How I run it: Pathfinder 2e House Rules

One of the beautiful things about Pathfinder 2e is that it doesn’t require a lot of homebrew to get it up and running. For the most part, if you can think of something you’d like to do, the rule is in the books somewhere. Still, it’s not uncommon for groups to come up with their own house rules, and my tables are no different. I’ve developed my own list over the past few years, aiming to make play smoother and set table expectations early. Or, once, misreading a rule and then deciding I liked my interpretation better.

Medicine: Treat Wounds

Per RAW, you have to call out your DC for treating wounds ahead of time. The first time I saw this rule, I thought that you’d get the best possible result based on your training, and I played that way for quite a few levels before I got corrected by a player. I decided to stick with the rule, though.

It cuts out the in-the-moment hemming and hawing over which DC to go for
It still rewards investing in the skill since you can’t get a DC you didn’t train for.
It offers more bang for the buck, meaning players are more willing to use it.

Hero Points

I love Hero Points and want to see them used. I also hate remembering to give them out. RAW, you’re supposed to give them out when players do something heroic, but this has always annoyed me as a metric. I’ve found it leads to people who play support getting ignored (even though they’re playing a big part in those big hits for front-liners) and some players hamming it up in hopes of getting rewarded. Also, I’m busy GMing the game, keeping a dozen random things in my head at one time, all while keeping a poker face in place. I don’t want to keep a subprocess open dedicated to “Are the players being good enough?”

So, instead, I put Hero Points on a timer. Every hour, every player gets one. I don’t even bother watching the clock: the players do that. This takes something off of my plate at no cost to the players.

Recall Knowledge

One of the few places where Pathfinder 2e is vague is what information Recall Knowledge gives players. Post Remaster, this has been clarified, allowing the player to ask a question but not receive a numerical value, which was already a house rule for most people.

Except for me.

This may be my “Ears of the City” trauma speaking, but I don’t enjoy Q&A mechanics in most games (MOTW being one of the few I enjoy). I also play with experienced players who just want a chance to not metagame, knowing that the thing they’re looking at is immune to fire. So, I toss the AON entry at them and move on.

It’s a lot of information, so if a player is new, I point out the most important parts of the entry to them or if I know the players haven’t seen this creature before.

Yes, it’s a huge reward for one roll, but that encourages players to use Recall Knowledge. They’re less likely to bother if they have to blow three actions to get all the information. This way, it’s sensible to do in the first round, along with buffs and positioning.

Secret Rolls

Speaking of Recall Knowledge, let’s talk about secret rolls.

I know I should do more of these; I just can’t be bothered. To do them, I have to ask someone for their bonus and roll for them (so not very secret) or have their bonuses in front of me (when my screen real estate is already at a premium). Then, I have to keep my admittedly terrible poker face in place while telling them the result. It’s not a huge amount of extra work, but running a game is about managing all the little things that can eat up your attention and energy, and this one isn’t worth it.

Besides, I have good players who love to lean into a bad result. Did they get a Nat 1? They’ll insist that thing is true until proven otherwise. It’s fun to watch them play out the result rather than try to figure out if what I told them was true or not.

Activating Auras

Sometimes, a house rule comes less for ease and more because the GM keeps screwing up. Many creatures in PF2 have auras, and many of those auras are considered to be ‘always on.’ Except… I never remember they had them until combat started, and many times, several players have charged in and acted.

So, my players know that I only activate them on the creature’s turn, sometimes blowing one of their actions if I feel like the players could use some help (I almost always regret this since the players are generally fine). Yes, I could use the aura feature in my VTT, but I hate having a bunch of blobs all over my screen when I don’t need them.

Automatic Bonus Progression

This is less a house rule and more something you can expect in any game I run. This alternate rule is my ride-or-die. With it, I can stop worrying about whether players are getting enough treasure to buy their base runes.

RAW, it’s suggested that I should be adjusting treasure, but I’ve never bothered with that. As long as they’re limited by level, the power creep of having a bit more gold doesn’t seem to come up.
I also don’t adjust for spellcasters. I know some people do this, but so far, it hasn’t been an issue in any of my campaigns.
Because of ABP, property and striking rules are useless, so players convert those directly to cash.

Monthly games

I’ve written before about my love of monthly games, but they do come with some house rules of their own. Specifically, I assume that players rest between sessions, no matter what we end up on. Due to the time between games, it’s easy to forget where we left off or accidentally hit ‘rest’ on a sheet.’ Also, time is more precious with a monthly game, so you don’t want to waste ten minutes trying to figure out if we need to regain spells or hit points.

Rolling is in the open, using the VTT’s dice roller

Yes, even mine.

I don’t care if players can see the bonuses.

No, you can’t set up a camera to point at your shiny number rocks, so you can avoid using a digital roller.

You don’t even know what ‘pseudorandom’ means.

What the hell is wrong with you?

There’s often a Lodge nearby

As I’ve said before, I’m a fan of the GMPC. As a result, I’ll often hand-wave that there’s a Pathfinder Lodge nearby with NPCs ready to hire. I even use the Iconics since they come with sheets and fun backstories! They WILL take their share of the loot, and after their initial sheet, the players are responsible for running them and gearing them up, as well as deciding how to level them up.

And that’s it!

While I run mostly RAW, I fully believe in tweaking the rules that make my life easier or work better for my table. These are tweaked for a table of players with high system mastery and are good at keeping OOC knowledge out of in-character choices. They may not work for a table of players who can’t help but use the knowledge they shouldn’t have,

Population Generator 2.0: Now Online!

A few years back, I created a Python script that generated the population of a town, complete with family groups, jobs, wealth levels, and personalities. In the back of my head (and in that post, if we’re being honest), I needed to convert it to something that could run on a webpage. Well, here we are, a brief four and a half years later, and I finally finished it!

I’m somewhat competent in JavaScript, but I’m an expert at procrastinating writing it.

What it does!

The script was borne of the desire to have a town of people who already had names and stuff going on. There are a million town map generators out there, but I really wanted the people because my players always insisted on knowing the shopkeep’s name, ancestry, age, favorite soup, etc. I was tired of making it up on the fly. (Note: I did not add favorite soup to the script.)

The generated town is made up of families (a family is anywhere between a single adult to two adults and five children). Each family has a residence (ranging from ‘the street’ to a private estate), and every adult has a job. Every adult is given a random ancestry, a job, three personality traits, and a socioeconomic status (e.g., poor, struggling, middle-class, etc). If the residence is a shop, it’s given a name (easily my favorite part of the script). Then, we place the family in a ‘sector’ that usually matches their wealth level.

The tool lets you generate one family (displayed on the page) or a whole town’s worth, which you can download as a CSV (basically, text-based spreadsheet, which you can open in Excel / Google Sheets / Numbers / etc).

GO PLAY WITH IT!

The Nitty Gritty

What’s the maximum size for a town? Bruh, that depends on your computer. This computation is happening on your end, not mine, so you can make some huge cities if you have a beast. My machine didn’t blink at a city of one million, but that may cause other browsers to crash.

Genders are male, female, and gender-neutral. The latter is a broad category and is up to the GM how they want to interpret it for an NPC. It might be someone who’s gender-fluid, doesn’t identify with any gender, is androgynous, etc. In the same vein, adult couples can be any combination of same-gender / opposite-gender, and pairings don’t affect whether they have children. The Serum of Sex Shift exists, after all.

Children’s ancestries are based on their parents, though I’ve decided not to get any more exotic than half-elves and half-orcs. If the parents’ ancestries match, the children match them. If they’re a human + orc/elf pairing, the children are half-orc/elf. Anything else, the children get a random ancestry from one of their parents.

The names are pulled from all over… and I wish I’d thought to keep the original sources. Some appear to have disappeared, and I have no record of others.

Traits are pulled from a random page from MIT, and I wish I had more context for it because it’s an awesome list.

Population percentages are pulled from an awesome Reddit post. u/VestOfHolding, wherever you are, whoever you are, you are awesome.

Find an issue? Have an idea?

Have a form. I make no promises about how quickly I’ll address bugs and suggestions because I plan on shifting to other projects. Still, I’m always open to expanding the script!

Council of Thieves: Stripping it for Parts

Council of Thieves was the first Paizo Adventure Path to be released fully under PF1 (the ones before were for 3.5), and it holds a special place for me as the first AP I ever ran. I ran it for my home game over nearly two years, and the campaign is one we still talk about today.

While the AP has its faults, it also has some great elements that could work at any table. In fact, I’ve stripped it down for parts several times, and I’ve broken out some scenarios multiple times. Hell, I ran one scenario multiple times for the same people because they wanted a chance to run through it again.

If you strip CoT for parts, what should you grab?

Book One: The Bastards of Erebus

One of the biggest things to steal? The town of Westcrown. It’s a city of decaying glory, run by thieves with noble titles, kowtowing to a demon lord they think they control, filled with citizens who are scared to challenge the status quo. It’s made for a group of adventurers to come in and set things right… somehow.

Also, there’s this fantastic table for randomizing tiefling features! I still break this out when I need to generate a description for a tiefling on the fly. It has random cosmetic features and random abilities that could be ported over to PF2 reasonably easily.

Finally, there’s a dungeon just the right size for some low-level characters. If your players need to break into a hideout, the Bastard’s lair is just big enough to be a challenge but small enough not to run on empty by the end.

Book Two: The Sixfold Trial

THERE’S A PLAY! Y’all, this is the reason I wrote this post in the first place. The freaking play is fantastic. The premise is that a director wants the action on stage to feel ‘real,’ so he hires people to fight against real challenges rather than actors fighting against special effects. There’s even a real play with lines to read out!

Cover for The Sixfold Trial, featuring an opera diva in the foreground and a fight on a stage in the background.

If you run the play, I highly recommend running through the audition because you can end up with some hilarious castings when the fighter whiffs and ends up as the romantic lead or the druid accidentally crits and ends up as the seductress. Also, audition for the succubus part rather than having it played by an NPC since you don’t need that NPC going forward.

There’s also a dinner party, which can be a terrific set piece if you need your players to hobnob and get some plot hooks. There’s a system for impressing various NPCs, and you can easily change out the AP-specific clues for your own.

Finally, the Asmodeon Knot is a bizarre dungeon built in the Ethereal Plane that can be put anywhere since it’s built in the plane between planes. It has lots of unique challenges that are better solved by brain than brawn, but also some things that just need to be punched in the face.

Book Three: What Lies in Dust

Cover for What Lies in Dust. Shows a woman holding some sort of magic dagger. In the background, an adventuring party fights big cats.

This book has another terrific set-piece: The Devildrome. A famous (think WWE) summoner accepts all challengers and has been undefeated… until now. The prize can be whatever suits your plot best, from a MacGuffin to a meeting with someone important yet out of reach.

Also, another favorite that I’ve used several times: DELVEHAVEN! An abandoned Pathfinder lodge filled with haunts, mysteries, and traps just begging for a group of idiots to run in and check it out. I got several sessions out of this, and completing it felt like a real accomplishment. Also, at the end, the players had a fabulous lodge all to themselves!

Book Four: The Infernal Syndrome

As you get further into an AP, there’s less to grab since many scenarios are heavily intertwined with the plot. This book, though, has a vast dungeon that’s a bunch of fun and would be easy enough to put under any questionable individual’s house. There’s a mix of straight-up fights, social encounters, and traps to give everyone in the party something to do.

Book 5: Mother of Flies

Walcourt is a big ol’ abandoned mansion where several vampires have settled in. It’s well worth reading over their motivations because they all have interesting backgrounds and motivations, and it’s possible to do more than just stab your way through the mansion.

Book 6: The Twice Damned Prince

This is a good book, but I couldn’t find anything to grab from it since it’s very much caught up in resolving all plot threads. This is fairly normal when pulling apart APs for content: The further in you go, the less there is to grab.

Final Caveats

The maps… hoo-boy. These were made before VTTs were omnipresent, and people either printed them or drew them on flip maps. The baked-in gridlines don’t always line up, and the quality if you extract them isn’t great. You’ll want to upscale them (my handy guide here) or see if someone else did updates. You’ll also need to edit some of the images to remove references to secret doors, which are baked into the image.

As for conversion, don’t stress out about 1:1. Take a step back, look at the theme and level for each encounter, and grab your Bestiaries for something close enough. Even the “special” creatures only need a half-assed paint job to get by. The most important thing is that the fight is reasonable and fun.

And that they befriend the wee constructs living in Delvehaven. Just LOOK at them! How could you not adopt them into your party?!

A collection of creepy poppets: A dragon, a teddy that looks rough, a creepy doll, a tiki statue, and a scarecrow with a noose around his neck.

Gatewalkers: Book 1 Chapter 2 Done!

Over on D20Saves, I’m running Gatewalkers, one of the latest APs from Paizo! From the official website:

After they walked through that glowing gateway, nothing was ever the same. A band of characters become paranormal investigators to determine the cause of a global amnesic episode. Their quest takes them to lands near, far, and outside this reality altogether. Along the way, the characters meet fellow “gatewalkers,” defeat alien monsters, and explore strange realms touched by the Missing Moment. And when it comes time to learn the grim truth of what happened to them on that fated summer night, what then?

Warning: The first part of this blog will cover what happened in the stream, so there are spoilers for Book One. Part two will include my thoughts as a GM, so there are major spoilers.

Check out the playlist here if you want to watch the previous episodes!

Chapter Two recap: Through the first Portal

Chapter 2 picks up after capturing the rogue druid Bolan and his followers. The crew now had a name: Kaneepo the Slim.

Since Bolan was interested in only boasting and wasting their time, the crew set out to investigate the surrounding area to see if they could track down this mysterious figure causing so much trouble and who had made off with a valuable artifact called the Shadewither Key. This eventually leads them to a portal into the Thinlands (think First World but Drab), and they fight their way through various flunkies to take out the strange being themselves.

They release a prisoner (an uplifted hedgehog named Hubert), and together, they make their way to a set of Elven Gates that mirror the ones they saw back in the Material Plane. One reacts, and because caution is for losers, they jump through, landing them in a dense, colorful jungle. Progress!

The crew sees a city in the distance and opts to go there, arguing whether they’re in the Mwangi or a more colorful part of the First World. En route, they fight weird slugs, ford blood rivers, dismantle mining equipment, and avoid perfectly harmless mushrooms, finally making it to the city covered in telescopes.

A gaggle of elves greets them, curious if wary, and they find out they are all wrong: They’re not in the First World OR the Mwangi, but on a completely different planet: Castrovel!

SPOILER ALERT! 

After this point, there are major spoilers for players… INCLUDING MINE. So, James, Jorge, Ricardo, Don, and Daton: STOP READING. 

I MEAN IT. 

👿👿👿

The Good

The investigations early in the chapter were outstanding. They gave the players a chance to roleplay and flex their non-combat muscles. I also liked the system in the AP: As players earned “points,” specific facts came to light, making levels of success important. In theory, the rolls should have been secret, but I got lazy at the last minute and had players roll in the open. This isn’t for every group, but it worked for me since I love committing to a wretched failure.

The “dungeon” of this chapter was also a solid challenge for experienced players. There are many varied creatures and traps, and not every encounter has to end in death. The players get more out of the scenario if they resolve things peacefully.

They also latched onto Hubert, an anthropomorphic hedgehog, immediately, making him a party member right after rescuing him.

Some warnings

One thing about Kaneepo’s Lair: It’s meant to be done in one day, which can be challenging for rest-happy players. I didn’t realize this until the end, but the players assumed Kaneepo was “somewhere else,” so they happily burned resources. They were running on dry as they approached the last room, so I removed one encounter and neutralized another so they wouldn’t tempt death. The design isn’t bad, but it’s something to consider with your group. If they’re gung-ho, maybe drop a hint that Kaneepo is home or that they’ll likely have to finish once they start.

If your players are low on acrobatics, Castrovel might be a struggle. Not everyone needs it, but at least one or two people should be okay. I honestly think this is one of the reasons they put Hubert in the crew: He has a surprisingly good bonus.

Some of the moderate encounters felt severe due to the terrain. The players struggled a LOT with a stupid snail because it was in a rushing river, and the cliffhunters brought a lot of pain with the fight being in the air on a small platform. I’m not sure that I’d make them easier, though, because the whole vibe of Castrovel is “you’re in danger.”

GM thoughts

This is such a long chapter. It felt like two chapters if we’re being honest. If you wanted to bump up the end level of Gatewalkers, I feel like there are a few chapters so far that can be split into two with a milestone between them. Later chapters would have to be updated, but adding a level to encounters is generally pretty easy.

I also cut out several encounters. Since I stream this game, I try to keep things tight, which means anything that doesn’t add to the plot or the setting might get removed. If you’re looking to do the same, here’s what I took out of Chapter 2:

Shadow Guards Trap: The players were already low on resources and had already gotten enough information about what went on with Kaneepo.
The Looksee Man: They met him, but I went out of my way to make him non-aggressive. I knew the Big Bad was in the next room, and they were down to one heal.
Death from the Trees: They saw the creature since I felt like that added to the setting, but they left it alone.
Hilltop Ambush: The snail WRECKED the party, so I decided to skip this and move straight to the next plot-nudging encounter.

If you want to keep these, do so! I only remove them because I need less filler as a stream than if I were at a table with way more time.

One regret: I wish I had made more notes about Kaneepo’s motivations because I didn’t expect my players to grill everyone they met about what this dude was doing. Silly, I know, since their whole deal was taking him out, but I completely forgot to make some bullet points for myself.

As for the twist, the players LOVED it, and I do think they were genuinely surprised. Excellent work, Paizo!

As for Hubert, I’m trying to figure out what the heck to do with him. The books don’t offer a graceful place for him to jump off unless you count the unforgiving embrace of death. I’m talking to the players about making him an actual character with a martial class they level and control. Elite levels will only take you so far. Maybe a Beastkin Ranger?

Next Chapters

I’ve prepped half of book two, and… there’s a surprising lack of portals and plane jumping. I’m seriously considering moving one of the major areas (Skywatch) to the Ethereal Plane to add variety.

The “escape” that’s key to the chapter could be getting to and activating a portal that will take them to the material plane.
This could also explain the wonky nature of Skywatch. They’re in a reflection of it!
It could also be why the “call” from the major NPC of that book was cut off. The whole place left the material plane!

I’m still considering it (I have some time), but the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. It also gives me some leeway in the third book to add another plane or two!

How I run it: Respecs

One awesome thing about playing in newer systems is that you always have new stuff to try out! This is also one of the terrible things.

When Pathfinder 2e only had one book, I co-ran a West Marches. It felt like every other month, we had a new supplement that added so many cool classes and ancestries and heritages. At first, allowing players to have more than one PC let people play around, but even that became an issue as players ran out of slots or didn’t want to manage yet another character sheet.

The GMs hesitated to let players retire characters left and right, because part of what makes game dynamics work is shared history. We didn’t want to lose half the town every time a new book came out. Sure, retraining exists, but it only goes so far and takes time. What could we do to make everyone happy?

Enter the Respec

What if there was a way to keep PC history and let people play something new? We didn’t want players changing things willy-nilly (so no swapping out every feat right before a game because you heard there’d be a red dragon), but surely once every few months wouldn’t be too unmanageable.

We started brainstorming. Here were some things we considered that were rejected:

Only allowing changes from the new book. This leads to too much accounting.
Only allowing a certain number of changes. Again, accounting. We would have to audit character sheets.
Only allowing one per player. When we came to our final system, this felt unnecessary.
Reset on gold and gear. PCs had a wide range of wealth, so this felt like it would punish our most active players.

I’m not saying that these were wrong decisions, only that they were wrong for us and our set-up.

Finally, we came up with what respecs would look like for us:

Your history stays the same. All your old experiences and relationships are a part of your character.
Your gear doesn’t change. If you need to buy new stuff, sell what you have and use your existing cash reserves.
You can change anything else on your sheet. Ancestry. Heritage. Background. Class. Feats. Spells. ANYTHING.
It’s up to the player to come up with the story. GMs can help but aren’t responsible for coming up with the idea themselves.
No downtime is necessary. It just happens. If you want to roleplay it taking a while, that’s perfectly fine, but the timeline is up to you.
Every PC gets one respec per book that includes significant changes. So, a Lost Omens book without a new class or ancestry might not count, but a book like Rage of Elements does.
You can’t stockpile respec points. It’s one or none.
You also don’t have to spend it right away. Feel free to hold onto it until the time is right.

The reaction was almost unanimously positive. Players got to try out new stuff, GMs weren’t overwhelmed, and town history stayed intact.

Metaplot

The biggest sticking point was explaining why these changes were happening. Some of the options we ended up using:

A Big Event. We put together a big event a few times that helped explain the sudden changes. Fey BS was a popular reason, but we also used disasters or other major events to explain the sudden shifts.

Reincarnate. The Reincarnate ritual was another option open for players, though with no rolling or money spent. They ‘die’ and are brought back in a weird new body with new ideas in their head.

A Clever Retcon. A few players opted for a clever retcon of their own story, like an Elf who realized he was an Android with implanted memories.

Fallout

Whenever I tell other GMs about this policy, they’re skeptical. It sounds like it would utterly wreck games and the immersion, so I must have dealt with a ton of fallout each time a new book came out. Except… I didn’t.

I won’t say it was a non-event, but players were game to accept the new reality around their fellow PCs and even enjoyed playing it up. Also, since major books aren’t realized too often, players were careful about spending that respec point. They would be stuck with it if they didn’t like what they ended up with.

What I did notice

Re-engagement. In a West Marches game, big releases meant more people logging on and joining games so they could play with new toys.

Growing pains. Right after a new release, if players used respecs, you have to GM with a lighter hand. Players are getting used to new feats and abilities, so the first game might have a lot of long turns.

Changed tactics. If respecs are done to a dedicated group, they might take a session to readjust their tactics to new play styles.

Happy players. Not to sound too dorky, but a GM is always happy to see happy players, and players with new toys are generally happy.

Investment in personal arcs. This was an interesting one, but some players didn’t respec for the new books, but to update their story.

So, all around a win, and worth a little chaos!

Katie’s RPG Toolkit

This is going to be a very unsexy post about the tools I use or created to help me prep, run, and play in games.

Storage

Dropbox is a must. And it’s not just for storage! You can also create file-request forms for things like updated character sheets or backstories. And being able to share out links to content is huge.
Google Drive, especially Sheets. My groups live and die by loot sheets in Google Sheets. It’s also where we keep shared notes if someone is going to play note-taker.

Character creation

Hero Lab – I use this so much as a GM. It’s spendy, but it’s awesome for being able to create characters quickly. I can also create campaigns that share my content with my players, which helps us get on the same page since I can restrict certain books or check certain settings.
Pathbuilder – While I don’t use it, I recommend it for players who don’t want to use Hero Lab or if I’m not creating a HL campaign for that game.

PDF extraction

TokenTool – Sometimes, it’s tricky to get maps out of Paizo PDFs. This is my ‘always works’ solution.
Python – I found this blog post while trying to DIY a solution for getting images out of PDFs and ended up using their script as is. It works great! It has problems with maps for reasons I keep meaning to look in to but never quite find the time for.
PDF-XChange – If I just need one image, this program gives me the option to right-click and save the image. Why don’t more readers do this?!
Script for cleaning text – Sometimes, my AP isn’t in my VTT of choice, so I have to create the NPC sheets myself. This script removes line breaks AND puts brackets around the dice rolls. Simple, but saves me a surprising amount of labor.

Tabletop

My VTT of choice is Roll20 – I run many systems, and it covers them all. Also, I don’t want to worry about hosting, especially since players poke their heads in randomly to set up their sheets.
Discord for video and audio – It just works. I pop out the video call and arrange my windows so it’s always up.
Watch2gthr for music on YouTube – I only use this when the music I want to use isn’t royalty-free. Otherwise, Roll20’s jukebox works fine for my purposes.

A shot from the Dhampirs game, where I was the backup recorder.

Image editing

Gimp – Free and it can probably do everything most people need. I know it works for me.
Token Stamp – I could use Token Tool but I prefer the controls here. Also, TokenTool isn’t on every machine in my house.
Icons8 Smart Upscaler – An amazing tool for making your maps look better when zoomed in. I use this mostly with older APs.
Icons8 for icons – I originally subscribed to Icons8 for professional work, but I quickly found them super convenient for tokens and markers! You can recolor them, give them borders, and they’re super clear even when you’re zoomed out.

A collection of player tokens on a grid. — From our Extra Life game. I didn’t have time to set up bespoke tokens for everyone, so each class had a generic icon.

Music

I keep an eye on Humble Bundle when it comes to music. Every few months, they have bundles of royalty-free music that are made for games. These are great for when I’m going for a specific feel for a game. You’ll find them under the “Software” section, but make sure that you’re not buying a bundle for loops and sound effects (unless that’s what you really want).
When I don’t need super specific vibes, the music that comes with Roll20’s jukebox works perfectly well. Rat Battle and Baba Yaga will forever be a vibe.

Maps

CzePeku offers amazing maps that can fit so many scenarios. I’ve often come up with scenarios to use a particular map. Also, each map has variants, which can be super helpful in games for showing a change in location. So, the farm can go from day to night or from normal to bloody.
2-Minute Tabletop is the other map-maker I patronize, but for the opposite reason: The maps are more module and generic (but still so pretty!) so I can build what I need.

Note taking

Microsoft OneNote – I don’t use this as much anymore, but back when I first started GMing, this was my ride or die. I still break it out when I need flexibility more than structure. In fact, writing this post made me realize it’s perfect for an upcoming project…
Cambridge Quad Wirebound Notebook – The absolute gold standard for graph paper for me. The pages are off-white, so they’re easy on the eyes, and the grid is the perfect amount of contrast. I buy these in bulk.
Google Docs – Easy to use, if you have a browser you have access to it, and you can share the doc for collaboration. What more do you need?

So, that’s my toolkit. It’s a lot, but I’ve been building it up over 20 years, so the list was always going to be long. If you use something you think I’ve missed, drop it in the comments!

Prepping APs 15 minutes at a time: An obsessive guide

I run a lot of games. Like… a lot. I have a bi-weekly home game where we swap around who’s GMing, a bi-weekly stream, and a whole slew of monthly games. This wouldn’t be possible without three things:

Pre-written adventures
The ability to do remote games
Lots of organization

Because I get asked, I figured there’s no harm in documenting how I prep Adventure Paths. Heck, maybe it’ll inspire someone who wants to GM but says they have no time to pick up an AP.

Caveats

I’ll say this up front: I am an over-prepper. I know my self too well. Improv-heavy games wreck havoc with my anxiety, and I find myself unable to really enjoy the act of GMing if I’m doing too much on the fly. I would much rather prepare for a fight that never happens than have to throw one at the last second. Not everyone needs this level of prep in their life! Take what works for you!

Also, I prefer this to homebrew campaigns. I’ve done several, and while fun, they require a LOT more work on my end to come together the way I want. I still do run homebrew, but the vast majority of what I’ll run is going to be pre-packaged.

Why do all this?

As I said before, I get super stressed if I feel under-prepared. I can generally hide it, but that doesn’t make it any less unpleasant to live through. If I’m prepared, I can chill out during the game, drinking my tea, secure in the knowledge that I’ve planned for most of the zigs and zags.

I also have small chunks of downtime in my day-to-day life, but a lack of large chunks of open time. I can sneak in 15 minute activities with no shuffling around, but one “Oh, by the way”, and my four hours of free-time on a Saturday morning are gone.

Finally, I love maps with walls and doors and lighting and music. I like a pretty VTT experience. You can’t really get that if you’re cramming.

Before prep!

I’m in the market for a new AP. What do I do before I start getting into it?

I read the summaries for the chapters. I want to make sure the vibe matches what my group is looking for.
I check the Paizo forums for that specific AP. They can be a treasure-trove of lessons-learned, suggestions, warnings, and re-drawn assets.
I read the Player’s Guide. It’s tempting to skip this step, but there’s details in the guide that aren’t in the AP.
I brow-beat my players into reading the Player’s Guide. Seriously, players who skip this often end up screwed over later because they selected a class that won’t work, or didn’t invest in a skill that comes up all the time.

Let’s talk prep!

I prep in three cycles: Reading, monsters, maps.

Reading

I don’t read the whole AP at once! I know some people do this, and good for them, but I prefer to work one chapter at a time. I would rather start playing sooner than put it off for a few months while I get through a whole slew of reading. I’ve found that as long as I’m two chapters ahead of the players, I generally have enough buffer to work with.

I also highlight a LOT. I use three colors: one for plot bits I don’t want to miss, one for DCs that aren’t already in a monster/hazard block, and one for treasure. My goal is to be able to find important details at a quick glance without turning my whole document yellow.

An example of my highlighting. Yes, my pdfs are very colorful by the time I’m done with them.

Now, if my chosen VTT has my adventure pre-loaded, awesome! I’m mostly done! This is 80% awesome, but it can lead to me being less familiar with the creatures than when I have to craft them by hand. Still, I’m not turning down the time saver.

Creatures and Hazards

After I read a chapter, I’ll go ahead and create all the creatures. How long this takes varies quite a bit. Some books, I can grab almost everything out of a bestiary. Others, nearly every creature is custom for that AP, so I have to create it by hand.

I could just roll everything by hand, but again, I like to actually relax during games. So, I fill out the NPC sheets for pretty much everything in the book. Because I’m working with 15 minute blocks of time, I try to focus on doing the same task over and over. So, I might work on filling out sheets during one session, while another, I work on getting the tokens set up (like I said, I love a pretty token).

For making tokens, I use Token Stamp. There are other tools, of course, but this one being browser based means it doesn’t matter which computer I’m on when I’m doing prep.

Part of my token creation page. Top/Green: All done! Yellow/Middle: Needs a token. Pink/Bottom: I’ve only made a stub.

Maps!

Maps are the last vital thing I set up. I have a blog post on extracting maps without giving yourself a stomach ache, and I still stand by that method. This is especially true since the automated tools I’ve used don’t seem to like grabbing maps from the interactive PDFs.

To be honest, this part of prep goes the fastest for me. Even with fancy lighting, I can get a map walled up in ten minutes, and since my creatures are made already, it takes only a few more minutes to populate them.

The other stuff

If I have F’s left to give, I’ll pick out some music for ambiance and fights, and maybe make a few handouts. If you like music, I strongly suggest making a few playlists that you can put on randomize and forget about until the situation changes. I like having one for fights, one for general ambience, and one for town.

When running my non-modern games, I use my VTT’s jukebox, which works perfectly fine. For modern games, though, I’m usually leaning on music that isn’t royalty-free, so I used Watch2Gether. And before you ask, no, those games aren’t streamed or uploaded. If they were, they’d get a strike before I had a chance to share a link out.

How long does this take?

I know that “It depends” isn’t a very satisfying answer, but… it depends. A chapter with lots of maps and custom creatures can take way more time than one that’s mostly roleplay and theater of the mind. Also, careful reading takes more time than quick reading.

Looking back over my notes, it looks like two weeks per chapter is a fair average. This seems like a lot of prep, but keep in mind that a chapter is three or four sessions for me, minimum. Since these games are monthly or, at worst, bi-weekly, that level of prep keeps me ahead of the game.

Because this is only 15 minutes at a time, I can generally prep two chapters every day without having to block out huge chunks of time. Because I stop once I’m well-enough ahead, I’ve found I can have around six games going at once without burning out. Really, the hard part is finding time to play!

What am I thinking about changing?

My day job involves coding in Python, so I’ve been diving more deeply about extracting text and images more quickly. I also want to learn more about talking to the Roll20 API (my VTT of choice) so I can create creatures and handouts more quickly. I will always pay for an AP if I’m running it, but Roll20 tends to pick and choose which they’ll import. I know other VTTs keep on top of this, but I’m not interested in switching platforms for reasons that could fill a whole other blog post.

This seems like… a lot.

I mean, it is. And it’s not necessary. I’m describing how I do it, but it’s hardly how everyone preps an AP. It’s not even how I did it when I first started running them.

With my first AP on a VTT, I didn’t use the system’s character sheets. I typed in every roll by hand, as did the players. I have friends who will skim over just enough to get the idea of what the story is and then vibe off of that. I have other friends who won’t put down a map until the players ask, and only toss down a token when it comes time to fight the thing. Heck, I have a GM where all the tokens are circles with letters in them.

While it’s a lot of work, this is the level of effort that lets me have the GMing experience I want to have: Chilling out with my coffee rather than frantically trying to understand what a block of text means, because this is the first time I’ve seen it.

At the end of the day, you do you, boo, as long as it gets us more games.

Night of the Gray Death: A Pathfinder 2e Adventure

A while back, Paizo released a new adventure, set in Galt. I knew from the second I saw the promo text that I wanted to run it. I love high-level Pathfinder play, and I love it even more when it’s given a novel backdrop.

From Paizo’s website:

Galt’s executioners are the masked and mysterious Gray Gardeners. Held above the laws of the chaotic nation, these grim killers soak the revolution-wracked land in dread and blood. They behead the guilty and innocent alike with their magical guillotines, but few possess the courage to stand against them. Powerful heroes must infiltrate the Gray Gardeners and put an end to their reign of terror. As the heroes race from haunted crypts to the elegant opulence of an ill-fated masque, the midnight chime will bring salvation or doom to a nation.

For those who don’t know, Galt is basically Golarion’s France, but stuck in a perpetual revolution. This adventure leans into that hard, bringing together the paranoia of a state tearing itself apart and elaborate balls.

It’s also high-level and feels it. The challenges were no joke, but there were still multiple situations where a competent player can short circuit a problem with a well-applied feat. For me, that’s peak high-level play: Either screaming in terror or waltzing past dangers.

Our group

Our group was made of a group of PCs from a West Marches campaign. Initially, it was a polycule who was extremely extra, but eventually they had to call in back-up when it became clear they couldn’t charm or sneak their way past some upcoming challenges. The make-up:

Two rogues (one thief, one scoundrel)
A swashbuckler
A bard (controlled by me)
A fighter (called in later, because lord, we were squishy)

We played once a month, during the week, so the sessions were shorter than a weekend one might have been. I recorded every session, which left us with 18 hours of recorded playtime. We’re a fairly focused group when it comes to moving the plot along, so if your group is more chaotic, it might take longer to complete.

Note: After this point, there be spoilers, so if you want to play in this, begone!

Pros

There’s something for everyone! A large part of the game involves gathering information in multiple ways. Maybe the face charms the dress-maker. Maybe the rogue sneaks into the quiet mansion. Maybe the fighter goes and beats the snot out of someone in their way. There’s always a path forward, and there’s always something for everyone to do.

It’s also great to see high-level adventures. So many companies struggle to put out content for characters past the midway point. It can be rough for GMs who lean on pre-packaged content. There’s a reason we do this, after all! This was not only high-level when it came to challenges, but also concerning the stakes at hand. This isn’t about taking out a pesky dragon. This is about saving a nation.

It’s also easy to slot into any existing campaign. Your group (probably already well-known) gets called in. In fact, it works better if none of you are from Galt. You’re neutral parties that aren’t being closely watched by the Revolution.

There’s also so many fun NPCs. It’s honestly a challenge to fit so many of them in, but this just makes it appealing for me to run again.

Cons

There is one fight that can be a game ender: Three Lesser Deaths. It happens in the middle of the second chapter which is run hour-by-hour. Because of this, if the combat knocks out a character, they’re OUT for the rest of the chapter, which could run for several sessions. This one worried me so much, we pulled in a Fighter to boost our very squishy party. Nearly all other fights were fine with a sensible group, but that one could have been rough.

Speaking of, a high-level adventure can be both a boon and a bane. With our players, we shared a high level of mastery and familiarity with our builds. This is not a module for complete beginners. Experienced players with new sheets may also struggle at first, so don’t skip the easier fights in chapter one. They’ll need that practical experience for chapter 2.

There are a number of encounters that never happen, so you may end up prepping maps you never use. If that’s something that bugs you, consider reshaping the first chapter to guide the players a bit more tightly. Each path leads to what they need, so select whichever one seems like it fits with the group’s vibe.

If I were to run it again…

I would probably cut references to NPCs the players never met. This happens in the later chapters, and while it does add to the air of menace, it also confused them, thinking they were clues rather than ambiance. I would also make sure to hint that the Lesser Deaths were a thing somehow, so players could prepare. Otherwise, I would keep it as is! It’s an awesome adventure that had something for everyone.

Gatewalkers: Chapter one done!

Over on D20Saves, I’m running Gatewalkers, one of the latest APs from Paizo! From the official website:

After they walked through that glowing gateway, nothing was ever the same. A band of characters become paranormal investigators in order to figure out the cause of a global amnesic episode. Their quest takes them to lands near, far, and outside of this reality altogether. Along the way, the characters meet fellow “gatewalkers,” defeat alien monsters, and explore strange realms also touched by the so-called Missing Moment. And when it comes time to learn the grim truth of what happened to them on that fated summer night, what then?

Warning: The first part of this blog will cover what happened in the stream, so there's spoilers for Book one. Part two will include my thoughts as a GM, so there's major spoilers for everything.

If you’d want to watch the previous episodes, check out the playlist here!

Chapter one recap: We meet our heroes (?)

Several months after the missing moment turned their lives upside down, each member of the future party received an invite from a famous researcher in Lepidstadt, a sizable town in the ever-cozy country of Ustalav.

Each of the recipients had been trying to piece their lives together after being removed from the material plane for three months, and this seemed to be as good a direction as any. There are worse things than being research assistants in a field that isn’t yet flooded, right? And they might find what happened to them on the way!

The first mission was to investigate the druid town of Seven Arches in the River Kingdoms. The town had been under a curse, killing all elves who came there… until the Missing Moment happened. Just as the gates lit up all over Golarion, the curse was dispelled. Obviously, the two events are connected, but how?

The crew quickly got embroiled in the politics of the city, agreeing to investigate a rogue druid who had absconded with a relic called the Shadewither Key. Leaving a trail of naked, bound rebel druids behind them (they have an MO, apparently), they eventually captured the head rebel, Bolan. He taunted them, telling them someone named Kaneepo the Slim now had the key, and would use it to “restore the balance” between nature and civilization. Chapter One ended with the party making their way back to town, hoping their work in the town was done.

It was not.

GM thoughts

I said it last time and I’ll say it again: Good lord, this book is a lot. It’s been a while since I had players at level one this long, even in an AP. Looking at my raw recordings, we’re at about 10 hours of play, and this is with the group being fairly focused.

I’m also done prepping book one, and let me tell you, it doesn’t calm down. Each chapter is packed with custom creatures, maps, encounters… So much happens.

The good stuff in Chapter 1

The players had quite a bit of fun in Seven Arches. They enjoyed the NPCs, and honestly, I’m a bit sad that some of them have to be left behind, since the AP is clear that the PCs don’t return to the town.

The plot was also laid-out well enough so that you didn’t get the cursed “Why are we doing this again?” banter. They had a mission (Investigate the curse) and steps to take (Talk to people, check out the rogue druid, find the key) the entire time.

They also loved finding out Bolan (the rebel druid) is another deviant. It gave the boss fight some real X-Men vibes. Make sure to use that deviant power of his! To be honest, it was one of the scariest things he could do.

The less good stuff

This list will be longer, but they’re mostly nitpicks, and extremely manageable.

En medias res. The AP starts with everyone already on their way to Seven Arches, which felt too sudden. I inserted a whole session before this, allowing them to get the letters, make their way to town, meet each other, and finally, meet the good professor. It helped the team gel, which is important since things move quickly once you’re in town.

The big bad. It’s very easy for the players to figure out who the Big Bad is. If you have players who jackrabbit the second they get a sniff of “potential double cross”, play the professor with a light hand. If you REALLY think that the players will run, insert a different NPC and make the professor his boss. Basically, know your players.

The treehouse. This is an awesome dungeon! However, it’s big, and it made my VTT crawl without some major tweaking. I recommend splitting it between two maps, even if one map feels more convenient.

Also, there’s a bit where a druid pulls up a ladder in order to block the way forward for the PCs, forcing them to go through most of the treehouse, looking for a way up. If you want players to explore, YEET THAT LADDER INTO THE SUN. If it’s anywhere close to the edge, they might have an ability that allows them to get the ladder and skip half of the encounters. (On the flip side, if you want to compress the treehouse, leave the ladder dangling).

Night visitations. The PCs were supposed to get dreams that awakened their deviant powers… except the PCs don’t have much need to sleep on the road. This left one PC odd-man-out, and this was with me doubling up one night. I recommend either doing them all at once, or having them start the game with deviant powers awakened, making the dreams spooky, but not attached to any mechanics.

Next chapters!

Having prepped the next two chapters, I’m super excited for the team to start bouncing around the cosmos. Chapter two sends them to the First World, but with a twist. Rather than the neon fever dream of Kingmaker, you’re sent to a place that’s grey and strange. This is probably a good choice, because the next stop is Castrovel, which has a jungle that’s as colorful as it is dangerous.

My only concern right now is a fairly big one: Will the players go through the portal that leads them to the rest of the plot. I’m trying to hammer home that they have to go get that stupid key, so let’s hope they follow the plot thread without me having to kidnap them.

Thinking about the next West Marches

I’m going to start this post out by saying something up front: I am nowhere near ready to start a new West Marches adventure. I love the format, but I’ve really been enjoying having time to run smaller, more focused games. I’ve been chewing my way through some Paizo APs and Adventures, and I wouldn’t have the time to prep for them if I was worried about a sandbox game as well.

That said, I still find myself thinking about the next one… after all, it is a format I deeply enjoy, and surely, I’ll run out of Adventure Paths at some point, right? I might as well jot down some notes on what I’ve been mulling over.

The basics

The system, obviously, would be Pathfinder 2e for any fantasy sandbox. I’ve already written about how PF2 is well-tuned for West Marches, and time hasn’t dulled that opinion.

The world is robust, so there’s no need for me to do a ton of worldbuilding.
The math works for encounters, making it easy to adjust to pick-up groups.
There’s so many heritages / ancestries / classes to pick from.
It requires pretty much no GM fiat to run, making it easier to keep track of what house rules you have at a shared table.
The rules are all free and online!

Lessons learned and potential improvements

It would be pointless if I co-ran a game for almost three years and didn’t come away with some lessons learned. No attempt is perfect, and there’s always ways to improve.

Levels!

One of the biggest bugbears we had was dealing with level spread. When we started, chat would determine how much XP we got, and everyone had different levels of XP, due to everyone starting at level one when they joined. Level spread became a bigger and bigger problem as time went on, to the point where the GMs started to burn out trying to offer enough games for everyone. In our experience, you couldn’t have more than a three level spread before someone overshadowed the rest or the lower levels were in danger of being one-shot.

We eventually solved this by introducing banding, which worked, but I’ve since grown disillusioned with that as a solution. My other West Marches game (VtM V5) used that, but we eventually abandoned it to make everyone the same level.

Lesson learned: Kill level spread before it kills you.

XP!

In the last server, XP was awarded for chatting in our Discord. This made sense at the time, but also wore down mods and GMs who felt obliged to keep things active. After all, players who don’t get a level get cranky, and might just leave for greener pastures. This is another idea I’ll be swapping out. Some alternative ideas:

A flat amount each month. Easy to plan for, but doesn’t motivate players.
An amount for each game played, but given to everyone. Great for getting games on the calendars, but might cause some pain if we have low months due to Real Life.
A totally random amount between 250 and 1000. I’m including this mostly because it amuses me.

Lesson learned: Link XP to something that’s sustainable for the GMs, since they’re the most limited resource.

Play-by-post!

This one is tricky… Many people love PBP. Hell, I love running and being in text scenes. I’ll also be the first to admit that it can take so much time. Our intention with pushing more PBP in the old game was two-fold:

More XP at the end of the month
Allow people to roleplay, with the live games being more combat focused.

In the end, it kind of worked, but it also fed the issue with GMs feeling burnt out due to pressure to post. We created a ton of channels so people could post in set “locations” (think #tavern, #bookstore, #market, etc), but newcomers were overwhelmed by so many options. Also, not everyone likes PBP, and would rather roleplay during a game!

While I don’t want to block PBP (the people who like it REALLY REALLY like it), I think I’ll tweak a few things:

No creating dozens of channels. Instead, keep it to a single digits number. If channels are busy, players can always RP in DMs and post the result later if they want.
Disconnect XP from posts
Offer more games where RP is the focus rather than straight combat.

Lesson learned: PBP is great, but isn’t for everyone.

Time zones!

Good lord, this one bit us so hard.

If you have players separated by an ocean, scheduling games can become complicated fast. Most of our players were in the US, so games in those time zones made sense. This left EU or third-shift players without games unless a US GM was willing to run super late or super early. Personally, I didn’t have a problem running the odd early game on the weekend, but I wasn’t willing to do that every weekend.

I never want to tell someone they can’t play… but on the other hand, it’s not like GMs are paid employees who agreed to all-hours shifts. They’re volunteers who have their own lives, games, and need for sleep.

The solution for this one is tough, and one I’m still working through. “Have GMs in every time zone” isn’t feasible, and having GMs run at all times isn’t sustainable. Some ideas I’ve had:

Have set timeslots and stick to them. This way, incoming people know if the server will work for them.
Don’t set timeslots, but have core hours. For example, if the core hours are weekdays 5-12, games can start no earlier than 5pm, and must end by 12am.
Do nothing and hope for the best? Obviously, this one is my least favorite.

Lesson learned: Round Earth is a terrible design. Whoever thought of it should be fired.

Classes and alts!

One awesome thing about PF2? It’s constantly coming out with new classes and ancestries and heritages! One rough thing about PF2? The exact same thing.

Because games blossom when people bond and make connections, I’m not a huge fan of a revolving door of PCs, especially if players expect that they’ll be pulled into the plot quickly. On the old server, we decided to let people have alts, allowing them to have multiple characters (three, to be exact). Some people loved this, and some had trouble keeping up. Also, to be honest, as a GM it became difficult to keep track of all of the personalities. Classes weren’t as much of a problem as bodies. People want to play with their buddies, but if the buddy is a different level / same class, they may not feel like they can ever be in a game with them.

I still love the idea of alts, because they give the server flexibility and let people try out new stuff without dropping an old character. So… is there a way to meld to two?

My potential fix: Let a PC have more than one build.

This would be built into the story via some sort of magic device. Essentially, PCs would be gifted an artifact that has the “impression” of another former adventurer. How this plays out is up to the player. Maybe it’s just one personality and three different classes, or maybe they choose to have different “personalities”, depending on which class is active.

This is one of those ideas that either have people super excited to play, or who immediately aren’t into it. My hope is that it’s a mechanic that can add to the game without taking away from anyone who would rather just have one class. As someone who never got to play her Rogue main in WoW, I 100% get that.

Lesson learned: Not everyone wants to juggle three personalities, and it can start to tax the GMs.

Streaming!

I’ll be real: This was a lot of fun to do. No, we never had a huge audience, but players who couldn’t join a game could watch, and it was fun to clip moments. I got so used to doing this that I started recording (though not streaming) my regular games.

It does require set-up to do, and a machine beefy enough to handle a VTT, Discord, and OBS at once, but this is one of the things I would pitch to the server as an option. The only problem would be if a player didn’t want to stream, which I 100% get. In that case, some options might be:

Don’t record the game at all
Stream the game through Discord
Record it and post a link to the game later

I’m leaning towards the last one, since if you can stream, you can record.

Lesson learned: A record of games is nice to have!

Final thoughts

Okay, decent write-up, but when is the next game happening? A few months ago, I would have said “January 2023” but… I’m writing this in May 2023, so that obviously didn’t happen.

I would say it would be more likely to happen sometime in 2024. The itch for more loose games is growing, and I have a growing number of people I’d love to play with who can’t commit to a full AP. When it does happen, I’m sure I’ll post about it here!