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RPGs have evolved over the years. In early years most scenarios were about exploration not so much about a story or goals like an AP from Paizo.
FGG modules take us back to that kind of feel, like no one else who is creating adventures these days. It has a different kind of feel and a different level of danger. I notice my more modern players expect to be able to kill everything they come across. People who have played old school adventure are more ready to run, not expecting that everything they face is a winnable battle.
None of this has anything to do with the role playing aspects of the game. Some players love role playing and some players give it just as much effort as they need to, to get through the encounter. Some do not role play much at all and attack everything they meet.
I started gaming 30 years ago and I have done it all. I like the current APs. I am running two of them right now and playing in three. I have previously run another three. I have also GM'd some RA and look forward to ST one of these days. As a matter of fact when one of my current APs ends I am going full into RA and whatever else I can get away with. My son has played for about 10 or 15 years and he feels the modern way of APs and such is too video gamey for him. He love the old school, 1e ADD way of doing things and he is happy to use those rules and run those kinds of came.
He will be in town this month and we are getting a bunch of family members together and I am running RA with the SW rules and we are doing it old school (which by the way is much deadlier than the Pathfinder way bye a long shot).
Enjoy your game and do it your way but there is a lot to be said about the old school way of doing things. Do it for the exploration and the money not to save the world.
@ Wiggz
We play magic in a manner similar to yours and the rareity of magic in The Desolation worked out well. There are a couple of loot caches and finding them is a big thrill.
There can be an abundance of generic magical supplies in Tsar (if the characters take a certain route) but you can always taint them with symbols of Orcus if the group's collection gets to be too cumbersome. (Your group may enjoy roleplaying the desctruction of such items.)
Re role/rollplaying it all comes down to the characters. There were a number of encounteres where my group chose role over roll and I didn't have any trouble adapting to it on the fly with the material at hand.
Just got the tome in - I'm currently educating myself on Muir (which looks ideal at this point for PC background) and Thyr.
I'll post the final character builds soon and will no doubt have a number of additional questions once I delve more fully into the material.
Wiggz, regardless of play style I think you're going to have fun with this adventure. Just don't go easy on 'em. ;) It challenges player skill as much as it challenges character skill. They'll learn to play smart as they go - just remind them that it *is* a sandbox, and if they blunder in to the wrong areas, retreat is always an option.
Good gaming!
Download the players map to the Desolation. They will figure it out.
Download the players map to the Desolation. They will figure it out.
Can you expound on that?
Wiggz-
I believe I my have been misinterpreting what you were saying.
As far as our disagreement, I was under the impression you were modifying the encounters that were designed as "PC should probably run away from this" to "The PCs will lose their designed 25% of resources". Re-reading the posts, that is not what you were saying, so I apologize for my confusion. It seems like your intent is actually very much in line with what Greg wanted. Post intent is sometimes difficult to determine.
Frog God material frequently has the "why is that there? This is totally overpowered!" encounter, by design, to show and teach that the heroes can't win every encounter. That is a hallmark of our products, and one that we put in there to help avoid the CRPG mentality of "clear the level".
Now, sometimes, a party IS good/tough enough to play that style, and universally, they have loved us taking their game up a notch. As often, groups have bypassed some of our deadliest encounters by talking/role-playing around them. Sometimes we don't see that tactic, as many of the writer's have a specific mindset, so role-play can, and will, certainly have a place in our adventures.
I wasn't able to ever find a downloadable players map from the FGG site, I think I picked one up on google images... or maybe I printed it from the PDF...
There's about 100 pages of maps in the back of the book, about half of them are player safe maps. The main one is a roughly drawn player map for the Desolation. Players who are highly interested in mapping correctly will probably make their own, but its reasonably close.
Yes davrion, that is the one I was referring to. I was not aware it was no longer available as a download, sorry:) It doesn't give them much, but it did keep my players on track to take on the desolation quadrant by quadrant which was the idea I think to do it counter clockwise.
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Thanks Chuck.
Another question for the Frog God guys:
The Pall over Tsar moves you one step towards evil if a will save is failed when you rest over night in the city. When you were writing this were you thinking that someone who was Lawful Good would move to Lawful Neutral in one step or did you have the 9 point gradient in mind? (As described at the bottom of the link below).
Cheers,
Geo
Thanks Chuck.
Another question for the Frog God guys:
The Pall over Tsar moves you one step towards evil if a will save is failed when you rest over night in the city. When you were writing this were you thinking that someone who was Lawful Good would move to Lawful Neutral in one step or did you have the 9 point gradient in mind? (As described at the bottom of the link below).
Cheers,
Geo
Only Greg can really answer this one (being the author), but I would say it would cause alignment shifts one step at a time
LG to LN to LE, for example.
Since Greg wrote the bulk of the book during 3.5 I would assume that he wasn't using the 9-point gradient.
Of course, if you want to make it a bit easier on your players, you can use it. :D
Thanks again Chuck.
I don't see any point in making this easier - they were warned. On top of that the idea of Orcus pulling souls away from the light by half measures doesn't sit well.
Cheers,
Geo
No, I don't see a point of making it easier, but I guess it is a question of how you view the alignment progression. The other way could be LG to NG to CG and then through the neutrals.
If it shifts to to Chaotic Evil I would go
LG -> LN -> N -> NE -> CE
Shifting back and forth between the axes. It just feels better to me that way.
If it shifts to to Chaotic Evil I would go
LG -> LN -> N -> NE -> CE
Shifting back and forth between the axes. It just feels better to me that way.
Small difference - I'd probably go LG -> NG -> N -> NE -> CE