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I would actually approach your players and give them a brief synopsis (spoiler free) of both AP's and ask them to decide what they would rather do.
If I were going to choose either of those AP's...
I would choose Curse if I didn't mind messing around with the 3.5 updating. The boards seem to weigh pretty heavily in the direction of it having one of, if not the best, plots among the AP's.
If I were to run Reign of Winter I would do it simply for the surreal nature. Keeping up with the cold rules might be a pain.
That might make it worth it right there.
In the end I would recommend CoCT over RoW.
+1 to what he said - pitch both to the group without spoilers and see which resonates.
You can always run the other after =)
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Curse of the Crimson Throne or Reign of Winter?
That's the equivalent of saying which boxer would win in a heavyweight contest: Joe Frazier or Woody Allen.
CotCT is supremely brilliant from start to finish. RoW... well it isn't..
Just my opinion but basically you are comparing one of the best with one of the worst.
Just my opinion
Disclaimer: this opinion may be coming from a person who has a heavy bias against the interplanetary travel nature of RoW's storyline, particularly Chapter Five's trip to Earth (which is admittedly a fairly controversial event to a lot of people; I personally think Brandon Hodge pulled it off brilliantly, but a lot of people it's a line that is never to be crossed).
Unless I'm confusing you with someone else FoC, in which case apologies =) It's hard to keep track of all the different people with a beef against this particular campaign, since as I said, it was a pretty controversial event.
Mies, if your players are in favor of that kind of plot and okay with the stretching of fantasy norms to accommodate a trip to "the real world", this bias probably does not apply.
As other posters have mentioned see which one strikes your group's interest. As someone who DMed CoCT and quite a few other APs it is probably the best done AP published thus far. I highly recommend it.
CoCT has a great city setting and as the AP more or less revolves around Korvosa it was a lot of fun for the players to have invested backgrounds that actually mattered to the campaign. The Ap has a host of memorable NPCs, variety of adventures and a well connected storyline. 7 days and Scarwall are great modules out of the group but all of them are quite good. With the right group this is a fantastic campaign.
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Unless I'm confusing you with someone else FoC, in which case apologies =) It's hard to keep track of all the different people with a beef against this particular campaign, since as I said, it was a pretty controversial event.
No need to apologise Orthos it's all good :).
That said this isn't actually my problem with it. My favourite AP is Legacy of Fire which has significant similarities and also has plane hopping. I'm an old 2nd ed. Planescape fan so plane hopping is fine by me :).
My objections are actually as follows:
Secondly, you have to stop the big bad by releasing an even bigger bad. Yes Baba Yaga has some moral ambiguity in the legends about her but on Golarion she is directly responsible for Irrissen a land of persecution, evil and fear. In this setting she is a pure villain, in the same way Nex and Tar Baphon are and releasing her only perpetuates the suffering.
Third, plane hopping is great but only when you get to immerse yourself in the culture of the setting. Book 4 is excellent, it does that, but 3 and 5 are merely dungeons in interesting places. Setting book 3 in Iobaria is pointless when you are not going to actually use the setting. It's kind of like setting a scenario on the Enterprise D but then spending the entire time in the holodeck doing a Dixon Hill program. Iobaria is mere window dressing, frankly the whole scenario could be set in Irrissen without changing virtually anything.
Book 5 is slightly different but it's still just a dungeon in an interesting setting. How much cooler would it have been for the players to infiltrate Stalingrad in 1942 disguised as Red Army soldiers? Or steal the item during the October Revolution in 1917? Or the Eagles Nest in Berchtesgaden in 1944? Or the Kremlin during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962? You could have gone to town here, Thule Society, Nazis, Indiana Jones expys, the works. Instead they play it safe by tucking it away in Siberia. Missed opportunity in my opinion. My problem is not that they used an Earth setting but rather that they didn't do enough with that opportunity.
My final issue is that there's not much heroic in taking three books to collect a bunch of feathers and rocks. It's a glorified series of fetch quests, go to x, pick up y, rinse and repeat. For three books. To me that's just padding.
Unless I'm confusing you with someone else FoC, in which case apologies =) It's hard to keep track of all the different people with a beef against this particular campaign, since as I said, it was a pretty controversial event.No need to apologise Orthos it's all good :).
That said this isn't actually my problem with it. My favourite AP is Legacy of Fire which has significant similarities and also has plane hopping. I'm an old 2nd ed. Planescape fan so plane hopping is fine by me :).
My objections are actually as follows:
That was certainly helpful (to me) - thanks FoC.
I'm GMing and loving CoTCT, just completed Book 1 and looks like it only gets better! :D Re conversion - I mostly either use my Bestiary or just use the 3.5 stats, maybe add +2 to the highest stat for mundane-array types like the Korvosan Guards, and lower the CR by 1 for monsters, 2 for NPCs. I'm running it in Pathfinder with Medium XP Track, so the PCs should end up a couple levels lower by the end than in 3.5, which should match with the Lowered Monster Difficulty (TM: TvTropes.org) - started PCs at 2nd level so most likely will run 2-13 rather than 1-15.
Edit: The NPC stats in the GameMastery Guide have also proven very useful, eg stripped the War-1 GMG Soldiers of most gear and they made excellent rioting dockworkers. :D Bought the NPC Codex too, but sadly it's not nearly as good.
@FallofCamelot: A good GM should be able to integrate those readily enough if needed/wanted. Just my opinion.
Personally, just got the AP (early BD present). So far I'm liking what I see.
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@FoC it is a bit surprising seeing your list of grievances with RoW but also saying LoF was your favorite.
When you get to Kakishon you are presented with a whole demiplane to explore but with only an interest in escaping the place.
Then, you are teased with an adventure in the City of Brass, but spend the whole book trapped in one house/dungeon.
CotCT was amazing and is still the best AP along with including the best single issue of an AP (Seven Days to the Grave) and the best supporting cast of any AP.
I am playing both right now. my characters are currently level 11 in each AP. I think CoTCT to be by far, the superior AP.
Okay. I have to say this. First, I'd recommend RoW over CoTCT for several reasons, including the fact you don't need to convert RoW to Pathfinder, it incorporates many of the newer rules and classes, and is a lot of fun. With CoTCT you have a 3.5 module that you need to do a lot of work with in order to get it playable as Pathfinder... and you're likely stuck with the core classes and the like. Some people like that, mind you.
That said... the start of RoW is lethal. It is very easy to result in a Total Party Kill in several areas just in the first half of the AP. I'm running PCs who started at level 3, upped the CR of several foes, and STILL had some really dicey moments. The combination of environmental factors and the like can easily result in the party wiping out if you're not careful.
Thus my recommendation for RoW is to run a couple mini-adventures before the winter weather hits. Let them have some fun building some ties with Helgren's populace so they want to save this town and have incentive to do just that. And by the time the group reaches the Lodge, they should be level 2... and that will lessen the lethality of that encounter.
Also, don't over-rely on the environmental rules. The constant snowfall caused me to have a couple "wait, that's not right" moments (ie, the trail through the snow not being completely snowed under after a full day of constant snow). Having snow squalls hit periodically... but also let the players have breaks in that snow (I did that during the Portal encounter as having players fighting in what is essentially a fog drags the game on and makes it most frustrating).
The drawbacks to RoW are compensated for with the sheer fun and insanity of it. If your players are into faerie tales... they'll undoubtedly be perking up with several encounters and really enjoying themselves as they recognize various elements and myths. And I know some people are calling Baba Yaga the "greater evil" but this depends on what you consider a Greater Evil.
Her interest in Golarion is minor. She doesn't want to conquer the world, she doesn't want to entomb it in ice, and is willing to just wash her hands of the world when the adventure is done if that's the Boon the players insist on. Contrast that with Elvanna who is seeking active conquest. Baba Yaga may be a more powerful potential foe... but she is not the Greater Evil.
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i asked my daughter the other day "so what are you going to do when you free Baba Yaga? do you plan on fighting her?"
she looked at me got that mischiveous twinkle that all 10 year olds have and says "oh, we're not fighting her, we're going to redeem her, ya know show her the sunny side of life" so thats the plan:)
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@FallofCamelot: A good GM should be able to integrate those readily enough if needed/wanted.
Well sure. I could rewrite it too but that kind of makes running an AP pretty pointless.
For reference I have run or played every AP up to and including Shattered Star including the 3 Dungeon magazine ones. The only one's I have abandoned have been Council of Thieves and Serpent's Skull and I am in progress with Rise of The Runelords, Savage Tide and Shattered Star. In total I have either GMed or played to completion 9 AP's
Every one of the AP's I have enjoyed in some way. Even Second Darkness.
Reign of Winter is the first one I want to leave on the shelf to gather dust.
I accept the criticism of Legacy of Fire and yes, book 5 wasn't great but I would contend that Legacy of Fire has a better plot than Reign of Winter by a country mile. Legacy of Fire has a narrative whereas Reign of Winter has a long series of boring fetch quests. No recurring villains or characters, no intrigue, no twists or surprises and in the end nothing investing the players in the plot beyond a nebulous and pretty generic "save the world" plot. Where is the personal connection? Why should my players invest emotionally in the plot?
Just saving the world isn't enough. They need personal investment in what they are saving a trigger for the heroes journey. In Reign of Winter that's just not there.
RoW could have been better, yes. I do feel we needed more immediacy of Elvanna's forces hounding the PCs or being already in other locations as well. And that's not too difficult to add to the campaign.
The thing is, even without this, RoW is a damn fine AP. Add in a few elements (which is far less work than the rewrite the other module needs for entirely new rules, including rebuilding most of the encounters, adding feats, and the like so it's not a cakewalk) and you have something memorable.