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No question. Just want you to know that I appreciate the work you do as well as how hard you work to stay connected to the community, even when it's probably not a ton of fun at times.
You and your team are excellent. Thank you and hang in there!
Thank you. My "team" is the game and the setting, though. I don't have anyone who actually reports to me. So when you say my "team" is excellent I'll assume you're talking about everyone at Paizo who works so hard to create Pathfinder and Starfinder and everything else, and please make sure to let them know too.
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As little comfort as it may be from an internet dude, e-hugs and support for what is probably not the most fun of times in the world right now.
Now, as you've often asked for questions in posts, here's one!
If you had to give some advice for a player (that's me) for his character in Second Darkness who is deeply invested in the city of Riddleport, what advice would that be? :D
At this point in this thread's history, I'm welcoming any sort of positivity from the internet. Questions optional.
But since you asked... My advvice for you in Second Darkness is to work with your GM to manage that investment in Riddleport and to let them know that you're into the city, but also to keep in mind as a player that Second Darkness starts in Riddleport but does not stay there. It's not ABOUT Riddleport, so when the time comes to leave the city and go elsewhere, be prepared by thinking that "I'm no longer in Riddleport physically, but everything I'm doing now is to help protect the city I am attached to, even if I'm very far away."
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Been thinking a lot about you and others this week, James. Thanks for everything you do, including this thread that you've kept going for so long. Is there anything you're particularly interested in seeing people tackle with the Infinite program?
Thank you.
As for Infinite, I'm most eager to see people tell NEW stories of their own, be it stories inspired by things we've published or stories inspired by their own games. I'm less interested in seeing "reprints" or edition conversions of existing content.
Show me something new we never thought of, in other words.
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Also on the Infinite front, do you have any tips for how to outline an Adventure Path?
I do, but the point of Infinite is to give other folks a chance to play in the world. It's not meant to be a place for us at Paizo to offer classes. :-)
That said, my main tip for someone who wants to try to produce an adventure path is to go in eyes open and ready to work for over a year on the thing before finding out if the first part is even viable or something anyone is interested in.
AKA: Start with a single adventure, not an entire campaign.
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Hope you're doing well, James. I feel silly asking, because somehow I know the answer is yes, but have you seen Malignant? Take care of yourself bud.
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Hope you're doing well, James. I feel silly asking, because somehow I know the answer is yes, but have you seen Malignant? Take care of yourself bud.
Trying to do well, but not succeeding really. Thanks for the well wishes though.
I watched Malignant pretty much the instant it came out on HBO at Midnight last Thursday. Loved it. Made me wanna go on the Seattle Underground Tour again, for one thing.
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Have you played any new games recently?
Wrath of the Righteous is the thing I'm playing the most lately. The new Life is Strange game is probably going to be the next thing I buy and play. Also back to playing Fallout 76 a little bit here and there.
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I wanted to post here and let you know that Golarion is my favorite campaign setting bar none. Pathfinder has been a huge part of my life for many years now, and I've had the privelege to share my joy of this game both mechanically and narratively with many of my friends over the years, leading to incredible memories I will cherish for my life. I offer all the support I can in these times, and hope Paizo can recover and come out the better on the other end of things.
As for a question, I love the Aldori Swordlords and their dueling swords. Early in the setting's publication, there were a few early images that seem to represent the Swordlords and their infamous weapons. The one I can think of off the top of my head is the splash image for Mivon in 'Guide to the River Kingdoms' (published back when that was still the Pathfinder Chronicles line!).
In that image, they're... Pretty different from how we see them today. They have big, elaborate armor, stylized helmets in the image of beasts, and the swords themselves are ridiculously huge and wide slabs of overdesigned iron on long poles.
I guess I'm just curious if you have any insight into the original inception of the Swordlords and their dueling swords, and how it evolved over time into the modern saber/katana it is now.
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I wanted to post here and let you know that Golarion is my favorite campaign setting bar none. Pathfinder has been a huge part of my life for many years now, and I've had the privelege to share my joy of this game both mechanically and narratively with many of my friends over the years, leading to incredible memories I will cherish for my life. I offer all the support I can in these times, and hope Paizo can recover and come out the better on the other end of things.
As for a question, I love the Aldori Swordlords and their dueling swords. Early in the setting's publication, there were a few early images that seem to represent the Swordlords and their infamous weapons. The one I can think of off the top of my head is the splash image for Mivon in 'Guide to the River Kingdoms' (published back when that was still the Pathfinder Chronicles line!).
In that image, they're... Pretty different from how we see them today. They have big, elaborate armor, stylized helmets in the image of beasts, and the swords themselves are ridiculously huge and wide slabs of overdesigned iron on long poles.
I guess I'm just curious if you have any insight into the original inception of the Swordlords and their dueling swords, and how it evolved over time into the modern saber/katana it is now.
In the early days, we didn't have a lot of money for art. We certainly didn't have money to illustrate everything we came up with, and didn't really have a great place to throw illustrations of the many weapons we invented. So we had to pick and choose, with things like dogslicers, starknives, klars, and earthbreakers gettting more attention because those supported an Adventure Path as well as the setting.
AKA: The Aldori swords kind of crept in the back door in text and got missed for a long time. And that meant we ended up illustrating them incorrectly or haphazardly.
I didn't invent those swords like I did with the four weapons I listed above, so I don't have much more insight into them, but the idea that they're a saber/katana is as far as I can tell kind of always what was intended. It certainly feels "right" to me at this point in time.
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Just wanted to thank you for all the heart and hard work that you put into pathfinder. When I first heard about abomination vault, I wasn't super interested. It seemed fine, but I'm not too into mega dungeons. On the other hand, a haunted mega dungeon did seem pretty intriguing. Cut to a few months back, and my entire life got turned upside down. I needed something to ground me, and I decided to start up a new game of Pathfinder.
I figured AV would be a solid adventure that I could run without tooo much prep each session. Turns out I was both right and wrong. The adventure itself was straight forward enough, but I feel so in love with it that I just had to keep adding little flourishes and expanding. It has been amazing! My players have fallen in love right there next to me.
We all live busy lives, but recently we all played straight from noon to 11:30 pm on a Sunday. I was able to lose myself in a way I don't often get to. It was exactly like going back to a high school sleepover. Over the next couple of days, a few of my players messaged me, thanking me for running the games, and just generally fluffing my ego. I don't think that's ever happened before, in almost 20 years of off-and-on DMing. The last few sessions have hands down been the best I've ever run.
And it wouldn't have happened without you. So I just wanted to say thank you for that.
Oh... And um.... What's your 3rd favorite dinosaur? Mine is Baryonyx.
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Just wanted to thank you for all the heart and hard work that you put into pathfinder. When I first heard about abomination vault, I wasn't super interested. It seemed fine, but I'm not too into mega dungeons. On the other hand, a haunted mega dungeon did seem pretty intriguing. Cut to a few months back, and my entire life got turned upside down. I needed something to ground me, and I decided to start up a new game of Pathfinder.
I figured AV would be a solid adventure that I could run without tooo much prep each session. Turns out I was both right and wrong. The adventure itself was straight forward enough, but I feel so in love with it that I just had to keep adding little flourishes and expanding. It has been amazing! My players have fallen in love right there next to me.
We all live busy lives, but recently we all played straight from noon to 11:30 pm on a Sunday. I was able to lose myself in a way I don't often get to. It was exactly like going back to a high school sleepover. Over the next couple of days, a few of my players messaged me, thanking me for running the games, and just generally fluffing my ego. I don't think that's ever happened before, in almost 20 years of off-and-on DMing. The last few sessions have hands down been the best I've ever run.
And it wouldn't have happened without you. So I just wanted to say thank you for that.
Oh... And um.... What's your 3rd favorite dinosaur? Mine is Baryonyx.
Yay; glad to hear you had fun with Abomination Vaults!
And third favorite = Allosaurus.
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I'm probably today gonna get chance finish playing Malevolence :'D
Have to say that I can't believe making up duskwalker tengu champion of Desna with Nosoi theme ended up actually being relevant to module x'D I just picked tengu because I like them and duskwalker for the incorporeal damage ancestry feat since I decided I don't know if I want to do ghost hunter from abomination vaults in this one
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As little comfort as it may be from an internet dude, e-hugs and support for what is probably not the most fun of times in the world right now.
Now, as you've often asked for questions in posts, here's one!
If you had to give some advice for a player (that's me) for his character in Second Darkness who is deeply invested in the city of Riddleport, what advice would that be? :D
At this point in this thread's history, I'm welcoming any sort of positivity from the internet. Questions optional.
But since you asked... My advvice for you in Second Darkness is to work with your GM to manage that investment in Riddleport and to let them know that you're into the city, but also to keep in mind as a player that Second Darkness starts in Riddleport but does not stay there. It's not ABOUT Riddleport, so when the time comes to leave the city and go elsewhere, be prepared by thinking that "I'm no longer in Riddleport physically, but everything I'm doing now is to help protect the city I am attached to, even if I'm very far away."
Thank you! I’m hype for it and all about the upcoming journey!
But, yeah, you and everyone on all sides of this thing are being prayed for. God be with and guide you and others in this time.
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Hi, James! Just stopping in to offer support and thanks for all that you've done over the years for players and GMs that visit your thread looking for help.
I just started playing Wrath of the Righteous and since Mythic Adventures seemed to be poorly received on this forum, it will most likely be my only chance to play the adventure. It's great so far!
I always love hearing recommendations from writers whose work that I admire and one of my favorite issues of Dungeon was when you all released your list of the greatest adventures of all time.
My question is would you be so kind as to throw out a few of your favorite adventures that you've played in or run over the years?
Thanks in advance.
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My follow up question is do you mind offering your choices for a few of the adventures that you've written or developed that you are most proud of, in terms of how they turned out, or the audience response to said adventure?
Thanks again.
Sending positive thoughts your way.
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Since I'm here, I do need a little direction in one of my Pathfinder games. I'm running a campaign based in Arcadia which has very little lore offered about it so far. Do you mind offering a few suggestions for deities that might be interested in the peoples there, both with the best of intentions and those with the worst?
If that's too vague, then I'll rephrase slightly by asking which deities might want to see the Arcadians flourish and which might wish to seem them fall or be subjugated?
Thank you.
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Stay strong and enjoy the beautiful fall weather in the northwest! I love Golarion and the thousands of hours of fun it has brought us since the beginning. Well done, and looking forward to the Kingmaker 10th anniversary release!
Now back to the Wrath video game... :P
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I also take the liberty of omitting the question part, in order to express my sincere gratitude for anything you have done so far for the Pathfinder community and Paizo.
Even though I am a new member, I have already come to deeply appreciate the game (for both its gameplay and fascinating lore) and the people behind the curtain that make the magic happens. And, for various reasons, I have come to especially appreciate and admire you, in particular.
Keep calm and roll Nat 20s !!! :-)
P.S. I can't wait for Guns and Gears and Kingmaker!!!
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My question is would you be so kind as to throw out a few of your favorite adventures that you've played in or run over the years?
Thanks in advance.
Leaving out adventures I've had a hand in writing or developing or editing or creating, since saying something I helped create is a "favorite" feels gross to me... here's the top five adventures that come to mind in no particular order that I'd say would be five favorites...
Beyond the Mountains of Madness
Gates of Firestorm Peak
Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure
Shadows of Yog-Sothoth
Keep on the Borderlands
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My follow up question is do you mind offering your choices for a few of the adventures that you've written or developed that you are most proud of, in terms of how they turned out, or the audience response to said adventure?
Thanks again.
Sending positive thoughts your way.
Burnt Offerings
A Song of Silver
Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk
Red Hand of Doom
Malevolence*
*(Hopefully that last one ends up standing the test of time!)
As for ones I've developed... those are tougher for me to call out since over the years I've developed hundreds of adventures and many of those authors are amazing people who have inspired me and made me a better writer and are people who I want to work with again because they are so wonderful.
One name in particular comes to mind today though—Crystal Frasier.
Crystal's work on the final adventure of Iron Gods and the launch adventure for Hell's Rebels happened almost back-to-back, and she not only defined key parts of those adventure paths by designing the ship that crashed into Numeria and the city map of Kintargo, but elevated both of those adventure paths to the category of some of the best things that I feel Paizo has been fortunate enough to publish. Thank you, Crystal, for everything.
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Since I'm here, I do need a little direction in one of my Pathfinder games. I'm running a campaign based in Arcadia which has very little lore offered about it so far. Do you mind offering a few suggestions for deities that might be interested in the peoples there, both with the best of intentions and those with the worst?
If that's too vague, then I'll rephrase slightly by asking which deities might want to see the Arcadians flourish and which might wish to seem them fall or be subjugated?
Thank you.
My suggestion would be to chat with Luis. Gen Con is still going, so if you see him online at Discord or are in the chat for a panel he's working on, he's the one I go to as the authority on all-things-creative for Arcadia these days.
We've listed a few of them in Gods & Magic and the Mwangi book but Luis has done a LOT more work on that content. And it's all amazing.
Did you back the Call of Cthulhu 40th anniversary classic box set? Or is your original pressing of the game still in playable shape?
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Finished playing the Malevolence (we did it yay!) xD GM showed up what would have happened if we failed and wow that is my new favorite art of horrifying eldritch creature
Yeah, that picture came out pretty great. That particular monster is one that I've kind of held back on for decades—he's older than Treerazer as far as my monster creations go (I invented him originally for a Call of Cthulhu adventure I wrote up back in 1988 or thereabouts, and actually pitched to Chaosium, but they rightfully rejected it for being a bit too sloppy in the research department—the basic gist was that it was a Cthulhu Now adventure where your investigators were on a jet that crashed in Greenland and you ended up having to fight for survival in the snow while THAT ONE was out there waking up in the ice.)
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Did you back the Call of Cthulhu 40th anniversary classic box set? Or is your original pressing of the game still in playable shape?
I absolutely did back that.
My first copy of the game was purchased at one of my favorite book stores (now closed alas) in Mendocino, CA (amusingly, the same location used by Roger Corman to film his adaptation of "The Dunwich Horror"), back in the very early 80s. I wanna say that was back in 1984 or so, but it COULD have been 1983. In any case, I played the HELL out of that box set and have pretty much been purchasing every other Chaosium CoC supplement ever since.
The original box itself long ago fell apart. I probably have bits and pieces of it around my place somewhere, but not sure.
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First of it has been a long time but stopping by to say having enjoyed your work for years, Thank you for everything you do. Second Malevolence is awesome and I can’t wait to run it. Third, your willingness to chat with the customers first in your weekly visits to the old chat room and then taking over this joke thread and making it awesome has always been one of my favorite things.
An now for a question. If you can say what is your favorite thing you added to the new version of Kingmaker?
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First of it has been a long time but stopping by to say having enjoyed your work for years, Thank you for everything you do. Second Malevolence is awesome and I can’t wait to run it. Third, your willingness to chat with the customers first in your weekly visits to the old chat room and then taking over this joke thread and making it awesome has always been one of my favorite things.
An now for a question. If you can say what is your favorite thing you added to the new version of Kingmaker?
Heh, yeah I saw the thread when it started and knew it was a joke and wanted to prove that joke wrong. Saw it as a chance to win at the Internet. I'm still trying for that win! :-)
My favorite thing to the new version of Kingmaker that I added myself? I really don't know... been a lot of new stuff and I'm deeply in the exhaustion stage on the project. Maybe... ask me this again in six months or so when I hopefully have a healthier mindset to look back on things?
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There's an Absalom boxed set?
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There's an Absalom boxed set?
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All you do here is win win win, James.
Oh hey, I'm the first visible post on page one! How nostalgic.
On the question front, are you as excited about the Absalom boxed set as I am?
That's good to hear, 'cause the wins don't seem like wins a lot on this side.
I'm pretty eager to see what they come up with for the Absalom boxed set. I wrote a pretty significant portion of the text in that book, but the things I'd like for them to do the most is find a way to turn the songs I wrote for the book into actual audio files that can be played on devices included in the box! Probably a bit over the top, but... hey! Anything's possible, right?
Where is best to make noise about wanting more Arcadia content?
There's an Absalom boxed set?check here
Ah. Thanks. Didn't realize it was gonna be a boxed set.
Obligatory James question: How do you envision the magus, tactically? Seems his basic move is to cast something, enter Arcane Cascade, and next turn cast an attack spell and then Spellstrike. Then he's gotta reset Spellstrike before he can use it again. Can/should he alternate between Spellstrike and doing whatever he's got to do to reset that? Is it that simple?
BTW, Ruins of Gauntlight is great! Thanks for doing what you do. :-)
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MASSIVE OUTPOURING OF POSITIVE ENERGY!
...okay, I think I'm tapped out here, hope that helps!
Question: You're an incredibly patient and wise sage of Golarion (and beyond). Do you know where your reserve of patience comes from?
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Where is best to make noise about wanting more Arcadia content?
I feel like you have that covered. ;-) (AKA: Requesting it on threads here in Paizo.com, asking for it directly from me or Erik or the developers, and asking for it at conventions.)
Now it's just time to be patient. We know folks want more Arcadia stuff. Some of those who want more are those who work at Paizo as creative directors, developers, or publishers. But one thing we DON'T want is slapdash content we push out the door to the printer.
It takes time to do things right, but EXTRA time for us to make sure things that haven't been done right in the past by the industry. Remember how long folks were asking for more stuff about the Mwangi? It was a year or so where we couldn't say much, and then we announced it and it was still almost a year before that book's out.
By this time next year, you'll have more Arcadia content. I can't say how MUCH more yet, but it won't be the last Arcadia content.
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There's an Absalom boxed set?check hereAh. Thanks. Didn't realize it was gonna be a boxed set.
Obligatory James question: How do you envision the magus, tactically? Seems his basic move is to cast something, enter Arcane Cascade, and next turn cast an attack spell and then Spellstrike. Then he's gotta reset Spellstrike before he can use it again. Can/should he alternate between Spellstrike and doing whatever he's got to do to reset that? Is it that simple?
BTW, Ruins of Gauntlight is great! Thanks for doing what you do. :-)
It was always going to be a big book from us. The development of it being a boxed set is VERY recent; we just announced it at Gen Con a few days ago, and it was our pals at B&G who really wanted to do this and approached us with this opportunity.
As for the magus, I envision them, tactically, as a melee combatant who bolsters their weaponplay with magic, both in the form of spells and in the form of augmenting their weapons and fighting skills.
That said, I didn't design the class, and I haven't had the opportunity to really look into the class at all. I've certainly not had the luxury of playing a magus in a game yet. So pretty much 100% of my "envisioning" of it is of their role as an NPC in a story, not as a PC, which uses entirely different rules.
If you want deep-dive theory talk about the PC rules, you'll need to approach someone on the design team.
Glad you enjoyed Gauntlight! :-)
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MASSIVE OUTPOURING OF POSITIVE ENERGY!...okay, I think I'm tapped out here, hope that helps!
Question: You're an incredibly patient and wise sage of Golarion (and beyond). Do you know where your reserve of patience comes from?
From lots of practice and some hard lessons learned over the past few decades about what happens when you let impatience make the call. As for the reserve itself... I hope it's got more reserve left than it feels like there is! ;-)
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Where is best to make noise about wanting more Arcadia content?I feel like you have that covered. ;-) (AKA: Requesting it on threads here in Paizo.com, asking for it directly from me or Erik or the developers, and asking for it at conventions.)
Now it's just time to be patient. We know folks want more Arcadia stuff. Some of those who want more are those who work at Paizo as creative directors, developers, or publishers. But one thing we DON'T want is slapdash content we push out the door to the printer.
It takes time to do things right, but EXTRA time for us to make sure things that haven't been done right in the past by the industry. Remember how long folks were asking for more stuff about the Mwangi? It was a year or so where we couldn't say much, and then we announced it and it was still almost a year before that book's out.
By this time next year, you'll have more Arcadia content. I can't say how MUCH more yet, but it won't be the last Arcadia content.
Thank you for the reply and the hope, James - and for enduring my enthusiasm :p
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It was always going to be a big book from us. The development of it being a boxed set is VERY recent; we just announced it at Gen Con a few days ago, and it was our pals at B&G who really wanted to do this and approached us with this opportunity.There's an Absalom boxed set?check hereAh. Thanks. Didn't realize it was gonna be a boxed set.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa!!! let's hit rewind!! I've always wanted a boxed set for anything Golarion related! please, can you tell us more??? what's in the box, hey???? ;)
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Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa!!! let's hit rewind!! I've always wanted a boxed set for anything Golarion related! please, can you tell us more??? what's in the box, hey???? ;)It was always going to be a big book from us. The development of it being a boxed set is VERY recent; we just announced it at Gen Con a few days ago, and it was our pals at B&G who really wanted to do this and approached us with this opportunity.There's an Absalom boxed set?check hereAh. Thanks. Didn't realize it was gonna be a boxed set.
I can't tell you more other than what's been said already. We'll have more to say eventually, for sure, but not today.
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Do you do secret checks?
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Do you do secret checks?
No. I do secret DCs. I'm not a fan of taking the fun of a die roll out of the player's hand, and I value the player knowing how good their luck is on that d20 roll so that they'll have at least SOME information to go on when they make their decision. Knowing they rolled low or high gives the player something to work with, and if they can metagame or are good at anticipating DCs, that's valuable. That rewards skill and knowledge and experience on the player's part.
I don't tell them the DC if it's a secret check, so they never KNOW if they make it, but they should always know how well the roll in my opinion.
The one exception is when a check needs to be made when the player simply doesn't know that there's a check to be made. In this case, I usually prefer going with their check DC and rolling against that, but sometimes that's not fair. A good example; a PC drinks tainted water and needs to roll a save to avoid getting sick. I'll roll that check in secret because the player doesn't realize there's danger.