Pathfinder 2E Looks like I will be running a PF2e game in a few weeks...suggestions?

[kenada]

I can see that. For me, having that sort of mechanism to give me access to some level of detachment rather than just sort of making the decision. Certainly if I find it interesting or helpful I'll just make the decision, but at the same time it's kind of nice to detach yourself and sort of play along with fate; it kind of helps me feel like a player, too, if I set some limits.

However people want to go about determining whether monsters die after reaching zero hit points is fine. I just don’t want the result of that to affect whether the escape procedure will work. If it’s not something the PCs can reliably do, the players will assume it’s effectively not available.

And I find your decision really interesting! I know my two groups would act very differently to that: my group of younger, newer players would probably go along with that idea a bit more. But that sort of thing would lose my grognard group, as I have heard them complain about taking the risk out of the game if they don't feel like they can die. It's one of those generational differences, with the former growing up around late 2E/3E and the latter with Chainmail/OD&D. That's not a judgment on the decision (My older group is, honestly, can be real stick-in-the-mud when it comes to trying new things... though occasionally they really fall for stuff I wouldn't expect, like FFG Star Wars/Genesys), but just interesting to think about trying to do that myself and how it'd go.

That’s interesting considering the context (a retreat in a B/X retroclone). I don’t really understand the nostalgia for meatgrinder play. B/X is not without its danger (death at 0 hit points, save-or-die effects abound, classes have smaller hit dice), but I don’t think it was expected that the whole party could be lost easily.

In a way, “modern” games are kind of perverse in that they make it more difficult to lose a single character while making it easier to lose the entire party. The latter is far worse for whatever story-driven play the (presumably trad) group had planned, and yet some people object strongly to the idea that the PCs should ever need to retreat.

For me, APs are just too cluttered in general. I like the wilderness, ancient forgotten tombs, and travel. I feel like I'm more of a fantasy explorer/archeologist than anything, maybe because of my love of history. Give me a tomb with only a few enemies but a ton of etchings and lore and I'll be happy as a clam. I'm kind of a really odd player, now that I think about it.

My issue with APs is that usually means WotC or Paizo, and neither writes adventures that can be run without having to prep them. I remember putting an absurd amount of time into prepping Kingmaker. It ended up being a fun campaign, but I don’t want to have to do that work again. I find doing my own stuff easier because I default to sandbox play and let the PCs set the agenda and have things react accordingly.

Well, in theory. Ironically, I’ve been stuck in perpetual prep for the last few years because I’ve never been able to fully prep my hex key or finish detailing my setting. It looks like setting creation in WWN will be taking care of the latter finally (and at a level of utility beyond what I’d get with setting supplements). I am hopeful that with the world established, the worst I’ll have to worry about is coming up with a dungeon to explore, so between session prep should be more manageable.

 

[Justice and Rule]

However people want to go about determining whether monsters die after reaching zero hit points is fine. I just don’t want the result of that to affect whether the escape procedure will work. If it’s not something the PCs can reliably do, the players will assume it’s effectively not available.

<Nods>

That’s interesting considering the context (a retreat in a B/X retroclone). I don’t really understand the nostalgia for meatgrinder play. B/X is not without its danger (death at 0 hit points, save-or-die effects abound, classes have smaller hit dice), but I don’t think it was expected that the whole party could be lost easily.

I think, at a certain point, it's a general dedication to the idea that if you are bending the rules for such a thing, then the accomplishment of actually succeeding isn't "real". In particular, some of them typically acted like their character was less of a "character" and more of a vehicle to see how far they could get in the same way a Roguelike player would on a "run". As someone who had a character drop out of a party over a morality disagreement, it's something I can understand in the abstract, but doesn't appeal to my sensibilities at all.

In a way, “modern” games are kind of perverse in that they make it more difficult to lose a single character while making it easier to lose the entire party. The latter is far worse for whatever story-driven play the (presumably trad) group had planned, and yet some people object strongly to the idea that the PCs should ever need to retreat.

Yeah, being more survivable kind of encourages bad habits, doesn't it? You can see the trend in video game RPGs, too: early RPGs like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy had run as a real option, one you likely would have to use depending on what sort of area you were in in the world. Nowadays they still might have a retreat option, but I feel like it is less likely or at least emphasized way less.

My issue with APs is that usually means WotC or Paizo, and neither writes adventures that can be run without having to prep them. I remember putting an absurd amount of time into prepping Kingmaker. It ended up being a fun campaign, but I don’t want to have to do that work again. I find doing my own stuff easier because I default to sandbox play and let the PCs set the agenda and have things react accordingly.

Well, in theory. Ironically, I’ve been stuck in perpetual prep for the last few years because I’ve never been able to fully prep my hex key or finish detailing my setting. It looks like setting creation in WWN will be taking care of the latter finally (and at a level of utility beyond what I’d get with setting supplements). I am hopeful that with the world established, the worst I’ll have to worry about is coming up with a dungeon to explore, so between session prep should be more manageable.

Oh God, can I relate to the bolded. I'm always jumping around between projects, so I have like 25% of a setting done but it rarely advances because I'm refining something else or putting some other project together on a whim.

 

[kenada]

I think, at a certain point, it's a general dedication to the idea that if you are bending the rules for such a thing, then the accomplishment of actually succeeding isn't "real". In particular, some of them typically acted like their character was less of a "character" and more of a vehicle to see how far they could get in the same way a Roguelike player would on a "run". As someone who had a character drop out of a party over a morality disagreement, it's something I can understand in the abstract, but doesn't appeal to my sensibilities at all.

But within the context of B/X, it’s not bending the rules. There’s a procedure for escaping in a dungeon. What I’m suggesting is the players should assume they can escape (because otherwise they’ll never attempt it). Technically, it’s possible to fail, but the odds are such that it’s very unlikely. My inclination is to treat that all as part of the negotiation to determine how the escape actually happens (to further emphasize the viability of the tactic).

But I get it. Some people really like the hardcore mode play. It’s all about pushing your skill and ingenuity to overcome whatever challenges, and death is the punishment for failure. I see that kind of sentiment sometimes in r/osr or on blogs. It just doesn’t seem like the intended way of playing given the tools those games provide for handling encounters.

Yeah, being more survivable kind of encourages bad habits, doesn't it? You can see the trend in video game RPGs, too: early RPGs like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy had run as a real option, one you likely would have to use depending on what sort of area you were in in the world. Nowadays they still might have a retreat option, but I feel like it is less likely or at least emphasized way less.

It messes with decision-making. When going down in combat is normalized, it’s hard to differentiate between the times when it’s normal and the ones when you’re really in danger.

Oh God, can I relate to the bolded. I'm always jumping around between projects, so I have like 25% of a setting done but it rarely advances because I'm refining something else or putting some other project together on a whim.

I didn’t even have multiple projects! My campaign scope was just too big!

 

[FrozenNorth]

Frozen's party might actually opt to use the provided material, rather than ignoring it and claiming its insufficient for the purposes of internet polemics, I suspect in that event it would work reasonable well.

Interesting. You are aggressive and hostile to me, but less so to @Retreater, despite most of my posts simply confirming what @Retreater has said.

It isn’t really a surprise that I would agree with @Retreater ‘s points, since he is currently DMing the campaign I am a PC in.

 

[Retreater]

Interesting. You are aggressive and hostile to me, but less so to @Retreater, despite most of my posts simply confirming what @Retreater has said.

It isn’t really a surprise that I would agree with @Retreater ‘s points, since he is currently DMing the campaign I am a PC in.

Yes, I supposed that - as GM - I should fall upon the (magic) sword and address this. Since I'm the one running the game, perhaps I should speak up for what we're doing for @The-Magic-Sword
1) There is at least some element of the game where we are trying to learn the system to "test" it out. I know that as the GM I don't feel familiar enough with the system to provide an in-depth, immersive campaign of the highest magnitude.
2) We are all mostly strangers who've met online to play PF2. We don't have long histories with each other. The players are there specifically to play Abomination Vaults. And even though I've offered a few times to let them go off the rails with town/wilderness/etc. encounters of my own creation, I think everyone is there to see what James Jacobs et al have created, rather than a newbie GM trying to create his own stuff.
3) Yes, there is a sizable gazetteer on Otari, which I noticed after the fact of starting the campaign. However, there's really no cause to interact with the city at all, nothing in the dungeon like "try taking this to X shop to see expert Y" or "the fishmongers guild would pay handsomely for these books."
4) All of the clues, all of the hints, all of the exploration stuff besides the most basic secret doors, traps, and treasure - I am adding that stuff in. Just to give them some kind of heads up that a monster might be on the other side of the door. (Clues for a trapped devil, a room full of ghouls - none of that was in the adventure. You just open the door and there's a half dozen ghouls on the other side.)
But yes, I'll proudly take the fall here for my group, since I'm the GM. And I can say that if I can't run a PF2 Adventure Path "properly" then to hell with Paizo's Ivory Tower design.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Interesting. You are aggressive and hostile to me, but less so to @Retreater, despite most of my posts simply confirming what @Retreater has said.

It isn’t really a surprise that I would agree with @Retreater ‘s points, since he is currently DMing the campaign I am a PC in.

That wasn't in reference to you at all, it was in reference to a trend of posts on this board that push various dubious rules interpretations and supposed game philosophies and GM mistakes in pf2e to create ammunition to stump for how it 'should be.'

It was at most, a snark about being too quick to pop off on the system for things the person missed. If you're one of those posters, I haven't noticed.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But yes, I'll proudly take the fall here for my group, since I'm the GM. And I can say that if I can't run a PF2 Adventure Path "properly" then to hell with Paizo's Ivory Tower design.

I'll just use the normal response I have to this sort of thing, not only regarding PF2e but many other games that get similar responses: other people manage.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

Yes, I supposed that - as GM - I should fall upon the (magic) sword and address this. Since I'm the one running the game, perhaps I should speak up for what we're doing for @The-Magic-Sword
1) There is at least some element of the game where we are trying to learn the system to "test" it out. I know that as the GM I don't feel familiar enough with the system to provide an in-depth, immersive campaign of the highest magnitude.
2) We are all mostly strangers who've met online to play PF2. We don't have long histories with each other. The players are there specifically to play Abomination Vaults. And even though I've offered a few times to let them go off the rails with town/wilderness/etc. encounters of my own creation, I think everyone is there to see what James Jacobs et al have created, rather than a newbie GM trying to create his own stuff.
3) Yes, there is a sizable gazetteer on Otari, which I noticed after the fact of starting the campaign. However, there's really no cause to interact with the city at all, nothing in the dungeon like "try taking this to X shop to see expert Y" or "the fishmongers guild would pay handsomely for these books."
4) All of the clues, all of the hints, all of the exploration stuff besides the most basic secret doors, traps, and treasure - I am adding that stuff in. Just to give them some kind of heads up that a monster might be on the other side of the door. (Clues for a trapped devil, a room full of ghouls - none of that was in the adventure. You just open the door and there's a half dozen ghouls on the other side.)
But yes, I'll proudly take the fall here for my group, since I'm the GM. And I can say that if I can't run a PF2 Adventure Path "properly" then to hell with Paizo's Ivory Tower design.

To help you retreat(er) a little from taking the fall, I'm not trying to win in our discussions. I tend to read your complaints, and stated sense of insecurity with the system, parse possible reasons why your experience is so different than mine and use that to segway it into a de facto new/traumatized GM help thread, arising naturally from your complaints.

Particularly after the gnarliness you mentioned with your prior AOA group. Any argumentitiveness on my part is attempting to distill what you seem to suggest are fundamental systemic problems into contextual ones, to solve them. This renders them, to my mind solvable.

For the record, while people love APs ive never had an easy time running published material, its always been more work for me, and led to a less comfortable game, regardless of my familiarity or confidence in the system in question.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I'll just use the normal response I have to this sort of thing, not only regarding PF2e but many other games that get similar responses: other people manage.

To agree but reframe less harshly, its ok to have things to learn how to do or finesse.

Ive been GMing a decade, and recently paged through the basics-of-basic GMing techniques presented in the GMG and was embarrassed to realize I need a back to basics revitalization of my moment to moment techniques-- evocative descriptions and the like, theyve definetly withered over time as i havent been paying attention.

 

[Retreater]

In my defense, one of my three TPKs in Age of Ashes was due to an honest mistake that any logical person could've made and that a system should've been able to handle and wasn't explicitly called out in the adventure design. The rest I'm chalking up to the writers not knowing what they were doing in the first AP.
The current AP I'm running (Abomination Vaults) I'm not having a problem with. I did come in this thread originally to provide some advice for the OP in how to prepare it better. As for how I'm running it, I've followed the advice in the adventure. I didn't add optional stuff that is outside the presented adventure, which could've added a single role-playing encounter to the adventure's opening.
I think my criticisms of the AP are all valid from my perspective. It's still the best I've seen from Paizo for this edition.
Do I love PF2? No, it's not my favorite system, but it is ok. I'd probably like it better if I was running my own content.