Memories of Pathfinder Society, seven years later

I set myself to cleaning my home office this morning, and I came across a few interesting odds and ends. In one dusty pile was a folder containing my Pathfinder Society notes from a trio of sessions in 2014. The sessions were run by friends in the Indy area who have since moved out of state. I don't expect I would ever need the character sheets and logs. It was fun to see them again, though shocking to see how many years ago that was. The sheets are in the recycling bin now, but I thought I'd share a few memories about the experience here.

These three sessions have been my only experience playing Pathfinder RPG. I was and remain an outsider to "the scene." I decided to play a paladin because I had a fun idea for a character and I had never played one before. It was only afterward that I discovered that paladins had a reputation within PFS as being for powergamers, which you'll see is a bit ironic. I decided to play a paladin in his mid-50s, a farmer who received a calling to be a holy warrior after his family was killed in a raid. I named him Craddoc, which was a name I pulled from online references to Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles; I had read those in my youth and was inspired to search there for names, though I have no recollection of the namesake's role in the stories.

Craddoc's companion was Absalom*, his faithful border collie who was the only other survivor from his village. Absalom was just a dog, and Craddoc was very protective of him. This confused some of the other players at the table, including the DM, who thought I wanted a war dog that could charge into battle and take some hits. In my imagination, Craddoc would patiently tell Absalom to sit, stay, and be quiet, and then he would charge into battle. Afterward, he would return and pat the good boy on the head, perhaps giving him a treat. 

This leans into one of the curious phenomena around the game. I was interested in a heroic journey, exploring the adventures of Craddoc and his companions. Playing with this group, it was clear that some of the others had more of a CRPG interpretation of TRPG. Indeed, once it became clear, the DM and I had a great conversation about this: his interest was in making an environment like World of Warcraft, where players do missions to gain loot, whereas I was approaching it as one who wanted to engage in a story. Seeing how the sessions unfolded, I got to understand that PFS was not really designed for what I wanted to get out of it, but I still enjoyed it. One of the most memorable moments was when the rest of the party was sneaking into a warehouse, which of course the paladin refused to do. I volunteered to "take care of" the guards at the front door. I am sure the players and DM thought this meant I would go attack them, but instead, I explained to that I wanted to greet them, get to know them a bit, and then use some of my treasure earned in a previous session to buy them a round of beers at a nearby tavern. Craddoc made friends with the guards while the others did whatever the quest required, and I got to enjoy a memorable story moment.

There was another interesting conflict between the PFS experience and designed and the players at the table. One of the players brought a carefree gnome adventurer to the table. This character was ostensibly modeled after Indiana Jones but combined with the recklessness of Daffy Duck. A particular moment I recall involved the party being in an icy cave, at the top of a long, descending tunnel containing unknown perils. The gnome decided to run to the front of the group, leap forward, and slide down to the bottom of the tunnel on his belly. In a cartoonish campaign, this would be a great move, but in a deadly fantasy setting, it seemed unwise. I played Craddoc as completely flummoxed at it, treating the gnome like one of his children, which seemed appropriate at the time. At the same time that Craddoc (the character) was flummoxed, I (the player) was also a bit confused. Was this the other player's version of narrative-first gameplay, or did his character have a death wish? It was never really clear to me, and this was our last session together.

I don't think I ever shared here the miniatures I used for Craddoc and Absalom. The "dog" is a wolf miniature from a ranger-and-wolf set, but I was pleased to see that with the right paint job, it works as a border collie. I chose the miniature for the paladin in large part because I could paint the hair and beard to convey his age. The original had a shield attachment on his left arm, which Craddoc did not use, so I just filed down the peg and did not include the shield. I believe that, to date, these are the only metal miniatures I have painted since my teenage years.

Absalom and Craddoc

* In my papers, I actually found two different character sheets for the dog. They had identical stats, but one was named "Merlin" and the other, "Absalom." The second seemed to be the more recent. Reviewing my game notes, I noticed that one of the other characters was named "Myralin," so I think I changed the dog's name after the first session to prevent confusion between these two nearly-identical names.