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So in my short career as a GM, I’ve noticed two approaches to prewritten campaign structures. The first is more all-encompassing, and prescriptive, much like Pathfinder Society scenarios, or the Rise of the Runelords AP, and mean less work for GMs, with everything the game will need written on the page.
The alternative is more descriptive, and more of a rough outline of a campaign, that provides a Big bad and some major events and dungeons, but maybe lacking the detail in between those points. This style seems to allow for greater control on the part of the GM who can weave the story as they like.
For shorthand sake we’ll refer to the former as prescriptive and the latter as descriptive. The prescriptive is a railroad adventure with little room for player character development. It does however leave you with a much more coherent storytelling that requires less “filler” so that you can get right to the most important bits. The descriptive however can lead to wide expanses of possibility but runs the risks of derailing from the story entirely. It requires more improvisation, and arguably more preparation on the part of the GM, but it allows for a deeper connection with the setting and its characters.
Having spent most of my hours as a GM running PFS, I’ve come to think of all prewritten material as prescriptive. But a recent dalliance with 5th ed, has opened my mind to descriptive storytelling. Now I’m having some serious issues with Iron Gods as a prescriptive structure, and I’m starting to think it was never meant to be run as written, and that maybe I’ve approached Aps the wrong way up until now. So my question is, do you use a more prescriptive or descriptive approach when GMing Adventure Paths?
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I reckon I fall into the Descriptive camp. Currently I'm running Second Dorkness with my online group and am taking the approach that the series books are the skin and skeleton and its my job to add the meat and guts. This is probably heighten moreso by the 3.5 mechanics really needing updates but also because I have some ideas on how it could be made to better fit and reward the pro-activity and level of engagement of my players.
I run the adventures pretty much as written but I make changes to fit my players characters and as the campaign develops I will end up making bigger changes at least partly because I let my players get OP so I have to rebuild everything.
I also add bits around the edges of the AP which better fit things to my pc's and help resolve their personal business.
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Now I get why people use railroad and sandbox to describe them. :-)
It's harder keeping prescriptive and descriptive straight in my head.
But then, I'm dyslexic, so. :-)
I generally start with how it's written but add or tweak as I go. Usually I add more then change.
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Now I get why people use railroad and sandbox to describe them. :-)
It's harder keeping prescriptive and descriptive straight in my head.
But then, I'm dyslexic, so. :-)
I generally start with how it's written but add or tweak as I go. Usually I add more then change.
Yup, those would make more sense. Must've had a mental block as I was writing that post :P
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It's all good, your way sounds more intelligent.
Besides, adventure writers don't like the sandbox and railroad tags. :-)
I'll definitely try and add to the ole brain thingy. :-)
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I'm a pretty narrative GM and I like reacting to what my players do, so it doesn't matter how faithful I want to stay to an AP, I start enjoying it only when I make it my own and things start going their own way instead of being railroaded.
I like having the basics from the AP to keep in mind what's going on, but I like a lot watching my players improvise and take their own decissions, so I don't mind a lot if things don't go as planned.
Anyway, I always have some hooks to catch my players back if they fall too far from the main plot. It doesn't happen a lot anyway, as I always try to keep them interested on the main story.
I guess that makes me a bit more descriptive than prospective.
Now I am GMing Skull and Shackles and I find that it is totally my thing. My players are enjoying their freedom to explore the world and do things their way and they still keep the main focus of the adventure in mind, so I'm loving it.
I'm playing Reign of Winter too, and I have to say that, even though my GM is making his best to make it less railroady and I love how it's playing, I don't think the AP as written would be my kind of game.
It's being interesting having these two APs running at the same time, as they are almost completely opposite.
I ran the Age of Worms 3.5 campaign (in Eberron) and am currently running Iron Gods (in Golarion mostly as written). In both I made some changes. In AoW I followed Keith Baker's conversion notes and included some custom magic items, but stuck to the storyline as did the players. In Iron Gods, I changed the material about Androffa and the tech to have more of a Star Wars feel. I also changed an encounter to include a Technic League task force and a self-taught Jedi so my players have the option for their characters to learn Force powers. Other than that we've pretty much followed the AP as written. I don't have a problem if players want to do character stuff as long as their main focus is on the campaign storyline I present.
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Descriptive.
The 1st thing I'll do is read the entire AP all the way through.
Next I'll read it through again, taking notes on parts I don't like, parts that just won't work for my actual players, or parts that I think could be expanded upon.
For instance, in Reign of Winter:
1) I think the authors lay it on a bit thick to get the PCs to storm the Pale Tower.
2) I find the huts changing interior as presented bland & uninteresting.
Then I type up my changes.
During actual play I simply roll with whatever the players do. This often leads to writing additional materiel about a week ahead of the PCs.... Eventually things swing back towards the AP.
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How do YOU run APs?
Poorly.
No, wait, I mean-!
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Hmm, definitely getting the sense that you guys are better at adapting the AP to suit your players. I think my style of GMing could definitely do with developing that skill.
Moving forward I think I'll be treating them less like gospel and more like a framework to bust out as needed, and just avoid railroading in general.
I like CCS's recommendation to read the entire AP through. I've run two APs more or less blind now, and its been really irritating when I've found out in later parts that an early NPC was more important than I played them. Or that I glossed over a detail that returns in later parts.
I suppose preparation is key, and being able to combine the whole AP into a cohesive whole would be nice.
The problem with that then are the locations. Especially important towns or cities. How do I make them feel lived in and how do you develop side-plots or characters effectively and efficiently? But that may be getting off topic and is probably covered in another thread.
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@BMO your last post sums up about anything I can say about how I run APs. However, I would recommend taking full advantage of the AP subforums here at Paizo. They are stuffed full of great ideas in how you can improve your AP experience from adding additional content to avoiding pitfalls with the printed material.
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Into the ground.
But in seriousness; I use them as an outline for character ideas and encounters, but don't usually railroad players. In fact, I usually try to get my players to think that what the book has prepared is not what I have ready, since they pride themselves as being able to skip huge sections of the adventure.
I tend to run APs mostly as written, but add stuff to personalize it for players or adjust the occasional encounter if I think it needs a tweak. Usually this leads to creating a bunch of new people for them to interact with, or a lot of fleshing out of characters that maybe only get a name and a class in the AP text.
I'd definitely recommend reading the AP the whole way through first, so you know what it's leading toward, how it fits together (and where it might need a little help to fit together) and maybe get a few suspicions about how your players will handle things. It definitely helps you run it as more of a cohesive plot. And it'll probably make it easier to adapt on the fly when your party does something unexpected.
As for making cities feel lived-in...that can be tricky, but giving the PCs reasons to explore always helps. Give your merchants personalities when they're shopping. Give them some NPCs to interact with in the town so they feel like it's not just a way-station to the next dungeon. If your PCs seem inclined to interact with an NPC who wasn't originally supposed to be important, let them develop that. (Example from a game I was a player in, there's a town watch woman the party interacts with at one point in the first book of Shattered Star. Never shows up again in the AP, but we liked her, so we kept going back to chat...and my cleric/wizard/theurge eventually married her.)
Also seconding the AP subforums recommendation. Not only can you get some ideas, you can see where other people have had issues and maybe adjust accordingly.
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I'm currently running Rise of the Runelords (towards the end of Book 6 with maybe 4-5 sessions left in the game), Iron Gods (over 2/3 of the way through book 4), and Hell's Rebels (a bit over halfway through Book 3). I would say that I've made virtually no adjustments to these games - if an adventure says that NPC X is a 13th level wizard and starts by tossing a disintigrate at an enemy spellcaster, then that's what they do. I want to give my players as close to the authorial intent as possible.
That said, I look for places I can expand the space. Here's a few instances of this I've included in my games:
Hoo boy, where to start? I expanded the Local Heroes section quite a bit in order for the characters to get to know each other, as well as Sandpoint and her inhabitants. I added a trial scene between Books 1 & 2 to try Lyrie for conspiring against a Magnimar protectorate, also introducing Ironbriar before his reveal in the Seven's Sawmill. I created a subplot where Cyrdak Drokkus found a copy of The King in Yellow and became obsessed with bringing Carcosa to Sandpoint, which also created a subplot with one of the PCs becoming cursed to spread Hastur fanaticism through sexual congress. I added a subplot where Hobart Deverin is on his deathbed, and Kendra asks her cousin for assistance - with Hobart's death, she's agreed to represent House Deverin in Magnimar, while her cousin becomes Mayor of Sandpoint. The Sczarni and Jubrayl were ousted by the PC that was raised by the Sczarni, giving him control of the Fatman's Feedbag and creating an organization of Varisian bounty hunters. And probably a whole lot more. All of these things were items I created due to the actions and interests of the players.
Since Iron Gods moves around a lot more than Runelords, I've not had nearly the ability to personalize this the way I'd like. However, I have had a few chances to do so, most notably the way my first session ended. Hetuath basically TPKed my party, but rather than kill everyone off - which is boring and Not Fun - I had him capture them and place them in a series of death traps to sacrifice them to Zyphus. Meanwhile, I had the one PC who escaped run into several low level adventurers to assist the party in their rescue - an elf rogue and her human cleric of Sarenrae lover, as well as a paladin of Iomedae who refused to wear a helmet, all of whom were heading to Kenabres for Armasse. Also, the android manufacturing workshop beneath Iadenveigh ended up being the birthplace of one of the androids in the party, since her memories are a bit faulty from her rejuvenation.
I've not added a great deal to this one either, mostly because the story is exceptionally well-written, and gives the party plenty to do. However, I've been giving personalities to the teams they've been hiring, names to the random NPCs they've been meeting, and so on.
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The problem with that then are the locations. Especially important towns or cities. How do I make them feel lived in and how do you develop side-plots or characters effectively and efficiently?
By outrightly stealing ideas from other books, by using random tables and generally all kinds of things that can help you flesh out such an location.
Just as an easy example, I have all these FR setting books I used to collect but never really used in game. There are hugh lots of NPCs to at least steal the name from any waterdeep sourcebook for example, as well as locations, shops and so on.
Then there's random generator pages like donjon I use a lot to get ideas and inspirations for all kinds of topics.
Or books like Eureka - 501 adventure plots to inspire game masters
and Masks - 1000 memorable NPCs for any roleplaying game that you can get a lot of use out.
Basically there's a lot of ressources to take advantage of if you're stuck for a moment while developing those locations.
[edit]Not to forgot all the stuff Paizo cranks out themselves that you may never use in actual game (as long as you're not immortal ^^), which you can freely use to spice your game up. [/edit]
As to your original question: I normally use the APs' plots as kind of "what happens if no one steps in to save the day" suggestions and combine those with the ideas I get from my players during character creation. Which can or can not lead to deviations from the AP's plot. That depends mostly on the players. As long as they follow the APs' plots from their own initiative I'm fine with it but I won't force them to do so. That might lead to repercussions later (because if they don't stop an evil plan as described in the AP, that evil plan might succeed, but that's part of the players' decision making, because they cannot be everywhere at the same time. Though I'm careful not to let the world get destroyed just by them deciding to tackle another evil.
So I wouldn't call my style sandboxy, but it isn't very railroady either. Descriptive as defined by you might actually be a more fitting term.
I run them as descriptive as I have time and energy to make them. I firmly believe an adventure should focus on the PCs, but that's the one thing a bought adventure can't provide (OK, it can't provide pizza, so two things then) unless you force people to play with premade characters from the adventure (which I don't think Paizo has done, plotwise).
There's often nudges from the AP developers (e.g. don't a play a paladin in HR) but individual character arcs are of course impossible. So I have my players create backgrounds (no friendless orphans allowed!), with NPCs, and I then use these to weave in character focused parts into the AP itself - often by changing NPCs to people involved in the PCs character arcs to get more of a personal involvement. I often play out these things with my players via messages between sessions, so to not blog down play time with individual focus. (E.g. I would write an IM like this "Your baby sister has been acting really happy the last few times you've meet her, but seems to be trying to hide it." And the player would go "OK, I'll confront here with 'hey, what has happened that you're trying not to tell me?'". And I'll message back "She says she has great news - she's gotten a real acting job! Her first! She will play Ilsandra in this play called The Six Trails of Larazod! Yay!" Then in the game session, the others will just see how this player's really keen on them auditioning for this weird play - which will not bog down the session with too much focus on one player but still give them personal impetus.)
Sometimes I also add cool bits and parts from other APs or adventures that we'll never run - such as Cimri Stealish and Fex from HV added to HR, and sometimes I replace whole adventure parts (such as adding an abridged From Shore to Sea to HR).
Some APs are hard not to play railroady (Runelords), but then I try to make the road to the important railway stops not so important as long as the PCs will eventually get there.