Hello all.
I'm super excited about the release of Strange Aeons, and I can't wait to run the game. This question isn't so much about the AP itself as it is about running an adventure that isn't completely released yet. Do you generally wait until a few books are out to begin, in case you want to thread things to later sections of the adventure early on, or tie things in to your PCs backstories?
I only have experience running adventure paths that have been completely released for many years with lots of input from the community behind them (Runelords, Legacy of Fire). This gave me a distinct advantage of being able to read ahead and look to places, such as these fine messageboards, for tips, warnings, suggestions and inspiration.
It will be a very different experience running it without being able to do much research ahead of time, though I suppose it will only matter for the very early sessions. I won't be surprised if the entire AP is published before we get to Book 3. I'm sure I'm not alone in being very excited for the release of an AP and had to jump in head first as soon as possible! Please let me know your experiences or recommendations.
|
I started Hell's Rebels as it was coming out. I only had books 1&2 as I started, and I was in book 2 when the last volumes came out. I cannot speak to running Strange Aeons specifically, but some of my experience may help.
Rebels was both a good and bad AP to run as it came out. Good because there was a single goal and course of action that was outlined in the first book. Bad because the AP took place in one city, so I was wary of my players interacting with locales that were going to be fleshed out later. I suspect Strange Aeons will be the opposite on both of these dimensions. There is a lot of travel, so each location will probably be contained to a book, but I suspect that you won't know all the details about your players' memory loss until you get to book 3.
One good thing about running as the books come out is that that is when the forums are most active. You're more likely to get fast answers to and discussion of your questions. Also, I had more excitement for running as the AP was coming out.
Overall, I don't think running as it comes out is the best option. Waiting for the whole AP to come out will prevent a lot of worry about contradicting something later. But if timing were such that I really wanted to run an AP that was still coming out, I might do it again.
We ran Council of Thieves as it came out which was a huge mistake. The AP suffered huge delays and was running about 2 months late.
I good rule of thumb is to wait until all of the AP is out and you've had a chance to read through all of it before running it.
I think it's fair to say that the consensus view on the messageboards has generally been that it's not as good as waiting until the AP is completely released.
Having said that, I think that sentiment has kind of waned somewhat over the years - I think Paizo are much better now at making APs than they were when they started. Early on there were a few mis-steps along the lines of villains/NPCs or other plot devices suddenly being important with insufficient warning (even to the DM) that they were going to matter.
I suspect that in the early days they had fewer people filling essentially the same number of roles as now (or that they had less time to supervise freelancers and so had less time to deal with issues on turnover when things went awry). No doubt they've also learned a lot about how much pre-development is desirable and traps to avoid in giving briefs to adventure writers.
If you were to try it, I'd be prepared to do a little 'jiggling' of the plot as you went. I've certainly found my perspective on the tenor of the first installments in particular to change once the full AP has been released.
Eliandra stated the major PRO for playing a current AP (active forums). There's also the feeling of conquering "current content" which is kind of nice.
The major CON is that if you don't like a specific chapter, you may not have a lot of time to convert/substitute something else. Serpent Skull suffered from this. The last two chapters were terrible, IMHO. For instance, the City of Seven Spears begs for more fleshing out of each district, along with the way they are tackled. Xin-Shalast in Runelords is like this too. Both can be run as written (Kind of barebones), but would be much more memorable with your own personal touch. This would be VERY hard (timewise) to do if you get every chapter as they come out, and your group makes good time through each chapter.
My advice if you want to go current, wait till the first four are out. You should have plenty of time to make any changes to your campaign.
One good thing about running as the books come out is that that is when the forums are most active. You're more likely to get fast answers to and discussion of your questions.
Yeah, try getting quick comments regarding MM, which is only 2 years old. Even GS has been slow, and it finished up last summer (though there are a few of us active in the early books).