Just a couple curious questions for the Paizo staff (and contributors), if you're inclined to show us some insight into creating the Adventure Paths.
After publishing the Shackled City AP, there were a couple of threads where the Dungeon staff discussed some of the issues that came up (continuity between authors, plot hooks left unexplored, a loose outline, to name the few that I remember), and some changes that were going to be made for Age of Worms AP.
I also realize that the Paizo staff have listened to their subscribers, the DMs that run their games as well as the players that have been in them, and I think I've noticed changes from the SCAP to the AoWAP based on their feedback.
So, I was wondering...
What are the "lessons learned" from the AoW AP, and what changes do you think will be made in AP3? (From a publisher/editor's perspective... I'm not asking for details on the plot for the next AP.)
What has been the most helpful DM feedback from AoW AP so far, and how has it influenced the projections for AP3?
What has been the most helpful feedback from the contributing authors, and what changes might we see based on their insight?
Just curious.
Creative Director
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Ten things I learned from doing "Age of Worms":
1: Our readers really enjoy nostalgia and ties to classic D&D material.
2: We should probably assume more readers are running the Age of Worms as a series than running individual adventures, spend less time on providing adventure hooks and guidance for running adventures as stand-alone adventures and more time providing strong links between adventures.
3: Each adventure should advance the storyline of the campaign.
4: Adventure Path 3 should have subtle ties to "Shackled City," "Age of Worms," and other big adventrues we've printed in Dungeon.
5: Conversion notes need to come out faster and regularly, and should probably be printed in the magazine. This would of course mean that conversion notes would have to be MUCH less detailed. Which is probably a good thing.
6: Tone down the challenges in the first few adventures a little.
7: Ease up on the sudden animation of "harmless statues."
8: Don't introduce new game elements (like draconic alchemy) without providing detailed rules on how the new element functions in the issue it first appears.
9: Don't use overwhelmingly potent nostalgia in sub-plots.
10: Using the same artists for the entire Adventure Path is the Way To Go, but if we're going to use concept art, we need to order the concept art six months earlier than we did for "Age of Worms."
James,
It's very interesting to read these learning points and it's impressive how well they summarize the different debates and discussions that developped on these Boards for the last 6 months. Someone has been paying attention! ;-) Thanks.
For my side, I would say that I especially put a lot of importance on points 5, 2 and 10.
Maybe later you could organize some kind of poll of the readers about what they thought the strong points of the AP were? (based on a list similar to the one you just put together)?
Bocklin
1: Our readers really enjoy nostalgia and ties to classic D&D material.
Not me.
2: We should probably assume more readers are running the Age of Worms as a series than running individual adventures, spend less time on providing adventure hooks and guidance for running adventures as stand-alone adventures and more time providing strong links between adventures.
That makes a lot of sense.
3: Each adventure should advance the storyline of the campaign.
There's really nothing wrong with a couple of side-treks, but I wouldn't mind this.
4: Adventure Path 3 should have subtle ties to "Shackled City," "Age of Worms," and other big adventrues we've printed in Dungeon.
I'm pretty impartial to this idea...the ties should be very subtle so as not to limit the plot at all.
5: Conversion notes need to come out faster and regularly...
Yes!
...and should probably be printed in the magazine. This would of course mean that conversion notes would have to be MUCH less detailed. Which is probably a good thing.
Nooooo! I would want the Eberron conversion notes to be much MORE detailed. I would rather have them posted online if it meant not losing details.
6: Tone down the challenges in the first few adventures a little.
Helpful, but more difficult to make the adventures interesting using only low-CR stuff. An interesting challenge for the authors.
7: Ease up on the sudden animation of "harmless statues."
I'm all for that.
8: Don't introduce new game elements (like draconic alchemy) without providing detailed rules on how the new element functions in the issue it first appears.
Sound advice.
9: Don't use overwhelmingly potent nostalgia in sub-plots.
Good.
10: Using the same artists for the entire Adventure Path is the Way To Go, but if we're going to use concept art, we need to order the concept art six months earlier than we did for "Age of Worms."
Also sounds good!
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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9: Don't use overwhelmingly potent nostalgia in sub-plots.
10: Using the same artists for the entire Adventure Path is the Way To Go, but if we're going to use concept art, we need to order the concept art six months earlier than we did for "Age of Worms."
Could you elaborate on these two. What sub-plots involved overwhelming nostalgia that didn't work out? The rod of seven parts? What was the art issue?
Thanks,
Sebastian
The beauty of the Internet: once you make a proclamation, people have to chime in to agree or disagree. =)
1: Our readers really enjoy nostalgia and ties to classic D&D material.
Yesssss...Although #9 should always be kept into account. I love opening an adventure and seeing a link to an earlier adventure, whether a Dungeon module or a TSR/WotC adventure. It makes the game feel connected, which is one of the beauties of Old Skool D&D.
2: We should probably assume more readers are running the Age of Worms as a series than running individual adventures, spend less time on providing adventure hooks and guidance for running adventures as stand-alone adventures and more time providing strong links between adventures.
Yesss...I know I'll be stealing from the APs for unrelated campaigns, but the whole point of the APs are to Adventure... on a Path.... =)
3: Each adventure should advance the storyline of the campaign.
I would agree with this, with the caveat that an adventure that explores the setting the AP is set in is incredibly useful. Perhaps some AP Sidetreks? I know I could write a few Cauldron-related ones right now.
4: Adventure Path 3 should have subtle ties to "Shackled City," "Age of Worms," and other big adventrues we've printed in Dungeon.
Yesss...See #1.
5: Conversion notes need to come out faster and regularly, and should probably be printed in the magazine. This would of course mean that conversion notes would have to be MUCH less detailed. Which is probably a good thing.
Yessss...I'm a FR fanboy, so conversion notes = good for me. Granted, I modify them myself, but it does make it a bit easier to handle the headache.
6: Tone down the challenges in the first few adventures a little.
I disagree with this, actually. One of the appeals to the APs for me is that I know that there are going to be some unsusual set-ups and that the PCs are going to be challenged in the adventures. Call it a trademark of the series, but I /really/ like knowing that my PCs aren't going to be able to walk through it easily.
7: Ease up on the sudden animation of "harmless statues."
Again with the disagreement, but I disagreed on the original thread. Harmless statues are less fun than harmful ones, but creativity always wins.
8: Don't introduce new game elements (like draconic alchemy) without providing detailed rules on how the new element functions in the issue it first appears.
Yessssss... I love the tidbits, but when you aren't sure how important a plot hook an item/bit of lore/new crunch will be in the AP, it makes it harder to use without invalidating the AP further down the line.
9: Don't use overwhelmingly potent nostalgia in sub-plots.
Yessss...Subtle touches good. Overkill bad.
10: Using the same artists for the entire Adventure Path is the Way To Go, but if we're going to use concept art, we need to order the concept art six months earlier than we did for "Age of Worms."
Yessssssss...but I had no complaints about either AP's artwork, so keep up the good work!
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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One more thing - any chance of making a campaign workbook into an adventure path workbook instead of putting that piece (ala Wormfood) in Dragon. It's nice to try and tie the two magazines together, but I think the ecology articles and other such things are the way to do it. The Wormfood articles were generally cool, but they also gave away some information that players probably shouldn't have.
Sebastian
I would agree with the conversion notes, with this little comment, if you make them too stripped down, at the very least the more, erm, fanatical of that settings aficianados will likely have little use for them. For example, if you mention a famous, large trade city in FR I'm going to think of Waterdeep. If you mention a semi-secret society that does a lot of spying and trying to influence events here and there for the greater good, I'm going to think Harpers. If you say in Core parlance a god is St. Cuthbert, I'm likely going to think of Helm.
What I have liked about Eric Boyd's conversions are that they have brought up some interesting things I wouldn't have thought of. Quick reaction would say Wee Jas=either Kelemvor (neutral) or Velsharoon (evil), but Eric's Cult of the Ascended Lovers is interesting. Eric knows what noble families have this or that member that has been involed in X or Y that dovetails with the plots in the AP as well. It may seem like a lot, but as Erik said in his editorial this month, if an FR fan didn't like "trivia" (we prefer Realmslore, lol), then we may not really be Realmsfans . . .
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Creative Director
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Could you elaborate on these two. What sub-plots involved overwhelming nostalgia that didn't work out? The rod of seven parts? What was the art issue?
The Rod of Seven Parts is exactly it. While I love how it works into the campaign's arc, and the backstory really helps to give the whole thing an awesome sense of history, focusing so heavilly on the Wind Dukes and their stuff in the "Whispering Cairn," I think, kinda has a "bait-and-switch" feel to it. In AP3, what happens in the first few adventures will have a stronger bearing on the overall campaign, although the plot of the overall campaign most likely won't be blatantly obvious in the first few adventures.
As for the art: we orderd a LOT of concept art for Age of Worms. The goal was to get in concept art and send it out to our authors to use as inspiration, but our timing was off. In the end, we ended up with a fair amount of cool concept art that we couldn't really use because it came in after the adventures they were for had already been written (and been published, in some cases). For AP3, I doubt we'll be going the concept art route, especially since the art we did get turned out to be so incredible and awesome as it was!
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Creative Director
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One more thing - any chance of making a campaign workbook into an adventure path workbook instead of putting that piece (ala Wormfood) in Dragon. It's nice to try and tie the two magazines together, but I think the ecology articles and other such things are the way to do it. The Wormfood articles were generally cool, but they also gave away some information that players probably shouldn't have.
No chance of this, for 3 reasons.
1: The adventure path takes up enough of Dungeon as it is; any more would make it overkill and reduce the use of the magazine for those who aren't running the adventure path.
2: The focus of Wormfood is Player Information. By putting them in a different place, the players don't have to be reading the same magazine as the DM. Put differently, it keeps players from "accidentaly" reading the adventure. If we do something like this for AP3, it'll be incorperated better and won't give out too much information to spoil things.
3: Wormfood drives readers of Dungeon who don't buy Dragon to buy Dragon (or at least to test it out).
7: Ease up on the sudden animation of "harmless statues."
I had an article in issue 139 of Dragon called, "Oh, look! A Harmless Statue!" thirty dirty new ways to hide and disguise your golem.
Something like that anyway.
A harmless statue is the reason I sort of lost the first D&D character I ever ran. I guess the trauma left its mark. ;)
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Creative Director
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A bit more info about the Conversion Notes. For AP3, I'd like to see them be less about rewriting the adventure and more about how to run the adventure, as written, in either FR or Eberron. They won't be providing alternate stat blocks or replacement encounters, for example. We might build some of this into the adventure path itself, by making it easer to adapt by nature. We might not. It's still far too early in the process to tell for sure.
WhatEVER we do, I'd like to get the conversion notes out at the same time the magazines are out. And part of the reason they come out late now is because they're too complex. Takes longer for the author to write, takes longer for us to edit and lay out. Simpler conversion notes = easier to provide to the reader.
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I would agree that the most important thing for Dungeon to do is to work on the links between modules. The AP3 needs to hang together better as part of a more coherent story with stronger transitions between modules.
It's a linear tale. Don't waffle and try to pretend it isn't so improv snobs won't sneer at it. It is what it is.
I appreciate that there were some good reasons when you initally went into AoW to try and preserve the "each module can still stand alone" part.
There were some negative reader comments at the outset, and the SCAP leant itself to individual module play - at least anecdotally. (though I thnk this had more to do with publication frequency).
And the past practice-in-use of most Dungeon adventures is to act as cameos of the moment in a homebrew campaign - *if they were ever run at all*.
My bet is the vast majority of adventures that Dungeon readers have they have never played - and never will play. I further expect the number of Dungone adventures that any given Dungeon DM actually runs is an extremely small number next to the number of Dungeon adventures they will ever read.
So I can see the stand-alone design element being important when you were brainstorming on AoW.
As it turned out, I'm not so sure if the success of the AoW took even Dungeon staff by surprise.
From everything I've read here and on ENWorld to date, I do think that the overwhelming majority of Dungeon readers did three things that were unusual with AoW:
1. Shared Experience: A very large number of readers played the adventures or plan to imminently. You'd think this follows as a matter of course, but in my experience, before AoW, Dungeon was a shelf resource. It was something you read when you received it - sometimes in detail - sometimes skimming. Its real value- in-use was typically that it was something you read and had it inspire you - not necessarily something you used.
Most often, pepole would go to a copy of Dungeon from time to time as a reference work and then adapt it for a home brew. More often than not, most people would do so only after a considerable period of time had elapsed between publication and actual use.
In this sense, I have little doubt that AoW is already far and away among the most "played" adventures that Dungeon has ever released.
2. A very large number of readers actually played the adventure as written: This is not a small point and flows from the first. Rather than trying to shoehorn a given adventure into an existing home brew or adapt it for a different party level, there seems to be a shift towards just running the adventure as written. The RAW became the AAW.
3. AoW is used with an offical setting as its own stand alone campaign: This flows from the first and second and it all hangs together and makes sense. If you are going to run it, and run the sequels, then you are running them more or less as written, as one entire campaign from a fresh start. And if you are going to start something new, you might as well use the town maps provided - which has lead - anecdotally at any rate - to a very large number of people running this thing in Greyhawk, or in the FR or Eberron - instead of in their home brew campaigns.
After all, if you are going to start a new campaign - there are fewer barriers to using a published campaign setting.
Put it all together and the important stuff, the "surprising stuff" is that it has been so enthusiastically embraced.
A bit more info about the Conversion Notes. For AP3, I'd like to see them be less about rewriting the adventure and more about how to run the adventure, as written, in either FR or Eberron. They won't be providing alternate stat blocks or replacement encounters, for example. We might build some of this into the adventure path itself, by making it easer to adapt by nature. We might not. It's still far too early in the process to tell for sure.
WhatEVER we do, I'd like to get the conversion notes out at the same time the magazines are out. And part of the reason they come out late now is because they're too complex. Takes longer for the author to write, takes longer for us to edit and lay out. Simpler conversion notes = easier to provide to the reader.
I can imagine that this is some kind of dilemna for you at Dungeon: the easier the AP is to adapt, the less world-specific and "deep" it might become.
I mean: the plots around Kyuss, the Ebon Triad and especially the Rod of Seven Parts are very Greyhawk specific. Which is really nice for those playing in Greyhawk and raises their fun ratio by 200%. At the same time it makes it harder to shoe-horn the AP into the Realms or Eberron (not impossible, but harder).
So if you produce an AP that is easy to adapt to any setting, it might mean that it tastes bland for all settings?
Just a thought...
Bocklin
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Creative Director
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So if you produce an AP that is easy to adapt to any setting, it might mean that it tastes bland for all settings?
I don't know about that... Shackled City was popular & successful, and when it first appeared in the magazine it had nothing to do with any established game world. I think that there's probably a happy medium somewhere between it and Age of Worms that we can shoot for.
Now... that said, I think that Eric Boyd and Keith Baker have done great jobs with the conversion notes for Age of Worms, and fans of FR and Eberron seem to really enjoy them. So maybe it's a bad idea to mess with something everyone likes, and instead I should focus on making sure these conversion notes come out on time.
Now... that said, I think that Eric Boyd and Keith Baker have done great jobs with the conversion notes for Age of Worms, and fans of FR and Eberron seem to really enjoy them.
I can only agree with that. I don't know for the Eberron notes, but the FR ones are excellent and we are very thankful for Eric's work.
It's just that we have not seen so much of the FR backstory so far and, in comparison, the Greyhawk version seems to be so rich and deep. We have an idea of the direction taken by Eric, but nothing concrete yet on Jergal's big evil plot, nor on what Kyuss identity/role/alliances in the world are.
I guess it links to the second part of your post...
So maybe it's a bad idea to mess with something everyone likes, and instead I should focus on making sure these conversion notes come out on time.
I am sure that it would indeed improve our enjoyment of the converted AP. That way the FR/Eberron versions would be on the same footing like the Greyhawk one.
Bocklin
Two thoughts come to mind:
1) Involve the conversion authors in the process early in the design of the AP. There might be slight tweaks that do not undermine the integrity of the AP but make it much easier to do the conversion to the Realms or to Eberron. (Yes James, this is a transparent bid on my part to learn about AP3 early on. ;-) )
2) Have a "lite" and "geek" version of the conversion notes. For example, the "Realms-lite" version might be 500 words or less and give you the broad strokes. This would appear in the magazine. The "Realms-geek" version would build on the "Realms-lite" and give every detail needed to fully integrate the adventure into Realms.
Not sure if either of these ideas is really practical, as it's relatively early and I haven't had my third Mt. Dew yet.
--Eric
Not sure if either of these ideas is really practical, as it's relatively early and I haven't had my third Mt. Dew yet.
--Eric
I knew there was a reason I liked you Eric . . . I can't think properly before my Dew infusion either . . . speaking of which . . .
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Creative Director
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Two thoughts come to mind:
1) Involve the conversion authors in the process early in the design of the AP. There might be slight tweaks that do not undermine the integrity of the AP but make it much easier to do the conversion to the Realms or to Eberron. (Yes James, this is a transparent bid on my part to learn about AP3 early on. ;-) )
We'll be hooking you up, Eric; never fear. The concept of doing conversion notes for Age of Worms came about rather late in the process of developing the campaign, which is one of the main reasons we've had a bit of trouble getting it timed right.
2) Have a "lite" and "geek" version of the conversion notes. For example, the "Realms-lite" version might be 500 words or less and give you the broad strokes. This would appear in the magazine. The "Realms-geek" version would build on the "Realms-lite" and give every detail needed to fully integrate the adventure into Realms.
Interesting notion. I think I'd lilke to see the "Realms-lite" version be even shorter; maybe just what names to replace with what.
As for the art: we orderd a LOT of concept art for Age of Worms. The goal was to get in concept art and send it out to our authors to use as inspiration, but our timing was off. In the end, we ended up with a fair amount of cool concept art that we couldn't really use because it came in after the adventures they were for had already been written (and been published, in some cases). For AP3, I doubt we'll be going the concept art route, especially since the art we did get turned out to be so incredible and awesome as it was!
How much of this concept art has made it into the magazines? Has any of the art not been show that could possibly be put out on the webpage as a web supplement? I love art. A good picture can speak a thousand words. So far the art has been wonderful as far as creating the right atmosphere.
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Creative Director
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How much of this concept art has made it into the magazines? Has any of the art not been show that could possibly be put out on the webpage as a web supplement? I love art. A good picture can speak a thousand words. So far the art has been wonderful as far as creating the right atmosphere.
We put some of the concept art in the Age of Worms Overload. None of the actual concept art has made it into a magazine, but some of it's been used to set the appearance of some of the NPCs (Zyrxog, Loris Raknian, and Celeste come to mind).
Interesting notion. I think I'd lilke to see the "Realms-lite" version be even shorter; maybe just what names to replace with what.
There's a philosophical question here as well.
In some ways it would have been easier (i.e. less work on my part / less words for Dungeon staff to deal with) to make Diamond Lake a new town "as is" by shoving it in a bland range of hills rather than integrate it into an existing town, i.e. Daggerford. However, any DM can easily do just that ... place Diamond Lake somewhere on a map and say "yup, it's always been there, you just never noticed it before in previous campaigns".
One of my underlying assumptions in doing the AoW conversion is that I should do the hard work (i.e. match up every NPC with an existing one, if possible), which allows the DM to do none, some, or all of the 'complete' conversion. In other words, it makes it much easier for the DM, but more words for me / the Dungeon staff.
Just an observation.
--Eric
1: Our readers really enjoy nostalgia and ties to classic D&D material.
Some do, some don't. Personally, I loved the references, especially with past Dungeon adventures - many of which my group and I went through.
2: We should probably assume more readers are running the Age of Worms as a series than running individual adventures, spend less time on providing adventure hooks and guidance for running adventures as stand-alone adventures and more time providing strong links between adventures.
While I understand that the Dungeon staff tries to present material so that it could be used stand alone, I was under the assumption that the Age of Worms was being done more as series, considering how well the Shackled City was received. And isn't the whole point of the Adventure Path to run it as a serial?
3: Each adventure should advance the storyline of the campaign.
Well, the majority of the adventures, anyway. Much like serial television series with an underlying "main" plot... for example Desperate Housewives (sorry, been watching 1st season DVD that I got as a gift, so was first thing off the top of my head, lol).
4: Adventure Path 3 should have subtle ties to "Shackled City," "Age of Worms," and other big adventrues we've printed in Dungeon.
This point was covered in point #1...
5: Conversion notes need to come out faster and regularly, and should probably be printed in the magazine. This would of course mean that conversion notes would have to be MUCH less detailed. Which is probably a good thing.
Hard to say how much conversion information is too much or not enough. However, given the choice, I would like to continue seeing the conversion info released online. I realize that you guys have a budget for your website as well as the magazine, but the conversion notes in the magazine affect the amount of space you have available in page count, don't they? With the hire of the new web guy, I believe it has been stated that the supplements will start appearing a little more timely,s o that issue is/will be resolved.
6: Tone down the challenges in the first few adventures a little.
Well, don't make it too easy. It's nice for groups to have that sense of lethality, instead of the "doesn't matter what i do, I'll never die" mentality.
7: Ease up on the sudden animation of "harmless statues."
Feel nothing either way about this. Could be interesting to do variations on the theme (such as that ghost necromancer stuck in the wall that you guys published... that's fairly unique and could surprise someone who is thinking "golem"
8: Don't introduce new game elements (like draconic alchemy) without providing detailed rules on how the new element functions in the issue it first appears.
This would be nice. Or maybe do a related article or some such.
9: Don't use overwhelmingly potent nostalgia in sub-plots.
Hmm... too much of a good thing can be bad
10: Using the same artists for the entire Adventure Path is the Way To Go, but if we're going to use concept art, we need to order the concept art six months earlier than we did for "Age of Worms."
Well, this just makes sense, from a continuity point of view.
Thanks for the input, James and Eric. I really am impressed with how much thought goes into creating the adventure paths, and it's really neat to see a little of the process as it evolves from Shackled City to AP3.
Looking over Dungeon magazine for the past five years, I can say that I am as excited to see the next AP as I was when I was waiting for the Shackled City to play out, and now as we make our way through Age of Worms.
And the excitement between adventure paths just keeps getting more intense. When I saw the changes that were made from SC to AoW, I was impressed by the amount of attention given to your DM feedback. Now, looking over the top 10, I can say that I'm already excited to see how these lessons learned will change the next AP.
As a DM, my experiences running SC twice was that I needed to run side quests between nearly every installment. That was partially due to the time between publication of the original adventures, but also to be able to give the players more to do than spend their entire careers chasing down the Cagewrights (although they didn't know it at first).
For AoW, I haven't run entire adventures inbetween each adventure, but instead I've been able to use several plot hooks provided to flesh out the campaign as is. I ran a couple of extra swamp encounters in EaBWK, a quick side trek under the Cellar Door, and a couple of side quests to fill out the Free City encounters... but that's it.
The only "lesson learned" input from my players was that the covers of the magazine gave away much of the adventures. During HoHR, they kept saying "is this where the mind flayer is?" and now that they've spotted the cover of GoW, they know that they're going to face the black dragon they heard about in the swamp. But, as a DM, I think that those are the only two covers that really stand out as giving out info on the game. The other covers, while specific to a certain encounter, don't seem to tell a significant point of the plot.
I have to say that I am "almost completely happy" with the way that AoW has been handled, since it addressed the main problems I had with SC: the story line was presented up front, and the adventures have been published on a monthly basis.
Again, thanks for your insight.
I would disagree with the thought that the new AP should have subtle ties to AP1 & AP2. I found the ties in the AoWAP to the SCAP detracted from the whole. (sorry) They seemed a bit forced, which is to say that if they come naturally - then OK, but don't add the ties just to have the ties.
I would also keep the base difficulty level high in the earlier campaign. Being able to craft encounters that take the PCs to the edge of , but not beyond, is a mark of DM mastery in my mind. At the end of the adventure you could add ways to modify the encounters for those running it with less experienced players. It wouldn't be much different than the way the adventures are scaled to different PC levels, and perhaps it could be used throughout the AP. I know at my bookstore I have recommended Dungeon as a good resource for young teens/preteens who want adventures, and they'd need the notes to survive throughout, not just at the earlier levels.
But because the APs do have such a high difficulty level, and have proven popular, please don't change such a fundamental element. It'd be really lame for DMs to have to make it tougher for the experienced players. Think about your own favorite modules from the past. It's likely they've taken the same criticism for difficulty.
What I would like to see is more outdoor action, perhaps even overland travel, or travel through different treacherous venues. That would likely have to take place before they could TP from site to site or Fly over obstacles.
I have not liked the way in #130 & #131 much of the XP comes from story awards that take little or no action on the part of the PCs. Whether or not having a vision advances the story or not, having a PC gain a level for being present detracts from the XP earned "the hard way" earlier. I realize there's pressure to keep the PCs advancing so they can move down the AP, but that was a bit much, especially back to back. Maybe 12 issues is a bit too hasty of a progression?
BTW, I did like the adventures.
Oh, and a big THANK YOU because you guys are more in tune with your customers than anybody I can think of.
Keep it up!
Late thoughts:
If there was a danger adjustment (hopefully optional, not intrinsic) for less experienced players than there'd likely need to be story XP (i.e. "end of adventure section" XP) to make up the difference because the downgraded encounters would have less XP.
I like animated statue guardians. I read that discussion and I think the gist is to resist using cliches. I think the statue in question was fine. Expected, but fine.
Much of DnD is a cliche by nature (Barbarian Orcs, Elven Wizards, mummies in pyramids, undead in tombs, dragons with hoards, etc.) that to exclude statues would be unfortunate. Constructs are an interesting change of pace, especially for those groups overly dependent on rogues or enchanters.
Thank you, again.
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Creative Director
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I have not liked the way in #130 & #131 much of the XP comes from story awards that take little or no action on the part of the PCs. Whether or not having a vision advances the story or not, having a PC gain a level for being present detracts from the XP earned "the hard way" earlier. I realize there's pressure to keep the PCs advancing so they can move down the AP, but that was a bit much, especially back to back. Maybe 12 issues is a bit too hasty of a progression?
There's more than D&D than killing monsters; there has to be. If it were only about killing monsters, the game itself would look and play more like the D&D minis game. Throughout the Adventure Paths (and in Dungeon adventures as a whole) we try to make sure that there's plenty of variance in the type of encounters PCs will be faced with. Most of them are combat encounters, but now and then they aren't. Should a PC be penalized in XP simply because they didnt' kill any monsters in a game session? I don't think they should, and so for adventures with heavy non-combat elements (such as the visions in "Spire of Long Shadows") I do my best to keep things balanced. Remember also the definition of the word "experience." Why shouldn't you gain more experience simply for experiencing events or situations that are so far beyond the norm? Witnessing the echos of a mortal's transformation into a deity is certainly not a run-of-the-mill event, and characters should emerge from an event like this changed (in this case, "changed" means "more experienced").
Another way to look at it is this: The Age of Worms doesn't care HOW the PCs gain their XP points. It cares only that they get enough to be of an appropriate level for the next adventure. In fact, for a campaign like this where everything's plotted out, you can even do away with XP entirely. Simply allow the PCs to level up once in the middle of the adventure and once at the end (or only once at the end for those adventures that are only supposed to bump characters by one level).
Anyway, don't expect to see us stop awarding XP for story rewards or accomplishing certain events or for reaching certain points in the campaign. If you don't agree with this method of handing out experience points, you should certainly omit them from your game. Just make sure that you give the PCs a chance to catch up.
And finally, while we're not completely done plotting out Adventure Path 3, I can guarentee that there's going to be more wilderness exploration in this one than in Shackled City and Age of Worms combined.
Interesting discussion.
Perhaps part of the complaint is rooted in the notion that XP is a reward for good play, and that receiving XP just for witnessing events feels Monty Haulish?
I'm not certain that's the poster's point, but let me chase that idea a bit...
I think one of the hang-ups here is that D&D has a very thought out, balanced, and regimented system for simulating (fantasy) combat. By the time you end a fight, you feel like you've earned your character's improvement. There's a highly regimented system for deciding just how much reward you get, so if it's not fair, it's at least regular. The experience reward system is as old as D&D and has been borrowed by pretty much every game since.
(Historical rambling: Palladium was the first system I remember encouraging XP bonuses for roleplaying. 1st ed D&D had a section in the DMG about modifying the GP cost for training to your next level based on roleplaying, but I don't remember seeing anything as straightforward as bonus XP for roleplaying.)
So two points from the above:
XP from combat feels right because:
1) It's a challenging game within the game.
2) There are well understood rules for how much reward one gets.
So combat XP feels "earned". That makes it a sweeter reward.
Other game systems seem to have had an easier time with with XP awards for roleplaying, puzzle solving, etc. GURPS tends to go with a 1 XP per scene for characters that contribute to the solution to the problem presented in the scene, 2 XP for exemplary play. Vampire and Hero System tend to hand out 2-5 XP per game session per character at the end of the session, based on certain metrics. There's little tradition of tying these to combat. You get your 1XP for surviving the session, +1 if you roleplayed well, +1 for overcoming a major challenge, etc.
There's one trick to applying this system to D&D, which is that the value of XP is not linear: characters need more to level as they go up. 3.0 streamlined this nicely with the math of current level x 1,000 as the increase cost per level, and the CR system for monster awards. It also points the way with assigning CRs to traps, and anything else the DM wishes. That's most of what one needs to handle the concern of keeping XP awards of a regular, fair seeming size.
To make it a little more thought out, you can develop a few more systems. In my DMing, I have a regular system for giving XP for discovering secrets, especially secrets about my campaign world or the ongoing plot of the campaign arc. Discovery XP is based on the level I expect a party will need to be, modified higher if the secret takes a while to piece together from multiple information sources, or has particularly dire repercussions for knowning. Some examples from Keth, my own little homegrown campaign world:
Regional Secrets: Ulgareth
CR1: Civic lords and ladies rank below guildmasters in Ulgareth. Guildlaw covers most circumstances, and civic law exists mostly to sort out the contradictions. Civic sort out disagreements between the guilds, and those who judge poorly are quietly replaced.
CR2: The top of the guild pecking order is the Mage's Guild. Displeasing the Mason's Guild, the Smith's Guild, or the Weaver's Guild will earn you a visit from a few burly men, the type where you have a conversation that ends with you needing crutches. Cross the Mage's Guild and you're likely to have your children born without eyes for three generations.
CR4: The civic lords of Ulgareth bow to the guildmasters, but they are entrusted with negotiating between the burgs and the ((elders of the giants)). No guild will trust the rest to keep a constant stance or have that much authority.
CR5: The head of the Mage's Guild, Gyer Hlan, is only an 8th level wizard, despite being one of the most feared men in the world. The other members of the Mage's Guild council are weaker yet.
CR6: The most promising students of the Mage's Guild have a tendancy to disappear permanently.
CR7: Every guildsman is required to produce a number of "exemplary items" to pass various tests of rank in the course of his career. Added up over the years, enough materials are produced in this way to supply a large army, but where these items go after the tests is not discussed; They are simply taken away. Tracing the path the goods take shows that they are all collected at one of six castles. These castles are all off the major roads and unmarked on any map.
CR8: The Mage's Guild council was purged in a single night by the hand of Kyltis, a lich eldritch knight. Gyer Hlan and his second in command were the sole survivors from the original council that night. The purge was for reasons of disobedience to Kyltis's master. Gyer has served faithfully since his "promotion."
...and so on.
One caveat about non-combat XP: Characters are assumed to advance in D&D in two dimensions that should keep pace with each other: XP and treasure. If you regularly give out XP for non-combat scenes, your players may fall behind on treasure. In my DMing, I have an easy time balancing this. I prefer NPC foes to monsters, which bumps up the treasure rewards. (NPCs have the 3x the loot per CR, doncha know.) Also, I like to have allies or patrons of the PCs give them some of their tailored rewards as gifts of gratitude, payments, etc. The idea that one's most powerful signature devices are taken as loot from the corpses of ones foes can work, but it gets hard to justify it each and every time without it starting to stink a little of graverobbing. Thus: gifts, payments, etc.
That's my thoughts about making it regular. There's another whole post about how to make characters feel like they earned it. (Problem: In D&D, one makes half a dozen decisions and a like number of dice throws in a single combat, but other reward worthy actions might be handled by a difficult-to-classify quantity of roleplaying and a single skill check. How to make the players feel like they're playing a game during this time as well, so the rewards feel earned, not arbitrary?) But, I'm up to my rant limit for now. If anyone wants to hear rant part 2, say so, otherwise I'll assume I'm writing for my own amusement and save you from having to read it.
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Creative Director
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I'd actually like to see an AP where some (30%ish?) of the adventures had nothing directly to do with the main plot.
I've been loving AoW, but it gets the feeling (Blackwall Keep currently) that wherever the PCs go, they trip over green worms. Running down to the corner store? Bum on the corner is a Kyuss Zombie. Hitting a college reunion? Green worms. I know that it's part of the epic prophecy feel, but my players are going "uhh... this is feeling clunky" rather than "uhh... guys? I'm getting a little weirded out...".
I'm all for a slowly developing plot, but this is feeling a little over the top.
Interesting... this is actually the first time I've seen this sentiment voiced. If anything, the adventures in "Age of Worms" that don't have as much to do with the metaplot have been generating complaints like this: "How do I make this adventure more important to the plot?"
Our current plotline for AP3 has all 12 adventures fairly important to the plotline, although it won't be obvious till later in the campaign how and why the earlier adventures were connected.
Our current plotline for AP3 has all 12 adventures fairly important to the plotline, although it won't be obvious till later in the campaign how and why the earlier adventures were connected.
Excellent. This is my preferred method of tying a campaign together - the players don't realize that it's all planned from the beginning until they reach the Eureka Moment. =)
One thing I would like to see is a bit more space put between the adventures on the AP. With SCAP, I have several side treks planned, but a lot of later adventures are right on top of one another, which makes it difficult near the end.
While the Age of worms and Shackled city have been good reads, enjoyable adventures all, i am afraid i cannot run them for my players. My problem with them is not the writing, or design, but in the way the plot is so forced. my players enjoy non linear adventures, with no meta plot at all in the game, and i found these APs impossible to add to my game without making the players feel as though they would be ram rodded through a series of adventures they had no desire to do. My group has done several campaigns like this and has no desire to "save the world" from whatever horrible gribblies might be coming to end it. they prefer a much more open and a free game where they can go from place to place and have adventure, without any major plot at all. If i told them they had to remain in the same static area for 12 adventures, they would revolt. I do enjoy the basic design of these adventures, but if you did a future AP how about making it 18 or 24 adventures instead of 12? That way, it would be easier to nudge my players into a direction without having them feel forced. you could have a 6 adventure plot with the objective being somethig else besides "save the world." like the recent FR Vampire series that i enjoyed and intend on doing in my campaign when the pcs reach an appropriate level in the game. Also, maybe divergent side treks that don't have anything to do with the plot, or maybe an npc in the main plot needs something and you have to go on a boot fetch mission for him. I enjoy the magazine, and every adventure i read, i find myself saying, "oh, that's a cool npc, i think i will use him," or "what a cool map, i could use that for something else." Keep up the good work, but keep the plot hammering to a minimum in the next AP. I would love to run one of these APs but my players would have no fun at all and that is why I play.
This is not to say that this type of campaign is wrong, it is just the way some of us that DM feel about the adventure path series.
Also, a note about the XP given. everyone has their own way of doing experience, but i have found that the way these adventures give it is actually fairly balanced. there are times when the players get more xp for making a different decision, or doing more role play than just strait combat. an example is the ghoul in the temple of Cuthbert in the recent adventure from #131. if you fight him, cr 12, if you convice him to help, cr 15. this takes the game away from a series of combats to a more balanced type of encounters that i truly enjoy. i feel this reward is better because it makes the role play option more enticing to those that would rather hack and slash every encounter. Not every encounter in every adventure needs to be a combat, and higher XP rewarded for role playing is good. Also, as a DM, you are free to award xp for your group based on your own set idea of XP, like i said, every game is different, but i see the XP given in Dungeon more along the lines of how i do it and see that it is a system that is not broken and doesn't need to be fixed.
anyway, i've rambled long enough, that's my 2 francs
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Creative Director
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The reason we do Adventure Paths in groups of 12 is so that someone who subscribes at part one gets all of the parts in a single subscription. In addition, carrying on the adventure path beyond 12 parts is probably too much of a good thing; we need variety in the magazine now and then!
As for a "non-linear" adventure path... sounds like what you're actually looking for is either a couple dozen unlinked adventures or a well-detailed campaign region. Neither of which is actually an adventure path. A subscription to Dungeon gives you 36 adventures you can use to build a non-linear campaign, along with 3-4 Backdrop articles that detail cities or other large-scale regions. That's about as good as we can do to support a completely open-ended style of campaign.
I populated my campaign world with locations from Dungeon magazine. When I started DMing again after an almost 3 year hiatus, I still had the luxury of having many Dungeon magazines available, as I had kept up my subscription even while I wasn't gaming.
I knew that I wasn't going to use all of the adventures, but the Styes and other locations made it into the world. I've also turned many NPC's and factions from Dungeon adventures into recurring villains, good guys and powerbrokers.
For example, the "Royal Pathwardens" from "Natural Selection" in #85 became the official rangers and scouts of the Overking of the Great Kingdom and are the arch-enemies of two rangers in my player party. Major Lucien Dedermont is a recurring villain and works behind the scenes to track down the player characters and bring them down, even though they helped rescue his troops from the druids...
I love doing stuff like that. I don't have time to write my own homebrewed Greyhawk campaign up the way I want, but I do have time to steal ideas, adventures, settings and NPC's from Dungeon and other sources and twist them to my own liking.
To be honest, I started reading the SCAP adventures with the intention of robbing it of its NPC's and stat blocks for my biweekly Saturday game. Instead, I ended up running it as it was written for a special Wednesday night game I managed to find time for. That's a pretty rare endorsement from me, as I usually chop stuff apart quite drastically.
I'm not sure Steve Greer has forgiven me for putting Coldstone Keep into the Underdark beneath the Hestmark Highlands....but he should be glad to know that the evil NPC party from that adventure survived and is plotting revenge on the player character party as well!! I'm sorry you spent all that time on the Cold Marshes, Steve, but that fiendish cloak fit in nicely into my long term campaign plot.
6: Tone down the challenges in the first few adventures a lot. And no more swarms in the first adventure. And certainly not in a "trap" that the players have to spring to complete the adventure. I promise. I would send hams to the families of the charachters killed by the acid beetle swarm, but I'd have to slaughter every pig in the continental United States first.
Fixed for clarity. ;p
Seriously, man... It took awhile, but I did warm up to this AP quite a bit. I think you've done a lot better this time than you did in Shackled City (I asked for clarity, I got it. I asked for cohesiveness and consistency, I got it. I asked for a better villain, you put me on a collision course with a god...), though, if I have any complaints, it is that the adventures don't really feel like a part of a whole until later. Diamond Lake, for example, really fizzles out after Three Faces (though it remains a great backdrop), and the Free City as well feels almost wasted, three adventures later. It too is an excellent backdrop, and one I'm sure I'll get use of, but in the context of the AP, it and Diamond Lake feel somewhat hollow.
Ditto for the Ebon Triad, who appear directly in one adventure, but then don't appear to matter much... Until you find out that they are, in fact, the primary engine of the Age of Worms. That moment, while quite astounding, didn't come with as much weight as I'd hoped it would.
And yes... No more statues that turn out to be deadly monsters. Unless the statue is a golem, in which case, I guess it's okay.
Without seeing the last few chapters of AoW, I'm still going to have to say that I'd feel honored to run it. Provided my players could get out of that damn Cairn with interest left in the game... (Provided I had players, I guess...)
Anyway, if AP3 is going to be better than AP2? I might have to subscribe...
first of all, i add my voice to the chorus of praise for the majority of both Paths. I cherrypick them mercilessly for my own use. (Naturally) I have an opinion on how they can be improved as a series concept, or *shudder* even abolished! Read on if you dare....
for AP3, PLEASE TRY TO AVOID: intricate and convoluted apocalyptic cults and conspiracies that are either impenetrable to characters who aren't in the know or useless when trying to motivate them. i just don't know how many more doom-laden "it's up to you to stop the end of the world" sagas my players can take.
also PLEASE TRY TO AVOID: the railroad doomsday timeline of one campaign year at most. my gripe here is as much with the xp award system, but in the AP model it is taken to an extreme that shows it's limitations. namely, once the AP is over, the characters still have their whole lives ahead of them and nothing to do (or prove, being epic level). (assuming they started young) the wet dream for power gamers comes to a screeching halt when they retire at the rheumy age of 20! this doesn't engender a whole lot of respect for the campaign world and it's important (and much older) personages. if this becomes a trend in the AP's, wily players may catch on and might start having thoughts like:
"why should i be content to defeat Adimarchus/Kyuss (etal) when i can take his place?" (dm headache ensues)
"why settle for a fixer-upper like Redhand when i can squish Manzorian like a bug and take Magepoint?" (after all, he is a lackadaisacal dawdler for not having found the fast track to epic level himself) (dm headache ensues)
shouldn't epic levels take many many years of game time to be earned? imc, combat xp awards are calculated based on teamwork and original initiatives to overcome obstacles, character development etc etc boring, but more realistic i feel.
as a bandaid to this, i suggest that characters age irrevocably (2-3yrs/instalment?) for exposure to otherworldly forces of corruption. no good deed goes unpunished!
a LOT of the board discussions and criticism of AoW seems to be directed at: (lack of) motivation, the use of plot devices & cliches, inconsistencies from one instalment to the next & other elements "unsuitable for my group of players"
so here's the kicker you've all been waiting for:
i hereby suggest that EACH and EVERY adventure in the magazine be de-fluffed of it's story, and given a sidebar treatment ("Scaling the Story"?) suggesting plot elements for those of us who like 'em, and also linking the adventure via bridging hooks to adventures in other issues. this could (imo) be helpful in alleviating the burden of extraneous story and leave more space to be devoted to the detail of the scenario, plus making it more generic and easily adapted to home campaigns and different tastes.
so i'm effectively calling for the abolition of the finite AP model in favour of a more open-ended approach. this is bound to be as popular as eating mold, but i and my players would rather have an independent choice of mold than be force-fed through a tube while in a coma (dramatic visualisation for effect)
rant over
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Creative Director
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Adventure Path 3 will not have an "end of the world" element, although it WILL have an element of "If we don't do our job, a lot of innocent people will die," element.
As for the actual game time it takes to finish the adventure path... Age of Worms does not run on a strict timeline. You can certainly have multi-month breaks or even year-long breaks between adventures if you wish; the Age of Worms is coming, but it's not on a schedule. Adventure Path 3 will be similar; you can play the adventures through back to back without stopping for a breather, or you can slow things down.
The fact of the matter is that the game time it should take to reach epic levels should be something you decide for your own campaign, but keep this in mind: D&D is not a movie, nor a novel, nor a story. It's a game. It's a game about your players. Your players are (or should be) the focus of the game, since without them, you don't HAVE a game. You have a story. If ANYONE in the game world's going to skyrocket from 1st to 20th in the span of a few months, it should be the PCs.
As for getting rid of a storyline... nope. AP 3 will have a storyline; without a story line, it isn't an adventure path. It's a collection of unconnected adventures. We already do that in the magazine.
So basically, what I'm saying is that AP3 will be structured quite similarly to Shackled City and Age of Worms; if a 1st-20th level campaign that follows a complex storyline from start to end isn't your particular cup of tea, you'll find AP3 to be just as bitter.
But if it's one thing we've learned from the last two, it's this: a LOT of our readers like their tea.
I don't know if sales statistics would bear this out, but if my own experience is any guide, you guys have done a lot of business with the APs, beyond just selling magazines.
The "Istivin" arc last winter rekindled my interest in Greyhawk (I've been running a campaign in my own homebrew world for a while, and hadn't really done much with any of the established settings except playing 1e adventure modules around 20 years ago). Running those adventures also made me realize what a great resource "Dungeon" is, so I started combing through back issues and looking at the new ones at the game store and buying the ones that looked interesting. The first AoW issue was so totally cool (best 1st level module ever, IMO), that I decided to put the homebrew campaign on hold for a while and run the AoW AP. This, of course, meant a subscription to Dungeon. I had been reading up on Greyhawk since doing the Istivin arc, and so it was a natural to run AoW in Greyhawk, and this in turn led to me combing through your old TSR downloads to find material to flesh out the "Free City", Diamond Lake, Tenser/Manzorian's Castle, etc., and get a better idea of the political/economic/religious background so I could provide the kind of flavor that I'm used to providing in my homebrew. Discussion on the boards pointed me to more sources. In short, you guys have not only gotten me to shift from occasional buyer to subscriber, you've sold me a ton of download material--which I assume you get a cut of.
If AP3 is EVEN BETTER than AP2, and it has a good Greyhawk tie-in, I might go bankrupt!
That said, I do like the fact that there are lots of one-shot modules and short adventure arcs in Dungeon as well. These are useful for "occasional" games--like when I run the biannual Whittaker family D&D classic with my nieces and nephews during visits with the family. I would love to see a 14th-16th level follow up that could tie in to the "Istivin" arc--maybe an interesting adventure set in Geoff and tied in somehow with the mysterious Valley of the Mage.
One piece of feedback for the next AP--rather than toning down the challenge of the early modules, you could do a sidebar to alert DMs to the nature of the challenges, with brief suggestions on what equipment to make sure the PCs have, or how to modify the encounter if they are lacking a key character. (My party, for example, didn't have too much trouble with Filge due to having a cleric to turn all his zombies. Having a cleric plus three characters capable of wielding wand of CLW, and my suggesting they pool resources and get said wand thru Valkus Dunn allowed them to survive the Hextor death pit with no deaths, even though they walked right into the trap--parties light on healing and turning got chewed up by these encounters, if the postings are any indication. I knew about these hazards from the postings, and was able to anticipate them. If I had started reading the boards before running the WC, I would have made sure the party had alchemist's fire or a wand of burning hands--I had to fudge a bit on this encounter and give players a bit more credit than they should have gotten for desperate, panicked creativity. "I take my cloak off, set it alight, and throw it on the swarming beetles .. .")
I think the challenging encounters (and tactical situations, viz. the Grimlock caves) have made AoW MUCH more fun than the typical low level dungeons ("you break down the door, and five goblins are shooting craps. They grab their morningstars . . .") As long as DMs know these will be challenging for inexperienced players, its a lot easier to tone down encounters by taking things out than it is to add. And it's easy enough to invent short side treks to make up the experience (you could even point the DM to recently published adventures that have no explicity AP tie as options, but a 3-4 room dungeon with a couple of encounters here and there is easy enough to generate on the fly based on hooks embedded in the material on Diamond Lake or any similarly detailed setting.
So: 1) Greyhawk is good! 2) A "fleshing out the campaign" article/sidebar/online supplement pointing to additional background resources would be favorably received (although the collective wisdom of the posters on this site has helped immensely in that regard). 3) Don't water down the lower levels too much, but give more hints to DMs so they'll know what will be difficult for their party. 4) Do keep a clear plotline with continuity between adventures--AoW, IMO does a good job with this, while providing enough red herrings to keep the party in suspense. 5) Some adventures outdoors will be nice change, if well done.
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Some suggestions,
1. What i'd like to see is a little more tie in for the pc's character instead of "here's a green worm". What I allways found usefull was to have the characters instigate some of the events and have them fix what they have broken. For example, the pc's raid a lair only to set free a Big Bad Evil Thingie
2. More history fluff, I know hard to do involving different settings, but you could do information from a long time ago, from before the material plane was split into different material planes
3. Use Dragon magazine, I'll make it no secret that I bought a ragon subscription purely for the worm food articles. Sadly it gets so little, one adventure is allmost 1/3rd of Dungeon magazine, as it are adventures it's normal, but with two pages in Dragon it is a bit lacking on extra info, while the AP offers so much.
What I suggest to solve nr 2, would be to make the AP more generic but work together with the official d&d settings to produce something special, make the baddies a new race for example, then you can put race information, ecology in Dragon magazine. Spend one Class Act in the same month as the AP dedicated to fleshing out the Character Classes in the AP. PRC's for the AP can be put in Dragon as stand alone info, but just reminding people how it could tie into the AP. Special monsters, magic items, etc.
Baudot, you were correct in where I was coming from.
James, thank you for your reply. You're right, the characters were "Experiencing" something, even if doing little. I wasn't actually advocating combat-only XP, as XP from traps, RPing, or other 'actions' are perfectly viable to me, even story awards marking a pivotal point in the PC's success (such as discovering the book that can take down the Triad). It's the static XP at non-pivotal points that makes the AP seem rushed, XP that comes with little initiative, heroism, accomplishment, or ability on the part of the PCs. For example in the Spire, anybody who happens to along with the PCs for a vision would get XP as if they defeated a Beholder. (Unusual vision or no, that's all it really is.)(Maybe have the CR match the PC's level?)
In the feast at , anybody hanging out, perhaps doing absolutely nothing during the course of the meal, perhaps even too drunk to experience anything, gets XP as if they'd thwarted the Tarrasque. Wow. Say a PC brings a low-level date. Okay, let's not, as I bringing it up to be facetious, but please do note that I would like the AP to take the PCs every step of the way from 1-20 without jumping steps. While I could opt to fill in the steps, I'd rather not have to.
Thanks.
Thank you for the outdoor elements in AP3, I'm looking forward to it already.
Figured 12 was too easy a number of adventures to change.
One thing I'd like to see from AP3 is the PCs spending more time in adventure locales. I haven't enjoyed about Age of Worms that characters don't become as familiar or attached with Diamond Lake or the Free City, as Shackled City characters did with Cauldron. There is too much of a splash-and-dash quality to AoW. Maybe a toning down of the travel; having PCs participate in a good number of adventures in or around a locale before moving on to the next site?...
On an unrelated note, when are Spellweavers going to move to the front and become the main villains? They've been in the background of the APs so far. Isn't it about time they pushed to reestablish their empire? Or is that something for AP4 or AP5?...
"I can guarentee that there's going to be more wilderness exploration in this one than in Shackled City and Age of Worms combined"
This makes my mouth water...the best classics involved lots of exploration..Dwellers of the forbidden city, descent into the depths, isle of dread, lost caverns of tsjocanth..
Just, with all respect to Wolfgang, no trip to the white Kingdom please..
I strongly agree with the idea of making those low level adventures easier. I'm all for unique and challenging encounters, and there should certainly be a few set peice encounter that are really tough, but I think the average CR for an adventure should match the level of the characters.
I'd definitely like to see more wilderness adventuring in future APs. Gotta give those rangers and druids their chance to shine.
One thing I thought I'd like to see done differently is to leave some more room between adventures. In AoW each adventure seems to lead you right up to the next one, both in terms of experience and of story. Give us a little more room for side quests and time for the PCs to follow their own agendas.
While the Age of worms and Shackled city have been good reads, enjoyable adventures all, i am afraid i cannot run them for my players. My problem with them is not the writing, or design, but in the way the plot is so forced....
I don't think most of these suggestions are neccisarly a good thing. What your essentially asking for is for the AP to be so well disguised that the PCs never have an inkling they are in it. My bet is the vast majority of players want to know that they are in an epic adventure and probably enjoy the idea that they are in one that many others have played as well - thaat way they can compare notes when its all over.
Hiding the AP from the players kind of defeats much of its appeal.
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Back in the "good old days" every player at my table knew what character the others where playing and what adventure the've been in...
Nowadays it seems to bee cool to hide your class and abilities. I don't know where that came from, but I hate it (oh, something for the rant threat;)!!!
And yes, Jeremy is correct - it's cool to know what you're playing. Years back I always used the cover of the module as my DM-screen and my players still talk about Castle Amber or Ravenloft.
This is one of the things which make DD so cool! Know what your playing and know that you're part of y big community who also plays AoW or SC or whatever.
The secret of having memorable sessions/campaignd is sometime not beeing secret at all!
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Creative Director
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The office "playtest" of Age of Worms was mostly just a playtest of "The Whispering Cairn." We've just started "Encounter at Blackwall Keep" so it's not really a playtest anymore.
We probably won't be running an office campaign of AP3 simply because we'll still be playing Age of Worms.
Would it work to shop the playtesting out to remote hobby groups? I'm thinking a scheme where you have players and DMs sign NDAs on the modules, then send them modules for playtesting and have them return a formal comment sheet.
It would be relatively easy to keep track of the adventures and see if anyone is cheating on their NDAs: Vary flavor details (NPC's names, the module name, names of rooms/scenes, chapter headings, etc.) from the final published version, so you know if you see a leaked version of the module on the web, where it came from, and that group can be cut off.
All told I'm thinking this scheme would take little time to manage relative to the value it would bring, and I'm betting you could get volunteers for playtesting for nothing more than a few free subscriptions. You could probably get playtesters entirely free, but it's always nice to give people something in return to make them feel valued, and it would make the whole arrangement more legally binding, on account of having had an exchange of "real and tangible value" in return for the playtesters' "services rendered."
Would it work to shop the playtesting out to remote hobby groups? I'm thinking a scheme where you have players and DMs sign NDAs on the modules, then send them modules for playtesting and have them return a formal comment sheet.
I know quite a few people who'd be willing to playtest in exchange for credit as such. =)