While I have enjoyed the AP's for what they are, there seems to be a lack of cohesion that I like to see in an adventure arc. I would LOVE to see an Adventure Path written by a single author again. I feel that one designer AP's are superior because there usually are fewer holes and less loose ends to tie up. I'm not bashing the concept of the AP's I'd just like to see some that are stylistically similar and more fluid upon occasion. Also, I know many people are inured to the concept but I'd love to see a good old fashioned dungeon crawl as an AP one of these days.
While I have enjoyed the AP's for what they are, there seems to be a lack of cohesion that I like to see in an adventure arc. I would LOVE to see an Adventure Path written by a single author again. I feel that one designer AP's are superior because there usually are fewer holes and less loose ends to tie up. I'm not bashing the concept of the AP's I'd just like to see some that are stylistically similar and more fluid upon occasion. Also, I know many people are inured to the concept but I'd love to see a good old fashioned dungeon crawl as an AP one of these days.
I think it's very unlikely to hapen, give the need to have multiple AP episodes worked on cocurrently. Having said that, I was curious about this:
."I would LOVE to see an Adventure Path written by a single author again. I feel that one designer AP's are superior because there usually are fewer holes and less loose ends to tie up."
as it seemed to imply there was a single-author AP somewhere. Were you referring to something in particular, or just saying it would be good to see?
Were you referring to something in particular, or just saying it would be good to see?
Not sure if this is what OP had in mind, but Slumbering Tsar at 952 pages has only one author listed: Greg A. Vaughn
Creative Director
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There's never been a Paizo Adventure Path written by one author, so the "again" part of the request is a bit off, unless the OP is referring to something like Slumbering Tsar or the like. That, of course, wasn't a Paizo AP.
As for an entire adventure path by one author... that would indeed be cool, but that would also take that one author out of the writing cycle for us for over a year. Furthermore, since it generally takes 2 to 3 months to write an adventure path installment, that means that the author would either have to start 12 to 18 months before we started developing the adventure (which would put it about 2 years out from actual publication), or would have to accept the fact that once he turned over one part, he couldn't go back and tinker, no matter HOW awesome an idea he had for something in part 1 while he was working on part 6.
This, combined with the realities of how our Adventure Paths work (they synergize with other products and drive a significant portion of a year's products) means that it's really REALLY frightening for us to do something like this. If the author gives up or falls behind on a single part, it's tough but doable for someone in house to come in and finish things up on the adventure during its development. If an author does that while working on a whole Adventure Path... that could well kill the line for a few months, which might as well kill the line.
The only ways I see this really being able to work would be to have the author write the entire Adventure Path beforehand so that we could be assured of it ALL existing in one place before we risk something like this. And, of course, that risk goes down significantly if the author is a Paizo employee, since that means less of a chance of the author getting some long term goals and plans for Golarion messed up... but an in-house author means that author's probably locked up on freelance for a long time and that could well even hurt that author's ability to do their day job.
The long and short of it is as much as it would be cool to have an adventure path by one author... logistically, it's a hard thing to pull off, and not one I think anyone at Paizo wants to try out on our flagship line.
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I was thinking along these lines too lately, and I came to the conclusions that Mr. Jacobs has presented above (that it was too risky and complicated - though of course I wasn't awere of the specifics he shared).
However, how about this: An adventure Path written by a SMALL (say, 2 - 3 people) team, sharing the burden of actual adventure writing amongst themselves, plus another person assigned exclusively to the AP to oversee it's execution and make sure it works as something cohesive. I know as lead designer Mr. Jacobs already does something like that, but I'm thinking something more along the lines of a full time job working on that specific AP and nothing else. Don't know if this is practical from a human-resources point of view, but I do believe there might be room for a closer approximation of this than what currently exists.
That you have a 4 person team instead of 6 usual writers, and I think that this module might have some advantages. It's sort of the middle ground between distributing the AP between as many people possible, with each module having it's own author, and having one man hadle it all. As middle grounds usualy go this solution would obviously not be quite as good at echieving what either of the extreme-end options (6 writers vs. 1) can echieve, but it sheds a LOT of the disadvantages both have.
I think APs are they are now are amazing, but that dosen't mean they don't have flaws, and I'm really curious to see how an AP managed by a smaller group of authors could fare. It's lucky that the new Pathfinder Modules format is coming up this year because a mini-campaign managed by asingle author CAN approximate a non-mini-campaign managed by a small group of authors... I mean, I don't have the page count math all figured out, but if one man can handle a 64 page super adventure, can't 4 people manage ~350 pages given that they'll have more time on their hands?
Ok...so there haven't been any Paizo Adventure Paths with one author, my point is back in the Day...1st and 2nd Edition we had the Super series the G, D and Q series from 1st edition.. sure it wasn't called an AP but in many ways it and the Slavers (A Series), the the S (Salt Marsh series) were the grandfather of the AP they had a more cohesive feel to them than the CoT, Kingmaker and even Skull and Shackles. You guys seemed to have missed the most important point of my post in your desire to point out that no AP has had a single author. Also if you were to plan ahead... say tomorrow call up a designer and say hey... Can I have a 6 part Adventure from you by Feb 2015 I'm sure it could happen.
Also yes Tsar took 10 years to make but its basic groundwork and ideas were developed during the creation of Rappun Athuk, which btw is hands down one of the finest RPG adventures series ever, even though it did require a bit of tweaking for continuity, btw by adding Tomb of Abysthor to the Rappan Athuk arc makes it even more epic than it already was).
Also I have Shattered Star as I am a AP subscriber and I can't call it a Dungeon Crawl, just my opinion but I would rather have seen something along the lines of a crawl in Hollow Mountain or in Kaer Maga or even both of them.
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Ok...so there haven't been any Paizo Adventure Paths with one author, my point is back in the Day...1st and 2nd Edition we had the Super series the G, D and Q series from 1st edition.. sure it wasn't called an AP but in many ways it and the Slavers (A Series), the the S (Salt Marsh series) were the grandfather of the AP they had a more cohesive feel to them than the CoT, Kingmaker and even Skull and Shackles. You guys seemed to have missed the most important point of my post in your desire to point out that no AP has had a single author. Also if you were to plan ahead... say tomorrow call up a designer and say hey... Can I have a 6 part Adventure from you by Feb 2015 I'm sure it could happen.
Also yes Tsar took 10 years to make but its basic groundwork and ideas were developed during the creation of Rappun Athuk, which btw is hands down one of the finest RPG adventures series ever, even though it did require a bit of tweaking for continuity, btw by adding Tomb of Abysthor to the Rappan Athuk arc makes it even more epic than it already was).
Also I have Shattered Star as I am a AP subscriber and I can't call it a Dungeon Crawl, just my opinion but I would rather have seen something along the lines of a crawl in Hollow Mountain or in Kaer Maga or even both of them.
300 pages of adventure is a major commitment. What if the designer misses a deadline? The entire AP slips, and since Paizo is based around subscription business model, AP episode slips are killers. Imagine what would happen if an *entire* AP goes awry?
In this industry, most of the authors write RPG material as their second (or third) job. Greg Vaughan, the author of Slumbering Tsar? He's a judge by day. Imagine he's asked to write 300 pages by Feb 2015. Now he pauses and thinks "gee, that's a great thing, but what if my job and my family eats up my time at some point and I'll risk missing deadlines?".
The "APs" of old days were much, much more simplistic than they are nowadays. What they had is a basic plot and a long string of (often completely illogical) dungeon rooms with random monsters and traps. Not much in the way of keeping the storyline a part of a setting or trying to build a world there. Nowadays, people want their APs a part of bigger picture far more than they did in the 80s.
Were you referring to something in particular, or just saying it would be good to see?Not sure if this is what OP had in mind, but Slumbering Tsar at 952 pages has only one author listed: Greg A. Vaughn
The Way of the Wicked adventure path by Gary McBride has only one author as well (although the last installment isn't out yet).
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The Way of the Wicked adventure path by Gary McBride has only one author as well (although the last installment isn't out yet).Were you referring to something in particular, or just saying it would be good to see?Not sure if this is what OP had in mind, but Slumbering Tsar at 952 pages has only one author listed: Greg A. Vaughn
I thought Jason Buhlman penned one installment. Or had some hand in it at least.
I thought Jason Buhlman penned one installment. Or had some hand in it at least.
He wrote an article in one of the installments. I hadn't heard that he wrote any of the actual adventures, though.
That's probably what I'm thinking of.
But yeah, looking at that AP's release frequency should show how hard such a project would be.
Speed is definitely the advantage to writing adventure paths in series rather than in parallel.
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The "APs" of old days were much, much more simplistic than they are nowadays. What they had is a basic plot and a long string of (often completely illogical) dungeon rooms with random monsters and traps. Not much in the way of keeping the storyline a part of a setting or trying to build a world there. Nowadays, people want their APs a part of bigger picture far more than they did in the 80s.
What about "Night Below: An Underdark Campaign"? I never had that one, but I heard that it had only one author - Carl Sargent - and that it was a big boxed set containing over 200 pages of epic dungeon-based campaign goodness, designed to take characters from 1st level to 10th or higher. I'm not aware that it was designed for a particular setting*, but it sounded like it formed a pretty big underground realm. Does that qualify, in the opinion of anyone reading this?
*(Then again, I could be wrong about that. I wasn't aware that the "Beholder" module trilogy was designed for any particular setting either, until I picked up the Forgotten Realms campaign setting book, and realized, to my amusement, that the trilogy must have been written with Forgotten Realms in mind, and only some names changed.)
I indeed did write the entirety of the adventure content of "Way of the Wicked". Jason Bulmahn wrote the Hellbound article that appears in Book V and Book VI.
But otherwise, it's all me. And the same will be true of "Throne of Night".
Gary McBride
Fire Mountain Games
To echo what others have said, you can't compare 1st edition modules to modern APs. Now, I've been gaming since the late 80's so I have great respect for the old-school stuff but much of it isn't even close to being in the same league content-wise. Many of the modules are great, A-series and GDQ-series included, but they're incredibly sparse in comparison to what goes into adventure design nowadays.
As for some of the hefty campaigns during 2nd edition's reign: Night Below was indeed written by a single author but it was in development for over a year and at the end of the day is still only about 250 pages of content. A Paizo AP is about 400 pages of content.
Currently, I think Gary McBride is probably the best to speak on the subject since he could probably say just how much work it has taken to produce Way of the Wicked. I would imagine it's probably eaten up a good deal of his time.
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Lets not forget that nearly a quarter of each Adventure path is devoted to fluff. I like fluff, fluff can be very cool BUT it isn't always necessary and at some point with the amount of fluff in each piece of the AP adds up to being what amounts to a whole extra installment of fluff. With the short stories removed and the "new" monsters and such trimmed a little bit. With the fluff being more concise and relevant to the actual story line I believe 50 pages could be trimmed. While I enjoyed the article on Groetus in the Shattered Star it didn't really need to be there, also some of the side hooks could have been summarized instead of being given a couple of pages each.
I played in A Night Below, it was nice but I wasn't privy to the books as a player.
the GDQ series really wasn't that Sparse once you got into the Underdark, D 1 and 2, and Queen of the Demon Web Pits (1e) were full of info and pretty detailed, it was just focused directly on things that pertained to the actual adventure. I guess I just want more crunch and less fluff, or at least fluff that REALLY matters, like Stat blocks, items, tables and magic that actually appear in the adventure.
Also before you tell me how hard it is to write and keep up with a real job, I completely understand that, it takes will and discipline and btw I was a contributor with Necromancer Games, so I have a couple credits of my own under my belt.
The "APs" of old days were much, much more simplistic than they are nowadays. What they had is a basic plot and a long string of (often completely illogical) dungeon rooms with random monsters and traps. Not much in the way of keeping the storyline a part of a setting or trying to build a world there. Nowadays, people want their APs a part of bigger picture far more than they did in the 80s.What about "Night Below: An Underdark Campaign"? I never had that one, but I heard that it had only one author - Carl Sargent - and that it was a big boxed set containing over 200 pages of epic dungeon-based campaign goodness, designed to take characters from 1st level to 10th or higher. I'm not aware that it was designed for a particular setting*, but it sounded like it formed a pretty big underground realm. Does that qualify, in the opinion of anyone reading this?
*(Then again, I could be wrong about that. I wasn't aware that the "Beholder" module trilogy was designed for any particular setting either, until I picked up the Forgotten Realms campaign setting book, and realized, to my amusement, that the trilogy must have been written with Forgotten Realms in mind, and only some names changed.)
I think this is the closest thing to an "old school AP". There was less material than a paizo AP, but statblocks are much longer now, plus it required less maps by virtue of its design.
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Ok...so there haven't been any Paizo Adventure Paths with one author, my point is back in the Day...1st and 2nd Edition we had the Super series the G, D and Q series from 1st edition.. sure it wasn't called an AP but in many ways it and the Slavers (A Series), the the S (Salt Marsh series) were the grandfather of the AP they had a more cohesive feel to them than the CoT, Kingmaker and even Skull and Shackles. You guys seemed to have missed the most important point of my post in your desire to point out that no AP has had a single author. Also if you were to plan ahead... say tomorrow call up a designer and say hey... Can I have a 6 part Adventure from you by Feb 2015 I'm sure it could happen.
Also yes Tsar took 10 years to make but its basic groundwork and ideas were developed during the creation of Rappun Athuk, which btw is hands down one of the finest RPG adventures series ever, even though it did require a bit of tweaking for continuity, btw by adding Tomb of Abysthor to the Rappan Athuk arc makes it even more epic than it already was).
Also I have Shattered Star as I am a AP subscriber and I can't call it a Dungeon Crawl, just my opinion but I would rather have seen something along the lines of a crawl in Hollow Mountain or in Kaer Maga or even both of them.
Ah, gotcha. You're looking for something that's essentially a supermodule. That's something we could certainly do... and in fact there are a few in the works on the back burner. I'd love to do my Shadows Under Sandpoint campaign that I ran for the folks here at Paizo as a supermodule that takes you from 1st level to 11th or thereabouts. But that's going to take a while to do.
And you're not looking for a dungeon crawl adventure path as much as you are a megadungeon; you might want to check out Emerald Spire when it comes out.
In fact, back to the "cohesive feel," that's something I think that we CAN improve on while still using multiple authors. Because every AP has only one developer, and that person can really shape the entirety of the Adventure Path.
So... give me some specific examples from adventure paths where they lacked the cohesive feel, and I'll see if I can't address those concerns going forward.
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In this industry, most of the authors write RPG material as their second (or third) job. Greg Vaughan, the author of Slumbering Tsar? He's a judge by day. Imagine he's asked to write 300 pages by Feb 2015. Now he pauses and thinks "gee, that's a great thing, but what if my job and my family eats up my time at some point and I'll risk missing deadlines?".
That's also an excellent point... although Greg's not a judge. You're thinking of Clark Petersen. Greg is attending medical school to become a doctor... which supports your point just as well.
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The Way of the Wicked adventure path by Gary McBride has only one author as well (although the last installment isn't out yet).Were you referring to something in particular, or just saying it would be good to see?Not sure if this is what OP had in mind, but Slumbering Tsar at 952 pages has only one author listed: Greg A. Vaughn
Excellent example. And an excellent Adventure Path too!
You'll note the whole AP didn't come out on a monthly schedule though...
And THAT, when you get right down to it, is one of the main reasons we can't do a single author AP. The monthly subscription model is one of the greatest advantages that the Adventure Path has... but it does come with some very real limitations.
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In fact, back to the "cohesive feel," that's something I think that we CAN improve on while still using multiple authors. Because every AP has only one developer, and that person can really shape the entirety of the Adventure Path.
Most cohesive: Crimson Throne, Skull and Shackles
Least: Runelords, Carrion Crown
Honorable mention: Second Darkness as both very cohesive and not. Books 1-3 and 4-6 awesome. Going 3-4 is the failure
So... give me some specific examples from adventure paths where they lacked the cohesive feel, and I'll see if I can't address those concerns going forward.
Hasn't that already been done, multiple times in multiple threads, over on the AP-specific forums?
But since you asked: Carrion Crown is a particularly notable offender. (But I otherwise won't really bother to repeat what has already been said in those other threads, and much better than I ever could.)
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Lets not forget that nearly a quarter of each Adventure path is devoted to fluff. I like fluff, fluff can be very cool BUT it isn't always necessary and at some point with the amount of fluff in each piece of the AP adds up to being what amounts to a whole extra installment of fluff. With the short stories removed and the "new" monsters and such trimmed a little bit. With the fluff being more concise and relevant to the actual story line I believe 50 pages could be trimmed. While I enjoyed the article on Groetus in the Shattered Star it didn't really need to be there, also some of the side hooks could have been summarized instead of being given a couple of pages each.
Apart from supporting the AP, the "other half" of the AP gives value to people who won't run the AP but keep purchasing the line because support material is relevant.
I'll never run all those Paizo APs I have. But I won't cancel my subscription, because the additional material enhances my ongoing games and helps me flesh out the setting.
Lets not forget that nearly a quarter of each Adventure path is devoted to fluff. I like fluff, fluff can be very cool BUT it isn't always necessary and at some point with the amount of fluff in each piece of the AP adds up to being what amounts to a whole extra installment of fluff. With the short stories removed and the "new" monsters and such trimmed a little bit. With the fluff being more concise and relevant to the actual story line I believe 50 pages could be trimmed. While I enjoyed the article on Groetus in the Shattered Star it didn't really need to be there, also some of the side hooks could have been summarized instead of being given a couple of pages each.
You can actually keep that stuff in if you were going to do a single writer AP since those articles are handled by separate writers anyway so their content doesn't usually impact the adventure much anyway. In fact, I didn't even include that page count above when comparing an AP to Night Below. A one-writer AP is still about a 400 page endeavor regardless of whether the additional 200 pages of supplementary articles is included or not. So those articles aren't actually the limiting factor in producing a one-writer AP. At least, from the writer's perspective. Certainly, the additional oversight required from James, Adam, and Rob in reviewing all the additional material still takes a toll on the other side of the process but I still don't think the articles are the issue.
As James already points out the one recent example we have of a single-writer AP, Way of the Wicked, is releasing over a period greater than six months. Paizo can't do that. They need an issue to release every month if it's to be in the core AP line. Now, a mini-AP released under the new Module format may be of interest to you but even these probably won't cover more than 3 to 4 levels of progression.
In fact, back to the "cohesive feel," that's something I think that we CAN improve on while still using multiple authors. Because every AP has only one developer, and that person can really shape the entirety of the Adventure Path.Most cohesive: Crimson Throne, Skull and Shackles
Least: Runelords, Carrion Crown
Honorable mention: Second Darkness as both very cohesive and not. Books 1-3 and 4-6 awesome. Going 3-4 is the failure
Runelords Anniversary edition actually fixes A LOT of the cohesive issues people had. Also, you should check out Shattered Star because they do a really good job at keeping things together and calling back to older volumes.
Also I like the fluff in the AP. While I'll never get to run all the APs I have, I do enjoy reading them and the fluff in the back keeps me coming back for more.
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In fact, back to the "cohesive feel," that's something I think that we CAN improve on while still using multiple authors. Because every AP has only one developer, and that person can really shape the entirety of the Adventure Path.Most cohesive: Crimson Throne, Skull and Shackles
Least: Runelords, Carrion Crown
Honorable mention: Second Darkness as both very cohesive and not. Books 1-3 and 4-6 awesome. Going 3-4 is the failure
Runelords Anniversary edition actually fixes A LOT of the cohesive issues people had. Also, you should check out Shattered Star because they do a really good job at keeping things together and calling back to older volumes.
Also I like the fluff in the AP. While I'll never get to run all the APs I have, I do enjoy reading them and the fluff in the back keeps me coming back for more.
I have heard that about AE, but have not the money to rebuy an AP I already finished. I am running Shattered Star now and would place it towards least cohesive from book to book. It was not intended to be cohesive though; it really needs an antagonist (like competing adventurers) for me to consider it cohesive.
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Excellent example. And an excellent Adventure Path too!
James,
Thanks for the kind words. These two sentences just made my whole day.
Gary McBride
Fire Mountain Games
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I found Jade regent,just from the reading, very disjointed. I would much rather have had an AP that was set in the East, not one where we spent half the adventure just getting there. Again my opinion but my group and I were so looking forward to the path until we received it and realized it was a double fish out of water campaign... First any Asian themed character start as fish out of water and then by the 4th installment the western theme characters become the fish.
The 3rd adventure in the Jade Regent path is almost exclusively travel time with snippets of adventure along the way. Not exactly epic, though the part about the Monoliths at the top of the world (avoiding spoilers)and the mystery surrounding them is a nice touch, I'd love to have seen that as an in depth adventure instead of a sideshow. The caravan subsystem is not very good, IMO the subsystem games have been a bit of a flop but I have noticed they are going away so I won't belabor that issue.
We were hoping and still are for a Campaign set exclusively in Dragon Empires
Again I'd like to point out I like fluff but I want it to truly be VERY relevant to the adventure and not feel like filler.
I actually am starting to like the way that the Players Companions Campaigns Settings are fleshing out regions, races etc.. and that's how I'd like to see the fluff dealt with so my adventures have the crunch and my fluff and splat are a bit more optional. By the way I subscribe to both and use most of it as my Campaign is set in Golarion currently (I did find the book on Knights a little too fluffy and extraneous but loved the Books of the Damned series. Kudos on those)
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So... give me some specific examples from adventure paths where they lacked the cohesive feel, and I'll see if I can't address those concerns going forward.Hasn't that already been done, multiple times in multiple threads, over on the AP-specific forums?
But since you asked: Carrion Crown is a particularly notable offender. (But I otherwise won't really bother to repeat what has already been said in those other threads, and much better than I ever could.)
Yes it has been done. But not by the person who inspired me to post this request again. And just because it's been done before doesn't mean there's nothing more I can learn.
And simply saying an AP is a "particularly notable offender" helps no more than saying one AP works well.
I'm looking for specific examples.
Are you talking about NPCs carrying over between adventures and playing strong roles?
Foreshadowing?
Recurring villains?
Monster themes?
A recurring philosophy or organization or religion?
Something else entirely?
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As James already points out the one recent example we have of a single-writer AP, Way of the Wicked, is releasing over a period greater than six months. Paizo can't do that. They need an issue to release every month if it's to be in the core AP line. Now, a mini-AP released under the new Module format may be of interest to you but even these probably won't cover more than 3 to 4 levels of progression.
Soon, we're transitioning over to 64 page adventures. The first of these, "The Dragon's Demand," starts at 1st level and it looks like it'll have enough content to carry PCs to 6th or maybe 7th level. Perhaps more.
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So... give me some specific examples from adventure paths where they lacked the cohesive feel, and I'll see if I can't address those concerns going forward.
Oh, boy. James, you'll probably think that I'm bagging on you and Paizo, but believe me, that is not the case. I've kept my suscription since I began collecting with Kingmaker and I'll continue to do so.
That being said, I think some of the Paizo APs I've bought since I started my suscription with Kingmaker are pretty horrible when it comes to story cohesion and recurring characters. The reason for that is easy to see. Six different authors are working concurrently at a product which is supposed to be part of a greater whole. However, it appears that story coordination between those authors is mostly non-existant and is kept strictly to the editorial level.
One of the results is that many APs lack a continuous supporting cast, which grounds the party in the story and helps to avoid the feeling that the AP is a series of mostly unrelated vignettes. Even the one AP where the presence of a continuous supporting cast was kind of the point, Jade Regent, lacked almost completely in helping GMs with the characterization of the continuous supporting NPCs after they were introduced in the first module.
As someone who reads a lot of novels and especially loves long, tightly interconnected series, like the Dresden Files, it is a bit glaring that individual modules mostly are self-contained stories, which only lightly touch on the greater whole. The result is that writing staples like long-term foreshadowing, both for plot and NPC characterization, are mostly absent.
A few APs are better in that regard, like Curse of the Crimson Throne and some exhibit this problem pretty badly, like Carrion Crown.
So, how could this be improved? If I were the responsible person, I think my first step would be to get the authors together with the editing staff in a Skype/Teamspeak conference before the writing process starts and shoot around story ideas for recurring friendly NPCs, villains and story hints. We live in a modern enough time that everybody having a headset with microphone and a voice chat client installed on his computer should not that be that big of a problem.
Then repeat the process once every month, so that people can get updates to the status of the project and adjust their own manuscript accordingly. Rinse and repeat until the AP is done. Authors who already finished their script can drop out of the voice conference schedule.
I've been a loyal supporter of Paizo from day one, and in general really like the adventure paths. Compared to the incoherent original Shackled City path (which Paizo much impoved via hardcover), Paizo's paths are usually quite dependable in storytelling.
Where they failed for me was:
Council of Thieves (love 2-4), hate 1,5-6, the style differnces just did not work, and I just couldn't get myself to ever run it despite reading each adventure a few times to see if I was missing something.
Carrion Crown..while each module is good (especially 1-4), it really feels like you are railroading the players to chase after the plot, and they never have any real stake in what is going on. At no point during most of the adventure do they know or care about the main villain, and what he is up to is not hinted at all. I mean, a simple omen by a local fortune teller in the first adventure might have sufficed.It just felt like 6 different horror adventures slapped together.
Second Darkness..its been said a million times before..theere is a huge disconnect between the early adventures and the latter ones. Why does my Riddleport Mercenary give a crap about helping some uptight elves?
The best Adventure Path in my opinion was curse of the Crimson Throne..even the sidetreck in 4-5 has a plausible rationale (the city is not a safe place for you to be, come back when they think you are dead or not coming back). I also think the repackaged Runelords is great, and Shattered Star does an excellent job keeping coherence. Brandon Hodge did a really good job refering to incidents in previous adventures and their consequences in the final adventure. That is good stuff. That Parrot you saved as a level 1 rookie. Well it just turns out that with the right codeword it will repeat the location of a buried treasure that contains part of artifact that will help you in adventure 5 or 6.
If Paizo did have a 1 author adventure path. I suggest Eric Mona do it. It doesn't seem like he is that busy and the last 2 adventures he did have been two of my all time favorite adventures. whispering Cairn is next to Hommelet in my pantheon, so get Eric out of the hot tub and give him a pen and some paper.
Just wanted to pop in, that while I haven't read much of later Shattered Star books, for an AP that is intended (or at least excused) for each book to be somewhat 'seperate', I personally think some things have been done that, at least from an analytical point, do connect them nicely. Having Koriah, who cameoed in book one, pop up as a supporting NPC in the fourth book. For that matter, I'm loving the web enhancement for the second book in forshadowing and assisting in the transition to the Mushfens, but also laying groundwork for mentioning Kaer Maga and the Doomsday Door. It even sets up some slight forshadowing for book five regarding someone having the shard of sloth and all that. It's small touches, but things that players might write down and then, when they actually reach these points, feel that connection.
I've been a loyal supporter of Paizo from day one, and in general really like the adventure paths. Compared to the incoherent original Shackled City path (which paizo much impoved via hardcover), Paizo's paths are usually quite dependable in storytelling.
Shackled City has both the sublime (a brilliant cameo appearance at the end of the first adventure) and the absurd (the random collection of leftover bad guys in Strike on Shatterhorn and the sheer number of unrelated dungeon crawls beneath Cauldron).
If Paizo did have a 1 author adventure path. I suggest Eric Mona do it. It doesn't seem like he is that busy and the last 2 adventures he did have been two of my all time favorite adventures. whispering Cairn is next to Hommelet in my pantheon, so get Eric out of the hot tub and give him a pen and some paper.
Erik is far, far, far from not busy.
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If Paizo did have a 1 author adventure path. I suggest Eric Mona do it. It doesn't seem like he is that busy and the last 2 adventures he did have been two of my all time favorite adventures. whispering Cairn is next to Hommelet in my pantheon, so get Eric out of the hot tub and give him a pen and some paper.Erik is far, far, far from not busy.
Yes. Erik is very very busy. ;)
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Huh...
I often come on these boards and get surprised by what the accepted truth is on various Paizo products. I don't consider Carrion Crown to be incoherant at all, it's a chase that for me flowed perfectly from module to module.
For me Kingmaker's final volume was far more incoherant yet that gets no accusations of incoherance and instead is lauded. Go figure.
As to the OP. I think that this is a risk that Paizo shouldn't take. The benefits of it might be noticable but that's far from definate and is only theoretical and unproven. The risks however are considerable. AP modules have required rescuing in the past by James' own admission and this risk is mitigated by spreading the workload among authors. If a whole AP required rescue then it could easily be delayed for months which would be a disaster for Paizo.
Furthermore whilst Paizo has had success in the past with a team of trusted freelancers it would be a big leap of faith for them to entrust their cash cow to one person. There has been a very public disaster in the past with a former Paizo writer biting off more than he can chew on a project and a repeat of a similar issue is too big a risk to take for what is an unproven benefit.
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I've said it before and I'll say it again: The BBEG needs to be front and Centre the whole way through. CotCT worked because the PCs knew who to hate pretty early.
The APs need to stop shying away from revealing the last boss early. "Oh crap THAT'S the villain? We're going to need a bigger sword."
Or, if you want the villain to be hidden for the majority of the plotline, they need to make their presence known - indirectly, but present, and give the PCs reason to fear.
Kingmaker, as FoC stated, suffers somewhat for all of its villain's actions being behind-the-scenes and only really in-the-know for the GM, with near-zero way (as written, and thus not including GM adjustment/homebrew or especially clever, out-of-the-box-thinking players) for the PCs to catch on to the connecting threads until the second-to-last or final chapter. They are doing things that affect the party... but the PCs have no way to know, unless the GM either tells them outright or changes the as-written plotline, that the events are connected, originate from the same opponent, and/or are aimed maliciously at them and/or their allies.
In my own game, using hints from encounters, calling cards from the villain, NPCs' reactions and information shared with the party, and a few convenient divinations by the party Oracle, they know they're up against someone big, bad, magically capable, and with a hate-on for the party for reasons they have yet to discern but have begun to theorize and speculate. If the AP is written with these kinds of hints in mind, I think it would go a long way toward connecting modules together and giving them a cohesive thread, and preventing "out of nowhere" surprises in the later chapters.
My 2cp... adjusted somewhat for inflation =)
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So... give me some specific examples from adventure paths where they lacked the cohesive feel, and I'll see if I can't address those concerns going forward.Oh, boy. James, you'll probably think that I'm bagging on you and Paizo, but believe me, that is not the case. I've kept my suscription since I began collecting with Kingmaker and I'll continue to do so.
That being said, I think some of the Paizo APs I've bought since I started my suscription with Kingmaker are pretty horrible when it comes to story cohesion and recurring characters. The reason for that is easy to see. Six different authors are working concurrently at a product which is supposed to be part of a greater whole. However, it appears that story coordination between those authors is mostly non-existant and is kept strictly to the editorial level.
One of the results is that many APs lack a continuous supporting cast, which grounds the party in the story and helps to avoid the feeling that the AP is a series of mostly unrelated vignettes. Even the one AP where the presence of a continuous supporting cast was kind of the point, Jade Regent, lacked almost completely in helping GMs with the characterization of the continuous supporting NPCs after they were introduced in the first module.
As someone who reads a lot of novels and especially loves long, tightly interconnected series, like the Dresden Files, it is a bit glaring that individual modules mostly are self-contained stories, which only lightly touch on the greater whole. The result is that writing staples like long-term foreshadowing, both for plot and NPC characterization, are mostly absent.
A few APs are better in that regard, like Curse of the Crimson Throne and some exhibit this problem pretty badly, like Carrion Crown.
So, how could this be improved? If I were the responsible person, I think my first step would be to get the authors together with the editing staff in a Skype/Teamspeak conference before the writing process starts and shoot around story ideas for recurring friendly NPCs, villains and story hints. We live in a modern enough time that everybody having a headset with microphone and a voice chat client installed on his computer should not that be that big of a problem.
Then repeat the process once every month, so that people can get updates to the status of the project and adjust their own manuscript accordingly. Rinse and repeat until the AP is done. Authors who already finished their script can drop out of the voice conference schedule.
I absolutely don't think you're bagging on me or Paizo; this is exactly the type of feedback I'm looking for.
And in fact, I plan to include a lot more robust recurring character roles in the upcoming Wrath of the Righteous. Rob's doing the same for Reign of Winter, although that's a harder one to pull that element off in, due to the fact that Reign of Winter travels ALL over the place.
The problem with getting the authors together along with the editing staff is that is a TREMENDOUS amount of logistics to pull off. If I can solve it by involving one person—the developer—that's a much more efficient way of handling multiple NPCs who play recurring roles in an adventure. We've done it before, I think, quite well—Savage Tide, for example. And Curse of the Crimson Throne. But those were adventure paths where recurring NPC elements were built in from the start.
In theory, Jade Regent was going to have that element, but that AP suffered a bit due to the fact that the developer was not the person who outlined the adventure path—that also happened with Carrion Crown. That's something we've stopped doing, but since then, we've not really done an Adventure Path that features a lot of recurring NPCs... I guess there are some, in fact, in Skull & Shackles... does that do the job? Or was it a disappointment.
IN ANY EVENT: I'm getting from all this feed back that you in particular are simply looking for recurring NPC allies, NOT anything else, correct?
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If Paizo did have a 1 author adventure path. I suggest Eric Mona do it. It doesn't seem like he is that busy and the last 2 adventures he did have been two of my all time favorite adventures. whispering Cairn is next to Hommelet in my pantheon, so get Eric out of the hot tub and give him a pen and some paper.
Heh.
As others have said... Erik is far from not busy. I would actually nominate him as the single BUSIEST person in all of Paizo. And that in fact is the reason why you haven't seen much stuff by Erik lately. He quite literally does not have time to write these days. Which is unfortunate... but it is what it is.
We've done it before, I think, quite well—Savage Tide, for example.
OH YES. Savage Tide was awesome for recurring opponents/allies/callbacks. Worked out so very well.
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We've done it before, I think, quite well—Savage Tide, for example.OH YES. Savage Tide was awesome for recurring opponents/allies/callbacks. Worked out so very well.
And yet, that Adventure Path had far more authors than any one Pathfinder AP has ever had.
Making the main villian appear in some early is always good. But I think for me the more important thing is for later adventures to reflect actions in previous adventures.
For example, in Mass Effect and Dragon age sequels, what transpired in the past in the original game is carried over into the new game. It gives continuity. It would take too much space in an adventure to incorporate a lot of previous encounter outcomes into following adventures (and the range of possible player decisions), but including some simple binary choices works. I.E (Trinia handed over to guard, Trinia taken by PC's to Vencarlo for hiding). In my opinion, adventure paths are largely made or broken by the starting adventure. It "sets the table". It is the origin story, where motivations are formed. It has to have a lot of seeds, some will never amount to anything, but there should be enough so that authors of later adventures can pick and choose what they want to enhance. There is the ability to do this in adventure 2 or 3, but beyond that the characters get into the meet of the tale and those original story seeds should already have some meaning.
I think in that respect, CotCT set a good table, so did legacy of fire, and serpents skull, and Shattered Star. But Of those, only CotCT and Shattered star really carried the flavour throughout. I think Legacy of fire wasted a brilliant opening chapter and so did serpents skull. And second darkness..ugh..it's like going to an Italian restuarant and after minestone soup for an appetizer being served burritos for a main course and black forest cake for dessert.
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It's also worth reminding folks that an Adventure Path is NOT a novel or a TV Series.
The fact that those who would play the roles of main characters in a novelization of an Adventure Path are pretty much the ONLY CHARACTERS IN THE ENTIRE ADVENTURE that we as authors and editors and developers have no control over makes it particularly tricky.
I don't want our adventure paths to ever be regarded as "Adventures where you, the PCs, are the less important elements of the adventure and are only there to watch the GM play the NPCs."
Jade Regent could have EASILY fallen into that trap. I suspect, in hindsight, we erred too much on the other side of the fence there, though.
IN ANY EVENT: I'm getting from all this feed back that you in particular are simply looking for recurring NPC allies, NOT anything else, correct?
For my part, continuity of theme is more important to an AP than "continuity of NPCs".
I didnt get into Carrion Crown, since the theme of horror was a little too broad for me. The ones I've been most drawn into were the ones where I could sum up the AP in a sentence. (Kingmaker 1-5 was great - "you explore a wilderness area and found a kingdom". I also quite liked Jade Regent - but then again, I wasnt looking forward to an Asian adventure, so a "Marco Polo-like discovery of a new eastern continent" was something of a pleasant surprise).
Having said that - I think you are hitting this goal pretty consistently, so it's not really feedback beyond "keep doing what you're doing". :)