"Adventure Paths" and story-mechanics are not deep roleplaying. They're really just the ttrpg Special Bus.


For deep roleplay, you need the freeform style of the OSR

Take off the D&D training wheels!


[video=youtube_share;xG60QDFX_UM]https://youtu.be/xG60QDFX_UM[/youtube]

Ha ha look at the retards on the special bus.

Not one of Pundit's better videos IMO. It was too much "tell" and not enough "show" as to why AP are bad, and I'd have liked more examples of how the OSR approach (not expressly defined here except as not being an AP) provides a better experience, but that probably require some actual play footage or similar and doesn't at all fit with Pundit's way of offering videos.

"Pundit Driven to Fits by existence of people enjoying things he doesn't like"-More at 11!

I can run freeform games, just with my shedule I prefer Adventure Paths for structure and less stress.

Quote from: HappyDaze;1124142Not one of Pundit's better videos IMO. It was too much "tell" and not enough "show" as to why AP are bad, and I'd have liked more examples of how the OSR approach (not expressly defined here except as not being an AP) provides a better experience, but that probably require some actual play footage or similar and doesn't at all fit with Pundit's way of offering videos.

I poked fun at him for being the wrestling equivalent of Ole Anderson yet as time pass it seems to be proving true imo. Anything and everything he does not like is the pure "SHITS" with no redeeming value. I don't particularly like APs myself yet sometimes I don't have the time or will to write up a campaign scratch and they remove much of the time and effort into building one. As well for someone new to the hobby a great way to learn and possibly get inspiration from to eventually do their own adventures. Ole Pundit being true to form stupidly stubborn refuses to see the good aspect of anything he dislikes.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee;1124143"Pundit Driven to Fits by existence of people enjoying things he doesn't like"-More at 11!

I can run freeform games, just with my shedule I prefer Adventure Paths for structure and less stress.

Very much agreed and seconded. It's reaching the point where even grognards are using him as the benchmark on what not to become in the hobby. He might as well just glue a big sign on his forehead stating he hates anything new and different in rpgs. Maybe gamers like Ole Pundit don't have very much of a life and can get simply spend hours and days working and making campaigns from scratch. Most of us who do have lives need to balance gaming with work, life and relationships. Aps are not perfect and Paizo not the greatest yet if I need to run a campaign at the last minute APs are my goto solution. If I have the time and will to make my own I will if not it's APs. If anyone needs a special bus it's the guy who hate anything and everything new.

It's kind of sad to see someone who could of been relevant in the hobby just be known for the guy comparing D&D Twitter to the Coronavirus and hating everything and anything new. At first it was kind of great and a fresh voice in gaming then when too many videos and posts are simply "everything and anything I don't like in gaming is the absolute SHITS!" it gets annoying after awhile. No to mention it's starting to look and feel like instead of making a video to inform it's becoming nothing but clickbait. With schlock titles to get attention.

What would be amazingly helpful to me, and for which I would pay an exorbitant amount of money, is a very detailed workbook explaining how to run a campaign like this - not only exactly what to prep, but what you're actually doing in each scene, and how you're building something out of all the improvisation you're doing.

In 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. Now, when I have a lot of stuff prepped for me, we end up improving and changing a ton of stuff - so it doesn't end up looking much like the original Plot Point campaign, but I've never been able to pull off 2 or 3.

So I think some percentage of people are naturally good at delivering 3. It's so natural to them that they can't really explain what they're doing in a way that lets me replicate it. For whatever weird reason society has a filter on it where if you suggest some people are just better at stuff everyone looses their mind. No one can conceive of actual differences between people that were not "earned" . I think this is just a modern thing. I'm bringing this up because I think this prevents someone from delivering actually useful material to someone like me on how to deliver category 3 games that provide the positive experience of category 1 games. Yes I've read all of the Alexandrian's posts - I've got tons of GM advice notes and books. I've tried to use PBTA style fronts and that has been completely useless (maybe they would work better in a PBTA game).

So to recap for any of this to be meaningful I would need something as explicit and prescriptive as PBTA is about what to actually do for Pundit's style of sandbox games for non-gonzo edge cases.

Wait. I thought "story game" was a game in which all the participants had some powers to change the setting (so the focus is on coming up with a collective story, not playing a role), but now it sounds like you're talking about railroading. The most sandbox-y game I ever played was probably Houses of the Blooded, which I believe is sometimes seen as a "story game".

And.....BTW..... it's all fine. Obviously, playing different games will give different experiences, but I have had some fun with all of the above (old school sandbox, railroad, story game).

Well you can have 2 different games w/ player freedom.

A PBTA game, where the GM is very restricted in what they can prepare (3-5 sentences of a "Front" with steps), and are directed to ask players to invent stuff they then interact, and a sandbox where the GM has prepared a whole bunch of stuff, that the players then interact with at will. PBTA games are Story Games in that they strongly restrict GM's and usually encourage players to be inventing the world, but they're supposed to be almost entirely improvisational.

PBTA?

Anyway, isn't the Pundit mixing up story gaming and railroading?

There'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.

Quote from: Trond;1124153PBTA?

Anyway, isn't the Pundit mixing up story gaming and railroading?

Some of the adventure paths come off as a bit railroady and some probably are. Others just have a sort of flowchart of possible branches and where they go or converge. These actually started popping up in modules way back in various forms that would seem very similar and possibly inspired modern adventure paths.

Some of them simply had suggestions as a "if the PCs do this then the NPCs will do this." or essentially a roadmap of possible ways to get from start to finish. There is at least one in BX, BECMI or AD&D. I am not sure if I still have any but can look.

The newer "adventure path" modules though seem to have sometimes missed the point and the paths are not very open to veering off course. Others seem more freeform and harken back to the older suggestion style.

They can also come across as a bit storygame-ish in that these paths tend to be to enforce a "story" rather than just stuff happening. Seems to also vary alot there too. And some are more like older "timed events" rather. But misused can potentially feel railroady. DMs are of course free to change things and players are of course free to try and veer off course.

I tried running the Ghosts of Saltmarsh path and quit after a TPK in the first adventure (when boarding the pirate ship). We started a new campaign and I've used pieces of GoS (3rd adventure then 2nd adventure) in different settings and with very different tie-ins. The players are certainly enjoying it more without the weak pathway linkings that GoS provides, but to be fair, only a few of the GoS adventures were originally intended to be tied together (i.e., it was frankensteined into an AP from three connected modules and several independent Dungeon-published adventures).

Quote from: PencilBoy99;1124149So I think some percentage of people are naturally good at delivering 3. It's so natural to them that they can't really explain what they're doing in a way that lets me replicate it.

I'm not particularly good at improvisational games but have played with DMs that were. One thing I've found is that GMs that are good are running improvisational games are even better when running games that have been pre-plotted. So there isn't really a case where making the game more improvisational will result in a better run game.

Er? Ghosts of Saltmarsh is not an adventure path?

Quote from: GnomeWorks;1124156You 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.

This is really the crux of the issue. Adventure Paths are wholly an invention of old school D&D. Not only the G/D/Q series but the various Dragonlance adventures later on.

The only other classic adventures paths I can think of would be The Enemy Within and Pendragon's The Boy King (which is more of a list of historical events).