Hey guys,
Just wanted to let you know that a few days ago I posted the recording of the Pathfinder RPG seminar from Origins this year. Hope you enjoy...
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Just wanted to a)say thank you to the folks at Paizo and b)let everyone know that The Tome Show is having it's 2nd Annual Summer Contest, supported, in part, by Paizo Publishing. Check out The Tome Show (www.thetomeshow.com) and learn out to get in on the contest for a chance to win a prize package including the Pathfinder RPG Beta book (and more).
I'm pretty much 100% positive that a 4e Ravenloft will be made. As for when...that I can't help you with other than to say not for a few years. In fact, I could see them releasing Ravenloft as an adventure instead of a setting. It was originally an adventure before it was a setting and it went back to being that in 3e by the end.
I asked him for a future interview regarding the business of Goodman and making those decisions which he agreed to conduct at some point in the near future. So I'll be curious to hear what is going on myself. I do notice from the Free RPG Day product that there is no mention of the words "Dungeons and Dragons", no logo, no d20, nothing of the sort. Clearly it's a system-less book and the other adventures won't be. But I wonder (having not combed through the GSL very completely) if there's perhaps a loophole here that's being exploited.
I have released several reviews, a first glance, a more in depth look, and a few actual play sessions at www.thetomeshow.com for what it's worth. Honestly, I'm another of those folks that sees room for both in the industry. I'm really enjoying 4e right now, but I'm a big fan of what Paizo is doing with the Pathfinder RPG, and I intend on covering both in my podcast.
For what it's worth (preview for up coming Tome episodes, www.thetomeshow.com) I chatted with several people at different companies at Origins on this subject and I would say pretty confidently that you can take Green Ronin out of the OGL category and place them firmly in the "undecided" group. At least from what I was told last week by Steven Kenson. Likewise, you can add Margret Weis Productions to the 4e category. They told me pretty conclusively that they are going to re-release the Castlemourn setting (by Ed Greenwood) as a 4th Edition setting. To my knowledge they don't have plans to publish anything under the OGL. It will be Castlemourn and then the rest looks like it will be Cortex (their own system).
If you want to know more about the recent history of the Realms in novel format and books that aren't too shabby I would suggest checking out the Last Mythal series. Rogue Dragons is also pretty decent. The first deals with elves and demons/devils in the Realms, the second with, well, dragons. Also, if you're going to read an Elminster story I'd stick with his novels not with short stories. There's a lot to the guy and a short story doesn't tent to address that. For what it's worth I'm reading Swordmage for a review on the Tome at the moment. I'm only halfway through but so far it's also pretty decent and starts to give the flavor of what the Realms is like after the 4e switch-over.
Personally, no. I have no guilt for ordering 4e online. Good brick and mortar stores are going to provide service beyond the products on the shelves and they will survive long into the digital age. Those that don't won't be missed. What's more, I got mine through the Tome Show's Amazon store (www.thetomeshow.com) so I am getting the online discount and supporting D&D chatter and service at the same time. The best of both worlds.
As the producer of a D&D podcast I feel pretty obligated to get 4e. That said, I don't regret being in that position at all at the current time. Also, for those of you not getting it until you know more, stay tuned to TheTomeShow.com. And for those of you pre-ordering, well, feel free to support the Tome by using our Amazon store at TheTomeShow.com. ;-)
If your curious about how the whole thing works and some specifics of what it would mean if you were a patron of the Project right now I might recommend checking out a series I am doing for my podcast. The Tome Show Presents: Blood of the Gorgon. The plan is for this to be a series of four: two chats with the author (Nick Logue), one chat with Wolfgang Baur (Open Design Master), and one chat including some info form Patrons. The episode is here. Or for more general information here are some chats with Nick Logue right before he stared the OD project and one with Wolfgang from last summer where we talk about the projects in general.
The price point on these can't be beat. I got the whole set, good buy!
Hmm. Good feedback. Here's what I know. An audio drama requires a lot more work than a simple audio book, at least if it was to be done well, which, of course, is how I would insist that it is done. There are professional sound effects, voice talent, and rewrites of the original story that have to be done (written fiction doesn't work as audio drama on it's own without some tweaking). An audio book with a podcast-like release, however has some advantages, where it's faster and cheaper (author reads, producer produces, very little rewriting needed, done). Audio books (i.e. the 7th Son trilogy) can bring in tens of thousands of listeners if the content is good. Audio dramas tend to be less popular, although this probably has more to do with the amount of time/effort required to produce one well. Here's what I believe based on my experience in the industry. The numbers don't change significantly if it's a fully realized audio drama or a simply produced audio book. Ultimately, the tech savvy corner is getting a free story in a setting and genre that they love and Paizo is getting more exposure for it. These are the reasons I would actually stay away from audio drama, if it was me, and go with a simple audio book. My vision is that the books be fully realized, published works of fiction, that are also released as a podcast. The numbers are still coming in on this, but the initial data would suggest that a free podcast of a novel does not harm print sales and is likely to actually drive a small number of listeners to buy the print copy.
Here's my thoughts/take on Pathfinder fiction... First, do it. It would be a great way to introduce people to the world and thus have a chance of getting them into the game. It's been done in other books much like this. For example, Battletech has many more readers of novels than they do players of games. Personally, I read Forgotten Realms novels long before I started playing games in the realms. There is some real, long-term, marketing value here. Second, use new media to make this all the more awesome. Here is where my personal take as a podcaster (TheTomeShow.com) becomes all the more unique (although I got the idea from Mike Stackpole's discussion of the subject at GenCon, where he said that some gaming company should do this and watch the numbers). Make a Pathfinder fiction podcast. Release the novels and/or short stories in audio format for free as podcasts. Talk about exposing the world to the setting/game! Podcast novels tend to draw huge numbers of listeners (even ones that aren't very good). Hell, I'd be willing/ready/eager to produce this myself if Paizo wanted to do it.
I'm glad you guys enjoyed the episode. And yeah, no real scoops. I figured as much. Erik isn't the designer, so I didn't delve into design questions as much (I'll try and talk to Jason later when we get further into the playtesting for that sort of thing). And there wasn't much more to dig for, from what I could tell, since Paizo has been very upfront, honest, open, and transparent about this whole thing, the process, etc. I dug as much as I could, however, with things like intentions for future products (monsters, psionics, etc.). But thanks for listening, let me know what else you'd like to hear/hear about. I already have a reporter for the show looking to do a series on the pathfinder rpg rules, which also won't be any big scoop for most folks around here. :-)
Could you be more specific as to your question?
I'm not entirely sure why a spellcaster's spells need to be daily at all. I know it's sort of a sacred cow, but the more I think on it the more I think...really? Why? Is it unbalancing to change the time limit of rest and restudy needed? I don't think so. Rather than 8 hours of rest and 1 hour of study, how about just a simple, 2 hours of resting/restudying. Done. I've house ruled this recently in my own game to avoid the 15 minute adventuring day. Sure, we do our 15 minutes and then we rest, count coins, check out loot, search a cleared room, update our map, catch our breath, all the while the spellcasters are resting and studying their book/recharging their energies/praying/etc. A couple of hours of this and we're off and ready to go again. Seems to be an extremely logical, simple, and elegant solution. I can't imagine I'm the first person to bring this up. What am I missing, what is the fatal flaw that I'm not seeing?
Heh, I find your 3e critiques interesting, since they seem to be the exact reason that WotC decided to do 4e (and in part why Green Ronin opted to do True 20). If you're interested in True 20 I would direct you here. I did an interview with Steven Kenson, the creator of True 20, and we discussed some of the differences between the games and what it does/accomplishes (as well as some big recent news about it).
Hey all,
Released so far are:
Coming up are:
A special public thanks to Geoffrey D. Winn for getting these reports for the show.
I don't think this is a particularly a horrible thing. The PCs all have different specialties/classes/etc. it would make sense that intelligent or at least moderately intelligent creatures...or creatures of similar physiology but from a different climate/situation would have variations as well. These variations have existed through 3e also, but are not used as often as they probably should be because it requires adding a template, a class, or making your own variant stat blocks. In 4e I could now have this variation without having to put an hour of work into a creature that might only live 10 minutes in the game. And given that the stat blocks/monster entries in the manuals are so much shorter your still going to have a lot of different creatures. Plus the fact that there are a ton of monsters in the various books that I own that have never and will never be used...this honestly seems a good move to me. That said, my question with 4e monsters is that I hope that go ahead and give me an entry somewhere for these creatures full abilities besides what is in the combat stat block. I want to be able to use my beholders for social situations and for them to have abilities appropriate for that but not for combat, listed somewhere.
I would tend to agree. This is something that the DM needs to decide for their own story/lich. Personally, I would probably say that they reappear at the phylactery unless I had a reason to say otherwise.
Of course it's worth noting that ultimately most sites like this don't particularly care about the specifics of the content of their articles. At least the higher-ups don't. What they care about is page hits, which is something they can use to sell advertising. So ultimately, if you want to show your disapproval of the article the best way to do so is to NOT click that link. :-)
You could also check out True20 if you want something that will be supported but is d20-like. You can find it at this site I also did an interview with Steve Kenson (Green Ronin) who created it here:
He had some interesting things to say about the system.
Mind? Not at all. The content is there for you guys to do whatever you will with it. Take it away...
Hey...that's my podcast. :-) For what it's worth I have more interviews coming out with Scott Rouse and Chris Youngs, James Wyatt, Ed Greenwood, and Mike Lescault and Blue. My reporter, Geoffrey D. Winn, did a fantastic job at DDXP and these all sound really good.
Here's my take on the topics at hand. Good example of a gnome character. I believe the gnomes of Mt. Nevermind in Dragonlance would fit the bill of a typical tinker gnome. Jack in the recent Orc King show a sort of anti-gnome gnome who breaks from the norm (and sort of defines it along the way) as fairly interesting villain. As for the emo/goth issue. Here is my general impression. Goth is all about being counter-culture. Dark, brooding, mysterious. Emo is all about being emotional...which for teenagers tends to mean angst, depression, isolation, etc. The two are, oddly, related, however, and there is some level of overlap.
1. Almost certainly. 2. Depends on what they put out. A lot of the rules stuff that I hear for 4e I like. A lot of the world/setting/philosophical assumptions drive me absolutely insane with rage. So that said, worst case scenario I will buy just as much from Paizo as I have in the past. However, if I were to see more stuff from Paizo beyond adventures (to give me the setting/world/philosophical stuff that I want in my games) then you'd definitely see an increase in buying of Paizo products from me. 3. If Paizo does not convert then that would likely reduce my purchasing patterns to near nothing within a year, I would guess. The exception being that if Paizo is part of a revolution of 3.5/3.75 products, then I suspect that my purchasing will be the same as current.
I am not going. However, I have a reviewer/reporter for my podcast who is going and will be filing reports for the show based on his experiences and some interviews that he's conducting while he's there. www.thetomeshow.com
Did I miss a bit about the levels covered? I asked him about levels, specifically, in the podcast interview. He indicated that there is not a level range decided on yet, but that there would be with patron input. He did indicate some preference, however, for not a real high level, as murder mysteries get harder and harder as more and more powerful divinations become available. It's all in the interview. There's a bit more talked about than that, iirc, but I don't want to try and remember and then be wrong in such a public way in front of such a distinguished audience.
Dang, guys. I saw this post and thought I'd jump in to give a link to the podcast...what with the fact that I'm the host and all. ;-) But not only did Ed beat me to it (thank you Ed) but you're already up to two pages of discussion on the subject. When it rains it pours over here at the Paizo boards. I guess all I can add now is that Nick was a ton of fun to talk to and if you're interested in hearing Wolfgang talk about the Open Design project (and Kobold Quarterly) I did an interview with him several months back, also. You can find all the episodes at www.thetomeshow.com.
There was a print run when it came out. My guess is that there weren't a ton of extras printed. Your best bet at this point might be to get the pdf and then take it to your local Kinkos/etc. and have them do a quick print and bind job on it?
I had serious issues with this myself and did some research on it when a player of mine started tripping as his AoO every time. Turned out after looking at it that he can do that. Huh? I say, and allowed it. But I'll tell you what. Spiked chains, combat reflexes, and improved trip become a killer combo given this situation. :-)
I find the most of the people who oppose this feat never give/gave it an honest shot. It looks broken to me too, but I wanted to give it a playtest...so to speak, in a game I played in recently. I even went for the monk to really give it a run for it's money. I have to say, levels 4-7 using this feat with a monk were not broken at all. I was not any more or less powerful than any other member of the party. I think the real test would be looking to see how it plays out at higher levels, but alas, that game went on indefinite hiatus, so I may never get to find out. |