Lost Omens: Rival Academies makes me wish we were doing a Sarkoris Reclaimers storyline.
That sounds awesome!
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Larger set piece battles did occur (The Siege of Antioch (1097 C.E.) had a Crusader force of 40,000 men!), but they were quite rare, and usually ruinous for both sides.
In a follow up to this, the Saracen force was 70,000 men. Despite losing the battle (they didn't yet have a good counter to the heavily armored European knights), they suffered fewer long term losses then the Crusaders due to a much better understanding of the local environment.
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After having misread a description of Gatewalkers as an escort quest AP, I now demand an escort AP. With the long-awaited attending LO book : Dancing Halls of Golarion.
Isn't an Escort Quest basically the plot of Jade Regent or are you talking about the courtesan type of escort?
Creative Director
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After having misread a description of Gatewalkers as an escort quest AP, I now demand an escort AP. With the long-awaited attending LO book : Dancing Halls of Golarion.Isn't an Escort Quest basically the plot of Jade Regent or are you talking about the courtesan type of escort?
That's exactly what folks are talking about (before some folks started running with the fact that "escort" is also sometimes used as a euphemism for prostitute).
For Jade Regent I tried to address those concerns up front by trying to set things up in a "If Ameiko dies, her mantle of Empress moves on to a PC," but that Adventure Path switched developers early on and I don't think that notion carried through. I also think it's something that a fair amount of GMs didn't play up, frankly, so the perception for a lot of players of Jade Regent seems to be "We're just side characters here to propel an NPC's story forward," and to lots of gamers, that's unappetizing.
Which I completely understand.
As a result, ever since Jade Regent, we've been very timid and deliberate and sparse on including significant "escort quest" plotlines in Adventures, and when they do, we always tried to frame them in a way that makes it obvious to the players that their PCs remain the important ones.
Gatewalkers had some rough patches (sorta like Jade Regent) with having to switch out developers and even an author at the last minute (I was asked to write book 3 a month before it was due, for example, after the previous author had to leave the project for personal reasons), and so I feel like there was a bit of confusion there early on as to how best to present the central portion of that Adventure Path's escort mission. It's certainly something I struggled with a lot in writing the third book.
When we got a chance to revisit Gatewalkers and compile it into a remastered hardcover, a brand new team got a chance to take reader feedback and try to make adjustments and changes to that element. Completely rewriting the central plot wasn't really an option, and shouldn't have been because I do feel that the story is strong... it just needed more attention and TLC to make sure the players know that they're the ones who remain the focus of the story even when they're helping out others in need. Hopefully folks like what we've done with it, and hopefully those who DO like Gatewalkers are happy with how we preserved the plot... not every story is for everyone, and it's self-destructive to try to completely change a story to appeal to those who don't like it when there's plenty of folks who already like it—that just sets you up for a case where the haters are going to still be predisposed to hate while the ones who liked it will feel betrayed.
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After having misread a description of Gatewalkers as an escort quest AP, I now demand an escort AP. With the long-awaited attending LO book : Dancing Halls of Golarion.Isn't an Escort Quest basically the plot of Jade Regent or are you talking about the courtesan type of escort?That's exactly what folks are talking about (before some folks started running with the fact that "escort" is also sometimes used as a euphemism for prostitute).
** spoiler omitted **...
I just want to put some positive feedback here for the way Paizo has handled "escort quests", including in Jade Regent and the middle chapter of Gatewalkers.
My group loved the bioware style relationship building in Jade Regent, and I had a player who previously hated roleplaying blossom into one of the most involved roleplayers in my party because it helped them to have an underlying mechanic that could help them track their progress. Eventually it wasn't necessary and got moved to the background.
More than that the players treated Ameiko as integral to the party as if they had another player at the table with their own opinions on how to handle things. I played up Ameiko's nervousness about her destiny, and the weight of responsibility and made clear that she was relying on the PCs to help her navigate that situation.
People will gripe loudly when something didn't work for their game, or they were unable to adapt something to the needs and enjoyment of their players and that's understandable. People pay money for adventures and then expect it to work out of the box with little additional adaptation or preparation. Whether that expectation is fair or not, it exists.
However, for me and my group, who treats every AP as a scenario skeleton to build our own experience around, and players who treat NPCs with the same weight of existence as their own PCs, we love NPCs who are relevant to the plot and have their own drives, goals, destinies and lives outside the player characters. It makes it feel like the world is alive outside of the few hours we get to sit around the table, eat snacks and roll dice.
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After having misread a description of Gatewalkers as an escort quest AP, I now demand an escort AP. With the long-awaited attending LO book : Dancing Halls of Golarion.Isn't an Escort Quest basically the plot of Jade Regent ...That's exactly what folks are talking about ...
** spoiler omitted **...
Jade Regent is the adventure path that taught me how to run an NPC party member properly. My chronicles of that campaign are at Amaya of Westcrown, and amusingly, the second paragraph mentions a handy hint from James Jacobs.
This module is where Amaya grew into her own as a character. She became the ultimate den mother, taking care of the party so that they could take care of all the dangers. Perfect role for an escorted NPC.
It also helped that my wife's character Ebony Blossom was a ninja of a clan that used to serve the Amatatsu family. Her goal was to restore the Amatatsu family, so Amaya Amatatsu was a prop in her own story. The other players followed my wife's lead and made personal stories that interweaved into the escort story.
Three of my current players are enthusiastic roleplayers and the other four players don't mind their interaction with NPCs. They love having a strong relationship with an NPC and are glad to temporarily recruit one into the party--so long as they still retain their usual narrative control over the story.
However, giving the players as much narrative control as I forced me to develop nimble skills at improvisation. Combining that with also playing an NPC party member as a story element rather than as a GMPC puts a heavy requirement on gamemastering skills. My players are quick to forgive my occasional flubs due to that burden.
However, for me and my group, who treats every AP as a scenario skeleton to build our own experience around, and players who treat NPCs with the same weight of existence as their own PCs, we love NPCs who are relevant to the plot and have their own drives, goals, destinies and lives outside the player characters. It makes it feel like the world is alive outside of the few hours we get to sit around the table, eat snacks and roll dice.
Yeah, that describes my players, too, except that snacks became less important when we switched to playing online via Roll20 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
It’s very different since I ran Gatewalkers as a solo campaign for my wife, but Sakuachi quickly became her closest companion, and she was very invested in helping her on her journey. YMMV.
I loved Jade Regent and ran it twice for two different group of players. Didn't really hear a complaint from them that they felt like secondary characters.
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IMO, how an AP like Jade Regent (or portions of Gatewalkers) is received by a party depends on two things:
1) The way the GM presents the "plot-critical" NPC(s). I remember reading about a complaint in the Jade Regent forums about how a GM had Ameiko and the other NPCs act as if the PCs were merely "hired help" and lackeys. The NPCs need to be presented in a way that engages the PCs, especially the players, and helps reinforce the PCs' agency. Another pitfall to avoid is having the NPCs hog the spotlight from the PCs or act as a deus ex machina frequently; players often resent it when NPCs "steal their thunder." It's often best to have the NPCs act in a support role for the PCs, even when the NPCs are "plot-critical" for the AP.
2) The players' attitudes toward NPCs and "patrons." Some player groups are just not willing to accept direction from a patron and/or will treat NPCs as unimportant "quest dispensers." There is nothing necessarily "wrong" with this play-style, but it is not suited to an AP where NPCs have a more visible or central role.
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IMO, how an AP like Jade Regent (or portions of Gatewalkers) is received by a party depends on two things:
1) The way the GM presents the "plot-critical" NPC(s). I remember reading about a complaint in the Jade Regent forums about how a GM had Ameiko and the other NPCs act as if the PCs were merely "hired help" and lackeys. The NPCs need to be presented in a way that engages the PCs, especially the players, and helps reinforce the PCs' agency. Another pitfall to avoid is having the NPCs hog the spotlight from the PCs or act as a deus ex machina frequently; players often resent it when NPCs "steal their thunder." It's often best to have the NPCs act in a support role for the PCs, even when the NPCs are "plot-critical" for the AP.
This is exasperated in Jade Regent where the escorted NPC Ameiko Amatatsu is 5th level when the PCs start at 1st level. The module The Brinewall Legacy had a contrived excuse to sideline her during the quest at Brinewall Castle so that she would not dominate those encounters. I dodged those issues by swapping out Ameiko for her half-sister Amaya, who had the same level as the PCs.
A few weeks ago on Tuesday January 28, 2025, in the playtest for the Runesmith class (Virgil Tibbs, Playtest Runesmith, comment #16), I set up a deux ex machina to rescue the players from a Severe-Threat Encounter in case the dice rolled poorly. The six-member party and the NPC Runesmith, all 5th-level, were fighting five Giant Hermit Crabs, creature 5. Some minotaurs were on the way to help, but not expected to arrive for another 15 minutes. I had the minotaurs show up after two crabs were dead and the runesmith and one PC were down to single-digit hit points, simply to wrap up the combat more quickly.
I asked my wife, one of the players, if she minded the rescue by the minotaurs. She said that she liked it, because it demonstrated that the townsfolk could protect themselves if necessary. She pointed out that I had forewarned them that the minotaurs would show up, so only their early arrival was a surprise.
2) The players' attitudes toward NPCs and "patrons." Some player groups are just not willing to accept direction from a patron and/or will treat NPCs as unimportant "quest dispensers." There is nothing necessarily "wrong" with this play-style, but it is not suited to an AP where NPCs have a more visible or central role.
When I was employed as an applied mathematician, I usually viewed my supervisor as the person who brought me interesting math problems rather than as an authority figure. :-)
I am currently running the Strength of Thousands adventure path, in which the PCs are students at the Magaambya School of Magic. The Paizo writers cleverly gave the Magaambya a culture that regularly sent the students out on service projects, so that the PCs would have some missions (intended as problem-solving missions rather than as combat, but sometimes combat occurred). In the 1st module, Takulu Ot, a friendly teacher, was their point of contact for most service projects. In the 2nd module, Janatimo, the head of a branch, was supposed to be their point of contact, but my players had changed the script. They had wanted to emphasize their role as students. They asked me to create classes and full-semester student jobs. For their 1st semester, their student job was helping to tend the Leshy Gardens. For their 2nd semester, they were liaisons to some visiting students. For their 3rd (and current) semester, they were aiding the local police force. And they no longer needed Janatimo to serve as a patron guiding them to adventures, because their job gave them the adventures that Janatimo would have given them.
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After having misread a description of Gatewalkers as an escort quest AP, I now demand an escort AP. With the long-awaited attending LO book : Dancing Halls of Golarion.Isn't an Escort Quest basically the plot of Jade Regent or are you talking about the courtesan type of escort?That's exactly what folks are talking about (before some folks started running with the fact that "escort" is also sometimes used as a euphemism for prostitute).
** spoiler omitted **...
I just want to put some positive feedback here for the way Paizo has handled "escort quests", including in Jade Regent and the middle chapter of Gatewalkers.
My group loved the bioware style relationship building in Jade Regent, and I had a player who previously hated roleplaying blossom into one of the most involved roleplayers in my party because it helped them to have an underlying mechanic that could help them track their progress. Eventually it wasn't necessary and got moved to the background.
More than that the players treated Ameiko as integral to the party as if they had another player at the table with their own opinions on how to handle things. I played up Ameiko's nervousness about her destiny, and the weight of responsibility and made clear that she was relying on the PCs to help her navigate that situation.
People will gripe loudly when something didn't work for their game, or they were unable to adapt something to the needs and enjoyment of their players and that's understandable. People pay money for adventures and then expect it to work out of the box with little additional adaptation or preparation. Whether that expectation is fair or not, it exists.
However, for me and my group, who treats every AP as a scenario skeleton to build our own experience around, and players who treat NPCs with the same weight of existence as their own PCs, we love NPCs who are relevant to the plot and have their own drives, goals,...
This is almost exactly how my Jade Regent game is going. We used the Ultimate Relationships rules, which give more mechanical heft to the relationship-building aspect of the AP. Essentially, it's turned into a campaign with a Persona-like social system, where the players are building relationships with a ton of NPCs, and have mechanics for how those relationships are built. The mechanical aspect is important: I know a lot of people will say "you don't need mechanics for this stuff, that's what roleplay is for" but I think that works for some people and not others, and also roleplay mechanics can be fun.
Goes to show that even a "bad" AP can be right for your table if you approach it the right way. The "escort quest" aspect of Jade Regent is actually what led it to being a great campaign for my group, as it encouraged the players to roleplay with NPCs and really engage with the world.
Honestly, with the popularity of relationship simulation games like Persona, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, etc., I wonder if you could make an AP that is about building relationships as a primary goal. I know a lot of APs have that aspect in service to a larger story, but I think adding some mechanical heft to roleplay is really fun when it's done well.
I strongly disagree with the concept that you can't get RP in dungeon crawls, especially in AV.
AV has so many opportunities for RP. Not just in Otari, which is loaded with them, but in the dungeon itself!
On nearly every, and maybe every, level you have chances to open dialog with the residents. You have lots of opportunities to shape the way that the group approaches the story of AV.
Can the GM fail to present the story well? Sure. I've had that happen to me in the past, where I have failed to present the story of an adventure well.
Can the players fail to engage the story, or become overall aggressive and try to clear it like a commando team? Sure, and maybe they want that. Maybe they do not want a deep story and just want to kill monsters. There's nothing wrong with that.
But to make the claim that 'There are no chances to RP in AV' is just incorrect. There are so many hooks, and so many chances to make more, that every group could find its own RP niches and focus points without that much work.
So, I'm making an assumption that I know which post above this is in response to; I want to point out that the post did not say 'There are no chances to RP in AV.' In fact, the post even calls out that there are RP opportunities throughout. The point of the post is that a heavy dungeon crawl focus in an AP inhibits roleplaying opportunities the PCs may encounter. And the poster included hypothetical examples, and mentioned Abomination Vaults as a specific example.
And while that may not be your experience, it is a true phenomenon for other players and groups. I agree with the poster above, and I didn't want their point to get misrepresented.
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I was reading through the LO: Tian Xia book and noticed that, canonically, Ameiko has not used the seals to rebuild the other four Imperial Families of Minkai. I know that this is likely because the assumption is that the PCs of Jade Regent would take on those roles, and that this can't be in canon, but I also think that could be a cool adventure.
One major criticism of Jade Regent is that you really don't spend a lot of time in Minkai proper, and I believe a lot of people would like a Minkai-focused AP. I'd like to see an AP where the PCs help Empress Ameiko select worthy individuals to recreate the Imperial Families (and maybe select a spouse for Ameiko as well, as I believe she's canonically childless, isn't getting any younger, and that Amatatsu line has to continue or what was Jade Regent even all about anyway).
My own Jade Regent campaign was based on relationship-building, and I think that could be a cool motif for the campaign. Seek out prospective candidates for the mantle of Imperial family, convince them to take on the responsibility, resolve their issues, and/or choose between a host of viable candidates, both good and evil, who might be best suited for the role.
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I would also like to see an aftermath of Jade Regent. However, I think it should be separate from the Jade Regent story. Allow those to run through the background like Easter Eggs, but have it a separate crisis that the PCs can take care of. Especially to allow for lower level characters to be stars...
I was reading through the LO: Tian Xia book and noticed that, canonically, Ameiko has not used the seals to rebuild the other four Imperial Families of Minkai. I know that this is likely because the assumption is that the PCs of Jade Regent would take on those roles, and that this can't be in canon, but I also think that could be a cool adventure.
Isn't the canon reason being the the PCs were already made backup scions?
I was reading through the LO: Tian Xia book and noticed that, canonically, Ameiko has not used the seals to rebuild the other four Imperial Families of Minkai. I know that this is likely because the assumption is that the PCs of Jade Regent would take on those roles, and that this can't be in canon, but I also think that could be a cool adventure.Isn't the canon reason being the the PCs were already made backup scions?
I think there is a different concern. I think it is about having Minkaian characters.
I think there is a different concern. I think it is about having Minkaian characters.I was reading through the LO: Tian Xia book and noticed that, canonically, Ameiko has not used the seals to rebuild the other four Imperial Families of Minkai. I know that this is likely because the assumption is that the PCs of Jade Regent would take on those roles, and that this can't be in canon, but I also think that could be a cool adventure.Isn't the canon reason being the the PCs were already made backup scions?
Someone was asking why the PC don't become scions of the other families, if I remember correctly, characters can't be scions of more than one family, and the PCs were already made scions of one.
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Has there been any adventure, path or Pathfinder society scenario that has dealt with Icestair?
I would very much like to see an Icestair gazetteer someday. It seems a really cool place where east meets west, With shops and districts existing at different elevations along the pass.