Gothulhu's page

I have to agree that Paizo's professionalism really shined. They delivered on providing a great time for all the players. I enjoyed GMing 4 tables this year. All of my my players were great. Thanks to Paizo and the venture captains for making it happen.

Since I am due to make a new society character, I think I am going with Cheliax. I always liked the underdog. I encourage everyone else to do the same. Do you want to see Andoran win every year?

That seals it. I'm making a new character for Cheliax.

If the characters get Sarianna Vai to sing at the Outward Inn, I highly recommend The Wind That Shakes the Barley, by Dead Can Dance on Into the Labyrinth.

It's a haunting and beautiful purely vocal piece featuring a highly renowned vocalist (Lisa Gerrard, who many of you might recognize from the soundtrack to Gladiator). It's a guaranteed show-stopper.

The question still remains, how do we get Voltaire and Thomas Hobbes, without Martin Luther and Thomas Aquinas? In essence, how do we get secular humanism out of a vacuum? I think James Jacobs partially answered the question. In order to produce philosophers like Aquinas and Luther, you need a highly organized, well financed, and powerful institution supporting those scholars. The Inner Sea does have that institution, or at least did, in the guise of the Church of Aroden.

I still don't think you can reach the kind of conclusions that Aquinas and earlier church thinkers made without some form of monotheism. At least something that points to a singularity like Plato theorized.

But as other people have mentioned, we haven't seen much of a creation myth for the Inner Sea, so maybe the answers lie there.

Once again, I really over think these things.

So Desna is not necessarily the most popular deity of the Inner Sea. I would imagine she is rather popular with adventurers, especially of the Pathfinder bent.

So the question remains, who is the most popular deities and why? Is there a most popular?

Here's what's nagging my thoughts. When it comes to history, I'm a James Burke fan. I think that certain technologies and ideas build from other ideas, that may or not be directly related.

I think a good comparative example for the level of intellectual sophistication of the Inner Sea would be early Enlightenment. I base this on the movements in Andoran and Galt.

By the Enlightenment period on Earth, theological thought in the Western World had already reached Deism. While there's no reason why the Inner Sea should directly mirror Earth, in Europe monotheism was already around for around 1,200 years. And there's lots of scholars who agree that monotheism is a progression of theological ideas, without which you don't have further intellectual developments like the inherent rights of man.

Arguments can be made that all of Earth's most successful religions have a monotheistic or non-theistic belief structure. In the West you have the Abrahamic religions, and even in the East Hinduism while polytheistic, has the overarching concept of Brahmin, while Buddhism and Taoism don't have a true deity at all.

So why don't we see something similar in the Inner Sea?

Magic can be the answer. On Golarion, gods have the direct approach. Most theological thought arises from an attempt to solve the theidiocy question - in essence, "why do bad things happen to good people?" As others have mentioned, on Golarion, the answer is obvious, either because you displeased one of the gods, or your god wasn't strong enough to protect you from the others. This would mean, the most popular deities would be ones who's spheres of influence cause the most devastation, or warrior gods who can protect you from the others. But thus still doesn't answer how we reached the intellectual achievements that influence politics in the Inner Sea.

I think I have an answer that may fit well. It's a bit of a shoehorn. The followers of Aroden were certainly at a loss when he stopped answering prayers. They would probably have come up with a theological reason for their dilemma. So Aroden, being a questing soul, was not content with becoming a god. He wanted to become the greatest god. To do this, he merged himself with the fundamental power or creation, becoming not unlike Brahmin. He no longer answers prayers because he is all-knowing and unknowable. His will can not be known, and therefore he does not directly contact his followers who could never understand his true nature. Faiths with direct ties with Aroden, like Iomedea, would be greatly respected because of their special relationship, in much the same way Catholic saints are revered, because they are an intermediary to the divine.

Many people would probably not subscribe to this theory, but it would appeal to intellectuals who have a Platonic bent to their philosophies.

Or maybe I'm over thinking things again.

After getting a chance to read a good many Pathfinder products, I have gotten the feeling that Desna is one of the most popular, if not the most popular, god in the Inner Sea. I would be interested in other people's take on this.

If this is true, why? As a student of religion I have some background in why religions succeed and others fail. What is it about the cult of Desna that draws people in? What does it say about the people of the Inner Sea that one of their most beloved is the goddess of dreams, stars, travelers and luck? Of course, we have to think about the magical component as well. Does she just pay more attention to her followers than the others?

I look forward to the Faiths of.. series, but I wouldn't mind if Paizo went even further in the future. I would love to see a 32 page book on each religion. Heck, I'd be willing to write them.

Anyone else enjoy this kind of depth in their fantasy faiths, or am I a freak?

Because we just keep seeing it, I think it is time for everyone to acknowledge that the security on Paizo's pdfs is hindering some people. Maybe not a lot of people. But, yes, some people are hindered by them. That part of the argument is dead. It is put to rest. It is an ex-argument.

They may be able to find work-arounds, but that is time and effort people don't want to spend on a pdf they paid for. Is that not a reasonable expectation? To use something you paid for the way you want to use it?

Still, nobody answers the question, does pdf security help sales? I would guess no, but you shouldn't go on a guess. Just find out. It would not be hard. You could either gets sales figures from companies that have removed DRM or you could run your own experiment.

If pdf security does not work, why not make more happy customers? Is seems like a no brainer to me.

I cannot comprehend why every time posts like this show up Paizo cheerleaders come out and profess how they can do no wrong. It's just a policy, and if it doesn't do what it is intended to do, why keep it? And for the benefit of those who have not been on the boards for more than let's say, a month, which is how long I have been regularly posting, this topic has produced three threads with lots of posts.

I believe in this equation like I believe in 2 +2 = 4. More happy customers = more money for Paizo. If you can make just a few customers happy without spending any money, why not do it? If you believe making money is good for Paizo. And, if pdf security doesn't increase sales, the other reasons for having it do not exceed the reasons to get rid of it.

Gothulhu wrote:

Brian E. Harris wrote:

Gothulhu wrote:

Same stuff, different post

They're certainly not hurting for customers.

Man I hope you're wrong about that. I hope Paizo has the goal of providing gamers with top-notch content for their games. To continue doing that, and do it better, they will need customers.

I believe one of their goals is to provide gamers with top-notch content for their games. They probably have other goals related to "staying in business' and "not making it easy to give away all their IP for free" is probably a sub-goal in there somewhere.

-Skeld

And that's exactly what I'm on about. Let's say staying business is goal number one. If you remove pdf security you make some of your customers happy. They become loyal to you because they think you heard their concerns and cared.

Your other goal is not making it easy to pirate your IP. It's a perfectly good and understandable goal. But should that goal trump goal number one?

Can you have both? Yes, to some degree. But I think the quantity and length of posts like this give us good reason to believe a lot of people would be happier if Paizo dropped pdf security.

Gothulhu wrote:

Same stuff, different post

They're certainly not hurting for customers.

Man I hope you're wrong about that. I hope Paizo has the goal of providing gamers with top-notch content for their games. To continue doing that, and do it better, they will need customers.

I hope that a Paizo executive reads this because I do believe the argument is analogous to this situation. This issue really comes down to what is good customer service.

I work in hotels, so I am going to compare this to a real world hotel problem. Let's say I have a problem with employee turnover. I know that my employees like intangible benefits, so I decide to mark off my prime parking spaces as employee only. Now my employees can park close to the building and have less of a walk when they come to work.

I find out later some of my customers have complained that they don't like walking all that way with their luggage in the rain. We explain to them a perfectly viable solution. They could pull their car up to the doors, unload under the awning, and then park their car. This works for many customers, but we still get complaints, especially from new customers who don't know they can pull up to the doors to unload.

One year later I examine my policy. I find out that employee turn over is exactly the same. I have not solved the problem. Also, I have customers complaining. I have a new problem.

What should I do? Change the employee parking policy, or let them keep it?

Paizo has a problem. They have people stealing their works via the internet. They decide that they will add security features to their pdfs to prevent this and therefore stop lost sales.

They find out later that some of their customers dislike the security features. Yes, there are ways to work around the features so that the customers can still use their product the way they want, but some customers do not like doing this.

Paizo now needs more data. The simple way to get that data would be to sell pdfs with no security for a set time period, let's say six months. If sales decrease during that time, Paizo can assume their policy worked and it did move people to legitimate sales.

If sales do not decrease (or even increase), what should Paizo do? Should they remove all security making some of their customers happy, or continue to follow a policy that does not provide the desired a effect?

You can make some other arguments about what is right and wrong, about protecting intellectual property, but should those things be enough for Paizo to inconvenience their customers? Should they being forcing their ideas on their customers when obviously it does them no benefit?

Starting in Sandpoint and ending in Tian Xia, hmm.... I wonder if a certain Ameiko Kaijitsu has something to do with it?

This means that in order to make them as secure as possible, we will err on the side of locking them up.

This also means, we will err on the side of inconveniencing our customers. Until someone comes out with solid numbers that show DRM files are pirated less frequently than non-DRM, you are saying I am against those who pay for my product.

What ever happened to the customer is always right? Why would any customer being inconvenienced in any way be acceptable, if you have no evidence what you are doing is protecting your business?

And while we have no evidence that DRM does what it's supposed to do, we have plenty of evidence that it inhibits people from using material in ways they have every right to use them: http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/05/25/freedom-of-expression-versus-drm- the-first-empirical-assessment/

Gothulhu wrote:

Mind you, $20 for a 64 page staple-bound product is a bit too salty, so I tend to stay away from those.

$50 for a hardcover? Considering their size, okay, but I would balk at anything higher.

Note: our staple-bound books are, max, $13.99. Anything in the 19.99+ range is perfect bound or better.

And, as you point out, our $50 hardcover is quite fat. Compare our $40 hardcovers to some of the $35 hardcovers out there. I would like to see what you think of the comparison.

I stand corrected. $14 for a staple bound product still chafes a bit.

I would say the afore mentioned White Wolf has a higher quality standard in the $35-40 price range. Better binding, better quality board for the covers. The paper quality is about the same. You could argue about color. While Paizo does full color, White Wolf does black & white with a metallic overlay. If I remember right, that usually costs about the same to print as full color.

Then there is content, which can always be argued. I play different games with different people for different reasons. You can't really compare them.

I will say this. Since the days of Dragon and Dungeon, Paizo has provided some of the best writing in the industry. I just started playing Pathfinder in January and I am running Runelords. I have never run a fantasy adventure module with NPCs that are so believable and human. Half way through Burnt Offerings and my players have already fallen in love with Sandpoint and their characters want to buy a house there.

Usually with fantasy RPGs, I have to add NPC motivations and plots. With Paizo products, all I do is read and laugh knowing how much my players will enjoy the interactions.

So going by what Chris said, a different supplier would have to come in at less than $350 more per print run.

I'm not talking about a price increase, I'm talking how much profit margin can be squeezed to get better quality. All political debates aside, I stand by that if it means Paizo would have to cut staff or not hire staff, keep printing in China.

All being said, Paizo has some of the highest prices in the industry. But that comparison is somewhat apples to oranges, since they tend to publish larger hardcovers than anyone else (which incidentally, might be the biggest problem with the binding).

Mind you, $20 for a 64 page staple-bound product is a bit too salty, so I tend to stay away from those.

$50 for a hardcover? Considering their size, okay, but I would balk at anything higher.

@ Chris

Working on it.

Now the question is, how much more would you be willing to pay for better quality?

How about this? Say Paizo pays a living wage, about $30K a year. No one should lose their job over this. If it costs more than $30k a year extra to use a different printer, you don't do it.

Sound fair?

So basically what all of you are saying is that numerous people have an issue with it, so let's ignore it and move on.

If you haven't been reading these message boards since day one, you're not one of the cool kids.

I'm not saying let's stop buying Paizo products. I'm not saying it's all junk. I don't understand why everyone in my physical reality has a core rulebook that is falling apart and yours' are not, but I don't think people are really being objective about the quality issue.

In order to find a comparable printer, Paizo would have to show us the numbers. Since this is obviously a big issue for a lot of fans, maybe they should.

I'm not saying this is a line in the sand. I shop at Walmart. I don't like to, but sometimes it is what my budget can afford. If Paizo really can't make a decent profit printing outside of China, I say print in China.

All I can say is that my experience says otherwise.

I have just compared the hardcovers from Paizo (printed in China) and the ones I have from White Wolf, from its Sword&Sorcery Studios department (the Scarred Lands and Ravenloft ones) which are printed in Canada, and the binding strenght, paper quality and "lying flat" factor are marginally but definitively better on the Paizo side - not counting the fact that the Paizo products are full color.

Pretty much the same can be said of the softcovers, again comparing products from the aforementioned lines.

I can't honestly see where the "inferior product" part comes from.

Try something a little more current and in a comparable price range. Open the book and push the pages flat. See those stitches in your Paizo book? Those pages will be working themselves free soon. See stitches on let's say any current World of Darkness book?

High quailty leather bound hardbacks ftw!!!

If you are referring to the leather-bound special editions White Wolf did many years back, yeah, the binding on those were... we can't use those words on this forum.

I bought my Pathfinder core book at GenCon last year. I wanted to buy it direct from the company, so that Paizo gets as big a share of the profits as possible. I support American companies that produce a good product.

I consider myself a "light-user". I mostly consult rules online, and so my book gets little use outside of game night when my players need to look something up. Yet already my binding is loose and pages are starting to come free. On a hunch, I looked to see where the book was printed. As I suspected, made in China.

I talked with a lot of gamers about this. Last Friday at a game store, I even pointed out the difference between a Paizo book printed in China, and a White Wolf book printed in Canada. The difference in quality was readily apparent.

When I worked for Eden Game Studios, they decided to have one of their core books printed in China to save a few bucks. Not only were the shipping delays maddening, they ended up losing more money than they saved because of the amount of product returned.

I have been in the publishing business and I know there are union shops in Canada and the U.S. that offer much better services, quality, and competitive prices.

With some core books running $50 a piece, can Paizo really justify giving us an inferior product? Do the savings equal the hurt customers and the returns?

Do I have political motivations? I cannot deny that I am a supporter of U.S. workers and unions, and I don't like autocratic regimes. But the quality issue is really what gets me. I challenge anyone to compare a Paizo book printed in China to another company's book printed in Canada or the U.S.. You will see the difference.

Vic Wertz wrote:

Grick wrote:

If the DRM was preventing everyone from getting pirated copies, I would understand, but when the pirates have no problems getting it, and have a better product (due to removed DRM), how does it make sense?

If the locks on your doors don't prevent thieves with crowbars from getting into your house, why don't you just leave your doors unlocked?

Actually, I don't lock my doors. I know if someone wants to steal something they will just break the lock anyway. Why replace the lock and the stolen items?

Add yet another vote for DRM free. BTW all major music providers have shown an increase in sales after going DRM free. Think about it.

I know a lot of advice has been given concerning the Runelords adventure path scattered throughout the message boards, but I have some specific questions and I think a fresh perspective coming from increased accumulated experience of the Pathfinder rules would help.

I am running Runelords using Pathfinder rules. I have found that Pathfinder characters are a bit more powerful than 3.5 characters. I have heard a lot of people who say it is easy to convert. Since I am lazy is there any source online that does the work for me?

Also, any general advice on running this AP would be appreciated. Me and my players have just finished the glassworks and have found everything so far to be very enjoyable. From a strictly roleplaying aspect, the module works very well.

Thanks everyone for the help. Still not keen on having something I bought have a password, but I am able to do what I need to do. The rest of the argument is academic, and belongs in another place at another time.

Game on!

I still love to be GM way more than being a player. In the end, the golden rule applies, if you're having fun playing that way - do it.

I am a little afraid right now because this Saturday I step into the world of organized play, running my first Pathfinder Society event. I worry about the culture of PFS, and how the players view their roles, be it as adversaries to the GM, or just have fun.

I'm not too worried, as most Pathfinder players I have met have been pretty laid back. I do worry about getting in trouble with management. If I see something in a module that is just not going to be fun for the group I have, I will change it.

Speaking for myself, I am an ego-maniac. I want people to enjoy their game and have fun, and I like being the one responsible for it. I never care if the monsters win. In fact, I hate it when the monsters win, though I understand that is the reality of building a sense of risk.

I want people to be able to play whatever type of character they can imagine. It is my job to make sure that doesn't make it less fun for the others. There's lots of ways to do that.

Trying to use PFS #51 The Shadow Gambit so I can make counters for the PFS game I am running on Saturday, to promote Pathfinder, so Paizo sells more product.

Anyway, I have a general dislike of DRM. People here have made me wonder if it is a DRM issue. I know there is a password on the file, and I wonder why.

That does not make sense. I am using Pro, not reader. I am able to extract pages and images from other files, but not Paizo's.

Giving folks the benefit of the doubt I tried my old version of Acrobat (5). I get the same thing. Extract pages is inaccessible.

I guess my point is, I thought the benefit of paying for a product was not having to find a workaround to use it the way I want.

I'm sure you have heard this before, but obviously not enough. I recently started purchasing PDFs through the Paizo website.

One thing I really like to do is extract images from a module with Acrobat Pro, so I can use them to make counters with the actual NPC drawing.

You know why I can't do this with your products.

I apologize for sounding snippy, but I know that many people make these types of complaints. The only people being hurt with pdf security are the people who actually pay for the product, not the people who steal.

Can this be changed?

I have noticed when trying to read certain pdfs on my iPhone 4 that the text wrap fails on certain images leaving the image overlapping and the text impossible to read. It may also have to do with background images not being flattened. This happens on some pdfs, but not others.

This happens in two iPhone applications, both Air Sharing and iBooks.

It may have something to do with the mobile pdf reader, but it does seem that some pdfs overcome this limitation.

Do you know of a fix? In any case, can this be looked into for future releases?

Have not had that problem with other downloads. No error message. It seemed like it tried to load by timed out.

I used Chrome, then Firefox at the same time. Right before I posted my first message.

In case no one else has reported this, I was unable to download a new purchase, Oathbound 7, using Google Chrome. Firefox worked just fine.

I see that many Pathfinder Society events listed for Whosyercon March 11-14. I would like to run some events. Is there a PFS representative organizing events? Or, should I just purchase some PFS Scenarios and submit my own?

Divine spells do not cause as much damage as arcane spells by design to create balance between the classes.

That being said, the spell should not have a save. Other than that, inflict spells make fine cleric options.

I feel like Golarion presents the most coherent fantasy campaign world from a geo-political and cultural standpoint. While speculating on how a world with magic and 10,000 years of history would operate is difficult at best, Paizo does a good job of it.

I enjoy medieval studies, and have attempted to run campaigns in historically accurate settings. I find that they can be frustrating for everyone who does not share the same passion for the period. Golarion eschews pseudo-historical realism for a culture with more modern sensibilities and medieval/renaissance flavor. Something more enjoyable for players and less worries for GMs trying to shoehorn their concepts into a medieval mindset.

I have been devouring Pathfinder products like crazy. I really enjoy both the system and the campaign world. Does anyone know where I can find a definitive product list? The way the website is broken down it is hard to determine titles for all the products made. Thanks for your help.

James