I know this can largely be impacted by GM style and the group but the overall plots of most of the APs seem rather gritty and dark what with having to combat escalating evil and usually world conquering plots
Looking through and you have some outright horror ones, rebellions or pseudo uprisings against devil sponsored overlords (twice) , demon wars , being forced to become refugees etc .
So with that in mind which APs lend themselves best to a lighter tone? Which are the least gritty ?
On the face of it it seems like the lightest could be:
- Skull and Shackles with an altered first book to remove or lesson the whole beatdown of press ganged victims
- Iron Gods seems like it could just become a power metal music video (although I have heard it is brutal and also have no desire to play in it or run it)
What do people think ?
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I feel like that despite some mega-dark elements of book 3 (the Paraika Divs) War for the Crown can be kind of a light spy game.
My game ended up being fairly gritty but that is just essentially my style.
Jade Regent as well, can be a fairly light exploration path. I can see easily down-playing the grittier elements of it.
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Seems to me that in Mummy's Mask you are up against sort of an action movie villain, who could be made suitably over-the-top for less grittiness. (I would have also said Legacy of Fire, but the prevalence of slavery in the area being so widespread as to have its own Campaign Trait tends to put a damper on making a light tone.) I would guess maybe even Tyrant's Grasp, but I haven't seen any of this one yet.
Think of it this way: In which APs could the villain actually be Sideshow Bob? (Come to think of it, maybe even Hell's Vengeance could be made light if the whole party was willing to play Golden/Silver Age comic book villains and the GM was willing to go along with it.)
Interesting poInts
War for the Crown - from listening to the Know Direction actual play it certainly seems like it can be of light of tone. It seems like it can either go Roger Moore James Bond or gritty Game of Thrones style (although i get the impression more nobles are supposed to live through chunks of this!)
Mummy’s Mask - does seem like it can be pulpy Indiana Jones style
Hells Vengeance - tounge in cheek villain style seems to be the best way of doing this unless your players specifically want to get really dark
Reign of Winter has a definite "fairy tale" vibe. Like it's a "help the big bad witch because it's less bad than the alternatives" one, but it is kind dof a romp.
I think a GM wanting to edit this one for tone would have to do more work on difficulty (first book is super lethal for some reason) and less on content.
Well, War for the Crown does start with a quite violent massacre, though.
As written EVERY AP has some dark tones, it's up to the individual GM to decide how much to lighten them up.
So should my question be rephrased as which has the fewest ?
Hells Vengeance - tounge in cheek villain style seems to be the best way of doing this unless your players specifically want to get really dark
you have to do some really nasty stuff in HV.
Hell's Rebels, despite touching on dark themes (the game starts with a political massacre and a riot, not to mention the entirety of Book 6), has a hopeful tone and gets downright campy in points. It could easily be tipped one way or the other by the personal style of the GM.
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Reign of Winter has a definite "fairy tale" vibe. Like it's a "help the big bad witch because it's less bad than the alternatives" one, but it is kind dof a romp.
I think a GM wanting to edit this one for tone would have to do more work on difficulty (first book is super lethal for some reason) and less on content.
I dunno, RoW also does have
I'm prepping to run it right now, and it definitely has a fairy tale vibe...but more of an old-school one than a Disney one, though you could certainly play down those elements.
Mummy's Mask is fairly pulp adventure in tone, so I'd consider it lighter. I recall Serpent's Skull being like that too; there are some dark elements in the first book, but other than that, it was more action-oriented.
Serpent's Skull part 1 has cannibals and vampires, if I remember correctly.
Serpent's Skull part 1 has cannibals and vampires, if I remember correctly.
Almost every children's cartoon I have every seen has a part where a main character is tied hands and feet to a stick and carried towards a boiling pot ostensibly to be eaten - so that seems like it could be got around...
But it is like mentioned above - it depends on how you run these things...
Serpent's Skull part 1 has cannibals and vampires, if I remember correctly.
Yeah, that was one of the things I was referring to as dark elements in the first book. The other being
But as Lanathar said, it depends how the GM plays it.
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I mean "the Witch wants to eat Hansel and Gretel" is sort of in the background radiation of a lot of people's cultural context, even if, on face, the whole thing is horrifying.
Some things come across as less dark solely because they are familiar. I mean, from one perspective the premise of "Batman" is "Billionaire punches the mentally ill to deal with his trauma" but nonetheless campy/silly Batman is one of the more enduring takes on the character.
Serpent's Skull part 1 has cannibals and vampires, if I remember correctly.Yeah, that was one of the things I was referring to as dark elements in the first book. The other being
Spoiler:the shipwreck, which at least in our group's case killed an NPC we'd interacted with and liked (the first mate). Not to mention everyone else on board besides the handful of survivors.But as Lanathar said, it depends how the GM plays it.
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well... 'tone' and actions are somewhat different.
I think the easiest APs for a GM to keep a light tone are probably the campier ones, like Serpent's Skull, Reign of Winter, War for the Crown, Mummy's Mask, etc.
Now, bear in mind that you can EASILY make these incredibly dark stories. War for the Crown in particular, if you really get into it, could be nightmare fuel.
But, you could also play up the fancy-snootyness of it and have fun playing dress-up aristo.
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Ranking the APs I've played in from least dark to most dark:
1. Hell's Rebels (played up through book 1).
2. Iron Gods (played through book 1 and part of book 2). Doesn't get disturbing until book 2, though damn does it ramp up fast there.
3. Serpent's Skull (GMed through book 2 and part of book 3).
3.5. Age of Worms (played through most of book 8). It's about the end of the world - it's dark.
4. Reign of Winter (played through book 1 and part of book 2). Our GM is running it in Ravenloft so it's got more horror than the original book, but it's still got
5. Rise of the Runelords (GMed through book 1, part of book 2). The actual tone of the story is more lighthearted than say Serpent's Skull or Age of Worms, but the content is harsh:
1. Hell's RebelsBook 6 got a content warning. Not even Book 3 of Rise of the Runelords got a content warning.
I think it deserved it too. But if you wanted to run HR as a light romp you have a natural stopping point after book 5 before things get real dark.
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Run the "We Be Goblins" series if you want something "light". Playing a game about going around and killing evil things is not what I come to for "lightness", but some adventures can be more whimsical than others.
Yeah. Killing. It's fun for the family!
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^The family that preys together slays together!
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I mean, Book 1 and 2 both have content warnings (either in a sidebar or in the introduction).In "The Skinsaw Murders," and in the adventures to follow, things grow darker for the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path.This is part of what I was referring to.
That's less a content warning than a three-act story structure warning.
Jade Regent as well, can be a fairly light exploration path. I can see easily down-playing the grittier elements of it.
I'll second this one. Things don't really get dark until Book 4, and there are more than a few GM's who dump that particular dungeon crawl anyway because it just goes on and on and on. Excise that and the rest is easily managed.
Legacy of Fire was lots of fun, and I cannot off-hand recall anything uber-dark about it. I think that could be played with a light, fairytale theme. I mean, you have
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I'll toss my vote in for Mummy's Mask as well. There are very few 'dark' moments.
Book 2 has a horror theme, but its just some zombies at an auction trappings over more of the same of book 1.
Book 3 has Muminofrah, which could get a bit mature depending on how the party RP's to her debauchery and proclivities, but is very tame in tone.
Book 4 has a demon cult of scorpion men fighting cultists who explode when they die. Its the lightest of the books, IMO.
Book 5 is about like book 1 and 4 in tone, except with some hostage taking and offscreen WMD usage.
Book 6 is a fairly straightforward 5 dungeons back to back, learning about Hakotep. There are some dark undertones (his wife was a Dark Tapestry devotee, his Shory engineer slave stuck as a ghost for eternity, etc), but its no worse than than the drug peddling undead in book 2.
Legacy of Fire was lots of fun, and I cannot off-hand recall anything uber-dark about it. I think that could be played with a light, fairytale theme. I mean, you have
** spoiler omitted **
I wonder if the most depressing part of Legacy of Fire might be where you start from.
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Legacy of Fire was lots of fun, and I cannot off-hand recall anything uber-dark about it. I think that could be played with a light, fairytale theme. I mean, you have
** spoiler omitted **
I agree, if LoF didn't have the filed experiment of built in gaps of xp for you to add sub-quests in, it would be the least stressful
Legacy of Fire was lots of fun, and I cannot off-hand recall anything uber-dark about it. I think that could be played with a light, fairytale theme. I mean, you have
** spoiler omitted **
I wonder if the most depressing part of Legacy of Fire might be where you start from.
** spoiler omitted **
Easy to skip over all that. I don’t recall any of that, so we must’ve left that aspect out. I don’t think that was integral to the overall story.
Granted, there's an optional side-bar in TG suggesting how they could be reincarnated or something like that, but that "survival" would take place a few centuries later, so there's nothing left of most PCs' lives/connections (unless elves and possibly dwarves).
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Bellona -- Seriously, why would you spoil the end of the newest AP without using a spoiler tag?
Now, I've not played Reign of Winter but doesn't that one contain...well, book 5 of Reign of Winter? With
For my money I'd say Shattered Star might well be lightest, at least for me? It's a treasure hunt against a series of various evils, lots of dungeon crawling etc. Don't play up the Sorshen dungeon too much and you're pretty good, I think
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Now, I've not played Reign of Winter but doesn't that one contain...well, book 5 of Reign of Winter? With ** spoiler omitted **
For my money I'd say Shattered Star might well be lightest, at least for me? It's a treasure hunt against a series of various evils, lots of dungeon crawling etc. Don't play up the Sorshen dungeon too much and you're pretty good, I think
Yeah, gotta agree with Reign of winter not being light in tone. Book five of Reign of Winter is deadly serious without comedy even though name of the book is funny.
Thing about parts of Reign of Winter that have fairy tale theme to them is that its inspired by russian folklore, and russian folklore is really really dark :P Actually traditional fairy tales ARE dark in general
Bellona -- Seriously, why would you spoil the end of the newest AP without using a spoiler tag?
I apologise if you haven't been keeping up with the recent TG discussions.
It should be pointed out that the Player's Guide for Tyrant's Grasp calls out the AP as being "survival horror". Please note that not all forms of survival horror stories guarantee the survival of the protagonists.