Many people play RPGs with people they don't even like.
Why?
Creative Director
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James Jacobs:
Did you see *this Kingmaker thread about an owlbear*?
:)
Not until like 9 seconds ago.
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Creative Director
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Many people play RPGs with people they don't even like.
Why?
Because in a lot of areas, there's not enough gamers to pick and choose the ones you like. And sometimes because a GM doesn't factor in real-world diplomacy and the fact that while he might be friends with you all, the rest of you might not be friends with each other.
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Creative Director
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This is sort of off-topic, since it's a Paizo question rather than a general knowledge or Golarion one, but I was wondering if the reason Jason Bulmahn didn't guest-judge Round 3 of RPGSuperstar this year is because he's up to his neck in ninjas, samurai, and gunslingers at the moment?
Jason is actually neck deep in working on the Introductory game, among other things. Judging a round of RPG Superstar more or less takes you out of commission for like a week, and Jason doesn't have a week free to do that right now.
James, why do email hackers go through all the trouble to hack my friends email accounts to sell me Canadian viagra? Don't you think they should try to sell me something more useful and/or interesting?
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Creative Director
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James, why do email hackers go through all the trouble to hack my friends email accounts to sell me Canadian viagra? Don't you think they should try to sell me something more useful and/or interesting?
If it was useful and/or interesting, they wouldn't need that kind of ad campaign, though.
with 127 pages and over 6,000 replies, we've covered everything from RPG morality, to fun things to do in various places to monsters, movies n mayhem.
Have you ever thought of finding a way to parlay your humorous yet often insightful and intelligent answers into a way to make money, aside from your job at Paizo??
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Creative Director
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with 127 pages and over 6,000 replies, we've covered everything from RPG morality, to fun things to do in various places to monsters, movies n mayhem.
Have you ever thought of finding a way to parlay your humorous yet often insightful and intelligent answers into a way to make money, aside from your job at Paizo??
I'm already getting paid to answer these questions as part of my salary, though! :-)
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
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I'm already getting paid to answer these questions as part of my salary, though! :-)with 127 pages and over 6,000 replies, we've covered everything from RPG morality, to fun things to do in various places to monsters, movies n mayhem.
Have you ever thought of finding a way to parlay your humorous yet often insightful and intelligent answers into a way to make money, aside from your job at Paizo??
Yes, but you should make more money from it - maybe put together a 20 city tour of live "Ask James Jacobs all of your questions" appearances. I'd buy a ticket.
There's absolutely a lot of lore I could share about other demon lords. I'm never going to publicly delve into ones that are the intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast, though, and that extends to demon lords that have fakey names that imply these same demon lords. And also pretty much everything I wrote for the Demonomicon articles (everything that appeared in Dragon and Dungeon magazine is owned 100% by Wizards of the Coast).
Aw... I has a sad, because all kinds of lore related to those demon lords are now lost to the ages. However, I do understand the reasons - intellectual property rights and non-disclosure/non-compete agreements are unavoidable.
I've been writing about demons for the game for decades, in any event. I wrote an entire Adventure Path back in the 80s for my homebrew game, the plot of which was "Obox-ob has siezed control of the Abyss and is using the combined power of the demons to destroy the Multiverse—you have to rebuild the ancient sword Demonfall to stop him," but that's only one example of many.
I recall the Dungeon editorial about this, in which Yamasoth was first mentioned in print.
In other words... too much to share in the format of a messageboard. It will continue to "leak out" in the form of books like "Lords of Chaos" or the numerous other books we publish, though.
I'll keep an eye out for demon lore in future Pathfinder books then. I LOVE Lords of Chaos, just like I loved Fiendish Codex 1 and Book of Fiends.
Can you give us a hint as to which future products will have bit of demon lore (no matter how small a scrap of lore it may be!)?
The demon depicted on page 30 is Vyriavaxus, the dead demon lord of Shadows.
Good to know! I'd pictured Vyriavaxus as more... bat-like, in an animalistic way.
All demons form from a sin of some sort. A few of them form from a combination of sins,...
Got it. Can more than one type of demon spawn from the same sin? For example, can wrath spawn both vrocks and some other type of (thus far undocumented, wrath-specific) demon, or will it only ever spawn vrocks?
In Pathfinder, it appears that there is a broad category of native Abyssal creatures that are not demons (spawned from mortal sins via larvae) or qlippoth, correct? Is there any kind of catch-all terminology for these monsters? Which monsters fit in this category?
Who is the sexiest demon lady - Mestama or Shivaska?
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Creative Director
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Can you give us a hint as to which future products will have bit of demon lore (no matter how small a scrap of lore it may be!)?
There'll be some demon lore in the adventure I'm in the process of writing for Pathfinder #49. And some in "Dungeons of Golarion," as well.
Can more than one type of demon spawn from the same sin? For example, can wrath spawn both vrocks and some other type of (thus far undocumented, wrath-specific) demon, or will it only ever spawn vrocks?
Nope; wrath will always spawn vrocks. But variants on wrath can spawn different things; the more specialized a sin gets, the less common the demon, though. Murder, for example, is a sub-category of wrath, so a murderer could spawn into either a vrock or a babau.
In Pathfinder, it appears that there is a broad category of native Abyssal creatures that are not demons (spawned from mortal sins via larvae) or qlippoth, correct? Is there any kind of catch-all terminology for these monsters? Which monsters fit in this category?
There isn't a name for those monsters beyond "chaotic outsider" or "evil outsider" really.
Who is the sexiest demon lady - Mestama or Shivaska?
Eew... gross. I suppose Mestama, because she's able to shapechange more than I suspect Shivaska can?
I have an interview tomorrow. Think I'll finally get this one? Wish me luck?
If I get this job I can finally start spending money on RPG products again...
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Creative Director
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Will there be some additional information about the goddess Brigh in the new campaign guide (or any upcoming products) beyond what was in Gods and Magic? Either lore or subdomains would be great to see.
Nope. The latest blog actually lists ALL of the deities beyond the core who are detailed in the upcoming Inner Sea World Guide. Brigh is too minor a deity to get into that book.
We might do something more with her at some point in the future, but for now, no plans.
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There seem to be some (ex)RPG designers of note that not only have moved on to other venues but seemingly don't want to have anything more to do with the whole RPG industry or even the hobby.
As far as I recall your first adventure was published more than 20 years ago and while I don't know exactly how long you've been a professional (as in you do it for a living) RPG Designer, but it must be more than 10 years now.
Was there ever a point where you, due to some particularly odd (bad) behaviour among colleges, gamers etc. seriously considered leaving the RPG Industry behind?
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Creative Director
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There seem to be some (ex)RPG designers of note that not only have moved on to other venues but seemingly don't want to have anything more to do with the whole RPG industry or even the hobby.
As far as I recall your first adventure was published more than 20 years ago and while I don't know exactly how long you've been a professional (as in you do it for a living) RPG Designer, but it must be more than 10 years now.
Was there ever a point where you, due to some particularly odd (bad) behaviour among colleges, gamers etc. seriously considered leaving the RPG Industry behind?
My first adventure was indeed published in Dungeon #12. My second was in #24, and my third in #35. After that, college took up most of my time for 5 years or so, but then a few years after that I started doing more freelance for WotC/TSR. I started work at Wizards of the Coast in 1999, just a few months before the Pokemon Explosion turned the company into a behemoth.
I was laid off from WotC in 2002 as part of the unfortunately traditional layoffs there. I was re-hired by WotC as a contractor 3 months later to do the same job I'd been doing 3 months before, with what amounted to a 50 cent raise but the loss of my health and retirement type benefits, and that was probably the point at which I was growing the most disillusioned with the industry, even though I was still doing a fair amount of writing for them (at that point, my freelance writing was coming closer to being the main source of income than my day job in the sales department). I was hired by Paizo next year in June, and that more or less revitalized my energy. There's been ups and downs since then, but nothing serious enough to make me consider moving on to another job.
At this point, I'm pretty happy with where I'm at, and have no intention of dropping it all and heading north to become an Alaskan hermit... as tempting as that might sometimes be... :-P
My first adventure was indeed published in Dungeon #12. My second was in #24, and my third in #35.
what were the names of those adventures?
didn't you write the adventure with the (creepy-looking, multi-headed) rakshasa lord with the very cool name?
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Creative Director
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My first adventure was indeed published in Dungeon #12. My second was in #24, and my third in #35.what were the names of those adventures?
didn't you write the adventure with the (creepy-looking, multi-headed) rakshasa lord with the very cool name?
#12: Scepter of the Underworld
#24: Thunder Under Needlespire#35: Twilight's Last Gleaming (This would be the one with the multi-headed rakshasa named Loliadac)
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Creative Director
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Hey!
We are a group of 5 Players all new to pen&paper but one. We are all in our late 20s or early 30s and started with the new 4e RedBox. We switched to Paizo/Pathfinder quickly as we fell for the world, concept and website.
The main thing we are missing are monsters. Nobody knows how to paint miniatures and we were wondering if you guys will restart the paper minis or start making nice cardboard tokens like the 4e Monster Vault has. (which was about the only thing we liked from 4e).
Also if we had known back then about pathfinder we would have started right away. Yet the redbox helped us get into pen and paper rules in general, but I read somewhere that you guys are working on a intro set!.
Would be really awesome if you release monster tokens for the Adventure Paths, Modules or even Bestiaries!
Keep up the good work! oh i guess this wasnt off topic
Markus, from Germany
Well... since we draw a lot of our monsters from the same shared well of mythology and open content that D&D drew their monsters from, there's a lot of existing minis and paper tokens that already work with Pathfinder.
That said... monster tokens are certainly something we're looking into in some way or another... stay tuned!
And thanks for checking out Pathfinder!
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My first adventure was indeed published in Dungeon #12. My second was in #24, and my third in #35.what were the names of those adventures?
didn't you write the adventure with the (creepy-looking, multi-headed) rakshasa lord with the very cool name?
#12: Scepter of the Underworld
#24: Thunder Under Needlespire
#35: Twilight's Last Gleaming (This would be the one with the multi-headed rakshasa named Loliadac)
TUN is one of my fav adventures ever and has been worked into my current campaign. Loved the cover art for# 24 too.
My first adventure was indeed published in Dungeon #12. My second was in #24, and my third in #35.what were the names of those adventures?
didn't you write the adventure with the (creepy-looking, multi-headed) rakshasa lord with the very cool name?
#12: Scepter of the Underworld
#24: Thunder Under Needlespire
#35: Twilight's Last Gleaming (This would be the one with the multi-headed rakshasa named Loliadac)
The Draknor! (sp) I remember that adventure very well. I was in high school at the time and when I saw the author was just a year or two ahead of me I remember thinking how awesome that was. Now, some 20+ years later it is even more cool to learn that it was you.
I always wondered why I never saw TSR/WotC do anything with that monster again. I really liked the larval to adult progression aspect of it.
Which nation in the inner sea have colony in Arcadia?
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So, without any spoilerificness, do you think that a Half-orc Wizard, a Half-elf Druid, a Human Cavalier (Order of the Lion) and a Rogue of unspecified race (who's probably going to add levels in Ranger later, if they survive) would be a good starting party for Kingmaker?
I know that any party really works well with AP material, but I'm trying to keep it old school. (Arcane/Divine/Fighter/Thief)
Hmm, Of the various types of campaigns/Adventures like Wilderness, urban, dungeon crawl, political and a vast number of others, which type do you enjoy playing/Dming the most?
Who is/was more powerful, Nex or Geb?
There is an interesting discussion going on about the father of Iggwilv at this Thread do you think that they are on the right track?
For the Alchemist class, does the Smoke Bomb discovery still deal damage or is the damage replaced by the cloud effect?
I've got a few questions about the artwork on page 58 of the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazeteer.
Is it a picture of priests worshiping something?
summoning something, maybe?
and what is the big dark figure in the middle?
I like the almost abstract quality of the picture and i'm curious about what the subject of it is.
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Creative Director
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I always wondered why I never saw TSR/WotC do anything with that monster again. I really liked the larval to adult progression aspect of it.
Some monsters aren't really "portable." They do what they do primarily because they're there to make a particular adventure plot work, and don't really have much of a point beyond that. The draknor's a great example of this (although I believe it DID get updated later in Dragon... can't remember for sure though... it might have been on the to-do list but never made it in to print before the magazine ended). Another great example is Pathfinder 11's...
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Creative Director
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So, without any spoilerificness, do you think that a Half-orc Wizard, a Half-elf Druid, a Human Cavalier (Order of the Lion) and a Rogue of unspecified race (who's probably going to add levels in Ranger later, if they survive) would be a good starting party for Kingmaker?
I know that any party really works well with AP material, but I'm trying to keep it old school. (Arcane/Divine/Fighter/Thief)
We try to make our APs as flexible as possible. That particular spread of classes is actually pretty well-rounded, although perhaps a bit light on healing... but since a fair number of Kingmaker's encounters are not closely spaced together, there's plenty of recovery time.
Whether or not any party is a good fit for an AP in the end, though, depends the most upon the GM's style and alterations. A good GM changes the AP to support his players' chosen classes. A bad one does the opposite.
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Creative Director
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There is an interesting discussion going on about the father of Iggwilv at this Thread do you think that they are on the right track?
I've written an AWFUL lot about Iggwilv. Particularly in the Savage Tide adventure path, the Demonomicon articles in Dragon, and in Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk. I'll let folks who have pieced the clues and info in those books decide if I think the folks in that thread are on the right track.
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Creative Director
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I've got a few questions about the artwork on page 58 of the Pathfinder Chronicles Gazeteer.
Is it a picture of priests worshiping something?
summoning something, maybe?
and what is the big dark figure in the middle?
I like the almost abstract quality of the picture and i'm curious about what the subject of it is.
It's a picture of a cabal of Nidalese shadowcasters summoning up some sort of creepy shadow monster. Not all that appropriate an illustration to open the chapter about religion, alas.
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Creative Director
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For the Alchemist class, does the Smoke Bomb discovery still deal damage or is the damage replaced by the cloud effect?
Nope; the smoke bomb variants trade in the regular bomb damage to instead duplicate cloud spell effects, be they fog cloud, stinking cloud, incendiary cloud, or whatever.
For the Alchemist class, does the Smoke Bomb discovery still deal damage or is the damage replaced by the cloud effect?Nope; the smoke bomb variants trade in the regular bomb damage to instead duplicate cloud spell effects, be they fog cloud, stinking cloud, incendiary cloud, or whatever.
That was fast. Thanks. :)
Another alchemist question: The splash damage from the bombs targets the squares around the target. If the target is larger than medium, does it ignore the additional damage inflicted on the squares around the square of impact or does it take the additional damage?
Related to that: Hitting a larger target could possibly mean that all hexes around that target are hit with the splash damage instead. That would make quite the area if that were so. How exactly do bombs interact with targets which are larger than medium size?
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Creative Director
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For the Alchemist class, does the Smoke Bomb discovery still deal damage or is the damage replaced by the cloud effect?Nope; the smoke bomb variants trade in the regular bomb damage to instead duplicate cloud spell effects, be they fog cloud, stinking cloud, incendiary cloud, or whatever.That was fast. Thanks. :)
Another alchemist question: The splash damage from the bombs targets the squares around the target. If the target is larger than medium, does it ignore the additional damage inflicted on the squares around the square of impact or does it take the additional damage?
Related to that: Hitting a larger target could possibly mean that all hexes around that target are hit with the splash damage instead. That would make quite the area if that were so. How exactly do bombs interact with targets which are larger than medium size?
It's weird that hitting a bigger target makes a bigger splash. My recommendation, have the "splash" affect only the 8 squares immediately around the point of impact. A big monster will start to "cover up" some of these squares, but since big monsters are more likely to get caught in a splash area anyway... that's the breaks. A creature wouldn't ever suffer direct hit damage AND splash damage though; just the direct hit damage.
It's weird that hitting a bigger target makes a bigger splash. My recommendation, have the "splash" affect only the 8 squares immediately around the point of impact. A big monster will start to "cover up" some of these squares, but since big monsters are more likely to get caught in a splash area anyway... that's the breaks. A creature wouldn't ever suffer direct hit damage AND splash damage though; just the direct hit damage.
Thanks. :) A player in my upcoming Kingmaker campaign decided to play an Alchemist, rather than a Holy Vindicator, since we would have had two sword and board types then. So these questions came up during talks about his character.
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Having spent some time this evening discussing some of my favorite cartoons of the 80's and 90's, I'm curious.
What are your favorite cartoons from the 80's?
90's?
Also, and corollary to the above, why can't Steven Spielberg quit making crappy movies and go back to making/producing great cartoons?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Supposedly Catalyst has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. (The one where they failed as a company and cease to exist, as I recall.)
Who do you think should/could get the Shadowrun rights?
The Battletech rights?
Legally they both default to FASA control but since FASA doesn't exist as a company anymore...
Arrrgh... what???? linky..... please - I love Shadowrun....
Ummm Lisa if I remember my Paizo history Lisa worked with somebody that was connected with FASA....?
Ohhh Pathfinder Shadowrun (I know Im dreaming but its a pleasant one for me anyway).
Supposedly Catalyst has filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. (The one where they failed as a company and cease to exist, as I recall.)
Who do you think should/could get the Shadowrun rights?
The Battletech rights?
Legally they both default to FASA control but since FASA doesn't exist as a company anymore...