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Okay! There's a ton of great questions here. Lets take all this on point by point.
Everything you mentioned is true, plus a lot more we'll be revealing in the next few days. I promise you that we've only shown you all the tip of the iceberg and, in the coming hours, days, and weeks, we'll have a ton more for you to see. What I'm saying is that if you're on the fence already, you ain't seen nothing yet. As for your concerns...
Pathfinder will without a doubt have room for new authors to contribute. We don't have contributor guidelines up yet, as for months we've had to work on this out of the public eye, but expect those as we get closer to the first volume's release. One of the keystones of both Dragon and Dungeon, and what made both of those magazines so exciting, was knowing that your name had a chance to appear on the cover. We want people to feel the same way about Pathfinder and give our readers all the opportunities we can to play in our world.
This all depends on your definition of "canon." If your idea of canon means using rules that come from just publisher X, and we're not publisher X, then no, we're not canon. Rather, we'll be creating our own canon, specifically developed with a campaign and world in mind, while being portable to any other game of your choosing. That’s one of the great things about D&D and the OGL, you get to decide what's canon for your game, no matter if its from publisher X, Y, or Z.
Something that you're going to start seeing here as we show off more of Pathfinder is what a massive undertaking this is. Pathfinder is meant to give you everything you need to run an entire campaign. Take a moment and think about that. Everything. All the rules, all the plots, all the characters, handouts, art, background, details, handouts, supplemental quests, side plots, new monsters, character options and tools, and an Entire World. All this, in two formats, print and PDF, allowing you to customize and cherry pick as you like as no other product I know of has ever allowed. Pathfinder is also meant to last. We know many roleplayers are both collectors and bibliophiles, so each volume is built to not only look amazing, but to keep looking amazing the fifth time you've run the adventure 10 years from now. Things like paper and cover quality aside, at 96 pages, full color, with writing and art by the best in gaming, and with a free PDF, potentially delivered to your door, and for all less than $20 bucks (much less if you transition your Dragon and Dungeon subscription), it starts sounding pretty fair. Keep in mind, Pathfinder is not a magazine. This isn't just some PR or branding screed we're trying to feed you, it's true. It won't look like a magazine and it won't feel like one. It's going to feel like a substantial medical journal or the larger soft-cover products put out by other gaming companies, which usually retail around $25 bucks (and don't come with PDFs or show up at your house). The only thing that makes it like a periodical at all is that we're masochists and we're going to be doing one of these every bloody month. Don't worry, though, we'll be sure to keep our blood, sweat, and tears off your shiny new book. ^_~
Yeah, do an Adventure Path like Savage Tide, which is largely involved with demons and the like and turns out you get some of that. I know its shown up in other adventures, but even in Dungeon that sort of material is the exception, not the norm. Pathfinder makes a decisive effort to get to the heart of what fantasy roleplaying is, with heroes and villains, dragons and dungeons. This isn't saying that the adventures won't be as nuanced as you've come to expect and love from Dungeon, but our thinking is that dungeons should involve more kobolds and traps and fewer whips and harnesses. That being said, our adventures are not always going to be rated G. There's a dark side to fantasy and there are very real evils that need thwarting. Sometimes it’s getting a taste of this depravity that makes the need to conquer it all the more urgent. There's a big difference between ending the villainous careers of "Malacar: The Black Scourge, Genocidist of the Shining Lands, and Father of Fiends" and Mr. Jones from down the street who throws shoes at cats. The hard part is that we give you the villains and the plots, and thus tend to focus on the dark side of the adventures, since its up to individual PCs and GMs to really let their heroes shine. Overall, expect a pretty baseline PG-13 rating, but know that for all the dark that might be in our world, there's at least an equal share of light, and even more once your PCs head into the fray.
As we're creating a new world we need deities for its people to worship, hence the new pantheon. In many ways, our gods will be like those in the core pantheon—a group of good and evil deities that a variety of characters can use and that allow you to customize your pious PC as you like. We're not doing anything weird, like making our world monotheistic or animistic or saying that everyone gets spells merely by thinking happy thoughts. As such, if you've got your own gods you want to use instead, go for it and have fun! On the other side of the coin, though, we've already put a lot of work into our pantheon and what we've got—and will be showing off in the next few months—is pretty impressive. Cool enough, in fact, that we're going to be dedicating on average two supplemental chapters per Adventure Path to detailing a specific deity and his or her church. If you don't like what you see, use whatever you and your players will enjoy the most. If you do, though—and I really think you will—use it and enjoy. The first look at our entire pantheon will appear in the Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide.
It's that sort of fan dedication that kept Dragon and Dungeon alive and strong for so long and made working on them such a delight. I have no doubt that, 20 years from now, I'll look back on the last four years of working on the magazines as one of the high points of my life. So, quite good on ya! That being said, Wizards of the Coast has given us no inclination that they'll be publishing Dragon or Dungeon through any other outlet nor what form their online offerings will take. You'll have to stay tuned with them to see what's next on that front. As for us, Pathfinder is not meant to be a clone or amalgam of Dragon and Dungeon. That being said, having worked on the magazines for so long, the staffs that brought your Dragon and Dungeon know how to do a few things very very well and love producing what we hope is considered some of the best gaming content available. We're incredibly excited that we have an outlet to keep doing our favorite parts of our old jobs and try some exciting new things, and, without a doubt, that enthusiasm will show through into Pathfinder. We've been keeping a lid on Pathfinder for months now, so it's been a huge buzz to finally get to talk to you all about it and we can’t wait to show you more! Just check out our blog today and everyday in the coming weeks for more of us gushing about all the cool stuff we've had bottled up.
It's true, if you don't like the whole Adventure Path that's a sad thing. But with each adventure, if you want to pull it off an Adventure Path and run it as its own stand alone, that's a completely viable option as well. There's also going to be tons of monsters, players’ stuff, and world building info. While all of our Adventure Paths will try their hardest to appeal to everyone, even if you don't like the over-arcing story we're dedicated to making sure that there's still plenty of supplementary info, portable elements, and just plain awesome extraneous stuff that you'll find something viable to your game and just downright fun to read.
I love the films of John Carpenter. I know what to expect from him, like what I've seen the past, and I know that his creative choices mesh with my tastes. If he makes it, I'll see it. I hope you'll think of Pazio and the Pathfinder staff in the same way. You all know us, you've seen what we've done in the past with Dragon, Dungeon, the Adventure Paths, and hundreds of articles, and we hope you've loved it. If you like what you've seen up to now, check out what’s next, especially on our daily blog on the Pathfinder page, where we're totally opening the flood gates on more and more cool stuff everyday. I promise you: it won't suck.
What it comes down to is that we really haven't said anything about the Adventure Paths yet. We will be in the coming day and week, but we have a lot of secrets that we're still trying to keep and we'll tease you with as we get closer to the first volume of Pathfinder's release. As for sounding bland, this is summary text. All the past Adventure Paths sound bland when you distill them down to one sentence too. In that mindset, The Shackled City was just "Visit a city in a volcano," Age of Worms is "Fight worms and an evil deity," and Savage Tide is "Sail a boat and fight pirates and demons," but in actuality it turns out that there’s worlds more to each of those than just that blurb. I promise that in the six massive adventures and the dozens of supplementary appendices that are going to make up the Rise of the Runelords Adventure Path (all written by the best minds in gaming), there's going to be a little bit more going on than fighting four SRD monsters. And if you don't think we can make even that cool, check out our blog a little later today on goblins.
You’re right in many cases here. Pathfinder is not going to be a trade magazine. Pathfinder is not going to have much in the way of comics (though, that's not to say there won't be a few familiar cartoonists onboard). Pathfinder is not going to tell you about new products from other companies. Pathfinder is not going to have access to much of D&D's mythology. That's all part of not operating under license from Wizards of the Coast any more, but while in many cases that's a sad thing, that not to say that Pathfinder isn't going to have any of the D&D lore you love. There's still plenty in the SRD—from the rust monster to the gelatinous cube to the owlbear—that we can use and are deeply invested in the heart of what D&D is. Also, being that so much of D&D lore is built off of real world legends and folklore, we have access to many of the same characters. Right off the bat, characters like Baba Yaga, Lamashtu, Dagon, Pazuzu, and Asmodeus all come to mind, with a few already playing a role in our upcoming adventures. And you might be surprised what creatures are OGL. Do a little digging and you'll find familiar names like Fraz-Urb'Luu, Kostchtchie, Orcus, demodands, necrophidius, thessal monsters, the ever-maligned flumph, and the list goes on, and on, and on. This is on top of the OGL content from dozens of the most imaginative companies in gaming. Yeah, expect to see some familiar faces (and claws, and maws, and tentacles, and…). As for Pathfinder being in yet another new campaign setting, we've all invested a lot in the lore of old campaign worlds and have strong feelings about all of our old loves. Personally, though, one of my favorite parts of D&D is exploring a whole brand new realm and knowing that my players and I will get to participate in and influence it through our adventures. Keep checking in with us in the coming months, in Pathfinder, and in the GameMastery Modules, and let us show you one more. We're building it off of what we’ve loved in the past 30+ years of gaming and are really excited about it. And we think you will be too.
The comparison is purely in general size and feel, not in content. The guts of Pathfinder will be radically different from those in Red Hand of Doom.
Hey, to each his own. I'm most pissed that the first one is by James Jacobs. That guy's a hack. I hope that addresses many of you guys’ initial concerns. If you want to know more, again, keep checking in with the Pathfinder page, the Pathfinder blog, and right here on the messageboards. And, if you have any specific questions, feel free to ask. We’re totally listening and are happy to share as much as we can with you. Thanks for the initial groundswell of interest in enthusiasm too. The last few days have been a rush!
Chronepsis has always been one of my favorites. The concept of a draconic god who measures the lives of every dragon in the multiverse via a collection of countless hourglasses in a gigantic Outlandish mausoleum is pretty awesome. Besides him, Skie, Mist (from FR's Azure Bonds series), and Cyan Bloodbane are also high on the list. By the by, does that little white from Sunless Citadel have a name?
Hey all, just a quick correction regarding the "D&D Online Update" piece that appeared in First Watch in Dragon #351. The name of the DDO expansion is actually just "Demon Sands," not "Curse of the Demon Sands" as written. Just wanted to give everyone interested the heads up. You can read more about Dungeons & Dragons Online and Demons Sands at http://www.ddo.com/index.php. Sorry to the guys at Turbine for the mix up!
The First Watch write-up on Pox-Nora on page 16 of Dragon #350 contains an error. “Octopi promises a new expansion pack every month…” should in fact read “Octopi promises a new expansion pack every other month.” Our sincerest apologies to the folks over at Octopi for the mistake. If you want to find out more about Pox Nora, check out their shiny website right here.
That's actually exactly what it is. The Final Fantasy XII piece kicks off a new subsection of First Watch starting that month and continuing after that. For a long time we've wrangled with how to handle video game coverage in the magazine. Enough good console and computer games release every month that a simple eighty word blurb cannot encompass the bulk of releases, yet to do a whole write-up on each game detracts from the table-top and D&D news that is our priority. Hence the addition. Typically, the section will be one page featuring two write-ups and several pictures from the games being covered (as you'll see in #350). Games that are D&D-related but aren't huge events, like the upcoming D&D Tactics, will recive a spread. D&D games that are major endevors, like D&D Online or FR: Demon Stone were, will probably get more feature-sized pieces. In addition to these, role-playing games that are major industry events and have definite fantasy and D&D themes (like a new Final Fantasy game undoubtedly does) will also receive spreads. So, that's what it is! If your into games, this setion will tell you about some of the biggest D&D/fantasy titles hitting that month (with room to show more than a single lonely screenshot or undetailed cover). If your not, we're hoping to point you toward some of the better fantasy titles available, which just might be perfect inspiration for your next adventure. Check out next month for a one-page piece on Zelda: Twilight Princess and Pox Nora.
No really, is there any chance? Whoa... Maybe a bit late to address this. Regardless! If a copy gets put in front of me, I'll gladly sign it. It might help to ask when you order, but it shouldn't be a problem.
A lot of you probably know the story of how, back in the misty days of D&D's humble beginnings, the creator dumped out a bag of cheaply made plastic "prehistoric creatures" for use in his Chainmail game and so bulettes, owlbears, rust monsters, and who knows what else were born. By any chance does anyone have one of these tiny plastic rust monsters or know the link to any sites with good images of it? As I'm sure you can guess, this is totally unrelated to anything. Thanks!
There's also a d20 book by the name of Nymphology that deals with interesting items, spells, feats, and prestige classes dealing with sex and lust. If I recall correctly, The Book of Erotic Fantasy—despite all its needless infamy—actually has a pretty thorough discussion of this topic. In fact, two of the main characters in its fiction segments are a female paladin-bard couple. It’s well worth the permission slip you need to check it out. Personally though, my feelings are summed up by the most favorite PC I've ever played: a bisexual water genasi cleric of Persana.
Being the editor largely responsible for what shows up in First Watch I'm constantly on the lookout for cool stuff our readership might be interested in. The stable of reporters I regularly use to write these are also instrumental in finding a variety of new books, games, accessories, art, etc. to populate these pages. Among these writers, however, you won’t notice the name Marco Polo and no one is out there wandering the four corners looking for secret riches from far off and obscure lands. Largely, the companies and folks who get covered in First Watch with the most regularity are the people who won’t let their products be ignored (Green Ronin, White Wolf, Fantasy Flight Games, Dwarven Forge, etc). These don’t need to be big companies either, persistent little guys putting out solid, innovative products like Green Dragon Studios (http://www.greendragonstudio.com/), Alea Tools (http://www.aleatools.com/), and Steel Sqwire (http://www.steelsqwire.com/) also see regular coverage. While we have our feelers out to a wide variety of companies and I trust my reporters to find cool stuff, the easiest way to get something into First Watch is to shoot a message over to dragon@paizo.com and simply say, “Hi! We’d like to tell you about what we’re doing,” and we’ll see where things go from there. In all honesty though, as Erik shows above, right now First Watch looks cooler and is covering a wider range of quality games, gamer stuff, and industry news than ever before. We’re always looking for more, though, and are happy to hear from all corners of the gaming community, so feel free to give us a yell.
Maybe suboptimal, but meh. He’s yours--change that letter or his stats however you want. The point is that the heavy lifting is done already. Whether you have your MM handy or not you've got a lizardfolk to play with now. Keep him moist and walk him twice a day.
Not only that, but personally I'd love to see a monster variant included in the ecology ... something to insert directly into the game. Expect at least a stat block in every Ecology from now on. We'll always try to give you guys something that makes a cool encounter. For example, in "The Ecology of the Lizardfolk" in #333, that lizardfolk barbarian/fighter was meant to be a raid leader that--along with a handful of lizardfolk from the MM--would make for a pretty much pre-made warband encounter. Advanced creatures won't be all we do though. "The Ecology of the Spawn of Kyuss" gives you a 3.5 Kyuss template and a fast, nasty ambusher its been applied to. We won't do new monsters like this all the time, but we plan to show that there's more ways to advance monsters than just adding Hit Dice and character levels. Be patient and you'll see what I mean.
Sold. Whenever we do a EL +0 race from now on we'll try to work those charts in. It gets too cumbersome to do for every monster, but for those that lend themselves to being player races easiest, no problem.
Besides everything I've been saying about covering what's cool, a lot of what's neat out there has already been done in the magazine's nearly 25 years. While we sometimes overlook old Ecologies and do new versions (like the "Ecology of the Behir" first in #156 and more recently in #333 and the "Ecology of the Greenhag" in #125 and #331), I largely prefer not to. So, here's the big (and pretty complete) list of what I would shy away from just on the basis of past coverage. While I can be compelled to ignore this if you've got a fantastic idea, I'd always rather to cover new ground. 72 - Piercer
Now mind you, some of these old Ecologies are CRAZY so I'm willing to ignore some or just use them as starting points. Overall, I'm most firm about not covering anything within the past hundred issues. Later than that, I get increasingly more flexible. Huh, looks like the Penanggalan and Lamia are both more than a hundred issues old... cool.
Well there are two counts here. First we can't contradict anything that Wizards says goes in any of their products. We can build of it, but no contradicting. As if that imperative wasn't strict enough, I'm a glutton for continuity and nostalgia, so if there was a great deal of 1st or 2nd edition information on something I’ll want the ecology to work with it. Or at the very least I'd like to hear about the old info in a sidebar. That's why you always see the little history lesson sidebars. On the other hand, if whatever used to go for a creature is pretty dumb, I have no problem with ignoring it. Overall though, it's best to talk to me about what's canonical and what can be ignored. Next month you'll see a perfect example of all this with the "Ecology of the Spawn of Kyuss." While the Monster Manual II only has one page on these guys there is a great deal of info about them and Kyuss as far back as the original Fiend Folio. So this Ecology draws on all of that, picks up new info from the Age of Worms Adventure Path, and adds even more of its own stuff.
You guys are onto a few of my secrets here. Being the editor in charge of Ecologies, I always try to tie them into something relevant going on or coming out in the same month. For example, in April Lords of Madness came out. The chuul is an aberration not covered extensively in that book (although their history did end up in there… a little story that we only found out about halfway through the editing process). Same way with how the “Ecology of the Kraken” came out in August, the same month Stormwrack releases. I also frequently try to tie Ecologies in with Dungeon. Like in May, Dungeon’s “Root of Evil” released featuring a green hag villain and we did the “Ecology of the Green Hag” in Dragon. Same thing with “Ecology of the Lizardfolk” and Dungeon’s lizardfolk-tastic “Encounter at Blackwall Keep” (complete with hermaphrodite lizardfolk shaman). So there is a method behind a lot of these decisions. In the coming months Dragon has a few themes planned and Ecologies will be falling into step with these. So, if we do a demon-themed issue, expect to see something from the Abyss detailed. This does make submissions a little tricky at the moment, as we don’t commonly reveal what we’ve got planned far in advance. Every now and then I’ll commission a writer I’ve worked with to get something specific, but for newcomers, pitching four or five creatures briefly tends to be the way to go. That way I can see what works with the schedule as well as pick out what’s cool. As for what sources we draw from for Ecologies, for a long time the idea was to only use the Monster Manual because that’s what the most people could get into (hence the run of choker, night hag, duergar, rakshasa, grimlock, will-o-wisp,--ignore the kenku--, chuul, green hag, kobold, behir, kraken, lizardfolk). That time is over. October brings a fantastically grotesque ecology of the Spawn of Kyuss (can you say “Age of Worms?) and down the line we’ve got some beasties from all over. In other words, the philosophy has changed to covering the coolest monsters out there and making them even cooler. (In this aspect and others, see this thread http://paizo.com/dragon/messageboards/generalDiscussion/laidAnEgg). So every bestiary is game. While I’m largely going leave most campaign specific stuff alone, the occasional Realms, Eberron, even Oriental Adventures monsters might slip in there. Not that I have any submissions for any of those monsters. I wonder where I could find some….
So it looks like you all noticed that we tried something new with ecologies. For a long time Ecologies has had the same format (history, physiology, psychology & society, tactics), and while okay, it didn’t have a lot of room for variation. So a while back I started adding sidebars, most notably with the “Ecology of the Kenku,” where we dropped in a sample kenku thieves guild and a list of things kenkus do with their mimicry abilities. This went over fantastically. So we did more sidebars: the history lesson ones, new gods, organizations, lairs descriptions, etc. This came to a head with the “Ecology of the Kraken” when most of the article’s most interesting info wound up in the sidebars (no offence to the good Mr. Pett, I asked for it this way). That was kind of where we decided that the article’s format was a hindrance and that the cool sidebar info should not be relegated out of the basic format. Instead, the format needed to be flexible enough to encompass the cool info. The Draconomicon, Libris Mortis, and Lords of Madness are also all awesome books doing really neat things, so we wanted to riff of the best parts from that series. The “In Faerun” and “In Eberron” bits of Monster Manual III were also pretty cool. So we starting stealing things we liked. “The Ecology of the Lizardfolk” is the first example of our experiment. (Thanks to Amber for contributing our test subject.)
Also, I want to make Ecologies far more useful. Like I said, the old answer was cover only creatures out of the Monster Manual, that way we’re assured that everyone knows what we’re talking about. Boring. So, now, I plan to run a stat block with every ecology, but never just in repetition from the related bestiary. Since every monster presented in every Monster Manual is the weakest version of that creature, in Ecologies I want to present the bad-asses. We’re not going to go over the top and give every monster thirty templates and ten mystic theurge levels, but between the source material and the stats we present you should be able to put together a pretty cool little encounter. For example, in the “Ecology of the Lizardfolk,” the CR 5 Swamp Stalker Chakshael (barbarian 2, fighter 2) and a handful of MM lizardfolk make a pretty good hunting or raiding party without the DM having to write a single stat. As for the feats, these will appear every now and then like they do in Lords of Madness. Some monsters will get feats if we hit on inspired ideas, some won’t if the space can be better served by something else. That’s going to be pretty much the way of everything. For example, next month in the “Ecology of the Spawn of Kyuss” we didn’t put in feats or the in other campaign settings bits… the new template was too long.
As always, we’re happy to get submissions. I’ve still got quite a few holes to fill next year so feel free to send me several ideas at once, that way we can choose whatever best meets out needs. As for what to submit, I can’t talk about a lot of our themes but every year you can bet that we’re going to have a horror issue, a magic issue, and starting next year, a campaign classics issue. I only wish I had ecologies for all those slotted out. Ho hum.
It's true, it has been and there are. That specific First Watch piece is the first of several meant to highlight a variety of games and settings currently in production by non-Wizards of the Coasts companies.
Also, for anyone still interested in exploring the land of mists, check out http://www.swordsorcery.com/ravenloft/, for the Arthaus website and news about upcoming Ravenloft products, and www.kargatane.com, which has a very impressive if not quite comprehensive second edition Ravenloft database. Keep an eye on future issues of Dragon too. Although I can't promise anything in particular, Ravenloft is still the favorite setting of at least one editor on the Dragon staff, so there might be a gothic horror breadcrumb thrown into the mix every now and then. (You'll also note that Ravenloft WAS the first campagin setting to be spotlighted in First Watch. Coincidence?) ~W.S.
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