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Howdy my fellow GMs and players!
This is a "different" request of sorts. I was wondering if there would be anyone willing to actually GM an AP starting from book 3 or 4?
While I like the low level characters and starting from 1 as well, I would really appreciate the chance of getting into an adventure at a more advanced point.
Just for fun - any AP would work. I managed to join some of my friends in other running games, but this idea here would be to actually start a fresh game, but just pick it up from a more advanced book.
The party would already know each other and be together since the beginning. Or not, up to the GM if he wanted to adapt things.
Anyway... Just throwing the bait here to see if anyone would be willing to pick it up :) I don't bother much with the rules. If I was to choose, I'd try to stick with Paizo-only stuff, but I can be flexible. Single class, gestalt, Elephant in the Room, anything the GM wanna throw there, I'm game.
Cheers!
Interesting idea. Clever, even.
I'd be in.
Heck yeah. Just fast-track the first couple books, that's basically the characters' back story. I dig it!
I'd be interested.
The more I do PbP, the more I appreciate concepts like this -- I think you could basically have everyone read books 1-3/4 and just write up a page or two of backstory of what happened previously, working together with the other party members to make everything match up.
For most PbP, you really need to get rid of a lot of filler you can do at a table -- like combats needed for xp and other tangents.
I'm increasingly appreciating that most PbP would be more successful if you conceive of it as an extended one-shot -- like we're doing these 5 dungeons -- rather than an open ended campaign.
I think it might also make sense to just do like 5-6, or highlights from 3/4 and 5-6. Like for Runelords, maybe just do Xin-Xalast and the stone giant fort. For Curse of the Crimson Throne, just do the Scarwall Castle and the Final book with Castle Korvosa (and maybe a couple of other things).
Another potential way to structure this is to cover all that filler by just doing creative writing with the group -- the DM can give the party the adventure and everyone can write a couple of pages about what happened -- how filler combats resolved, NPC interactions, etc. and you only actually 'play out' in detail the high points -- Xin-Xalast, Castle Scarwall, etc.
Howdy my fellow GMs and players!
This is a "different" request of sorts. I was wondering if there would be anyone willing to actually GM an AP starting from book 3 or 4?
While I like the low level characters and starting from 1 as well, I would really appreciate the chance of getting into an adventure at a more advanced point.
Just for fun - any AP would work. I managed to join some of my friends in other running games, but this idea here would be to actually start a fresh game, but just pick it up from a more advanced book.
The party would already know each other and be together since the beginning. Or not, up to the GM if he wanted to adapt things.
Anyway... Just throwing the bait here to see if anyone would be willing to pick it up :) I don't bother much with the rules. If I was to choose, I'd try to stick with Paizo-only stuff, but I can be flexible. Single class, gestalt, Elephant in the Room, anything the GM wanna throw there, I'm game.
Cheers!
there was a Giantslayer recruitment just recently that started somewhere in the middle. Maybe end of book 1, I don't remember.
I think the idea has potential, hence why I was hoping for a GM interested in picking it up :) I thought about books 3 or 4 because it's still "enough not quite at the end" while at the same time the characters are already more fully formed, more of the features online already. Really crossing my fingers that a benevolent soul decides to give it a go! It would probably be cooler with one of the good old classics, but even the newer ones could work as well.
Well, maybe a GM could do WotR - without Mythic levels! Characters could be powerful through other way... Maybe gestalt with Elephant in the Room, but not mythic. Not sure if this would make too hard on the players, but I find the challenge fun regardless.
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Oh I’d be very much into a new GM, mate! I can help organizing or with any tips if you need. :))
Edit: I was replying keeperofrunes but the forum decided to flip our posts! Sorry for the weirdness
I’m still new to pbp so it might take a bit of getting used to but I’ve GMd for a few years in person and this seems interesting if folks are happy to beat with a new gm. I’d take a week or so to get familiar with the book but WotW seems fun.
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Alright, I’ll read though it and have up a recruitment up hopefully middle to end of next week!
Loved it! Thanks Keeper!!!
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The more I do PbP, the more I appreciate concepts like this -- I think you could basically have everyone read books 1-3/4 and just write up a page or two of backstory of what happened previously, working together with the other party members to make everything match up.
For most PbP, you really need to get rid of a lot of filler you can do at a table -- like combats needed for xp and other tangents.
I'm increasingly appreciating that most PbP would be more successful if you conceive of it as an extended one-shot -- like we're doing these 5 dungeons -- rather than an open ended campaign.
I think it might also make sense to just do like 5-6, or highlights from 3/4 and 5-6. Like for Runelords, maybe just do Xin-Xalast and the stone giant fort. For Curse of the Crimson Throne, just do the Scarwall Castle and the Final book with Castle Korvosa (and maybe a couple of other things).
Another potential way to structure this is to cover all that filler by just doing creative writing with the group -- the DM can give the party the adventure and everyone can write a couple of pages about what happened -- how filler combats resolved, NPC interactions, etc. and you only actually 'play out' in detail the high points -- Xin-Xalast, Castle Scarwall, etc.
I'm going to be hit with negative comments for what I'm about to write but oh well. One of the problems with the length and difficulty in keeping APs going are the GM expectations. I don't think I've seen a recent recruitment where the GM doesn't expect every day posting during the week and at least one post on the weekend. At face value that's not a difficult goal to achieve. *However* the GMs also write that they want paragraph+ length posts - called 'quality posts' - and not just one or two sentences. I understand the reason and the spirit for that desire: it's the closest way to achieve the 'roleplaying' face-to-face tables have that PbP does not. *BUT* I believe that 'quality post' daily requirement is essentially laying the groundwork for the failure of the AP. How/why? Think of it this way: Each player is expected to submit their 1+ paragraph quality post every day. We'll assume a table with 5 players; that means each player needs to set aside time to read the 4 'quality posts' from the other players plus however many post(s) the GM needs to write to reply/respond to the player's posts. And that's for the 5 weekdays and one over the weekend which is quite the time investment. Is it ideal? Sure. Is it feasible in the real world? I think we can see the proof in how many AP PbPs fall apart over the span of a few months.
Short version: If a PC is attacking, answering yes/no questions, they don't need to compose a Shakespearean soliloquy in every instance. Sometimes more is less particularly in terms of pacing and conserving time and energy for the players AND the GM.
I'm going to be hit with negative comments for what I'm about to write but oh well. One of the problems with the length and difficulty in keeping APs going are the GM expectations. I don't think I've seen a recent recruitment where the GM doesn't expect every day posting during the week and at least one post on the weekend. At face value that's not a difficult goal to achieve. *However* the GMs also write that they want paragraph+ length posts - called 'quality posts' - and not just one or two sentences. I understand the reason and the spirit for that desire: it's the closest way to achieve the 'roleplaying' face-to-face tables have that PbP does not. *BUT* I believe that 'quality post' daily requirement is essentially...The more I do PbP, the more I appreciate concepts like this -- I think you could basically have everyone read books 1-3/4 and just write up a page or two of backstory of what happened previously, working together with the other party members to make everything match up.
For most PbP, you really need to get rid of a lot of filler you can do at a table -- like combats needed for xp and other tangents.
I'm increasingly appreciating that most PbP would be more successful if you conceive of it as an extended one-shot -- like we're doing these 5 dungeons -- rather than an open ended campaign.
I think it might also make sense to just do like 5-6, or highlights from 3/4 and 5-6. Like for Runelords, maybe just do Xin-Xalast and the stone giant fort. For Curse of the Crimson Throne, just do the Scarwall Castle and the Final book with Castle Korvosa (and maybe a couple of other things).
Another potential way to structure this is to cover all that filler by just doing creative writing with the group -- the DM can give the party the adventure and everyone can write a couple of pages about what happened -- how filler combats resolved, NPC interactions, etc. and you only actually 'play out' in detail the high points -- Xin-Xalast, Castle Scarwall, etc.
That's one reason why I'd emphasize removing all the filler combats -- that just really drags doing posts like roll for damage, calculate AOO -- oh wait, which square did they move through? nevermind, wait, no, yes, they have one, roll with these three buffs, roll to confirm crit, roll for bleed damage, roll for perception, roll spell DC, on and on an on.
Personally, I'd just play a wargame on tabletop simulator if I wanted to do that kind of interaction for pages and pages as the main focus -- which it inevitably is with a lot of pointless filler combats that are typical for APs.
I've also found it an enormous obstacle to get players to do the simplest things on a VTT like upload or move their token or even sign on to the system consistently, and it's very difficult in my experience to do combat in the theater of the mind fashion for games like PF.
I think there's basically two extremes of possible PbP approaches -- one is to really just focus on rules stuff and try to move quickly through stuff without a lot of RP -- sort of PFS style adventures where you basically adjudicate a few combats and roll some knowledge checks and move from A - B - C, collect xp, divide loot, and it's over, and another extreme, which is firmly where I'm at, where the PbP format is more like collectively producing long-form narrative fanfic like the stuff you see on archiveofourown with some game rules to provide structure to and inspiration for the creative writing and worldbuilding exercises.
I've tried to just stave off incompatible recruitees recently by being very explicit that I'm going to use a lot of maps and have paragraphs of text and lots of fluff so I don't get participants that read three posts and decide they can't be bothered to remember character and place names or what's going on beyond very simple scenarios like 'raid dungeon' or fetch quests.
Well, maybe a GM could do WotR - without Mythic levels! Characters could be powerful through other way... Maybe gestalt with Elephant in the Room, but not mythic. Not sure if this would make too hard on the players, but I find the challenge fun regardless.Mythic is probably fine until like Mythic 3, which is where the rails fall off.
Or when you add mythic to other advantages, like gestalt or some 3pp content.
That's one reason why I'd emphasize removing all the filler combats --Not a bad idea.
That's where I see a lot of APs and other play by post falling apart -- it's an enormous task to keep up with the combat rules over a forum medium because it changes the action/reaction dynamic so it's hard to keep up with who did what when.
For one, you have to do a lot of retconning when, comparing a dozen different sources, you realize discrepancies between different multi-clause rules "This applies for x bonus when x, but not y," or someone clarifies an operant buff that wasn't realized when the last player posted actions. It gets messy fast.
On the one hand, forum play facilitates complicated rules systems like PoW and Spheres that you couldn't reasonably do real time at the table -- some of the combat posts with these systems look like programming assignments and involve dozens of rolls that trigger all kinds of subsidiary mechanisms -- DC checks, conditions/statuses, su an ex effects, etc.. That's clearly not happening at the table where everyone's waiting for someone to do all that, and no one's keeping up with a dozen of these subsidiary conditions in actual play unless someone's writing that all down as its happening.
PF 1e is also highly tactical -- you need to know area effects for things. You need a VTT that shows everything's exact positioning, and an image that's high res enough that you can see the furniture etc. clearly. That requires everyone to keep their focus enough to sign onto, look at, and update the VTT, which I find is a major challenge -- it's my impression that players in more than one game don't want to spend that time, and are mostly unwilling to actively use something they don't already have an account for and have used.
These factors combine to make it an enormous pain to do frequent combats -- it will take a long time, it will bog down in prolonged exegesis of dozens of conflicting rules, it will require technology interaction that a lot of players don't have the attention/head space for to really keep up with. The more you do it, the harder it will be to keep things moving along. And most APs are chocked full of these pointless combats b/c you need enough xp for the next part of the campaign, not for any necessary narrative reason.
It's undeniable that most of the PF rules focus on combat, which makes it peculiar to argue that you should deemphasize that purposefully in this medium. I'm well aware there's a strong argument to just doing free form role playing or use a different system. Still, I like reading the 1,000s of supplements, and there's lots of interesting fluff ideas that emerge out of the thousands of character and NPC options. Just the other day, I was looking at some 3.5 homebrew that turned Incarnum into cybertech, and a new supplement that has psionic akashic veils. It gives me all kinds of ideas for new worldbuilding concepts -- what about an order of Akashic-wielding kobold knights of the psionic dragon deity Saridor? Maybe they hunt phrenic scourges and other psionic foes?
I'm also coming to this from some limited experience with table top wargaming like 40k. If you've ever played even a relatively small battle, you know this is not quick process. There's no role playing going on, and the rules are similarly dense as PF. Just dealing with rolling and moving and measuring models takes all night to fight a small battle. I played one Eldar-Ork battle where my Ork army was low-op and lost quickly, and that still took like 5 hours to do a 1,200-2,000pt. battle. If you apply a similar kind of rule set to a 1-day posting, it's no surprise that it takes months to resolve even ostensibly simple combats with 4-5 foes and 4-5 players.
But my experience is still it's easier to keep things moving if you understand the PbP format as a joint creative writing exercise with the rules as a secondary prop, and focus more on character interactions and scene building. Combats work best as major boss fights and minimize almost everything else. It's easier to smash out a couple of paragraphs of fluff than spend 45 minutes googling rules to try to understand an effect interaction debate in a combat post. No one wants to spend a month fighting some bog standard goblins that are just guarding a storeroom.
Or when you add mythic to other advantages, like gestalt or some 3pp content.Well, maybe a GM could do WotR - without Mythic levels! Characters could be powerful through other way... Maybe gestalt with Elephant in the Room, but not mythic. Not sure if this would make too hard on the players, but I find the challenge fun regardless.Mythic is probably fine until like Mythic 3, which is where the rails fall off.
That's another thing I find peculiar about this system -- it was clear from 3.5 that the actual use of the material at tables is much higher op than what gets published. If you look at stat blocks in published adventures and supplements, they're mostly laughably simple and low op compared to what the system can do.
PF didn't come along without an existing culture of high op design and play in 3.5, so I'm not really clear why they wouldn't get some high-op designers to make stats for material like WotR. Why are the APs designed for 4 players with a 15 pt. buy? Why not design them, or at least some of them, for 6 players and 25 pt. buy at the high level of op for the bench pressing table (i.e., save values, AC, etc.), and explicitly account for that. I'm not saying you have to account for gestalt, etc., but why is there a mythic adventure path that's so far off the mark in terms of builds from what the system does? I've read so many posts about that AP falling apart mid way because the foes just can't keep up with even low op pcs. And there's not even that much of it -- we literally have the 1 official AP that ever uses 20/MR 10, and 1 official module (Witchwar Legacy) that's like 17+ level, besides a few final episodes of APs. Why can't we have some usable published level 20 stuff where the npcs are actually built with high op standards so it can be used without nerfing most of the options or imposing artificial benchmarks on character design? Clearly there's enough people who understand how to build characters -- why can't they be hired to make npcs stat blocks that are actually usable at this level?
I'd also be interested in thoughts on this concept for PbP --
I've increasingly thought the best online format might be a mix of asynchronous PbP for roleplaying, worldbuilding, and scene-setting, and real-time work on discord for combats. The couple of discord games I was on where we've ended up just typed (I'm not really interested in trying to deal with voice technology/microphones/video etc.), but in real time, to deal with combat made things go a lot quicker. It wasn't planned, everyone just happened to be on at the same time and stuff moved along. But maybe it could be planned as a regular tool to keep the game moving.
I've thought about, in the future, pitching games where it'd be asynchronous posting for all rules-lite material like skill checks and all fluff interaction, but schedule 3-4 hours sessions on discord to do combat which would force everyone to sign on, look at and move their tokens on a VTT, and just move through the thing so it's done and doesn't take a month or more to finish.
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@roll4initiative - please give some thought and GM! I'd love to jump in a book 4 reign of winter as well!
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@roll4initiative - please give some thought and GM! I'd love to jump in a book 4 reign of winter as well!
Oh! Hi, Lapyd! You're in my MotFF game! Okay. I'll give it some thought. I am a new PbP GM but not new to GMing (been playing/GMing since 1980). May be a bit rough throughout the game, but, I like what others have said previously and am keeping an eye on this thread.
Cheers!
I've thought about, in the future, pitching games where it'd be asynchronous posting for all rules-lite material like skill checks and all fluff interaction, but schedule 3-4 hours sessions on discord to do combat which would force everyone to sign on, look at and move their tokens on a VTT, and just move through the thing so it's done and doesn't take a month or more to finish.It’s a good idea; using discord or something similar on an occasional or as-needed basis might also help players used to PBB get comfortable with that sort of real-time play. I’ve been hesitant to join regular Discord games partly because I’m not confident I can be available every Saturday at 7pm for the next year. But scheduling some time in the next few days to handle a big fight scene? That I can do.
Another plus of asynchronous campaigns: I’m way more comfortable doing RP stuff writing than in person, so this would be the best of both worlds.
I don't think you'd even need to have a consistent once a week time -- just the understanding that, if there's a big combat, we're going to all come up with a time to sign onto discord in real time and work on it until it's done -- everyone uploads their tokens, fires up the SRDs and pdfs for rules, prepares concepts beforehand they may need for 12 -part attack actions etc., but we sit online for 3-4 hours or whatever typing it out, discussing rules issues, moving through the combat until it's done so it's not a whole week of trying to finish adjudicating all the attendant conditions on a complex maneuver + feat combo.
I've been thinking about his more b/c of some of the play experiences I've had recently on discord -- I think it works pretty well to type -- not speak, so that you can clearly discuss rules issues in one channel, and do rolls in another, and another for the actual combat description. It's not helpful to talk when all I can say is "I'm googling rules for what happens when you're holding your breath in toxic gas, vs. underwater". I need to read it and then I can respond -- I'm also not thrilled with the idea of talking to essentially strangers online; I think a lot of us value a degree of anonymity in these interactions that voicechat and videochat erases (at least I'm not super comfortable with that, I don't have facebook, or instagram, or any other social media -- gaming forms and discord are my only online presence, and I don't use my real name and try not to reveal anything that would let someone look me up offline).
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@roll4initiative - please give some thought and GM! I'd love to jump in a book 4 reign of winter as well!Oh! Hi, Lapyd! You're in my MotFF game! Okay. I'll give it some thought. I am a new PbP GM but not new to GMing (been playing/GMing since 1980). May be a bit rough throughout the game, but, I like what others have said previously and am keeping an eye on this thread.
Cheers!
Cheers mate! I hope we survive that fallen fortress :) I already spent all my resources for the day, but we have a good group going on.
I've thought about, in the future, pitching games where it'd be asynchronous posting for all rules-lite material like skill checks and all fluff interaction, but schedule 3-4 hours sessions on discord to do combat which would force everyone to sign on, look at and move their tokens on a VTT, and just move through the thing so it's done and doesn't take a month or more to finish.It’s a good idea; using discord or something similar on an occasional or as-needed basis might also help players used to PBB get comfortable with that sort of real-time play. I’ve been hesitant to join regular Discord games partly because I’m not confident I can be available every Saturday at 7pm for the next year. But scheduling some time in the next few days to handle a big fight scene? That I can do.
Another plus of asynchronous campaigns: I’m way more comfortable doing RP stuff writing than in person, so this would be the best of both worlds.
I don't think you'd even need to have a consistent once a week time -- just the understanding that, if there's a big combat, we're going to all come up with a time to sign onto discord in real time and work on it until it's done -- everyone uploads their tokens, fires up the SRDs and pdfs for rules, prepares concepts beforehand they may need for 12 -part attack actions etc., but we sit online for 3-4 hours or whatever typing it out, discussing rules issues, moving through the combat until it's done so it's not a whole week of trying to finish adjudicating all the attendant conditions on a complex maneuver + feat combo.
I've been thinking about his more b/c of some of the play experiences I've had recently on discord -- I think it works pretty well to type -- not speak, so that you can clearly discuss rules issues in one channel, and do rolls in another, and another for the actual combat description. It's not helpful to talk when all I can say is "I'm googling rules for what happens when you're holding your breath in toxic...
I have to say too that I also don't think talking verbally about these kinds of rules systems would help. Even written posts about complex interactions often turn into quasi gibberish for me. I need to be able to discuss things like "you wrote "xxxxx", is that related to X == link?" or say, "okay, start over again, is the question about x, y, or z, is that a feat, a trait, or what, what book is that, give me a link" and have us all be clear on what the exact wording of things are -- as well as being able to clearly understand what's being communicated, which could be a big issue with videochat or voicechat. I could easily see that disintegrating into "I can't hear you or understand what you're asking."
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The only problem I have is that I don't own a computer (gasp!). I do everything on my phone. I am on Discord, though. For maps & handouts, I use Google Slides. I've only ever used the Paizo boards for PbP.
Plus, I never learned how to type properly. I "hunt & peck" when using a keyboard, so, typing is verrry slow.
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The maps on the slides work fine! But I bet it gives a ton of work for someone using a phone for it... Poor GM! I think Discord works fine as a discussion board or "live" RPG, but not much really for forum / asynchronous game.
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I think there's basically two extremes of possible PbP approaches -- one is to really just focus on rules stuff and try to move quickly through stuff without a lot of RP -- sort of PFS style adventures where you basically adjudicate a few combats and roll some knowledge checks and move from A - B - C, collect xp, divide loot, and it's over, and another extreme, which is firmly where I'm at, where the PbP format is more like collectively producing long-form narrative fanfic like the stuff you see on archiveofourown with some game rules to provide structure to and inspiration for the creative writing and worldbuilding exercises.
I've tried to just stave off incompatible recruitees recently by being very explicit that I'm going to use a lot of maps and have paragraphs of text and lots of fluff so I don't get participants that read three posts and decide they can't be bothered to remember character and place names or what's going on beyond very simple scenarios like 'raid dungeon' or fetch quests.
And your 'join creative storytelling' is fine if that's what people want but no one needs to write, or read, a 3+ paragraph answer to, "There's a locked door; what do you do?" Not every post needs to be a story and putting that burden (as I see it) on players discourages them from participating further and leads to players dropping out.
As for your rules confusion issues which lead you to removing "filler combats", that's on the players and GMs for not knowing the rules. I've never seen a standard goblin combat lead to mass confusion over rules options/interactions of effects but I haven't played that many PbP tables yet.It might all be moot since there seem to be fewer tables of PF1 material being offered.
I think there's basically two extremes of possible PbP approaches -- one is to really just focus on rules stuff and try to move quickly through stuff without a lot of RP -- sort of PFS style adventures where you basically adjudicate a few combats and roll some knowledge checks and move from A - B - C, collect xp, divide loot, and it's over, and another extreme, which is firmly where I'm at, where the PbP format is more like collectively producing long-form narrative fanfic like the stuff you see on archiveofourown with some game rules to provide structure to and inspiration for the creative writing and worldbuilding exercises.
I've tried to just stave off incompatible recruitees recently by being very explicit that I'm going to use a lot of maps and have paragraphs of text and lots of fluff so I don't get participants that read three posts and decide they can't be bothered to remember character and place names or what's going on beyond very simple scenarios like 'raid dungeon' or fetch quests.
And your 'join creative storytelling' is fine if that's what people want but no one needs to write, or read, a 3+ paragraph answer to, "There's a locked door; what do you do?" Not every post needs to be a story and putting that burden (as I see it) on players discourages them from participating further and leads to players dropping out.
As for your rules confusion issues which lead you to removing "filler combats", that's on the players and GMs for not knowing the rules. I've never seen a standard goblin combat lead to mass confusion over rules options/interactions of effects but I haven't played that many PbP tables yet.
It might all be moot since there seem to be fewer tables of PF1 material being offered.
I agree -- I've come more to the conclusions there are several irreconcilable play styles, and a lot of lack of success and dropped APs is the result of not sussing this out at the recruitment stage. You end up with a group with wildly incompatible concepts about what the game should be, and that just doesn't work.
As I've understood this better I've tried to proactively dissuade any one from applying to any of my games that I think isn't going to be a good fit. I write stuff like "Please don't apply if..." instead of the softer language I used to use to try weed that out to save us both the time and effort.
I do respectfully disagree with your description of the rules situation -- if you use all of the dozens of 1st party books, not to mention 3rd party stuff, I just don't see how objectively that's true. There are thousands of posts on gianttip and the pf1e reddit, as well as the relevant discords and this site with people, who have spent years pouring over this stuff, going back to 3.0e, flipping out at each other for hundreds of posts about interpretations of rules, and extensive FAQs to all the published material that demonstrate issues existed in the published material that had to be addressed even with stuff that was presumably play tested and edited before it was published. I've been in games that people players dropped because they couldn't agree with the DM about interpretations of rules in game. These are people who know the rules well, they just can't agree on how to exegete the materials. The materials themselves are written in such a way that it doesn't clear up these issues no matter how many FAQs you issue. Probably, there's no way to make 10,000 pages of rules completely consistent and simple, and there will inevitably be conflicts over it just like there is over legal language. But I've seen plenty of situations where people have played these games for 10+ years, own tons of stuff, have read it, spent hundreds of hours making characters, and just do not agree about stuff and argue endlessly about how to interpret spell abilities, etc. Sure, 1st level characters CORE only fighting some goblins with no special tactics, that's not that complicated. 10th level characters with all the 1st party stuff in play fighting monsters with templates or unusual abilities like sonic weapons that work differently than a lot of other stuff -- that's going to easily result in a lot of back and forth about what applies and what's going on if discussion and debate is allowed.
This may also be a function of who's at a table -- if the players mostly are learning the game from the DM and don't have their own collections of stuff, I can see how they might just accept whatever the DM says and roll the dice when they're told to. I've played in groups like that where only I and the DM really understood the game. However, these forums tend to attract more players that have been playing d20 systems for 20 years and have thousands of pdfs and their own views of things from thinking about it and playing with the system for two decades, and aren't so happy just to accept DM fiat, and are more willing to argue about rules adjudications. I also wonder whether a lot of this more complicated 3pp. material gets almost any play outside online forums. I don't really see how you could easily have high level gestalt PoW and spheres characters in a live game, that just breaks my mind to think how the excel spread sheet character sheets and posts with ten different rolls could possibly work in person.
That doesn't change the fact still that a lot of the AP combats are pointless filler that are only fun if you want to do interminable wargame simulations -- I'm sure that's really fun for some people, but I find it gets tiring really fast when it takes months to resolve. I wouldn't want to play a 40k battle for 3 months either, it's not like it'd be more fun for a different system that's exclusively focused on that either.
Been lurking with interest. WotW sounds awesome. Will keep an eye open.
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After giving it some thought, I really don't think I'm ready to GM high level stuff yet. I need more time & practice to hone my PbP GM skills. Plus, it would take well over a year to complete. I don't think I can commit that much time to GM.
If someone does step up to GM (KeeperofRunes?), I would suggest using PFS rules, especially for PC creation, with some non-PFS legal stuff thrown in for the game. They're easily accessible on the Archive of Nethys website and there wouldn't be the hassle of gazillions of 3rd party stuff to reference.
Also, currently the Reign of Winter AP is on the blacklist, which I forgot about until my VO friend reminded me last night. All PFS Venture Officers (I am one of them) received a note on Discord not too long ago to not run it until further notice.
The gist of it is:
"Greetings, @everyone. After discussion with Paizo leadership and the RVC team, I would like to announce the following in relation to the ongoing events in Ukraine:
• Organizers are currently discouraged from running **PFS2 2-08: A Frosty Mug**, as well as the *Reign of Winter* Adventure Path. Both have themes that touch a little too close to home, and I would encourage organizers to be sensitive about scheduling them."
Some thoughts:
An AP is a massive commitment. Even for IRL games that meet regularly, it takes years to finish one.
PBP is slow. Even a fraction of an AP would take a really long time. This both means a lot of fun but also a lot of slogging through things.
Something I've had success with in PBP is running very short quests at medium-high levels, like "You're level 10 and you need to go in this house and kill a vampire witch" or whatever. Short and sweet.
Now of course, I'm GMing two short quests right now in addition to several long-running games so I'm not volunteering to step up.
Also, currently the Reign of Winter AP is on the blacklist, which I forgot about until my VO friend reminded me last night. All PFS Venture Officers (I am one of them) received a note on Discord not too long ago to not run it until further notice.
The gist of it is:
"Greetings, @everyone. After discussion with Paizo leadership and the RVC team, I would like to announce the following in relation to the ongoing events in Ukraine:
• Organizers are currently discouraged from running **PFS2 2-08: A Frosty Mug**, as well as the *Reign of Winter* Adventure Path. Both have themes that touch a little too close to home, and I would encourage organizers to be sensitive about scheduling them."
I don’t understand that at all.
He was offering to run it through PFS, bu Paizo wants to hold off on content that has any similarity to Russia at the moment.
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That’s what I don’t get. Every module and AP has some content that might upset people. How many of them involve a murder or serial killer? That could trigger anyone who’s had a family member murdered. Anything that involves sailing? Triggering to those who’ve had a friend lost at sea. Should we blacklist Curse of the Crimson Throne because it features a disease epidemic at one point? Telling people not to play an AP because one part of it is set in a fantastical version of Russia circa a hundred years ago just strikes me as absurd. Now, if your group includes an ethnic Ukrainian, sure, maybe stay away from it. But that’s a highly individualized call, not something that should be handled with a blanket announcement.
Looking through wrath I'm not sure I'm quite equip to make the adjustments I think it would need so I'm probably going to have to dip out of Wrath but what I'll do instead is offer a few other options and take votes.
Iron Gods
Curse of the Crimson Throne
Rise of the Runelords
Carrion Crown
Sorry to disappoint on Wrath though!
You don't disappoint, mate! Thanks or offering to run these others. I pretty much *love* all of them. I GMd and played CotCT, RotR and Carrion Crown (in person) more than one time! For Iron Gods, I only had the chance to play the first book, so it would be my preference - but I am game for any of them, especially starting after book 3 or 4. I think you should also voice your preference and go for the one you feel you'd have more fun as a GM! :)
At the same time, if any other GM liked the idea to try Wrath without Mythic players (but still Mythic challenges) then I think it can be fairly fun. To compensate, players could be gestalt, or maybe Elephant in the Room plus some other free feats, or maybe free VMC, or a combination of those. Pretty much any of those is already less broken than Mythic :)
Looking through wrath I'm not sure I'm quite equip to make the adjustments I think it would need so I'm probably going to have to dip out of Wrath but what I'll do instead is offer a few other options and take votes.
Iron Gods
Curse of the Crimson Throne
Rise of the Runelords
Carrion CrownSorry to disappoint on Wrath though!
I played through the first 2-3 books of IG, I’d be happy to be able to pick up and keep going, either with that character or another. Likewise RotR, I’ve played the first couple of books, into part of the third. Would be happy to play more. The others I don’t have that experience with, but I’d be down for either.
These are all ones I loved playing or have been intrested in for a while so I’m happy with any, iron gods from book 3 seems like the most interesting to me but any would be great!
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I played through the first 2-3 books of IG, I’d be happy to be able to pick up and keep going, either with that character or another. Likewise RotR, I’ve played the first couple of books, into part of the third. Would be happy to play more. The others I don’t have that experience with, but I’d be down for either.
Same. I got into an Iron God's game way back when the AP first came out that ended around the end of book two, so I'd be down for that.
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Looks like iron gods is a fast leader so I’ll plan on that!
Looks like iron gods is a fast leader so I’ll plan on that!
This will be great! Count with me for any help, and thanks for picking up on my request. As you see here in the post, there are a lot of people interested in this kind of game! :)