Reflections on the Jade Regent AP

[William Bryan]

It's been almost 2 years and my players are knee-deep in the 6th chapter of the AP. This campaign began out of losing 3 amazing players all at once forcing our Kingmaker campaign to disband leaving myself and 2 other players with the question, "what's next?" and "Who else are we playing with?"

Enter 3 amazing ladies employed at my local coffee shop trusting in a complete stranger to provide something that they've never experienced before. And so 3 newbies--although each of them were already obsessed with the fantasy genre--set out to learn the Pathfinder system, but more importantly, they learned to role play. One had life take her to Arizona for schooling. The other two? Well, lets just say that their characters are now powerful forces within the country of Minkai as well as joining me in PaizoCon festivities for the last 2 years. It's been an absolute pleasure becoming their friends. How has that translated into our game? Amazingly well! I count them among my closest friends and love planning things with them both inside and outside our game.

Brinewall Legacy spoiler:

Not including the fact that we began the campaign with WE BE GOBLINS! YOU BE FOOD!! as the players playing the treacherous goblins as their first foray into RPing, BL was a fantastic first adventure that breathed much life into the plot, NPC interaction, and the slow but inevitable transition between a variety of cultures. All my players experienced all of those qualities to be superb.

Night of Frozen Shadows spoiler:

Given that the majority of the AP was a "railroad" AP (no negativity intended), the fact that this adventure was very much that didn't bother me in the slightest. In fact, the Noteriety Point system was a brilliant mechanic for determining key events while showing the PCs how their actions will have consequences. It also had AMAZING opportunities for dynamic NPCs (Lute Haggersly was my personal favorite following the heroes all the way to Kasai).

Hungry Storm spoiler:

HS had some amazing components, awesome battles, and cinematic gold within. It had two major failings however. The caravan rules and the diverging story from the metaplot. Otherwise, a fine concept. Who wouldn't think of a journey accross the North Pole as anything but HELLA exciting? I do commend the author for attempting to create alternate pathways in the journey as well, mixing it up as much as possible.

Forest of Spirits spoiler:

I thought this adventure to be sub par on my first read through. However, that is NOT how it was played out. The first part within the city of Ordu-Aganhai was culture shock RPing GOLD!! The PCs had so many frustrating and creepy culture shock moments, they were so relieved to be gone from that place. You can tell though that my players had a great time trying to do something other than hack their way out of a situation (although they almost tried =}

Then on to the House of Withering Blossoms. I gauge this dungeon crawl on something that my most experienced player said. "Bill, I HATE dungeon crawls. But this one is A. not annoying, and B. got a lot of historical flavor." The major villain was rather weak but I spruced her up by having her be able to multiply every time she got to half HPs as a reflection of her shattered mind combined with the magic of the underground pagoda. FUN!!

Tide of Honor and The Empty Throne spoiler:

I really considered these last two adventures the same adventure as it for the first time gave the PCs a "sandbox" to wander in. My PCs created many things that were not written in the AP that directly affected the way Minkai related to them. Invading gaijin or rightful liberators? Hmmmmmm. I am finding the 6th adventure to be choc-full of historical RPing opportunities. As we are still finishing up this AP, this is all I'll go into about #6.

All-in-all, an amazing and bold AP! I found it to be just the challenge I needed as an experienced GM. Many people expressed their overall disdain for creating the PCs as essentially NOT the main characters. I experienced just the opposite. It meant that instead of the party's "liege lord" in a fixed location, she was traveling along side her most trusted friends and bodyguards. It meant that if the party was having trouble sussing out a dilemma, you almost always had a multitude of NPCs to share their varied points of view thereby creating a richness and an aliveness to the campaign. And it meant that personal loss was never far away. I don't mean that last statement in a villainous way. I mean it from a storytelling perspective. Frodo and Sam lost so much before accomplishing their goal and that's what made the story. Not their end goal but their loss along the way.

Thank you James Jacobs and the whole JR crew. Well done!

[magnuskn]

Thanks for your impressions. :) I'll probably finish up the AP in the next two months and I'll be posting my own review then. I come at some of the things from a different perspective, but so far I can say that this has been the best AP experience since CotCT.

[Aeshuura]

Thank you for sharing! I didn't look at the last two, as we are currently running through the last book with my home group, but as soon as we are done, I will begin tackling the enormous task of trying to run this via PbP!

I hope that I can accomplish what you have, and congratulations for bringing 3 new players into the fold, so to speak!

[Blue_Hill]

Thanks for sharing this. My campaign only has one session left so soon I can comment or write my own thoughts about Jade Regent AP.

Sneak peek for those who can't wait:

Spoiler:

It has been awesome. Maybe THE MOST AWESOME AP for me.

[Aravan]

I suppose now would be a perfect time to follow up to William Bryan's post, as everything is still fresh in my mind. I am a player (one of the two original players from the Kingmaker campaign)in Bill's group and we just finished up the final fight in The Empty Throne. I am not going to get into spoilers as this is more of a overall review than detailed points about specific encounters.

Overall this AP was spectacular and it has made for some of the most fun RPing I have had in a long long time. It is somewhat of a railroad but frankly in my opinion this isn't a bad thing. I enjoy well done railroads and all of the players bought into the railroad. We all wanted to play a story where we would be on an epic journey to save a country see our friend put onto the throne as the rightful ruler and to see how our original character concepts evolve during the grueling trek. With this in mind we all created characters who fit within the framework of the story and then brought this amazing journey to life. The real strength of this AP was in the role-playing. We didn't find the caravan system very fun, it ranged from tedious to frustrating and by the second book we had basically thrown it out. I think there was some sort of friendship system for the NPC's but we just role-played instead.

Brinewall Legacy
Great book, wonderful introduction to the AP with a lot of flavor. It gave me a sense of anticipation as this motley band of friends set off on an unknown adventure.

Night of Frozen Shadows
I loved the first 3/4 of the book. Some very cinematic fights (we lost our first PC) and interesting RP. This is when our DM first started to create a sense of paranoia in the players. We suddenly realized there were people out to get us and forces more powerful than we could suspect were working against us. Did not enjoy the dungeon crawl at the end of the book, it was too long and tedious. Also this book was our first introduction to the dreaded:

Spoiler:

TENGU NINJA!!

Hungry Storm
My least favorite book. It just seemed disconnected from the rest of the story and I am not sure if I ever really figured out what was going on. Definitely creepy but after a while I just got tired of being cold and miserable.

Forest of Spirits
In some ways this became my favorite book. The first half had wonderful role-playing opportunities in both the city and then the forest. While the second half was an epic dungeon crawl that was far better done than most. Various traumatic events happened during the dungeon crawl that made for amazing role-playing (everyone's favorite PC Rupert died)

Spoiler:

Pour one out for the homies

Tide of Honor & The Empty Throne
Suitable ending to the game, there were some amazing fights and locations and lots of role-playing. We truly realized how foreign this world was to ours and how frustrating that could be. I will say that high level fights are not my favorite and by the end of the game I was very thankful that Bill skipped all nonessential fights. High level casters just make things go on forever (as the party wizard I am basically the pot calling the kettle black) and not in a good way. Be as it may the final few fights were suitably epic and there were plenty of high fives going around when we finally defeated the Jade Reagent.

Overall many of the complaints I have read about the AP, were its strongest points during our game. We also introduced three new players to Pathfinder and I think it was a perfect AP for that. The storyline was epic and heroic. The theme of a group of friends traveling to an unfamiliar country to restore a long lost queen to her rightful throne is one that numerous fantasy novels have paralleled. I am both sad to see it end and very happy to have finished such a wonderful game.