Director of Brand Strategy
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If this book is re-released could it please not appear on the chronicles subscription.
If the reprint contains significantly more content, many people will want it both in print and pdf, so if it's not included in a subscription, it further increases the cost for many customers to upgrade, since they will have to purchase each format separately.
Grubby-handed players might want to look at or borrow one. :PI bought two of the original HCs, Ill buy a new one for sure whenever its released.
Good Stuff.
Don't get me wrong, I love books, but why purchase 3 copies?
You must have ample shelf space! :)
Those players and their grubby hands! (Angrily shakes a grubby fist in the air)
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If this book is re-released could it please not appear on the chronicles subscription.If the reprint contains significantly more content, many people will want it both in print and pdf, so if it's not included in a subscription, it further increases the cost for many customers to upgrade, since they will have to purchase each format separately.
Ahh but you forget what they did BEFORE there was a subscription for every product line. Subscribers that preordered Pathfinder product that weren't organized into subscriptions yet got the PDFs for free anyway.
Same could be done with this if it were taken out of the general subscription rotation.
I personally wish they'd just add a "Pass" feature so people subscribers could pass on items that were coming out. Just set a hardline and set out an email the Monday before the deadline for Pass cut offs and everything out be good. Presumably the cut off date would be before they put in an order for the book so they know how many subscribers actually need.
I personally wish they'd just add a "Pass" feature so people subscribers could pass on items that were coming out.
It does sound like a good idea, but people might take advantage of that and "pass" on many products, only purchasing one or two products at discounted prices.
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I personally wish they'd just add a "Pass" feature so people subscribers could pass on items that were coming out.It does sound like a good idea, but people might take advantage of that and "pass" on many products, only purchasing one or two products at discounted prices.
Simple, you loss your discount if you passed on last month's product. So people passing on the APs is as if they unsubscribed and thus lost their Advantage discount anyway.
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Any updates on the possibility of a reprint? I'm a new comer to PFRPG, have the core book, a paycheck away from being willing to buy the bestiary, and council of thieves #1 is on its way among other things...and of course if I run CoT for a group (still forming currently), I'll need to give them deities to replace standard D&D-fair gods in light of Cheliax. The fluff would be great and all, but a solid reprint updated to PFRPG would make everything concise and easy to use on the fly...
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Just a thought, but I'd like to see the new campaign book be rules free or at least lite like GR did with Freeport. Then Paizo wouldn't have to worry about revising it. Most of the mechanics are presented in the individual products found outside of it anyway. It would also appeal to a much larger audience since they wouldn't be purchasing a product with information they don't want within it.
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Creative Director
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Just a thought, but I'd like to see the new campaign book be rules free or at least lite like GR did with Freeport. Then Paizo wouldn't have to worry about revising it. Most of the mechanics are presented in the individual products found outside of it anyway. It would also appeal to a much larger audience since they wouldn't be purchasing a product with information they don't want within it.
The thought of having spent a huge part of 2009 creating a new edition of the rules and all of the stress and pain and blood and tears that went into that process only to ignore the fruits of that labor by making the next printing of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting hardcover rules-free is paralytically depressing.
I want to be able to use our new rules with our campaign setting to create Adventure Paths. It's easy enough as it is (and as it will be) to ignore any rules content anyway if you want to use the setting for a 4E game or a Castles & Crusades game or a Tunnels & Trolls game or whatever.
And I'm 99% sure that making the book rules-free would cost us FAR more customers than it would gain us. Paizo's specialty is supporting Pathfinder, after all. I don't want to estrange our established customers by abandoning them in pursuit of someone else who might not be interested in buying the book anyway.
And just to chime in here - I do hope that the updated version is part of the subscription.
(... and I like having rules content in all books. I really really don't like fluff-only books.)
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Add Shoanti(and Arcadians) to the ethnicity section add Shoanti(and Arcadians) to the ethnicity section add Shoanti(and Arcadians) to the ethnicity section add Shoanti(and Arcadians) to the ethnicity section add Shoanti(and Arcadians) to the ethnicity section add Shoanti(and Arcadians) to the ethnicity section add Shoanti(and Arcadians) to the ethnicity section!
Please!
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The thought of having spent a huge part of 2009 creating a new edition of the rules and all of the stress and pain and blood and tears that went into that process only to ignore the fruits of that labor by making the next printing of the Pathfinder Campaign Setting hardcover rules-free is paralytically depressing.
I want to be able to use our new rules with our campaign setting to create Adventure Paths. It's easy enough as it is (and as it will be) to ignore any rules content anyway if you want to use the setting for a 4E game or a Castles & Crusades game or a Tunnels & Trolls game or whatever.
And I'm 99% sure that making the book rules-free would cost us FAR more customers than it would gain us. Paizo's specialty is supporting Pathfinder, after all. I don't want to estrange our established customers by abandoning them in pursuit of someone else who might not be interested in buying the book anyway.
I appreciate that. My only thought is by going rules free it limits the need to revamp the book every time the rules change. Granted that will probably be about five or so years down the road, but it's still another book that will have to be revised when the time comes. Then you start getting what TSR/WotC has to deal with along the lines of "which FR is better?" Green Ronin I think hit it on the nail when they realized that overall the campaign book should never really change other than maybe updating the story every so often. Then again it's hard to say since it's a fairly new concept and it's only been a couple of years since GR did it.
Perhaps the best way to get around it would be to make sure that the story aspects are completely seperate from the crunch. Basically divide the book into sections where the rules crunch is totally seperate. A possible division could be world details, PC related crunch, and finally GM crunch. Then when you revise the book a seperate PDF could be made available that only covers the crunch since the world section didn't changed or at least not dramatically.
Anyway, since it's been posted in the store blog that the book is now under 250 copies I'm assuming this means the book is definitely closer to getting released?
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Creative Director
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OMG I hope the rules aren't going to change again any time soon! This reprint, which WILL have more crunch in it, will not need a revision for many, many years, I hope. Relaunching editions is a grisly and grueling ordeal that we STILL haven't recovered from. I'm hoping it'll be 10 years at least before we have to think about doing something like that again... which means that the revised Campaign Setting will be good for quite some time.
And yes... we'll be putting the Shoanti in as an ethnicity. Not the Arcadians though, since they're not really a presence in the Inner Sea region. Maybe some day if we do a book about Arcadia...
I hope it's released soon.
I just surfed on over, since I don't have a copy of the campaign setting, and it'd cost me $85 (plus shipping) to get the book and PDF.
It'd be really cool if there was some sort of break for PDFs for people who have the hardcopy, it's no fun paying for the same material twice :(
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Director of Brand Strategy
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I hope it's released soon.
I just surfed on over, since I don't have a copy of the campaign setting, and it'd cost me $85 (plus shipping) to get the book and PDF.
It'd be really cool if there was some sort of break for PDFs for people who have the hardcopy, it's no fun paying for the same material twice :(
If that's implemented, I'll just cancel my subs and pick everything up later. What incentive do I have to subscribe if I can have no cake but get to eat it anyway?
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OMG I hope the rules aren't going to change again any time soon! This reprint, which WILL have more crunch in it, will not need a revision for many, many years, I hope. Relaunching editions is a grisly and grueling ordeal that we STILL haven't recovered from. I'm hoping it'll be 10 years at least before we have to think about doing something like that again... which means that the revised Campaign Setting will be good for quite some time.
Hey, 10 years works for me. Push it to 20 and I'll be even happier. ;-)
It'd be really cool if there was some sort of break for PDFs for people who have the hardcopy, it's no fun paying for the same material twice :(
If that's implemented, I'll just cancel my subs and pick everything up later. What incentive do I have to subscribe if I can have no cake but get to eat it anyway?
I've been giving that a lot of thought, but I don't want to threadjack. I comment all of that over here.
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What missing from the campaign bookLol. Most of your list is only considered "missing" because only crazy men like Ed Greenwood consider developing that kind of information for a game setting... not that it's a bad thing!! :)
Harsh!
I didn't see any mention of local recipes, 'current clack' or the geographically diverse tastes in the ornamentation of drainpipes anywhere in the list ;)
Ye gods, I miss Ed's realms...
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Creative Director
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[Granted from the point of view of a revision with substantially increased page count & cartography budget (if that were to happen) it would be nice to see greater breadth and depth of information, but my current impression is that for now Paizo's limited resources are focused on building their PFRPG rules base up. Give them time though, and I imagine more on the Campaign Setting will be forthcoming... James Jacobs has indicated on at least one thread that he would like to do an expanded Campaign Setting at some point.
A revised campaign setting hardcover is all but a certainty at this point. And one of the things I greatly hope such a revision will do is both add more information to areas that got glossed over in the first hardcover edition AND make certain other parts of the book that were TOO indulgent and inefficient a lot more precise, which will open up even more room for expansions in areas that deserve and/or need such expansion.
[Granted from the point of view of a revision with substantially increased page count & cartography budget (if that were to happen) it would be nice to see greater breadth and depth of information, but my current impression is that for now Paizo's limited resources are focused on building their PFRPG rules base up. Give them time though, and I imagine more on the Campaign Setting will be forthcoming... James Jacobs has indicated on at least one thread that he would like to do an expanded Campaign Setting at some point.A revised campaign setting hardcover is all but a certainty at this point. And one of the things I greatly hope such a revision will do is both add more information to areas that got glossed over in the first hardcover edition AND make certain other parts of the book that were TOO indulgent and inefficient a lot more precise, which will open up even more room for expansions in areas that deserve and/or need such expansion.
Any idea what's getting expanded/cut? Hopefully not the Beyond the Inner Sea section, which is my favourite part of the book! If anything add to it! Please!!! It's the only information we'll get on those areas for years to come!
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Creative Director
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Any idea what's getting expanded/cut? Hopefully not the Beyond the Inner Sea section, which is my favourite part of the book! If anything add to it! Please!!! It's the only information we'll get on those areas for years to come!
I have a VERY good idea of what's getting expanded and cut. We haven't officially announced the 2nd printing yet, though, so it's still WAY too early to go into those details. Especially since they're nowhere near being locked in.
The basic philosophy, though, is that I'm not going to cut content that is "load-bearing." And I'm going to try VERY HARD not to invalidate any existing content/flavor/canon (although in some cases there'll be some adjustments).
But the end goal is to expand the book without obsoleting the first printing. You HAVE to be able to still use your first printing of the book to play in Golarion... rendering that printing out of date is bad business for those who don't want to buy the new edition but still want to play in the world.
You could advance the timeline.
I'm all in favor of a new book, and throw in lots of crunch! (lots) There have been a lot of good ideas on this thread for new content.
I think it should be part of the subscription. Reason? Free pdf for subscribers(good value). For owners of the previous- what about a one time bonus discount on the book, like the holiday promotion?
My suggestion for new stuff- throw all the rules for traits in here, including the racial and regional ones that have been released.
My suggestion for what to leave out- monsters. At least keep it to a minimum. I don't mind flipping through different books looking at feats etc. But I like monsters all in one place for convenience during gameplay. Push them to Bestiary 2 if possible.
Don't you dare cut Alkenstar.
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Creative Director
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Don't you dare cut Alkenstar.
Alkenstar's not going anywhere... although it's VERY likely to be part of the Mana Wastes entry rather than be its own entry. Indeed... look at the entry for Alkenstar right now; a fair amount of that entry is about places OTHER than Alkenstar in the Mana Wastes.
There's a VERY good chance the firearms rules will get cut, though. (prepares for backlash)
<Pulls out a blackpowder musket rifle with scope>
What's that, Jacobs? I can't hear you. Stand still there, ya varmint. Or I'll shoot ya at the kneecaps and turn ya into a dwarf.
:P
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Any idea what's getting expanded/cut? Hopefully not the Beyond the Inner Sea section, which is my favourite part of the book! If anything add to it! Please!!! It's the only information we'll get on those areas for years to come!
Well, since the publisher wrote that section, I think there's a really strong chance that it won't be cut.
There's a VERY good chance the firearms rules will get cut, though. (prepares for backlash)
Yeah, I'm fine with that.
No to firearms, but yes to laser guns? Please explain while I'm reloading my musket. Give me a couple rounds.
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Creative Director
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Of course the firearms rules are going to get cut. The sacred cow of "no guns in fantasy" is harder to kill than any of the gods.
It's not that we don't want guns in Golarion NEARLY as much as we can't do justice to guns in 1 or 2 or 3 pages. At least, not to the extent that those who really want guns in a game will be satisfied.
Is anyone out there who likes guns in their fantasy RPGs satisfied with what we did with them in the current hardcover?
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Creative Director
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No to firearms, but yes to laser guns? Please explain while I'm reloading my musket. Give me a couple rounds.
I've mentioned before...
Guns exist in the real world, and as a result there's a LOT of real-world baggage. They're things we understand and know about and can touch and feel. As a result, they're difficult to do well (you have to be a gun expert sorta to write about guns in an RPG), and they're kinda mundane.
Lasers and sci-fi weapons, though, are NOT in the real world. We can make up all sorts of things about how they work, and they feel unusual and strange and otherworldly (just like magic). And to be honest, advanced sci-fi elements DO feel like magic since they accomplish things that feel magical, and as such they feel more "at home" in a sci-fi setting.
Guns, basically, are boring.
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Creative Director
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And I'm not saying guns ARE cut from the book. But unless I can figure out a way to handle them in 2 pages or so that feels good, doesn't feel like an afterthought, and explains why guns aren't all over the place in every part of the world... they're outa there.
And of course... if there's a huge upswell of support for guns in Golarion, that'll help too!
I was thinking more about black powder guns like when Marco Polo first discovered them in China and brought them back. So, that era. I care less about modern firearms, to be honest.
There's a VERY good chance the firearms rules will get cut, though. (prepares for backlash)
I don't mind cutting it there, it really feels out of place in the general campaign setting book.
Just promise to put them in the Alkenstar Chronicles book you are putting on the 2011 schedule!
I don't mind cutting it there, it really feels out of place in the general campaign setting book.
Just promise to put them in the Alkenstar Chronicles book you are putting on the 2011 schedule!
I like the way you think. Now that's a fair compromise. You should be a lobbyist if successful. :D
While we'll probably add a few more years to the game world's timeline... we won't be adopting any of the events in any Adventure Paths or modules as "having happened."
This concept was also recently discussed in a Pathfinder Volume. I agree completely. It's *my* campaign world and I'll blow it up if I want to, not when James tells me to. If you want to play in a world where history is written by the designers and not the events of your players, pick up the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting. I for one, like my players to know their previous characters changed the world.
Just for shits and giggles, I printed the meteor strike from the beginning of "The Black Egg" and put it in with my Second Darkness AP notebook. You know, in case the players decide to snoop...
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And I'm not saying guns ARE cut from the book. But unless I can figure out a way to handle them in 2 pages or so that feels good, doesn't feel like an afterthought, and explains why guns aren't all over the place in every part of the world... they're outa there.
Maybe push for the pirate way of using a gun? Fire off one shot, drop it, fire off another gun, drop it, draw your sword for melee combat?
Gunpowder not working at all outside of magic-dead areas (or just randomly blowing up instead) might be a solution, but in that case why haven't alchemists developed a version which does work properly outside of those areas and why were the Fifth and Sixth Taldan Armies of Exploration hauling a huge gun around with them? (Unless of course they never fired it until one moment that the Sixth Army tried, and then when they discovered it didn't work properly they abandoned it as useless junk...)
More like, the further away from the magic-dead areas you get, the more magic interferes with the ignition and the more powder is needed to get a gun or cannon to fire. Thus why they would have such a huge cannon in Mwangi, anything much smaller would not fire at all. As for alchemists, they just simply have not found a way yet to counter the way magic causes the gunpowder to become inert.
I suspect that I'm among the first of a new batch of fantasy gamers to come to the hobby by way of Pathfinder and NOT by way of D&D. I learned the system for cheap on the Beta test, and from there I was hooked. The free stuff I'd downloaded was enough to get me to bite and drop the money on the hardcover rulebooks.
I've played in groups with a homebrew setting, and recently a Greyhawk campaign, but gradually I've been picking up bits of Golarion published material. I'm now preparing to run my first campaign, and I decided to stick it in Golarion, so I bit the bullet, dropped the $50, and bought the Campaign Setting HC from the local comic shop (spurred on, incidentally, by the notice on the homepage here that you were running out of copies).
Now, I absolutely love the book, and the rules stuff in there is easy enough to convert without much hassle, but I primarily wanted it for the flavor, and on that count it passes with flying colors. Would a new printing or expanded edition using the new rules be neat? Sure. Will I buy it? Probably not.
As I'm sure some of you have noticed, gaming can be an expensive hobby, and for me to pick up this entirely new hobby required some serious commitment. One of the big appeals to me about PF and Paizo is that the business model is about making the core books last and publishing new adventures rather than constantly releasing more and more "primary" sourcebooks. (I realize that after a huge launch, there's bound to be some duplication of existing material.)
But, it's only because of that that I felt I could finally get around to indulging in a hobby that had held my curiosity for some time. I'm really hoping that the initial investment is going to have long-term value, because after the APG and GM Guide come out, that'll probably be it for hardcovers for a while with me. I'll probably pick and choose at modules and Chronicles and Adventure Paths and accessories here and there, but the big books, I'll go back to over and over.
Now, if the added material for the Campaign Setting re-release is available as a download from the website for $10 or less, I'll probably get it, but I'm in no rush. In the meantime, I've got my ragtag little group of absolute rookies and 2nd- and 3rd-ed. vets who haven't played in a decade, and I'm pushing Pathfinder on them. They're learning the rules for cheap, but hopefully they'll get hooked like I was, and if they do, it'll likely be in large part due to Golarion.
My point, and I did have one, is: don't screw around too much with a good thing. Giving customers the option to get more more more, new new new, is fine, but take care of the ones who ponied up for the big books to go back to over and over. I think, hopefully, that I'm in good hands on that count.
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Thus why they would have such a huge cannon in Mwangi, anything much smaller would not fire at all.
IIRC, the cannon being kept in Usaro is more of a trophy than anything being put to use. I could be entirely wrong though.
But yeah, saying that guns made in Alkenstar are infused with whatever wrongness related to the dead magic in the area and thus vulnerable to a reverse effect in magic-rich areas is a fine idea if you're looking for a way to rein guns in in your campaign.