As the title says I'm a new GM (well new to premade modules, I did a little custom made stuff about 2+ years ago but sadly haven't had a group to play with since) and I'm about to run Rise of the Runelords. I'm going to running it for 3 people who have never played any form of tabletop rpg before and one who has. I'm in the process of reading some of the threads here, the gm reference threads in particular and any others that catch my eye.
I'll be starting in about 1-2 months, and should have both the Rise of the Runelords anniversary edition and the face cards coming in the mail in about a week or two. So I plan to start reading the actual module when it arrives and trying to familiarize myself with the plot and what's going on ahead of time.
So if anyone has any helpful advice or tips I'd very much appreciate it.
~aod43254
As the title says I'm a new GM (well new to premade modules, I did a little custom made stuff about 2+ years ago but sadly haven't had a group to play with since) and I'm about to run Rise of the Runelords. I'm going to running it for 3 people who have never played any form of tabletop rpg before and one who has. I'm in the process of reading some of the threads here, the gm reference threads in particular and any others that catch my eye.
I'll be starting in about 1-2 months, and should have both the Rise of the Runelords anniversary edition and the face cards coming in the mail in about a week or two. So I plan to start reading the actual module when it arrives and trying to familiarize myself with the plot and what's going on ahead of time.
So if anyone has any helpful advice or tips I'd very much appreciate it.
~aod43254
Well, after playing through it once, I'm now running it for a party of three with only slight PF experience and just moderate experience with RPG's in general. Full disclosure, I'm putting together what I think will be a truly epic campaign, incorporating books from two other AP's (3 from Shattered Star and 1 from Curse of the Crimson Throne) and rewriting a bit of the overall story arc... but the Rise volumes will be run very, very close to hope they are written.
I say that because I want you to be aware that there may become differences, but we have put together a wiki for the group which includes some solid home-brew exposition and a wealth of images and background. I expand upon it after every session to update what has happened, what new people or places have been encountered and so forth. We're still fairly early on in the campaign (we had the holidays to deal with; they are at Thistletop as we speak), but it may be that you find some useful stuff in exploring the wiki.
If you have any specific questions, I'd be happy to address them here or you can pm me any time. :)
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Hard to provide much advice at this point except for the really obvious and simple but that hasn't stopped me in the past so why should it now?!
1. Read the entire AP cover-to-cover. At least twice. Make sure you understand the overall story and how the parts fit together. Find the elements you don't like or are confused about. In a somewhat amazing departure from internet norms, you can find genuine help and support for your questions or issues right here on this forum.
2. Get the Player's Guides to the AP - free downloads. Note: there are two - one for the original and one for the AE version. My opinion: the original is vastly superior to the AE (this is in reference to the Player's Guide only!) The AE version of the guide is little more than a gazetteer for Varisia whereas the original has all kinds of player building advice relating each class to the region and AP. (My explanation: the original was released before many of the sourcebooks, etc. for pathfinder were out so it had more to explain but for your players its likely what they need.)
3. Using your knowledge of the AP and the Player's Guide, help your players choose character goals or backgrounds that fit the AP. With newbies there may not be much characterization at all (and that's OK!) but if/when they start imagining goals for their characters make sure you won't have to make up huge volumes of material to make it happen. Overly simple and extreme examples:
- if a pc dreams of being a gold dragon rider, the AP has a sweet box of total disappointment available to her.
- if on the other hand a pc hates goblins or giants (or both!) then, boy do I have deal for you!
- if a pc wants to hunt vampires and undead, you are in the wrong AP. There are some but only enough to be frustrating not fulfilling if dealing with them is a major motivation.
- if on the other hand, exploring ruins of long-lost civilizations and learning more about ancient wizards of unimaginable power is your thing, you have come to the right place.
- In other words, use your knowledge of the AP to tailor your player's expectations. It's all well and good for a player's imagination to run free and wild but in the end you're the poor schmo who has to accomodate or crush those dreams.
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Advice as a player; start the adventure before the Swallowtail Festival. Introduce the PCs to goblin stomping around Sandpoint in the weeks leading up to the festival. Let Hosk start paying a bounty on goblins before the festival. Introduce some of the baddie NPCs in the taverns and shops around town.
The hook of the festival is so much stronger if the PCs already have a friend or two in town. So encourage some of the PCs to be local and make sure to add any friends of the PCs into the people that can be met around town. The fact that my character has friends in the guard and at a few of the establishments around town, as well as 'enemies' that he doesn't get along with makes Sandpoint that much more fun.
I wonder if I can get Athos to do a funeral for me if the party reincarnates me instead of resurrecting me.
Everyone so far thank you for the responses,
Story Archer, thanks for the link to your wiki, I'll definitely check it.
Arthur G, I actually have considered some of what I will do with the festival actually after seeing another person's post here with events and things they had happen at it. I will add the thread you mentioned to the folder I'm compiling to reference and help me along the way.
Latrecis, I will be either updating this thread or creating another once I get the book (should be next week) and read it. Believe me I have learned from when I use to play some two years ago that this forum is one of the few places that has a respectful and helpful community, which is why I came back when I was about to start again. As for the player's guide I have actually downloaded the original one already (didn't even know there was one for the AE, which I have now downloaded too) and plan to familiarize myself with their information prior to getting the AP.
Qakisst Vishtani, that's an interesting suggestion and something I had not considered before you said it. After getting the book and reading it I will be sure to keep your suggestion in mind when preparing everything.
One final question to anyone, I have multiple books (Core Rulebook, APG, Ultimate Magic, Ultimate Combat, and Bestiaries 1-3), initially I was planning on basically exposing my players to just the Core Rulebook but while writing this response wondered would it be a bad idea to also include the APG giving the more classes and access to character traits?
(anyone who hasn't responded to the original post feel free to still offer advice or tips)
~aod43254
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Along what Qakisst said, make sure you use the first chapter of the book with a lot of stone foundation. The characters will come back to Sandpoint quite often in this AP, and there are NPC's there that have a chance to play a big impact on the party as the AP goes on. You're gonna want to do your best to have your players value Sandpoint, and not view it as "This rathole again?"
I think his goal is to prevent option paralysis, APG wont cause problems in that regard i'd allow it, a great book:-)
Thanks for the responses, from what yall have said I think I will permit the use.
Trik its actually 3 new players and 1 with some tabletop experience
captain yesterday is correct about my worry being option paralysis.
I'm in a similar boat, just 3 months(ish) ahead of you.
I knew in advance that I was going to run Rise, so I started combing these forums. I had additional concerns as I am inserting this AP into my homebrew campaign world.
So I'd say...
1) Get some stuff from the Paizo store:
- Wayfinder 7 at the very least
- We Be Goblins
- Dawn of the Scarlet Sun
There's certainly more, but that's a good start.
2) Read through the AP - its OK to skim through at this point, and stat blocks are meaningless.
3)Come back here with some thoughts and look through what some other people are doing.
4) Read through the AP - this time focus on how the story segments link.
5) Come back here and borrow all the ideas you can find, store them away as distinct morsels and decide what you want to use from the buffet - with new players, it won't hurt to let them get a bit ahead of the level curve for the first bit, there are a couple of tough fights in Burnt Offerings.
6) RE-READ EVERYTHING on Sandpoint. You want to be able to have information at your finger tips regarding this base.
7) Start off with some simple stuff to begin to get people ready and comfortable with their characters.
8) As the beginning of the campaign develops take your time let them develop connections with the people of Sandpoint - let them get involved in some non-related subplot. You want the players to love the town and people so that it hurts when something bad happens.
Me, I started off my campaign DURING the Late Unpleasantness and gave the party the chance to poke around and experience it as it happened. (slapping the "Young" template on the characters) I wanted to avoid doing an info-dump "All was great in Sandpoint until 5 years ago when..." Before I even started running the campaign, one player had been betrayed by Tsuto, one had decided that Gorvi was his arch-enemy, in short they had connections to the townsfolk, even if not all those connections were positive.
Then like Qakisst Vishtani was saying above, I started off a couple of weeks before the Swallotail Festival.
I let them run into a pair of grave robbers at the Pauper's Graves to give them a short fight as a group.
As far as building characters goes, using just the core would be fine, but I'd also let them know that there IS more if they want it or cant find quite the thing that they're looking for.
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I recently finished a Rise campaign (finishing up the second book of Shattered Star now, actually).
I included some extra events at the festival, including a "throwing knives at melons carved like goblin heads" event that awarded little tin badges that said "Goblinslayer." Other than that, ran the intro mostly as written. Playing up the goblins was a lot of fun and lead to a memorable fight.
When creating characters, I asked how people were tied to town. We did have one PC just dropping by for the festival, but one was a guardsman and one was an acolyte at the temple.
I also had the Paradise still be afloat so they could confront that and see what the plan was there. They ended up sinking it themselves by accident. Heh.
I made the dominant weapons from the Runeforge much more active. They basically had the power to "sunder" transmutation effects a handful of times each.
For the very last book, I made the trek up to Xin-Shalast more obviously pass through Leng. I played it up as a land of eternal night (no sunrise = no cleric spells), nightmares (don't sleep, seriously) and high weirdness, pulling a lot of descriptive elements from the Leng gazetteer in Shattered Star book 5 and Lovecraft's Dreamlands stories. They ended up burning a ton of spells fighting off fatigue so they wouldn't sleep and navigating insane obstacles.
For the final fight, I arranged seven runes around the well that players could sunder (with the dominant weapons) or seize from Karzoug. Whoever had each rune got a ridiculous defensive effect (on the lines of the prismatic sphere he usually casts).
Cheers!
Landon
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Advice as a player; start the adventure before the Swallowtail Festival. Introduce the PCs to goblin stomping around Sandpoint in the weeks leading up to the festival. Let Hosk start paying a bounty on goblins before the festival. Introduce some of the baddie NPCs in the taverns and shops around town.
The hook of the festival is so much stronger if the PCs already have a friend or two in town. So encourage some of the PCs to be local and make sure to add any friends of the PCs into the people that can be met around town. The fact that my character has friends in the guard and at a few of the establishments around town, as well as 'enemies' that he doesn't get along with makes Sandpoint that much more fun.
I wonder if I can get Athos to do a funeral for me if the party reincarnates me instead of resurrecting me.
This.
Personally, I would recommend starting the campaign off with the adventure from Beginners' Box. Here's why: First, it will help introduce your brand-new players to the rules of Pathfinder in a fun, intuitive sort of way. Second, it introduces the setting of Varisia and Sandpoint in particular. Third, the adventure gives them a good bit of bonus treasure and experience for their starting wealth, which is always nice. And lastly, by the end of the adventure (assuming they survive) your players will be the toast of the town, and will probably be honored town heroes at the Swallow Tail Festival.
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Definitely allow the APG for players that are familiar with the material there. None of the main expansion books is really game breaking. From what I've seen only gunslinger from UC is disruptive at all since gunslingers can target touch at close range; but that's not too much of a problem from what I've seen.
But do make sure that the players are familiar with the class material they choose to play. Nothing is more annoying than a PC that doesn't know how to use its own abilities.
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Oh, and if you let the players chose classes and races from the expansions, make sure that they know that the big bad NPCs can be reskinned as different advanced classes.
Nualia being reskinned as an Inquisitor
Ironbriar being reskinned as a War Priest
Lyre being reskinned as an Arcanist
Vankaskerkin reskinned as a Cavalier
Any time spent just roleplaying around Sandpoint is GOLD. The little "events" in the AP are seeds for just that but on their own they are a bit lack-lustre.
I really wish I'd prepped for the festival more. I used it as an opportunity to introduce the ability and skill-check rules via little contests and games etc. It also gets the group to introduce their characters a bit - "I'm strong", "I can balance on beams", "I play the lute" etc. Don't forget some academic style contests - local trivia, obscure knowledge, poetry etc.
However, it's ALSO the perfect opportunity to introduce key Sandpoint characters, as opponents for instance, and this is the opportunity I missed.
But most importantly - trust the AP. It has been carefully (more carefully than many acknowledge) designed for 4 new players. your group will have a slight edge with an experienced player - but "experienced" players can also get themselves in trouble more often than not.
RotR rewards natural, common sense instincts more than traditional RPG hack&slash.
As already mentioned, this forum is fantastic. You get great advice here.
But, above all, remember it's about fun. And that includes you.
Yeah to second what Belegdel said, the more time you spend on individual NPCs from the appendix in terms of fleshing them out and interacting with the party using them, the bigger the payoff in Books 2 and 4 will be. The Sandpoint appendix is full of hooks to play with.
The first time I had a stab at running Runelords was the first time I'd run a published campaign in many years. Since GDQ in 1st edition. I didn't handle it as well as I'd have liked.
The advice to spend time getting to know Sandpoint is excellent. Even more than that, find ways to put some of the background on the table. Until it's on the table it doesn't exist as far as the players are concerned.
Second time around, I'm evaluating each little bit of background and asking how I can work it in, foreshadowing later events if possible.
I'd strongly advise listening to Big Finish's audio version of Burnt Offerings. It's surprising how much background they fit into Mayor Kender's speech. On of my next tasks is to write speeches for Kender, Belor, Cyrdak and Father Abstalar. Then I'll be going through the list of games, adding some of my own, and working out which NPCs the PCs will be competing against.
There's even more opportunity after that raid.
Scour the scenarios for potential connections. Thistletop mentions an attack on Merchants, so the survivors should appear in Sandpoint wh3n the players are there.
Getting close to the finish of the AP and looking back, I suggest that you spend a lot of time in the first two books. Don't be shy about departing from the script to get the PCs emotionally connected to Sandpoint and NPCs. Do not feel that you have to stay on the rails. Sticking to the AP too closely was my biggest mistake. Most of our memorable events were when the group went off on a tangent.
If I were to run this again, I'd streamline the later books and I wouldn't repeat the "you find a note that gives you the next lead" trope as often as it us used in the AP.
This desire to speed things up towards the final act could be the fact that we have been at the AP for almost 2 years now and I'm losing interest. Not saying it is a bad adventure. I think that it is a solid choice and I do not regret buying it or running it.
Our gaming group still is having lots of fun as we get ready to wrap it up.
Thanks everyone for the continual stream of suggestions and tips, I've been meaning to post an update but between college and read the AP all the way through I hadn't gotten a chance. I'm currently in the process of reading from cover to cover jotting down notes as I go for things to look more into, before I get into the specifics.
I plan to take the suggestion that was put out there to start the players off with an adventure before jumping into the AP, I'm thinking of finding a way to modify an old D&D module I have saved "A Dark and Stormy Knight", using goblins instead of hobgoblins and the zombie bugbear, possibly have the location of it set on the party's path to Sandpoint setting the timeline about a week or so prior to the Festival giving them time to go through that small dungeon and explore town a little prior to the festivities.
Qakisst Vishtani, I live in virginia so thats probably just a little too far to travel lol.
I do have a question for yall does anyone know if the map folio is worth the money or would it be simpler to just stick to the chessex battlemat I have?
~aod43254
I'd say get the maps. We used our battlemap, but it was a pain to draw out so many maps with curved walls.
EDIT:
Even if the maps are not full scale, I'd say that it would still be worth it.
Re: the maps folio - these are not battlemaps. There are some suitable as handouts (Sandpoint, the Hinterlands, etc) and some that are maps of adventure sites, useful for the GM so you don't have to keep flipping pages.
I'd say they're worth having, but not essential. They won't replace your Chessex battlemap, though.
I do have a question for yall does anyone know if the map folio is worth the money or would it be simpler to just stick to the chessex battlemat I have?~aod43254
As mentioned, they're not miniature-scale maps, and I've read numerous reports of difficulty making them big enough.
Check the forum thread for community created stuff - some generous and talented people have created battle maps for just about everything.
I use an iPad to reveal the maps during exploration, then draw out the battlefield on a battlemap when the action starts. It's clunky but does the job.