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I was having a discussion with my Wrath of the Righteous group about something I noticed occurring a lot in Paizo APs. It's not a game-breaker or something that makes any of the APs unplayable, just something that crops up enough that it feels like an unconscious rut the AP concept staff might be getting stuck in.
This post is gonna have some serious spoilers for multiple APs. I'm gonna try to put all of them behind spoiler tags, but if you're holding out on any of the named APs, try to avoid the information hidden therein or it may deflate your game.
Anyhoo. What brought the trend to my attention was reading the Wrath of the Righteous campaign outline. I got to book 4 and 5...
And I realized something: my response, that going off away from "home" for a couple AP volumes always means the night-soil has hit the fan when you get back. Examples:
I don't know if this is an adventure-writing rut, hewing to some Campbellian story arc thing, or just needing each AP to have a pathos gut-punch, but when its the same theme, it starts getting boring. Or grating.
Now, in order to provide some constructive aid with this, I'm gonna brainstorm ways to avoid this trope being overused, and I'd like to open the floor for others to chime in. I'm not saying never use it. Just do it less.
Which brings me to the opening "we're attack right now" schtick. RotR does it, Second Darkness does it, CoT does it, WotR does it. Serpent's Skull kinda does it. And I get the impulse. It throws the PCs into the midst of things right then, right there. It's action-y. You're killing goblins, or running from Hellknights, or flashing back to watching some really heavy stuff go down. It pulls you in.
I dunno about others, but it's also getting a little bit drab. I s'pose the single alternate is "PCs go out to stop stuff," which is hardly new ground, but it at least feels proactive.
Anyway. I'm not trying to accuse you fine folks of being lazy. These are all really fun APs. I'm just wondering, is it intentional? Is it just something that mentally it's easy to fall into? And is these something fresher we can replace it with for a bit? I know Mummy's Mask is gonna start off with, "city's full of undead, run/fight for your life," so we're not changing that one there. But maybe for Iron Gods we can take a breather on the city being under attack? Especially if it gets squished offscreen while the PCs are doing what the AP tells them to?
Just a thought. I now yield the floor.
It's a time-honored tradition of fantasy. Just remember what the hobbits come home to after getting rid of Sauron, for example.
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To help provide an alternative. A bit ago, I wrote a concept for an Akitoni AP in my Akiton Thread (link to full AP concept brainstorm here). I start things off with the PCs attempting a coup, so we've inverted the paradigm in a way that (hopefully) feels proactive and rewarding. They've got a few invasions that come later, but I purposefully wanted them to be at home when they occur. The city never gets leveled (unless you fail and are now dead). The second invasion, where the massive war barge Invictus arrives, you jump it before it gets within pummeling range. When a later book takes you out of town, you get to come back to an un-flattened town. No one's up in ur base, killin ur dudes. You still have a house without holes in it.
I'm not saying I'm better than Paizo at this. I wrote a still-just-some-dots-to-be-connected, bare-bones outline. They've written 16 APs, including the 3 from the Dungeon days. I'm just wondering if some new ideas might help to make the AP mix more diverse.
Anyhoo. I need some water. Talk 'mongst y'selves.
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It's a time-honored tradition of fantasy. Just remember what the hobbits come home to after getting rid of Sauron, for example.
That example literally came up in our discussion. I'm not pooping on the idea in general, or saying it can't happen. It just seems to be happening a bit too much. Not every AP needs an evil wizard as the boss either, and Paizo's been good about mixing that up. Heck, in one AP, the bad guy's not even evil. That's the kind of change in flavor that can be refreshing.
That's certainly a valid criticism.
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Demon Lords: 3
Gods: 2
Evil Wizards: 1 1/2
Evil Queens: 1
Drow: 1
Genies: 1
Evil Tieflings: 2
Evil Fey: 1
Evil Undead: 1 1/2
Evil Human, None of the Above: 1
Construct: 1
Not including Mummy's Mask (90% chance of undead spellcaster villain) or Iron Gods (65% chance of evil robot overlord). Also not including Jade Regent's extra, like, three BBEGs. You fight a lot of named evil dudes in that room. Including the unused extra BBEG from Shattered Star, making up some fractions above.
That's a good mix. Mildly heavy on the demon lords, but people like killing demon lords.
Adventures, like stories, need conflict. Take the following example.
"The heroes come home from the abyss and ... everything is honky dory!... ... ... crickets... crickets."
Obviously heroes need something to do. If everything is fine there is no adventuring to be done. I think that is the origin of these calamities. They drive the story in a straightforward way necessary for store-bought adventures.
That being said I understand not liking off screen action. It takes options away from players at the same time it provides new opportunities so some people feel a bit railroaded. I personally love the disasters. They give my hero something to fix.
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I participated in the off-forum discussion that led to Ashton posting his feedback.
(Good job BTW...)
And I was the one that observed the element of the "Scourging of the Shire" theme. I think a lot of that comes from Tolkien's own feelings about returning to Britain at the end of the World War. Its not a bad theme, but it was his experience. It may not apply to every similiar situation.
If I had to hazard a guess, I think the Developers are trying to illustrate "Things don't remain static. Things change. Events have an impact." Those are really laudable elements to include in a larger story.
If I can interpret Ashton's concern a little, I think he's finding it frustrating that the Developers implement these large changes while the PCs have been led away during a side mission. You'll note that in his critiques he is more forgiving with those instances where the PCs remain involved at all times. Otherwise, it seems to him like a shell game—"Oops, you looked away and now I have destroyed your home."
Ashton, please clarify if I am misrepresenting you.
My hope for Wrath of the Righteous- (because my knowledge of the later chapters is sketchy) is that Mendev has seen the worst pounding in Chapter One, right in the beginning, and the rest of the AP strives to make things better. To put the bad guys on the run.
After all, even in Yellow Submarine the Blue Meanies have to trash Pepperland in order for us to have a story, but then "Sgt. Pepper and Co." drive them out. But the Meanies didn't also trash Liverpool too, while the boys were busy off in the Sea of Holes.
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Adventures, like stories, need conflict. Take the following example.
"The heroes come home from the abyss and ... everything is honky dory!... ... ... crickets... crickets."
I think you do his point a disservice and you're putting words in his mouth. Ashton doesn't advocate not having conflict, that would be silly. Good golly man, they teach that in 6th grade English.
Nor is the "scourging of the Shire" theme a bad one at all, done in moderation and without a lot of repetition.
Rather I think he's drawing attention to the fact that if every time you look away from some place you care about THEN the bad guys choose to trash it, can be repetitive.
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Yep, you're right on the money regarding my points, Jim. I've got no problem with the PCs defending home... on occasion. I probably wouldn't even mind home getting slapped around offscreen... once or twice. It just feels like it's happening more than needed.
There's plenty of ways to input action and drive the PCs towards a goal without needing to smash their windows every time. The PCs embark on an epic journey in Jade Regent because their friend needs their help. PCs are press-ganged in Skull & Shackles, and seek revenge not because their home was attacked, but because they got treated like crap for a month. Kingmaker assigns the PCs to clear out barely-inhabited bandit lands at the behest of their liege-lord.
There's a lot of ways to motivate a group. Let's explore some different ones.
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They have been, and it's a great trend. I'm just throwing my two cents in.
Paizo's been fantastic at listening to fans about what they like and dislike (it's how we weirdos got Numeria as an AP, after all; I remember Clinton Boomer and I BEGGING for a 32-page Numeria adventure a few years back and getting shot down).
I should take some time to point out the APs where this is not occurring. Jade Regent especially is a great example of a lot of things being done differently.
And I'm 95% certain the PCs don't come back from the Abyss in Wrath to a messed-up Drezen, but I'm not 100%. There's still an off-chance that the invasion you fight off in the outline is the second one, and you have to spend time patching up your city as fast as possible before the baddies return. And Queen Wassername could be crucified in front of your house. I HOPE not, but it's possible.
Part of what made this especially an odd trend is the amount of GM advice out there to not hit your PCs at home too often. If you keep making their hometown and loved ones targets, PCs either never leave home (so as to protect those they care about at all times) or never develop ties with anyone (so as to avoid being hurt). That's lessons I learned in Dungeon articles, DMGs, and Pathfinder Core books alike.
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I think it's more than fair to be wary of returning to this particular well too often, but, at the same time, giving the PCs something to care about and then putting it in danger makes for some excellent drama and adventuring.
That said, it appears that your concern is more narrow in that this always happens when the PCs are away, which is also a fair enough point, but I think it overlooks how effective of a hook this is to get the PCs into a new volume. One of the challenges that Paizo seems to face in the APs is how to keep the party hooked and moving into the next volume of an AP, and there just aren't all that many ways to do that effectively. Having a place the PCs care about threatened is a good way to get them to follow the AP thread into the next volume.
Stil, there's a lot of potential for an interesting thread here. The other trend that's been noted in a number of APs is that volume 5 is typically about finding the weapon/secret to defeating the BBEG. Again, it makes sense for that volume to serve that purpose, but it can get a little bit repetitive.
I suppose the one last thought I would offer is that if you want to offer constructive criticism, you might want to dig more deeply into each instance and describe what you don't like, or maybe even identify an instance where the attack on the homefront worked particularly well for you or your group (though the example above basically does that already). I don't think that it's really an option to abandon this tool entirely, but it might be more effectively used if we can identify when it is used well and when it is used poorly.
Way back when I was running a 2nd edition AD&D campaign, I created my own town that the players lived in. The group was investigating various things while living on their own farm on the outskirts of town. While I never got to the point of that game, I had intended on destroying the town eventually to force the players to move into the wider world.
I'm glad I never did. Seriously. It's overdone.
That said, I'm rather glad Reign of Winter avoided this. Though it did so by not having a home base from which the players return constantly to.
This may be something to avoid doing in the future... if even by having the players find plans that show if they'd not wiped out the enemy, their foes would have attacked that town, but their plans have now been disrupted. Sort of like the middle to end of the first part of Runelords and the planned goblin invasion.
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And here's my OTOH, I AM seriously excited by the prospect of taking the fight to the Abyss and having entire chapters on another plane of existence.. and potentially being the cause of significant events there as well as Golarion. We've had demi-planes in the past, but this is a little different altogether. It smacks of the Queen of the Demonweb Pits, and that thrills me.
Especially possible major upheaval in planar and divine politics.
We haven't done much other plane stuff before and this is a welcome and brave step forward. While I appreciate many of Ashton's points, I would not wanted to lose this opportunity.
And I was the one that observed the element of the "Scourging of the Shire" theme. I think a lot of that comes from Tolkien's own feelings about returning to Britain at the end of the World War.
Tolkien would be rolling over in his grave if he heard you say this . . . You know that, right? ;)
And I was the one that observed the element of the "Scourging of the Shire" theme. I think a lot of that comes from Tolkien's own feelings about returning to Britain at the end of the World War.Tolkien would be rolling over in his grave if he heard you say this . . . You know that, right? ;)
Truth hurts baby. He needed an editor too. Now I am I'll-prepared to fight a Tolkien lore duel, so I am going to (politely) not engage on it further. But, I know he denied this most of his remaining life, but I honestly thought he grudgingly conceded the point towards the end. I cannot cite a source though, so I surrender I advance. I'd rather not the subject derail the thread.
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I think I'll grab the most egregious example to start things off: Kelmarane.
Then you use the damn thing.
JJ even kinda apologizes about this in his editorial, IIRC. After all, they're taking you on a bit of a railroad here, throwing you into the demiplane of Kakishon, or else just ending the campaign with the scroll hidden in a lead box somewhere. Now, book 4 and 5 are pretty darn sweet adventures. I LOVE Kakishon, and fighting your way up through the castle on the City of Brass is a blast. And then you come home, and you've been gone a good while (indeed, it's a pretty decent amount of time, since time is all wonky inside Kakishon), Katapesh is kinda mad at you for unleashing efreeti in the middle of town, and your little happy home is TRASHED. Not only did you not get a chance to prevent it, but you actually caused it, because opening up the Scroll of Kakishon is what unleashed the damned efreeti in the first place.
As a solo example, I could probably live with it. But with Curse of the Crimson throne similarly taking you away in book 4 and 5 to return to a mess back home in book 6, and smaller examples given above, it just feels like an overused trope.
As I've mentioned before, and others have mentioned before, I don't want this narrative device taken out whole hog, though I do feel like it's kinda a bit cheap, like overusing the musical sting in a horror film, or (almost worse) using the musical sting to mislead in a horror film. Does it make you jump? Sure. But overdone it becomes more annoying than useful.
Maybe I've got an extra beef with it since it feels a bit manipulative, like killing a minor PC just to show the bad guy's totally evil. If the bad guy mails you your dead buddy, he's a jerk, but I'd at least like a shot at stopping him. This is a game about actions, about heroes striving (and sometimes failing!), not a chance to punch the players in the soft 'n tenders for caring.
Let the bad guy attack my house. But let me try and stop him at it, too. And if you're going to make the attack unavoidable and unstoppable, don't do it in half the APs.
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And here's my OTOH, I AM seriously excited by the prospect of taking the fight to the Abyss and having entire chapters on another plane of existence.. and potentially being the cause of significant events there as well as Golarion. We've had demi-planes in the past, but this is a little different altogether. It smacks of the Queen of the Demonweb Pits, and that thrills me.
Especially possible major upheaval in planar and divine politics.
We haven't done much other plane stuff before and this is a welcome and brave step forward. While I appreciate many of Ashton's points, I would not wanted to lose this opportunity.
Oh believe me, INVERTING the trope is fine by me. I do it in my Akiton AP layout. The PCs utterly trash the city they're invading, because revolutions are messy. Then it's their responsibility to keep it safe. I've written a couple assaults on their turf into the plot, but the assaults don't amount to much unless the PCs massively fail at being leaders. There's a chance for their house to be trashed, but they at least get to do something to prevent it.
I vastly prefer taking the fight to the baddies than always reacting to their unstoppable machinations.
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Just a quick brainstorm: There may be ways to use this trope a little differently too.
One that occurred to me: Maybe you're gone, and when you get back, someone else has taken the place under their wings, and protected it, becoming the new heroes. Maybe they're really bad guys for you to defeat...but maybe they're really good guys who took over when you abandoned the place, and now everyone looks to them, and thinks you're all a bunch of chumps.
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Just a quick brainstorm: There may be ways to use this trope a little differently too.
One that occurred to me: Maybe you're gone, and when you get back, someone else has taken the place under their wings, and protected it, becoming the new heroes. Maybe they're really bad guys for you to defeat...but maybe they're really good guys who took over when you abandoned the place, and now everyone looks to them, and thinks you're all a bunch of chumps.
Or maybe even both (cf Marvel's Thunderbolts) ;-)
My guess is that it happens in the PCs' absence because if they were there, either they would rout the attacking army, no harm done to their city, or they would TPK in glory.
Apparently the expected result is their city destroyed, but the PCs alive. What purpose does it serve ?
Motivation for revenge ?
What else could we use for motivating PCs at this level ?
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That's an interesting take on the trope, and while it's only been barely touched on (usually bad guys comin' in and claiming the PCs are cowards for supposedly doing their jobs, like that three-faced "vigilante" in CoCT), I wouldn't mind seeing it played with once or twice. It's easier to kick out a squatter in your house than build a new one after it's been burnt down.
I just don't like PCs being punished for doing what the AP made them do. LoF could have run just fine with the PCs facing the BBEG in his hidden sancum without leveling Kelmarane. Putting the sword Serithtiel in a forgotten vault deep under Korvosa would have let the PCs be the leaders of the revolution they seemed built to be without leaving town (and letting all literal Hell break loose in the process). The mere sighting of a giant owlbear anywhere near the capital could have been a call to arms for a Kingmaker group to go a-hunting.
And in the instance of epic McGuffins, it's like getting the McGuffin (often some killer weakness that can turn the final battle into a chump fight when used by a moderately-skilled PC or two) is more important than defending the people who were the reason for getting the McGuffin to defend them in the first place. That can feel a bit shoehorned. I mean, we all love an epic quest, but the Shire doesn't need to be bulldozed EVERY time.
I think Kingmaker's a good example of how to give you the uber-sword of doom without burying all your progress in the process. RotR also does this well in the form of Runeforge.
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As for motivations, well, there's plenty of them. Here's a few, and hardly the only, ones:
Old-school hack 'n slash motivated by greed (still a useful motivator, though we've thankfully moved beyond it being the primary one). However, for an amoral-leaning AP, MOAR GOLDZ is a fine enough motivation. Heck, of Skull & Shackles' two motivational sides, it's basically greed and revenge, making it something folks of most any alignment can get behind.
Many "kick down the sandcastle while you're away" plots involve love, but there's other ways to motivate by love. Loved ones even threatened by apocalypse can motivate a PC (or group) to action. Or a beloved country. Or just loving a place called home without spikes in the seats.
Pride. Who's got a prideful PC in their backlog? I think we all do. You can threaten to make PCs seem just inferior and get motivation. Old APs used to do this with the "rival adventuring party" trope, which I'm sure fell by the wayside because putting leveled-up stats in most or all of your volumes got to be a space-waster (especially for groups who offed the rivals in book 1, or turned them so they were all cohorts).
Hate. An old classic, that doesn't even involve bulldozing the PC's hard-won gains. Even (especially?) paladins can hate on something so dangerous, so utterly evil, that it threatens all of existence just by being there.
Anyhoo, my WotR PCs are posting like crazy on Facebook. Feel free to throw in your own chewy meaty ideas.
While I understand the critism...using the same tricks over and over again can get a bit stale...I think there is another reason they do this besides motivating the PCs.
It gets the PCs thinking they are the big damn heroes in the story. See how things go to the dogs when they are gone?
So I think that is another aspect to think about.
I have no ideas at that this time though.
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It can get them feeling like they're important, but I'm more worried that it makes them feel like to leave their important job of defending the poor schlubs is to leave said schlubs to slaughter.
Wouldn't it feel better to defend the schlubs AND get the goal, or die trying?
Isn't it more emancipating to rescue the folks AND get the McGuffin, with the in-between options being determined by actions and not story fiat?
If a plot is essentially an either/or, over 50% of the time, with the either being "follow the story," and the or being "ignore the AP hook," we're just asking PCs whether or not to finish the AP.
It's like a spice. Using it sparingly (an NPC here, a shop there) lets the PCs know they can't fix everything. Crushing their homes is just pouring salt on the corned beef. Let PC actions determine success and/or failure. Let the story tell the story, not ad hoc fiat.
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And there are ways you can do it that give the players agency - especially late in the game, with divination abilities available. Have what the players are doing while "away" have effects on what happens to their cool place - and find a way to let the players know that.
They're raging through the BBEG's secret demiplane of evilness, and as they make choice that disrupt the evil machinations of the bad guy, they find recall orders on a group, telling them to come back from their raid on Heroes' Home right away because they have to protect the Sword of Bad Guy Killing. Or they see an evil wizard complaining as he views the dispersal of his summoned minions attacking their trade routes of whatever because they broke the Biggest Summoning Circle ever.
Something like that would make a nice little variation on the theme, but give the players a feeling of agency and power even as they're away.
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It can get them feeling like they're important, but I'm more worried that it makes them feel like to leave their important job of defending the poor schlubs is to leave said schlubs to slaughter.
Wouldn't it feel better to defend the schlubs AND get the goal, or die trying?
That's why they should kill the citizens themselves.
Poison them, and raise their perfectly preserved corpses, to run the city forever, as a monument to this SOCIETY OF UTTER PERFECTION! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!|
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And there are ways you can do it that give the players agency - especially late in the game, with divination abilities available. Have what the players are doing while "away" have effects on what happens to their cool place - and find a way to let the players know that.
They're raging through the BBEG's secret demiplane of evilness, and as they make choice that disrupt the evil machinations of the bad guy, they find recall orders on a group, telling them to come back from their raid on Heroes' Home right away because they have to protect the Sword of Bad Guy Killing. Or they see an evil wizard complaining as he views the dispersal of his summoned minions attacking their trade routes of whatever because they broke the Biggest Summoning Circle ever.
Something like that would make a nice little variation on the theme, but give the players a feeling of agency and power even as they're away.
This is a good idea. I could get down with high-level "your base is under attack" stuff.
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Razor Coast takes a different approach:
Thus the players are motivated to action in the same way the trope intends without them not being present for it.
Interesting points being made here...will have to consider this more.
Noteworthy example, Feros.
Construct: 1
Can anyone please tell me which AP this is? I love the concept of a Construct BBEG.
Unless I'm mistaken it's Shattered Star.Can anyone please tell me which AP this is? I love the concept of a Construct BBEG.
Construct: 1
it should say Haunted Construct:)
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All three of you are correct. It's also why there's 1 1/2 undead villains total in the AP.
It's a pretty burly boss, too. I actually hit my uber-beefy PCs a couple times.
Thanks for the answers guys. N'wah, I'm guessing that's the Shattered Star BBEG on the cover? I HATE when they do that.
Just a quick brainstorm: There may be ways to use this trope a little differently too.
One that occurred to me: Maybe you're gone, and when you get back, someone else has taken the place under their wings, and protected it, becoming the new heroes. Maybe they're really bad guys for you to defeat...but maybe they're really good guys who took over when you abandoned the place, and now everyone looks to them, and thinks you're all a bunch of chumps.
I can imagine a Blue Dragon pulling this off in Legacy of Fire.
Thanks for the answers guys. N'wah, I'm guessing that's the Shattered Star BBEG on the cover? I HATE when they do that.
Well, except for the first two APs , where the covers featured the iconics, hasn't the "BBEG" (I hate that term) always been on the cover of AP part six (exception: Jade Regent)? And for Rise of the Runelords there was a part 1 edition with the villain on the cover, and he is also featured on the cover of the Anniversary Edition, which I think is cool, actually.
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Just a quick brainstorm: There may be ways to use this trope a little differently too.
One that occurred to me: Maybe you're gone, and when you get back, someone else has taken the place under their wings, and protected it, becoming the new heroes. Maybe they're really bad guys for you to defeat...but maybe they're really good guys who took over when you abandoned the place, and now everyone looks to them, and thinks you're all a bunch of chumps.
Or maybe even both (cf Marvel's Thunderbolts) ;-)
My guess is that it happens in the PCs' absence because if they were there, either they would rout the attacking army, no harm done to their city, or they would TPK in glory.
Apparently the expected result is their city destroyed, but the PCs alive. What purpose does it serve ?
Motivation for revenge ?
What else could we use for motivating PCs at this level ?
I think that The black raven argument is relevant. If I should judge most players by the posts in forum, they rarely know when to retreat.
So if the big Efreeti lord with a plethora of minions attack the city when you are level 7 or so, most players will continue to fight him even if there is no chance to victory, at the same time lamenting how the adventure is unbalanced and unfair. End result TPK and unhappy players.On the other hand if the BEEG from the last adventure can be defeated/destroyed 3 adventures earlier there is a problem, right?
What I say above is a simplification obviously, there are way to do that and way for a party to manage that kind of fight, but a lot of players hate losing, even when it is a temporary setback.
Returning to a wrecked town: they are mad at the enemy.
Having to admit that they can't defend the town: they will be mad at the adventure creators.
So if the goal is having the BEEEG taking control of the PC hometown or wrecking it, doing that when they are in the city is problematic.
If the goal is to depict a successful defence, it is a different matter, obviously.
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I am playing through Legacy of Fire right now and we are near the end of Book 5. I am very much aware of what is coming, and I am not happy about it.
The very fact that JJ apologizes about railroading shows me that there is an awareness of how pissed off players would be with the direction of this AP. It has been fun, to say the least, but it is super frustrating to not only be forced to a location but to know that while you are gone something you spend time building is going to be destroyed.
I think out of all the APs, LoF is the one that pulls off the trope you are talking about in the worst way. Curse of the Crimson Throne, which I also played through, at least lets you leave knowing that things are going to get worse and that the best course of action to leave and do your best to return quickly. It also doesn't make it all the PCs fault. It can also be more easily adapted so that the players can have an effect on how bad things get.
LoF rips the ability to soften the blow from you, and even makes it impossible to avoid the railroading. The GM can't really make adjustments to the AP to allow the blows to be softened either. Maybe you can put the BBEG in book 4 and have the PCs chase him, but then much of book 6 might not work at all (though I am only speculating on that point.)
Certainly, if the PCs are going to return to find their homes in danger they need to be able to haven an effect on just how bad it becomes while building the tension. Think about the Baseball-Bomb theory that Hitchcock talks about in an interview. You can blow a baseball game up, without warning, and everyone jumps and for a moment they are afraid. But if you take that same bomb and show it under a bench that two men are sitting on while watching baseball and keep showing the timer on it tick down, the audience is going to grow more and more tense. The bomb may never go off, but for a few long minutes you have the audience far more fearful than when you just blew up the place.
Now, in a way even LoF builds the tension by letting you know in Book 4 what to expect in book 6. But to be honest, the tension turns to anger by about book 5 and it just turns into a revenge story at that point. I'm no longer on the edge of my seat, I'm standing and yelling. In a way, it blows the bomb too early and didn't give me a chance to freak out enough. Basically you get told that everything you hold dear was attacked the moment you used the map.
Instead, we could keep telling the players that the hometown is going to be attacked without actually attacking it. You could even start doing this while they are away, and the BBEG could have even lured them away just to attack it. The PCs then have the challenge to defend their home without actually being there. For whatever reason they have time, but they know it is limited, and every moment spent has to be towards the goal of saving everyone. Maybe they still haven't found the McGuffin, but someone bought them time and stalled the BBEG just enough for them to grab it at the last moment. The stalling doesn't have to be a heroic sacrifice either, it could be clever trickery, divine intervention, or a huge bluff. When the PCs finally arrive on scene, the order to attack was only just given. Things can still go bad for the hometown, as the PCs may not be able to handle everything at once and a few terrible foes break through town defenses, but at least there is a chance that the attack can be routed by the PCs and the bomb won't actually go off.
Rise of the Runelords does this, somewhat, and does it pretty well. Kingmaker also does it in book 4, though it is a bit more awkward.
Another alternative, if you really want to attack the town, is to have the bad guys arrive but not destroy anything. They just occupy it. Without the great heroes to defend it the town surrenders, he bad guys move in, and now we have a liberation story.
Well, except for the first two APs , where the covers featured the iconics, hasn't the "BBEG" (I hate that term) always been on the cover of AP part six (exception: Jade Regent)?
Technically, the genie on part 6 of Legacy of Fire is intended to simply be generic, but it seems that most people treat it as an illustration of the BBEG (as do I). The genie on part 5's cover was likewise initially generic, but has since been retconned into a specific NPC--for the purposes of naming a Reaper mini, at any rate.
I'm guessing that's the Shattered Star BBEG on the cover? I HATE when they do that., hasn't the "BBEG" (I hate that term)
Zaister, out of curiosity, what term would you use?
I understand that putting the 'Main Monster' on the cover pulls in eyeballs, but doesn't it seem like a major spoiler?!
That brings to mind the movie Skyrim which put in it's trailer the scene where a giant alien foot stomping a Ferrari. So when the time comes & some characters got into said Ferrari, you knew they were soon to be paste.
I'm just hoping Art Directors can find something else to pull people into products besides images which give away things from said products.
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I can't blame 'em too much for putting the villain on the cover. You want an awesome image for that villain, and Wayne Reynolds is pretty expensive for a mere interior image nowadays. Plus, at the right time, you get to hold up the volume, say, "you face THIS," and get a "holy crap" from the folks that didn't see the cover before.
Pretty much all of my players are able to divide the player "seen that cover" knowledge from the character "WHAT IS THAT" knowledge, though it does lack some of the oomph from the ones who were blindsided by the nasty beasty or uber-wizard.
Though I do illustrate the occasional boss mini, and holding the detailed dude next to your piddly halfling helps put things in perspective. :P
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I think people are too concerned with spoilers or as I call them "thhhpoilertthhhhh".
If you've never read the Hobbit is it spoiled by having SMAUG on the cover?
If you've never seen The Dark Knight is it spoiled by seeing a poster with The Joker?
By the same token is it a spoiler to see a Runelord on the front of Rise of the Runelords?
Or a serpent-man on the cover of Serpent's Skull?
As a GM I like having a big picture of the final boss to show my players (on the cover even so they know **** just got real).
As a player seeing the final boss on the cover gets me excited to work my way up to that adventure and face whoever or whatever it is. With luck the PCs should know who their nemesis is long before they see that book anyway.
There needs to be a reasonable limit on what's considered spoilers because frankly spoiler-culture is getting ridiculous.
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I think part of the problem is that it's easy to overlook just how many times PCs SAVED their town from catastrophic events in APs, because you only feel the walls you bump into, not those you avoid.
In all of the APs you mentioned, there were several missions where someone really bad was planning on doing something really horrible to the city, and the PCs stop him in time. Each of these missions was a potential disaster, but the PCs were there to stop it.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that the only way to make something bad happen to the PCs home town is to do it before they have a chance to react, because the game the game is built is that when something is interactive, generally speaking the PCs are supposed to be able to succeed at it. So give them a chance to stop the impending attack and they will assume it's a quest and that they are supposed to win. Arbitrarily deciding that they can't would only bog down play.
Paizo APs are mostly heroic. That means that the PCs are motivated to their adventuring by a desire to help and defend. And that means that they need something to defend, and that something has to be under threat for it.
If the PCs would always successfully defend their hometown, that would be even more of a recurring problem - nothing BAD actually happens in the APs! the sense of threat is not real! Which leads to the need of having the bad guys be able to do some damage some times. And the only way to pull that off is to make sure the PCs are unable to react.
Zaister, out of curiosity, what term would you use?I'm guessing that's the Shattered Star BBEG on the cover? I HATE when they do that., hasn't the "BBEG" (I hate that term)
I haven't ever had a need for such a term, and if I did, I guess, "final enemy" or something similar would do fine. "Big Bad Evil Guy" simply sounds silly and childish.
I understand that putting the 'Main Monster' on the cover pulls in eyeballs, but doesn't it seem like a major spoiler?!
Personally, I'd be more concerned with the details of the adventures listed here, and often enough sent out to customers as promotional emails. I don't really mind the picture much.
That brings to mind the movie Skyrim which put in it's trailer the scene where a giant alien foot stomping a Ferrari. So when the time comes & some characters got into said Ferrari, you knew they were soon to be paste.
I have no idea what movie you are talking about. The Skyrim I know is a video game, and has neither ferraris nor aliens.