Goblin Squad Member
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A bit of blue-sky thinking this but bear with me.
Have you thought of combining Pathfinder and Pathfinder Online?
I can imagine a GM running a bought module with a group of players, in a manner whereby the GM handles all of the narrative issues, include NPC interaction, but the IT handles the mechanics.
The GM would have to have some special administrator style privileges to the instanced dungeon (i.e. the IT part of the module) that he was GMing though these probably wouldn't have to be more complicated than enabling access to some area, revealing an object and beginning a combat.
Players and GMs then could interact (vocally) through Pathfinder Online itself or through something like Skype if they weren't all simply sitting round a table with their laptops (which seems to me the way things are going in the normal Pathfinder world anyway).
I can see a great appeal of this to the GM who simply wants to get on with the story telling parts without agonising over the mechanics, as well as to the players who want to have access to all of the mechanics with the assurance that they are being properly run.
What do you think?
Richard
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Goblin Squad Member
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@richard develyn, take some comfort that Goblinworks has expressed a desire to allow players to create Modules, so there is the possibility of running your tabletop group through a scripted adventure private to your group. It's not exactly the same thing, but it's close, and it's something that could end up being very appealing to many of the players who are risk-averse with respect to PvP combat but still love the Pathfinder brand and want to experience it online with their friends.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sorry, but I don't think I made my point very clearly.
Paizo could publish a Golarion based adventure which contained all of the story-telling parts but none of the mechanics.
At the same time, Pathfinder Online would produce a dungeon-instance tied in with the written adventure which would handle all the mechanics in the Pathfinder Online way.
A GM could then deliver the story-telling elements of the adventure and be given some administrator privileges within the dungeon instance so that he/she could unlock / trigger the right bits of the online dungeon in accordance with what was happening with the role playing.
Richard
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Goblin Squad Member
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if they weren't all simply sitting round a table with their laptops(which seems to me the way things are going in the normal Pathfinder world anyway).
Must be you, I hardly ever see others use a laptop around here.
As for there being the same module on PFO and regular PF, I don't see why not. It would need some changes inbetween versions though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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PFO isn't going to be a game like that. It's not Neverwinter Nights.
I would say you are off on that, Mechanically it is going to be completely different, characters will obviously be completely different, many spells, traps mechanics etc... will not translate well.
But there will be some module content, Now as far as how it will work, whether there will be any reward etc... is completely unknown, there was even discussion and hints as to the idea of player generated modules being explored.
So to the core of it, yes it is possible, and it is fully possible for the story elements etc... of published modules to be translated to some extent into pathfinder online modules, as the story etc... are owned by Paizo, and Paizo and GW are on very friendly terms.
Again the concept of how they will put modules in with the game etc... is all a huge mystery. My personal prefference would be for the module hub to be an illusionist tower of some sort. Sort of a Magic Holodeck if you will. That would permit modules to be repeated endlessly, without any issues of explaining how the dragon comes back to life 500 times, and without worrying about mass loot from infinitely repeatable content (Compared to normal dungeons in which finding them, and carrying the loot back without getting jumped by bandits is likely to be a good portion of the challange and time). These in game could be described as trials etc... and clearing certain ones could be pre-reqs for certain reputations, players could use their created ones as challanges in which they pay rewards out of pocket (IE first group to clear X dungeon gets X sword, or Joining chartered company pocket ace, requires you to clear our dungeon as proof of your skills).
But yeah for the official statements on modules in the blog.
We have a vision of one more kind of PvE content; for historical reasons, we'll call it a "module." This is a scripted, fully designed adventure suitable for some number of characters of some specified power level. Some of these modules will likely be available to everyone for free. Others may be obtained via the use of in-game microtransaction currency. Modules you unlock would likely be instanced content available to just those characters you wish to adventure with, meaning each group that unlocks a given module will experience it as though it exists exclsuvely for them. (We have had discussions about how, even within instanced module content, there could be common areas that allow multiple groups to interact. Only time will tell how this concept develops and unfolds.)
For such instanced content, offering persistence is tricky. We want you to have the sense that the world changes based on your own successes or failures, and it would break that immersion if you could potentially play the same exact module multiple times. How we untangle that will be a challenge for the development team.
And there's even the chance that you might be able to create your own module content for other players—perhaps even on a for-profit basis. Imagine an "app store" for Pathfinder adventures! It's speculative at this point, but we want you to know that we see the potential, and we are just as interested as you in finding a way to get there.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Sorry, but I don't think I made my point very clearly.
Paizo could publish a Golarion based adventure which contained all of the story-telling parts but none of the mechanics.
At the same time, Pathfinder Online would produce a dungeon-instance tied in with the written adventure which would handle all the mechanics in the Pathfinder Online way.
A GM could then deliver the story-telling elements of the adventure and be given some administrator privileges within the dungeon instance so that he/she could unlock / trigger the right bits of the online dungeon in accordance with what was happening with the role playing.
Richard
The problem is that you can't have it both ways. On the one hand, the GM expected to deal with everything the players come up with and make it fun and interesting. On the other, he's still limited. He can't adjudicate things outside of the provided mechanics, which means he's very limited in the ways he can step outside the published story. He probably can't add new NPCs or change the monsters to make it more/less of a challenge, or change the treasure significantly, etc.
If he can do all that, then why bother having a published module to play it from in the first place? Just give him content creation tools!
If he can't, why have him at all? Just script the "GM" role into the game and make it theme park content!