I sure wish I had any interest whatsoever in running another adventure path, but sadly I do not. One was enough for me; now that I have earned some experience as a DM at all levels of play without having to worry about designing the whole campaign as well as running it, I'm ready to use all my books and Paizo mags to do up my own homebrew. Sadly, Pathfinder appears to offer me nothing in this regard. I can understand why Paizo would go this way what with all the positive feedback from the AP's, even from some groups who've played or are playing through 2 or even all 3 of them so far, but how many groups just want to keep playing prewritten adventure paths again and again ad nauseum? Will the same number of gamers be able to say they've played all 10 AP's down the line? I have my doubts, though no doubt they'll recruit a bunch of new subscribers as us long-time fans slowly lose interest and start spending elsewhere.
I don't blame Paizo - what else can they do? - I mean, other than letting me pick my back issues NOW instead of waiting until publication stops for whatever unknown reason while occasional-reading nonsubscribers who've heard the news buy up all the ones I want with their money that Paizo doesn't already have, that is...
Still can't believe WotC is axing Dragon and Dungeon after 30 years while they've left so many of D&D's other less valuable sacred cows intact. Consider my mind blown by their insane decision. Meanwhile, I'll definitely be buying non-WotC hardcovers to add to my always-rapidly-expanding collection of D&D...er... I mean D20 material from now on. Just seems crazy to throw money at a company that goes out of their way to intentionally kill the best support for their products that exists, right?
end rant, and please for gods' sakes, someone whip out a couple scrolls of Raise Dead for my favorite magazines, willya?
Chief Technical Officer
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I don't blame Paizo - what else can they do? - I mean, other than letting me pick my back issues NOW instead of waiting until publication stops for whatever unknown reason while occasional-reading nonsubscribers who've heard the news buy up all the ones I want with their money that Paizo doesn't already have, that is...
We'll be letting you choose your backissues fairly soon. I don't have an exact date just yet, but it won't be long.
Contributor
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but how many groups just want to keep playing prewritten adventure paths again and again ad nauseum?
A fair number, actually. It makes life easy for busy DMs, which I think is the main reason behind the popularity of adventure paths. :)
Will the same number of gamers be able to say they've played all 10 AP's down the line?
I too doubt this, but that's not really our intent. Not every group is going to want to do every kind of AP we put out (some might like Rise of the Runelords but dislike the next one, for example), which is why we'll keep putting out new ones and why they'll all be different. :)
I don't blame Paizo - what else can they do?
We can, for example, put out a line of unrelated modules for you to plug and play into your campaigns as you see fit. :) This might interest you, considering all else you wrote. :)
And also just because the adventures are part of an adventure path doesn't mean you can't take parts of them and insert them into your own campaign. I have no intention of ever running AoW or Savage Tide in their entirety because my group is embroiled in a homebrew campaign and we don't meet much (about two hours every other week, sometimes just once a month). My current campaign has the legs to last several years at this pace as the characters are only just at 4th level after a year and a half of gaming at this pace, so Paizo will likely be onto their 6th or 7th Varisia AP by the time our campaign is finished. But I have stolen portions of the AoW campaign already, along with portions of other adventures from Dungeon, and am currently in the process of culling out parts of Savage Tide to include as well.
I use the APs just like I use any other adventure. I cull out what I want and can use into my own campaign, and I've noticed that items from the APs seem to make it into my campaign more often than stuff from other adventures.
I am actually kicking off my second group of friends through Age of Worms. I have two small kids at home that demand a lot of my attention. If not for these adventure path type campaigns, I would run a series of disjointed adventures cobbled together and I don't think it would be as fun for me or the players.
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...some groups who've played or are playing through 2 or even all 3 of them so far, but how many groups just want to keep playing prewritten adventure paths again and again ad nauseum? Will the same number of gamers be able to say they've played all 10 AP's down the line?...
Maybe it means I'm not as imaginative a DM as...umm..uhh...wait a second, I need to wipe the tears from my eyes...allergies, I swear...
Maybe it says something about my homebrew world, but my players (same guys for four years now) really enjoy the APs. In regards to AoW and ST, we played both and are moving along with ST in sync with the issues arriving in my mailbox. We ran through the SCAP with the magazines, then I bought the HC--right now, it's just a cool book added to the shelf-groaning collection of cool books, but I've already participated in some discussion of the value of re-playing Shackled City with the HC.
I inexplicably lost Dungeon 127 (an AoW issue) and reordered it from Paizo, because I'm 100% positive it'll come in handy years down the road. I'm in the military and this current stint of four years in Alaska is the longest I've ever been in one location since I graduated college. I'm off to Korea in a couple months, so I'll be saying bye to my current group and looking for a new group at the hospital in Seoul just as soon as I get there--will my new adventurers have played AoW, SC or ST APs? I'll guarantee they won't have played the new Pathfinder AP.
I'll wager I'm not the only guy out there in these circumstances...
Like Festivus, I also have two kids at home that take up a lot of my time. The APs have been a huge help. Our group loves them. We've been playing the "cobbled together" type campaigns for years now, and it's great to have a continuing story-line running without me having to devote hours and hours a week to it.
Bring on the APs!
--Fang
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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I love adventure paths because they are fun to read. I play maybe 10% of the adventures in Dungeon as written.
However, they are a treasure trove for theft. This weekend, I had absolutely nothing prepared. I talked to my players and they mentioned wanting to rescue a character that had been left for dead in a prior adventure. I needed a dungeon for 4th level characters, stocked with cool traps and NPC's. What did I do? I stole the Kopru ruins from SC.
I've already got my eye on stealing a few adventures from ST. I will most likely run the Champions Games from AoW soon as well.
I realize I could steal from any adventure in dungeon, but oddly enough, I find that the adventure path ones are the easiest from which to steal. With every other adventure, I feel like I owe it to the author to run it as is. When I steal an adventure path segment, I know that I will have to modify it, and I find that oddly liberating.
I love them, personally, but I tried running the AOW campaign for my players and by the fifth adventure, they had gotten sick of it. It may have been the focus on one major type of gameplay (dungeon crawls) coupled with the omnipresent green worms aspect. Maybe I just have a group of players that don't like such a narrow focus as some of the APs. I'm considering giving the APs another shot with the Savage Tide, which seems a little more fluid than the previous ones, but my players are the ultimate deciding factor.
Contributor
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I realize I could steal from any adventure in dungeon, but oddly enough, I find that the adventure path ones are the easiest from which to steal. With every other adventure, I feel like I owe it to the author to run it as is. When I steal an adventure path segment, I know that I will have to modify it, and I find that oddly liberating.
That's funny. I don't steal from the APs, because I worry I might run the whole thing one day, and then I'll have gaping hole. Everyhting else goes in the blender.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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That's funny. I don't steal from the APs, because I worry I might run the whole thing one day, and then I'll have gaping hole. Everyhting else goes in the blender.
Well, I realized after running AoW that the adventure paths did not suit my DM-ing style at all. The way I like to run a game is to begin by throwing a few softball adventures at the players to get them to level 4-5. During this time, they learn how their characters work, start figuring out their personalities, and I push them to develop their backgrounds. I try to push forward a few solid NPC mentors, allies, and rivals. Then, starting around level 5, the adventures are all about the characters and their goals, rivalries, etc. We don't save the world so much as we kill that bastard Joe the Second, who tricked the party into bringing him a powerful magic sword and killed their goblin chef.
Like many others who have posted, I am also a father (I have one daughter so far, we will see what the future holds, although my general rule is don't get outnumbered!). I am also a school teacher and work onthe side (like 20 hours a week recently) teaching Driver's Ed. So between the 2-4 hours a night I get to spend with my family and working 6 days a week, I need the APs. I write anywhere from 8-16 pages worth of additional dialogue, side-stories, and other player based fluff for each adventure, but in the end I know I can always fall back on the adventure as written and let it fly. I have only been runnning AoW (I am not so into SCAP, as was said above not every Ap is for everyone) and am eagerly waiting running STAP, sometime next year. In fact I have been dropping hints and leads in my AoW campaign about STAP for some time here.
In other words the APs are for me. I never was one to run "canned" adventures, but with my work schedule, I was planning on running WoTC's originaly AP (the Sunless Citadel-Bastion of Broken Souls one) which has some awesome adventures in it (The Bastion, Fortress one, and a few others) but also has some weak sauce adventures (the bat one, and the nightfang spire, at least thats what I felt). That all changed when my friend Steve killed my attempts to start that AP and then I read Prince of Redhand. I wanted to run this AP so bad I just had too! And so I DID!
Well, I realized after running AoW that the adventure paths did not suit my DM-ing style at all. The way I like to run a game is to begin by throwing a few softball adventures at the players to get them to level 4-5. During this time, they learn how their characters work, start figuring out their personalities, and I push them to develop their backgrounds. I try to push forward a few solid NPC mentors, allies, and rivals. Then, starting around level 5, the adventures are all about the characters and their goals, rivalries, etc. We don't save the world so much as we kill that bastard Joe the Second, who tricked the party into bringing him a powerful magic sword and killed their goblin chef.
I run my campaign similar to how you run yours. I do have an overarching plot going, but the adventures are partially designed along developing characterization etc. The adventure my party is about to start is one I wrote based on a map from an old Dungeon (#40) and takes place underwater, which is a sop for my wife's character who is playing a homebrew underwater race (that can function on land as well). The hook for the adventure is because of the goblin character (yeah all my PCs aren't your standard, the third player is playing a homebrew race similar to half-dragons) wants the merchant guild that hired a goblin mushroom farming tribe to protect them better and the guild in turn wants the party to find out what happened to their underwater mines. Once they finish up the underwater portion, a few pieces of the first AoW adventure (specifically the encounters with Kullen and Filge's tower) are being upgraded as they fit in well with the mystery behind what is going on.
The next major adventure is one based off the party's desire to confront a murderous nobleman they met on the road. When they finally get down to his town they will be run almost completely through Chris Wissel's Wingclipper's Revenge adventure as it fits in perfectly. The only major changes I'll be making is that Wingclipper is now the murderous nobleman they met and the slain girl was his girlfriend not his sister, along with changing out the hobgoblins for something else as the hobgoblin flavor in my world is different and they will be running into that different flavor later on in the campaign.
The underwater adventure may tie in ultimately with the overarching plotline (I haven't decided yet, but it's written so that I can take it either way), but the Wingclipper one ties in with the overarching plotline as they will soon be heading that way again, deeper into the swamp, once they receive word from their patron that he needs them to head that way.
Oh, and like others I do have kids too, specifically a 2 year old. The only reason I do have enough time to write out my own adventures in addition to what I glean from Dungeon for supplementation is that my group only meets for a few hours every other weekend.