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Well, sure, TOZ. Imagine a very, very stripped down role-playing game, virtually "make-believe with a combat system". You're the judge, and one of your players asks if he can grab one of the vines along the riverside and swing across the river to avoid the search party of hobgoblins. There's nothing in that simple game system to accommodate that, so you say "Sure. Make me a Dexterity check" but you set the bar very low, because only a botch is going to indicate failure. (If you set the bar at, like, 50% or so, then players will learn that they can never have their characters try anything heroic.) In 3rd Edition, there's a skill called Rope Use. And you can penalize the PC if he hasn't bought ranks in that skill. If he falls in, there's a skill called Swim, and you can further limit the character if he hasn't bought ranks in that. Is he trying to avoid the hobgoblins. He needs to have Move Silent and Hide. Or Feats that simulate those skill ranks. In AD&D, before the introduction of Nonweapon Proficiencies in the Dungeoneer and Wilderness Survival Guides, a party traveling through the wilderness stops for the night, finds shelter, and makes a discrete campfire. In 3rd Edition, there are all sorts of ways a DM can make that difficult for the party. (No Survival skill, or rolled low on your checks?) Skill systems aren't a mechanism for the referee to let player-characters do stuff. Player characters were always doing stuff. Skills are a way to prevent player characters from doing stuff. by discriminating among them in different ways. 
During Paizocon 2011 they shared a lot of the 'world building' secrets, etc during one of the seminars which was recorded by the Know Direction crew. You can DL the podcast here "secrets of golarion' I believe is the one. Lots of good stuff from James, Erik, and I think Wes and... can't recall who else. 
According to The Complete Guide To Middle-Earth from The Hobbit to the Silmarilion Balrogs (sindarin for "power-terror" or "demon of might") were Maiar who joined Melkor when he rebelled against Eru. They were spirits of fire but were cloaked in shadow, their leader was Gothmog. Most of Balrogs perished during the Great Battle that ended the First Age. A few survived and hidden deep underground. Dwarves building Khazad-dum unearthed one of them - later known as Durin's Bane and the Balrog (as he was sole known Balrog of Third Age). Their Queneya name was Valaraukar (singular Valarauko). 
It took some digging on the intertubes, but I did find this page that lists quite a few Type VI names (and I presume other types on their own pages as well).
If you go to the wikipedia entry it has references. (I noticed that a couple of the named one weren't from 1st Edition, for example.) 
By raw with advanced players guide there is an archtype called sacred servent that lets you get a domain. There is an emperyl lord Arshea(NG) that offers the lust subdomain. The sacred servant gives a paladin access to a domain and an faq lets them access subdomains so you can have a lust subdomain paladin. 
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
Yeah, maybe it wasn't such a good idea to cancel those magazines after all? Who knew? 
There's a really interesting discussion of Demogorgon as a Demiurge figure here. And here is a picture entitled "Demogorgon in the Cave of Eternity" (not exactly sanity-blasting demonic horror, btw). Completely of-topic, this pic by the same artist (Goltzius, a Mannerist, late 16th c.) is fun in a creepy way. Oh, and here's a picture of the Palace of Demogorgon from an opera based on Orlando Furioso! Um. Heh. Well, he's king of the Fairies in that one. :) 
I stumbled upon this little gem on YouTube... It's old, but I hadn't seen it in years, so I thought I'd share in the nostalgia... It's a segment 60 Minutes did on D&D back in 1985. It's in two parts... Part 2 says its 8:01 minutes, but the segment on D&D ends at 4:50 minutes... 
Can't wait to get to PaizoCon and see lots of old friends especially you! I knew in my gut that Wizards would never use the OGL for 4e. I knew from the day they changed the D20STL to add a review & approval process that they wished they could end the whole licensing regime. I dint think there was ever the slightest chance that they would allow content for 4e to publish without strings attached that would make 3rd party 4e support tenuous at best. I don't doubt that Scott was receptive to the conversation but I'm reasonably certain that there was no point where he ever had any real decision power regarding licensing. That call was almost certainly over his pay grade. I'm also reasonably sure that what happened afterwards (I.e. Pathfinder) just reinforces the view inside Wizards that the OGL was a disaster.
I'd be much more interested in hearing Ryan Dancey tell us whether *he* thinks the goals of the OGL have been met yet. (I suspect he'd share some of Mike's conclusions and disagree strongly with others.) The purpose of the OGL was to act as a force for change. In that sense I think it is an unquaified success. It changed the relationship of fans to publishers - any person with an idea could participate in the market if they wished. It changed the relationship of developers to publishers - instead of having to make "Fantasy Heartbreakers", developers were free to show their creativity using a widespread system (which also meant that their talent could more easily be determined instead of having to first decipher a whole new set of notation and rules). It changed the way TRPGs are presented to the market. Designers were forced to explain why they weren't using a pre-existing OGL option if they elected to do something different. Publishers were forced to reconcile their ideas against the weight of many competitive offerings. Buyers gained a quick and reliable way to determine if the game being offered was something they were likely to be able to induce others to play. It changed the form factor of TRPG prouducts. Prior to the OGL, other than perhaps as a magazine submission, short form material had no viable commercial market. Likewise the idea that an electronic-only product could be marketed effectively was doubtful. (The OGL facilitated the latter by ensuring that the PDF publishers didn't have to first convince you to try an unknown TRPG too; once the PDF market became real, it then became possible to reliably make alternative TRPG offerings too but it took the intial burst of D20 PDFs to get the market started in a large way). I also had the goal that the release of the SRD would ensure that D&D in a format that I felt was true to its legacy could never be removed from the market by capricious decisions by its owners. I know just how close that came to happening. In 1997, TSR had pledged most of the copyright interests in D&D as collateral for loans it could not repay, and had Wizards of the Coast not rescued it I'm certain that it would have all gone into a lenghty bankruptcy struggle with a very real chance that D&D couldn't be published until the suits, appeals, countersuits, etc. had all been settled (i.e. maybe never). The OGL enabled that as a positive side effect. I was amazed and surprised at the number of commercial ventures that got their start around the OGL. Some of those companies are still in business today, and that says something considering the dreadful state of the industry as a whole in the Year of Our Lord 2010. In terms of getting more people into the business of publishing TRPGs, and more people into the role of "was paid to do TRPG design", the OGL broadened and deepend the talent pool in our industry just before we really needed it. (A shout out to the Indy RPG movement which did the same thing in a different way.) I always wondered if some 3rd party would become a success by iterating on (rather than revising) D&D. Paizo, I'm pleased to say, appears to be well on the way to doing that. They have also embraced the "open source" concept of community-lead improvements. Having thousands of designers work on a game has got to produce a better result than a mere handful, provided the system of editorial control can be sorted (and it seems Paizo has done a great job on that front too.) The OGL, of course, is a virtual requirement for that to have happened. There were downsides. A lot of retailers bought a lot of OGL crap. Bad on them. As gatekeepers of the industry's purse, they blew it. The D20 Trademark was abandoned by Wizards and that was a mistake. Some games that probably deserved their own unique mechanics were subverted by publishers trying to hitch on to the D20 bandwagon. (I would feel worse about this if the Indy RPG movement hadn't acted as a counterweight). Conversely, several games that cry out for an OGL/D20 version have not and probably will not ever get one. (RIFTS, to say the least). There is also a lot of work still to be done. We still lack a clearinghouse for great system design within the overall D20 umbrella. I've seen some just astonishigly awesome stuff in various products over the years and wish that there were a way to categorize it and make it searchable and accessible to future designers. The OGL itself needs work. I wish a version 2.0 were possible which addressed software better, and did a better job of handling Open Game Content from many diverse sources in one work and had a more robust way of citing sources. I sleep pretty well at night. I think the OGL was a benefit to the industry and to the players, and I think it is still generating good works. RyanD 
Certain parts of Golarion did indeed come from my homebrew campaign—in particular, the following elements: Varisia, Hold of Belkzen, Kyonin/Tanglebriar, Mediogalti Isle. The inner and outer planes in the Inner Sphere/Outer Sphere model. (Erik came up with the idea of calling the Inner Sphere and the Outer Sphere the Great Beyond.) The majority of the deities. The Shoanti and the Sczarni. The Darklands (Nar-Voth, Sekamina, and Orv) Elves being from another planet. Thassilon and the Runelords. I'm probably forgetting some stuff. And once those elements got put into Golarion, they ABSOLUTELY transformed and changed as other authors began adding and expanding stuff. The first elements of Golarion that were designed were in the Darkmoon Vale region, which was mostly Wes Schneider and Jason Bulmahn working with Nick Logue on the first few modules. I was building the first Adventure Path with Wes and James Sutter's help, but as I mentioned above, a LOT of the early APs were pulled from my homebrew campaign as a way to get a head start on getting something so big as an AP detailed. Obviously, there's a LOT more to Golarion than just what I've listed above. A HUGE amount of Golarion comes from Erik Mona as well—things like Azlant, Nex, Geb, Cheliax, Absalom, Iomedae, Aroden, and more are from him. Jason Bulmahn and Wes Schneider and James Sutter and more folks pitched in a LOT as well. At this point, pretty much everyone at Paizo's had an influence in some way in the shaping of Golarion. 
Came to the party to late as normal but for future refrence I find this helpfull for finding Dungeon adventures. Hope you find it usefull too. 
One thing that I've noticed is your adventures are largely 1e (First Edition AD&D), which means you're going to want access to that ruleset. I would recommend checking out Labyrinth Lord, a "retro-clone" that organizes and cleans up the 1e rules. I'd also recommend picking up the Advanced Edition Companion, which will give you more options for play. Also, if you enjoy the Alexandrian, here's a number of other high-quality "old school" blogs: The Society of Torch, Pole, and Rope Have fun! 
Oerth Journal #26 is finally out ! Kudos to Erik Mona, Greg A. Vaughan, the other contributors and of course Mike "Mortellan" Bridges for getting this bit of Greyhawkery out ! An early Halloween treat! Noel
There was a 2e sourcebook that never was called "Ivid the Undying" which detailed the Great Kingdom (post Greyhawk Wars)... It was however made available as a PDF on WotC's website, and since the Vast Swamp is within The Great Kingdom... The files can still be found HERE Just scroll down until you find the "Greyhawk Campaign Setting" about halfway down the page... 
Q: How many WotC employes does it take to change a Lightbulb? A: One, but he changed the Lightbulb long before it burned out. 
From an interview with Tim Kask, creator of the Bulette: “I created it for two reasons. First and foremost? I had an empty page in that issue of The Dragon because a full-page ad either cancelled or was late, and I had to go to press. Now Gary and I had had several talks about creating monsters, and he had frequently encouraged me to let my imagination run wild. The umber hulk and the rust monster were fabrications (by Gary) to “explain” two plastic monsters from a bag of weird critters from the dime store that Gary had found and used in Greyhawk. (Now it would be a Dollar Store.) There was still had one that had not been taxonomically identified and defined yet that intrigued me; they called it the “bullet”. I frogged-up the name a bit. At this same time, SNL was hitting it’s stride and had become a cultural phenomenon, and the Jaws movies were just hitting their stride, and SNL ran with the “landshark” parody. People were going around going “Landshark” “Candygram” all the time as they became a temporary buzzword. No doubt influenced by some really good ” Oz oil” that was going around (statute of limitations is long expired), my excursive mind hooked them together as I imagined what a “real” (in D&D terms “real”) landshark might be. I had probably been watching a PBS program about moles or armadillos. The second reason had to do with Outdoor Adventures (or lack thereof) and a herd of hobbit ponies. But that’s another story…” |
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