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I have GMed more games than I can count I my fingers and toes, and the fingers and toes of a few other people.
I have played a few PFS games, which I enjoy and I am looking into doing my share of the GMing. The question I have is how much control does the GM have over the story?
I understand that going wildly off-script is a no no. But, at least in the games I have played, the transitions between scenes are abrupt and destroy story continuity. If I wanted to inject some opportunity for a non-combative skill roll or RP opportunity that is not in the official scenario, is that a no no.
And if it is okay, am I allowed to award a minor advantage of some kind?
Also, with regard to an encounter, how strategic can the NPCs be, because so far it has been, they are standing there and we are here, lets go cut them to pieces. I mean, the players can pretty much guess when something is about to go down and buff up.
Is there a more extensive doc that explains the white (what you can do), the black (what you can't do), and how to best navigate the grey (what is left up to your judgement)? And I am asking specifically about GMing a PFS scenario as written, but having the ability to better hide the fences and create the illusion of freedom.
Thanks!
Venture-Captain, Germany—Hamburg
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The amount of role-playing you can include depends on your time frame. If you're GMing at a convention or game day, you might have a limited time slot in which to run, so there might just not be enough time. If, on the other hand, you're GMing a home game, you can give your players some time to roleplay their way from one encounter to the next.
You can award minor advantages within the scenario by treating good roleplaying as a creative solution to a problem. You might, for example, give the playe a +1 or +2 bonus to their diplomacy roll if they roleplayed it especially well.
What you cannot do is add any boons that grant mechanical benefits to the chronicle sheet.
I'd suggest to have the NPCs be as strategic as it is healthy for the PCs. If the entire party consists of 1st level characters played by inexperienced players, you'll want to have your NPCs make some tactical mistakes. But if the PCs can survive a few unfriendly punches, there's no reason to play your NPCs as stupid.
But remember to read the NPCs' tactics and morale. Sometimes those parts already tell about mistakes the NPCs will make. Also, many (especially the minor henchmen) won't fight to the death, so the combat will be over before they are below 0 HP.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Remember that a given player can only play a given scenario ONCE.
When two players meet and are swapping "war stories" about playing PFS, and discover that there's a scenario they've both played, it can be great fun explaining the different ways they handled X, Y or Z. But when one of those players mentions a given event/circumstance/obstacle/whatever, and the other player has no idea what they're talking about, and they eventually realize that one or both of them got a modified adventure and they can never go back and find out what the "true" experience would have been, there's very likely to be some hurt feelings.
That's bad.
So if you're wondering if doing X is a material enough change that it shouldn't happen in PFS, ask yourself if a player could be left wondering what the scenario would have been like without that change. The second you hand out a chronicle sheet, you've declared that the player can never play that scenario again. If that fact means they've lost an opportunity, you've done something wrong. If instead the only reason the player wishes they could replay it is because that scenario is so awesome (instead of to find out what it's supposed to be like), then you've done something right. :)
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I totally get what you are saying, Jiggy. The flip side is when a group of players, x, y and z, approach the same situation differently. And regardless of what they do, the GM feels compelled to force the encounter to play-out the exact way.
What I was getting at was more along the lines of what Andreas suggested, if I do a little transitional GMing--very minor--that allows players to use skills and RPing that they normally never would--it is within the rules to give them an in-game, very temporary advantage.
One example I can think of comes from a scenario where we went from the PS offices, and in three words we were in another town, a few days ride away--And no sooner was the scene established than a fight broke out. It was jarring to the story, in my opinion.
Post game, I thought it would have been fun if while traveling via horseback, we connected up with one of the soon-to-be thugs along the road and struck up some conversation--and guess what, he was heading to the same house as we were--and guess what, his friends are now man-handling our PS contact. And suddenly there's that awkward moment of whose going to draw first, and the soon-to-be thug is standing right next to the party, and ...
The encounter is ultimately not changed--only where the bad guys are standing when the fight breaks out. But there is a much better transition from the start to encounter 1.
Or...
While traveling through the woods, allowing characters to make checks to see if they get lost or not. If they don't get lost, I would give them a better approach on encounter 2, where they would maybe see the NPCs--if they did get lost, the NPCs might get the drop on them.
Stuff like that.
But of course, if the scenario specifically says the NPCs need to be here and act like this because it is important to the story, I totally get that.
Thanks for your responses.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Your heart's in the right place, Grymore, and I love that you want to put some character and depth into the story (and it sounds like your GM may actually have shortchanged you compared to what the scenario might have offered, but that's just speculation).
But consider this:
Post game, I thought it would have been fun if while traveling via horseback, we connected up with one of the soon-to-be thugs along the road and struck up some conversation--and guess what, he was heading to the same house as we were--and guess what, his friends are now man-handling our PS contact. And suddenly there's that awkward moment of whose going to draw first, and the soon-to-be thug is standing right next to the party, and ...
The encounter is ultimately not changed--only where the bad guys are standing when the fight breaks out. But there is a much better transition from the start to encounter 1.
This seems harmless, the way it's playing out in your head. But the players aren't you, and they're not necessarily going to do what you're expecting.
What happens when the paladin detects evil and then they start questioning this guy before you reach the place where his allies are?What happens when the PCs then ask all the right questions and short-circuit the scenario in ways that shouldn't have been possible?
What happens when the PCs befriend the thug and spend lots of (in-character) time, so that it now no longer makes sense for the coming scene to still be taking place when the PCs get there?
What happens when you see one of the above train wrecks coming and have to work so hard to block the PCs' actions that now the adventure feels even more rail-roaded than the travel montage would have felt because the PCs had a chance to bump up against the invisible walls?
What happens when you get to the encounter and the guy who's standing next to the party instead of farther away crits a PC who should have had someone in front of him and now there's a dead PC and your local coordinator is getting an angry email because your changed the encounter and killed his character?
What happens when you foresee the above and have that guy go out of his way to attack a different target and the players interpret that as a secret ulterior motive that they spend 2 hours trying to follow up on because they think it's a part of the plot and now you have to rush the rest of the scenario to get done on time?
What happens when you see the above coming and have to concoct some way of short-circuiting that line of pursuit, without it feeling railroady again?
What happens when anything I've described so far happens and the players don't like it and they give the scenario a 1-star review based on stuff you added/changed, but campaign management attributes the low reviews to the scenario's actual content and future scenarios steer away from things the players would actually have liked?
Or...
While traveling through the woods, allowing characters to make checks to see if they get lost or not. If they don't get lost, I would give them a better approach on encounter 2, where they would maybe see the NPCs--if they did get lost, the NPCs might get the drop on them.
What happens when players don't want to get lost and so they use shirt rerolls or other limited resources on the survival checks, then later die to a failed save or other situation that their used-up resources could have saved them from?
What happens when PCs die or have to use extra resources to deal with the surprise round resulting from having gotten lost?What happens when the extra resources they had to use means that three scenarios later when they die from something else, they don't have enough cash/prestige to get raised when maybe they would have if they hadn't needed a couple extra potions of lesser resto because of the poison attack that happened in the last round of a fight that should have been a round shorter?
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This may all seem a bit pessimistic, but you're not the first person to think you're experienced enough to do things like this without the scenario spiraling out of control. Campaign Coordinator Mike Brock tells a rather sobering story HERE in which a GM with over 20 years of experience with nothing but the best intentions caused an utter train wreck. Please, take it to heart.
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Maybe they need to write better transitions and strategy into the scenarios.
That's what feedback is for. :)
As I alluded to in my rather "downer" of a post a little while ago, campaign leadership does listen to reviews. Be thorough, be specific, be pleased in the future. :)Also, again, it could have been the GM; maybe there was room for more vivid description of events leading up to the encounter, but the GM was of a more old-school "kick in the door and kill the monsters" mentality and assumed that's what everyone would prefer. (Which is unfortunate; a GM assuming that others share their preferences usually is.)
But maybe I just have to get use to the difference between home play and PFS.
It's definitely a different beast. There are things that are great tools for a home game that are actively detrimental in PFS, and vice-versa. But with your clearly "let's all have fun" attitude, I'm pretty sure you can figure your way through it. :)
