Hello everyone. I'm not new to GMing but new to Pathfinder and recently started the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path for my group. I hardly would call myself seasoned though, I took a break from GMing for over 10 years. My group has 2 seasoned RPers and four complete rookies. Which is probably why I find myself struggling, and we're only two sessions in.
I detailed some of our last play session over at my blog, http://boldly-nerd.net/2014/11/18/penpaper-session-2-overwhelmed/
The first session, the goblin raid, went great. People loved the festival, and the combat. Session 2 was all about running Local Heroes, and here's where the issues started. For one, the party is split and not all staying in one place. Out of six characters, four appear to be loners or have valid IC reasons to mistrust strangers. Two players are a RL couple, and so their characters are shacking up together for no real discernible reason.
When Belor Hemlock asked them to come investigate the crypta, they weren't really interested. They all refused to go hunting with Aldern Foxglove. When Belor Hemlock asked them to stay in Sandpoint while he is traveling to Magnimar, none of them wanted to. What they did want to do was to blindly go out into the woods to find the goblins and their leader.
To say I was frustrated is putting it mildly. I have never GMd for a party where people weren't actually interested in a) the other party members and b) in being heroic adventurers.
I was hoping that some of the more experienced folks would have any advice how I can possibly get them back on track, and get them involved more into the campaign? Local Heroes is to bond them to Sandpoint and make them care, and I feel I am failing dramatically as GM. Should I spend some time first on actually making them a cohesive party? One of the players is already questioning on our forum why the couple play like a couple in-game as well, and they didn't respond so well to that.
Sandpoint is supposed to be the PCs driving point for much of the adventure, if they don't care about it then their motivations for continuing onward might be difficult. I ran RotR with a 6 player group and I can saw it is a large party and especially if you have multiple players who distrust strangers it'll be hard to get them going at the start of Skinsaw. Find what motivates the loners and get them mobilized, as for the couple.. maybe make Tsuto kidnap one of them along with Ameiko to try and make an example of potential heroes.
Another method could be to maybe let them go out and hunt some goblins and let drop some information about a traitor in Sandpoint. The tie into the Catacombs of Wrath is pretty important and I wouldn't drop that entire, you just need to find a way to get your players to care about Sandpoint. If gold motivates them, then offer them some money though if they didn't go off with Aldern then they might just not care overall.
Some suggestions probably some of which are bad
1) The couple if they can't separate RL and the game have them write character backgrounds which make them a couple in game. This may be hard to change now if they designed completely different characters ,one of them may want to change a character so they fit together. Then it makes sense in game , and hopefully end of problem. You could try extending this to the others and ask them all to come up with a reason to know another character to help build group bonds
2) Ask the players playing paranoid loners to understand this is a cooperative game and it would help if their characters would cooperate with each other. If they don't and insist on wondering around seperatly educate them bu having them face dangerous encounters they will soon realise that playing well with other is good
2a) The heroic adventurer bit point at their alignments, have clerics etc recieve signs from their gods that helping people is a good thing or resign yourslef to putting up with cold blooded mercenaries. The Paladin SHOULD be helping but trying to track down the goblins make be his way of doing it.
3) If they don't want to bond with Sand point don't make them. You have 2 options they have enough information to work out the Goblins are from Thistletop let them go there and attack (or send them to another Goblin tribe, the We Be goblins Free modules give some details), they will be out of their depth and get into trouble but its what they want, alternativly you could let them wonder the woods aimlessly have a few random encounters and come back to town to discover another Goblin attack took place/Ameiko has been kidnapped and there is a reward for her rescue if these link to the catacombs that make them go down there.
4) Not going hunting is not a problem, Akdern can still fixate on one of them and they may even feel they are to blame for his fall when he turns into a ghoul and causes problems
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My opinion on running Adventure paths is that the players should be interested in participating in a pre-written story. And should acknowledge that some form of rail-roading may occur.
Also the players should create characters that have some motivation for being interested in the AP-storyline.
If they don't give in a little bit and follow the hooks from the AP, then maybe a new band of adventurers come into Sandpoint and take on the tasks that these PC dont want to do (AKA everyone make new characters that actually want to play in this campaign).
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If 'in character' attempts to engage them as a party fail the it's time to speak to your players. IMO it is as much the responsibility of the players to find reasons to engage with both the other players and NPCs as it is yours.
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It seems like your group created a party who is fundamentally incapable of taking part. If you start kidnapping them and forcing them to go down the road you want then you are railroading them even more than the path already kind of asks.
I would sit them down and ask them what they want from the game. If they are going to just ignore all of the leads you give them and refuse to work together then this path is never going to work.
I would not say you have failed as a DM.
If they insist on continuing let them. Let them find Thistletop and do not hamper the encounters for 2nd level(?) characters. If they escape with their lives then have everyone in Sandpoint refuse to help them or believe them. After all what have they done for them?
Thanks all for the feedback, you've already made some good points. I was going to ask them if they could maybe come up with something about why their characters want to be adventurers, and to describe stuff that could possibly connect them to the others.
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don't tell them its pre-written right away, run a few sessions then see if they've changed their tune:-)
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I want to run rise of the rune lords but my players don't seem to be intrested in playing a prewrittin campange what can I do to intice them a bit more
Sandpoint can be an excellent sandbox to start with...it is a town with a lot going on in and around it. A little bit of prep work can make it more accessible as an open area with some good leads to draw them in different directions. Write up an old fashioned flow chart with all the stuff in the area and any possible side leads....then you can see things clearer and adjust to the party roaming the town exploring as they wish.
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I want to run rise of the rune lords but my players don't seem to be intrested in playing a prewrittin campange what can I do to intice them a bit more
One option is to say "I would like to run this written campaign, I have the time to run it and somewhat customize it to your characters, however I do not have the time to write a campaign from scratch so its this or one of you runs something until I have the amount of time needed to put in all the work of running a totally home made campaign"
Players need to remember that GM's usually have more going on in their life than running the game and that they do not have infinite preperation time
I want to run rise of the rune lords but my players don't seem to be intrested in playing a prewrittin campange what can I do to intice them a bit more
Not sure I see any compelling advantage of a home-brewed campaign over a published AP from a player point of view. There may be assumptions that a home-brewed campaign may be more flexible in character creation options but pending what kind of characters they want, an AP could be found to accommodate them. And there may be assumptions that AP's are more of a "railroad" but in my experience home-brewed campaigns can be just as much of a railroad. AP or home-brewed, you are limited by what preparation and world-building your GM has done/has access to/is willing to explore.
The benefits of an AP primarily accrue to the GM - less time on world-building, story creation, NPC builds etc. Home-brewed lets the GM tell whatever story he wants with the trade-off of much greater work load.
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Read the first few posts, then thought I'd just skip to the end and be the rude guy.
The 4 loners in a party of 6. Kill the loners off. It's a freaking team game. If they want to be angsty loners that go their own way let them split the party and have Tsuto, a pack of goblins, Lyrie, or any of the Sczarni cut them down one by one.
And if they complain just tell them; there is a conspiracy going on in Sandpoint. If you don't have people to watch your back you are going to have a rough time of it.