Pathfinder 1E Thank you Paizo/WotC! Adventure Path saved my game!

[Dragonblade]

Hey Erik Mona and all you Paizo and WotC people who post here,

Just want to let you know that the Adventure Path series is truly the best thing since the invention of the Bread of Slices.

Its has single-handedly saved our game. Our one DM was all but burned out and we had been gaming less and less. I suggested running Shackled City for fun and the rest is history. It has become our main campaign and we are having a blast!

We are currently running Shackled City and Age of Worms side by side, alternating every other Friday with two different DMs. We already have someone waiting to run Savage Tide once we finish the other two. Its been a long time since I have seen such enthusiasm to play D&D among my friends.

The people DMing have basically said that running these adventures is extremely liberating. The entire campaign is all laid out leaving a minimum of prep time. Also since these are tough adventures that take advantage of a wide variety of WotC resources and books, the DMs feel comfortable allowing the players to use all 3.5 WotC books freely without having to worry about whether something might disrupt their game. DM burnout has been all but eliminated.

For those of us playing it is a blast to be able to tap our entire libraries of WotC gaming material. For example, I'm playing a Warforged Warblade in our Age of Worms game. As a player we feel like we are really getting mileage out of our books which in turn means that we have been spending even more gaming dollars with both Paizo and WotC.

I recently extended my subscriptions with both Dragon and Dungeon solely because of the Adventure Path series, so thanks Paizo! Keep 'em coming!

And if you could release the occasional epic level sequel to past Adventure Paths that would rock too....

And while I'm on the topic, thanks to WotC for Tome of Battle. This is perhaps the single coolest DnD product released in the past year with the exception of the PHB 2. I will instantly buy any sequel or expansion to this book. Most of my group went out and bought this book solely on my recommendation and they all loved it.

 

[zoroaster100]

I agree on the great usefulness of the Adventure Paths. I am DMing for our group, and right now the only way I have time to do so is because I'm running the Shackled City Adventure Path. I still put a lot of prep time into each game, but that goes into making the game run smoothly or adding extras like art, sound tracks, etc. or adding plot twists specific to the characters. I don't think I could balance DMing with my other commitments if it wasn't for having an adventure path laid out for me to work from.

 

[Dragonhelm]

The people DMing have basically said that running these adventures is extremely liberating. The entire campaign is all laid out leaving a minimum of prep time.

This, to me, is the biggest selling point of the adventure paths. For those of us who work a job, have kids, etc., they are a big help.

Sovereign Press is doing something similar with the Age of Mortals modules for Dragonlance. Three modules, each one part of a greater trilogy that takes characters from level 1 to level 20.

Pre-packaged campaigns prove to be a huge benefit for DMs, perhaps even moreso than single adventures (though I love them too). I think that the Adventure Path idea was spot on and gave Dungeon new life. I'm looking forward to seeing Age of Worms released as a compilation (I hope!).

 

[wayne62682]

I wish that my group would enjoy the Adventure Paths.. however from everything they've said they utterly despise modules because they "railroad" them.

 

[GwydapLlew]

I wish that my group would enjoy the Adventure Paths.. however from everything they've said they utterly despise modules because they "railroad" them.

Well, I suppose if you take a concept ("the plot") and encourage players to engage in that concept ("run the adventure") and their choices are limited to those offered by you ("the DM"), then I suppose it could be seen as railroading ("complete hooey").

 

[Agamon]

Indeed. If you'd like to see an example of real railroading, where story is king and the PCs matter less than barnacles on the underside of a whale, check some of the 2E FR adventures put out by TSR in the late 80's. Yikes. Maybe that's where they got their idea that published adventures "raliroad".

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Interesting...

I've been considering suspending my current campaign and doing the Shackled City AP instead. I'd like to play once a week or so, but with work and other projects I'm lucky if we play once every three weeks. Hopefully Amazon will be shipping my book in the next week and I can check it all out!

 

[Rabelais]

We're running the two Adventure path series now. Shackled City as our Primary, and Age of Worms as our alt.game when our primary GM wants to step out from behind the screen. So far so good.

 

[delericho]

I wholeheartedly agree. Shackled City is great.

As far as the 'railroading' is concerned, I think there's a lot of truth in it. I don't think either Shacked City or Age of Worms really offers players much chance to significantly deviate from the main plot, which does run rather linearly. However, that's a reality of having a published campaign in it's entirety - there just isn't room for them to provide lots of options.

In hindsight, I think the best use for an Adventure Path is for the DM to use it as the 'A-plot' of the campaign, weaving it around his own 'B-plot' and the characters' own individual plots to create the whole.

My only regret from running Shackled City was that I was 'lazy' about it, and ran that as the campaign with virtually nothing else in the setting or the game. This meant that the setting and the characters were rather bland. We still had a blast, but I think perhaps it wasn't quite as satisfying as it could have been.

 

[wayne62682]

Yeah, that's pretty much why they feel that way... they tend to make characters that won't fit the "plot" (despite knowing the general idea in the first place... too many of our campaigns are very "open-ended" with no theme, so we are free to make anything we want and leave it up to the DM to draw us in), so that's part of the problem in itself. If they know the campaign will deal with undead, for example, I doubt any one of them would want to make an undead-hating Cleric, they'd make something like a Tiefling Enchanter wizard and then get upset when they can't really use any of their own backstory because it doesn't fit with the plot.