Pathfinder 1E Halp.

HaiBarbie said:

What other things should a super noob like me not forget? Im super freaking nervous. Failure is not an option, resistance is futile. Please halp meh.

Click to expand...

Failure may not be an option, but it's an absolute certainty. Especially for a 1st time DM.
But don't worry, that's completely normal. It's part of the learning curve. The more you DM though the easier & better it will become.

So it looks like you're playing PF.

Step 1: Limit your 1st game to the Core rulebook + Bestiary 1.
That's it, that's all. No other books, nothing pulled from on-line, no making up your own classes/spells/monsters/etc (either by yourself or your players).
This is because you're all essentially starting from scratch.

Step 2: READ the core rulebook. Particularly the chapters on how to create characters & combat. And then read it a few more times....
Read through the Bestiary 1, concentrating on weaker monsters. Sure, dragons etc are cool & interesting. But goblins & zombies are your training wheels.

Step 3: Write up a short adventure using monsters that have about 1 HD each - goblins, kobolds, etc. You're looking to provide about 25% of the total XP the party needs to reach lv2. And about 1 to 1.5 monsters per player, per encounter area. So if you've got 4 players, about 5 or 6 goblins or whatever at a time.
You need enough monsters so that both you & the players each get a few turns of action so that you can see how the rules work.
If you can provide a paragraph of "story" for this? So much the better. Ex: The goblins have raided the shipment of Dwarven ale & the PCs are sent to exact vengeance (and bring back the ale!). The reward is _____.

Step 4: You say that you don't want your lack of experience doing this to slow down play. This is NOT possible. At least if you're trying to learn the rules. Do not worry about wether or not things bog down while you or the players look something up in the book. If you need to look it up, look it up.
Both you & the players are learning this stuff together.

HaiBarbie said:

What other things should a super noob like me not forget? Im super freaking nervous. Failure is not an option, resistance is futile. Please halp meh.

Click to expand...

Failure may not be an option, but it's an absolute certainty. Especially for a 1st time DM.
But don't worry, that's completely normal. It's part of the learning curve. The more you DM though the easier & better it will become.

So it looks like you're playing PF.

Step 1: Limit your 1st game to the Core rulebook + Bestiary 1.
That's it, that's all. No other books, nothing pulled from on-line, no making up your own classes/spells/monsters/etc (either by yourself or your players).
This is because you're all essentially starting from scratch.

Step 2: READ the core rulebook. Particularly the chapters on how to create characters & combat. And then read it a few more times....
Read through the Bestiary 1, concentrating on weaker monsters. Sure, dragons etc are cool & interesting. But goblins & zombies are your training wheels.

Step 3: Write up a short adventure using monsters that have about 1 HD each - goblins, kobolds, etc. You're looking to provide about 25% of the total XP the party needs to reach lv2. And about 1 to 1.5 monsters per player, per encounter area. So if you've got 4 players, about 5 or 6 goblins or whatever at a time.
You need enough monsters so that both you & the players each get a few turns of action so that you can see how the rules work.
If you can provide a paragraph of "story" for this? So much the better. Ex: The goblins have raided the shipment of Dwarven ale & the PCs are sent to exact vengeance (and bring back the ale!). The reward is _____.

Step 4: You say that you don't want your lack of experience doing this to slow down play. This is NOT possible. At least if you're trying to learn the rules. Do not worry about wether or not things bog down while you or the players look something up in the book. If you need to look it up, look it up.
Both you & the players are learning this stuff together.

Lol yeaahh after asking this and reading more i felt really stupid for asking about speed omg im such a n00b. Ive got access to hardcovers of a bunch of the PF books, so each day that passes i become a little more knowledgeable. I'm trying to create a lifetime of friendship and adventure...so..you know... ive got to know wtf im talking about...

If you're just starting out, I would seriously consider asking the table if you can all just use the Core Rulebook only for the first campaign, I believe this is good advice; trying to tackle especially some of the stuff in Ultimate Combat and Advanced Class Guide might be a lot to digest.

Also, don't be afraid to mess some things up! Every master DM started as a mistake-prone noob. Y'know, for all the good Matt Mercer and Satine Phoenix do on their GM tip shows, I wonder if they might do even better service with an episode sharing some of their first-time bonehead GM stories to help the first-timers feel like they're not alone.

What's important (to me, at least) in game/adventure design is this:

* Make a series of related events rather than a story/plot. Don't assume there's only one route to get from A to B to C. If you only use one route and players can't figure out how to progress, you either push them in that direction (taking away their agency) or they stay stuck (and you NPC the solution, also taking away their agency).

* Don't design your encounters around your players' abilities. Let players figure out how and when to use them on their own.

* First-level adventures can be nasty, brutish, and short. Consider less-optimized tactics for slower/dumber enemies. Surrender/Retreat is often preferable to being murdered (unless your players are all murder-hobos, of course). Reward player ingenuity and create avenues where they can use it.

Herobizkit said:

What's important (to me, at least) in game/adventure design is this:

* Make a series of related events rather than a story/plot. Don't assume there's only one route to get from A to B to C. If you only use one route and players can't figure out how to progress, you either push them in that direction (taking away their agency) or they stay stuck (and you NPC the solution, also taking away their agency).

* Don't design your encounters around your players' abilities. Let players figure out how and when to use them on their own.

* First-level adventures can be nasty, brutish, and short. Consider less-optimized tactics for slower/dumber enemies. Surrender/Retreat is often preferable to being murdered (unless your players are all murder-hobos, of course). Reward player ingenuity and create avenues where they can use it.

Click to expand...

Yesssss I was organizing my plot to be sort of like those adventure books where you turn to the page to see what happens.... A B and C all Lead to D. But D is only a night task, therefore if they've reached D prematurely, they will likely revisit the other steps because they all refer to each other...this process repeats after D, they can choose E F or G, but to get to H all steps have to have been passed. (Im not using alphanumeric system, its just an example....)

I have at least 4 - 6 people planning on playing... so I'll try my best to not make it obvious who should be solving what issues... I was going to have it be initiative based anyway. But when pulling together aspects of a custom adventure its been hard to not think of what might be fun for specific pcs to try.

Thanks so much for your insight.

Henry said:

If you're just starting out, I would seriously consider asking the table if you can all just use the Core Rulebook only for the first campaign, I believe this is good advice; trying to tackle especially some of the stuff in Ultimate Combat and Advanced Class Guide might be a lot to digest.

Also, don't be afraid to mess some things up! Every master DM started as a mistake-prone noob. Y'know, for all the good Matt Mercer and Satine Phoenix do on their GM tip shows, I wonder if they might do even better service with an episode sharing some of their first-time bonehead GM stories to help the first-timers feel like they're not alone.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your response!! Ive seen Matt Mercer's youtube tips... thought Ive only seen a few episodes of critrole.
We've already started playing with characters made from the advanced players guide.... So Im versed on Witches and familiars now....They invested money in 5 of the books...ultimate combat,core rule, bestiary, advanced players guide, and Game masters guide.

We are trying our best to not get bogged down in rules so for now we are ignoring some rules like riding horses or needing to find nourishment. These things have been assumed or implied with character background and surroundings. Like maybe they grew up riding horses, and now they're in a setting where they're being provided food.

We also have trouble with flow of game play. Some people outshine others in role play and its entertaining but tends to drag on the clock. I have no idea how far we will progress in my little homebrew. lawdd pray for meee yall

HaiBarbie said:

Thank you for your response!! Ive seen Matt Mercer's youtube tips... thought Ive only seen a few episodes of critrole.
We've already started playing with characters made from the advanced players guide.... So Im versed on Witches and familiars now....They invested money in 5 of the books...ultimate combat,core rule, bestiary, advanced players guide, and Game masters guide.

We are trying our best to not get bogged down in rules so for now we are ignoring some rules like riding horses or needing to find nourishment. These things have been assumed or implied with character background and surroundings. Like maybe they grew up riding horses, and now they're in a setting where they're being provided food.

We also have trouble with flow of game play. Some people outshine others in role play and its entertaining but tends to drag on the clock. I have no idea how far we will progress in my little homebrew. lawdd pray for meee yall

Click to expand...

Don't rush it. Let them RP. It doesn't matter how much you get through. Whatever you don't get through just means there's that much less you have to prep for the next session

So a few suggestions:

Focus on having fun, engaging your players, and having a decent story that worrying too much about the structure of levels, encounters, etc. All of that additional detail can be worked in over time as you become more proficient with the rules.

In the Core Rulebook, there are 3 experience point tracks: Slow, Medium, & Fast. DO NOT USE FAST. As has already been pointed out, the rapid rise in character ability & options FAR outweighs the "reward" of rapid leveling, and not in a positive way, IMO. I run 3 PF campaigns and I use the SLOW track for all of them. Players actually get to work new abilities before leveling again and I find it makes for a better experience than the 18-year old farm boy that goes from 1st-->15th level in a month of in-game time.

Puzzles and such are better for challenging your players than challenging character abilities. In other words, puzzles shouldn't be circumvented by a die roll.

Try to have a mix of opponents and encounter types: combat, traps, social, urban, wilderness, dungeon, etc. Don't go for super-challenging encounters those that are +3 or +4 Average Party Level (APL) as they offer the most variance in outcomes. Build toward "epic" encounters once your more familiar with the rules.

Chapters 12-14 of the Core Rulebook, while dry at times, are your best friend. If you can get it, the Gamemastery Guide is a great book for all GMs but it's specifically geared towards newer GMs and contains great suggestions and advice.

I'm running a campaign and it is milestone based - that is, I don't award XP. When the group accomplishes 'enough', I advance everyone a level, and everyone is always at the same level (including new characters). This way the group doesn't feel the need to kill/attack everything just to maximize the XP potential of an adventure. It also circumvents a lot of administrative duties and trying to figure out how to craft and adventure that is a challenge to characters of different levels. We play twice a month, and I like to have the party advance every 3 or 4 sessions, which has worked out nicely. I tell new players that I allow everything from the core book, but anything beyond that they have to run past me first as some stuff doesn't fit the campaign I want to run (no gunslingers, sorry!).