Mammoth Daddy's page

Has there been any adventure, path or Pathfinder society scenario that has dealt with Icestair?

I would very much like to see an Icestair gazetteer someday. It seems a really cool place where east meets west, With shops and districts existing at different elevations along the pass.

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

A while back I was asking for a sequel to Rusthenge and I think k people got confused with what I was asking for.

I could care less about resolving Rusthenge’s major plot point, it was the hint of Runelords political stuff that most excited me about the one off adventure- and I see Revenge of the Runelords jumping well into that direction as a potential resolution to the story of small island adventurers with big dreams.

While Rusthenge and the Kindred Coast don't play a part in Revenge of the Runelords... Revenge of the Runelords WILL set the stage for more shenanigans there. Wasn't able to talk about that until now though, obviously...

YOU HEAR THAT BELIMARIUS! WE’RE COMING FOR YOU!!

A while back I was asking for a sequel to Rusthenge and I think k people got confused with what I was asking for.

I could care less about resolving Rusthenge’s major plot point, it was the hint of Runelords political stuff that most excited me about the one off adventure- and I see Revenge of the Runelords jumping well into that direction as a potential resolution to the story of small island adventurers with big dreams.

VerBeeker wrote:

Also, I thought the Varki had some Sami influence, not just Inuit. Am I off-base on that one?

Definitely, yeah - they're nomadic caribou-herders in northern Fantasy Europe! But they also wear armor from PNW Native groups like the Haida and Tlingit.

Correct. There may be other Golarian peoples based upon the Inuit but the Varki aren’t them.

Edit: so excited for this Gazetteer!

Late on here but I think a ‘draconic’ destiny would also be fun, with the PC becoming a mythic powered dragon or perhaps servitude of a draconic god/otherworldly force. Draconic disciples also need their fun.

An elementalist destiny would also be wonderful to have.

~

Is it possible James , that we could we have a mid to high-level AP or adventure that picks up on the plot point of Sorshen and Belimarius’ delicate and quiet feud?

This is why I asked about any planned sequels to Rusthenge a few months back, as everything’s pointing to a confrontation there of some kind, and it would delineate nicely from Seven Dooms as a up-to-date Varisia series of adventures. The worldbuilding, updated maps and city profiles could then be put in the backmatter.

I foresee a mid to high level adventure/path stemming from this arc. Belimarius is too obvious an unresolved plot point to leave alone for long.

Thx James! This might be helpful for my Rusthenge campaign if it doesn’t fork into another AP.

I’m torn as I really would like another book on New Thassilon but not at the expense of a few more books on other regions like Iblydos, Crown of the world and Vudra. I’m more curious about New Thassilon as a modern state and how it’s reconstructing itself politically, culturally and economically than the now-well-established history. Same for Xin Edasseril, as the Rusthenge adventure encourages players to (re)visit these locations, yet we’re mostly left in the dark as to how they’re managed currently.

Shalast is much safer these days under Sorshen's rule. She's making the transition to calling it Xin-Eurythnia slowly but surely, as Karzoug's legacy wanes and her new rule continues. There's certainly overland trade routes going to and from the city across the Storval Plateau, but those routes remain lengthy and pretty dangerous.

How does most of the city’s (Shalast’s) imports and exports enter and leave?

Magic?

I imagine there’d be base camp settlements. I would also think there’d be more people settling the mountain’s valleys and foothills post-resettlement to sell and buy goods.

Iblydos!! Yaaay! Pathfinder Greece gets some love!

I like that it’s low level as another potential avenue for those who want a classical game and start from first level. My newbie group was surprised at how many 2e starter paths had horror/other grimdark and gritty themes. A sword and sandal setting is also nice in that it’s familiar enough to my family as alternative introd should they wish it.

Green Hill zones.

I’ve decided upon prepping my fam for Rusthenge that Pathfinder needs more “Green Hill zones”, or relatively non-threatening micro-settings in a game.

The setting is beautifully gritty in most places, but that can also at times be intimidating for new players. After listening to an episode of Mythkeeper with me, one family member implied she wouldn’t want to live anywhere on Golarion, as it all sounds so hazardous.

The Shining Kingdoms seem a great place to add additional comforting locales in addition to the setting’s danger.

I think I unintentionally killed this post with a question about an update on crunch. Any new or interesting wants in terms of AP themes or ideas?

Has Paizo updated Underwater adventures or rules to 2e?

Myth keeper is becoming one of my favourite YouTube channels

For the next aquatic/sea-based campaign, what about Wanshou?

A campaign where you undermine the Kraken Lord, and build make way for a new successor state?

What I like about Wanshou as a setting is that it set up aquatic aberrations as a major enemy that, while possibly related to Lovecraft, would more likely relate to Asian mythology and pop culture on tentacled monstrosities from the deep.

The only problem ofc is that the setting lends itself to horror, and they just did a horror themed AP last time they visited Tian Xia.

Love seeing more Rusthenge advice

I feel like the nex-geb conflict would be even easier to have an AP for each side because while "cheliax vs rebel" is clearly evil vs good (and fighting good people isn't that popular), Geb (the country) feel only marginally more evil than Nex, so it's more easy to have the party "fight bad guys" no matter what side of the war they are on. Since both side are monstruous, it become easy to have an adventure where the "main villain" is something trully evil that even a party of pure hero would want to destroy, while keeping the "monstruous" part of their own side far from the party.

They could even split it in three AP, one where the player work for Geb against Nex (and where they get to use the undead options again), one where it's the opposite, and one where the party come from Alkensar or the Mana Waste and the goal is to stop the war before it trully goes back to how it was before and it devastate everything once again.

Actually I like this idea. Why not an AP that’s like the “Claw of the Tyrant” compilation adventure.

Think of it: your players each build two characters on opposite sides of the war. The book is split, featuring adventures for either side, with one half dedicated to one and the other to the other. The final adventure then concludes with a Big bad/greater threat worse than both Geb and Nex (or maybe you’re forced to confront Geb and Nex) and both parties must work together to bring the conflict to a halt.

This allows GM’s to also modify the ending of they want one of the two nations to “win” or have the edge in the aftermath.

Grankless wrote:

Are you capable of making a single post on this website that isn't openly and obviously insulting towards Paizo staff? Your constant contempt for the people working on these books makes me extremely hesitant to value anything you have to say about them, and this goes for basically every post you make. Seriously, tone down the vitriol.

What was an insult this time: The 9 hours of prep work for the module to find mistakes and form a supported opinion, or simply calling out the mistakes as we found them?

There is no vitriol here, just plain facts. If you don't like it, that's fine. I'll keep researching and finding the errors so other people can make informed decisions about where to spend their money. The fact your even responding means it's working.

Be happy then, I make very few posts. I make them count.

Some of the criticism is valid, others less so. I don’t understand the criticism re: the vampire and I even watched your entire vid. The character is a hypocrite but there’s nothing to suggest that as somehow bad writing or a betrayal of character. Quite common in fact to want something and not reciprocate.

The Oregon Trail part sounds pretty rad and I’m not annoyed that Ardax left as much as I am that the author forgot that he left. I’m also willing to wait and see if there’s any benefits for the influence gained in book 1 in books 2 and 3.

The inconsistency re: Ardax is a problem worth bringing up and I would expect editors to catch that as well as the item issues. Hoping they can correct the matter on the PDF and other digital products at the very least.

I think Bramble’s critiques are useful when it concerns ‘crunch’, but unless the narrative has gaping holes/editing issues, I find that his critiques of an AP’s overall story to be less relevant or reliable than his comments on the mechanics.

As more people get into Pathfinder from D&D we should expect more reviewers and budding influencers across the spectrum of production value- and as much as I find Bramble’s tone and comments sometimes pedantic and grating, I also don’t see anyone else doing accessible AP reviews on the Tube.

Bramble’s critics (which includes sometimes myself) are just as free to write their own AP reviews as Bramble is to write his own AP’s (and sell them). That’s what the ORC licence is for. I do think that Paizo, at the very least, should reconsider their editing process, because aside from a few slip ups, the adventure itself sounds pretty fun.

If a single editor tackling all of an AP’s content is impossible, then I would gently suggest divvying different editorial tasks to different persons. One for crunch, another for grammar, and one lastly for the broader narrative.

That's a really interesting idea - I know it's not normal for Paizo to lock your PC's narrative in too much from the AP premise, but when they've done it before it has really worked for me. Without spoilers, Strange Aeons has a pretty restricted set of narratives available for the last several years of the PC's lives, and I've got a lot of positive feedback on that from people. In this case, saying all the PCs start off working for - though not necessarily agreeing with - an exploitative group that is harming nature gives you some really interesting room for different possible character arcs. Especially with how common 3-book APs are nowadays, it's much less of a risk than it used to be.

The tricky bit would be that it's still an AP - so they need to change their mind at the 'right' time - which is why I think your idea of them ending up opposing something as messed up as fiends is a good way to do it. Book 1 could be setting up the expectation that you're fighting some group that are being 'too extreme' in their protection of the wilderness against your employer's encroachment, only for the twist to be that your employers are doing some real nasty things that you can't work with - like your fiend example. Then the next two books can be about working against your former employers, potentially alongside the extremists you thought you were going to fight. It'd need a well-written player's guide - you'd need to make sure that everyone going in had a reason to distrust or dislike their employers to some degree. If it was pulled off well, I think it could be a very compelling narrative, and it could have a lot of interesting themes - the way that what might seem extreme can be a reasonable response when you're fully informed, the...

I would agree in that I find building characters more enjoyable when there are constraints in addition to choice. Like the grit that forms to become an oyster’s pearl, giving players a narrational constraint helps them develop interesting characters they might never have played without the AP’s narrational conceit.

I do have niche interests like seeing Kwanlai tengu politics, nexian fleshforges and mutant groups in mana wastes. Never say no to aberration heavy APs, there is reason why I'm big fan of idea of Dominion of the Black alien invasion ap xD In general, seeing Droon, Nurvatcha, Murraseth and Diguo-Dashu in ap would be cool and unexpected because of my usual interest in xenofiction, heck just ap about those haunted clockworks of Clicking Caverns would be cool and also great opportunity to explore Nagajor. Heck seeing Usaro with chara-kau being less uncomfortable is interesting idea with city's new developments. New aquatic adventure would be great, I'd love more shattered continent content, but 2e aquatic campaign wouldn't need to be ruins of azlant sequel. We've already had couple "evil god" campaigns and those were cool, so why not do that for "neutral" or benevolent gods as well?

Regarding more "mainstream" interests, I've wanted to see serpentfolk AP once again xD Serpent's Skull is cool concept that deserves second try.

I too want both Nagajor and Serpenfolk!

Source is in the PFS guidance it lists the supplemental table.

Link?

I tried to find this and gave up. No supplemental table.

A Nex AP would also be cool. It’s one of the more obvious options for the next high-fantasy, wizard AP. We’ve been waiting for Nex’s return for years and we finally have respondent Geb :)

Wardens of Wildwood kinda wanted to be a nature hero AP, but you spend more time fighting eco-extremists than exploitative institutions/individuals.

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

I expect/hope we see more AP’s outside of the Inner Sea region. Paizo has recently worked very hard to expand on areas outside the Inner Sea and I’d like to see this continue.

I don’t need to argue on behalf of Arcadia (it has motivated advocates enough) but Vudra, Kellesh, Iblydos and other parts of Casmaron seem ripe for an AP.

We've finally got all the parts necessary for Iblydos, which feels quite promising!

But yes, I'm loudly banging on the Arcadia (and more specifically, Razatlani) drum.

Aye, and precisely. You’ve got Arcadian interests well and covered heh.

WoW I felt gave too much of a bait and switch. I’m fine with it cuz that means my table is more likely to enjoy it (they doubt anthropogenic climate change) but I myself was disappointed because I expected many more exploitative antagonists from the AP.

I like that we explore the plane of wood and I actually like Zibok’s role, but the storytelling was convoluted and often unclear.

The closest AP to an eco-fantasy narrative currently is Quest for the Frozen Flame.

I don’t see Arazni as being evil. There have been no innocents targeted by her since her release from Geb’s enslavement.

Sorshen however has no excuse in my mind. Just because she avoids atrocity now doesn’t mean she has atoned for the evil she willfully chose for hundreds of years prior to Earthfall. Arazni was an undead puppet that still bore intellect and a soul. Sorshen was a tyrant who did what she did to maintain her own authority, immortality, and intemperance.

I got nothing against lust per se (it’s not a sin in my worldview) but she maintained said lust via her own subjects’ servitude, death and constant subjection to violence. Her character furthermore hasn’t much changed, and you bet she’d continue on in a world absent of heroes.

The work of ending the runelords’ reign remains unfinished.

Are we allowed to vaguely refer to real life politics here? Because with all big global and US-related stuff happening over the past year and past two weeks, I also see something personal in the elevation of Arazni to full Core-20 status.

Role-playing is often used as both a means for both escape and (counterintuitively) finding resolution for real-life hardship and trauma. Few of these Paizo gods have been so degraded as Arazni. Even fewer have managed to pave a way of resolving said degradation without resorting to normative (often Christian) assumptions about forgiveness, closure, and acceptance of what was done.

With everything that’s been happening, may or about to happen, I know I could personally use a construct like Arazni, the Survivor.

Arazni is great for revealing the existentialism and flaws within the setting’s cosmology. The idea that neither the chief forces of good, evil, or judgement are omniscient, omnipotent, or necessarily “correct”.

It also means that despite the presence of literal gods, Pathfinder’s cosmology bears greater similarity to our own in the sense that goodness, purpose, and meaning aren’t exactly clear. There’s ambiguity, differences of priorities- and agency- all bound within a context where nothing is safe, and the reasons for things are often inscrutable, absurdist, and manifold.

Thus players can be agents (whatever that means) as e’en Pharasma doth not know the meaning nor proper course of creation’s entirety. It hath become something new.

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Personally I think that the interesting part about Arazni is that she's *not* redeemed. She's mean and selfish and angry but also endorses good causes.

I have clearly been watching too much Disney Plus lately, because I saw this sentence and thought, "oh. She's Agatha Harkness, isn't she?"

And of course they're clearly not the same, but poking at where they do have similarities suggests an archetype after all: the anti-hero.

No. She’s basically Sylvanus Windrunner from Warcraft III, before that character’s deliberate transformation into the very thing that abused her.

Arazni represents tho a different choice. “Screw redemption, screw willful corruption, Ima gonna find a third path.”

I like her. She likewise reminds me of The Exile in Knights of the Old Republic II. The heavens and traditional forces of good don’t always have it right, and there is beauty in reclaiming moral autonomy.

This thread is for asking Vanessa Hoskins questions pertaining to Rusthenge, on behalf of Pathfinder Wiki.

Simply put, where on Chakikoth isle is Rusthenge? Same question goes for Osprey Cove and Iron Harbour. Where would you have us pin these places on the Wiki’s world map?

We figure they exist on the southern half of Chakikoth but are unsure as to where exactly, and some clarification either here or in a future product would be wonderful.

I understand that she is likely very busy, and may not respond. That’s Ok, but I thought I’d try.

Excerpt from WoI book, compliments of TheFinish in another thread:

I mean, the lore will/should still have to include them when dealing with ancient Osirion ruins and texts, but all their clerics, relics and pantheon specific rituals are now defunct.

They still EXISTED. But are now MIA (or possibly dead)

Thoth squick Exemplar anyone?

shroudb wrote:

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

Lawrencelot wrote:

Lawrencelot wrote:

Any more lore on the Godsrain that we didn't know about? Effects of Gorum's death, other dieties who died?

Anyone? I saw someone replied to my comment about orc gods, but from another source. I also heard rumours elsewhere of Osirian and hag gods dying. What is in this specific book? I want to know which gods die besides Gorum.

I too would like to know cuz Damn! Looks like a cleric character concept of mine might be soon be godless!

Osirian and Hags zoinked away.

** spoiler omitted **

Okaay…but how?? What happened?!?? All I heard is

That’s some major kitchen sink right there!! There’s nothing even remotely connecting the Osirion Pantheon to the Hag pantheon. TBH it seems mostly informed byreal life wishes of the company than something organic to the setting— which is okay —just needs greater explanation and massaging of the differences in trope.

**spoilers** involving plot points of the Godsrain fallout but can someone explain to me what happened to the pantheons and characters mentioned in the title?? I read a short AMA that revealed consequences of War of Immortals, and I have mixed feelings

As an aside, Paizo’s choice of combining these gods for this particular resolution feels definitely ‘Kitchen Sink’, and my brain is already wondering what a home brew campaign featuring these events would look like in terms of overarching shared themes. Do hags even exist in Egyptian mythology?? What would an Osirion/hag themed party do with regard to the events hinted at in the book? I assume it would be to stop the hag gods but <shrug>

This would be a good AP for the mammoth lord archetype from Frozen Flame.

I'd like a 1-10, investigation and roleplay heavy campaign. Hopefully with minimal huge dungeons. Thrushmoor could be a cool setting, but an urban/ suburban area would be ideal for me.

Honestly, something similar to Season of Ghosts but Cosmic Horror and set in Avistan.

Hastur even prefers cities. Maybe involve a local pathfinder society chapter or some other organization that’s become infiltrated by cultists?

Hypothetically Great Old One and Outer Cultists can be found everywhere or anywhere on Golarion, though some tie better with some themes than others.

There’s also a question if Paizo could or would be interested in bringing the cosmic horror gods they printed from Chaosium? In the Strange Aeons AP.

Back to your point, the town of Season of Ghosts feels rural to me but I haven’t played nor read it. It’s a manageable ask though either way, as there’s a cosmic horror cult suitable to just about any setting.

willfromamerica wrote:

I have a feeling the upcoming Spore War will be difficult to tie into any level 1-10 APs, unfortunately, but it is a theme that excites me.

While Spore War is a pretty self-contained story, I wrotea section in the Spore War Player's Guide that gives advice to GMs who want to bring PCs from:

Abomination Vaults
Gatewalkers
Outlaws of Alkenstar
Quest for the Frozen Flame
Sky King's Tomb

Each of those gets 1–4 paragraphs of advice.

Anyone watching Rings of Power? The bond between Elrond and Durin reminds me of a potential arc for Sky King’s Tomb to Spore War, where one half of a party are majorly Dwarven diplomats and the other half Elven. You scratch my back I scratch yours

I am a mathematician. I would call that a hierarchical organization by geography and theme. Other names could apply, because the hierarchy is not strict. Rather than a tree of higher-level modules above lower-level modules, the modules are more a layered web with many possible sequels to each lower-level module, thus, more generally it is a partially ordered set.

Let's proceed to a thought experiment with existing PF2 adventure paths. Abomination Vaults, Quest for the Frozen Flame, Outlaws of Alkenstar, Gatewalkers, Sky King's Tomb, and Seven Dooms for Sandpoint are all adventure paths that end at level 10. Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, Stolen Fate, and Curtain Call are all adventure paths that begin at level 11. They could match up if geography and theme make that plausible. I don't own these adventure paths, so my list of themes below is my impression of descriptions of the paths.

Ends-at-10 layer
Abomination Vaults is eldritch horror set on the Isle of Kortos.
Quest for the Frozen Flame is wilderness exploration in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords.
Outlaws of Alkenstar is a western set in Alkenstar.
Gatewalkers is a paranormal investigation set in the River Kingdoms.
Sky...

Yeah, this is what I’m thinking of, with the caveat that I forgot that there aren’t as many possibilities to chain more than two adventure paths as I thought. In this sense, stand-alone lvl 1 adventures would have to be used to have a starting adventure, separate midlevel adventure path, followed by a closing AP/adventure that takes you close to lvl. 20.

My group for example are thinking Rusthenge -> Wardens of Wildwood -> Spore War. Which, as an arc, would be very much focused upon epic fantasy where heroes frequently meddle in the affairs of demigods. (Living, happily exiled, or dead).
Nature vs. Corruption would be another theme across all three.

Not entirely sure if I’m staking a position re: the main question so much as arguing that an adventure/AP’s starting and ending level of play also matters.

I want more mid to high level adventures to work with multiple possible adventures/AP’s at lower tier

Predictions on what evil god is in Belkzen?

Urgothoa? Demon Lord? The God of the Ghouls?

Based on the title?

Zagresh.

I had third thought: I think direct sequels to 1-10 aps work best if they don't explicitly assume pcs are same from 1-10 ones. Just like how none of runelord sequels did or a hypotethical "numeria dominion of the black" ap would be a sequel to Iron Gods.

Like, you would leave it up to table if they want to bring old pcs back or create new party. All of level 1-10 aps lead to that kinda naturally.

…..

...Oh no, I'm accidentally convincing myself to actually like idea of direct sequels x'D Can I change my ratio to like.. 3 direct sequels, 1 indirect sequels, 6 non sequels out of 10? It could be even higher if first direct sequel we get is really really good x'D Frick now I really want to see what...

I feel mixed as I too want direct sequels to the AP’s I’m REALLY invested in and indirect sequels (or even non-sequel sequels where the story continues but at a lower leve for new characters)

I like tie ins, so I think indirect sequels work best in that the adventure or AP might work especially well after a particular adventure or adventure path, but remain open enough where a GM could still modify the adventure, and have new heroes pick up where the old ones left off.

Adventurers travel. Separate. Retire. Even die sometimes. Having a few thematiacally good jumping off points from and two each AP or Adventure would be nice. Stand-alone adventures are especially helpful as they can be used to bridge entire themes, levels, and distances.

Honestly, how I’d map it out is to take the released, pending, and future 2e AP’s and adventures and put ‘em all on a corkboard of golarion, with their respective levels, themes and story arcs. Then use string and examine how a play group could potentially go from levels 1-20 through various circuits and distances. Ideally each meta region should have one or two low level AP’s, high level AP’s, with a few mid level AP’s stretching the boundaries between levels and themes so as to aid parties in tracking between levels, distances, and themes.

In this sense, Mid-level AP’s and adventures work best as indirect sequels or non sequels, within higher level play working better as direct sequels to low level adventures, or as non-sequels. The mid-level adventures should also be where we see the influence of different themes and meta-regions interact the most, as a party could choose their own adventure and either stay within a meta region’s themes/politics, or be sufficiently introduced to a new region so as to participate in its higher level sequels or nonsequels. That would be ideal, but it also might not fit the major story beats Paizo wishes to tell.

I don’t know if I’m making much sense, but I see midlevel adventurers and AP’s as the best possible ‘junctures’ between adventures, with story beats becoming more consequential the higher level the adventure.

CAMAZOTZ!!! LET'S GOOOO!

If Paizo were to do do another Pathfinder AP based on cosmic horror, what would you like to see from it, in terms of its major themes, ideas, challenges, etc.?

Granted, Paizo often includes elements of cosmic horror as small but key components in many of their adventures (horror or otherwise) and there is no expectation that they'll something like Strange Aeons again anytime soon, but I'm in need of a good distraction rn and this topic will do.

First, I'd be the first one to admit that a sequel to Strange Aeons would be pretty rad, as Thrushmoor itself is a rather creepycute location.

Mhar meanwhile is also has a connection to Golarion, and does Shub-Niggurath who is said to have a relatively strong presence via secret cults.

Like Strange Aeons, any potential cosmic horror AP would need to balance the conventions of its source material with that of a TTRPG where heroes are expected to triumph- even if victory is only partial or pyrrhic in nature. It would also require an updated sanity and fear system, along with some element of mystery that forces players to conduct investigations into occult secrets.

What do ya'll think? Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!

I’d like to see Strange Aeons or Curse of the Crimson Throne. The first because I always wanted to play it and wish for a proper sanity system for 2e; the latter because it remains the best AP Paizo has ever written.

(Mileage may vary, but that’s just how I feel)

How we say things is a part of what we say. It’s all part of communication.

I have issues with WoW but I don’t see any evidence that James Jacobs has been evasive on the subject. He was just not as directly involved with this AP and has said as much. He’s let us know that he’ll take our concerns to those more directly involved, and managed expectations by explaining how long it takes before feedback influences product.

We have here a product that was subpar. We do not have any evidence as of yet that the producers themselves are taking our feedback in bad faith.

I think WoW suffers from a lack writer coordination, as well as a poor understanding of its audience. The impetus for the initial crisis was poorly explained, and the villain’s arc was confused and likewise poorly communicated. Same with the storyline’s major themes, which were inconsistent.

Eventually you will run out of other things to talk about and actually have a dialogue with us about Wardens of Wildwood, the topic in all of these treads, other than this monologue in which you are indulging your catharsis.

Until then, thank you for the insight into your work. Since you have mentioned the amount of stress in your many posts as a growing theme, you may try changing the model of release sometime in the future.

This is exactly why I am not a pathfinder/starfinder subscriber. I buy at my own caution, and quantity is not quality. If it were about producing products of quality, Wardens of Wildwood would have been scrapped in the same way your Seven Dooms for Sandpoint nearly was, as there is clearly very little substance past book 1 as we've shown, and proven to you. The writing at the same time model isn't going to work every time, and obviously we got unlucky as the customer this time. I can accept it and move on, but it doesn't excuse what you are doing here.

Saying things get better from this point is mute until we experience it, and the past few days on the forum have been telling of just how desperate you feel the last word will have an affect on us. Derailing our conversation on the topic were in, doesn't help anyone. You've brought up so many projects, but not this one.

It's really sad. I was very much excited to talk with you about Wardens of Wildwood when you first posted in the feedback thread, and hear something special from the head of development and one of my idols. This has been a very disappointing week.

This is passive aggressive. It’s also unnecessary as a means of raising your concerns. It’s abusive. Full stop.

I’m all for constructive criticism but feel increasingly uncomfortable with the tone this sub thread is taking. There’s no need for conspiratorial thinking.

Give em time to look at the issue.

] not a fan of pbp games so wasn't going to run it as one

Aside from confusing your intent, he’s not wrong. Before running Crimaon, I GM’d several 1e pathfinder society sessions before doing an AP.

Now, maybe your cleverer than I was then, but it took me a few months before I felt comfortable GMing an AP campaign rather than a few disconnected sessions. The first book of Crimson is easy, but it’s the second book where things start getting crazy.

If you’re set on Crimson Throne, def take a look at the crimson throne AP subforum to see what other GM’s did to make the AP better for their table.

And

Followed by:

Tridus wrote:

What edition of Pathfinder?

What kind of adventure are you interested in? ie: more combat, more exploration, etc?

first and a mix

Runelords or Curse of the Crimson Throne.

Crimson Throne was the first AP I ran and while we never finished (due to external circumstances) I found the AP was well explained and logical from beginning to end- which I read. We got to book 2 so admittedly this wasn’t far.

Crimson throne has less travel than Runelords but they take place in the same meta-region of Varisia. I know nothing of Runelords aside from the fact that’s it’s very classic in terms of TTRPG tropes and mechanics.

Mammoth Daddy wrote:

TLDR The process needs to be more cohesive in terms of theme, narrative, and mechanics.

From what I learned about the process, entire departments and several writers are involved in the creation of an AP, and they all work from the same outline from an unknown source which can be extremely vague in itself, as it was commented that the outline was unclear about certain points in this AP which the entire story hinged on.

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to coordinate that many people while simultaneously writing all the modules in the AP, and those departments will not test the product, nor read it cover to cover to ensure that level of cohesion. The editing/layout is simply for getting it to print, not overall consumer satisfaction.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on the better quality control and having standards for keeping an AP mechanically sound and narratively aligned, but as we were just told any such feedback won't see the light of day anytime soon. We're simply meant to consume what is output.

Nonsense. (In the kindest way). Each of the main AP’s has a lead author no? I don’t see why these main leads can’t communicate with each other better to coordinate. There could totally be an AP lead to manage the coordination. Magic the Gathering also tends to have multiple sets in various stages of development that are meant to be released in a linear fashion for a broader narrative arc.

There ought to be a way to stagger the development of each AP book so that there is a consistency throughout the whole. I absolutely refuse to believe there’s nothing to be done. I likewise don’t understand why my standards would be considered too high. Non-gaming books get a great deal of editing, why would we satisfy ourselves with lacklustre product?