Jim Landon's page

Jim where in NH are you so I can try to point you to a store running a PACG.

Manchester area.

Since Myriad went belly up I'm unaware of any public games in the state where this is getting played...is there still interest? Are there people in NH looking to play this game?

Can we get voodoo dolls to go along with the other playtest paraphernalia?

Even at 6 players this game can take a while to make it around the table. I get not wanting to split up the group, but the game experience would likely be better with tables of 3 and 4.

I constantly have to remind them - every single turn, every single round - that their location has some postive/negative effect that they need to attend to. Even experienced players do this semi-regularly, which is nuts.

I flat pick up the locations and read them to determine where I should go. If I'm at a location and no one else is, I'll typically move it right in front of me. I don't really see how the game could be playable without doing things like that.

The idea behind a 4-6 is that roles hav already been chosen and your adventurer already had a decent deck at that time.

Mythic path kicks in at AD2 so I don't think that's going to work as a universal adventure. You'd really have to start with just what comes in the base sets and that assumes that the characters in S&S aren't too quirky to be portable.

But doing things that way still saves buying hundreds of cards!

You want something modular that works with any AP, and I'm telling you that the fact alone that WotR can continue the other APs implies that any modular continuation for RotR, SnS and MM will automatically not work on WotR in terms of difficulty.
Besides, I doubt such a modular approach can work just because every set...

For what he's talking about yeah...

But WotR shouldn't be an issue if you just use the base box. That way things are pre-over powered mythic path.

What I'd worry about with trying to do a module that works with any pre-existing game is that the characters in skulls and shackles might be too weird.

No, not talking the main game line, the conversation was about OP.

1. I'd like to see the organised play 'season of ...' made into a proper product. Paying two companies for a complete product is less than ideal. I don't think this is unreasonable, the OP model is established and we already have 20 class decks, with more on the way.

I recently tried lobbying for this and was told that sales would need to be ten times what they are to justify it.

I would love a Bestiary Pawn package of Gargantuan and Colossal creatures.

Me too, I have enough plastic that I don't use these. But once we start talking $50+ mini's that let's face it don't come out very often they make a huge amount of sense.

Since you are already suspending disbelief on the fact that a 5-foot step of a goblin is the same as a 5-foot step of a titan, you might as well mind eye theatre the whole thing, since minutiae of who stands where don't quite matter in such fights as much ...

Blasphemy! That's blasphemy against mathfinder!

The only problem is I would like to have a token card for each of the characters so I am not using: pennies, buttons, and the like to denote who is where.

You could always use mini's.

That's an interesting article but I won't be switching out my dice anytime soon as I've used Chessex dice for a long time, without any perceivable problems or issues.

I watch people catch on to their dice's issues all the time and disbelieve wht they're seeing, chocking it up to superstition. If you ever feel like checking if your dice are balanced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI3N4Qg-JZM

The Bard deck (which is, admittedly, pretty bad) is helped quite a bit by the Loot available for substitution in the Mummy's Mask set. I don't think I'd want to try her in Season of the Righteous, though, and definitely not as a second Bard in the same group. :(

I'd like to recommend the mound of dead bards miniature https://imgur.com/qxgLQf1

I think the best thing I get out of it as a player and set owner is a second Adventure Path for each set.

That's it right there!

However, chalk me up for some better designed box-space, ideally - that would accommodate the whole AP in sleeved format.

I consider the boxes well designed, certainly better then any of the other games I have. And I'm also one of the those who reuse the deck boxes.

They are all Chessex Opaque sets (easy to read, good quality).

Chessex aren't exactly good quality dice, the only modern dice I'm familir with that are less accurate are Crystal Caste. http://www.1000d4.com/2013/02/14/how-true-are-your-d20s/

I am moderately curious how many of you folks store dice in the base set box, and how many you store.

I use a dice bag, it holds 4 sets, I use for RPG's. It doesn't go in the box.

That said, I'd encourage you to consider playing the OP scenarios with normal box rules (and whatever your group's accepted practice is for death). It doesn't sound like you're getting the OP benefits (ability to travel to any store, play at conventions, play at a variety of times and locations and still get back together and keep playing in a reasonable fashion), so you should maximize fun over frustration there.

What he said! Axoq, when I recommended the seasons to you it wasn't about recommending OP, it was about more than doubling the amount of content for a game that you're clearly into.

P.S. Have fun with season of the goblins and I hope you'll let me know how it went after. I've been considering it for when I'm done season of the runelords.

I think that the difference between a modular base set and an AP-based base set that takes place in the same region would be that the modular base sets would be far more generic and would provide gaming opportunities that aren't tied to the existing AP. Villains, henchmen, and allies would be more generic - most likely not even named but simply titled (e.g., we wouldn't see Shalelu Andosana, but we might see a Ranger). In fact, I think that such modular base sets would deliberately steer away from characters and events that appear in established APs, simply providing sandbox type adventures. Adventures 2 and higher might provide unique stand alone adventures that take place in/near the regions, but they aren't necessarily part of a larger storyline.

Ok, to answer how this modular base set would differ from RotR you've said generic a couple times. But RotR is already quite generic. I mean unnamed allies and the equipment to support the core classes, how could that get more generic?

Your point seems to be based around adding generic villians and henchmen. But wouldn't that be part of AP1 anyway? And doesn't it make more sense to release a new AP1 with these new AP's rather than having people replay generic base set scenarios over and over before they can get anywhere new?

I love the idea of modularizing the game! The idea of having a base set that contains the generic cards found in any AP is really intriguing to me, because it allows people to make 1 big purchase that they know can be expanded though smaller add-on deck purchases for years to come.

Multiple people have been talking about a generic base set, I'm trying to figure out what that would look like, which characters it would have and how the final product would look different from Rise of the Runelords?

I'd love to have a base set that offers generic B-6 cards...

I'd sort of like that too, I don't know how much overlap there is by 6 and I certainly wouldn't want there to be that much, any treasure that I collect that high up I'd like to be all special and shiny new.

But there's certainly a lot of overlap down low. My thing is that we sort of already have a lot of fairly generic cards we can end up buying numerous times. I mean I was just looked through a class deck and I counted 35 boon cards before I got to level 1, many of which I recognize from my base set. it's almost like I could get the boons for a basic or 1 scenario for the two of us and my girlfriend probably wouldn't even notice unless she payed attention to the upper left hand corner.

And that's just a class deck, now how about the overlap in base sets... What I'm wondering is if it would be possible to run an AP not with a new generic base set but off ANY of the base sets.

Furthermore Vic's talking about wanting a mid size product and a workaround to the Afghanistan rule has also gotten me thinking about breaking up the AP differently. Could there be something like a low tier module that would plug right into their existing products and go through one of the classic modules? And being a single box instead of multiple decks would let Mike use cards from deck 1 again in deck 2 and so forth.

...and a booklet of full-page scenarios in adventure card guild style. Whether that could be kept to a reasonable price I don't know.

Oh I would love that so much and even if they feel hemmed in to do nothing but cards on the AP seems like they could include a url to at least optional flavor text so that the games could continue being played as is, wouldn't screw things up for someone in Iraqistan who might not always have internet and would give the rest of us an intro and epilogue.

It works in Fantasy flight lcg games. You buy separate products that you use to make adventures.

I'm not familiar with these but it sounds like they're playable right out of the core box, yes? Which I think is his point, that they need a core product that's playable right out of the box.

"While the LCG Core Sets provide a fantastic stand-alone game experience, those that wish to can expand even further!" https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/more/living-card-games/

My initial thoughts are:

I'm in favor of including more story. The adventure paths are rich in story, but we diehard players have looked to Autoduelist & friends to supply story for the card game.

I'd love that, having a plot and especially an epilogue adds a lot to the game.

I'm concerning about what would be necessary to reduce the price. The game is $180 for a complete set if you pay full price (but, most people don't; you can find it for $150 or less). That is a lot of money. But reducing this would have to mean fewer cards, in my mind. I'd really regret that.

I don't think fewer cards would be a bad thing. For instance how many blessings of the gods do you own? Do you really feel the need to buy more of those? Seems like there ought to be a more efficient way to do things so that I buy the same cards fewer times.

"So we'd like to change the product mix and presentation of the game. We're asking ourselves a lot of questions. Do you really need a new Cure card every time we start a new storyline?"

Well if you want to significantly reduce the price of a base box and it sounds like you do, is there any reason to sell basic weapons, armor, spells, items and blessings (I mean how many blessings of the gods do I really need to own...) with every base box?

Seems like you could make a substantial dent in base box price by taking that stuff out of the base box and selling an adventurers equipment box and/or letting people re-use basic equipment from previous boxes.

Our group started from Organized Play, so we've also played Season of the Shackles and Season of the Righteous, and after seeing Adventure 6 of the latter and dealing with some of the rules, we, um, stopped doing OP.

As someone living in a state that had exactly one store doing organized play and now none and who doesn't go to conventions, I've got to say that it's never made any sense to me. Organized play didn't really seem to make sense to the store either as they'd stopped bothering to record anything before I even started going.

Adventure decks: each one tuned to a current box set. Comes with a new Path card/6 Adventure cards/30 or so Scenario cards. And the new Monster/Barriers/Loot/Henchmen/ and Villians needed to make it go.

Just in case anybody doesn't know Paizo makes an additional adventure path for each box set, but sells the cards for them through drivethru: http://www.drivethrucards.com/product/206430/Pathfinder-Adventure-Card-Guil d-Season-of-the-Runelords-Complete-Set?src=hottest_filtered

I'd wondered about paizo turning these into a store product last fall and was told they'd have to sell something like 10 times the number they are to justify doing that.

That almost sounds like there could be something else inbetween class decks and base sets?

I'd love to see a character creation guide but that's probably just me.

Other than that I'm more interested in new monsters (I liked the bestiary deck idea) and new adventures (bonekeep mini adventure path anybody?).

There's someone at the table who has now played RotR, S&S and WotR, so I either need to get creative, or some people need to be happy with running over the same ground.

One idea I've had is to take Rise of the Runelords and jazz it up somehow.

You could play the seasons. The season decks for season of the runelords, seasons of the righteous and season of the goblins recently went up at drivethrucards (and they are very well done).

Could be exactly the sort of thing you're looking for to change things up, new cards, quirky mechanics and a bunch of text! In particular I feel like having epilogue text instead of just cleaning up adds a lot to the game.

So I finally have my seasons cards and I'd been a little worried about how well drivethrucards would manage to match paizo's cards and the answer is perfectly.

https://boardgamegeek.com/image/3577247/bucho22?size=medium

The left and middle cards are from the game and the right is from drivethru. I know they maybe don't look exact in the picture but that's from the camera flash reflecting on their different angles. In reality their so well done that putting the cards away I mixed them up by accident.

Thanks for putting them up Paizo!

I've bought brand new dice, and let a friend roll them first. They roll average or just above over several rolls. I pick them up and am licky to see average.

That doesn't mean it isn't the dice. The way some people role it doesn't seem to make too much difference, but whatever quirk of how I role reliably finds any irregularity in the dice which is why I'm aware of the issue. What brand of dice did you get?

At the end of Runelords, I avoided the location that cancelled all 1s and 2s rolled. That would have been over half my dice usually.

You may want to replace your dice, sounds like they are terribly uneven. http://www.1000d4.com/2013/02/14/how-true-are-your-d20s/

And yet, you rarely see dragons wandering down Main Street with a giant sack full of gold and rare objects looking to buy.

That's because they know polymorph self.

Also, "rarely" sounds like short lived species thinking.

What's in it for them?

Money can be exchanged for goods and services: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgct3Jn8pFA

Now available!

WOOT!

Thank you!

It only took one 4-player game with three Demonic Hordes showing up to talk our group out of ever doing that again.

Oh that was the worst!

The Principle may seem restrictive, but often it gives us options we wouldn't otherwise have.

It only seems restrictive to me because you bring it up and have mentioned how you needed to be talked out of it for PACG. If you hadn't said anything I'd have remained completely ignorant on the subject.

Thank you guys for talking to us by the way, it is appreciated.

For your own personal use only, yes.

Wow, awesome. Thanks for letting me know.

I'm definitely seeing the advantage for a lot of games though I must say the pathfinder card game doesn't seem like one of them.

Playing Descent Delve recently made me aware of the usefulness of this concept (or at least a similar-ish one).

For those unfamiliar, normally Descent requires the core box and then to play an expansion campaign it also requires that expansion box. Carrying two game boxes...pretty mellow.

Well the delve's a different story, there's an app which much like PACG it's about mixing up what we've already got, to quote the promotional material:

"Collect loot and gain skills as you advance through a collection of randomly selected stages. As you expand your Descent 2nd Edition collection, you unlock new maps, monsters, and boss fights—untold combinations of heroes, classes, monsters, stages, and loot await."

It's awesome, a bunch of people were begging for it....But the moment I started playing it I noticed a downside.

When playing this I'm stuck bringing my collection to every session. It's not a matter of we'll need this one expansion to play this stage tonight. I'm kind of stuck filling my trunk full of boxes.

This experience has converted me, I really do buy into the Afghanistan principle as a general rule but I don't see that it provides any utility to the Pathfinder card game. To me it seems like a base set and it's expansions ARE a single game in seven boxes. So much so that the base set is built to hold the rest of the campaign.

If it wasn't, if I was carrying around seven large boxes to play a single game, I'd be singing a different tune. But it's not like that, everything for the campaign goes into and stays in the one single box.

The game works as a campaign where I DO need the equipment I've acquired in the previous adventures to play the subsequent ones. So I'm really missing the advantage of trying to maintain this isolation on the location side of things when it isn't and blatantly shouldn't be present on the character building and story side of things. And isn't an issue on the transportation and setup side of things.

Autoduelist wrote:

There's also the option of using an Internet printing service like PrinterStudio.com, provided you aren't creating galleries to share the cards out to others so they can print their own cards too. I'm not a lawyer and I don't hold this out as legal advice, but I think this falls under "fair use" for U.S. copyright laws, otherwise you couldn't legally do the home printer option either. PACG is available internationally, so the laws may be different in your country of residence. On a practical level, provided you aren't distributing your cards to other people, you'll likely be safe from an enforcement perspective.

Sure, but if you're going to pay somebody to print them, you might as well pay DriveThru, and get them in actual card form with color-matched cardbacks!

(...At least, once they're all available there...)

Wait, it is legal for me to print cards through a service instead of using the proxies for this game?

If I could preorder a season and get everything, then I would in a flash. It would need to be all nicely printed though. I'm too old for part-virtual, part-real games, unfortunately.

It's disappointing to get old. :(

I'm too old as well and I'm not very old.

SotRi also had a LOT of proxies. They lowered the amount of necessary proxying in later seasons partly because of feedback about the irritation caused by proxies. (Though wise minds may and do disagree about their willingness to proxy.) I think SotRu had a much more manageable number of proxies, as does PluTo so far.

Maybe this list or my counting is off but are you sure that saeason of the righteous had more proxy cards than season of the runelords?

....and playing the WotR OP has been a lot slower for us, in part, because of having to proxy all the cards being less fun.

Yeah it was a consistent issue for us that season.

Enough that I haven't played season of the runelords yet despite it being my favorite theme.

Curious if people go the effort of making their own versions of the OP cards on DriveThru (or if it's even permitted to do so)?

I'm of the understanding that I can't, otherwise it would have been done a year ago.

And, to be clear, when I say "register", that was just shorthand for "register and log play sessions". They don't want to just know how many characters are being used, they want to know how much people are playing.

I've got to say I don't know anyone who actually does that. There just isn't the same point as there is for normal organized play.

It's not like I can jump seasons or play adventures at different levels. With this game I'm locked into a single story arc severely limiting the possibility that I could possibly get in on other peoples games.

Well, don't forget - the entire issue here is that they're *sold* in a much less popular format.

Also at the wrong end of the season.

And also that Paizo's telling people that they need to spend another $20 a player in class decks.

And also their data's coming from Shackles the season so weird I sat it out and I know I'm not the only one...

Still 10X is a lot and of course they aren't going to invest in a gamble they're convinced they'll lose.

We would have to sell roughly ten times as many copies of Season of the Shackles as we have to date for it to become viable to print and distribute the way we do Adventure Decks and Class Decks.

Ouch, I'm sad to hear that the adventures which are made better by having a story are that much less popular.

That said, I think I'm going to have the opportunity to push a couple of smaller decks through in the near future.

*fingers crossed*

That would require massively delaying the seasons. Often, tweaks are made to later scenarios while the seasons are in-progress. Printing decks not only prevents that from happening as easily (harder to errata physical cards), but would add months of printing and shipping time in front of the season release. Selling post release means most people have already played the content, so less demand for the decks which could make printing uneconomical.

Yeah regardless of whether or not they'd still be profitable after they would certainly be more profitable before. And of course there's scheduling to be on the right side of and the downside of being locked into the physical cards. But there's also the upside of making the adventures much more playable for groups like mine who can't manage to keep the proxies straight.

There's a Vic post explaining this and other things in more detail, will try to find it when I'm no longer on phone.

I would love to read that.

Don't forget that a commercial release would require not just cards, but either a large booklet and a pack of cards or an extensive reworking of the current content to appropriate size (whether as a small booklet or cards). Even at 8.5" x 11" some reworking would be required to remove the proxies and prepare for commercial printing.

That's not how my Descent game night thingy worked. It's cards and the label tells me to go to a URL to get the adventure. I get that it's possible to make this a bunch of work but it doesn't need to be that bad.

As far as popularity goes, Paizo did just come off of putting the main product line on hold for more than half a year. If the main content isn't selling through as quickly as hoped, would a niche product only useful to those who bought an entire set be worth it?

I thought they got behind schedule which is why I figure I've got no hope of seeing a product which is done in a way that can't be particularly profitable to them. It's just going to keep getting put off for real work.

Sure if you guys are right and this is just a wildly unpopular product then my groups screwed. But I'm having a really hard time accepting the idea that while a Ranzak Skulls and Shackles Pathfinder Adventure Card Game play mat is main stream enough product that I can just buy it a single deck of cards making a whole second campaign playable isn't.

On the other hand, Vic has posted that their data indicates most class decks are not bought for organized play (because class deck purchases far outstrip organized play character registration).

Interesting.

On the third hand -- some of us admitted we stopped registering our characters, out of laziness (and Vic asked us, please, do register, or else they don't know how popular organized play is).

Doh! Having played over a season I guess I should get around to registering my character....

Do you actually know something I don't?

Because sure, if you're right and this game's wildly unpopular than that certainly explains things but considering how they just keep pumping out products for it I have a hard time accepting the guess that they just plain can't sell scenario decks.

I guess not releasing the descks for years after the seasons come out's probably shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to demand but could they really not sell a few hundred decks for a season before it came out? Really?

Or sell the deck with the season? Anything other than only proxies forever because that's what we've got now...

DriveThruCards is a print on demand service.

In order to satisfy your desire to go to a local game store and buy this set of adventures, they'd have to set up distribution. In order to set up distribution, they'd have to set up a print run and predict how many people buy it.

I don't know if the demand is high enough for that type of setup and delay. Especially for something that's designed to gauge demand in the first place.

What do you mean "designed to gauge demand"? They have been doing seasons for years at this point and are pumping out the class decks to support the seasons. Clearly there's some demand and they must have an idea of what that demand is at this point no?

I feel your pain Zeromanex. I periodically bring up Paizo's DriveThru Cards commitments and sometimes Vic Wertz responds.

What I can't figure out is why they're going through drivethrucards. It can't be making them as much money as just selling me cards at least I assume that's why releasing the season decks never gets done.

So why can't I just go down to my local store and buy these adventures the same way I did the last set of adventures? I mean Paizo's clearly in the business of selling me cards, why am I having such a hard time getting them to take my money?