Alcore's page

Being serenely and smugly certain that my submitted item is perfect in every detail, and that my Archetype idea will also advance on pure awesomeness...

At some point I'm going to need more information on "Golarion" and the setting specific details and flavor in order to make the cut. And should I make the final round and be one of the folks that wins paid commissions, I will certainly need to be able to write within the flavor and style of the setting.

Which is a problem for me since I have used my own homebrew setting exclusively for more than 20 years now. I don't ever purchase and rarely read more than a skim of "setting" stuff, and even that much is normally in response to something my players want to bring into the game.

So what's the best way to immerse myself in the setting that we need to be writing this stuff for? I would like to capture "flavor" and a general sense of how things work, rather than being innured in the low level details.

Every setting has a "feel". I have a sense that Golarian is grittier than some, indulges a very small amount of steam-punky-ness, mixed with signicant trace amounts of Cthulhu-esque mayhem and a lot of King of Thieves Machiavelli.

But that is a REALLY poorly focused 100,000 foot, and possibly way wrong overview. I'm trying to get down to the treetop level overview and reach a competency sufficient to be "literate" in the setting.

So, what are the recommended reading sources?

Thanks in advance.

I thought it would be instructive to contrast the features of 4e, Pathfinder (Alpha 1.x), and the 3.5 SRD. It's the sort of silly thing we do here at work when trying to select an external vendor for a project. (Managers like "decision/action" matrixes. It lets them feel like they understand something.)

The entries in the table are mine... but I thought it might make a useful talking point for a discussion of *why* to choose one version over another... and provide some useful contrast for the development team for Pathfinder.

Feature | 4e | Alpha | 3.5
_____________________________________________________________________

Skill system | Hate it | Hate it | needs minor work
1st Level Power Level | Hate it | Ok | Like it
Overall Power Level | Hate it | Ok | Like it
Default Playstyle | Hate it | Like it | Like it
Core Races | Hate it | Good | Like it
3.5 Core Compatibility | Very Poor | Poor | reference level

Expanded Compatibility | Poor | Ok | reference level
(Compatible with content/ideas from recent splatbooks?)

Core Completeness | Poor | Good | Good
(Provides all needed elements and support for play?)

As my answers would indicate, there is no chance I'll be switching to 4e...

But the switch to Pathfinder for me is also not obvious. I really don't like giving up skill points/ranks. And with that comes concerns for me about compatibility with older 3.5 rules. (I build a lot of characters that *don't* max out skills...)

I have mild concerns that there is "power creep" across the board in Pathfinder. Not to the levels of 4e, but nonetheless, it's another area where Pathfinder isn't really on the compatibility page with 3.5.

It would be really interesting to see what categories other people would choose to rate/differentiate these systems and what they like/dislike about these things.