Hi!
I'm fairly new to pathfinder, and I'm curious as to how often GMs for this game are likely to create their own campaign? It seems like most of the games I see on places like roll 20 are pre-published content, with maybe some minor adjustments.
Also, how often do you find the GM just "re-skinning" published content? Have any GMs found there is resistance to custom content set in the published world? For example, if a particular region of Golarion is well "explored" through various AP's, etc..., but you as GM want to take the region in a different direction, have you had players object because what you are trying to do isn't "canon?"
Do any GMs simply find it easier to craft their own world from scratch and simply allow only certain rules/classes/etc... in their world rather than try to integrate their story into the existing world?
Just some random thoughts I had this afternoon!
There is a huge, vibrant, and active subforum all about home brew, you should look for it. :-)
I'm curious as to how often GMs for this game are likely to create their own campaign?
I've both run an Adventure Path and made my own campaign. But how common this is, I have no idea. I don't know if anyone's done a survey.
Also, how often do you find the GM just "re-skinning" published content?
Not very often, I'd guess? Either you like making up your own stuff, or you don't. Finding suitable published content and reskinning it is quite a lot of work.
Have any GMs found there is resistance to custom content set in the published world? For example, if a particular region of Golarion is well "explored" through various AP's, etc..., but you as GM want to take the region in a different direction, have you had players object because what you are trying to do isn't "canon?"
I've never had players so versed in the world lore that they'd notice.
Do any GMs simply find it easier to craft their own world from scratch and simply allow only certain rules/classes/etc... in their world rather than try to integrate their story into the existing world?
Generally if I'm making my own story I'd invent my own world to go with it. I find it easier making up a world than learning enough about a fictional one that already exists.
But if creating my own world from scratch, I'd normally make it a world with all the usual races and classes. Most players like having the choice.
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I've never had players so versed in the world lore that they'd notice.
Oh yeah, that's been my experience for as long as I've played RPGs. It's been a source of some frustration, to be honest, but I've made my peace with exchanges like this:
Me: I have carefully coordinated the lore created by hundreds of writers, artists, cartographers, developers, and editors to provide an enriched and robust play experience complete with religious, historical, economic, social, and cultural components interacting in a nuanced shared storytelling environment.
Player: My guy's like Wolverine but with armor. Who's hiring us? I just rolled a 20 can I save it for the first fight?
Me: Erm, no. As for who--
Player 2: Is it a duke? Knowledge Nobility check, I rolled a 20.
Me: Wait, before we get started we need to establish the bloodlines of your horses with the tables in this eleven-year-old campaign supplement and--
Player 3: Which one of these wifi networks is yours? I bet you're Candlekeep, right? What's the password?
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When I was younger and had more spare time I wrote most of my own campaigns but even then I used published material which I liked. Nowdays I largely run published games but customise them with a few changes and extra material to suit my players and their characters
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I'm fairly new to pathfinder, and I'm curious as to how often GMs for this game are likely to create their own campaign? It seems like most of the games I see on places like roll 20 are pre-published content, with maybe some minor adjustments.
I have no numbers, but my feeling is that there are still quite some GMs out there who like to make their own stuff up. When Paizo changed their stance regarding the division between Rules and setting material in the RPG line with the adventurer's guide, there were quite some people who didn't like that change for the reason that the setting stuff added would diminish the value of the book for them.
Also I think that here at paizo.com, I see PbPs pop up regularly with self-made adventure and/or setting content.
Also, how often do you find the GM just "re-skinning" published content? [/quote}
I do that regularly, as I generally allow for third-party publisher material that I have to fit in in my own game and as I'm not above including setting stuff from one world into another. I find special pleasure in converting Paizo adventures for play in other settings like the Realms or Eberron, and if I see something I like, I immediately think about how to include it in my own homebrew.
Have any GMs found there is resistance to custom content set in the published world? For example, if a particular region of Golarion is well "explored" through various AP's, etc..., but you as GM want to take the region in a different direction, have you had players object because what you are trying to do isn't "canon?"I never experienced this problem myself, but I have heard that happening by others. But generally, if something happens in my game, it becomes a historical fact for my version of that setting, and I won't reset the setting just because later material might say differently.
Do any GMs simply find it easier to craft their own world from scratch and simply allow only certain rules/classes/etc... in their world rather than try to integrate their story into the existing world?I consider both approaches interesting and attractive for their own reasons. As said before, I love reskinning things and I think that it makes creating my own stuff easier, because I can build on existing things and don't need to invent anything myself.
On the other hand, It's a bit more satisfying, if you come up with your very own stuff, so that's cool as well. But it's also more time-consuming, and between my daily job and my family, time for that is scarcer than I'd like it to be. SO I try to find a medium between both extremes.
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Me: I have carefully coordinated the lore created by hundreds of writers, artists, cartographers, developers, and editors to provide an enriched and robust play experience complete with religious, historical, economic, social, and cultural components interacting in a nuanced shared storytelling environment.
That's not how I'd define shared storytelling. If you'd ask the players what they'd want to play and then build a campaign around that, that would be shared storytelling.
And I hope you're exaggerating.
And I hope you're exaggerating.
Ahem, I'd say that's a pretty safe bet. ;)
Unless you're talking about that Wolverine guy. Because I've totally played with that guy.
Thanks for the feedback all. I do alot of GMing for various systems, and am simply curious since Pathfinder, by and large, has so much setting/adventure/supplementary material, that it brought up these questions in mind.
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I think the last time I ran a module was before Paizo was a company.
Starfinder is the first time I can think of anyone I know using a published campaign. My group has always used homebrewed settings of our own creation.
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Thanks for the feedback all. I do alot of GMing for various systems, and am simply curious since Pathfinder, by and large, has so much setting/adventure/supplementary material, that it brought up these questions in mind.
I guess it kinda comes with the system. D&D has a history of big settings with a lot of background material, setting books, adventures and even novels, and Pathfinder certainly belongs to that tradition. See also Kobold Press' Midgard setting or FGGs' Lost Lands. And there are other systems out there (Shadowrun, WoD, Rift, The Dark Eye) that have very extensive settings as well.
I have never shared the opinion that this wealth in background information restricts my freedom to do things. First I can totally turn a setting on its head, if I want to (Paizo won't come to sue me if I do), but more importantly, if you're looking at this hoard of details as possibly idea-inspiring like I do, you don't even need to. You can read any campaign setting book by Paizo and come out of it with ideas for more adventures and campaigns than you could probably run in the next few years. On the other hand, even an often visited part of Golarion like Varisia has empty spaces that you can use to do your own thing if you want.
What you might miss out on is the exploration part that used to play a big role in D&D-style games. So interestingly enough, if I'm running official adventures or at least a game in an official setting, I'm usually much more focused on the character development and the narrative of the game. In a hombrew, exploration plays a much bigger role, because that's what the players need to do to learn about the world they live in. Which is also loads of fun and the reason (apart from that I simply like worldbuilding as a personal hobby), I won't restrict myself to one style over the other.
(I'm going to talk about many more systems than just Pathfinder here, as that only accounts for only the last 3-4 years of my 35+ years as a player and GM.)
Whether I use a published campaign setting or a homebrew one depends on many factors: the group, the system (and why we've chosen it), and how many other gaming commitments I have.
When I started GMing (with Basic/Expert D&D and AD&D 1E, back in the '80s), I used a lot of modules, because I was learning the game, and because that's what my first group wanted to play. But ever since then, I've usually preferred running homebrew games--partly because I like creating my own worlds (it's long been one of my main creative outlets), and partly because mastering most published settings' lore tends to require far more time and money than I want to invest. Besides D&D, I've also run multi-year homebrew campaigns in GURPS and BESM.
If I'm running a new game system that has an introductory adventure available, I'll often run that to try out the game. If the group wants to keep playing, I'll either acquire another module or make up my own stuff, depending on how quickly I'm learning the rules (which often depends on whether I've played it before I've GMed it), and whether there's a specific story (mine or a published one) that I want to tell.
Green Ronin's Freeport setting is one of the chief exceptions to my very strong preference for homebrew campaigns. I found the first Freeport adventure in my FLGS just when I was trying to decide how to start my first v.3.0 campaign, and the Lovecraftian elements hooked me hard. That first campaign pretty much just consisted of the Freeport Trilogy, with some filler adventures of my own between the three parts. I ran a v.3.5 campaign in the setting a couple years later, which made heavy use of the setting but consisted almost entirely my own adventures. (Around that time, I also became a contributor to the setting, so had excellent incentive to keep using it!)
I was running my third Freeport game (also v.3.5) when I became interested in Pathfinder about 4 years ago. Green Ronin did a Kickstarter for a Pathfinder sourcebook, and my group changed to those rules mid-campaign in anticipation of it. After a non-Freeport one-shot (using a Free RPG Day module) to try out the system, I converted an old v.3.0 Freeport adventure to Pathfinder to resume the campaign in the new system, then continued on with more material of my own devising.
That campaign wrapped last fall, and we started my new, all-homebrew Pathfinder campaign early this year. This setting is one I've been tinkering with for ages, and I had finally reached a point where I could start running something in it. Because I had started working on it during 3.0/3.5, Pathfinder was a very good fit.
I don't really have any interest in running adventures set in Golarion, except for occasional PFS scenarios whenever I get around to committing to that. (I've been playing PFS for a little over a year now, so I really should GM a few myself.) Most of my knowledge of that setting comes from the Gazetteer and those PFS adventures; I own the Inner Sea World Guide in PDF, but have yet to read much of it.
Meanwhile, I've started running D&D 5E for my kids. We're all still learning the system, and I don't have the time, energy, and inspiration to plot out a second homebrew campaign, so I'm exclusively using published adventures for that (the Starter Set first, and now Yawning Portal).
I've been running Pathfinder for years now, and I'm only just running my first AP. I've always made my own setting and stories. Even across my entire history of tabletop, this is only the second time I've run published material. I prefer the freedom and flexibility of my own material.
In my group, I run a homebrew campaign.
The other DM runs a 5E conversion of RotRL; we finished it about a year ago and ended it at 14th level; now we're going back to those characters, 10 years later for them, and I'm not sure if the adventures are homebrewed or conversions.
We also run a World Serpent Inn Campaign, which was a published mini-setting or alternate Transitive Plane in 3.5. We take turns DMing, and some of us run homebrew stuff and some run published one-shots. Some play the same character every time, and some try a different character each time, and some switch back and forth.
We're going to have someone run The Yawning Portals once we're done with RotRL2.
I actually do both at the same time. I run my own adventures in the setting of Golarion. I think this is probably fairly common for people not running adventure paths. Having a world already fleshed out actually allows me to concentrate my creativity where I want. The basic setting provides enough background without going into too much detail that I can easily alter what I need.
I don’t reskin published adventure paths and usually ignore them. I do for the most part follow the basic settings books, but not the individual adventure paths.
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This is really pretty subjective question, I prefer to run published campaigns, but when I do homebrew, I prefer to do it with my own settings rather than established settings(at least if established setting has published campaigns available). But I'd imagine that reason you see published campaigns more often in roll20 is that there is less entry barrier to using published campaigns(trying to reskin campaigns is actually harder than just doing your homebrew, but most people don't realize that so they end up trying it anyway) since gm doesn't need to worry about how good they are at designing encounters and such.
All three big games I've been in were home brewed(my own game, and two other games). Heck, one of these games I think has been going on for 1000 years in universe(It's several games set in a world of his design)
So custom/homebrew is still around for some people. Actual numbers I'm unsure. APs are easier to start and run for several reasons, espically for new groups. I feel homebrew tends to happen for long time players/friends
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I've GMed many places along that spectrum.
On the one side, I've GMed Pathfinder Society, with its rather strict rules to stick with what's written.
I've run Paizo published material in non-PFS games, where I feel free to adjust things as needed to help my players have a good time.
I've gone further than that and reskinned published content heavily. Once I took Black Fang's dungeon from the beginner box, changed all the enemies to other things with the same CR, and changed the story to a group of good-aligned kobolds (all gestalt between UC rogue and another class of their choice) trying to find a new home.
I've also made up my own stories in my own world.
They're all fun in their own ways.
I mostly run adventure paths these days, though I usually add bonus content to them to personalize them for the party. I've written a couple module-length adventures for a campaign where I was linking a few modules together, but they were still set in Golarion; I've never run in a homebrew setting (though our version of Golarion has sort of taken on a life of its own at this point since all the APs we've run are considered continuous canon for us).
I like APs because I usually really enjoy the stories, and it provides a good backbone for me to work off of. I just don't have as much time as I used to for writing full campaigns.
(She says, as she starts planning a full-on take-back-Cheliax-from-Thrune homebrew AP, most likely with the involvement of 3 parties worth of PCs.)
Checkout the Homebrew thread for some good ideas there.
But to answer your question, I've been GMing D&D/Pathfinder since 1985 and have only run homebrew campaigns.
EDIT: I do cherry pick things, mostly spells and feats, from other sources, but things like countries and notable persons are not something I use.
I'm far more likely to make up my own stuff over using an adventure path or published campaign setting.
I've run a homebrew campaign setting for about 20 years now and borrowed liberally from sources I've liked. The current setting has elements of the Forgotten Realms, Golarion, Greyhawk, Dark Sun, and Birthright settings in it, among others.
I've incorporated quite a bit of Pathfinder setting material because it's darned good. In general, places that get marked down on my world map and made more of less permanent get renamed/reskinned into something that fits the setting. NPCs often go in as-is, because as the timeline advances they'll die off or become unrecognizable from their published counterparts. Given time, even stuff stolen from other settings winds up with a flavor unique to the homebrew.
I prefer to use ready made stuff when I can, but I've been known to wing it and prepare my own scenarios...
I've never run a published adventure (always my own) but about half my campaigns have been in established settings (Greyhawk, Glorantha, the Imperium, Earth, Middle Earth, the Old World, Paranoia, Golarion), the rest homebrew. I've played in about 80% published adventures, usually in one-offs with no discernable setting.
I'm sticking with Golarion for PF, as it's good and I have a lot of it. Adventures come quite easily if there's a background to riff off.
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APs and modules are incredible tool for GMs, and one which Paizo is kind of built on, but in my experience outside of organized play custom campaigns are still the most common way for people to play.
I personally tend to do a kind of hybridized game where I steal my favorite pieces of a few different settings for my own campaign, which I will occasionally supplement with published modules when I need to keep the game going but don't have a lot of prep time that month, or when I'm just feeling stuck for level-appropriate ideas and need to bridge the gap until we hit a point where I have inspiration again.
Hi!
I'm fairly new to pathfinder, and I'm curious as to how often GMs for this game are likely to create their own campaign? It seems like most of the games I see on places like roll 20 are pre-published content, with maybe some minor adjustments.
I've no xp with Roll20 etc. But I'm as likely as not to make up my own content. Just depends upon the mood I'm in really.
Also, how often do you find the GM just "re-skinning" published content?
Depends what is as to how hard/how much the DMs I know (including myself)are willing to re-skin something.
Re-purposing a dungeon to another location? Happens a lot. In fact, in my Reign of Winter campaign, there's a very good chance the party is about to go off on a side trek to some ruins this week or next. I don't have time to actually write something so I'm just going to pull something off the shelf and swap out a few monsters for ones more appropriate to the region.Re-writing an entire AP to another area of the world? Much harder. So done much less often.
Have any GMs found there is resistance to custom content set in the published world? For example, if a particular region of Golarion is well "explored" through various AP's, etc..., but you as GM want to take the region in a different direction, have you had players object because what you are trying to do isn't "canon?"
I only have two players who're moderately well versed in Golarion. The rest? Not so much....
But I've run into this a few times with the Forgotten Realms/Greyhawk/Dragonlance settings in Dungeons & Dragons because of all the novels printed over the years.My answer to these people is simple. I DON'T CARE. I haven't read everything out there concerning ______. (especially not crappy novels by authors I know I don't like) And I'm not going to. Nor am I beholden to whatever someone else dreamed up. I'll take the bits & pieces I like & go from there.
And since I'm the DM, "cannon" is whatever {I} say it is.
So this is CCS's version of Golarian/FR/DL or whatever. Think of it as an alternate reality if it helps.
Do any GMs simply find it easier to craft their own world from scratch and simply allow only certain rules/classes/etc... in their world rather than try to integrate their story into the existing world?
I've always found it to be about as much work either way. So it mostly depends upon my mood at the time wich route I go.
I'd be willing to bet homebrew is far more prevalent than most people think. I would include those that use the published world(s) but create their own campaigns around the existing material. That's what we used to do before we got hooked on APs.
I've only played in one official AP (Rise of the Rune Lords), and it was converted to 5E.
Make that 2. I also have the 2nd Dragonlance Module and ran that once as a one-shot dungeon crawl through Sla-Mori.
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For the first 20 years or so of my gaming experience, I had no idea there WERE pre-made adventures available.
I have maybe two players who know about Golarion. The rest don't have a clue.
Me: I have carefully coordinated the lore created by hundreds of writers, artists, cartographers, developers, and editors to provide an enriched and robust play experience complete with religious, historical, economic, social, and cultural components interacting in a nuanced shared storytelling environment.
Player: My guy's like Wolverine but with armor. Who's hiring us? I just rolled a 20 can I save it for the first fight?
Reminds me of my players who have a hard time to even remember NPC names. I did cut it down to use only first names, usually restricted to two syllables. But after enough repetitions, even three syllables work.
Sarcasm aside, I am also this kind of player when I get to play...
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My players can't remember the NPCs' names for shite, no matter how often I repeat them during descriptive moments in the game. And they don't write them down. It drives me mad! MAD, I tell you! MAD!
Tip: print out pictures of your NPCs with their names on them. Hang these from your GM screen.
That would mean scouring the internet for stock photos or stuff from Deviant Art for them. I'm far too lazy for that... lol
Currently I'm doing a 'hybrid' - home-brew adventures / campaign on Golarion. I've created a village and nearby town (transplanted from my Hackmaster 4E game) in a undeveloped area of Andoran where the PCs will be adventuring (and hopefully :-) establish a home base). This allows me to satisfy the creative itch without having to come up with everything. It also allows me to easily run published adventures (without modifications) if I want to as well.
I do enjoy world building, but echoing others, I just don't have the time for that any more. This solution gives me more than enough freedom to create without having to come up with everything myself.
My world has been being built for a very long time, but it's all in my head. I hate writing endless reams of notes about every culture and major personality in the realm and I also loathe map drawing. So I just keep it in the noggin and dispense it as needed.
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Most of homebrewn fan-made settings I've played in came out to be something between third rate fan faction and author's power fantasy, so I've decided to stick to premade settings in my game. At least, if there's something wonky about the panorama, it's not my fault.
As for campaigns, I'd love to run my own AP in Golarion or Dark Sun or Greyhawk, but alas, adult life sucks and I've resigned myself to premade adventures. Fortunately, Paizo provides those in spades, so I'm good.
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I also loathe map drawing.It's not so much that I'm loathing it but that I'm really bad at it. Apart from that, I would love to write it all down just to get it out of my system.
I love drawing maps! Cosmologies, continents, counties, cities, dungeons.
I try to make my homebrew stuff flexible enough to meet the creative needs of my players. I encourage lots of feedback and let them suggest quirks and details for NPCs and towns and deities and villains, etc.
The key is to focus on what the PCs will encounter, and not worry about stuff or places they will never encounter or don't seem interested in. For example, if only 1 PC will play a cleric, you don't need to flesh out the other 99 deities of the pantheon no one in the party is going to worship or even care about. If no one is playing a wizard, you don't have to flesh out the politics of the different schools of magic at the academy of wizardry. If the PCs are just going to drink beer, don't detail a 7 course feast at the inn. If they're never going to sail across the Ocean of Doom, you don't have to name or map every single isle of the Apocalypse Archipelago. The city doesn't need 10 different rival guilds of assassins and thieves in an underworld war if the PCs decide they would rather go dungeoneering in the Forest of Golden Caves.
When I was younger, and I had more free time I used to write my own stuff. Now I run published adventures with slight modifications.
I've found both GM-created campaigns and "reskinned" content to be very, very common. YMMV.
I got broke from running modules straight in '77 when a player scooped me on a module. Even argued with Ed Greenwood over it. A local game ran Jerimond's orb like 4 times and expected the veterans to hush. I ran it 5 times with some of the dame players and they couldn't tell.
You must rework any published material before you run it.
Homebrewed for what I run.
I've ran a few in different times and settings in the same area, with the main reasons being that I like running pretty big lore changes and don't want to learn someone else's fiction to do my own.
I can understand the bad writing aspect of it, but that's a YMMV problem. If they're bad at it now, they may get good at it, or you may need to just find someone better at story-telling/crafting.
Additionally, a lot of what you get in the homebrew is the ability to really add lots of side content and "learn" about your homebrew as your players make you.
An example:
* A player wanted to mail a note to a small weird island, meets a weird guy who has oversized ship manned by ogres. As the conversation went on, I decided this guy had a stutter and that he was not a great business man. As the conversation evolved, I discovered he was somewhat demanding and that the way he ran his ship was Dominated Ogres and other crewmen. Now I had a weird mind-controlling slave-owning sorceror type. He invited the PC on the ship and various other interactions; but here a potential villain was born of a random encounter I just tried to flesh out in the conversation. By the end of it, I had an entire (large) sidequest I could prepare with motivation, plot, buy in/investment from the players, etc..
all because of some dialog.
You can do that with a re-skin or w/e, but you'll probably end it or screw it up by the time you're done. In a world you really own and control, you can have side events.
Additionally, weight to decisions can occur. Want a town destroyed because of your failure? It's done. Is the area north of you infested with Real-Bad-Things? It's your players fault if they don't heed the warnings you're sure to put along the way.
That's the type of thing that really makes a world feel real and fleshed out, and funny enough, it's because it's not. You can invent it as they go, allowing the world to unfold not to what you would've originally imagined and micro-managed, but instead how it makes sense as you delve into the details..
I have occasionally used modules, generally heavily modified, but I have always run homebrew. I have some people who really want me to run Golarian, and I like the setting, so I might. Of course, Freeport will be part of it, and other things from 3PP.