I was recently reading one of the threads on the message boards, and a more experienced GM mentionned the importances of newby GMs using APs to get a good sense of the pacing/encounter design, and would do better to avoid doing their own stuff. This rubs me the wrong way, because other than creating my own stuff (and sharing it with others), I have no interest in GM-ing. I know some people GM for friends, some people GM because nobody else wants to (that's not really a problem where I am). But I'm really not attracted by the idea of running an AP, because my interest in GM-ing is primarily a creative one.
So, I'm looking for advice. Namely, good resources for GM advice (I was thinking the paizo game master guide), good aps for "inspiration" on encounter design, pacing, etc.
I'd also be curious about why others decide to GM (if it's against your will, that's less interesting). My interest is mainly creative, which does kinda constrain me. I've done a couple of self-made one-shots for some friends/familiy, and they seemed to enjoy it, but they've never played PnP before, so they had few expectations.
Maybe you have the luxury of time to create your own PF adventures (especially mid+ levels) but a lot of peoeple (including me) don't have the enormous amount of time needed to make my own PF adventure, that's why either new or old at GMing you might want to use APs.
Yes i agree that new GMs (to the whole 3.X system) that have nobody to teach them should read (if not run) APs in order to learn a few things about campaign design.
The reason i started GMing PF (and i still do) is that in my group there was one more guy who could GM so if i wasn't GMing then he wouldn't be able to play.
You dont necessarily need to actually run the AP. You could just read it, mine it for ideas, and use it as an example of what is a well designed adventure. Even if you dont want to run it directly, it can be a great source of ideas, and that and the modules are the best teaching tool anyone could give to a gm.
As for why I gm? I like to tinker. I dont like to create per say. But I like to take other peoples work and add my own spin to make it 'better'. Thats why I like published adventures. I also like to host, and running a game is very much like hosting a very specifically themed party for a group of your friends. I find that sort of thing quite enjoyable.
I will admit, I'm a "half preparation/half improvisation" type of guy. My intent is to prepare a basic setting, and define as the PCs approach something. Also, to prepare generic encounters in advance that can be easily "reskinned" for different settings. I expect the biggest hit or miss thing will be encounter design.
It's sad so many people seemed to be "forced" into becoming a GM though.
Well I really enjoy my own creations too but I use aps and other adventures to bring it out and I can still spend hours a week on it.
First I think their point is not to only go with aps but to look at APs as examples of encounter design and pacing.
The best writers are voracious readers. Movie makers watch endless amounts of movies.
How then do you become good at encounter design by looking at good examples.
What I've done? Well I usually give out a few thematic things to my players I'd like to run like: high intesity roleplay, rooted, dungeon crawler, exploration, urban, pirates, super-challenging. And I see what interests them, for instance when I ran Rise of the Runelords it fit a few of those and they loved it. Lately they wanted to be challenged for all they were worth so I found the Slumbering Tsar, which has proven to be mind blowingly hard, yet fun.
If you want to run your own stuff that's great, Kingmaker has a ton of easily insertable scenarios, not alot of dungeons. If you want dungeons Rotrl has some. Background for an urban adventure try Curse of the Crimson Throne or Second Darkness.
There is a lot to be said for getting your hands on an AP and giving it a read through to get a handle on the structure and pacing, even if you aren't going to run it. Just in terms of "here's an appropriate density of encounters," "here's examples of how these skills and spells can actually come up in useful ways," "here's the basic mix of character concepts you want in a group of antagonists to keep things interesting," etc.
On the other hand, if you're already running a game for people, and everything's going great, just keep doing what you're doing.
@ James B Cline: I'm working on a similar "basis" as yourself, proposing a bunch of possible scenarios with differents styles and seeing which one is interesting the most people.
@ Googleshng: Not running anything regular yet. I've run a few "dungeon world" oneshots to get a bit of a feel for GM-ing. For the moment it's been fun, but that's been with completely green PnP-ers. The pathfinder proposal is for people with a little more experience. The lack of expectations of a complete newbie takes a bit of weigth of my shoulders, escpecially in a complex game like pathfinder.