Ross Byers's page

Many secrets are lost like this--it is, as I'm sure you know, one of the great weaknesses of outsourcing (as in WotC making minis in China).

All you need are some agents... lol.

Wizards has experience protecting that sort of thing: The foiling and even cardstock of Magic cards are also trade secrets. I'd imagine the workers at the minis factory just know that the plastic mix shows up in ingots on a truck, so even if they know proportions, they don't know what ingredient A is. The plastic probably comes from somewhere more secure. Not saying you couldn't bribe it out of them, but it'd require a lot more bribes.

I would so go to that church. Heck, I'd be ordained.

Just thought I'd clear up something in my post above: I mean hard plastic minis, like Games Workshop plastics. Those are made with cut steel molds, which have ridiculous start-up costs and require specialized equipment, and so need bigger production runs that Paizo would have to sell to make a profit.

I have no idea how Wizards makes their minis, but judging from the level of detail I'd assume a 'soft-mold' type process. Quite likely less expensive, as it would have the start-up costs of metal but the production cost of plastic. However, Wizards has made a trade secret of the plastic mix they use, so I'm not sure if anyone can duplicate it.

Just my two coppers:

I think metal minis, painted or unpainted, would be better than plastic here. While plastic minis are generally more durable(transportable, anyway) and have more detail, I am familiar enough with the process of making them to know that Paizo would never be able to turn a profit on them.

Metal minis however, can be produced rapidly and (relatively) cheaply at the smaller production run sizes. I would recommend selling them unpainted, simply because that also means unassembled, and more thus likely to survive shipping. Pre-assembling metal minis is tougher, too, since metal sculpts rarely fit right out of the molds: they usually require some "green stuff" to fill in gaps. Nothing factory stooges can't do, but a production cost still.

Personally, I wouldn't order them (fair warning) just because I have found that minis only feel better at the table when they are ALWAYS used, which leads to even more pre-game prep time (and expense) to make sure to have the right minis. Which means off-map encounters are either run without minis or run with proxies, which leads to confusion and reduces the incentive for using minis in the first place. However, I know that there are plenty of people on this board who would want them, even if it's just to have Wayne's Goblin horde on their desk at work.

we'll look into it.

-Vic.
.

All I have to say is 'Awesome.'

Raiding song, second verse:

Feast until you are filled
Upon the corpses goblins killed!
Search the pockets
Steal their stuff!
Goblins never get enough!

Burn the building
Slip inside!
Where the humies
Try to hide!

Drink their blood!
Slake your thirst!
Have some mercy
Kill them first!

When the humies start to fight
Stick the goodies in a sack!
We disappear into the night
Silly humies, we'll be back!

<repeat from beginning>

Paizo to upgrade the materials they use for the replacement periodical.

The bottom line remains that we are paying 2 or 3 times more for less product.

-W. E. Ray

No, they couldn't. Pathfinder is a book not a magazine, and that isn't just spin. The two are treated VERY differently by publishing companies, bookstores, and the U.S. Postal Service. If you printed a book on magazine paper, it'd really be a piece of crap. And, has been discussed in other threads and comfirm by Paizo staff, starting a new magazine from the ground up is risky as all get out and requires a multi-million dollar investment. This may be a replacement product, but it is not a periodical.

Since pathfinder is not a magazine, that frees up space previously used for ads, which are nearly half of a magazine. If you actually slowed down to read some of the things people are saying about pathfinder, you might realize that it's not the rip-off you seem to think it is.

I understand not wanting to commit to $20 a month when the mags cost less than that newsstand, but it's not the massive price-hike you seem to think it is.

I am actually kind of curious about the decision to make two Adventure paths a year, instead of just one. As I have said in other threads, I'm perfectly happy to develop the back-log of adventures I haven't finished, but some others aren't as happy with the wonderful surplus.

So why is it that Pathfinder is monthly instead of bi-monthly (Or monthly with less AP content or fewer pages?)

I would like to have monster tokens again!

Man, I almost forgot tokens. Always nice to have.

Basically what is happening now is my 98 page Dragon for $8 will be replaced by a 96 page, less content book for $20? Less pages for nearly three times the money? Who's kid needed braces to come up with this idea?

Two years from now I can't wait to see Pathfinder get replaced by a 90 page faux hardcover book for a mere $50 a month. Great prices if you happen to be a Trump I suppose.

Your 98 page Dragon is half ads (seriously, count them). Pathfinder has none, because it is a book. So if you had Dragon and Dungeon before ($16/month) you would be getting the same amount of content, in a better binding (Means alot to me, my magazines are all beat up from use at the game table + an evil cat) for a slightly higher charge.

I will admit this is a prince increase, and I would have preferred to keep the magazines too, but it was not Paizo's choice to discontinue them, it was WotC's. Paizo is doing what it can to make it's excellent, excellent products available.

I'll back Wyvern:

I use lots of digital/semi-digital stuff in my games:
Projected maps, printed handouts, loot cards with art for the adventure or 'best-match' to item descriptions.

But as long as I get a PDF, I have all the images and such I need to make it work for me (because scanning magazines sucks). I wouldn't want more, because I'd have to change it alot anyway to suit my playstyle and my group. And I wouldn't want to feel pressured to buy a particualr system. And I certainly don't want to just DM Baldur's gate if the software gets too automated.

(Shameless plug: If you are looking for Free D&D software, check out RPTools. As I said, it's free, really useful, and the developers are continuously working with the community to make it better. Seriously. Check it out.)

Man...I can see it now: A bi-yearly bundle: Cardboard slipcover (assembly required: it'll ship better flat), DM screen with that arc's art, poster-size maps. Sweetness.

(I'd buy it.)

The raiding song:

Humies have a little town!
We will burn it down!
Burn it down! Burn it down!
Burn it to the ground!

Kill the people!
Slay their beasts!
Take their things!
Eat their meats!

One idea for minimizing the extra-print cost of poster maps: Sell them as a stand-alone bundle at the end of each path. Lots of DMs wait for all of a path to be finished before running it anyway, so they don't have to wait for th next issue and so that they have everything they need (instead of improvising themselves off a cliff, so to speak).

Since it'd be 6 or more maps, the production run is slightly better, and hte bundling helps keep the prices more reasonable.

Or, since most Kinko's type shops have a poster/banner printer, in you were to include the poster map data in the PDF with the usual 'Duplicate for Personal Use' disclaimer, devoted DMs could have nice, laminated maps made for a few bucks at their local shop, as long the map isn't more than 40 inches on it's narrow side.

A post on another thread made me wonder if we could get a PDF (heck, I know I'd be willing to pay for a printed guide) for converting the Dungeon Adventure Paths to the new setting. That way those of us who haven't finished the old APs or who would want to run them again can introduce our players to the new world that way. Is this still possible, or would a 'Replace Hextor with <insert new deity here>' violate the OGL?

Title says most of it; what is the expected starting and finishing level and what is the premise? Is there really enough content in here to keep my group busy until the next issue if we play once a week? So, given moderate play, is each issue going to designed to have a months worth of material?

I believe the first adventure path is 1st-16th level over the course of 6 volumes.

For the premise, I would suggest looking through the Pathfinder blog and the description of the first six volumes, but "Rise of the Runelords" sounds pretty evocative to me. Each issue contains a bit more than 50 pages of adventure (about twice the length of an AP adventure in Dungeon), with the remaining pages being ecology articles, new monster, NPC stat blocks, and articles like Demonomicon and Core Beliefs.

If the Dungeon Adventure paths kept you busy for a month each, this will too. If the Dungeon Adventure Paths only took 6 months to run instead of a year, you're still probably good. If you went faster than that, damn, I wish I got to game as much as you.

"When a recipe or formula is accompanied by explanation or directions, the text directions may be copyrightable, but the recipe or formula itself remains uncopyrightable."

What if we looked at the D&D Great Wheel like "the text directions," and the components of the D&D Great Wheel like "the recipe or formula itself"?

Wizards has very good and expensive lawyers. If they believe that they control that part of intellectual property, they probably do, at least well enough to make going to court over it expensive.

I don't think the analogy applies, anyway: That exemption from copyright laws exists so that you could copyright a cookbook, for instqance, but not claim copyright when people started serving your dishes or sharing recipes. A recipe or formula needs patent, not copyright, protection.
In either case, even if a mirror-image of the Great Wheel was put together, there'd have to be a lot of dodgy name-changes that would make it no fun for anyone. While 'Abyss' is just a word, the full name 'Nine Hells of Baat'or' would be taboo. Similarly for non-mythologic planes like Bytopia. I'd rather see a new cosmology than a thinly-veiled rehash.

I know how you feel, Roy. Most of us have trouble getting through one path a year. Now, I'm going to be perfectly happy accumulating the extra material, because I enjoy reading it as much as anything, but I am surprised that Pathfinder isn't going to be Bi-Monthy. The monthly rate of publication threatens to overwhelm the 'book' market for it, and the extra subscription cost seems to discourage some of the 'magazine' market. If it were bi-monthy, Paizo would still be putting out a path a year, with supplimentary materials, and would only have half the art/writing/publication expense, but they'd probably still get 2/3 the revenue.

You will see stats for the new iconics: Each volume of pathfinder has pre-generated characters for lazy players (or impatient DMs). The pre-gens will be selections of the iconics at the appropriate level.

I wonder if would could get more information on the blog comment that there is less distinction between Gods and demons in the new campaign setting?

Do you mean that there is less of a distinction between dieties and outsider lords (Cestial paragons, archdevils, demonprinces, archnomentals, etc.), or something more specific to demons?

Also, was Aureus's suggestion actually taken, or was it a coinicidence that 'Desna' was also used in today's blog? Because if we subscribers can make our mark that way, I'm going to have to post a lot more stuff like that.

Twenty bucks (US) for each issue? That's 250% raise over current Dungeon magazine for same number of pages. No freaking way, people! I hate paying $8 a month (newsstand price), and I make $100K a year.

Keep in mind that Pathfinder has NO ADS. This means that you're really getting close to twice the actual page count, since less of that space will be wasted.

I wish there was a cheaper shipping method: That $4 eats up most of the 30% subscriber discount. Now, I'm still going to subscribe, but it remains that I'm only saving $2 off the cost at my FLGS (and getting it sooner), instead of getting it a about half the newstand price like the old magazines.

Or, given the treatment goblins just got, a similar re-imagining of the core races. I mean seriously - with Goblins like that, what're they gonna do with Elves and Dwarves?
I can't wait.

I just thought I'd second this: I'd love to see a fresh look at the core races. No mechanical chances, of course, just like the Goblins, but the same kind of unique twist.

The general vibe on affiliations has been that they're hard to use and in many cases feel tacked on.

I agree here. I never liked the way that ranks worked with affiliations: A numerical score of that type shouldn't let me leap to being the leader of an organization the instant I join it. I love having organizations fleshed out, but affliation scores seem /too/ mechanical.

More suggestions:

Arturian, God of Light (LG, Paladins, Healing....)
Voriel, Goddess of Life (N or NG, Druid, Rangers, Animals, farmers....)
Alstras, God of Storms (CN, Barbarians, weather, omens....)
Prathas, Goddess of Tides (LN, Oceans, merchants, clocks & calendars....)
Moresil, God of Darkness (NE, Shadows, fear, undead, entropy...)

Ross Byers wrote:

Wizard's 'custserv@wizards.com' address isn't hooked up to anything...

Now that's just stupid.

I agree completely. That, however, does not make it less true.

A watermark is an encoded message in the PDF, so that if someone starts sharing his PDF, Paizo's lawyers will be able to find out who purchased the orginal and prosecute them if necessary.

I'd like to have Item cards included for the loot listed in the adventure. When I was running Age of Worms I ended up printing my own item cards on business card stock because it was better then trying to get the right loot cards on demand from the randomized packs, especially when I wanted to art to (somewhat) match.

I'd also consider subscribing to a subscription-based service for the gamemastery modules: Everyone likes full-size, full-color maps!

Wizard's 'custserv@wizards.com' address isn't hooked up to anything...That's why they get bounced. However, they have a 'Email us' web form on their customer service website (Just click the 'help' link on the main wizards homepage). I suggest that everyone use that if you email to their supposed customer service address got bounced. I know I got a response.