Hi all,
So, I'm starting up a campaign soon and I had my players vote on which AP they wanted to do, and we ended up tied between Carrion Crown and Reign of Winter. Thus, I have to be the tiebreaker!
Of these two, which do you think are more fun and would be worth playing more? (We plan to do whichever one doesn't get chosen next, but it'll be the first impressions for Paizo's adventures for two of my players, and I want fun to be had by all.)
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Which do you like more: horror stories or moder takes on ancient fairy tales (with some twists...)?
The answer to this question will tell you which AP to choose
Which do you like more: horror stories or moder takes on ancient fairy tales (with some twists...)?
The answer to this question will tell you which AP to choose
Part of the issue is that those things ding on a lot of my players favorite themes and tropes, and same with me.
They're also very different APs so its hard to make a solid comparison, at least without spoiling.
Reign of Winter is better overall, they both kinda pull you along but Reign of Winter at least doesn't put you in such a rush.
Not that Carrion Crown isn't good, it's great too, but not as good as Reign of Winter.
Reign of Winter.
I ran RoW to completion with my group, and it was a lot of fun.
Carrion Crown however, was not. We made it into book 2 before we stopped.
It depends on how you run it. RoW is a VERY MAJOR railroad. It could be run as a non-railroad with quite a bit of work, but overall, it's a railroad adventure. If your players don't like railroads...well....
That's one thing that should be mentioned that many don't mention.
RoW is also not your typical Fantasy AP or even Gothic. You go to other planets and even pretend you go to fake planet earth with fake history (which could make history buffs really hate the AP portion or treat you and it with derision).
Those are items that should probably be considered before taking on RoW.
On the otherhand, Carrion Crown is basically a Ravenloft type campaign in many ways. If your players don't like that type of campaign...well...
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It depends on how you run it. RoW is a VERY MAJOR railroad. It could be run as a non-railroad with quite a bit of work, but overall, it's a railroad adventure. If your players don't like railroads...well....
That's one thing that should be mentioned that many don't mention.
RoW is also not your typical Fantasy AP or even Gothic. You go to other planets and even pretend you go to fake planet earth with fake history (which could make history buffs really hate the AP portion or treat you and it with derision).
Those are items that should probably be considered before taking on RoW.
On the otherhand, Carrion Crown is basically a Ravenloft type campaign in many ways. If your players don't like that type of campaign...well...
Is it just me, or you don't like RoW much? Somewhere between singling it as a railroad when almost every Paizo AP (except Kingmakers) is one and using "fake earth, fake history" instead of "alternate Earth" tells me so.
I have to agree with Gorbacz on this the whole fake earth fake history thing gets me, I have a bachelors in history and I teach high school history and the "fake earth" and "fake history" is a major reason I want to run this AP when I get a chance. But I think both these APs can be a lot of fun they each have there positives and negatives you need to know your group and which one they will enjoy more.
In fairness to the author Brandon Hodges, he did a spectacular job weaving it into "actual" history, so while we know it didn't happen that way* he doesn't contradict enough for it to drift into unadulterated silliness
* Or do we? Has any of us actually went investigating ruined Siberian monasteries for alien arrow heads;-)
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I didn't react well to Carrion Crown, it always felt like we were just getting distracted by the main course of the adventure rather than moving towards a goal. Frequently I found myself wonder why we were where we were when a great goal was to be had.
RoW has that railroady feel but it works. There is a good reason to be where we are and it keeps the adventure tied together nicely.
Carrion Crown is good, but needs major work to make the books flow together. Since its the AP I'm running, I have made it work, but the cracks in the coherent storyline become evident when you try and link all of the books together. While all of these problems have been addressed to great detail in the AP's forum on this site, you should be aware of the following:
1)Bad guys are not foreshadowed Other than the villain of book 3, and the five prisoners of book 1, every enemy in the AP comes out of left field in terms of foreshadowing. There isn't anything whatsoever on the APs final enemy until you practically fight him, to the point that the 6th module has an entire forward section explaining why this happened. Again, this has been fixed with the creative writing of posters and even some of the module's authors, but it is still a major flaw.
2)Major plot points are left unanswered Throughout the AP, you have this evil organization collecting esoteric components to create a way to revive the Whispering Tyrant. The problem is, one of these is acquired by the players (Raven's Head), yet it seems to do nothing to effect what happens in the end game. Absolutely no mention is made of what happens if the enemies get their hands on it or why they need it in the first place. Again, fixed on the boards, but still an issue.
3)Book 4 is irrelevant for some groups Wake of the Watcher is an excellent module, that has little to nothing to do with the overall plot of the AP itself. In fact, the endgame of that storyline is worse than the resurrection of Tar Baphon since it involves an Old One manifesting directly on the planet.
4)AP is too geographically ambitious for its own good There is a lot of roaming around the countryside in this AP, hundreds of miles of it. There is very little written to help supplement these journeys other than buying a seperate book (Rule of Fear) to help augment these journeys. While this is fine in that it lets DMS make up their own encounters, for those without the time, all you get are some extremely unbalanced wandering monster tables. Again, fixed with supplements on the forums, but be prepared to do some work for this.
While myself and other DMS have written dozens of posts to expand whats written, for anyone looking for a "play-by-the book" AP, I imagine RoW, based on the other posters' points, plays better. I mean no disrespect to any of the fantastic authors who have worked on Carrion Crown, and frankly, have had an absolute blast running it. It has maintained the 'Horror feel' all the way to the end. (Renchurch is a high level dungeon on par with The Tabernacle of Worms from Age of Worms.).
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And let's get real, all these AP's are railroads; you either have to accept that or don't play them.
The social contract at the table is that you play the adventure that is presented by the GM, that much is true. And yes, some of those obvious plot hooks are what you are intended to follow up on in any AP. That also is the social contract at the table. I agree with you wholeheartedly on this point.
That said, there is a qualitative difference between some of the stick and carrots that are deployed in these APs vs those that manifest in others. Some of them, (aspects of Second Darkness and Legacy of Fire, say) are MORE "railroady" than others (Skull and Shackles, Giantslayer, Kingmaker, say).
There is a point where when you get whisked off into another pocket plane without a chance to sell or buy more stuff for a volume or two that you can say, yes, "that's too railroady" without over-reaching.
I think it is fair to say that in RoW the pocket plane/ world shift device is used in a manner where the PCs do not even have the illusion of voluntarily throwing in with the social contract and that can affect players' enjoyment of the Adventure Path.
Sometimes, it is a matter of presentation. You might be eating the same steak presented on a fine china plate, a steak board, and a garbage can lid. Same steak, very different platters.
If you say it doesn't matter as the steak is the same, I put it to you that you need to eat out more often. :)
I've run Carrion Crown to completion and am partway through RoW. I love them both, for different reasons.
Carrion Crown is wonderfully atmospheric, as it's essentially a tour through gothic and horror tropes.
I loved running this campaign. I loved the numerous investigations. I think parts were genuinely creepy. The final battle was awesome. However, it is no without faults. While each individual book is great, the plot is sacrificed somewhat in the name of flavour, and the overall plot is certainly disjointed in parts.
I put quite a bit of work into CC to bring everything together and link up some of the disgarded plot threads, but the campaign was so good from a roleplaying perspective that I didn't mind putting in that extra effort. It turned out great. However, if you just want to run an AP out of the box? I dunno how well this one would work. As such, while I think CC is a good adventure path for any level of player (provided they liked gothic horror), but it really requires an experienced GM to weave a story from the chapters.
Reign of Winter, by contrast, is ready to go out of the box, and pretty near perfect as it is. It's flavoursome, creepy and fairly observing and there are some great NPs. Still, notwithstanding that RoW is comparatively easy for me to run as a GM, I don't think it is a great first choice of AP, unless your party is othewise very experienced. We have come closer to TPKs in this AP than almost any other (and never before in the first chapter or so!). It is more combat heavy than some other campaigns, tactics are important and there are environmental effects to worry about. RoW is a seriously tough campaign.
Also, it's a railroad. True, so are most APs (albeit to differening degrees), but in this case you need to have players who are prepared to follow those tracks into some seriously weird places. I warned mine in advance to "just go with it". But onl you can judge whether your party is prepared to do that, or would rather something a bit more traditional.