Hmm I am curious though, did you 1) know about history of Gauntlight from player's guide and town 2) did you talk to said monsters?
(my players ended up performing pyramid scheme were they talk to leader of monsters on one floor and promise them to kill leader of the next floor and repeat)
Yes, there wasnt a ton of history in the player's guide. I figured we would uncover that through play.
We did talk to monsters. Though, it was often an isolated incident that didnt really seem to connect to anything else. I do think we were finally starting to get somewhere when the wheels fell off the campaign; but who knows?
I think the system was too new for the module writers to make adequately. You cant just write an adventure the same way you did 20,30,40 years ago. The-Magic-Sword's work on the subject tells me you need a good understanding of PF2 to do this well. On top of that, you somehow have to write an adventure while also instructing people on how to run a megadungeon in PF2. Thats a lot of heavy lifting to put on a module.
As I've mentioned before, this has been a repeated problem in the D&D-sphere, as it occurred with the first few D&D3e and D&D4e adventures to one degree or another. I analogize it to the comment about generals always starting out fighting the last war.
As I've mentioned before, this has been a repeated problem in the D&D-sphere, as it occurred with the first few D&D3e and D&D4e adventures to one degree or another. I analogize it to the comment about generals always starting out fighting the last war.
Yes, there wasnt a ton of history in the player's guide. I figured we would uncover that through play.
We did talk to monsters. Though, it was often an isolated incident that didnt really seem to connect to anything else. I do think we were finally starting to get somewhere when the wheels fell off the campaign; but who knows?
There are roleplaying moments on every single floor in first book so that is why I was curious.
Either way though, I think main pro and con of AV is that its classic mega dungeon. Which means deadly encounters, really deadly hazards and etc. On level 1-3 of pathfinder 2e, minibosses are painfully hard because you don't have hp or resources to deal with them safely, so I would really prefer it if paizo instead focused on mook encounters on those levels, but they don't really do that for most part.
(Like as someone who likes both paizo aps and pathfinder 2e, I don't really like their low level design philosophy so far(Edgewatch first book is HARD), but I do hope it eventually changes)
We did talk to monsters. Though, it was often an isolated incident that didnt really seem to connect to anything else. I do think we were finally starting to get somewhere when the wheels fell off the campaign; but who knows?
I think you were close to getting to some story. We ended during the 4th level of the dungeon, and I think by the end of the first book it starts coming together a little more. By then most players in our group seemed ready to move on, from Abomination Vaults and PF2 overall.
It's difficult to illustrate examples without getting into spoiler territory, but if you'll remember the last fight we did with that magic user who was a little "different" - he had a pretty engaging backstory and connection to the big bad of the AP. But how does a GM convey that to his players? Just stop the fight and explain the story (which is like a page of text) in a cut scene? Make the clues even more obvious and have "master plan" journals lying around?
Now if I were writing the adventure, I'd have made the enemy caster less "different" - you would've been able to clearly see that he had a connection to the previous inhabitants, maybe making him someone who missed his previous life and eager to talk to the party, trying to regain his humanity (elf-dom?)
Having other NPCs willing to share information with the party instead of just "they offer to imprison the party if they surrender so they can eat them and sacrifice them to their evil god - if the offer is refused they fight to the death" type of encounters.
That's an example of the failing I saw in Abomination Vaults.
I think you were close to getting to some story. We ended during the 4th level of the dungeon, and I think by the end of the first book it starts coming together a little more. By then most players in our group seemed ready to move on, from Abomination Vaults and PF2 overall.
It's difficult to illustrate examples without getting into spoiler territory, but if you'll remember the last fight we did with that magic user who was a little "different" - he had a pretty engaging backstory and connection to the big bad of the AP. But how does a GM convey that to his players? Just stop the fight and explain the story (which is like a page of text) in a cut scene? Make the clues even more obvious and have "master plan" journals lying around?
Now if I were writing the adventure, I'd have made the enemy caster less "different" - you would've been able to clearly see that he had a connection to the previous inhabitants, maybe making him someone who missed his previous life and eager to talk to the party, trying to regain his humanity (elf-dom?)
Having other NPCs willing to share information with the party instead of just "they offer to imprison the party if they surrender so they can eat them and sacrifice them to their evil god - if the offer is refused they fight to the death" type of encounters.
That's an example of the failing I saw in Abomination Vaults.
Yes, all of this is common in the APs. Some worse offenders than others.
It's one of those things I change often when running one. Does it make more sense for the crazy wizard's journal to be in a different room? That way players can learn about the crazy wizard before encountering? Maybe I need to add an NPC or friendly ghost encounter to add some context to what is going on? Getting the proper info and context to the PCs is always something I'm working on.
I think you were close to getting to some story. We ended during the 4th level of the dungeon, and I think by the end of the first book it starts coming together a little more. By then most players in our group seemed ready to move on, from Abomination Vaults and PF2 overall.
It's difficult to illustrate examples without getting into spoiler territory, but if you'll remember the last fight we did with that magic user who was a little "different" - he had a pretty engaging backstory and connection to the big bad of the AP. But how does a GM convey that to his players? Just stop the fight and explain the story (which is like a page of text) in a cut scene? Make the clues even more obvious and have "master plan" journals lying around?
Now if I were writing the adventure, I'd have made the enemy caster less "different" - you would've been able to clearly see that he had a connection to the previous inhabitants, maybe making him someone who missed his previous life and eager to talk to the party, trying to regain his humanity (elf-dom?)
Having other NPCs willing to share information with the party instead of just "they offer to imprison the party if they surrender so they can eat them and sacrifice them to their evil god - if the offer is refused they fight to the death" type of encounters.
That's an example of the failing I saw in Abomination Vaults.
Umm... But I thought that dude was foreshadowed though.
First level has creation of the wizard crying out for him and party can interrogate his soul for more info. And beneath him is his workshop. Later they can meet ghost who was in love with him and I had mr. wizard banter with party pre attacking.
Like, I'm not above using narration to give players out of character knowledge about stuff that has happened in rooms they enter, but I didn't really need to do that regarding the villain you are talking about.
My main confusion here is that you witness the information being obtuse and hard to run into, I viewed same information as really easy to naturally bring to players. I guess it comes down to opinion difference since I have no real other way to interpret that.
Umm... But that dude was foreshadowed as heck though.
First level has creation of the wizard crying out for him and party can interrogate his soul for more info. And beneath him is his workshop. Later they can meet ghost who was in love with him and I had mr. wizard banter with party pre attacking.
Like, I'm not above using narration to give players out of character knowledge about stuff that has happened in rooms they enter, but I didn't really need to do that regarding the villain you are talking about.
My main confusion here is that you witness the information being obtuse and hard to run into, I viewed same information as really easy to naturally bring to players.
In our run-through, the creation above was killed as a monstrosity and no one pieced together any information from the workshop. They did not encounter the ghost.
So it was very much a case for us where I would've had to stop the game and say "this is foreshadowing an encounter that you may not care about or even face - pay attention!" And yes, it would've added some roleplay to the adventure, but it wouldn't have been enough to motivate the players to continue.
For us, what Abomination Vaults desperately needed was a moment very early on where the party learns:
1) These are the factions at play in the dungeon.
2) This is what they're trying to do.
3) This is why you're going into the dungeon to stop them.
4) This is what you hope to accomplish.
I'll put spoiler tags around each of the points below about how I would've changed it, knowing what I know about the AP now.
1) These are the factions at play in the dungeon.
A cult has found information about Belcorra and is acting in Otari to "prepare" it for destruction. Maybe they need to do rituals so the lighthouse can teleport monsters into certain areas. The party can fight them and get information about the plan and know that to really stop the cult, they have to stop Belcorra.
2) This is what they're trying to do.
After the attacks grow in frequency and intensity, each is going farther away from the lighthouse. Deeper into the town. Inside buildings. Outside of town, closer to Absalom. They are getting more powerful and definitely need to be stopped.
3) This is why you're going into the dungeon to stop them.
Without Belcorra, the rituals can't happen. You can also stop the lighthouse. A reformed cultist has told them how it functions - and even tells them to cut the power to the lighthouse, they need to do X. This could be visiting four different power nodes in the dungeon and perform rituals/destroy the power source. It could be anything, but the party should have a plan and defined goal.
4) This is what you hope to accomplish.
You know that destroying the lighthouse and killing Belcorra will end the threat of summoning monsters in Otari and beyond.
So how soon should the party know this? At the end of Book 1? I say they should have all this information before they enter the dungeon. No gradual development of a story (other than flavor text, learning about NPCs). They should know the purpose of the adventure before they start it. Similar to the following Wizards of the Coast campaign adventures...
1) Rime of the Frost Maiden = endless winter grips the Ten Towns. Find out how to stop it.
2) Tomb of Annihilation = the death curse is killing people. The source is somewhere in Chult.
3) Curse of Strahd = you are trapped in Ravenloft. Can you escape the domain of Strahd?
4) Storm King's Thunder = what's making the giants attack and can you stop them?
5) Out of the Abyss = you are imprisoned in the Underdark. Can you escape the drow? [This at least gets the adventure started.]
Just some simple motivation is all other than "there's a dungeon to explore for no reason."
He does; I've seen him do so both on here and on the Paizo forums. But he does himself no favors when he either effectively or actively accuses anyone disagreeing with him of being disingenuous. And he does that a fair bit.
