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Recent posts by
Tzzarg:
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* more high-level adventures (especially ones you could run after finishing an Adventure Path)
These are hard to do, given that high level groups can diverge so wildly in abilities and power level, but I would love to see more modules set at levels 15+. The important thing to me is making them feel epic. Save the city or barony just does not cut it at these levels, the threat needs to feel larger than life and out of the ordinary.
* larger adventures, like "supermodules" (though we aren't sure how we'd fit that into the line, which currently only has 32-page adventures)
These I definitely would like to see (Slumbering Tsar would be a great candidate for this type of treatment), providing there is some way to do them profitably. The GDQ supermodule remains one of my favorites. I find the best modules mate a good story with an interesting location (which I can reuse later). So a supermodule set in the HQ of the Red Mantis, or ancient Azlanti magic research facility, or Test of the Starstone would grab me.
* prequels or parallel adventures relating to an AP, so your players (who may or may not be playing the same PCs you have active in that AP) get additional information or another perspective on the events of that AP
I find a lot of Japanese RPGs and Anime use this technique. If its done well, I think I would be interested in a side story to an ongoing AP. Many of them have hooks that are left to the DM to expand, it would be interesting to see Paizo take a few and run with them.
As for the other types, I might be interested, so long as the rail roading has an interesting hook. Forced to do something for the noble/ruler/king to avoid x is old, but something like War of the Wielded, while railroady in a sense, feels fresh and something my pcs would like.
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Dmrrostarr, Fluxx is a game that's both chaotic and great fun. You are dealt a hand of three cards and the basic rule of the game is "draw one, play one". In your hand are keepers, creepers (MP Fluxx has em, played immediately and don't count against your cards played), goals, rule cards, and action cards. The object of the game is to have the keepers and/or creepers in play (creepers are normally bad cards that prevent you from winning the game--unless altered by a specific goal or rule) that match the goal or goals currently in play.
Fluxx is a highly appropriate name for the game as almost everything about it can change on the play of a single card. The amount of cards you draw, the amount you play, how many cards you can have in your hand (aargh, hate that 0 hand limit rule), the goal you are striving for, whether cards harm or help you--all are highly mutable and altered from turn to turn.
Monty Python Fluxx is a great marriage of theme and rules. Just as Python can seem absurd and ludicrous at time, so can Flux. Although there are no mentions of the word spam (copyright concerns I guess), rabbits with pointy teeth, shrubbery, rules that encourage you to sing a Python song or talk with a fake accent, keepers like the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch--all are in there.
Chess it isn't, but Monty Python Fluxx is a great filler and a good light game.
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"Casts resurrect on the thread." Woohoo, this finally came out (as of 7/30/08)! Thank you Mr. Logue for another splatterific mystery quest. Now to answer roguerouges questions from several months back:
"What're the selling points for this adventure?"
A jack the ripper like murderer terrorizing the streets of a city beset with alchemy run amock and deadly cults. Several new monsters and locations, that while city/urban specific can be dropped into any city in your campaign.
"How is the setting?"
Strong and weak at the same time. Logue etches a portrait of a city that is grim, dirty, and corrupt and laden with things best left alone. Yet its weak in that sense that the adventure can be slipped into almost any grimy city setting in your campaign. Greyhawk might be a stretch, but Lankhmar, New Crobuzon, and Freeport would be perfect places to set the locales in the module.
"How strong are the hooks? Weak? Apt? Railroad?"
The structure of the adventure is linear, but who you are up against and the nature of the foe does not become clear for most of the adventure. I have not run it yet, but just on an initial readthrough, it does not feel like a tournament module. For the "kill things, take their stuff" kinds of groups, Gorgon may not be an adventure that they'll enjoy. Groups that like intelligent villains, heavy roleplaying, intrigue, and a strong environmental element to their game will really like the module.
"How varied are the encounters?"
Very. Granted, Gorgon is an urban module with city oriented encounters, but there is a wide array of many different kinds of monsters the party may encounter
"What are some memorable characters?"
"How portable is it to an existing campaign?"
Its very portable. It must be set in a large town or city, and it is preferable that the city be run down and seedy, but other than that, it can be set anywhere. Just make sure your pc's are mature and have a taste for the macabre. There's no way WoTC would ever touch something like this with a ten foot pole--I'm very glad Wolfgang and Open Design did though ;)
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Archon of Light wrote:
My question, however, is who do I ask permission from? Paizo or WotC? And more importantly, would either one care as long as it wasn't making me any money and not reprinting material that must be purchased (as opposed to being downloaded for free)?
IANAL and I'm not with Paizo Archon, but from what I've seen, its Wizards that owns all Dungeon content produced for the magazine lock, stock, and barrel. Unfortunately, not making any money off anothers work that's posted without permission doesn't put you in the right. You may want to look up info regarding the No Electronic Theft Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NET_Act). Another good starting site for copyright questions is http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html. When in doubt, seek out qualified legal counsel.
Back to the subject at hand, good luck getting a response from Wizards. Other fans have tried and either not received any response at all or gotten boilerplate. Maybe one of the Paizo folks can tell you the specific person at Wizards to contact?
Something like you are proposing has been tried before. Go to http://dungeonmagazine.pbwiki.com/FrontPage and poke around. In the wiki's site case, its not so much existing material that's being reprinted, but material that got cut from the adventures for space considerations. I'm not sure as to its legality, but Wizards has not had it taken down--something I appreciate ;)
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Woohoo! A new Dungeon adventure by Nicholas Logue. You can find it at
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/duad/20080509. Although set in Eberron's Stormreach, with a little bit of conversion, you could use it in many a ruined city/urban setting.
The adventure has an action/gore vibe to it. I was especially fond of
Wizards got the author description wrong though--Mr. Logue is definitely no longer a 1st level unemployed ;)
Good Lord Nic, do you never stop? Paizo Ap, Pathfinder Society, Sinister Adventures, side projects and now this. Wow.
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Takasi,
With more than six months to the official launch, its a bit premature to be predicting anything. As an oldschool player (started in 82), some of the things being done with 4th edition make me twinge, but the same I could have said about 3rd edition before it came out. I don't know if I'll make the transition (I'm happy with 3.5 as is) but Wizards does not seem to be going for my age cohort at all anyway, rather the younger crowd, which is what they need to do to have a future for the game.
As for fallout, an edition failure (something I'm certainly not anticipating) would be very bad for the D20 tabletop sector and bad for overall tabletop roleplaying sector as well. Wizards, for better or for worse, is the 800 pound gorilla of those segments, and as Wizards goes, so goes the market.
Notice, though, how specific my verbiage is--roleplaying is for more than just the tabletop sector nowadays. Console and online roleplaying would not be effected at all (no insult meant to DDO players, but most folks online play Warcraft, EQ, Guildwars, LoTR and other non WOTC mmorgs). And tcg's/ccgs (which have some crossover with fantasy rpgs--take the backstory of MTG for instance) would likely not be that effected either.
I'm not sure if a new big player would emerge in the tabletop sector, with so many things pulling at rpg players attentions nowadays, whatever it was would have to have something special going for it (but if anyone could do it, I'm sure Paizo, Necro, Malhavoc (if Monte decided to take a stab at rpgs again), or Goodman could).
Most of the surviving D20 companies would probably try and capture as many existing players and bring in new ones as they could with new product and/or new rule systems, shift to other sectors (such as boardgames or tcg's/ccg's), or go out of business (I'd hope they try the first two before the third ;)
FLGS's would be negatively effected, but not as bad as one would think. For a variety of reasons (I leave it to those more familiar with the workings of the FLGS sector to comment on this) the number of primary rpg stores has been declining for the last several years (there's several threads about it on rpg.net--there were 2000-3000 in the late 90's down to about 1000 now, maybe less). Many of them have either gone out of business or changed their product emphasis from rpgs to sportscards, tcg's/ccg's, comics, and/or boardgames. An edition failure would likely accelerate the trend and decrease the amount of shelf space devoted to pen and paper rpgs.
As for my table, there would be little effect, at first. I have all the books I can use (and then some) from 3.5 and enough adventures and adventure seeds to run games for years. The real negative effect would be in the future, with the diminishment of the number of younger folks potentially interested in playing tabletop rpgs. Without a D&D to draw them in, their interests and hobbies will likely go in other directions.
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The answer to your question has a variety of factors Goroxx. As I understand it, Hasbro became interested in Wizards due to primarily Pokemon and Magic (Wizards had the rights to publish the Pokemon Cardgame, Hasbro had the rights to produce the Pokemon toy line--though Pokemon sales now are a shadow of what they were in the late 90's, back then they were selling like gangbusters). I suspect Hasbro would have been interested in Wizards based on the success of Pokemon alone, but Hasbro has a history of growth through mergers and acquisitions and the chance to also acquire the Magic card line and D&D and the highly profitable D&D book lines were sweeteners in the pot. Take a look at the Wikipedia article on Hasbro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasbro) and look at the long list of current and former divisions. Most of those companies were separate entities at one time or another and were snapped up or acquired. There's little doubt the strategy has payed off handsomely for the company and its shareholders, as they are now one of the largest toy companies in the world with 2006 revenues of more than 3 billion dollars.
There were other motives on Wizards end. In a 2002 Gamingreport interview with Peter Adkison (former CEO of Wizards) at http://www.gamingreport.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&fi le=index&req=viewarticle&artid=42, Mr Adkison stated, "Nope. While it was difficult to sell Wizards of the Coast, it was clearly the right business decision. Pokemon was so hot and our revenues were so high that I knew I’d never get that sort of opportunity again. If it would have been entirely my own company and I wouldn’t have had investors and option holders to answer too, then I could have sat on it and weathered the post-pokemon storm without a problem. But when you have investors your first responsibility is to them and you have to put personal preferences aside."
His mention of having investors and option holders to answer to is important as TSR, to say the very least, has a somewhat tortuous and convoluted ownership history (I'll see if I can find the link to where Mr. Adkison talks about that, I do remember a discussion or two several years back). Although Wizards acquired TSR, many of the stockholders and dispersed ownership problems came along with the acquisition. While the Wizards acquisition may at times stink from a fan point of view, it was a good and sound business decision, enabling employees to join a firm that was on a much sounder financial footing (TSR was in serious financial straits when Wizards bought it, there was a stretch of several months to a year in the late 90's where nothing (including Dungeon and Dragon magazines) was released because TSR could not pay its printers) and enabling stockholders to cash out of an industry that while having meteoric hits at times, can go through stretches of stagnant and declining sales.
[Edit} Aargh, must type faster, four people responded in the time it took to type my reply ;)
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Mr. Logue,
Excellent module and what I've come to expect from one of the fiendishly clever trio of Vaughan, Logue, and Pett. It looks like Hell's Heart will see print for 3.5. If you go to the Wizards website (which is very dodgy right now with the massive crush of people wanting to find out more about 4E), and click on the "Dungeon" tab, this is what you get:
Starting in October, this is your destination for
the best in D&D adventures. Coming in issue #151,
we’ll be wrapping up a three-part Eberron series,
which began with “Chimes at Midnight” in issue #133,
as well as returning to a classic 1st Edition
adventure, updated for D&D 3.5.
So, soon we'll find out what Mr. Logue cooked up for the conclusion of the trilogy. I look forward to it.
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Bryon_Kershaw wrote:
Wouldn't it be better to adjust the adventures to suit the party's strengths (flexibility, requiring different skills for jobs, creative solutions to problems - general jack of all trade kinda stuff) instead of declaring it unplayable and unsurvivable?
Maybe it's just me, but it seems kind of off to tailor the party to suit the game and thus limit what people are able to play.
~ Bryon ~
Being unable to tailor the game to a party is one of the few beefs I have with playing in the RPGA. All the mods have to be run a specific way in a specific amount of time--there's a little room for the dm to provide npc flavoring, but the flow of the mod is the same for every dm that runs it (and usually the outcome).
Getting back to ericthecleric's and Paz's posts, i think their ability to tailor the game instead of the party is a function of how much spare time they have. If they're a 30 somethings like me, with a full time job and social obligations during the week and weekend, extensive conversion is possible but improbable. If they're still in college, or have a substantial amount of free time, then your advice Byron is spot on.
Personally, I recommend tailoring the party to the modules. For one, switching out a character or two is a lot easier than having to rewrite or substantially alter 12 modules. There are a few dm's I've known who could wing it on the fly, but if you do not have the time, alter the party.
Not being able to play a character that you want blows at times, but I've found that being sometimes forced to play outside your default character or character archetypes can broaden one's horizons and give an appreciation for other classes that was not there before. Go with a core of 3-4 specialists (tank, divine, arcane, face/rogue) with the rest support/jack of all trades and the group should go far.
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Most of my gaming experience has been with the RPGA, which (in my region) tends to be combat heavy and story/rping lite. I agree somewhat with your other DM--your group is very playable at low and mid levels (1-10,11) but starts losing steam at higher levels. However, I disagree that all characters need to be specialists--most of the party should be, perhaps, but a party that also has support characters and a jack of all trades or two around a core of specialists tends to make the best mix.
I recommend that the players with divine and arcane casting ability take a combination of classes and prestige classes that do not cause them to sacrifice levels of casting ability and spell access in their initial core class. The additional spells from mystic theurge are nice, but it can't make up for the loss of high level spells. I have no wish to spoil the AP for you, but from what I've seen in SCAP and AoW, high level combats can be very brutal and you need access to as many high level spells, summons, healing, and buffs as you can get. I also question why the party has two dragon shamans. A dedicated support buffing caster or a knight might be better in place of one of the shamans. Best of luck.
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I'm with Onrie on this one, FFXII is a great game. The cg, voice acting, fx and overall "feel" of the game is very polished and very professional.
For me, the best way to describe FFXII is with an oxymoron--its a single-player mmorg. It's obvious Square took their experiences with Final Fantasy Online (FFXI) and applied them to this game. If you've ever played EQ or WoW and liked them, you'll like FFXII, if you didn't like them, you may want to find something else.
Most of the battles are non random in that you can see the critter or critters you're going to engage--for me this was a plus as some zones contain critters that are designed to challenge far above the level you first hit the zone(like the entites, aiyee those suckers are tough). However there are many battles that are unexpected--undead will erupt from the ground, creatures will fly in, things in dungeons will drop from the ceiling. The cool thing is that the surprises happen in a matter that's consistent with that type of creature--no sudden "screen freezes", jump to a different screen and start smacking down like previous ffs.
One seemingly minor thing about this game that I like, is odd as it sounds, the weather. Certain zones will change appearance depending upon the weather cycle (The Westersands and the Giza plains being among the more dramatic) and certain monsters will only be able to be found during certain weather conditions. Its a seemingly minor feature, but it really helped with the game's verisimilitude.
As for the game challenge, I will say that once you figure out how to structure the gambits, equipment, and techniques for your party, many of the latter battles beyond the first few levels in the main storyline are moderately challenging. That does not mean there aren't any controller thrower fights ;), it's just that you have the option of engaging in them or no. If you do get the game (and I think you should) do the Clan Centrio quests--if you're looking for tough fights, many of them will fit the bill.
One final aspect of the game (and its a strength or weakness depending upon how you view mmorgs) is that there is a bit of grinding to be done. Your party will enter a zone and sometimes will have their head handed to them, yet if you come back in 3-5 levels the zone will be manageable and 10-15 levels will be quite easy. If you don't like spending some time just running around slaughtering stuff, you may want to find something else. I haven't found it to be all that boring, and since slaughtering creatures is tied to generating money (which is very tight in this game) by the items the creatures drop (the mixing of which is a subgame in itself) to upgrade spells, techniques, and equipment, the grinding has stayed involving.
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