Quote from: HappyDaze;1124264You keep saying that the D&D adventure books are not APs, but you never say why not?

What makes one of these an AP but not the other?
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Runelords and other APs from Paizo have 6 different authors with 6 different adventures designed to be played in order. The editor ensures that each links in to the next.

The WotC hardbacks generally have a single author and most do not require A B C linear play, though Rise of Tiamat is pretty linear and close to AP structure, Princes of the Apocalypse is no more railroady than any big dungeon and surrounding wilderness. Indeed AP fans have complained about this and I often see suggestions for making WotC adventures more linear.

Quote from: Azraele;1124259Oh, so you're treating it like fiction, then?

I think the more sandboxy of us treat it more like a wargame with a really big map. We're not really concerned with "narrative cohesion"; a world has cohesion without a narrative.

Yes.  It can also have a strong theme or other stylistic elements without a narrative, too.  The main difference in that respect is that a strong theme will only emerge in a sandbox if the players collectively want to make it emerge.  

Most of my (mostly) sandbox games are of that nature. I'll have an open game, but the players will have said we want to make characters that do X.  "We want to play agents of the King who roam the countryside dealing with events."  "We want to uncover hidden secrets of the setting."  Frequently, they will have two or three such ideas that interact with each other in the larger dramatic goal of having a running rivalry between the characters.  What emerges is a strong theme, but no scripted narrative at all.  The closest we come to narrative is that in the various NPCs and events with which the party interact, I can generally predict which ones they'll be most interested in pursuing.  So there might be a little bias on my part in developing some items more than others.

This is another reason why the dungeon is such a great starting place to learn the style.  It's not only the GM that needs to learn it, but the players too.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1124337Yes.  It can also have a strong theme or other stylistic elements without a narrative, too.  The main difference in that respect is that a strong theme will only emerge in a sandbox if the players collectively want to make it emerge.  

Most of my (mostly) sandbox games are of that nature. I'll have an open game, but the players will have said we want to make characters that do X.  "We want to play agents of the King who roam the countryside dealing with events."  "We want to uncover hidden secrets of the setting."  Frequently, they will have two or three such ideas that interact with each other in the larger dramatic goal of having a running rivalry between the characters.  What emerges is a strong theme, but no scripted narrative at all.  The closest we come to narrative is that in the various NPCs and events with which the party interact, I can generally predict which ones they'll be most interested in pursuing.  So there might be a little bias on my part in developing some items more than others.

This is another reason why the dungeon is such a great starting place to learn the style.  It's not only the GM that needs to learn it, but the players too.

That's neat; there's a sort of dramatic trajectory to events, even though when you really bore down into the details, the characters are simply following their own, cross-purpose motivations.

I feel like that should be a more recognizable technique. It's subtle but man, what a great idea.

Quote from: Azraele;1124339That's neat; there's a sort of dramatic trajectory to events, even though when you really bore down into the details, the characters are simply following their own, cross-purpose motivations.

I feel like that should be a more recognizable technique. It's subtle but man, what a great idea.

Thanks.  I know the eternal argument has been that there was a tension between the GM scripting a story versus the players having agency in a sandbox that had no dramatic arc.  I found that was a true limit with some players, but not all of them.  Admittedly, the idea only works with a subset of dramatic arcs.  You can't really do "Child of prophecy saves the world," or "Hidden heir to the throne regains it," or some ideas that would work fine in a GM scripted path with suitable character protections. It's important that the drama sought be the kind of thing that depends more on a group of characters doing stuff that will cause tension, possibly having characters drop out (with the player bringing in a new character), and I don't mean only death.  It's pretty common for a single player in these campaigns to run two or three different characters, switching between them as necessary.

I also despise the canned idea that sandbox only works for "pro-active" players.  It's kind of, sort of true in a superficial way, but the casual repeating of it puts people off from trying.  You really only need about half the group to be active, and at any one time even one active player will do.  The bare minimum is two players that will take turns being active.  If it is only one dominant player, then it becomes a semi-scripted story about what interests that player.  As long as the rest of the group will play their characters and react to the active players and events, to keep one player from becoming dominant, it will work.  

Plus, I'm convinced that active play is a learned skill. When I'm stuck temporarily with the group that has insufficient activity, then I go back to the dungeon.  I don't need the structure, but they do.  Then I put them in situations with obvious choices to make, and explicitly teach them the style.

Nothing wrong with adventure paths. Some players enjoy epic, plot-driven campaigns, and some DMs find them easier to run that sandbox campaigns.

And of course, you don't have to pick one or the other. In spite of what gamers argue about on forums, most of us change up the types of games we play now and then. I've run sandboxy campaigns, story-driven APs, and everything in between. And that's been true since forever. TSR's Slavers (A) series, for example, is absolutely an Adventure Path.

I will say that I strongly dislike the way Paizo writes their APs: the walls of text, reams and reams of background with no relevance to actual play, the pages devoted to NPCs who are going to be killed in three rounds of combat, and the lack of formatting and tools to organize it all in an easy-to-use manner. WotC's campaign books are not much better. In both cases, the root of the problem is half the people who buy these things are just using them for reading material. They want to be entertained by reading adventure campaigns like reading a novel, and don't care if they're effectively organized and presented for actual play. By serving two masters (DMs and readers), APs end up being poorly written for both.

Quote from: SavageSchemer;1124234I'm perfectly willing to accept that maybe I still don't know what the fuck an Adventure Path is. Or perhaps to more to the point - what makes an AP any different than a collection of related scenarios.

Nothing. That's all an Adventure Path is - a series of connected adventures with a common thread running them that leads to an epic conclusion. It's a newish term for a format that's been around in RPGs forever.

Quote from: Haffrung;1124349I will say that I strongly dislike the way Paizo writes their APs: the walls of text, reams and reams of background with no relevance to actual play, the pages devoted to NPCs who are going to be killed in three rounds of combat, and the lack of formatting and tools to organize it all in an easy-to-use manner. WotC's campaign books are not much better. In both cases, the root of the problem is half the people who buy these things are just using them for reading material. They want to be entertained by reading adventure campaigns like reading a novel, and don't care if they're effectively organized and presented for actual play. By serving two masters (DMs and readers), APs end up being poorly written for both.

Totally agree. I have to wonder if it's the Scrappy Doo effect. Would the adventure paths sell as well if they were written and organized as adventures and not reading material.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1124353Totally agree. I have to wonder if it's the Scrappy Doo effect. Would the adventure paths sell as well if they were written and organized as adventures and not reading material.

From what I've gathered from statements by Paizo's braintrust, people who buy APs with no intention of playing them make up fully half of Paizo's customers. I expect WotC's numbers are similar. So the answer to your question is almost certainly "no, they would not sell as well."

I understand publishers need to make accommodations and compromises to keep their business afloat. But I do often muse about what D&D adventures and campaigns might look like if publishers designed them strictly as gameplay aids. They would look dramatically different from what we have today.

I don't see what's wrong with being on the special bus.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1124250My brother's Pathfinder campaign is ... still ongoing after a few years.

Cool, they must be almost halfway through the first battle already!

Quote from: Zalman;1124370Cool, they must be almost halfway through the first battle already!

[video=youtube_share;ObpcGNCU944]https://youtu.be/ObpcGNCU944[/youtube]

Quote from: Azraele;1124254Yeah that post confused me too. "Stitched together Frankenstein's monster campaign" sounds like a blast.

Makes jumpstarting or even creating a home campaign on the quick way easier.

Doing that now with my honor and intrigue game I run when the other GM is not doing D&D5. I use honor and intrigue rules, but have the adventure modules from Flashing blades. As the set up is that the players are already members of a company of guards - it's wicked easy to string together a bunch of "missions".

Then I can spend more time connecting them with underlying motives and plots to tie the whole thing together that makes it look like I thought it through all along.

I have ran a full session of gameplay with just a few notes you can fit on a index card - and modified modules to suit my own ends. And both can be done in any campaign.

The important thing in any campaign is to track the Important NPC's, villains, and re-occurring characters the players encounter. This gives the PC's touchstones in the campaign so that they get the feel that they are in  a living world

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1124232...
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.

People overthink the PBTA stuff too much. Mostly do to the nomenclature that the authors use.

The PBTA are straight up traditional RPG's. They are just hyper-focused on giving a specific genre experience with minimal GM prep. (NOT no-prep, just minimal prep.) Specifically designed for one-shot or mini campaign play.

They are the most successful series of games any former "storygame" author ever thought up.

Precisely because they are still very much traditional rpg's.

Quote from: GnomeWorks;1124258...
Part of the insistence that WotC hardcover adventures are APs, from my end, is that they have those elements, they're just looser in narrative structure and more sandbox. I personally don't think the railroad-y nature of Paizo APs is a necessary component of what defines a thing as an AP.

This.

Quote from: S'mon;1124310...
The WotC hardbacks generally have a single author and most do not require A B C linear play, ....

They are still adventure paths, just ones that allow for more of a 'choose your own adventure' type of feel. Because although the various "scenarios" can be done in a less linear manner, they still have to be done in the area the AP specifies.

If the players say to themselves in D&D waterdeep heist AP "This guy is dangerous! Lets get the hell out of here and start over in a new city!" - the GM is SOL.

Where in a more natural home campaign the GM can just roll with it.

Back in the 80's and 90's we played a lot of 1st ED ad&d Greyhawk setting and 2nd ed AD&D Forgotten Realms setting but after that I started to slowly work on my own campaign world.  

Today I wouldn't trade my homebrew campaign world for anything that the big boys push out.   I know my world and how everything works in it.   The same goes with AP's

I have slowly added old school locations into my world.   Like the Lost City, Keep on the Borderlands and many others but they all have my own twist on those.  

Even back in the old days I never ran any adventure just right out of the book.   I always changed things because if someone from my group read through the module they would be confused due to the changes I made (caught a few of my players meta gaming this way, was kind of funny too)

Right now our new campaign, my players started off as kids and got to see the village they started out in change over a few years between each session as we time jump to get them to first level.   They have started fires, discovered a plot to take over the village, help chase out a "bad man" out of town who comes back years later to kill the Mayor of the town the kids (players) had looked up to.   Yea I'm evil like that

There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with converting or stitching together an adventure or a campaign from extant material. I rebuilt an old BECMI adventure for 3E to run as a one-shot (specifically, I think it was the dungeon crawl against Elwyn the Ardent, but I can't remember).

While it can be satisfying to run a campaign you built from the bones up, the hard and ugly fact is that not everyone has that kind of time. That's why premade modules and adventure paths exist. And frankly, if you're not flexible enough to tweak an AP on the fly, that's an issue with YOU, not the adventure.

Quote from: Ghostmaker;1124440There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with converting or stitching together an adventure or a campaign from extant material. I rebuilt an old BECMI adventure for 3E to run as a one-shot (specifically, I think it was the dungeon crawl against Elwyn the Ardent, but I can't remember).

While it can be satisfying to run a campaign you built from the bones up, the hard and ugly fact is that not everyone has that kind of time. That's why premade modules and adventure paths exist. And frankly, if you're not flexible enough to tweak an AP on the fly, that's an issue with YOU, not the adventure.

I'm currently running a Starfinder campaign, and while up until now It's been content I've created, I'm also going to slot in an Adventure Path (Against the Aeon Throne) because it fits the campaign (mercs for hire) and it's got some interesting stuff.
It certainly doesn't have to be all or nothing.