In any living world server, gamemasters are just as important as players. To ensure a high quality of gameplay and storytelling, we kindly ask our GMs to follow these guidelines when running quests.
The Amalthea community is friendly to new GMs, and anyone that has an idea for a quest is free to select the GM role and run it. As such, we understand that mistakes can happen, and genuine missteps on the part of inexperienced GMs will not be punished. However, repeated or intentional violation of the following guidelines may result in the removal of GMing privileges.
Table of Contents
Encounter Design
The first rule of encounter design is that the players are supposed to win, but their victory should be well earned. No matter the nature of the encounter, they should always require effort to overcome, but ultimately, as the GM, you are rooting for the players to come out on top. This section is mostly a guideline on combat design, but can be extrapolated to other dangers that challenge players.
1. Be Fair and Transparent
When GMing, you must accurately inform players of quest difficulty, potential risks, optional/variant rules in play (such as ship combat), and quest length. Always label your quest with content warnings if it touches upon triggering content. Do not exclude or target specific players or characters because of personal bias.
2. Aim for Challenge, not TPK
Avoid excessive lethality. While you should prepare for real consequences to raise the tension and stakes, such consequences should not come purely from RNG, because losing due to bad luck isn’t fun. Tactical mistakes should still be punished, corresponding to the severity of mistakes and the advertised difficulty.
When judgment calls are needed for unusual player strategies, decide on a case by case basis with the above in mind. Don’t let players bypass danger if they’re well equipped and fully rested, but be more forgiving if they make a desperate bid for survival by coming up with “exploitative” tactics not fully intended by game rules.
3. Be Mindful of Party Composition
When choosing which characters to include in your quests, learn about their abilities and outlooks so as to avoid unnecessary frustration. For example, you should not recruit a party of fire mages to slay devils, or good-aligned characters to victimize innocents. Be honest about how you select players for a quest, and only use first come first serve or random selection after considering each character’s suitability for the quest.
Even with the above precautions, it’s still possible that your party doesn’t end up a perfect fit, whether because their build qualities vary too much, or their personalities and strategies clash. For that reason, try to improvise encounters to give everyone in the party a chance to have fun, although it’s perfectly fine to stick to a pre-set encounter if the content is clearly communicated in the quest recruitment post.
4. Use Creative Builds and Tactics, Not Hard Counters
Monsters benefit from EitR, full hit dice at each level, and plenty of monster feats and talents introduced by the Spheres system. Spellcasting enemies should be rebuilt for spherecasting, although exceptions can be made for spell-like abilities (justified in-universe as special magical organs possessed by monsters). While not all enemies strictly require these adjustments, doing so is recommended, as it helps you think about how they might approach an encounter with PCs, and how groups of them may coordinate their actions.
When designing enemy tactics, never render a player’s ability set useless, or deny players their turns for multiple rounds. Instead, design to prevent streaks of “best case scenario” turns for the players. Enemies should buff themselves, avoid getting full attacked, get out of damage-over-time areas, remove status effects, and use healing if it is logical.
5. Vary It Up
Try to design varied quests that cover at least two of the following: combat, exploration, skill challenge, and social interaction. If a quest wouldn’t make sense to include too much non-combat content, then design multiple combat encounters over the course of the day. A smaller fight before a boss not only adds variety, but also lets you test and familiarize yourself with various aspects of your party’s abilities. If a party member is underperforming significantly, try to find some easier but no less significant challenge for them to address while stronger party members face the main threat. An environmental object players can interact with is an excellent option. You might describe a boulder that can be rolled down a hill, a chandelier to be dropped on an unsuspecting foe, or a gate that can be closed to separate a group of enemies. Environments may also be used to impede players, with actions to remove these impediments, such as grasping vines that can be burnt away or traps that can be disabled.
Quest Difficulty
Use the following guidelines when assigning a difficulty to quests. Most quests should aim to be Normal or Hard. Easy quests should be avoided except at very low levels, while Deadly quests should be exclusively reserved for quests that would result in a significant mechanical or narrative boon for involved characters, such as a hunt for a unique and powerful item.
Easy: Character death is basically impossible, and challenges won't be difficult to overcome. So long as players don't actively work against each other, success should be achievable without issue.
Normal: Characters need to employ some semblance of cooperation and make use of their abilities. Major misplays or extreme strings of bad luck can lead to dire situations, but character death is still unlikely.
Hard: Characters need to organize and make sure they have a composition that works. Challenges require thoughtful approaches and planning, and individual missteps or plans backfiring can lead to tough situations if there are no backup plans. Character death is a real threat.
Deadly: Characters need to utilize every trick in their arsenal and formulate situation specific strategies to have a chance of winning. Even in the case of a solid plan, bad luck may still put character lives at risk, and multiple if not all characters may die if the party gets themselves into a dire situation with no escape plan.
Experience and Rewards
The CR system in the vanilla Pathfinder system is rather inaccurate, and should not be followed exactly when awarding XP. Use the following guidelines instead.
Basic Quest Rewards
As a general rule of thumb, if the above guidelines are followed, a quest containing a major combat encounter, and either minor combat encounters or a series of non-combat challenges, should award approximately 1/5 to 1/4 of a level to the highest level player participating, with a corresponding amount of wealth (ie. 1/5 to 1/4 until next WBL amount). Quests should by default award all players the same amount of XP, so lower level players in the quest benefit from faster progression. A longer quest with multiple encounters over several in-game days can reward players either between sessions, or at the conclusion of the quest, at the GM’s discretion.
In addition to GP and XP, all players that completed a quest receive at least 1 Favor with the quest's assocaited Faction. For details on Factions, see the
Factions of Tisoria page.
A GM should post a quest's reward in the quest recruitment post, using the following format:
Quest Title: Self explanatory
Players: @ player names to tag them; mention which character they played
XP rewards: For each individual PC
GP/Item rewards: For each individual PC
Favor Gain/Loss: The amount of favor PCs gained or lost with relevant Factions
|
Recommended Rewards By Level
| Max Character Level | XP Rewards | GP Rewards |
|---|
| 3 |
800 ~ 1,000 |
600 ~ 750 |
| 4 |
1,200 ~ 1,500 |
900 ~ 1,125 |
| 5 |
1,600 ~ 2,000 |
1,100 ~ 1,375 |
| 6 |
2,400 ~ 3,000 |
1,500 ~ 1,875 |
| 7 |
3,200 ~ 4,000 |
1,900 ~ 2,375 |
| 8 |
4,800 ~ 6,000 |
2,600 ~ 3,250 |
| 9 |
6,000 ~ 7,500 |
3,200 ~ 4,000 |
| 10 |
10,000 ~ 12,500 |
4,000 ~ 5,000 |
| 11 |
13,000 ~ 16,250 |
5,200 ~ 6,500 |
| 12 |
19,000 ~ 23,750 |
6,400 ~ 8,000 |
| 13 |
26,000 ~ 32,500 |
9,000 ~ 11,250 |
| 14 |
38,000 ~ 47,500 |
11,000 ~ 13,750 |
| 15 |
51,000 ~ 63,750 |
15,000 ~ 18,750 |
| 16 |
82,000 ~ 102,500 |
19,000 ~ 23,750 |
| 17 |
100,000 ~ 125,000 |
24,000 ~ 30,000 |
| 18 |
150,000 ~ 187,500 |
31,000 ~ 38,750 |
| 19 |
210,000 ~ 262,500 |
39,000 ~ 48,750 |
Bonus Rewards
Sometimes, a GM might wish to assign bonus XP to specific players or a party for cleverness, for unexpected quest difficulty, or for accomplishing objectives not anticipated in the quest. Such bonuses assigned to a player character should never exceed 1/4 the total XP awarded for the quest.
Partial Rewards
Failed quests, or quests abandoned by GMs before completion, reward up to half the normal amount of XP and GP, depending on the degree of completion.
XP Cap
In order for players to enjoy a full leveling experience, no one-time reward should give enough XP to force anyone to skip a level. To calculate the maximum amount of XP that can be awarded in a quest, take the level of the lowest level PC. Then, calculate how much XP it would take for that PC to level up from their current level+1, to their current level+2. For instance, a quest for level 8-10 characters has the XP capped at 30000, which is the amount of XP to level a minimum XP 9th level character to 10th level.
Special Item Rewards
If a GM would like to award the players with items instead of GP, players may claim an item by deducting the item’s selling price from their own GP reward (ie. 80% of the item’s purchasing price). If an item is wanted by more than one player, the GM can assign the item based on a dice roll system agreed on by involved players. Avoid unique items without an associated cost (eg. not built with any vanilla or Spheres crafting rules). If you have to award such an item for narrative reasons, please consult the moderators first. Players may not take any un-priced items into a quest without permission from that quest’s GM.
Do not award players with any artifacts, although you may use artifacts as plot devices in a quest with moderator permission, as long as they can't end up in player possession.
Hero Points
A Hero Point is awarded to the character whose player submits an article to a
newspaper detailing the events of the quest. The GM may also claim a Hero Point for any of their characters if they submit an article.
GM Rewards
A GM may receive up to 1/4 of a level given to any character, with the corresponding wealth, and 1 Favor to any faction, as a reward for running a quest to completion, and up to half as much for failed quests. This reward is entirely optional, and GMs are permitted to forgo taking rewards for their own characters if they wish to progress organically.
GMs may never reward their own characters with items for running quests, nor do they receive rewards if they willingly abandoned the quest.
Storytelling Considerations
In order to keep a consistent narrative tone, we suggest that GMs keep the following lore and themes in mind. This section is by no means comprehensive, but should serve as a starting point for GMs to think about what kind of stories they would like to tell.
Use Factions
As all quests interact with the Faction system, potential GMs are recommended to familiarize themselves with
Tisoria's Factions and tie their quests to the interests of one or more of them. Do not use generic, unnamed groups such as "a criminal gang", "an order of mages", or "a merchant guild". If you don't have fleshed out lore or long term story plans for original organizations, use pre-existing ones instead: the Shrouded Syndicate, the Arcanarium, and the Ember Trading Company would be appropriate for the aforementioned example.
If you're having a hard time tying a quest to any specific faction interests, the Tisorian City Council is intended as a catch-all Faction for generic heroic quests that help the city as a whole.
Most People Are Ordinary
Amalthea is not a world with epic heroes around every corner. No mortal on the Material Plane is above 10th level, and most people have up to 6 levels in one of the following
Spheres NPC Classes, instead of levels in PC classes. In addition, with the exception of Scourge horrors, powerful supernatural beings are so exceptionally rare that most people would never encounter one in their lifetime.
When designing NPCs, try to use playable races, and give them the minimum number of class levels and talents they need to fulfill their position. A constable captain is probably a level 6 Combatant, not a Fighter or Conscript; a skilled craftsman is much more likely to be a Specialist than a Blacksmith; most priests in the Sybilite Church are Magicians with the Life or Fate sphere, not Clerics or Soul Weavers. NPCs with PC classes do exist, but they're usually exceptional people, whether young prodigies with immense potential in their chosen path, or experienced experts that hold impressive positions in society.
However, just because most NPCs are ordinary, doesn't mean that they're helpless or uninteresting. If you want players to become attached to an NPC, try to give them a memorable personality and abilities that could be helpful to PCs even at a low level. Avoid having NPCs with unique and powerful abilities accompany PCs on a quest, unless the NPC and their abilties are narratively important. When using legendary supernatural creatures, such as true dragons or greater extraplanar outsiders, always give them an appropriately extraordinary story, rather than relegate them to mundane roles.
Nuanced Mortals, Horrific Monsters
Heroes and villains of mortal, humanoid origin all come from somewhere, and that influences what they want. No one spontaneously decides to become the final boss of a dungeon; something about their upbringing, experiences, and personal philosophy must have led them there, and discovering these elements should be as important for the player characters, as the final confrontation itself. After all, even an irredeemable, psychopathic serial killer was once a disturbed child.
However, this is not a commandment to write a detailed backstory for every major combat encounter. Amalthea is a fantastical world, and GMs that are uninterested in exploring complex origin stories and villain motivations are recommended to avoid humanoid enemies and use beings of supernatural evil instead. Nobody needs to know a crucidaemon or a flying polyp's personality and history to understand it must be destroyed. In such cases, it's best to make the monsters unambiguously horrific to avoid any moral dilemmas. Scourge Rifts, which can occur spontaneously or as the result of cult activities, are a good way to create horrific and challenging encounters for players.
Don't Answer Cosmic Questions
The ambiguity of things such as the nature of divinity, the origin of souls, and the afterlife must be maintained for all quests, even high level ones. While such questions may be answered for individuals, these instances are always exceptions, not the rule. For example, a quest to steal the soul of one dead person from a psychopomp's vault should make no implications about anyone else's soul.
In addition, all GMs must respect the existing cosmology of the Amalthea setting to avoid continuity issues with other GMs. The only planes in existence are the Material Plane, the Aether, the Feywild, the Shadowfell, the Spiritual Planes, and the Far Realms. The Elder Gods are fixed in number and can't directly intervene with mortal affairs. While some theories claim the Great Old Ones are alien beings from the void of outer space, no one truly knows if extraterrestrial life exists. Finally, the creation of intelligent life is beyond the purview of even most gods, let alone mortals.
However, with moderator oversight, GMs who wish to create original content of a cosmic nature are always allowed to flesh out layers or regions of the existing planes, or write their own demiplanes and lesser gods with limited influence in the world.
Common Encounters
The following types of encounters are commonly found in or around Tisoria. GMs looking for ideas are encouraged to use them as inspirations for their quests, but are more than welcome to come up with their own creative plot lines.
Scourge Rifts
It is common knowledge that the Scourgelands are expanding faster every year, as the rate of expansion is proportional to the Scourgelands' perimeter. More worryingly, Scourge Rifts — portals into the Shadowfell and the Far Realms beyond — are found commonly in regions near the Scourgelands, decreasing in frequency as one moves farther away. These Rifts are bound to an Anchor, that is, a fairly powerful creature whose death will close the Rift. However, should a Rift be left open for too long, it becomes permanent, and its Anchor respawns upon death. A permanent Scourge Rift will then begin to expand.
A Scourge Rift is a region of unnatural, and often horrific, environment, filled with the following types of monsters:
Rift Anchor
Every Rift has an Anchor, which is the most powerful creature to come through the Rift, or alternatively the being that willingly opened the Rift from the Material Plane. An extraplanar Rift Anchor is usually an evil aberration, a daemon, a qlippoth, or a sakhil, although it can be other outsiders with the Broken Soul or a similar template to indicate its eldritch corruption. At the GM's discretion, the Broken Soul's Agonizing Wail can bestow other effects than fear, such as a lesser madness appropriate of the creature's nature.
A Rift Anchor who opened the Rift from the Material Plane is usually a cultist of Vanthus or some other Great Old One. They are usually intelligent undead, humanoids, or monstrous humanoids. In cases of living Anchors, the process of opening the Rift usually turns them into an undead or aberration.
Scourge Monsters
Less powerful creature usually accompany the Rift Anchor. These could be thematically similar aberrations and outsiders, wildlife and commoners mutated or transformed into undead by the Rift, or cultists that worship the Anchor as an eldritch herald. The most common Scourge cultists are ghouls, although mutated humanoids and monstrous humanoids aren't uncommon either. Scourge monsters can travel quite far from the Rift proper, making them a possible encounter anywhere.
Cults
Plenty of illegal religions devoted to evil (or simply misunderstood) beings exist in Tisoria, causing all sorts of supernatural problems for ordinary citizens.
Scourge Cults
The worship of Vanthus, any deity of daemon, qlippoth, or sakhil origin, as well as the goblin fire god Maathag is highly illegal in Tisoria. Open worship is punishable by life imprisonment, and the summoning of creatures related to these entities can result in the summoner's execution. Nevertheless, the desperate and insane are frequently radicalized into these cults thanks to a combination of tempting lies, coercion, and sometimes mind control. These cults aren't necessarily capable of opening Scourge Rifts, but they can do plenty of damage on their own, using a combination of occult magic and plain brutal violence.
Other Eldritch Cults
It is only because of trade relations with Marklund, Duskwood, and Durgrimmar that the worship of Gn'thornythh, Ashoi-Nokta, and Yal-Sabaoth is tolerated to some degree. Their cults are not openly hostile, except for an extremist sect of Yal-Sabaoth called the Cult of the Remaker, outlawed in Durgrimmar proper. One of the Remakers' worst creations is the derro, dwarves mutated in the womb to be unable to feel empathy or pain. The Remakers designed them to be perfect lab assisstants and test subjects in one, but lost control of these psychopathic creatures. Now, warrens of derro are rumored to lurk under most Valdoran cities, including Tisoria, abducting innocents for horrific experiments.
Abrazanic Heretics
Abrazan Koss once commanded the absolute loyalty of the Inquisition. After he summoned the Scourge, the Inquisition was disbanded immediately, and most inquisitors retired or joined other branches of the Sybilite Church. However, a minority of inquisitors could not accept that the leader they followed their whole life was evil or insane. These people sought solace in an old conspiracy theory: that the Koss family was directly descended from St. Sybil and St. Laurelion, entrusted with the secret and glorious purpose the Sybilite Church was
really created for. They came to the conclusion that Abrazan is the herald of the apocalypse, and it is their duty to see the world end.
Abrazanic Heretics differ from common Scourge cults in their strict organization and discipline. Furthermore, as former inquisitors, they easily pass for legitimate Sybilite clergy, allowing them to infiltrate vulnerable communities and convert them to their nihilistic beliefs.
Criminals
A wealthy city state like Tisoria attracts plenty of criminals that prey on either its citizens, or the trade routes connecting to it.
Urban Organized Crime
Two criminal Factions hold significant amounts of power in Tisoria: House Windrelli, a mafia family rumoured to be vampires; and the Shrouded Syndicate, a conspiracy of criminal masterminds with a special interest in knowledge of all kinds. These two factions are rivals, making it easy to integrate even criminal PCs into an encounter against other criminals. House Windrelli tends to employ necromancers and assassins, while the Syndicate works through proxies, whether it is smaller gangs, or evil creatures called from other planes.
Bandits
The bandits roaming beyond Tisoria come in all common races, although the most infamous among them are the Selva Brotherhood and various bands of ghouls. The Selva Brotherhood are a clan of wood elves who abandoned their primitivist traditions to steal from industrialized cultures, riding atop terrestrial or flying mounts and proving themselves a threat to caravans, trains, and airships alike. The Brotherhood reportedly believes in honor among thieves, and will not wantonly kill.
Ghoul bandits, by contrast, are sadistic cannibals who raid for wealth as well as flesh, and infect what they could not eat in hopes of turning their victims into ghouls to grow their numbers. Most other bandits give them a wild berth, although brash youths from the Selva Brotherhood sometimes take it upon themselves to hunt down these ghouls, believing their paralysis immunity makes them invincible. These foolish elves are often the first to fall victim to ghoul fever.
Pirates
The Blacktide Confederacy and the Silksail Dynasty both operate in the seas near Tisoria. The Blacktide Confederacy is led predominantly by sea elves that defected from Velthiria's navy, although they also count many humans and shark folk in their number. These pirates possess stolen Velthirian warships outfitted with powerful cannons, and although many of these ships are nearly a century old, they are extremely well maintained and remain a major threat.
The Silksail Dynasty, meanwhile, is composed largely of humans of Cerlanian descent, with a large number of beastfolk and halflings among them as well. Lady Yu Huali, the self-proclaimed queen of the Dynasty, commands both airships and oceanic ships, and many of her captains additionally have access to weather magic.
