An Abomination of Formats

 Campaigning in the Gauntlight Vaults

    Dear reader, I'd like to talk to you a bit about next campaign I plan to run for my friends, the Abomination Vaults Adventure Path from Paizo. Primarily, the versions available, which includes the possible game rulesets, the format or package of the actual material, and the ways to play the game (VTT options which are also product formats). This is mostly spurred on by recent, and recurring, discussions on the Sly Flourish discord about business practices in the RPG industry, but also because I'd like to share some of the qualities and differences I've found when reading the two rules options for the campaign. Abomination Vaults is published for either the Pathfinder Second Edition (PF2E) or D&D 2024 (5.5E) rulesets, and I've been looking at both of these versions of the adventure path as I'm considering which system I want to use for this campaign and possibly as my group's "main game" moving forward. 

    I'll start with the actual game product and systems options, because everything else is just a bit of RPG business wankering which doesn't really matter for the game happening at the table and the many ways we can make that happen. 

     

    The PF2E & 5.5E versions of the book, which I'm reading via PDF format, present effectively the same content, with the obvious caveat that the specific mentions of mechanics and rules references are tailored to each game system. In addition, there are a few more significant differences between the books for more subtle and complicated reasons. 

    In some cases the difference comes from the adventure's ability to reference rules, mechanics, and procedures which are fully detailed in another Pathfinder book, whereas in the 5.5E version the book goes into more detail about what the designers intended and how to use the rules to that effect. In this example, there is a reminder for the GM on running exploration phases of the game, how it can function mechanically, and how the adventure is written to use those mechanics.

PF2E: 

5.5E: 

    Another early difference is a short section on Gauntlight Lore in the 5.5E book, which is absent from the PF2E version. This not only serves as a good outline for how the GM can present the campaign to the players but is similar to the presentation of information and tables we see in other 5E campaign-length adventure books.

    Aside from these sections, the first couple chapters of the books seem very similar. The focus is largely on describing the locations and encounters in the dungeon, and I think it would be very easy to run this campaign straight from the book with just a little bit of pre-campaign prep and reading ahead of where the players actually are in the adventures. Other differences between the books largely come down to the fact that each was made for a different game, even though the two games are very similar when we zoom out to a distant view of game play and style. You'll see differences in how stat blocks for monsters or areas are referenced, and the capitalization of different terms depending on the system, but the actual flow of game play seems to be the same across each version. It looks like they did a great job of adhering to the style guide for each game, which I think could be commended for their execution on the 5.5E version.

    The biggest differences in the books come down to the fact that they needed to include all of the stat blocks for the unique monsters in the 5.5E book, where they could simply reference the PF Bestiary in the original. The PF2E version does include quite a few stat blocks, but the 5.5E book has an additional 40 pages of monster information. As far as I can tell, the only material missing from the 5.5E book is a section detailing the lore of Nhimbaloth, an Outer God that features prominently in the adventure and was created by one of the writers. This could simply be a matter of page count due to the need to include the monster stat blocks, and this section was cut to compensate (the math of total page count difference between the books indicates this is the case). 

    I think that pretty much covers the real differences between the two versions of the book. If you found, or started reading, this post because you wanted to know the differences between the PF2E and D&D'24 versions of the adventure path, then you can stop here and go enjoy your game! I'm excited to run this myself, but it will be quite a while before I'm actually ready to move on to my next campaign.

Product Formats, Maps for VTTs, & Different Standards

    Here is where I'll really get into the weeds of even more versions available for this adventure path, how it could be played, and the standards we expect of different companies at different scales. This will take a bit of preface about how I play D&D'24 currently, but I think it's an interesting case study of the myriad ways we can play these games or purchase materials for our use. There is one simple caveat, though: almost none of this applies if someone wants to run this adventure with analog materials. That person, or table, could just buy the physical book and run the dungeon using simple maps drawn on a wet-erase battle mat or go full theater of the mind. 

    This is probably also not relevant to the OSR and indie RPG scenes, outside of the tangent to the RPG industry as a whole, since those communities tend to deal in different product formats and offerings. We also just have different standards of expectations from the smaller publishers and creators in the industry. (Go read this excellent new post from elmcat if that's your vibe)

    So now that we've narrowed this down to only applying to the many thousands (millions?) of people who use some kind of digital interface or VTT in their games (online or in-person), and the sickos (like me) who can't stop talking about RPG business punditry, let's continue.

     When I run D&D for my friends we play in-person in my garage, and I have started using a TV mounted on a wheeled cart to display our battle maps. I connect the TV to my laptop, and I run DnD Beyond's Maps VTT to display the map and tokens (I also use this setup to show cool art, non-battle maps, and other visual media to the players). I started out using Maps just because it's a really lightweight VTT and it already has the tokens from the Monster Manual included since I own that book on Beyond. Also relevant is the fact that I basically don't own any other monster books, so having all the monsters I use preloaded in the VTT is great. This setup is basically just a digital display of our battle maps, rather than putting a Paizo Basic Flip Mat on the table with a few basic miniatures or tokens. We don't use Beyond's character sheets or any other features, everything else is done with physical books, sheets, and dice at the table.

    The Abomination Vaults adventure path is relevant because they offer a version on Beyond with all the maps, monsters, and other materials ready to use with Maps, along with being able to read the full book in Beyond's Library tool. This would work perfectly for my needs, but it's not cheap at $50. Yes, I know that's a pretty standard price for an RPG book or big campaign-length adventure in the 5E space, but the American economy is currently on fire and I've got kids, so even considering the insane value of entertainment time that $50 is buying, that $50 is very precious to me and my family. I picked up the PDF copies of the book, both versions, thanks to a great "intro to PF2E" bundle that came with all the PF2E Core books and some adventures, so now I'm thinking I can just run the full campaign using the PDFs I already own and can skip buying the Beyond version. And now we get to the point of product formats, the state of the industry for this tier of company, and issues discussed on the Sly Flourish Discord.

    If I buy that $50 package of the adventure on Beyond, I don't actually own it. I'm just buying a license to use on their platform, which makes that price an even tougher pill to swallow in these economically uncertain times. Digital ownership is a real issue for many people, and I don't trust any company to act in good faith on the consumer's behalf. So I come back to actually running this campaign for me and my friends, using my current methods (TV displaying Maps) and not spending more money. Since I own the PDF, I think to myself that I'll just pull the maps from there and upload to Maps for use, but this isn't as easy as I expected. The 5.5E PDF doesn't include clean maps, only the GM version with labels.

But since I got my copy from the bundle, I also received the interactive maps with the PF2E download. I was able to do some tech tricks to pull a map from the interactive PDF and turn it into an image in a format that Maps can use, which gives me a version of decent resolution quality (but nothing compared to using Dyson maps).

The resolution on this map isn't really a problem if you're viewing it on a monitor directly in front of you, but it doesn't hold up well when sitting 10 feet away and looking at a TV. I also need to zoom in quite a bit for the players to really see the tokens well. So this is particular issue is a minor problem rooted in my way of running the game. This lead me to searching for better quality versions of these maps provided by the player community, and I found these excellent maps from Narchy (which are also part of the Foundry VTT version, more on that later).

    

    Something I don't know for sure, and don't know any way to confirm it (please contact me or comment below if you know the answer), is whether the 5.5E PDF purchased directly from Paizo will include the interactive maps as part of the download package. When I go to my Paizo library to download my items redeemed from the bundle keys, the 5.5E version is just a PDF of the book and nothing else, but the PF2E version is a zip folder containing the book and interactive maps and there is no way to tell this difference from the download page or product descriptions on the Paizo store. The pawn collection (VTT monster tokens) are a separate product, and was included in the bundle.

    Of course, most of these headaches are sidestepped by the version available on Beyond, but that is our gateway to the topic of products offered by these large RPG publishers. Here is the Paizo store showing all the product options for Abomination Vaults (excluding the Beyond version). We have two hardcover books, two PDFs, and supplemental materials like the pawns and battle cards. None of these options make it particularly easy to run the game via VTT, which is not an insignificant issue considering the very large number of people for whom that is their only option to play RPGs regularly. In addition, these are all separate products. Paizo does not include the PDF versions of their books as part of the purchase of physical books, much like D&D does not grant you a Beyond key just because you purchase the physical book. Now, I don't fault these companies for this policy. It's great to get free PDFs with purchase of physical books from a lot of companies, but the work to create these different versions isn't free, especially in the case of Beyond versions of products. I often see criticism of WotC for charging people for each version of their books, but I don't recall seeing the same criticism leveled at Paizo for their policies. Granted, this could simply be a result of the online spaces I frequent, which do not include many Pathfinder players. 

    Bringing this back around to VTTs and digital ownership, I've already given my reasons for being hesitant to buy the Beyond version of this product (and thankfully I can basically recreate it with what I already own), but there is another VTT option for this adventure path that provides an experience not offered anywhere else - Foundry.

    The benefits of the Foundry version are numerous, but one of the biggest is that you can actually download and own this digital version of the game. Once again, we have the PF2E and 5.5E versions of the adventure, and we get all the cool bells and whistles of Foundry pre-built into the adventure like dynamic lighting, real walls, music and sfx, and pre-placed monster tokens with full stat blocks integrated to make it easy for the GM to run. Compared to the Beyond version, there is a world of difference here, and offers some real value for the price; however, this all assumes you and your friends have machines that can run Foundry well and you're willing to jump through the tech hoops to get it up and running for online or in-person play. For me, this would be relatively easy, assuming my laptop can run the software, but this isn't the case for everyone. 

    Thanks to my buddy Arrowed (who writes great stuff about Daggerheart), I was able to get a look at the Beyond version in Maps and honestly it's pretty basic, but that has benefits! Pretty much anyone can run Maps on a laptop, phone, or tablet. It's easy to run the game using Maps, and mostly replicates the analog experience with some nice digital conveniences and displayed art. So if you're willing to take the admittedly low-risk gamble with purchasing things on Beyond (you don't own it and it could disappear forever at the whim of some corpo bigwig or buyout or restructuring), then it really is a great option that will make it easy to run this adventure online.

    I'll admit I'm really only tempted by the Foundry version because I'm a PC gamer and I love shiny tech options. It looks awesome. But I don't think my players will care at all and probably aren't willing to deal with the software. The most likely outcome for me is that I'll do the work myself to build the adventure in Maps using the NarchyMaps versions of the dungeon maps, and then upload the tokens I got thanks to the bundle (once that feature is live in Maps, anyway). 

Conclusion and Takeaways

    I don't really know that I have some big lesson to be learned here, except that the RPG industry is complex and unwieldy and sometimes a bit opaque. Sometimes we make it more complicated for ourselves that it needs to be (hi, I'm problem, it's me), but it can also be worth the payoff the create the experience we want to craft for our games with friends. It kinda sucks that Paizo doesn't make it easier to understand what we're getting from their store, and the same can be said for D&D. Yes, D&D Beyond should offer PDFs of the books they sell online, because at least then we would own the digital things we purchase from them, but as I've hopefully demonstrated above that doesn't always solve every issue. None of these things are easy to navigate and find the best solution that works for our gaming needs, but the upside is that we do have lots of options if we're willing to put in the work to find that best solution.