Pathfinder
Help a friend…
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A friend, fellow member of Puerto Rico Role Players and all around swell guy Rallaster, has been working on new base classes for the Pathfinder RPG. I’ve been looking over his creations, the Mystic Knight and the Shadow Knight, both in beta versions in his blog. He’s looking for constructive criticism on these classes, so if you like the Pathfinder RPG system and can give a friend a hand I invite you to visit his blog. He’s got some other stuff there as well.
If you drop by make sure you tell him I sent you! I had told him I was going to write this and I have taken my sweet time… Sorry for that my friend.
What about Northlands? A review…
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Northlands is a new supplement for the Pathfinder RPG published by Open Design games. It is setting book for their Midgard campaign setting. It’s a 112 page book, including a gorgeous color map of the Northlands and the Open Gaming License in the last two pages. The book is available in print for $19.95 (which includes a PDF copy of the book) and in PDF for $9.95. Here at Stargazer’s World we received a PDF copy of the book for review purposes and being the “Pathfinder Guy” (and I love that honorific) I sat down to devour the book. Little did I know real life would conspire to distract me and make my reading of the book take a tad bit longer (work, illness and new pets tend to do that). But, as the book so aptly puts it, such is fate! Thankfully my gæfa (luck) has taken a turn for the best and here is my review of the book.
What did I think about it? I loved it! Norsemen, their legends and mythology are such integral parts of fantasy gaming that a book like this seems like a no-brainer. But traditional fantasy has appropriated these tropes, myths and images and dropped them into the stew of pseudo medieval/dark ages/ renaissance mish mash that is the typical fantasy campaign (not knocking it if that is what you like, don’t construe that last sentence as value judgment). Here is a book that presents the creatures, culture and legends of the mythical north in a way that feels authentic and filled with gaming opportunities. I heartily recommend it!
Want to learn more? Read on…
Campaign Primer Ideas! Part 2
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Now that I’ve started writing about this I can’t stop. Here is the thing, on a previous post I was musing about the “campaign primer”, the way to introduce your campaign to your prospective players, inspired by Shinobicow’s excellent series on World Building.
In his series, specifically Part 8 he talks about this and touches upon the elevator speech, or elevator pitch, call it what you may. And I think this is particularly appropriate, the idea is to communicate the “value proposition”, in layman’s terms, why this campaign is right for you! Having worked in sales I can understand the value of this type of communication. Precise, succinct, to the point, and there is something to be said for getting your point across in a distilled form. It forces you to take a hard look at the campaign and reduce it to its salient features.
Of course, being creative types who have (probably) worked on this campaign for hours upon hours, you want to share every exciting detail with the players. My advice, be patient, there will be time for this. If you indulge my digression here for a moment, patience is also a valuable skill for a Game Master. In our modern “instant gratification” culture we want all the excitement and we want it right now, but if you pace yourself, set up plots and introduce information little by little not only will you have the satisfaction when it all comes together down the line, but you will keep your players engrossed and interested, coming back to your game for more.
But back to the task at hand, how do we apply this to the campaign primer. Ok let me recapitulate from the last post and give some structure to this:
Ask the readers: Does not play well with others…
6Over in the Paizo Blog I’ve been reading with some interest their proposed changes to the Pathfinder Society Organized Play program. I have never participated on such programs. When I began role playing I was intrigued by the RPGA, joined and got their Polyhedron Magazine. I still have the laminated card and the pin somewhere, but besides reading the magazine I never took any advantage of belonging to the RPGA.
Fast-forward to the days of D&D 3rd edition and the changes they made to the RPGA. I loved the idea of Greyhawk being the default setting, the idea of regions assigned to geographical locations, etc. I even knew friend who were very active, but I never really joined. I had little free time, my campaigns, my adventures; I did not want to switch to a new campaign. I found all the excuses in the world, so that was that…
I took the DM tests the RPGA offered at one time (and passed), and when 4th ed. came along I wanted to be part of that, until I became disenchanted with the system and gave up on DDI. The Pathfinder Society had no presence where I lived so I didn’t pay much attention to it when I began playing the game.
Much has changed since then, I have been blogging for a while now, became active with promoting games in Puerto Rico, and wonder if I should try to participate in some of these organizations that promote and support gamers. I wonder, what have been your experiences? Did you benefit in any form from belonging to them? My inquiring mind wants to know.
Inner Sea World Guide: First impressions …
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This past Saturday I went down to my FLGS and got my hands on the new Pathfinder RPG campaign setting, the Inner Sea World Guide. Any casual reader of my posts will know I am a homebrewer at heart and that I rarely run pre-published campaigns, but I am not below getting campaigns settings and mining them for ideas, rules or even the occasional renamed NPC. A prime example is the regional feat concepts in the D&D 3rd edition Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Those were quickly nabbed and adapted to my campaign back them.
I have not posted about it but, recently I’ve been getting more and more Pathfinder RPG books that are Golarion specific (that’s the name of the campaign world for the uninitiated). While I am a confessed Pathfinder RPG fan I have stayed away from the Golarion specific books. I did get some of the original Adventure Paths but as part of my “more is less”/spend less in games philosophy I stayed away from a lot of fluffy books and stuck to the rules.
Ask the readers: Filing off the serial numbers
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If you follow me on twitter (@sunglar) or read my recent posts about Breaking the D20 Paradigm you may know I am struggling to find a system for a future sci-fi game (pun intended). While the game may be some time away, anywhere from 10 months to a year, I like to plan ahead and I want to work on a campaign knowing what the system can handle. I know the argument can be made that the system is irrelevant to the story but I like to be a little bit more pragmatic and know the strengths and limitations of the rules I’ll be working with.
Also, many of my players like some crunch in their game, and as a GM I like some myself, so the idea of going too indie or experimental, while maybe appropriate for a one shot, will not work for a long term campaign. To add to the complications I want to homebrew. I am not playing a pre-existing setting, but instead creating a new campaign.
Breaking the d20 Paradigm
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“Dear d20 System, we’ve had a good run you and me… No, no relax, this is NOT that conversation. I am not breaking up with you! I just think we should see other people. You have your legions of adoring fans, and that shiny new 4th edition, you can see whoever you want, I have met some new systems, Indies mostly, and I want to explore my options. You can understand right? And we’ll always have Pathfinder…”
All kidding aside, I am not giving up on the d20 system, heck at least 70% of my gaming collection is d20 or earlier iterations. My currently on hiatus fantasy game uses the Pathfinder RPG rules and the current supers game is Mutants & Masterminds. I am happy with both systems, and probably will continue using them for these specific genres. Looking back over the last 6 years, all my long lasting campaigns have used a variation of the rule set: D&D 3rd ed., then Star Wars Saga System, D&D 4th ed., Pathfinder and now M&M. There have been intermittent one shot games using other system, Savage Worlds, Don’t Rest Your Head, Lady Blackbird and others, but my gaming group is firmly entrenched on their ways.









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