Personally, I bought S+S right away and loved it. However, as noted by some other posters here, many people I know have a hard time getting into it or refuse to touch it at all. It's not so much the pirate theme but they really have hang-ups with the idea of the game including guns. I think they're just being traditional fantasy snobs. I love seeing a mixing of genres in any game and I especially like the more imaginative firearms in this game (dagger gun, shield gun, etc.). My knowledge of the Pathfinder RPG is extremely limited but I think there's at least one campaign that dips into sci-fi and I'd like to see that come into the card game just as much as I liked the pirate theme here. Basically, I just hope this fantasy snob attitude isn't too far spread, doesn't hurt the game's sales, and the developers continue to delve into the new and unfamiliar.
Interesting to see how many potential players seem to be put off by the pirate theme. I can see that for the roleplaying version (but not really understand, because romanticized pirates are fun!), but for a game like this, which is basically a board game, I think it's a weird decision.I don't think it's wierd. I want to enjoy the theme of the game I'm playing.
It's the same reason I steer away from military themed games...not my thing.
I love the game play of PACG, but I don't like pirates enough to spend $100+ on this version. I'll wait for the next set to be released and play a theme I enjoy.
Fair point, I guess.
I wasn't going to post because I own S&S, but some of the people I play with have had a waning interest in S&S and said they probably wouldn't pick up WotR. All of their feedback has come down to more or less what Gandalf73 said:
• There isn’t a lot of variation in gameplay from scenario to scenario. This by itself would not be as big an issue for me if the theme and story really game through, but the limited text and limited variation in mechanics do not immerse me in the story. As others have pointed out, the fan made adventure guide does a great job helping to bring out the story.
There is a craving for more story, more varied scenarios, and stronger themeing. A couple that I play S&S with recently picked up RotR to play with each at home and they keep gushing over how great the story is compared to S&S. Here are some verbatim quotes:
Friend: One scenario that came to mind: "Them ogres aint right". You start at the village you just saved last scenario/path. The other location is a field that you go to on the way to the other location, a hanging suspended bridge, and the last location is the ogre cave itself.
Me: can you not just skip to the ogre cave?
Friend: yes, you can, but closing one of the other ones first gave you +2 to ogres. Also, the henchmen were all inbred, so they were all the same henchman, but when you encountered them you roll a d4, and that determines their special characteristics: on a 1 this ogre is immune to poison, on a 2 this ogre gets shuffled back in even if defeated, ect...
Me: you mentioned something about it ending climatically?
Friend: Yeah the whole adventure path built up on the ogre plot line. The scenario I just described was the first or second one on the path. A later one you prevent the dam from being destroyed (I think) by the ogres, then take back a ranger fort from the ogres. Then at the end of the path you learn after killing the boss (via his card quote text on his defeated side) that the ogres were being forced to do this by some greater, evil power. In the next path you find out that that greater power is a necromancer stone giant
and he has taken over the ogre clan and ogre caves.
So in general, I'm not going to be responding a lot in here—I'm here to listen and learn—but I will just say that that's not what the DriveThru secret project is.
Thanks for sharing that information. I think I had a reasonable guess. DriveThruRPG prints other materials like RPG rulebooks, and the errata cards solve the hardest part of printing the Organized Play scenarios - matching the card backs - so printing the instruction booklet and a few cards wouldn't be impossible. I'll place an order tomorrow on Paizo.com for those pdfs, its a nice, simple upgrade to get more life out of Skull & Shackles.
Back to the topic at hand, I participated in a thread on BGG with users who wanted character continuity from Rise of the Runelords, and skipped purchasing Skull & Shackles because they couldn't maintain their character progress. I think I covered most of the business and game-design reasons why their assumption that it would be "easy" (with the implied assumption of huge sales numbers) weren't realistic. I can post a link to the thread if you want the pros & cons of the discussion about that particular game feature.
I got the RotR base set, the character add on, and the scenario decks. I have gotten to play it once. Due to time and player limitations, then, I can't justify getting S+S. If it was cheaper, I would probably consider it anyway due to being an inveterate collector, but the production values are pretty amazing, and it works against it as it is.
It is a lovely game, though.
i bought the whole ROTRL series. i'm considering getting S&S but i'm not that into the pirate scene...plus i'm also playing several other games (im only at adventure3 of ROTRL) :)
This has been the most common thing I've read as to why people aren't buying this. Maybe it's burnout from the Arrrr! Pirate Day! type of stuff. The same thing that killed 1980's robots and ninjas.
It's a shame because it's amazingly fun.
Because I'm obsessive-compulsive and haven't finished Rise of the Runelords yet. That said, I plan to. Nothing makes a game better than having a justification to finish every sentence with, "Yarrrr, matey!"
I'm a subscriber, so I have all of S&S (now, since In Hell's Heart just arrived yesterday).
I am considering reevaluating after I get the full WotR set.
1) The pace is very fast, and I don't have a home group. I have limited time to get a group going and I'm a very busy person. I'll probably get a home group going again once I get more time.
2) I have OP and I'd like to grow it, but there's been a significant number of rules changes, enough that I'm probably the only person in my group who understands the rules to a good enough extent now. I expect the round of playtesting after WotR to go better.
3) The cost is significant, and though I can afford it, it does cause me to reconsider sometimes.
I'm a subscriber, so I have all of S&S (now, since In Hell's Heart just arrived yesterday).
Lucky! I just checked my tracking and my order was in El Paso yesterday (about 90 miles from where I live). It'd be nice if it makes it to me today so I can add the promos in for game day tomorrow.
I am considering reevaluating after I get the full WotR set.
1) The pace is very fast, and I don't have a home group. I have limited time to get a group going and I'm a very busy person. I'll probably get a home group going again once I get more time.
I'm kind of in the same boat as you. I have a full time job and take a full time college course load. I run organized play locally and am doing a solo run of the base AP with Damiel when I have time, but it's pretty much the only gaming I'm doing right now (currently taking a break from the RPG). A lot of players have asked for monthly releases after Runelords and Paizo has been able to deliver, but with the extra content from organized play added in it can seem like a little too much too fast and I'm afraid I might get burnt out eventually.
Although I don't think the delay of Wrath until May was planned in any way, I'd really like to see a 2-4 month break in between sets to be a normal thing from now on. I think it can give both players and developers a chance to recharge and catch up with the current set.
Sorry if this is a little off-topic.
Sorry to say this, but the game simply isn't good enough for the investment, both in time and money.
My group has played through most of the RotR, and we're frankly getting bored. It's to easy, to repetitive, and there's other co-op games out there which we prefer.
We're nowhere near challenged, and has never even been close to loosing a scenario. Even if we were, we could just wait it all out and let the deck run dry, but that has never been necessary to even consider.
Co-op games live and die by the challenge they present, and RotR is simply to easy. Since that's what we have to judge the whole Pathfinder franchise on, we're not going to throw money after a new set.
Chief Technical Officer
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Regarding variety of scenarios: With Rise of the Runelords, we weren't sure how often we could depart from the basic "find, defeat, and corner the villain" scenario recipe. In retrospect, we could have changed it up it a lot more than we did. We do it a lot more in S&S and in Wrath, so if that's your primary issue, please check out some of the reviews posted online--I see pretty much universal agreement that we improved the diversity of gameplay with S&S.
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Chief Technical Officer
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I agree with your comments on the difficulty, but would also like to add that if future sets are made more difficult they need to be done so in a clever way. What I mean is not just making the dice rolls more difficult and adding more luck, but making the decisions needed to win less obvious and requiring more thought.Sorry to say this, but the game simply isn't good enough for the investment, both in time and money.
My group has played through most of the RotR, and we're frankly getting bored. It's to easy, to repetitive, and there's other co-op games out there which we prefer.
We're nowhere near challenged, and has never even been close to loosing a scenario. Even if we were, we could just wait it all out and let the deck run dry, but that has never been necessary to even consider.
Co-op games live and die by the challenge they present, and RotR is simply to easy. Since that's what we have to judge the whole Pathfinder franchise on, we're not going to throw money after a new set.
Again, read the online reviews of S&S; you'll find we've increased the difficulty and made it so that optimizing for combat is not always the best plan.
RotR has really really good reviews and ratings on boardgamegeek.com, but S&S has even better, and I think this is precisely the reason.
The break-neck pace is at the point where I just can't keep up with each new release. That said, it has now broken me of the "gotta get them all" mentality. I do not feel inclined to pick up WotR simply because by the time I am caught up with S&S there might even be another base game to choose from.
The errata is expected, but discouraging. I will most likely wait for second printings in the future, although waning interest might mean single print runs and I get that as well, being a double edged sword and all.
As for OP, I can't keep up. Personal stuff comes up and I fall behind. In fact, I haven't even played in 4 weeks and I am not sure I can catch up to the rest of the group. If they choose to be nice I feel like I will be boring them redoing scenarios.
Oh well. Love the game. Look forward to what is released in the future.
EDIT: I feel stupid. I HAVE bought S&S, but perhaps my input is still useful for the product line at a whole.
I wanted to wait until the entire Adventure Path was available before purchasing. I couldn't wait, I got everything up to AP5 last week but AP6 will be owned soon enough.
When I put a game away, I have a bad habit of not playing it again for years, no matter how much I enjoyed it. This happend during my second run-through of RotR. I put the game away when I got a new game that I was dying to play and just never brought it back out. Poor Harsk, Seoni and Lem will never get to start AP3... (I played the newly purchased game twice and put it away too. Great game and I'll probably play it again in a few years.)
Anyway, I know that if I bought the base game to S&S I would likely only play through AP1 and put it away while waiting for AP2. I would still collect the rest of the scenarios but I probably wouldn't play them. Now I know I'll be able to start at the beginning and play through the entire path for 35 straight games.
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We actually love the pirate theme and the fleet aspects of Skull and Shackles. Swashbucklers, alchemists, and gunslingers, yay!
We do Not love the release schedule. RotR may have been too slow for some, but it was perfect for us.
There is every likelihood that we're going to start skipping every other AP just so we have time to play, replay, and generally enjoy what we already have.
Additionally, we were disheartened to learn that the cards from RotR, while technically compatible, were not usable with the new set.
Obviously, you cannot make Everything an expansion of the base game. But one adventure path and done forever was more than a little off-putting.
Cheers.
-Vic
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Chief Technical Officer
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The break-neck pace is at the point where I just can't keep up with each new release. That said, it has now broken me of the "gotta get them all" mentality. I do not feel inclined to pick up WotR simply because by the time I am caught up with S&S there might even be another base game to choose from.
The errata is expected, but discouraging. I will most likely wait for second printings in the future, although waning interest might mean single print runs and I get that as well, being a double edged sword and all.
We had to reprint RotR because we vastly underestimated demand and because there was almost a full year between the sellout of the RotR Base Set and the launch of S&S. Now that we have a better sense of the market, and the channel is not in danger of being completely empty, we should no longer need to reprint Adaventure Paths.
Vic, I see a lot of this thread agree that that the release schedule is too aggressive. Is that something Paizo is willing to address?
I personally do not understand the notion that too aggressive is bad. This only applies to people who are subscribed and opt for promo cards.
Wouldn't it make sense just not to subscribe, and just buy the adventure decks when you do have the time and reach the point where you want to play the adventure deck? That way you are getting the content when you feel like progressing?
I guess there is the subscriber's discount as well, but other than that, this is the thread of those who didn't buy and why. This doesn't mean there are more people that agree than disagree about the release schedule.
What if subscribers can opt to not get the current month's release, but still be able to get a discount and promo cards when they do purchase the Adventure deck. As long as they were already subscribed the time the content was released, their discount applies. or something similar?
With that said, I do agree that the price for a complete Adventure Path is pretty steep. A $60 base set only has 8-10 scenarios, and you can't even use the role cards by just playing the base set. You need to invest $100 more to finish the story and have the full experience. But compared to MTG, PACG has been more gentle to my wallet.
I have found these responses an interesting read.
As someone who will be 50 later this year I was involved when all the tropes that many of the respondents seem to think of as Fantasy 'Canon' were being developed, they were all new once. I remember when the thought of a dark elf was groundbreaking :)
To see such resistance to a (slightly) new take on a traditional fantasy setting is unsettling.
Not trying to be negative and accuse you lot of being being recalitrants (even if demonstrably true Ha!) But if you did enjoy ROTR get out of your bubble and try S&S. I promise you its a better product.
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Wouldn't it make sense just not to subscribe, and just buy the adventure decks when you do have the time and reach the point where you want to play the adventure deck? That way you are getting the content when you feel like progressing?
Clearly, a lot of people are doing just that...hence the reason why this thread was started. Paizo is likely wondering why S&S didn't sell in the same numbers that Runelords did, and the answer for many people is that they are simply going to skip certain sets if there are going to be about two per year.
This doesn't put me off, but it does for some. The one thing they could do that would make me stop purchasing the game entirely would be if they went with randomized booster packs of some sort...I'm not giving patronage to any card game of that sort, ever.
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Vic, I see a lot of this thread agree that that the release schedule is too aggressive. Is that something Paizo is willing to address?I personally do not understand the notion that too aggressive is bad. This only applies to people who are subscribed and opt for promo cards.
Wouldn't it make sense just not to subscribe, and just buy the adventure decks when you do have the time and reach the point where you want to play the adventure deck? That way you are getting the content when you feel like progressing?
I guess there is the subscriber's discount as well, but other than that, this is the thread of those who didn't buy and why. This doesn't mean there are more people that agree than disagree about the release schedule.
What if subscribers can opt to not get the current month's release, but still be able to get a discount and promo cards when they do purchase the Adventure deck. As long as they were already subscribed the time the content was released, their discount applies. or something similar?
With that said, I do agree that the price for a complete Adventure Path is pretty steep. A $60 base set only has 8-10 scenarios, and you can't even use the role cards by just playing the base set. You need to invest $100 more to finish the story and have the full experience. But compared to MTG, PACG has been more gentle to my wallet.
Actually, it affects retailers. They purchase product and where you had 1 year to sell RotR, now you have 6-7 months to sell S&S. On top of people being turned off by starting over and some turned off by the Pirate theme (ARRR!), you now have product sitting on the shelves. Then comes WotR and more product to put on the shelves. And it isn't moving. That's a scary thought to retailers.
Plus with the more aggressive release, you have people that probably won't finish S&S AP before WotR comes out. I'm not sure we'll be able to finish the Season of the Shackles OP beforehand. Then we start purchasing WotR. Maybe we jump to that because it's new. Now I have RotR and S&S sitting on my shelf. RotR has no more content. S&S isn't finished and also has no more content. It's a cycle that leaves a bad taste in gamers' mouths. You can't compare board games to MtG. A lot (not all) of Magic players get consumed and only play that. While board gamers have varied interests. And it seems like a lot of people on this board are soloing. That doesn't generate a lot of cross-interest with others. You want other people to play. You want them to love the game so they buy it and pass it along to others.
So if you factor in product sitting on retailers' shelves because they anticipate too much interest, the cost of the game and its' accessories (mats, sleeves, etc.), the strong possibility of not finishing the current AP with groups, and the potential for burnout, it's not just subscribers that are affected by the aggressive release schedule.
That's an angle I never even thought of. Thanks, Theryon.
Thinking about it now, if Wrath was already released at the time we started playing PACG we would probably have skipped S&S just because of the theme.
About the MTG comparison, I wasn't comparing the games; just how much money I've spent on them. Plus I don't consider PACG a board game. It could have been, but I think it works out that its 100% cards.
One thing I will say that I somewhat regret about buying Skull and Shackles (I absolutely HAD to have this version because I love the sea and ships and sea animals) instead of Runelords is that the characters are not NEARLY as backwards-compatible. Looking them over, you MUST use cards from S&S for the S&S characters or they are no good. The Runelords characters are very much able to be used in this version of the game but not so in reverse.
In the future, I will carefully look over characters before I buy the set they come in. I want the full package when I purchase, not just the game itself, but the ability to use that game's pieces (characters, etc.) with other sets of the game. I see each new game as a sort of expansion. Yes, it is a new entire adventure, but I would LOVE to have a favorite character that I play in all of them.
I do appreciate the class decks as I think this somewhat alleviates the problem.
That being said, I am shocked and APPALLED that people do not like the pirate theme... okay not so much that they don't like the pirate theme, but the SAILING theme. How could you not love the roar of the waves, the rock of the boat and the sound of the dolphins?!?!
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One thing I will say that I somewhat regret about buying Skull and Shackles (I absolutely HAD to have this version because I love the sea and ships and sea animals) instead of Runelords is that the characters are not NEARLY as backwards-compatible. Looking them over, you MUST use cards from S&S for the S&S characters or they are no good. The Runelords characters are very much able to be used in this version of the game but not so in reverse.
In the future, I will carefully look over characters before I buy the set they come in. I want the full package when I purchase, not just the game itself, but the ability to use that game's pieces (characters, etc.) with other sets of the game. I see each new game as a sort of expansion. Yes, it is a new entire adventure, but I would LOVE to have a favorite character that I play in all of them.
I do appreciate the class decks as I think this somewhat alleviates the problem.
That being said, I am shocked and APPALLED that people do not like the pirate theme... okay not so much that they don't like the pirate theme, but the SAILING theme. How could you not love the roar of the waves, the rock of the boat and the sound of the dolphins?!?!
I think they did a pretty good job for the most part. The characters tend to have one role that fits S&S especially, and one that is good anywhere. Part of the reason Runelords characters play so well in S&S is that their set really didn't have much of a theme to focus character powers on. I think Runelords is always going to be the most compatible characters, and the only one that is fully compatible no matter what roles and powers you take.
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About the MTG comparison, I wasn't comparing the games; just how much money I've spent on them. Plus I don't consider PACG a board game. It could have been, but I think it works out that its 100% cards.
Ahhh ... I was talking about the time cost. It is difficult to be a slave of two masters ... LOL I lump PACG into the category of board games when it comes to time to play a game.
As far as looking at this from a retailer's POV, it was one of the perspectives I mention when giving feedback to the PACG crew.
Most of the potential customers did not purchase SS, because there was no plunder die enclosed ;-)
But I fixed it, now you may all buy your base set ...
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Hearthstone.
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Let me give you the perspective of someone who has purchased Skulls and Shackles, but not Rise of the Runelords.
I started late because in different groups, I am currently playing both of RotR and S&S RPG campaigns. I didn't want the card game to spoil the RPG for me. When I played, and saw that it wasn't really that spoilery, I decided I could play without ruining the RPG. I skipped RotR and bought S&S because I wanted to do Organised Play.
I subscribed starting with deck 2 of S&S, and I'm subscribed because I want the promos. I bought the base set, the character expansions and all of the character decks and the character mats. I have subsequently sold all of the character decks to people I play with so they and play the OP campaign with me. More than likely, I will buy all of the character decks again.
I'm in two regular gaming groups Mondays and Wednesdays. There is some overlap, but we are different groups playing different RPG campaigns. We play PAGC when our RPG falls apart for some reason (missing players etc.).
Those of us in both groups have literally just finished the deck 1 S&S OP scenarios. Guys who are only part of one of these groups have each played about half the deck 1 OP scenarios. We have not played the base game. I think at the rate we're playing I will have all of WotR before we finish playing S&S OP.
If that's true and the schedule remains the same, I will most likely cancel my subscription at that point. Money is not the issue, time to play is the issue, the current release schedule is way way too aggressive for the amount of play we actually accomplish.
I already have a cupboard full of board games that I don't have time to play. However much I love this game, and I like it a lot, I don't need PACG adding one board game a year to my overflowing cupboards, that I likely will never play until I'm retired (in 20 ish years time).
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Well, I have a subscription to the card game I have the Rise of the Runelords boxed set, and all of the additions from the skin saw murders to the spires of xin shallast. While I like fantasy, I am not thrilled about pirates. I don't mind playing in a pirate game occasionally, but unlike Lodge from The Gamers Dorkness Rising, I do not think everything is better with pirates.
I have given my skulls and shackles boxed set and all of the expansions through from Hells Heart to a good friend who is running a pathfinder adventure card game table along with Pathfinder Society games.
I was happy with Rise of the Rune Lords, but wasn't thrilled with the pirates, the skulls and shackles theme so I gave it away. Right now i am considering wether to keep my subscription. I guess I am just not excited about the card game. What I enjoy is the company of the friends I play with, not necessarily the card game. Perhaps it is just the organized play version of the card game that I am not thrilled about.
Just not enough gaming time to keep up. May buy very soon. Plus, I've been waiting to see if there are any reprint issues as with the first game.
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I was a huge fan of ROTR and I did buy S&S and the first few scenario decks, but sadly S&S really didn’t do anything for me. I don’t think the shift in design and mechanics ended up working for me. I enjoyed ROTR because it felt like a good old-fashioned dungeon bash. There was great synergy between the different characters and I liked the setting and theme.
I thought the same would be true of S&S but I found its increased difficulty (with the emphasis on overcoming tasks rather than opponents, so characters lost their 'identities' by having to spread their upgrades thinly to cope with the breadth of checks) coupled with rather faffy mechanics (don’t really like how the ships were done – and all the other extra game elements (swashbuckling trait, umpteen million allies…) and characters that didn’t feel like they had any synergy at all) meant that I sadly stopped purchasing the scenario decks.
I think, in truth, my experience was somewhat marred by the delays and problems at release, not having the character add on deck when I started play, class decks coming late – and so on. That really put a dampener on the experience for me.
I’m not sure about WOTR. Part of me wonders if it will be more of a return to the good old ROTR gameplay that I enjoyed, but I suspect – in an effort to make every AP unique – lots of ‘new stuff’ will be added to it (the mythic thing for one) which will probably dilute the experience for me. I’ll keep checking the boards for updates for certain.