The Fabled Appendix – F. Wesley Schneider (Part 2)

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Presented here is the second part of my interview with Pathfinder Managing Editor F. Wesley Schneider about the sources of inspiration he would include in Paizo's own Appendix N. In this part, he discusses how Golarion was created to accommodate a wide variety of influences and inspirations, and lists his most recent favorite gothic horror authors!

David: So how did the influences of mythology affect the design of Golarion?

Wes: Well, Golarion is meant to be a place where you can have everything. It's not just a place for editors' pet projects—gamers should be able to run whatever type of game they want in the setting. However, we have only shown 1/16 of the entire world of Golarion, and future products will open new doors for influences and inspiration.

D&D for the last 30 years has been a fantastic thief, stealing ideas from mythology, folklore, and pulp fantasy and horror. Golarion is similar in this regard, as you can see many of the same trappings in our own setting. But we also are trying to present things that people haven't seen before, like a land of devil-worshipers where people live in fear but order has been maintained; or a land where religion has been outlawed, despite the very real presence of the gods; or a land where questionable eugenics are being used for the supposed betterment of humanity. The wide variety of styles and influences is obvious enough when you look at the titles of each nation–Numeria, for example, is described as the "Savage Land of Super-Science." The influence of things like Thundarr the Barbarian is very clearly present. Despite any obvious influences, however, Golarion is meant to fuel ideas for stories and campaigns; rather than present a story for you to participate in, the approach we wanted to take with the setting was "here is an interesting locale in which to tell a story."

David: Give me a quick list of some things that have recently inspired your game design.

Wes: Off the top of my head, I've really enjoyed Sheridan Le Fanu's stories. Among other things, he's famous for writing Carmilla, a vampire story that predated and influenced Bram Stoker's Dracula. I've also been reading M. R. James's work; he wrote tons of ghost stories that have quietly influenced hundreds of stories and movies like The Twilight Zone and the recent film Drag Me To Hell. I also recently discovered the artist and author Wayne Barlowe in my research for the Book of the Damned Volume I, who greatly influenced my take on Hell.

James Jacobs and Pierce Watters also introduced me to the old Hammer Horror movies—they have terrible acting and even worse special effects, but the ideas presented in many of these movies are amazing. The Devil Rides Out has been one of my favorites so far: Christopher Lee fights a cult trying to summon the Devil. Awesome!

Thus ends my interview with Wes Schneider, Paizo's resident expert on the intersection of folklore and horror. And this wraps up interviews with Paizo's editorial pit. Thanks a ton to all the designers and to all of you for reading!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix – Sean K Reynolds (Part 2)

Friday, July 17, 2009

Here follows Part 2 of my interview with Developer Sean K Reynolds, game designer extraordinaire and all-around nice guy, in which he discusses how he differentiates Golarion's deities from the gods of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, and gives a list of the works that most influenced his game design.

David: Is it hard to make Golarion's gods different from those of other campaign settings?

Sean; My technique is to approach the gods like they're people, with their own motivations and agendas. In fact, many of Golarion's deities were once mortals themselves; and, because the world itself is so old, often I can just ask myself, "What would these deities have been doing this whole time?" I really try to explore each god's niche. In terms of making them different than the gods of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, the history and cosmology of Golarion naturally differentiate them. A good example of this is Oerth's Pelor and Mayaheine versus Golarion's Aroden and Iomedae; the structure of the relationship between the deities is similar (an older, male deity mentoring a younger, female warrior deity), but a few obvious differences are that Pelor is a benevolent god while Aroden is more neutral, and Mayaheine is a defensive deity whereas Iomedae is an active crusader against evil.

David: Briefly give me a list of some of the most influential works you've encountered.

Sean: As a younger kid, the books that made the most impression on me were Lloyd Alexander's books about Taran the Wanderer, which discuss old magic, learning your place in the world, and the apocalypse; Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time series (which includes super-science and biblical references), Anne McCaffrey's Pern books, and Piers Anthony's Xanth and Incarnations of Immortality series. In my teens I chewed through Edgar Rice Burroughs's Mars books, Norman Winski's The Sword and the Sorcerer, Larry Niven's linked fantasy stories ("The Magic Goes Away," "What Good is a Glass Dagger?", and so on), Fred Saberhagen's Book of Swords series, Robert Asprin's Myth series, some collections put together by Isaac Asimov (Wizards, Witches, and so on), and the Thieves' World books (also edited by Robert Asprin), as well as anything by Stephen King and Clive Barker.

Growing up the in '80s, we also had a lot of cool, weird, and bad inspirational fantasy and SF movies as well: Clash of the Titans, Conan the Barbarian Labyrinth, Hawk the Slayer, The Sword and the Sorcerer, The Dark Crystal, Barbarians, Dragonslayer, Krull, the Rankin-Bass version of The Hobbit, Highlander, Blade Runner, Akira, and Ralph Bashki's animated features (Lord of the Rings, Wizards, and Fire and Ice).

This concludes my interview with Sean K Reynolds. Thanks for reading the Fabled Appendix, Paizonians! I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed interviewing the fine game designers at Paizo!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix – Sean K Reynolds (Part 1)

Friday, July 10, 2009

Sean K Reynolds: Developer, diehard miniatures painter, and resident "gods guy" of the Paizo offices. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with both Sean and Managing Editor F. Wesley Schneider about the sources of inspiration they would include in Paizo's own Appendix N. Switching things up a bit, this week we've got Part 1 of Sean's interview, with more from Wes next week. As would be expected from a game designer who worked at TSR during the era of 2nd edition, Sean's influences stretch back to the earliest roots of the hobby.

David: I understand that you are pretty well known as the go-to guy when it comes to writing about the deities of Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, and Golarion. What sparked this interest?

Sean: I got into D&D by playing the basic boxed set with my Dad and then later with my cousin. What really got me hooked was when, at the library, I picked up a book of Greek mythology, D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, which talked about the gods, the births and deaths of heroes, and how the gods made the greatest heroes into constellations. Reading this, I realized that these characters—even the gods—had personalities and agendas, just like actual people. Later, I got a similar book about Norse mythology, D'Aulaire's Norse Gods & Giants (now retitled as D'Aulaire's Book of Norse Myths), which was even better than the Greeks' because they all wore heavy armor, the gods themselves fought the crazy monsters, and they even had a prophecy about the end of the world. This is probably how I became the "gods guy" of D&D, because these books laid the foundation for my interest in the apocalypse and the gods.

I remember playing in Monte Cook's Praemal campaign—the precursor to Ptolus—where the characters were the 3rd generation of humans to be on the planet, still dealing with the very real influence of the gods and the forces of creation. We even found gigantic handprints in the walls of a canyon from a battle between the gods. I found the combination of creation and destruction very appealing.

David: You started full-time in the RPG industry with Greyhawk, correct?

Sean:Right. My first Greyhawk sourcebook was about The Scarlet Brotherhood, who had always been very mysterious even from the days when Gary Gygax was doing all the writing for the published setting. My sourcebook was the first time anyone had really talked in depth about their society from their perspective. I worked with Erik on the project. One of the daunting but fun things about it was that there was an entire continent—Hepmonaland—that was entirely unexplored in game books; it was barely visible on the Oerth map and nobody really knew what was going on there. Erik and I were both familiar with really old adventures like The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, so we knew that there were Aztec-like people running around. We pieced together little bits of information and then had to make it our own. That was part of the product design philosophy at the time: we'd publish the basics for your campaign and give you a lot of room to create your own material, fill in the blanks, and make connections between various plot hooks. This was very different from my later work on the Forgotten Realms, because books for that line are more about giving people everything they need to run a campaign without having build up anything on their own.

This concludes Part 1 of my interview with Sean K Reynolds. Tune in next time for his comparison of Golarion's gods with the deities of Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms, and his list of some of the works that most influenced his game design.

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

Ask a Pro: Question Seven

Thursday, July 9, 2009

7. You are running an Adventure Path, and one of your players is ignoring the obvious hook. Do you gently nudge him in the planned direction, or do you go with the flow and see where this digression might take you?

Lisa Stevens: Basically I try to nudge, or I may come up with a different hook. For example, in Shackled City, there is an adventure where the players need to be convinced to go to an evil plane, and I just knew the hook as written would not work on my players, so instead I had the NPC seek out one of my PCs who was a rogue, and basically had the NPC convince him that great wealth and power were to be had there, and then I just let him convince the rest of the party. But in one of my early D&D groups, my players made me a sign that read "HINT HINT," and they told me to hold it up whenever they were being too dense. So basically I would be like, "The bartender begins telling you about an old abandoned mine..." (holds up sign).

F. Wesley Schneider: I think the most interesting thing about being a GM is the art of getting the players to do exactly what you want but making them think it was their idea. There is nothing more satisfying than having your players come up with this really brilliant and clever idea, and it's exactly what you wanted them to do from the beginning.

James Jacobs: I let the players do their own thing, but they eventually end up where I want them regardless. Basically I just remain flexible and adapt.

Erik Mona: I just let them go wherever. I'm perfectly happy allowing them to dictate the action.

Jason Bulmahn: Depends on the group. Sometimes you'll get a bunch of chaotic players who want to be the embodiment of mayhem. In those situations you have to make a decision: do you keep slapping them with plot hooks or do you just wander off aimlessly into the woods?

Sean K Reynolds: I don't plan too far ahead, so I can remain flexible to my players' actions.

Joshua J. Frost: I try to gently nudge them back, usually with an NPC. But if they insist on running off, I'm pretty good at improv.

James Sutter: It depends on the type of game I'm running. A lot of the time I'll just play a sandbox style of game, where I'll show up with some sticky notes and that's it. If it's an AP, I generally try to weave and nudge them in the right direction. But I also tend to play with big groups; my last campaign had eight players. In those situations, I really feed off of what my players give me, and in a lot of ways depend on that. I'm a big fan of using experienced players to my advantage, too. I rely on the more experienced players to help coach the novices.

Chris Self: If the players are following something that might actually lead somewhere, then I'll let them do whatever, but if they're just sort of spinning their wheels, I'll try to nudge them in the right direction. I actually once played in a campaign that fell apart because the GM gave us too many hooks and not enough of a nudge in any one direction.

I've never minded players wandering off. I'll kill them wherever they go, one way or another.

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix – F. Wesley Schneider (Part 1)

Friday, July 3, 2009

The Fabled Appendix continues! Yesterday I had the pleasure of interviewing Pathfinder Managing Editor F. Wesley Schneider and Developer Sean K Reynolds about the sources of inspiration they would include in Paizo's very own Appendix N. Both had very different replies, which was fun to see. I'll begin with Wes, whose early experiences with console RPGs and later introduction to horror literature have coalesced to form a unique style all his own.

Alas, today is my last day as an editorial intern, so these Appendix N blog posts will be the last I write. With any luck, however, future interns will continue where I leave off!

David: I understand that World of Darkness, Ravenloft, and Call of Cthulhu were some of your first loves when it came to roleplaying settings. How much were those influences on your game design today?

Wes: Those games and settings both were and weren't influences. My majors inspirations tend to come more from the things that inspired those worlds than from the games themselves, from authors like Walpole, Lovecraft, Shelly, Stoker, Poe, Le Fanu, and Crane. I really enjoy finding the more obscure early horror writers, people who wrote when horror wasn't even truly considered a genre and their tales were more often regarded as ghost stories or dark romances. I've also always been very interested in mythologies from a wide variety of cultures and time periods. What began as a childhood fascination with Greek myth took the typical evolution into Norse and Egyptian legends, and gradually turned into an interest in folklore in general–especially South and Eastern Europe, Middle Eastern, and East Asian.

Also, having been the young guy at Paizo for a long time, I've always felt that I come from the generation after a number of my coworkers. Talking to Erik and James, it becomes clear that their background is in 1st edition D&D and the literature listed in the Dungeon Master's Guide’s original Appendix N. But I didn’t start playing D&D until mid-2nd edition. Although I have great respect for it and the origins of the game, I never played in Greyhawk, getting most of my early D&D exposure through the Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, Planescape, and their novels. Even before these, though, probably my earliest introduction to RPGs came with the Nintendo Entertainment System in the late '80s. I remember getting a NES for Christmas and it coming with a coupon for Nintendo Power magazine, and if I used the coupon I could also get the game Dragon Warrior for free. Of course, Dragon Warrior led to Final Fantasy, which led to Shadow Gate and the D&D “Gold Box” games, and so on and so on to this day. So, for as long as I've been a D&D gamer, I've been a computer and video game player.

This concludes Part 1 of my interview with Wes Schneider. Stay tuned for Part 2, in which he discusses how Golarion is like a melting pot of ideas and lists his favorite, most recent sources of gothic horror!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

Ask a Pro: Question Six

Thursday, June 25, 2009

6. Many GMs feel that deus ex machina is cheap, and simply refuse to ever use it. Others feel it is okay if it is properly set up ahead of time. Do you ever use deus ex machina as a storytelling device?

Lisa Stevens: Yeah, but hopefully they didn't know it! (laughs) I think that's the trick for something like that though, right? If you're playing the hand of god, you need to make it feel like a natural part of the story. I think probably every GM has been in this type of situation, unless you're maybe a proponent of the chaos theory and really like everything to be off the cuff, which could be fun, but yeah, I definitely have used it.

F. Wesley Schneider: I don't like to use deus ex machina plots. Most players, I've found, don't like to play the role of the damsel in distress, they like to play heroes. So I usually create a way that gives them a chance to solve the crisis.

James Jacobs: Yes. If it's good enough for Shakespeare, it's good enough for Pathfinder. (grin)

Jason Bulmahn: I think this is a useful storytelling device that must be used sparingly. It sits in the bag of GM tricks that a Game Master is allowed to pull out exactly once during a campaign. I think it is especially useful early on by giving PCs a forewarning of the kind of powerful enemies that are to come later on. For example, let's say a red dragon attacks their town. Well, at 1st level they're not going to do so well. But then you have the high-level wizard who's their friend show up and drive away the red dragon but is himself killed, and you've just set up a powerful enemy. It allows you to sort of play with a system that is restrictive by CR. In that way it's a useful storytelling device, but again only sparingly.

Sean K Reynolds: Never.

Joshua J. Frost: Only if it's appropriate for a story, never for combat. If I'm doing my job as a DM right, then the combat should already be fair enough.

James Sutter: I think it depends on the situation. I think James Jacobs said it best when he said avoid it when you can, but sometimes it can work well, especially when you realize you've made a mistake. If you send your PCs against a horde of werewolves and they don't have any silver weapons, have the townsguard come in and save them, but then have the players owe the townsguard a favor, so they still have to earn it. I'm totally stealing that from Jacobs, but I think that sums it up rather nicely.

Chris Self: I think it's necessary, but try to keep those sorts of things behind the scenes if possible. There should be a real reason for everything.

I think if done incorrectly, deus ex machina can come off as patronizing.

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

Ask a Pro: Question Five

Monday, June 22, 2009

5. You have a scene where a large orc tribe is attacking a village. You have all of the orcs and various NPCs represented on the map. Do you roll for each and every orc and NPC, or do you, in the interest of saving time, just decide how many of each side dies each round?

Lisa Stevens: Usually the background, especially if it's a bunch of no-named NPCs. But if it's a bunch of NPCs that maybe they know and had invested a little time with, then I'll definitely roll for them. I think it makes it more visceral if you have a situation where the flower shopkeeper is about to get killed and they have to get to him before the bad guys. When I ran the first Rise of the Runelords adventure, and there is the scene with all of the goblins attacking ~~**SPOILER OMITTED**~~, I just sort of told my players that they saw goblins running innocent townsfolk through. I think it lent an air of urgency to the scene, where my players understood they had to hurry because people were dying, and I think that accomplished that dramatic tension well enough.

F. Wesley Schneider: I usually just relegate that to background scenery.

James Jacobs: I just keep it in the background, unless a player gets involved. But if it's an important NPC, I keep track and give the players time to do something about it.

Erik Mona: No, I don't keep track of everything.

Jason Bulmahn: Nothing is more vain and distracting than a GM who has two NPCs having a long conversation between themselves and I feel it's the same with battle. Generally I let the PCs' actions dictate the ebb and flow of the battle: if they are doing well, then their side is doing well.

Sean K Reynolds: The scene reflects how well the players are doing, so the action remains solely focused on the players.

Joshua J. Frost: I roll for everything. It keeps combat fair.

James Sutter: I keep track of as much as they can interact with. There's a good example in Savage Tide, there's the adventure Tides of Dread where the players face an enormous invasion. With situations like that, I think it's best to break things up into more manageable chunks. Because I mean, if you've got 50 characters to keep track of, then a single round would take forever.

Chris Self: I use mini rules for that, and keep things focused on the players.

I'm too lazy to keep track of everything, but I was once in a guy's campaign who kept track of everything; it was kind of cool, in that I felt like there wasn't as much GM fiat.

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

Ask a Pro: Question Four

Monday, June 8, 2009

4. You have been playing a campaign for many months, and your group suffers a TPK. Do you fudge the rolls, contrive a reason for them to be brought back, have them create new characters and pick up where the others left off, or just scrap the campaign?

Lisa Stevens: I've never had a TPK; it's been close! (laughs) I'm a big believer in creating and building a campaign over time. I've had key NPCs die and had to completely reinvent the story, but I don't think I'd ever allow the PCs to get to the point where they are faced with a TPK. It would ruin the story, and it would ruin my fun as the GM. I mean, it would be like watching a season of CSI and halfway through they replaced all of the characters and actors and never resolved any of the plot threads.

F. Wesley Schneider: Yes, I usually try to save them. I mean, if it's just one or two characters that die, then that's fine, you can pick up your new character at the next town or dungeon. But if it's the entire group, then yeah, I usually contrive some way for them to keep going. I mean, I've fudged dice, I've had them maybe captured instead of killed, and so on.

James Jacobs: Every time I've had a TPK, that's been the end of the campaign. Start over.

Erik Mona: Depends. If... Well, it just depends.

Jason Bulmahn: Sometimes I'll fudge but I try to gauge the group and see if they're interested in continuing. Sometimes I'll start a new group and tackle the same storyline from a different perspective. Like for example let's say they're all soldiers under a warlord and they all decide that he's evil and turn against him but are all TPKed, well the next batch of characters they make might be a bunch of villagers whose village was destroyed by the same warlord.

Sean K Reynolds: What I would probably do is have everyone create secondary characters where it is their sole purpose to rescue the other group. That way the players are still responsible for saving themselves.

Joshua J. Frost: If everyone dies, it's over. A chance to start something new.

James Sutter: If it's my fault, I'm not against saying, "My bad," and resetting the encounter. But in general, this doesn't happen. I do believe that character death is one of the most important parts of the game. Even as a player, having a character die in a very dramatic way adds so much to the experience. In fact, I've had campaigns where one of my PCs would get killed, then create a new character, and for the next several sessions the plot would revolve around their quest for revenge.

Chris Self: I'll actually roll back the last combat and let them retry. I'm the type of GM who pulls punches if necessary. I see roleplaying games as more of a cooperative storytelling, and TPKs are just no fun.

I've never had a TPK in any game I've ran, more's the pity, but I think I would probably figure out a way to continue the campaign if my players were really, really keen on continuing.

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

Ask a Pro: Question Three

Friday, June 5, 2009

3. Do you encourage your players to create well-thought-out backgrounds complete with hooks that you can insert into your campaign?

Lisa Stevens: I do, but don't reward. I basically tell my players that if they come up with interesting backgrounds, then they'll get more out of my campaign; it will be more personal for them, as I'll take their hooks and use them in the plot. If you don't create a background, then you'll still have fun, but maybe the story won't be as personal for you. Either is fine; I let the players decide what they want out of the campaign.

F. Wesley Schneider: Yes. They don't have to write up elaborate histories, but I usually ask them to at least provide me with their characters' shticks.

James Jacobs: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

Erik Mona: Doesn't matter. If a player is really into that, then I'll take the hooks and weave them back into the campaign, but if a player doesn't care then neither do I.

Jason Bulmahn: I'll ask but won't mandate it. I leave it to player discretion. I'll definitely reward the effort, in that the story will be tied to their history and generally benefit them in some way and be more personal.

Sean K Reynolds: Encourage.

Joshua J. Frost: Yes, I encourage.

James Sutter: Once their concepts are made I like to work with them to get them all together, but there are some players who just like to show up and go, and that's fine. I think well thought out is more fun, but of course sometimes my problem is that I'll create a really long and detailed history and then die after one session. (laughs)

Chris Self: Absolutely.

I've always thought this was one of the best parts of running a campaign!

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

Ask a Pro: Question Two

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

We continue our Ask a Pro series with what is either the most important part of NPC interaction or the silliest part of a roleplaying game, depending with whom you speak.

2. When delivering the lines of NPCs, do you prefer in-character or third person?

Lisa Stevens: In character.

F. Wesley Schneider: Depends... Important, named characters usually have a voice of their own, but if someone is just going to the blacksmith for a quick purchase, then I will usually just say that costs so much gold or whatever.

James Jacobs: In character. Maybe not always with a voice, but definitely always in character.

Erik Mona: In character.

Jason Bulmahn: Depends. If it's an important NPC then I'll do it in character, but it's Joe Schmoe guard I'll generally cut through it.

Sean K Reynolds: Mix.

Joshua J. Frost: Always play the character.

James Sutter: Totally the voices. I think that if you can find a really funny or interesting voice, it's the best part of a character.

Chris Self: I do third person. I'm bad at voices. Generally whenever I use funny voices, my players ask me to stop. (laughs)

I've never used the voices... I'm just not much of a character actor!

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

Ask a Pro: Question One

Friday, May 22, 2009

After I started my internship at Paizo, one of the things I found really intriguing was seeing how the pros did things—little things, really, like how they pronounce tarrasque, for example. Then it occurred to me that most people who roleplay often never experience anything outside of their own group of players, so I figured maybe some of you might be as interested as I am in knowing how the pros GM, so I whipped up some questions for the folks here at Paizo.

1. When you call for your players to roll Perception checks, do you pull those who succeed aside, or do you simply look at them and say, "You see/hear...?"

Lisa Stevens: I just do it in front of everybody. I trust my players, they're all pros. But sometimes I might do it just to see how someone will react or to see how someone might attempt to convey the same message to the rest of the group. It becomes really interesting when two players' characters are a bit antagonistic with each other; it's fun if one player makes the roll, but the other doesn't. I like to give that player the info just to see if he'll share the info, and if he doesn't, how the other player might react.

F. Wesley Schneider: Depends on the situation. If it's something more epic, I've found that it is much more exciting and suspenseful when a player reveals the information than the Game Master.

James Jacobs: I just say it in front of everyone.

Erik Mona: That really depends on the dramatic tension. If it isn't very important, or it will just slow the game down, then no. But if a player has a different agenda than the rest of the group, then certainly.

Jason Bulmahn: Depends. If it's a situation where the results aren't immediately obvious I might, but if it's a situation where a monster is about to jump out and attack and everyone will know in just a few seconds anyway, then I just say it.

Sean K Reynolds: Tell everyone and trust people not to metagame.

Joshua J. Frost: I just say it in front of everybody.

James Sutter: In front of everybody; I trust my players and depend on player honesty.

Chris Self: Everyone. I trust my players to keep player knowledge and character knowledge separate. Besides, with things like Perception checks, everyone will know it within moments anyway.

This first question is something I've often wondered how other groups handled. For me, I've often just said, "All right, you two see...," but after a while, I started to think, "Man... this is almost a waste of time having them roll at all, since at least one person always succeeds! It's good to know I'm not the only one who plays this way.

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix – James L. Sutter (Part 2)

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Here follows Part 2 of my interview with Editor James L. Sutter, in which he discusses his influences for Golarion's solar system, monster ecologies, and the island nation of Hermea.

James: For Golarion's solar system, I wanted to include elements of real science, because there are so many phenomena in different scientific fields, such as astronomy, that are already so bizarre as to seem magical. Erik and his love of the pulps made it a given that we'd include classic versions of the Red and Green Planets as homages to sword & planet fantasy, but for the rest of the solar system I was given more or less free reign to introduce more science fiction elements. My goal was to create a wide enough variety of worlds that you could have wildly differing SF-feeling settings without ever leaving Golarion's system. Some of them were inspired primarily by setting concepts (Liches in space suits? Try Eox. Lovecraft-esque planet of mystery? Aucturn, baby!), but others came straight out of Astronomy 101—what kind of society would evolve on a planet that's tidally locked (meaning one side always faces the sun), or one that's tidally heated? What about a planet with an eccentric orbit—could an ecology or society grow up around seasons that last not months, but years? For me, the conditions that create a crazy setting are often as interesting as the setting itself.

Similarly, when writing monster ecologies, I like to figure out how a monster could have evolved into its ecological niche in a realistic fashion. The explanation that "this monster was created by a wizard's experiment gone wrong" is fine for classics like the bulette, but it's been done way too often. When writing the entries for lizardfolk in Classic Monsters Revisited and the rust monster in Dungeon Denizens Revisited, for instance, I tried to make their ecologies as plausible as possible. There are good reasons why rust monsters don't actually exist, of course, and I'm not averse to a little magic here and there, but it's easy to let magic be a crutch if you're not careful. (I should also stress that I'm not a scientist, by any means—I just know a lot of them, and enjoy listening to them explain how my proposed ecologies butcher biological and physical laws.)

Another big influence for me is the concept of moral ambiguity—to me, the best villains are always the ones who passionately believe they're doing the right thing. The island nation of Hermea, for instance, was born out of my desire to see how a fantasy society would tackle the dicey question of eugenics. One of my roommates is a geneticist, and eugenics is a real topic of concern for him. It seems like every week or so we end up in complicated debates and thought experiments with friends about the morality and wisdom of actively seeking to "improve" humanity through science. It's an extremely touchy subject, because the word "eugenics" reminds a lot of people of the atrocities of the Holocaust, in which the concept was thinly draped over hatred and genocide. Yet at its base definition, eugenics is happening every day in commonplace medical practices like amniocentesis. So where are the lines drawn?

The question of whether or not eugenics can be used for the greater good became the core concept behind Hermea, and led to some heated inter-office debates and jokes (at some point in the campaign setting outline, someone penciled it in as "Codename: Dragon Hitler"). But in the end, the idea saw light: in Hermea, a nominally good gold dragon, in all of its wisdom, is trying to guide humanity to perfection by selectively breeding the best and brightest volunteers for their desirable traits. Whether or not this goes against his alignment is up to each individual GM to decide. Personally, I believe that eugenics happens every day, as we continue to wipe out diseases and detect genetic disorders early on. Evolution and natural selection didn't stop with the rise of civilization; the only difference is that we're now beginning to put ourselves in the driver's seat. It's an exciting time to be a human.

All in all, my inspiration comes from a little bit of fantasy, a lot of science fiction, and a lot of hard science.

Thanks for reading, Paizonians! Stay tuned for more of Paizo's Appendix N in the near future!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix – James L. Sutter (Part 1)

Monday, May 18, 2009

Paizo's Appendix N returns! Now that the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook is out the door, things at the Paizo office have become just a little bit less hectic. Seizing the lull in the workload, Editor James L. Sutter generously took the time Friday morning to speak with me about his most important sources of inspiration. Just as James Jacobs's love of horror in literature and film differed greatly from Erik Mona's unquenchable thirst for pulp novels, Mr. Sutter's influences are unique within the office. Read on to find out the fantasy authors that most influenced James's game design, and learn why he enjoys mixing the peanut butter of science fiction with the chocolate of fantasy.

David: As the creator of Kaer-Maga, the notorious den of thieves, and the person most responsible for envisioning Golarion's solar system, it is clear that your influences are pretty diverse. What are your biggest sources of inspiration when creating the world of Pathfinder?

James: As far as fantasy authors go, I'd have to say that my biggest influences are China Miéville, Joel Rosenberg, and Richard Knaak. I really enjoyed Miéville's vision of a fantasy world—it's not steampunk, but more like industrial revolution fantasy. I was particularly inspired by Perdido Street Station, and how he seamlessly blended a mishmash of cultures and created a believable and vibrant city. In fact, New Crobuzon served as the primary influence for Kaer-Maga, the city I created for the module Seven Swords of Sin; it's a city of outcasts that have come together, a place where a lot of different cultures all intermingle but still manage to work.

Among other books, Joel Rosenberg wrote the "Guardians of the Flame" series, in which the main characters are literally pulled into the game world of the RPG they're playing. Those books were my first introduction to the concept of roleplaying, and as a result the world created by Rosenberg is pretty much the archetypal setting I envision for fantasy roleplaying games. Richard Knaak's "Dragonrealms" series was also very inspirational for me early on, as The Crystal Dragon was the first adult fantasy I picked up (mainly because it had a shiny holographic dragon on the cover).

More than fantasy, though, I'm primarily influenced by science and science fiction—possibly more so than anyone else at the Paizo. I think I've learned more about world building from Dan Simmons than any other author. I especially like blending magic and science, the line where one transitions into the other. When we were first creating Pathfinder, James Jacobs handed me a mostly blank outline for Varisia and told me to run with it. At first I included a lot more science fiction elements; Crystilian was originally the magical equivalent of a particle accelerator, Spindlehorn an ancient space elevator used by long-lost astronauts, and Mundatei was basically a forest of Tesla coils. We ended up working together to change most of that, which was of course the right decision, but some science fiction elements were still retained—Ember Lake, for instance, essentially functions as the place in Varisia where UFO sightings occur, with its phosphorescent, underwater bugs that form strange patterns which can only be seen from the sky.

This concludes Part 1 or my interview with James Sutter about the sources of inspiration he would include in Paizo's own Appendix N. Stay tuned for Part 2, where he discusses how hard science and science fiction continue to influence his fantasy game design, and explains how the nation code-named "Dragon Hitler" would eventually become the island of Hermea.

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

Illustration by Tylor Walpole

Roots & Beginnings: Book of the Damned (Part 2)

Friday, April 24, 2009

As promised, here is part 2 of "Roots & Beginnings: Book of the Damned":

Wes: "There are a lot of interesting stories about demons in Hebrew mysticism and collections of angelology. Sean K Reynolds lent me a fantastic book, the Dictionary of Angels: Including the Fallen Angels, by Gustav Davidson, which was a major source of inspiration. Another interesting source was accounts from the Book of Tobit, which features Asmodeus as the primary villain.

"There was also a lot of ancient Middle Eastern mythology that I tried to fit in. It's interesting how in ancient history, when a large religion such as Christianity gained prominence in an area, the old gods were demonized. Moloch and Beelzebub are good examples of this. Moloch was a relatively benevolent deity in the Fertile Crescent in ancient times. What's interesting is that the word 'Moloch' might refer to the either the deity itself or to the method with which worshipers sacrificed to it. Adherents possessed a kiln shaped like a bull, and put seven sacrifices into seven slots in the oven—one was an amount of flour, there were several animals, and the last was a human child. There was nothing inherently malevolent about this—nor particularly uncommon for the age—it was just the way they practiced their religion.

"1st Edition portrays Moloch basically as a scary devil with horns. Paizo's version of Moloch promotes him to the general of Hell's legions; he is a monstrous suit of armor with a bull-like helm, beneath which there is nothing but living fire. He's disciplined, severe, and merciless, but aside from commanding Hell's war machine, he's also very mercenary in his recruitment for his legions in that he's willing to provide services for those who honor him; if people sacrifice to him, he fixes their problems. Should one burn offerings to Moloch to stop a flood and save their village, he's probably more likely to step in and stop the flood than most deities. The caveat, of course, is that Moloch is an archdevil and whether one worships him as part of a militaristic cult, as part of the traditions of one's people, or just because his standing offer of aid is tempting, serving him damns a soul to his fortress realm in Malbolgia after death. But when faced with dying at the hands of a foe, infernal intervention for either benevolent or selfish reason might be worth the price of later damnation. There's a lot of this throughout the book, evil disguised as goodness or at least the right—or easy—choice for the moment. Sure, Asmodeus, the archdevils, and the armies of Hell could easily murderer mortals and claim their souls, but why when, with the proper nudging, most mortals will damn themselves.

Thanks for reading "Roots & Beginnings: Book of the Damned"!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

Illustration by Tylor Walpole

Roots & Beginnings: Book of the Damned

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting gave readers a glimpse of the tortuous layers of Hell and the diabolical machinations of the archdevils who rule them, and The Great Beyond, A Guide to the Multiverse, scheduled to be released in June, will further whet the appetites of those who crave to add a healthy dose of the infernal to their game. The definitive treatise on Hell, however, is being written by none other than Paizo's own F. Wesley Schneider: Princes of Darkness—Book of the Damned, Volume 1. I had the chance to speak to Wes recently about the sources he consulted when writing this daunting tome, and how he managed to reconcile the mythological roots of Hell with the lore of previous editions of the game.

Wes: "The two primary sources of inspiration are obvious: Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante’s Inferno. Other influential real-world sources included the Lesser Key of Solomon—and the Dictionnaire Infernal.

"The problem is these sources have been used over and over in the game and in third-party supplements. The way the entries for individual demons are written in the Lesser Key, for example, they already sound as if they were appearing in RPG products. I tried to avoid using the entries that have been bandied about the game frequently, as they've had enough coverage already. I didn't want to use too many of the fiends from mythology that have already appeared in products like Necromancer's Tome of Horrors and Green Ronin's Book of Fiends, as they have lives and details of their own. The 1st Edition Monster Manual II has a list of names of demons—some are made up and so we can't use them, but the ones from obscure mythology were perfect.

"The problem with Hell, in my opinion, is that it is the red-headed step-child to the Abyss. Whereas the Abyss is infinitely large, full of an infinitely diverse number of cool monsters, Hell has been stereotyped as a place of boring rigidity ruled over by scary-looking dudes with whips and pitchforks and goatees. When I wrote The Book of the Damned, I wanted to get rid of these stereotypes, and to make the archdevils actually monsters, because that would be much cooler than just generic cackling overlords. I tried to draw on the mythology that was already established for them but make them more like monsters. A good example is Geryon—in the original game he was just a snake man with a spear. Classical Greek mythology, however, portrays him as a warrior possessing a human form from waist down, but with three torsos and six arms. For The Book of the Damned I mixed the both the mythological and game interpretations of Geryon into something at the same time evocative of past images, but still new and very cool.

"The biggest differences between the Pathfinder version of Hell and the classic interpretation in the game is that we play up the "law and order" aspect—it's more about tyrants and the hierarchy of Hell, in that while Hell is first and foremost a punishment, it also has a goal and intention, and the personalities there are ancient and have neat concepts behind them. Beyond just Asmodeus and the archdevils, there is a whole host of deity-like beings: infernal dukes (of whom there is unlimited room for further development and details), malebranche (powerful diabolical warlords sent out to conquer specific worlds), and a few other tiers I’ll save as surprises for the final book. The biggest thing is that there is a lot going on and it's interesting, and it sticks to both the lore of the game and the mythological roots; it also draws on interesting history of deities that have been subsumed by other religions."

Stay tuned for Part 2 of "Roots & Beginnings: Book of the Damned"!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

Illustrated by Christophe Swal

Roots & Beginnings: Taldor

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Next month, Pathfinder Companion: Taldor, Echoes of Glory will be hitting the bookshelves of game stores and subscribers everywhere. Hank and I had the opportunity to edit the book recently, and Taldor will definitely please those gamers that enjoy a little (or large) dose of Byzantine politics in their game.

I spoke with Joshua J. Frost, the Events Manager for the Pathfinder Society and the author of Taldor, Echoes of Glory, about the sources of inspiration for Taldor. According to Josh, he envisioned the decadent, failing empire as a mix between the cultural decadence of Amsterdam during the 16th and 17th centuries and the exceedingly complicated politics and government of the Byzantine Empire.

The Gilded City of Oppara, the heart of Taldor and the rotten core of a failing empire, was modeled after the opulence and corruption found in historical Amsterdam. At the time, the economics of the city were largely geared toward making a handful of individuals obscenely wealthy, while the rest remained mired in the middle and lower classes. Such a division between rich and poor is obviously reflected in the politics of the Gilded City, where the Royalty and Senatorial classes live in opulent decadence while the masses toil away as laborers, conscripted soldiers, and penniless vagabonds. 16th and 17th century London also inspired the aristocratic culture of Taldor, particularly with regard to the importance young men of Oppara place on the possession of a fine sword; the concept of Oppara's "young blades" comes directly from this period of British history.

Josh's studies of the Byzantine Empire inspired Taldor's convoluted political system. The expansive bureaucracy of the Taldan empire, the power of the emperor to elevate officials and common citizens to higher ranks, and the division between the "bearded" aristocracy and the "unbearded" masses were all modeled after the complicated politics of the Byzantine aristocracy. In particular, the tendency of the Byzantine emperor to bestow numerous, seemingly redundant titles upon "the Bearded Ones" of the aristocracy directly inspired Taldor's elaborate hierarchy of aristocratic titles.

GMs who love to include political intrigue should look no farther than the Byzantine Empire—indeed, the bureaucracy of the empire was so vast and tortuous that the word "Byzantine" has become synonymous with decadence and duplicity. If you can't wait to include dangerous, double-dealing political intrigue in your campaign, or to simply explore the decaying empire of Taldor in greater detail, look for Pathfinder Companion: Taldor, Echoes of Glory next month!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix – James Jacobs (Part 2)

Monday, March 16, 2009

Today we continue the series on Paizo's Appendix N with the second part of my interview with James Jacobs, the editor-in-chief of Pathfinder. We pick up where we left off, as James finishes discussing his most important literary influences and closes the interview with an explanation of his favorite horror films.

James: Stephen King's Dark Tower books were particularly influential, as they are as much magic and science fiction as they are horror. What's neat is that all of his stories are interconnected, like Lovecraft's. Names and locations reappear and become part of King's mythos—which also includes nods to the Cthulhu Mythos. I think King very successfully straddles the fine line between homage and pastiche, as it's easy enough to write in the style of Lovecraft and other classic horror authors, but much harder to use those themes while writing with your own voice. Stephen King does this admirably.

F. Paul Wilson, and particularly his character Repairman Jack, was another big influence. The series of stories featuring Repairman Jack are like modern-day X-Files, except that one of the primary themes is the idea that it's just one man versus cosmic horror.

Ramsey Campbell was another influence; he's a British author who began his career writing Lovecraftian horror fiction but later moved on to more psychological horror themes such as madness, ghosts, and deranged murderers.

The Descent, by Jeff Long, really captured my imagination. Without giving away too many details, the novel is essentially about a real-world Darklands. Humans live on the surface of the world, oblivious to the fact that "other" descendents from our common ancestors live beneath them; in the novel, Long explains that, over the course of human history, these creatures have served as the basis for humanity's shared myths of devils living beneath the earth.

David: That's quite an extensive list of fiction! But you're even bigger movie buff, correct? Tell us about the movies that most influenced you.

James: There's probably too many to name all of them; I have a wall of DVDs in my apartment. In terms of movies, my main interest is still horror. When I was a kid, my dad and I would watch Creature Features, a TV series that aired a new monster flick every Saturday night. So my love of horror movies began at an early age. My two all-time favorites are, without a doubt, Alien and John Carpenter's The Thing.

To rattle off other big influences, there's The Blair Witch Project, Godzilla (which asks the question "what if the atomic bomb was actually a creature?"; there is a scene in the movie where a bunch of kids are horribly burned and crying for their moms, not realized that they've been killed—it's super-grisly), Jaws, the Exorcist, Lord of the Rings, Schwarzenegger's Conan, Psycho, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Lilo & Stitch (Stitch served as a primary inspiration for Pathfinder goblins, both in terms of look and personality), and the classic 1950s horror film Tarantula.

Whenever I assign adventures to freelance authors, I like to point them to movies that will give them an idea of the tone we are shooting for—it's much faster for authors to find inspiration by watching a 2-hour movie than to read an entire book, although if they have time in the sometimes too-short deadlines we give them, books can remain a great source of inspiration. For instance, I told Richard Pett to check out the old Hammer Horror movies when he was writing "The Skinsaw Murders" and pointed Nick Logue at The Hills Have Eyes, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Deliverance for "The Hook Mountain Massacre."

Overall, I would have to say that my two biggest inspirations are H. P. Lovecraft for books, and John Carpenter for movies.

Thus concludes my interview with James Jacobs. Thanks for taking the time to discuss your biggest inspirations, James, and thanks for reading, Paizonians! Come back again as we continue to expand Paizo's own Appendix N!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix – James Jacobs (Part 1)

Monday, March 9, 2009

As part of the ongoing series about Paizo's own Appendix N, I had the opportunity to interview the editor-in-chief of Pathfinder Adventure Path, James Jacobs, about the books and movies that most inspire his own writing. He proved very generous with his time and gave me quite a detailed look into his plan of a "shared mythology" for Pathfinder and the sources that inspired its creation. Once again, the interview proved long enough that I have had to break it into two parts. In this first part, James discusses his literary influences.

David: Although I know you're a huge fan of movies, and horror films in particular, let's discuss books first. Which authors or works have stuck the longest in your mind?

James: H. P. Lovecraft was definitely the biggest inspiration. He's my favorite author, and not just mine: Stephen King, Robert Bloch, Gary Gygax, and others expanded on the themes that he created. Lovecraft didn't want to write about vampires or other classic creatures of horror, as these had become cliché at the time when he was writing, so he created his own pantheon of cosmically horrific, god-like beings. He was particularly successful because he encouraged other authors to use the names he had used. Robert Bloch, Fritz Leiber, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert E. Howard, and Henry Kuttner were all contemporaries of Lovecraft who communicated with him and were influenced by the Cthulhu Mythos that he created. He also pieced together another pantheon of creatures throughout the works of authors for whom he was a ghostwriter, which expanded the Mythos. So his influence is pretty far-reaching.

This is very much like what's going on with the OGL—here are the base concepts of D&D, and other writers or companies can build and share a single mythology. This is what happened with Lovecraft—his themes of cosmic horror influenced the likes of Stephen King; this was the horror of the ordinary, in which libraries and shacks in the woods could become places of terror. Horror is the main source of my inspiration, and why grisly things are going on in Pathfinder. I like to find authors who can carry on this vision—Nic Logue and Richard Pett being two great examples.

Clive Barker is another big inspiration. My grandma and grandpa introduced me to old horror novels and comics when I was young. I remember reading my grandpa's Vault of the Unknown, Tales of the Unexpected, House of Mysteries, and Beware! My grandma would shove Clive Barker or Stephen King into my hands and tell me, "Read this! You'll enjoy it!" Zon-Kuthon is the most obvious example of Barker's influence on Pathfinder, as he is basically a Cenobite from Hellraiser. As Barker's stories mellowed out and became less gory, they took on a more magical, fantastical tone. In fact, his novel Weaveworld served as a primary inspiration for the demiplane of Kakishon in Pathfinder Adventure Path volume #22, "The Edge of Eternity."

It appears that this post has already exceeded the length I was aiming for; the rest of the interview, it seems, must wait for later. In the second installment, James rounds out his discussion of his favorite authors, discusses the fine line between homage and pastiche, and talks about the movies that most influenced his style of game design.

"In space no one can hear you scream."

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix – Erik Mona (Part 3)

Friday, February 20, 2009

In the second part of my interview with Erik Mona about which books, movies, and other resources he would include in Paizo's Appendix N, he explained how the idea of a devil-worshiping colonial power—the concept of which eventually became the feared nation of Cheliax—began as a faction in a miniatures game that he developed in his free time. In this conclusion, Erik reveals that several other nations of Golarion, including Andoran and the Land of the Linnorm Kings, had their beginnings in his miniatures game as well. Of course, no version of the fabled Appendix N would be complete without a list of inspiration and educational reading, and Erik admirably provides a hefty list of source material!

Erik: Another colonial power in the miniatures game was the Vikings; the fact that I am from Minnesota, am a fan of the Vikings football team, am of Scandinavian ancestry, and am a fan of Vikings as a sword and sorcery archetype in general, made their conclusion pretty much inevitable. A lot of S&S authors, such as Robert E. Howard and Poul Anderson, pulled the Icelandic sagas into their own worlds. I wanted to bring this archetype into the world of Pathfinder.

Before we began working on Pathfinder, I created a homebrew setting for my own games. While I never got the chance to play in the world, the very first region I detailed in this setting was the realm of the Vikings, which I called the Land of the Linnorm Kings; when we created Golarion, I imported this realm, name and all, directly into the world. A number of sources influenced my vision of the Vikings: the Icelandic sagas, Poul Anderson's The Valor of Cappen Varra, The 13th Warrior, a number of different history books about the Vikings, and my own visits to Norway.

Another faction in the miniatures game included a fantasy version of colonial America as well as a faction inspired by Revolutionary France. Thus, Andoran and Galt were part of my conception of Golarion right from the beginning. A number of books influenced my conception of the Revolutionary faction, such as Claude Manceron's 5-book series The Age of the French Revolution about France in the years leading up to the Revolution, and Simon Schama's Citizens—I loved the idea of how the revolution started with idealistic intentions but then went horribly wrong.

A number of sources inspired the creation of other regions in Golarion: Irrisen is essentially the realm of the White Queen of Narnia meets Baba Yaga; the Realm of the Mammoth Lords was designed as an homage to classic Lost World tales of megafauna and giants, as well as Hollow Earth-style settings of the kind Edgar Rice Burroughs created; Numeria could best be described as Expedition to the Barrier Peaks meets Thundarr the Barbarian; Mendev was inspired by tales of the Crusades, and has elements of the Demon War from John Ostrander's GrimJack comic book, the Swarm from Hugh Cook's novels, and the forces of Chaos from Warhammer Fantasy; the primary sources of inspiration for the River Kingdoms were the Bandit Kingdoms of Greyhawk and the Young Kingdoms from Michael Moorcock's Elric series; Taldor was inspired by the climate and visuals of the Crusader kingdoms in the Holy Land, as well as the cultural decadence of Ancient Rome and pre-Revolution France; and Absalom was heavily influenced by HBO's Rome series, which depicted noble families whose lineages stretch back thousands of years, while the Starstone and the religious faiths with which it is associated are an obvious parallel of Jerusalem. The Starstone itself is inspired by the Kaaba in Mecca, and was named after a short story by Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore titled The Quest of the Starstone. Planet Stories has reprinted Quest of the Starstone in both Northwest of Earth and Black God's Kiss, by C. L. Moore.

Thanks for reading, Paizonians! Stay tuned for more interviews with Paizo staff members as we continue to expand Paizo's Appendix N!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix - Erik Mona (Part 2)

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

This is the second part of my interview with Erik Mona about the sources of inspiration he would list if Paizo created its own "Appendix N." In today's blog, Erik discusses the books and ideas that inspired his creation of Osirion and Cheliax, two of the best-known regions of the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting.

David: What historical, mythological, or fictional sources did you use to develop Osirion? I know you mentioned The Sirius Mystery on the message boards. Any other sources like this?

Erik: I've always been interested in Ancient Egypt. In terms of books, one of my favorites was a collection of illustrations made by the surveyors who traveled with Napoleon's army throughout Egypt. Napoleon's scientific surveys of Egypt were a major inspiration for the whole concept of the Pathfinder Society—a group of explorers and treasure seekers whose level of altruism can vary greatly.

Another source of inspiration was the book you mentioned, Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery. Temple introduces the concept that alien astronauts, aquatic beings from a planet orbiting the Dog Star, came down and gave culture to the Ancient Egyptians. After reading this, I immediately had visions of aqueducts, waterways, and pools surrounding Egypt, with aboleths swimming in their depths, commanding the people to construct enormous monuments. In fact, the name "Osirion" comes from this mixture of Egyptian culture and alien influences, as it plays off of the names Sirius and Osiris.

David: What's the story behind Cheliax? When did you come up with the idea of having a nation of devil-worshippers? What were your primary sources of inspiration?

Erik: I grew up in Minnesota, and while I was visiting the state capital I saw an image that became indelibly burned into my brain, of a Christian monk preaching to a group of American Indians. Since then, the idea of religious colonization has always been in the back of my mind. A while ago, I designed a miniatures-based game just for fun. I wanted the game to have a lot of inherent conflict, so I came up with the idea of a fantasy society that discovers gateways to another world rich in resources. I wanted to make the game about colonization and the conflicts that arise from that, so I decided that I needed several factions that had antipathy for each other. For one of the factions, I went back to that image for the missionary—except instead of the Christian cross, I made their icon a pentagram. This took the theme I was aiming for—religious colonization—and made it undeniably, inherently evil.

For the faction's title, I used the name of an evil empire I had created for a piece of sword and sorcery fiction that I wrote in college. At the time, I had named this empire Chelan because of a horrible family vacation that we had at Lake Chelan in Washington State. After I moved to Washington, I wanted to change the name, but at the same time to make it sound more evil. Cheliax, in Golarion, originally started out in my mind as a colonial power—Arcadia being the stand-in for the unexplored continent that was in my miniatures game.

Thus ends the second part of my interview with Erik about his sources of inspiration. In the conclusion, Erik reveals how his miniatures game gave birth to several other Golarion nations and explains how Thundarr the Barbarian fits into the whole picture. Sources of inspiration abound!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix – Erik Mona

Monday, February 16, 2009

As was explained in my introductory blog post, the purpose of this series is to create Paizo's very own Appendix N, a semi-comprehensive list of the books, comics, movies, and roleplaying products that influenced each member of the Paizo staff in their work on the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting. To begin this series, there seemed no better place to start than with one of the original creators of Golarion and the driving force behind Planet Stories, Erik Mona. He had quite a bit to say. By the time we finished lunch, I had filled three complete pages with notes and had been forced to finish transcribing the interview on a napkin. Unfortunately (or fortunately as the case may be), the length of the interview has forced us to break it into three parts. In this first installment, Erik reveals which authors most influenced his idea for the general feel he wanted to give Golarion.

David: What authors or titles stand out to you as most influential on your game design and upon Golarion?

Erik: Robert E. Howard's Conan series, particularly the collections of the original Conan stories that have been published by Del Rey—The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, The Conquering Sword of Conan—those ones; Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories; Moorcock's Elric series; China Miéville's stories, particularly Perdido Street Station and The Scar; Jack Vance's 4-book Dying Earth series (which I think is now published in a Dying Earth omnibus); C. L. Moore's Jirel of Joiry series ; Hugh Cook's 10-book series The Chronicles of an Age of Darkness; H. P. Lovecraft; and Henry Kuttner's The Dark World and Elak of Atlantis.

A lot of these authors and titles influenced the mood and tone of the setting, as far as being sword and sorcery stories. Michael Moorcock's Elric series being the only exception, these stories feature protagonists who are not superhuman; each is just a dude. It's like how Captain America is a regular guy compared to the other Marvel superheroes—he can't fly and doesn't have any remarkable powers. Batman obviously falls into this category as well. The characters in these stories are powerful but not superhumanly so. More importantly, almost, is the idea that the environment itself is the antagonist, and the characters are exceptional—but otherwise ordinary—people who must fight back or the world will destroy them.

Tolkien was an influence only so far as he influenced D&D. The world he created just didn't fit with what we were trying to do with Golarion. To be honest, it is too hopeful, not grim enough. I asked Jason Bulmahn when we were first creating Golarion, rhetorically, if it would be possible for Paizo to build a world without gnomes, dwarves, elves, and the like. Of course we immediately came to the conclusion that it would be impossible, but it gives you an idea of what we were trying to achieve with Golarion.

Gary Gygax's Gord the Rogue books were very influential in the way that they showed, through storytelling and world-building, the sort of milieux that the inherent style of a world governed by the game's rules. Even if used simply as a point of departure, that's an invaluable resource. The early Thieves World anthologies were also an influence, more in terms of style and world-view than anything else. Greyhawk and Sanctuary are photocopies of Leiber's Lankhmar, and when it comes to a location most exemplifying the fantasy RPG spirit, Lankhmar is the place.

Thus concludes the first part of my interview with Erik and the first installment of The Fabled Appendix. Next time: Erik discusses how Osirion and Cheliax were born, and the books and horrible vacations that inspired their creation.

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

The Fabled Appendix!

Thursday, February 12, 2009

For my inaugural blog post, I thought I'd try to hark back to some of the old-school roots that Paizo has blended together to create the world of Golarion. As many members of the Paizo staff have been playing the game since first edition, they've made it a design goal to create a setting that is true to the roots of the hobby while remaining fresh and exciting.

At the time of the publication of the first edition Dungeon Masters Guide in 1979, the book's Appendix N was fairly revolutionary. This appendix consisted of a list of pulp fantasy authors that E. Gary Gygax considered to have had the largest role in shaping Dungeons & Dragons. This list included such famous authors as Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft, and Michael Moorcock. What made Appendix N so remarkable was that, at the time, most these authors were relatively unknown, with only a handful of older authors enjoying a resurgence of popularity thanks to the efforts of contemporary fantasists such as L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter.

Since the publication of that first DMG, Appendix N has played a role in the development of the hobby that is hard to overemphasize. The authors and works listed in the appendix influenced the earliest editions of the game and continue to steer game designers 30 years later. The first two printings of the first edition Deities & Demigods, for instance, contained the Melnibonéan pantheon from Michael Moorcock's Elric series, as well as the Great Old Ones of H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. And today in the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting, Edgar Rice Burroughs's tales of Mars and Venus have helped to inspire Golarion's own red and green sister planets. Indeed, the whole Planet Stories line was launched with the intent of reintroducing pulp fantasy authors to modern gamers. The roots of Appendix N are deep and far-reaching indeed.

With this in mind, I plan to explore which books, movies, comics, and roleplaying products members of the Paizo staff have found most influential in both their style of design and the development of Golarion. And our first interviewee will be Paizo's own publisher, Erik Mona. Look for it next time!

David Eitelbach
Editorial Intern

Paizo Invades the Atomic Array

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Over at the Atomic Array, Rone Barton and Ed Healy have created a great podcast that should interest everyone who's a gamer. A brief look through their recent episodes sees topics such as Shadows of Cthulhu, Kobold Quarterly, Gen Con, and as of episode #11, Pathfinder!

This episode of the Atomic Array features myself, Jason Bulmahn, and Josh Frost getting interviewed about all matter of things Paizo, from Pathfinder and the upcoming Legacy of Fire Adventure Path to the Pathfinder RPG Beta playtest and more. Check it out!

James Jacobs
Editor-in-Chief

Interview: Jason Bulmahn, Pathfinder RPG Lead Designer

Thursday, March 20, 2008

I sat down with Jason Bulmahn, the mastermind behind the Pathfinder RPG, and picked his brain for awhile.

What did you have in mind when you first starting working on the Pathfinder RPG?

Since we first realized a new edition of the game was imminent, Paizo developed several plans for how we would adapt to the new publishing environment. One of those options involved ongoing support of 3.5. Since last summer, I've been experimenting with the rules, tweaking the things I thought needed some work and reinforcing the parts that I liked. When Paizo made the decision to go full steam ahead with ongoing 3.5 support, I brought the rules into the office and we began poring over them as a team. A lot of great work came out of the past few months with nearly everybody in our editorial staff offering up suggestions and ideas to make the rules even better.

What changes (that are made in the Pathfinder RPG) will be the most impactful to the gaming experience?

For me, a lot of the changes enacted by the Pathfinder RPG are designed to smooth out some of the rough spots of 3.5, while adding some spice to some rules elements that have become a bit ordinary. One of my favorites is adjusting the turn undead rules to also heal living creatures. This allows a cleric to actually cast some of his spells instead of saving them for healing. It also allows the party to adventure a bit longer. Combine that with reusable powers for both wizards and clerics and you have a longer adventuring day, something the game sorely needed.

Do you think the Pathfinder RPG will eventually replace 3.5 edition?

Since the core books for the 3.5 edition of the game are about to be out of print, I think that the Pathfinder RPG will replace them as the common reference point for those who are still interested in playing the rules system.

Are there any surprising things in the Pathfinder RPG?

Yes, quite a number of things actually. The changes to domains and arcane schools, the unification of the various combat maneuvers to one simple system, and the alterations to turning all seem to have surprised a number of people. There are a lot of little surprises lurking in the rules too. We changed Intimidate somewhat so that it can demoralize a foe for more than 1 round. It's not a huge change, but it makes the skill a much more interesting option than it was. Changing Dodge so that it is a flat +1 bonus to your Armor Class is another change that works to simplify the game by removing the pesky need to remember who you are using Dodge against. I think a lot of these little surprises have not been spotted quite yet, and I look forward to discussing them with the playtesters.

What are your hopes for the Pathfinder RPG?

We've got a long way to go before the Pathfinder RPG is in its finished form and between now and then I am really looking forward to working with the fans and playtesters to make this the game that we all want to play. I hope that the finished game meets that goal, and I am confident that with more than 5,000 playtesters on board, we will be able to solve any problem that stands in our way.

Carolyn Mull
Paizo Sales & Marketing Assistant

Mike On Guidebooks!

Monday, November 26, 2007

Recently, I put up a messageboard thread soliciting questions we might answer in the blog, and now Sutter's tapped me to actually answer one of those questions. So here I go:

Messageboard regular Dungeon Grrrl asks, "When you decide to develop a region, how do you go about it? Is there a process for the writing of a basic bible, or is the final version generated whole-cloth? Is there a development process that happens after the writers tackle it? Do you have big meetings where people spitball ideas?"

Let's take these one at a time.

When you decide to develop a region, how do you go about it?

The very first thing that gets decided is which region or area we want to develop. The needs of adventures (whether adventure paths in Pathfinder or scattered modules) take center stage. The Guide to Korvosa, for example, fleshes out the city in which the Curse of the Crimson Throne adventure path occurs. The Guide to Darkmoon Vale, on the other hand, delves into the region where we set D0: Hollow's Last Hope, D1: Crown of the Kobold King, E1: Carnival of Tears, and the LB series of GameMastery Modules.

Once we figure out where we want the book to cover, we need to find someone to write it. For Korvosa, that entailed James Jacobs walking up to me one day and saying, "Do you want to write Korvosa?" You can guess my answer. For Darkmoon Vale, it was Erik who asked me the same question (with the same reply).

At that point, we have where we want to set the book and we have an author. The third step is to brainstorm what we want to see in the book (in terms of NPCs, locations, monsters, and events).

After that, it's just the author putting his nose to the grindstone and writing ~50,000 words.

Is there a process for the writing of a basic bible, or is the final version generated whole-cloth?

The final version is pretty much generated whole-cloth. We have a Golarion world-bible that we can all access and that parts of will turn into the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazetteer, which helps us with world consistency, but the final version of a guidebook becomes the bible for the area in which it focuses.

Is there a development process that happens after the writers tackle it?

Yes. Once I completed Korvosa, James took a read-through to look for things he needed for the adventure path that I forgot to add or didn't know about. Then I took a week or so, added in all that stuff, and handed over Korvosa version 1.2, which Jeremy Walker currently has and is editing. Because there are only four pages of rules stuff in Korvosa, his development pass is probably going to be more like an editing/consistency-check pass.

Do you have big meetings where people spitball ideas?

Yes. We start off with a brainstorming meeting. For Guide to Korvosa, the brainstorm consisted of James Jacobs, Wes Schneider, and myself, with Nick Logue, Richard Pett, and Tito Leati contributing awesome ideas via email. For Guide to Darkmoon Vale, the brainstorm group consisted of the entire R&D staff plus Josh Frost and Jeff Alvarez.

The team sits down and decides what sorts of NPCs, monsters, and locations need to appear in the book. No real details get put out at this point, because we're just trying to hit on the major aspects of the book. The details get left to the author, for the most part.

I hope this helps to give you a glimpse into Paizo Behind the Scenes. Feel free to throw follow-up questions at me and the rest of the R&D gang on the messageboards. Thanks for reading!

Mike McArtor
Associate Editor, GameMastery

Attack of the Pod(cast) People!

Final Wave—Mike Selinker

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Today's final installment of the Paizo Podcast Explosion features Titanic Games mastermind Mike Selinker chatting with the good folks over at Pulp Gamer's Inside Track about everything from curling to geocaching... plus, of course, some discussion of Stonehenge and the Nocturne Expansion, as well as a preview of Titanic's latest venture, a gorgeous new game called Key Largo. Head on over to the Pulp Gamer site to check it out.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Attack of the Pod(cast) People!

Second Wave—James Jacobs

As promised yesterday, we continue our podcast blitzkrieg today with an interview with Pathfinder Editor-in-Chief James Jacobs! In this in-depth conversation with the host of The Tome, a D&D-focused radio-show, Jacobs discusses his long and distinguished history with D&D, the end of Paizo's Dungeon and Dragon licenses, and the shape of the new RPG world to come. Head over to The Tome's website here to give it a listen.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Attack of the Pod(cast) People!

First Wave—Erik Mona

Monday, September 24, 2007

In recent weeks, members of the design staff here at Paizo have been doing a number of podcast interviews with various gaming-themed radio shows, and they're now becoming available to the general public. They're super easy to access—just click and listen—so why not drop by and hear what the imaginations behind Pathfinder, GameMastery, and more have to say about the future of the industry?

Kicking things off, Erik Mona sat down with Chris Pramas of Green Ronin to discuss the announcement of 4th edition and what that means for the Open Game License and d20 publishing, which leads them into a discussion of Paizo's new ventures, high-level play, and more. And of course, it wouldn't be Erik without a significant foray into the "storied history of Greyhawk."

Click here to check out the 73-minute behemoth (guaranteed to keep your brain alive at work through that long post-lunch lull!) and get the inside dirt from the best possible source. And stay tuned for tomorrow, when we'll be back with more from Mr. James Jacobs, dungeon designer extraordinaire....

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder

Erik in Black Gate

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Many of you may be familiar with Black Gate, one of the biggest fantasy magazines around. Recently their managing editor, Howard Andrew Jones, sat down to do an exclusive in-depth interview for their website with Paizo Publisher Erik Mona about Planet Stories. In what's his most extensive and candid interview on the subject to date, Erik pours forth his reasons for starting the line, his hopes for the future, and the reasons everyone who loves gaming should check out some of these novels. Click here to read the full interview.

James Sutter
Editor, Planet Stories

What's the Difference?

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

One question we've run into repeatedly as we introduce the new world in which both Pathfinder and the GameMastery Modules will be set is, "What makes your campaign setting different?" In order to answer that, we've asked each member of the editorial design team—collectively known as "The Pit"—what they think sets our world apart.

Erik Mona (Publisher)

"The GameMastery world will contain a wider mixture of influences that most available on the market, making it easier to find a home for the type of adventures you and your friends are interested in playing. The world doesn't come burdened with a single overarching plot or expectation of play style, but rather allows for a wide variety of campaigns. Do you feel like exploring a savage frontier? The Lands of the Linnorm Kings or the Hold of the Mammoth Lords provide perfect backdrops. Players who enjoy urban roleplaying and intrigue will be drawn to the political world of Absalom or the treacherous courts of devil-tainted Cheliax. Players interested in science fantasy will find plenty to like in the barbarian nation of Numeria, greatest of the River Kingdoms, where a powerful sovereign and his council of witches rule from the ancient ruins of a mighty vessel fallen from space. They might even get a chance to explore the green and red worlds in the heavens above. The code-phrase we've been using for development of the world beyond Varisia (and including it) is "Planet of Adventure," because it is a place meant to accommodate great campaigns. We're hoping one of them will be yours."

James Jacobs (Editor-in-Chief, Pathfinder)

"I think that the big thing for our campaign setting is the fact that, unlike most other settings, we aren't kicking things off with a line of setting books that detail regions, religions, cities, and histories of the world. We don't want to drown our readers in canon. Rather, we'll be developing our world primarily through adventures written by the best writers we can find. Each adventure in Pathfinder or the GameMastery line can serve double-duty, because once you've run the adventure, there'll remain parts in there that you can use to expand your own campaign world, be it details of a city, a new monster, a haunted forest, a new religion, or whatever. Sooner or later we'll certainly have enough material to cull from the adventures that we'll be able to produce a setting book or something like that, but it won't have been designed in a vacuum. Everything in our campaign world will evolve out of things that are already adventures, rather than evolve from ideas that then have to be turned into adventures.

"Oh, and demon lords and archdevils and celestial paragons and archangels can grant spells to their cultists. That's pretty cool too."

Jason Bulmahn (GameMastery Brand Manager)

"One of our primary goals is to give a campaign setting that uses all of the advantages of the modern rules set while still maintaining a sort of "classic" middle-fantasy feel. We want our world to be one that has a place for almost any sort of play style without flooding GMs and players with a bunch of assumed baselines that make some play-styles impossible or difficult to run. If you want to use our setting to run an Egyptian-styled adventure, you can certainly do that, but it doesn't preclude a swashbuckling game, a feudal knights adventure, a lich hunt, or an urban political game. The trick is balancing these themes and flavors that everyone is familiar with, while still giving it a fresh take that fires up the imagination and allows for GMs to give it their own personal flair. After all, we want this to be your campaign too.

"And, of course, we got ninjas."

James Sutter (Assistant Editor, Pathfinder)

"My biggest problem with most campaign settings is the canon. While as a writer I understand well the joy of having your ideas set in stone, of watching people take what you've written and hold it up as The Way It Is, with gaming I find that it's ultimately a decadent and self-indulgent pleasure, and a little goes a long, long way.

"When I first started working at Dungeon, canon and I went head-to-head on a daily basis. It seemed like every time I had an idea I thought was interesting, someone smiled sympathetically and said, "Yeah, but you can't do that because..." As a GM, who wants to be told "no" all the time?

"That's what makes our new setting so exciting to me. Sure, any new setting will have less baggage than one that's been around for years, but throughout the design process of this world, we've tried to always keep that "less is more" mentality in mind. This is our world, but it's also the players' world, and every time you tell a GM or player, "You can't do that," you've just killed a fun session. It's too easy for a setting to reach a point where, through years of development and source material, it's been detailed down to the last commoner, with no room left to invent, explore, and innovate. Either that, or the broad, sweeping changes you've made to distinguish your setting ("All elves in our setting are XXX!") end up alienating portions of your audience. The rallying cry at our development meetings has been, "Never say never." We've all put in a lot of work to make this setting as interesting as possible, and there will undoubtedly be official supplements someday to support the adventures which are the setting's driving force, but know that as we go along, we realize that this isn't just our sandbox—it's the sandbox of everyone who does us the honor of playing in it. And with that honor comes a certain responsibility."

Jeremy Walker (Assistant Editor, GameMastery)

"Often, a campaign setting is defined not so much by what elements it includes, but instead by what it precludes. Specific themes, elements, and quirks help players and GMs connect with the setting, but oftentimes the very things that first attract gamers become the things that drive them away, as, frustrated by the setting's inability to adapt, they move on to the next unique setting, only to repeat the process down the road when that setting's fresh ideas become stale.

"One might think, then, that the solution is to provide a setting as generic as possible, so that any story can be dropped in just about anywhere. And yet people are looking for more in a campaign setting than a blank sheet of canvas. They want a world in which to tell their own stories in their own way, but they also want a living world that seems real. In this way, a campaign setting is like a matte painting on a movie set. A richly detailed backdrop that, while it exists independently of the characters in the movie, gives their actions context and meaning beyond their individual stories. To create a purely generic world is like shooting a movie in front of a black and white painting—it is immediately, and obviously, unreal.

"So how to provide a rich and detailed world without running the risk of our conventions and ideas becoming stale? Our solution is to provide a campaign setting that includes many distinct areas, each containing their own themes, characters, stories, and ideas. Each area of our world is almost a mini-setting all to itself. Vibrant and lifelike, ready for any story you might wish to tell. And when you tire of a particular style of gaming, why there is always something new waiting over that mountain, up that river, or across that sea."

Mike McArtor (Associate Editor, GameMastery)

"1. Interaction: One of the things that sets Paizo apart is our willingness to listen to those who invest in our creation. Spend some time on the messageboards and I think you'll discover pretty quickly that we interact with our readers, and those interactions are never one-way. We're not going to create the setting through democracy, but when the masses speak, we tend to listen.

"2. Inclusiveness: The newest edition of The World's Most Popular Fantasy Roleplaying Game (TWMPFRPG for short) is all about showing you what you can do, not telling you what you can't. In that spirit, our setting is going to allow for whatever you want to include in your campaign. Everything does—or at least can—exist in our setting.

"3. Variety: It's the spice of life. It's also what happens when you put the seven of us in a room, add caffeine, and shake. Then open the floodgates to guys like Baur and Logue and man oh man, have you got something! If you like dinosaurs and Cthulhu, talk to Jacobs over there. If you like your games a little more whimsical, hey man, I've got your back. From the deepest pits of depravity to the most ludicrous non-sequiturs, you'll find it somewhere in this place.

"4. History: We have the advantage of looking back on three decades of what has come before to see what worked. (And of even greater importance: what didn't.) We're building off the initial groundwork of titans—Gygax, Kuntz, Greenwood, and Grubb, for starters. The seven of us are keenly aware of those who came before, and we want to ensure they (and more importantly, YOU) approve of our creation."

Wesley Schneider (Associate Editor, Pathfinder)

"We're only letting the coolest players and GMs use our world. Rabid, endlessly yodeling goblin warchanters will infest the homes of those found unworthy."

Erik Speaks His Mind

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

The guys at Pulp Gamer have done another interview with Paizo folks, this time catching publisher Erik Mona at the GAMA Trade Show and sitting him down to talk about Pathfinder, GameMastery Modules, Planet Stories, and more. If you've had any questions about where the company's headed in the next year, this podcast probably answers it, so get out your headphones, kick back, and let Erik walk you through the future of Paizo.

Pulp Radio

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

PulpGamer.com recently did an in-depth podcast interview with Paizo marketing guru Josh Frost about Stonehenge, the upcoming release from Titanic Games, Paizo's board game contingent. Take a listen here and get the inside scoop on what it really means to create an "anthology" board game. Plus stay tuned in coming weeks for more podcast interviews from the Pulp Gamer guys, including one with Publisher Erik Mona himself.

In His Own Words

Wednesday, May 2, 2007

Last night, Publisher Erik Mona dropped by the #pathfinder chat on the OtherWorlds IRC Network to talk frankly with fans about Pathfinder, GameMastery, and the presence of Gary Gygax himself in the Paizo booth at the upcoming GenCon. To read a fan summary of the discussion, click here.

Want to get in on the conversation yourself? Tuesday nights (in the USA) are the weekly chance for Pathfinder fans, writers, and occasionally us editor types to meet up and discuss the future of the Paizo product line, campaign setting, and more in realtime. Visit http://irc.otherworlders.org/chat/cf.php and enter #pathfinder as the channel, or direct your chat client (such as mIRC) to:

SERVER: chat.psionics.net
PORT: 6667
CHANNEL: #pathfinder

Many thanks to message board regular EP Healy for posting his summarized log of the chat.

James Sutter
Assistant Editor, Pathfinder