Playing a "Golarion Cinematic Universe"

[Archpaladin Zousha]

I'm not sure if this should go in this forum, or in the 3.5/Pathfinder board specifically, since it's not really a rules-based question. If I've posted here in error, please let me know so I may ask for it to be moved. Here goes...

A number of the games I'm in lately on the Paizo boards have been struggling, and it's gotten me worried that my dream of setting up a "Zousha's Golarion Cinematic Universe" headcanon kind of thing through playing in play-by-posts there, with elements and easter-eggs from one Adventure Path popping up in other ones, whether or not the APs are even connected directly, is going to fall apart unless I GM the APs myself, but that seems so overwhelming and if I GM, I can't have a PC, and I have so many good character ideas that I feel fit the narratives of the APs nearly perfectly...so I feel stuck, and I feel like time is running out as the First Edition of the game is coming to a close, there are over 20 APs now and I haven't even played through ONE!

Sure, many other players may have ideas similar to mine, but if I try to run Carrion Crown, no one else will come up with Lorant Endronil. If I try to run Wrath of the Righteous, no one else will come up with Arloric Dziergas-Highbough. Plus GMing is something that REALLY scares me, as the GMs I've played under have been great, doing ENORMOUS amounts of work to make the APs fun and interesting, and yet many of them have STILL gotten burned out by the end of the first book or the beginning of the second book. And there's the fact that there's just so...much...canon, so...much...game that frankly it feels more overwhelming even than GMing in the first place, and that I'm setting myself up with impossible expectations.

So what should I do? Am I such a control freak that I don't trust other players to interpret and analyze the game's setting to the extent I have? Am I overthinking this, sounding too much like this?

NSFW Warning: Swearing (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Glfe6UeXQ)

[JeenLeen]

Your post gave me a neat idea.

Many cinematic systems are relatively rules-light. What if you tried to use a more narrative/cinematic system but in the Pathfinder Golarion setting?
I find d20-based games to be more such taxing as a GM and a player due to all the math. I don't know if that means it's necessarily more likely to lead to GM burnout, but it might contribute. Perhaps you could put together some games using a lighter system, so that you can focus on how different aspects tie-in together?

One poster here, Grod the Giant, has his game Stars. You might find it useful. Although it's not like D&D, it has some 'memories' of Mutants & Masterminds, which is based mostly on D&D d20 mechanics. I ran a game in it once, and it went pretty well.



Sure, many other players may have ideas similar to mine, but if I try to run Carrion Crown, no one else will come up with Lorant Endronil. If I try to run Wrath of the Righteous, no one else will come up with Arloric Dziergas-Highbough. Plus GMing is something that REALLY scares me, as the GMs I've played under have been great, doing ENORMOUS amounts of work to make the APs fun and interesting, and yet many of them have STILL gotten burned out by the end of the first book or the beginning of the second book. And there's the fact that there's just so...much...canon, so...much...game that frankly it feels more overwhelming even than GMing in the first place, and that I'm setting myself up with impossible expectations.

So what should I do? Am I such a control freak that I don't trust other players to interpret and analyze the game's setting to the extent I have? Am I overthinking this, sounding too much like this?


Eh, maybe? But I mean that light-heartedly.

I reckon many players don't care about the lore but want a good game. Many/most probably care about the lore, but only insofar as it supports the current game. I can really get your perspective, as I'd had it for other settings, but it probably is unusual.

But I think you could GM something and it still be "fun and interesting" without all the canon being perfect. Most probably won't notice or care and, if they do note a contradiction, admit it and say sorry and move on, with a minor retcon if it doesn't ruin the game.

You might also enjoy taking a series of modules and linking them together by a common plot, basically making your own AP out of modules. I started the legwork for that once with Pathfinder, and my GM did something like that in 5e, and it seemed to work okay-ish (though we both stopped pretty early in the process due to real life stuff.)

[Neknoh]

You are thinking too much like WB, when you should be thinking like Marvelstudios.

It's a neat idea, but GM:ing an adventure path in text-based is an absolutely massive undertaking that is going to take years for each AP.

This means that rather than to try to force a shared universe now, now, now! You should spend a few years getting DM's together that share your vision and having them DM different adventure paths, all of them their own stories with only small Easter eggs from the others, or maybe items if the AP's take place in different time periods.

Finding Ameiko's lute hanging on the wall of the Rusty Dragon Inn some 200 years after Rise of the Runelords would be something like that.

But it's going to take a lot of time and setup. Slow down and play and make sure to talk to DM's to get them to play along with the idea. The MCU had Kevin Feigie for this and tonnes of directors to aid him.

It's a big dream and big dreams take a lot of work.

Eventually, once all the campaigns are settled, you are going to need to get all the players back together for one massive mega campaign that acts as the capstone of all of it.

Because without that type of crossover, you're simply playing in the same campaign world, which a lot of the books are already set in.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

You are thinking too much like WB, when you should be thinking like Marvelstudios.

It's a neat idea, but GM:ing an adventure path in text-based is an absolutely massive undertaking that is going to take years for each AP.

This means that rather than to try to force a shared universe now, now, now! You should spend a few years getting DM's together that share your vision and having them DM different adventure paths, all of them their own stories with only small Easter eggs from the others, or maybe items if the AP's take place in different time periods.

Finding Ameiko's lute hanging on the wall of the Rusty Dragon Inn some 200 years after Rise of the Runelords would be something like that.

But it's going to take a lot of time and setup. Slow down and play and make sure to talk to DM's to get them to play along with the idea. The MCU had Kevin Feigie for this and tonnes of directors to aid him.

It's a big dream and big dreams take a lot of work.

Eventually, once all the campaigns are settled, you are going to need to get all the players back together for one massive mega campaign that acts as the capstone of all of it.

Because without that type of crossover, you're simply playing in the same campaign world, which a lot of the books are already set in.
Well, ultimately the goal was to establish a "canon" of the APs for myself so I can then create my own adventures in Golarion without worrying about tripping over something from the APs, especially in places like Ustalav, Cheliax and Varisia, where multiple APs take place.

As for the time concern...it's more about my own mortality and stuff. I just turned 30 last year, and several of the APs I've played in have gone on for years and I just sort of worry I'm going to be dead of old age before I get a chance to play in Golarion without the APs and novels and PFS modules and the video game getting in the way.

[Neknoh]

Nobody is going to have played them all, you can pretty securely do your thing without risk of trampling on others.

Another option, if you really want to set up your own game in Golarion, is to read the other books, it'll take time, but be a lot quicker than playing through them.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Nobody is going to have played them all, you can pretty securely do your thing without risk of trampling on others.
Maybe, but say I wanted to play a game set in Ustalav after the events of Carrion Crown. Players gravitating towards that would be familiar with that part of the setting and may have even played Carrion Crown themselves. They're likely going to want to know who the heroes of that AP were in this game, as it's fairly recent history and thus the Ustalav they're in is a different one than one where the AP hasn't taken place, and if I set it before the AP takes place, there's a chance they might chase a plot thread that's IN Carrion Crown, and in the event that happens I obviously can't tell them "No, you're not taking THAT plot hook." That's bad GMing.

Another option, if you really want to set up your own game in Golarion, is to read the other books, it'll take time, but be a lot quicker than playing through them.
Yeah, but a lot of these books are GAME books (at least as far as the APs are concerned). They need to be PLAYED, otherwise I've wasted my money for years! :smallsigh:

[Florian]

Why should anyone care for an AP they did not play themselves? The Runelords trilogy is already a bit surreal because of the assumption that certain events have happened in a certain way, with Return actually using the "Sihedron Heroes" as a direct reference to a previous party. Not so cool when you're not playing the APs with the same group which can recognize the nod there. Personally, I really do prefer a static Golarion, perpetually set at the same year.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Well, I do. I'm a junkie for setting lore, so I try to learn more about everything in the setting so my creations fit as seamlessly into it as possible.

[the_david]

I think you want something that's a bit more sandboxy/westmarches? I'd say you'd have to pick a region and start from there. Maybe the adventure finder can help. Say you'd start in Sandpoint with Rise of the Runelords. You can then move on to Jade Regent, or you could try the We be Goblins series and add NPC's from Sandpoint. If you want to improvize a little bit you could start with the goblin raid in Burnt Offerings from the point of view of the goblins, followed by the Rise of the Runelords campaign. Your players will be shocked when they realize they rampaged through there own town.

[Rynjin]

Well, I do. I'm a junkie for setting lore, so I try to learn more about everything in the setting so my creations fit as seamlessly into it as possible.

From the OP and this, this might be the core of your problem.

Golarion isn't the Forgotten Realms, and one of its major advantages over that setting is the looser canon; only some APs are assumed to have taken place, and then only in regards to their sequels (Shattered Star as a sequel to Runelords, Crimson Throne, and Second Darkness, for instance).

This is an intentional setting choice specifically made to make GMing easier for people like you, and make writing APs easier without constantly being constrained by all the ones that happened before.

Mind you, most of them are not mutually exclusive. And all are assume to happen around the same time, so the easiest way to do this is by having players hear rumors from other places as the game goes on. If you're running Skull and Shackles for instance, maybe have players start hearing tales of the Whispering Tyrant's defeat around book 3 (S&S takes place over a much longer time period than most APs). That kind of thing.

You can also come up with your own loose timeline of events. Most APs work no matter when you set them on the Golarion timeline; the history has enough gaps that any AP or module, with few exceptions, can be shifted back up to a couple of hundred years with no issue, and into the future who knows HOW long? The only AP I know of with a "canon" start point is Reign of Winter; it coincides with a real life year on Earth, and the Golarion dating system does have a canon conversion to those real life years.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

From the OP and this, this might be the core of your problem.

Golarion isn't the Forgotten Realms, and one of its major advantages over that setting is the looser canon; only some APs are assumed to have taken place, and then only in regards to their sequels (Shattered Star as a sequel to Runelords, Crimson Throne, and Second Darkness, for instance).

This is an intentional setting choice specifically made to make GMing easier for people like you, and make writing APs easier without constantly being constrained by all the ones that happened before.

Mind you, most of them are not mutually exclusive. And all are assume to happen around the same time, so the easiest way to do this is by having players hear rumors from other places as the game goes on. If you're running Skull and Shackles for instance, maybe have players start hearing tales of the Whispering Tyrant's defeat around book 3 (S&S takes place over a much longer time period than most APs). That kind of thing.

You can also come up with your own loose timeline of events. Most APs work no matter when you set them on the Golarion timeline; the history has enough gaps that any AP or module, with few exceptions, can be shifted back up to a couple of hundred years with no issue, and into the future who knows HOW long? The only AP I know of with a "canon" start point is Reign of Winter; it coincides with a real life year on Earth, and the Golarion dating system does have a canon conversion to those real life years.
I sort of felt that way for a while, but then I started seeing stuff from PFS modules being mentioned in Adventure Paths and Campaign Setting books, implying a developing metafiction that I thought wasn't happening with Pathfinder:

Things like the Blakros family, the Hao Jin Tapestry and RUNELORD KRUNE BEING KILLED!
I thought PFS could easily be skipped because none of it would impact the wider setting, but now I feel there's an entire section of the lore I've missed out on, and I can't go back and play that out because I don't have PFS characters in the right factions since some of them have been discontinued and I can't purchase some of them because I don't have GM credits, and no one's going to want to play them out with me because the modules are years old and no one would get PFS credit for it, so there's no incentive! As a result, I feel like an entire part of the lore is barred from me, like the things above just happened off-screen! :smallfurious:

[Thrudd]

So let me see if I understand - you have played part-way through some APs, as a player, not the GM. You want to then take the characters you used in these APs (which never officially finished, because play-by-post is worthless), and have some other GM consider them as part of a "canon" continuity, and have your old characters pop up in other games, and refer to the events of the other games you played in. So that you can consider all the Pathfinder games you played in and all the characters you invented for them as part of a single Golarion continuity - even though presumably these games are run by different GMs that aren't communicating or connected to each other, and don't know the characters or how the other GM's AP's turned out (if they ever finish at all).

This is a no-win scenario, you're asking the impossible. In an RPG like this a shared, ongoing, persistent setting can't really exist. They can try to establish an ongoing "metafiction", like old World of Darkness did. But when published meta-fiction comes into contact with people actually playing the game, it goes out the window. It's pointless, since every time they expand the "canon" and advance the official timeline of the setting, the activities of everyone that has been playing APs and inventing their own adventures is gone out the window. There is no shared setting. Every group has their own version of the setting. It doesn't matter whether they've analyzed and studied the published material as thoroughly as you - every GM still invents their own world, some will match the publications more closely than others.

If you want to be a player in a published AP and embody your perfect character, then just play the AP. Of course some other GM isn't going to use NPCs that you thought up or follow some specific background lore that you invented, or include the results and characters of another campaign you played or ran previously- that's a ridiculous thing to expect.

If you want to run a long term campaign and connect a bunch of AP's in a huge, epic ongoing story, you can totally do that. What would stop you? And when you're done with published APs, create your own that further expands the lore of Golarion and includes NPCs you've invented. Why wouldn't you? But of course that means you are GMing, not playing.

If you want to be a player, you need to relinquish control and accept another GM's vision for Golarion. If you want to create your own vision for Golarion and use your own NPCs, you need to GM.

If you want a collaborative experience where you and others have a shared vision for a Golarion continuity, including each others' PCs and NPCs in an ongoing storyline, and can trade off GMing and playing, then you need to find a group (preferably in person or at least in real-time on roll20 or something, because play-by-post is basically worthless, as you've seen), and get all to agree to take part in this long-term project.

Or you could write your own AP, with your own NPCs, outlining your own "canon" establishing the results of earlier APs and the heroes who participated in them. Then maybe you can ask someone else to GM your AP, and participate in it as one of the players (though I don't know what the point would be, given that you wrote the AP and know everything that could happen).

It sounds like what you want most is a dedicated group and GM for a long term gaming experience. But if you aren't going to GM, then your ideas about the chronology and how the APs should be connected are ultimately only recommendations. You need to get in at the ground floor- form a group for frequently meeting in-person or real-time online sessions specifically to play Pathfinder APs in succession.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

So let me see if I understand - you have played part-way through some APs, as a player, not the GM. You want to then take the characters you used in these APs (which never officially finished, because play-by-post is worthless), and have some other GM consider them as part of a "canon" continuity, and have your old characters pop up in other games, and refer to the events of the other games you played in. So that you can consider all the Pathfinder games you played in and all the characters you invented for them as part of a single Golarion continuity - even though presumably these games are run by different GMs that aren't communicating or connected to each other, and don't know the characters or how the other GM's AP's turned out (if they ever finish at all).
Sort of. What I want to do is actually complete the APs in question, but I feel like, as you say later, the only way for all the easter eggs and references to be in the game is if I put them there myself, by GMing. But on the flipside, if I do that, then I have to rely on other people to be players with me, and those other players will have different priorities in character creation. Metagaming is regarded as a sin in a lot of circles, but I feel like when playing an AP, how can you NOT if you want to create an internally consistent story. What story does the AP want to tell, and how can I make a character whose development and arc aligns with that story? The example I keep coming back to is Council of Thieves. That story is practically BEGGING to have a tiefling PC to contrast with the various tiefling villains in the story, exploring the question of whether or not the fiendish taint in their blood sets their destiny in stone. But not all players are going to create a character with that in mind. I want to play the game, but I also want to flex my critical analysis muscles, otherwise why did I bother getting a degree in English with an Emphasis in Literature? This is why when I've brought up these feelings, the general response I've gotten is "It doesn't sound like you want to play the AP, it sounds like you want to write Pathfinder fanfiction." But that feels like cheating. I can't just READ the AP books! They need to be PLAYED, or I've wasted my money and my time!

This is a no-win scenario, you're asking the impossible. In an RPG like this a shared, ongoing, persistent setting can't really exist. They can try to establish an ongoing "metafiction", like old World of Darkness did. But when published meta-fiction comes into contact with people actually playing the game, it goes out the window. It's pointless, since every time they expand the "canon" and advance the official timeline of the setting, the activities of everyone that has been playing APs and inventing their own adventures is gone out the window. There is no shared setting. Every group has their own version of the setting. It doesn't matter whether they've analyzed and studied the published material as thoroughly as you - every GM still invents their own world, some will match the publications more closely than others.
You're right, and it's this realization creeping in that's prompted me to ask about it on forums. Turning it over and over in my head is getting me nowhere, and most of the people present in my physical day-to-day wouldn't really get the issue. I feel like I need some outside perspective.

If you want to be a player in a published AP and embody your perfect character, then just play the AP. Of course some other GM isn't going to use NPCs that you thought up or follow some specific background lore that you invented, or include the results and characters of another campaign you played or ran previously- that's a ridiculous thing to expect.
Exactly.

If you want to run a long term campaign and connect a bunch of AP's in a huge, epic ongoing story, you can totally do that. What would stop you? And when you're done with published APs, create your own that further expands the lore of Golarion and includes NPCs you've invented. Why wouldn't you? But of course that means you are GMing, not playing.
That is the dream. It's what I'd like to do if I had more confidence in my ability to GM, given all the times I've tried I get stuck going "um, uh," and just throwing random combat encounters because I got roped into GMing because nobody else wanted to do it, and no one was really taking it seriously anyway. That's why I latched on to APs in the first place: a concise story and progression with enough flexibility for the PCs to make it their own, even if my brother says all play in pre-written settings is hollow and has no soul.

If you want to be a player, you need to relinquish control and accept another GM's vision for Golarion. If you want to create your own vision for Golarion and use your own NPCs, you need to GM.
That's the crux of the issue, though with the added wrinkle that as a GM I also have to accept the player's visions for their own characters, even if I think they conflict with the APs writing. Who would play in a game where the GM says, "I've already made everyone's characters and planned out their level progressions for you, here's your sheets." And that's troubling me even as a player: there's an Iron Gods PbP I'm in where the character I felt best reflected its themes and ideas in a vacuum doesn't mesh as well with the other players: He's an android, but there's another android. He's a warpriest, but there's a dedicated cleric who's better at fighting and healing than he is. He's opposed to the local evil organization, but hasn't been able to express that as thoroughly as some of the other players. I feel like a watered-down synthesis of everyone in the party, and I feel like I cheapen the story just by being there.

If you want a collaborative experience where you and others have a shared vision for a Golarion continuity, including each others' PCs and NPCs in an ongoing storyline, and can trade off GMing and playing, then you need to find a group (preferably in person or at least in real-time on roll20 or something, because play-by-post is basically worthless, as you've seen), and get all to agree to take part in this long-term project.
I wish that was something that could happen IRL. I've managed to find one RL group that by some miracle manages to meet monthly, but secretly I've been having some issues, since the GM's style seems really ad-hoc, it feels like we're just meandering from set-piece to set-piece and we're more concerned with effectiveness in battle than developing our character's personalities. One player hasn't even NAMED his character, he's just "The Wizard." This is coupled with the fact that the GM has no interest in Golarion or really any part of D&D that came after the release of 3rd Edition. He uses a few monsters from the occasional 3.5 book, but the rest is almost exclusively 2e, so Pathfinder is out of the question. I haven't brought these concerns up because, frankly, I'm so desperate for a RL game. One of the biggest reasons I rely on play-by-post is because it's the only thing that my schedule can accommodate, and I frankly don't know enough local people IRL with flexible enough schedules to commit to such a thing. :smallfrown:

Or you could write your own AP, with your own NPCs, outlining your own "canon" establishing the results of earlier APs and the heroes who participated in them. Then maybe you can ask someone else to GM your AP, and participate in it as one of the players (though I don't know what the point would be, given that you wrote the AP and know everything that could happen).
No disrespect meant, but I feel like this is a non-starter for the same reasons I'm hesitant to GM. I'm good at picking apart stuff I'm reading and spotting connections and patterns, but the times I've actually tried to WRITE something, whether game-related or more for regular reading, I find it incredibly difficult to get beyond vague ideas and suggestions. I failed NaNoWriMo, and the project I'd gotten into my head for Pathfinder seems MUCH more complicated than that.

It sounds like what you want most is a dedicated group and GM for a long term gaming experience. But if you aren't going to GM, then your ideas about the chronology and how the APs should be connected are ultimately only recommendations. You need to get in at the ground floor- form a group for frequently meeting in-person or real-time online sessions specifically to play Pathfinder APs in succession.
Again, this is the conclusion that I've sort of come to, but that doesn't make either option seem very palatable. I feel like either I'll get a bunch of disjointed stories that lack any real sense of permanency as a player, or a bunch of stories that have minor connections, but the main characters are all off the wall and don't fit the stories' internal logics, like someone wanting to play a tengu in Carrion Crown or something, or the general issue of players dropping out and being replaced mid-story, something that's bugged me very often as a player where we haven't even gotten through the first book of an AP and half the party has dropped out and been replaced meaning the party and narrative dynamics have completely shifted...

[Rynjin]

I sort of felt that way for a while, but then I started seeing stuff from PFS modules being mentioned in Adventure Paths and Campaign Setting books, implying a developing metafiction that I thought wasn't happening with Pathfinder:

Things like the Blakros family, the Hao Jin Tapestry and RUNELORD KRUNE BEING KILLED!
I thought PFS could easily be skipped because none of it would impact the wider setting, but now I feel there's an entire section of the lore I've missed out on, and I can't go back and play that out because I don't have PFS characters in the right factions since some of them have been discontinued and I can't purchase some of them because I don't have GM credits, and no one's going to want to play them out with me because the modules are years old and no one would get PFS credit for it, so there's no incentive! As a result, I feel like an entire part of the lore is barred from me, like the things above just happened off-screen! :smallfurious:

Who cares?

Really all this thread boils down to is that your idea is feasible, and even easy to achieve, but you're MAKING IT DIFFICULT. Nobody else can help you with that. Just...stop doing that.

There isn't even any writing or much preparing you need to do. All the APs are written for you, you just need to read them.

[zlefin]

I'd recommend working on acceptance of the likelihood that you simply won't manage to get what you're looking for.

in terms of actual suggestions, the only thing I can think of is finding one of the very few professional DMs to run the campaigns the way you want.

[Reversefigure4]

I have done a shared Golarion universe, over multiple APs. Legacy of Fire, Serpent's Skull, Jade Regent, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Kingmaker all took place in the same universe (and we recorded many of the games! (http://rpgmp3.com/v5/category/group/sugar-fuelled-gamers/))

All the events that took place in our group's campaigns have "canonically" taken place when the next Golarion campaign begins. Characters and elements of story serve as Easter Eggs. For example, in Curse of the Crimson Throne (our latest):

The city's wizarding academy is established that they have had to become less picky about what students they admit, because a wizard PC from Legacy of Fire established their own wizard's school in the desert, which has become a rival to them.
The PCs attended a play written by a playwright who was a castaway on a desert island, rescued by the Serpent's Skull party.
The King from Kingmaker visited the city early on to meet it's ruler and give her advice.


There were several rules that made it work:

A long running group. Not all the members have remained consistent, but I-as-GM have, and more than one of the players has now been in every campaign. It doesn't have to be a real life group, but that'll make it a lot easier.
One GM - and it needs to either be you, or somebody you're paying to put all this detail into the games. My continuity is mostly for my own amusement, and I don't think I'd have much interest in trying to excessively work in a lot of continuity from a player who has played, say, Carrion Crown under the same GM.
The rule that an event hasn't happened until it's been played out at the table. I don't have to worrying about what might happen in Carrion Crown affecting what's happening in Kingmaker, since the events of Carrion Crown don't take place until we play them out. And by that stage I'll already know how Kingmaker ended, so I can talk about what's happening in the kingdom to the east... (Remember, Spider-man didn't exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe until a movie actually had him in it - there was no need to try and fit him into continuity until it was needed). Campaigns take place consecutively both in how we play them and how they fit into the universe. You only need to worry about one AP at a time. Campaigns that fell through are non-canonical 'cancelled pilots'. This is pretty key to stopping it spiraling out of control.
Events of another campaign are only ever easter eggs - a minor NPC, a background detail, a piece of dialogue. You don't need to have played in the previous campaigns to get it (because that would make the current campaign completely impenetrable to new players), but it's a fun detail if you get it. The game is about the campaign we're playing now, not about past ones.



What story does the AP want to tell, and how can I make a character whose development and arc aligns with that story? The example I keep coming back to is Council of Thieves. That story is practically BEGGING to have a tiefling PC to contrast with the various tiefling villains in the story, exploring the question of whether or not the fiendish taint in their blood sets their destiny in stone.

On this point specifically, you can (somewhat) incentivise players to make characters whose development and arc align with the story. Paizo's Players Guides to various APs do exactly this. Kingmaker, for example, outright tells you that the campaign is about reclaiming lost lands, building a kingdom in it, and defending it from various threats. It then gives you a bunch of mechanical traits that link you into that story, such as ones that make you from a specific noble house and give you a +1 bonus to Ride. And you have to take a trait that links you somewhat into the story. Curse of the Crimson Throne tells you that your character has had a crimelord do them harm, and they pick which traits reflects how the crimelord harmed them, thus creating a plot hook.

A more detailed GM handout at the start of the campaign might detail things a little more.
"This campaign deals with themes of redemption, whether destiny is set in stone, and what price you will pay for power", followed by a tiefling-only trait that says "Struggle of Blood: You try to resist the darkness in your blood, but often wonder if it is pointless. Still, the struggle has made you stronger. Gain a +1 to Will saves". You can't make a player play the character you want, nor experience the emotional arc you want, but you can encourage them towards that path.

[Thrudd]

Metagaming is regarded as a sin in a lot of circles, but I feel like when playing an AP, how can you NOT if you want to create an internally consistent story. What story does the AP want to tell, and how can I make a character whose development and arc aligns with that story?

I want to play the game, but I also want to flex my critical analysis muscles, otherwise why did I bother getting a degree in English with an Emphasis in Literature? This is why when I've brought up these feelings, the general response I've gotten is "It doesn't sound like you want to play the AP, it sounds like you want to write Pathfinder fanfiction." But that feels like cheating. I can't just READ the AP books! They need to be PLAYED, or I've wasted my money and my time!

Here's where I think you're causing yourself undo conflict. Pathfinder, D&D, and tabletop roleplaying games in general are never going to give you a totally internally consistent story. Because life doesn't happen that way, and the RPG isn't telling an edited story, it's more like living through something, including a bunch of random things that happen in people's lives that are off topic and "off-theme". Think of the role playing game as generating (fictional)life experience from which a story teller could draw material to make a story later. It's the nature of the game - this is not the format to seek the type of themes and meaning you're looking for, at least not as a fully-formed narrative.

Also, if you're planning on playing the APs, it's a bad idea to read through them beforehand. I'm not saying players can never look at GM material, but if you're hoping to play an adventure, it's sort of spoiling the whole experience for yourself (and probably the GM, too) if you know everything that's going to happen already. If you plan on GMing some day, it's not a waste of money- or if you don't plan on playing and just like to read the material for inspiration for your own creations. But if you only plan on playing, I'd avoid buying future AP's until after you've played through them. I think your experience will be better going into it with the idea that you are this fictional person living their life, no idea what is around the next corner, and reacting and making decisions in real-time. No pre-planning character arcs - let it happen organically as you react to the other players and NPCs. That's what RPGs are good for - reacting to the unpredictable events and things the other players bring to the game with their characters. You aren't supposed to know the story before hand, and you can never predict or control what the other players will do.

Don't look at it as literature. It isn't. You're doing it backwards. If you want to write a story, playing or running the game is what you do to get ideas that will help you write something later. And you might only use 10% of the characters and events from the game, mess around with the timeline and fill in the rest so that you get something that is worth reading.


Again, this is the conclusion that I've sort of come to, but that doesn't make either option seem very palatable. I feel like either I'll get a bunch of disjointed stories that lack any real sense of permanency as a player, or a bunch of stories that have minor connections, but the main characters are all off the wall and don't fit the stories' internal logics, like someone wanting to play a tengu in Carrion Crown or something, or the general issue of players dropping out and being replaced mid-story, something that's bugged me very often as a player where we haven't even gotten through the first book of an AP and half the party has dropped out and been replaced meaning the party and narrative dynamics have completely shifted...

Not having a consistent group is a near-universal problem, so it's a thing everyone just needs to deal with. Take it one day at a time, and try to enjoy whatever is going on in each session individually. We all just do our best to explain away the inevitable changes in players and characters, and laugh about how silly things get sometimes with implausible shifts in tone and relationships. It's going to be silly sometimes, no matter how epic or serious the group wants the campaign to be. It's an amateur improv session with interludes of strategy discussions and playing a tactical battle game. Keep your expectations around there.

If there isn't a solid group that can commit to playing on the reg, this is just what gaming is like. If that's your reality, it's best to think about the game as a series of loosely connected or disconnected short stories that take place in the same setting. You can still end up with some good material for writing - a character or two that stand out, an interesting party dynamic that emerged one time, an unexpected turn of events that was awesome.
The RPG is the crappy first draft of the crappy first draft, that will ultimately be mostly tossed for better ideas when you get to revisions.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

Wow, this got more responses than I was getting over on the Paizo boards! :smalleek:

Who cares?

Really all this thread boils down to is that your idea is feasible, and even easy to achieve, but you're MAKING IT DIFFICULT. Nobody else can help you with that. Just...stop doing that.

There isn't even any writing or much preparing you need to do. All the APs are written for you, you just need to read them.
The rational part of my brain is saying you're right. The perfectionist part of my brain is screaming "NO! DIFFICULT MEANS WORTHWHILE!" I feel like some writing and preparation IS necessary, though. Every GM I've played with makes maps for fights or adds their own little twists and quirks. And I've heard that some APs need considerable work to smooth out the rough edges (like Second Darkness). To say nothing of the fact that there are aspects of canon in the PFS modules, and I'd have to try and cobble together a coherent campaign story out of them. Every time I've tried to GM without maps and stuff, combat sections just sort of fall apart, and then the game degenerates into a free-form storytelling exercise that eventually runs out of gas and dies a slow, quiet death. :smallfrown:

I'd recommend working on acceptance of the likelihood that you simply won't manage to get what you're looking for.

in terms of actual suggestions, the only thing I can think of is finding one of the very few professional DMs to run the campaigns the way you want.
That's a thing? You can get PAID for that?! :smalleek:

I have done a shared Golarion universe, over multiple APs. Legacy of Fire, Serpent's Skull, Jade Regent, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Kingmaker all took place in the same universe (and we recorded many of the games! (http://rpgmp3.com/v5/category/group/sugar-fuelled-gamers/))

All the events that took place in our group's campaigns have "canonically" taken place when the next Golarion campaign begins. Characters and elements of story serve as Easter Eggs. For example, in Curse of the Crimson Throne (our latest):

The city's wizarding academy is established that they have had to become less picky about what students they admit, because a wizard PC from Legacy of Fire established their own wizard's school in the desert, which has become a rival to them.
The PCs attended a play written by a playwright who was a castaway on a desert island, rescued by the Serpent's Skull party.
The King from Kingmaker visited the city early on to meet it's ruler and give her advice.

This is EXACTLY the kind of thing I've wanted to do with Pathfinder after I really started to get invested in it, with the added bonus of my own Pathfinder games being impacted by these events as well, especially if they take place in locations where APs previously went through. One of my biggest goals was to sort of replicate one of the earliest play-by-posts I'd been in, a sort of ongoing set of stories centered around an inn/tavern in Eberron the various PCs either worked at or lived in, but in Kaer Maga in Pathfinder, rather than Sharn in Eberron.

There were several rules that made it work:

A long running group. Not all the members have remained consistent, but I-as-GM have, and more than one of the players has now been in every campaign. It doesn't have to be a real life group, but that'll make it a lot easier.
One GM - and it needs to either be you, or somebody you're paying to put all this detail into the games. My continuity is mostly for my own amusement, and I don't think I'd have much interest in trying to excessively work in a lot of continuity from a player who has played, say, Carrion Crown under the same GM.
The rule that an event hasn't happened until it's been played out at the table. I don't have to worrying about what might happen in Carrion Crown affecting what's happening in Kingmaker, since the events of Carrion Crown don't take place until we play them out. And by that stage I'll already know how Kingmaker ended, so I can talk about what's happening in the kingdom to the east... (Remember, Spider-man didn't exist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe until a movie actually had him in it - there was no need to try and fit him into continuity until it was needed). Campaigns take place consecutively both in how we play them and how they fit into the universe. You only need to worry about one AP at a time. Campaigns that fell through are non-canonical 'cancelled pilots'. This is pretty key to stopping it spiraling out of control.
Events of another campaign are only ever easter eggs - a minor NPC, a background detail, a piece of dialogue. You don't need to have played in the previous campaigns to get it (because that would make the current campaign completely impenetrable to new players), but it's a fun detail if you get it. The game is about the campaign we're playing now, not about past ones.

You've basically explicated what I've been thinking I'll need to do if I want to get this off the ground. I just sort of feel like I'll have to abandon the games I'm currently in to pursue this, and if I try to do this via play-by-post, it will take decades to play through them, given there's more than 20 APs, as well as trying to parse the PFS modules into a singular campaign or multiple campaigns so those aspects of canon are covered as well. Like I've said before, it sometimes feels like there's TOO MUCH canon to play through, and that I'll be dead before I can play through it all. It's taken years to through the first book in some of the APs I play in and I just turned 30 last year! :smallfrown:

On this point specifically, you can (somewhat) incentivise players to make characters whose development and arc align with the story. Paizo's Players Guides to various APs do exactly this. Kingmaker, for example, outright tells you that the campaign is about reclaiming lost lands, building a kingdom in it, and defending it from various threats. It then gives you a bunch of mechanical traits that link you into that story, such as ones that make you from a specific noble house and give you a +1 bonus to Ride. And you have to take a trait that links you somewhat into the story. Curse of the Crimson Throne tells you that your character has had a crimelord do them harm, and they pick which traits reflects how the crimelord harmed them, thus creating a plot hook.

A more detailed GM handout at the start of the campaign might detail things a little more.
"This campaign deals with themes of redemption, whether destiny is set in stone, and what price you will pay for power", followed by a tiefling-only trait that says "Struggle of Blood: You try to resist the darkness in your blood, but often wonder if it is pointless. Still, the struggle has made you stronger. Gain a +1 to Will saves". You can't make a player play the character you want, nor experience the emotional arc you want, but you can encourage them towards that path.
That is exactly what I feel I'm trying to do, but then you start getting players who really REALLY want to play a kitsune despite the AP not really taking place in an area where they're likely to be found, or do something REALLY zany like having their character be a naturist!

Here's where I think you're causing yourself undo conflict. Pathfinder, D&D, and tabletop roleplaying games in general are never going to give you a totally internally consistent story. Because life doesn't happen that way, and the RPG isn't telling an edited story, it's more like living through something, including a bunch of random things that happen in people's lives that are off topic and "off-theme". Think of the role playing game as generating (fictional)life experience from which a story teller could draw material to make a story later. It's the nature of the game - this is not the format to seek the type of themes and meaning you're looking for, at least not as a fully-formed narrative.

Also, if you're planning on playing the APs, it's a bad idea to read through them beforehand. I'm not saying players can never look at GM material, but if you're hoping to play an adventure, it's sort of spoiling the whole experience for yourself (and probably the GM, too) if you know everything that's going to happen already. If you plan on GMing some day, it's not a waste of money- or if you don't plan on playing and just like to read the material for inspiration for your own creations. But if you only plan on playing, I'd avoid buying future AP's until after you've played through them. I think your experience will be better going into it with the idea that you are this fictional person living their life, no idea what is around the next corner, and reacting and making decisions in real-time. No pre-planning character arcs - let it happen organically as you react to the other players and NPCs. That's what RPGs are good for - reacting to the unpredictable events and things the other players bring to the game with their characters. You aren't supposed to know the story before hand, and you can never predict or control what the other players will do.

Don't look at it as literature. It isn't. You're doing it backwards. If you want to write a story, playing or running the game is what you do to get ideas that will help you write something later. And you might only use 10% of the characters and events from the game, mess around with the timeline and fill in the rest so that you get something that is worth reading.
Doing it backwards was sort of my methodology: look at the entirety of the AP, try to get a feel for what it's trying to do, and design my character so their character arc maps to the narrative arc of the AP. I felt like that was the best way to make a character who'd get accepted by prospective play-by-post GMs since that always feels like a desperate audition, so if I created the perfect character for the AP AHEAD of time I could post it immediately in the recruitment thread, so I'd be more likely to be picked and play something I actually WANT to play rather than needing to submit something that hasn't been addressed by previous prospective players to even have a chance in getting in. Play-by-post auditions always feel like stressful stage auditions.

Not having a consistent group is a near-universal problem, so it's a thing everyone just needs to deal with. Take it one day at a time, and try to enjoy whatever is going on in each session individually. We all just do our best to explain away the inevitable changes in players and characters, and laugh about how silly things get sometimes with implausible shifts in tone and relationships. It's going to be silly sometimes, no matter how epic or serious the group wants the campaign to be. It's an amateur improv session with interludes of strategy discussions and playing a tactical battle game. Keep your expectations around there.

If there isn't a solid group that can commit to playing on the reg, this is just what gaming is like. If that's your reality, it's best to think about the game as a series of loosely connected or disconnected short stories that take place in the same setting. You can still end up with some good material for writing - a character or two that stand out, an interesting party dynamic that emerged one time, an unexpected turn of events that was awesome.
The RPG is the crappy first draft of the crappy first draft, that will ultimately be mostly tossed for better ideas when you get to revisions.
That's sort of the vibe people saying "you don't actually WANT to play the game, you want to write Pathfinder fanfiction" give me, and I can understand where you're coming from, but then that touches on other insecurities I've been feeling, like I've been wasting my money buying Pathfinder books if I'm not even playing the game properly, and just my hangups regarding fanfiction in general and D&D fanfiction in specific.

[Thrudd]

That's sort of the vibe people saying "you don't actually WANT to play the game, you want to write Pathfinder fanfiction" give me, and I can understand where you're coming from, but then that touches on other insecurities I've been feeling, like I've been wasting my money buying Pathfinder books if I'm not even playing the game properly, and just my hangups regarding fanfiction in general and D&D fanfiction in specific.

I'm pretty sure every gamer has spent some money on gaming products they've never been able to use, or have barely ever used. I know I have. That's how they getchya. We're all suckers for new games and cool looking stuff, and nobody in the world knows enough people or has enough time to actually play all of it the way it's "supposed" to be played. How much money did I drop on the Middle Earth and Dune and other various CCGs back in the 90's, only to play them each five times or less? I don't want to know. Was it a waste to buy the RPG "Aria: Canticle of the Monomyth"? I only got to run one session, after spending many hours designing a setting, learning the system and having my friends create characters. But I don't want to regret it, either - I was having fun reading the game, helping me think about how to build worlds. I don't think you need to feel bad about buying those books, or any future books you might buy - at the very least, they've expanded your imagination, and could potentially contribute to your own creations or GMing of Pathfinder some day. You really like the setting - so what's there to regret?

The play-by-post thing sounds like a catch-22 (that audition process is another reason that the whole format is worthless). To get accepted for a game, you feel like you need to read the whole adventure that you're signing up to play, thereby ruining the game you're being accepted for. That you find GM's accepting people with characters that seem wildly inappropriate for the AP they're running should tell you something, though...you probably don't need to stress so much about having the "perfect character". Try making a character you like that fits whatever requirements the GM has specified, no special foreknowledge or expectations of character-arcs or specific narrative roles. Most GM's probably have not studied the AP the way you have, with the English-major's eye you have, and aren't going to run it the way you would. They probably don't even know you have the "perfect" character.

I know people can want to play the game and equally want to write fiction, so I wouldn't want to seem dismissive of one's desire to play just because they also like good stories. You should do both! I think that both playing and writing are a lot better by letting go of control a bit, loosen up. I'm sure you've heard the common writing advice, that says not to try planning out your whole novel/story ahead of time, just start writing. It is never, ever going to be good, you'll need to revise multiple times. I think that works for RPG'ing, too - don't worry so much, just play. It is never, ever going to all be as good as you want it to be, no matter how good the AP is -and since an RPG like this is "one-and-done", there's no revisions. That's why I think it's, at best, like the bare bones of a first draft of something. Maybe you've got a great setting and plot, but a bunch of characters that just don't fit and a bunch of disconnected events. Or you've got a couple really interesting characters, but a poorly thought out setting and no real plot. A story's first draft might look like that, too. Great literature doesn't usually spring into being, full-formed like Athena from Zeus' head. RPG'ing can be great for the writing process, because you get a bunch of other people's ideas floating around and bouncing off each other, that might give you things to start writing about. Embrace the random.

From the other side of things - maybe someone has written a great story already, and they modify it to be used as an adventure for a game. As soon as it comes into contact with some players, it's going to go off the rails, and the end result is likely not going to be a great story (without serious revisions). Attempts at preventing this don't go down well, especially in D&D-likes. I'm pretty sure nobody's playing of the original Dragonlance modules turned out like the books did, even though they actually forced you to use the same characters and took you through basically the same sequence of events.

I guess all this is to say, you don't need to give up on your dreams of narrative glory, but try to loosen up and embrace the messy process of actual playing, too. I'm not sure anything can help you with uniquely play-by-post problems - but that's no reason to regret your purchases, especially if you enjoy reading the books.

[Reversefigure4]

You've basically explicated what I've been thinking I'll need to do if I want to get this off the ground. I just sort of feel like I'll have to abandon the games I'm currently in to pursue this, and if I try to do this via play-by-post, it will take decades to play through them, given there's more than 20 APs, as well as trying to parse the PFS modules into a singular campaign or multiple campaigns so those aspects of canon are covered as well. Like I've said before, it sometimes feels like there's TOO MUCH canon to play through, and that I'll be dead before I can play through it all. It's taken years to through the first book in some of the APs I play in and I just turned 30 last year! :smallfrown:

Are you aware that Paizo publishes on the assumption that nobody will play it all? They anticipate at least 1 year to play through a full AP - and that's with a consistent group, meeting for a weekly face-to-face game of at least a 3 hour session. They publish an AP every 6 months, both for financial reasons, and on the assumption that this gives groups more choice about what to play. They bounce back and forward between 'traditional' APs and 'unorthodox' APs, on the understanding that a group who are interested in an "exotic travel to faux-Asia" AP may not be interested in a "explore robot technology" or "be pirates" AP, giving them more choices in order to attract more players to the APs.

Paizo have no anticipation that people will play through all their canon - quite the opposite, in fact. But there are also a large number of people who buy the APs purely for reading, so you're hardly alone there. Several people buy them to read the stories purely as stories, and several more buy them to mine ideas and encounters out of them with no intent of using the AP as written.

It's also worth keeping in mind that many, many GMs do not follow APs perfectly as written. It would be hard to run one exactly as written - by the time I get to Book 6, we've generally jumped to a bunch of other unanticipated resolutions. The only way to do otherwise is to ignore the players input, since their characters and decisions can't affect the prescribed ending and moral arcs of the stories.