Happy New Year all, TheMythkeeper and Ironbear Jones took a look at the new module for Spore War with me to start the year off. Our special guest provided a lot of good detail and information, along with some awesome character ideas and threads to go along with many of the delegates as they represent themselves in Kyonin. Expect Podfinder for next month's module. Nikktorak our resident professional TTRPG editor for RoleforCombat is sadly inundated with the outgoing supplements and will be a player in the AP this time around, so he is sitting this one out.
Spore War: Whispers in the Dirt Chapters 1-3
Things are much more streamlined this time around as I lead the discussion and was mindful of my conversation with Mark Moreland, as none of the text will be read aloud from the human readable document. Thankfully this cuts down my turn around time from 40 hours to 9 for each of the APs, with 3 being spent per book instead of 9. A blessing in disguise as this gives me significantly more time to work on what I enjoy about these, and pick out the pain points for GMs.
Expect my review of Spore War Book 1 to follow.
We've very eager to see what other people think about the module while prepping it, and what other GMs have to say about the content. It was quite fun to be the one to give Mythkeeper his first taste of virtual online ttrpg, and using foundry for Spore War. We're gonna see about getting him in the player seat sometime and we were overjoyed how much he liked using the program.
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General Thoughts:
The best part of the AP for me was the investigation, as it doesn’t use any subsystem and actually has the players collect clues and interact with people, albeit briefly and with unneeded artwork for NPCs that are gone forever after being spoken with, and piecing together what happened to lead to the assassination attempt. Chapter 2 itself really holds the most interest, which is strange as the climax has one moment during the terror attack and loses itself to a search and destroy rather than getting the players to evacuate Greengold of its citizens.
As we were discussing, the major thing that kept coming up was Lukarazyll having no real impact on the players other than the one attack, which was affected due to their direct actions in the EA, but held no real consequences as Greengold and its people are being quickly left behind in the next book.
No evacuation attempt is made for the delegates who had just suffered an assassination attempt, regardless of which country or source, and they continue to linger in a country that was extremely isolationist less than a year ago risking their lives further.
This as a society play cut up into 3 parts would have been great, but as a single book it’s just not what was promised in the player’s guide despite being told to temper expectations. This felt more like a prelude to the actual adventure, which as it looks like it a 2 book AP with a 3 part introduction led by society rules and pacing. The average table player isn’t going to go for that without more work from the DM, or stream lining the influence process by giving the delegates goals and having the roleplaying towards that goal rather than rolling the entire time to affect a change.
I don’t want to have to do extra work on top of regular prep for that, I can’t speak for any other DM in that regard; but being given more work to set things up better than the people I paid 30 USD is tiring. I’m not going to pick at the module like a bag of ideas and take what I like, if it doesn’t work as it’s sold it’s no good for my purposes. The weak parts need tightening, but works for society play environments.
My time as DM and my players is limited with how often we meet, and I need to be able to run ‘out of the box’ or foundry modules as is the case. Committing more time for having to pay for what is essentially 3 society play modules structured as chapters is very off putting for me.
Minor Errors:
Delegate’s entries have numerous errors with which numbered Article they are signing or the article is mislabeled. I needed to reread and create flow charts for each delegate to rectify this, and their conditionals. Chart 1 Delegate Influence Chart 2 Maximizing Influence.
Writs and Articles are not the same thing. Something changed mid production, as writs apply to courts and articles to treatise but can reference writs themselves.
Alzarius introduces himself as a mask of the 12th step, but his back matter says mask of the 13th step. There is no benefit to claim to be of lower rank, and to those outside of his religion.
Structure of the 5 days is described, but isn’t given any sort of visualization or vignettes to focus players and engage them with the npcs.
All influence is nebulous, and feels more like society play than an adventure path. Paizo just doesn’t seem to understand that how people started to change how they play ttrpgs since the pandemic, and was another topic we had started to discuss with Ironbear contributing that the creative director knows this and can’t play off the “in 20 years no one has asked for this”, unless there are werther's originals in his pockets.
Snar and his boot gets artwork, along with several minor npcs of no consequence, that could very well do without art entirely for their brief stay.
I have arranged the delegates into a spreadsheet to maximize efficiency. I named the ‘Golden Scenario’ to maximize influence gains, and have shared this with other people in the discords.
Moderate Errors:
Confusion involving the fungus in particular.
It has the divine and telepathy traits, yet Tree Razer cannot prevent a minion from activating the Jeharlu spores early. As the source of the divine power, it is implied it’s his divine power and he has authority over his minions in the network of spores which are all implied to be connected to him in some way.
A letter needed to be written for those infected with the fungus for the players to discover, as the telepathic messaging and conversations would not be as easily found in the hotel room altar. So it is telepathic, but not for the purposes of the investigation beforehand.
A second blossoming is confused for continual growth, instead of inducing another fruiting in the same season. This is later said to simply be further growth of the spore to cover Greengold. The term second blossoming or ‘remontant’ implies that the second flowering or fruiting is less than the first, and makes it seem pointless as Lukarazyll will not get his intended effect of destroying Greengold even continuing to nurture the spore.
Communication from the Molthune and Nimrathas delegate.
Molthrune’s delegate is not arrogant, he is insecure and behaves accordingly to that personality trait. “Arrogant general hungry for war”, should be changed to “Insecure general, reluctant for further conflict” as he does not sign anything without 3 other delegates backing it first. Betrayal of character on the same page it looks like.
From what I am seeing on discord from multiple sources, no one even wants Molthrune in the war because of how Wesker presents himself due to their extreme distaste for even mentioning Nirmathas. Unless in the 11th hour of the module that Molthrune helps out in some immense wya, they are better off just going home. It’s clear the writer favors Nimrathas, as she has no flaws present other than not wanting to look like she is taking handouts, yet she is. Another betrayal of character there, as she is desperate for the aid; yet is averse to being told the truth of it..
Wesker could also easily end up dead with negative influence. It was clear to me even without this James doesn’t want Molthune in the fight with I can’t believe it’s not Vecna from how he’s presented even going as far as yelling at his subordinates in a foreign setting. Molthune sent this man intentionally to break things off before they started.
Maple on foundry discord mentioned that the similarity to Longsaddle in Otari, was the same kind of vibe and I have to agree. He’s an antagonist where one wasn’t needed to drive what the players are trying to accomplish.
I saw nothing of value in speaking withWesker. Both countries are in a bad way affected by extraplanar forces goading them into fighting, but no mention of communalities is even entertained by the module for knowing Godsrain details.
None of the spores or fungus creatures seem to be weak to fire, but it is implied by a delegate that fire will work and grants the players fire based items.
Major Errors:
Upon returning to Greengold the location of the fungal nodes seems rather obvious through exploration activity, and destroying them reveals the fungal heart with a minor earthquake implying something has changed near the temple, despite the research.
The research Subsystem claims only 2 spore samples can be taken, in specific locations. A high quality sample, and a low quality sample both of which are right next to each other’s location. The fungus is all over Greengold, why are the samples only here?
The low quality sample doesn’t need to exist at all, since the high quality sample can complete the subsystem by itself.
Talwivir strangely doesn’t need to eat the fungus to complete the research, or becomes infected with rotter infestation; implying the PCs are given a major handicap despite having skills and magic to deal with the fungus Talwivir does not. He is suspicious as a mere groundskeeper, and may be an elven god in disguise; but there is no apparent evidence to support this other than a gut feeling I'll need to see in a later book if this level 8 NPC outplaying level 13 players is relevant or a fluke.
I originally thought Talwivir was Lukarazyll in disguise playing with the Players the whole time during the delegation, hoping the villain had genuine impact this time.
Talwivir was left at the estate when the family left for the queen’s palace, but instructed this one servant out of all the staff to stay. Or is the only staff worth mentioning of those present? Hoping too much I guess for something other than Luka waiting in a room to die. This would have been a great call back to the succubus from second darkness to have this level of deception, but away from the queen's schenanigans.
The competence of the elves is never brought into question, as they didn't notice the Jeharlu spore creep up through the Darklands all these centuries right under their temple, nor is anything ever brought up about the delegates afterwards telling the elves they have different priorities than dealing with the Tanglebriar since the elves can't seem to solve their own problem at the moment.
We did further discussion on the NPCs and Lukarazyll in particular, I’ll post that once I get through cherry picking.
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doesn’t use any subsystem
falls off his chair in shock
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James Jacobs, I am curious is Tar-Baphon going to show up again in the AP as a major antagonist? if not then what is the point in including that element.
Creative Director
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James Jacobs, I am curious is Tar-Baphon going to show up again in the AP as a major antagonist? if not then what is the point in including that element.
He's not. The reason we started this Adventure Path the way we did has several reasons, which I'll detail in the spoiler below:
The threat of Tar-Baphon is one that impacts all of the Lake Encarthan nations, and is a clear and present danger that, logically, would get representatives from all those nations together to start building up an alliance in a way that "Let's get together and make an alliance against Tanglebriar, which threatens only Kyonin and none of the others, and hasn't made an overt move in thousands of years" would not.
Furthermore, it's a way for us to present the elves looking outwards from Kyonin and to present them as "team players" on the political scene of the Inner Sea, to make them good neighbors and allies with other nations, and to give them more agency on the political field by engaging with things outside of their borders. It's part of me wanting to FINALLY embrace the original concept that Golarion's elves are not xenophobic "lawful neutral" isolationists, which they more or less were in Lord of the Rings and much of D&D's settings, and as a result we accidentally inherited that inertia into Golarion in the early days, then it took us two editions to finally get around to doing something more with Kyonin.
Keeping the looming threat of Tar-Baphon in the background also helps to tie the story into the larger Inner Sea region metaplot, and keeps the Whispering Tyrant out there as a potential future foe. Which is also important since this Adventure Path is REMOVING a foe, Treerazer, from the table. We want to make sure that there's always more villains in the future to do stories about, be they newly introduced ones or reminders of existing ones.
Spore War is about Treerazer... NOT Tar-Baphon. The marketing and cover art and player's guide all make that apparent, even though that plot point doesn't properly pick up until partway through the new adventure—Tar-Baphon's role is largely incidental, but he's a big deal in the region so he does get some attention, as you'v seen.
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James Jacobs, I am curious is Tar-Baphon going to show up again in the AP as a major antagonist? if not then what is the point in including that element.He's not. The reason we started this Adventure Path the way we did has several reasons, which I'll detail in the spoiler below:
** spoiler omitted **...
How do address the feeling that this is really a 2 book app with the first book not being part of the story but a set of society adventures like the OP posted?
Like my first thought would be that the Players start either on or returning on one of the fiendbreaker pilgrimages, that seems like it would tie it into the narrative more.
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Creative Director
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James Jacobs, I am curious is Tar-Baphon going to show up again in the AP as a major antagonist? if not then what is the point in including that element.He's not. The reason we started this Adventure Path the way we did has several reasons, which I'll detail in the spoiler below:
** spoiler omitted **...
** spoiler omitted **
Feel free to adjust things as needed to make the experience more fun and logical for your group; that's the job of the GM in the first place.
Our job is to do as much of that work beforehand so you don't have to do everything, and then just focus on the parts that are important to be changed for your group.
While the choices I made in creating this adventure's outline won't work for your group, I stand by my decision to structure the Adventure Path the way I did.
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James Jacobs, I am curious is Tar-Baphon going to show up again in the AP as a major antagonist? if not then what is the point in including that element.He's not. The reason we started this Adventure Path the way we did has several reasons, which I'll detail in the spoiler below:
** spoiler omitted **...
** spoiler omitted **
Feel free to adjust things as needed to make the experience more fun and logical for your group; that's the job of the GM in the first place.
Our job is to do as much of that work beforehand so you don't have to do everything, and then just focus on the parts that are important to be changed for your group.
While the choices I made in creating this adventure's outline won't work for your group, I stand by my decision to structure the Adventure Path the way I did.
** spoiler omitted **
I'm judging it by what I have on my monitor, and not what I won't have till some time later. I don't make decisions like that as a consumer. That leads to wasting money.
Unfortunately for us, this is a decision that comes 2 months after the sale of the first book, which puts us in an awkward position. Saying this after we have book 1 in our hands after the 'temper expectations' speech is quite a different explanation.
Other than Druma for the sale of weapons, we as the GMs have little to go on what sort of support these countries will send by that time in the campaign. The players will be focused more on the legendary weapons provided by the elves, and empowered by their Gods which are in the product descriptions.
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I have a lot of issues with this and no time at the present but two things stuck out to me. First:
The competence of the elves is never brought into question, as they didn't notice the Jeharlu spore creep up through the Darklands all these centuries right under their temple, nor is anything ever brought up about the delegates afterwards telling the elves they have different priorities than dealing with the Tanglebriar since the elves can't seem to solve their own problem at the moment.
And why is the "competence of the elves" an issue at all? This isn't the first time people have expected an inexplicable clairvoyance from NPCs in an AP, as if NPCs should know what's going on everywhere the PCs aren't at all times. Nobody writes characters or stories that way--no one writing GOOD ones, anyway.
If everyone in Golarion could solve their own problems, there would be nothing for trhe PCs to do and no reason to play Pathfinder. Or any TTRPG in general.
Second:
Feel free to adjust things as needed to make the experience more fun and logical for your group; that's the job of the GM in the first place.
Our job is to do as much of that work beforehand so you don't have to do everything, and then just focus on the parts that are important to be changed for your group.
While the choices I made in creating this adventure's outline won't work for your group, I stand by my decision to structure the Adventure Path the way I did.
People need to hear this more often. We as GMs have ALWAYS had the power and agency to throw stuff out if it doesn't work or add things if it works for our groups, and I'm BAFFLED that people forget this. Unless you're running games for bots, there will never be a one-size-fits-all adventure for every TTRPG group on the planet--that much should be evident by the sheer number of TTRPG systems that exist. If people are looking for a homogenized experience, TTRPGs are ENTIRELY the wrong genre for that.
I'm not sure when people started expecting this out of modules in any system. No matter what system it is, these things have ALWAYS been very strong suggestions. I did a lot of similar tweaks with Triumph of the Tusk; I added stuff about the Closed Fist and Bloody Gauntlet holds and I wrote a whole interlude between Chapters 1 and 2 for that. And there are people that will ACTIVELY tell me that it's "pointless" because "It doesn't matter to the story". It doesn't matter to WHOSE story, exactly?
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I have a lot of issues with this and no time at the present but two things stuck out to me. First:
The competence of the elves is never brought into question, as they didn't notice the Jeharlu spore creep up through the Darklands all these centuries right under their temple, nor is anything ever brought up about the delegates afterwards telling the elves they have different priorities than dealing with the Tanglebriar since the elves can't seem to solve their own problem at the moment.And why is the "competence of the elves" an issue at all? This isn't the first time people have expected an inexplicable clairvoyance from NPCs in an AP, as if NPCs should know what's going on everywhere the PCs aren't at all times. Nobody writes characters or stories that way--no one writing GOOD ones, anyway.
If everyone in Golarion could solve their own problems, there would be nothing for trhe PCs to do and no reason to play Pathfinder. Or any TTRPG in general.
I'm not...
It is important because the delegations are here for the first time ever, entreating with the elves after a long period of isolationism. Had the delegate from Molthune actually been played according to how he was described, or Nimrathas having witnessed the assassination attempt it would have been clear to at least those two to leave, at least for the moment.
Security for the temple also let the masked intruders in, despite them being a separate entity from Alzarius's delegation. No one asked questions, or people were dead ahead of time to get into the temple interrupting a closed chamber meeting which may as well had no guards posted at all. That calls to mind a question of competence at least to me.As for the spore growing so close to the temple, I bring it up because the safe with the two unique items was buried below the temple, so the priests would have been aware of lower chambers or at least a sealed portion that needed to be preserved, at least giving me the impression that there is something of value to the elves below the temple, the precise location of the spore where the vault was first with the items.
I am sorry if I was not clear with this at first. I didn't mean the elves themselves were incompetent, but their competence would be questioned with good measure after both the assassination attempt immediately following the fungal explosion, which the delegates who are present for the intention Tar Baphon's future and relationships between each other's nations in the articles, not clean up.
Security seems lack as I am aware beforehand to both events, and no one in delegation present was willing to say it- I'll be more clear now- The elves are arrogant and complacent with Treerazer. They underestimated him and are paying the price for it. No one present and accounted for was willing to say so, calling into question their competency for outright ignoring the 'bad neighbor' till now. It seems like elves have very long memories expect for when they make mistakes.