Now I have to craft an adventure for all these kids.
This also begs the obvious questions.
1. Do I keep doing this 4e thing with 5e on the horizon?
2. If I do, am I obligated to mention 5e? If it were a game at a con I think I might be.
3. Should I just do all Pathfinder?
Here is the plan as it is right now:
Session 1 (two weeks): Play 4e
Session 2 (two weeks): Play the same adventure in Pathfinder
Its a good plan. It means more work for me, but that is fine.
I guess once I see the sign up tonight I'll know more.
8 comments:
I don't see any reason to muddy the waters for your school kids, Tim. The system likely won't mean much to them anyway, and realistically 5E is still, what, a year away? Probably longer - GenCon 13 or so.
You'll have plenty of time to carry the 4E game on if that system is the more popular, and the books will continue to be available just like other OPP D&D books are now.
I should also add that I bought the 4E box when it came out and was underwhelmed, to say the least. After the buzz about Essentials simplifying things to be more like Basic, I was curious but... it's still 4E and not the D&D I grew up playing.
Pathfinder on the other hand... While too rules-heavy for my taste, 3/3.5E/PF are still recognizable as traditional D&D. I really want to pick the box up but realistically I have no intention of playing PF, so the $35 is too much to drop just to satisfy my curiosity.
I never posted in your original thread, but at that point leaned towards picking PF. Now that it has beyond a doubt far exceeded the 4E box in popularity based on reviews, I would choose it.
Except for one thing - given the limited run you're starting with (2-4 weeks), I'm more curious to see how the kids like them both. You can pick one after that based on player feedback.
Wow! Pathfinder Rules Heavy Compared to 4E? I really have to disagree with that one especially if you are comparing just the boxed sets.
The PF Beginners Box does a real nice job of keeping the rules simple as compared to the 4e boxed set which was so rife with errors that it was so hard to believe that the same company created it.
Tim you know you are getting no sympathy from me, as I have been doing this for kids, albeit teens, for a long time.
You are under no obligation to mention 5e as it is so far off in the future that we don't even have a clue as to what it will look like. I have given you my suggestions and I have looked at both of those sets again since we spoke...you really aren't going to have that difficult of a time on the PF end. The 4e end WILL be more work but if you believe the 4e hype it shouldn't be that bad.
Now I know it won't be that horrible because you really are talking about at max what 7 encounters with one of those being more of a trap that requires skills to overcome.
I'm here for ya if you need to discuss it. ;)
Looking forward to hearing how it all goes down...
BTW you do have one more option and that is to get that 4e encounter book that came out and use something from that and then convert that over to PF, that might be easier for you...just my 2 cents! :)
Don't worry Greg. Expect phone calls when I realize I am in too deep!
Purely from a practical standpoint I'd get something they'd be able to pick up and perhaps follow up with on their own.
From my understanding you can run them to level 5 in the pathfinder box while the D&D box caps out much earlier. Now if I were a kid playing with limited funds and such and wanting to follow up on this game with my own games/reading, I'd rather pick up the pathfinder box since it would give a decent range of game options for me to take to my own games.
Otherwise I'd run Labyrinth Lord or something with free PDFs.
Are you getting a different set of kids every two weeks?
I'll be really interested to see how this turns out. I ran a one shot 4e adventure for my cousin's kids last year (Stuck in the Mud because Bullywugs seemed like fun) and they thoroughly enjoyed it.
They had exactly no problem picking up rules and understanding the basic concepts and almost immediately started saying "Oh, I can do this with my Nature check - I bet I know about swamps," or "Hey, you can use that to push him into the stinging insects."
It was inspiring to see them just enjoying being heroes and trying stuff out.
The plan is to run one group of kids through an adventure in 4e and then run a different group through the same adventure in Pathfinder.
Well, you can probably guess this one but it's not about system...it's about value in the box. Pathfinder is slammed full of goodness and is much easier to transition from to the core books if anyone wants to go or just use a lot of the freebies for PF that can be had at the stores (Paizo/RPGnow)...I mean, 11 issues of Pathways magazine for free...and lots of other stuff for download too.
Either way, have fun :)
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