Howdy. As a subscriber it looks like I will be getting the first installment this week. Does that mean we will also be seeing the player's guide this week as well? Thanks.
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Answered here:
Hey folks, I just wanted to pop in here and address the Player's Guide question that's been floating around. Due to illnesses and other production-related issues, the Player's Guide for this Adventure Path is going to be delayed longer than normal. While we try to have them out by the time subscribers start getting their PDFs, that isn't going to happen this time around. I still endeavor to have it out as soon as possible, but I have no firm estimates at this time.
Thanks for your patience.
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I have a feeling that this thread should be temporarily stickied to avoid the question recurring in other threads.
Any news or updates on the player's guide? Thanks.
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the Know Direction podcast did a show with Crystal Frasier last week and she said that she had already turned over the players guide, so I guess it is in the process of being laid out and edited, who knows how long that takes, but at least its already written.
Only if your play outpaces the publishing.
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No. You kind of need the entire AP to see where the plot goes, which NPCs will be of importance later, what needs to be foreshadowed earlier, whether you need to work in PC backstories yourself or perhaps there's some absolutely ideal place to use them at some point down the road. And at very least, you need to have it all in order to know if you like it and if you need to make any major changes to some adventure or swap it out entirely.
I can't imagine running Second Darkness "as it comes out" and then discovering that Memory of Darkness pretty much needs to be re-written from grounds up.
I'm kind of in the same boat as it pertains to playing it soon. I hope we hear something in the near future one way or another. Although yes, I do see Gorbacz point. I have run APs as they've come out and had no real issues with it but I do see the advantages of waiting.
My group is starting this tomorrow.
Good for you guys Coridan! let us know how it goes! :)
For my group, I will allow them to retroactively change their campaign trait later; for now, they can pick any other trait.
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It is a point that having all six books is a good idea in general, sure. But starting day one being a BAD idea? Only if your play outpaces the books and even then only if you don't have any filler.
Personally I'd want to have at least a one book buffer, but those jumping in head first aren't doing it wrong.
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For this one, i highly recommend waiting on the player's guide. The reason being is the first part of it has roles that the party's "handler" gives and the traits correspond to it.
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It's not an exception. Giantslayer book 5 is pretty much as bad as SD book 5, if not worse (MoD is great ideas poor execution, G5 is ... aawrrhgh). Same for Serpent's Skull City of Seven Spears.
And there are some APs where things just plain make little sense unless you have all 6 books. Hell's Rebels is a great example with
-- BTW, have we ever had a Players Guide come out after the pdf had already gone on sale? Because we're [glances at calendar] three working days away from that, and I'm wondering if it would be a first.
Doug M.
Hell's Vengeance came out pretty late.
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They could at least post the campaign traits. My group is starting this tomorrow.
Taldan Patriot
Disgraced Noble
Senatorial Hopeful
Young Reformer
Rising Star
sadly no idea what the campaign traits do exactly but they are in the first book for story hooks for each character, I suggest reading them as they appear to be as important as when you pick a campaign trait from Wrath Of The Righteous
(Not sure if it's a complete list or not)
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They could at least post the campaign traits. My group is starting this tomorrow.** spoiler omitted **
sadly no idea what the campaign traits do exactly but they are in the first book for story hooks for each character, I suggest reading them as they appear to be as important as when you pick a campaign trait from Wrath Of The Righteous
(Not sure if it's a complete list or not)
I know, that's why I am hoping Crystal might at least put them up in a blog post or something since they are tied into the AP so tightly.
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Also...
"Each mission mentions a suggested campaign trait in parentheses, which provides access to at least one of the skills required for the mission, but these are not required."
...leads to...
Athletic Champion - Escape Artist or... CMB? (This mission does not have two skills in the short description)
Taldan Patriot - Sense Motive or Perception
Disgraced Noble - Bluff or Linguistics
Senatorial Hopeful - Intimidate or ? (again, only one skill in the short description)
Young Reformer - Appraise or Knowledge (nobility)
Rising Star - Disguise or Stealth (or Perception or Sense Motive?... but that conflicts with Taldan Patriot)
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Street date for book one isn’t until the 28th, right? Personally, I’d treat any day prior to that as early.
For what it’s worth, I’d also recommend any DM read all six books before commencing any AP. It’s not about whether it’s possible. There are many instances of things in later books having an impact on the early books (albeit Paizo are getting better at mitigating that). There’s not much to be gained from running them early, that I can see.
The main reason I recommend that is that there are reasonably common posts of people loving the early books and then not feeling the later instalments. It’s a matter of individual taste but there’s so many APs in existence now - if you’re going to jump in to one, you may as well be sure you’re going to enjoy running all six issues (or plan appropriately to cut it off early).
Each to their own, of course, but it wouldn’t be the internet without some unsolicited opinions, hey?
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Depends on your expectations. Mine is that the player guides come out with issue one, if possible. I dont know what date others expect (the day subs begin fulfilling? If thats the date theyre nearly always late) but no subscriber is guaranteed their copy early so sitting down to play before then is taking a risk, in my view.
It is a point that having all six books is a good idea in general, sure. But starting day one being a BAD idea? Only if your play outpaces the books and even then only if you don't have any filler.
Personally I'd want to have at least a one book buffer, but those jumping in head first aren't doing it wrong.
Not wrong, but it's risky. I've done it and regretted it, for the exact reasons Gorbacz mentioned. In this case I am pretty confident that the AP will turn out to be good throughout, but since it is so socially focused, you will probably have to do some characterization rewrites because you made different assumptions than the adventure modules will portray.
I wish they'd tell us when we might see it. Guess it won't be today.
I wish they'd tell us when we might see it. Guess it won't be today.
There hasn't been a Paizo Blog posted yet today. Until there is (or they miss posting today entirely), there's still hope.
*sigh* Okay, now there's no hope.
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And a great wailing and gnashing of teeth was heard.
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Depends on your expectations. Mine is that the player guides come out with issue one, if possible. I dont know what date others expect (the day subs begin fulfilling? If thats the date theyre nearly always late) but no subscriber is guaranteed their copy early so sitting down to play before then is taking a risk, in my view.
It's not really expectations, or at least not just ours. The good people at paizo themselves have said that they always try to make the player guide go out when the subscribers get the first issue, so they set that expectation for themselves as well. Try being the operative word in that sentence. I'm a firm believer in "it's ready when it is ready" however you can't really blame people for having expectations.
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No, I'm not blaming anyone. It's just a matter of calibrating your expectations (it was advice, not chastisement). It's pretty rare for the player guide to be this late - that in itself can build one's expectation, but it's possible to manage that yourself, that's all I was saying.
Similarly, a lot of people subscribe because they like getting it early - nonetheless, there's no guarantee you'll actually get your copy early (it's not a promise) and it is possible, albeit rare, to receive your subscription shipmentafter the street date.
When that happens, people sometimes get upset and one way to mitigate that is to be aware of what's an expectation, what's a promise and how often they are met.
When that happens, people sometimes get upset and one way to mitigate that is to be aware of what's an expectation, what's a promise and how often they are met.
Agreed, however it is sadly common for that to be used against people. If people are to be aware what is a promise and what an expectation then that should not be left to us. inferring that upon one another with hindsight (as has happend here).
Setting the expectations every now and then would go a long way to help define what the promises are and what peoples expectations are. Avoiding the assosiated problem literaly every adventure path.
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I think it depends on either how much you're running an AP by the book or how much adaptation you do for your specific table.
If I run an AP I pretty much expect it to deviate very much from the suggested plot because player backgrounds will play a huge role on the game's development. I'd say as soon as book three, I'll generally use the APs' parts as a mine to steal parts from and while I still plan to let the characters beat the AP's BBEG in the end, the way to get there might be a complete different path than what the books propose.
Add to that that I often have to rewrite huge parts anyways because we might play in another setting (Realms, Eberron) and I think it's easily understandable why I'm not overly concerned with what's in the later AP parts.
Now if I would want to run an AP as written in the setting that it's written for, I'd probably wait for all 6 parts as well.
When that happens, people sometimes get upset and one way to mitigate that is to be aware of what's an expectation, what's a promise and how often they are met.Agreed, however it is sadly common for that to be used against people. If people are to be aware what is a promise and what an expectation then that should not be left to us. inferring that upon one another with hindsight (as has happend here).
Setting the expectations every now and then would go a long way to help define what the promises are and what peoples expectations are. Avoiding the assosiated problem literaly every adventure path.
I don't really understand as I pretty much agree with you.
If I came across as telling anyone off for being disappointed, I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to say people were wrong to be disappointed in the delay - I was rather suggesting that if you take "Street Date of AP1" as the due date for Player Guides (which is what I do, even though there isn't really a strict due date at all) it might help avoid disappointment in the future.
In passing (in reply to the "subscribers get it early" comment above) I did take the opportunity to mention that early access is NOT actually one of the perks of subscribing (even though many people think it is and it often works out that way). I was kind of trying to do what you say here about setting expectations.
Again - sorry if it sounded like I was scolding anyone. I was meant to be suggesting a helpful mindset to adopt. :)
I'm still not seeing the player's guide. Is it somewhere new with the new layout?
It would be nice to get an official update. I am running it this weekend.
It would be nice to get an official update. I am running it this weekend.
Curious, but how is that going to work without the campaign traits available to the players?
Pre-story stuff they want me to run about how everyone met in the party. Some revisions may be necessary if the player's guide doesn't come out until next week.
Pre-story stuff they want me to run about how everyone met in the party. Some revisions may be necessary if the player's guide doesn't come out until next week.
Ah. That makes sense. We're not running ours for a while since we're still finishing Skulls and Shackles, but we're getting ready for it now. Hope it comes out soon.
Even if the guide itself is a bit delayed, can we at least have a news post with the Campaign Traits, so my players can begin to build their characters? Right now we're struggling with background that will fit them in with Lady Martella, and an assumption that the traits will effect what happens in session 1.
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Yeah, it is getting a bit ridiculous with the radio silence from Paizo about this. I think we all understand that delays can happen, and the flu on the west coast seems like it was no joke, but the lack of an update with at least something like "mid March" or "early April" by now is creeping into negligence territory.
Managing Developer
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I think "negligence" is too strong a word here, and while keeping people apprised is a good thing to do, I'm not under any real obligation in regard to this product.
Publishing is a somewhat complicated endeavor with a lot of moving parts and interactions between different departments. If any one piece of this chain slips, it can disrupt people and things down the line. It's because of this that I'm not nailing down a date, but I'll be disappointed it we can't make this happen in the next couple of weeks at the latest.