So, I am looking to actually start my Pathfinder Planescape campaign. I just need to write up some information for the players. Only question is, what information?
The kind of stuff I am thinking of is like what character options are available, how ability scores are generated (much easier in Pathfinder 2e, since there is no point buy, no rolling, etc.), assorted house rules etc. Obviously, I know much of this stuff, I've done this before after all, I just want to make sure I don't forget anything.
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The best way to handle giving players initial information is via Session Zero (link to GM Core on Session Zero). On the other hand, sometimes players need some information before Session Zero, such as when I ask my players which adventure path we should run next. Session Zero is a get-together before the roleplaying starts.
The main purpose of Session Zero is to ensure that the players create characters who can work together, preventing such problems as an evil thieving rogue in the same party with an evil-smiting paladin. But Session Zero also introduces the players to the setting and allows them to work with the GM to become part of the setting. Session Zero also provides time to assist new players with character-creation rules.
For example, in my Iron Gods campaign, set in the town of Torch in Numeria, the plot hook was the town council offering a reward for adventurers finding their town wizard, who had failed to return from an expedition in the caves under the hills. I had to describe the town itself, its government, its industry (usually neglected but the wizard's expedition was to save the industry), and its troubles. One player decided to play Boffin, a gadgetter who worked at basic smithing for the missing wizard; another player played Elric, a magus who ran errands for the wizard; and a third player player Kirii, a strix skald who met Elric on the road and accompanied him back to Torch. Later, we added Kheld, a caravan guard (human fighter) assigned by a local business owner to join the party. Further details at Iron Gods among Scientists.
The key is to give the players enough information so that they can start roleplaying their characters immediately, instead of asking questions about the setting. A GM could keep information about their quest secret until some patron tells them the quest, but telling them the quest in Session Zero lets them create characters who will be excited about the quest.
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If your players are fairly new to Pathfinder, it could help to run one of the "Bounties"; those are very self-contained, and take a couple of hours to play through. It gives the players a chance to see the rules in action, and make more informed choices for what characters they're interested in playing in the long term.
You could pick Cat's Cradle for example, and use the PFS Pregens so the players have some ready to go characters for that.
For new games (RPG and tabletop) we've found it to be really helpful to just play one or two rounds so everyone can see the mechanics in action, and then reset and "play for real". That way you avoid a lot of unhappiness when people make big mistakes in the beginning because they were only going off what they thought on first hearing the rules.
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Though it may be too ephemeral to state cleanly in an intro document, I think expectations play a large role in one's enjoyment of the game. I've found that the newbie-est players fit into my tables better than many veterans because rookies focus on the story, clues, & warnings while meta-thinking often gets veterans killed (often because they think everything's (!!!) tailored to their PC). A lot of expectation has to do with what tables/systems they're coming from. If you have 3.X/PF1 veterans they might expect system mastery & pure offense preordains a battle's outcome (alongside ample buffing) when in PF2 it's more teamwork and tactics with respect for an enemy's offense. Do they play easy-mode games like 5th ed or try-but-die games like Dark Souls? How much of the party load do they think one PC can carry?
This ties somewhat to the maturity level and game-table manners which hopefully don't need to be stated, but sometimes do. As Ascalaphus said, a quickie game where one's errors don't impact the campaign can help everyone, and maybe identify some non-mechanical issues too.
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Players need to know what's different than what is in the book. House rules? They need to know that. Using variant rules? Need to know that. Banning a bunch of common things, requiring certain backgrounds, etc? All important.
Aside from that, what kind of game is this? If you're running an adventure path, the players guide document does a good job of this (usually, there are exceptions) since it'll tell me what the general theme is, what kind of things we'll be doing, and if any classes or skills will simply not work very well.
After that, session zero is great to talk about the tone of how you run a game, for the players to figure out if their characters know each other and how they'll get hooked into the plot, etc. It's good to know if this is a very rule focused, serious table or a more handwavey rule of cool table, for example. How RP focused are folks? Are you using safety tools or are there themes that simply won't be included, and does anyone have those? Is PVP a thing?
Most of this is really about setting expectations and getting everyone on the same page.
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Yeah, session 0 is a really useful thing. Imagine if you didn't do one, but just have everyone show up at session 1 with a character they made on their own, without discussing with anyone else;
Sally and Joe both made wizards specializing in the exact same spells, and they're booth bookish nerd types. Bob made a rogue who's a strict professional; doesn't steal from the party, but also doesn't believe in taking charity cases. He works for cash and cash only. Michelle built an occult sorcerer that's basically a scrawny goth kid and who's into frightening "the normies".
Meanwhile you as a GM had in mind a heroic campaign where the players defend the downtrodden because they're the Heroes Of Good. As the first session starts, you have a lot of trouble convincing Bob to actually take the quest, because there's no pay in it. Michelle's sorcerer and the quest-giver really don't get alone. Nobody in the party really wants to talk to normal people in the street to gather information. When they get into combat, Bob doesn't have anyone to flank with. There's also nobody protecting the two wizards and sorcerer from melee enemies. Although the party manages to flee, they don't have anyone with healing skill either.
So, a good session 0 is worth making time for. Imagine how it could have gone:
- Sally and Joe realize they were both about to make the same character. After some discussion Joe decides he's going to make a druid instead. The two characters will still not be the social life of the party, and actually bond a lot over introvert quality time. But Joe's bringing some healing abilities now, and they're both happier because they're not doing the exact same magic. Joe's also picking up a shield (druids can use proper quality metal shields now) and is prepared to do a bit of melee defending. Sally does some comparison of druid and wizard spell lists and makes notes of spells that are only on the arcane list.
- Michelle decides to bend her concept a bit. Instead of "freaking the normies" she pivots to "rebellious teen who dislikes authority figures", which actually works well because the campaign's authority figures are bad people.
- Bob decides that instead of a Rogue, a Thaumaturge might work a bit better because you can't really rely on flanking so much in this party. He's still going with the "strict professional" line, but you as a GM come up with the idea that there are a couple of people in the evil government who want things to improve, and are covertly funding rebel groups like the PCs. This also gives you an interesting new channel for feeding quest hooks to the party.
Notice that everyone made some compromises, but also everyone got to keep "identity" things that were important about their character.
Piggybacking off this thread, and it might still be useful for OP, how would you deal with/advertise a "twist" in the adventure?
Also depending on how soon the twist comes of course, but opinions might differ on this. Let's take the Tyrant's Grasp AP for this one. This one is literally in the player's guide, so it shouldn't be a spoiler: at the start of the adventure, you die. You go into character creation knowing that your character (and probably the rest of the town) is dead.
On the one hand, I like informing players of such a game-warping twist. It informs the players on what kind of adventure this is going to be.
On the other hand, I know some players like to be surprised and know as little of the plot as possible. This goes against the player expectations Ascalaphus mentioned above, but some people like to situate themselves in the narrative as much as possible, and might have come up with ties with the entire village that they'll never ever see again. In this case, it feels like a rug-pull when you say, "everything you care about is dead," but it gives a bigger shock.
And what if there's a big twist halfway through the campaign? Say you're a bunch of knights of Lastwall fighting against the undead, the big boom hits, and you rise as an undead yourself? Knowing you're going to be undead after X levels is a good campaign hook, but again, imagine the surprise when the players realise they're the very undead they're fighting against?
To bring it back to the OP, it might be good to inform your players that this is a Planescape-style adventure, with plane-hopping as its main narrative (I assume). On the other hand, it might be cool for them to discover this for themselves. And only you can answer which of these options is the right one, as only you know your players. If you want a middle road, you might keep it vague, like "don't get too attached to one place" or "you're going to travel a lot."
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My take on it is that it can be very okay for the players to know more than the characters. That goes a bit against established wisdom in RPGs for the past half century, but I don't think it's really that revolutionary. RPGs have been trying to clamp down on spoilers and metagaming with a ferocity that's completely out of tune with other media.
When you're looking at a book in the bookstore and you look at the back cover, they're giving you some information about what's coming. There's revelations on the back blurb of the book that the main characters won't know in chapter 1. If you watch a movie trailer, they're gonna tease you with snippets of big scenes that happen later in the movie too.
I think the movie trailer analogy works pretty well. You want to carve out juuuust the right slice of information to set some expectations, without actually revealing too much about it.
You might even frame it as a trailer. Think of a big turning point, like Quention gave as example.
You didn't make it to cover, and you feel the blast hitting you, ripping the life from you.
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You're standing up, looking down at the gaping wound in your chest. You should be dead. You ARE dead. But walking. You've been fighting against undead for years and now you're one of them. Your friend managed to find cover and now he's looking at you."Are you one of THEM now? A slave of the Whispering Tyrant?"
"I... I don't feel like a slave. I feel... ANGRY!"
A thing to mention to the players is that this is a preview into what might happen, but not really an ironclad guarantee. It's really hard to force exact scripted outcomes, it tends to make people really unhappy. Maybe it ends up being that you are the one that managed their saving throw and got to cover, and the other guy became undead.
The point is: you haven't given out too much information here, but you've laid some groundwork for players to keep in mind that "this could happen".
Piggybacking off this thread, and it might still be useful for OP, how would you deal with/advertise a "twist" in the adventure?
Also depending on how soon the twist comes of course, but opinions might differ on this. Let's take the Tyrant's Grasp AP for this one. This one is literally in the player's guide, so it shouldn't be a spoiler: at the start of the adventure, you die. You go into character creation knowing that your character (and probably the rest of the town) is dead.
On the one hand, I like informing players of such a game-warping twist. It informs the players on what kind of adventure this is going to be.
On the other hand, I know some players like to be surprised and know as little of the plot as possible. This goes against the player expectations Ascalaphus mentioned above, but some people like to situate themselves in the narrative as much as possible, and might have come up with ties with the entire village that they'll never ever see again. In this case, it feels like a rug-pull when you say, "everything you care about is dead," but it gives a bigger shock.
And what if there's a big twist halfway through the campaign? Say you're a bunch of knights of Lastwall fighting against the undead, the big boom hits, and you rise as an undead yourself? Knowing you're going to be undead after X levels is a good campaign hook, but again, imagine the surprise when the players realise they're the very undead they're fighting against?
It's a hard balancing act because a twist can be really interesting, but a major twist can also really screw up a character. If you're not going to warn the players about it so they can plan for it, the GM needs to look at backstories and such and warn the player "this is going to be a problem". Like in your example, if someone's entire character is built around wanting to destroy all undead, suddenly being undead will either be very interesting for them to navigate around or a total mess tone wise as they suddenly want to remove themselves too. (Not to mention if they're throwing around vitality effects all over the place/are a healer, suddenly being undead can have serious detrimental effects on their build.)
It makes sense in Tyrants Grasp to mention it because it's happening so early. But what about the other big thing in Tyrant's Grasp?
The answer is probably "both", because it depends on the player and it's not always easy to know if your players are folks who love a good dramatic hero's ending or if they get attached to their characters and will really feel bad about a no-win scenario.
The quintissential example of how this kind of thing can go wrong when expectations aren't met is Second Darkness: the players guide plays up Riddleport and really suggests players should play selfish or shady characters and really focuses on getting ahead in the city, making it sound like a cutthroat urban-focused campaign. Book 1 tends to lean into that... and then you leave Riddleport never to return, and book 3 suddenly expects you to be heroic heroes acting heroically in what feels like a totally different campaign.
The tone shift is so sudden and so dramatic that it causes major problems if players are surprised by it. We had a bunch of characters who basically had no reason to actually do anything the AP suddenly wanted them to do and it required constant coaxing, cajoling, and eventually resulted in ending the campaign when my character (and myself) reached a breaking point in book 5 and said "F this, I'm out."
It's a players job to make a character that wants to do the campaign because having to drag them along constantly gets frustrating for everyone else, but that means it's the GMs job to set expectations on what the PCs are expected to want to do.
I actually had a second problem in Second Darkness related to a backstory that didn't fit the plot:
That was a major problem right from the outset because my character never wanted anything to do with that operation. It would have been helpful had the GM warned me that would be a problem so I could change it before we started. It just wasn't a good time.
When you need advance warning and when you don't is a hard thing to quantify. Season of Ghosts for example has a twist and it works really well as long as you follow the general advice in the players guide, and in this case advance warning of the twist would spoil the surprise.