F. Wesley Schneider's page

I just wanted to send Neil Spicer belated Valentines day wishes from the entire Paizo editorial pit*. Neil's exceptionally nuanced analyses of each contestant's work should be one of the highlights of this year's show for anyone interested in freelancing for Paizo--he's really giving away the secrets here folks. But, for me and all of the developers and editors on the Paizo staff, Neil's writing advice is worth its weight in gold, as it's the exact sort of feedback we give our freelancers.

It turns out that having awesome ideas isn't even half the battle of writing for RPGs (it's actually kind of expected). You've also got to make your ideas exciting to read and easy for your developers and editors to work with. Someone might have the coolest adventure ideas in the world, but if I have to rewrite every sentence, I'm never going to assign that freelancer work again. So, all you would-be designers out there, dust off your grammar books, read Paizo's published products and really consider the styles and formats you're seeing, and take a good look at Neil's advice throughout this competition.

Below I've copied a number of the comments that provoked all this gushing.

- Your use of the word "will" is also a sign of weak writing. Look for ways to avoid that. It'll strengthen your prose. Instead of saying a creature will do something, just say they do it. That makes your writing much more active and evocative.

- You're using a lot of passive voice, though. Try and avoid as many conventions of the verb "to be" as you can. So, go back and highlight just the places where you used "is"..."are"..."was"...and "were" etc. If the majority of your write-up is relying on those types of verbs, you need to work on replacing them with more active verbs to make your prose read better and come across as more evocative.

- Go back through and identify all the usages of the verb "to be" by highlighting "is"..."are"..."was"...and "were"...and you'll see you rely way too much on that to convey your ideas. Overall, your writing would be stronger if you can find ways to use more active verbs as you present your villain's backstory and the location's history. Sometimes, it's okay to rely on a "was" or "were" when talking about things in the past. But use them sparingly.

- On top of all that, you keep capitalizing non-game terms like goblin and ogre as proper nouns. That's not how those terms should be presented in a game product.

- You left commas out of your XP values.

- You've failed to italicize references to the Bestiary, Bestiary 2, and Gamemastery Guide.

- There are a lot of spacing problems in your writeup. Several words got jammed together...

- Missing an apostrophe

- More proofing problems

With all of that in mind, I strongly RECOMMEND Mr. Spicer advance to judge next year's competition**. Thanks Neil, from all of us in the pit!

* And we love the rest of you judges too. Just slightly less then Neil. (Unless you're Sean... screw that guy.)

** Sorry dude. No rest for the wicked.

Where in our products have we mentioned monsters but not presented stats for said monsters? (Like how the Tane got mentioned in Pathfinder #2 but largely didn't show up with stats until Bestiary 2). I'm on a hunt for the statistically unloved and any help would be appreciated.

Alternatively, where have we illustrated monsters that have no stats? (Like the picture of the monks fighting the manananggals from the first campaign setting book, or Merisiel and her flock of pretty pink fish-monkeys that most recently appeared in the APG.)

What I'm not looking for is named individuals, even those of a monstrous persuasion (like Ayrzuk, the Nirvana Dragon, or the Spawn of Rovagug), so we can leave those big guys out - though if a region has its unique, named beastie (like the Sandpoint Devil) feel free to throw it on the list!

Post the monstrous mysteries that have baffled you most here!

We've all had that week where everything's set for a game, but someone bails at the last minute. Not a worry for most GMs. Some give the missing player's character sheet over to another player. Other GMs run the PC that week. Still others have the PC conveniently fade into the background. But one GM I played with a few years back explained away such absences as the manifestations of an unpredictable and remarkable Curse.

The story had to do with some great clash of wizards in the ancient past that disrupted the fabric of reality in such a way that the wizards' threads of existence, their very ties to reality, became frayed, as did those of many of their ancestors. The result was that, occasionally and without forewarning, individuals so affected would periodically wink out of existence. Sometimes such a disappearance would last only a matter of hours, sometimes days or weeks, and sometimes the victim would never be seen again. Most of the time, though, the curse sufferer would snap back into reality after a short absence, and when he did it would be in close proximity to an anchor of his bloodline's reality, aka, an individual or, even more likely, a group of curse sufferers.

Obviously, every PC was a curse sufferer, and every time a player missed out on a session or jumped back in, the PC winked out or back in. It had little to no effect on the players and alleviated the GM of the the concern of dealing with the unmanned character and guessing what the missing player (and, often, his missing character sheet) had subtracted from the group's total resources. At first this seemed a bit forced, but after a few weeks, the curse became just a fact of the world, one more oddity in a world of oddities. Also, once accepted, this explanation lent the game a degree of verisimilitude lacked by some other solutions - like a character mutely fading into the background for a session.

RPGs like Pathfinder account for thousands of eventualities and possibilities that can drive fantasy storytelling, but simply overlook others, particularly metagame (out of game) concerns like the one in the example above.

So I'm wondering, has anyone - or has any played with a GM who has - concocted some elaborate in-game explanation or rule to handle metagame concerns?

I'm not looking for opinions on such systems or insights on why you don't need them - of course they're optional, of course you can just not let such things bother you, of course you can handle things in more traditional ways (heck, I do myself) - rather, I'm interested in hearing how some GMs might have adjusted their games and altered their worlds to accommodate the occasional realities of gaming.

This can go beyond ideas like "The Curse" too, so if you have a special in-world explanation for re-specing your character using new options, or ignoring rules you don't want to deal with (encumbrance? carrying rations? ammo? eating? drinking?), or whatever, I'd love to hear about it.

We've talked around and around about the words, but now I want to hear a bit about the art. I'm not interested in critiques, we have numerous very talented artists working on this line and artistic opinions are so subjective that "I loved this, I hated this" criticisms provide us with little real data (aside from an idea of how much you were or weren't hugged as a child). What I want to know is more about implementation.

Do you think the Player Companions have enough art?

The art typically tries to represent a type of character relevant to the words on the page - maybe of the same religion, using a described feat or spell, of the presented prestige class. How's that sit with you? Would you rather see something else?

How do you feel about reused art? How do you feel about reused art when we're just talking about symbols, relevant runes, flags, and the like?

Say we have a section about new magic items. Do you want to see it illustrated with pictures of two or three of those items, or by a cool character wielding one or two of those items?

Can you think of a way the art might better support the content, or vice versa?

Again, this isn't about artistic quality, merit, or any of that eye of the beholder stuff, it's about art as part of the product's content. What might make it more useful to you or engaging to your players?

One of the goals of the Player Companions has always been to create a product that you as a GM can just toss at player with a particular character concept and say "Go!" Got an elf? Check out this elf book, it's filled with ideas to make your character a cool elf. Got a faithful character? Check out this deities book for details on how to make a cool religious character. And so on.

As much as these are meant to be chapbooks, exploring a single topic, we also want them to engage players and get them excited to play the type of character presented within. So maybe occasionally the above idea works in reverse and a player picks up the book on Andoran and decides she needs to play a character from there.

All that's the goal. I know we've had some successes. I know we've had some failures.

The question, though, is what have you seen that works? Have you had any experience where things played out exactly as described here? And if so, what did the trick? And if not, what sort of content do you think would better engage your players?

In the back of pretty much every Player Companion are several sub-articles, typically divided into Combat, Faith, Magic, and Social.

The inspiration behind these - obvious for long time Paizo readers - was the Class Acts section of Dragon magazine, the section with the mandate that no matter what class you play you'll find something (at least tangentially) useful for your class. We felt it was important to keep this mandate for the Players Companions, thus the four sub-articles you see in the back of each.

You've been seeing these for a few years now so: Love these? Hate these? Does it depend from on volume to the next? Do you like the idea but dislike the implementation? Do the names make sense to you? (Do you get that Combat is for fighter guys, Faith is for religious characters, Magic is for arcane spell casters, and Social is for roguish types?)

What do you think?

With little deviation, the majority of Pathfinder products have the same voice - that of a vague, third-person, semi-in-world yet omniscient persona. To only slightly varying degrees, that's how you see pretty much everything written, whether we're talking about the ruins of Kibwe in the Inner Sea World Guide or introducing new class features for the gunslinger in Ultimate Combat.

It's textbook voice. It's more flavorful than textbook voice - 'cause we're brilliant writers - but it's still, basically, textbook voice.

The Players Companions are where this breaks most regularly, slipping occasionally into second person and addressing the reader as "you." It doesn't happen terribly often, but when it does it's much more informal. And for guidebooks and advice pieces, it seems to make some sense.

What do you think about that? Is that a cool thing? Does it engage you more? Do you think it's clearer or more exciting to have an article say "ninjas of the Thousand Bleeding Stings do X, Y, and Z" or "YOU do X, Y, and Z?"

So that's topic one.

Topic two has to do with what I said above about the voice being "semi-in-world." That largely presents itself in the descriptions we choose to use - or perhaps more aptly, the descriptions we don't choose to use. How many times have you seen an object or an aspect of a creature or a feature of a room described as being about the size of a man's fist, or a buckler, or a wagon wheel? That's because all of those are examples that someone in Golarion, or any vaguely medieval fantasy land, would be familiar with, and because it's more flavorful than flatly saying "the glowing orb is 20 inches in diameter and weights 5 pounds." But can you really say that you're intimately familiar with the dimensions of a buckler or a wagon wheel (man's head, maybe - no I don't want to hear about your collection; also, those of you who regularly wield bucklers or drive wagons, pipe down)? We do this to keep readers immersed in the fantasy of the world, so even the experience of reading one of our books is in a similar voice to that which a GM uses to run a game.

But for players, is that immersive, or does it add an unnecessary barrier between the meaning and the reader's point of reference?

Just let me note that I don't think that hearing people saying this IS a barrier (even if a minor one), or that they just don't care, means huge changes, like describing all monsters in terms of MAC trucks or pieces of armor in terms of hubcaps. But, would it be a deal breaker for you to hear that the temple's gardens of singing crystal are the size of a football field, that the vegepygmy's spear is the length of a ski pole, or that the tarrasque is the size of the Space Needle? These aren't examples that would regularly come up in a line like the Player's Companions (and I am only musing about the Player Companions here - nobody worry that they're going to have to weigh in here to prevent the appearance of bus-sized behemoths in the next AP), but hopefully you get the idea.

In short, if you're a player having... say... a magic item described to you, does it help you more and/or get you more interested to know the orb is the size of a chamber pot or a basketball? And why is that?

And even if it would bug you to see a sword described to players as being the length of a baseball bat, would it bother you if real-world examples were relegated to sidebars or other call-outs?

No agenda here, and no strong preferences - just wanted to see what you all think.

Tell me, what are you just LOVING about the Pathfinder Player Companion line?

(Or, conversely...)

Tell me, what are you less than loving about the Pathfinder Player Companion line?

(Or, conversely...)

And - because it should always be more of chore to criticize than to compliment - what would you do to add increased awesome?

The Inner Sea World Guide presents six empyreal lords. PathfinderWiki notes three more: Ashave the True Spark, Shei Five Dawns, and Soralyon. Details on Shei cites PF #28. Anyone have sources on the other two?

It's nearly 10:00 here in Paizo Town and it's been snowing off and on throughout the day. Seattle gets a little crazy in the face of winter weather, and word from the Trail of Frozen Tears - aka, route 520 - report commutes of nearly 5 hours (though Erik was still a good 10 or 15 miles from home when he called that one in, so who knows).

So, after a slightly scary foray onto the icy roads, I said "Screw it. I'll get more of 'Sanctum of the Serpent God' edited pulling an all nighter!"

It's not like I don't spend most of my week in my office anyway. Also, this way, I don't get marooned at home tomorrow. So I'm here at the office, up all night!

It won't be that bad. We almost got snowed in at the old offices once, which was one of the reasons I bought a couch with a fluffy throw blanket when I got my own office. I've also got tea, some snacks (what is a "Quack'n Bites?"), plenty (PLENTY) to read... my laptop (oooh, I could probably get Starcraft going - hmmmm, later)... um... a scarf, and in a moment Jason's deluxo space heater. So I'm probably good.

It does get a little creepy here, though. I mean, more so then when like James and Jason and Rob and Sean (especially those last two) are here. It's really quiet - which is sort of nice for a change - but with those extra horror movie bumps and creeks that only happen when you're alone. But there's also that creepy warehouse, which looks like the set to The Mail Room Murder versus the Forklift Flenser even with the lights on... aaaaand that's where the bathrooms are... great (that's going to be a fun episode here in a few hours). The cars driving by my window are also kind of spooky, going slow and silent on the road that isn't quite there. Can they see me? Maybe I'll start waving... I'm sure that couldn't be a bad idea. Oh, hullo guy in a parka walking around at 10:00 in the snow, you're not creepy or anything. Keep on truckin', brother.

Anyway. It's still snowing out and I've got some reading to do if this is going to be a productive little adventure. I'll check back here regularly if anyone wants to keep me informed of what transpires out there in the big wide world while I'm castaway.

But first, I might make a spear out of my extra pens in case I need to fend off the mean looking staple remover crocs that swarm in the supply room. Be back in a bit...

Hey everyone. We're currently searching for a new member of the Paizo editorial team. Having already talked to numerous gaming professionals, we wanted to broaden our search to include talented gamers whom we perhaps don't know about.

The position is for a new developer to work with us on Paizo's varied Pathfinder lines, with a focus on ordering new content, working with freelancers, managing continuity, sculpting freelance handovers into material adhering to our high standards, and various related tasks. This is an entry-level position that requires mastery of the English language, daily attendance in Redmond Washington, and an unbridled passion for RPGs, storytelling, and the varied arts that make a great Game Master.

You can read the full job description here.

We already have several candidates in consideration and would like to find the perfect fit in short order, so please send in your resumes as soon as possible. We will take down this posting when the position is filled. Thanks!

Writing on Rule of Fear (a.k.a. the "Ustalav Book") has reached that point where the space available keeps contracting and I'm having to make some hard decisions about what to keep and what to let go.

So, what do you want to make sure absolutely gets in the Ustalav book?

Whether in Rule of Fear or at some point during the course of the Carrion Crown AP I want to do a run down of suggestions for creepy background music to play during horror-themed adventures. We've already got a bunch of this in the reference section of the GameMastery Guide, but I want to expand beyond this.

So what do you use in your horror roleplaying to set the tone? I'm not looking for "Creepy Sounds XI" from Spencer's Gifts, but actual moody stuff subtle enough to play in the background of your game, but creepy enough to set a mood.

To get things rolling, I'll throw five out here that immediately come to mind:

Midnight Syndicate (Anything)
Michiru Yamane (Castlevania series)
From Hell Soundtrack
Dracula Soundtrack
Hannibal Soundtrack

So what works for you? As always, links are appreciated!

Okay folks, we've done this before, but now it's time for the horror-themed bonus round!

What folkloric/mythological/public domain monsters to do YOU want to see in the Bestiary sections of the Carrion Crown Adventure Path?

We're really playing up the gothic horror angle with this one and a thousand eyes are always better than two when it comes to this sort of research, so whatcha got!?

When possible, links would be very helpful!

After an hour or so of entering changes on the Advanced Player's Guide, now seemed like a good time to, you know, save. And while my computer slogs through its work on this HUGE file, I thought I'd update folks on my progress (and will keep on throughout the morning).

Chapter 5 Spells: changes entered up through gravity bow. Right next to James's favorite picture in the book, where Droogami's licking Lini's face as she casts.

Which one's Boba Fett?!

Just wondering. Does anyone have one?

Every year at Paizocon (going on twice as of June) I run a session of my horror gaming playtest/workshop/focus group, Bastardhall. Flat out, in a convention environment, it's really hard to maintain the focus and control you need for an effective horror game - it's difficult to keep a group's attention on the ghost of the countess's sister when the table next to you is having a who can lisp loudest contest. That said, we had some great discussions last year, and even though most of the adventure's details were on the fly, the group I did a great job offering feedback, calling me on cliches I didn't even think of, and noting what worked particularly well.

Well, Paizocon's just around the bend again and I've started working on this year's adventure. So, rather than waiting till I'm at the game table with just a small group, I wanted to open the big question up to everybody in advance:

What have you done in games you run - anywhere; homes, conventions, elsewhere - to really inspire dread in your players.

Alternatively, what adventures have you run that do this best and why do you think that's so?

Really interested in your feedback, for Paizocon, and for a few other ideas brewing away...

Congrats to all who advanced. Now get to work!

The rules clearly state RPG Superstar's policy on contestants discussing/explaining/detailing content in their own entry threads. We've had one instance of this rule being broken this year. It has been censored and no one is being disqualified. Should there be a second instance, there will be disqualifications. This is this year's only warning on this matter.

If the judges or anyone else has questions about my monster, can I post answers to their questions?

No! At least, not while voting is open. See Rule #14 on the Official Rules page: "Contestants are prohibited from posting in their own entry threads beyond asking for feedback and requesting your vote. Such discussion may not add to, expand upon, or clarify the content of the submission. Doing so may result in disqualification, in the sole discretion of the judges and/or Paizo." In other words, your submission has to get by on its own, even if everyone has the same question and you could answer it with a single word. That's because if you write a monster and it gets published, the book doesn't include a little copy of you to answer questions or offer suggestions, so you need to make sure your submission is clear on its own. Just grin and bear it--you'll be able to say as much as you want about it once voting is closed. In fact, you may just want to copy this safe-to-post statement: Thank you for your support and please vote for my item! If you have questions, I'll be happy to answer them once voting for this round is closed.

Are you an editor? Do you love roleplaying and Paizo products? Do you live in the Seattle area? Then click the link!

Let me predicate this on the fact that this might all be a fever dream. I seem to remember at some point in the past months stumbling upon some bit of trivia or a stray Wikipedia reference or a note in one of my folklore books mentioning the much hated athach, suggesting a pedigree beyond the 1980s, Mystara, and the Rules Cyclopedia. The problem with obscure monsters and D&D, though, is that as soon as something like this hits a Monster Manual internet research on it is fubar, as all that comes up are like "Sexy Ogre's Athach Fan/Hate Site" and "My All Athach Campaign."

So, anyone know/remember anything in this vein? The validation of an entire race - that, honestly, might not be worth validating - hangs in the balance.

(P.S. - Erik, we all know what you think about the athach. Shhh!)

Editor Samurais and Poet Zealots Needed.

Fresh faced enthusiasm, obsessive attention to detail, a passion for the Pathfinder RPG, expansive knowledge of Golarion, and a love of fantasy/horror film and literature all very much desired.

As many of you have heard, the latter part of last week and this past weekend Paizo has been moving its offices. This morning, though, things have settled down and it'ss our fist day in our new digs! It's a fantastic looking place with TONS more room and a huge warehouse (we could fit like 4 helicopters in there!). We might be a little scarce today as we get things settled, but we'll try to take a few pictures to show things off on the blog by the end of the week. Might have do do something in the way of a house warming party too. Hummmmm....

Okay, so as most of you have probably heard, we're moving the Paizo offices next week. That, among other things, means a longer commute for we Seattlites. To help contend with this, James has pretty much sold me on audible.com. The thing is that my bare-bones stereo does not have a line-in for my iPhone. So, I'm looking for a new one. Nothing fancy, nothing special, but I'm just looking for links to products that might be up my alley and advice on where to go or not to go to get it installed. I really don't want to bumble into Best Buys and spend a $100+ dummy tax for not shopping around. Soooo... Help!

Dear Josh, Chris, Cosmo, Erik, Jeff, and Jason,
Hey guys! Sean, Sarah, James, Sutter, and I are sitting in an Indianapolis shuttle depot waiting to go to our seemingly made up lodgings for tonight. Sarah has fallen into the well of her iPhone, James is deep in travel fugue, Sutter is balled up on the ground and might be crying, and Sean is giddy as he gets to see Lady Friend, Atourney at Law again. Its 7 something, and our ride is something like at least 15 min late - maybe we missed it standing in any one of the dozen wrong but equally plausible other spots. Here's hoping we can get out of here around 8:00 tomorrow morning, and that the Adam's Mark near the Indianapolis airport is gamer friendly. If they have a souvenier shop we'll bring you all back something nice. Okay, time to go finally. Hope to see you All soonishly! -Wes

This is my 1,000th post on the boards. Now, that's about 1/9 James's number, but what's the point of competing with a computer? So, in light of the additional digit and numerous zeros, I figured this should be significant post. So I'm opening it up. What monsters do you want to see in Pathfinder? Either in Pathfinder's Bestiary, or in a pseudo-hypothetical Bestiary II book? I tend to lean towards creatures in mythology and folklore, but if you have a neat concept, throw it out there; something the new rules could really highlight, lets hear about it; or a pet folkloric favorite you've always wanted to see in an RPG, drop me a link where I can read more. Load me up and I'll see what I can work in!

I'd like to keep this going for a while, so keep 'em coming! And always keep an eye on what we have coming up, as that tends to color our interests. For example, Kingmaker is coming down the line - lots of wilderness and rivers - so that's something to keep in mind.

Thanks a ton all!

I take ONE day off and come back to all this?! Sheesh! I can't help but think that a certain Dr. Jacobs put you all up to this, but alright you harpies! I know James touched on a few of these topics already, but here's what I've got:

From: Wesley! We want an article on the First World and the Fey

...Great time and place for a good look at the First World, and the Fey themselves.

Granted! Look for an detailed look into the First World come summer 2010.

From: Wesley! We want an article about dead gods

It would be interesting to know more about dead gods

Sean's gods articles are tracked out for years to come, and it just doesn't make sense to have him divert to talk about dead gods when there's still deities in our core pantheon to discuss. That being said, dead gods are pretty cool. An article like this would have to fit with the content of an Adventure Path, though. Fortunately, James and I just batted around some ideas that might work with this. In other words, expect an article on at least one, but probably more, of the dead gods of Golarion in late 2010 early 2011.

From: Wesley! We want more articles about your F.

So what's it stand for?

Who said it stands for anything? Maybe it's what I'm used to hearing from my freelancers. Maybe it's an old algebra grade that continues to haunt me. Maybe it's my petition for a new Roman numeral. The world may never know. And if you do know, and you tell, I'll cut ya. }:P

Just wanted to publicly extend my and all of Paizo's thanks to veteran intern Dave Eitelbach who wraps up his experience with us this week. Dave's been an invaluable help during one of the most hectic times in Paizo's life and all of us here would be far less sane right now were it not for his tireless efforts. We hope he'll remain a familiar face on these boards and wish him all the best with his future writing, gaming, and everything else! Thanks a ton Dave!

Just out of curiosity...

Baby Goat FTW!

Okay, as you can see in today's blog, I'm in need of a miniature for James's Sandpoint game. (When I get subbed in on picture day as some itchy-looking Scot it's time to take action!) I'm playing Styrian Kindler, a late twenties, unbearded, Ustalavic chronicler and storyteller (aka, bard with Perform [Oration]) with a crossbow and a rapier. I've been looking for a good mini for several days now and it seems like every mini that even comes close is either a chick or has a gun. Sure, I could mod those out, but I'd rather find something that's ready to go as is before I start doing any surgery. So I'm turning to you all. Anyone have any ideas? There might even be a totally arbitrary reward should someone find me the PERFECT mini. Thoughts? Ideas? Links? Thanks for the help!

Oops! So I changed the art to go with today's blog post since you can already see the cover on Pathfinder #21: The Jackal's Price product page, but obviously didn't change the reference in the text. We'll get that fixed in the morning. Until then, though, just follow the link above if you want to see that cover. The real art, by Concept Art House, is of a particularly hardcore gnoll menace who's going to put an end to more than one front-line fighter's adventuring career.

That's right! Our own Dr. Reynolds turns 29 today! However, Sean - the "K" is for "Koward" - is trying to dodge it by taking a nice relaxing day off away from the exuberance and forced merry-making of his coworkers! So here's your chance to drop Sean happy birthday wishes where he can't escape: on the internet! So work up your best SKR reminiscences (real or fictitious), proposed presents, SKR adventure plot hooks, and birthday haikus! He really loves all of that stuff. ^_^

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SEAN!

This should make more sense come Monday, but feel free to start conjecturing now!

Hey all. So with all the snow we haven't exactly had a chance to hype this as much as I would like to, but right now we here at Paizo are hosting an online auction to benefit sick kids, children's hospitals, and the next generation of gamers through Child's Play. Child's Play is the brain child of the gamers over at Penny Arcade and donates money, toys, games, and such to children's hospitals across the world - helping to make life for sick youngsters a little brighter. You can find out way more about them on the Child's Play website.

To help in what little way we can, we're auctioning off a signed, collector's item copy of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting. In addition, a few months down the road here, the auction's winner will also receive a thoroughly signed copy of the final, huge, hardbound, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game and the Pathfinder Bestiary. The proceeds from this auction all go to help out Child's Play.

At the time of this writing the bidding for these one-of-a-kind items is a good way below the retail value of the books, so go put your bid in for a whole library of some of the coolest tomes in gaming history and help out some kids who really need it.

You can check out the Paizo - Child's Play Online Charity Auction here.

Thanks to everybody who checks it out and happy holidays!

James is on the phone RIGHT NOW being interviewed for... I don't know, a job at Arby's or something, and we're mocking him behind his back. That's just how we roll around here. We're all one big team. ^_^

If you are or know a college student in the Seattle area who is interested in the gaming or publishing industry, check out our Job Opportunities website.

Well, do ya? I'm just saying, if you post it here it would probably be blog worthy...

I was going to come dressed as James today... but then I shaved. :P

I mean, that one. Really? Of all the ones to choose from... Really? (I think we all know who we're talking about here.) ;)

Last weekend at Gen Con I got to catch up with noted gentleman and scholar Jim Lowder (always a pleasure), and we got to discussing one of his recent projects editing the Worlds of Dungeons & Dragons Anthologies for Devil's Due. The gist on these is that there's a metric ton of D&D short stories out there spanning a number of campaign settings, and Jim and Devil's Due are navigating a licensing labyrinth to bring some of these stories back in graphic novel form. All this was news to me (God I miss First Watch). I mean, I knew Devil's Due had done a good deal of Dragonlance and Drizzt stuff, but I had no clue about these anthologies. So I snagged from the Devil’s Due booth and it turns out they're pretty awesome. Anthology #3 has Ed Greenwood's "Elminster at the Magefair" and Jim's own Ravenloft Lord Soth tale "The Rigor of the Game" (featuring the only time I’ve ever thought of the concept of a werebadger and not chuckled to myself). The art's top notch and the stories are cool and kind of nostalgic as I read most of them in high school. Overall, great stuff, but what I found myself thinking as I was reading the Drizzt story in the trade paperback compilation was that the comic format just feels natural for these stories. With so much fighting and flashy spell effects and cool monsters, the action of the illustrated page adds a great deal. I told Jim as much and I meant it.

Tonight I was at Barnes and Nobles for about two hours. I picked up Watchmen (finally, I know) and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier, and was poring through the three wall-sized displays that comprised the store's manga section (they never carry Berserk). As I'm looking, though, I'm remembering a lot of our recent discussions about Pathfinder fiction, and the Worlds of D&D Anthologies, and the feeling of how right those short stories felt with the shinny new edits and illustrations. I'm also noticing how comics have one wall case, and manga has three... not to mention a loiter for each case, crouched between the stacks like the store was a lending library—more then the whole sci-fi/fantasy row had. I'm also seeing manga for Warcraft, Labyrinth, Dark Crystal, Panzer Dragoon, Devil May Cry, hell, even the movies Enchanted and Ratatouille. Seems popular.

So, this is mostly just train of thought, but I wanted to throw it out there. If there was Pathfinder manga—and I'm not saying INSTEAD of novels—would you be interested? Or is that not your thang?

Maybe with that little dog from Duck Hunt at the bottom. He could, like, have devil horns too. :P