Beginner Box Bash Adventures Experience

[Harles]

This Saturday I ran the Beginner Box Bash adventures at my FLGS. Things did not go that well. Out of the four adventures we had the following results: a good fight, a run-away impossible fight, and two TPKs.

Ultimately, two of the four players were soured on Pathfinder from the experience of playing the adventures; (the other two were diehard Pathfinder fans seeking to meet new players.)

Had I thought things through, I would have made adjustments to the adventures, considering they are targetting new players with new characters in - likely - a new group that hasn't found cohesion yet.

So I just wanted to post a word of advice for DMs looking to run these adventures: Tone them down a lot.

[Niilo John Van Steinburg]

Hmm, when reading over those mini-adventures I thought they'd have to be powered *up*. Thanks for the notice - I'll take a closer look.

I have to say, though, that when you're introducing new players to *any* RPG, you must fudge, fudge, fudge to prevent player death, let alone a TPK. No matter how bad the adventure is, always provide some way for them to succeed - or, at least, to live. Little is gained by sticking to the dice/adventure/rules for that first foray, but there is much to be lost (i.e., turning people off).

Did you use the pregen characters for all Bashes?

- Niilo

[Harles]

Used the same pregens as found in the Box. Wanted to run the system accurately, so I didn't want to change the rules (for example, death at negative Con HP; Con checks to stabilizel etc.) I should have modified the adventures instead. Just giving a heads up of how it went for me.

[Harry Canyon]

I agree with Niilo. In this case fudge is not a bad thing. :-)

Hmm... Another thing to perhaps keep in mind is that new players won't have much concept of good tactics. So even toning down the adventure might not help.

Take care,

Harry

[Niilo John Van Steinburg]

By fudging, I meant fudging dice rolls. Changing the rules when introducing new players is also bad! :o)

[Harry Canyon]

Niilo John Van Steinburg wrote:

By fudging, I meant fudging dice rolls. Changing the rules when introducing new players is also bad! :o)

Oh, I understood that. :) (Although I wasn't aware that anything I wrote indicated support for changing the rules. ;))

Take care,

Harry

[Niilo John Van Steinburg]

Sorry, should have included Harles' text that I was addressing ("Wanted to run the system accurately, so I didn't want to change the rules").

[hdan]

Interesting. I ran the adventure with the pregen characters and only one experienced player, who had played 2E D&D some time ago, so knew "the drill" if not the details. Having an experienced player along, even if they're not very experienced, really helped.

In our case, if anything it was a little too easy. But we had all four characters present, and scored some lucky rolls at key points of the adventure. In fairness, the final encounter dropped one character and would have dropped a second one had Desna not smiled upon her, so to speak.