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I just got and read through The Dragon's Demand. There's a lot to like about it (The Belhaim Locations table is pure gold and every starter town should use this format forever from now on), but there's a pretty significant design decision here that I really don't like as it degrades the usefulness of the module for me.
And that's the XP padding. For some reason it was decided that characters had to go from level 1 to 7 over the course of this adventure. To make this happen in space only somewhat larger than a normal AP chapter (where you usually only go up 3 levels in an AP installment), there's a bunch of very questionable "story awards" for the XP.
And these aren't nominal amounts. In the very first part of the adventure (The Collapsed Tower), a six page mini-dungeon, for example, there's 1600 XP, pretty much an entire level for our newbie adventurers, just of "story" award, where "story" means going in the front door, going down a hall, and looting a room. That's on top of 4400 XP for the challenges in level (a good share of which is fairly questionable 600 XP traps...) Hello third level easily (the adventure says to use the medium XP track). To be fair the adventure also says that the group really is only supposed to be level 2 by the time they finish it but that's unlikely as written and I'm not sure the amount of stuff they do in that first dungeon is even worth a level, objectively.
The rest of the adventure tends to proceed in this vein. I don't mind giving "story" awards in the abstract - but for actual story accomplishments, not for "you looted a room in the dungeon". And the inflated XP makes it so PCs just shoot up in level at a dizzying rate over the course of this thing.
Please don't do this in the future. I *like* modules only taking you through maybe one or two levels of experience, because then I can patch together my own campaign using various modules. Like back in the AD&D days, you'd pull maybe two or three of the "Levels 1-3" modules, then a bunch of the "Levels 5-7", etc. The new "quarterly jumbo size" plan will mess with that a little, but we aren't expecting a certain number of levels for our money, please keep subsequent modules suitably compressed so that people are only swinging a couple levels during the whole thing.
[In advance to helpful apologists: Yes, obviously I can change this myself when I run it, and reduce the XP awards, but then it is quite difficult then to run a long adventure that has encounters tuned for level 1 and level 7 within its pages...]
I don't mind in concept the move from traditional-size adventures to these longer ones, but this is a good example of a design decision made which then works with the format to strongly modulate gameplay in a way the group may not want. If I don't get on the maxed XP train and have this one adventure be 1/3 to 1/2 of those characters' likely total lifecycle, I pretty much have to rewrite large swaths or not use it. Those are bad choices to have people make since the draw of buying adventures is stuff we can insert into our games with less work...
Creative Director
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Because we wanted the PCs to have a fight against a huge dragon, frankly, and that meant that we needed the PCs to be able to reach a minimum threshold, power-wise, where they could honestly have a chance against a huge dragon. We also threw in some NPC allies and more treasure than we'd normally give out in an adventure like this to help the PCs as well.
Why did we want the monster at the end to be a huge dragon? Because it's more exciting, for one thing, to face off against a dragon that big, and it makes the climax of the adventure feel more classic—you're fighting a dragon the size of an elephant rather than one the size of a horse.
Furthermore, I've long felt that the game needs to award PCs for accomplishing things that aren't necessarily battles. By handing out XP amounts that are comparable to what you'd earn in a big fight, you help build the perception that there's more to the game than combat. It's good for the game if the players are as equally eager to, say, make friends with all the members of a faction in a city as they are to go fight the evil chieftain and take his stuff.
In future adventures for the module line, we're unlikely to have an unusual requirement like this. We'll still use quests in them, but will be less likely to have them hand out large XP amounts. And in any event, as you point out, the amount of XP you want to hand out for the quests is something you can absolutely adjust if you wish. In fact, if you want to add in a few side quests or additional adventures, this is an excellent idea. We only had 64 pages to get the party from 1st level to 7th level, but you have as many pages as you want.
THAT ALL SAID: The rate at which PCs level up in Pathfinder using the Medium XP track IS relatively quick. That is by design. Even in a 40-45 page Adventure Path installment that starts at 1st level, where we don't throw in a large number of quests, PCs can still often reach 5th level by the end.
Also: I'd love to hear from other folks as well. What do people think of having quests give out comparable XP totals like this?
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Creative Director
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Also: Remember that you should be dividing up the XP totals from quests for your party, just as you do for monsters.
When the party completes a quest and earns 1,600 XP... that's not 1,600 XP for each character. It's divided. Assuming 4 players, completing this quest would earn each character only 400 XP, which is only 1/5 of what they'd need to hit 2nd level. Not sure if you took that into account in your first read-through or not, but thought I'd mention it just in case.
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Is it really that much? I mean, yeah it's 1 free xp for every 2.75 you earn, but it's a total of 6000 for a dungeon, or 1500 per character. (If I understand correctly)
I guess you could take out the silly rewards and just run it in fast progression. Is this the new radish patch quest?
Edit: Ninja'd by JJ. And it's confirmed, it's a monty haul!
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Because we wanted the PCs to have a fight against a huge dragon, frankly, and that meant that we needed the PCs to be able to reach a minimum threshold, power-wise, where they could honestly have a chance against a huge dragon. We also threw in some NPC allies and more treasure than we'd normally give out in an adventure like this to help the PCs as well.
Oh sure, yay for dragon fighting, but why do the PCs have to start at first level then? If this was "for levels 5-7" or whatnot then problem solved, right? The previous modules started at all various levels, the ones going forward aren't all going to start at 1 I assume/hope...
And good point, it was not clear to me at all that story awards are split among the group, I assumed it was "award this to every member." So that does help, for sure. (This wasn't clarified in the adventure text, is there a standard Pathfinder definition for how story awards work in some other book somewhere?)
Also like I say, I believe in the idea of story awards - but for story things, not "because this room didn't have XP in it" which is how the first part comes off. I think the later awards of "1200 for turning over all the stuff out of honesty" and "get dude on your side, get XP as if you'd defeated him in combat" are totally legit. There were just a lot of story awards for IMO questionable reasons.
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The PCs had to start at 1st level because we wanted a brand-new 1st level adventure to sell at Gen Con, frankly.
And because relaunching the modules line with a classic adventure (kill the dragon) that starts PCs at 1st level makes a lot of sense.
And yeah... pretty much EVERY XP award we ever hand out in an adventure is assumed to be one you divide up equally among the PCs. So that should help slow things down too.
If I remember my XP analysis math correctly... even if you cut all the quest rewards out of "The Dragon's Demand" the end result is PCs hitting 6th level instead of 7th. Turns out, in 60 or so pages, you can pack in a LOT of adventure for a party that starts at 1st level.
The PCs had to start at 1st level because we wanted a brand-new 1st level adventure to sell at Gen Con, frankly.
And because relaunching the modules line with a classic adventure (kill the dragon) that starts PCs at 1st level makes a lot of sense.
OK, fair enough, I just ask you keep this feedback in mind going forward - the larger the level spread one single adventure covers, the more it ties the GM's hands as to how they run their game. I'm happy to give this one a mulligan but if all the longer adventures do this I'm not sure I can use them as much as I used to.
In many of our campaigns we've given up on XP entirely and level the group when it's appropriate - makes APs go smoother without all the micromanagement and also means we can do "as slow as we want" progression (as you point out, even medium is pretty darn fast as designed - rather than give up and go E6, we usually just slow it down to a rate where people actually get to experience a given level and not just blow past in every time they walk into a hole in the ground).
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Also: I'd love to hear from other folks as well. What do people think of having quests give out comparable XP totals like this?
I'm a big fan of experience points for completing quests/progressing the story. I'm also a big fan of this module (and don't mind the odd super-fast adventure - variety is the spice of life).
Nonetheless, there are a few instances which seem overly generous to me:
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The story awards continue in the next one, for sure. Many are in regard to investigative bits. I find the story awards fun, and they serve the purpose James mentioned above. I have always included something similar with my home campaign. It has worked to make sessions less combat focused. I play a very political game, so XP for other things besides killing monsters has always been a part of my campaign. I say give the idea time to sink in.
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The story awards continue in the next one, for sure. Many are in regard to investigative bits. I find the story awards fun, and they serve the purpose James mentioned above. I have always included something similar with my home campaign. It has worked to make sessions less combat focused. I play a very political game, so XP for other things besides killing monsters has always been a part of my campaign. I say give the idea time to sink in.
Well, as Steve and I say, the idea has "sunk in" fine and we're on board, it just seems like a misuse of story awards to give them for "I walked up some rubble" or "I looted this treasure sitting here to be looted." Successfully crafting a political agreement between two factions, sure, knock yourself out. It's not the concept it's the execution we're talking about.
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I haven't read the module yet. I am a fan of story XP, but that XP should come with some manner of achievement. Skill challenges, chases, subsystems, roleplaying, trap navigation and puzzle-solving.
If there is a reward without a commensurate challenge (combat or non-combat) then that needs to be fixed. As a GM I would probably throw an extra non-combat encounter to those situations.
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The story awards continue in the next one, for sure. Many are in regard to investigative bits. I find the story awards fun, and they serve the purpose James mentioned above. I have always included something similar with my home campaign. It has worked to make sessions less combat focused. I play a very political game, so XP for other things besides killing monsters has always been a part of my campaign. I say give the idea time to sink in.
I'm all for it (I've always done the same, when we even bother with experience) and it didnt reduce my enjoyment of this module - see my review. :)
The example I gave above just stuck out a little to me - it was something like a DC 8 challenge (with no real consequence for failure unless you failed by 5 or more, from memory) and that netted 400 experience points. For me, I'd have rather there were an increase in some of the other story awards, experience points for making factional alliances or similar.
I'm certainly not against the idea, I'd just like it to be rewarding something a little more meaningful.
The story awards continue in the next one, for sure. Many are in regard to investigative bits. I find the story awards fun, and they serve the purpose James mentioned above. I have always included something similar with my home campaign. It has worked to make sessions less combat focused. I play a very political game, so XP for other things besides killing monsters has always been a part of my campaign. I say give the idea time to sink in.Well, as Steve and I say, the idea has "sunk in" fine and we're on board, it just seems like a misuse of story awards to give them for "I walked up some rubble" or "I looted this treasure sitting here to be looted." Successfully crafting a political agreement between two factions, sure, knock yourself out. It's not the concept it's the execution we're talking about.
Yeah, I haven't read the former, but I don't recall seeing such blatant bits in the other--except for one treasure-related bit. So, we can agree they need to be for things the PCs wouldn't normall be doing as just part of standard adventuring.
Understood, Steve. Good point.
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Creative Director
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So if you take out the xp awards, you could play it on fast xp progression and still get to level 7. That's good to know.
At which point I'd suggest keeping the XP awards for quests anyway, since it's more fun from a player's perspective to get more awards for quests rather than less awards... even if the end result is the same level.
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Just finished reading this last night, and I think the OP has a valid point. I like story awards, and I like there being a bunch of side quests to be picked up, but I do think "Dragon's Demand" goes kinda overboard. The "400 XP for a climb check" example is probably the most egregious one, but there are plenty of random things that give double XP, XP for things that entailed no risk, etc.
This last part is the biggest problem: unless you're going "full storytelling mode" XP should absolutely and always be tied to risk.
"Dragon's Demand" already explicitly states "this adventure hands out lots of treasure so you can fight the dragon." Handing out lots of meaningless XP as well will destroy a campaign. That's not a problem if DD is going to BE the whole campaign, but as an "insert into your own game" module, it will create problems.
It would have been better to modify the dragon to make him beatable at 7th level, than to super-inflate the PCs.
-The Gneech
PS: For the record, I really dig the story, the individual encounters, and the new format of DD. But the Monty Haul nature does make it more work for me to wrangle it into usability.
Also: I'd love to hear from other folks as well. What do people think of having quests give out comparable XP totals like this?
Bad. Or rather - bad in its current execution (not the concept, which I'm very fine with).
I agree with Ernest Mueller's post and his criticisms (and Steve Geddes and DM_aka_Dudemeister and Kevin Mack and John Robey...). XP padding (aka too fast advancement) for paltry actions just to get to a certain level is a particularly bad design decision for modules.
If you want to have PCs fight a dragon by the end of 64 pages, start them at higher level. If you want to have them start at 1st level, then have them start at 1st level and have them end at something more... natural... at the end of 64 pages. But don't combine the two if it requires XP padding like what we're seeing in Dragon's Demand - that's bad design, AFAIC.
Story awards (and non-combat XP awards)? Great! But not for paltry, mundane, and (dare I say) almost-meaningless actions.
(James makes clear why they made the decisions they did. So, yay for them making good business decisions... which did, though, make for a poorer module. Something I can't really support going forward, if it turns out to be a regular thing.)
This certainly will make me think twice about purchasing the new-format modules in the future, no question. I'll have to read more reviews and comments - hopefully story rewards will be commensurate with meaningful actions! (Combined with a smaller level spread.)
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IMO: I don't see the problem.
If you are using the module as a one shot then it does exactly what it says it does. You go from 1-x and fight a dragon. With the page count being what it is- its either give big awards for little things or just have it occasionally say "arbitrarily level them to 3 here or you can't complete the next part."
If you AREN'T using it as a stand-alone thing then just lower/alter/adjust the rewards. Cut and paste the adventure along with other things of your own devising or other published modules until the PC's are of an appropriate level to take on the Big Bad and then complete the module.
You are buying a module that says you are going from 1-7 in its pages. That, by necessity means, you are going to get enough XP in it to go from 1-7.
-S
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I really like story awards and feel they are drastically underused. In my opinion, this is a very positive change.
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I think James answered the OP's question well. This was designed as a one-shot with a very specific goal: take new PCs to a point where they can confront a BBEG of this CR. There is ample opportunity for the GMs to yank out the story awards and replace them with encounters of their own design if you feel strongly about it. Indeed, there are hooks lying around to use for that very purpose.
My perspective is this: if we were talking about child rearing, over-rewarding children for mundane tasks ("Here's a $5 for brushing your teeth!") is bad parenting. But GMs aren't parenting their players. This is entertainment, not an avenue for people to gain important life lessons or build a healthy work ethic or learn the value of a gold piece. The most important question at the end of the day is whether all involved enjoyed their experience.
So: Was it a good read? Did you have fun?
My perspective is this: if we were talking about child rearing, over-rewarding children for mundane tasks ("Here's a $5 for brushing your teeth!") is bad parenting. But GMs aren't parenting their players. This is entertainment, not an avenue for people to gain important life lessons or build a healthy work ethic or learn the value of a gold piece. The most important question at the end of the day is whether all involved enjoyed their experience.
So: Was it a good read? Did you have fun?
Meh. I think it's obvious to say that my players aren't entertained by that sort of XP rewarding. Neither am I. (A weird question, because if my players and I did enjoy that sort of thing, I wouldn't have posted in the first place. Huh.)
If you AREN'T using it as a stand-alone thing then just lower/alter/adjust the rewards. Cut and paste the adventure along with other things of your own devising or other published modules until the PC's are of an appropriate level to take on the Big Bad and then complete the module.
Indeed. That extra work will have to be done by necessity. Still doesn't make it a good thing. And still worth an internet messageboard post. (And, if overly repeated, probably not worth future purchases using my not-infinite amount of money.)
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Myself, whenever possible, I tell players when it's time to level up rather than track experience. It saves some accounting, and also make it easy to keep the players at the "right"level for the middle. To my view, carefully tuning story awards is just a way of reverse engineering this more hand-wavy method. (And, all the numbers give you a false sense of precision and rigor.)
I think James answered the OP's question well. This was designed as a one-shot with a very specific goal: take new PCs to a point where they can confront a BBEG of this CR.
Agreed; and I don't think anyone's trying to argue with his reasoning. But he also asked "I'd love to hear from other folks as well. What do people think of having quests give out comparable XP totals like this?" which is what the extended discussion has been.
I think the general opinion is that quests and story XP are great things. What those of us who have an issue with this instance are saying is simply that DD takes it too far for general use as a module that can be dropped into a game, which is a straightforward answer to James' question.
Yes, DD was not really written to be that. BUT that's what many of us as customers want from the dungeons line.
(Also, it's worth noting that given the time constraints of the plot, inserting a lot of side-quests is really problematic. The entire "third act" sees the town being hemmed in by patrolling monsters, forcing the PCs to go face the dragon, or fight their way out of town.)
So in a nutshell, I think the intended response is, "Okay, fine, we see why you did it that way this time. But would you not do it that way next time, please?" ;)
So: Was it a good read? Did you have fun?
Well yes, but that's not what the thread was about. :D
-The Gneech
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So: Was it a good read? Did you have fun?Well yes, but that's not what the thread was about. :D
Fair enough ;-)
(Also, it's worth noting that given the time constraints of the plot, inserting a lot of side-quests is really problematic. The entire "third act" sees the town being hemmed in by patrolling monsters, forcing the PCs to go face the dragon, or fight their way out of town.)
Actually,
Also, it wouldn't be too much trouble to add a couple caves and encounters to the kobold lair, or an encounter or two in the flooded quarry. I had a deformed (read: understrength, with the young template) kelpie there, as well as a crocodile at the water's edge in the turnover--both were cut for space).
As far as the third act is concerned, time constraints don't prevent some additional combats (spicing up those grioth patrols, or creating patrol parties of differing composition). PCs could capture a minion from one of those patrols and gain XP (and info) for interrogating him/her/it.
The original turnover had some additional encounters that had to be cut for space. My favorites were a haunt in the hills of Dragonfen on the way to Tula's tomb, and a duel with Pelle Benhovy, instigated by the sheriff, who really hates the PCs.
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The original turnover had some additional encounters that had to be cut for space. My favorites were...
Too bad there wasn't space, they sound like cool encounters.
...Web enhancement time? ;)
-TG
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In many of our campaigns we've given up on XP entirely and level the group when it's appropriate - makes APs go smoother without all the micromanagement and also means we can do "as slow as we want" progression (as you point out, even medium is pretty darn fast as designed - rather than give up and go E6, we usually just slow it down to a rate where people actually get to experience a given level and not just blow past in every time they walk into a hole in the ground).
Really? I find medium xp track to be an awful grind - I've been running a campaign since last September that uses both medium xp and few story awards... the characters just reached level 5 (and only because I abandoned xp entirely months ago when they still hadn't reached 3rd!). I had a similar experience playing Skull and Shackles.
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If it could be arranged (as has been done before in the past), can we get these cut encounters of Mike Shel's in an on-line document?
Anything published by Paizo, whether its an actual product or web supplement, still has to go through development, editing, and layout process (as was the case for the web enhancement for Lady's Light). Given the jam-packed schedule the developers have for their product lines, it just isn't feasible.
I'm sure every freelance designer has stuff that doesn't make it into the final product for one reason or another. I have a bad habit of going over assigned word count, which makes more work for the developers (sorry James, Rob, Mark, Adam, John, Patrick, et al.!). In my experience, most of what James and the other developers trim off is by-and-large the editorial equivalent of woodshavings, not diamond dust. I trust the developers to know what's ultimately best for the project. Everything I've written for Paizo has been made stronger and better by the developers. It's an essential part of the process.
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The original turnover had some additional encounters that had to be cut for space. My favorites were...Too bad there wasn't space, they sound like cool encounters.
...Web enhancement time? ;)
-TG
Ugh.
No. The thing with web enhancements is that it basically makes editors, developers, and graphic designers effectively end up working 60 hour weeks and/or weekend days to make them happen. There's NO DIFFERENCE on our workload, really, whether something is going into print or just online as a PDF, since the only time we really save with a PDF in the production schedule is the time it takes to ship and print the book. And since that's not something the editorial department really interacts with... what web enhancements basically mean is overtime work. And as folks may know, we're already pretty much running at peak capacity to keep our product lines on schedule.
I DO appreciate folks enjoying what we publish so much that they want more, more, more! But I don't want to fall into the trap of giving folks that more, more, more only to end up shooting ourselves in the proverbial foot because that more more more ends up being poorly laid out or poorly edited and then damages our reputation.
Quality, not quantity is my personal mantra for Paizo products.
No worries. I didn't exactly expect a "yes," which is why I put the ;) on there.
I've been in both the "editor cut my stuff" and the "choosing what stuff to cut" positions before. I know it's not always an easy choice!
-TG
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Understood, James and Mike.
But since it was done once before, I felt like asking if it could be done again. I understand that it takes time and lots of effort to do such, and the effort is no different between print or web-based.
It's just that sometimes print page numbers can cut out worthy material (as in the Lady's Light) that can see the light of day as a Web Enhancement.
I understand that that is not always the case, and not everything cut is worthy of the additional effort to bring it to light.
But I hope there is no harm in asking, even if the answer is no.And Mike's short description of the encounters should be enough that I could insert them if I wanted to. Thank for the bits of ideas, Mike.
I've learned to never say never in this industry, so it certainly could be done again.
But the extra strain that the "Lady's Light" web enhancement put on the editorial department in particular makes me not eager to do another one anytime soon.
There's ALWAYS cool extra content that can be put into any product to make it have more content. One of our jobs is to know when to stop putting content in, though, because if we're always adding content... the product never gets finished.
There are other reasons too why setting up the expectation of web enhancements is not a great idea, of course. But the main one is that if we did them all the time, we'd have to publish fewer products, and since our products are monthly subscription based products, we don't have the luxury of shrinking the number of products we do all that much.
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Ugh.
No. The thing with web enhancements is that it basically makes editors, developers, and graphic designers effectively end up working 60 hour weeks and/or weekend days to make them happen. There's NO DIFFERENCE on our workload, really, whether something is going into print or just online as a PDF, since the only time we really save with a PDF in the production schedule is the time it takes to ship and print the book. And since that's not something the editorial department really interacts with... what web enhancements basically mean is overtime work. And as folks may know, we're already pretty much running at peak capacity to keep our product lines on schedule.
I DO appreciate folks enjoying what we publish so much that they want more, more, more! But I don't want to fall into the trap of giving folks that more, more, more only to end up shooting ourselves in the proverbial foot because that more more more ends up being poorly laid out or poorly edited and then damages our reputation.
Quality, not quantity is my personal mantra for Paizo products.
It's alright James, you can tell us that it's actually all about the money.
We understand that Paizo is a company that needs to make a profit to stay in business. We fully comprehend that it takes money to create a product, and that the best game designers in the world need money to support their families because that's how the economy works.Well, at least some of us do.
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But the extra strain that the "Lady's Light" web enhancement put on the editorial department in particular makes me not eager to do another one anytime soon.
If you change your mind, there is always that other editor...
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Heh. The "climb a pile of rocks and get xxxx XP" thing reminds me of a time in Gamma World where my character sneezed and went up three levels.
There was some kind of colony monster virus that was basically a save or die, with the caveat that if you saved, you destroyed the "monsters", earning XP based on how many/ how high the DC.
Thinking slightly outside the box here, probably the best way to approach web enhancements would actually be to flag the cut content as it's being cut, and develop it at the same time, in a distinct manuscript. It would definitely still take additional time over just cutting it, though I suspect less than cutting it and later revisiting.
I'm not saying you necessarily should do that, but I do have a bit of an issue with seeing a problem and trying to solve it. Good thing that's what my job is. Just an approach that might help if you do cut content you don't really want to cut.
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The PCs had to start at 1st level because we wanted a brand-new 1st level adventure to sell at Gen Con, frankly.
And because relaunching the modules line with a classic adventure (kill the dragon) that starts PCs at 1st level makes a lot of sense.
OK, fair enough, I just ask you keep this feedback in mind going forward - the larger the level spread one single adventure covers, the more it ties the GM's hands as to how they run their game. I'm happy to give this one a mulligan but if all the longer adventures do this I'm not sure I can use them as much as I used to.
In many of our campaigns we've given up on XP entirely and level the group when it's appropriate - makes APs go smoother without all the micromanagement and also means we can do "as slow as we want" progression (as you point out, even medium is pretty darn fast as designed - rather than give up and go E6, we usually just slow it down to a rate where people actually get to experience a given level and not just blow past in every time they walk into a hole in the ground).
I think this is where things went off the rails a little bit. I love the new bigger modules incidentally, but it seems like this first one tried to do two things at once that weren't naturally congruous (wanting the module to start off at 1st level and wanting the BBEG to be a legitimate draconic threat), which made everything along the way feel forced - monty-hauling treasure inappropriate for level, offering 'crutch' NPC's, leveling characters faster than usual... For a one-shot evening or weekend campaign I could definitely see it as being a fun run, but across the board its inconsistent with everything else paizo has been doing module and AP-wise. We've come to expect that consistency from established product lines and again, this one felt much too forced.
Considering the very high standards Paizo has come to represent, disrupting the integrity of a product because you want to serve two masters (Dragon BBEG cuz its cool and 1st level cuz of GenCon) wasn't the best way to go.
Just my 2 cp.
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If it could be arranged (as has been done before in the past), can we get these cut encounters of Mike Shel's in an on-line document?
Anything published by Paizo, whether its an actual product or web supplement, still has to go through development, editing, and layout process (as was the case for the web enhancement for Lady's Light). Given the jam-packed schedule the developers have for their product lines, it just isn't feasible.
I'm sure every freelance designer has stuff that doesn't make it into the final product for one reason or another. I have a bad habit of going over assigned word count, which makes more work for the developers (sorry James, Rob, Mark, Adam, John, Patrick, et al.!). In my experience, most of what James and the other developers trim off is by-and-large the editorial equivalent of woodshavings, not diamond dust. I trust the developers to know what's ultimately best for the project. Everything I've written for Paizo has been made stronger and better by the developers. It's an essential part of the process.
What's the etiquette around a contributor providing extra material via their own website along the lines of 'this was my background thinking for that encounter', or 'if I were running this I would stick these extra encounters in?
In other words, not a web enhancement, but a contributor being allowed to release their unused material in a manner that made it clear that it wasn't Paizo product.
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Creative Director
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It's alright James, you can tell us that it's actually all about the money.
We understand that Paizo is a company that needs to make a profit to stay in business. We fully comprehend that it takes money to create a product, and that the best game designers in the world need money to support their families because that's how the economy works.
Well, at least some of us do.
It's partially about the money.
But as I said, it's also partially about trying to maintain a bearable quality of life for Paizo employees. I don't want to burn folks out and make them hate the game that we're producing because they start associating the game not with gaming and fun but with why they never see their families or don't have time to do laundry.
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Creative Director
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Heh. The "climb a pile of rocks and get xxxx XP" thing reminds me of a time in Gamma World where my character sneezed and went up three levels.
There was some kind of colony monster virus that was basically a save or die, with the caveat that if you saved, you destroyed the "monsters", earning XP based on how many/ how high the DC.
For full disclosure for those who haven't seen the adventure... the "climb a pile of rocks" xxx is NOT one of the quests. It's a single story award in the adventure that awards 400 XP (aka 100 XP per player in a 4 person group). You can excise the 2 lines of text that talk about this without impacting the level-progression of the adventure in the slightest, and in fact, that's what I would do if I were developing the adventure today.
If I remember correctly, the original encounter there had some much harder rolls and some much more significant damage. I toned down the DC to a DC 8 Climb check and the damage down to 1d6 on a failed roll because, hey, it's the first encounter for a 1st level party, and dying before you start the first dungeon is a billion times lamer than getting 400 XP for climbing rocks.
That said... it's not a reward for doing nothing. A DC 8 Climb check might soudn low... but at 1st level, it's not going to be an auto success. Hell, when you factor in no class ranks + armor check penalties, it's hardly an auto roll for higher level parties. I've seen plenty of paladins and fighters at 8th level or above have negative scores in their Climb skills.
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Creative Director
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Thinking slightly outside the box here, probably the best way to approach web enhancements would actually be to flag the cut content as it's being cut, and develop it at the same time, in a distinct manuscript. It would definitely still take additional time over just cutting it, though I suspect less than cutting it and later revisiting.
I'm not saying you necessarily should do that, but I do have a bit of an issue with seeing a problem and trying to solve it. Good thing that's what my job is. Just an approach that might help if you do cut content you don't really want to cut.
That's kinda exactly how we do it. It doesn't decrease the time required to actually develop the cut content or edit it or lay it out at all.
And frankly... I don't want to create a perception among my authors that "it's okay for you to overwrite as much as you want because hey, we'll just publish the overflow as a web enhancement."
When I ask an author to write a product, the wordcount is not just an arbitrary thing I ask him (or her) to hit to fit a product's page count. It's also a number that we use to essentially measure how much time we need to set aside during project management to get all of our side of things done, as well as an estimation for how long the author needs and can have to actually write the thing.
Word counts need to be respected in the same way work schedules are respected at ANY job.
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Creative Director
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What's the etiquette around a contributor providing extra material via their own website along the lines of 'this was my background thinking for that encounter', or 'if I were running this I would stick these extra encounters in?
In other words, not a web enhancement, but a contributor being allowed to release their unused material in a manner that made it clear that it wasn't Paizo product.
If an author wants to release material cut from a project they were working on in another format, we generally only ask that the author clears it with us first. We've had authors do this before. Whether or not an author is comfortable letting the world see their unedited writing or not is up to them.
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I think this is where things went off the rails a little bit. I love the new bigger modules incidentally, but it seems like this first one tried to do two things at once that weren't naturally congruous (wanting the module to start off at 1st level and wanting the BBEG to be a legitimate draconic threat), which made everything along the way feel forced - monty-hauling treasure inappropriate for level, offering 'crutch' NPC's, leveling characters faster than usual... For a one-shot evening or weekend campaign I could definitely see it as being a fun run, but across the board its inconsistent with everything else paizo has been doing module and AP-wise. We've come to expect that consistency from established product lines and again, this one felt much too forced.
Considering the very high standards Paizo has come to represent, disrupting the integrity of a product because you want to serve two masters (Dragon BBEG cuz its cool and 1st level cuz of GenCon) wasn't the best way to go.
Perhaps so...
But I think the end result is VERY cool nonetheless. And I also think that, in a certain way, the way "The Dragon's Demand" presents a few unusual expectations for how rewards and NPC allies and the like are handled in the game is worth considering. Just because the Core Rulebook says that certain things are the way they are, such as wealth by level or speed of XP accumulation, doesn't mean you can't adjust or tweak or change them if you want to tell a different story. The game is flexible enough to handle these changes, and being able to take advantage of that flexibility with "The Dragon's Demand" lets us tell a story that a rigid adherence to the rules themselves wouldn't let us tell.
And that would be kind of tragic, I think.
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I think it's a great module I'm going to run for the gaming group I'm starting as our opening adventure to get to know each other at the table
I think this is where things went off the rails a little bit. I love the new bigger modules incidentally, but it seems like this first one tried to do two things at once that weren't naturally congruous (wanting the module to start off at 1st level and wanting the BBEG to be a legitimate draconic threat), which made everything along the way feel forced - monty-hauling treasure inappropriate for level, offering 'crutch' NPC's, leveling characters faster than usual... For a one-shot evening or weekend campaign I could definitely see it as being a fun run, but across the board its inconsistent with everything else paizo has been doing module and AP-wise. We've come to expect that consistency from established product lines and again, this one felt much too forced.
Considering the very high standards Paizo has come to represent, disrupting the integrity of a product because you want to serve two masters (Dragon BBEG cuz its cool and 1st level cuz of GenCon) wasn't the best way to go.
Perhaps so...
But I think the end result is VERY cool nonetheless. And I also think that, in a certain way, the way "The Dragon's Demand" presents a few unusual expectations for how rewards and NPC allies and the like are handled in the game is worth considering. Just because the Core Rulebook says that certain things are the way they are, such as wealth by level or speed of XP accumulation, doesn't mean you can't adjust or tweak or change them if you want to tell a different story. The game is flexible enough to handle these changes, and being able to take advantage of that flexibility with "The Dragon's Demand" lets us tell a story that a rigid adherence to the rules themselves wouldn't let us tell.
And that would be kind of tragic, I think.
I think that's a reasonable position - my issue with it comes from two directions; the first is that, in theory at least, the published material is supposed to be the benchmark from which homebrew games deviate rather than the other way around... no big deal, really, just upsets the paradigm.
The second is, and I suspect it might be the perspective of others voicing these admittedly minor concerns, is that our games would already be considered 'low magic', with fewer magical crutches and slower advancement... defeating a dragon is a very big deal, and if you only managed to do it because you were surrounded with NPC's to do a lot of the heavy lifting and tons of magical loot to make it possible, then you didn't really accomplish anything, did you? Someone or something else did and you were just along for the ride.
That's me, and I might be the only one who feels that way, but spoon-feeding and hand-holding PC's just so they can say they killed a dragon kinda takes all the awe and pride out of actually having killed a dragon.
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I suppose there's been a conflict between story driven and xp driven character advancement since at least Dragonlance days anyways. It seems to me that the game has swung back and forth between the two styles. With the popularity of APs and now multi-level modules, it seems that story driven level advancement has taken priority just to fit what folks want into a marketable format. I'm fine with either style and use both and I think Paizo has done a pretty nice job of providing for the different styles in this module.
We've got the Advancement Track for folks that might not even want to deal with xp at all- just level when you hit that point in the story.
Experience point based advancement gets a little trickier when xp are still mostly combat based awards, but I do see how folks might be annoyed with arbitrary awards for climbing a pile of rocks.
The Quests system is actually a great way to legitimately fill out the xp count. I might have added an old random encounter table or two to give further options. Mr. Shel mentioned a couple of cool creatures that could serve for inspiration.
I wonder if modules with more than four levels of advancement required might be better served by using the Fast track of level advancement. I'm not sure if that would work, but this could probably be adapted to Medium pace by those who wish to do so through the use of the Quests. We still have the AP line for extended games at Medium pace.
Just some random thoughts. and Yes, Mr. Shel, I really like The Dragon's Demand. I'm so glad that you are back. There is definitely plenty of old school fun in this module.
I suppose there's been a conflict between story driven and xp driven character advancement since at least Dragonlance days anyways. It seems to me that the game has swung back and forth between the two styles. With the popularity of APs and now multi-level modules, it seems that story driven level advancement has taken priority just to fit what folks want into a marketable format. I'm fine with either style and use both and I think Paizo has done a pretty nice job of providing for the different styles in this module.
We've got the Advancement Track for folks that might not even want to deal with xp at all- just level when you hit that point in the story.
Experience point based advancement gets a little trickier when xp are still mostly combat based awards, but I do see how folks might be annoyed with arbitrary awards for climbing a pile of rocks.
The Quests system is actually a great way to legitimately fill out the xp count. I might have added an old random encounter table or two to give further options. Mr. Shel mentioned a couple of cool creatures that could serve for inspiration.
I wonder if modules with more than four levels of advancement required might be better served by using the Fast track of level advancement. I'm not sure if that would work, but this could probably be adapted to Medium pace by those who wish to do so through the use of the Quests. We still have the AP line for extended games at Medium pace.
FWIW, we use story-based advancement with the GM basically telling us when to level our characters and we're fine with that, even if it 'accordians' at times... my biggest problem is dumping lots of magical loot on a party and then setting them up with NPC's to serve as cannon fodder - if they need all that to accomplish something, then they aren't accomplishing anything.