Don't get me wrong, I like MMOs, it's just... well, for what they want for it, it completely stinks, and it's not really anything like actual Pathfinder- the story is pretty much "go here, kill twenty bears, find ten bear asses and bring them to said NPC" types of things.  The story is almost nonexistent, like the tutorial, and it's really hard to get motivated to do anything.

I think the big thing for me is the whole time-locked progression of character skills.  You don't get XP for killing things; you get money and loot, but XP is doled out in realtime- you get a steady drip of XP every day, and that's what you buy your skills with.  It doesn't matter how many bears or bandits you kill, you're not going to level up skills until you save up enough XP.   And given the fact the only other way to get XP is to buy if off the cash shop, well... *shrugs*  I think it's just going to crater pretty hard after it launches because there's no real advertising for it, and going up against PSO2, WoW, FFXIV, BDO, and everything else- I mean, if I had to compare the game to any other MMO?  EverQuest I, right when they were still hammering the kinks out.  It's not polished, it's just... I think it ought to be scrapped and given to a company that can make it work a lot better.  I mean, I have pages of ideas about it...

Jade Regent... it's more to do with the story, and yes, people complain that it's all about the NPCs, but then again, one of my favorite games is "Loren the Amazon Princess" where you also play the second banana, but in the end, well... I'd rather have a good story over a lot of everything else.  I don't want to spoil it, but I just really like the way the story goes and how some of the other characters turn out.

It does has a pretty strong NPC cast, I can agree with that. I think the primary problem people had it however was how it was a travelogue, which basically resulted in only the last two books being set in "the Orient", whereas one of the AP supposed point of appeal was it supposedly being "the oriental" AP.

But yeah, the fact the NPCs are more of a driving force is also a complaint that I've heard... I suppose it infringes a bit on the players' ability to determine their own path, which is a deal breaker for a ton of player. Honestly, however, I think a bit of direction is necessary - this AP after all has somebody giving you marching orders, so even if you'll be mostly self-directing once you're on the field, having something to give structure isn't so bad.

For me personally, the one thing I always answer to people who dismiss Jade Regent is "book 3 has Vikings vs Ninja as its primary plot element". It's really hard to consider something truly bad when it contains such an awesome element.

I mean... it's not Ninja vs. Pirates (http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/2p16/) or anything. But, I guess that's cool :)

side note - I hate that players can't use hyperlinks in anything but their character sheets on here.

In reply to Cetaen (msg # 50):

What's the difference between posting a link like you just did and an hyperlink? I'm afraid I'm not literate enough in how computers work to tell the difference.

I mean I guess what I posted is a link, but the site has the <a href=" ... "> Text </a>

code for use, but only DM's can use it in games. That code would make the word "Text" have the link embedded in it so you don't need to see the whole "www.drmcninja..." part

Oh, I see. I think it's structured that way to prevent people from creating links without the DM noticing?

Actually, the difference is:

http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/2p16/

^ That link gets converted into something clickable by the site.

Whereas:

<a href="http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/2p16/">Click me!</a>

gets converted to a link with the text Click me!... but only when posted by a GM. Us mere players don't get to have that shiny ^^;

Personally, it's not so much as trying to hide links (i mean, the color coding is pretty much a dead giveaway) as it is adding a little functionality to make the GM's sticky posts look cleaner when they have links in them, which they tend to have. I've seen games with a Notice called 'index' that linked to a bunch of other threads, being able to name your links to what they are really helps keep things organized.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:31, Tue 10 Mar 2020.

For me it's just about my desire make things "clean", I don't like having full url's on display. So messy.

I can understand that. Though it's more of a cosmetic inconvenience for me.

Yeah, it doesn't seem that big of a bother, but being a lover of keeping things orderly myself, I can understand Ceaten's annoyance.

Completely unrelated, I was wondering, and I don't think I've ever asked any of you: where are you all expecting this game to go? I mean, currently I'm letting you have this downtime to iron out the relationships between the various team-member and to prepare, but afterwards there will be a lot of stuff going on, so it seems like the perfect time to make a check of what you each are expecting from the game, to allow me to tweak things accordingly going forward.

Hmm... Hard to say.

I've got plans, yes, but i'm a reactive player at heart. Much like Shylla, whether i get to follow through on said plans is purely due to circumstance and opportunity. Just like real plans :P

That's fine - I was more wondering from a player's point of view, rather then the characters. Basically, the question is how do you expect the narrative to develop, more than what do you expect your character to do.

Does that makes more sense?

I expect the game to go...whereever the AP and you take it? :P

More seriously though, I expect that we'll be taking on missions like the one we're about to do that are all very specialized and different but roughly equate to assassin/sapper type special ops.

if we can do enough of them successfully, we'll have removed enough of the mythran's key pieces to let us triumph.

I also expect that, despite the contract, there will be some sort of inner conflict at some point. Either we're going to have to fight and kill another Knot because they get in our way, or they try to do the same to us because we're a threat to them somehow... or something. I don't think we'll get to fight each other, but I do think we'll have to fight other members of our little plot/cabal/whatever before all is said and done.

I expect... very little in the way of political machinations or intrigues because... we're just here to wipe out the opposition, not parley with them.

Well, I expect there's going to be a mixture of Sneaky Bastard Tactics and "Fuck it, smash everything!" depending on the nature of each individual mission and the level of influence each of our characters will have in any given situation >:).

While we've obviously made a literal deal with a devil and signed away our souls forever and are likely going to show the Mythrans just what a bunch of hypocritical arseholes they are, I hope we don't end up being completely screwed over by some kind of mass insta-kill or other TPK or inescapable imprisonment or something just because "we're the bad guys and we should have expected it". I hope that if our characters do what they need to do, and succeed at Thorn's great big master-plan thing, that we all get appropriately rewarded and have satisfying endings that make us as players feel like we earned it. If something unavoidable and bad happens, it will feel more like "Well, what was the point in that?". But I suppose I could say that about any in-game situation which has potential for us being railroaded into a certain path regardless of whether or not it's what our characters would realistically do.

I hope there isn't too much inter-party conflict, either. There have been a few disagreements but hopefully those aren't a sign of things to come and that our characters will all get the hang of working together, listening to each other, and generally be willing to have a little trust in each other in order to achieve whatever it is we happen to be doing at any given time :D.

I've never played a D&D AP before -- at least nothing that survived its own first chapter -- but i have some things in mind.

Given that we're to be granted territories should we survive everything Talingrade's going to throw at us, will we be moving on to Kingmaker after this, or start a fresh AP?

No, I'm not running two APs in sequence; the last book of this AP has a bit of a kingdom-management aspect, but it's very very small compared to Kingmaker and it's mostly about preparing for the upcoming storm that is the story's Endgame.

Well, that and giving you the chance to enjoy the results of your conquest - the point of this game is to have fun as evil villains, and if I didn't give you the chance to enjoy the results of said villainy at least a bit, I'd be robbing you of the game's full experience.

We're still not even done with book 1 here right? We have a long... way... to go... if this is a 6 book AP like they normally are.

That said, I'd be down to play in another game with you all down the road where we're not all (or mostly) evil SOB's trying to murder and overthrow a government!

Maybe Wrath of the Righteous would be thematically appropriate :P

Yes, that's correct; book 1 is essentially divided into four parts, which are Branderscar, the Mansion, the sea Journey, and Balentyne. So we're about halfway through the first book right now.

As for starting another game, I might consider it (as I said, I've wanted to run Serpent's Skull for a while), but not right now, I just wouldn't have the time.

Oh, I was totally joking with the Wrath of the Righteous thing.

If and when we ever get there, I'd be down to do another one with you and this group, but I have no desire to try and get that rolling right now. Let's just keep this one going!

If we end up doing Wrath of the Righteous, i'm just going to come out and say i would totally expect to see our characters as bosses as we liberate territory one by one :P

I don't think I would want to run Wrath - I don't really have a good enough grasp on that one to run it. The one I really want to run is Serpent's Skull, really, but I won't be doing that right now; as I said, I really have limited time as it is.

What do you mean by "AP"? From context it seems to mean the same as "module" but I can't figure out any more than that.

"AP" Means "Adventure Path". It's a set of six modules which have plots that build on one another. So, for example, book 2 of this AP is about Thorn ordering a set of his servants to complete a new step of his plan, separated from what you're doing in this one, and in theory, you could start that module directly without having needed to play through the first one, although obviously playing them in sequence is more rewarding.

Okay, so it's the same as a campaign module, then - sounds like maybe they just call it something different in Pathfinder :D. I wonder what happens if we end up inadvertently diverting into some other random thing instead :D. I've never run a module before - I've always just homebrewed everything because I'd feel more restricted if I was following a pre-written thing and would probably feel more kind of "stuck" when the PCs decided to go off and do something not in the book (because they would - it's DnD, after all) :D.

In this particular adventure, that's not really a problem. After all, you're not self-motivated, you're receiving orders and being sent to a specific place to do a specific thing. You have absolute freedom in the "how" of doing that thing, but since you have a goal to accomplish and a location to accomplish that goal at, there's little risk of you doing something I'm unprepared for.

And having said that, the whole point of being a GM is to let the players to what they want and then react to it as things come - if you never did anything I didn't expect, it'd be no fun at all for me to run the game! ^_^