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Are there guidelines for non-PFS Core Campaign games? I was thinking outside of PFS play. PF has become too much of cyclopean (got to love Lovecraft) wall of a game and the Core Campaign gets our group back to a sensible fun game.
Having codified guidelines keeps us from slipping back to having 1/2-Dragon-1/2-Elf-1/2-Efeeti-1/2-Gold Fish 3-Handed Sword wielding Barbarian/Cleric/Accountant/Part-time Goat Herder characters dealing a googolplex damage per free action*.
Cheers.
*Note I may have used hyperbole in places.
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Non-PFS? Do whatever you want. Nobody on this side of the forum cares.
Have you canvassed everyone on the forum? Perhaps you mean you don't care?
I was thinking perhaps someone 'on this side of the forum' might know given that PF Core is a PFS based development. The 'other side of the forum' seems to be populated with friendly community spirited people. I think I'll retreat back there.
Apologies for darkening your door,
S.
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Non-PFS? Do whatever you want. Nobody on this side of the forum cares.
Woah, that's cold. And wrong, since you aren't everybody.
Stefan, there aren't any campaign guidelines out there that I know of, but I was thinking the following for my tentative Kingmaker campaign:
Core, ARG Core sections, APG classes + spells + feats, UM & UC on a case-by-case basis and a massively open but severely scrutinized magic item selection. The campaign is a crafters's heaven, in that players can finally afford all the zany gear they would not buy normally thanks to their income as kings and queens, but this variety of choice requires extra attention from the gm.
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Tsriel may have been abrupt in his post, but his point is pretty simple.
If you are running a non-PFS game, there are no restrictions on you. You get to do it anyway you like. You can even run it much like PFS Core Campaign if you like, by purchasing the PFS scenarios, running them with as much of the PFS Core Campaign rules you want, and just not reporting them. You have complete freedom in running your own game.
PFS, and PFS Core Campaign are organized play, with the house rules codified in the Guide to Organized Play. And those of us who play PFS have to follow those rules to the best of our ability. So, we discuss them a lot to get them right. It's a lot more restrictive than your own game.
If you want to use just the Core Rulebook for the player's characters, that is a real simplification over allowing all the books, or just all the hardcovers. Note, that this makes less potential power for them, so be careful in using other materials for the bad guys. They may shred the poor, Core-only characters.
It takes a deft hand to be a good GM.
edit: spelling
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Non-PFS? Do whatever you want. Nobody on this side of the forum cares.Have you canvassed everyone on the forum? Perhaps you mean you don't care?
I was thinking perhaps someone 'on this side of the forum' might know given that PF Core is a PFS based development. The 'other side of the forum' seems to be populated with friendly community spirited people. I think I'll retreat back there.
Apologies for darkening your door,
S.
You posted in the PFS part of this forum, people tend to do this all the time and it gets a bit distracting.
To answer your original question:
The following sources are part of the CORE campaign: PFS guide to organized play (contains traits your might want), the free traits web enhancement, and the CRB and a couple of of Golaron languages. Access to the Bestiary 1 is kinda required for summon monster and other things like ability descriptions and feats for your animal companion.
There are no limits for GMs since the scenarios and adventures they are running use material from all sources.
It is also worth mentioning, that items on chronicles add some removed items back into the game.
Edit:Ninjaed by DesolateHarmony, and I wantedt to add, that rule changes or additional rules (new animal companion tricks, the technology rules) don't exist for the CORE campaign.
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There are no limits for GMs since the scenarios and adventures they are running use material from all sources.
Thanks Muser, DesolateHarmony and Sebastian. I understood Tsriel's point, just disagreed with his delivery.
The quoted part above is more what I was asking. If I was writing a PFS adventure what resources would I be allowed to use. Obviously PFS adventures aren't born, they are written and written under some assumptions. Those assumptions would form our groups limits on developing our non-PFS games, again, because we like the idea of PF CORE.
I also understand the distracting bit, and apologize for disruption,
Cheers,
S.
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If I was writing a PFS adventure what resources would I be allowed to use. Obviously PFS adventures aren't born, they are written and written under some assumptions. Those assumptions would form our groups limits on developing our non-PFS games, again, because we like the idea of PF CORE.
The authors were able to use any resources available that were not 3rd party. It is my understanding that the authors were not supposed to use information from more than 5 different books. However, that might change, because as of recent (past 2-3 months) the new scenarios have an appendix in the back of the scenario with all of the stat blocks of creatures not printed in the scenario.
Of course the older scenarios, season 0 and 1, are almost all core only, cause the other books were not published yet.
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Tsriel may have been abrupt in his post, but his point is pretty simple.
If you are running a non-PFS game, there are no restrictions on you. You get to do it anyway you like. You can even run it much like PFS Core Campaign if you like, by purchasing the PFS scenarios, running them with as much of the PFS Core Campaign rules you want, and just not reporting them. You have complete freedom in running your own game.
PFS, and PFS Core Campaign are organized play, with the house rules codified in the Guide to Organized Play. And those of us who play PFS have to follow those rules to the best of our ability. So, we discuss them a lot to get them right. It's a lot more restrictive than your own game.
If you want to use just the Core Rulebook for the player's characters, that is a real simplification over allowing all the books, or just all the hardcovers. Note, that this makes less potential power for them, so be careful in using other materials for the bad guys. They may shred the poor, Core-only characters.
It takes a deft hand to be a good GM.
edit: spelling
Thank you DesolateHarmony as I take a massive penalty to Forum Diplomacy checks when on a mobile device.
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If I was writing a PFS adventure what resources would I be allowed to use. Obviously PFS adventures aren't born, they are written and written under some assumptions. Those assumptions would form our groups limits on developing our non-PFS games, again, because we like the idea of PF CORE.The authors were able to use any resources available that were not 3rd party. It is my understanding that the authors were not supposed to use information from more than 5 different books. However, that might change, because as of recent (past 2-3 months) the new scenarios have an appendix in the back of the scenario with all of the stat blocks of creatures not printed in the scenario.
Of course the older scenarios, season 0 and 1, are almost all core only, cause the other books were not published yet.
I think there is probably a link to the scenario writing guidelines in the Scenario Submission Talk part of these forums.
Probably under one of the Paizo employee's names, like Mark Moreland or Mark Seifter.
As Kristen wrote, there is a limit on the number of discreet resources the scenario writer should be using for her scenario, and a limit on unusual rules, as well. I think there was a recent thread, in General Discussions, on it, although it might be in response to a couple of the Blog postings.
Blog on Open Call Thoughts and its discussion thread might have some useful information.
Download the requirements and instructions for the Open Call. (70 KB zip/pdf)
I think this may cover a lot of your questions.