Aroden the man and Aroden the god are, as far as I understand things, the same thing. They're both dead. The death of Aroden in all his forms (god, man, and everything in between) is a core foundation of the setting's enduring mystery and not something we're eager to or interested in explaining. The adventure "The Dead God's Hand" gives a LOT of context and historical information about Aroden, yes, but it is not the adventure where you learn how he died.
Aroden's death is one of the things that happened at the onset of the Age of Lost Omens, along with the Eye of Abendego forming, prophecy breaking, the collapse of Lung Wa, and worldwide storms. We've never revealed which of these events was the triggering event, or even if there WAS a triggering event. The hermit showing up at the Hermitage is just one more of those events that happened that year, and unlike Aroden's death, it's something that we might potentially explore in the future (in the same way we finally explored more about the Eye of Abendego's formation recently in the Godsrain novel).
All that said, it's rad hearing theories and seeing folks explore the what-ifs. I just felt like the tone here, perhaps as a result of being part of the messageboards here, needed a little expectation management about Aroden is all.
He's just a man again, living on the island known as The Hermitage.
Not much world-shaking going on there, I'm afraid.
I say leave him alone and move on.
Where/when did we learn this?
I'm curious about this too! :-P
I'm 97% sure that I wrote the entry for Mediogalti Island in the 1st Edition Inner Sea World Guide, and I deliberately left the nature of that hermit vague, but never in my headcanon was he meant to be associated with Aroden. It's certainly possible that in the 15 or so years since I wrote that entry that other books have taken the Hermitage in different directions, though. I certainly do not have a fully encyclopedic grasp of Golarion's lore these days, having shifted over to the adventure side of things several years ago...
Did you ever use the random dungeon generator in the old AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide?
I for sure did. Both to just randomly generate dungeon maps and to play out a character. I had big plans to map out a 20 level dungeon but I don't think I got further than 2nd level...
The carrion angel was not inspired by the angel of rot, but instead by the basic idea of a fallen angel but with undeath as the theme instead of fiend. It's not all that unusual an idea, undead angels (or undead demons, for that matter). They pop up now and then.
Wow, Celestials and Fiends can become undead? I wonder if other beings of the Multiverse can as well? I would love to see some Necromentals! Heh! ^^
YAY! Thanks for the kind words! Hope it plays well too of course, but I've long maintained that adventures that are fun to read get played more often than those that are not.
I was checking out the vicinity of Bastardhall on the Map of Golarion site. Here.
First, I think we can all agree that we need to Push-it-somewhere-else Patrick meme the place into the lake. Second, we look really close to the Emerald Spire! Is this just a quirk of these mappers' process, or is there a connection of some kind?
The proximity is there physically, I suppose, but the thematic connection is zero. Emerald Spire and Bastardhall are VERY different locations.
The castle itself should for sure be on the middle of Lake Laroba, though.
You've got support coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE too, Maya! In a support way. Not from a creepy stalker making the call from inside the house. Just wanted to make that last part clear. But isn't that just what a stalker would try to do?
Thanks for creating this! This is exactly the type of quality of life thing I love seeing the community come up with, since it can be tricky to orchestrate things like this from our side when we're also juggling getting the book itself ready to go (at the same time we're doing the same thing for dozens of other products at various stages of production).
I hope that the tracking sheet helps! It's something that I've wanted to start including in Adventure Paths for a long time but the logistics of creating something like this are weirdly complicated...
Even though I should really wait until I can read it, I can't help but ask: Are there downtime opportunities? I'm hoping we'll have some of those scenes in scary/high stakes stories where there's a moment of calm and beauty.
Our group just finished the Abiotic Factor PC video game (which surprisingly has a fair bit of thematic overlap, with exploration of a place you're trapped in looking for means to survive and escape, not to mention unlocking backtracks) and there were quite a few hauntingly beautiful moments in that game. Taking a moment to go fishing in an alien sea on a shadowy plane filled with fanatics hoping to kill the interlopers. Sitting next to the faded remains of a lost soul inside the Night Realm, looking at the golden trees in the distance. I almost want to see if my players would be willing to try to grow crops on the lake shore.
There are.
Spoiler:
It might be a bit counterintuitive, but there's actually no time limit on how long the PCs take to do this adventure. They have until the next time Bastardhall manifests, after all, to either escape or end the curse—that's like 85 years or something like that. PLENTY of time to do standard downtime stuff, especially as they continue to rescue Maiserine spirits and build up their powers and aid to bolster things like crafting. So... yeah. A group can for sure take their time, but I expect most will not.
There are certainly more than a few built in "gothic calm moments of beauty" in some descriptions and areas that you can lean into. In particular, for games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring and Bloodborne, which had a heavy inspiration for me (more than Castlevania, in fact; that was more Wes's inspiration in the early days creating Bastardhall years ago), there's times when you step into a new zone and just have to pause to marvel at the beauty and scope of what you're seeing. Anor Londo, I'm looking at you. Literally.
That all said, there's not really a specific set of downtime pursuits really built into the story, although there's plenty of exploration stuff, particularly when it comes to Researching the place and its cursed family.
Also I lovee the idea of the days getting shorter and the storm getting worse the further the story progresses. Incredible idea.
Thank you!
It's a fun way to bolster things that don't like sunlight but also to build a creeping sense of building doom that isn't specifically tied to a linear countdown. I also love how we were able to create the page borders for this one to show Bastardhall growing slowly darker and more stormy, so that the GM has an immediate visual cue on any chapter they're in to remind them of what stage the day's length and growing storm is at.
The carrion angel was not inspired by the angel of rot, but instead by the basic idea of a fallen angel but with undeath as the theme instead of fiend. It's not all that unusual an idea, undead angels (or undead demons, for that matter). They pop up now and then.
EDIT: ALSO thanks for the kind words! This was a really fun adventure to write, and being able to do the ENTIRE Adventure Path was a fun and rewarding challenge, especially given it's a topic I've been itching to have Wes write for ages until he left the company and that itch spread to me like ringworm. Thanks, Wes! You're the best!
Certainly not every Adventure Path is the right choice for every group, and the only way a GM can really get a legitimate grasp on if an Adventure Path IS a good choice for their group is to read the entire thing (or at least do a detailed skim of the entire thing) to size it up. That's now possible on day 1 now that we publish these as full books and not split apart over months. Whether or not Bastion of Blasphemies will be the right choice for your group, I can't say, but I can advise, since I wrote it.
Responses to the questions above:
A) Yes, read the whole thing. You don't have to memorize it, but that's the best way to find potential pain points or areas you might want to expand. You know your group better than the rest of us, after all!
B) I generally draw them out on a blank gridded map on the table, room by room, as the PCs explore. If I have a full map printed out, I might just show the whole thing at once (if it's a single encounter spread out over an area), or I might use pieces of paper or other methods to cover up places they've not yet explored and remove them as they do so... but the "drawing the rooms on a blank map as they explore" is a better solution here for me. If I run a VTT game, I take full advantage of the computer's ability to use fog of war to mask things.
NOTE: The maps in Bastion of Blasphemies are ENORMOUS. They will not fit on any currently produced blank battlemap all at once, so you'll have to do a lot of redrawing. I suggest looking at an inexpensive battle mat paper solution if you want to keep and reuse the maps if you don't want to do a lot of drawing and erasing and redrawing (and if you don't have stacks and stacks of blank flip mats and battle mats to rely upon).
C) See A above—read the thing through once as you would a book. Don't get too bogged down with the details, or studying stats, or coming up with potential custom tactics or expansions. Read the whole thing to get the vibe. Keep notes as you read—in the text itself in the margins can help, or using post-its or the like to make notes attached to the pages can also help. Then, when you run the game, prepare by re-reading the sections most likely for the PCs to explore during that session. Knowing more about the adventure as a whole really REALLY helps when the players inevitably do something unexpected, and knowing the whole story helps you to improvise in ways that support the story rather than do a butteffly-effect cascade of plot clashes.
D) You don't HAVE to know anything about them, really. Bastion of Blasphemies is meant to be self-contained and self-explanitory for players to enjoy without playing those games first. Knowledge of them can enhance the enjoyment for players who get a kick out of callouts and easter eggs, but as long as your group's comfortable with the adventure's horrific themes (we put content warnings out there for this very reason!), take the Player's Guide advice to heart in building characters that won't clash against the story, and are interested in a 9 to 10 level experience set ENTIRELY within a single sprawling castle, then that should be a great start!
I was sort of hoping we'd get a little guidance on the "Five Curses of Ustalav" mentioned in War of Immortals here, seems like a relevant option when playing locals.
Now, some are relatively obvious -- the Creature from the Black Lagoon reference could be played as an Athamaru or Azarketi, aquatic options for which guidance is provided. Fleshwarp for the stitched-together monster, and appropriate archetypes for Werecreature and Vampire, guidance again provided for the latter. But I'm not sure where to go with "a still-living spirit" which may be a reference to The Invisible Man?
In the interest of managing expectations, the story of "Bastion of Blasphemies," while having a lot of curse-themed stuff going on, has no connection to "War of Immortals" and the Five Curses of Ustalav, nor does it assume the PCs are mythic characters.
Is it weird that reading the Content Warning makes me want to play this AP even more?
Not weird to me! While content warnings for entertainment are for sure important for folks who want to avoid triggering or unpleasant to them topics, they also serve as a teaser to entice. I know I can't be the only one who glances at IMDB's "Parental warnings" section for a movie for similar reasons! :-P
what is the most memorable moment from the last RPG session you took part in?
The party getting attacked in a shipwreck by a crawling shark and a pair of crawling smaller fish and the guardian getting nearly killed while a bunch of racist Chelish puppets jeered them from the shore.
Yup; when we present an elite or weak monster, we cite the page numbers for those adjustments (pages 6 or 7, depending) and then the monster page itself. It might be better to reverse those directions (monster page first, elite/weak page second); something I've been considering, since folks have been stumbling over this and looking for the sixth or seventh monster book since we first decided to put those rules in the front of the book back at the start of 2nd edition.
The fact that the page number references aren't italicized is meant to indicate that they're not a part of the book title, of course, but noticing a 6 or a 7 is italicized isn't always apparent, obviously.
Gotcha
Maybe have a system for Monster Core reference at the front of AP books.
Maybe have p85 Pathfinder Monster Core [p6], with explanation at the start.
But now I know, I'm cool . Loving the new shiny hardback format!
Hope you manage to get your books back from Diamond & get the legal rights back to do a new distribution deal to the UK.
At this point, with the Monster Books already in print, it's not really something we can change, alas. Whenever the next refresh to the books comes along, that's the best point, but that's not happening anytime soon either. I'm kinda at the point of "for most folks it's maybe not an issue, and changing things now could confuse people more, and maybe the majority of folks for whom it's not an issue just don't realize it's a potential issue and aren't talking about it?"
Yup; when we present an elite or weak monster, we cite the page numbers for those adjustments (pages 6 or 7, depending) and then the monster page itself. It might be better to reverse those directions (monster page first, elite/weak page second); something I've been considering, since folks have been stumbling over this and looking for the sixth or seventh monster book since we first decided to put those rules in the front of the book back at the start of 2nd edition.
The fact that the page number references aren't italicized is meant to indicate that they're not a part of the book title, of course, but noticing a 6 or a 7 is italicized isn't always apparent, obviously.
Since I seem to be having trouble sleeping (I'm old, it happens) here's one: how do you handle the passage of time in your campaigns? Do you track it (with a calendar, for example)? How do you handle downtime?
Harnworld's (the setting's) maps are amazing -- and they're still making them! :-)
Depends entirely on the nature of the campaign. In the one I'm currently running, the PCs are stranded on a remote island and they're having to track supplies and food and stuff, plus also the phases of the moon and certain events behind the scene are on a timer, and it's leaning deep into downtime events as they work to build shelters and explore and all that, so that one very much does track the passage of days. The last one I ran was less survival-themed and more classic (small town surrounded and filled with all sorts of adventures with sandbox elements), but even then I kept a calendar.
So, yeah, I suppose I do keep a calendar.
For downtime, I try to have a wide range of options beyond the norm for the players to pick and choose from. The downtime elements of Season of Ghosts are a good example of how I've long presented downtime stuff in my games (although actually written out and organized better since that was a for-print publication). And then I go around the table and ask each player to make their rolls and try to resolve the day's downtime events quickly, so that we can move on to whatever's next, especially if I know that one of those downtime checks could result in triggering an encounter. A day of downtime rarely takes longer than 5 minutes as a result.
One of my adventure design philosophies, which carries over to developing adventures I didn't write as well, is to place about 150% to 200% of the expected for the level treasure. This not only allows for there to be significant and surprising treasure wins during the adventures that actually FEEL like exciting treasure discoveries, but also accounts for the fact that not every bit of treasure will be found, and that of that treasure found, a subset will be lost, sold, given away, or just ignored because it's not useful for anyone in the party. By doubling the amount the GM Core suggests for a party, we can do things like hide stashes of treasure away in corners that might get overlooked, but for parties that do significantly engage with the content and spend a lot of time enjoying the journey and exploring every nook and cranny rather than boss rushing the end of each chapter, they get rewarded.
As for larger groups, we do assume 4 players in a group for our published adventures, which also impacts the physical design of the dungeons and environments. Once you get six in a group and assuming your players aren't interested in a "hard" mode or eager to face the tactics of space constraints (remember, that goes both ways and can be an advantage), the simplest solution is to double the grid size to one square = 10 feet. This does make all of the room decor double in size (suddenly all the beds are 12 feet long or longer!), but if your group's okay with that break in verisimilitude in order to have more room to move around, it's a good solution.
On reading, there's a couple of series by John Ringo you might enjoy: Black Tide Rising is a zombie apocalypse series, a dozen volumes or so now; Special Circumstances is hard to describe. There are demons, and Old Ones, and a soccer mom. :-) Two books: Princess of Wands and Queen of Wands.
On games, have you ever looked at Harnmaster? It's quite different from the D20 games. You can find the latest version of the rules, Harnmaster Kethira (Kethira is the name of the setting's planet) at kelestia.com There's a huge amount of fanon at lythia.com, some of it very good. You might enjoy "Dark Rethem". The capital of Rethem is Golotha, of which it is said "in Golotha, the only way to survive the danger is to be the danger". :-)
I've got two bookshelves of "books on deck to read" that I need to get to, and I am morally compelled to read the "serious horror" first, so it'll be a while before I'm looking for soccer mom Old One demons. But thanks for the heads up anyway! :-)
I've often admired the old maps for Harnmaster back in the day, but never really looked into the game.
ALSO: Fun to be back answering questions! Keep 'em coming!
If you cast (True)Resurrection on leather armor, does the person wearing it get locked in a cow?
Not if the leather's made out of a different animal than a cow. And not if Pharasma's judged the cow's soul. And not if you make a Reflex save against the spell's DC to avoid becoming Cronenberged into one of the cow's several stomachs.
I saw that question posted on another gaming forum I visit as a joke. Thanks for the humorous answer. :)
That's the exact type of goofy rules question I don't mind answering. Normally I do avoid answering rules questions because I'm a firm believer in "Your GM has the right answer," and since this is the anonymous internet, I've kinda been (unfortunately) trained to expect anyone who asks for a rules clarification to be someone fishing for fuel to weaponize against their GM.
So yes... please continue with the joke questions! They're fun!
If you cast (True)Resurrection on leather armor, does the person wearing it get locked in a cow?
Not if the leather's made out of a different animal than a cow. And not if Pharasma's judged the cow's soul. And not if you make a Reflex save against the spell's DC to avoid becoming Cronenberged into one of the cow's several stomachs.
The first Golarion-based campaign I played in, I played a follower of Groetus and he's always been a favorite of mine. Where did the idea for that deity come from, if you remember?
He's one of the original deities from my homebrew. I wanted a god of the end of the world, and was inspired by the countless spooky illustrations around the world that presented the face in the moon as a leering skull, so the idea that the god of the end of this world is literally floating JUST ABOVE THE WORLD and watching and waiting really appealed to me.
It's a planet so yes it does, but we don't really track those since that's a level of detail that kinda gets in the way of the majority of stories, especially since instant communication and instant travel is not something most folks on the planet have access to.
If it's an issue in your game, this is one of many reasons why we deliberately made Golarion the same as Earth when it comes to this sort of thing, so you can map Earth timezones onto Golarion as needed.
We couldn't include every prior bit from previous Runelords adventures, especially in a half-length Adventure path (as compared to the previous six part ones), so unfortunately the Everdawn Pool is one thing that got left out.
Sorshen moved it before, so it's fine for her to have moved it again somewhere more hidden and secure. There is no official answer yet as to where it is now.
I asked Google A.I. and was devastatingly disappointed with the non-answer. I have faith that *The* James Jacobs can do better (or at least share it around the folk and encourage someone else to answer profoundly)!
Ray asked, and the Internet wrote:
Elves, Pixies, Sprites and such are often categorized under the umbrella words "faerie" or "fey"; what would be the similar umbrella word for Dwarves, Gnomes, Hobbits, and other more 'earthy' creatures?
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I have in my mind's eye that historic moment in the offices of Dungeon & Dragon Magazines when a writer/designer asked *The* Wolfgang Baur what German word for 'part-demon-offspring' would be and was answered, "Tiefling"!
This could be your Wolf Baur moment!
As always, super THANKS for any consideration!
In Pathfinder, gnomes are fey, so I wouldn't make up an umbrella word for them categorized with dwarves and halflings/hobbits, because gnomes being fey is part of my own preference that predates Pathfindder by a few decades.
Likewise elves being lumped under fey is offputting to me, for simliar reasons (elves have been aliens to me since the late 80s in my homebrew, an inspiration/hommage from "Elfquest").
So... I don't think that a word that groups dwarves, gnomes, and the like into a single word is needed or useful, personally. If I were building a new setting from scratch that made sense to give them all an umbrella term, I'd try to do one for all of the ancestry groups, but the parallel to "tiefling" is not quite accurate here, I feel, since "fiend-infected person" is a much different thing.
So why did Paizo remove half the Osirioni Pantheon and the Hag pantheon from the setting?
Does this mean there won’t be ancient oairioni pantheon cintent going forward?
I'm honestly not sure—that's a better question for the Rules & Lore team, but I believe the answer is mostly because there was a greater interest in going in other directions for those pantheons than what we'd been doing in 1st edition.
We've been publishing content for Golarion for decades, and now and then we want to refresh things or take things in different directions for all sorts of reasons, but again, those changes happened largely outside of my current focus on the Adventures side of the fence.
Back in the OGL days, I liked to think of the three as different takes on lawful evil (hobgoblins), bugbears (neutral evil) and goblins (chaotic evil).
Well, I personally would rather make bugbears chaotic-evil, instead of goblins. Goblins at least can live together in tribes and exist as part of society. Bugbears just ex-crazy maniacs.
All good!
To me, the mayhem antics of goblins we delved into ever since Pathifnder's first Adventure Path fits chaos much better than neutrality, and the bugbear's devotion to "Do evil by any means necessary and enjoy it" feels more like they are just focused on evil without any additional distraction or preference toward chaos or law and could go either way. It also leans into the fact that our goblins worship demon lords, generally, and bugbears are more about themes about hunting and death that are more associated with Abaddon.
Being chaotic does not mean you can't live in societies, in any case.
All of which were indeed Pathfinder-specific deliberate choices made by me early on as part of the "let's put our own Paizo spin on these three to help separate them from the classic D&D roles they've played."
And somewhere near bagbears, but they are murderhobos.
Yeah, I'm not sure bugbears should have a nation, since they're basically serial killers and are best, thematically, when used as loners. This also helps to keep the three goblin types thematically separate as well.
Back in the OGL days, I liked to think of the three as different takes on lawful evil (hobgoblins), bugbears (neutral evil) and goblins (chaotic evil).
Thanks for answer. Well, sad to know it's just coincedence. It could be some connection to early Tar-Baphon life, maybe contacts with Janderhoff or Kraggodan dwarves, since they relatively close.
Also... still wondering how there is like 20 years of PF as setting, but we still doens't know almost nothing about Janderhoff, when it's one of five most important varisian cities and one of surviving Skycitadels
The simple answer for Janderhoff is that we can't do everything, and we create more content than we could possibly ever detail.
That said...
Spoiler:
When we first started working on Rise of the Runelords a few years before the Pathfinder RPG game came out, we didn't really have a setting yet. While Erik and Jason and a few others started work on the first Gazetteer of the campaign setting, I had to build Varisia up from scratch to give the first three Adventure Paths a setting to live in. The transport of Varisia into the rest of the setting happened later once the Gazetteer book was being finalized.
In that time, I had pretty much no time to do much world creation stuff, so I used a LOT of my homebrew content to save time (including a lot of deities). Some of that stuff came over from my homebrew intact, such as Treerazer. Some came through with some adjustments, like with Karzoug and Magnimar and Korvosa and Alaznist. Some came through just in name only—that's where Janderhoff came from.
Varisia, at that point early in the game, could have ended up the ONLY thing we did for the setting if Pathfinder's Adventure Path didn't take off, so I approached it with the idea that "everything has to be in there for the core game experience." That meant that there needed to be a "homeland" for the core ancestries, and the word "Janderhoff" sounded dwarfy to me at the time so I pulled it out of my homebrew and plopped it in there.
Since Varisia and the rest of the world were developed largely in parallel, this ended up with Janderhoff taking it's time to be officially recognized as one of the Sky Citadels, by the way.
In any case, in my homebrew, Janderhoff was the largest state in a nation called Aratut, and was a pretty diverse place with elves, halflings, giants, and humans living together in semi-harmony as a result of the nation having a lot of militia training to help protect them from the goblins that lived in adjoining Lurkwood. So... not a lot of dwarf stuff there either.
As far as I know, "Tar" is neither a reference to the English word for the stuff in the pits at La Brea, CA, nor a reference to the dwarven word. In fact, the name and character were made up years before Pathfinder was even a thing, as one of the antagonists for our non-D&D generic OGL "Compleate Encounters" back when we were doing the D&D magazines.
Taking the second part first, the fact that you're fighting Xanderghul at some point IS a spoiler, but it's not one that I felt would ruin things too much and would be more of a tantilizing preview that makes the spoiler element of it worth the (in my opinion minor) revelation about the fact that Xanderghul is a foe you fight. Especially by this point in the Adventure Path, when him being the main bad guy should pretty much be obvious.
As for the first part, keep in mind that you can apply this bonus to non-PCs such as summoned creatures, animal companions, NPC allies, and the like who might not have an item bonus (and depending on the table, some PCs might not either in some situations... such as being ambushed from rest when you're not wearing your armor, or if you're using an unusual weapon, etc.). That said, for a once-per-day mythic power, it probably would be fine to have this be a +4 status bonus instead, so that it's a bit more applicable to play for PCs.
I did see Sinners. It's now in my extensive backlog of physical media movies to watch too. One of the best movies of the year. MAYBE the best movie of 2025.
Just saw the trailer for Hope yesterday, and it being by the director of "The Wailing" has me perhaps even more excited to see it than the trailer itself, which does a pretty great job at the excitement on its own.
With that development, I guess it's safe to assume the Council of Thieves joins the Lantern Bearers as an 1e Adventurer's Guide organization whose story thread isn't getting picked back up in 2e and is essentially defunct. :(
Not every Adventure Path gets a sequel, alas. In fact, MOST of them don't. In cases like this, we generally assume that things have resolved and there's not much more story to tell. Even when we do new adventures set in the same region.
Different Council of Thieves—not the 2010 Adventure Path, or the organization that it was named after, or its PCs or NPCs (I'm assuming Arael, Janiven, &co. got killed in 2015), but the different organization of the same name from the 2017 Adventurer's Guide.
Ah, fair enough. Feel free to have that Council of Thieves carry on in your game if you want, of course, but I guess we're not doing much with them as a faction going forward at this point. We might some day, but not currently.
With that development, I guess it's safe to assume the Council of Thieves joins the Lantern Bearers as an 1e Adventurer's Guide organization whose story thread isn't getting picked back up in 2e and is essentially defunct. :(
Not every Adventure Path gets a sequel, alas. In fact, MOST of them don't. In cases like this, we generally assume that things have resolved and there's not much more story to tell. Even when we do new adventures set in the same region.
I'm a nut for published adventures, what can I say.
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When you do get to play 'Call of Cthulhu' as DM -- do you enjoy using published adventures (key word "enjoy" rather than because it takes too much time to design them yourself), or do you always make your own? If you do use (or partially use) published adventures,....
What are some of your favorites? For example, the adventure 'Beyond the Mountains of Madness' (which is based on one of your aforementioned favorite Lovecraft works), or 'Masks of Nyarlathotep,' 'Alone Against the Static,' 'Horror on the Orient Express,' 'Dead Light,' 'The Haunting,' 'Sacraments of Evil,' 'Tatters of the King,' 'Shadows of Yog Sothoth' -- etcetera.
Comparatively, how much do you enjoy playing a PC rather than the Keeper? Like, on a scale of 1 to 10, each as PC and as Keeper?
For Paizocons past, I always ran adventures I wrote myself. But for home games I prefer to run published ones. I'm usually the Keeper—I don't get to play much as an Investigator. On a scale of 1 to 10, my preferenes are Keeper 10 and Investigator 7, I guess?
As for my favorites, the top 5 published adventures I've run that come to mind are:
Devil's Canyon (from Shadows of Yog Sothoth)
Beyond the Mountains of Madness
The Cracked and Crooked Manse (from Mansions of Madness)
At Your Door
Masks of Nyarlahtotep (even though I've started this one several times, I never finished it, alas)
I'd suggest Rusthenge. It's in fact inspired by "Against the Cult of the Reptile God" (although the actual adventure's pretty different in theme and setup and encounters, of course).
Working full time in the industry as a Design-Manager, how many game sessions (per week) do you get to play in (and how many different campaigns do you juggle per week) that are not specifically work related -- or, what is the degree of separation between play-testing an upcoming publication "for work" as opposed to just playing something with no Spoilers / *No* responsibilites for the company?
(and my *real* interest: If you DO get to play an occassional game that has nothing to do with publishing/management oversight -- do you enjoy it more if, say, an NPC from The Free City of Greyhawk Plane Shifts into Absalom / or the PC group of Pathfinders finds a Gate to Waterdeep underneath Kaer Maga -- that kind of stuff. Maybe even Call of Cthulhu PCs from 1934 getting Plane Shifted to Magnimar or something?)
Assuming no cancellations, it averages out to about 1.5 sessions a week. I'm in a regular Sunday game (homebrew 1st edition Pathfinder) and a once-every-other-week Thursday evening game (2nd edition Pathfinder). I play in the 1E game, and I run the 2E game. Neither are playtests, although the 2E campaign I'm running could theoretically turn into an adventure or Adventure Path (as was the case for Seven Dooms for Sandpoint, Rusthenge, and Malevolence more recently).
Playtests are very much "work" and not play. They can certainly be fun, but they're not relaxing.
I don't get to play NEARLY as much Call of Cthulhu as I want. I need to address that empty spot in my world.
And I generally prefer world content to not shift between worlds if said content is a key element. I'm okay with putting beholders and mind flayers or chthonians or xenomorphs into my home games if the inclusion makes sense to me, but Mordenkainen showing up in Golarion or Henry Armitage showing up in the Forgotten Realms is a flavor I don't enjoy.
One thought: How feasible would it be to put art of spiders (and other common phobias) on a different PDF layer than other art?
I'd say not feasible. Not every artist works the same way, and some of our artists don't use digital to create their art anyway. It also adds another step to the already complex process of layout (I am not on the art team so I'm not comfortable saying "it's easy to do" so I assume it's hard to do).
Since the art in an adventure is meant more to inspire the GM than it is to serve as handouts for the PCs...
I'm surprised. Playing on Foundry, our GM flashes AP art on the screen all the time. Now I know, 'different companies,' but I always assumed Paizo was putting out book art on monsters so that yes, absolutely, players who wanted to see what the monsters looked like could do so. Regarding phobias etc, I agree that nobody needs to see it if they have a reason not to - i.e., the visual art isn't critical for play - but for sure, IMO art in an adventure does typically get handed out to the players. I would recommend Paizo take that into account. Not to shut down creativity or get less gruesome, but as a justification for hiring good artists and making great imagery that makes players go 'wow, that's cool.' IOW it's not just being seen by the GM, it's being seen and used by a much wider part of the community. Which is good, and means it has more value and impact.
That's covered by my comment that we rely on the GM to be able to help curate what is and isn't appropriate to show to the group. We'll provide the art, but if not all of it is appropriate for a group, a GM can just not show that art and/or provide alternate art as needed—a home game has a lot more lattitude there.
That being said, if Paizo is still looking for solutions, they could always start categorizing adventures by phobias (assuming they're not already.)
For example, you could have a big spreadsheet that shows that AP XYZ has arachnophobia and thalassophobia, while AP ABC has coulrophobia and claustrophobia, etc. You organize that list by date, and see if there's a common thread in recent adventures that might be keeping certain -phobes from having a playable adventure, and make an adventure that caters to that underserved group (obviously excluding the socially-unacceptable -phobes.)
We'll continue to add content warnings and suggestions like this going forward, but "categorizing adventures by phobias" is a really complicated ask, considering just how many phobias there are to contend with. Currently, for the more "common" ones (such as arachnophobia) we try to address them, but when it comes to art—well... we also need to pick and choose things that'll make for dynamic and compelling subjects, and often that means we illustrate scary stuff. Since the art in an adventure is meant more to inspire the GM than it is to serve as handouts for the PCs, that means that we essentially are leaning on the GM of each game to help us out in the task of adjusting and curating content specifically to their table. The GM knows their players' phobies better than we do, after all.
That said, a community-driven spreadsheet like this for GMs who are concerned about which products have what triggers is a pretty interesting idea. Not one we have the time or resources to create and maintain, alas, but something like the webiste "Does the Dog Die?" for movies but for RPGs?
I'm currently preparing for the Chapter 1 final encounter with Baolen and I'm struggling to understand the suggested way on running the encounter. "Baolen attacks the PCs as soon as they enter the hall, using his first turn to engage the party and fill the chamber with his Ink Cloud."
The Kraken's Ink Cloud reads to me as a method of escape. A fight inside of an Ink Cloud sounds like a terrible game of battleship with a near full minute of no one being able to do anything? "The kraken releases a cloud of black, venomous ink in an 80- foot emanation. This cloud has no effect outside water. Creatures inside the ink cloud are exposed to kraken ink poison and are *undetected* while inside the cloud. The kraken can't use Ink Cloud again for 2d6 rounds, and the cloud dissipates after 1 minute."
Undetected??? The Kraken can't detect the PCs, the PCs can't detect the Kraken, and PCs can't detect the PCs.
Are there any suggestions on how to run this or how to homebrew the ability to not be as bad of a combat experience? I'm thinking of per turn saving throws or be blinded/dazzled, in addition to an environmental effect where you can only see adjacent tiles.
Yeah, this is a bit wonky in retrospect, in part because as-written it messes with the kraken as well. I would suggest one of the following:
Spoiler:
HARD MODE: Give Baolen wavesense (precise) 60 feet so that he can navigate in the cloud with ease while the high-level PCs have to deal with the ink.
STANDARD MODE: Change Baolen's ink so it functions more like super-dense fog. Creatures further than 30 feet are undetected, while creatures at shorter range are merely concealed.
EASY MODE: Remove the visual obsctruction element of the ink cloud entirely; let both PCs and kraken see through it with ease, but the PCs still need to deal with the poison side of things.
Creative Director
