Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="!DWolf" data-source="post: 8393136" data-attributes="member: 7026314">There are more possibilities: perhaps you are using the wrong gamemaster “tools”/skillset with pathfinder 2e? If other dnd derived games may be successful run with skillsets A, B, and C and Pf2e may be successful run with skillsets B, C, and D, you may have trouble running pf2e despite being a very good gm if you primarily use skillset A (or think that you should be using skillset A instead of a more appropriate skillset).To further elaborate:Based on your postings (and these things can be very hard to judge without having session recordings available), you seem to run a pf2e “game loop” similar to: <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The party enters the room</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Combat</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Loot, heal, refocus, and otherwise reset for combat</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Find the next room</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Repeat from 1</li> </ol>With the main emphasis being on step number 2. Thus your games are basically endless streams of combats with any plot, story, roleplay, etc. that would take place out of combat squeezed into step 4 because you want to make more time for step 2. In other words (from my perspective at least) you are running (as FrozenNorth said) exploration as a mini-game with combat as the main game. In contrast: most horror rpgs will use a different loop (because combat is usually EXTREMELY deadly). The loop varies by game of course but an example (and specifically the structure I use) is: <ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Declaration: everyone declares what they are doing.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Resolution: the actions of each character or groups of characters are resolved either offscreen (you do that) or as a scene (which of course has its own declarations and resolutions). Combat may occur here. Some game masters can get a lot of mileage out of cutting from one group to another to maintain tension (see Seth Skorkowski’s video <a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0SG01FV_zd4" target="_blank">here</a> at 10:00 in for an example) but I use dramatic cuts rarely. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Update World: the state of the world changes in response to the players. This is done somewhat in tandem with 2 but this is the step where NPCs move around, time based events process, etc. Sometimes this triggers events in the narration (they hear the monster moving for instance).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Repeat from 1.</li> </ol>And I have found that this exact same structure also works excellently for running pf2e “out of the box” because it is explicitly supported (and this is in fact why I like the game so much: it’s a hybrid of everything I like about horror game structure with high fantasy action). So you may be having problems with a sort of tunnel vision: you may be locked on to the “correct way” to play based on a) what works for you in other dnd derived high fantasy games, b) what you are expecting the core loop to be based on what you have read on the internet, c) what your previous players wanted out of the game, or d) a combination of all three. But that way maybe serving you poorly with pf2e which is a bit of a departure from the mold.So, my advice if you do want to run a pf2e game successfully, as someone who has run it successfully and reflects a lot on what makes their game work, is to: a) record your session and then listen to them to figure out what exactly is going on and b) find and run/play/at-least-listen-to a bunch of preferably non-fantasy horror/investigation games that speak to you and pay attention to how they work and why you like them (from a game perspective of course), then come back in a few years and use that knowledge to try and run pf2e again.</blockquote>

Verification