‘Average’ lock; DC 25)
Doug: I rolled a 22
Peter: You worry at the lock for a bit, but it’s tougher than you expected. (Remembering the Perception check - no reason to call for another roll. You add something to raise the tension) As you realize the lock is harder than you thought, you hear approaching footsteps. Not close yet, but nearby.
Doug: Damn. I’m going to try again.
Peter: (you can set stakes here if you want) Ok, if you fail, whoever it is will almost certainly see you.
Doug: ...I’m too curious about what’s in here, and I may not get another change. I go for it...and roll a 19. Uh oh.
Peter: Yup. A member of the city watch turns the corner and sees you standing there poking at the lock.
| John Kretzer |
Um...I would not go with the whole....video game metaphors with people from the small indie press RPG scene. Though this would be perfect to introduce someone coming from the MMO to table top...
I would go with more of constructing a story...but if they are experience gamers at all...they know this. So I would try to set how they can use the rules to tell the story...and how it is ok to ignore a rule if fit gets in the way...etc.