Does anyone play the scenarios in an order other than what's listed on the Adventure card? I'm not quite sure doing so would be considered a house rule, as long as you still meet the requirements of playing each scenario of an adventure, and each adventure of a path to get all the related rewards.
The reason I ask is due to a discussion we had this past weekend, and deciding to start a new group with The Poison Pill instead of Brigandoom! Reading the story text, it made more sense to us on the Perils of the Lost Coast that the new adventurers would search around town for an alchemist gone bad prior to heading out of town to hunt down a bandit leader. And then to even more dangerous locales to confront a dragon!
Thus, we're playing the Perils adventure in this order:
- The Poison Pill
- Brigandoom!
- Black Fang's
I don't see any reason why this would break anything. And it makes more sense to me in a traditional RPG story sort of way. I don't yet have any other adventure decks, so I'm not sure if this type of circumstance occurs again.
Interesting. Hadn't considered that, but I will add that in my experience Poison Pill is also by far the easiest of the three so makes sense from a difficulty perspective as well.
Chief Technical Officer
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Does anyone play the scenarios in an order other than what's listed on the Adventure card? I'm not quite sure doing so would be considered a house rule, as long as you still meet the requirements of playing each scenario of an adventure, and each adventure of a path to get all the related rewards.
It would be a house rule, because each adventure card specifically instructs you to complete "these scenarios, in this order."
My group does them out of order all the time. Scenarios like "Here Comes the Flood" which are difficult and give crappy rewards are often pushed toward the end.
But yeah, that's not how it was intended with the rules.
The reason they're in the order they're in is because it follows the same storyline as the Pathfinder adventure path of the same name as used in the RPG.
So while it may not make as much sense with much of the story stripped out to turn it into the card game, if you have knowledge of the missing pieces or a good imagination to make your own missing pieces, following the order can make more sense.
Maybe you didn't know the mad alchemist was in town until after you raided the bandits and they told you about the goings on in town and why it was so easy for them to attack.
I presume that a character that joins a group late, either through death or just a new player in the group, can go back and play missed scenarios in order to get those rewards. That could lead to some things being played out-of-order.
The party, itself, must initially play them in order because the party cannot 'unlock' the next scenario without beating the current one. However, once the party has beaten that one, any of the party members (new or old) can play it, any of the previous ones, or even the next one at will.
So yes, it can end up being played out of order that way, but, by the rules as written, the initial trip through will never be out of order (not counting repeating previously-beaten ones, whether with new characters, old characters, or a combination thereof).
I presume that a character that joins a group late, either through death or just a new player in the group, can go back and play missed scenarios in order to get those rewards. That could lead to some things being played out-of-order.The party, itself, must initially play them in order because the party cannot 'unlock' the next scenario without beating the current one. However, once the party has beaten that one, any of the party members (new or old) can play it, any of the previous ones, or even the next one at will.
So yes, it can end up being played out of order that way, but, by the rules as written, the initial trip through will never be out of order (not counting repeating previously-beaten ones, whether with new characters, old characters, or a combination thereof).
So then my house rule/decision to play Poison Pill before Brigandoom! technically doesn't break the rules, but as do all house rules, changes them. Of course, I did the swap due to my ignorance of the deeper backstory of the RPG. I only have PACG to go by, and based on that it made more sense to to Poison Pill first.
Philosophically:
The justification for the play-in-order concept was twofold. First, there's a simple question of tracking. It's easy to remember that you just failed Crow Bait and need to play it again. It's much harder to remember that some point well after you completed Fortress of the Stone Giants, you still have to come back to Crow Bait to get that reward you missed.
Second, in general, we made things that happen later harder. So Crow Bait is presumed to be easier than the scenarios in Fortress, and if you just beat Fortress, you might lay waste to Crow Bait.
These are both surmountable obstacles if you want to do the work and accept the consequences. You can track your scenarios; you can live with the difference in difficulty. We don't presume everyone is willing to do those things, and that's why the hard line exists in the rules.
Mike