ZEITGEIST Zeitgeist release frequency for En5ider and Trailseeker

Tormyr · Apr 2, 2017

So after 3 years of play, my 5e Age of Worms campaign is going to wrap up in a month or two. I have known for at least a year that our next campaign was going to be Zeitgeist after I purchased the first act when it was on special. So a while back I was getting ready to start converting it to 5e when the first rumblings of an official 5e conversion surfaced. I even offered to help to speed up the conversion.

Money is tight, but I started contributing to En5ider when the campaign guide was released. Realizing that it would take 6 months for the player's guide to be released, I remembered the announcement that all of Zeitgeist would be released monthly on Trailseeker starting summer of 2016. Wanting to read ahead on the later chapters to see where everything goes, I started contributing to Trailseeker as well. I then found that only four chapters of Zeitgeist had been released on Trailseeker, and chapter 3 was released late last year.

So I have 3 questions regarding release schedules:
1. Is En5ider on schedule for an August release of Chapter 1?
2. Will Zeitgeist chapters be released monthly on En5ider?
3. What is the release frequency for Zeitgeist on Trailseeker?

From what I have read so far, Zeitgeist is amazing, and I am really looking forward to running it with my players.

Thanks in advance for all that you do and have made.

Tobold · Apr 4, 2017

En5ider up to now published three bits of Zeitgeist: The campaign guide on Jan 30, the player's guide part 1 on Feb 10, and the player's gude part 2 on Mar 1. The player's guide needs at least 2 more parts to be complete. Adventure 1 is probably 2 parts. So even if we assume just 1 part of Zeitgeist in April, May, June, and July, you should have the first adventure by August. However while my facts are correct, my conclusion might be just pure speculation and totally wrong.

mdusty · Apr 4, 2017

Just a quick question: Why is Zeitgeist being released on Trailseeker? Isn't it already released using Pathfinder rules?

I'm expecting the 3rd part of the player's guide any day now.....it feels like its been awhile since the last EN5ider issue came out.....

Morrus · Apr 5, 2017

We do one ZEITGEIST EN5ider piece each month. The next EN5ider issue this week is, indeed, the next part of the Player's Guide. The last ZEITGEIST issue was on March 1st.

Tormyr · Apr 5, 2017

Tobold said:
En5ider up to now published three bits of Zeitgeist: The campaign guide on Jan 30, the player's guide part 1 on Feb 10, and the player's gude part 2 on Mar 1. The player's guide needs at least 2 more parts to be complete. Adventure 1 is probably 2 parts. So even if we assume just 1 part of Zeitgeist in April, May, June, and July, you should have the first adventure by August. However while my facts are correct, my conclusion might be just pure speculation and totally wrong.

Sorry, are you part of the En5ider team releasing this? I am not trying to be rude; that was a genuine question. Your information seems to contradict what has already been stated. It was previously announced that Zeitgeist content would be released monthly on En5ider, the player's guide would be 6 parts, Bonds of Forced Faith would be released (probably August), and the chapters would be released monthly (probably September).
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?500601-ZEITGEIST-5E&p=7021306&viewfull=1#post7021306
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?500601-ZEITGEIST-5E&p=7021880&viewfull=1#post7021880

The reason I asked whether things were still on track for adventure content being released in August is because it was previously announced that Zeitgeist would be released on Trailseeker monthly starting last summer.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2toa3?ZEITGEIST-Coming-To-TRAILseeker
If that were the case, about 10 chapters would have been released so far. Instead there are only 4 chapters released so far. So my first question was related to whether there were any anticipated delays for releasing the En5ider version. The reason I am asking is to figure out whether I am running something for 3 or 4 months or longer so there is no point where my group gets ahead of the released content. The second question was a sort of follow on from this.

The third question regarding the release frequency for Trailseeker was to figure out whether I should keep a Trailseeker subscription. I don't play Pathfinder, but it seemed like a good thing to support while I read all of the chapters, and I would end the subscription when I had finally read the whole adventure. A year or two ago I purchased Act 1, and I was surprised to see that Trailseeker has not yet released more chapters than I already owned. At the current release frequency Zeitgeist will be fully released on En5ider before Trailseeker. I know that I am going to need time to fully read and understand the story. I figured getting the Pathfinder version was a good way to read ahead.

I realize that plans are always that: just plans, but I would like to plan this out for my group. I know that there is a huge amount of content to convert and send to layout, and I want to feel somewhat sure that there is not going to be a break in the content. Zeitgeist is an amazing adventure, and I am looking forward to being a part of it.

*Sorry this post started to ramble on a bit.

Tobold · Apr 5, 2017

Sorry, I didn't know that you were such a snob that you wouldn't accept answers from anybody not working for the publisher.

Me, I am just a En5ider subscriber, armed with some basic math. Part 3 of the player's guide was released today. Parts 1, 2, and 3 together are 40 pages already released. The 4th edition Player's Guide is 61 pages long. Not sure why the remaining 21 pages would need another 3 parts to publish.

Oh, and I don't know what you are paying for Trailseeker, but the complete Zeitgeist adventure path, Pathfinder edition, is under $50.

Tormyr · Apr 5, 2017

Tobold said:
Sorry, I didn't know that you were such a snob that you wouldn't accept answers from anybody not working for the publisher.

Me, I am just a En5ider subscriber, armed with some basic math. Part 3 of the player's guide was released today. Parts 1, 2, and 3 together are 40 pages already released. The 4th edition Player's Guide is 61 pages long. Not sure why the remaining 21 pages would need another 3 parts to publish.

Oh, and I don't know what you are paying for Trailseeker, but the complete Zeitgeist adventure path, Pathfinder edition, is under $50.

I apologize for appearing as a snob. It was not my intention. The information you gave contradicted what had been announced previously from more authoritative sources. If you were part of En5ider, this would be a change in what had already been announced and change my timetable.

The reason I asked here was to double-check that my understanding of the En5ider release schedule was somewhat close to the mark. Trailseeker's release rate for Zeitgeist has been about half of what was previously announced, and per the announcement, the adventure was done. The announcement gave the impression that they were just going to post the pdfs. Converting Zeitgeist to 5e and adjusting publishing layout is a much bigger task. I believe En5ider is going to do their best to hold to a monthly release schedule for Zeitgeist, but my understanding of the size of the task and the different release rate for Trailseeker left me with some questions.

I am aware of other avenues to purchase the Pathfinder version of Zeitgeist. It just seemed like Trailseeker was the avenue being pushed. So I thought I would put my support there.

Anyway, thanks for trying to help. Again, I apologize for not responding as well as I could have.

Tobold · Apr 5, 2017

No problem, I was just joking.

I'm not sure the release schedule of Trailseeker and En5ider are related in this case. I have no idea why they didn't post the adventures as often as they said, but there isn't much work involved posting existing adventures. And it was marketed as "free". For the Zeitgeist 5E there is a strong demand (judging on a recent poll they did asking what people wanted to see posted next), and it is bringing Patrons in. So the motivation to publish is stronger, but there is a lot more work involved.

Personally my biggest worry about the 5E Zeitgeist is that 5th edition has such a different balance in terms of being designed for many small fights rather than few epic ones. Simply translating all the stats to 5th edition of a 4E adventure might not work all that well. But then, I never played Pathfinder and don't know how it works there. Listened to a podcast of people playing Zeitgeist in Pathfinder though, and they had a lot of deaths.

mdusty · Apr 6, 2017

Tobold said:
Personally my biggest worry about the 5E Zeitgeist is that 5th edition has such a different balance in terms of being designed for many small fights rather than few epic ones. Simply translating all the stats to 5th edition of a 4E adventure might not work all that well. But then, I never played Pathfinder and don't know how it works there.

This is actually very true regarding 5e. I've personally had to convert Zeitgeist to 5e because my players wanted to use that system instead of Pathfinder or 4e. And I'm sure I've probably not done a perfect job, especially in the beginning trying to figure out 5e CR system. At first they were easily blowing away the encounters, because I had assumed 'medium' difficulty for the combats, not realizing that there were only one, maybe two in a day in the adventure itself. So now I have to make sure each encounter is 'hard' or even 'deadly' to make sure they are challenged. But my group is very unique, they do not like easy combats. If at least one PC isn't at death's door each encounter, then they consider it a breeze. Probably not going to be like that for most other groups.