DMing Philosophy

So I was writing an email to some friends to start up a new Pathfinder game and I thought I'd share my philosophy and the setup on my blog:

My system of choice right now is Pathfinder (1st edition). I grew up on D&D all the way through 4th edition, but the constant edition change and having to invest in all the books and online support as they kept redoing editions. I just didn't get excited about 5th edition. Pathfinder has kept my interest through its deep setting, quality adventure paths and complete customization in the rules. It is also the ruleset that I know back and forth and their support for displaying their complete rulesets online and some refined online support tools have kept me playing Pathfinder. To be frank it's probably the easiest for me to run right now. Pathfinder 2nd edition has some potential, but it's still in a beta state and not really stable enough for a long-term playing.

So there are two adventure paths of which I would like to consider running one of them. Running a published adventure provides me with a good deal of support so I can be a good DM with a busy family and work life. The two are:

War for the Crown
As the political scene in Taldor explodes into chaos, players take on the role of agents, advocates, and saboteurs working for Princess Eutropia to help secure her claim to the Imperial throne and prevent the Empire from collapsing in on itself in civil war. Along the way, the PCs must uncover hidden secrets of Taldor’s past—many deliberately hidden—and grow from relative nobodies to powerful politicians and spymasters in the deadliest political arena in the Inner Sea.

Return of the Runelords
The all-powerful Runelords, near-immortal wizards who ruled Varisia in ancient days, stir to terrible life once more, surging across the frontier with plans to reignite their time-lost empire. Years ago, Pathfinder’s classic Rise of the Runelords campaign explored the return of just one of these terrible masters from the depths of time—now the rest of his scheming allies have returned, their brilliant minds turned solely to conquest!

As you probably surmised. The first is much heavier into the political intrigue and nation building while the later is more Lord of the Ring style of powerful enemies, artifacts and world-spanning consequences. However, both will provide opportunities for roleplaying, monster fighting and dungeon crawling.

I usually like scheduling a session 0 which is a relaxed hangout, get to know each other, make some characters and figure out their connection to the world and each other. I do want to share a couple of my character creation beliefs. Parties don't have to be balanced or must have certain character archetypes. Play what you want. If the whole party wants to play wizards, or rogues, or a band of bards I will make it work. What I don't want is someone to feel obligated to play the healer or any other archetype. As far as what you want to play, anything first party Paizo is fair game. Anything else will have to be run by me. If you can't figure out what exactly what you want to play, you are welcome to just describe a character concept to me and I'll find the class or classes that will make it happen. Finally, suboptimal characters are just fine. If you have a great concept, let's have fun with it and not worry if it's the best mathematical option. I am always a big fan of good roleplayers over good "rollplayers".