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5 years ago ::
Sep 22, 2008 - 1:03PM
#151
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Date Joined:
Jul 12, 2008
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I would love to think that WoTC does have a plan for the AP, but their own actions call this into question.
As mentioned in an earlier post, the latest installment starts witht he fact that if you've already finished Siege, there is an important item that the party was to have received at the end of module 2.
While they offer suggestions on how to handle it (from the somewhat lackluster 'just give it to them' to the actually useful 'put it on this NPC'), the fact remains that this is a goof-up. It is even more disconcerting that it happened (a) early on in the AP and (b) happened between 2 consecutive modules.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 22, 2008 - 4:09PM
#152
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I'm still down for the community built AP. I think that would be really cool! I'd never designed any adventures of my own until 4E, and I was surprised at how easy and intuitive it was. With that under my belt, I am chomping at the bit to design new adventures (mostly b/c I, too, DM'd the AoW AP and this one is far from that benchmark, right?). It would be so awesome to collaborate with a group of DM's to come up with something awesome like that for 4E.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 22, 2008 - 8:30PM
#153
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
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I get where all of you are coming from, and, in some ways, you're probably right about how much easier it is to run when you know what's coming. I get the sense that this is a different kind of AP, that they may have tinkered around with in their own home games, or games sessions at the office. Once they got it to a point they were comfortable with, they went ahead with it. Does that mean it's gonna be the best ever? Absolutely not. It will eventually stand on the quality of the adventures, and how well they come together.
Sadly the latest podcast makes it clear this is not the case.
They broke it up and hashed out the rough ideas, then they hand over to the authors a "start here, end here, add this, and include this" rough guideline and then they edit the returned module. (Hipefully with the edit part)
In short they have actually admitted that the AP is just loosely connected modules, and according to what they have said about their goals with it in the podcast I think they are doing a worse job of it than I initially thought, espeically compared to some of their prior efforts.
The individual modules I remain happy with as individual modules. As an adventure path Scales of War is a very poor example due to an apparently intentional lack of cohesion.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2008 - 4:30AM
#154
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Date Joined:
Sep 10, 2007
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So, you assume that they never got these individuals together, and laid out where this was all going before the outset?
You're also assuming that the individual writers aren't reading each other's adventures. It's as though they exist in these isolated bubbles and everyone on the outside has their fingers crossed that there won't be too many inconsistencies. Realistically, that doesn't happen, I don't care how shoddy your editorial model. I would be willing to bet that things are given a lot of editing right up until the day they're put out there. Does that mean there won't be mistakes? No. Does that mean that details won't slip through the cracks? No.
I'm really of the opinion that our own individual ideas of how to write an adventure are limited in the scope of what's going on here. We all say, "in my campaigns, there's NEVER continuity problems," or "I never let a detail slide that might be important." I know for a fact that in my campaigns, it happens all the time. There hasn't been one campaign I've DMed or played in where someone didn't say, "Oops! That wasn't supposed to happen that way," or "but you're not supposed to know that yet."
So far, I have found these adventures to feed into each other at least passably, and generally speaking they're very easy to run and very exciting, not just for my players, but also for me as DM. And, in the end, that's why I'm not going on too many complaintive rants about this AP.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 23, 2008 - 7:01AM
#155
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Date Joined:
Mar 16, 2001
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I'm really of the opinion that our own individual ideas of how to write an adventure are limited in the scope of what's going on here. We all say, "in my campaigns, there's NEVER continuity problems," or "I never let a detail slide that might be important." I know for a fact that in my campaigns, it happens all the time. There hasn't been one campaign I've DMed or played in where someone didn't say, "Oops! That wasn't supposed to happen that way," or "but you're not supposed to know that yet."
Something not happening a particular way is different from having to retcon prior events because you forgot to include a particular plot element.
As for my individual ideas, they include quite a bit of experience with working on tying together independent adventures, adding cross-references, developing a full series, and working with multiple authors.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 24, 2008 - 8:44AM
#156
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Date Joined:
Nov 15, 2005
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I for one welcome the loose knit structure of Scales of War. The proto-AP they did with Sunless Citadel and the rest remains one of my favorite models for an Adventure Path: loose, vaguely related adventures that eventually add up to something grand. While it never matched the awesomeness of the individual adventures we saw in Savage Tide (for example), the path as a whole was a lot more forgiving on the DM and players. The hardwired APs leave little room for sidequests or PC-initiated adventures and heaven help you if characters died.
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5 years ago ::
Sep 25, 2008 - 9:04PM
#157
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Date Joined:
Oct 17, 2007
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I think another thing people forget is that not everyone likes APs.
One of the biggest arguments against it initially was that, if you did not want to run the whole AP, subscribers would be receiving one less adventure per month (an exaggeration, obviously). However, even in the final days of print Dragon, there was great distress about it, particularly when a mini-series of Adventures shrunk the "one-shot" adventure quota to 1.
A benefit of this AP is its adaptability. I feel I could play any three modules on their own, with the villians representing one-shot threats, or interweaving them into my homebrew metaplot.
Also, depending on DM and PC preference, the adventures can go in very different directions philosophically but not run off-track.
"People want balance but can't accept this homogenization that occurs as a result of that balance being implemented. then they complain that the fighter is weaker than the wizard ad nauseam.: - Teitan
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5 years ago ::
Oct 01, 2008 - 5:35PM
#158
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Date Joined:
Sep 10, 2007
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Wow, it's funny, but it seems as though this thread has dried up since the release of Ep. 3. Having not totally read it yet, my players aren't ready to start Ep.1 yet, I can assume one of two things.
Either everyone's gotten terribly frustrated trying to carry this on, or the AP is starting to show promise.
Unfortunately, it looks like this is the last one that will be free. Sometime before my group finishes Ep. 3, I plan on getting the DDI, so I'll be able to keep up and not lose a step. We'll have to see how things go forward.
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5 years ago ::
Oct 01, 2008 - 11:22PM
#159
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Episode 3 *DOES* hold promise. It has issues as well, and there's a few moments of confusion between the end of "Siege" and the beginning of "Shadow Rift." I know I spent a good ten or twenty minutes digging through "Siege" trying to figure out exactly where this key had come from, only to find it was magically ret-conned into existence. That's sloppy editing, but the rest of the adventure is definitely good.
Here's hoping that "Rivenroar" was just the weird aberration that really set the bar low for the first few!
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5 years ago ::
Oct 02, 2008 - 1:37AM
#160
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Date Joined:
Aug 18, 2007
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You're also assuming that the individual writers aren't reading each other's adventures.
They apparently are not, as demonstrated by the lack of the key in Seige that is critical for Umbraforge.
I like the individual adventures, but this is still not doing well as an AP.
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