I recently purchased part I of Council of Thieves in preparation for running this starting in the next week or so.
This being my first experience with a Pathfinder adventure, I was rather surprised how almost free-form it feels. In some ways I like it, but in others you really need to dig through the text in order to distinguish what text is for the players and what isn't. To be honest I was expecting the old "box text" player descriptions with separate DM info.
Is this particular style typical of Paizo's AP's and modules?
Creative Director
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I recently purchased part I of Council of Thieves in preparation for running this starting in the next week or so.
This being my first experience with a Pathfinder adventure, I was rather surprised how almost free-form it feels. In some ways I like it, but in others you really need to dig through the text in order to distinguish what text is for the players and what isn't. To be honest I was expecting the old "box text" player descriptions with separate DM info.
Is this particular style typical of Paizo's AP's and modules?
It is. Customer feedback has long pushed us to design our modules to be more free-form and less railroady. We never assume player actions in the read-aloud text, for example, so that when the game is played, we don't imply to the GM that there's only one possible way for the PCs to interact with the adventure. Yet we don't go completely free-form either—we do try to stay focused on the main storyline rather than just describe everything. This is what separates an adventure from a campaign setting supplement, really; a focus on a single storyline but that has a wide range of options within that storyline.
We view the GM as the fourth component of adventure presentation, basically. The writer creates the adventure, the developer makes sure it's cool and fits the world canon and is presented in a logical way and makes sure the rules work, the editor makes sure it's readable, and the GM is the one who actually presents the adventure to the players. It does mean that Pathfinder adventures assume a more active role from the GM than more basic adventures, which is, I think, a good thing!
In any case, the messageboards here are a GREAT place to hang out and chat with other GMs or Paizo staff to bounce ideas around about the game. So! Welcome to the boards! :-)