Steve Geddes's page

(You are allowed to post external links) I would suggest sending screenshots via email though.

I would email customer.service@paizo.com as you may get the funds released quicker if paizo request they be released than if you do.

Its probably this.

I agree its a glitch that needs nailing down (maybe an internal ban on placing identical orders within the same day or something) but its likely that they havent charged you, theyve put a hold on the funds (much like hotels or car rental companies sometimes do on checkin).

Unfortunately, many banks online reports dont distinguish between holds and charges.

It is a longrunning issue - I hope the website revamp is still going ahead and the storefront gets some TLC.

Steve Geddes wrote:

Previously, I commissioned a PF1 adventure set in Golarion which I gave to some people essentially distributing it under the CUP.

Am I understanding correctly that I now couldn’t do that? If I got a module written for me and wanted to give it away, I’d have to not use a license and take the risk?

This is an issue of what qualifies as personal use and what's publishing. If you're having something written, even commissioning it for a fee, and are then distributing it to a handful of friends as a gift, that's personal use, similar to if you wrote up the game notes for your campaign and shared them with your gaming group.

If you commissioned the same adventure and then put it behind your Patreon paywall or made it available for anyone who came to SteveGeddes.com, that's publishing, and you'd need to use the appropriate license. In the latter case, you'd just need to make sure it was hosted not on SteveGeddes.com, but on Pathfinder Infinite.

Thanks, mark.

It felt like I published it (albeit for ten or so people!) but on that understanding, it’s fine.
Cheers

Previously, I commissioned a PF1 adventure set in Golarion which I gave to some people essentially distributing it under the CUP.

Am I understanding correctly that I now couldn’t do that? If I got a module written for me and wanted to give it away, I’d have to not use a license and take the risk?

What does this mean? Will all the pages be there? Is it just a bit of wear & tear or are we talking huge rips and/or somebody dumped their coffee on it?

I’ve bought many non mint items over the years and they have very high standards. Some I couldn’t even tell what the problem was.

I definitely recommend grabbing them - I filled out some gaps that way and it’s sometimes both out of print books and cheaper than originally priced.

Gary exemplified so much that I love about Paizo, its culture and its people. I only got to chat to him directly a few times, but he always had such wit and such insight. He was a key player in creating Paizo’s community and in nurturing it and enabling us to grow. His passing is very sad, but his life was one of those that inspires one to live better. Thank you, Gary for all that you did and the way that you did it. <3

It’s true but “at the same time” covers a shipping window of a week or more.
That, coupled with the varying shipping speeds people may choose and the differences between transit times to different regions, means arrivals of subscriber products are spread out over a good month or more.

It can also mean that you get your product after streetdate (when you could buy it at a store) so “as soon as possible” Is a statistical thing, not necessarily true for every single month.

Overall, subscribing is the best method if you want everything as soon as possible. Picking it up from other retailers can get it to you earlier in some cases but you won’t be able to pick which situations.

If I were to tweak it, I’d suggest subscribing November through April (and possibly June/July as well). That would be my guess as to how to genuinely maximise your chances of getting every product as early as possible.

That kind of micromanaging is a bit of a pain in the neck, imo. Plus those odd times that things sell out super fast - I’d rather be a subscriber than gamble my retail outlet is going to have stock for me.

It's not pointless, but it may not be profitable.

If you get joy from the creative endeavour itself then that's a worthy point to it. If the people who play it enjoy it then that's another. Realistically, its unlikely a homebrewed system is going to become The Next Big Thing, but if you're not dreaming of commercial success that doesn't really matter.

There are so many games out there (particularly indie, small press games) that the chance of a robust system being truly, totally unique is vanishingly small. It's (nearly) all been done before - but the fresh combinations, perspectives and presentations of new games still has value. Don't be discouraged or feel guilty about similarities - it doesn't lessen the achievement of making a game that people enjoy.

They were trialling a support portal a few years back (a couple of my tickets were run through there as a test).

Maybe they left the website up even if it never got formally rolled out?

I'll also float one additional model that we haven't seen yet: supporting multiple time periods of the same setting as sub-settings unto themselves.

Star Wars is the poster child for this: each film trilogy and the gaps between them are treated as distinct sandboxes, while the old Expanded Universe and current High Republic era explore bits of the timeline the films never touched. I'm also an enormous Gundam fan, where the One-Year War (of 0079) is continuously getting further-fleshed out even as later works have pushed as far as 130 years ahead - and Gundam also has separate, unconnected universes that riff on the same core thematic palette!

Both franchises are big influences on me, which I think shines through in my tabletop gaming; I recently wrapped three years of interlinked tabletop campaigns, spanning six distinct time periods across ~500 in-game years.

Iron Crown Enterprises did that with Middle Earth, from memory. You could adventure pre-lord of the rings or post. Like Star Wars, the various ages of middle earth are all pretty distinct in tone and threat.

Fwiw, I think the frozen-in-time method is more approachable for a latecomer DM. Part of the reason the Forgotten Realms is so impenetrable, imo, is that you pick up a book and have to deduce where it sits alongside other setting books. It’s easy to have two sourcebooks discussing the same region which disagree on fundamentals.

A similar issue no doubt exists for people coming to Golarion now who may find themselves with both PF1 and PF2 sourcebooks (presumably the remastering will only add another barrier to building setting knowledge as well).

It's time for one of my favorite monthly blogs - talking about the wonderful work of our Infinite creators!

Hi Rue.

I'm not sure if it's a good idea or a bad one, but I personally would appreciate it if you could cite the authors as well in your blogs highlighting products.

As I say, totally understand if that's a bad idea for "reasons" but if not, it probably wouldn't waste too many pixels (?)

Cheers

I've had a tough time in the tabletop gaming community. Despite my interest in Pathfinder and attending events like Gen-Con, I've faced rejection when trying to join private campaigns. Even when I offered to run games, I struggled with self-doubt. It became clear that certain groups at my local game shop weren't inclusive, and witnessing another player being mistreated was disheartening. I've stopped going to the shop altogether, and it's made me question whether I want to continue with RPGs. It's frustrating that my only local option has left me feeling excluded.

I can sympathise with that. I’m also struggling with finding a place in the rpg world, atm. And in that situation it’s easy to feel that it’s your own failings, rather than the community.

Online gaming has its own inclusion problem, but if you can find your way through that, there may well be the perfect group for you out there in the internet somewhere.

It’s useful feedback for the community team, if anyone feels like letting them know.

The “shipping is now complete. If you haven’t received a shipping email, please email customer service” message at conclusion of the subscription run solved a lot of angst and grar, back when it was implemented.

I don’t like Reign or Winter or Strength of Thousands.

So we have different tastes. :p

Glass Cannon gang are likely a factor there.

Has Troy ever explained why he chose Giantslayer over all the other APs that were out at that time?

I believe they’ve said that 1, it was new and 2, skid had nostalgia for the G1-3 modules.

But there are aspects which can be examined with some degree of objectivity. These would include:

- Story structure: Is the story presented in a cohesive manner? Are antagonists introduced and written in a way which makes them interesting? Do the player characters even encounter the BBEG in some way before finally confronting her/him in the final encounter (Carrion Crown, as written, was so dismal on that aspect that the writers themselves had to put in a foreword for the sixth module that the GM's probably should have the BBEG appear a bit earlier in the AP as a cameo).

- Subsystems: Paizo loves their subsystems. Only that many of them don't work (Caravan system from Jade Regent) or are terribly unbalanced (original kingdom rules from Kingmaker 1E). Encountering one which actually is not terrible (like the rebellion rules in Hell's Rebels, which are just a bit boring, but functional) is always a big plus.

- Encounter balance: Are the encounters in the AP a challenge without being a TPK trap? Can this balance be maintained throughout the AP or do high-level encounters turn into rocket tag? The latter issue has largely been resolved with 2E (one of its biggest selling points for me), while the former seems to have been evened out as well from the bumpy beginnings of 2E.

You seek find this interesting. I agree with you in that I think this is what people are meaning when they ask which is best. But even these are not really objective, I think.

Subsystems (for example) are irrelevant to me in terms of whether I think it’s a “good” AP. Those that work for our group, I use and those that don’t I just narrate, handwave or switch to a tactical solution. What matters for me is the story and I regard the resolution process encapsulated within subsystems as suggestions, at best.

I’m even reluctant to include story structure, merely because some of the APs that read well have left my group bored. Whereas some that I thought were going to be lame are still talked about years later.

I’ve also seen so many debates with people screaming at one another about what constitutes “good” game design, no matter how diametrically opposed their views. It’s an uncomfortable view for me because I’m basically an objectivist wrt just about everything.

Best AP is such a weird concept. Does it mean the one you personally enjoyed the most? Or is it something academic - measuring each against some platonic, ideal AP? Serpent’s Skull is widely regarded as a poor AP, but it was one of the ones that played the best at our table. Does that mean I should rate it as good or bad?

Abomination Vaults and Strength of Thousands easily rank alongside RotRL and CotCT, and are just behind the best Paizo AP ever, Reign of Winter.

Well you can’t be right all the time, I guess.

He's pretty great!

On another forum, there are two or three people I've "ignored", one at his request. The software doesn't show me what they post, but it does show me that they have posted, and gives me the option to see what they said if I want. Seems like a good approach to me.

Different strokes and all that, but for me even seeing the name of people I'm trying to ignore is enough to drive me away from online spaces. (Granted I have a pretty high tolerance before I get to the level of wanting to ignore someone, so have only done that twice in my online life).

I'd personally be in favor of a more complete ignore function (if it were possible).

I can choose not to engage them, and I do, but I shouldn't have to deal with the mental stress of seeing messages directed toward harassing me at all. Nor should it be my job to keep alerting Paizo via flagging.

As usual, there is a load of great insight in DQ’s post. I think this quoted part is definitely something which may not be immediately obvious on the other side of the moderation dynamic.

“Flag and move on” is excellent advice as far as what we should do. But that in itself isn’t “the flag system working” - the visible moderator follow up is important.

Congrats to all of the staff that are hard at work making things happen behind the scenes (please stay hydrated warehouse crew!). I look forward to seeing the long-fought for changes from past and present Paizo employees come to fruition, and I hope that those that make it happen are recognized for their efforts.

It’s hard not to dwell on what might have been. (Unhelpful as such dwelling is).

Paizo have renovated their website a few times over the years. Its always been done with great concern for preserving good things and making bad things better.

I cant imagine theyre suddenly going to stop caring about their online community.

Thanks for the comprehensive update.

Its certainly not petty to feel slighted, imo.
Having said that - I find that players (those who dont DM, anyway) are often unaware of the emotional drain that comes with running a longterm game.

(Which isnt an excuse, but it may be theyre processing it as if a player took a break. Thats a smaller change, imo).

That sounds like a fantastic tradition. I wish we were able to do that!

Good luck with navigating this setback. Hopefully you find a solution that works for you. Losing contact with a passion youve had for so long would be sad. On the other hand - well done for recognising what needed changing.

I enjoyed it. It was too slow at the beginning, imo but it amped up pretty well by the middle.

I did like the fact it was just a D&D story rather than a pure marketting exercise - the IP mentioned was a teensy bit shoe-horned in and heavy handed for my tastes, but the nongamers I were with disagreed pretty unanimously about that (I took three nongamers and was slightly nervous about the post mortem but turns out they all liked it more than me, so I needn't have worried.)

Or the person doing it left and it wasnt on anyones to-do list. Job descriptions have historically been kind of nebulous at paizo.

I think its an easy trap to fall into to find a game/publisher/product one likes and to leap to the conclusion that the other people who also like it are "like me".

Creative endeavours work best when they capture a disparate audience, imo. Nothing paizo puts out will ever be perfect for me, no matter how much I admire their stuff. But theyre not tailoring their books to me - theyre trying to appeal to loads of tastes, many diametrically opposed to mine.

Its best to avoid thinking of the market as a horde of "average consumers".

Almost like the website sales are inconsequential.

That can’t be true, surely?

All that angst for no consequence?

They are extremely strict about what counts as "mint".
Ive regularly bought non mint copies where I couldnt tell what the issue was.

Link repeated for convenience.

The blue writing above is a link to those items on sale (grouped by system and item categories)

Emailing community@paizo.com would be my suggestion.

Although I'm not sure if they want everything sent through customer.service@paizo.com now (it would be one of those two).

Now I don't really follow DnD but as far as I know 5e is still the current edition and WoTC is still claiming they are not developing a new edition.

They’re not claiming that. They’re actively working on a new iteration/edition/version/revision/….whatever.

If you don’t really follow D&D, I’d caution against relying on “as far as I know”.

It appears theyre not making it for either system after all.

SF2 is some 2-3 years away at this point. If I'm wrong, feel free to chase me around like all those "PF2 will flop and Paizo will go bankrupt" people from 2019 :)

I think quantity of content is more significant than time between releases - the more sedate SF release schedule would suggest to me you should add a couple of years to your prediction.

I'm not going to chase you though, I'll scowl at you from my porch Gran Torino style.

Steve Geddes wrote:

I think a "(1st edition)" appended to every appropriate product title would be a good idea.

(Presuming thats easy enough to semi-automate).

Personally, I think it should be the other way around. Things that are second edition should say second edition. First edition is a retroactive name change. For over a decade, Pathfinder Core Rulebook meant something specific, and it should continue to mean that thing today.

That said... the Great War became World War I, so I suppose there's precedent for changing names after it's discovered a thing can happen more than once.

Its a fair point but in terms of usability it seems intuitive to me that the current version should always be the default (as all being well it will generally be the most sought after).

Ie newcomers are more likely to be looking for PF2 if they come here through searching pathfinder, imo.

I think a "(1st edition)" appended to every appropriate product title would be a good idea.

(Presuming thats easy enough to semi-automate).

This is great to see. One of the few positives to come out of the January awfulness. <3

Nostalgia's a powerful drug, but it's one that I try to abstain from. I much prefer new stuff.

*peers at avatar*

If you dont want to wait,you can email customer.service@paizo.com and ask them to ship your sidecart immediately, without waiting for your next subscription shipment.

That will cost you more in postage overall, but might give you peace of mind.

Apparently my Core Rule Book and Beginners box were split out from my original order (37194412) and turned into a new one for the first of my subscriptions. This created a new one (37194420) that is now showing up as product not in stock. I guess that moved me out of my place in line. As far as I can tell, now I won't get the items or the subscriptions.

/sigh had I known I wouldn't have signed up for the subscriptions.

Im not sure if things have changed, but in "the old days" situations like yours were fine - your copy is set aside for when your subscription ships to save you postage so if they go out of stock thats for new orders, not for pending, sidecarted orders.

So I wouldnt despair yet.

(The "out of stock/backorder" flag is a long running display glitch that can cause confusion. Your copy should be fine - but if you order a second book there'll be a delay).

I find it amazing how memorable the connections we make online can be. You and I barely spoke but I clearly remember enjoying your posts. (I remember you leaving as well - glad that ickiness is in the past!)

I was here first.

If WotC are involved lawsuits are less likely.

This is an industry issue.

One trick for using printouts of pawns is to use a bulldog clip with the "wire" part removed as a base.

If you like them a little more mini like you can then glue the upended bulldog clip to a mini base.

EDIT: looks like they might be called foldback clips these days.