Pathfinder Roleplaying Game

Gamemastering

Pathfinder Core Rulebook, page 394

It’s one thing to play a character on an adventure. It’s quite another to run the adventure as a Game Master. It’s a lot more work, sure, but it can be a lot more rewarding to create an entire world for your friends to explore.

But what exactly is a Game Master?

Storyteller: First and foremost, the Game Master is a storyteller. He presents the world and its characters to the players of the game, and it is through the GM that the players interact with them. The Game Master must be able to craft stories and to translate them into a verbal medium.

Entertainer: A Game Master must also be a master at improvisation. He has to be ready to handle anything that his players want to do, to resolve situations and issue rulings quickly enough to keep the pace of the game going at an entertaining clip. A Game Master is on stage, and his players are his audience.

Judge: The Game Master must be the arbiter of everything that occurs in the game. All rule books, including this one, are his tools, but his word is the law. He must not antagonize the players or work to impede their ability to enjoy the game, yet neither should he favor them and coddle them. He should be impartial, fair, and consistent in his administration of the rules.

Inventor: The Game Master’s job does not end when the game session does. He must be an inventor as well. By creating NPCs, plots, magic items, spells, worlds, deities, monsters, and everything else, he propels his game’s evolution forward, constantly elevating his campaign into something greater.

Player: Just because he’s playing dozens of characters during the course of a session doesn’t make him any less a player than the others who sit at the table.

In this section

  • Building An Adventure There are countless ways to build an adventure. The classic method is to simply write everything out beforehand.
  • Preparing for the Game Your job as Game Master begins well before the game session does. Your most important duty before a game is, of course, to prepare for that game.
  • During the Game The bulk of this book provides the rules you need to adjudicate the game and run things, but there are many other problems and events that can come up that require you to think quickly before they become disruptive.
  • Campaign Tips So now you have an adventure or two ready for your players to experience.
  • Ending the Campaign In the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, 20th level represents the top end of power most mortals can hope to achieve, yet this certainly doesn’t mean that your campaign needs to go all the way to 20th level.
  • Starting a Campaign Before you run a game, you need to know what kind of game you’ll be running.
  • Published Adventures Published adventures are your friend. As a Game Master, you’re going to be spending a lot of time as it is preparing for games—and when you don’t have time to come up with an adventure, a published adventure can be a…