The Long Dark RPG Time of the Soul

[Jared Rascher]

I need to grow a set.

I posted here a few weeks ago about how I was getting burned out by running my Pathfinder game, and I wanted to step back and run something like Savage Worlds, and that if someone in the group wanted to keep going with Pathfinder, I'd step down as GM.

I told my group, I got a few "I'm okay with that" comments, nothing from two of my players, and one that volunteered to run Pathfinder in August.

I did make the mistake of saying that I'd finish the adventure path, and I don't want to go back on my word. But looking at the next adventure, I can barely bring myself to start prepping the adventure.

For one thing, one of the things I hate are pointless time wasting encounters that have zero chance of doing anything to the party. The next adventure has several encounters right off the bat that are several CR below the party as written.

On top of that, I've got a paladin that can pretty much destroy any undead or outsider that comes up in a few rounds of combat now that he gets multiple attacks. He's also nearly impossible to hit when he smites, and not too easy to hit when he doesn't.

I've got a bard that throws out immediate actions every other round.

I've got an oracle that can commune every day. Every day.

And then I've got the rest of the party that isn't a problem but looks like they are playing second fiddle to the other three.

I want to keep GMing. I want to get as far away from Pathfinder/3.5/d20 as I can for a while. I'm just burned out. But I told them I would finish this AP, and that would give the one player that wants to GM time to do so, so that I don't make 50% of my group upset with me decision.

I could rebuild the encounters, but I really don't have the desire to rewrite half of an adventure. I don't mind adding things and personalizing things, but I really don't want to feel like I have to "fix" an adventure I'm running.

I could also look very closely at the offending characters and rules, but I have always been a firm believer in not changing rules mid term in a campaign, unless it's to open up options.

But I just hit my breaking point when I get an e-mail about followers and four about treasure and crafting/upgrading magic items. Hell, the first half of this next adventure is going to be a cakewalk as it is without any more magic items on their side.

I want to keep my promise, but I'm not sure I honestly can. I want to keep GMing, but I'm afraid that if I bug out now, I'll loose the trust of at least half of the group.

Nothing to see here, I just needed to vent a bit. I'll figure it out, eventually.

 

[amerigoV]

I need to grow a set.

I posted here a few weeks ago about how I was getting burned out by running my Pathfinder game, and I wanted to step back and run something like Savage Worlds, and that if someone in the group wanted to keep going with Pathfinder, I'd step down as GM.

...

I did make the mistake of saying that I'd finish the adventure path, and I don't want to go back on my word. But looking at the next adventure, I can barely bring myself to start prepping the adventure.

I know you are just venting, but if that is how you feel in a couple of days you should consider either telling the group that you are not finishing the AP (you said it yourself, it was a mistake and you are not going to do the material justice) or finish the AP using the Savage Worlds (not recommended - its better to consider another genre to get into the SW love).

Best of luck and be honest with yourself and group. I've been there.

 

[Jared Rascher]

I know you are just venting, but if that is how you feel in a couple of days you should consider either telling the group that you are not finishing the AP (you said it yourself, it was a mistake and you are not going to do the material justice) or finish the AP using the Savage Worlds (not recommended - its better to consider another genre to get into the SW love).

Best of luck and be honest with yourself and group. I've been there.

Thank you for that. While we play every other week on Thursday, and we just played this last Thursday, I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing for sure by Sunday.

I actually had one player that wouldn't mind switching systems and wanted to know if I wanted to convert it to Savage Worlds, but I'm not sure if that's wise either. I'd almost rather make a clean break, but I appreciated his willingness to compromise.

 

[Mark CMG]

Strip all of the blow off encounters (that should be very little work, perhaps narrate through the details that need to be included and would be missed by the stripping) then add one of your own encounters on the end, after the big one in the AP, that you feel is tailored to challenge the big three PCs based on all of their abilties and items. It's a bit of work to come up with one grand finale but it sounds like you have been thinking enough about all they have that makes things easy so that you should be able to give them something worthy of your time to run. Make sure to include some stuff to let the secondary PCs have a chance to actually play up on their level too.

 

[Holy Bovine]

I need to grow a set.

I posted here a few weeks ago about how I was getting burned out by running my Pathfinder game, and I wanted to step back and run something like Savage Worlds, and that if someone in the group wanted to keep going with Pathfinder, I'd step down as GM.

I told my group, I got a few "I'm okay with that" comments, nothing from two of my players, and one that volunteered to run Pathfinder in August.

I did make the mistake of saying that I'd finish the adventure path, and I don't want to go back on my word. But looking at the next adventure, I can barely bring myself to start prepping the adventure.

For one thing, one of the things I hate are pointless time wasting encounters that have zero chance of doing anything to the party. The next adventure has several encounters right off the bat that are several CR below the party as written.

On top of that, I've got a paladin that can pretty much destroy any undead or outsider that comes up in a few rounds of combat now that he gets multiple attacks. He's also nearly impossible to hit when he smites, and not too easy to hit when he doesn't.

I've got a bard that throws out immediate actions every other round.

I've got an oracle that can commune every day. Every day.

And then I've got the rest of the party that isn't a problem but looks like they are playing second fiddle to the other three.

I want to keep GMing. I want to get as far away from Pathfinder/3.5/d20 as I can for a while. I'm just burned out. But I told them I would finish this AP, and that would give the one player that wants to GM time to do so, so that I don't make 50% of my group upset with me decision.

I could rebuild the encounters, but I really don't have the desire to rewrite half of an adventure. I don't mind adding things and personalizing things, but I really don't want to feel like I have to "fix" an adventure I'm running.

I could also look very closely at the offending characters and rules, but I have always been a firm believer in not changing rules mid term in a campaign, unless it's to open up options.

But I just hit my breaking point when I get an e-mail about followers and four about treasure and crafting/upgrading magic items. Hell, the first half of this next adventure is going to be a cakewalk as it is without any more magic items on their side.

I want to keep my promise, but I'm not sure I honestly can. I want to keep GMing, but I'm afraid that if I bug out now, I'll loose the trust of at least half of the group.

Nothing to see here, I just needed to vent a bit. I'll figure it out, eventually.

"Rocks fall, everybody dies."






"Wanna play some Savage Worlds now?"


That should pretty much get you out of the adventure [-]treadmill[/-] path.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I've noticed problems similar to those you describe in both 3e D&D and Mutants & Masterminds, another d20 game. Thru the build system some PCs have very powerful combinations of abilities that can only be challenged by highly tailored encounters, while other PCs in the same party don't. This leads to opposition being insufficiently varied, and, in superhero, certain very genre appropriate types, such as big tough strong dudes, can end up being totally inadequate.

Some GMs like to create this tailored opposition, and tailoring encounters, of some variety or another, has been part of roleplaying games since the start of the hobby, but I personally don't much care for it.

 

[pneumatik]

If the blow-off encounters are designed to wear down the party then keep them in and just don't worry about the PCs defeating them. But if the PCs will get to rest after them then just toss them.

Some players really enjoy making characters who can destroy encounters. For them cakewalk encounters are often enjoyable. PCs will win all the fights in a campaign anyway so I've tried to accept that sometimes they'll win easily.

I do think APs can have a grind-y feel to them. I take it as evidence that going from level 1 to 20 is really far. It's hard to write a story with a steady distribution of xp-worthy encounters to fill all those levels, so you get some extra fights.

 

[Herobizkit]

If I were DM'ing, I would simply drop most encounters that don't relate to the Final Battle. Throw in a few 'easy' ones to get them into a comfortable groove, then hit them with the Big Bad.

The PC's knows their characters are 'done' when the game is done, so they won't be missing anything.

I had a similar experience with a solo game I was running, and the two of us worked out the most efficient way to handle most of the blow-by encounters (kick door, drop maximized wands of fireball, maximized wand of lightning bolt to anything still standing, then melee... the player is in the military lol).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Run it as written, let them use their powers to plow through it quickly, and then you will be done.


RC

 

[TarionzCousin]

Is there any lava in the next adventure?