Hey Folks -
So far, I've been very impressed with the Rise of the Runelords adventures, individually. I've read all of Burnt Offerings, most of Skinsaw, and just started skimming through Hook Mountain a half hour ago or so. Each adventure is cool and fun, on its own.
As a campaign arc though, I have been consistently disappointed with this Adventure path. The titular Runelords seem to be MIA, and each adventure includes vast swaths of events that just seem so detached from the theme of an ancient wizard lord rising from death to rule once more that I am often left thinking that these adventures really have pretty thin pretenses linking them together, and could just be run absolutely seperately with no one being at all the wiser that they where once linked to an adventure path.
So far, this is not at all like the impression I got from Age of Worms or Savage Tide, where every single adventure was right there in the thick of the overall plot. Am I the only one who is feeling this way about the RotRL Adventure Path so far?
I disagree. I think Shackled City and Age of Worms felt equally disjointed. :)
War of the Burning Sky is probably the best example of an adventure path you're looking for. Right from the beginning you know exactly who the main enemy is and the entire path you're constantly challenged time and again by the same theme of war. It follows you from nation to nation, adventure to adventure. And they're done in such a way that each can be used independently, and each is far less linear yet tells more story (and in ways that involve the players better).
With that said, I am also running Rise of the Runelords and my players enjoy it. I justed wanted to add this before the staff and the fans come in here and claim that what Paizo does is the best/only way to do it. :)
How dare you suggest that Paizo has turned us into shambling brand junkies!
Nnnnnnnghhghgaaaaa!
One thing to keep in mind is the Runelords kept entire kingdoms in line. If I were a continent crushing warlord back from the dead with the power to breach planar boundaries and make arch-devils quake, I’m betting the last thing I’d want to do is waste time on the new low level schleps in town.
“Dude, did you just crush that adventuring party with your thumb?”
“Yeah, I just got back from the dead and someone drank all my Diet Coke. What’s up with that?”
Hey Folks -
So far, I've been very impressed with the Rise of the Runelords adventures, individually. I've read all of Burnt Offerings, most of Skinsaw, and just started skimming through Hook Mountain a half hour ago or so. Each adventure is cool and fun, on its own.
As a campaign arc though, I have been consistently disappointed with this Adventure path. The titular Runelords seem to be MIA, and each adventure includes vast swaths of events that just seem so detached from the theme of an ancient wizard lord rising from death to rule once more that I am often left thinking that these adventures really have pretty thin pretenses linking them together, and could just be run absolutely seperately with no one being at all the wiser that they where once linked to an adventure path.
Answer three (after mwbeeler and my puppet): there are different ways to tell a story, and although the linear method is characteristic of Indo-Europeans and Judeo Christians, some people do like it when a story circles around the final climax.
Answer four: You answered it. It sure is cool that I can extract parts of this story and run them by themselves without going to a lot of effort.
I justed wanted to add this before the staff and the fans come in here and claim that what Paizo does is the best/only way to do it. :)
You are implying that people in here have no sense of judgment? What's with the smiley face there laughing boy?
=P
[note: the preceding comment was intended to be in the spirit of friendly name calling]
To the OP,
By the way, "arn't" is spelled "aren't".
=)
If you're concerned about how the various adventures in the campaign fit together you might want to check out the campaign outline in the Thassilon article in Pathfinder #1. We didn't want to leave DMs in the dark on where things are headed, which can definitely happen when you don't have the full story right in front of you.
I'll go into further detail, but I don't want to spoil it for any players...
In #1 we get someone involved with the magic of Thassilon and establishment of the civilization. In #2, we have a murder plot to empower Karzoug manufactured by one of his lesser servants. In #3, we begin to see the formation of his armies and further plots by his minions to wake him. In #4, the PCs must face an entire army in the service of Karzoug and his minions. #5's a massive Thassilonian dungeon where Karzoug himself starts to directly strike against the PCs. Then, finally, #6 is an entire Thassilonian city, the palace of Karzoug, and the face-off against the runelord himself.
So, again, it's a slow build, but there's a lot of ground to cover. If you want to take a heavier hand with the Thassilon stuff, the Thassilon article in #1, Varisia article in #3, Magic of Thassilon article in #4, and each adventure's background should give you all the details you need to ancient evil your game up even more.
Creative Director
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TECHNICALLY... I guess the campaign would have been more accurately titled "Rise of A Runelord," but that doesn't sound as epic.
But yeah. It's kind of a slow build toward the eventuall runelord rising. It'll happen, though! Or more accurately, it'll ALMOST happen, unless your PCs can't stop it!
And all that's cool, but if you guys do another AP it would be nice if you laid off the slowly unfolding mystery climax. Every single AP you guys have done is all about the PCs finding things out piecemeal, one nibble at a time. For once it would be cool to have the party know who the bad guy is and what his plans are up front, if only to have a change of pace.
Take Burning Sky for instance. From the beginning you have a large organization you're fighting time and again. In the very first session the PCs have a very good idea of who the big boss at the "end" of the AP is going to be. Can they just go to the boss and kick its butt? No! In fact, at low levels they are doing everything they can to get as far away from the boss's forces as possible.
My players have responded more favorably to that style than to Paizo's APs. Don't get me wrong, they still enjoy the individual adventures. They are well designed with interesting encounters. The only big problem is that the table (and the PC party in character) wants to know the point of the campaign (and the unifying force) at lower levels. In some cases (not always, but sometimes) they want a campaign where they don't have to wait to look back and get that "oh, so that's what the plot was all about!" Instead they want to know up front what the goals are at the final endgame so that they can understand the importance of what their doing.
As a DM (and probably as designers), sure I can look at an adventure and say "Ah yes, what they're doing now is going to help the party reveal something that will eventually help them stop the first piece of Kyuss's plans". However, I can't share this with my players. The impact could be presented to them in game somehow as its happening, not a year or two after the fact. I know this sounds like a broken record, but Burning Sky is a good example of how to do this.
And all that's cool, but if you guys do another AP it would be nice if you laid off the slowly unfolding mystery climax. Every single AP you guys have done is all about the PCs finding things out piecemeal, one nibble at a time. For once it would be cool to have the party know who the bad guy is and what his plans are up front, if only to have a change of pace.
It's funny you should mention this, because it is exactly what I did to start off my current campaign. The PCs narrowly avoided being squashed like bugs in a way that inextricably links them to a guy they know they're going to have to get back to, although at their current level they're "hiding out" in a crappy frontier and are cleaning up messes they and the villain (oh wait... I) have created. They do not, however, know what his plans are.
Which is not to say this is how I think it should always be done, but I certainly understand where you are coming from and can see the merits of it, especially for certain kinds of players. When I'm playing though, I tend to not look that far ahead. I kind of like stumbling into a save-the-world situation by way of just trying to sack a few Orc camps and hacking my way to some hoard, and going from roleplaying situation to roleplaying situation and just getting some tears and smiles out of the whole thing.
I agree with Hiddendragon and Takasi, though not about Shackled City. I'm running Shackled City and Burnt Offerings now, and the latter is nowhere as compelling as the former. I've been trying to figure out what it is about SC that makes it so compelling to the same group of players who are losing interest in Burnt Offerings, and earlier today, after skimming through Hook Mountain Massacre, I reached the same conclusion as the OP.
In SC, the first thing that hooked them into the story were the Caulron regional traits, each linked into the overall story. At the start of the campaign, most of them already had individual bits of the mystery that, though they didn't understand it, would prove important later. The shocking event at the end of Chapter 1 convinced them something BIG was going on, even if they didn't know what it was. Then I modified the premise of Chapter 2 to drop the Cagewrights' name, so they have a name to go after, though they don't yet know anything about the organization. We're only finishing Chapter 3, but the emotional investment in their characters and the story is huge.
By contrast, all of these little hooks are missing from Runelords. Like Hiddendragon says, individually, each module is fun, probably more fun than each individual chapter of SC, but as a whole, the link between them is tenuous.
It was SC that converted me to Paizo's AP's, but Runelords has been disappointing so far.
I'm in the other camp I suppose. I like the long slow reveal. I especially like having peripetia occur with NPC's (loved that Aldern Foxglove turns out to be the Skinsaw Man in PF#2). Particularly when it comes to PC loyalty. Not suggesting that every NPC the characters get attached to turn out to be bad. Quite the opposite actually, I think I like having NPC's the characters thought were bad turning out to be helpful more (though not necessarily good).
While having the villain apparent from the get go can be fun. I've always preferred the slow build, and tend to run my games in that similar fashion. So I've been really pleased with RotRL so far because of it. (I haven't seen AoW or ST, but I do have SCAP and I loved it for the same reasons).
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My players don't have a clue that there is a campaign going on at all - they're just playing their characters and having fun doing it.
I would worry about the players getting focused on acheiving-the-goal if I threw the runelords premise at them right now; I'm already struggling to get them out of the nasty habit of stopping roleplaying when scary things turn up.
So, I'm glad that there isn't a huge runelord threat hanging over the game. Right now they've just started picking up on the reccuring Sihedron motif, but they're fixated on it having some connection with Lamashtu - that's plenty.
I'm already struggling to get them out of the nasty habit of stopping roleplaying when scary things turn up.
You don't want them talking OOC? Wow, poor guys. There are usually several conversations going on when I play, only one of which is in character. I would find that totally no fun. But hey, I understand some people really like total immersion roleplaying--I'm not dissing you.
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I actually like the slow building narrative rythm of RotRL.
When I played the SCAP (which my players enjoyed immensely) the surprise of having the "something big is going on" element right from the start was a good thing for a while, but it largely spoiled the overall atmosphere from the middle of the campaign and later on: the players where always on their toes for something equally fishy, and evaluated every hint or red herring as a vital clue. This somehow burned their attention on the long run, and in the final chapters their feelings were not of "finally we get at the real baddies" but of a more bored tone - well, at least until Asylum.
The AoWAP, which develops more slowly and offers a organic picture of the whole campaign only about at halfway level, is currently underway and the loosely linked adventures of the lower levels are way more appreciated, considering them only from the metaplot point of view. The players enjoy variety, they know that there is a link between the single quests, they feel that their adventuring careers are not limited by a single obvious storyline, and are building up steam for the moment when they'll get a clear view of the whole plot.
So, I expect that the RoRL AP will have the same success, as we have themed elements, links between adventures, some early spoilers that will become fully understood only in the later stages, and a large variety of settings and adventure themes.
I understand that this is a matter of subjective tastes, but this way of exposing the stepping stones of the metaplot is most appreciated both by my players and myself as a DM.
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I'm already struggling to get them out of the nasty habit of stopping roleplaying when scary things turn up.You don't want them talking OOC? Wow, poor guys. There are usually several conversations going on when I play, only one of which is in character. I would find that totally no fun. But hey, I understand some people really like total immersion roleplaying--I'm not dissing you.
To be honest, I'd also wouldn't like them chatting OOC at climatic moments.
DM: "The great white lands from the sky, looking at you as if you were insects, his head arcs back as he gathers his breath to release a hail of white ice towa"
suddenly interrupted
Player1: "OMG guys have you seen that movie yesterday with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, damn that Tucker guy has a huge mouth and annoying voice."
DM: "He does his ice breath for 5D6 dmg."
It kinda breaks the flow going on at that time, like going to a movie and they suddenly put it on hold for 10 mins in the middle of a very thrilling moment.
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I'm already struggling to get them out of the nasty habit of stopping roleplaying when scary things turn up.You don't want them talking OOC? Wow, poor guys. There are usually several conversations going on when I play, only one of which is in character. I would find that totally no fun. But hey, I understand some people really like total immersion roleplaying--I'm not dissing you.
Ha, not quite what I meant - if i was like that i'd have no players.
What I meant was that the players make character decisions for most of the game, but sometimes in combat every character becomes a tactical genius with a cool-head under fire, sizing up the situation from a thousand differenet angles.
And the characters have a combat-activated psychic link - a few goblins pop-up and suddenly they're working three turns ahead to make sneak attacks available... and these are low-level characters who've only known each other a week or so! Considered tactical application of a barbarian rage FFS.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Ha, not quite what I meant - if i was like that i'd have no players.
What I meant was that the players make character decisions for most of the game, but sometimes in combat every character becomes a tactical genius with a cool-head under fire, sizing up the situation from a thousand differenet angles.
And the characters have a combat-activated psychic link - a few goblins pop-up and suddenly they're working three turns ahead to make sneak attacks available... and these are low-level characters who've only known each other a week or so! Considered tactical application of a barbarian rage FFS.
I'm bad about doing this. Well at least in knowing the best place to drop a shadow evocation or who gets the orb of force to the face. Then again I'm talking about a high level character. It's hard though, for experienced players to make 'mistakes' with low level characters. Though when it happens it's funny.
Takasi states my concerns more eloquently, so I thank him for that and chime in that I basically agree with the additional points he raised.
It's not at all that I expect the players to confront the Runelord right away at first level; it's just that everything leading up to this final epic confrontation is so disjointed that, as it was put previously, I am having a really hard time finding the themes to hit on to make sure my players know this is a "campaign", and not just episodic random adventures in Varisa.
I just feel that it would be more thematic if every adventure in the AP had 2 of its 4 or so chapters heavily steeped in the thematic elements of the overall campaign. So the players arnt fighting the Rune Lord in Burnt Offerings and Skinsaw, but there should be lots of rune magic, rune mysteries, rune creatures . . .runes runes runes! The players should know early that "hey, this ain't called Rise of the Runelords for nothin!"
Once again, im not necessarily talking about the players knowing the plot of the campaign immediately, im talking about the players knowing the Theme. There is an important difference between the two, and right now i believe that RotRL suffers most from a theme so disjointed from the actual adventures that I find myself wondering if it is ever going to come around to it before the 6th volume.
Anyhow, I'll of course continue to purchase the Paizo products, as I am always delighted with them, in general - please no one take this as some blanket condemnation that will cause me to cancel my subscription. At the same time, however, I'd like to provide this constructive critism, and join my voice with Takasi requesting that the next AP do a better job of making the major theme of the campaign readily apparent throughout the greater majority of the adventures.
Edited: For clarity.
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I'm bad about doing this. Well at least in knowing the best place to drop a shadow evocation or who gets the orb of force to the face. Then again I'm talking about a high level character. It's hard though, for experienced players to make 'mistakes' with low level characters. Though when it happens it's funny.
I'm no saint. I'm playing in a game with a few new players and it can be really hard to hold my tongue - but then when I do half the time they come up with something cool that i'd never have thought of (often things which force the DM to improvise a ruling too - which he loves) and the other half they do something daft which leads to tension/excitement/fun.
In my other game we've got a great combat arrangement - the two feral characters charge in recklessly, plunging into traps and overrunning ambushes, getting the party split up and generally going at it with reckless abandon. Meanwhile the beguiler hides or gets in the way and the dungeon-delver hides and occasionally snipes reluctantly (or if it's a new beastie, tries to get a good view and take notes) - but he's usually wandered off alone anyway... My Swordsage began as a flash git, burning through all of his maneuvres as soon as possible but now he's developed to be the guy carrying a bandolier of healing potions and using movement tricks to get in position to save his hombres from the crisis' they fall into - it's all so much more fun than planning.
DM: "The great white lands from the sky, looking at you as if you were insects, his head arcs back as he gathers his breath to release a hail of white ice towa"
suddenly interrupted
Player1: "OMG guys have you seen that movie yesterday with Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, damn that Tucker guy has a huge mouth and annoying voice."
DM: "He does his ice breath for 5D6 dmg."
LOL.
I hear you man. Mine don't do that, thank god.
What I meant was that the players make character decisions for most of the game, but sometimes in combat every character becomes a tactical genius with a cool-head under fire, sizing up the situation from a thousand differenet angles.
And the characters have a combat-activated psychic link - a few goblins pop-up and suddenly they're working three turns ahead to make sneak attacks available... and these are low-level characters who've only known each other a week or so! Considered tactical application of a barbarian rage FFS.
Yup, mine keep trying to do that and they have no link. I understand you totally and I'm with you on that. I do the "17 initiative, going, going... gone" thing.
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Maybe I violate some unspoken DM rule when I do this, but when I run a planned (instead of a make it up as you go) campaign I give my players a very quick, vague summary of the campaign. I've found it helps to keep them focused as they start looking for the clues. Something along these lines or longer:
"In this campaign, your characters will attempt to stop the rulers of a terrible empire from awakening. These tyrants were heavily assocated with the seven sins and were known as 'Runelords.'"
Of course, it helps when your players can separate player knowledge from character knowledge.
How much tweaking would be required for the desired linking? Is this something we could just brainstorm up?
We could start with just strengthening the existing links and explaining them a little. Maybe instead of trusting that the goblin deaths would feed the Wrath runewell Nualia decides to make sure, so all the goblin raiders have a Sihedron rune tattoo. Quink can recognize the rune and explain it.
Nualia could have some details from the Skinsaw Men, and perhaps the story about how she gained her amulet could become more widely known. Maybe Gogmurt learned about it and is trying to use the information to discredit her with the other Thistletop goblins (who are incapable of keeping secrets).
This doesn't involve a Runelord yet, and even if it did it would be Alaznist not Karzoug. What other tweaks could we do?
(My PCs are all about living for the moment so I'm not using these, but that's no reason not to come up with them.)
Well, I can understand the criticism. I enjoy the non-linear slow-building thing but at the same time, if one's players (namely, mine) aren't keen on things like "taking notes" "remembering people's names" or "remembering hints and clues" then it is pretty easy to lose them with a Gary Gygax "Against the Giants/Queen of the Demonweb Pits" slow reveal.
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Maybe I violate some unspoken DM rule when I do this, but when I run a planned (instead of a make it up as you go) campaign I give my players a very quick, vague summary of the campaign.
When I run games for my group, I read them the back cover text and show them the front cover. I figure they could do that for themselves if they ran across the adventure in the store, and it gives them some idea of what's in store. It's worked out pretty well so far, though sometimes I do edit if I think the description gives just a little too much away.
Maybe I violate some unspoken DM rule when I do this, but when I run a planned (instead of a make it up as you go) campaign I give my players a very quick, vague summary of the campaign.When I run games for my group, I read them the back cover text and show them the front cover. I figure they could do that for themselves if they ran across the adventure in the store, and it gives them some idea of what's in store. It's worked out pretty well so far, though sometimes I do edit if I think the description gives just a little too much away.
The problem with Rise of the Runelords though is that reading the text of a single adventure still results in no prevailing theme.
So far in my mind the best theme I've come up with is "Who will save Sandpoint?" I'm trying my best to make my players fall in love with the little town, or at the very least enjoy some roleplay and downtime. In Burnt Offerings, it's all about goblins trying to squash the town. In Skinsaw, a serial killer stalks Sandpoint, so I make plenty of references to Chopper in the beginning to give them a "oh crap" feeling when they hear about the murders. I haven't yet read through Hook Mountain Massacre or received the other adventures, but it sounds like that's kind of a prevailing theme. First ogres are plotting to invade, then stone giants and a dragon.
So for my players, I might as well call the campaign "Saviors of Sandpoint". One thing the players liked about Shackled City is the home base of Cauldron. In Age of Worms, they were disappointed when they had to leave Diamond Lake, and in Savage Tide they were also moving around more often than not.
The runes seem to tie things together, but the major catastrophe they're trying to prevent still seems like a mystery, just as it is in all of the Paizo adventure paths. This isn't a bad thing, but we've played this way over and over. It would be nice to see an AP that starts out from day one with "The Tarrasque has awakened" (as an example). You can still have some mysteries (Why did it wake up?) but the players know from day one that they need to kick the tarrasque's butt. Each adventure you try to clean up after it, or stop the "Cult of the Tarrasque" (as an example) from directing the creature towards their secret plans. Obviously you can come up with a more imaginative monster or threat, but the idea of a big, bold theme would be a nice change of pace. I would really like to see what Paizo can come up with.
Staff, since you're just now working on Second Darkness, can you tell us if it's like this or not? Or is the evil plot hidden away in the darkness for us to slowly put together?
The problem with Rise of the Runelords though is that reading the text of a single adventure still results in no prevailing theme.Valid point, but why read just the back for each adventure when you could use the summary of the entire adventure path to give your preview?
I would prefer if the preview could be done in character, as it is in Burning Sky and in the "Cult of the Tarrasque" example AP above.
And all that's cool, but if you guys do another AP it would be nice if you laid off the slowly unfolding mystery climax. Every single AP you guys have done is all about the PCs finding things out piecemeal, one nibble at a time. For once it would be cool to have the party know who the bad guy is and what his plans are up front, if only to have a change of pace.
Take Burning Sky for instance. From the beginning you have a large organization you're fighting time and again. In the very first session the PCs have a very good idea of who the big boss at the "end" of the AP is going to be. Can they just go to the boss and kick its butt? No! In fact, at low levels they are doing everything they can to get as far away from the boss's forces as possible.
My players have responded more favorably to that style than to Paizo's APs. Don't get me wrong, they still enjoy the individual adventures. They are well designed with interesting encounters. The only big problem is that the table (and the PC party in character) wants to know the point of the campaign (and the unifying force) at lower levels. In some cases (not always, but sometimes) they want a campaign where they don't have to wait to look back and get that "oh, so that's what the plot was all about!" Instead they want to know up front what the goals are at the final endgame so that they can understand the importance of what their doing.
As a DM (and probably as designers), sure I can look at an adventure and say "Ah yes, what they're doing now is going to help the party reveal something that will eventually help them stop the first piece of Kyuss's plans". However, I can't share this with my players. The impact could be presented to them in game somehow as its happening, not a year or two after the fact. I know this sounds like a broken record, but Burning Sky is a good example of how to do this.
I am running a Burning Sky campaign right now and in reality the characters dont know all of the adversaries and the ultimate bad guys at all. The campaign has a slow build of story line but happens to drop characters in the middle of a war and give them an obvious initial enemy (Ragesians). I added a spolier tag so any WoBS players shouldnt read the next statement.
I am running a Burning Sky campaign right now and in reality the characters dont know all of the adversaries and the ultimate bad guys at all. The campaign has a slow build of story line but happens to drop characters in the middle of a war and give them an obvious initial enemy (Ragesians).
I disagree, and no spoiler is necessary because this is info you'll find out immediately in the campaign. Check out the Player's Guide, and right away you have Leska, Emporer Coaltongue, the Torch, the Burning Sky, the Ragesians, the Shahalesti and the Scourge. All of these are major driving forces behind the entire campaign path. The other spoiler aspect you mention is a mystery that's revealed later, but can you agree that the other elements are the key elements from day one?
Where do we get that info and driving force in ANY of Paizo's APs?
I do not agree that it's DM style. Paizo's APs are not providing an upfront approach in their presentation of material to players, and any attempt by a DM to lay things out in character is a radical, almost self-defeating departure from the intent of the AP. As a result, many of the adventures, from both character and player perspectives, seem to have very little to do with the others except in hindsight near the end (and in some cases even that takes some explaining). Compare this with Burning Sky, where it's obvious to the players that every single thing they do is related to the Scourge.
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I think it comes down to what you want.
The RoTRL AP seems to be a slow build, characters start out low level, they start out fighting for their home town, and things build from there in an organic way.
This seems more nautural to me than a "the whole world is on fire, only you can save it, but not yet" thing.
Some people will prefer the first to the last, and vice versa.
If you don't like the way RoTRL goes, either change it, or don't play it, use it to pull interesting ideas for other campaigns etc etc.
Knowing Paizo, other APs will be different, from the posts here, the dragon APs had different levels of reveal, so why shouldn't the Pathfinder APs?
It's no fair demanding that they *all* be different though, that would spoil it for the rest of us :)
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The other spoiler aspect you mention is a mystery that's revealed later, but can you agree that the other elements are the key elements from day one?
Where do we get that info and driving force in ANY of Paizo's APs?
Depending on your players, AoW does have this - my players (out of character) had figured out
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Does Red Hand of Doom fit the known threat model?
I can see the point that knowing what you're against at the beginning has its own charms and it is true that Paizo has not had an adventure path of that nature. It would be interesting to see what they could do.
The only other downside to the known enemy is that fatigue could set in. I defer to those that have played Red Hand of Doom, which handles the problem of a single enemy type fairly well, but still wonder if you don't get tired of fighting humanoids after 3-4 levels. This is by no means an insurmountable problem though - particularly given the quality of Paizo products.
The RoTRL AP seems to be a slow build, characters start out low level, they start out fighting for their home town, and things build from there in an organic way.
It's a little too organic. If I wanted that I would just let my players explore and go wherever they want.
James Jacobs has said time and again that adventures have storylines, otherwise they would be sourcebooks. Each individual adventure has a storyline, but the story for the path itself isn't very cohesive. You may call this "organic", but if you want organic you should be using a sourcebook.
This seems more nautural to me than a "the whole world is on fire, only you can save it, but not yet" thing.
The thing is in the other adventure paths the whole world is also on fire, and only you can save it, but not yet. You just don't know it yet, and the things you're doing at early levels aren't having that much of an impact on things to come.
Knowing Paizo, other APs will be different, from the posts here, the dragon APs had different levels of reveal, so why shouldn't the Pathfinder APs?
That's what I'm hoping for. I would disagree that the other APs have been very different though.
It's no fair demanding that they *all* be different though, that would spoil it for the rest of us :)
No one is demanding that. At least one of them should be more blunt and cohesive, if for the very least to let DMs see how it can be done (and if it's done by Paizo, hopefully done well).
I'm with Takasi on this one. I think it would be great to see what the ladies and gentlemen here at Paizo could do with a change in adventure style.
Sometimes it is nice to know your characters are heroes and are going to be doing heroic things.
how is this not putting the information upfront?
My secret comments:
Three Faces of Evil has so little to do with Kyuss that many DMs on these boards have recommended replacing it with something else entirely. By the time you get to Blackwall Keep your campaign could be several months into play and your characters are still following a carrot on a stick, not seeing the doom that will occur in the months to come.
It takes our group three to four game sessions, so nearly a month, per level gained. So a 15-level Adventure Path is still going to take us most of a year to run (I'm not sure if the Pathfinder ones play faster, we haven't started yet).
I can't imagine anything more boring than facing the same foes, the same threat, for that long. I'd much rather have "story arcs" that are somewhat self-contained, but that lead reasonably to one another and that move the PCs toward their destined role as heroes. I personally love the fact that earlier story elements turn out to be related, or to give important clues, but often only in retrospect. And I think that kind of story-arc-to-saga is what Paizo produces.
So my personal vote is, Paizo should keep going with its existing design trend for the Adventure Paths.
I prefer the "slow" build, though really I see it more as an "organic" build to the campaign. It feels much less linear this way, and allows players to develop a closeness with the setting, which in turn provides impetus as the campaign progresses.
Also, I think it is easier, as a DM, to provide a shot of linear storytelling for movement, when the campaign is more organic, than the other way around.
It takes our group three to four game sessions, so nearly a month, per level gained. So a 15-level Adventure Path is still going to take us most of a year to run (I'm not sure if the Pathfinder ones play faster, we haven't started yet).
I can't imagine anything more boring than facing the same foes, the same threat, for that long. I'd much rather have "story arcs" that are somewhat self-contained, but that lead reasonably to one another and that move the PCs toward their destined role as heroes. I personally love the fact that earlier story elements turn out to be related, or to give important clues, but often only in retrospect. And I think that kind of story-arc-to-saga is what Paizo produces.
So my personal vote is, Paizo should keep going with its existing design trend for the Adventure Paths.
I, at least, am not asking for the same foes on and on like your suggesting.
Let me point to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, if only because its likely to be something most of us have seen. The Themes of Lord of the Rings are readily apparent. An evil artiract must be destroyed, a re-risen ancient evil power must be overthrown, the world of men must be re-united. Each piece of the trilogy incoporates those themes in a different way. Its not just "ok now lets have the same exact enemies, only CR 10 instead of 4!".
I am asking for the themes to be more strongly represented, not the plot. I am also not suggesting that that should mean that the challanges or enemies are always exactly the same. But I am suggesting they should fit in with the theme.
The Themes of Lord of the Rings are readily apparent.
Exactly. The easiest way to say it is there's no artifact like the ring and there's no enemy like Sauron.
In the case of the War of the Burning Sky, you are not facing the same enemy or adventure repeatedly. Every session is a very different take on a well connected theme. There are events taking place in the world, the heroes know about these events and they have many chances throughout the campaign to affect these events. There are still plenty of mysteries to keep the game fresh, but there's also a unifying element that keeps the party driven to stay the course. Paizo's APs are missing that element.
I am asking for the themes to be more strongly represented, not the plot. I am also not suggesting that that should mean that the challenges or enemies are always exactly the same. But I am suggesting they should fit in with the theme.
please see my comments below:
Granted, this is only present in the form of Sinspawn and the Runewell of Wrath in BO, but I think that "sin" could be a thematic element that ties the modules together, especially since there are hints that sin will play a large role in "Sins of the Saviors".
The trick would be to bring out the sin motif a bit more. If you have a player who always initiates combat (even when non-combat solutions are present), have them be the first PC targeted by Sinspawn of Wrath.
Throw in an extra encounter or two in TSM where the greediest PC(s) get singled out for some cultist attention (in the streets of Magnimar, or perhaps singled out by the lamia priestess (something like "the avarice in you blood calls to me [PC Name], soon you will belong to /join with the Master!")
To me so far, the thread has been protection of Sandpoint. I haven't started playing the AP yet, but when I do, I plan to emphasis the town's personalities and gossip and get the PCs personally involved in the goings on, perhaps marrying a girl or starting a shop. That way, the PCs have a vested interest in Sandpoint and protecting it and the surrounding regions.
It's hard to be patient to see where everything is going. I totally get that. If the series were presented in quicker succession, I doubt that anybody would be voicing the OP's complaint. Unfortunately, it takes a while to get them all out in print and the DM is left a little bit in the dark as whtat exactly is going on. Yeah, that can be frustrating when you're trying to plan ahead for your game and prepare for every contingency.
The "reveal" part of this adventure is intended to be a slow series of discoveries that lead up to the big final showdown where the PCs now have all of the information and know what's going on and what they need to do to stop the villain that for a long time was hiding in the shadows pulling strings to bigger and bigger minions.
The article in Pathfinder #1 does shed some light on what's going to be happening.
Here's some inside tidbits for you. When the writing team was initially discussing the various parts of this AP and the requests made by subscibers and readers on these message boards, we tried to address some of those requests by trying to make each issue of Pathfinder more useful to EVERYONE, not just people that wanted to run the entire AP, by writing these in a way that you could pick up one of the issues that you liked and run that adventure as a stand alone or even individual chapters in that way. At the same time, it had to be written in a way to keep everything connected.
As is often said on these boards, "It's hard to please everyone all the time." Hopefully, this style will appeal to the majority of readers and not turn anyone off.
To give you an example of using bits of the AP as stand alones, I ran the Foxglove Manor section of "The Skinsaw Murders" for my group last Friday. It was a total hit. My players really enjoyed it. But more importantly, it was easy to take just that part and run a fun one-shot session. That's part of the aim going on here. Not the whole thing, mind you, but it was something we writers really wanted to provide GMs using this product line.
Time will tell whether this turns out as succeessful as we hoped.
To the OP, try to be patient with the way things are unfolding. If you need to get some inside info to help you set things up for you game properly, you can always come here and ask questions of the writers. We're always happy to help. :)
I enjoy running this game, and we're having fun when we play it. For me, I can see the overall campaign arc, and I can tell by reading my player's notes that she's catching on to the story very well.
I've always enjoyed the idea that big events happen, that there are many big events, that they may be connected, and that players have a choice in acclimating to any of them (finding the one that interests them the most). As long as we're having fun, we don't need either a slow progression or a quick one. I have confidence that regardless of the style, that Paizo will craft it well.
It's hard to be patient to see where everything is going. I totally get that. If the series were presented in quicker succession, I doubt that anybody would be voicing the OP's complaint.
Hi Steve, thanks for the post.
In response, I don't think that having the entire series out would make me feel too differently; I am not at all feeling "impatient" so much as confused as to how to relay an epic theme to my players when it seems entirely absent from the stories thus far. It would still be a lot of adventures within a limited cycle that feel disconnected from the overall theme. Ironically if this where back in the Dungeon days, I would be less concerned, because I would know there would be 13 or so adventures to spread everything out; a schedule like that allows for a few tangents. With the new APs only being 6 issues long, however, I feel the current idea of making the adventures as stand alone as possible is hurting the idea of an Adventure Path, and not helping; it would benefit from a tighter focus.
We already have the Game Mastery line for stand alone adventures. Adventure Paths should be about a strong linked theme and plot that runs thick throughout. Right now these seem like stand alones that are coming in a suggested order. Compare this to, say, Savage Tide. Even when it went on a few tangents, themes like "Pirates!", "Savage Natives!", "Demons!" and "Savage Pirate Demons!" resonated throughout. The AP is lacking this, and every new issue I get, I find myself missing its absence.
However, you might be right. I might see the whole thing at its end and come to appreciate the "slow organic reveal" approach. But for those of us that are running these as they come out, a revelation at the end of the path doesn't do us any good for the 5 adventures that come before it.
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I just feel that it would be more thematic if every adventure in the AP had 2 of its 4 or so chapters heavily steeped in the thematic elements of the overall campaign. So the players arnt fighting the Rune Lord in Burnt Offerings and Skinsaw, but there should be lots of rune magic, rune mysteries, rune creatures . . .runes runes runes! The players should know early that "hey, this ain't called Rise of the Runelords for nothin!"
Having a serial killer who carves runes into his victims isn't rune-themed enough? :)
In any event, rest assured that there are PLENTY of rune-themed shenanigans coming up in Rise of the Runelords.
And for players who want a faster reveal of a campaign's plot, hang on for "Curse of the Crimson Throne." It's pretty blatantly obvious who the bad girl of that one is by Adventure 2. :)
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Creative Director
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We already have the Game Mastery line for stand alone adventures. Adventure Paths should be about a strong linked theme and plot that runs thick throughout. Right now these seem like stand alones that are coming in a suggested order. Compare this to, say, Savage Tide. Even when it went on a few tangents, themes like "Pirates!", "Savage Natives!", "Demons!" and "Savage Pirate Demons!" resonated throughout. The AP is lacking this, and every new issue I get, I find myself missing its absence.
Also keep in mind that with Pathfinder, we're basically starting over. We couldn't bank on the INCREDIBLE momentum of Dungeon, since we weren't sure if Pathfinder was going to even be noticed by the world at the time we were building Runelords. We certainly didn't want to try something too unusual for its First Adventure Path, so in a lot of ways, Runelords is a pretty by-the-numbers classic D&D campaign. Goblins, ghouls, ogres, giants, evil wizards. Pretty standard fare.
That said, there are indeed themes for the campaign. Giants are a strong theme, but that one won't rear its head till adventure 3, since giants don't work so well as villains for low-level adventures. Sin is another theme, particularly greed. And the return of an ancient evil is yet another theme.
ANYway, keep the comments coming! We're here reading and absorbing them.
As for Second Darkness, that one's still WAY too early in development for me to comment on it. That said, these threads are coming at a perfect time to help shape its plot.
If the series were presented in quicker succession, I doubt that anybody would be voicing the OP's complaint.
That wasn't the point of the OP.
Although I admit, it's even more frustrating when the DM is in the dark, his complaint is from the character's perspective.
We have the Shackled City hardcover book. We have Age of Worms. We have Savage Tide. Comparing how these campaigns unfolds versus War of the Burning Sky...ok, maybe I've said too much about War of the Burning Sky. I'm more than willing to continue talking about it, but I don't want to spoil it for others.
If I can continue expanding on the "Puppetmasters of the Tarrasque" 'campaign saga' (won't get into the AP trademark debate again) example, here are some suggestions for improvements:
1.) Make the endgame apparant in the first session. In PotT you're going to kill the Tarrasque, in AoW, you're going to kill Kyuss, in Savage Tide, you're going to kill Demogorgon, etc.
2.) Make the cast of villains known by all. In PotT, one of the Puppetmasters is an infamous evil wizard named Morgahi who has enslaved an entire city. Another Puppetmaster is Lord Varinton, a despot who claims to own the homeland of the PCs. The party also knows of Thunderstone, a great blue wyrm that terrorizes the barbarians to the east. The moors are infested with lizardfolk ruled by Sorantis the Most High, a yaun-ti priest who demands blood sacrifices from all travelers to the great Scaley One. All of these powerful characters will hopefully fall at the hands of the PCs, but their presence should be known by everyone in the game world even when the PCs aren't able to stop them yet. If the world knows of the atrocities of the villains and hates them, it will make their defeat much more meaningful to the PCs.
3.) Let the PCs see their progress as they're making it. In the first adventure the PCs discover that the Tarrasque avoids Lord Varinton's troops, so King Storringard tasks them with exploring the dungeon underneath Varinton's Keep for clues using a hidden underground system. The PCs defeat the despot and obtain an item that can be used to slightly alter the Tarrasque's path of destruction. The PCs are then able to try to pick some of the places the Tarrasque will avoid in the immediate surroundings (the devices are tied to each region of the world).
So again, it's not the DM being in the dark that's the source of complaints in this thread. It's the characters and the way you're designing these APs.
And yes, you could produce adventures for Puppetmasters of the Tarrasque that would still be portable. (See the sidebar "Offing the Tarrasque" for more info on adapting this module as a one shot or to a different campaign...)