How to Game Master Pathfinder (The Chase II)

So, how do you game master an opening chase scene?  Here is an example of how I might game master the start of an adventure with a chase scene.  Hey, I might not be in the mood for the standard “introduce yourself to the party, what is your background, blah, blah, blah …”

Now I am not saying that I don’t want to know the character’s background, etc…  I just want to find out the PC’s background in a little different fashion.  So I am doing it with a chase scene.

Let’s make it light hearted.  I don’t want to kill the whole party before the module or planned adventure even gets started.  So some ground rules are in order.

I am going to give everyone 3 hero points to do the extraordinary to escape this chase.  However, I do not want you to use these hero points unless it is absolutely necessary to get through the chase.  Any hero points that you have left over are yours to keep for the rest of the adventure (you can do this even if you are not going to be handing out hero points for the rest of the adventure).

So let’s start.  You have just recaptured the Scepter of Salamander (the Lord of East Gate) from an evil witch that lives in an underground maze.  The evil witch who kept the scepter is dead, but with her last dying breath she manage to trigger the self-destruct for her underground fortress in an effort to have the party join her in her untimely demise.

Use your imagination people; I am not drawing the scenes right now.  You are standing at the beginning of a 300 foot long, 20 foot wide and 20 foot high corridor with difficult terrain for running and flying, given the cracked earth beneath you and the stalagmites hanging from the ceilings.  This means only double moves at halve movement, as opposed to 4 times your movement from running.  From the looks of things you have got about 10 rounds to get to the other side to avoid being caved in.  What do you do?  Described to me how each of you will make it to the other end in time.

Remember, this is an chase scene exercise to find out about the characters, so have them describe thoroughly their methods of escape.  The monk might simply say that his movement is 40 and he is a Qinggong monk that can cast feather step so he can run at four times movement and make it to the other side in 2 rounds.  The Paladin might say that he only moves at 20 in his heavy armor and that it would take him 15 rounds to get to the other end.  The barbarian might say that he moves at 40 and can make it to the other side in 7 to 8 rounds.  The wizard might say that he can cast fly on the Paladin giving him a move of 60 and the paladin can carry us both.  You might say, “oh, but there is a 50% chance that you used you fly spell during battle.”  If he makes the 50% roll he can cast.  If not, maybe they are struck or have some other answer.  If they are stuck, then they have to use a hero point to make it to the other side.

So you have learned about their movement abilities.  Next, you can set up other escape obstacles that find out other things about the characters.  They are going to have to remember which way to go back out of the maze.  You will find out who has the survival skill, scent, chalk or something else that is useful.  Keep the heat on with all of your scenes, however, to force the players to truly reveal their characters.  Make the perception checks hard to notice escape routes that avoid the collapsing part of the underground fortress.  Remember, you don’t have to make them roll perception checks at this point.  They just need to make you believe that it was possible for them to notice whatever it is.  For instance, the barbarian might say that he has a +12 to perception.  You might say, really, describe how it got that.  If the barbarian is detailed you might find out that he has a certain magic item, has a high wisdom, placed a lot of ranks in perception, is a particular race that grants certain bonuses.  He might even argue that he has knowledge (engineering or dungeoneering) and that they should give him a circumstance bonus to notice the hidden escape hatches.  You might even dig deeper and find out how he was trained and where he came across his magic items.   You get the point.

Further, game mastering this way does not require you to come up with a new chase scene at the beginning of all of your adventures.  You can recycle the same old chase scene.  Even players that have gone through it before will still enjoy it.  Further, they will accept it for what it is – a great way to get to know everyone around the table.

Learn how to game master through an opening chase scene the right way and you can have excitement, adventure, background stories, parley and whatever else.  Do the standard introduce yourself to everyone thing and you have a bunch of reluctant PCs giving you boring background while putting everyone else to sleep.  My two-cents, but two-cents that if invested the right way could make you adventures worth stacks of gold to your PCs.