Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[timferius]

I've run in to a problem. I'm dming a session of Pathfinder for a small group of friends this friday. Some of their characters are... unique, and I'm having issues coming up with a hook to get them all together without it seeming too heavy handed.
The world is one I'm building, and they're starting on a large floating continent, resting on the clouds. There's no real ground level that's populated (as of yet). The continent they start on is largely forest and plains, mostly with scattered villages. The general tech level is rather Medieval, though the outside world is entering the gunpowder era.

The character summaries are as follows:

The biggest problem: A Goblin Paladin, raised in the depths by a holy order fending off a dark Lych threat for generations, all communication was facilitated psionically, so he never learnt to speak anything but Goblin...

Half-Elf Druid, raised as an orphan in a village of Cat people, the player is pretty open to suggestions so this one isn't much of a problem.

Catfolk Alchemist, worked for a travelling circus as an acrobat, and is Lawful-Good to boot.

Dhampir Wizard (curomancer), raised in an orphanage for half her childhood, then adopted by a strange wizard, she spent the rest of her youth (approx. 50 years) studying in a wizards tower, until one day he vanished, she then left to find out who he, and her parents, truly were. (The easiest backstory to work with for sure).


The real trouble here is the goblin though, I just don't know what to do!

[Girlinhat]

Honestly, you've set a pretty limited world (very isolated islands), so honestly I'd set limits.  Don't allow such crazy characters, or enforce rules that the party has to be X% of the majority population, or something.

Otherwise, start hand-waving.  "He bears a holy symbol and he goes about smiting evil, so people just kinda shrug and accept it."  Divine intervention works as well, especially when only one character is a cleric/oracle/paladin/etc. "My god has brought us together for a reason!"

[timferius]

Honestly, you've set a pretty limited world (very isolated islands), so honestly I'd set limits.  Don't allow such crazy characters, or enforce rules that the party has to be X% of the majority population, or something.

Otherwise, start hand-waving.  "He bears a holy symbol and he goes about smiting evil, so people just kinda shrug and accept it."  Divine intervention works as well, especially when only one character is a cleric/oracle/paladin/etc. "My god has brought us together for a reason!"

Good advice, I'm afraid I was a bit generous with their character building, because I hadn't really developed the world yet (bad plan) so I let them decide some stuff for themselves (worse plan). But I'm afraid the damage is done, I'm just having trouble developing a good starting scenario. I don't want to be too cliche (attack on village/caravan/etc.) but I may have to venture in to that territory. I guess another option is to have one of the PCs being attacked, and the others nearby to witness it...

[Moghjubar]

Make Gobbo hire an interpreter of course.  Or have one as his 'squire'.

[Rince Wind]

Or make the Goblin language a weird dialect of the standard one. So he can communicate, just not very well.

[timferius]

So! Finally got a few sessions under our belts! I scrapped my original campaign plan (and the goblin went with it) and decided to run an Adventure path. I was finding custom setting/adventure was a bit... ambitious for my skill level/freetime level. And the second sessions was enough of a success that my players are clammoring for more! On that note, what's a good (preferably free) Virtual Tabletop program for running Pathfinder? Fog of war would be nice, but I'm not overly picky, just something nice, stable etc. any bonus features are a bonus.

[Hugehead]

So! Finally got a few sessions under our belts! I scrapped my original campaign plan (and the goblin went with it) and decided to run an Adventure path. I was finding custom setting/adventure was a bit... ambitious for my skill level/freetime level. And the second sessions was enough of a success that my players are clammoring for more! On that note, what's a good (preferably free) Virtual Tabletop program for running Pathfinder? Fog of war would be nice, but I'm not overly picky, just something nice, stable etc. any bonus features are a bonus.

Roll20 is what you're looking for, I'm not sure if it has fog of war for free, but everything else about it is great.

[Girlinhat]

Roll20 is the common easy-to-use option.  MapTools is a bit trickier to get into.

[timferius]

That looks perfect! With this, soon they will ALL be doomed!
Also, a nice little new-GM anecdote. I had to think on my feet quickly, as my druid decided to chat up a local squirel for information. Seems straight forward, but then I have to think about weird things: What information is important to a squirrell, how well can it understand things? How does it FEEL about local events? How much do squirrles share information?
At least none of my party tried to kill any of the others! (yet)

[Neonivek]

So many ways to get them together

1) We Already Met: They were friends before the game started and were already adventuring (this is my favorite one personally... I skips most of the problems you run into...)
2) Lets put you into teams: A problem arises and they are put into the same team for some reason and know they have to work together.
3) The Halfway Start: Immediately put the party into a situation of danger where they have to work together and where their hooks are somehow meet up. They tend to stick together after that.

A Goblin Paladin, raised in the depths by a holy order fending off a dark Lych threat for generations, all communication was facilitated psionically, so he never learnt to speak anything but Goblin

Generally speaking just saying that common is a required language for the sake of the game's pacing might be necessary.

[Wolf Tengu]

Generally speaking just saying that common is a required language for the sake of the game's pacing might be necessary.

I know someone who'd have forced them to communicate through interpretative dance...

Though yeah, unless you have a character who can speak both language and translate, common-requirement is probably the best choice in the future.

[Neonivek]

Truth be known it may not have been the intention of the player to only know goblin but rather he might not have the intelligence score to take common.

So just say that Common is a free language regardless of the race choice.

[timferius]

It was deffinitly by his design. Either way, that character has been scrapped to adapt to the new campaign setting, so that's good for me at least!

[CognitiveDissonance]

If it helps at all, here is how I would have approached this circumstance:

The Goblin may not have learned how to properly speak Common, but he was communicated to in it using telepathy. It's not that he doesn't KNOW it, he just can't interact in it properly. The character HAS to use very poor language regardless of intelligence until they are willing to invest some effort into learning the language properly. Essentially "Goblin look. Why you look?"

Hook:

 One by one, they came looking for fortune in a [insert major city name here]. Being strange as they are though, nobody took well to them. Things took a turn for the worse when the city watch undertook a shakedown for unwanted and criminals, and they were thrown out of the city walls. Their posessions confiscated, any property they owned nullified; Their reputation ruined.

It is a stereotypical miserable and rainy night. One by one, they drift to a small campfire of other unfortunates...


I know you already started, but maybe this will help.