| Brahms |
I was reading the old B2/Keep on the Borderlands and it says:
"Using the KEEP as “home base”, your players should be
able to have quite a number of adventures (playing
sessions) before they have exhausted all the possibilities of
the Caves of Chaos map. Assuming that they have played
well, their player characters will certainly have advanced
a level or two in experience when the last minion of darkness
falls before their might. While your players will have
advanced in their understanding and ability, you will likewise
have increased your skills as DM. In fact, before they
have finished all the adventure areas of this module, it is
likely that you will have begun to add your own separate
maps to the setting. The KEEP is only a small section of the
world. You must build the towns and terrain which surround
it. You must shape the societies, create the kingdoms, and
populate the countryside with men and monsters."
Which Pathfinder module best captures the spirit of that quote, and would best serve as a "seed setting" for multiple adventures and homemade expansion?
| Orthos |
One of my players and I were just discussing this very idea in the context of Kingmaker this morning.
Just the first section alone, Stolen Land, can have completely different reactions and results with different groups playing through. On the subject of making a focus out of it, once you establish your kingdom (through the second and third books), much of the rest can be discarded, built upon, expanded, or retracted if the GM does not wish to follow the layout and plot involved in the stories as they are written. Much like the Keep, the players' kingdom can serve as their home base, and their adventures can go in all kinds of directions based on how they wish to expand, what threats come to them, and what tidbits of information you use to lure them in new directions.
The plot(s) in the later half of Kingmaker's modules is only one option, there are several other ways you could go with it instead.
| Dreaming Psion |
My guess would be of the single modules I've perused, it would have to be conquest of the bloodsworn vale (for 3.5), if only because they crammed so much into the adventure it's practically screaming to be expanded upon by a dm. There's quite a few segments in there which should really be longer, but seemed to have had to have been glossed over for sake of space. Like a lot of the earlier D&D, exploration type modules, it's not entirely linear and there's room for a lot of negotiation and wheeling and dealing with various npcs and factions.
Another option, if you wanted to go beyond just one module, is the Darkmoon Vale series of adventures (Hollow's Last Hope, crown of the kobold king, carnival of tears, revenge of the kobold king, hungry are the dead, all 3.5 adventures). Falcon's Hollow, a unique and disturbing scummy little company lumber town is a great setting summed up well in the first one or two Darkmoon Vale modules (complete with future hooks) but fleshed out better in the Guide to the Darkmoon Vale (which itself has many awesome hooks and such). These adventures I've had more direct experience with, and I can tell you they lead themselves well to DM modification and tacking on of other adventures (I've used several from dungeon in between them.)
amethal
|
River into Darkness has some replayability, as at the very least you can retrace your route back down the river.
You can also expand upon Bloodcove (there are a couple of Pathfinder Society adventures set there) and there are plenty of potential adventures in the nearby parts of the Mwangi Expanse.
The adventure also probably need some kind of prologue, explaining how the PCs ended up in Bloodcove looking for work.
Lord Snow
|
Hollow's Last Hope, coupled with the Kobold King modules do this admirably. Falcon's Hollow has an excellent meta-plot that the modules barely scratch.
Yeah, this can work greatly. Also, the upcoming module "Dragon's Demand" sounds like it's shaping to be something very close to matching your description.