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This is a set of communications I had with Andrew White the writer of Wardens of Wildwood Book 1: Pactbreaker
I have been given the permission to share this with the community in an effort to help bring more insight into the AP and project as a whole.
The first set of responses are direct replies to my Book 1 Review that you can find bellow:
General Observations
Before diving into specific chapters, I want to highlight some inconsistencies found in the book. For instance, the location of Corozal in the Viridian Nexus is described as both 200 miles and 50 miles away in different paragraphs. Additionally, the timeline of Valanar the Green’s tenure is conflicting; he’s mentioned as being elected in 4700 and ruling since, but another part claims he’s ruled for 17 years. Clarification on these points would be great.
Chapter 1: Greenwood Gala
The Greenwood Gala is an engaging start to the adventure, with well-developed NPCs like Alyce and Tanasha adding depth to the event. The activities, including the Cabber Toss and Flyting Contest, are creative and fun. However, the rules for the Parasmati game need further clarification to ensure smooth gameplay. It’s also unclear if there are additional background events that could allow for potential failure by the players, as the current setup seems to guarantee their success.
The terror attack is a pivotal moment, but there are several unanswered questions:
Starting Unrest Points: The initial amount of unrest that the players should contend with isn’t specified.
Valanar the Green’s Inaction: As a 15th level Archdruid, Valanar’s failure to defend himself from the seedpod is puzzling. Did he deliberately allow the attack? His unwillingness to be resurrected hints at deeper motives that need exploration.
Investigation Gaps: Players can find evidence linking the terror attack to Taldor, yet there’s no immediate investigation, and no one claims responsibility. The GM is left without clear guidance on the perpetrator’s identity, which is frustrating for both the GM and players. The GM not knowing who perpetrated the attacks in Book 1 or 2 is not acceptable. I'm not a player you don't need to keep me in the dark.
Chapter 2: Wildfires
At this stage, players possess a map indicating a location tied to the terror attack, yet Emorga insists on prioritizing the search for Corozal to foresee future events and reduce unrest. This feels disconnected from the main narrative. As of right now you could remove all of Chapter 2 and it wouldn't impact the overall story the AP is trying to tell.
Flashpoints: Each flashpoint in this chapter appears isolated, lacking a cohesive story arc that advances the main plot. The tasks—though varied and potentially engaging—do not uncover new evidence or further the investigation into the attack. Seemingly used to waste time before the vote for a new Wildwood Lodge leader takes place in a months time.
Chapter 3: Fallen Leaves
This chapter revolves around a crucial vote at the Gala grounds, now marred by a recent terror attack. What was Wildwood leadership doing in the month the players were gone?
Vote Dynamics: The introduction of new guests vying for leadership feels sudden. Why is there no representation from the Wildwood Lodge to reclaim their position? Lodge officials are mentioned as being present but not actively participating, which is confusing.
Influence Mechanics: Gaining influence seems pointless when the vote is inevitably stolen by Ruzadoya Swiftmane. This undermines players’ efforts, leading to frustration.
Aftermath of the Vote: After Ruzadoya’s unexpected victory, the narrative lacks urgency. Despite the treaty being nullified and the Gala attendees accepting an undead leader, the players are told to wait 8 hours before leaving. This delay is perplexing given the high stakes.
Downtime Misalignment: Post-escape, players are given as much downtime as they like. This is illogical as immediate action is required. Taldor’s implication in the terror attacks and the nullification of the treaty demand a swift response.
Political Response: There’s no mention of Eutropia’s reaction to the unfolding events. Given Taldor’s significant role, her response is crucial and should be clearly addressed.
Recommendations for Improvement
Consistency: Ensure information is consistent throughout the book, especially regarding key details like distances and timelines.
Clarify Rules: Provide clearer rules and potential outcomes for events like the Parasmati game.
Investigative Path: Establish a clear investigative path post-terror attack, allowing players to follow leads and uncover the perpetrators.
Narrative Urgency: Maintain narrative urgency, especially after significant events like the terror attack and the vote.
Political Dynamics: Detail the political dynamics and responses from key figures like Eutropia to provide context and direction for the players.
Player Agency: Ensure players’ efforts have meaningful impacts on the story, avoiding scenarios where their actions feel futile.
Thank you for taking your time to read all of this feedback. I hope it helps improve future AP's.
Hello! Someone alerted me this morning to some issues you've been having with an AP volume I wrote (Pactbreaker, Wardens of Wildwood #1). With the caveat that none of this can be considered official, as the story stopped really being mine as soon as I sent in my final turnover (and with a secondary caveat that it's still probably as official as you're gonna get, since we rarely if ever issue errata on APs), I can at least explain my intentions and try to answer any specific questions you might have.
If you have any other questions or need any further clarification, feel free to reach out and I'll try to help however I can. Sorry to hear about all of the issues you had, but I appreciate the useful criticism.
How far from the Greenwood Gala is Corazal? My intention was to make it 200 miles; that was the impetus for adding fast-moving forest mount animals in the first place. I'm not sure if the change to 50 was a typo or a deliberate edit.
How long has Valenar been running the Lodge? I couldn’t find anywhere stating that he’d been ruling for 17 years, but I can confirm that’s not correct; he was elected in 4700, which puts the length of his tenure at 24 years by present day. *Niktorak's note; This discrepancy is in the Player's Guide.*
Prismati: It does appear that some of the rules were accidentally left out, possibly during copyfit or editing. For example, I can confirm that the base score for a single throw is supposed to be 3 points, minus 1 for each additional catch along the way. I’d be happy to check my original draft if you have any other questions, since it was definitely playable at one point.
Starting Unrest Points: Unrest was intended to start at 1 after the inciting event at the Gala and increase or decrease from there based on the PCs’ actions. Not sure where that went.
Valenar the Green’s Inaction: This is unfortunately one of those “where were the rest of the Avengers during Iron Man 3?” questions that doesn’t really have a satisfactory answer. The overarching story of Wardens of Wildwood is predicated on Valenar being one-shotted at the Gala by something that a group of 5th-level PCs can handle, so the fact that he’s technically a 15th-level NPC kinda gets handwaved. If you want, you have my permission to have him show up at the ceremony all sweaty and disheveled from singlehandedly fighting off an Extreme threat during the boat ride over that left him with only 3 Hit Points.
Valenar the Green’s Reincarnation: Similarly, the story outline didn’t really provide any rationale behind Valenar’s decision to stay dead beyond the “he was ready to retire anyway” explanation you get from Emorga. I can’t really blame you if you want to criticize this as weak storytelling, but the question of how to make death meaningful in a world with resurrection magic has been around for pretty much as long as TTRPGs (which is of course why 2e makes those spells/rituals Uncommon). Incidentally, that’s one way you can justify him staying dead if “dunno, he didn’t answer” isn’t satisfactory; you can either rule that the Reincarnate ritual just doesn’t exist, being Uncommon, or that there’s nobody high enough level around to cast the 7th-rank version you’d need to bring back a level 15 NPC.
Who Did the Thing? OK, I’ll take responsibility for this one. Our story outline didn’t specify who was responsible for the attack, and in fact advised against providing anything more than circumstantial evidence at the scene, since the whole purpose of the inciting event was to set everyone at each other’s throats by making it unclear who was to blame. Initially, one of the quests I wrote for Chapter 2 did involve the PCs tracking down the culprit, only to discover that it was a random act of terrorism committed over a personal grudge that had nothing to do with Andoran, Taldor, Zibik, or the Lodge – but the individual responsible would be killed in the confrontation, leaving the PCs without sufficient proof to convince any of the various factions who’d already decided who they wanted to hold responsible. That quest ended up getting cut for space, because it didn’t move the Unrest needle in any meaningful way and wasn’t really what Chapter 2 was supposed to be about anyway (see below), and was replaced by some evidence the PCs could discover that would implicate an NPC killed in the attack whose methods and motivations would be expanded upon in Book 2. That clearly didn’t end up happening, probably also because of space limitations, so that plot thread ended up dangling unresolved forever (I think – I haven’t read Book 3 yet). Our intention was to create a “when the house is on fire, figuring out who lit the match is secondary at best to extinguishing the flames” scenario, but I totally sympathize with the frustration over never actually getting that answer, even if knowing it ultimately wouldn’t have changed anything.
Flashpoints: The criticism that all of the events in Chapter 2 are isolated events that have no cohesive story arc and don’t advance the overall plot is a fair one, but that’s by design – the direction behind Chapter 2 was to give the PCs a glimpse of things going to hell all over the region, create opportunities for them to improve things (or make them worse), and introduce them to NPCs and locations that might play a part in later volumes. If that feels like a distraction, I guess I can understand where you’re coming from, but I don’t necessarily agree that the flashpoints are a waste of time just because they don’t directly affect the metaplot.
Vote Dynamics: It seems to only have a brief mention in the final book (this may be another unfortunate casualty of things getting cut for space), but Emorga is supposed to be the Lodge’s candidate to succeed Valenar, although she openly states that she only intends to hold the role until the Forest can be restabilized and then appoint a successor of her own. The purpose of the PCs’ actions in the first part of Chapter 3 is to keep the opposition from consolidating around any one of the hawkish candidates so that Emorga can sweep the election herself.
Influence Mechanics: This is also fair criticism, and I can’t really defend it beyond pointing out that the election needs to go the way it does in other for the rest of the Adventure Path to happen. The consolation prize was supposed to be that the Influence you gained while trying to affect the vote would be of use to you later – and it sort of is, at least with some of the NPCs, but probably not to the extent that it should have been. I will say that the other two writers and I did sit down and go over a list of all the NPCs the PCs could gain Influence with in Book 1, expressly so that opportunities for it to play a role could be included in later volumes, but at the end of the day, every book in an Adventure Path has a specific number of plot points it needs to hit and only so many pages to cover all of them.
Aftermath of the Vote: Again, fair criticism, although my intention here was that even after the clear intentions that Ruzadoya lays out in her acceptance speech, things don’t go from zero to war crime immediately; there’s still at least a little time for the PCs and other various good guys to have their “So, uh, how in trouble are we? Should we just cut and run immediately, or is there still a chance to salvage something here? Should we ask Emorga? Where is she, anyway?” conversations before it becomes absolutely clear that, yeah, it’s bad, get out while you can. You can certainly accelerate things, if it makes more sense to you that way.
Downtime Misalignment: Likewise, this can certainly be accelerated if you prefer. My thoughts around downtime at the end of the adventure were based on the idea it would take some time for Ruzadoya to gather her forces and exert full control over what was left of the Lodge, which would give the PCs some time to address non-immediate business of their own. I suppose I could have put an upper limit on the downtime available, but the unspoken intention is that the PCs should have enough time (within reason) to accomplish a few things they didn’t have time to do before, seeing as most of the rest of the volume is on a pretty strict timetable.
Political Response: : This is another valid point, and I unfortunately don’t have much to counter it with other than the dreaded “beyond the scope of this adventure” cheat: in other words, because this is an Adventure Path focused on the Verduran Forest and not Taldan politics, any major Taldan (or Andoren) involvement likely needs to happen offscreen. That said, I would personally argue that Taldor is certainly aware that sending armies into the forest to engage a horde of murderous fey on their home turf would be suicide, so their response would necessarily be limited to providing support to the opposition, which could take a lot of different forms depending on how glowingly Tanasha Starborne describes the PCs to Eutropia (another opportunity for Influence to come into play).
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A few weeks later I reached back out to Andrew to ask him a few more questions about Wardens of Wildwood's later books and he was gracious enough to reply again.
Niktorak: Hey Andrew hope you're doing well.
Quick question about Wardens of Wildwood. Was it ever the intention to have Ruzadoya be the champion of Zibik? (She was mentioned as such in your book) Because by the time we get to the end of book 3 we find out that she's a Graveknight who has no real affiliation with him, he didn't resurrect her and doesn't really know how she came back to life. She's also gaslighting him into destroying the Andoran and Taldor while having her minions kill all of Zibik's speakers in the Blights Wastes while we chase her down. The community is really confused. The Zibikian staff (Artifact we get in book 2 that can kill and regrow large areas of land but it is dangerous to use) is never mentioned in book 3 when it would be instrumental in cleansing Arazul's blight or the fact that it provides no benefit when you're dealing with the final influence encounter of the AP with Zibik where if you get less than 8 influence with him he'll have taken all the lies Ruzadoya told him and destroy and invade Andoran and Taldor.
For clarification it is mentioned that Ruzadoya came back as a Graveknight because of the iron in her blood fusing into her leaf armor and her hatred for those who have despoiled the forest. If she wasn't resurrected by him and is not in the end his champion then what's going on here? If we never find out who or why the terror attack happened her actions don't make any sense with the context of book 3. She's mad I get that but she was killed in just a random act of terror and then just goes on this rampage?
Zebik is like "New phone who dis?" when Ruzadoya arrives and she needs to influence him.
Andrew: So, with the usual caveats that a) nothing I say is official and b) I wasn't part of the writing process for books 2 and 3, beyond a discussion we had about which NPCs from Book 1 might be able to play a role in later volumes:
Was it ever the intention to have Ruzadoya be the champion of Zibik? I don't think so. The relationship between Zibik and Ruzadoya, at least as laid out in the outline we were all working from, basically boiled down to "Ruzadoya wants to manipulate Zibik into pulverizing Andoran and Taldor by convincing him that their existence is an irredeemable affront to nature", knowing that his experience with Ayrzul’s Blight is likely to make him open to the idea that sometimes you just have to wipe a few kingdoms off the map to contain an infection. Zibik was clearly in contact with her, and was listening to what she told him about Golarion, but even if Ruzadoya considered herself to be Zibik's "champion" (even when she's killing his other minions and blaming it on someone else) there's no indication that Zibik did, nor that he had anything to do with bringing her back to life.
If she wasn't resurrected by him and is not in the end his champion when what's going on here? I'm heading into pure speculation territory here because none of this was detailed in the outline, but here's how I would play it: despite the fact that she sees herself as Nature's Avenger, there's nothing any more natural about her than there is any other graveknight, no matter what her armor's made out of. She's an abomination to the natural world, like all undead, and she was reanimated by her own hatred, not by any higher purpose. This has some interesting roleplaying implications, because it means she's been effectively lying to herself as much as she's been lying to Zibik, and forcing her to confront that reality could both shatter her influence over Zibik and force her into a existential crisis.
Why doesn't the Zibikian Staff help you clear Ayrzul's Blight / influence Zibik? It does seem like the staff would be useful in clearing the Blight, but ultimately it makes just as much sense to just rule that since Ayrzul is more powerful than Zibik, Zibik's power to wipe out and regrow vegetation in an area still won't cure it of the Blight. As far as influence is concerned, I would return to the basic theme of the Ruzadoya answer: Zibik really doesn't care about the mortals who worship him nearly as much as they think he does (see also: Splintershank). Trying to talk Zibik out of destroying Golarion by showing him the Staff should have roughly the same effect as trying to convince a kindergarten teacher to lend you $1000 by pulling out a macaroni painting made by one of her students a decade ago.
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Here is the final set of communications we had with Andrew White, this interview was done by my GM prep/review partner UpliftedBrambleBear.
Andrew White: Okay! I have to start with the usual disclaimer that everything I have to say here only reflects my personal opinion unless specifically noted otherwise and is absolutely not Paizo-official in any sense. That being said:
Writing the first volume of a three-part Adventure Path is a little weird, because part of your job is to lay the groundwork for a much longer story that may or may not play out in later volumes the way you’re imagining it might, and that’s even before taking into account all of the different choices that the players could make. All three of the writers for this AP were provided with a basic outline which laid out the main events in the story before any of us started writing, and we did have a couple of conversations while I was writing my volume and theirs were in their planning stages, but I don’t know anything about what specific instructions they might have been given that weren’t in that outline, or what could have been in their original turnovers that ended up needing to be changed significantly or cut for space. In other words, when it comes to talking about the story of this Adventure Path as a whole, all I can really do is provide insights based on how I personally envisioned everything playing out, which is not necessarily how it actually did, or even how it was intended to. (This is absolutely not a value judgment on any choices the developers or the other authors made, by the way; the stories contained in those other volumes were theirs to tell, not mine, and I think they all did an awesome job.)
As I saw it, Wardens of Wildwood has a couple of major themes:
This is civil war, with everything that implies. This a story about a society of people and creatures who were deeply divided on a specific issue but who mostly managed to function harmoniously in spite of it – until they didn’t. One thing I wanted to make sure I incorporated was the whole brother-against-brother trope which is a classic component of civil war stories, which is why I gave the PCs the opportunity to gain reputation with and potentially befriend NPCs who were destined to become villains later in the story or just end up as collateral damage. I originally had notes in the section about Inrik Vanderholl recommending that GMs go out of their way to encourage the players to like him, just so it would hit harder when they potentially had to fight him at the end of the book.
This war was always going to happen, and the circumstances that actually started it are barely important in the grand scheme of things. I mentioned in my original response that I had intended for the inciting incident that killed Valenar to be driven by a personal grudge that had nothing at all to do with the Verduran-Andoran-Taldor conflict, similar to the way World War I was effectively started by some random idiot who had nothing to do with any of the global powers that would eventually go to war over his actions. (In retrospect, I wish that I had emphasized that more; it might have been interesting to suggest that each GM running the adventure make up their own lone nutjob instead of scattering breadcrumbs pointing to a story resolution that, as it turned out, would never actually come.) The whole point of the Greenwood Massacre is that there is no immediately obvious perpetrator, and that by the time the PCs figure out who’s actually responsible (if they ever do), everyone has already picked sides and there’s no way to stop what’s coming. A whole lot of people were already looking for an excuse to fight, and now that they have it, there’s no going back.
Everyone thinks they’re the hero. The original outline was a little hand-wavey on exactly who or what was responsible for Ruzadoya’s return other than implying that it was somehow “primal” or “elemental” in nature, but in my mind, she was never Zibik’s Chosen, or Nature’s Vengeance, or anything other than just another undead monstrosity reanimated by her own hate, and despite the fact that her graveknight armor is made of wood, she’s just as much anathema to the natural world as any other undead being. Because she died meaninglessly in a random tragedy before she could act on her strong convictions regarding the Treaty of the Wildwood, though, she’s unable to accept that, instead choosing to believe that she must have come back for some Greater Purpose and blinding herself to the reality that her actions are wreaking more destruction on the forest she supposedly champions than Andoran or Taldor ever did.
Alliances matter. One of the reasons there are so many influenceable NPCs in Chapter 1 and assistable NPCs in Chapter 2 is that I envisioned opportunities for the PCs’ relationships with them to factor more into later books, with their willingness or ability to help being affected by how effectively you had assisted or influenced them. What I didn’t take into account is that this becomes a problem in execution, because it’s hard to justify devoting much page space in those later volumes to relationships that the PCs might not actually have established in the first place. (I don’t know for certain that this is why most of those NPCs didn’t play a larger role beyond Book 1, but it would make sense.)
Bramble: The thing that sticks out in my mind the most looking back at the story is that Vandalya Swiftmane, who is introduced with her sister, shares such a minor role in all of the story. This to me was such a missed opportunity…
Andrew White: Vandalya wasn’t in the original outline; I made her up because I thought it would create some cool story/roleplay opportunities and tie into the whole brother-against-brother theme (sister-against-sister, in this case), but I didn’t actually have any concrete plans as to how that would play out – in fact, when I wrote the sequence with her potentially joining the PCs at the end of Chapter 3, I included a note saying that I didn’t actually even know whether she was being truthful or would eventually betray the PCs, and communicated as much to the author of Book 2 when we were talking about NPCs that could carry over. I do agree that it would have been cool if she’d played a larger role, but since she’s not guaranteed to join the PCs at all, I can understand why she didn’t (see “Alliances matter”, above). There’s certainly nothing stopping GMs from using her however they want, of course.
Bramble: Zibik already knows Ruzadoya is undead but still talks with her anyway. He knows she isn’t part of the cycle and that he didn’t have any connection with her, and her forces are killing his speakers. I saw your response that they were never meant to be associated with one another, yet she seeks him out directly to convince him to come and destroy the two countries.
Andrew White: I wouldn’t necessarily claim “they were never meant to be associated with one another” so much as say that the outline we were all working from was fuzzy on the details of what their relationship was supposed to be, and didn’t provide much beyond stating that Ruzadoya would have learned about Zibik from the Ghoran artifacts she’d uncovered and decided to seek him out in order to try and convince him to destroy civilization. I can’t speak for the intentions of the other writers, but I do feel like the finished result is still pretty vague on that point if you’re willing to recognize that a lot of the NPCs in this adventure are unreliable narrators. Ruzadoya wants to have a special connection with Zibik because that fits neatly into the hero narrative she’s created for herself. He’s a powerful demigod of nature with the power to level the civilization she’s sworn to destroy; surely he’s the one who brought her back, probably as part of some grand plan which just so happens to dovetail with what Ruzadoya herself wants.
As for Zibik himself, I feel like he largely just … doesn’t particularly feel strongly one way or the other about mortal affairs. Additionally, because he’s so strongly associated with the cycle of death, decay, and rebirth, he doesn’t even particularly see the killing of his speakers as a dealbreaker because, well, it’s all part of the cycle. Ruzadoya is obviously not a part of that cycle, but Zibik doesn’t seem the type to get bent out of shape over that the way, say, Pharasma would. Similar to when the PCs encounter him at the end of Book 3, he seems like the type to at least consider what just about anyone has to say, as long as they’re not openly hostile and willing to show him some measure of respect.
Bramble: I feel like this was an attempt by an editor to try and tie things together at the last moment to justify that part of the story. Was the production and finishing of the module offset by the all hands on deck rush for the ORC and what was happening in response to get the remaster out?
Andrew White: I wasn’t part of the development process, but I doubt it. There are a few mechanical oddities here and there that may have been a side effect of the books having been originally written with OGL material and then converted to ORC compatibility later, but I don’t think there’s any reason to think it affected the overall story. I think a few things may have been cut for space that might have provided some additional context or clarified some lingering questions, but that’s unfortunately a necessary evil of trying to fit a lot of material into a predetermined page count.
Bramble: The connection is mentioned between Ruzadoya and Zibiki too many times to dismiss at the end where it says there was nothing to connect them, characters mention that they are connected, reinforcing it throughout the story and the descriptions of the chapters keep mentioning it. It feels like an editor had a hand in misleading the DM constantly for the sake of keeping us invested in something that never pays off or sees a satisfying conclusion for that major story beat. I’m just confused at this point.
Andrew White: Yeah, I get that. (I definitely don’t think it’s something to lay at the editors’ feet, though; they’re great at what they do, and what they do is edit TTRPG material.) I do agree with you that it would be narratively unsatisfying to outright dismiss the connection between Ruzadoya and Zibik after it’s been such a major theme of the rest of the story, but that’s not really what I’m suggesting. I think it’s equally powerful, if not moreso, to have the villain’s great and meaningful destiny built up over the full length of the adventure, only to discover at some pivotal moment that it’s all a lie. Think of the revelation in “The Last Jedi” that despite all of the hinting in the previous movie that Rey had some mysterious and powerful lineage, she’s actually just the daughter of two random vagrants of no importance whatsoever. (You know, if they’d stuck with that and hadn’t immediately undone it in the next movie.)
Bramble: The back matter of book 3 is an absolute wealth of possibilities, but knowing it will take a year or more to reach this point of the campaign a lot of them seem like let downs. Having the entire campaign restart was mentioned, and I just shuttered at that one. What is in your opinion the absolute best ending for Wardens of Wildwood?
Andrew White: If we’re willing to accept my “Ruzadoya isn’t special and is in fact the antithesis of everything she believes she stands for” premise, my ideal headcanon ending would involve the PCs forcing her to face the truth and driving her into an existential crisis, resulting in her destroying herself – which, as you may recall, she promises to do in her big speech to the Conclave in Chapter 3 of Book 1 (foreshadowing!) The PCs still need a boss fight, of course, so the final encounter would remain more or less the same, only instead of dying at 0 hp, she makes a last-ditch attempt to channel the blight from the labyrinth around her in order to restore her strength, threatening to corrupt the conduit she and Zibik have established between the Plane of Wood and the Universe in a way that would spread Ayzrul’s Blight into the Verduran Forest itself. This would provide the PCs (or potentially Vandalya) with an opportunity to leverage their prior relationship with her to make her see what she’s become – or, alternatively, to convince Zibik that she’s a dangerous abomination that needs to be stopped even if what she’s told Zibik is true, whereupon he destroys her himself.
Once Ruzadoya’s gone, I’d play things out as written, only without the loose end dangling of what happens to her armor. All Adventure Paths do have a canon ending, and I don’t know what this one is supposed to be (it may be one or more of the PCs assuming control of the Lodge), but having someone like Vandalya take over would be an interesting development, assuming she’s had some time to develop as a character.
Bramble: Was there anything about Ruzadoya you would have added now that you’ve seen the adventure complete?
Andrew White: In retrospect, I wish I’d found a way to give the PCs more opportunities to forge a relationship with her while she was still alive. I’d also probably have tried to flesh out Vandalya a bit more and allowed her both to distinguish herself as a character and to provide some deeper insight into Ruzadoya’s motivations. Mostly, though, I’d have liked to explore the idea that she was so desperate to attribute some purpose to her own meaningless death that she’d deluded herself into believing she had some grand destiny, and was failing to notice even as it destroyed everything she’d held dear in life. There are a lot of ways we could have foreshadowed that, even while continuing to feature NPCs who believed Ruzadoya’s own hype.
Bramble: Why would the Druids obey this order knowing full well they’d lose their powers in doing so? They really feel helpless depending on someone who is so obviously against the things they are meant to protect and conserve. My personal feelings aside from everything else, the anathema is the one thing I cannot overlook.
Andrew White: One of the goals specifically mentioned in the outline we all received was to dig a little deeper into why it’s forbidden for druids to teach Druidic/Wildsong to non-druids, with the implication being that it’s just flat-out dangerous to do so, as detailed at the end of Book 3. As to why the druids in Book 2 would violate their anathema to do it anyway – it seems entirely plausible that they’re just true believers who are willing to sacrifice their own power for what they consider to be the greater good. After all, they’ve already compromised some of their ideals to join Ruzadoya in the first place, and compared to some of the atrocities they and the rest of her followers will have already been party to by this point, this one’s pretty minor in the grand scheme of things.
Bramble: Because of your effort in reaching out to us and answering our questions made the experience that much better, and gave a lot of us clarification on things that constantly came up that we were confused with. I really hope Paizo does something where you or a position can come to fruition that the community will stand to benefit from having more transparency like this, even if it isn’t in an official capacity. You’ve been a champion sir, thank you for everything you have done for us.
Andrew White: I’m glad I could help! I put a lot of work into writing my volume and thinking about the overall story of the Adventure Path, so I’m definitely motivated to do what I can to help anyone who’s playing through it get more out of their experience. I don’t think it’s really something that’ll likely ever become official – especially in the case of an Adventure Path, since no one person can ever reliably speak to the intentions of three writers, a development team, and all of the people in our creative department who were responsible for the idea behind it in the first place – but I’m certainly happy to share my own insights on projects I’ve worked on, as long as it’s understood that they’re just personal opinions that don’t necessarily reflect those of the company as a whole or any of the other people involved in the creation of the adventure. James Jacobs, one of our Creative Directors and the original creator of Golarion, has a whole thread on our forums where he answers questions like this, and while even his answers can’t be considered official lore until they show up in a print book, they’re still a lot of fun to read!
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I kinda assumed that if OGL had part in what feels off about the AP, its more of "staff was stressed and tense in general" that "they needed in crunch time to edit the ap" way tbh.
Overall the AP has similar problems lot of aps even in 1e have, just exacerbated by apparently having lot of things cut for page count and those things happening to be connected to stuff that doesn't feel "minor". Like you can sometimes tell in ap volumes that "huh this part feels bit off, I guess something got cut and author wanted to go deeper" but they are often minor things from main story perspective.
Creative Director
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I kinda assumed that if OGL had part in what feels off about the AP, its more of "staff was stressed and tense in general" that "they needed in crunch time to edit the ap" way tbh.
Overall the AP has similar problems lot of aps even in 1e have, just exacerbated by apparently having lot of things cut for page count and those things happening to be connected to stuff that doesn't feel "minor". Like you can sometimes tell in ap volumes that "huh this part feels bit off, I guess something got cut and author wanted to go deeper" but they are often minor things from main story perspective.
The stress on us is a SIGNIFICANT factor. For a month at the start, for example, I was looking at the very real possibility that Seven Dooms for Sandpoint would have to be scrapped, so the biggest adventure I ever wrote and one I wanted to create for many years would never see the light of day. That sort of psychological distraction is just one way the whole OGL thing threw us into chaos. It's a LOT more than "we have to find something to replace the owlbear with." And for the Narrative team in particular, it lasted longer, since the Rules were the first to be focused on. We had several months of "hurry up and wait" in how we were going to handle things.
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Yeaah that doesn't sound like most fruitful atmosphere to work in. Its kinda hard to imagine that didn't have any impact on anything.
I do sometimes wonder if three part aps suffer more from "they are written around same time" thing since at least in theory in six parts aps you'd think later book authors would have time to read earlier book drafts if authors communicate on them, but even if they did communicate it would be hard to take something in account that might get cut for page count.
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Creative Director
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Yeaah that doesn't sound like most fruitful atmosphere to work in. Its kinda hard to imagine that didn't have any impact on anything.
I do sometimes wonder if three part aps suffer more from "they are written around same time" thing since at least in theory in six parts aps you'd think later book authors would have time to read earlier book drafts if authors communicate on them, but even if they did communicate it would be hard to take something in account that might get cut for page count.
Honestly... I think it's a case of "these three parts are three separate books" more than anything else. We do try REALLY HARD to make the whole thing run together, but in the end we also have to make each one stand alone, because there are some folks who only run one or two books or use them for other purposes. This also prevents us from being able to really do a lot of "see book ### page ###" because we are concerned that some readers might not have access to all of the parts of an Adventure Path in the future for whatever reason.
Making each volume capable of being self-contained for those reasons results in some sacrifices, and when we do compile into hardcovers, we can then go back and adjust as needed... but that doesn't happen for the vast majority of Adventure Paths.
Having them written around the same time HELPS us do this. For much of 1st edition, we weren't able to do this for scheduling (or lack of scheduling) reasons, and we often got to part 4 or 5 or 6 after part 1 was more or less locked in and have a lot of complications. The worst case of this was, of course, our very first one, Shackled City, which is the only Adventure Path to be completed without an outline at the start.
That said, authors rarely get to read the previous volume before they start their volume. That sort of luxury isn't something a monthly product can afford. The job of reading things in order and making them fit together for an adventure path falls to the lead developer, who future proofs against complications there by creating the entire outline and advising the writers, and who patches up as best they can after writing is done during development (which can result in the need to rewrite portions of adventures in worst-case scenarios).
All of which is to say that building Adventure Paths is very complicated, and that complication factor increases dramatically if you do it on a monthly schedule.
And when you disrupt that machinery by having an almost entire chagne-over of a team, or a disruptive event like the OGL crisis, it makes things even more complicated.
In this case, we had that happen back to back, pretty much affecting things from Blood Lords to Curtain Call.
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...but in the end we also have to make each one stand alone, because there are some folks who only run one or two books or use them for other purposes ... Making each volume capable of being self-contained for those reasons results in some sacrifices....
The notion that each entry in an Adventure Path is treated as a stand-alone, self-contained module is very strange to me, and perhaps explains why I have been gradually falling out of love with the AP line. Has this always been the modus operandi, or is it a recent development in line with changes to the business model?
Sacrificing campaign cohesion to appease some lunatic who only buys 1 book in a 3/6 part AP is straight-up bizarre. :s
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...but in the end we also have to make each one stand alone, because there are some folks who only run one or two books or use them for other purposes ... Making each volume capable of being self-contained for those reasons results in some sacrifices....The notion that each entry in an Adventure Path is treated as a stand-alone, self-contained module is very strange to me, and perhaps explains why I have been gradually falling out of love with the AP line. Has this always been the modus operandi, or is it a recent development in line with changes to the business model?
Sacrificing campaign cohesion to appease some lunatic who only buys 1 book in a 3/6 part AP is straight-up bizarre. :s
Yea, reading that was a bit baffling to me. If you want to have thing be standalone do more with the Adventure line, not the AP's. I subscribe to get the modules but if this is what we're to expect going forward I'm not sure I want to keep it active. I came over from 5e after our group finished Decent into Avernus. The biggest reason I dropped Wardens of Wildwood midway though for my group was because it kept reminding me of that campaign, awesome set pieces, great interesting systems, terrible connective tissue and a missing resolution.
If we're to expect light threads connecting theses AP's because we need to make them contained for anyone to pick it up and run one book then I have a hard time wanting to invest my time and money into the AP line.
I'm going to continue reviewing up to Triumph of the Tusk, if things are not better by then I think it'll be time for me to hang-up the AP sub.
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Creative Director
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...but in the end we also have to make each one stand alone, because there are some folks who only run one or two books or use them for other purposes ... Making each volume capable of being self-contained for those reasons results in some sacrifices....The notion that each entry in an Adventure Path is treated as a stand-alone, self-contained module is very strange to me, and perhaps explains why I have been gradually falling out of love with the AP line. Has this always been the modus operandi, or is it a recent development in line with changes to the business model?
Sacrificing campaign cohesion to appease some lunatic who only buys 1 book in a 3/6 part AP is straight-up bizarre. :s
It's always been a factor, yes, because each book is a separate entity. Not only do some people use individual books on their own and not run them as part of a full campaign, but I think more often, folks who come to an adventure path later might be faced with not having access to all of the parts if some volumes sold out and they're not comfortable or able to go the PDF route.
That said... please avoid using phrases like "...to appease some lunatic..." because that's not very constructive and welcoming.
Also, print products are not for "just one person." They have to be for as many people as we can in order to maximize their value across a wide range of folks. The right way to play an adventure for group 1 is not the right way for group 2 or group 10, and all of them are legit options.
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Creative Director
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And to clarify: While "we need to keep in mind that any single volume of the Adventure Path line might be someone's first book in the line" is important... the primary goal we pursue as developers is to make the whole thing as cohesive and as appealing to run as a full campaign. Making sure an Advneture Path's individual books stand alone is still something we consider... but to a MUCH less extent than we used to. Back in the early days, we kinda adopted the approach of "Each volume should be something we could adjust at the last minute to be the climax of the story becuase we don't know if we'll be in business long enough to see it through." Those days are thankuflly long behind us.
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Creative Director
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ONE MORE THING
I'd love to hear feedback from folks who are using and playing the latest Starfinder adventure paths, which ARE presented from day 1 as a single book, rather than multiple books.
And for that matter, Pathfinder 200, Seven Dooms for Sandpoint, which does the same.
Are folks' concerns about disparity between volumes lessened in those cases?