PF GM Campaign

Here can either be dictated by the Games Master or agreed upon by the group as a whole. I have done both. At the moment I am selecting the games based on what I have physical copies of as I prefer referencing a book instead of a PDF.

So how do I select a storyline, I have a bunch of the Paizo Adventure Paths, and I have supplements created by other companies as 3rd party products. Because of the number of adventure paths I have, I run two of those a fortnight, and I run the 3rd party products on the other night. (I run three pathfinder campaigns a fortnight)

The adventure paths are a set of six modules that tell a story from first level to a high level. I have completed seven official adventure paths, running two more, and have one more complete set with five incomplete sets. I also have the two revised books, the super dungeon and the Shackles City which was their first product based around this multi-part storyline.

For the other night I am running books from the Frog God Games world of The Lost Lands. This start with Necromancer Games and 3rd edition D&D and has got quite a few interesting (but adult content) material. I am enjoying running their books having completed three of their campaigns in pathfinder, with another being run and already selected the next one to move onto due to it grabbing my interest.

The core to running a storyline is it must interest you as a Games Master or it will not be fun to play, to run or last very long.

Now that you have a storyline selected, what do you need to know about the storyline.

You need to know where it is set. This includes game world, and location in that game world. Having access to a map to show you where the characters will be starting means you have some idea of what sort of characters will be easily able to participate in the game and which would require a strong back story.

What is the theme of the adventure, what sort of terrain and concepts is it trying to introduce. By knowing the theme, such as horror, you can work that into what sort of characters you would like. If it is set in the ocean where the water is a hazard, then you don’t want aquatic characters. If its about limited resources and having to make the most out of what you find, then access to teleportation can be important.

Who are the opponents? The last thing you want to do when starting a campaign is to set up the players for failure because one of their number (or more) are going to turn against the party due to their connections with the big bad of the storyline. While this might sound like an interesting thing to run, and may actually be fun (if you have a good group and they are on board), it is most likely going to end badly with either insider knowledge issues, party traitor, or player and Game Master arguments over the story. I have been through a lot of these due to players wanting to use their concept (a game mechanic, not a roleplating mechanic) and basically bullying me into accepting their character into the game. (No GM is immune to player bullying).

As a personal note, I generally don’t read too far ahead of where the players are as I like to see what they do without leading them to the next step of the story as its nice to be surprised as to how the game turns out. Knowing everything about a story before running it does loose its challenge over time, as its nice to not know everything. Plus there is a lot of fun in making the reveals that appear in the later story relevant.

List out all the limitations that you identified in the overview, but make them specific and clear so players know what they can’t use for building their characters before they get to character creation.

This includes:

• What rules are available, such as sourcebooks
• How are attributes going to be created
• How are hit points added
• What are the starting resources
• Where are the characters going to begin
• How much of their backstory is required
• What character elements are not permitted in the game
• What optional rules are being used
• What house rules are being used

Once you go through all these your can go to character creation.

The reason you would limit source-books depends on if you want to have a rule that if its not a physical book on your shelf then it can’t be used to limit mechanic grab when you just want to have some role-playing characters.

Choose attribute creation like hit points can be either point buy or rolled. Point buy means that you know all other characters in the game are equal to you in how they are built and there is less arguments about a character being more powerful than another. Hit points are standardised to everything is fair. Rolling for attributes and hit points adds luck to the character creation process because you can had either an outstanding character (beyond point buy potential) or a abysmal character (below anything possible in point buy) and I have seen both. A character with mostly 18 in the six characteristics travelling with a character with mostly 3 in the same characteristics shows you just how much harder they are to play. While it can be “fun” it is not “fair” and I prefer the fair play style knowing that as a group they should be able to handle a set challenge level, instead of having to tailor it to each character based on their individual power levels. (note: this is also possible when characters are at different levels)

Starting resources can either be rolled or selected. I like to start with 150 gp for all the characters again to make it an standard amount instead of having luck play a piece in character creation. It is possible for character to start without any real gear when you have to roll for starting resources.

So I usually like to start characters near or at the location of the storyline, so when I work in backgrounds, they all have to have a reason to be at the chosen location, and be willing to work with the other characters. A loner or a character who is against the rest of the party will not be allowed to join the campaign, but might make an interested NPC in the background.

Noting down how the rules are different for this game is necessary, though explaining why is not always necessary as it can reveal plot lines they did not need to know about beforehand. One common theme is I dislike is complex rules characters when players can’t keep them straight and in the end cheat because of badly done rule interpretation. So I tend to take those character options out of play in future games.

Next the optional rules can make the game more or less fun depending on how you take it. I have trialled a few optional rules ranging from mythic to magical item availability and some work better than others, or easily break the game.

House rules are where you have a set of rules that are not part of the Pathfinder publishing books, such as extra dimensional spaces cannot travel through a teleportation effect. Or Critical Hit roll changes. I tend to put such things on a web page that is referenced to my games so players can look at any time to see what the rules are.

If they change at any point, the date of change is put there and a notification is sent out.