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I just pretend that I sell it and buy the thing I want. There are other variations of this as well, such as I give the Ankh of Awesomeness to my monastic order (if I'm a monk) for safe keeping and they in return provide me a piece of equipment to help me on my quest. Or perhaps the Pathfinder society rewards you with "credits" at their equipment storage for bringing them such important artifacts to discover. Or you just turn in some piece of regular equipment to them and pick up another piece in exchange.
As much as I really like the Class Decks, it feels like they also create a disconnect from the scenario & storyline being played. Your hero finds an Ankh of Awesome in the game, but then needs to swap it out with a Spyglass from the Class Deck.
It's like Class Deck players are involved in playing a parallel game that aligns with the other Heroes that are playing from the box.I understand the idea that a person can show up with their Class Deck and leave the game without affecting the card stock of whomever owns the Big Scenario Box. I'm not sure that having Class Decks is worth sacrificing the connection In-Game Characters develop as part of the world they're exploring.
I doubt an 'Ankh of Awesome' would be an Adventure Deck B card; relative levels of cool should be about equal.
I see your point, but it is effectively an impossible element to avoid in Organized Play; participants will not be able to take acquired cards home with them.
Keep in mind you can buy Class Deck and simply mix them in with your boxes at home. The "boon replacement" is purely an Organized Play ruleset, not a Class Deck ruleset. I think you may be conflating two different things.
I'm going to go against the grain and say I'm not interested in more story unless the story becomes a meaningful part of the gameplay. As it stands, the story bits is just background info that doesn't have any effect on the game; if the story demands the villain we defeat in a scenario gets away then the villain will get away no matter how the scenario plays out. It's like being railroaded in an RPG and it makes me completely tune out.
I'm going to go against the grain and say I'm not interested in more story unless the story becomes a meaningful part of the gameplay. As it stands, the story bits is just background info that doesn't have any effect on the game; if the story demands the villain we defeat in a scenario gets away then the villain will get away no matter how the scenario plays out. It's like being railroaded in an RPG and it makes me completely tune out.
I empathize, but there's never going to be a way around that. The card game is simple enough that it can only reflect events by providing abstractions. If the villain is running away, then the abstraction from combat is that you fought them off, forced them to retreat or survived an encounter with them (consider an assassin sent to kill you), rather than you slaying them.
I would argue the the gameplay already reflects the story quite heavily, in some sets more than others. Mummy's Mask scenarios where you're trawling through the desert for water (searching for actual water rather than mirages and acid pools), or ones where you've been poisoned (unable to explore easily), or OP scenarios where you're turning into a vampire (cannot explore easily, similar to Curse of Daybane), or S&S scenarios where you're shanghaid into service on a ship and trying to mutiny (only two locations, representing the relative weather around the ship and that's basically all), or Rotr cenarios where you're trying to get a community on your side or literally drag people to safety (acquiring allies).
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I'm going to go against the grain and say I'm not interested in more story unless the story becomes a meaningful part of the gameplay. As it stands, the story bits is just background info that doesn't have any effect on the game; if the story demands the villain we defeat in a scenario gets away then the villain will get away no matter how the scenario plays out. It's like being railroaded in an RPG and it makes me completely tune out.
I would love to see a branching storyline. It doesn't have to branch very far, but a certain flavor of "you didn't save the princess (which was an optional side quest in a scenario) so the king will not help you here" or "you chose to kill the baron and replace him so now you need to defeat his brother (as an additional henchmen in a later scenario)". At the final AD, the game could branch more completely to a "light side / dark side" finale and that would be a great ending that we could feel a part of.
One bit of advice (which I believe Mike gave before) that really helped me with the story bit was: Let the cards tell the story. It doesn't help the overall story (which I still would like to be better written out) but I keep a little journal for each Adventure Path and when something kooky happens (where DID that undead Great White Shark come from?!? or when an ally EXACTLY fits a need, etc.) I write it down as a little story.
My SnS characters, for example, had to grapple with the chaotic nature of the adventure path and it wore heavily on their collective consciousness...
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I would love to see a branching storyline. It doesn't have to branch very far, but a certain flavor of "you didn't save the princess (which was an optional side quest in a scenario) so the king will not help you here" or "you chose to kill the baron and replace him so now you need to defeat his brother (as an additional henchmen in a later scenario)". At the final AD, the game could branch more completely to a "light side / dark side" finale and that would be a great ending that we could feel a part of.I'm going to go against the grain and say I'm not interested in more story unless the story becomes a meaningful part of the gameplay. As it stands, the story bits is just background info that doesn't have any effect on the game; if the story demands the villain we defeat in a scenario gets away then the villain will get away no matter how the scenario plays out. It's like being railroaded in an RPG and it makes me completely tune out.
I think you'll like my current homebrew project; it's almost done, and I'll post it soon in the homebrew section ;)
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Yep. After playing a lot of Arkham horror lcg, the branching storyline have became definitely my favorite type in card games. There were some early versions Also in Lotr Lcg fan made scenarios where there was brnaching inside one scenario. Do you try to save elf prisoners or do you keep on pushing main task as fast as you can? Even that was Great and did bring replayability to scenario a lot. The branching in story in Arkham horror is even better so any adventure Path that has been developed so that there will be different outcomes and you choises have long term effects will get two thumbs up from me!
Chief Technical Officer
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Most of these things won't be changing. The details of some may vary a bit; for example, we intend to provide more flexibility with setting challenge level, and refinements to the dying rules. The biggest change with respect to your list will be with the box. The general principles for organizing cards will be the same, but we're looking to increase flexibility and efficiency with the actual box design. Which is to say that we hope you'll love it even more.
I'm generally a believer that anything and everything you need to know to play a card game should be printed on the cards and so I agree with concerns that the game will get mired in keywords. Legendary Marvel is my second favourite card game but every new expansion adds some key words that the players have to know. At this point, that means keeping the stack of expansion rules sheets nearby to refer to them every time somebody needs to know what Lightshow or Cheering Crowds means.
As for the extra story, I'm divided on it. While I'm big on my games being thematic, the big draw for me in PACG is that it gives me a satisfactory amount of RPG without having a pile of reference books on hand. You know how long running RPGs can get.
"I'm firing my bow."
"That's in the core rule book."
"It's a longbow of twangy death."
"Then we cross reference with the bows and slings equipment supplement."
"And I'm firing a blaze arrow +1."
"And the munitions equipment supplement."
"And I'm an elf."
"Also cross referenced with the elf race guidebook..."
"A dark elf."
"...the expanded elf race guidebook. And since you're shooting at an enraged battle orc we'll need the bestiary #6, third edition."
"Don't forget that it's a Tuesday."
"Oh right.... I think I forgot the Tuesday supplements at home!"
My point is, if the extra story comes in any form other than being printed on a card, it will be lost on me. I suspect it will be lost in general. I've been playing PACG from the beginning and not once has anyone ever asked what the backstory is. However I have frequently had this exchange:
"We have to do x because of y."
"How do you know that?"
"It's in the rulebook."
*collective groan from the entire table*
Because some of the Class deck character would become obsolete with the new set and new rules would it be possible to get erratas to those classdeck character. Maybe to Paizo store or even inside the new core box!
So your old character that have powers that has no meaning in the new ruleset would be usefull and those who don`t have those class decks, could use those errated clas deck characters as an extra character in their Pathfinder next edition game. Win, win situation to my eye!
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I'm generally a believer that anything and everything you need to know to play a card game should be printed on the cards and so I agree with concerns that the game will get mired in keywords.
You think you mean this. You don't.
What you have said means that you want the sequence of every turn printed on the cards, you want the rule about being able to help with any other player's check but not able to defeat any card on behalf of any other player, about how to handle a villain's being found and closing/blocking locations, and taking blessings from the blessings deck if you fail to defeat the villain and taking them from the box if you don't, remainders about what "a die" means on a card that adds one, the precise meanings of recharge, reveal, discard, bury, banish...
I've made cards on Drive Thru before. That paragraph, which is merely a summary of some of the rules you're talking about putting onto cards, would pretty much fill a card. You haven't left any room for a card to do what it does, in favour of talking about what every card does. That's what the rulebook is for.
"We have to do x because of y."
"How do you know that?"
"It's in the rulebook."
*collective groan from the entire table*
If your players don't feel like learning the rules of the game they're playing, that's on them. The majority of the rest of us are fine, thanks.
I'm a serious fan of virtually every type of card game, and am well-acquainted with a great many varieties of the genre. That can potentially compromise my ability to judge what may or may not be 'too much' for a new player to learn, because a lot of elements come naturally to me that may not be representative of the target audience.
Personally, however, I completely agree with Axoq above. A common misconception with keywords - including in Card games - is that they mean you have to learn more. In truth, you often have to learn something different rather than something additional, and it often makes the game faster to learn as well as saving on card space. Magic the Gathering has very clearly-defined, simple 'evergreen' keywords that, when replaced with the full rules text, makes a relatively simple card appear complex and easy-to-misinterpret. To try to make a PACG abstraction, compare the following.
Example Item:
"Discard this card to add a die to a local check, or to evade a bane you encounter, or to reroll your check results."
Example Item:
"You may choose to discard this card whilst a character at your location is making a check to add an additional base die of a size equal to that of the skill being used for this check. No other items may be played on this check.
When you flip over a monster or a barrier, you may choose to discard this card to shuffle that card back into the deck instead of encountering it. It is neither defeated nor undefeated.
After tallying the results of a check made by your character, you may discard this card to reroll all dice rolled on that check; take the new result. No other items may be played on this check."
By removing any semblance of keywords, and assuming less knowledge by the player; not only have I made the card less readable I've arguably actually made it harder to learn. A new player needs to read and re-read about 120 rather than 25, and they need to untangle additional details which are normally ascribed whole paragraphs in the rulebook (like what "a die" is when its added to a check).
Obviously, the example is a poorly-conceived one for a few reasons, but I think it still helps paint a picture as to how keywords are the friends of new players as well as old, rather than the enemy. Players quickly grasp "what" a card does based on small clues rather than having to read large paragraphs and try to link them up with other paragraphs. Players pretty intuitively pick up that weapons are used in combat and what "For your combat check" means, and they pretty intuitively pick up that defeating Villains causes closes even though it doesn't say that on the card.
On the other hand, players (in my experience) often have trouble checking that "a character at your location" includes themselves, or "any check" includes characters at other locations. These can be clarified on the cards themselves, but you'd be almost doubling the card text on a given blessing, let alone something like Blessing of Maat, rendering a pretty elegant, understandable card with a replacement, post-roll add and defense functionality into a series of long paragraphs trying to define long-understood terms.
In my opinion, to sum up.
-Keywords have always existed, just not by that name. "Recharge", "Bane", "Boon" and "Evade" are obvious ones, but strictly speaking even words like "You" or "Any" or "Check" or "Defeat" or "Die" (as in, a singular dice) or "Dies" (as in, character death) or even "Discard" are all shorthand words to describe a particular condition or situation that players almost never have any issue with. With new keywords incoming to potentially shorten other common situations like "At your location" or "You may play another X on this check" the game actually becomes easier to remember and interpret in many cases, not harder.
-A major role of the rulebook, when well-designed, is to limit or eliminate misconceptions. When players are unsure; they refer to it.
-The sole role of a card, when well-designed, is to allow a player to do something or interact with the game. Spelling out the conditions and expectations in a wordy manner makes the card less readable and more confusing, even if it strictly allows for less room for misconceptions.
(As an example, since "Recharge" has been a keyword since the inception of the game, I'd be very happy to see a keyword introduced for "Place on top of your deck", which has become more and more common in design space in post-MM Class Decks.)
Oh boy! Imagine having to type out what Recharge means in every card? we would actually take 10 steps backwards and be extremely limited in what a card can do. Cards can only have so many words as it is.
Learning how to recharge a card isnt that high of a learning curve that you have to explain it in every card. Apply same concept to other mechanics.
I get that if there is a new mechanic or keyword we would need to briefly explain it until everyone is used to it much like new keywords in Magic: the Gathering. However for basic actions that we are already used to, I am sure even the slower learners can pick up keywords like Heal much like they did for Discard, Recharge, Bury, etc.
Oh boy! Imagine having to type out what Recharge means in every card? we would actually take 10 steps backwards and be extremely limited in what a card can do. Cards can only have so many words as it is.
"My favourite thing about RotR Seoni is that she automatically passes checks to put-spells-on-the-bottom-of-her-character-deck-instead-of-discard!"
I'm all for keywords, but their number and intuitiveness play a big role in how helpful they are.
A common criticism of Apocrypha is that there are simply too many keywords and symbols on the cards. Each card is its own "what does this do?" puzzle (not in a good way), making it difficult for new players to learn. I'm still not 100% sure what some of the cards do, and I played through the entire 18-scenario base set of Apocrypha. (Which I quite enjoyed, by the way.)
It's been suggested that the definitions of common PACG keywords might be spelled out on certain base set cards (where there's physical space on the card), and in higher # adventures the definitions could be dropped. This is exactly what Wizards of the Coast does with MTG, and it works well - particularly for new players.
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I noticed at GenCon a lot players grabbing location cards as they are hard to read (we were using the mat and everyone was seated around the table) and remember "While at this location" effect. Maybe enlarging just the location deck so anyone at the table can read it would be nice.
Maybe enlarging just the location deck so anyone at the table can read it would be nice.
Agree 1000%. This is one of my standing recommendations in the "What would you change?" thread.
It's one of those things that solo players never notice and multi-player folks notice all the time. Honestly, if I were allowed to change only one aspect of PACG, this might be it.
A while-we're-waiting fix: Place each location card in front of the player at that location. But that only really works if there's one player per location.
A non-physical fix for the new version would be to provide a free PACG database of all locations that is easily accessible by phone.
Despite all of the advantages that are coming with the redesign of the game (and don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see these changes), I think I see one disadvantage that I don't recall being brought up in the forum discussions so far.
As it stands right now, I can pull out any of the four existing APs (or the OP seasons) and play a campaign. I can even have four (or more, depending upon the number of characters being used) campaigns being run concurrently - at least one in each AP box.
With the redesign of a core box plus an AP box required to play, though, I'll need a core box for each AP box in order to do that. Either that or I'm going to have to do some serious bookkeeping and split the core box cards from an AP in order to play a scenario in another AP, and this can be a pain when those core cards are in characters' decks.
So even though we might see an absolute price reduction overall (AP boxes will cost less than current AP boxes because the core cards are in another set), we either won't realize this overall savings (if we buy a core box for each AP box), won't be able to play concurrently in each AP (if we don't have a core box for each AP box), or will have to exercise very inefficient bookkeeping methods to split core box cards out from AP boxes in order to play in other APs.
I still think we're seeing a gain overall with the new core box methodology, but it's only fair to point out the cons when we see them.
With the redesign of a core box plus an AP box required to play, though, I'll need a core box for each AP box in order to do that. Either that or I'm going to have to do some serious bookkeeping and split the core box cards from an AP in order to play a scenario in another AP, and this can be a pain when those core cards are in characters' decks.
So even though we might see an absolute price reduction overall (AP boxes will cost less than current AP boxes because the core cards are in another set), we either won't realize this overall savings (if we buy a core box for each AP box), won't be able to play concurrently in each AP (if we don't have a core box for each AP box), or will have to exercise very inefficient bookkeeping methods to split core box cards out from AP boxes in order to play in other APs.
This has occurred to me too, although with only one new full AP using the core set for the foreseeable future, this isn't going to be a real problem for a while. And the original four will still be playable separately -- I don't believe they're requiring those four be played with the core set. I think the backwards compatibility refers to rules changes, which should easily be implemented.
Being able to play five games simultaneously is probably going to be enough for most people.
Assuming pricing is similar to what it is now, the break even point is the number of simultaneous campaigns you want to have going. Most folks only have one, so it's going to pay off very quickly. Our local Guild organizers max out at two tables running simultaneously, so even for them it's going to be cheaper eventually. (If I were them, I'd only get one Core set and run a new and an old one for the first few years.)
Overall it sounds like a win to me. :)
We need an app like the one for Apocrypha that lets you track your decks (though it'd need to be expanded to track removed-from-game cards) online.
I can't believe there still isn't something like this, even fan-made. For most other games I play that require deckbuilding, I've easily found apps to keep track of multiple decks. I haven't been able to find anything for PACG. It wasn't a big deal prior to Ultimate decks, but now I have several society campaigns going on simultaneously (which as Brother Tyler mentioned will also cause a problem in the future APs), and although I like to play different character classes in each, sometimes I end up using the same Ultimate Deck.
Currently, I'm using a spreadsheet to keep track of my decks, but it would save quite a bit of time if there was an app out there. (And unfortunately I don't have any app coding skills to make one myself.)
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We need an app like the one for Apocrypha that lets you track your decks (though it'd need to be expanded to track removed-from-game cards) online.I can't believe there still isn't something like this, even fan-made.
Perhaps if Paizo (or an app developer) sees that there's a market for such...
EDIT: I've created a new topic here in General Discussion to address the question.