We're Not Staying Mum(my) Any Longer

Vic Wertz wrote:

Season of a Runelord?

Ron Lundeen is a nice guy providing extra material for PACG Players for free.

So how about honouring him with

- Season of the Ronlord?
Or
- Season of the Ronlund? (Switching just "o" and "u" based on Vics proposal)

What do you think?

Check
http://www.welbybumpus.com
Is awesome PREMIUM :-D

PS: thats how my idea generation works ...

This really made my day! :-)

I like these news a lot!
Go for it!
Our Group 1 is in the second adventure of rotr and g2 at third, G3 at 6st and Group 4 has just started the b skenarios From the wotr... So we would start the Mummy in Late 2016 or 2017... One Gaming sessio in two months is the pace. And we play a lot of others games in between. So I think that is is economically a good choice. Also it is very nice to see the season of RuneLords! ITS a good starting point to league play to those who only have the RotR.

Even more season for existing cards would be nice, but eventually the Mummy has to core out From the crypt, or tomb or...

Before everyone goes nuts trying to fan mod existing Paizo Adventure Paths, I should point out that it's not allowed under the current Community Use guidelines (I have no insight into whether the policies are going to change):

• You may descriptively reference trademarks, proper names (characters, deities, artifacts, places, etc.), locations and characters from products listed in Section 1 of our Community Use Approved Product List at paizo.com/communityuse/products, provided it is clear that these are our marks.

• You may descriptively reference dialogue, plots, storylines, language, and incidents from products listed in Section 1 of our Community Use Approved Product List at paizo.com/communityuse/products in campaign journals and play-by-post or play-by-email games.

The topic has also been addressed in this thread started by ace PACG fan Hawkmoon269 with a comment by Vic Wertz

I will note that while the CUP lets you use characters and locations from most of our products, it only allows people doing campaign journals or play-by-posts to use storylines from those products. This means that you're not allowed to adapt a storyline that we've published (so you can't do, say, the Carrion Crown adventure path), but you are allowed to make up your own stories (so you *could* come up with a parallel storyline using characters and locations from Skull & Shackles, or you could come up with new adventures extending the story of Rise of the Runelords).

One of the easiest tells that someone isn't complying with Community Use Policy is that they forgot this part of the policy:

You agree to create an account on paizo.com and add an entry describing your material on our Community Use Registry at paizo.com/communityuse/registry, with links where appropriate. You agree to endeavor to keep this information up-to-date.

Every time I've looked a product that wasn't registered (which admittedly isn't a large sample size), I've usually seen it accompanied by other violations like usage of unapproved artwork, modification of approved artwork, or usage of Paizo story lines. It's almost as if the author feels that copying the required Community Use disclaimer is sufficient for meeting Community Use guidelines, which it's not, and it's about as effective as making a cross with your index fingers to hold off Dracula.

Now, of course, someone will pull up an old Peter Cushing film where Dracula's Second Cousin was driven off in this fashion. As I recall, the vampire in Brides of Dracula was killed by the shadow of a windmill that formed the sign of the cross.

Kind of a sad panda on this. We have been running 2-3 groups though each set now and are ready to start box 5 of wrath with both groups now.

With out a doubt this has become our top game for my group.

Can't say I'm not disappointed, but my position's quite different: I discovered PACG at a convention recently, playing one S&S scenario and one WotR scenario with my Warrior Class Deck, and fell in love with it immediately.

Being a big fan of Egyptian-themed fantasy, I was really looking forward to Mummy's Mask being the first core set I would add to my collection and introduce to my group. I was really anticipating it, reading and re-reading the AP while I waited for release.

Now it looks like I'll have to get S&S or WotR to tide me over in the meantime, and get tons of play out of that first. Sneaky Paizo!

Can't say I'm not disappointed, but my position's quite different: I discovered PACG at a convention recently, playing one S&S scenario and one WotR scenario with my Warrior Class Deck, and fell in love with it immediately.

Being a big fan of Egyptian-themed fantasy, I was really looking forward to Mummy's Mask being the first core set I would add to my collection and introduce to my group. I was really anticipating it, reading and re-reading the AP while I waited for release.

Now it looks like I'll have to get S&S or WotR to tide me over in the meantime, and get tons of play out of that first. Sneaky Paizo!

And with Season of the Runelords, you can also get into the original Base set as well!

I hope there's a buried star gate somewhere in this adventure..

Troymk1 wrote:

But the thought that an auto manufacturer would hold back producing their latest model because I am not ready to part with my older model just seems bizarre (and entitled) to me

Isn't that exactly what car manufacturers do? They release a new model on a schedule, and scale manufacture based on expected sales.

They certainly don't expect the same person to buy two cars a year as well.

Games are a different market than cars. I can say I was probably going to cancel my subscription if the next set was coming out soon. I'm much more inclined to keep my subscription if there is only one adventure path a year. A small number of hardcore fans is not sufficient to maintain the sales required for a game of this scale.

No your analogy is flawed, if Paizo were to do this they would tailor their print run to expected demand

Rather, they've cancelled the production run to keep happy the demographic who have already told them they will not be buying the product.

Since I do have economics training this was the facet I was surprised by.

I'm not here to reopen the can of worms, but rather to answer your post.

deinol wrote:

Troymk1 wrote:

But the thought that an auto manufacturer would hold back producing their latest model because I am not ready to part with my older model just seems bizarre (and entitled) to me

Isn't that exactly what car manufacturers do? They release a new model on a schedule, and scale manufacture based on expected sales.

They certainly don't expect the same person to buy two cars a year as well.

Games are a different market than cars. I can say I was probably going to cancel my subscription if the next set was coming out soon. I'm much more inclined to keep my subscription if there is only one adventure path a year. A small number of hardcore fans is not sufficient to maintain the sales required for a game of this scale.

No your analogy is flawed, if Paizo were to do this they would tailor their print run to expected demand

Rather, they've cancelled the production run to keep happy the demographic who have already told them they will not be buying the product.

Since I do have economics training this was the facet I was surprised by.

I'm not here to reopen the can of worms, but rather to answer your post.

If expected demand is lower and you tailor print runs accordingly, then the price of the product needs to be increased to account for the lower print run (and therefore less benefits from economies of scale). Higher prices means lower demand, which means lower print runs, which means higher prices, which means...

In addition to product price, there's the simple matter of game stores needing to have space on their shelves for the product. If game stores aren't selling through their stock very quickly (which it seems to be indicated that they are not), they likely do not have the space for a 4th box set so they may not even bother ordering it, waiting instead for the first 3 to sell out to free up space on the shelves. This leads to even more lower sales and for Paizo to have a bunch of product sitting in their warehouses doing absolutely nothing.

It makes a lot of economical sense for Paizo to rein in the release schedule to ensure that there's actually a market for new releases. This move wasn't done (purely) out of altruism.

Troymk, it's not the people who said they won't buy it. It's the people who said they won't buy it if it keeps coming out so fast. Big difference. One is a lost customer, one is a lost customer if you don't change.

Also the definition of "customer" needs to be considered from the perspective of various parties. While Paizo is ultimately selling to end-users (you and me), their "customers" are really:

Distributors (who then sell to retailers)
Retailers who order directly from Paizo (who then sell to customers)
Customers who buy directly from Paizo via subscriptions
Customers who buy from Paizo's web store without a subscription

When Paizo reports customer feedback, it can be from any one of these parties, and it would be 100% accurate to say "customers told us..."

I suspect the majority of Paizo's sales are made to distributors and retailers, so ultimately their feedback is going to carry a lot of weight, and ignoring it comes with significant peril.

Andrew, we shall certainly see!

I wish them (lone shark & Paizo ) the best of luck. Nice people all

We (those of us on the boards) are a minority of the entire customer base. Most customers won't even be looking at the message boards. And while we have opinions on how much and how often we'd like to see new PACG products hit the streets, Autoduelist is right that feedback from distributors and retailers is very important in this decision.

And while we represent a microcosm of the entire population, from some of the responses on this thread, the break is warranted. Personally, I've always been worried about quickening the release schedule since we heard about it. Not worried that Paizo would outpace us here but would release product too quickly for it to be sold at stores. As people see new products for the same game keep hitting the shelves, some will see it as too much to get caught up with and simply abandon a game. Some LCGs are like that. I also look at Zombicide on store shelves and wonder if they released too much too fast.

Also, not every gaming group will abandon other games just to play PACG. Most groups like variety. There are too many games that come out in a year and, therefore, plenty of competition (timewise and fundwise) in groups that play games on a regular basis.

I also look at Zombicide on store shelves and wonder if they released too much too fast.

As someone who has two people in his group who backed the last two sets and the upcoming, I think "too fast" is a complaint you'll never hear from their Kickstarter backers. They probably still haven't finished delivering their last project. Paizo at least sees a problem in delivery pace and fixes it.

OK now I need to write my own AP and drivethru it! I hate you all.

Just kidding. Best game ever.

Well creating your own Adventure Path cards (and Adventure, Scenario, and Location) cards just went live on DriveThru....

Frencois wrote:

OK now I need to write my own AP and drivethru it! I hate you all.

Just kidding. Best game ever.

Well creating your own Adventure Path cards (and Adventure, Scenario, and Location) cards just went live on DriveThru....

THANKS Steve!

We (those of us on the boards) are a minority of the entire customer base. Most customers won't even be looking at the message boards. And while we have opinions on how much and how often we'd like to see new PACG products hit the streets, Autoduelist is right that feedback from distributors and retailers is very important in this decision.

And while we represent a microcosm of the entire population, from some of the responses on this thread, the break is warranted. Personally, I've always been worried about quickening the release schedule since we heard about it. Not worried that Paizo would outpace us here but would release product too quickly for it to be sold at stores. As people see new products for the same game keep hitting the shelves, some will see it as too much to get caught up with and simply abandon a game. Some LCGs are like that. I also look at Zombicide on store shelves and wonder if they released too much too fast.

Also, not every gaming group will abandon other games just to play PACG. Most groups like variety. There are too many games that come out in a year and, therefore, plenty of competition (timewise and fundwise) in groups that play games on a regular basis.

Theryon hit it on the head right here - I mostly lurk in the boards pretty regularly, but I was actually planning on stopping my subscription until this announcement (I just hadn't had time to call Paizo yet). I still haven't finished WotR due to lack of time (2 really young kids), and don't want to get into another AP immediately (due to funds, time, and the stack of unplayed games I have piling up). I would have initially intended to pick up my subscription again for the next AP, but the reality of it is, once I stopped my subscription, I'd stop visiting the boards, and the likelihood of me actually remembering to re-subscribe in 9 months is pretty low, since I have no other connection to the Pathfinder universe.

The scenario kind of reminds me of my move to my current location - my family had cable TV previously, but didn't get it at our new home. As my wife pointed out, before the move, she couldn't imagine life without cable, but after a couple of months, she didn't miss it at all. As much as I enjoy PACG, there are a ton of great games out there - if I don't have a subscription anymore, likely I don't miss it after missing an AP. So, the key is to not have people drop in the first place. People aren't going to drop a subscription due to less content, but could easily drop it due to being overwhelmed with content.

I'm not sure if this comment belongs with this blog. However, some local players have been asking if this means that stores/VCs will be getting Runelords box sets in order to facilitate Organized Play? I know it's been extremely helpful in running Skull and Shackles and Wrath, and I don't believe any of us own the Runelords set as is.

We're still discussing that.

Works for me. I can wait until late 2016 for another box.

People aren't going to drop a subscription due to less content ...

I did.

Without the new set coming, there's just too many interesting alternatives for me to hover about waiting for Mummy to get released. It won't be hard to spend the money, in any case.

So, I canceled my subscription for lack of content. Sad to say, but PACG is about to fall off the radar for me and my local group of players, at least for the time being. I wish it were otherwise.

You do know you can play the organized play adventures, right?

And that there is going to be new content for Rise of the Runelords with Season of the Runelords.

Heck, my "group" (there are two of us) haven't even got through RotRL yet. ;-)

As someone just now getting into the adventure card game (I skipped runelords and went straight into skulls and shackles), I welcome and apprieciate the delay. It gives me time to actually play the game without feeling like I have to rush thru it to move on to the next set.

I do have 1 question 'tho. Can the characters from s&s still be used if I later also buy wrath, or mummy, or whatever other base game, or do you have to use the characters from that specifice base set?

The characters are generally designed to work best in their respective set, and there are a few characters that would be difficult to play in some sets (for example, Lirianne wants firearm boons, Damiel wants lots of alchemical items, etc), but you can totally play with characters in any set and get an interesting experience.

I am on the last 3 missions of adventure deck 6 of Wrath, I have played all of the Adventure card game sets with my friends and we are so ready for mummies mask! Quite sad to see it has been pushed back.
I would like to see offical releases of new adventure sets to play through using the older base sets; New locations, New scenarios adventure path cards etc, villians and henchmen, and loot. These should be a thing.
I know there is the organised play and I was able to obtain the Skull and shackles one from drivethrucards but since my group are in the middle of no where its unlikely we will get official organised play running here (although I am pushing for my local store to do it!)
All of the above would be nice... The class decks seem so pointless, although I did buy two.

I am on the last 3 missions of adventure deck 6 of Wrath, I have played all of the Adventure card game sets with my friends and we are so ready for mummies mask! Quite sad to see it has been pushed back.

I would like to see offical releases of new adventure sets to play through using the older base sets; New locations, New scenarios adventure path cards etc, villians and henchmen, and loot. These should be a thing.
I know there is the organised play and I was able to obtain the Skull and shackles one from drivethrucards but since my group are in the middle of no where its unlikely we will get official organised play running here (although I am pushing for my local store to do it!)
All of the above would be nice... The class decks seem so pointless, although I did buy two.

You can play the Organized Play scenarios just as if they were normal scenarios, but you'll still need to follow the tier system in the OP rules so that your characters can get feats at the proper rate. Alternatively, you can do official Organized Play even at home, you don't need a store to host it for it to be official as long as you follow all the rules and report the sessions online.

Each base set has an additional Adventure Path for Organized Play (with Season of the Runelords being released very soon), and there are also some homebrew adventure paths for RotR and S&S. The chance of seeing additional content outside of the Organized Play scenarios for previously made base sets I'd say is pretty close to (if not exactly) 0%.

To add on to what skizzerz has said, you can treat the OP Adventure Path as optional content using the same characters from the base set. (i.e. You can start over with S&S characters in Season of the Shackles. You don't have to use the class decks.) You don't have to make this official OP.

The only twist, now that Season of the Shackles has been updated, are rewards. Use a modified version of the Tier advancement. Any rewards given by succeeding a scenario and adventure are yours. In addition, on the first scenario of an adventure, you gain a skill feat. On the second scenario completed, a power feat. And on the fourth scenario completed, you gain a card feat.

Simple and easy. If you've gotten the cards from DriveThru for Season of the Shackles and the updated Adventures, you're good to go.

How is the power balance on the OP scenarios when not playing with character decks? For S&S you could really milk scenarios for boons. Sometimes we would have 20 cards under our ship.

How is the power balance on the OP scenarios when not playing with character decks? For S&S you could really milk scenarios for boons. Sometimes we would have 20 cards under our ship.

Does it really matter? The OP scenarios were designed for organized play and organized play is meant to use class decks.

You're always going to have power gamers working the curve in games including Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. Tweaking their characters in one way or another.

The point is that someone looking for more content using the sets they have can use the OP scenarios. And without having to purchase more class decks, they can use the characters with those base sets.

Theryon, let me put it differently. I try to play characters to the best of their potential (modulo group makeup) and I have pretty much all the class decks. If I play through an OP path without using the class decks, will I end up having less fun because my characters become better than they were expected to be? Things are supposed to be balanced due each class deck having appropriate boons, but I think that a fighter using the class deck will probably be weaker than one that plays traditionally.

Ahhh ... asking for yourself.

I'm not sure how much the developers actually playtest the OP scenarios using the base set characters. (Which would provide the number crunching you're looking for.) In fact, I'd be amazed that more than a handful of people do so. And even so, there are 11 characters including the character add-on deck. That's a lot of characters to run through scenarios that would normally be played using the class decks.

It would probably make sense to slightly increase the difficulty if playing from the box; at least eventually. That said, OP does potentially have some benefits (die bumps, rerolls, etc) that normal doesn't necessarily.

I can't speak for everyone, but every time I playtested OP scenarios I wrote, I tested with class deck characters using normal OP rules. I also never used rerolls or die bumps.

Well, die bumps and re-rolls never came into play until the later half of the season when failure of rolls have significant consequences. But I've never played the OP scenarios with anything but class deck-based characters.

Also, I'm not recommending Graeme Cooper use standard OP rules in this case. No die bumps, no re-rolls, no single card upgrades. Just the same method of gaining skill, power and card feats at 1st, 2nd and 4th scenarios.

Graeme Cooper wrote:

I am on the last 3 missions of adventure deck 6 of Wrath, I have played all of the Adventure card game sets with my friends and we are so ready for mummies mask! Quite sad to see it has been pushed back.

I would like to see offical releases of new adventure sets to play through using the older base sets; New locations, New scenarios adventure path cards etc, villians and henchmen, and loot. These should be a thing.
I know there is the organised play and I was able to obtain the Skull and shackles one from drivethrucards but since my group are in the middle of no where its unlikely we will get official organised play running here (although I am pushing for my local store to do it!)
All of the above would be nice... The class decks seem so pointless, although I did buy two.

You can play the Organized Play scenarios just as if they were normal scenarios, but you'll still need to follow the tier system in the OP rules so that your characters can get feats at the proper rate. Alternatively, you can do official Organized Play even at home, you don't need a store to host it for it to be official as long as you follow all the rules and report the sessions online.

Each base set has an additional Adventure Path for Organized Play (with Season of the Runelords being released very soon), and there are also some homebrew adventure paths for RotR and S&S. The chance of seeing additional content outside of the Organized Play scenarios for previously made base sets I'd say is pretty close to (if not exactly) 0%.

Yeah as I said I got the S&S organised play set but we plan to just run it with characters from the base set rather than the class decks. We are pushing for organised play at our local store and if they run it we'll get a few more class decks and do it properly using the official reporting system, I have read about it. I didn't know you could just run it from home though that is an interesting thing to hear. I do really want to play the rise of the runelords path coming soon so if my store fails to get it I'll look about just signing up from home. :)

So...here's one more vote that says the market is ready for the Mummy's Mask Base Set. As in, take my money now, before Star Trek: Frontiers and whatever the to-be-named Gale Force Nine Star Trek game does, and there's nothing left.

I've been anticipating the arrival of Apocrypha and the Ninth World Kickstarter distracted me for a while, but is there really nothing new on the Mummy's Mask front?

It's still awesome.

Hmmm... I would say that Mummy would still be too early if released now. Let's hope that the season of Rune Lords remedies the situation.

The end of this year... Maybe! The holiday season would be near, the SoRL is getting near the ending. But maybe in 2017?
Also that time could be ready to second edition of class decks? Upgrades with Mummy cards and focused to 3 characters.

While I'm still looking forward to Mummy's Mask, we definitely got enough stuff to keep us going through. We're still waiting to start Season of the Righteous until the DriveThru cards are out, and we haven't even looked at Season of the Runelords yet. While I'm sure lots of people have blown through everything and are hungry for more, my wife and I are almost grateful for the lull. This is the first time we've played a non-PACG board game in who knows how long (TIME Stories was pretty fun!)

Though I'll admit I had a spark of excitement when I saw there was a new Paizo shipment being prepped, and suffered a mild disappointment when I saw it was "only" the Oracle class deck. :D

I would venture to guess that Mummy's Mask will probably be a GENCON release, similar to the original ROTRL. That will give them 4 full months to push the Season of Runelords along with the app from Obsidian. Then at GENCON which is a huge event, release Mummy's Mask and my guess is when online multiplayer may be a goal for the Pathfinder Adventure app assuming good sales of add on material.

I think I could just about keep my sanity together until autumn. Just.

I would venture to guess that Mummy's Mask will probably be a GENCON release, similar to the original ROTRL. That will give them 4 full months to push the Season of Runelords along with the app from Obsidian. Then at GENCON which is a huge event, release Mummy's Mask and my guess is when online multiplayer may be a goal for the Pathfinder Adventure app assuming good sales of add on material.

That would make for lovely timing, and they might round to those dates if the timing were close, but it sure feels like they're going to wait until the time is right to do things, rather than rushing anything. Just the sense I get.

I missed out on Wrath of the Righteous due to moving overseas the past year, and was thinking about picking it up soon- but I honestly like the theme of Mummy's Mask more (and Witch and Gunslinger class decks). I really enjoyed Skull and Shackles, but I think I'm going to wait until the next set releases before grabbing anything else.

Really can't wait for more news about it!