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I also feel that they tried to cram a lot of disparate stuff together. But it's a big world -- your PCs don't have to travel it all in one module!- Golarion in campaign chronicles setting:
too fragmented, too many things and themes.
One Chinese area, one agypt area, one pirate area, one
ravenloft area, one africa area, eberron machines etc. its nice but
it fails to give the world an idendity.
The campaign book tries to have a finger in every pie, too much is too much.
?_? are you trying to say that our world has no iodentity just ebcause it has lots of cultures?
i like the true feeling thatbeyond that mountian i would be able to find somethingnew, exotic and fantastic... and not the same medieval themed elves and kingodms... that is boring...
and i like the world based counties and figures... Galtrocks a mixture of the french and the mexican revolution with the blood and chaos of such times... awesome...
- Golarion in campaign chronicles setting:
too fragmented, too many things and themes.
One Chinese area, one agypt area, one pirate area, one
ravenloft area, one africa area, etc.
its nice but it fails to give the world an identity.
The campaign book tries to have a finger in every pie, too much is too much.
Huh. My reaction to this was, Great, it's just like when I lived in Queens.
Criticism is important. If somebody says something they don't like about a Paizo product, Paizo needs to hear about it. If they do, and they are stating an opinion, then let them have their say. You should feel free to chime in with an opinion of your own about what they said, but don't spend hundreds of posts trying to convince them they are wrong. It hardly encourages people to give a criticism of what they think could be improved. State your own opinion, then move on.
If you have a criticism, or an observation, couch it in soft terms, and don't state it as an objective fact, and you won't be opening yourself up to attack.
Examples:
Right: I personally don't like the gnomes in Golarion. I prefer....
Wrong: Gnomes in PF are stupid, like wtf were they smoking....
Responses:
Right: I find gnomes a refreshing change, and I can't wait to....
Wrong: Are you for real? Gnomes are awesome! Troll!
I am not saying this has happened. These are stereotypes, but I just thought I would put this up here as a reminder.
Yeah, I just wanted to clarify, I wasn't posting so much to "counter" the OP, but because it seemed like a good venue to give Paizo an idea of what seemed to work and what didn't for a given person.
Criticism is important. <snip>
I just thought I would put this up here as a reminder.
Thanks, Taliesin. This encourages me to post something that I should have on another thread a while back, and now feel unhappy that I didn't do it then. On that occasion, a new poster ventured an opinion and asked for feedback. The new poster got thoroughly slammed back and forth, and though s/he had no profile, the more I read the post, the more I guessed that it was some kid who had to get his/her nerve up to post in the first place. I wish I had posted something about erring on the side of caution and courtesy when it comes to responding to someone we don't know (as opposed to smartasses we know) but I didn't and I will post it here now, as a response that may be more apt to your post than this thread, but was the occasion for its giggling loose.
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Criticism is important. If somebody says something they don't like about a Paizo product, Paizo needs to hear about it. If they do, and they are stating an opinion, then let them have their say. You should feel free to chime in with an opinion of your own about what they said, but don't spend hundreds of posts trying to convince them they are wrong. It hardly encourages people to give a criticism of what they think could be improved. State your own opinion, then move on.
err no
we are not trying to convince that he is wrong...we are telling him We Are Right!
lol just joking... i think we just state why we disagree with him
and a almost perfect democracy is wrong in Golarion? why? its truylly Fantasy, there is no such thing, nor something as close :P and that is true :P
and being Mexican, any name not in my language or in nahuath would sound stupid? no...
actually some translation to spanish sound that way... but meh we live with it.
and yes... we love diversity :) i don't know where to put a game right now... or where should my cleric go... she should be in lastwall or in the world wound... or bringing down the tyranical empire of Cheliax... where does should go a cleric of justice to do her job???
ok weneed a cheklist...
- Golarion in campaign chronicles setting: too fragmented, too many things and themes. One Chinese area, one agypt area, one pirate area, one ravenloft area, one africa area, eberron machines etc. its nice but it fails to give the world an idendity. The campaign book tries to have a finger in every pie, too much is too much.
This is a (huge) feature, not a bug. Such a setting is what makes me gravitate toward it and related products - a single "identity" would keep me far, far away as I would get sick of it very quickly. With Golarion as it is, I can expect the APs (my favorite type of product) to cover a wide variety of themes - and that's a very big deal.
One setting that's the same thing, over and over again, sucks. Hard.
One thing that I thought Eberron did well was to establish a clear stratification of power levels for the campaign setting. For instance, they made it clear that getting to level 6 (say) is a huge achievement that most people will never see; there are more powerful hazards in the world, but they're not something that the average Eberronian has to worry about (giants are savages living on another continent, dragons live on another continent and are mostly aloof from the world, demons live in the far north and are mostly imprisoned, etc.).
Whereas in Golarion you have a reference to the tarrasque as some kind of ultimate engine of destruction even as there is an off-hand mention of an army of enslved efreet and noble djinn in another place (which could presumably mop up the tarrasque before breakfast without even breaking a sweat). And the Padishah Empire of Kelesh is vying for influence with various relatively poor nations even while they have palaces made out of solid gold in Jalmeray.
There's nothing wrong with having the weak and the powerful live side-by-side (like the U.S. and Haiti are neighbours in the real world). But having superhero level creatures being an active part of the world can lead to "Elminster syndrome", e.g. "Why do we have to save the world? Is Elminster on vacation, or something?"
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Well, some of the names sound funny in Dutch, like a character called "Venster", which means "window" in Dutch.This is where I point out that in my second-favorite movie of all time, John Carpenter's "The Thing," there was a character named Windows. So I'll take that as a compliment! :)
Then feel even more complimented: In german speaking countries (Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, South-Tirol/ Italy - anything forgotten? :p) "Fenster" means window.
And if it's that way in dutch, you can add half of Belgium, too. ;-)
Cheers,
Günther
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I, as European and speaker of a Latin language, never found problems with Golarion names.
"Cheliax" for example, in Italy sounds exotic enough (you don't see much Xs in Italian).
The only time I just HAD to change a name in a Paizo adventure was in And Madness Followed, where you had the poor bard "Merdak". Imagin reading about a bard named "Sh*tak" and you'll understand why I had to change it. :-D
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I suppose in Europe it is unheard of for cultures to mix and intermarry. Thankfully it is not so in the US. Again if the Europeans and Asians were just eliminated as you suggested previously it would be a better world.
Kind of.
Europe has a caste system.
People of the "-ova" caste aren't allowed to intermarry with people of other castes. If not for the Casanovas the mostly female "-ova" caste had already died out a long time ago.
Any remaining questions?
How come no one complains about Darth Vader?
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Criticism is important. If somebody says something they don't like about a Paizo product, Paizo needs to hear about it. If they do, and they are stating an opinion, then let them have their say. You should feel free to chime in with an opinion of your own about what they said, but don't spend hundreds of posts trying to convince them they are wrong. It hardly encourages people to give a criticism of what they think could be improved. State your own opinion, then move on.
If you have a criticism, or an observation, couch it in soft terms, and don't state it as an objective fact, and you won't be opening yourself up to attack.
[...]
Thank you for this reminder.
Subtlety is not my biggest strength and I failed poorly further above trying to state the same.You can savely assume that most people posting here are very passionate about their hobbies and their favourite interpretation of what things should be like in their campaigns (and published products).
This doesn't give us the right to tell others how to feel or like about Paizo's interpretation in their products, though.
Actually one thing I miss most lately is more input from new players. What is our hobby like without new players joining us and giving their own inputs - even if their vision might be different [and closer to WoW than to LotR... ;-)]
Guys, please stay constructive and listen to Taliesin.
Cheers,
Günther
Don't mess with Baba Yaga! I read a book where Baba Yagga's hut was actually a 747 transported back in time to pseudo-Russia. She kicked off all the 20th century passengers & crew, spooled up the turbojets, and drove it through the taiga. Giant Bird Hut FTW! I think it was an Orson Scott Card book.
Overall, my only complaint with the setting is that I'm unlikely to ever run enough games to use all of the information I have. But I like knowing that if my players get wanderlust, there are a whole lot of new areas for them to check out.
I agree with other posters that have pointed out that the diversity in Golarion is somewhat parallel to the diversity of the real world.
The OP may have been hoping for a narrower focus with a consistant theme and lot more details. But I would imagine that a product like that wouldn't sell as well as a "something for everyone" product like Pathfinder. It might also be less fun for a large committee to create something like that if everyone had to stick to a party line instead of going crazy with all of their ideas.
How come no one complains about Darth Vader?Hhhmm... Were you thinking of an english or german expression?
Cheers,
Günther
Dutch, actually. Vader is dutch for father.
I guess the big surprise in Empire wasn't so big for the Netherlands, what with the guy being named Father. "I'm your father, Luke" "Yeah, I know, your lame 51tH name gave you away as soon as I heard it first." "Damn, we have to stop naming ourselfs like stupid 13-year-old scriptkiddies from the distand future in another galaxy or we'll never win." "Right. How did you manage to pick up a chick, anyway?" "The force is my ally"
Once there was a character in a Dungeon Magazine adventure (I do not remember which one, but it was in the 2nd edition days) who was named "Stront". It is a worse name than "Merdak" in Italian, so I will not translate it in order not to offend any sensibilities :-)
I also noticed the name "Banaan" in one of the Gamemastery modules. Yes, the Dutch word means "banana". I do not remember if the character was dressed in yellow.
But perhaps they insert these names deliberately and have all kinds of foreign dictionaries which they use when needing new names for characters :-)
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But perhaps they insert these names deliberately and have all kinds of foreign dictionaries which they use when needing new names for characters :-)
I know that's how I name stuff in my games. or i'll do the old "open the book i'm holding and plop my finger down on the first word I see, then do it again. combine the two into one word. done". it works enough that I find it reliable. (not that you can also combine the two. random words from a dictionary mashed together can give interesting results. especially if you combine languages.)
I was told that one Warhammer novel had a teacher called "Lehrer", a horse called "Pferd", and a female character called "Lästiges Weibchen", among other things. (and yes, those are just the German words, except Lästiges Weibchen, which means annoying female)
As a related note, something that's always bothered me about the setting...
I always though that in Rise of the Runelords:
The emphasis on the seven deadly sins was REALLY incongruent with fantasy. This is such a uniquely Catholic concept, it took a lot of effort for me to feel that it belonged in the setting. All things considered, the writers did a great job with the fit, but I would have liked an array of sins less tied to medieval papal doctrine, maybe something custom built for Golarion.
It really doesn't have much to do with medieval RC doctrine, much less papalism. While the 7DS was developed by RC thinkers, they are a part of moral theology related closely to the natural law tradition, and have their roots in Aristotlean thought. (Sins being the vicious habits or dispositions in contrast to virtuous ones.) What is so "Catholic" about this analysis of human behavior? I think its universal aspects have actually made it appealing to plenty of artists and authors whose works and worlds were not of the catholic-christan variety.