Pathfinder Adventure Path #204: Stage Fright (Curtain Call 1 of 3)

Announced for July! Product images and descriptions are not final and are subject to change.

Heck yeah!!!!!!

Richard Pett is back!

I guess it's not a coincidence then, that this reminds me of The Sixfold Trial...

Love to see another 11-20 AP!

Super excited to see an 11-20 AP!

11-20 BABY!!!! And Richard Pett has a flawless track record with Paizo!

The story for this sounds fantastic! Very excited to get it and read more details.

Richard Pett is back!

I guess it's not a coincidence then, that this reminds me of The Sixfold Trial...

This isn't the only reason I reached out to Richard to write this volume.

I'll have a LOT more to talk about this Adventure Path once we get a proper announcement for the entire thing up, but for now... consider this a teaser for things to come! :-)

Is this set in a particular area of Golarion, or meant to be flexible on location?

Is this set in a particular area of Golarion, or meant to be flexible on location?

It's mostly set in Ravounel, but has excursions elsewhere.

Following up on that - is it meant to be slotted in after any other 1-10 AP, using the big bad from that adventure as the “old nemesis”? I’m interested to see how that flexibility is going to be allowed if so.

The way the blurb is written, they seems to keep it open... I can't wait to see how they will do it... they will probably have a way to cheat it, but if the GM want to put work in it, it should be possible to swap in some more specific stuff. I can'T wait to see how it will go!

Following up on that - is it meant to be slotted in after any other 1-10 AP, using the big bad from that adventure as the “old nemesis”? I’m interested to see how that flexibility is going to be allowed if so.

It's meant to be slotted in after any set of adventures that results in the PCs being 11th level. For us, that specifically means a 1–10 level Adventure Path is a great precursor to this, but could just as easily be an entirely homebrewd set of adventures that end at 10th level.

Customizing the nature of the previous adventure and its big bad end nemesis is a significant part of it all, and we give a lot of advice on how to do that wherever it's warranted in the adventure. The Player's Guide will significantly feature this expectation from the player side of things.

When it comes to artwork, we assume that the iconics we choose to illustrate in this one went through Abomination Vaults, in any event.

That’s what I figured/hoped for, very exciting! I’m sure you guys will knock it out of the park based on the quality of everything that’s been coming out lately.

OMG... I've had two different party members message this announcement to me. I won't say they are frothing at the mouth, but they're super interested in it.

Gotta hand it to Paizo (and a large round of applause from my players) for a nice "out-of-left-field" AP.

My sister's a Broadway stage manager. I've already told her I'll be playing her in this AP. (And we're both short, so she will of course be a halfling.)

:D

OMG... I've had two different party members message this announcement to me. I won't say they are frothing at the mouth, but they're super interested in it.

Gotta hand it to Paizo (and a large round of applause from my players) for a nice "out-of-left-field" AP.

Yay! Hope it lives up to expectations! I've been wanting to do this Adventure Path for many years, along with Season of Ghosts... so I was pretty delighted to be able to get these two on the schedule back to back once I came back to the developer side of things for the line.

An AP that's explicitly a sequel to a previous AP is cool enough. An AP that could be a sequel to any AP? This is going to be interesting! I'm excited already!

And that's without it tying in to The Hints. I think I may know which one, and I'm already putting together how it may tie in to events down the line if I'm right.

My sister's a Broadway stage manager. I've already told her I'll be playing her in this AP. (And we're both short, so she will of course be a halfling.)

:D

Invite her to email community@paizo.com to get Broadway/opera folk playing Pathfinder. We are all union now. If they happen to post about it on their socials, I would not complain.

Is this spiritual sequel to easily the best Council of Thieves book? :O

(aka the one where you perform opera)

Paizo please, why do you have so many great ideas, I need a few more days in my schedule to run everything

Is this spiritual sequel to easily the best Council of Thieves book? :O

(aka the one where you perform opera)

Not really, no.

If it's a spiritual sequel to anything, it'd be Hell's Rebels, but even then, not really.

EDIT: And from the Glorious Office of Pedantry: The second adventure in Council of Thieves is about performing a play. This is about producing an opera. Some similar and overlapping themes and encounter types, but it's a VERY different thing.

This seems cool, though not particularly my cup of tea. I am excited to see where it goes though. I do hope it's more on point for the 3 books and not a bait and switch.

This seems cool, though not particularly my cup of tea. I am excited to see where it goes though. I do hope it's more on point for the 3 books and not a bait and switch.

I'm not sure what you mean by "bait and switch." We'll for sure have more to say about the campaign as a whole rather than just its first volume, with a proper landing page and all that soon, but until then, I can confirm that the "You are producing your own opera" elements of this Adventure Path remain a core theme throughout all three parts, and that there's a stronger emphasis on roleplaying, skill use, exploration and downtime, and whimsy in this Adventure Path than a more standard dungeon crawl or action-packed storyline. There's a LOT of NPCs on screen in these adventures for your PCs to interact with.

Not to say there's not fights and exploration of dungeony-locations, though! There for sure are.

Yes, it’s clear Paizo has heard the complaints about not leaning into niche themes, and now they are trying it. Good for them, and good for us and RPGs. Even if the experiment isn’t a resounding success, it’ll be a useful experiment and we’ll learn a lot from it. And smart move to do only a 3-parter. That’s how you experiment with things.

H2Osw wrote:

This seems cool, though not particularly my cup of tea. I am excited to see where it goes though. I do hope it's more on point for the 3 books and not a bait and switch.

I'm not sure what you mean by "bait and switch." We'll for sure have more to say about the campaign as a whole rather than just its first volume, with a proper landing page and all that soon, but until then, I can confirm that the "You are producing your own opera" elements of this Adventure Path remain a core theme throughout all three parts, and that there's a stronger emphasis on roleplaying, skill use, exploration and downtime, and whimsy in this Adventure Path than a more standard dungeon crawl or action-packed storyline. There's a LOT of NPCs on screen in these adventures for your PCs to interact with.

Not to say there's not fights and exploration of dungeony-locations, though! There for sure are.

Thank you for this. By bait and switch, I think of Extinction Curse where you think it's a circus related AP and it really isn't.

Edit: it's important to note, I'm going off what I've seen other people say. If that's wrong, my apologies.

xroot wrote:

Is this set in a particular area of Golarion, or meant to be flexible on location?

It's mostly set in Ravounel, but has excursions elsewhere.

Holy moly, this will be the PERFECT sequel to my current Hell's Rebels (shortened to 4 books, ending at level 11 or 12) campaign!!!

Not least because we literally have a bard whose background was that they worked in stage management at the Kintargo Opera, before a certain villain turned up and shut it down!

James Jacobs wrote:

xroot wrote:

Is this set in a particular area of Golarion, or meant to be flexible on location?

It's mostly set in Ravounel, but has excursions elsewhere.

Holy moly, this will be the PERFECT sequel to my current Hell's Rebels (shortened to 4 books, ending at level 11 or 12) campaign!!!

Not least because we literally have a bard whose background was that they worked in stage management at the Kintargo Opera, before a certain villain turned up and shut it down!

If you ended your Hell's Rebels game at the end of book 4, then 100% that is the all time perfect choice, guaranteed! My suggestion would be to aim at ending it at level 12—the first chapter of Curtain Call, where the PCs are 11th level, are mostly about setting the stage and rolling right in from the end of Book 4 of Hell's Rebels (with a "your party spent several years relaxing in retirement" interlude to give Ravounel time to recover) would be a pretty elegant match. I'll have to remember that when I create the Player's Guide for Curtain Call. Good point!

Thank you for this. By bait and switch, I think of Extinction Curse where you think it's a circus related AP and it really isn't.

Ah; gotcha! That makes sense, and thank you for the example.

Curtain Call does not do a bait and switch. There's more story going on in this adventure path than "The PCs are hired to help produce an opera", but that is very much the main through line. A bit more in the spoiler for folks who don't want to know the pacing of how that goes out as far as the opera element is concerned:

H2Osw wrote:

Thank you for this. By bait and switch, I think of Extinction Curse where you think it's a circus related AP and it really isn't.

Ah; gotcha! That makes sense, and thank you for the example.

Curtain Call does not do a bait and switch. There's more story going on in this adventure path than "The PCs are hired to help produce an opera", but that is very much the main through line. A bit more in the spoiler for folks who don't want to know the pacing of how that goes out as far as the opera element is concerned:

** spoiler omitted **

Glad to hear that :D I was disappointed to realize how little crime solving/police procedural/investigation there was in Agents of Edgewatch as written, it really read like you could have replaced town guard with city hiring normal adventurers and nothing wouldn't have changed in practice.

H2Osw wrote:

Thank you for this. By bait and switch, I think of Extinction Curse where you think it's a circus related AP and it really isn't.

Ah; gotcha! That makes sense, and thank you for the example.

Curtain Call does not do a bait and switch. There's more story going on in this adventure path than "The PCs are hired to help produce an opera", but that is very much the main through line. A bit more in the spoiler for folks who don't want to know the pacing of how that goes out as far as the opera element is concerned:

** spoiler omitted **

*reads spoiler section*

*hype intensifies*

Oh wow, I should revamp my 1e Chelish Diva Bard. Very excite.

SatiricalBard wrote:

Holy moly, this will be the PERFECT sequel to my current Hell's Rebels (shortened to 4 books, ending at level 11 or 12) campaign!!!

Not least because we literally have a bard whose background was that they worked in stage management at the Kintargo Opera, before a certain villain turned up and shut it down!

If you ended your Hell's Rebels game at the end of book 4, then 100% that is the all time perfect choice, guaranteed! My suggestion would be to aim at ending it at level 12—the first chapter of Curtain Call, where the PCs are 11th level, are mostly about setting the stage and rolling right in from the end of Book 4 of Hell's Rebels (with a "your party spent several years relaxing in retirement" interlude to give Ravounel time to recover) would be a pretty elegant match. I'll have to remember that when I create the Player's Guide for Curtain Call. Good point!

Thanks for the response! I think we're likely to finish around when book 3 comes out, which is the best time to make a proper assessment of the AP, so that timing is perfect too :-)

Huzzah!

This was just stupendous fun to write, I hope you'll all love it! I was literally bouncing around when James asked me to write this adventure and it was so great to have fun playing about with the wonderful ideas he's put into this AP.

Very happy to answer any questions when this puppy arrives on your doorsteps and thank you for all your enthusiasm you lovely folks.

Rich

With the esteemed poster above writing this, I think Stage Fright will not be about having butterflies in your stomach.

Though having real eldritch butterflies in your stomach could very well be a thing, I guess.

Interesting.

It would be a hoot if the PCs can hire Robahl (from The Sixfold Trial) as the director!

From the office of expectation management, the director is a specific NPC and is one of the few the PCs DON'T get to hire; she's the one that actually gets the plot started and it all goes from there.

Ah, well...

I completely understand. You have a specific story to tell and which NPCs are important to the plot are pretty much set based on that (especially if they have a deeper connection to Ravounel, Kintargo, and the Silver Ravens [speculating here]).

The comment was more of a "this could be cool" thing.

H2Osw wrote:

Thank you for this. By bait and switch, I think of Extinction Curse where you think it's a circus related AP and it really isn't.

Ah; gotcha! That makes sense, and thank you for the example.

Curtain Call does not do a bait and switch. There's more story going on in this adventure path than "The PCs are hired to help produce an opera", but that is very much the main through line. A bit more in the spoiler for folks who don't want to know the pacing of how that goes out as far as the opera element is concerned:

** spoiler omitted **

This is so great to read! Thank you for this much reassurance, as my group was wary about this as well. It's made us all extremely excited!

From the office of expectation management, the director is a specific NPC and is one of the few the PCs DON'T get to hire; she's the one that actually gets the plot started and it all goes from there.

I read that first as "it all goes down from there".

James Jacobs wrote:

From the office of expectation management, the director is a specific NPC and is one of the few the PCs DON'T get to hire; she's the one that actually gets the plot started and it all goes from there.

I read that first as "it all goes down from there".

That too, probably. I'm sure that we will love it, but the characters won't.

I kinda wonder if this will be first AP without unique backgrounds options since it sounds kinda heavily based on characters having previous adventuring :O

(sidenote as tangent on "missing features", kinda observed that 2e aps seem bit random on whether they have continuing the campaign article at all or even "what if pcs fail" paragraph. Latter is sometimes manageable when you can guess from context what would happen, but sometimes not x'D Not sure repeated to this ap in particular, but I'm slow to get back into reviewing so I haven't gotten lot of opportunities to comment on that)

I kinda wonder if this will be first AP without unique backgrounds options since it sounds kinda heavily based on characters having previous adventuring :O

(sidenote as tangent on "missing features", kinda observed that 2e aps seem bit random on whether they have continuing the campaign article at all or even "what if pcs fail" paragraph. Latter is sometimes manageable when you can guess from context what would happen, but sometimes not x'D Not sure repeated to this ap in particular, but I'm slow to get back into reviewing so I haven't gotten lot of opportunities to comment on that)

It'll still have unique backgrounds, but those will be one of the ways we leverage the "You're building new characters for this campaign so these backgrounds can help you lean in to that" in some way.

If you're bringing in PCs you've played in another campaign, you'll already have backgrounds so that part of the Player's Guide won't be useful to the group, as in the case of all Adventure Paths that don't start at 1st level.

We often skip on the "continuing the campaign" articles for ones that end at 20th level, since there's nowhere to go from there; sometimes we do a "Beyond the Campaign" article. In any event, those articles are often written at the last minute and sometimes serve as a pressure relief valve; if that last adventure runs long, we can use those 6 pages for the adventure and just not write a Continuing article and no one's disappointed their freelance assignment got cut.

Yeah most of time level 20 is good ending point for campaign(not because you don't get anymore levels but because at that point campaign is already at minimum of 40 sessions and year of real life time, if you started from level 1 that is), so its mainly bummer if they get cut for level 10 ones x'D I do always find it bummer when there isn't written info on aftermath of final adventure failure since they both inspire me and help me set up consequences of stakes for players

(reading edgewatch after playing it and seeing how it lacks that info while Extinction Curse and Age of Ashes on otherhand had decent "what happens if you fail" info did really doesn't help with it feeling like Edgewatch's final book is rather low stakes :'D its one of those campaigns where having consequences for failure would actually help flesh out "why is this that important though besides just bad guys winning?")

Huzzah!

This was just stupendous fun to write, I hope you'll all love it! I was literally bouncing around when James asked me to write this adventure and it was so great to have fun playing about with the wonderful ideas he's put into this AP.

Very happy to answer any questions when this puppy arrives on your doorsteps and thank you for all your enthusiasm you lovely folks.

Rich

The degree to which I am entirely enthused by this announcement is difficult to overstate.

I'd say you have been missed at my gaming table -- but that isn't true. We just finished running through The Skinsaw Murders under PF2, City of Locusts (also in PF2) is on the docket, and speaking of dockets - I'm converting Trial of the Beast to PF2 right now.

But I'd rather not have to convert your stuff :)

The degree to which I am entirely enthused by this announcement is difficult to overstate.

I'd say you have been missed at my gaming table -- but that isn't true. We just finished running through [i]The Skinsaw Murders under PF2, City of Locusts (also in PF2) is on the docket, and speaking of dockets - I'm converting Trial of the Beast to PF2 right now.

But I'd rather not have to convert your stuff :)

Thank you very kindly indeed Steel Wind, I felt the same when the wonderful Mr Jacobs emailed me out of the dark folds of space where he lurks plotting the end of all things and asked me if I would like to write this adventure, which of course he knew the answer to before he asked. He knows I've been looking on looking at the cool adventures they have been writing and publishing for PF2 with admiration so it was really nice to be asked to pen this.

Glad you're having fun with some of the older adventures too and bravo for converting them, please say sorry to your players from me for any nastiness that might occur. I really hope you like this one, it was great fun and a total joy to write.

Mnaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrr!!!!!

Ohhh, I absolutely love this! Seems like an excellent opportunity to get some mileage out of Perform now covering all the various types of performance, since opera requires several. I've got a character or two I'd absolutely love to play in this, given the opportunity.

I think JJ went back to the opera theme because it is the oldest niche theme that wasn’t given full attention in the 5th AP, as many players would have liked. So maybe they’ll do them in order and we’ll get a real circus AP and a real cop one etc. This can also be used as counterpoint to those clamoring for more epic in PF2; epic is by its nature opposed to niche, so an exploration of niches—and the development of practices to design and publish them—will necessarily have an effect on the epic. That said the PF setting is huge so it can contain everything, as long as the writers want to write everything, of course, which is never guaranteed.

Is there any chance of a certain singer from Return of the Runelords making an appearance?

Is there any chance of a certain singer from Return of the Runelords making an appearance?

Nope; that story's limited to Return of the Runelords.