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Hello everybody,
I am thinking of starting Carrion Crown as our first Pathfinder / Golarion Adventure and Campaign. At the moment we are playing 4e as relativ inexperienced players.
The theme of Carrion Crown seems like classic horror. We are not! really big fans of scary movies like The ring, Saw etc. And i dont want to terrify the two female players too much.
We are also not great fans of vampires and all, yet the story and setting seem interesting!Do you think the adventure will also be ok for regular players not especially focued on horror but classic fantasy?
Markus
It is very definitely a horror Adventure Path.
It is set in Ustalav, which is described as the 'fog-shrouded land of gothic horror'.
For new-ish players who would prefer a classic fantasy/heroic campaign I would recommend Council of Thieves, which has the added advantage of being fully released so that you can read the whole thing before you play.
I'm not a fan of horror movies etc., myself. But some of the "horror" adventures from Paizo have been among my favorites. (The Skinsaw Murders, for example.) Based on my experience tweaking Paizo adventures for my own group, I think you're extremely likely to be able to use this adventure path for your group without any real problems.
Think about what it is in the horror genre that you or your group dislikes. For me, it is the following:
- Gore and explicit "eew" for its own sake
- Sudden scares to make the audience jump or recoil
- The utter helplessness of the main characters in the face of horrific events (i.e. no chance of winning)
Then think about what makes a good adventure, and compare to your list above. For me:
- Gore etc.: Not too big of a problem. Admittedly, there have been a couple of Paizo adventures that included explicit gore (Hook Mountain Adventure, Hangman's Noose), but it is VERY easy for the DM to downplay it as necessary for their group. And those same adventures have lots of story elements to focus on as well, so it isn't like the gore is the only purpose of the adventure.
- Sudden Scare: Pen-and-paper games just don't lend themselves to the sudden scare. The shocking plot twist, yes, but even if a murderous villain suddenly appears, there's less immediacy and shock to it when the DM has to announce, "And suddenly the vampire appears and attacks your character..."
- Helplessness: The PCs are supposed to be able to win in the end - so "utter helplessness" isn't too likely to be a problem. Sure, they might face situations where something bad is going on and they're currently powerless to stop it - but overall, the PCs are the heroes, and I imagine the Carrion Crown adventures will be written assuming they will have the opportunity to prevail in the end. (All the horror adventures I mentioned above are excellent examples of this.)
So really, it comes down to knowing your players, and making the minor tweaks necessary to avoid their particular dislikes. One of my players has a thing about tragic villains (which are fairly common in Paizo adventures). It really bothers him when a villain is set up as someone that clearly had no chance - the mentally deficient town fool who is maneuvered into working for the villainous mastermind, or the fey creature who was so tormented that she became evil and now haunts the wood. I generally make sure either to downplay the tragedy of that NPC's circumstance, or to create opportunities for the PCs to redeem such tragic NPCs.
Note that I don't have to remove these elements from the story - I just have to make sure that (in this case) I don't overplay the tragedy, and that I give that player the chance to come to the rescue. This has led to some fascinating recurring NPCs that in the original adventures would have been one-scene or one-chapter villains.
Sorry this ran so long - but I hope it helps. (Once the adventures come out, I'm sure people here on the boards will be able to give very specific advice if there are sections you think may be problems...)
From what I've seen, the idea is that the AP will try to emulate classic horror movies, i.e. Dracula, Frankenstein, Zombies, Ghosts, etc.
What you seem to be thinking the AP will be about are the more modern horror movie types... slasher films, torture porn, sudden scare effects. Some of that may be included, but I think it will not be there or in a very minor capacity. The guys at Paizo are better storytellers than the people who make that second category of movies.
To be honest, I am somewhat doubting that the AP will be very "horror"-like, even if the old monster elements are there. When your character can alter the laws of reality, horror elements kinda lose their punch, IMO.
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I think Carrion Crown AP is absolutely going to rock; moreover, I would characterize it as a far more traditional AP than the highly urbanized Council of Thieves is.
While I don't think Council of Thieves gets nearly as much respect as it should, I wouldn't go so far as to suggest it is more mainstream than Carrion Crown. That, imo, would be a mistake.
Markus, I think you'll be just fine with this. While this AP absolutely draws upon themes of horror literature and film, so much of what makes a roleplaying session scary is in how the GM runs it. If you spend a lot of time embellishing the spooky aspects and setting up theatrical elements to employ during your game, you could totally create a game that actually scares players. Running these adventures just as they are out of the books probably isn't going to cause a player to start shrieking, though.
Honestly, the main themes of most adventure roleplaying have their roots in fear. Dungeons are scary, monsters are scary, little guys fighting against huge dragons is scary. So I don't think there's much more nightmare fuel in the specifics of Carrion Crown then there was in moody APs like Council of Thieves or Curse of the Crimson Throne.
What does set Carrion Crown apart is the monsters we're using and the tropes we're drawing upon. Most of the villains and stories utilized in this AP are inspired by the best in horror film and fiction. While this could influence what the PCs' minds jump to and what they imagine when you tell them they face a creepy zombie, I don't think there's anything fundamentally scarier about fighting a zombie in Pathfinder than fighting a goblin.
Again, while the stories Carrion Crown has to tell are grimmer and creepier than an AP like Legacy of Fire or Kingmaker, I think how honestly scary they'll be is largely in the GM's hands.
Think about what it is in the horror genre that you or your group dislikes. For me, it is the following:
- Gore and explicit "eew" for its own sake
- Sudden scares to make the audience jump or recoil
- The utter helplessness of the main characters in the face of horrific events (i.e. no chance of winning)
Just a note - not a sales pitch - but don't expect much of any of this in Carrion Crown. Remember, the inspiration for this AP comes from horror in the vein of Poe, Lovecraft, Stoker, James, Shelly, Ellison, Le Fanu, nearly all of who were writing in times where descriptive gore was frowned upon and cat tricks hadn't been invented yet. As for the helplessness bit, that's something a number of folks have been concerned about and was foremost on my mind organizing this AP - it's not a factor. Players in Carrion Crown are still heroes and meant to be heroes - not the dupes of super villains. Remember - and this is a mantra here as we work on these adventures - Carrion Crown is a Pathfinder Adventure Path, not a Call of Cthulhu Adventure Path, not a Ravenloft Adventure Path, not a Vampire Adventure Path. Pathfinder. If you've liked past Pathfinder APs and the themes therein, you should be well served once more.