Hi all. My group is going to choose our next AP tonight and I wanted to be able to tell them all a little bit about path to inform their decisions. I figured an easy way to do this would be to copy/ paste the little blurbs on each of the APs page into a handout. After reading through them though, they seem a bit spoilery to me, like maybe they were written more for GMs. What do you all think?
Here is an example of what I'm talking about: Rise of the Runelords Blurb
Thanks for your input Kalindlara. I may just do that. There are a few paths that I don't know much about, but I guess I'll just wing it on those.
Thanks for your input Kalindlara. I may just do that. There are a few paths that I don't know much about, but I guess I'll just wing it on those.
If you post which ones you need a summary of, I'm sure people would be willing to give you a quick overview.
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Thanks for your input Kalindlara. I may just do that. There are a few paths that I don't know much about, but I guess I'll just wing it on those.If you post which ones you need a summary of, I'm sure people would be willing to give you a quick overview.
I would absolutely be willing to help with this. :)
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The ones i know
Curse of the Crimson Throne- Batman (and Princess Bride), rescue your corrupt, decadent city from itself
Council of Thieves- kind of like the first with more mobster type stuff, this is an odd one, but your best bet is to go all rogue party and see how much like Spy-vs-Spy you can make it
Rise of the Runelords- DnD cliche, small town kids do good, discover bigger things afoot.... at the Circle K (not really couldn't help myself:-p
Kingmaker- insert King Arthur/Game of Thrones/Mid-evil kingdom building story here and go, quite open-ended and responds very well to customization.
Serpent's Skull- Jungle Indiana Jones/Romancing the Stone/lets find the lost city with bigger s!!@ going on underneath the surface (literally)
Carrion Crown- a Gothic Horror Roadshow with a detour to LovecraftLand (NO REFUNDS!)
Jade Regent- West meets East, with about 6,000 miles in between,
Skull & Shackles- Pirates, Pirates, and more pirates, get Plunder & Peril (a module) and switch that with Raiders of the Fever Sea, also pirates
Shattered Star- Dnd cliche TO THE MAX! dungeons AND dragons
Reign of Winter every faerie tale you ever heard given frightening uncensored life, also if you loved Dragonriders of Pern, you'll love book 4:)
Wrath of the Righteous- Dragonlance Chronicles, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars all rolled into one AP (WARNING: not compatible with Mythic Adventures, despite what you heard)
Mummy's Mask- if you love The Mummy, Desert Indiana Jones or any other Egyptian cliche you'll love this one, incredibly easy for newbie GMs
Iron Gods- Thundarr, He-Man, Blade Runner, Tank Girl, X-Files, Mad Max... you get the idea, f@@@ing awesome, one of the best in my opinion edit: you could even have an all Catfolk party and go with Thundercats, its too late for us (drat!)
hope this helps :-p
The adventure paths all have Player's Guides available for free download. The Player's Guides generally do a pretty good job of helping players make appropriate characters without being too spoilery.
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Thanks everyone, for your input. I wish that I had thought to do this sooner than the afternoon before we were set to pick.
I should have been more clear about this, but we aren't actually newbies, we've run through Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne already. I own all of the AP issues, but I've avoided reading some of them because I didn't want to spoil anything if I was ever ended up as a a player in it.
Anyhow, since I do know the general themes and locations of each path, I did my best and just gave what details I knew. Funny enough, they ended up choosing an AP that I didn't know much about, Skulls and Shackles.
Turns out they really want to be pirates and don't care much what the adventure is about, haha.
Captain Yesterday; I do have Plunder and Peril, I'll check it out. Thanks for the tip!
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Skull & Shackles is decent, but there's a lot of criticism of it. Be prepared to add things to the Path. There's also the no-fail challenges, which a lot of people have a problem with. I'd read this (or any) AP before running it. That said, if you want any help, I'll see you in the Path forum. :)
Skull & Shackles is f&%~ing awesome!
wheres your enthusiasm Kalindlara:-)
honestly my only issue with S&S was Raiders of the Fever Sea didn't have as much structure as my party usually needs, i did what i could but Plunder & Peril beats anything i came up:-)
i'm running it with two campaigns, the same people (one is animal races themed, ironically thats the darker of the two:-p) each one has taken completely different paths:-p
The Wormwood Mutiny will Kill people, like lots of people! so make sure people bring an extra character or don't feel bad about going a little easy on them, the whole path is pretty hard in general so you'll get your licks in on them:-p
With our non-animal races campaign we call the Captain "Captain Redshirt" because he/she is usually the first to die (its getting hilarious actually, completely luck driven!) its to the point that we have to draw straws and the loser always tries to bribe someone else into doing it:-p
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Skull & Shackles is f!#$ing awesome!
wheres your enthusiasm Kalindlara:-)honestly my only issue was Raiders of the Fever Sea didn't have as much structure as my party usually needs, i did what i could but Plunder & Peril beats anything i came up:-)
The structure thing is part of it. Our GM folded because we wanted to wander off to hunt for treasure. And because he wanted to run Reign of Winter. :)
It can be awesome, but it needs either a jolt of structure (even if that's the GM asking the players ooc to follow the Path) or a GM willing to roll with it. Player wants to hunt up a Seasage Effigy? Write the encounter, and don't skimp on the ulat-kini. Player wants to hunt Aashaq? Write it in! All I'm saying is, be prepared. :)
Plus, everyone else apparently hates the Free Captains' Regatta. I don't see the big deal, but w/e. And ever since I ran Carrion Crown blind, "read the AP" has become standard advice.
So, it's not my favorite, but it's not on my "never run" list. That's all I have. :)
My players love going off the rails, so I'm used to that. I do appreciate the warning though!
Also, when Wormwood came out, I do recall people talking about the rum ration being ultra deadly so thanks for the reminder on that. I'll be converting this to 5th edition, so I'll probably have to mess with the mechanics anyway.
In my opinion, GM secrecy is way overrated.
When I share information like the covers to the APs, or the blurbs, or the players' guides, I have never once regretted it.
But then, I don't have players with attitude problems who try to "shortcut" the game just because they know what it's about.
In general, a player with a top-level plot summary is more likely to make a character who fits the theme of the campaign, more likely to include plot hooks and motivation the GM can use, and more likely to enjoy the session simply because they have some idea of what they're in for.
I'm not saying NOTHING should be kept secret. I can think of quite a few dramatic reveals in runelords that don't appear in that summary at all.
But a lot of GMs seem to think that secrecy is of the utmost importance, and honestly, I think overdoing it hurts games. A lot.
Your job as the GM is to get information out there. Unless you disclose things, they don't exist in the players minds. If the players are the least bit interested in the context surrounding events, it's better to repeat it than to never say it at all.
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In my opinion, GM secrecy is way overrated.
When I share information like the covers to the APs, or the blurbs, or the players' guides, I have never once regretted it.
But then, I don't have players with attitude problems who try to "shortcut" the game just because they know what it's about.
In general, a player with a top-level plot summary is more likely to make a character who fits the theme of the campaign, more likely to include plot hooks and motivation the GM can use, and more likely to enjoy the session simply because they have some idea of what they're in for.
I'm not saying NOTHING should be kept secret. I can think of quite a few dramatic reveals in runelords that don't appear in that summary at all.
But a lot of GMs seem to think that secrecy is of the utmost importance, and honestly, I think overdoing it hurts games. A lot.
Your job as the GM is to get information out there. Unless you disclose things, they don't exist in the players minds. If the players are the least bit interested in the context surrounding events, it's better to repeat it than to never say it at all.
There's some where this is important. Second Darkness and Serpent's Skull both work best if you are honest about the themes involved. And there's nothing wrong with laying out that, say, Rise of the Runelords will involve ancient ruins, wizards, and giants.
I prefer to keep major twists to myself (Second Darkness has one of these as well, at the end of Book 5). But I don't think that's what you're against. :)
In the case of Wrath of the Righteous, it's important to have a discussion about Mythic as well. One of my players is deeply attached to the system, so I'm unlikely to remove it entirely.
Gotta go. Players at the door. :)
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And there's nothing wrong with laying out that, say, Rise of the Runelords will involve ancient ruins, wizards, and giants.
Oh man, this reminds me of a thread on these forums where a guy was flipping his lid over the sheer audacity of daring to tell players in his Runelords game "hey there will be giants in this plot" because they might metagame that information to get unfair combat advantages like ... *gasp* ... taking Favored Enemy: Giant! Or that one gnome archetype that makes them good at fighting big things! The horror, the horror!
Argh!
that was a secret!
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I think I can put it more succinctly:
Many GMs seem to think that GMing is about withholding information from the players; in fact, it's about presenting information to the players.
Very occasionally, some information must be held in reserve, but that's the exception, not the rule.
When you freely share information about the themes and (yes) even future events in the campaign, that helps to set expectations and lets players put forth their best efforts at characterization.
As an added bonus, if you share a lot of information freely, they drop their guard for "the big reveal".
I never bothered keeping Thassilon a secret. I treated it as a lost civilization about as well-understood as the old kingdom in Egypt.
I never bothered creating a mystery about Mokmurian's attack on Sandpoint -- the faster I could make his motives known, the faster the players were on the plot train.
I DID conceal the nature of the Sihedron tattoos. That was my big reveal, which came in the middle of a Helm's Deep-style battle at Ft Rannick vs. Mokmurian and his army.