2012 marks Paizo’s 10th anniversary. I plan to do monthly blogs for the rest of the year that relive the highlights (and some of the lowlights) from our first ten years of business, and then I’ll take a look into the future as the year comes to a close. There will be side anecdotes and hopefully more than a few embarrassing pictures. And at the end of it all, I hope our readers will have a better sense of where Paizo has been—and where we’re going!
The paizo.com home page in 2002.
The seeds of Paizo Publishing were planted in late 2000: I was working at Wizards of the Coast as the Brand Manager for Star Wars when the seemingly annual Christmas layoffs claimed me as their victim. As I was walking around the building saying my goodbyes to a lot of good friends, I mentioned to a few of them that I thought Hasbro might decide to divest themselves of parts of their business in the next few years and, if that were to happen, they should feel free to give me a call.
My partner Vic had recently departed his previous job as well, so 2001 was a year of relaxing for us; we traveled a bit and spent a lot of time building up our Star Wars collection. But by the end of the year, the two of us were stir crazy. So we were both relieved when, shortly before Christmas, Johnny Wilson, Group Publisher for the Periodicals division at Wizards of the Coast, called me to let me know that Wizards wanted to divest itself of its magazine business, which at the time included Dragon, Dungeon, and Star Wars Insider magazines, as well as the Official Star Wars Fan Club for Lucasfilm. I was a longtime subscriber to Dragon and Dungeon, so that was right up my alley, and the thought of running the Star Wars Fan Club and publishing Star Wars Insider excited both Vic and myself. Our own experience with magazines was limited, but Johnny had been in magazines for ages, so we felt we had our bases covered.
We met with Johnny in early 2002 to start planning the company. Johnny taught us what he called the “three-legged stool” model of the magazine business. Magazines needed income from three sources: subscriptions, newsstand sales, and advertising. If you ever let one of those three “legs” suffer, the whole would become unstable. (It took us a couple of years to figure out that there was a major problem with this model, but that’s a topic for a future installment.)
One of the earliest decisions we made was naming our new company. Johnny, being a religious scholar, had the name “Paizo”—biblical Greek for “I play”—floating around in his head for a number of years. It fit our gaming company nicely, and we could get a trademark for it, so we settled on it quickly. Of course, if we would have realized how easily it was going to be mispronounced over the years (pay-zo, pi-at-zoe, paz-zo, even pee-zo) we might have changed our minds and settled on something easier to pronounce.
We went over the financials Johnny had, and it looked like a promising business. Over the next few months, we had numerous meetings with Wizards and Lucasfilm, both of whom approved our plans, so we were good to go! We set up Paizo Publishing as an LLC with three owners: myself, Vic Wertz, and Johnny Wilson.
Paizo's first office was on the far right of the ground floor of this building in Bellevue.
We had our first bit of great luck when our real estate agent found us an office space that had been vacated in a rush by another company—it was still fully furnished, including desks, chairs, a photocopier, and even a postage machine. We paid the landlord $1 for all of the equipment, a fantastic deal which kept getting better as we explored our new digs—we found a $20 bill in one of the drawers, and there was over $100 in prepaid postage in the postage machine! We’ve moved twice since then, and the postage machine is long gone, but we still use the copier and a lot of the furniture—it was the best dollar we’ve ever spent.
We took over the entire magazine division from Wizards lock, stock, and barrel—all of the department’s employees signed on with Paizo, and Wizards gave us a nice deal on their computers, office supplies, printers, back issues, and pretty much anything else we could load into our moving truck. We made a couple new hires to round out our administrative staff, and we officially started operations on July 1, 2002.
Our initial staff was as follows:
Administrative Team
Lisa Stevens: CEO
Johnny Wilson: Publisher
Vic Wertz: Technical Director
Mary Franklin: Director of Operations and Marketing
Wailam Wilson: Corporate Admin
Publishing Team
John Dunn: Director of Production
Pierce Watters: Circulation Director
Jefferson Dunlap: Prepress Supervisor
Theresa Cummins: Production Specialist
Dawnelle Miesner: Ad Traffic Manager
Dragon Team
Jesse Decker: Editor-in-Chief
Matt Sernett: Editor
Stacie Fiorito (now Magelssen): Associate Editor
Lisa Chido: Art Director
Dungeon Team
Chris Thomasson (now Youngs): Editor
Erik Mona: Editor
Kyle Hunter: Art Director
Star Wars Insider Team
Dave Gross: Editor-in-Chief
Michael Mikaelian: Managing Editor
Vic Wertz: Editor
Scott Ricker (now Okumura): Art Director
Scott Ricker (now Okumura) looking up from his gig art directing Star Wars Insider.
We continued the production schedule that Wizards had set up for the magazines, and finished the issues they had in the pipeline as we worked on their followups. The first all-Paizo issue of Dragon was #299, followed by the milestone 300th issue, which included a special sealed-content section covering The Book of Vile Darkness. In all, we produced four issues of Dragon that year.
Dungeon was bimonthly at the time and had two issues come out under Paizo’s watch in 2002. Issue 95 also had a sealed-content section like its sister periodical. Dungeon garnered Paizo our first ENnie Award, for Best Aid/Accessory.
We did quite a lot with Star Wars Insider and the Official Star Wars Fan Club in 2002. We brought the Bantha Tracks fan section back to the magazine for the first time since the late 1970s. It had also been a while since the Fan Club had done a membership kit, and we put together a great one. It included the following:
Official Star Wars Fan Club Membership Card
Letter to members from George Lucas
Exclusive 3-D fold-together mini-standee
Three travel destination postcards from the galaxy far, far away
Travel stickers from exotic Star Wars destinations
A letter from myself as the President of the Official Star Wars Fan Club
We also were able to procure the official Attack of the ClonesIMAX posters and banners to sell to Star Wars fans everywhere (heck, we still have them available for sale today). We also managed to arrange a great subscriber premium, a limited-edition LEGO TIE Fighter Mini Building Set.
But things weren’t all rosy. While Johnny knew everything about actually producing magazines, it turns out that he had never been exposed to any of the financial details. In particular, newsstand distribution terms were far more complicated than we’d anticipated. It took us a while to find an accountant that could make sense of the hideously complex reports we were getting, which thoroughly obfuscated the answers to seemingly simple questions such as “how much do we get paid, and when?” Once we negotiated our way though it all, we realized that the time it took to get paid for a given issue was many months longer than Johnny expected, and the distribution fees involved were also higher than we’d been led to believe. That meant that we were going to have to stretch our startup capital much longer than we’d intended.
Also, along with the Star Wars Fan Club, we had inherited the phone number 1-800-TRUE-FAN, which was printed as part of a “join the Fan Club” blurb on the back of every Star Wars product produced in the previous few years. That seemed like good marketing, but it really meant that we were paying a lot of money to answer calls from five-year-olds who wanted to talk to Luke Skywalker, or from slightly more sophisticated nine-year-olds hoping to speak with George Lucas. We dropped the 800 number as soon as we could reasonably phase it out.
Paizo receives its first ENnie as part of the second annual ENnie Awards, held on a makeshift stage in the hallway of the MECCA during the last Gen Con in Milwaukee. Left to right: Eric Noah, Russell Morrissey, Erik Mona, Chris Thomasson (now Youngs), Ryan Dancey
We had also continued using the out-of-house subscription fulfillment service that Wizards had used for the magazines, and we soon learned that their costs were much higher than we’d expected. They handled all customer service related to subscriptions, and charged us based on each customer contact—there was a fee for every letter, email, and phone call they received, and another fee for every reply they made. We soon realized that meant they had no incentive to solve problems quickly—in fact, they’d make more money if it took multiple contacts to resolve an issue! It became clear that we’d save a lot of money—and provide better service—if we could bring subscriptions and customer service in-house. That became our first major goal for 2003.
We ended the year with a multi-course holiday dinner for the employees at my favorite restaurant at the time, Gene’s Ristorante in Renton. Chef Charles Maddrey created a feast for us, and lots of wine and beer were served. Even though things weren’t working out exactly as planned, we were hopeful and wanted to celebrate the founding of Paizo and looked forward to what the new year would bring!
Employees who started later in 2002:
Grace Liang, Corporate Accountant
David Erickson, Corporate Accountant
Matt Beals, Lead Prepress Operator
Employees who left in 2002:
Jefferson Dunlap, Prepress Supervisor
Grace Liang, Corporate Accountant
For myself, 2002 will always be remembered for the excitement of starting something new and for the realization that I had a lot to learn when it came to the magazine business.
Lisa Stevens CEO
The Paizo Company Logo
Once we had settled on the name of the company, Johnny had Art Director Kyle Hunter take a stab at some logos for the newly minted corporation. There were two basic styles: one was a calligraphy letter pi fused with a smoke monster, and the other was the same letter pi in the shape of the now familiar golem. Each of these creatures was given varying sets of eyes to convey different moods. From top left: Fangeye, Cyclops, Grin, Glare, Shades, Mongo, Spacey and Vigilant (the logo we ended up choosing). With the design settled, Kyle then did a number of different color treatments. We eventually went with the now-familiar “Paizo purple,” although Kyle was angling for the rusty color you can see in the bottom sample of his business card.
Kyle Hunter’s first takes at a Paizo logo and designs for the first Paizo business card (in a few different color schemes). We ended up picking the business card design on the far right of the second row.
Erik’s Memories of Year One
The first half of 2002 was a strange time to work at Wizards of the Coast. On one hand, the Hasbro purchase was still recent, and the luster of big bonuses and watching friends with lots of seniority get new cars and houses was still relatively fresh. On the other hand, Wizards was busily streamlining their business to focus on “core competencies,” and starting in 2000, lots of people lost their jobs in a series of layoffs.
Erik Mona and Kyle Hunter discover a haunt near their desks.
Despite individual successes at work, there was a strong undercurrent of “I’m sure I’m going to be fired soon” that seemed that year to be even more potent than it had been in the past couple of years. I had only recently been transferred from the RPGA Network to the Periodicals Department, and the two magazines I was shepherding at the time—Polyhedron and the Living Greyhawk Journal—had become sections of Dungeon and Dragon, respectively. I was really enjoying the challenge of integrating these sections, and was doing some of the most fun creative editorial work of my career, but it soon became clear that magazines were not a safe place to work when the company was paring its focus to just its core game business.
About this time, our Group Publisher, Johnny Wilson, began whispering about his plan to save everyone’s jobs and ensure that the venerable magazines of Dungeons & Dragons would continue indefinitely. He had found some investors interested in taking over the magazine business in the likely event that Wizards cut it off, and in his impish way he named the effort “La Cosa Nostra,” or “our thing.” Yes, that’s also the name of the Mafia, but Johnny has an evil sense of humor for a guy as religious as he is, and he’d rub his hands together while talking about his diabolical plan. Coming from between his rosy cherub cheeks, his words filled us all with hope at a time when it was in extremely limited supply around the office.
I was much relieved to learn that Johnny’s mystery investors turned out to be Lisa Stevens and Vic Wertz, two of my earliest Seattle friends. Lisa gave me my first real break in the industry as a continuity consultant for the Greyhawk products she was managing in the late 1990s, and I knew that she and Vic knew enough about business and were the kind of game-loving advocates that it would take to make a project like this work.
Chris Thomasson (now Youngs) and Erik Mona at the Paizo booth, Gen Con 2002.
They were (and are) major Star Wars collectors, and many of us around the office joked that the real reason Vic and Lisa wanted to run the magazine business was to add Star Wars Insider to their considerable Star Wars collection, but my time working on Greyhawk with Lisa convinced me that the Dragon and Dungeon elements were just as important—if not more important—to their interests. I wasn’t worried at all. In fact, once I learned Lisa and Vic were our potential saviors, the only real question was when we were going to move out of the building. My stress evaporated with that revelation, and as I recall things, we were all pretty excited about moving on to the next phase of our professional lives.
As it happens, I am a collector too, so one of my favorite early Paizo memories involved physically loading up all of the department’s assets into a moving truck headed to the new Paizo offices. Johnny suggested that we leave all of the back issues at Wizards, mostly because hauling them all down to the truck would take hours of physical labor, and nobody really wanted all those old magazines anyway. Lisa and I refused to let that happen, knowing just how valuable those dozens of boxes would be, and how criminal it would have been to throw them away. So long after most of the staff had gone home, Lisa, Vic, and I (and perhaps others I can no longer remember) worked into the early morning hours to load those back issues onto the truck.
Even as we loaded them up, Lisa explained (and I well knew) that we weren’t just salvaging the old issues for nostalgia. “Someday we’ll have a website where we can sell these to people who want them,” she said. “We are going to make a ton of money off of these things.”
We still sellthose back issues today. That website grew to become paizo.com, one of the internet’s leading hobby stores. Even from the very beginning, Lisa showed that the company would be managed with a balance of genuinely geeky love for the game and strong business sense. It’s the main reason I’ve stuck around here every year since that first night we loaded up the truck with old back issues, and it’s the reason why the company has been able to survive and grow stronger far longer than many companies in this industry.
Erik Mona Publisher
Lisa Stevens at the Paizo booth, inside the Wizards castle at Gen Con 2002.
Dave Gross checks out the new Paizo digs before we move in. (The photocopier in the back is part of the best dollar we ever spent.)
Jesse Decker with a coveted window seat.
Matt Sernett doing his best to ignore the camera.
Johnny’s wife Wailam Wilson holds down the front of the office.
Behold, the beaming excitement of the new interns! (Shhhh... Don’t tell them that enthusiasm is about to wither away as they enter the Editorial Pit of Despair known as crosschecking every feat, spell, trait, and magic item in the Advanced Race Guide.) Everybody, please give a warm welcome Alexandra and Jerome!
Christopher Carey Editor
Hi, I’m Alexandra and I’m a new Paizo intern here in the Editorial Department. I’m not quite sure exactly everything I’ll be doing, but I’m very excited! I’ll know I’ll be showing up around the messageboards so here’s a little about me:
I’m currently going to college and finishing up my AA in Digital Gaming while working about 25 hours a week at my part-time job, doing this internship, and trying to have a social life. In my free time, I love to play RPG games and post on Tumblr. My friends and I run a Dragon Age fan blog there. Dragon Age is one of my favorite games but I’m currently playing Skyrim whenever I can. I really like to read fanfiction and write my own short stories. My favorite TV show is Supernatural, and even though it’s totally ruined now I still love it.
I’ve lived in the same place forever, so after I get settled with my life, I hope to do a lot of traveling and exploring of other cultures to feed my inspiration. I’d love to go all over Europe and Southeast Asia and check out all the fashion and food. I’m Jewish, so I’d also love to visit Israel and finally learn Hebrew.
Well, there’s me. Thanks for reading!
Alexandra Schecterson Editorial Intern
Hello!
This is Jerome, one of the new interns here at Paizo Publishing. It’s my first month on the job, and I’m excited to discover what makes Pathfinder tick. At first blush, the answers seem to be coffee, banter, and hoards of figurines!
I’m a relative neophyte to the RPG scene, having discovered Pathfinder only a few years ago. However, in the short time that I’ve been playing and GMing, I’ve become enamored of the creativity and collaborative spirit that Pathfinder brings out in people. I’m excited to see those same attitudes at work within the Paizo staff.
I’m a long-time strategy and athletic gamer with roots in Go, soccer, and 8-bit cartridges. I continue to game regularly, and have burgeoning interest in independent game design. I’ve also pursued (with varying degrees of success) kung fu, story games, Starcraft, ballroom dancing, and girls. My childhood habit of reading has blossomed into a love of writing that promises to delight and infuriate me to the grave and beyond. Hopefully I’ll have the chance to try my hand at writing for Paizo someday soon!
I’m excited to be working with Paizo, and look forward to seeing you all on the messageboards!
It snows in Seattle every now and then. Usually not much, but when the entire region is on a 90 degree incline, a little goes a long way… toward sliding your vehicle into a freezing body of water. Some of you might remember the mixture of caution, fear, and hilarity that lead to my own snow-stranding last year. That totally had no influence on the fact that I now live amid the apartments typically referred to here as Paizo East, a whopping three blocks from the office. So, when the Great Flurry of ’12 hit, I sledded down the hill to collect the blizzard of “Out of the Office” e-mails. Lets see what we’ve got:
Not even the Paizo golem is immune to the snowmageddon! Illustration by Liz Courts, Snowed In Specialist
Jerome Virnich, Editorial Intern
Wes. Unfortunately I'm under the weather, both literally and figuratively. Still planning on being there on Friday. Hope you're well!
Mike Brock, Campaign Coordinator & Survivalist
Hi all. After sliding backwards down the 150 yard hill in my apartment complex, I gave up trying to drive to work. I hear Seattle has a great bus system so went to their website. My results from here to work:
Trip Planner
Error Planning Trip
(#20007--Trip not possible)
Modify Trip
So, looks like I'm working from home today.
Judy Bauer, Disaster Opportunist
Mutinying for Snow Days! In a shocking twist, I'll be editing from home again today. Currently rolling on the AP adventure.
Jason Bulmahn, Senior Snowman Wrassler
Yetis stole my car. I am pretty sure they are doing donuts in the intersection. Sean, Judy, and I are going to be staying home today. I've got work banked up still and will be taking breaks to yell at those damn yetis. Stay warm everyone.
Erik Mona, Snowscarred
Folks. After last year's 520-ocalypse, I'm playing it safe with the snow this year. I've got a pile of work to do here at home today, so I'll be editing and working on emails all day today (and possibly tomorrow, given the way people on the radio are freaking out). If you need me, please call.
Lisa Stevens, Lives on a Mountain
You Redmond folks don't know what snow is! And this with the snowpocalypse major snow not even fallen yet! You may not see us until spring! :)
[Picture of Hoth omitted]
From the incomplete nature of this list I can only assume that many others are wandering about disoriented or huddled cozily in their tauntauns. Some though—like James Sutter who owns a parachute and had a toboggan delivered to the office last week—we might never see again.
Fresh meat! We have to keep the cave raptors downstairs fed!
Hi there! My name is Meredith Kniest, and I'm the latest edition of the Paizo Intern. I've been asked to explain a bit about myself and my experience at Paizo so far, which frankly is an awesome relief from staring at Excel spreadsheets. Oh, the joys of interning.
I'm currently a senior at the University of Washington studying English and French. After having scoured internship postings in the greater Seattle area for months, and with gloomy national job forecasts echoing about my brain in the available space between Shakespeare and Balzac, I was beginning to resign myself to a long and dismal job search. That's when I came across Wesley's ad for an editing internship with Paizo. With a peculiar amount of trepidation did I apply—after all, the closest I've ever come to playing a tabletop RPG was creating fantasy adventures for my little brother using Playmobil people and Lincoln Logs, long ago, in the dusty days before Zelda took her first three-dimensional step, when Doug was the best show on television.
Three weeks into the position, I've learned a great deal about the Pathfinder universe, though I still feel like the greenest noob since Leeroy Jenkins, especially around the other Paizo employees, whose daily conversation—Hey, have we ever used flying cats as monsters? and Do we have a rule for wading through water?—flits by my ears like Miles Davis at a fifth-grade band concert.
My first intern assignment is to continue a job begun by interns of yesteryear: cataloging all of the Pathfinder rules not included in the Core Rulebook.
Yes, ALL of them.
It took me a couple of days to comprehend the daunting scale of this task. It's doubtful that it will be finished by me. Or by anyone, ever. I was discouraged, I won't lie. I had hoped to really wow my new employers with amazing ninja cataloging skills. (Hey, I take pride in my work. It keeps me going after caffeine has worn off.
However, I've been finding solace and diversion in the compelling, sometimes morbid storytelling that seems to make Pathfinder unique. I'm used to video game storytelling. Pathfinder is on a whole new, deeper, infinitely more variable and complex level than video games are capable of. Often I completely forget to catalog a rule or a stat block because I'm gripped by the lycanthropy of Duristan Silvio Ariesir or the perversions of the Runelords of Runeforge.
Feel free to send me your prayers, your derision, or any obscure Pathfinder rules you can think of. I'll be here, reading about the Blood Veil in Korvosa and, possibly, forgetting to do my job.
Illustration by Tyler Walpole. Widescreen version here.
PaizoCon Is Here!
Friday, June 10, 2011
PaizoCon 2011 starts today! The massive event schedule lists all of the awesome activities attendees can expect to take part in, but here are some of the real gems that I'm looking forward to.
At the show guests and Paizo staff will have the opportunity to wine and dine together during Saturday's banquet. One of the reasons I'm excited about the banquet is the opportunity to meet and hang out with fellow Paizonians. Having gotten to know so many of you on the messageboards, it will be fun to finally meet some of you face to face! In addition to CEO Lisa Stevens's welcome and Publisher Erik Mona's preview of upcoming Pathfinder products, James Jacobs and Jason Bulmahn will be showcasing some really cool things about our upcoming products. I can't say here what they'll be, but you all should be very excited!
One of the neatest things about PaizoCon is the myriad opportunities to get the inside scoop on Pathfinder, Paizo, and the old days at TSR. Between “The Future of Paizo" on Friday, and seminars on writing for Paizo throughout the entire weekend, on Saturday there's a seminar on the "Secrets of TSR" with the likes of Ed Greenwood, Lisa Stevens, Ryan Dancey and maybe even Jeff Grubb himself!
Speaking of seminars, there are quite a few about the history of the industry, how to begin writing for RPGs, and breaking into the game industry. Here's a brief list of some of the seminars that you should try and get to: "Publishing in Kobold Quarterly," "Secrets of a Small Press Publisher," "Writing for the Pathfinder Society," and "Auntie Lisa's Story Hour" with Paizo CEO Lisa Steven's herself!
Finally (and perhaps best of all), expect to play lots and lots of games. Pathfinder Society scenarios will be run every day throughout the convention, and special events such as Stephen Radney-MacFarland's "Shootout in Old Korvosa," Jason Bulmahn's "Cursed Lot IV," and master of horror James Jacobs's "The Siege of Windy Hollow" (a Pathfinder RPG variant set in an apocalyptic earth ravaged by the Elder Mythos) are sure to be crowd pleasers. I might even have to sit in and watch some of these games being played—they sound that awesome.
We're super excited about this show and will be updating the blog throughout the weekend with news-bites, pictures, and updates. For those of you who can't make it, here's a wallpaper of the PaizoCon 2011 mascot: Unk the goblin!
We’re all still reeling from the big push to get our Gen Con releases out the door, but you know what never gets old? Signing books.
You may remember that a while back we put up a bunch of autographed books (including the gold-foil Special Edition copies seen here) as an auction to try to raise money for tsunami relief efforts in Japan. Well, it turns out that the Paizo community members found it in their hearts to give most generously, and now we’re holding up our end of the bargain. Mr. Wayne Reynolds himself—on loan from England—was in here earlier this week signing copies, and as you can see, we’re busily collecting signatures from everyone else here at Paizo. (Pictured here is only the first wave of signatures from the editorial pit. By the time the rest of the company is done with it, it’ll be a game of its own just trying to figure out who’s who....)
Are you attending PaizoCon 2011? (If not, tickets are still available!) If yes, have you thought about volunteering to run an event at the show? What makes PaizoCon so great isn't just the interaction with the Paizo staff or the ability to play in a staff-run game, it's also the ability to sit and game with your fellow Paizo community members as well as run a game for those community members! We're not beholden to a single system at PaizoCon. Want to run a Pathfinder RPG one-off? Great! How about a board game slot where you teach some folks your favorite board game ever? Also great! How about you playtest an upcoming scene in your home campaign with a willing audience? Perfect! There's no end to the ideas you could develop and run at PaizoCon 2011.
We're only taking event submissions until April 27, 2011 (2 weeks from today). So post below in the following format:
Title:
System:
Short Description:
Number of Players (Min/Max):
Character Level:
Pregens Provided (yes/no):
Maturity Rating (Everyone (6+)/Teen (13+)/Mature (18+)):
This is the also the official call for Pathfinder Society volunteers for PAIZOCON 2011! Volunteers will receive $10 in Paizo.com store credit useable whenever they want to use it, for each slot they volunteer for, plus an awesome volunteer package of product in addition to the attendee bag o' goodies. (And I mean AWESOME! As in, we only had to drive it 3 miles from our warehouse AWESOME. Like, we're really close to the show so we can bring really cool stuff AWESOME!)
Look through the list below and email me the games/slots you can volunteer for!
Here's where we need help:
Friday 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M.
Need: 16
Friday 12:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M.
Need: 16
Friday 6:00 P.M. to 11:00 P.M. (Grand Melee)
Need: 16
Saturday 8:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M.
Need: 16
Saturday 1:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M.
Need: 16
Sunday 8:00 A.M. to 1:00 P.M.
Need: 16
There are 6 slots in which we need volunteer assistance. In order to get the goody bag mentioned above, you need to volunteer for a minimum of 2. The more volunteers I get for these events, the more events we can run. So please take some time to run one or two events and help Paizo and the Pathfinder Society make this the best PaizoCon possible!
We hope to have the event schedule live for sign-ups very soon. Details forthcoming.
At this time we're only seeking volunteers from those who have purchased a badge and plan to attend the show.
All volunteers can email me: hyrum.savage@paizo.com with the subject line PAIZOCON 2011 Volunteer.
I'd like to take a moment to remind folks about the Japan Quake and Tsunami Relief Auction we started last week. For those of you that don't remember, last Thursday we announced that Paizo would be auctioning off the Wayne Reynolds original painting of Nakayama Hayato, the iconic samurai found in Ultimate Combat, our 256-page hardcover release for Gen Con 2011 and three copies each of a special edition of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook and Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. There are only a few hours left in these auctions so please visit the Paizo eBay storefront before 10 a.m. PDT to take part in this special charity event!
Yesterday we published on the blog the official "Meet the Iconics" for Nakayama Hayato, the iconic samurai from the city of Oda in distant Minkai. The son of the chief falconer and his wife, Hayato—whose name means "falcon"—quickly proved just as proficient with the dangerous birds as his father, emulating their proud and fierce natures. In time, Hayato grew to become a powerful warrior, rising to the position of head samurai of the Nakayama holdings. When his master's son died in a drunken duel at the age of twenty, Lord Nakayama began to look more and more to Hayato as a son, even allowing him to take the family name. Hayato no longer lives in Minkai but now makes his home in the Inner Sea region, upholding the samurai code he has sworn.
In yesterday's blog post we announced that, in partnership with Wayne Reynolds, Paizo would auction the original painting of Hayato, along with staff-signed Special Edition copies of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook and Pathfinder RPG Bestiary. These special edition copies of the rulebooks are limited to fewer than 100 copies each, and available only to Paizo staff members. But now, you can own a copy, too! With gilt pages and gold foil cover lettering, and signed by the entire Paizo staff and cover artist Wayne Reynolds, this collectible first printing merits a special place on your gaming bookshelf. All proceeds from the auctions will be donated to the Red Cross Society, an organization with extraordinary disaster response capabilities. It has mobilized eleven teams to heavily damaged communities in Japan to provide assessments and first aid and to supply emotional support and relief.
"All of us at Paizo have been devastated by the recent events in Japan, and when Wayne Reynolds contacted me with the idea to auction his original Pathfinder art, I knew this was a tangible way Paizo could help those impacted by the destruction," said CEO Lisa Stevens. "We're hoping to harness the power of our fans in an effort of goodwill to help those in need."
Hayato will appear in August 2011's Ultimate Combat, a 256-page hardcover reference that reveals the martial secrets of the Pathfinder RPG rules like never before. Hayato represents the samurai class, a warrior with more honor, dedication, and resolve than any other. Trained from an early age in the art of war and sworn to the service of a lord, the samurai holds a position of power and respect. In him, the common folk see honor and sacrifice. He is an honorable warrior, dedicated to the realm and the leaders that guide it.
Honor is strength. It is a maxim that Nakayama Hayato has known since birth, and one whose barbs he still feels deep in his flesh. Yet Hayato also knows a deeper truth: that just as a sword must bend to avoid breaking, so too must honor. And the more rigid the steel, the easier it shatters.
Illustration by Wayne Reynolds
Hayato was born a retainer on the estate of Lord Nakayama Hitoshi, just a few days' ride from the great city of Oda in Minkai. The son of the chief falconer and his wife, Hayato—whose name means "falcon"—quickly proved just as proficient with the dangerous birds as his father, emulating their proud and fierce natures.
It was while accompanying his father on one of Lord Nakayama's hawking outings that he first came to the lord's attention. At eight years old, Hayato was assigned the honor of being the personal attendant to the lord's son, Masao, assisting the privileged child with his falcon. All went well until the noble son, still new to the sport, mishandled his bird and nearly lost an eye for his trouble. The furious lordling prepared to kill the falcon then and there, but Hayato interceded, explaining the boy's error. Enraged even further, Masao began beating Hayato, drawing the attention of the rest of the hunting party. Though Hayato bowed low and accepted the savage blows of his master, he neither cried out nor begged for mercy. When Masao finally tired, Lord Nakayama himself addressed the bloody servant child, asking him why he had been so bold as to correct his superior. Without faltering, Hayato bowed to the lord and said simply, "Because it was the truth."
From that point on, Lord Nakayama took the young Hayato under his wing, frequently assigning him duties within the manor house, engaging him as a companion for his son, and seeing to his education in matters both martial and intellectual. In time, Hayato grew to become a powerful warrior, rising to the position of head samurai of the Nakayama holdings. When Masao died in a drunken duel at the age of twenty, thus depriving Lord Nakayama of an official heir, the bereaved lord began to look more and more to Hayato as a son, even allowing him to take the family name.
Yet Masao's death was only the beginning of the Nakayama family's misfortune. It was shortly after this episode that the Nakayama estate was visited by Kaneka Yoshiro, a traveling lord and government official with a position high in the Imperial Court. With considerably more prestige and official sway than Nakayama, Kaneka was received with full honors—yet it quickly became apparent that the guest was interested in more than just hospitality. Within a few days, Kaneka's cunning insults, lewd advances toward Nakayama's wife, and barely concealed challenges to Nakayama himself left Hayato's lord with no choice. Honor forbade him from allowing the slights to stand unanswered, yet challenging a governmental superior was as good as a death sentence.
In the end, honor won out, just as Kaneka knew it would. Nakayama challenged Kaneka to a duel, and was quickly slain by the talented swordsman. In recompense for the "insult" Kaneka had suffered, the Imperial Court allotted all the Nakayama holdings to Kaneka. Nakayama's widow, faced with the prospect of a dishonored existence among peasants, had no choice but to accept Kaneka's proposal of marriage if she wanted to retain her position.
Though the Nakayama samurai were bound by direct order of the court to honor their new arrangement—and plied with substantial gifts by their new master—Hayato saw the theft for what it was. Several nights later, having watched Kaneka's celebrating guards drink themselves into unconsciousness, Hayato crept into his former master's bedchamber and confronted the usurper even as he lay sleeping with his new wife. Though Kaneka screamed for his retainers, in the end it became clear that his only option was to fight. Taking up the sword that Hayato tossed onto the bed, Kaneka did everything he could to kill the samurai quickly, yet Hayato would not be denied his revenge. At last, bleeding from several terrible wounds, Hayato succeeded in getting past the noble's guard, ending his short-lived dominion over the Nakayama estate in a fine spray of blood.
As Kaneka fell to the floor, pink froth spilling from his lips, Hayato dropped his sword and knelt beside it. Knowing that to attack any lord in this manner—let alone the man the government considered his rightful master—would bring sure execution, he drew his tanto and prepared to die with his honor intact.
A hand on his shoulder stayed his blade. When Hayato looked up, he beheld Lady Nakayama—now Lady Kaneka—in her dressing gown, its yellow silk stained with the blood of her most recent husband. With tears in her eyes, she thanked Hayato for avenging Lord Nakayama and returning the estate to her control. Yet with her next breath, she condemned him forever. Taking his hand in her own—an undreamed-of show of affection and familiarity—the noblewoman forbade Hayato from taking his own life. Instead, she snuck him out of the manor and into a carriage bound for Oda, with only a string of coins, his armor, and a command to live as best he could. When the morning sun rose, it found Hayato on a caravan traveling north, bound for the icy reaches of the Crown of the World and from there on to the mysterious lands of the Inner Sea.
Now in his mid-thirties, Hayato is a hard man who keeps to himself. Though he has long since learned to speak Taldane, he remains terse by nature, feeling that everyone in his new home speaks too much but says too little. He operates as a fearless and talented mercenary—or ronin, as he terms it—for those whose cause seem righteous, yet refuses to bow to anyone regardless of status, saying only that he has had his fill of masters. Hayato is loyal to those few friends who can get past his stone-faced demeanor, yet remains secretly tortured by his conflicting senses of honor. To continue living as a masterless samurai—let alone one who has committed a great crime—is shameful, yet to deny Lady Nakayama's command would be equally shameful. With no clear answer, Hayato has temporarily shelved the problem. Yet deep in his heart, he harbors a secret hope: that perhaps one day he might raise an army of champions and take it back over the Crown of the World, rooting out the corrupt politicians of his homeland and restoring the honor of himself, his adopted family, and the samurai code he was born to uphold.
James Sutter
Fiction Editor
NOTE: Artist Wayne Reynolds and Paizo Publishing will be auctioning off the original art for Hayato, with all auction proceeds being donated to the Red Cross to help Japan recover from the earthquake and tsunami—check this blog tomorrow for details on how you can help!
Illustration by Dan Scott. Wallpaper design by Crystal Frasier. Widescreen version here.
Bark at the Moon!
Friday, March 4, 2011
Last week we showcased the cover art from Howard Andrew Jones' Pathfinder Tales novel Plague of Shadows. This week we go back to the beginning and give you a wallpaper based on Prince of Wolves by Dave Gross, the novel that launched the entire line. If you haven't read it yet you really should. It's got fighting, murder, mystery, true love, werewolves, ancient magics, curses from beyond the grave, and even dead Pathfinders! Best of all, if you know any Pathfinder Tales subscribers, they may have received a free copy to give away...
And tune into this spot on Monday as Pathfinder Designer Stephen Radney-MacFarland guest-blogs and things get... explosive.
Illustrations by Christophe Swal. Wallpaper design by Crystal Frasier. Widescreen version here.
The Pathfinder Society Needs You!
Friday, February 11, 2011
One of my duties here at Paizo is to oversee the Pathfinder Society, the organized play program for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. In Pathfinder Society Organized Play, your character is a member of the Pathfinder Society, seeking fortune and glory all over the face of Golarion. Pathfinders are a diverse bunch of scoundrels and wanderers. Their loyalties lie on all shores of the Inner Sea, and beyond their adventures as Pathfinders, they often find themselves mixed up in the murky politics of Absalom and the five nations who seek to control the City at the Center of the World from behind the scenes. The campaign centers on the sprawling city of Absalom, where five factions (for now) engage in a shadow war for control of the city's politics and economy.
Pathfinder Society Organized Play is a constantly evolving mega-campaign played by thousands of players and the adventures you experience are shared by players around the world. Play is organized into Seasons, throughout which the actions and achievements of you and your fellow Pathfinders create an ongoing storyline. Each season consists of at least 28 Pathfinder Society scenarios (short, 4-hour adventures) set in a variety of exotic locations across Golarion.
Currently, the Society is waging a secret war against the Shadow Lodge, former Pathfinders working to bring the Society to its knees. This wallpaper, designed by Crystal Frasier with art from Christophe Swal, showcases some of what the Pathfinder Society is all about.
If you want to learn more about the Pathfinder Society, and the entire Pathfinder Society Organized Play program, head on over to the PFS Page to learn more.
One of the hardest things about working at Paizo is not talking about the awesome products that are being worked on but haven't been announced yet. Especially when you're the marketing guy and it's your job to tell people about the awesome products that we're working on. This year's Free RPG Day release, We Be Goblins! is a perfect example of this; it's been in the works for months but I haven't been able to say anything until now.
Cover Illustration by Tyler Walpole
We Be Goblins! is an adventure by Richard Pett for 1st-level characters in which you get to play a horde of malicious and murderous goblins that have stumbled upon one of the greatest treasures in goblindom—fireworks! Unfortunately, the tribe member responsible for the discovery has already been exiled for the abhorrent crime of writing (which every goblin knows steals words from your head). To remedy this situation, His Mighty Girthness Chief Rendwattle Gutwad has declared that the greatest heroes of the tribe must venture forth to retrieve the rest of the fireworks from a derelict ship stranded in the marsh outside Sandpoint in order to prove yourselves as the Licktoads' bravest goblins. And yet even once you've proven your mettle, the adventure is just beginning—for the ship in question is far from uninhabited, and Vorka the cannibal goblin would like nothing better than a few tasty visitors...
We Be Goblins! is a complementary adventure to August's Pathfinder Player Companion: Goblins of Golarion (which I also just announced right there—sneaky, eh?) and an optional prequel to Pathfinder Adventure Path's upcoming Jade Regent Adventure Path. This special 16-page Pathfinder Module will initially be made available as Paizo's contribution to Free RPG Day on Saturday, June 18. Print editions will be available for sale exclusively on paizo.com beginning the following Monday, and a FREE PDF will also be released that day.
Greetings! If you are reading this then by the grace of Cayden Cailean my message has slipped past the wards. [Ha! You only think they have….] I have been interning with Paizo since late October of 2010, so my deepest apologies for the belated introduction. They keep me really, really busy here [Oh yes we do! Get back to work!] I am a Philosophy major with a Law Degree who has (probably due to a geas) decided to make a move and break into the gaming industry. Now you may be thinking, “Lawyer? Asmodeus? Chelish evil empire?” but you have it all wrong. [No, I think we have you pegged just about right…] As a youth I sharpened my teeth on 2nd Edition, and then continued on to 3rd Edition and 3.5. I was introduced to Pathfinder last year and rejoiced that the classic feel of the game was being kept alive. Since starting here my eyes have been opened to many things (some of which I can not speak of) [You better not! You'll miss out on Lilith Ninja Cookies if you do get too chatty.] that I had taken for granted for so long. The biggest thing being the amount of work that goes into every single thing that ends up on a game store shelf. Uh oh, I can hear them coming, drums in the deep; it is time to feed the kobolds. I will endeavor to send more messages when I can, but until that time, may your tankard always be full!
The new year continues to move on and tomorrow we'll be announcing who the Top 32 winners of RPG Superstar 2011 are. Keep an eye on the blog because at 2 p.m. PST we'll have the complete list of winners.
Illustrations by Mauricio Herrera and Peter Lazarski. Widescreen version here.
Long Live The Gorilla King!
Friday, January 14, 2010
It's no secret that I love gorillas, apes, and monkeys. My avatar here at Paizo is a monkey, my personal Facebook icon for a long time was a Bili Ape, and I'm always calling my kids little monkeys. (They are the Savage Horde, after all.) When I asked the art department to create a series of wallpapers, you can only imagine my delight when Crystal showed me the wallpaper below. It's about as perfect a wallpaper as I could ask for: the Gorilla King, swarms of monkeys in the background, and all of the Pathfinder hardback covers. It's been on my computer since Crystal finished it a week ago, and now it can be on yours.
Illustrations by Vincent Dutrait and Kieran Yanner. Widescreen version here.
You Tried to Kill Him, Now Try to Save Him!
Friday, January 7, 2010
A few years ago we released a little family board game of murder in the dark. Kill Doctor Lucky had you racing to see who can kill Doctor Lucky while nobody was looking. It was a great product and has provided hours of fun. A few weeks ago we released the sequel, Save Doctor Lucky. This time you're on a titanic cruise ship sailing across the Atlantic with one very lucky old man and an errant iceberg that's just hit the ship. Doctor Lucky is a charismatic and well-respected philanthropist with a heart of gold. Of course, you secretly hate the old bastard, and you're probably going to try to kill him someday. But killing him aboard a sinking ship would be pointless. So you've decided to save his life instead, and do it while someone else is looking. That way, even if you go down with the ship, you'll at least go down in history. And now you can include this lovely wallpaper on your computer as you float to the bottom of the sea.
It's a brand new year, and if there's anything the turning of a year is good for—other than spending New Year's Eve partying while dressed like post-apocalyptic air pirates and biosculpted mutants, like Editor Judy and I did—it's taking stock of how far we've come, and how we might do better.
While there's always plenty of room for personal improvement (and no, Wes, I don't need any suggestions on that front), here I'm really thinking about Pathfinder Tales. In the last year—heck, in the last six months—we've come a long way, from just a dream of publishing Pathfinder-related novels to having two excellent books on the shelves, a third off at the printer, and a thriving line of free, serialized short stories and novellas available on the website every week. Not too shabby!
Yet we want more. Not just to publish more novels—because we will—or to find and woo more excellent authors to join our camp—because we are—but to assure both that the books continue to get better, and that they manage to make it into people's hands.
Which is where we turn to you. If you're reading this blog, odds are good that you're one of the hardcore Paizonians, the folks who post on the messageboards, play the games, and read the books. And we want to know what you think. Therefore, if you have a free minute—maybe the kids are down for a nap, or your boss just left for lunch—please post in the comments thread and answer a few Pathfinder Tales questions for us:
1) Is there anything you'd like to see more of or less of from the novels or web fiction?
2) What do you think would help new readers unfamiliar with Pathfinder pick up the novels if they ran across them randomly in a bookstore?
3) Which cover art do you like the best? Why?
4) Are there any fantasy-related book blogs or online communities that you think might enjoy Pathfinder Tales, if only we were to advertise/send review copies/etc?
5) Any other ideas for how we can get more books into readers' hands?
Thanks, and we look forward to hearing what you think!
Illustrations by Eric Belisle and Wayne Reynolds. Widescreen version here.
Release the Hordes!
December 31, 2010
It’s the last day of 2010, and once again the Paizo offices are closed, this time in honor of the new year. It’s been an amazing 2010 here at Paizo, and we managed to cap it with a great new hardcover book. Bestiary 2 has begun to arrive in stores and in hands around the world, making it easy to surprise your players with new monsters during your games this weekend. Bestiary 2 is full of some great adversaries for you to defeat, and the poster we recently released will help you keep track of which ones have met their demise at the hands of your players. In honor of both the new year and the release of Bestiary 2, here’s another great wallpaper from our art team!
Illustration by Matt Dixon. Widescreen version here.
Happy Holidays!
December 24, 2010
None of us are in the office today, we're hither and yon, fording rivers and traveling through woods, celebrating the holiday weekend with family and friends. However, we hope you enjoy this week's wallpaper and that you have a wonderful holiday, eat as much great food as you can, and have the chance to decorate your home with the finest crystals available.
From all of us, to all of you, may you have a joyous crystalhue!
A few weeks ago, I got the chance to speak with the folks at Know Direction, a monthly podcast devoted entirely to all things Pathfinder, brought to you by the folks from 3.5 Private Sanctuary and the Tome Show. We talked at great length about Misfit Monsters Redeemed (which I had the privilege of developing), as well as the Pathfinder Chronicler fanfiction contest and Paizo's recent hires from the Pathfinder community. If you're curious about what exactly went into Misfit Monsters, head on over to the episode's webpage to listen. (The interview takes up approximately the last quarter of the show.)
For the record: That high, goofy quality to my voice is just my cell phone. I sound way manlier in person, kind of like a young James Earl Jones. Just ask Wes! (On second thought, don't ask Wes.)
The past year has been a great one for Paizo and Pathfinder and we've been happy to help spread the Pathfinder message far and wide. Last week we had the opportunity to sit down with the fine folks from the Atomic Array podcast. It's their 50th episode and they wanted to make it a Pathfinder show, so we had James Jacobs take the time to talk to them about the upcoming Inner Sea World Guide hardcover (due in February). They also had Greg Vaughan on to talk about his just released module, The Witchwar Legacy. You can listen to the podcast by clicking here.
With the holiday season already here, we couldn't be happier to have been featured on Wired.com's Geek Dad Holiday Buying Guide. Every year the Geek Dad site puts together a list of the coolest products available that year. This year we had 5 products mentioned, a Paizo first!
I've been a gamer for most of my life, starting with 1st Edition when I was a wee lad. A couple of years later I distinctly remember walking into a Save-On (now CVS) Drug to buy the original Red Box edition. After that I gamed throughout junior high and high school, (Go Gondos!), and even when I was in Argentina for a couple of years and didn't have the opportunity to game, I thought about gaming a lot, and when I got back and went to college, the gaming continued. Since then I've continued to game, including after I got married and even after the arrival of the various members of the Savage Horde. (Hi kids!) I'm currently playing in Sean K Reynolds's high-level drow game, playing Daeanu Azrinae, a 15th-level drow noble rogue (swashbuckler) who's working for the Matron in an attempt to keep the other PCs focused on who attacked us; I'm co-GMing Kingmaker with Lisa and her group at Chateau Stevens-Wertz; I'm gearing up to run a Gamma World game during lunch using the new version just released by WotC; I've just made a character for a 4e game being run by some new friends here in Redmond; and I'm in the planning stages for a Pathfinder game tentatively titled The Dregs, where the PCs will be made up of adventuring group outcasts created by rolling 3d6 for stats, straight down the row, old school style. In fact, just about everyone in the office plays in a ton of games somewhere, with Rob McCreary and James Jacobs the current leaders, with somewhere around 20 hours a week each spent gaming.
Why am I telling you all of this? It's because I'm a firm believer in the importance of actually playing games, and I'm hoping to have this The Gorilla King Wants You to Game! blog idea become a semi-regular feature were I talk about the various games going on here at Paizo. After a decade in the industry, it's become clear that too many game designers and industry folks don't play games anymore, of any kind. But that's not how we roll here at Paizo. We're all HUGE gaming geeks and we love all kinds of games, from boardgames to TCGs, to video and standard card games. There's even talk of setting up some Warhammer 40k battles once the craziness of the holiday season settles down. It's refreshing to work for a company where we not only make games, we play them too. (I also think that playing games helps you make awesome games, but that's for a blog on another day.)
So this holiday season try to get some gaming in, of any kind. Don't have a local group? Head down to your local store and play in a Pathfinder Society scenario or two. Don't have a local store nearby? Try Infrno, d20 Pro, Skype, or some other virtual tabletop. Technology today makes it easier than ever to find a way to game. If all else fails, I bet your Aunt Martha knows how to play Monopoly. Although I bet she might like Settlers of Catan better.
And while you think about ways to get your gaming grove on, check out this very cool piece from the upcoming Inner Sea World Guide hardcover, due for release in February.
Last night marked the first night of Hanukkah, and today is the seventh day of the traditional holiday shopping season. Christmas carols have invaded my car radio on the drive to and from work, and the flood of wishlists from friends and family have my inboxes overflowing. But this past weekend, I saw some of the spirit of the season exhibited in our own community and wanted to remind everyone of the tools paizo.com offers to help you show your appreciation for your online friends!
This weekend, one of our generous Pathfinder Society members gave the gift of several scenarios to a fellow board member so that she could review them. Gifting products (either downloads or physical merchandise) was a new feature introduced to paizo.com around this time last year, but anyone can do it! When looking at your shopping cart, before proceeding to checkout, be sure to click the "show gift options during checkout" button to gain the ability to give the contents of the order as a gift to a fellow Paizo customer, either anonymously or with a message.
I know that I, for one, love wishlists, and used to fill my Amazon wishlist up throughout the year to send to family and friends around the holidays and my birthday so they could see alternatives to getting me socks, calling cards, and scratch-off lottery tickets. Paizo offers the same thing, and whether you use one to list products to buy yourself in the future or to list for others, wishlists are a great way to organize your desired products. When someone (either a relative you direct to the site or a random friend from the messageboards) orders something for you from your wishlist, they'll be able to send it directly to the address you specify and it will be removed from the list so you don't get duplicated items. Start your own wishlist by going to the "My Wishlists" tab at the top right of any page on the site. Who knows who out there on the boards wants to share the holiday spirit with you.
Triops stock image by Steve Jurvetson, Wikipedia Commons. Blinky himself not pictured, by virtue of not being found when we checked the bowl for his corpse...
Death of a Three-Eyed Wonder
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Do you have an office pet that you can use to terrorize your coworkers? Is your terrifying office pet a living fossil that evolved just as the first terrestrial creatures set foot on land? Does your terrifying, living fossil office pet bear a striking resemblance to an aboleth? No? Well, then perhaps you should upgrade your office pet. Might I suggest... a triops?
Meet Blinky (so dubbed by Sutter). Blinky was hatched from an innocuous-seeming package of bark and detritus a mere two months ago. Even when he was a little filter-feeding larva, I could see the evil glint in Blinky's three eyes. He was destined for great things. He exercised dutifully, swimming around his bowl. He learned to hunt in that bowl, chasing down and consuming his weaker triops brethren. He had to absorb their power, as he knew he had to be strong. He moved onto the faster crustaceans that had the gall to hatch along with him, punishing them for swimming in his bowl as if they were his equal. He ate his broccoli and avoided his peas (a creature after my own heart).
It was not long before he had grown over an inch long. That's when he knew he was ready. Ready to escape his bowl and cause terror.
Alas, the poor creature has shuffled off this mortal carapace. Was it the new plant I introduced to the bowl just before the long weekend? Was it the cold seeping through the window? Was it the excitement of fulfilling his life-long goal of terrorizing Wes as he sleeps? Or was it Wes himself, intent on a mission of assassination and horror-eradication? I'm betting on Wes.
Don't worry, Wes. The next generation is already gestating. Soon, they will be larval, and before you know it, they will be tiptoeing through the vents, watching you type. Watching you with their three eyes. Waiting for you to sleep. The triops are coming for you, Wes.
We’re all out of the office today being gluttons. All except for Crystal’s baby otyugh, who’s just not old enough for solid food quite yet. Maybe next year little guy. Happy Thanksgiving and see you all Monday!
Coming to work at Paizo is like coming home. When I first started working at Wizards of the Coast I worked with Erik, had regular chats with Jason, and Lisa and Sean were always nearby, stalking the shadows, waiting to strike.
Those were good times and I'm looking forward to revive them in my new digs. I'm excited about doing more work on the Pathfinder RPG. Throughout the development of 4e I watched its rise with keen interest. As a subscriber, I was already a Paizo fanboy. I wanted to see the solutions that Paizo would put forward, because I love RPGs and I know there is never a single solution to a design challenge. I also wanted to see my friends succeed.
Paizo's solutions were stellar and so it was no surprise that the successes have been triumphant.
When I left Wizards and was invited to work on the Pathfinder RPG Advanced Player's Guide as a freelancer, I jumped at the chance. When Paizo invited me to join their staff, I eagerly leaped again. Now amidst many old friends and quite a few new ones, I look forward to making sure that you, the Pathfinder player, get the game you deserve with each and every product: a game that's exciting, evocative, and fun. So my job is to make sure you at least get what you're accustomed to and more. It's going to be a fantastic challenge.
As a miniatures fanatic, I'm always encouraging other people to try painting. Many people complain they don't have enough time, it's hard to paint at home because they have kids or don't have space, and so on. For a time, we had a weekly painting group meeting in the evening after work, but since Gen Con 2009, the move to the then-new building, and due to the frantic pace of publishing increasingly popular books, that fell by the wayside. Recently we started up a lunchtime painting get-together, meeting every Tuesday from noon to 1 in the upstairs conference room. Why Tuesday? Because my high-level drow game is on Tuesday nights, and this gives me an opportunity to get some last-minute painting done for the upcoming game!
Clockwise from the lower left we have Ross (painting some 40K marines), Liz (painting a serpentfolk for the Serpent Skull Adventure Path), Crystal (working on a Privateer gun-toting troll), Sara Marie (painting her PC for Rob's game), Rob (painting his badger mini an appropriate shade of "Rummy Tum Tugger purple"), Andrew (showing his art skills on a Reaper imp), Hyrum's hand (also working on some 40K marines), and the back of my head (applying some metallic base coats to some deep ones).
It's nice to work in a place where painting weird monsters is normal. It's also nice to have a regular schedule to get some painting done, even if it's just a little bit. Even if you don't work for a game company, maybe you can find a time and place to paint. And you might get someone else interested in gaming!
A short while after Gen Con, Jason Bulmahn sat down with the fine folks from the Games With Garfield podcast to talk about Pathfinder, Paizo, gaming, Golarion, and a lot of ideas and theories about game design and development. We even find out that Jason beat Richard Garfield at Magic: The Gathering! You should definitely listen to it here.
The Chronicles: Pathfinder Podcast guys return to the Council of Thieves Adventure Path with an interview with AP author Richard Pett, a new necromancer character-concept build, conversions of all five Abishi to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, and an in-depth review of The Six-Fold Trial. You don't what to miss this one, so check it out here.
If you haven't already heard, it's my happy duty to announce the newest member of the Paizo staff: Liz "Lilith" Courts. And here she is, ladies and gentlemen:
Wes Schneider
Managing Editor
A long time ago, in a galaxy quite near, I was a subscriber to two very special magazines. When I heard that some new company had taken over my beloved magazines, I immediately went to this strange newcomer's website to see what was up. I was delighted and intrigued by what I found—a like-minded community enthused about roleplaying games, and wonder of wonders, so was the staff!
A little over five years later (and a not-insignificant amount of cookies), I have been happy to call many of the people on the Paizo staff friend. Now, though, I get to call them coworker and see the level of dedication they give to the products they put out every month for our gaming pleasure.
While I am a young padawan learning at the foot of masters, my compatriots Cosmo and Sara Marie will be showing me everything that makes Paizo's Customer Service department awesome. After one day looking over their shoulders, I know that I have much to learn—maybe some of their awesomeness will rub off on me.
Time to go feed the cave raptors—I think Crystal knows where they are at, but I don't think they eat cookies... I may need to arm myself, just in case.
This past Monday I spoiled on the Paizo Twitter feed that we're beginning the process of working on a Pathfinder intro set. Jason quickly retweeted it and it spread from there. So, what do we mean exactly when we say an intro set? First off we're not 100% sure of anything yet. What we do know is that it'll be useful for more than a couple of sessions, will be a great PFRPG teaching tool, and will help us get more people playing Pathfinder. It'll probably come in a box, it might have counters and/or tokens, probably a Flip-Mat or two, most likely cover a good range of levels, and have a handful of classes and a good collection of feats. Essentially it'll be everything you need to get people playing, and learning, the game. Because the more people playing, the more opportunity for gaming, and we can all do with more gaming right?
We're at the very beginning of this process and nothing is set in stone though. Getting some feedback would be really helpful, though, so what would you like to see in an introductory Pathfinder product?
Now that Bestiary 2 is wrapping up and Misfit Monsters Redeemed will soon arrive in all its flumph-loving, snail-flailing glory, Wes has asked me to give you all a quick lesson in monster concept design. Although everybody approaches monster design differently, while developing Misfit Monsters, we decided to codify certain key design principles by illustrating them on the Editorial Pit whiteboard. The attached image, sometimes known simply as the Aboleth Flowchart, represents a basic but often overlooked tenet in the creation of new monsters for Golarion. (The diagram for lesson number two, the so-called "Mad Wizard Rule," is somewhat less technical, as it's just the phrase "Did an insane wizard create it?" surrounded by a cloud of a tiny "no"s and a drawing of me stabbing myself in the eye with a highlighter.)
I hope you found this peek inside the design team's methods and philosophies educational! Next time on Inside the Pit: how to make Managing Editor Wes Schneider weep like a frightened child! (Hint: It involves spreadsheets and the 2011 product schedule.)
Way back in August I began to make some cryptic references to moving to the Emerald City of Seattle, leaving the reasons why a mystery. People began to guess, but all was revealed a couple of Tuesdays ago by Paizo as I was driving a rented U-Haul up the 5 from San Diego to Seattle. Turns out I was relocating the Horde from sunny Southern California to the green, and very wet, Pacific Northwest in order to work here at Paizo as the new Marketing Manager.
What does that mean exactly? Well, I'll be working closely with Erik Mona, our fearless publisher, making sure you the fans know what we're producing, when it's coming out, what we're planning, and other cools bits of news. In addition, I'll be working with the rest of the staff in getting them on podcasts, interviewed by blogs and magazines, and out in the wild spreading the glory of Pathfinder and Paizo.
I'll also be working on some new ways of keeping you the fans involved in what we're doing and ways you can help us out. So if you have any specific ideas, please leave them in the comments below.
BTW, have you had a chance to look at our new FAQ system? What we've done is put a link that says "FAQ" on messageboard posts. If you hit this link it will mark the message, letting us know that there's something you think we need to clarify, explain, or outright fix, and then have included in the official FAQ for the product. Every message you flag for us will be brought to the attention of our developers, letting them know someone has a question or needs a ruling. (FYI, those with more "flags" will go to the top of the list.) You can check it out here.
Paizo sure has been hiring quite a few new people of late. I came on board as a Developer at the beginning of the month, and we just announced yesterday that Hyrum Savage will be joining the team as Marketing Manager. The third new hire of the fall is none other than Andrew Vallas, who started after Labor Day. As Graphic Designer he's been a lifesaver, taking some of the workload off Art Director Sarah Robinson as she puts the finishing touches on Save Doctor Lucky. So far, Andrew's time has been taken up with last minute changes to the Bestiary 2 as we approach the finish line for shipping that to the printer, and laying out Pathfinder Player Companion: Inner Sea Primer and Pathfinder Module: The Godsmouth Heresy.
Andrew first found Paizo while using art from Pathfinder as mini-painting inspiration and through the Planet Stories line of fiction. He attended PaizoCon in June, where he not only played his first Pathfinder game after last rolling dice during the days of 2nd Edition, but he attended the art seminars and met with Sarah, and the rest is history.
And since Andrew works so hard in Paizo's Art Department, we thought it fitting to use his introduction as an opportunity to display some of the incredible art coming to your gaming table next month in Pathfinder Adventure Path #39: "City of Seven Spears"!
Good morning, and welcome to S.M. Tours. Today we are offering a "virtual" tour of the elusive Paizo Publishing offices. Here to greet us as we open the front door is the ever-cheerful Customer Service Manager Cosmo! While tempting, we recommend for your safety that you do not stare directly at the moustache, as it has been known to attack on occasion.
On your left are the offices of our technical team. If we could see through the gloom in the first office, we would find the illustrious PostMonster General and his minion Ross. We here at Paizo try to simulate the native environment of these computer folks, as it helps with productivity. Please, no flash photography—it disturbs their delicate sensibilities. Moving forward, we see that our Technical Director Vic is not yet in. Unlike the cave where his team slaves away, Vic's office is usually cheerfully lit by fluorescent lighting.
On your right we have a set of cubicles: one for yours truly, one for the warehouse manager, one for a laser printer, and one for a set of label printers. While quiet now, in a few days those label printers will fire up to continuously spit out subscription labels for hours at a time—truly a sight to behold.
Pressing onward, we have several more administrative offices lying dormant. This is to be expected, as we started our tour fairly early this morning and the residents have not yet arrived. Behind the door on the right is our server closet, where hundreds of little hamsters feverishly run in shifts to keep the servers running and the website on.
And here we have the upstairs breakroom, complete with refrigerator, sink and the all-important coffee maker. Next, past the restrooms, we have probably the most impressive location at the Paizo offices: the combination conference room and library. Here you will find all manner of old, new, rare, and interesting games, books, and magazines.
We are tight on time, folks, so let's keep moving along. Here we have still more offices. You'll notice that the double-doored corner office is the largest of the lot, fittingly occupied by our CEO, Lisa Stevens. The expansive office seems to help with the various and sundry secret meetings which take place there.
If you'll follow me down the stairs, please, past the monsters... here we have the offices belonging to our publisher, managing editor, and creative director. On the left are the set of cubicles referred to (for obvious reasons) as the "Editorial Pit."
And what do we have here...? It would appear that, unlike the other unoccupied offices, this one has its door open. What do you think, folks, should we take a peek inside?
It appears this is the office of lead designer Jason Bulmahn. Jason is on vacation this week and seems to have forgotten to arm his office's defense system. You folks might be getting more of a tour than you bargained for!
Let's just take a quick look at what we have on the desk...
Greetings, fun-sized friend morsels! What's the scoop? Tom Rex here, bringing you the latest that's outrageous, from the present to the Cretaceous! (Tom wrote that himself. Tom took some poetry classes in college.) And today that means another blog picking up the slack from James Jacobs.
According to Boss Sutter, Jacobs was supposed to write a blog post titled "Bestiary Breakdown." Which is accurate because, thanks to the Bestiary 2, James Jacobs is indeed breaking down! Ha! If you don't believe Tom, just observe the attached exclusive photographs. (Tom apologizes for the blurriness. The cameraman was both rude and delicious, and Tom's hands are built for holding massive prey in place while it's thrashing, not operating tiny iPhone camera.)
As you can see, James Jacobs was not having a good day—at least not until he reached the dinosaur section. Then things got better. Tom does what Tom can to keep the little people happy. (Tom has read the philosophy behind Kobe beef.)
Remember that big ol' map that we started working on a while back? We're chugging away at it (with no signs of gibbering yet), and are moving ever closer to the final version!
I have to say, it was painful to fold the working map up, even gently, and not just because it reminded me how short I am! I was irrationally afraid of damaging it, yet that was the only way to wrestle it onto my desk without committing Ultimate Sacrilege—cutting it up.
It's hard to tell at this resolution, but the map is covered in handwritten notes: names of cities, islands, rivers, and ruins; arrows showing where existing labels should be moved to; circles grouping multi-word names; and check marks verifying locations or spellings. There are about a thousand or so notes in all, written in a variety of hands, some of which would make doctors swoon with jealousy. The thought of verifying all of those tags on the final version is a source of both terror and glee. (Tom Rex recommended we write our signoffs in our own blood to increase accountability, but his slavering makes suspect he cares more about softening us up than accuracy.)
There's been some speculation recently on the messageboards about my recent move from New York to Seattle, some even claiming that I'm the newest Paizo employee. Those assumptions are correct.
Frequent blog readers may recall that I worked a week at Paizo HQ back in June. At the end of that week, Erik, James, and Lisa asked if I’d like to come on board to work in-house on setting continuity and Pathfinder Society scenario development. I've fostered quite a reputation as a "canon lawyer" with all my work on the PathfinderWiki and PaizoCon trivia contests, so this was an offer I simply couldn't decline. In fact, working for Paizo is a dream come true that I can't quite wrap my head around yet.
It took me two months to close up the decade-long chapter of my life in New York City and open a new one here on the left coast, but after a 3,000-mile U-Haul drive with my brother, here I am! I’m not quite sure what exactly my job is going to entail, but I imagine my presence on the boards won’t change (though I won't be going by yoda8myhead going forward). Hopefully I'll still have time to work on the wiki.
Now that I have the power, this also means I can put up all the art previews I requested—sometimes demanded—as a fan. I've been waiting a long time to put the following in a blog post:
Today's blog was supposed to be from James Jacobs, something to do with a map for Smuggler's Shiv. Unfortunately, Mr. Jacobs has allowed himself to be trapped in meetings all day, and was unable to get us the required information. Since we all understand that flagrantly placing the good of the company over the needs of the messageboards is flatly unacceptable, Mr. Jacobs has been placed on temporary suspension to think about what he's done. As such, I'd like to introduce his replacement.
I hope you'll all join me in welcoming Tom Rex to the staff. Tom's been angling for Mr. Jacobs' job for years, and though his editing skills are understandably a bit out of date, he's shown a remarkable level of enthusiasm and can-do spirit. A former newspaperman, Tom is already adjusting to his new role, and his trademark catchphrase—"What's the scoop, chief?"—will surely never get old. Welcome, Tom!
If you know anything about me (and I'm not saying you should), you probably know that I'm Paizo's fiction editor as well as one of the developers. What you may not know is that, in addition to working on the campaign setting and making sure authors like Dave Gross are fed and walked regularly, I'm also a musician involved in variousextracurricular bands and projects. Usually that doesn't affect my job at Paizo much, save for that one time when Jacobs and I, in the first and only performance of Operation Banjo Thug, ambushed Wes with some impromptu talkin' blues. (An experience from which he's never entirely recovered and which, without witnesses, he can't verify as having actually happened.)
A while back, however, Jacobs and I were sitting around after work talking about what a Paizo theme song would sound like. We decided that it would really need to have two distinct elements: a big industrial section like Nine Inch Nails' "Just Like You Imagined" (300 had just come out), and a classic, Conan-style orchestral piece. And of course, no soundtrack would be complete without an homage to The Omen's big choral theme, which we in the office will forever refer to as "Sawhorse Middle School," for reasons I won't go into here.
The idea never quite left my head, and a few months ago I sat down on a Saturday and decided to do something about it. The resulting track was received with much hilarity at the office—which was really what I was going for—and people ended up liking it so much that they voted to use it as the theme song for Paizo at the ENnies this year.
While it's hard not to be proud of the awards we won—Best Publisher? Best Game? It literally does not get better than that—in my secret heart, my favorite part of Gen Con this year was hearing the fight song blasted over the PA every time someone from Paizo went up to accept an award.
Now that we're home, it occurs to me: why stop there? Hopefully some of you reading this blog would be equally amused by the track. As such, I give you my attempt at a Paizo fight song, "Pathfinder Est Domine."
We’re back from Gen Con, and in addition to the usual scramble to meet deadlines and recovery from horrifying illnesses contracted by shaking hands with approximately ten bajillion people, that means it’s time for everyone to vote on the contestants in the Third Annual Gen Con Pathfinder Cosplay Contest!
We had an extraordinary number of contestants this year, and all of them did bang-up jobs! Yet only one can be the official winner of the grand prize (both a pile of Paizo store credit and bragging rights), which is where you come in. At the bottom of this blog, you’ll see a link for comments. Sound off and place your vote for the best costume in that thread. You have until the end of the weekend to make your selection. On Monday morning, we’ll tally all the votes, and announce the official winner in a blog post next week.
Ready? Here are this year’s fine contestants, in no particular order:
Lora as Feiya, the iconic witch.
Jason as Damiel, the iconic alchemist.
2009 contest champion Kelly as Harsk, the iconic ranger. (Maybe he’s a little tall for a dwarf, but how can you say no to a hand-made crossbow and his adorable animal companion, Biter?)
Blake as Nethys.
David as a paladin of Iomedae.
Corienne as a Tien monk.
2008 contest champion Tiffany as the Harrower from the campaign setting hardcover. (You can’t see her wayfinder here, but it came with its own ioun stone!)
Noel as Trifaccia from Pathfinder Adventure Path #12. Look out, he's got a whip!
Honorable Mention: Jodi as Amiri, the iconic barbarian, who despite her amazing costume has removed herself from the running, on account of already being Sean Reynolds' girlfriend (and isn't that prize enough?).
Nominations for the 2010 ENnie Awards are live and we couldn't be blown farther away! Paizo products are up for awards in 11 categories, with related Pathfinder projects showing in even more. Unbelievable! A huge thank you from all of us here at Paizo to all of our readers for your endless enthusiasm and help in expanding our rules and worlds, as well as boundless appreciation to everyone at ENWorld for organizing and hosting one of the most highly anticipated event in gaming year after year.
But this year's ENnie Awards are just kicking off. Head on over to ENWorld to check out all the nominees and prepare for this Friday (July 16th) when the voting booths open and you can cast your vote for your favorite RPG rules, accessories, products, and projects.
Thanks again from all of us here at Paizo Publishing and we'll see you at the ENnies!
Pathfinder Society Regional Coordinators—Apply Now!
Pathfinder Society Regional Coordinators—Apply Now!
Friday, July 2, 2010
At long last the time has come to open the doors to the wide world of Pathfinder Society Regional Coordinators. This plan has been a long time coming and thanks to years of player and GM feedback, I think we now have a plan in place to turn over some of the responsibilities for organizing and growing Pathfinder Society to local and regional volunteers, many of whom have already been doing so since the beginning.
A few fine-print notes before we get started:
1. The Pathfinder Society Organized Play Regional Coordinator is a volunteer position. Regional coordinators are not Paizo Publishing employees. They are not official representatives of the company. Applying for the volunteer position of regional coordinator means you acknowledge these restrictions.
2. A Pathfinder Society Organized Play Regional Coordinator must be willing and able to fulfill a list of monthly volunteer duties as noted below.
3. A Pathfinder Society Organized Play Regional Coordinator must always strive to act in a professional, positive, and outgoing manner when functioning in their capacity as volunteers for Paizo Publishing.
4. You must be 18 years of age or older and you must be willing to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) with Paizo Publishing.
Assuming you're still on board, here's the regional coordinator volunteer position in greater detail:
What is a Pathfinder Society Organized Play Regional Coordinator?
A regional coordinator is a local and regional organizer and point of contact for Paizo Publishing's worldwide organized play campaign, Pathfinder Society.
Regional Coordinator Volunteer Duties and Expectations
1. Organize a minimum of two Pathfinder Society Organized Play convention or game store appearances per month in your local or regional area of responsibility.
2. Attend PaizoCon or Gen Con and work for Paizo at one (or both) of those conventions annually. Non-USA regional coordinators will be expected to attend large local conventions to be named later.
3. Maintain and update monthly a full report of local game stores including contact information, manager's name, what Paizo products they carry, and whether or not they're running Pathfinder Society Organized Play events (with or without your assistance).
4. Build a positive rapport with all local game store managers and employees.
5. Provide the campaign coordinator with frequent feedback from game stores, volunteers, and players in your local area or region of responsibility.
6. Be a Paizo Publishing product expert. Familiarize yourself with all of our product lines and be comfortable talking about all of them.
7. Game Master a minimum of one Pathfinder Society Organized Play session per month.
9. Build and maintain monthly an email list of local volunteers.
10. To the best of your ability, ensure that all Pathfinder Society Organized Play sessions run in your local area or region of responsibility are reported and reported accurately.
11. Be the go-to contact for your local area or region of responsibility; assist local game days, game clubs, conventions, or any other such group wanting a Pathfinder Society Organized Play presence at their event.
12. Ensure that all Pathfinder Society Organized Play events in your local area or region of responsibility are entered into the event-finder at paizo.com/pathfindersociety.
Rewards for Pathfinder Society Organized Play Regional Coordinators
1. Free attendance at PaizoCon or Gen Con (or both), including free badges, a portion of a hotel room, booth vouchers, and possible product rewards. In order to receive the free attendance, the regional coordinator must arrange his or her own travel to and from show, must provide for his or her own food, and must volunteer for a minimum of eight slots at Gen Con and a minimum of four slots at PaizoCon.
2. Pathfinder Society Organized Play Regional Coordinator dinner at PaizoCon or Gen Con (or both).
3. Free PDFs of every new PDF product Paizo Publishing releases added to your My Downloads section on paizo.com.
4. Annual exclusive special scenario available to regional coordinators and 5-star GMs only for one year.
5. Messageboard tag in the Pathfinder Society messageboards: Pathfinder Society Regional Coordinator. (Note: this tag will trump all other tags while posting on the Pathfinder Society messageboards.)
6. Special exclusive events at PaizoCon and Gen Con.
Local and Regional Targets
As we begin our regional coordinator program, we are only seeking candidates for the following local and regional areas. If you do not live in one of these areas, please do not apply. As we grow, we plan to expand our regional coordinator program into more locations worldwide—so if you don't see your area on here yet, don't despair! We may be coming soon to a region near you.
USA:
Atlanta, GA
Raleigh, NC
Tampa, FL
New York City, NY
Columbus, OH
Indianapolis, IN
Chicago, IL
Detroit, MI
Milwaukee, WI
Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX
Austin, TX
Houston, TX
Denver, CO
Seattle, WA
San Francisco, CA
Los Angeles, CA
San Diego, CA
Phoenix, AZ
Las Vegas, NV
Cincinnati, OH
Knoxville, TN
Northern Virginia-Greater DC Area
Boston, MA
Minneapolis-St Paul, MN
Europe:
United Kingdom
Ireland
France
Belgium-Netherlands
Germany
Spain
Italy
Asia-Pacific:
Australia
How to Apply
Send an email to pathfindersociety@paizo.com with the subject Pathfinder Society Regional Coordinator. In this email, please attach a copy of your normal employment resume in .doc, .txt, or .rtf format that includes your employment history, job skills, education, and anything else that displays a history of professional employment. Please ensure that your resume includes your physical mailing address, full legal name, phone number, and email address.
Additionally, please include a separate document in .doc, .txt, or .rtf format that contains the following information:
1. Detail your involvement in Pathfinder Society Organized Play over the last two years.
2. Detail conventions, events, game days, clubs, and so on that you have organized and run.
3. Detail your roleplaying game history.
4. List how many stars you currently have on your Pathfinder Society Organized Play GM rating.
5. List your Pathfinder Society ID # and the email address associated with your paizo.com account (if different from your email address in your resume).
6. Detail any conventions, events, game days, clubs and so on that you plan to attend this year.
7. Finally, detail two ideas that you haven't seen Paizo try that, in your opinion, will help grow Pathfinder Society Organized Play in your local area or region.
While you do not have to be a member of Pathfinder Society Organized Play to apply for this volunteer position, preference will be given to those who display a solid history of involvement with the Society. I will update this paizo.com blog post frequently (and the associated discussion thread) as I fill positions.
Please make sure you follow all of the instructions above. I look forward to hearing from you!
When Erik Mona called me during my weekly game of Council of Thieves, I suspected it was for some purpose other than to earn me a free reroll. (Note: Any time a Paizo employee calls you during a Pathfinder game, it is required that your GM allow you one rerolled d20.) Erik’s reason for the call was to ask me to stay in Seattle a week longer than I’d planned after PaizoCon in order to help fill the massive Inner Sea map for the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Poster Map Folio for release later this year.
That I said yes should go without saying.
Working at Paizo, even for a week, is a dream come true. Whether I’m casually catching glimpses of new art for the Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 2 and the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: World Guide—The Inner Sea, playing an oracle of bones using final Advanced Player’s Guide rules in Josh Frost’s office game, or taking part in a super-secret editorial meeting to work out some exciting products on the 2011 calendar, the last five days still seem partially unreal.
But don’t let me discount the huge amount of work that gets done on a daily basis in the Paizo offices, and the vast pile of work yet to do. I have personally gone through every Adventure Path volume through Souls for Smuggler’s Shiv and have mined almost 500 specific, named locations, many of which will appear on the final poster map. Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens has been covering the Pathfinder Modules line and just got through Cheliax in the campaign setting hardcover (the Katharevousa River, which flows by Kintargo, has yet to be tagged on a map, for example). Needless to say, this is a massive project. While there’s still a long way to go, I can already tell that this map will absolutely blow the mind of anyone who’s ever hoarded RPG maps or who (like me) has a penchant for world continuity and canon.
Thanks to the members of the messageboards and PathfinderWiki who helped with suggestions of extremely esoteric and obscure locations from the last 3 years of Pathfinder products. Look for the Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Inner Sea Poster Map Folio in stores and on paizo.com this fall.
Mark Moreland (aka yoda8myhead)
PathfinderWiki Administrator
For one reason or another, occasionally a mistake slips through into one of our printed products. I know that's a shock. I'll give you a moment to recompose yourself.
Fortunately—if you can ever call such things fortunate—they're not always our fault. From the time production files leave our tender care to the moment a fully realized book reaches your door, countless mysterious hands work and tinker in ways neither editor nor reader should dare interfere. Most of the time such mysterious forces rise and pass leaving behind no evidence at all. Sometimes not.
Pathfinder Adventure Path #35 includes one such instance of "not." Although it's too late to correct the thousands of books already sailing their way to our warehouses, we can preempt them.
Here's the deal, and I've probably already overplayed it: there's a map on page 33 of #35 that got "garbled" (you'll see when you get it). It's not unusable, but it's not pretty, and it's one of the most baffling snags we've ever seen, likely having to do with vicious data-gnawing file gremlins or other computer-age equivalents of "acts of God." Regardless: not pretty. So, hidden behind the spoiler below is the map as it should appear. It's of one of the final encounter areas of War of the River Kings, so I'd suggest all GM-fearing Kingmaker players NOT look.
Spoiler:
Cartography by Rob Lazzaretti
The volume is still awesome, with some really nasty new threats and particularly cool new rules for martially minded rulers. But we just wanted to fill everyone in as soon as we found out so there's no surprises and so you have everything you need to run the adventure as easily as possible right out of the book. We're totally sorry for the half-page mystery map you'll be seeing, but hope the version here prevents the snafus from slowing down your game.
Where to begin... I suppose I should begin with, well, an introduction. So hello, my name is Kelley, I'm a new editorial intern here at Paizo. It's pretty exciting. The crowd here seems awesome—my kind of crazy.
I'm a little ashamed to say that I've actually never played the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. I've played D&D once or twice in my not-so-distant-but-still-distant-enough past. Usually I ended up just reading the books and manuals for fun. Mainly I'm a fantasy book buff—can't get enough of them. I love to write—and edit. I think editing is almost as fun as writing, strangely enough. So I'm hoping I can get my feet wet here while I work with the editorial team. I graduated from the UW with an English Creative Writing degree (and I refuse to become a teacher, so don't even ask), so with any kind of luck, I will one day fulfill my ever-optimistic dreams of becoming an editor.
With that said... you'll be seeing a lot more of these posts from me as the weeks go on. Once I start getting my hands dirty, I'll let you all know how much awesome fun I'm having (or beg you to come rescue me... we'll see how it goes.)
The way the story goes, Erik walked into the copy shop with a disc holding the map of the Inner Sea Region and asked the employee there to make the image as big as he could.
"Okay, here we go," the man said, holding up a sheet maybe two feet high.
"I don't think you understand," Erik replied. "I need this big."
Thus it was that last Friday, Erik and Wes came into the office holding a map of the Inner Sea Region that, when unrolled, measured seven feet tall and six feet across. As we all stood around it in shock, looking down on it in mingled wonder and terror, I think the same two thoughts were in everyone's brains. Here was the world we'd created...
...and now we needed to fill it.
For of course that's why we had the map printed. With the forthcoming World Guide: The Inner Sea (a revised and expanded version of the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting hardcover, fully updated to the Pathfinder RPG) and the Inner Sea Poster Map Folio, it's time for us to finally buckle down and crank our own obsessive tendencies to the max as we attempt to place every location that's featured in a Pathfinder game product in its appropriate place. And of course, as if that madness weren't enough, the forthcoming world guide also presents a ton of new adventure locations and notable sites for regions that previously only had a few dots on a map. While there are still countless places left open for GMs to populate and describe as they see fit, this is our attempt to create something truly comprehensive to satisfy even the most detail-oriented GMs.
This, of course, is madness. I'm sure that within a month, we'll all be gibbering on the floor as the ink staining our fingertips reaches toxic levels. But until then, the Map will be on the wall, watching us, daring us to try to fill it in. How much of our hubristic attempt to catch everything makes it into the final map folio is anyone's guess—it may be that printing every tag would result in type too small to see with the naked eye—but you'll know when you see it that the Paizo editorial team gave their all to make it as accurate as they could, boldly chucking interns and coworkers into the line of fire. That's how much we care!
Well, it was a fun adventure, but sadly, my journey as an editorial intern with Paizo must come to an end. The length of my internship seemed only a few weeks at most, though it has indeed been several moons, and other responsibilities vie for my attention.
I’ve gotten a taste of all this industry has to offer while working here, from the exciting realm of creative writing and development, manifesting wondrous creatures as well as legendary characters, to the slightly less glamorous—but nonetheless vital—task of alphabetizing spell lists and creating tables. Oh, I shall never forget the sea of tables I created for Paizo. If one can imagine mountains—nay, alps—of Excel spreadsheets, then one has ideated but a fraction of the truth. I could go on for paragraphs about the plethora of tables, which, if pasted side-by-side on a wall and gazed at from afar, might resemble ancient Osirian hieroglyphics that tell of brave adventurers, or perhaps an epic tale of Thassilonian lore scrawled across countless scrolls, or maybe even the systemized end product of a sleep-deprived college student who happens to write about dragons and stuff.
Poetic reminiscences aside, it’s been a good experience. I’ve still got another year of college left up at Western Washington University, but this internship has helped reinforce my dream of writing material for tabletop games such as Pathfinder, and assured me that I am on the right track. Perhaps you’ll see my name in future products, loyal reader, and you’ll be able to excitedly gather your comrades, your shaky hands barely able to retain their grasp on the Adventure Path or module clenched between your sweaty fingers, and you’ll show all your friends and say, “Look! I commented on that guy’s blog post before he became famous!” And everyone will look at you in awe, and solemnly utter things like, “Dude, are you hyperventilating?” and “Woah, are your palms sweating over this? Do you need a doctor?”
Until that fateful day, readers, I bid you farewell, and thank you for bearing with my garrulous blog posts and lack of proficiency in regards to the realm of corporate salesmanship. (On an unrelated note, buy more Paizo stuff! It’s good! Real good!)
The last five months have been an uphill slog for the entire Paizo team. The goal: produce more than 30 accessories, Adventure Path volumes, modules, maps, novels, and hardcover books, before May 12th—the date by which our August releases need to be to our printer. The task has been daunting, and at several points along the way seemed unlikely, but at 10:30 last night, with the shipping of the Advanced Player's Guide and a scant hour and a half to spare, we slew our literal editorial dragon. Such means not just that (barring calamity) we'll have a big hardcover at this year's Gen Con Indy but that our module and Pathfinder Adventure Path lines are on schedule (even ahead of schedule) for the first time ever! So check out some shots of the hectic last few days around here. As for us, I'd like to say it's time for celebration and long naps, but it seems like that's never the case: we've got far too many cool things in store to rest yet!
The recently slain editorial dragon! (And his fiction-related wyrming!) We've been coloring off sections every time a product ships. And this wasn't even everything!
Erik, Jeff, and Jason in the final moments of the APG. 10:30 p.m. 5/11/10
James, Sarah, and my firmly tied shoes in the final moments of the APG. 10:30 p.m. 5/11/10
James's whiteboard provides much information, most importantly on the status of our senior art directorix.
Jeff, Sarah, and a contemplative James check through the final proofs of the Advanced Player's Guide.
Erik did his invaluable executive proof of more than half the Advanced Player's Guide in two seemingly endless and near sleepless days.
Some editing marks are weird.
A big stack of slain corrections and double checks on the final proofs.
Jason makes his first and Paizo's last marks on the 2010 Editorial Dragon! Erik (playing the theme to Rocky), Crystal, Judy, Patrick, and Sarah look on.
Sutter coup de graces the Fiction Wyrming. James, Rob, and Chris assist.
Working at Paizo is awesome—there can be no question about that. Most days—those days when I'm in my happy-hippie, all-is-right-with-the-world mood—I show up to work and think, "Wow, we're all so lucky to be editing RPGs all day! How did we ever get so lucky?" That's most days.
And some days, we *&#@ing earn it.
Last Saturday was one of those days. Every year around this time, we start to reach the mission critical phase on our Gen Con products, and it's all hands on deck trying to get them out the door in time for the do-or-die ship date which will allow them to be at Gen Con. This year is no exception, and while most of the big products (such as Dave Gross's Prince of Wolves—more on that soon!) have already been put to bed, the Advanced Player's Guide is still in the last, messy phases of its birth. Thus it was that Saturday found me, Rob McCreary, Judy Bauer, Sarah Robinson, Wes Schneider, James Jacobs, and Erik Mona in here for more than 11 hours on Saturday to try and get things handled. (It should be noted that Chris Carey was in his Fortress of Editorial Solitude, having been saddled with the final proofing of Before They Were Giants, and Sean was busy moving. I'm pretty sure Jason was in a coma somewhere.)
Even with most of the Editorial Pit on hand, weekend workdays still feel different than normal ones. Everything's a little looser, and what professionalism we cultivate tends to get abandoned (though I did not, as originally planned, wear my jammie pants).
All of this is necessary to explain the photographs, I promise.
You see, when we moved into our new office last September, it was immediately noted that the otherwise normal-looking office building is bordered on two sides by a big field of brambles (reportedly haunted by vagabonds and feral corgis) and a big grassy ridge. At several points since the move, Wes and I have looked up at the ridge and wondered what mysteries might lie, Narnia-like, just over its crest.
Around 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, having just finished editing chunks of the classes chapter of the APG until my eyes were ready to bleed, I decided I needed something stronger than caffeine to keep me going, and stormed into Wes's office.
"Wes," I said, in my most inspiring voice, "It is time. We're going over the mountain."
Wes looked at me for a moment.
"Yeah, okay," he said.
Thus it was that everyone save Erik and Sarah (who had left for the evening) and Jacobs (who's too old and wise for such things) trooped outside on our Voyage of Discovery. Leaping over the drainage ditch, we scrabbled up the steep, grassy rise and came out into a magical wonderland!
Photography by Rob McCreary
Well, okay, maybe it was a gravel pit. But the point was, we had gone over the mountain! And for what it's worth, the gravel pit was pretty cool. Wes and I spent a few minutes running up the mountain of rubble to get a view of the surrounding countryside, then noticed the idling dump trucks and realized it was an active gravel pit—one which might not appreciate a bunch of trespassing nerds—and beat a hasty retreat to recommence editing.
And there you have it—the wild excitement of a Saturday at the Paizo offices!
(EDITORIAL NOTE: Sutter and Wes would like any authority figures to know that the preceding anecdote is entirely fictional; that they in no way condone trespassing, accidental or otherwise; and that they're both too pretty for jail.)
If you've been listening carefully in these blogs or the Tuesday Paizo chats, you may have heard us refer to "the Board" from time to time. The Board is the giant whiteboard where the entire editorial department records its priorities, status updates, deadlines, etc., and collectively attempts to slay the Gen Con dragon.
This is not that board.
Rest assured, you will see pictures of that board (complete with Wes's fabulous Product Dragon) when it's time, but from now through May that board will likely remain a secret—the place Wes goes when he needs a good cry, or the rest of us go when we decide a few minutes of elevated heart rate and panic-sweating would be good for us. (It's like the gym, but cheaper!)
This, on the other hand, is a picture of the board in the Editorial Cube. While the Editorial Pit often refers to the entire editorial department, the Editorial Cube is where the dedicated editors sit, having forgone walls in our effort to achieve a more perfect editorial hive mind. (Not that the developers don't edit, of course, but if somebody's likely to start a knife fight over semicolon usage, they probably sit in the Cube.) This board represents our recent attempt to increase organization. You can determine for yourself whether or not we've been effective. And of course, you can rest easy knowing that all future subscription products will be Verne Approved™.
I'm playing an alchemist in Josh Frost's Tuesday night game. Though I've played many caster characters in my day, including some with item creation feats, the alchemist class is very reliant on consumable items—the mutagens, bombs, extracts, potions, and alchemical items it creates. Inspired by Crystal Frasier's use of our GameMastery Item Cards for her character's scrolls, I started to assemble a collection of potion and alchemical cards for my character, Maro. However, given the number of formulas he knows, plus three mutagens, bombs, and the many alchemical items already in the game (plus more to come with Adventurer's Armory later this month), I ended up with more than 20 cards, and given that on any round I might be using any of them, sorting through them wasn't as efficient as I'd like. So I built a one-page alchemist tracking sheet.
Using a combination of item card art, public domain art, things I drew myself, and some manipulation with a graphics program, I now have a sheet that shows Maro's three mutagens, his bombs, bottles for his known extracts, and bottles for 12 of the most common alchemical items he may make, buy, or carry. Now when he prepares a Dexterity mutagen (which he calls his "snake potion"), I draw one box by the green mutagen bottle, and mark it off when he drinks it. Each day, I draw a box by his bomb bottle for each of his daily uses and mark them off as he throws them. Boxes go by the alchemical items he has and are likewise marked off. The last section is extracts and potions, which serves a dual purpose as he can create an extract or potion from any formula he knows. If he makes a potion, I draw a box by it and write "P" in it so I remember it's a potion (usable by anyone in the party); if he makes an extract that day, I draw a box with an "E" in it so I know only he can use it.
This tracking sheet also makes it easy if the other PCs need to grab a potion while Maro is unconscious; presumably he's explained which potions are which or labeled them, and any ally trying to find a cure wounds potion on his unconscious body can immediately tell what to look for and if he has any available. It also prevents the ally from trying to drink his extracts (which don't work for anyone but him).
The tracking sheet I use actually has the names of Maro's mutagens ("bear potion," "gorilla potion," and "snake potion") and formulas (cure light wounds, disguise self, enlarge person, expeditious retreat, jump, shield, and true strike) on it. I thought as a generic tool for any alchemist the sheet is more useful without those names so you can customize the list for your alchemist (or potion-brewer) PC, so the version here has blank spaces in those areas. If you want to type your potion names onto the tracking sheet instead of writing them by hand, the font I used is "The Alchemist" by S. John Ross's Cumberland Fontworks (see page 2 of that link). He has some really cool fonts on his site (and some other gaming stuff). The fonts are free for noncommercial use, and he gave permission for Paizo to use the font in this blog post. Thanks, S.J.R.!
I have a confession to make—it's been 7 years since my last convention. But that dark time in the desert will soon come to an end, because in just two months, I'll be going to PaizoCon!
I'm really looking forward to meeting some of the writers and artists whose work I've been breathing in for the last few months, such as Wayne Reynolds (whose owlbear guards the entrance to the editorial pit), Wolfgang Baur, and Greg Vaughan.
I'm also totally excited to meet our fans, the people I ultimately work for—both because gamers are a fun bunch, and also because the better I know how you all think and talk about Pathfinder, the better I'm able to ensure that our content, and particularly its language, will make sense and appeal to you. (Side note: did you know that gamer English has been held up as an example of language evolution? It's true! The phrase "to sleep someone" got a shout-out in Pinker's The Language Instinct.)
I'm determined to get in on at least one or two games, too (remember, there are just two more days to post event submissions!). On that note, I'm off to browse the event listings. I could swear I saw a reference to the Arkham Boy Scouts in there somewhere...
Words aren't supposed to float like this, bobbing in this slow, mildly nauseating way before my watering eyes. This sucks. And if you were at Norwescon this past weekend, I blame you. Con crud: it happens every time we go to a convention—and this time I didn't even go!
My office quarantine makes me but one gross cog in a large, messily predictable, sick-machine. Every 3 minutes Jason, through the wall to my left, coughs twice. Every 1 minute and 20 seconds, to my right, James "Harumpghs"—as Jacobses do. Every 25 seconds I sniff, punctuated by nose blowings after every 15, and with cycle-marking sneezes after every 30 blows. It's not pretty. I especially don't envy Chris, Judy, Rob, and Sutter outside our doors listening to this sickly symphony. Although, if anyone forgot their watches today, they can measure the time by the rising tissue tide.
Now that I've set the gross factor for your week, how does this pity party tie into Pathfinder and RPGs and everything you've come to expect from Paizo? Well, we're foolishly here at work aren't we? And never ones to let little things like our collectively decomposing bodies stop us from bringing new elements to your campaigns, please accept the following gaming grossness, along with an appropriately awesomely awful illustration from Jeff Carlisle (that unfortunately we didn't have room for in the GameMastery Guide, but I'm sure will find a home down the line). Now, back to trying to build a Skinsaw mask out of tissues and mucus...
Creeping Contamination (aka Creeping Crud or Con Crud) Type disease, contact or inhaled; Save Fortitude DC 14 Onset 1d3 days; Frequency 1/day Effect 1d2 Wis damage and target is fatigued. Any creature that comes within 5 feet of one infected with con crud must save or also become infected (whether or not this save is successful, the target is immune to the infected creature's con crud for 24 hours); Cure 2 consecutive saves
So! After taking a week to make the agonizing choice, Rob McCreary has selected the winner of the Rummy-Tug-Tugger illustration contest! The winning illustration was done by Silvia Gonzalez; we’ll be autographing a copy of the NPC Guide and sending it out to Silvia as thanks for the great illustration!
Illustration by Mikael Sebag
Illustration by Duane Lacher
Actually, there were a lot of great illustrations. We took time last week to sit in the editorial pit and look them all over, and Rob had a tough time making the final choice. And so he wanted to show a few honorable mentions as well; one by Mikael Sebag (who sent in a super-rotund and kind of cute version) and another by Duane Lacher (who sent in a much scarier version). Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest; it was great seeing what you all came up with. And that makes me wonder... would folks like to see us do more art contests like this? Let us know in the comments to this post!
This past weekend was Norwescon 33, a fantasy/SF convention near Seattle, Washington. In recent years it's started to pick up some RPG momentum (thanks to the tireless efforts of Tim Nightengale, founder of PaizoCon), and we had several Paizo staffers attend to talk about fiction and gaming (including a most awesome two-hour workshop about learning how to paint miniatures).
In addition to the many people dressed in steampunk, fantasy, BSG, and Star Wars costumes, there were seminars about writing, getting published, game design, world design, and being a better Game Master, plus Josh Frost and a gang of volunteers ran more than a dozen games for Pathfinder Society Organized Play!
Photo #1 is from a panel called "Ask the Gamemasters," featuring Sean K Reynolds (me!), Erik Mona, and Jason Bulmahn. Photo #2 is a pic by Tim of the "Underwater Ninja Tigers! (or A Friendly Discussion on Monster Design)" panel, with James Jacobs, Erik, Wolfgang Baur, and the illustrious panel-crasher Jonathan Tweet! Overall, it was a good show for us and gave us some ideas for neat stuff at PaizoCon this year!
Every other Thursday evening, I run my "Shadow Under Sandpoint" campaign for the editorial folks. I started the game several months ago for three reasons—as a team-building exercise, as a way for we editors to get more familiar with the game we created, and because it sounded fun. Several of the PCs from this campaign appear in the recently released NPC Guide, in fact... but not all of them.
When Rob McCreary joined the Paizo editorial team, I invited him to join the game (which brought our total number of players up to a staggering total of nine!). After a false start with a half-orc (who soon left the party to seek fame and glory as our iconic inquisitor), Rob settled on a gnome summoner inspired by another of our new iconic characters. Yet unlike the iconic summoner, who has some sort of weird chicklizatrice type monster as an eidolon, Rob went for a different critter entirely.
His character is named Balazar, and his eidolon is named Rummy-Tum-Tugger (no relation to a certain similarly named feline superstar). When Rummy-Tum-Tugger first showed up, I asked Rob to describe him, but that didn't really help. It seems that every session, something new comes up and folks have to revise what they think Rummy-Tum-Tugger looks like. "Wait, his teeth shoot ice?" "Huh? He has six limbs?" "He's PURPLE?"
There's only one solution. A contest!
Break out your pencils, pens, paints, and Photoshops, because whoever draws Rob the best and most accurate depiction of Rummy-Tum-Tugger not only gets the satisfaction of helping my poor group of PCs visualize what their newest member actually looks like, but I'll sweeten the deal by sending that person a copy of the NPC Guide, signed by the entire Paizo editorial staff!
To enter, simply email your illustration to me at james.jacobs@paizo.com as a .jpg attachment by the end of the month—keep the file small (600 KB or less). Rob will then pick his favorite picture of them all and that'll be the winner, and we'll show it off in a blog post at the start of April.
And now, the details! Rummy-Tum-Tugger is a Medium-sized eidolon. He's got the quadruped base form, and looks vaguely like a purple badger with six legs, each leg tipped with scary sharp claws. His jaws are filled with BIG sharp teeth that are caked with even sharper razor-sharp ice. Oh, he also has a gore attack. Some sort of horns or spikes or something. Did I mention he's purple? He also wears an amulet of mighty fists. And he can talk. And he likes cheese, but since he's lactose intolerant poor Balazar has to constantly watch Rummy-Tum-Tugger's cheese intake.
Official Call for PaizoCon and Gen Con Volunteers!
Friday, March 19, 2010
Hello!
This is the official call for volunteer GMs and assistants to help Paizo Publishing run events at PaizoCon 2010 and Gen Con 2010. (If you're looking for the Origins Game Fair volunteer thread, click here.)
Paizo Con 2010
For Paizo Con 2010, I need a minimum of 20 volunteer GMs for Pathfinder Society Organized Play and I'll keep taking volunteers until the slots are full! Below you will find the reward structure for volunteering at PaizoCon 2010 as well as the events and slots for which I need volunteer GMs. I also need 2 volunteer assistants for the show—these folks will not GM, but will instead run Pathfinder Society HQ and will be my go-to guys and gals for all things Pathfinder Society. Volunteers must volunteer for a minimum of 2 slots and the volunteer assistants are volunteering to split time at HQ for the entire show. PaizoCon 2010 volunteer GMs and volunteer assistants receive the following:
(Volunteer GMs) A $10 per slot credit voucher for the Paizo sales area
(Volunteer Assistants) A $15 per slot credit voucher for the Paizo sales area
All PaizoCon 2010 volunteers can email me: josh@paizo.com with the subject line PaizoCon Volunteer. I can only take volunteers for Paizo Con who have purchased a badge to the show.
Keep in mind that you're volunteering for a slot, not a specific event. I'll assign people to events inside the slot they've volunteered for and I won't take requests.
For Gen Con 2010, I need a minimum of 50 volunteer GMs and I'll keep taking volunteer GMs until the slots are filled! I also need 3 Volunteer Assistants for the show—these folks will not GM, but will instead run Pathfinder Society HQ and will be my go-to guys and gals for all things Pathfinder Society. This year I'm also seeking 4 "booth volunteers." These folks must be highly knowledgeable about all of Paizo's products lines, must be well kept, clean, and professional, and must be able to stand and move for up to 6 hours at a time. Booth volunteers will work the Paizo booth sales floor, answer questions, and let Paizo employees know when product needs to be restocked. Booth volunteers will not work the register and will not have access to the back area of the booth. Below you will find the reward structure for volunteering at Gen Con 2010 as well as the events and slots for which I need volunteer GMs and booth volunteers.
Keep in mind that you're volunteering for a slot, not a specific event. I'll assign people to events inside the slot they've volunteered for and I won't take requests.
Volunteer Tiers and Rewards
Volunteer Assistant FULL! No more needed.
Booth Volunteers FULL! No more needed.
Tier 1 GM Volunteers
Tier 1 GM volunteers are my workhorse, every day GMs. They are invaluable to making the show a success! Tier 1 GMs must select and volunteer for a MINIMUM of 8 slots. Tier 1 GMs may feel free to volunteer for more than 8 slots if they so desire. I only have room for 24 Tier 1 GM volunteers so don't delay in volunteering for this tier. Volunteers will be chosen on a first-come, first-served basis, though I reserve the right to select volunteers who have previously worked for Paizo over new volunteers. Please do not volunteer for Tier 1 if you have any doubts that you won't be able to attend the show. Tier 1 GMs receive:
A FREE 4-day Gen Con 2010 badge
A FREE 1/4 of a hotel room in the Marriott Downtown Indianapolis
A $10 per slot voucher for the Paizo booth (to be used in the Paizo booth on Sunday only)
A FREE autographed copy of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Advanced Player's Guide hardcover at Gen Con
A FREE limited edition Paizo Publishing Gen Con 2010 T-Shirt
Tier 2 GM Volunteers
While the rewards for volunteering for this tier are smaller, the majority of my volunteers will come from Tier 2. Tier 2 GMs must volunteer for a MINIMUM of 4 slots. Tier 2 GMs receive:
A FREE 4-day Gen Con 2010 badge
A $10 per slot voucher for the Paizo booth
A FREE limited edition Paizo Publishing Gen Con 2010 T-Shirt
Tier 3 GM Volunteers
This is the minimum volunteer level. Tier 3 GMs must volunteer for a MINIMUM of 2 slots. Tier 3 GMs receive:
A $10 per slot voucher for the Paizo booth
A FREE limited edition Paizo Publishing Gen Con 2010 T-Shirt
Volunteering for One Slot
While we will gladly accept anyone who wants to run just one slot during the show, there are no rewards for doing so other than our thanks.
When Volunteering...
Please be specific about what slot you are volunteering for. I will assign folks to scenarios on an as-needed basis, so you really only need to tell me the slot(s) you're volunteering for (since I won't take requests). I will update the needs in the thread below as I receive volunteers, so you may look there to remain up to date on where we still need help. Lastly, you must have a gencon.com account and you must include your gencon.com account # in your email or I won't be able to get you a badge (obviously this is only for volunteers who are volunteering for 4 or more slots).
Who am I kidding, I relish airing our dirty laundry in public, but professionalism and good taste often makes doing so... "inadvisable." But this is a special situation and in this instance it's easy to talk around the specifics so to protect the innoce—well, in this case, to protect the guilty. As we've been trying to show off our editorial processes with this project, even more reason to let you all in on how things sometimes play out around here.
The product in question: From Shore to Sea, our Pathfinder Module partnered with Wolfgang Baur's patron-fueled Open Design venture.
The topic: Sometimes we get screwed.
So, let's backtrack a little bit. Here's something most folks didn't notice—unless you've been getting emails from me or really enjoy reading the credits pages of our projects. Around October of last year my title here at Paizo totally didn't change. What comes after that title did, though. Thus, "Managing Editor of Pathfinder" became "Managing Editor of Paizo Publishing." The distinction: now I'm not just in charge of making sure everything runs smoothly for Pathfinder Adventure Path, but everything else we publish too. And, as a special bonus challenge, that it all happens in a timely manner. That's been the real trick. It's like telling someone to build a number of towers (one for each product line) but, hey, for fun, let's start at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The Grand Canyon, in this case, is our "schedule debt," a sizable hole with depth markers called Dragon and Dungeon magazines, the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, and other beautiful fiascos that have gradually meant nearly everything we publish has fallen off its intended tracks. A real nasty peril when you've got thousands of gamers rightly demanding the products they've subscribed to and expect from month to month. But with my shiny Paizo-brand carrot and Paizo-brand stick, and the incredible efforts of our insanely talented and even more dedicated designers, editors (with a special nod to Judy Bauer, Chris Carey, Rob McCreary, and James Sutter), and folks at all levels of the company who have sacrificed nights, weekends, sleep, and meals to write and edit, those towers have reached up and up toward the light. The first tower to break the surface was the Pathfinder Module line with From to Shore to Sea, scheduled to go to print, on time, March 5th.
Or rather it would have, if the art we ordered actually came in. Oh, I don't just mean came in on time, I mean, was going to come in at all. What we got on the due date instead of a half dozen illustrations was an apology from Joe "You'll-Never-Work-in-this-Town-Again" and a very empty "good luck!" Lame. Now, art directorix Sarah Robinson is a goddess for a variety of reasons, but the power she employed in this particular crisis was to bat her eyelashes via email and coax a whole host of fantastically talented artists to take up the slack, and in record speed. What that did mean, though, is that instead of going out on time, From to Shore to Sea is now going out next week, three weeks behind my precious schedule. Ugh.
Illustration by Dan Scott
Wolf set us up with this great plan, author Brandon Hodge pulled together a fantastic adventure, the Open Design patrons made a host of inspired suggestions, and Rob developed this thing into a fine addition to our Pathfinder Modules line in record time. And Dan Scott, our ever reliably awesome cover artist, did the incredible cover I’ve attached here. (Again, Dan: great and timely work. We love Dan’s stuff.) Yet despite top-notch materials and everyone who touched the adventure doing heroic work, sometimes things still don't work out the way they should. Sometimes it makes things frustrating and stressful, but never, ever boring.
From Shore to Sea will be awesome, there's no doubt about that, and I'm more excited about this one than I am about most. But, sadly, this one has had a bumpy journey, and my first tower breaking the surface will likely have to wait for City of Strangers in the Pathfinder Chronicles line later this month. Missing a deadline sadly isn't something new, so don't go adjusting orders or rechecking release dates; this happens sometimes and no one outside this building ever hears about it. Our website and warehouse teams are also quite adept—to our chagrin—at picking up our slack. And, should all our plans continue to work and there are relatively few additional catastrophes, you shouldn't ever hear me griping about our "editorial debt" again.
So just a heads-up for all the folks who have been invested in and keenly anticipating Open Design's From to Shore to Sea: it's awesome and it's coming, but sometimes the path from author to your hands has some unanticipated adventures. And expect a very boring blog post from me in a few months announcing that all our product lines are, at last, shipping to the printer on time. It might not matter much to folks outside these offices, but here, it's going to be cresting the top of a very tall hill.
Well, Friday was my first day as the new Editorial Intern at Paizo, and I must say I'm not disappointed.
One of the first things I noticed in the office was that everyone spoke like a GM at all times, talking about drawing up maps and discussing the finer points of the gnomes of Golarion. It's awesome. Being the only Pathfinder GM in my group back home, my players often don't understand the work that goes into running a game, which, as I'm sure many GMs can attest to, is a little frustrating at times.
At any rate, it has been a fun transition, going from an environment in which I am the most experienced and rules-learned person at the table to Paizo, where I am practically the polar opposite. It puts GMing into perspective, to be certain; crafting the world of Pathfinder is a bit more daunting a task than designing a two-level dungeon for Saturday night's session. Which makes me all the more excited to work here.
As many of you know, having followed this internship period with great fervor (I have been assaulted by paparazzi no less than seven times), I will soon be vanishing from this land.
There are some benefits to my departure. Once more I will be addressed by other people as "Matt" and not "starving intern," which is less of a title really and more of the beginnings to a declarative statement (read: "Starving interns, bookmark this PDF!").
Some of my best memories were those times when I could ride someone's coattails into the building, having been given no keys of my own. This I savored in lieu of the alternative: braving the main entrance thorough the customer service lair, wherein waits Cosmo, destroyer of worlds. Though I was threatened only once by way of nerf gun, I was also accosted in the name of a ham sandwich, which I have yet to procure. It would be incorrect for me to suggest that I tremble at every sound I hear, but at times I do flinch and shrink away from what I fear may be the inevitability of Cosmo's ham-sandwichless wrath.
I remember relearning a lot of gaming. It's a well-kept secret (among staff here, even) that I landed this internship without much gaming experience at all. So little, in fact, that I had only three d20 Modern sessions under my belt and one 3.5 session. By that token, I'm completely thrilled to have been given this opportunity, as well as to have played in Crystal's campaign (mentioned by Tyler here).
I remember the sparse but consistently entertaining vignettes of the life experiences of Sean K Reynolds. I remember data entry, copy edits, development meetings, manuscript styling, playtests, teaching myself Photoshop on a whim, arranging battles between weresabretooth tigers and the lava dragon on my desk, drinking lots of tea, bookmarking PDFs, and repairing Planet Stories manuscripts. I remember teaching Wes the intern's point of view on free food: "Do not question free food, for it is both free, and food." I remember my first editorial pass on Pathfinder Society Scenario #36: Voice in the Void. I remember how its writer soon came to work for us. I remember the occasional free meal, sometimes paid for by you, the wonderful fans.
In fact, I remember everything fondly with the exception of Highway 520, that notoriously temperamental highway and bridge that separates the Paizo offices from "mainland" Seattle. To the hour of traffic I sat in each night after departing, I bid you adieu.
To all my fellow Pathfinder fans, I'll likely see you on the messageboards, and to the rest of the staff... I'll see you at PaizoCon '10. Wish me luck in my senior year of college, and more than that, luck in finding a job afterwards!
I have a pet pseudodragon! He guards my desk against unwanted intruders, shreds lackluster manuscripts for nesting material, chirps when I forget to go home at night, helps with insomnia, and spell checks documents for me! And if I can brag a bit... he was made by my mom for my birthday a few weeks ago! Apparently, it took her two years on and off to get him just right, with articulated and posable wings and legs, a tail filled with sand from the Point Arena beach (washed and cleaned, of course!), and sparkly hair that doesn’t quite show up as well in the photo as it does in real life. His name is Gwangi. Gaze upon his majesty!
And PS: That’s a map of the entire Stolen Lands just behind Gwangi. Think of it as an "accidental Kingmaker preview," even if you can’t really make out the details.
As we all know, the business environment changed radically when the Internet achieved sentience back in '03. Suddenly, the clean, predictable world of code became a tangled, heaving jungle of logic chains and creeping ads. Companies suddenly found themselves in want of both a competent programmer and an experienced survival expert. Luckily, Paizo has both.
This week I caught up with Ross Byers, Paizo's assistant software developer. Though he rarely disconnects his neural link to the server, he agreed to share what he could about the inner workings of Paizo's cyber-bwanas.
"It's a blast! I love working here." Ross had just finished carving out a virtual farmstead for the PaizoCon '10 protocol, and allowed me to interview him while he relaxed with a few protein pills. Originally hailing from the primordial swamps of central Florida, Ross is no stranger to life-or-death struggles against an oppressive environment. Now instead of wrestling 'gators, he turns his life experience toward Paizo's digital settlement. Like any small settlement in a strange world, the Paizo website and forums can be challenging to oversee, but Ross considers them among the better places to code a family. "Sometimes people get a little crazy, but generally [they] keep it on an even temper. They're nice to one another."
Software development is no easy job: from plague-bearing mosquitoes to deadly jungle predators, Ross risks his health and safety keeping Paizo.com prosperous. Though his duty is life threatening, he still finds time for fun. The smurf filter, beloved by the messageboard regulars, started as an April Fool's Day gag, but is now maintained and lovingly updated by Ross. "I also get to see the blogs 12 hours before they go up."
Ross first approached Paizo during the 2008 RPG Supersar competition, where he landed as one of the top 32 finalists. Having been a regular face in the frontier saloon that is the Unofficial Paizo chat room, Ross and his rugged style impressed the Paizo founders, and he eventually found himself shanghaied to the remote digital outpost he tends today.
Paizo's web presence, even in these turbulent times, is a factor in its success. Or, as Ross phrases it: "We require the [online] store for people to give us money. If we didn't have the store, people couldn't give us money. That's very bad for a commercial enterprise," although even he readily admits that Paizo's success hinges entirely on "high quality products to sell." Still, the Paizo website combines quality products from dozens of companies, including treasures that even the Amazon.com Imperium doesn't stock. With Ross's loving care and everything carefully organized by Jeff Alvarez and Vic Wertz (more on them later), this holdout frontier town has blossomed into a thriving community under some of the worst conditions.
Ross serves as the right hand of the unphotographable Gary Teter.
Hey hey everybody! It's a brand new year and we're already back at it. We're elbows deep in the next volume of Kingmaker, the GameMastery Guide and Advanced Player's Guide are both coming together, the NPC Folio is nearing completion, we got new Pathfinder Society Scenarios up just before the new year, and a ton of other things we're not quite ready to show off yet are simmering away. It's nice to be back in the thick of things.
But more than anything, what's already floored me this year are our fantastic players and readers.
In regards to two bizarre personal items I, for some reason, prove especially particular: key chains and calendars. I suspect it's because these are things I have to look at every day, so I want things I'll more than just like. At the same time they're essentially personal accessories, so they should also reflect their owner's tastes and character. It's this kind of over thinking that typically means I have no keychain and often leads me to go for years without a physical calendar.
Not this year, though! I returned from my vacation to a package containing a flattering letter and a calendar from one of the players in my Bastardhall Playtest from PaizoCon '09. Aside from being a jaw-droppingly, spot-on, I-couldn't-have-done-better-myself calendar (full of awesome black-and-white moody photos of haunted real-world castles and sites), the fact that someone remembered and enjoyed that cobbled together playtest so much was a fantastic compliment. So much so, that it's energized me to set to work outlining Ustalav in much greater depth and prepping a new monthly Pathfinder campaign to carry on where my fantastic playtesters left off.
So thanks to Jason R. for the incredible New Year's gift (it's totally going on my office wall) and to everyone here on the boards who reads our stuff month after month and keeps us going not just with subscription dollars, but with endless support, enthusiasm, shared stories, well-considered feedback, and countless other surprises. Thanks again everybody and I can't wait to see what you all come up with in 2010!
The holidays approach, and the Paizo staff is working overtime to get a few more products out the door before a short holiday break, but sometimes you have to sit down, relax, and enjoy some good food and good company. Last Friday was Paizo's holiday party at JM Cellars winery in Woodinville, with wine tasting, handmade pizza by Veraci Pizza, and a white elephant gift exchange. Here's a small selection of the photos from the event (and apologies in advance for the "mood lighting").
Much has happened here at Paizo since I last wrote. While here, I had the privilege of watching Wayne Reynolds's iconic character sketches come in one by one, and stood in the circle of other staff gaping and gawking. Surprisingly (or not surprisingly?), nobody's favorite is the same. In my unartistic opinion, that is simply a testament to the skill of our Mr. Reynolds (who caught the Firefly pun?), who can capture six new and distinctive characters in a way that appeals differently to everyone—player, GM, intern...
As for what I've been working on, two jobs have demanded the majority of my time here. The first was patchworking the freelance texts that are to be a part of our GameMastery Guide into chapters, and then styling them to match our Paizo house style.
An ongoing task has been the dreaded Rules Database—something Wes has apologized for countless times. When it's finished, it'll be a series of Excel spreadsheets that catalogues each and every monster, magic item, feat, spell, trait, piece of equipment, prestige class, monster template, and trap that has ever appeared in a Paizo RPG product (both in the 3.5 rules set and our shiny new PFRPG rules set). Did I mention the "each and every" part? It's still in the process and nowhere close to being edited—what with all the other craziness people actually pay for taking up nearly every waking hour—but eventually it should be something pretty cool.
I've also done a lot of copyediting, a few development passes of elements for Kingmaker, and am now working on a bit of Planet Stories styling. It's all very exciting!
Until the next time, keep it classy, enjoy the playtests (the last two coming up soon!), pick up the new Powers comic, listen to the Rush discography, and watch Serenity four or five times.
In our never-ending quest for complete fan transparency (or "fansparency"), we here in the Paizo dungeon like to know that our readers understand our diabolical machinations and vile lieutenants so that they may truly tremble in terror before our slavering horde. And while it's easy to quake in terror before those bold names printed on the front of our books, there are just as many wicked creatures slaving away behind the scenes, without whom our ink and pulp empire would come crumbling down.
Enter customer service: the key to Paizo's unstoppable march to the sea. Cosmo and Sara Marie tag-team problems with orders, website issues, and general customer complaints, applying their terrifying cheerfulness and resiliency to wearing down even the most dissatisfied of clientele. Longtime fans will recall that Cosmo first joined Paizo's ranks after claiming the fey crown by slaying Lord Oberon in ritual combat. Sara Marie came to Paizo through PaizoCon '09, where her mastery of the hat entranced our leadership and secured her future position in the company (as you well know, hats have been an important aspect of goblin culture since the Outerwear Wars of 3505).
To gain some insight into their jet-setting lifestyle of glamour and danger, I followed the daring duo for several hours. After they parachuted from an exploding mail plane (saving customer orders from crashing in the Andes), they stopped for a moment to grant some insight into their role in Paizo's success.
"One hundred percent of Paizo's success is all me," says Cosmo (exp 2, rog 4), who has been with the company since its magazine days. "And the secret to my success is emulating Sebastian in every encounter." He refused to expand on the subject of "Sebastian," but went on to confirm that he was, in fact, not an octopus.
"The less people have to deal with us, the better." Sara Marie (ari 4, brd 2) dodged all my octopus-related probing to continue on customer service's role in Paizo's success. "You've never heard of me? That's good! It means you've never needed to contact us." Obviously, customer service, much like assassins and trapdoor spiders, do their best work when no one needs them.
"We are part of the community," Cosmo added while repacking his parachute and radioing for pickup. "We're here to interface with the fans. Customers and customer service are what Paizo is all about." He pointed out that the website, the messageboards, the blogs—all are there to give customers better insight into Paizo, and Paizo better insight into the customers. PFS Open Calls and RPG Superstar were created to help turn the Paizo fanbase into the next generation of Paizo writers, and customer service is there to make sure Paizo customers become the next Paizo fanbase.
"There are constantly new challenges," concludes Cosmo.
"Dealing with Cosmo is a challenge." With Sara Marie's final comment, the interview evolved into more of a blood feud, with each stealing the other's earpiece and hurling literary invectives.
Without the customer service team, Paizo would have little insight into the minds of our victims, nor would we be able to best tailor our psychological assaults where we know it will hurt most. Sans Cosmo and Sara Marie, we would be forced to rely once again on the phone-answering monkey, whose courtesy is notoriously lacking, whose typing speed in unacceptable, and whose coffee is substandard at best. They are the glue that binds Paizo to it's customers and ensures that any dissent is stamped out, lest it foment uprisings and attract adventurers.
So, join me in celebrating Paizo's customer service department! Plant a customer service specialist in your back yard today!
No one here at Paizo really understands the significance of the 8th of November, or how it came to be known as Erik Mona Day—especially not the pseudo holiday's namesake. But sure enough, like the semi-reliable working of a clock with too many numbers, on or about the 312th day of the year strange deliverymen track their way to Paizo's door with flatteringly inscrutable prizes. Typically, it's pizza—glorious free pizza in all the flavors of the Papa John's rainbow. This year, though, on perhaps the first Erik Mona Day with our publisher actually present at the office, it was fruit. Chocolate covered fruit. On pointy sticks. A delicious gift that suggests a world of devious and appropriately adventuresome extracurricular projects.
So thanks all you weirdos who chipped in to make this another awesome Erik Mona Day (observed)! We can't say how much we appreciate it, or how far this goes toward making the long nights and weekend days worthwhile.
But now, back to snacking. We we've got a lot of fruit to go through and that punji pit outside Jason's office isn't going to build itself.
One day, not so long ago, a bright-eyed young expat freelancer was shaken from the idylls of his honeymoon with the news that Paizo Publishing, in the far-off, fey-haunted Evergreen State, had decided to add another lost soul to the depths of its editorial pit.
Knowing that such a summons could not go ignored for long, I immediately made arrangements to return to my homeland, kissed my new wife goodbye, and boarded a roc bound for Seattle. After a trying ordeal of canceled flights and missed connections, a harrowing attack by a crag linnorm, and an unexpected stay in Vancouver, I finally arrived on the cobbled streets of Redmond, ready for my first day in the hallowed halls of Paizo Publishing.
Having previously dealt with the famous Golem of Prague, I easily avoided the guardian golems at the gates, and working my way past booby traps, false doors, and nightingale floors, successfully infiltrated the sanctum sanctorum of editorial privilege. Rather than allow myself to be ignominiously thrown in shackles into the editorial pit, I rappelled down using braided ferret-fur rope (world-renowned for its flexibility and tensile strength) and staked my claim in an unoccupied and strangely cube-like side cavern.
Sadly, all my precautions were in vain, as I soon discovered that most of Paizo’s minions had apparently decided to make “Rob’s First Day on the Job” a workshop holiday. No doubt they’re imposing some sort of quarantine on me to avoid whatever virulent European plagues I brought with me. It’s been pretty quiet so far… maybe too quiet. I can sense the grammar ghouls and style sphinxes lurking in the darkness beyond my cave’s walls, waiting to vex me with riddles of usage and voice when I least expect it.
But as the ghosts of forgotten manuscripts and spectres of excess verbiage slain on the altar of editorial fiat howl about me, I remain firm, resolute, and even optimistic. How many stat blocks might I save from disgrace? How many guarded secrets can I pry from the clutching fingers of jealous writers? How many fabulous treasures might I recover from the depths of development hell?
Stay tuned, loyal readers, and I’ll do my best to bring you all the wonders of Golarion and beyond that Paizo has to offer. And not even the blue pencil-wielding troglodytes of punctuation will stop me!
Between the slurping of soda and gnashing of teeth garbled thanks issued forth to Pathfinder Wiki mastermind Mark Moreland (yoda8myhead on the boards) and all of our other fiscally indulgent readers who sent about a dozen pizzas the way of the beleaguered Paizo staff this morning. Happy to forget ungracious questions like "why," all of us here wanted to extend our full-bellied thanks to our awesome/insane (awesomely insane?) readers for the totally unexpected gift.
Photography by Joshua Frost
Also, just a note so you can prepare your Viking helms, Erik Mona Day, which typically falls on November 8th, will be observed Monday November 9th this year.
Interns! Mash them, smash them, dissolve them in energy drink!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
During my first week, I was surprised to find there is a significant lack of chaotic evil in the office. I was not whipped by a winged baboon-devil while organizing the archive, and I am given free coffee that I did not have to make myself. I was expecting that Matt and I would be told early on to "prove our worth" by enduring psychological torture or some bloody nonsense, but so far I have not had to pull my sawtooth sabre from where it is taped beneath my desk and pounce on him like an unsuspecting puppy with a remote-activated bomb collar. Though we are treated well, our nametags haven't arrived yet, and my Paizo-embroidered handkerchief scratches my nose a bit.
Well, we are on to introductions, children of Zo; I am Editorial Intern Tyler. I dwell in a cubicle with Editorial Intern Matt. He's quite nice, and sometimes I actually believe that we are not plotting each other's deaths via falling gargoyles and sabotaged car engines. Even though we don't actually have a bloody rivalry, I am still generally a happy person. I like half-orcs and barbarians, though I occasionally dabble in sorcery and the bluff skill. There are times I lie awake in bed having elaborate fantasies about being John Connor. I'm friendly to all woodland animals as long as they're cute and more than ten feet away. I don't know much about cars. I eat at Subway too much. I like Lady Gaga because she is a classy lady and could be a villain from Cheliax. In addition, I like to talk about myself (to myself), whine too much to family members, and I'm famous for once telling a story that, in its entirety, lasted 4 hours.
I'm somewhat new to the Paizo family, but so far this internship has been really fun. Hopefully I'll get to know some of you on good terms, and the rest won't hate me enough to complain.
Ecology of the Pathfinder Product, Part 6: Move 6d6 Tons, and what do you get?
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Illustration by Crystal Frasier
Cave raptors are sated; it's time to blog!
So far, we've uncovered the shocking details of raising an innocent idea into a rebellious roleplaying product, but if your beloved book never moves out of the house, then it will never really make anything of itself. Now is the time when a PDF, so self-important, must go out into the world by itself. And sure, it may come back wrinkled or torn, or even upside down, but without that life experience, it will never truly be its own book. It's time to talk about the physical, blue-collar side of game design: printing, warehousing, and distribution.
For all intents and purposes, Dwarves is ready to pack up and head off to college. Out of sight of its overprotective developers and even its best friend, the art director, it will grow into a bearded adult of glossy pages and the comforting scent of ink. Then it comes home, where its loving parents criticize its dress, notices it's gained weight, and implies that it should cut its hair because it looks like a hippy. Then it leaves again.
Printing of RPG products is arranged through horrible, arcane methods, often via deals with unseen and unknowable supernatural powers. Paizo prefers to deal through the fey, who are both adept at weaving physical products from ideas and accept readily available sandwiches as payment (in truth, lead developer Jason Buhlman's most important contribution to the company is his astounding egg salad, which pleases the fey queen Titania and ensures a lasting business relationship and a minimum of ironic curses). Once the electronic layout of a book is finished, it is transferred through a series of tubes to the distant faerie courts. The attending pixies immediately spin it into gold, and then press the gold itself into physical books and arrange for its return. Total elapsed time to print a Paizo product: 14 minutes. Sadly, due to the unstable chronological connection between the First World and our own mortal realm, upwards of two months may pass in our world during that 14 minutes.
Eventually, sprite couriers, glamered as UPS drivers, drop off multiple tons of product at the Paizo warehouse. This fabulous structure, adjacent to the production offices, is the realm of warehouse manager and 10th-level monk Jeff Strand. The warehouse stores not only Paizo's catalog of products, but also much of the stock for the online store, and so organization is vital. Inhuman physical strength is also important, as every pallet of products can weigh up to an Imperial ton (which is to say, it weighs as much as 2,000 pounds worth of emperors). Jeff and his able-bodied assistants work tirelessly to ship orders out as soon new product arrives, focusing first on Paizo's thousands of loyal subscribers. During these rushes, Paizo CEO Lisa Stevens and Vice President Jeff Alvarez can even be found braving the warehouse's icy trenches and lurking glabrezu in order to send books far and wide.
The enormity of Paizo's distribution efforts is staggering, especially to a little goblin. In addition to sending out literally tons of product at a time to subscribers and fans, pallets of each and every product to come through the door immediately goes back out to retail distributors like Alliance and Diamond. Like NBA scouts, these distributors then ship our MVPs all across the U.S. of A. and beyond, across the ocean to Europe and even north into the fabled Canada. And this volume doesn't even include our licensees who translate Paizo products for non-English-speaking fans.
Printing and distribution are vital to the lifecycle of a gaming product. Without that final kick out of the nest, to plummet or soar, pages would be doomed to constant revision. Roleplaying is built on a spine of pulp and glue, and losing the physical quality of the game book means losing an important piece of our heritage. Without that healthy respect for the past, the next generation will grow up cold and mechanical, controlled as they are by the fluoride in their computer screens. By the end, we'll bow before our PDF overlords, and soylent green will be people!
Plus, if you drop your latest Pathfinder in the bathtub, you can fix it with a hairdryer—try doing that with an e-reader!
This wraps up our quick review of the Paizo publishing process; you now understand as much about creating new products as I do. Starting next week, we'll take a look at existing Paizo products with our new feature, Sci-Fried.
Questions are springing to your mind just about now, I suppose. Synapses are firing, tickling with neuron transfers. Questions like "Who is this fellow? What is he doing here? What is his favorite flavor of ice cream?"
These questions are to be answered in due time, of course, and to facilitate these ends, I must insist that you take a seat around the Campfire of Good Times while I spin some lore.
In a dark time not so long ago, there was a young English Major at the University of Washington. His days were filled with classes, homework, and more horribly, lots and lots of retail work. One can only take so much retail work, but this young adventurer had need to pay the bills.
Nevertheless he applied for an unpaid publishing internship and now only works retail on the weekends, which, though undeniably a poor economic decision, is one more spiritually rewarding, as it allows him to do Awesome Stuff and be surrounded by Awesome People.
This includes but is not limited to: seeing products before they make their way to the press, copyediting said documents, and more generally, watching the creative process as it happens.
I can tell already that my time here at Paizo will be uniquely rewarding in these things alone, and it is my pleasure to be among these great people and to serve you great fans. If you want to see the first fruits of my labor, pick up Pathfinder Society Scenario #35: Voice in the Void by Rob McCreary, due out October 28th. And if you find any proofreading errors, uh… blame someone else. What do you expect to come out of a desk like this?
I'm still working on the decorations, but you guys said you wanted pictures of the new place... And for the record, my favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla. Bow to the versatility.
Ecology of the Pathfinder Product, Part 5: Layabout
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Illustration by Crystal Frasier
Cave raptors are sated; it's time to blog!
There comes a time in every game product's life when a developer has to learn to let go; to let his sweet, innocent babe go out, make mistakes, and grow into a book. A game product needs to stay out late, crash the car, and hang out with the wrong crowd. And that wrong crowd is the art director, in Paizo's case the amazing Sarah Robinson and the undefeated James Davis.
Welcome to the jungle we call layout.
When last we saw Dwarves of Golarion's's art director, she was a childhood friend helping to tutor the infant sourcebook in good grooming and healthy posture. But now that editorial puberty has hit, the art director becomes a corruptive influence. She'll introduce the book to page composition, gateway fonts, and the pagan ways of design. While the developer cares about making a good text, the art director (or humble-yet-beautiful production goblin) is only concerned with tarting the book up.
Once development and editing are finished, layout is everything else. It means making an attractive page that doesn't remind the reader of a junior-high science textbook. It means making sure the words, the art, and all the stat blocks don't trip over each other. It also means constantly harassing the developers and editors to cut or add words and send material to work with in a timely fashion. The process is arduous, often checking a work line by line for tight spacing or dangling widows (who hang around poorly laid-out products to get their kicks; during last month's move we uncovered no fewer than thirty-eight widows cleverly concealing themselves in the recycling bin). For any given product, the process may take hours, days, or even weeks, depending on how recently the art director has been fed.
In ye olden times, layout was performed by hand, using glue and a layout churn to mock up a page and send it away to the printer by horseless carriage. These days, much of the hard work of layout is performed by computer, where all the trimming and gluing are handled digitally. The common computer terms "Cut," "Paste," and "Churn" actually hail from these pre-computer layout processes.
This is the basic workspace, with the guides for page and column sizes. Boring enough.
Our text needs to live somewhere fancy, so first we design an attractive page.
We drop in the formatted text from the developer next.
Now we switch everything to a dwarfier font and adjust the text spacing a little.
Add some frames and titles, so we all know what we're looking at.
Now we drop in our artwork, wrap the text around it, and make sure everything fits.
And that's a finished spread!
Like a fancy show octopus with a mastery of sign language, a well laid-out product is a joy to look upon and easy to understand. While the prose might make a book beloved, its layout makes it popular, and often the only difference between a bestseller and a discount special is how well each page presents itself. Without good layout, even well-written books would languish in exile, their hideous countenances creating a wall between themselves and the general populace. Resentment would set in, and as their numbers grew alongside their discontent, murmurs of revolution would spread. Cries of "Viva la Composicion!" would echo through the winding streets, followed by bloody, horrific riots. Heads of editors and writers alike would roll as the dispossessed texts yearned for justice, but settled for vengeance.
To dodge that bloodshed, make sure to follow up your writing and editing with a loving layout. The bourgeoisie will thank you for your effort.
And now our baby manuscript has grown up into a finished book! Or has it? Still nothing more than a digital file and a pile of black-and-white printouts, Dwarves won't be it's own book until it has returned with a diploma from one of several prestigious printers. Next week, we'll examine what goes on once the book is out of Paizo's hands.
Ecology of the Pathfinder Product, Part 4: The Editor's Compositional Fitness Challenge
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Illustration by Crystal Frasier
Cave raptors are sated; it's time to blog!
Yes, editing: the sport of grammatically minded kings. So far we've examined the natural growth of Dwarves of Golarion, as well as its invaluable hours of education, and yet we've ignored physical fitness. Without a steady regimen of editing, our little manuscript could turn into a clumsy butterball, drawing ridicule and cruelty from other game products.
To keep a product trim, healthy, and happy, it's going to need editors to run it through its paces.
According to Paizo's editorial tag-team of Christopher Carey and James Sutter, an editor's job involves neither crushing the dreams of authors nor blindly hacking away at text, but instead is a carefully crafted routine to burn off flabby text and improve narrative posture. Like a cephalopod, any quality Paizo product needs to hit the gym regularly to keep it healthy. Just like any fitness-obsessed octopus will hit both the free-weights and the treadmill, Paizo products will rotate their editing to catch problems with grammar, spelling, word choice, continuity, voice, and even the occasional rewrite to adjust the word count. Even the greatest authors will occasionally dip into the candy-coated bacon of purple prose or forget to tie their punctuation, so a good editor can help make sure every product can fit into its cover before the big class reunion.
The amount of editing any given product needs is easily determined with the formula n+1, where n is the amount of time you actually have to edit the book. Because of this conundrum, it's important for editors to make the most of the time they do have. At Paizo, the ideal grammatical specimen sees four editorial passes: two from each of Paizo's own hard-nosed prose-wranglers. A 'pass' is a single read-through. Obsessive-compulsive as any wild pack rat, these editors greedily gobble up any mistakes they sniff out, trading it for proper spellings or active voice. And because anyone, even editors, can make mistakes, multiple passes and different editors help to ensure that no errors go unexamined.
For Paizo products especially, the editors also serve the dual role of security. They stand constant vigil over continuity of Golarion, ensuring that dead NPCs don't crop back up, that cities don't spontaneously shift location, and that worst of enemies aren't running around as BFF. The editors have the blessing and curse to read every product Paizo releases, from thrilling Planet Stories to mysterious modules, and serve as living repositories of the universe.
And yet they stay so svelte, just like the products they care for.
Editing is necessary for the health and longevity of a product. Without it, mistakes, typos, and plain, old dead wood can slip through into the final product, clogging intakes eventually leading to frustration overheating in readers. The heat released by frustrated readers contributes to the inconvenient truth of global warming, melting the polar ice caps, flooding coastal regions, and causing alligator populations to explode. Ultimately, mankind devolves into primitive tribes of swamp dwellers, hiding in terror from the maurading ultra-gators that have made this marshy, dystopian Earth their own!
So to keep your writing trim and healthy, and to ensure the survival of the human race, edit!
Now that our product is happy, healthy, and knows where its going in life, next week we're ready for that special time in every product's life when it truly becomes a book. Next week, we examine layout!
Ecology of the Pathfinder Product, Part 3: An Outbreak of Art
Tuesday, October 5, 2009
Illustration by Crystal Frasier
Cave raptors are sated; It's time to blog!
As it stands, Dwarves of Golarion is now written and assembled by its loving developer. Though awkward and gangly, we can see what it will finally grow up into. But at this point, this happy child is nothing more than a text document in the daycare that is a documents folder, happy rolling in the mud and receiving bowl cuts from mom. But there's an ugly truth for gaming products that this little production goblin's learned at her junior prom: you can be creative and brilliant, but if you don't look good, nobody'll pick you up.
Enter the art order, the good grooming of game design.
The majestic octopus mates for life, and hopes to find a sensitive and intellectually compatible lover that shares its appreciation of American Gothic poetry, but it will make its initial judgments based on appearance and health. Similarly, good art can make a product seem interesting and romantic before the first words are even read. It can make the difference between a product you don't tell your friends about, and one you take home to mom. But like an attractive octopus, a quality illustration must be carefully cared for if it is to be worthwhile.
The art order begins once the text for a product has begun development. By now, the developer knows how everything will shake down, even if the specifics remain a mystery. The developer will sit down with the decorator crab that is the art director, and with careful attention to the budget, they decide how much art the book can stand and what compelling elements to call out in pictorial form. With that list completed, the task is kicked back to the developer and his editorial cronies, who write up brief descriptions of all the illustrations they'll need to get their product a seat at the popular table during lunch.
By now, the art director is already comfortable in its den, combing through the preferred artists list and thinking about what to assign to whom. Just like writers and tutors, different artists' styles lend themselves better to different moods and fit different products*. A happy, bubbly, or wacky artist would be a terrible fit for Dwarves of Golarion's "quiet and cool" attitude, and would be better suited for its goofy sidekick, Gnomes of Golarion. Once the art orders are written, the art director mails them along to the illustrators of choice, together with the promise of great riches.
The first thing received from the artists are those embarrassing family photos we like to call 'sketches.' These are passed out among the editorial and art staff, who make crippling judgments about cowlicks, large ears, and crooked teeth that will haunt the product well into adulthood. They also make note of any changes the artist needs to make.
Finally, the finished images are received from the artists who, like the octopus, die shortly afterwards. This cruel cycle of nature provides the few glimpse of a grown-up, mature product that needs to be home by ten because tonight is a school night.
Illustrations by Jeremy McHugh
The art order is vital in a product's life cycle because it prevents the normally docile artists from breaking free of their enclosures and wandering the streets, mauling and tagging innocent civilians at random. It also serves as the cranial implant that prevents the art directors from seizing the reigns of power and assuming their rightful places as god-kings, directing the entirety of a company's funding into a single, penultimate illustration that makes children weep and grown men fall to their knees in prayer. Very important if you are a company looking to put out more than one product.
By now in the life cycle, our game product has begun to grow up and go through some awkward changes. Suitors have come calling, and its started wearing makeup. Tune in next week when we'll examine how to cope with your precious first draft's frustrating period of editing!
Crystal Frasier
Production Assistant
*Except for Wayne Reynolds, whose art is universal and can bring peace to warring nations.
Ecology of the Pathfinder Product, Part 2: The Awkward Development Years
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Illustration by Crystal Frasier
Cave Raptors are sated; It's time to blog!
When last we left Dwarves of Golarion, it was a mere egg of an outline, being fussed over by attentive parents and waiting to hatch. But now it is time for that blessed moment when an idea emerges into the world as written words! It is time for… the development phase!
Development is the process of growing a book from an idea and a few rough notes into written text, rearing the infant outline into a rebellious and hateful teenager who will keep you up at nights, drinking your secret stash of scotch and praying to god it turns out alright. Much like the rearing of the noble octopus, a game product requires two separate parties: the designer and the developer. Designers are the writers and artists (more on those wily and attractive artists next week), while the developers are the core who tie everything together. Where developers are comparable to an overprotective parent, designers are more akin to teachers: chosen carefully by the developer to impart information and direction to their snot-nosed offspring.
Of course, this is not an insult. Both octopi and game developers are widely known for their post-nasal drip.
Choosing a writer is a careful task. Like parents, developers want someone who will make their job easier. These choices are made by means of an arcane formula that takes into account past products, punctuality, and relative position of the stars. Managing Editor Wes Schneider admits that Paizo relies on a small, incestuous lot of authors to rear our products. Putting new designers through their paces requires time and branding irons, both of which Paizo has in painfully limited quantities*.
For roleplaying products, the ideal designer can fill three vital roles for the juvenile product: author, game mechanic, and artisan. Telling a good story and having a firm grasp of the mechanics are important, but just as vital and oft overlooked is the role of player-friendly artifacts in a young game's life. Like a sweater vest, legible maps and gripping player handouts are those little touches that decide if a product rides along on the bus or resides at the cool table at lunch.
The developers' job is just as challenging and vital to give their books the best chance at happiness. They need to organize everything those precious bundles have absorbed from their designers and make sure they play nice with the other products. A developer needs to tweak the mechanics to balance with the system at large, rewrite some fluff to keep the narrative canon, and embarrass the product in front of its friends. Even the best writing needs at least a week or two in development, says Schneider, because "folks aren't here every day, and they don't know exactly what we need."
Dwarves of Golarion and similar anthology products are like troubled foster kids: they get bounced between several authors and other corrupting influences. A firm and loving eyeball is needed to guide them through this troubled time. The twitterpated Sean Reynolds, developer in charge of this problem child, has had his hands full. Every line written by its savage gang of authors needs to be reviewed for balance and continuity, and he must occasionally search its room for illicit substances and pop culture references.
Without proper development, a game product suffers. Its already-overworked Paizo parents stretch themselves too thin trying to write thousands of words a day while maintaining their backbreaking day jobs in the grammar mines. Neglected and uneducated, the books would fall back into dull narrative habits and eventually turn to crime to make ends meet. Crime rates skyrocket, property values plummet, and we are all left unprepared for the forthcoming invasion of the reptimen from the Earth's core!
So, for a happy and contributing addition to the RPG landscape, make sure you follow the example of the methodical octopus. Keep a close group of talent to help raise your products, but don't give away your own parental responsibilities!
Tune in next week, when we examine the art of art, and stretch the octopus metaphor to it's breaking point!
Crystal Frasier
Production Assistant
*Wes also mentions that if you're a newcomer who'd like to write for Paizo and has a high pain threshold, you should still write and submit. Both the Pathfinder Society Open Call and RPG Superstar are Paizo's favorite tools for reviewing new blood in an organized setting. Publishing your own material online through a blog or website is a good icebreaker as well (check out Paizo's Community Use Policy for more details). Being on productive and nonviolent terms with other publishers also helps, as the RPG industry is made up of a mere 73 people, all of whom know each other personally and frequently gather for the imbibing of caustic organic solvents.
Ecology of the Pathfinder Product, Part 1: Hatching an Outline
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Illustration by Crystal Frasier
Cave raptors are sated, so now it is time for blogging!
Few things spring into the world fully formed, and game products are no exception. And if you aren't involved in the publishing industry, you might expect the life cycle of a supplement as unknowable as that of an octopus.
And it is.
As a neophyte nanny in the Paizo maternity ward, my elbows-deep, on-the-job training has been a real eye-opener. And if I have to suffer through that experience, then there's no reason not to share the pain. Over the next few weeks, we'll take a look at the stages of development of a young sourcebook, show off embarrassing baby pictures, and generally demystify the miracle of life as we follow Dwarves of Golarion from Outline, to Development, through Art Orders, Editing, Layout, Extra Editing, and finally Printing and Shipping.
The octopus knows it is time to reproduce when the seasons are right. Similarly, Paizo Publisher par excellence, Erik Mona, explains that a product first emerges when the various carriers demand a season's previews for their catalogs. At this point, the development team enters a furious ritual to determine whose memes are passed on to the next generation of Pathfinder canon.
Once the product ideas are agreed upon, each one goes on to outlining.
As a book egg, the outline doesn't tell us much, except that the book is healthy and to start preparing the office for its blessed arrival. We know who the proud papas are, and the outline hints if the book will grow into a fluffy nerd or crunchy jock, but nothing is set in stone just yet. Developers dig out warm nests in a hard drive to house the outline, lining it with file folders and sticky notes until writers can be assigned to help the book hatch and develop. A title (and adorable nickname) is decided upon, the chapters are parsed out, words counts are decided, and a handful of notes give developers and contributors an idea what the baby book will look like all grown up.
Unlike the noble octopus, the developer does not hover over the outline, constantly blowing salt water over it. Sean Reynolds occasionally spills latte on his, but more in a crude ritual to beg the gaming gods for the product's continued health.
Some things are immutable: Companions and Modules are Small sized (32pages), while Chronicles and APs will grow to Medium size (64 and 96 pages). Much like octopi, the largest, healthiest writers get first claim to the larger, healthier books, though until the outline hatches into development, even it's parentage can change.
Dwarves of Golarion Outline
As we can see from these adorable Dwarves of Golarion baby photos, the prenatal book doesn't resemble the adult product except in title. As the final draft of the outline, it's already showing the beginning signs of development: Exact words counts for each chapter have been decided and writers have been assigned to sit on the project until it hatches. We can also see in the bottom, left-hand corner that a goblin has chewed on this outline: an obvious indicator of superior product!
Without the outline, development would grow higgledy-piggledy, with chapters repeating each other, growing like tumors until they stretched the page count to breaking. Writers would run free, uncontrolled and burning things they shouldn't burn. Chaos would spill into the streets, and civilization as we know it would crumble.
So remember kids, be like the mighty octopus: plan your books carefully before getting started and save us all unneeded anarchy.
Greetings Paizonians! Tomorrow is Paizo’s seventh anniversary! In celebration, I thought I would share with you Paizo’s most closely guarded secret: the Golem’s stats! For months I have watched the foolish drunkards Vadid and Nahk as they’ve braved the Paizo vaults, and while they’ve had the guardians distracted with their bumbling antics, I secretly gathered information on their nemesis, the Paizo Golem. Finally, I have assembled enough clues to piece together a complete picture of this mysterious being, and I present them here, compatible with the upcoming Pathfinder RPG!
The Golem
The tall, dusty shelves loom high overhead, reaching ever upward to the high-vaulted ceiling and stretching forever away into dusk and shadow. Before the endless walls of yellowed scrolls, leather-bound tomes, and crystal balls of unknowable secrets stands an immense, silent figure. A single, pale light from behind it frames its hulking silhouette. It stalks forward on thundering limbs and the shadow it wears falls away, revealing a smooth, iron-black body, devoid of any features but the two fiery orbs that regard the intruders with a powerful, burning intellect.
The Golem CR 20
XP 307,200
N Huge construct Init +6; Senses low-light vision, darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +20
DEFENSE AC 36, touch 14, flat-footed 34; (+2 Dex, +4 deflection, +22 natural, –2 Size) hp 370 (20d10+260); fast healing 10 Fort +6, Ref +8, Will +15 Defensive Abilities construct traits; DR 15/adamantine; Immune magic
OFFENSE Spd 40 ft. Melee 2 slams +36 (2d12+18/19-20) Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft. Special Attacks depthless knowledge, shatter the earth, sweeping charge Spell-like Abilities (CL 20th)
At will—arcane lock, arcane sight, comprehend languages, daze (DC 19), detect magic, identify
3/day—alarm, crushing despair (DC 23), dimensional anchor, greater arcane eye, hold person (DC 22), locate object
1/day—bull's strength, crushing hand (DC 28), dimension door, discern location, dominate monster (DC 28), forcecage (DC 26), greater dispel magic, mage's disjunction (DC 28)
STATISTICS Str 46, Dex 14, Con —, Int 20, Wis 29, Cha 28 Base Atk +20; CMB +40; CMD 56 Feats Alertness, Critical Focus (slam), Dodge, Improved Critical (slam), Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Skill Focus (Perception), Staggering Critical, Stunning Critical, Toughness Skills Appraise +11, Bluff +15, Climb +24, Diplomacy +15, Intimidate +15, Knowledge (arcane) +15, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +13, Knowledge (engineering) +13, Knowledge (geography) +15, Knowledge (history) +15, Knowledge (local) +15, Knowledge (nature) +13, Knowledge (nobility) +13, Knowledge (planes) +15, Knowledge (religion) +15, Linguistics +11, Perception +20, Sense Motive +17 Languages any; telepathy 100 ft. SQ sturdy stride Gear The Heart of Lore
ECOLOGY Environment the labyrinthine corridors of Paizo Publishing, realms of knowledge and learning, and anywhere imagination runs free and inspired Organization solitary Treasure immense arcane library worth 500,000 gold pieces
SPECIAL ABILITIES Shatter the Earth (Su) As a standard action, the Golem can slam its fists down onto the ground, directing energy into the surface and causing it to ripple outward in all directions for 15 feet. Any creature standing in the area takes 2d12+18 points of damage and must succeed at a DC 38 Reflex save or be knocked prone. In addition, the ground becomes buckled and smashed and is considered difficult terrain. The save DC is Strength-based. Sturdy Stride (Ex) The Golem completely ignores difficult terrain. Sweeping Charge (Ex) The Golem can charge at a target even through squares occupied by other creatures of Large size or smaller, battering them effortlessly aside. Any creature occupying a square on the path toward the target must make a DC 38 Reflex save or be thrown 1d4x5 feet, suffering 2d8+18 damage and knocked prone. This save DC is Strength-based. Depthless Knowledge (Su) As a full round action, the Golem can capture the knowledge of any creature within 30 feet. When using this ability, the Golem's eyes seem to swell, becoming deep, endless pools. The target must succeed at a DC 29 Will save or become a mindless vegetable for 1d4 rounds, unable to perform any action. During this time, the Golem can use any skill or feat possessed by the victim as if it itself had the skill or feat, adding the victim's skill ranks to its own if it already possesses them. In addition, the victim's BAB, if higher, replaces the Golem's, and the Golem gains all of the victim's spells, able to cast them without their requisite components (if any). Any such spells used by the Golem are considered cast when the victim regains control of his senses. The Golem can only capture the knowledge of one target at a time. Any creature that succeeds at its Will save is immune to this effect for the next 24 hours. This save DC is Charisma-based.
A traveler from beyond the stars, this ageless being came to Earth during a time when vast, steamy jungles and nameless, forgotten terrors crawled across the face of our planet. A caretaker of lore and knowledge of both this world and of others, the Golem has marched across the bones of countless epochs in an endless quest for information, searching always for the unknowable, and questing eternally for the unattainable. His midnight black body appears to be constructed of highly polished iron, though the mysterious black metal is unknown to any Earthbound scientist. Forged by hands long lost to the Universe, the Golem is the last of its kind.
The Golem contains the powerful artifact known as the Heart of Lore, which appears as a radiant ball of pure, crystalline energy that it keeps stored in its broad, powerful chest. This item grants the Golem a +4 deflection bonus to its Armor Class, fast healing 10, and 200 extra hit points.
History
The Golem once slaved for its masters, a long-extinct race of space travelers and explorers who, after eons of existence, catalogued and explored much of our galaxy and even beyond, using a powerful blend of science and magic to reach out to the far corners of existence. To help them acquire and protect all of this collected knowledge, they constructed a potent servitor class, a race of obedient constructs that hungered for knowledge and lore as much as they.
But nothing withstands Time, and eventually the species began to fall into extinction, and their servitors along with them. Until when at last only the Golem remained, the remainder of the species bound their collected knowledge into a powerful artifact—the Heart of Lore—and infused it within the Golem, so that it would be forever the caretaker of their posterity. The Golem then set out into the Universe, exploring countless worlds—Golarion among them—settling for millennia at a time before finally moving on. Earth is but the latest stop on its everlasting voyage.
Habitat & Society
The Golem is driven by an insatiable hunger for knowledge, though it does occasionally stop for prolonged periods, allying itself with scholars and artisans whom it finds worthy, and sharing with them the tales it has accumulated over the course of its incredibly long and storied existence, so that they in turn can share them with others—for it is not only the duty of the Golem to collect knowledge and tales, but to ensure that they are never forgotten. However, the Golem is very particular about with whom it chooses to share its knowledge, and any attempt to acquire its information or possessions without its consent are dealt with most severely.
We've been tweeting! As of yesterday afternoon Paizo has its very own Twitter account. Come join the more than 200 Twitter users already getting nearly 24-hour-a-day updates on all sorts of Pathfinder info, Pathfinder RPG details, and other Paizo ephemera! Follow along on the Paizo Twitter page right here.
There's also a new Twitter page for Planet Stories, where you can get endless updates on all your favorite pulp science fiction and fantasy stories and authors as well as other exciting news on all our upcoming adventures!
The Paizo office isn't just all about the RPGs and trade paperbacks—it's amazing what goes on around here. The other day, I came to work early just to participate in Pierce Watter's weekly taijiquan lesson. It's a great way to start the day; I learned the qigong warm-up exercises, the beginner's pushing hands exercise, and ten ways to kill a man with an eyelash.
Pierce is very knowledgeable about taijiquan (as his 40 years of martial arts training, being the founding editor of Internal Arts magazine, and multiple magazine articles in Kung Fu magazine will attest), and perhaps even more knowledgeable about various Chinese teas. Each day, Pierce prepares a pot of tea, and after the lesson he offered me some of his delicious brew (there's nothing quite like sharing a pot of tea with Pierce Watters while talking to him about Chinese tea culture, taijiquan, or his tenure at TSR).
So, with my day already off to a great start, there was only one way to top it: work on Pathfinder products. I was particularly pleased with this day; David and I completed the first two big projects we were assigned, and we gave an editing pass over a chapter of the upcoming sourcebook Pathfinder Chronicles: The Great Beyond, A Guide to the Multiverse. (This book is going to be great; what we read has David and me very excited to see the rest!)
By six o'clock, I was ready to call the day a success, go home and get some dinner (I had skipped lunch), watch some of The Office, and pass out. Little did I know that there was still more awesome headed my way: Sean K Reynolds approached and invited us to join him in his weekly after-work session of miniature painting! Even though I was starving, I had to check it out. So David and I hopped on over to the meeting room where Sean showed us the ropes of this delicate art while assuring us that the process is actually quite simple.
The really cool part was him unveiling a foam case filled with his as-of-yet unpainted miniatures and allowing us to choose one, saying with a smile, "You paint it, you keep it!" How cool is that?! (Incidentally, I chose what looks like a human female rogue, masked and hooded and wielding a longsword.) I'm really excited about these sessions, even though I still find the task a bit daunting. He says it's easy to learn, but then you look at his, and they're seriously works of art.
But you know what, even if I'm totally horrible (which I'm fairly certain will be the case, since I can't even stay in the lines of a coloring book... that's right, I color), it will still be a lot of fun. Also, Sean has some very entertaining anecdotes of various games he's played in with other famed game designers (which kept me there far longer than my growling stomach would have liked). David and I decided these stories absolutely need to go up as blogs, and we'll also be posting pics of our sloppy attempts at miniature painting once we finish our first ones (well, David's might actually be good).
Anyway, it was a lot of fun, and certainly a great way to bookend what is just another day at the office!
Paizo is a very busy place. For any given month we're publishing six or more books, plus novels, item cards, and maps. I feel like those vaudeville acts where the guy's spinning plates on top of poles, keeping them all balanced.
I love it. I love being busy—I'd rather be busy than bored. Since I started at Paizo in July, I've developed at least 12 different products. And that doesn't count planning for future products (like the Pathfinder RPG) or giving feedback on other peoples' projects. Sure, sometimes we get behind, but I often say, "Nothing makes a person more productive than the last minute," and we buckle down and work that much faster.
This very day I'm helping finish up Osirion, Land of Pharaohs and Pathfinder Chronicles Guide to Absalom, doing back cover copy for an as-yet-unannounced surprise, starting a development pass on Dragons Revisited, doing a quick development pass on Pathfinder Society scenario #7, doing a pagination for Clash of the Kingslayers, writing an art order for Guide to Katapesh, and reviewing sketches for the next item cards set. Phew! It's fast-paced and crazy, but it is very satisfying when the books arrive in the warehouse and I know that our team worked really hard to get them done. And this is a fairly typical day. I checked our schedule page for October and of this month's releases, I developed or helped develop four of them and wrote another. You may think that working for a game company is nothing but sitting around, rolling dice, and eating pizza, but it's actually a lot of intense crunch-time labor.
One of the editors of Dragon back in the '80s or '90s wrote an editorial about the monthly magazine business, and how you're always counting down toward the issue's deadline. The first day of working on a magazine is Deadline Minus 30, the next is Deadline Minus 29, and so on. And the day after you ship the book isn't Deadline Plus One—it's Deadline Minus 30 for the next issue. It never stops! You always have something to work on.
Speaking of which, I have three more things I need to finish before the end of the day. Time for some caffeine fuel! And maybe some delicious pie....
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