JP On Gaming

Tuesday, December 23, 2025

[Campaign Fail] Failing at Creation

So recently, I asked to join a Pathfinder 1e group to try out a classic PF Module I never played. Met with the GM who seemed like a good guy, experienced, with a lot of takes that vibed well with me. Quirky but not in a bad way (aren't most GM?). We had a long chat about the game and I was definitely on the hook. He was looking for people to refill his group after life happened to many of them. Nothing to worry me. He was well-organized and made great use of online tools, exciting. Definitely things I may use for my own campaigns.

Then came character creation... "Make a character" he said... I built myself a cleric - which the party did not have (they only had melee thugs).

I started asking questions to round out my character.
- "What creation method?" No answer. I used 20-points as a type of default.
- "How much money/equipment do I have?" A question particularly important since he spoke of integrating me while I was in jail with half the party. And 7th level! No answer.
- "When/Where do you want me to come in?" No answer.

I gave him a background, using the following guidelines for myself: since I did not participate in the opening segments of the game, having someone from the outside would allow me to play that I didn't see/know everything they did. I sent him four concepts that could fit the above, and he liked 2 of them, so I merged them into one, ending up with this:

Henry von Garabet is a low-tier noble from Cheliax. Charming, he drew the attention of a Countess and they started got into an affair. Captured in the throes of love, he fled. The husband accused him of rape (which it wasn't), and placed a bounty on his head.

Escaping, he swore his allegiance to whatever gods would save him. He received help from Shelyn - goddess of love and beauty.

From there, he came to [adventure location].

And that's pretty much where the shit hit the fan. He got annoyed that I changed from Taldor to Cheliax, giving me a paragraph why Shelyn made no sense in Cheliax and sent me to the Pathfinder Wiki to "read up on Golarion"...

After back and forth that yielded none of the answers to my questions (I still don't know how much money I should have). He began asking me for an extensive family history (about my siblings) and I said "whatever you need, I'll go with it."

After a week of this back and forth, he told me I was not longer welcome in his game. Funny because I was about to say the thing due to frustration to get the character done.

Now, what *REALLY* happened? There was clearly a breakdown in communication here. Instant messaging is great but it is important to ask the questions you need. And answer them. Massive multi-paragraph answers are not good for Q&A-type discussion. Keeping replies short allows for replying to particular elements.

Also, answer the questions.

So this post is about Pathfinder, but not really. In fact, my biggest gripes would've happened regardless of whether we played PF or 5e or Call of Cthulhu.

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