Creative Director
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Which of the following monsters are too Golarion-specific to put in a hardcover Bestiary: azi, gigas, the Eldest, oni daimyo and rakshasa immortals (or at least those that reside in Tian Xia and Vudra), Yamasoth, Shiggarreb, the Queens of the Night, primal inevitables, psychopomp ushers, protean lords, Nurgal, Cyth-V'sug and the Monad?
None of them. I would like Bestiaries to become more Golarion-specific, in fact.
Will Derek, Runelord of Swole be making an appearance in Return of the Runelords?
Have you seen the trailer for Godzilla King of the Monsters? If so what did you think?
In Hell's Rebels, how do you pronounce the name "Tiarise Izoni"?
So what movies have you seen lately?
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Creative Director
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So what movies have you seen lately?
The most recent that come to mind that left an impression are:
Equalizer 2—Fun and well-acted and well-directed.
Skyscraper—Amusing if dumb action entertainment.
Unfriended: Dark Web—Well put together but should have been more grisly and should have pushed more boundaries; a neat idea that was well produced and acted but didn't delve deep enough into its creepy subject; it was too "safe."
Crucifixion: Boring.
The Devil's Doorway: Fascinating take on the Found Footage genre, in which the footage is 16mm film taken by two priests in the mid 60s as they attempt to get the first miracle on film, but despite some good acting and a VERY strong premise, it devolves pretty quickly into boring possession movie cliches.
The Kaos Brief: Found footage movie about UFOs that pulls in some really cool real-world conspiracy stuff and UFO lore, and is impressive in that it features no straight white men in pretty much any role at all, which was refreshing, but the acting in it was AWFUL, which was a real shame.
Picnic at Hanging Rock: Not a movie, but a series over on Amazon. BRILLIANT and HYPNOTIC and SPOOKY and INCREDIBLE.
Children of the Corn: Runaway—Borrrrring.
Jurassic Park: Fallen Kingdom—YES!!!!!!!
Ant Man and The Wasp—Very fun and very entertaining.
How It Ends—Starts out strong, gets slowly more annoying, then has one of the lamest endings I've seen in a long time.
Into the Inferno—Very very good, as most Herzog documentaries tend to be.
Big Legend—Not bad, but not great.
The Hurricane Heist—Probably the stupidest big budget movie I've seen in a LONG time.
How similar is Skyscraper to Die Hard?
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Creative Director
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How similar is Skyscraper to Die Hard?
As similar as Friday the 13th is to Halloween. The later movie is obviously inspired by the former, and does a lot of the same things, but not nearly so elegantly, and a lot of the new stuff it adds is goofy.
Think of Skyscraper as a cross between Die Hard and Towering Inferno.
Also, in Die Hard, the antagonist role is focused on the actions of the villain opposing the hero. In Skyscraper, there are still bad guys but the bulk of the action sequences are framed in a "human vs. natural disaster" sort of thing, rather than "humans vs. humans."
Why is Paizo obsessed with limiting creativity?
I know it is often claimed otherwise, but judging by what is actually done, they often take the more limiting way of implementing things.
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Creative Director
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Why is Paizo obsessed with limiting creativity?
I know it is often claimed otherwise, but judging by what is actually done, they often take the more limiting way of implementing things.
This may be the most ridiculous question I've been asked on this whole thread, but I'll give a try at answering it... I'm not sure how well I'll do, though, so bear with me.
If this is honestly how you feel, I have no idea why you're here asking me this question, because the way you phrase the question is akin to the classic loaded question of "When did you stop beating your wife?" Someone only asks a question like this because they want to cause pain and grief and frustration.
I feel like the tens of thousands of questions and answers on this thread alone is proof enough to the contrary of your question's basic (flawed) premise.
In this case, since you're in this thread asking me, let's pose your question as "Why is James obsessed with limiting creativity?" He's not. If anything, James is obsessed with taking time out of his day to interact with other gamers to help encourage their creativity and to help engage with them as fellow gamers.
There's plenty of other things to do with one's time. Someone may find that engaging in a topic that they enjoy rather than one that frustrates them will make life more enjoyable—both for them and for those who have different interests.
TL; DR: Paizo is not obsessed with limiting creativity.
I like you and your creative work (which is entirely unrelated to the pathfinder system itself, in the same way color choice is unrelated the car that is painted said color), hence my dropping by around here.
The questions on this thread though are generally not about the game itself as you don't like rules questions, thus say nothing about the intended premise of my question.
I find that the rules are designed to be more limiting than really needed, sometimes for obvious reasons, but oftentimes not. As you work within the community of people that make those decisions, I figured you'd have some insight to why they make the rules limiting.
Also, there are several things, even fundemental ones, that I don't agree with you about, and that means you'll likely have a very different view on the process of making rules.
But, how limiting the rules are is more objective than design philosophy, and pf1 was more limited than 3.x, and now pf2 is heading many times more limiting than pf1 is.
That is not to say paizo does nothing for versatility, archetypes for example, but often taken as a whole it feels like taking three steps towards limiting, one step back.
Which drives the question of why is paizo making things so limiting?
I'm honestly not understanding why one would do so, except if they just didn't understand what they were doing, which seems unlikely in this case.
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DarkLightHitomi -- You say that the rules are limiting, Mr. Jacobs says he disagrees with you, your response is to repeat that they're limiting without demonstrating any reason that makes you think they're limiting.
So you're repeating a question that he's already disagreed with. That doesn't provide anything with him to refute other than your basic premise again.
Perhaps you should be more specific in what you're trying to get him to answer.
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Creative Director
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Which drives the question of why is paizo making things so limiting?
I'm honestly not understanding why one would do so, except if they just didn't understand what they were doing, which seems unlikely in this case.
I fundamentally disagree that Pathfinder 1st edition was more limited than 3rd edition D&D. One of the primary goals for Pathfinder was to make things LESS limited, be they in tiny ways (such as by removing alignment restrictions for bards) or larger ways (such as by providing more options in how to build characters as in the case of the sorcerer and the introduction of bloodlines), or by SIGNIFICANTLY HUGE ways such as making the game open content and fully embracing the open gaming movement. To me, Pathfinder feels less limited in pretty much every way than 3rd edition D&D.
So I guess I can't answer your question because I simply disagree with your claims. Maybe you'd find a different game more appealing to your interests? Pathfinder isn't for everyone.
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Creative Director
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DarkLightHitomi -- You say that the rules are limiting, Mr. Jacobs says he disagrees with you, your response is to repeat that they're limiting without demonstrating any reason that makes you think they're limiting.
So you're repeating a question that he's already disagreed with. That doesn't provide anything with him to refute other than your basic premise again.
Perhaps you should be more specific in what you're trying to get him to answer.
Normally I'd say something like, "Let's keep this to questions, please," but in this case I want instead to say thank you for summing up my position more clearly.
@DarkLightHitomi: Asking me the same question over and over without providing something new won't get me to change my answer.
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Creative Director
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James,
How would you rate the Jurassic Park films, from best to worst?
I'm going to give these scores, with a score of 100 being "The perfect dinosaur movie in every way" and a score of 1 being "A complete wreck that doesn't succeed at being a dinosaur movie in any way," mostly in an attempt to show that while one of the five is indeed "the worst" of the five, I still think of that movie as a very fun and entertaining and good movie, and the ONLY way it'd ever end up on a list as "worst" is a list like this.
97—Jurassic Park
92—Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
88—Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World
84—Jurassic Park 3
79—Jurassic World
I attempted to clarify my question since your first answer didn't really address it at all, but in a way that really showed you took it as meaning something other than I intended.
I'm not really sure how else to make plain what I mean, I did want to be clear though, that I meant something else, more fundemental than what you took it as, and was merely trying to clarify that.
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Creative Director
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I attempted to clarify my question since your first answer didn't really address it at all, but in a way that really showed you took it as meaning something other than I intended.
I'm not really sure how else to make plain what I mean, I did want to be clear though, that I meant something else, more fundemental than what you took it as, and was merely trying to clarify that.
I still have no idea what you're talking about, without you citing a specific example. Furthermore, until the playtest rules are out once Gen Con starts late next week, now's not the right time to address any perceived "limitations" we're introducing to the game. Other than the purely physical one in that of COURSE a game that's been out for a decade will have more books to read than one that's not yet out at all.
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I just got Planar Adventures and it is glorious. Exactly the right mix of rules and flavour, for my tastes.
Will you be working on the playtest in coming months? Or will you be working on other projects? (I appreciate the specifics are not yet announced - I'm not looking for sneak peeks, I'm just curious if the playtesting process draws on the creative team as well, or if it's more the focus of the design team).
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Creative Director
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I just got Planar Adventures and it is glorious. Exactly the right mix of rules and flavour, for my tastes.
Will you be working on the playtest in coming months? Or will you be working on other projects? (I appreciate the specifics are not yet announced - I'm not looking for sneak peeks, I'm just curious if the playtesting process draws on the creative team as well, or if it's more the focus of the design team).
YAY! It's good to hear folks are enjoying Planar Adventures; glad you like it!
The playtesting process will pretty much involve everyone from designers to developers to editors to art directors to publishers. I've already been deeply involved in the playtest rules (one of the most significant of which was developing the playtest adventure), and that'll continue to be the case going forward. The design team is going to be spearheading the public-facing/public feedback portion of things, but there's a LOT more going on with the process than that, of course.
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I also liked Planar Adventures and have a question regarding it:
Ganzi that are descended from Valkyries are cool. COULD said Ganzi also be lawful good and thus be a paladin of Sarenrae or some other paladin type god? If so, how likely?
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Creative Director
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I also liked Planar Adventures and have a question regarding it:
Ganzi that are descended from Valkyries are cool. COULD said Ganzi also be lawful good and thus be a paladin of Sarenrae or some other paladin type god? If so, how likely?
Ganzi, like pretty much any and all zero HD races, can be any alignment they wish. A Ganzi paladin of Sarenrae is just as likely as any other zero HD race combo if you're a PC and the GM allows you to play the race.
As for an NPC, that's up to you in your game.
The core assumption for generic ganzis though is that they'll tend to be chaotic, just as tieflings tend toward evil and aasimars to good and so on. That's their "vanilla" flavor.
In this post, you said Asmodeus is an ascended devil. Much of the info in other books heavily implies otherwise. Has his previous nature been retconned?Asmodeus is a devil, the most powerful of them, and the only one to be a full-fledged deity. What he was originally was not necessarily a devil though. He is now, though, and his existence as a devil has done more to shape and create the entire race of devil kind into what it is in the game.
No retcon at all.
By "ascended devil" I mean "a deity who is also a devil," not literally "he was a devil that became a deity."
He likely predates the concept of devils originally, and helped create the concept by being who he is.
That is not what the word "ascend" means...
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Creative Director
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That is not what the word "ascend" means...In this post, you said Asmodeus is an ascended devil. Much of the info in other books heavily implies otherwise. Has his previous nature been retconned?Asmodeus is a devil, the most powerful of them, and the only one to be a full-fledged deity. What he was originally was not necessarily a devil though. He is now, though, and his existence as a devil has done more to shape and create the entire race of devil kind into what it is in the game.
No retcon at all.
By "ascended devil" I mean "a deity who is also a devil," not literally "he was a devil that became a deity."
He likely predates the concept of devils originally, and helped create the concept by being who he is.
That's not a question. If you had framed this comment like, "Why did you use the word ascend when it doesn't seem like the definition fits your intent?" I would have answered differently though. Please keep posts here to questions.
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Creative Director
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Is Pathfinder Society organized play, just a clever way for you guys to take the leadership feat in your personal homebrew campaigns and use us as your followers?
Is this a snarky/goofy way of asking did we make Pathfinder Society as a way to get free gamers?
Seeing how much work it is to keep the org play campaign going, it's HARDLY free. It's more like something that requires 20 feats, which means that it's close to impossible to do with a standard party size, even though that's what the rules assume.
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Creative Director
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That is not what the word "ascend" means...In this post, you said Asmodeus is an ascended devil. Much of the info in other books heavily implies otherwise. Has his previous nature been retconned?Asmodeus is a devil, the most powerful of them, and the only one to be a full-fledged deity. What he was originally was not necessarily a devil though. He is now, though, and his existence as a devil has done more to shape and create the entire race of devil kind into what it is in the game.
No retcon at all.
By "ascended devil" I mean "a deity who is also a devil," not literally "he was a devil that became a deity."
He likely predates the concept of devils originally, and helped create the concept by being who he is.
A less snarky reply:
I would have preferred Asmodeus to be an ascended devil but what I prefer doesn't always get into print, and I don't always know everything that gets into print, so sometimes I say things that are based on my preference and not things I didn't know or just forgot were in print. Sorry I'm not an encyclopedia, I guess.
In Know Direction 182, Mark Seifter talked about how you and Mark Moreland worked with the design team to create the four new types of magic for PF2 on a physical vs. mental axis and another axis I'm forgetting right now.
On the show, Mark said that they're not planning on talking about the two axes and how they interact in the playtest or in the PF2 core. But, I'm fascinated. How did you first think of categorizing magic into four different types across two axes? Does the type of magic used play into decisions you made for lore about Golarion?
Is part of the other axis Psychic?
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Creative Director
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In Know Direction 182, Mark Seifter talked about how you and Mark Moreland worked with the design team to create the four new types of magic for PF2 on a physical vs. mental axis and another axis I'm forgetting right now.
On the show, Mark said that they're not planning on talking about the two axes and how they interact in the playtest or in the PF2 core. But, I'm fascinated. How did you first think of categorizing magic into four different types across two axes? Does the type of magic used play into decisions you made for lore about Golarion?
The whole point of how this works was to contextualize how magic works in Golarion, but until the playtest launches late next week, I'm not ready to talk more about it. When we get to next Thursday, ask again and I'll have more to say.
Did you ever imagine that a version of Clair De Lune would be so note-perfect for a Godzilla trailer?
If Godzilla and Mothra decided to fight, where on Golarion could they do the most collateral damage?
Also less jokey, where do you suppose there would be a large concentration of Duskwalkers in Golarion? Just generally I mean.
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If Godzilla and Mothra decided to fight, where on Golarion could they do the most collateral damage?
Also less jokey, where do you suppose there would be a large concentration of Duskwalkers in Golarion? Just generally I mean.
Goka, I guess, since that's the largest city we've revealed so far.
There isn't and wouldn't be a large concentration of duskwalkers on Golarion. One of the things about introducing new races ten plus years into a setting's life is that the new races can't be common or widespread in the area that's been in the spotlight. They're there, just not in numbers.
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What are the in-universe and real-life reasons why bebiliths aren't qlippoth?
Bebiliths are their own thing—neither demons nor qlippoth. They aren't part of an outsider race, but are instead just monsters who happen to be from another plane, in the same vein as things like phoenixes, vargouilles, xorns, hell hounds, and salamanders. Demons and qlippoth aren't the only things living on the Abyss.
I'm playing through Hell's Rebels (which my cleric of Shelyn/Variant Multi-class bard is having a blast existing in that adventure) and we just ran into a certain room with several paintings of the seven Archdevils. In game, my character got into an argument about how even though they depict evil entities that art despite its origin should be something to preserve and learn from while the rest of the party wanted to destroy them. She's pretty devoted to Shelyn's tenants and I wonder if this is something Shelyn would expect from her followers? Our Ninja ended up graffiting on the painting of Mammon anyways
And just to add Hell's Rebels has been such a blast to play in. Big kudos to you and the rest of the team! And what we found under Shensen's burned downed shop really threw us all for a loop in the best kind of way.
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I'm playing through Hell's Rebels (which my cleric of Shelyn/Variant Multi-class bard is having a blast existing in that adventure) and we just ran into a certain room with several paintings of the seven Archdevils. In game, my character got into an argument about how even though they depict evil entities that art despite its origin should be something to preserve and learn from while the rest of the party wanted to destroy them. She's pretty devoted to Shelyn's tenants and I wonder if this is something Shelyn would expect from her followers? Our Ninja ended up graffiting on the painting of Mammon anyways
And just to add Hell's Rebels has been such a blast to play in. Big kudos to you and the rest of the team! And what we found under Shensen's burned downed shop really threw us all for a loop in the best kind of way.
Art's a tricky thing, because it has incredible power to influence society. Propaganda, for example, is a form of art that can start wars. While Shelyn is the goddess of art, she's also a good aligned deity and would disapprove of the use of art to push forward evil or destructive agendas. The paintings of the archdevils certainly brush up against this category. Shelyn has no qualms about endorsing her worshipers' destruction of art that is actively evil or causing evil, but art that depicts depravity or something like an Archdevil itself is not intrinsically evil and would be something that Shelyn would approve of.
Glad to hear you're enjoying the adventure path though; it was a blast to write and develop!