Liz Courts Webstore Gninja Minion |
Mikaze |
Got mine just now!
Only been able to glance through because work, stealing more glances when I can.
I LOVE what's being done with the interior covers. :)
A lot of drama is going to come out of that rival party for a lot of groups. I'm really eager to see how it plays out between each one.
Oh God the Wati article. Trying to hold off because that's going to demand absolute attention once I start.
DAT WALLPAINTING MONSTER
Just saw the sidebar on Pharasmin ethics concerning the events of the AP. Digging into that next.
Jim Groves Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4 |
Jim Groves Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4 |
Mikaze |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I can't wait to get mine :X
Is good.
(for reference, Azaz is the guy on the left on the Mummy's Mask Player's Guide cover)
Also, really digging the info that's being worked into the fiction now.
The "Meeting the Competition" part is RP gold for groups like ours. Just want to say that that level of detail does not go unnoticed or unappreciated. :D
Div fans are going to be very happy.
Man it feels nice to be able to actually read the AP line again. ;)
edit-Unwrapped Harmony is both now my favorite example of that race and presents my favorite hook for that race I've ever seen. Yeah, that would be one hell of a motivation for those folks...
limnion |
3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I have to say, the amount of detail on the NPCs backgrounds and motivations is... awesome for a lack of a better word at this late hour. Unfortunately my group is swing the axe first, talk later, but with this I feel like I can create a dialogue among the die rolls for these people. And create drama with it.
Jim Groves Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4 |
Mikaze |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thank you thank you! Crystal's chapter will not disappoint either! We have an awesome line-up here!
After digging into the Wati article a bit and seeing where the first chapter leaves things, yeah, really eager to see Empty Graves. :)
It's looking like building up player investment and immersion in Wati is going to pay off big time there. And further down the line after reading the AP synopsis.
Gancanagh |
I think i'm gonna love the new monsters in this! But I do hope to see more desert creatures from mythology in the next parts as there are quit a few to cover! It would be a shame if they dont show up! I mean the demon AP only had 1 creature from myths... so this one should have much more! No time to wait till bestiary 5 cuz this ap can cover a lot of creatures from the desert!
Jim Groves Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4 |
This AP is off to a great start. Groves knocked it out of the park. He's a great designer and a mad handsome man, ladies ;)
Thank you so much for those kind words. :D
And this is just the beginning. To follow on that baseball metaphor, Crystal has delivered another home run—and folks we've got an All-Star line-up on every level in this series. Everybody has delivered. The cartography is magnificent. The art is stunning, evocative and compelling. Every part of this AP is solid. Right down to the awesome new bestiary entries.
I'm honored to have started the show but the Golem is just getting started! This is definitely a great AP to subscribe to!
BigWeather |
Odraude wrote:This AP is off to a great start. Groves knocked it out of the park. He's a great designer and a mad handsome man, ladies ;)Thank you so much for those kind words. :D
And this is just the beginning. To follow on that baseball metaphor, Crystal has delivered another home run—and folks we've got an All-Star line-up on every level in this series. Everybody has delivered. The cartography is magnificent. The art is stunning, evocative and compelling. Every part of this AP is solid. Right down to the awesome new bestiary entries.
I'm honored to have started the show but the Golem is just getting started! This is definitely a great AP to subscribe to!
Aaaaagh you are killing me! Still no ship notification. Paizo doesn't do that alphabetically by last name or anything silly like that, do they? Seems I'm always among the last to get the PDF. =)
mikeawmids |
I feel like I'm sailing into the wind with this observation, but I was a little disappointed with this adventure. It is essentially just a string of three dungeon crawls with Egyptian trappings. I haven't had a chance to absorb the gazetteer yet, and assume that individual GM's will find ways to enrich this early part of the AP with encounters crafted from what's available in that article, but the adventure itself seems like a bit of a slog. Having read the 'Sands of Time' article at the rear of the book, I'm confident that Mummies Mask will kick off in a big way at the beginning of book 2 and be a non-stop, two-fisted thrill ride from that point on, but this first adventure was a bit of a let down - at least for me. :(
Jim Groves Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4 |
4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I feel like I'm sailing into the wind with this observation, but I was a little disappointed with this adventure.
Well Mike, I'm sorry to hear that. I would like to offer some of my perspective on why I think the adventure is structured the way it is. Perhaps after you sit with it a little while, maybe you'll feel differently. If not, I totally respect where you're coming from. I would also like to share this with anyone who may be debating on whether to get this or not.
I am not going to post what *I* think are spoilers.. but everyone has a slightly different opinion on what constitutes a spoiler, so I'm going to play it safe. Most people won't consider what I'm about to say as a spoiler...
- The Half-Dead City follows a certain theme that you see in related media and folklore. Like the Boris Karloff and Brendan Fraser movies—where everything is okay until the tombs are disturbed, and then chaos and misfortune are unleashed upon the world until the demands of the past are satisfied. To a lesser extent, you see that in the legends of a curse that befalls real world explorers when they open the tombs and remove treasures. Compare this to other Adventure Paths. Many of them begin with a sequence of events that start well before the PCs actually become involved. In this case, the meta-plot is unfolding just as the PCs are introduced to the situation, so the timing of events is slightly different. The Half-Dead City really does set the stage for larger events with a grander scope, and that is not an accident but a deliberate decision.
- The adventure also does not start in what I call "crisis mode". There is no unifying threat, goblin raid, or suddenly problem that makes the heroes stop being ordinary people (and let's be honest, even at first level, they've ceased being ordinary already) and rush to the rescue. The Half-Dead City gives agency to the players and PCs to say, "Hey, we're career adventurers. We're in this for riches, the knowledge, the glory, the magic, or whatever reason we can imagine. We made the decision on who we want to be. We aren't just carrying 50 feet of rope, torches, and bedrolls because we've got nothing better to do. We're adventurers!" The adventure also permits the PCs the license to form their own teams and work whatever background they like on how they met and got together as a team. Sometimes the only way to grant freedom is not to impose guidelines.
- Finally, The Half-Dead City is very traditional and classic D&D. Tracing the game back to it's earliest days (and D&D and I go all the way back to 1979), PC adventuring companies weren't always so 'defensive' and 'reactionary'. Let me be very clear here, I love the idea of BBEGs and I think helping people and nations, and fighting evil is a fantastic story driver—a technique that Mummy's Mask DOES use in its overall story. However, once upon a time adventurers got together for other reasons than the necessity of a common threat. That's a component of an old fashioned and traditional fantasy RPG adventure. For all that some folks focus on flying pyramids, Mummy's Mask really has a lot of traditional elements to it. Something I hope is a nice break between Wrath of the Righteous and Iron Gods (disclaimer: I love those APs too!)
Hopefully this sheds a little light on why it was structured the way it is. Lastly, these comments represent only my views. Our Developer may have his own. :)
mikeawmids |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
EDIT: Not sure that this is a spoiler either, but since I'm commenting on something you said in spoiler tags, I'll follow suit.
Thanks again for the opportunity to discuss. :D
zergtitan |
Yeah considering the description of Empty Graves
Following the opening of its necropolis, the city of Wati is overrun by hordes of the unquiet dead. The heroes must once more brave the abandoned streets and dusty tombs of Wati’s necropolis in search of the powerful artifact called the Mask of the Forgotten Pharaoh, as well as the necromancer who is using it to create the undead uprising. But mysterious masked cultists also seek the artifact so they can bring a pharaoh from the ancient past back to life. Can the heroes defeat the evil necromancer and return the deceased to their graves, or will Wati truly become a city of the dead?
Yeah I think it kicks off on a pretty big crisis.
Jim Groves Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4 |
Jim Groves Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4 |
Thanks again for the opportunity to discuss. :D
You are more than welcome! I don't feel very defensive about this, because these are not design decisions I make all by myself. I'm not throwing anybody under the bus however because I 100% support the design decisions that went into this adventure.
If at the end of the day, if you're still not sure you like it, that's worth knowing. And I won't try to talk you out of changing how you feel about something. I do, however, thank you for thinking about it. I really appreciate it when folks don't make a snap decision. That's all I could ever ask. :-)
BigWeather |
Any news BigWeather?
The AP is on my iPad of this morning thanks to a Shipping notification received at 3:30AM AEDT :)
Nope, nothing yet. Thanks for asking, awesome that they got around to you. Hopefully tomorrow (or today, I guess -- still a few more minutes so it's possible). Can't wait to read it. What I've read in this thread has me drooling. Egyptian-themed adventures are my absolute favorite.
Jim Groves Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Downloaded today. Skimmed over it and it looks interesting. I like that it doesn't start in 'crisis mode'. Gives the party a chance to gel and be adventurers before becoming heroes. Also love the concept of the Ahkhat. Why has this never been thought of before? Any chance of who came up with this?
Oh! I'll take credit for the ahkhat in a hot second. I also did the guardian scroll (AGGRESSIVE PAPER).
I am told that the ahkhat raised some eyebrows internally, and I am grateful to Adam Daigle for championing it.
To be honest, I stopped thinking purely in terms of Pathfinder and started to think in terms of other RPGs. Then I stepped backwards and started the process of making it work in Pathfinder.
EDIT: I got excited and started bragging. :D
Adam Daigle Developer |
Oh! I'll take credit for the ahkhat in a hot second. I also did the guardian scroll (AGGRESSIVE PAPER).
I am told that the ahkhat raised some eyebrows internally, and I am grateful to Adam Daigle for championing it.
It was certainly weird, and I happen to like weird. It was in a design space that I've tinkered with before, but never did anything with, then Jim comes along with the ahkhat and I accepted it right away (after convincing Rob and James that it could work).
Good job, Jim!
macabre dragon |
macabre dragon wrote:Downloaded today. Skimmed over it and it looks interesting. I like that it doesn't start in 'crisis mode'. Gives the party a chance to gel and be adventurers before becoming heroes. Also love the concept of the Ahkhat. Why has this never been thought of before? Any chance of who came up with this?Oh! I'll take credit for the ahkhat in a hot second. I also did the guardian scroll (AGGRESSIVE PAPER).
I am told that the ahkhat raised some eyebrows internally, and I am grateful to Adam Daigle for championing it.
To be honest, I stopped thinking purely in terms of Pathfinder and started to think in terms of other RPGs. Then I stepped backwards and started the process of making it work in Pathfinder.
EDIT: I got excited and started bragging. :D
When you start off being attacked the choice is taken from the PCs; its 'bad guys are attacking us, kill them'. Whereas this way its 'this could be bad, lets do something about it'.
And with the ahkhat, we have animated objects, elementals everywhere, golems of every known substance, why not something for your house to attack intruders? Sort of like a fantasy security system. But only for the wealthy of course!