High Level Adventure Paths as sequels—yes or no?

[CastleDour]

James Jacobs wrote:

Not only do the shorter ones sell better (in large part because there's twice as many opportunities to "get in on the ground floor" of the story), but they give customers twice as many opportuniteis to get excited about an Adventure Path (since we do four a year instead of two). The amount of time it takes the typical group to play through a 3 parter is generally more than 3 months, so by the time they're wrapping up, there's even MORE choices of where to go from there.

Also, while I do understand folks wanna play a pC from 1st to 20th level (that's my preferred method of play), many MORE folks are eager to always be building new PCs to try out new character concepts, in part because we continue to publish so many interesting and intriguing new options for new characters (ancestries in particular are VERY popular, and you can't easily switch your ancestry over on an established character). More opportunities to start a new campaign plays better into that sort of player mindset, I suspect.

For the time being, 3 part Adventure Paths are here to stay, in other words.

just kickstarter a 1-20 level campaign outside the 4 you are already doing when you are fully staffed up and release it in 2 or 3 years :) or contract it out to mark seifer and linda while granting them license to your full IP :P

[magnuskn]

James Jacobs wrote:

Sometimes it's okay to start a high level Adventure Path with fresh characters. Sometimes it's a breath of fresh air to not have to do the grind through lower levels again just to get to the adventure you and your group REALLY want to play, especially if by the time you get there, the group has broken up for whatever reason. Which, judging by the sell-through rates of all previous 1st to 20th level Adventure Paths, happened a lot. Hence 3 part ones. People buy and play part 1 of an Adventure Path far more often than any other parts, regardless of what level that part 1 is for. And so it makes sense from a financial standpoint and a customer satisfaction standpoint to sell more part 1s in a year.

Well, as a possibility maybe it'd be possible to make two three-parters (not even consequently, but maybe one year apart?) which "rhyme", i.e. indirect sequels, as The Raven Black just pointed out? For the people who do prefer playing 1 - 20?

[James Jacobs]

We do have some plans for more direct sequels in the works. I'd hoped Curtain Call's lead-in would help it be a sort of evergreen sequel, but it sounds like folks want more direct thematic follow-ups. So... yeah we have something like that in the works—in particular, the Seven Dooms for Sanpdoint and Revenge of the Runelords having strong thematic links.

[Lia Wynn]

magnuskn wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Not only do the shorter ones sell better (in large part because there's twice as many opportunities to "get in on the ground floor" of the story), but they give customers twice as many opportuniteis to get excited about an Adventure Path (since we do four a year instead of two). The amount of time it takes the typical group to play through a 3 parter is generally more than 3 months, so by the time they're wrapping up, there's even MORE choices of where to go from there.

Also, while I do understand folks wanna play a pC from 1st to 20th level (that's my preferred method of play), many MORE folks are eager to always be building new PCs to try out new character concepts, in part because we continue to publish so many interesting and intriguing new options for new characters (ancestries in particular are VERY popular, and you can't easily switch your ancestry over on an established character). More opportunities to start a new campaign plays better into that sort of player mindset, I suspect.

For the time being, 3 part Adventure Paths are here to stay, in other words.

I can live with it, since the points you make are quite true. However, one thing I got to say, having AP's like Spore Wars, which pretty clearly is the "Elf AP", without an appropiate lead-in is a bit annoying.

I look at the 1-11 AP's on offer currently and we have Abomination Vaults (which I am already running and Fists of the Ruby Phoenix is the already agreed-upon follow-up), Gatewalkers (which is widely seen as one of the worst 2E AP's) and then Outlaw's of Alkenstar, Quest for the Frozen Flame, Sky King's Tomb and Triumph of the Tusk, which are all pretty inappropiate entries into an elf-centric AP. Warden's of Wildwood would probably be much more doable, but ends at level 13, which makes connecting it to Spore Wars quite hard (except if I would tell my guys that they don't level for the first module and rewrite all encounters, too).

Curtain Call also seems to have not really have an AP which leads...

I want to make a few comments here:

First, Gatewalkers. I have run this, and while I do have an issue in that there are not enough Deviant powers for a group of four, and they are so non-impactful that they don't get used much if at all, it is not a bad AP. In fact, outside of the deviant power issue, it's fun and flavorable and has some interesting twists.

The people that complain about it complain about Sakuachi, and 'It's her quest, not ours.', which is not true. Yes, she has a role to play, but the PCs have the biggest role to play as they can

Spoiler:

literally choose to destroy Golarion at the end.

.

Second: SKT. SKT is a great lead into Spore Wars. Why? Because as Highhelm points out, *Kyonin*'s Government approached Highhelm's with a 'Hey if you help us if Treerazer attacks, we will help you if Tar Baphon attacks.'

It makes absolute sense that heroes who have proven themselves in Highhelm are sent to a conference to help with Kyonin's security to show that Highhelm is serious about that offered alliance.

As for Curtain Call: Every adventure leads into it. AP. Homebrew. Whatever. Your group is literally asked to make a play about *their own adventures!* What can be easier as a lead-in? Your very own actions directly lead into the AP and it does not matter what those actions even are.

[magnuskn]

James Jacobs wrote:

We do have some plans for more direct sequels in the works. I'd hoped Curtain Call's lead-in would help it be a sort of evergreen sequel, but it sounds like folks want more direct thematic follow-ups. So... yeah we have something like that in the works—in particular, the Seven Dooms for Sanpdoint and Revenge of the Runelords having strong thematic links.

Believe me, I look forward very much to Xan-Xan's revenge for us letting him burn on that scale. And Seven Dooms for Sandpoint does seem like the perfect lead-in. :)

[magnuskn]

Lia Wynn wrote:

I want to make a few comments here:

First, Gatewalkers. I have run this, and while I do have an issue in that there are not enough Deviant powers for a group of four, and they are so non-impactful that they don't get used much if at all, it is not a bad AP. In fact, outside of the deviant power issue, it's fun and flavorable and has some interesting twists.

The people that complain about it complain about Sakuachi, and 'It's her quest, not ours.', which is not true. Yes, she has a role to play, but the PCs have the biggest role to play as they can <spoiler>

Second: SKT. SKT is a great lead into Spore Wars. Why? Because as Highhelm points out, *Kyonin*'s Government approached Highhelm's with a 'Hey if you help us if Treerazer attacks, we will help you if Tar Baphon attacks.'

It makes absolute sense that heroes who have proven themselves in Highhelm are sent to a conference to help with Kyonin's security to show that Highhelm is serious about that offered alliance.

As for Curtain Call: Every adventure leads into it. AP. Homebrew. Whatever. Your group is literally asked to make a play about *their own adventures!* What can be easier as a lead-in? Your very own actions directly lead into the AP and it does not matter what those actions even are.

To address those points:

1.) Gatewalkers is also widely seen as a bit of a misdirect, since the group is supposed to be paranormal investigators and that plot is resolved in the middle of book one (source: Tarondor's Guide to AP's 2025). The AP veers into a completely different direction then. The general recommendation for the AP is to rewrite it completely, which is the exact opposite reason why I buy AP's in the first place.

2.) Sky King's Tomb quite clearly is the "dwarf AP". Yes, you prove yourself in that AP as competent, but that the (probably) dwarf heroes are then sent to Kyonin where they (pretty arbitrarily, I might add, by winning one battle) are chosen as diplomats for the elves by the elf queen to help organize the outside nations help to battle Treerazer is thematically very difficult for me to personally work with. I mean, to me "let's play the elf-AP with an all-dwarf party" sounds like the beginning of an RPG Horror Stories reddit thread.

3.) The problem with Curtain Call is that the theme of the AP is, by its nature, very theatrical, i.e. you'd expect characters with an large emphasis on skills and performance to show up. Few 1-11 AP's really feature that. Most focus on fighting and maybe a bit of problem solving of the mystery kind. Having a low-level AP with a more entertainment/theatrical focus would really help with that particular AP follow-up.

[PossibleCabbage]

magnuskn wrote:

I mean, to me "let's play the elf-AP with an all-dwarf party" sounds like the beginning of an RPG Horror Stories reddit thread.

This is basically* what we're doing, and it's fun. This just happened organically since SKT seemed like the most natural lead-in to Spore War. It's not like Golarion has the whole "elves and dwarves hate each other for generations" thing you see in other fantasy settings, these are just different people with a common cause who see things differently.

*we have one gnome in the party.

[James Jacobs]

magnuskn wrote:

3.) The problem with Curtain Call is that the theme of the AP is, by its nature, very theatrical, i.e. you'd expect characters with an large emphasis on skills and performance to show up. Few 1-11 AP's really feature that. Most focus on fighting and maybe a bit of problem solving of the mystery kind. Having a low-level AP with a more entertainment/theatrical focus would really help with that particular AP follow-up.

The specific solution here, and one I should have, in retrospect, put in big font in a sidebar in the Curtain Call Player's Guide, is that in a case like this, the GM is encouraged very strongly to let the players do revisions and retraining and changes to PCs. That's probably just good advice across the board if you're moving from one Adventure Path to the other. Any amount of time you want can pass between them, after all, which is all the time you need for each player to read the Player's Guide and make adjustments as needed to their characters so they'll be better suited for the new adventure.

But again, that said... the days of 1st to 20th all-the-way through themed adventures is pretty much behind us these days. We may at some point do one again... but it'll be a special event that we'd make a big deal about (and behind the scenes would require a lot of schedule stuntwork to make happen since our current process works for 4 three parters and not for six-part ones anymore).

[Cori Marie]

That's exactly what our GM is doing as we move from Gatewalkers to Curtain Call. Between the APs we will have a year off where we can just completely rebuild our characters with no restrictions coming into Curtain Call at 11.

[Riggler]

I liked how Curtain Call was handled as an indirect sequel. The problem with direct sequels is just like you guys had with the 6 book APs -- if I'm not interested in the first set, then I'm not going to be interested in the second set. And it seems like Runelords/Sandpoint-adjacent is the most likely for this to happen with. I avoid all those APs as they just don't appeal to me, unfortunately.

[James Jacobs]

Riggler wrote:

I liked how Curtain Call was handled as an indirect sequel. The problem with direct sequels is just like you guys had with the 6 book APs -- if I'm not interested in the first set, then I'm not going to be interested in the second set. And it seems like Runelords/Sandpoint-adjacent is the most likely for this to happen with. I avoid all those APs as they just don't appeal to me, unfortunately.

No worries and completely understandable—and also one of the PRIMARY reasons we have moved away from 6 part Adventure Paths, as I've said so many times before.

We can do more of them in a year if they're shorter, and if they're shorter, they have an overall wider appeal and thus sell better.

[The Raven Black]

I have sometimes read that 3-parters felt a bit rushed and could have been developed more.

Maybe 3 4-parters a year would hit the good balance point between 4 3-parters and 2 6-parters.

BTW I am just starting Kingmaker 2E with the lady and our kid and it saddens me a bit to read that players will no longer be able to seamlessly elevate their starting character to level 20.

[CharlieIAm]

My players would definitely go for four book APs. Having a variety of lower level adventures to start with followed by a [7-9] to 20 AP indirect sequel would be wonderful, but I see the appeal of 1-12 and 5-17 ones as well.

[James Jacobs]

Since the primary point of switching to 4 Adventure Paths a year was to give folks additional chances to like one enough to want to buy it, swtiching back to 3 would erode that goal while not appealing to folks who want full 1–20 level six-part Adventure Paths. Seems like a solution that would disappoint everyone but also give us on the Narrative team another dose of disruptions to the workflow, so I don't see this happening.

[PossibleCabbage]

I do think there's value in an adventure that starts at like 5th-7th level, and continues on for three volumes. It's just that you couldn't chain that into another 3 part AP, it would have to stand on its own.

Since one of the holdups for me with a lot of 3 part APs is "I find the first few levels of a character's career pretty dull" (having characters with very few tools is primarily useful for onboarding new players to a system), but jumping straight into 11th level can turn the knob a bit far towards "gonzo".

Especially since creating a 6th level character from scratch is much easier than creating an 11th level character from scratch.

[James Jacobs]

At this point, my goal is to do at least one "Starts at 1st" every year, one "Ends at 20th" every year, and then have the other two be "developer's choice." Which means we will continue to now and then have Adventure Paths (like Seven Dooms for Sandpoint or Wardens of Wildwood already do) that start at whatever level makes sense for the story.

[Mathmuse]

James Jacobs wrote:

Since the primary point of switching to 4 Adventure Paths a year was to give folks additional chances to like one enough to want to buy it, swtiching back to 3 would erode that goal while not appealing to folks who want full 1–20 level six-part Adventure Paths. Seems like a solution that would disappoint everyone but also give us on the Narrative team another dose of disruptions to the workflow, so I don't see this happening.

I already have a backlog of adventure paths that I want to run--Wardens of Wildwood, Curtain Call, and Spore War--so I don't care how many adventure paths are published per year. My weekly game sessions require six months to get through a single module. And I am buying standalone modules in order to add more missions to Strength of Thousands as class field trips, which further slows down progress.

That brings up a question: how well do the standalone modules integrate with the 3-module adventure paths?

[James Jacobs]

Mathmuse wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

Since the primary point of switching to 4 Adventure Paths a year was to give folks additional chances to like one enough to want to buy it, swtiching back to 3 would erode that goal while not appealing to folks who want full 1–20 level six-part Adventure Paths. Seems like a solution that would disappoint everyone but also give us on the Narrative team another dose of disruptions to the workflow, so I don't see this happening.

I already have a backlog of adventure paths that I want to run--Wardens of Wildwood, Curtain Call, and Spore War--so I don't care how many adventure paths are published per year. My weekly game sessions require six months to get through a single module. And I am buying standalone modules in order to add more missions to Strength of Thousands as class field trips, which further slows down progress.

That brings up a question: how well do the standalone modules integrate with the 3-module adventure paths?

They generally don't. We usually make the standalone adventures stand alone, with plots that are pretty self-contained; making one that you can't fully enjoy unless you also buy a different adventure or Adventure Path kinda goes against their whole point. There are some that work well with others, thematically—Rusthenge into Seven Dooms for Sandpoint, for example. But even then, the GM is going to need to do a bit of work to link them together. Which is kinda one of the fun parts about being a GM I think!

[Souls At War]

James Jacobs wrote:

Since the primary point of switching to 4 Adventure Paths a year was to give folks additional chances to like one enough to want to buy it, swtiching back to 3 would erode that goal while not appealing to folks who want full 1–20 level six-part Adventure Paths. Seems like a solution that would disappoint everyone but also give us on the Narrative team another dose of disruptions to the workflow, so I don't see this happening.

Still something that can be talked about, especially when wanting to try experimental ideas/APs.

On 12 volumes a year:
* 1 x 12 (would be slow, and the thing about variety)
* 2 x 6, what was used before.
* 3 x 4
* 4 x 3, currently used.
* 6 x 2, kinda short
* 12 x 1, OK, that's pretty much standalone modules.
some combo like 2 + 3 + 3 + 4 or 3 + 4 + 5.

And with a dose of "themes in APs", branching/splitting AP, granted those would probably be an headache to make.

[James Jacobs]

We spent a few years discussing what would be best for the Adventure Path line before we started the first 3 part ones with Abomination Vaults and Fist of the Ruby Phoenix back in 2019 (which were then published in 2021), and then a few more years until we fully transitioned over to the 4 three-part Adventure Path standard, starting with Gatewalkers. The 4 part story of Season of Ghosts happened primarily because we wanted to do a special celebratory double-sized single-volume Adventure Path for volume #200 (the idea of tying Season of Ghosts to the four seasons and building it using the four-act story structure—Kishōtenketsu—came about AFTER we decided to do a four part story), after which we've settled into the 4 Adventure Paths per year standard.

All of this is to say that the discussion of cadence and size and frequency and all that for Adventure Paths WAS talked about, at length—just not in public, because that's not how things work.

It's still incredibly valuable to continuously hear feedback from folks about this, for sure, and as I've said before here and elsewhere we DO hear the folks who want longer Adventure Paths that go from 1st to 20th level. Something like that or adjacent to that is possible, but would (like Season of Ghosts and Seven Dooms for Sandpoint) be exceptions to the norm we'd have to plan for years in advance at this point... which includes not only predicting budgets and pricing and all that but also adjusting our schedules for time needed to edit and develop and create these in the first place.

(Side note: We do standalone adventures too. Those generally cover about 4 to 6 levels of play. Once an Adventure Path dips below 3 volumes, it's basically doing the same lift as a 128 page standalone adventure, so there's no point in creating an Adventure Path there—we'd just build it as a standalone adventure instead.)

(Side note 2: Being able to launch a brand new Adventure Path at Gen Con is a pretty important financial goal for Paizo, which means that a 4 x 3 pattern would be very awkward to transition in to.)

[Perpdepog]

James Jacobs wrote:

(Side note: We do standalone adventures too. Those generally cover about 4 to 6 levels of play. Once an Adventure Path dips below 3 volumes, it's basically doing the same lift as a 128 page standalone adventure, so there's no point in creating an Adventure Path there—we'd just build it as a standalone adventure instead.)

I'm really glad we have these stand-alone adventures at around that size. The modules might be some of my fave adventure products now, mostly because I also just love to read the adventures for the lore, and the modules being in one volume means that lore is more condensed. My group is one of those who definitely takes things slow, so one of these adventures can keep us going for a couple of months of semi-regular play.

The only downside for our group is that our slow pace makes choosing a module for, say, a holiday's month, like Night of the Gray Death for October, a bit overly ambitious. I sadly had to put ours on hiatus because we were still playing it this year and the extra day of meeting was straining folks' schedules.
I think I'll try one of the spookier Quests, next time, or maybe a PFS scenario. There's also that adventure in the back of Book of the Dead.

[Tridus]

magnuskn wrote:

I can live with it, since the points you make are quite true. However, one thing I got to say, having AP's like Spore Wars, which pretty clearly is the "Elf AP", without an appropiate lead-in is a bit annoying.

I look at the 1-11 AP's on offer currently and we have Abomination Vaults (which I am already running and Fists of the Ruby Phoenix is the already agreed-upon follow-up), Gatewalkers (which is widely seen as one of the worst 2E AP's) and then Outlaw's of Alkenstar, Quest for the Frozen Flame, Sky King's Tomb and Triumph of the Tusk, which are all pretty inappropiate entries into an elf-centric AP. Warden's of Wildwood would probably be much more doable, but ends at level 13, which makes connecting it to Spore Wars quite hard (except if I would tell my guys that they don't level for the first module and rewrite all encounters, too).

We actually just went through this recently as one of my groups decided to stop playing Kingmaker. The GM is excited about Spore War and we were looking at lead ins for it. Not a lot feels like it fits well, especially considering some of the potential options we had already done.

In the end we couldn't really find a lead-in that works for the group so we just didn't bother: we're starting at 11. Two of us are literally just playing our Kingmaker characters who were level 8, so we just add 3 levels, make up an excuse to be there related to being diplomatic envoys, and we're good to go. The others are just making new characters and coming up with an explanation for why they are there.

Ironically only one of the 5 PCs is actually from Kyonin and the other 4 are there because "the player wants to play this concept/class/ancestry/whatever, so we're making up a reason for them to be here at the start." So maybe we overthought the whole "the lead-in has to be appropriate" thing. :)

That said, saying "we want to run Spore War so to have some thematically appropriate characters, we're going to run Outlaws of Alkenstar first" doesn't make any sense. Sky Kings Tomb might make sense if you know what it's about, but from the outside looking in it doesn't because one is a "Dwarf Adventure" and another is an "Elf Adventure" on the box. We weren't really sure what a good lead in would be which is why we didn't use one. None of the APs fit together to form a 1-20 arc the way the full 1-20 APs did.

Quote:

Curtain Call also seems to have not really have an AP which leads well into another AP which is a lot about heavy roleplay and theater.

I definitely agree with this. One of my groups is doing Abomination Vaults right now, and one of the PCs would fit perfectly in Curtain Call (and a second would go because he's the henchman of the first). The rest would have no reason whatsoever to be there because the set up of what you're doing at the start is simply of no interest whatsoever to the character.

Curtain Call sounds really cool and I'd love to run it one day, but I'm not sure it'll actually happen with characters after a 1-10 AP.

Quote:

Again, I get the advantages you guys see with 3-parters, but it'd be nice to have the RP-heavy low-level AP which connects quite well (both in terms of theme and levels) to the high-level RP-heavy AP. Same with the elf-centric war AP.

Yeah, I agree with this too.

[Tridus]

The Raven Black wrote:

I have sometimes read that 3-parters felt a bit rushed and could have been developed more.

Some of them do. That said, some of the 6-parters feel padded.

Book 5 of Extinction Curse is an example (though its not a unique problem at all): on its own, the book is good and the stuff you're doing in it is interesting. But it has only the barest connection to anything else in the AP, and doing it all requires the PCs to ignore a much more obvious solution while working with NPCs that supposedly want to solve the problem but are actively blocking the more obvious solution.

The transition into book 5 stuck out like a sore thumb to my players because it's pretty transparently "we need another book here before you get to the end." Fortunately they moved past that and enjoyed the book itself. I think it's just a storytelling reality that trying to fit a certain size is harder with some stories than others and you may need to pad/cram to do it. Sometimes it's just easy to notice when its happening, whereas other times it's more subtle.

Quote:

BTW I am just starting Kingmaker 2E with the lady and our kid and it saddens me a bit to read that players will no longer be able to seamlessly elevate their starting character to level 20.

Yeah I miss the era of "take a character all the way from the start to the end", but the sales are what they are, unfortunately. Hopefully we get some with easier connectivity in the future.

And I hope you enjoy Kingmaker! Strongly suggest that you check out some of the house rules for the Kingdom Rules, as they help a lot!

[PossibleCabbage]

I wonder if a traditional six part AP with world-changing stakes couldn't be made into two 3 part APs simply by having every third one culminate in a satisfying conclusion.

Like you could split a "major war between two powers" story by having the first triplet be about "defending your homeland against invaders" and the second be about "going behind enemy lines to end the war." You'd run the risk of having there be six months of stories set in basically two places with similar themes, but I wonder if you couldn't make it work like this.

[Arcaian]

Tridus wrote:

We actually just went through this recently as one of my groups decided to stop playing Kingmaker. The GM is excited about Spore War and we were looking at lead ins for it. Not a lot feels like it fits well, especially considering some of the potential options we had already done.

In the end we couldn't really find a lead-in that works for the group so we just didn't bother: we're starting at 11. Two of us are literally just playing our Kingmaker characters who were level 8, so we just add 3 levels, make up an excuse to be there related to being diplomatic envoys, and we're good to go. The others are just making new characters and coming up with an explanation for why they are there.

Ironically only one of the 5 PCs is actually from Kyonin and the other 4 are there because "the player wants to play this concept/class/ancestry/whatever, so we're making up a reason for them to be here at the start." So maybe we overthought the whole "the lead-in has to be appropriate" thing. :)

That said, saying "we want to run Spore War so to have some thematically appropriate characters, we're going to run Outlaws of Alkenstar first" doesn't make any sense. Sky Kings Tomb might make sense if you know what it's about, but from the outside looking in it doesn't because one is a "Dwarf Adventure" and another is an "Elf Adventure" on the box. We weren't really sure what a good lead in would be which is why we didn't use one. None of the APs fit together to form a 1-20 arc the way the full 1-20 APs did.

This sort of situation is I think a good example of how starting at 11 without it being a follow-on from a previous adventure can be quite liberating. We had a similar experience - I finished running a PF2 conversion of Ironfang Invasion at level 10 (they did ... strange things for it to end there :P ), and so when we discussed what we wanted to do next and they picked Stolen Fate (which starts at level 11), there was a lot of freedom in what characters people could bring. We had one player directly follow on from the Ironfang Invasion story, bringing the same character. We had two players adapt characters they'd not been able to finish up the story on previously to the new campaign - one PF1 character from a Mummy's Mask campaign we stopped at level 9, and another a version of a PFS1 character that has an ongoing story. The other three players made completely custom characters, feeling all their established characters had concluded everything cleanly already, or weren't a fit for Stolen Fate. For those people who wanted a 1-20 character experience, they could get it - but for people who were happy with the previous story, they could do what they wanted. I enjoyed how it worked a lot! :)

[Souls At War]

Tridus wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

I have sometimes read that 3-parters felt a bit rushed and could have been developed more.

Some of them do. That said, some of the 6-parters feel padded.

Partly why I think they could consider mixing 4 and 5 parters in once in a while, especially if/when hitting "too much for 3, but not enough for 6".

Edit: as a side note, I wonder how people feel about slow burn types like Council Of Thieves.

[Perses13]

When I started running Fist of the Ruby Phoenix for my group I raised the possibility of them bringing their Outlaws or Frozen Flame characters, but they were all happy to try out new character options instead. They've expressed interest in bringing back their Outlaws characters back for Curtain Call though.

Outlaws of Alkenstar to Curtain Call always struck me as making the most sense from the existing choices, since the plot has enough pulp in it to be turned into an opera, and its a nice capstone of the outlaws to heroes arc of that adventure. Outlaws even opens with the party watching a play in a tavern.

[Dragonchess Player]

Souls At War wrote:

Edit: as a side note, I wonder how people feel about slow burn types like Council Of Thieves.

IIRC, "slow burn" APs are usually fairly well received. Many groups like the in-depth "reveal" of the plot over having to rush.

The main complaint about Council of Thieves wasn't about the slow burn, but rather that it wasn't the "rebellion against House Thrune" AP.

[umopapisdnupsidedown]

I'm going to go one further than "not sequels" and throw my hat in the ring for "in fact, two-book APs."

Don't get me wrong, in principle I absolutely LOVE the idea of a six-book AP like Strength of Thousands, and I hope to play it someday. And on paper, a pseudo-six book AP made up of a prequel and a sequel seems cool.

But I will never, ever get to playing or running all the APs I want to play or run. I'm nearing the halfway point in book two of one that I'm running now and I just pray we have the steam to make it through to the end of book three. It'll be about another year, I think, and by that time I'll be ready to do something else. I've hit a slowdown in my Seven Dooms game but it's short enough that it still feels tractable.

Two books is still realistically 1-2 years of gaming. And I love how Seven Dooms focuses on what, to me, is a pretty fun level range. I'd love to see another two-book AP or two covering levels 6-14 or levels 7-15, as those are probably my favorite levels to play.

Edited to add: after having reread the above regarding standalone adventures vs APs, what about a structure akin to Rusthenge and Seven Dooms, wherein the standalone becomes a prequel to the AP, and they are developed in tandem (to save on production costs)? I hear what people are saying about the "1 to 20 experience," but honestly the earliest levels are by far my least favorite to play, and finishing a three-book AP is still a major effort (and accomplishment). Two books seems eminently more tractable.

[Warped Savant]

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

Two books is still realistically 1-2 years of gaming.

Oof.

Sorry that your group doesn't get together very often.
My group, on average, get through a book in 2 months or less with weekly sessions.

[mikeawmids]

My main issue is not the length of the AP, but the lack of cohesion between volumes and the padding that I assume results from a tight, monthly turnaround for new content. I just finished reading The Crooked Moon for 5e and that thing is a labour of love, and a compelling read from cover to cover. The most recent Pathfinder AP (Shades of Blood #1) squanders a half dozen pages on skill checks to move some crates, and after wading through that I lost interest and still have yet to finish the book. IMO Pathfinder writers have become too reliant on boring and inconsequential padding to meet a fixed word count within a strict timeframe.

[Dragonchess Player]

mikeawmids wrote:

My main issue is not the length of the AP, but the lack of cohesion between volumes and the padding that I assume results from a tight, monthly turnaround for new content. I just finished reading The Crooked Moon for 5e and that thing is a labour of love, and a compelling read from cover to cover. The most recent Pathfinder AP (Shades of Blood #1) squanders a half dozen pages on skill checks to move some crates, and after wading through that I lost interest and still have yet to finish the book. IMO Pathfinder writers have become too reliant on boring and inconsequential padding to meet a fixed word count within a strict timeframe.

IMO, that "boring and inconsequential padding" that "squanders a half dozen pages on skill checks to move some crates" is to 1) help introduce the PCs to Talmandor's Bounty and some of its significant NPCs (so that they care about the setting and people outside the dungeon) and 2) provide experience gains for groups that don't level at specific points in the plot narrative. The first is pretty important as the PCs literally just stepped off the ship bringing them to the town...

[umopapisdnupsidedown]

Warped Savant wrote:

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

Two books is still realistically 1-2 years of gaming.

Oof.

Sorry that your group doesn't get together very often.
My group, on average, get through a book in 2 months or less with weekly sessions.

Nah, the ones I'm running are by post, but the pace is actually roughly equivalent to the ones I've played live with fortnightly sessions.

It took us around 8 months to finish the first book of Abomination Vaults in live fortnightly sessions, which was about the same for book one of one of the APs I'm running by post. And I think we finished book three of Ruby Phoenix in about six months by post.

I'm running Empires Devoured in weekly sessions right now, and it's about the length of one AP volume. We are on pace to finish in three months (a little longer, if we skip a couple of weeks), which is about the same pace. Eight sessions or less for a whole AP volume seems pretty quick to me, I salute your GM but I don't think I could ever match that pace. That would be the equivalent of running a 1-20 AP in 12 months which seems effectively impossible to me, in terms of timeline.

[Warped Savant]

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

Eight sessions or less for a whole AP volume seems pretty quick to me, I salute your GM but I don't think I could ever match that pace. That would be the equivalent of running a 1-20 AP in 12 months which seems effectively impossible to me, in terms of timeline.

Looking at the actual numbers, all of the APs I've ran for my group have lasted around 42 session +/- 5. But that being said, the sessions are also 6+ hours long each. (Clearly, there's something wrong with me.)

Earlier books typically take longer than later books.

I imagine PBP would take significantly longer though.

[Vorsk, Follower or Erastil]

Put me down as loving the idea of more evergreen modules for early levels that can easily transition into some of the 5-13 APs. Some of my favorite 1e modules were Gallows of Madness, Ire of the Storm, and Crypt of the Everflame. Lvl 1 modules that worked well at bringing pcs together for a specific low level adventure that then could set them up for greater adventure. Fall of Plaguestone for 2e as well. Doing Modules like that that then can easily expand into a longer story would be something i would enjoy.

[umopapisdnupsidedown]

Warped Savant wrote:

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

Eight sessions or less for a whole AP volume seems pretty quick to me, I salute your GM but I don't think I could ever match that pace. That would be the equivalent of running a 1-20 AP in 12 months which seems effectively impossible to me, in terms of timeline.

Looking at the actual numbers, all of the APs I've ran for my group have lasted around 42 session +/- 5. But that being said, the sessions are also 6+ hours long each. (Clearly, there's something wrong with me.)

Earlier books typically take longer than later books.

I imagine PBP would take significantly longer though.

Like I said, I find PbP and live sessions (fortnightly anyway) can be roughly equivalent. It's helpful to know that you run long sessions, though, that also partly explains the quick pace.

For example, 8 or 9 weekly 6-hour sessions for an AP book is around 48-54 hours of play. Similarly, my AV and Empires Devoured sessions (as a player and GM, respectively) tend to run around 3-4 hours. So if we finish Empires Devoured in 12-13 shorter sessions, that's around the same amount of gameplay (call it 40-52 hours). And AV took us roughly 8 months per book, but that was only about 13-14 sessions probably. Still roughly in the 42-54 hour range. No idea how long it took us to finish book 2 but it was probably around that.

So I'm guessing a 6-book AP is around 250-300 hours of gameplay.

Getting back to the topic, I suppose I'd like to see more stories in the ~100 hour range, that's about 25-30 sessions which you can do in a year and change with fortnightly sessions and accounting for real life.

As a total aside, a rough conversion for play-by-post is one hour equals one week (I tend to run a bit faster, 3 weeks to 4 hours-ish), so you'd probably be looking at one book every 7-10 months. Roughly equivalent to fortnightly 3-4 hour sessions.

[Souls At War]

umopapisdnupsidedown wrote:

Like I said, I find PbP and live sessions (fortnightly anyway) can be roughly equivalent. It's helpful to know that you run long sessions, though, that also partly explains the quick pace.

For example, 8 or 9 weekly 6-hour sessions for an AP book is around 48-54 hours of play. Similarly, my AV and Empires Devoured sessions (as a player and GM, respectively) tend to run around 3-4 hours. So if we finish Empires Devoured in 12-13 shorter sessions, that's around the same amount of gameplay (call it 40-52 hours). And AV took us roughly 8 months per book, but that was only about 13-14 sessions probably. Still roughly in the 42-54 hour range. No idea how long it took us to finish book 2 but it was probably around that.

So I'm guessing a 6-book AP is around 250-300 hours of gameplay.

Getting back to the topic, I suppose I'd like to see more stories in the ~100 hour range, that's about 25-30 sessions which you can do in a year and change with fortnightly sessions and accounting for real life.

As a total aside, a rough conversion for play-by-post is one hour equals one week (I tend to run a bit faster, 3 weeks to 4 hours-ish), so you'd probably be looking at one book every 7-10 months. Roughly equivalent to fortnightly 3-4 hour sessions.

Can be useful to remember that not everyone play at the same pace, so how much development/advancement happen in the same span of time will vary.

[umopapisdnupsidedown]

Souls At War wrote:

Can be useful to remember that not everyone play at the same pace, so how much development/advancement happen in the same span of time will vary.

Totally agree, but it does seem to be pretty consistent. Asked around, and so far the outlier seems to be Strength of Thousands, at least for some groups, at around 60 hours of play per book.

I'm not sure having more two-book APs (with possibly an optional "introductory" adventure) would be an issue for people who play faster—it just means they could play more, which I think is my main point.

Regardless of how fast or slow you play, shorter stories means you can play (and finish) more of them. And I see people talking about padding. Shorter stories hopefully means less padding.

Anyway, I've made my point I suppose, so I will try and stop here :)