WotBS Tell me about WotBS

[GuJiaXian]

One final question. It looks as if some of the adventures have errata. Does the printed book contain all errata?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

In case you wanted a less biased opinion...

The War of the Burning Sky AP is, hands down, the best campaign/setting I have ever had the pleasure of running... altho Deserts of Desolation is definately in the same sphere.

IMHO, the best part of the campaign is how much closer it is to a setting with a strong plotline instead of a series of loosely connected stories. This means the DM has more room to allow the players to wander off the main storyline.. or completely re-organize it, while still having a published resource to work from.

The second best part of the campaign is how strongly linked it is from 1st level to 30th {or 20th if you are playing 3x} while not putting a straight jacket on the players. There are characters you meet in the first module that you run into again later, and your interaction with them can change how they deal with you the next time you meet.
At the end of the campaign there is a large battle, in which the success or failure of the PCs in the previous modules shape the challenge they face significantly...

It is an "experienced DM" campaign as you are not Shackled to a particular plotline and many of the later modules are written fairly vaguely in regards to the interactions or background reasons. For instance, there is an assasination plot that happens before the PCs show up in one adventure... but it is not detailed who was behind the plot or how it was executed. If the players investigate, it is up to the DM to put the best story forward.
The assasination plot is itself not intrinsincly linked to the full plot, which is part of why it is not detailed.. but that means it is easier to adapt to the nature of the party.

The third reason I love the campaign is this forum. Seriously... how many other APs do you know that you can literally ask the authors for help? There are also a number of non-author types {like me} that respond here and have posted a bunch of threads on implementing the campaign in various settings and concerns.

I am running a converted 4e version and have been enjoying it very much. If I had stuck with 3x, I would have gone for the full color hardback.. which would have been cheaper than my current subscription + Lulu + Kinko's approach

 

[Marius Delphus]

The hardback contains all the errata that had, to that point, been identified in the 3.5 adventures. Of course, no published product is ever perfect.

 

[Skyscraper]

Here's another point of view.

I've read only 3 adventures and I've started running the Scouring of Gate Pass (#1) - we're 6 sessions into the AP. So take this opinion in view of the above.

The AP has some really strong points and some weaknesses in my (amateur, i'm not a gaming professional) opinion.

The strong points that come to mind are:

- setting has depth and lots of detail. I like the initial situation, the fallen emperor, the conquering nation that makes the entire area tremble when the emperor dies, the inquisitors, the scourge, the wayfarers, a lot of elements have flavor and make the setting live. This is very important to me.
- NPCs have depth and lots of detail
- setting can be used easily just about anywhere (I transformed it into a continent in my homebrew)
- there are a few different factions that interact in interesting ways. I.e. it's not just the PCs vs the bad guys.
- there are some moral dilemnas, e.g. do the PCs fight these foreigners? They're not enemies really, but they're trying to grab that same item the PCs also covet.
- there is a lot of meat around the bone to allow you to improvise or modify the AP to your liking
- there are no dungeon crawls
- the storyline is fun and interesting
- PCs can influence the outcome of the game (to some extent, which is good for a published AP)

Here are points that I dislike (keep in mind, this is just one person's opinion):
- parts of the AP are railroady, for example, a trek through a fire forest in which walking outside the path is impossible because the forest is on fire, and going back is impossible because flames close the path as the PCs move forward. So the PCs can only walk along the path and go through the encounters the DM throws at them. Or, another example, is that an NPC tags along with the PCs from the start of the AP and leads them from encounter to encounter for some time.
- NPCs tagging along with the PCs. There can be up to three of them that the story requires, i.e. they have plot elements tied to them. You can manage around that if you want, but you need to find a way. Customizing is pretty easy though.
- In the 4E version, it is my impression that the creature design and encounter design are suboptimal. Not as in, too easy. But rather, they're not as balanced or rules-aligned as they should be.
- Information is really tough to pick up as DM. The information is dispersed between the storlyine description, sidebars, encounter descriptions and NPC entries. You need to piece all of that together and there is a lot of info to gather. This can get really annoying.

I've also bought, read and run (in part, twice) The Shackled City; and I'm playing through Scales of War. I prefer this AP to Scales of War because the latter appears really railroady in a superficial setting. (Our DM is straying away from the set AP.) The Shackled City had too much dungeon crawl and was very railroady (perhaps even more that WotBS), but compared to WotBS as far as depth of the setting is concerned (though at a smaller scale) and interesting NPCs and factions. Shackled City was more polished however (encounter design, creature design, oragnisation, presentation).

In the end, what makes this AP worth it IMO is the non dungeon-crawl approach, a lot of different types of events (battles, diplomacy, etc...), and a very strong, deep and compelling setting. You also get a LOT for your money in buying WotBS, the adventurers are big.

So there you have 'em, my impressions.

Sky

 

[pneumatik]

I'm running WotBS (3.5E version) online (see sig), so after a year or so we're mostly done with the second mod. That being said it's a pretty epic campaign, which is what I like about it. Definitely get the whole thing at once and read all of it in at least some detail before you get started. Some things just don't get explained until later.

It's exactly the sort of campaign that I would want to run myself. There's a single plot that ties everything together. Older characters and locations come back (something I'm actually a little worried about for a campaign as slow as a pbp, but that I love). Earlier actions impact later ones. Things happen on a grand scale.

Other downsides are that sometimes the mods feel a little stretched out. Like some other adventures I've played, I'm worried it will be hard to get all that backstory to the players other than by giving them a giant plot dump.

 

[Truename]

- parts of the AP are railroady, for example, a trek through a fire forest in which walking outside the path is impossible because the forest is on fire, and going back is impossible because flames close the path as the PCs move forward. So the PCs can only walk along the path and go through the encounters the DM throws at them. Or, another example, is that an NPC tags along with the PCs from the start of the AP and leads them from encounter to encounter for some time.

I have to strongly disagree with this. I think WotBS is as about as non-railroady as it's possible for a published adventure path to get.

The Fire Forest seems railroady, but it's not actually. There are a lot of ways to skip sections (my players just skipped a major chunk of it last session) and a wonderful moral dilemma with *both* choices fully fleshed out.

(Actually, I think you may have misread it, at least if you're looking at the 4e version. The flames don't close the path behind the PCs, for example.)

- In the 4E version, it is my impression that the creature design and encounter design are suboptimal. Not as in, too easy. But rather, they're not as balanced or rules-aligned as they should be.

This is *very* true. I've been using the Monster Builder to re-stat all of the monsters. It's a pain. I haven't seen a single skill challenge I liked, either--luckily, they're easy to cut.

Overall, I think WotBS is superb, but it does take some work. For me, that's part of the fun.

 

[Morrus]

- parts of the AP are railroady, for example, a trek through a fire forest in which walking outside the path is impossible because the forest is on fire, and going back is impossible because flames close the path as the PCs move forward. So the PCs can only walk along the path and go through the encounters the DM throws at them.

I'm always curious about this opinion about Fire Forest, because it is expressed frequently - yet I consider it the least railroady adventure of the whole series!

Sure, there's a road you have to walk along in the first third of the adventure. But the choices you make are epic. You can literally choose how the adventure unfolds. You can choose which side you take; whether the Seela live or die, whether the forest dies or not, whether you ally with the devil, with the Trillith, or with the Seela - totally up to the players. But people seem to fixate on that darn road!

If the road really bothers you, change the flavour text. It's only flavour text - it doesn't have to be a road. Give it branches if you like and vary the encounters. The important point of the adventure is the massive choices the players make - choices of a scale that I don't believe I've ever seen in another adventure. In my mind, it's the very antithesis of a railroad - it's the most open-ended adventure I've ever seen.

I notice you've just started running the first adventure - I'd be curious to see if you have the same opinion after you've run Fire Forest. Certainly my players told me they felt they were making important choices.

I am, of course, biased.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

Regarding Fire Forest,

For my group there were comments about how railroady it was in 3x, but a large part of that is:
It starts with the group running away from the city and being forced down the path through the forest.
At a 4 hour session once per month, it took almost 3 months to get from the start of the module to the point in the Fire Forest where the meaningful choices come up. {at the village}

If I were to run it again, I would change the first part of the forest into an extended skill challenge and one combat { the one with Kashk}, getting the group relativley quickly into the village where they can start making choices as to where the plot goes.. trading backstory time with more detail on what those choices were.

I do really like all the background and flavour that the encounters lent to the adventure, as well as impressing that only heroes can make it through the blaze... but in play it just drew out.


The second thing to point out, my players recall the straight jacket of the road much clearer than they recall the choices or the insanity that is the capstone battlefield, mostly because they had selected an alliance and were not aware that the options were fleshed out for alternate endings.

 

[Morrus]

At a 4 hour session once per month, it took almost 3 months to get from the start of the module to the point in the Fire Forest where the meaningful choices come up. {at the village}

Fair enough; my group covered that section in two weeks (two sessions) but I understand that different groups play at different paces.

The second thing to point out, my players recall the straight jacket of the road much clearer than they recall the choices or the insanity that is the capstone battlefield, mostly because they had selected an alliance and were not aware that the options were fleshed out for alternate endings.

Again, fair enough. My players said the opposite - what they remember is the big choices. As I said before, every group is different; for us, that road manifested as about 10% of the adventure and mygroup barely mentioned it. They still talk about the epic sessions making those choices, though.

I guess it's a pacing thing. For us, the vilalge and choices really were the focus of the adventure. I can see that other might focus on the road leading there.

 

[Jhaelen]

- parts of the AP are railroady, for example, a trek through a fire forest in which walking outside the path is impossible because the forest is on fire, and going back is impossible because flames close the path as the PCs move forward.

I can see why the first two partsd of WotBS might seem railroady from time to time, but that may be deceiving. I recently bought and started reading "Death Frost Doom" and found one of the author's comments quite interesting: He's describing a trail leading up a hill and mentions that if the party follows it, they won't run into any trouble while strying from the trail will result in a difficult journey. He then points out that this is not 'railroading', it's the very definition of a trail. If it wasn't easier to travel on the trail it wouldn't be a trail!
There is certainly some truth in this.

The Shackled City had too much dungeon crawl and was very railroady (perhaps even more that WotBS)

Now, this surprises me a bit. Which parts do you feel are railroady? I should think it cannot be the dungeons, since they twist and branch all over the place. It also cannot be the city itself, since the pcs are free to go wherever they like.
Or are you referring to the very nature of an AP itself, i.e. a string of adventures that have to be played through in order to complete it? If so, then, naturally, _every_ AP is railroady.