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Scribbling Rambler's page
  Pathfinder Society GM. 1,799 posts (2,805 including aliases). 11 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 4 Pathfinder Society characters. 17 aliases.
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Alignment Infractions are a touchy subject. Ultimately, the GM is the final authority at the table, but the GM must warn the player his character is deviating from his chosen alignment. This warning must be clear, and make sure that the player understands the warning and what actions initiated the warning. The PC should be given the opportunity to correct the behavior, justify it, or face the consequences. However, I believe a deity would forgive a one-time bad choice as long as the action(s) wasn't too egregious (such as burning down an orphanage full of children, killing a peasant for no good reason but sport, etc...). Hence, why the GM can issue a warning to the player through a "feeling" he receives from his deity, a vision he is given, his conscious talking to him, or some other similar roleplaying event.
If infractions continue in the course of the scenario, an alignment change may be in order. If the GM deems continued actions warrant the alignment change, the GM should note it on the character's Chronicle sheet at the end of the session in the "Conditions Gained" box. A character may remove this gained condition through a Atonement spell. If the condition is removed, the GM should also note it on the Chronicle sheet.
Characters who become wantonly (read as deliberate and without motive or provocation) evil are retired from the campaign. These measures are a last resort; there is more than one way to play a given alignment.
If a character has become wantonly evil as defined above, the GM should escalate the report to the convention coordinator and/or Venture-Captains or Venture-Lieutenants. If they agree with the GM, then the character will be deemed as evil and considered removed from the campaign. Again, these measures should be taken as a very last resort.
In the event of a wantonly evil character, the GM will record the character as "Dead" and the person who enters the tracking sheet should check the box as well. If a decision that a character who fits these criteria and the above actions have been taken, the convention coordinator and/or Venture-Captain or Venture-Lieutenant will email me to advise of the situation, and include the player's name, character's name, PFS number, and email of the player. They will advise the player of these actions and offer the player my email address so the player may present his case.
I will present all facts to the Venture-Captains and Venture-Lieutenants at large with all names (both real and character) removed. If the majority of Venture-Captains and Venture-Lieutenants feel that the act was wantonly evil and the character is irrevocably evil, then character will remain removed from the campaign. If the majority feel the character should be able to atone for the actions, I will contact the player and advise of such. The email may be printed and taken to the next game session so the GM may adjudicate the atonement and document it on the Chronicle sheet of the next game.
The above will be added to the FAQ, and possibly the Guide 4.1, when I get into work tomorrow.
I could care less about the rule set that an MMO follows. They are not the same and you should not aim for it. Pathfinder is a turn-based tabletop RPG. As a rules set for a TTOP RPG, it works quite well. However, a MMO is not a tabletop RPG. The people who think it should work like that do not get the design issues and probably never will.
I already know that the devs know this – but many of the fans here just don’t get it . Persuade your fans as to why – and with patience, the persuadable will be persuaded. However, some of these fans are NOT persuadable under any circumstances. That’s life. Keep selling them books and they will still be your customers, just not your online players. That’s okay. Let ‘em rant, because that isn’t Pathfinder.
I do see, however, a number of things that CAN work and DO feel like "Pathfinder,” to wit:
1 - Class Abilities: Pathfinder has improved upon and developed a number of class abilities that serve to distinguish the class from others. Those abilities should form a tangible aspect of a class design.
For example, we know what Paladins are. A Pathfinder: Online Paladin should have auras; smite evil, and have the ability to confer those benefits to others. Similarly, we know that a Witch has a familiar, can fly, and can cast hexes like misfortune and deep slumber. Alchemists in Pathfinder throw bombs and can use mutagens to increase their stats and body size. While something like a Vancian based arcane bond is not likely to matter in PF: O, Wizards should be able to throw a weapon and have it return to their hands. They should get some sort of metamagic and should be able to craft magic items. They should get a scorching ray and get multiple numbers of them as they advance (never mind what damage they actually do or how often it can be used) Barbarians are all about rage and DR. Gunslingers are all about guns, deeds, and grit, Ninjas can vanish, etc..
Keep the recognizable iconic abilities of classes and make them do similar sorts of things which are somewhat intuitive and recognizable to a player. The underlying math, lethality and so forth is irrelevant. Let the computer game designers of the MMO be computer game designers of an MMO. Nevertheless, some of the iconic powers of a class need to be represented and unique because that’s what fans expect and that’s what keeps up the verisimilitude of the Pathfinder brand.
2 - Look and Feel: Pathfinder has a distinctive art direction to its characters and many of its monsters. Some of that is going to work well in a computer game -- and some of it is not. Cut the stuff that will not work for polycount and animation reasons and do it without remorse.
But when you get right down to it, Pathfinder is Wayne Reynolds' art style. Make that come to life? You are golden in terms of art direction. Fail to deliver it and you dropped the ball and will alienate customers. Sorry – but in many respects it really IS that simple.
Above all, keep the cartoony look to your characters. There are strong benefits to this. On a technical design basis, it reduces polycount. As we move forward in the next five years, PC Gaming threatens to go off a cliff and the desktop will not be the primary platform for this game. Accordingly, anything that reduces graphical overhead and makes it more laptop friendly is good. Any CTO who tells you what the GPU capabilities are of the expected users of this game 4 years from now is making it up. He doesn’t know. That’s an ENORMOUS tech risk, so the engine and art direction has to be HIGHLY scaleable.
If you went for something like the CANVAS engine for your art style? You would not go wrong in terms of artistic impact (tech/economic feasibility is another matter). Apply the CANVAS engine's style and Wayne Reynolds art and color palettes and tell me you wouldn’t drool to play that game.
On a less technical basis, cartoony designs also serve to make the game look unique. The problem with realistic 3d models , shaders and middleware environmental options all designed to operate within the tech limits of the hardware platform of the day is that it all ends up looking the same, from game to game. Seeing as you are likely to have to use middleware for much of your environmental organic effects, anything that serves to distinguish the look of the game from that produced by others enhances the value. In this case, it also delivers on the expectations of fans – so double down on Wayne Reynolds' iconics and cartoony goblins.
Blizzard made the right call with WoW. Some people hated it and it turned them off -- but you cannot argue with that level of success. I can confirm that there was a significant debate within BioWare as to whether to go cartoony with SW:ToR. BioWare decided to go a little cartoony with their art direction in TOR too -- and it was the right call. Some people complained sure, but some people always complain.
3 - Golarion: At Paizo's current publication rate, it is likely that there will at that time of PF:O's release be more game material written about the world of Golarion than any other fantasy world in the history of RPGs. Even the FR (and that's saying something, damn it).
That is a VAST treasure trove of IP. It's the one thing Paizo brings to the table which it does BETTER THAN ANYBODY ELSE, in or outside of the computer development field. Do not sacrifice this on anybody's sandbox altar. Dance with the girl that brung ya.
That's what a Pathfinder: Online is to me. It's not rolling a 20, it's not Vancian Magic, longswords which do 1d8 or even magic missiles.
Gimme a Witch that hexes with a fox familiar, a chance to interact with the iconic characters which LOOK like Wayne Reynold's art come to life -- all set in a believable slice of Golarion.
That's a Pathfinder MMO to me.
There are currently no official methods for adjusting encounters, whether it's by adding extra foes or bumping up people's stats out of thin air. Until such time as rules are put in place to do so*, GMs are expected to continue running adventures as written. If that means that coordinators need to run more tables of fewer players in order to maintain a particular level of difficulty in a scenario, then that falls to those coordinators and the GMs who feel the need to make things harder.
*This is not to be construed as a promise that such rules are forthcoming, nor even that they have been considered.
My (possibly mistaken) impression is that the Paizo policy is geared toward changing behavior rather than simply removing objectionable content. If one's whole post is removed and one is asked to make one's point again with less inflammatory language, the burden is put on the poster to express him- or herself in a more acceptable manner from here on out. If the mods are simply following after people, cleaning up a word or sentence here or there, there is no inconvenience to the poster and no motive to change. (They might not even realize they're being moderated if they don't re-read their old posts.) In the long run, it leads to less work for the mods if people learn to self-moderate (or get mad and leave). Otherwise, the mods are just the guy in the circus whose job it is to follow after the parade and clean up after the elephants, whereas the elephants are already in the tent basking in applause and not even realizing they left a mess behind. :)
Quote: I started to think, why would a caster lose the spell when casting defensively if the purpose of the check is to avoid an Attack of Opportunity (AoO)? Wouldn't the check to lose the spell be made after determining whether or not an AoO succeeds and deals damage? Casting defensively means i'm going to pay more attention to that goblin trying to stick a spear into my liver than i am to my spellcasting words and gestures.
Its the difference between typing while looking at the keys and typing while looking at the screen and singing, except the screen is trying to kill you and you can't make a single typo OR get a note wrong or the whole thing falls apart. Thats what failing the roll means: you flubbed something because you weren't paying attention to the spell and the spell fizzles. It makes casting on the defensive somewhat of a choice: do you trust your concentration or armor class more.
Someone already DID "create Pathfinder before Pathfinder" – it was called Arcana Evolved, and it was backed by Monte Cook! And yet, it was totally unable to break significant market-share compared to WotC's products for as long as WotC was making things that worked off the same network.
WotC abandoned the 3.x player network because it was the only way to start making games that weren't OGL-compatible. And they did THAT for exactly the same reason they've stopped selling PDFs: to prove to their corporate overlords they had "fixed" a problem they were internally claiming were hurting sales.
When WotC sales go down, they must answer to Darth Potato Head. If sales are down for D&D, the Dice-Bouncing Department Head (exact title may vary) must explain why it's not *his* fault. The easiest way to do this is to blame the actions of someone who is no longer with the company (or assign actions to someone who is no longer with the company, even if they were only tangentally involved – after all they arent around to defend themselves anymore).
So it's:
Darth Potato Head (DPH): Why are D&D sales down? You had a movie, just like Lord of the Rings! Why can't we license D&D toys to people?!
Dice-Bouncing Department Head (DBDH): One of the earlier guys decided to sell easily-pirated copies of our books, my lord. That means we can't sell as many copies, so our sales are artificially deflated. It's not my fault!
DPH: Then stop selling those!
(Next fiscal quarter)
DPH: Okay, NOW why are sales down?! They should have bounded back after you stopped selling pee-dee-effs.
DBDH (may be a different person than last time): My lord, the previous directors allow any rebel rabble that wishes sell games that use our rules. Fanbois can sell such thigns out of their garages, and we can't stop them!
DPH: Then stop making games they can do that to!
DBDH: There are... difficulties... with such a plan my lord. You see, our player base is...
DPH: Your player base is nothing! Make a new game! Make a new player base!
(Next fiscal quarter)
DPH: For the Love of Monopoly, NOW what's wrong?
DBDH (yet another guy): Well, eye-covered master of evil, it seems some designers failed to capture the Essentials of a good D&D system, but we have a plan to fix this...
And so it goes. Now, the Paizo version:
Lisa: Erik, why are sales down!?
Erik (looks confused): Ah, they aren't?
Lisa (mollified): Oh, Good. I was having a flashback, I guess. But.. What if sales *were* down? What would you do?
Erik (confident): Make better games!
Lisa: Good! Good plan. Weird, I haven't heard that before.
We have no plans to offer PDF-only subscriptions.
The main benefit to customers of a PDF subscription vs. individual PDF sales is that a subscription would be more convenient for them. But let's examine the reality of that:
- Without a PDF subscription, people who only buy PDFs come to our site once a month after they hear that the new volume is shipping (which we always mention in our weekly newsletter, so if they check that regularly, they won't miss it). They add the PDF to their cart and check out, and download the PDF.
- With a PDF subscription, the process would be very similar—we'd send you an email that it was released, but you'd still have to come to the site and download it. Ok, you'd be making a few less clicks because you can skip the checkout process, but realistically, we're talking about pretty much the same amount of time and effort invested on the customer end.
So let's be honest here: convenience is not drastically improved. The *real* difference is that, presumably, PDF-only subscribers would get their PDF without having to wait for the regular onsale date.
However, every time this topic comes up, we hear from people who say that if we offered a PDF-only subscription, they would drop their print subscription.
Now, print costs are tied strongly to volume—the more copies you print, the less each copy costs. So, the heart of the question for Paizo is this: Would offering a PDF-only subscription cause enough lost print sales that it would noticeably affect print run sizes, which in turn would increase costs (including, possibly, the cover price)?
There are only two potential answers to this question: yes, it would noticeably affect print run sizes; or no, it would not noticeably affect print run sizes.
If the answer is no, there's no problem here; in fact, we might even attract enough PDF subscribers to increase our revenues. (I doubt those increases would be significant, though, since people who are likely to subscribe are already probably buying most of the PDFs individually now.)
However, if the answer is yes, then offering PDF-only subscriptions could cause irreparable harm to our business.
So we have to look at risk vs. reward. The reward for our customers is the ability to get a copy of the PDF about a week earlier than they can right now, and the reward for us is probably not going to be dramatically high. The risk, however, is damaging, or even potentially *crippling* our main business. That's not a risk worth taking.
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