James,
Can you name the five worse books that you have ever read? Fiction only please, but not restricted to any genre.
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James,
Can you name the five worse books that you have ever read? Fiction only please, but not restricted to any genre.
Honestly... probably not! Not because I won't, but because I simply don't devote any space in my brain to keeping track of books I *didn't* enjoy. Obviously, as an editor, I've read tons of bad excerpts from authors looking for work, but that's different--naming those folks would be like a doctor breaking confidentiality. So I've certainly encountered some stinkers, but I generally try to purge them from my brain and replace them with the titles of books I love, which are hard enough to remember. :)
That said... in college, I had to read Jane Eyre several times, and I deeply loathed it. Not just because it was boring, but because like many regency romances, it glorifies people who act like jerks and play head games with their supposed love interests. My memory of the book is thankfully now fuzzy, but I recall being deeply disappointed when Jane suddenly decides to stop being a jerk at the end, and her love interest is all "oh, okay, let's get married then." As a young man (one who'd admittedly had a few crazy game-playing relationships recently), I was incensed. So much so that for one of my classes, instead of writing an essay on the book, I got the professor to let me rewrite the ending so that Jane's love interest responds in a manner I felt more appropriate, essentially shutting Jane down and letting her know that simply stopping being a jerk was too little, too late to result in a happily ever after.
Anyway, that's a bit of a digression. But to this day, I still can't stand books (or especially sitcoms) where the only plot point is people playing annoying head games or making mistakes due to obscenely poor communication skills...
(P.S: Lest my criticism of regency romances seem like a misogynistic "WTF is up with all these crazy manipulative ladies?", I should point out that the men in such books are no better. To all the Mr. Darcy fans out there: how does being offensive, brooding, and a poor communicator make one a heartthrob? Seriously.)
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Hi James,
I believe (though I might be wrong) that you developed much of the material on Belkzen and Lastwall.
My PbP (Follow the Flood Road) group are travelling along the ruins of Harchist/Harchrist's Blockade at the moment, and I was wondering if you could tell us a little more about the general himself.
Thanks!
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Hi James,
I believe (though I might be wrong) that you developed much of the material on Belkzen and Lastwall.
My PbP (Follow the Flood Road) group are travelling along the ruins of Harchist/Harchrist's Blockade at the moment, and I was wondering if you could tell us a little more about the general himself.
Thanks!
I did indeed create most of Belkzen, including General Harchist (the "Harchrist" in Orcs of Golarion is a typo). Unfortunately, we haven't really published anything else on the general, and I make it a policy not to invent new continuity on the boards, so I can't really elaborate. But it's super cool that you picked up on that aspect of Belkzen! I had a lot of fun coming up with the region's previous borders... it makes the orc threat seem more menacing, and gives us an excuse to have awesome ruined siege castles and other lost relics in an otherwise savage territory. :)
...also, the original Belkzen map had that typo, too. But it's definitely General Harchist!
Any other persistent typos?
Understandable enough. Away to homebrewing I go . . .
Incidentally, in my campaign I came across the typo first, so in our alternative dimension it's most definitely Harchrist!
Dear James,
What is the creepiest question or statement a Paizo staff member has ever made to you. The staff member's name is not necessary, only the spirit of the statement/question!
has a typo ever evolved into canon in the PF setting and if so, what was it?
Sure! Sometimes the best ideas come out of things you misheard, in much the same way that sometimes you'll really love a song's lyrics and then go read them and realize that what they were actually saying isn't nearly as cool as what you *thought* they were saying. (There's a specific term for that, but I can't remember what it is.) For instance, our whole game of Yetisburg came from a Paizo staffer mishearing the Battle of Gettysburg at a noisy bar!
But for more concrete examples of typos giving birth to canon, I can give you two you'll find right on the Inner Sea map:
*Urgir and Urglin. When I first wrote the gazetteers for Varisia and Belkzen, I didn't realize until too late that we'd named two major orc cities really similar terms--Urgir and Urglin. In thinking about how to reconcile that, I immediately realized that "urg" must mean something in Orc in order to be used twice in important city names. Clearly it didn't just mean "city" or "settlement," or you'd probably see it more often (and too often to have the map stay interesting). But what about "home"? So we decided that "Urgir" translated to "first home" and "Urglin" to "second home"--which, incidentally, told us the words for "first" and "second" in Orc!
*Elidir and Eleder. When we first noticed that we'd used really similar names for the capitals of Sargava and Isger, we thought it was a problem. But then we realized that both nations were part of the Chelish Empire. In the same way that the eastern United States is chock full of city names lifted directly from Great Britain and the rest of Europe (New York, anyone?), wouldn't colonists in Sargava--likely lower-class folks from Cheliax's lesser holdings--name their chief city after something that reminded them of home, the same way colonists did in the Americas? Suddenly there was a cool story there about colonialism and the disenfranchised folks from conquered Isger trying to start over in a new place far away.
So there you go! While it may seem embarrassing to some people to have "mistakes" in the canon, I often find that, much like evolutional biology, a little bit of randomness in the system actually helps make things more robust! Good reconciliation of seemingly contradictory details forces you to go deeper into canon than you might otherwise, and can spawn some of the best stories. And really, since we're making everything up, the only difference between a flaw and a feature is how we present it. :)
Dear James,
What is the creepiest question or statement a Paizo staff member has ever made to you. The staff member's name is not necessary, only the spirit of the statement/question!
Every example I'm thinking of is seriously NSFW (maybe NSFL), so I'm just going to wink and nod and move on.... ;)
Did you know that several years ago we replaced our HR person with a soda machine? True!
James,
I am running a campaign in Numeria, and decided to tie the region with Aballon.
Were the First Ones of Aballon a race of machines? "organics"? Something else?
Thanks!
Dear James,
What is the creepiest question or statement a Paizo staff member has ever made to you. The staff member's name is not necessary, only the spirit of the statement/question!
Every example I'm thinking of is seriously NSFW (maybe NSFL), so I'm just going to wink and nod and move on.... ;)
** spoiler omitted **
Good trade, methinks.
James,
I am running a campaign in Numeria, and decided to tie the region with Aballon.
Were the First Ones of Aballon a race of machines? "organics"? Something else?
Thanks!
Neat! Unfortunately, the nature of the First Ones is one of those mysteries that I don't actually want to answer without making it part of a Big Event. But whether the crashed capital ships in Numeria are linked to Aballon or not, I'm sure that both Aballon and Numeria would be highly interested in each other!
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Neat! Unfortunately, the nature of the First Ones is one of those mysteries that I don't actually want to answer without making it part of a Big Event. But whether the crashed capital ships in Numeria are linked to Aballon or not, I'm sure that both Aballon and Numeria would be highly interested in each other!James,
I am running a campaign in Numeria, and decided to tie the region with Aballon.
Were the First Ones of Aballon a race of machines? "organics"? Something else?
Thanks!
Two things pop out here. They are of the capital size (whatever that may be) and there are multiple ships...
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Two things pop out here. They are of the capital size (whatever that may be) and there are multiple ships...Neat! Unfortunately, the nature of the First Ones is one of those mysteries that I don't actually want to answer without making it part of a Big Event. But whether the crashed capital ships in Numeria are linked to Aballon or not, I'm sure that both Aballon and Numeria would be highly interested in each other!James,
I am running a campaign in Numeria, and decided to tie the region with Aballon.
Were the First Ones of Aballon a race of machines? "organics"? Something else?
Thanks!
Uh... um... NINJA SMOKE!
Actually, I think we've already used the term "capital ship" to describe the Silver Mount, but even if we haven't, I feel like it's probably a pretty safe/spoiler-free descriptor--after all, the ship is the size of a mountain! As for whether there was more than one ship involved in the Rain of Stars... well, since there are bits and pieces all across Numeria, that'd be kind of hard to tell without a thorough investigation, wouldn't it? :D
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Two things pop out here. They are of the capital size (whatever that may be) and there are multiple ships...Neat! Unfortunately, the nature of the First Ones is one of those mysteries that I don't actually want to answer without making it part of a Big Event. But whether the crashed capital ships in Numeria are linked to Aballon or not, I'm sure that both Aballon and Numeria would be highly interested in each other!James,
I am running a campaign in Numeria, and decided to tie the region with Aballon.
Were the First Ones of Aballon a race of machines? "organics"? Something else?
Thanks!
Uh... um... NINJA SMOKE!
** spoiler omitted **
So there was a giant space battle raging in space over Golarion and parts of damaged ships crashed landed around Golarion. So now we know what happened to the Star Destroyer that was shot from space by an ion cannon. So there must be a rebel base hidden somewhere in the Crown of the World...
Neat! Unfortunately, the nature of the First Ones is one of those mysteries that I don't actually want to answer without making it part of a Big Event. But whether the crashed capital ships in Numeria are linked to Aballon or not, I'm sure that both Aballon and Numeria would be highly interested in each other!James,
I am running a campaign in Numeria, and decided to tie the region with Aballon.
Were the First Ones of Aballon a race of machines? "organics"? Something else?
Thanks!
Awesome!
Thanks!
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To be fair, I probably would have been fine with the pixelated graphics if it hadn't run so slowly and crappily on the DOS emulator I had to use. :PI'm sorry you couldn't go back to the game you loved. Speaking as someone who still picks up basic Game Boy games on a regular basis and tends to prefer 99% of older games over anything on the market today, those sorts of games are my bread and butter. I'm not sure what I'd do if I picked up a game and had that reaction. =/Of course, when I went back and tried to play it a few years ago, it was incredibly slow and clunky, and the pixelated graphics looked extremely crude. As with most entertainment technology, you can never go back. But for many years, that was the game that would keep me up all night during the summer.
(Whew! You clearly hit a vein on that one. :)
There's a version on Good Old Games that might run better. It won't need an emulator.
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There's a version on Good Old Games that might run better. It won't need an emulator.To be fair, I probably would have been fine with the pixelated graphics if it hadn't run so slowly and crappily on the DOS emulator I had to use. :PI'm sorry you couldn't go back to the game you loved. Speaking as someone who still picks up basic Game Boy games on a regular basis and tends to prefer 99% of older games over anything on the market today, those sorts of games are my bread and butter. I'm not sure what I'd do if I picked up a game and had that reaction. =/Of course, when I went back and tried to play it a few years ago, it was incredibly slow and clunky, and the pixelated graphics looked extremely crude. As with most entertainment technology, you can never go back. But for many years, that was the game that would keep me up all night during the summer.
(Whew! You clearly hit a vein on that one. :)
<Manuscript for my next Pathfinder Tales novel bursts into flame>
Noooo! My productivity...!
I'm thinking of placing some Dark Sun monsters on Akiton (natives riding kanks and erdlus, etc.). Is that a good fit do you think?
Also, how much vegetation is there on Akiton? Are there scrub forests like on Athas, or is it 100% plains/desert?
<Manuscript for my next Pathfinder Tales novel bursts into flame>
Speaking of which, any cool new titles coming out?
As I said before, I am very impressed by the level of PF fiction I have seen so far.
any chance we will get a pathfinder tale with a Paladin protaganist?
<Manuscript for my next Pathfinder Tales novel bursts into flame>Speaking of which, any cool new titles coming out?
As I said before, I am very impressed by the level of PF fiction I have seen so far.
Yes! And I'll be able to announce several of them in just a few days at Paizocon. :D
any chance we will get a pathfinder tale with a Paladin protaganist?
Yup! In about two months here--Opparal the elven paladin of Iomedae is a badass demon-killin' machine, and a full-on POV protagonist in King of Chaos. She's seriously righteous in this book, in all senses of the word. :)
I'm thinking of placing some Dark Sun monsters on Akiton (natives riding kanks and erdlus, etc.). Is that a good fit do you think?
Also, how much vegetation is there on Akiton? Are there scrub forests like on Athas, or is it 100% plains/desert?
Probably a good fit! And it's definitely not all plains and desert--there are totally forests there as well.
any chance we will get a pathfinder tale with a Paladin protaganist?Yup! In about two months here--Opparal the elven paladin of Iomedae is a badass demon-killin' machine, and a full-on POV protagonist in King of Chaos. She's seriously righteous in this book, in all senses of the word. :)
Awesome
Has the coke machine ever gotten fan mail?
Sutter, James Jacobs suggested that you'd have better insight into this question than he does: Though Reign of Winter has pretty much locked in Triaxus's season as winter for the present and forseeable future of the campaign setting, Do you have any idea what kinds of things live there in the summer?
Sutter, James Jacobs suggested that you'd have better insight into this question than he does: Though Reign of Winter has pretty much locked in Triaxus's season as winter for the present and forseeable future of the campaign setting, Do you have any idea what kinds of things live there in the summer?
We haven't really detailed what kinds of alien creatures live there during the summer--except for mentions of the vapor boas and dashilen in Distant Worlds--but I imagine you can probably find alien analogues of a bunch of different tropical creatures. If I were running a game there, I'd probably just flip through a bestiary until I found a creature I thought would be fun to fight, then spend a couple of minutes giving it a weird alien twist that affects its cosmetics but leaves the stats pretty much the same--what if a tyrannosaur could fly, or was half insect, or had telepathy? Reskinning monsters is key to running an alien campaign!
Tyrannosaurus eagle!
Sutter, I hope your PaizoCon was filled with stupendous amounts of awesome. Any particular highlights for you?
Also, given the success of Distant Worlds, and Reign of Winter's forays off-planet, are we likely to see any books in the Pathfinder Tales line venturing to other planets in Golarion's solar system in the future?
Very excited to see that The Redemption Engine has a release date. Are you finished with the manuscript at this point and are just doing edits, or is there still a bit left to write?
Speaking of which, who edits the Editor?
Have you put any thought into Lashunta religion? I was thinking about how little we know about elven deities, then remembering that their interests are probably mostly in Castrovel over Golarion, since that's where elves come from and presumably most elves still dwell, but they're still only about elven interests, so the lashunta probably wouldn't worship them, but I was wondering if lashunta deities would have more points in common with elven deities since both races evolved on the same planet. And I'm sure there are regular deities they still worship there, too...anyways, I'd be curious if you have anything there you'd be willing to share, even if it's just a few thoughts.
I think you've got some good points! I actually haven't thought much about Lashunta religion, though--which brings me to a larger issue I realize I've never explained.
I know that I've said several times that I try not to introduce new canon on the boards for a variety of reasons--it doesn't go through development, it makes keeping track of all the continuity impossible, etc.--but there's one reason I've left out, and that's my creative process.
A lot of authors I've met think about their worlds and stories constantly, so that when they sit down to write, it's just pouring out the things they already know. While it seems like a good process, that's not how I work. When I sit down to write a setting book, I generally don't know much more than what's already been published. I just start throwing ideas out, rarely looking farther ahead than the next few paragraphs, and then build off them and try to find interesting ways to explain them and tie them all together. It's really a discovery process for me, probably not all that different from the reader's experience, and it's that element of surprise that keeps things fun for me as the author. One of the side-effects, though, is that at the end of a project I generally don't know too much more about a setting or story than what sees print--and in fact, try not to, as I'd rather leave all the unanswered questions as inspiration for future writing projects. It might sound weird to ration my imagination like that, and that's probably because it *is* weird, but it's worked for me so far!
Sutter, I hope your PaizoCon was filled with stupendous amounts of awesome. Any particular highlights for you?
Also, given the success of Distant Worlds, and Reign of Winter's forays off-planet, are we likely to see any books in the Pathfinder Tales line venturing to other planets in Golarion's solar system in the future?
Very excited to see that The Redemption Engine has a release date. Are you finished with the manuscript at this point and are just doing edits, or is there still a bit left to write?
Speaking of which, who edits the Editor?
Paizocon highlights: It's always awesome to hang out with both freelancers and fans, but the highlights for me were probably the diversity seminar (so cool to see the community coming together to support each other!) and the various writing seminars and workshops. In particular, I met one woman who wanted to be a writer who hadn't been allowed to attend school, and then hadn't been allowed to read or write by her arranged-marriage husband. She had only recently escaped her abusive situations and begun college, where she was the top of her class and studying to be an author. Her struggle to educate herself and her absolute commitment to being a writer was seriously awe-inspiring!
Pathfinder Tales off-planet: Man, I would *love* to do a planet-hopping book, both as a writer and as an editor. At the moment, however, there's still so much of the core campaign setting left to explore that I can't really justify traveling off-world. Maybe once we've got another few years of novels under our belt!
And yes, The Redemption Engine is a complete manuscript (as of Monday!), so the book *totally* exists! There's still plenty of revision work left to do before it even hits its first editor, though, so I'm trying not to let the feeling of relief make me lazy. Soon.... :)
For Death's Heretic, my editors were Erik Mona and Christopher Paul Carey (himself an accomplished novelist and short fiction author). It was really great having those guys on my team, because anybody who thinks he doesn't need an editor--even a professional editor--is deluding himself. For this book, I think Chris will be joined by Wes Schneider, both because Wes is an awesome editor and because he and I are probably the staffers most invested in Heaven and Hell, which this book deals with a fair bit. :)
I had some questions about the rakshasa. It's mentioned in their write-up in 'Escape From Old Korvosa' that when they die they're reincarnated to continue their life of sin and debauchery as a new rakshasa. But that same source mentioned, in very rare circumstances, a good-aligned rakshasa. Would such a creature still be reincarnated, even if it worshipped a god? This ties in with my next question: a sorcerer with the rakshasa bloodline eventually becomes something like a lesser rakshasa. Are they now subject to the reincarnating of true rakshasas? I'm sorry for the long question, it's just that I have a character with that bloodline and I'm wondering what his ultimate fate would be.
A general question about the novels...
How adult are the novels in general?
What is Pazio policy on what you guys will let authors get away with on adult topics?
Any novel in particular seemed to be very adult?
Please note: while yes sex is part of what I mean, but I also means things like rape and other subjects alone those lines.
I had some questions about the rakshasa. It's mentioned in their write-up in 'Escape From Old Korvosa' that when they die they're reincarnated to continue their life of sin and debauchery as a new rakshasa. But that same source mentioned, in very rare circumstances, a good-aligned rakshasa. Would such a creature still be reincarnated, even if it worshipped a god? This ties in with my next question: a sorcerer with the rakshasa bloodline eventually becomes something like a lesser rakshasa. Are they now subject to the reincarnating of true rakshasas? I'm sorry for the long question, it's just that I have a character with that bloodline and I'm wondering what his ultimate fate would be.
I'm not really a rakshasa specialist, but I'll give it a shot: I presume that if reincarnation is a rakshasa's schtick, then probably it defaults to that regardless of alignment. But of course the gods have the power to pull pretty much anybody or anything to them. So I guess whether a religious rakshasa who worshiped a god would go to that god's afterlife is really a corner case likely to be decided by the god (not the usual cycle of souls).
That is NOT a canon answer, since this is such an unusual case, but those are my thoughts!
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A general question about the novels...
How adult are the novels in general?
What is Pazio policy on what you guys will let authors get away with on adult topics?
Any novel in particular seemed to be very adult?
Please note: while yes sex is part of what I mean, but I also means things like rape and other subjects alone those lines.
That's a hard question to answer, as everyone has a different definition of "adult," so I'll try to break it down into several categories so that you can decide how much each angle matters to you.
VIOLENCE: Oh god, yes. So much violence. Granted, it's not splatterpunk or a torture-porn--that's not my thing--but Pathfinder is at some level all about fighting and killing stuff, so that's a strong element in the books as well.
SEX: There is occasionally sex in Pathfinder Tales, but it's not particularly graphic--certainly no thrusting manhoods and heaving bosoms, etc. We generally "fade to black" in those parts, so I'd probably call it PG-13 level, with the occasional dip into R-rated territory, but only occasionally. (I think Worldwound Gambit is the farthest we've ever gone.)
SWEARING: While you will occasionally see the word sh*t, that's about as bad as we get. I don't let authors drop f-bombs, which means you're actually safer on this count than PG-13.
RAPE: While rape can be a powerful part of certain stories, I rarely see it presented in a way I find satisfactory, and thus it's never included in a Pathfinder Tales story unless I think it's absolutely necessary. And even then, it would never be presented in a graphic/titillating manner. To date, we have not featured rape in a Pathfinder Tales novel.
BAD THINGS HAPPENING TO INNOCENTS: I'm afraid there's a fair bit of this--monster attacks on towns, slavery, etc. But it's never glorified.
That's about the best explanation I can give! I think that if I had to point to the most adult novels, they'd probably be Worldwound Gambit, Queen of Thorns, and Prince of Wolves, all for the sexual side of things. But I'm curious about other folks' opinions!
And as a good rule of thumb: Pathfinder Tales will never be as graphic or depressing as any given episode of Game of Thrones. So if a kid's read GRRM, he or she can handle us. :-P
So there was no way I was going to PaizoCon (too far), so I missed all the writer's seminars and workshops, but might make it to GenCon and I know Paizo is a big presence there this year, so I was wondering if you were doing any panels, seminars, or workshops at GenCon?
Yes indeed! I'll be in a bunch of different panels as part of the Writers' Symposium:
Thursday at 1:00: Moral Ambiguity
Thursday at 5:00: Literary Alchemy (with Patrick Rothfuss!)
Saturday at 9:00a: RPG Fiction
Saturday at 3:00: Space Opera
Saturday at 4:00: Hard Fantasy
There's also a Pathfinder Tales panel on Sunday afternoon, and possibly more I don't know about yet.
Hope to see you there!
Who is the Paizo rakshasa specialist?
I don't know, actually! I'd guess Jacobs or Wes.
Ah, thanks James! I know my question was an unusual case(except for the player character with that bloodline), I was just curious about it. Maybe I'll try asking Jacobs in his thread.
So there was no way I was going to PaizoCon (too far), so I missed all the writer's seminars and workshops, but might make it to GenCon and I know Paizo is a big presence there this year, so I was wondering if you were doing any panels, seminars, or workshops at GenCon?Yes indeed! I'll be in a bunch of different panels as part of the Writers' Symposium:
Thursday at 1:00: Moral Ambiguity
Thursday at 5:00: Literary Alchemy (with Patrick Rothfuss!)
Saturday at 9:00a: RPG Fiction
Saturday at 3:00: Space Opera
Saturday at 4:00: Hard FantasyThere's also a Pathfinder Tales panel on Sunday afternoon, and possibly more I don't know about yet.
Hope to see you there!
What are Moral Ambiguity and Hard Fantasy about?