Working in the RPG publishing business is a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. It's a joy to get paid to think about things like new oracle class abilities, which products to release in 2012, and what we should have artists like Wayne Reynolds paint for our next hardcover release, but in some ways working in the main office of the sausage factory can take the fun out of things, or at least lessen the surprise.
New products are a great example of this. Back in my fan days, I'd rush to the game store on a near-weekly basis, eagerly scanning the racks for the latest releases from my favorite publishing companies. Now that I effectively run my favorite publishing operation in the business, the frisson of excitement brought by a new product often isn't as strong as it once was.
By the time a "brand new" product hits my desk, for example, my mind is already several months ahead, working feverishly on the products almost on their way to the printer or dreaming up new products that won't be released for more than a year. In some sense, the actual arrival of a new product is the last step in a long process, not the first.
There are, of course, exceptions. Huge, incandescent exceptions that glow with the light of a hundred suns. Yeah, sure, by the time my adventure for Pathfinder #19: "Howl of the Carrion King" came out last spring, my personal connection to the adventure—writing it—was already more than 5 months in the past. I'd already proofed the adventure in galleys, I'd already signed off on the final PDF, I'd already moved on, more or less, to something else. Actually holding the printed product was just a physical expression of the end of a long process, and given mounting pressures related to products that hadn't come out yet, I barely even had time to stop and think about that before moving to the next emergency email or the next staff meeting.
But even if the actual thrill of getting a printed product is diminished, I always marvel when Paizo fans find a way to remind me how awesome this game and hobby really is, even if I've become somewhat jaded in my old age here in the tenth year of my RPG career. This happened recently upon a visit to the Paizo Twitter feed, where I encountered an image that brought the thundering excitement that was "Howl of the Carrion King" crashing back to the forefront. Paizo fan Snaggled posted some images of a 3D model of the Kelmarane Battle Market—the major tactical site of the adventure—created by his GM, Dave Dostaler. My chin has yet to come up from the floor since the moment I saw these images:
Photography by Todd Warnke
WOW! Thanks to Dave Dostaler, photographer Todd Warnke, and all of Dave's players for sharing their "Howl of the Carrion King" experience with me. It's moments like this—seeing what other creative gamers do to make the stuff we create even better—that returns the giddy excitement to those of us on this side of the GM Screen, and speaking as the publisher, I can't thank you guys enough for this type of thing. It really makes all of the hard work worthwhile!
Erik Mona
Publisher
PS: And if you'd like to make your own 3D "Howl of the Carrion King" terrain, don't forget to check out the Ruined Undercrypt of Kelmarane map kit from World Works Games, available right here on paizo.com!
