Matthew Pittard's page

oh I prefer my Stargate Dark And Gritty.

If you don't believe me look at Stargate over the years. (I dub it the Showtime era and Syfy era).

Showtime era had some of the far more memorable episodes and arc plots (In fact it started most of them). SG-1 in the Showtime era had more horror aspects, used far less CGI than Syfy, gave us Apophis, Heru'ur, The Tok'ra and so on. Sure there were some stinkers (Bane, Broca Divide) but generally the episodes in this era were great.

When the show moved to Syfy I generally found it went from an Adventure action Military show to an Action show with sprinkles of Adventure. It relied more on CGI, there were more long shots and everything felt more glossy.

Yeah Im not sure about this Rebooting of the Stargate movie franchise. The original didn't exactly make box office gold. It might be possible with more of an ensemble cast but frankly far too many people know Stargate now more for SG-1 than the original Russell/Spader movie. (I always forget French Stewart was playing a non comedy role in this too).

Babylon 5 also had a tacked on last Season which felt tacked on a lot of the time.

Stargate worked very well for my limited run Season 1 based Stargate team. My SG-4 team had dealings with Heru'ur and others, but unfortunetly the players couldn't adapt too well from D&D to that mechanics system.

Id rather have 'new' races that just arnt variations on the Genasi. You could have an extremely tall, thin boned race that comes from a very low Gravity world/asteroid belt, or a short squat creature (but not a Dwarf) that comes from a high gravity world. You could have a naturally fire resistant race from a World which is extremely volcanically active. Perhaps they can hold their breathe longer because their own air is quite toxic.

Yeah, and see I never liked Farscape. Which probably puts me in the minority here. I always thought Browder was an average actor and Claudia Black.. I can take her in small doses. Stargate was not at it's best when it was going for the funny plot, but when it accidentally had funny moments.

It was episodes like Window of Opportunity, and my personal all time 'The Fifth Race'. I much preferred it when Earth was under the heel, the SGC had to really scrimp to get the job done. Back when the Go'auld were a menace.

I didn't mind the Ori, and they definetly felt part of the setting and I liked how politics became part of the basically American held Stargate but later seasons with Teal'c and hair (and taking drugs so he didn't need a Symbiote) and Daniel becoming buff and ditching the glasses and just not being so Daniel like anymore.

Rahadoum says 'See, GODS DO SCREW EVERYONE OVER'

Terquem wrote:

Every time someone mentions that it will be more "science-fantasy" than "science-fiction" I cringe a little bit more in fear.

I mean, look, I've heard that the "Spelljammer" setting is not well spoken of in the Paizo office, but *sheesh* this sure is sounding more and more like that than Traveller, or Star Frontiers.

There's also a game called Dragonstar published by Fantasy Flight Games in the early days of D&D 3.5 that was a similar balance between classic high fantasy and relatively hard science fiction to what Starfinder promises and if that's the case then things will be alright as Dragonstar was pretty good.

So good it died an inglorious death (but to be honest, it wasn't alone. (Lots of the early 3e race to the top of the mountain lets release an rpg failed too).

Dragonstar filled a niche that other games didn't at the time. Science Fantasy however isn't a huge market. People playing scifi games generally play more .. scifi games. For all its 'Science' influences, Spelljammer really didn't have a lot. Yes you had flying sailing ships and varieties on the theme and guns, but there just wasn't a who lot of the Science part in Spelljammer. It was also very niche within our Niche industry.

Hes certainly the one character people remember the most from Atlantis. Yes he was sarcastic as hell

personally for some strange reason I remember Lt Aiden Ford: A regular in season 1 who got little screen time, got turned into a strange hybrid wraith and well, made a few more appearances.

I guess I also like Sg-1 more because its adventure- action as opposed to Atlantis which is Action-Adventure. Just a subtle change in words but big difference to the shows.

Matthew Pittard wrote:

Dexion1619 wrote:

Matthew Pittard wrote:

I miss Sg-1 terribly.

This shows you have good taste.

PLEASE TAKE THAT BACK!

I enjoy Lexx which proves I have NO Taste whatsoever.

I only enjoyed the latter parts of Lexx.

Its an acquired taste. At the time I was a student at university and when I returned home via bus late at night, I would see a totally random episode. (it even made me create an npc basically who was Kai).

I also didn't like Atlantis. I think they had a good thing when they went for a civilian administrator, and then someone along the line they decided they just couldn't do a show without Earth being at threat so gave up. The safety of Earth yes was a central premise in Sg-1, I just wish it hadn't become so in Atlantis. Some of the characters did feel like copies of Sg-1 . We had a sarcastic type in Sheppard (O'Neil), a smart scientist in Mckay (Carter) and a Teal'c type in Ronon Dex (and hell the showed played up on their similarities).

Matthew Pittard wrote:

I miss Sg-1 terribly.

This shows you have good taste.

PLEASE TAKE THAT BACK!

I enjoy Lexx which proves I have NO Taste whatsoever.

who owns the rights to the brand? any hope of a new series in the setting on the horizon?

I believe Emmerich (but not Devlin) is trying to do a Stargate movie sequel. The problem being now that the Stargate concept is now more tied to the tv series than it is to the Movie. So I don't think it will fly.

In terms of the series, there has been nothing. I think the later producers have moved on to the .. well ugly.. Dark Matter. Ive seen a few episodes and well.. Asian Sword Master? Yeah no more tropes for me.

I should also rephrase my original comment. I miss Seasons 1-7 of SG-1 Terribly, but not stuff after that. I missed O'Neil... but also the situations they got into. To me the Go'auld were always gonna be the top dog on the show and when Humanity got a little.. too powerful I started to not enjoy the show as much.

I miss Sg-1 terribly.

Im inclined to agree with a few previous posters. Paizo probably spends a lot on Pathfinder Society. Its a good marketing tool for everything they sell from the Core book down. But again its probably a hefty load of money and they might be at the point in regards to Starfinder that while they see there is a market for Science Fantasy it is a NOTORIOUSLY hard market to crack and hold.

The sad fact of the matter is that the core genre of gaming is Fantasy, Swords and Dragons et al. (and Im saying that as a fan of gaming that prefers scifi). Paizo would have to think there is a big enough market for Starfinder to get taken to production to begin with, but its unknown if the market will be there for anything remotely resembling PFS.

Again it's stateted above for marketing resonance with Pathfinder.

People picking up Starfinder would be

A) Those devoted people who buy everything Paizo puts out
B) People who try and get every rpg out there
C) People looking for something new to try.
D) People who like Science Fantasy settings (Which generally arnt the Hard Scifi Traveller type people). Its a niche within a niche

Ill take no badmouthing of Dr Who here.....

How about this for a theory. Golarion isn't actually gone, its just been phased out of time 5 seconds so we can never actually see it or interact with it.

Nutcast: Something like that. A lot of people seem to just want to shove all their favourite things from Pathfinder into Starfinder. It needs its own identity if it is to succeed.

Id much prefer they came out with a relatively new Pantheon. I know its been done with another famous setting, but having all the Gods 'leave' for a time with their world would be pretty awesome.

In any case, I'm always more interested in seeing how active (or in some cases inactive) clerical magic, their religions and stuff works in a science fantasy setting like Starfinder.

Seriously pick up the Dragonstar books. They offer great insight into how this can be done.

Danubus wrote:

I had an android worship Siri from the iPhone once. She gained self awareness and took over satellites in a post apocalyptic game we played. In Starfinder I hope we can worship Casandalee. Maybe she is like running Absolam space station like Mother did in the Rai comics from Valiant comics

That gives me an idea: Anti-paladin of GLaDOS. Takes it as a sacred duty to inflict status ailments and observe/record the outcome.

GlaDOS? A petty upstart. The only AI that matters meatbag is SHODAN.

You had better hope its not like DS9. Otherwise half way through , you are going to get a world shattering Armada come through and destroy everything :).

Im imagining a cross between Babylon 5 and the UN. Im going to guess that rarely does anything get agreed to, that there are some members on the station with more power than the others, and that one race is trying to convince the humans of Golarion that they are actually related .

Dragonstar for me is what I think of when someone ask for a Fantasy game set in a scifi universe. ITs got Lasers its got Dragon 'Gods' running Star Empires. It has strange races. It never had a huge player base but it certainly was different.

As Owen said above Gamma World has been through many incarnations.

I am quite excited by this. Science Fantasy generally has a smaller player base within the realms of gaming but if this ends up just being a single book Ill definetly look at picking it up.

Id like SFS to be totally different from PFS. New factions (or not EVEN a faction system at all). Starfinder needs to have its own identity, not constantly draw comparisons to Pathfinder if its going to find its own market base.

What Id like to see

A) Less of a focus on humanity. Have them be small percentage wise found off Golarion. For something really off beat, Id love for them as a mechanic to get weaker off World than on. Perhaps there is something there which they cannot do without.

B) A Re imagining of the Core races. Id like to see a Dwarf Empire controlling several Mountain Fortresses using Gnomes as their slave underclass. They use their Mountain fortresses to enforce their will as they fly through space.

What I don't want to see are Dwarves simply migrating to planets with Large mountain ranges, Elves move to Forest worlds and so on.

C) Clerical Magic be determined by the Church a cleric worships not by the God themselves. Ie if you reimagine the pantheon, You could have the AI god accept all worshippers but you might have the Church of the Supreme Being who worship a LE version of the God and the Church of the Defective Code worshipping a NE version.

( A good example of this is Arcanis where the Gods don't have alignments but Churches who effectively dictate if the God is nice or bad)

D) Restrictions. Yeah most consider them long gone ... not needed and from previous editions of D&D. Id like them to come back.

From my point A. Lets say the issue that Humans have when they leave their Home Planet is that they cant contact any God (thus No Human Clerics). Some people hate restrictions but some settings work really well with them : ie Darksun.

What Id like to see

A) Less of a focus on humanity. Have them be small percentage wise found off Golarion. For something really off beat, Id love for them as a mechanic to get weaker off World than on. Perhaps there is something there which they cannot do without.

B) A Re imagining of the Core races. Id like to see a Dwarf Empire controlling several Mountain Fortresses using Gnomes as their slave underclass. They use their Mountain fortresses to enforce their will as they fly through space.

What I don't want to see are Dwarves simply migrating to planets with Large mountain ranges, Elves move to Forest worlds and so on.

C) Clerical Magic be determined by the Church a cleric worships not by the God themselves. Ie if you reimagine the pantheon, You could have the AI god accept all worshippers but you might have the Church of the Supreme Being who worship a LE version of the God and the Church of the Defective Code worshipping a NE version.

( A good example of this is Arcanis where the Gods don't have alignments but Churches who effectively dictate if the God is nice or bad)

D) Restrictions. Yeah most consider them long gone ... not needed and from previous editions of D&D. Id like them to come back.

From my point A. Lets say the issue that Humans have when they leave their Home Planet is that they cant contact any God (thus No Human Clerics). Some people hate restrictions but some settings work really well with them : ie Darksun.

I think they are simply testing the waters first. This type of game may not normally visit the same 'fanbase' as Pathfinder does. Keep in mind there are a lot of gamers who only do Scifi and there a lot who only do Fantasy. Some don't like Crossing the 'streams'. The fact that they have also gone for the Fantasy approach here ' ie Science Fantasy' leads me to believe that it may end up a lot like Dragonstar (a really great game and setting.. check it out if you can find it).

I dont think Ill hit 10 by then, but My Spiritualist is currently level 4, nearly 5. So far so good, but the Anger Phantom is really hurting for HP.

Im going to put this on record.

I really enjoyed playing in this one. The Tone of the scenario, the puzzle/riddle, the encounters.. all just seemed to 'click' for me. I think some of the other people with me .. didnt as much because it was so .. different. To me though it was nicely paced, contained ( I loved contained scenarios) and just plain different to what has come before this season (and not plain at all!)

As a DM, I grew to love this scenario even more. I ran it as a 4 player 4-5 table. I loved how the monsters encounteres meshed up .. sort off with the scrolls, the environmental impacts , Mistress Koi (although I think a few people were annoyed having to repeat themeselves time and time again)

The tooth fairy fight was a highlight as half the party were captivated.

All in all Id like to congratulate the author and editors for making this scenario so repeatable. Id love to revisit with a CORE character some day.

Guys, as mentioned he is a player not a DM. Which means all the DM advice you are giving him is great and its something he could pass on to his DM if he is so inclined, however its not immediately practical for him.

Im have a giggle/chuckle when I look at the first page of posts in this thread. They are Hilarious about how bad this was going to be.

This is my fave show of the year until the New X files 6 parter is released later in the year.

Im just sad Wesley bought the farm.

Are a lot of the core games early season stuff when 4 player tables were the norm?

There is a Kobold Boon? Awesome!

I guess I may live to regret building my Spiritualist before the actual main book gets released. Im still not convince I contribute all that much in each game he is in, and Ive been berated several times for taking the 'weakest' Anger type of Phantom.

I just like the class, but Ive got no real grasp on what their role is.

My Dual Cursed Oracle. I was aiming for a Baldric level of disgustingness and duplicitous. I find I rarely can roleplay to that level and my Bones Oracle (who has a Con of 9) Generally has been receiving DM credit to get him to level 5. Hes level 5 and has 24hp.

I originally created him because I kinda liked the oracle another play had been playing, and had recently read the Pahmet Dwarf information in a Paizo product.

Whilst he is a Pahmet Dwarf his career is also with the transport of the dead/an embalmer which generally makes his disposition and antics unpalatble to most people he meets.

Strangely he often ends up being the party spokesman (which is strange considering he has both the wasting and lame curses) and I generally describe him as a rather sickly looking Dwarf whos hair has mostly fallen out and his beard seems to dimish each day as clumps of skin and hair fall off.

I think my biggest regret is more I thnk I dont have the rp skill to play him as he should be played.

Im actually liking the new Simmons: there needs to be a character on this show that just challenges the 'oh cool.. superpowered people living amongst us'. They work for an organisation which yeah does work closely with superpowered types, but can never fully trust them. You need to plan for the day the superhero might become a supervillain.

In a way i think Simmons is preparing us for the Registration Act storyline. She is obviously being put in the Registratiob camp which I dont have an issue with.

Ward has become 120 percent better as a character since he was revealed as a double agent. Better Dialogue and just better scenes. The issue with the show is unless they start portraying him more as a stock villain the sheer amount of characters on the show means his screentime will be forever limited.

keep in mind zoning areas can also affect shop hours. Some council require certain types of businesses to close by certain time.

What I think needs to happen more is that Game days and Conventions need to more accurately market their experiences before. Nobody should be arriving at a Game day or convention without knowing in advance if the game they are attending is either core or non core. It should be known to all well in advance.

Id also point out that not all Paladins have the Iomedaen view on attack first talk later.

Id actually pick a God which isnt so confrontational as the Deity for my Paladin. Then mold the personalty round that if you think it might be hard to work for the Dark Archive.

An interesting choice might be :

Kelinahat
She of Ebon Wings
Source Inner Sea Gods pg. 322 (Amazon)
Pathfinder Wiki Kelinahat
Details
Alignment LG
Pantheon Empyreal Lords
Areas of Concern Intelligence, spies, stealth
Domains Darkness, Good, Knowledge, Law
Favored Weapon Short sword

With the LG Alignment she is sure to have holy warriors but note her Areas of Concern. She is interested in Intelligence.. which for the Pathfinder Society is a BIG thing. Finding out what artifacts do etc. The Stealth and Spies aspect is an interesting part of the Faith. When we think of Paladins we think of the bright and shiny Paladins of Sarenrae and co.

Another interesting choice might be :

Zohls
Verity
Source Inner Sea Gods pg. 324 (Amazon)
Pathfinder Wiki Zohls
Details
Alignment LG
Pantheon Empyreal Lords
Areas of Concern Determination, investigation, truth
Domains Good, Knowledge, Law, Travel
Favored Weapon Heavy crossbow

Not a god I have ever seen used before, but his Areas of Concern are a very interesting mix and a Paladin of Zohls could be interesting esp as I view them as a type always sticking their nose into other peoples business.

Just remember the Dark Archive is separate from Cheliax now.

sigh.. people signing up and then dropping out. Back down to 7-8

Also Keep in mind that your Raise the Dead Mystery means any scaled Zombie/Skeleton you raise is only around for a limited time. My Bones Oracle started out a GM baby (he has 8 con and is dual cursed). Ive played him a few times. He also has resist life. Animate dead.. by the time you get it, dosnt stack up in a combat encounter. My own undead minion barely cuts it sometimes and I really only ever use it in a defensive capacity.

Id love to try Dragons Demand on Core.. but then again Id love to run Emerald Spire on core too.

Interesting. on a side note Ive just had some more players join, putting the Tier up to 10-11. Looking forward to the Elder Elementals!

Thanks for the advice. TBH I think the final BBEG fight could really have done with more room but that didnt happen.

Thanks, I saw the 20ft Stone Door thing, but It still didnt convince me. With flying critters I ESP like to know the dimensions I have to play with. Ill be running at 7-8 so 4 advanced Elementals will need some breathing space.

RNG?

Im surprised nobody has mentioned Among the Living. I love running this one, esp when people start doing some crazy things. I think its one of the first scenarios I can remember that 'locked' the group inside the one location. It Suffers in that its one of the 'just add more of the same' to increase the difficulty but It also introduced Zyphus and his wackiness to society.

I just love the idea of Wackly Taldan Opera mixed with Zombies and a cult of essentially 'accidental death'

Prince of Augustana I have run on 4 locations (which is the most ever for me). I loved the Prince scene. So many players have been giving noble titles by the Prince in their endeavours to close the foul door to the hells!

Quick Question:

In the Vault room, what is the height of the roof? Flying Elementals with reach would like to know.

I ran a CORE Mists of Mwangi on 1-2 , Sunday with 4 players.

I loved it!. THe Monsters were a challenge, I was seeing Class abilities used I had not seen in a long time. It was awesome.

Now my wish is for all the rest of the Season 0 stuff to be updated to PFS. We know you have done this already for convention play Paizo, I was sitting next to a table playing a Pathfinder'd Season 0 scenario. Make it so!

It is also normally the job of the VL to eventually replace their VC? So they might be groomed into the position slowly so the transition is seamless. Or if the VC suddenly has to leave the job (voluntarily or involuntarily) then an VL can be ugraded pretty quickly.

This scenarios is probably the only time I felt poorly for Drendle Dreng. It only lasted a couple of seconds, but there was definite sadness for him.

Michael: We have a local player who had a Cleric. He decided to play Level 9 on Slow. First guy in Perth to do so. We all thought he was crazy (as resource burn is felt more accutely). It was about this time he started dying.

Remember all those movies where you have a team of characters, and suddenly something happens, one character freaks out and runs off? Well that was his Cleric who just kept fleeing and dying. Also casting a Bless spell at level 9 as a combat action? hmm...

So yeah, between Levels 9-10 like 2 deaths. Another at 10. I think he might barely be scraping retirement now, but nobody has seen that Cleric played in a long time.

We started to run High table 10-11s and be forced into bringing this Level 9 along to make up the legal table. He got super frustrated that he was being left behind..

It was at this point through an emotional and not logical response that I decided to NEVER play Slow. Ive never regretted it and currently have 3 characters sitting on the 10-11 zone.

I know one is Stephen White in Melbourne, Victoria.I can remember him telling me about this new game called Pathfinder Society way way way back during games of Living Greyhawk.

Actually PFS can become way less random than you think. After a while you will know all the players could can game with if you play PFS long enough in the one area. You might get some variation, but generally after a few months, you know who is going to do what and when.