Hey, I just wanted to take a minute to chime in and say our gaming group is getting a whole lot of fun out of this adventure path. (I'm a subscriber too, and it's killing me to not read any of them till we're done playing them!)
Our group is 6th level and is in the middle of clearing the keep in Hook Mountain. We're having more fun that in recent history - the same DM recently ran us through Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, and all I can say to that is "bah."
I know some people are complaining about it but it's nice to have some adult content finally in D&D, besides things where it's the entire focus (Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Erotic Fantasy). Our normally hardened group of players has refused to search several rooms on account of their grossness. It adds a level of grittiness that I usually have to go to other games to get (Warhammer, etc.)
The haunted house in #2 and the Gralls in #3 were terrifically memorable. My 5 year old daughter wants me to tell her the whole story about how it went whenever I come back from a game session (I edit some of the details out of course), and she's re-requested the haunted house story several times.
(Side note - when I told her about it, I described the clawed-up room containing one unclawed picture hanging on the wall but turned around. When I said, "One of Daddy's friend went up and turned the picture around. What do you think was behind it?" She thought and replied, "A booby trap?" "Well, you're smarter than Daddy's friend was, because when he turned it around..." She was also deeply concerned about the other friend who got fungus growing on him from the other room full of pictures.)
Along those lines, the goblin christmas card was also a great surprise, and I've had to sing it many a time for her. The household cats are afraid.
Anyway, I've gamed since 1e and in my opinion, these APs (this one and Savage Tide primarily) are the best adventure series ever. Nostalgia makes me like T1-4, A1-4, and GDQ, but they are very much a product of their time. And it is about time; I'm getting sick of every new Wizards adventure being a "return to" some previous adventure - it's like Hollywood with the sequels. I think in some years you'll have people writing a "Return to Hook Mountain!"
Keep up the great work! The decision to keep going with the APs in the wake of Dungeon was clearly 100% correct, at least from a consumer's point of view.
We've been writing up entertaining session summaries in PDF; I'll try to find someplace to post them to share them with everyone.
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I'm getting sick of every new Wizards adventure being a "return to" some previous adventure - it's like Hollywood with the sequels. I think in some years you'll have people writing a "Return to Hook Mountain!"
I'm sorry - this goes for books, gaming gear, and movies: no sequel should be made more then 3 years after the last in the series. (thus why the SW prequels were bad, as looks Rambo)
I'm sorry - this goes for books, gaming gear, and movies: no sequel should be made more then 3 years after the last in the series. (thus why the SW prequels were bad, as looks Rambo)
Far from being a universal truth - considering "Indiana Jones II + III", "The Godfather III", the entire 'James Bond' franchise etc. etc.
But to each his own, and I would absolutely agree on the "Return/Expedition to XYZ", even though I like "Expedition to Castle Ravenloft". Which would be the exception to that particular rule...
I know some people are complaining about it but it's nice to have some adult content finally in D&D, besides things where it's the entire focus (Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Erotic Fantasy). Our normally hardened group of players has refused to search several rooms on account of their grossness. It adds a level of grittiness that I usually have to go to other games to get (Warhammer, etc.)...
Anyway, I've gamed since 1e and in my opinion, these APs (this one and Savage Tide primarily) are the best adventure series ever. Nostalgia makes me like T1-4, A1-4, and GDQ, but they are very much a product of...
QFT. You're aiming big as a company with these products and hitting big too. When problems erupt on these boards about your products, they're never about a lack of vision or passion in your work. While I have a good deal of sympathy for people who have issues about sexual violence in cultural products, especially those likely to be used by teens, you provided some ways to prevent the kind of damage that such products may incur. Such scaling is the responsible use of your position as cultural producers.
If I might make a request, a zany, family-friendly adventure module might balance the scales for those customers who were upset. Perhaps it could be set in a country run by blink dogs?
If I might make a request, a zany, family-friendly adventure module might balance the scales for those customers who were upset. Perhaps it could be set in a country run by blink dogs?
Actually, I'd love it if Paizo produced a line of "family-friendly" adventures. I have a tough time coming up with something I'm willing to run for my husband's nephew (age 13), partly because his younger sister (age 10) had nightmares after a perfectly ordinary fight-the-goblins adventure I ran for them last year (and she was just listening in, not playing).
I would definitely buy a handful of adventures that take their inspiration from, for example, Americanized fairy tales (i.e. not the original, bloody versions, but more something that Disney could use).