Gamer Guilt Over Potential Gaming Shift
IronWolf
blank
Let your players know what is bouncing around in your head. Sometimes it helps if they know what is going on and may even give you a better feel for what choice would work well and end up with you GM'ing a fantasy game that you are happy with.
Another option if you do continue to stay with Pathfinder is perhaps using the slow XP advancement track. That might help keep the game down in the levels you enjoy for a longer period of time.
Another option if you do continue to stay with Pathfinder is perhaps using the slow XP advancement track. That might help keep the game down in the levels you enjoy for a longer period of time.
A
amerigoV
Guest
I struggled with the same thing. I just finished up Eye of the Lich Queen (Eberron). I was taking a short break and decided I just could not go through another d20 campaign. Too much work. 4e was rolling out, but several in the group had tried and decided it was not for them. I had played just enough Savage Worlds to see its awesomeness, but I was a bit concerned (1) would the players like it and (2) could I run Expedition to Castle Ravenloft and not wind up with the same out of DM work via conversion?
I waffled for awhile because SW introduces another element - what genre? The module was a classic vampire story, so I could have ran it in any setting. Finally, I just said "we start in two weeks, prep fantasy characters in SW and lets roll!"
Quickly any guilt or hesitation faded. Never looked back.
Also, once you Savage, you always be a Savage! You Savvy? So welcome!
If you switch to Savage Worlds, be prepared for your prep time & work to decrease about 90% as compared to d20. That's what happened for me. d20 is great, but SW really is fast, furious & fun. I've done d20 since, but it was a D&D minis skirmish campaign. You might try something like that with the rules & options restricted to a core game, but it might be that you just need a switch to something new. SW is pretty simple to learn & run but remains complicated enough to be interesting to play. That's a pretty hard balance to maintain. You might try playing Savage Worlds first to see if you like it. At $10 for the Explorer's Edition, nobody should complain about the cost of the rules. With the test drive free trial rules and the training wheels character sheet, it is pretty simple to learn to play. I say go for it. Just be ready to have your gaming outlook completely altered. And, buy the stuff and have your players buy stuff from your FLGS. They are giving you a place to play, after all. Enjoy.
Kestrel
Explorer
Switch to Savage Worlds. I just did this and I couldn't be happier.
Like Scourger's posts above, your prep time will drop dramatically and you can focus on something besides stats. Your game and sanity will be saved.
As to gameplay, its just as exciting and the players have just as many options as before. And since you don't have to track hitpoints, its even easier to run. And for my own personal experience, its more fun for the gm.
I'm running Keep on the Borderlands right now in SW and we did a huge fight in the goblin caves. The PCs managed to prevail after bringing most of the tribe down on themselves. Normally, I would have been bored 10 min into this fight, mainly because the goblins would just be swing, miss, or hit for 1d4 damage. In SW, not bored. I had goblins ganging up, the second rank using Taunt, all kinds of mayhem. The best part? Any hit could potentially drop someone. It didnt happen, since the chances were very low, but the idea that it could happen made it exciting to run a bunch of mooks.
Anyhoo, give a whirl, you won't be dissapointed. And your players will enjoy it, once they get past the light chargen.
Like Scourger's posts above, your prep time will drop dramatically and you can focus on something besides stats. Your game and sanity will be saved.
As to gameplay, its just as exciting and the players have just as many options as before. And since you don't have to track hitpoints, its even easier to run. And for my own personal experience, its more fun for the gm.
I'm running Keep on the Borderlands right now in SW and we did a huge fight in the goblin caves. The PCs managed to prevail after bringing most of the tribe down on themselves. Normally, I would have been bored 10 min into this fight, mainly because the goblins would just be swing, miss, or hit for 1d4 damage. In SW, not bored. I had goblins ganging up, the second rank using Taunt, all kinds of mayhem. The best part? Any hit could potentially drop someone. It didnt happen, since the chances were very low, but the idea that it could happen made it exciting to run a bunch of mooks.
Anyhoo, give a whirl, you won't be dissapointed. And your players will enjoy it, once they get past the light chargen.
Jared Rascher
Explorer
I've got great players and great friends, that's why I worry about things like this . . .
Jared Rascher
Explorer
I've noticed both in my game and the game that my friend runs and I play in that "nuisance" encounters really grate on my nerves. I try to make sure to use things like aid another, but man, I hate gearing up to run a fight that has no real danger to it (hm . . . the adventure says a bunch of 2nd level rogues attack the 8th level party . . . sigh).
Its one of the things that I like about my DC Adventures game that I have been running. Anyone that is really a threat to the PCs has a chance to harm them, and anyone that isn't a threat can be wiped out of the fight pretty quickly, without the PCs wondering why the BBEG doesn't have any goons on his side.
IronWolf
blank
For some of these types, I find both from the GM and player side that it can work well to let the fight get underway, see the obvious tide the fight is going and then switch to narrative completion of the encounter without actually rolling out the whole encounter.
Probably depends on the group how successful this can be. But then the feeling that there are other threats or roadblocks put in the way but they are not enough to stop the PCs.
Jared Rascher
Explorer
I've noticed I'm of two minds on this. On the GM side of the screen, I like telling a story, so I don't mind saying "if you guys can do X, this fight is over," but from the player's side, once I've been told that my character is in a fight, I really want it to play out, because once in a while I want to see how much I can do with my character. As a player I've been very frustrated when GMs "call a fight" before its actually over, even though as a GM I hate to go through the motions and try to play out the whole fight.
