Hi, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Lavagust most call me Vagust. I am a GM that specializes in PF2E, but do dabble in other systems. I do some ghost writing but that is something new I am working on. I would like to say Hi and I hope to make some new friends and run some new adventures.

So, this group has been playing together for a while. Running the Pathfinder 2E Abomination Vaults AP. Female - Dwarf Fighter Male – Goblin rogue Male – Poppet Oracle Male – Minotaur Cleric NPC – Nephilm/Hollowborn Magus NPC – Human rogue The poppet answered the call of another Oracle to the town of Otari where he met with others and was told a little about the town and their concerns with this old dead sorcerer’s lighthouse in the swamp. As those heroes said they would check it out. The first thing they found was small tribe of mifits called the Mudlicker’s. Learning that the Mudlicker’s had been forced out from their home in the levels below. This was news to the heroes because no one knew that Belcorra had levels below the ground level of the lighthouse complex. Teaming with the tribe the heroes started down in the levels below. It was rough go and they encounter all kinds of horrors and they learned more about Belcorra. Sadly, in her library run by ghouls the party faced overwhelming odds and all but two of them survived. The Poppet and one other hero who was too scared to go back. The poppet and the town Oracle gathered a new group to head deeper in the vault. Along the way they saved the mayor’s child, freed a mummy, stopped a contract on one of the town founder’s great great great grand child’s soul. Killed a ton of demons, put down some of Belcorra’s commanders and killed two prize hydras and selling the bodies to the town. Now hundreds feet below the surface. They have the children of Belcorra and allies against her. This has also brought the attention of Belcorra herself. The first time she gave a warring and a taste of her power. After they killed two of her spies. She appeared and bloodied them and told they to return her book and leave. They made with their new allies and took out two more spies. But during the fight the magus had a spell go wrong taking him to his knees. As the others finished the spies off. Suddenly Belcorra appeared along with some of her children. “Tonight, one of you will die!” as she attacked. The party fought holding their own but some of them being bloodied. The battle end as Belcorra shoved her ghost hand into the chest of the magus and crushed his chest. As he fell the Minotaur reacted headbutting her. As she faded out through the floor she whispered to the Minotaur, “I took one of you tonight” The party looked around to see the magus laying there. (and GM smiled see you all in a week)

Feel free to read the background below, you'll see I took many of your suggestions (had to simplify some for my beginner level GM thought processes) but this is the current status: The adventuring group has gone ahead through a time portal about 100 years with the help of the time staff. The time period they are in is a grim setting, Moander has huge influence and power there although details are light on that right now. Once there they learned that the Paladin's grandfather has likely been kidnapped by the Revenant Occupation from the custody of the Temporal Authority (time cops). The Revenant Occupation (RO) is a group of dwarves & elves who want to purify their race, part of it is they put forth they want to eliminate time travel. The players don't know though that they actually just want time travel for themselves and that is why they kidnapped the grandfather, the idea being to sacrifice him to try to access this magic in a ritual. They believe they know where the grandfather is but have heard that he is safe temporarily. The group became extremely suspicious of the time cops (I wasn't expecting that), so they are working on infiltrating them by becoming recruits and getting more information. They've also realized they don't have much money so they took up an offer to battle in an arena against psychic, mutant, dinos. I'm planning to have them hopefully win some gold and a dino egg as a prize and see where they go with that. (I unconsciously realized I got this idea from dungeon crawler carl) My thought is that as they infiltrate the time cops they will find spies there from the RO and could get more info on the grandfather and time travel in general. They will also learn about how I'm framing time travel in this campaign, I might have gotten this idea here, more that time travel creates different universes so you can't go back in time and change things. I'm afraid of keeping track of things if stuff gets too bonkers with that. They'll learn this in the training process as recruits.

Something that has always been a part struggle as I get older is finding a group. Not just a one shot. But a real campaign group. With my schedule and living on the West Coast. And to be honest I am use to a gaming on every other Saturday. I know that might be old school. But beside when I was in grade school for a sleepover. I never played during a week. For my mind set weekdays is for school and sleep and some TV hehe. When Civid happen Before then I never thought of playing during the weekdays. And boy did I do a lot of gaming during that time. But now we are back to a similar normal life. So my weekdays is too busy or too tired to even think of gaming. So besides solo gaming I have tried. But the thrill of a group it is ok. So I have thought about play by post. But my experience with playing what will is beyond zero. I got some serious questions. How does combat and a social reaction work. I have a hard time seeing how that could work well. I feel like I want it to work but I have a hard time seeing how it works. Help me I want this to work.

I would love to see examples of how you prepare notes to be useful for you while running the game. How can notes support proactive gameplay? As an example, here are notes I have thinking Twilight (a cleric) might go back to the clinic where she used to work, some reminders of goals, npcs, ...