Creative Director
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For D&D, my favorite setting is Greyhawk. There's a LOT of Greyhawk DNA in Golarion. I also quite enjoyed Forgotten Realms, Mystara, Dark Sun, and Planescape.How did you feel about Ravenloft?
LOVE the original adventure, and quite like the second adventure.
I like the concept of it as a setting, and some elements of the setting are cool... but I'm not a fan of how it uses rules as a shortcut to establish horror and forces people and NPCs to get trapped in the realm.
Ustalav is how I'd do something like that. AKA: Make it a region in a world where you can explore those themes, not a closed-off hard to get to hard to escape from demiplane.
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For D&D, my favorite setting is Greyhawk. There's a LOT of Greyhawk DNA in Golarion. I also quite enjoyed Forgotten Realms, Mystara, Dark Sun, and Planescape.How did you feel about Ravenloft?LOVE the original adventure, and quite like the second adventure.
I like the concept of it as a setting, and some elements of the setting are cool... but I'm not a fan of how it uses rules as a shortcut to establish horror and forces people and NPCs to get trapped in the realm.
Ustalav is how I'd do something like that. AKA: Make it a region in a world where you can explore those themes, not a closed-off hard to get to hard to escape from demiplane.
Do you have an opinion on the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft hardcover? (No demiplane, no universal trapping though Strahd's likely to have an opinion on whether the PCs specifically get to leave while he's still undead, no fear/horror/madness checks unless the DM chooses to site it on the Ravenloft demiplane, and even there the DM needs to come up with them unaided by the text.)
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Do you have an opinion on the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft hardcover? (No demiplane, no universal trapping though Strahd's likely to have an opinion on whether the PCs specifically get to leave while he's still undead, no fear/horror/madness checks unless the DM chooses to site it on the Ravenloft demiplane, and even there the DM needs to come up with them unaided by the text.)
I never read it, in large part because the "Delve format" that D&D was using for adventures at that time made it unpleasant to read adventures. And to write them too, to be honest, having written Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk in that style.
So apart from disliking the delve format so much that I never read the adventure... no opinion.
Do you have an opinion on the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft hardcover? (No demiplane, no universal trapping though Strahd's likely to have an opinion on whether the PCs specifically get to leave while he's still undead, no fear/horror/madness checks unless the DM chooses to site it on the Ravenloft demiplane, and even there the DM needs to come up with them unaided by the text.)I never read it, in large part because the "Delve format" that D&D was using for adventures at that time made it unpleasant to read adventures. And to write them too, to be honest, having written Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk in that style.
So apart from disliking the delve format so much that I never read the adventure... no opinion.
Delve format?
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Delve format?Do you have an opinion on the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft hardcover? (No demiplane, no universal trapping though Strahd's likely to have an opinion on whether the PCs specifically get to leave while he's still undead, no fear/horror/madness checks unless the DM chooses to site it on the Ravenloft demiplane, and even there the DM needs to come up with them unaided by the text.)I never read it, in large part because the "Delve format" that D&D was using for adventures at that time made it unpleasant to read adventures. And to write them too, to be honest, having written Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk in that style.
So apart from disliking the delve format so much that I never read the adventure... no opinion.
The format WotC used for their adventures near the end of third edition.
What's silly to person A is not to person B.
What's silly to me, as creative director of Pathfinder, though, takes precedence over what most others think, since part of what my job pays me to do is to curate this sort of content, so that the whimsy appears in appropriate ways, the horror appears in appropriate ways, and so on.
Do you have a problem with a non-Society group house ruling in something like a slingshot?
Can't recall if you've seen Midsommar yet or not, but I just got back from it...
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Do you have a problem with a non-Society group house ruling in something like a slingshot?
What's silly to person A is not to person B.
What's silly to me, as creative director of Pathfinder, though, takes precedence over what most others think, since part of what my job pays me to do is to curate this sort of content, so that the whimsy appears in appropriate ways, the horror appears in appropriate ways, and so on.
Not at all. What you do in your home games is your call, not mine. And in fact, if you wanna say that a sling in a society game looks like a slinghot, I don't have a problem at all with that either.
That's one of the best parts about a tabletop RPG. You get to make it better by customizing and improving it for your table.
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Can't recall if you've seen Midsommar yet or not, but I just got back from it...
** spoiler omitted **
I've heard some folks call it...
I still think it's ABSOLUTELY a horror movie. Just because it has an uplifting ending for the main character doesn't mean that the path she takes getting there isn't completely awful and harrowing and horrifying.
Only the last few seconds of the movie are triumphant for her. The movie's more than those last few seconds. It was ABSOLUTELY a horror movie for that character.
But a theoretical sequel? Maybe not.
I've heard some folks call it...
** spoiler omitted **
Anyway, since this is a question and not a discussion thread!
Any upcoming theatrical horror releases you're especially looking forward to?
If a member of the Starfinder Society (or anyone, really, from the Starfinder universe) were to find a way to Jandelay, would he find a fragment of the destroyed planet Golarion, and a last surviving inhabitant of the planet?
The format WotC used for their adventures near the end of third edition.Delve format?Do you have an opinion on the Expedition to Castle Ravenloft hardcover? (No demiplane, no universal trapping though Strahd's likely to have an opinion on whether the PCs specifically get to leave while he's still undead, no fear/horror/madness checks unless the DM chooses to site it on the Ravenloft demiplane, and even there the DM needs to come up with them unaided by the text.)I never read it, in large part because the "Delve format" that D&D was using for adventures at that time made it unpleasant to read adventures. And to write them too, to be honest, having written Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk in that style.
So apart from disliking the delve format so much that I never read the adventure... no opinion.
Yes, I got that. I mean could you elaborate on what the features of the "delve format" was, and how it's different from how Paizo writes adventures?
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Yes, I got that. I mean could you elaborate on what the features of the "delve format" was, and how it's different from how Paizo writes adventures?
It took all of the combat and statblock elements of an encounter and put them in a different part of the book, so if you needed or wanted to read or write about an encounter, you had to do a lot of page flipping and back and forth. It also forced you to expand minor encounters into full pages that often resulted in clutter or unnecessary stuff, or cut more complex ones to fit into a spread.
It was unpleasant to write and unpleasant to read. In theory, it was easier to run them since the fight stuff was all on one page, but I never found out because it was so unpleasant to read that I didn't WANT to run the adventure.
If an adventure isn't fun to read, a GM is less likely to run the adventure was my takeaway from the Delve format.
If a member of the Starfinder Society (or anyone, really, from the Starfinder universe) were to find a way to Jandelay, would he find a fragment of the destroyed planet Golarion, and a last surviving inhabitant of the planet?Unrevealed.
I should have known. :-)
Jandelay is described as "timeless". If Jandelay contains a fragment of every planet destroyed on the Material Plane, would there be fragments of planets there that haven't been destroyed yet on the Material Plane?
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If a member of the Starfinder Society (or anyone, really, from the Starfinder universe) were to find a way to Jandelay, would he find a fragment of the destroyed planet Golarion, and a last surviving inhabitant of the planet?Unrevealed.I should have known. :-)
Jandelay is described as "timeless". If Jandelay contains a fragment of every planet destroyed on the Material Plane, would there be fragments of planets there that haven't been destroyed yet on the Material Plane?
Nope. Jandelay is timeless, but that doesn't mean it exists outside of time itself. Things still have to happen before they get preserved/duplicated/echoed/whatever in Jandelay.
Have you been having problems with the website?
Orcs look like pigs. That means they must taste like pigs! Thus I ask you, if some humans eat orc meat, would they be considered as cannibals and be punished accordingly? Maybe eating orc meat is a crime in metropolises like Oppara or Magnimar, but how about in rural areas that are exposed to orcish threat(Trunau would be a good example)? Orcs are evil creatures who kill and raid innocent humans everyday and thus must be killed as soon as possible. It would be much better if their bodies can serve as additional food source.
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Orcs look like pigs. That means they must taste like pigs! Thus I ask you, if some humans eat orc meat, would they be considered as cannibals and be punished accordingly? Maybe eating orc meat is a crime in metropolises like Oppara or Magnimar, but how about in rural areas that are exposed to orcish threat(Trunau would be a good example)? Orcs are evil creatures who kill and raid innocent humans everyday and thus must be killed as soon as possible. It would be much better if their bodies can serve as additional food source.
wow
Eating the flesh of a sapient creature is gross and creeepy and freaky and, without the sapient creature's consent, evil if it's not done out of desperation in my opinion. It verges into cannibalism taboos. Which of course isn't taboo in some cultures.
But still if you kill a sapient creature in game to eat it, that kinda makes you a monster at the least and yeah, you'd be punished, I would hope.
"Orcs are evil creatures" is a blanket statement we've been moving away from for years in the game, in any event.
Do as you will in your game. In print in Golarion, if we set up any group that consistently eats other sapient creatures, they're gonna be evil and gonna be villains and not gonna be PC options.
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Do as you will in your game. In print in Golarion, if we set up any group that consistently eats other sapient creatures, they're gonna be evil and gonna be villains and not gonna be PC options.
Orcs of Golarion does set up Orcs as that exact kind of society.
Were they not supposed to be a PC option?
Well, I know some orcs are not evil(though most of them are). So eating innocent orcs would be evil. But how about eating the dead bodies of orcs who invaded human settlements with the intent of killing and burning? They have to be killed anyway. Actually, killing these evil orcs would be considered good. I'm not sure. Killing evil orcs are good, but eating evil orcs are... evil? If that's the case, my PC would not be able to realize his dream of eating a red dragon steak someday. :(
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What's with the eating questions? lol
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Do as you will in your game. In print in Golarion, if we set up any group that consistently eats other sapient creatures, they're gonna be evil and gonna be villains and not gonna be PC options.Orcs of Golarion does set up Orcs as that exact kind of society.
Were they not supposed to be a PC option?
Play what you want, I guess. If you ask me for my opinion, you'll get mine. My opinions aren't always in sync with what Paizo publishes.
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Well, I know some orcs are not evil(though most of them are). So eating innocent orcs would be evil. But how about eating the dead bodies of orcs who invaded human settlements with the intent of killing and burning? They have to be killed anyway. Actually, killing these evil orcs would be considered good. I'm not sure. Killing evil orcs are good, but eating evil orcs are... evil? If that's the case, my PC would not be able to realize his dream of eating a red dragon steak someday. :(
Sounds like a good thing to work out with your GM and your game table. If I were your GM, eating orcs would have alignment repercussions, and if it weirded out the other players and wasn't appropriate for the table I'd not allow it.
That's the big thing to take away from it. Feel free to work things out how you want in your games, but make sure EVERYONE at the table is consenting to the content.
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Inner Sea World Guide showed us a list of coin names of Cheliax, Andoran, Katapesh, Absalom, and Brevoy. Will Lost Omens World Guide include coin names for other countries like Taldor, Magnimar, New Thassilon, and Azlant?
Is any place in Golarion particularly renowned for its wines?
(That is, where would a wine snob demand their bottles come from)
There is an artifact called the soul anchor which is a lasting corruption of the River of Souls that would allow those who died nearby to retain their mortal memories once they achieved the afterlife. Does that mean those who died near a soul anchor can escape from the River of Souls freely and thus escape Pharasma's judgement and thus would not become a petitioner?
The Hellknight Citadel Vraid is said to be haunted, but its feature in Castle of Golarion doesn't really add anything to this...despite being a 10-page write-up. Unless I missed something, it only alludes to weird green lights during thunderstorms and a maddening effect on the previous two Lictors. I'd like to run an adventure there, but Castle of the Inner Sea makes this "haunted" location seem very...mundane, filled with only Hellknights and a few summoned devils.
What is causing the haunting at Citadel Vraid, if anything?
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Is any place in Golarion particularly renowned for its wines?
(That is, where would a wine snob demand their bottles come from)
We finally call this out in the Lost Omens World Guide by listing resources for regions. I don't recall off the top of my head all the details, but Taldor, Andoran, and Cheliax are likely high on that list.
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There is an artifact called the soul anchor which is a lasting corruption of the River of Souls that would allow those who died nearby to retain their mortal memories once they achieved the afterlife. Does that mean those who died near a soul anchor can escape from the River of Souls freely and thus escape Pharasma's judgement and thus would not become a petitioner?
Nope. Not at all. The soul still moves on to the afterlife; the fact that it retains memories is irrelevant to that.
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The Hellknight Citadel Vraid is said to be haunted, but its feature in Castle of Golarion doesn't really add anything to this...despite being a 10-page write-up. Unless I missed something, it only alludes to weird green lights during thunderstorms and a maddening effect on the previous two Lictors. I'd like to run an adventure there, but Castle of the Inner Sea makes this "haunted" location seem very...mundane, filled with only Hellknights and a few summoned devils.
What is causing the haunting at Citadel Vraid, if anything?
My guess: Whoever outlined Castles of Golarion missed that bit of lore. It happens.
Good news is that when you run games, you get to decide what goes into your games, so if you want there to be haunts in Citadel Vraid, go for it!
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When was it decided that the orc pantheon lives in the Maelstrom, instead of the Abyss or somewhere else?
Probably when I was working on Planar Adventures, which was my first chance to actually talk about where the gods live—a topic that, for whatever reason, other designers/developers/writers kept glossing over. I wanted the orc deities to live in the Maelstrom in their own domain because that helps to support the fact that orcs aren't intrinsically chaotic evil, even if their deities mostly are, and because there's not much that really feels "demonic" to me about orcs, and because I didn't want the orc gods to be demons or demon-adjacent, and because we'd already talked a LOT about the layers of the Abyss and never mentioned anything about the orc deities.
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What are some things Sorshen likes to eat?Decadent foods, but not to excess. Food isn't her vice.Cool.
Is lust still her vice?
Not to the same extent as it was. She's abandoned the whole sin theme. Going forward, she'll certainly have more character flaws, and they will likely be linked to her past in SOME way, but haven't put much thought into that topic yet.
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Hi, James! Playtested with a student club where I teach last year. We played through a few sections of Doomsday Dawn, but ended the academic year with all three groups taking back an abandoned keep in Andoran as part of their first mission for the in-game Pathfinder Society. After ousting the Black Dragon and his "experiments" from the local ecosystem, their (now retired) characters will retain control of the keep as a training ground for PFS hopefuls (where the new level ones will come in).
Anyhow, they're starting in Andoran and heading to Isger for The Fall of Plaguestone. What are some of your favorite not-to-be missed NPCs or locales in those two areas?
Thanks!
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Hi, James! Playtested with a student club where I teach last year. We played through a few sections of Doomsday Dawn, but ended the academic year with all three groups taking back an abandoned keep in Andoran as part of their first mission for the in-game Pathfinder Society. After ousting the Black Dragon and his "experiments" from the local ecosystem, their (now retired) characters will retain control of the keep as a training ground for PFS hopefuls (where the new level ones will come in).
Anyhow, they're starting in Andoran and heading to Isger for The Fall of Plaguestone. What are some of your favorite not-to-be missed NPCs or locales in those two areas?
Thanks!
Don't have any. I've not read Fall of Plaguestone, and haven't spent much time in Andoran or Isger with other products that I've worked on or wrote.There's some cool NPCs in Age of Ashes 1, but it's not out yet so I'm not gonna spoil things there.
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We finally call this out in the Lost Omens World Guide by listing resources for regions.
Were there any changes in the approach to the Lost Omens World Guide from, say, the Inner Sea World Guide that you particularly enjoyed?
There is an artifact called the soul anchor which is a lasting corruption of the River of Souls that would allow those who died nearby to retain their mortal memories once they achieved the afterlife. Does that mean those who died near a soul anchor can escape from the River of Souls freely and thus escape Pharasma's judgement and thus would not become a petitioner?Nope. Not at all. The soul still moves on to the afterlife; the fact that it retains memories is irrelevant to that.
I thought souls do not or can not escape from the River of Souls because they lose all their memories once they die, and thus those souls whose memories are intact would be able to escape easily without becoming a petitioner or losing class levels. Am I missing something?
Apart from Wrath of the Righteous, I can't think of any distinctly military-esque APs, and WotR has a lot of theme outside of that. There's been quite a few APs with a small-scale militia-type theme, but I'd really like to see a full-scale military AP. Has there been any real consideration to such a published campaign?