Creative Director
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Was the name for the Imbrex, the Twins (one of the Eldest from the Inner Sea World Guide) named after classical roofing tiles? My wife, who has a degree in history, started laughing when I mentioned Imbrex.
Unlikely. James Sutter's the one who came up with the name. We usually try to google all our names, but sometimes we forget.
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Creative Director
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James,
Where do you get your motivation to take on, work on, and complete a project?
1) Encouraging reviews and compliments from coworkers, friends, and customers on previous things I've worked on are HUGE in motivating me to take on and finish new projects. Winning industry awards certainly helps, but just being nominated for industry awards is awesome.
2) My own desire to get better at game design—each project I work on, I learn more and get better at it.
3) Getting paid for the work, be it from a freelancer check or from my salary, depending on the nature of the project.
4) A desire to continually build my credit list to build up my reputation in the industry.
5) And probably the best reason: I really love writing and game design. I'd be doing this anyway even if numbers 1 through 4 weren't there.
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Creative Director
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I hope you'll not be shunning the rules (or any) forum for too long. We're but children, we don't know what we do (to paraphrase scripture).
Instead, allow me to recommend a nice long weekend away somewhere, preferably to a place with hot springs, with the company of a good book or other entertainment of choice. I find that such things do wonders for my capacity to cope with life's less agreeable sides.
The fact that several frustrating arguments on those forums put me into a strong enough funk that I lost a few hours of productivity at work is, honestly, the REAL reason I'm taking a break from the rules forums. Time spent answering questions and getting in arguments there plus time spent being frustrated and annoyed enough not to do actual design and development work after does not make for a productive work day. And honestly... while maintaining a presence here on these boards is important to me... I'd rather maintain that presence on the parts of the boards where I CAN speak from a position of complete authority—the Golarion side of things, like the adventure path boards and the general forum and all that.
To tell the truth, it really SHOULD be Sean, Jason, and Stephen handling the rules questions on the boards... but they have other things that they have to do as well (and also don't report directly to me, so I can't really say to them something like, "Do less design work and do more messageboard posts," and even if they DID report directly to me, I'd be unlikely to give that order anyway.)
I'll still be answering questions here and elsewhere. And if you have rules questions you want ME to answer, just post here or include my name in the post itself. If you call me by name I'll answer questions (eventually) no matter what, since I'll assume you want my answer or input for a specific reason.
It's the general rules question posts that don't call me by name that I'm gonna be taking a break from. How long that break lasts? Dunno. At this point I'm tempted to say forever, but that'd be a lie.
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Creative Director
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It sounded like you were saying that the ends always justify the means, when you replied. I've been on the end of people (not even Paladins) in my games who try to to justify doing evil things and staying Chaotic or Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good and doing things like torture or wholesale slaughter and saying 'Well, its for the greater good' or 'Hey, I'm not good, I'm neutral, so as long as I'm not doing it for evil's sake, I'm golden' in my games. So when I hear 'ends justify the means' I usually knee jerk react with 'Oh god, not again'.
There's always exception to every rule, but to me, if a Paladin is always taking the easy way or needing an atonement every couple of months, it's not really him being repentant, it's him paying for dispensation.
EDIT : I guess for me, the difference is, if the Paladin is spouting 'ends justify means' then they don't. If he's doing something and hating every minute of it, and then afterwards turns himself over to his order for judgement, then maybe they did. I can count the number of times the latter has happened on no fingers.
When it comes to alignment issues and things like "do evil for the greater good," there can NEVER be an overarching "always this way" response. The concept that there could be is so alien to me that when I say "the ends justify the means" I just assume folks understand this. The ends only justify the means when they're justified, and without a specific scenario, there's no way to know if they can be justified. But if the CAN be justified, then the ends, by definition, justify the means.
It comes down to each individual GM in the end. I only GM a few games at a time, so I can only say for sure if a paladin's doing good or bad in those games. I can offer advice for other GMs, but I'm not interested in codifying all the possible scenarios and making a playbook for what is officially justified and what is not.
I'm eagerly anticipating the final release of the Samurai, somehow to me, playing Jade Regent will feel "right" that way. Now I feel quite comfortable with the various definitions for base, core, alternate and what-have-you classes that are used these days; but I'm curious: will there be archetypes within the "extended" archetypes that are Samurai and Ninja, or are they still close-enough to the original classes to readily apply a fair amount of the existing (and to-be-released) archetypes?
I'm eagerly anticipating the final release of the Samurai, somehow to me, playing Jade Regent will feel "right" that way. Now I feel quite comfortable with the various definitions for base, core, alternate and what-have-you classes that are used these days; but I'm curious: will there be archetypes within the "extended" archetypes that are Samurai and Ninja, or are they still close-enough to the original classes to readily apply a fair amount of the existing (and to-be-released) archetypes?
Same here
Will the alternate classes have archetypes?If there are archetypes, could you please reveal at least one for either the Ninja or the Samurai in the coming weeks, it would be greatly appreciated and could hype up players to get the book even more.
I realized I'm in a questioning mood today :)
Will there be new human ethnicities in the Dragon Empires? (Or other accompanying material for Jade Regent.)
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Creative Director
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I'm eagerly anticipating the final release of the Samurai, somehow to me, playing Jade Regent will feel "right" that way. Now I feel quite comfortable with the various definitions for base, core, alternate and what-have-you classes that are used these days; but I'm curious: will there be archetypes within the "extended" archetypes that are Samurai and Ninja, or are they still close-enough to the original classes to readily apply a fair amount of the existing (and to-be-released) archetypes?
Technically, samurai and ninja ARE archetypes already. So if they can qualify for other cavalier or rogue archetypes because they still have the right abilities to swap out, they can pick up those archetypes as well.
Actual archetype archetypes though? That's getting a bit incestuous... but maybe!
Hello James
Your willingness to talk to the fans is much appreciated.
I love the no absolutes, shades of gray themes that run through Paizo's adventures.
We currently have a Paladin adventuring with a were-rat on the understanding as soon as the greater evil is defeated that the Paladin will haul the were-rat back to a temple and get him cured.
The were-rat being the sneaky evil little beastie that he is, does his best to test the Paladin. It makes for some good role-playing.
Ok time for some questions
Do you think that Baba Yaga straddles the line between folktale and Lovecraftian Mythos?
Is there enough alienness to her that she is more than the Queen of the wicked witches?
At first I had her pinned as a demonic/devilish power, then fey or possibly Mythos.... At the moment I am leaning towards the greatest monsters of all - Human.
Or is she all of the above or what is good for the story.
Lots of stuff.The problem I have with that sort of setup is, where's the line. A demon comes down and tells a Paladin that if he tortures an orphanage to death, he'll spare the city. Is it ok for the Paladin to torture and cook up the orphans for the demon's dinner to save the other 3000 people in the city? If not, why is it ok just because it's more? What's the cut off? 100,000 people? 1,000,000 people? One Billion? At some point, it turns into an algebra problem instead of morality or ethics.
Aside from just "what James said", I would add that in my games this would never fly. The 'ends' in this case are not 'save the people of the city', they are 'save the paladin from having to fight the demon.'
A paladin who would kill innocent people to avoid a fight--even a fight she couldn't possibly win--is not much of a paladin.
If, on the other hand, your example paladin has already been defeated by the demon and is being told "torture these orphans or I destroy the city!", then it comes down to a judgement call. I would talk to the player--out of game if necessary--about what they would enjoy most. If they would prefer to be defiant to the end, I would play it that way. If instead they would prefer to descend--temporarily or permanently--into the darkness, we would go that way.
Something I've learned (although I would still classify myself as a novice GM) is that my own preconceptions of 'fun' don't always correlate to those of my players. It often pays to ask what they'd like to do. I am, after all, merely the vehicle for their enjoyment--not a vehicle for the story I want to tell. (Having said that, I would hope there was a way we could do both.)
My predisposition in the situation you describe, however, would be to have them lose their powers if they carried through with the act. My other predisposition would be not to put them in such a position in the first place: if the two choices are 'honour' or 'death', I wouldn't blame my player for getting a bit upset that I was railroading him into a corner. After all, as GM I get to engineer the situations, and if we were heading to 'honour vs. death', I would argue that it was up to me as the GM to get creative and find another way to resolve the situation.
If, on the other hand, a player did want to descend into darkness with his paladin, I would try to engineer a way it could happen, but not in such an either/or manner. I want to encourage my players to invest in their characters, in whichever way they choose. If they choose to fall from grace, then so be it.
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Sorry for the slight derail James, I didn't intend to propound so much; I just find this a fascinating discussion. But I think I've said my piece now. : )
...3) Getting paid for the work, be it from a freelancer check or from my salary, depending on the nature of the project.
...
5) And probably the best reason: I really love writing and game design. I'd be doing this anyway even if numbers 1 through 4 weren't there.
Careful James, publicizing #5 is not going to help with negotiation regarding #3. :)
Thanks for taking so much time to be available to all of us, and I apologize for my peers in the Rules Forum.
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Creative Director
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Do you think that Baba Yaga straddles the line between folktale and Lovecraftian Mythos?
Is there enough alienness to her that she is more than the Queen of the wicked witches?
At first I had her pinned as a demonic/devilish power, then fey or possibly Mythos.... At the moment I am leaning towards the greatest monsters of all - Human.
Or is she all of the above or what is good for the story.
Although Baba Yaga HAS shown up in a Call of Cthulhu adventure, I don't think she's a particularly good fit thematically with the cosmic horror of the mythos.
She's not really alien. She's just really powerful. She's likely human, but not of an ethnicity from Golarion.
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Creative Director
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Something I've learned (although I would still classify myself as a novice GM) is that my own preconceptions of 'fun' don't always correlate to those of my players. It often pays to ask what they'd like to do. I am, after all, merely the vehicle for their enjoyment--not a vehicle for the story I want to tell. (Having said that, I would hope there was a way we could do both.)
If you've learned that and keep that in mind when you run games, I would say you're FAR from a novice GM. That's one of the key elements that all GMs need to learn, and it's not an easy lesson to realize it should be learned in the first place, it seems.
So yeah... sounds like you know what you're doing as a GM, and clearly aren't a novice from where I'm standing.
Why are monks so friking rad?
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Creative Director
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You know, I was going back through Red Hand of Doom the other night and I realized that it was probably my favorite D&D 3.5 adventure that I ever ran. It was also a campaign that ended in a TPK... Hehehe.
So what is your favorite adventure?
For D&D? "Queen of the Spiders." With "Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure" coming in a close second.
For any RPG ever? Probably "Beyond the Mountains of Madness." Maybe "Masks of Nyarlathotep," which I get to run this Sunday!!!!
The APG Fighter Archtype Roughrider 15th level Unavoidable Onslaught and Ride Them Down both replace the Armor Training 4 (APG 107).
Is this a typo? Should Unavoidable Onslaught actually replace Weapon Mastery perhaps or must you choose one of the two abilities?
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The APG Fighter Archtype Weapon Master the 19th level Unstoppable Strike does not replace anything (APG 109).
Should this replace Weapon Mastery?
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Creative Director
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The APG Fighter Archtype Roughrider 15th level Unavoidable Onslaught and Ride Them Down both replace the Armor Training 4 (APG 107).
Is this a typo? Should Unavoidable Onslaught actually replace Weapon Mastery perhaps or must you choose one of the two abilities?
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The APG Fighter Archtype Weapon Master the 19th level Unstoppable Strike does not replace anything (APG 109).
Should this replace Weapon Mastery?
I suspect that those are typos
I'd go ahead and ahve Unavoidable Onslaught replace Weapon Mastery, and have Unstoppable Strike replace Armor Mastery. In fact, if you see something like this and the weirdo case is not replacing something that normally COULD be replaced at that level instead, it's very likely it's supposed to replace what the class normally gets at that level.
The APG Fighter Archtype Roughrider 15th level Unavoidable Onslaught and Ride Them Down both replace the Armor Training 4 (APG 107).
Is this a typo? Should Unavoidable Onslaught actually replace Weapon Mastery perhaps or must you choose one of the two abilities?
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The APG Fighter Archtype Weapon Master the 19th level Unstoppable Strike does not replace anything (APG 109).
Should this replace Weapon Mastery?
Unstoppable Strike already replaces armor mastery.
Unstoppable Strike (Ex): At 19th level, a weapon master can take a standard action to make one attack with his chosen weapon as a touch attack that ignores damage reduction (or hardness, if attacking an object). This ability replaces armor mastery.
This may fall under the spoiler-ific, or perhaps you simply don't know the answer to it yet due to finalizing issues, but will we see a new version of Sandpoint's settlement block in the first Jade Regeant adventure?
And, if not, do you have any ideas as to what settlement qualities/traits/disadvantages Sandpoint would have? (Since, you know, you designed it first.)
James thanks again for taking the time in this thread to answer everyone's questions. It is appreciated by some of us. And thanks for signing my Inner Sea World Guide at PaizoCon. On to questions
So what books are coming out in January 2012? And where are those live scorpions? ;)
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It sounded like you were saying that the ends always justify the means, when you replied. I've been on the end of people (not even Paladins) in my games who try to to justify doing evil things and staying Chaotic or Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good and doing things like torture or wholesale slaughter and saying 'Well, its for the greater good' or 'Hey, I'm not good, I'm neutral, so as long as I'm not doing it for evil's sake, I'm golden' in my games. So when I hear 'ends justify the means' I usually knee jerk react with 'Oh god, not again'.
There's always exception to every rule, but to me, if a Paladin is always taking the easy way or needing an atonement every couple of months, it's not really him being repentant, it's him paying for dispensation.
EDIT : I guess for me, the difference is, if the Paladin is spouting 'ends justify means' then they don't. If he's doing something and hating every minute of it, and then afterwards turns himself over to his order for judgement, then maybe they did. I can count the number of times the latter has happened on no fingers.
When it comes to alignment issues and things like "do evil for the greater good," there can NEVER be an overarching "always this way" response. The concept that there could be is so alien to me that when I say "the ends justify the means" I just assume folks understand this. The ends only justify the means when they're justified, and without a specific scenario, there's no way to know if they can be justified. But if the CAN be justified, then the ends, by definition, justify the means.
It comes down to each individual GM in the end. I only GM a few games at a time, so I can only say for sure if a paladin's doing good or bad in those games. I can offer advice for other GMs, but I'm not interested in codifying all the possible scenarios and making a playbook for what is officially justified and what is not.
I have a fellow gamer who likes the phrase "the means must justify the end". I think it covers 'the trip is more important than the destination' quite well.
Hi James,
I haven't had a chance to check back in on it today, but before bed last night I saw quite a few panicked Facebook posts from your "Shadows Under Sandpoint" players - sounds like you gave them a real run for their money yesterday. How did they fare? Care to give us any good stories from last night's session?
Hmmm, new progress on the Endo vs Eco thermic debate for dinosaurs.
Also, we already know your name, but...
What is your quest?
What is your favorite color?
Nice Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference
Would Hobgoblins have witches (as in the class) in their midst?
How long did it take you to run "Beyond the Mountain of Madness?" I love running Call of Cthulu, but man is that book massive. I've always been a bit intimidated to start it. It just kinda sits on my shelf staring at me in malevolence.
Hi James,
When you write a PC or NPC background, are you more likely to write their history first and let their personality evolve out of that, or do you come up with the personality you want them to have, and then fill in their background and history from there?
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Creative Director
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This may fall under the spoiler-ific, or perhaps you simply don't know the answer to it yet due to finalizing issues, but will we see a new version of Sandpoint's settlement block in the first Jade Regeant adventure?
And, if not, do you have any ideas as to what settlement qualities/traits/disadvantages Sandpoint would have? (Since, you know, you designed it first.)
There won't be much new info about Sandpoint in "The Brinewall Legacy" (the adventure itself assumes PCs are from Sandpoint, but no encounters actually take place in Sandpoint at all). We do present a GameMastery-Style stat block for Sandpoint in the "Sandpoint Hinterlands" article, along with enough information and notes for GMs who don't have Pathfinder #1 to be able to run shopping and resting and roleplaying encounters in the town... but it's mostly focused on the surrounding lands and not on the town itself.
As a free preview: Sandpoint has two city qualities: Prosperous and Rumormongering Citizens. It has no civic disadvantages.
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Creative Director
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James thanks again for taking the time in this thread to answer everyone's questions. It is appreciated by some of us. And thanks for signing my Inner Sea World Guide at PaizoCon. On to questions
So what books are coming out in January 2012? And where are those live scorpions? ;)
Yay!
We've not made any January 2012 announcements yet. Although it should be no surprise that the last Jade Regent adventure will be coming out then!
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Creative Director
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How long did it take you to run "Beyond the Mountain of Madness?" I love running Call of Cthulu, but man is that book massive. I've always been a bit intimidated to start it. It just kinda sits on my shelf staring at me in malevolence.
I don't remember for sure, but it was, I believe, at least a year of weekly 3 to 4 hour after-work sessions at WotC. Maybe even 18 months. It was all awesome though.
James thanks again for taking the time in this thread to answer everyone's questions. It is appreciated by some of us. And thanks for signing my Inner Sea World Guide at PaizoCon. On to questions
So what books are coming out in January 2012? And where are those live scorpions? ;)
Yay!
We've not made any January 2012 announcements yet. Although it should be no surprise that the last Jade Regent adventure will be coming out then!
But I was nice, so you should let one slip. ;)
J/K, I know you can't say. Keep up the great work. I can't wait for Jade Regent.
When is Sea Cliffs of Varisia coming out?
Also I had to look up what Blood Eagling was.
So now that we have Kaiju will Golarian have a "monster island" type place for them?
Do you have a favorite type(s) of dragon?
What is your favorite Godzilla movie(s)?
Is it safe to assume that the elder things are not the race of beings that created the vaults in the darklands?
What are the movies you are most interested in seeing this year? and next year if your thinking that far ahead?
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Creative Director
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why do gunslingers have enginering as a class skill, what can they do with it?
One of our base class design philosophies is that we want ALL base classes to have at least one Knowledge skill as a class skill if possible. For the gunslinger, engineering made the most sense as it's the most "high tech" of the knowledge options.