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Did I actually post this thread without including a link to Kickstarter?? Well, that was brilliant.

In any event, there is still a week left in the campaign. We hit our funding target, but more backers are definitely welcome!


Our new system for critical hits and fumbles, Severed Heads and Broken Blades, is now live on Kickstarter! Compatible with both 1E and 2E. This compact, but flavorful set of tables contains over 100 different critical hit results and about 100 different critical failure results. The vary in severity from possibly dropping your weapon (make that Reflex check!) to possibly lopping off the head of your foe in one mighty critical success. A $4 pledge gets you a PDF copy at a 20% discount to our projected regular price, and at the other end of the reward structure, a $25 pledge gets you a hardcover copy — something that we will not offer outside crowdfunding platforms. Don't miss out!


Our new system for critical hits and fumbles, Severed Heads and Broken Blades, is now live on Kickstarter! Compatible with both 2E and 1E. This compact, but flavorful set of tables contains over 100 different critical hit results and about 100 different critical failure results. The vary in severity from possibly dropping your weapon (make that Reflex check!) to possibly lopping off the head of your foe in one mighty critical success. A $4 pledge gets you a PDF copy at a 20% discount to our projected regular price, and at the other end of the reward structure, a $25 pledge gets you a hardcover copy — something that we will not offer outside crowdfunding platforms. Don't miss out!


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I haven't heard of anyone working on such a thing, but I agree, it's a natural. If some other 3PP gets to it before Ramen Sandwich Press does, I won't complain :D.


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Path to Orek and Path to the Royal Tombs, are almost ready for the printer. So we're going to close the Backerkit store on April 15. It's kind of a short spell for the Backerkit store this time, but we do want to get the rewards to our Backers ASAP, and so we need to get a solid count on how many copies we will need. Don't miss your chance to score pre-order discounts and discounts, as well as discounts on everything in our catalogue!

After we have shipped it off the printer, we will start work on the next project we will bring to Kickstarter, a system for expanding on critical hits and fumbles, entitled, Severed Heads and Broken Blades. Stay tuned!


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The Kickstarter has ended, but it's not too late to snag the pre-order discount: The Backerkit store for this campaign is now open and we're making available our entire catalogue of Pathfinder-compatible titles (and then some) at a discount. Just for a few weeks, though, because we're close to ready to go to press!

Go to the campaign page and hit the shiny blue button


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DougSun wrote:
We haven't even finished posting the news that the campaign has launched, and we're already 30% funded. So we're getting folks onboard the bandwagon, but there's plenty of room for more!

And we're funded! Thank you to everyone who put us over the top so early in the campaign. There's still plenty of room on the bandwagon for more backers, and even if you miss the Kickstarter, there will be a Backerkit store open for a short time afterward.


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Ramen Sandwich Press is back on Kickstarter and coming back to Pathfinder with two more location modules in our Found by the Way series: Path to Orek and Path to the Royal Tombs. They're set in the same place and among related characters, so you can run them as a linked pair as well as separately. The village of Orek houses laborers and artisans who build out and furnish a nearby necropolis for the ruling elite. However, business has been slow and they have resorted to extra-legal means — including robbing the tombs that they and their ancestors built — to make ends meet. You party passes through right when the local authorities visit on a spot check, and they will have the option of protecting their secrets or selling them out to John Law. In Path to the Royal Tombs your party has the opportunity to plunge into the royal tombs to rescue a couple of hapless treasure hunters — and maybe skim off a little for themselves. Watch out for the mummies, though!

Visit our website for more on Ramen Sandwich Press, and back our Kickstarter early and often! We haven't even finished posting the news that the campaign has launched, and we're already 30% funded. So we're getting folks onboard the bandwagon, but there's plenty of room for more!


Another status update on The Book of Hidden Paths, posted to the Kickstarter campaign updates. TLDR; it went into layout just before Christmas, so we're making progress. There are pics showing that Douglas Sun went over the manuscript the old-fashioned way, poring over a double-spaced printout with red pencil in hand. The Backerkit store will remain open for another couple of weeks, so there's still time to snag the pre-order discount!


Thank you to everyone who helped us across the finish line on Kickstarter. We made it!

If you missed out on the Kickstarter campaign, we just opened a Backerkit pre-order store where you can get the same pre-order discounts in Book of Hidden Paths. We'll keep it open until the end of the year, perhaps a bit longer. All print copies ordered through Backerkit will count toward the stretch goal — another 170 pre-orders, and we'll make it hardcover, just for our crowdfunding backers!


OrochiFuror wrote:

Will check this out when I get home. Random encounters were fun when I was a kid, but as you've pointed out there needs to be more to an encounter then just random thing X is here what do you do. I think aside from the size difference in player base between Pf2 and 5e your going to have trouble with third party stuff because 5e often needs it just to function, while PF2 is still in its, everything is mostly fine and you don't need extra stuff or changes phase.

I'm working on a bunch of my own homebrew rules and system additions but I feel I need more playtime to really get a feel for things and start testing them. A lot of people likely haven't had enough playtime to get to a point where they need more adventures and tools just yet.
Hopefully it picks up some after battlezoo gets around and into a lot of people's games they might start opening up more to the idea of third party stuff.

Thanks for the observations. We've been trying to pick around the edges of PF2, looking for stuff that Paizo hasn't seen fit to cover (at least not much), but you may be right.

In any event, we're down to the last couple of days of the campaign and we just funded — first came the "Huzzah!" and then came the "Whew." Still plenty of room for more backers, though, and if you miss the Kickstarter we'll offer all rewards through Backerkit at least until the end of the year.

Work on the book is coming along nicely, and I expect to have the second draft of the manuscript done on Monday, when the campaign wraps up. We're still looking at about 300-350 pages once it's properly laid out.


Just a reminder that we have one week left in the Kickstarter for Book of Hidden Paths. We're very close to our funding target — just a bit over $200 will put us over the top. I would be surprised if we didn't get at least that much in the normal last-moment rush. So if you've been sitting on the fence, waiting to see if this campaign would fund, you might as well come down and join the fun.

As for the stretch goal, we're still a ways off. But all print copies ordered through Backerkit after the campaign will count. So if you want a hardcover copy, you can still help us out beyond pledging by spreading the word about this campaign and getting more backers to join in. Also, we plan to extend the pre-sale fun after the Kickstarter ends by running supplemental campaigns on Indie Go-Go and Game Found, and those print pre-orders will count, too. It's not over, but the bottom line is that we won't meet the stretch goal without more backers.

To be honest, I thought we were going to get more enthusiastic support from the Pathfinder community by now. At a similar point in the proceedings, the Kickstarter for Book of Chance Meetings — which is a very similar book, but compatible with 5E instead of Pathfinder — had four times as many backers and it was well on its way to making its stretch goal. The fact that we haven't gotten anywhere like that level of support from the Pathfinder community (at least so far) is something our team will have to discuss when we decide whether to proceed with our Found by the Way location modules for Pathfinder.


I just posted an update to Kickstarter to report on the progress of The Book of Hidden Paths. Basically, I wonder just what I got myself into with this book. Some back-of-the-envelope math converting word count to published pages tells us that this is going to be a 300-350 page book — a lot of useful material, and frankly, it will be a bargain at the Kickstarter price of $32 for a print copy and $14 for the PDF. It's a deep dive into random encounters, but it also adds a layer or two to what the Bestiaries tell you about a wide range of creatures, both iconic ones and obscure ones.

As for a progress report on the Kickstarter campaign, we still need backers to make it happen. But I remain hopeful, since Kickstarter's analytics tell me that more than twice as many people are following the campaign as have already backed. If most of those people come down off of the fence and join the party, we'll be all right. Don't miss your chance to get a pre-order discount on what will be a valuable reference for Pathfinder GMs — and really, anybody interested in the creatures in the game!


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There is a forum for soliciting freelancers on rpg.net, but I don't know how many PF specialists hang out there.

There is also a forum for publisher announcements on ENWorld. A call for freelancers is not the specific purpose of that forum, but I have seen it used for such.


We’re off to a solid start, but there’s still plenty of room on board for more backers! We’re bringing the same formula from Book of Chance Meetings, which was a great success on Kickstarter, to Pathfinder. Over the weekend, one of our backers from that campaign told me that Book of Chance Meetings was the book he’d been looking for for 40 years, since he first started running D&D for his friends. Don’t miss out on the chance to bring to Pathfinder the same deep dive into bringing your campaign world alive!


Well, it's October 18, and the Kickstarter for Book of Hidden Paths is now live! And we have a stretch goal: If we can get pledges for 220 print copies, we'll make the print copy reward hardcover. This is going to be the book for GMs who want to bring the spontaneity and unpredictability of random encounter back to Pathfinder, so don't miss out!


The Kickstarter preview page for Book of Hidden Paths is now live, and we'll launch on October 18! I can confirm that there will be notes for using the book with 1E, even though it uses creatures from the 2E Bestiaries. Going through the first draft, I realized that converting it to make it useful with 1E was mainly a matter of scaling the encounters, and it's something that can be covered by some "as a general rule"-type advice.


The Kickstarter preview page is now live! We launch on October 18.


We're almost ready to launch! I finished writing the first pass last week, and I'm taking a break from making revisions and amendments to post this. Stay tuned, because I'll be back tomorrow with a link to the Kickstarter campaign preview. We plan to launch early next week!


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ShadowcatX wrote:
Please post your PF2 content updates and kickstarters to the appropriate forums, not to PF1 forums.

Sorry about that, but I have left open the possibility that the book would be compatible with 1E, as we get inquiries from time to time. I can confirm that Book of Hidden Paths will contain notes for using it with 1E creatures.


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Just a quick note to let you all know that Book of Hidden Path is still on track to debut on Kickstarter in mid-October! The first draft is almost done, and we'll have something substantive to show backers soon. Stay tuned for the launch announcement!


Just a quick note to let you all know that Book of Hidden Path is still on track to debut on Kickstarter in mid-October! The first draft is almost done, and we'll have something substantive to show backers soon. Stay tuned for the launch announcement!


Hello, everyone! I haven't posted here in a while, but Ramen Sandwich Press has been anything but quiet. We have now published 10 Found by the Way adventure/location modules, compatible with both Pathfinder 1 and 2. You can find more info and links to where you can buy them on our website.

We spent most of the last 12 months putting together a 259-page rules supplement compatible with D&D 5E, a deep dive into random encounters called The Book of Chance Meetings. We successfully shepherded it through Kickstarter in the spring and wound up with our biggest hit yet!

Since then, we have been working on a comparable book for Pathfinder 2 with the working title The Book of Hidden Paths, and we're getting close to bringing it to Kickstarter. In fact, the first draft of the text is halfway done and we expect to have it completely done so that we can launch the campaign in mid-October with the intention of shipping the rewards in February. Hidden Paths will use a very similar structure and format to Chance Meetings, so if you want to get an idea of what the book will be like and how it will work, you can check out the Kickstarter campaign page for Chance Meetings. The difference, of course, is that Hidden Paths will include creatures from all three Pathfinder 2 Bestiaries published to date! So I expect to be a longer and even richer and more varied book than its D&D-compatible cousin.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I have been fascinated by random encounter going all the way to AD&D, which was my introduction to RPGs. I was entranced by the appendix in the AD&D DMG with its pages and pages of tables. The possibilities seemed endless. And yet, there wasn't much follow-through to them: So I roll up, "Orc." Well, how many orcs are there? What are they doing in that place, at that time? Are they happy to see the party, or not? But there was little to no guidance on what would actually happen. It's like Gary Gygax just stared back at me and said, "Whaddya mean? It's orcs. Deal with it." 40 years later, I have tried to answer those questions to my own satisfaction — and, I hope, to yours as well.

Follow Douglas Sun on Kickstarter to get notified when the campaign for The Book of Hidden Paths launches, or check back here. We'll offer PDF and softcover copies at a discount to the eventual cover price. We plan to offer at least one stretch goal: 220 print copies pre-sold through both Kickstarter and Backerkit, and we'll upgrade the print rewards to hardcover. I hope to see you there!


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Hello, everyone! I haven't posted here in a while, but Ramen Sandwich Press has been anything but quiet. We have now published 10 Found by the Way adventure/location modules, compatible with both Pathfinder 1 and 2. You can find more info and links to where you can buy them on our website.

We spent most of the last 12 months putting together a 259-page rules supplement compatible with D&D 5E, a deep dive into random encounters called The Book of Chance Meetings. We successfully shepherded it through Kickstarter in the spring and wound up with our biggest hit yet!

Since then, we have been working on a comparable book for Pathfinder 2 with the working title The Book of Hidden Paths, and we're getting close to bringing it to Kickstarter. In fact, the first draft of the text is halfway done and we expect to have it completely done so that we can launch the campaign in mid-October with the intention of shipping the rewards in February. Hidden Paths will use a very similar structure and format to Chance Meetings, so if you want to get an idea of what the book will be like and how it will work, you can check out the Kickstarter campaign page for Chance Meetings. The difference, of course, is that Hidden Paths will include creatures from all three Pathfinder 2 Bestiaries published to date! So I expect to be a longer and even richer and more varied book than its D&D-compatible cousin.

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but I have been fascinated by random encounter going all the way to AD&D, which was my introduction to RPGs. I was entranced by the appendix in the AD&D DMG with its pages and pages of tables. The possibilities seemed endless. And yet, there wasn't much follow-through to them: So I roll up, "Orc." Well, how many orcs are there? What are they doing in that place, at that time? Are they happy to see the party, or not? But there was little to no guidance on what would actually happen. It's like Gary Gygax just stared back at me and said, "Whaddya mean? It's orcs. Deal with it." 40 years later, I have tried to answer those questions to my own satisfaction — and, I hope, to yours as well.

Follow Douglas Sun on Kickstarter to get notified when the campaign for The Book of Hidden Paths launches, or check back here. We'll offer PDF and softcover copies at a discount to the eventual cover price. We plan to offer at least one stretch goal: 220 print copies pre-sold through both Kickstarter and Backerkit, and we'll upgrade the print rewards to hardcover. I hope to see you there!


I'm pleased to report that our Kickstarter peeps came through for us, and work on Path to The Demon's Veins went with fewer than the normal amount of hitches. Our backers have their version of the module in hand, complete with the little Easter Egg that they get for helping us make sure that we can cover the cost of publication.

Now it's time to release Path to The Demon's Veins into wild, and it is now available in PDF form through DriveThru RPG.

Stay tuned for more announcements, because we'll post again when print copies of Path to The Demon's Veins are available — as well as when we're ready to go back to Kickstarter with Found by the Way #7: Path to Thornbriar Hills!


Less than two days left in the campaign. We're funded, but there's plenty of room left on the bandwagon! Don't miss your last chance to get a copy of the Kickstarter-only Limited Edition of Found by the Way #6: Path to The Demon's Veins.

Layout is almost done, so we're on track to deliver the rewards to our backers in April.


And we're funded! Thank you to all the Pathfinder fans who have backed us so far! There's still almost two weeks left in the campaign and there's plenty of room on the bandwagon for more backers. Join the Kickstarter party and get yourself a copy!

Work on Path to The Demon's Veins is very much on schedule. Writing and design is almost finished, and I will send it off to layout by the next week. So we should be able to send it to the printer as soon as Kickstarter confirms that all the backers have paid, in late March. Found by the Way is back on track!


Ramen Sandwich Press is back on Kickstarter! We're looking for support to help cover layout and interior art costs for Path to the Demon's Veins, the sixth in our Found by the Way series of location modules for Pathfinder. Path to the Demon's Veins is written for First Edition, but it includes notes for running it with Second Edition Playtest rules.

Path to The Demon's Veins describes a fledgling mining colony and the demon who lives next door. Can this small settlement of dwarves find mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence with a foul spawn of the lower depths? Find out more here.

All Found by the Way modules will be available in PDF through DriveThru RPG and in print-on-demand through Amazon and other fine online booksellers, and it will be sent for free to my Patreon backers (search for Douglas Sun). However, Kickstarter backers receive a limited edition of the module that contains a sort of Easter Egg of content unique to that we will never make available elsewhere. Think of it as an inside joke with my Kickstarter backers, because they're just that special.


As we promised our Kickstarter backers, we have made available notes for running the first four Found by the Way modules — Path to Darkharrow, Path to The Gnome's Argosy, Path to Oyster Cove, Path to Sylvanhome — with the 2E Playtest rules. We emailed the PDF to the Kickstarter peeps, and everyone else can download it for free at DriveThru RPG.

You do need to modules to make much sense of the free notes, and they're available in PDF through DTRPG for $2.99 each. However, if anyone is curious, the notes do contain my "I hope I'm doing this right" attempt to stat out assassin vine, which does not yet appear in the Bestiary.

As ever, we're doing our best to support the Pathfinder community during this time of transition and uncertainty. We'll try to cover you whether you're sticking with 1E or moving to 2E.


We've funded! Hit that magical 100% mark this morning. Thank you to everyone who pledged! For the rest of you, there's still a few days left to get in on the fun.


I just added conversion notes for the 2E Playtest rules to the manuscript of Path to Jarnborg. That's about 1,000 more words, and it brings the count to about 15,500.

As I suspected, most of the changes involved bringing NPCs in line with the new rules for character creation. I think I have the hang of it now, so that the retrofit notes for the first four modules won't take as long. The encounters had to rejiggered somewhat to make sure they're still balanced, and for that reason I chose to work only with creatures that are listed in the 2E Playtest Bestiary. And of course, it must be noted that Sleight of Hand is no longer a skill, replaced by Thievery.

I recently got a comment from someone who backed our first Pathfinder Kickstarter that I might as well wait until 2E is finalized before I issue conversion notes, just to see how it shakes out. That's a good point, especially since Paizo is tinkering on the fly and at least some of the work may be outdated by the time it's actually published (which will be soon). Plus, I don't even know how much interest there actually is in running anyone's third-party material with the new rules. But I promised the backers of that campaign that I would do this, so I'm doing it.

The bottom line is that Path to Jarnborg is done, ready for production. I'm moving on to write conversion notes for the first four Found by the Way modules (the Kickstarter backers will get PDF copies by email and we'll probably also distribute notes by free download through DTRPG). Now all that's left is to fund this campaign — so rally your friends who are into Pathfinder and let's make it happen!


One week left to go in the Kickstarter for Path to Jarnborg. We're 75% funded, so we're well within striking distance of our funding goal. I'm confident that the normal late-campaign surge will put us over the top.

Path to Jarnborg is written and ready to go into layout; we just need to fund this campaign to pay for production. Also, Ramen Sandwich Press has run out of ISBNs, so we need this campaign to succeed so we can buy some more.

I think the module turned out pretty well — it's a little light on combat encounters (the next module, which can be run as a sequel to this one, should make up for that), but the narrative elements came together. And Kickstarter backers will get a particularly large (about 1000 words) exclusive Easter Egg for their support.


Two weeks left to go — we're about 60% to the bare minimum that we need to make Found by the Way #5 happen. The text is complete and ready for the production queue, but we still need to cover the production costs and secure some more ISBNs. It's not too late to support our plunge into Pathfinder and get your copy of the Limited Edition of the module!


I managed to keep the project video short and relatively painless, so the Kickstarter campaign for Found by the Way #5: Path to Jarnborg is now live!

This entry in our Pathfinder OGL-optimized series of adventure/location modules takes place in and around Jarnborg, a village founded and populated mostly by dwarves (with a few humans, halflings and gnomes mixed in) and focused on the forge of a legendary weapon smith. It's a place that gives your party a chance to score a cool weapon that relies on superb craftsmanship rather than magic (so it's cheaper), meet some interesting resident NPCs and, if they stick around a little while, solve a mystery that throws the village into crisis, when the smith's book of trade secrets goes missing. You can run it as a stand-alone, or as part of a larger arc that includes Places by the Way #6: Path to The Demon's Veins.

The rewards for this campaign also allow you to catch up on Found by the Way if you missed out on the earlier campaign. Up to two particularly generous backers will also have the chance to make a modest (but credited) creative contribution to Path to Jarnborg or its sequel, Path to The Demon's Veins.


Just popping back into the forum with the most recent news about Found by the Way, our contribution to the Pathfinder-compatible corpus:

All of our Kickstarter backers should have received their rewards by now. Theoretically, there may be delays for some of the overseas backers who ordered print copies, just because there always seem to be customs or delivery-related issues if your sample size is large enough. But we've checked one big item off of our to-do list.

DriveThru RPG is now reviewing Found by the Way #1, #2, #3 and #4. So they should be available in PDF by the end of the week.

With all of that said and done, we're going back to Kickstarter this week — perhaps as early as this evening, but I'll post again once the campaign is live — to pre-sell Found by the Way #5: Path to Jarnborg. What's it about? Well, there are dwarves. Mostly dwarves. Including a master weapon smith who keeps a private journal with his trade secrets written down, and the village is thrown into uproar when he discovers that it has been stolen. The smith himself does much of the roaring, but everyone is upset because his reputation for having elite-level trade secrets is the foundation of the village's prosperity. You can run it as a stand-alone, or as the beginning of a larger arc that leads into Found by the Way #6: The Demon's Veins.

I'm still digesting the Second Edition Playtest rules; if there is a need, Path to Jarnborg will include notes about conversion from 1E to the provisional 2E rules.

This Kickstarter will offer two generous backers a chance to participate in the creation of Found by the Way by naming a key NPC in Path to Jarnborg or the boss monster in The Demon's Veins. Stay tuned for details!


Happily, our Kickstarter to launch Found by the Way funded, so we're on our way! Found by the Way #1: Path to Darkharrow and Found by the Way #2: Path to The Gnome's Argosy have been laid out; Found by the Way #3: Path to Oyster Cove is in layout; and Found by the Way #4: Path to Sylvanhome should be ready for layout by this time next week.

To those of you who discovered us through this forum and backed the campaign, thank you and you'll be hearing from Ramen Sandwich Press soon! For those of you who missed out on that campaign, we just started another, running through June 3, that gives you another chance to get in on the fun! We still have a little time before we place our order with the printer, so we're offering a second chance to pick up the same rewards that we offered in our other campaign.


Malwing wrote:
If the PF1 books are still being printed and the srd is still online, you could reasonably just extend the life of PF1 by buying a backlog of third party books. There's enough of that to represent another decade of PF1 releases and that's just the objectively good ones. The only thing desirable from Paizo would be Campaign Setting books and PF2 and PF1 can just share those since they're mostly Golarion fluff.

In all honesty, it won't be hard to find PF1 stuff on the secondary market for the indefinite future. Plenty of overstock and used copies on Amazon and elsewhere. And my FLGS, for instance, has a good selection of used RPG books.


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Vic Wertz wrote:

Doug, just to be sure we're on the same timeline here: We'll be releasing the Playtest Edition this August; Second Edition is due August 2019. We won't be offering a Compatibility License for the playtest, due to the fact that we don't want to confuse the playtest environment, and due to its ephemeral nature. We will offer a Compatibility License for the finished Second Edition next year.

Good luck with your project!

Thanks, Vic! All good wishes much appreciated.

I was confused by the initial announcement, but subsequent posts, announcements, etc. have gotten the schedule right.

We funded late Wednesday afternoon, so all is right with the world. ;-)


We're almost there, Pathfinder fans! Just three days left in our Found by the Way campaign on Kickstarter, but we're only $50 short of our funding goal! By all rights, we should make it, but it won't happen if everyone shrugs and says, "Someone else will do it." Don't miss your last chance to pick up the Kickstarter-only Limited Edition of the first four Found by the Way modules (the print copies will be autographed to you by me!).


MMCJawa wrote:
I am skeptical a 3rd party product would be able to compete competitively long term with Paizo and DnD, and keep the system alive in the long term, outside of a very niche product, like some of the DnD 1E clones.

I tend to agree. Is it safe to say that Pathfinder owes much of its lasting success to the fact that it started out with Paizo's size and muscle behind it? Can't think of another fantasy RPG system that has posed such a strong challenge to D&D's dominance, ever. If you throw a third system into mix, even one that has much that is familiar, I don't think you can carve out enough market share to be more than a niche product, especially if you're a relatively small 3PP.

That being said, I'm sure that there will be a fraction of Pathfinder enthusiasts who will stick with PF1 and never switch, or at least hold out for a long time. If they need new ideas, they can comb the secondary market for stuff they missed the first time around, or homebrew. Whether or not there will be enough of them so that an enterprising and determined 3PP can make some money by serving them remains to be seen.

Certainly, it remains to be seen at this point what actually becomes of PF2. I think this thread is a testament to all of the uncertainty of the moment. I've said that Ramen Sandwich Press will stick with Pathfinder over the long-term, but I also have to admit that right now, this means staying on your toes, like a linebacker reading the play as it unfolds.


kevin_video wrote:


That's fair. The problem I'm looking at is as a freelancer, with so many companies looking to drop 1e and go 5e, PF 2.0, do their own thing with their own RPG system, or go with another established system altogether, it's going to make things difficult. You can only learn so many systems before it burns you out.

Much truth to that. As a freelancer, I've done my share of scrambling to study up on systems I don't really know, and there's that old Homer Simpson line about how learning something new just pushes something old out of your head.

As a publisher, I'd say, more power to any 3PP who has a strong enough following to make it with their own unique system. But the point of doing OGL stuff in the first place is that it allows you to tap into a large, existing following for that system instead of having to develop and develop a following for your own — saves you a big and risky step.


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kevin_video wrote:

There's also a couple that are completely dropping PF altogether and going all 5e or another system that they publish already.

I'm hoping to still come out with adventures and maybe even an adventure path, but my concern on support for these if so many different companies are looking to branch off and do their own thing.

Each publisher will do as they think best, of course. But I've been trying to tell everyone that Ramen Sandwich Press intends to stay the course with Pathfinder. Our Kickstarter to launch a line of location modules for PF probably began at an inauspicious time, but if the campaign funds (and at this point, I'm pretty sure we will) we'll stick with 1E all the way until the official launch of 2E, then publish conversion notes for the existing modules. After that we plan to publish new modules in 2E, but we're going to keep our finger in the wind to judge whether 1E will remain popular enough to keep serving that audience.


We're almost there! After a flurry of pledges this week, we're less than $300 short of our goal with about a week and a half left. I'm confident that the campaign will fund; it won't be hard to make up that ground with more than week left. We're down to two Early Bird Special rewards: For $60 (plus $5 for domestic shipping) you get a print copy of the compendium of Found by the Way #1-4, Limited Kickstarter-only Edition, autographed by me, and we'll throw in PDF copies of each module for free!

Thank you to everyone who has backed this campaign so far! And for those of you haven't pledged yet, there's still room on the bandwagon and time enough to get on board!


Just over two weeks to go in the campaign. Thank you to everyone who has backed it so far! We still need backers to make it happen, though. If the campaign doesn't fund, Ramen Sandwich Press will conclude with much regret that there just isn't enough mojo in the Pathfinder market to support Found by the Way. Let's not let down the Kickstarter fans who have already pitched in!


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necromental wrote:

I was excited for that dragonny AP by Legendary, and now I'm not sure I'll back the kickstarter because I don't know if I'll be switching the ruleset.

So thoughts, publishers?

I understand where you're coming from. I launched a Kickstarter last Thursday to get support for a line of location modules for Pathfinder called Found by the Way, and so the 2E announcement kind of felt like a kick in the shin because I knew a lot of people would start thinking along those lines.

My campaign covers development of four modules, and if the campaign succeeds (thereby demonstrating interest), my publisher, Ramen Sandwich Press, will continue to publish new modules at a rate of about 4/year for as long as people are interested. That was the original plan, anyway.

After talking it over with my collaborators, we've decided to stick with that plan. By the time the playtest rules are released, we will have five Found by the Way modules for 1E out; at that point, I'll write up some conversion notes and send them to my backers. When the definitive version of 2E comes out, I'll draw up another set of conversion notes for all existing 1E modules (we may be up to nine or ten by then, I suppose).

At that point, we'll probably start publishing in 2E, but who knows? I'm sure that there will be a noticeable number of people who want to keep on with 1E. Heck, I know people who never stopped playing AD&D. And Pathfinder wouldn't exist at all if there weren't a lot of people who refused to give up D&D 3E, right? We'll just have to keep our finger in the wind.

All of that, of course, is contingent on the Kickstarter funding. I know it's a bad time, but I set a relatively modest target, and if I can't hit it, I'll just have to conclude that there isn't enough interest among Pathfinder players for what I'm offering.


blahpers wrote:

Ouch.

I couldn't possibly offer advice at this point, seeing as how we really don't know whether Paizo is about to write their own license to print money or shoot themselves in their collective groin. But I wish you the best of luck.

Thanks, I appreciate it. We need all the good luck we can get.

I totally get what you're saying — I guess everyone is still soaking up the news and figuring out what it will mean. I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who never take up 2E; I forget if I mentioned this, but I know some guys who never stopped playing AD&D.

Anyway, I do want to post here for the public record that we've decided to stay the course with Found by the Way and our current Kickstarter. If the campaign funds — and we're a little over halfway there with three weeks to go — we'll keep publishing modules for 1E and play out the string. Then we'll adopt 2E when the SRD becomes available.

The kicker is that I'm promising the Kickstarter backers that I'll study the playtest version and draw up conversion notes for them, so they can run the modules with it if they like. And new modules published from that point to the official debut of 2E will have conversion notes. Plus, when 2E officially debuts I'll draw up another set of conversion notes for them, if necessary.


Well, timing is everything in life, in comedy, in game publishing as well. So I have to chuckle ruefully at launching a Kickstarter to support a series of Pathfinder OGL modules with a June delivery date less than a week before Paizo announces a new edition of Pathfinder to launch in August!

So what does Ramen Sandwich Press do now? Well, the short version is that our position has not changed: If we can get a critical mass of support for Found by the Way from the Pathfinder community, we'll make a long-term commitment to Pathfinder in return. I'll keep writing them, Ramen Sandwich Press will keep publishing them, come what may.

But we're still uncertain about the details. Do we follow through with the original plan — ship modules tailored to the current edition, knowing that they'll only be "current" for a few more months, and then send a conversion guide to all our backers after the SRD for 2nd Edition is released? Or do we hold off until the fall, so we can ship our backers a product that's optimized for 2nd Edition, no conversion notes necessary?

We're collecting advice from our current backers. But I'd also like to hear from Pathfinder fans who might back us — or even if you aren't going to back us, but have a hypothetical answer anyway.


We're off to a good start after a solid first day, and thank you to everyone who has pledged! But we're going to need more backing to make Found by the Way happen. Pledge early, pledge often and help us spread the word to your friends who love Pathfinder!


:D Thank you, DMCal!


My publisher, Ramen Sandwich Press, just brewed up an announcement for our new Kickstarter campaign in support of a series of Pathfinder OGL modules:

"Ramen Sandwich Press is pleased to announce that we’ve launched a Kickstarter to support a line of location/adventure modules for Pathfinder OGL! We’re testing the market for a new Pathfinder-oriented product line called Found by the Way. As with our successful Places by the Way series of modules for D&D 5E, you should think of them as glittering mosaic tiles that you can drop into a campaign to provide your player characters with diverting side quests and memorable interludes while they follow the overall story arc.

"Found by the Way is written by RPG veteran Douglas Sun. He is also writing Places by the Way, and his past work includes contributions to Decipher’s Star Trek and Lord of the Rings RPGs, AEG’s Legend of the Five Rings RPG, and a substantial body of D&D 3.0/3.5 OGL books (including part of Fields of Blood, the precursor to recent Kickstarter sensation Strongholds & Followers).

"The campaign rewards focus on “Limited,” Kickstarter-only versions of the first four modules in the series. Each of them contains an Easter Egg of content — an extra location, or an addition to an existing location — that will not appear in the versions that will go on sale to the general public after the campaign is over. You can claim a PDF copy of one or more modules and a print copy of a compendium of all four modules signed to you by the author. If the campaign meets its funding goal, we’ll continue the series with Found by the Way #5 (no specifics yet, but dwarves will be involved) in late spring/early summer."

We're on the compatibility license registry here at paizo.com, if you want to check out our blurb, and I occasionally post design diary-type musings to my blog. Pledge early, pledge often!