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... Otherwise, just toss out the rules altogether and have DM story hour, and be done with it. Then 3e vs. 4e becomes meaningless, because it all defaults to "0e."
Ah... perhaps a topic for another thread—but, if you were to step back through the rabbit hole and play 1e or Oe, what I belive you will find is quite the opposite. That is—Oe and 1e, albeit a rules light system are notabout DM story hour. White Wolf and other games are about that. In the same vein, 1e and Oe are not about merely hack n' slash as the media and some game company revisionists would have us believe.
The challenge: just have a look at OSRIC 2.0 and see that much of the improvisation and shared story creation is required by DM and players alike. There is little opportunity for railroading and long-winded DM diatribes.
My humble point—just because "rules are tossed out" doesn't mean the DM is the defacto story creator from a 1e, Oe perspective. I've been doing a lot of research on this lately, I ran Oe and 1e back when they were relatively new in the 1980s, and this past Monday I ran OSRIC 2.0 with superior results.
Kirth—I mean no value judgment on your statement, nor am I attempting to argue. ... just hope to begin inserting clarity about what folks have been told about "DM story hour" as it relates to older editions of the game....
Pax: I could be wrong, but I think that when Kirth said 0ed, he meant no rules at all. Kirth: feel free to punch me in the head if I'm miss representing you.
The truth is that there is, and never will be, one perfect rules set. Some of my friends played 4e and sold off all their 3.5 books, calling it the system that they'd always been hoping for.
When I tried 4e, I didn't care for it as much as 3.5. It didn't suit my tastes or preferred style of play.
Generally, criticising people for preferring one edition over another is much like criticising someone for preferring vanilla versus rocky road ice cream.
Pax: I could be wrong, but I think that when Kirth said 0ed, he meant no rules at all. Kirth: feel free to punch me in the head if I'm miss representing you.
Jam: you're on the money (the "0" was a zero, as in no rules, not a capital O as in "old"). I loved 1st ed., and I like 3e/3.5 just fine (not quite as much as I did 1e/2e, in retrospect). What I don't like, though, is the too-convenient fobbing off of systems problems as "poor DMing."
P.S. I'd hardly call 1e "rules lite." Remember the weapon types vs. AC tables?
P.P.S. I'm less concerned with "story creation" in terms of fluff, as I am in terms of crunch. The former is fine. Declaring that all systems problems must be solved by DM/player fiat, and never by rules tinkering, is what I quibble with.
Anybody who prefers vanilla to rocky road needs to get their head examined. They obviously haven't been eating properly. We all know that there are many things that rocky road just does better than vanilla ever could. It is time that the nay sayers get with the times, and move on.
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Anybody who prefers vanilla to rocky road needs to get their head examined. They obviously haven't been eating properly. We all know that there are many things that rocky road just does better than vanilla ever could. It is time that the nay sayers get with the times, and move on.
But vanilla ice cream is better on cobbler. And why would anyone want ice cream without cobbler?
Cobbler is not the issue here. If you smurfed my post carefully, you would see that the real issue is the changes to the rockiness of the road that were made with the new recipe. Stop clinging to the past.
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Cobbler is not the issue here. If you smurfed my post carefully, you would see that the real issue is the changes to the rockiness of the road that were made with the new recipe. Stop clinging to the past.
Anytime the subject of ice cream is smurfed, the real question is always about cobbler. Namely do we smurf peach or mulberry.
Your post is made of fail. What does the flavour of the cobbler have to to with the rockiness of the road? If you had read my sixty page pdf on the failure of vanilla to smurf with desserts in a balanced way, you would know that. Ben Ogreman and F were right. In the ice cream parlour forums, they said that this site was filled with nothing but cobbler fanbois, and they were right.
Next, you will be smurfing us that we can put nuts in the vanilla, and that every ice cream scooper is responsible for making the vanilla smurf well with other desserts, but that misses the point entirely. If we want nuts in our vanilla, we should have them put in by the designer. Saying that we can put our own nuts in the freezer doesn't help. Good frozen nuts should be part of the design process.
Your post is made of fail. What does the flavour of the cobbler have to to with the rockiness of the road? If you had read my sixty page pdf on the failure of vanilla to smurf with desserts in a balanced way, you would know that. Ben Ogreman and F were right. In the ice cream parlour forums, they said that this site was filled with nothing but cobbler fanbois, and they were right.
I actually cried from laughing when I read this...
Edit: This was my 50th post and it's as Smurfette... wtf...
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4e is (by a considerable margin) not the game for me, but one of its best qualities, in my opinion, is that it's pretty easy to run conversions of adventures from other editions. In this regard, I'm always thrilled to hear about 4e players who continue to use our products.
I've found this to be quiet true. Going from 3e to 4e is very easy. If you need goblins for an encounter, 4e not only has them, but has a huge selection of them (because each and every monster is actually WEAKER in 4e then it is in 3e.)
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Next, you will be smurfing us that we can put nuts in the vanilla, and that every ice cream scooper is responsible for making the vanilla smurf well with other desserts, but that misses the point entirely. If we want nuts in our vanilla, we should have them put in by the designer. Saying that we can put our own nuts in the freezer doesn't help. Good frozen nuts should be part of the design process.
I have no idea what you are smurfing.
If I want nuts in my ice cream I have a dozen flavors to smurf from. But when I'm smurfing cobbler, nuts only get in the way of the fruity goodness and I am glad that there are ice cream makers who smurf that and provide the simple vanilla goodness that smurfs so well with hot cobbler.
The thing is, in 1st ed. you couldn't even BE a cobbler, because there were no skills rules. Of course, now we know better; crafting shoes is essential to ice cream (to avoid getting cold feet). And rocky road is obviously better than vanilla for that, because it doesn't require you to take levels in smurf just to be a better cobbler. Any ice cream with a pair of nuts can see that.
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Your post is made of fail. What does the flavour of the cobbler have to to with the rockiness of the road? If you had read my sixty page pdf on the failure of vanilla to smurf with desserts in a balanced way, you would know that. Ben Ogreman and F were right. In the ice cream parlour forums, they said that this site was filled with nothing but cobbler fanbois, and they were right.
EPIC PAIZIL FAEL...erm...smurf.
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Bah.
After running several 3e campaigns that petered out around 7th to 10th level, I successfully ran the entirety of Age of Worms and the first half of Savage Tide in 3e. Now I'm running RotRL in 4E. My decision to switch editions has everything to do with my preferences in the game system design itself, and nothing at all to do with Paizo adventures.
snikt
In fact, my determination to stick with Paizo adventures despite my switch to 4E is much more valid as a measure of the incredible value of Paizo's adventures - and the OP's source post extrapolating from the first Paizo AP to all Paizo APs is pretty silly, to boot.
Ditto to both, though part of the former was brought about by one of my group's desire to stick with 3.x while I wanted to switch to Pathfinder RPG Beta. We'll see what happened when the official version's released this August. (I'll win, since I'm the DM, even if I have to assemble a new group.)
People often define things from a single experience. It is naïve to think otherwise.
People often define things from a single experience. It is naïve to think otherwise.
Poodles often define things based on scent. It is anthropocentric to think otherwise.
People often define things from a single experience. It is naïve to think otherwise.Poodles often define things based on scent. It is anthropocentric to think otherwise.
Huh? What?
Being forced to wear a pink sweater studded with rhinestones will teach you how to behave in polite company. And a word of warning: if she gets over-friendly with you, just remember two words: "You Tube."
That is just uncalled for.
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Pax: I could be wrong, but I think that when Kirth said 0ed, he meant no rules at all. Kirth: feel free to punch me in the head if I'm miss representing you.Jam: you're on the money (the "0" was a zero, as in no rules, not a capital O as in "old"). I loved 1st ed., and I like 3e/3.5 just fine (not quite as much as I did 1e/2e, in retrospect). What I don't like, though, is the too-convenient fobbing off of systems problems as "poor DMing."
P.S. I'd hardly call 1e "rules lite." Remember the weapon types vs. AC tables?
P.P.S. I'm less concerned with "story creation" in terms of fluff, as I am in terms of crunch. The former is fine. Declaring that all systems problems must be solved by DM/player fiat, and never by rules tinkering, is what I quibble with.
Thanks Kirth - good clarity.
Several posts then discuss the DM's responsibility to adjust scenarios appropriately. Counter-argument, of course, is that published modules are suppose to be played "as is" since folks buy them to make gaming easier.
I beg your pardon?
Certain folks like 3E, certain folks like 4E. No amount of system bashing is going to change anyone's mind.
And certain folks like both. Not that I'm one of 'em, but fair is fair...
Back to the original point of the thread. I ran a group through the entirety of ST and found that it was an awesome campaign. In fact it was the first campaign I'd ever run that got the PCs all the way to level 20. Most of my other campaigns ended around level 15-16. However, the time spent playing 3.5 at high level showed me a lot of ways that the rules really break/bog down at high level play. In many ways, playing through this AP did make me want to abandon 3E and try 4E for my next campaign (which I have). I don't blame the AP itself because the AP was amazing. Right now I'm running Second Darkness in 4E, and the conversion has been smooth for the most part. However, looking at the AP I know that I'd be doing just as much modification to it if I were running it in 3E. I like the story in this AP, but compared to some of the other adventures I'm finding the actual combat encounters rather weak (with a few exceptions), so even if I ran this in 3E I'd need to do a lot of work to get the combat encounters up to something that I think would be entertaining and challenging for the types of 3E characters my group would want to run.
Most modules need modification to tailor to the group. But I do agree that the better the module is, the less modification will be required. I have found that most of the 4E modules can be pretty much run as is, which is nice. But overall I haven't really liked the plots in them.
Several posts then discuss the DM's responsibility to adjust scenarios appropriately. Counter-argument, of course, is that published modules are suppose to be played "as is" since folks buy them to make gaming easier.I beg your pardon?
Looking over some of the original comments that spawned this thread, it doesn't look like the people were saying Paizo sucks. Rather it seems as if they were saying that the AP demonstrated the aspects of 3.x that they didn't like. It was the last straw that made them want to give up 3.x.
Though I will agree with some that there is alot of "The DM can fix it" fallacy going on. This is where you defend a product not on the actual aspects of the product but on what a DM can do to make it better. If the product is almost impossible to use as is, then that is a poor product no matter how much houseruling/adjusting a DM can do. Now I am suggesting this particular product falls into that catagory, but claiming that the DM can "fix it" does prove it doesn't.
Several posts then discuss the DM's responsibility to adjust scenarios appropriately. Counter-argument, of course, is that published modules are suppose to be played "as is" since folks buy them to make gaming easier.
I can't agree with that counter-argument. An adventure should do 75% of the work for a DM. An excellent adventure should do 90% of the work. But no adventure should ever to be assumed that it does 100% of the work. As a writer, I have to assume a balanced group (1 heavy hitter, 1 skills monkey, 1 capable of healing the party, and 1 heavy spellcaster). As a player, I have never seen a balanced group. That's a big problem and one that only the DM can compensate for.
My current group consists of 3 heavy hitters, 1 cleric/bard, and 1 wizard. If my DM bought an adventure that assumed someone could disable traps and used it as is and gave us no help, we'd be dead. Is that the adventure's fault or the DM's fault. DM's, clearly. He didn't adjust the adventure to mesh up with the group's abilities.
Different group had 6 players: 3 heavy hitters, 1 cleric, 1 warlock, and 1 ... incarnum something or other. 6 players. No rogue. Final outcome: an adventure with traps would need serious adjusting. Job: DM's.
The best counter-argument to that is, "Why didn't the DM just go with a different adventure?" Excellent idea. Who has to do the work of buying and reading the new adventure first to make sure it meshes up with the group's abilities? The DM's. The DM has to do the work. No way around that. Giving the DM a pass because the adventure didn't fit the group is silly.
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I loathe the misleading is title of this thread; very confusing. What exactly, if any, is the actual point or question? Honestly, I am interested to understand and participate here.
Is the suggestion that APs require work on the part of the GM? If so, that is a standard expectation. Is the suggestion that 4e GMs are lazy—and unimaginative, if so, I am starting to agree IF the idea of this thread is that GMs should not ALWAYS handle the last 10% of PC-Gamemodule modifications based on the context of the group. DmMcCoy is absolutely right, and anyone looking to 4e because you can play as-is without thinking is likely headed there for obvious reasons, none of which have anything to do with Pathfinder APs imho.
Is the suggestion that APs require work on the part of the GM? If so, that is a standard expectation.
How much work? It is my understanding that most people run modules/AP because they don't have enough time to do all the work themselves. So the question is how much work is enough on average? Obviously it is different for different folks, some people just want the "fluff" and can crank out the "crunch" in no time. Others need both the "fluff" and the "crunch" and only have time for small changes. Still others need the "crunch" but can come up with their own "fluff" in no time. When writing a gaming product, I would think the logical assumption would be for people that need both "crunch" and "fluff" and can only do small changes (it is always better to get too much than not enough).
Is the suggestion that 4e GMs are lazy—and unimaginative, if so, I am starting to agree IF the idea of this thread is that GMs should not ALWAYS handle the last 10% of PC-Gamemodule modifications based on the context of the group.
Ah, very good. Now we have some idea about what you mean by "work", roughly "10%" of the material needs to typically be modified.
DmMcCoy is absolutely right, and anyone looking to 4e because you can play as-is without thinking is likely headed there for obvious reasons, none of which have anything to do with Pathfinder APs imho.
Going back to the original posts that spawned this, it looks like the real claim is (a) high level 3.5 games suck big time (too slow, too complicated, too boring, too ...) and (b) paizo's products often advance to the high level and thus are how lots of people have gotten a chance to experience 3.5 suckage at high levels. It has also given them an outsider's view on the suckage of high level 3.5. That is if you had just run homebrewed stuff and noticed 3.5 sucked at high level, you might assume that it was entirely your fault. By running published material and seeing the same suckage, you see that it is the system at fault and not just you.
Let's be clear, if it was just paizo's writing/design that was sucking terribly, then people wouldn't be saying they are abandoning the system, they would just abandon paizo. On the other hand, if the problem is with the system itself, then abandoning it is the only logical choice.
Going back to your comment about people thinking that 4e will be plug-and-play and being foolish for thinking that, remember your approximately 10% factor you set. In order to fix the inherit sucky flaws with high level 3.5, it would require a lot more than 10% effort to fix all the problems if you wanted to stick with 3.5. Maybe the hope is to get into that 10% range that you suggested, so they don't have to rewrite the entire system to just deal with high level play.
Gotta say, Pres man, that was a very level-headed post. You laid out the discussion very clearly. Very much appreciated. Thanks for taking the time to do so.
Just for full disclosure, I am not a player of 4e and do not in fact think that high level 3.5 games suck (when playing with people who are not jack-holes).
3x high level play made me mainline Dr Pepper. You know, for the rush.
Luckily, we now have an alternative... and I don't mean 4e, either. Or Mr. Pibb, for that matter.
Yes we do! The track marks are unseemly anyway, especially since I'm on the market again...
Yeah, interviewers see those marks and somehow they never think, "D&D gamer."
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Did Paizo actually helped a lot of people move to 4E?
(PS I love and I am currently running AOW under 4E)[/url][/i]
How...bizarre. What was this person smoking?!?
Really. If you think Paizo's AP is bad, has anyone looked at Necromacer's Rappan Athuk? If you want to talk about a brutal AP, that puts all of Piazo's to shame.....
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Paizo AP's certainly caused me to switch to 4E.
not because of any fault with them but rather I felt that the fantastic stories they told were better using the 4E mechanic.
If you like I liked the chassis but wanted a better engine.
I agree with the poster(s) who highlighted that many of the difficulties people have with the AP's rises from lazy DM'ing. There is something entirely too lazy about gamers today, they expect their adventures to be plug and play and I think any DM worth his salt will be agog at this concept.
The best adventures mould themselves to suit the PC's not the other way around.
Just my two pennies worth.
I agree with the poster(s) who highlighted that many of the difficulties people have with the AP's rises from lazy DM'ing.
It's not necessarily the DM that's lazy. Many of the difficulties of 3.x at higher levels (around 9th-12th and up, depending on the people involved) are caused by poor preparation by either the DM or the players. You can have a well prepared DM, but if each player (or even just one or two) takes 5+ minutes to decide what to do and/or calculate the effects each round (because they need to constantly look things up), then play will suffer. If players fail to come up with plans and use teamwork, then they significantly increase the risk of character death and TPKs.
Basically, higher level games demand higher levels of investment from the entire group for successful play. If everybody doesn't make that investment, the game will become increasingly frustrating.
I agree with the poster(s) who highlighted that many of the difficulties people have with the AP's rises from lazy DM'ing.It's not necessarily the DM that's lazy. Many of the difficulties of 3.x at higher levels (around 9th-12th and up, depending on the people involved) are caused by poor preparation by either the DM or the players. You can have a well prepared DM, but if each player (or even just one or two) takes 5+ minutes to decide what to do and/or calculate the effects each round (because they need to constantly look things up), then play will suffer. If players fail to come up with plans and use teamwork, then they significantly increase the risk of character death and TPKs.
Basically, higher level games demand higher levels of investment from the entire group for successful play. If everybody doesn't make that investment, the game will become increasingly frustrating.
And how is this a difficulty of just 3.x? This is a problem in EVERY rpg out there. The higher the level, the more options, abilities, spells, equipment, etc. *edited for civility*
I have played several different rpgs and the problem persists when players/and or Dm don't come to the table prepared. To insist that its a "difficulty of 3.x" is fairly asinine.
And how is this a difficulty of just 3.x? This is a problem in EVERY rpg out there. The higher the level, the more options, abilities, spells, equipment, etc. *edited for civility*
Sure it is. It's just far more pronounced in high-level 3E.
It's not necessarily the DM that's lazy. Many of the difficulties of 3.x at higher levels (around 9th-12th and up, depending on the people involved) are caused by poor preparation by either the DM or the players.
And how is this a difficulty of just 3.x? This is a problem in EVERY rpg out there. The higher the level, the more options, abilities, spells, equipment, etc. *edited for civility*
Actually, as a 4E DM, I suspect that unprepared players would cause a much greater problem for 4E games than for 3E games, if only because there is so much more for 4E players to keep track of. The Character Builder can mostly eliminate this problem, but if players are hand-writing their own character sheets, complete with hand-copying their class and item powers, it can become quite a large volume of information required even at fairly low levels, and this is equally true for all character classes (as opposed to 3e where only spellcasters had a lot of data to worry about).
Of course, as the DM, I don't mind at all that the players have a lot more work to do - I just enjoy my vastly-reduced workload! (Which I then promptly increase again by delving ever-deeper into plotline, redesigning sawmills, building clock-towers out of foam-core, and other tasks I, personally, never managed to find the time for when running 3e.)
I've played through SCAP AOW and am in the middle of AOW
All of them were challenging. None felt like a 'meat grinder' We lost some characters here and there but nothing that demoralized us to the point of stopping. I actually like that about them. I want to be challenged even if I decide to munchkin out my character. I'm usually moderate, but I like the mortality of it. I don't want Easy Mode D&D, I never have and never will.
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I agree with the poster(s) who highlighted that many of the difficulties people have with the AP's rises from lazy DM'ing.It's not necessarily the DM that's lazy. Many of the difficulties of 3.x at higher levels (around 9th-12th and up, depending on the people involved) are caused by poor preparation by either the DM or the players. You can have a well prepared DM, but if each player (or even just one or two) takes 5+ minutes to decide what to do and/or calculate the effects each round (because they need to constantly look things up), then play will suffer. If players fail to come up with plans and use teamwork, then they significantly increase the risk of character death and TPKs.
Basically, higher level games demand higher levels of investment from the entire group for successful play. If everybody doesn't make that investment, the game will become increasingly frustrating.
And how is this a difficulty of just 3.x? This is a problem in EVERY rpg out there. The higher the level, the more options, abilities, spells, equipment, etc. *edited for civility*
I have played several different rpgs and the problem persists when players/and or Dm don't come to the table prepared. To insist that its a "difficulty of 3.x" is fairly asinine.
How about calming down? Since we're discussing a 3.x AP my comment was a criticism of the edition we were discussing not a genre wide comparison. Would you like me to compare it to Rolemaster of WHFRP? Just because MANY systems suffer from this doesn't make it any less a problem in 3.X, and I stand by the statement that a prepared DM can alleviate or eliminate this issue.
I stand by the statement that a prepared DM can alleviate or eliminate this issue.
So a DM should be willing to hand-hold and spoon-feed an unprepared player in high-level games by doing their prep-work, as well as their own? Shenanigans. The DM is only one factor (granted, an important one) in high-level play; the players are just as much of a factor in making a high-level game enjoyable and run smoothly.
I really get ticked off when people automatically blame the DM or the rule-set for the "failure" of a high-level game. Sometimes, yes, it is DM-error or a "broken" rule, but just as often (in my experience) it's player-error or a player exploiting a "broken" rule that causes the game to fall apart.