Creative Director
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So with Curtain Call, I tried to build an outline for an Adventure Path that would work excellent as a sequel for any low (1st to 10th) level Adventure Path. Now that this one's out, I'd love to hear your feedback on this experiment, and your preferences for how to link (or not link) high level Adventure Paths to low level ones to give a 1st to 20th level play experience similar to what we used to do with 6 part Adventure Paths for 2nd edition.
Do you prefer:
High level Adventure Paths that are sequels to specific low-level ones. This would make it pretty easy to present those two as a 1st to 20th level campaign, but would limit the usefulness of the high-level Adventure Path and would likely cause that one to sell less, which makes it the least appealing option financially (even as it's probably the most appealing creatively). This is the medium-difficulty option for us to produce, since the lead developer should be the one who developed the prequel, or they need to work hand-in-hand with that previous lead developer or spend a lot more time during outlining to get up to speed on an Adventure Path they aren't familiar with.
High level Adventure Paths that are like Curtain Call, in that we present them as sequels for a wide range of low level Adventure Paths. This makes them more versatile, but does require more work on the GM's behalf to make them mesh well with their specific group's history. Of all these three options, these are the most difficult to create and write, since we have to spend extra time accounting for variables we can't control.
High level Adventure Paths that are stand-alone stories of their own. A GM would potentially have to work hard to link this one's plot and themes to a previous low-level Adventure Path, and it might just be best to make new high-level characters. This is the easiest type of high level Adventure Path for us to produce, because the developer doesn't have to be an expert on the previous ones and doesn't have to spend extra time taking care of linked plot threads.
Looking forward to folks' responses! And remember, if you wanna cite specific plot elements that you felt worked well or fell flat in any Adventure Path, please spoiler that text. Thanks!
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Regarding high level less full level range aps, I would prefer some mix of all, but not sequels as the main option with couple indirect sequels and direct sequels mixed in (I feel like direct sequels should be either to older aps or have enough drastically different premise that it makes sense its not just six part ap)
Like if in course of ten high level 3-part aps, there was one direct sequel, 2 indirect sequels and 7 not sequels, I'd be alright with that ratio if that makes sense?
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I will vote for Not Sequels.
I will be honest, I don't have any nostalgia to Varisia/Runelords since I only started Pathfinder a few years ago. Whenever a spiritual indirect sequel comes out like 7 Dooms, I feel like "this AP wasn't written for me". Even if you start level 1 and previous knowledge isn't required.
But I will say one thing, I will get tired if Paizo just keeps creating new story hooks that don't get resolved.
I can't wait 5 years to know what happens to Geb/Nex, Cheliax/Andoran, Norgorber/Vyre.
I want enough things to get resolved first before new things are introduced, or else it feels like a video game where your quest log gets too filled up and you lose track of the story and give up.
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Isn't a direct sequel just a 6 part AP that is coming out in two separate "chunks" rather than all together? It's still going to have to make a bunch of assumptions that players know things from the first AP (or explain it all again), and it doesn't feel like it'll really give its full impact if you start at the sequel without having played the first part. I guess someone who really enjoyed a given AP might want more of it a year or two down the road without the commitment to running 6 books upfront, so there's that?
To me, this is going to depend entirely on how the AP you do it for is received. Shadows at Sundown feels like a direct sequel to me (of Curse of the Crimson Throne), and since I LOVE Curse of the Crimson Throne, I was super excited to play Shadows at Sundown (and it delivered). But if you picked one for an AP I haven't played, it doesn't have the same sales pitch... and if you picked one for an AP I didn't like, the sequel has to overcome that before I'd even consider it.
So this feels pretty risky from a marketing PoV simply because you're reliant on people having goodwill toward the AP you are making a sequel for AND wanting more of it.
Not Sequels are great in that they're easy to use: transitioning a party over to Ruby Phoenix from a 1-10 AP is really easy: they get an invite to the tournament based on what they did in the first AP making them recognized as qualified. Done.
The downside to that is that it doesn't feel like a cohesive campaign in the sense that even if its the same characters, the tone of Ruby Phoenix vs say Abomination Vaults is VERY different. So it feels like the party just did this dark dungeon crawl, and then is suddenly in an anime. A 6 book AP can maintain a tone and themes more easily for the whole campaign than putting two not-sequels together can.
That has pros and cons, but I miss the option of having 6 book APs and I don't think stringing together two otherwise seperate APs really fills that niche. But I also think Ruby Phoenix was great and I'm glad standalone high level content exists like it so we can just say "we want to play a high level game, we can just start here".
I guess my point here is that I think an occasional 6 book AP is better than any "sequel" option. They don't have to be the majority of the releases, but even if you do one once every 2-3 years they fill the niche better than either option here does (then you can also do 1-2 high level ones and a bunch of low level ones). Not Sequels are totally fine since they're not trying to be sequels.
I don't have Curtain Call, so I don't really understand what its doing enough to comment on it.
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Oh here is another thought:
I think direct sequels might work better if they are more like Rise of the Runelords, Shattered Star and Return of the Runelords trilogy. Like level 11-20 sequel to 1-20 or 11-20 ap is also an option, they don't actually need to be sequels to 1-10 aps necessarily. Like I actually enjoy using AP specific backgrounds for pcs and making new characters for level 11-20 aps, so this would work neatly with that.
Also I have more thoughts on why it WOULD be nice to see sequel to some of level 1-10 aps: it would be one way to return to niche area that is not likely to be explored elsewhere, like having Outlaws of Alkenstar sequel in Alkenstar, Mana Wastes or even involving Geb and Nex's cold war turning hot.
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This is the easiest type of high level Adventure Path for us to produce, because the developer doesn't have to be an expert on the previous ones and doesn't have to spend extra time taking care of linked plot threads.
Making a Not Sequel isn't a reason to not link to previously established lore and major events.
Curtain Call - Bring the House Down gives us a lot of missing pieces about
If you were to not touch on this again, it would be a major disappointment.
As you keep writing new APs, the difficulty curve for the developer and writer keeps going up because the audience expects for previous hooks to be resolved and expanded on, and a canon ending provided.
But that's what makes it exciting. If it's just new stuff, that can be done in any setting, then it won't be as interesting.
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The first adventure path I ran was Rise of the Runelords, the D&D 3rd Edition version run under Pathfinder 1st Edition rules via fan-created conversion. It ended with the PCs at 17th level, so I added The Witchwar Legacy module as a sequel. The party was ruling Xin-Shalast in northern Varisia when a witch countess from Irrisen approached them with a proposal. Irrisen was nearby and the party had become famous from finding the lost city of Xin-Shalast, so the two fit together with only a little GM-invented glue. Both Rise of the Runelords and The Witchwar Legacy had a theme about following up on lost history.
During the Jade Regent adventure path, I followed advice in the Jade Regent subforum and added the Ruby Phoenix Tournament stand-alone module as a supplement to the 4th module, Forest of Spirits. The party was short on magic items after crossing the barren ice cap in the 3rd module, The Hungrey Storm, so it served to give them magic items as prizes. The glue was that bossy Prince Batsaikhar of Ordu-Aganhei appointed the party as the team for Ordu-Aganhei. My players rejected the tournament invitation at first, because the tournament did not fit the restore-the-lost-heir theme of the adventure path, but later they realized that the lost heir would gain popular recognition and support as a winner in the tournament.
I have gone crazy with supplementing the Strength of Thousands adventure path, because the theme of that campaign has been that the PCs are gifted students having incidental adventures. But the crazy mixed with weird when I added the Student Exchange PFS module. Instead of members of the Pathfinder Society attending the Magaambya Academy for a semester, the player's leshy characters from A Fistful of Flowers and A Few Flowers More are the exchange students, mentored by their Strength of Thousands characters. The plan--which might never come to fruit--is that the leshies are at the Magaambya Academy for diplomatic training so that they can serve as representatives of their leshy community at the Moot of Ages in the Wardens of Wildwood adventure path. I balanced a pair of themes here: the students get to be teaching assistants and the leshies get to support their community.
My conclusion is that the difference between an Indirect Sequel and Not a Sequel is small. I can spin a tale that connects them in a single day. I just need the party to be in the right place at the right level for a quest on a theme that would interest those particular characters. A sequel can be written to work as both.
By the way, my younger daughter, who was a dual major in Theater and Psychology, hopes I will run Curtain Call.
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So, I would agree with other comments here that a direct sequel sounds like the 6 part AP under another name. Not a bad thing, but books in the same AP can already be a bit disjointed, so I can only imagine what it would look like with two separate teams working possibly years apart.
Indirect sequels can be a lot of fun, but they strike me as hard to do well. The characters in the APs could have done any one of a half dozen or more different things and having to account for all of that...it leads to a bit of dilution. Curtain Call worked well from a readthrough perspective because it is all about the previous AP, but I don't think I would like that as a regular thing.
My personal preference would be to see APs set in specific regions, or around specific themes, without having to be a direct sequel. For instance, let's take a hypothetical AP around a group of PCs being a group of Eagle Knights in service of Andoran, who go around the inner sea poking Cheliax in the eye before finally defeating a corrupt governor and ending their adventure at tenth level. This one could be a bit campy, a bit Saturday Morning Cartoon with a small group and slightly comical villains.
The next AP set in Andoran starts with a war between Cheliax and Andoran, and in the beginning of the AP mention is made that one of the reasons might be the actions of the PCs in the previous AP, but it might be any one of a half dozen reasons as well. So, the players could pick up the second AP as a group of 10th level patriots or mercenaries who come to join Andoran's plight, or they might be the same group of Eagle Knights from before. Tone is darker here, and the stakes are certainly higher. Both stories have a beginning and an ending that could link together, or could be separate.
I'll edit to say that I think this might also be a good place to look at the adventure line, especially with the new anthologies. A short 'bridge' adventure to bring the heroes to Absalom and then a second short bridge adventure to take the heroes from Absalom to a new AP may be a good way to mesh disparate APs. The key there I think would be to have a way to move the heroes to and from a common location, so it all meshes together.
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Creative Director
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Great feedback so far! Thanks all, and keep it coming!
One thing of note—it's important to me to NOT "use up" the compelling mysteries of the setting. Like when a forester cuts down trees, they plant new trees for the future, I very much enjoy seeding new mysteries whenever an adventure I'm developing resolves them. Often seeding more than I resolve. That way, we enable future adventures and future generations more to work with and explore and be intrigued by.
Some of these new mysteries will eventually be answered and explored, but not all of them. I would rather not have time to resolve everything and keep the unresolved out there to compel and inspire new stories for new generations than get to a point where everything of interest has been covered.
A bit of expectation management, I guess, to not expect us to explain everything we do. Especially not in a timeframe of "soon."
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Great feedback so far! Thanks all, and keep it coming!
One thing of note—it's important to me to NOT "use up" the compelling mysteries of the setting. Like when a forester cuts down trees, they plant new trees for the future, I very much enjoy seeding new mysteries whenever an adventure I'm developing resolves them. Often seeding more than I resolve. That way, we enable future adventures and future generations more to work with and explore and be intrigued by.
Some of these new mysteries will eventually be answered and explored, but not all of them. I would rather not have time to resolve everything and keep the unresolved out there to compel and inspire new stories for new generations than get to a point where everything of interest has been covered.
A bit of expectation management, I guess, to not expect us to explain everything we do. Especially not in a timeframe of "soon."
George R.R. Martin will tell you all about his seed-planting gardening style putting his next book 13+ years late!
You have a huge team now working on Setting that can plant new seeds, so you have a lot of runway left, and can aggressively start resolving things.
Some things are better done in adventures, experiencing it yourself, like journeying through war-torn nations, brokering deals with nobles and thieves, beating immortal deities' best servants, and boosting/sabotaging major organizations so much the Setting can't ignore it.
Take the Absalom book alone. We still don't know what happened to all those candidates for Primarch; will Wynsal step down? It's been years.
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Making a Not Sequel isn't a reason to not link to previously established lore and major events.
I 100% agree. I'm on the boat of Not Sequel I see no reason that "meta events" and themes can't be brought forward into new stories and locations as long as we're resolving the issues.
Curtain Call - Bring the House Down gives us a lot of missing pieces about ** spoiler omitted **, but for every question it answers, 10 more questions come up.
There have been a ton of AP's that have been slowly drip-feeding us info on
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I had third thought: I think direct sequels to 1-10 aps work best if they don't explicitly assume pcs are same from 1-10 ones. Just like how none of runelord sequels did or a hypotethical "numeria dominion of the black" ap would be a sequel to Iron Gods.
Like, you would leave it up to table if they want to bring old pcs back or create new party. All of level 1-10 aps lead to that kinda naturally.
Abomination Vaults: Campaign could continue exploring what is underneath the mega dungeon or following up on Haruvex family history, this could be old pcs researching loose ends or new heroes doing so for their own reasons.
Quest for Frozen Flame: There is something huge (maybe frost giant jarl is finally on the move like in continue the campaign article) happening in realm of mammoth lords and either old heroes or new heroes need to stand up to them.
Outlaws of Alkenstar: Old PCs get new mission or new Agents of Alkenstar are set on mission to deal with ramifications of Outlaws and Geb & Nex tensions getting hot.
Gatewalkers: Sequel set entirely in crown of the world, you could be old PCs continuing years later or locals to trying to find solution to the threat from Gatewalkers.
Sky King's Tomb: I'm sure there is adventure to be done about dwarven cultural upheaval as result of first ap that could involve old pcs or new ones.
That makes them very versatile just like Devastation Ark is compare to Dead Suns :O You can run Devastation Ark as sequel to any of level 1-12 starfinder aps, or you could run it as standalone, it works either way, but it does richen experience if you run it as sequel to dead suns without feeling like you NEED to run or play dead suns to understand devastation ark or enjoy it.
...Oh no, I'm accidentally convincing myself to actually like idea of direct sequels x'D Can I change my ratio to like.. 3 direct sequels, 1 indirect sequels, 6 non sequels out of 10? It could be even higher if first direct sequel we get is really really good x'D Frick now I really want to see what PF2e direct sequel looks like, I really like Devastation Ark that much
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Making a Not Sequel isn't a reason to not link to previously established lore and major events.I 100% agree. I'm on the boat of Not Sequel I see no reason that "meta events" and themes can't be brought forward into new stories and locations as long as we're resolving the issues.
Curtain Call - Bring the House Down gives us a lot of missing pieces about ** spoiler omitted **, but for every question it answers, 10 more questions come up.There have been a ton of AP's that have been slowly drip-feeding us info on Norgorber and at this point I'm a little tired of him. I think what they did in CC is very cool but it just felt like a "Until Next Time!" mustache twirl ending...
It's tough to decide how to divide the revelations with multiple product lines too.
Does a story resolution go into a standalone adventure? Adventure path? Lost Omens setting book? Or a pathfinder novel?
All these things take years to make and require extensive planning to link together.
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Ruby Phoenix worked well as anyone of that level could participate simply for being strong enough. It didn’t matter their origin or background and I really liked that. It was simple, and gave people enough breathing room to explore being a fighter without bogging them down with the society information about Hao jin nor did it expect you to have played the Ruby Phoenix Tournament. For those who had that information it was a tragedy, where Hao Jin’s memories were taken and she couldn’t recognize her mentor and he having been imprisoned by her unintentionally within the time dilation of the two extra dimensional spaces was driven mad with obsession over her. She even stole their workshopped idea of a tournament and didn’t credit him. So many little details, and yet it was beautiful as a whole with great fights and back drops like tower fights straight out of a video game. And the final fight was an immense homage to Sephiroth and every JRPG boss. The finale delivered hard. Hao Jin didn’t steal the show.
Curtain Call failed on being an indirect sequel because it’s more a story about Fallenta than the Opera or even the players themselves. The background plot of the nemesis means very little in the wake of everything else going on, and there is a ton of things going on. Way too many things for a three book AP. Guest Star Norgorber steals the show, and never gives it back.
It's safe to say stay away from indirect sequels, your team can’t seem to focus on anything in the cacophony of a plot it produced here. Research subsystem needs to be killed and never used again, maybe ask Norgorber for help there. WW and CC suffer greatly for having it. Players find it very not fun. I have the live plays to prove it for WW.
Direct Sequels are just 6 book APs. It’s becoming an echo on that one. I don’t care about mysteries if the actual story itself isn’t done well or I feel players will ask simple questions like “Who killed this man in Chapter 1?” and the module can’t even do that much.
I’m still waiting for that data that was promised in your previous posts about this topic. You said you had some sort of big picture we couldn’t see.
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Does a story resolution go into a standalone adventure? Adventure path? Lost Omens setting book? Or a pathfinder novel?
All these things take years to make and require extensive planning to link together.
Look at Warcraft, if you don't read the books, short stories or listen to the audio dramas that come out with each expansion you're missing most of the plot. I really don't want that to start happening to Pathfinder. It's taken over 30 years to get some of the answers to questions that were laid out at the beginning of Warcraft and we're still not even close to done. It's exhausting.
George R.R. Martin will tell you all about his seed-planting gardening style putting his next book 13+ years late!
It's the same with Patrick Rothfuss's The Kingkiller Chronicle by the time book 3 comes out it'll have been 14 years... That's just too long for me to care anymore.
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I had third thought: I think direct sequels to 1-10 aps work best if they don't explicitly assume pcs are same from 1-10 ones. Just like how none of runelord sequels did or a hypotethical "numeria dominion of the black" ap would be a sequel to Iron Gods.
Like, you would leave it up to table if they want to bring old pcs back or create new party. All of level 1-10 aps lead to that kinda naturally.
The only direct sequel I am even interested in is Season of Ghosts lol, the others feel mostly resolved besides Gatewalkers
Tian Xia was not explored enough. I prefer to go deeper on one topic than go wide on a huge map and many topics but only shallow examination.
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It's the same with Patrick Rothfuss's The Kingkiller Chronicle by the time book 3 comes out it'll have been 14 years... That's just too long for me to care anymore.
dropped that series halfway through book 2. what a miserable slog.
bought it hard cover the day it released when i had very, very little money.
never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, going back.
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Creative Director
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I’m still waiting for that data that was promised in your previous posts about this topic. You said you had some sort of big picture we couldn’t see.
I mean... there's a LOT of big-picture data that, as an employee of Paizo, I can see that isn't public. We don't normally make this information (such as sales figures or subscription numbers) public, but we did recently do a more in-depth targeted survey that I hope to see the results of soon. Whether or not those results are also made public is, I think, the call of the publisher and the marketing team, not me, but in any event that information will hopefully help guide our way further into the future.
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Do you prefer:
High level Adventure Paths that are stand-alone stories of their own. A GM would potentially have to work hard to link this one's plot and themes to a previous low-level Adventure Path, and it might just be best to make new high-level characters. This is the easiest type of high level Adventure Path for us to produce, because the developer...
This is the best of both worlds.
* - By making the adventure path's "modular" they become more useful for the widest possible audience.* - But, with some work by the game master (but less than one might think), it would allow a player to continue with a beloved character.
Since my group likes high-level play I'm in favor of Indirect Sequels (or at least high-level APs that make it easy to bring in existing parties, like Stolen Fate) and a combination of Not Sequels and Neither 1-10 nor 11-20 APs. I agree that Direct Sequels are too close to reinventing 1-20 APs to succeed where six book APs did not.
If there were more smaller-than-AP Adventures that were designed to fit in well with 3 book APs like 7-10 ones or 16-20 ones for 5-15 APs that would be nice as well. In general it's pretty easy to run a home campaign by adapting Pathfinder Society scenarios, but that gets thin on the ground after around 8th level.
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Do you prefer:
As a GM, I like tying things in to each other. (EG: Conquest of the Bloodsworn Vale & Realm of the Fellnight Queen into Kingmaker, Academy of Secrets into Curse of the Crimson Throne) but I'm also a GM that wants to put the players through the introductory story first. The main reason I bought Crimson Throne was so that I could run The House on Hook Street.
I seem to be one of the few people that didn't like Rise of the Runelords and because of not running it for my group I wouldn't run Shattered Star or Return of the Runelords. Even if it's not needed, it feels like the players would be missing things / call-backs due to not having played Rise.
So, mostly, I'd cast my vote for "not sequels".
Now, that being said, Seers of the Drowned City was written as an indirect sequel to Ire of the Storm and you could run either of those and never realize that the second was written with the first a little bit in mind. But Seers feels more like a "theme / tone" sequel that happens in kind of the same area of the world so has some connective tissue instead of there being throwbacks to Ire of the Storm. That kind of "Indirect Sequel" would be fine, but it's so indirect it may as well count as not a sequel.
I guess more of a "takes place after the events of another AP / module happened" is something that could work. A module in Vyre after Hell's Rebels would be a dream come true for me, something like The House on Hook Street is fantastic (I really didn't NEED to run Crimson Throne first, but I wanted the group to understand the city as much as possible), The Witchwar Legacy having ties to Reign of Winter was great. The difficulty with writing that type of adventure, though, is that you don't know what the groups did / what the area looks like after the AP is concluded. Vyre, for example, you could touch on NPCs from Hell's Rebels but those NPCs shouldn't be important enough that they can't be replaced by another NPC / by a PC in case they died / lost their political position during the course of the AP. (EG: The Mask of Vyre that was used in Hell's Rebels... perhaps the group didn't like her and managed to overthrow her so she shouldn't be written as a main NPC. The other Masks might've been overthrown as well due to the GM adding things or the group going really off-book but you can't account for that so you have to assume they're still in power. A module with the King of Keys, cult of the main bad guys in the city, and the prison there would result in me switching my group over to PF2 in a heartbeat.
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I had third thought: I think direct sequels to 1-10 aps work best if they don't explicitly assume pcs are same from 1-10 ones. Just like how none of runelord sequels did or a hypotethical "numeria dominion of the black" ap would be a sequel to Iron Gods.
Like, you would leave it up to table if they want to bring old pcs back or create new party. All of level 1-10 aps lead to that kinda naturally.
…..
...Oh no, I'm accidentally convincing myself to actually like idea of direct sequels x'D Can I change my ratio to like.. 3 direct sequels, 1 indirect sequels, 6 non sequels out of 10? It could be even higher if first direct sequel we get is really really good x'D Frick now I really want to see what...
I feel mixed as I too want direct sequels to the AP’s I’m REALLY invested in and indirect sequels (or even non-sequel sequels where the story continues but at a lower leve for new characters)
I like tie ins, so I think indirect sequels work best in that the adventure or AP might work especially well after a particular adventure or adventure path, but remain open enough where a GM could still modify the adventure, and have new heroes pick up where the old ones left off.
Adventurers travel. Separate. Retire. Even die sometimes. Having a few thematiacally good jumping off points from and two each AP or Adventure would be nice. Stand-alone adventures are especially helpful as they can be used to bridge entire themes, levels, and distances.
Honestly, how I’d map it out is to take the released, pending, and future 2e AP’s and adventures and put ‘em all on a corkboard of golarion, with their respective levels, themes and story arcs. Then use string and examine how a play group could potentially go from levels 1-20 through various circuits and distances. Ideally each meta region should have one or two low level AP’s, high level AP’s, with a few mid level AP’s stretching the boundaries between levels and themes so as to aid parties in tracking between levels, distances, and themes.
In this sense, Mid-level AP’s and adventures work best as indirect sequels or non sequels, within higher level play working better as direct sequels to low level adventures, or as non-sequels. The mid-level adventures should also be where we see the influence of different themes and meta-regions interact the most, as a party could choose their own adventure and either stay within a meta region’s themes/politics, or be sufficiently introduced to a new region so as to participate in its higher level sequels or nonsequels. That would be ideal, but it also might not fit the major story beats Paizo wishes to tell.
I don’t know if I’m making much sense, but I see midlevel adventurers and AP’s as the best possible ‘junctures’ between adventures, with story beats becoming more consequential the higher level the adventure.
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A module in Vyre after Hell's Rebels would be a dream come true for me.
You can check out Curtain Call, you do end up in Vyre but the player's guide mentions this is not an AP for the Hell's Rebels and not to rely on them for help as NPC's, "Curtain Call is not their story."
Not mathematician, but I think what I’m describing probably has a better known mathematical equivalent. Picture each meta-region as having a few green A’s and C’s, where A and C represent beginner and high level adventures/adventure paths respectively.
Then we have multiple B, or mid-level adventures/paths that can thematically connect most or all of the A (or starting level) adventures/AP’s and hypothetically connect them to any C (higher level) adventures/AP’s within the metaregions along its border.
I dunno if this makes sense.
Is my opinion allowed even if I've not read through curtain call yet (I'm unsure if I'll get to play in it).
If so I'd like to vote for more reverse sequel. It would be cool at the end of a 3 part AP to have the 'continuing the adventure' have some great hooks into *OTHER APS or STANDALONES*.
You have the adventures - why not give some great creative advice on how to tie them together?
Also here is my vote for a large meta plot (again) - it would be really cool to see a new bad guy group 'grow up' in the side quests of the AP line - even with a cool villain that is able to reform/reoccur and become a recurring foil. It'd be nice cool to see a 'rival' grow up around the players - heck the mastermind might even be a friendly in a few adventures using the 'doodads' they get from the players in some arch plot that pays off later.
food for thought.
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A module in Vyre after Hell's Rebels would be a dream come true for me.You can check out Curtain Call, you do end up in Vyre but the player's guide mentions this is not an AP for the Hell's Rebels and not to rely on them for help as NPC's, "Curtain Call is not their story."
Oh! OH!!!!
This is the type of thing I mean!I'm going to have to look into that now. Thank you, Niktorak!
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I had third thought: I think direct sequels to 1-10 aps work best if they don't explicitly assume pcs are same from 1-10 ones. Just like how none of runelord sequels did or a hypotethical "numeria dominion of the black" ap would be a sequel to Iron Gods.
Like, you would leave it up to table if they want to bring old pcs back or create new party. All of level 1-10 aps lead to that kinda naturally.
The only direct sequel I am even interested in is Season of Ghosts lol, the others feel mostly resolved besides Gatewalkers ** spoiler omitted **
Tian Xia was not explored enough. I prefer to go deeper on one topic than go wide on a huge map and many topics but only shallow examination.
That's the thing with sequels, they don't need to be continuations to unresolved story.
Like, if there is Alkenstar 11-20 ap about Alkenstar and Mana Wastes being inbetween Geb and Nex's conflict, its essentially inherently spiritual sequel to Outlaws of Alkenstar even though that one was more about internal power grab than external threat.
Sequel doesn't need to be "Bad guy from first ap returns!" or such, it could just be another story set in same location with similar or contrasting themes.
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I do kinda feel like I have different understanding of "direct" sequel and "indirect" sequel. So I have to double check:
Has there ever actually been direct sequel in Pathfinder/Starfinder history?
Like to me "direct sequel" means that it continues with subject matter of another story, while indirect sequel is either "modular sequel disconnected to previous campaign, but meant to allow an continuation with same characters" or "new story for new party connected to previous one indirectly" while "not sequel" is "completely new story for new party".
So like... Curtain's Call is indirect sequel (it requires gm to adjust adventure based on table's previous experience or backstory), but Fist of Ruby Phoenix is one as well if you ask me.(its not sequel in sense that you don't need to adjust anything for previous party and its easier to start with new party than curtain's call, but its still basically "any party could receive invitation from mythic sorcerer as part of Street Fighter World Tour, even the cavemen from realm of mammoth lord". Its only as weird as mammoth lords traveling to Ravounel to run an opera.)
Stolen Fates in comparison, COULD be run as indirect sequel, but it doesn't really feel natural as one. Adventure starts from players having obtained four cards in the deck and they lead them to the adventure, the intro is essentially just high level version of Crimson Throne's intro. They players are high enough level to justify having had amazing adventures, but its not natural lead in as consequence of previous 1-10 level campaign in same way Fist of Ruby Phoenix is.
In my view, we don't actually have any 11-20 level "not sequels" other than Stolen Fates until Spore War.(which I'm sure you could justify as indirect sequel by queen of Kyonin calling heroes from another country, but that by that logic you can justify any high level adventure as indirect sequel)
So I have to reiterate... Is indirect sequel only one if it requires GM to adjust adventure for the party more than usual? And if that's the case, what is example of direct 'finder sequel?
To me Devastation Ark is direct sequel to Dead Suns, but at same time it works great as indirect sequel(with even built in multiple ways to lead in from other aps) and not sequel without any issues, just like Fist of Ruby Phoenix does. Rise of the Runelords, Shattered Star and Return of the Runelords is a trilogy of direct sequels, but Crimson Throne, Second Darkness and Jade Regent are side stories(indirect sequels set in same region and containing same characters, or their relatives, and continuing their storyline) in same trilogy. Hell's Rebels and Hell's Vengeance duology(of stories happening at same time) is direct sequel to Council of Thieves to me. Carrion Crown branches into two sequels with Strange Aeons being indirect sequel continuing on lovecraftian themes and Tyrant's Grasp being direct sequel continuing on Whispering Tyrant storyline.
(Drift Hackers is probably meant to be direct sequel to Drift Crashers, but since Drift Crashers is intro to drift crisis and Drift Hackers is end to it, there is no "in between" if you do that, so I personally see them as more of strange kind of indirect sequel)
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I don't have a strong opinion here except to echo that I'd love to see more Tian Xia adventures.
On that note, one might argue that an example of a 'direct sequel' might be seen in certain adventure paths where the gap between book 3 and 4 is especially wide, or happens to fall on a natural stopping point. I believe I've heard some say this about Carrion Crown where you could treat the primary villain of the first three books as the mastermind until you discover that there is an even bigger evil genius behind him and three more books of adventure. Similarly, I've heard Iron Gods described in terms of 3 two-book sub-arcs but I don't know enough about this to say more.
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On a separate note, I don't really get these comparisons to George RR Martin. Surely writing for a campaign setting is somewhat different that writing a single series? Planting more seeds than one can resolve is a problem in a book where narrative satisfaction demands that loose ends be tied off by the end, but the same is necessarily a virtue when planting adventure hooks for a living world where any given GM might spot an idea and build their own story around it. If we wanted every plot hook to be resolved in a single narrative, traditional books and video games already exist. I get if you're getting tired of certain plots, but when I'm not interested in the hook for an adventure I just don't pay attention to it. I don't need to tell the creative team that they should stick to the adventures I want more of instead of catering to the diverse crowd out there who have been waiting just as long if not longer for their turn for a feature.
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I mean... there's a LOT of big-picture data that, as an employee of Paizo, I can see that isn't public. We don't normally make this information (such as sales figures or subscription numbers) public, but we did recently do a more in-depth targeted survey that I hope to see the results of soon. Whether or not those results are also made public is, I think, the call of the publisher and the marketing team, not me, but in any event that information will hopefully help guide our way further into the future.I’m still waiting for that data that was promised in your previous posts about this topic. You said you had some sort of big picture we couldn’t see.
I for one am hoping that data becomes public, at least in broad strokes. Makes my inner data scientist happy. I do understand, though, that it's not your decision. Here's to hoping!
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Seems I'm in the minority, but I'd much prefer to see Direct Sequels in the future. Not really a surprise, considering I like the 6-part APs better anyway. My players really get attached to their characters and want to play them all the way to the end (eg. 17-20th level).
And when I say Direct Sequel, I'm assuming this is two shorter arcs that could be played separated or linked together. Kind of like how Serpents Skull was kind of two separate APs: "Race to Saventh Yhi" and "Against the Serpentfolk".
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+1 vote for Direct Sequels.
I loved how Shattered Star and Return of the Runelords followed on from, and built on the events of Rise of the Runelords.
I did not love whatever Curtain Call was trying to do with the whole, janky-ass Nemesis system. IMO, the AP would have been stronger if you had picked one defeated villain (the artwork semed to suggest you favored Belcorra Haruvex, although I would have preferred Barzillai Thrune) and really leant into that, shifting CC from Indirect Sequel to Direct Sequel.
I appreciate why you did it the way you did it, I just don't think it was very good.
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Not mathematician, but I think what I’m describing probably has a better known mathematical equivalent. Picture each meta-region as having a few green A’s and C’s, where A and C represent beginner and high level adventures/adventure paths respectively.
Then we have multiple B, or mid-level adventures/paths that can thematically connect most or all of the A (or starting level) adventures/AP’s and hypothetically connect them to any C (higher level) adventures/AP’s within the metaregions along its border.
I dunno if this makes sense.
I am a mathematician. I would call that a hierarchical organization by geography and theme. Other names could apply, because the hierarchy is not strict. Rather than a tree of higher-level modules above lower-level modules, the modules are more a layered web with many possible sequels to each lower-level module, thus, more generally it is a partially ordered set.
Let's proceed to a thought experiment with existing PF2 adventure paths. Abomination Vaults, Quest for the Frozen Flame, Outlaws of Alkenstar, Gatewalkers, Sky King's Tomb, and Seven Dooms for Sandpoint are all adventure paths that end at level 10. Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, Stolen Fate, and Curtain Call are all adventure paths that begin at level 11. They could match up if geography and theme make that plausible. I don't own these adventure paths, so my list of themes below is my impression of descriptions of the paths.
Ends-at-10 layer
Abomination Vaults is eldritch horror set on the Isle of Kortos.
Quest for the Frozen Flame is wilderness exploration in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords.
Outlaws of Alkenstar is a western set in Alkenstar.
Gatewalkers is a paranormal investigation set in the River Kingdoms.
Sky King's Tomb is a historical investigation set in the Five Kings Mountains.
Seven Dooms for Sandpoint is a mystery anthology set in Varisia.
Begins-at-11 layer
Fists of the Ruby Phoenix is a tournament set at Minata and Goka.
Stolen Fate is a race for an artifact set on the Isle of Kortos.
Curtain Call is a theater mystery set in Ravounel.
Geographically, Quest for the Frozen Flame and Fists of the Ruby Phoenix are far from the others, so they don't fit with the others. Abomination Vaults and Stolen Fate are both on the
Isle of Kortos, so they closely match geographically, but I feel that their themes do not fit (themes are pretty subjective). Thus, the PCs will have to travel. Sea travel can link he Isle of Kortos, Alkenstar, Varisia, and Ravoulnel, but that means that the party must have a reason to travel, such as an invitation to Curtain Call or perhaps Dr. Ritalson takes the Gatewalkers to Stolen Fate.
Thematically, the theater mystery in Curtain Call would relate to the paranormal investigation, historical investigation, and mystery anthology in Gatewalkers, Sky King's Tomb, and Seven Dooms for Sandpoint. The race for an artifact in Stolen Fate is the same as a mystery, but perhaps the mystery anthology in Seven Dooms for Sandpoint had some races. And the party from Outlaws of Alkenstar might be interested in the artifact in Stolen Fate. The eldritch horror in Abomination Vaults relates to the paranormal investigation in Gatewalkers; however, both are in the 1-10 layer. They could both lead into a new adventure path based on an investigation of horror set somewhere between the Isle of Kortos and the River Kingdoms.
The leaves the links:
Stolen Fate as a sequel to Outlaws of Alkenstar and Gatewalkers;
Curtain Call as a sequel to Gatewalkers, Sky King's Tomb, and Seven Dooms for Sandpoint.
An unwritten adventure path as a sequel to Abomination Vaults and Gatewalkers.
Multiple links free up the GM and players to choose the sequel that best fits the interests of their particular characters.
The actual adventures I want are of a Not Sequel variety because I'm hoping for:
1) Razmiran secrets are exposed and he meets an ignominous end at the hands of the PCs. 7-17.
2) Geb invades Nex because Nex has returned. PCs are for Geb, against Nex. 11-20
3) PCs defeat Jorogumos in Shenmen, uncovering the reasons why the Lung Wa empire fell as they journey through different Tian Xia nations. 13-20.
4) Cheliax and Andoran duke it out. PCs control armies to seize territory and make progress on the battlefield, but the war rages on with no end in sight. Hellknights and Eagle Knights scrap on the side. 1-20.
5) PCs hunt BBEG/monster down with an airship from the Shackles to Port Eclipse in the Plane of Air, passing by Holomog and Jalmeray. 1-10.
The way Fists of the Ruby Phoenix and Stolen Fate theoretically made sense for any level 11 party to be involved with made them far easier for me to make work as sequels than Curtain Call. It’s weird, because I think I’m in favor of indirect sequels in theory, but with how janky the Nemesis ended up being in Curtain Call, I think indirect sequels are too hard to make not feel TOO generic. I would have much rather the Nemesis have a set stat block and be its own thing rather than it being written to be anyone.
I much prefer level 11-20 APs that can be easily used as continued adventures of a party that went through a level 1-10 AP, as my group always prefers to take characters all the way from level 1 to 20 if we can. I have a feeling the upcoming Spore War will be difficult to tie into any level 1-10 APs, unfortunately, but it is a theme that excites me.
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I have a feeling the upcoming Spore War will be difficult to tie into any level 1-10 APs, unfortunately, but it is a theme that excites me.
While Spore War is a pretty self-contained story, I wrotea section in the Spore War Player's Guide that gives advice to GMs who want to bring PCs from:
Abomination Vaults
Gatewalkers
Outlaws of Alkenstar
Quest for the Frozen Flame
Sky King's Tomb
Each of those gets 1–4 paragraphs of advice.
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If the "No Sequel" is the easiest option for you to handle, I would support going that route, even when I love things like the Runelords trilogy building an overall arc.
But one of my favorite leisure activities is rewriting the APs to fit into other settings anyways and that is much more work than making it fit as a sequel to an otherwise unrelated AP, so having to do that work wouldn't really bother me at all.
By the way, one of my favorite parts back then in Dungeon Mag times was the columns by Eric L. Boyd and Keith Baker for the Age of Worms AP giving options how to make that AP fit into the Realms and Eberron respectively. So why not doing something similar, only to connect APs together. Could be done via Blog entries (or I assume, via the Player's Guide, though that might become difficult with the ever increasing number of APs eventually).
Would love having more direct or indirect sequel APs. Making a 10th (or higher) level character in second edition can be an ordeal, especially for newer players. It would be much easier to be able to bring old PCs over if the higher level APs had stronger thematic or at least locational connections. If I create a rootin' tootin' gritty cowboy for Outlaws of Alkenstar I might feel a little out of place if we end up transitioning to Curtain Call, but if I'm a newer player I might not have the system knowledge to create a high-level replacement. Or, on a more basic level I might not enjoy playing a character made for one genre and transferring them to another.
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I do kinda feel like I have different understanding of "direct" sequel and "indirect" sequel. So I have to double check:
Has there ever actually been direct sequel in Pathfinder/Starfinder history?
Like to me "direct sequel" means that it continues with subject matter of another story, while indirect sequel is either "modular sequel disconnected to previous campaign, but meant to allow an continuation with same characters" or "new story for new party connected to previous one indirectly" while "not sequel" is "completely new story for new party".
I consider Shadows at Sundown a direct sequel to Curse of the Crimson Throne by any definition of the term. It's effectively "future Korvosa" after CotCK and leans heavily on events from it. While you COULD play it standalone, you'd be losing a lot of the punch since you won't have any of the significance of what is going on and who these people are, since there are a lot of direct references and some things a GM would have to adapt/change based on what the PCs in CotCK did. (Because it takes place a decade later and at lower level than CotCK ends, you probably won't be using the same characters in it. I played the brother of my CotCK character and having him constantly referred to in Korvosa as "Yulia's brother" instead of by his own name was REALLY funny. It took the whole adventure for him to get out from under his famous hero sister's shadow, and it doesn't get more "direct sequel" then that.)
In terms of full APs... Return of the Runelords/Shattered Star would probably qualify, but I haven't played Return yet (we're on Shattered Star now in the PF1 group). Thus far, Shattered Star doesn't feel as tightly connected to Rise of the Runelords. While it clearly does take place after it and is part of the same "runelords story", it's also very much telling its own story rather than "this won't make any sense if you haven't played Rise".
So I guess it's a loosely-coupled direct sequel?
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Shattered Star is indeed a loose sequel to Rise of the Runelords; I think of Return as the proper Runelords sequel.
While it's set in Varisia, Shattered Star's genesis was pretty much the result of management (and a perception at the time that customers were eager for a treasure hunt story) requesting a dungeon-crawl where you gather up a bunch of artifacts to rebuild them, a la D&D's Rod of Seven Parts.
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I am a mathematician. I would call that a hierarchical organization by geography and theme. Other names could apply, because the hierarchy is not strict. Rather than a tree of higher-level modules above lower-level modules, the modules are more a layered web with many possible sequels to each lower-level module, thus, more generally it is a partially ordered set.
Let's proceed to a thought experiment with existing PF2 adventure paths. Abomination Vaults, Quest for the Frozen Flame, Outlaws of Alkenstar, Gatewalkers, Sky King's Tomb, and Seven Dooms for Sandpoint are all adventure paths that end at level 10. Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, Stolen Fate, and Curtain Call are all adventure paths that begin at level 11. They could match up if geography and theme make that plausible. I don't own these adventure paths, so my list of themes below is my impression of descriptions of the paths.
Ends-at-10 layer
Abomination Vaults is eldritch horror set on the Isle of Kortos.
Quest for the Frozen Flame is wilderness exploration in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords.
Outlaws of Alkenstar is a western set in Alkenstar.
Gatewalkers is a paranormal investigation set in the River Kingdoms.
Sky...
Yeah, this is what I’m thinking of, with the caveat that I forgot that there aren’t as many possibilities to chain more than two adventure paths as I thought. In this sense, stand-alone lvl 1 adventures would have to be used to have a starting adventure, separate midlevel adventure path, followed by a closing AP/adventure that takes you close to lvl. 20.
My group for example are thinking Rusthenge -> Wardens of Wildwood -> Spore War. Which, as an arc, would be very much focused upon epic fantasy where heroes frequently meddle in the affairs of demigods. (Living, happily exiled, or dead).
Nature vs. Corruption would be another theme across all three.
Not entirely sure if I’m staking a position re: the main question so much as arguing that an adventure/AP’s starting and ending level of play also matters.
I want more mid to high level adventures to work with multiple possible adventures/AP’s at lower tier
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I have a feeling the upcoming Spore War will be difficult to tie into any level 1-10 APs, unfortunately, but it is a theme that excites me.While Spore War is a pretty self-contained story, I wrotea section in the Spore War Player's Guide that gives advice to GMs who want to bring PCs from:
Abomination Vaults
Gatewalkers
Outlaws of Alkenstar
Quest for the Frozen Flame
Sky King's TombEach of those gets 1–4 paragraphs of advice.
Anyone watching Rings of Power? The bond between Elrond and Durin reminds me of a potential arc for Sky King’s Tomb to Spore War, where one half of a party are majorly Dwarven diplomats and the other half Elven. You scratch my back I scratch yours
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Not mathematician, but I think what I’m describing probably has a better known mathematical equivalent. Picture each meta-region as having a few green A’s and C’s, where A and C represent beginner and high level adventures/adventure paths respectively.
Then we have multiple B, or mid-level adventures/paths that can thematically connect most or all of the A (or starting level) adventures/AP’s and hypothetically connect them to any C (higher level) adventures/AP’s within the metaregions along its border.
I dunno if this makes sense.
I am a mathematician. I would call that a hierarchical organization by geography and theme. Other names could apply, because the hierarchy is not strict. Rather than a tree of higher-level modules above lower-level modules, the modules are more a layered web with many possible sequels to each lower-level module, thus, more generally it is a partially ordered set.
Let's proceed to a thought experiment with existing PF2 adventure paths. Abomination Vaults, Quest for the Frozen Flame, Outlaws of Alkenstar, Gatewalkers, Sky King's Tomb, and Seven Dooms for Sandpoint are all adventure paths that end at level 10. Fists of the Ruby Phoenix, Stolen Fate, and Curtain Call are all adventure paths that begin at level 11. They could match up if geography and theme make that plausible. I don't own these adventure paths, so my list of themes below is my impression of descriptions of the paths.
Ends-at-10 layer
Abomination Vaults is eldritch horror set on the Isle of Kortos.
Quest for the Frozen Flame is wilderness exploration in the Realm of the Mammoth Lords.
Outlaws of Alkenstar is a western set in Alkenstar.
Gatewalkers is a paranormal investigation set in the River Kingdoms.
Sky...
The main curveball is that Stolen Fates is actually sequel to The Harrowing module from 1e
(I very much agree that Shadows at Sundown is crimson throne sequel)
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Would love having more direct or indirect sequel APs. Making a 10th (or higher) level character in second edition can be an ordeal, especially for newer players. It would be much easier to be able to bring old PCs over if the higher level APs had stronger thematic or at least locational connections. If I create a rootin' tootin' gritty cowboy for Outlaws of Alkenstar I might feel a little out of place if we end up transitioning to Curtain Call, but if I'm a newer player I might not have the system knowledge to create a high-level replacement. Or, on a more basic level I might not enjoy playing a character made for one genre and transferring them to another.
honestly, i would love to run higher level stuff, but paizo should provide pregens for all their higher level adventures. it's hard to ask players to create 10th level PCs.