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This is a spoiler-filled resource thread for the Curtain Call: Singer, Stalker, Skinsaw Man , written by Kendra Leigh Speedling.
I'm interested to see what other DMs have thought of the material, and what they have changed. Here is our collaborated prep with Niktorak and Ironbear. My direct feedback on the whole of Book 2 to follow with emphasis on chapter 2 since it is the bulk of the book's material.
Siege of Songs Chapter 1
Setting the Stage Chapter 2 Part 1
Setting the Stage Chapter 2 Part 2
All In! Chapter 3
Stitcher's Redoubt Chapter 4
Creative Director
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I am confused about the Finding Oriole research task. There doesnt seem to be any limit on the number of checks a group can make and so no way you can fail to reach 12 RP eventually. Is it intended that each PC only gets to make each check once?
The PCs can attempt as many checks as they want, and so if they're persistent the only thing standing in their way of reaching the full 14 RP (not 12 RP) for this research task is time spent. Or perhaps an inability to achieve successes with one of the four research options, I suppose, but that's unlikely. The PCs are, of course, free to set out for the Shackles at any point before they accumulate all possible RP.
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Creative Director
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A bit more on the above topic:
Since there's no real penalty for taking days to gather up this information, you could simply provide it all to the PCs for free as a handout or simply by speaking it aloud... but I feel that having the players be active in the gathering of the information, and by letting them roll dice, that they feel more agency in pursuing the information and are thus more likely to pay attention and remember things... and the XP reward will feel more "earned".
It's sort of a variant to our method of listing "likely questions and NPC answers" not as read-aloud text, in hopes of encouraging a back and forth between the players and the GM, since that sort of interactive play is more engaging than listening to a GM monologue several hundred words of written text.
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Here is my excessively long feedback on Book 2, before I knew it I had written about nine pages.
Chapter 1 Makes the siege sound extremely time driven, but even failing to meet the threshold or timed nature works in the players favor as waiting out a control weather spell the dragon has cast will make their job easier. Defeating the dragon doesn’t influence Oriole at all. Seeing a dead dragon in her house doesn’t shake her one bit. Even as an actress she isn’t putting on a farce, she just doesn’t care.
Having to perform for her is of little consequence since success or failure yields the same results as securing the Opera house from Zacherin. The impromptu scene isn’t fun, and we’re given the disadvantage of breaking any of Oriole’s possessions including the animated statues will result in penalties to checks here. She even makes us break a table in front of her for the scene so that a penalty will be applied regardless of how much care is taken in the siege.
Chapter 2 outright proves to me paizo does not respect Player’s money or time. This chapter is completely driven by subsystems instead of substance that is easy to latch onto and enjoy. It’s generally frustrating to guide players through an experience that’s completely Victory Point driven not once, but
Influencing the sponsors(8 with minor combats possible) are influencing encounters of 6-8 points each or simply fulfill a condition or demand for an auto success. Casting the actors(8 NPCs-24 VP possible), selecting a composer(3 possible with travel time outside of Kintargo-9 VP each, but choose only 1)
Perspective Paintings(10 VP Possible), Replica Props(Includes Downtime activity to locate and 3 VP during a single attempt), Bird in the Hand (Numerous Days and Checks), Flowers to Dye for (Moderate Encounter and the ONLY true combat in chapter 2), Astounding Effects (15 VP possible and cannot be skipped), A Scandalous Affair (Dual Influence for 8 possible).
Investigate the Damaged Set(15 AP), Preparation Activities(5 of which are all downtime, but not labeled so), Chase Obstacles?(Group activity 12), Complications (Some of which can occur multiple times 3), Opportunities(1 and it is slated as a single time advantage), Interrogations (Auto success)
Rehearsal Events(7 activities with multiple parts requiring checks) In one event success means you lose Production Point for unmasking Fenton before he can perform the plot necessary kidnapping. So if you have an Investigator in your party with “That’s Odd” you lose out by succeeding and being competent at their class.
Everytime you see a subsystem in Chapter 2, take a drink.
There is no structure here save for a loose timeline of the goal that Oriole will be kidnapped, and she needs to be taken. Not for the Opera and getting tension for the plotline, but for the Norgerbor plot that has yet to happen, be explained, or even explored this far into the story. In fact the players don’t even know it’s going to happen this late in the AP. It’s just another plot on top of what we already have all going on at once, which is distracting.
This story doesn’t need a red herring. We don’t need to distract from the main plot of Curtain Call, because the narrative is already confused enough about what the player needs to focus on. With so many things on the players plate, a red herring isn’t going to have any impact. Paizo has fallen into the trap of ‘the intrusion of unwarranted matter’ that could have been cut to actually develop one of the other plot threads more fully. Just because you can include a red herring, doesn’t mean you should for the sake of seeding another adventure.
We’ve already been sufficiently distracted, and the investigation of the cult is another 2 subsystems and time better spent elsewhere. Subsystems are not substance in a narrative, and ttrpgs while being about rolling dice provide no meaningful experience with them outside of a number which doesn’t convey the effort of roleplay or mastery of a class from a player, just a rng roll. They were never meant to carry the narrative. They aren’t a storytelling device. This chapter is so mechanically focused it loses the magic it’s trying to do with the production build up. This is obvious when things like the bird Oriole wants are never mentioned again.
We’re not producers past the point of securing sponsors, and that fun portion of the chapter is short lived. After which we’re treated to 12+ pages of giving us smaller tasks all broken up all over the world to fetch items needed for the Opera, only they aren’t truly needed. The dreaded goal of Production Points is over our heads and if we fail to accomplish these tasks we don’t meet a threshold of PP, or worse yet outright loose PP whose effect we still don’t fully understand in another book. We were told these adventures were supposed to be self-contained, and yet Production Points get no use or explanation as they are awarded to us for Book 2 activities. That’s bad design.
None of these experiences are leaving a lasting impression or even confer that they’ve contributed to the Opera outside of a Meta subsystem. Fallenta whom we’ve given a new chance at life, and fully satisfied is not seen in this chapter outside of the “Get this for me, or this person needs something”. She’s condemned to their background now, and we never got the meeting for a script being done, only that the audition and sponsors needed to be gathered. Also everything she is asking for can be gotten without effort but confers no Production Points in return or reduces your PP. And we all want big PP energy by the end of the adventure. If our PP is too small the Opera may be ruined.
Furthermore players can even bleed Production Points with no maximum loss listed in the activity, till it hits 0 with the research event for a special effect that is mandatory. I don’t enjoy the premise of my PP bleeding out. There it is, the whimsical horror we were promised.
Still the players are meant not to suspect anything of Fenton. Something many of them may have guessed from the first time Fenton jumps scares them in his introduction, or the more obvious leaving behind a drawing of dissecting Oriole. Blessed by Norgorber and he still makes amateur mistakes.
In fact several times in Chapter 2 we are punished for successfully identifying Fenton as a threat, because surprise we can’t unmask him without losing Production Points. My precious PP was taken by Fenton. There is even the added distraction of him trying to be a ghost or an ashen man cultist to cause trouble. This adds nothing, it’s filler.
The midnight Oriole didn’t convey anything about the actress being taken, and speaking with animals could have been used to convey Fenton was here. I got this bird for Oriole with significant effort and it is useless to the plot other than granting 1 Production Point. The set up here was completely ignored.
It’s like the writer doesn’t remember, the editors don’t realize, and the creative director doesn’t do second read throughs. This ensures the effort and experience the player accomplishes in this responsibility- or as the module calls it a ‘sub-responsibility’, we’re left feeling like our previous work was for naught. Hence we’ve distanced ourselves from a meaningful contribution, at least here in investigating after the fact. This isn’t too bad, because it’s all a minor contribution. Just like Grandmama who never shows up to help Oriole. She’s probably enjoying her new manor now that Oriole is gone. Chapter 2 definitely overstays its welcome and took 6+ hours to prep alone none of which is content players will appreciate with their persona traits being used twice and never again. Once for a random event, and the second time being to pick an actor.
Chapter 3 Kintargo investigations are short, so it’s already clear the players aren’t meant to be here anymore. Alright, back to Vyre.
The thing that is most communicated about Fenton is that he is an antisocial man who keeps to himself and his work. Yet when we start asking questions he sticks out in so many people’s memories after all these years having talked to them. Apparently he was the most outgoing and social introvert I’ve ever heard of.
Not only did he frequent many establishments he was outright sloppy with those who remembered him. As a powerful spellcaster he just galivants wherever he pleases and even incurred substantial gambling debt. How convenient that such an intelligent man, blessed by Norgorber in fact, is so sloppy at what he does where-ever he does it.
Eventually we get to the wax museum for what I think is the highlight of the bad narrative in this book. First as the DM, we are told “He didn’t know then and doesn’t know now that Fenton is a Norgorberite”, the old man who trained Fenton has no idea he is a Norgorberite. Okay good, we’ve established this.
Several paragraphs down, “ If the Norgorberites warned him, he instead begins two obstacles ahead of the PCs in the chase.”. Excuse me, we just established he knows nothing, and yet followers of Norgorber have the ability to warn this man. Why would they? He isn’t involved with Norgorber, we just established that. The five editors read this, and a writer wrote this. Even the Creative Director doing his final pass saw this passage.
Now he runs for a chase subsystem. A simple fly spell or dimension door is capable of ending everything as all the obstacles are terrestrial, and seeing him from above spoils the directions of a man on foot communicating with others on his path. Players are too high level for this to be considered obstacles, and randoms coming off the street to rob them is laughable.
The players also have spells like the rituals from book 1 chapter 3 that can just find this man, unless he makes it to the ship. If he gets away from the chase, and that’s a big if; he sails off to Norgorber knows where. It’s not Kintargo, and it’s not even conveyed by the adventure. This man can successfully take himself beyond the scope of this adventure.
Now at The Final Throw we have a subsystem cage match involving a gambling game, a pet show, and a dragon battle. This part seems to be making up for all the action that didn’t happen in the previous chapter.
The gambling devil is extremely interesting, more so than Fenton in fact. His whole backstory is better than the kidnapping main plot. Needing to bankrupt 10,000 people in order to escape the casino due to the owner winning against him is a fantastic bit of characterization, and I love it. A shame the wildcard persona doesn’t contribute anything here to dealing with him.
‘Best in Show’ doesn’t use the protector persona, another missed opportunity since you are looking out for the raptor and it’s a solo deal.
No persona traits for the dragon fight, and it’s flourish opportunities either. We don’t seem to be using these traits anymore. This is a display of who the PCs are and how the people see them. This was their moment to shine in the adventure and they are strangely absent in front of an actual audience this time.
Chapter 4 is the climax and the shortest chapter. Too much happens in too little time and we’re left feeling like we failed. A pyrrhic victory for the players leaves them shaking their heads wondering why Norgorber wanted to disrupt their Opera.
Niallana’s fate relies so much on the players instantly recognizing her from a portrait they see once in Vyre’s playhouse that it boggles me how they remember, other than the adventure needs them to do so. It’s cheap, and lazy. We didn’t discover her to be anything to Fenton. We’re told she became a traveling minstrel as the reason for leaving with no indication otherwise at the time. The players don’t know Fenton’s done this before until we get down to the altar room with the big wall of evidence. There is no indication for the DM to focus on the portrait and remind the players of it other than his hand on her shoulder. A shame the player’s persona traits don’t help here, the scholar could have noticed something.
Iron Bear mentioned this during discussion: “The players have no reason to question the information that they're given. The problem is that if you're going to write this as protagonists on the trail of a serial killer, they're supposed to have reason to question it. It could have been literally anything--the PCs finding Naillana's address in Fenton's old apartment leading them to a scene where she clearly didn't pack like she was leaving, for instance. An invitation from Fenton to Niallana to meet at the textile factory. Literally anything. It's an opportunity wasted by the page space all the side quests and subsystems take up.”
Now Fenton dies in a 25x35 room with a chest in it like a common orc (sorry Triumph of the Tusk), because he got greedy and wanted to act out his favorite Opera ‘The Little Mermaid’ and take Oriole’s voice. Oh the poor unfortunate soul. Norgorber sets up the perfect joke and doesn’t use it. After all that work earning my Production Points and he makes a generic quip. I’m not sharing my PP with you Norgorber, flirting subsystem or not.
Fenton doesn’t behave like he is described by the backmatter or Oriole would have been dead already. It’s a completely different Fenton, much like Fallenta in Book 1. He’s become a vessel for the narrative to drive the plot. That’s why he never acts genuine for the role of a serial killer leaving an obvious trail all over town. That is not sufficient in an adventure of this scale. Absence of disbelief strikes again.
Fenton sets himself up to fail and he deserves this death. How he became blessed by Norgorber is anyone’s guess, and the back matter doesn’t explain it at all. A few lucky awkward murders as his side hussle and he got a big head. He’s accomplished nothing with his time here and it’s going to end in his little tailor shop of horrors. There is so much money stockpiled here in the chest and desk, Fenton could have paid his gambling debt at any time.
Once Oriole is rescued we just keep going on like we just didn’t just meet the God of Murder. This didn’t need to happen. It isn’t satisfying storytelling and anything you are trying to set up in book 3 will fall flat without establishing this relationship with the players. Norgorber will just be another NPC. This is Amazon rings of power bad. This is bad on the level of the Acolyte. You can’t write like this and expect people to appreciate a character popping out of the void and disappearing just as quickly.
The intention here is that paizo is aiming for a second climax in Book 3. One for the Opera and one for Norgorber. The AP breaks with dramatic convention due to the sheer number of plot threads it cannot tie together outside of a subsystem framework meant to make the players use time and resources in order to acquire Production Points. We won’t even have those thresholds or effects till the 3rd book, so it’s a vague indicator that things are going well as the PP number gets bigger. And we want a big PP for everyone that is coming to see ‘our’ Opera.
Final Thoughts and suggestions:
If you plan to make the entirety of your story and the player’s contribution relies ultimately on subsystems, then at least space them out with pacing the chapter. Don’t make them back to back and certainly not the only condition with which the player can succeed or make progress in a chapter of active ‘downtime’. The entirety of the second chapter is just all subsystems with one true combat encounter.
The lack of a cohesive storyline and pacing issues in this book relies on advancing the Opera’s development towards Oriole’s kidnapping. This leaves me with the impression that this gameplay is fragmented at best by those same supporting subsystems, they work against the DM to keep things on track.
The reliance on subsystems to make this much progress is cumbersome, and having so many of them in chapter 2 while overwhelming the players makes the DM sit there and play accountant to Production Points, Investigation Points, Research Points, etc. That’s not fun for me in the DM role.
Here without skipping some events for Kintargo it’s all rather dry and uninteresting as these numerous NPCs outpace the interest of the final product, which is the player’s Opera. Now I have that many actors, sponsors, and fetch quests before even meeting Fenton or conducting a deeper look into the Ashen Man cult which of course goes nowhere.
Testing things past the It’s functional enough to ship stage is something that comes up alot in our preps. The difference between this adventure and Wardens of Wildwood is a gap that is widening farther in this book. Curtain Call is failing even to match that level of Wardens now, with the distance of Seasons of Ghosts level of enjoyment looking unobtainable despite the previous campaign of 1-10 necessary to draw upon. It doesn’t build on that experience, it tears it down and cheapens it.
My biggest disconnect is that Oriole and like Fenton are intelligent and experienced until the adventure as it plays out, nor do they display these qualities. Fenton pretends to be a ghost in an Opera house with Zacherin who can detect undead if the PCs cannot. Oriole can’t function because the plot wants them to be kidnapped, or the narrative wants Fenton to be found. Suspension of disbelief is fine, but the adventure stretches this rather thin.
The backmatter supports these characters, and like Fallenta the adventure betrays their nature. Fenton is sloppy, Oriole is aloof, and Fallenta fades into the background to suddenly become silent despite her recommended actress disappearing. She doesn’t even offer to join the effort to find her, outside of getting an understudy ready we know we’re not going to use.
It doesn’t make sense. The blade witch left town for the entire AP if you alert her, and she’s a teenager with a cult following her work devoted to keeping her safe. She has a forge on the 2nd floor of an apartment complex that is occupied in town, and no one knows about it despite all the other tenants. Fenton is outdone by a teenager. Not sure how a teenager with a cult following is also better than a Dwarf with years of experience and an entire factory behind him at blacksmithing, but that’s on the adventure to fail to explain, and not me.
The best Fenton can do is say he works for Fallenta and not the players, and while out to talk to Fallenta he runs off. What a master of deception. Bold of the writer to assume players would leave him alone to run off. Too much hinges on this man, and having him be costume director isn’t a liability but a reward. Revealing him, at least too early, is a hindrance.
The reason why there is pay off in a story is because you make the audience, and in this case the players, a means of understanding and participating in a meaningful way. We have so little investment in the Norgorber plot that whatever is coming isn’t related to the players. The adventure successfully removes and distances the players so much from the actual plot that matters, which is Norgorber and Godsrain.
Saving Oriole is a huge contribution, and climax of the chapter and book, leading into the next one. We have no way to convey what’s happened to Oriole other than she was outclassed by the stalker she claimed to be prepared to deal with. She’s been exploited and nearly killed, but still good to go, which is bullocks. That’s so completely absent of disbelief.
Badly edited sections and entries. We found them by clearly just reading the adventure. Again I’m not going to bother pointing them out. It’s wasted effort when there are no erratas for adventures.
Things that really aren’t here anymore:
Personas. Those roles on how people see the players don’t contribute much at all. We have them because they match up to Actors who play us, and little if not much else for minor bonuses in the subsystems.
There was so much more potential to use them, with The Last Throw and everything else happening in chapter 3. We simply let them slip away. Hopefully in Book 3 we use them in full force to showcase the players and their importance in Norgorber’s story, I mean our Opera.
No wildcard bonus for the gambling devil feels like a huge missed opportunity for The Final Throw. Players with the Scholar trait can’t notice details others overlook when trailing Fenton. Guardian Persona doesn’t realize anything looking at Niallana or get a bad feeling she isn’t traveling abroad. Underdog persona doesn’t know the old man at the wax museum will bolt. The flirt can’t see anything odd about Fenton or that he’s bad news for relationships - It’s all just a waste.
The Nemesis is strangely absent in this book. I was hoping the ghost sightings in the Opera house were going to be it, and it was just Fenton again.
The chaotic cacophony of plot threads all woven together in a big knot, masqueraded as a blanket to cover up the premise of the adventure is simply not able to carry a story beat; or bring the players to focus on what matters. I cannot have my players just collect points for 10 sessions in a single chapter, it trivializes the experience of an adventure when it’s quantifiable and drags in its excess. There is nothing here a Pathfinder fan will like; the whimsical horror is not here, the sophistication of the combat is not here, the decisions are fundamentally not here.
It generally isn’t hard to make payoff and a good experience for the players, Book 1 chapter 3 did it perfectly. That being said, we have Norgorber now, and he just leaves as quickly as he came. We’re given no context as to why he’s even interested, and once again the DM is clearly in the dark about it all with nothing to fall back on.
The only DM I could find that was running the adventure said they had skipped a number of the events for chapter 2 altogether. That speaks to me that the second chapter is all filler. Everything here is just Victory points with different names. We’re just rolling dice and padding with RP, and that’s fine once. Not this many times with no breaks.
The pacing is completely killed here, the players can’t keep any momentum. I’ve lost the hype for the player’s Opera at this point as the DM. I have several years experience as a DM in Pathfinder 2e APs, this is much more than a standard 2-3 hours a week for 10 sessions to complete the entire chapter let alone the book itself; which is how I usually measure my sessions of randomly assorted people and friends. Chapter 2 is a major slog, and it isn’t worth playing through in its entirety.
I also want to mention that the book has 5 editors. That’s highly unusual for a single AP book. I’ve seen as many as 3 before in a single AP book, but 5 means to me something went seriously wrong and was changed several times. Don’t suppose we’ll ever find out what, and I can’t say I care.
Editors know how many errors they catch, and know their time is limited with each product; unfortunately we on the end who pay for the product don’t and just see the errors. I’ll just be respectful and say it where they can’t see it, like here on the official forums that they were paid for an incomplete job. One of our team is legally blind, for pity sake and he’s finding the errors. Disabled people can read, and they’re doing a better job than the editors of it; pointing out monsters with ranged attacks that have no range increments.
Just reading the adventure out loud the three of us found multiple errors to do with not only grammar, but skill check DCs that were wrong in the pdf and carried over to the foundry version by a difference of 10 which we confirmed live as we saw over 15 hours of prep thus far while streaming. I won’t be detailing those errors fully or further here since paizo’s stance on them is that they are always minor and not to let it spoil your enjoyment of the product. Well for five salaries that they exist at all is anyone’s guess. You need to read your own product to approve it for print, I’ll leave it at that to whomever signed off on this one. Making the argument of quality over quantity is not worth the effort with these adventures.
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I agree that the writers should choose more judiciously what to focus on. Often times, the main story feels disregarded because the author thought it would be cool to have a scene in an arena, a casino, or make an obscure reference to an old film, and take up a lot of word count on that scene, rather than weave the plot around the main attraction of the story.
Sometimes, it works. You clearly enjoyed the devil gambling scene, for example.
But overall, it ends up feeling like everything is a bit disconnected and recycled for me.
What I love about the adventure path line is the fantastic art, the maps, the backmatter when it lifts the story (I don't feel the backmatters in book 1 and 2 were satisfying to read) and the main ideas for the AP are always strong (even though the execution usually strays from the main plot).
What I love about Bring the House Down, and why I think it's the best of the 3 books, is that I don't feel there's any self-indulgent side quest self-insert with quirky NPCs from the author's live game. There's no distractions. It stays with the story it wants to tell and executes on it.
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(Psst what was the perfect quip opportunity for Mr. Gorber?? I might need suggestions to up my quip game x'D)
Also uh, that review made me realize that while I'm not one to speak(one of my edgewatch reviews was so long it broke text count), being concise definitely helps than making overly long feedback so I should learn that lesson.
Like, I can grasp the points of review on second reading ("overall lack of focus, too many victory point subsystems that feel like they aren't meaningful while ignoring campaign specific mechanics, red herrings and such taking away from developing norgorber side of plot, big bad being more incompetent than they should be, editing mistakes"), but by time I'm done with reading it, I forget what was the actual argument of the point.
For example, my own reading of ap as whole was that its a plot about Opera that transitions eventually to Opera like plot about Norgorber in final act in book 3. So why does the review treat Opera half of Opera AP as sideplot? Is it saying that circus ap should indeed never have been built around as circus or that ap doesn't succeed at making opera half as compelling as norgorber half or fusing them enough? Is it related to Opera's flavor and mechanics being written as generic because they are supposed to be customized around PCs' previous campaign or something else? I have kind of similar "I think I lost the plot of what argument was trying to say on each point" experience through reading the review.
I feel like review from time moves onto from critical analysis to kinda just being feeling negative(like 10 sessions to collect victory points confuses me if that was hyperbole or what actually happened. Was it criticism of what the campaign was like or hyperbolic exclamation?) and drag to read. Its super heavy to read and just sheer amount of it kinda tired me out.
(I feel like its not even necessarily about me disagreeing with review, I haven't read either of book 1 and 2 in detail, but book 3 was my clear favorite to read. In my case though I know its mostly because the generic nature of "use this as toolbox to tell players' opera" isn't as interesting to read for me, but I did like how genuinely ap dedicated itself to non combat stuff. But to me an ideal opera campaign would have the story around producing it somehow thematically resonate with plot of opera itself and that's just not impossible to write in the generic setup, so to me most of book 1 and 2 felt like "This is what gm will replace if they or players have better idea on how to do THEIR opera". But yeah its kinda like with Strength of Thousand, I've been enjoying playing through the AP, but there are comments both us players and gm agree are weird or feel off or could have been handled better so its definitely not the perfect ap despite amount of positive attitude towards it I could grasp on paizo.com. Season of Ghost is so far to me the best written 2e AP as a whole.)
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Wait uh... Did I just do a review of a review? Ummm. Crap x'D
Yuppers, that's the curse right there.
I understand where you are coming from, concise feedback would be better for an audience that just wants the flat out pain points, but with all my reviews I do deep dives.
I try not to go over 1/10 the space of the original material, which is 100 pages for the 9 written as opposed to the usual 1/3 with most visual medias like movies and series that is expected. For every chapter it's about 3-4 hours read aloud and then discussion and referencing various elements of the campaign world. I need to make sure I'm not missing something essential that will change my point of view during examining the content.
You said it the short way, which is fine, but I need to show evidence and build up that viewpoint from what's given rather than what is inferred. Otherwise I risk saying it into a void, and it's not caught by other players, DMs, and the staff. Sen for instance has been extraordinarily good about her conversations on discord, and I am thankful for that. The community gets more insight the more work goes into a review of the AP, rather than handing someone a free copy and going, "Okay give an overview make sure to read it this time".
It's not hyperbole, and this is the reason why I deep dive when I prep and why I first made the prep session on the channel.
Chapter 2 took about 5 hours in total to prep, and it has a very loose timeline of events. Guiding 4-5 players through that material in my experience is telling me 10 sessions just for that chapter, and that's off of running paizo modules allowing time for roleplaying everything and not just rolling dice to appease the subsystem gods. I need to plan my time when I select a campaign and the player's time, otherwise that's a section of the story and material I'd skip when broadcasting.
Even if Curtain Call was recommended to me by another DM who reviewed it, this one part of the AP would give me pause; and show me it wasn't for a group that does live plays.
The reasons you recapped yourself: Overall lack of focus, too many victory point subsystems stacked on top of each other, red herrings for no reason, Norgorber side plot when it is the main plot, a midboss being more incompetent than they should be alongside his victim who shares the same shortcoming, and some editing mistakes which cause confusion detracting from our outline of events. Add that to five people taking out their phones and start to loose patience, asking me when things will move along. Possibly over their only time off during the week.
Absolutely, and I can never take that from you. Book 3 chapter 1 to me was the best it had to offer. You will never have your experienced diminished by another person's input from a review. That isn't the point of what I do. And people will still enjoy the AP, like I've enjoyed running SoT and BL, despite their flaws as well. I agree Season of Ghosts has been last and this year's biggest success APwise.
You have a very good thought process, if I can I'll approach you outside of the forums and ask if you are maybe interested in prepping Spore Wars together. Otherwise thank you for your insight. I'll be here if you do touch on those books again in detail.
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? What does prepping together entail?
(I guess it might be interesting thing to try, though I'm unlikely to run Spore War in near future. I do think there are sometimes blindspots for me during prepping, so might be interesting to get other view points on that, would help me improve my adventure writing projects too I think)