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Can undead learn? As an example, can a skeletal champion or ghoul who has no training in art improve at art after spending 10 years practicing in the same way as a human? Does this depend on the type of undead? Does it depend on the story told, or does the pathfinder setting have a say about this?
Anything that's not mindless can learn. A skeletal champion is mindless and thus can't learn. A ghoul is a smarty and thus can learn.
Being undead doesn't make a difference. As long as a creature has an Intelligence of at least 1, it can learn, although you need an Intelligence of at least 3 to learn languages and sapient creature things.
As with all things, feel free to adjust for your home game, but if you allow mindless things to learn, you'll need to come up with a reason to explain it that your players can accept.
Is dragon meat edible and what would it taste like?
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Is dragon meat edible and what would it taste like?
I've never thought about it. I guess it'd be edible, but it's not something you'd be able to buy in most places where eating the meat of sapient creatures is regarded as distasteful at best and more likely as creepy sinister evil. I could see it as a type of food that decadent amoral aristocrats would pay top price for and claim it's the most delicious thing ever even if it weren't, because the act of eating a dragon would be to them a warped status symbol.
(preface: I enjoy the idea of deconstructing mechanics of a game. This is not criticism.)
Would a character who sees how resurrection generally plays out, and for some reason (hurt by someone who got rezzed), and thinks the cosmic rules are broken be plausible? Rephrased: Would a villain who wants to destroy the possibility of resurrection and most other means of cheating death be something that could plausibly happen in Golarion?
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(preface: I enjoy the idea of deconstructing mechanics of a game. This is not criticism.)
Would a character who sees how resurrection generally plays out, and for some reason (hurt by someone who got rezzed), and thinks the cosmic rules are broken be plausible? Rephrased: Would a villain who wants to destroy the possibility of resurrection and most other means of cheating death be something that could plausibly happen in Golarion?
It'd absolutely be a plausible storyline. It'd be interesting to play out with said villain being wrong or right, in my opinion.
Follow-up to killing resurrection: Is is plausible for said villain both be mostly sane and to try to do this by acquiring specific powers that'd let them blackmail the gods into making the change?
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If the troops are built as higher level creatures, then sure. But they don't have to be built that way. And they're BIG. For a lot of the 1st edition encounters with lots of foes, they're spread out over multiple areas. A single troop won't fit in most of those areas; they're meant to represent a fight against a mob in a relatively large and open area, not so much a dungeon.I have a question for converting old adventures.
It wasn't uncommon in Pathfinder 1 for there to be an encounter with a large number of very low level minions. For instance, an encounter with a CR 7 monster and then 6 CR 2 minions, and it is listed as a CR 9 encounter.
But in Pathfinder 2, any creature that is more than 4 levels below the PCs is off the experience chart.
What would be your suggestion for converting this encounter? Just keep the very low level minions and give a slight boost to the encounter (i.e. moderate instead of low) or bump up the minions so they are no more than 4 levels below the PCs?
I've been facing several of these in my work on the Kingmaker Adventure Path. In some cases, I'll convert the mooks up to the lowest possible level where they'll give XP still and adjust numbers as needed, or I'll keep them as is and change the tone and theme of the encounter site.
One great example of this in Kingmaker is...
** spoiler omitted **
In the end, when you're converting an...
I've heard that 'troop' is going to be in Bestiary 3. How much would that help? Does it also extend to herds of animals and stampedes?
(Since 'troop' implies some organisation and probably drilling, would a 'troop' of chaotic creatures be better called a mob? :) )
I suppose I was expecting to be able to use troop for, say, a pack of half a dozen or a dozen wolves.
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I suppose I was expecting to be able to use troop for, say, a pack of half a dozen or a dozen wolves.
Are there any plans for smaller groups?
No.
Currently, you can already do an encounter with a "smaller group" as is. For a fifth level party, a dozen level 1 wolves is a severe encounter already, so the game already covers that category of encounter.
A pack of a dozen or half dozen wolves is 100% doable already as-is in the game. Once you're 6th level, the PCs won't gain experience points for fighting wolves anymore (since that's a party level –5 creature level), but the game handles fights with a dozen creatures just fine already.
You can still throw a dozen or so wolves at a group above 5th level but it won't be a challenge. If you want it to be, simply rebuild the individual wolves to a higher level as needed (and be prepared with flavor reasons why the PCs are still fighting what will appear to the players as low-level threats when they're higher level and might expect to instead be fighting wargs or dire wolves or barghests or werewolves or hell hounds or any of the large number of wolf-shaped baddies).
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Are there any Paizo official resources on the River of Souls, quintessence, potentiality, and in general, the lifecycle of a soul?
One of the themes a player of mine is exploring is the moral consequences of undeath, and, as the GM, I want to prepare as full of an understanding of the process of souls as I feasibly can. I intend on filling in any holes in the setting with what I perceive will help the table and player, as well as possibly change the setting if I similarly deem it necessary. That said, I'd appreciate any official setting explanation as a point of reference and/or inspiration.
The most up-to-date would be Planar Adventures—it's a 1st edition book, but the section talking about the River of Souls in there is edition neutral.
I've heard you talking about Call of Cthulhu as a fun change of pace system. I recently started tinkering around with a session or two of it and have had good fun!
When you run a game like this, as it's pretty different from Pathfinder, do you just run a quick 1-4 session scenario or do you plot out large campaigns with twists and turns and all that?
Or am I crazy and you don't run/play CoC?
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I've heard you talking about Call of Cthulhu as a fun change of pace system. I recently started tinkering around with a session or two of it and have had good fun!
When you run a game like this, as it's pretty different from Pathfinder, do you just run a quick 1-4 session scenario or do you plot out large campaigns with twists and turns and all that?
Or am I crazy and you don't run/play CoC?
I do run/play Call of Cthulhu.
When I do, it's one of two ways, generally—either a one-shot game that's not intended to progress beyond that single session, or a large campaign. For large campaigns, I'll either run a published one like Masks of Nyarlathotep OR I'll stitch together a bunch of shorter adventures.
I've heard you talking about Call of Cthulhu as a fun change of pace system. I recently started tinkering around with a session or two of it and have had good fun!
When you run a game like this, as it's pretty different from Pathfinder, do you just run a quick 1-4 session scenario or do you plot out large campaigns with twists and turns and all that?
Or am I crazy and you don't run/play CoC?
I do run/play Call of Cthulhu.
When I do, it's one of two ways, generally—either a one-shot game that's not intended to progress beyond that single session, or a large campaign. For large campaigns, I'll either run a published one like Masks of Nyarlathotep OR I'll stitch together a bunch of shorter adventures.
Thanks! I've been eyeing their longer campaigns because I love me some long campaigns.
Do you prefer MoN or Horror on the Orient Express?
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Do you prefer MoN or Horror on the Orient Express?
Horror on the Orient Express, simply because of the scale and magnitude and resources involved with that campaign. Beyond the Mountains of Madness is the most fun I've ever had running a Call of Cthulhu campaign though.
Beyond the Mountains of Madness: Completed as Keeper 1 time.
Horror on the Orient Express: Completed as Investigator 1 time, started (but not finished) as a Keeper 1 time.
Masks of Nyarlathotep: Started as a Keeper (but not finished) 3 times.
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Hey James, thanks for the reference regarding Planar Adventures. I read the parts of the River of Souls, the Positive and Negative energy planes, as well as the Maelstrom. I feel more confident running my game.
In Planar Adventures, I read that the Negative energy plane pulls unaligned pre-incarnate souls from the Positive energy plane to the first world and the Material plane, where the souls find their vessels.
What happens to souls that get pulled through the Material plane without finding a vessel and end up in the Negative energy plane? Or to mortal souls that perish in the Negative energy plane and become undead there? Do those souls ever make it back to the River of Souls? Does the Maelstrom take quintessence from the Negative energy plane too?
They don't. All of that positive energy ends up becoming a soul somewhere. Any of it that doesn't go into a soul ends up being used by magic to do things like heal and whatnot, after which it gets "recycled" back into the system. There is no "leakage" with positive energy simply going direclty into the negative energy and being wasted. The act of creating undead is more or less how that happens, and that all happens after the pre-incarnate soul energy becomes a soul in a body.
But before that energy finds a body, it's not a soul. It's just positive energy.
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Pharasma can be inscrutable sometimes, but is there a reason she still sends souls to Abaddon even though they are always stealing from the river of souls?
1) Because that's where those souls go, and to deny that is to not be impartial in judgment.
2) Not every soul that goes to Abaddon becomes a daemon that eats souls.
What’s the basis of the red mantis not taking contracts on rightful monarchs? It just seems like an interesting place for them to draw the line.
Why does Razmir use the title “the living god”? Aren’t all/the majority of golarions gods living as well?
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What’s the basis of the red mantis not taking contracts on rightful monarchs? It just seems like an interesting place for them to draw the line.
From the meta reason: It helps to set them aside from every other assassin's guild I've seen in games, and helps to give them a bit of unique flavor that makes them more interesting.
From the in-world reason: It's a mandate from their god, Achaekek, who is Lawful Evil and doesn't want the Red Mantis to be used to destabilize society TOO much, and somewhat inspired by (perhaps apocryphal) myths that Achaekek himself avoids assassinating fellow deities because he knows that'll just get him attacked by other creatures who are as powerful as him. AKA: By having this clause, the Red Mantis end up not being as opposed by the world's leaders as they otherwise might, which gives them a lot more leeway and freedom to operate as an assassin's guild.
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Why does Razmir use the title “the living god”? Aren’t all/the majority of golarions gods living as well?
He's overcompensating, pretty much.
But also, "living god" is used often as a synonym for "demigod" or "mortal who has ascended to become a god." A god who is alive and there in the world next to you that you can touch, rather than a god who may or may not exist in some other plane or dimension.
It makes less sense in a world like Golarion where there are actually gods because we, the creators of the world, tell you that is a truth, but to many folks in-world who never actually see physical "proof" of a deity being a deity, a person like Razmir can pull the proverbial wool over their eyes and claim to be an alive real person who is also a god.
Hey James, a player in my campaign wants to make a character with connection to Varisian culture, and the party may eventually head out there (I have been super eager to make use of your Sandpoint gazetteer). I’m a little nervous about portraying the people out there, however, because I’m accustomed to leaning pretty heavily on real world cultural analogues, and don’t have the kind of study resources I usually do. Since Varisians seem inspired a lot by Romani cultures, do you have any books or sources you recommend for learning about them (art, traditions, community structures, food & entertainment, etc)? It occurred to me that most of my current knowledge comes from Disney’s Hunchback, which I get the feeling doesn’t hold up.
For that matter, any material that may have inspired you when you were first envisioning Shoanti peoples? Thanks in advance.
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Hey James, a player in my campaign wants to make a character with connection to Varisian culture, and the party may eventually head out there (I have been super eager to make use of your Sandpoint gazetteer). I’m a little nervous about portraying the people out there, however, because I’m accustomed to leaning pretty heavily on real world cultural analogues, and don’t have the kind of study resources I usually do. Since Varisians seem inspired a lot by Romani cultures, do you have any books or sources you recommend for learning about them (art, traditions, community structures, food & entertainment, etc)? It occurred to me that most of my current knowledge comes from Disney’s Hunchback, which I get the feeling doesn’t hold up.
For that matter, any material that may have inspired you when you were first envisioning Shoanti peoples? Thanks in advance.
Varisians were originally intended to be a specifically non-single-Earth analogue ethnicity, but in the early years of the game we were too lazy there. The same goes for Shoanti. Both of those ethnicities were under my control in the early years, while the rest of the ethnicities were handled by other folks and we didn't do a great job translating the Varisians and Shoanti into the wider view of the game setting at all, and ended up relying too much on vague notions and stereotypes for Varisians. And the Shoanti got entirely left out of the setting book until the 2nd hardcover.
Varisians were in part inspired by elements of Romani cultures, but they're just as equally inspired by Spanish/Mexican culture as well (which is a significant cultural element in northern California and in my family), but also with a dose of free-wheeling environmental-conscious culture that you could call "Hippy culture" I guess. There's a strong element of the classic laid-back northern California native in them, in other words. I could see the stereotyped surfer dude being a Varisian, for example, but also the "Make love, not war" type of character. Those elements are in Burnt Offerings and Sandpoint, but the art wasn't up to the challenge in the early days.
As for the Shoanti... my goal there was to have something that was inspired by Native American peoples but to avoid the cultural appropriation elements. And again it comes from my childhood in northern California, although my family doesn't have the same cultural ties there as it does to Mexico, so I'm much more of an outsider looking in and trying to do my best there. The Shoanti in my homebrew also had a strong dose of Northern Europe in their culture, particularly from Scotland and Norway (the later of which IS a part of my own heritage).
Neither ancestry is really meant to be a direct Earth-analogue, though, although as I've mentioned above, some early disconnects between how what was getting developed in the Adventure Path line versus what was being done for the world itself resulted in some "cut corners" that we've been trying to shore up ever since. (I didn't really step in to significantly develop the world lore as a project lead or creative director until the SECOND hardcover, remember.)
Hi James!
I was pleasantly surprised to hear you're a Kingdom Death fan on stream. What is it that you like about the game and what expansions (if any) do you enjoy playing with?
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Hi James!
I was pleasantly surprised to hear you're a Kingdom Death fan on stream. What is it that you like about the game and what expansions (if any) do you enjoy playing with?
I love the artistry that goes into the game—both it's art and the quality of the miniatures. I also love the dark, gritty, and mature themes of the game. Even when you're not playing the game, the game does the job of being an appealing decoration for your game room or home or whatever. It has a level of danger that appeals to me in the same way the danger in games like "Dark Souls" (which saves your progress constantly and doesn't allow you to go back and re-do choices that you later realize were bad choices) or "The Long Dark" (which has permadeath in its survival mode—die and you have to start over).
I also love the fact that Kingdom Death is actually 3 games. A miniatures combat game, a relationship/society management game, and a deck-building game. The fact that those three elements exist side by side means when you play Kingdom Death, you're actually playing three pretty different games. That, plus the fact that there are SO many random elements and choice elements that can change the course of the story means that the game doesn't get repetitive.
It's certainly NOT a game for everyone due to its mature content or the unforgiving way randomness can throw a wrench into your plans no matter how good you are at the tactics fo the game, but those are things that appeal to me.
What I don't love is that I don't have a group to play it consistently. More often than not, we end up having to restart from the beginning and play the same stuff over and over and then enough of the players realize it's not a game for them and they quit and we have to find new players to start over with. I'd really REALLY like to get to the endgame and see how that plays out some day.
I also don't actually own the game. It's a bit out of my price range for my hobby spending, and I don't really paint minis so it's a bit out of my free-time range as well. Fortunately, I know several folks who do own the game... but unfortunately, the pandemic means no group games for now.
Is it wrong of me to wish that Starfinder's game mechanics were more like Pathfinder 2e? :(
So many games, so little time. ;-)
Have you played Cthulhu: Death May Die? If so, what did you think of it?
Hey James, I am working on the Italian translation of the Bestiary (PF 2e). As far as you know, the "s" in Chu'ulothis is to make the name plural? In other words: what is singular form of Chu'ulothis?
Thanks you so much!
P.S. Having a blast watching Shensen in Band of Bravos!
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Hey James, I am working on the Italian translation of the Bestiary (PF 2e). As far as you know, the "s" in Chu'ulothis is to make the name plural? In other words: what is singular form of Chu'ulothis?
Thanks you so much!
P.S. Having a blast watching Shensen in Band of Bravos!
That is the singular form, as far as I'm concerned.
And yay! Glad to hear that Shensen's being entertaining! :-)
Hi there, I just converted to p2e from D&D5 and I LOVE the p2e system! However, it's a little frustrating that it takes a big step backwards in forcing the awkward, oversimplified "alignment" system onto players. I
will have to modify p2e to remove it. Same with the gods. If players want to worship gods, great, but I feel it's really unfair that self-confident players who don't want to debase themselves with worship are "nerfed".
Why are these setting-locked elements so fixed in p2e? Does the Paizo team really want to discourage world-building among creative DMs?
In what sense is Achaekek related to grandmother spider? I presume it might not be literal since Achaekek is one of the original 9 deities and she isn’t, so I’m really curious if there is any light you can shed.
Do you have any tips on rollplaying characters? I find it’s so easy to get caught up in the mechanics of the moment that it’s difficult to remember to flavour your actions with character moments, and harder still to try and make them memorable.
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Hi there, I just converted to p2e from D&D5 and I LOVE the p2e system! However, it's a little frustrating that it takes a big step backwards in forcing the awkward, oversimplified "alignment" system onto players. I
will have to modify p2e to remove it. Same with the gods. If players want to worship gods, great, but I feel it's really unfair that self-confident players who don't want to debase themselves with worship are "nerfed".Why are these setting-locked elements so fixed in p2e? Does the Paizo team really want to discourage world-building among creative DMs?
Feel free to change things as you wish for your game.
I feel like you and I have very different takes on what it means to play a cleric, though. In games I run, it's illogical for someone to worship, say, Asmodeus, but be a kindly, helpful person, in the same way it's illogical to play a worshiper of Erastil as an evil misogynist or a worshiper of Sarenrae as a warmongering intolerant or a worshiper of Gorum as a peaceful anti-battle monk.
To me, a player who wants to break lore to play an out-of context worshiper of an established deity isn't "self-confident." They're disruptive and disrespectful of the hard work that's gone into setting the flavor of the world.
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In what sense is Achaekek related to grandmother spider? I presume it might not be literal since Achaekek is one of the original 9 deities and she isn’t, so I’m really curious if there is any light you can shed.
In the sense that Achaekek is her brother. Gods don't follow biology. But even then, in the real world, you can have a brother who isn't related to you by blood. How and when Grandmother Spider came to be is, as far as I know, currently unrevealed. SHe's a relatively brand new deity for the setting and we haven't done nearly as much with her yet as we have Achaekek, who's been around longer than Pathfinder (or Paizo, for that matter) has existed.
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Do you have any tips on rollplaying characters? I find it’s so easy to get caught up in the mechanics of the moment that it’s difficult to remember to flavour your actions with character moments, and harder still to try and make them memorable.
Consume fiction. Be it novels or movies or games or whatever. The more you take in stories created by others, the more your own ability to present characters of your own will grow. Watching live-plays of RPGs is a GREAT way to find out how other people play their characters—take note of things other players do that amuse you and strive to do the same, but also take note of things that they do that DON'T work and avoid those choices.
And think of them as characters, not rules. Often when I'm looking at a new character to play, I'll have some ideas that are rules-agnostic in my head. A REALLY easy way to do this is to pick your character's religion—even (or especially) if they're not a cleric. This gives you a whole bunch of roleplaying flavor to explore that normally might not come up.
And when you do things in combat, don't just say "I attack with my dagger," or "I cast magic missile." Describe what your character does, either before or after you roll for success.
Pick out a few "habits" for your character, such as "doesn't like fungus" or "always wears something that's red" or "likes to collect rings" or the like. Give them a few quirks you can play off of.
And write up a character study/history of your character. Like 500 or 1,000 words of where they're from, who they are, what they like, etc. No rules. Just favorite deserts, favorite songs, what they're afraid of, nicknames for things. Did they have a beloved pet as a kid? Who was their childhood hero? What was their favorite birthday party? Do they sound funny when they laugh? What's their opinion on personal hygene? The list goes on and on.
There's a LOT of books out there that help with building characters, be it for RPGs or just for writing. My personal favorite book on the topic of writing is Stephen King's "On Writing," and since one of his GREATEST strengths is characters, there's lots in that book to help in creating memorable characters.
But that said, part of what draws you to the game, it sounds like, IS the mechanics. In that case, that's fine—you don't have to abandon that to play the game right!
Mr. James Jacobs,
How do you imagine Aklo sounding?
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Mr. James Jacobs,
How do you imagine Aklo sounding?
Creepy and unsettling and disturbing, like the way you get when you hear fingernails scraping on a chalkboard despite the fact that Aklo doesn't sound like that at all. Unsettling and disturbing like when the voice channel on a movie is slightly out of sync with the motion of the speaker's lips. Unsettling and disturbing in that when you hear the words, you remember them as being said before you heard them despite the fact that you know you did not. The sound of the wind rustling through the reeds at the river's edge on a calm, windless day. The sound of a loved one screaming out in pain because of something you did, even though you haven't done it yet. The noise of a hungry predator calling for help in the voice of someone it just ate. The sound of someone else breathing at midnight in an empty room. The sound of flowers sobbing. The sound of something watching you from the part of the world you aren't looking at and can never see. The sound of your eyes moving in their sockets when you shift your gaze as you attempt to see what's making that breathing sound. The sound you make when you see it.
It doesn't sound safe, in other words.
So, my wife created a very unique dream-based monster for a campaign and I was blown away by it. It got me thinking.
Great Old Ones come specifically from the Dark Tapestry, via the Outer Gods, yes?
Nyarlathotep dwells in Leng, in Kadath. Is there a link between him and the Plateau of Leng, and dreams in general? I guess the question is did he GO to Leng? Did Leng form around him?
We're working on expanding the lore for this monster type, and I want to stay within the Lost Omens canon for the Elder Mythos and not slip too far into other sources. Our recent completion of a 2e-converted Rise of the Runelords got us talking about Leng a lot, lol.
They're disruptive and disrespectful of the hard work that's gone into setting the flavor of the world.
WOW! So building your own world is "disrespectful" and only Paizo is allowed to build a world for Pathfinder? Maybe this is not the game for me.
I was excited about pathfinder and hoped to find encouragement here. :(
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So, my wife created a very unique dream-based monster for a campaign and I was blown away by it. It got me thinking.
Great Old Ones come specifically from the Dark Tapestry, via the Outer Gods, yes?
Nyarlathotep dwells in Leng, in Kadath. Is there a link between him and the Plateau of Leng, and dreams in general? I guess the question is did he GO to Leng? Did Leng form around him?
We're working on expanding the lore for this monster type, and I want to stay within the Lost Omens canon for the Elder Mythos and not slip too far into other sources. Our recent completion of a 2e-converted Rise of the Runelords got us talking about Leng a lot, lol.
The Dark Tapestry is the same as "deep space" but less sci-fi and more fantasy. There's a LOT of things in the Dark Tapestry. It's where space-horror comes from. That does include SOME of the Great Old Ones, but not all of them, and it also includes other things. Other Great Old Ones come from other places.
In Pathfinder, Leng is a sub-region within the Dreamlands/Dimension of Dreams. Sort of a cross between a plane and a dimension. If the dreamlands are where dreams happen, then Leng is where nightmares come from, so yes, there is a strong link between Leng and dreams.
That extension doesn't particularly extend to Nyarlathotep in Pathfinder, who isn't particularly interested in dreams. That's more the realm of Cthulhu.
If you want to expand Leng's inhabitants, the BEST place to look is Lovecraft's stories, particularly "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath." Second best place to look is Chaosium's stuff, particularly their Dreamlands setting, which incorporates a lot of other stuff beyond Lovecraft that we don't have the license to publish. Third best place is probably volume three of "Strange Aeons" which takes place in the Dreamlands.
Beyond that, thematically, brand new Leng monsters would have ties to nightmares and cold.
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They're disruptive and disrespectful of the hard work that's gone into setting the flavor of the world.WOW! So building your own world is "disrespectful" and only Paizo is allowed to build a world for Pathfinder? Maybe this is not the game for me.
I was excited about pathfinder and hoped to find encouragement here. :(
That's absolutely NOT what I was saying. You're misunderstanding. Let me clarify... (hopefully you haven't given up on this thread due to a simple misunderstanding...)
When a GM builds a world for their players to play in, and that player deliberately looks to build a character that doesn't respect the GM's hard work, that's disrespectful of that GM's hard work. For example, if a GM builds a setting that's more "real world" and less magic (say, something inspired by Game of Thrones) and a player insists on playing a high-magic character that doesn't fit with the theme and clashes against the other players, that's disrespectful. That doesn't change if the creator of the game world is a GM or a publisher like Paizo.
HOWEVER! Making your own setting, be it something from scratch or something that uses a published setting as a chassis that you then modify is NOT disrespectful of the source. It's an honor, in fact, to inspire GMs to build their own worlds. In that case, what you're building IS a homebrew, even if 99% of it is from published materials. How you change that as a GM is 100% up to you. What my post was saying was that if you do so and your players don't respect that work (split between the part of Golarion you retained and the part you adjusted or created on your own), then that disrespects the creator of the setting—in a case like this, both you and Paizo.
I feel like throughout this tens of thousands of replies long thread I've ample evidence that I have been nothing but encouraging to folks who want to homebrew games. Sorry that the miscommunication in my previous reply made you think otherwise. Wasn't my intent.
That said, I suspect that part of my reply put me on the defensive because of the way you phrased your initial question. Calling Pathfinder's alignment system "awkward and oversimplified" and putting "alignment" in quotes to diminish it, calling something we worked on for years a "big step backwards," and implying that the vast majority of Pathfinder players who enjoy the setting we've been sucessful at publishing over the past decade-plus are not self-confident and that they can only debase themselves by playing the rules as written, and then implying that the Paizo team is trying to discourage world-building among creative GMs read to me like you were being a bit antagonistic, or perhaps even trying to bait me into an edition war. Over the past decade I admit that I've grown perhaps hypersensitive to that sort of attack by customers, so I apologize for reading antagonism into your post. But it also goes to show how important word choice is when you post on a forum, where body language and expression aren't there to help with communication.
In closing, no, we do NOT want to discourage world-building among any GM of ANY creative capacity. We want to encourage that, and the only way we know to do that really is to provide inspiration in the creation of a game like Pathfinder and a world like Golarion. Both of those exist because we at Paizo have been inspired in turn by those who came before us, be it other RPGs or movies or games or novels or stories or whatever.
Hopefully that explains my position a bit more clearly. I'm kind of ashamed and astounded that anyone would interpret my words as saying that GMs are being disrespectful when they change what we write for their own game.
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Creative Director
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...wrote about alignment and deities...
To get out from under the miscommunication... two things:
Pathfinder embraces the concept of faith and religion and deities. It's a fundamental part of the way the game is set up, and a fundamental part of the setting. The deities themselves are one of the parts of the world that I'm personally the most proud of. It's fine if you're not into having deities in your setting, or want to change or discard alignment, but I can't help but to get a little defensive on the topic, so I apologize for what may be an overreaction to a very different from my preferred style of gaming and fantasy and faith than I'm used to.
THAT SAID: There's advice in the Gamemastery Guide for alignment variations, including removing alignment entirely. It's a really pretty simple and easy adjustment to make—pages 184–185 of that book cover the topic.