I miss the Forgotten Realms. I loved that place. It still irks me what they did to destroy a perfectly good setting
Thankfully, I have Golarion, another perfectly good setting
Besides, I like 3.5 better than 4 anyway
I find it promising. There's rather a lot that I don't like, however there are a few parts that I think are exquisite and I find it relatively easy to just ignore those places which dont gel with my idea of a fantasy world - something I struggled to do with the realms for some reason. I don't think I'd use it for a campaign I was writing myself. However it makes an ideal background for the Adventure Paths and modules (ldo).
I expect the "canon lawyer" phenomenon is a function of time rather than setting. I expect if Golarion got the same following and the same product support that the Forgotten Realms got, then there would be just as many players claiming that "That's not how it's supposed to work".
High DM utility.
It seems like a campaign setting that is first a DM aid, and is intended to be used with a very healthy dose of "It's your game". Any standard sort of fantasy game you might want to run you could put somewhere in Golarion, and you can pull a bunch of neighboring realms, major cities, gods, planets, in to support your game as needed.
The first thing we do, let's kill all the canon lawyers.
I wouldn't be surprised if Golarion "canon lawyering" becomes inevitable and common, if the setting becomes very popular with a lot of product support
Hmm. Given Paizo's slow schedule for new rulebooks releases, but quick schedule for adventure path and Companion/Chronicles subscriptions, it may be that Pathfinder will suffer "canon bloat" rather than "rules bloat".
Canonization is probably significantly a fan cultural phenomena, rather than being dependent on rules or publication schedules. Probably, a huge proportion of the adventuring done in Golarion is in the adventure paths and the PFS, which seems like it would contribute to a sense of canon. OTOH, all the work by fans to find a place for Ptolus and Freeport in Golarion is strongly counter-canon. A strong third-party publishing market for modular setting material (like Freeport PF Edition) would probably do a lot to keep Golarion, &c., useful for DMs.
I am running some older third-party adventures in Golarion simply because it is a useful setting, easier to use than FR and more expansive and detailed than homebrew.
Consider the difference between FR canon and Greyhawk canon. Greyhawk canon was always a pastiche held together by canonical adventures, dungeons, and modules, whereas FR had more sourcebooks, novels, &c. FR was always saddled with epic storylines driven by fiction characters and NPCs, not PCs, and "Realms-changing events". I hope Paizo will be wary of this.
Even including a "Using Osirion/Ustalav/Jalmeray in Your Game" section as a preface to the material in the Companion/Chronicles would do a great deal to minimize perceptions of canon. And a 32-page region guide doesn't offer nearly as much information for canonization as a much longer book.
|
mmm
things about canon are complex
yes iwould like to know what is the oficial stance about what happens ito some characters or regions in the Adventure Paths... still if in my game happened something else I will give that priority... we already do with the advebntures, changing the schedule, sometimes the adventurers discover soemthing and just jump to other part of the adventure where they are not supposed to get... yet... still we let it flow
Golarion is abeutiful place, with lots of interesting sites...
in general Golarion has a soul... which makes me love the setting even if i am not quite happy with the PFRPG final product... but the setting in itself... I love it
Also hopefully there will no need to pull off any realms changing events like a "Time of Troubles" or "Spellplague" for Golarion in the future. If Golarion becomes popular enough, hopefully there will also be no canon lawyers ruining the setting.
Sorry to rain on your parade but, as I mentioned on an earlier post, Golarion's amount of canon bloat (and hence canon lawyers) is going to be exponentially proportional to the game's success and directly proportional to its longevity, no ifs ands or buts. From the time I've been suscribed to this messageboard, I see that a percentage of PF fans are "FR refugees" who got "fired" after the whole spell plague thing, and it's likely that at, among said percentage, at least a handful of those used to be canon lawyers in their day, and it's just as likely they'll bring said habits to Golarion, so we have already a (hopefully)minimal percetage of canon lawyers to start with, which will only increase as Golarion becomes more popular.
Now, about the probability of another "time of troubles/spellplague/One More Day/Zero Hour"?: Inevitable, that's just part of the life cycle of any piece of literature following the "comic book model" (ongoing, not designed to have an "end"). Eventually FR/Golarion/Spiderman becomes so bloated and convoluted that the writers no longer want anything to do with it, but they can't let it die, because it's the company's cashcow, so they have to do the only viable thing, they reboot it.
Fortunately, however, for all the canon that's already built in Golarion (PF has already a truckload of companions and adventures for a game that was just recently launched), Golarion still has to form anything even closely resembling a metaplot, APs are (AFAIK) designed to undo most of the world-shaking fallout and take things back as close to the starting point as possible, and as long as there are no novels to give us the "official version" of what happened in each arc, they technically still don't count. What worries me, however, is this Anarchy-Online model regarding the PFS Organized Play (I know AO is a relatively obscure reference, but if I use the most popular reference of an online game that handles factions half the regulars will chase me with torches and pitchforks). My love for Golarion canon will be greatly diminished once the inevitable moment comes when a faction finally claims Absalom.
Gorillian
A Gorillian is, simply, one million Gorillas. The term was first coined by Jane Goodall as she was doing her research on primates. As she came across each Gorilla, she realized it would be most difficult to count the number of Gorillas she would be studying. That night Gorillian was invented.
Wait... I think I spelled it wrong...
Creative Director
|
Wonder how soon Pathfinder Golarion novels will start being published. If the writing is of high quality, I may even consider reading them.
Goal #1 is indeed to get writing of high quality. As for WHEN Golarion/Pathfinder novels will come around... we're working on it but it'll be a bit. Hopefully not a LONG bit...
With 5 years of Pathfinder Golarion specific APs + supplements + modules being published at the same unabated pace, there will be around 195 Golarion specific books published in a 5 year period (using the numbers and assumptions in my previous post).
To give a relative perspective, Forgotten Realms published around 169 box sets + splats + modules over 21 years from 1987 to 2008. For other TSR/WotC settings, the number of box sets + splatbooks + modules published per setting are (approximately):
Forgotten Realms 169
Dragonlance 88
Ravenloft 89
Greyhawk 44
Dark Sun 33
Planescape 32
Birthright 32
Mystara/Savage Coasts/Red Steel/Hollow World 23
Rokugan 23
Spelljammer 21
Lankhmar 12
Al-Qadim 14
Kara-Tur 6
Jakandor 3
Council of Wyrms 2(I may have missed several books).
After 5 years or so, Golarion will have surpassed Forgotten Realms in the total number of supplements + APs/modules produced. (That is, even if one counts each of the FR box sets as two or three titles in the total number of FR books published).
I'm not 100% sure on how to digest those statistics, however it might be worth noting that the number of pages won't have surpassed the FR material (for example). The Paizo books are smaller than most of the equivalent supplements - part of the attraction, in my view.
|
I think the point above about meta-plots is important. Splat books and companions and what not give you one type of information, mostly static, mostly descriptive. Novels provide story arcs and events that, supposedly, did happen (in the campaign world). Those types of major events are harder to ignore. I for one, will probably not read that many Golarion novels just because I don't have as much time as I wish I did to read. Plus, for some reason, I've never liked books set in RPG worlds that much. Not sure why. Anyway...
So maybe the thing to do when the Golarion novels start come out is for Paizo to expressly say, "These aren't canon." Events will happen in the book, but those are just cool stories set in a cool world. Just because they happened in a novel doesn't mean they happened in the canon world. They're just possibilities. Keep canon to splat books and other RPG products. (By doing this, one series of novels wouldn't even have to agree with another set of novels. Talk about bringing in a pulp era feel - who needs consistency!)
As a DM, I just find splat books easier to pick and choose from. Example from Eberron. The original campaign guide says that Kius III is a vampire. Fine. In my campaign, many people suspected him of being a vampire, for all the reasons stated, but he was really a werewolf. But once something like that makes it into a novel, and some Drow ranger stakes him, how can I argue with that?
That's the other problem with metaplots. Little by little, they start to solve all the problems that I want PCs to solve.
Okay, I'm starting to ramble, but IMO, metaplot creep is a bigger danger than splatbook creep.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
|
Another note, for what it's worth, is that canon-from-adventures is necessarily tentative, whereas canon-from-sourcebooks and canon-from-novels is more definitive.
(How's that?)
Well, the Paizo staff have mentioned that they are not writing the Adventure Paths in chronological order. "Second Darkness" doesn't suppose that "Rise of the Runelords" has happened successfully, or even that it's happened at all. In your campaign, you may be running "Council of Thieves" and following it up with "Rise of the Runelords", and that's supposed to be fine. Even if the PCs make terrible mistakes and *fail* in "Council of Thieves", RotR will still work as an adventure.
Truth to tell, I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of adventures actually contradict one another. "Which is canon?" Whichever you decide for your home campaign.
But canon-ossification will happen.
- Someday, there will be a module revealing what's in the Eye of Abendego.
- Someday, Paizo will hire R.A. Salvatore to write a novel about Aroden's last day.
- Adventure Path 20 will be the "10th Anniversary" quest to retrieve the stolen Great Treasure of the Pathfinder Society in Absalom, which will culminate in the party taking the Test of the Starstone as the only way to escape being sent back in time to the impact point of the First Darkness.
The only real solution is to find some game that doesn't get played much any more. Not too many people are adding to Harn's canon-glut these days.
|
|
Great post, including the "inevitable" adventures. I especially agree with purposefully messing with canon. Why limit a writer's creativity to one line of "hitory"?
Truth to tell, I wouldn't mind seeing a couple of adventures actually contradict one another. "Which is canon?" Whichever you decide for your home campaign.
|
Sorry to rain on your parade but, as I mentioned on an earlier post, Golarion's amount of canon bloat (and hence canon lawyers) is going to be exponentially proportional to the game's success and directly proportional to its longevity, no ifs ands or buts.
I agree.
I love Golarion. For me, it's all about the actual Campaign Setting book and the Companion volumes presenting the kingdoms.
Beyond this, I feel it becomes too much of an AD&D 2nd edition, plot-heavy setting. What I want is a sandbox. No metaplot, no timeline. And with Pathfinder Society, what we de facto get is a timeline. That's not for me.
So I'm doomed to be alienated as a Golarion customer, sooner rather than later. There will be reboots, there will be timeline advancements, and sooner or later, Times of Troubles and Spellplagues. I won't be there to see it, because I will have stopped buying Pathfinder setting products by then.
(The actual Pathfinder RPG is another story completely)
This setting is pure gold.
Where are you getting this data for page numbers. I'm surprised anyone has it counted up somewhere.
I was a fan of Dragonlance. Since I switched my subscription from Dragon to Pathfinder, I stopped playing on Krynn and I adopted Golarion.
Furthermore, Golarion is still a new world. Nothing is set in stone, yet. This means no player can argue with me that town X is on the other side of the river, or that mayor Y of town Z is a well known necromancer.
In short, Golarion is *my* world now.
- Zorg
|
|
An era of "canon lawyers" taking over and an eventual "day of reckoning" reboot, may very well be quite a number of years away into the future for one big reason. Pathfinder does not have the words "Dungeons and Dragons" on the front cover.
The fact that Pathfinder does not have the words "Dungeons and Dragons" on the front cover, may very well place an upper limit constraint on how popular Golarion will become for the next several years. Though this may change if Pathfinder ever becomes very popular amongst the non-hardcore casual rpg players.
ORRRRRRRR it might bring all the ones who hated WotC for destroying the Forgotten Realms setting... or Ravenloft :P
|
I for one don't care about cannon. I like FR. I liked the majoroty of the products put out for FR in 1/2/3 editions. In all the games i DM'ed Elmister and the rest of them stayed out of MY story. The novels were good to read (most off the time) but these campaign worlds are MINE to do with as WE please.
That is why Paizo / WotC / TSR etc made them. So we can do as we wish. Cannon be damned if it gets in the way of having fun. My players know how i do things. Some of them point out "that didn't happen" and my repsonse is "in my world it did."
Part of this game is about surprise and NOT knowing the story. Sure it nice to have some heroes to look up to but one shouldn't just bow down to cannon.
I am sure the wonderful Paizo staff doesn't care what we do in our worlds as long as we are having fun! (and maybe buy some product here in there to pay the electric bill or Erik's I-Phone bill)
Just look at what they did with the last Star Trek movie. Flushed all that cannon right down the toliet. I loved it!
|
|
I for one don't care about cannon. I like FR. I liked the majoroty of the products put out for FR in 1/2/3 editions. In all the games i DM'ed Elmister and the rest of them stayed out of MY story. The novels were good to read (most off the time) but these campaign worlds are MINE to do with as WE please.
That is why Paizo / WotC / TSR etc made them. So we can do as we wish. Cannon be damned if it gets in the way of having fun. My players know how i do things. Some of them point out "that didn't happen" and my repsonse is "in my world it did."
Part of this game is about surprise and NOT knowing the story. Sure it nice to have some heroes to look up to but one shouldn't just bow down to cannon.
I am sure the wonderful Paizo staff doesn't care what we do in our worlds as long as we are having fun! (and maybe buy some product here in there to pay the electric bill or Erik's I-Phone bill)
Just look at what they did with the last Star Trek movie. Flushed all that cannon right down the toliet. I loved it!
In short, Kill the Cannon layers...over...and over...and over... :-)
To me, Golarion is the new Mystara. It has a lived in feel that many of the other new settings out there don't.
I was going to post something along these lines. A campaign setting has to have recognizable countries in it. For example Osirion is the Golarion-Egypt (G-Egypt) much in the same way that Nithia or Thothia is the Mystarian-Egypt (M-Egypt). Ya gotta have those setting analogs! :)
Thanks to Paizo for giving me a new Mystara!