Jiggy RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32 |
John Compton Developer |
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I spotted this thread as one of the most recently updated, and I'm pleasantly surprised that I'm only a week behind.
Figured we needed one for the man who is awesome enough to help run PFS.
John, what is your favorite animal?
What is your favorite race?
I have a soft spot for animals rarely covered in wildlife documentaries. I have seen more than enough footage about lions, chameleons, and elephants. Bring on the foosas, honey badgers, and pangolins!
I don't have a particular fondness for gnomes, but I play a gnome abjurer in one of our office games. Apparently that has pegged me as a gnome enthusiast and one of the few defenders of gnome awesomeness in the office, so I have grown to embrace and champion the race despite my initial misgivings.
John, when will we finally get to see the triumphant return of Captain Tanner?
How would you feel about someone starting a "What would John Compton do?" thread?
-TimD
Captain Tanner awaits the right opportunity to reclaim his ship (or the closest thing that floats) and take the fight back to the kraken that wronged him!
I am pleasantly disconcerted by the wide range of responses folks might suggest I would take in response to various situations—or were you suggesting I be the one to respond to those situations? Both could be amusing, though I think I do the latter relatively often in the Pathfinder Society General Discussion board.
John Compton Developer |
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rknop wrote:Are you, in fact, Kreighton Shane in disguise?As a matter of fact, I have personally seen both John Compton and Kreighton Shane in the same room together.
I had a player ask me that question at a table of The Ruins of Bonekeep, Part 2: Maze of the Mind Slave during Gen Con 2013. I really enjoy the Master of Scrolls and am always very careful about how scenarios present him so as to maintain the right balance of absentmindedness and genius.
I like to think I'm slightly more focused that Kreighton Shaine is, but that's my misguided impression of my own abilities. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to give a mission briefing to this horse.
John Compton Developer |
I think kriegtons reactions are the best, So if I get the chance to, I try to mess around with him.
Also, dispite james telling me not to, I gave the goblins some cocaine, was that a good idea? Because they recently discovered the science of flamethrowers.
I usually try to limit the hard drug elements in any games I run, so I admit that I don't have any firsthand experience with goblins in that situation. I think fire is addictive enough for most goblins.
snickersimba |
Well, theres also the question of what is your LEAST favorite race?
my least favorite race is the strix.
They have such awkward stats that it makes them difficult to set in any one role.
What do you think of someone signing up to the pathfinder society without knowing that they will be required to fight people and will almost die nearly constantly?
Flutter |
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I like to think I'm slightly more focused that Kreighton Shaine is, but that's my misguided impression of my own abilities. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to give a mission briefing to this horse.
OOO! Where are we off to this time and what wonderful bundles of fluff will we get to meet along the way?
TimD |
TimD wrote:John, when will we finally get to see the triumphant return of Captain Tanner?
How would you feel about someone starting a "What would John Compton do?" thread?
-TimD
Captain Tanner awaits the right opportunity to reclaim his ship (or the closest thing that floats) and take the fight back to the kraken that wronged him!
I am pleasantly disconcerted by the wide range of responses folks might suggest I would take in response to various situations—or were you suggesting I be the one to respond to those situations? Both could be amusing, though I think I do the latter relatively often in the Pathfinder Society General Discussion board.
I look forward to the scenario with Tanner's Revenge (or, perhaps more amusingly, the Kraken's apology / side of things).
It was more a joke about the WWJCD thing :)
completely hypothetical example: "it's four hours into a convention slot and [redacted name of a former VC] isn't paying attention, you can't possibly finish in time and you have an excellent opportunity to deliver some brilliant role-playing, so you pause... and ask yourself... what would John Compton do?" :)
New question: alcohol-wise, what's your poison?
-TimD
John Compton Developer |
Well, theres also the question of what is your LEAST favorite race?
my least favorite race is the strix.
They have such awkward stats that it makes them difficult to set in any one role.
Ah, but strix are interesting less because of their statistics and more because of their role in the campaign setting. I encourage you to take a look at their entry on PathfinderWiki.
Almost any of the Pathfinder RPG races can be interesting with the right background, and I find the more I know about how a race fits into Golarion, the more excited I am about them. As a result, I do not yet have any love for wyvarans, but I suspect I would jump up and down at the prospect of playing one once Paizo has published more about their role and culture.
What do you think of someone signing up to the pathfinder society without knowing that they will be required to fight people and will almost die nearly constantly?
There are many members of the Pathfinder Society that do not participate in adventuring field work. Certainly a healthy number of scribes, archivists, restoration specialists, administrators, and other educated staff work at the Grand Lodge and in other lodges. These people rarely if ever fight others, and I don't think it's a fair assessment to say that Pathfinders "fight people and will almost die nearly constantly."
Of course, the most dangerous missions are usually those the PCs undertake—after all, exciting and daring adventures are among the most fun to play! I'm sure plenty of people join the Society without fully grasping that they might have to inflict bodily harm in self-defense or in order to secure a critical secret. This could be an interesting character personality, always aghast at his companions' use of lethal force to resolve encounters.
John Compton Developer |
John Compton wrote:TimD wrote:I am pleasantly disconcerted by the wide range of responses folks might suggest I would take in response to various situations—or were you suggesting I be the one to respond to those situations? Both could be amusing, though I think I do the latter relatively often in the Pathfinder Society General Discussion board.How would you feel about someone starting a "What would John Compton do?" thread?
-TimD
It was more a joke about the WWJCD thing :)
completely hypothetical example: "it's four hours into a convention slot and [redacted name of a former VC] isn't paying attention, you can't possibly finish in time and you have an excellent opportunity to deliver some brilliant role-playing, so you pause... and ask yourself... what would John Compton do?" :)
Oh, it would vary by the circumstances. The situation I'm imagining based on that start involves my finding a way to resolve one of the remaining encounters through roleplay that still presents a challenge and might expend the PCs' resources (while still honoring and sticking to the scenario as best I can). I assume, of course, that this roleplay is instigated at least in part by a PC's action. Honoring creative solutions (at least those that have a good reason to work) is a significant component of Pathfinder Society Organized Play, after all.
New question: alcohol-wise, what's your poison?
For a multitude of reasons—some of which don't make a lot of sense anymore but are internalized nonetheless—I don't drink alcohol. On occasion I take a sip of a close friend's drink just to see what it tastes like, but usually I stick with water, juice, chai, or the occasional soda (sometimes a few more than that if there's a lot of work that needs doing).
TriOmegaZero |
For a multitude of reasons—some of which don't make a lot of sense anymore but are internalized nonetheless—I don't drink alcohol. On occasion I take a sip of a close friend's drink just to see what it tastes like, but usually I stick with water, juice, chai, or the occasional soda (sometimes a few more than that if there's a lot of work that needs doing).
Bravo, sir!
John Compton Developer |
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Regarding Pathfinder Society, are there any policies, rulings or allowed content that you regret?
I tend to regret less the nature of the ruling and more the circumstances that lead to it—especially circumstances that arise when some folks don't play well with others but are technically following the rules in the process. Organized play tends to be cleanest when there aren't a bunch of rules, yet when common sense and general civility are not enough to keep troublemakers from ruining someone else's experience, Mike and I have to add or define more rules.
There are certainly some features of the campaign that I would like to change, but many of those would involve rebuilding how the campaign works on a pretty massive scale. They're not renovations that I would pursue now that we have tens of thousands of participants, but they're lessons I keep in mind should I ever be asked to design another organized play program.
baradakas |
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...I have a soft spot for animals rarely covered in wildlife documentaries. I have seen more than enough footage about lions, chameleons, and elephants. Bring on the foosas, honey badgers, and pangolins!
"What's a pangolin?" I asked.
Google says that CNN says that they're unique and in danger of extinction.
And, in this video, this lion repeatedly says to the pangolin, "Come on, I really just want to eat you. Please just unravel a teeny bit."
John Compton Developer |
John, any chance of a PFS pawn set?
That would be pretty cool. I think the Pathfinder Society Face Cards are a little handier because many of the people I would want to depict are those that show up again and again as informants, venture-captains, and non-combat rivals.
A lot of our prospective pawns would be those that appear once and then get brutally stabbed. Pathfinder Society is also not a self-contained adventure, like an Adventure Path is, so by the time a pawn set came out, it would already be "out of date." So, from a reusability perspective, a Pathfinder Society Pawn Box would be a tougher sell. That said, it would be interesting to do a smaller set (Adventure Path sized) tied into a complete season, including the art from the season and an assortment of the essential foes.
John Compton Developer |
John Compton wrote:...I have a soft spot for animals rarely covered in wildlife documentaries. I have seen more than enough footage about lions, chameleons, and elephants. Bring on the foosas, honey badgers, and pangolins!"What's a pangolin?" I asked.
Google says that CNN says that they're unique and in danger of extinction.
And, in this video, this lion repeatedly says to the pangolin, "Come on, I really just want to eat you. Please just unravel a teeny bit."
Yeah…not a fan of animal trafficking…
John Compton Developer |
How is the sanctioning of the other adventure paths progressing? Very interested in this subject.
I have drafts for two Adventure Paths (Serpent's Skull and Iron Gods) in varying states of completion but have not had a lot of time to finish their development. Fortunately, Paizo has hired on some additional help recently that I hope will not only make the convention season less stressful but also help finish up some of these sanctioning projects.
John Compton Developer |
Did I hear correctly that you designed the Iblydos city in Distant Shores?
It sounds like you heard correctly. I am writing the chapter for an Iblydan city that both highlights many of the great things about the archipelago and delves into some of the less uplifting developments that have struck the region in recent centuries.
Alexander Augunas Contributor |
Remember my unfinished Large blood rager model that you saw at PaizoCon?
I finally finished it! What do you think?
John Compton Developer |
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Remember my unfinished Large blood rager model that you saw at PaizoCon?
I finally finished it! What do you think?
It looks very cool! That's probably the beefiest kitsune I've ever seen.
Alexander Augunas Contributor |
Alexander Augunas wrote:It looks very cool! That's probably the beefiest kitsune I've ever seen.Remember my unfinished Large blood rager model that you saw at PaizoCon?
I finally finished it! What do you think?
I point-bought up to Strength 15, allocated my 4th-level point to 16, have a belt of physical might (Str/Con) for 18, and when I bloodrage with demonic bulk, I get another +6 (+4 from rage, +2 from the enlarge person effect) for a total Strength of 24 on a race with a –2 ability score to Strength. You could say that my bloodrager's "gimmick" is to be the strongest kitsune in the Pathfinder Society. ;-)
John Compton Developer |
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Does the name "Dark Archive" mean that the archive has uncatalogued magic of all kinds stored in it that need to be brought back into the light or is it uncatalogued because everything in the archive is dark magic and people prefered to forget?
The term "dark archive" is a real-world one that can refer to any archival collection that has restricted access (i.e. keeps certain information in the dark). In the faction's case, it manages the vaults beneath the Grand Lodge that contain several centuries worth of finds that the Society has accumulated. Some of those finds happen to be powerful relics and artifacts, and without a comprehensive index of what's down there, there's no telling what madness (and/or adventure) they might uncover.
John Compton Developer |
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What are your Top Five favorite recurring PFS scenario characters?
Hmmm...it seems so limiting to only consider recurring characters and not just NPCs in general. Even so, I can name a few that particularly interest me in no particular order.
Kafar and Nefti: It's lovely to see scheming villains get away with a heist. It's also very gratifying to listen to players go nuts when we mention the Bell of Obedience. I wonder when we'll find that...
Koth-Vaul: People really enjoyed Koth-Vaul, and it was really fun to figure out what a recently released demon might do after breaking free from a 10,000-year imprisonment. Tying him into other storylines has yielded some great player responses.
Valais Durant: Thursty did a great job cobbling together Valais. She's so tragic, yet her quirks are powerful enough that someone can almost forget her terrible origins and instead be fascinated by her fighting for control.
And finally portraying any of the Society's venture-captains and faction leaders is a much-loved experience for me, as it allows us—the writers and me—to show another side of Golarion through the eyes and experiences of the campaign's leading personalities. They live and give missions, but they also suffer and sometimes die in the pursuit of their passions. I think that showing that the leaders are powerful yet undeniably mortal provides some really rich story-telling potential in the organized play campaign.
I've really enjoyed delving into faction leaders in particular because these connect with the players and PCs on a very different level. We did it in the past with Amenopheus, and a recent adventure has opened up some exciting elements of another leader's backstory. We're about to embark on something even more ambitious with a beloved faction leader, and I can't wait to hear how players react.
Kalindlara Contributor |
This might be a silly (or inappropriate) request, but can you weigh in on my question in this thread?
John Compton Developer |
Silverhand |
Hello Mr. Compton,
I'm struggling with a rules problem and I'm getting nowhere.
Can mindless undead use any sort of combat rules other than just attacking?
The conventional wisdom seems to be that skeletons and zombies just attack, but would never fight defensively or even 5-foot step.
After doing a little research, I came to the conclusion that "mindless" only means: no skill points, no feats, not affected by mind affecting spells.
Nothing about tactical movement, nothing about combat maneuvers.
Please weigh-in. I hope to run some PFS scenarios with a lot of undead in them...and if I don't know how undead can behave, I'll make a mess of things.
Here's the thread I started this morning.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2tmt9?Tactics-for-the-Mindless-Undead#25
Thank you!
John Compton Pathfinder Society Lead Developer |
Hello Mr. Compton,
I'm struggling with a rules problem and I'm getting nowhere.
Can mindless undead use any sort of combat rules other than just attacking?
The conventional wisdom seems to be that skeletons and zombies just attack, but would never fight defensively or even 5-foot step.
After doing a little research, I came to the conclusion that "mindless" only means: no skill points, no feats, not affected by mind affecting spells.
Nothing about tactical movement, nothing about combat maneuvers.
Please weigh-in. I hope to run some PFS scenarios with a lot of undead in them...and if I don't know how undead can behave, I'll make a mess of things.
Here's the thread I started this morning.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2tmt9?Tactics-for-the-Mindless-Undead#25Thank you!
I have provided a response. The main takeaway is that there's not a written rule about how mindless creatures operate.
GreySector RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8 |
I have drafts for two Adventure Paths (Serpent's Skull and Iron Gods) in varying states of completion but have not had a lot of time to finish their development. Fortunately, Paizo has hired on some additional help recently that I hope will not only make the convention season less stressful but also help finish up some of these sanctioning projects.
John, any update on Serpent's Skull? I ask for purely selfish reasons, as I have just started playing in a PbP Serpent's Skull campaign. :)
With the help of a few volunteers, I have been sanctioning Adventure Paths as the schedule permits in reverse chronological order. Carrion Crown is the next in line.
That does mean we'll most likely see Serpent's Skull and Kingmaker before we see Council of Thieves. I do not have a reliable date I can provide you for that Adventure Path at this time.
For similarly selfish reasons I'm curious about Kingmaker.
John Compton Pathfinder Society Lead Developer |
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So John, I was super excited last year when Wounded Wisp was updated for season 7. If I play it at Gencon, will I get to play the season 8 version?
At this point I think it's fairly unlikely that we'll have the updated note from a key NPC in time for Gen Con, but I know exactly what it's going to contain. If you find me in the Sagamore Ballroom or at the Paizo booth, I'd be happy to share what'll appear in the updated version.
John Compton Pathfinder Society Lead Developer |
John Compton wrote:I have drafts for two Adventure Paths (Serpent's Skull and Iron Gods) in varying states of completion but have not had a lot of time to finish their development. Fortunately, Paizo has hired on some additional help recently that I hope will not only make the convention season less stressful but also help finish up some of these sanctioning projects.John, any update on Serpent's Skull? I ask for purely selfish reasons, as I have just started playing in a PbP Serpent's Skull campaign. :)
John Compton wrote:With the help of a few volunteers, I have been sanctioning Adventure Paths as the schedule permits in reverse chronological order. Carrion Crown is the next in line.
That does mean we'll most likely see Serpent's Skull and Kingmaker before we see Council of Thieves. I do not have a reliable date I can provide you for that Adventure Path at this time.
For similarly selfish reasons I'm curious about Kingmaker.
Linda and I have a big wall of green cards (our tasks associated with sanctioning adventures) that we look forward to knocking out after Gen Con. I trust we'll be able to take care of a very substantial portion of the backlog—such as Serpent's Skull—during August and early September.
FiddlersGreen |
FiddlersGreen wrote:Hi John, could I just confirm that the decoupling of The Silverhex Chronicles from the pregenerated character requirement is effective immediately? I'm mustering for a game tomorrow, and just want to make 100% sure I'm good to go.Sure, no harm getting a head-start on them.
[celebratory dance]
Cheers! =D
tchrman35 |
tchrman35 wrote:So John, I was super excited last year when Wounded Wisp was updated for season 7. If I play it at Gencon, will I get to play the season 8 version?At this point I think it's fairly unlikely that we'll have the updated note from a key NPC in time for Gen Con, but I know exactly what it's going to contain. If you find me in the Sagamore Ballroom or at the Paizo booth, I'd be happy to share what'll appear in the updated version.
<inside scoop!> You bet I'll be stopping by!
CanisDirus |
Any details on your plans for world domination by teaching PFS players about real archaeology hidden under the veneer of gaming? :P
(If a few things had gone differently for me before my Master's program, I would have been working as part of the City of David project in Jerusalem, so I am decidedly a willing convert!)
Kalindlara Contributor |
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Should I disseminate your statement on the matter when the topic of slavery arises?
Hayato Ken |
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Can we get a PFS boon for the Lantern Lodge like the one for the shadow Lodge, which allows you to keep the faction?
That would be so awesome!
And thanks for 8-02 being in Tian Xia!
Unrelated:Support TianXia!