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I've been saying it for years but given a recent influx of "Which AP to run", "Which AP is the most X" and "rank the APs" threads I will say it again.
This sub forum needs a sticky thread where people discuss and compare APs. There are always going to be people out to choose their first AP, and the community is always great with providing various opinions. But why not make this huge amount of information easily accessible to anyone who wants it? And anyone who wants to know something that wasn't already covered could just ask - and have the answer given to them be available to anyone who might want to know in the future!
Since those threads keep popping up, I think the intelligent thing to do is figure out the pattern and adjust accordingly. People want to be able to compare APs under various parameters, that information will always be relevant and there will always be new people.
The intelligent things is to have people use the 'search' function. Alas, this dazzling display of superior intellect implemented into precise action eludes many.
It is an intelligent thing for sure to use the search function but if precision is what you're looking for, you will be disappointed because one important thing these messageboards lack is the "advanced search" function.
Some basic options like "search only in titles/in posts" or "find only thread with X or more replies" or "containing (or not) these [...] exact words" or "only post by [nickname]" can really determine whether a research succeeds or not, and should be taken for granted in a forum of these proportions.
I speak from personal experience because i just started a thread to ask a question that i'm sure it has been answered a million times before, but using the search funcion has yielded nothing useful.
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I agree with you, but the problems with a sticky thread would be that it would be difficult to find answers for newcomers because it'll be easly more than 10 pages long and the more the discussion goes on the more it will derange from the OT (as often do threads about "the best X").
What this forum needs is a "Adventure Paths FAQ" sticky thread where all the questions about APs in general are answered, like (on top of my head):-What is the XP track of APs?
-How many players an AP is supposed to have?
-What many points should be given for point buy system?
-What will be the next AP?
-Is there a paizo-published Evil AP?
and so on; than we will need a list of AP specific spoilers sticky thread like this:
(I don't own any of these APs, i collected the info from the boards)
Rise of The Runelords
[long or short introduction]
Level at the end of the AP: X
Setting:Varisia, Town of Sandpoint, Town of Magnimar etc..
Climate:Continental (?)
Advised Alignment:Good or Neutral (since they are going to fight evil)
Most common enemies: goblins, ghouls, ogres, giants ect
Factions:Town of Sandpoint, the runelord Karzoug
Theme: classic fantasy (?)
Additional feature: (?)
Difficulty to Run: Easy
Additional rules: None
Additonal material: Varisia, Birthplace of Legends (PFRPG), Magnimar, City of Monuments
Kingmaker
[introduction]
Level at the end of the AP: X
Setting:The river kingdoms, brevoy, the stolen lands etc..
Climate:Continental (?)
Advised Alignment:Any
Most common enemies: Various (random encounters), Centaurs, barbarians, fey
Factions:The Kingdom, Brevoy, fey people
Theme: Sandbox game
Additional feature:
-Exploration [description]
-kingdom building [description]
-Mass combat [description]
Difficulty to Run: Hard
Additional rules: Kingdom building, mass combat
Additonal material: Ultimate campaign, People of the River, Guide to the River Kingdoms
And so on, all information that could be obtained by reading the descriptions, the reviews and the player's guide, but that's rather time consuming while in this way the GMs have a thread that contains all the important information that they need to decide about a campaign without the fluff.
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It seems to me that the information you want should be standardized in the online description of each AP when you are on the official Paizo website (and need not be in the forum).
Even then, you realize that each category could be confused easily enough. What is a Continental climate? Heck, climatic conditions for various parts of the Western Coastal U.S. differ, so it's really up in the air.
Also, what is Classic Fantasy? What is a Sandbox? Just having a brief one-word classification system means nothing if we don't understand what that classification means.
It seems to me that the information you want should be standardized in the online description of each AP when you are on the official Paizo website (and need not be in the forum).
Even then, you realize that each category could be confused easily enough. What is a Continental climate? Heck, climatic conditions for various parts of the Western Coastal U.S. differ, so it's really up in the air.
Also, what is Classic Fantasy? What is a Sandbox? Just having a brief one-word classification system means nothing if we don't understand what that classification means.
That was just an example of what an ideal "Guide to APs" thread could look like, i don't know the APs well enough to write such a thread myself nor i'm arrogant enough to try to establish a classification system, those categories were the first that came to my mind.
The idea behind my example was to have a place where a GM could get informations about an AP without needing to download the player guide, read reviews and various threads.
I've been doing that myself in the last months (and it takes some time) because i'm currently in the process of choosing an AP to run and I wasn't satisfied with the amount of info in the descriptions of each AP, probably because they want to keep them players-friendly and spoilers-free (as they should be).
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And not everyone goes on the forums. So this information should obviously be found on the main website, not as a sticky on the forums. And again, the format of this information remains questionable.
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The intelligent things is to have people use the 'search' function. Alas, this dazzling display of superior intellect implemented into precise action eludes many.
And for most purposes this is just fine - but sticky threads do exist for a reason. And given the frequency at which new threads of the "compare APs" type are opened all the time, all of them asking for slight variations of the same thing... that's an indication that there should be a sticky of this.
The intelligent things is to have people use the 'search' function. Alas, this dazzling display of superior intellect implemented into precise action eludes many.And for most purposes this is just fine - but sticky threads do exist for a reason. And given the frequency at which new threads of the "compare APs" type are opened all the time, all of them asking for slight variations of the same thing... that's an indication that there should be a sticky of this.
By that reasoning, there should be a sticky thread in general discussion that rogues suck.
Seriously though, a sticky thread is not going to stop the threads from appearing because there are plenty of people who don't navigate to the individual forums and just browse the main page.
Just be a white knight and link em up when new posts appear.
Chief Technical Officer
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I've been saying it for years but given a recent influx of "Which AP to run", "Which AP is the most X" and "rank the APs" threads I will say it again.
This sub forum needs a sticky thread where people discuss and compare APs. There are always going to be people out to choose their first AP, and the community is always great with providing various opinions. But why not make this huge amount of information easily accessible to anyone who wants it? And anyone who wants to know something that wasn't already covered could just ask - and have the answer given to them be available to anyone who might want to know in the future!
Since those threads keep popping up, I think the intelligent thing to do is figure out the pattern and adjust accordingly. People want to be able to compare APs under various parameters, that information will always be relevant and there will always be new people.
...and if it's a sticky thread, the beginning of the discussion will go more and more out of date and become less and less useful. Imagine if we'd done this a few years ago, and these people out to choose their first AP are presented with several pages of opinion that doesn't include anything newer than, say, Legacy of Fire...
Restarting this discussion a couple times per year is actually a *good* thing.
And it's fun :-)