Now, now, Hama, what you probably meant to say was that political correctness often struggles with boundary issues... surely you never meant to insinuate that politically correct people "go too far" - that wouldn't be fair, since you don't know most of them. I'm sure this is all a case of you being verbally challenged, however.
As to my thoughts of the actual subject at hand - I think that teaching about father's and mother's day, while taking the time to explicitly explain that some kids have two of one kind and zero of the other, is a far better solution than just ignoring the fact that mothers and fathers are parts of the most basic family cell. There are variations on that structure, every one of them as legitimate as the others, but it's not like people who grow up with two mothers should be offended that there is a father's day. I mean, why would they be? it's just not relevent for them. It's exaclty like unemployed people in labor day - they may not feel that it's a special day for them, but that dosen't mean the day should be canceled or ignored...
great, great news. I don't know enough of the history of the Vetican to understand if this is something new or not, but anyway it's good to see somone sensible at the top there, instead of that psycho encouraging the people of Africa not to use condoms. Quite the difference.
Also, without knowing much of christian lore, I heard that the current Pope chose a name of a holy man known for his kindness and caring for the society. All these things make me really optimistic.
A couple of thoughts:
1) It always amuses me to no end that just about anyone can use any holy book to justify just about anything. Just as up to this point christians from the vettican believed you have to be a Christian to be saved (most likely having a bunch of qoutes from their holy books supporting thier claims) they are now going to believe otherwise because The Pope Said So. Kinda makes me wander how anyone can seriously believe they are following the will of a god when they perform their rituals and live thier lives according to the book, when the books' interpretation is always changing to fit the time they live in. If you can change your interpretation of the book, that means you can (and most certainly will, at least about some of it), *mis*intepret it. Not trolling here, just saying that Iv'e seen so many religeous arguments where two dudes will each use the holy book to justify an opinion competley opposite to that of the other, who also uses the same text, that Iv'e started to wonder how is this taken seriously?
2) With the Pope making such a great effort to make the Vettican relevent to as many people as he can, are we now allowed to use the phrase "pope-culture"?
These suggestions are very veluable for certain kind of games, but in others they are less relevent. My and my groups' games, for example, tend to lean on the "grim and realistic" side, so having people hop over the heads of their foes to just easily land on a barrel and keep on fighting will break versimulitude. Less "crazy and creative" things happen in the game because of that, but when sommething extraordinary happens, it feels all that much more special, and for that I think it's worth it.
AlricLightwind, Clara actualy had more character development in "Bells of Saint John" and "Rings of Akahatan" than Amy and Rory had during their entire 2.5 seasons traveling with the Doctor... but I see what you mean. She really dosen't get anything after these two episodes, and when, in the last episode,
Spoiler:
she is willing to sacrifice herself for the Doctor
It feels more like a plot device than an actual act the character might do, because frankly wev'e never seen her go anywhere near the depth of emotion it would take to do something like that, and the nature of her relationship with the Doctor is as vague as anything else about her.
There are a multitude of facets of 'intelligence". Reaction time is one of the smaller ones. Spatial reasoning, abstract thinking, and verbal skills are several I place greater importance on, personally.
yep. Exactly.
Besides, one research is hardly ever conclusive. Besides, they are only comparing their measurment to one research performed long ago, which was by itself uncocnlusive.
I heartily recommend that you read the superb "Death's Heratic", which is far and away the best RPG based book Iv'e ever read. For campaign related goodness I'd also recommend "Nightglass". If you are into Dave Gross (who if I'm not mistaken is the author of several Forgotten Realms stories), then he has a nice series of books about the adventures of a Pathfinder and his tiefling companion, sort of a "Sherlock Holmes in a fnatasy setting" thing. Kinda cool.
What I knew about the Great Intelligence from the christmas episode can kind of be summed up as, "it's evil and doesn't have a body". Not much to go on, really.
Think, for example, how much do you know of the Slitheen, a completley random and unimportant villain race featured in the first season of the renewed series. Compare this with hom much you know about the G.I. Seems absurd to me that there's such a considerable difference.
Actualy, some fighter archtypes allow for pretty interesting builds - see the archer from the APG, for example. Being able to disarm or trip opponents from a distance is super solid, and there's also a feat the increase ranged damage with intelligence, allowing anyone to create a fighter with high INT score without feeling guilty about it!
While enlarge does come with drawback, you usualy cast it on a character who dosen't care about them - see Haladir's example above. Why would a barbarian care about -2 on range attacks and a -1 on skills like acrobatics? he's all about attacking, and in lower levels, enlarge person helps that greatly.
I had a fight for my group where a dragon blooded sorcerer with 4 mooks enlarged his mooks during combat, and that was a very challenging encounter, nearly killed a couple PC's. They were level 3 at the time, and I believe no other spell the sorcerer could have had would have been more powerful.
I just have the feeling that your dissapointment with Moffat makes you look much harder for problems in episodes than perhaps other people. I personally think this season was the weakest of the new who seasons, with only a handful of episodes I really liked. That said I enjoyed the last two episodes and thought for the most part there were remarkably few plotholes that really snagged my attention. I don't necessarily need every explicit plot point explained in detail...
When I watch doctor who I'm always activly looking for things to like, since the execution of many episodes (in older seasons as well) is often lacking in many aspects. I ignore things and suspend my disbelief quite a lot. It's just that in the Moffat era, I feel like the show is not being treated with respect by the writer. The kind of flaws I pointed out here are rife in all Moffat episodes, I don't have to work very hard to see them. It seems like Moffat thinks he can just do whatever with the plots, that he dosen't need to make sure they make sense because it's sceince fiction, so who cares.
I'm also very troubled when I see the Doctor being sexist, needlesly aggresive or stuipd (and with all the questions he is NOT asking latley, he is being stuipd), because, well, that's not the show I want to see.
Now that the episode has some more time to tumble in my mind, I realise I actualy DON'T like something about it:
** spoiler omitted **
Regarding ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS and the whole thing:
** spoiler omitted **
Spoiler:
Look, I'm not saying that there's no concievable way that everything could fit togather - there are several, I'm sure, and your explanation works just fine. What annoys me is that the episode fails to even address the issue, creating a kind of gut feeling by my side that the writers are not even awere that there *is* a problem... I somehow feel like we'll not only never know exactly how did the remarkable coincidence of Clara saving the Doctor from Skaro when she's actualy there to save him from an entirely different threat came to be, but also that The Doctor woudn't care, and he wouldn't question it. Because he questions nothing these days. Except for the origin of Clara's milk for the souflle, of course.
First a technicality - Clara said she dies every time... I guess it might mean sometimes she gets to live a full life before dying of natural reasons and being born again to save the Doctor... maybe I misunderstood that part but frankly, it's very confusing. More so because the couple of time we did see her save the Doctor she died, and her deaths were part of the mystery.
About the G.I - yeah, sure, it can travel through time and space because it dosen't have a body, which dosen't come anywhere near explaining how it transported it's prisoners from earth to another planet.
And yes, there are explanations about the G.I in the internet, and I read them, but that dosen't excuse the fact that the episode never shares the information with you. All you know about the G.I is that it has a grudge against the Doctor... it shouldn't by my responsibility to go find out. Imagine if the new show never explained what Daleks are? they would just show up one episode and start doing bad things and NOBODY would question what's going on. NOBODY. That would be a disservice to them, and the same kind of disservice was done to the G.I here. In seasons 1 - 5 a large part of each episode was introducing the bad guys - their motivations and personalities and special kind of evil. Here, we are faced with a cool, iconic villain from the Doctor's past and never learn ANYTHING about it. A disappointment.
About it's descision to suicide in order to take down the Doctor... again, I find myself hard pressed to believe such an entity would do so. It literaly had proof that the Doctor is powerless against it (it managed to attempt to bully him into saying his name by threatning his friends - obviously if there was something he could do he would have done it then) - it only needed to kill him, nothing more. Then, it's free to continue doing the whatever-it-is-that-it-wants-to-do which the Doctor was stopping so far. Just dosen't make sense.
Edit:
Spoiler:
plus, a lot of the explanations you provided are nothing more than educated guesses. I can make those guesses too, and mine are as good as yours (in this case, they happen to be the same guesses exactly). However, such things should really not be left for the viewer to guess. The Doctor could easily have mumbled miserably, "It's a trap, it's all a trap... the G.I made that man kill all those women just so that he'll be sentenced to death... and then the G.I came to it in his time of despair, as he was facing the gallows, and told him he had a chance to live, IF he delivered a message to the detective who caught him...". Such an explanation would be cool, and show us how evil and cunning the G.I is. Plus it will actualy, you know, explain what's going on in the episode to the viewers. Sadly, nothing of the sort happened. It's a shame.
Now that the episode has some more time to tumble in my mind, I realise I actualy DON'T like something about it:
Spoiler:
The solution to Clara's mystey is actualy nonsensical. So she hops into The Doctor's time stream to save him from the Great Intelligence... but:
1) At least in one episode, "Asylum of the Dalek", she saves him in a way that had NOTHING to do with the G.I and it's white faced minions. I thought, though, that she was tracking down places where the G.I went and stopped it from erasing the Doctor. Speaking of which,
2) How would Clara even know how to nevigate the Doctor's timeline? sure, the G.I can do it, it's ancient and powerful and super um, intelligent, I suppose. But just a 21st century earthling barely out of college? I don't know.
3) O.K, so Clara pops in in a (place-time) and saves the Doctor... why does she die in the process? not once or twice but always? how does that have to do with anything?
4) Is she awere that she's traveling through space-time and and saving The Doctor? because from her nerration of this episode you'd think so, but it was very obvious that in the last two time she met him (asylum of the Daleks and the christmas special) she didn't know who he was... does she always only remember what she is when she is between lives?
Just yet another pile of things which don't make sense, are not explained, and were probably not given much thought by the writers.
So, ok, I like the principal. The name of The Doctor, the one that matters, is the one he chose for himself, not the one he was born with. Not half bad. Also, the explination for the mystery of Clara is explained in a rather cool way.
Mostly I have two problems with an otherwise O.K episode:
1) Nothing was explained properly. I don't get who the Great Intelligence is (actualy read about it in the internet, but the episode leaves this as a complete mystery), I don't know what those white faced things serving it are, I don't know how it got from Victorian London to another planet, I don't know why the madman from prison at the beginning knew about The Doctor and how to contact the lizardmwoman about him... It's really just kind of a pile of stuff you have to not question if you are to follow the plot.
2) The G.I's plot seems a bit convulted. He's got The Doctor right where he wants him, he cant just kill the Doctor and be done with it. I get that he won't have the setisfaction of erasing The Doctor from existance, but considering that the G.I payed for the privilege with it's own life makes the move a bit extreme. Somehow I just can't imagine a creature calling itself "great intelligence" being willing to be destroyed just for petty revenge - again, if all the G.I wanted was the Doctor removed, he could have easily killed him. If I understood correctly from my reading, the G.I is actualy a Great Old One, a extra-dimensional immortal from the Cthulhu mythos. That means he's acting way out of character here.
3) Nobody dies when Moffat is driving! When characters appeared to be dead in this episode, it just wasn't beliveable anymore. Janni is dead? worry not, she'll live again. Strax is dead? whatever, wait 70 seconds, he'll be back (or is it she?). Even when Clara split herself, The Doctor just casualy stepped INTO HIS OWN TIMELINE (the entire premise of the show is that he can't do that, or else every episode will end with him traveling back in time to where the thing which created the problem in the episode started and change it) and saved her, making the sacrifice, once again, fake.
4) And speaking of the sacrifice, it really didn't make a lot of sense, mostly because Clara had just about the same amounts of character development this season as Amy got in her two seasons - which is to say, very little. We know next to nothing about her. There's barley a moment (except in "Bells of Saint John") where we see her just speak with the Doctor r behave as she would, since all episodes were so action packed there was no time for it. So why does a young girl who likes living so easily throw herself away to save this man she really barely knows at all? Maybe it's just how she is, but given that we know next to nothing about her, it's hard to tell.
Wow, while writing this I kind of came to realize this episode was not very good. It was fun watching, but man, so many flaws. I thought I had two things bothering me with this, but apprantly there were 4 :P
Ah, I see. As I noted before I am only femiliar with the new Doctor Who, where the Cybermen were created by that madman at the parallel universe, and he installed them in a way that had them believing they were already perfect - and they kept that belief even when faced with clear evidance that it's false (for example, when they got thier metal backsides kicked by the Dalecks), so the way I saw it, they were "programmed" to think they are perfect. Because that's what their creator thought.
By the way, are the Cybermen in this episode related to those from season 2, or something else?
I'm quite sure that, even beyond the support we'll give in print in the form of relatively brief advice on how to run Wrath of the Righteous as a non-mythic AP, there'll be plenty of more advice here on the boards both from fellow gamers doing the same and from me too.
I get that, but the AP still has a higher-than-normal chance of never being played by me. Which dosen't really matter because I so far got to run only 2 and am hoping to get to 5 somewhere in this following decade, so that's not a big deal.
It remains to be seen if buying this AP would be a mythtake, but I already decided I'm going to. Hope it's the right desicsion!
The fiendish/celestial grizzly bear is one of the options in the summon monster IV list. While most moneters in the list are CR 3, the bear is a whopping CR 5... for a level 4 spell you get a monster with good DR, and an ability to smite good one, which should deal something like 1d6 + 10 damage... plus high HP and good stats overall, including grab.
I'm designing a CR 9 cleric to fight my PCs, and want her to have a summoned monster or two... she's gonna fly over the battlefield and summon creatures, while aiding them with all sorts of sweet spell like bestow curse and flame strike.
The party is going to be level 6 when facing this mighty final boss... is thig going to be too much? how come there's such a huge desperity in power among the options of a single spell? (party is very strong with 20 point build and an unstoppable barbarian leading the charge...)
....Really? No one's commenting on the supposed "redeemed succubus"? After that huge thread on how there's no redemption in APs that supposedly gave Sir Jacobs the idea? Where's the Mizake guy when you need him? :P
In all seriousness though, while I'm sure the whole volume will be amazing, the above is going to be what makes this really hard for me not read once it arrives. ^_^
Oh, I'd love to talk about it. ;D
But them's the breaks. Gag order and all. Needless to say, I am excited for this. I hope to deliver some awesome roleplaying in this chapter.
Considering that individual NPC stories and character development were the best part of "The Shackled Hut", I can already see this becoming a very, very memorable NPC to interact with.
This AP is confusing because while I am uniterested in mythic, every single other thing about the AP sounds so awesome I just can't pass on it, probably.
I'm surprised that all of what you people talk about is just the new look, considering that there was a *much* more essential change to them last episode. As in, they changed 180 degrees, and are just about the complete reverse of the cybermen seen before.
The "old" cybermen used to say "upgrade" a lot, just like these new ones, but the meaning of the word was changed in this episode. The *entire* point of the cybermen up to this point was that they believed themselves to be perfect - see their argument with the Daleks at the finale of season 2, for example. Their purpose was not just to conquer and dominate, it was to "upgrade" humans into becoming cybermen, hence making them perfect. It was an interesting motivation that made them not even truly evil, just cold and unhuman and uncaring... and dangerous.
Further more, it was made clear that Cybermen are a stagnated race - that they had no creativity, sense of identity or any sort of original thought.
So those were the established cybermen, and in this episode, we get self-upgrading cybermen. So:
1) Apparantly now they are no longer incapable of inventing anything new
2) By the act of upgrade oneself, you first have to admit that you were not perfect prior to the upgrade (or else the very idea of an upgrade is a logical impossibility). So if Cybermen are upgrading themselves, they admit to NOT being perfect.
The new "upgrade" idea is not a natural evolution of what was before, it's a sharp and discontinuous turn into something that does not only happen to be different from the original idea, but also completely opposes it. Why are Cybermen still interested in upgrading humans if they are not perfect themselves? what IS their motivation, besides being scary robot monsters? The episode, while being action packed and full of shiny new ideas, kind of forgot about that. The fact that I just can't figure out *why* would the cybermen be aggresive and warlike just makes the plot seems contrived to me. The Doctor does not seem to care either.
Now, I'm a newcomer to the show, and so am not aware of the long history of Cybermen as villains, I'm only working with the information I have from doctors 10 and 11... but still, I feel like there was a great feel and focus to the Cybermen before, and it was lost now.
Summoner: I typically assess PC power in how much wealth they really need to spend on magical items. I have had a player being a Summoner and she didn't spend a coin on such matters until reaching 10th-level, she gladly handed the fighter in the group all her wealth, so he could at least pretend catching up. And no, she wasn't a Synthesist since such a monster would bring forth the Apocalypse, were it to exist, other than in concept. Still, a very interesting class, even though it can be made to be broken on many levels.
How does this even happen? I have yet to see a legal eidolon build that put a fighter to shame without turning the summoner into a living battery.
Without even checking, I can guess that the Eidlon has several mistakes in it's stats. It's so absurdly complicated that just about anyone would make a mistake somewhere.
I can't see why ninja is not a archetype or prestige class, and cavalier barely had a reason to exist in the first place, making me really confused about the Samurai, given that it's basically a cavalier.
This has come up several times in this thread, and it keeps making me facepalm. So let me get this off my chest:
The ninja is, in fact, an archetype for rogues.
The samurai is, in fact, an archetype for cavaliers.
Please, everybody, stop saying "they should have been an archetype." They are.
Thank you.
Agreed. An alternate class is an archetype that a) requires a few more column inches to write down than the usual archetype and b) is enough of a change that it has it's own archetypes (e.g., Samurai with the Sword Saint).
Not exactly, though. The difference in mechanics between ninja and rouge are very big. I think that the concept of "ninja" could have been executed far more simply in an archtype or hack, by just adding a chain of rouge talents or whatever. But it's a complete class, with it's own mechanics. I see why you'd say an alternate class and an archetype is the same thing, but at least to me, it *feels* very different.
It isn't a trilogy. It's a five-part series :-) Hoping to get a review copy of Book 3 any day now.
Ha. For some reasomn I was positive it's a trilogy. Well, while I like the idea of reading more books in the series, I do hope they'll get the guts to create more change from book to book because really, in many ways, the ending of book 2 could have happened in the ending of book 1 and not much would have been lost along the end except for a better feel of how long it's been, and the new characters.
Also, it's awesome you get a review copy! how did you menuever to that position? Would love to hear what you thing of it when you are done reading!
It recenlty occured to me that with the advanced player guide we got an aracne druid (witch), a divine socerer (oracle) and an arcane bard (inquisitor). Of course none of these parallels are 100% accurate but I find them pretty close. Couple of questions:
1) Am I right about the way I see things? are those three classes I mentioned supposed to be counterparts to core classes that use the other half of the magic in golarion? Was that the guiding ptinciple when designing them?
2) If so, are there any plans on creating arcane versions of the paladin or the ranger? is the magus perhaps sort of an arcane version of the ranger?
On a totaly unrelated nore: If it bleeds, can you kill it?
The rest of the base classes are a little harder to classify. I can't see why ninja is not a archetype or prestige class, and cavalier barely had a reason to exist in the first place, making me really confused about the Samurai, given that it's basically a cavalier. Summoner had a potential to be really good but I think Paizo massed up the mechanics on this one (James Jacobs said numerous times that if he had the chance he would have changed the eidlon mechanic to be more similar to the druid's animal companion, with a basic template and types of outsiders changing that basic template - instead of choosing "cat, small" you chose "celestial, winged", for example).
I think that if the summoner used a number of fixed templates like the druid animal companion fewer people would hate it. Even experts at the game often seem to mess up the eidolon as it currently works. The fact that my group doesn't allow them is more of a combination of group size (making someone who breaks action economy a drag) and the fact that the players most likely to summon something are those with the least system mastery (constantly getting things wrong and never having stats in advance).
I understand the cavalier a little bit more. The fighter is not capable of making an educated warrior due to only having 2 skill points a level and the limited skill list. However, other than the teamwork feats, the cavalier intorduces no new machanics. The mount is from the druid, challenge is a weaker version of the paladin smite, banner is a weaker version of bard performance, and so on. Since samurai are supposed to be educated (and can be loosely called 'japan's knights) they became an alternate class of cavalier rather than anything else.
Yeah, I agree 100% about the summoner. I would have been tempted to play one myself, if it would have been designed like a druid that heavily focuses on a cool outsider as an animal companion.
About the Samurai/Cavalier issue, if the entire point was to add skill points, well, that's exactly what archetypes are for.
Taking the discussion back to it's starting point, I think most base classes are very justified, and work well. They fill holes that are left by the core classes:
I think that those three variations on the mechanical concepts each got an amazing fluff justification (oracle is SOOO awesome). There is no reason that these classes should be core, in my opinion, other than the simple fact that including them in a core rulebook would make it too big.
The other base classes are a more interesting case. Some of them, like gunslinger, alchemist and magus are there to do something that's very hard to support with the "normal" rules and classes, and are obviously there for the people interested in playing 'em. If you don't like them, ignoring them is rather easy.
The rest of the base classes are a little harder to classify. I can't see why ninja is not a archetype or prestige class, and cavalier barely had a reason to exist in the first place, making me really confused about the Samurai, given that it's basically a cavalier. Summoner had a potential to be really good but I think Paizo massed up the mechanics on this one (James Jacobs said numerous times that if he had the chance he would have changed the eidlon mechanic to be more similar to the druid's animal companion, with a basic template and types of outsiders changing that basic template - instead of choosing "cat, small" you chose "celestial, winged", for example).
All in all the inclusion of case classes in a game improved it, IMHO. Some of them are really core classes in disguise, others serve groups of people who so far were unable to create characters they wanted to play, and the rest seem like a harmless bundle of new mechanics. I'm happy with base classes.
So, haven't found a thread on this here on Paizo.com, so I thought to open one, given that the third book is about become avilable three weeks from now. Also, I just finished reading the second novel, and that cliffhanger at the end there REALLY got me. Like, I have to talk with someone right frigging NOW about the books, and not a single person except for me read the book in my ignorant, geek-less part of the world. Thank the gods for the internet.
Anyway, I really loved the first book in the series, as it gave what I think is a very accurate and interesting look at how life could be like once humanity populates the entire solar system. That and the non stop action, packed with great humor and amazing characters. I also really appreciated how the book mashed togather genres, taking a lot of elements from horror, science fiction, and noire detective stories, to create something truly unique. If someone didn't read the book, I really recommend that they do.
More detailed thoughts about second book (entire book, so don't read if you haven't read through all of it yet)
Spoiler:
a!$*T*FKWKG, Miller is back! somehow! or maybe not! I;m not entirely sure what's going on out there, but I'm REALLY eager to find out!!
So now about the rest of the book: I liked it less than the first one. It really suffered from "middle chapter syndrome" - it seems like it barely has a perpose other than setting up the pieces for the finale of the series. We really get nothing new here: it's a very close replica to the story of the first book. The first episode is about a girl encountering the protomolecule, and then the rest of the book is about Holden and his crew stumbling through coincidences that lead them on a path to finding the kidnapped girl and along the way discover a sect of psychopeths weaponizing the protomolecule. We've read this story before, and in a better version, in "Leviathan's Wake", meaning that the STORY of "Caliban's War" was really kind of unimportent.
Also, characters don't die any more, it seems. In the first book there was a real feeling of actual dangers as the characters found themselves facing impossible odds, making it much more thrilling to read. For example, on Ceres station, Holden and Miller got exposed to radiation, meaning they had to take medical treatments in rather high frequency for the rest of their lives to purge all canceric growths in thier bodies. This was apprantly forgotten in this book. Also, even though the characters are going through places at least as dangerous as Ceres Station, they emerge unscathed from all of them, time and time again, removing any sense of risk. I can't help but feel that the authors have grown too attached to the characters to let them die or even get hurt. That's disappointing to me, because I enjoyed the more gritty feel of the first novel.
To me the high point of the second book (aside from the cliffhanger at the very end) was the new characters. Avasarala is the best among them, of course, and every scene she's in immediatley becomes great. Her love for her husband is really touching.
Bobbie and Prax are awesome as well, though. They are both really interesting and unique and have their own voices. I really hope they both have a role to play in the last book.
So now the pieces are finaly in place, and a direct confronatiaion with whatever that thing from Venus is will happen. No more rich people trying to gain power by using the protomolucule, time for something new. Time for s resulution, I hope. Plus, Miller.
So what do you people have to say about the books that are out? am I the only one so psyched about that cliffhanger?
Well, I guess Paizo better stop publishing new campaign material RIGHT NOW, because by your logic, new players would be too confoozled by all those nations on the map and all those books and APs which are already out, dealing with those nations.
Thing is, the way things work now, if you want to know about Sargava, for example, you buy the book about Sargava. The moment the timeline is advanced, suddenly not everything written in that book is still correct, or even relevent. Because if, for example,
Serpent's Skull spoiler!:
the official timeline has the PCs losing this AP, suddenly Sargava is now something very different - maybe a battleground between surface dwellers and the serpentfolk, maybe already an enslaved nation.
My point being, right now you have a *gurantee* that if you bought a Paizo product detailing an area, you can count on the description being accurate. If you advance a timeline, suddenly it becomes harder to discren which of the facts that you know about a place happened when. Of course for you and me it'll be rather easy - because we were here to see the situation evolve. For a newcomer, it's confusing.
Just imagine how outraged someone might be if he found out that he just spent over 10$ buying a book about Sargava in preperation for the AP he's going to run there (I'm talking about a future, possible, hipothetical AP in Sargava set after the advance of the timeline), to only then find out he got confused and bought an outdated product.
In another related issue, if you advance the timeline in Sargava to accomedate the events that happened in Serpent's Skull, then whomever is going to have a game there will have to either run Serpent's Skull first, or never run Serpent's Skull at all, due to wanting your game to have a coherent timeline your players can follow. That means Paizo will render quite the number of older product useless if they advance the timeline.
Well, aside from Magic: The Gathering still being the most popular TCG after so many years ( which by itself makes your argument seem kinda, uh, wrong?)
The article was published years ago, and it anounced a *major* change in how Magic was designed - if you'd read the paragraph preceeding the graph shown, you'll note that the writer (who is the lead designer of Magic) states clearly that magic was becoming less and less popular - that is, it's rate of growth was negative. After the change, it became positive again and Magic is now more popular than ever. So, simplifying things might have easily been a BIG part of that reason. Can't know for sure, but the evidance strognly suggests that.
magnuskn wrote:
And I'd like to ask why you are so sure that a stagnant world setting will attact more new costumers than one which updates about once per decade. Sorry, but you are tea leaves reading, in the same way that I am. Only that I am actually telling of my experiences with several other fandoms, while you are so far stating stuff without actually referencing other fandoms which did not blow up their setting, but yet still advanced their stories.
Because, simply put, the more effort you need to invest in order to learn a new game game, the less likely you are to do so. Really think about it for a moment with a viewpoint as objective as possible. Maybe you are special and delight in delving into a world that went through several jumps in timeline, requiring you to learn not only the way things are in the "present" but also SEVERAL older versions of the same world (and it will be several, because according to your own logic, Pathfinder 2.0 would eventualy be replaced by Pathfinder 3.0, and so on), but for most people that's just too much of a headache. Or it might be. Any way you look at it, increasing the "bar of entry" - that is, the minimal effort you need to invest in order to get into a game - also filters away all the people for whom the previous bar of entry was borderline unacceptable.
The math involved is not complexed, nor is the basic principle. The only place where opinion can come into the matter is asking if maybe the risk is worth it, every now and then. You believe it's worth it, apprantly, while I believe it should be done only with greatest caution and is sparsley as possible. If it's avoidable, I think you should probably avoid it.
To make a point clear: I myself am quite invested in Golarion, and of course would be intrigued to see how a change in timeline would affect the setting. As someone who deals with the campaign world on a daily basis, I will of course be able to grasp any changed made and probably also not lose myself and keep track of what's happening when and where.
I am just demonstrating that you and I are not the only crowed Paizo markets for. Furthermore... we are not a very important crowed, since we like their stuff enough to buy it anyway even if we do not approve the way they handle changing the timelines (or in your case, the way they don't change the timeline is the issue). However as a workplace, Paizo HAS to keep getting new customers, because of Economics. It's just how it works. So when you consider the damage that advancing a timeline might cause to a the potential of getting new customers, you just realise it's not a good idea for Paizo to act on. At least not until curcumstances change significantly enough.
So bottom line is, the "evolution" you suggest is harmful to Paizo and does not even serve most of the customers and potential customers. Not to say that such a change should never happen, just that deciding WHEN it will happen is a very delicate process better left to the best professionals in the world, is evident by their rise to power - Paizo.
I think the "bottom line" is that you have an opinion contrary to mine, not a more factual basis for your argument. I'm certainly not taking my opinion on the matter as more than trying to make a good argument for what I want, so I'd be happy to see you not try to pass off your own arguments as facts, as you are trying to do here.
My argument remains that complete stagnation is bad. Not maybe in the short term, but certainly in the longer term. The question is only how long that time is, before people feel disconnected enough that the world is unchanging and is supposed to be that way.
I think the correct timeframe to that is "until Pathfinder 2.0 comes out in a few years". Because at that time we will have the full gamut of edition wars and disgruntled costumers anyway, the writers might as well give the setting a good shove to advance the storyline along with the rules ( only not too much of a shove please, no Spellplague 2.0 ).
Also, in regards to your argument about "leave it to the professionals", I've seen professional writers manage to destroy their fan-beloved settings much too many times now ( Forgotten Realms, BattleTech, Star Wars EU, OWoD ) to have much faith left in creative infallibility. Giving feedback helps, if they are willing to listen ( as the guys at Paizo certainly seem to be, much more than any other writing team ) and a diversity of opinions also can't be harmful for them. And I think "evolution, not revolution" is some of the best advice I can give after watching many of my other beloved franchises fail over the last decade.
Feedback is helpful, but sometimes, those giving the feedbacl could also benefit from feedback themselves.
You keep on making assumptions that are not based on actual facts but actualy reflect your personal preferences. For example in this qouted post, "stagnation is bad" - What you might call stagnation, others will call stability. For you, as an avid Golarion fan, there might be a feeling that, after playing through many APs, it's fraustrating not to see the timeline advance to recognize these APs. So the way you see it, you played through numerous potentialy world changing stories, only to have the story remain the same time after time. For you, it grows tiresome and old.
OK, I get it, even through I still hold that you can easily advance the timeline of your version of Golarion. Thing is, for many others, what you call "stagnation" is exactly what they are looking for - a rather static world. even though it's HUGE and full of potential adventure and stories, people who buy an adventure set in a certain part of the world want to be able to know as much about that area with as little effort as possible- constantly advancing a timeline would make it more confusing. People want to be able to count on certain things.Imagine someone wanting to pick up a Pathfinder Module in a local game store. If the timeline is constantly moving, the buyer will have to approach an employee and ask,
"so wait, does this module, set in Varisia, happen before or after Shattered Star?"
It's not anything horrible, but the more you advance the timeline, the more stuff like this you are going to have. Therefore, I think you'll have to agree, for just about anyone who is less knowledgeable about Golarion than you are, it's better to have the world remain static.
Have you ever played Magic: The Gathering? this is a very interesting article. It pretty much explains just how problematic it is to go on adding more and more stuff that new players will be required to be able to keep track of. It's kind of what I'm trying to say.
Fans of a franchise like evolution, not revolution.
You are ignoring a VERY important part of what a customer base is - and that's growth. A company should strive to do more than please it's current customers - it's goal should be to grow over time. That means sell their stuff to new people.
And getting people to get into a new roleplaying game, or a new system, is not very easy. Take anyone who has been playing 3.5 in the far realms for, say, 10 years. Now, if Paizo is ever to "convert" that person to Pathfinder and sell AP volumes to him/her, they'd have to convince him/her to not only learn a new rule system, but also adapt to a new setting. Another crowed that's hard to market to are completely new players - people who never played any version of D&D or maybe even roleplaying before.
What's common for those two croweds, and which makes them very different than you, me and the rest of the fanbase who's been around for quite a while, is that the more you "evolve" a setting, the harder it becomes to get into. The more history you need to learn before you can get into the setting.
Furthermore, the moment Paizo advances the timelines and incorporate the results of previous APs into Golarion history, ALL APs published up to that point are rendered useless for anyone wanting to start playing in Golarion. Meaning, simply enough, that people will not buy them anymore.
Your desire to see "evolution" in the game world is both understandable and well recorded in these forums. However, you need to take a look at the bigger picture here, and realize you are only representing one section of the large group that's called "Paizo customers". Even among fans, some of us (me included) don't really want to see the setting timeline advance anytime soon, because we are not even CLOSE to exploring everything there is to explore without making any changes, plus a GM can also change his own version of Golarion without official backup from Paizo.
So bottom line is, the "evolution" you suggest is harmful to Paizo and does not even serve most of the customers and potential customers. Not to say that such a change should never happen, just that deciding WHEN it will happen is a very delicate process better left to the best professionals in the world, is evident by their rise to power - Paizo.
The trailer seems to emphasize the war, while in the book the war is really more in the background, because it's told through Ender's perspective, and as a kid he is very self centered.
I just hope the movie will be able to capture the rare combination of a very unique story about morality, combined with some ingenious tactical games.
My games err on the serious side of things, as I think you can only become truly invested in a game where the stakes of losing or winning are high, and you just can't take matters all that lightly when that's the case.
Dosen't mean Marry Poppins dosen't show up every now and again, but when she does, it's usualy to awesomley solve some very serious problems. Power word: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is a much more potent spell than most people realise.
PDF + print in full color and put in a nice binder = buying print product.
No its not. No matter how many times you or others say it, its not the same thing. I have tons of PDF's from my subscription time with piazo that sit unused. No interest in printing my own stuff.
I can see why you'd PREFER a print copy rather than printing a PDF yourself, but I'm saying if you prefer shorter modules, your best option now is to do just that, with PFS scenarios. If you'd rather switch to bigger modules than print out the smaller ones... good for you! the longer modules look awesome :D
I've actually noticed that the PFS Scenarios do a good job of having adventures that fill in the gaps. Plus they are scaleable which is nice. I see them replacing the Adventure Modules at being, well, modules. Check them out. They tend to be good even if you aren't in PFS.
Unfortunately, they don't sell them in print form. Which makes them useless to me. I'm not a PDF person. I like dead tree form. I've got every module they put out, but unless they start publishing PFS scenarios in other then PDF, wont do me any good.
PDF + print in full color and put in a nice binder = buying print product.
I'd rather have feats that give fun and powerful new options and abilities. Rather than a boring static +1 to hit bonus. I like what a poster on another board once said of weapon focus: "I've never had a discussion with my buddies that went: 'Remember how my character took Weapon Focus and after that he got one extra hit for every twenty attacks on average? That was awesome!!' "
Nevermind the problem of devoting to one weapon only to not find any in the loot. Sure, you can upgrade your current one. Maybe... But look at all the nice other 2H weapons you're missing out on!
While I really see your point, I think it represents a misconception. While feats like weapon focus are not really all that shiny, you need to garner a critical mass of them to make the rest of your build work. You need those supporting feats to make a character work.
It's like going to the movies, really. The memorable experiances you'd have would be of the movies you'd see and enjoy. You might remember fondly that time you watched "Avengers" with your buddies. The discussion you and your buddies will never have is, 'Remember how the air conditioning in the theater worked perfectly? That was awesome!!'. The reason is that when all the perliminary support of something works properly, you don't even notice it, and it allows you to enjoy the main thing.
Same goes for feats that do nothing but grant you bonuses to rolls in Pathfinder. They might not seem important, but they are enablers of the awesome things. Sure, taking weapon focus and iron will and dodge is not very exciting, but then again having your character fail saves, get hit a lot and miss a lot is also not as exciting as having the character succeed at what they are doing.
What you might remember from a game was how awesome it was when your two-weapon ranger jumped 20 ft in the air and carved a tattoo shaped like the name of his mother acorss a stone giant's belly button. What you might not remember is how lucky you were to win initiative and be able to do so, because you took the improved initiative feat.
At first blush, I was a bit put off by the announced change. However, taking a step back, most of my favorite modules (regardless of publisher) were a series of modules that provided a longer story arc (Curse of Immortality, Slavelords, etc.), so I think the potential is very high for the modules to take on the traits of module-series that I like so much.
While those are great, your leaving out that in addition to slavelords, they also put out adventures that were NOT a series of modules. Things you can drop into spots if necessary.
Longer adventures might be great. It remains to be seen. I would have liked to see a bit of both myself. Longer ones to get started, but I also liked the shorter ones I can drop into campaigns- a couple that were useful to a city Ptolus style game, another few that you can build up before sending folks out to slumbering Tsar, Or modules like the one with the fey and the carnival that went bloody, Carnival of Tears, that you can drop into a game as your party as traveling from A to B, in a little town along the way.
Its what I really miss about Dungeon magazine.
So the 64 page modules is a bit of a mixed bag.
I've actually noticed that the PFS Scenarios do a good job of having adventures that fill in the gaps. Plus they are scaleable which is nice. I see them replacing the Adventure Modules at being, well, modules. Check them out. They tend to be good even if you aren't in PFS.
Exactly that. PFS is even easier to drop into a campaign than the modules were, because it's so small. With the new format, modules could become better adventures because they wouldn't be quite as starved for space.
Any chance for giant jumping spiders to be added to a Bestiary someday? They're known for being the most intelligent of all arthropods (As can be seen on entry number one of this article), so I see them having a great mechanical gimmick in being non-mindless vermin. Plus, since some of the most adorable spiders are jumping spiders, they'd make perfect Druid companions!
Maybe in the next edition we'll relax a little about invertebrate intelligence scores.
Did you just casualy mention a next edition for Pathfinder? 0_0
The only way Iv'e ever considerd using 2 GMs is for running two parallel groups through the same adventure, with a lot of focus on the interactions between the teams. My dream is to do "Pact Stone Pyramid" with 2 GMs, one group representing the Pathinfders and the others representing the Chelexian competing party. The adventure will be a race to survive the dungeon AND escape from it with more treasures and archeological findings than the other group.
There are of course plenty of problems with that, but most can be solved by the two GMs thinking ahead and developing a good way to communicate between each other during playtime. An increase in railroading might also be needed, so that things could be planned ahead of time properly and no bugs will disturb the flow of the game.
Overall, two GMs create a very different game than 1 GM. Im really hoping to see some official advice on the matter in a future hardcover Paizo rulebook.
What are the odds of seeing an AP focusing on a outer plane as it's main local?
For example, in the "Jade Regent" campaign, the first half is about getting to Tian Xia, and the second is all about that place. So could a resembling plot structure using an outer plan be used anywhere in the near future (say, next 5 or 6 APs)? I know "Wrath of the Righteous" will have large parts set in the Abyss, but I was hoping for a less explored plane.
If so, what are the chances of getting an elemental plane campaign?
Robin Hobb writes amazing first novels. ASSASSIN'S APPRENTICE and SHIP OF MAGIC are both very fine books. By about halfway through Book 2 of each series I was starting to lose interest, and only completed both trilogies through sheer willpower. She has good prose and characters, but she can't seem to help but to put in tons and tons of totally irrelevant filler. Book 3 of the FARSEER TRILOGY is more than twice the size of Book 1, which is unnecessary and silly. Both series would have made excellent single (very large) novels or duologies, but they were too overlong to be really good.
Apparently she keeps doing this (her current series was supposed to be one novel but has somehow ended up as four), so I haven't felt compelled to read her later works.
I think that the Farseer trilogy is by far the best, though "Ship of Magic" was amazing as well. I actualy like all the books in Farseer, though the ending of the second one was so bitter that I had to force myself to start the third, but once it got going, it became good.
The "Shaman's Crossing" trilogy was not good. The main character was too passive and annoying. I get the Hobb is telling us stories of unlikely heroes and weak character (weak as in, they are not heroes but just regular people who's lives are filled with extrodinary events, forcing them to rise to the challange), but in "Shaman's crossing" she took this theme a step too far - there was absloutley nothing to like about the main character, not even one merit or noteworthy quelity.
Wasn't the 2000 D&D film the one where the fighter orders his wizard companion to keep a horde of barbarians at bay so that he could use the time to solve a riddle? If I remember correctly, that one didn't exactly capture the essance of D&D.
Getting a Golarion movie might be cool, I think. Most other campaigns not so much.
An (almost) complete side note: My PCs are starting Book 5 of RotRL, and are already talking about how eager they are to start Jade Regent, but what are they going to do about their existing PCs, who (presumably) are still around when Jade Regent starts, and VERY high-level?
I'm creating two separate paths: The high-level PCs will be "clearing the path" of the major dangers, and the low-level Jade Regent PCs will be following in their footsteps.
Ties the campaigns together, lets the players play both new and old PCs at the same time, and makes things generally interesting for the GM. Removing the RotRL PCs will require GM fiat, but my players will accept an "emergency in Absalom" to let the second generation shine for a while.
(And yes, those of you addicted to my RotRL thread will be happy to know that the April 12 writeup went out for approval last night, the May 3 writeup is already well underway, and we're playing again May 11, so you'll get your Shiro and Raesh "fix", and I'll be doing a Jade Regent thread in the same vein.)
An easier way to start Jade Regent without having to worry about the Rise of the Runelords PCs being there, could just be to start Jade Regent while the Rise of the Runelords plot is still hapening.
You don't *actualy* have to start playing the paths simultaniously, of course, but when you do start playing Jade Regent, open with the words, "It has been two weeks since the heroes of Sandpoint defended the town against an army of giant and a gigantic red dragon. Now, however, when they are high up in the mountains, taking on a fortress of the giants, a new threat arises in Sandpoint, and some new heroes are called for to save the day once again..."
Then, just make sure timelines work correctly by having the PCs depart with Ameiko towards the crown of the world before the PCs of Rise of the Runelords are done with Xin Shalast. By the time the Rise of the Runelords PCs head back home to Sandpoint, Ameiko and her team are already far away, on a journey of their own. AND... the Rise of the Runelords PCs are very likely to want some rest.
Case in point - if I have a character wielding a rapier (threat range 18-20 right off the bet), and then want to apply the two following additions:
1) the rapier has the "keen" magical property
2) the character has the "improved critical" feat
each of these effects "doubles" the crit range. Does that mean the first makes the rapier have c range of 16-20, and then the second makes it 12-20?! what am I missing?
Lord Snow
