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Zad/Wizardru's Story Hour (*final update 11/12*)
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<blockquote data-quote="WizarDru" data-source="post: 3886394" data-attributes="member: 151"><p>So now, some post-mortem reporting.</p><p></p><p>First off, let me be clear: the 'exit interview' post notwithstanding, I don't regret buying or running Shackled City. Nor do I think that the problems I encountered were insurmountable. That really wasn't the issue at all. Neither do I feel that Shackled City is a bad product. I feel quite the opposite. While I will abandon Shackled City as an adventure path, Cauldron will remain.</p><p></p><p>My issues with the Shackled City ultimately are three-fold. They are, as follows:</p><p></p><p>1) <strong>It ended up requiring too much work from me as the DM.</strong> I purchased Shackled City to make running a fully assembled campaign a low-effort task. I ran the previous campaign almost entirely on my own work for 6+ years. At later levels, this proved draining sometimes (a fun kind of draining, but nevertheless it sometimes left me creatively empty). Shackled City fulfilled this promise in early levels quite handily...but as the campaign went on, it needed lots of upkeep. Shackled City's whole was not greater than the sum of its parts, regretably. </p><p></p><p>2) <strong>It's not really meant for our group.</strong> SCAP suffers from a common published module problem: it assumes that the characters will willingly do things 'because they're adventurers'. This sort of thing is fair game at 1st level and certainly it's not unreasonable that players will say 'well, we need to start <em>somehow</em>and shrug their shoulders under the 'brought together under circumstances' bailiwick. But the SCAP has a LOT of this sort of thing, and no suggestions for when that is NOT an alternative that is attractive to the heroes. The worst offender is the 'Test of the Smoking Eye' where a heretofore unknown evil NPC shows up and asks the PCs to go to the Abyss with him. This is wishful thinking at best. You shouldn't have to depend on the flimsy excuse of 'because they're adventurers' to be the primary motivation to move an untenable plot along.</p><p></p><p>3) <strong>The SCAP was written by committee.</strong> While later efforts from Paizo work, the Shackled City SCAP clearly had issues in terms of plot and pacing. Plot threads are left dangling or are just left unexplained. Important characters only walk into the players lives minutes before they do their 'big moment'. Characters like Maavu the merchant, Sir Alek the paladin or Jil the assassin never actually have any significance to the players are inconsistent throughout the arc. Character like the first Mayor, who has a picture but never even has a speaking part in the main story (but whose importance to the story is significant) are given more space than necessary and yet remain criminally undeveloped. An important character like Tygot, the halfling merchant, is presented as if he was totally new in the fifth module, even though he gets pride of place in several places prior to that point. And so on. SCAP is unfocused and the story arc falls apart in the later modules.</p><p></p><p></p><p>So where does the SCAP excel?</p><p></p><p>1) <strong>Excellent set pieces.</strong> There are some great set-ups and combats here. Some of them could have used more guidance in tempering their use and balance issues, but overall they are interesting and sometimes very fun and challenging.</p><p></p><p>2) <strong>A well developed setting.</strong> Cauldron is a great setting. It is both expansive and small, allowing the DM freedom to tell different kinds of stories. Cauldron has a unique feel to it and the city is internally consistent. Best of all, it's very easy to plug it in to an existing infrastrucure.</p><p></p><p>3) <strong>Pretty pictures</strong> Seriously. While there are times when the artwork and cartography disagreed with the written text, it never failed to deliver on the promise of compelling visuals to share. Sometimes a picture is much more valuable than a few descriptor paragraphs, and the quality artwork really helped with that. Paizo's usual bang-up job of layout and graphic knowhow certainly played a part, too.</p><p></p><p>4) <strong>Time-savings.</strong> Having pages and pages of stat-blocks at one's beck and call doesn't suck. And since Paizo was in good cahoots with WotC, these stat blocks included stuff from supplemental books, like non-MM monsters and prestige-classed characters from non-DMG sources. This made the enemies much more interesting and ave the players more options.</p><p></p><p>In answer to the question: Yes, I think someone (possibly me) will perform a write-up of the new Pathfinder adventures.</p><p></p><p>Next Post: Life, Liberty and Campaign Ties.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="WizarDru, post: 3886394, member: 151"] So now, some post-mortem reporting. First off, let me be clear: the 'exit interview' post notwithstanding, I don't regret buying or running Shackled City. Nor do I think that the problems I encountered were insurmountable. That really wasn't the issue at all. Neither do I feel that Shackled City is a bad product. I feel quite the opposite. While I will abandon Shackled City as an adventure path, Cauldron will remain. My issues with the Shackled City ultimately are three-fold. They are, as follows: 1) [b]It ended up requiring too much work from me as the DM.[/b] I purchased Shackled City to make running a fully assembled campaign a low-effort task. I ran the previous campaign almost entirely on my own work for 6+ years. At later levels, this proved draining sometimes (a fun kind of draining, but nevertheless it sometimes left me creatively empty). Shackled City fulfilled this promise in early levels quite handily...but as the campaign went on, it needed lots of upkeep. Shackled City's whole was not greater than the sum of its parts, regretably. 2) [b]It's not really meant for our group.[/b] SCAP suffers from a common published module problem: it assumes that the characters will willingly do things 'because they're adventurers'. This sort of thing is fair game at 1st level and certainly it's not unreasonable that players will say 'well, we need to start [i]somehow[/i]and shrug their shoulders under the 'brought together under circumstances' bailiwick. But the SCAP has a LOT of this sort of thing, and no suggestions for when that is NOT an alternative that is attractive to the heroes. The worst offender is the 'Test of the Smoking Eye' where a heretofore unknown evil NPC shows up and asks the PCs to go to the Abyss with him. This is wishful thinking at best. You shouldn't have to depend on the flimsy excuse of 'because they're adventurers' to be the primary motivation to move an untenable plot along. 3) [b]The SCAP was written by committee.[/b] While later efforts from Paizo work, the Shackled City SCAP clearly had issues in terms of plot and pacing. Plot threads are left dangling or are just left unexplained. Important characters only walk into the players lives minutes before they do their 'big moment'. Characters like Maavu the merchant, Sir Alek the paladin or Jil the assassin never actually have any significance to the players are inconsistent throughout the arc. Character like the first Mayor, who has a picture but never even has a speaking part in the main story (but whose importance to the story is significant) are given more space than necessary and yet remain criminally undeveloped. An important character like Tygot, the halfling merchant, is presented as if he was totally new in the fifth module, even though he gets pride of place in several places prior to that point. And so on. SCAP is unfocused and the story arc falls apart in the later modules. So where does the SCAP excel? 1) [b]Excellent set pieces.[/b] There are some great set-ups and combats here. Some of them could have used more guidance in tempering their use and balance issues, but overall they are interesting and sometimes very fun and challenging. 2) [b]A well developed setting.[/b] Cauldron is a great setting. It is both expansive and small, allowing the DM freedom to tell different kinds of stories. Cauldron has a unique feel to it and the city is internally consistent. Best of all, it's very easy to plug it in to an existing infrastrucure. 3) [b]Pretty pictures[/b] Seriously. While there are times when the artwork and cartography disagreed with the written text, it never failed to deliver on the promise of compelling visuals to share. Sometimes a picture is much more valuable than a few descriptor paragraphs, and the quality artwork really helped with that. Paizo's usual bang-up job of layout and graphic knowhow certainly played a part, too. 4) [b]Time-savings.[/b] Having pages and pages of stat-blocks at one's beck and call doesn't suck. And since Paizo was in good cahoots with WotC, these stat blocks included stuff from supplemental books, like non-MM monsters and prestige-classed characters from non-DMG sources. This made the enemies much more interesting and ave the players more options. In answer to the question: Yes, I think someone (possibly me) will perform a write-up of the new Pathfinder adventures. Next Post: Life, Liberty and Campaign Ties. [/QUOTE]
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