Subject: Pathfinder GM, eh?
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Posted on: 2015-05-21 22:55:00 UTC
Be a good actor.
Know when to say "screw the rules, I'm the GM!" to maximize the entertainment, for both you and your players.
Consider everything your players bring to the table. If, say, they want to play a kobold monk (coughmeahem), you'd better make sure that kobold has a reason to be with the party.
Above all else, have fun.
-Voyd, speaking from experience as another Pathfinder GM
I'm currently learning how to be a DM for Pathfinder, which is basically Dungeons and Dragons. Any tips and tricks that you fine folks might know?
DM advice
All the advice you could want is in that thread, first post. I won't bother parroting it.
Personal anecdote time! (Warning: long. Also mostly rambling.)
Yeah, so my first game as DM was during the tail end of the D&D5 playtest. And it was bad. Well, my friend had fun, but I think the others were just counting down until it was over.
The reasons for this, I feel, are twofold: one, I was basically playing the thing by ear. I had a basic outline of where I wanted to go, but I was spending half of each week planning scenario and encounters and worrying about making it fun for everyone and trying to give my friend what he wanted while also rewarding everyone else...
Oh, and the DMPC (who had been my PC in the previous game, and was thus sufficiently minmaxed to take on the entire adventure solo) probably didn't help matters.
The other reason was that I really had no idea how to build an adventuring day. I swear I seemed to think that if the characters weren't half-dead from the first encounter of the day, the encounters clearly weren't hard enough.
All of this could be avoided if you just use a pre-made adventure, of course.
My second adventure was much better: planned rigidly from the beginning, no real side-paths (just a single dungeon), better encounter pacing, only three good friends playing, a comprehensive set of rules to go with (as 5E had actually come out). Basically, it fixed everything that made my first try such a catastrophe. Plus I think the players were excited to be using 20th-level characters (yeah, don't try that. 20th-level characters are very difficult to constrain).
Since you're playing Pathfinder, you have a fair bit of system bloat to deal with - prestige classes got pretty ridiculous in D&D3.5, and that carried over to Pathfinder. You may want to limit your players to just the core classes until you find your footing.
tl;dr it's not too hard, as long as you accept that you'll probably mess it up.
I'm such a beginner- what are prestige classes? I know the four basic classes- rogue, cleric, wizard, and fighter, but I've never heard of prestige classes.
Okay. Basically, there are the four basic classes, plus several other core classes (Barbarian, Druid, Ranger, Bard, Paladin, Sorcerer, Monk), which all use the basic 20-level progression.
D&D3 (which Pathfinder is based on) had prestige classes, which you have to multiclass into. Prestige classes have a range of prerequisites, and allow for tighter focus in character building. Usually, they have a 10-level progression once you qualify for them, though they're not fixed.
Now, D&D3.5 ended up with a massive amount of bloat - there were hundreds of prestige classes, and plenty of game-breaking ways to combine them. The Pathfinder SRD has a few prestige classes, but it's probably best to ask your players to stick with single-class core classes until you get the hang of things.
...only GURPS and Paranoia. Also a little bit of In Nomine, though I mostly played that one.
From my GURPS experience:
The first campaign with a group is always a test drive.
Always have non-lethal options for combat around, in case they start hitting each other. (Oh, the fun they had with stunners.)
Sometimes the starship's pilot goes rogue, and everyone ends up being on a planet for longer than they expected.
Make sure there are plenty of carrots and that, if they start fracturing in ways that keep them from having fun doing it, there's at least one NPC around with a stick.
Railroading is bad, but it's good to have the train there if the players want. Sometimes they'll crash a blimp into the train. Sometimes that can end the campaign. But there are always other plots, settings, and campaigns.
From Paranoia:
No matter how arbitrary you're being, be equally so to everyone.
You are not Friend Computer. Friend Computer is the stick.
Let them shoot each other, but don't depend on it – players like to work together at strange times and then shoot each other over spam c-mail.
Every mission should have a dark room.
Make sure at least one person has a flashy mutant power.
Machine Empathy is fun, but sometimes people don't like to use it. Give Machine Empaths a second power.
Most of the Paranoia stuff isn't exactly applicable to Pathfinder, but...
I'll take any advice I can get! Thank you very much!
I'm kinda jealous. :P I've always wanted to play one of those table top RPGs, but I've never known anyone who does it.
Does character building really take hours to do?
I've played a couple of D&D campaigns (AD&D, 3.5e and 5e, specifically) and it seems to me that there are two parts to character creation: fluff and mechanics. Fluff depends on your creativity, mostly, so the time it takes changes from person to person. Crunch (mechanics), meanwhile, mainly depends on how familiar you are with the rule system.
I've only JUST started learning, but I think it will be quite fun!
I'm the kind of person that spends way too much time making their Sims instead of playing them, so that sounds like it'd appeal to me.
Be a good actor.
Know when to say "screw the rules, I'm the GM!" to maximize the entertainment, for both you and your players.
Consider everything your players bring to the table. If, say, they want to play a kobold monk (coughmeahem), you'd better make sure that kobold has a reason to be with the party.
Above all else, have fun.
-Voyd, speaking from experience as another Pathfinder GM
Will do.
That's a beautiful piece of advice that I will write and hang on my GM screen.
I love finding reasons for things and developing back stories; that will be quite fun!
No problem!
Thank you very much! Do you happen to know a site that has dungeon maps and good beginner's scenarios? Until I get my feet under me and learn the rules, I'll be using mostly pre-made stuff, although I might tweak the story as I wish.
Check the official Pathfinder site. They should have a few free scenarios you can download, mostly designed for Pathfinder Society organized play.
First Steps Part 2 is a good introductory dungeon crawl. It doesn't have a lot in terms of roleplay opportunities, though there are a few; however, combat is probably going to be what involves the most practice, for both you and your players. The Silverhex Chronicles are good if you don't have a huge amount of time; each part should only take 1-2 hours, and you can play as many as you want in a sitting. And We Be Goblins, though I haven't played it, looks like a lot of fun, though it isn't really designed to be worked into a long running campaign.
I don't have much in the way of general GM advice. I've done it a few times, and to be honest, I wasn't a huge fan. The main thing I'd say I want in a GM as a player is that I want the GM to ultimately be working with us, not against us. Too many GMs see it as a competition between them and the players, and that can take a lot of fun out of it for me.
Any and all resources are awesome; thank you!
Yeah, combat seems pretty in-depth (well, more so than everything else). I'm guessing it's a lot easier once you get the hang of it.
That's stressed a lot in the manuals I've read; work with the players, not against them. I think it's easy for it to feel like a competition when you're the one setting up and playing as all of the antagonists. I'll do my best!
While it's not exactly a normal resource, Pathfinder Society games are good if you're new to the system. If there's a group in your area that runs it, you might want to check it out. It's a good way to meet people and get some experience with the system. There isn't as much of the world-building aspect, but that lets you focus on the other aspects of the game, which are what I struggle with personally. Plus, it lets you meet a bunch of new people, which is always good.
Yeah, I think GMing combat can be especially tricky, because you have to familiarize yourself with all the monsters' special abilities, as opposed to just your own character's.
For physical supplies, the main thing you're going to need is something with a grid on it. I've played a couple times without a grid, and it's a bit of a mess. I'd check out starter kits for a variety of gaming systems, and see what you can get a good deal on; I've got one for 4e D&D that's a pretty nice set with a big range of tokens. But you can probably substitute graph paper if you can't find something like that.
I haven't heard mention of such a group in my area, but that would be quite handy. Yeah, the worldbuilding is fine with me- it actually sounds really fun! It's the combat rules that I think I'll struggle with the most.
My set comes with a dry/wet erase boardish thing with a grid- I'm also thinking of investing in a gridded white board. I think that would be nice for varying the dungeons.
If you're willing to shell out thirty-five dollars, the Emerald Spire Superdungeon can get your players from Lv1 all the way to 12.