|
I really liked the concept behind Eberron, but I actually felt they dind't do enough with it. I loved the fact that someone tried to rationalise the way a world filled with magic might work in an industril sort of way. More importantly, for me was the absolute deviation from some of the nomrs of gaming. I particularly liked their take on halflings.
Is there anything from Eberron you would salvage for a home game if you could?
Creative Director
|
I really liked the concept behind Eberron, but I actually felt they dind't do enough with it. I loved the fact that someone tried to rationalise the way a world filled with magic might work in an industril sort of way. More importantly, for me was the absolute deviation from some of the nomrs of gaming. I particularly liked their take on halflings.
Is there anything from Eberron you would salvage for a home game if you could?
I too like the way they tried to build a world where magic replaced technology. I did NOT like their take on halflings, because I much preferred halflings as halflings. By re-imagining so many races and giving them SUCK different roles, they might as well just renamed the race entirely. If a classic monster/humanoid/element is no longer identifiable as what it is by its behavior, then you've made a design error. Granted, halflings in Eberron weren't THAT different, but to take a few more examples, drow and sahuagin were.
Anyway, part of my problem with the way they built a world where magic replaced technology is that the game itself isn't really designed for that kind of world. It might SEEM like it is, but it's not; it's designed basically for a world where magic and monsters and fantasy are NOT the norm, where they're the things that heroes are involved with but the normal folks are not. It might SEEM like the game is filled with high magic a lot, but that's because the game invariably focuses on the heroes (the PCs) who are SUPPOSED to be neck-deep in it. When magic is readily available to everyone and you have magic trains and air ships and the like, the world changes in such huge ways that it's no longer the D&D game I like.
Not that I'm against the concept! Most of the Final Fantasy games do a much better job at this synthesis than Eberron ever achieved. But then, guess what? Final Fantasy builds their worlds from the ground up, races included, to make a compelling setting. I think that Eberron's main error was to be such a DIFFERENT setting that it should have shed all of the core races (keep humans, but not the rest) and replace most/all of the monster races. It didn't feel like D&D, so why have elves and orcs and goblins and mind flayers and the like?
As for salvaging for home games... hmmm. I liked some of the bard feats, although from the 3.5 perspective. They're a bit too much on the Pathfinder end of things since bards have been increased in power. I also like the basic design (appearance and rules) for the quori, the big dream monsters, although there again they shot themselves in the foot by making it so difficult to actually USE those creatures in a game by stranding them in another dimension.
Eww. That reminded me of how the other planes worked in Eberron. That was a MAJOR annoyance for me.
Bleh. I'm done talking about Eberron. I've said my piece. I'd rather not wallow in unpleasantness I've escaped.
|
Creative Director
|
One last question before I head to work. How is Seans game coming along? You guys having fun trying to work out those epic rules?
Sean's game is kinda sporadic, alas. Work or conventions or whatever keeps disrupting the regular schedule.
And we're hardly working on epic rules yet; we're all about 15th level or thereabouts.
A Mossburg model 66 or a Remington 370 "Persuader"?Whichever one looks more bad-ass.
A a mare's leg it is then!
If Cthulhu invaded Golarian, how would the pantheon react?
If you could steal one person from WotC to come and work at Paizo, who would you ninja??
James, do you hate the wizard versus fighter argument as much as I do?I actually am not a fan of any of the hard-core optimization threads or the "who can beat whom" threads. I generally just stay out of them.
Did you ever know that you are my hero?
Also, since you have let the cat out of the bag so to speak, will we ever see Ratfolk make an appearance in a bestiary or other product?
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
|
Out of curiosity what were your feelings about shifters or changelings?Shifters and changelings are both pretty cool. I played a changeling in Jason's Eberron game (which was a lot of fun, but that's because Jason's a great GM) a few years ago but she/he/it got killed by a troll.
I prefer the core races to them though.
So you prefer even dwarves to the Eberron races?
What about warforged? Are dwarves better and cooler than them?
In a three way death match, who would win: Harsk, Mr. T., or George S. Patton?
Mr. T pities da foo who has to ask that question.
How rich is the richest person in the Inner Sea region, and where is he/she/it most likely to be living?
Is the hemlines moving up or down in Absalom this year?
What's the meanest thing you've done to someone?
In a three-way bake-off, who would win: Harsk, Mr T, or General George S. Patton?
What if it's between Malcanthet, Zuggtmoy, and Nocticula?
what are your thoughts on Planescape campaign setting?
It has some in common with Ererron in that Magic is common place and replaces tech, Just wondering.
What is the single coolest thing you have every seen?
best pastry you have every had?
Craziest thing you have ever done?
What thing do you feel strongly enough to protest, signs and chants, the whole thing?
In a three way death match, who would win: Harsk, Mr. T., or George S. Patton?Mr. T pities da foo who has to ask that question.
Mr. T. forgot that he had a Nebulous Mistress. Mr. T. hopes that she's not nebulous in the wrong places.
|
|
Serious question, sorry.
The written rules around stealth are really somewhat confusing in my estimation. That's not meant as an indictment, I think they are playable if somewhat nebulous, which is better than a lot of other rules systems have done. With very rare exception, you and the other good folks at Paizo seem to stay away from the threads that revolve around clarification of the stealth rules. Do you guys do this on purpose? Is there any chance we'll ever see any stealth issues cleared up in errata/faqs, or are we all destined to simply run things as best we can?
Sincerely intending no offense by asking, it's just something I'm honestly curious about.
JM
|
Creative Director
|
James, do you hate the wizard versus fighter argument as much as I do?I actually am not a fan of any of the hard-core optimization threads or the "who can beat whom" threads. I generally just stay out of them.
Did you ever know that you are my hero?
Also, since you have let the cat out of the bag so to speak, will we ever see Ratfolk make an appearance in a bestiary or other product?
I didn't! EXCELLENT.
And ratfolk = wererats, more or less.
|
Creative Director
|
Favorite and least favorite nicknames you've been called?
For some inexplicable reason, my brain flashes "Jimmy Jack" when I see your handle on the messageboards. Which is still better than the association made when I see Sean's, which gets translated into something like Shanker.
Favorite nickname: Unc (see earlier answer on this thread about nicknames)
Least Favorite: Those files are sealed
Jimmy Jack doesn't make much sense, in any event...
|
Creative Director
|
Out of curiosity what were your feelings about shifters or changelings?Shifters and changelings are both pretty cool. I played a changeling in Jason's Eberron game (which was a lot of fun, but that's because Jason's a great GM) a few years ago but she/he/it got killed by a troll.
I prefer the core races to them though.
So you prefer even dwarves to the Eberron races?
What about warforged? Are dwarves better and cooler than them?
Dwarves are better. They at least have tradition.
|
Creative Director
|
How rich is the richest person in the Inner Sea region, and where is he/she/it most likely to be living?
Is the hemlines moving up or down in Absalom this year?
What's the meanest thing you've done to someone?
The richest person is probably the sneakiest PC in the loosest GM's game. You know the one. The one who ends up with all the magic items, somehow.
Hemlines are moving up.
The meanest thing I've done to someone? Is that a dare?
|
Creative Director
|
what are your thoughts on Planescape campaign setting?
It has some in common with Ererron in that Magic is common place and replaces tech, Just wondering.What is the single coolest thing you have every seen?
Planescape is really cool (although the overuse of slang based on a real-world historical era and region was an error... why, if the Multiverse is so vast, does everyone in that infinite place talk with the same Cant?). It builds on the traditions of the game rather than replaces them, so in that regard it's got Eberron beat right out of the gate. And it's also set in a region that is over-the-top from the start, not somewhere that's supposed to be a "ground zero" type campaign world.
The single coolest thing I've ever seen... tough question! The following all come to mind:
The starry sky on a cloudless night in the mountains above Point Arena where there's zero light pollution, OR...
Stephen King read a (at that point) relatively unpublished story of his to a crowd of a few hundred inside of a Methodist church, OR...
The movie Alien, OR...
My name appearing in print in Dungeon Magazine #12 back in High School, OR...
A baby humpback whale in the wild at a distance of less than a hundred feet, OR...
An ocean infested with more blue sharks than you could count, OR...
A komodo dragon at the Woodland Park Zoo, OR...
Clive Barker drawing a freaky clown in the inside cover of my copy of The Thief of Always, OR...
People getting so into characters I created over 20 years ago that they're dressing up as them, OR...
Something else that was so cool that I simply can't remember it at this moment.
|
Creative Director
|
best pastry you have every had?
Craziest thing you have ever done?
What thing do you feel strongly enough to protest, signs and chants, the whole thing?
It was probably raspberry flavored.
Put everything I own into a U-Haul and then drive 800 miles north without having nailed down a place to live when I got here in Seattle.
Although I've never actually done a protest, I could see myself taking part in an environmental cause, a human rights cause, or a censorship cause.
Also will there ever be a catfolk race as a player race for pathfinder (or something similar?)Yes.That needs to be rephased.
"Will there ever be a race of of Hawt Catgirls as a player character race for Pathfinder?"
To add to this question... I have a player who would leap at the chance to playtest any catgirl you came up with. She would be perfectly candid and truthful about how traits played, things went, the usefulness of things, balance, etc. Almost as though she didn't have the emotions necessary to sugarcoat the bad or overstate the good... ::offers one sociopath for playtesting::
Mr. T. forgot that he had a Nebulous Mistress. Mr. T. hopes that she's not nebulous in the wrong places.In a three way death match, who would win: Harsk, Mr. T., or George S. Patton?Mr. T pities da foo who has to ask that question.
I'm only nebulous in presence.
Have you read Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire and do you think the movie will ever really get made?
|
Creative Director
|
Have you read Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire and do you think the movie will ever really get made?
Nope.
But since "At the Mountains of Madness" is now being made by one of my favorite directors and is being produced by the guy who made the last two most successful movies of all time... ANYthing is possible!
As its daylight over here, my theory that James is a mohrg who never sleeps is growing...
I just hope he takes the giant penguins out...
I wouldn't want them to clash with the ones I'll be using in Trial of the Beast...
flubber, flubber...
flubber, flubber...
well I know that you have a lot to read but you should ad baltimore to you list some time, very good stuff, pretty quick read.
Since you did such an awesome job making goblins cool. How would you make dwarves cool?
|
|
Since you did such an awesome job making goblins cool. How would you make dwarves cool?
I don't know about him but I just made them less stereotypical grim and dour, and went more towards an Irish feel for them. Yes they love family, hard work, and a good pint (or 5), but they love life and music and dancing as well. Made them much more fun in our game.
Will we ever see stats for penguins? How about dire penguins?