So how do you go about getting ready to run the STAP? Do you run it by just opening Dungeon and let'r rip? Do you copy the material and then add you own notes? Do you tweak encounters you don't like by leave notes in the margins? How far ahead to do wait until you run the campaign (issue by issue, wait until the entire run is printed, pray that its released like the Shackled City in a big hardcover? When adjusting to Forgotten Realms or a home brew how do you make alterations (like on maps or handouts)?
I'm curious because it appears to be alot of work.
Well I pretty much started the AP as soon as I got the first issue. Since we only play once every two weeks, we are still in the first adventure (a few game days have been missed). What I'm doing now is doing a quick read of each adventure as I get them and note anything I might want to hint to in earlier adventures. When I can I try to take the next adventure that the players will be in and note down information from the encounters. Such things as monsters/NPCs so I can pick out minis for the encounters. Treasure so that I can put it on a spread sheet with magic type and gp value for quick reference. I also download the online suppliment and print and cut out any handouts. I basicaly have a big three ring binder broken out by adveture will all the info I need for that adventure laid out. Yeah it can be a lot of work, but not nearly as much as if I was doing it all myself (Thank you Paizo). I also rarely change the encounters, but will sometime switch out magic items to better suit my group or throw in something kinda different from one the the Complete books.
Well I pretty much started the AP as soon as I got the first issue. Since we only play once every two weeks, we are still in the first adventure (a few game days have been missed). What I'm doing now is doing a quick read of each adventure as I get them and note anything I might want to hint to in earlier adventures. When I can I try to take the next adventure that the players will be in and note down information from the encounters. Such things as monsters/NPCs so I can pick out minis for the encounters. Treasure so that I can put it on a spread sheet with magic type and gp value for quick reference. I also download the online suppliment and print and cut out any handouts. I basicaly have a big three ring binder broken out by adveture will all the info I need for that adventure laid out. Yeah it can be a lot of work, but not nearly as much as if I was doing it all myself (Thank you Paizo). I also rarely change the encounters, but will sometime switch out magic items to better suit my group or throw in something kinda different from one the the Complete books.
Well I was writing an adventure very,very similiar to this anyway. I'll let Paizo do most of the work for me lol wait for all the issues then add and subtract as I see fit then run the game. I am really trying to get my old group back together, we are all pretty much married some have kids, work but hopefully we can get a game nite going again? This will also be my first time DMing this group, I have done It before a couple times but not my main group of friends. That's mostly because our DM Is a great storyteller,charasmatic ,funny as hell...I just hope I can do half as good as him? Anyway I'll have Illustrations,maps, notebooks filled,pizza,soda,doritos.pencil and my leather pouch full O' Dice!
After experiencing a breakdown in the Age of Worms adventure path, I realized that you have to do at least some work on the adventures to make them fit your group more. If I were to DM the Savage Tide, I would go in and figure out how I can streamline some of the encounter areas: which encounters are plot necessary, which are just there because they're cool and which are only in the adventure to build experience? Which encounters won't be fun for my group? Why? How can I make them more fun for the group if they are just added to boost XP?
Swapping out treasure is also a good idea in published campaigns. If a PC decides that he wants to use a bastard sword primarily in the Savage Tide, he's out of luck for the most part based on what treasures are in there so far. So it's helpful to tailor at least some of the treasure to your group so that they have something more exciting than a store bought bastard sword +1.
The first two Savage Tide adventures are fairly combat focused, so special rules may have to be reviewed (fighting while climbing, swimming of course). The third adventure is much more NPC focused, and it helps if you write out character personalities onto notecards with page numbers for stat blocks and important events for that character. What situations can arise while on a ship with these people, especially in regards to the PCs' distinct personalities? It also can help (if you have time) to think of side treks or other ways to integrate the PCs' backgrounds into the game.
As far as conversions go, just make sure you have a handy sheet or notecard with pronoun replacements handy. If you have to change a statblock because you don't like a specific character's mechanics, have that available as well. Just make sure that you are consistent with these things.
Even when running published adventures, some preparation is necessary. Keeping track of character interests in the story, who gets along with what NPC, who's looking to join the Seekers, etc. is a great way to keep the game rolling in the right direction. Some preparation every week before the game can turn a good published adventure into a memorable campaign that your players will really remember.
I don't go so far as to write out note cards and such, but I do write notes and think about the adventure and npcs. I also am running this adventure about two magazines behind the current. I find it is easier to make adjustments for the characters actions if I know where it is all going down the road.
Most of the work I put into the AP is in tailoring it to my player's interests. For example, even before we started, I was told that they wanted a pirate ship with a kobold crew, so I'm figuring out how to write that into the adventure.
What's nice about the adventure path is that you don't have to spend a bunch of time coming up with a central plot and figuring out a bunch of encounters around it. However, if you really want the game to come alive for your PCs, you need to spend the time writing them into that plot. All of the players in my group have little things about their characters that are unique (for example, my party's dwarf has an obsession with owlbears). Whenever possible, I try to find ways to work those elements into the game. It takes a little time sometimes, but it makes the game that much more fun for everyone. And, it is much much much less time than coming up with all this stuff on your own.
Good luck and I hope you decide to run the campaign.
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I started running this campaign with the arrival of the first issue, and I have done a few things the whole way. We are presently about to wrap up the Sea Wyverns Wake as the PC's have just discovered Anhelm's journal on the Rage and are planning to try to find the "heart" of the Sargasso.
As a rule, I have taken each adventure and read it through as soon as I get it. When I do that, I make a little notecard of sections of the adventure I think are going to be tough to run or to note monsters with abilities that will require me to make unusual rules decisions. Then I put it down til a week or so before I plan to start the adventure in question. Then i go through with my notes and streamline a few things. Mostly this involves tayloring some of the encounters to better fit my group. As an example, the ruins of Tamoachan were a bigger part of my game than in the regular adventure, and I had the king who was encased in the obelisk be an Illumian (the parties Rogue/Beguiler is an illumian) who tried to possess one of the party members. So there was a long role-playing sequence where the group had to figure out the king had possessed the party's illumian and then break the possession before going on. To compensate, I completely glossed over the brotherhood blockade.
I also try to find plot elements in the adventure I can tweak to let specific characters shine. For example, in the Lotus Dragon Thieves Guild, the party's archivist was a noble daughter of house Knowlern and she was childhood friends with Rowyn (she actually said this without me prompting her long before Rowyn was encountered. She found the name in the STAP player's guide and ran with it. It was so awesome), so when they encountered Rowyn on the Sea Wyvern, the Archivist was able to convince her to surrender and basically rethink her life.
I think the single biggest thing you have to do though, is look a bit at how things connect together. There are so many subtle connections between plot elements in these adventures that if you really spend some time preparing to play them out you will get some really "OMG!!!" moments out of your players. Bumping into Rowyn on the Sea Wyvern was one of those moments for my players because they spent so much time in the first adventure role-playing that up.
Lastly, don't be afraid to take your time. If you run into a situation where you don't know the rules for something very well (ship to ship combat is an example from my campaign that came up), to look things up and tell your players to take 5 while you do so. It will work better for you if you do.
This AP is even more awesome than AoW in my opinion, which is really saying something after how awesome A0W was. Be sure to let us know how your experience goes.
I wait for the whole path to be done, not necessarily by design, that's just how it works. I've read through everything at least once before I start.
Before starting, I do whatever tweaking is needed for my game world - changing gods, shifting plots, adding tie-ins to existing organizations.
The main thing I try to do is work in some foreshadowing so that the you have a connected campaign rather than a collection of adventures loosely tied together.
For Savage Tide to date, I'd introduce some of the NPCs in Sea Wyvern's wake before that adventure. Have Tavey be a street urching they encounter, meet Avench the snooty noble in a tavern somewhere. I'd have the PCs meet Vanthus and Penkus in the first adventure.
After experiencing a breakdown in the Age of Worms adventure path, I realized that you have to do at least some work on the adventures to make them fit your group more.
Did you cover this on a thread somewhere? I'd certianly like to be forwarned about the kinds of things that might bring an AP to a grinding halt. Well unless your problem was a TPK - we all kind of know those can bring things to a grinding halt.
Did you cover this on a thread somewhere? I'd certianly like to be forwarned about the kinds of things that might bring an AP to a grinding halt. Well unless your problem was a TPK - we all kind of know those can bring things to a grinding halt.After experiencing a breakdown in the Age of Worms adventure path, I realized that you have to do at least some work on the adventures to make them fit your group more.
Yeah, I had a thread on it looking for suggestions on the AOW board; probably dating back to July or August. "The Demise of My AOW Game" or something similar. Basically, dungeon crawl boredom and just overpowered enemies killed it more than a TPK or anything like that. Which is a good caution as to why a DM needs to personalize the APs to their own group.
So how do you go about getting ready to run the STAP? Do you run it by just opening Dungeon and let'r rip? Do you copy the material and then add you own notes? Do you tweak encounters you don't like by leave notes in the margins? How far ahead to do wait until you run the campaign (issue by issue, wait until the entire run is printed, pray that its released like the Shackled City in a big hardcover? When adjusting to Forgotten Realms or a home brew how do you make alterations (like on maps or handouts)?
I'm curious because it appears to be alot of work.
Running a campaign IS a lot of work. The APs are great in reducing the amount of work involved, but there's still a lot that needs to be done.
I have a system that I use when starting a new campaign:
1) Decide on overall campaign theme and tone (mostly done with the APs) and what setting is in use.
2) Set the ground rules on character creation, allowed rulebooks, and any house rules.
3) Inform the players of the results of the first two steps and give them quick background/overview of the starting location (the Savage Tide Player's Guide is great for this). This is also where I request feedback from the players on their campaign expectations and desires.
4) Have the players create their characters and work out their "pre-campaign" histories, with an emphasis on individual motivations and inter-character relationships (Why are they adventuring? Why are they with the rest of the party?). I strongly dislike "chance met" parties; many of them just don't have any reason to stick together if role-played properly or fall apart because they are roleplayed properly.
5) Go through the adventure(s) to focus on the player motivations and histories as the primary plot hooks, making changes where needed. This is also where I look at swapping out magical items for ones that the party may find more useful (keeping the overall treasure value the same).
6) Prepare for each adventure ahead of time, ensuring I understand how everything fits together and making notes so that I can keep the game flowing without having to look up things in the middle of the session. If the group is playing with counters, miniatures, or other battle representations, I pre-draw the main encounter areas or areas with special terrain rules on graph paper (or borrow a battlemat).
My trouble might be adapting to my home world setting. I will need to make a bunch of changes and I don't know if it would be efficent to just run the adventure just directly from the magazine or dare I suggest "RE-WRITE THE ENTIRE THING"! I also don't want to ruin the magazines with chance spilled drink or dropped slice of pizza.
Do you feel me brothers?
Best thing to do is read and prepare! Runnign as they are written can prove to be problematic with players as we all know they often don't take up certain plothooks and like wander around half creating thier own inadvertanetly!
At the moment I am in the process of combining Shackled City, age of worms and the savage tide into one giant campaign, set in eberron! First session is set for new years day i believe.
Now combining them and altering them to fit the chracters is proofing to be tiem consuming, but without it, it'll just slow the game and make it much worse overall.
Steps I would use!
1) research the path and how you can fit it into a world or setting, and then the campaign arc.
2) determine player characters and history, i also dislike pick up adventurers, just doesn't work very well at all.
3) tailor adventures/encounters and plot to hook into the player characters more
4) Notes, lots and lots of notes!
Being a total STAP dork now, I had a color-coded NPC vs. PC attitude chart that got updated whenever a major interaction took place on board the Sea Wyvern. After a while it became painfully obvious that no one liked Avner; the gnome ("Urol Furol?" Please!) became something of a party mascot, consigning Tavey to the crow's nest. Anyway, the point is that this certainly wasn't necessary; it didn't affect the adventure itself an iota, but I felt it added to the overall experience. I figure that Paizo is saving me so much work in adventure writing, that I can spend some of that time making little extras. If you're strapped for time, you can do without and still have a rip-roarin' good time.
My trouble might be adapting to my home world setting. I will need to make a bunch of changes and I don't know if it would be efficent to just run the adventure just directly from the magazine or dare I suggest "RE-WRITE THE ENTIRE THING"! I also don't want to ruin the magazines with chance spilled drink or dropped slice of pizza.
Do you feel me brothers?
This is just a constructive insight and not meant to be anything but that, but is it really necessary to convert the Adventure Path to another setting? You're choosing this one for a high seas, pirate themed adventure in a tropical climate (with dinosaurs and demons). If that doesn't fit in your home brewed campaign setting, why bother doing all the work changing it around? It should be easy enough to run just straight from the magazines, using the default core rulebooks setting. If you wanted to play in your homebrew world, why not save that for something special and specific to that rather than trying to retrofit an entire campaign to it?
Unlike Age of Worms or Shackled City, this AP has a very distinct flavor that is definitely outside of the default, and the further it strays from that baseline pure sword and sorcery the more difficult it is to convert. If time is an issue, you can save a lot just by not worrying about conversions.
Not as easy at that sounds. Say for example the PCs look at a map and notice a temple to Pelor and they ask "Who is this god? Where is the Church of Askepalion? The adventture mentions that the ship is attacked by the Scarlet Brotherhood and the PC's again ask "Who are these guys? Why haven't we heard of them? What's a Suel? Who are the Olman? Are they part of the Empire or the Hallows? Are they good guys or bad guys?"
I have a bunch of smart, detail/ story driven players.
I'm in the same boat. Our little group has been playing almost exclusively in our own little home brew world for the past... long time. *ahem*
I adapted the Red Hand of Doom adventure to our world pretty easily, but the fact that I had all the information about the adventure in one book made that a pretty basic task. In going over the STAP, I'm finding a bunch of backstory elements that I don't know very much about, so I don't know how liberal I can be in my adaptation without it coming back to bite me later on down the line when future issues of Dungeon show me how far off the mark I was.
I finally decided that by the time I had tracked down all the information I needed to be comfortable with running the game it would be easier just to go with that information in the original campaign setting than to take the time to change the different factions over to "our" world analogues. I talked it over with my players and they all seemed cool with it. And here we are.
It's all a matter of how much time you're willing to put in to the adventure, I suppose. I usually transcribe bad guy stats and important details over to a campaign specific notebook so that I have those things even closer at hand and that seems to make the adventure run more smoothly. I've also held off doing this adventure 'til I was a few issues into the STAP so I could sneak peeks ahead and throw in a little forshadowing. I find the adventure feels a little more "real" if the characters can connect the dots to a logical progression of events, even if it's only after the fact. I'll get to mention how the owner of Rumblegut's is grumbling about the preparations needed for the Wormfall Festival cleaarr in our "There Is No Honor" pregame game.
Anyway, I hope things go well with your campaign!
I'm certain that the adventures have a place in the setting we use. Perhaps I should see how people are doing adapting the game to run in the Forgotten Relams or Ebberon?
I just try to head off problems before they happen. Of course I always miss a few.
I'm impressed many people can just pick up the magazines, say the PCs all meet in a tavern, and run the adventure. That would make my job so simple!