James Sutter's page

Thanks, everybody! I can't wait for you all to see it. :)

I went to the store, but they aren't appearing yet. When will they be available to buy?

Also, will the Runescar comics ever be collected?

If you mean the Runescars comic series Wes and I wrote, it got collected into a hardcover back in 2018, and is still available!

https://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Runescars-F-Wesley-Schneider/dp/152410553 8/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1682724078&sr=8-1

Hi folks! Just dropping in to say in person how excited I am about this project—it was such a joy to return to this setting and these characters after so many years away, and I can't wait for you to see what we did with it! :D

Currently petitioning Audible to carry it! Looking forward to it!

Thank you—they should have it on June 6th! Macmillan Audio is already producing the book, with my dream narrator. :D

Barnes and Noble pre-order link: Darkhearts by James L Sutter

Thank you to both you and Dancing Wind for the crosspost! :D

Thanks everybody! Really glad to see y'all are as excited for this one as I am. :)

(Also, it's extra cool to see this might be some folks' first AP!)

Hey folks! Apologies for the self-promo, but I've got a new novel coming out, and I was hoping that if folks around here liked Death's Heretic and The Redemption Engine, y'all might be interested in checking it out! Before you ask—no, the book is unfortunately not a third Salim novel. It's not even fantasy. But it *is* the best thing I've ever written. It's a queer young adult romance all about falling for the boy who stole your shot at stardom, and I'm extremely proud of it. Here's the pitch:

When David quit his band, he missed his shot at fame. For the past two years, he’s been trapped in an ordinary Seattle high school life, working summers for his dad’s construction business while his former best friends Chance and Eli became the hottest teen pop act in America.

As the mixture of business and pleasure becomes a powder keg, David will have to choose: Is this his second chance at glory? Or his second chance at Chance?

The book is set in Seattle, and while not autobiographical draws pretty heavily on my own life, so it's a deeply personal project. Pre-orders are crucial—it's seriously bonkers how few pre-orders can make or break a book's chances in the eyes of a store like Barnes & Noble—so I hope if it sounds good to you you'll consider pre-ordering!

Thanks, everybody!

James Sutter wrote:

...but also, my group roleplays EVERYTHING. Their plan for handling the first encounter in this adventure involved seducing Oakstewards, performing a rock concert, and arranging a sponsorship deal with a local melon merchant, complete with new product jingles. :)

A "How to roleplay in a published adventure" would be a great theme for a liveplay type show on the internet. Just sayin'.

Also... HI JAMES! I've missed seeing your frogly countenance here! Hope your group makes it to part three, since there are for SURE some fun roleplaying moments with some really weird folks in that one!

HI JAMES! :D

And yeah, I'm looking forward to Part 3! (We're just now starting on Part 2, since after Part 1 I split their souls in half and made them go on a quest to the afterlife to find the rest of themselves... Judy may have had a surrealist biplane race against Hei Feng...)

James Sutter wrote:

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for the kind words, folks! I was really excited to get to write an adventure focusing on several of my personal favorite aspects of the setting. (As soon as I finished writing, I turned around and started a Gatewalkers campaign with my home group, and we've been having a blast!) Huge props to Patrick Renie and James Jacobs for masterminding such a fun project!

Hi James, are you running with a 4 person or 5-6 person party?

I'm new to PF2e and everything official I read is that APs are for 4 PCs but players and GMs I talk to say they end up running with 5-6 players cause the APs are too hard. Then they complain the APs are too easy.

How is your group finding the difficulty?

I ran it with 4, and they're more roleplayers than powergamers. There were definitely harrowing moments, and one of the players dropped frequently due to a truly astonishing ability to roll ones, but I think there was only one fight where they actually came close to a TPK.

To my thinking, that makes it about right: hard enough to worry the players, not hard enough to kill them all. But every group is different, and your mileage may vary! (For instance, I saw somebody say there's not much opportunity for roleplaying in this adventure, and I can see how that could be—but also, my group roleplays EVERYTHING. Their plan for handling the first encounter in this adventure involved seducing Oakstewards, performing a rock concert, and arranging a sponsorship deal with a local melon merchant, complete with new product jingles. :)

Just wanted to drop in and say thanks for the kind words, folks! I was really excited to get to write an adventure focusing on several of my personal favorite aspects of the setting. (As soon as I finished writing, I turned around and started a Gatewalkers campaign with my home group, and we've been having a blast!) Huge props to Patrick Renie and James Jacobs for masterminding such a fun project!

keftiu wrote:

Side note: who wrote the Castrovel gazetteer? It’s awesome.

Table of contents says James L. Sutter wrote the adventure and the Castrovel gazetteer, while he and Patrick Renie cowrote the adventure toolbox.

I like that the table of contents for AP volumes notes who contributed to which sections.

I couldn't pass up the chance to write another Castrovel gazetteer. Between Distant Worlds and the Starfinder Core Rulebook/SFAP #2/Pact Worlds, I'm apparently on a 5-year orbit... better mark my calendar for 2028! :D

Having played the pilot multiple times and been a beta tester for the premium episodes, I can confidently say that your script is the best part of this game. I love the color and detail you've added to the world of Starfinder, and can't wait to play the full version!

Hey, thank you so much! :D

James Sutter wrote:

After 9 months of working on this, I'm so excited for folks to finally get to play it! Plus it's a huge thrill to see Nathan and Laura voicing some of the characters. :) Hope you all enjoy it!

So, what were we playing a few months back? a Precursor to this?

Yup, that was the pilot episode! Now you can play the first three premium episodes as well, with another three landing in October and finishing out the first adventure arc!

After 9 months of working on this, I'm so excited for folks to finally get to play it! Plus it's a huge thrill to see Nathan and Laura voicing some of the characters. :) Hope you all enjoy it!

Glad to see folks are excited about this! It's been a fascinating project to work on, and I'm really thankful Paizo decided to bring me in to write it. As Amanda so kindly noted, it has felt a bit like getting the band back together. :)

Oh hey! I see this is announced! :D

This marks the last of my Starfinder iconic encounters, so I wanted to stop by and thank all of you for leaving such lovely comments on the series. Knowing people are enjoying them means a lot! :)

(And it was totally dimension door.)

Thanks everybody! This was the first of the Starfinder shorts that I wrote, and it really cemented in my mind what I should be going for with these stories. Plus I love the idea that Quig gets emotionally attached to all his creations. He's a feisty little rat, but he loves easily and fiercely. <3

[Also, that typo in "can't just leave him here" is killing me. Anybody on the Paizo web team able to help me with that one?]

Thanks, folks! I definitely refused to write this story until I knew exactly what "Moneythumper" sounded like. Maybe someday I'll record it. :)

In my mind, Sylix the Siren is what would happen if Donna Summer and MIA had a baby, and that baby joined the space marines...

RIP Bug 'Stache.

Thank you, everyone! I'm glad folks still have a soft spot for Bug Dad—he remains my favorite of the iconics, and I thoroughly enjoyed each of his appearances in these stories. :D

So nobody has mentioned this yet, but this adventure is genuine comedy cold :D I mean, there are several moments that are funny that are intended to be funny

Thank you! It's pretty much impossible for me to write an adventure without comedic elements—it's just always been my favorite part of gaming. (I also believe that funny moments are necessary for the proper functioning of all types of stories, as they break the tension in order let it build again. Without those moments, players quickly become numb to the fear and tension. But that's also a lot of philosophical hand-waving to justify my innate desire to write aliens in funny hats. :)

Thank you everyone! Heists and twists are always tough to write, especially in something this short, but I had a lot of fun with this one. :D

Thanks, everybody! When Mark originally asked if I had time for a new assignment, I had thought I was too busy... but then he told me what the project was. :) I'm deeply honored that Paizo let me come back and do some of the first fiction with these characters, and I can't wait to see what you all think of future episodes! :D

An alignment argument on the messageboards? Over something *I* wrote? Perish the thought! :D

(Somewhere in the Paizo offices, James Jacobs just looked up suddenly and said, "I sense something... a presence I have not felt since...")

Thanks, everybody! Also, just to clarify: I definitely did *not* intend it to imply that Valeros is killing his prisoner. He's just scaring him a little with a friendly chokehold, as part of a Cayden-approved Teachable Moment about the respect one should pay to an enemy's beer.

Thanks for reading and commenting on the series, everybody! I had a ton of fun writing these, and I'm really glad the Paizo crew let me come back and put words in the iconics' mouths again. :) I can't wait to see what they do next!

Thanks for the comments, everyone! Glad you're all enjoying these, and I love watching you puzzle out which aspects of the game we're focusing on. :D

Good stuff, Sutter. Very dynamic and tense.

(BTW I'm reading Death's Heretic... mind blown from before chapter 1!).

Yay! Thank you! Glad you're enjoying it. :D

Thanks, folks! And yeah, as Mark and others have said, while we always aim to work within the rules, sometimes we need to rely on some lucky crits, prior damage, etc. to make the fiction flow. Spending half an hour playing through a combat encounter is fun. Spending half an hour reading one isn't. :)

Thank you! And yeah, if anyone's enjoying these but hasn't read my novels yet, please check out Death's Heretic and The Redemption Engine! They're just like these, except 200 times longer. :D

Yay! Thank you! :D

Anyways I've decided I'm gonna read Death's Heretic and The Redemption Engine asap.

Hooray! Thank you! :D

Thanks, everybody! I enjoyed getting to show a different side of trolls, especially after we already got one classic troll fight in the series. Plus any chance to drop a little Kaer Maga reference is good by me. :D

drakkonflye wrote:

I just want to say I am loving these short stories, new rules or not. Keep them coming, James. In the meantime, I'll start looking for other things you've written ;-)

Both of his Pathfinder Tales books were excellent and I very much enjoyed listening to the Audible audiobook versions.

Thank you! And yeah, if anyone's enjoying these but hasn't read my novels yet, please check out Death's Heretic and The Redemption Engine! They're just like these, except 200 times longer. :D

Thanks everybody! This one was particularly hard to write, as we all wanted to see Merisiel do something tricky and Oceans-11-y (which is kind of a tall order for a few hundred words), but I'm really happy with how it came together. :)

Also, I love reading everyone's guesses about what the mechanical elements might be! I'm rarely tasked with writing new mechanics, but if I were, I'd totally come back and mine these threads. Some of these wrong guesses deserve to be right ones...

What Mark said. I'm sworn to secrecy! :-*

Aristophanes wrote:

Oh, and props to Biagio d'Alessandro for the awesome illo!!

Is Sutter writing prompted by the art in these pieces? The art can't be commissioned for these stories, right?

Yup! I actually get sent both the image Paizo's chosen and a rules element they want to showcase, so I have to figure out how to fit the one into the other. Sometimes it's fairly obvious or Mark will send me a suggestion, but other times there's a bit of a puzzle to solve before I can even start writing. Fortunately I usually find that constraints breed creativity!

Thanks, folks! I really enjoyed this one—it's rare that I get to draw on my musical side when writing game stuff, but after spending some time with Lem, I think he might be the iconic I most identify with. :)

Thanks everybody! And sorry for the red herring about the stances—I wasn't thinking about the term in the context of the game, but rather in how I imagine Kyra herself would think about her swordwork. The fact that she learned not just in a martial tradition but a religious one made me think that there's probably a meditative and worshipful element to a lot of her training—hence you might have sacred, Sarenrae-specific names for various stances/moves/etc. Her role as a holy warrior is so central to her faith that I've always imagined her practicing forms at dawn as part of her daily prayers...

Well, I'm just really surprised at how much/well the author has picked up on how the mechanics affect the experience. It's like he's channeling my own experience with the class. Kind of eerie.

Thank you (and everyone else)! And yeah, the point of these stories is to showcase some of the class abilities from an in-world perspective, and help players get into their characters' heads. For each of them, Paizo assigns me an illustration and some specific rules they'd like to highlight, and I write the story to fit, trying to show how those rules might play out in the illustrated situation, and what they might feel like in context.

With this one, I really enjoyed thinking about how Harsk's affinity for nature might lead him toward that sort of singleminded focus in battle, and how he might explain it to others. And of course I'd never pass up a chance to mention his tea. :D

Thanks, everyone! I love getting to write the iconics when they're talking smack, and it seemed like Ezren would probably have a lot of hot takes about other spellcasters, especially given his backstory. :)

The name of the giant is Agmundr Jarl ? Or he is a Jarl called Agmundr ? Or he is the Jarl of the Agmundr clan and also called Agmundr ?

He's a jarl named Agmundr! I just thought it sounded appropriate to have the ordering of his formal address be "Agmunder Jarl," in the same way that in Lord of the Rings, Theoden is addressed as "Theoden King."

Also, thank you to Mark and everyone else for letting me come back and play in the sandbox again. I can't wait for y'all to see next week's. :D

WEBFICTION LIVES AGAIN! MWAHAHAHAHA!

Thank you, all of you! It's been an honor to spend so many years working on Pathfinder and Starfinder, and I definitely plan to keep writing for both if I can! And as for a third Salim book... well, that'll all depend on Paizo and whoever they settle on as a new publishing partner for fiction, but you know if they send up the Salim signal, I'll come running. :)

Sad to read this, but happy for James. Reading this thread while listening to Hurricane by Thrice kind of hits you in the gut.

I hope you pick up that bass again too, for old times sake and play some metal good sir. I'll never forget our back and forth in the 'Mona and Metal' thread I started all those years ago. You will always be the bass picking Paizo guy to me.

Definitely! I've actually got a metal show here in a few weeks, though I'll be playing guitar this time. :) And your post inspired me to go back and see what Thrice has done in the last few years, so thanks! :D

So, um... if you're doing the writing thing more and still gonna freelance with Paizo, does that mean that if/when (cross fingers) Pathfinder Tales resume, we can get more (much more??? pretty please) Salim?

Cuz, best Tales ever. Just sayin'.

Thank you! I would love to do another Salim book, but that'll all be up to Paizo and whoever their new publishing partner turns out to be. :)

I wouldn't be who I am today without all of you. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart—it's been an honor.

Also, since there's no way I could possibly respond to all the amazing folks coming out of the woodwork to wish me well, here's another blanket thank-you to everyone in this thread. You know how to make a guy feel appreciated.

<3

(With apologies to Roy Rogers and, I suppose, Van Halen.)

...

Leshies and gentlebeings, we proudly present, for a one-time engagement, the Kaer Maga Augur Troll Choir.

...

Bom-buh-DEE-uh, bom-buh-DEE-uh, bom-buh-DEE-uh, bom-buh-DEE-uh,
Happy (en)trails…to you,
Until…
We meet...
Again.
Happy (en)trails…to you!
Keep smi-lin’
Un...
Til then!

Whoooooooooooooooooooo…
Cares about the scars upon our tummies?
We know you’ll keep a-scribin’,
‘Bout space…
Muuuuu-uh-mies…

(two, three)

Happy (en)trails…to YOU!
Un-til,
We meeeet!
Agaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiinn!

Christopher, did you seriously just write "Happy (en)trails"? You know I still have two days left to blacklist you for Pun Crimes, right?

(Seriously, though, thank you. :)