Happy Erik Mona Day (Observed)!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

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.

F. Wesley Schneider
Managing Editor

From Prague to Paizo in 31 Days

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

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!

Rob McCreary
Assistant Editor

But Erik Mona Day Isn't for Weeks…

Friday, October 30, 2009

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.

Now back to work! Nom, nom, nom.

F. Wesley Schneider
Managing Editor

Illustration by Tyler Clark

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.

Tyler Clark
Editorial Intern

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.

Crystal Frasier
Production Assistant

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.

Crystal Frasier
Production Assistant

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!

Crystal Frasier
Production Assistant

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.

Crystal Frasier
Production Assistant

Paizo Twitter

Friday, April 24, 2009

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!

F. Wesley Schneider
Managing Editor

A Day at the Office

Thursday, February 12, 2009

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!

Hank Woon
Editorial Intern

It Just Keeps Coming

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

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....

Sean K Reynolds
Developer