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Pathfinder is a tabletop roleplaying game made by Paizo Publishing. It is a rebalancing Dungeons and Dragons 3.5E, made for players who didn't like the changes made in Dungeons and Dragons 4E.
So what is a tabletop roleplaying game?
A tabletop roleplaying game, in my opinion, is best described as a cooperative narrative. Imagine your favorite console or PC roleplaying game. Maybe it's Final Fantasy, The Elder Scrolls or Diablo. You take on the role of a hero, usually one you create yourself, and explore a large fantasy world. However, there are many constraints. In a tabletop RPG you are not constrained by the limitations or technology of a video game. Imagine a perfect AI for every NPC. Imagine a breathing world where your decisions and actions have real organic consequences. It's the perfect roleplaying experience.
Information is relayed from the game master, who runs the game and acts as both the "AI" and the game designer. Sometimes people play with nothing but word of mouth, using their vivid imaginations to paint a picture of the GM's world in their head. Commonly, the game is played with a grid mat (with squares representing 5x5 foot spaces in the real world) and miniatures. The GM draws boundaries on objects on the mat to represent the physical world he has created, the details are filled in by his descriptions.
You can learn a lot about the mechanics of Pathfinder here:
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/
This is a complete directory of all the information in the game, completely free and available online. If you want to read just how the GM determines success, how combat is done, how characters are created and developed, do a little bit of reading here. For the newer player, all this info can be a bit intimidating and in my opinion, it's very easy to learn as you go along. Once you have a player character, all you have to do is make the decisions and leave the rest up to the GM. You will learn how things work and be able to take more control of things as you continue to play.
I'm interested in running an online game. There are a few tools available for this. One is MapTool:
http://www.rptools.net/index.php?page=maptool
MapTool simulates a gameboard. Players join the GM's server and the grid on the screen can be manipulated by the GM in real time. Chat is best done, imo, over irc or skype but MapTool can be used as well.
If you have any interest in playing, send me a PM or post here. I'm looking for a group of 3-5 players who can make a commitment to play at the same time once or twice a week for 1.5-2.5 hours. If you are a bit intimidated by the information, I'm gonna include 4 generic characters (pre-rolled) in the next post and if you want to just try out a premade character, that would be fine. In all likelihood, I will run a professionally written adventure or two to see how things go before I build my own world and implement my own campaigns.
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This looks really cool, i stopped playing after 3.5 but il have a look at this 
What is it like playing a campaign online? Iv never considered that.
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awww shit yea. I sorta maybe want to kinda do this!? I already have maptools installed and i'm pretty well acquainted with D&D 3.5.
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I'd be down. I like Pathfinder, but the group I'm playing with IRL are a little too into big numbers.
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On May 03 2012 01:11 PassiveAce wrote:This looks really cool, i stopped playing after 3.5 but il have a look at this What is it like playing a campaign online? Iv never considered that.
Dunno, I've done play by post once but this would be my first time using maptools or something of that ilk.
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Awesome coincidence, Helv. I've been jonesing for a game pretty hard and I've been looking around for an online group. It's just sad that I probably won't have time to play.
I'm still interested, but I'd want to know some more stuff before getting invested. You're apparently taking up the mantle of DM. Tell me a bit about yourself: What kind of DM do you consider yourself to be, and what kind of games do you prefer to run? For instance, I prefer games that have a greater emphasis on story and role play rather than simple dungeon crawls. There's nothing wrong with the latter, I'm just saying that's not what I play D&D for. What demands would you put on your players in terms of fleshing out their characters?
What's the difficulty level you're going for? I usually prefer games where I feel our group has accomplished something, overcome some odds and had some close fights. The threat of character death should be present without feeling like the game is being unfair. If the story and role-play is superb this facet becomes less important, but you typically only get those in home-brew games with veteran players.
Are you going to house rule anything? Are you going to allow evil or chaotic neutral characters in the party? How anal are you going to be about alignment? What campaign setting would we run? What campaign?
Any other bit of information you could provide would be equally welcome. There's always a few things to consider before starting a game, and I'd want us to be on the same page.
Edit: Removed dumb thing. =)
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On May 03 2012 01:46 Aylear wrote:Awesome coincidence, Helv. I've been jonesing for a game pretty hard and I've been looking around for an online group. It's just sad that I probably won't have time to play. I'm still interested, but I'd want to know some more stuff before getting invested. You're apparently taking up the mantle of DM. Tell me a bit about yourself: What kind of DM do you consider yourself to be, and what kind of games do you prefer to run? For instance, I prefer games that have a greater emphasis on story and role play rather than simple dungeon crawls. There's nothing wrong with the latter, I'm just saying that's not what I play D&D for. What demands would you put on your players in terms of fleshing out their characters? What's the difficulty level you're going for? I usually prefer games where I feel our group has accomplished something, overcome some odds and had some close fights. The threat of character death should be present without feeling like the game is being unfair. If the story and role-play is superb this facet becomes less important, but you typically only get those in home-brew games with veteran players. Are you going to house rule anything? Are you going to allow evil or chaotic neutral characters in the party? How anal are you going to be about alignment? What campaign setting would we run? What campaign? Any other bit of information you could provide would be equally welcome. There's always a few things to consider before starting a game, and I'd want us to be on the same page. Also, Pathfinder is a modification of 3.5, not 4e. Should fix that in the topic.
I haven't done much DMing so it's going to be a learning experience for me as well. I used to run sessions for my friends back in highschool but players were fickle and things rarely lasted past 15-20 sessions or so.
I far prefer roleplaying and encounters that make players behave creatively and intelligently rather than simply rewarding min/maxing. I don't want to forgo combat or dungeon crawling but I'm definitely not a GM whose goal is to go from monster infested location to monster infested location ad nauseum. I think dungeons can be more creative than just endless combat encounters.
Balance and difficulty and being able to feel that out comes with experience but I tend to design encounters with my players in mind hoping that they will find unique ways to overcome a challenge that might seem impossible. That's something I think will take more time GMing to understand.
After running a premade adventure to get a feel for the online play and the group dynamic I'll decide on house rules. I really dislike the template of Vampirism in Pathfinder and I also don't like the addition of diplomacy/bluff skills. Before I houseruled a disposition system into the game. Players would have to rely mostly on roleplaying and the disposition an NPC has toward them influences their likelihood to agree to something. The disposition was based on the charisma modifier, with most people have a disposition of 0. Disposition went 10 either way with -10 being hatred and 10 being intense admiration.
It was mostly a way to determine quickly how different NPC's might perceive the player but the responsibility was on the player to roleplay. I thought of getting rid of that stuff altogether but there are certain aspects of lying/diplomacy that can't be properly roleplayed easily such as body language, facial expression, attractiveness, etc.
Edit - I'm also really open to advice and player concerns because I'm not very experienced. I've been reading a lot of DMing blogs and stuff recently though.
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I'd definitely be interested. I used to play PF, but after moving away from the States, it's been quite hard finding a game as few frenchmen play D&D and even fewer have heard of Pathfinder.
I haven't played using map tools, but I'm quite familiar with the game from both play-by-post and IRL (though I'll admit, I am a little rusty).
It might also be a little hard to schedule between american and european time zones but I'd love to participate if we can figure it out.
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konadora
Singapore66357 Posts
-_- i thought this was gonna be about the bw map lol
tabletop games are fun, but unfortunately no one plays them in singapore... how sad
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On May 03 2012 03:20 konadora wrote:
-_- i thought this was gonna be about the bw map lol
tabletop games are fun, but unfortunately no one plays them in singapore... how sad
Plenty of people play them here, I'm just a hermit hence looking for an online group.
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Foolishness
United States3044 Posts
On May 03 2012 03:20 konadora wrote:
-_- i thought this was gonna be about the bw map lol
tabletop games are fun, but unfortunately no one plays them in singapore... how sad
Yeah I read the title and thought, "...nobody likes to play on pathfinder...that's why everyone calls it shitfinder" lol
Still cool though!
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On May 03 2012 01:53 DoctorHelvetica wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2012 01:46 Aylear wrote:Awesome coincidence, Helv. I've been jonesing for a game pretty hard and I've been looking around for an online group. It's just sad that I probably won't have time to play. I'm still interested, but I'd want to know some more stuff before getting invested. You're apparently taking up the mantle of DM. Tell me a bit about yourself: What kind of DM do you consider yourself to be, and what kind of games do you prefer to run? For instance, I prefer games that have a greater emphasis on story and role play rather than simple dungeon crawls. There's nothing wrong with the latter, I'm just saying that's not what I play D&D for. What demands would you put on your players in terms of fleshing out their characters? What's the difficulty level you're going for? I usually prefer games where I feel our group has accomplished something, overcome some odds and had some close fights. The threat of character death should be present without feeling like the game is being unfair. If the story and role-play is superb this facet becomes less important, but you typically only get those in home-brew games with veteran players. Are you going to house rule anything? Are you going to allow evil or chaotic neutral characters in the party? How anal are you going to be about alignment? What campaign setting would we run? What campaign? Any other bit of information you could provide would be equally welcome. There's always a few things to consider before starting a game, and I'd want us to be on the same page. Also, Pathfinder is a modification of 3.5, not 4e. Should fix that in the topic. I haven't done much DMing so it's going to be a learning experience for me as well. I used to run sessions for my friends back in highschool but players were fickle and things rarely lasted past 15-20 sessions or so. I far prefer roleplaying and encounters that make players behave creatively and intelligently rather than simply rewarding min/maxing. I don't want to forgo combat or dungeon crawling but I'm definitely not a GM whose goal is to go from monster infested location to monster infested location ad nauseum. I think dungeons can be more creative than just endless combat encounters. Balance and difficulty and being able to feel that out comes with experience but I tend to design encounters with my players in mind hoping that they will find unique ways to overcome a challenge that might seem impossible. That's something I think will take more time GMing to understand. After running a premade adventure to get a feel for the online play and the group dynamic I'll decide on house rules. I really dislike the template of Vampirism in Pathfinder and I also don't like the addition of diplomacy/bluff skills. Before I houseruled a disposition system into the game. Players would have to rely mostly on roleplaying and the disposition an NPC has toward them influences their likelihood to agree to something. The disposition was based on the charisma modifier, with most people have a disposition of 0. Disposition went 10 either way with -10 being hatred and 10 being intense admiration. It was mostly a way to determine quickly how different NPC's might perceive the player but the responsibility was on the player to roleplay. I thought of getting rid of that stuff altogether but there are certain aspects of lying/diplomacy that can't be properly roleplayed easily such as body language, facial expression, attractiveness, etc. Edit - I'm also really open to advice and player concerns because I'm not very experienced. I've been reading a lot of DMing blogs and stuff recently though.
Sounds good, I like your approach a lot. I haven't played Pathfinder extensively, and it's been a good while since my latest game (hence my jonesing for one), so it'd be a refresher course for me.
If I may be so bold (and heck, for all I know I'm preaching to the choir here; either way, please forgive me), I would probably recommend forcing people to play a good-aligned character, or being fairly lax in terms of alignment and how it affects your character -- especially for a new group where the group dynamic isn't yet known. People would rather play a good game and follow a cool story than argue morals and actions and alignment, and it's easy to get sidetracked if you have some guy who wants to be an evil asshole at every opportunity. Then you get all the arguments about how the good-aligned characters wouldn't allow this kind of behavior and blah blah blah, the evil dicknozzle leaves the party of goody-two-shoes, session ends and nobody's happy.
That's why 4e has "unaligned", which in my opinion comes with problems all its own, but at least that way you don't get these arguments and you can role-play the character with a little more leeway. Still, I'm like the one guy in the universe who legitimately likes alignment, but only if it's used as a tool instead of law.
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For example, say you've played a neutral good character the whole game. Gives to the poor, protects the innocent and helpless, aids the downtrodden, doesn't ask for much in return. Great guy. Then he goes and brutally cuts down a helpless, unarmed individual begging for mercy. A criminal and decided bad guy, I'll grant you, and one who would commit these crimes again without remorse if given the chance, but nevertheless unarmed and asking for mercy.
A good DM wouldn't immediately say "No, your character wouldn't do that - he's neutral good", and then just outright deny the PC the ability to do that. Instead, the DM would say something like, "your character feels really wrong about this, and feels disturbed by his actions, and has serious doubts about himself", which is a nice way of saying "this is kind of evil, isn't it?" This puts the onus on the player to justify his actions, threatening with a forcible change of alignment if he can't, or does things like this again.
And then the PC says, "he killed my daughter."
...okay, then. Fair enough.
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Suddenly, you have some good role-play on your hands, and you now have a character who, if played right, has a murderous deed under his belt, one which weighs on his consciousness... but he's still good, and strives to do good in the world, for himself and for others. He just now carries this one extra burden. Here's a neutral good character who, in very specific circumstances, murdered an unarmed man.
There's other ways to deal with this kind of thing, but the main thing to take from it is to keep the narrative going and offer some leniency to players when dealing with shades of grey, their character's emotional state, or what-have-you.
Again, I don't know how experienced a DM you are or if I'm preaching to the choir here, but I figured it warranted a mention either way.
Anyway, I've subscribed to this thread. I'll check it for further details later once you decide on what you want to do with it. =)
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Yeah, I'm well aware of alignment issues. I wouldn't want to tell a PC how they think or feel about the action but I would ask them "What is your justification, in character, for doing this act?".
Only once in a game, and I loved it, have I seen a characters alignment shift away from lawful good as he discovered how corrupt the government/law enforcement in the game world was his character became disenchanted with the whole notion of justice and started to make some really questionable moral decisions but was able to justify it all in terms of how his characters perspective had changed.
This is the same way I approach metagaming. When a player is making decisions using obvious player knowledge vs character knowledge I just ask them to justify/explain their decision in-character and if they are unable to I might disallow it if it's a serious case of metagaming or just take note of it and talk to them post-game about metagaming and try to give them some roleplaying tips. Ultimately, I think it's okay to bend the rules or deal with some annoying things until the end of the game for the sake of not disrupting the flow as long as the issues get worked out to make the game better in the long run.
My approach to alignment personally is to consider alignment in terms of action and not necessarily intention. A character who is responsible for the murders of guards in the city might believe he is loosening the grip of tyranny or a champion of the poor, but is still aligned in evil despite having twisted good intentions. I think the most frightening and potent villains are ones who believe they are doing the right thing, who consider themselves to be good. Considering that, an evil aligned character could have a place in a group.
For ex. a PC who has been hardened by violence and abuse in his childhood has no qualms about killing or using coercion to get his way, but his goals are for the greater good of society. He might relish in brutalizing his enemies or go as far as to slay the family/children of an enemy to get his point across but nonetheless his goals align with the parties in the big picture and he desires to save the world/stop the bbeg/whatever to protect his homeland, his own life, or something dear to him. Characters like this can be very difficult to roleplay but for me Evil/Good is really about boundaries and what a character is willing to do to meet their own goals, whether those goals are "good" or not.
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If you still have room for another player, I am up for it. I have a decent amount of experience with Pathfinder (I also have DM'ed a few campaigns in the past).
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Great response, and pretty much how I prefer to look at alignment and such as well. To add, you can even make Lawful Good NPCs into compelling antagonists. It's not even hard to do; just have them follow a strict code which has been set in place to provide the best safety and security to its citizens and is a force for order and good 95% of the time, but have it conflict with a necessary course of action which must be undertaken by the chaotic-good PC party to prevent war and bloodshed -- like the release of an imprisoned murderer who will only cooperate if his freedom is ensured, or the assassination of a prominent corrupt political figure about to knock over the dominoes.
You can even tell the Lawful Good character all of this, and yet he won't let you hurt someone who is under his protection - after all, you might be wrong or lying, and there's no time for him to conduct an investigation of his own. So you have to choose to go through him, this man sworn to protect those who cannot protect themselves, or relent, and watch innocent people die.
Like you said, characters justify their actions, or more specifically: Everyone is the hero of their own story.
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i'm very interested in the actual roleplaying while farming monsters doesn't interest me. combat is kind of cool but it has to fit into the game (don't want to be assaulted by 50 trolls while inside the king's well guarded castle (unless it's in the not fully explored that might be connected to an underground troll lair or the outsides)). i'm not interested in power builds either, trying to maximize your character's potential doesn't sound much fun to me. i don't know pathfinder.
i do know d&d though through having played baldur's gate extensively. i never played rl table top rpgs because all the friends i have who are into rl rpg prefer to run around in the woods with plastic swords drinking soft drinks and eating candy.
also, playing with doch who wrote the awesome space station and aylear who wrote the blogpost that made me promptly install chrono trigger would be kinda cool and i'm sure the rest of you are cool too!
i think that people make evil alignment a little too simple. in my opinion, evil isn't going around kicking every kitten you see. you can be evil in other very much more devious ways. imagine i find my prince dressed in fancy clothes with golden rings on each of his fingers in the woods, having been attacked by wolves. i'm evil and i'm going to help him. i think he'll reward me with gold and i'm just after the money. maybe i'll even hold him hostage for a ransom if that's a possibility for me, it probably isn't if i meet some of the townspeople who know both me and him on my way to my cabin, but if not then i can ransom him and flee the place. and of course i'd feel horrible if i just help him and then it turns out that nobody is going to reward me for it with nothing but a "you just did your duty, simple huntsman of the woods". people would probably complain about an evil character helping him when he could just kill him and take his stuff, but evil should be able to think more than 2 seconds into the future.
evil partying up with good characters shouldn't be a problem either, they could still be maximizing their own gain. imagine you have to go explore a dungeon and you need some help, why not party up with good characters? should lead to very interesting role play. paladins farming goblins would be quite boring. in my opinion evil can be a lot more pragmatic than just kicking every puppy you see and freaking out when that's not a possibility.
i'm not saying that alignment shouldn't be a factor just that people sometimes make it too simple in my opinion
the same with good characters, they should be able to have evil flaws like being a kleptomaniac or something. kleptomaniacs are not evil. they're probably really troubled and can't sleep at night and have to volunteer for red cross all the time because of what they're doing.
tl;dr i'm also subscribing hopefully i'll have time
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I just need 2 more for the group!
atenthirtyone and jubhub are in. witch/oracle and fighter/paladin respectively, so if you're thinking of a role keep that in mind.
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If anyone else can commit to a weekday around 8-10 EST that would be fantastic. There is a major timezone issue in the group right now and I'm not sure it will be able to be resolved and I really want to move forward with it so if anyone wants to play or see what it's about, please PM me or reply.
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As a big fan of computer RPGs I've always wanted to get into these tabletop games. If you have room for a newbie I'd love to play. If you'd rather have more experienced players though, I understand. No hard feelings.
I live on the east coast so that time frame works for me.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0e/Pathfinder_RPG_Core_Rulebook_cover.jpeg)
