Quote from: Omega;1124165Er? Ghosts of Saltmarsh is not an adventure path?

Why do you say that? As written, it's a set of adventures intended to be run in sequence with a connecting theme and characters are intended to be made specifically for it using background elements from it. How does that differ from what Paizo officially calls adventure paths?

Quote from: GnomeWorks;1124156There's nothing wrong with APs. Some folks - like myself - don't have the time or inclination to write our own material, and using modules is a way to make life easier.

For instance, I'm running Pathfinder's "Strange Aeons" AP at the moment, but I'm modifying the hell out of it, to (1) convert it from PF to D&D 5e, (2) make it fit my setting, and (3) cut out all the stupid bits.

You might as well say that the old school module sequences (like the G or Q series) are for retards, because they were the proto-APs.

Hell GDQ is more railroady than any adventure path I've seen.

Gonna agree with the "this one's a dud" crowd.

I'm often left with the impression after one of these videos that Pundit isn't so much mad at the SJW gamers telling everyone how to play as he is mad that HE is not the one who gets to tell people how to play.

The biggest problem with this video is that Pundit is conflating two separate things as problem (APs) and solution (OSR rules sets) when they're not even in the same category. It's like asking "what color should I paint this wall?" and Pundit answering "Square."

There is nothing inherent to OSR systems that prevents a particularly railroady AP from being running using an OSR game (heck, the first adventures I ever ran using the Red Box and modules in Dragon Magazine at the time were railroady as you could get). Similarly, there's nothing about many other systems that prevents their use as a sandbox (ex. every Mage game I've ever run has been a complete sandbox).

The result is a disjointed mess of a video that lacks clear examples and ends up sounding like I said above; some snowflake complaining because not everyone likes exactly the same things they do.

Adventure Paths are not the worst. The worst are the "Living Campaign" adventures. Those are truly embarrassing.

It's easy enough for a GM to tweak an AP to challenge their group, personalize the adventures and allow for the PCs to wander off the choo-choo train rails. I would argue that today's APs are not a huge leap from the published adventures of TSR's past - especially the ones with the read-to-the-players boxes.

But RPGA / Living Campaigns / Pathfinder Society / Adventurer's League is built for 4 hour auto-win sessions where the PCs are not challenged, let alone the players who simply sit there, roll dice, and collect their virtual goodies. It's one step from video gaming on God mode.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1124149In theory, I should be an amazing GM, since I've been running at least 4 hours of RPG per week for 15 years and have bought lots of GM advice books (and books just for their GM advice section), but at best I'm mediocre.  

Let's break this down:

1) You have significant GM experience.
2) You have invested time and money in learning GMing techniques.
3) You feel your results are mediocre, except when running plotted adventures.

I wonder if you lack confidence in your own creations. AKA, do you feel the published works are superior to what you come up on your own? If so, ask yourself why?

I've met GMs who feel they can't create stuff "like the professionals", yet do a great job at the table. I don't know if their own stuff would be inferior or not, but that was their perspective.

I've met other GMs who don't enjoy the creating aspect of RPGs and rather just focus on the actual play. I can't blame them because RPGing is your free time and you shouldn't use your free time on something you don't enjoy.

Personally, I love the creative design part of RPGs, but I understand that's not universal and the hobby needs to be big enough for the entire range of GMs.

Here's another question arena for you:

1) What do you do differently when running a pre-plotted campaign?
2) How do you break up your GM-prep time for various different campaigns?
3) What aspects of prep-time do you enjoy most?
4) What aspects of prep-time do you dislike most?

Perhaps analyzing your prep time actions and your own views on "published" vs. "home grown" products might give you some insight into why you feel your GMing is mediocre.

I'd also question what you are using as a metric to determine "good" vs. "bad" vs. "mediocre" GMing. Perhaps you should breakdown what each ranking means to you and what occurs at the table to justify that ranking.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1124149In theory, I should be an amazing GM, since I've been running at least 4 hours of RPG per week for 15 years and have bought lots of GM advice books (and books just for their GM advice section), but at best I'm mediocre.  Here's my actual experiences ranked in terms of how much fun everyone had.

1. Plot-Point / Prewritten Campaigns
Examples: Deadlands Lost Sons, Darkening of Mirkwood
Amazing. People still talk about things that happened in those games. We were wrecked for a week or 2 emotionally after our Darkening of Mirkwood campaign ended

2. Stuff I've written / prepared extensive plots for
Examples: Vampire LARP, Demon the Descent, Vampire Dark Ages
MEH. Some good, mostly not great. Vampire LARP was okay.

3. Improvisation / Sandbox Games
Examples: sessions where I only prepared a "Front", Forbidden Lands
Awful. Glacially paced, unmemorable, very stressful.

So 3 should be my best experiences, but that's not the case at all........

If you want to give improv games another try, you could give Houses of the Blooded a shot. It's......VERY different from DnD, but that's the game that worked for me as far a zero prep goes.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1124167Why do you say that? As written, it's a set of adventures intended to be run in sequence with a connecting theme and characters are intended to be made specifically for it using background elements from it. How does that differ from what Paizo officially calls adventure paths?

Thats a campaign and you dont necessarily have to do them in order.

And totally different from the structure of actual Adventure Path modules.

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1124149In theory, I should be an amazing GM, since I've been running at least 4 hours of RPG per week for 15 years and have bought lots of GM advice books (and books just for their GM advice section), but at best I'm mediocre.

If your group has played over 3,000 hours of your games, you're either a pretty good DM or awesome at replacing people who drop out.

Quote from: Omega;1124184Thats a campaign and you dont necessarily have to do them in order.

And totally different from the structure of actual Adventure Path modules.

You really do have to do them in order if you want to follow the level guidelines, and 3/8 of the scenarios have a definite sequence.

Saying it is totally different from an AP without really explaining how/why it's different doesn't help. What makes an AP different from a campaign? It might help if you start by defining how you use each term.

With my group who play once a month and switch off between games, an AP works much better than a sandbox. I am running Princes of the Apocalypse which has a lot of choice and sandboxy elements, a good compromise.

For highly engaged players playing weekly, my sandbox games like Wilderlands and Thule have given the deepest and richest play experiences. But they are not for everyone.

And people say that this website is just full of the Pundit's "Yes Men"!

OK, fair enough.  The number of views and likes tells me that there was obviously an audience for it. Maybe this sort of thing was a bit too obvious for most of the people here, who have ample experience.  For some of the D&D 5e newbies, who have had no prior experience with anything other than the published WoTC material, the video might have been more of a revelation.

I don't tend to buy a lot of pre-written content (though lately I find myself buying more), so even after reading this thread I have no idea what the distinction between an Adventure Path is versus a module like, say, Winter's Daughter. I feel like there's a distinction being made upthread, but I can't for the life of me tease out what that should be. What am I missing?

full disclosure: have not yet watched the video.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1124227I have no idea what the distinction between an Adventure Path is versus a module like, say, Winter's Daughter.

https://paizo.com/store/pathfinder/adventures/adventurePath/first

An AP is a set of modules intended to be played in sequence, and typically takes a party from 1st to anywhere from 12th to 20th level, and usually has a cohesive story throughout.

This started back in Dragon in the 3e days, and became quite popular. It's my understanding they're pretty much the reason Paizo still exists.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;1124229https://paizo.com/store/pathfinder/adventures/adventurePath/first

An AP is a set of modules intended to be played in sequence, and typically takes a party from 1st to anywhere from 12th to 20th level, and usually has a cohesive story throughout.

This started back in Dragon in the 3e days, and became quite popular. It's my understanding they're pretty much the reason Paizo still exists.

Thank you for the plain English explanation. That helps. The way I'm internalizing this is that the sequential nature makes it a "path", whereas if it were a book of loosely related scenarios, it'd just be a "campaign". The aforementioned "Ghosts of Saltmarsh" being an example of the latter.

I think what would be super-helpful is a PBTA level explanation of how to actually Prep and then Run the sandbox, along with a couple of video excerpts of actual play with play by play commentary. I think the prep stuff is pretty well covered by games that have lots of random tables, along with games that have tools (conspiramids, fronts, relationship maps, NPCs with clear goals, etc). However, there's another step which is missing which is how to use this scene by scene along with improvisation in a way that produces a good play experience, not a disjointed, slow-paced, incoherent play experience.

I'm not sure PBTA games solve this problem for everybody, since they basically say "don't prep except for a few sentence front, then improv everything by asking players questions about the obstacles they then have to overcome., and then use these vague restrictive proscriptions (moves) to decide what to do.