Topic: Crowdsourcing an Adventure Path?

[jdale]

1500 and 2000 are small towns. It would be normal to have quite a few smaller villages (<1000 people) in between, each less than a day's travel apart, assuming there's a lot of farming going on. That's natural because no one is going to live a day's travel from their fields. Fantasy worlds shift that, though, as it may be too unsafe to have small villages far from military backup....  I'm not familiar with the setting enough to say.

I made a random village generator for Inspiration Pad Pro if you want to get capsule descriptions of a handful of little village to describe what's on the road between X and Y (maybe between the two towns, or between Rapata and one of the towns). http://www.nbos.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1107&sid=38dfde2f3a9a68d161e2be290d826687   (IPP is free if you aren't familiar with it. http://www.nbos.com/products/inspiration-pad-pro)

[bpowell]

The two closest towns on the map to Rapata look to be Tepentor and Roog. Both look to be over 75 miles away, and have populations of 2,000+ and 1,500 respectively. This may make them a bit too distant, and a bit too large. A small satellite village of Rapata somewhere closer - I would say most likely a fishing village - seems quite plausible.

I'd have to have another look through Xa-ar for cultural ideas for the village. My overall feeling is that the area is going to be closer to Renaissance than to early medieval. Perhaps 15th century equivalent (assuming British/European).

I agree.  So lets say we have a "new" village that has stood here for generations.  it has been nearly destroyed in all of the past wars, but due to the fact that is sits on a small river it is a natural hub of commerce.  Farmers inland and easily get their goods to the town via the small river and that town can ship them on to Rapata.

Also due to being on the river there is the mill, it converts grain to flour and that is shipped back up the river to the farmers.  The salt flats generate salt another commodity that is traded with the inlanRoog.d farmers and even as far away as Roog bringing in ores and metals to trade with Rapata  (made a command decision and placed it to the east of Rapata...mostly to gather this secondary commodity).

The village is governed by a council of 5 with one of them elected by the council as the Village Mayor.  The political tension is high with the economy improving after the war and the town growing.  Each Councilor sees him/herself a the mayor leading the town to meet their personal vision.

Late Middle Age Early Renaissance would work well.  The village is beyond a hand-to-mouth existence and they are starting to get culture here.  Even building a school and library to educate future generations.

Agreements?

-BP

[tbigness]

I had an Illusionist (2nd level) who cast the Illusion spell as a smokebomb in an area with an irritant in the spell so an unsuccessful RR makes one temporarily blind and have itchy eyes and coughs.... very inventive for a low level spell I had to award extra experience....

[bpowell]

1500 and 2000 are small towns. It would be normal to have quite a few smaller villages (<1000 people) in between, each less than a day's travel apart, assuming there's a lot of farming going on. That's natural because no one is going to live a day's travel from their fields. Fantasy worlds shift that, though, as it may be too unsafe to have small villages far from military backup....  I'm not familiar with the setting enough to say.

I made a random village generator for Inspiration Pad Pro if you want to get capsule descriptions of a handful of little village to describe what's on the road between X and Y (maybe between the two towns, or between Rapata and one of the towns). http://www.nbos.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1107&sid=38dfde2f3a9a68d161e2be290d826687   (IPP is free if you aren't familiar with it. http://www.nbos.com/products/inspiration-pad-pro)

Hmmm,  I am looking at the source material I have at my finger tips.  Is there any military presence in the area around Rapata?  In my minds eyes I was thinking of having a few Sheriffs (ranger types) patrolling the area around the village to ensure bandits and the like were not causing problems (and thereby interrupting the flow of goods to the town) these would be paid by the Council, but heavily rely on the farmers for a meal and a warm place to sleep.

-BP

[jdale]

Hmmm,  I am looking at the source material I have at my finger tips.  Is there any military presence in the area around Rapata?  In my minds eyes I was thinking of having a few Sheriffs (ranger types) patrolling the area around the village to ensure bandits and the like were not causing problems (and thereby interrupting the flow of goods to the town) these would be paid by the Council, but heavily rely on the farmers for a meal and a warm place to sleep.

That sounds like someone who will stop by the village often enough to encounter the PCs, and stretched thin enough he might need to ask their help....

[egdcltd]

One, slightly more complicated suggestion, is to basically have two starter modules. SW0 for 1st level characters, and SW1 for higher level versions of the same characters, so that people can move straight into bigger adventures if they don't want to spend time building characters up.

[bpowell]

One, slightly more complicated suggestion, is to basically have two starter modules. SW0 for 1st level characters, and SW1 for higher level versions of the same characters, so that people can move straight into bigger adventures if they don't want to spend time building characters up.

Or just give a method of upgrading (downgrading) the characters as an appendix.

-BP

[egdcltd]

I think you'd also need to provide a method of doing the same to the various encounters too, or the module would likely become unplayable with the modified characters. It might be easier some ways just to have two modules, especially if the intention is to have them work by themselves as well as in a series.

[bpowell]

And I HATE scaled modules.  It never works.  Mu idea about the mini adventures was to have some low (1st)  some medium (2nd) and the other high (3rd).  If they want to play above 3rd, it might be better if we do have a different entry point. 

I thought the idea here was to introduce new players/judges to RM and SW.   While I hope that even experienced plays might get something out of the lower level games, if they want to start at 5th or above they might need to start at the second adventure in the path.

-BP
(off to Genghis Con here in Denver)

[egdcltd]

Yes, that was what I was thinking. Have the first adventure be designed for new players, or experienced players who want to play from the start, but have the second intended for more experienced players, yet also suitable as an entry point, just one at a higher level.

[Arc]

I think the 2 starter module approach is good: SW0 run around town and build experience, SW1 the start of the actual story arc. Then GM's can choose where to start from. The only reason I suggested lvl 3 as the starting lvl is that according to RMU (current beta) a lvl 1 character is defined as a pre-teen in age, while a lvl is a teen and only lvl 3 is a young adult. I have not play tested RMU yet, so not sure how a lvl 1 character plays (my guess is worse than a RMSS lvl1)...

[Arc]

I agree.  So lets say we have a "new" village that has stood here for generations.  it has been nearly destroyed in all of the past wars, but due to the fact that is sits on a small river it is a natural hub of commerce.  Farmers inland and easily get their goods to the town via the small river and that town can ship them on to Rapata.

Also due to being on the river there is the mill, it converts grain to flour and that is shipped back up the river to the farmers.  The salt flats generate salt another commodity that is traded with the inlanRoog.d farmers and even as far away as Roog bringing in ores and metals to trade with Rapata  (made a command decision and placed it to the east of Rapata...mostly to gather this secondary commodity).

The village is governed by a council of 5 with one of them elected by the council as the Village Mayor.  The political tension is high with the economy improving after the war and the town growing.  Each Councilor sees him/herself a the mayor leading the town to meet their personal vision.

Late Middle Age Early Renaissance would work well.  The village is beyond a hand-to-mouth existence and they are starting to get culture here.  Even building a school and library to educate future generations.

Agreements?

-BP

Although I'm a huge fan of command decisions, I'm not sure I fully understand this. So you would like to place the village 1 days ride (or 30miles) to the east from Rapata? This would mean that it's almost a 4 days ride from Roog (as there is almost 150 miles distance between Rapata and Roog). Is this not a little far? Also there is no sea coast for the salt flats between Rapata and Roog, as the coastline turn southward immediately after Rapata. What am I missing from your thinking?

Anyway, I like the 5 councillors and elected mayor etc.

[Terry K. Amthor]

I agree.  So lets say we have a "new" village that has stood here for generations.  it has been nearly destroyed in all of the past wars, but due to the fact that is sits on a small river it is a natural hub of commerce.  Farmers inland and easily get their goods to the town via the small river and that town can ship them on to Rapata.

Also due to being on the river there is the mill, it converts grain to flour and that is shipped back up the river to the farmers.  The salt flats generate salt another commodity that is traded with the inlanRoog.d farmers and even as far away as Roog bringing in ores and metals to trade with Rapata  (made a command decision and placed it to the east of Rapata...mostly to gather this secondary commodity).

The village is governed by a council of 5 with one of them elected by the council as the Village Mayor.  The political tension is high with the economy improving after the war and the town growing.  Each Councilor sees him/herself a the mayor leading the town to meet their personal vision.

Late Middle Age Early Renaissance would work well.  The village is beyond a hand-to-mouth existence and they are starting to get culture here.  Even building a school and library to educate future generations.

Agreements?

-BP

Although I'm a huge fan of command decisions, I'm not sure I fully understand this. So you would like to place the village 1 days ride (or 30miles) to the east from Rapata? This would mean that it's almost a 4 days ride from Roog (as there is almost 150 miles distance between Rapata and Roog). Is this not a little far? Also there is no sea coast for the salt flats between Rapata and Roog, as the coastline turn southward immediately after Rapata. What am I missing from your thinking?

Anyway, I like the 5 councillors and elected mayor etc.

I think it is safe to assume that there are small villages between the ones on the map, situated about a day's ride apart. Though they might not be much more than a few small houses/supply shops, one tavern/inn, and maybe a mill. Naturally farms would cluster around these villages.

[Telwyn]

Really interesting idea and thread posts so far. Here's some observations from the Pathfinder Adventure Path (The Curse of the Crimson Throne - CotCT) that my group is playing through - I'm a player so these observations are from that perspective mostly:

• The Adventure Path can be a great vehicle for starting gradually revealing a setting (in CotCT it's a big city)
• The Adventure Path has so far done a good job of highlighting or introducing cultures, religions and historical elements without overloading the players - there's a separate Player's Guide for the Campaign that's like 8 pages or so that has "common knowledge" info on the city, people's etc as a primer
• Each adventure has a defined level range, e.g. 1-3, 3-5, 6-8. The adventures are pretty dense in terms of encounters however so they each have enough content to account for gaining on average two levels.
• There are some issues with the power curve within the adventures of this path as published - some encounters, often towards the end are a bit lethal for the party's level.
• Each adventure gives an updated version of the pregenerated characters at the appropriate starter level. We as players have found it helpful to guage whether our characters are equipped to face the challenges of the module and just out of curiosity to see how our versions of them differ.

I'd say it could be important to collaboratively plot out some overall details for all the adventures before getting too far along writing them if it's a crowdsourced effort. This could help to avoid issues with the "power curve" as I mentioned above.

The Pathfinder Adventures from what I've heard have a good amount of GM guidance and fluff text - it's a balance of advice for those new to GMing or at least to GMing that setting with enough fluff to help flesh out the setting, NPCs etc and to give more experienced GMs ideas for improved side-treks.

Just some random thoughts parachuted into an already well developed idea 

[bpowell]

OK, the reason that I choose going east was that Roog told me it was a mining town.  I have no information on the town of Tepentor.  Since it is sitting up against the mountains (in the map) I can assume that is also has an income from mining.  Since any village would assume to have some agriculture income (people have to eat) i was looking for a supply of something different to bring people to the village.  We could sit it on a small river to allow the siting of a mill, or some such.  Also the small river (too small to be put on a map) would allow transport of  goods, a source of protein (fish), and fresh water.

I am seeing hard grains (winter wheat, barley) and the like being raised here.  Perhaps some hardy fruit trees.  This would allow the production of Ales, Ciders and cordials that could be shipped to Rapata.  All of this gives the adventurers a reason to be here (guarding the brewery or an ale shipment)  Being the crew of a small coastal freighter bring good to the village from the Big City  Since we are starting with a sort of "the house that Jack built" (again an assumption for AP0, Adventure Path 0), we need a basis of economy so we can have the appropriate merchants and village people and a method of paying the heroes (a free night's stay?  a chicken?  a few copper coins?)

Off to beat up on some poor unsuspecting gamers at RPG tables. 

-BP

[egdcltd]

The sourcebook would seem to suggest that the only real mining is going on east of Rapata (presumably why Roog is to the east, not the west). I suppose there could be some very small-scale mining - or perhaps the players get hired to accompany a party doing some prospecting.

[bpowell]

Hmmmm, wonder if Terry can pop in with an idea on that.

-BP

[Terry K. Amthor]

The sourcebook would seem to suggest that the only real mining is going on east of Rapata (presumably why Roog is to the east, not the west). I suppose there could be some very small-scale mining - or perhaps the players get hired to accompany a party doing some prospecting.

Either works for me. There could be some mining in the hills north of the western towns. Also maybe abandoned mines that could be re-opened, or prospecting. Just because I didn't mention it doesn't mean that it's not going on there. 

[egdcltd]

I had considered the idea of abandoned mines, and I do quite like the idea. It's a fairly logical idea to send characters to them to investigate (I think that was one of the Norek adventures actually).

[egdcltd]

Also, some of the mines used to be Jinteni. That brings up a possibility, perhaps for higher-level players, of discovering some Jinteni ruins, maybe even a portal to Emer III.