I'm starting a Pathfinder game and I'm going to run Rise of the Rune Lords. However, none of my group has ever played in the Pathfinder world before. Does anyone have any suggestions on what and how much information to tell them? You can literally get completely and utterly lost in the amount of information that is out there. I neither want to deny them any information that they may want....nor bore them with tedious volumes of information.
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I'm starting a Pathfinder game and I'm going to run Rise of the Rune Lords. However, none of my group has ever played in the Pathfinder world before. Does anyone have any suggestions on what and how much information to tell them? You can literally get completely and utterly lost in the amount of information that is out there. I neither want to deny them any information that they may want....nor bore them with tedious volumes of information.
I view Golarion as a world much like Earth, with different regions. I think maybe copying the introduction from the Inner Sea campaign setting would be enough. They should have some sense of why Varisia has ancient ruins.
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I don't know if you've got it or not, but I'd recommend The Varisia Player Companion as a handout for a RotRL game. The "in game" map alone is worth it, IMO.
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I'd go with Steve here. Birthplace of Legends is a great resource (and the centerpiece is one of my favorite maps ever). If they have really specific questions about races or other countries, you can grab them from other books or the wiki.
Rise of the Runelords was written before any real information on Golarion was published, so you need basically nothing beyond Varisia. If people start wondering about Cheliax or whatever, you can answer questions there, but I'd wait for people to ask.
One of the real strengths of Golarion is that it's incredibly modular. You don't need any real knowledge of places outside Varisia to play in Varisia. The same goes for Ustalav or Cheliax or any other region.
I'd keep initial introductions to talk about with gods (especially Desna and be sure to name-drop Lamashtu), Varisia as a whole, Sandpoint, Magnimar, and the local human groups (Varisians, Chelish, and Shoanti). That shouldn't be particularly overwhelming, just be prepared to answer questions about things like the non-human races.
Cheers!
Landon
As the others have said, go with the Varisia book - it's easy to imagine the characters wouldn't really know of anything beyond the borders of their homeland, so if and when they visit other regions later you can always introduce them to them as strange new places :)
I agree with the others. Start with a localized area and over time slowly unpack more of - say - Varisia and what is beyond her borders. Good luck!
Thank you all for the suggestions. I do indeed have the Varisia birthplace of legends book...I shall start there. For those wanting and desiring more I can always help guide them to other books and the online wikis etc I suppose. I just wanted a good starting place that gave enough...without overdoing it.
The Inner Sea Primer would be the other, more broader choice, I guess. I quite like it as a brief 'intro to Golarion' book. However, I already knew Golarion pretty well when I read it and I've found players dont really get into it, for some reason.
Ive wondered the same thing OP. Our first session is a couple weeks off and Ive spent literally a month of heavy reading getting prepared for this new campaign world. I have a ton of information wandering around in my head, ready to provide when the opportunity arises but as to an initial introduction, Im still debating.
Our campaign starts in Teldor so the majority of what the 'know' surrounds that region but even that is quite a bit. History, races, government, geography etc... could all add up to a long, and possibly, boring intro.
Im leaning toward typing up a brief character history for each and including the basics, then handing them out a week before we play, letting them read it in their own time.. so as to avoid having to cover it on game night.
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Both Player's Guides for RotRL do a pretty good job of introducing the skeleton of the world to the PCs as well. It lets them know the important things about the corner of the world that they're in, and that there's hints of a much larger world, but none of it is necessarily important for the story at hand.
The best part about starting with Runelords is that the story itself spirals outwards. It starts small, only concerning itself with a single town on the Varisian coast, which soon leads to the capital, and out from there. As the PCs get more powerful, the stakes get bigger, and the whole of Varisia begins opening up to them. The story does a pretty good job of introducing this new world to the players naturally.
Both Player's Guides for RotRL do a pretty good job of introducing the skeleton of the world to the PCs as well. It lets them know the important things about the corner of the world that they're in, and that there's hints of a much larger world, but none of it is necessarily important for the story at hand.
The best part about starting with Runelords is that the story itself spirals outwards. It starts small, only concerning itself with a single town on the Varisian coast, which soon leads to the capital, and out from there. As the PCs get more powerful, the stakes get bigger, and the whole of Varisia begins opening up to them. The story does a pretty good job of introducing this new world to the players naturally.
Excellent point.