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I have only tried to play PbP versions of any of the AP's.
Although all of the first few that came out. And read (most) of them. ;P
I really think it just depends on what you and your group like best.
I would have to go through and re-read them to double check, especially as regard to any railroading or other 'errors'. (I'm not an over-sized sandbox fan either, so never really saw the appeal of Kingmaker, although I AM trying out the PC game) But,...
I have always liked High sorcery, I mean, I have been accused on these boards of 'Creating more Wizard Characters than JK Rowling'. (To be fair, they weren't wrong,...) ;P
so Rise of the Runelords, Shattered Star, (Second Darkness? sure), return of the runelords, etc. would by my first round.
Legacy of fire, I always had a soft spot for the old Al'Quadim campaign setting. And, you know, 'High Fantasy'
Iron Gods? Sci-Fi with my fantasy? SURE! Why not?!? :)
Reign of Winter; Planet-Hopping and Time Travel?!? One wizardly version of "The Doctor" coming right up!
The Crown and other 'City-Adventure/intrigue/heavy RP-ing' AP's read fine, but would not really be a fit for my old group. COuld be a blast with the right gang though. Especially if you like playing more "Scooby Gang" and less "Supernatural" with your encounters. ;P
Skull and shackles sounds like it SHOULD be a blast. But I've never really settled on a what I think should be a good PC (for me!) to play in it,...
Those are the ones that stand out in my mind enough that I really DO want to play them, more or less. All of the others I'm sure are fine, but after reading them all and not playing any, they sort of blend together,... ;)
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Hrm,...
Does anyone ELSE feel a draft in their robes?
Hrm,... where DID I put my robes!?!?
<Hastily casts his patent-pending 'Summon Clothing' spell!>
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For CY -
Since Aiymi and I are still going through RotRL, I would personally grab Shattered Star for her.
However.
If that were not the case, I think I'd go Iron Gods.
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STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOWAt any rate, we're getting about 4-6 inches of snow instead of an inch.
So should be a long night at work.
COME JOIN US!
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STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOWAt any rate, we're getting about 4-6 inches of snow instead of an inch.
So should be a long night at work.
You have been visited by Snowhog.
ALL HAIL SNOWHOG!
Oink oink.
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STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOWAt any rate, we're getting about 4-6 inches of snow instead of an inch.
So should be a long night at work.
Snow, is indeed, a wonderful thing...
...but we average 5 months of winter here.
It gets old.
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STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOWAt any rate, we're getting about 4-6 inches of snow instead of an inch.
So should be a long night at work.
You have been visited by Snowhog.
ALL HAIL SNOWHOG!
Oink oink.
Drejk! A monster must be created!
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STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOWAt any rate, we're getting about 4-6 inches of snow instead of an inch.
So should be a long night at work.
Snow, is indeed, a wonderful thing...
...but we average 5 months of winter here.
It gets old.
Five months, how terrible! However do you manage with such a long winter!
(We average 6-7 months of winter).
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I worked for twelve and a half hours.
But I've been awake for 26 hours.
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“Other than sprite, gingerale, pediasure, and pedialite, what else can I drink?!”
- my youngest complaining about his lack of options (he is sick this morning)
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Does his school have the majority of their assignments turned in via an online system, like Scint's does? If yes, that might be why - with the assumption that the kids can turn assignments in at any time, the teachers may feel free to set their due dates without regard for the school being open or not.
EDIT: And I just saw that it's college, not high school. I just thought that was a default - college, at least in my (admittedly rather limited) experience, never gave a damn about whether or not there was a class that day, if that's when the professor wants it turned in then that's when it's due. And this was even in the time before online turn-in became a commonplace thing.
That flabbergasts me. I built my entire schedule around knowing my homework would be due in class. Little places like U.C. Berkeley. I was a college teacher/professor from 1991-2000, and not once did we ask students to turn something in outside of class time. We respected:
(1) Holidays
(2) Dead week
(3) Class daysIt's mind-boggling to force students to turn stuff in "whenever", and especially assigning it during a school break and expecting it turned in during that same break is appalling to me. "Oh, I know it's Spring Break, but that means you're going to have plenty of time, so please write a 5-page essay on this reading I want you to do." (An *almost* actual event from Impus Major's high school days -- she assigned it at the end of class on the Friday before break, so it wasn't technically assigned during break, but it was due on the Wednesday of Spring Break.)
Meanwhile, I'm remembering taking AP classes in high school, which absolutely meant "buckle up, you've got break homework."
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I think it'll be easier if I list the muscles that aren't sore.
That's all of them.
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STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOWAt any rate, we're getting about 4-6 inches of snow instead of an inch.
So should be a long night at work.
Snow, is indeed, a wonderful thing...
...but we average 5 months of winter here.
It gets old.
Five months, how terrible! However do you manage with such a long winter!
(We average 6-7 months of winter).
Yeah, I'm lucky to live in one of the "garden spots" of Canada. You have to live in Manitoba or Saskatchewan to get winters similar to yours.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOWAt any rate, we're getting about 4-6 inches of snow instead of an inch.
So should be a long night at work.
Snow, is indeed, a wonderful thing...
...but we average 5 months of winter here.
It gets old.
You have winter?!?!?
(ducks and covers)
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Bleh. Thanks to a combination of snow day, parent-teacher conferences, and Presidents' Day, we had a 5-day weekend.
So I, of course, managed to pick up the bug going around last night with no time to recover and absolutely no form of readiness for a sub. Yaaaaaaaay.
Bleh. Thanks to a combination of snow day, parent-teacher conferences, and Presidents' Day, we had a 5-day weekend.
So I, of course, managed to pick up the bug going around last night with no time to recover and absolutely no form of readiness for a sub. Yaaaaaaaay.
That’s how it gets ya, yeah.
(Urgathoa remains the worst.)
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Damn Uma Thurman and her Kool-Aid.
o.O?
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When I ran them through Crimson Throne, the Rainbow refused to get Urgathoa's name right and referred to the concoction of pure disease they found with the high priestess as "Uma Thurman's Kool-Aid."
“Other than sprite, gingerale, pediasure, and pedialite, what else can I drink?!”
- my youngest complaining about his lack of options (he is sick this morning)
Alas, I missed the editing window to provide the proper context for almost exactly how this conversation went.
When I ran them through Crimson Throne, the Rainbow refused to get Urgathoa's name right and referred to the concoction of pure disease they found with the high priestess as "Uma Thurman's Kool-Aid."
HAHAH!
... in this case her high priest and laboratory combined is just, you know, school, though.
No matter what your politics, this is good music.
EDIT: (For those unaware, Pogo is a YouTuber who finds a whole host of various things and remixes them into aesthetic music. This just happens to be one of those things.)
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I get to see my daughter's face with the 4D Ultrasound on Thursday.
Nice to have some good news, since my mom found tons of kidney stones, a cyst in her pancreas, and possible uterine cancer last weekend.
...And I didn't get a potential raise. ...and Tala had her job trying to deny her maternity leave's validity due to a lazy doctor not doing paperwork.
...and a student loan of hers she forgot about cannabalized her tax return.
So yeah, I f$~*ing NEED this bright side.
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I'm sorry about the flood of bad news. Heres hoping your mom heals and the paperwork goes through.
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So frustrating to hear about the bad news, TVE!
Hype about seeing your daughter! Hope she cooperates! :D
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Meanwhile, I'm remembering taking AP classes in high school, which absolutely meant "buckle up, you've got break homework."Does his school have the majority of their assignments turned in via an online system, like Scint's does? If yes, that might be why - with the assumption that the kids can turn assignments in at any time, the teachers may feel free to set their due dates without regard for the school being open or not.
EDIT: And I just saw that it's college, not high school. I just thought that was a default - college, at least in my (admittedly rather limited) experience, never gave a damn about whether or not there was a class that day, if that's when the professor wants it turned in then that's when it's due. And this was even in the time before online turn-in became a commonplace thing.
That flabbergasts me. I built my entire schedule around knowing my homework would be due in class. Little places like U.C. Berkeley. I was a college teacher/professor from 1991-2000, and not once did we ask students to turn something in outside of class time. We respected:
(1) Holidays
(2) Dead week
(3) Class daysIt's mind-boggling to force students to turn stuff in "whenever", and especially assigning it during a school break and expecting it turned in during that same break is appalling to me. "Oh, I know it's Spring Break, but that means you're going to have plenty of time, so please write a 5-page essay on this reading I want you to do." (An *almost* actual event from Impus Major's high school days -- she assigned it at the end of class on the Friday before break, so it wasn't technically assigned during break, but it was due on the Wednesday of Spring Break.)
Hell, I wasn't in AP and I STILL ended up with homework for 2-5 of my classes every winter and spring break.
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The only homework I remember doing over break was essays that had been assigned more than a week before, but I procrastinated so I had to finish them during break.
Yep. This was my experience, even in AP courses.
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My two break assignment anecdotes - almost always we had "summer reading" where we were required to read one or more books over summer break and be ready to discuss the first week of class. The more memorable ones were "all quiet on the western front" and "I know why the caged bird sings"
Law school requires reading before class ever starts. Day 1 of class is the professor asking a hapless student to present the case facts of some moldering bit of legal prose.
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I'm really beginning to wonder whether the author of Book 4 of Strange Aeons ever even played Call of Cthulu. I've checked his authorship list, and he likes to write quirky, offbeat stuff (such as the opera module for Council of Thieves or the trial module in Carrion Crown), but his approach to CoC seems to be, "In order to defeat the monster, you have to become the monster."
Which is an age-old trope, but is 100% the antithesis of how you're "supposed" to run CoC: Giving in to temptation lets the bad guys win.
Anyway, prepping last night was the usual depression for Part 3 of Book 4:
(1) Make a DC 25 Diplomacy check or a DC 30 Perception check or the AP grinds to a standstill.
You're given two choices at that point, but the "logical" choice is to pursue the clues.
(2) A hard-of-hearing beast tamer refuses to talk with the party ever unless they squeeze into an iron cage with him and a cranky mastodon. Seriously. The AP even imparts Diplomacy penalties on you if you try to wait until he's not so busy. Then failing the Diplomacy roll a couple of times results in getting trampled by the mastodon. Oh, and the mastodon bends the door shut so you can't get out. And if you kill it you fail. Good luck!
(3) A friendly cleric is at the top of TEN DC 12 Acrobatics checks, with a 200' fall if you fail. "Make ten easy rolls in a row" is neither roleplaying nor fun. And the author notes, "Even though I spent 1/4 page writing up this situation, 12th-level parties with access to a Fly spell can pretty much skip it."
In other words, it's an utter waste of space.
(4) At that point, you approach a tannery where a succubus-like outsider has charmed all the employees to fight on her behalf. So this isn't even bad guys. This is honest-to-goodness factory workers and hired guards. Not a single one of them is evil. Yet you're supposed to kill them all and loot them in order to get the expected XP and wealth. No mechanism is provided to get around killing them, and even a merciful party that figures out a way to keep them all alive is still expected to loot the guards and steal the factory's profits in order to stay at WBL.
And that's all of Book 4 in a nutshell: The people you fight are victims or dupes, and you're expected to kill them all and take all their stuff. My favorite is still, "Loot 100,000+ gold pieces from the near-bankrupt library that hired you to help them," but having the whole theme continue for the third section in a row is just getting depressing.
EDIT: Oh, and the factory has the usual, "There are 4 guards in this room, and 8 guards right next door, and another 4 guards in the room 30' past that, but none of them ever hear any combat in spite of their +7 Perception rolls so every group just waits in its room cluelessly until the PCs arrive to fight them.
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Heh.
You kids today.
"Back in MY day, we didn't even HAVE 'AP' classes!"
;P
We had the 'Great' teachers,
We had the 'OK' teachers,
And then we had the "OH C$@% I have THAT teacher?!?" teachers.
Guess which ones assigned homework over breaks? When they knew that most of the students would not be staying at home?
O_o
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My mom and my dad were my teachers, not too shabby when you consider my mom was an investigative reporter and my dad was a high school chemistry and physics teacher.
So, I might be slightly more edumacated then your average home schooled student.
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Kids are total a$$h0les after a three day weekend. When I walked down the hallway for my break, the temptation to go out the door and keep on walking was sooooo strong.
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Crookshanks learned in middle school how little homework counts for your final grade so they might give her homework for her various breaks, unless we make her do it, she won't do it.
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I'm really beginning to wonder whether the author of Book 4 of Strange Aeons ever even played Call of Cthulu. I've checked his authorship list, and he likes to write quirky, offbeat stuff (such as the opera module for Council of Thieves or the trial module in Carrion Crown), but his approach to CoC seems to be, "In order to defeat the monster, you have to become the monster."
Which is an age-old trope, but is 100% the antithesis of how you're "supposed" to run CoC: Giving in to temptation lets the bad guys win.
Anyway, prepping last night was the usual depression for Part 3 of Book 4:
** spoiler omitted **...
hmmm...
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(2)
Well, I cast charm person and roll my high Charisma bonus against his Charisma modifier to ask him to come to us to avoid bothering the beast with our presence...
Or maybe I'll just charm monster mastodon so it will behave nicely...
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Crookshanks learned in middle school how little homework counts for your final grade so they might give her homework for her various breaks, unless we make her do it, she won't do it.
Yep. This was a problem at my last district - admin required an 80/20 weight for tests/projects versus homework and then went all surprised Pikachu that kids weren't doing their homework.
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The only homework I remember doing over break was essays that had been assigned more than a week before, but I procrastinated so I had to finish them during break.Yep. This was my experience, even in AP courses.
That sounds nice. We had to read whole novels over summer/winter break, usually with a paper.
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I always did my homework.
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(2)
Well, I cast charm person and roll my high Charisma bonus against his Charisma modifier to ask him to come to us to avoid bothering the beast with our presence...
Or maybe I'll just charm
monstermastodon so it will behave nicely...
Well, I think I can summarize my overall issue quite succinctly. There are four things I hate in an AP:
(1) The rules are inconvenient and should be ignored.
Whether it's, "The bad guy surreptitiously casts Charm Person on one of the PCs at the dinner table," or, "The guards in the next room don't hear the sounds of combat through the single wooden door," ignoring the rules for one side in favor of the other side is just plain wrong. The worst is the all-too-frequent, "When the caster hears the sounds of combat in the other room, they start casting all their buffs," and the assumption is that even though the caster can hear the PCs, the PCs can't hear the caster.
There are cases where good roleplay or storytelling should trump the rules, but it shouldn't be an "every room, every combat, every encounter" kind of thing. And it shouldn't be done lightly as a convenience thing. Both Books 1 and 2 of Shattered Star went to great lengths to put encounters they didn't want stacking just outside of Perception range (it was a running joke that, "The next encounter is going to be 310' plus their Perception bonus away," but it was so carefully done with an understanding that Perception works both ways that the whole group appreciated it). Strange Aeons just dumps people in the next room and says, "Oh, they don't notice the combat because it would be inconvenient for them to do so."
(2) The only solution to every problem is combat.
Freehold is correct that there are staunch advocates in both the "Diplomacy everything" and "Kill everything" camps, but games should be nuanced and provide options: There should be more than one way to solve most problems. I'm not as upset about, "These guards have been instructed to attack intruders on sight," situations because I find those realistic; it's a common command. But, "A group of strangers has arrived at the edge of your lands, is speaking your language, and is requesting a parlay," should not always be met with, "Roll initiative."
Especially when the plot has that exact same group having accepted a parlay just a few weeks ago to a different group (the bad guys) and having reaped significant benefits from it. "Oh, that worked out well! Let's never do it again!" isn't realistic. Especially considering the bad guys are very explicitly looking for more recruits, so absolutely would not want these guys attacking on sight.
I don't like black-and-white games.
(3) All valuables are PC loot.
Both Carrion Crown and Strange Aeons do this ad nauseam. "You've been invited to this person's house or place of business to help them. Now rob them blind or you won't reach wealth by level."
(4) The "false" choice.
Most players are OK with a railroad if it's a fairly clear railroad. What incenses them is an illusion of choice: "You're performing an investigation. Here are three clues."
"We investigate Clue #2 first."
"Oooh... sorry. You weren't supposed to do that. Roll initiative."
(An actual example from Jade Regent. The party chooses wrong and ends up in a fight with someone they've never met for reasons they don't understand.)
OK, actually have work today, so I should run off.
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STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOW
Just thought you'd like to know it's snowing in Breath of the Wild, like, right now. During a lightning storm. It's beautiful, really.
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I don't know how I pulled a groin muscle trying to nap, but here we are.
F#%* you, age.
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STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOWJust thought you'd like to know it's snowing in Breath of the Wild, like, right now. During a lightning storm. It's beautiful, really.
On the flip side, you have Red Dead Redemption 2 wherein you spend an hour of your time trudging through a foot of snow murdering cattle thieves or something.
Most disappointing video game, EVER.
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STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOWJust thought you'd like to know it's snowing in Breath of the Wild, like, right now. During a lightning storm. It's beautiful, really.On the flip side, you have Red Dead Redemption 2 wherein you spend an hour of your time trudging through a foot of snow murdering cattle thieves or something.
Most disappointing video game, EVER.
But... but... shrinking horse testicles!
I know... I know... "Get back to work!"
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STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOWJust thought you'd like to know it's snowing in Breath of the Wild, like, right now. During a lightning storm. It's beautiful, really.
Hey, Freehold, here's a science show all about snow!
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That sounds nice. We had to read whole novels over summer/winter break, usually with a paper.The only homework I remember doing over break was essays that had been assigned more than a week before, but I procrastinated so I had to finish them during break.Yep. This was my experience, even in AP courses.
I had that happen exactly twice in school. I hated it at first but I learned to love it as it kept my mom off my back sometimes.
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I didn't really have any feelings about it. It was just a thing.
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(2)
Well, I cast charm person and roll my high Charisma bonus against his Charisma modifier to ask him to come to us to avoid bothering the beast with our presence...
Or maybe I'll just charm
monstermastodon so it will behave nicely...Well, I think I can summarize my overall issue quite succinctly. There are four things I hate in an AP:
(1) The rules are inconvenient and should be ignored.
Whether it's, "The bad guy surreptitiously casts Charm Person on one of the PCs at the dinner table," or, "The guards in the next room don't hear the sounds of combat through the single wooden door," ignoring the rules for one side in favor of the other side is just plain wrong. The worst is the all-too-frequent, "When the caster hears the sounds of combat in the other room, they start casting all their buffs," and the assumption is that even though the caster can hear the PCs, the PCs can't hear the caster.There are cases where good roleplay or storytelling should trump the rules, but it shouldn't be an "every room, every combat, every encounter" kind of thing. And it shouldn't be done lightly as a convenience thing. Both Books 1 and 2 of Shattered Star went to great lengths to put encounters they didn't want stacking just outside of Perception range (it was a running joke that, "The next encounter is going to be 310' plus their Perception bonus away," but it was so carefully done with an understanding that Perception works both ways that the whole group appreciated it). Strange Aeons just dumps people in the next room and says, "Oh, they don't notice the combat because it would be inconvenient for them to do so."
(2) The only solution to every problem is combat.
Freehold is correct that there are staunch advocates in both the "Diplomacy everything" and "Kill everything" camps, but games should be nuanced and provide options: There should be more than one way to solve most problems. I'm not as upset about,...
during Kingmaker, the PCs ran into a semi random encounter that had Charm Person as a major part of it and it lead to some of the most fascinating roleplaying I have ever seen in a game whether as a DM or player. It made me rethink the spell and how it should work, as well as reactions when combat breaks out. The work of Richard Lee Byers helped out here as well in his take on the spell and situation.
I'd love to hear more about both of those.
What is your take?
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STOP HOGGING ALL THE SNOWJust thought you'd like to know it's snowing in Breath of the Wild, like, right now. During a lightning storm. It's beautiful, really.
THUNDERSNOOOOOOOOOW