Is Chamomile a self-publisher?

[Libertad]

I found a company on Drive-Thru RPG called ChamomileHasAdventures, and one of the Den regulars came to mind.

Is the Chamomile of the Den the same person as the one writing these sourcebooks? Inquiring minds would like to know!

[Chamomile]

Yes. This page is a much more navigable list of my work.

[WalkTheDin0saur]

Since this is the Ask Chamomile Questions thread, what's your design process and DMing style like when you DM for money? Do you pretty much treat it like normal DMing, or do you go more out of your way to tailor the campaign to the players? If you're running a system you wouldn't normally run do you try to smooth over rough edges or do you try to play up whatever weird traits that system has?

(E: Yes I did read the link in your sig)

[Chamomile]

The only three systems people ever ask me to run are 5e, PF1, and FATE, and if someone asked me to run a system I strongly dislike, I would probably just say no.

Likewise, the vast majority of people want me to run an AP, and while I do clean up APs a bit, I mostly run them as they're printed, both because people pick them for a reason and while the AP writer may or may not deliver on that reason, I don't really know what that reason is (and players are rarely able to articulate it), so making changes has an essentially random chance of making this better or worse, and also because if you want me to extensively revise something, you have to pay me for custom content. When running APs, I make edits that I'm confident will improve the experience and even then only if I feel like it. I tend to integrate people's character motivations/backstories into the campaign if they actually bring it up regularly, but for people who have a nominal backstory which they then ignore for the rest of the game, I don't bother.

Occasionally someone comes to me with a custom game concept, in which case obviously I build the game around their requests.

There are some things I do as a paid GM that are important to reassuring people in their first session that I am not just some run-of-the-mill GM who happens to have delusions of grandeur, like having nice-looking maps (I strongly recommend Gabriel Pickard, whose maps look amazing, are pretty cheap, and at this point cover such a wide variety of environments that you will probably never need to use anyone else, which helps avoid jarring shifts in art style) and music/ambience, but the actual service I'm selling is nine times out of ten just reliability and basic decency. Once every now and again I'll get someone asking me for a specific campaign that they can't find a free GM interested in running, but the vast majority of the time people just want a GM who isn't a raging asshole (which is reasonably common by itself) and who won't get burned out after three weeks (which is very rare).

[Whipstitch]

I think it says a lot about your professionalism that the totally free Mr Vampire thing that didn't quite work out is still one of the better (albeit short) forum gaming experiences I've had and really I blame myself for letting that peter out more than anyone else. It's a format I've never gotten to really work compared to just sitting around at a table because I never know if I need to be providing more right away or if I'm just being a nag. If anything it's tempted me to hit up you up for services a number of times but I've just sort of had to accept that my schedule has sorta killed the hobby for me. A shame, really.

[Libertad]

Thank you for your response, Chamomile. I don't have much to add than you gave a good overview of your paid DM work.

Asking out of morbid curiosity, how do you deal with jerkass players who end up making things worse for the rest of the table? If you boot them, how do you deal with people who'd demand a refund?

[Chamomile]

I've only had one case where a session was made noticeably worse and one player in particular was clearly at fault. I did boot him, he did not ask for a refund, but my official refund policy is "fuck you and your lawyer," so if he had, he wouldn't have gotten one. I actually refunded the guy who most had to deal with the booted player's bullshit for that session because I felt bad about how stressful the session clearly was for him, which is the exact opposite of what he'd paid for.

[VladtheLad]

Likewise, the vast majority of people want me to run an AP, and while I do clean up APs a bit, I mostly run them as they're printed, both because people pick them for a reason and while the AP writer may or may not deliver on that reason, I don't really know what that reason is (and players are rarely able to articulate it), so making changes has an essentially random chance of making this better or worse, and also because if you want me to extensively revise something, you have to pay me for custom content. When running APs, I make edits that I'm confident will improve the experience and even then only if I feel like it. I tend to integrate people's character motivations/backstories into the campaign if they actually bring it up regularly, but for people who have a nominal backstory which they then ignore for the rest of the game, I don't bother.

Question. Do you use your own aspect classes? Also do you run the adventure paths from the beginning to the end? I am guessing no since that would too many session. If yes, how does the game run at higher levels? Do you find the typical "players are too strong" for the encounters problems emerge?

[Chamomile]

I use aspect classes for NPCs and recommend new players use them for themselves. The preconception that core is more accessible than anything third-party is evidently so extremely strong that it overrides even me directly telling people that these classes were specifically designed to be more accessible than core, however, so people usually don't listen, although they do sometimes convert after a couple of sessions.

I do indeed run APs to high levels. People are perfectly happy to pay for long campaigns (it's charged weekly, so it's not like they need to buy a year's worth of sessions up front or anything), and I'm perfectly happy to have stable income. The PF1 APs definitely start fraying at the edges in higher levels, but gentleman's agreements and mind caulk can hold all kinds of broken things together. I also tend to revise higher-level content a little bit more to get the NPCs working in a high-level paradigm where scry-and-die is an option they need to be prepared for.

[VladtheLad]

Thanks for answering!

I use aspect classes for NPCs and recommend new players use them for themselves. The preconception that core is more accessible than anything third-party is evidently so extremely strong that it overrides even me directly telling people that these classes were specifically designed to be more accessible than core, however, so people usually don't listen, although they do sometimes convert after a couple of sessions.

So basically you may swap the npc class to an aspect one and the players may follow you. Honestly unless I am missing sth, which is quite likely, I wouldn't play any martial class except your warrior.

I do indeed run APs to high levels. People are perfectly happy to pay for long campaigns (it's charged weekly, so it's not like they need to buy a year's worth of sessions up front or anything), and I'm perfectly happy to have stable income.

I was thinking people would lose interest into an adventure path after a while due to the railroadinness. That said I am starting to come to point of view that railroadiness isn't the problem, its more the false promise of sandbox. So if you say we are going to run an adventure path the agreement is people won't try to go of the rails too much and they are ok with you nugging them towards the objectiove. This saves valuable time and avoid player frustration.

The PF1 APs definitely start fraying at the edges in higher levels, but gentleman's agreements and mind caulk can hold all kinds of broken things together.

I assume the gentlemans agreement is so people don't push pathfinder optimization limits? Not using stuff like Dazing spell? Or make too good builds like Am barbarians or sth?
Tbh I would have though your aspect classes would have made short work of high level adventure paths challenges, but its quite likely I am missing sth.

I also tend to revise higher-level content a little bit more to get the NPCs working in a high-level paradigm where scry-and-die is an option they need to be prepared for.

Curious on how you do that? The only think that comes to mind is the anticipate teleportations spell, though this isn't pathfinder, or simply making the teleport/scry part impossible/hard to pull of.

[Chamomile]

So basically you may swap the npc class to an aspect one and the players may follow you. Honestly unless I am missing sth, which is quite likely, I wouldn't play any martial class except your warrior.

No, you've got it. And indeed, I recommend to everyone who plays in my PF1 games to use the Aspect Warrior over the Fighter or Barbarian or whatever. Not usually in terms that so bluntly attack Paizo's competence, but maybe I should start, because people rarely listen and often come to regret it.

I was thinking people would lose interest into an adventure path after a while due to the railroadinness. That said I am starting to come to point of view that railroadiness isn't the problem, its more the false promise of sandbox. So if you say we are going to run an adventure path the agreement is people won't try to go of the rails too much and they are ok with you nugging them towards the objectiove. This saves valuable time and avoid player frustration.

Usually I recommend to groups that they play my stock Pathfinder campaign Sihedron, which is Frankensteined together from a dozen-ish different Pathfinder APs in such a way to make them more open and sandbox. People who insist upon a specific AP tend to understand that they have only themselves to blame if that AP turns out to be a railroad.

I assume the gentlemans agreement is so people don't push pathfinder optimization limits? Not using stuff like Dazing spell? Or make too good builds like Am barbarians or sth?
Tbh I would have though your aspect classes would have made short work of high level adventure paths challenges, but its quite likely I am missing sth.

The aspect classes are very easy to build new characters with, so I can quickly and easily populate a dungeon with monsters who are built around one or more aspects with maybe one hour of prep time. It's also pretty easy to up the tension by just doubling or tripling the number of enemies in any given encounter. Paizo AP writers can't seem to count higher than four, so you can usually do this without making an encounter too big to manage easily, and so long as the enemies are no more than 2-ish CR below the players, sheer numbers can be a decent source of tension.

I mainly do this to avoid enemies who are either too complex for me to run easily, though (for example, casters with 15+ spells prepped even though they are one-off villains who will live a maximum of seven rounds, and more likely 3-4), replacing them with aspect classes that have a similar theme but are easier to manage. Even when games fill up with mostly or completely Denners, the rate at which people actually care to maximize power is basically zero. People build characters who look cool first, and then optimize that concept enough to keep up with the content. This extends even to the point of noticing what powers they actually have. People will sandbag aspect classes not because they're intentionally trying to avoid removing the tension from combats, but because so long as they're winning consistently, they don't even bother reading all their abilities and thinking about how to squeeze power out of them.

Curious on how you do that? The only think that comes to mind is the anticipate teleportations spell, though this isn't pathfinder, or simply making the teleport/scry part impossible/hard to pull of.

The most straightforward way is to have your baddies arrange their defenses with the understanding that they need to be able to protect themselves from a sudden teleportation ambush at any moment, although this does require accepting that dungeon layout stops mattering almost completely once teleport comes online (for most parties, that's level 9). Villains travel around with a lot of bodyguards, have dungeon-wide alarm systems to summon reinforcements, and their defenses are more mobile.

But also nobody actually cares if you invent something from whole cloth so long as it seems plausible and the PCs can loot it (even if it's useless to them so they don't actually bother doing so). For example, nobody cares that the rules don't actually have a teleportation redirection trap that causes anyone teleporting to any location within the dungeon to appear within a designated teleportation chamber which can be properly guarded, thus necessitating the dungeon be crawled from that point. It's not something PCs would broadly want (villains hardly ever try to scry-and-die adventurers, so adventurers hardly ever think about countermeasures) and if they do want it for some reason, they can carve it out of the dungeon after it's clear and load it onto a wagon to drag back home (and that's assuming it's too heavy to just unplug it and teleport it). Inventing new magic items and monsters is a feature of an adventure, so nobody's ever going to riot if the GM does the same thing, so long as the PCs are able to loot the magic item afterwards.

[merxa]

Usually I recommend to groups that they play my stock Pathfinder campaign Sihedron, which is Frankensteined together from a dozen-ish different Pathfinder APs in such a way to make them more open and sandbox. People who insist upon a specific AP tend to understand that they have only themselves to blame if that AP turns out to be a railroad.

I'm interested in hearing more on your default / Frankensteined PF campaign, especially how you transition groups to higher level play within your setting. Do you have any 'clocks' you keep track of during a given campaign?

The most straightforward way is to have your baddies arrange their defenses with the understanding that they need to be able to protect themselves from a sudden teleportation ambush at any moment, although this does require accepting that dungeon layout stops mattering almost completely once teleport comes online (for most parties, that's level 9). Villains travel around with a lot of bodyguards, have dungeon-wide alarm systems to summon reinforcements, and their defenses are more mobile.

But also nobody actually cares if you invent something from whole cloth so long as it seems plausible and the PCs can loot it (even if it's useless to them so they don't actually bother doing so). For example, nobody cares that the rules don't actually have a teleportation redirection trap that causes anyone teleporting to any location within the dungeon to appear within a designated teleportation chamber which can be properly guarded, thus necessitating the dungeon be crawled from that point. It's not something PCs would broadly want (villains hardly ever try to scry-and-die adventurers, so adventurers hardly ever think about countermeasures) and if they do want it for some reason, they can carve it out of the dungeon after it's clear and load it onto a wagon to drag back home (and that's assuming it's too heavy to just unplug it and teleport it). Inventing new magic items and monsters is a feature of an adventure, so nobody's ever going to riot if the GM does the same thing, so long as the PCs are able to loot the magic item afterwards.

I'm a bit confused, isn't teleport trap a PF spell, it even shows up in a couple APs. Do you tend to handwave higher level effects, or do you mostly run it by the rules (understanding that rules for higher level effects can get rather vague at times)?

[Chamomile]

I'm interested in hearing more on your default / Frankensteined PF campaign, especially how you transition groups to higher level play within your setting.

In order to keep the workload down, the setting is still 80% the same as Golarion, so the transition to higher level play is mostly just Runelords waking up to wreck shit and bringing apocalyptic magical superpowers with them.

Do you have any 'clocks' you keep track of during a given campaign?

Yes, there are certain specific dates when various omens of the Runelords' return show up and start undermining/attacking assorted Varisian villages and cities, and also some stuff that's more along the lines of "if X has not been thwarted within Y days of getting started, terrible thing Z occurs."

I'm a bit confused, isn't teleport trap a PF spell, it even shows up in a couple APs.

Turns out yes, Paizo actually did write that effect. There's a million PF spells and most of them are garbage, so I've never made much attempt to become familiar with them, just on whatever specific spells my PCs use (plus I've got leftover familiarity with a lot of 3.5e content). It's too high level, in any case, you want this effect available at the same level as Teleport itself, because it doesn't counter Teleport, it just prevents Teleport from being used in very specific places. You can still use it to skip long treks through the wilderness, which is the primary function of the spell in the first place.

That's all tangential, though. The main takeaway here is that none of my players have especially thorough knowledge of the complete Pathfinder spell library, so neither do I. All of my stuff is based on 3.5e stuff. If PF1 still had a thriving audience, I'd be more willing to strain through their stuff to find out what's usable and use it for consistency's sake, but it doesn't, so I'm not.

Do you tend to handwave higher level effects, or do you mostly run it by the rules (understanding that rules for higher level effects can get rather vague at times)?

Player mechanics work the way they say in the books because people need to be able to understand how their own abilities work to interact with the game in any kind of satisfying and reliable way, and I don't make stuff up as a session is ongoing, but I'll write up new abilities, magic items, etc. etc. basically whenever I think it's necessary to patch 3.X's shoddy balance and/or think it's cool.

[VladtheLad]

Ok, got most of what you wrote Chamomile, some further clarifications:

Usually I recommend to groups that they play my stock Pathfinder campaign Sihedron, which is Frankensteined together from a dozen-ish different Pathfinder APs in such a way to make them more open and sandbox.

A dozenish? I have tried combining paizo adventure paths before, though even if their parts are too unwieldy for me, I end up always making up my own stuff, though I have used pathfinder scenarios successfully in that way.

The aspect classes are very easy to build new characters with, so I can quickly and easily populate a dungeon with monsters who are built around one or more aspects with maybe one hour of prep time.

Monsters build around one or more aspects? You mean monsters with class levels in aspect classes or sth else?

It's also pretty easy to up the tension by just doubling or tripling the number of enemies in any given encounter. Paizo AP writers can't seem to count higher than four, so you can usually do this without making an encounter too big to manage easily, and so long as the enemies are no more than 2-ish CR below the players, sheer numbers can be a decent source of tension.

True, I guess this means that, you don't use xp but level up at specific points in the adventure?

But also nobody actually cares if you invent something from whole cloth so long as it seems plausible and the PCs can loot it (even if it's useless to them so they don't actually bother doing so). For example, nobody cares that the rules don't actually have a teleportation redirection trap that causes anyone teleporting to any location within the dungeon to appear within a designated teleportation chamber which can be properly guarded, thus necessitating the dungeon be crawled from that point. It's not something PCs would broadly want (villains hardly ever try to scry-and-die adventurers, so adventurers hardly ever think about countermeasures) and if they do want it for some reason, they can carve it out of the dungeon after it's clear and load it onto a wagon to drag back home (and that's assuming it's too heavy to just unplug it and teleport it). Inventing new magic items and monsters is a feature of an adventure, so nobody's ever going to riot if the GM does the same thing, so long as the PCs are able to loot the magic item afterwards.

Make sense, also I feel it ok to have the players have their base covered with teleportation redirectors or with golems or whatever.
It will require the dm to make sure not everything is tradable and convertable to magic items, so the pc's still have a reason to keep extra magic items and not sell them.

[Chamomile]

A dozenish? I have tried combining paizo adventure paths before, though even if their parts are too unwieldy for me, I end up always making up my own stuff, though I have used pathfinder scenarios successfully in that way.

Rise of the Runelords, Shattered Star, Return of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Second Darkness all take place in Varisia, Giantslayer takes place next door and a lot of its locations can be shoved west and tied into the giant shenanigans in RotR without too much trouble, We Be Goblins and its sequels focus a lot on the goblin tribes near Sandpoint which can help flesh them out, and also sometimes I toss in 5e stuff like using encounters from Storm King's Thunder as part of the giant themed stuff, or I use things I wrote for other projects completely, like adapting the Drachzee crime factions from Dark Lord into Riddleport. A lot of it is used more as loose inspiration than an actual usable-from-the-book adventure, but I knew what I was getting into when I offered to run Pathfinder.

Monsters build around one or more aspects? You mean monsters with class levels in aspect classes or sth else?

The quickest and simplest means of aspectifying a monster is taking a monster and giving them the abilities of one aspect (not one aspect class, but one specific aspect) up to the level of whatever their CR is. HP, saves, etc. etc. are unchanged, except where modified by passive bonuses from the aspect. I'm pretty familiar with the aspect classes, so I can do this on the fly and still have the aspect running at about 80% efficiency. For monsters that have class levels already or especially spellcasting, I'll try to find the time to strip out their terrible Paizo class levels and properly replace them with aspect class levels.

True, I guess this means that, you don't use xp but level up at specific points in the adventure?

Definitely not. XP-per-monster was a bad idea. If you really want to use XP, use quest-based XP, where the quests can then be used to incentivize the players towards the stuff you have prepared and are interested in running. But also milestone leveling or session-based leveling is popular for a reason.