Sept 2nd News - I wont be doing Scales of War

[yoda8myhead]

All things considered, I'm not surprised by either WotC's lack of providing adequate support material for GMs or the outcry that is coming from gamers as a result. But they are right in one regard, though. I don't need an overview for SoW--Their lack of quality and support for the path is keeping me from running it.

Paizo give people the overview they need for an Adventure Path. WoTC offer lame excuses.

To add to this, each issue of Pathfinder, and numerous other Pathfinder branded books contain the supporot articles a GM needs to make a cohesive world without needing to dedicate hours upon hours each week to make it work. With bestiaries containing ecologies for new monsters, regional gazetteers, racial and historical "fluff" articles about the setting, and GM tools like advice on running a castle or high altitude adventuring provide even more support than one gets from a simple overview (not to diminish the value of an overview). How many articles in the two "magazines" that WotC puts out a month have provided supporting material for SoW? There's a huge gap in that regard as well.

 

[Jack99]

All things considered, I'm not surprised by either WotC's lack of providing adequate support material for GMs or the outcry that is coming from gamers as a result. But they are right in one regard, though. I don't need an overview for SoW--Their lack of quality and support for the path is keeping me from running it.



To add to this, each issue of Pathfinder, and numerous other Pathfinder branded books contain the supporot articles a GM needs to make a cohesive world without needing to dedicate hours upon hours each week to make it work. With bestiaries containing ecologies for new monsters, regional gazetteers, racial and historical "fluff" articles about the setting, and GM tools like advice on running a castle or high altitude adventuring provide even more support than one gets from a simple overview (not to diminish the value of an overview). How many articles in the two "magazines" that WotC puts out a month have provided supporting material for SoW? There's a huge gap in that regard as well.

AP's are, afaik, what puts bread on the table at Paizo, without them, they would have nothing but a game in beta. Now, I must admit that I know little of this, but is it possible that Paizo actually spends more man-power on their AP's than WotC, since AP's are a fairly small thing for WotC? Because if that is the case, then why should we expect WotC's AP's to be better than Paizo's?

Either way, I agree with the sentiment that we should get an overview. It probably wouldn't change much for me, since the two installments that I have read so far were hardly good enough to convince me of running Scales of War. So far, it has been among the worst things they have released in eDungeon.

 

[Reaper Steve]

Here's my guess on what they don't want to spoil:
With 16 more months to go, I expect that the later parts of SoW will include monsters from MM2 (and maybe 3), as well as things from other books yet to be published or even announced.

If they say, the BBEG of SoW is _____________, a 33rd level primordial (see Manual of the Planes) that rides an acient wyrm brown dragon (see Draconomicon I) and is surrounded by hordes of ___________ (see MM2)...., well, not only does that spoil the adventure path, but it also spoils parts of those products.

 

[Fenes]

Some people just don't get that we're not fans watching ESB, we're the directors shooting the movie. At least some of us want the script for the movie we are shooting, if only so we can improve on it if needed, and make it more fun.

Is there an reason other than 'Spoilers are bad for you' arrogancd for not providing us a spoiler tagged outline?

Is there any reason even to defend their mistake?

 

[The Little Raven]

Is there an reason other than 'Spoilers are bad for you' arrogancd for not providing us a spoiler tagged outline?

Not wanting to tip your hand is neither arrogance nor saying "spoilers are bad for you." Please stop assigning an intent or motivation to his post that is not in the text.

 

[Dausuul]

Here's my guess on what they don't want to spoil:
With 16 more months to go, I expect that the later parts of SoW will include monsters from MM2 (and maybe 3), as well as things from other books yet to be published or even announced.

If they say, the BBEG of SoW is _____________, a 33rd level primordial (see Manual of the Planes) that rides an acient wyrm brown dragon (see Draconomicon I) and is surrounded by hordes of ___________ (see MM2)...., well, not only does that spoil the adventure path, but it also spoils parts of those products.

Why would they say that? I don't need the BBEG's exact stats, or what book he's going to be in. The players aren't going to fight him for another 25 levels. I just need to know who he is and what he's doing.

Not wanting to tip your hand is neither arrogance nor saying "spoilers are bad for you." Please stop assigning an intent or motivation to his post that is not in the text.

What he said wasn't exactly the same as "spoilers are bad for you," but that was what it came down to - they don't want to reveal the plot because then spoilers would exist. And it is arrogant to say:

I can assure you that the current fears about the lack of a compelling archvillain, or a logically complete structure, or major NPCs, or a real hook are all misguided. Just wait and see!

These are subjective judgements he's making on our behalf. Who is he to tell us whether we'll find his archvillain compelling, or his structure logically complete, or his plot hook "real?"

Just because he likes his archvillain doesn't mean I will. Just because he thinks his structure is logical and complete doesn't mean I won't see great gaping holes in it. And just because he thinks he's got a good plot hook doesn't mean my players will give a damn about it. I want to judge for myself before I embark on a years-long campaign.

 

[Spatula]

Silly question.

Pre-Adventure path overview, how did you guys do something like Against the Giants->Descent?

Buy the adventures, read them, and run them? Or, read the blurbs on the cover of the adventures, decide that some or all of it was not to your taste, and buy/run none or some of it? I don't get what you're asking here, not many people were actually in a position to run these without having the later chapters already available - the entire series was published in 1978, except for Q1 which came out in 1980.

But aside from that, the old school modules were very bare-bones, without the intricate plots that we see nowadays. A group playing D3 and jumping through the portal to Lolth's realm back in 1978 would have had no problems or qualms with making up what happened after on their own, as there was no supplied plot to begin with. I doubt that the very free-form D3 would even be recognized as an actual adventure these days - the standards are very different now (maybe as a location sourcebook).

I see him saying that certain "reveals" being spoiled ahead of time won't have the same impact, which makes sense, since surprises in storylines (like plot twists, character deaths, etc) don't have the same impact if you know about them ahead of time.

The DM has to know them ahead of time in order to run the game. I don't know about you, but I don't have any positive play experiences that involve the DM reading the adventure as we're playing through it at the table, but that would be the only way for the DM to shield himself from spoilers.

 

[Fenes]

Not wanting to tip your hand is neither arrogance nor saying "spoilers are bad for you." Please stop assigning an intent or motivation to his post that is not in the text.

You don't get it. Time to add another name to my ignore list.

 

[The Little Raven]

You don't get it.

Yeah, I don't get why people take something someone says and twist it to say something entirely different, to the extent where they try and squeeze some kind of implied insult out of it.

 

[Drkfathr1]

Overstate much?

No, I state my opinion.

Try to start arguments much?