Age of Worms - A Shared Experience?


Age of Worms Adventure Path

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

I don't mean to be getting carried away here... 2 instalments in a 12 part campaign does not a GDQ1-7 (or B1) make.

But still, even so...there is more than the usual buzz and excitement here.

One of the things I have noticed on both Paizo's site and ENworld is an elevated level of attention and people all posting at the same time about the Age of Worms. There is genuine buzz about this campaign.

While I am sure that the buzz seems louder to those of us with our ears pressed close to the hive - I honestly don't remember *this* much collective buzz about a campaign series in a long, long while.

One of the things we seemed to now miss from the early days is a sense of a shared experience where all our gaming groups played a classic well known module.

They sold 'em by the hundreds of thousands, back in the day.

It's a publishing feat that we just don't get anymore. Most adventures being made by those other than WotC are printing only a few thousand. Sovereign Press sells out a 5,000 print run for a new DragonLance module and it's newsworthy. Twenty years ago - that was a dismal failure. It's just not the same anymore.

While the collective wisdom is that adventures don't sell these days - one thing that does sell is Dungeon. Not in the hundreds of thousands mind you - but in 2005 the tens of thousands will have to do.

Maybe it's just me , but while Dungeon has always been there for me, I never got the sense that gamers - generally - were all gearing up to play the same module at the same time. We'd get an issue - and most of the time we'd read it and maybe mine if for ideas. Most often, we'd just put it on the shelf and at some point - often *years* later - we might steal part of it or modify it for use in our current campaigns.

This time though, with Age of Worms, there seems to be a genuine and collective interest in running the modules as a campaign more or less as written - and doing it NOW (or at least, imminently).

As far as gaming in the 21st century goes - this seems to be as close to a shared experience as we are likely to stumble upon.


Well spoken.

I feel it, too.

-rob


Steel_Wind wrote:

As far as gaming in the 21st century goes - this seems to be as close to a shared experience as we are likely to stumble upon.

Steel Wind,

We are definitely gratified that this has been your experience (and your analysis). Way back when we launched 3rd Edition, the Adventure Path Concept (starting with Sunless Citadel) was designed to do exactly what you described. For a variety of reasons, I'm not sure if it succeeded in all the ways we had hoped.

Here's to the continued success of the Age of Worms!

Keith Strohm
Chief Operating Officer
Paizo Publishing, LLC

Liberty's Edge

I am a player for almost 20 years now, and believe me - besides the first experiences I made at the age of 14, there has never been a better time to be a Dungeon reader or a roleplayer at all!
Among my roleplaying friends everyone KNOWS and has played (or DMed) "The Temple of elemental Evil". The AoW will have, in a couple of years, the same status (even if its way better!).

I can imagine players all around the world, in a couple of years talking about how they managed to get Balabar Smenk arrested, or how cool the Whispering Cairn is/has been!!!

However, we will have to wait until we've seen all 12 installements of the AP. If there will be not only dungeon crawls and the quality of the adventures will stay this high, everything will appear in the roleplaying history books and - in my ADVENTURE-HALL OF FAME!!!


Steel_Wind wrote:
2 instalments in a 12 part campaign does not a GDQ1-7 (or B1) make.

...and where else could you write such a sentence and have anyone understand what you meant?

You actually tugged at my heartstrings for a moment, there. I'm going to go dig out my treasured "pink box" set and pretend I'm 12 again. ***sniff***


The cool thing is seeing all the campaign journals, in different styles, with different characters, and from diferent perspectives, but covering the same adventure. I've always been interested in hearing how other games turned out. One thing I love about DMing is the 5th exit principle. Put a party in a room with 4 doors, and they will find a 5th way out of the room. It is that unplanned for aspect of D&D that keeps me hooked. To hear how other DMs handled the various encounters, good/bad dice nights, and added plot twists just further enhances the experience, and I often learn something that improves my game. Everyone playing the same thing at the same time...Priceless

ASEO out


This is my first time to post to the Paizo boards. I have been a player of DND since the late 1970s and an "on and off" subscriber to Dragon and Dungeon. I agree that there is an excitement about Age of Worms that I have not felt since the 1980s. I am running two separate Age of Worms campaigns right now, and I expect that both will play the whole thing out. If so, it will be the first time since the 1980s that I have been associated with such a campaign. I can personally say that as a DM I have never been so excited for an issue of Dungeon to arrive. The "Whispering Cairn" was such a good first adventure. I agree with those that are disappointed in the errors and other problems of "Three Faces of Evil" but I still feel it is going to be a fun adventure (with a couple of modifications) for my two parties. Thanks to Erik Mona and all the others that have put together the Age of Worms and thereby rekindled some of the spirit of my youth. Thanks also to everyone that posts on these boards. I appreciate reading many of the threads even when I don't have time to reply.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

You know, it took me a while to figure out what this meant:

I don't mean to be getting carried away here... 2 instalments in a 12 part campaign does not a GDQ1-7 (or B1) make.

Then it hit me: back when I bouhgt 'em and ran 'em, they were G1-3 (Against the Giants), D1-3 (Against the drow), and Q1 (Queen of the demonweb Pits). Ahh, what memories...

--Rick


I think the problem might in part be in the distribution. Unlike TSR, Wizards of the Coast aren't releasing a lot of adventures; other than the Sunless Citadel (Ashardalon was a pushover :D) and Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (one of my players has played it seven times and tells me of the ways he killed Utreshimon each time).

Many adventures nowadays have one or more of the following limitations that cap their sales, and thus their potential for a "shared experience":

1) They're specific to a campaign setting. Dragonlance or Eberron adventures will see a boost in sales among fans of those settings, but will also lose sales to people who aren't interested or don't want to buy a campaign setting book, or who are already fans of a different setting. Adapting an adventure across settings can be difficult (I already failed at converting RttToEE to Eberron).

2) They're published by a company a less recognised name. WotC official adventures will sell like hot cakes, but buyers will be less likely to buy a third-party product, which has lower production values, a less appealing cover and blurb, and a less recognisable name. Buyers fear that they may be buying a lower quality product if it's not official Wizards material.

3) They aren't on sale in the shops when people browse. Companies with less money to invest in their product may not be able to afford to have their adventure up on shelves all across the world. Some companies cannot even afford proper publishing or will be unsuccessful in securing a publisher, and thus will release their book in PDF only.

4) Nobody's making adventures like they used to. Wizards aren't making adventures that aren't Eberron, because from a business point of view it costs the same as a normal book but has much less of a market, as only DMs will buy adventures. Additionally, they want to build up Eberron, which is something new and different that they wholly own, as opposed to plain vanilla D&D which they don't really have a monopoly over. The limited market for adventures is a drawback for PDF publishers too - while PDFs have a low per-item cost past the initial creation, they will still sell far less than an equivalent PDF of spells or prestige classes.

Thus a problem is that it's difficult in the current market for any one adventure to get massively popular; among the "fits any setting" adventures which have the potential to gain amazing popularity, all are published by third parties, many of whom lack the official and professional air of an official Wizards of the Coast product, and most of whom do not have wide enough coverage of distribution for anyone one adventure to become globally well known.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Maps Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Well, I think the real reason that adventures are a tough sell is that we have had 30 years of them.

And like lead miniatures - they just don't go away.

I have 125 issues of Dungeon. Vast quantities of TSR and WotC 1st, 2nd ed stuff Judges Guild and Role-Aids and ICE..

(And that's not even touching the 3rd edition stuff - of which there is a ton of third party material, of variable quality.)

Different editions? Sure - but most experienced DMs are well able to take and modify whatever they want and work it up quick. There are - literally - a thousand adventures to choose from for a DM today. And they don't go away, they just keep accumulating. The .pdf market - both legal and (overwhelmingly) illegal has ensured that everyone has access to them if they want them.

So - unless your adventure series is really good - has really good production values and a very clever hook - DMs are not going to rush right out and buy it.

The best source of new adventure material, of course, remains Dungeon. As Age of Worms has given a neat hook - had great produciton values and cross-overs into Dragon - along with buzz and interest here with the promise of more downloadable stuff - it breaks the mold.

Point is: put all of thise factors into the hopper - and it's a very different time from the days of Against the Slave Lords and GDQ1-7. In those days - there really were very few published adventures to choose from - vs. a thousand now.


Another problem with published adventure sales is editing. Not to disparage my favorite hobby, nor the company that makes/publishes it, but someone above mentioned the "Ashardalon" adventure path published for 3rd edition. But let's be honest... the artwork for those books was terrible (aside from the cover art), the adventure hooks were lame or contrived at best, and the first module in the series, the Sunless Citadel, had more typos and editing errors than Forrest Gump's S.A.T. tests. I realize it was a whole new game system, with everything being bright, shiny, and new, but frankly, I expected much better from WotC. Those modules had to be gone over by the DM with a fine-tooth comb and a multifunction calculator to get the data right.

Now, in defense of these new adventures, going back 25+ years or so, when we bought and ran Queen of the DemonWeb Pits or the Ghost Tower of Inverness, they were the only boat afloat. If you had a dozen prefab D&D modules back in 1980 or so, you had all of them! Now, not even counting Dungeon Magazines efforts, there are hundreds of offerings on the table. It's tough to share a single experience with players across the nation (or globe) when there are so many things available to choose from. It's easy to overlook a new "Keep On the Borderlands" when in any given month there are 20 new offerings on the shelves of your local hobby shop. In this new arena of published material, I feel that only the truly grand and epic will become well-known and memorable as a potential "Shared Experience." The "Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil" was one such adventure. I think "Age of Worms" will be another.


I agree with your assessment of 'a shared experience'. Many of us would love to run the best adventure in any one Dungeon magazine. But events can conspire against us lowly DMs. If your group is of a higher level, wants to start new characters, or that particular adventure is set in a swamp and your group left off in a desert and you lack the hook to get them from here to there. Whatever the case the AoW campaign offers a fresh start.
I also must congratulate Eric Mona for writing an adventure that inspired more adventure. The backstory of the Wind Dukes of Aqaa, the staff of seven parts, etc. gave the adventure an epic scope in the tradition of great fantasy writing.
We started AoW as a pick up game and that helped the feeling of 1st edition.
"O.k. there are 5 of us, who wants to play the cleric?"
A quick backstory such as "You grew up in Diamond Lake, and are a thug for the mine owners and a bouncer." "you run errands for X" "You are guests of Moonfellow the Grey elf, and have left Celene for adventure."
This feels like Hommlet. Keep it coming.


I said it for AP1, and I'll say it again... the Adventure Paths published by Dungeon, (and selected modules from Dungeon magazine,) are shared experiences by the vast majority of D&D players out there. Hopefully, Dungeon will continue this trend and keep publishing Adventure Paths for us.

Squid


I hope this is the right area to ask this question, but if it's not, then move it to where it's most appropriate.

Recently, we got back into D&D. I have always DM'd, and we are an old school crew. I have taken them through (do they even use that term anymore?)most everything from 1st and 2nd edition. They have seen the Temple of Elemental Evil, the Slave Lords, the Giants, the Drow, the Shrine, the Tomb-that-kills-everyone, and pretty much everything else from that era. We then bought everything for 3.5 (my, how things have changed,) and I took them through (there's that term again) The Sunless Citadel and the Forge of Fury. They REALLY enjoyed them -- especially the Forge. I've realised that we may only have one campaign left, so my question is this: Between "The Shackled City", "Return to the Temple of Elemetal Evil", or "Age of Worms", which would you choose and why? If we're going to run to 20th one more time, I'd like something that we'll talk about for years to come. We play pretty traditional, so you won't find any Yaun-ti Bards, or Umber Hulk Mages. Seriously though, if you fellows could suggest which one, pound-for-pound, is the coolest then that would be great. I may already have my answer after reading this thread, but ANY input would be appreciated.


i think RttToEE was designed for a lot of 1e players like ourselves, very much like ToEE (some town & surrounds preamble then a massive multipartite dungeon crawl) but light on roleplaying, although a group that wants roleplaying is going to concoct it from any scenario.

the SCAP on the other hand has a lot of roleplaying opportunities built into the storyline, and more diverse locations (12, mostly dungeons too, one Abyss level, and more focus on the town and it's residents/conspiracy)

of course, the RttToEE is ver3.0 and the SCAP hardback is ver3.5

so if you want some 1e nostalgia, choose RttToEE, but if you want the latest and greatest choose the SCAP hardback (help this is starting to sound like a sales pitch)

although it looks very good so far, i reserve judgement on the AoWAP until i've seen it all, and in another thread i rambled on about the idiocy of starting a campaign when you haven't got the entirety of it in front of you (so i guess the 'shared experience' thing is lost on me, smacks of a nerd club, although the fact that i'm on the other side of the world from most of the action and we get our magazines at the very end of the cover month doesn't help)

(LWB looks behind him; is that enough independent thought for today Mistress?
booming but strangely enticing voice answers; YYYYEEEESSSS!
LWB bellycrawls naked over rusty razors back to She Who Must Be Obeyed to receive his deserved punishment...
ow! ow! ow! more! ow! OOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!!)


squalie wrote:

I hope this is the right area to ask this question, but if it's not, then move it to where it's most appropriate.

Recently, we got back into D&D. I have always DM'd, and we are an old school crew. I have taken them through (do they even use that term anymore?)most everything from 1st and 2nd edition. They have seen the Temple of Elemental Evil, the Slave Lords, the Giants, the Drow, the Shrine, the Tomb-that-kills-everyone, and pretty much everything else from that era. We then bought everything for 3.5 (my, how things have changed,) and I took them through (there's that term again) The Sunless Citadel and the Forge of Fury. They REALLY enjoyed them -- especially the Forge. I've realised that we may only have one campaign left, so my question is this: Between "The Shackled City", "Return to the Temple of Elemetal Evil", or "Age of Worms", which would you choose and why? If we're going to run to 20th one more time, I'd like something that we'll talk about for years to come. We play pretty traditional, so you won't find any Yaun-ti Bards, or Umber Hulk Mages. Seriously though, if you fellows could suggest which one, pound-for-pound, is the coolest then that would be great. I may already have my answer after reading this thread, but ANY input would be appreciated.

I'd like to put a good word in for Age of Worms. Even though we haven't seen it in its entirety, the first adventure, The Whispering Cairn, was a work of art. It had a perfect mixture of puzzles, roleplaying, and monster slaying, and for the most part was not overpowered. Reading the campaign overview, the campaign plot is compelling and there should be a lot of cool nasty monsters to fight that your players have probably never fought before. It also has a very 1e feel, with weird and interesting locales and strange traps and puzzles. Peruse the Age of Worms forum to hear more details about the specific adventures. Good luck with your new campaign!

Liberty's Edge

squalie wrote:
...I've realised that we may only have one campaign left, so my question is this: Between "The Shackled City", "Return to the Temple of Elemetal Evil", or "Age of Worms", which would you choose and why?

Well, I would NOT play RttToeE if I have the SCAP-HC!

Shackled City is way more varied than the Temple.
When it comes to AoW - Whispering Cairn was the BEST module I have ever read (and can't wait to DM it). QBert is right with when he says it has a perfect mix of puzzles, fights and roleplaying.
If I would be you, I would start the SCAP! AoW has not yet fully hit the planet and in the SCAP-HC you have ALL YOU NEED for great hours of D&D.

Contributor

If we're really picking which of our children is the most beautiful here, I think I'd probably have to give the nod to AoW as the best module around. Shackled City is chock-full of amazingness and very close to my heart (ripping and line editing every word of it - twice - will do that to ya), but the quality of writing on AoW absolutely blows me away. While I'm shamed to admit that my workload has prevented me from sitting down and reading more than episodes 1 and 4 (what's that saying about the plumber's faucet always leaking?), I knew from the moment Erik dropped Whispering Cairn and the Diamond Lake backdrop on my desk that this was going to be something special.

(Actually, as I recall, that was the first thing I ever edited for Dungeon - I believe Erik's exact words were something like "so you want to edit, eh Sutter? Ever hear of the term 'trial by fire?'")

That said, however, the AoW boys have some stiff competition in the SC book - not only is it all in one place and ready to go, you also have to ask yourself if there's ANYTHING cooler than an entire adventure which takes place inside a giant demonic intestinal track, complete with angels encased in cysts and a smoking skull mountain....

In the end, it's kinda like Led Zepplin and The Who... everybody has their preference, but it's hard to deny that either one kicks the ass of basically everybody else. And as long as the big boys keep trying to one-up each other... we all win.

-James


Loviatar's Whipping Boy wrote:
...LWB bellycrawls naked over rusty razors back to She Who Must Be Obeyed...

Feh! ... that sneaky old Talona had to go and make the razors rusty!? What are the Realms coming to, when Loviatar can't have sharp, shiny-clean instruments of pain? MAN! Now we have to go look up the DC Fort save against Tetanus...


C'mon, Lads, you can do better than this! I've decided to drop "return to the Temple". I may be way off here, but I flipped through it at a local store and it just seems so...plain. I just noticed the diary for the Shackled City, so I'll browse through that and see what happens.


O.k., just read the diary and realised that it tells you squat about the adventure, start to finish. Can anyone send me somewhere where I can find generally what happenes in each chapter?


James Sutter wrote:

If we're really picking which of our children is the most beautiful here, I think I'd probably have to give the nod to AoW as the best module around. Shackled City is chock-full of amazingness and very close to my heart (ripping and line editing every word of it - twice - will do that to ya), but the quality of writing on AoW absolutely blows me away. While I'm shamed to admit that my workload has prevented me from sitting down and reading more than episodes 1 and 4 (what's that saying about the plumber's faucet always leaking?), I knew from the moment Erik dropped Whispering Cairn and the Diamond Lake backdrop on my desk that this was going to be something special.

(Actually, as I recall, that was the first thing I ever edited for Dungeon - I believe Erik's exact words were something like "so you want to edit, eh Sutter? Ever hear of the term 'trial by fire?'")

That said, however, the AoW boys have some stiff competition in the SC book - not only is it all in one place and ready to go, you also have to ask yourself if there's ANYTHING cooler than an entire adventure which takes place inside a giant demonic intestinal track, complete with angels encased in cysts and a smoking skull mountain....

In the end, it's kinda like Led Zepplin and The Who... everybody has their preference, but it's hard to deny that either one kicks the ass of basically everybody else. And as long as the big boys keep trying to one-up each other... we all win.

-James

For me personally, giant intestinal tracts, demonic or otherwise don't float me boat. I won't be getting Shackled City. I did get War of the Drow Book One from Mongoose Publishing's Complete Campaign series. But that's another company. So I'll keep me mouth shut on that one! ; )

But back to AOW, never have I seen Greyhawk come more alive than with the AOW Campaign Arc.
It's really well done, especially in helping DMs with the lower level adventures; it can be tough getting PCs to have a sense of history and community, not to mention getting beyond 1st level!! Erik and the gents at Paizo have done a superb job with plopping the City of Greyhawk setting and one of its satellite towns Diamond Lake, right into the DMs lap!
Unfortunately, my PCs aren't into the background info too much so they don't appreciate the setting as much as I do. And I think many PCs out there won't appreciate the beauty of AOW, its the DMs that really look at it and say, "Holy Freeholies! This is a marvellous campaign!"
Truly great stuff!! And I thank all of you guys for putting out a great campaign. I haven't been disappointed and I'm eagerly awaiting the time when Dungeon #127 (off to Greyhawk- the Gem of the Flaeness!) will be up on the Paizo site... after Gen Con I imagine. Thanks again!
(Dungeon #126 makes me worried that my PCs will "bite it," as the proverbial saying goes when they start chugging those tainted potions!)


squalie wrote:
C'mon, Lads, you can do better than this! I've decided to drop "return to the Temple". I may be way off here, but I flipped through it at a local store and it just seems so...plain. I just noticed the diary for the Shackled City, so I'll browse through that and see what happens.

what exactly are you looking for? it depends on what your party gets off on, whether they care to feel involved in an epic story or if they just want to bash things til they're open/silent/compliant/dead.

just fyi if price is an issue, i don't have both of them in front of me, but i think the SCAP is 3x the price of RttToEE
(value for money in playing time ratio would be the same i reckon, also depends on how fast & thorough your group is)

as i said in my original reply, i thought RttToEE was chockful of 1e-style goodness reminiscent of ToEE (duh), but it is a lot less varied than the SCAP, which has more of a 'storyline' with a whole organisation of bad guys and their nefarious plots and associates to discover and dismember, not to mention a flooding lake, erupting volcano, a couple of Outer Planes trips etc

depending on who you talk to, the SCAP plot is either great or too convoluted or boring or just right so it's all subjective. the RttToEE 'plot' looks a lot more straightforward and logical in comparison (but I am a diehard Monte Cook fan). IMHO i think ultimately the vision fractures a little in the hands of so many authors, which is why i'm reserving my judgement on the AoW (now if Erik Mona had written the whole thing I would give it a thumbs up sight unseen)

my Mistress wouldn't like this, but I think calling Tharizdun and the Elemental Princes 'plain' is asking for trouble!

(LWB slinks back to receive his due torture, only to find that She has gone to Glasya's Beauty Shop to have her nails sharpened, so he has to be content with self-flagellation:
'ow! oh yes! u BEAST! ooh! owie wow wow WOW!')

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