Hey guys. Considering I’m in Vienna after all, does anyone want to meet up before the game for a short introduction and discussion?
I can either Thursday or Friday, after 6 PM…
PS: do you know where can I fin the Pathfinder Bestiary in English?
I think friday works for me.
You could ask at Planet Harry, but I think they’re out of it atm. But you can always order it there.
[quote=“GJsoft”]I think friday works for me.
.[/quote]
Friday=kingmaker 
@Bestiary:
IIRC I did see one at Damage Unlimited two weeks ago but you should check if it’s the english version.
Oh, now that you mention it. I assumed we were playing till 5. My bad.
we’re gonna start at 3/4 or maybe 5…so 
I might be able to meet up somewhere if we can manage a timeslot that’d allow me to get there directly after work. I’m off at 5 PM, except Fridays.
checking the timeslot I’m having at friday, it seems that day i out after all then? Well, I guess it’s just saturday then.
So the first session takes place tbis saturday at 13:00. Just want clarify that ^^
That’s right.
Ok then we still need directions as to where we play, but I’m sure those will come soon enough ^^
I shared my address (and contact number) with GJsoft already. Since I’m not sure if all of the participants posted here, I’m leaving forwarding it to all the other players to him.
Fair enough. Ok, now that everything is ready, I can only say that I’m really excited about the game :3
In case somebody didn’t check it yet, I’ve sent everyone a PM with the information. I’m looking forward to it.
'Twas a fun game, I have to say. Really looking forward to the next session. I’ll be better preapred too!
Thank you all for a fun afternoon and I hope the accomodations were acceptable (if somewhat frosty until I figured out how to turn on the heating).
We didn’t really have a chance to talk some more after the game, so I’ll give some feedback here:
If I recall correctly, this was the first time GJsoft ran a game, in which case – congratulations, great job! It was pretty obvious that you were quite nervous, but that’s normal. Develop a pace you’re comfortable with and build up from there.
As you become more familiar and secure with DMing, you’ll want to let more descriptive flow into things, paint more of a scene for the participants, but that’s not something to worry over just yet. There are other ways to enhance things and help you get into the mood and theme at the same time you can incorporate with a bit of preparation that require little effort in the actual game.
A big one is music. Grab some thematically appropriate tracks from a couple of horror movies to set the mood. I have a number of tracks that would probably work well for this purpose, if you’d like some assistance.
This might also help with the main difficulty I believe we had in our session:
We were pretty much playing a light-hearted D&D game, with lots of joking around and meta behaviour. For it to work as a horror campaign, we need to emphasize that aspect and delve more into our characters, their psyche, what’s going on, etc. – more akin to a game of Call of Cthulhu or the World of Darkness settings.
Thematic music will help with that. If you’re feeling comfortable enough, more descriptive helps, too – preparing some passages to describe people, places or background happenings beyond the barebones provided in the module writeup in advance is something that a former ST I played with did, as an example.
It may also help if we tried going at it without the battlegrid, though you may want to get more used to running combat first. I know it’s pretty much a D&D staple and makes maneuvering a lot easier … but at the same time, being unable to rely upon it encourages people to describe what they’re doing and where they’re going. You’ll need to provide more active information on what’s happening and what the surroundings are, too.
Of course, it’s also necessary for the players to go along with it and step out of the general ‘murder hobo’ D&D mindset (which is, of course, fun! Just not horror fun.). Assuming that everyone wants to. I wouldn’t mind playing this as more of a character experience, though I’m of course still in if we continue as we did.
I am agree with you, in practically everything, it will be nice if sometimes we focus more in the R of RPG 
. I know that next time it will be also, or even more, interesting.
Music… yes.
Thanks for offer your place.
Thank you all for let me participate, I enjoyed it
Thank you all very much for the feedback, I appreciate it a lot. There are some things already I believe I’ll be much more comfortable with by the next session, while on the other hand, there are some aspects I’m still very insecure about. Combat for example would be one of them. Music is something I’d like to try as well, so I’ll see if I’ll be able to prepare something till next time.
Horror is something I’ve been struggling even in theory to mix with DnD/Pathfinder. Looking back at it, I really should have made the point buy smaller. There is not really any real sense of danger when our Paladin can onehit 90% of the stuff walking around :'D
We’ll see though. In any case, it’s been a very good learning experience. And I need to applaud the players for pulling off a lot of smart plays.
The paladin only onehits 90% of the evil/undead creatures, but that wouldn’t be much different if we had less points available.
@Horror:
A group of that size, that meets for the first time needs some time to get into the game. Omitting the battlegrid will work for smaller fights but e.g. not for the one in the office where some of us almost died.
Give it some time and a few more descriptions of the places from the GM and it will get better.
I’m also voting for background music.
Yeah, the character would, in all likelihood, just be less well-rounded with less points. It’s not a matter of mechanics or how powerful the opponents are as opposed to the characters – horror lies in the mood and presentation.
Thing is, since this module apparently deals with a lot of undead and we’ll probably be facing some Aberrations at some point if Yog-Sothoth is involved … well, if I was running it, I probably would not have allowed a Paladin in a new-ish unfamiliar group I hadn’t run anything for before (or have examined the character’s personality and motivations very thoroughly and asked for certain concessions, if a player really, really wanted to play one), largely because they’re immune to a lot of things associated with horror … fear, for one (though an argument could be made that they’re not actually -immune- to the feeling itself, just that they act unhampered despite it when the need calls for it, which I find more heroic anyway), and disease is a frightful thing when dealing with the undead and Lovecraftian horrors. As is an inability to compromise, which the classic D&D Paladin is pretty much neatly packaged with unless you’re moving away from the old ‘must not knowingly associate with/tolerate evil’ claptrap and let them be more wily about being champions of all forces bright and shiny. There’s dozens of discussion threads on the internet about the Paladin and its code and the feasibility thereof already, I could probably dig up some good ones I read on GiantITP if you’re interested in reading more thoughts and theories on the matter.