Pacing in Pathfinder

Hey Everyone,

Today I want to write about my theories on pacing in a Pathfinder game. For those of you who don't know pathfinder is a table top game similar to Dungeons and Dragons. The reason why I want to talk this out with you is because I created and ran a game this past weekend and it took my 3-6 players (some left early) around 12 hours to complete the chapter. The custom campaign we are running focuses around a twisted view of individual Disney movies in a long running story line, this week we were on the theme of Monsters, Inc. Because we do individual movies I try to give each movie a day. To tie the games together there is an overlapping main story line and re-occurring characters.

The issues as I see them were these:

• We had a returning player on game 6 who was only in one previous game.
• The maps we used had 18 rooms per 3 maps.
• The players split so half were in combat and half were exploring.
• (Player mentioned) A few felt that they were moving forward for the sake of moving forward.

First I would like to note that this is not our usual game type, previous games were a good 60% Story, 40% combat type games. This game was about 80% Combat, 20% Story, the reason being that during our last game (Pinnochio) the players encountered a normal combat challenge that only required minimal tactics to complete. (All the players except one have started playing pathfinder this game, with no prior table top gaming experience, so it was a normal challenge to break them in.) Sadly they failed the challenge miserably, giving up before the entire party was about to be killed.

The week before the Monsters, Inc game I went through with each player and helped them talk their way through rebuilding their character sheets now that they have played a few games, and helped them go over combat tactics for their chosen class. I tried not to be intrusive and to get the players to figure out what their play style was to help them build their characters. This process was not mandatory and it was said multiple times that they had full freedom over their choices.

2nd Level of Monsters, Inc.

1st Level of Monters, Inc. 

But I digress, the Monsters Inc game seemed to take way to long. Even with one returning player and one new experienced player in the group. Although the game took some time I was very proud of the players progress. Each player that could, took their turn tripping or performing combat maneuvers. Their understanding of combat speed the  
game up when combat started and fixed a party flaw that has been hurting our games until now.

Understanding these issues I've thought of some ways to correct them, from now on I intend to create environments with larger rooms and bigger blacked out areas. This should help players from splitting up as often and should help them enjoy the game a bit more. I also intend to give the movies a more defined goal so players will have more of a drive to accomplish the same task and work as a team. I also intend to force players who are entering the game after a long time away to do a short refresher game before re-entering the main story line with everyone. These precautions should help make the games better overall. If you're creating your own game I hope this helps.

Game on,

            Duane

What This Is All About

Hello World,

I'm here today to indulge you to the wonderful world of video games and table top games. Expect to read a lot of my opinions, critic, and plenty of random nonsense involving them.

But first a little about myself.

My name is Duane Pierce, I'm a 23 year old General Business Administration and Marketing Student currently studying at the University of Central Florida. I've been playing games since I was first bought an NES as a kid, my gaming resume then moves onto every single gameboy, sega genesis, n64, playstation, xbox, playstation 2, xbox 360, playstation 3 and PC gaming. So this is my story of looking into video games and trying to figure out what makes one better than the other.

The whole point of this blog is to better understand what makes a game great for the player, what draws out that emotional response or thrill of an accomplishment. I want to know how to make players feel and learn lessons while having fun. The best way I can think to do this is by diving right in and trying to see what effects me. Path to understanding others is to first understand yourself right?

My dream is to one day work in the video game industry, to create games that affect people, to have people making friends and bonding over challenges in my games, and to create virtual memories that will keep them talking about it for decades to come.

The intent of this blog is to share my opinions on the strengths and weaknesses of certain games and my general opinions on games I'm playing, I may also talk about some current issues or news in the video game industry I find interesting.

I'm currently busy planning a Pathfinder DND game for Monday and playing Amnesia: The Dark Decent and League of Legends. To help document my experiences I've also started a twitch. Twitch, for those of you who don't know is a online website for streaming and saving video files, a good majority of the site is used for video games.

The current theme I've been looking into is fear, thus Amnesia and the theme of my upcoming Pathfinder game. Amnesia is so freaking scary mostly because it take horror and puts a more classic approach, you cant fight, there is no safe harbor, your only viable option is to run. More aptly flee. The game also uses controls in a way to create a more intense experience, making the player move the mouse as they would their hand rather than click doors and cabinets open. While running away quickly pulling doors open makes the experience very intense.  The game also utilizes a sanity aspect demanding you stay in the light, but at the same time it penalizes you by making you easier to see to the monsters in the area. These few aspects create a edge of your seat fear that is hard to capture in games. I'm about halfway through and I look forward to completing it.

I look forward to sharing my experiences and becoming a better gamer. Until next week. 

Game on,

            Duane