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OOOPS, Gunpowder--calling Dr. Freud.
I don't intend to get into a lengthy discussion, mainly because there is nothing for me to really discuss (see below.)
However, I did want to post my deep dislike of gunpowder in the setting.
I know there has been gunpowder since day #1 in Golarion, but I always had the impression that it was inserted for those who wanted to put it into their games, but that it would be left alone and not really ever mentioned again.
With Greenwood's stories, which I purposely avoided, and with the rise of the gunslinger--and especially its legality in society play--it appears to me that gunpowder is on the rise, and that saddens me. I cringe at opening the World Guide after I drop my dollars on it, for fear of what may lay inside.
I don't care about comparisons with real world history and I don't care about gunpowder in other similar settings. My reaction is because of my personal preferences--and really can't be reasoned with (as bad as that might sound).
This is a setting I love, but the genie seems to be out of the bottle. It will take a lot to put it back in. There is a taint on the setting in my mind and heart.
I hope I'm wrong.
Creative Director
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With Greenwood's stories, which I purposely avoided, and with the rise of the gunslinger--and especially its legality in society play--it appears to me that gunpowder is on the rise, and that saddens me. I cringe at opening the World Guide after I drop my dollars on it, for fear of what may lay inside.
I hope I'm wrong.
You are.
The role of gunpowder and firearms in Golarion won't change much at all with the upcoming Inner Sea World Guide. That is to say that they still are made in Alkenstar, they're still pretty rare and limited to collectors or specialists, and they'll show up in adventures about as often as they do already. In fact... whereas in the previous campaign setting, Alkenstar's had the technology to build guns for several thousand years, in the revised and updated "Inner Sea World Guide" we've ratcheted this down to a more logical few hundred years. So guns actually have a SMALLER role in Golarion now than before (although their role in the current day remains unchanged, they've not been a part of the world for nearly as long).
There will be more... MUCH more... samurais and ninjas in Golarion than gunslingers in the end. In fact, I'm still not decided on whether or not the gunslinger class officially even exists on Golarion—as in, I'm not sure that we'll ever print an NPC who has any levels in gunslinger. Because guns and firearms simply aren't widespread enough in Golarion to support the development of such a class. That said... if a player in a Golarion game WANTS to play a gunslinger, and the GM's cool with that, the rules DO allow that. And I'm actually a lot more okay with a player being one of the only gunslingers in Golarion than I am trying to squeeze in a representative sample of gunslinger NPCs.
This also applies to summoners. The APG has been out for months now, and folks might have noticed that we're using witches, alchemists, inquisitors, cavaliers, and oracles in our world. The really keen-eyed might note that we've been using those words to describe characters from the very start of Golarion. That's not the case with summoners. And I suspect that gunslingers will be even less common than that.
Baseline Golarion simply isn't a great fit for the gunslinger class on a scale that would support numerous NPCs of that class.
Now, don't let that confuse you. I really like the gunslinger class. In fact, I was the first one to mention putting a gunslinger into the book (if I remember correctly... sometimes hard to remember who came up with what idea). I'm really pleased with its first incarnation in the playtest (and note: I said first incarnation—like all first public unveilings of a new class in a playtest, the gunslinger will change before it goes to print).
But that doesn't mean I'm gonna let them into the Adventure Paths, modules, player's companions, or campaign setting books. And if I DO... that book will be all about that concept. Like a "Player's Guide to Alkenstar" or a "Mana Wastes Gazetteer" book.
About some of your specific observations:
Ed Greenwood's Alkenstar story is one of many we've published under the Pathfinder Tales program, be it web fiction, novel, or Pathfinder Journal. It's hardly a representative sample of where Golarion is going. It's a sample of ONE PART of Golarion. If, for example, we'd published a web fiction story set in the depths of the Mwangi Expanse, that doesn't somehow mean that all future stories would be set in jungles.
And as for the Pathfinder Society... the organized play campaign we run kind of exists in a bottle. Events that unfold in the org play campaign are treated in much the same way that we treat the events that unfold in an adventure path—they're events to COME as far as world canon is concerned. For the baseline Golarion, we don't assume that the Runelords have risen any more than we assume that the events of the latest season of the Pathfinder Society have occured—those events count ONLY for the campaign that they're a part of.
And as for gunslingers being allowed in Pathifnder Society... turns out that an organized play environment, with its integral sense of competition between players to craft the best or most optimized builds for characters, is more or less a PERFECT place to playtest new classes. If anywhere's going to ferret out broken combinations or highlight places where the rules are murky, it's in the environment of a massive public organized play campaign. And so we're allowing folks to playtest these classes in the game, so we can see how things play out. When the playtest is over and the book is published, whether or not we continue to allow gunslingers (or ninjas and samurais, for that matter!) in the Pathfinder Society organized play setting remains to be seen. In large part, it'll depend on the response we get from the players of that campaign—if the majority of folks in the campaign love gunslingers, we'll consider letting them stay in that campaign... but again, we might not. We might decide that the flavor of too many gunslingers in PFS would create too confusing a picture to people about Golarion as a whole—and my gut tells me that's what's going to happen.
Whether or not gunslingers become a part of the PFS, though, that won't change the role guns have in Golarion as far as our print products are concerned. What's MORE likely, if we find that folks are REALLY into guns and gunslingers, is that we'll think about branching out of the Inner Sea region and into some NEW part of Golarion and then develop that region as a place where gunslingers are more common. Or maybe even another planet. Or another plane.
Anyway, sorry this ended up being such a huge post, but it's important to keep perspective on things. Reminds me a bit of when we published the first Pathfinder, and due to time constraints we had to use an art style for half the book that wasn't the art style we envisioned for the game. Folks panicked, of course, since that was their first look—they didn't want a cartoony style for our art, and neither did we. Today, 2 and a half years later, I think it's pretty obvious that Golarion and Pathfinder do not use cartoon style artwork as a general rule, and when we do, it doesn't make folks worried we're going to change our art direction.
Same thing will happen with guns and gunslingers by this time next year. By that point, of course, folks will be excited about what we're doing in 2012, though!
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Thank you very much James.
I appreciate the long post, and I appreciate your attention (as always) to your consumers and fans.
I definitely like your take on their fit in the world, and can see that playing out in a closed environment. I also understand the benefit of play-testing in the PfS environment.
I think my concern in that environment is that the GM doesn't have a say as to what the players bring to the table, so it's possible (however unlikely) that there are two, three, even six gunslingers in the party--thus shattering the feeling of rarity.
I promise to withhold judgment, and I, of course, take your word for the APs, mods, and the like.
Thank you again.
Thank you very much James.
I appreciate the long post, and I appreciate your attention (as always) to your consumers and fans.
I definitely like your take on their fit in the world, and can see that playing out in a closed environment. I also understand the benefit of play-testing in the PfS environment.
I think my concern in that environment is that the GM doesn't have a say as to what the players bring to the table, so it's possible (however unlikely) that there are two, three, even six gunslingers in the party--thus shattering the feeling of rarity.
I promise to withhold judgment, and I, of course, take your word for the APs, mods, and the like.
Thank you again.
I could see a party of 3 Gunslingers still working in a non-PFS type setting, if everyone reacts in shock and disbelief at the Garundi strangers. But they would have to have some sort of shared background to make any sense at all.
As for the PFS, even though I want to play a Gunslinger, the playtest as it is now suggests they would be as currently written a suboptimal choice (particularly compared to the Ninja). I realize that will eventually get fixed, but as far as I can see, playing a Gunslinger is presently a Role-playing choice, not a choice made to make the best character out there. I wonder if it will always be a bit gimped/specialized, and thus rarer than Core. I think also it's easier to explain a bunch of gunfighters than ninjas in Avistan, even with Alkenstar being their origin. The Minkai Empire is much harder to get to/from than Alkenstar.
And if I DO... that book will be all about that concept. Like a "Player's Guide to Alkenstar" or a "Mana Wastes Gazetteer" book.
I'll take both, please. ;-)
Or you could just get some men working toward publishing that Unspeakable Futures setting and maybe I'll let Alkenstar go silently into the night.
Top men!
Maybe.
;-)
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Seconded!
And maybe there could be some hints about the other "technologies" that apparently exist in Golarion (IIRC, kinda steam-engines and kinda electricity).
Yours,
A.S.
Please, please, please, no, no, no.
Do not turn Golarion into some gawdawful mish-mash of generes.
[gently weeping]
Be all things to all people and you become nothing.
Seconded!
And maybe there could be some hints about the other "technologies" that apparently exist in Golarion (IIRC, kinda steam-engines and kinda electricity).
Yours,
A.S.Please, please, please, no, no, no.
Do not turn Golarion into some gawdawful mish-mash of generes.
[gently weeping]
Be all things to all people and you become nothing.
Golarion has been a glorious mishmash of genres since Day One. If you haven't noticed Ravenloft next to Thundarr the Barbarian? The technomagical nuclear reactor under Kaer Maga?
I would rather have a world that at least acknowledges the possibility of progress and advancement, than one bizarrely locked into a technological stasis that violates everything we know about human nature in the name of "genre conventions."