This is branching out from a discussion in the RPG superstar forums about the fetchling Inva Ebonblade in Shadow Absalom (who originated as a tiefling shadowdancer PC in my current home game).
Anyway... food for thought for any writer who writes in characters from homebrews or personal games into work-for-hire. It's something you should be aware of the consequences of and be comfortable doing before you do it.
I've been exceedingly picky about what characters from any of my home games that I've recycled and included in anything I write for anyone else. Sometimes they transition more or less the same (Nisha Starweather), sometimes a little different (Inva Ebonblade being a fetchling rather than a tiefling - but still planetouched) sometimes I take the concept and mingle it with another to create a new character that plays with some of the imagery for instance (Trelmarixian the Black is a concept merger of two antagonists from my home game).
I've also generally been very loathe to sell off major character IP, because as soon as I wrote Harishek ap Thulkesh the Blind Clockmaker into WotC's planar canon in Dragon magazine, WotC went and totally rebooted their cosmology for 4e, which means I can't use the character again and nobody else ever will again most likely. So it's tricky either giving vague easter eggs to home game concepts and characters or outright using them because of the tradeoffs it might involve.
So how do other folks feel about the occasional use of characters from home games? Does it matter if you don't know about it, or what if the home game has been extensively written up and posted online like mine have been (though on hiatus at the moment for me there)?
How jarring might it be if someone comes along and elaborates on something and really deviates from some prior incarnation? Admittedly knowing this can happen, I've tried to minimize any impact of that in whatever details appear.
I'm honestly curious about this, both from the general audience out there and from other freelancers.
|
Well, I suppose I would be a bit more liberal on the idea than some others on here. Essentially it boils down to what is needed to tell the story.
To tell this story you have do you NEED character X? If you do, and you happen to have a character very similar to that in your home brew game then no big deal. In fact it may work better since you probably have the character more fleshed out than if you just pulled one out of the air.
On the other hand if the writer is just putting the character in for the sake of getting the home brew character in print then it totally blows. If the character doesn't fill a necessary role in the story it will essentially be a speed bump, something that slows down the game and make the players and GM think twice (which is NOT a good idea).
As far as breaking canon from earlier sources, or twisting it, I personally don't care. How many times has Star Trek done it? I mean just don't blow up the world or have something seriously lame like a spell plague or something >;)
Using home games for inspiration is alright.
I really hate playing in a world with "the writer's heroes" though. If you've got a good concept from a PC you can re-purpose to fill a need in the narrative, you should at least change the character enough so that they don't feel like another PC.
Characters who are actually the writer's PCs who have already played in the writer's campaigns fighting the writer's BBEG, that's my biggest pet peeve in RPG writing.
|
I look at the NPC Gudie, specifically the Paizo character chapter and say COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL. :)
So much of the Realms is from Ed Greenwoods own personal writing as well as his own campaign. So to that end, I really like fleshed out characters. But then again, Ed and the Paizo peeps have a special advantage over others, they're more or less creating and editing their own setting, so when something (in this case character) goes to print, it's more or less how they intended.
|
|
My gaming group came up with a great "group name" for their PCs in one of my campaigns a couple years ago; I briefly started a Campaign Journal here on the Boards.
And now, Shazaam, the group name, Order of the Cockatrice, is being published as one of the Orders for the Cavalier Class, along with the ever-so-creative and original Orders of "Shield" and "Sword" and "Lion" and such (Cockatrice fits right in, huh?).
We the Players are giddy. It's neet-o. 'Course, it would be even cooler if Paizo could come out on the Boards and say from where they got that uber cool name, Order of the Cockatrice.
This is branching out from a discussion in the RPG superstar forums about the fetchling Inva Ebonblade in Shadow Absalom (who originated as a tiefling shadowdancer PC in my current home game).
Anyway... food for thought for any writer who writes in characters from homebrews or personal games into work-for-hire. It's something you should be aware of the consequences of and be comfortable doing before you do it.I've been exceedingly picky about what characters from any of my home games that I've recycled and included in anything I write for anyone else. Sometimes they transition more or less the same (Nisha Starweather), sometimes a little different (Inva Ebonblade being a fetchling rather than a tiefling - but still planetouched) sometimes I take the concept and mingle it with another to create a new character that plays with some of the imagery for instance (Trelmarixian the Black is a concept merger of two antagonists from my home game).
I've also generally been very loathe to sell off major character IP, because as soon as I wrote Harishek ap Thulkesh the Blind Clockmaker into WotC's planar canon in Dragon magazine, WotC went and totally rebooted their cosmology for 4e, which means I can't use the character again and nobody else ever will again most likely. So it's tricky either giving vague easter eggs to home game concepts and characters or outright using them because of the tradeoffs it might involve.
So how do other folks feel about the occasional use of characters from home games? Does it matter if you don't know about it, or what if the home game has been extensively written up and posted online like mine have been (though on hiatus at the moment for me there)?
How jarring might it be if someone comes along and elaborates on something and really deviates from some prior incarnation? Admittedly knowing this can happen, I've tried to minimize any impact of that in whatever details appear.
I'm honestly curious about this, both from the general audience out...
My question is...is Valeros and Seoni and the gang from RotRL from James Jacobs old group or is there just a need to face some pc's at the end of every product so we made about twelve heroes with no past and ran with it.
So how do other folks feel about the occasional use of characters from home games?
...
|
|
My question is...is Valeros and Seoni and the gang from RotRL from James Jacobs old group or is there just a need to face some pc's at the end of every product so we made about twelve heroes with no past and ran with it.
That Pathfinder iconics are a direct result of the popularity of the characters portrayed but never named from the APs that were in Dungeon magazine.
It might also help that 3.0 had mascot characters as well but they were poorly developed and more or less ignored and mistreated.
It might also help that 3.0 had mascot characters as well but they were poorly developed and more or less ignored and mistreated.
And the fighter had Michael Jackson's skin disorder.
It might also help that 3.0 had mascot characters as well but they were poorly developed and more or less ignored and mistreated.Oh, but the diversity! What other game had a prominent character like Mialee, the Iconic Transvestite?
Charisma was her dump stat.
Creative Director
|
We the Players are giddy. It's neet-o. 'Course, it would be even cooler if Paizo could come out on the Boards and say from where they got that uber cool name, Order of the Cockatrice.
Alas... not from your group this time.
We knew we wanted cavaliers to have orders from the start. I believe Jason came up with a few of them (obvious ones like Dragon and Shield) early on, but when we got in Wayne Reynold's art for the iconic cavalier, none of those orders fit him. But lo and behold, he had some sort of weird cockatrice imagery on his armor... presto! Order of the Cockatrice!
|
Well I remember reading realms stuff over the years. And over the years I ran and played in various Realms modules like the Storm Riders, Black Courser Blood Charge and computer games like pools of radiance, curse of the azure bonds and secret of the silver blades. I also remember in various supplements where these modules and games were written into the FR timeline. For example there was mention of a volcanic eruption burying the city of Solon, which occurred when “adventures “ brought down the Ambuchaer Devayam, Lich of Solon. Reading that, little bit of text, and knowing I had played as a character in those modules, helped me think that I had in some small part played a hand in the “Realm’s history”. I remember other mention of where "Adventurers" did this or that, when weaving the modules into the timeline, and it was fun to think, i played in those modules.
Perhaps Paizo could do something like that down the road as they weave the modules into their history of Golaron. We could all feel as if we had a hand in pulling down someone like the Rune lord of Greed.
Just my two coppers.
My question is...is Valeros and Seoni and the gang from RotRL from James Jacobs old group or is there just a need to face some pc's at the end of every product so we made about twelve heroes with no past and ran with it.
With the Pathfinder iconics, the art comes in first, and then we all sit down together and come up with names and concepts... none of them come straight from anyone's game, though several staffers have well-known personal favorites (Jacobs and Merisiel, for example) which makes them the go-to people for questions about those characters.
I suspect that Jacobs already said what I'm about to say elsewhere (hence the existence of this thread), but inserting characters from your home game into a Pathfinder manuscript turnover carries a number of dangers. If it happens that your character is awesome and fits perfectly with the article - great! But if it seems thrown in there, or to be grabbing too much of the spotlight for no good reason, it's usually pretty obvious what's going on, and we'll frequently decide to cut it. Similarly, Todd raises a good point that once we print your character in one of our books, it becomes Paizo canon, and can't then go on to become the protagonist of the best-selling novel you want to write someday (unless it's a Pathfinder novel!). And even if it does go to print, it may turn out that your tiefling rogue turns into an elven alchemist because the module it's part of works better that way... there are no guarantees that the character that gets published will resemble the character you wrote (though the best defense against this is to choose characters who fit the product you're writing).
And of course, this is all a discussion regarding characters from home games. If you put in a character or place name that's an obvious easter egg related to someone recognizable - a celebrity, an anime character, a famous historical or literary figure - you might as well not turn over the manuscript. For legal reasons, we *cannot* take the risk of printing cutesy references (naming your fey couple Holly Berry and Will the Smith, or stealing names outright from famous novels, etc.), and anyone caught trying to slip such things under the radar is in Big Trouble. (I know this may sound a little draconian, but I'd hate to see Paizo go down over an easter egg lawsuit... and what's more, those sorts of joke names can ruin players' suspensions of disbelief).
|
|
And the fighter had Michael Jackson's skin disorder.Poor Regdar. Even the dev team had it out for him. Go look at the covers of Heroes of Horror again. :)
that and many images where he appereared... i remember Monte saying that part of the dev equipment agreement (since he was marketing character) was to ask for art depicting him in gruesome and horrible deaths :P
|
|
It might also help that 3.0 had mascot characters as well but they were poorly developed and more or less ignored and mistreated.Oh, but the diversity! What other game had a prominent character like Mialee, the Iconic Transvestite?
ahh yes
the poor elf that was born uglier than the barbarian orc... alone with her face she could face a docen monsters... it can be the same of the monsters :P