Last session of my Dungeon of the Mad Mage game, me and my group decided to call it quits. Long story short, the players felt that the adventure was becoming too much of a grind. Not a problem, though, as I can just reuse the adventure's content later.
Now we're figuring out what to do next. One of the players wants to run an open-world collaborative world-building game, wherein everyone takes turns being the DM, and the characters are members of an adventuring guild. The only issue is that they want to use Pathfinder 1e, which I am not a huge fan of (the system is much too number-crunchy and optimisation-focused for my tastes).
I have been considering running a semi-west marches kind of sandbox hexcrawl campaign, perhaps set in Faerûn.
I know you guys don't have any insight into my group and our playstyles, but I'm kinda lost. Let me know if you have any unique/creative campaign ideas.
I only recommend this because DriveThru is having their GM Day sale for at least the next few days if not another week, and there are also lots of bundle of holding offers so the overhead for this wouldn't be much if you don't mind PDFs instead of books and boxed sets. But if it's D&D Burnout, and not just that particular megadungeon, I don't know if Pathfinder is the solution. You may want to do a quick one shot with any of a number of starter sets where you're playing a game that is skill not class based, so less of an emphasis on leveling up. Cyberpunk, Call of Cthulhu, Alien all have reknown starters that you can almost literally play out of the box and will definitely cover 1-2, maybe 3 sessions while you figure what D&D next if any D&D. Starter sets are great palate cleansers so the players are more refreshed when/if they return to D&D. Blades in the Dark is also quickly picked up and popular.
Basically, if the party has ground to a halt playing a mega-campaign type thing, I don't know if jumping into another campaign in D&D or D&D adjacent space (Pathfinder) is necessarily the wisest immediate step. Trying out a game that mechanically works very differently from what they're used to maintains the table while also trying something very different for a change.
Twilight: 2000, I feel, is a pretty quick to learn game too and has a heavy hex crawl aspect, you also might want to look at the Mutant Year Zero line, because I think at least the original Mutant Year Zero as well as Gen Lab Alpha consists of hex crawling survival/exploration. Bladerunner is popular though the starter set to me leans too heavily into the movies that you feel like you're sort of just resisting the movies, but it's a good game and the latest iteration of the YZE system.
I feel you. I ran out of juice for my current set up about two years ago, lol. Note I started on this next iteration of Wyrlde five years ago.
most of my players are at a point where they just want to start working on the new campaign, but I have to finish the handbook this month, so we have at least four more sessions for each sub-group — and I have to rewrite the entry level adventure as well since I can’t use the “starting as kids” mode.
‘that said, the starting as kids thing is cool to do. I use it as the entry point for the horror themed It stuff, with Pennywise as a demon, but I have also used it as the way to get them familiar with a given locale, and NPCs, and hear about the things they will later take on.
in both cases, it means you can go back to the stuff later — 3rd level, 7th, and 12th are my usuals.
sorry the slog bog hit…
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities .-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-. An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more. Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
I only recommend this because DriveThru is having their GM Day sale for at least the next few days if not another week, and there are also lots of bundle of holding offers so the overhead for this wouldn't be much if you don't mind PDFs instead of books and boxed sets. But if it's D&D Burnout, and not just that particular megadungeon, I don't know if Pathfinder is the solution. You may want to do a quick one shot with any of a number of starter sets where you're playing a game that is skill not class based, so less of an emphasis on leveling up. Cyberpunk, Call of Cthulhu, Alien all have reknown starters that you can almost literally play out of the box and will definitely cover 1-2, maybe 3 sessions while you figure what D&D next if any D&D. Starter sets are great palate cleansers so the players are more refreshed when/if they return to D&D. Blades in the Dark is also quickly picked up and popular.
Basically, if the party has ground to a halt playing a mega-campaign type thing, I don't know if jumping into another campaign in D&D or D&D adjacent space (Pathfinder) is necessarily the wisest immediate step. Trying out a game that mechanically works very differently from what they're used to maintains the table while also trying something very different for a change.
Twilight: 2000, I feel, is a pretty quick to learn game too and has a heavy hex crawl aspect, you also might want to look at the Mutant Year Zero line, because I think at least the original Mutant Year Zero as well as Gen Lab Alpha consists of hex crawling survival/exploration. Bladerunner is popular though the starter set to me leans too heavily into the movies that you feel like you're sort of just resisting the movies, but it's a good game and the latest iteration of the YZE system.
We haven't been playing DotMM for long. The PCs had got about halfway through the first floor, so I don't think it's burnout. I think the players just didn't really enjoy the adventure (I was having a lot of fun, but a straight dungeon crawl gets tiring after a while for both the DM and the players). I've been looking at some different systems for a little while.
The group also has a PF1e game we're playing through to get a hang of the system, mainly because someone in the group (the PF game's GM) has a very "more player options means a superior game" mentality, and whom I suspect wants to move entirely to Pathfinder.
I had mentioned that I would be okay with running Pathfinder with the stipulation (for lack of a better word) that the mechanics would be much more improvised than running it 100% RAW. For example, if a player wanted to trip up an opponent in combat, I would just make something up on the spot, instead of searching for the specific rule. But the Pathfinder guy didn't seem super eager so idk (we both have very different views on what a TTRPG should be. I believe the rules are there to support the story, whereas they think a TTRPG should primarily focus on the mechanics, like a video game).
Thanks for the RPG suggestions. I've actually been working on a classless system that needs playtesting, so I might run a playtest adventure for it. I've heard that BitD (or was it Shadowrun? the one Zee Bashew recently uploaded a video about) has a great roleplay system that supports improvised storytelling in a super fun way. Have also been vaguely keeping an eye on Cyberpunk, mainly because the setting is badass. Friend (the Pathfinder guy) is making a system too, which sounds super fun to try out.
But yeah. Thanks again for the suggestions. Will look into a few different systems.
What kind of game are you looking for? PF is pretty combat-focused, but there’s lots of systems that are more rp focused. I will say that PF and “just make it up as you go” are antithetical. It’s designed around a rule for every edge case, and based on the 3e philosophy that bad DMs we’re the problem with the game, so removing DM judgement was kind of the point of the system.
Shadowrun is really fun, but can have a steep learning curve. It’s classless, leveless, so system mastery is important for building a good character. You really need to understand what each of the various subsystems do, and how they interact. And when the time comes that your computer hacker needs to crack into a system, be prepared for the rest of the players to go get snacks, cause there won’t be anything for them to do until the hacker is done. Oh, and if you think the PHB is disorganized when it comes to making a character, well, you’ll look back on D&D fondly. I’m spite of all that I’ve had fun every time I’ve played it.
I feel you. I ran out of juice for my current set up about two years ago, lol. Note I started on this next iteration of Wyrlde five years ago.
most of my players are at a point where they just want to start working on the new campaign, but I have to finish the handbook this month, so we have at least four more sessions for each sub-group — and I have to rewrite the entry level adventure as well since I can’t use the “starting as kids” mode.
‘that said, the starting as kids thing is cool to do. I use it as the entry point for the horror themed It stuff, with Pennywise as a demon, but I have also used it as the way to get them familiar with a given locale, and NPCs, and hear about the things they will later take on.
in both cases, it means you can go back to the stuff later — 3rd level, 7th, and 12th are my usuals.
sorry the slog bog hit…
No worries. Like I said, I can just use the DotMM content later on. Maybe using a couple of levels of Undermountain as standalone dungeons and such, or pilfer the first couple of floors for unique traps and encounters.
I like the idea of starting a campaign with the PCs as children, but I tend to run adventures where death is a prominent threat, and it would kind of such to have a player spend several sessions playing through their backstory, only to die a few sessions later. That's not to say my adventures are super deadly, but just that the thought of killing off a character whom someone spent so long developing is a little harsh.
What kind of game are you looking for? PF is pretty combat-focused, but there’s lots of systems that are more rp focused. I will say that PF and “just make it up as you go” are antithetical. It’s designed around a rule for every edge case, and based on the 3e philosophy that bad DMs we’re the problem with the game, so removing DM judgement was kind of the point of the system.
Shadowrun is really fun, but can have a steep learning curve. It’s classless, leveless, so system mastery is important for building a good character. You really need to understand what each of the various subsystems do, and how they interact. And when the time comes that your computer hacker needs to crack into a system, be prepared for the rest of the players to go get snacks, cause there won’t be anything for them to do until the hacker is done. Oh, and if you think the PHB is disorganized when it comes to making a character, well, you’ll look back on D&D fondly. I’m spite of all that I’ve had fun every time I’ve played it.
I'd say my group is looking for a good balance between combat/mechanics and roleplay. Two of the players seem to enjoy in-character conversations and roleplay a lot, whilst also optimising and strategising in combat, while another player (PF guy) usually takes a back seat in roleplay segments and likes to solve problems via game mechanics instead of unique character choices.
As a player, I enjoy roleplaying and being in situations where in-world character choices matter as much as mechanical choices, such as deciding whether or not to take a short rest, or throwing a coin to distract a guard.
I'd say my group is looking for a good balance between combat/mechanics and roleplay. Two of the players seem to enjoy in-character conversations and roleplay a lot, whilst also optimising and strategising in combat, while another player (PF guy) usually takes a back seat in roleplay segments and likes to solve problems via game mechanics instead of unique character choices.
That doesn't obviously sound like something that would be improved by PF. Pathfinder is certainly a more tactically complex game, but if you want to balance mechanics and RP, you don't want more tactical complexity, that just turns a sloggy dungeon crawl into an even sloggier dungeon crawl. What you want is adventures that aren't dungeon crawls.
If you're looking at other game systems, most modern game systems try to be fairly light (5e is lighter than 3e or PF or 4e, but it's still pretty crunchy by modern RPG standards). This is convenient for RP, but does mean that the puzzle-solving element of combats is pretty limited. There are a relatively low number of systems out there with heavy mechanics, but if you have a problem with the slog in D&D 5e, it's unlikely that any of them will be a lot more appealing. Blades in the Dark is a fairly rules light system, Shadowrun is not.
I'd say my group is looking for a good balance between combat/mechanics and roleplay. Two of the players seem to enjoy in-character conversations and roleplay a lot, whilst also optimising and strategising in combat, while another player (PF guy) usually takes a back seat in roleplay segments and likes to solve problems via game mechanics instead of unique character choices.
That doesn't obviously sound like something that would be improved by PF. Pathfinder is certainly a more tactically complex game, but if you want to balance mechanics and RP, you don't want more tactical complexity, that just turns a sloggy dungeon crawl into an even sloggier dungeon crawl. What you want is adventures that aren't dungeon crawls.
If you're looking at other game systems, most modern game systems try to be fairly light (5e is lighter than 3e or PF or 4e, but it's still pretty crunchy by modern RPG standards). This is convenient for RP, but does mean that the puzzle-solving element of combats is pretty limited. There are a relatively low number of systems out there with heavy mechanics, but if you have a problem with the slog in D&D 5e, it's unlikely that any of them will be a lot more appealing. Blades in the Dark is a fairly rules light system, Shadowrun is not.
That's fair. I'm not exactly looking for a new system, though. Just ideas for campaigns.
The issue less about 5e and more about the adventure itself. This is why I'm reluctant to run a Pathfinder campaign; as you said, Pathfinder 1e is a hell of a lot more crunchy than 5e. Surprisingly enough, though, the playtest Pathfinder game I'm in has had an absolute tonne of in-character roleplaying. The last session 100% comprised of the party just hanging around the town and resting up.
Just thinking out loud via WotC's product releases, have you thought of mysteries or heists? So less Dungeon crawly and more about relatively tighter parameters "adventures" and then a sorta broader campaign linking those adventures where larger mysteries are explored more through RP and putting puzzle pieces from the adventures together.
Continue to thinking out loud and following up on another thread where I was prompted to write "GITH MYSTERY SANDBOX" in my notebook, I'm toying, for example, with using the Githyanki home city, can't remember it's name but basically it's built through the corpse of a dead god in the Astral plane ... and sorta Babylon 5 it. Githzerai city could serve a similar purpose but I think the Githyanki itself has mysteries to it ... or you could even riff off the Radiant Citadel, which I'm thinking of.
If I'm dating myself Babylon 5 was a darn good sci fi show in the 90s largely set in about a space station that was supposed to be a UN in space but the galaxy really had too much conflict for it to serve that role, but there were larger mysteries beyond the more recognizable political intrigue stuff. Bab5 and Deep Space 9 fans sometimes get heated since folks think the latter ripped off the former, but I think they both stand up pretty well.
The trick here is to keep the "big reveal" always hanging over the characters' rather than making the formula for resolution simple.
Last session of my Dungeon of the Mad Mage game, me and my group decided to call it quits. Long story short, the players felt that the adventure was becoming too much of a grind. Not a problem, though, as I can just reuse the adventure's content later.
Now we're figuring out what to do next. One of the players wants to run an open-world collaborative world-building game, wherein everyone takes turns being the DM, and the characters are members of an adventuring guild. The only issue is that they want to use Pathfinder 1e, which I am not a huge fan of (the system is much too number-crunchy and optimisation-focused for my tastes).
I have been considering running a semi-west marches kind of sandbox hexcrawl campaign, perhaps set in Faerûn.
I know you guys don't have any insight into my group and our playstyles, but I'm kinda lost. Let me know if you have any unique/creative campaign ideas.
[REDACTED]
I only recommend this because DriveThru is having their GM Day sale for at least the next few days if not another week, and there are also lots of bundle of holding offers so the overhead for this wouldn't be much if you don't mind PDFs instead of books and boxed sets. But if it's D&D Burnout, and not just that particular megadungeon, I don't know if Pathfinder is the solution. You may want to do a quick one shot with any of a number of starter sets where you're playing a game that is skill not class based, so less of an emphasis on leveling up. Cyberpunk, Call of Cthulhu, Alien all have reknown starters that you can almost literally play out of the box and will definitely cover 1-2, maybe 3 sessions while you figure what D&D next if any D&D. Starter sets are great palate cleansers so the players are more refreshed when/if they return to D&D. Blades in the Dark is also quickly picked up and popular.
Basically, if the party has ground to a halt playing a mega-campaign type thing, I don't know if jumping into another campaign in D&D or D&D adjacent space (Pathfinder) is necessarily the wisest immediate step. Trying out a game that mechanically works very differently from what they're used to maintains the table while also trying something very different for a change.
Twilight: 2000, I feel, is a pretty quick to learn game too and has a heavy hex crawl aspect, you also might want to look at the Mutant Year Zero line, because I think at least the original Mutant Year Zero as well as Gen Lab Alpha consists of hex crawling survival/exploration. Bladerunner is popular though the starter set to me leans too heavily into the movies that you feel like you're sort of just resisting the movies, but it's a good game and the latest iteration of the YZE system.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I feel you. I ran out of juice for my current set up about two years ago, lol. Note I started on this next iteration of Wyrlde five years ago.
most of my players are at a point where they just want to start working on the new campaign, but I have to finish the handbook this month, so we have at least four more sessions for each sub-group — and I have to rewrite the entry level adventure as well since I can’t use the “starting as kids” mode.
‘that said, the starting as kids thing is cool to do. I use it as the entry point for the horror themed It stuff, with Pennywise as a demon, but I have also used it as the way to get them familiar with a given locale, and NPCs, and hear about the things they will later take on.
in both cases, it means you can go back to the stuff later — 3rd level, 7th, and 12th are my usuals.
sorry the slog bog hit…
Only a DM since 1980 (3000+ Sessions) / PhD, MS, MA / Mixed, Bi, Trans, Woman / No longer welcome in the US, apparently
Wyrlde: Adventures in the Seven Cities
.-=] Lore Book | Patreon | Wyrlde YT [=-.
An original Setting for 5e, a whole solar system of adventure. Ongoing updates, exclusies, more.
Not Talking About It / Dubbed The Oracle in the Cult of Mythology Nerds
We haven't been playing DotMM for long. The PCs had got about halfway through the first floor, so I don't think it's burnout. I think the players just didn't really enjoy the adventure (I was having a lot of fun, but a straight dungeon crawl gets tiring after a while for both the DM and the players). I've been looking at some different systems for a little while.
The group also has a PF1e game we're playing through to get a hang of the system, mainly because someone in the group (the PF game's GM) has a very "more player options means a superior game" mentality, and whom I suspect wants to move entirely to Pathfinder.
I had mentioned that I would be okay with running Pathfinder with the stipulation (for lack of a better word) that the mechanics would be much more improvised than running it 100% RAW. For example, if a player wanted to trip up an opponent in combat, I would just make something up on the spot, instead of searching for the specific rule. But the Pathfinder guy didn't seem super eager so idk (we both have very different views on what a TTRPG should be. I believe the rules are there to support the story, whereas they think a TTRPG should primarily focus on the mechanics, like a video game).
Thanks for the RPG suggestions. I've actually been working on a classless system that needs playtesting, so I might run a playtest adventure for it. I've heard that BitD (or was it Shadowrun? the one Zee Bashew recently uploaded a video about) has a great roleplay system that supports improvised storytelling in a super fun way. Have also been vaguely keeping an eye on Cyberpunk, mainly because the setting is badass. Friend (the Pathfinder guy) is making a system too, which sounds super fun to try out.
But yeah. Thanks again for the suggestions. Will look into a few different systems.
[REDACTED]
What kind of game are you looking for?
PF is pretty combat-focused, but there’s lots of systems that are more rp focused. I will say that PF and “just make it up as you go” are antithetical. It’s designed around a rule for every edge case, and based on the 3e philosophy that bad DMs we’re the problem with the game, so removing DM judgement was kind of the point of the system.
Shadowrun is really fun, but can have a steep learning curve. It’s classless, leveless, so system mastery is important for building a good character. You really need to understand what each of the various subsystems do, and how they interact. And when the time comes that your computer hacker needs to crack into a system, be prepared for the rest of the players to go get snacks, cause there won’t be anything for them to do until the hacker is done. Oh, and if you think the PHB is disorganized when it comes to making a character, well, you’ll look back on D&D fondly. I’m spite of all that I’ve had fun every time I’ve played it.
No worries. Like I said, I can just use the DotMM content later on. Maybe using a couple of levels of Undermountain as standalone dungeons and such, or pilfer the first couple of floors for unique traps and encounters.
I like the idea of starting a campaign with the PCs as children, but I tend to run adventures where death is a prominent threat, and it would kind of such to have a player spend several sessions playing through their backstory, only to die a few sessions later. That's not to say my adventures are super deadly, but just that the thought of killing off a character whom someone spent so long developing is a little harsh.
[REDACTED]
I'd say my group is looking for a good balance between combat/mechanics and roleplay. Two of the players seem to enjoy in-character conversations and roleplay a lot, whilst also optimising and strategising in combat, while another player (PF guy) usually takes a back seat in roleplay segments and likes to solve problems via game mechanics instead of unique character choices.
As a player, I enjoy roleplaying and being in situations where in-world character choices matter as much as mechanical choices, such as deciding whether or not to take a short rest, or throwing a coin to distract a guard.
[REDACTED]
That doesn't obviously sound like something that would be improved by PF. Pathfinder is certainly a more tactically complex game, but if you want to balance mechanics and RP, you don't want more tactical complexity, that just turns a sloggy dungeon crawl into an even sloggier dungeon crawl. What you want is adventures that aren't dungeon crawls.
If you're looking at other game systems, most modern game systems try to be fairly light (5e is lighter than 3e or PF or 4e, but it's still pretty crunchy by modern RPG standards). This is convenient for RP, but does mean that the puzzle-solving element of combats is pretty limited. There are a relatively low number of systems out there with heavy mechanics, but if you have a problem with the slog in D&D 5e, it's unlikely that any of them will be a lot more appealing. Blades in the Dark is a fairly rules light system, Shadowrun is not.
That's fair. I'm not exactly looking for a new system, though. Just ideas for campaigns.
The issue less about 5e and more about the adventure itself. This is why I'm reluctant to run a Pathfinder campaign; as you said, Pathfinder 1e is a hell of a lot more crunchy than 5e. Surprisingly enough, though, the playtest Pathfinder game I'm in has had an absolute tonne of in-character roleplaying. The last session 100% comprised of the party just hanging around the town and resting up.
[REDACTED]
Just thinking out loud via WotC's product releases, have you thought of mysteries or heists? So less Dungeon crawly and more about relatively tighter parameters "adventures" and then a sorta broader campaign linking those adventures where larger mysteries are explored more through RP and putting puzzle pieces from the adventures together.
Continue to thinking out loud and following up on another thread where I was prompted to write "GITH MYSTERY SANDBOX" in my notebook, I'm toying, for example, with using the Githyanki home city, can't remember it's name but basically it's built through the corpse of a dead god in the Astral plane ... and sorta Babylon 5 it. Githzerai city could serve a similar purpose but I think the Githyanki itself has mysteries to it ... or you could even riff off the Radiant Citadel, which I'm thinking of.
If I'm dating myself Babylon 5 was a darn good sci fi show in the 90s largely set in about a space station that was supposed to be a UN in space but the galaxy really had too much conflict for it to serve that role, but there were larger mysteries beyond the more recognizable political intrigue stuff. Bab5 and Deep Space 9 fans sometimes get heated since folks think the latter ripped off the former, but I think they both stand up pretty well.
The trick here is to keep the "big reveal" always hanging over the characters' rather than making the formula for resolution simple.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.