Lord Silky's page

Long time gamer here. I have been reviewing mythic adventures. I didn't see any thing that made me think it was over the top. I even invited my best player to look at it and since he didn't immediately ask me to implement the rules for it, I relaxed as he is "my find the broken stuff and exploit it" guy. He is always looking at supplements for material to exploit. I am always suspicious when he asks me to allow something new. So I don't think its over the top. Like anything in gaming the potential is there if the DM departs seriously from the game's inherent need for balance. In my opinion it is just another in a long colorful list of quality products that Paizo is renowned for.

I remember buying the D&D Blue Box at Spencer's in a small mall in Michigan. It was an impulse buy in a specialty store that had nothing to do with a genre that was in the infancy of its birth. I was 13 then. I'm now 45. My life has been through many changes from marriage and parenthood to facing the very real possibility of dying for my country. In that time, I've watched a passion of mine grow, change, grow again and become something that might be able to persevere into generations beyond my own life time.

There have been so many systems, rules, variants on rules that it really doesn't matter any longer that a fantasy genre is based in the past, present, or future.

Gamers exist on all social and economic levels now. You don't have to buy anything to become a roleplayer. Its a social community now. I've literally provided dice and books to new players who want to play. I know I'm not the only one. DM's....craft players. Players...develop DM's.

Were I to subscribe to a greater spiritual awareness, I would say the first has generated energy for the many and affected all. Gamers are rather karmic as a group. So many believe in the energy of that die or set of dice. Bards of Gamemastery create such passion that other's will endeavor in a pastime that they would otherwise ridicule.

Sometimes it feels worse to be a gamer than being gay. LOL.

Old timers are proud of their investment in a hobby that can be so outside the lines. New players are what many of us were years ago when there was not web resource, internet, and companies such as Paizo to break ground and invest in our passion.

We, collectively, have embraced something that still reveals itself in a world that doesn't like change an acceptance.

Somewhere a few years ago, a small group of people who understood this and knew, trusted, embraced, this passion along with thousands of others, probably now hundreds of thousands of gamers and called themselves Paizo.

I truly believe Paizo is a gamer company who provides a service to gamers. We are new, we are old, but we are all Gamers.

Paizo, you have forged a diverse community into a business. An old time gamer like me has remained loyal to you because you've embraced a tradition and not a business. You've remained true to what TSR, Chaosium, West End Games and so many others have built and bred. Where will you be in 5? 10? 20 years...I cannot predict. I do hope that the spirit you embraced will continue on today and well into our future.

Innovation and change will always imbue what we embrace tomorrow but in my experience its the day-to-day gamer that grows an industry relies on group participation.

I'm that day-to-day gamer and I very much appreciate you've bravely embraced what is the essence of a gamer. Gamer's will tolerate so many bad things but they don't tolerate a bad DM.

You've been the best DM to come along in years, perhaps a decade or more, and I thank you for this.

Good job Paizo. I happily remain a loyal customer because you've been a loyal gamer.

Lord Silky.

I've always seen Boccob's apparent attitude about mortal affairs as a projection rather than a reality.

First, He doesn't have many clerics because the true worship comes from one's devotion to the arcane. Clerics can use divine magic granted by him but as the Archmage of the Gods it seems illogical for him to give divine magic when his agenda would be to increase the use of arcane magic. So he doesn't encourage devout worship as it is unnecessary and a waste of his energy and time.

Boccob doesn't care if he has churches, temples, shrines, because the act of practicing and using arcane power is what he seeks and requires. So the perception of indifference is on the part of mortals.

Mortal wizards are fine with this attitude as well because there is no religious mumbo jumbo mixed in with their desire to use their power. No morality assigned to its purpose. Each is left to his own code to determine how to best employ the power arcane without judgement from Boccob.

So Boccob's involvement in mortal activities would be very subtle and with only a single agenda to maintain and grow the use of arcane magic.

So his interests would be in a guild of wizards or an mage experimenting with a new spell. The creation of magical items would be in a sense a holy object in the eyes of Boccob. Such tasks or the wiz/sorc performing them may receive the blessing of Boccob without anyone every truly knowing.

Boccob would watch the activities of the greatest mages with interest and may extend an influence of his power to maintain a particular wizard of power (without regard to alignment) just so that arcane magic as a whole becomes stronger. A truly worthy might well become a minor deity much like Zagyg.

Boccob's punishments would fall in line with this attitude. Damage arcane magic and you invite his wrath. Destroying a set of scrolls that contained unique spells from a powerful wizard's library may enjoin Boccob to send an appropriate punsihment to the offender. Worse, if said destructor was a wizard or a sorcerer, then that person may well find their spells are weaker or don't function properly or could even lose the ability to cast arcane magic at all.

The truest form of worship a follower could give Boccob is through dedicated practice and development of arcane magic. Something that Boccob feels a great passion for and embraces with his entire being.