Dragonrest Isle got dumped on for not being Golarioney enough, but then Mammoth Lords and Boiling Beast tried to be Golarioney but apparently lack the encyclopedic knowledge of the setting needed to make an adventure "fit."
This makes me a little worried about the future of writing adventures for Pathfinder. Is the world getting too detailed for people to easily slot it in? "There can't be storm liches!" "There's already a Lost World!" Makes you want to just make up a new little village somewhere (even though even really small villes are already on the main Varisia map...)
Especially as all this setting info is not in one place like the main setting book, but is in every AP and adventure... Seems like this is going to get Forgotten Realms Disease mighty soon. Isn't a "lighter" more Greyhawk approach healthier long term?
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Some of the issue is the ease of information... you look at the current modules, and you already have a adventure about where the setting's dragon's go to die.and you get that from the module's blurb on the back of the module, you don't need to read it. That is what I think hurt Dragonrest the most...
I would suggest that people go to The Wiki and help flesh out some articles... its another easy place to get information on the setting without buying additional books. While this doesn't cover everything yet, we do have over 1,160 topics with data on them, in an easy to reference format
Contributor
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Ernest, I think you may have a point about the risk of contracting an acute form of Forgotten Realms Disease ("FRD"?) but I'm not sure that we're there, yet. I believe that most of FR's problem in that arena was the fact that novels and similar products were allowed to establish too much canon.
I personally didn't have a problem with Mammoth Lords' take on most things. I believe most of the "wrong" information used in that adventure could have easily been cleaned up during production. It seemed to me that the use of Vudran undead elephants was intended to provide a substitute for undead mastadons without creating a new stat block. In all, I thought Mammoth Lords had a great Pathfinder feel, even if all the info wasn't exactly correct.
Boiling Beast was a bit different in this respect. The mention of the Eye of Abendego was a misuse of a major element in the Campaign Setting, the core source for Pathfinder information. Creating the "storm liches" (which are pretty cool, by themselves) as a previously unknown part of the backstory for one of the best-known cities in the setting goes beyond risk-taking. (To use the FR example, it's like adding another uber-powerful wizard to rival the Blackstaff in Waterdeep's history.)
Dragonrest Isle seems like it would be a decent adventure, though I didn't get the "I gotta run this!" feel when I read the proposal. In terms of this discussion, though, it just didn't feel connected to the setting at all to me.
To be honest, I get the same feeling from "Clash of the Kingslayers." It is the least connected and "Pathfindery" of all the modules. That makes sense, though, considering the fact that Christine wasn't proposing a module intended for an established setting during last year's contest. This year is different.
I think, when you're writing a proposal to publish a Pathfinder module, you need to be able to connect, at least in some way, with the setting. It's one thing to miss an obscure detail in the campaign setting or not know about a paragraph in a recently-released supplement. It's another thing entirely to use major elements of the core campaign setting (like a large area of the world map) in a way that indicates you either didn't read about that element before adding it in or you chose to ignore key details about it.
Boiling Beast's use of the Eye would have worked fine if its background was more recent and it was set in an area closer to it. The storm liches could have awakened from an ages-long slumber and found the Eye of Abendego a perfect source of power, then got caught up in it while they were fighting over who would get to use it. It might have been fun to set the story in either The Shackles or Ilizmagorti, too. Those are established campaign elements, but they haven't seen much development and Matthew would have had more freedom to tell the story his way.
Saying all of that, I'm not all that concerned, yet, about FRD, here. There's a difference between using details published in novels, which not every fan of the RPG setting will read, and requiring that writers stick to the established details of the campaign setting.
An example of FRD would be, "You can't put a city there because in volume 4 of [insert obscure series of novels on lizardfolk vampires], it says 'King What's-his-name' founded a keep on that hill. Paizo needs to update their map to show that fortress!"
The current situation is more like, "You can't have Arazni show up to save the Knights of Ozem during a battle that happened in 4400 A.R., because the campaign setting hard cover has established that she was slain by Tar-Baphon in 3823 A.R. and raised as a lich by Geb in 3890 A.R."
I wrote a lot more here than initially I intended to. I think that, as the setting develops, the risk of FRD definitely increases. But for now, I don't think the criticism of the Superstar 2009 entries rises to that level. FRD is something we, as fans, should guard against.
Golarion is a big world and there are even whole new planets to explore. I think the setting was created to allow home GMs to create their own stories, while still being able to use published material. To the extent possible, the two shouldn't contradict each other. It's probably going to happen, as people start playing in interesting areas before a published source comes out. That can't really be avoided.
What can be avoided are internal inconsistencies. I think that's what Paizo is trying to control when they tell folks that they can't or shouldn't use setting elements in a certain way.
Dragonrest Isle got dumped on for not being Golarioney enough, but then Mammoth Lords and Boiling Beast tried to be Golarioney but apparently lack the encyclopedic knowledge of the setting needed to make an adventure "fit."
This makes me a little worried about the future of writing adventures for Pathfinder. Is the world getting too detailed for people to easily slot it in? "There can't be storm liches!" "There's already a Lost World!" Makes you want to just make up a new little village somewhere (even though even really small villes are already on the main Varisia map...)
Especially as all this setting info is not in one place like the main setting book, but is in every AP and adventure... Seems like this is going to get Forgotten Realms Disease mighty soon. Isn't a "lighter" more Greyhawk approach healthier long term?
I don't think this is the same, Ernest ... though I can see what you're saying. With Mammoth Lords, it felt right, and I admit I didn't know about the Lost Valley bit, but just reading the section in the Campaign Setting (two pages) would have given the jist that James mentioned with the fauna of the area. Eric's submission errors are easily fixed for several of them (changing out the beasties being ridden, for example) but I have to agree, if there's already one lost world hidding under the glaciers there, why would there be two? ::shrug::
With the Boiling Beast, the history/information is available about Magnimar, and to go so off base with it was incredible jarring. I like the storm liches, and could sooo see them used in many ways -- just not where Matt chose to put them. To me it would be like someone setting up a lost heir to the throne in Korvosa without connecting it to the known history and in fact breaking the heck out of the things known about that town. Just wrong.
Personally, I like having lots information about a game world--all the little goodies to tickle my interest and make me ask for more, and in my own home, I can futz with it all I want. But if I plan to submit something to the owners for possible publication, then it's time to delve into the area I want to use and make sure I know as much as possible, so I don't pull a faux pas.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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In an actual pitch situation, choosing the "wrong" city or chuffing some minor bit of continuity wouldn't be much of a problem. If the editor liked the proposal and thought it would make an excellent adventure, he'd simply suggest a few cosmetic changes to the author to make it better fit Paizo's plans.
I don't think individual GMs need to worry about these sorts of conflicts at all. They should go with what works best for their campaign.
When it comes to publishing, we'd prefer to keep things consistent. But the onus is not wholly on the freelancer. Wrangling continuity is one of the jobs of the developers and editors, after all.
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Creative Director
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Erik's absolutely right. Any of the four finalists would make great adventures. All four proposals would need adjusting to fit into Golarion, though, since creating an adventure isn't solely the job of one person. Any of them can be adjusted here and there to fit where they need... that's the whole reason we have authors do proposals/outlines like this in the first place, so we can get everything in the right place BEFORE writing begins, after all. All part of the process.
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I'm glad you two said this because the contest was beginning to seem like less of a search for a star than search for a Golarion Star.
And I hope all of these four get the chance to write for you, because they have talent. This year I've found it much harder to vote because of the standards set.
Now back to waiting for my Legacy module.
Any plans to start, say, a database to tag various Golarion products based on the content, so it would be possible to find out which products have info about some given region or city, about a specific race or culture, about cosmological factor or somesuch...
So if I'd be interested about e.g. fey or arctic climate I could just check which products have info about those.
Because it does occasionally feel like FR/WoD with endless supplements cross-referencing...
An example of FRD would be, "You can't put a city there because in volume 4 of [insert obscure series of novels on lizardfolk vampires], it says 'King What's-his-name' founded a keep on that hill. Paizo needs to update their map to show that fortress!"
The current situation is more like, "You can't have Arazni show up to save the Knights of Ozem during a battle that happened in 4400 A.R., because the campaign setting hard cover has established that she was slain by Tar-Baphon in 3823 A.R. and raised as a lich by Geb in 3890 A.R."
This may not be the best example to use, as the latter sounds like an absolutely scorching case of Forgotten Realms disease to this general reader. But I get your general point.
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Any plans to start, say, a database to tag various Golarion products based on the content, so it would be possible to find out which products have info about some given region or city, about a specific race or culture, about cosmological factor or somesuch...
So if I'd be interested about e.g. fey or arctic climate I could just check which products have info about those.Because it does occasionally feel like FR/WoD with endless supplements cross-referencing...
Again, if it has a wiki article, you can check the references section for this....
...So if I'd be interested about e.g. fey or arctic climate I could just check which products have info about those....
Again, if it has a wiki article, you can check the references section for this....
I can vouch for that. The Pathfinder Wiki is quite useful in that regard.
--Neil
This may not be the best example to use, as the latter sounds like an absolutely scorching case of Forgotten Realms disease to this general reader. But I get your general point.
Contrariwise, I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect someone writing a book set in Golarion to be familiar with the campaign setting book for Golarion, which has a timeline in it that mentions these chronology issues.
In fact, if you search the PCCS for "Arazni," you get a mention on page 76 (which says that Geb animated Arazni as his queen in 3890), an offhand mention on page 77 (referring to Geb stealing her corpse so he could animate it), another pointing out she's the figurehead ruler of the land, page 202 (timeline, Knights of Ozem summon Arazni to help with fighting the Whispering Tyrant in 3818), another on 202 (Tar-Baphon humiliates and kills Arazni in 3823), and another on 202 (reference to Geb reanimating her in 3890).
So almost all of the references in the PCCS talk about how she died and was reanimated and how this happened 3890. So if you write about her walking around happy and alive in the 4000s, you have failed to do even the most basic research on the subject. Anyone writing about a subject for Golarion that can't bother to search the PCCS for references is a shoddy researcher. It's like writing Dwarves of Golarion and not reading about the Quest For Sky in the PCCS.
Good discussion, and I agree that you should at least know the PCCS. Though it's good to hear that canon-fitting is part of the adventure-vetting process - canon errors were just listed as "didn't like's" as part of the responses to the Superstar contestants along with other reasons their adventure was bad, and so it seemed to me they were being used as strikes-against.
It's just something to watch, however - even non-pros, Joe Player/GM, complain about FRD. It's because a) you always have some wisenheimer who does know all that stuff encyclopedically and that's a pain for everyone who doesn't, and b) if you make stuff up yourself, as soon as the next adventure/supplement comes out you may have to ignore it/change it a lot/overrule your previous work. (I read a good blog post recently complaining about running Star Wars games for the same reason).
Anyway, I like Golarion, but was seeing some hints of FRD come out in the Superstar responses. Even for me - I own all the APs and the PCCS and some of Chronicles stuff and a couple of the Gamemaster modules - and already I personally am having trouble keeping it all straight, whereas even with intervening years I'm still pretty "solid" on Greyhawk. As of right now, it's still potentially manageable. But if the current rate of publish is maintained - in a year or two, who'll be able to really keep it all straight?
I know it's a dilemma as clearly you want to publish stuff, and "crunch only" sucks... I'm just sayin'. Usually I have a brilliant idea of how to fix it for ya, but not in this case :-)
Jason and I had a verbal discussion about this topic this morn, and he brought up a good point: we've tried to be pretty consistent about WHERE you might find significant info on a particular region. If you need Osirion lore, there's the Osirion book, and while there are some Osirion adventures, we avoid putting groundbreaking canon material there. Whereas with FR, you might talk about Region1 in the Region One Sourcebook, and more in the Villains of the Realms Sourcebook, and in the Dragons of the Realms Sourcebook, a few paragraphs here and there in Volo's Guide to the Whole Planet and A Grand Tour of Everything. So in FR there are a lot of scattered sources, but Golarion's are more focused.
That said, the FR 3e team worked really hard to incorporate all the important elements from 1e/2e FR into the FRCS (and ignored the goofy and silly stuff that crept in) so you wouldn't need anything but the FRCS to start a campaign. And if you were a novelist working on FR, you likewise wouldn't have to read 20 old books to find info on the areas you're writing about.
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Creative Director
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What Sean Said.
To underline it... we generally expect any author who wants to write a Golarion product to be familiar with the Pathfinder Campaign Setting hardcover. If that author decides to place an adventure or something in an area about which we've already written a LOT, he needs to be familiar with that area; that's the main problem that struck "Denying the Boiling Beast," since Varisia is the most detailed region in all of Golarion right now. It's not a great place to set an adventure unless you're really familiar with Varisia.
Which, frankly, is why we prefer the modules to be non-sprawling, compact, self-contained adventures that don't have plots that cross entire nations. If you're going to write something set in Golarion, make sure you're familiar with the elements you're expanding upon in the PCCS. Nonetheless, there'll be times when something an author wants to do WILL contradict something we've already done, and frankly, that's not the author's job to track. That's OUR job to track. The author's job is to:
A) Come up with cool ideas
and
B) Be willing and able to work with us to fit his vision into Golarion. That's part of the blessing and curse of writing in a shared world.
I am fully aware of the perils of canon bloat and the FRD and all that. But since Golarion's not quite 2 years old as compared to the Forgotten Realms 30 years or so, we've got a lot of time before that's gonna be a big problem. And frankly, if Golarion's still around in 30 years, that's a problem I'd sort of be proud of having.
This may not be the best example to use, as the latter sounds like an absolutely scorching case of Forgotten Realms disease to this general reader. But I get your general point.Contrariwise, I think it is perfectly reasonable to expect someone writing a book set in Golarion to be familiar with the campaign setting book for Golarion, which has a timeline in it that mentions these chronology issues.
In fact, if you search the PCCS for "Arazni," you get a mention on page 76 (which says that Geb animated Arazni as his queen in 3890), an offhand mention on page 77 (referring to Geb stealing her corpse so he could animate it), another pointing out she's the figurehead ruler of the land, page 202 (timeline, Knights of Ozem summon Arazni to help with fighting the Whispering Tyrant in 3818), another on 202 (Tar-Baphon humiliates and kills Arazni in 3823), and another on 202 (reference to Geb reanimating her in 3890).
I'm sure you're right when it comes to writers, but to a general reader like me, I could care less. I've never really got what Trekkies, comic book fans, and FR readers get out of all that nitty gritty continuity stuff. To each their own.
I'm sure you're right when it comes to writers, but to a general reader like me, I could care less.
Well, we are talking about writers. GMs can do whatever they want with their home campaigns and aren't beholden to canon.
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Director of Brand Strategy
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I'm sure you're right when it comes to writers, but to a general reader like me, I could care less.Well, we are talking about writers. GMs can do whatever they want with their home campaigns and aren't beholden to canon.
I have to say, I love canon, and appreciate all the effort that goes into maintaining it.
In any established medium where you are playing with someone else's toys, a writer has the responsibility to do the research and respect what has come before him. Given the fact that we all knew that the end result would be a module pitch if we made it that far, every entrant should have begun thier research on the area they wanted to use, the very moment they were slected for the Top 32.
Try writing for comics. You think 2 years of canon is hard to keep up with? Like that industry, the editors are first and formost, Keepers of the Realm they publish. And while it is their job to maintain the integrity of continuity, it's the writer's job to present an editor with a product that won't cause him/her to rip their hair out over a submission filled with talent, but an author who just doesn't "get it."
Isn't a "lighter" more Greyhawk approach healthier long term?
This is the crux of what we're discussing here. I place internal consistency of the canon very far back on my list of priorities as a buyer and thus as a voter. The moment tending to canon gets in the way of a higher priority, I urge the decision-makers to ditch canon.
Moreover, I would guess that the people who care about canon are the buyers of the setting guides, which is a subset of DMs who buy adventures, which is a subset of DMs in the first place. But I don't have marketing figures, so that's just a guess on my part.
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Contributor
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This may not be the best example to use, as the latter sounds like an absolutely scorching case of Forgotten Realms disease to this general reader. But I get your general point.
Thanks for being gentle, roguerouge. Seeing as how my post above was mainly a case of "diarrhea of the digits," my point didn't really come through very clearly.
I was trying to draw a distinction between being expected to know information scattered across a large body of work (FRD) and being expected to have familiarity with material in the PCCS (not-FRD). And those expectations were definitely intended to be confined to someone writing professionally for Pathfinder.
Sean and James said it better than I did. (Yeah, I know. "Duh." ;) )
Thanks for being gentle, roguerouge. Seeing as how my post above was mainly a case of "diarrhea of the digits," my point didn't really come through very clearly.
Oh, your message got through fine. I just found the example funny because I have such a low tolerance for canon-maintenance that both sounded weird to me.
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Creative Director
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My goal: To make sure that products come out that expand the canon and don't contradict it, and do so in a way that makes the product itself fun and interesting. It's more or less the goal I've tried to apply to everything we've published for Pathfinder up to right now, and It'll remain my goal as long as I'm editor in chief here. It shouldn't matter to folks who don't care about cannon whether or not a product follows canon, but it does to those who do care, so making sure products follow canon is the best way to produce products that everyone can enjoy.
It shouldn't matter to folks who don't care about cannon whether or not a product follows canon, but it does to those who do care, so making sure products follow canon is the best way to produce products that everyone can enjoy.
And that would be a concise definition of why canon matters to publishers and authors: it's a tiny subset of people, but meeting their needs doesn't cost you any sales. And if you don't, you not only lose that sale, they might go to the internet....
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mmmm interesting conversation.
As a GM I will play in MY version of Golarion. The Campaign Setting, and the other developed history are all pieces to be used and ignored at my whim. For me, the Whispering Tyrant was not truly defeated. In fact the lich had more than one phylactery, and has been recovering his power for a massive return. Also, for me, Aroden DID return as predicted; he just returned as a mortal man, and gave his divine station to Iomedae instead.
Land of the Mammoth Lords, has some human tribes, but for me, it is ruled by Frost Giants who ride mammoths as mounts.
In other words, cannon be damned! It's MY game and I will use what I want, when I want, the way I want. Any GM can do that.
However, if you plan on being PUBLISHED by Paizo, then you darn well better know your stuff. Even I will rip you if you screw up cannon. It is PUBLISHED after all.
However, under the Community Use License I do NOT expect every single contributor to stick to cannon. Would prefer they don't actually. Give me new ideas outside the box and let me worry about how it fits in with mine.
Another example, that map that appeared in the last Dungeon (Map of Mysteries) I have placed INSIDE Golarion which is now a hollow world. I have Taldorans racially being descended from half-elementals and from another world (from Mystara).
I have ditched the non-human pantheons entirely from Golarion and used the ones from the Iron Kingdoms- which are FAR better and more thought out than the Golarion non-human deities (Paizo staff should have read the Iron Kingdoms before half-assing the non-humans).
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Chief Technical Officer
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...canon errors were just listed as "didn't like's" as part of the responses to the Superstar contestants along with other reasons their adventure was bad, and so it seemed to me they were being used as strikes-against.
I think your perspective on those "didn't like" lists is a bit off-target. Those lists are not equivalent to "why the adventure was bad"—I'm pretty confident that none of the judges would describe any of the proposals as "bad." For the most part, they're just lists of things that somebody would have to fix between the proposal and the publication. Clearly, some of those things are more important than others; after all, even a few spelling errors are mentioned there, and nobody's going to reject a proposal because of a couple of mispelled words. Don't look at them as reasons not to publish an adventure—look at them as things that the writer should be looking out for in future proposals.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
aka Tarren Dei
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Clearly, some of those things are more important than others; after all, even a few spelling errors are mentioned there, and nobody's going to reject a proposal because of a couple of mispelled words.
Let's hope not. ;-)
As the Koreans say, 'Even monkeys fall from trees'.
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Chief Technical Officer
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...nobody's going to reject a proposal because of a couple of mispelled words.Let's hope not. ;-)
Sure—mock my crusade against inappropriate pelling! Before you know it, words will be wrongly pelled worldwide—even by women and children! Mark my words—inaccurate pelling will be the end of civilization as we know it.
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Sure—mock my crusade against inappropriate pelling! Before you know it, words will be wrongly pelled worldwide—even by women and children! Mark my words—inaccurate pelling will be the end of civilization as we know it....nobody's going to reject a proposal because of a couple of mispelled words.Let's hope not. ;-)
LOL!!!!!!! that is hilarious! LOL!!!!!!!
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Creative Director
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Vic's right. My list of "Didn't Likes" for the four proposals shouldn't be taken as me not liking the adventure proposal. If I like a proposal, it's going to have a big list of "Didn't Like" elements that I'll want the author to address or defend or change, as the case may be.
If I don't like a proposal, I don't list things I don't like. I just send a form rejection letter, usually. None of these four adventure proposals would have received a rejection letter. They would have received a letter pretty much identical to the initial review post I made.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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Dedicated Voter Season 6
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And that would be a concise definition of why canon matters to publishers and authors: it's a tiny subset of people, but meeting their needs doesn't cost you any sales. And if you don't, you not only lose that sale, they might go to the internet....
I don't think it's all that tiny. I suspect a large portion of the PF audience would be annoyed if a Pathfinder module presented (for example) Sarenrae as the chief religion of Cheliax, or Osirion as ruled by an elected council of elves.
The folks who obsess over small contradictions are a minority, but canon as a whole is very important to a product line.
You will regret your mockery of Abadar's holy crusade against inappropriate Pelling! Federal education grant funds should only be used for educational purposes! AHHHH....OHHHH.....Dooooooom!!!
I think your perspective on those "didn't like" lists is a bit off-target. Those lists are not equivalent to "why the adventure was bad"—I'm pretty confident that none of the judges would describe any of the proposals as "bad." For the most part, they're just lists of things that somebody would have to fix between the proposal and the publication. Clearly, some of those things are more important than others; after all, even a few spelling errors are mentioned there, and nobody's going to reject a proposal because of a couple of mispelled words. Don't look at them as reasons not to publish an adventure—look at them as things that the writer should be looking out for in future proposals.
Vic's right. My list of "Didn't Likes" for the four proposals shouldn't be taken as me not liking the adventure proposal. If I like a proposal, it's going to have a big list of "Didn't Like" elements that I'll want the author to address or defend or change, as the case may be.
I think it would be helpful if you clarified the distinction between didn't like and will need work for the voters in each superstar's thread. If you're not experienced in publishing, it looks like a long list of "why the adventure was bad" with a smaller set of "why the adventure was good."
Just a suggestion.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
aka Tarren Dei
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Sure—mock my crusade against inappropriate pelling! Before you know it, words will be wrongly pelled worldwide—even by women and children! Mark my words—inaccurate pelling will be the end of civilization as we know it....nobody's going to reject a proposal because of a couple of mispelled words.Let's hope not. ;-)
Yahoo gave me 284,000 hits for 'mispell' and 2,900,000 hits for 'misspell'. Seems like a lot of people are with you in the fight against pelling.
And that would be a concise definition of why canon matters to publishers and authors: it's a tiny subset of people, but meeting their needs doesn't cost you any sales. And if you don't, you not only lose that sale, they might go to the internet....I don't think it's all that tiny. I suspect a large portion of the PF audience would be annoyed if a Pathfinder module presented (for example) Sarenrae as the chief religion of Cheliax, or Osirion as ruled by an elected council of elves.
The folks who obsess over small contradictions are a minority, but canon as a whole is very important to a product line.
Just to be clear, I believe that there's a spectrum that runs from "Cheliax will now be ruled by Pixies!" and "There's already 3 paragraphs about a Lost World in Supplement X. How could you have missed that?" Just because I don't care about canon mistakes on the latter end of the spectrum, doesn't mean I endorse canon mistakes at the far end of the former spectrum. It's just that for me a lot of that spectrum is firmly in the "don't much care" spectrum than it is for other people.
Explaining what I meant by tiny subset: There's three groups of DMs. One homebrews their entire world and the adventures therein. If they buy things, it's splat books, just to keep an eye on their players. So they don't care about your canon. Another group of DMs adopts an entire setting or a region for an AP. Those DMs care about about canon specifics. Another group of DMs buy modules and settings, but only to yoink the parts that they want to use. They buy from a lot of vendors and can use things across editions. They don't care about canon specifics, because they edit together their own canon. They probably do care about the major canon incoherencies you cite, but only because those would be the only ones that would crop up. So getting canon specifics right appeals to the second set of DMs, but is largely not a big deal to the first and third sets.
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Chief Technical Officer
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Yahoo gave me 284,000 hits for 'mispell' and 2,900,000 hits for 'misspell'. Seems like a lot of people are with you in the fight against pelling.
Don't forget Miss Peller.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
aka Tarren Dei
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Oh, phew. For a minute I thought you were on a crusade against sex advice columnist Rowan Pelling. But, I guess she's Ms.Pelling.
Vic's right. My list of "Didn't Likes" for the four proposals shouldn't be taken as me not liking the adventure proposal. If I like a proposal, it's going to have a big list of "Didn't Like" elements that I'll want the author to address or defend or change, as the case may be.
If I don't like a proposal, I don't list things I don't like. I just send a form rejection letter, usually. None of these four adventure proposals would have received a rejection letter. They would have received a letter pretty much identical to the initial review post I made.
This isn't four independent pitches, it's a competition. I think most people would look at the judge feedback and say "lots more didn't likes on this one; he likes it less." If that wasn't your intention, it'll still be the effect on people that read judges' comments before voting.
This isn't four independent pitches, it's a competition. I think most people would look at the judge feedback and say "lots more didn't likes on this one; he likes it less." If that wasn't your intention, it'll still be the effect on people that read judges' comments before voting.Vic's right. My list of "Didn't Likes" for the four proposals shouldn't be taken as me not liking the adventure proposal. If I like a proposal, it's going to have a big list of "Didn't Like" elements that I'll want the author to address or defend or change, as the case may be.
If I don't like a proposal, I don't list things I don't like. I just send a form rejection letter, usually. None of these four adventure proposals would have received a rejection letter. They would have received a letter pretty much identical to the initial review post I made.
Actually, and I speak for myself and all the other people that came up with their response BEFORE reading the judges and anyone else's comments, the majority are not being swayed by the judges comments. My reasoning for this is the statement that many folks are using of here's my comments before I read anything except the adventure proposal ...
This isn't four independent pitches, it's a competition. I think most people would look at the judge feedback and say "lots more didn't likes on this one; he likes it less." If that wasn't your intention, it'll still be the effect on people that read judges' comments before voting.
Since this isn't my submission thread, I believe I'm free to comment here...although, obviously, I'll refrain from referencing my entry for the final round, as I know that would be bad form. Even so, I want to respond on this topic, because I feel strongly about it.
Personally, I looked at the judge's feedback and took it as exactly that...feedback directed at the designers. And I honestly take a lot more from "what I didn't like" than "what I did like"...because, although the latter makes me happy and inflates my ego (yeah, like I needed any more of that!), the former actually helps me improve. So, rock on, James! In fact, tell us more about what you didn't like so we can improve!
Also, I disagree with the notion that this isn't four independent pitches. That's exactly what it is. And even though we're all pitching for the same opportunity, there will be further opportunities besides this one. So, it's important to make a good impression, regardless of...and independent of...the actual competition involved. That's how I view it at least. And I would imagine the others do as well.
Lastly, if the voters look at the judges' commentary and take it as full-bore criticism and campaigning "for" or "against" a particular entry, I think that's more in the eyes of the voters than the actual comments made by the judges. The entire RPG Superstar event, going all the way back to last year, has been about building up future talent for RPG design. And, by the time you get all the way to the Top 4, it's quite clear everyone has serious design chops to make it that far. Thus, the judges' commentary at that stage is more about refinement and constructive criticism than anything negative or intended to mislead the voters. In many ways, I see it as one further test about how well we can handle criticism and feedback. And I also think the majority of the Paizo community is smart enough and mature enough to realize that.
But that's just my heartfelt two-cents,
--Neil
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Director of Brand Strategy
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Explaining what I meant by tiny subset: There's three groups of DMs. One homebrews their entire world and the adventures therein. If they buy things, it's splat books, just to keep an eye on their players. So they don't care about your canon. Another group of DMs adopts an entire setting or a region for an AP. Those DMs care about about canon specifics. Another group of DMs buy modules and settings, but only to yoink the parts that they want to use. They buy from a lot of vendors and can use things across editions. They don't care about canon specifics, because they edit together their own canon. They probably do care about the major canon incoherencies you cite, but only because those would be the only ones that would crop up. So getting canon specifics right appeals to the second set of DMs, but is largely not a big deal to the first and third sets.
What I don't get is how either set one or three suffers if extra attention is paid to the second. Since they aren't looking at canon at all, they won't be upset if it's all perfect. They're not going to not buy something because it fits with established canon. But that second set will almost definitely avoid a product that they won't be able to use in their canon world-based, fan fiction, or whatever else they use the product for. And no matter how much work goes into appeasing the second group, mistakes will inevitably happen because no one, no matter how hard they try, can get that many details covered 100% of the time. But to set the bar at such general elements as what god is most prevalent in a nation is excluding at least a third of the audience and that would have an effect on the reputation, not to mention the bottom line, of Pathfinder products. Just because you don't like chocolate cake doesn't mean that Paizo shouldn't spend the energy to make chocolate cake for those of us who do.
What I don't get is how either set one or three suffers if extra attention is paid to the second. Since they aren't looking at canon at all, they won't be upset if it's all perfect.
They don't get upset. DMs 1 & 3 stop buying, however, when the canon gets so specific and complicated that canon starts:
a) putting a straight-jacket on authors, making it hard for them to realize cool ideas and thus creating staid products;
b) feeling so complicated that it's off-putting and hard to integrate into their world (that's why I've never bothered with FR products, at least);
and/or c) reading like an installment of a novel or a guide handbook rather than an adventure.
I know that I'm worried about Paizo succumbing to option C after the last AP, where there was so... much... back story.... (Stupid elves with their millennia of history!) Rumblings are good for the first installment of the next path, however, so hopefully it was just an aberration. (Of course, the first installment on all four of these paths have been good. The real test of an AP's quality seems to be whether the third and fourth adventures are as good as the first.)
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I know that I'm worried about Paizo succumbing to option C after the last AP, where there was so... much... back story.... (Stupid elves with their millennia of history!) Rumblings are good for the first installment of the next path, however, so hopefully it was just an aberration. (Of course, the first installment on all four of these paths have been good. The real test of an AP's quality seems to be whether the third and fourth adventures are as good as the first.)
See, I'm the opposite... I'm one of the subset 4.. buys everything to read, hasn't had a regular play group since before PF1 came out, so hadn't played/DMed any of them in person.
Since I buy the products to read, I would be happy with a complete 6 issue AP that only brought you to level 3, if it was rich enough in history of the world.
Golorian is larger than earth (IIRC) and older than earth. How many books have been written about Earth's history? and how much fiction is written based on Earth? I think we're safe for a long time.
Especially with the ability to search multiple PDFs at once with adobe, I can search every pathfinder product at one time for instances of data on X topic (and do so routinely for wiki articles and the fanfic I started) So finding where something is referenced isn't an issue normally, just takes an extra few minutes.
Aaaaaa....
Earth broke canon years ago. P-U.
;)
I think it would be helpful if you clarified the distinction between didn't like and will need work for the voters in each superstar's thread. If you're not experienced in publishing, it looks like a long list of "why the adventure was bad" with a smaller set of "why the adventure was good."
Just a suggestion.
As a developer, "things I'll need to fix if this is in the turnover" is synonymous with "bad."
As a developer, "things I won't need to fix if this is in the turnover" is synonymous with "good."
If you look back at my previous comments, I often said "As a developer, blah blah blah." By round 5, it should be obvious that I'm posting as a developer. :)
Who are you again?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 8
aka Tarren Dei
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I think it would be helpful if you clarified the distinction between didn't like and will need work for the voters in each superstar's thread. If you're not experienced in publishing, it looks like a long list of "why the adventure was bad" with a smaller set of "why the adventure was good."
Just a suggestion.As a developer, "things I'll need to fix if this is in the turnover" is synonymous with "bad."
As a developer, "things I won't need to fix if this is in the turnover" is synonymous with "good."
If you look back at my previous comments, I often said "As a developer, blah blah blah." By round 5, it should be obvious that I'm posting as a developer. :)
As I went through the rounds, one of the most interesting parts was seeing the responses from the editors-as-judge. Sure, there's an emotional reaction to 'nitpicks' but once you get over that it feels an awful lot like you're getting Sean, Monte, Clark, Jason, Wolfgang, and the 2008 Top 4 to brainstorm over your creation. It's cool.
EDIT: If you wanted to address roguerouge's concern, you could always have the 'judges' labelled as 'editors' next year to emphasize that their feedback is editorial and it is the voters who are the judges.
If you look back at my previous comments, I often said "As a developer, blah blah blah." By round 5, it should be obvious that I'm posting as a developer. :)I think it would be helpful if you clarified the distinction between didn't like and will need work for the voters in each superstar's thread. If you're not experienced in publishing, it looks like a long list of "why the adventure was bad" with a smaller set of "why the adventure was good."
Just a suggestion.
Yours were labeled fine. James' were a touch more confusing due to the label "Things I Don't Like About This Proposal" and "Things I Like About This Proposal."
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I think it would be helpful if you clarified the distinction between didn't like and will need work for the voters in each superstar's thread. If you're not experienced in publishing, it looks like a long list of "why the adventure was bad" with a smaller set of "why the adventure was good."
Just a suggestion.
I feel that James did write his comments for the authors, who are trying and wanting to write for Golarion (meaning they NEED to keep consistency, even if the group of people who has to write and publish and need and want cannon, trying to entering in that group should make people to think to keep it)
as they are writing a pitch for Golarion, James gave them the comments as he will give to other freelancers... since this contest is to make them exactly that I feel they get more from this comments than they would just for honeyed words..
voters, lets get real... would vote without mattering what the judges say, because they like the writer, because they like the idea, because they liek a creature appearing there, because they hated someone else proposal, etc...
the one I voted was because I feel it was very profesional, interesting, give me enought with what to work and then... because I liked the region it was using... ahh and the idea of killing gnomes appeals to me.
Yours were labeled fine. James' were a touch more confusing due to the label "Things I Don't Like About This Proposal" and "Things I Like About This Proposal."
confusing?
since he is evaluating as head designer, I find it very clearbut he has his personal notes:
he doesn't like blink dogs because it goes against his nature :P
even when everyone else liked the evil blink dogs :P