What is the next Adventure Path hardcover?

[Samy]

Ed Reppert wrote:

Zaister wrote:

All APs, and in fact all of the Pathfinder RPG is published under the Open Gaming Licence.

The first four APs did not use the Pathfinder rules, because those rules did not yet exist.

That does not invalidate what Zaister said.

[Kalindlara]

Anything published as part of the D20 System is under the OGL, all the way back to Traps & Treachery, the original Scarred Lands Creature Collection, and Mongoose Publishing's dubious little splatbooks. The only exception is actual 3e D&D stuff by WotC.

[Rysky]

Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

A data point that nobody's paying attention to: neither of the first two hardcovers has sold out.

Whether this is a factor or not entirely depends on how much it's not sold out by. They could have 500 copies left, they could have 1 copy left.

[Douglas Muir 406]

Rysky wrote:

Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

A data point that nobody's paying attention to: neither of the first two hardcovers has sold out.

Whether this is a factor or not entirely depends on how much it's not sold out by. They could have 500 copies left, they could have 1 copy left.

It's coming up on six years now since publication, and the RotrL hardcover is still in stock. Even if there's only one left, that's still not a good sign.

Doug M.

[Rysky]

Um, no that's a very good sign if there's only 1 copy left as opposed to hundreds. Would it better if it was sold out completely? Of course. My point remains that them still being in stock isn't a good indicator we can use since we have no clue how many copies they have left and how fast they have sold.

[captain yesterday]

And who knows how many print runs they've done so far.

[Douglas Muir 406]

Quote:

Um, no that's a very good sign if there's only 1 copy left as opposed to hundreds.

What? No. No, it really isn't.

Sure, having only one copy left would be less bad than having hundreds left. But it's still bad. After six years, they should have long since sold out. By way of comparison, over 40 of the AP volumes have sold out, including more than half of the first 60 (i.e., the ones that are older than the RotRL hardcover). So have the majority of campaign settings and companions published before 2012. The vast majority of print stuff in the warehouse is younger than the hardcover, and most of the older material that is left is stuff like Second Darkness that they simply can't get rid of. (The SD books have been on sale for $5 each for a while now, and yes you can apply your subscription and "rain18" discounts to that. You could pick up that entire AP for $22.50 plus shipping and handling, which is literally less than the price of a single new AP module. Nobody's biting.)

Incidentally, the hardcovers have never been included in the store blog's going-going-gone posts, which right there raises an eyebrow. If they were down to low numbers, you'd expect Paizo to put them in there, so that people would get excited and finish them off. Stuff that is "under 100" or "under 25" tends to disappear fast. But then, Paizo hasn't done one of those store blog posts for almost a year now.

captain yesterday wrote:

And who knows how many print runs they've done so far.

Almost certainly just one. Paizo rarely does more than one print run of anything, and generally announces it when they do. Back in the days when Paizo staff hung out in these forums and did AMA threads, this was a subject that came up regularly, because everyone has a favorite something that's OOP. IMS they did a few second printings of some of the early AP books, but then got burned a couple of times -- The Skinsaw Murders was one; it was a good volume but they printed too many and it stayed in stock forever -- so after that they got very reluctant to do second printings.

Doug M.

[captain yesterday]

They do reprint hardcover books quite often.

[Ed Reppert]

Samy wrote:

Ed Reppert wrote:

Zaister wrote:

All APs, and in fact all of the Pathfinder RPG is published under the Open Gaming Licence.

The first four APs did not use the Pathfinder rules, because those rules did not yet exist.

That does not invalidate what Zaister said.

Oh, for pity's sake! Who says it invalidated anything? Go look at the listings for the APs on line. The first four have "OGL" in parentheses after the name. The rest have "PFRPG". That is the only distinction I was trying to make.

And folks think I'm pedantic! Sheesh!

[Samy]

Ed Reppert wrote:

Oh, for pity's sake! Who says it invalidated anything?

I do not understand why you would first quote Zaister's specific passage, and then offer that sentence, if it wasn't to counter-argue. It seems obvious that your sentence was meant to oppose Zaister's, otherwise why quote it?

[UnArcaneElection]

Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

Quote:

Um, no that's a very good sign if there's only 1 copy left as opposed to hundreds.

What? No. No, it really isn't.

Sure, having only one copy left would be less bad than having hundreds left. But it's still bad. After six years, they should have long since sold out. By way of comparison, over 40 of the AP volumes have sold out, including more than half of the first 60 (i.e., the ones that are older than the RotRL hardcover). {. . .}

I can see another reasonable interpretation of having just one copy left -- it means that you've waited almost the right amount of time to come out with the next hardcover.

* * * * * * * *

One could also make a reasonable argument that in some cases, an unpopular AP like Second Darkness might be one of the better candidates for redoing. Depends upon whether the concept was flawed, or whether the concept was good but the execution was flawed and turned people off. From what I have been able to determine, the latter is the case for Wrath of the Righteous . . . .

[PossibleCabbage]

I hope it's Legacy for Fire or Second Darkness, in large part because I do not own any 3.5 books and do not know the system very well except working backwards from Pathfinder (I never played it.) So pretty much the only way I'm ever going to get to play either is if someone converts these to Pathfinder. "Learning 3.5" at this point in my life doesn't seem like a good use of time.

Like sure, Kingmaker is old, but I could make sense of it if someone in my group bought the PDFs and decided to run it. Second Darkness I could not. I mean, it's easy enough to file those two away under "probably not gonna ever play that one" but it'd be more satisfying to have a reason for why we probably wouldn't enjoy it (besides learning a new old system).

[GeraintElberion]

One of the big flaws with SD is the players’ guide.

I’d like it re-written as ‘you are a Lantern bearer’ so that the casino stuff is a fish-out-of-water adventure.

And that’s just volume one.

[Zaister]

I believe the hardcover APs are intended to be evergreens, i.e. to be reprinted when stock is low, and I assume the Rise of the Runelords hardcover has probably had several print runs by now. Selling out these books might not be an indicator of anything, and in face, might simply not happen for now.

[Bellona]

Count me as +1 for hardcovers of SD, LoF, and KM (KM mainly because it sold out before I could get my hands on any hard copies of the books).

My preference is for Second Darkness.

Are there rough spots which need to be re-written and extra material added? Yes. Does the Player's Guide need re-adjustments to avoid bait-and-switch accusations from players? Yes. The AP certainly needs the extra love which a second development pass would bring, but I believe that "the bones are good". The endgame scenario is epic. The threat is potentially world-breaking, and at the very least it would bring about a second Age of Darkness. Plus it's the Drow's official debut on the surface of Golarion.

[spacemonkeyDM]

Second Darkness would need some love to make it shine, but it has a great story and I would but a hard back of it in no time. I never ran it or even bought it cause I hard so much negative on it.

I love drow and the under dark so it sounds like the back ground stuff is really good.

[Cole Deschain]

As I've said before (wait, how many years ago?! I'm how old?!), a major hurdle with Second Darkness?

Hardcover Rise of the Runelords: "That awesome adventure path that started it all, beloved by many and not possible to get in its entirety is now being streamlined, tuned up, and put into a single hardbound volume! Check it out!"

Hardcover Curse of the Crimson Throne: "A perennial contender in 'favorite adventure path of all time' polls, a story we're justifiably proud of, gets updated from the 3.5 ruleset and gets some editorial love! Now in a hardcover edition collecting this entire awesome adventure path! Check it out!"

Hardcover Second Darkness: "We promise we fixed it this time."

Now, would I give it a shot? Hell yes. But the marketing push would be... well. Difficult. And the rewrites and changes would be far more intense than the previous two efforts- both RotR and CotCT had some plot changes, but nothing to the level of the overhaul SD would require to do what we're talking about here.

If Paizo does another hardcover AP compilation, my money's on Kingmaker, because it's impossible to acquire hard copies of now, and while it's not a 3.5 AP, the rules systems that it runs on have evolved a lot in the intervening years... and since I'm one of like, three people I know of who doesn't consider Kingmaker as a top-tier AP, it also makes marketing sense- the hype would be widespread and intense.

[Kalindlara]

Make that four. ^_^

Also, I'm not convinced that its reputation would really be that lethal to sales. It's pretty well-established on the messageboards, but as has been noted elsewhere, only a fraction of the customer base uses the messageboards to any significant degree. Someone in a game store or bookstore might not have the same preconceived notions.

[Tinalles]

I've been toying with the notion of using the forums as a source of data for identifying the most popular APs. You could look at things like average posts per month per AP, bearing in mind that newer APs necessarily have fewer posts because they haven't been out as long. You could ask all kinds of questions:

How long does the boost from initial publication last?

Which APs continue to attract posts over the long haul?

How well do posts-per-month correlate with sales? Of the print product? Of the PDFs?

To what extent does republication in hardcover form boost posts in the forums, if any?

If you wanted to get even more detailed you could go through and categorize the posts and study which APs/books attract various types of posts: clarification queries from puzzled GMs (rules OR story), campaign logs, one-off table stories, death logs, GMs asking for help with particular situations, GMs posting homebrew expansions/alterations to the AP, and so on. Of course, going through and tagging all those posts in your assorted categories and books would be a metric crap-ton of work. It might yield some interesting insights -- which AP authors attract the most requests for clarification, for example? -- but man, grinding through all those posts to classify them would take ages.

I know only a small subset of Pathfinder players post here, and they're likely the most dedicated Pathfinder fans, so it's a self-selected group that probably has some built-in biases. And for things like sales data, obviously only Paizo has that info. Still, it could be interesting.

[PossibleCabbage]

So for someone who basically missed the entirety of 3.5 and who never looked into Second Darkness as a result, what specifically is wrong with it, and as a follow up how hard would it be to fix?

Like I know that people round these parts didn't like Wrath of the Righteous much, but we loved it, particularly that one scene a lot of people really hate.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Cole Deschain wrote:

Hardcover Second Darkness: "We promise we fixed it this time."

Now, would I give it a shot? Hell yes. But the marketing push would be... well. Difficult. And the rewrites and changes would be far more intense than the previous two efforts- both RotR and CotCT had some plot changes, but nothing to the level of the overhaul SD would require to do what we're talking about here.

I entirely agree with you, regrettable though that state of affairs is. In an ideal world the AP I'd most like to see an updated edition of would be Serpent's Skull - I think the middle third of it has immense potential if there were more material in there about how all the different factions will default interact with each other before PCs start messing with them (at the level of "if you have started off working for A this is how B and C get on with each other until you do something that directly affects them"), both for the factions the PCs could join at the beginning and the different power groups in the city in chapter 3, but while I suspect that might be slightly less work than making SD work, it still seems to fit into the same situation.

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

So for someone who basically missed the entirety of 3.5 and who never looked into Second Darkness as a result, what specifically is wrong with it?

The complaints generally made about it seem to boil down to a) the supposedly-sympathetic elves you need to help and work with are jerks a lot of the time (or rather, it is very hard to get the information sympathetically to the players as to what complex political considerations on the elf side are stopping them from being directly helpful), b) there is a gap of a couple of levels between chapter 2 and 3 that DMs are encouraged to fill in for themselves (which was acknowledged as an experiment, and not a successful one) and c) there is a fairly major shift in focus and tone between the first two chapters and the rest which is not sufficiently set up and supported.

[Joana]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

So for someone who basically missed the entirety of 3.5 and who never looked into Second Darkness as a result, what specifically is wrong with it?

Second Darkness is actually my favorite of the Paizo APs, but even I admit that the fifth book is basically unrunnable. It amounts to a collection of cut-scenes where the PCs watch NPCs do and say stuff. If my own campaign hadn't fallen apart at the beginning of book 5 when one of my players moved away to go to college, I was planning on replacing/rewriting most of it.

Two other common complaints:

1. The campaign is a bait-and-switch, where you start book one looking to gain control of a business in Riddleport then are taken away from the city in the second book never to return.

2. The elves of Kyonin, particularly as portrayed in book 5, are xenophobic to the point of imprisoning and/or attempting to murder the PCs, and yet the party is still supposed to be on their side. (This wasn't really a problem for my group, as whether the elves were good guys or not, the potential destruction of much of Avistan, including the homelands of the PCs, was enough to motivate the party to combat the BBEG.)

[Bellona]

Second Darkness is also the AP that first brought us akatas, in book two's island adventure (which included under siege/survival horror).

Book two also gave us our first glimpse of the other worlds in Golarion's solar system.

[Douglas Muir 406]

The problems with SD run deep. People have already mentioned the jerkass elves, the fact that books 1 and 2 seem to be starting a different AP (seriously it's like doing 2 books of Skull and Shackles followed by 4 books of Carrion Crown), the "hole" of a couple of levels that the DM is supposed to fill in, and the fact that Book 5 is widely considered to be the single most screwed-up and unplayable book in any AP.

But that's just the start. It's actually worse than that.

A little bit of Paizo history here. The first two APs were intense labors of love done by a handful of people who had mostly worked together for years already, including some monster talents like Richard Pett and pre-breakdown Nicholas Logue. By the end of Crimson Throne this group was pretty burnt out, and also Paizo needed their talents elsewhere for a bit. So, for the third AP they tried to expand the talent pool and bring in new people. But they hadn't yet set up the necessary processes behind the scenes. That is, they knew how to write APs when it was that same little group of Jacobs, Pett, Logue etc. who all knew each other. But when they brought in new people, they didn't have systems in place yet. Basically, Paizo had to figure out how to shift from "hand-crafted work of art done by small band of friends" to "product that can be produced by different groups of people, but with consistent quality and high reliability, once per month forever". And that inevitably involved some trial and error. In the case of Second Darkness, emphasis on "error". IOW, some poor AP had to be the one where Paizo fell flat on its face while working out how to assembly-line its Adventure Paths, and Second Darkness was it.

So it's not just the plot. SD has significant problems and failures at EVERY level. It doesn't get discussed as much, because people focus on things like the hateful elves, but that AP has a lot of problems with things like monster CR, errors in stat blocks, and treasure placement. One level up from that, there are design issues with things like dungeon layout, NPC motivation, and information flow. It's a mess from top to bottom, from plot arc to comma placement.

So, fixing SD wouldn't just be "make the elves nicer, add some more foreshadowing in the first two books". No. You'd have to convert to 3.5 *and* go through carefully, find the many editorial-level problems, and fix them *and then* also rewrite it to fix the design-level problems (there'd probably be some new maps in there) *and then also* fix the problems with the overall plot.

It would be a HUGE job, far more work than the other hardbacks. And at the end, you'd have... a hardback of Paizo's least popular AP, the one that's still available in print nearly ten! years! after being published despite its price being cut to nothing.

Guys, this is never going to happen. Never, never, never. Yes, people will still keep bringing it up because it scratches a deep itch, and that's fun and all, but... no. Just no.

Doug M.

[CorvusMask]

I think it should happen though because every AP that features drows assumes that Second Darkness has happened because its debut of the drows in setting :P

Anyhoo, btw, if they did hardcover of Legacy of Fire, what stuff that one has that should be fixed?

Also, still hating idea of kingmaker hardcover. I'm currently playing in it, so if they would make hardcover version, I'd feel like "Oh, so I should have waited couple more years to get full experience" :P

[Steve Geddes]

CorvusMask wrote:

Also, still hating idea of kingmaker hardcover. I'm currently playing in it, so if they would make hardcover version, I'd feel like "Oh, so I should have waited couple more years to get full experience" :P

That kind of thing was one of the reasons they were so hesitant to do even RotRL. Especially if it turns into “I shouldn’t have bought the six individual copies, I should wait a few more years until they revise them”.

[PossibleCabbage]

I don't quite get why "Elves are Jerks" is considered a problem. Hasn't that always been the ground state of Elves?

[Rysky]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I don't quite get why "Elves are Jerks" is considered a problem. Hasn't that always been the ground state of Elves?

In every other bit of media. Which is why Pathfinder tried to avoid it. But it's apparently difficult beating that assumption out of people's heads as it keeps cropping up, much to the consternation of the Creative Director who apparently has to watch the writers of anything Elvish like a hawk, sadly.

[Douglas Muir 406]

Zaister wrote:

I believe the hardcover APs are intended to be evergreens, i.e. to be reprinted when stock is low

Okay. Cite? Because I'm not aware of anyone from Paizo ever saying anything about keeping any AP or splatbook in print indefinitely. And we know they're perfectly content to let ordinary AP volumes go OOP forever.

Quote:

and I assume the Rise of the Runelords hardcover has probably had several print runs by now.

Okay. Cite? Because I'm not aware of Paizo ever mentioning new print runs on the AP hardbacks.

Doug M.

[PossibleCabbage]

Rysky wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I don't quite get why "Elves are Jerks" is considered a problem. Hasn't that always been the ground state of Elves?

In every other bit of media. Which is why Pathfinder tried to avoid it. But it's apparently difficult beating that assumption out of people's heads as it keeps cropping up, much to the consternation of the Creative Director who apparently has to watch the writers of anything Elvish like a hawk, sadly.

I get why this is annoying to the creative director, absolutely but even if it's not the desired impact on the audience "oh, these elves are like all the other elves" seems like a thing that can be handled by any gaming group who has encountered elves in other (non-Christmas) media.

It's like if Dwarves were supposed to be friendly wise ascetics but the party ran into one a grumpy one whose priorities were limited to ale and gold, I don't think it would merit much comment.

[Rysky]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Rysky wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I don't quite get why "Elves are Jerks" is considered a problem. Hasn't that always been the ground state of Elves?

In every other bit of media. Which is why Pathfinder tried to avoid it. But it's apparently difficult beating that assumption out of people's heads as it keeps cropping up, much to the consternation of the Creative Director who apparently has to watch the writers of anything Elvish like a hawk, sadly.

I get why this is annoying to the creative director, absolutely but even if it's not the desired impact on the audience "oh, these elves are like all the other elves" seems like a thing that can be handled by any gaming group who has encountered elves in other (non-Christmas) media.

It's like if Dwarves were supposed to be friendly wise ascetics but the party ran into one a grumpy one whose priorities were limited to ale and gold, I don't think it would merit much comment.

I don't quite understand your response.

Elves were supposed to be welcoming in Pathfinder, not zenophobic with a kill on sight outlook towards non-elves. That's a pretty severe difference.

[Cole Deschain]

CorvusMask wrote:

Anyhoo, btw, if they did hardcover of Legacy of Fire, what stuff that one has that should be fixed?

3.5 rules, mostly. It's a pretty solid piece of plotting.

There's some mandatory downtime at the end of Volume 1 that could be brought into line with the new downtime rules.

A little polish here and there, a couple of encounters to tune up.

[PossibleCabbage]

Rysky wrote:

Elves were supposed to be welcoming in Pathfinder, not zenophobic with a kill on sight outlook towards non-elves. That's a pretty severe difference.

What I'm saying is that just because something is contrary to the top level creative intent doesn't mean it's a problem in actual play. Like even if all my players believe "Elves are nice" meeting some mean elves can just be written off as "these particular elves are jerks, since some humans are jerks, I guess some elves can be jerks."

"Helping people who are not nice to you, but are nonetheless correct" is not an especially unusual experience in APs, in my experience.

[Joana]

Bellona wrote:

Second Darkness is also the AP that first brought us akatas, in book two's island adventure (which included under siege/survival horror).

Oh, gosh, yes. Book 2 is an absolute stand-alone gem. Even if you have no interest in the rest of the AP, I can't recommend Children of the Void enough for its Treasure-Island-meets-Aliens vibe.

[Rysky]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Elves were supposed to be welcoming in Pathfinder, not zenophobic with a kill on sight outlook towards non-elves. That's a pretty severe difference.

What I'm saying is that just because something is contrary to the top level creative intent doesn't mean it's a problem in actual play. Like even if all my players believe "Elves are nice" meeting some mean elves can just be written off as "these particular elves are jerks, since some humans are jerks, I guess some elves can be jerks."

"Helping people who are not nice to you, but are nonetheless correct" is not an especially unusual experience in APs, in my experience.

It's not about being not-nice, its the whole "looking for any excuse to put an arrow through your skull"... that goes a bit beyond being a just a jerk, that is actually hard to adapt when it's part of a whole adventure.

It's not just hey thee elves in this town aren't welcoming to outsiders that the GM can handwave, it's a whole Adventure where the Elves have specific reactions and actions towards outsiders.

[captain yesterday]

It's spelled xenophobic.

In spelling X often sounds like Z. :-)

[CorvusMask]

Steve Geddes wrote:

CorvusMask wrote:

Also, still hating idea of kingmaker hardcover. I'm currently playing in it, so if they would make hardcover version, I'd feel like "Oh, so I should have waited couple more years to get full experience" :P

That kind of thing was one of the reasons they were so hesitant to do even RotRL. Especially if it turns into “I shouldn’t have bought the six individual copies, I should wait a few more years until they revise them”.

In case of RotRL it was 3.5 at least, different systems have different classes and different design assumptions, so even if conversion should be simple, it still requires lot of work. To me, saying Kingmaker should be updated because of new kingdom rules isn't justification enough for hardcover version <_< You can still play kingmaker's original version without changing rule systems and its not that much harder to switch to ultimate campaign version of rules. Lot of APs anyway have campaign custom version of core rulebook rules anyway.

[GeraintElberion]

Rysky wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

I don't quite get why "Elves are Jerks" is considered a problem. Hasn't that always been the ground state of Elves?

In every other bit of media. Which is why Pathfinder tried to avoid it. But it's apparently difficult beating that assumption out of people's heads as it keeps cropping up, much to the consternation of the Creative Director who apparently has to watch the writers of anything Elvish like a hawk, sadly.

Is this even true?

My introduction to elves was LotR, and Tollein’s elves are wonderful.

Where are all these nasty elves ‘in the media’

Fifteen years ago, people used elf-hate as a form of weird projected homophobia but I haven’t seen that for a while.

Where do the jerk elves come from?

[Samy]

GeraintElberion wrote:

Where do the jerk elves come from?

LotR movies?

[the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh]

Rysky wrote:

It's not about being not-nice, its the whole "looking for any excuse to put an arrow through your skull"... that goes a bit beyond being a just a jerk, that is actually hard to adapt when it's part of a whole adventure.

It's been a while, am I misremembering that this is very much a specific set of elves, and that others such as the Queen are quite well-intentioned towards the PCs but not in a position where it is safe for them to express that until after the issues in chapter 5 are resolved ?

[Bill Dunn]

GeraintElberion wrote:

My introduction to elves was LotR, and Tollein’s elves are wonderful.

Well, they are... and they aren't. For the most part, they aren't overtly hostile, but they are definitely reclusive in the Third Age. Rivendell is hidden, but welcoming if you find it. The ones heading west to the Undying Lands generally avoid contact. The Lothlorien elves are friendly enough once you're a welcome guest, but the border guards are not welcoming - and dangerously so.

[Zaister]

Douglas Muir 406 wrote:

Zaister wrote:

I believe the hardcover APs are intended to be evergreens, i.e. to be reprinted when stock is low

Okay. Cite? Because I'm not aware of anyone from Paizo ever saying anything about keeping any AP or splatbook in print indefinitely. And we know they're perfectly content to let ordinary AP volumes go OOP forever.

Quote:

and I assume the Rise of the Runelords hardcover has probably had several print runs by now.

Okay. Cite? Because I'm not aware of Paizo ever mentioning new print runs on the AP hardbacks.

Doug M.

You may have noticed that I said "I believe" and "I assume".

[Douglas Muir 406]

Zaister wrote:

You may have noticed that I said "I believe" and "I assume".

Okay. Can you give any basis for your beliefs and assumptions?

Doug M.

[Cole Deschain]

Samy wrote:

GeraintElberion wrote:

Where do the jerk elves come from?

LotR movies?

Dragonlance, for one. MAN those Elves were jerks.

D&D settings in general have been a kinda rough road for sympathetic elven cultures.

Birthright had the entire species aligned as "neutral," with a significant minority being downright genocidal toward humanity

Forgotten Realms often played up their arrogance.

Ravenloft... well, nobody was terribly nice in Ravenloft, so we'll call that a pass.

Bill Dunn wrote:

GeraintElberion wrote:

My introduction to elves was LotR, and Tollein’s elves are wonderful.

Well, they are... and they aren't. For the most part, they aren't overtly hostile, but they are definitely reclusive in the Third Age. Rivendell is hidden, but welcoming if you find it. The ones heading west to the Undying Lands generally avoid contact. The Lothlorien elves are friendly enough once you're a welcome guest, but the border guards are not welcoming - and dangerously so.

Yeah, but even Tolkien's most hostile elves- the guys in Mirkwood- take Thorin and company prisoner rather than simply attacking them with intent to kill.

Heck, most of the jerkwad D&D elves to date wouldn't launch the assassination attempts we see in Second Darkness

Now, were we talking about Birthright/Cerilian Elves, who tie into darker stories about Fair Folk and who sometimes outright hunt and slaughter humans...

[UnArcaneElection]

captain yesterday wrote:

It's spelled xenophobic.

In spelling X often sounds like Z. :-)

And here I was thinking Rysky was talking about the Elves being afraid of an Oracle from another world(*) who had a mysterious power to cause arrows to be unable to move . . . have to admit that with their heightened dependence on ranged combat, an awful lot of Elves would find that pretty scary . . . .

(*)The same world that gave rise to the dreaded Baba Yaga.

[Lazaro]

Elves are dicks, man. Now dwarves... those guys know how to make a guy feel welcome*.

*Is not a paid dwarven spokesperson.

[Hythlodeus]

Elves being jerks is older than Tolkien. That goes way back to Germanic and Scandinavic folklore. Even Titania and Oberon in Midsummer Night's Dream were huge dicks.
'Nice' Elves, I know, would confuse the hell out of my players and would be seen as uncharacterisic for those asshats.

So that part of SD never bothered me. In fact, that's one of the main reasons I want to GM it. The problem with SD is more the one-and-a-half-level-gap between books 2 and 3, which, I think is also the solution to a lot of minor problems the AP has, like the bait-and-switch nature. The gap leaves room for a couple of set pieces and hooks that could prepare the group for what's to come better and give them very good reasons to leave Riddleport forever and help the Elves if written right.

[Samy]

I wonder if they could use the Modules line, if it ever comes back, to make a story that plugs a gap of just those levels, and would be set in the same area. Not anything that would be explicitly marketed as a Book 2.5, but something that wink-wink, nudge-nudge, could slot into that slot easily for people who wanted something there.

[Kalindlara]

It's far too short for a modern Pathfinder module, though.

Of course, they could make an adventure themed around elves or drow... that starts at level 1... and ends right around level 7.

You know, in theory.