Something strange is happening to your hometown of Willowshore! Nestled on the banks of a river winding through the legendary Specterwood in Tian Xia’s haunted land of Shenmen, the people of Willowshore are no strangers to supernatural threat, but the danger that comes to town on the first day of summer is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. Over the four seasons to come, you and your fellow home-grown heroes must face evil spirits, sinister fiends, and frightening curses, lest the town of Willowshore succumb to the Season of Ghosts!

Season of Ghosts is far and away the most popular Paizo Adventure Path of all time, according to the poll. More than 50% of reviewers gave it 10 stars. 90% gave it a rating of 8 stars or better. Nothing else came even remotely close to that level of acclamation.

Other than to say “it’s really good”, it becomes difficult to say much about Season of Ghosts because it’s so easy to ruin the experience by knowing too much about it. The mystery of what’s happening is easy to spoil and RPG players are good at ferreting out what’s happening with only a few clues, so even more than most, I’m going to say as little as I can about the story in this review.

The story is set in Tian Xia, in the nation of Shinmen. Tian Xia is Paizo’s analog of Asia. The AP is the first to be four volumes long rather than the usual three or six. That’s about all I’m going to say about the story!

A common problem with many Adventure Paths is that because each volume is written by a different author, things that seem critical to one volume (a reputation system for instance, or the importance of a particular NPC) can be completely ignored by all the others. One of the reasons that Season of Ghosts is well-loved is that it doesn’t seem to have this problem.

The town of Willowshore is well-crafted with many engaging NPCs. Players will enjoy interacting with the setting and the people.

WARNING! If you think there’s any chance you might play in Season of Ghosts, don’t read anything about the AP. Go in cold and you’ll be rewarded.

Highlights:

The setting is wonderful and really well fleshed out.
The AP showcases Asian-themed stories and monsters well.
The story is extremely well-done. It feels well-planned and the characters have numerous opportunities for growth and change.
There is plenty of room for downtime activities throughout the story.
An excellent choice for new players as well as old.
The story, though tightly written, makes it easy to slot in new material you might wish to use or to swap out one encounter with another.

Drawbacks:

Many people point out that the combats are too easy. Paizo Creative Director James Jacobs has said that this was a deliberate choice to make the story take center stage. Honestly, if you find that the combats are too easy, this is one of the simplest problems to fix. Story problems are hard, but throwing in an extra bad guy is easy!
If your players aren’t into mysteries and social interaction, this might not be the AP for them because in addition to combat, there is a lot of social interaction required to make this AP really sparkle. It ain’t no dungeon crawl.