Pathfinder 1E So far not impressed with Pathfinder

Campbell

Relaxed Intensity
I'd argue that you cannot emphatically say that it is a failure of the system or the GM. In a lot of cases there is simply a mismatch or conflict between what the gaming group wants and the game they are utilizing. Besides assigning blame is not all that useful. My recommendation would be to talk to your players and discuss what kind of game everyone is interested in playing. From there work together to find a game that works, alter it to your tastes, and utilize it in a way that works for you.
 

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Starfox

Hero
THis seems to be a case of DM as Referee vs. DM as Entertainer more than a rules issue. The OP wants to be an impartial referee and let the players tackle the dungeon best they can, with only the rules to support them. Several of the other posters are thinking DM as Entertainer and expecting the DM to change the dungeon based on the players abilities.

Both are very valid playstyles, neither is wrong. But it is difficult to discuss with such different bases of expectation.
 

N'raac

First Post
It is a failing of PF if it's a result of running an AP that requires those roles for successful completion. Although I have never encountered any issues with lacking roles in large party groups in APs, I could certainly see it as an issues with smaller groups, but they'll have other issues as well.

Pathfinder the system has not failed. I suggest that it is possible the AP/Scenario has failed in communicating the roles and abilities a party must have in order to succeed in the scenario, or in providing suggested modifications to compensate for a party which lacks those roles and abilities. This would come from a vision that the scenario is intended to aid the GM in providing an adventure which is appropriate to the characters. Alternatively, I can see it as a failure in the GM in selecting a scenario which is a poor fit for the adventuring party and not customizing it to that group of characters. Alternatively, it could be a failing on the GM in not adequately communicating the roles which will be required for success in the scenario. This comes down to a group social contract issue - doe the GM design the campaign around the PC's, are the PC's expected to be designed to fit the campaign, or is the world one big sandbox and it is up to the PC's to select appropriate challenges?

This is Rappan Athuk. The traps are dangerous and the foes are worse. If the party won't make sure they have the proper skill set they will learn why it is called the Dungeon of Graves. So far they have dug 12. This is a sandbox not an AP. They better figure out when they don't belong and when they do. They were wise enough not to release the demon from its trap even though it offered them a fortune in treasure only to have one die to a handful of goblins.

If the only choice the PC's have is RA, then the world is not a sandbox, even if there is a sandbox within RA itself. If RA requires a trap monkey to survive, and the group lacks a trap monkey, then logically they should either recruit a trap monkey, or they should leave the area and seek their fortune elsewhere, in a manner better suited to be addressed by their particular skill set.

One possibility would be for the Summoner to reconfigure some of his Eidolon's abilities to make it a better trap monkey. If the team has lots of combat punch, the need for a melee eidolon is markedly reduced, so give it some skills and abilities to fill gaps in the party rather than focusing on areas where the party is already strong. Another would be for characters with a lot of skill overlap to choose areas of focus and devote the freed up skill points to Disable Device and other skills where the party is lacking. The fact a given skill is not a class skill is much less devestating in Pathfinder than in 3.0/3.5.
 

ggeilman

First Post
As my background is from Judges Guild I have always seen my role as a judge, an arbitor not an entertainer. I hate to say this, but when the club and I spend nearly $500 on a setting that we have decided that we want to play and a few new people come in that don't have skin in the game and are not happy with what is being run, I am sorry but they don't have a vote to change it.
Our ranger while he has played D&D with us for about 17 years now off and on, is not skilled enough to handle the role of trap monkey. He is a good friend but can barely handle his role as tank.
 

Wouldn't the old school approach be to simply kill the PCs over and over and over again until they learn to adapt to the situation?

If you're going to deviate from the traditional party build, then you'll need to adjust and compensate for it. If you don't, tough.
 

billd91

Not your screen monkey (he/him)
As my background is from Judges Guild I have always seen my role as a judge, an arbitor not an entertainer. I hate to say this, but when the club and I spend nearly $500 on a setting that we have decided that we want to play and a few new people come in that don't have skin in the game and are not happy with what is being run, I am sorry but they don't have a vote to change it.
Our ranger while he has played D&D with us for about 17 years now off and on, is not skilled enough to handle the role of trap monkey. He is a good friend but can barely handle his role as tank.

After 17 years he's not skilled enough? Has anyone tried teaching him? Sounds like a good job for you - help him with his next build choices so he can be successful. With cross-class skills being so easy to pick up, a single level of rogue can go along way when added to a ranger build.

I'm thinking there's some element of you and the players being at loggerheads over how this game is working. If you are set on running RA and they are set on playing it, and it's not working, someone needs to adapt. If they're not making the connection and adapting, you need to adapt from your neutral arbiter stance and help them adapt. So underline the problem. If they haven't figured it out (or heard the scuttlebutt on the internet), they're in a tough dungeon with lots of traps and fighting encounters - and that isn't going to change. They either need to get out and find an adventure site more to their style or fix their party problems. And it sounds like you need to tell them this in no uncertain terms even if it means you're not playing the neutral arbiter. Tell them where they're weak as a group and give them suggestions in how to fix the problem. And if they're all still set on their characters, tell them that RA will probably munch them up and spit out their bones and ask if they'd rather adventure somewhere else instead.

Honestly, this sounds like a semi-disfunctional group rather than a system problem. The group is big and unwieldy. Nobody seems to want to compromise despite a mounting death toll. Do they think things will magically get better if they keep doing the same things they're doing?
 

ggeilman

First Post
Several of the players have played parts of this before in previous versions so they know how tough it us. I am currently running them through a section that was designed for 1-3rd level characters and they are 6th! I don't know how much easier I can make it on them. Part of the issue is the system is new for a lot of us so I have decided to back up a bit on the sources and go Core only on classes so that we can learn the system better. The group leader as I said spent an hour and a half last game trying to talk to the group about their roles in the group and that was when all hell broke loose.

I just talked with the ranger. We are working with him to learn the system, but he is like no way he is taking on the trap monkey role!
 
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Starfox

Hero
I'll make a case for all GMs being entertainers - role-play is a social activity, and the point is to have fun, whether this is "nerve-cracking deadly game of wit"s fun or "spoofy romantic comedy fun".

It seems you and your players have a different idea about what you want to play. They seem to want a dungeon adapted to their playstyle and resources. Adapted to what they find fun, quite simply. You want a competitive, deadly environment for them to explore with you as a neutral arbiter. It seems to me you need to establish a common ground here, decide what it is you all want out of the game experience.

This is not an uncommon situation. Expectation management is hard. As a game master, you create the game you'd want to play, not necessarily the one your players want to play in. This is further complicated by that many of us want different things as players and as a GM.

Nobody is wrong here, it is a matter of taste.

If finding a common ground means you need to eliminate/simplify 90% of the traps, perhaps it is worth it. Because your players simply don't seem to enjoy that part of the game. If nobody wants to be the trap monkey, maybe you have to have an out of game talk and make a out-of-game decision to cut down on traps, even if it hurts your feeling of verisimilitude. After all, role-playing is just a social activity. There is no real objective besides having fun together. Forcing someone to play a trap-monkey when they don't want to is not fun.

In-game you can motivate this by saying whoever built the dungeon employed a lousy engineer, so that all the traps are much less effective than expected. Or you could simply omit them. For humor and "gotcha" value, you could keep the traps, and either make them mostly harmless (1-3 points of damage), but the players will still know a trap was there and that they could have suffered. Or make them very easy to spot but still lethal, changing the challenge from one of surprise to one of wits as the players try to work around the problem.

This is all quite separate from the rules. Maybe technically one of the players' characters in-world would be an excellent trap monkey, he could even be a rogue, but the player is simply uninterested that kind of play, uninterested in describing how his character constantly probe for traps. Forcing the player into that role is no fun, even if the character would be competent at it. The best you could get is some mechanical dice rolls and a player stating "I always move ahead of the party, taking 2 minutes to take 20 on Search check for every square" - and then thinking no more on the matter and playing as if the above were not true, but refer to this general statement as soon as you start mentioning traps. After all, in-game time is cheap. It matters little if it takes 1 minute or 2 hours to move down this hall (the difference between moving 300 feet normally or by taking 20 on Search each square). And since nothing interesting happens, your players are all right to gloss over the event.

That said, you need not cut ALL traps. Having the occasional trapped area can be a fun change of pace, as long as the players have some kind of warning so they have an idea how to play it. If their characters lack the usual trap skill, they will have to bypass the traps using unconventional methods, which can also be fun as a novelty. But for a group with no interest in being trap monkeys, I suggest you make such challenges rare and unusual, reserved for special places.
 

S

Sunseeker

Guest
The group leader as I said spent an hour and a half last game trying to talk to the group about their roles in the group and that was when all hell broke loose.

I just talked with the ranger. We are working with him to learn the system, but he is like no way he is taking on the trap monkey role!

I'm suspicious that the "group leader" was not elected to be such, and has a strong personality so is simply "naturally" filling the spot. This might be one reason that players seem to "sit on their hands". I had this happen with my previous large party. We had two people who had large personalities and several others players did literally nothing during the game.

I have a suspicion that "talk to the players about their roles" went more along the lines of telling people they're playing it wrong and that they need to play this other way, as much of your posts seem to imply, because anything else is badwrongfun.
 

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