golem101's page

Very interesting.

There's a third kind I've played - one where the PCs are just observers and play NO part in the events. Those are the most annoying ones of all - and I have a friend who loves writing those kind of events. Ugh.

Argh.

I'm playing in such a campaign, in which the DM keeps the epic tone of the story to his desired levels simply by hardrailing our characters into "fringe" events, where the outcome seems constantly predetermined and our actions ineffective in the overall balance.

It's causing some unpleasant strife between long time friends.

I want this AP with the strenght of a raging quasar.

Unfortunately (??) I don't own any more recent or current WW products - I think the latest I bought were from the Exalted 1st edition line.

Unless they have made some dramatic improvements, I find difficult to imagine something spectacularly better than the PFRPG core book, which is surving admirably heavy weekly use (and abuse), and it's on par with the huge Ptolus tome - that I consider the golden standard to be referred to.

On the contrary, some 3.5 rulebooks that have lived mostly on my shelves (Heroes of Horror and Fiendish Codex II) seem to be dying just from old age, without having performed any notable table duty...

I have just compared the hardcovers from Paizo (printed in China) and the ones I have from White Wolf, from its Sword&Sorcery Studios department (the Scarred Lands and Ravenloft ones) which are printed in Canada, and the binding strenght, paper quality and "lying flat" factor are marginally but definitively better on the Paizo side - not counting the fact that the Paizo products are full color.

Pretty much the same can be said of the softcovers, again comparing products from the aforementioned lines.

I can't honestly see where the "inferior product" part comes from.

I would not, but it is due to the fact that I will be having Lulu print me a book of the 3.X ruleset containing my own changes. I will truly make the game my own when I do that.

Pretty much the same.

Hellboy by Mike Mignola and its spin offs (BPRD foremost) are really really good.

I love Artesia by Mark Smylie, set in a fantasy world which features the best elements from myth-based epic, low magic, brutal warfare and political intrigue.

You can see some of my builds (using Dave Graffam buildings and WorldWorks Games Streets of Himmelveil set) here:

Dave's buildings only

Full blown layout

Do you dare to visit the Dead Man's Tree?

Well do you?

I'll dare my players to in a few weeks. I think I'll use it as a feature of the Hook Mountain area, with those Kreeg ogres and everything else.

I heartily recommend Dave's Models too. I reviewed a few of them, and will write more reviews in the future.

Congrats to Dave and Huzzah! for the Paizo store.

Design tuesdays just got (even) better. My favorite Paizo Blog day, no doubt.

Yes, I think that a few suggested encounters are a bonus for this type of product: the way they're presented right now is just as good as it gets, because the different scenes are presented more as a proposal with many possibilities for roleplay, development and customization rather than as fixed, railroaded blocks of combat to survive and go on without an afterthought.

Moreover, they function as a practical showcase of tactics and attitudes of the creatures described in the product itself, which is always useful.

Happy to hear that despite a number of... mishaps, everything is on the right track.

I am myself witness to a couple of very serious incidents involving electrocutions and the resulting burns, and I can attest that it's the stuff of nightmares.

I'd also like to thank the illustrious Dark Mistress for the great review!

Speaking of the Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh ... lately I've been mulling over the idea of updating it to the Pathfinder RPG so I can run it as the start of a new home campaign. BUT, instead of using the lizardfolk plot from the module (and the other two modules in the series), I'm thinking of instead tying it into Lizardfolk of the Dragon Fang somehow ...

@golem101 - I'd be interested in hearing what you thought, if you're so inclined :)

Will do.

I have some spare time coming up, and I'm bent on rewieving all the Tribes line PDFs I've purchased so far (and if I manage to, all the other Raging Swan products too).
Right now I'm halfway through the Brethren of the Crimson Altar one, so in a week or so you'll hear from me. ;-)

Got it (along a couple of other Raging Swan PDFs)! Now my Tribes collection is once again complete. :-)

A sandboxy military-themed campaign, full of medium to large scale battles, shadowy intrigue and gritty drama? Maybe with an adventure based on a full-blown siege? Paizo style?

OK, I'd be all over it. Do want.

A while back, I was flipping through one of my Dungeon magazines, and in the advertisement for back issues, one of the adventure synopses mentioned an imp beseeching help from the party because it does not wish to become a goblin's familiar. Unfortunately, I didn't mark the page or issue, so I am wondering if anybody can please point me in the right direction. Which issue has that adventure? Thank you!

Dungeon Magazine #119, "Unfamiliar Territory". Good adventure, BTW.

If it is a beginner's game, this is relevant...

What's the best "intro to" gaming product you've seen, and what did it do right? As a former technical writer, and a former classroom teacher, I have my opinions, but I'd like to know what products other people have found and liked.

Dragon Age Set 1 is rather nice; despite some faults it seems to me a really good example of what should be an intro set.

On a completely different ballpark and pricetag, the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (3E) big box is what I think sets the bar of excellence in boxed sets.

Vic Wertz wrote:

Bladeace wrote:

Sounds like your international mailing companies are ripping you off?

Believe me, we've checked as many shippers as we can find, and none of them even come *close* to the USPS price. UPS and FedEx would each charge $141.19 to ship you that 4.2 pound package. (We've tried others as well; USPS International Priority beats the pants off them all.)

My guess is that your rates may be so favorable because the New Zealand Post might still offer surface mail. The USPS eliminated surface mail a few years ago, so everything has to go by air.

Noble Knight Games offers something called USPS International Surface Air Lift - Printed Matter. Putting the PF Core rulebook in the cart and using the shipping calculator, I get a quote of $16.40 to Italy (where I live) and a quote $22.23 for New Zealand. They also offer something called FIMS – International Mail Service, which gives a quote of $27.41 for New Zealand.

That's something quite interesting, as I had to cancel a couple of subscriptions based almost only on a steep rise on international shipment rates (and those dreaded VATs our customs seem to apply more or less at random).

If the (playtest) ninja becomes the new baseline power level for class design, you’ve invalidated the core rulebook 18 mos. after its publication. Considering the Paizo staff have expressed a desire of editions going for many years (some posts cited a decade or so if I recall directly), this would seem to be [u]spectacularly stupid[/u] philosophy for them to adopt.

This.

I still hope that the base-classes will stay the "best" choices for that character in general, and alternative things will be mostly for fluff.

And this, too.

Everything is always a test.

Just finished skimming the PDF, looks awesome. The adventure, the post-campaign developments, the Ydersius piece, the bestiary (the Baregara and the Emperor of Scales are 5 stars "Wow!" beasts).

Congrats to the authors and all the Paizo staff for a great AP, from start to finish. Looking forward to play it.

That system strikes me as... hmm.

So, I'm a first level Dwarven Fighter. I've got a con of 18, because I know I'm dealing with vit/wounds, and a strength of 14, because of my con. I've got a chain shirt (guessing DR 4), because I can't afford the really nice stuff at first level. I've got a shield, which presumably adds to my defense/AC instead of DR (doesn't make sense as DR). I've got a Waraxe that presumably does 1d10+2.

Thanks to my Con, I've got 14 vitality and 4 wounds.

I'm fighting a mirror image of myself, who lands a crit on me. I'm taking 1d10+2 Wound Damage, -4 DR. I take an average of 7.5-4=3.5 wound damage.

The mirror image obviously suffers the same. Note that the 1d10+2 waraxe (which looks halfway between a battleaxe and a greataxe) does the usual multiplied damage value to vitality (average again, 7.5x3=22.5), and any points exeeding the vitality value goes to wounds points - which means death, as usual for a character receiving a crit from such an attack at 1st level.

The wounds/vitality subsystem "goes live" at different level ranges considering crit damage, at lower levels is more something reflecting serious damage after some lesser scrapping.
I wouldn't do the number crunching based on crits (rolling at the table is way different than doing table math), but YMMV.

That... actually sort of works. Splitting the crit and adder damage off isn't bad from a conseptual point of view, but the implementaiton feels kind of clunky. Weapon Specialization? +1 weapon bonus? Sneak Attack? Flaming Weapon? How do these work?

I would like to know specifics on how you worked out the AC thing.

Weapon specialization adds to base damage (eg. longsword=1d8+2): the value is applied both to the non-multiplied value for wounds, and to the multiplied value for vitality. Same for +X magic enhancements.

Sneak attacks (precision based damage) and flaming magical qualities add +1 wound damage per dice, and the usual roll(s) to vitality.

Yes, shield bonus goes to AC/Defense rather than DR. The parry/block immediate action - yet another subsystem of mine - allows however to put added value to the armor DR.
AC class based bonus is based off tables from Green Ronin's Advanced Gamemaster's Manual (amazing-good-fair-poor), but it's not considered a dodge bonus: it is instead something that stands on its own, such as the BAB.

I'm trying to figure out how the Dwarf above would fair against a crit from himself at 5th, 10th, and 15th level, but it's clunky. I'm also concerned about the two-handed Strength build archtype, but again, working it out at 5th, 10th, and 15th level is giving me a headache.

It's necessary to account for magic items, feats, class abilities, and everything else, and doing so in my head is proving awkward. That might be the mechanic, or the fact that it's just new and different OMG, not sure which.

TBH, I never did any serious math evaluation of the system at the various levels; I'm more an empiric trial-and-error guy than a number cruncher.

I thought it more as a concept of verisimilitude (not realism!), and after approval by my players, used it.

I have long toyed with various uses of vitality/wounds, to various degrees of success.

The longest run applied them thusly: a PC gains CON mod + 1 per level as wounds, rolls normal HD (max value at 1st level) as vitality.

Healing spells affect vitality for their variable part, and wounds for their fixed part; so a 2nd level cleric using Cure Light Wounds heals 1d8 vitality points and 2 wound points. Any excess heals the other value (so a PC with no wound points lost would be healed by a full 1d8+2 vitality points in the previous example).
Regeneration/fast healing heals vitality as normal and wounds at per-minute rate.

The Toughness feat adds to both vitality and wound points, making it really useful for any class.

As this whole subsystem was used in conjunction with armor as DR (and a class based Defense value similar to BAB), it made more sense, IMHO.
Crits did not bypass DR, but applied base damage to wounds and multiplied damage to vitality; precision damage added 1 point per dice to the inflicted wound value.
Lethal, but liked.

Recently I've come up with a whole rehash of the conditions system (blinded, stunned, sickened, shaken, etc.), converting it into a 5 class, 5 type stackable value mechanic, that hopefully will be easier to use than the actual system and does not need any differentiation between vitality and wounds, but will go back to the catch-it-all HP value.

Book of the Damned vol.3: Bringers of Annihilation

written by: Todd Stewart

Make it happen, Captain!

*nerdgasm*

I'm running Golarion too. I made some slight modification to the area near the border between Taldor and Qadira, mostly changing the geographical layout of the Jalrune rivermouth and putting there a bunch of gloomy fishing villages, and adding a bunch of elements in the area between Zimar and Oppara (a large town inspired by Zobeck, which I named Silvercrown, and a forest halfway to the Southern rage mountains, with another quartet of backwater communities).

The plot (sorry for the longish rant, but English is not my primary language, so please excuse any mistake)...

Howie23 wrote:

LazarX wrote:

For purposes of this discussion I'm assuming non-PFS play.

Same assumption.

Reply: 5

I'm with that crowd. For non-PFS, 5 of 5.

For PFS: 1

Agreed.

Some of the most die-hard FR and Dragonlance fan gamers I've ever met, who are at the moment playing in my second run of RotRL, have expressed their admiration and preference for Golarion as a setting.

PFRPG is gaining momentum among every gamer I know, and most of them after a bit of culture shock (coming from AD&D2e or after having tried other systems) consider it their RPG of reference when measuring up other titles.

Every time I take a look at a PF AP issue, a Chronicles book or an hardcover for bits of rules, my GM juices are flowing, and I'm filling up notebook after notebook of concepts and ideas to be used or expanded in future games (thank you digital voice recorder!).

Or my favorite. Try looking up "Lighthouse Calenders" on Amazon. Let's just say that I was surprised at the calender that was suggested to me for my office.

Smurfed!

DM fiat is regarded with contempt as it is most often used by bad DMs on a power trip. Now this is not to say you can't change things. But for it to not be fiat, you need solidly defined reasons for it.

"I am making full attacks a standard action so you can actually take them with some degree of reliability and so that non casting enemies can better threaten PC spellcasters." is a change backed by a solid, mechanical reason.

"Warlocks are overpowered/ToB is anime herp derp/No your Fighter cannot have the sword upgrade he must have to function." are examples of why DM fiat is regarded with such contempt. Not just because those claims have no solid basis behind them, but because changing things randomly indicates other problems.

If you want to see examples of how DM fiat = warning sign of a bad DM, you need only read these boards to find many people who would quickly find themselves without players if those players had a backbone.

I don't recall the OP discussing any changes to the rules or application of abusive/unbalancing HR either.

Rather, he was discussing to ability of the GM to change the content of an adventure (swapping creature A for creature B, changing motivation of the BBEG, etc.) without having the players complaint about the ungodly evilness that is tailoring a pre-published campaign/setting/adventure to specific tastes, preferences or else.

Unless the GM is wrecking everybody else fun just for giggles or to prove a point (we all agree is wrongbad), I really can't see the problem.

I don't have a problem with the rules and, now that there is no GM's guide, sharing them with players.

What I'm concerned about is what feels like a natural next step which is losing editorial control on the adventure.

If the adventure says that the monsters charge in and attack, can I not have them parley instead?

Can I choose what tactics they use, rather than obey the adventure?

Can I change their feats and skills?

Can I change the way they organise themselves?

Can I substitute their spells, change their abilities?

Can I substitute one monster for another?

Can I change the layout of the adventure?

Can I, in fact, simply use the adventure as a skeleton, and taylor it completely to my taste?

Never mind my group - what I'm really asking is: would today's Pathfinder players be outraged if I did any of the above, or would they accept that that is actually my job?

Richard

Quite obviously you can do all of that, but why you should need this written down?

Because the players (who in theory should not know what's gonna happen in the adventure) would complain?

So the real question is not if, but rather why a player would complain if the GM changed a detail or a large part of an adventure to actually improve the game custom-fitting a pre written module to the group personal tastes and gaming style?

Great illo. One of the most inspiring half-orcs ever.

I find this thread so appropriate that I'll smurf it.

GMing is still lots of fun. The recent (post AD&D2e) rulesets offer players greater space for both character customization, interaction with rules options, and impact over the overall campaign/storyline/game. Which, in my book as a GM, is a good thing.

The nasty part is that rules lawyering, min-maxing, and otherwise rules abusing players have greater maneuvre space too.
The wrong attitude - that IMHO is amplified by the necessary or unavoidable areas of contact between genres such as movies, comics, novels or VG related to same narrative current - is players coming at the table saying "I win the roleplaying by pwing everyone else by crunching numbers written on a paper sheet", or just berating the GM for bending a rule that stand in the way of good narration, or by requesting impossible things such as being of superhero-level power from the start just because his/her character is inspired by that guy from the comic/novel/movie, and so on.

I hate with the strenght of a raging quasar the idea "the rules say that by level X I should have riches numbering in the hundreds of thousands so I should be able to buy item Y, so my character must have it", not understanding that availability of item Y is just theoretical, and that his character should primarily survive and succeed mostly on the player ability to roleplay and interact properly and not only by the stuff written down on a sheet.
You choose a rogue in a campaign based mostly on constructs, undeads, plants, elementals, or similar stuff? Deal with it, play your strenghts and don't focus on the weaknesses.

Players who expect GMs to run encounters "by the book" just because that way they're sure that they have a fair chance, could have just the same fun solving algebrical functions. Fair chance and all. It's a lack of personal involvement, lack of will be to face minor/major defeats, desire to show off no matter the situation.
GMs should always tailor-fit the adventure, campaign or encounter to the gaming group at the table, augmenting or dimishing the difficulty or the overall lethality, on his personal opinion.
Does the GMs do so just to humiliate the characters? The problem is within the person playing the GM, not derived from the rules.
Does the scene have a greater meaning on the overall balance of the adventure/campaign? Do the players have approached the encounter with the wrong attitude? I could go on for a while with this rant.

At the moment, rules do not stand in the way of GMing fun, or player fun. Attitude does, as always has been.
I agree that more modern rules give greater chance of abuse and that other social factors have greater impact on the expectations, but again, rules by themselves are rather fine (even if not without problems).
The guilt of "not fun" should be given to the personal approach of the people at the table, and not to the "player power vs GM power" by itself.

Eric Hinkle wrote:

And I have to add in a "me too" on votes for non-gorgeous celestials and more asuras and oni and otheriwse untouched as yet outsiders.

All that and Divs.

And scary good angels of the "burning wheel" and "thousand tongues and eyes" variety. Maybe like the celestial equivalent of the qlippoth: Good in completely alien form. Mindbreakingly alien if they aren't careful.

Yes. Divs are awesome, full of great flavor and background. Loved them in LoF.

Also the idea of qlippoth-level good outsiders is really interesting.

Back to the material plane, some more arctic based monsters. Also critters linked to civilized races, such as ones that thrive in urban areas or even rural ones, adapted not to a natural environment but rather to a niche transformed by the arrival of intelligent creatures that have an impact on the surrounding wilderness. Parasites, scavengers, predators, symbionts, etc.

As for Ultimate Magic, I'm more interested in the optional rules presented (and in the new feat concepts, I might add) than with the alternate classes - no axe to grind with asian themed ones, especially considering the forthcoming Jade Regent AP, but the gunslinger... thanks but no thanks.
More archetypes are welcomed though.

Since TOZ likes to exagerrate (<3 TOZ), here's some viable advice:

1. Grab the 3.5->PF conversion document on Paizo website. It highlights several important changes.

2. Read the Classes, Combat Maneuvres, Skills first. Most changes there, and everybody should be familiar with them.

3. Depending on class choices, the players should review the feats (some changes to old ones, lots of new ones) and spells (no new spells but several were adjusted. Everything related to polymorphing, Cleric buff spells, Ray of enfeeblement, Enervation, to name a few).

4. As a GM - read up on poisons/diseases, energy drain, encounter design and XP.

5. The rest should come naturally as you go.

What Gorbacz said.

Plus, make it extra clear to anyone who plays a spellcaster character that a lot of spells might have subtle but important differences, so they shouldn't make any assumption that magic works the way the already know or they suppose to know. Better check the rules on a case-by-case ratio.

Yes.

Temples, wizard schools, arcane academies (sp?), the occasional shop might have a selection (small or large, depending on the setting type and size) of potions, oils, wands, and minor items with charges or consumed in use.

Large cities even offer custom creation of items by special NPCs (usually limited to an overall +3 bonus), and they involve a minor quest for them to retrieve components or compensate the expenses.

I encourage the use rather than the stacking of consummables, so the wizard can spare a spell or two, the cleric doesn't need more than one (emergency use) cure wound per level spell memorized, etc.

No.

A player who comes to my table and says "by level X I expect to have items for value Y, so I'll get weapon Z with these qualities plus bracers of awesomeness and headband of cool factor" is bound for a whole world of hurt.

No supermarkets. No random high level item on sale. No high level NPC creating whatever he's asked just for money. No availability of each and every magical quality based on level expectations.

Characters get to loot treasures. Usually that's more than enough. Otherwise, they have to deal with it.

Owww, please. You can't even smurf the smurfed smurfy smurfer all the way up to the smurf nowadays.

Once you had to smurf yourself properly if you wanted to be smurfed or to smurf around.

wotc constantly missed the boat on what fans wanted, packs of iconic enemies.

Ever see the Zombies board game, they sold Bags O Zombies extra, I would have slain for a bag of painted zombies, let alone orcs or goblins

This.

Missing the train of thematic sets for cannon fodder minis to be used in RPG games was a mistake.

The lack of useful commons/uncommons in the later sets - at least in useful numbers, compared to the rares frequency - has dealt a critical hit.

Yeah, I think I had a large number of "insightful" comments that were completely wrong. I'm pretty sure at some point I stated:

4e would be awesome and succeed.
No one would be able to successfully use the OGL to create a successor to 3e.
Even if someone did, it would still have the same problems with backwards compatibility as 4e.
No one would ever hire Mark Moreland for any job. Ever.*
Online tabletop would be the Best. Thing. Ever.
We should all support 4e because if D&D failed, so failed the hobby.

I'm sure there's other stuff, said with great specificity and gusto.

I think I'm going to predict Paizo's abrupt and titanic failure this year - that would practically guarantee them continued success.

Hmmm...crow...

But tastey crow. Never been so happy to be wrong.

*Okay, I may not have said that, but I'd have laughed at the idea of someone on the messageboards doing so much great work tracking Golarion, writing Society adventures, and dominating PaizoCon trivia contests that they'd be hired by Paizo. I'm still jaw-droppingly impressed.

Yup. I remember that in a thread about the 4E announcement (one of the two topics I actually posted in, before the flame wars went out of control) you promised a slice of crow pie to me and to everybody who wasn't 100% sure of the awesome onslaught about to be brought in by the new edition of the game.

The problem - to me, at least - was that "crow pie" was a completely new locution, English not being my primary language and all, and I didn't really get the whole thing until some time later.

The Ecology of the Gearforged has art by Mark Smylie. Mark Smylie!

Mind blown. Gibber in progress.

Kingmaker is probably the easiest AP to adjust for younger gamers. Brushing aside a couple of grittier elements (such as the Stag Lord background) is easy and does not impact the narrative at all.
The kindgom building rules can be handwaved with minimum hassle if they prove bothersome, but I don't think they're too complex for ages 10+ - OTOH, they can prove a rather fun way to tinker with some basic math.

The next best suited AP I think is Legacy of Fire. Even if there are some darker moments (the whole gnoll situation, and the attitude in Katapesh), it's quite easy to just show them as "bad guys work" without going too much into detail.
Moreover the exotic overall theme could prove highly engaging.

Both Curse of the Crimson Throne and Council of Thieves are somewhat more difficult to custom-fit for a younger group. There are some gritty scenes (not too much of them), but the hardest part is the underlying atmosphere, full of moral choices, shades of grey, strange bedfellows as allies, and uncertain areas.
Even if it's not finished yet, it seems to me that Serpent's Skull falls in the same category.

Rise of the Runelords and Second Darkness are not suited. Not only there are some definitively gory moments (Nualia's background, the skinsaw cult, them ogres!, the drow as a whole), but changing or removing them means getting rid of some basic defining elements of the APs themselves.
Unless you're willing to do a lot of work, I'd skip them from the start.

I'd rather have punch-out standees to be placed on clear plastic bases, such as those seen in WHFRPG 3rd edition (and really similar to the investigators' tokens of Arkham Horror), rather than flat counters.

Not only - IMO - standees look better, but the plastic base could be provided in different colors, to differentiate factions and/or conditions.

A simple thematic packaging (Bestiary I goblinoids, Bestiary I undead, Bestiary II fiends, etc.) would keep each set price tag relatively low, and allow for personal tastes-use-customization.

DM Wellard wrote:

As predicted 4e has become a board game.Hate to say we told you so but...

Don't forget the collectible cards to give you new powers at the table for a D&D Encounters game.

Uuuuuuggghh.

I promised myself to stay away from anything even remotely related to edition wars, but this is... just uuuuugggghh. No proper words.

Back on topic, I'm a bit sorry for the definitive death of the DDM line. Lucky me, I managed during these years - I started all the way back with Harbinger - to retrieve most of the minis I need for RPG purposes, in the numbers I find useful.

I even have fond memories of unpacking whole cases of boosters and browsing a couple of websites devoted to trading minis just to find someone who offered interesting stuff and who asked for the doubles I had to offer.

So long, random plastic guys.

Roll everything beyond 1st level. Lady luck is whimsical.

Monster HD/HP ratio depends on the number of PCs at the table: with a large group I give opponents max HPs, otherwise I stick to average for critters/fodder and roll for special enemies.

I mean everything that would bring the website shoulder to shoulder with how websites look today. This one has the looks and the technology of a site that was made 10 years ago. Don't get me wrong, I love Pathfinder and all that your company stands for, just every time I log on here, I am a little disappointed in what I see.

Don't know. If up-to-date, on par, advanced, etc. means something eye-candy and full of features no-one really uses (well, maybe a private messaging system, but only maybe), thanks but no thanks.

I don't mean to be snarky or antagonistic, but as I usually browse a bunch of forums based on vbulletin and phpbb full of smileys, ranking/postcount/status features, sig pictures and so on that just clutter the overall usability of the pages, I find that the clean and simple Paizo boards are refreshing in comparison.

Even if based on outdated technology, these boards are more crunch and less fluff than a lot of other places. To me, simpler is better.

The "suddenly x" pattern is an internet meme. Google "Suddenly Vampire Frogs," I think you'll find an example. In my case, I'm just suggesting that I'm planning to use it as an unexpected, out-of-left field wilderness wandering monster encounter, for comic effect.

Vampiric giant frogs and vampiric tadpoles-spawn are gonna be an awesome, black-humour, highly disturbing encounter I'll put into the corrupted forest my players are headed into next months. Ooowwwwww.

Thanks.

It seems to have worked for the order I just placed.

How often does that happen? I mean how often does a player of your group (how many players are there?) turn up without having looked at the background?

In our group it's nearly always the case that no player looked at the info.

It has happened twice last year. Having a time window of about ten days (I write down the session report about three-four days after the game) ensures the possibility to gather the spar time needed to read it.

If it's a longer/different piece of info (such as a regional description, or the history of a place, or a detailed religion written for the cleric/druid) the relevent game session is scheduled to be at least a month away, so once again, all the time needed is available.

Even if a player hasn't read up something, the other have, so a quick summary is provided by the game group and not only by me alone.