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My personal quibbles about diversity relate more to the fact that on the Inner Sea map, there's one elven country, one orcish country, one dwarven country, no majority halfling or gnome countries at all, and dozens upon dozens of human countries.
While it would be fun to see more diversity in the non-human nations, the fact that the small-sized races of the Inner Sea Region don't have nations of their own is an important aspect of their cultures. Gnomes are fey exiles who basically have a biological imperative not to settle down and build stable communities. They're probably the least "human" of the core races, and aren't particularly well suited to nation-building
Halfling culture, on the other hand, is shaped on every level by the fact that they are a people without a history, who live basically at the mercy of human nations. Like any number of oppressed, stateless minorities in the real world, they struggle with issues of identity and self-determination in a world that systematically devalues everything they are. For me, at least, that's what makes them interesting, and not just off-brand hobbits.
That said, my personal headcanon (at least until future publications contradict me) is that halflings are originally from Arcadia, and have their own cultures and nations there. The Segada chapter of Distant Shores suggests that halflings are among the more populous races in Arcadia, and have their own settlements in the Grinding Coast region.
In the Inner Sea region, on the other hand, the earliest solid historical evidence of halflings comes from after the Age of Darkness. It's also been mentioned that the Azlanti launched attacks along the coast of Arcadia in the waning years of their empire, and it seems logical, as a slave-holding society, that they would have taken as many captives as they could. My theory is basically that the halflings of the Inner Sea are the descendants of slaves who arrived along with Azlanti colonists and refugees.
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That said, my personal headcanon (at least until future publications contradict me) is that halflings are originally from Arcadia, and have their own cultures and nations there. The Segada chapter of Distant Shores suggests that halflings are among the more populous races in Arcadia, and have their own settlements in the Grinding Coast region.
It would be great if Arcadian halflings filled some of the roles occupied by 'little people' in various Native American myths and legends.
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In a setting where we can have a transgendered orc paladin fighting demons in the Worldwound, or a middle eastern cleric iconic in a committed relationship with her female elf companion, or a powerful African wizard that is the Mordenkanen of the setting, why is it so outlandish to have a Mexican knight in shining armor adventuring with a Haitian wizard in flowing robes in Golarion.That's silly.
Minor correction, but the orc paladin wasn't transgendered; her wife was.
But over all I agree with your point.
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I'm guessing Lisa Stevens would, as she performed the financial autopsy of TSR.
For Maztica, we can probably infer a "not that great" considering that it never went beyond the first wave of releases.
Maztica & Kara-tur were well before my time in getting into tabletop games, but I'm given to understand that the major criticism against them was that not enough creative liberty was taken in translating the real world cultures into a fantasy setting, and that they were very direct, one-to-one additions, partly because the guys who added them were actual historians first and for most.
Anyway, I'd always heard that them being so similar to their fantasy counterparts was something of a turn off to fans.
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My personal quibbles about diversity relate more to the fact that on the Inner Sea map, there's one elven country, one orcish country, one dwarven country, no majority halfling or gnome countries at all, and dozens upon dozens of human countries.
In respect to the elves, you are partially wrong. While the homeland of the elves on Golarion is Kyonin, the elves control Mierani Forest, the Mordant Spire (also Jinin in Tian Xia) and there are also the Snowcaster elves that live in the Crown of the World and the Ekujae of the Mwangi Expanse.
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Actually, if we're being fair, there's also an Elf-ruled island in the Shackles, at least two more significant eleven tribes in the Expanse besides the Ekujae (unless they've been retconned) and the Snowcaster elves who control territory somewhere on the northern edge of Avistan. And that's not including the continent-sized empire they rule on Castrovel.
For the Dwarves, there's the Five Kings mountains of course, but also the important city-state of Janderhoff, the Pahmet, who are a de-facto independent people, tribes in the Expanse and the Shattered Range in Garund, and the reclusive dwarven nation of the Mbe'ke in the Terwa uplands. Also, if we're being fair, Alkenstar is as much a dwarven nation as it is a human one, regardless of who the majority race is. And if we're going beyond the inner sea region, the population numbers given for the Dwarven nation of Zavaten Gura on the crown of the world seems to make it the second largest group of dwarves in the world, and dwarves probably the most populous race on that continent.
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Maztica & Kara-tur were well before my time in getting into tabletop games, but I'm given to understand that the major criticism against them was that not enough creative liberty was taken in translating the real world cultures into a fantasy setting, and that they were very direct, one-to-one additions, partly because the guys who added them were actual historians first and for most.
That's very much the impression I got of Kara-Tur. There was a fantasy China, a fantasy Japan, a fantasy Korea, a fantasy Indonesia, etc. and they were much more direct ports than anything in Golarion other than perhaps Minkai. I loved the setting, for that, since it made it much more 'familiar' to me, but, at the same time, it being absorbed into the Forgotten Realms, which had nations as directly stolen from the real world as Mulhorand and the Hordelands, to those as distinctly 'fantasy' as Evermeet and Zhentil Keep, or countries full of monsters or a Halfling nation.
I tend to prefer one or the other. Cultural analogues, set on a planet full of cultural analogues, or pure fantasy nations set on a planet full of pure fantasy nations (which does tend to mean that real world ethnicities will get either erased entirely, or shoehorned into weird places, like the 'fantasy Africas' of Chult or the Mwangi Expanse, generally no bigger, and much less important to the setting, than one of a half-dozen Euro-ish white nations to the north).
The half of one, six-dozen of the other approach tends to selectively erase some ethnicities or cultures (Celts, Pacific Islanders, Indians, etc., depending on the setting), but not others, or, go the route of having 'Scottish dwarves,' in place of Scots, or a Hobgoblin 'Roman Empire' instead of Rome, etc. It is funny, in a way, that so many settings have gone to lengths to capture the feel of an 'exotic' location that drips with Asian or Persian or whatever flavor, while the 'Euro-centric' part of their fantasy setting feels little or nothing like France or England or Germany or Spain or Rome or Greece or Russia, being a hodge-podge of 'generic fantasy nation' elements mashed together.
There's almost always a fantasy Japan. There's almost never a fantasy England. :)
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Maztica & Kara-tur were well before my time in getting into tabletop games, but I'm given to understand that the major criticism against them was that not enough creative liberty was taken in translating the real world cultures into a fantasy setting, and that they were very direct, one-to-one additions, partly because the guys who added them were actual historians first and for most.That's very much the impression I got of Kara-Tur. There was a fantasy China, a fantasy Japan, a fantasy Korea, a fantasy Indonesia, etc. and they were much more direct ports than anything in Golarion other than perhaps Minkai. I loved the setting, for that, since it made it much more 'familiar' to me, but, at the same time, it being absorbed into the Forgotten Realms, which had nations as directly stolen from the real world as Mulhorand and the Hordelands, to those as distinctly 'fantasy' as Evermeet and Zhentil Keep, or countries full of monsters or a Halfling nation.
I tend to prefer one or the other. Cultural analogues, set on a planet full of cultural analogues, or pure fantasy nations set on a planet full of pure fantasy nations (which does tend to mean that real world ethnicities will get either erased entirely, or shoehorned into weird places, like the 'fantasy Africas' of Chult or the Mwangi Expanse, generally no bigger, and much less important to the setting, than one of a half-dozen Euro-ish white nations to the north).
The half of one, six-dozen of the other approach tends to selectively erase some ethnicities or cultures (Celts, Pacific Islanders, Indians, etc., depending on the setting), but not others, or, go the route of having 'Scottish dwarves,' in place of Scots, or a Hobgoblin 'Roman Empire' instead of Rome, etc. It is funny, in a way, that so many settings have gone to lengths to capture the feel of an 'exotic' location that drips with Asian or Persian or whatever flavor, while the 'Euro-centric' part of their fantasy setting feels little or nothing like France or...
As a scholar of early modern european history, I've noticed that there is such a thing as a colonial perspective on the past that dominates non-scientific discourse and that many contemporaries seem to share. (Of course there are no real victims of this misrepresentation but ourselves. Presumably, this obliviousness to our own history and the invention of a romantic past has played a role in establishing a narrative of cultural hegemony since the 19th century).
Many generic 'european' fantasy settings would be a lot more interesting if the authors had forgotten what they thought they knew and instead had done some actual research on material culture, social cohesion, familial bonds, gender relations, religion, micropolitics and other aspects of everyday life in premodern european societies.
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It would be great if Arcadian halflings filled some of the roles occupied by 'little people' in various Native American myths and legends.
My thoughts exactly. While it's hardly unique to the Americas, the "little people" trope is pretty ubiquitous across North America at least (I'm generally less familiar with South American folklore).
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I'm not intending this to sound rude at all. But... this topic seems kind of overly politically correct to me.
No one says they are required to have a straight-across representation of every single Earth culture in their alternate universe.
They have a lot. And I think the stories have been fantastic so far.
It's a fantasy world. It's not real.
So inclusivity is a bad thing?
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While it would be fun to see more diversity in the non-human nations,
The elven cultures are very diverse. There's a lot of differences between the elves of Kyonin, the Northern Reaches, and the elven tribes in Garund. The Mordant Spire elves seem to be a mini-culture of their own.
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While it would be fun to see more diversity in the non-human nations,The elven cultures are very diverse. There's a lot of differences between the elves of Kyonin, the Northern Reaches, and the elven tribes in Garund. The Mordant Spire elves seem to be a mini-culture of their own.
None of which will ever get explored.
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The elven cultures are very diverse. There's a lot of differences between the elves of Kyonin, the Northern Reaches, and the elven tribes in Garund. The Mordant Spire elves seem to be a mini-culture of their own.None of which will ever get explored.
Though it would be cool to see a 64 page treatment of Elves of Golarion, that goes into more depth on the Kyonin, Snowcaster, Ekujae/Mwangi/Desert, Mordant Spire and Aquatic Elves of Golarion! I think we've heard exactly bupkiss about the Ekujae or Aquatic Elves, and very little about the Snowcaster or Mordant Spire elves, or their communities, faiths, traditions, etc. as of yet, so there's a lot of potential to be explored there (more than a 32 pager could support, IMO).
Dwarves probably could use another group or two, beyond the Five Kings dwarves and the Pahmet, before getting a larger book.
I'm not sure if the Gnomes or Halflings have enough of a presence, as of yet, to warrant that, although a larger presence of either in Arcadia or Vudra or Casmaron or southern Garund or Sarusan or whatever could help justify a larger development of the stunties.
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I really like the Ekujae, Mordan Spire and Snowcaster elves but I feel presently that the Kyonin/traditional elves were designed quite dispassionately and generically. I would really love if Paizo could do something to spice them up or make them stand out in a way that is unique to Golarion.
While I agree, to an extent, there are a lot of people who want to play a fairly standard AD&D style elf, and I'm pretty cool with the elves of Kyonin scratching that itch, while exotic elves like the Snowcasters and Ekujae and Mordant Spire folk exist for those of us who want something more exotic and unique to Golarion. (Not that elves coming from another planet doesn't already put even the bog-standard elves a level above those of, say, Krynn!)
Ideally, the setting will always have room for people who came into it from other settings with more traditional elves, and want to just play a somewhat more 'iconic' nature-loving magical archer elf, like they used to play in the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk or whatever.
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I would love to work on a book about the various elven cultures of Golarion. ^_^
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None of which will ever get explored.
Honestly, I don't mind having stuff in the setting that gets mentioned but never fleshed out. That way I can use the stuff I like from the setting and there's still some room for customization. I mean, like, I could just change the published stuff too, but I'm less comfortable with that because I feel like it takes away from the wonderful creative work that Paizo does.
But yeah, the elves are one of the better fleshed-out races in terms of having different cultures and lifestyles; the elves in Tian Xia are even super lawful and samurai-y. However, not all races have been as well served. The Dwarves stand out as a pretty glaring monoculture, so much so that published material sums up the Mbe'ke by saying that they lead "traditional dwarven liestyles," and the Taralu are described in terms of having abandoned their traditions, rather than as dwarves who simply have [i]different[/] traditions.
Honestly, one would expect that the dwarves of Garund, at the very least, would be quite culturally distinct from their distant kin in the Five Kings Mountains, considering that the creation of the Inner Sea during Earthfall seems to have effectively isolated the two populations from one another for at least around 1,000 years.
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So inclusivity is a bad thing?To some folks, yes. :/
(They are, by coincidence, usually those with the most representation in existing materials. It's weird, isn't it?)
I'm of Native American heritage, so thank you for lumping all of us into such a nice little category.
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The elven cultures are very diverse. There's a lot of differences between the elves of Kyonin, the Northern Reaches, and the elven tribes in Garund. The Mordant Spire elves seem to be a mini-culture of their own.None of which will ever get explored.Though it would be cool to see a 64 page treatment of Elves of Golarion, that goes into more depth on the Kyonin, Snowcaster, Ekujae/Mwangi/Desert, Mordant Spire and Aquatic Elves of Golarion! I think we've heard exactly bupkiss about the Ekujae or Aquatic Elves, and very little about the Snowcaster or Mordant Spire elves, or their communities, faiths, traditions, etc. as of yet, so there's a lot of potential to be explored there (more than a 32 pager could support, IMO).
Dwarves probably could use another group or two, beyond the Five Kings dwarves and the Pahmet, before getting a larger book.
I'm not sure if the Gnomes or Halflings have enough of a presence, as of yet, to warrant that, although a larger presence of either in Arcadia or Vudra or Casmaron or southern Garund or Sarusan or whatever could help justify a larger development of the stunties.
There's a whole novel set in Kyonin... Queen of Thorns.. it's one of the Jeggare series.
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So inclusivity is a bad thing?I'm not intending this to sound rude at all. But... this topic seems kind of overly politically correct to me.
No one says they are required to have a straight-across representation of every single Earth culture in their alternate universe.
They have a lot. And I think the stories have been fantastic so far.
It's a fantasy world. It's not real.
No it's not.. Unreasonable expectations however, generally are. After all are you going to chide them for not having an expy for Lichenstein?
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There's a whole novel set in Kyonin... Queen of Thorns.. it's one of the Jeggare series.
Good point; Plague of Shadows also deals with issues of elven culture and identity, since the main character is a "forlorn" elf who has some interesting interactions with an elven settlement on the borders of Kyonin.
No it's not.. Unreasonable expectations however, generally are. After all are you going to chide them for not having an expy for Lichenstein?
True, but wondering why the indigenous inhabitants of two entire continents are so under-represented in fantasy fiction isn't exactly equivalent to demanding Lichtenstein in Golarion.
There's a whole novel set in Kyonin... Queen of Thorns.. it's one of the Jeggare series.Good point; Plague of Shadows also deals with issues of elven culture and identity, since the main character is a "forlorn" elf who has some interesting interactions with an elven settlement on the borders of Kyonin.
No it's not.. Unreasonable expectations however, generally are. After all are you going to chide them for not having an expy for Lichenstein?True, but wondering why the indigenous inhabitants of two entire continents are so under-represented in fantasy fiction isn't exactly equivalent to demanding Lichtenstein in Golarion.
Because most of the writers on staff are raised on literary traditions that come from the other two continents perhaps? There really isn't much of a tradition of Native American or African fantasy that's within an American comfort zone.
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Just for the record, it's "Liechtenstein".
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I'm of Native American heritage, so thank you for lumping all of us into such a nice little category.So inclusivity is a bad thing?To some folks, yes. :/
(They are, by coincidence, usually those with the most representation in existing materials. It's weird, isn't it?)
You're a 'some folks' and a 'usually?'
It's not like either of those are all-inclusive categories, or that Kalindlara mentioned you by name, so it's odd that you'd mistranslate what they said to include yourself...
Not that I have any business telling you what groups to identify with, but I generally assume that 'some folks' may not include or actively exclude 'other folks' and that I may or may not be part of either group, as opposed to more all-encompassing terms like 'everyone,' which would have definitionally included you and me.
Like your term choice of 'all of us.' Which happens to inaccurately include *me.* Which is *exactly* the sort of thing that you don't like, and didn't happen until *you* did it?
Words. (of which 'definitionally' is probably not one...)
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and Fantasy Asia is probably better represented in RPGs than Fantasy Americas.Maybe it failed because they dedicated a whole book to it, instead of employing a more mixed approach from the get-go.I'm curious how you envision this setting looking. Just mixing in Native American, European, Asian and African races and cultures in their own little countries right next to each other on the same landmass?
Maybe stick a Incan analogue in where Brevoy is and a Cahokia one in Galt, with some Inuit in Irrisen and then we can put not-Japan in Kyonin, etc.Or just a smaller world? So things can be spread out in a way that makes more sense, with different races more isolated, but just have less of them, so that the initial setting book would have had the inner sea area and Arcadia and Tian Xia laid out in it?
I'd counter that by asking why initial setting needs to focus on one geographical area in such detail. The Inner Sea World Guide details 40 distinct regions in the Inner Sea region, plus the Darklands, ranging from massive empires that take up a fourth of the continent of Avistan to small island nations.
Why not, instead of going into that detail from the start and focusing on the Not-Mediterranean, you divvy it up and detail a few nations on each continent, not necessarily evenly but enough to give the impression that no one continent or region is the absolute center of civilization in this world. And then just establish as a facet of the setting that while the common every day citizen is probably never going to venture more than fifty miles from where they're born, if that, that between sea routes, teleportation spells, maybe even a portal network, that travel between continents is fairly well established and you could easily have a character from any given continent or region end up in any other given region for an adventure.
I think that's part of the issue with why the Dragon Empires material didn't sell well. There's a self fulfilling prophecy there - fans think "eh, well this is all they're really going to put into it, they're never going to invest as heavily in it as they do the inner sea, so I'd rather not get invested in it. They're never going to develop these regions as much, so let's focus our money on where the meat and the depth is."
People do think that way; you want people to buy into something you've got to give them a reason to get emotionally invested in it. Their thought process isn't automatically "well if we all buy this they'll make more of it". And it becomes a vicious cycle.
And if you do it like this where you establish from the start that there are things going on everywhere, then future Dragon Empire books are going to sell better because you'll have people who, from the start, established their games in the Dragon Empires. Future Arcadia books will sell better because you'll have people, who, from the start, established their game in Arcadia.
Pooling all the starting resources into one geographic area pools your customer base's investment into that area. They may be curious as to what's going on outside of that area, but that curiosity isn't going to necessarily translate into sales.
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The inner sea wasn't the starting point.
The start was Varisia. Then it was expanded to the gazetteer, then to the campaign guide, then to the ISWG. They planted the seeds for the other continents (Jade Regent and the Dragon Empires were in James's mind back when he was pulling Rise of the Runelords together). They also gradually introduced the other planets and the cosmology of Golarion along the way...
They detailed a local, sparsely populated area and then worked out from that - that was they could start with small, bite-sized chunks and expand gradually in ways that were still connected to what had gone before.
Attempting to detail an entire world from the get-go would run the risk that the coverage/development would be too shallow and brief to be useful to DMs and to catch their attention.
Sketching out all the other continents back when they were struggling to deal with the loss of the magazines and the changeover from 3.5 would have been practically impossible. They would have had hardly any time and barely any human resources - so the quick solution would have been stereotypes and the borderline parody of Kara-Tur/Matzica/etcetera. They are instead taking their time to do it with the respect they think it deserves.
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Comfortable with what we got now. Maybe more Tian Xia
The inner sea wasn't the starting point.
The start was Varisia. Then it was expanded to the gazetteer, then to the campaign guide, then to the ISWG. They planted the seeds for the other continents (Jade Regent and the Dragon Empires were in James's mind back when he was pulling Rise of the Runelords together). They also gradually introduced the other planets and the cosmology of Golarion along the way...
They detailed a local, sparsely populated area and then worked out from that - that was they could start with small, bite-sized chunks and expand gradually in ways that were still connected to what had gone before.
Attempting to detail an entire world from the get-go would run the risk that the coverage/development would be too shallow and brief to be useful to DMs and to catch their attention.
Sketching out all the other continents back when they were struggling to deal with the loss of the magazines and the changeover from 3.5 would have been practically impossible. They would have had hardly any time and barely any human resources - so the quick solution would have been stereotypes and the borderline parody of Kara-Tur/Matzica/etcetera. They are instead taking their time to do it with the respect they think it deserves.
Point stands, though; once they get to the Campaign Guide/Inner Sea World Guide phase of that progression, how about instead of focusing on the whole of the Inner Sea, they take a couple of nations from Arcadia, and instead dedicate that space and effort to fleshing out a significant region of Arcadia, Casmaron, Sarusan, and Tia Xia.
I'm not saying sketch out the other continents in their entirety. I'm saying give a detailed entry for a few regions on each continent that have as much thought and effort put into them as the ones in the ISWG have. Again, that book has detailed entries on 40 different regions; so instead of detailing forty regions in that one area you detail six per continent, leaves four left over for the important ones, then in the section for "beyond the inner sea" you now give more less detailed descriptions - seed planting - for regions that weren't covered, both in the inner sea and on the other continents and that is your fuel for future book releases.
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Point stands, though; once they get to the Campaign Guide/Inner Sea World Guide phase of that progression, how about instead of focusing on the whole of the Inner Sea, they take a couple of nations from Arcadia, and instead dedicate that space and effort to fleshing out a significant region of Arcadia, Casmaron, Sarusan, and Tia Xia.I'm not saying sketch out the other continents in their entirety. I'm saying give a detailed entry for a few regions on each continent that have as much thought and effort put into them as the ones in the ISWG have. Again, that book has detailed entries on 40 different regions; so instead of detailing forty regions in that one area you detail six per continent, leaves four left over for the important ones, then in the section for "beyond the inner sea" you now give more less detailed descriptions - seed planting - for regions that weren't covered, both in the inner sea and on the other continents and that is your fuel for future book releases.
As I recall, when they began trying to push too far afield they discovered it was extremely resource intensive and not very profitable - once they fleshed out the inner sea they moved to tian Xia and the effort was an enormous load on the creative staff. My understanding is that "visiting a new continent" is a lot of front-loaded creative work.
I think doing a region properly requires knowing about the continent, it's neighbours, that region's history, it's deities, common monsters, etcetera. Dropping half a dozen inner sea regions and adding half a dozen Arcadia regions isn't an equivalent trade - not if, as you suggested was desirable, they put as much effort and thought into the Arcadia nations as the inner sea nations.
It's not as simple as "do a bit less inner sea and a bit more somewhere else". That first sketching out is the biggest step - so once it's been done it's easier to add more detail than leave it sketchy and move somewhere else. Consequently, whichever region they start with will always be more developed and more focussed than later regions.
The tian Xia model of development didn't work that well (from a commercial perspective, I think it was creatively excellent) so they tried the distant shores approach (this is basically the approach you outlined above, done in its own book). They're clearly trying to get further afield (witness the distant shores book, plus the upcoming visits to Casmaron) but they're not going to rush something and do it without the thought, research and creativity it deserves.
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You can throw a bunch of crap at a wall but not all of it is gonna stick.
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yeah the devs have said that the Tian Xia gazetteer was one of the hardest things they have worked on, which is why we are getting piecemeal treatment of the other regions.
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You can throw a bunch of crap at a wall but not all of it is gonna stick.
We'll defer to a goblins expert opinion in that area...
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You can throw a bunch of crap at a wall but not all of it is gonna stick.We'll defer to a goblins expert opinion in that area...
Watching Comrade Anklebiter teaches me all sorts of things.
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You're a 'some folks' and a 'usually?'
It's not like either of those are all-inclusive categories, or that Kalindlara mentioned you by name, so it's odd that you'd mistranslate what they said to include yourself...
Not that I have any business telling you what groups to identify with, but I generally assume that 'some folks' may not include or actively exclude 'other folks' and that I may or may not be part of either group, as opposed to more all-encompassing terms like 'everyone,' which would have definitionally included you and me.
Like your term choice of 'all of us.' Which happens to inaccurately include *me.* Which is *exactly* the sort of thing that you don't like, and didn't happen until *you* did it?
Words. (of which 'definitionally' is probably not one...)
I chose to say what I did because I found what they said to be too broad, and rather insulting. I like the idea of a native american themed sourcebook! I like the idea of an African themed sourcebook! I also think that asking all of them to be crammed into the inner sea region (which I personally like maybe half of the nations in, if that), is asking way too much and is too politically correct.
On the other hand, I suppose that this thread is making me a bit too emotionally charged, so I'm going to stop posting after this.
Point stands, though; once they get to the Campaign Guide/Inner Sea World Guide phase of that progression, how about instead of focusing on the whole of the Inner Sea, they take a couple of nations from Arcadia, and instead dedicate that space and effort to fleshing out a significant region of Arcadia, Casmaron, Sarusan, and Tia Xia.I'm not saying sketch out the other continents in their entirety. I'm saying give a detailed entry for a few regions on each continent that have as much thought and effort put into them as the ones in the ISWG have. Again, that book has detailed entries on 40 different regions; so instead of detailing forty regions in that one area you detail six per continent, leaves four left over for the important ones, then in the section for "beyond the inner sea" you now give more less detailed descriptions - seed planting - for regions that weren't covered, both in the inner sea and on the other continents and that is your fuel for future book releases.
As I recall, when they began trying to push too far afield they discovered it was extremely resource intensive and not very profitable - once they fleshed out the inner sea they moved to tian Xia and the effort was an enormous load on the creative staff. My understanding is that "visiting a new continent" is a lot of front-loaded creative work.
I think doing a region properly requires knowing about the continent, it's neighbours, that region's history, it's deities, common monsters, etcetera. Dropping half a dozen inner sea regions and adding half a dozen Arcadia regions isn't an equivalent trade - not if, as you suggested was desirable, they put as much effort and thought into the Arcadia nations as the inner sea nations.
It's not as simple as "do a bit less inner sea and a bit more somewhere else". That first sketching out is the biggest step - so once it's been done it's easier to add more detail than leave it sketchy and move somewhere else. Consequently, whichever region they start with will...
I had written up a good length response to this, but my internet blinked out for a moment when I tried to submit the post and it got lost.
So instead of re-writing it I'll say this; we all have our own methods that work for us so maybe my way of doing this wouldn't have worked for the Paizo team, but I personally think the whole thing setting would have been better off if they had taken the piecemeal, Distant Shores model from the start and established different hubs on each continent and expanded out from there as opposed to building up the Inner Sea region in it's entirety and working out.
If they had done that, I posit that not only would they have not needed to dedicate an entire book to Tian Xia and tackle it all at once later on, but whatever they did to build on what they initially established would have been easier because they'd have a greater foundation to work with, and it would have been more profitable because they'd have people already pre-invested in it.
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Why not, instead of going into that detail from the start and focusing on the Not-Mediterranean, you divvy it up and detail a few nations on each continent, not necessarily evenly but enough to give the impression that no one continent or region is the absolute center of civilization in this world.
The obvious reason not to do this, for me, is that it's simply not as useful as putting more detail into a contiguous area of the campaign world. Characters who begin adventuring in one region are more likely to wander over the border into an adjacent region than they are to suddenly hop a ship or teleportation circle or whatever to a distant corner of the globe.
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People don't make a puzzle by starting at complete random locations for the most part. They pick one end of it and work out, slowly building off from there. Sometimes, they'll work a little on another section, but for the most part will work on one vital area.
Like what Gnoll Bard said, if you are really just going at random it isn't going to be good. It makes for a strange setting that doesn't create any sort of continuity in travel.
Yea you get your diversity out of the way, but you lose focus and possibility for larger scale areas. It would suck if all the the only thing we had were just little Gazetteers on small little cities like Distant Shores had and not elaborate on what the Hell is around the damned place. It's even worse for adventuring as now you are walking into unpainted areas that have nothing there except imagination (which could be okay if you home brew stuff).
Why not, instead of going into that detail from the start and focusing on the Not-Mediterranean, you divvy it up and detail a few nations on each continent, not necessarily evenly but enough to give the impression that no one continent or region is the absolute center of civilization in this world.The obvious reason not to do this, for me, is that it's simply not as useful as putting more detail into a contiguous area of the campaign world. Characters who begin adventuring in one region are more likely to wander over the border into an adjacent region than they are to suddenly hop a ship or teleportation circle or whatever to a distant corner of the globe.
That really depends, doesn't it?
If I'm playing in the Shackles I'm far more likely to hop on a ship to Arcadia than I am to trek all the way to Brevoy. If I'm playing in Brevoy I'm far more likely to head over to Iobarea than I am to go to Jalmeray. If I'm in Jalmeray, I'm more likely to sail to Vudra than I am to go to the Land of the Linnorm Kings.
Why not, instead of going into that detail from the start and focusing on the Not-Mediterranean, you divvy it up and detail a few nations on each continent, not necessarily evenly but enough to give the impression that no one continent or region is the absolute center of civilization in this world.The obvious reason not to do this, for me, is that it's simply not as useful as putting more detail into a contiguous area of the campaign world. Characters who begin adventuring in one region are more likely to wander over the border into an adjacent region than they are to suddenly hop a ship or teleportation circle or whatever to a distant corner of the globe.That really depends, doesn't it?
If I'm playing in the Shackles I'm far more likely to hop on a ship to Arcadia than I am to trek all the way to Brevoy. If I'm playing in Brevoy I'm far more likely to head over to Iobarea than I am to go to Jalmeray. If I'm in Jalmeray, I'm more likely to sail to Vudra than I am to go to the Land of the Linnorm Kings.
You mean that one place in Arcadia that was Gazetted in your world because Paizo wanted to make something somewhere else. It is still a heavily unpainted world with even more blotches of color here and there instead of a a large area of color that goes unpainted on the outskirts.
People don't make a puzzle by starting at complete random locations for the most part. They pick one end of it and work out, slowly building off from there. Sometimes, they'll work a little on another section, but for the most part will work on one vital area.
Like what Gnoll Bard said, if you are really just going at random it isn't going to be good. It makes for a strange setting that doesn't create any sort of continuity in travel.
Yea you get your diversity out of the way, but you lose focus and possibility for larger scale areas. It would suck if all the the only thing we had were just little Gazetteers on small little cities like Distant Shores had and not elaborate on what the Hell is around the damned place. It's even worse for adventuring as now you are walking into unpainted areas that have nothing there except imagination (which could be okay if you home brew stuff).
Did I say "random"? No, I didn't. I said establish hubs on each of the continents to work with and build from. Those don't have to be randomly picked out of a hat. They can be designed with a focus in mind, or with several focuses in mind to offer choice and options to players and DM's alike.
I prefer options to focus when it comes to table top games, personally. If you focus on something I don't like to the exclusion of the parts of your setting that interest me, I'm going to take my money elsewhere. I don't buy Paizo products for over arching story progression; I buy them so I can have the tools and pieces to build my own story. I can do that from scratch or with very basic building blocks, but I like having a foundation to work with.
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There does have to be a center point, though. The ISWG did the best it could in this regard, but there will always be something across the border. It's been several years since the ISWG; hopefully we can start getting a look at some of these regions.
For me, something like the Dragon Empire books for other continents would be a good start - a Gazetteer for the world, and a Primer for the characters. Unfortunately, given the workload-to-sales ratio those books have enjoyed... even that might be a bit much to hope for anytime soon. Business is business, after all. :/
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It still leaves a lot more unpainted.
It still leaves a lot more unpainted.
I think part of it is that you misunderstood what I meant - and I wasn't clear enough on this - when I said "the Distant Shores" model.
I didn't mean covering only one city or a few small cities. I meant countries and large regions. So you'd have the same amount painted, it would just be more evenly spread out instead of concentrated in the Not-Mediterranean.
I mean, personally, I would rather have gotten a write up of Vudra than getting a write up of Jalmeray. I could deal with Nirmathus, Molthune, Isger, Druma, Mediogalti Island, and hell, even Galt being relegated to foot notes to be expanded upon later.
Hell, orcs are hands down, no question, it's not even close my all time favorite fantasy race, but we didn't need a full write up of the Hold of Belkzen until Giantslayer came around.
If you want to talk about more focus, more focus is fine. My method gives more focus. In my method you put a focus on six to eight regions per continent. There are plenty of regions in the Inner Sea that while I'm sure you could tell great stories there, mainly exist to fill in the map and say what's between the more interesting places, or at least the places that Paizo wants to give more attention to for whatever reason.
I also don't think that leaving in a few less developed places on the map is a bad thing because it does give DM's the chance to home brew their own flavor in. I like having a few places on the map that I know the company isn't going to fill in or at least do anytime soon, so I can develop them to suit my needs. I just prefer it when it isn't a continent away and I have to develop the whole of the map.
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I had written up a good length response to this, but my internet blinked out for a moment when I tried to submit the post and it got lost.
So instead of re-writing it I'll say this; we all have our own methods that work for us so maybe my way of doing this wouldn't have worked for the Paizo team, but I personally think the whole thing setting would have been better off if they had taken the piecemeal, Distant Shores model from the start and established different hubs on each continent and expanded out from there as opposed to building up the Inner Sea region in it's entirety and working out.
That's true. The main, limiting factor (back then) was resources - they had many fewer employees than now, they were working to a very tight deadline (the new APs were their main focus - the world was really being filled in around those as a place for them to happen, since they'd suddenly lost access to greyhawk).
Your approach would require six or seven pantheons instead of one. Six or seven timelines/world histories. When the absalom book came out there'd be another five or six "key" locations needing the same treatment. The already space-limited, thirty two page player companions on the races would need to cover six or seven different cultures...
I take your point that there's two ways to go about it (at least!) but each has their drawbacks. I suspect that back then, anything which increased workload on an already quite stressed staff and which introduced delay to an already tight schedule would have been avoided out of necessity.
If they had done that, I posit that not only would they have not needed to dedicate an entire book to Tian Xia and tackle it all at once later on, but whatever they did to build on what they initially established would have been easier because they'd have a greater foundation to work with, and it would have been more profitable because they'd have people already pre-invested in it.
I think this would be a drag on profits, actually.
The idea of some people campaigning in Arcadia, some in Casmaron, some tian Xia, avistan, Garund, etcetera... (Castrovel? Abaddon?...how broad is broad enough? There were more fans clamouring for planar material than Casmaron write-ups back then) is pretty much identical to the situation TSR faced when they tried to support multiple campaign settings to more-or-less similar standards. There were lots of bad decisions and unfortunate events causing TSR to fail, but the people in the know have said that "splitting the fan base" via supporting multiple, competing product lines was the single biggest contributor.
I would guess this also played into their thinking as to how to build the world.
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If I'm playing in the Shackles I'm far more likely to hop on a ship to Arcadia than I am to trek all the way to Brevoy. If I'm playing in Brevoy I'm far more likely to head over to Iobarea than I am to go to Jalmeray. If I'm in Jalmeray, I'm more likely to sail to Vudra than I am to go to the Land of the Linnorm Kings.
Iobaria got a full map and gazetteer, right when an AP in Brevoy's general area came out. A coincidence, I'm sure. And if you're playing in the Shackles, you're far more likely to end up in Kalsgard or Jalmeray than in either Arcadia or Brevoy, and far far more likely to end up on the Garundi mainland than in either Kalsgard or Jalmeray.
EDIT: A curiosity. With the exception of those that appear in Distant Shores, all the fully-detailed areas are contiguous (or as contiguous as you can be with a narrow sea in the way). Garund all but borders Avistan and Casmaron, which border the Crown of the World, which borders Tian Xia.