Thanks Paizo gang for pulling back on the curtain to see your thinking process on the development of the game world for Pathfinder, and more importantly, its presentation format.
I was particularly pleased to hear that James said that a "Less is more" approach was foremost in your thoughts.
I know from my personal experience that while I'm NOT inclined to build a homebrew world from scratch, neither am I keen on being overburdened with canon.
With apologizes to Erik, who I knew contributed to the Living Greyhawk Gazeteer and had input on Greyhawk: The Adventure begins, both books are so loaded with detail I feel overburdened trying to incorporate all it in my game.
For my Age of Worms game, for instance, I end up going back time and again not to those works, but to my copy of the slim D&D Gazeteer -- which has just enough information to give me a jump start and plenty of room to add my own creations to the world.
The fact that the Pathfinder team is keeping this is mind, as well as trying to meet the expectations of those who DO like a little detail with supplemental material, is heartening.
Thanks for keeping us minimialists in mind.
Creative Director
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Keep in mind too that the LG Gazzeteer came out decades after the campaign world started up; by which point there HAD been enough material written about things to warrant such a huge book. By the time we get to that stage with our world, I'm sure technology will have advanced to the point where we'll all have all that information beamed into our brains by our wrist-implanted watches, thoguh.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Yeah, the LGG was meant as a compilation of 30 years worth of material. Often, we had to judge contradictory "canon" against itself to codify an actual history of the setting, because before that book came out you really needed to read about a dozen books to get the "real picture."
Our new setting does not have 30 years worth of development to its name, so we can take a much more leisurely approach.
--Erik
By the time we get to that stage with our world, I'm sure technology will have advanced to the point where we'll all have all that information beamed into our brains by our wrist-implanted watches, thoguh.
LOL!
Egads! I don't think I'm quite ready to be hard wired into my favorite game, no matter how much I enjoy it.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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Ooo... ruined ship from outer space??? Can anyone say Expedition to the Barrier Peaks!
Red and Green worlds beyond the sea of night? Is this gonna be some serious Sword & Planet stuff here? Are the witches just using found tech items that resemble contemporary (for Varisia) magic items?
Coooooooooool... I can see some Thundarr the Barbarian type battle cries like "Demon Dogs" or "Lords of Light" coming out!!!
--Set your phasers to Stunning Screech!
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Ooo... ruined ship from outer space??? Can anyone say Expedition to the Barrier Peaks!
I can.
Red and Green worlds beyond the sea of night? Is this gonna be some serious Sword & Planet stuff here?
Yes.
Are the witches just using found tech items that resemble contemporary (for Varisia) magic items?
Yes.
Coooooooooool... I can see some Thundarr the Barbarian type battle cries like "Demon Dogs" or "Lords of Light" coming out!!!
Yes!
--Erik
You will be assimilated.... ;)
Yes, well while I'm not quite sure that resistance is futile ... it is certainly inconvenient and at the same time, damn exhausting.
So long as I continue not owning a cell phone, I am probably in good stead, all in all.
Ooo... ruined ship from outer space??? Can anyone say Expedition to the Barrier Peaks!
Red and Green worlds beyond the sea of night? Is this gonna be some serious Sword & Planet stuff here? Are the witches just using found tech items that resemble contemporary (for Varisia) magic items?
Coooooooooool... I can see some Thundarr the Barbarian type battle cries like "Demon Dogs" or "Lords of Light" coming out!!!
--Set your phasers to Stunning Screech!
Another huzzah for the Red and Green worlds - I am drooling at the prospect of including some alternate world stuff a la Burroughs' Barsoom. Now what would be icing on the cake is if these red and green worlds were close in orbit and appeared rather large in the sky, almost the size of the moon (like the sky background in many of Frazetta's paintings; check out http://frankfrazetta.org/ for a bunch of examples). Adventures on the Red Planet? Step into the this portal here...
Hmm, what if the Red and Green planets were at war, sending ships and armies fueled by technosorcery back and forth? Or what if due to the cyclical nature of the orbits, the Red and Green planets affected Varisia's world when they got close, such as demons falling from the sky or the like? What if crawling cyclopian horrors of Lovecraftian proportions lurk on the dark side of one of them? The possibilities are endless.
Oh, and you rock primemover003 for the Thundarr the Barbarian references. "Ariel, Ookla, Riiiiidddde!!!"
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2011 Top 16
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It was either that or Herculoids references and I for one thought Thundarr rocked way harder!!! And Jack Kirby worked on it to boot!
I'm am so geeked for Pathfinder. Sin magic, Runelords, Pazuzu rumored cults, a giant plateau where monsters dwell, a bottomless pit, a pyramid in the midst of a swamp, nasty little goblins, nastier kobolds, and even scarier Fey!
The list goes on and on!