After being a player for so many years, I've been back and forth with my desire to try some GMing, so that when my characters die, it's for the good of the group, not a hindrance.
I've had some ideas for a campaign, and started one once, but the group I had at the time were all about meta-gaming and blasting through red tape(read: arse-holes.), and sort-of put me off of DMing for a few years.
Flash forward half a decade to current day.
Having just picked up Pathfinder again after 3.5, and a friend being a GM for a group of three new players and myself, I wanted to try my hand at writing up a campaign again, but focus it more on letting the players have some freedom in which way the campaign flows. Obviously an overarching story that will guide them, but less of a "Final Fantasy" linear style, and more of a "here's the world, here's your basic goal with these five sections to go to before the end. What do you do from here?" sort of mentality, to let them be more in control, and have more of a desire to play as a character instead of a bunch of numbers and follow a strict plot.
Is this sort-of approach too much for a new GM, and for players who are still fairly new at Pathfinder, or am I on the right track? I've also picked up the Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition, and I was considering focusing on that for my first actual GM experience, especially with newer players. If I didn't fully intend on using it, if anything I would've used it as a way to build my own world, or run it AND work on my own campaign at the same time.
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I can't really say whether it's too much work to create your own semi-guided sandbox campaign, but I can say that it is a lot of (incredibly rewarding) work.
To do it well, you either need to have impeccable improvisational skills, or have done a lot of planning in advance. Preferably both. Pre-written adventures (such as Rise of the Runelords) are a very good way to reduce the amount of prep work you have to do, since they present a plot line and various useful encounters for moving that plot forward. Slipping one into your own world takes more work, but is definitely possible.
There's lots of advice available on building your own world, so I won't reiterate it all, but here are my personal high points:
1) Know your plot. Figure out the who, what, where and why. Keep that firmly in mind.
2) Start small. Don't give yourself too much to do to begin with. Planning out entire planets is possible, but often a waste. Plan what you know you'll need, and maybe some things you think you might need.
3) No plot survives contact with the players. Ever. They will do something you didn't think of. Run with it, don't fight it.
Good luck!
It really depends on your style, and if that's the game you want to run, that may very well be the easiest thing for you to do. Some GMs have a big story they want to tell before the game begins, and other GMs want to plan a session, see where the players go, and unfold a great story about them.
Kingmaker is one such sandboxy adventure path. They give you these nice big maps with encounter locations (sometimes secret) marked on it, and described in the book. The PCs travel around exploring as they wish, which can lead to interesting situations when they discover an area that's made of rougher stuff than the party is, or when they have a really powerful monster show up in a random encounter (we had this three times).
Later on, the PCs get a kingdom, which they rule, develop, and raise armies. A lot of different groups make different choices -- I've seen some groups commit genocide on their neighboring communities, while others engage in diplomacy and try to absorb them peacefully. Some groups ruthlessly exploit black markets for income, while others work with their GM to homebrew constructions that turn the city toward a utopia (paladins stationed at the gates using detect evil, public programs for cure disease, permanent teleport circles for trade and the like).
The game has the areas and some loosely scripted events, but I've seen a terrific amount of homebrewing done for it. Some GMs ignore the later books and begin running a campaign fully off the rails, with the PCs's armies facing off with countries the book little more than mentions as being neighbors. Personally, I've been tempted to write up some kind of "Kingmaker: The Numerian Campaign."
Right now I'm playing in Serpent's Skull, and the GM isn't enthusiastic about the rest of the campaign -- this book is fun, but he says that people don't review the rest well. He's thinking about veering off in his own direction, and if he does, I'm pretty sure our group is going to claim Smuggler's Shiv, and my character is going to start his own business. I'm a little afraid of stepping on the toes of a nautical campaign though, since another player really wants to run Skull & Shackles next.
I think an adventure path is a great way to get into the GMing mindset. They tend to be very varied, which is something any campaign benefits from, and they help you avoid the "traps" to which some campaigns succumb.
That said, most APs really are railroads, or "amusement park rides" if you will. Kingmaker is notable as an exception, but it is also very difficult to run (in my experience) since the players have so much freedom.
(EDIT: I totally wrote the following before reading Troubleshooter's response. That just goes to prove it is all true! How did I get ninja'd on something so specific?!)
The first book of Serpent's Skull (which I only knew as a player) seems like a great happy medium: you can run that book as a sandbox with all the benefits of module prep, but it's not as wide-open as Kingmaker. Once book 1 is over, you can open the campaign to more sandbox stuff, or keep running the AP. Or a mix of both. Plus, I like the jungle-adventure theme a little more than Kingmaker's theme.
If an AP is just not your deal, my best advice is to go as generic as possible and let the original elements of your campaign develop organically. It took me two decades to realize that what is good for a game setting is not what's good for fiction. Original concepts in fiction are great, original concepts in game settings cause communication problems when 90% of players are just trying to live out a well-defined super power fantasy anyway. A "generic" approach may seem bland at first, but it will be the little things that just emerge on their own that makes any game world exceptional; NOT some high concept thing you thought of before rolling any dice with your friends.
Good luck!
You might take the 'mega-man' approach.
"We've made a discovery that there are six ancient MacGuffins out in the world, and we think we can find them at these locations ..." then let the players choose where they want to go. They get to make meaningful choices about how they approach the campaign, while giving you enough ability to plan (although the first session might need some filler, since you don't want to plan eight dungeons simultaneously). The path they choose determines what level each dungeon is set at (... unless you're mean, heheh).
To make things easier on yourself, you can pick out two or three at a time and imply that they are more important to get first so your options aren't so overwhelming. If there are some encounters you definitely want to run (like Hounds of Tindalos, which you'll want to use within the range of APL 7), you might even be able to design the encounter(s) to be modular and then just stick them in whichever location they choose.
If there are areas they're not looking forward to, you could have events unfold that change where they take place. They've finished #7 and they hate the idea of Osirian and mummies? Here comes the Aspis Consortium, ready and willing to ruin ruin your day by getting there first and opening up an Indiana Jones-style tomb-robbing competition.
I suppose one downside to this campaign is that it's a little determinant of what the campaign is going to be about. There are choices, sure -- but if the players decide they want to start a business, or become pirates, or build a kingdom, then they kind of have to do that important save-the-world thing.
If your players can't give you any hints what they would enjoy before the game starts, maybe just a few 'fight the bandits', 'kill the princess', 'save the goblins' missions are in order so you can see what they enjoy.
I have the basics of the map planned out, and what I want the overarching goal to be. Troubleshooter's pretty much hit what I wanted to do as a "Mega-Man" approach.
I have 4 relics that have been taking from their temples, and due to that, the Material Plane is falling out of balance, and others are crossing over. Through this, there are evils who are seeking out the time to take over pieces of the continent that the PCs will be starting on(name still in progress).
The VERY FIRST encounter will be as such:
The PCs are helping flush out their characters by doing some RPing among each other, as what they'd normally do in their every day lives, and how it influences their personalities. Like I said, I want them to invest in their characters, since I hope this to be a fairly lengthy game, if all goes as I hope. As the day progresses, the town they're in comes under attack from a mid-level Wizard and his cohorts(only CR5 so I don't kill them while bombing the town). This will press the PCs into either beginning to defend while I nudge to them "your town is screwed, please run", or they will get to safe ground on their own.
The place they will be is between three towns and the regency of the region. They will then either be able to go to a small fishing town to their west, a sizable port town to the south-east, a mining town located near a mountain range in the north-east, or the regency in the east. After that, I want them to feel like they are "in control" of the plot, and have basic encounters scaled to 4 sets of levels, depending on how they want to go next.
The first relic they chase down will be the lower of the encounters, around 2-5, depending on how they fight, how they try and go through the dungeon, and WHERE they go. Next up would be around 5-7, then 10-12, and finally 13-17. Somewhere in there I was going to have a tournament in the second capitol that would be mentioned no matter which path they take, and can be done between 6-15. They would be going against NPC parties I have partially thought about in my head with gimmicks to their fights, to try and encourage thought outside the box of "get into range, kill them dead".
Example of one of the encounters I have is a team that has a Rogue, a Cleric and a Shadow Dancer(Assassin if I get 4 people for this), that focus on attacking from the shadows and picking off the PCs one at a time. Cleric would be the bait/healing, and the Shadow Dancer and Rogue just doing their normal "we do it from behind" business.
I have the area planned out as more of a non-standard arena that has a magical enhancement to look however the organizers want, just to make the matches more entertaining than "team with the biggest guns win".
As for the BBEG, I've still not fully fleshed it out, but I was thinking of building a team that would be an opposite/evil version of the PCs, around similar CRs so they actually feel accomplished, and that they gave their all. At the end, if they so choose, they can become the guardians of said relics, and ascend to pseudo-deity status to do so.
Is that a little too convoluted for a first time, or should I do something a little more linear, especially with somewhat newer characters?
i just browsed through the idea but..
#1: dont expect players to run. or if you plan to, get out the unsubtle bat ball and glove. Subtlety is a good lead to TPK :D
#2: like previously mentioned... never expect players to do what you expect. to paraphrase Sun Tzu "Battleplans never survive the first engagement [with the players]"
Our group has broken many mods just cause we went to explore the "last place" we were supposed to look.
#3 remember rule 0
Got it, make the encounter really bad. I was thinking a few buildings exploding due to the impact of some long-lobbed Fireballs would do it, but if not, I can make it seem worse.
The second thing is why I want to plan out pretty much every town they COULD go to, and from there, the plans of what would happen story-wise, and make it have very open pathing. Such as "Oh, we went from the port town on the south continent. We COULD go across on this boat...Or we could go back up to the mountain town!" One reason why each area will have 4 versions of themselves, so each dungeon will be proper for the PCs of their level.
Wait, what's rule 0?
there are ways to not plan every single detail. ie: when pc's get somewhere, ask what they want to do (doesn't work in all groups, granted.)
rule 0: fun is king.
Also, if you can get your players to write backstories, they might be valuable mines for adventure hooks.
Don't just do the typical "aaaaaaaand your family member gets kidnapped." Try to find out what their goals are, like recovering a holy relic, or accomplishing something that an ancestor died attempting. Really try to promote creativity here. Maybe something cool will come out of it.
Not only are you recruiting your players to start writing adventures you expect to be fun for them, but you can use hints related to their goals as bait :)
#1: dont expect players to run. or if you plan to, get out the unsubtle bat ball and glove. Subtlety is a good lead to TPK :D
This is true, but it is possible to train PCs to take stock and run occasionally. It's a delicate process, but once finished it greatly enhances gameplay.
Your points are solid though.
Thanks for the opinions, guys, and I really appreciate it. I picked up an AP and I'm going to use that as my first GM run, and see how I work like that. I appreciate the insights, and I'll put them to use.