My guess is why I get ignored on this board is because I don't have a pic. I haven't found a favorite yet, so...
Although the smurf pic is pretty smurfy...
And now I have the Mahnahmahnah! song stuck in my head.
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I would like to think Erik brought me the AoW, whereas James forced the STAP on us.That part amuses me because my work on Age of Worms was about the same as the amount of work I put in on Savage Tide. I win AND I lose! YAY! :)
Well you better be careful "Railroad", we're watching you!
Don't want you keeping up those high quality standards or anything.
Hey, Sir Toppum Hat!!! Is this the Isle of Dread or the Isle of Sodor?
Heh heh....get it?
Yeeeeeeeeesh.....
I don't know but this island has a giant gorilla...
And now I have the Mahnahmahnah! song stuck in my head.
Yeah, me too, but I didn't want to be the first one to admit it ;) It's the muppet's parting curse. Failed my save.
Hey, Alec Balwin! You can't narrate Thomas! You did that vulgar Schwetty balls piece on SNL!!! Speaking of Schwetty balls, say you have some balls in a dish.....
No, no, no. They were in a bowl and there was something ultimate about it.
And now I have the Mahnahmahnah! song stuck in my head.Yeah, me too, but I didn't want to be the first one to admit it ;) It's the muppet's parting curse. Failed my save.
First Jason Bulmahn and now muppets? Sheesh. It is getting to the point where a guy can't walk down the street without getting cursed.
What's next? Smurfs?
Hey could Heir Haldefast have the Mahnahmanah! muppet for an avatar? That'd be cool!
Hey could Heir Haldefast have the Mahnahmanah! muppet for an avatar? That'd be cool!
When I was six I was convinced that said muppet was saying phenomena. That's what I got for being so smart... I was seldom right.
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Wait! No, he's trying to show us what he looks like. Err... No! He IS a muppet! That explains why he can't be reasoned with. He was just a muppet all along. Now I get it. :)
Yeah, but...uhm... isn't a muppet just a fancy sock-puppet? Although that would again explain alot....
Does this mean we'll get the Great Book of Smurfs, including a sourcebook full of hooks where we always face the same bad guy at the end of every episo - er, adventure? Smurfy keen smurfy cool!
Oh yes.
Also, the base classes will be handy, grumpy, and female.
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Something just occured to me. All of the trolls I have come across on these boards do not have an avatar. Just a name and some troll spew. It's like they cannot even be bothered to pick one. Sheesh. Picking an avatar was the most entertaining part of creating an account. Smurf!
don't delude yourself. You were just tactically reacting to all the other smurfs.
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And now I have the Mahnahmahnah! song stuck in my head.
So what? This song's just great. You should see my one-year-old daughter smiling and giggling if I sing it to her. She totally loves it. And no, her smiling isn't about me singing. I tried other songs and nothing happened.
My wife does her best to stop me singing though.
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Does this mean we'll get the Great Book of Smurfs, including a sourcebook full of hooks where we always face the same bad guy at the end of every episo - er, adventure? Smurfy keen smurfy cool!Oh yes.
Also, the base classes will be handy, grumpy, and female.
Is Papa Smurf a prestige class then?
And what about Brainy Smurf? Surely we need a Brainy Smurf class...
Contributor
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My guess is why I get ignored on this board is because I don't have a pic. I haven't found a favorite yet, so...
Although the smurf pic is pretty smurfy...
And now I have the Mahnahmahnah! song stuck in my head.
You should totally choose a pic, lin!
Or always include smurfiness in your posts. :)
Is Papa Smurf a prestige class then?And what about Brainy Smurf? Surely we need a Brainy Smurf class...
Excellent idea! Brainy must be a character class.
We've taken Papa Smurf out of the game, but that's because it's so cool without him that I can't even keep from wetting myself. Instead of Papa Smurf, we're going to put Jar Jar Binks in as a prestige class!
So what? This song's just great.
I just didn't like to admit that the OP did something smurfy in this message board, that's all.
Hoyles Law of Paizoboarding: After such time as Godwin's Law may be invoked, there is a chance that instead of invoking Hitler, Paizonites may just smurf everything the smurf up by smurfing the smurfs.
we're going to put Jar Jar Binks in as a prestige class!Crap.
And I just submitted that as my RPG Superstar Entry.
The Jar Jar of Penultimate Binking! It woulda been awesome.
** spoiler omitted **
You'll never smurf the Panties of the Succubi!
They have sequins.
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I just didn't like to admit that the OP did something smurfy in this message board, that's all.
The thing is, I think I know why he hates railroading so much. Here in Germany, there's a system called "The Dark Eye" which, in it's beginnings, took railroading to a new level. In the adventures you could actually read things like "Don't allow your players to do this because this could change the flow of events" or "No matter what they do, tell them that the result will be Event X". I think you'll understand that this caused quite some hard feelings under those players thinking that roleplaying basically is about creating options.
What I don't get is why he confuses this kind of railroading with how the things get handled in Paizo adventures. And it doesn't excuse him from being offending and even insulting.
You know what? I would so like to have a smurf costume with wings. But I'm not smurfy enough. Hm, is there anything like a smurf stirge?
Everybody loves the choo choo Smurf!
Come on everybody and touch my Smurf.
Don't run and hide when my Smurf wants to play.
If you could just bend over a little farther, sure!
errr...
Smurf!
I'll touch your smurf!
Steven Greer I read Tides of dread and it is one of the more open ended adventures out there. As far as the STAP AP My party is enjoying it emensly. I really wasn't a fan of Age of Worms AP. Just didn't hooki me. The three faces of evil wasn't that good. That when it lost me. I think this AP is far more role playing driven than SCAP.
you´ll build up a fanbase of drooling DM-Fanboiz, without a group.
If that makes you money, go ahead. But do not pretend you care for the PLAYERS or for the Spirit of D&D.
This is the whole point of this posters rant. I think someones jealous and wants to attack the Paizo community.
I'm done posting on this thread.
Barring any further questions that need answer from me personally, I will retire from this thread.I think Trellian's question deserves an answer from you personally:
You still haven't explained why you feel that Tides of Dread, which is one of the most non-linear adventures ever, is rail-roading, while Age of Worms, which you so openly praise, is filled with lame railroading hooks and meat-grinding.In the event that you were just thread-crapping, Haldefast - which I define as taking a dump and then walking away holding your nose, instead of helping rake it into fertilizer for the community - I'll hazard a guess that players like yourself, who like big dungeons, want tactical freedom, while players who enjoyed Tides of Dread and thought it was "the perfect sandbox" want strategic freedom.
Tactical freedom: In AoW, the dungeon in Three Faces of Evil offered lots of possibilities on a 5 foot grid. You could scout ahead a dozen rooms and then devise a plan of attack, rile up the inhabitants and lead them on a chase, try to create strife between the factions, etc. Your actions mattered in the sense that your interactions with the dungeon environment determine what happened next; if you did your homework and prepared well, you'd be rewarded with victory. But there wasn't a lot of strategic freedom - viewed from a larger-scale perspective, the whole dungeon is reduced to going in, achieving a goal, and taking it to a sage to learn where to go next.
Strategic freedom: Tides of Dread gives you a situation, an onrushing event, and a lot of possible options you can take to change the situation and prepare for the event. It's open-ended on the large-scale perspective, because it's up to the players to choose how to prepare, both "when do we do this" and "do we want to do this or that". And your decisions matter because there's an innovative victory point...
An excellent post and one that deserves more thought and discussion on the nature of adventure design from the forum members.
Some good points on this thread though their buried deep in a lot of junk.
I think the design of STAP deviates from AOW and SCAP mainly due to the fan base.
If one goes through the threads devoted to SCAP and AOW lookin for what people are complaining about one of the things one is going to see over and over again are comments along the lines of "I liked Age of Worms but ugh...those dungeons where just to long". again and again.
Erik and James are partly in the business of figuring out which way the crowd is going in terms of gaming preferences and then running to the front of the line and giving gamers what it is they want. They even tested the waters with this sort of idea before going down this path. I'm certain I've seen posts from one or both of them indicating that they where planning on cutting down on the number of huge dungeons in future products and I don't recall seeing the fan base start complaining regarding this direction. In fact this is pretty much the first time I've seen anyone come out and say that the problem with the current batch of APs is that their not mostly large dungeon crawls.
I think there are some good reasons why the mini dungeon has become so much more common recently in Dungeons and Dragons. I suspect that if you watched a lot of players at play and worked out when it was that they where most excited or into the game you'd find that this occurred generally when they where involved in a combat or when they where role playing with an NPC.
The Mini-dungeon is a very efficient way of delivering lots of encounters of both those styles and of mixing up the kinds of encounters one faces. The Dungeon is an OK medium for delivering combat encounters but is generally a poor medium for delivering role playing encounters.
Even when considering it as a medium for delivering combat encounters it involves a lot of of intervening aspects to get to these combat challenges. You spend a lot of time arguing with the other players about whether to go down the passage with the door at the end and weird howling noises or instead go to the room with the secret door in the ceiling and find a way up to it. Chances are in either case your eventually going to get to a combat but first you have to make up your mind which direction to take.
The other weak point for the large dungeon is mapping. A big dungeon crawl generally involves a lot of mapping - either the DM does the mapping for you or, more likely if your old school, one of the players is the map monkey. The weak part here is that much of the interaction going on at a session involves the DM telling the map monkey that the passage goes 60' north east (no not that north east - the other north east!) and then ends in a door. While the map monkey records all this the rest of the players quickly fade out and talk with each other about the basket ball game that took place yesterday or whatever else might be of interest until the map monkey draws their attention back to the dungeon - sums up the results of all the mapping and asks everyone what they want to do. So for most of the players their are long 'dead' periods during the game while their waiting to get to the action.
Mini-dungeons don't have this. Your usually faced with an immediate tactical situation. You make your choices and then you figure out how it all goes down. The play area is small enough that it barely needs to be mapped at all or if it does then it can probably be put right on the tactical grid and everyone can place their miniatures. The action is right there for everyone to focus on. If its an ambush your not going to be able to do much prior to the fight taking place but if its something like invading a building - well you've then got a lot more options available and the players can discuss how they want to handle the situation and then execute their plan. Whats avoided here is the down time between interesting encounters. One moves right to the action.
Best of all once this encounter is dealt with its easy to then swing back and do a role playing encounter. This is not so easy with a 40 room dungeon. In that case when one has cleared out rooms #1-#10 you still have to descend to the next level and clear out rooms #11-#20. It might be three sessions before you can engage with an interesting NPC again and you can't find out how the romance is developing between Joe's Icewall Barbarian and the beautiful Elven Ranger NPC until you've slogged through the whole thing. For a lot of players the ongoing romance (and ribbing Joe out of character regarding it) is a big part of the fun of the game. So having encounters designed to allow the players to quickly go back and fourth between exciting combats and interesting role playing encounters has become a very popular way to play.
That way they get to test their characters mettle, they get to do some role playing to further the overall plot and they get to find out how the next installment of the romance between Theurgar the Bold and Sianna Raven Hair developed all in one session.
How did that adventure with the Smurfs and the troll go?
Did they trick him into falling in the river, or did they teach him how to love, and by so doing was he magically transformed into Warty Smurf?
This thread is a perfect example of why you never unstrap the crazies. Oh sure, it makes perfect sense on the surface when they talk, “Just for a minute / I need a drink / these are too tight / I’ll do anything.”
That’s the scary thing about the CCFCP’ers (that’s “Coo Coo for Cocoa Puffs, by the way), people think crazy people are idiots, so they underestimate them. The real crazies are smart; too smart. So, you think you’re being nice, letting them have their say, they seem calm, you let them up for a second, and BAM! They’re making pants out of your skin.
Hoyles Law of Paizoboarding: After such time as Godwin's Law may be invoked, there is a chance that instead of invoking Hitler, Paizonites may just smurf everything the smurf up by smurfing the smurfs.
QF-Smurfing-T!
The Smurfs have been invoked. Therefore, this thread no longer has any relevancy. Happy Smurfing, everybody!
Thanks for truly showing your colours.
Thank you for proving what you guys think of old-school D&D.
Thank you for showing how much you respect your audience.Thank you for showing your complete misuderstanding of what is Hack& Slash, and what is not.
Because I have never ever had this much hack & slash as in STAP and especially Tides of Dread.
All that characters can do in those STAP-Adventures I spoke of is only validated if it is sealed with encounter blood.
Can you form an alliance with phanatons? ONLY if you kill a monster. Not by being smart, charming or having a great plan.
No, go kill a monster.How to get weapons for the defense?
Go, kill a monster.How to get the Olmani on our sides?
Go, kill a monster.This is the stupidmost and primitive kind of D&D I ever had. You do not find that kind of stuff in old modules you guys so unknowingly mock.
Also thank you all for showing and proving my theory regarding Paizos mindset.
Thank you again, for proving that none of you understands what a strategic challenge is and can be in a D&D environment.
Instead of mocking old modules, you might want to take a look at them.
Lets say the Companion modules for BECMI. That might give you a head start on strategic level playing, and concise writing.There is more Roleplaying, Strategy and Story in the "Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor" than in the whole STAP up to level 10.
Thanks also for making clear of what you think of Paizos new businesspartners: NG.
Your losing it. I'm as old school as anyone. I own and use Judges Guild, 1e modules, OD&D modules, and heck, Travelelr is my favorite Sci Fi.
If you go back and read every module and Dungeon you'll find many "rail roady" elements.
So I wasn't saying your wrong. What I said was that YOU failed to do your job as the DM and rewrite the adventure to fit your style.
Like one previous poster said, they didn't feel railroaded by this particular adventure.
So like I said, the DM has to rewrite every adventure they use to suit their groups styles and tastes.
Could the module have been better written? Sure, it could have. Could you have taken the time to read the adventure before you ran it and rearranged things? You certainly could have. By my standards you absolutely should have.
So in my opinion you came here to blame Paizo for your failure to run the adventure in an enjoyable fashion for your group.
Does this mean Paizo is excused? No. They are now obligated to go back and look at how it was written and figure out ways to write such things a bit better.
Still, accept your responsibility. You were the Game Master, you decided to use Tides. So it was YOUR responsibility to make sure this module ran well for your group. You failed.
So do something useful. Figure out how you could have done it better. Then use those as suggestions to Paizo as to how they could have improved it for you.
That way you do things better as a DM and Paizo has suggestions as to how to maybe improve how they write and lay out such things. Then its a win/win situation instead of blaming Paizo for your failure to run a enjoyable adventure for your group.
You can blame Paizo all you want, but until you acknowledge your own failure, your not going to avoid similiar problems in the future. Not even if you write your own. Because if you could write better than Paizo you would have fixed the problem when you read the module in preparation for running it.
So calm down, get over yourself, and discuss what was wrong and how you should have improved it. That way Paizo has constructive criticism that gives them ideas as how to approach improving such adventures in the future. That way you already have ideas on how to address such issues with any future module you use.
That way everyone wins instead of getting angry and accomplishing nothing other than bad feelings.
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Hoyles Law of Paizoboarding: After such time as Godwin's Law may be invoked, there is a chance that instead of invoking Hitler, Paizonites may just smurf everything the smurf up by smurfing the smurfs.QF-Smurfing-T!
The Smurfs have been invoked. Therefore, this thread no longer has any relevancy. Happy Smurfing, everybody!
As a Famous Smurf once asked..
Are we there yet? ;-)
He didn't DM it, he played in it. But he has obviously read them, or have been told a lot from the DM, as he surely knows a heck lot more about a published adventure than a player should.