Episode #007: Chronicles: PFPC - Requiem for the Red Raven with Erik Mona

Available for Download now: Click here

Epside #007 of Chronicles: Pathfinder Podcast features an awesome interview with the Publisher of Paizo, Erik Mona. Erik reflects upon the cancellation of Dungeon and Dragon magazines, the success of the Pathfinder RPG, a threepeat of sellouts for Paizo at Gencon, and a whole lot more. In the Character Concept Workshop, we present a Dragon Disciple Ranger variant, known as the Ice Dragoon. In the Monster Mash, we roll out Pathfinder conversions of the classic Mind Flayer and the demonic Cerebrilith. In the Chronicles section of the podcast, we review Eyes of the Ten, Part I, Requiem for the Red Raven in spoilerific fashion along with the second part of our interview with adventure author, Erik Mona.

Not sure if it's just me (using Safari on an iPod), but when I click the link it just takes me to the Paizo frontpage.

Yeah - it does. The link went to a page with an address where Paizo's filters for anticipating some piracy intercepted the cast.

I changed the pointer and it works fine now.

So it does. Cheers.

Listening now,thanks.

Darn I wish I had bought two copies of the Campaign Setting; I could have used one to pay for the APG and the GMG if I'd been lucky.

Darn I wish I had bought two copies of the Campaign Setting; I could have used one to pay for the APG and the GMG if I'd been lucky.

Erik said that some unscrupulous booksellers were asking silly amounts for the Campaign Setting hardcover -- he didn't say they were getting silly amounts for it! :)

Kajehase wrote:

Darn I wish I had bought two copies of the Campaign Setting; I could have used one to pay for the APG and the GMG if I'd been lucky.

Erik said that some unscrupulous booksellers were asking silly amounts for the Campaign Setting hardcover -- he didn't say they were getting silly amounts for it! :)

My local has one on consignment for $220.

Thanks for all the hard work Steel! Please don't pod-fade! :)
(also, your audio sounds fine to me, but i have been trained to hear Canada speak from listining to 3.5ps and KD) ;)

Thanks for all the hard work Steel! Please don't pod-fade! :)

(also, your audio sounds fine to me, but i have been trained to hear Canada speak from listening to 3.5ps and KD) ;)

We're not pod-fading any time soon. Voice-fading, otoh, we can do with less of. I hear that -- loud and clear. :)

Here's the thing: After we went through all that crap with the hardware on Episode 006, Azmyth then fixed it all for Ep 007. We recorded in ultra-high quality.

The problem is that Azmyth then used Levelator to deal with the differential in voice levels - which really CAN be a problem for us. This is especially so, as the volume produced by my microphone and Mark's is, surprisingly, huge.

Levelator is a software tool that is designed to bring the ups "down" and the downs "up" so it is all being output from the same reasonable baseline. There are problems with this, however, as Levelator only works on .wav files, not mp3. Because our podcast is so long, Azmyth then struggled to deal with getting Levelator to work on our files sizes. (3-4 hours+ of .wav is a couple of gigs of data).

So Az is hacking the files apart and having to process via Levelator in piece meal and suture the remains back together again, while having to choose options that can permit his quad-Core 64 bit machine (with 8 gigs o' Ram) to even be able to deal with it all.

After about an hour of this suturing yesterday afternoon, Azmyth finally gets Ep 007 levelated and stitched back together. We post it right away ( Ep 007 is overdue by 1.5 days at this point) and it turns out -- Levelator has utterly squashed the sound in Ep 007. Sure, the voice levels are all constant, but its muffled out the highs and lows. In particular, the intro and outro and intermittent musical bits now sound muffled and squashed and our bit rate sampling has been gutted by the workflow + process.

*sigh*

All by way of saying, we'll get a toolkit assembled and workflow down in the next few episodes so that we can A) have awesome high-fidelity sound and B) have normalized voices, too. We hope. :)

If you are expecting all of that together with C) Small File sizes? Well, something has got to give. In this case, it will be file sizes, which will continue to be north of 100 megs per cast I expect, but we're okay with that. We hope you are, too.

wow.....I had no idea that much was involved. I am even more thankful for the hard work you guys put in!!! I didn’t mean to exclude the others, you all rock!

what about Garage Band? have you tried that?

wow.....I had no idea that much was involved. I am even more thankful for the hard work you guys put in!!! I didn’t mean to exclude the others, you all rock!

what about Garage Band? have you tried that?

Garage Band is a sound editing suite for the Mac. Azmyth runs a PC shop -- though to be clear, he does use pro sound editing tools on the PC analogous to Garage Band.

There are other normalizers out there, too. Levelator happens to be a free tool which is used a lot among podcasters as it is excellent at what it does... for voice, that is. Music? Not so much.

There are other normalizers out there. It's just a matter of tools + workflow. We'll get it squared away in due course :)

007 is a milestone for the staff!
We had an awesome time hanging out with Erik!

Cheers!

007 is a milestone for the staff!

We had an awesome time hanging out with Erik!

Cheers!

Great Podcast guys - Original format, excellent content, and Epic in length.

The character builds, and the monster builds are brilliant any plans on including other segments such as any general tips you have picked up GMing, ways to help keep players focused and the game flowing.

Great Podcast guys - Original format, excellent content, and Epic in length.

The character builds, and the monster builds are brilliant any plans on including other segments such as any general tips you have picked up GMing, ways to help keep players focused and the game flowing.

Thanks for the kind words.

We do have a new relatively small segment we will soon be adding to the Chronicles section of the cast, dealing in a humorous way (though necessarily spoilerific) with player deaths and TPKs experienced by members of the community in the module under review on that episode. The segement will be largely drawn from the Obituaries commonly posted here (and on other forums).

What we really want to do, however, is add a segment of about medium length to the Companion side of the podcast which can be enjoyed by everyone -- preferably with a player focused theme. The podcast offers a lot to GMs right now -- but not as much to players. That's something we would like to be able to correct.

If anybody has some suggestions as to what to add to the podcast that is, at the very least, of general interest and preferably of special interest to players? We'd love to hear your suggestions.

Just wanted to echo the praises for this podcast. Steel, Azmyth, Mark, and Research create a really fun and enjoyable show to listen to. The character concept corner is fun and Lansing Linebacker is great. Monster Mash provides me with all my old D&D faves that have been missing and I'm really appreciative of Mark's work. I feel this podcast has provided me, as a GM, so much greater insight and although i know you want to add more to the companion section, still would rather hear GM deconstruction of APs/Modules. Player's Guide discussion provided good stuff for Players and could be expanded on in some form. Finally, keep these coming b/c I can't wait to hear more. Thanks guys.

PS. Azmyth's enthusiasm about Society Play is making me think of running Society scenarios for my group in the bay area. Thanks!

PPS. Really want to hear Steelwind's use of Skill Challenges in Pathfinder.

Let me echo all of that.

I only recently discovered your podcast, but I sped through them as quickly as I could. Your deconstruction of the Price of Immortality series was fantastic.

I really appreciate the maturity and intelligence that goes into your discussions, and admire how you can all be such clear fans of the game and still be so even handed. This is a really top notch, professional product.

If you're accepting requests, I'd really like to hear your analysis of the module 'The Felnight Queen'. I'd be especially interested in hearing some analysis of it as both a fully independent PF module AND some ideas for merging it into other PF campaigns such as a continuation of Price of Immortality or as a sidequest in an AP.

For the sake of fair criticism, though, I'll mention that as much as I lurv your analyses, I just spin right past your monster mash and character builds. I've no interest in bizarrely themed character concepts, and only a vague curiosity in which monsters you consider important enough to convert.

Otherwise, keep on with what you're doing. I can only wish that I had a gaming group as cool as your group sounds.

I also recently discovered (and sped through) the podcast episodes. I've enjoyed them immensely, and the part that I've enjoyed the most has been the deconstruction of the adventures / DM shop-talk. That's really what attracts my interest. To bring that more over to the universal/player side I think you could extend the discussions to stuff like the APG, or just general items of interest in the Golarion setting?

I also recently discovered (and sped through) the podcast episodes. I've enjoyed them immensely, and the part that I've enjoyed the most has been the deconstruction of the adventures / DM shop-talk. That's really what attracts my interest. To bring that more over to the universal/player side I think you could extend the discussions to stuff like the APG, or just general items of interest in the Golarion setting?

Thanks for the kind words.

We considered doing an episode segment on the APG after it came out (much as we touched on with the Gamemastery Guide). But to try and cover the whole book? That didn't sit well with us and we waffled on it for a bit.

We ultimately decided against it. The APG is much too large to adequately touch on even if we devoted an entire episode to it. Even if we did devote a 3 hour chunk of time to talking about the APG, I'm not sure that devoting that much time to it would make for a very good episode.

In the end, the APG is a rulebook and it needs to be approached and discussed in context to make the most sense and be entertaining, too. In some respects, that's what we attempt to do in the Character Concept Workshop, and what we will do in other segments which will touch upon it in any broad-brushed so-called "random" segment. That way, the focus is not on the book as a whole, but on a specific class, or feats, or abilities or spells, etc.. as they can be used in the game. That makes it concrete and interesting, not theoretical and airy.

I think probably the best idea so far we've heard is the random approach to various topics. A segment which can look at a whole variety of topics of special interest to players and GMs, generally (class, rules, conditions, spells, magic items, odd abilities, etc.) with a VERY broad brush without being pigeon-holed into being about any one "specific approach" to a wide variety of topics. That gives us maximum flexibility, which I think is preferable.

Azmyth liked the "Wheel of Fortune" approach too. Reflecting on it a little more, I think a better way of thinking of the proposed segment is as a Deck of Many Things. I prefer that analogy to a wheel of fortune as it's more "in character" in terms of the game we all know and love.

Like drawing from the Deck, you never know, specifcially, what the segment may bring; but it's topical and generally focused on some thematic aspect of the rules or the setting. That sort of segment will probably work best of all the ideas posted so far.

If you're accepting requests, I'd really like to hear your analysis of the module 'The Felnight Queen'. I'd be especially interested in hearing some analysis of it as both a fully independent PF module AND some ideas for merging it into other PF campaigns such as a continuation of Price of Immortality or as a sidequest in an AP.

Realm of the Fellknight Queen is already tentatively scheduled for Episode 011, subject to the availability of Neil Spicer to appear on the show for an interview at a mutually convenient time for the episode. If not, we'll juggle the schedule.

Assuming all goes well, you should expect the episode in the second half of November.

Yes, we really do have our episodes mapped out until the end of this and into 2011. No podcast schedule survives contact with the enemy, but chances are fairly good that the above will proceed more or less as scheduled.

Let me echo all of that.

I only recently discovered your podcast, but I sped through them as quickly as I could. Your deconstruction of the Price of Immortality series was fantastic.

I really appreciate the maturity and intelligence that goes into your discussions, and admire how you can all be such clear fans of the game and still be so even handed. This is a really top notch, professional product.

If you're accepting requests, I'd really like to hear your analysis of the module 'The Felnight Queen'. I'd be especially interested in hearing some analysis of it as both a fully independent PF module AND some ideas for merging it into other PF campaigns such as a continuation of Price of Immortality or as a sidequest in an AP.

For the sake of fair criticism, though, I'll mention that as much as I lurv your analyses, I just spin right past your monster mash and character builds. I've no interest in bizarrely themed character concepts, and only a vague curiosity in which monsters you consider important enough to convert.

Otherwise, keep on with what you're doing. I can only wish that I had a gaming group as cool as your group sounds.

I want to echo basically everything Fletch mentioned. I'll add that I think this podcast's strength and uniqueness is the DM-analysis angle, and I hope that remains the focus as you guys move forward.

Also what Fletch wants to hear in relation to the Fellnight Queen, I would love to hear for every adventure you guys look at.

Thank you for your work!

I want to echo basically everything Fletch mentioned. I'll add that I think this podcast's strength and uniqueness is the DM-analysis angle, and I hope that remains the focus as you guys move forward.

The Module review and analysis isn't going away. To the contrary, that aspect of the podcast dictates the theme and flow of the show and the nature (and identity) of most guest interviews, too. For that matter, because it is the focus of the show, we are required to plan our episodes at one month and preferably two or more months in advance, as scheduling interviews (especially with those who are overseas) can be difficult.

To be clear, none of that aspect of the podcast will be changing.

At the same time, as we move from modules to Adventure Paths, I become more concerned about the spoilerific nature of the second part of the podcast.

If some player is listening to a Pathfinder Society or even a lone module review that they probably should not be listening to? It's probably not that big a deal, in the grand scheme of things.

When they are listening to an Adventure Path review? Different story. With something like Council of Thieves? That's a 6-9 month block of campaign time that is being ruined, With Kingmaker? Probably more like 12-18 months. We will all be especially annoyed if players listen through to the GM section which cover Kingmaker instalments on the podcast.

So that means we feel somewhat pressured to step up our game on the first half of the podcast and do our best to expand the content of the show so that players are well served, too.

Some sort of Golarion based segment would be VERY useful for PC’s and GM’s both. Different regions with their varied cultures, styles, well known inhabitants, and interesting places to see makes for fascinating discussions.

Some sort of Golarion based segment would be VERY useful for PC’s and GM’s both. Different regions with their varied cultures, styles, well known inhabitants, and interesting places to see makes for fascinating discussions.

We had thought of this as a segment to feature initially on the podcast, but the problem is -- it does not work very well. Witness the ill-fated Gnome on the Go section in Know Direction. The Order 66 Podcast on D20 Radio tried the same thing (initially a failure) and ultimately got it to work with their Postcards from Commander Cody segments -- but that depended upon humour and voice synthesizers to work as a five minute show segment. That's far too much effort to put into a segment. I would rather spend my prep time on reviews and interviews -- not writing Exposition Segments that depend upon scripted humour and wit every 30 seconds to actually work as a podcast segment.

Realm of the Fellnight Queen is already tentatively scheduled for Episode 011, subject to the availability of Neil Spicer...

Just give me a shout. I'll be knee-deep in Carrion Crown from now until the end of the year, but I'll make some time to talk FQ again for a bit.

I too listen to your (VERY nice podcast, by far my preferred one for the Pathfinder RPGs, even if I can't listen to the Kingmaker spoilers.. (Being the GM of the group normally, this is really frustrating ;)) However, I'd like to make a suggestion for your podcast, as you in one of the latests podcast (I think it was 007, don't qoute me on that though) asked for ideas for a recurring section.

Much like you have the Monster Mash, I'd like a sort of the Magical Menagerie kind of thing. Bring up some of the old magic items, that have yet to make it into this lovely system (perhaps even some of the artifacts, if you can find interesting ways to scale them). Personally I'd love to see a few of the older items reappear. :)

Just my 2 cents.

Much like you have the Monster Mash, I'd like a sort of the Magical Menagerie kind of thing. Bring up some of the old magic items, that have yet to make it into this lovely system (perhaps even some of the artifacts, if you can find interesting ways to scale them). Personally I'd love to see a few of the older items reappear. :)

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for the kind words Curtisin.

Happy to say that this time we were ahead of the curve. This one is already in the works! :)

We'll either go with a segment name of Bazaar of the Bizarre (in a nod to the old Dragon column) or with The Plaza of Dark Delights (in a nod to the Fritz Leiber classic story). Either way -- look for this one in Episode #010. Cherry Pi has been working on several items over the past few weeks for your listening/reading pleasure - and I expect to weigh in a with a few myself.

I think we will prefer to aim item the general power level at the modest to moderate categories, if we have our druthers. Those items are simply far more usable - and far less likely to break anything. But it may be that, from time to time, Major and Artifiact level items can make their way in. They will a big WARNING sticker on them though :)

Like the CCW and the Monster Mash, we'll publish all items in their own cumulative .pdf so they will be easy to find and use in your game.