Thank you, James. You're a good guy and I know you're dealing with hard stuff at work. Looking forward to gaming in person with you again someday. :)
Ooh, can I ask a question? Is "Explicit Romance" referring to, like, on-screen romantic scenes, or sexual scenes? I'd consider "explicit romance" to be on-screen expressions of love and romantic interest between two characters, whether that's reading love poems, kissing, expressing undying affection, and so on. "Sex" is a separate category from "Romance." (Some people aren't comfortable being in the presence of romantic expression, even if it doesn't involve their character.)
By the way, that consent form is from a PDF called Consent in Gaming, written by me and Shanna Germain. It's free to download at the MCG Shop and DriveThruRPG. It gives a lot of advice about dealing with sensitive topics at the game table and/or making sure certain topics aren't included in the game.
This makes a lot of sense. Congrats! :)
Heya, folks! If you don't know me, I'm Sean K Reynolds, designer on 2E D&D, 3E D&D, 3E Forgotten Realms, in-house developer/designer on Pathfinder and Golarion for six years, and now I'm a developer/designer at Monte Cook Games. MCG is making a book full of advice about playing and running RPGs. It doesn't matter what system you're using, this book is not about game mechanics, it's about the people at the table (or online), ways to be a better player and better GM, and ways to make that awesome remember-it-years-later game experience happen more often. I made a little vid about it, which you can find here. Make note of the different shirts I'm wearing! No matter what RPG is your favorite, no matter whether you're a player or a GM, a newbie or a veteran, you'll learn from this book. If you want to skip the video and get right to the Kickstarter (which only has two hours left), go here. Thanks, and good gaming!
Congrats and good luck on your new plans, James! You're gonna be great. :)
Liz!
I'll be at PaizoCon this year! I'm working on a silly little card game that I'll be kickstarting in July, and I'll be bringing the prototype to the con to playtest/demo it. Where? Wherever we can find some reasonable seating. I haven't tried to put this on the event schedule, (1) because I wasn't sure if the game would be in a workable state by the time the con started, and (2) I'd like to keep my schedule at the con very casual. So once we're closer to the actual con, I'll have figured out what days I'm attending and what times I'll be demoing the game. If you're available at those times, track me down and sit in on a game or two, I'd love to hear your feedback. :)
SKR: 11,072 posts (11,086 including aliases) I've been gone two years and some of you still have a long ways to catch up. ;) Heyooooo!
Yes! I actually joined a carpool about a month ago, which freed up a lot more of my personal time (cutting my commute by about 90 minutes each day). So things with Five Moons is rolling forward again. The playtest document is about 100 pages right now (and the core book is going to be 128 pages, so that's mostly done). Thanks for asking! :)
I'm part of the D&D team, but my focus is... hard to explain at this time. :)
Thanks, Marv. For ISG, I actually only wrote the god entries (which come from the various AP god articles I wrote), the heralds, the servitors, the magic items that appeared in the pre-PF Gods and Magic, and any spells from the AP god articles. So if you liked any of the other stuff in the book, credit goes to the other authors as well. :)
Thanks! :)
I don't know at this time, but if I get news about it I'll be sure to mention it on my Facebook page and Twitter.
Excuse me, friend. It may be a bit boorish, but I had no idea when I would make contact with you, and I was just speaking about you when I saw this thread. You're not being boorish at all. :) What conventions do you think you will be at in the future? I would very much love to buy you a drink and perhaps beg an indulgence. I'll be at PaizoCon 2015 tomorrow (Sunday), and I'll probably be at GenCon 2015 for at least a couple of days.
I certainly don't know what it's like to work for either company, but I would surmise that burnout is a potential issue.His god articles were becoming increasingly stale - just compare the early ones with the more recent. You could tell he was getting bored with them, instead of something inspired they read more like a word-count chore. True, I was getting bored with them... and it didn't help that 69 is a demon lord, 71 is a horseman of the apocalpyse, 77 is a demon lord, and 78 is a demon lord, all of which are very similar in their philosophy of "we accept worship from anyone, without any restrictions on what you can do with your power, so long as you are evil evil evil." (Adam could tell I was getting tired of the repetition.) But Brigh and Zyphus were definitely fun to write. :)
Relevant story: When I started at TSR, Jeff Grubb and Roger Moore were both there, and they had both worked on 1E AD&D stuff. Most of the rest of the staff started in the 2E days, and I hadn't played much 2E, so I didn't know them. But when I met Jeff, I was agog and said, "Holy crap, you're Jeff Grubb!!!" And when I met Rogue, I was likewise agog and said, "Holy crap, you're Roger Moore!!!" Eventually I got over it, but for this then-24-year old, it was a pretty awesome day. :) Anyway, looking forward to the voting results tomorrow. Good luck, everyone!!! :)
And that's why there's this:
and this
and this
It's never explicitly called out in the rules, but teamwork feats are actually a stealthy way of giving more options specifically to the cavalier, hunter, and inquisitor classes, which are three classes that can automatically grant teamwork feats to allies or can operate as if their allies had the teamwork feat. If it's hard for other classes to get those feats, well, not everything can be equally easy for every class, and the main point is to make those feats easily accessible to the cavalier, hunter, and inquisitor by marking them as teamwork feats. I agree that Combat Expertise's Int 13 prerequisite is pretty harsh, and that having Combat Expertise as a prerequisite is also pretty harsh. But you really shouldn't complain about being "double charged" for a teamwork feat, as teamwork feats are primarily intended for the three classes that can bypass or override the "doubled" cost of the feat (i.e., requiring someone else in your group to have the feat for you to be able to use it).
Correct. I wasn't there for last week's decision, I have no unrevealed information about it, and I won't speculate about it. But I like cake.
Honestly. I'd be happy if they actually gave us the reason it was change.My guess is it was something a previous dev member pushed to do and now he is gone no one is defending SLA counting as pre reqs. No. All three of us thought it was an interesting idea.
This is looking good. I think we did a good job with this book. Kudos to my former teammates. :)
Folks, I put together a long advice PDF about monster design, you can get it here, if you think my advice is worth anything. Hopefully you'll find it useful whether you're writing for RPG Superstar, for Adam, for a third-party publisher, or for your own campaign. :) And now... I sleep. :)
Be that as it may, it's still certainly possible for said players to feel as though the option has become bad or undesirable, leading to frustration and causing said players to wonder why the design team chose to balance that option accordingly. Oh, I'm not defending the warpriest design at all. I had very little to do with it, much of what I did was a temporary fix to get it ready for the playtest, and probably much of my temporary text was replaced after the playtest, or even after I left Paizo. I honestly haven't even read the final version of the class because I was more interested in the final versions of the four classes I did write (which basically didn't change at all). I have given zero though to evaluating the final version of the warpriest. My point is, there is a difference between stating a complaint, and blowing something out of proportion. "I feel that this is yet another thing that makes the warpriest a weak class" is a complaint. "The devs hate the warpriest and it's clear they always have" is blowing something out of proportion.
Me? I'm not a dev any more. And I'm clearly so dumb that I'll spend my own free time refuting false statements about a class I didn't work on. I also have a long history (during- and post-Paizo) of trying to explain to people that how they say something is just as important as what they're saying, because the Paizo staff are people, and they have a choice about what threads they reply to, or if they reply to any at all. I get that you're unhappy with the class. I have no horse in this race—I didn't write the class, I don't work for Paizo anymore, and I don't know you... but I'm still trying to help you, so maybe you should believe me when I say that the devs don't hate the warpriest? Anyway, the point is: the devs don't hate any of the classes. If they did, we would have left them out of the book and included other material instead. Suggesting otherwise is just... silly.
Indeed, unfortunately that sort of kills my character for our home game =/ since I was a reach WP. Unfortunately the design/devs hate the WP. It's been pretty clear since play tests so this is of no shock to me. I think you need to take a step back and look again at what you're saying. Because what you're saying is,
And I say that as a designer who had very little to do with the warpriest design (as I had finished the playtest drafts of my four classes, Jason had me round out some of the warpriest domain-like abilities for the playtest so he could finish up the other two classes he was working on). I certainly don't hate the warpriest. I don't even dislike it. And I certainly didn't go out of my way to try to make it bad or undesirable for players. So it's silly to say "the devs hate this."
If you're looking for pro tips about magic item design and a pro review of your magic item, this blog post by me might be of interest to you.
Good luck to everyone! Congrats to those who make it into the Top 32! And for those of you who don't make it into the Top 32, this might be of interest to you. 1 hour and 47 minutes to go!
sorry, prev post deleted, self-censoring
But what if I have no idea what is bothering someone? If the GM says we open a door to a room where a vampire sits by the fire, with a viper on his shoulders and a dark wolf with red eyes and a glass of blood in his hand, and then someone shows me an X-card, how the hell am I supposed to know what is troubling that person? Is it the blood? The fire? The viper? The wolf? A combination of these? Should the GM throw the whole scene out? From the X-Card rules: Ta da. (And why would someone allergic to peanuts care if someone else eats peanut butter? Does the smell of peanuts cause some sort of allergic reaction? Honest question here. I never met anyone who is allergic to peanuts... Or at least, the subject never came up) Although they've recently determined that this specific risk has been exaggerated, peanut allergies can be serious enough (especially in children) that airborne particles (such as on your breath) or secondary skin exposure (like you get peanut oil on your hand, then you touch the battlemap, and the allergic person touches the battlemap) can trigger a dangerous allergic reaction.
As it turns out, if your group
then you have the option to leave the game. Because in a social game where the point is to get together and have fun, you're supposed to be accommodating to others' needs. If someone at the table is allergic to peanuts, you don't bring a peanut butter sandwitch and say, "if you have a problem with this, deal with it, or justify to me why it's a problem." They don't have to explain, "if you eat peanuts, you'll kill me," it should be enough to say, "please don't eat that around me." If someone at the table has asthma, you don't smoke at the table and say, "if you have a problem with this, deal with it, or justify to me why it's a problem." They don't have to explain, "if you smoke around me, I'll have an asthma attack," it should be enough to say, "please don't smoke around me." If someone at the table is a rape survivor, you don't make rape jokes or make rape an element of the campaign, and say "if you have a problem with this, deal with it, or justify to me why it's a problem." They don't have to explain, "I was raped, and you treating it so casually is making me have a panic attack," it should be enough to say, "please don't bring up that subject." They don't have to tell you why. You don't deserve an explanation. You don't need an explanation. It should be enough that if you're in a social situation and someone asks you not to do something, you don't do it. Because we're supposed to treat each other decently. Show some courtesy. You already know to not crap your pants at the game table.
And if you aren't enough of a decent human being to do that, maybe you could "roleplay" a version of yourself who is just like you, except who is a decent human being.
From the "making your gaming group more safe and comfortable for women gamers" department, here is a relevant blog I wrote a while back.
Actually, that's not a theory--the 3E designers deliberately used "+5 on an ability score = twice as good" as a concept when working on the game.
Any chance of Errata to fix this? The archetype is interesting, and even as it is now I could see having some fun with a Geisha/Sound Striker Bard. For there to be errata, you'd have to convince the responsible someone that the duration should be longer than 10 minutes.
Geisha's inspire ability was originally supposed to last longer (an hour, I think), but someone else felt that was too long and reduced it to 10 minutes. Which makes the ability kinda pointless, honestly.
I feel like this voting system is trying to judge exactly how much I hate certain items. For every "eh" item I get to vote on, I'm voting on at least a dozen terrible ones. Remember that you're helping decide the Top 32, and even if there are only 320 entries this year (and there have been far more than that in previous competitions), that means that 90% of what you're looking at isn't Top 32 material.
It wasn't my square, or my ruling. It's how Jason thought it should work, in the text that he wrote for the Core Rulebook. When this question came up in the FAQ queue, I pointed out the problem to Jason (heck, it was a diagram on the marker board on my office wall for months), he acknowledged it wasn't clear over two years ago, but nothing got done about it until now. Please stop attributing to me every ruling or answer you (generic "you") don't like. (Which, mind you, is one of the reasons why I stopped being the point man for FAQs for about five months. And during that interregnum, there were only a handful of new FAQs posted, because nobody else made FAQs a priority like I did. And then I was ordered to be the point man for FAQs again, despite me not wanting to, and despite being told "you get into too many arguments on the boards.")
Okay, as long as you understand that your anecdotal experience is merely an impression based on your overall memory of hundreds of dice rolls of various dice, not statistical data that can be analyzed. So far... no actual evidence that the positioning of the numbers has any effect on the die's probability. (Note that if 20-opposite-1 on a d20 is the "balanced" way to distribute the numbers, the die should actually be more likely to roll a 20 than a 1, because the 20-face has more material carved out of it than the 1-face does, which means the 1-face is heavier, which means the 1-face should tend to end up on the bottom of the die, which means the 20-face should end up on top more.) (Note that this also means that variations in the font used on a die, such as serif or sanserif, should have an impact on its probability as well.) (As would whether or not you mark the bottom of a 6 or a 9 with a dot or an underline.) (As would heavily-decorated dice like these ones.) (As would whether the numbers were inked, painted, or colored in with a crayon, all of which would have different weight contributions to the die.) (And note that I don't think any of these things really play a significant part in the bias of a die.) (And I'm a guy who wrote a program in the 1980s to use the chi-square method to test whether or not a die is biased...) (In other words, I think you have bigger things to worry about than questions like, "does the relative positioning of the faces on my dice mean I'm rolling lower overall?" Your character's hair color has about as much impact on your dice rolls. :p)
Any have any actual stats on whether or not the arrangement of the tiny, shallow numbers (not pips) on modern polyhedral plastic dice have any significant impact on the randomness of the die? Or is that just a precedent decided by on person at a dice company 40 years ago? (Story: Mom makes a pot roast. Her kid asks her why she cuts a tiny bit off one end of it before she puts it in the pot. Mom says she learned that from her mother. Mom goes to grandma and asks her about it, grandma says she learned that from HER mother. They call up great-grandma and ask her about it, and she says, "oh, the pot I had was too small to fit the entire roast, so I'd cut a little bit off the end to make it fit.")
Now someone can actually submit the Sword of Hitler to the contest. Nope, that item © Sean K Reynolds. :)
Animal creature type entry in the Bestiary:
It's not restricted to "had to be an animal from present or past Earth."
The kickstarter campaign is done, we're funded at $36,000. Thank you to everyone who made this project possible. :)
Just to be clear, I'm not trying to justify why Andoran soldiers wear that (if they actually do), or what's written in Ultimate Equipment (I didn't write or develop the armor section), I just wanted to explain that the original text did explain the visually-memorable Andoren armor as parade armor.
So... The Andoran militia wear parade armor, while most other militia wear studded leather armor (or the equivalent). What's the problem? Just so you know: 1) Parade armor first appeared in the Golarion-setting book Adventurer's Armory.
So the "item's description doesn't match what's in the art" argument doesn't apply.
I've been posting a lot of stuff on the Five Moons RPG blog over the past couple of weeks, including: * a different way of handling critical hits
Well, there's this option, written by the primary author of the Beginner Box... >:)
Congratulations, Nick! :)
|
