Absolute Power

[Squiggit]

dirtypool wrote:

Plaguestone is a first out of the gate adventure - which is more of a corollary for Hoard of the Dragon Queen. Which is a bit of a dog in its own right.

That's putting it nicely. Dragon Queen is something else, honestly.

Phandelver is more comparable to Menace, I'd say it's kind of a wash. I remember liking Phandelver, though I can't actually remember anything about it and most of the groups I've played with have enjoyed Menace.

[Malk_Content]

I'll also just chime in (in case Paizo is listening) Menance and AV coming out together was great. Having more content that goes above and beyond the scope of the AP that helps flesh out the story surrounding the location has been wonderful.

[Unicore]

I really enjoyed plaguestone and how it showcase how different encounters in PF2 were going to be. It is perhaps a little heavy on ongoing damage for a player’s first exposure, but the monsters are interesting, have interesting strengths and weaknesses, and the environmental challenges of the setting were pretty dynamic.

[dirtypool]

Squiggit wrote:

That's putting it nicely. Dragon Queen is something else, honestly.

Didn't need to go into too much detail to make the point.

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

Mr Tea wrote:

The PCs ARE the focus of each table. The rest of the world exists for the stories you tell about those characters.

That's a way of playing the game, sure. Another is that the PCs are just one more set of people in the fictional world, who happen to have stumbled across some particular set of circumstances for which they have some degree of professional training, and everyone else counts as equally real. I very much favour the latter, myself.

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

Alfa/Polaris wrote:

Some people have different values, find different things interesting, or take things differently. Sometimes they can't care less where the numbers come from and sometimes they find the story better if big things like power scaling have a defined reason.

And sometimes you get players with a tendency to adopt passing monsters, and woe betide you as a GM if you can't produce said monster's carrying capacity, or any other practical detail with a direct relationship to its stats, on demand. Consistently and coherently.

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

Megistone wrote:

Yeah, the fact that everything followed the same rules was just an illusion.
Bonus feats, racial bonuses, if you are an undead you get free immunities, if you have four legs you get certain advantages, plus special abilities didn't really have any rules governing them.
There were rules for many things, and countless ways to break each of them.

"Complex rules" including exceptions is a very different situation from "no rules", both for creating content and for delivering verisimilitude to players.

[egindar]

the nerve-eater of Zur-en-Aarh wrote:

Mr Tea wrote:

The PCs ARE the focus of each table. The rest of the world exists for the stories you tell about those characters.

That's a way of playing the game, sure. Another is that the PCs are just one more set of people in the fictional world, who happen to have stumbled across some particular set of circumstances for which they have some degree of professional training, and everyone else counts as equally real. I very much favour the latter, myself.

I think this is somewhat difficult to truly have in most D&D-like systems. The PCs typically grow in power exponentially faster than normal for the setting, as part of the gameplay loop, and usually have different rules for dying than other creatures, as a gameplay convenience. It's possible to have the setting/lore treat the PCs as if they were normal people, but as Mr Tea was saying it's not possible for this to happen mechanically, because the point is more to play a game and/or tell a story than it is to simulate a world.

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

egindar wrote:

I think this is somewhat difficult to truly have in most D&D-like systems. The PCs typically grow in power exponentially faster than normal for the setting, as part of the gameplay loop, and usually have different rules for dying than other creatures, as a gameplay convenience.

I'm not at all sure the latter is a necessity, I generally do not run games that way myself. As for the former, it seems to me to be part of the narrative contract that the PCs will be the sort of characters who throw themselves into situations where XP are to be gained in large numbers, and would not gain similar amounts of XP if they were just interested in staying home and running a restautant (though ideally they could easily pick up a few levels in Expert from doing that for a long time); to my mind the difference between that and what you are saying is that other professional adventurers who happen to be in the setting should (and in my games do) show a similar level progression to PCs, and Paizo APs are not lacking in examples of such characters who show up at different levels at different times as the game progresses, dating all the way back to the Stormblades and the Jade Ravens.

[Cyouni]

Oh, you mean like a certain Paizo-sponsored website that hosts all the rules for free?

[Heather F]

Between the bickering and off topic comments, many posts have been removed. This thread has run its course and will remain locked.