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mmmm interesting idea there.
Pathfinder: Evolution
I like it
Ok I have never played in a Living Campaign, probably because I never cared for the settings. MMM yeah, that would be why.
What I would LIKE to see would involve a GREAT deal of work from Paizo. World story events updated on a regular basis 4-6 times a year. These events would have Pathfinder:Evolution adventures tied to them. Played during a certain time frame PCs are awarded points.
I play in some of the Privateer Press sponsored events. They run events called Call to Arms. Each one is a year long event that takes place quarterly. These events keep the game world alive and moving forward for me. I guess that is what I would be looking for.
Participation would allow Players to receive special patches or pins they can wear. I bust my hump to get a game in so I can complete my Call to Arms Patch. Maybe DMs could receive special awards too. I know I would GM an event at my FLGS to get official Pathfinder:Evolution DM patches.
And yeah I almost think the name has to be Pathfinder: Evolution Once more Paizo would make the d20 world evolve...
Hey, you're in the Yeomanry? I just submitted an adventure for them! Look for "Dark Gate Stalkers," by me, sometime next year. And it's not a dungeon crawl at all. Let me know what you think!
Well, like I said, I used to play LG. I dropped out 3-4 years ago when the paperwork and rule transitions just got to be more trouble than it was worth. I wrote some of the early Yeomanry regionals (i.e. the first three years) related to the Hillmen, one set in the Hellfurnaces, etc.
In fact, one of the guys we gamed with had a character named Welby I believe--a gnome or halfling wizard--that wouldn't happen to be you, would it? My wife played a gnome illusionist and I played Kellen, a Hillman Rogue/Ranger.
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Alright, I’m still not entirely sure how a “living” campaign works (although the discussion on this thread has given me some ideas)…
Speaking as someone who has great trouble getting to Cons nowadays, and who does not get to game face to face nearly as much as he would like, I’d like for Pathfinder: Evolution (yep, I like the sound of that too), to be playable as play by post or otherwise online games. As pbp games tend to (in my experience) run more slowly than ftf games, the scenarios would need to remain reasonably short (although I would imagine that is a consideration for Con play too).
Here at the Paizo there are some four or five active RotRL pbp games, and several more based on some of the Gamesmastery modules. I really like that vibe.
I would enjoy scenarios that focus on fun and roleplaying (with a healthy dose of combat and action of course) rather than competition and rivalry within or between groups.
I would vote for some sort of restriction in what supplements could be used for character creation.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Alright, I’m still not entirely sure how a “living” campaign works (although the discussion on this thread has given me some ideas)…
Speaking as someone who has great trouble getting to Cons nowadays, and who does not get to game face to face nearly as much as he would like, I’d like for Pathfinder: Evolution (yep, I like the sound of that too), to be playable as play by post or otherwise online games. As pbp games tend to (in my experience) run more slowly than ftf games, the scenarios would need to remain reasonably short (although I would imagine that is a consideration for Con play too).
Here at the Paizo there are some four or five active RotRL pbp games, and several more based on some of the Gamesmastery modules. I really like that vibe.
I would enjoy scenarios that focus on fun and roleplaying (with a healthy dose of combat and action of course) rather than competition and rivalry within or between groups.
I would vote for some sort of restriction in what supplements could be used for character creation.
Ditto on all counts! Well said Mothy!
And if you guys like the tag Pathfinder: Evolution -- take it.*
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Living Campaigns and Living Greyhawk
Adventure Records over Adventure Certs
Adventure Certs suck. They may have a certain coolness factor, but the first time you are stuck at a table that descends into a screaming match over who gets what, and wind up watching the first magic sword you have seen get sold because the one guy who already has one wants more money for the adventure, you will realize that as a system, adventure certs totally and completely suck.
Even in very close knit home groups, they are less useful than a more open purchase system because they make every group in the campaign utterly subservient to the decisions of the authors. If you are not playing the kind of PCs they want to reward, you wind up with nothing. And the only way to get around that limit requires you to go to a major convention where there is an "item shop," so you can trade your excess gold and unusable items for things you really want.
Paperwork
Living Greyhawk had three phases:
Adventure Log
Early Adventure Record
Adventure Record
The Early Adventure Record, which lasted for all of one year, was a mess. For some bizarre reason, it was decided to try and track wealth two ways. This was a mistake.
The next year that was removed, and the Adventure Record that continues to this time requires very little additonal work than an Adventure Log. The main difference being intermediate steps to calculate various totals. The AR has places for how much gold you start with, how much you spend, your subtotal, how much you gain, your subtotal, how much of your old stuff you sell, your subtotal, how much new stuff you buy, your final total. An AL does not have the subtotal places. You write a few more numbers on an AR, but it is probably simpler to use because of the subtotal entries.
The big difference between the two is the size of the records. An AL is one page for 4-6 adventures, an AR is obviously one page for 1 adventure. Of course, with an AL with Adventure Certs, you would have a bunch of strips of paper to keep track of. That is hardly that much easier than one page per adventure, even adding in a log sheet for your special items, or log sheets for creating items. (And a logsheet for creating items is almost inevitable for an AL system as well.)
Regional System
Good
1. Focused development of regional flavor
2. More adventures overall (there never could have been 200, or even 100, core adventures per year)
3. Easier access to campaign staff
Bad
1. Eventual dilution of the talent pool
2. Cronyism (which was also a problem with Living City)
3. Restricted access to adventures
4. People living in a region they did not like
Despite these complaints, a great majority of people liked the regional system, and it was highly successful. That is why a variant (factions) found its way in the Xen'drik Expeditions D&D Campaign, and why a variant is being used with Living Forgotten Realms. The RPGA knows how much people liked it.
Adventure Access
This needs a special mention because a lot of people either do not know, or are just confused about the issues involved.
The biggest issues with RPGA adventure access were legal. The contracts specified when and where they could be distributed. This is why old adventures are not available. It is also why regional and metaregional adventures could not be suddenly converted to general release adventures.
Related to this is how much was paid for Living Greyhawk adventures. The answer to that is "not much." $50 for regionals the first two years, later nothing, and $100 for cores. That is for a 15,000-50,000 word adventure. I am sure people can make it clear just how much more Dungeon paid for adventures.
Now obviously, this can be avoided by simply different contracts right from the start in a Living Pathfinder Campaign. Bear in mind the costs, or how many people you can find to give away all rights to adventures for no or only token payments.
Conventions versus Home Play
This is a pretty complex, but it affects a lot of elements of a Living Campaign.
Simply: conventions get you publicity, home play gets you players. Each has its requirements.
Cost
Most LG players have come to accept that in economic terms, playing at a convention is moronic. Yes, I am using that harsh a term deliberately.
At home, you pay to print a 50 page adventure, and 6 adventure records, plus a few other record sheets now and again, to play each round.
At a game day, you can expect to pay $3-5 to play each round.
At a convention, you can expect to pay $250 transportion, $400 room, $200 food, $50 convention fee, $5-10 slot fee, and probably other sundry costs to total $1,000. If you play until you drop and get 20 slots in, you are paying $50 per round. If you are more reasonable, you like spend about $75 per round, and if you wind up doing other things, you likely pay $100 per round.
That means there needs to be a really major reason to play at a convention.
Half of the reason is usually beyond the power of the people presenting the game. For LG, that was the "pre-convention convention," where the locals would organize regional games for all the visitors for a day or two before the convention.
The other half has to come in "convention specials." The problem with that of course is, people who can not afford a convention do not get to play, and that makes some of them upset. So either the company gives up the prestige of convention events, or they make everything "fair" for every player.
Time
Conventions run on an extremely strict schedule. That has inevitably come to mean 4 hours to run an adventure. Yes, you can have a bit of leeway before and after for mustering and paperwork, but the actual playtime is going to be 4 hours. That puts some major limitations on what can be in an adventure, particularly anything involving talking(that is, role-playing), but also restricting number and types of encounters, and style of an adventure (no dungeon crawls, it is almost always going to have to be absolutely linear). No matter how much you want something else in an adventure, you inevitably hit those limits. The only way around that is giving up on convention play in favor of home play.
Content
There are many more families at conventions, and much more randomness in table composition, and levels of discretion. Unless you are prepared to institute an age limit for your campaign, you had best follow guidelines very similar to those the RPGA has for content. Even with an age limit, you are going to have to be aware of passersby at a convention, and comport yourself accordingly. That will obviously be difficult if the adventure content starts out R-rated or worse.
As for my involvement in LG:
Keoland Triad 12/99-8/02
Author 1-1/4 adventures
Core Reviewer 9/05-6/08 (No, I do not have a time machine. I simply do not expect to quit or get the boot before the campaign ends. ;))
Very informative post Sam, thanks for that. Excellent and informed opinions backed by strong examples. Much appreciated.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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The biggest issues with RPGA adventure access were legal. The contracts specified when and where they could be distributed. This is why old adventures are not available. It is also why regional and metaregional adventures could not be suddenly converted to general release adventures.
This was a major gaffe, in my opinion, that was initiated after my departure from the RPGA staff. Up to that point, from the beginning of the history of the RPGA in the early 1980s, all author contracts were for ALL RIGHTS. Work for hire contracts, similar (indeed identical) in terms to the contracts issued for standard RPG products at the time (and still).
A perusal of assorted tournament contracts from my files dated 1998 and 1999 (the year before the launch of LG, which used the same contract) shows that a one-round "Living" scenario ("Shadows Rising") paid $100. I was paid $300 for a two-round high/low tier module ("The Guns of Azzagrat," essentially a four-round scenario).
All contracts included a clause stipulating future payment should the work be republished in book form. The one-rounder would have netted me five hundred bucks. The longer one a cool thousand. As I recall we activated that contract clause several times when publishing stuff like "Star of Koliphur" or "The Fright at Tristor."
If TSR/WotC had published any of the tournaments in Dragon, Dungeon, or Polyhedron, they were obligated to pay me "the per word rate in use at the time of publication."
The problem was (as I understand it), the regional modules were of such poor quality and served so few members that someone decided not to pay for them anymore. That meant that (other than the intellectual property already owned by WotC) Wizards of the Coast had no financial stake in the material--and thus didn't own it and could not publish it.
Since the modules did not pay, there were no contracts, and since there were no contracts, republication or redistribution was no longer an option.
The regional set-up of LG was key to its success, but the limited distribution of the modules meant that too great an effort was exhausted for too few people. Some sort of regional exclusivity is a good thing, but a lot more players could have been enjoying those modules.
Your recap on LG is fascinating, by the way. I stopped paying attention to it after I left the RPGA staff.
--Erik
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Very informative post Sam, thanks for that. Excellent and informed opinions backed by strong examples. Much appreciated.
Thank you.
There is more I could ramble on about, but I got in late, and the thread had already covered a bunch of stuff. If someone hits another keyword I will try and add what more I can.I am a big fan of the Living Campaign concept. To really appreciate it and develop it requires a critical evaluation of every part of it, both good and bad. (Including whether I should ever be allowed to write another adventure. ;))
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Your recap on LG is fascinating, by the way. I stopped paying attention to it after I left the RPGA staff.
--Erik
Thank you.
I blame you of course. ;)(For me being able to provide the recap. You know what you did! :-P)
And your recap of the adventure contract history before LG is fascinating to me. I was not involved in Living City at all, and did not know that history. It is very interesting, and explains some key things.
And yes, we are on the same page with the regional system. It is good and bad, the sticking point is how to improve. That is one of the things I am waiting to see in LFR.
Thank you.
I blame you of course. ;)
(For me being able to provide the recap. You know what you did! :-P)And your recap of the adventure contract history before LG is fascinating to me. I was not involved in Living City at all, and did not know that history. It is very interesting, and explains some key things.
And yes, we are on the same page with the regional system. It is good and bad, the sticking point is how to improve. That is one of the things I am waiting to see in LFR.
Gosh.
After reading both and yours and Erik's posts I see what a potentially complex undertaking this is..
After expressing my interest in the concept, I hope there is a "primer" made available, because a lot of that just went over my head. I say that because maybe someone else might feel the same way too.
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It's really not all that complicated to understand the "living" concept. Most of what they spoke of above will never be seen by most players (which is why it's so facinating).
All you really need to do in order to get involved is have one person that knows how to order mods, and 6 more that know how to create characters and roll dice (knowledge of character creation isn't even mandatory, but they must be able to roll dice). You play two or three games to get the feel for the campaign, maybe visit a convention or two, and you'll understand everything you need to know (unless you want to get further involved, in which case there's people to assist you).
"Living" campaigns offer gamers the opportunity to participate in games without the hassle of prepping and scheduling difficulties. It seems to me that "Living" campaigns are a safety net for gamers who, for one reason or another, do not have the time to create or participate in home campaigns. I have been a Living Greyhawk player since year one and it has presented gaming opportunities to myself and others that I would never have been able to pursue. The most attractive aspect of a "Living" campaign is the shared gaming experience of hundreds. if not thousands of other gamers who have slogged through the same swamps, defeated the same foes, and survived the same harrowing encounters. "Living" campaigns offer a frame of reference for a game that simply can't be maintained in a home or purely electronic format. Enough about gamers.
These campaigns offer untold opportunities for the financial side of tabletop games. The financial benefits of "Living" campaigns become the province of con organizers, vendors at cons, gaming stores, and of course the game producers. I use the word producers instead of publishers because their are revenue streams to be realised from activities that have are outside the realm of just publishing games. The track record of distributing the revenue generated from an event is somewhat sketchy. Con organizers require a steady stream of content to offer to gamers for "Living" campaigns, vendors need a steady stream of customers (hopefully with deep pockets), stores benefit as either vendors or from advertising, and the game producers benefit from sales of their material to the audience at large.
WoTC and the RPGA latest take on the "Living" campaign is to limit player participation as to manage the content and rights to the material. This is accomplished by reducing the number of region for the Living Greyhawk campaign from 29 to 10 in Forgotten Realms. I believe there will be less restrictions on how regional mods can be played so that players can game in other regions online hence the need for a subscription to the digital initiative. Assuming your the demand for a "Living" campaign is high, the model will provide a reasonable revenue stream. To seel more books, the setting is of course for version 4.0 and the books will be necessary to play it. I expect that Forgotten Realms mods will also be release that will be adaptable hence more books sales, although a fraction of the sales for 4.0 core books.
This model actually presents an opportunity in the market. The sunsetting of Living Greyhawk has left many gamers in limbo. They want to play a tabletop "Living" Campaign in the same setting they are comfortable with (home, stores, and cons). They are willing to spend money on fluff (setting specific material) but not on books that simply add rules for the sake of rules. This market can be captured quickly and cheaply by introducing the new "Living" Campaign before Living Forgotten Realms is released and Living Greyhawk is sunsetted. Use the 3.5 OGL rules set along with Pathfinder setting material to get the ball rolling. The first set of adventures need not be region specific (regions of Golarian) or linked. It should just be entertaining material for people to play. People will be looking to try new things at cons as their favorite flavor will soon no longer be offered. It will be cheap to play as nearly every player has the 3.5 core material.
Individuals in the core market have on or more of the following attributes:
Has played in a Living campaign using the 3.0 or 3.5 rules.
Is looking for a new Living Campaign as all will retire next year.
Enjoys gaming, but is reluctant to spend a thousand dollars every 4 years to replace a perfectly good game.
Understands and enjoys the "Living" format.
Regularly attends cons (probably to get out of the house, get away from wife and kids, or just have a fun weekend gaming)
Will purchase setting specific material in book, folio, electronic, or magazine series format if the price is reasonable, the material adds to the enjoyment of the game, and most importantly keeps the player up to date on happenings in the community with little effort (i.e. happenings in the world, new material is available, you can play at these events, etc.)
There are many products that you offer that you can promote or tie in to this effort. Here are just a few:
Encourage that players use cards like the item cards to represent their characters unique equipment and belongings. Replace rewards cards for traditional "Living" campaigns with items cards that release powers of the items if the player has the card. Encourage players to find these cards in packs. Kids would love this and you'd be surprised at how many adults actually get into this.
Retain the cert format and some of the basic rules associated with them. I expect Living Forgotten Realms to suffer from paperwork overload as players level up more frequently and have to keep track of both character and race progression. I believe their motivation for this is to draw people to the DI to serve their character management needs. This will more then likely backfire as time is time. If I spend 1 hour for each level I attain, in 3.5 I have spent 20 hours and 4.0 I have spent 30. Its a very rough estimate, but I believe it is valid.
Create 8 regions for the United States. Use the triad format for Living Greyhawk. Pass on the announcement of the "Living" campaign to your subscribers and encourage them to participate. Have them submit resumes to become triad members to manage regions. Many people who have played in "Living" campaigns know the ins and outs to creating content, coordinating with con organizers, and handling players. This is a free resource to promote your products and get the ball running. I would only suggest that you limit the term these individuals serve. Some regions in Living Greyahwk have stagnated due to mod writers sticking around too long.
Tie game mastery tiles, mats, and other products to game session to sell more product. You could create a special judges section on your website to list products that will assist judges with a session. This material could be included in the module text as well.
Make all modules that are part of the Game Mastery and Pathfinder series adaptable to the Living Campaign. Both players and judges will purchase this material for the purpose of playing it.
Place campaign specific material in a magazine or make a deal with another publication like Kobold Quarterly to publish this material. Include item cards, tiles, and product announcements as well.
I think its time Paizo made a clean break from WoTC. It's time to take control of your companies destiny. The OGL for the 3.5 rules set is out there for everyone. Use it as your foundation and build on it. The material that your company is providing is top notch and far better then your competitors. Now tie it all together into an offering. There is an eager market that awaits and is ready to consume your products. All they need is a little help. Offer them something WoTC can't and won't - a comfortable setting to game with little effort on their part and the opportunity to participate and contribute to a fantasy setting.
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The only problem with this format is that sticking with 3.5 will limit your future player turnover and allow attrition to eventually destroy the campaign. No matter how much we may dislike WotC controlling the market, the only way stop it is by not allowing them to control the core rules. I don't see that happening (nor do I really want it to happen), so Paizo can never really have a "clean break" as long as they wish to remain in the most popular section of the gaming industry.
WoTC is not the only gaming company out there. Small ambitious companies that create products that meet their clients' need often replace their larger competitors. This happens in the video game market on a regular basis.
I admit that its a bold move, but this is an opportunity that only presents itself on rare occasions.
Paizo definitely has the talent on staff to pull something like that off, but all they'd really do (at least in the near future) is divide the market. I don't think that's something they can really afford this early in their independence.
I believe that there are two markets here. One of which WoTC isn't servicing. Why not just take that market and grow your products from that market.
The other option is to allow WoTC to control your destiny. They tell you what you can publish when. Dragon and Dungeon are a great example. They took the food right out of Paizo's mouth. At some point they can also say that the latest rules set is copyrighted and not available for other publishers use. Is it worth waiting for that day? It likes pids to the slaughter. Its only a matter of time before someone gets axed.
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Several key words here:
WoTC and the RPGA latest take on the "Living" campaign is to limit player participation as to manage the content and rights to the material. This is accomplished by reducing the number of region for the Living Greyhawk campaign from 29 to 10 in Forgotten Realms.
I believe, and support, the intent with this is to limit the strain on the volunteer system.
LG was having increasing issues staffing 29 Triads (87 direct volunteers) and 6 Circle positions (14 direct volunteers I believe), not to mention finding authors for over 200 adventures and other events per year.Encourage that players use cards like the item cards to represent their characters unique equipment and belongings. Replace rewards cards for traditional "Living" campaigns with items cards that release powers of the items if the player has the card. Encourage players to find these cards in packs. Kids would love this and you'd be surprised at how many adults actually get into this.
This would be a BAD idea.
One of the major complaints about LG is being tied to purchasing the newest splat book from WotC to stay up on the power curve.Create 8 regions for the United States. Use the triad format for Living Greyhawk.
First, change the name to just Campaign Administrator.
Second, a region really needs more than three people working on it, especially if the editor expect to write adventures as well. I would have liked to see that for LFR, and maybe if I become a regional admin I can promote it there.Tie game mastery tiles, mats, and other products to game session to sell more product. You could create a special judges section on your website to list products that will assist judges with a session. This material could be included in the module text as well.
See above for required purchases.
Also, while game tiles are a lot of fun, they require a significant amount of preparation to use, and very high quality graphics for the files for DMs to follow when preparing dungeons.Every time I use the WotC tiles people love them, but putting them together, especially from maps with poor contrast, requires a major amount of time.
Make all modules that are part of the Game Mastery and Pathfinder series adaptable to the Living Campaign. Both players and judges will purchase this material for the purpose of playing it.
A player doing that is cheating.
However, making as many Game Master Modules useful as possible will be a major draw. They are not usable at conventions, but they provide an excellent contrast to convention limited adventures (as per my previous long post) for the players. The new adaptables in LG have gotten raves, and they are just published adventures with a minor conversion sheet.
Splat books offer little to the gaming experience. Often a player needs to reference one or two items or a prestige class from it. Item cards could be considered a reward for playing as well enhance the gaming experience.
Game Mastery and Pathfinder Mods could be played by anyone under the adaptable format that WoTC and the RPGA employed. Since the material is created by the publisher, there's nothing illegal about it.
What would people be looking for in a "Living Pathfinder" type of campaign?
--Erik
I would bodily STEAL West End Games' Torg concept Erik. Subscribers got a monthly newsletter with 'HLS' (hook line sinker) type adventure ideas, one to three mini-adventures that the GM could easily flesh out and a response form. The 'canon' was influenced by the core adventures and whatnot presented in the subscription.
Heck, if Pathfinder 'upgraded' to that basic concept, I'd be eager to pony up a few extra bucks a month on my sub to cover the associated costs.
And if anyone is curious and has the first 'letter book' (I don't remember the name, but I lived in Fairfax, VA at the time and a few nods were made in my direction during the course of the Possibility Wars during both the 'live subscription' as well as being printed in the aftermath books they published at the end of the 'first edition' TORG run), or especially any of the old digests for TORG, you should see what I mean.
THAT was a living, canon-shifting game concept! And a blast to play too!
I would personally like a Living City model. Pick a city, like Riddleport or some new city, and have all of the adventures take place in or around that city. This is something we don't currently have from WotC.
I think GMs should have to pay an annual subscription through Paizo in order to download modules and sanction games. Like $5-10 or something. This would give an opportunity for a little professional support and leverage Paizo's online storefront for tracking and distributing module downloads.
I would personally want to play Living Pathfinder at cons, during my monthly local Meetups and gamedays, and online for demonstrating MapTool. It's really for pick up games that feel like more than one-shots, without investing a lot of time and money into them. That's something we currently aren't getting much of from Paizo atm.
And in the meantime, if anyone is interested in running any of the GameMastery modules online, please visit our site:
http://www.onlinednd.com/
If you haven't played with MapTool yet and you think of online gaming as play-by-post, you don't know what you're missing!
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I would bodily STEAL West End Games' Torg concept Erik.
THAT was a living, canon-shifting game concept! And a blast to play too!
yoikes!
The problem with Torg was that so many groups kept failing that things just went progressively down hill. Core Earth just got swallowed up, big time.
There needs to be a way to adjust for the fact that, apparently, a lot of gamers are chuckleheads.
I played Torg. I loved it. But it was just so disheartening to see that no matter how hard we worked, things kept failing.
If we were to go with this kind of model, the metaplot would need to be less grim. Torg was too much, "Pull up! Pull up! Pull up! We're not pulling up! SPLAT!"
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I would personally like a Living City model. Pick a city, like Riddleport or some new city, and have all of the adventures take place in or around that city. This is something we don't currently have from WotC.
I think GMs should have to pay an annual subscription through Paizo in order to download modules and sanction games. Like $5-10 or something. This would give an opportunity for a little professional support and leverage Paizo's online storefront for tracking and distributing module downloads.
The reason we don't have a Living City campaign from WotC anymore (aside from the sick reliance on overly abundant magic items) is that the city-only campaign format doesn't seem to appeal to many players. It's rather hard to swamp a single city with 14,000 adventurers; even a city as large as Waterdeep.
Also, GMs paying for ANYTHING (including convention fees and cost of drinks) is a no-no. Finding people willing to DM living campaigns is hard enough if everything is free. If they have to pay out of their own pocket, you may as well go ahead and pronounce the campaign dead now.
Living City wasn't in Waterdeep, it was in Raven's Bluff. And most of the games took place in the environs surrounding the city.
What I'm asking for is a much smaller area. Like in Living Greyhawk, all of the core modules take place in and around Greyhawk. The only bad thing is that there just aren't enough modules that come out every year for that area.
And DMs pay all the time to play. They buy Pathfinder. I'm saying something really cheap, HALF the cost of ONE issue of Pathfinder. Just something to separate the average person from logging in and downloading a bunch of modules while providing a little bit of funding for a paid coordinator. I don't think that's much to ask.
When we had to pay for the RPGA we got the LGJ. Now maybe for cons they can let one person who paid for "Living Pathfinder" download and distribute printed copies of the modules to DMs to get more people to play. I just think at its core there should be some type of fee to keep some level of elitism in place. :)
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I knew that it was in Raven's Bluff. Waterdeep is much bigger so I used that as an example of how a city isn't large enough.
Also, I don't have direct numbers, but when LG first started the mods cost money to order. The amount of people playing LG was significantly fewer than today. I'm sure some of that was due to lack of knowledge about its existence, but I'd bet that a majority of that was people who didn't want to pay money for a game that was less fun than a free home campaign (like me for instance).
but I'd bet that a majority of that was people who didn't want to pay money for a game that was less fun than a free home campaign (like me for instance).
By that logic, why buy Pathfinder at all? It's free and Pathfinder isn't, right?
I'm surprised no one's jumped on West's Pathfinder Chronicles concept. This may be because I'm the only one who doesn't like the name Pathfinder: Evolution (mostly because I'm not sure what it's supposed to be evolving from), but he really did latch onto what sets Golarion apart from other campaign worlds.
Greyhawk, the Realms, Kalamar, Eberron, Arcanis and whoever else were all mapped out from the start. Only Golarion exists as isolated outposts of civilization surrounded by the dark unknown. An exploration campaign model is perfect for this setting.
I don't have Bloodsworn Vale to build off his example with, but if you take the model of a city on the verge of a recently opened passage and the great unknown beyond, you have buckets of adventure ideas. It'd be like Deep Space 9 only with fewer phasers. Urban adventures in the gateway city, exploration adventures beyond the Vale (Hmm...'Beyond the Vale' sounds like a good campaign name too), politics with whatever culture(s) you find on the other side, and empire building as you settle more and more of the beyondlands.
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but I'd bet that a majority of that was people who didn't want to pay money for a game that was less fun than a free home campaign (like me for instance).By that logic, why buy Pathfinder at all? It's free and Pathfinder isn't, right?
I don't mind paying a one-time cost for a tangible item that can be used over and over again and will supply me with hours upon hours of fun. That is completely different than paying a company money every four hours (remind anyone else of a parking meter?) just to play a game with a rigid, sometimes stressful structure after already giving that same company hundreds of dollars to purchase their books in order to be able to play their game.
This is especially true at conventions, where most of this gaming takes place. You already have to pay for transportation, hotel costs, convention entrance fees, food, and more. And then you ask me to pay you an ADDITIONAL fee to play your game when all of the other games at the convention are covered by door costs? No thanks, I'll find another game to play.
I'm surprised no one's jumped on West's Pathfinder Chronicles concept...
Well, I did voice my lauds for the idea! I'll add that I like your spin as well. The "exploration" theme opens up the campaign to a lot of ideas that could grow without impacting other development areas.
I would bodily STEAL West End Games' Torg concept Erik.
THAT was a living, canon-shifting game concept! And a blast to play too!yoikes!
The problem with Torg was that so many groups kept failing that things just went progressively down hill. Core Earth just got swallowed up, big time.
There needs to be a way to adjust for the fact that, apparently, a lot of gamers are chuckleheads.
I played Torg. I loved it. But it was just so disheartening to see that no matter how hard we worked, things kept failing.If we were to go with this kind of model, the metaplot would need to be less grim. Torg was too much, "Pull up! Pull up! Pull up! We're not pulling up! SPLAT!"
Well ... I'm pretty sure we can learn the lesson from, what, 15 years ago, and not go down so easily ... especially in D&D, where smart players will often win the field. TORG was many things - whomping thier BBEGs was no joke though, and thier horror elements were outright brutal.
I agree though, a lot of gamers tend to be short-term attention-span chuckleheads ...
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What would people be looking for in a "Living Pathfinder" type of campaign?
--Erik
I'm part of a group putting together a MMTRPG (massively multiplayer tabletop role playing game - see www.mmtrpg.com and http://www.feartheboot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5518 if you're curious as to what we're up to). We were thinking something like the RPGA but smaller and with as little overhead/paperwork as possible (we're all volunteers).
We are thinking about using no modules - allowing local GMs the ability to write and run things that their players are interested in. We generate the world and ask that the GM's report back what things they run so we can update our wiki and incorporate their adventures into the meta-plots. The high-level meta-plotlines will be general trends in the game world that the local GMs should incorporate, even if only peripherally, into what their running to keep the whole shared world feeling alive.
I'm also an assistant to the Bandit Kingdoms Triad in the RPGA and my current project (other than co-writing next year's 3-round Intro mod) is putting together a wiki containing everything in the Bandit Kingdom modules as a history of the region. One of the most frustrating parts of this has been just getting the older mods as there is no official repository of them. The RPGA frowns on swapping the PDFs, even for expired mods. I now have about 75% of the mods published to date, but getting the last 25% is probably going to be a pain.
So what do I want in a Living Pathfinder campaign?
A way to find out what's going on outside of my local region. Strong consistancy in the quality of the adventures and the writing. A chance to edit for grammar and rules consistancy (I'm a tech writer/copy editor by trade and some of the early stuff I'm looking at now makes my hand itch for a red pen). I'd also love to write an adventure for it.
Patrick Walsh
Wearer of Many Hats
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I would like the adventures to be made available to everyone, not just GM's running the games at cons.I agree. I always wanted access to Living Greyhawk adventures after playing them at Cons, so I could GM them for my home group. But they would have to be released to the general public AFTER they've had their run at Conventions, because otherwise it leaves open the temptation for players to access and read the adventure before playing them at Conventions, which would spoil it for everyone.
You've always been able to do this (at least since I started playing Living City in 2000). You just log onto the RPGA website and order it as a "Home game"... They did (and may still) have a silly restriction about ordering it 2 weeks in advance, though, which never made any sense to me.
Joining in on the quickly expanding thread. Having played Living Greyhawk and while I love the concept and played in some fun adventures, over all I have been disappointed in the level of bookkeeping and number of dungeon based adventures I have played in. So often the adventures are just elaborate games of Whack-A-Mole with an XP award.
To address the bookeepping problem I suggest eliminating it for the most part. Each adventure should identify the APL needed to play and the GP value for any equipment the character can bring to the table. Now the good part that makes Paizo some money. Expand on the Item Cards by adding a GP value and game play descriptor to the cards. A player can only bring to the table an equipment deck with a value no greater than the adventure GP value. Paizo gets to sell cards and can even sell starter decks for new players to get their character equiped and boster decks for players that want to purchase magic items at higher levels. This also allows for adventures that have 'specialty' cards to be awarded that are self limiting because they would have an established GP value and need to become part of the players deck in order to use it. With some minor tweaking rules for magic item creation can be put in place. For example, a character with an item creation feat can halve the value for a limited number of item cards in their deck that the feat applys to(this also involves dumping the XP rules for item creation). Players only need dice, their character sheet, and the character deck to play. (The added bonus of players trading and swaping item cards creates another level of player involvement).
Now with Paizo making a couple of bucks on item cards, they might be able to aford to provide some editorial oversight on the adventures to assure that they live up to Paizo's high standards.
O.K. the name. IMO, Pathfinder:Evolution is beyond lame and reminds me of movies, comic books, and worse, plus it does nothing to elicit a feel for Pathfinder. I suggest an alternative name
Pathfinder>Compass
Or something along this vein that draws attention to what Pathfinder is.
ttfn
Skudge
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Meh, not a fan of Pathfinder "Compass." I fail to see how it conveys what a "living" pathfinder game would be about.
I like Evolution because the game would be evolving according to how it is played, and reflects the influence players would have on the game as a whole. I also really like the Chronicles idea, because it gives the game a sense of a continuing, ongoing story.
YMMV
I don't actually own any of the item cards (yet...) but as I understand them the cards are somewhat generic and don't have GP values tied to them. As such, there would have to be some "card x from set y equals value z" document to make all of them useful. I don't dislike the cards idea (surprisingly) but I think it would be bit more to implement than just having players declare the item(s) to have a certain value.