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So I have a problem. I love starting new Adventure Paths and having the players make characters, helping them with their characters and getting everything set up. A couple of sessions down the road however, I'm fighting the urge to start a new campaign as my excitement is not what it was at character creation. I know it's not the product as Paizo Adventure Paths are amazing, so I know the problem is with me.
What do you do (if anything) to keep things interesting? And how can I keep my excitement level up for the players and not force them to start a new AP every month and stop wanting me to GM?
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So far, all the APs have room for GMs to add their own stuff. For instance in RotRL, there is a map given of the whole region around Sandpoint, and most of it like the Brinestump, is only vaguely discussed. Lots of room to add stuff in there of your own.
I recommend using the framework of the AP and crafting a few storylines of your own that weave throughout the AP, giving you room to add your own creative fabric to the weave. In particular, hooks given you by players in their backstories is a great place to start.
Perhaps when you pick new APs, look at them first to choose which one to run based on which one you are most excited about modding with your own homebrew material, that way you can maintain some of the excitement for yourself.
Going a bit more extreme than the current advice... Why not craft your own campaign?
Regardless of that extreme, try and pinpoint what is taking the wind out of your sails. Are combats too long? Too short? Too many? Too few? Are roleplaying opportunities too few? Too many? Too short? Too long?
Have you talked to your players? They might have some insight into the areas of a campaign in which your 'focus starts to drift'.
And sometimes, taking a break from RPGs helps too. Go read some fantasy fiction. Play some board games. Maybe you would like to play a bit rather than GM? Maybe you all need a good game of Munchkin? Or back to RPGs: Paranoia? :-D
This is one of those things that no one can answer for you grasshopper. ;-)
Good luck!
I thnk the problem might be the style of adventure. All the AP's follow a script and as GM you are guiding the party through it. Perhaps if you were to look at some of the older location based, rather than plot based adventures.
I'm a huge fan of the Temple of Elemental Evil and have GMed it several times and each time I enjoy it more. Why? because I've taken all of the major NPCs and worked out their motivations, backstories, how they came to be in their position, their allies and enemies including how they use their significant magic items. E.g. if a wizard has a crystal ball, who/what do they study through it and why. I don't just do this for the bad guys, but also the good guys.
From this I have built up a matrix of actions and responses to actions that don't even involve the PCs. I.e. I've built a dynamic game-world. When the players play, they disrupt those plans and things change. After the session I spend some time thinking through the various responses and reponses to responses and redrawing alternate timelines of events. I don't just do this for the bad guys, but also the good guys - the church and the state may take different views on the players' actions and friction might be created. The more I've played the campaign the more I've developed the characters, yet each run through introduces new surprises.
Hope that helps
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Excellent advice from everyone, one of the reasons I like these forums is that it's full of helpful people.
My home group has taken a break from my GM'ing for a few months now, so I'm looking forward to starting back up. With this advice, I think I will look into a Sandbox adventure and add in my own flair and creative ideas.
My players loved Skull and Shackles as they could be pirates, so I'm thinking Razor Coast
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I typically run into the exact same problem. What usually works for me is to design stuff to be used in the future. Like working on adventure ideas for after we finish the module. If I really like those ideas, I'll start seeding in hooks 'now'.
One risk to my approach here is that I only have a limited amount of time and energy to spend. So I can burn myself out pretty quickly if I'm not careful.
I got really burned out when I ran my first AP. I think I made the mistake of reading the whole AP almost before I ran any of it.
I'm currently running Skulls and Shackles. We are probably 1-2 sessions from finishing the first book. I've only read bits and pieces of the Second. And I've glanced at spots in the third. I've read some spoilers of how the APs motivations b/c I keep an eye on the boards to make sure there's not something that happens latter I need to be be aware of, but I'm not planning on reading that far ahead of where the players were.
As it is with the first book, I read it in December. With the holidays, getting a new campaign started up and playing once every two weeks -- It has now been almost 5 months since I first read the 1st book of the AP. Of course I've read it several times since then, but to say the least I'm done with it.
Luckily I haven't read Book 2 from page to page yet. (Only most of it) And I certainly haven't thought about how the encounters might go down. So it will be fresh for me when I start Book 2.
My suggestion is that if you are running an AP, don't read ahead any farther than you have to to be prepared to run the next session or two. If that doesn't work, then you are not a module-GM. You should probably try to do all your own stuff or try ad-lib GMing.
I'm a module GM. I don't have time to write my own stuff. A long-time fellow GM with who I compare notes A LOT through the last couple decades is my exact opposite. He's an ad-lib DM. He has a few creatures preped a few notes jotted down and he ad-libs everything at the table. Both have positives and negatives. But the ad-lib GM never gets bored with what's coming next, cause he doesn't know until it comes out of his mouth most of the time.
You might want to consider moving from Big APs to modules. I am sure if you have been starting new aps over and over the players are likely tired of starting over at level one every few sessions?
Pick a module that seems interesting to you and gets you excited. Run it. When its done, pick a module appropriate for the level the party was at when you finished the last one. Rinse repeat. It wont have the over arching story of the APs but maybe that isnt the right fit for you as a GM? The adventure of the week style has worked quite well for a long time (see pathfinder society play for instance).
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+1 for sidequests.
Also, keep on involving your players as events unfold. How do their goals change ? What do they want to do now that they have more levels under the belt ?
You could pick a page from Neil Gaiman's books : find an unimportant NPC whom the PCs met sometime ago and promptly forgot. Then make him an important part of their future and have fun imagining how he went from there to here.
One rip-off from comics I am beginning to consider : twins from the evil future. Have the PCs meet and fight their future selves who are all twisted and evil. Have fun building them from the current incarnations of your PCs and imagining how they became that way.
Play a more reactive campaign. Most of the AP's are railroad adventures with pre-determined stories and expectations of what players will do. Play a campaign that's tailored to the player characters' motivations. Focus less about a pre-made story. Put your players in interesting situations and then see what they do. Design scenarios where there's no right answer. If you design it well, the players' process of reacting, discussing, and deciding what to do will generate infinite entertainment.
Sometimes, it can be fairly simple. I once put two doors in front of my players. They spent half an hour discussing and figuring out which door to enter, with one character attempting to bypass them entirely.