Illustration by Daryl Mandryk
Protip: That is insane, and don't ever do it. There. Don't say no one ever warned you.
But after sending the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles Base Set, its Character Add-On Deck, the S&S Adventure Decks #2—6, and the first seven Class Decks to the printer, I have some observations that I'd like to share. I'll ask Tanis, Chad, and Gaby to go deeper into the details of each product in the coming months, but I'd like PACG fans to hear some more global thoughts from me.
First off, we're all in. This is an immense product line now, and we're going to do everything we can to keep it on your gaming table. We're deep in design of the third Adventure Path, and we're plotting out the fourth. Our job is to keep giving you reasons to keep playing, and we take that job very seriously.
That means not resting on our laurels. We don't want a carbon copy of Rise of the Runelords with some different chrome on top. Skull & Shackles will require you to strategize differently, to use skills and make checks differently, to build your decks differently, and to advance your character differently. Where Runelords had one scenario per adventure that was atypical in its format, S&S has quite a bit more. You won't see what's coming, and that's going to make it harder to win the game, and we hope you'll like that.
We also want you to see yourself differently. Instead of just our base 11 iconic characters, these products will get us up to 40 uniquely named characters—and even the new versions of familiar faces will play differently from those of Runelords. As of August, you'll have more than 100 role cards available. And there's a personality shift as well: As a general rule, our base 11 iconics are pretty nice people. Not all of our new characters are nice. Some are borderline nasty. We want you to be able to play whatever you want.
We're going to give those characters a lot to play. The weekly organized play scenarios will roll out starting in the summer, and the character/scenario combinatorics are off the charts. (Seriously, we made those charts, and we're off of them.) We care a whole lot about our friendly local gaming stores and game conventions, and want to bring our brand of entertainment to all those places. Wherever you're surrounded by gamers, we'll be there.
We're making more things people want for the game. There are more S&S promos, including our first and most insane promo character. Ultra Pro is making character mats, card sleeves, adventure mats, and cases for the serious PACG player, all of which have subscriber discounts. These definitely change the play experience in positive ways. There are more fun things in the works, but Vic would hit me with a gaffi stick if I said anything about them.
We're also making a commitment to a living rulebook. We've now got more than 1,500 uniquely named cards for the game (roughly equal to the first four years of Magic: The Gathering), and they all interact in fascinating ways. So that means the rulebook needs to handle everything the game throws at it. That means it's getting bigger, and is unlikely to get smaller any time soon. It'll be updated a few times a year, and each set's rulebook will supersede the previous set's rulebook, modulo any rules unique to that set (e.g., S&S's ships). We want everything to work with everything else, and so we'll stay on top of the forums and address any issues people come across, changing the rules as needed. If you make that kind of commitment to us, we're going to make a similar commitment to you.
So that's it. After almost 2,000 cards passed through my hands in less than a month, I can see the future of this game. If you like it as much as I do, it'll be very bright indeed.
Mike Selinker
Designer, Pathfinder Adventure Card Game
