Mark Moreland's page

The tiller prestige award appears in a printed product, and thus any errata that we would publish regarding it would be released at the time such product was reprinted. Since we don't currently have plans to reprint the Pathfinder Society Field Guide (see this post by Vic about why we don't reprint most products), the chances of this prestige award being altered are not high. That's not to say it may not appear in a different source down the road with slight alterations, but again, there are currently no plans for that.

All that said, Timothy McNeil's analysis of why this prestige award grants a bonus on Escape Artist checks instead of Disable Device checks is correct. When untying knots or assisting someone else in escaping from sturdier bonds, you use Escape Artist. Modifying Disable Device would only help in situations in which you're picking a lock, whereas Escape Artist is more versatile in that it covers those situations as well as others.

I fear our own Erik Keith may have some steep competition for best Iconic costume this year. Hear that, Valeros? Kyra's coming for you!

We get bonuses?

Drogon wrote:

thejeff wrote:

I was running off of the 2/month number that's been going around. And assuming that the various specials would remain special and not on that schedule.

They have to be on the schedule, because they have to be developed.

Different schedule I think. I could be wrong. Jessica Price was talking earlier about being able to produce two scenarios a month reliably.

I assumed those were the standard scenarios and things like First Steps and other specials were outside of that.

Obviously they'd need to be scheduled, but they don't have to be on the 2/month schedule. Especially if they follow a different format, they wouldn't really fit.

Everything has to happen on the schedule, whether it's one of our standard monthly products or an additional project for a special occasion. The primary reason for this is that if it's not on the schedule, it doesn't get done. We outline and assign scenarios (and any other PDF-only content) roughly 6 or 7 months before it ever sees the light of day. If a scenario or a quest or an update to the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play isn't on the schedule at least that far ahead of time, it just doesn't get done. And it's not as easy as simply adding something to the schedule now that we hope to see in a few months. Whichever developer is concepting, outlining, assigning, and corresponding with the author(s) needs to have time now to do that. If we're (for example) in the ramp-up to PaizoCon, Gen Con, or another particularly taxing time on the department, then that staffer has more pressing deadlines to deal with than a new, additional project that wasn't accounted for when his workload for this week was being set months prior.

So even assuming we have the bandwidth right now to increase our output on the Pathfinder Society line (or any of our other product lines for that matter)—and I'm not saying we don't, just that it's an assessment that takes time and consideration to make and isn't necessarily one we'd make public—we'd need to plan time into the project schedule well in advance of even when the project would need to be assigned in order to ensure everything stays on track.

It's clear from this thread that we need to really look at what we're offering as part of the Pathfinder Society campaign both in terms of the campaign's own needs and in light of whatever our competition may have planned in the coming months or years. But there are myriad moving parts involved in making the sorts of sweeping product offering level decisions that it seems people want immediately. Does this mean we may change things to better serve the needs of the campaign? You bet. Does it mean any of those changes, whatever form they may take, will be revealed to anyone outside Paizo soon? Not likely. I'd wager that any change we made to the campaign would take 9 months on the low end before anyone even knew about it.

So even if we decided tomorrow that we feel confident we can reliably put out 3 scenarios a month without it throwing off any of our other tightly-scheduled product lines, we'd need to make sure that we had the internal resources available to do the front-end work on those additional products while still ensuring the current development, editing, layout, and other job duties didn't fall behind. So I ask for everyone asking for changes or enhancements to our campaign offerings to have patience, as an instant response to something on this or a similar thread wouldn't be seen for as much as a year or more.

The forthcoming Pathfinder Society Primer Player Companion will offer several new feats for characters with either background. Look for more on the transition from not-yet-commissioned field agent or Pathfinder-in-training to full-fledged member in a new Intro scenario before the end of the year.

On October 13, 2010 you posted this blog.

The second paragraph says the following:

Mark Moreland wrote:

Additionally, we will be releasing at least one low-level Pathfinder Society Scenario each month from now on, so you'll never run out of new material to run for seasoned and rookie Pathfinders at your local game day.

So, the confrontational part: If you had not abandoned that promise (of several others that were made in that blog), we likely would not be having this conversation. What happened?

Moreover, you titled that blog "We're Listening." Meaning, you've said what you said above before. Please put your money where your mouth is, this time.

Again, I apologize for calling you to the mat on this, but it is something I have felt strongly about for two-and-one-half years, now. I hope you understand...

I appreciate your candor, Drogon, and I don't take offense. That said, the post in question was made over 30 months ago, just over a month after I began working for Paizo and just a few weeks after Hyrum took over as Campaign Coordinator. A lot has changed since then, from Hyrum's departure from that role to some shifts in our overarching vision of the campaign. In the months following that post, we learned a lot about what people wanted and what we could reasonably handle within the campaign, and the result was that some of the "promises" made in that post had to be set by the wayside. One of the first lessons I learned was not to speak in absolutes and talk about things until they were finalized and totally, absolutely happening.

Thus, in hindsight (20-20 and all that), using the phrase "from now on" was a mistake. Mea culpa. I should have said, "for the foreseeable future." Ultimately, we released a new Tier 1–5 (or Tier 1, or Tier 1–7) scenario every month through the remainder of Season 2, through all of Season 3, and through August 2012, almost 2 full years after the blog in question. One of the unforeseen changes that took place in the campaign around that time (at the start of Season 4) was our shift toward a larger metaplot, which was in direct response to fan's asking for such. We felt that we could maintain the spirit of that original promise for a new low-level scenario each month while widening that definition to include both Tier 3–7 and Tier 1–5. Clearly our assumption that the existing Tier 1–5, Tier 1–7, and Tier 1 content as well as a new Tier 1–5 scenario every other month would be sufficient for event organizers was incorrect.

The result of releasing a Tier 1–5 scenario each month without an increase in our monthly output, however, would have changed the types of stories we could have told in Varisia, since many iconic locations simply aren't acceptable places for low-level PCs to go. We would have effectively lost 2 each of Tier 3–7, Tier 5–9, and Tier 7–11 scenarios over the course of the season, resulting in the forthcoming dwarf mini-arc, the runelord/Lissala season-long arc, and the ongoing Zarta/Blackros/Desimire plotline having less presence. We simply wouldn't have had the scenario slots available for each of these adventure tiers to do those stories justice.

Does any of that change the fact that, clearly, a Tier 3–7 scenario every other month isn't what the campaign needs? I guess not. But with 2 scenarios a month at present (and for the foreseeable future); with people responding well to the increased interrelatedness of the season's scenarios; with the fact that next year, the campaign is headed to the Worldwound, where low-level PCs simply won't survive? There's not an easy solution.

If there's any question about how we prioritize scenarios in the overall scheme of Pathfinder Society material, however, the fact that ancillary adventure content like quests and converted Season 0 material have been sidelined in order to get scenarios out regularly should indicate that it's our number-one priority for the campaign. We'd love to release more a month, which would allow us to both release a new Tier 1–5 scenario monthly as well as tell the higher-level stories that campaign participants are also asking for. But we're not there yet, and even if we decided today to do so, it likely wouldn't be for as long as a year before that change took effect.

So again, when I (or Mike, or John, or Erik, or whomever) says that "we're listening," it's because we are. And we want people to keep telling us what they want out of the campaign, even if it's something different than what we have planned in a given moment. It's also something that we could do better, in the sense that listening is different than responding, which gets us into trouble time and again when our words are used against us in later discussions. When we go radio-silent, the community asks us to communicate more. When we communicate, however, especially if we do so in response to pressure instead of when we're truly ready to do so, it invariably results in bad feelings.

And that's my really, really long way of saying that I will do just what you've asked me to do: I'll put my money where my mouth is. I'm listening, even if I say less.

Out of curiosity, how much do folks asking for more Pathfinder Society Scenarios utilize other sanctioned adventures such as Pathfinder Modules and Pathfinder Adventure Paths?

Tamago wrote:

One possible solution would be to produce a few more (say, three per month), but also have more of them be "one-shot" adventures that don't really tie into the overarching plot of the season.

This is an interesting idea. I don't know how much load this would take off the writers and developers, or what the appetite from the players would be for this. I think that I'd quite enjoy the occasional side-job for my PFS characters.

From a resource allocation standpoint, an adventure's position within a larger metaplot is less an issue than the number of words involved. It takes a little bit more time on the front end to ensure that a metaplot-heavy adventure picks up the necessary dangling threads and leaves the right ones hanging at the end, but after the author's written the adventure with those plot elements in mind, development, layout, and editing for the adventure are pretty much the same as anything else.

As Mike's indicated, we're aware that people would like more Pathfinder Society content (and as a participant in the campaign myself, I would too). Before we'd commit to such, however, we'd need to ensure that we aren't setting ourselves up for failure. This means a lot of behind-the-scenes meetings here at Paizo about how much our already busy staff can handle, what the budget can handle in terms of adding 50% or more to our annual production costs, and other business concerns. And these things all take time from when we come up with an idea or make a decision to when they get enacted, announced, and then released into the wild. All this is to say that we're listening, but if we hold our cards close to our chests or you don't see anything coming from your feedback, it doesn't mean we aren't hearing you or considering how to continually improve the campaign, both for our benefit as a company and for the benefit of the tens of thousands of players who participate in the campaign on a weekly, monthly, or annual basis.

Michael Brock wrote:

We have offerings on the 2013/2014 schedule that will replace First Steps. 15 hours to play through all three parts of First Steps is a bit much to ask of a brand new player. So, we have some ideas with how to improve on those introductory experiences that we learned from First Steps.

Ah. That sounds better. I'd gotten the impression it was going away without a similar replacement.

John and I have looked long and hard at the development schedule and the overall scenario plan for Season 5 to determine when we can fit it in, and currently, we're planning on having a new introductory scenario out by the end of 2013. That's subject to change, of course, but the current goal is to have one out and in-play by holiday season. We feel it's important to get one out as soon in the Season as possible.

The fact that Paizo was generous enough to take us to the movie is laudable all on its own, but that they did so during the workday is even more amazing, as it meant we didn't have to sacrifice any personal time with our families to enjoy the benefits of said generosity. Thanks again, Paizo management team!

Thanks for alerting us that Liz is out of the office. We'll try to get her back from vacation right away...Wait, is that not what you meant?

I've been trying to get a good answer to this, but I haven't really gotten one that makes any sense to me.

Every boon or magic item I've ever pulled at a promo/perk at, say, GenCon, has been pre-signed by an event GM. That signature wasn't tied to the "attachment to the character" it was just pre-signed.

The elixir boon is, obviously, NOT pre-signed.

Paizo folks tell me via e-mail that "The GM signs the boon when you attach it to your character," which... OK, but then why are all the GenCon boons pre-signed? Shouldn't they ALSO be signed when they're attached to the character?

Does anyone have some experience with this, who could perhaps explain this discrepancy to me?

As the member of the Paizo staff who answered your query both when you addressed it to Goblinworks and to Paizo's customer service, I'll do my best.

First, we have never, to date, issued a pre-signed digital asset to anyone via any venue. We have no plans to start distributing Chronicle sheets in that manner.

Second, this Chronicle sheet involves a random die roll or other variables that need to be adjudicated by a GM to ensure they're handled correctly. When you get access to a new race via a convention boon or gain a new language or bonus to hit, that's about as straightforward as a boon can be. In this case, a player can add a simple template to a character 1 time OR roll randomly to get a special permanent mutation OR choose a permanent mutation when others utilize the same boon simultaneously. To prevent someone from just applying a preselected boon to a character without a GM being there to verify that, yes, in fact two people did use the Chronicle sheet at the same time, a GM must be present to verify that the Chronicle has been properly administered to the character in question.

I hope that's clearer than past clarifications on why this Chronicle sheet contains no signature.

Does Paizo triple its output so that each difficulty setting has the same number of scenarios we currently have?

No. Please, for the love of all that is holy in the Great Beyond, NO!

I swear I'm not picking my nose in that last picture. I was scratching and itch!

Corrected spelling in thread title to prevent derailment of topic over differences between a "tenant" and a "tenet."

The extra-special bonus awarded for playing Way of the Kirin with a Lantern Lodge PC will not stack with the bonus for playing a Shadow Lodge PC in Rivalry's End. If you want to make that change, you can do so, but you'll only get one free faction change at the end of the season, so you'd need to pay for either the switch to the Shadow Lodge or the switch from Shadow Lodge to another one.

I've removed a post. Everyone's entitled to their opinions about what's cool and what's not. Let's not resort to personal attacks over differing taste, please.

Any chance we could get the typo in the title fixed? It is making my eyes hurt.

Oh, that's a typo! I thought it was setting up a generic analogy, like "Pathfinder Society is to life as butter is to popcorn." I'll get that changed to clear up any further confusion.

Woot! I can't wait for more Elyana adventures.

Looks good.

How soon before the new stuff starts showing up in PFS scenarios?

As soon as the book is available to our authors content from it will be fair game for them to include in their adventures.

Seelah's not transgendered. There's art in Dark Markets of her as a little girl.

Does the PathfinderWiki include info from 3PP or just Paizo products?

Since PathfinderWiki only catalogues canon from the Pathfinder Campaign Setting, only books or materials published by Paizo and its licensors are included in the project.

Have you checked out the Languages of Golarion, Danklands languages, Dead languages of Golarion, Human languages of Golarion, Languages of the Great Beyond, and Nonhuman languages of Golarion pages on PathfinderWiki?

I'm putting the final development touches on Dragonslayer's Handbook and getting Faiths & Philosophies ready for a full edit pass. Still waiting on a few last-minute tweaks to Demons Revisited and then that can get its final edit pass. Yay for juggling!

I think today has solved the ages-old crunch-vs.-fluff debate. Clearly the way to deal with Gen Con crunch is with fluffy pancakes.

This thread is delightful. Please continue!

You are free to disagree with campaign staff and express your frustration with the direction of the campaign, but use of profanity, even filtered, is not acceptable.

You all paint a very nice picture of a great place to work. Thanks for making me cry.

If working on the weekend makes a great place to work, then yes! Yes, this is the greatest job ever!

James Jacobs wrote:

Also: Weekend Work Crew currently has 100% more Duran Duran than it did a few moments ago.

Well, it could be worse...

...it could've been Justin Bieber.

I save to disbelieb.

Wow! So much speculation. Since folks are doubtlessly eager to know if their guesses are correct, I'll spoil something for you here.

More tomorrow night!

The situation with Wikia is complicated and is now being handled "behind the screen," so to speak, rather than publicly on the Wikia itself. Thus, I can't go into too much detail about what's happening there. As to your second question, I can answer that one more thoroughly.

When we forked the wiki three years ago, we advised that readers should use PathfinderWiki exclusively, as Golariopedia was no longer being maintained. If you still have links or RSS feeds to Golariopedia, please change those over to PathfinderWiki.

Since I know that sometimes members of the internet can "help" by making life difficult for the "bad guys" in an online dispute, I ask that members of the Paizo community not spam or vandalize Golariopedia, nor take any action against Wikia as a whole. Doing so would likely make it more difficult for us to deal with the situation on an official level.

I am not as wealthy as Mark to buy 41 of them, lol :)

I am also not wealthy enough to buy 41 of them. I added them to my shopping cart, but I haven't submitted the order yet. Still anticipating the uncomfortable questions my wife will pose were I to make such a large purchase without at least mentioning it to her first. ;-)

It looks like the kokogiak is yelling something in frustration or anger. A few possible captions I've already come up with are, "No, Kitty! My potpie!" and "Enough with the throat singing already!"

Removed a few posts. The specifics of this situation are probably best left to private discussions with campaign management rather than on a public board.

Since we've now got three threads discussing this topic, I'm locking this one.

Or YMMNV, given that the campaign needs to have clear rules on how something as common as a sunrod interacts with magical darkness, as that's a common tactic of many monsters.

As I've said elsewhere, sunrods are nonmagical sources of light. If you want a low-cost permanent magical source of light, you should invest in an everburning torch.

Mark: Where's that A-Wing mini I preordered a while back?
CS Erik: We're waiting to get them in from distribution. Checking what happened to the previous batch really quick here. Ah, there it is ... previous A-Wings crashed into the bridge of a Star Destroyer.
Mark: ...

Congrats, Steven! I can't wait to see what you put together for your module once you get started on the actual writing. For now, though, enjoy your win. You totally deserved it!

You cannot "loan" a digital asset, as giving it to someone else doesn't remove it from your possession. Nowhere have we said that anyone has the right to distribute digital copies of any of our products.

The primary reason we require players to bring a copy of the material from the Additional Resources list to a table is so the GM can review it to ensure that the rules are being applied correctly and to adjudicate the effects of the players' character abilities. Since printing from a watermarked PDF ensures that the content therein has not been tampered with, only copies of PDFs are permitted.

The goal is not to turn our GMs into piracy police; we want them focused on running fun and fair games for all their players instead. We have no plans to make this aspect of the campaign so restrictive or so detailed in its intricacies that it becomes a hindrance to people playing. If you want to ensure that you never run into any problems with a GM interpreting this rule to mean you must have your own personally owned copy of a given source, then have a copy you own of any of the related sources with you at all tables. If you are ok with a GM telling you one time that your stack of printouts with your friend's name on them aren't legal for your character, then do that. Players are encouraged to use their best judgment in terms of how they share physical copies of either purchased books or watermarked PDFs, but ultimately, it's up to each GM at what level they feel a source is legitimate enough to refer to in the case of a rules dispute or simply to familiarize themselves with.