Black Dougal's page

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After reading the thread, I had a thought; why must all adevnture paths adhere to a 6 book format? I know it makes the planning process simplier to standardise production scheduling, but seriously, some stories need more space than others to be told.

This would create a situation where one path might take characters from 1 to 10 in four books, while another would take them to 1 to 20 in eight books.

One thing that really stands out for me is that sometimes the "modules" seem to need to accelerate leveling to get the characters where they need to be for the next chapter. So you have some AP's where there are sequnces of fighting mobs that have little to do with improving the narrative but rather just provide repetive encounters to boost xp.

Kingmaker didn't seem to have this problem because you were not forced to go and kill everything on the map, but some like the Serpents Skull, yeah, just seems like a lot of mobs with no real story added value and no interesting treasure to boot.

My favorite was intially Bran..gotta root for the little guy!

but as series went on I found I switched to more unusual characters..

for example, Samwell Tarly..Or the onion smuggler..

But of course my favorite now is Tyrion..the man's ability to survive is amazing.

George's editor holding the manuscript for A Dance with Dragons.

That's pretty big. And the hardcover should be about half as thick, considering the MS is single-paged. That's still massive.

The trully funny thing is if he was a beginning writer no editor would ever read through that.

I guess the key is write short stories or very short novels that can be made into trilogies..and then when the houses know your stuff, you can indulge yourself.

Sorry, must be channelling memories of Goodkind. I know that every page of that stack is going to be the best thing I have read in 5 years.

Ok, seems a bit of froth of negativity on this, while I can sorta understand the impetus of it, I think its kinda getting out of hand. Dragon Age 2 is a good game.

Is it as good as DA1..it really depends on what you like your game to be. My first impression was that EA and bioware had "consoled" the thing, dumbing it down and eliminating a lot of goodness that makes a killer RPG. So no, it is not a sequel to DA1.

What it is a another game entirely set in the dragon age universe. If you liked Mass effect 2, and I assuming most here did, then you should find DA 2 enjoyable. Yeah, I am wondering why they nerfed NPC armor options. I suspect it is because of all the graphics required and yea, EA wanted to pump this out. DA 1 took 5, I repeat 5, years to make. It would be unreasonable to expect the same depth in a sequel out in year and a bit. Would I have waited for a deeper game, yeah, since I am still mucking around with doing all the possible combos in DA1 and could have waited another year.

But EA and Bioware likely felt that they needed to be more aggresive in feeding the masses, and so we have DA 2. The game looks gorgeous and the story seems interesting. Yeah, they should have done more original tiles, but for the hand wringing about how Bioware has changed, I seem to remember Neverwinter Nights having scores of repetitive looking dungeons.Even the 3 official additional modules suffered from that.

As for the premium DLC content, I agree its a bit in your face. Then again, wardens peak was premium content available right when DA1 came out, so why is DA2 being picked on for that.

In short, played about 20 hours of DA2 and enjoying it. The gorgeous graphics and the story are so far overridding any dissapointment with the fact that gameplay has been dumbed down.

Thanks great clips!

When people say the start is a little rough, they mean the entirety of GARDENS OF THE MOON, to the point where some people hate it, try DEADHOUSE GATES (the second book, set on a different continent with a new cast) instead and love it.

I really like GotM, far moreso than most. It's a crazy high-level D&D campaign where the DM has drunk way too much before playing but still just about keeps it together. It doesn't make much sense but the ride is worth it :-)

As for Esslemont, NIGHT OF KNIVES was the very first MALAZAN novel ever written, back around 1987-88, before GARDENS OF THE MOON was written in 1991 (Erikson then got a deal and started writing DEADHOUSE GATES - after losing his original sequel, the first version of MEMORIES OF ICE - in a hard drive crash, in 1998). So it's pretty rough going, and I don't think ICE did a lot to it when he published it in 2004. His second book is a lot better and the third a vast improvement over that.

Night of knives does read somewhat amateurish, but The Crimson Guard is top notch, so can't say Esslemont has no skill. I have read a lot of fantasy, so I didn't find Gardens of the Moon too hard to get through, no worse than trying to suffer through Goodkinds political diatribes for the 100th time in his later books. In fact, some parts of Gardens of the moon are pure brilliance, i.e. Hedge and the deck of Dragons, Kruppe's dreams, the assasin war in Darujistan..

Don't mess with Genoes Paran..

just saying

I must confess I stopped going to GRRM's blog because he hadn't been giving any updates..

now to give a July date...well,thrilled of course but nervous about what would happen if it gets delayed again..

1. CotCT
2. KM
3. LoF
4. RotRL
5. SS
6. CoT
7. SD

In the case of CoT it is a 6 adventure package dealing with the exploration of Cheliax as much as it is about the plot it is working towards, I am actually fine with that, it is in part how you represent it as a DM I guess.

I own CoT but had never read through them as took a one year hiatus from gaming. Anyway, after reading all about it on the boards I scanned through them last weekend. My impresion was that the 1st book was a little weak, the 2-5 got quite good and book 6 felt totally flat to me due to the sandox nature of it.

Which is interesting, because I really like Kingmaker (agree that book 6 feels out of place somewhat).

I guess what I am saying is that a railroad plot driven path if done well is a joy to run, and a sandbox adventure that has a few strong overriding narrative plots can be a joy to run.

But a railroad adventure path that throws in too much sandbox, especially at the start or end, is gonna being dissapointing.

I was all set to run CoT until I read book 6..I would need to do serious work as the conclusion just feels way to wishy washy.

Changes is a great example of where an author realizes that the schtick is getting tired and needs to be revamped.

Most authors screw this up..

But Jim Butcher blows it away..by far the best "lets turn this world upside down" novel I have ever ready in a continuing series.

The best part of it is that everything that happens is a logical culmination of what has run before..its not like he decided to open some logic holes the size of a death star to ram the story down our throats.

That is what I like best about Butcher..the stort elements are high fantasy but there is an underlying consistency to the narrative.

Black Dougal wrote:

All this number crunching about chandalier swinging is all well and good, but I think you guys are missing the essential element of fantasy story telling here..DM fiat..

By Jimminy, if Timmy the kicthen boy with a bad knee and 6 strength needs to to make a DC 41 to succesfully swing on the freaking chandalier to escape the Nycaloth that charged in from the stables, wll guess what Tymora is in a wierd moood and someone just got a +39 luck mod..just don't roll a one Timmy

And you say that it should always be this way? Why do we need any rules then? There is a game and just telling a story. The game adds mechanics into the storytelling. If we were ignoring it, we wouldn't have to have 6 strength, 41 DC or +39 luck modifier at all.

By all means, the rules provide context, and by tried and true play testing are usually codified to represent balance. But in debating the merits of the Forgotten Realms under 3.5 vs 4th edition rules, I think the thread has veered way too much into the nitty gritty. My feeling is that the original Realms had a unique flavour because it was created by one guy over many years. As it went through various iterations and more hands became involved, the flavour changed - too many cooks as it were. And that is where I think 4th ed FR feel flat, it had just changed too muc and there was no real passion in the creation/recreation.

Basically, I bought the FR products for the sandbox, not so much for the mechanics. Yeah, I prefer 1st and 2nd edition over 3.5 and 4th. But not to knock the overall debate. You guys amaze me with your debating skills.

Shes 'bankable', but not for portraying a very believeable character :p

I just think we will get another helping of sub-par genre content which will be cheezy and made for its eye candy value, and all that will happen is that the genre will reinforce itself as something not to be taken seriously and continue on as a bit of a sad joke. I'd prefer to see something with teeth as opposed to something so horrible I just can't watch... which I suspect this will fall into.

For every Conan there were five 'Barbarian Brothers meet Ator the fighting Eagle', but now we don't even get the rare 'Conan' gem.

Horrible cheeze out there, just horrible.

I feel your pain, I remember seeing Ator 25 years ago and I still have nightmares..hangliders and grenades..argh!

The difference between these fine ladies and Felicia is that Ms. Day has a proven track record in producing popular web content. So while she may not be ideal to portray an assasin (I agree her previous roles make it hard to envision her as overly cuthroat), she is bankable enough that Bioware decide to team up with her.

My own view is more dragonage web content the better, so not looking for the perfect fit into the role.

Besides, Briggite Wilson didn't really strike me as the perfect physical type for an elite gov agent in Mortal Combat, but she played the role well enough. I think Felicia will do the same.

All this number crunching about chandalier swinging is all well and good, but I think you guys are missing the essential element of fantasy story telling here..DM fiat..

By Jimminy, if Timmy the kicthen boy with a bad knee and 6 strength needs to to make a DC 41 to succesfully swing on the freaking chandalier to escape the Nycaloth that charged in from the stables, wll guess what Tymora is in a wierd moood and someone just got a +39 luck mod..just don't roll a one Timmy

Don't see how a Narnia like kingdom is outta place in Golarian..

a liitle unusual, but no worse than a kingdom inspired by vampire tales.

LOl..just find it kinda funny how a thread on what WOTC doing with FR currently evolved into a discussion on te DC of swinging on a chandelier..

no judgement on the debate..just find it amusing

JJ,

you obviously did a lot of demon themed dungeon design in your formative DM years. So how did your first kick ass Dungeon mag submission involve a mind flyer from hell instead of a demon related quest?

LOl..just dug that dungeon issue out of my pile..21 years ago!

have you lost count of how many adventures you have designed since then?

JJ,

you obviously did a lot of demon themed dungeon design in your formative DM years. So how did your first kick ass Dungeon mag submission involve a mind flyer from hell instead of a demon related quest?

Felicia Day rocks. Not even Kate Beckinsdale in a Black leather skinsuit can compare.

Diffan wrote:

The Realms's deities are really an ever-shifting soap opera. How many times has Mystra died now, 3-4? Thing is, she always comes back. Why people were so UP-IN-ARMS about her recent tragedy is something I'll never understand. Of course they'll bring her back, like they've always done. Same story, different book. Moving on.

One of the issues was that the very last campaign released by Wizards before the release of 4E was a Forgotten Realms campaign were one of the major goals was to prevent Shar from assassinating Mystra.

For Wizards to tell gamers that had invested considerable time in playing through the three volume campaign that just ten years after their efforts Shar was going to succeed in assassinating Mystra anyway was somewhat annoying.

This is a very legitimite point. I bought all 3 hardcovers and never had a chance to run them. On the other hand, by this point Paizo was kicking ass with adventure paths so from quality perspective I was content to run my Grewhawk campaign and not worry about FR.

Werthead wrote:

Pronounciation guide for the TV series. Mostly it seems the same as the books, although 'Ser' is prononuced 'SAIR' for some reason (it's just an earlier spelling of 'Sir'). Harrenhal is also pronounced oddly (HAIR-in-hall). Generally, not too bad.

HAIR-in-hall is how I was pronouncing it in my head as I read. I don't know if that's been contradicted otherwise by GRRM, tho. Could be.

I duuno, when I was reading my brain sorta came up with an easier name "Horror Hall"

Interesting discussion as always. I personally lost interest in FR when novels by hack writers I had never heard of became canon and overwrote/massively changed the setting I had enjoyed from the original sourcebooks.

Seriously, even the worst Star Wars expanded universe novel is probibly better than some of the realms fiction that went out. I am still irate about the whole Cyric destroys Zhentil keep crap.

Anyway, I did buy the 4e FR hearcover but found what they done mostly incomprehensible. In my opinion, from a sheer design perspetive, I would have designed a new world. But that can be expensive and time consuming, so they just sacrificed FR instead and changed it to suit.

What would happen if Chuck Norris walked into a village of Murlocs?

Not to mention, besides more "Save or Die" traps/monster abilities, there were "if X then die" traps, monsters, etc... ie no save. Puzzle traps that the players had to figure out or their characters died, etc. Of course, treasure was also a lot more random and less balanced by level.

That is the biggest thing I miss is the treasure randomness. There was always the possible lottery factor, where a 5th lvl character could stumble on a +4 defender or a ring of wishes (I'm looking at you module I2).

Sometimes, that meant a otherwise ordinary character with no 17 or 18 stats could survive to a decent level. I treasured such characters. Of course, a few got burned playing with a deck of many things, buT i also remember the outlandishness of a 2nd lvl character of mine drawing throne, gems, and sun, so he was all of a sudden a 8th lvl character with 18 charisma, a small castle and 70 000gp in gems.

The flip side of that was DM's that went to far on nudging the loot tables in the characters favour, and soon you would hear stories of "oh yeah, we took down Elric last night and then killed each other over his sword.."

My absolute favourite monty haul story in Dragon from 1979-80 was Gygax recapping what someone told him at a convention about the players invading Oerth and conquering greyhawk city using a Cylon Basestar.

So it was with sorta mixed emotion when 2nd edition came around trying to codify a few things, and I was intially appaled when 3e came out and was so mechanistic.I had a huge rule's lawyer in my group and Dming when 3e came out was more more tiring then in 2nd ed when DM fiat meant more.

Urath DM wrote:

Demiurge 1138 wrote:

So, when do subscribers start getting their PDFs? I don't think I've even gotten my "about to charge the credit card" email.

I got my "in the next week or so we expect to ship" email earlier today.

Weird, I didn't get that email.

Got my email yesterday. Of all the adventure paths, this is closest to something I would have made myself.

Really looking forward to getting this adventure and then prepping to run at some point.

"The only snakes I know of are those of Ydersius and his cursed towers. Their evil has spread to every city. Two or three years ago it was just another snake cult, now... they're everywhere. It is said that they are deceivers... they murder people in the night..."

Hi there,

I am in between groups at the moment, and looking for a pathfinder group to play with. I am available Mondays and Wednesdays .

Cool. I am also looking for a group. Just moved to Calgary last year and would like to get back into gaming.

This thread needs to be renamed..I always have a sudden urge for dessert everytime I scan the boards and see the thread.

Back on topic, Blake Lively is cute but by no means #1. I still have a thing for kate Beckinsdale, but when I am in the mood for blondes I like January Jones or Brooklyn Decker.

female gamers are hot, just saying

Age of Freaking Worms!

Erik Mona is too modest to ever seek the proper acolades, but I feel Whispering Cairn is the best designed beginning adventure I have ever seen, and I have been buying D&D modules and dragon since 1980.

As others mentioned, its starts off very easy and then ramps up to more challenging encounters, and with the role playing possibilities provided by the nearby town, has the perfect mix of combat, problem solving, role playing and clue discovery and builing of story arc.

I am going to be honest there are a few adventures in age of worms I wasn't as happy with, but on the whole it has a great story arc, and if your players like delving into campaign history, well it is full of great ties to Greyhawk.

Shattered City is much more hit and miss, the start of the plot is interesting, but by lvl 9 or so it gets very disjointed as authors didn't follow up plot threads by previous writers. My players didn't enjoy SC at all and asked to switch to another setting by lvl 4..which was age of worms, and they were much happier after that.

Ok, my next iron cage match question:

Harry Dresden vs. Harry Potter?

Or they can do like they did in 1978 and replace him with H.E.R.B.I.E. the robot.

Why in the world did you need to mention that?! I had completely forgotten this for 30 years and now I just experienced a huge disturbance in the force, like a billion voices crying out in pain, and then silenced forever.

LOl..I agree that Fool Moon is his weakest book, but that is like saying Porthos is the worst swordsman amongst the 3 musketeers (i.e. still damn good by the standards of the genre).

I am glad I did read them in order...I and will hype the most awesome Sentry Box here in Calgary for having the entire series on stock when I came in last March. Felt kinda silly buying almost a dozen books at the same time, but it turned out to be worth it as I burned through them and loved not having to hunt for the next book when I finished one.

I started buying Dragon since about issue 73 and Dungeon from issue 1, and I can tell you that the quality varied a lot over the print runs (Dragon had a lot of very bland and bad offerings between issue 100 and 250 or so). I will say this though, when Paizo took over the magazines I saw a lot of changes , a lot more energy, better artwork, better adventures.

So when WOTC killed off the print versions 5 years ago, I had no doubt whatsoever I would stick with Paizo, and my loyalty has been rewarded with some amazing adventure ideas and stories, and I am thrilled that they keep putting the good stuff out there.

In a sense, I have no ill will towards WOTC at all as the were the Catalysts for Paizo to challenge itself and grow. And yeah, WOTC decision to kill the online mags is entirely predictable. To have been a success, they would have to have the same amount of energy, talent and creativity that Paizo had when they were doing Dragon/Dungeon, and sadly, while WOTC has/had some great talent , I don't think the online mags ever got the creative team/resource backing they needed to compete.

As much as I enjoy the Pathfinder AP's, I find it hard to concieve anyone paying $250 for Burnt offerings. Don't get me wrong, great adventure, but when I paid $100 to buy an un opened never used box of the planescape Blood wars, I thought I was being a little extravagent with my budget.

As someone with every AP adventure every published, and a few duplicates as well, I say no reprnt if someone is willing to pay me $1000+ to take AP 1-6 off my hands.

I just bought Band of Brothers after reading Major Winters had passed away.

Seemed a good way to honour him is to watch his story.

My god, I thought I had some min/max players, but this thread is well scary..

I have to give you guys kudos, sneak attack with even a basic MM spell would be awesome..and I never thought of it before

and to the person that menrtioned sneak attck using ray of frost! genius!

FBI steel cage match

Fox Mulder versus Bill Maxwell..

who wins?

To me this is somewhat straight forward, fantasy RPG's drew a lot of inspiration from fanatasy pulp novels from 1930 - 1975, and in those novels cheescake was the rule.

So of course, no matter evolved the game gets, there is always going to be a throwback to that image of the chainmail bikini.

I do think from a practical point chainmail bikini's are stupid, I would rather have my heroine wearing something tight and stylish and and easy to move in, and have a ring of warmth and a ring of protection +15 to explain anyway the practical defencies.

Is Godzilla related to the Tarrasque?

is Godzuki related to Godzilla, or did some evil entity switch an egg from Barneys's clutch and put it near the destroyer of Toyko?

This thread makes me shake my head...the best comment I have seen so far is the Norse gods are far from racially pure..did't Loki spawn monsters? Who is more Norse, the Aesir or the Vanir? The dwarves? The Giants?

I am just looking forward to a good summer popcorn movie.

I am buying this tomorrow. Sentry Box Calgary, here I come.

The new trailer has me back to hopeful again.

I get the feeling that I'll be going into this movie the same way I went into the first X-Men movie, muttering under my breath 'please, don't suck, please, don't suck...' :)

I did that for Fellowship of the ring, and that turned out ok..

of course, I also did that for Phantom Menance..and we know how that turned out

Reading recent posts here about Scott Orsen Card and Lost..heh..well makes me think of the supposed kerfuffle about Sliders and GRR Martins "doorways" Pilot.

Anyway JJ, that leads me into asking did you watch Sliders, and if so, were you disgusted as I was when they relocated production to LA in Season 3 and the story telling suffered from cast desertions and studio interference?

Why do studios always mess things up? Case in point - Greatest American hero (season 2-3), A-Team (season 5), Firefly (season1 )..sigh

How do these "professionals" manage to screw up so often in regards to programming?

Lol..rant over

First of all, thanks to all you knumbskulls I have to go find the soundtrack to Flash Gordon now.

JJ, your middle name wouldn't happen to be Jonah would it?

Ok, more seriously now that I have my corny spiderman chuckle out of the way,

In the past, Eric Mona has occasionally stepped in and delivered some outstanding 1st-3rd level entry adventures. Will he ever have any free time to design any more and further, does he have a bias for the entry level material or has he ever thought about designing lvl 10-12 level stuff?

Not to Derail but...

Black Dougal - I have tried a couple of time to get a PFS table going at the D&D meetup at the Sentry Box without success. I would be very interested in participating in Calgary.

PDiidy - Cool, I plan on getting more organized in the new year and start gaming..its been a bit of a drought since I moved down here.

Also LoL..because I just realized I know Northron, he and I have played Pathfinder together before when I lived In Edmonton..he was a wise ass elven diplomat in Korvosa and I was a bumbling Paladin who managed not to get laid in a whorehouse.

Yo JJ,

what is the better soundrack to run during a battle, Conan The Barbarian or Mortal Combat?

1st edition D&D,demonweb pits-final encounter

mage was out of spells and afraid to melee, rumaged through his sack and decided to throw 2 vials of holy water..not knowing Lolth was highly vulnerable..

rolled a 20 to hit on one and then rolled 35 points of damage (out of max 36) and as she only starts with 66 hp and was already wounded..killed..