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Well, I got into a discussion about the combat to roleplaying ratio and about more coherent roleplaying scenarios and stories in the "Giantslayer! What do we know?" thread and was asked to take it to another thread. So, I'll try to recreate the discussion in this thread and see where it goes from here.
My starting post:
Probably a lost cause, but an AP centered on roleplaying instead of constant fighting would really be appreciated.
Joseph Wilson's reply:
Probably a lost cause, but an AP centered on roleplaying instead of constant fighting would really be appreciated.I'm not sure why I'm commenting as, to use your phrase, I'm sure it's a "lost cause." I've seen your interactions with James over the years, and my approach to the game, as well as my experiences with it, line up pretty much 100% with James'.
I am an incredibly story-oriented GM. I HATE combat-centric plots and campaigns. Which isn't to say I hate combat (if I did, Pathfinder wouldn't be the game for me), but the story and roleplaying always has to come first, with the combats serving the story.
With that said, I have never had any issues running Pathfinder APs. In fact, since I started running them rather than homebrew, I've had more fun gaming, and have had more memorable roleplaying experiences than ever before. As far as I'm concerned, Paizo gives the GM all the tools they need to make an AP as roleplay or combat heavy as they choose. I always choose the former, and have had nothing but positive experiences.
Next, I'm gearing up to start running Iron Gods. I probably won't end up running Giantslayer, but I greatly look forward to reading and being inspired by it!
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Using the AP's as written, combat is about 75% of the time you spend in an AP. Since combat encounters take so long to set up and play out (even an encounter which is totally harmless to the PC's will take at least half an hour to draw up a map and then get through the entire thing), they constitute so much of the time spend playing Pathfinder. If that is your kind of game, I'm happy for you.
I'd prefer more roleplaying scenarios, like at the start of book four of Jade Regent. That were four and a half pages of RP scenario and this was enough to fill two evenings of gaming. Since AP modules often spend a page to explain to GM's who the villain for a certain fight is (and those explanations will never be known to the players, for whom s/he is just "that weird thing we fight now") and single stat blocks can also eat most of a page, I think exchanging fights for roleplaying scenarios would work out quite well.
But overall I have become disenchanted with many of the published AP's because of just the reason of combat > story in AP's and other things related to storytelling, like lack of plot coherency, lack of recurring and evolving characters and so on, so maybe I am simply wanting to move into another direction with my storytelling as a GM.
Using the AP's as written, combat is about 75% of the time you spend in an AP. Since combat encounters take so long to set up and play out (even an encounter which is totally harmless to the PC's will take at least half an hour to draw up a map and then get through the entire thing), they constitute so much of the time spend playing Pathfinder. If that is your kind of game, I'm happy for you.I'd strongly disagree with this. Almost all APs include quite a bit on how to play the various NPCs encountered, with the clear intention that it be used in roleplaying said characters, and a fair number of suggestions for both non-combat encounters and how to resolve potential combat encounters peacefully. You certainly can focus primarily on the combat, but you're hardly required to do so or not given the tools to focus away from it.
And if you want to minimize how long setting up fights takes, scrapping the use of a map is a pretty easy way to do it that doesn't actually change the game all that much.
I'd prefer more roleplaying scenarios, like at the start of book four of Jade Regent. That were four and a half pages of RP scenario and this was enough to fill two evenings of gaming.I haven't read Jade Regent (I still intend to play it one of these days), so I can't comment here.
Since AP modules often spend a page to explain to GM's who the villain for a certain fight is (and those explanations will never be known to the players, for whom s/he is just "that weird thing we fight now") and single stat blocks can also eat most of a page, I think exchanging fights for roleplaying scenarios would work out quite well.Who says those descriptions don't get used? I think I've used most of them fairly extensively in running APs precisely because I really enjoy the roleplaying aspects of things more than I really do combat.
But overall I have become disenchanted with many of the published AP's because of just the reason of combat > story in AP's and other things related to storytelling, like lack of plot coherency, lack of recurring and evolving characters and so on, so maybe I am simply wanting to move into another direction with my storytelling as a GM.The issue with a lot of your complaints is that, by their nature, all the chapters of an AP are written pretty close to simultaneously by different authors (and have to be, since they take more than a month to write). That makes doing the kinds of things you suggest here rather logistically difficult. Nonetheless, they manage to add recurring characters in several APS (Serpent's Skull and CotCT leap to mind)...and I actually don't want any character evolution to be pre-scripted, since that really damages the players' ability to influence that sort of thing.
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I'd strongly disagree with this. Almost all APs include quite a bit on how to play the various NPCs encountered, with the clear intention that it be used in roleplaying said characters, and a fair number of suggestions for both non-combat encounters and how to resolve potential combat encounters peacefully. You certainly can focus primarily on the combat, but you're hardly required to do so or not given the tools to focus away from it.
Sorry, if most modules contain a page-count of (grabbing random module from the shelf, gets... The Empty Throne from Jade Regent) about 28 pages of combat related stuff (including flavor text for rooms, obviously) and 10 pages of role-playing related things, then I think my assertion of 75% combat-related writing is well founded.
Remember, I highlighted as written to make clear that I am talking about how the modules are presented to us officially. What individual GM's make of them is not what Paizo writes.
Also, solving encounters peacefully is most often undermined by the morale statblock, which way more often than not specifies that the opponent will fight to the death.
And if you want to minimize how long setting up fights takes, scrapping the use of a map is a pretty easy way to do it that doesn't actually change the game all that much.
Which I do more often than not, but the more important encounters can easily fill a single session completely. One encounter, one session. That's just how the system works, especially at the higher levels when things like option paralysis, stacking effects and lots of different enemies crop up much more frequently.
Who says those descriptions don't get used? I think I've used most of them fairly extensively in running APs precisely because I really enjoy the roleplaying aspects of things more than I really do combat.
Again, as written is the operative word here. If you have some dude spouting off his sob story why he became Slanderous the Obliterator to the party (and they are even inclined to listen.), then that's not how the official module plays it out most of the time. Mostly, it is "party enters room, find weird looking dude who attacks immediately" and the GM gets half a page of "Slanderous was abandoned as a youth by his hateful parents and raised by the League of Extreme Evil to kick puppies and burn villages or the other way around".
The issue with a lot of your complaints is that, by their nature, all the chapters of an AP are written pretty close to simultaneously by different authors (and have to be, since they take more than a month to write). That makes doing the kinds of things you suggest here rather logistically difficult. Nonetheless, they manage to add recurring characters in several APS (Serpent's Skull and CotCT leap to mind)...and I actually don't want any character evolution to be pre-scripted, since that really damages the players' ability to influence that sort of thing.
Yeah, well. That is what makes AP's very different from any other decent storytelling medium. In about every other medium, characters are allowed to evolve, change their motivations, grow attachments and so on. In AP's, since writers cannot predict if Player X is playing "Dimwit the Slaughterer, Chaotic Stupid Anti-Paladin", they give us some NPC's in one module and afterwards all is put onto the GM to give them their story.
And while I had the very same discussion with James about how coordinating the six writers and their editor(s) is too difficult, I refuse to accept that explanation. Every other company in the world is able to hold a telephone/chat conference. Nobody is expecting those seven to nine people to stay in contact constantly, but you can't tell me that it is logistically impossible to schedule two or three brainstorming sessions over the period of six months.
Sorry, if most modules contain a page-count of (grabbing random module from the shelf, gets... The Empty Throne from Jade Regent) about 28 pages of combat related stuff (including flavor text for rooms, obviously) and 10 pages of role-playing related things, then I think my assertion of 75% combat-related writing is well founded.I suspect that depends on how you define what's roleplaying and what's combat. Are you counting things like adventure background and summary, and location character backgrounds/descriptions? Because I'd be inclined to, and that makes a big difference.
Remember, I highlighted as written to make clear that I am talking about how the modules are presented to us officially. What individual GM's make of them is not what Paizo writes.I, too, am talking about what Paizo writes. Paizo doesn't write a story in an AP volume, not really. Nor should they. Paizo provides a set of characters, locations, and ongoing sequences of events for the PCs to step into and act on as they see fit. That's not a story, it's the framework to hang a story on. And that's pretty much the way it should be for pretty much any roleplaying game module.
But that means that, if discounting background information, or only counting it as part of combat, obviously there's not gonna be a lot of roeplaying stuff unless you throw in scripted conversations...and scripted roleplaying stuff tends to be a bit awkward anyway. There are other ways to throw in roeplaying, don't get me wrong...but they tend to be rather singular events (big parties, for example) and thus hard to shoehorn into every adventure. And besides, Paizo does those. There's a major interaction in part 3 of Legacy of Fire, several in almost all of the parts of CotCT, at least one in Serpent's Skull...and so on and so forth.
Also, solving encounters peacefully is most often undermined by the morale statblock, which way more often than not specifies that the opponent will fight to the death.Firstly, that's once it's become a fight (which isn't always a given by any means). Secondly, that's actually pretty rare in all the modules I've looked through. It's more common for things like demons and non-intelligent creatures, but few humanoid adversaries fight to the death if they can avoid it. To take a random module, in the Snows of Summer there are three enemies who will fight to the death who aren't undead, constructs, or summoned and bound creatures. That's a lot less than the number who will surrender or flee at some point.
Which I do more often than not, but the more important encounters can easily fill a single session completely. One encounter, one session. That's just how the system works, especially at the higher levels when things like option paralysis, stacking effects and lots of different enemies crop up much more frequently.Important encounters can indeed take a whole session. And that is indeed the way the system works...so what exactly is Paizo supposed to do about that? I mean, seriously, it sounds like you're complaining about the adventure writing...but this is a system assumption. It's built in. Only by removing combat entirely can you avoid this (And in that case...why are you using Pathfinder at all? It's a very combat oriented system.)
Again, as written is the operative word here. If you have some dude spouting off his sob story why he became Slanderous the Obliterator to the party (and they are even inclined to listen.), then that's not how the official module plays it out most of the time. Mostly, it is "party enters room, find weird looking dude who attacks immediately" and the GM gets half a page of "Slanderous was abandoned as a youth by his hateful parents and raised by the League of Extreme Evil to kick puppies and burn villages or the other way around".Of course that's not how the game plays out. Or how it's written. The point of the backstory isn't to recite it, the point is that it informs how you play the character, which is often highly relevant if they actually interact with the PCs (which many, if not most, do in one way or another). And that makes it useful, borderline essential, from a roleplaying perspective.
Yeah, well. That is what makes AP's very different from any other decent storytelling medium. In about every other medium, characters are allowed to evolve, change their motivations, grow attachments and so on. In AP's, since writers cannot predict if Player X is playing "Dimwit the Slaughterer, Chaotic Stupid Anti-Paladin", they give us some NPC's in one module and afterwards all is put onto the GM to give them their story.Indeed. But this is an unavoidable part of the medium...there's no good way around it. So, once again, what exactly do you want done differently in this regard?
And while I had the very same discussion with James about how coordinating the six writers and their editor(s) is too difficult, I refuse to accept that explanation. Every other company in the world is able to hold a telephone/chat conference. Nobody is expecting those seven to nine people to stay in contact constantly, but you can't tell me that it is logistically impossible to schedule two or three brainstorming sessions over the period of six months.What you're talking about is gonna require more than a couple of Skype meetings, it's more like a full collaboration. You know how many is the most authors I've ever seen write one good book collaboratively? Four. Y'know how long most authors take to write a collaborative work? From what I can tell at least a year. You're asking for a six person (many of whom have day jobs) full collaboration in six months. That's a trifle unreasonable.
I suspect that depends on how you define what's roleplaying and what's combat. Are you counting things like adventure background and summary, and location character backgrounds/descriptions? Because I'd be inclined to, and that makes a big difference.
I went through the module in a pretty unscientific way, so maybe you can add one or two pages to RP related things and substract two pages from combat related stuff, due to villain background being in the pages concerned to storming a location. I don't see the big difference, because, as I pointed out in my last post, large sections related to background information about villains who only serve as a speedbump to the main villains lair are wasted wordcount to me. Because, unless you force a conversation in, most of the times the encounter will go "party opens door, roll initiative".
I, too, am talking about what Paizo writes. Paizo doesn't write a story in an AP volume, not really. Nor should they. Paizo provides a set of characters, locations, and ongoing sequences of events for the PCs to step into and act on as they see fit. That's not a story, it's the framework to hang a story on. And that's pretty much the way it should be for pretty much any roleplaying game module.
I don't necessarily disagree, but nonetheless it is noticeable that a much larger section of the modules is dedicated to combat related things than to roleplaying related things. And then those combat related writings take a much, much longer time to play out, due to the nature of the game, than the roleplaying related things.
I put up the Jade Regent example in my first post because it was one of the rare instances where a writer brought evening filling scenarios up in an AP module, giving only a loose framework what the players and NPC's wanted to accomplish. I can and did work with that and got one of the most enjoyable roleplaying experiences out of it I had with AP's. And that is what I want more of, not more dungeon delving and slaying of "fight to the death" enemies.
But that means that, if discounting background information, or only counting it as part of combat, obviously there's not gonna be a lot of roeplaying stuff unless you throw in scripted conversations...and scripted roleplaying stuff tends to be a bit awkward anyway. There are other ways to throw in roeplaying, don't get me wrong...but they tend to be rather singular events (big parties, for example) and thus hard to shoehorn into every adventure. And besides, Paizo does those. There's a major interaction in part 3 of Legacy of Fire, several in almost all of the parts of CotCT, at least one in Serpent's Skull...and so on and so forth.
I disagree. A roleplaying scenario can be succinct, put goals to hit before the GM and give him only a rough outline of how the NPC's will behave. Again I am recurring to said situation in Jade Regent. As I heard, Council of Thieves also has a very roleplaying oriented plot in its second module.
So it definitely is possible to include involved roleplaying scenarios in AP's without scripted conversations (which, I agree, are painful and awkward to work in). The problem is that Paizo very much seems to favor combat over RP.
Firstly, that's once it's become a fight (which isn't always a given by any means). Secondly, that's actually pretty rare in all the modules I've looked through. It's more common for things like demons and non-intelligent creatures, but few humanoid adversaries fight to the death if they can avoid it. To take a random module, in the Snows of Summer there are three enemies who will fight to the death who aren't undead, constructs, or summoned and bound creatures. That's a lot less than the number who will surrender or flee at some point.
The "fight to the death" thing varies between enemy types. Death cultists will almost always fight to the death, as do demon cultists (of which I am getting very many in Wrath of the Righteous). So it varies from AP to AP. But in my experience, the majority of enemies have a "fight to the death" morale statblock, outside of special scenarios.
Important encounters can indeed take a whole session. And that is indeed the way the system works...so what exactly is Paizo supposed to do about that? I mean, seriously, it sounds like you're complaining about the adventure writing...but this is a system assumption. It's built in. Only by removing combat entirely can you avoid this (And in that case...why are you using Pathfinder at all? It's a very combat oriented system.)
I am using Pathfinder because I like D&D. That's about it. I think, while the skill system of D20 systems has some glaring flaws, it still is one of the best skill systems in roleplaying games. I like the magic system. And high-magic fantasy has always been dear to my heart.
That Pathfinder is very combat oriented does not preclude AP's being more roleplaying oriented. Roleplaying XP are just as good as combat XP. It is a choice by the developers that they put the focus so heavily on combat.
And as for combat length, the way to solve the ratio of combat to RP seems to me to be the removal of "trash" encounters. Trash is to mean the term as used in MMO's, i.e. lesser monsters between boss monsters. I am not against a pulse pounding combat encounter which takes an entire evening. I am against all the mook monsters whose encounters eat tons time to resolve but do not have a chance of stopping the party.
Of course that's not how the game plays out. Or how it's written. The point of the backstory isn't to recite it, the point is that it informs how you play the character, which is often highly relevant if they actually interact with the PCs (which many, if not most, do in one way or another). And that makes it useful, borderline essential, from a roleplaying perspective.
Yes, that is exactly how it plays out 90% of the time. Players are in a dungeon to stop evil cultists from sacrificing virgin puppies, they are not going to stop and chat with evil cultist #31 after kicking in the door to his 10-by-10 foot Cubicle Of Evil.
Indeed. But this is an unavoidable part of the medium...there's no good way around it. So, once again, what exactly do you want done differently in this regard?
Instead of wasting word count on detailed backstories for Speedbump the Impotent #3, assume that most groups do not include people who want to channel their inner sociopaths and include some further story for NPC's who are supposed to be still alive in later modules. Yeah, that may be wasted wordcount for some groups, but so is the explanation on the oh-so-tragic backstory for the next guy with weird markings on his face, who will catch an axe to said face in 12 seconds, anyway. Mooks can be used to great effect by being meatshields to stop the party from bumrushing the BBEG of this section of the dungeon. Them staying in their rooms when they can hear the party approaching two minutes before is just lazy writing. And, YES, that still happens way too often in AP's.
What you're talking about is gonna require more than a couple of Skype meetings, it's more like a full collaboration. You know how many is the most authors I've ever seen write one good book collaboratively? Four. Y'know how long most authors take to write a collaborative work? From what I can tell at least a year. You're asking for a six person (many of whom have day jobs) full collaboration in six months. That's a trifle unreasonable.
No, it is not. Nobody is asking for a full collaboration. What I am asking for is, when you introduce, say, three important NPC's in adventure one, the writers and editors coordinate at the beginning of the AP development cycle where those characters are supposed to go during the campaign. Every writer gets a starting and ending point for his module. After they deliver in their story progression for those NPC's (which would be, maybe, one or two pages per module), the editor then cleans up the whole thing so that the story progression is smooth for the entire AP.
And, hell, there are other recurring AP's story foibles that need to be cleaned up after years and years of new adventure paths. Like, introduce your main villain before the last module (or even the last fight)! Have him interact in non-dangerous ways with the party during the AP, so that the last encounter is not literally a "And who the hell are you?" first meeting.
My friend and I take great pride in doing the work to use the NPCs involved in the APs to craft stories for the characters. By leaving that RP up to us, it opens up way more options than scripted events. What I heard from Mr. Magnuskn is scripted events which are going to up the page count severely and limit the options for GMs like myself.
If I don't like an NPC, I axe them and replace them. If I love them, I extend their appearances. The toolkit approach to RP Paizo has given us makes that depth of customization fantastic.
And the same way Fighters are only good at fighting, I typically only have one Face in a group who is good at Facing. So if I have 4 players, and only one wants to do social encounters, having 25% of the writing going to him is pretty balanced.
No, I exactly do not want heavily scripted social encounters, because they so far very often in AP's include large sections of pre-written text, which take up a lot of word count and are difficult to work in.
What I want are RP scenarios which give the GM goals to hit and tasks for the PC's to accomplish and the GM is given the liberty of putting the scenario before his players in the way he thinks is appropiate.
What I want are story guidelines for NPC's, where we get a direction on how those NPC's will react to the story unfolding around them (which, typically for AP's, gets more and more dangerous and epic with every level) and how they should evolve as persons.
Pre-scripted detailed scenes are mostly bad, because they do not have enough flexibility to accomodate the variance in player groups. However, that does not have to mean that writers can't assign any type of continuity to stories and NPC's, like we have in many AP's right now.
I'd much rather have an evolving storyline for a few NPC's over an AP which helps most groups, but which gets interrupted for a few parties because some players love playing chaotic stupid sociopaths, than another five write-ups about some random villain who will last only for twelve to eighteen seconds after the party have met them.
We see eye to eye on certain things, so let me see if I can take a stab at this too.
Pathfinder and all of its previous incarnations focuses on combat. Just take a look at all of the feats and class abilities. I think that we know this to be true.
For an AP to become more RP intensive there would have to be additional subsystems or rules in place, and we've seen those work to mixed success. I tried to come up with a 'social chase' scene and it was a challenge due to the lack of skills as almost everything boils down to three skills.
However, Paizo does include many scenes that involve RPing. I'm sure that this happens more often in some APs than in others. I've started Skull and Shackles and that is as RP heavy as anything I could imagine. But even in something that's basic good vs evil in WotR there are many opportunities for RP: mongrelmen, set encounters in Kenabras, the mystery in the army, the Vahnes, Arushelae, the barbarians and Jerribeth... Thats not terrible for an off the top of my head list in the first three parts.
I think that you are usually correct about that page of history that PCs never find out. But... if you wish for heavier RPing then there is hopefully a way to use that history to have the bad guy interact with your PCs in interesting ways.
And I suspect that a good chunk of Paizo's players wouldn't want a 50/50 mix. See all of the my DPS is best threads.
As one other player mentioned, one problem lies with the fact you usually have one (at most) player who focuses on skills like diplomacy, bluff, and the like. The difficulty is in determining how to effectively use roleplay in advancing the plot.
That said, the flaw in this argument is that you're still engaged in combat. It's just that instead of hit points, weapons, and armor class, you're using skills and difficulty levels. This is why the "research combat" in Mummy's Mask was innovative and interesting as it allowed EVERYONE to participate (if I'm remembering correctly).
Likewise, for an effective roleplaying solution (or as I mentioned in the other thread the "Asimov Solution" as per "Foundation and Empire" and the defeat of the Mule) you cannot rely on actual dice-rolling for the solution. Instead, you need to adapt to the flow of roleplay. Thus even the low-charisma fighter could come up with some effective means of participating - for instance, using a demonstration of his combat prowess to impress the other side.
Ultimately, any situation in the game could be solved by roleplaying if the GM chooses to allow that solution. For instance, talking Karzoug into forsaking his plans for conquest and instead establishing Xin-Shalast as a newfound center of trade in a region of Valasia (or however you spell that nation's name) and using knowledge and trade to expand his influence over time, instead of strength-of-arms. (Ultimately it would get him more wealth than wasting lives and resources fighting, thus being attractive to his greed.) While the rules don't allow it, if the GM is willing to allow a diplomatic solution and the players argue their case well, then why not?
We see eye to eye on certain things, so let me see if I can take a stab at this too.
Pathfinder and all of its previous incarnations focuses on combat. Just take a look at all of the feats and class abilities. I think that we know this to be true.
For an AP to become more RP intensive there would have to be additional subsystems or rules in place, and we've seen those work to mixed success. I tried to come up with a 'social chase' scene and it was a challenge due to the lack of skills as almost everything boils down to three skills.
Four skills for social stuff, IMO. Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, Sense Motive. Although Intimidate is wonky, since using it in most settings has actually almost always negative effects on your social success.
I see what you mean about those additional subsystems, since every first stab by Paizo at them have been pretty bad (kingdom building, caravan rules, relationship rules, mythic rules). But I'd rather see them try and fail somewhat then see them just put out the same kind of combat overdosed AP's for years and years.
However, Paizo does include many scenes that involve RPing. I'm sure that this happens more often in some APs than in others. I've started Skull and Shackles and that is as RP heavy as anything I could imagine. But even in something that's basic good vs evil in WotR there are many opportunities for RP: mongrelmen, set encounters in Kenabras, the mystery in the army, the Vahnes, Arushelae, the barbarians and Jerribeth... Thats not terrible for an off the top of my head list in the first three parts.
They are miniscule compared to the vast majority of combat related writing in those modules. Furthermore, none of them, aside from Arue, have any continuity with the rest of the AP. You deal with them and then they are forgotten. I'd like to see some story with consequence later on in the AP.
I think that you are usually correct about that page of history that PCs never find out. But... if you wish for heavier RPing then there is hopefully a way to use that history to have the bad guy interact with your PCs in interesting ways.
How exactly am I to go about this, outside of putting an impassable barrier between the opponent and the PC's everytime I want the guy to have a good "Mwahaha!" moment. And it really takes people out of the moment of kicking in the door in a dungeon when the bad guy goes on a "I am the Bandit King, hear my lamentation about my sucky life!" rant. Try to think for a second how a scene like that would look in a real life fantasy dungeon scenario. No, not actual "real life", but try to imagine yourself as an adventurer in a party, you kick in the door to a room and the chief cultist tries to stop you with "But wait! I need to expound on who I am and what I am doing here!".
And I suspect that a good chunk of Paizo's players wouldn't want a 50/50 mix. See all of the my DPS is best threads.
Given a lack of surveys on the topic and, so far, an unwillingness by Paizo to put out those surveys (which they did for the ACG playtest, so it isn't as if they can't do so), we'll probably never know. I think the very contrary about the topic.
As one other player mentioned, one problem lies with the fact you usually have one (at most) player who focuses on skills like diplomacy, bluff, and the like. The difficulty is in determining how to effectively use roleplay in advancing the plot.
That said, the flaw in this argument is that you're still engaged in combat. It's just that instead of hit points, weapons, and armor class, you're using skills and difficulty levels. This is why the "research combat" in Mummy's Mask was innovative and interesting as it allowed EVERYONE to participate (if I'm remembering correctly).
Likewise, for an effective roleplaying solution (or as I mentioned in the other thread the "Asimov Solution" as per "Foundation and Empire" and the defeat of the Mule) you cannot rely on actual dice-rolling for the solution. Instead, you need to adapt to the flow of roleplay. Thus even the low-charisma fighter could come up with some effective means of participating - for instance, using a demonstration of his combat prowess to impress the other side.
Agreed on all points. The Jade Regent scenario I mentioned include just such things.
Ultimately, any situation in the game could be solved by roleplaying if the GM chooses to allow that solution. For instance, talking Karzoug into forsaking his plans for conquest and instead establishing Xin-Shalast as a newfound center of trade in a region of Valasia (or however you spell that nation's name) and using knowledge and trade to expand his influence over time, instead of strength-of-arms. (Ultimately it would get him more wealth than wasting lives and resources fighting, thus being attractive to his greed.) While the rules don't allow it, if the GM is willing to allow a diplomatic solution and the players argue their case well, then why not?
Mostly because the AP as written does not allow it. Since I am playing in RotRL, I can't say how exactly those modules play out (and would appreciate a lack of spoilers), but I am pretty sure that "kick in the door and kill the guy" is the only way the AP handles it.
Yes, you can always as a GM change the AP if your players really, really want it. But that was not the point of this thread, the point I am trying to make is that AP's should by themselves include additional roleplaying scenarios instead of just more meaningless combat and maybe alternate paths to resolving conflicts instead of having to kill everybody.
Sorry... my forum foo isn't as good. It'd be nice to respond to you in blocks.
True, it would be nice to see an attempt at something better. Maybe a few social sub-systems could be thrown into that fated 'Romance of the Inner Seas' book to give it some lift. If nothing else, those spawn many ideas from other people.
You could argue that even Arue disappears into the background afterwards so its no different than a combat.
It sounds like what you want is a re-occurring social enemy, which is a good idea. Its also a classic of many stories and movies, so should be possible within an AP framework.
"How exactly am I to go about this?" You need help from your PCs and they need to help you be a part of a more social game. They need to know and trust that more situations can be dealt with words and not swords.
You may be right about the polls but take a look at the advice and rules sections on any given day and see what the topics are.
(and btw, I do actually agree with you. I would like to see an expanded interest in RPing. But I do believe that most of the emphasis has to be there by the GM and the players)
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I personally think that players would react well to more frequent roleplaying scenarios and not so big dungeons.
As you say, players need to be able to trust the GM more that a roleplaying scenario won't necessarily be only a lead-in to some fight. On the same page, GM's need to get more such scenarios from AP's.
As I expounded upon in prior posts, there have been modules which included such scenarios, so it isn't as if the writers don't know how to do them. OTOH, the same module which had that excellent RP scenario also included one of the longest, most turgidly boring dungeons I've ever seen in an AP. ^^
A more skill less fight AP could work
Yo can work many things into social encounters as well as your above list.....knowledges especially
You can bullet point npcs responses
It won't appeal to everyone, but no adventure ever will
It is an interesting challenge
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Yeah, if we can get "experimental AP"'s every second AP, I think a more RP-focused AP would probably fall into that category for Paizo, too.
First off, I agree that RP is the best part of an adventure, and I would like to see more of it. There generally is one or two good RP sections (usually right at the beginning, though) in any adventure. Even the much-maligned Iomedae encounter was clearly intended as an RP event, it just had some really dumb punishment mechanics. However, once you're done with the starting RP section, there's often not a whole lot after that, especially once you get to Dungeon X to kill Person Y for Macguffin Z. The exception for me, though, has been in Skull & Shackles, which, outside of the required dungeon X section, has had probably 3-4 good RP sections in each Adventure (the first 2/3+ of the first adventure has almost no combat at all)
Secondly, I have to say that I feel that page count is a really bad way to analyze the combat/RP breakdown. In my experience, RP just doesn't require the same amount of space for the same amount of gameplay. You just need a hook, a list of characters, their intents/desires/motivations, a goal for the PC's, and that's about it. It takes 4 pages to have enough pages for hours of RP (best example of this for me has to be Arueshalae from WotR. Just during Demon's Heresy, there was probably 4 hours spent just on characters talking with or about her). Also, you're including things like room descriptions in the dungeons as combat-related. In that case, would the rooms in a non-combat area bee RP related (an example would be in the CoT Sixfold Trial adventure, where there's an entire mansion written out with no real combat encounter)?
Also, you keep bringing up in these word-counts about cultist #7 that gets blown up in 30 seconds. I'm honestly not sure where you're getting that from. In my experience, the major character descriptions are reserved either for the main boss, a recurring villain, or NPC allies. As WotR is the only adventure I've gone all the way through, I'll use that as an example (in spoilers, for those who don't want to see)
Worldwound Incursion:
Anevia Tirabade: NPC Ally
Aravashnial: NPC Ally
Horgus Gwerm: NPC Ally
Irabeth Tirabade: NPC Ally
The Sword of Valor:
Aron Kir: NPC Ally
Nurah Dendiwar: Recurring Social Antagonist/Potential Ally
Sosiel Vaenic: NPC Ally
Staunton Vhane: Main Boss
Demon's Heresy:
Arueshalae: NPC Ally
Xanthir Vang: Main Boss
The Midnight Isles:
Queen Galfrey: NPC Ally
Minagho: Recurring Antagonist
Hepzhamirah: Main Boss
Heralds of the Ivory Labyrinth:
Alderpash: NPC with RP-intended encounter, possible Ally or Enemy
Marilith Guard Captain (can't think of her name): Mid-boss, but has a potential forced-RP dialogue scene (My group didn't do it, though)
Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth: Main Boss (kinda)
The City of Locusts:
Khorramzadeh: Boss encounter (probably closes to fitting your description)
Areelu Voresh: Main Boss (kinda)
Lastly, I do feel I need to defend the WotR NPC's a little. While I would've liked to have had longer blurbs about each of them, they do recur in every adventure, and are given a clear role to play, so I found it quite easy to keep them around and work them into the story (and having your players care about the NPC's is half the battle of making RP happen)
This is why the "research combat" in Mummy's Mask was innovative and interesting as it allowed EVERYONE to participate (if I'm remembering correctly).
Also, I know it's off-topic, but I had to ask, what is 'research combat'? That sentence just about tripled my interest in Mummy's Mask.
Oh, WotR definitely has been one of the AP's which has been better in keeping NPC's around... only that they are not given much to do and they don't have much of a personality to begin with. In my campaign, they have kind of dropped into the background because, them being seven in their number, they kind of have blended into each other, especially Aron, Sosiel, Anevia and Aravashniel. Given their lack of importance to the plot, my players have mostly ignored them after their initial introduction and when they interact with NPC's, it is with the memorable ones like Irabeth, Horgus and Arueshalae.
Of course not every opponent in an AP gets a full blown background, but enough of them have at least a few paragraphs about their backstory, which more often than not is unnecessary for their function in the AP (i.e. "die in twelve seconds"). Just looking through the last module of WotR I am finding many more such small write-ups than you mentioned.
As for flavor text, I am honestly getting a bit tired of the umpteenth time I have to read out to my group how "against the north wall stands a desk, while to the south a passage yawns into darkness" or something in that vein. Yes, flavor text for rooms is kind of necessary, but combined it eats up a lot of space and often adds very, very little to an encounter.
Ah flavour
Home many times does the treasure need describing so you know your in the east.....in PF, at higher level you do not care how delicate the filigree, diaphanous silken sheets are and how they shimmer in the moonlight. They are worth 600gp and go toward the 18k you are saving. It wastes so much space and word count
A high RP module, with bullet point npcs, with lots choice and those choices matter.....Ah, dreams
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It kind of sounds to me, Magnuskn, that the product you're looking for to run your campaigns isn't actually an Adventure Path, but a detailed campaign setting. After reading so many of your posts, I really think you're using the wrong tool (Adventure Paths) to run your games. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But I suspect you'd have a lot more fun taking a book like, say Magnimar (choosing that 'cause I'm familiar with it) and simply using that book to generate ideas for adventures and NPCs and stories for your group to go on.
Adventure Paths are not for everyone. They're pretty popular, though, and as evidenced by a fair number of the replies your posts have been getting, for most of our customers they do the job they're trying to do. They just don't for you, and that's fine... that just means you should consider using different types of resources to run your games, perhaps.
That all said... I do value your feedback (and ALL feedback!) and use them to constantly adjust and refine the Adventure Paths I work on and develop (which means that any feedback I get on a particular element of a particular adventure may need to wait six to twelve months before I get a chance to actually put that feedback into practice)... but I don't have the luxury to hand-tailor each Adventure Path to each GM who runs them. Especially since a not inconsiderate amount of my time available to tailor and adjust and develop an AP is whittled down by the number of posts I make to these boards trying to explain why we do things the way we do... ;-)
Oh, WotR definitely has been one of the AP's which has been better in keeping NPC's around... only that they are not given much to do and they don't have much of a personality to begin with. In my campaign, they have kind of dropped into the background because, them being seven in their number, they kind of have blended into each other, especially Aron, Sosiel, Anevia and Aravashniel. Given their lack of importance to the plot, my players have mostly ignored them after their initial introduction and when they interact with NPC's, it is with the memorable ones like Irabeth, Horgus and Arueshalae.
Yeah, some of the NPC's fell into the background. I was lucky that a lot of the less memorable ones ended up establishing relationships with the PC's (Ara became best friends with the Magus, Sosiel was a mentor figure to a fighter of the same religion). In the end though, I have a player that goes out of her way to RP at every opportunity, so I probably don't see a lot of the issues just because I never really need to fall back on the adventure with her around.
Of course not every opponent in an AP gets a full blown background, but enough of them have at least a few paragraphs about their backstory, which more often than not is unnecessary for their function in the AP (i.e. "die in twelve seconds"). Just looking through the last module of WotR I am finding many more such small write-ups than you mentioned.
Yeah, there may be a few too many of those. I did give WotR a bit of a pass, since there is a strong redemption theme, so they have to be prepared for the PC's to try to capture a lot of enemies alive. (My party captured/rescued Joran Vhane, the Barbarian lady in the Citadel, and two of the Wintersun barbarians just to name a few). I tend to agree that text could be better spent on NPC's that you are likely to interact with, as opposed to those you only might interact with, but it doesn't bug me too much (ask me again in 3 or 4 AP's and I might be talking differently, though)
As for flavor text, I am honestly getting a bit tired of the umpteenth time I have to read out to my group how "against the north wall stands a desk, while to the south a passage yawns into darkness" or something in that vein. Yes, flavor text for rooms is kind of necessary, but combined it eats up a lot of space and often adds very, very little to an encounter.
Completely agree with you here. I certainly appreciate when they just say at the start of a dungeon 'unless otherwise specified, ceilings are this high, walls look like this, lighting is like this...'. Saves a lot of space. Detailed room descriptions can probably be saved for major rooms. (Though I admit, after a marathon 8-hour plus session, it can be nice to be able to fall back on the book description when your brain is having trouble handling more than basic math)
That all said... I do value your feedback (and ALL feedback!) and use them to constantly adjust and refine the Adventure Paths I work on and develop (which means that any feedback I get on a particular element of a particular adventure may need to wait six to twelve months before I get a chance to actually put that feedback into practice)... but I don't have the luxury to hand-tailor each Adventure Path to each GM who runs them. Especially since a not inconsiderate amount of my time available to tailor and adjust and develop an AP is whittled down by the number of posts I make to these boards trying to explain why we do things the way we do... ;-)
If there's one thing I'd like you to take out of this discussion, it's that encounters that end with something other than combat are often the most fun and memorable in my adventures, and the more of those you can manage, the more I would enjoy it (Examples include: the first half of the Wormwood Mutiny; the different options for taking Tidewater Rock in Raiders of the Fever Sea, Alderpash in Heralds of the Ivory Labyrinth, and just about all of The Harrowing).
At least, that's my opinion :)
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Creative Director
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That all said... I do value your feedback (and ALL feedback!) and use them to constantly adjust and refine the Adventure Paths I work on and develop (which means that any feedback I get on a particular element of a particular adventure may need to wait six to twelve months before I get a chance to actually put that feedback into practice)... but I don't have the luxury to hand-tailor each Adventure Path to each GM who runs them. Especially since a not inconsiderate amount of my time available to tailor and adjust and develop an AP is whittled down by the number of posts I make to these boards trying to explain why we do things the way we do... ;-)If there's one thing I'd like you to take out of this discussion, it's that encounters that end with something other than combat are often the most fun and memorable in my adventures, and the more of those you can manage, the more I would enjoy it (Examples include: the first half of the Wormwood Mutiny; the different options for taking Tidewater Rock in Raiders of the Fever Sea, Alderpash in Heralds of the Ivory Labyrinth, and just about all of The Harrowing).
At least, that's my opinion :)
I've actually taken that to heart for most of the encounters I do. That's why I try to ensure that all major NPCs or creatures have backstories, in fact... for the ones that DO happen to end in any one session in something other than combat.
I think JJ suggestion is a good one. In 3 or 4 more sessions we are done, for a while, with APs as they haven't worked for me, some of my group
Having said that, and again I agree with JJ, magnimar as a city is great. It would make a great sprawling urban campaign, up to say 11th
When I ran ShSt time spent in the city was by far my favourite bit, where we expanded on it and its beautiful madness, interspersed with bits dungeon
It kind of sounds to me, Magnuskn, that the product you're looking for to run your campaigns isn't actually an Adventure Path, but a detailed campaign setting. After reading so many of your posts, I really think you're using the wrong tool (Adventure Paths) to run your games. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But I suspect you'd have a lot more fun taking a book like, say Magnimar (choosing that 'cause I'm familiar with it) and simply using that book to generate ideas for adventures and NPCs and stories for your group to go on.
Adventure Paths are not for everyone. They're pretty popular, though, and as evidenced by a fair number of the replies your posts have been getting, for most of our customers they do the job they're trying to do. They just don't for you, and that's fine... that just means you should consider using different types of resources to run your games, perhaps.
That all said... I do value your feedback (and ALL feedback!) and use them to constantly adjust and refine the Adventure Paths I work on and develop (which means that any feedback I get on a particular element of a particular adventure may need to wait six to twelve months before I get a chance to actually put that feedback into practice)... but I don't have the luxury to hand-tailor each Adventure Path to each GM who runs them. Especially since a not inconsiderate amount of my time available to tailor and adjust and develop an AP is whittled down by the number of posts I make to these boards trying to explain why we do things the way we do... ;-)
But might this in fact be a failing of the Adventure Path itself, and thus might it not work better to start eliminating little tidbits like what drove the crazy dwarf in WotR below ground or why a cultist stands between the exit of the caverns and Kenebras, and instead provide elements for additional roleplaying?
To take this a point further, let's consider Horgus. Now, not everyone will have hot dice for diplomacy. But if the players managed to get him out alive and back home on a neutral or even unfriendly basis, then it would have made for an interesting roleplaying aspect to allow the players to return to Horgus and try to talk him into assisting the Crusaders in their efforts to get to the Wardstone fragment.
Or for that matter working with the blind elf with the long name... and leading him to an area where needed magic is cached (perhaps even the Rod of Cancellation needed to save Kenebras) and then convince the guardian of the cache why this is needed.
For that matter, additional information on how to help redeem certain potential targets would also be of use.
While the GM can develop these elements him- or herself, quite a few won't bother. They want to run the AP as-is (which is a huge factor as to why so many are upset that WotR goes off the rails without significant revision after Book 3 - and one-shotting a demon lord before he can act is a sign of an unbalanced game).
The result is a generation of gamers who are being raised into the Dungeons and Diablo style of gaming - quick short-term buffs to overclock characters and let them wipe out enemies as quickly as possible - rather than Dungeons and Dragons - combat is important, but ultimately the game is about roleplaying.
I'd like to think Pathfinder is more Dungeons and Dragons than Dungeons and Diablo.
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Really role playing with APs is what you make of it, i recently GMed Snows of Summer for my wife and kids and then separately my nephews and daughter.
the first group, my wife and kids are constantly looking for ways to get around fighting, to the point of their first reaction to a encounter is "i roll my diplomacy check!" they love monologuing enemies, so naturally they talked their way thru half the first book (even the russian bartender is now on their side:)
the second group is all about leaving a blood bath (except my daughter), they talk to no one, just grim specters of death, they even killed Ten-Penny after she tried to surrender then ran when she saw that wasn't going to work (at least they picked Evil Alignments).
just because an encounter is billed as "combat" doesn't mean you have to play it that way:)
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That all said... I do value your feedback (and ALL feedback!) and use them to constantly adjust and refine the Adventure Paths I work on and develop (which means that any feedback I get on a particular element of a particular adventure may need to wait six to twelve months before I get a chance to actually put that feedback into practice)... but I don't have the luxury to hand-tailor each Adventure Path to each GM who runs them. Especially since a not inconsiderate amount of my time available to tailor and adjust and develop an AP is whittled down by the number of posts I make to these boards trying to explain why we do things the way we do... ;-)If there's one thing I'd like you to take out of this discussion, it's that encounters that end with something other than combat are often the most fun and memorable in my adventures, and the more of those you can manage, the more I would enjoy it (Examples include: the first half of the Wormwood Mutiny; the different options for taking Tidewater Rock in Raiders of the Fever Sea, Alderpash in Heralds of the Ivory Labyrinth, and just about all of The Harrowing).
At least, that's my opinion :)
On the other hand, ending a final boss encounter with talking can be really anticlimactic for a lot of players. Imagine how deflated most players would feel if you simply talked Kazoug out of returning to the material plane, or convinced Deskari that he should totally not swallow up Golarion. While I think talking down a boss could work in some instances (ie, the boss was once goodly, or the boss was once a friend of the PCs), I do like an awesome final battle at the end of a long campaign. That's just my view on it though.
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I don't think it's a failing of the Adventure Path at all. As I've said before... it's an Adventure Path, not an Adventure Lots of Possible Paths. There IS a pretty narrow assumption, a "railroad" if you will, that the heroes of any one AP will be following, even for ones like Kingmaker that have a pretty strong element (or illusion) of being sandboxy. Realizing that the type of game you might want to run isn't an Adventure Path is an important realization to come across.
That said, an Adventure Path can STILL help you, even if you don't intend to run one. The format and method of presentation work great for any campaign—and if your'e making one for your own group, you don't even have to write things out fully—you can incorperate elements from elsewhere and cobble things together to make a patchwork of pre-written encounters and NPCs that you create along with others you borrow from a dozen other sources. That's how I've traditionally run my campaigns, many of which have been adapted or adjusted in one way or another into Adventure Paths themselves (Curse of the Crimson Throne, for example, or elements of Serpent's Skull and Rise of the Runelords, for example).
And frankly, using phrases like "a generation raised into the 'Dungeons and Diablo' style of gaming" is quite unfair. Especially when you step back and look at the early D&D adventures, which were born out of wargaming roots where there often was less story than what we get in games like Diablo. Heck, I'm currently running "Temple of Elemental Evil" which is a GREAT adventure... but half the NPCs you meet in the adventure don't even have names! I've had to write names as I come up with them into my book when the PCs decide to, say, visit the leatherworker in Hommlet, or dare to ask a captive what the name of the leader of the bandits at the Temple itself is named.
The game has ALWAYS left significant portions of the world to the GM to decide and design. Comparing modern adventures to those of yore, I think that modern adventures are actually providing a lot more than before, in fact. I'm just not seeing the validity of a "Diablo has ruined gaming" at all... I know that's not exactly what you were saying, but still...
I haven't heard "Diablo is running D&D" since 3e was announced. That brought back some memories.
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Sometimes think people don't play diplomacy correctly. Guess OT
RP is what you make of it. Sometimes maybe npcs have too much backstory as it almost fences you in. RP Depends on the group make up, both pc and player, as well as the module.
I do enjoy social dungeons where the monsters mostly want/will to interact in some way. Only had one thing published, a 4 part ~200 room dungeon AP for AAW. In that I desperately tried to put non fighty way round lots of encounters. Kinda tricky a lot of the time
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My addition to the conversation is that the issue of role playing vs. combat is player dependent. If the players simply fight creatures that they encounter, it doesn't matter how much or how little role playing encounters were included in the AP. Similarly, if they try to talk, use diplomacy, etc, then they can turn many encounters written as combat into role play encounters.
In terms of encounter design, the trick is to have enough encounters with intelligent creatures that can be talked to. If you're in a dungeon level with all oozes, role players are pretty much out of luck. Even animals can be dealt with using speak with animals or animal empathy if the players choose, even if the encounter is written as "the lion attacks."
I've player characters who've turned encounters written as combat ones in APs into negotiations (though some were with flighty fey who later turned on us - but some of them kept their bargains). The fights where they turned on us were far more satisfying than if we had simply fought the instant we met them, and the fights we avoided left us more resources for the fights we didn't or couldn't avoid.
Having read through Wrath of the Righteous and Reign of Winter, from the GM side, I don't really see too much problems. Role playing encounters are some of the easiest thing to adapt or expand upon. I'd rather have to tweak encounters to add a little more diplomacy or what have you, then have to generate a lot of stat blocks for enemies/encounters.
How exactly am I to go about this, outside of putting an impassable barrier between the opponent and the PC's everytime I want the guy to have a good "Mwahaha!" moment. And it really takes people out of the moment of kicking in the door in a dungeon when the bad guy goes on a "I am the Bandit King, hear my lamentation about my sucky life!" rant. Try to think for a second how a scene like that would look in a real life fantasy dungeon scenario. No, not actual "real life", but try to imagine yourself as an adventurer in a party, you kick in the door to a room and the chief cultist tries to stop you with "But wait! I need to expound on who I am and what I am doing here!".
Yeah I hear that - after having the 'charge' happen enough I finally just made a table rule that my players were happy with:
Rule: When fighting a BBEG roll initiative and unless you get a surprise round combat will hold and any and all role playing that the GM wants to happen will happen - this will not alter the initiative count - change positions of anything, or anything else like that.
This lets me do a 'expound' if I want to - and play it as the bad guy would in terms of verbosity - some bad guys just attack - a few (especially if they have a plot clue or red herring to toss) might just say something.
The players have seemed ok with that - about half the table wants to just 'ATTACK' and the other half wants to talk so it was causing table tension as well - this seems to have hit the right mix - as the 'ATTACK' crowd seemed to worry more about loosing tactical and position related advantage by waiting around for dialog - so by rolling and freezing movement it takes that fear of 'getting the drop' away.
It kind of sounds to me, Magnuskn, that the product you're looking for to run your campaigns isn't actually an Adventure Path, but a detailed campaign setting. After reading so many of your posts, I really think you're using the wrong tool (Adventure Paths) to run your games. Not that there's anything wrong with that! But I suspect you'd have a lot more fun taking a book like, say Magnimar (choosing that 'cause I'm familiar with it) and simply using that book to generate ideas for adventures and NPCs and stories for your group to go on.
Adventure Paths are not for everyone. They're pretty popular, though, and as evidenced by a fair number of the replies your posts have been getting, for most of our customers they do the job they're trying to do. They just don't for you, and that's fine... that just means you should consider using different types of resources to run your games, perhaps.
That all said... I do value your feedback (and ALL feedback!) and use them to constantly adjust and refine the Adventure Paths I work on and develop (which means that any feedback I get on a particular element of a particular adventure may need to wait six to twelve months before I get a chance to actually put that feedback into practice)... but I don't have the luxury to hand-tailor each Adventure Path to each GM who runs them. Especially since a not inconsiderate amount of my time available to tailor and adjust and develop an AP is whittled down by the number of posts I make to these boards trying to explain why we do things the way we do... ;-)
I need to leave for work in 10 minutes (and won't be able to do much before tomorrow, RP this evening after work), so I'll just respond quickly to this: I am writing a campaign set in Oppara at this time. While I am stuck at the very beginning , due to a full-time job and other commitments, the cause for me to do that was that I had noticed that my players were falling into a rut with the way they handled roleplaying with NPC's. And I do blame much of how AP's are structured for this, since NPC's so often fall into the background after being introduced.
I've actually taken that to heart for most of the encounters I do. That's why I try to ensure that all major NPCs or creatures have backstories, in fact... for the ones that DO happen to end in any one session in something other than combat.
Got to respond to this, too. A way to ensure that those backstories might get used is to write less NPC's which will fight to the death. Just saying. Also, one of my two RP groups is very much trying to not kill their opponents. Giving more options what you can do with captured opponents would also help.
Even on a technical level, you very often don't kill downed opponents. AP's assume too much that they are out of the picture forever after being defeated.
Anyway, I'll try to expound on some more of the things I think could be done a bit better in AP's in terms of coherent storytelling when I get time again, i.e. Saturday. Thanks for listening to our feedback, James!
Even on a technical level, you very often don't kill downed opponents. AP's assume too much that they are out of the picture forever after being defeated.
I think this is actually a good starting point for where we can all find the right spot. Too often I will read the backstories of these NPC's and, while interesting, I can't really bring it back in a meaningful way to the situation at hand. Perhaps there needs to be more ways to explain how the NPC reacts to certain situations based on their history, rather than just putting that info down without a lot of context.
(For example, someone mentioned the crazy dwarf in Worldwound Incursion. My party actually did capture him and keep him alive. However, I had no idea how to treat that, as the backstory didn't really give me any special insight on 'What would he do if he woke up tied up and being led to the surface?' I ended up just having him stay unconscious for most of the adventure, and had him off-loaded when they reached the Mongrelman city)
Using the AP's as written, combat is about 75% of the time you spend in an AP. Since combat encounters take so long to set up and play out (even an encounter which is totally harmless to the PC's will take at least half an hour to draw up a map and then get through the entire thing), they constitute so much of the time spend playing Pathfinder. If that is your kind of game, I'm happy for you.
The thing is, when discussing an AP as written, you can't disregard the supplemental content provided. That includes the NPC descriptions and backstories at the end of the adventure proper, as well as articles on the towns and cities that events take place in, and everything else. It is all there to help provide the GM with all of the tools that they need to create a memorable adventure.
As I alluded to in my first post, as far as I'm concerned, it boils down to the mindset of the GM's approach to the material. I read and consume it all so that I'm as well versed in the plot, characters, and setting as possible so that when my players do something outside of the box (which they are wont to do), I'm prepared.
I will say this, I have a couple of different groups that I GM for, and my players all share my predilection towards roleplay versus combat-heavy gaming. In fact, I only play with players who share that mindset. I've had players in my groups that only care about getting from one combat to the next, and I don't play Pathfinder with them anymore. The other thing I'll mention is that I don't use grids or minis, so I'm not wasting time drawing maps, etc... Everyone just has to be very descriptive of what they're doing and trying to accomplish.
The important thing to remember is that the adventure, as written, can only ever be a baseline of assumptions. Each GM will present the course of events in at least a slightly different way, and the way each group of players react to those events will vary even more greatly. I do feel that I run the adventures as written, but I also feel very confident saying that the percentage of time that my group spends in roleplay and combat is very nearly the exact inverse of what you mention in your first sentence.
Even on a technical level, you very often don't kill downed opponents. AP's assume too much that they are out of the picture forever after being defeated.
Having done with, I can tell you that after the first time you do this, players will just coup de grace everything they fight. This'll work once, then never again.
Got to respond to this, too. A way to ensure that those backstories might get used is to write less NPC's which will fight to the death. Just saying. Also, one of my two RP groups is very much trying to not kill their opponents. Giving more options what you can do with captured opponents would also help.
This assumes that the PCs are immediately going to be super-aggressive to every NPC presented as an enemy, which isn't necessarily how it goes. I can't speak for your groups, of course, but I doubt attacking every NPC that stands in their way is the way PCs should be expected to respond.
The backstory can also let you know what they would do if you captured them, as was given with the person who read the backstory of the one RoW NPC, and used that to figure out what they'd do when the group captured them. "Fights to the death" doesn't mean "will kill themselves if they are captured". It doesn't mean "is honor-bound to say nothing and commit seppuku upon defeat". It means "If they're in a fight, they won't stop, even if the odds are against them, for some reason".
It could be that they've got a code of honor that doesn't let them suffer the dishonor of defeat. It could also be that if they come back alive, with enemies in pursuit, their superior is going to kill them — so better to die facing an enemy than to lead them back to the base or risk death by their commanding officer for "abandoning their post". It may well be the fanatical zeal of the mad cultist, but it's equally possible to be magical coercion overriding their free will, from which the party could free them.
This assumes that the PCs are immediately going to be super-aggressive to every NPC presented as an enemy, which isn't necessarily how it goes. I can't speak for your groups, of course, but I doubt attacking every NPC that stands in their way is the way PCs should be expected to respond.
If you are storming a cathedral full of high-level death cultists who want to ressurect a demi-god lich, you really expect a party to chat up the next undead horror they encounter?
Anyway, I fear I must adjourn any further discussion until at least Wednesday, since I have two days of intense studying ahead of me, one day of a very important exam which goes from morning to evening plus my birthday and then the next day prep time for the other RP round and getting out as many job applications as I can.
Sorry to temporarily bail on the discussion at this point, but these next days are very important for me and I can't spend hours composing long replies, since tempus fugit.
I suspect you'd have a lot more fun taking a book like, say Magnimar (choosing that 'cause I'm familiar with it) and simply using that book to generate ideas for adventures and NPCs and stories for your group to go on.
That sounds like a lot of work.
Pathfinder makes it pretty easy to assemble a scenario of 'bad guy is holed up in a lair full of CR-appropriate encounters and the players have to break in and kill everything'. I could come up with that myself.
I feel like to get the most out of a role-playing game, these bits need to be interspersed with challenges that aren't based around 'kill or be killed' and which give players the freedom to choose what they want to do and how. Those are the bits that are difficult to create.
So, to take a constructive approach, what parts of the APs do that well? What do we want to see more of? We've had one example: the opening chapter of Jade Regent 4 where you're the guests of a slightly mad king. What else?
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This assumes that the PCs are immediately going to be super-aggressive to every NPC presented as an enemy, which isn't necessarily how it goes. I can't speak for your groups, of course, but I doubt attacking every NPC that stands in their way is the way PCs should be expected to respond.If you are storming a cathedral full of high-level death cultists who want to ressurect a demi-god lich, you really expect a party to chat up the next undead horror they encounter?
"um, excuse me mister lich sir, i dont want to be that guy but if you wouldn't mind popping that guy's scalp back on we'd like to discuss how to resolve this whole situation, hey now! disintegrating Ted isn't helping either!"
It needs lots player investment, involvement and input. Need to have their own ideas. I run a rolemaster campaign set in a big sprawling city. It has lots social stuff. I can't possibly come up with everything so players introduce many npcs, places, etc. Healing up in RM is often slow, so pc's carry injuries around with them....makes fighting not a priority action...Plus killing things tend to upset authorities, rivals, etc .
If you have the magnimar sourcebook it's full good stuff, nice map in ShSt folio, and endless places to have non combat challenges
Magnuskn, Happy Birthday! and best of luck with your job exam and the rest of your job hunt:)
also have you considered Skull & Shackles? is it that the Pirate theme is hard for you and yours to embrace? i get that, however it is one of the best for what you describe and with the add ons coming this fall from Paizo and already available from Legendary Games the sand box feel can be mostly hiddden, just a thought:)
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This assumes that the PCs are immediately going to be super-aggressive to every NPC presented as an enemy, which isn't necessarily how it goes. I can't speak for your groups, of course, but I doubt attacking every NPC that stands in their way is the way PCs should be expected to respond.If you are storming a cathedral full of high-level death cultists who want to ressurect a demi-god lich, you really expect a party to chat up the next undead horror they encounter?
or you could go with "Ray, when someone asks you "are you a god", YOU SAY YES!" best movie line ever!
Magnuskn, Happy Birthday! and best of luck with your job exam and the rest of your job hunt:)
also have you considered Skull & Shackles? is it that the Pirate theme is hard for you and yours to embrace? i get that, however it is one of the best for what you describe and with the add ons coming this fall from Paizo and already available from Legendary Games the sand box feel can be mostly hiddden, just a thought:)
A bit premature with the birthday wishes (it's on Monday), but thank you for all the good wishes, nonetheless. :)
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I know people didn't like it, but I actually really liked the trials in Book 4 of Crimson Throne. It was the only AP I was able to play start to finish (sadly, looks like current Jade Regent is over due to me moving and GM disinterest). I actually liked being chased out of the city and having to earn the trust of the tribes of Shoanti. And Book 6 felt like a "heroes return to save the day" moment, which was awesome for all of us. Shame people didn't like book 4 because it was really awesome and well done.
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"um, excuse me mister lich sir, i dont want to be that guy but if you wouldn't mind popping that guy's scalp back on we'd like to discuss how to resolve this whole situation, hey now! disintegrating Ted isn't helping either!"This assumes that the PCs are immediately going to be super-aggressive to every NPC presented as an enemy, which isn't necessarily how it goes. I can't speak for your groups, of course, but I doubt attacking every NPC that stands in their way is the way PCs should be expected to respond.If you are storming a cathedral full of high-level death cultists who want to ressurect a demi-god lich, you really expect a party to chat up the next undead horror they encounter?
This reminds me of a tale... ;)
It's one of my friend Bill's favorite gaming stories, set back in the days of AD&D, and he was part of a group doing a one-shot adventure. They came across a Lich who was in the ruins of what was a magic school, and the Lich was... nuts. Thought it was still the school and the adventurers were students. He told them to run along to their classes.
Bill piped up and said "excuse me, sir, but we're having a problem with question #13. What are the three best ways to kill a Lich?"
The GM stared at him, and said "The Lich snarls 'you're wizards, not g*#+#!n clerics.'"
Bill's response? "I'm sorry, sir, but I've heard of clerics described as many things, but never g#+&%#n..."
At that point the game broke down into laughter, including the GM who had to take a small break and regain her composure. :)