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And I don't see how that's a bad thing. Since it's what lets you play a game with four or so players in a party.Sorry James, that sounds lazy.
There could have been other options to get the players involved, but you chose not to do them.
That's fine, that's your choice, but some people are not going to enjoy that kind of heavy-handedness. Particularly when you've gone out of your way to say, 'ooh, if you don't like the PFS, you don't have to use it in Shattered Star!'
And I don't see how that's a bad thing either.
My party are enjoying Skull & Shackles, they thought the press-ganged aspect was an awesome introduction.
"This doesn't work for my party."
Does not equal: "This is objectively bad."
Hey Anlerran, how about you go write a couple of award-winning adventures and then lecture the T-rex on how to do his job?
Because I assumed we were having a civil discussion brought up by the fact that a previous poster said they disliked S&S.
I didn't realise any critique or disagreement would be met by Paizo's equivalent of loudmouth '4Evengers', shouting down any dissenting voices.
Some players didn't like S&S. I felt it was full of basic errors, from execution to plot to artwork.
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Hey Anlerran, how about you go write a couple of award-winning adventures and then lecture the T-rex on how to do his job?Because I assumed we were having a civil discussion brought up by the fact that a previous poster said they disliked S&S.
I didn't realise any critique or disagreement would be met by Paizo's equivalent of loudmouth '4Evengers', shouting down any dissenting voices.
Some players didn't like S&S. I felt it was full of basic errors, from execution to plot to artwork.
This is a discussion forum. If you post your opinions here, prepare to encounter people who disagree with you. They might also disagree with the way you voice your opinion, which is the case here. That's how it works.
I don't understand what the issue is. Although one of my players met Erik Mona and had him hail our Kingmaker nation(we still play that at the start of EVERY GAME), I have yet to change a rule, encounter, NPC, or what have you in an adventure path and have anyone from Paizo show up at my house ready to break my legs for my transgression.
And I don't see how that's a bad thing. Since it's what lets you play a game with four or so players in a party.Sorry James, that sounds lazy.
There could have been other options to get the players involved, but you chose not to do them.
That's fine, that's your choice, but some people are not going to enjoy that kind of heavy-handedness. Particularly when you've gone out of your way to say, 'ooh, if you don't like the PFS, you don't have to use it in Shattered Star!'
And I don't see how that's a bad thing either.
Even if Paizo came up with different ways with the party to meet such as the typical "met at a tavern" it really would not matter. The party still ends up together 99% of the time so I see no need to waste space listing possible ways the party might know each other. If the GM does not like the auto-meet, that is in most AP's he can come up with something different and have them RP it out. Even with all of the characters being in the Society that does not mean they have to know each other so the RP'ing of them getting to meet for the first time can still be RP'ed.
I don't understand what the issue is. Although one of my players met Erik Mona and had him hail our Kingmaker nation(we still play that at the start of EVERY GAME), I have yet to change a rule, encounter, NPC, or what have you in an adventure path and have anyone from Paizo show up at my house ready to break my legs for my transgression.It's not so much a question of them breaking your legs for changing things, but more of how much work it'll be.
For the Pathfinders, that depends on how deeply interwoven into the AP they are. Apparently they're just the group that hires you to go find the McGuffin. Not a big deal to change. If plot was about how getting the McGuffin led to a big internal fight within the Society, then it would be much harder to replace. And it's nice to know that up front.
By way of comparison, they still wouldn't come and break your legs if you wanted to run Skull & Shackles without pirates or even without boats at all, but you'd have to rewrite the thing so thoroughly it would be hard to say you were running the same AP.
I've done it before. It's gotten more challenging as I've gotten older, certainly, but if I really liked the adventure path or the idea, I'd change almost everything about it to make it work for me or my players. I've been altering stuff since Dungeon was a monthly periodical, and I've had few complaints from either side of the screen.
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I didn't realise any critique or disagreement would be met by Paizo's equivalent of loudmouth '4Evengers', shouting down any dissenting voices.
You haven't been here long enough, then.
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Hey Anlerran, how about you go write a couple of award-winning adventures and then lecture the T-rex on how to do his job?Because I assumed we were having a civil discussion brought up by the fact that a previous poster said they disliked S&S.
I didn't realise any critique or disagreement would be met by Paizo's equivalent of loudmouth '4Evengers', shouting down any dissenting voices.
Gorb was no less "civil" than you. You called a dev lazy, and Gorb said, "Fine, then let's see you do better." Don't try so hard to sound victimized. I'm having a hard time seeing what you perceive as "loudmouths" trying to silence your dissenting voice.
For what it's worth, I think JJ is right. If you don't get the characters together one way or another, you don't have much of a campaign. That's not lazy, it's just reality. The game doesn't work well with 4 parallel adventures going at the same table. I think most people would agree.
Also, I have few complaints about S&S. I think it's a high-quality AP and my group is having a ton of fun playing it. To each his own, I say.
Edit: Also noticed you removed Gorb's smiley when you quoted him. He wasn't trying to put you down, you know.
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And I don't see how that's a bad thing. Since it's what lets you play a game with four or so players in a party.Sorry James, that sounds lazy.
There could have been other options to get the players involved, but you chose not to do them.
That's fine, that's your choice, but some people are not going to enjoy that kind of heavy-handedness. Particularly when you've gone out of your way to say, 'ooh, if you don't like the PFS, you don't have to use it in Shattered Star!'
And I don't see how that's a bad thing either.
Whether or not it sounds lazy, it's something (starting an adventure out with the PCs captured) that we've wanted to try out for a long time. In fact, there were several elements in Skull & Shackles that we've wanted to try out for a while—starting PCs out as prisoners, doing a pirate-themed adventure, presenting an adventure path where evil characters would work as well as neutral or good ones, and so on, but never felt "safe" enough to try because we weren't willing to risk six months of our flagship product line on something that could backfire or end up being something that no one wanted.
To me, the fact that we were able to do this and saw subscriptions continue to increase tells me that Paizo's achieved a place where we ARE able to do increasingly more experimental adventures, including some that are very story-driven instead of being sandboxes, working well for evil characters, or forcing specific "starts" to an adventure. Makes me hopeful we can push things even further in the future, perhaps with Adventure Paths where we require the entire party to be composed of elves, or where everyone in the group must play worshipers of the same deity, or where the party must all be composed of paladins, or an Adventure Path that takes place entirely in a single megadungeon.
That said, we're not going to do these all the time. Part of the reason we're doing Shattered Star, a very traditional old-shchool adventure path, is because we just did a very non-traditional one.
In other words, I'm actually really delighted by the fact that it appears we CAN do risky adventure paths now.
As for the Pathfinder Society... the elements of it in Shattered Star really aren't all that strong. With the exception, really, of parts 1 and 6, the Pathfinder Society's role in each adventure is ALMOST (but not quite) absent, with the exception of a few Pathfinder characters now and then.
Shattered Star is "The adventure path where you return to Varisia, do dungeon crawls, and rebuild a powerful artifact and then get to use it." It's NOT "The adventure path where you play Pathfinder Society characters and become powerful and influential members of that organization." That element is in the adventure path, but it's hardly the driving force, and removing it won't really impact the plot much at all.
I'd rather say "If you don't like the Pathfinder Society, don't worry, they can be downplayed in the Adventure Path pretty easily," rather than not say anything at all, because one of the things I've learned about this industry is that it's pretty important to manage expectations.
That's why we were VERY open about the fact that Skull & Shackles was going to be the type of campaign it ended up being.
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In any case, I do value ALL feedback, good and bad, because that's how we learn from errors and learn from successes.
That said, when you imply folks at Paizo are "lazy," that DOES tend to raise my hackles a little, and when you use language like that on these boards, you should be ready to accept the blowback that might cause. Similar to using loaded terms like "loudmouth" or "4Evengers."
So... please keep this thread on target about what you think isn't going to work about Shattered Star and why it might or might not be underwhelming sounding, and let's leave the sniping and edition war comments and name calling to those parts of the internet I allude to above. I like to think Paizo's boards are above that. I know that times they're not... but help me out here! :-)
Makes me hopeful we can push things even further in the future, perhaps with Adventure Paths where we require the entire party to be composed of elves, or where everyone in the group must play worshipers of the same deity, or where the party must all be composed of paladins, or an Adventure Path that takes place entirely in a single megadungeon.
I don't mean to derail this thread any, but..
I eagerly await all of these things (just replace "elves" with "gnomes").
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I would love a module still where everyone is a 1st level wizard student at the Acadamae.
Also I think the "railroading" in S&S worked well because the game wasn't forcing players to make a decision (unlike say, Kakishan). It was a situation they found themselves in and had to deal with. People do not choose to get shanghai'd. Just like in Serp Skull where the PCs start off being shipwrecked.
I didn't realise any critique or disagreement would be met by Paizo's equivalent of loudmouth '4Evengers', shouting down any dissenting voices.You haven't been here long enough, then.
Yeah, that's what I figured.
Pretty sick of people being jerks here, same old story.
If they want fanboys in an echo chamber, fine. Plenty of other products and stuff out there.
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I didn't realise any critique or disagreement would be met by Paizo's equivalent of loudmouth '4Evengers', shouting down any dissenting voices.You haven't been here long enough, then.Yeah, that's what I figured.
Pretty sick of people being jerks here, same old story.
If they want fanboys in an echo chamber, fine. Plenty of other products and stuff out there.
You basically accused James of being lazy because you didn't like a particular AP hook and EVERYONE ELSE is the Jerk?
Press-ganging is bound to raise a lot of hackles in many players, fair enough. But lazy and heavy-handed, or bad writing? Press-ganging is a pretty iconic start to a piratical adventure, and the Player's Guide is thoroughly up front about it, so it's not like it's being sprung on the characters as a nasty surprise.
I didn't realise any critique or disagreement would be met by Paizo's equivalent of loudmouth '4Evengers', shouting down any dissenting voices.You haven't been here long enough, then.Yeah, that's what I figured.
Pretty sick of people being jerks here, same old story.
If they want fanboys in an echo chamber, fine. Plenty of other products and stuff out there.
Just....."wow".
Rule 0 applies to you Anlerran, if you want the cliche tavern meet, roadside meet, or something of your own making, then change it and adjust the opening scenario to your groups liking.As for the fanboy echo chamber and you taking your ball home, that's your decision. IMHO, you could have written a review and flamed the developers to your hearts content. It probably would have gone better for you.
As for the whole "underwhelming" thing, i disagree. I'm stuck in my new apartment waiting on cable so I had time for a heavier look through. While I'm not a fan of the Pathfinder Society in Golarion, I might have the PCs as agents of one specific NPC Pathfinder instead or I might run it as written.
As for the whole AP synopsis..... It's Indiana Jones meets the Rod of Seven Parts! Love it. Love Magnimar, Korvosa, Kaer Maga, etc. Varisia in general is über cool. I'd love it more if there was a Sandpoint stopover as well. I'm about 60/40 with Greg Vaughan these days but Kudos to this one are in order.
To JJ and the gang, keep the varied AP beginnings coming. To date the only one I didn't care for was the beginning of SD, probably because it's a tad Ocean's Eleven for me.
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I, for one, can't conceive of an AP giving me a treatment for bringing the party together that would be perfect. Not unless we all have to play pre-generated PCs.
Too much preamble is a waste of ink. The GM is inevitably going to have that player who is a warforged, or a tiefling, or whatever, that makes absolutely no sense with the default plot hook. You need something as a default plot hook, but you just couldn't write one that was flexible enough to deal with the freaking players and their weird urges.
But, but but.... Skull & Shackles is mad fun, and it only takes a few plot crumbs to lead the PCs, or you can just let them wander through the Shackles!
I mean different strokes for different folks, but this makes me a little sad.
Yup. awesome fun.
Well didnt quite understand the third part as in having to prove being a pirate by doing some task for someone else/ common "good".All those who want to should be able to join up in the competition... and with proper sugarcoating, a bit railroady. Not much tho. Im sure the shackles can be defended from "the rock" aswell. Or just (almost) never again setting foot on solid ground again.
Which would force some rethinking on part 4 aswell..
But we have the added lost treasures for that. Im sure a knowledge local check will tell most of the details. And from there a cavesytem/old ruin.. with just as much baddies and treasure as needed.
I gotta say Shattered Star has got me super excited, to the point where I reactivated my AP subscription when it was announced. That meant that I also got all of Skull and Shackles, even though I'm most likely never going to run it. But that's ok, it's a great read and I can cherry-pick interesting stuff, like monsters or NPC's, from it to my hearts content.
The more I read on the foums, the more I regret canceling my subscription in the first place, because the discription of Serpents Skull, Jade Regent and Carrion Crown didn't appeal to me. I got into PFRPG around the time Kingmaker came out, and I'm slowly building up my collection, grabbing the odd volume here and there, or jumping at the chance when Paizo put out a new edition of RotRL or puts Second Darkness and Legacy of Fire on sale for five bucks a book.
With the variety presented in paizo's AP's, I would be amazed if everyone found each new arch as appealing as the last one. But I suspect most people can find something they like in almost every single volume.
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Oh, and obvious troll is obvious - please don't feed or resort to namecalling. Top props to JJ for his classy response above.
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I, for one, am prepared to wait until I have the first adventure in my hands so I can strip out the "ooo, look you're all Pathfinders innit awesome" before deciding whether or not to be underwhelmed.
In my experience I've had to tweak and alter every AP I've run to fit it into my group. I altered some of the mechanics (and took the villain from generic emo to smoking hot) in Carrion Crown. I altered how Elven society works in Second Darkness. I altered Zorro's plans in Curse of the Crimson Throne. I plan to run Serpent's Skull but I'll have to add a plot. I hope to run Shattered Star and I already know I'll be stripping the PC's involvement in the Pathfinder Society.
I've never run an AP as written for several reasons. I rarely run a standard 4 PC party. My PCs almost never even consider the motives the writers assume. My PCs tend to come up with creative solutions to problems. When I've only got 1 PC (my normal state of gaming for the past 2 APs) these reasons apply even harder.
I've played in 2 APs that were run straight out of the box and I was underwhelmed each time. This makes me sad because one of those APs was Rise of the Runelords. I read the adventures after we finished that AP and I came up with so many ideas that could have been used to make that game special if only the GM had cared enough to develop them.
So... Long story short (too late)...
I expect to have to alter the AP before I run it. That's what I have to do. That's my job as GM. If I run it straight out of the box without tweaking it to fit my group then I deserve to be underwhelmed.
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Makes me hopeful we can push things even further in the future, perhaps with Adventure Paths where we require the entire party to be composed of elves, or where everyone in the group must play worshipers of the same deity, or where the party must all be composed of paladins, or an Adventure Path that takes place entirely in a single megadungeon.
I've contemplated putting together a church-sponsored expedition (to retrieve an artifact, say :-). Of course with my luck I'd end up with a whole group of worshippers of Cayden Cailean, and it could rapidly degenerate into an extended pub crawl (not that there's anything wrong with that ...)
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I didn't realise any critique or disagreement would be met by Paizo's equivalent of loudmouth '4Evengers', shouting down any dissenting voices.You haven't been here long enough, then.Yeah, that's what I figured.
Pretty sick of people being jerks here, same old story.
If they want fanboys in an echo chamber, fine. Plenty of other products and stuff out there.
More insults, and you are still oblivious as to why you get the replies you do.
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Returning to the fray :)
I actually have an idea for this AP.
I actually don't mind the unusual. In fact, the more far out and ambitious the idea and setting the better I like it. For my money Legacy of Fire stomps on Rise of the Runelords from a great height and Carrion Crown was far better than Kingmaker (which for all it's innovation and novel touches is still fairly vanilla when it comes to setting and story IMO).
I realise this makes me unusual.
I accept that sometimes Paizo has to play it safe. That's fine, I know why you do it and it makes economic sense to do so. I just prefer it when my AP has a touch of the outlandish and unusual.
There are a few bits and pieces of this AP that have piqued my interest. The revisiting of old AP's is cool and the Thassalonian element is always welcome. I'm just fairly confident that I will get more of a kick out of Skull and Shackles than Shattered Star.
I feel that when Paizo really goes out there the AP's are better. I think Council of Thieves would have been far better if it had been full on Les Miserables style revolution against the house of Thrune rather than what we got. I want demiplanes and other worlds. I want to fight extraplanar invaders on the roof of a burning cathedral whilst the ritual to raise the long dead dragon prince of whatever rages on below. I want the spectacular and strange and epic. In short I want Paizo to take risks. Things are better when you do.
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Makes me hopeful we can push things even further in the future, perhaps with Adventure Paths where we require the entire party to be composed of elves, or where everyone in the group must play worshipers of the same deity, or where the party must all be composed of paladins, or an Adventure Path that takes place entirely in a single megadungeon.I've contemplated putting together a church-sponsored expedition (to retrieve an artifact, say :-). Of course with my luck I'd end up with a whole group of worshippers of Cayden Cailean, and it could rapidly degenerate into an extended pub crawl (not that there's anything wrong with that ...)
Somebody hold my pint/holy symbol and pass me a pen - where do I sign up? :)
you're going to find lots of engaging personalities in my volume of the AP and lots of opportunity for rich, talky role play (especially if you use the web supplement that will be available).Do tell! :)
I was pretty sure James mentioned it in a post somewhere, but I couldn't find it with a quick search.
Basically, a couple of the characters and encounters from my turnover ended up on the cutting room floor for reasons of space, but James decided that they could be offered up as a web enhancement for the AP. I think you might become acquainted with a rather eccentric priest of Groetus, a gang of thugs called the Black Kiss Boys, and a native of Kaer Maga accused of a crime she may or may not have committed. I haven't actually seen the supplement yet myself--I assume I'll see it when you do!
A huge +1 to the megadungeon JJ! Hope it happens. :)
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Yeah, we haven't yet announced the web enhancement, but it is pretty much what Mike said. We had to cut about 5000 words from the adventure and a Mushfen support article in order to make room for the Torag deity article that got bumped from Skull & Shackles because we forgot to order art for it.
Rather than just throw those words away forever, we decided that these bonus encounters and the bonus NPC would be done up as a web enhancement for the adventure—a GM-only web enhancement, since it's extra encounters for "Curse of the Lady's Light."
It'll be released about the time "Curse of the Lady's Light" goes on sale in a little over a month, and will be a free PDF download.
It will NOT be something we'll be doing often, though, since an extra 5,000 words represents a not inconsiderable writing, developing, editing, art, and layout challenge when we've already got a really tight schedule.
Yeah, we haven't yet announced the web enhancement, but it is pretty much what Mike said. We had to cut about 5000 words from the adventure and a Mushfen support article in order to make room for the Torag deity article that got bumped from Skull & Shackles because we forgot to order art for it.
Rather than just throw those words away forever, we decided that these bonus encounters and the bonus NPC would be done up as a web enhancement for the adventure—a GM-only web enhancement, since it's extra encounters for "Curse of the Lady's Light."
It'll be released about the time "Curse of the Lady's Light" goes on sale in a little over a month, and will be a free PDF download.
It will NOT be something we'll be doing often, though, since an extra 5,000 words represents a not inconsiderable writing, developing, editing, art, and layout challenge when we've already got a really tight schedule.
Because of the sheer awesomeness of the writing?
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Because of the sheer awesomeness of the writing?Yeah, we haven't yet announced the web enhancement, but it is pretty much what Mike said. We had to cut about 5000 words from the adventure and a Mushfen support article in order to make room for the Torag deity article that got bumped from Skull & Shackles because we forgot to order art for it.
Rather than just throw those words away forever, we decided that these bonus encounters and the bonus NPC would be done up as a web enhancement for the adventure—a GM-only web enhancement, since it's extra encounters for "Curse of the Lady's Light."
It'll be released about the time "Curse of the Lady's Light" goes on sale in a little over a month, and will be a free PDF download.
It will NOT be something we'll be doing often, though, since an extra 5,000 words represents a not inconsiderable writing, developing, editing, art, and layout challenge when we've already got a really tight schedule.
Exactly!
(And because you would send mud sorcerers and Siragle after me to learn me the error of my ways if I did throw those words away forever.)
+1
Because of the sheer awesomeness of the writing?Yeah, we haven't yet announced the web enhancement, but it is pretty much what Mike said. We had to cut about 5000 words from the adventure and a Mushfen support article in order to make room for the Torag deity article that got bumped from Skull & Shackles because we forgot to order art for it.
Rather than just throw those words away forever, we decided that these bonus encounters and the bonus NPC would be done up as a web enhancement for the adventure—a GM-only web enhancement, since it's extra encounters for "Curse of the Lady's Light."
It'll be released about the time "Curse of the Lady's Light" goes on sale in a little over a month, and will be a free PDF download.
It will NOT be something we'll be doing often, though, since an extra 5,000 words represents a not inconsiderable writing, developing, editing, art, and layout challenge when we've already got a really tight schedule.
Exactly!
(And because you would send mud sorcerers and Siragle after me to learn me the error of my ways if I did throw those words away forever.)
Dude, I didn't realize I had that kind of leverage with you! In that case, quadruple my pay rate, I want a company car, masseuse, and someone to peel my grapes. Also, change your avatar from a TRex to a dwarf--and not one of those tough-looking dwarves; a cute, Disney-style dwarf who whistles while he works. Snap to it! Siragle's tail stinger hungers for thee!
Someone's gonna get their head gnawed on by a T-Rex...
::makes popcorn::
The term "over-reach" springs to mind.
Someone's gonna get their head gnawed on by a T-Rex...
::makes popcorn::
Either that or stabbed by stabbity elf rogue.
you're going to find lots of engaging personalities in my volume of the AP and lots of opportunity for rich, talky role play (especially if you use the web supplement that will be available).Do tell! :)I was pretty sure James mentioned it in a post somewhere, but I couldn't find it with a quick search.
Basically, a couple of the characters and encounters from my turnover ended up on the cutting room floor for reasons of space, but James decided that they could be offered up as a web enhancement for the AP. I think you might become acquainted with a rather eccentric priest of Groetus, a gang of thugs called the Black Kiss Boys, and a native of Kaer Maga accused of a crime she may or may not have committed. I haven't actually seen the supplement yet myself--I assume I'll see it when you do!
Black Kiss Boys? I'm imagining a boy band of elves with too much mascara and prepubescent voices ;)
the mighty P could maybe put out a kickstarter if they wanted to do an AP that was pretty high risk
All wizard (i have run two highly successful campaigns where everyone was a wizard, learned v spontaneous and arcane v divine make great thems)
All one race (gnomes maybe setting off to get home or something) or dwarves in a megadungeon
All LG AP (really, really big shiney noble heroes)
with a KS at least the comfort of the money is there and balances the risk
Rather than just throw those words away forever, we decided that these bonus encounters and the bonus NPC would be done up as a web enhancement for the adventure—a GM-only web enhancement, since it's extra encounters for "Curse of the Lady's Light."
It'll be released about the time "Curse of the Lady's Light" goes on sale in a little over a month, and will be a free PDF download.
Thank you!
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Will the above mentioned "Mushfen support article" be included in the web enhancement? That'd be especially interessting and quite useful not only for "Curse of the Lady's Light" but also for
Concerning the thread topic: all my players and myself are PFS members, we like the society and the scenarios and we all are looking forward to returning to Varisia (were we all started with the unforgettable "Rise of the Runelords") as Pathfinders. Having the chance to use fame/prestige within an AP sounds fun so no reservations from here :-).
My only frustration comes from the fact that although it's already Thursday I still haven't received anything from my monthly subscriptions. -.- Very annoying.
The term "over-reach" springs to mind.
The grapes or the masseuse?
I'd say the whistling.