mangamuscle's page

Otherwise there's a legitimate concern that folks will continue to point to the P.O.D.

That is no different than pointing at the current 2nd hand copies you can get on amazon or ebay. The only difference P.O.D. makes is increasing the already sizeable amount of copies in existence. If those folks you mention are that concerned, then they will not stop until older copies are branded with a "defective" stamp or are outright burned in a pyre.

In layman terms, pursuing such endeavor is beating a dead horse.

WotC hasn't modified their POD, I see no reason Paizo should. Censorship of past editions is not the answer, editing them is opening a whole can of worms since everybody has their own ideas of what must be edited and we will end with print copies as functional as Robocop in the 2nd movie (1990) that no one will want to buy.

It would be nice if Paizo published a calendar of what titles will be available and when. WotC sometimes publishes more than one in a month, then no new POD for months, it is quite frustrating for those waiting for certain out of print/overpriced 2nd hand books.

Finally Paizo is doing POD in DTRPG. WotC has been doing so for years now. Maybe this means we might get a reprint of Shackled City, since neither should have any objections now. Maybe the powers that be will also give us print editions of Age of Worms and Savage Tide.

My prediction is that just like in the days of AD&D, we will see many 2nd edition products labeled "1st ed compatible". Not from Paizo, they want (for economical reasons) to bury 1st edition asap, but 3pp companies will want to benefit from both userbases and if Paizo makes 2nd edition totally incompatible with 1st, they risk repeating the mistake WotC did with D&D 4th edition. Pathfinder (unlike windows) does not have a nag screen reminding you to upgrade (writing this post from windows 8.1 >_< )

Wouldn't it be ironic if WotC decides to jump into the pathfinder 1st edition retro-bandwagon?

... and that Wizards of the Coast stopped printing copies of 3.5E's rule books. Neither of these are the case for Pathfinder transitioning to a 2nd Edition.

Mhh, I do not think it is co$t effective for Paizo to do another print run of their old books once PF 2.0 is officially released. The real question is whether they will allow OBS or other similar store to sell POD versions of 1.0 books, maybe cheaper B&W softcovers?

I would love if Dreamscarred Press and/or Drop Dead Studios released a similar book for their character classes :D

Coffee Demon wrote:

I hope it's not nagging if I ask again about news on a print version?

I'll bump Adam and ask, see if I can get an updated ETA.

If (and only if) DDS has atm liquidity problems, maybe they ought to release SOM thru POD in OBS so that cash helps fund the kickstarter print run.

Yeah, I ask because I want to physically buy this book and was not part of the kickstarter.

I know, I am late to the party.

New post which introduces the martial summoner, a summoner that keeps the eidolon gives up all spellcating for martial abilities.

I don't know if it was intentional, but this reminds me of animes like Shaman King and more recently Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders

I haven't worked with Dreamscarred Press for awhile, but back when I was still with them my understanding was that this project was dropped.

Thanks for the info. IMO then they should officially announce they have dropped it (unless they plan to snatch the title of longest delayed vaporware from Duke Nukem Forever) and release an art-free free pdf.

Sorry for necroposting, but I can't find any update on this book, was it cancelled or is it still "in the pipeline"?

At OBS it is already Christmas, so I guess October was a couple of months ago ;)

OK, the kickstarter is over *goes to see his mail box* where is my book? :D

Any chance that this book will be available as a hardcover?

Does Paizo has made a pact with Radiance House and the GoLS print will only be available for sale here or for at a later date it will appear at OBS (maybe a softcover edition?) or at amazon?

Any chance that books like this that Pathfinder deems there are not enough buyers for another printing to become available via OneBookShelf (drivethrurpg) Print on Demand services? Maybe there are not thousands, but probably a few hundreds of people want a dead tree copy, you may call it service for the community.

I suppose the lack of replies this year means there won't be a third printing :(

Since WotC no longer has a forum I dunno where else to post this.

Recently there was a collaboration between Goodman Games and WotC

http://www.enworld.org/forum/content.php?3977-WotC-Goodman-Games-Partner-To -Reprint-Classic-Modules-for-5E

That got me thinking, we are already in 2017, 4e is no longer the latest D&D edition, the pathfinder vs 4e war is part of history. So I was thinking if Paizo could ask permission out of WotC to print a book with conversions of classes, monsters and whatnot that were not part of the 3rd edition OGL and could never be officially converted to Pathfinder. It could be called "The Lost Handbook".

I suppose profits could be distributed evenly or be donated to some worthy cause. In the end players and DMs would benefit from all that cool material that was out of reach for pathfinder campaigns.

Of course, if atm Paizo and WotC are still fierce opponents and not frenemies, maybe a 3pp could negotiate such a deal.

What is the difference between this one and the one released earlier?

http://paizo.com/products/btpy9jg5/discuss?More-Feats-Compilation-Volume-I

Regardless of their size or distribution network, it makes thematic sense for both companies given the Legendary Planet AP product line.

For Encounter Table: Adventure Path great to use with the Aethera Campaign Setting.
For Legendary Games: Extra rules and a Campaign Setting into which to insert the AP.

Wouldn't then it make sense to search for synergy with d20pfsrd.com? They recently released their very popular and thematically relevant Starjammer book and also own the open gaming store.

Out of curioity, how come Lore of the Gods is listed here on Paizo as a book by Bastion Press (and therefore not part of this offer) but at One Book Shelf they say it is a DragonWing Games book?

Freehold will procure on Friday. The lack of campaign content is disappointing, however.

Maybe they expect you to use your ad&d 2e campaign content or new campaign setting like Aethera.

p.s. Paizo sure is taking their sweet time releasing the pdf in their store, hope they are not delaying it until they release Starfinder.

That it was almost like exercising old demons..

Unless there is some scooby doo reference I am unaware of, wouldn't it be "exorcising"? ^^;

IMO the bestiary book cover art is a underwhelming (minimalist if ok if done right, i.e. tome of horrors) and the name is a bit long (reminds me of japanese lite novel titles), would have preferred Spheres of Power: Beastiary.

I will wait for some reviews to see if I buy it.

@Wolfgang Baur. Thank you very much m(_ _)m

Does anybody knows any ritual to summon Chris Pramas (Green Ronin) to this thread? >_<

However, since Frog God was the group that organized the bundle, they're the ones with the direct downloads from their own store. Just the way that Humble Bundle sets things up, they deal with a single company as their point-of-contact.

Mhh, the direct download links you get immediately after paying are from the humble bundle, not frog god games. In the webpage with the download links you get this message "Want access to your purchased bundle in the future? Click here to learn how!" with a link to google forms (outside humble bundle and frog god games website) that asks for your e-mail and asks if you want to opt to also get a backup of the pdfs in the frog god games, it should have been trivial to also add an option in the form to do the same for the kobold press and green ronin pdfs. Unless of course is business as usual and the business models expects customers to buy more than once the very same product(pdf) -_-

I got this humble bundle and I must comment that only the Frog God Game PDFs can be added to your account in their web store. Even though both Kobold Press and Green Ronin have their own web stores where you could add said pdfs to your account, for some reason they do not offer said option, which imo is short-sighted since they could attract customers to their stores with said option. Worst case scenario they do not have faith their web stores will be online five years from now :/

What I want is simple, a hardcover of spheres of power that includes the Expanded Options plus all "basic" handbooks.

I am in, only a quick question, why is "Feats of Necromancy" not part of the deal/not available at all in OBS (rpgnow/drivethru)? Also, not part of the deal are Amazing Races: Goblins!/Hobgoblins!/Halflings!/Kitsune!/Ratfolk! & Astonishing Races: Grippli.

Any chance of having this sale here on paizo and/or in drivethrurpg? Even for a day?

Would "Powerful channel" be considered a "priest only" feat or could a cleric also choose it?

I am also wondering if adding "bonus feat" to the dead levels would be a good idea.

Your own line of thinking is the same reason Gygax sunk TSR.

When Gary Gygax was booted from TSR, it was a perfectly healthy company which did not go bankrupt for doing the D&D cartoons (which back then were more expensive since there was no CGI and coloring was made by brush). BTW, said cartoon was animated by Toei http://youtu.be/5xOoWEFBOx8 , which years later would do Dragonball Z and Sailor Moon.

NenkotaMoon wrote:

To add, I believe Overlord is getting a second season.

Citation please? Nothing would make me happier, but I can't seem to find confirmation of this.

AFAIK there will be a chibi OVA http://youtu.be/NSU6Rpb9b0A bundled with the latest light novel. It is worth to mention that it has become common to do cheap flash manufactured episodes at the same time the actual series airs, Re:Zero has made to explain things about the fantasy world and Overlord has been doing it to show the funnier side of the series.

But even the RPG adaption of Robotech (a hugely succesful anime/spin-off) isn't played in Japan.

This is a bit off topic, but Robotech does not exist, it was a Frankestein made of three different anime series (Macross, Southern Cross & Mospeda), sewed together by Carl Macek. To make things worse, Robotech (as a legal entity) is the reason we do not see any of the new Macross anime. No, that is not old news, right as we speak, the latest cour (Macross Delta http://youtu.be/9lYKrckqNa4 ) is being broadcast in japan, but it will not be streamed in America for the previously stated reasons. If you want more info you can pm me or google it. So no go, trying to sell anything with the Robotech label in japan will be met with a cease and desist letter.

Have you considered that the reason that there hasnt been a japanese translation in nearly forty years is that there isn't a viable market?

I can clearly picture it, how more than a decade ago when doing a sale pitch for a Lord of the Rings movie the very same argument was used, but instead of four decades they would be talking of nearly six and to add insult to injury, they would mention the cheap Ralph Bashiki adaption who was neither popular nor award winning.

It's a lot easier to sell somethong that somebody wants rather than getting people to want what youre selling.

Under that line of thinking, anything that uses electricity from the light bulb down to your smartphone would have never seen the light of day. Any business has always a level of uncertainty, specially if is something no one else has done before.

On the other hand microsoft has yet to gain a major foothold in japanese sales.

That is akin to saying "Russia has not invaded Ukraine". Back in the day japan had their own pc hardware and operative system (made by NEC) but they were utterly defeated by Microsoft Windows, whatever games/visual novels not made for consoles are written nowadays to run in microsoft windows.

Also, Japan has its own RPG market that they sell japanese made products on (Golden Sky Stories, Double Cross, LOG Horizon RPG). Theres a reason that DnDs popularity drops sharply outside of the US and western europe.

And the reason is because neither TSR (WotC/Hasbro) nor Paizo has entered said markets, you can't say that it is because they have tried and failed due to the oh so strong local offerings.

Paizo is not nearly as prolific as nintendo

Today, but back in the 80s they were not as big as today.

and cant necessarily afford huge risks, as Sundakan said. I may be cynical but I just dont see reason to consider a pathfinder anime as a serious prospect. It's about as likely as Palladium actually getting a movie.

From where I stand all I see is FUD. No surprise there on the palladium ip movie, hollywood had the rights to the parasyte manga for a decade and did not made a movie, so when the rights expired japan made two live action movies AND a two cour anime series. Hollywood is not revolutionary, they are slow to make new things, still remember how many believed the LotR movie would be a flop, but nowadays they only want to do sequels of it.

Likewise, there is already a steady pipeline of manga/light novel to anime, just like there is a pretty steady one for book to movie. Because studios see these properties and choose to adapt them.

That is a very common misconception. As I said before, most anime studios are work for hire, no different from american comic writers/cartoonists, they are paid a fixed amount since they do not own the intellectual property they work on.

You do not have to take my word for it. In example, Attack on Titan animation production was made by newcomer Studio Wit (if they had known it would be a mega hit inside and outside of japan they would not have chosen a newcomer studio). But the royalties are not for Studio Wit, if you look under Production (the proper name is Production Committee) you will see SEVEN company names (Kodansha, the manga publisher among them) http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=14950 , those are the ones that distribute the royalties.

So no, most anime studios are not in the look for what to produce, when we speak of light novel adaptions it is japanese publishers (like Kondansha, Kadokawa or Shogakukan), with one or two other investors (i.e. outside investors and music companies, which btw want to use anime to push their contracted musicians) the one placing the money because it has already been established that it is (at least in japan) a good investment to make animes out of intellectual properties they own.

p.s. From where I stand the difference between a pathfinder book and a light novel is that most paizo books are hardcovers and have more illustrations (in color) than a light novel.

it's a real pain to sell western products to japan.

I can assure you that at first it was a real pain for Nintendo to sell their videogames to america for the very same reasons you mention, but it is clear to see that it was they right choice, with the added bonus that there is no big competitor (Atari at the time was huge) for Paizo in the tabletop rpg business (WotC has yet to translat 5e to other languages) in Asia.

Why not push for a western adaption? It'd be a lot easier without so many hurtles.

Let's just think for a moment that going for the asian market is too much for Paizo to handle, that they will wait another decade to see if some Japanese publisher will pick pathfinder for local translation. That does not change the fact that for decades now, most animation is made in Asia (Japan, Korea, China and I heard lately even the Philippines and Vietnam). Yeah, even most of the cartoon network and nickelodeon franchises. For high quality animation you need to hire a japanese anime studio, unless of course you are ok with a another piece of the (lack of) quality of Dragonlance: Dragons of Autumn Twilight.

Also, for a western cartoon there is a higher hurdle, there is the expectation that it can't have graphic violence, blood or the so called adult themes (sex, drugs, politics and foul language). This on an adaption of table game that borrows a lot of elements from Robert E. Howard Conan, seems like a waste.

You're all missing the point of the anime: to introduce Golarion. Which Adventure Path would be used? Rise of the Runelords (Anniversary Edition, please)? Iron Gods? Legacy of Fire? And six Adventure Path books would be ...

I think it is a well known fact that doing adaptions is non trivial. Heck, there is an Oscar for best adapted screenplay. Dragons of Autumn Twilight is an example of a poor novel adaption. IMO adaption from other media, like comic books or visual novels requires also experience and know how. The elephant in the room here is that nobody has ever done an adventure path (or module, as we called them in the good old days™) adaption into live action or animated media, it is uncharted territory and therefore a liability in a new venture. IMO it would be safer to pay someone to make an interesting story using the Core Rulebook characters and rules plus the Golarion setting as the basic requirements.

Fun as it would seem, I doubt it would work. Animation is EXPENSIVE. And so is advertising. And making deals with people to air it.

For what return?

You make it sound like this idea is somehow novel and new. Yet for decades already, many light novels (which are books, just like the core rulebook) have been adapted into anime. This summer season alone I can count four (light) novel adaptions http://www.livechart.me/summer-2016/tv Don't make the assumption that only the award winning and/or most popular prose is ever made into an anime. The clear example here is Konosuba (God's Blessing on This Wonderful World! which is not about religion in the same vein The World God Only Knows isn't) which was a basically unknown, with low sales; ok, it got a low budget animation with only 11 episodes (one of the which was not broadcast and was included with the next light novel volume to maximize sales) but it was better than the old D&D cartoon by any metric you choose.

If it was such a low return endeavor we would not see each and every season new light novels being made into anime (next season I can count five, so it is far from a declining trend).

The clear advantage here is that unlike novels, the core rulebook does not become an old product on the bookshelves in only a year.

I do agree that on average the most popular animes are shounen, but there have been a handful of seinen series to become popular: One-Punch Man, Ghost in the Shell, Planetes, Chobits, Tokyo Ghoul, Mushishi, Monster, xxxHOLiC, Gantz, Elfen Lied, Berserk and Akira.

Do you want everyone as adventurers in their mid-twenties, or do we get the "chibi" version, with Seoni the nine-year-old sorceress? These are questions the studio needs answered first.

If has been said that an anime target demographic can be seen by the perceived age of the protagonists:

Chibis: Kids https://youtu.be/AJmlzlRDIZM
Teens: 13-19 https://youtu.be/afNYXz-AHBY
Adults: 20+ https://youtu.be/jMoVmSV4yA8 <-- Those drow are 20+ years old! >_<

*Gets flashback to animated Dragonlance movie, curls in a fetal position and weeps in the corner*

That is the difference between a low-cost japanese anime studio and a cheap/novice indian animation studio. Hey, I will admit that I am a bargain hunter, but doing something really cheap could damage the opinion the public at large have of Golarion (which is Paizo's most important ip atm). So having an animation studio that has successfully animated a fantasy series is basic, imo.

Also, no matter whether it is animated or live action, trying to shove twice the material into your allotted screen time is a bad, bad idea, it is always better to leave the audience asking for more than having them thinking "that did not make sense, at all".

... D&D fans have their peculiar tastes and those tastes are incredibly conservative.

You seem to be forgetting that half of the idea here is for Paizo to get into the asian market, so in a sense you are acknowledging that they need to appeal to their aesthetics aka make the artwork of japanese translated core rulebook and bestiary more anime like (and use those designs for the anime).

You can, of course, g%& d*@n the torpedoes and ignore the traditional D&D gamer target and go for non-gamer audience, hoping it will draw them to your primary product. But this means you're trying to catch the attention of people who never heard of your brand in the first place, so you get no points for the license itself. In that event, you're trying to beat stuff like Seven Deadly Sins, SAO or even golden oldies like Escaflowne or Lodoss at their own game. Which means you need to be pretty freaking good to have a chance at getting a decent ROI here. Companies don't measure successes in Youtube views or MyAnimeList scores, they measure them in cash and new customers. And here you're not just trying to get a profit on the anime, you want to convert the customer. That's ... a whole additional layer of difficult.

Attracting younger customers (that have never played a tabletop RPG) is vital to Paizo, otherwise they risk having their userbase age and drop out of the scene, not trying at all is a ticket to oblivion.

You believe they have to beat big franchises like SAO or Attack on Titan to be successful, but that is nonsense in a world of free streaming (remember a pathfinder anime is but a 24 minute advertising), many series can be successful even if they do not have the biggest budget or a famous writer behind (i.e. Konosuba).

And American and Japanese companies can work together, but it is usually incredibly difficult due to fundamental cultural differences in conducting business. Stuff like how a deal is struck (American way: as quickly as possible, hopefully on the first meeting, over the lunch. Japanese way: at some point during the 253th karaoke and sake binge, a year and half down the road) or how communication is handled (Americans follow the standard "24h for a response to an email, unless the roof is on fire" while for Japanese the roof is always on fire, and it's not a normal fire, it's demonic nuclear fire, and their emails must be answered within an hour tops).

Yet, every year most american animation is outsourced to asian countries, I do not mean to say it is easy, but it is feasible.

... making an anime towards a largely negative target audience.

Got any hard statistical numbers to back that? Here is an important seed for thought, there exist no such thing as a negative sale, the worst case scenario is people not buying, as simple as that. So even if you got 100 million people that hate a product, if 5 million love it and buy it, then it IS a success *cue to justin beeber*.

About what studio would be willing to do it, most anime studios are mercenaries work for hire, a production committee slaps them with a bill of money on the face http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqOW8FssDcY and they produce the animation they are asked for. If you are thinking "american and japanese companies can't work together" please remember that for decades most american cartoons have been animated in korea, china and of course, japan. Heck, recently there was this cool collaboration with studio 4c for gumball:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugZFLnEmKpo

Like what age group aiming for? Shonen, seinen, shoujo? And what genre even?

It is a good question, which leas us to our next question, who would write the plot? IMO a good option would be to pay Gen "The Butcher" Urobochi to do it. But whoever writes it should be seasoned writer, it would be a dire mistake to think "any plot is just fine, here, I wrote one in a napkin".

Returning to the original question, it would depend on what product does paizo wants to promote, if it is the beginner box and/or the card game, you probably want it to be "shounen", but if they want to promote the core rulebook/bestiary and/or the computer game, it should be better for it to be "seinen". As long as female characters do not have DDD cups and there is no gravity defying face on crotch scenes the female public may also get interested (specially if male characters are cool like in many sports anime).

There would have to be so many safeguards on such a project, with an understanding that it would more than likely fail rather than succeed...

IF Paizo can't afford an anime (which seems odd to me since WotC can afford a live-action movie), they could at least kickstart an ova, it has been done successfully before:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/774031583/under-the-dog

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/production-ig/masaaki-yuasas-kick-heart

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1311401276/little-witch-academia-2

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/itoso-tag/santa-company

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mightyno9/red-ash-magicicada-by-studio 4c/description

Of course Paizo might have the money but starting with a smaller project might be a good idea since they have zero experience (unlike WotC that has already been part of the production of several movies).

So what studio would handle it?

That would really depend on two things:

a) Budget. Some studios specialize in flashier animations (MAPPA, Ufotable http://youtu.be/R7L1QOjv1d0 ) but those obviously are more expensive and some studios can do cheaper productions (Studio DEEN who recently did Konosuba http://youtu.be/zZ-J4eWy38U ).

Budget would also limit whether it would be just one OVA or short movie (Any remember this one about the classic computer game Wizardry? http://youtu.be/kOTHNoODYmY ) or a full fledged one cour (10-13 episodes, 24 minutes each) season.

2) Connections. Paizo would need some kind of broker to get some budget estimates. Also, some studios might want more freedom (as in, yeah, give us the characters and setting material and we will do the story and everything else) while others might be ok with supervision during the whole ordeal.

People can come out of retirement.

The thing is that Miyazaki would cost a lot more than your average director. It's like asking for Steven Spielberg to direct the next D&D movie for WotC. But there are lots of good anime directors out there judging by all the fantasy anime being done lately.

Lately there have been quite a bit anime adaptions of light novels with fantasy rpg elements (Grimgar, Overlod), not to mention animes about card games (Rage of Bahamut: Genesis, Wixoss) or computer games (Hyperdimension Neptunia, Tales of Zestiria).

It is quite obvious that this animated series are 24 minutes advertisements, so it boggles the mind that Paizo has not done their own. It would help to improve sales of many products.

1) It could help introduce Pathfinder in the Japanese (and other asian) market(s). Pathfinder has been translated to other languages, but not the H-U-G-E japanese market, that is akin of microsoft never selling windows in the asian market.

2) It could help advertise the Pathfinder card game.

3) It could help advertise the pathdfinder computer game Obsidian is making. If you are thinking "hey, that one will be released in one or two years"; well, if Paizo starts working in making an anime it will be released in one or two years also.

Remember that nowadays any anime is streamed almost simultaneously, so the advertisement would include as many countries as Paizo allows. If an english dub is also made it might even be shown in traditional channels like Toonami.

Yeah, I know making anime is worth a little fortune, but also doing computer games and IMO they go hand in hand quite well, if successful enough a Pathfinder themed anime might pay at least partially for itself (in disc sales and streaming rights royalties), unlike regular advertisement where you have to get your money back in sales of the advertised product.

Also, as I said before, an animated series is advertisement that could still be shown on YV years down the road (like the D&D Cartoon) so it is like the energizer bunny, it keeps going and going ...

p.s. It would also help get young new players into pathfinder.

The pocket editions are exactly the same in layout as their hardcover companions so if you could separate the HC version in such a way then you'll be able to do the same to the pocket edition (and if not, then not).

Thanks for the reply, but as I am digital only atm (I have plenty of dead tree books of 3.5 and earlier), I lack the first hand experience needed to be able to use the information you provide.

Can this softcover be easily cut and subdivided into three books? Chapter 1-8 (player's handbook), chapters 9-10 (spellbook) and 11-15) DM Guide? If chapters 8-9 and 10-11 are neatly separated in this softcover then the I could ask a local shop to bind them separately into three small hardcovers.