Inspired by the discussion here I thought it may be interesting to guess at what the cannon end of the APs may be in the event of a "Pathfinder 2.0".
Starting with the obvious ones which technically have cannon endings thanks to Shattered Star
Rise of the Runelords- The PCs Prevent Karzoug from regaining power, the city of Xin-Shalast has been rediscovered and the Pathfinders and other interested parties are making inroads to exploring it.
Curse of the Crimson Throne- Korvosa has a new ruler.
Second Darkness- The Darklands and Drow are now Common knowledge at least in some circles.
Now the Not so obvious ones these are my guesses as to the general gist of what may be.
Legacy of Fire and Council of Thieves - I must plead ignorance to the stories in these paths as I have neither read nor played them.
Kingmaker - a new country has arisen out of the stolen lands in the river kingdoms and the threat from the First World has been removed...for a time.
Serpent's Skull- The city of Savith Yi has been rediscovered but the adventures failed to prevent the resurrection of the Snake God and now the serpent folk gather to bring the fight to the surface.
Carrion Crown - The Cult of the Whispering Way was stopped but their work has made significant progress to freeing the Whispering Tyrant.
Jade Regent- A new empress sits on the Imperial Throne but the remnants of the civil war fought to put her there causes backlash that echos throughout Tian Xie
Skulls and Shackles - Following a Massive battle in the Shackles the Free Captains are in shambles but so is the Chelish navy the result is a multi-way struggle for power over the region
Shattered Star- Xin's city has risen from the depths and the pathfinders have laid first claim to it after their members defeated the clock work reliquary.
Pure speculation From Here On
Reign of Winter - Baba Yaga is Free once again and balance is restored, but the Heralds of Summer's return have a foothold now and the country is in disarray after the failed coup by Elvanna.
Wrath of the Righteous- The now Mythic hero's of the Crusade have driven back the demon lords of the Worldwound and made massive strides into closing the rift but the seal is new and fragile and it will be tested constantly.
Council of Thieves has no major repercussions outside Westcrown, as far as I'm aware. I'll go ahead and toss my vote for the Council successfully seizing rule of the city and creating a criminal-run government, forcing House Thrune to either beseige or raze the city.
I'd put my vote on Kingmaker going the other way. On the cusp of truly being recognized as a successful, independent River Kingdom, the newest colony in the Stolen Lands suddenly vanishes in a storm of magical chaos, leaving behind nothing but a barren desert, its people and rulers vanished without a trace.
I'd also nudge Carrion Crown in the other direction as well, pointing Tar-Baphon as one step closer to achieving freedom, if not fully escaped and ruling Ustalav from a throne of bones.
Inspired by the discussion here I thought it may be interesting to guess at what the cannon end of the APs may be in the event of a "Pathfinder 2.0".
Why all the downers and cliffhangers?
What's wrong with a good, old-fashioned, good-triumphs and hero-beds-heroine ending?
Case in point:
Skulls and Shackles - Following a Massive battle in the Shackles the Free Captains are in shambles but so is the Chelish navy the result is a multi-way struggle for power over the region
After fighting my way through six modules and fifteen levels or whatever it is, I'd hope I manage to accomplish more than destabilizing the region I tried so hard to save.
Similarly, any saga end that includes phrases like "the adventurers failed to prevent" is a really badly written adventure path. Are you seriously suggesting that Paizo should release an AP that climaxes with a situation that railroads the party into failure?
My guess for the end of all the AP's is very simple: the adventurers triumph.
James Jacobs has pretty blatantly said that if they do ever fast-forward the Golarion setting timeline to include the after-effects of the APs, they will most certainly not assume all of them were victories for their respective PCs. Read the thread linked to in the first post.
Atheral's point in making this thread is "guess/suggest which ones should be victories and which ones should be losses, and what the aftereffects would be".
Creative Director
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And that's part of the reason I'm so hesitant TO graduate the APs into canon. Because even if we say the PCs won every adventure, there's going to be some home campaigns that doesn't mesh with. There's NO WAY we can make the AP events canon without invalidating some home games, so my preference is to make them canon in the way that makes Golarion the more interesting.
In some cases, that would likely mean assuming the PCs failed either partially or wholly to achieve success in the AP. Certainly, that assumption goes well with the overall design philosophy of Golarion being a relatively gritty place where there's a lot of opportunities for adventures to fight against evil.
In any event, there are currently no plans to do this officially.
Why all the downers and cliffhangers?
What's wrong with a good, old-fashioned, good-triumphs and hero-beds-heroine ending?
Hmm...I'd just put it down mostly as me being a morbid person. I tend to prefer stories whose endings have shades of grey to them. Don't get me wrong there are defiantly times when I love the good guy triumphing and getting the girl, but, in my mind the hero's shouldn't always be triumphant, if every hero who sallied forth to vanquish the evil dragon,did, then you'd be running perilously short of dragons for hero's to sally forth and vanquish.
Edit: and Orthos stole the words out of my mouth...
Edit Edit: Double Ninja'ed by the T-Rex as well
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I think invalidating some home games is inescapable. I also believe that many home DMs understand this, and from the opinions I have heard, many would rather see the setting advance and have some mysteries solved (and new mysteries arise in their place) then have the setting rest in limbo just for the benefit of not affecting the stories of home games. I understand that you guys as Developers run along a weird line, but I think posing canon changes are good and there is nothing stopping you from putting in sidebars that state 'these are how we figure it, but it's optional - here are how things could have gone, in summery, if this or that happened differently' and leaving it at that.
I was recently discussing Karzoug not dying in a different thread recently, and personally I would love the idea of the Claimer escaping death just barely and appearing as a recurring villain later on down the line but I am sure that would not be canon. Either way, I am curious on how Golarion will evolve - it is an interesting setting and the built in stories are great enough where they deserve growth.
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As a GM who's home games already don't mesh with Golarion canon...
You just roll with it. It's surprisingly easy to say things like "Korvosa has a new leader but he's this guy and also this happened" or "the Pathfinder Society isn't even interested in Varisia so the never-retconned Darklight Sisterhood is reaping all the rewards" or "lol you didn't stop the serpent god from rising you're all f*cked now" or "great, now you've destroyed Iomedae's sword and Dagon's rising, what hath you wrought" and have them fit around established canon.
The thing is... this is not easy to do with some game canons. If I had to try this with Faerun I think I'd cry, it would be that frustrating.
But with Golarion is really isn't hard. And I blame that entirely on the writing and creative staffs. Golarion is so well written that you really can just see what's connected to what, that you really can just change these things here and it fits! It works!
If the plot is ever advanced I don't think it will be a problem. It won't scare me or put me off one bit. I already change canon to fit my whims.
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Why would Paizo need to advance the timeline?
Even if the ruleset advanced that does not mean that Golarion has to.
Golarion has already seen one ruleset change without advancing the timeline.
I would be really resentful if Paizo decided to invalidate major portions of hundreds of pounds worth of books I have bought from them without a much, much better reason than: "Ooh, new ruleset."
And, anyway, this just begs the question: why even have PF2.0?
Paizo are creating great adventures in a great setting right now.
"Hey, guys, is this thing broken?"
"No, it works really, really well."
"Ah, right, better change it then..."
@GeraintElberion: Hmm, not sure you read this right. James Jacobs is just upthread writing how #1. He is very reluctant to advance the timeline for just the reasons you mentioned, and #2. That there is currently no plan to do so.
This thread is just for speculation.
@Enlight_Bystand: Remember, every AP has pretty cataclysmic consequences (except Council of Thieves), and JJ has said he'll pick and choose depending on what they decide creates the best world scenario.
My guesses:
RotR is a player win, otherwise SS is confusing.
CoT is a player loss. If they won, a bunch of assumptions would have to be made regarding the leadership of Westcrown.
SD is a player win. No second Age of Darkness.
Kingmaker is a player win. Too much going on in the river kingdoms, including the MMO.
CC is a partial player loss. I wouldn't be surprised to see the WT back.
S&S is a player loss. Someone has to lose.
Can't really speculate on much else, as these are all I've played... (Can't wait for WoR!!!)
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Kingmaker is especialy interesting in this regard.
I think that if the canon is advanced, this story SHOULD result in a PC loss.After all, leaving the story as a win might invalidate the AP as certain groups played it even more than the loss. If the kingdom is swallowed by the First World, then it cannot conflict the kingdom the PCs built because it's now ruined.
This could also interact nicely with the MMO, given the developers an oppertunity to create a whole new, 100% different setting to play in (the First World), which should be an oppertunity for good stuff.
APs that WILL result in a near total victory for PCs are:
Rise of the Runelords, Second Darkness, Curse of the Srimson Throne, Shattered Star, Legacy of Fire, Reign of Winter, Wrath of the Righteous, Carrion Crown
APs that will probably end up with PC defeat:
Council of Thieves, Kingmaker, Serpent's Skull
About the rest (Jade Regent, Skull and Shackles) I am less certain.
RATIONAL BEHIND MY SPECULATION:
the entire Shaterd Star story arc was revealed to be a swiping victory for PCs on all front, so this is not a speculation but a fact. Reign of Winter, Legacy of Fire and Carrion Crown can't really end up with defeat because each of them would mean destroying HUGE parts of Golarion, which is sort of unacceptable. Wrath of the Righteous is all about how awesome PCs are, so logicaly it can't really end with them losing, right?
Council Of Thieves and Serpents Skull end up with PC defeat because that will create a really interesting story - the tragic fall of Westcrown and the rise of an ancient threat from a dark corner of the world. About Kingmaker, see discussion above (it's easier to just wipe out a kingdom than to try and build one that will fit those created by numerous adventuring parties).
About Jade Regent and Skull and Shackles, as the plots of both revolve largely around areas in the world that are either too remote or too insignificant to have a huge impact on other areas, there's no strong indcation how they will end. Largley up to the whims of the creative team I suppose.
RotRL
Just re-read the title, and surely the cannon to destroy APs would either be Worldbreaker or The Great Maw of Rovagug.
More of a BOOM do you think? Or just an OM NOM NOM?
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I know James doesn't like me declaring that advancing the timeline for Pathfinder 2.0 (many years down the line, etc.,etc., you know the drill) is the right way to go. But I really believe that it would be a disservice to the setting as a whole if it were to always remain static. And for multiple reasons:
1.) The world keeps getting smaller. Let's be realistic, there is a limited amount of nations which make for an attractive setting for an AP for the prime audience of Paizo. With the expectation that AP results can not be canonized, every AP cuts down the number of potential adventure sites by one. And that means that a few years down the line you can't have an adventure path in most of the popular places on the map of Avistan and I don't see Paizo beginning to write AP's exclusively for Tian Xia or Casmaron.
2.) In the same vein, even if the writers have an excellent idea for another AP which would fit perfectly in, say, Korvosa, the current canon house policy prevents them from selecting the city again for said adventure. That means static settings kill stories.
3.) And as for that last sentence in point two, a completely static setting will prevent Paizo novels from ever attaining the popularity even Forgotten Realms novels enjoyed. If you write stories where the protagonists actions can never be felt in the world, then you'll never be able to build up an iconic character/group of characters, which will have a long series of novels. Maybe that isn't even the plan, but I'm pretty sure nobody at the Paizo office would be too sad if they had their own Drizzt or Elminster or Raistlin, i.e. a character which immediately is recognized by every fantasy RPG fan.
And, before that counterargument crops up, I don't want constant RSE ("Realm Shaking Events", trademark of the Forgotten Realms novels), but I would love characters with a supporting cast and appearances over multiple novels/APs. Although a bit movement on the politic map of Avistan would be lovely, too.
And Geraint, Pathfinder 2.0 will happen in some years. That's a given. When the current edition has reached a certain point in the development cycle, Paizo will be faced with the decision to either stop producing new rules material and lay off a good number of their employees or get to producing a new edition of Pathfinder.
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I know James doesn't like me declaring that advancing the timeline for Pathfinder 2.0 (many years down the line, etc.,etc., you know the drill) is the right way to go. But I really believe that it would be a disservice to the setting as a whole if it were to always remain static. And for multiple reasons:
1.) The world keeps getting smaller. Let's be realistic, there is a limited amount of nations which make for an attractive setting for an AP for the prime audience of Paizo. With the expectation that AP results can not be canonized, every AP cuts down the number of potential adventure sites by one. And that means that a few years down the line you can't have an adventure path in most of the popular places on the map of Avistan and I don't see Paizo beginning to write AP's exclusively for Tian Xia or Casmaron.
2.) In the same vein, even if the writers have an excellent idea for another AP which would fit perfectly in, say, Korvosa, the current canon house policy prevents them from selecting the city again for said adventure. That means static settings kill stories.
3.) And as for that last sentence in point two, a completely static setting will prevent Paizo novels from ever attaining the popularity even Forgotten Realms novels enjoyed. If you write stories where the protagonists actions can never be felt in the world, then you'll never be able to build up an iconic character/group of characters, which will have a long series of novels. Maybe that isn't even the plan, but I'm pretty sure nobody at the Paizo office would be too sad if they had their own Drizzt or Elminster or Raistlin, i.e. a character which immediately is recognized by every fantasy RPG fan.
And, before that counterargument crops up, I don't want constant RSE ("Realm Shaking Events", trademark of the Forgotten Realms novels), but I would love characters with a supporting cast and appearances over multiple novels/APs. Although a bit movement on the politic map of Avistan would be lovely, too.
And Geraint, Pathfinder 2.0 will...
1) Don't worry about the "diminishing space for adventures" issue - that's just not going to be a problem. Golarion is HUGE, and even if Paizo is reluctent to position entire APs in certain areas of the world, traveling through different parts of it in the same AP is not at all out of the question. There is an absurdly large number of possibilties not explored yet - for example, non of the APs so far actualy went for a romp through another plane (there were demiplanes, and there were short, limited dungeon crawls through other dimensions, but not actual entire adventures set in other dimensions) - Wrath of the Righteous will be the first to do so, but there is more to the outer planes than just the abyss.
Besides, selecting some of the areas that were already featured as full APs is not as problematic as you make it sound - there were 4 APs in Varisia, and the same number of APs can be set in Cheliax, Andoran, the river kingdoms, Kyonin, or hack, even Absalom. Just check out your copy of the inner sea world guide - every one of those countries could be a source for one or more AP, easily.Taking the idea even further, more things could be the focus of campaigns than just locations - for example, there could be an AP about a certain diety (fighting rovagug, or serving gorum), just like Reign of Winter is about Baba Yaga. APs could be about a race (like second darkness is about elves). The possibilites are near enough to endless, so don't worry :)
3) Say, are the "James Bond" movies popular? I mean, they are a series about the same character, and not only do non of the stories impact the world the character lives in, but also they usualy don't even affect the character itself, never mind the minor characters. According to you, the movies shouldn't be popular. Same goes for Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Mission Impossible, Kill Bill, 24 (The TV show), House, Doctor Who, the bourne identity series, and really just about any character focused series of movies or TV shows. World shattering events are not required to grant a story high stakes, these could be very personal to the characters invovled. Just change your expectaions, sit back and enjoy the books as they are - some of them are really great.
1) Don't worry about the "diminishing space for adventures" issue - that's just not going to be a problem. Golarion is HUGE, and even if Paizo is reluctent to position entire APs in certain areas of the world, traveling through different parts of it in the same AP is not at all out of the question. There is an absurdly large number of possibilties not explored yet - for example, non of the APs so far actualy went for a romp through another plane (there were demiplanes, and there were short, limited dungeon crawls through other dimensions, but not actual entire adventures set in other dimensions) - Wrath of the Righteous will be the first to do so, but there is more to the outer planes than just the abyss.
Besides, selecting some of the areas that were already featured as full APs is not as problematic as you make it sound - there were 4 APs in Varisia, and the same number of APs can be set in Cheliax, Andoran, the river kingdoms, Kyonin, or hack, even Absalom. Just check out your copy of the inner sea world guide - every one of those countries could be a source for one or more AP, easily.
Taking the idea even further, more things could be the focus of campaigns than just locations - for example, there could be an AP about a certain diety (fighting rovagug, or serving gorum), just like Reign of Winter is about Baba Yaga. APs could be about a race (like second darkness is about elves). The possibilites are near enough to endless, so don't worry :)
I think that the existing and current APs are using the most interesting locations from their sub-settings. Sure, there is a lot left right now, but what about four years down the line? Eight years?
3) Say, are the "James Bond" movies popular? I mean, they are a series about the same character, and not only do non of the stories impact the world the character lives in, but also they usualy don't even affect the character itself, never mind the minor characters. According to you, the movies shouldn't be popular. Same goes for Indiana Jones, Die Hard, Mission Impossible, Kill Bill, 24 (The TV show), House, Doctor Who, the bourne identity series, and really just about any character focused series of movies or TV shows. World shattering events are not required to grant a story high stakes, these could be very personal to the characters invovled. Just change your expectaions, sit back and enjoy the books as they are - some of them are really great.
Some of those you listed make no sense ( Kill Bill? Eh? ), but you seem to have not read what I wrote closely enough, anyway. I don't want constant world events, I want recurring characters and locations, I want some continuity.
Magnuskn - there's a world of adventure awaiting us in Casmaron, and Sarusan, and Arcadia, and Tian Xia.
There are ways of expanding the world without advancing the timeline.
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Well remember, they do two APs a year. So four years from now, there will be eight, and eight from now, there will be sixteen. They have many many more nations, planes, and worlds than sixteen so I'm confident that it will be a long time before we run out of a combination of settings, stories, and suspense.
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Pathfinder Tales already has an iconic team of characters who adventure all over the world and are involved in Golarion-shaking events.
They just always succeed in saving the day, so the setting doesn't have to change.
I don't really know why Drizzt became popular but I'm pretty sure that Elminster was popular before a single novel about him had been written. I'm also pretty sure that Drizzt's first books just involve setting the world aright (lthough they do reclaim Mithral Hall that has little setting impact. Salvatore invented Mithral Hall for his story, he was given an unmapped part of the setting to play with.
And in the next trilogy he basically just escapes from Menzoberranzen (sp?) without any worlds being shaken.
I don't think it would be fair to say that Drizzt's popularity is connected to his role in setting-altering, time-line advancing events.
Just re-read the title, and surely the cannon to destroy APs would either be Worldbreaker or The Great Maw of Rovagug.
I figured he was just talking about how every AP should end with a "Rocks Fall Everyone Dies Event".
Except in this case it would be "Cannon Fires Everyone Explodes".
As for Drizzt, while many of his stories don't have anything to do with setting altering events, his stories DO have a logical progression to them. Events persist.
They take back Mithral Hall. Meaning it is now owned by the Dwarves and the dragon and such are gone. You can no longer run a new adventure with enemies infesting Mithral Hall (unless the timeline is far advanced and the site is retaken in the meantime), but you can have new events stemming from that same area.
His actions (and the actions of the other Companions) affect the people they come into contact with, for better or worse, and that's because it has a persistent timeline. As it stands now, Pathfinder's Golarion does not have a real, persistent timeline from the time APs start. It has fixed events in the backstory, but not much in the ONGOING story, which is what Magnus was talking about.
And, once again, I am not advocating for those setting-altering events being the norm. I am saying that a completely static setting works against building up iconic characters who have some continuity between them. If you can't alter the setting somewhat, you lose a lot of the sense of tension, because things don't really matter.
To take an example: The BattleTech universe was long known for having a very complex political structure, with a lot of movement. Many of the novels ( mostly written by Michael A. Stackpole ) treated with the leaders of the Inner Sphere interacting and dealing with the big decisions. More importantly, you had a set of characters whose struggle you read about in the last novel by Stackpole and whose decisions mattered in the great scheme of things.
When the timeline was ( ill-advisedly, IMO ) advanced a hundred years to the Dark Age setting, the new novels mostly dealt with small conflicts on remote planets, with a lot of battles and relatively little of note happening. They changed that up later in the novel series, but it was very noticeable that the stakes were considerably lower and thus ( at least for me ) the motivation to keep reading was much lower. If things didn't really matter, what was the point? I can find books where characters just struggle everywhere.
AP's of course are different, as in that the events normally should matter a lot and should have an effect on the setting. But for me the feeling remains that ultimately they don't matter, because after you are finished playing them, the setting reverts right back to "standard mode". Seeing this as a policy which is planned to go forward indefinitely is disheartening and only serves to distance me from the overall setting. I simply want APs to matter in the great scheme of things, not be only "what if?" stories.
If a new AP "official result" invalidates how my home game ran, but allows me to use a fantastical setting like Korvosa again, I'm not as egotistical as to scream "Betrayal!" on that. It's a simple fact which every person who has ever read a series of novels or comics has dealt with. Your head-canon is always trumped by official canon. And that's good and proper.
His actions (and the actions of the other Companions) affect the people they come into contact with, for better or worse, and that's because it has a persistent timeline. As it stands now, Pathfinder's Golarion does not have a real, persistent timeline from the time APs start. It has fixed events in the backstory, but not much in the ONGOING story, which is what Magnus was talking about.
That was way more succint then the blather I just put up. ^^ Thanks!
Happy to be of service! =)
I can see both sides of this argument,but wanna throw this out here.
The Stolen Lands have laid unclaimed for ages (in the traditional sense at least), which is kinda like "there were parties like yours here in the past and they all lost", so by some cosmic balance kind of logic it should end as a victory after all the depressing losses the adventuring parties before you had to suffer trying to conquer the place.
That's how I'd play it out when it comes to the canon of that Adventure Path. Some DM might decide that for his run of the AP, your party is just "dime a dozen" and thus just next in line for the butcher like the ones before, but since I have usually seen the default assumption being that the players are a special lot with a different fate, I feel the kind of intepretation doesn't sit well with how D&D is usually played.
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Magnuskn, advancing the timeline in any official way is likely to create a lot of upheavel working against what I think you are trying to say - instead of making the actions your party takes more meaningful, they make them completley meaningless. If regerdless of what your actual PCs did in an AP, the setting would officialy advance the timeline according to some predetermined assumption on how the AP turned out to be, then why should the PCs even care?
Instead, each group has its own Golarion going on. It is your responsibility as a GM to create a world where the specific actions of your PCs have meaning. A very joyful part of integrating a new AP the group is starting into your own campaign could be to see how the AP would change according to the outcomes of previous AP you ran by yourself already. I believe Paizo should be more loud in explaining this point - APs can and should change from group to group, and you could mix things up to preserve continuity with relative ease.
Continuity can and very much should be present in Golarion and in the games your group plays. However, that is the only right place for it to be - paizo would do more harm than good if it decided to advance the timeline in order to create continuity in it's APs. While it will open the doors to some new potential stories, there are enough stories to tell as it is.
Magnuskn, advancing the timeline in any official way is likely to create a lot of upheavel working against what I think you are trying to say - instead of making the actions your party takes more meaningful, they make them completley meaningless. If regerdless of what your actual PCs did in an AP, the setting would officialy advance the timeline according to some predetermined assumption on how the AP turned out to be, then why should the PCs even care?
Instead, each group has its own Golarion going on. It is your responsibility as a GM to create a world where the specific actions of your PCs have meaning. A very joyful part of integrating a new AP the group is starting into your own campaign could be to see how the AP would change according to the outcomes of previous AP you ran by yourself already. I believe Paizo should be more loud in explaining this point - APs can and should change from group to group, and you could mix things up to preserve continuity with relative ease.
Continuity can and very much should be present in Golarion and in the games your group plays. However, that is the only right place for it to be - paizo would do more harm than good if it decided to advance the timeline in order to create continuity in it's APs. While it will open the doors to some new potential stories, there are enough stories to tell as it is.
Yeah, well, I fundamentally disagree, so I don't think we are going to get to an agreement on this point. I am simply more willing to lay aside my right to creative direction of "my" Golarion than you guys are, for the sake of getting a more coherent story. You can decide on your own if that is a good or bad tack to take.
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Just re-read the title, and surely the cannon to destroy APs would either be Worldbreaker or The Great Maw of Rovagug.I figured he was just talking about how every AP should end with a "Rocks Fall Everyone Dies Event".
Except in this case it would be "Cannon Fires Everyone Explodes".
As for Drizzt, while many of his stories don't have anything to do with setting altering events, his stories DO have a logical progression to them. Events persist.
They take back Mithral Hall. Meaning it is now owned by the Dwarves and the dragon and such are gone. You can no longer run a new adventure with enemies infesting Mithral Hall (unless the timeline is far advanced and the site is retaken in the meantime), but you can have new events stemming from that same area.
His actions (and the actions of the other Companions) affect the people they come into contact with, for better or worse, and that's because it has a persistent timeline. As it stands now, Pathfinder's Golarion does not have a real, persistent timeline from the time APs start. It has fixed events in the backstory, but not much in the ONGOING story, which is what Magnus was talking about.
With the original Drizzt trilogies, it doesn't seem to work like that:
Mithral Hall was not part of the setting until Salvatore invented it.
Nobody got to play with the pre-Drizzt version.
There were no adventures with enemies infesting Mithral Hall.
Mithral Hall was introduced to the setting as a Dwarven property. Drizzt's adventures were just backstory.
Similarly, all of these NPCs that were changed by meeting Drizzt... didn't exist until after Drizzt met them.
Those aren't changes to the setting NPCs, just back-story and fleshing-out regions.
In any case, I was rebutting a specific claim:
3.) And as for that last sentence in point two, a completely static setting will prevent Paizo novels from ever attaining the popularity even Forgotten Realms novels enjoyed. If you write stories where the protagonists actions can never be felt in the world, then you'll never be able to build up an iconic character/group of characters, which will have a long series of novels. Maybe that isn't even the plan, but I'm pretty sure nobody at the Paizo office would be too sad if they had their own Drizzt or Elminster or Raistlin, i.e. a character which immediately is recognized by every fantasy RPG fan.
I don't think there is any evidence to suggest that involvement in setting-altering events played a meaningful part in the popularity of Drizzt.
Therefore, Paizo should not be looking to the success of the Tales line as motivation for setting-altering events.|
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Yeah, well, I fundamentally disagree, so I don't think we are going to get to an agreement on this point. I am simply more willing to lay aside my right to creative direction of "my" Golarion than you guys are, for the sake of getting a more coherent story. You can decide on your own if that is a good or bad tack to take.Magnuskn, advancing the timeline in any official way is likely to create a lot of upheavel working against what I think you are trying to say - instead of making the actions your party takes more meaningful, they make them completley meaningless. If regerdless of what your actual PCs did in an AP, the setting would officialy advance the timeline according to some predetermined assumption on how the AP turned out to be, then why should the PCs even care?
Instead, each group has its own Golarion going on. It is your responsibility as a GM to create a world where the specific actions of your PCs have meaning. A very joyful part of integrating a new AP the group is starting into your own campaign could be to see how the AP would change according to the outcomes of previous AP you ran by yourself already. I believe Paizo should be more loud in explaining this point - APs can and should change from group to group, and you could mix things up to preserve continuity with relative ease.
Continuity can and very much should be present in Golarion and in the games your group plays. However, that is the only right place for it to be - paizo would do more harm than good if it decided to advance the timeline in order to create continuity in it's APs. While it will open the doors to some new potential stories, there are enough stories to tell as it is.
I'm just not sure what story would become more coherent if the timeline was advanced?
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Yeah, well, I fundamentally disagree, so I don't think we are going to get to an agreement on this point. I am simply more willing to lay aside my right to creative direction of "my" Golarion than you guys are, for the sake of getting a more coherent story. You can decide on your own if that is a good or bad tack to take.Magnuskn, advancing the timeline in any official way is likely to create a lot of upheavel working against what I think you are trying to say - instead of making the actions your party takes more meaningful, they make them completley meaningless. If regerdless of what your actual PCs did in an AP, the setting would officialy advance the timeline according to some predetermined assumption on how the AP turned out to be, then why should the PCs even care?
Instead, each group has its own Golarion going on. It is your responsibility as a GM to create a world where the specific actions of your PCs have meaning. A very joyful part of integrating a new AP the group is starting into your own campaign could be to see how the AP would change according to the outcomes of previous AP you ran by yourself already. I believe Paizo should be more loud in explaining this point - APs can and should change from group to group, and you could mix things up to preserve continuity with relative ease.
Continuity can and very much should be present in Golarion and in the games your group plays. However, that is the only right place for it to be - paizo would do more harm than good if it decided to advance the timeline in order to create continuity in it's APs. While it will open the doors to some new potential stories, there are enough stories to tell as it is.
I seem to be failing to understand what you are saying here. What is the fundamental disagreement? and what makes a story more coherent when the timeline is advanced?
Basically what I explained in my other posts. A story which has no consequence has no meaning. Golarion is supposed to be more gritty and not as high-magic, but if we assume that every AP is "won", we have by now at least 11 high level parties running around, most of them good aligned. Which is quite a bit counter to the "most high level people are evil" feel the setting has had until now. But we are supposed to ignore this, because the setting never is allowed to change. How is this coherent storytelling?
Advancing the timeline a bit and dealing with the reality of the events in the APs would lend coherence to the overall setting, because it would show that what you do actually matters. Yeah, of course it would mean that GMs need to tell their party, "no, it's not NPC X who is Queen/King of Korvosa now, it's your PC and we are going to play it that way.". But your part in the story ended with the end of the AP you were playing, anyway, so having new player characters enjoy the setting with a new story is actually better than just having to say that you can't use Korvosa anymore, because we already had an AP there.
Paizo currently wants to maintain that APs matter overall but their actions will never be felt, because the setting will always remain static. That is an inherent contradiction if I've ever seen one. Shattered Star already showed that they are willing to set aside this policy for special events and I personally would like to see more of this.
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Ah, I see what you mean. Personaly I don't get how changing the outcome of entire APs makes more sense than just ignoring the fact that there are some high level adventuring parties - I mean, the entire level system of Pathfinder and D&D is one huge suspension of disbelief anyway, right? when the PCs are 1st level a street thug is a CR 0.5 mook with maybe 1 level in an NPC class, when the PCs are 8th level then suddenly every single crime gang has 5th and 6th level thugs at it's disposal - how are you willing to ignore this, and not the fact that the aventuring parties that finished previous APs are high level?
I guess it's just a question of priority. To me, both as a player and a GM, it's important that the world would react to actions taken in my game, and if suddenly the next adventure to come out requires me to ignore all that actualy happened in the game (for example, telling my players that even though the succeeded in their "Curse of the Crimson Throne" campaign, the city is now assumed to be ruled by Ileosa, who is no an immortal casting her eye to conquer more areas of the world) I would feel cheated, big time. So much, actualy, that I'd either refuse to play the new adventure at all or I'll revise it to accomodate my game world.
If I understand you correctly, you are willing to give that up, and play with the foreknowledge that it dosen't matter AT ALL what the PCs do in a given AP because it's result is written into the timeline of Golarion by Paizo, but in exchange you expect to see a constantly evolving world, which would interest you and make you feel more involved.
Well, I agree with you then - our views are too fundamentaly different, and it's best we close the discussion agreeing to disagree :)
Ah, I see what you mean. Personaly I don't get how changing the outcome of entire APs makes more sense than just ignoring the fact that there are some high level adventuring parties - I mean, the entire level system of Pathfinder and D&D is one huge suspension of disbelief anyway, right? when the PCs are 1st level a street thug is a CR 0.5 mook with maybe 1 level in an NPC class, when the PCs are 8th level then suddenly every single crime gang has 5th and 6th level thugs at it's disposal - how are you willing to ignore this, and not the fact that the aventuring parties that finished previous APs are high level?
Um, because there is a clear difference between low and high levels which is all too real in this kind of fantasy world? High levels character are insanely tough to kill and that is just a reality there. You need to stop thinking that high level characters can be considered anything like a normal human being. Think Spiderman. Think Doctor Strange.
I guess it's just a question of priority. To me, both as a player and a GM, it's important that the world would react to actions taken in my game, and if suddenly the next adventure to come out requires me to ignore all that actualy happened in the game (for example, telling my players that even though the succeeded in their "Curse of the Crimson Throne" campaign, the city is now assumed to be ruled by Ileosa, who is no an immortal casting her eye to conquer more areas of the world) I would feel cheated, big time. So much, actualy, that I'd either refuse to play the new adventure at all or I'll revise it to accomodate my game world.
If I understand you correctly, you are willing to give that up, and play with the foreknowledge that it dosen't matter AT ALL what the PCs do in a given AP because it's result is written into the timeline of Golarion by Paizo, but in exchange you expect to see a constantly evolving world, which would interest you and make you feel more involved.
Well, I agree with you then - our views are too fundamentaly different, and it's best we close the discussion agreeing to disagree :)
I do not think that me preferring an advancing setting is saying that I think PC actions don't matter "AT ALL". Rather the contrary. Every GM worth his salt can revise a new canon locally to accomodate his players. But being shown the aftermath of an AP lends it real consequence in the first place.
I can see both sides of this argument,but wanna throw this out here.
The Stolen Lands have laid unclaimed for ages (in the traditional sense at least), which is kinda like "there were parties like yours here in the past and they all lost", so by some cosmic balance kind of logic it should end as a victory after all the depressing losses the adventuring parties before you had to suffer trying to conquer the place:
please tell that to players struggling through "Second Darkness" (meteroid strikes golarion ) or "Legacy of Fire" (failure results in a freed spawn of Rovagug or a Spawn/Efreeti Lord Hybrid looking for his reign of fire ).
No real effects on the world as such.... right.
"Carrion Crown" also features a very dismal and threatening finale.
"Serpent Skull"- you now have a very active, phobic to anything non-reptiloid deity bend on Revenge.... And his main Atzlanti opposition out of the game.
yeah, no real "change to the world, either.
It truly might be nice to know what officially/supposedly happened and who, if anyone, covered it up to lessen the impact
I was not arguing for or against that. As I said in what you quoted, I see both sides of the argument.
Ah, I see what you mean. Personaly I don't get how changing the outcome of entire APs makes more sense than just ignoring the fact that there are some high level adventuring parties - I mean, the entire level system of Pathfinder and D&D is one huge suspension of disbelief anyway, right? when the PCs are 1st level a street thug is a CR 0.5 mook with maybe 1 level in an NPC class, when the PCs are 8th level then suddenly every single crime gang has 5th and 6th level thugs at it's disposal - how are you willing to ignore this, and not the fact that the aventuring parties that finished previous APs are high level?
Matter of GM style.
At low-level you get threatened by the mooks - then by their second string leaders... hired assassins ... the gang bosses.We had a pretty solid strata of gangbosses build up for our last urban campaign, and while you could struggle and push around the paizons going up against the underbosses or even the local king of crime..... now THAT proved far more difficult (yah fun ting, he was one of the character's brother and their confidant...oh the fun we hadˆˆ).
The world is not set, and other people evolve or get pushed aside, too. Kings commoners, adventurers
what I do not like is there being no " real " alternative ending a Plan B) or C)
say, "Second Darkness ": The dieties see the catastrophy coming and decide to intervene this time, but for a certain numer of cylces lose part of their powers. The Meteroid breaks up into still destructive, but not Golarion-shattering fragments, but for a decade to come, no 8th or 9th level divine magic, and major disturbances in high level magic
or Milani the goddess throws herself into the breach... meteoid shattering in upper athmosphere. 5 years of drought and famne, after which Milani' remains slowly reforms, now wih a different aspect... say, like "Defiance"
I do not think that me preferring an advancing setting is saying that I think PC actions don't matter "AT ALL". Rather the contrary. Every GM worth his salt can revise a new canon locally to accomodate his players. But being shown the aftermath of an AP lends it real consequence in the first place
so...basically Mass Effect IIIˆˆ on paizo's side ? with players asking for more indiviualization ?
/agree
I do not think that me preferring an advancing setting is saying that I think PC actions don't matter "AT ALL". Rather the contrary. Every GM worth his salt can revise a new canon locally to accomodate his players. But being shown the aftermath of an AP lends it real consequence in the first placeso...basically Mass Effect IIIˆˆ on paizo's side ? with players asking for more indiviualization ?
/agree
On one hand, yes. The Mass Effect writers did a superb job of integrating the first game into the second, and then the first and second game into the third game. Well, until the last 20 minutes, that is, but that is a rant for another day. Fans were able to accept that everybody had a slightly different canon.
On the other hand, the writers currently say that they can have their three non-compatible endings for Mass Effect 3 and still do an Mass Effect 4 game which is not a prequel. I don't see how they can do that, without just refusing to divulge which ending "canonically" happened in Mass Effect 3. Basically they have comitted themselves to either writing the next Mass Effect game as a prequel or a side-story, because if they make a sequel, there is no way as to not commit themselves to a new status quo. Which is where I draw the parallel to Golarion and the creators stance on how they want to handle the setting.
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The thing is, the world does move forward at the same rate the real world does. As far as earth-shattering events, I haven't read through every AP but it seems to me, and there is probably a trope about it, but if the heroes save the world the world goes on as if nothing happened. If the heroes lose, that's when things get shaken up.
Well, it's not so much that the world goes on as if nothing happened, but rather that the changes wrought when the PCs "win" an AP aren't immediately world-shaking enough that they can't be ignored or worked around. Governments topple, new leaders arise, unspeakable ancient secrets are unearthed, cities and nations are founded or laid waste... but for a plucky young group of would-be adventurers on the other side of the region, these changes amount to little more than rumors arriving with the latest trade caravan or gossip and speculation at the Pathfinder Lodge.
Actually, it's quite simple. All high-level PC groups are afflicted by Marvel Superhero Syndrome. The moment they meet another group of high-level heroes they immediately start fighting. However, because this isn't Marvel, they end up killing each other off and then are too embarrassed when meeting in the afterlife to return to the world when Resurrected and admit they fought other heroes. ;)
In short, good is stupid and kills itself off. =^-^=
(So is evil, for that matter.)
Legacy of Fire's loss scenario involves a Spawn of Rovagug rampaging across Katapesh, which probably means that's going to be a win scenario...
I wouldn't be sure about that. Jhavhul's intentions are centered almost completely around courting Ymeri and while the AP states that he does rampage across Katapesh a bit (destroying a town that didn't exist before AP, namely), he leaves soon to woo his love interest.
And if Paizo forwards the timeline for a couple dozen of years, I reckon there wouldn't be much change to Katapesh before Jhavhul.
Actually, the timeline HAS advanced - in some ways. Events in Runelords are alluded to in Jade, even if the specifics are glossed over. So advancement can happen officially... even if ambiguously.
And don't forget that the Shatter Star AP assumes a win for the good guys in RotRL.
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While it's all well and good to say that a GM can ignore canon here and there, I think it really depends on how Paizo implements future canon. If newly printed products assume certain things and then build off those assumptions, those products become less useful as purchases.
Example: The Forgotten Realms Time of Troubles. Big event, lots of people didn't like it. There's the whole line of, "You can just say that in your Realms it didn't happen." Except throughout the life of the 2nd edition Realms, the Time of Troubles was not only assumed to have happened, but major parts of adventures, supplements, and novels were build around that assumption. If you didn't want the Realms to have suffered through the Time of Troubles, then you had no reason to buy a large number of products in the 2nd edition era.
Anybody can say, "Events X and Y did/didn't happen in my setting." Paizo's challenge if they were to advance the canon based on possible endings to the Adventure Paths is that future products based on those assumptions become less useful to certain groups. If they ever did advance the timeline, they would have to be careful to do so in a way that doesn't invalidate future products for those who aren't following or which makes an advance that is so popular that the number of new people coming on board outweighs those who might jump ship.
The timeline IS advancing. The game-time is now what, 4513? Each year the year advances by one. What people are commenting on is lasting repercussions from the APs.