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So at this month's paizo live on twitch, paizo announced that they are changing from monthly releases to quarterly releases. and instead of 3, 4, or 6 books for an AP they will be 1 single volume together.
I honestly quite like this change.
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Huh. That should make it a bit easier on my shipping costs as well, although the ones for the big shipments will obviously be higher now.
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Ah, that the coherence of APs will now be easier to manage, it should also be easier to release pawns once more for each AP :)
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I think this is purely a positive change! It’s not like anyone realistically should have been starting an AP before the whole thing was released anyway. The only downside I can think of is that there’s now more of a wait in between APs, but the logistical problems this solves as well as the cohesion it allows across an entire AP more than makes up for that.
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So at this month's paizo live on twitch, paizo announced that they are changing from monthly releases to quarterly releases. and instead of 3, 4, or 6 books for an AP they will be 1 single volume together.
I honestly quite like this change.
Which technically could mean that books might switch from 3, 4, 5 or 6 parts "more easily".
Ah, that the coherence of APs will now be easier to manage, it should also be easier to release pawns once more for each AP :)
Internal coherence/consistency (writers) and
I think this is purely a positive change! It’s not like anyone realistically should have been starting an AP before the whole thing was released anyway. The only downside I can think of is that there’s now more of a wait in between APs, but the logistical problems this solves as well as the cohesion it allows across an entire AP more than makes up for that.
external coherence/consistency (Game Masters, Players)
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Well done!
In fact, in Italy, for many years now, the entire Adventure Path selected for translation has been offered to Italian players in a single volume, and it's a very popular choice among players!
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Are they going to keep the Adventure Path branding, I wonder? I mean, if they are releasing APs in a single volume then they are functionally similar to, if longer than, the Pathfinder Adventures line of modules.
They're still going to be Adventure Paths, and longer than the standalone adventures.
Creative Director
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Are they going to keep the Adventure Path branding, I wonder? I mean, if they are releasing APs in a single volume then they are functionally similar to, if longer than, the Pathfinder Adventures line of modules.
Yes. The format is changing, but the function and role of the Adventure Path is not changing. They'll continue to offer 9 to 11 levels of play (depending on the story) while the standalone adventures will continue to focus on shorter things or anthologies.
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Myself, I'm very excited for the change. Hardcover books tend to hold up a bit better in my experience, so when I want to take a book to a table I think it'll hold up to transport a bit better I think. I'll echo other sentiments that I'm hoping this works out to be a more coherent story vs the monthly installments. When running adventures I always had to spend some time meshing volumes together.
Hopefully this also means that APs are easier to keep in stock. I'm trying to build a complete collection of APs and there are two or three where I'm missing a volume or two. Having them all combined would make collecting a lot easier.
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Creative Director
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Hopefully this also means that APs are easier to keep in stock. I'm trying to build a complete collection of APs and there are two or three where I'm missing a volume or two. Having them all combined would make collecting a lot easier.
This is one of the main reasons for the change, in fact. Cutting the number of things a store has to order and stock from 12 a year to 4 a year is going to be an enormous help in keeping adventures in stock in your FLGS and the like.
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It's fitting that the last single issue AP will involve the Runelords. If the era is to end, let things come full circle.
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It would be very interesting to know what’s changed here. Paizo has been doing monthly Adventure Path episodes for the best part of twenty years; I can think of plenty of potential advantages of the shift, but none that wouldn’t also have been advantages 5, 10, 15 years ago.
I expect it is a series of pieces. One, James already mentioned is one SKU per AP is easier for distributors and stores to stock. Two, printing costs, printing X quantity of 1 book, will be a lot less complicated then print x of book 1, x-y of book 2, x-z of book 3, where z is more than likely bigger than y. Three, is a guess, but I assume getting a book out quarterly is going to lessen (but not remove some of the time crunch) for AP releases. But most of those are my educated guesses, only Paizo knows for sure.
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And the Diamond Distributor Bankrupty has disrupted some standard distribution channels, so simplifying the stocking Paizo publications in the stores will aid the resumption of business.
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It would be very interesting to know what’s changed here. Paizo has been doing monthly Adventure Path episodes for the best part of twenty years; I can think of plenty of potential advantages of the shift, but none that wouldn’t also have been advantages 5, 10, 15 years ago.
A non-trivial number of people buy the first issue and none of the rest. With this change, you have to buy the whole thing.
-Skeld
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it should also be easier to release pawns once more for each AP :)
Sadly, if Erik Mona's recent comments on Reddit are anything to go by, AP pawns will likely remain a thing of the past.
Personally I'm hoping Paizo makes a go of tokens instead of pawns, and that doing so changes the cost structure enough to allow AP token packs to become a thing.
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Are they going to keep the Adventure Path branding, I wonder? I mean, if they are releasing APs in a single volume then they are functionally similar to, if longer than, the Pathfinder Adventures line of modules.Yes. The format is changing, but the function and role of the Adventure Path is not changing. They'll continue to offer 9 to 11 levels of play (depending on the story) while the standalone adventures will continue to focus on shorter things or anthologies.
Paizo should retire the "adventure path" branding. Starting all the way back with Shackled City, the defining feature of an adventure path has always been multiple installments. When the defining feature of a brand goes, the brand itself really should follow. To keep it around is to risk confusing (or even angering) your customers. This product is now, after all, just a longer format adventure, especially now that adventures will all be released in hardcover. Finally, "Pathfinder" as a TTRPG is certainly well enough established that you don't need to keep the separate "adventure path" branding around (in case that was a concern).
TLDR: KISS, especially where branding is concerned. "Path" no longer applies; drop it.
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Might also help with future changes to the site, store and subscriptions.
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We calling them Adventure Modules now?
Many already referred the regular Adventures as "Modules".
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In his post, James refers to them as "campaigns." Maybe that or "campaign-length adventures"?
Given Paizo's subscription-centric business model, I can see keeping a separate product line; just don't call that product line "adventure paths," because, well, they aren't.
I mean, obviously Paizo can call them whatever they want (hell, they could make cars and call them boats, but people might get upset when they don't float).
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Creative Director
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I use "campaign" as a generic term for any sort of game where you play PCs through several levels to finish a story that encompasses more than a single adventure; it's not really an official Paizo term for the two print adventure lines we do for Pathfinder, which are:
Pathfinder Adventure Path (the one where you play through 10 levels or so)
Pathfinder Adventures (the one where you play through 3 to 4 levels or less, or is an anthology)
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I use "campaign" as a generic term for any sort of game where you play PCs through several levels to finish a story that encompasses more than a single adventure; it's not really an official Paizo term for the two print adventure lines we do for Pathfinder, which are:
Pathfinder Adventure Path (the one where you play through 10 levels or so)
Pathfinder Adventures (the one where you play through 3 to 4 levels or less, or is an anthology)
I understand that it isn't an official Paizo term, James. What I'm saying is that, given how branding typically works, maybe it should be -- especially since it is literally the term that came to mind for you!
Calling a single adventure (of whatever length) a "path" is unclear at best, because that is simply not how the term "adventure path" has ever been used, by Paizo or by anyone else (at least as far as I'm aware). And so you risk creating expectations for the product that will never be met. Which is kinda the opposite of how branding is intended to work.
Ok, I'm done beating this dead horse. ;-)
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Apart from some early growing pains as the AP writers adjusted to PF2, the biggest issues I've run into with APs seem to have stemmed from the limitations of the monthly format- bases and locations getting discarded because they weren't ready for the next author, abrupt shifts in tone or theme, important details not getting to the GM until it's too late, that sort of thing. APs are still going to frequently be multi-author, so I don't expect all the wrinkles to be ironed out, but I'll be happy to see the shift in action eventually.
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it should also be easier to release pawns once more for each AP :)
Sadly, if Erik Mona's recent comments on Reddit are anything to go by, AP pawns will likely remain a thing of the past.
Personally I'm hoping Paizo makes a go of tokens instead of pawns, and that doing so changes the cost structure enough to allow AP token packs to become a thing.
I'll highlight this for my hope as well. I've even played around with making token stickers from foundry tokens. I can extract token images from the foundry sets, print them out on a sheet of sticker paper then cut them out with my co-worker's cricut. From there it's a fairly simple process to stick them on 1" wooden rounds I buy from Amazon, scaling up for larger creatures.
I think it would be dirt cheap for Paizo to make these sticker sheets for APs...after all, they're already making the token art for the foundry release...and market them along with some blank plastic or wood tokens to stick them to. The blank tokens would be able to be used for every AP and the sticker sheets could be bundled in cheaply enough. When your party wraps up the AP just remove the stickers and they're ready for the next AP. Maybe do a 'premium AP' subscription that includes the hardcover and the token sticker sheet sent together.
*shrugs* A guy can hope...
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What's the price point of an AP in the new format? I'm guessing $75ish?
-Skeld
I think somebody said USD 79.99?
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Paizo's sourcebooks have a PDF file by chapter option for download. Hopefully that will be an option for the new AP hardcovers as well.
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It would be very interesting to know what’s changed here. Paizo has been doing monthly Adventure Path episodes for the best part of twenty years; I can think of plenty of potential advantages of the shift, but none that wouldn’t also have been advantages 5, 10, 15 years ago.A non-trivial number of people buy the first issue and none of the rest. With this change, you have to buy the whole thing.
-Skeld
Which means less people will buy it. Not more.
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Creative Director
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Which means less people will buy it. Not more.It would be very interesting to know what’s changed here. Paizo has been doing monthly Adventure Path episodes for the best part of twenty years; I can think of plenty of potential advantages of the shift, but none that wouldn’t also have been advantages 5, 10, 15 years ago.A non-trivial number of people buy the first issue and none of the rest. With this change, you have to buy the whole thing.
-Skeld
Or it means more people will buy it, since they won't feel left out becasue they happened to get to the store the day after book 1 sold out and they didn't want to buy book 2 without owning book 1.
We'll see, of course, but from what I can tell, hardcovers will make things healthier for the Adventure Path line overall. Fingers crossed, of course, but we haven't made this decision lightly or on a whim.
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Which means less people will buy it. Not more.It would be very interesting to know what’s changed here. Paizo has been doing monthly Adventure Path episodes for the best part of twenty years; I can think of plenty of potential advantages of the shift, but none that wouldn’t also have been advantages 5, 10, 15 years ago.A non-trivial number of people buy the first issue and none of the rest. With this change, you have to buy the whole thing.
-Skeld
Or it means more people will buy it, since they won't feel left out becasue they happened to get to the store the day after book 1 sold out and they didn't want to buy book 2 without owning book 1.
We'll see, of course, but from what I can tell, hardcovers will make things healthier for the Adventure Path line overall. Fingers crossed, of course, but we haven't made this decision lightly or on a whim.
I am sure you haven't.
It's just that I read a lot of posts about people buying the first book of an AP to get a feel for it and not buying the rest because they did not like the 1st.
I feel most of these people will not buy a complete AP just to test its waters.
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Which means less people will buy it. Not more.It would be very interesting to know what’s changed here. Paizo has been doing monthly Adventure Path episodes for the best part of twenty years; I can think of plenty of potential advantages of the shift, but none that wouldn’t also have been advantages 5, 10, 15 years ago.A non-trivial number of people buy the first issue and none of the rest. With this change, you have to buy the whole thing.
-Skeld
Or it means more people will buy it, since they won't feel left out becasue they happened to get to the store the day after book 1 sold out and they didn't want to buy book 2 without owning book 1.
We'll see, of course, but from what I can tell, hardcovers will make things healthier for the Adventure Path line overall. Fingers crossed, of course, but we haven't made this decision lightly or on a whim.
I am sure you haven't.
It's just that I read a lot of posts about people buying the first book of an AP to get a feel for it and not buying the rest because they did not like the 1st.
I feel most of these people will not buy a complete AP just to test its waters.
I believe there are several reasons for the first issue of APs selling the best:
1. As James has already pointed out, there is no concern about "starting in the middle"; you can't have missed anything, because the AP is self-contained.
2. The first issue of an AP was almost uniformly of higher quality than subsequent volumes. Perhaps because it got the longest lead time, and suffered from the least time crunch? I'm not entirely sure why this was the case, but it clearly was.
3. The first issue (very often; and always in the early days) started at first level, by far the most popular level of play in basically every level-based TTRPG ever.
I personally feel like the new format completely solves #1, and may help with #2. Overall the changes to the AP line seem well thought out, and I think they will prove to be a net positive.
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I never liked the level idea anyway. At least, not once I discovered non-level-based TTRPGs, like Harnmaster.
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Apart from some early growing pains as the AP writers adjusted to PF2, the biggest issues I've run into with APs seem to have stemmed from the limitations of the monthly format- bases and locations getting discarded because they weren't ready for the next author, abrupt shifts in tone or theme, important details not getting to the GM until it's too late, that sort of thing. APs are still going to frequently be multi-author, so I don't expect all the wrinkles to be ironed out, but I'll be happy to see the shift in action eventually.
Some of us already pointed out it should help with internal consistency, and hopefully avoid what happened in Council of Thieves, Serpent's Skull and a few others.
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Don't forget the most egregious example of lack of internal consistency in expectations: Second Darkness. Council of Thieves was primarily a poor set-up with the opening speech; Second Darkness required the PCs to completely shift their motivations after the first two adventures.
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Don't forget the most egregious example of lack of internal consistency in expectations: Second Darkness. Council of Thieves was primarily a poor set-up with the opening speech; Second Darkness required the PCs to completely shift their motivations after the first two adventures.
And don't forget that in the many, many years since things like Second Darkness and Council of Thieves that we've learned a lot about what is and isn't good for an Adventure Path. It's more helpful for us to learn from more recent mistakes or choices that didn't resonate than for things that are several editions behind us these days.
Don't mistake "let's test our feet and try new things" (such as Second Darkness's attempt to leave a gap for GMs to fill and make the story their own, or the growing pains of switching from one game rule set to another in Council of Thieves) for willfully taking steps to make our products worse. We're constantly working to improve the product, which means correcting for errors we did before but also trying new things.
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Don't forget the most egregious example of lack of internal consistency in expectations: Second Darkness. Council of Thieves was primarily a poor set-up with the opening speech; Second Darkness required the PCs to completely shift their motivations after the first two adventures.And don't forget that in the many, many years since things like Second Darkness and Council of Thieves that we've learned a lot about what is and isn't good for an Adventure Path. It's more helpful for us to learn from more recent mistakes or choices that didn't resonate than for things that are several editions behind us these days.
Don't mistake "let's test our feet and try new things" (such as Second Darkness's attempt to leave a gap for GMs to fill and make the story their own, or the growing pains of switching from one game rule set to another in Council of Thieves) for willfully taking steps to make our products worse. We're constantly working to improve the product, which means correcting for errors we did before but also trying new things.
I hope no one took that as a criticism about recent adventure paths.
To be fair, the Shackled City and Age of Worms adventure paths (in the Dungeon magazine days) had some similar "growing pains." Personally, I think the previous switch from 6 to 3 installments (or something similar) helped make it easier to maintain a coherent plot arc for an adventure path; honestly, the transition from "low level" to "high level" play (however you want to define it) changes a lot of underlying assumptions and it's just easier to separate them into separate plot arcs (even if they are related, thematically).
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Some of us already pointed out it should help with internal consistencyPeople have claimed that, but I am not sure I buy it. How should it help?
ISTM, consistency or lack thereof in APs has more to do with how they are written and edited than how they are published.
Because spreading them out over 6 or 3 months means that the individual chapters are all in various stages of development at any given time. With publishing as a single volume, all individual parts will need to be in roughly the same stage of development so that the lead person can edit the whole thing at once instead of in pieces spread out over time.
-Skeld
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It should also translate to better internal communications to make sure everyone is on the same page, and better continuity.
Should also help (more) when crap happen, like someone having to leave the project, an author having severe Blank Page Syndrome, etc.