Quote from: joriandrake;1015060Long, detailed descriptions are good, no?
As far I can see Paizo just takes a location and makes clear description, not requiring the GM to make it up fully or partially.

I find in practice it's impossible to memorise all that beforehand for 40+ such encounters, or to find all the stuff I need in play amongst the wall of text - so a lot gets omitted/never presented to the players (& I also have to work hard to find ways to present interesting stuff to the players that Paizo apparently wrote purely for the GM's enjoyment). I also find the detail constricts my own imagination, so I add far less stuff of my own and the setting feels less vivacious.  I have run a lot of Paizo adventures - several 32 pagers, all of Crimson Throne, 4 each of Shattered Star and Rise of the Runelords - that's 14 AP books. So obviously it's not all bad. But over time it gets exhausting; whereas I find minimalist OSR stuff stimulates my imagination and creates a campaign that just gets better over time. Plus, the play density of Paizo stuff is about 1/10 that of much OSR type stuff, with higher costs per page due to gloss, art etc the cost is around x20.

That's just me. Obviously YMMV.

...umm, fair point about memorising that, but I doubt it was ever intended for the GM to run the campaign without reading it.

O_o

Also fair point on wanting to change details, but as far I know Paizo has that global campaign thingy running and all GMs have to give the same description/enemies in a module for that, or am I wrong? It's likely the reason for the very detailed info.

I myself also used existing modules to change stories/situations but that is probably the least fitting method for Paizo.

Quote from: joriandrake;1015068...umm, fair point about memorising that, but I doubt it was ever intended for the GM to run the campaign without reading it.

O_o

So the DM is supposed to take a break before the PCs enter each room, just to read the wall of the text? Not that I actually believe you're trying to say that, but it follows from what you just said. (Reading doesn't imply you've memorized it.)

And that's exactly the kind of encounter I hate to run. It's not an outline, it's not a checklist, it's not bullet points. No, it's prose. Florid prose, presented in paragraphs as if it was trying to tell a story. It's designed for the DM read solo, not to actually use in a game. Which is true of an appalling number of adventures. There are all kinds of tricks for laying out instructor materials, and nobody ever uses them.

The old school style of 8 orcs, 16 smelly piles of fur, 3d6 copper in each if the party takes a turn searching, and a gold box with something special inside it buried in the dirt under #3, isn't designed any better. But it's much briefer, which allows the DM to skim a line, get all the essential details, and then improvise. That relies on the DM or dice to determine reactions, a lot the flavor, clever quips, and so on. But it's much better than spending time telling the players to wait while you dig through paragraphs of text trying to refresh yourself on all the relevant bits. That completely kills the flow of the game.

Not that the Pazio example has a lot of information (that could be distilled into 2-3 sentences), but if there is a lot of information, it should be presented in a way that can be grasped at a glance. Dump the box and text format for bullets, icons, player handouts, DM cheat sheets with interjections if the players are spinning their wheels, tactical maps, and so on.

Quote from: S'mon;1015053Creatures: Hollow Mountain hosts several enclaves of
skulks, lithe humanoids with the ability to blend almost
perfectly with their environments. Most of these tribes
survive primarily as a result of their skill at hiding, for
Hollow Mountain is a dangerous place indeed. The skulks
of the Pallid Path are an exception--these worshipers of
Yamasoth have largely forsaken the upper levels of Hollow
Mountain or the ruins of Xin-Bakrakhan for the deeper
caverns, particularly the swampy, stinking caverns of
the Abysmal Slough, where they often war against the
troglodyte tribes of the Deep Pools. When Ardathanatus
encountered the skulks on his journey through Hollow
Mountain, he'd already converted to the worship of the
skulks' god Yamasoth, and the elf was quick to capitalize
on that by presenting himself to the Pallid Path as a
savior. He recruited the entire tribe, and took them with
him on his return here to Windsong Abbey.
The skulks of the Pallid Path have had it hard--they
took significant losses both in the assault on Windsong and
the exploration of these dungeon chambers. (Ardathanatus
was fond of using them to trigger suspected traps). But the
skulks of the Pallid Path are nothing if not fanatics, and
their belief that each of their deaths helps to further the
return of their deity to the world is more than enough to
ensure their continued loyalty to Ardathanatus.
Although they originally numbered well over three
dozen, with a few leaders among their own, today only 16
of the rank-and-file Pallid Path cultists remain. Of those,
six are stationed here to guard the contents of the room--
now that Ardathanatus has explored the dungeons, he
has little further use for the skulks. If the skulks notice
the PCs coming, five of them swiftly hide throughout the
room and watch patiently while the sixth skulk sneaks into
area B2 to lure the clockwork golem there into this room.

IME all the text above added nothing to the game, with one exception - the summoning of the golem. From the player POV these skulks are just disposable mooks who fight to the death, like everything else in the module except the surviving priests the PCs can rescue.

I give my group far more of the background info than Paizo give me means to do so, especially on the villain, but even I couldn't find a plausible way to tutor the players on the details of these unimportant creatures and their former life hundred of miles from the adventure location.

Quote from: Pat;1015079So the DM is supposed to take a break before the PCs enter each room, just to read the wall of the text? Not that I actually believe you're trying to say that, but it follows from what you just said. (Reading doesn't imply you've memorized it.)

I think the GM indeed is supposed to?
It was a while since I played but I did play 2 Paizo campaigns and one official Pathfinder Society one. That's still not much so I can absolutely be wrong by how I remember it.

Nobody actually reads large chunks of text out loud. You just take the important bits and use those.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1015097Nobody actually reads large chunks of text out loud. You just take the important bits and use those.

As I wrote, I'm not certain about the whole PFS (Pathfinder Society) thing, but I browsed quickly and this is what I found.

QuoteGMing PFS is different to running a home game as you can't change creatures, stat blocks, DC's etc and have to run it as written. This is so players get pretty much the same experience no matter which gm they get. Is this what you mean about changes on how to run the game? There is some scope for some table variation, and GM's can add circumstance bonuses, environmental effects, alter tactics, starting locations and cater for creative solutions to encounters if they think it will make the game more enjoyable. But it is a quite a rigid style of gming that's different to running a home campaign. However, it does make it fair for everyone. There aren't many changes to the Core rules for pfs. Some things aren't allowed like crafting (probably because people would exploit it to get lots of loot) but most rules are the same. PFS is different to playing a full home campaign, it doesn't have the immersion and freedom you get with a home game but pfs has its place.

Quote1. Are u allowed to tweek anything to flesh out what gms get to see as in what i was talking about?

...

1) There are usually various knowledge checks throughout the scenario, especially at the beginning of the game, that can give the players a better idea of what the scenario is about and what they might be facing. You can also give general Golarion info to set the scene too. Later season scenarios (4 and 5) will often have handouts that tie the scenario events into the over arching storyline for that season. By all means give out extra info if the players specifically go looking for it, have a bard with bardic knowledge, and/or make good roll knowledge/gather information checks. Its also perfectly acceptable to give a epilogue of the scenario background at the end to clue the players up on what was going on. But, don't add events to the scenario - as Skellan says, you should run it as written with the only areas you are allowed to modify being tactics and use of the environment during encounters.

At the time I was playing there was no other Hungarian player for PFS and there was a bit of pushing by some people to make me into a GM and try to gather more players, hold events, but I'm not in the capital and there were just no players for this in my area and I was just not willing/able to pay to go to Budapest and hold some there. (just to compare: a train+bus ticket from my location to Budapest costs more than a ticket I can buy to fly from Budapest to Brussels or London)

Quote from: S'mon;1015053I want to show you what a typical Paizo dungeon room looks like, since that was my comparison. Here's one from Shattered Star #4, ie the middle of the AP:

Spoiler

B1. Spirits Cellar (CR 11)
The odor of beer permeates this huge room. Several crates,
barrels, kegs, and racks for wine fill the room--many of which
have been opened, emptied, upturned, and shattered. The floor
is littered with glass shards and corks and strewn with loose
coils of rope.
The main cellar of the abbey, where the local production
of beer had been aging since the first, merry days of
ecumenism, has sadly been ransacked and drained almost
completely dry by Ardathanatus's skulk mercenaries. Only
a dozen bottles and a few casks survive intact.
Creatures: Hollow Mountain hosts several enclaves of
skulks, lithe humanoids with the ability to blend almost
perfectly with their environments. Most of these tribes
survive primarily as a result of their skill at hiding, for
Hollow Mountain is a dangerous place indeed. The skulks
of the Pallid Path are an exception--these worshipers of
Yamasoth have largely forsaken the upper levels of Hollow
Mountain or the ruins of Xin-Bakrakhan for the deeper
caverns, particularly the swampy, stinking caverns of
the Abysmal Slough, where they often war against the
troglodyte tribes of the Deep Pools. When Ardathanatus
encountered the skulks on his journey through Hollow
Mountain, he'd already converted to the worship of the
skulks' god Yamasoth, and the elf was quick to capitalize
on that by presenting himself to the Pallid Path as a
savior. He recruited the entire tribe, and took them with
him on his return here to Windsong Abbey.
The skulks of the Pallid Path have had it hard--they
took significant losses both in the assault on Windsong and
the exploration of these dungeon chambers. (Ardathanatus
was fond of using them to trigger suspected traps). But the
skulks of the Pallid Path are nothing if not fanatics, and
their belief that each of their deaths helps to further the
return of their deity to the world is more than enough to
ensure their continued loyalty to Ardathanatus.
Although they originally numbered well over three
dozen, with a few leaders among their own, today only 16
of the rank-and-file Pallid Path cultists remain. Of those,
six are stationed here to guard the contents of the room--
now that Ardathanatus has explored the dungeons, he
has little further use for the skulks. If the skulks notice
the PCs coming, five of them swiftly hide throughout the
room and watch patiently while the sixth skulk sneaks into
area B2 to lure the clockwork golem there into this room.
Pallid Path Cultists (6) CR 6
XP 2,400 each
Skulk cleric of Yamasoth 3/rogue 2 (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 248)
CE Medium humanoid (skulk)
Init +7; Senses low-light vision; Perception +13
DEFENSE
AC 16, touch 16, flat-footed 13 (+3 deflection, +3 Dex)
hp 74 (8d8+35)
Fort +7, Ref +10, Will +8
Defensive Abilities evasion
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft.
Melee mwk short sword +10 (1d6+2/19–20)
Ranged +1 composite shortbow with inubrix arrows +9 (1d4+3)
Special Attacks channel negative energy 1/day (DC 9, 2d6),
sneak attack +2d6
Domain Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3rd; concentration +7)
7/day--acid dart (1d6+1 acid), artificer's touch (1d6+1,
bypasses 3 DR and hardness)
Spells Prepared (CL 3rd; concentration +7)
2nd--cure moderate wounds, spiritual weapon, wood shapeD
1st--animate ropeD, cure light wounds, doom (DC 15), shield
of faith
0 (at will)--bleed (DC 14), detect magic, light, stabilize
D Domain spell; Domains Artifice, Earth
TACTICS
Before Combat The cultist casts shield of faith. They remain
hidden as long as possible, for they plan to attack only once
the golem from area B2 is lured into this room.
During Combat Once the clockwork golem attacks, these
cultists hang back to fire inubrix arrows at any heavily
armored PCs. The skulks move after each shot, hoping to
hide again and snipe at the PCs while they are forced to
concentrate on the golem. Hanging back also keeps the
skulks from accidentally attracting the wild golem's attention!
Morale A skulk that is reduced to fewer than 20 hit points
attempts to flee south to area B4 to warn the skulks there
and join in the defense of that area's stairs.
STATISTICS
Str 15, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 18, Cha 7
Base Atk +5; CMB +7; CMD 23
Feats Combat Reflexes, Improved Initiative, Toughness,
Weapon Finesse, Weapon Focus (short sword)
Skills Knowledge (religion) +8, Perception +13, Stealth +22;
Racial Modifiers +8 Stealth
Languages Common, Undercommon
SQ aura, camouflaged step, chameleon skin, rogue talents
(combat trick), trapfinding +1
Gear +1 composite longbow with 10 inubrix arrows, masterwork
short sword
Treasure: The arrows these skulks fire have heads
crafted from a form of pale skymetal called inubrix,
known also as "ghost iron." Inubrix is very soft metal, but
it passes through iron and steel as if they didn't exist. As a
result, these arrows deal less damage and are treated as if
constantly broken, but they completely ignore AC bonuses
granted by iron or steel armor and shields. An inubrix
arrow is worth 250 gp. More details on inubrix appear on
page 71 of Pathfinder Adventure Path #61.

My that is...verbose. I would not want to quickly locate the important information inside that wall of text

Quote from: S'mon;1015053Well I'm sorry not all my posts are equally wonderful!

Maybe if Pundit paid me more to shill for the OSR you'd get better quality control. As it is you'll just have to put up with variable quality posting.

I want to show you what a typical Paizo dungeon room looks like, since that was my comparison. Here's one from Shattered Star #4, ie the middle of the AP:

B1. Spirits Cellar (CR 11)
The odor of beer permeates this huge room. Several crates,
barrels, kegs, and racks for wine fill the room--many of which
have been opened, emptied, upturned, and shattered. The floor
is littered with glass shards and corks and strewn with loose
coils of rope....one page later....
.... More details on inubrix appear on
page 71 of Pathfinder Adventure Path #61.

Holy **** that's excessive, maybe the definition of prolix, lacking organization and layout.   The detail can be nice, just needs to be organized elsewhere like an appendix.

Quote from: Bren;1015145My that is...verbose. I would not want to quickly locate the important information inside that wall of text

I'd narrate to the players "You encounter a Wall of Text, make a save to avoid confusion."   The wall of text, the most dreaded of dungeon encounters.  At least the Wall of Sleep is cool and bright.

Quote from: Xanther;1015167At least the Wall of Sleep is cool and bright.

Wall of Sleep is lying broken.

That sort of prosaic introduction seems like the kind of thing that is really cool the first time you encounter it, but just gets old after you notice that the players never interact with all this backstory that apparently only exists if someone decides to use Speak With Dead to discover those details instead of just ganking the loot and moving on.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1015200That sort of prosaic introduction seems like the kind of thing that is really cool the first time you encounter it, but just gets old after you notice that the players never interact with all this backstory that apparently only exists if someone decides to use Speak With Dead to discover those details instead of just ganking the loot and moving on.

that, or Know History spell, Touch of History spell, Know the Enemy spell (on people/creature), divination, bardic knowledge ability, History as skill, Historian trait (making History a class skill with +1 modifier), ect

QuotePC's want to know old lore? History check. Has anyone heard of that bandit gang before? Doesn't it have the name of a super old evil wizard? Isn't that wizard a lich now? Local knowledge followed by a few history checks.

I believe the modules are written assuming that at least one PC is going to know the info from some source, allowing the GM to tell the whole to all players at the table. That assumption is usually right as there are a dozen+ methods to get lore for the characters in Pathfinder. More likely every single character has its own way to get the lore than the chance none of them do. (There are also whole archetypes or classes focusing on lore like Historian/Archeologist/Loremaster as far I can remember)

I think I've encountered exactly one fan of PF on the forum, so shit talking a system no one here likes or plays is just a circlejerk.

Quote from: Voros;1015223I think I've encountered exactly one fan of PF on the forum, so shit talking a system no one here likes or plays is just a circlejerk.

You're only happy when someone is vociferously disagreeing with you?