| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
4) Beards weren't as huge a deal. This is likely because it was easier to animate characters who didn't have big beards, but in any event, dwarves with short beards or stubble or no beards are more interesting to me. I don't really like beards.
;_;
May I inquiry as to what inspires you to say that? I only ask because aside from Logan, I've yet to see anything of interest.
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
May I inquiry as to what inspires you to say that? I only ask because aside from Logan, I've yet to see anything of interest.
First of all, I'm guessing that you have different tastes in movies than I do. My preferences are for dark, grim, horror movies, and so far, there's been a refreshing amount of those, including "Get Out," which I think is going to be remembered as one of the most important horror movies of the decade.
And if NOTHING ELSE, the fact that this year includes "Alien: Covenant," "The Dark Tower," and "It" means that I'm VERY positive feeling about the movies coming out this year (One being a sequel to my favorite movie, one being an adaptation of one of the best Stephen King movies whose trailer KICKED ASS, and one being perhaps the Stephen King adaptation I've been waiting for the longest.)
Great movies I've seen this year so far include:
Logan
Kong: Skull Island
Get Out
A Cure for Wellness
John Wick 2
Life
Split
Upcoming movies I am eagerly anticipating:
Alien: Covenant
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
Dunkirk
War for Planet of the Apes
The Dark Tower
It
Blade Runner 2049
The Mummy
Atomic Blonde
The Fate of the Furious
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Thor: Ragnarok
It Comes at Night
Insidious 4
God Particle (which is being renamed to fit into the Cloverfield shared world)
Phoenix Forgotten
Flatliners
Godzilla: Monster Planet
Did you ever watch Night Gallery?
If so, how did you like their treatment of "Pickman's Model"?
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Did you ever watch Night Gallery?
If so, how did you like their treatment of "Pickman's Model"?
I never saw Night Gallery on their original run (was before my time), but I did see several of them a few years back... and particularly the Pickman's Model one, which was REALLY good and had some outstanding makeup.
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
4) Beards weren't as huge a deal. This is likely because it was easier to animate characters who didn't have big beards, but in any event, dwarves with short beards or stubble or no beards are more interesting to me. I don't really like beards.;_;
I'm glad to disappoint in this case.
But please keep posts to questions.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Upcoming movies I am eagerly anticipating:
Alien: Covenant
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
Dunkirk
War for Planet of the Apes
The Dark Tower
It
Blade Runner 2049
The Mummy
Atomic Blonde
The Fate of the Furious
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Thor: Ragnarok
It Comes at Night
Insidious 4
God Particle (which is being renamed to fit into the Cloverfield shared world)
Phoenix Forgotten
Flatliners
Godzilla: Monster Planet
Any love for Spider-Man: Homecoming, coming July 5th, or have you been oversaturated with Spider-Men at this point?
Completely unrelated, do you consider the elder deep ones from Bestiary 5 quasi-deities, considering they can grant spells? If not, could you explain what you might categorize them as, or at least how they rank in relation to other semi-divine beings? Thanks a lot!
I am mostly a lurker on these forums but I have always appreciated the courteousness and hospitality you show customers and posters, as well as your willingness to answer so many questions.
How much, if any, did you change or adapt the demonic obediences you wrote for Lords of Chaos for the new hardcover Book of the Damned you developed?
What was your philosophy for adapting the existing triple (sentinel, exalted, evangelist) obediences for the archdevils and one queen of the night who already had them?
|
Creative Director
|
Any love for Spider-Man: Homecoming, coming July 5th, or have you been oversaturated with Spider-Men at this point?Completely unrelated, do you consider the elder deep ones from Bestiary 5 quasi-deities, considering they can grant spells? If not, could you explain what you might categorize them as, or at least how they rank in relation to other semi-divine beings? Thanks a lot!
I am mostly a lurker on these forums but I have always appreciated the courteousness and hospitality you show customers and posters, as well as your willingness to answer so many questions.
I do go see most (but not all) of the Marvel superhero movies in theaters, and I did enjoy the Spiderman parts of whatever movie he just showed up in (Civil War I believe), so I will probably go see it. Depends what other movies are out at the time, although the last few Spiderman movies have been wretched. I did like the first two Sam Raimi ones quite a lot, but the third one was terrible and kinda made me lose interest in the character.
Superhero movies are give or take for me. I enjoy the good ones, ignore the mediocre or bad ones if I can, but generally don't have much in the way of excitement for them or anticipation for them. Logan and Guardians of the Galaxy have been my favorites so far; Logan because it was so well made and mature and R-rated; Guardians because it was all about characters I'd never heard of before AND was adorable and funny and quirky.
The term "quasi-deity" is something that's handy to use to describe all entities that can grant spells but aren't deities or demigods. So yes, that does indeed include elder deep ones.
|
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
How much, if any, did you change or adapt the demonic obediences you wrote for Lords of Chaos for the new hardcover Book of the Damned you developed?
What was your philosophy for adapting the existing triple (sentinel, exalted, evangelist) obediences for the archdevils and one queen of the night who already had them?
A few of the existing demonic obediences have been adjusted (along the lines of errata here or there) but I didn't change any of their actual flavors or themes.
My philosophy for ALL of them is that the 1st boon should be a choice of the three spells. The 2nd boon should be equivalent to a 7th level spell. The third boon should be equivalent to a 9th level spell. All boons need to be themed to their fiend, and whenever possible, shouldn't just ape existing spell effects but should be flavorful and interesting and unique powers.
This IS a bit more powerful than the boons they did for Inner Sea Gods, which for reasons I don't understand, were developed to be less powerful, which was a strange choice to me given the fact that you have to be high level to gain them in the first place...
Dear James Jacobs,
As a noted scholar of things Elder Mythos related/HP Lovecraftian, do you as a gamer think using them in other roleplaying games that aren't specifically designed for cosmic horror is appropriate?
IE mixing say the light and romp thrill of romantic fantasy stylings of say Mercedes Lackey and/or Diana Gabaldon with HP Lovecraft elements (IE Yog Sothoth)
|
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Dear James Jacobs,
As a noted scholar of things Elder Mythos related/HP Lovecraftian, do you as a gamer think using them in other roleplaying games that aren't specifically designed for cosmic horror is appropriate?
IE mixing say the light and romp thrill of romantic fantasy stylings of say Mercedes Lackey and/or Diana Gabaldon with HP Lovecraft elements (IE Yog Sothoth)
I don't. It devalues their power to use them in areas that aren't about cosmic horror, and disrupts the flavor of other settings that aren't about cosmic horror to use them.
It's like putting salmon in a raspberry milkshake. Both are DELICIOUS flavors, but mixing them makes you hate them.
Who should my (female) elf inquisitor mage romance in my next Dragon Age: Inquisition?
Have you read On Divinity, by N. Robin Crossby and others? If so, what did you think of it?
|
Creative Director
|
Have you read On Divinity, by N. Robin Crossby and others? If so, what did you think of it?
Haven't read it.
So it's obvious that vast swaths of Golarion are inspired by class fiction genres, novels, adventure modules, and so forth. Is there any new fiction or media that's come along since Pathfinder started that you wish you could go back and add in? And if so, what?
|
Creative Director
|
So it's obvious that vast swaths of Golarion are inspired by class fiction genres, novels, adventure modules, and so forth. Is there any new fiction or media that's come along since Pathfinder started that you wish you could go back and add in? And if so, what?
Not really. For me, a huge part of the inspiration for gaming and creating adventure rises from older content, such as the pulps or 1st edition D&D or the horror boom of the 80s. Now and then something new comes along that's inspiring, but as it turns out since we publish thousands of pages of new content a year, there's always plenty of opportunity to add in more.
As part of a writing project* I'm working on, I'm consistently pumping out, editing, and having my betas take a pass of over 5k words each week. But when I sit down tot write an adventure, my mind goes completely blank. Do you have an explanation for this phenomenon?
|
Creative Director
|
As part of a writing project* I'm working on, I'm consistently pumping out, editing, and having my betas take a pass of over 5k words each week. But when I sit down tot write an adventure, my mind goes completely blank. Do you have an explanation for this phenomenon?
It might be writer's block.
But it also might simply be that you don't enjoy writing adventures. Writing an adventure is a VERY different thing than writing fiction, and just because someone enjoys writing fiction or is good at it doesn't mean that they will enjoy writing adventurers or is good at it or will enjoy writing poetry or is god at it.
If you've written adventures before, it's probably writer's block, but otherwise, you might just not like writing adventures. Fortunately, that's one of many reasons that published adventures are handy!
|
Mr. Jacobs,
Suppose that queen Abrogail I was assassinated, before she could have ascended the throne and crushed the other houses.
- Would Cheliax have devolved into a chaos, or would another house actually have managed to take hold in the civil war?
- If another house would have come to power, which noble house would you think the best chance of having done so?
- What faith would you reckon Cheliax would have a majority of, in current day?
Personal taste question
- If not a diabolism nation, what type of role would you muse Cheliax to maybe assume?
|
Creative Director
|
Hi James,
Have you seenThe Void? Any thoughts if you have or interest if you haven't?
Just watched it Friday night. It was enjoyable, but a bit too underlit and the camerawork/directing was a bit choppy. It was tough figuring out what was going on now and then. And it felt too much like it was trying to pay hommage to other movies; The Thing, Assault on Precinct 13, Hellraiser, Event Horizon, The Brood, and a few others and didn't spend nearly enough time doing its own thing and exploring its own new content—I would have liked to see more about the cult and the characters' backstories and the Void itself.
It had potential, but didn't live up to it since it was too distracted by being a love letter to all these other movies, alas.
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
** spoiler omitted **
I wouldn't change it at all, frankly. The whole point of that AP is what it is about, and the role those guys play in Shackled City isn't really that different than the role they play in Golarion, frankly.
AKA:
|
Creative Director
|
Mr. Jacobs,
Suppose that queen Abrogail I was assassinated, before she could have ascended the throne and crushed the other houses.
- Would Cheliax have devolved into a chaos, or would another house actually have managed to take hold in the civil war?
- If another house would have come to power, which noble house would you think the best chance of having done so?
- What faith would you reckon Cheliax would have a majority of, in current day?
Personal taste question
- If not a diabolism nation, what type of role would you muse Cheliax to maybe assume?
"What if" questions like these are tricky. Designing a variant Cheliax that rose from a different history is the same as designing the current Cheliax... and that's not something that a brief messageboard post can do. Furthermore, it's design work, not question answering, and I really do want to keep the design work to my day job in this regard.
So, the short answer is this: "Whatever you want." If you want to build your own variant Cheliax (or any nation in Golarion) do what you want and enjoy it... don't shackle your decisions to my suggestions, and in fact any suggestions I would make would be "second place" suggestions since the way I wanted Cheliax to be is as printed.
|
My favorite Stephen King books is probably "Pet Semetery," but I'm also a huge fan of "It" and "The Stand" and "Bag of Bones" and "Revival" and the Dark Tower series and many of his short stories. My absolute FAVORITE thing he's ever written is "The Mist."
Pet Semetary had a blink-and-you'll-miss it Lovecraftian bit in the woods, and the Mist felt even more 'Mythos' in that respect. I haven't read much King since the late '80s, has he done more in that vein that I may have missed?
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My favorite Stephen King books is probably "Pet Semetery," but I'm also a huge fan of "It" and "The Stand" and "Bag of Bones" and "Revival" and the Dark Tower series and many of his short stories. My absolute FAVORITE thing he's ever written is "The Mist."
Pet Semetary had a blink-and-you'll-miss it Lovecraftian bit in the woods, and the Mist felt even more 'Mythos' in that respect. I haven't read much King since the late '80s, has he done more in that vein that I may have missed?
I'd say that the Mythos element in Pet Semetery was MUCH larger than a blink and you'll miss it. There was a LOT of Lovecraftian influence in that one.
King's been on record multiple times in saying that Lovecraft was one of his greatest influences, and in fact he's dropped in Lovecraft elements in the majority of his works. Be it a name drop of "Leng" in something like Needful Things, or full on Lovecraftian stories like "Revival" or "It" or some of his short stories like "Gramma" or "Jerusalem's Lot" or "Crouch End." He doesn't always use the names, but he uses the themes in, I would say, the majority of his stories. Particularly the concept of finding horror in the mundane and everyday life, something that Lovecraft excelled at and something that King has more or less perfected.
So, back in the Bestiary 3 days, Kyton Demagogues got mentioned and several got named... but we've seen and heard nothing since, so far as I know.
1. Were a Kyton answer to Archdevils and Demon Lords a part of the plan for Golarion's cosmology?
2. Has the concept been shelved since Bestiary 3?
|
Creative Director
|
So, back in the Bestiary 3 days, Kyton Demagogues got mentioned and several got named... but we've seen and heard nothing since, so far as I know.
1. Were a Kyton answer to Archdevils and Demon Lords a part of the plan for Golarion's cosmology?
2. Has the concept been shelved since Bestiary 3?
Not everything we drop hints of in a product will necessarially be explored in the next product... or ever.
1) Kyton demagogues are demigods; they are akin to archdevils and demon lords and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and they've always been a part of Golarion's cosmology.
2) No. It just took us a long time to get to the right product to talk more about them. There's more about them in the upcoming hardcover Book of the Damned.
|
Creative Director
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Do you know who Norgorber was pre-ascension in the same manner you know how Aroden died?
I know a lot more about Norgorber in fact, whereas what I "know" about Aroden is mostly just personal guesses and theories.
Unlike Aroden, who Erik Mona invented at the onset of Golarion, I invented Norgorber for my homeberw setting back in the very early 90s. We dropped more hints about Norgorber's pre deity days in Hell's Rebels and the associated articles (particularly the one about Vyre). I do want to do a lot more with this concept at some point, but for now am keeping the details secret.
James,
If I selected Versatile Performance: Oratory, and I have the ability to take 10 in Perform, can I take 10 when I use Perform (Oratory) in place of Diplomacy and Sense Motive?
If so, and I have the Magnum Opus feat when I take 10 in these skills, can I use the take 15 option the feat grants?
Thanks and sorry about my english, it's not my first language.
|
Creative Director
|
James,
If I selected Versatile Performance: Oratory, and I have the ability to take 10 in Perform, can I take 10 when I use Perform (Oratory) in place of Diplomacy and Sense Motive?
If so, and I have the Opus Magnum feat when I take 10 in these skills, can I use the take 15 option the feat grants?
Thanks and sorry about my english, it's not my first language.
Rules questions need to be asked in the rules forums; sorry.
But you answered lots of questions about Versatile Performance before (you created it), the purpose of this post changed?
|
Creative Director
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
But you answered lots of questions about Versatile Performance before (you created it), the purpose of this post changed?
Whether or not I feel comfortable answering rules questions on this thread varies. What I was comfortable doing on this thread a year ago or three years ago is not guaranteed to be something I'm comfortable doing today, especially since I've seen my rules answers on this thread be used more often to either drive wedges between players and GMs, as ammunition to break the rules established in PFS, or turned back against myself and Paizo with accusations of "Paizo's house is a mess" when my interpretation of a rule is different than that of our design team.
It's true that the idea of versatile performance was from me back in the day when we were building the Core Rules, but the Core Rules are not my game, and Paizo has not nominated me as the one to render official rulings for those rules.
What's your opinion of the Dungeons & Dragons animated series?
|
|
King's been on record multiple times in saying that Lovecraft was one of his greatest influences, and in fact he's dropped in Lovecraft elements in the majority of his works. Be it a name drop of "Leng" in something like Needful Things, or full on Lovecraftian stories like "Revival" or "It" or some of his short stories like "Gramma" or "Jerusalem's Lot" or "Crouch End." He doesn't always use the names, but he uses the themes in, I would say, the majority of his stories. Particularly the concept of finding horror in the mundane and everyday life, something that Lovecraft excelled at and something that King has more or less perfected.
Very cool, I'm not familiar with Gramma, Revival or Crouch End, so I'll have to check them out! Thanks!
