PaizoCon Founder, Wayfinder Editor-in-Chief
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Any theme we do cannot be related to PFS organized play....period. Why? Because nothing we would produce would be legal. So, what's the point?
I know, I know, that sucks. But it was made very clear to me.
However, Pathfinder Society as part of the campaign-setting? We do THAT regularly.
Alignment is one of those more "open" themes. So far, keeping to a region or geographic feature makes for a tighter, stronger issue.
If we're looking at a region well explored, featured in an older AP and not previously covered by Wayfinder, three regions call out as clear favourites: The River Kingdoms, The Dragon Empires and The Worldwound/Sarkoris/Mendev.
The River Kingdoms would allow the most flexibility. It is an interesting locale with lots of options for submissions. It's also the most traditional of the regions. Almost anything you want to write about could be going on in the River Kingdoms.
The Dragon Empires is a nice tight theme with a massive array of possibilities. It's polarizing but people can get over that. The Kaiju in the bestiary would be awesome.
The Worldwound would be my choice. I love what we know about old Sarkoris. The God-caller thing is a lovely idea (I wrote about it here, among other things). Demons and the Abyss would be a really nice adjunct too. Then you have the crusaders of Mendev and all the baggage that goes along with them. I think that is a really nice focus with a a broad enough scope for multiple areas of interest.
Well and maybe Evil, not everything has to be for players you know
Things for evil PCs would be great. Too much evil stuff is focused on people trying to kill the party, which doesn't work quite as well for a member of the party.
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I also think that the previously mentioned Alignment and Guilds, Schools and Societies are brilliant ideas.
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It does worry me a lot, though, that just making these comments somehow disqualifies me professionally. Like, here's me saying I'm not good enough, so... take my word for it.
A -lot- of us don't think that we're good enough. Writers are a terribly self-critical bunch.
I still get a goofy grin every time I get something published, because part of my brain is astounded and humbled while another part of my brain does its best to guilt me because I'm not good enough, and the rational part of my brain knows that I worked hard and earned what I earned because of that work.
There are a lot more things that you could do that would end up getting you disqualified or less qualified. Worrying about your work isn't really one of them IMO. Hitting deadlines, hitting word count*, and being easy to work with and accepting of editing and critiques of your turnovers is more important.
*or at least learning to never ever ever ever flub that one again ;)
Contributor
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Thank you for the advice!
I'm not too worried about those things; I hit 1500 words exactly on each of my submissions. The deadline was easy too. I held back for a few critiques and revisions, but the bulk of it was done within two days.
Dealing with editing might be a little harder - I took some critical suggestions without question while standing firm on others. I'd be way more concerned about editing when it came to character-driven stuff (fiction, etc.), but even then, I don't have the experience to know if I'd handle it poorly or not.
Drat, missed the deadline. I would've actually tried to get some sort of submission done for this one too.
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Hmmm... what about a way-finder chronical on Dungeons? Might be for a future issue.
Numeria Hype.
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Any theme we do cannot be related to PFS organized play....period. Why? Because nothing we would produce would be legal. So, what's the point?
I know, I know, that sucks. But it was made very clear to me.
However, Pathfinder Society as part of the campaign-setting? We do THAT regularly.
So my line of thought is that, why don't we have Wayfinder on PFS Stuff that's not legal? I know there are a lot of people who do PFS in more of a campaign setting format instead of the traditional OP format we all know and love. In fact, if anything, that would get more people into playing Pathfinder Society themed stuff if there was a non-OP supplement that peeps who are not a fan of the OP rules & restrictions can use.
Additionally, there is still so much established lore & crunch that we could expand upon within the framework of PFS Rules, that you would have stuff for days!! And you wouldn't be violating rules, because it's already established as a legal source *elsewhere* instead of in the book.
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But if my previous post is too much work. (Which I could totally understand) I propose a few other locations:
- Perhaps it's time to do some new Kingdom building good stuff. But I am biased because I am running Kingmaker now, and we're running out of cool stuff to do cause we are running out of buildings.
- I think it's time to look at Andoran & Taldor. Poor kingdoms, we keep ignoring them.
-Being a fan of Pathfinder's religious lore, perhaps going deeper into the religions of Golarion would be fun for me to write about forever.
-Can we do Geb, Nex and The Mana Wastes already? I have been wondering why we *haven't* done those!
-Also (and this is a stretch) -- But Distant Shores or Distant Worlds themed Wayfinders? Get those minds stretching.
-Numeria is also a great choice... But a "technology" themed Wayfinder would be way more inviting and exciting. :)
Those are just some of my thoughts. Take as you will.. Much love to Wayfinder. :)
Geb, Nex, and the Mana Wastes would be great but information about them are still terribly limited. The same applies to Distant Shores and Distant Worlds.
Technology-themed Wayfinder could cover Numeria and have some inroads into Alkenstar. Are there any other significant bastions of technology on Golarion that we could touch, though? Distant Worlds have a lot of technological marvels...
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I think it's time to look at Andoran & Taldor. Poor kingdoms, we keep ignoring them.
As someone whose most memorable PFS character is both a Lion Blade and a Marquis (along with a whole host of various other titles), I would insist on referring to Taldor as an EMPIRE. ;)
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Taldor has a cool sort of 'Rome in decline, but darn well would never admit it, because they are too busy partying in the ashes of their past glories and looking down at all those other hoi-polloi Johnny-come-lately countries' vibe to it.
Once upon a time, they were spread as far as Tian Xa, and could indeed claim that 'the sun never sets on the Taldan empire.'
But the sun has *totally* set on them now, even if few would admit it.
Actually, it's Italy *with sadness*
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Decline? I know not of what you mean! The Taldan Empire is alive, well, and would make a great issue!
(And correct me if I am wrong... But I was under the impression that the Byzantine Empire was another name for well... The Eastern Roman Empire. Not Eastern as in it is the Eastern equivalent, but eastern as in it is literally left over from the Roman Empire and is geographically located in the east).
EDIT: I was right. Rome was split into the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire which was named Byzantium. So truly Rome never died until the Byzantine Empire fell.
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Taldor is more like Byzantium.
HINT: There was a real-world equivalent of the Ulfen Guard. Also, the best clue is always to look at the names.
Care to expand on this?
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Varangian guard. They were mercenaries of Scandinavian origin initially, though later Anglo-Saxons also filled the ranks. They were imperial guards, loyal to the Emporer, and trusted moreso than Byzantine soldiers for that position, and we're apparently terrors on the battlefield. When an Emporer died, they would take from the treasury all they could carry.
Pretty solid basis for the Ulfen guard.
Edit: as far as the "look at the names" bit, not really sure what is meant.
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Care to expand on this?Taldor is more like Byzantium.
HINT: There was a real-world equivalent of the Ulfen Guard. Also, the best clue is always to look at the names.
What I meant is that Paizo tries to be very consistent with the phonology of their names so that they are fairly close to the real-world analog language. (They went into that in pretty good detail in their "How to Name Anything" panel at this years Paizocon.) So if you pay attention to that, you can usually pick up on where they're aiming.
Having said that, while my memory was that Taldan names often had vaguely Greek or Turkish structures, going over to the wiki and looking at a list of Taldan names, I can see that while there are some, it's a smaller proportion than I had been thinking.
Contributor
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My vote is for Geb but I know there isn't much info on the area yet. Could be Paizo has something top secret in the works for down the road. I'd love the write a short tale set in Geb, though...
Snip
I would strongly advise you to go ahead and write it and submit it to the Pathfinder Chroniclers fiction contest for possible inclusion in the Pathfinder Anthology. Check out more about the Chroniclers and the anthology at PathfinderChronicler.net.
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By the way- I've told you this in person (at PaizoCon, if you're the one who was at the Chronicler table in the store), but it really needs to be emphasized. The dark grey on black color scheme at Pathfinder Chronicler is an unreadable disaster. I was playing a scenario the other day in Kaer Maga, and pointed them to a story from the first anthology that referenced some of the same locations and institutions. The universal reaction was that the style of the page was not something they would read at length. I suspect readers are lost in numbers just because of the extremely low-contrast color choice. PLEASE change the page styling to something with halfway decent contrast.
If this is a difficult request, drop me a private message. I will volunteer to be your webmaster.
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Contributor
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By the way- I've told you this in person (at PaizoCon, if you're the one who was at the Chronicler table in the store), but it really needs to be emphasized. The dark grey on black color scheme at Pathfinder Chronicler is an unreadable disaster. I was playing a scenario the other day in Kaer Maga, and pointed them to a story from the first anthology that referenced some of the same locations and institutions. The universal reaction was that the style of the page was not something they would read at length. I suspect readers are lost in numbers just because of the extremely low-contrast color choice. PLEASE change the page styling to something with halfway decent contrast.
If this is a difficult request, drop me a private message. I will volunteer to be your webmaster.
Hey, rknop. I don't think I was the one you were speaking to at PaizoCon. I don't work directly with the web folks at Pathfinder Chronicler. I only work with Wayfinder, but we support the Chroniclers' mission, so I wanted to point out that there is another outlet for fiction that doesn't have the same kind of theme restrictions that Wayfinder does. If it was at the Pathfinder Chronicler table, then it was probably Ted Thompson you spoke to, and he would be the right one to field your request.
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Soooo... half of the month is past... When do we get to know who's in?
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Deep within the bowels of the Wayfinder dungeon, the slush reading goblins are hard at work. Timitius wears his "The beatings will continue unless morale improves" shirt.
They just read your piece. It's good. Morale improves slightly. There's a moratorium on goblin whippings...for now.
FYI, Wayfinder goblins can read. A fact that should probably be mentioned in the monster issue.
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"Are you sure it's wise to use goblins to read slush?"
"Sure, what's the worst that could happen?"
*twelve seconds pass*
"Sigh. Alright, take down this email, send to all. 'Dear Contributor: Owing to circumstance beyond our control, your contribution was incinerated. We apologize for any inconvenience. Please re-submit at your earliest opportunity.'"
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{stops chewing "To Serve Pinkskins" submission, mumbles with full mouth:} Read?! {shrugs, resumes chewing}
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PaizoCon Founder, Wayfinder Editor-in-Chief
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Holidays, vacations, and day job demands have made it hard for us to buckle down and get things decided. Also, we are a little burned out, with #12 and #13 falling back-to-back, with no time in between.
Decisions to be made by the end of the month.
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Kalindlara, I haven't seen what you wrote, and I don't have a say in the picking, but I'm sure you have as good a chance as most.
There's no-one who's an automatic choice; in fact that's one of the positives often mentioned about the magazine, that it gives previously unknown contributors a chance.
Many of the people in this thread, who you may consider veterans with 'inside knowledge' didn't get picked with their first submission, and I don't think I'm the only one skipped an issue here or there.
If your article doesn't get picked, don't be despondent. There are always more submissions than space, and it's not forced to be a slam against the quality. It could be that there are so many articles on that subject, or in that category. Or the definitive take on the subject has been agreed to have been nailed by a third-party publisher (I had a night where I woke up wondering 'Who's gonna care about my stupid Embalmer, when the Kobold Press 'White Necromancer' exists?'. Obviously someone thought it fit its own niche, but self-doubt is not reserved for first-time submitters.)
So keep submitting.
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I originally came to post this, that I discussed at work, and could be of use to those people enduring rewrites, or wanting to check their submissions next time;
Occasionally have a look at the readability statistics in Word to assess how you are doing against the Flesch Kincaid reading scale. A high score on this suggests your writing is easier to read.
A score of 100 is “very easy to read” . Average sentence length is 12 words or fewer. No words of more than two syllables.
A score of 65 is “Plain English”. Average sentence is 15 to 20 words long. Average word has two syllables.
30 or lower is getting a bit Shakespearean
Readability Statistics are shown after you have completed a spelling/grammar check as long as you have previously checked this in Proofing options. To do this, go to File/Options/Proofing and tick “check grammar with spelling” and “readability Stats”.
(Incidentally, the above scored 65 so is officially plain English!).
Obviously, this may have to be taken with a pinch of salt, when writing articles with specific technical jargon, such as a crunch article, where you may not be able to get away with using alternate terms.
'Attacks of Opportunity' has always grated on me, when used in the middle of a sentence. Why not 'Opportunist Attacks'?
And dialogue sometimes has to include clunky, incorrect grammar, or convoluted verbiage, dependent on the speaker.
But for general usage, it may help highlight those annoying passive sentences.
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You want a real easy way to identify most passive writing...
Locate your verbs
Insert after the verbs "by zombies"
Read the sentence.
If it still reads and makes sense then the sentence is passive.
I use this trick a lot these days and it works really well. It can even be found as a recognized technique when you google "scary easy way to identify passive voice" ;)
"scary easy way to identify passive voice by zombies"Ooh! :)
Grin - I think the verb is "identify" and not "voice", so that should have been...
"scary easy way to identify by zombies passive voice"
Hmmm, do zombies have a passive voice? Does "uuuuuuuuurrrrrghhhh" count? :P ;)
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Y'got five hours, guys. Chop-chop!
*Remote Views thread using lightning-powered magical visualization device*
*Sighs*
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PaizoCon Founder, Wayfinder Editor-in-Chief
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We just about have all our selections made, folks. Tomorrow I will try and post selected author names here, and put the link up on Facebook.
After that, we will send emails to the authors letting them know which articles were selected, along with a simple contract to sign, so that we can be all legal about it.
Tim
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PaizoCon Founder, Wayfinder Editor-in-Chief
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After much reading and reviewing, we have decided upon our articles. Authors that have had their submissions selected are:
Aaron Filipowich
Andrew Hoskins
Anthony Adam
Ben Warren
Benjamin Fields
Brendan Ward and Amy C. Goodenough
Christopher Wasko
Clinton J. Boomer
Daniel Rust
Danny Atwood
Denis Faupel
Dixon Cohee
Gabriel Almer
Ian Turner
Isabelle Lee
J.J. Jordan
Jake Burnett
Jeff Sexton
Jenny Jarzabski
Joe Kondrak
John Leising
Kendra Leigh Speedling
Liz Smith
Margherita Tramontano
Matt Morris
Matteo Lorenzi
Michael Riter
Nicholas Milasich
Nick Volpe
Nik Geier
Patchen Mortimer
Phoebe Harris
Robert Feather
Ron Lundeen
Scott Janke
Wojciech Gruchała
Congrats! We will be sending out emails with the details on which of your submissions (if you submitted more than one) we selected.
We will also be sending along a contract that specifies that you agree to give Wayfinder permission to use and publish your article in this issue and for promotional use (website content), while still having you retain the ownership of the article. We used to just have this in our Call for Submissions post, with the understanding that if you were submitting to us, you were agreeing to it....but we were advised to "get it in writing" to be on safer ground.
So, once I figure out mail merge, and get the contract language reviewed, we will be sending that out.
Cheers,
Tim
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Thanks for all the work reading through the submissions and for undertaking the difficult task of selection. Looking forward to another excellent issue!
Yaaaaaay! Thank you all!
Now I wonder which one(s) got in...
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Thank you all for putting this out there for us on top of all the daily work you do at Paizo. You guys rock!
And congrats to all those picked for this issue. I can't wait to read it and what everyone came up with this time around...
Snip
Thanks, Snip, but I should point out that none of the Wayfinder staff work at Paizo. Wayfinder is produced entirely by fans who volunteer their time and creative talent. Currently, in addition to our writers and artists, Wayfinder's staff is:
Tim Nightengale, Editor-in-Chief & Art Director
Paris Crenshaw, Asst Editor-in-Chief
Dain Nielsen, Layout & Design
Garrett Guillotte, Layout
We also have a pool of about 20 editors who assist us with each issue.
Liz Courts and Hugo Solis started Wayfinder, but Liz handed the Wayfinder editor-in-chief job over to Tim when she first started working at Paizo.
So, while our "real" lives have slowed down the selection and announcement process, this time, it hasn't been due to anything going on at the Paizo offices. Our obligations have come from other sources. Tim and I would love to be Paizo employees, but that's just not in the cards for us.