Calydria's page

At the moment:

As a DM:
1. Curse of the Crimson Throne;
2. Carrion Crown;
3. Skull and Shackles; and
4. Reign of Winter.

I loved the atmosphere of Carrion Crown, and it is only slightly behind Curse. It looses points for requiring that I do a lot of work and a little bit of retconning to pull off the finale.

I really enjoyed reading through Reign of Winter, purchased all the extras and really did my best to sell the path. I think I might have oversold it, though, as the game fizzled out in book 3 despite my best efforts. The words "railroad" and "slog" were used. I would like to restart but skip book 3.

As a player
1. Ironfang Invasion;
2. Rise of the Runelords;
3. Kingmaker
4. Serpent Skull

Ironfang Invasion is just plain, good old fashioned fun. I am enjoying every minute. Somehow, it feels more 'real' than RotRL, although I loved that too.

I thought the first two books of Serpent Skull were fantastic, but after that it deteriorated quickly, and the game petered out. Our PCs are probably still grinding away in those ruins...Meanwhile, our Kingmaker game got bogged down in spreadsheets and paperwork.

Despite its flaws, I loved reading through Second Darkness. Unfortunately, I can't interest any of my players in it, as they are all completely Drowed-out, but I'm still hoping to run it one day and would totally buy a hardcover.

My vote for next hardcover goes, however, to Carrion Crown. The big flaw in that adventure path could be fixed by a few changes to the first part to foreshadow the ending. Paizo could also use the opportunity to rewrite the adventure a bit to include classes from Occult Adventures and monsters from Bestiary 4.

That said, my money is also on Kingmaker being the next up.

I started gaming in the 80s. There were no internet forums or online games them. If you wanted a group, you had to rely on friends or cons or the (paper and pin) bulletin board at your local gaming store. I tried all three. I rarely had much success with the latter.

In my many years of gaming or cons, I have never had anyone hit on me or try to pick me up or anything like that. I was also never actively harassed or excluded. But neither was I wasn’t necessarily welcomed. As (usually) the only female attending game night at the local library (or wherever else it was we met back then), I was acutely aware that my presence amused some of the men and disconcerted others. Many felt they had to modify their behaviour and some (occasionally very vocally) resented it. Very rarely, the odd individual made me feel like I was intruding on Secret Men’s Business or something. Whenever something weird happened, one of the other blokes would typically say something like: “Don’t worry about [Joe], he’s just not use to being around a girl”. I know such comments were well-intended, but they highlighted my difference, my intrusion in another world. Frankly, I wasn’t much of a fighter back then, so if I was made aware that someone didn’t want me in a group, I simply removed myself rather than inconvenience them. I doubt I was the only female gamer to do this.

Even when I found a group where I fitted in with, there were typically other, more subtle issues. For example, back in those 80s and 90s games, the (very few) female NPCs were almost always beautiful damsels-in-distress, or objects of lust, or used in some kind of symbolic manner that stripped them of an individual personality (eg. the brutal assault of a beautiful NPC would be symbolic of the assault of the city etc). I was never quite sure how I should feel about such situations. My mind would run in circles...the game is objectifying women ... but the players are all fine with me ... should I say something? ... will it get really weird and uncomfortable and ruin the game if I do?... argh!

In one game system we played, the women were quite literally prizes (Pendragon, from memory). When I made a comment about it, the others just went on about it being ‘historically accurate’. Yes, like the legend of King Arthur is historically accurate </sarcasm>. But again, I didn’t really complain, because I was happy to be roleplaying (and a part of me feared I was already intruding by being female).

Fortunately, times have changed since then. Once I hit uni in the mid-90s I met lots of other female gamers, and trans gamers, and also gamers from different backgrounds of all kinds. Through various twists of fate, my longest running group (10 years+ campaign!) is exclusively female. I would like to think that these days, gender no longer plays any real part in any aspect of gaming in my broader social circle. This may be because we are all now old (in so many senses…) friends, and individual personalities transcend gender. But we are also now much more mature, more experienced, more diverse, and frankly, more socially aware. The subtle sexism of the 80s is much rarer now. Pathfinder, too, has a far more inclusive feel (as did, for example, the white wolf games in the 90s, through which many of my female friends came to gaming).

Anyway, in answer to Tormskull's question:

I have a question for women - do you want to be singled out for your gender, as in, the ad for the game says something like "Women welcome" or perhaps there's a code of conduct that says "Women will be treated with respect", or would you prefer that the prospective gender of the players is not addressed in anyway?

As much as times have changed, I might still be reluctant to put my name forward for pick-up group – if only because, as before, I would be aware that I may not be welcome, and I am not the kind of person who will force my presence on the unwilling for a mere game (work is something different entirely). I wouldn't want to be singled out by gender, but if the ad said "we welcome diversity" or "all welcome to apply" or something like I would find that pretty encouraging.

I'm running CotCT for one player. It is working fabulously.

My player has two characters - both created using Gestalt rules. He tends to play them as working for common goals, even if they are often separated. Neither of the main characters are really front line fighters, and they have mainly got by through stealth, guile and charisma, much as a rogue would. The campaign gives you the basics to create a great cast of supporting characters, including some who can help out the PCs in a fight.

The AP does take a little work in adjust to Pathfinder, and in making those adjustments I tailored it a bit to a smaller party, but the changes have been minimal to books 1 -3. The later books will probably require some more work (particularly book 5) but I anticipate it will be very worth it.

I've run Carrion Crown to completion and am partway through RoW. I love them both, for different reasons.

Carrion Crown is wonderfully atmospheric, as it's essentially a tour through gothic and horror tropes.

I loved running this campaign. I loved the numerous investigations. I think parts were genuinely creepy. The final battle was awesome. However, it is no without faults. While each individual book is great, the plot is sacrificed somewhat in the name of flavour, and the overall plot is certainly disjointed in parts.

I put quite a bit of work into CC to bring everything together and link up some of the disgarded plot threads, but the campaign was so good from a roleplaying perspective that I didn't mind putting in that extra effort. It turned out great. However, if you just want to run an AP out of the box? I dunno how well this one would work. As such, while I think CC is a good adventure path for any level of player (provided they liked gothic horror), but it really requires an experienced GM to weave a story from the chapters.

Reign of Winter, by contrast, is ready to go out of the box, and pretty near perfect as it is. It's flavoursome, creepy and fairly observing and there are some great NPs. Still, notwithstanding that RoW is comparatively easy for me to run as a GM, I don't think it is a great first choice of AP, unless your party is othewise very experienced. We have come closer to TPKs in this AP than almost any other (and never before in the first chapter or so!). It is more combat heavy than some other campaigns, tactics are important and there are environmental effects to worry about. RoW is a seriously tough campaign.

Also, it's a railroad. True, so are most APs (albeit to differening degrees), but in this case you need to have players who are prepared to follow those tracks into some seriously weird places. I warned mine in advance to "just go with it". But onl you can judge whether your party is prepared to do that, or would rather something a bit more traditional.

I got the red box at about 7 or 8 as a gift from my parents, so no issues on that front. Growing up in a very liberal part of Australia, I didn't really know anyone who was more than nominally religious, although I heard rumours that there were people in America who hated D&D because it was 'satanic' (without the internet it was hard to verify such rumours, although we took the change from devils and demons to baatezu and tanar'ri as tacit confirmation of them).

I did watch Mazes and Monsters on TV (with only two stations to choose from, I watched whatever happened to be on) but I must have been too young to really understand its message - it was more "wow, there's a movie about my game!"

The first real trouble I encountered was when, in my mid-teens, I went on exchange to a state in the Deep South of the US. I was warned that I may not fit in because I was: (a) non-religious, and indeed ignorant of religion; (b) a rabid feminist who wore only jeans and refused to wear make-up; (c) completely uninterested in team sports. Warnings on most of those fronts turned out to be ill-conceived and everyone was really welcoming and tolerant ... Until my host parent found a Dragon magazine on my bed (the one with the half-naked tiger woman on the front), and then went through my bags and found more proof of my 'demon worshipping'. she freaked out and I had to be moved to another family in another town!

I've been rpgs for two decades and have played male and female characters (although, being female, I have a preference for females).

My main group is mainly women, and we don't think twice about playing different genders - indeed, the party is about 50/50 male/female at the moment. When gaming with my husband, though, I usually only play female characters. Not only is he uncomfortable with me playing a male character, he doesn't like anyone playing against gender. I don't quite understand why, but he's the kind of person who won't even play a computer game with a female lead, as he doesn't feel he can 'relate'. He's fine with characters (and gamers!) of all sexualities though, and he is also okay with DMing different genders.

In terms of race, my characters reflect the influences on the Pathfinder game world. My Taldoran characters are Mediterranean/Byzantium-ish, and my Ulfin characters are vikings and the Chelaxians of Varisia are generically Euro-fantasy. My Aldori sword-lord is kind of Russian. I don't feel so constrained in other game systems, though. Most sci-fi games I've played I've gone for characters with Chinese or Indian names, or some kind of melting pot character that reflects what people are likely to look like in the future (I don't think 'race' will mean much 500 years anyway).

I have a dwarf with a 5 charisma. She's a feral beastmorph alchemist (so, not maximised at all) who drinks like a fish, smells like her chemicals and never obtained the social skills to get along with other dwarves - let alone humans. Most of the time she has her head in a book, but when she gets angry, she downs her mutagen and wades into battle with fangs and claw. Most people think she's a freak, and she's now so used to being disliked that she kind of revels in it. Hence, the 5 charisma is totally in character.

My GM does many of the same things the GM in the original post does. Shopkeepers charge her extra, quest givers don't trust her and she tends to get thrown out of pubs (pulling out home brew while insulting what's on tap usually doesn't got over well with the barkeep). She struggles in any social encounter and usually has to take a backseat lest she ruin the plan, which can sometimes be hard for me, as a player. But for us, the comedic and dramatic consequences of playing an unlikeable dwarf (who secretly wants to be a hero) are part of the fun.

Building a 5 charisma character, I knew I was in for some hard times, but for this character, it worked. It really comes down to an agreement of kinds between the player and the GM to play to the stats but still make it fun.

Carrion Crown is ostensibly very combat heavy, but most of the modules can be very easily modified to make a heavily rp-focused AP.

So, not the naturally heaviest RP adventure path, but easy to convert without a huge investment of time.

Re Kingmaker - I am playing a very rp heavy version of this, but the roleplaying is on a grander scale - diplomacy between nations, a big civil war to resolve, that kind of thing. The day to say stuff can be pretty sloggy and a bit 'find your own adventure'. We like it, but it's certainly not like LARPing with dice.

Interest amongst my players is mainly where a new ACG class better matches a concept than any of the existing classes.

In one of my games we have a ranger character who, early in the game, saved the wolf animal companion of a fatally injured druid. The wolf has become an essential part of this character's persona, but the ranger animal companion rules haven't really done the concept justice. We rebuilt him as a hunter using the playtest rules, and it's just prefect.

The investigator and bloodrager are also favourites, as is the Shaman. In each case it's more about the concept than the 'power' or optimisation potential.

I second Mummy's Mask. It probably needs a little tweaking, but there is nothing in it so far that would cause serious issues. It might also inspire an interest in ancient Egypt!

I agree that there is no way that Skull 'n Shackles would be suitable out of the box. But it could work with some modifications. The NPCs are certainly cool, there are some good combats and players get to be pirates! I'd try to make the plunder and slavery a bit less brutal somehow though. I wouldn't want to whitewash it entirely, but I'd try for a feel that is a bit more original Pirates of the Carribbean than how the adventure is written at the moment.

Reign of Winter has a really fairy taleish feel. It's a but Grim, a bit Doctor Who and a bit twisted. I'd say it's more for 10 year olds than 7 year olds, but if you're okay with CotCT than this would be fine.

The first two parts of Serpent's Skull are also cool. It looses track in the third book but can be salavged easily. erge the middle books, play up the evil of

So many deaths from TPKs! I kill individual players, sure, but I have to admit, if all my party members were about to die, I'd fudge something or have them captured or robbbed of all their stuff and dumped someplace nasty. My players would expect me to keep the story going somehow - they would be devastated if they had to can a whole adventure path in book 4 or 5 because of a TPK.

But to the topic at hand:

Finished? None. But we're getting there.

After over 3 years we are heading toward the end of book 3 in Kingmaker. We love the roleplaying, intrigue and political mechinations of this game, so whole sessions can be spent talking to local NPCs rather than hiking around trying to find the ominous big bad. Irronically, real time is tracking nicely alongside gametime...

I am also in the final stretch of DMing Carrion Crown, but we are having a little diversionary jaunt through a modified version of the Tomb of the Iron Medusa that I inserted in between book 5 and 6 to add a bit more story and background. We have been playing this since just after it came out. Years and years again, but there was a bit of a gap when I was preoccupied with a newborn.

Started playing SS but went on hiatus in book three. That took the least time. Less roleplaying than the others. Also,

Started DMing Skull and Shackles but my party wanted to be heroes so we moved back to my world-saving homebrew. I would love to run this one with players who would embrace their more chaotic neutral sides...

I've played the first 3.5 parts of Serpents Skull and am in the middle of the third part of Kingmaker. I'm running Carrion Crown, where we are just finishing the forth book, have run the first book of Skull and Shackles and am just preparing to start CotCT.

The groups I play with are more into roleplaying than roll-playing. We love challenging combats and big bads, but endless mook fights and the like are not our thing. Most of us try to talk our way through encounters first. With that in mind ...

The first two books of Serpents Skull were absolutely awesome, but we found it lost focus in the middle parts. At first, the story was intriguing, the NPCs were great, the setting interesting, but then all that seemed to vanish and it descended into something of a grinding slog. We've put it into hiatus for the moment, although we will probably return to it, once the GM has had time to trim it a little.

Kingmaker is fantastic, but very, very different to anything else I have played. There is a lot of roleplaying, but it’s roleplaying on a grand scale – diplomacy with other nations, inspiring the populace, preparing for war and the like. We don't do a lot of combat, but I am not sure whether that's the campaign or the way we are playing it (we have a nation so we can hire other people to do our wet work). I’ll admit that I not really into the mechanics of nation building mini game, but fortunately another member of the party is, so most of us just say vaguely what we want to do and let him take the running. However, as fun as this campaign is, in the right hands, it has the potential to be become rather directionless, so I’d only recommend it for an experienced GM and players.

I have loved every moment of running Carrion Crown. It’s got a great mix of mystery, interesting combat, great atmosphere and fun roleplaying. I’ve portrayed Ustalav as more gaslight than Medieval, so it’s a nice change of atmosphere from the usual sword & sorcery fantasy, and the setting really comes alive through the plot and the assortment of classic foes. That’s not to say there are not problems. Players are led around by the nose and, as someone above said, while each adventure is great, they don’t hang together that well and you have to do some work to pull the campaign off. Difficult or obstinate players could easily things by not doing what they are clearly meant to. However, providing you have a party that is happy to just go with it and enjoy the story, as it is clearly intended, I couldn’t recommend CC more highly.

Skull and Shackles seems really fun. My players absolutely hated the first mate within moments of meeting him and the quickly made friends and enemies ont he ship and even started talking like pirates. However, I realised pretty quickly that my players are into being heroes who save the world, so they had issues with the whole “piracy” part of this adventure. I suggest being upfront with your players about what this is about - booty, plunder, making a name for yourself and freedom, not heroics - before kicking off. I’d seriously love to run it for a different bunch of players.

CoTCT also looks fabulous - an urban adventure with lots of opportunity for roleplaying, great NPCs, a hateful villain and a setting the PCs can really grow to care about. Unfortunately, though, I can’t say much more, having not run it yet.

I've run the first four volumes of Carrion Crown for one player and it has worked very well to date. There is a lot of investigation, roleplaying and sneaking, all of which are well suited to a small party (if I was running it again I'd add to the investigation using the Gumshoe rules). My player is running two PCs, designed to compliment each other and built with a 25 point buy. I've had to modify the odd battle, but not by much. I am, however, expecting chapter 6 to be a bit more challenging to adapt.