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Since returning to RPGs two years ago after a 20+ year hiatus, I've mostly been playing Pathfinder Society, both in public venues and with a long lasting home group. I've also joined a couple of home groups that tried to start ongoing campaigns, but none of them has lasted more than 3 sessions.
I've just joined another new home group, and this time, I'll be the GM. I'll be running Rise of the Runelords, and I've already purchased the anniversary edition hardback book.
At this point, I've GMed over 50 sessions of Society play, so I'm used to reading and running adventures from Paizo's published material, and I don't anticipate problems in that regard. I think I'll like the idea of having more control, since I can change up details to accommodate the specific group, which isn't allowed in the pure RAW environment of PFS.
My big concern is that I'm not used to playing home campaigns any more. I used to DM ongoing campaigns all the time in middle/high school playing D&D/AD&D (back when they were separate games with no edition numbers), but it's been a while. I'm so used to the PFS-specific "house rules" that there are areas of the Pathfinder game I've never really dealt with. So I'm trying to figure out what campaign stuff I'm not used to that I need to figure out, because it just doesn't come up in PFS.
For instance, here are some specific issues I've thought of already:
1. XP. In PFS, you just level up after every 3 sessions. I'm not used to tracking and assigning XP any more, so I should look up the details to see how that works in Pathfinder. Is that in the Core Rulebook (which I never did get around to reading cover to cover)? Or I've considered the idea of skipping all that math and just having the PCs level up at specific points in the adventure. RotR does say roughly what levels the PCs should be when they hit particular points in the adventure, so that could be easy to make work.
2. Item acquisition/crafting. In PFS, crafting is forbidden, but it's assumed that players have access to buy any magic item, as long as they have the fame points necessary, which is a PFS-specific mechanic. Obviously, I'll have to look up both crafting rules and the rules for what items are available to buy in what size village, town, city, etc to know how to deal with this. I know crafting is spread out throughout the Core Rulebook (some feats, some in the magic item area, I believe). Is the available purchase info in the CRB, or would I need to go to the GM Guide (which I don't own and have never even looked at) for that?
3. Treasure. I believe the AP is written with 4 players in mind, so should I multiply treasure awards (including items) by 1.5 to keep player wealth up to their level when dealing with 6 players? For that matter, what about found magic items that they don't want? I guess I'll have to figure out item selling rules.
I'm sure there are other campaign-specific types of things that I'm not thinking of that I'll have to deal with for the first time in Pathfinder, because they don't come up in PFS.
My players are mostly returning players who used to play older editions (mostly 3.0 and 3.5, though there's a long time 2nd edition player, too), and two total newbies to tabletop RPGs, so I doubt they'll know this stuff better than me. Since I'm the GM, I'll be the one in charge, so I want to prepare as much as I can for all of this stuff before we start the campaign. In some cases (like possibly skipping XP and just telling them to level up when it seems appropriate), I'll probably discuss house rule possibilities with the group.
Anyone have any other campaign-type issues I should be thinking of?
Fromper, the core rulebook and the GM's Guide are the books you should read cover to cover if you want to run PF campaigns of your own design.
Having said that, here is my approach to the three areas you listed:
1. XP - I don't do XP. Yes there are rules for how to do XP in the books. I ignore them. I level PCs up by plot, level the group together and generally don't allow the party to develop power discrepancies that can create in game issues between players.
2. Crafting is mostly covered in the core rulebook under the feats taken to do the crafting. The GM's Guide has some suggestions on how to deal with players who want to use crafting as a means to gain a wealth advantage. The rules are fairly straightforward but there are some synergies with feats that can make it a bit of a chore to work out details, especially when players want to accelerate the process, or use their "ring of sustenance" to stay up all night crafting while everone else sleeps.
3. The WBL guidelines are in the CRB and are pretty straightforward. I use them as a rough baseline but I don't care that much about them. If the party is getting too rich, I tone down the treasure, and vice versa. I mostly play by feel. There are times that the party will need a lot of gold and it's my job as the GM to make sure they have what they need for story purposes.
Good luck, I think being a GM in pathfinder is a bit easier than 3.5 used to be. My advice would be to follow your gut as much as possible and not rely too heavily on the books.
1) I use a simple spreadsheet for XP calculation. I'm sure there are similar tools on the net. Also, most of the encounters in the books show the xp totals for those encounters right there in the book, which makes calculation much easier. I used to do Ad Hoc, as a few describe above, but I got a bit disenchanted with it. In a couple of the APs, it felt like party members would level unevenly (Not between each other, but between levels). It's all personal preference.
2) I generally discourage crafting because it takes extra time, and most players are happy with that. If a player wants to make something needed, such as scrolls for wizards, bullets for gunslingers, etc, I just let them insta make them at half price.
3) I do just that, if I have six players and I increase the encounters to accommodate the fact there are more players. As others have said, I don't sweat the calculations or worry about players getting too wealthy, as they do in PFS. I just play it buy ear. Even the APs sometimes give out REALLY nice stuff that's way above the gold guidelines. With that being said, I think a good, easy rule of thumb is that everyone should have typical +X weapons/armor/etc for every 4 levels...though, again, it's not an exact science, nor should it be. If the story calls for someone getting a +4 weapon at level 2 (especially if there's a great story reason for it), I allow it to happen and don't lose much sleep.
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Like I said, I'll be GMing a published adventure path, so I don't need to invent my own stuff. And I'll be too busy reading the adventure to spend time reading the rulebooks (which is why I never did finish reading the Core Rulebook cover to cover while GMing 50+ sessions in PFS).
I'm actually surprised by the de-emphasis of XP in recent years. I actually used to do all the math back in the day. But it makes sense for characters to level at the speed of plot.
If you're running a recent AP (like Rise of the Runelords Anniversary Edition), the adventure summary page tells you what level the party should be at to start various sections of the adventure. You could simply dispense with XP awards, and just tell your players when they level up.
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I do track XP in my home game, but its a homebrew exploration themed game where the plot is what the players make of it. In actuality I've never found XP tracking to be very difficult and it really helps me design encounters actually.
But in your case and whenever I run APs, don't bother tracking XP. The APs will tell you what level your PCs should be when the go to X, Y or Z and its for the best to just follow along with that guide. One thing that I would like to point out is, with six players you may want to consider changing up and adding a little more difficulty to some encounters. The APs are written with a party of 4 in mind, so adding another two is going to kind of mess with some of the difficulty level. I'm more than sure that someone on these boards has created a guide to running RotRL with six players, I'd highly suggest reading up on that.
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I just thought of something else that's different in Pathfinder Society than a normal campaign: Hit Points. In PFS, all PCs start with max HP for their class, then get average HP every level, rather than rolling. I'll probably ask my players if they want to use a house rule like that or go with rolled HP.
Most campaigns see people starting at max HP at 1st level. Some will make the players roll for HP after that, some will say take the average for their HD type.
I have run into a lot of DMs that don't give out XP, and instead tell the players when to level up. Especially if they are running an AP, as they usually say what level the characters should be at certain points.
In our campaigns we take max HP at level 1, and for any future levels the player can choose to take the average (rounded up on odd levels and down on even levels) or roll for hit points.
I'm old school I guess. I always roll.