The fall of GM's and a little more about Entrathia

      Behold! For I have become that which I have striven for, neither tethered or fettered by the safety of friend groups, (not to disenfranchise you guys, I love you guys :3) I have ascended to GM elite hood :D. All self indulging bullshit aside, I have at long last finally GM'ed at a Con, and I must say it was absolutely fantastic! I have always said "Man, I really need to GM for a Con, the time has come and once I do that, I am very much legit." (Last part a little paraphrased). And so I have, and it was an intense experience, with sweat beading down my sides, my head feeling hot and disorientated, I managed to GM and have a damned good time with it. The above picture is the Scenario I GM'ed for, "The Quest for Perfection, Part I" and though it was thrown upon me at last minute, I hope I managed best I could, though that would be for the players to dictate not I. In any case, YAY! Finally right?
      But, while that was amazing, my party survived completely and everyone seemed to enjoy it, there has been another subject bothering and curtailing me, that is what a good portion of what this blog will be about, The Fall of GM's. My Sunday gaming experience was pretty enjoyable all in all, yet it was muddied and soiled by a very troubled GM, though he certainly didn't display his troubled nature, just something I could pick up. After my enjoyable experience on the Saturday I ran the Scenario, followed by the awful evening that was had after retiring from the Con that night, I was ready to continue gaming, after being prodded and convinved (as I almost always am) by my lovely girlfriend Miku, and so I managed to snag a game that was meant to go from 9 AM - 11 PM. A very long and expansive game to say the least, but I was up for the challenge, and that meant 3 whole exp. for my Ninja, Izo, and thereby leveling for his awesome sneaky butt! Yet, here is the kicker, it ended at around 5 - 6 estimated...I was certainly taken aback, though it meant another game for me, which I was OK with, it was just the GM we had that I was not entirely OK with. The game began with the usual pomp and circumstance of getting started getting going and so on and so on, then it was when we began to encounter creatures that things started to become a little suspect. After a few fort saves (fortitude saves, for those not RPG slang savvy yet) things began to look a bit peculiar. Vermin like creatures though are not uncommon to higher fort saves, so I thought nothing of it, for the time being. But then as they continuously began to make more and more saves with will, Vermin like bugs making will saves?! Things became even more suspect to me. All things aside I continued on and my party still won in the end, regardless of this handicap of fudged rolls, and oh my avid readers, there were many many fudged rolls let me tell you.
      During the whole amount of that game there was luckily a very nice and knowledgeable married couple sitting beside me, and they questioned and called the GM out every chance they got, and when the GM was called out and blatantly exposed, he would quickly cover up the fluke with a "Oh, I'm tired and it's hard to see," "Oh, it's late and the light and so forth (ensuing crap noise from mouth)," So it was becoming more and more suspicious as to this GM's constant making of saves against this Sorceress' amazing and difficult DC's (Dice Challenge). Lets go with an example, she had a spell that inflicted possible daze if the creature did not make a will save, the save was 19 on a game meant for 2-4 lvl'ed characters, that's pretty damned impressive for that level, and we were playing on a low tier to boot. So obviously many an angry word was exchanged but in the end we still won and the GM left, much to our relief, as we were more than fed up with his obvious fudging of roles and lies. Here's where it becomes less player rage and more sad realization. Upon further chatting with the kindly married couple, as we had another game with one another, they explained this GM has been caught red handed fudging roles so that his creatures would win out in the end, and that they had actually tried to transfer from previous games that they had with this GM before. So long story short, he was a lying bastard that has further set in stone the Fall of the GM.
      When I say "fall" I mean this, how many times have party members and players said this statement (or a variation thereof) "Op, looks like its gonna be a TPK" "Ah man we're screwed, GM is gonna totally kill us" "I wouldn't be surprised if the GM kills AT LEAST one of us, if not all." Mother.Of.God. What.the.hell.has.happened. At this point I am going to explain my opinion, and not fact, though I believe should be fact, and should you disagree then by all means, please voice your disagreement, I'll happily retort the point. To me Pathfinder and RPG's are about one thing, and one thing only, HAVING FUN! For some perhaps that is dying, losing your character, smiling as all that work is basically useless graphite on paper, I do not agree with this though. GM's have not helped in this loss of gaming reasoning, slowly GM's become less of a story teller and someone whom creates a fun and enjoyable environment, and more of this

If you're not familiar with this picture, it's The Punisher, someone whom punishes bad guys, but really isn't a good guy at all. Is this what GM's have turned into, storytellers desperately attempting to kill the party, because "Ha ha, it's funny you guys suck and I'm a giant D-Head" A sad state of affairs if I may say so- and please I can already hear the reasoning behind the GM reputation and trust me I have heard it and shared my view. In the end to sum up this inordinately long post, I think it is the GM's damned job, duty, and obligation to provide an awe inspiring and fantastic game. This is not to say that TPK's are not ever warranted, and that some players dying may just happen, but it is when the GM strives just for a TPK and nothing else, is hell bent without any recourse to kill the party, where I primly and promptly throw them the proverbial 'bird' and move to dismantle the sodding reputation that the GM's have foolishly built. So, hopefully that offers some enlightenment and so forth, and my position on fudging rolls and cheating behind the GM screen to beat the character. Those that do it, you are a charlatan and feed off a false sense of power over others, just stop(scoff).

Now as per my other segment of Entrathia, what should I post? Hmmm. Ah! Of course, The Great Calamity. I have name dropped this quite a few times, let me give you a run down, and I do plan on introducing this to a party at one point, though it takes place a few hundred years before the 7th Era. During the 6th Era (Each Era = 1000 year block) on year 706 of the Flintlock Age, a great plague broke out, some say it started in the Miranok Marsh, some say it started from farther south or east. What all agree on is that it caused such devastation, and there was such destruction in its wake that it completely changed the organization of Eharlith. The other continents wanted no part in this and expediently enacted harsh embargoes and isolation from Eharlith. What the plague did was resurrect all those that fell before it, and mostly fresh corpses into ravenous, immensely fast undead. It spread like wildfire and nigh on 14 months after the outbreak, nearly all of the Western half of the Continent had fallen before the plague. I have not completely finished writing everything up, but so far its a plague that spread devastatingly fast, and there is a small section on the western side where barricades were set up and safe zones created. One of the barricades I've dubbed the Deathsmarch Barricade. Which is basically a massive hastily built wall, with scrap and other bits put against it, to stave off the hoards of undead doom on the other side. I must say that it's looking fairly fun and interesting, and I am looking forward to throwing a group in there. I am already hard at work on a Post-Apocalyptia Adjustment, and will be fine tuning it as the days progress, suffice to say it will challenge players, enforce a feeling of impending annihilation, make food and water rare materials and gold and silver less so. Potions will be changed and wands and so forth, it will be a Z-Apocalypse, but not your run-of-the-mill Party is badass and these Zombies are our bitch, rather something far more *realistic* and challenging. I put asterisks around realistic, because I realized this is still a tabletop game and that it wont be realistic to the point of making it impossible or terrible to play. A good story and fun environment, and tense enthralling moments, I wont fall victim to the long long address I make against GM's whom challenge to the point of TPK, come now I'm not about to eat my own words.
Well that was a longer post but I hope it offers some clarity and some excitement for future games and so forth, I know I'm glad to have put my distaste for "Party Killing" GM's on the blog-o-sphere....Erm yup.
As always
Till next post, Roll your D20
Ryan