Pathfinder Adventure Path Interest Check

[1651Leviathan]

THANKS EVERYONE, I'VE POSTED ANOTHER THREAD WITH THE ACTUAL RECRUITMENT. YOU CAN FIND IT HERE: https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=273741.0

Hey there, Elliquiy. I'm interested in running one of Paizo's published adventure paths interspersed with smutty goodness (or badness, as the case may be). This thread is not a recruitment thread. Rather, I have two ideas and several adventure paths that I want to run by you all to see what the interest levels are for them. Once I've seen whether there's interest and where it lies, I'll be making a proper recruitment thread.

With that said, here are the options:

1. An all female party: This seems to be fairly typical, so I'm not treading into unknown territory. A team of heroines struggle to overcome the campaign's challenges. Should they fail, they'll be subjected to all manner of depredations by the victors. This game would obviously contain nonconsensual and exotic themes, though consensual scenes with friendly NPCs would also be in the cards. Ons and offs would be respected, but you can expect characters to contend with both men and monsters.

For this option, the adventure paths I would consider would be Ironfang Invasion, Rise of the Runelords, Carrion Crown, or Wrath of the Righteous.

2. An all male party: I'm sure this idea has been done before, but I haven't seen it. It would involve a group of all male PCs conquering the adventure and then reaping the rewards. Those they helped might show their appreciation, and the female villainesses that they overcome would be their prizes. Such a game would have nonconsensual and exotic themes as well, though in a different direction. I should add that I'm not gay, so male to male contact would be strictly between players, and all interested parties should have a primary interest in male-female scenes. Group scenes would also likely come up, unless the PCs are very good at waiting their turns.

For this option, the paths I'd be looking at would be Kingmaker, Rise of the Runelords, Carrion Crown, Skull & Shackles, or Curse of the Crimson Throne.

Let me know any preferences you have. You can vote for either or both of the options, and specify any adventure paths that you would particularly enjoy. You can also tell me if you have a character concept you'd particularly like to play in a specific AP.

I look forward to hearing your opinions!

[AnneReinard]

I will squeak out that I'd be happy to be a female member in an Adventure Path such as this! I do run Rise of the Runelords though...

But let me also share something more helpful! Some of my collated experience as a forever GM!

Pacing: The pacing of the typical Adventure Path as written is of dubious success for PBP games. This isn't to say the adventure path method can't work - it just means you have to give some thought on how you will cut scenes that don't add much from the narrative in order to keep things moving. Any section of slow, carefully plodding gameplay in a live game will turn into a quagmire in PBP. Ideally, you want fewer but harder encounters for combat as well.

Gameplay: If you want your characters to have a significant chance of losing, keep in mind that gameplay is balanced around 15 point buy, with a party of four people covering the stereotypical spread of Fighter/Rogue/Cleric/Wizard in terms of what they can do, making about 20% of their choices for feats/features/etc in a suboptimal manner. At least, that is what I have always heard. You tweak up and your players succeed a little more, you tweak down and your players are depressed because you are going with 10 point buy (I kid, I kid, but really just amp up the difficulty if you want to go that side).

Specifics: Here will be some AP spoilers. Sort of.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Wrath of the Righteous is notorious for being a cakewalk of an Adventure Path as written. The Mythic rules make it so if the players aren't actively making suboptimal choices, they start becoming monsters. On the flip side of things, Skull and Shackles is a little notorious for having an exceptionally hard opening book with death by grog. Kingmaker runs the sandbox issue of "your players can wander into things that can kill them" - and there is one particularly bad one early on.

Hope this is remotely helpful with your recruitment thread!

Edit: Oops. I'm a ditz and didn't give any particular votes. I would probably gaze longingly at the All Female Party version. I'd probably be most interested in Ironfang Invasion or Carrion Crown - I'm less familiar with either of those.

[Snake]

Actually Anne, most AP's are built around 20-point buy like PFS

[1651Leviathan]

Thanks, Anne!

I haven't DMed on Elliquiy before, but I've done quite a bit of PbP on some other sites. So yeah, whatever AP we end up doing, it will be pruned and sculpted into something that'll play more smoothly for a PbP format. Same thing with combat: we'll be upping the challenge proportionately with the number of characters and the fact that there will be fewer encounters.

[AnneReinard]

Actually Anne, most AP's are built around 20-point buy like PFS

Hrm. If that is the case, it is a change - specifically, I'm quoting James Jacobs from here on that particular matter. I mean, I think the main thing 20-point buy mostly does is ease up on the pain for MAD characters, though it does add survivability to the SAD ones.

Eep! My munchkin is showing!

Glad to hear you're prepared for dealing with the PbP-related challenges though! As a fellow PbP veteran, I've seen quite a few games based on APs end up falling flat due to too much desire to stick explicitly to the source material.

[Praxis]

I'm not particularly concerned with the gender of the party members.  (I'd be more comfortable if everyone just got to pick their gender and orientation)

But if you're running Kingmaker...I am 100% in.

To which I would like to play/write a bit of a roguish, shitbag noble-type from the Riverlands that likes to think of himself as the greatest swordsman in all the realms. (Of which that claim is most assuredly disputed)

And yeah.  As someone who DM'd Wrath of the Righteous in it's entirety...what a gong show as far as power creep.  The players had fun because they steamrolled over nearly everything once they got their Mythic abilities.

[Snake]

Steamrolling shit is fun for one.  I'm interested but what you'll likely see is ALOT of SAD characters since 20-point or lower doesn't play nice with MAD ones.

[1651Leviathan]

Praxis: I did strongly consider the option of having people just freely create their characters. I do enjoy those games, but as a DM I personally find it difficult to conceptualize the sexual themes. If half your party is looking for nonconsensual scenes and the other half isn't... what do I do if they lose, for example? Most games that have mixed gender parties seem to keep the sexual content between PCs, or as occasional background stuff with NPCs. In this one, it'll be a bit more front and center. If that's a deal-breaker for you, no worries! There are some quality games recruiting that are mixed-gender!

Snake: I haven't decided on what level of point-buy we'll be working with, or if we'll use rolls.

As well, keep in mind that I'm going to be presenting challenges to the party that will match with what they can handle – if we go with the female party, maybe on the somewhat more challenging end of things. So if we get some submissions that are mechanically weaker, the challenge level will go down correspondingly.

[Praxis]

Steamrolling shit is fun for one.  I'm interested but what you'll likely see is ALOT of SAD characters since 20-point or lower doesn't play nice with MAD ones.

Agreed.  All of my players speak warmly of their mythic characters and the WotR campaign but as the DM for it.  Some of it was absolutely maddening at times.


Thanks for getting back to me Leviathan!

I think I'm good however you swing the gender issue.  Just stating a preference.  Methinks the deal-breaker for me will be what AP you go with as I've DM'd a number of them.  :)

[Hexed]

Mixed gender/desires is hard to keep up with.

I hear rise of the rune lords is pretty fun. That said have you seen the new apartment where the group is chased by the orcs? Not at home so can't pull up title. :(

[AnneReinard]

I will admit. I positively squirm at the all female concept. Mostly because, as stated, I've seen most of these seem to devolve around the PCs individually.

...the idea of a "bad end" style scenario which ALSO lets a DM write himself out of a TPK? Mmmf!

[Snake]

Imagine playing a guy that got duped into drinking an elixir of sex change. (which caused permanent gender flip)

[euanthe]

I'm open for this. Personally, I'd much prefer the all-female party version, since I like intra-party romance - and would assume the other players would be much more willing for that, (even polyamorous) in such a context.

Any of those adventure paths would be fine!

Mixed gender/desires is hard to keep up with.

I hear rise of the rune lords is pretty fun. That said have you seen the new apartment where the group is chased by the orcs? Not at home so can't pull up title. :(

Worst airbnb ever 1/10 would not stay again.

[Re Z L]

I'd be interested too.

All-Female would suit my tastes a little more.

My preferences for the paths would be in this order:

• Rise of the Runelords
• Carrion Crown
• Curse of the Crimson Throne
• Skull and Shackles
• Kingmaker

[1651Leviathan]

Hexed: You're thinking of Ironfang Invasion. It's an AP that kinda seems perfect for a band of females, and is probably my own first choice if that's the route we go.

For those of you who have DMed some of the APs, that isn't a problem on my end so long as there's no metagaming. That said, if you want to let me know which ones you have run, I can try to accommodate around that.

[ChaoticSky]

Also interested. All female, but i would be open to all male too. My top three would be S&S, Rise and Kingmaker in no particular order.

[Hexed]

Ayup! Ironfang Invasion is the one.


And... I really hate phones. Had no clue it put apartment in my post. :(

[euanthe]

Ayup! Ironfang Invasion is the one.


And... I really hate phones. Had no clue it put apartment in my post. :(

Hugs! Maybe if it were dangerously dominant female orcs...?

[Hexed]

I'd misremembered. 'tis bugbears and other things.

But some are female and rather... forceful.

edit: I will get this right eventually!  Hobgoblins and other things!

[AnneReinard]

I will admit - Ironfang Invasion does sound enticing to me.

I might be biased by running Rise of the Runelords though. I can avoid metagaming, of course, but... it feels a little restrictive at times to try hard not to metagame? You start to second guess yourself!

[Hobbes1266]

I would be interested in all female personally, and I've never played a campaign module before so I have no preference.

[1651Leviathan]

Alright. So interest is strongly in favour of a female party.

At this point, what I'd like to hear from you folks is whether you'd prefer Ironfang Invasion or Rise of the Runelords as the Adventure Path. If you have a preference, that is.

[Re Z L]

Alright. So interest is strongly in favour of a female party.

At this point, what I'd like to hear from you folks is whether you'd prefer Ironfang Invasion or Rise of the Runelords as the Adventure Path. If you have a preference, that is.

I know a bit about Rise of Runelords, and I think it's a pretty well put together adventure, but I don't know anything about Ironfang (aside from some quick research I just did).  That said Ironfang looks remarkably interesting, and has the added bonus of all of the characters starting off knowing one another reasonably well, so I'd probably cast my vote for that one.

[AnneReinard]

I will say, from what I've glanced over them both, by virtue of being a GM looking for things to run...

Rise of the Runelords has more small, self-contained modules. It's well done. It's the classic Pathfinder adventure.

That being said, Ironfang Invasion has a stronger overarching narrative. My glancing impression is that it should also be fairly strong as well - their writing recently has been pretty good between Hell's Rebels and Strange Aeons, with only the strange misstep that was Hell's Vengeance in-between. I think some degree of the RotR love for people is a lot of nostalgia goggles. It definitely feels the weight of age.

[euanthe]

For the reasons listed above, I'd probably back Ironfang too.