Be part of Pathfinder campaign for ~11 months, first experience of tabletop RPGs

>Be part of Pathfinder campaign for ~11 months, first experience of tabletop RPGs
>Great fun, but wanting to try out other groups/systems as well
>Guy comes into FLGS we play at advertising a homebrew 5th Ed Campaign he's starting
>Sure why not
>Invites me to a dropbox folder with campaign materials, instructs me to read "Backstory"
>Backstory is a 53 page novella written at an 8th grade level. Can barely get through a chapter of this garbage.

What have I gotten myself into...

Pic related, it's the "cover art" for the backstory.

Sounds like a GM problem, not a system problem.

If your pathfinder game had 53 pages of backstory would you have the same difficulty?

post extracts, you can't leave us hanging

Oh I'm fully aware of this. What I'm concerned about is that I've committed myself to a campaign run by this guy, and it sounds like it's going to be terrible.

Post the dropbox contents.

Ok, here's the first few paragraphs of chapter 1. Don't say I didn't warn you.

>Aywin squats in between two crates in the back of the caravan that is pulled along by four horses.
Sweat drips on his face and falls onto his brown pants. His yellow shirt was already soaked in sweat
stains but this didn't bother him. As long as his brown hair was tied in a pony tail and didn't get in
the way. Also because Buckley, the merchant driver, allowed him to travel with him for three gold
coins. Which is a rip-off to most locals and travellers that can afford their own transport.

>"If you break it, you pay for it," were the words Buckley told him the first time he hoped into the
back of the caravan. Those words stuck in Aywin’s mind, as he carefully adjusted himself in a more
comfortable sitting position while he uses his backpack as a cushion.

>He faced many issues before getting to where he was. One of them included having a limited
understanding of Common and having limited knowledge of the location he was going to. He needed
to get to the town of Terahn to visit his friend Sal that he has not seen for almost three years. Both
of them came from the same tribe in the northern realms where his friend departed on a long quest.
He didn’t receive many letters from his friend but he did know where Sal’s last whereabouts were.

Well I fucked up the quoting but whatever

You're not committed to anything. If it's shit and you know it'll be shit, just apologise and back out. Just consider, will you miss out on anything good?

Come on, novel-length explanation of the setting is not that ba-

-oh, a literal novel.

Well I'm not entirely sure. I mean my RPG experience is still very limited, and I've only ever played under the 1 GM. I have certain...assumptions about the kind of person this GM is based on what I'm reading here but I don't know if those assumptions are justified.

More

Well, how many main characters are there? Are they going to play a part in the story? Are they in fact going to be the centrepiece of the game instead of you playing?

With limited experience you might still have fun! But trust your instincts that lead you to asking Veeky Forums for advice on whether something was a good idea or not.

This isn't really bad in the sense that is fun for me

thats ok, Veeky Forums has seen greater horrors

he's written 53 pages of garbage like this?

im gonna quote Snoop Dog here and say
>Drop it like its hot

>im gonna quote Snoop Dog here and say
>>>>reddit.com

If you have naught else to do, go for two sessions. You'll either have fun or have a good life lesson. In particular you would gain a horror story that you can regale Veeky Forums with later, and that is the important part!

Ok.

"The last letter he received was from the realm of Falderia in the town of Terahn and the tribe chief
became concerned about Sal’s whereabouts. As Aywin graduated from his training as a skilled
Hunter, the tribe chief allowed him to go on this adventure to find Sal. The chief gave him a bag of
gold coins and sent him off on his journey. He had to pay his way, to go on board a merchant ship
that travelled to Caldier, and then boarded another ship to Falderia. Where he met Buckley who
wore a brown coat over his white tank top and brown pants, at Port Devridge. He owns the wooden
enclosed caravan that he uses to transport his goods to other towns.

The caravan hit a small rock that lodged itself in the road which woke him from his thoughts. He sees
the sky darken as the sun goes down. The driver slowed his horses to a trot and stopped before the
large town gates of Terahn.

“We’re here, you can get out now," Buckley shouts from behind him as sweat from face drips to the dirt ground.

Aywin stands up slowly grabbing his backpack and stepping over the crates, with his long legs, to
avoid breaking them. He jumps out of the caravan and turns to face the driver.

“Ah…Thank you." He said to him.

“No problem, look after yourself.” Buckley replies and reigns his horses to trot through the gates
into town.

The patrol guards, carrying their swords in their scabbards, stand at the top of the parapet walkway
above the gate. They smirk at the appearance of the wood elf that they rarely see as they continue
doing their rounds. Aywin could here there distorted sounds and knew how discriminately they
looked at him. It didn’t really bother him because he was use to people discriminating him by the
way he looked or even the way he dressed."

Well at least he/she tried.
Maybe one day his/her stories will be good.

His writing aside, you should be looking for actual red flags of bad GMs. His backstory being a story hints that he might be bad about railroading, but if Aywin if alive through all of this despite the odds then he will probably be a DMPC which is literally my least favorite Bad DM trait.

When did Snoop Dog say four arrows reddit dot com?

Seriously though, say something like "I'm getting burned out on stuff happening, I might join later."

Just scanned the end chapter, seems like all the main characters are alive. By "least favorite bad DM trait" do you mean its the least bad, or the worst?

Skip ahead 10 chapters, see if Aywin is still alive and being the main protagonist; he looks like he's a twat and the DMPC.

AH

Check with the GM and see if Aywin was a previous player character or a DMPC. That's also important, he could be logging this stuff from a previous campaign.

How does he talk like?
Is he an autist?

That's not even purple prose. What's the opposite of purple prose?

The worst. An adventure on the rails can be bland and boring at times but you are still the hero.

A DMPC means the players might as well not be there.