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I'm very happy with the heavy dose of Razmir content, and the focus on multi-lateral diplomacy. It felt well thought out and works.
What map are they using for the meetings at the estate in the Foundry VTT module? I half wish there was budget to include an original map of it since we spend so much time there this book.
Creative Director
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Glad you're enjoying the Adventure Path so far!
For maps, we're increasingly striving to include them for as many (ALL in a best case scenario) combat encounters as possible, or at the very least, suggesting flip mats or other resources to use. For encounters that use subsystems like research or infiltrations or, in this case, influence, where tactical movement and spacing isn't a part of the game play experience, we don't.
My suggestion for what to use as the background on a VTT in this case would probably be to just keep the map of Greengold on the screen and drop a PC token in on the estate, I guess? I'm not involved directly in any of the VTT side of things so I have no insights to provide there.
I'm very happy with the heavy dose of Razmir content, and the focus on multi-lateral diplomacy. It felt well thought out and works.
What map are they using for the meetings at the estate in the Foundry VTT module? I half wish there was budget to include an original map of it since we spend so much time there this book.
I'm curiious, but I doubt there's a detailed floorplan for it; I didn't really get the impression that there was one. Typically, I like using panoramic set pieces when I know there's a lot of theatre-of-the-mind type things happening anyway. I imagine any really well done interior will fit for the meetings in general, though I don't think anything Google provides can really do a meeting with the Ustalav representative the justice it deserves.
An image of the table with the delegate flags in it would have been very cool though.
I'm very happy with the heavy dose of Razmir content, and the focus on multi-lateral diplomacy. It felt well thought out and works.
What map are they using for the meetings at the estate in the Foundry VTT module? I half wish there was budget to include an original map of it since we spend so much time there this book.
I'm curiious, but I doubt there's a detailed floorplan for it; I didn't really get the impression that there was one. Typically, I like using panoramic set pieces when I know there's a lot of theatre-of-the-mind type things happening anyway. I imagine any really well done interior will fit for the meetings in general, though I don't think anything Google provides can really do a meeting with the Ustalav representative the justice it deserves.
An image of the table with the delegate flags in it would have been very cool though.
I definitely agree. Missing out on the estate and cottages however for such a huge part of the chapter is a loss.
So much of our time is spent in that delegation with the pressure to get Articles 2 and 3 signed, that we don't understand it contributes towards Triumph points till the end of the adventure, and not even for Tar Baphon. It doesn't feel like we get the focus the adventure expects here.
Not having a set piece for those private councils worth of 5 days of subsystem is going to hurt player engagement and groups like mine will ask just to move things along missing out on TP for the sake of getting to something more fun.
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This is an interesting point. Do folks WANT us to provide maps for areas of importance where no combat or no tactical stuff plays out? I do love maps, but... they're the most complicated part of an adventure to create (since the authors we hire are generally experts at writing... not always at cartography, so that means that for a LOT of advnentures the developer ends up having to create the map turnovers themselves to send to the professional cartographer to do). The balance of text space to map space is also complicated, since adding maps not only takes up space text could have taken up, but often requires more text to contextualize the additional maps.
And they cost more; the more maps we put in, the less budget we have per volume for text and art.
It's all a balancing act, and the number of maps you generally see in a volume are all part of that balance. Adding maps = having to cut content in other areas, and vice versa.
That said... the idea that folks would prefer maps of areas where there's no need to do tactical combat stuff that requires maps is kind of a new request as far as I've seen over the past 20+ years of doing this, so that's why we chose not to include maps for these areas.
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This is an interesting point. Do folks WANT us to provide maps for areas of importance where no combat or no tactical stuff plays out? I do love maps, but... they're the most complicated part of an adventure to create (since the authors we hire are generally experts at writing... not always at cartography, so that means that for a LOT of advnentures the developer ends up having to create the map turnovers themselves to send to the professional cartographer to do). The balance of text space to map space is also complicated, since adding maps not only takes up space text could have taken up, but often requires more text to contextualize the additional maps.
I think it's a matter of balancing a wide array of storytelling styles. VTTs tend to have a lot more visual potential than a live game with minis. For example, the archery bit in the Nimrathas meeting can easily be done without a map, but there are GMs that will asolutely make some sort of swinging target for their players on the map. And on a VTT, with the right module, you can automate a token to move back and forth along a set path to simulate the same thing.
But I seriously doubt those are the norm; I tend to (ironically) think about the visuals entirely more than I have to.
It's pretty much as you said--it's a balancing act. If nothing else, those set pieces and backdrop/landing page type are are just another avenue to consider. I don't think not having them takes away from this AP at all.
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I think it's a matter of balancing a wide array of storytelling styles. VTTs tend to have a lot more visual potential than a live game with minis. For example, the archery bit in the Nimrathas meeting can easily be done without a map, but there are GMs that will asolutely make some sort of swinging target for their players on the map. And on a VTT, with the right module, you can automate a token to move back and forth along a set path to simulate the same thing.
But I seriously doubt those are the norm; I tend to (ironically) think about the visuals entirely more than I have to.
It's pretty much as you said--it's a balancing act. If nothing else, those set pieces and backdrop/landing page type are are just another avenue to consider. I don't think not having them takes away from this AP at all.
All that's true, but the narrative team doesn't actually directly work on any of the VTT content at all. We're pretty much only focused on the print and PDF products, so any extra flourishes that go into a VTT release are things that we in the narrative team don't do and in many cases are never even aware of.
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I’m heavily in favor of only providing maps when there might actually be combat on them.
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I’m heavily in favor of only providing maps when there might actually be combat on them.
My burning hatred for metagaming is why I make a lot of maps; players generally know when a combat is going to happen if a map is provided even in a situation that seems benign. After all, I still plan on doing a map for the Nirmathas and Lastwall meetings. But for real, it's an edge case that only applies to me probably, so take that with a grain of salt.
Mythkeeper also made the interesting suggestion for delegates from other places like Oprak and even Belkzen. I won't really know how to make that work until Book 3 just because of the purported nature of the delegates' roles in the AP, but given my players are coming off of Triumph of the Tusk for that one, it does name a certain amount of sense--which means that the delegate chamber in Book 1 wouldn't have enough tables and I'd have to make a new map anyway, which is fine. If anything, the existing map makes it easier to make one customized for a table's version of Golarion.
If we're being realistic, there's only 90 or so pages to actually work with, and the Internet is a wonderful place where the TTRPG community at large (including and especially the Foundry team!) can help provide the tools people need to enhance a game without sacrificing content. We've all seen what happens when content gets cut and if that can be avoided, it's better on the whole.
Honestly, the easier solution if people want maps that aren't provided is to ask around. People have been sharing battlemaps for years.
Combat maps in APs already tend to be too small to justify additional maps that don’t need to be taking up space in a book.
Would it be extraordinarily complicated for a third party creator to make a digital art supplement for individual APs that include more resources for VTT play, and sell it on infinite? Content creators deserve to get paid, but I definitely would prefer more space go to expanding battle maps, than adding in non-combat maps, and there is already not enough space for those without sacrificing adventure or lore content.
Maybe, for AP books with long sections of set piece non-combat encounters, a a writer could suggests artistic/architectural styles that inspire the setting in a brief text box?
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Combat maps in APs already tend to be too small to justify additional maps that don’t need to be taking up space in a book.
Would it be extraordinarily complicated for a third party creator to make a digital art supplement for individual APs that include more resources for VTT play, and sell it on infinite? Content creators deserve to get paid, but I definitely would prefer more space go to expanding battle maps, than adding in non-combat maps, and there is already not enough space for those without sacrificing adventure or lore content.
Maybe, for AP books with long sections of set piece non-combat encounters, a a writer could suggests artistic/architectural styles that inspire the setting in a brief text box?
It would be pretty complicated for a third party to do that, because we'd want their work to be up to par for our artistic standards, but also the pace at which we produce Adventure Paths and adventures is really relentless and fast-paced; we're able to do it because we have a large (for the industry) company of dozens of folks working on all aspects of production, and most third-party options we've worked with to do similar things have struggled to keep up. It's also an extra expenditure on the cost of production, which isn't something we're looking to complicate the process with at the expense of remaining competitive with freelancer (and employee) wages and at the expense of trying to keep the costs to the customer down.
I don't see this happening. Fans could do their own thing and create new maps that aren't duplicates though... they've always been able to do this with the community use license.
As for combat maps being "too small," one solution we've tried before is to use ten-foot or larger scale squares, or using smaller and smaller grids to get more in there, but sometimes the choice to have narrow confines is a deliberate design choice too. And on top of that, there's the constant struggle between "what's good for gaming" and "what's good for realism." If we made al corridors in castles and dungeons always 10 feet wide, folks would complain that our castle and dungeon designs aren't realistic because such wide corridors are both more difficult to build in Real Life and because they're harder to defend.
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My burning hatred for metagaming...
I see this comment a lot, and I always struggle with it. Because this IS a game, and the players deserve to be rewarded for game mastery and their own skill at getting better at all elements of playing an RPG. Metagaming is, to me, proof that your players are engaged in the game, and rather than fight against it, I try to roll with it and encourage it. It vastly helps if your players are able to manage player vs. character knowledge, and the Recall Knowledge is your best tool against things like this when it does come up. Have the player make a check to Recall Knowledge on the topic and if they succeed, their character can act on that knowledge. If they fail, they can't. The character can do things the player can't, after all, so the reverse is fair play! And since you, the GM, get to set the DCs for these things, you can control whether or not it's easy or hard for a PC to succeed (but I strongly recommend against setting the DCs to something they could NEVER achieve; that's not fair and is a waste of time—just tell the player their character can't do that and maybe suggest alternates).
For the specific example here, the easiest solution is to not reveal a map until the combat begins, of course!
As for adding delegates from other places... I suggest you read the entire Adventure Path first before you do that. But also, know your group's limits... not every group is going to be into the current amount of delegates, and I suspect it'll be a struggle for more action-paced game tables to get through chapter 1 (hence the warning about that in the volume). Add too many more delegates and you risk bloating the chapter, making things later in the Adventure Path become awkward and strange, and will inflate the time it takes to actually get to the main plot of Spore War!
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This is an interesting point. Do folks WANT us to provide maps for areas of importance where no combat or no tactical stuff plays out? I do love maps, but... they're the most complicated part of an adventure to create (since the authors we hire are generally experts at writing... not always at cartography, so that means that for a LOT of advnentures the developer ends up having to create the map turnovers themselves to send to the professional cartographer to do). The balance of text space to map space is also complicated, since adding maps not only takes up space text could have taken up, but often requires more text to contextualize the additional maps.
And they cost more; the more maps we put in, the less budget we have per volume for text and art.
It's all a balancing act, and the number of maps you generally see in a volume are all part of that balance. Adding maps = having to cut content in other areas, and vice versa.
That said... the idea that folks would prefer maps of areas where there's no need to do tactical combat stuff that requires maps is kind of a new request as far as I've seen over the past 20+ years of doing this, so that's why we chose not to include maps for these areas.
Yes, I want maps for non-combat encounters for Player Headquarters. This felt very much missing in Spore War and in Wardens of Wildwood. And Stolen Fate. Make less "generic forest / bridge / wasteland" maps, we can use the generic ones for that. HQ maps are always useful because the GM sometimes has to deal with things devolving into combat in their own base, or players want to bring back prisoners who can escape, or any number of events. It really helps set the context and immerse, especially with foundry vtt now.
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I see this comment a lot, and I always struggle with it. Because this IS a game, and the players deserve to be rewarded for game mastery and their own skill at getting better at all elements of playing an RPG. Metagaming is, to me, proof that your players are engaged in the game, and rather than fight against it, I try to roll with it and encourage it. It vastly helps if your players are able to manage player vs. character knowledge, and the Recall Knowledge is your best tool against things like this when it does come up. Have the player make a check to Recall Knowledge on the topic and if they succeed, their character can act on that knowledge. If they fail, they can't. The character can do things the player can't, after all, so the reverse is fair play! And since you, the GM, get to set the DCs for these things, you can control whether or not it's easy or hard for a PC to succeed (but I strongly recommend against setting the DCs to something they could NEVER achieve; that's not fair and is a waste of time—just tell the player their character can't do that and maybe suggest alternates).
Honestly, handling metagaming like this ends up being so much more fun for everyone, especially for groups that have played to together a lot or otherwise a lot of built up trust.
My favorite personal anecdotes of 'reverse metagaming' like you mentioned has always been from a shadowrun game i ran almost a decade ago, where I got to see one of my long-time players have an startled realization that his character couldn't understand an npc that was speaking a language the he actually knew in real life. He was grinning ear-to-ear by the time it all clicked for him and afterward not once did he use that player knowledge for his own in-character benefit, only using it improve the dramatic irony of every scene the two shared together.
Being able to give your players that kind of trust can only ever make a game better in my opinion.
Combat maps in APs already tend to be too small to justify additional maps that don’t need to be taking up space in a book.
My players have affectionately begun calling some of the maps in APs "murder closets" and I haven't been able to unhear it since. That's not a criticism or anything; I just laugh when ever I think about it.
That said... the idea that folks would prefer maps of areas where there's no need to do tactical combat stuff that requires maps is kind of a new request as far as I've seen over the past 20+ years of doing this, so that's why we chose not to include maps for these areas.
it's definitely new. Like, post-pandemic new. I'd be surprised if no one's ever suggested some sort of art book with that sort of thing in it before. But even that just SOUNDS expensive production-wise.
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Creative Director
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That said... the idea that folks would prefer maps of areas where there's no need to do tactical combat stuff that requires maps is kind of a new request as far as I've seen over the past 20+ years of doing this, so that's why we chose not to include maps for these areas.it's definitely new. Like, post-pandemic new. I'd be surprised if no one's ever suggested some sort of art book with that sort of thing in it before. But even that just SOUNDS expensive production-wise.
People have suggested art books a lot. We've done some of them before over the years, but people don't BUY art books with the same passion they have for suggesting them, we've found.
We've also published a LOT of stand-alone map products—flip tiles, flip mats, etc. So if folks do want more standalone maps offered outside of an adventure's pages... we've got you covered.
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Increasingly for non-combat locations I've been yearning for location art that I can use to set the scene on the VTT.
Don't get me wrong I love the iconics in fights and action scenes!
But more and more I want art of "bustling street in Elven town" and "Ballroom full of guests at a fantasy party" or "Interior: Temple of [deity], ancient and crumbling"
That I can drop in as a background, and show off NPC/Challenge/Chase Cards as players interact with people in Roleplay situations and exploration challenges.
Without resorting to generative AI, as I'd rather an artist get paid for such scenes.
(Actually including the art pack as jpegs separately along with the PDF would be really useful for roll20 VTT users like me.)
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When we have a very long influence/negotiation game, I really would love to see useful scene setting art and aids for running it including in the Foundry mod. Now they haven't been doing that, because its not in published book to start with, at least that's what I've seen mentioned in the past. So while I think in-person games might not need the aid as much and that makes it a harder sell to include in the book for all thee reasons James lists.
I typically like to create a scene that has artwork for each of the individuals that can be influenced along with the discovery skills listed, and then fog-of-war to reveal the influence/weakness/resistance/etc that could be discovered. Sure it might make it a bit more worker-placement style game, but I've found in APs and PFS scenario on VTTs these kind of aids help ensure you're not repeating yourself a ton of times when trying to run these scenes. I feel like a 1/2 size map, that's this type of aid, and then a 1/2 size map that was a chapter intro artwork that's close enough for the scene would typically fit. Of course its not quite right, since the chapter intro is normally an action scene with the iconics, rather than the influence scene, but it might still be close enough without adding extra art. So its more about finding an approach that the Foundry module creators think makes sense for them.
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The problem with art is I don't like having iconics in them. They now all have their own personalities, novels, biographies and history, and it's harder for players to replace them. Just show me the city, temple, monster, whatever. I don't need to see iconics in every image. That's the good thing about Lost Omens.
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Increasingly for non-combat locations I've been yearning for location art that I can use to set the scene on the VTT.
Don't get me wrong I love the iconics in fights and action scenes!
But more and more I want art of "bustling street in Elven town" and "Ballroom full of guests at a fantasy party" or "Interior: Temple of [deity], ancient and crumbling"
That I can drop in as a background, and show off NPC/Challenge/Chase Cards as players interact with people in Roleplay situations and exploration challenges.
Without resorting to generative AI, as I'd rather an artist get paid for such scenes.
(Actually including the art pack as jpegs separately along with the PDF would be really useful for roll20 VTT users like me.)
Is there a particular reason why using Paizo's map packs or flip mats (or just borrowing maps from other adventures) isn't a better option than resorting to generative AI? Remember, the players haven't read the adventure, so if it says "this negotiation takes place in a castle" and you have a great tavern map, you can say "this negotiation takes place in a tavern" and they'll never know.
For me, one reason that comes to mind is that reusing the same tavern map over and over starts to break verisimilitude, and having bespoke maps for every location helps to fight that. But that's also part of why I've collected adventures for so long and love when they have great maps. I'll never RUN all of these adventures, not even 5% of them, but having such a huge library of maps to draw from in adventures I'll never run is a great resource for situations like this.
To me, my reason for preferring artwork to maps is I prefer the non-top down view when using artwork for scene setting. Non-map illustrations are often more evocative of emotions than maps that are often more neutral. But I tend to limit myself to Paizo products, flipping through all of old setting books, or past APs. Looking for useful chapter intro illustrations or PFS cover art.
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Increasingly for non-combat locations I've been yearning for location art that I can use to set the scene on the VTT.
Don't get me wrong I love the iconics in fights and action scenes!
But more and more I want art of "bustling street in Elven town" and "Ballroom full of guests at a fantasy party" or "Interior: Temple of [deity], ancient and crumbling"
That I can drop in as a background, and show off NPC/Challenge/Chase Cards as players interact with people in Roleplay situations and exploration challenges.
Without resorting to generative AI, as I'd rather an artist get paid for such scenes.
(Actually including the art pack as jpegs separately along with the PDF would be really useful for roll20 VTT users like me.)
Is there a particular reason why using Paizo's map packs or flip mats (or just borrowing maps from other adventures) isn't a better option than resorting to generative AI? Remember, the players haven't read the adventure, so if it says "this negotiation takes place in a castle" and you have a great tavern map, you can say "this negotiation takes place in a tavern" and they'll never know.
For me, one reason that comes to mind is that reusing the same tavern map over and over starts to break verisimilitude, and having bespoke maps for every location helps to fight that. But that's also part of why I've collected adventures for so long and love when they have great maps. I'll never RUN all of these adventures, not even 5% of them, but having such a huge library of maps to draw from in adventures I'll never run is a great resource for situations like this.
Oh, I'm more than happy to reuse maps, I have multiple patreons for maps.
I'm talking about art that sets the scene on the VTT.
B8 the maze in the sewers of xer are the A and B walls in the north that are adjacent to each other labelled the wrong way round? Because otherwise you can't get to the B button to lower the walls because you need to get through B walls to get to the B button. Unless I'm missing something.
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Creative Director
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B8 the maze in the sewers of xer are the A and B walls in the north that are adjacent to each other labelled the wrong way round? Because otherwise you can't get to the B button to lower the walls because you need to get through B walls to get to the B button. Unless I'm missing something.
This is an error that crept through on the map that we missed clearing up, alas. The wall behind the southernmost "B" location should be empty, allowing passage through that area.
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Increasingly for non-combat locations I've been yearning for location art that I can use to set the scene on the VTT.
Don't get me wrong I love the iconics in fights and action scenes!
But more and more I want art of "bustling street in Elven town" and "Ballroom full of guests at a fantasy party" or "Interior: Temple of [deity], ancient and crumbling"
That I can drop in as a background, and show off NPC/Challenge/Chase Cards as players interact with people in Roleplay situations and exploration challenges.
Without resorting to generative AI, as I'd rather an artist get paid for such scenes.
(Actually including the art pack as jpegs separately along with the PDF would be really useful for roll20 VTT users like me.)
Is there a particular reason why using Paizo's map packs or flip mats (or just borrowing maps from other adventures) isn't a better option than resorting to generative AI? Remember, the players haven't read the adventure, so if it says "this negotiation takes place in a castle" and you have a great tavern map, you can say "this negotiation takes place in a tavern" and they'll never know.
For me, one reason that comes to mind is that reusing the same tavern map over and over starts to break verisimilitude, and having bespoke maps for every location helps to fight that. But that's also part of why I've collected adventures for so long and love when they have great maps. I'll never RUN all of these adventures, not even 5% of them, but having such a huge library of maps to draw from in adventures I'll never run is a great resource for situations like this.
Oh, I'm more than happy to reuse maps, I have multiple patreons for maps.
I'm talking about art that sets the scene on the VTT.
I'll throw my hat in the ring to say this would help a lot for me also. Especially in influence sections, I'll spend some time making what I call an influence board for VTTs- a large scene setting image to one side and a series of frames to one side showing the NPCs the players can be talking to. The players move their tokens to who they're talking to for each round, and it enables me to track influence points and actions easily in a very visual format. The hardest part of making the board is finding good art for the scene setting.
Combat maps in APs already tend to be too small to justify additional maps that don’t need to be taking up space in a book.
Would it be extraordinarily complicated for a third party creator to make a digital art supplement for individual APs that include more resources for VTT play, and sell it on infinite? Content creators deserve to get paid, but I definitely would prefer more space go to expanding battle maps, than adding in non-combat maps, and there is already not enough space for those without sacrificing adventure or lore content.
Maybe, for AP books with long sections of set piece non-combat encounters, a a writer could suggests artistic/architectural styles that inspire the setting in a brief text box?
Old thread, but I wanted to chime in that in terms of Foundry modules, folks already do this. There's free and paid map packs on Foundry with TONS of maps. I have one with like 500 maps of different things. I can just drag a map out of the compendium and now its a scene with lightning & walls already hooked up, and then I go from there with what I need.
People also make AP specific map packs. This one for example is for Strength of Thousands, adding maps for scenes that don't have maps in the AP.
I'm not sure how nicely Foundry and Infinite play together so that might be harder than some other models, but the general idea of "map packs that augment the maps in APs" are definitely a thing that exist and can help a lot in a situation like this where you want some building maps to hold the meetings in and such.
For in person offline games, I always liked flip maps and whiteboard markers as they're versatile. I actually have a 2x3' whiteboard with grid lines scored into it with a knife, and I can draw a scene on that pretty quickly. It's certainly not fancy, but it's extremely versatile.