Why I DON'T Like Adventure Paths in Pathfinder 2e

[@PaizoInc]

"No soup for you!" (wink) It's fine. We get it. Make the game your own.

[@jhonea6535]

While I 100% understand the demand and niche for APs, I've also literally never used them. I do, however, TRULY miss the days of Dungeon magazine. Now THOSE small-scale, bite-sized plots, dungeons, and other material were PRIME for cherry-picking and customizing.

[@theprinceofawesomeness]

i would like settings that spam from level 0 (the call to action) to level 40 (with mythic levels). not sure if that's posible in 2E. and in my most inerst Hear i Wish Opun a Star and pray for a Mirical from the Gods that Animate Dead or Necromancy could be as brokenly fun as in 1E with a huge controll lmit (like 4hd per character level) to get the real Necromancer Experince. yes, i'm an Agent of The Grave Prestige Class

[@HeyLow31]

I’ve always had bad experiences with prewritten adventures/modules/whatever you want to call them.. but this new adventure path coming up (Strength of Thousands) I’m super excited for because it has the same concept of my current homebrew campaign. So I wanna pull inspiration from it & to give it a chance 😁

[@Seranuelian]

Chad Paizo

[@samuellvilasboas5873]

Hey Paizo, where is the next Rise of Runelords adventure path? I need it. I'm waiting for new ones :). What about an Tar-Baphon ap?! It could be superb

[@Zedrinbot]

For prewritten adventures, the drawbacks of being more on-rails or a set story have always come with the caveat of minimizing the amount of prep you need to do, which is a massive perk. I prefer open-ended games too naturally, but having access to all the material for a game simplifies a lot and often means that I can run or play sooner and more frequently. You can run a custom game with minimal prep, yes, but that requires a ton of experience and tact, and at some point you do have to get some concrete stuff written down if it becomes long-running.

[@zoulsgaming9455]

100% this, if anything i think the paizo ap's have been amazing precisely because you can run them directly from the book as opposed to some of the ones i tried to read from 5e which wasnt open ended but wasnt explained well enough to just run from the book. When i run the ap's though i also make it very clear that "this is the ap we are playing, yes you are kinda funneled into it but you can decide how to approach the areas" The issue with aps is in a similar sense to oneshots it has a lot more rigid structure than a full homebrew campaign, but "if they decide to not do it" isnt an in world thing, thats the players saying "lets not play this ap" which isnt necessarily the fault of the ap. If you buy an AP and play it by the AP then the players agree that this is the AP.

[@priestesslucy]

Well, it either requires a ton of experience or a natural inclination towards improv collaborative storytelling.

[@pavelowjohn9167]

Zedrin nails the big advantages and drawbacks. I will say that the Pathfinder 1st Edition Adventure Paths, such as Rise of the Runelords, Kingmaker, Reign of Winter, etc... are excellent, much better than what you see in 5E or PF 2nd edition. Better writing, better artwork, just overall better products. If Paizo was smart, they would convert all of the 1st edition APs to 2nd edition, exactly the way they did with Kingmaker (and even convert them to Savage Worlds, if they really want to get ambitious....)

[@RichFreeman]

​@@priestesslucyagree. I'm not very good at coming up with creative stories/etc, so if I'm going to GM it is either an adventure path, or nothing. I have loads of respect for people who are good at improv, but the last time I played whose line is it anyway I think we all just stared at each other. 😂

[@CErra310]

If my GM writes a story that focuses on defeating an evil lich, I will follow that story because going to the beach instead feels, to me, like I am disregarding the time and effort they put into writing a story, and I absolutely, positively, never ever want to do that, the same way you feel like you have an issue with overturning somebody else's written AP story. As a player I want to make sure that a GM gets to have their share of the game, by reciprocating their effort to come up with, or their money to purchase, an AP with my own effort to see what they have in store for their players to come to fruition. If you fancy a crude comparison, I'd say in this regard TTRPGs are a bit like sex, in that I want to please my partner(s) as much, if not even more than myself, no matter if I'm a GM writing a story for my players, or if I'm a player interacting with my GM's story. The issue you're describing with plot elements that are revealed in later books isn't necessarily a problem with pre-written adventures, but rather a symptom of the episodic release nature of Paizo's APs. I don't think this is entirely fair to pin on the concept of APs, since, for example, if I were to start GMing Agents of Edgewatch today, I wouldn't have this problem as you describe it. It's also potentially a writing problem since a character could be introduced _to the GM_ as being, for example, secretly a double agent who's actually on the evil side, instead of withholding that information from the GM up until it becomes relevant.

[@justingentry7458]

This. I don't think I would ever run a Paizo AP unless all the books were out. Also one of the weirdest experiences I had in a game was one where half the players were "playing their character" and simply were not interested in the obvious plot points in front of us. I get a commitment to "realism" but it was a real drag to play an adventure path with characters that really were not interested in adventuring.

[@CErra310]

Oh dear lord, I love the "adventurer who doesn't want to go on adventures" flavor of thatguying 🙄

[@sertaki]

Yeah, I would never run an AP before I have all the books. Not only would I run the risk that things don't make sense because I missed a detail that gets very important later or made a small decision that ends up contradicting later plot points .... I just wouldn't be able to prepare to the extent that I can if I actually see what the writers intended for the endgame.

[@zoulsgaming9455]

Honestly paizo books has HELPED with later stuff for me, since alot of the books has a small note after the introduction of a character for like "This person is in this area on this floor in book 2" or something or "this thing can only be stopped by this (which you can find in this area in this chapter)" where when i homebrew i completely forget npcs and rarely set up stuff for much later, since if the narrative is continous and ever changing then its harder to stick to npcs being relevant later, especially the pc's play in the way that nonat describes of "what if we just ignore the story and go somewhere else" since nothing prevents that either.

[@spencerm5663]

Here's the thing about APs: I don't know if Extinction Curse has this, but Age of Ashes has at the end of the last book a set of examples of DIFFERENT endings, depending on what your party did. APs are not as strict as I think you are assuming they are. Yes, you can change how things go, you don't have to follow it to the T. Hell, I had one party that is going into Age of Ashes after Plaguestone and they kept Vilree alive and convinced her to join them, allowing the party a way to have an Alchemist npc ally if they ever need them during the AP. I don't know how restricted Extinction Curse is, but if the party doesn't want to be in a circus for it, you can change how the AP goes. It will be work, but it's not like homebrewing your own campaign isn't work either. Also, the whole "We know there is a powerful Lich out there that is going to destroy the world, but we want to go to the beach" thing, there is literally nothing stopping you from allowing your players to do that, assuming their characters would be that unconcerned about the situation. For the "what if they want to go somewhere entirely different than where the story wants them to go?", have them go to that other place and treat it like the place the AP wanted them to go to but change the AP a bit to match with the Lore of the town they went to, or have them go through the intended place to get to the place they want to go to. After all, APs are just like the Rules of Pathfinder 2e; more like guidelines.

[@neilhewitson1617]

I love to homebrew a campaign and have done so for decades. But these days I'm not always so dedicated to prep for a session as I used to be 15 years ago. I blame the internet for too much stuff to distract me. So an AP is useful to run. I mean, it is what Paizo does and I'm so looking forward to the reworked Kingmaker AP. I aalso have two groups. For one, Homebrew works and I'm coming up with ideas for after Abomination Vualt. For the other, an AP works best as the love the idea of fighting to save the work. So it comes down to the group.

[@RovingBiologist]

In my 20's, I wrote everything fresh and new. As a 40 year old, time is a premium. Once you have kids, pre-written adventures becomes a godsend :) Pick and choose what you want, alter the rest and tailor it to your party.

[@matthewhelsby2529]

I think pre-written adventures are great for those GMs such as myself with less time to prep and for those who are not as creatively inclined. Also having buy-in from the group that we are running this adventure means not having to worry about what is in town X if the path is leading to town Y which can alleviate stress for those who may not feel as comfortable improvising. Finally, it is fun to be able to talk about your own experience with a particular adventure and to be able to share that experience to some degree with others who have played through the same adventure.

[@Radiotomb]

"You can go and do anything you want." Players stand around, waiting for random encounters, waiting for the GM to give a hint. Players don't actually, really know what they want.

[@enigmaticheart666]

this

[@michaele1373]

Every. Single. Time.

[@NuclearPoweredGinger]

Depends on the kind of players. Some players are proactive and have goal-oriented characters. Others are just along for the ride, or are afraid to take the initiative that the GM offers them. Every table has a different combination of these kinds of folks, and individual players might vary archetype based on their personal mood and emotional state.

[@Pecomica]

@Josh Johnson I usually drop hints at my players on where to go next, or give them plot hooks in certain directions. Granted if they don't want to do those things, then they can do other things. But luckily my players do follow the hooks. A few sessions back I wanted them to go to a specific place, so they went elsewhere. Sure, no problem. That's what players do. Once there they got a quest. Clear out some monsters in a dungeon. Sure thing. combat, they went for it. They cleared out the cave and returned to the quest giver for their reward. Only... the quest giver had no reward for them. He wrote them a letter and told them to go to the city and speak with his boss and get their reward there. The city this boss was in, was where I wanted them to go in the first place. I didn't force them to go there, but they wanted their reward. And once there, I could throw more plot hooks at them. Never really had players wanting to do different things every five minutes. I've had players spend hours or so discussing what to do next and not moving the plot forward, but that's just gravy, as I listen in and use that knowledge to make stuff up if they decide to go left instead of right. Also helps pass the time of the session so I can prep more in detail for the next session. Rest of it is just me making it up on the spot. can always slow them down with some type of encounter. Be it a hostile or a social one. Depending on the players.

[@philopharynx7910]

Or you have four different characters who each have their own mutually exclusive goals.

[@MrJojux]

As someone who only GM'd prewritten adventures, I never felt restricted by the path. It gives you a story outline, NPCs, a goal and a setting. At least the paths I read and intend to run are pretty open. For your lich example - if your party wants to go shopping and get a Goblin sidekick - they might be able to do that, but the Lich will do their thing. It is not like you are playing a book or a movie. It is still pretty open what the players can do. We just finished playing Hell's Rebels with a group - if your player instict is to leave the city of Kintargo instead of saving them - then you should've either made a character that fits the story or communicated to your GM and talked to your group that a city/devil based campaign is not to your liking. If you go ahead and buy into that however - you can help a city break free. Sure there is a path you are meant to be following, but it is not a strict rail, but a network of paths and ways, that define later events. Especially with a GM that uses the campaign as a frame - you can shape the world around you. Your actions matter. But you need to stick to the basic concept of a story - or play a different game if the group doesn't want to play out the story. It is great that you prefer to homebrew worlds and stories, but the paths are less restrictive than you make them out to be. That character that was supposed to be a key NPC is dead/out of position at a key plot point - use a different NPC, change the stroy, adjust what you need and want. You are not destroying a delicate house of cards, but adjusting a basic framework for your players to explore.

[@conof7339]

Rollercoaster! Yeah, APs are kinda technically “on rails”, but so is a Rollercoaster! And those can be fun.

[@Nonat1s]

I love this metaphor so damn much lol. I will start using it on any "Railroading is 100% bad" claims lol

[@ShadowoftheMask]

@@Nonat1s I think there is difference between "linear adventure" and "railroading" though

[@conof7339]

@@Nonat1s Glad you like it. Long time viewer, first time commenter. I appreciate your content.

[@JacksonOwex]

I "NOPE" rollercoasters in general now the thought of one going off the rails is going to keep me off them EVEN MORE! But yes, EXCELLENT metaphor!!!

[@JacksonOwex]

@@ShadowoftheMask It's gonna depend on the GM really! One GM might run an AP and make it seem like an open world game where another might run the very same AP and make it feel like grandma grabbed you by the ear and is dragging you along!

[@LeWolfmanR]

As always great work, I've been GMing pf for about 8 years now, and have always done so using prewritten adventures, I'm horrible at story writing and personally find using the NPCs that come with the APs pretty fun especially when you have to deepen their personality because the party took a liking to them or something, because you already have something to work on and don't feel so pressured to create a character that lacks depth or attachment to the setting. I've been recently trying to improve my improvisational skills and started a homebrew campaign that is going okay so far but still needs a long way to go. Thanks again for all the good content.

[@umarthdc]

There is an awesome book for those kinds of campaigns. It's called Gamemastering by Brian Jamison. The pdf version is free, which is great.

[@Tialait]

"Guy I know you don't really want to be in the circus but why did you vote to play extinction curse if you didn't want to be in the circus?" Yeah, that would be something that happens even if you have players in a normal game. The stand in the tavern and wait for random stuff to happen group. They don't leave, no matter what and don't care what happens in the world.....Make a character you want to play, but one who plays along with the ideas of the game.

[@JacksonOwex]

Have you tried putting their families in jeopardy? Maybe their homes or businesses? If you have tried a LOT of different things then maybe just start doing dungeon crawls, you might have some ROLLplayers(see previous NoNat1 video for more! lol) on your hands that don't want anything to do with story they just want clear cut stuff to do that will get them treasure and power of various sorts! I have one of these players, the BIG issue is that it is JUST ONE. Everyone else at least seems open to the idea of giving their characters... well CHARACTER, but this guy... NOPE, just wants treasures and powers! Most story I ever got out of him was "My dad was a (bigwig in the Izzet Guild, I forget what exactly) and someone killed him to take over. I am looking for that killer" Not a terrible bit of stuff but for someone who has been playing D&D for about 15 years it SUCKS but again that just isn't his playstyle(I invite him because I never have enough people otherwise, lucky to find 4 people who can figure out how to get their respective schedules to line up to get together ONCE A MONTH :( )

[@Tialait]

@@JacksonOwex And if the players don't want to play along, it'll still be the same issue. I don't have this issue, but saying that is the problem with APs being that people don't play along is kinda silly.

[@BalooSJ]

The issue with Extinction Curse (specifically) isn't "Why did you vote to play Extinction Curse if you didn't want to be in the circus?" It's "Why did you choose to play Extinction Curse if you didn't want to explore Aroden's legacy and fight a bunch of troglodytes?" I've played through the first two installments of Extinction Curse, so my party is level 9. So far the sub-parts have been: 1. Putting on the first circus show, and then securing the circus camp and finding the source of their problems. 2. Exploring the town of Abberton and solving a bunch of problems caused by the same source. 3. Going to that source's home and killing the bleep out of everything there. 4. Learning that there's another source of those problems and going to stop that. 5. Getting permissions to put up a show in a new city, securing the circus's location, and putting on the show despite the interference of a rival circus. 6-7. Exploring two whole levels of a sunken Aroden temple and fighting the monsters who are there now. 8. Fighting a rival circus. Over the course of eight levels of adventure, only three have been spent on dealing with circus stuff. That's not really what I signed up for when I planned on running the campaign.

[@mihaisereanu9455]

Paraphrasing: "If players in the first session of Extinction Curse decide they don't want to be in a circus.." ...well then why are these hypothetical players playing Extinction Curse? Any game of any sort, AP or not, requires buy-in. As you mention, if there is buy-in, none of these problems really come up. Spoilers: the actual problem with Extinction Curse is that players who want to be in a circus will eventually be disappointed, but that's neither here nor there.

[@barnabyssjones]

lol yeah i was gonna say they just totally ignored the circus aspect of that AP

[@carlosmamani4727]

You know for an ap called extinction curse, iwas expecting that the curse would affect you directly or happen because your group did something to release it.

[@castrochris94]

Yeah I never understood this argument.

[@Vigilluminatus]

As a forever DM I don't have the time or the patience to prep more than one common thread for my players, and they are cool with that so far. They are free to move off the rails from time to time to do sidequests/minor amusing episodes and I gladly incorporate backstory elements and sudden ideas into the main plot, as long as they agree to eventually follow the common thread again. That's why we are okay with modified APs.

[@JacksonOwex]

I honestly don't want to be rude but this, at least to ME, feels backwards for a DM?! Your first sentence make me think "This person should NOT be a DM/GM!" It requires BOTH patience and time, not matter if you are running a homebrew thing or something prewritten. But if your group likes what's going on then maybe I am wrong!

[@Vigilluminatus]

@@JacksonOwex You may assume that I WANT to be a forever DM. I've been for years and would like to be a player again for one campaign at least, but the others refuse to try mastering (and please don't say look for another master - in our small town there are hardly any roleplayers to begin with, let alone DMs). After this one there may actually be a forced RPG break if no one steps up, I can feel the burnout already. As for the players ... I've been explicitely told that they WANT a main plot to follow, that they prefer a campaign-dominating badguy with a gradually revealed evil plan to freedom to go wherever they please. Though yes, APs often struggle with giving players all necessary details of the villain and the plan ...

[@AaronSherman]

There's a real luxury to having players who thrive in a sandbox. Not every GM who would prefer to run a sandbox has players who can get something out of it and not every group of players who want that can find a GM who can improvise well enough. I'm happy for you that you found that sweet spot.

[@michaelh7532]

Player: All I want is a good story, well delivered by the ST. Pre-written or not, just so long as it's a good story. ST: I love world building but making an entire dungeon ahead of time is a daunting task. Making one on the fly is similarly troublesome. Modules are a great way to have an outline to work with.

[@MachineTeen]

As someone who was new to Pathfinder 2 less than 2 years ago. Running a prewritten campaign was preferred. After Playing every other week now for almost 2 years I can say I am more than willing to Make my own game again. I have done it before in D and D 5e. and 1st and 2nd editions. Campaigns do provide Inspirations for what you could change up in your own campaign or add to it.

[@joeleek9976]

I read the entire campaign several times before session zero. This helps me make alterations. My experience with modules is that sometimes you need to tweak things for the story to make sense. I also shamelessly replace dead npcs that are critical to the story with nearly identical characters. Like Landfill 2 from beer fest.

[@Barquevious_Jackson]

You know how Vampires don't like Garlic and Wild Rose? I'm like that with any TTRPG thing I didn't make, I can almost withstand it as a player but I would literally rather build a system from the ground up then play a game that has one or two things that annoy me. I would be dropped into a coffin if I tried to play an adventure path.

[@kamiro-nanayako]

After having failed terribly with my own homebrew campaign, I suggested the Fall of Plaguestone Adventure to my group, and then the Age of Ashes AP. For me as a totally new GM, having never played a TTRPG before, these Adventures are a blessing, since they offer something I missed in my own campaign (though I cannot say what... maybe it was the kind of balanced mix between fighting and story). We will see how far we are going to get with AoA, maybe we will do something homebrew inbetween... who knows. All I know is that Paizo's prewritten Adventures saved my group from falling apart

[@TheArakan94]

As a player, I like prepared adventures because they let me experience actual canon lore in a world I care about instead of just random stuff DM came up with. As a DM, I like them mostly because it saves a LOT of prep and enables me to actually have a group, but the knowledge that I am in shared experience of many people and not just my personal world also helps give "meaning" beyond just having fun.

[@diegorodrigues9528]

Reasons to like pre written adventurer 1 - Not enough time. Neither me and my players has the time to do something like this 2 - canonical exploration of the lore/world 3 - Supplemental material at hand. My group is very visual so is pretty good to have the maps, character and etc. 4 - As a player you don't have to do much. Just play. 5 - It's a collective experience. Hundreds of groups run the pre written.

[@Nonat1s]

I hadn't thought about the collective experience! That's a really cool point!

[@AlexBermann]

Here is an explanation of how I run prewritten stuff based on an analogy. The adventure path is timeline a. This timeline happens and somehow, the players are send back in time, but they do not have any memories of what happened in timeline A. Still, if there were no other factors, them doing anything would cause the butterfly effect which would lead to a wildly different future. However, this only is true when there is no other force at play, let's call it fate. If fate changes minor events that are not dependent on the time travelers actions, they could eventually cancel out some things the time traveler did. The exact sequence of events will still change because the actions of the time travelers have consequences, but there effectively are fixed points where the new timeline and the old one will overlap. Basically, if the players decide "we are going to play this story" instead of having their characters just walk away, no amount of chaos becomes a problem because I only need to manipulate events in the way that the crucial events happen. Yeah, it means that I won't use whole chapters of the book, but I will be able to use some later chapters because I am the subtle hand of fate. As for going shopping and adopting a Goblin: that falls under "additional scenes" for me. Also, the goblin will totally have been orphaned by the Lich who abducted Goblins and consumed their souls because he expects they aren't missed. As a GM, part of the appeal is how well integrated the adventures are in the metaplot and that they do not play to my habits in regards to creatures, locations and even NPC types. Another type is to facilitate the illusion that the players totally catched me off guard and derailed the whole adventure while I secretly hold all the strings without them ever knowing. The bad part about this style is: I will have to read the whole adventure path before I start with the first adventure. I absolutely need the big picture.

[@nickputney605]

One aspect of an AP that I do not see mentioned enough is the fact that not every GM is a native writer or storyteller. While the pick it up and go aspect of an AP is easy for GMs, the ability for a new game master to have something to start with and not worry (as much) that they have no answers to questions that players will inevitably have is a great feature. Running our own stories and keeping the sandbox, choose your own adventure style is great for groups that thrive on freedom and are proactive in their play. But new groups can be reactive creatures and an AP is very much like a video game with a character customizer. Make your character and get used to the story and lore before you. Dont like it after a while? There are plenty of other settings and genres of stories to try. It is a wonder starting point to be spoiled for choice and see what you can enjoy before taking a dive into the systems at large.

[@9akisha9]

I'm GMing Descent Into Avernus now and couldn't think of good reasons for getting them into Avernus (I'm a little inexperienced, otherwise I would have changed the start of the adventure). So I asked my players. Consensus was: We wanna go to Hell, eff us up! Sometimes, the rails go to awesome town and the players are here for it xD Do have to say that they like clear goals and are ok with parts being more linear.

[@9akisha9]

Yeah I really scratched my head over that. My solution was to drag some parts of Baldur's Gate into Hell and having them figure out how to get themselves and the ones they love out of there (and maybe save Elturel in the process xD). Had to change some stuff to account for Candlekeep. Also I'm glad I found "Descent Into Avernus as a Sandbox" :'D

[@dangercat8919]

You're not wrong but you can do both. You can run an AP, steal some things you like out of it, and ignore others, all the while giving them other options so they feel the choice is always theirs.

[@Energistx]

So Adventure Paths for me are stories I wouldn't tell or ways I normally wouldn't tell them. I often run two to three APs before doing my own thing by taking what I saw and liked from the APs and put it into my own stories. Best example of this is Reign of Winter, each book is a new set piece as you're hunting down Baba Yaga. One of the books takes place in WW 1 Russia I as a GM would not have made that story. Hell My players came to me and asked me to run it because it was a story that took place in Pathfinder but had you go to WW 1, they wanted to see how a story would lead up to that. Also on the idea of, "honoring the writer," I tell you that you are a story teller as a GM, the Story of the AP is the story you've heard and are now retelling with your own flair. This point hit home with me when I picked the brain of one of the guys who wrote book 2 of Rise of the Runelords. SPOILERS FOR RISE OF THE RUNELORDS BOOK 2! There is a scene where you're in a farm hunting ghouls, in there, there is a lot of scarecrows, some of them are scarecrows, some of them are people slowly turning into ghouls and some of them are ghouls. I told him that this scene fell flat with my party and it turned into something monotonous and boring. He told me that if that doesn't work with my party change it so it would. The point is to tell a story that everyone is into not to stay to script 100% of the time. I know a GM who uses APs as a spring board. They'll run book 1 true to form and then the story goes on from there as a free form game. APs are great starting points in that regard. They are a tool in your tool belt to be used as needed.

[@jeronemitchell]

I believe the problem here is that the idea of applying an open world paradigm to a prewritten adventure is that in a prewritten adventure the characters /MUST/ have a intrinsic motivation to prevent the negative repercussions that occur during the adventure. This is a function of them being in the adventure itself, which becomes a variable in their creation. For example, every character in Extinction Curse starts off in the circus. That means, logically, there's a reason these people ended up working in a circus. If they are there they either (a) wanted to work in the circus, which in itself provides intrinsic motivation to see the circus succeed, (b) didn't want to work in the circus, thus meaning they /HAD/ to work there (and, again, providing an intrinsic motivation to see the circus succeed), or (c) some grey area in between the two which leads to the same end point. If "go out and be your own adventurer" was an option, wouldn't they have done that at some point in the past when they realized they didn't like the circus? Perhaps the philosophical bargain in a premade path is that you /ARE/ railroading your players, but ideally it it at character creation, where they receive some motivation to embark on the adventure planned. If done there, you aren't railroading them with the plot hooks down the line.

[@Everrick]

My issue with pre-written is the same, I am extremely great at improv in my homebrew stuff, but a pre-written I feel like I am telling someone else's story and so my improv often fails. On the other side though, I run SO many campaigns that sometimes it's nice to switch off my brain and have the APs have all the answers for me so I can recharge my creative batteries. And one final note! I love the APs as inspiration, for instance I am running Abomination Vault right now for 2 different groups, one its running as written (right now) and the other it has become more of a Harvest Moon/Stardew Valley vibe (making homebrew rules for farming and relationship with the village) the Gauntlight being where they are drawn to protect the village they are trying to make a home in. It makes great inspiration for this campaign that has been unfolding.

[@Nonat1s]

We're very similar, you and I. I think I love pre-written one-shots and short adventures. Something like "The Slithering" for 2e is fantastic to me! But the long-running campaigns just don't work with the way I plan my games.

[@Everrick]

@@Nonat1s yeah all of my very successful campaigns have been the ones I've made up entirely, and I think my run of AV is going so well so far is because my players derailed it into a farming life adventure haha 😄. I must say I am very much looking forward to Strength of Thousands for the inspiration of running a magic academy based campaign! Love your content, keep up the great work. I would love to pick your brain about how you got started with making videos and your patreon.

[@bretsheeley4034]

In all honesty, augmenting events is how I think all pre-written adventures are supposed to be played. You can run through as much as you want, but if the players pull things off-track.... great! If the GM pulls things off track, great! Hell, that's how I also view campaign setting books as well. They are always a starting points for ideas, and it's up to the RP group to keep or diverge as they see fit. And if something is missed by the players or things get "screwed up", you can either let things continue to diverge, or you can course-correct. You are never obligated to stick to the letter of the modules. That "unspoken contract" you mentioned to follow the game as written is literally worth less than the paper that contract is written on. And it took me a while to get that. Now right now I'm running through all of the Adventure Paths. Literally, we did Runelords, then Crimson Throne, then Second Darkness, then Legacy of Fire, and now Council of Thieves. And fall-out from previous divergences are moving in the background of what's going on, and I LIVE for those now. Heck, I just had a cameo in CoT involving a PC from CotCT during a "side-quest" and it is actually helping things become more interesting. And yeah, I've had chunks of material get augmented from the game (the climax of Legacy of Fire ended up getting moved to a completely different location!). I used to worry the same way you are now, and I'd panic each time I screwed up doing something in the game or presented some details wrong, or if the PCs went off in a different direction.... And then I realized that following the APs to the letter is impossible. There's (1) too much info and (2) already mistakes and errors in the books from time to time, and (3) the modules can't account for everything the players do. (Dear Lord, the problematic nature of what was going on for a chunk of Second Darkness was called out IN-GAME by several of the PCs. Even now in Council of Thieves, one of the PCs wanted to break ties with the main "quest giver NPC" due to the game specifically making him a racist.) These games BEGGED to be diverged from. Remember the old saying "No battle plan survives the first gunshot." For RPGs, no GM plan survives session-zero. ;) Regardless of the name Adventure Paths are just the maps to the adventure, not the path itself. Just keep telling yourself, there is no train to derail in a railroad campaign. Let the players make their own choices... and let the villains in the shadow adjust accordingly. :) These games are a details aid for GMs to create their sessions, not a programmatic script the GM must follow letter by letter. Remember the first rule of RPGs: Fun first.

[@justingentry7458]

I am of several minds on this one. As a player I like them. It is kinda like reading a novel or watching a movie; it’s a shared experience you can compare with others both inside and outside of your group. But it also come with some expectations; I came for Rime of the Frostmaiden or Extinction Curse and that is kinda what I expect to experience. When we veer too far off the path I actually don’t like it because now I am not getting the same experience. So if we are playing an adventure path I want to, you know, play the adventure path. That said, as a DM I totally get the stress of not wanting to mess it up or change too much. Sometimes the modules don’t do a good job of noting who is important for later so if I decide to drop them for brevity or they die it becomes really contrived to get that plot point back. In some ways it becomes more work than less to tell the story “right” So I guess when I am using them either as a player or DM I have a different approach and buckle up for a fun trip down the rails. When I’m not using them it is easier to set expectations by picking a theme for a campaign (mystery, exploration, etc) and just running with it wherever it goes even if sometimes it can devolve into a plotless mess more easily.

[@Mewzard]

Paizo's adventure paths are super solid. My group's in book six of Hell's Rebels and we're having fun. It helps that the player's goals in Hell's Rebels facilitate the adventure. To ignore the adventure is to abandon your home town during its greatest plight in history, it gets so super personal, I love it. It's been a while since I've had such strong "fuck this final boss" energy, lol. My group also does original adventures alongside our Paizo adventures. It's pretty fun no matter what route we go.

[@Nonat1s]

I think that's something I struggle with. As a GM, I don't want to force some reason onto my players to care about the main story. I'd personally rather have them care about something, and then make THAT the main story. Sounds like that AP has a fantastic hook that'd be natural for anyone though.

[@Mewzard]

@@Nonat1s Yeah, that's a great part about Hell's Rebels, it does a good job of making you want to follow the plot. Personal stakes are a great way of keeping players invested. Also, one of the first things the villain did among other things was outlaw Mint. How could you not want to follow the plot to figure out why that was a thing? lol

[@barnabyssjones]

@@Mewzard fucking lol at the mint thing

[@javierbernal3231]

For me it’s the stage of life I am in right now. I am pretty much the permanent GM for my group and I used to write my own campaigns and run my group through them with all the freedoms that you mentioned and it was great. Now I’m a father of three and have barely enough free time to meet for a weekly game session let alone write and create a campaign. So right now I’m the current stage of my life I love AP so I can read the books for an hour a night then setup the group once a week

[@ZubinMadon]

The dark secret of rpgs is that everything is open-ended. You don't have to follow that line, and you can still use the vast majority of nearly all written adventures. You just need to convince your players not to feel forced to play on the rails.

[@golvic1436]

I am an old school GM. Prewritten adventures is a starting point and a source of inspiration. You get maps, lore and encounters. It is great for new groups and golden for new GM’s while they are learning the ropes and some GM’s just can’t improv an adventure. However for the most of us, and especially for experienced GM’s, published adventures are a buffet you can raid for flavor to the meal that is your adventure.

[@cannolibros]

Great video. Personally I don't think I'm creative enough to homebrew my own stuff! But I agree that staying 100% on the rails of the books is constraining to the entire table. You should go off rails more.

[@lukebatchelor717]

Adventure Paths are the best thing in the world, and I love Paizo's adventure paths FAR more than the majority of D&D's equivalent "campaigns" sans Curse of Strahd being a retooling of an older adventure. I love prewritten adventures!!

[@DareXIII]

I understand the fear of not wanting to change a few parts of a pre written campaign, but there are times where altering certain parts can do really well. I am using Age of Ashes, and now on book 4. There's a decent amount in book 3 that some players went on a side quest for about 2 weeks on a boating adventure where half the team was busy repairing damage to a town while another half was on a boat with their adopted goblin and kobold tribes attacking slaver ships along the coast, before they decided the town was well enough defended and repaired, before going after the main plot. Just gotta remember that you are the one telling the players' story. And if they want to go fight crime on the high seas or want a beach episode, let them. Side note, I let them turn the ship into an air ship, so now they enjoy flying around in the sky when they want to attack slavers, bandits or fighting dragons and are considering building a Steam Giant to defend their base so their adopted tribes can run it to assist in fights instead of being directly in trouble.

[@Eluarelon]

I love playing Adventure Paths but here‘s the thing: I run them exactly the way you arguing you can‘t or don‘t want to run them. What I do is that I use the AP‘s plot as the base timeline that will happen if everything goes according to plan A, but then I use what the players will give me during character creation and start meshing that with the plot into a whole new different thing. Depending on how things develop, the resulat might be really different from that original plan. And yes, most of the time that means that a lot of the pre-written story stuff will become moot the further we go into that AP and yes it may mean that the big baddies plan will come to fruition because the players decided to do something totally different. Which I'll gladly use for further adventures. Also, I run those APs in my own 3e-based version of the Forgotten Realms, so I already ignore a lot of the story stuff anyways because I rewrite everything to make it feel Faerunian. In the end, I use the stuff presented to me to create that open-ended experience you are talking about and neither I nor my players need to feel forced to protect the Sacred Timeline of what‘s prewritten in the books. Yes, you can call me Sylvie, thank you. There are two reasons why even with that approach, I prefer using (especially Paizo-) APs over using my own writings. The first being that I can still use tons of the stuff pre-written in the APs, from maps and encounters to setting details even when we completely went down another path. I don‘t like building my own encounters because frankly, I‘ve come to try and stay away from the rules as much as possible in the meantime and I find it way easier to rewrite or modify the crunch than to come up with my own encounters. Not that I can‘t do it, but I just don‘t like that technical part of Gming, because for me, the only things that count is the characters, the setting and the characters‘ story in the setting. In short, I just use Pathfinder because it‘s more convenient but in a perfect world, me and my group would just do collaborative storytelling without any ruleset necessary. So using prewritten stuff just saves me valuable time I‘d rather spent with other endeavors. The second reason being that I use prewritten adventures for the same reason I use prewritten settings. I just don‘t have the time to write a setting that is as detailed and plentiful as the Realms, Golarion or Eberron and I‘m probably not talented enough to do it anyways. So instead of always feeling discontent with the stuff I‘m creating (and I‘ll inevitably feel this way even if it turns out the players love it well enough), I‘d rather use stuff that already meets my own quality criteria, because again, I find it easier (and faster) to modify that stuff than having to invent everything myself. Because if I did that, especially when it comes to adventures, I would probably have to stop playing the game because at that point I would be writing novels instead. And it turns out that I don‘t have time for both.

[@coolboy9979]

Well it just says that you prefer a sandbox kind of campaign than a grand adventure. For my players that arent to fanatic with pathfinder as I am and dont know every AP I was able to trick them (since they feel forced when playing a premade adventure). I just ask them if they want to do the plot and not the adventure name and dont tell them its premade. There is a risk that we will get off the tracks and do something completely different but that is fine as well, but most likely your players wont be able to tell. Just ask them "You want to play a adventure that is about a grand tournament?" Instead of: "Want to play Phoenix fist? Which is a AP from 10 to 20 and about a grand tournament"

[@ironwolf56]

My thought is I wonder how he'd feel about Kingmaker. I know it's 1e but I heard they're making a 2e update at some point. Anyway, it's basically more a sandbox area setting than an adventure path in a lot of ways, it even addreses one of the big problems he said with a static campaign in that there are timers on some events where if your players put them off long enough things will be different when they finally get around to it.

[@coolboy9979]

@@ironwolf56 The 2e edition is already out for the ones that backed up the kickstarter. It will be officially out at I think late october.

[@stephenpaul-realty8265]

I love adventure paths as inspiration. You can find new mechanics, ideas to structure your own ideas, etc. Now modules and one shots are fantastic. I used a series of adventures based in Falcon's Hollow and wove them together with stuff I had made on my on. It was such a blast. The pre-written stuff gave me time to work on my own stuff so I could keep the work going. I think I used Hollows Last Hope, Crown of the Kobold King, Carnival of Tears, Revenge of the Kobold King and Hungry are the Dead. Goodness, I love Falcon's Hollow.

[@clarenceyax8117]

I have been DMing for about 8 or 9 years now, and I ALWAYS wrote my own adventures. I have now been out of high school for a handful of years and my work and other obligations have flourished but with it my time to create my own world. AP's take so much work out of it on my end, and I can twist and manipulate the foundations to fit my party's circumstances, and my players love it. I think both are great in their own ways.

[@johnathanrooley8694]

Often, APs are great for GMs like me who are short on time and runs more than one campaigns during the week. Prep time is not always plentiful, and I find it a relief that there is a well written module for me to lean back on.

[@seanfox4121]

I think for our playgroup having a pre written adventure is easier for the GM when it comes to the prep time and the players just kind of go with it

[@magnusprime27]

A good reason to read or at least skim through all the AP so you have a good over view so you don't screw up a later part

[@blykins80]

I like both ways honestly. I used to run nothing but my own adventures, and had tons of fun and memories to show for it. However that is a large time and energy investment. For those of us who work 40-50 hours a week, have a family and responsibilities, pre-written APs are great. I don't feel the same trepidation that you (Nonat1s) seem to about going off the rails though. Most of these APs are large stories that can go off the rails for quite a while and and still have plenty of opportunities to come back in later at different points (I once skipped an entire book of Skull and Shackles only to come back to the next one no problems). I tend to read ahead, but even if I don't I take notes on where I left the pre-written stuff and on-the-fly changes I've made. Then when they do eventually come back (city is on fire that they could have saved for instance) I'm confident I can change things as needed and interweave aspects my changes with the books plot. After 20+ years GMing I find this works pretty well for me. And, of course if you're going to do an AP, there should be a session zero to figure out what people want in an AP. To your point, if they don't want to run a circus then they shouldn't vote to play extinction curse. Similarly my group recently was not interested in playing as lawmen/investigators, so we opted not to play Agents of Edgewater.

[@blahpunk1]

The problem is that if you run an open ended campaign you either have to nail down every aspect of your world before hand or, more likely, improvise and that's not something that comes naturally to a lot of people. If you can provide an open ended experience I think that's probably, for most players, a superior experience. It's just that not all of us have the time, talent or inclination to do so.

[@CardinalAdventures]

This video warrants a response video. I will make a reply to this comment with the link when it is finished.

[@scottnolan2833]

When I was your age, I felt the same way. But by the time I was in my forties I had no time to create my own stuff. Back then: all the time I wanted to think and play. Now: no time to plan and only six hours every two weeks to play.

[@revan266]

The thing to remember about the big book adventures, no matter who wrote them is that they are written as broadly as possible. They are a product aiming to sell to as many people as possible. In the past,, I've found them invaluable as an outline. They on their own will be fun to play as is, but truly shine when you take them and mold them to your group. One that really stands out here is curse of the crimson throne. With some rather small changes it plays like the frist couple of seasons of game of thrones. Even the most on the rails group will diverge from the story sometimes. It's magical when it happens and really makes the game what it is. I've ran adventure paths, I've ran entirely homebrew. I've never had an adventure path go entirely according to the book, but they do make fantastic outlines. The sweet spot for me is to seed the world with hooks, some of which is just a "short" adventure, some is home brew. Oh, the group decides to go to the town that's totally not hamlet from the temple of elemental evil books, and doesn't go to the town that's totally not plague stone.

[@CruxBlender]

I've always used adventure paths as a suggestion/inspiration. 50% of any adventure path that I run is probably homebrew if not more and I will admit that I'm not a creative enough person to bring the idea of players being part of a circus to the table (with the mechanics included). Adventure paths/pre-written adventures are awesome for new and old DM alike because it expands your toolkit. I wouldn't be half the DM I am today if it wasn't for reading/running multiple PF1e adventure paths. I'm getting ready to run extinction curse myself this fall, and I've already decided to change the big bad entirely. I'm using the books as a setting and inspiration for the campaign.

[@tommyz3779]

Totally legitimate feelings on AP's, they're not for everyone. I really enjoy them, both playing, running, and using them for inspiration. Running the Agents of Edgewatch adventure right now, my players decided to start book 2 with a VERY different idea than what was written, but I was able to rearrange some stuff to use the existing material in the adventure to accommodate their choices without forcing them back to the expected paths.

[@mathuswilliams5997]

I know that this is an older video but here is how I feel about the Adventure Paths. Me and my friends have been playing The Ironfang Invasion which is kind of like Lord of the Rings except it focuses on the rallying of the armies instead of the fellowship. Things we have done to make this more interesting is supplement in various scenarios for "extra loot" and play things what we never would truly consider. For example, my party all wanted to play as goblins, so we played all of the "We Be Goblins" along with the adventure path including the "Fangwood Keep" module for the party to have their own command fortress for their army, "Conquest of Bloodsworn Vale" for army reinforcements and acquire a magical tactical nuke, and "Clash of the Kingslayers"for the Dwarven aspect of it. We were even considering adding in "The Moonscar" module to go along with Ironfang Invasion's book 5 but at this point, most of our original party members are no longer playing. To be honest, i feel that adventure paths can be long-winded, especially with players who are used to short adventures and scenarios like that of Pathfinder Society. However, what adventure paths does offer you is FREEDOM to adjust the story how you see fit, used unsanctioned races and classes, and find new ways to have fun. I have skipped fights that were only placed for XP and try to stick to the plot if possible. At this point, I have grown tired of playing the adventure path "Giantslayer" and running "Ironfang Invasion". At this point, I have heard that running and adventure path can be tedious, It maybe be better to just run it as guide links of the adventure and not follow it word for word.

[@snoulbora2050]

So here are my thoughts on this. 1) Everything you said here is completely valid there may be a few caveats to that because of certain situations but at the end of the day it depends upon your group. 2) I always view Adventures / Adventure Paths (which ever game you are playing) a good loose idea of the starting area, and you can come up with the rest on your own, so the best thought is if you have a group he is willing to go off rails naturally but not intentionally then let them, especially if they just miss things and such, just continue as normal if this is your personal group and you know them well. So TLDR of this point: just use adventures as a base and build out the skeleton yourself depending upon your players actions, remember you and your players are building a house together to play in. Only recommend this if you know them well enough. 3) These adventures are great for meeting strangers and people and finding who fit your future games or not. Sometimes GM's (like myself) like to run only for certain people because I get along best with these people who we play TTRPGS together. So to summarize, Nonat1 makes very valid points which are not wrong, It really depends upon the group you play with and who you know, if you know them pretty well let them trail off and make it a consequence, or if you are playing the adventure with strangers then try to follow the book but once you get to level 4 lead into the next adventure or let them go off the rails. He also made a good point using them as supplements about understanding what is in that area to create a basis off of. TLDR: GM how you like, don't let a prewritten shackle you unless of certain situations.

[@danielalexander8402]

As a DM running something Prewritten - I think overall you hit the nail on the head with your analysis. When you're running something, especially when you have players who are used to you running long homebrew sessions for literal days on end in mega marathons, it feels like it's too easy to get something wrong and mess up the entire story line. But I think there's more to it. The only time I played as a player in a published adventure path things went terribly for me because the DM was too rigid to the story because they would not prep. I won't go into detail with that horror story but it left me with some severe anxiety about harming my player's experience. Recently I found a new group to play with and ran them through the Fall of Plaguestone and I was a nervous wreck the entire time. I prepped as much as I could but I rarely took any liberties because I was terrified I would mess the story up or harm a player's experience by not following something more closely. I took a few liberties here and there like playing up the amount of turnips the people at Etran's Folly ate, turned the farmer Metran (I think that's his name

[@ericrobinson2611]

So one thing you could do with APs is allow for custom sidequests (beach trip!) periodically if the party wants to and the GM is willing to put in the work. Just like in a show, every episode doens't contribute to the main plotline, you could use the AP for the overall arc and main quests, but come up with custom content outside of that. We did a Skull and Shackles campaign like that and it was amazing...

[@MalkavX]

Hey Nonat, I am one of those who runs AP. I have a few things to say about them and why I like them. I am currently playing Kingmaker, War for the Crown, Strange Aeons and Extinction Curse. 1. I really don't have much time to create. I grew as a gamer with no access to written products. My first books were photocopies and because books were so hard to find, that I always prioritized rule books over adventures. I homebrewed pretty muck every simgle game I played: Vampire, D&D, Star Wars, Alternity. I loved every time. Now that I have to devide my time between family, video games, work and prepare for 4 groups, I really love having good adventures written so I can jump into it with less preparation. Since I did homebrew for.more than 20 years, using written works great now for me. 2. I don't play in Golarion. I have my own homebrew campaign and I alwsys repurpose APS to my world. Yeah, Stolen Lands in Kingmaker, we'll it just so happens in my world there is a piece of lands that is similar, that actually contains ruins of old civilizations. Bam! That works pretty well for Kingmaker. I get to use some of the background the AP has to flesh out things that I never created. Strange Aeons, yeah, elder.gods, Ustalav and a crazy rich guy. Well, it just so happens that my last 8 year campaign was centered on an elder god trying to destroy the world. This seems like a perfect follow up and my group has been really engaged about it. I don't feel bad of appropriating Paizo's stories. I am extremely thankful that they have let me use their extremely imaginative creations to make them mind and flesh then out with my own world, own NPCs and probably offer a very unique experience even for people who know about the APs 3. Yes, there has to be an understanding in the game group about the type of game we are playing. Not just characters and backgrounds that make sense for the story, but that they work within specific constrains and rules of the adventure. For example, in Strange Aeons, part of the magic is playing in a way that you character is truly watching horrible things that are screwing with their characters heads. I know not all players will be 100% on it all the time, but they all help each other remember what we are playing and that has made for one of the most enriching adventures for a group thats has played together for decades. 4. I think a GM develops great skills when using material from others. Not just by learning about different stories and adventures, but about how you become better at approaching new ways to do things. To give you one example, in Kingmaker, each book a new map.is added to the adventure and characters have to explore hex by hex to "reveal" the secrets of each region. By the start of book 4, some players mentioned that they didn't want to do it again. That not only it didn't make sense for their characters (who are regents of a barony and command a small army to be the guys revealing the map one hex at a time. Some players were ok with it, but others really hated it (6 players group). So I sat down and heard all of them. What some liked it, why some didn't and explained the reason why that exploration element was there (being a sandbox adventure and also is the way to gain XP). So after listening to them, came to a solution: they would roll their kingdom stats and depending on their success I would reveal.something on the map or a rumor. This is a representation of how their npc scouts would be doing the job of exploring and would report the big challenges or the landmarks to them. The players loved the idea. They felt that this was faster than exploring hex by hex and encounters will continue to pop up. I felt that by sitting down, analyze why the developers decided to do something and actually engaging my group resulted in me developing a creative solution that is unique to my table. So, I love APS. I have made them my own, they help me save prep time and they have allowed me to learn from the pros. That being said, not all published adventures are created equal. I have not really liked the D&D adventures. And I have truly not liked the Extinction Curse AP. This AP feels disconnected, as the circus is just an afterthought after the story and lore. I line the lore, I am not just sure that the premise of the AP makes justice to what it really is and I am thinking on either dropping and starting another one or just homebrew it completely and get off rails. Keep up the great videos.

[@GustavoYuki]

I've been running Extinction Curse for about a year now. It's fresh group, all first timers to any ttRPG , and it's been really great! Coming from a background of only playing and DMing homebrew for decades, it really did feel a little bit awkward at first, not being able to tell when it was ok to just run with improv and change stuff and the fear of messing up a plotline was always on my mind. It was only around Chapter II that I really felt comfortable altering things more freely and by now (midway through book 3) I'm quite comfortable changing, adding or removing, anything that I feel will make for a better experience for the players. I've added new antagonists that came from a PCs backstory, several side challenges and quests, switched who was the betraying double agent because the group took a shine to a particular NPC and lots of stuff like that. For us it really was the best way to play it. Prep times are shorter, the players get to experience the story and whenever I dream up a new encounter or scenario I know I can always find room to place it somewhere. One final quick note: I also found that side from making prep easier, running an AP also was a very good way to introduce the game to new players. Most of the early encounters kinda felt like they were designed to teach the PCs the basics mechanics of the game.

[@GadoukenRising]

I spent about 6 months in my weekly PF game running the first two books of Agents of Edgewatch. I approached it the same way as I've approached 5e published adventures (we have previous played through Tyranny of Dragons and Curse of Strahd with this group): we played through most all of the content in the books and also had some subplots that were specific to our PCs and their backstories, things like that. We had fun, but it took a *very* long time to get through, just by nature of the fact that it's PF2e and not 5eD&D. I really struggled with the same exact things you mention in the video here: It's hard to change things! How do I know if I'm breaking a carefully laid plan? How far ahead do I have to read to truly be ready? Once we finished the 2nd book, our group spent some time sharing how we felt, and decided to put Edgewatch on hold while we play another campaign for a few months. Our plan when we return to Edgewatch is to have the game take a very different form: rather than even having the illusion of player choice that funnels them (sometimes unnaturally) into the planned content, we're literally just going to run the Adventure Path as a series of set piece encounters linked together with very light roleplaying and narration of the major plot points, almost like a linear video game or something. I know it sounds ridiculous, like we should just play a video game instead, but the truth is that our group, while we can be a very story-telling/roleplaying heavy group, we still enjoy the tactical game of PF2e enough that we'd still have fun every week even if it was 90% combat.

[@huntsfromshadow]

So I pretty much run APs and pre-written adventures exclusively. This is mainly due to time. I'm insanely busy so the time to prep something pre-written and tweak it is much faster and less creatively taxing for me. The best analogy I can give is a pre-written AP is like a very nice paint by numbers kit. I have the framework for a story but their are areas I can put my own spin on the story. To continue the analogy I can pick the colors and even decide to ignore some of the lines if I need to, but I have an underlying structure to help hold things up. Playing in AP is very similar. I am along for the ride, but I can still bring life to the world with my character and how my character bounces off other characters. A good analogy here would be an actor in a play has some power in how the play runs simply by 'how' they are playing their character even if the outcome of the play is set down on paper.

[@lglass516]

I love your videos, but I do wish you would have titled this “Why I Don’t Like Prewritten Adventures.” Even though I write AP volumes as a freelancer, I prefer to run sandbox campaigns myself. The Starfinder Galaxy Exploration Manual, btw, has some fantastic advice applicable to all game systems for running this type of game.

[@chudpunter]

as someone just getting into GMing, there are a couple reasons why they appeal to me (for now at least). part of it is obvious... I have no idea what I'm doing. seeing examples of how to design encounters and plots and dungeons and social interactions is really helpful for me. I don't have to do piles of prep (on top of learning core mechanics that I'm already doing). I can jump into design and creative writing slowly, when/as I'm ready, one step at a time, and my group can still have a fun time right now. the other part is more personal. my background is PC gaming (love my crpgs) and running the "admin" position for a couple of lite-rpg-ish card games, where the scenarios are all prewritten, someone just needs to know the rules and direct things (me). so doing something similar as a GM, at least to start, feels very natural and like I'm reasonably capable of doing a decent job.

[@HierophanticRose]

During college, while playing through Worldwound Incursion, a member had the genius idea to look for "Numerian Technology" to fight the Demons. So we played Iron Gods inside Wrath of the Righteous for a while, after that, all plotlines got jumbled up and the DM gave up trying to make sense of it all - well long story short we ended up fighting an Old One in a clockwork ruin in Aballon as our BBEG, things went awry to say the least

[@justinvonmoss6925]

I give my players main quest plot hooks and some character-based side quest plot hooks of my own devising and customized for the characters. I also tell my players they can do whatever they want, they can give up on the quest and become rabbit farmers. Like you, I have events continue even if they ignore them. The best actual example I can give is in the lost mine of Phandelver *spoilers* the party decided to ignore the red brand thugs taking over the town like they were supposed to. When they came back to town later the town was in the middle of a meeting in the tavern to discuss what to do about the red brands. During the meeting the red brands blocked the door and set fire to the tavern. The party had to then deal with the red brands outside the tavern or rescue the people inside. It was a great scene. However, like you I do struggle with feeling like I’m going to mess something up that happens later in the adventure. I’m trying not to worry about that and just do what works best for now and then figure out how to fix what needs to be fixed later.

[@grumpygiantgames7971]

I've been playing for 25 years, and DM'ing for about 20 years, and I have mixed feelings to APs. Homebrews you are allowed to tailor games to the individual players. I've built skill encounters 100% based on what each player brings to the table. I did a heist back at the beginning of the current homebrew adventure. The players really seemed to love it. Whereas, in an AP, it's here's the thing, go and do it. My players still had fun, but they remarked on how great this focus on skills to perform a heist was. On the flip side, it took me 4 hours to write that heist, develop the skill checks, make the map, and another hour in my sandbox (I use Fantasy Grounds, so I have a sandbox table setup, where I test what I want, to ensure the players are capable.) That encounter took 30 minutes to play out. So, 5 hours of prep time, for 30 minutes of a three hour game . I also think part of the problem is, I was not excited about Extinction Curse, at all. The circus hook just does nothing for me. Whereas, "Fist of the Ruby Phoenix", and "Abomination Vault" are exciting. I think it boils down to, How much prep time do you have. When the pandemic started I was working 50 hours a week, and running games on Friday night. Prep time was reading the book the day of the game. Setting up Fantasy Grounds and done. Whereas, in my homebrew. I am trying to get everything laid out for the next two sessions and I know I will spend 20+ hours doing just that.

[@dylanhyatt5705]

I like to adapt and hybridise pre-written campaign, first to my own setting (which saves me having to read tons of lore that doesn't work for me), but gives enough detail (dungeons) and NPCs and overland maps I can configure to my own take. If the players branch away completely from the campaign - I just look for either one-off modules I can adapt to the cooperative story as it's developing, or even jump tracks to a different adventure path.

[@Specter053]

While I do agree that pre-written books have some form of linearity, what I like about them is that they give the GM a basis to work on, but they usually allow you to add your own stuff. I usually GM pre-written stuff, and I don't have a lot of time to prepare stuff. But the thing I can prepare allow me to customize things for my players. An example from outside of Pathfinder is that I am GMing Curse of Strahd for my friends. And while we are following the line, I am able to add stuff on the game, like different interactions with certain characters, more intervention of the Dark Gods and even certain new NPCs tied to the players. And that's the secret of running great pre-written campaigns: it's your version of them. The best pre-writtens are the ones that give you a line to follow, but give you enough wiggle room to customize to your liking.

[@dysfunctionaldm6724]

This year I switched to pathfinder 2e. I’m a father of 4 and demanding job so pre written material helps me a ton but where I’ve changed it up is I’m using pathfinder society scenarios and quests versus long demanding adventures. I run my players individually on one of the quests to develop npc relationships and back story. Then I ran all of the metaplot scenarios from season 1 for an overarching story. It’s worked well. Many different locations and they are super excited about their character development and interaction when they encounter npc they know from their “personal” quests. My creative story building time is spent on developing their characters and relationships vs just the overall story. Hope that all made sense🙂. Weaving their stories into the overarching metaplot has been fun. I’m also finding that death is not as rare in pathfinder and it’s made for some great emotional cinematic moments.

[@Tarikushinno]

I appreciate the APs just because if it wasn't for them, my group would never get to play. The two of us with enough free time to make an open-ended homebrew campaign happen have no desire to be the GM, and the three of us that do don't have the free time.

[@jedizac6074]

So, someone from both sides of the screen here. I enjoy both. First, from the GM side, as a 5e GM about to start in PF2e. As a 5e GM I have run a module and done some home brew, but still in a set world, namely Eberron. Part of it is I am dissatisfied with my writing, and sometimes get stuck. The one module I have run was Rime of the Frostmaiden, and it felt amazing to run. If you feel lackluster I’m your writing, I would recommend checking out a module/AP. But, I continued story after, when they chose a certain ending, and I have found that I feel like I am railroading my party more in my home brew continuation than I did in the module, especially since RotF gives you so many options as a player. So I prefer prewritten stuff, but my next campaign, in PF2e, will not be prewritten, at least by someone other than me. I will be doing Eberron, get the character info from my players, and plan on writing out a 10 or so session campaign. Now, from the other side of the screen, as a player, both are fantastic. My group is on their third CoS run (different DM every time) and it has changes, but the base story is still the same. Most of my DMs prewrite their campaigns, and my group is fine with a bit of railroading, especially when we can be indecisive, so here’s a main hook for us. One of my GMs is planning on running AV, and I am so hyped for it.

[@Joshmvii]

I used to only run homebrew stuff. Now I only run adventures in games like Pathfinder. The key is that the Paizo adventures are A) better than my amateur work, but more importantly just enable our table to play a thing that we then make our own. Every group should have different experiences with the same adventure, where they and the GM make different relationships with the NPCs, handle challenges in different ways, etc

[@isaacgraff8288]

One of the best things I have learned from premade, is that they are a great source of inspiration. You can also just "Hey this dungeon is useful, I am just going to change the bandits to a group of werewolves protecting this instead of that." I think to really do a premade, you do have to agree with your table that HERE is the story we're doing, we can do occasional shenanigans that are unrelated, but ultimately we are going to circle back.

[@havasigabor9986]

There is this things called session 0. This is the time to discuss with the party how the campaign will look like in general. If you run an AP, the promise is to have condensed story that has a definite start and end. When you (both players and DM) don't have the time to prep for the by-weekly game based on player input - because the players don't have time to provide enough input - and AP is a good solution. I'm running the Carrion Crown PF1 AP (in 5E, put into the Forgotten Realms :P ) because it is a horroresque campaign (wanted to run something like this for a long time). It gives me a decent overall plot, goes around the classic Hammer horror tropes, has very nice ideas regarding locations and encounters. Players receive lore in-game, so they don't need to read anything else (this is a huge plus when they struggle to show up on games and learn 5E characters), it's a good mix of action, exploration and social interactions, so they are fine with following the main path. As a DM, I need to make some twists as they - of course! - don't do everything according to the book (they are hated in Ravengro, they hate the locals as well, but they respect the last will of their mentor, want to get the money for nursing Kendra and loot is nice in Harrowstone). I also skip some combats as I'm bored running room-by-room combat. Loot I give out is somewhat personalized: instead of a generic Wand of Fear, I hand out the Nailed Arm Bone of St. Brutus (remains of a saint of Loviatar, only recharges if attuned to a follower of Loviatar, abilities are based on the feeling of inbearable pain instead of terror, but gameplay-wise, it's nearly the same), +1 dagger is the Fang of the Serpent (made by yuan-ti cultist, if attuned you have snake-like reflexes - covered by the Defensive Duelist feat - but your are considered a snake-like creature: cold-blooded, have vulnerability to cold damage and prone to make hissing sound while speaking) and such. (I also hate the "yet another weapon +1" loot, but don't mind giving out powerful stuff with drawbacks.) I also made localized subclass+background combos for more story-involvement and hand out info about the world to those whose story implies. Quite a chaotic write-up from me, let's try to make some sense out of it: Pros for players: - long story planned from lvl3 to lvl20 - campaign will not finish due to player inactivity as they have a definite goal to follow - leveling is faster (powerful characters are always nice to have) - story arc can be followed with minimal out of game activity (reading session summary on blog, checking notes on charsheet) Cons for players: - less freedom (they don't care as they have no time for discussions between sessions - good people, love them but we are all adults with jobs and family) Pros for DM: - well-defined theme - inspiring locations, NPCs, encounters - campaign will not finish due to player inactivity as they have a definite goal to follow - leveling is faster (don't need to worry about PCs outgrowing the environment as in a sandbox game) - story arc can be followed with minimal out of game activity (don't have to chase players for character plans & activity, enough to remind them to read the blog) Cons for DM: - Have to read at least the whole module, but preferably the whole AP to see where to tweek - Have to make conversion (my bad for running an AP out of its system, but still less of a work than teaching PF1 after 5E) TBH, I wouldn't been satisfied with a campaign like this when I was in high school and university, but changes in life changes gaming habits I guess. Still happy to be able to do RPGs quite regularly. And why on a PF2 channel when I run 5E? Like the style, interested in the game. Already ordered a few stuff in hopes of giving PF2 a try after the Whispering Tryant has been promptly massacred by the party (or they got TPKed because they screw totally up somewhere mid-campaign :D ) Keep up the good work! :)

[@HalecksonHenrick]

Im newbie GM, my second adventure is just coming, and i can only play online. So, in terms of experience, its easy to learn and use AP, also, for online plataforms, I feel it harder to improvise a lot.

[@philopharynx7910]

AP's are great for new GM's. They usually have a good variety of different types of adventuring. You can also go onto the paizo GM forums for that AP if you have problems.

[@HalecksonHenrick]

@@philopharynx7910 Thank you, gonna check the Forums :D

[@ZaberFangAT]

7:52 I know some people like running APs as they release, but your point here is actually exactly why I won't run one until it's fully released. I'll read through the entire thing first so I know where the stories headed. I find that gives me a good balance between leading the story and not feeling railroady, because I know exactly where I CAN move things around. Even for major plot points, knowing how it's supposed to go can give me ideas for how to change it in case my players want to do something else. Paizo also seems to be building longer timeframes into their APs, too, so you can have the best of both worlds - an overarching story with plenty of space for player shenanigans.

[@CromTuise]

So my PF DM adapted the game Greedfall to PF1E as a campaign, my first with him, and it was really enjoyable. Using the spells Share Memory and Create Mindscape we were able to derail the plot rather frequently, bypassing the "get the NPC to believe you" with Share Memory to directly show them what happened, and Create Mindscape for combat shenanigans. Now we're onto the next campaign in PF2E, and it's a naval campaign of his own creation. He did not expect us to join a 2v1 fight between our faction and the enemy faction, see one of our 2 brigatine ships get beaten, and proceed to attack the enemy brigatine with our galley/sloop from behind, take the helm and kill the captain, and claim the ship, propelling us far ahead of where he expected us to be ship-size-wise and reputation-wise. This was after he didn't expect the Investigator to use his class feat to just see the secret door we were supposed to search for, and the guardsman PC to call a local criminal into the guardhouse for interrogation, when we were supposed to catch him mid-crime. While both are fun and I enjoy them both, I think El DM will have an easier time in the true homebrew game dealing with the bullshit we've been talking in chat about while we're on paternity leave. An animated adamantine kraken ram for our ship is one such idea.

[@DargorMajere]

100% agree. We have more roleplay than rollplaying, so I as a GM need to not only read and prepare the module, but also adapt it to our need and that's double the work compared by homebrewing your own campaign. Started Dragon Heist in 5e, couldn't finish it. Tried to link it with Descent into Avernus, it was even worse. So I said "f*** it" and some timespace magic later, we're on a homebrew world playing my own written story and it feels way better.

[@Chromatus384]

I started the Extinction Curse as a GM recently, to learn new things about storytelling. Up until this point, I only GMed open ended stories of my own design, and both me and my players enjoyed them. But once I started the prewritten stuff, I was amazed at many little things, that make the story more immersive. For example the way the Extinction Curse binds the players together and creates a place to call home is phenomenal. It's simple yet effective, although a bit forceful, "you are part of the circus, it's your home, bake that into your backstory". And that simple thing created the most cooperative I've played with. They have common goal of protecting their home, and they're discouraged from backstabbing each other (I mostly mean in minor ways, heavy backstabbing is just toxic and I straight up ban it in my games). One more thing I learned a lot from, is creating hints, and slowly revealing information about the BBEG, some more obvious than others, with some being borderline impossible to get until the reveal, but then you can go back and be like "ooooh, so that's why this trap trigger was here". Though, my players being players on the first session decided to skip basically all of the chapter one stuff and go straight to chapter two locations, and from all of them, they chose the deadliest one. We agreed to retcon that and go back to railroading. I'm probably just gonna go off the rails once I get a grip on some more storytelling tools used there. The one common thing people say is advantage of those prewritten stories, is the exact opposite for me, prep work for the session takes longer for me with prewritten stuff, because I want to make sure, not to screw up the story by deviating from the scrip. Prewritten dungeons and encounters on the other hand are straight up amazing.

[@Asin24]

I 100% prefer to do my own custom campaign myself. Its just more fun to me as a GM being able tom create my own world and then have that ability for the players to be much more free form in their choices. Some of the most fun things came out sheerly through me improvising after the players took a direction I didn't expect which I then used as future material in the adventure. Not to mention its fun being able to take player characters and tailor make certain things related to them. Its something the adventure paths do a little of with the backgrounds but its much easier to me to have that in play in a homebrew campaign.

[@DarthChefFromTheBasement]

I’m currently running Agents of Edgewatch. I’m new to Pathfinder 2E and still learning. I have the main story which one of players are engaged in the story. I through some hiccups and give the players the freedom to do what they want. I have made new NPC informants. That they can have access to as well in case they get stumped but I don’t reveal too much. So I like them I have a home brew working a Western campaign with a Steampunk and Clockwork inspired. Guns and Gears can’t wait for that book

[@BubbleoniaRising]

I started playing in a time when there just wasn't enough published adventures modules to go around. If you wanted to play weekly, you rolled your own. It's still my favorite part of being a GM. As a new convert to Pathfinder, I do love the default setting. The lore is deep and interesting and makes me a little jealous. I've never felt that way about the default setting in D&D.

[@moridin812]

So, one of the things that I do to circumvent the issue of "possibly ruining someone else's writing" with pre-written adventures is that I wait until it's complete before I pick it up. Once I pick it up, I read through it, start to finish, much akin to the way that one would read a novel that has a glossary in the back or a companion tome or two in order to see where the plot is going. This also gives me the ability to determine where my player group would likely wander off the path, and lets me find ways to lead them back to the plot in such a way that my players, who almost certainly know that they're being railroaded, will at least see it as a natural chain of events to get them back on the main plot rather than the arbitrary "no, you can't do that". And even if that's not there, it gives me some ideas of how I can spin the story off in the directions my players are most likely to take. This does take considerable prep work. In fact, it's entirely possible that I'd spend more time prepping an adventure path than coming up with my own setting, but I find having the stress of dungeon building and lore-weaving from the ground up lifted. That's my taste, and my opinion on the matter. I also feel as if there's not an absolute and universal right answer to this topic, merely a best answer for a given GM and Playgroup.

[@BalooSJ]

There are two main problems with Extinction Curse: 1. It's advertised as the Circus AP but in practice the circus is more like a side show and the main thing is dealing with them nasties from the underdark. There isn't really much in the Player's Guide to indicate otherwise - there's a little bit in the introduction, but most of it is about the circus and the roles PCs might have played in the circus earlier. This is different from how I've seen it done in other AP Player's Guide. For example, the Player's Guide for Serpent's Skull said something like "You're on a ship heading to Sargava. Here are some reasons you might be on that ship and where you may be hailing from. This is *not* a ship-based adventure path so don't focus much on that bit." 2. Because of the Page Count Devils and the mandate to make each AP go all the way to level 20, the first two installments basically consists of seven big dungeons and a short bit that's more exploratory/self-directed. Some of the dungeons are outdoors, but they're still dungeons. That's WAY too much dungeon! Other than that, I generally like pre-written adventures. They help in having plots, NPCs, dungeons, and the like pre-made for me which means there's less prep work (though recently when I've been running a party that's up to 7 players I've had to do quite a bit of work modifying things anyway). I particularly like having pre-written adventures as a campaign starting point, and ideally those adventures should set up future plot hooks and factions. One adventure that did this pretty well was Freedom! for the AD&D 2e setting Dark Sun, where the PCs had the opportunity to interact with various factions through the adventure, and those factions can then be used to lead the PCs into further adventures. The best pre-written adventure I've seen is Operation Shadowpoint, which is the web expansion of Star Wars: Age of Rebellion Beginner Game. At the end of the Beginner Game adventure, the PCs are in control of an off-the-books Imperial spy base. Operation Shadowpoint then asks the question: now what? That base isn't going to run itself. You're going to need to make good with the locals, both indigenous folks and civilian colonists. You're going to need to keep the base supplied, because the Moff who originally set it up sure won't. You're also going to need to acquire vehicles to aid in the work and defense ahead. You're going to need to free important assets from Imperial capture, and so on. The adventure sets these things up and sort of pushes the PCs in a direction and says "See that hill over there? You should try to get to the top of it." But it's then up to the PCs to determine how they get there. And of course, there are some events that are GM-directed, like storm trooper scouts coming across the base and the PCs needing to deal with them. But the PCs still get to feel like they're the ones in control, which is the important part.

[@dylancox631]

I totally see what you're saying and totally agree. Again, not against Paizo, its a prewritten adventure issue. As for why? Not every group is super into making choices. Sometimes they want to be told what to do. My group seems to like adventure hooks but also sometimes the adventuring hooking them. Walking in a city street and a demon attacks them, or the king calls them to his court to send them on a quest. Its quick, its simple, its kind of a video game logic. Not every time, and sometimes I tell them "Let me know what you want to do so I can plan it ahead of time."

[@ronaldsanfran]

What's interesting was that I agreed with your recent video where you said you prefer a rules system (PF2E) that gives you rules you can choose not to say, over a system that has holes that make you have to fill them in. This is my attitude toward pre-made adventures as well, and why I almost solely run pre-made adventures and APs!

[@jediroshi]

Hmm as for me, running an adventure path is like having the skeleton formed for my big adventure. I get to add the branching paths, change things how I want, add in things how I go. To me it's a great way to cut down the time needed to do it, not to mention the paths have a better understanding at times of the great lore of Golarion. Working a 40 hour job it also helps cut a lot of work down, plus I'm just bad at making maps as a GM, so having them drawn out is very nice. That being said my process is a bit different. I like to read the entirety of an adventure path before my players go through it or be at least two adventure paths ahead. I want to read the story ahead of time, to help direct it, to alter it, to change it. That way I know what I have to alter ahead of time if the players ever de-rail the adventure path. I remember one time when I was doing the 1st edition Skull and Shackles adventure. Since I was reading ahead I know where the path wanted you to go, but knowing my players I knew they would just want to explore and be pirates. So I picked up better rules I thought for Ship Combat and deepened the lore of certain islands. One such Island had a grand fight of a Paladin vs a Worshiper of Dagon which the players were supposed to help a pirate captain get back his family sword a relic to get him on board as one of there Sub-Captains of the fleet. Well the Island set up as a grand disaster area before hand. How there were water funnels all around, jagged rocks all around, the island itself because of the water funnels pulled the water away making it 100 feet or so up in hurricane like winds making it even dangerous to fly up there. So that was something I seeded during the 2nd adventure while they were exploring so that when they finally found a way in. Rather ingenious really... since they agreed to Freed a Genie if she used her other minor wishes for the party. So they used those minor wishes to awaken there boat. Turning it into an animate object and because of it's size gave it three forms of movement. So they gave it flying, swimming, and tunneling. Original it was going to be a land speed but because I seeded it ahead of time, they came up with a brilliant and de-railing idea. They would basically get an upgrade to go underwater with there new ship, go underneath all the rocks that were threatening them, and then tunnel there way up the islands rocky bottom to get to the top of the island. Now the reason I was setting up this island was in my mind when that Paladin attacked this worshiper of Dagon, they actually created a tear between dimensions and the island for about 29 days of the month is actually pulled into the Abyssal rivers where it would come back for a day at most. So by digging up onto the island surface they dug themselves into the Abyssal realm and transported themselves there. Now I did have time to prepare some stuff, but since they went through with it. I just took the entire module that was supposed to be recruiting captains to your service and suddenly turned into a quest for Survival to get out of the Abyssal rivers by having them meet the captains they were supposed to recruit who were 'pulled in'. Then to find the island and re-sync it back with our dimension to get them and there new followers home. While it may sound like a point against the adventure paths. My real point is that since I know ahead of time I was able to use the material to still fit it in the story. That's what I think Adventure Paths should be. Skeletons for you to fill in the meat and guts of your game. PS. Sorry this is long and I will say this as a person who has done a lot of adventure paths. Age of Ashes, has problems, for one part it's far over tuned. Plus for some of the story it doesn't connect to Dahak enough. So I needed to add a bit more to it, to add more dimension to the villains of the Scarlet Triad to make them more interesting. For example we had a Dwarf war priest looking for his lost wife. Got him to retcon it so that the Scarlet Triad captured his wife and left him for dead. Made it fitting that Ilssrah Embermead was the one who did the deed herself. Also added more in, by having her participate in the next module in the arena. Given there such a well funded organization I thought there higher-ups should have Resurrection insurance of a sort so that the Triad would bring them back to life after a time.

[@FernandoLx]

Hello, i do understand your points of view, but when the group decides as a group and not only the GM, to enter a AP, they accept that social contract to follow a certain story, so no reason to just, no more circus, beach time! For me as a GM an adventure path is a way to have fun, even if not having the avaiable time for a homemade campaign, i do not feel limited, i can react to anything they choose to do, and so far there was zero cases of a certain npc can not be killed right away. The only frustration i did saw was concerning my players and the enemy levels, specially in the first AP we complete, Age of Ashes, lot of high level enemies, and not much for them to flex their muscled. But that is also part of the learning curve of 2 Edition, i am now more confortable to change enemies and the milestone level up does allow me that. Sorry for the text wall, love your channel!

[@utkarshgaur1942]

Late comment but my two cents: it's not much easier to prepare pre-written adventures but I still run them for a couple of reason. Firstly, they are filled with things I wouldn't have thought of - puzzles, riddles, NPCs, storylines. Secondly, even if I slack in taking notes, the campaign is always there, encoded in a book, so it's never lost. Whereas if I slack in taking notes in a homebrew adventure, after a couple of weeks I have no idea where we left off. Finally, I've found that my players like the on-rails campaign. They want me to take them from plot-point to plot-point, though they want (for good reason) full freedom on how to resolve each plot-point. That said, my most successful game was a mix of pre-written and homebrewed - we closely followed the main plot in the book, but all the character-specific side plots were homebrewed.

[@johnharrison2086]

AP's vary and not all are suitable for all parties. I have both Abomination Vaults and Extinction Curse. Abomination Vaults because of it's dungeon crawl nature suits various playstyles but Extinction Curse requires a particular type of player - heroic adventurers that care about commoners and doing the right thing. All AP's have to be linear because the writers cannot account for every possibly. Dungeon walls is just the simplest way to achieve it. AP's require a buy in. If that's not what you want you are better off with an open world setting. Some of us players much prefer to follow the adventure hooks and see our characters in the prewritten adventure than a possibly directionless open world

[@barnabyssjones]

So this isn't for every GM, and it's just my personal strategy, but I tend to read all six parts of the adventure path twice before I start a campaign. My players and I don't typically decide "let's do a 2E Rise of the Runelords" and then start it the next week. I become familiar with an adventure path as essentially a fan of Paizo's writing and worldbuilding, then I get people to play it with me on my own time. Reading all six parts changes things a lot. If you know the story inside and out, your creative flair can come back and you can allow more developments and figure out ways to funnel things back into the story in a way that seems organic while allowing your players any type of behavior they want. I normally don't have to use any heavy-handed approaches to keep things on track, I can just make a note of how what they are doing affects the developing world. I also make it clear to my players at session 0 that there is a story unfolding that they can be part of in any way they want, including ignoring it. I love them knowing that they can just blow it all off. Another strategy I have tried, is essentially not even telling the players that I'm using an adventure path! The adventure path is then reduced to a "story environment" and they can explore it how they wish with the consequences doing and not doing things entails. Players have a mind of their own, but very frequently they will organically take the hooks required to keep it progressing, and when they don't they don't. The biggest thing to note for all of this if you have super adventurous players is experience and money. If they go fuck off and do whatever for a long time, they will become over-leveled or have too many resources for challenges they have to complete. This can be complicated, but there's a few ways to deal with it. The first way is to state up front that they don't need to keep track of XP, and that you will level them when it seems appropriate. There are pitfalls here, so you have to be careful, but you can significantly extend the time it takes for them to level and have it not be too much of a frustration for players. Eventually you need to level them though, so if they keep doing unrelated things that still seem experience worthy, that is usually when I decide to start ignoring the adventure path entirely. The second way is to just cut out parts of the adventure path and move them forward to where they should be for their level. Because they don't know the adventure path themselves, they don't know that they've skipped anything, and if you are familiar enough with the story, you can usually have it make sense. Every once in awhile that's too complicated, at which point, you just convert from Rise of the Runelords or whatever to "miscellaneous varisia campaign" and go sandbox.

[@cbo2864]

I only got to do this once, but the best way to do it I found to run AP in an open ended decision is: start the AP and let them go wherever they want, and if they choose go away from the preplanned path, make up what would have happened if the Baddie would have won.

[@wyvernofred]

I prefer to make my own campaigns for the reasons you've said here but also because it's more fun. I like making NPCs, I like doing world building, I like crafting a scenario tailored to my players, I like drawing on my players backstories, and have people from their pasts show up. It's quite hard work but it's also fun and rewarding. I think adventure paths are great for people who run multiple campaigns at once, or for groups who don't really have a leader willing or able to push the party in a direction. I think adventure paths are also ideal for first time GMs who have minimal ttrpg experience. It's not super common, but it happens sometimes.

[@fakeplasticsoldier]

My favorite adventures so far have been ones that feature a large enclosed area, such as an island, or Barovia. I find that if you read the entire adventure, you can put all of the pieces in the world, and it won't matter if the players ignore most or all of the plot hooks; the adventure will still work. This generally requires the adventure to be one self-contained book, not split up into 4 - 6 parts. Also, I'm not afraid of a story that's funneled to a predetermined ending. For example, when you land in Barovia, you become immediately aware of one thing: This story doesn't end until you win against the vampire or die trying. Everything else is open ended, but the story won't end until you face the vampire. If you don't face the vampire, he will come after you

[@maniac4238]

I understand your point of view on PRE (prewritten Adventures) and i see where you are coming from with those arguments (idk if you changed your stance on this matter, but i'd like to banter anyway). My first GM also had the same kind of worries: "what if the adventure goes off rail? what if they cheat and read the adventure ahead? what if, what if, what if..." and to some of those i have come with simple answer on the mindset. - - - Also when you get an adventure, not necessarily to play or DM/GM it, you can also read as a novel (its not a novel, of course) but see, and think of possibilities for changing the path or spot places where some classes can shine bright. Also, reading the Setting's lore is a plus if you want to get covered. For exemple, i'm currently reading the "Descent into Avernus" (NO SPOILERS) campaign situated on Baldur's Gate, i thought it was great... as a novel. nice to read it along the story until the possible endings, but it was a bit too flowery (is it the right term? idk) for me. but then i got into the Baldur's Gate section of the book, with all those place and such, it is really great to build an adventure, and even more with related material (Murder in Baldur's Gate? anyone?). What I am trying to say is that those adventure path aren't just adventure path, they can be building blocks to a fantastic adventure. Also, about the Social Contract, ask your player what they would like to play, then get the material (or Vice Versa,, depends on the group) and THEN you tell them the premise even before they make their characters and you ask them to make adapted characters to the adventure (ex: this adventure will be investigation and political with machiavelian plots) so that they know that if they go along with "*Grognac the baby eater, monster breeder*" they might not have the fun they think. anyway, great video, this puts a nice perspective on the "I don't like PRE" side of the conversation. one last thing, social contract is NOT to be unspoken, you NEED to talk about the contract with every member of the group, even newbies or veterans, every times (and i mean every campaign startups and wite it down in the discord, if there is). Either as a reminder, or a heads up. "Please, I know you want to play *Grognac, baby eater, monster breeder* but i don't want this adventure to drag on the *capturing monsters and breeding them* side, i wanted to try this adventure path so could you follow it? I swear we can try that character on another campaign more adapted to that kind of stuff, but for once, i have a vision of the possible adventures of that PRE, could you please comply?" followed by "sorry i think this is not the right type of adventure for that character, could you make another?/put it aside for another campaign." DO NOT hide the fact you are using a PRE, this is important so that players don't find out later and feel cheated or accidentaly fall on spoiler territory and read the ending of the campaign, this is the internet, it happens all the time with movies and games, don't take that risk. Usually talking about these things is what puts everyone on the same level in a group (not PC level, but you understand). anything to add?

[@joshyneurotic8589]

I myself enjoy permade adventures, reason being is that I CAN (and often do write side quests) but don’t have a whole lot of time to do so. With a adventure path it gives me, the GM, the framework of an adventure. My players fill in that framework, the walls, flooring, furniture, etc. While I get to take what my players have filled in with, break a leg off the table, scratch the wall, etc. and allow my players to figure out how to survive in this world that we have created together. A lot of the time I stick to the AP, but also a lot of time I craft the adventure around my players. A example, I am running tyrants grasp (fucking love it, I’m a fan of not happy entertainment and so far my players are enjoying it… I do suspect they will murder me at book 5… but…) and the players met two psychopomp NPC’s. Those psychopomps, through prompts from my players, have now become well known on the different planes for their trashy adult oriented novels. No where did paizo write that, my players did (and subsequently It will be canon in all games going forward). I appreciate those who do homebrew, I feel that I could if i spent the time, I don’t have that time with the various things going on IRL. Cheers, thanks for the vids man! 🤘

[@orrinellis856]

i love pre-written adventures i can prep an run so many more sessions plus i can abdicate some screw ups or inconsistencies to the module author. I don't sweat the details when i am in session, i just write the bullet points and run the game.

[@orrinellis856]

my irk is long read alouds such as the ones at the beginning of nearly all society scenarios

[@orrinellis856]

Also i am pretty creative but not all the time, so modules fill when i want to game but cannot generate ideas. I also love when modules show off adventures in nonstandard settings, that i would have found challenging to write since i lacked a previous model for what a Arabian nights or African rpg adventure would look like.

[@billmdt]

That's one of the reasons my favorite campaign book is "The Great Pendragon Campaign". Instead of having a story for the players, the book presents you with a chronology of events that will happen and suggestions about how to involve the player characters. You can go far enough that the book stops supporting you, but you can do a lot of crazy things (one of my players decided to conquer Ireland for example) without breaking the campaign. Other than that example, I too prefer to DM without knowing where the players may end getting into.

[@LordTridus]

I've run both, and I find both have their place. Big issue I had running homebrew games is that after a concussion, it was hard for me to keep up creating stuff fast enough for the players and I was always stressed and feeling like I wasn't doing a very good job. The players liked the game and had fun, so by the only measure that matters it was a success, but it was hard. APs still require prep work, but I can channel my more limited creative energy to customizing and adding things to the AP instead of having to create everything. It helps a lot by providing a framework and a lot of content to work from. Players can and still do deviate, but that depends on the AP. I also find some APs are just better than others. Ruby Phoenix is an absolute blast to run, while Extinction Curse is just not quite at the same level.

[@thrawn82]

I really enjoy adventure paths, as a GM and a palyer. As a late 30s gamer with other late 30s gamers. It cuts out a ton of prep time, it helps with my my greatest weakness as a DM which is creation on the fly. It's a difference between running a fairly linear story, or not having time to run at all.

[@オールフィクション]

I agree. The only reason I am playing AoA with my party is because 1)everyone is new to TTRPG (I basically got them in using P2E) and 2) I introduced a lot of out of the path story hooks related to the personal story my player's* characters to add value to the adventure path. In other words running the Adventure Path and my HB path pre-setting simultaneously.* Basically my plan is to make them reach level 20 using the adventure path and them make them jump into their own story... in this way they are experienced players/characters and that allows me to slowly build the transition from the adventure path to the Homebrew. This also allows some of the releases I am waiting for (secrets of magic, etc) to be launched and in that way have more material for the HB adventure... Edits: *