Seeking DM for Pathfinder, 3-4 PCs, no anime conventions/tropes

[Ixy]

Pretty much sums it up.  Smaller group preferred to reduce the chance of delay when one person goes off the radar without notice, Pathfinder preferred as the material is generally accessible online for free, and no anime elements because futa, tentacles, rapebait and the like get plenty of attention elsewhere.

Anyone else?

[firepyre]

Interested as a player and possibly in a Co-GM type role, as sadly I tend to be far better at planning than execution.

Any thoughts on setting and content, besides steering clear of  goofy anime stuff?

[Ixy]

Thanks for the expression of interest.  I think the adventure paths look pretty great, but I'm all for a vividly built homebrew or a rebuild of an existing setting.  I'm all for intense violence, high adventure, starting at relatively low level and building fast.  I prefer intense, explicit eroticism but not incessant porn elements.  And mechanics wise, I know they're essential, but an uberoptimized character who doesn't roleplay is no fun.  Much prefer a sort of optimized character who roleplays like crazy :)

Some cool settings would be coastal/oceanic, desert, or the dark/creepy setting that reaper recently introduced (forgot the name).

[SINless]

If I had the time at the mo, I'd love to run this using my homebrew setting. As it stands I'd be happy to offer an AP. Looking at your preferences, Serpent's Skull comes to mind. But I understand if you'd prefer someone with their own setting.

[ShinigamiWolf]

I'd be more than happy to join as a player. I've had some character ideas I've been more than happy to play but I've only recently landed myself in the realm of E so I haven't been able to get into the more extreme sides of characters or erotic sides of characters either.

Is there a particular idea as to how you wish characters to be made? Are we looking at point buy, 4d6 drop the lowest six or seven times? Races, classes, themes to avoid?

[Ixy]

No clue just yet.  What do you tend to prefer?  I believe that, so far, we haven't found a DM who can commit to running the game, nor determined a specific setting, so we're just kind of chatting it out right now.  Any ideas are welcomed... Keeping the discussion open is pretty much the idea.  :)

[Ixy]

Sorry for double posting here. 

I looked up Serpent's Skull, and without seeing the actual texts, it sounds pretty awesome and with plenty of room for flavor modification at a DM's discretion. 

That will doesn't rule out a homebrew setting, even as simple as a existing city from a wiki-friendly site where there's an urgent change... Say, some upheaval among the deities causes massive personality changes among the party, but even more so a time of civil unrest an cultism among the organised, once peaceful, predominant church.  Just a random thought there?

[Galanthor]

I'm actually kinda interested in DMing a pathfinder game.

That said I'm not terribly experienced as a GM, I lead a shadowrun game once and while i have some experience with pathfinder and own some of the books, I don't own Serpent's Skull...so...feel free to see me as a backup option

[Ixy]

We don't necessarily have a primary option, although firepyre had indicated a potential interest in co-DMing... That could be a viable option, if the two of you could work out an agreement on setting and manage the rules decisions.  Personally, I'm easy to work with on house-rulings, plus all the essential pathfinder resources are found at d20pfsrd dot com for free.

[Galanthor]

I do have the essentials already...that's not the problem. Might even pick up an adventure path, but as said...people should be very aware that i'm far from experienced.

Having a Co-GM might actually be for the best here too.

Also...some base things should be settled...and I know Ixy already somewhat did that but things like serious vs silly, the lengths of what can happen to characters and in this case...just how...kinky the world is in general might be interesting. Not even talking about anything that's specific to me GMing here, just...kinda figuring out what people want from the RPG.

To give an example: I do really like my epic heroic groups, but also like wacky, crazy stuff to happen. Mostly though...I'm looking to torture some poor hapless adventurers. 

[Ixy]

It kind of depends on your definitions of "wacky" and "torture", I think. 

When I think whacky, I think: dark humour, the unexpected, odd magical effects, characters losing their minds, Lovecraftian horrors, weird twists, even dry theatrical tones to the point of absurdity... That's all good with me.  Just not quite crossing into the full Flying Circus realm... I tend to save that for the ooc to preserve a degree of believability.

When I think "DM torturing PCs", I get squirrelly.  I am not a fan of competition feel between DM and players, cause that's just not fun.  Also, I hate competing entirely with other party members, and would rather have cooperation with some rivalries or competition for flavor.  And I hate the "FTP" mentality.  It should be cool despite hardships of varying degrees-- and those degrees Celsius get really bad, as long as the story isn't a glamour show for A DM's favourite NPCs, traps, and self-indulgent torment.  Of you're going to torture my PC make a good story out of it :)

[Galanthor]

Well you basicly have my definition of whacky. Whacky is mostly unexpected stuff that borders absurd. As for the torturing. I'm sorry if that came across entirely the wrong way, but as I see it, a story thrives from characters put through hardships and my role as a GM is to put you through those hardships. It's not a competition, can't be since the GM has unlimited power, but the GM very much should strive to put characters in moments where they are in mental turmoil. When I say torture, I mostly mean "put them in difficult situations". It's really cool to see players work they way out of calamity. I know many GM that overdramatized this as torturing the characters and I guess it rubbed off on me.

So yeah. Torturing players is fun: Put their favourite NPCs into peril, give them items where they are unsure if it's even save to wield them, throw them in a trap and see how they get out.

[ShinigamiWolf]

I'm game for those kind of tortures. That's fine, I love traps.

Honestly, I don't mind for the most part how we play though I do prefer 4d6 with a 25 pt build buy out if awful.

I've played a lot of 20 point and 25 point...and at some point you just feel meh about it.

15 pt I've always felt makes you too centralized and forces you to heavily invest in your main stats and nothing else and that just makes a boring character most of the time.

[Galanthor]

I think rolling them's fine, otherwise I would encourage people to create their background story before they do the stats and skill according to that. I agree that optimized characters tend to be really boring and really...it basicly doesn't matter how strong you players are because...well...basicly a GMs job to adjust encounters to it.

Also...probably should figure out the setting? We could whip up something homebrew or just take Golarion, but if you guys want an adventure path i need to know in time so I can get it and at least have a look inside before we start.

[ShinigamiWolf]

I'm fine with most of them. I'll admit I've played a few, Skulls and Shackles, Jade Regeant I think are the only ones I've ever gotten out of book one. But I think Serpent's Skull is a pretty good one. If memory serves the setting is pretty nice and has jobs for almost any class. (This is also one I've not even touched before personally.)

[SINless]

Serpent's skull is a pretty good AP. Each character gets to show their strengths, and unlike most AP's it doesn't require heavy retooling to actually be a challenge. And it does fit nicely with the choice of setting. Oceanic/coastal and dark and creepy.

[Ixy]

I'm willing to give it a shot, if we can get a full confirmation of who's DMing.  As far as character generation-- I'm pretty easy, so long as power-gaming and meta-gaming are policed on some level-- even if just a little.

[ShinigamiWolf]

Power gaming can easily be managed, meta I have an almost no tolerance for as a fellow player. I mean I get the fact that we've all played and there are certain things that we take advantage of due to long term playing but we as players can mitigate it to some extent and that shows well in good roleplay.

[Galanthor]

Sorry for the slow reply...

I finally got my hand on the AP and I'd be glad to DM. However, I won't claim that i'll do a great job at it.

Also i'd like to point people at the player's guide for the AP. It's free on Paizo, so...that'll help with char generation.

As for power gaming...I CAN police this, but I'd really rather not. Since well...it's definitely possible that I'd make accusations at people who genuinely tried their best to just play their character.

Metagaming...well I haven't READ the entire AP yet, so somebody who knows the challenges might sneak an optimized char by me? That said actual meta gaming in the game will probably be painfully obvious and stomped on sight. I guess?

[ShinigamiWolf]

So, far as I can see we got 3 players (A possible fourth, they haven't said anything since they first said something.)

Can we get character guidelines tossed out, and I have another player who might be interested if you like, I can toss them a PM?

[Galanthor]

Well...I'd say level 1, 4d6 with a 25 pt build buy out
Classes and Races according to Players guide of the AP

Aaaand this should be obvious, but each of you needs to have boarded the Jenivere as such you'll need the reason and the City where you boarded on it.

Also...my DM thingy told me to remind you that this is not an nautical adventure, so if your charakter dreams of becoming a pirate they are fucked.

Also as much fun as an all Bard party might be you might want to discuss classes with each other beforehand.

Sounds good?

EDIT: Oh...one more thing...there's "hard mode". I assume you don't want that.

[ShinigamiWolf]

Alright then, 6 stats, 4d6, so 24d6 dropping one from ever group of 4....

Dice rolls

Roll Result: ShinigamiWolf rolled: 24d6
Comment: Generating Stats
Result: 4, 3, 6, 1, 3, 6, 6, 4, 6, 2, 4, 2, 3, 1, 2, 1, 3, 5, 6, 1, 1, 2, 6, 4,
Total: 82
[/dice]

Blarg this is likely gonna hurt my head but here goes.

4,3,6,1 Drop the 1 13
3,6,6,4 Drop the 3 16
6,2,4,2 Drop the 2 12
3,1,2,1 Drop the 1 6
3,5,6,1 Drop the 1 14
and 1,2,6,4 Drop the 1 12

Welp, that's less than a 25 pt buy by a lot (I think like 10 pts even) so I'm gonna take the 25 pt buy unless I get a reroll for that dismal bit ^_^

[Galanthor]

wow...that...I almost wanna make your charakter a critical failure.
lemme see.
Your character was born while his mother was out on a ride, when he fell out he took 2 points of damage which...was a shame since he had one hp, being newborn and all.
So yeah...your char died...roll another one please.

Jokes aside. I'm tempted to allow people to choose between buy out and reroll, kind of risk reward...then again...we don't want you to fail every last roll, soo...we'll stick with buy out...plus...under 15 pt you get a reroll, since I'd really prefer random stats.

[ShinigamiWolf]

Lol, you know I generally if there are rules in place for terrible rolled characters being rerolled add my own blurbs about why they failed to make it to level 1, so I got a good chuckle out of you killing him early as well ^_^

Another roll

Roll Result: ShinigamiWolf rolled: 24d6
Comment: Generating Stats-On the off Chance the GM is kind and allows a reroll
Result: 5, 2, 5, 3, 5, 3, 1, 4, 4, 6, 6, 4, 5, 1, 5, 5, 6, 6, 2, 3, 5, 2, 1, 3,
Total: 92

Alright so this one looks a little nicer just buy the number of 1s...

5,2,5,3 Drop the 2, 13
5,3,1,4 Drop the 1, 12
4,6,6,4 Drop the 4, 16
5,1,5,5 Drop the 1, 15
6,6,2,3 Drop the 2, 15
5,2,1,3 Drop the 1, 10

Ok so no where near as bad. Let's see the point buy ~drum rolls and calculates~ 25+ and hmm...Gives room for racial to give me a negative so I got something interesting to play off of RP wise but otherwise a pretty powerful build. Noice....Alright now I just gotta stare at things and see what others plan on playing. IXY my dear, your thread, I feel it gives you first rights to role/class in my opinion.

Hm, I got an idea for a character. I haven't settled on class yet but Martial comes to mind. (Again, I'm gonna let Ixy choose her character idea first so I can and possibly will adjust this.) But, a Nagaji on a pilgrimage to make contact with and continue relations from his village to those of the Lizardfolk of the area might be fun. (I'll end up either wasting a 15 on my Int or at least the 12 as I refuse to have a -Int. It sucks, I've played it like three times and while you can do a lot roleplay wise...you can't do much to help the party other than meathead it out!) The most notable population of Nagaji though are on Tian Xia....so I think pretty much all locations to board from are viable as a possibility.

[Galanthor]

Hm, I got an idea for a character. I haven't settled on class yet but Martial comes to mind. (Again, I'm gonna let Ixy choose her character idea first so I can and possibly will adjust this.) But, a Nagaji on a pilgrimage to make contact with and continue relations from his village to those of the Lizardfolk of the area might be fun. (I'll end up either wasting a 15 on my Int or at least the 12 as I refuse to have a -Int. It sucks, I've played it like three times and while you can do a lot roleplay wise...you can't do much to help the party other than meathead it out!)

Ok...had to read up what an Nagaji even is (Not to mention i can't find a Martial in any of my books...is it some type of Monk?). I doubt it would work out regarding the backstory of the adventure, I'm not done with reading, but the Jenivere is a trade vessel with a lot of humans that travels between human settlements inside a mainly human land...I...don't see a member of a race distrustfull towards humans aboard that particular vessel. THAT aside there are some other qualms I have to allowing this particular race here.

I can see you are very knowleadgable about the world and game, but still I'd once again ask you to read the AP's handbook and default to to the races and classes named in there, if only for sake of not totally overloading your fledgling DMs brain.