Erik Mona's page

10 members of the Paizo staff (including me and James!) are off to Portland to see this in T-minus 10 minutes.

Can't wait!

Wait, I think I figured it out. Are you referring to your opinion that cavalier should not be a base class?

At this point, the ship has sailed. We've ordered expensive art, announced the class as part of the book, and spent significant time developing it.

Furthermore, since the beginning of the Open Playtest for the APG, we've continued to get valuable feedback that will help us improve the class.

"I don't think it should be a class," while it is feedback, is not valuable feedback at this time, because the decision to make it a full class was made a long time ago, and it is not going to change. I appreciate your opinion on the matter (though I do not share it), and I'm sure there are other gamers who agree with you. But the die is cast, and having a whole thread about how it shouldn't be a class is not a productive use of the playtest's focus at this point. We're making a cavalier class. If you don't think it should exist as such, I direct you to the five additional new classes in this book, or the 11 in the Core Rulebook.

If you are invited to a test screening of a movie, and the producers ask for your opinion, they want to know what they can do to make their movie more attractive to you as a movie.

Saying something like "I think it should be a painting" isn't tremendously helpful.

I'm confused too. I spent some time looking at the threads you've posted to, and I don't see anyone shutting you down. Specifically, I don't see any Paizo staff members being rude to you. Could you be a little more clear about your specific concern?

Same with the hellcat!

Someone on the Twitter feed suggested I use Tweet Deck. Anyone have any experience with that program?

My concern is that if we feed an RSS of the blog directly to twitter, it will include just the title of the blog and the first few words, which will often sound like nonsense. I suspect that might be even MORE annoying.

Would that be better for you?

The Facebook page is only a day old and we're still trying to familiarize ourselves with the functionality. I'm definitely open to criticisms and comments about how we can improve this stuff.

There are definitely evil characters in the Pathfinder Society.

If you'd prefer to put more action in the "how to join" specifics, I encourage you to do so. I imagine the Society is very open to field-promotions of fitting qualifications, allowing them to completely skip the boring floor-washing bits.

Because all of the other sizes are sold out and we haven't made a new shirt yet. :)

Bummer. He seemed like a cool guy, and I enjoyed the hell out of his show when it aired.

So it goes.

The actual, for real London. In the United Kingdom.

I'll be a special guest at Dragonmeet in London on November 28th of this year. I'd like to have some "walking around" money on the trip, so I've decided to put some of my extra RPG and D&D collectibles on a "London Fund" eBay auction/fundraiser.

Please take a minute to check out my auction. There's a lot of really rare stuff there, including some GREYHAWK oddities, the ultra-rare DUNE: CHRONICLES OF THE IMPERIUM RPG, and other really fun stuff.

I also tried to include some fun anecdotes in the product descriptions, to make reading them worth your while.

Check out the London Fund auction today!

(Please note that this auction is not in any way affiliated with Paizo, which is why I'm posting here in the off-topic area.)

First of all... *GREAT* illustrations -- I think Wayne has "nailed" it once again! For some reason he seems to do his best pieces for Paizo... :)

Focus, not loving that the word is already one that has a definition in the game. I think I'd prefer something like Cynosure or Discipline (or something wordier, like Disciplines of Faith), that doesn't have a meaning already.

--Erik

Paizo will be attending in force on the 21st. I can't wait! The set and costumes are amazing!

This looks so, so awesome.

The Paizo Ship of State turns slowly, but we are planning to head down to Portland on the 21st to see this, assuming there are still tickets available.

We'll drop you a line tomorrow with the final count.

This looks amazing!

BTW, on my way out of work today I swung back through the upstairs kitchen where I left the beautiful "edible bouquet" of fruit and chocolate-covered fruit about 15 minutes after it arrived this afternoon.

I wanted to see if there was any chocolate-covered fruit left, because I thought my girlfriend might enjoy a piece (it was really good!) and I wanted to grab an extra one for myself to enjoy with her.

Of course, the thing was utterly picked clean. There was plenty of fruit left in the array, but every scrap of chocolate had been gone for hours.

Friggin' gamers. ;)

Bless you all for another successful celebration of ERIK MONA DAY! This annual event continues to be the most surreal experience of my professional life, and everyone really appreciated the excellent and delicious chocolate-covered fruit that some blessed Paizonians had sent to our office this afternoon.

It was absolutely delicious, and I hope there is some extra left over to bring home tonight.

Thanks again for making this Erik Mona day the best Erik Mona day! :)

See you next year!

I think the word "greats" could definitely be argued against here.

Thanks for offering your suggestions. I really appreciate them.

You are always welcome here.

Yes, yes, yes!

This cover says "Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting" as much as any in our line to date. There's so much there that is uniquely "Pathfinder": the colonial style of Andoran, the diabolical Chelaxian slaver on the high seas, and best of all: HALFLING SLAVES.

Pitch perfect!

Wow.

I can feel the love.

I'm three chapters from the end of Matthew Hughes's book Majestrum, which is all kinds of excellent.

My modern "dream team" looks a lot like the ones posted above. Oh, hell, here it is:

James Jacobs
Jason Bulmahn
Richard Pett
Nick Logue
Greg A. Vaughan
Me (because I can't let these guys have all the fun)

If I'm not allowed, swap me out for Monte Cook.

As for a classic 1e Adventure Path, I'd say (in order of preference):

Robert J. Kuntz
Gary Gygax
Tracy Hickman
Paul Jaquays
David "Zeb" Cook
Harold Johnson

As long as James Jacobs or I get to do the editing.

And I'm not 100% sure on Harold Johnson, but he did some of the Slavers stuff and Tamoachan, both of which are excellent. I could be convinced to swap him out for Tom Moldvay.

It's a wonderful book, no question about it.

I also enjoyed The Fairy Chessmen, which was another collaboration of theirs.

The Dark World is still my favorite Kuttner book.

They may also be testing different price points to see how the audience reacts and how the price affects sales. They've been out of this game for a while, now.

EDIT: Perhaps with the 32-page paperbacks, they are testing the waters of cheap RPG products, almost like mass market paperbacks. Do they make more money by selling a lot of the cheap items, or a few of the expensive items?

The fact that the material will supplement DDI may offset the fact that chain bookstores are not going to order very deep on a product that does not have a spine.

If they can find a way to sell these effectively, there's money to be made. If not, they won't be doing them for long.

Man any AP needs to have James Jacobs leading off. Take ANY adventure path, narrow it down to which are the best introductory adventures,and you'll find that JJ has authored almost all of them.

Thanks for the links, but when I said "prominent" I meant PROMINENT. :)

The 32-pagers are a surprise. WotC abandoned that format almost a decade ago, so dipping back into suggests something. Not sure what yet.

Thanks for the Bulmer tips. I have a few of his books as random Ace Doubles and a few singletons with neat covers, but I haven't read any of them yet. Your list will be most helpful.

As for new books, I agree that it is appropriate to occasionally publish new material. In fact, we've just announced a new science fiction novel from the excellent modern author Matthew Hughes, who writes in the tradition of Jack Vance's Gaen Reach and Dying Earth stories. The book is called TEMPLATE, and has previously been available exclusively as a high-priced limited edition hardcover.

We also will announce an AMAZING new project with two new sword and planet novels from two VERY prominent modern authors, and have two additional similar projects currently in development.

None of these things are exactly what you're asking for, which involves opening up submissions for new novels from less established authors, but I hope you feel it is a step in the right direction.

Thanks for the feedback!

Actually, I thought Earth's Last Citadel showed more variance in style between chapters than most of the Moore/Kuttner stuff I've read. I think they each took on whole chapters at a time. A few chapters are obviously written by Moore (the lush descriptions are a dead giveaway), but there's a minor character whose hacky Scottish accent is everpresent in some chapters and totally absent in others. I think one author used the cheesy patois and the other didn't think to.

It's not like many of their stories had more than one draft.

Guess what? Not the real cover. :)

I got a strong "They Live" vibe, too.

It was ok. Good enough, or perhaps a bit better. I was very lukewarm (but patient) with it, but I think it took a slight turn for the better with the big fight scene and the, um, betrayal at the end. I also liked the juxtaposition of some of the scenes.

Sometimes I felt like the words the script put into the mouths of the characters were not all that well chosen, but the structure of the script was relatively tight.

Lastly, I felt the whole thing didn't have anywhere near as "heavy" a feel as the original mini-series. Part of that was because the original V (though cheezy by today's metrics) was groundbreaking. By comparison, this seemed "light".

I think it's the difference between an hour-long show and an 80s miniseries. I remember feeling some of the same things when I watched the first new season of Doctor Who, but I felt that new series grew into the format with just a few episodes. Or rather, it took me a few episodes to acclimate to the shorter, more rapidly paced format. I suspect this show will be the same.

I haven't added it as a season pass yet, but I plan to watch the next few episodes.

No.

We will do this eventually, but we still have a decent stock of both books, and we'll wait until they have sold through before we replace them.

It'll be at least a year, probably more like two at the earliest.

I should point out that we added Waterfront Tavern to the schedule once we realized the first tavern supplies were growing thin.

I would like to reprint it some day.

Flip-Mat: Tavern sold out really fast, but doing a reprint means not doing a new one, and a reprint is likely to get fewer orders than a new one.

We'd like to do it and it would make some amount of sense (I mean, it's a tavern), but we just don't have that money sitting around for "extra" products.

At least not until you guys buy more of the maps mentioned in this thread. :)

Seriously, the best bet is to try to get these things before we sell out.

Monte has a whole riff on Gygax vs. Mentzer dungeon design. I wish I had it on tape.

Absolutely!

Look, here is the thing: For me personally, my own fluff is better than Paizo's. Not more professional, not more polished, not of greater quality, but simply better for me and my gaming group. Paizo can't personalize a story for my group, nor can I become as invested in running a story I did not write. That isn't a mark against Paizo or a boast about my own skill, it is simply part of my nature and the nature of the product.

Not only do I feel that Paizo _does_ do exceptionally well in this department, I agree that many GMs do just great on their own.

I believe Scott's statement was "anyone can do fluff."

This simply is not the case.

I should clarify that I actually agree with pretty much everything else Scott was posting about regarding balanced rules being a requirement of good RPG products and a huge boon to gamers.

But still, the "anyone can do fluff" thing?

Ha!

The Editor-in-Chief not being a fan of them, and all... :-P

Good thing the publisher totally agrees!

Anyone can do fluff.

Don't quote me on this, but I believe the books in the series stand alone, which should make reading part 4 first not much of a problem.

I have that one, but have not read it yet. Please report back with your thoughts!

I have gotten a lot of use out of City Market, both Taverns, and the Woodlands Flip-Mats.

I also tend to use Map Pack: Caravan a lot, because the different wagons are essentially modular and work in a number of different arrangements.

That's an interesting idea.

Okay I am going to be honest I really don't see the point in this. I mean I have always felt writing should come naturally and because you want to tell a story Not because someone tells you to do it some random month.

Which sometimes takes a clever gimmick.

Doesn't Paizo own the art? (Talking post-magazines here.)

We're not in Bellevue anymore. We moved to Redmond about a month ago.

It's still no Prague, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

And hopefully British distributors will order more than a few hundred copies this time....