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In One of the Pathfinder chats, James said that pathfinder will lose about 6000 words (I think) starting with Curse of the Crimson Throne because of a change in font size. This equates to about a Pathfinder's journal. Question: I know PAthfinder is amazing, but since we have to lose something, what part of Pathfinder would you want to lose?
1.Part of the adventure
2.Part of the supplementary articles
3.The journal
4.Some bestiary monsters
5.Evenly spread out from all sections
6.A mix of two or more options above
7.Why would they change the font size? Its fine as it is!
If we have to lose something, I vote for the journal. Its great and all, but it is my least favorite part of the book.
(I dont know how to make this a poll, but that would be cool)
I personally don't have a problem with the font, so my vote would be not to change it. But understanding that some folks do, if we had to lose something, I'd hate to lose the Pathfinder Journal. It's a great read and provides so much Golarion flavor.
However, by the time CotCT gets underway (and in future Paths), will we need that source of background and setting information as much? With the campign setting hardback and the setting gezateers coming out next year, maybe they will more than supplement the possible loss of the Pathfinder Journal.
It's a tough call. I think if it came down to it, I'd vote to lose a little bit from everything... Ouch, even that stings a bit.
I also have no problem with the font size. That will probably change in a few years, but by then I'll probably need glasses anyway.
If we must lose something, I'd be willing to lose a few monsters from the bestiary every month. I'm not much of a monster person. I use them, just not to the same extent a lot of other DMs do. Three new monsters in every volume of Pathfinder would be plenty for me.
Randy
Yup, me too. Never had a problem with the font size.
I am disappointed by this news.
So, 7 it is for me.
But if we have to lose something the journal.
Creative Director
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The font size is too small. It's also got some other problems, like there not being a bold-italic option, and the fact that the upper-case I looks exactly like a 1, and the upper-case J looks almost the same. Or how if you place two 1s next to each other it looks more like "1 1" than "11". So yeah, that and several other reasons = the font is changing.
Which will indeed result in a slightly lower words-per-page result. Which is desirable for us working on it, if only because we're working through the weekends (and have been for months) to keep Pathfinder on schedule. It's a lot more work to do a volume of Pathfinder than an issue of the magazine, and we didn't quite figure that out right away.
Anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about the "loss of content." It's not going to be an issue of us cutting content, in any event, since we're not going to order the same amount of content. And really... it's the editor's job to make sure that things fit in the space allowed without making the product FEEL like it's missing something. It's easy to do overkill and say too much. In fact, I kind of think that Pathfinder's doing that already. Since we're also launching/introducing our world at the same time, the information overload is actually kind of nice, but down the road when folks know Golarion better, it isn't as necessary.
At this point, the #1 looking thing that'll happen is that we'll be going from a minimum of six new monsters per volume down to a minimum of five. For the rest, we're just going to be doing the editor job of making things fit and look right. You can pretty much tell the same story in 80,000 words as you can 86,000 words; it's all about word choice and art placement and page layout. Trust me... it's not going to really be a noticable change at all.
Except that Pathfinder will be easier to read, since the font will be clearer.
And who knows? The new font might actually not cause that big a wordcount reduction after all! There's more to the size of the letters that goes into determining how many fit on a page; the space between the letters counts even more, and that's another issue that our current font doesn't handle well...
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Which will indeed result in a slightly lower words-per-page result. Which is desirable for us working on it, if only because we're working through the weekends (and have been for months) to keep Pathfinder on schedule. It's a lot more work to do a volume of Pathfinder than an issue of the magazine, and we didn't quite figure that out right away.
Out of curiosity, why is PAthfinder more work than the magazines? Is it because the magazines consisted of relatively small isolated pieces and the need for consistency between them wasn't that great or because you could cut an entire article to make room (something which you can't really do in Pathfinder).
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I really like the content in the current Pathfinder, but I understand that the current font has issues. My vote would be to trim the new monsters back a bit (3-4 per issue is fine). I would be up for additional online content/web enhancements for each adventure arc. Monsters would be one of the easiest things to put into something like this.
tell the truth, the current font is the one thing that i dont really like about the pathfinder (it reminds me of the old tsr days, some of those products were down right unreadable). my eyesight isnt what it used to be. and it is very tireing (sp?) to read the pathfinder due to the small font size. i love all the articles, but if i had to choose one to loose, it would be the journal. thats the last one i read.
I'm no contrarian, and I sympathize with those who have trouble reading the small font, but I really like that jam-packed feel. I'll be sorry to see the font size increase, but I understand and respect the reasons for it.
My vote was going to be basically what James said. I don't really have a problem with the size of the font, but those Is and Js drive me up the wall when I read it.
I would vote to cut some words from the adventure, those things are huge! It seems the adventures in Pathfinder are actually longer than they expected them to be. The Skinsaw Man is supposed to take characters to level 7, while Hook Mountain Massacre starts at level 6. Seems like the adventures ended up being longer than they planned. I mean Burnt Offerings even has an "optional" dungeon.
But my guess they will just keep the current page count, and just trim the total wrds per page, so everything will get cut a little.
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Creative Director
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Out of curiosity, why is PAthfinder more work than the magazines? Is it because the magazines consisted of relatively small isolated pieces and the need for consistency between them wasn't that great or because you could cut an entire article to make room (something which you can't really do in Pathfinder).
Pathfinder's more work because the magazines had about 20 or so pages of ads, and on top of that about 150 words less per page. So with Pathfinder, we've got what basically amounts to an additional 30,000 or so words of work over a magazine. And for the first several volumes of Pathfinder, we had to do that with one fewer editor than we had working on a magazine. For a magazine, which had about 70 pages of content split between 3 editors, whereas for Pathfinder 1-4, we had about 90 pages of content split between 2.5 editors. So yeah... quite a bit tougher. We've reorganized things a bit starting with Pathfinder 5, though, so it should go more smoothly. I hope!
I love all of the content but I'd have to say the Pathfinder Journals are the most expendable.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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FYI, the goblin snake article, a one page write up, was approximately six hundred and twenty eight words.
And yes, I counted that damn thing by hand.
Anyways, I personally don't have a problem with the font (I can see it just fine, and the bold/italics seems all right to me), but I agree that it should be bigger. My suggestion to try to create more space would be decreasing the marigins between sentences... but you've probably already thought of that. ::shrug::
NINJA EDIT: Wow. This post makes me sound like a dick. -_-o None of this was meant to sound condenscending or arrogant.
Yay, the font was possibly the first (that or the art) which really got the ire on the boards. I didn't have a problem with the font personally, but man-oh-man did the complainers come out of the woodworks for that one.
The first journal may have lacked the same punch as the most recent two did for me. I especially loved the third one, which detailed Kaer Maga so well, I can run it on the fly now should the game ever go there. It's a great premise to have an explorer from the AP's namesake organization essentially detail places elsewhere to aid the DM pop in such info to increase the verisimilitude of the experience.
If the translation produces a product as promised where it doesn't feel like I'm missing out on something, I don't see a big fuss over that. It beats having a product with advertisements.