Simply the Quest

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

When I joined Obsidian Entertainment last year, because of my background as a tabletop game designer, I was asked if I wanted to work with the Pathfinder Adventures team. Even though it meant having to work with Mike Selinker—Hi, Mike!—it sounded like an awful lot of fun to go back to my card game roots for a bit and, frankly, I flat-out love the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. So I said yes—of course I'd love to see what cool things we could bring to the game on the electronic side that simply aren't possible in the physical space.

Our biggest goal was to expand replayability to make sure the electronic version of the game is an amazing value with tons and tons of fun gameplay. The first step was working out the difficulty system that Nathan has already talked about, which allows you to play the same scenario multiple times and still have it feel fresh and fun. The wildcard powers in particular mix things up so that even when you replay the same scenario you just completed, things still feel new.

But that's still essentially replaying the same scenarios that many of us have already played over and over. Couldn't we use the computer running the game to generate a new adventure whenever we want one, so that we'll always have fresh scenarios to play? Thus, the concept of Quest Mode was born: Mixing and matching existing scenario powers, locations, villains, and henchmen to create new experiences.


Quest Mode, engaged!

How Random Is Too Random?

Randomness is great, but sometimes things that are truly random are also truly terrible—my first CD player's random mode once repeated the same song four times in a row. That's entirely possible in a truly random system (even if there's only a 1:1,728 chance of it happening on a 12-song album), but it's still not what you want. Randomness is supposed to keep things fresh!

So we looked at places where randomness would result in less fun. A perfect example of this is the scenario Local Heroes. It's a fun scenario, but it completely breaks down in Quest Mode's "grab a scenario and add a villain and some henchmen" mechanic. First problem: there's no villain! And what if you're randomly given a bunch of locations that don't have many allies—or any allies? The whole thing can grind to a halt.

So we pulled things like this out of the pool of possible combinations. If a card wasn't going to play nice with Quest Mode, it had to step away from Quest Mode... for now. We ended up with 10 scenario powers, 10 villains, more than 20 sets of henchmen, and multiple maps, so there are more than 10,000 different adventures to be had—and that's before you start calculating different location configurations (and linkages for Legendary difficulty!) and possible wildcard combinations.

We do have the ability to build connections beyond pure randomness, so as we're able to spend more time developing Quest Mode, more "hand-crafted" adventures will be appearing. Certain combinations of scenarios, villains, and maps that are designed to work together will appear together more frequently (or even exclusively together).

Bring on the XP!

Another cool thing we can do in Quest Mode is bring the game a little closer to its tabletop RPG roots. We knew as soon as we started talking about this mode that we wanted to use an XP and leveling system where you'd get XP for each monster and obstacle you overcome in addition to the usual rewards for finishing a scenario. That level of granularity for tracking progression would get in the way with the tabletop game, but it's something we can do well in the electronic space. That meant we could have many levels for progression, and therefore more rewards.

Speaking of progression, we need to call out and give a big thanks to the Pathfinder Society—the PFS Adventure Card Guild progression system gave us a very clear path for developing our Quest Mode progression.

The Future of Quest Mode

So, that's a little look at the history of Quest Mode. But what does the future hold? One of the first new things coming to Quest Mode will be hand-crafted scenarios that deliver new scenarios, villains, and henchmen that players haven't seen before, and special combinations that raise the challenge level higher than we've seen before—with commensurate rewards, of course! And after that?

Well, the obvious direction is "bigger and better." Frankly, I'm not allowed to tell you too much more yet. But the thing to remember is that since Quest Mode is outside the boundaries of the Rise of the Runelords storyline that Paizo and Lone Shark delivered, Obsidian has a bit more freedom to roam and present new characters, stories, and rewards! I know that I'm genuinely excited about it, and I think everyone will really enjoy it.

David Williams
Pathfinder Adventures Designer
Obsidian Entertainment

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Tags: Obsidian Entertainment Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Pathfinder Adventures

I know I've been loving the app. Can't wait to see more.


My favorite scenario I've played so far had this scenario rule: "When you fail a check to acquire a boon, discard the top three cards of the blessings deck" and then the following two wildcards: "The difficulty of checks to acquire boons is increased by three" and "The difficulty of checks to acquire boons is increased by three."

So... I'm looking forward to the "nope, don't wanna try to acquire this boon at all" update. :D

I've having a lot of fun so far other than that!


Any chance, Mister Williams, you and/or Obsidian know when they will release Hook Mountain Massacre for the ap? Like in 2016? 2017?


Rebel Song wrote:


So... I'm looking forward to the "nope, don't wanna try to acquire this boon at all" update. :D

I don't know that would be much help - choosing not to acquire is still "failing to acquire"; it's a matter of Obsidian deciding if they would also treat it as "failing a check to acquire".

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

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Thomas Seitz wrote:
Any chance, Mister Williams, you and/or Obsidian know when they will release Hook Mountain Massacre for the ap? Like in 2016? 2017?

I wouldn't expect big news like that to drop in a messageboard post, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "sooner that you probably expect, but not quite as soon as you probably would prefer."


Thank you Mister Wertz. I was just wondering since I have all the current adventures that have been released.


Longshot11 wrote:
Rebel Song wrote:


So... I'm looking forward to the "nope, don't wanna try to acquire this boon at all" update. :D
I don't know that would be much help - choosing not to acquire is still "failing to acquire"; it's a matter of Obsidian deciding if they would also treat it as "failing a check to acquire".

Well -- failing to acquire is not failing a check to acquire. We already have that distinction in the card game.

Adventure Card Game Designer

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Vic Wertz wrote:
Thomas Seitz wrote:
Any chance, Mister Williams, you and/or Obsidian know when they will release Hook Mountain Massacre for the ap? Like in 2016? 2017?
I wouldn't expect big news like that to drop in a messageboard post, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "sooner that you probably expect, but not quite as soon as you probably would prefer."

See also: All news.


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"Any information related to the production release date of a computer application is to be seen as a propaganda from our enemies and should be taken with the upmost distrust."

Approximative traduction of the XXIIIrd surate of the Necronomicon as defined by Abdul al-Hazred, itself translating a mix of the Art of Data Processing from Lao Tseu and the pre-teen works on videogames by Nostradamus.


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Hook Mountain Massacre is in the next patch and is expected early next week.


Hawkmoon269 wrote:
Hook Mountain Massacre is in the next patch and is expected early next week.

Huh... Never knew about the Salvage option until I read this update

Grand Lodge

Yeah, you can get two or three (or maybe five for Legendarys?) gold for Treasure cards you don't want. At the main start-up screen, choose Gallery, under Treasure select the Available button, and you can sift through all your treasure cards. If you tap one to bring it to the fore to read, it should give you the option to Salvage.


I've been salvaging mine down so I have no more than 3 copies of any particular card. I might limit it to 2 after some more thought.


seriously? How would one know that?
I haven't once looked into the gallery... (Well, maybe once upon first checking out the game, but at that time I didn't have any treasure, so...)

Now I wonder what else I could do that I don't know.

Grand Lodge

The people who haven't played the card game are REALLY having a hard time, since the Tutorial only touches on the very basics, and the rest you have to read in the in-game rulebook, or learn-by-doing. (Or hit the forums.) There is a LOT that isn't made clear unless you go looking. They're working on making more things clear, but to be fair, it's an impressive task.


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Hawkmoon269 wrote:
I've been salvaging mine down so I have no more than 3 copies of any particular card. I might limit it to 2 after some more thought.

Was thinking of going down to 2 as well. Don't think I need 9 Blackcloth Armors or whatever it is called

Shadow Lodge

Vic Wertz wrote:
Thomas Seitz wrote:
Any chance, Mister Williams, you and/or Obsidian know when they will release Hook Mountain Massacre for the ap? Like in 2016? 2017?
I wouldn't expect big news like that to drop in a messageboard post, but I'm pretty sure the answer is "sooner that you probably expect, but not quite as soon as you probably would prefer."

Hope it'll be announced soon, seeing as my app just updated and Adventure 3 is *super* awesome so far! ;-)


Pathfinder LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

Heh. I haven't finished Adventure 1 yet. In fact, my Kyra and Merisiel just wiped big-time on it. :-(

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