The Red Death's page

Is this product sold out forever, or will it be available again in the near future?

I hear there are still several dozen left.

*/off*

Agreed. I still stand by my assertion that most GMs do not want to run a game they have to heavily house rule.

My conclusion is just for them to realize they have to make their needs happen through house rules and agreements at the game table rather than chase something they will never find in a stale rule book.

Any system can be easily house ruled. I think most people prefer a game they do not have to heavily house rule.

It doesn't exist ouside of their own imagination.

Which is a good thing.

Take a game system and universe that most reflect your own tendencies, and then tweak them to suit your needs. House rule. Modify. Make it work for you. That's the way tabletop gaming's supposed to work.

Ptolus signed by Monte is nice, but also having the signatures of Sue Cook and the proofreaders would be even better because those folks did an awesome job on that behemoth.

BTW, I ordered the Collected BoXM just two days ago. Any chance of getting a numbered copy still?

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I beg you...put a Gygaxian reference in the beginning of the book mentioning that these "rules" are all suggestions to the GM and that the GM should adjudicate as they see fit...much like the AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide.

Do we know if the price tag is going to change as the page count increases? Right now this is a sweet, sweet deal!

PFRPG Tome of Horrors in Print would be item #1 on my list.

Since I own stuff like Rappan Athuk, Bard's Gate, Crucible, City of Brass etc, I don't really need any PF reprint. New 1st ed modules would be great though.

A Ptolus reprint would most certainly prove beneficial for lots of people out there who haven't been properly introduced to the goodness of Monte's setting. No question about it.

The current Epic Level rules are a mess.

The way to make the game more mythic in scope is not to make it more bloated with math.

So if Paizo does an "Epic Level" book, it will probably be a complete re-do. With that in mind, I'm very curious to hear what people think about the idea of play beyond level 20.

What are you looking for conceptually?

What are you looking for mechanically?

If you're skeptical, what can we do that might get you to give this one a try?

Any deal breakers?

For me, Epic means tone first and foremost. It makes me think, as far as fantasy's concerned, about characters like Elric or Hawkmoon, or Companions of the Champion thereof. It makes me think of worlds, universes hanging in the balance, of incredibly strange friends and foes, of whole new dimensions to explore.

It does not mean the same old same old with more math and a sh!tload of dice thrown for damage. It does not mean a bloated character sheet.

The idea of a clear cut from the core rules, for instance the "Epic Level 1" idea of James Jacobs, seems to be the good way to go. Powers could be conceptually based off the character classes' archetypes, but would have broader effects and more... imagery to them. Think "Mage: The Ascension" Spheres or high level Vampire Disciplines, when the actual powers become more free-form in nature, but with a little more structure/limits to them.

I think the D&D Classic Immortals box would be a good starting point (but just that, for the base inspiration, not the mechanics themselves). Something still playable, that is still D&D in nature (tactically, with team-work, clear roles in a party, some exploration of "dungeons" though the concept of dungeon itself could/should be dramatically broader at this point).

I guess what I would not want would be a "superhero"/goofy/anime emphasis to it. That's not what I'm looking for when I think "Epic". I'm thinking more about the Abyss of Nihrain, the end of the Million of Spheres, Adventurers on the Seas of Fate... if you see what I mean.

Interesting.

I think one of the failings of 3.5 is in large parts to not clearly explain the math that's going on behind the hood.

When you read the 1E DMG, it goes on to explain how probabilities work and such. It also has a very inclusive, "we're both DMs, here's why I do this that way" kind of tone to it thanks to EGG.

I'd like to see this from Pathfinder. For instance, the long awaited, never published "High Level Handbook" explaining everything one has to look out for, specific ways to handle specific abilities and spells in adventure design, how to design encounters, et cetera. NOT a rehash of the vastly failed "Epic Level Handbook", I hope I'm clear.

I hope the keys to the system are given to the DMs more than it ever was done in any 3.X variations before. I'd like to see a work that makes the whole mathematics, intricacies, complexities of the system readily understandable to any aspiring DM.

Is that even possible?

The prestige classes included in the base PRPG rules should reflect the 3.5 panel by design, for conversion purposes. That much is clear.

Nothing stops Paizo (or third party publishers, if Paizo goes ahead with its "Pathfinder compatible" license program) to add to the available panel of PrCs, however.

I for one think Prestige Classes are great tools for three reasons: 1/ when designed appropriately, they help flesh out the world by developing its own character-specific and organization-specific rules; they tie particular characters to the world at large, 2/ they provide almost infinite possibilities of character advancement, and 3/ they provide opportunities for DMs and players to share the fun in designing new mechanical elements for the game.

What things are off-limits for being changed? For instance...

This implies that core classes are indeed more or less set in stone, as are the Prestige Classes, though additions to the basic components of the game are always possible.

So long as you can grab an OGL book and basically can use it with PRPG with minimal efforts on your part, I think PRPG reaches its primary design intent.

This leaves a lot of room to improve the game "under the hood", basically, like CBM rolls do. They are there, but I can still use a 3.5 character with a Sunder special ability with them. The particular rule just shifts instead of being out of existence.

I own both products. I've been collecting RPG products for years now, and I have to disagree with the OP.

I definitely want the PRPG to be hardcover. The Beta rules binding is way too thin, way too easy to mark/fold (as a matter of fact, the copy I received through the mail had all the pages and covers already badly folded due to the way it was handled). I want the Pathfinder rulebook to be able to stand for years at my game table and on the shelf. Softcover rulebooks just do not survive that long unscathed, unless you never ever use the book.

Thanks a bunch, Jeff. Much appreciated.

I'm sure we will as soon as they are available through our distributor. If you're interested in them then feel free to put in a pre-order and as soon as it's available we'll order it and get it out to you.

This TLG statement isn't reassuring, so excuse me for asking the question yet again on this thread. Thank you!

D&D could suffer the same fate, though it's unlikely.

What it tells me is that when you lower the standards below the customers' expectations you pay the price with lesser returns. Your product becomes worthless in the customer's eye, and this eye is ALL that matters. I wish they would learn from that. They could, if Hasbro wasn't itself pushing for greater returns (and thus a concentration of effective brands) from its subsidiary in the background.

you are not checking Paizo 10 times a day, but their traffic has held steady while ENWorld's has declined.

I still don't want to switch to 4E (though I don't hate it by any means - it's just not the game I want to play). I still enjoy OGL/3rd ed materials out there way more than 4E. From where I stand, Paizo made the right choice. To each their own I guess, but I bet many people have a similar experience to mine.

I love Saga Edition Star Wars, so you can see that I really don't dislike the system

I agree. There are some things about 4E that are worth salvation in some form or another, but the overall WotC PR, core books content and handling of the future of DnD does not make me a customer.

No later than yesterday, I was pouring though some of my oldest print magazines and sighed "I miss Dragon and Dungeon mags". I don't want electronic versions. I want print magazines. They're gone.

Add to this that in many ways, D&D fired me as a customer by WotC's PR calling me a guy "unwilling to accept change" and other insulting shortcuts, as well as making the rules more miniatures friendly, even more tactical (i.e. nitpicky on placement and definitions of actions and reactions) than they were before, and that's about it.

Add to this that I have enough OGL gaming materials to last a lifetime, and that I simply do not want to learn yet another new game system obsolete in eight years from now or less.

Add to this that there is actually one gaming company going on with the OGL, Paizo.

Result? Clearly:

Paizo it is.

Oh, cool! I like to play Castlevania.

Let's not forget that the assault on the Jedi Temple and Order 66 is one thing. The hunt for the remaining Jedi after Episode III, during the Dark Times as featured in Force Unleashed, is another. There, Darth Vader is intrumental in hunting down the survivors.

Vader killed many Jedi. Not just the younglings in the Temple, and not just the Jedi of the Temple.

I basically gave up on 4E debates.

I don't support what 4E stands for, what I perceived as the motives behind it, and the way it's been brought to us by Wizards (the PR). The game system itself does have some merits, but is not what I'd call "D&D". My opinion is logical to me.

I no longer expect my views to be acknowledged in any way, shape or form, since any kind of discussion about this quickly devolves into a fight of "4vengers" vs. "anti-4E" crowds. There's enough of this crap online already. I moved on to play Pathfinder.

Very interesting OP. Thanks for posting it!

...has gotten a little bit shorter with the new skill system. I like this.

Agreed, a CharOp board invites a whole other type of atmosphere to the boards.

I have nothing against message boards or members talking about that sort of thing. I just think that this particular aspect shouldn't be emphasized on Paizo's boards. If there would be such a forum, why not a character background forum, then? A DMing and Campaign Building forum?

A "rules" forum would seem more appropriate because it would be less focused. This type of forum already exists here.

Great sourcebook. Great campaign material.

It just assumes the DMs know what they're talking about and are able to adapt it to their own game.

Mine is "The Iron Mage", without quotation marks.

What's yours?

Let's send Friend Requests to each other!

Wow... so... what would you consider a good game?

Why do the core rules have to be married to Golarion?

I don't see how the Beta ruleset is Golarion-specific. The explanation of the racial bonuses and maluses isn't world-specific to me. It's another take on the concepts than the original rules, for sure, but that's not Golarion specific, is it? Could you enlighten me? This is not snarky; this is a serious question.

I don't consider derisive harangues against capitalism to be of any merit.

Oh, and by the way: I've read the books. I know what I'm talking about. Every usual user of these boards knows that I've read them. You shouldn't attack people like this without a tad bit of background story to avoid ridiculing yourself.

That said, we still can disagree with each other, provided we don't snipe like we both just did, and that's fine with me. :-)

I disagree, CWM, because you do have games still on print which basically haven't changed to the core since their first publications decades ago. Call of Cthulhu comes to mind. Sure, you have Cthulhu d20, Delta Green, Trail of Cthulhu and CthulhuTech gravitating around, but the core game is still reprinted, with very thin differences between printings.

Wouldn't that relegate the game to stagnation, though?

I think this whole idea of game evolution is just an artefact of modern consumerist marketing.

"Quick! Got to have the NEW product, the NEW color, the NEW shape! Doesn't matter if the product we have works just fine! No, no, no! Let us not think, but BUY! Follow the Fashion of the Day! Show off to the other kids in the school yard (or 'RPG community' if you will)." And so on.

Malarkey, as far as I'm concerned. All it is, my friends, is the old recycling of goods destined to sell you the same product over, and over again without having to expand what already is. It's cheaper, easier, uses less resources and -gasp!- imagination. It's win-win for a game company.

Russ Taylor wrote:

I don't see much value in fixing edge case exploits that more or less involve being an obnoxious player (i.e. casting wall of iron over and over again). The space in a rulebook is limited. Every line spent closing a hole that can just be closed by DMing is another line that can't be used for something more useful. A big difference between computer games and RPGs is the presence of an arbiter to weed out bad play, and the rules should take advantage of that by focusing on rules that are needed, rather than covering all the possible abuses in the system.

Just my two cents.

Part of me wonders how much of this mentality is a result of 3rd Edition and trying to have a rule for the majority of situations. It`s like the old adage that rules are made to be broken - the more rules you make, the more aggressively some people try to exploit those rules to prove they cannot be constrained by them.

For the record, I would definitely buy a leather-bound Pathfinder rulebook. I never bought the limited D&D core books, but PF, a 600-page leather-bound tome of awesomeness? If it's priced like the Ptolus book was, I would preorder instantly.

we see similar things, just take a different approach to it

I think I am getting what you feel - you would rather have an actual leather-bound tome rather than one with a picture of a mock leather-bound tome on it. But originally you did say you thought they were computer generated.

Don't forget that the only experience the Bill Clinton had was running Arkansas.

Let me rephrase it then, Sean: I do not like the way they feel like they've been put together with Photoshop.

yes and no... as a person the other players owe the GM respect, not loyalty, not fealty, but respect fro what he does... so does the DM owes respect to their players... one should not thrash each other because he is less than perfect

My bottom line, really, is that respect is not owed, but earned.

The DM won't be respected by virtue of being a DM. A DM will be respected by showing all kinds of traits that inspire confidence from the players in the DM's abilities (consistence, fairness, adaptability, experience, understanding, empathy etc).

I love adventures featuring graphic, disturbing and otherwise mature content, personally, as long as they're not treated as a trivial matter in-world (i.e. innocents dying is a tragedy, people getting corrupted really pay the price for giving in to their twisted ways, etc).

I feel fantasy RPG adventures, in D&D in particular, have been WAY too tamed and bland since the whole media backlash of the 80's. One of the interesting components of fantasy fiction was the mature content involved, for me, with authors like Moorcock or Leiber or Howard or Lovecraft and many many more.

I want RPG adventuring to be able to embrace mature themes and be able to treat of those topics with more contrast and a different approach, precisely because this would so obviously be "fantasy".

There's been a war going on about Fantasy and its purpose in the literary field for decades between those who see it as a means to emphasize what's fundamentally good and glorious about one's own humanity, and those who see it as a stage in which you could treat of topics that would otherwise be much more offensive to readers when that would not be so obviously fictitious.

Now, I love both traditions and think they both have a part to play and inspire in gaming. We've been playing the light-hearted side of this for a long time now. I'm glad we can get some crisp mature content without resorting to DeCamp lameness through Pathfinder. I hope we'll get more contributions from Nick and others around these lines. This is very much welcome, to me.

Who's playing Halo 3 on XBOX Live?

What's your Gamer Tag?

Just finished playing Mass Effect. Excellent game.

Now that I downloaded the add-on, I've got to play it ... all over again! ;-)

10. DON'T believe Balance is the begin-all and end-all precept of the game. When balance gets in the way of the entertainment the game provides, trash it.

11. DO listen to your players feedback, what they like and don't like, and build the game around it. By providing the type of entertainment the players seek, you are reaching for excellence in DMing.

12. DO understand this is not "your" game, and these aren't "your" players. This is everyone's game, and the players are people just like you. They don't owe you respect. This is something you have to earn by aiming for excellence, fairness, knowledge, dynamism in DMing.

13. DON'T, EVER, say "no" to a player, particularly concerning character building and options, player's feedback, initiative and imagination without explaining the reasons why you say so. This might have to be explained after the game session (or campaign) is over (it's probably better that way, so as to not interrupt the flow of the game itself), but do take the time to explain the reasons behind your rulings. See #11 from there.

What I don't like about the tome-look is these are -to me- very obviously computer-generated. I don't like covers I could have done with a bunch of textures and Photoshop, basically.

I like art, whether that'd be drawing, patterns, maps... you know. Stuff that's drawn, designed by artists using their own hands. Look at the cover of Castle Zagyg: Yggsburg, for instance. The grey background is ugly, for sure, but the painting itself... that's awesome.

Now reading some tales of the Grimm brothers, as well as the Trail of Cthulhu role-playing game.

For me, this whole thing about the FR rebooting is just a part of the bigger issue/fact: that WotC decided to take the D&D brand, mechanics,and core background/assumptions into a new direction that would -hopefully to the management- create a new buzz and develop the market.

If that meant walking all over the old D&D tropes, and firing the old guard for it, so be it.

That's what it comes down to. I hope the new fans of the game appreciate the new setting. I'll stick to the Grey boxed set personally.

I'm interested, actually.

How's the Mythos treatment as it pertains to the background/futuristic era? Is it cool? Original? Sketchy? Very detailed?

How good are the ideas?
Are there adventures included?
How would you describe the game's ambiance? Horror? Battletech? Paranoid? Investigative? Fight?
How's the game overall?

Should I buy this?