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Shattered Star was a competent AP. Unfortunately for it, 'competent' doesn't cut it if you're sitting on the shelf next to CotCT, Kingmaker, Iron Gods and AoW.
As for Giantslayer, I hope that this obvious attempt to placate the traditionalist crowd by playing on their GDQ nostalgia will backfire in a spectacular manner and lead to Paizo's higher ups greenlighting THE INEVITABLE DISTANT WORLDS SPACESHIPS AND LAZORS AP.
I think it is coming, but since we have Iron Gods I think it is at least 2 years away unless Iron Gods does a lot better than I expect it to.
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I value Paizo for innovation, be it bold new themes or new takes on old ones. CotCT, while a very traditionalist story overall, has had more than enough super cool twists and elements in it to make it count. But Giantslayer, which is right around the corner, sounds and feels much less exciting than Hell's Rebels - where it was enough to drop the words "Cheliax, rebellion, infernal contracts, Thrune, masked ball" to get me going. "Fight <INSERT RANDOM GIANT TYPE> at <INSERT RANDOM LOCATION>, repeat 5 times, fight" sounds dull in comparison.
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I value Paizo for innovation, be it bold new themes or new takes on old ones. CotCT, while a very traditionalist story overall, has had more than enough super cool twists and elements in it to make it count. But Giantslayer, which is right around the corner, sounds and feels much less exciting than Hell's Rebels - where it was enough to drop the words "Cheliax, rebellion, infernal contracts, Thrune, masked ball" to get me going. "Fight <INSERT RANDOM GIANT TYPE> at <INSERT RANDOM LOCATION>, repeat 5 times, fight" sounds dull in comparison.
Based on what little information we have, Giantslayer does seem to be a little more like a dungeon runner type AP.
But even based on the scraps we have at this point, I was able to glean the following from the teasers:
Investigating mysterious deaths, treasures in a forgotten giant tomb, riverboats, orcs (rarely seen thus far), mountains, valleys, ancient temples, frost giant graveknights, allying with a red dragon...
There may be (and are, I am sure) people out there who get the same level of enjoyment out of these things that you do from lasers and Cheliax. What I don't understand is the type of schadenfreude that compels one to wish not only that these people will be disappointed with a sub-par adventure path, but also assumes that this is some type of zero sum game, that in order for Paizo to make products that appeal to technophiles, the type of material that traditionalists enjoy must suffer.
It's an odd kind of antagonism, and unless it's in jest, I cannot say it is good for the game.
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I value Paizo for innovation, be it bold new themes or new takes on old ones. CotCT, while a very traditionalist story overall, has had more than enough super cool twists and elements in it to make it count. But Giantslayer, which is right around the corner, sounds and feels much less exciting than Hell's Rebels - where it was enough to drop the words "Cheliax, rebellion, infernal contracts, Thrune, masked ball" to get me going. "Fight <INSERT RANDOM GIANT TYPE> at <INSERT RANDOM LOCATION>, repeat 5 times, fight" sounds dull in comparison.
So outline for Rise of the runelords is:
#1: Save lovable frontier town from goblins
#2: Solve a murder case against classic undead and a generic cult
#3: Fight ogres in mountains
#4: Fight giants in a fortress
#5: Go through 1,000 vaguely linked dungeons
#6: Fight more giants in a city
Outline of this AP:
#1: Defend lovable town from orcs
#2:Fight hill giants in fort
#3: Fight giants in mountains
#$: Fight frost gianst in cold mountains
#5: Fight fire giants in hot place
#6: Fight storm giants in flying city
Overall I wouldn't say that superficially the adventure paths sounds all that different. The magic, if there will be any in Giantslayer, will be in the details, just like it was with Runelords. Interesting locations such as the hold of balkzan, the midspin mountains and the flying castle would provide the same interesting variety that Varisia did for Runelords, and all sorts of interesting things could happen in each of the adventures.
There may be (and are, I am sure) people out there who get the same level of enjoyment out of these things that you do from lasers and Cheliax. What I don't understand is the type of schadenfreude that compels one to wish not only that these people will be disappointed with a sub-par adventure path, but also assumes that this is some type of zero sum game, that in order for Paizo to make products that appeal to technophiles, the type of material that traditionalists enjoy must suffer.
Well each AP takes 6 months to complete, during which one camp is happy and the other is not. There's a finite amount of time and there has to be some sort of split, so I can see why there is some rivalry.
The funny thing is that both camps complain that the other is insatiable and will always demand more once given what they want.
That's an odd sentiment. Why can't both groups have fun?Shattered Star was a competent AP. Unfortunately for it, 'competent' doesn't cut it if you're sitting on the shelf next to CotCT, Kingmaker, Iron Gods and AoW.
As for Giantslayer, I hope that this obvious attempt to placate the traditionalist crowd by playing on their GDQ nostalgia will backfire in a spectacular manner and lead to Paizo's higher ups greenlighting THE INEVITABLE DISTANT WORLDS SPACESHIPS AND LAZORS AP.
Because once you give the SF-players what they want, they always want more and all the other things seem dull to them.
This is what I feared all along, now this AP probably gonna sell much less than Robot Gods and then it seems obvious that all other Ap's in the future will become Robot Hack fests.
Well, popular things sell more than unpopular things. Given that a lot of AP buyers are subscribers, if the sales on this are particularly low, that's not just an indicator of Sci-fi players taking over; it's a failure of Paizo to present an appealing product.
I originally started subscribing because Reign of Winter sounded awesome. I actually subbed in time to catch the last two volumes of Shattered Star, and picked up PDFs to round out my collection of that AP as well. Both are fairly "traditional" fantasy, with a bit of a Golarion twist. Yes, one volume of RoW sends you to WWI, but the rest of it is evil fairy tale stuff, witch queens, dragons, etc.
I then cancelled around the time that the WorldWound AP came out, because I wasn't interested in Mythic and the setup sounded dull. Just a giant slog through demon hordes. I came back as soon as it ended because Mummy's Mask sounded awesome: again, fairly traditional fantasy, but with an interesting hook. I stayed on for Iron Gods because it sounded awesome, and felt unique. Now, as much as I want Hell's Rebels, I'm looking at canceling again, because Giantslayer sounds incredibly dull. Maybe it won't be, but thus far nothing about the promotion for the AP appeals to me. I don't like APs focused on one type of creature, and six volumes dedicated to overthrowing a warlord's army sounds unbearably dull.
It would be interesting to know how well eeach AP did. Not real numbers like how much each one sold, but maybe a relative list, like a top 10 or something, which show us which ones are more popular and which ones aren't
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The relative number of posts in each AP subforum is pretty much a good indication of how popular each AP is.
It would, if every AP would had been delivered at the same time. It's quite normal than forums who have been around 5 years have a higher number of posts than those who are more recent, I think. Also, controversial APs will generate heated debate, and thus more posts, even if those posts come from relativeley few people arguing each other. It's a hint, but not as good as a list of sells (specially, a list of sells at the moment of release, for example)
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That's why I wrote 'relative', i.e. the amount of posts generated by Kingmaker, RotRL and Carrion Crown during the half-year period of their publishing cycle eclipses the number of posts on, say, Shattered Star and Mummy's Mask. And we have it pretty much confirmed here and there that Kingmaker was a major hit, while I don't see much indication that Shattered Star was a sales maverick. So you can pretty much guesstimate the popularity (which obviously isn't always paramount to sales, hi ther Grim Fandango!), which would be something like that:
1. RotRL
2. Kingmaker
3. WotR/Carrion Crown/CotCT
4. Skulls 'n' Shackles
5. Iron Gods/Reign of Winter/Jade Regent/Serpent's Skull/CoT/LoF/SD
6. Mummy's Mask/Shattered Star
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Just speaking for myself, I've always found that really good storytelling supersedes crazy special effects in movies, and no amount of crazy special effects in a movie will compensate for sub-par storytelling (I'm looking at you, Lucas). In a similar vein, I don't think someone has to be a renegade drow/quasi-elemental/half-dragon to be a memorable or interesting character... in fact, a good character probably doesn't need all that window-dressing to compensate for lack of depth.
I own every AP in print form other than Kingmaker and Carrion Crown - and those only because I've yet to acquire them - and often times it seems to me that the AP's which are built around classic fantasy themes (like Rise) are often strongest in the story and character elements while those built around the more bizarre settings tend to lean a lot more on those bizarre settings for their distinctiveness than on depth of story.
I'm looking forward to this AP and if Paizo has shown me anything, its that they can do wonders with classic fantasy.
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I think people who dislike bizarre settings will always look at those AP with a different mood (and same goes with those who dislike conventional old DnD Fantasy). Prejudice is a very human nature.
On the other hand, I'm thankful to Lucas, because he added lasers and spaceships to his classic story of a black knight, an evil sorcerer emperor, magic, a kidnapped princess and humanoids with fur fighting alongside the last member of an order of monastic cavaliers who use sorcery and magic swords.
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That's why I wrote 'relative', i.e. the amount of posts generated by Kingmaker, RotRL and Carrion Crown during the half-year period of their publishing cycle eclipses the number of posts on, say, Shattered Star and Mummy's Mask. And we have it pretty much confirmed here and there that Kingmaker was a major hit, while I don't see much indication that Shattered Star was a sales maverick. So you can pretty much guesstimate the popularity (which obviously isn't always paramount to sales, hi ther Grim Fandango!), which would be something like that:
1. RotRL
2. Kingmaker
3. WotR/Carrion Crown/CotCT
4. Skulls 'n' Shackles
5. Iron Gods/Reign of Winter/Jade Regent/Serpent's Skull/CoT/LoF/SD
6. Mummy's Mask/Shattered Star
So RotRL is at the top for a number of reasons, republishing, nostalgia, and it is well written. But it isn't a novel story, or mechanic, likewise Carrion Crown is a great module but it is far from original, in fact it is practically the case that someone took the classic movie monster scripts and jammed a really big staple through the lot and called it an AP. Like it is, Spooky Haunted Mansion (well jail) -> Frankenstein -> The Wolf Man -> Reverse Innismouth -> Dracula -> Evil Cult. In spite, or perhaps because of the cultural resonance of those stories the AP was great.
So I'm not sure that GS's apparent cliché outline is a strike for or against it.
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It would, if every AP would had been delivered at the same time. It's quite normal than forums who have been around 5 years have a higher number of posts than those who are more recent, I think. Also, controversial APs will generate heated debate, and thus more posts, even if those posts come from relativeley few people arguing each other. It's a hint, but not as good as a list of sells (specially, a list of sells at the moment of release, for example)The relative number of posts in each AP subforum is pretty much a good indication of how popular each AP is.
Maybe we should look at the activity in the obit threads in the individual modules to get an idea for the number of people playing.
Although it skews towards deadly APs...