[PF] New Pathfinder Game Need Help

[Lord_D337]

Hi all.

Ive been playing Pathfinder for a few months now and i like the system.

Now with that out of the way heres my dilemma, im starting up a game that is inspired by the anime .hack//sign in where the players/PCs are trapped in a game but dont know it. Ive done this kind of game idea before but that was with people ive gamed with and it was sort of a ad hock deity game.

Anyways, the big thing is that theyll go on a quest to find keys to a magic door that will be like a back door in order for them to escape the game and find themselves out in the real world again.

Everytime a PC dies, they make a new character but yet it will still be the same game user.

My question is this, how do i pass off rumors about the outside world and how do i get the NPCs involved into the rumors and such?

I was thinking of having some of the NPCs in the world be actually users who spread these kind of rumors about the real world and how theyre lives are going outside the world.

How do i go about this?

Thanks all.

[Pilo]

An old temple which tell a story about the real world might be nice.

[Certified]

An old temple which tell a story about the real world might be nice.

Temple sounds like it's all official and such. How about the the small insane cult that cries that reality is a falsehood, death, but a temporary release, and that life cannot be found in the world.

[Keneth]

Just because I'm a grammar nazi by nature:

Now with that out of the way heres my dilemma

A dilemma is a problem with only two possibilities where neither of them is (or at least seems to be) particularly good. For instance, if you're forced to choose between being slowly devoured by rats or being tossed into an enclosed pool where you'll painfully drown once you can't swim anymore — that's a dilemma. The vast majority of problems are not dilemmas, so do your best not to use this word synonymously with "problem" or "choice". :smallsmile:

Now to the matter at hand:

My question is this, how do i pass off rumors about the outside world and how do i get the NPCs involved into the rumors and such?

What kind of period difference is there between the game and the real world? If the game is a futuristic computer simulation, there could be in-game consoles (possibly faulty ones) scattered across the world, and people stumble across them by accident. If the game is some kind of illusory construct of a powerful entity, perhaps diviners are capable of getting glimpses into the outside world? There could also be players, as you've suggested yourself, that are aware of the outside world and are spreading these rumors either by accident or on purpose.

[Lord_D337]

Sorry about the dilemma thing, i didnt know what world to use.

Anyways, i like the computer console thing and it will be funny when the players run up to one and it turns on.

I was thinking for the world, to be like a computer game similar to World of Warcraft where players from this World are playing thru the use of a VR visor.

In the anime, the visors malfunction and cause the player who is playing the game at the time to be trapped in the world and cant log out. Its like their mind is trapped. Weird things ensue and stuff happens, read the synopsis on wiki about it.

I like the idea of a crazy cult saying the world isnt real. Using that idea, i will have someone, an NPC, to infiltrate the party as a highered gun, collect the keys and steal them from the PCs and take them back to the cult HQ and leave them for dead.

The rumors idea im so going to use in the game as it will be a major factor in the game. Like they happen across a conversation between two players saying something about how their car broke down and they had to get a new alternator or like how work was hell doing spread sheets on the computer.

Thanks for help all. These ideas are giving me some nice thoughts about the game.

[Keneth]

Sorry about the dilemma thing

Don't be sorry, misuse of words is just my pet peeve. Hopefully my imposed lesson will stick with you, and you'll be able to use it correctly in the future. :smallbiggrin:

I've never been a huge fan of the .hack series, but I've recently finished watching Sword Art Online, which has a similar premise. Maybe I'll check it out when I find the time.

I like this idea though. At the conclusion of the campaign, when the players find their way out, I'd probably seize the chance to make a dystopian futuristic world and suggest we continue the campaign with a different system like Shadowrun or maybe Cyberpunk. I can never find a group for those...

[Lord_D337]

Don't be sorry, misuse of words is just my pet peeve. Hopefully my imposed lesson will stick with you, and you'll be able to use it correctly in the future. :smallbiggrin:

I've never been a huge fan of the .hack series, but I've recently finished watching Sword Art Online, which has a similar premise. Maybe I'll check it out when I find the time.

I like this idea though. At the conclusion of the campaign, when the players find their way out, I'd probably seize the chance to make a dystopian futuristic world and suggest we continue the campaign with a different system like Shadowrun or maybe Cyberpunk. I can never find a group for those...

I was thinking about the same thing like something akin the NWoD or maybe a star wars d20 game or maybe a star gate d20 game in which the PCs are recruited by the SGC because of their experience with the alien device.

So many possibilities for a crazy F-ed up world beyond the game realm!!

[TheIronGolem]

Here's an important question: Do you want this plot development to come as a surprise? Specifically, are you hoping that your players will be as surprised as their characters at this revelation?

If the answer to that question is yes, be advised that players will see "planting rumors" as being only one step removed from a singing telegram saying "hey guys you're totally in the Matrix!". For better or worse, games have taught us that "rumor" is another word for "unsubtle hint", at least in regards to in-universe rumors.

If you're looking to spring a genuinely surprising plot twist on the players, I suggest the following:

1. Play telephone with yourself. You need to take the basic fact "this world is a computer simulation" and distort it slightly, over and over, until you have something that will make perfect sense in retrospect but will be highly misleading at first blush. For example, "this world is a computer simulation" becomes "there is another, higher plane of existence accessible only by learning the Higher Truth". That, in turn, becomes "the priests of our religion hold the secrets to ascension". And so on. Something like that. This is how you generate your rumors.

2. Drop hints early, but not too often and not too overtly. Don't go out of your way to make sure the players noticed that hint you just dropped. This urge will be hard to resist, but resist it you must.

3. Don't make the rumors (or the revelation that they foreshadow) the focus of the plot, at least not for several sessions. You want the players to think that they're doing a bog-standard fantasy plot. Those wacky cultists babbling about false worlds should seem to be harmless kooks you just put there for flavor, until some line of investigation that the players take up on their own leads them to check the weirdos out. Make sure to have lots of supporting characters who really are just there for flavor, or else the cultists will stick out like a sore thumb, which will tip off the players that they're important (which in turn gives away that their beliefs are likely correct in some way, and that won't be a hard guess to make).

4. Be fully prepared for the possibility that they just won't catch on at all. Or worse, that they'll catch on and hate it. Some players won't appreciate being told that they're "really" playing a whole different character, and that's a legitimate reaction.

Of course, that's all assuming you want to surprise the players and not just the characters. If it's more like The Matrix (audience knows what's up from the start and the real plot is about what the characters do with their newfound knowledge) and less like The Sixth Sense (where the audience isn't supposed to expect the twist and the plot is about setting up the Big Reveal), then none of that really applies.

[Lord_D337]

Here's an important question: Do you want this plot development to come as a surprise? Specifically, are you hoping that your players will be as surprised as their characters at this revelation?

If the answer to that question is yes, be advised that players will see "planting rumors" as being only one step removed from a singing telegram saying "hey guys you're totally in the Matrix!". For better or worse, games have taught us that "rumor" is another word for "unsubtle hint", at least in regards to in-universe rumors.

If you're looking to spring a genuinely surprising plot twist on the players, I suggest the following:

1. Play telephone with yourself. You need to take the basic fact "this world is a computer simulation" and distort it slightly, over and over, until you have something that will make perfect sense in retrospect but will be highly misleading at first blush. For example, "this world is a computer simulation" becomes "there is another, higher plane of existence accessible only by learning the Higher Truth". That, in turn, becomes "the priests of our religion hold the secrets to ascension". And so on. Something like that. This is how you generate your rumors.

2. Drop hints early, but not too often and not too overtly. Don't go out of your way to make sure the players noticed that hint you just dropped. This urge will be hard to resist, but resist it you must.

3. Don't make the rumors (or the revelation that they foreshadow) the focus of the plot, at least not for several sessions. You want the players to think that they're doing a bog-standard fantasy plot. Those wacky cultists babbling about false worlds should seem to be harmless kooks you just put there for flavor, until some line of investigation that the players take up on their own leads them to check the weirdos out. Make sure to have lots of supporting characters who really are just there for flavor, or else the cultists will stick out like a sore thumb, which will tip off the players that they're important (which in turn gives away that their beliefs are likely correct in some way, and that won't be a hard guess to make).

4. Be fully prepared for the possibility that they just won't catch on at all. Or worse, that they'll catch on and hate it. Some players won't appreciate being told that they're "really" playing a whole different character, and that's a legitimate reaction.

Of course, that's all assuming you want to surprise the players and not just the characters. If it's more like The Matrix (audience knows what's up from the start and the real plot is about what the characters do with their newfound knowledge) and less like The Sixth Sense (where the audience isn't supposed to expect the twist and the plot is about setting up the Big Reveal), then none of that really applies.

Thanks for those thoughts and ideas my friend. They will most certainly help me out.

As for the main plot, i want it to be a huge surprise when they figure out theyre trapped in the matrix. The whole higher plane thing you mentioned will be a good way of passing the subtle hint that the world theyre in isnt real and is merely simulated by something.