I like the cut of its jib! Looks like I'll be restarting my subscription to the tales :-)
It's just a shame they don't really fit in the envelopes, since I'm in Europe. That makes the postage instantly ginormous... Or do they?
Anyhow - thanks for the preview, I loved it!
I believe you can combine the novels with any other subscriptions you get from us, to help save on shipping. Not sure how much of a difference that'll make, depending on where you are, but worth considering!
It should also be noted that the reason we're sending the free "give to a friend" books specifically to subscribers is that looking to the subscriber base is the easiest way for us to identify a significant chunk of the hardest-core Pathfinder Tales fans. So while I'm not saying we'll do precisely this promotion again, subscribing to the line lets us know you're a potential literary ambassador, in case we do more things like this in the future. :)
That is, someone gets paid $35K a year and their entire role at the company is simply to answer rule questions and build up an elaborate and comprehensive FAQ for the entire corpus of rules.
I won't speak to financials at Paizo or in the game industry in general, but when tossing about numbers like $35k a year, you might want to keep two things in mind:
*When I started at Paizo, I helped populate the webstore at a nickle a jpeg.
*At this time last year, I had 8 roommates and regularly ate out of dumpsters.
In my experience, it's the opposite: not reading enough damages creativity. Every time I hit a slump, I realize it's because I haven't taken in any new media recently. I go read a few books and watch a few movies, and the tank's full up again.
When I was 16, I used to worry constantly that the songs I wrote were too close to existing ones. Eventually I realized that whole genres (blues, punk, etc.) were built on the same three or four chord progressions, and quit worrying. It's better (and easier) to be good than it is to be totally unique.
Or, as I believe Dave Barry once pointed out, half of being funny is remembering other people's best lines and forgetting to cite them.
Hey there. I'm currently running an adventure which may take my PCs down into the Dark Forest. The Khaei race that James Sutter alludes to in City of Strangers fascinates me, and I was disappointed to find that there doesn't seem to be any stats or anything for them. Now, I know that stats may not be necessary, given their description depicts them as mostly amiable and helpful to strangers, but I was wondering if anyone else has made use of the Khaei yet and how you may have handled them.
Hooray! And I'm also curious to see how people handle the Khaei. One of the best and worst parts about a book of this size is that you have the opportunity to introduce a bunch of new races/monsters/locations, but never enough space to detail them all fully. When in doubt, I try to err on the side of dropping more allusions and ideas rather than less, and letting the readers develop them. (And if people are curious enough about them... well, that's how the City of Strangers book came to be!)
Noooo! Someone was posting about Kaer Maga and I missed it! Why didn't anyone tell me?!?
As it turns out, I'm not currently working on any new Kaer Maga stuff, but we had Rob McCreary take a shot at a Kaer Maga adventure with The Godsmouth Heresy, and I was quite impressed with the results (as it sounds like many other folks were!).
Instead, I've been busy writing away on another of my pet projects, writing up a whole sourcebook for one of my favorite parts of the campaign setting. And on that, I can say no more...
My apologies if this has been asked already, but I didnt read through the thread yet.
Is there a certain point in the Golarion timeline in which this is suppose to be set? RotR is set for 4707 AR. Is this before or after that, or no set date?
No set date! We specifically made it (and City of Strangers, the setting book for Kaer Maga) that way for maximum utility.
Glad to see that so many of our writers will be attending! Be sure to slate a few hours for hanging out in the bar and talking shop. :)
For the fiction seminar this year, Chris and I (and whichever awesome authors we nab at the last moment to sit in with us) are expecting a much bigger turnout, and as such won't be doing the personal manuscript critiques. That said, I believe we're expanding the time slot, so there'll be plenty of opportunity for everyone to ask their questions. We'd like to do it more as a Q&A session this year rather than a straight-up Fiction Publishing 101 lecture, so be sure to come prepared with questions you want answered!
Sometimes our announcement schedule gets a little jumbled, thus giving careful readers sneak previews. You're both correct--stay tuned for official announcements sometime soon. :)
I'd like to suggest that once a sufficient number of stories have been published in your web fiction line that they are collected in an anthology and published in book format.
I understand that such a product may be considered low-value to many consumers, since they can get access to these stories for free. However, I strongly dislike reading fiction on a computer screen because of the strain on my eyes and don't own or have access to an e-reader. I suspect I am not the only customer who feels this way, and a limited print run could potentially do well.
Hey Weirmonken! Thanks for the suggestion--we're definitely not ruling anything out at this point, and it's all about what the public wants to see. For now, though, have you checked out the novels? As far as we're concerned, they're the flagships of the fiction line, and at less than three cents per page, they're significantly cheaper than printing out the web stories yourself!
Yes and no. We had done a few books in the extra-pulpy style (Robots Have No Tails, Who Fears the Devil, Ship of Ishtar, the Piers Anthony books) and collected a lot of feedback from readers/authors/etc. General consensus was that everyone loves the larger size, but the two columns were a bit weird for modern readers. Same with the covers--the big box logo was neat and pulpy, but it ultimately took up a lot of space that could have been used for cover art, the author's name, etc. (And if there's anything we've learned, it's that more art and color on a cover is better!) Interior art is just a question of economics-- we were excited to reprint some awesome Virgil Finlay pieces and tickle our own fancy by ordering new stuff, but at the end of the day a few illustrations don't seem to affect who buys a book, while significantly effecting our bottom line.
That said, I personally think that the new Planet Stories books are the best-looking ones we've ever done, and the format we've been using for Template, Before They Were Giants, Battle in the Dawn, and the Moorcock/Lansdale double feature is pretty much what we'll be using for the foreseeable future.
When will this actually be released? I've been looking forward to it ever since its annoucement, but the release date keeps changing.
It was sent to the printer a while back, so at this point it's just a matter of them shipping it back to us and then us shipping it out to distributors/subscribers/etc. I'm not sure what exactly caused the latest shipping delay, but rest assured that the book WILL be coming out!
If you don't like the rules in a one of the RPG books, ignore them. If you're a player, make your opinion known to the GM--every GM I know that's any good does his or her best to cater to player interest. If you want to play with just the Core Rulebook, that's fine with us!
The idea with the rulebooks is to give folks more options that we feel could be fun and balanced. As with the APG, the new classes in UM and UC are concepts that we in the office would like to play with, and we think it's only fair to offer GMs and players the same opportunity. I believe firmly in the individual's ability to make decisions--for instance, while I vastly prefer low-level play, I'm happy to publish products supporting high-level folks, as it's my prerogative to decide when to cap my campaign. (Or, in a more general sense: I'm a vegetarian, but I don't campaign to keep others from eating meat, or stores from selling it.)
It's your table, your game, your setting. By all means, help us make the classes as balanced as we can possibly make them--that's what the playtest's for. But if you don't like the result, don't use them!
On the whole, I agree with Liane and Dave that you generally shouldn't kill off a character and then bring them back (unless, of course, that's the whole point of the story). With regards to such magic in conjunction with characters in Winter Witch, I already posted my thoughts in the discussion about it over here.
Omaire is human, and generally dresses in pretty androgynous/low-profile outfits while she's out picking pockets (though the art shows her when she's more gussied-up).
Wes nailed it pretty well in that blog, I'll say that. :)
Wes wrote the blog, not the speech. :)
And if you want to see a more substantial conversation with a protean, stay tuned to the novel line--we should have something in the coming year that will tickle your fancy...
"Halfling" is still more polite than most of Golarion's other terms for the race. For instance, some of the Kaer Magan terms presented in City of Strangers include "ankle-biter" and "bend" (the latter reserved for attractive halflings and gnomes, implying that they're "worth bending down for"), both of which bear sexual connotations.
At the time, I was under the impression we were looking in to acquiring electronic PS rights, but Vic's right--if you want Planet Stories, please buy the hardcopies, as digital ones aren't on our radar these days.
Pathfinder Tales, on the other hand, are already available as ePubs and PDFs, and we're still looking into other making other formats (i.e. Kindle) go. Stay tuned!
As Vic says--as soon as things get a little less dire in Editor Land, we should be able to get those fiction bundles to market in relatively short order.
Yeah, the journals are specifically designed to help get characters into the local flavor for the AP's setting WITHOUT spoiling anything. Read all you like!
I always extrapolated the idea that Golarion years corresponded to Earth years (Gregorian). I think according to the Absalom calendar, Golarion is 2700 years ahead of Earth. The months also correspond to Earth months. After I decided the date in the game, I would figure the corresponding Earth date and use the interwebs to look up the phase of the moon.
This is definitely the best way to figure such things out.
I'm about halfway through reading Winter Witch now, and whilst it's been fun, there was something which wasn't very clear in Declan's family background:
How do Isadora and Rose fit in?
Might I recommend a spoiler tag for such questions?
Answer:
Spoiler:
Isadora was a childhood friend of Asmonde and Declan, who grew up and got a crush on Asmonde (which likely turned into a very one-sided romantic relationship). There was an incident with Asmonde and a fiend in which the fiend got loose and did Very Bad Things to Isadora before it could be corralled... the child Rose is the result. In Declan's mind, that incident makes both Rose and Isadora Asmonde's family... the ol' "if you (or your fiend) knock someone up, you ought to marry her" bit. But then Asmonde (who was kind of an ass anyway) got himself killed in a different summoning incident.
Isadora and Declan are friends/"siblings-in-law," Rose is his "niece," and if there are some other feelings there, they haven't been explored yet.
You can expect to learn a bit more about Asmonde in some upcoming web fiction....
Other than The Lost Pathfinder, which happens between Council of Thieves and Prince of Wolves, off the top of my head, I believe only Noble Sacrifice takes place in the past... all others are considered to be more or less in the "literary present."
Since people mentioned reviews, I should point out that one of the most important things anyone can do to help the line is review the books on Amazon.com. Books with more reviews--even if they aren't all 5-star--have more credibility. While it's awesome to see people posting reviews on paizo.com, the fact remains that if you're here, you probably already know about Pathfinder Tales. Amazon's another story--we want to catch those folks who aren't already in the loop, or who maybe have just heard about the books in passing.
If you at all enjoy reviewing things, please review Pathfinder Tales on Amazon (and hey, if you want to cross-post that review to our site, your blog, a forum, wherever--even better!). The direct links are:
We've seen firsthand the power the Paizo community wields. If you like the idea of Pathfinder Tales being in the same category as Dragonlance or Warhammer books a few years from now--help us spread the word!
James, I haven't read any of paizo's stories, and although I enjoy fantasy and scifi, don't have much time to read them anymore. However, if you could suggest the book you think that would be the proper introduction to your novel line, I will happily purchase and read it, and tell you where it takes me.
Well then... who can resist that sort of offer? :) I'd say that of the three novels that are out (or about to come out), it's really just a matter of taste:
Prince of Wolves is best if you like Ustalav and gritty, gothic stuff... werewolves and weirdness, and strong voices from the PoV characters (rough-and-tumble Radovan and snooty Varian).
Winter Witch is best if you like Irrisen and the Linnorm Kingdoms, with a dash of Slavic fairy tale for good measure... a more classic sort of journey story, plus a snarky little dragon who's proved far more popular than we initially expected.
Plague of Shadows (which releases soon) takes place mostly in revolution-torn Galt and the Five Kings Mountains, and is probably the most traditionally epic fantasy of the three... a quest by a party of adventurers to find an ancient artifact before it's too late to save their friend.
Really, you can't go wrong as far as I'm concerned--just take a look at the reviews, and see what sounds best!
Thanks for all the comments, folks! Keep 'em coming!
Regarding the Kindle--we're still working on it. Trust me, nobody wants this thing on the Kindle more than I do, but the wheels turn slowly. :)
Speaking to the rules in fiction--as far as I'm concerned, the game rules represent our attempts to model the physical and magical laws that govern Golarion, and as a result any Pathfinder Tales story should take them into account. It's true that the first two books introduced some new and different things (in much the same way that our APs or modules introduce new elements), but neither "break" the game in my mind... the riffle scrolls were in fact statted up in a preview article for Kobold Quarterly, and the mapping thing is indeed beyond what a wizard like Declan should be capable of--hence his own confusion. (Perhaps if folks like the characters enough, we'll get to return later and tell the story of what that weird power's all about....)
In any case, the new books coming down the line are more conservative in that regard, and adhere to the rules to the best of my editing ability. That doesn't mean you'll always be able to tell exactly who has what stats (I don't know that it's worth the reader's time to call out that the fighter with Quick Draw drew his sword while walking forward), but you can rest assured that we're not in the business of disregarding the rules we've come up with. The stories we tell are, first and foremost, Pathfinder stories!
While his image may be used for art orders (thus making him one of the "iconics"), Seltyiel is a character, not a physical personification of a given class. He's a living, breathing person (or at least the idea of one). He wasn't tapped by the Rule Fairy at birth--he was just born, and grew up, and got good at some things while ignoring others.
He is indeed the iconic magus. It's a good fit for him. Before, we didn't have a single class that appropriately simulated the character concept we'd assembled, so we had to get more complicated with the stats. Now that we have the magus, we can simplify. But there's no need to rewrite his biography, because *he* hasn't changed--just the math that we use to represent him.
As Erik pointed out, the Bekyar are big on slavery and demon lords. To me, it seems *more* racially sensitive to emphasize that they're just one subgroup, so as to make sure the rest of the Mwangi ethnicities don't get slapped with a similar stereotype.
In my mind, Garund is awesome, and the dark-skinned folks who live there do pretty well for themselves. It's true that Azlant may be where most of human civilization originally arose (and yeah, they're pretty pale, but most of our own ancestors are Middle Eastern if you go back far enough). Yet Osirion created a huge empire that managed to stick around into the modern era. Dark-skinned folks run the most powerful magical kingdoms (Geb and Nex), invented firearms in Alkenstar, discovered the secret to eternal youth in Thuvia, rejected the gods in favor of self-determination in Rahadoum, and generally kick ass across the board. There are dark-skinned heroes of legend like Old-Mage Jatembe (who's probably one of the more powerful figures we've mentioned), and at least one upcoming novel set in Garund. The Mwangi's primary interactions with white-skinned folks as shown so far tend to be as equals through trade or as heroic underdogs against the Chelaxians in Sargava. Whether civilized or living in harmony with nature, we've tried to present the southern races in a generally positive light. (And yeah, I'd like to see some more art of Mwangi folks, but we're working on it. And before you call foul on the Alkenstar web fiction, wait until you see the Ironmaster.)
As for official alignments... well, I'm not a big fan of giving nations alignments anyway, so my advice would be to take those with a grain of salt. But that's just *my* opinion.
In short: whether or not we're succeeding in a fair and balanced representation of the various ethnicities, we're trying.
While discussing race on the messageboards is *always* an invitation to disaster, I will say that if you read the text accompanying all the stat blocks, you'll see that we made a clear effort to distinguish between so-called "savage" tribes (malicious cannibals, feral humanoids, etc.) and bands of noble and heroic tribal people. The stat blocks can be used for either, hence the reason they're on the same spread--it's not a comment on character or race. It would certainly have been nice if the shaman illo (which was clearly Native American inspired) could go next to the shaman stat block, but these layouts were templated, and we honestly didn't think anyone would be confused, given the obvious dichotomy between the image and the description of "cannibal." Probably it would have been better to just call the stat block "tribal warrior" and then mention the fact that you could use the stats to represent both good and evil players, but so it goes. If we've offended you, mea culpa.
I'll now leave the subject with the words of Stephen Radney-MacFarland, who in response to this thread, said only: "If I had a problem with Native Americans, I wouldn't have married one."
I was worried this would happen to Alkenstar. Shouldn't most people there be Garundi or Mwangi?
Not saying Kordroun couldn't be from a light-skinned minority, but I'm just worried that Nex, Alkenstar, and Geb are going to get "whitewashed"...
(yeah, some baggage from beyond this tale is bugging me at the moment)
Good catch, he could be Keleshite? Or Vudran? Nex is a favoured realm for them in the CS.
Osiriani and Kelish are listed as the languages
However, this is the key line from the CS
Campaign Setting wrote:
The dusky-skinned people of Alkenstar, like their neighbors north and south, are almost all ethnic Garundi and Keleshites.
Yeah, it's true. In general, folks from Alkenstar are darker-skinned. The fundamental truth about ordering art is that, since the artists only get a few-sentence description rather than the manuscript, you're almost never going to have 100% concordance between image and story (unless you write the words from the art). In this case, you're right that Kodroun should probably have had darker skin.
In alignment conversations, I always think it's fascinating when people bring up the fact that even "good" PCs spend most of their time going around killing the hell out of "monsters"... with "monster" being interpreted as "anything that might be dangerous to me."
Seriously--if you go into the dungeon where a monster (either intelligent or not) lives and try to take its stuff, and it attacks you, does it justify your killing it? Seems to me most American home-defense laws would say that the monster has the right to attack you, guilt-free.
I'm fine with the idea that certain outsiders (demons/devils) are moral abstractions and therefore totally, irredeemably evil. But for the vast majority of monsters, well... it seems that the concept of Manifest Destiny is built into the alignment system.
Which is why alignment is awesome. Because it's fun to go down the metaphysical rabbit hole, both in-character and out. :)
Question, you said the book went to the printer this week, but due out in March? I did not realize the leeway time was that long between the print run and release?
Yeah, printing books (and then shipping them back to us, getting them out to distributors, etc.) takes a lot longer than you'd think!
Honestly, I'm not even sure myself. Ever since the reigning powers arbitrarily divided up the proud nation of Jamesonia (i.e. we moved from two facing cubes to the new setup with offices), there have been a number of disputes, skirmishes, and pogroms, all of which might add up to a civil war, depending on who's counting. But what can you expect? Such border-drawing by outside parties is responsible for most of the problems in the Middle East, Africa, parts of the former USSR....
And since this is basically an alignment argument... I'll use my typical cheesy tactics to derail things:
Batman is Chaotic Good.
Jack Bauer is Lawful Good.
James Bond is Lawful Evil.
DISCUSS!
There needs to be a named internet law the covers Batman and alignment the way Godwin's law covers Nazis. Perhaps in ten years we'll be saying, "Dude, he totally Jacobsed that thread."
Spoiler:
Or will we even have alignment discussions in ten years? (Insert dramatic woodchuck music here.)
All joking/feuding aside--I agree that both points are valid interpretations of Mengkare, which is why I brought it up. I'm not saying he's NOT lawful neutral, I'm just saying that I think it's important for people to interpret the dragon's actions for themselves. I want to make sure that, just because JJ said LN on the messageboards, people don't immediately disregard the whole "is Mengkare still good?" question. Jacobs may be the Paizo Canon Master, but all of us--Mr. Jacobs included--have put ambiguity into Golarion for a reason. Because it's *way* more interesting that way.
Personally, though I love playing up the sinister side of Hermea ('cause any good setting needs conflict), I think that, for the most part, Hermea still functions more or less as intended, and its people are happy. There's no underclass, no poverty, no one struggling and dying in filth the way that there is in *every other human nation on Golarion.* Even if there is the occasional human rights violation... how many thousands of people are benefitted? Aside from eugenics (which is a totally different debate), the other big question for Hermea is whether absolute utilitarianism is evil. Everyone on Hermea serves the goal, including Mengkare. And if the death or exile of the few to benefit the many is neutral or evil, is there any nation on Earth that can truly be called good (especially those with the death penalty)?
As Mengkare would point out, all those rumors of people being executed are just that--rumors and exaggerations, right up there with Chelaxians breeding with devils or Galtans all being bloodthirsty decapitators. Certainly the average citizen of Hermea seems pretty happy--the dragon's not interested in tricking people into joining his utopian project. He only wants the folks that really think things through before they join and will be happy with their choice, and in fact selects people based on whether or not he thinks they're capable of making such decisions.
All of which is a long way of saying that alignment is a matter of personal interpretation, and almost always a gross generalization.
It's true--we have to protect ourselves legally. In addition to what folks said about authors not reading fanfic set in their worlds, many authors won't even look at *original* manuscripts from other authors they don't already know really well, on the grounds that frivolous and baseless lawsuits from some crazy amateurs still take up a ton of time and energy, even if they're easily defeated. (Though it sounds nuts, think about the number or people who deny the moon landing or the Holocaust--for every one of those, there are probably five incrementally saner people willing to believe that J. K. Rowling is listening at their windows and stealing their million-dollar ideas.)
AKA: I'm not a fan of using fancy words and long complicated pedantic justifications to "cheat" the alignment system.
Did you just call me a cheat, sirrah? Oh, it is on.
Enjoy your holiday vacation, and try not think about how your office is sitting cold and defenseless, while I sit just across the hallway. Waiting. Planning.
Actually... Mengkare is NOT supposed to be "incredibly good." He's supposed to be incredibly lawful.
He's lawful neutral, in other words. He's let his little experiment go too far, and he's become too obsessed with its perfection to keep track of being good along the way.
I'd like to point out that this is only one interpretation. Personally, ever since I came up with Hermea, I've always held that Mengkare is indeed lawful good--at least in his own head. Whether or not you agree with his "for the greater good arguments" is up to you, and it's frankly not something he worries overmuch about. He's a dragon with his own country, and though he takes a pretty hard-line and contractual view of righteousness... well, so do a lot of snooty paladins and clerics out there (in Golarion and our own world), and they're still lawful good in their stat block.
Alignment is a weird issue, and not even something all of us in the office agree on. Absolutes are for deities, and we are but humans (or dragons). Decide for yourself!
Who Fears the Devil is one of the best books we've published. Wellman was actually nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and once you've read through some of his stories, you'll be able to see why--he brings to life a whole swath of backwoods legends from Appalachia, presenting an intricate and distinctly American mythology of which most of us at the office were totally ignorant. The voice of Silver John is at once totally unique and immediately engaging... it really draws you in and feels authentic.
That was a good interview James - nice mix of professionalism covering upcoming releases and informal chat between gamers. Sometime I'd love to hear more about the process of developing Pathfinder Tales. Knowing now that you may expand on popular entries in the weekly free fiction to a full novel, I'll be more vocal in commenting on characters that capture my interest there.
Regarding your voice, you'll likely never be a morning radio personality, but you could probably replace Regis Philbin...
Thanks for the kind words, folks! And I'd love to talk about Pathfinder Tales more--I know that Know Direction focuses more on game stuff, but perhaps somebody else will hit us up for an interview as the books continue to grow in popularity.
Also, after reading that blog, Chris Carey turned to me and said, "You know, you really *do* sound way different on your phone..." So there's one data point to verify my claims. :)
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