Scott Young's page

Thanks, Tim, and Liz before you, for providing such service to the Paizo community. So many authors, artists, and Paizo staffers cut their teeth in Wayfinder. I know I wouldn't have thought writing was something I wanted to do if I didn't have the experience of working with Wayfinder. You changed my life, and I'll be forever grateful. And while Pathfinder Infinite is the "heir apparent" in some ways, Wayfinder was the best.

Thanks, Tim, for everything.

Best of luck to everyone that enters!

And, if you're on the fence about it: definitely enter. Just crank something out and see what happens. You'll discover if you love creating when there are timelines and guidelines and external feedback in place - a big part of freelancing.

(Although I have to say, in my experience the guidelines and feedback Paizo staff provide are so awesome they inspire creativity instead of limiting it.)

DO IT.

What an amazing team to carry Golarion's story into the future!

Patrick Renie is a wonderful developer and a great person. It's so nice to see him featured like this, the developers can sometimes be the unsung heroes of the content that comes out on a regular basis. His name should probably be on the front covers of a lot of the products he's worked on alongside the authors.

If this is the new style of community management, I'm very disappointed. Paizo earned my loyalty for the past decade because it wasn't like this. Setting up layers of insulation to protect oneself from harsh comments is hiding; fixing the behaviors that generate harsh comments is leadership.

Thanks Alex - happy new year to you and the team!

I am beyond excited for Starfinder Bounties! As a person who GMs in a 3.5 hour slot because of her venue, short adventures are so very welcome!

Ditto - I love shorter time slot content, sometimes by necessity but also because introducing the game to new folks seems to me to work better in smaller chunks. Very excited!

TOZ's "Huzzah!" (and the folks who post it on the rare times TOZ isn't the first poster) reminds me that on this forum there are people who love the same games I do. Very little else does that lately. (OK, most of Hilary's threads, too.) I like seeing it. I think the "+1" to ideas or opinions throughout are a repeat of favoriting posts, so they are duplicitous. SO, that's the difference in my mind.

Unfortunately, this announcement doesn't give me a lot of confidence that Paizo is planning to improve - just move on and hope people forget.

This should have been written by Mr. Alvarez, on behalf of Paizo, to us, Paizo's fans and customers. Instead, we got a lawyer's letter with a short quote from the President. For all the deficiencies in the first response, at least it was from Paizo. This approach appears to signal the digging in of heels and the building of walls by a legal team, not a promise to do better by a leadership team.

I love Paizo, and its products, and many of the people that work there and with them. Paizo has changed my life in so many positive ways. So to see this behavior, and to see Paizo leadership double down time and again in such a short time... it's disappointing. I feel I'm losing a friend who's decided to engage in destructive behavior and all I can do is watch and suffer for it, or shut them out.

There are a lot of people on this thread (most I would suggest) who are saying (...)

A lot of your statements are built on assumptions that aren't true. As an example: as a freelancer, I've NEVER been paid in advance before turning over work, in TTRPGs or any other form of writing. So Paizo hasn't "lost" any costs if they decided to start everything from scratch.

Similarly, the existence of a union doesn't increase the risk of Paizo failing, AT ALL. Even with a union, Paizo leadership can still drive off a cliff. They just can't do it as easily on the backs of the creative and front-line staff.

If Paizo can only "succeed" by overworking their employees or engaging in other behaviors that a union would object to, then they're not really succeeding now, are they?

EDIT: Swapped avatars since I don't like talking real stuff from behind an alias.

Thank you, Nicole, for bringing actual facts and current information to the discussion, something that has been sorely lacking in many of the most vocal peoples' posts.

Paizo staff know what they need; you (we) do not. If you don't know about something, just please be quiet because you're not helping. If you just want to look smart there are dozens of other threads you can do that in.

Wow, another Winnipegger hired by Paizo! Might as well just move the offices here...

Congrats Jessica, and yay Starfinder OP because Jessica is about the only person I could think of who is as amazing as Jenny.

I hope to have a couple submissions finished in time... it's a busy time for self-produced content this month!

...<redacted to avoid repeating something untrue>...

Excellent, this has been solved! Please present the evidence you have uncovered that clears up this issue. Gotta say, usually I don't trust an anonymous account over a bunch of people that I've gamed with in person, but something about your confidence just convinces me.

Huzzah! Great piece, Jenny!

Beautiful, Mike... thanks for sharing this.

Erik Mona offered to write some stuff for this issue on Facebook... so if you get in, your name will be in the same credit list.

Can't wait!

A question for those who gave run this: how does the investigation section go without any maps of the crime scene? (I'm assuming people are running mostly online.) I'm prepping for PaizoCon and toying with making a map for the cottage, as soon as I get the next deadline done with...

Favorite recent moment would be in writing (and later running) 2-01 Citadel of Corruption, when PCs come face-to-face with a pair of masked Decemvirate members, and the jaw-drop that happens later in the scenario.

Favorite gaming moment was also at PaizoCon, during Bonekeep. My dhampir archer went into those terrible halls with a group of lower-level PCs. Predictably, a retreat was called very early, although no one seemed to want to be the one to first abandon their comrades. Gerard Dessedeux fell early, and a gnome druid (whose name I've forgotten) had her goat familiar drag me out, unconscious and bleeding out. I managed to stabilize due only to my Numerological Gift, which was fortuitous, since no one else made it out. Just me and the goat.

Gerard was to be my first all-martial PC, but that day he dipped into Beast-Bonded witch so he could take the goat, Tertius, as a familiar. So now he's an arcane archer. Not at all according to plan, but you just can't let a story like that not shape the character.

Hi folks, looking forward to seeing what people make of this one. Here are some author answers to the questions I can shed some light on:

Twilight Knight: I was also surprised the last reward wasn't on the Chronicle - although because of the way treasure allocation is handled, most such items are already within the reach of the PC who gets the Chronicle. The map flipping was intentional for at least one of the encounters to match the directions to various things in the scenario. GMs don't have to flip the map in a VTT, though, just put the creatures in the right spot and you're good to go.

andreww: Glad you liked it! I've run it twice so far (beyond playtesting) and yes, it can run long if you don't rein in your investigative PCs. I feel better cutting a long combat short, though, than rushing the investigation. YYMV. I'm not sure what happened with the DC to influence R., but I'd leave it as is since an extra +2 won't make much of a difference for the higher subtier anyway.

The.Vortex: Yes, the foliage should be considered shallow bogs in all the encounters. And yes, the low-teir leaded skeletons had their weapon changed from a sword to a hammer in development, but one reference to slashing got through. Change the damage type to bludgeoning to match the weapon.

LeftHandShake: Hmm, the range increment was supposed to be 20 feet. They are on the high side, for sure. Remember they are mindless and aren't smart enough to gang up on a single target - spreading the damage around helps keep PCs alive. Also, the coach and horses are valid targets if you really need an excuse to not kill someone.

Yay, adding Mike Kimmel to the OP team is great news! Congratulations Mike!

On a Critical failure, a PC gets erroneous information.

That can rapidly compound with low rolls for other things, like combat.

If someone is inexperienced and uneducated in a subject, maybe they shouldn't be telling others how to deal with it in the first place.

PF1 encouraged crit-fishing if you had a single rank, whereas PF2 handles things more realistically in that people with no experience rf education are more likely to mix up fact and fiction.

(Although... Recall Knowledge is still a very limited system. In home games you can houserule previous experience, background, local knowledge, and other things, but in Society play people are loathe to do so.)

Unfortunately, most GMs I've seen don't use secret rolls and so the whole thing has little effect.

(TBH, now that we have the Pathfinder training modeled, "schooled" Pathfinder PCs should just auto-identify the base creature type for anything of their level and under, to model the years of training they took. Ideally, there would be a "5 things everyone knows about <MONSTER> like there used to be in the old "<MONSTER>s of Golarion" setting book, so that most people could still know something from their education.)

Quote:

if the combatant did not move at least half their speed on their turn and is not engaged in melee combat, a laser fires at them...

Is written as an AND gate... thus requiring both be true for the conditional to be true...

Lau has the intention correct. If players don't move AND are not in melee, then they are making boring holovid content and get shot. If they move at least half speed, OR they are in melee, they are interesting enough for the cameras and don't get shot.

There's some great tips in here - very helpful thread. Thanks y'all!

Very Important Question: why does the Zo! Crew member in the picture have a box of hands? Are...are those real? Are they prosthetics? Are they, like, snacks for undead members of the audience, or, aha, stage hands, or..?

Zo! productions take advantage of the undead crew not needing to eat or sleep to survive. Given this, many of the crew bring along snacks to make sure their hunger doesn't make them get too shaky on the camera drone controls...

I got to play this recently, and the GM did make up their own dignitary. It went really well, although that was an amazing GM who had run the scenario a whole bunch of times already.

If you know all the players and know they'll "get" the joke, it might work, although I would avoid using a complete clone of someone from another universe, personally.

Exciting news for everyone!

I think this level of detail is best handled the way the OP has handled it: looking at the areas, determining which ones may/should react, and adjusting to make sure PCs aren't overwhelmed.

The great thing about Adventure Paths is, they're your game. Some player groups may enjoy the fight-rest-repeat dynamic, so they are usually at their best when fighting. Other groups like the gritty survival of always being harassed while trying to rest up, and going into the boss fight with a real chance of death. You can alter the AP to match your group, but Paizo can't create the AP to cater to your group because they have thousands of other groups to cater to as well.

That's part of the effort (and joy!) of GMing a Paizo AP. A lot of the heavy lifting is done, but I always go in and tweak things, either based on player preferences, my preferences, or how leveling goes.

(As an example: I recently gamed out a WW1 trench raid at the individual soldier level. 75% casualties. Realistic, with lots of realistic enemy reactions to player actions, but probably not fun if you only got to play one of those poor folks who died leaving their own trench in the first turn. Games have to be fun for the players and GM or they're not really games.)

This is a great resource and the kind of shared experience that helps small communities grow into larger ones. Painlord would be proud.

I see the author has decided to write himself into the scenario! Cunning, Lamplighter, cunning.

Caught that, hey? But believe it or not, I am not the originator of SFS Lamplighter - that showed up in an earlier scenario, and so I figured she was fair game.

On the Robo-rexes, they were supposed to have the extra reach, but it looks like it didn't carry through both subtiers. There is an inconsistancy with listed size versus Space, and since changing Space can have major issues with combat I elected to give them extended reach instead. (Although, on this particular map is probably isn't much of an issue.)

The complement inconsistency is a straight-up error on my part. The numbers are balanced assuming the crew that is listed, though, so I wouldn't add any extra folks.

So sorry to hear this news. My condolences to the family and your community as well.

Ah, Nigel... your incompetence at keeping the museum safe would be endearing if it weren't so terribly dangerous...

Thanks, Race, for summarizing this from the various Con discords!

That seems more punative than I'd expect.

That's valid. I think originally some of the areas took more or less time to explore, and so you could do it all in one day without running into fatigue. I guess I didn't check the math when I simplified the time tracking.

There is a time limit, but it's not at the tactical level of a single party's exploration. There are teams exploring areas on all sides of the PCs' assigned sector, and depending on what they find there may be additional forces required or some sectors might be delayed. The Ten want the place explored, mapped, and cleared asap so they can select the location for the new Lodge.

The "kids these days" comment was for parties who choose to have one fight and then go back to rest, since there isn't an explicit "ticking clock" mechanic.

OP: If you still need 1-04, I'll run it for you via Roll20.

Was VERY happy to see Zarta back in some official capacity - was hard to keep it to myself! I have a Seeker whose entire raison d'etre is to have her executed for treason, it'd be a shame to lose my motivation! ;)

Another author as well as GM and event coordinator chiming in... I want to echo Kate that they're not designed to be punitive at all, but to provide for a wide range of play styles and speeds of play in the campaign.

As an event coordinator and GM, I recognize that some groups will have to cut something to finish on time, either because of external factors (like the slot is ending) or internal factors (like you have new players, complex classes, or whatever). Not every group can match the event slot deadlines.

As an author, I'd rather be able to influence the choice of what gets cut, rather than leave it up to the GM. With no guidance, it's the ending that is most often left untold, and that's usually the best (or at least most important) part.

I think optional encounters are a necessary evil for the PFS format. As an author I could consider different ways to address them, to deal with some of the concerns expressed above.

...confirm for Painlord that I know Scott Young (his Scott Young), ...

This is important, we come in bulk nowadays and you have to be on the lookout for cheap knockoffs.

Nice to be missed, but hard to miss this event. SkalCon is my next out-of-Canada con, so you should all come to that!

Hi folks, I saw there wasn't a thread for this scenario... hopefully it's because it's just so well-written that there's no need for any additional questions! :) But it could also be because it's so free-form that it's too confusing, or that no one is running it. I know I learn a lot as an author from reading all the GM threads on my own (and other peoples') scenarios, so I figured I'd start this up and ask a few questions for my own edumacation.

So, do people find they are selecting various traits that fit the existing NPCs, or rolling randomly? Obviously each option fits a given NPC better than others - are there enough NPCs to make this re-playable without feeling repetitive? Additional encounter locations would have been nice, I'm sure, but hopefully there's enough variation within the personalities that even a repeated encounter should feel new.

Is there anything in the situations that strain credulity too much, or just doesn't flow at the table? This is the first full-on repeatable I've worked on, so anything people can share about how it's working or not would be appreciated.

Vis the poison; after the warnings our party cleric stocked up on Delay Poison. The party stopped about 5 minutes out from the site and the cleric cast them all, including an extra from a pearl of power. While this didn't cover the whole group, it covered most of them. Even clingy, the poison didn't last 1 hour/level...

Nice way to handle this! A prepared party can basically avoid the threat. (I like parties who prepare. :)

I had a blast writing this one... so many NPCs!

Watching now - kids are finally asleep!

Any notes on the art featured with the blog? I *think* I can identify one of them...

Here is where the out-of-game stuff goes. please keep all comments in the game thread as in-character game play stuff. Thanks!

This game is a part of Outpost II, and so you can sign up here.

Hi folks! I'll be running my scenario Death on the Ice as part of the Outpost II play-by-post convention! I'm not taking sign-ups here, all of that is through the event which you can find here.

Players who are signed up, go ahead and dot in while I get everything organized.

Yeah, that's one of the common feedback issues I get on this one. I wanted to invoke the different culture of the Erutaki, and one of the simplest ways to do that is with names.

If it helps, here's how I pronounced the various names:

Aaminiut - "Ah-ah-MIN-ee-oot"
Ulumamuktu - "Oo-loo-ma-Mook-too"
Aanemurran - "Aye-na-MOOR-in"
Pilungak - "Pee-LUN-gak"
Tikasak - TEEK-a-sak
Malu Aninuk - "ma-LOO ah-NIN-ook"
Qallupiluk - "KAA-loo-PEE-look"

Also, I've starting Freudian slipping, calling this one "Death UNDER the Ice" since that's the place where most of the near-deaths have occurred.

For me, I like to make 3D terrain either for very special scenarios (like Eyes of the Ten, or ones written by friends of mine) or ones I know I will run a lot of (so, replayables or ones that are just SO good).

I made the Pathfinder Lodge flip map as 3d terrain for eyes of the Ten, using WorldWorks Games' paper craft (as well as all the other major encounters in Eyes, since it was meant to eb a "capstone" back at the time).

The sanctioned portion of Mummy's Mask #1, The Half-Dead City by Jim Groves, is a level 1-2 replayable that fits nicely in a Con and has a nice mix of exploration and combat for new Pathfinders, so I used Hirst Arts' Egyptian molds to make that in 3D - it's a showpiece and attracts a lot of attention from the walkby crowd (to me, that's part of the reason for using 3D terrain, to attract new gamers at events).

Anything with multiple levels or sightline obstacles really benefits from 3D terrain, even scatter terrain, so players can easily see what they can see and what they can't. I have pillars, rubble, and just some big rocks in my GM case for this sort of stuff as well.

If your players haven't done it yet, The Quest for Perfection series (3-09-11-13) benefits from 3D terrain immensely. The first one has lots of multi-level combats and the Monastery flip map (which looks awesome in 3D!); the second one has boats, and the third one has a village and a bunch of peasants fighting off invaders. I think this is probably my favorite series for 3D terrain, and I've built the whole thing.

Best of luck!

Hi Darrell,

No, they're not meant to be evil... I just forgot to change it in the mini stat block. The Erutaki villagers are probably LN on average, with some variation like any population would have.

Honoured to have “Death on the Ice” called out here.. Michael Sayre did a great job putting this together. I have to say, the original pitch from John Compton was inspiring - the idea of an anthropological expedition gone terribly wrong due to translation was amazing, and made me wonder if this is the sort of thing that ever happened in real-world work in his pre-Paizo life. It also got me thinking about Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes (“Shaka, when the wall fell”) in the context of Pathfinder, which led me to become a late adopter of Starfinder... it all links together.

Which reminds me, deadline in three days on the next project! Happy orbital cycle to all, and I can’t wait to see what 4719 will bring!