Russell Brown's page

With only 30 blessing cards in the deck, it is entirely possible for even just 2 players to not have enough blessings to explore every location if the villains and henchmen are on the bottom of the location decks.

This seemed like an issue to us, too. But after playing about 6 scenarios, some with 3, 4, or 5 players, we actually found the scenarios slightly easier to beat with more players. I think it's because you have more chances to help each other, and you also increase your chances of having just the right character for a given location. Our bard and wizard could sometimes burn through three or four cards in a turn. In one game our bard closed an entire location on his first turn.

This was the hit of Gen Con for our group. One set of characters made it through the first three scenarios, but lots of people jumped in and played individual scenarios with other characters. I noticed lots of games at the con this year that were not as deep or rich as they appeared (I'm looking at you, Augustus), but the Pathfinder card game is just the opposite - so much awesome going on there. There was so much cooperation and intense planning at the end of the last fight against the dragon, including closing three locations, that we spontaneously high-fived when we won. We never do that. Congratulations. This is a great game.

Please cancel my subscription to Pathfinder Adventures.

Not at all dissatisfied with the product, just rearranging spending priorities.

Please cancel my subscription to Pathfinder Adventure Path. This is no reflection on the quality of these products.

But, where I live (Central London), it is just impossible to find your books in any gaming store.

Hmmm. I'm trying to figure out a devious excuse to deliver books to you in person. It's been a couple years since I was in London (I remember the Orc's Nest! And Forbidden Planet!). My family's about due for another trip to the UK, but since America's economy started heading for third world status, it's become very expensive to travel. Thinking hard.

"Honey, the kids are both in college and it's off-season." Sounds good.

I really liked the way True20 works with Cthulhu.

I tried d20 Cthulhu years ago, but I had some issues with it. First, d20 assumes heroic development (a 5th level character is WAY more powerful than a 1st level) which is a little overpowering for my Cthulhu style. Second, the spells and Mythos knowledge mechanics seemed to be at odds with the basic d20 mechanics (learning spells without leveling, mythos knowledge working different than other skills). It was like they took d20 Modern and stuck half of the Chaosium rules on the outside.

For Shadows of Cthulhu, we tried to stay within the spirit of the True20 system, and I love what happened. It's clean and it feels right.

I played Silent Tide early Thursday morning, and was slated to DM Frozen Fingers three times throughout the rest of the con. Unfortunately there were two empty tables at the session Thursday afternoon and one of them was mine. But as far as I could tell, those were the last empty PFS tables until late on Sunday. Word spread quickly and by Friday there were lines of people with generics trying to get in and quite a few people wearing their faction T-shirts. Paizo's popularity spread throughout the con and they sold out of all the Pathfinder Beta rules by early Friday, all the Campaign books by noon Friday, and then they capped it all off with 10 Ennie awards on Friday night. And that was only the first half of the con.

Josh addressed this a little on another thread. It sounds like the plan is to keep anyone who comes as a group together as a group. Otherwise he's planning on dividing up by role (healers, fighters, etc.) and trying to put together workable parties. Living Greyhawk musterings where always a bit hectic - best thing is to ask around as people gather - call out your class/level and see if any forming group will have you. It's a bit like the NY stock exchange for a short time.

Here's a tangental question. If someone dies in the adventure, can the rest of the group of Pathfinders scavenge their equipment? If so, do they have to give it back at the end of the scenario? If so to that, even in cases when the dead PC isn't going to be raised?

My interpretation of this (and the one I would use when I'm DMing this weekend) is that you can't loot a dead player because 1) they might get resurrected, somehow, 2) You couldn't keep what you looted (you can't really keep anything you loot in PFS - you just get the gold value) and 3) the gold you get for looting might put your gold reward for the adventure out of whack.

Hats off to you guys.
Thanks for creating this amazing world.
But I imagine your crunch time still isn't over. You still have to survive Gencon, and we'll be there for you. The energy here on the boards is palatable, and I'm sure it will be the same in Indianapolis. I hope it helps carry you through to next week, when you might get a chance to relax and take it all in.

I'm feeling much better now. I would like some cake, please.
Is there a fountain. I really like fountains.

Fellow servants of our beloved Grand Prince, mark this day well. Today we turn our exceptional and noble energies away from petty squabbles between houses and begin the true renewal of Taldor's ancient empire and reconciliation of the lands once freed from chaos by our grand Armies of Exploration.

Today we call home our wayward children: Cheliax, who's experiments with independence left them defenseless against the tyranny of Osmodeus, and Andoran, whose naive and ultimately self-centered notions of individual freedom leave them with nothing even resembling a true government. At heart they are Taldoran, and we must help them understand that.

Our resurgence may be opposed by the other nations. Osirion will certainly see any move toward unity around the Inner Sea as a threat. Fortunately for us, the Osirians are heirs and adherents to a culture so ancient it cannot truly be called a civilization. They are a scattered population of opportunists gelded by their own obsessions with ancient glories and dormant gods. Qidara may be a threat, but in the end is only a shadow puppet cast by the unfathomable gestures of the Padishah and his more powerful satraps. If we keep watch far to the east, we will know what the Qadiri will do next before even they know.

It will not be easy, friends, but the wine is well aged, and the table is certainly set in our favor.

- Arregus Estanos Thaygurat, Minister of the Third Entropic Chamber and Bound Timekeeper of the Reformation.

Will buy whatever core books area available at Gencon this year and Gencon next year.

buy the dern book.

Well said! Yet I can't picture you using the word "dern."

Congratulations to the Cabbages...

Thanks Disenchanter! The support here is fantastic. I Hope you get yours soon - then you should write a review! We'd like feedback almost as congratulations.

I, the great Yu Huang--though you may call me Tian Go­ng--do hereby decree ...

Some of you might not realize that The Jade is quoting an entry from one of the articles that didn't make it into GM Gems, namely "50 Entertaining yet Incomprehensible Fantasy Roleplaying Message Board Posts." It included Steve Greer's "Ode to an Impenetrable Metallic Tower" and John Ling's review of Cloverfield written entirely as e3.5 stat blocks. For some reason that entire article was cut in the final edit.

You could try the D&D groups on Meetup.com
http://dnd.meetup.com/

I use them primarily for magic items, or items that look nice enough that they might be magic, or maybe some special item that is key to the storyline that I don't want the players to lose track of. I like throwing the cards out on the table when the players open the chest and see what's inside, or search the body of a fallen enemy. I record the room where they found the item in small writing on the back, and as soon as they identify the item I write down the real stats. The practical benefit is that no more items get magically replicated because two players wrote the item down on their sheet (this has happened on occasion) and no items get lost because no one writes them down (this happens way more often).

Obey the Slaw. You got 10000 words to come up with chop-chop! Something about a horror-city.

Yes, Obey the Slaw.

I admit it. I am a wereabbage. I am not the most werecabbagey werecabbage. But then I may not be the lease werecabbagey werecabbage.

My understanding of what is happening...

WotC has cut off a very creative source for their D&D brand in an attempt to bring that success and profit in-house.

Paizo, due to non-competes or concern about their relationship with WotC, has abandoned the magazine model (for now) and gone to a more polished, coherently themed and expensive monthly book - Pathfinder.

All future Paizo products will be based on OGL, will use some third party OGL, and will contribute, in some form, OGL content.

Predictions for the future....

Paizo will provide a rallying point (and possibly a campaign world) for the marginalized OGL publishers, and a slick entry point for gamers who may have shied away from the OGL-only content until now. WotC will find itself with much more serious competition than Dungeon and Dragon. While I appreciate what WotC has done for this hobby in the past, they just blew up Dantuine.

Paizo and its partner companies will still be recognized as the prime training ground for the next generation of RPG writers and developers.

The writers who previously contributed to Paizo and now find themselves without a home will find writing for OGL much more desirable and support that end of the hobby even more.

Anything Erik, James, Lisa and all the others at Paizo touch will shine. Thanks for providing so many years of a keystone for a hobby that is completely unique.
EDIT: Oh, and thanks Chris Thomasson for starting them on the "path"...

Will there be advertising in Pathfinder?

Here. Here.
This was a fun read and a nice adventure with a clear goal. Nice job Tim.

Steve,

I'd love to see if I can fit one of your sessions into my schedule - what's the best way for me to find them in the event catalog?

After listening to the Paizo presentations each year at GENCON, where the question of Greyhawk support always comes up, I always come away with the impression that WoTC doesn't want publication of much Greyhawk specific information because it leaves less flexibility in the "core" setting or something.

I also come away with the impression that Eric Mona is like the biggest Greyhawk Lore Geek there is, and if there was any more he could do to support that setting (and that city) he certainly would do it.

G-cubed, I love the name "Trollheim"! I'd run that adventure just so I could say the name over and over.

Here's what I have in the Render Pit (no collaborations - I'm sort of a writing hermit)

"Screams of the Clockwork Contract", mid lvl, sonic and insomnia
"Thunderstone Golemforge", FR, mid lvl, comet awakens ancient golem
"Gond's Breath", FR, low lvl, steam elementals/inside a geyser
"Sigilstar Landship Company," Eberron, low lvl, faction intrigue
"Face of Misery," FR, low lvl, goblinoids, very short

I haven't received word back about my CW yet from the gatekeeper- is that a good sign? Will I get word prior to meeting? Did my spam filter eat my rejection letter? These are great mysteries.

Slinky - the sages that delve into the mystery that is adventure selection have determined, with rare concensus I might add, that the Campaign Workbooks run under a completely different process - they are not part of the "Big Meeting" ceremony.

One of three things happens when I send in a CW article. Within a few weeks I might get (1) a polite "no thank you this is good but it isn't what we're looking for" message, or I may get (2) a "we have received your article and we are considering it." The second response is good - it means it made it into the pile of CWs that someone (Mr. Sutter?) digs through to select the articles for each issue - this is where your beautiful article will live out the rest of its days until published. I have also had articles for which (3) I received no response for months. When this happens, I wait three or four months, then send an email to the editor, or to dungeon@paizo.com, asking them if they received them - Dungeon is very good at responding to these messages and clearing things up, though the response may take a week or two.

So three more collaborative adventure arcs, and then I think I'm done until after the meeting.... Seriously, do you think the Eds might just cherry pick their top 10 or so adventures and let the rest go even if they thought they were ubercool? In which case more proposal shopping becomes counter productive?

I've wondered about this too. As an editor, would I just take the best, rejecting lots of good proposals, assuming I'll get just as many good ones in the next pile?

Since the trend line in quality of adventures, and I assume proposals, seems to slope upwards over the past five years, thanks to people like you, Pett, Logue, Vaughan, Hitchcock and the adventure path contributions of the Paizo staff, I'm guessing they feel pretty safe rejecting and counting on the next round.

I have two proposals in - one from October and one from November - haven't head back on either. There has been a fair amount of render activity on Campaign Workbooks lately, however.

I second Zherog's comments. When I first read through this I thought maybe it was a proposal for a Dragon article, or maybe the background section of an adventure proposal.

Right now Dungeon only publishes two things from freelancers - adventures and Campaign Workbook articles. This looks like this might fit under Campaign Workbook as a "wandering monster" article, in which case it should follow the two-page monster writeup format used in Monster Manual IV (I think - this is a new article type, and I haven't written one).

The reason I was asking was that I submitted an adventure manuscript in late August and hadn't heard yay or nay as of yet. Thought I would put the question out there to you more regular authors without having to fill an editor's mailbox. I figure that if I haven't heard anything by Thanksgiving (puts the waiting at about three months since manuscript submission) than I'll drop them a friendly note.

I sent a completed adventure manuscript out to Dungeon at the same time. Sending an email around Thanksgiving to "make sure they got your submission" seems very reasonable. I'll probably do the same.

If it was an adventure proposal, campaign workbook or class act I'd probably let it go longer, but an adventure is just too darn much work to leave to chance. Hope all goes well.

Russ

Guilty. I once worked with a young guy from Sweden who used to run all his errands during work hours. When questioned about it, he said "Work is the only free time I have" as if it should have been obvious.

The game was awesome!!!

Thanks everybody there for making it cool.

Now I'm really sorry I missed this session (except for the ear touching part). Had a previously scheduled Video Games Live with my kids and I didn't notice that you guys were in the Hyatt when we walked back through the atrium (Tim filled me in later).

Maybe next year.

Wow - you're right. These events were in the catalog I downloaded on July 18th, but I just went and got the latest spreadsheet and they're all gone. I wonder if they'll even be in the print catalog at the show?

After it moved to Indy, I was depressed, and have not attended. Has it been good? Is there a replacement for the Safe House? Is it as cool as Milwaukee?

Luke,

I only missed three Gencons while it was in Milwaukee - even went a couple times in the late 70s when it was at UW Parkside. I have to say I like it much better in Indy. I may be biased because I'm from Milwaukee and the move to Indy means we now have hotel rooms to meet in and store our stuff, but it just feels like there is room to breath again! We've never had a problem in Indy finding a place to sit or play a game we just bought. The meeting rooms are big - oversized for most of the seminars, so you can usually just pop in the free ones without registering. The local resturaunts are very welcoming too - some even block off sets of tables just for gaming.

During the last couple years in Milwaukee we couldn't even find a place to sit and play games - we snuck into a basement hallway at the arena, turned on the lights ourselves and pulled a table out of a storage closet. The convention just got too large for the space - I read somewhere that that's why they didn't do any local advertising for the last few years here.

Hey, does anybody have the times of the Paizo seminars handy who could post-i-post em here?

8/11 1400 SEM00182 Writing for Dragon, Hyatt Mt. Rainer

I graduated high school in 1986.

I was just curious: does roleplaying STILL carry that weird misunderstood stigma nowadays?

My son tried to start an RPG and/or D&D club in his public high school and couldn't do it - not acceptable material for a club. So his friends all joined the chess club and played D&D there with miniatures, which I guess looked enough like chess pieces.

I'm a leader in a local Boy Scout troop where some of the boys play D&D on campouts. We have a couple boys in the troop who's parents won't let them play because they think it involves witchcraft or worshipping other gods. I respect the parents' wishes and don't actively encourage those boys to play. I will, however, tell them that I play and answer any questions they ask about the game itself.

Meeting definitely happened. Got two email messages from James yesterday - the first passing on a re-written proposal, then an hour later (just as I was starting to plan my pre-GenCon writing schedule) I got a request for a complete manuscript! Still a long way from here to print though...

I downloaded the latest event listing for GenCon and couldn't find the usual set of Paizo seminars. Will there be "Writing for Dungeon" and "Writing for Dragon" seminars this year? If so, does anyone know when. True Dungeon registration opens in a few days and I want to avoid a conflict.

Thanks.

Lilith,

Matthew is correct about Paizo being the people you should talk to. Since we are writing D&D material and essentially creating "derivative works", the cleanest way to handle the copyright issues seems to be to have us write the material under contract, making it "write for hire," which means Paizo has all the rights and the authors retain none. Some authors may have different arrangements, but this seems to be how the standard contracts are set up.

Russ Brown

Gosh, it's so damn hard to wait...and wait...and bite on my fingernails...and wait...and hope...and still go to bed waiting... for the next meeting.

And the fear of it...

Dryder. Don't bite your fingernails - it's a terrible habit (one I can't shake). Instead, take your mind off of your submitted proposals by writing more proposals, or Campaign Workbooks, or Class Acts, or Ecology queries, etc.

I have a list taped to my computer of how many submissions I want to have in the queue at Paizo. I almost feel bad when I hear back from them too soon, because it clears the queue and puts me behind! Weird, I know. Editors, please pay no attention to that last statement.

I don't have the list handy, but it looks something like this (in priority order)

1) Anything an editor has asked me to submit, or resubmit, including "looks good" responses to queries.
2) A list of 6-8 short Campaign Workbook queries
3) A list of 6-8 short Class Acts queries
4) 1-2 Ecology queries
5) 3-4 Complete Campaign Workbook articles (queried or unsolicited)
6) 2-3 Adventure proposals
7) 2-3 Complete Class Acts articles (queried or unsolicited)

When I finish a submission, I check the list to see what I should be working on next and move on. Right now I'm working on a resubmission of an adventure proposal (#1 - editor asked for it), then I'll start on another adventure proposal because everything up to #6 is filled.

This is what happens when a software engineer takes up writing...

Nice idea Dan... hope you don't mind if I steal it! I'm determined to give Russell Brown a run for his money as king of the Campaign Workbook!

- Ashavan

*blushes*

This does sound like a great Idea, Dan. I'd love to have some tables like these too. I wonder if I'd have a better chance at getting an adventure proposal accepted if I generated it randomly from the tables you and Ashavan come up with.

Judy Dench.

Dragon
Scientific American
Writers Digest (on and off, mostly off lately)
thinking about US News and World Report
semi-regularly purchase Miniature Wargames from UK

Er... I thought Campaign Workbook articles went unacknowledged? I've submitted several without getting any word about them. Should I e-mail one of the editors to make sure they were received?

Campaign Workbook submissions do generally go unacknowledged. It seems Jeremy has a "pile" that he sifts through occassionally, but he doesn't usually do rejections, so an article could sit in the pile for many, many months. I did send him an email once with a list of three or four articles, just to make sure he still had them in his pile, and he did respond.

Just as an aside, I've found that when I email the staff at Paizo with specific questions they respond very quickly.

B.S. Electrical Engineering in 1984 (Estimated D&D GPA Effect -0.3)
M.S. Computer Science in 1988 (Estimated D&D GPA Effect -0.0)

The word style sheet doesn't work in Open Office? I've never tried it, actually. First, Word is on the PC where I do the grand majority of my writing; second, I'm not quite sure how to use the style sheets. :blushes:

I use the style sheets in Open Office, but to do it I created a document in Word with the style sheet, then saved that. I use that document as a template for all my documents in Open Office and it has all the styles.

BTW, I do all my Dungeon submissions in Open Office on Linux (saving everything in Word format), and the editors haven't complained yet. Hopefully they haven't noticed the difference.