"Nyambe"?
Nyambe, from Atlas Games. Originally for 3e. It's out of print, but you can find it -- Amazon Marketplace, for example. Or get the PDF from e23.
I liked it, though I never got to use it. I was going to use it to populate a continent on Oerth, but the PCs never followed that plot hook.
Creative Director
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(I hope Dreamscarred Psionics get a showing in Vudra or Castrovel someday)Sadly probably not - at least James Jacobs has stated that when Psionics (or Psychic Magic as he's been calling it) shows up on Golarion they want to use a non-PowerPoints based system.
When and if we do something with Vudra will have to wait for us to decide when and if we ever want to do something with psychic magic. If we do, then it waits until after that's done. If we don't we may or may not use Dreamscarred's psioncs rules... but frankly, as much as I don't like the power point method and the fact that it basically forces the player and the GM to learn a new system in order to do effects in the game that would already be covered by existing methods of using magic... I doubt we'll use those rules. We'll see.
We have a number of Nyambe material here on Paizo.com as well.
We have a number of Nyambe material here on Paizo.com as well.
That's pretty awesome actually. I've been looking to make an adventure in a setting like early Africa, with the old empires of Mali, Songhai, and Aksum. Thanks again!
Now I can't wait for Garund to be fleshed out. But not as much as I want Arcadia!
We have a number of Nyambe material here on Paizo.com as well.
Hah! I knew I should've searched Paizo, but I was too lazy, and I already had e23 open in another tab, trying to decide whether to buy the new GURPS 4e PDF now or wait until I get paid. :)
Meanwhile, back on the thread's topic, I'd love to see Paizo adopt Open Design's Spell-less Ranger.
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We have a number of Nyambe material here on Paizo.com as well.
I picked up the full set! :D
Also wholeheartedly recommend Advanced Bestiary and Hamunaptra(only 5 bucks for a whole boxed set of Ancient Egypt-themed fantasy goodness)
edit-Oh snap. Hamunaptra finally sold out. If it ever shows up in stock again and you want any material for anything Egypt-related, like Osirion, pick it up!
Hah! I knew I should've searched Paizo, but I was too lazy, and I already had e23 open in another tab, trying to decide whether to buy the new GURPS 4e PDF now or wait until I get paid. :)
Wait until you get paid, then get delicious gaming goodness. GURPS is great fun. :D
They can't. The Spell-less Ranger is closed content.We have a number of Nyambe material here on Paizo.com as well.Hah! I knew I should've searched Paizo, but I was too lazy, and I already had e23 open in another tab, trying to decide whether to buy the new GURPS 4e PDF now or wait until I get paid. :)
Meanwhile, back on the thread's topic, I'd love to see Paizo adopt Open Design's Spell-less Ranger.
Really? How did SGG do that book on feats for spell-less rangers then?
Necrothread aside, I think Paizo has a greater interest and investment in testing material before release, so though some may opine that their versions of certain feats, monsters, whatever, are not as balanced as they'd like, I still trust Paizo more than a third party.
In my experience, going way back to the beginning of the OGL, third party products have either been too setting-exclusive (which makes sense if the third party is pushing their setting), or seem to be sourced from bad house rules created by players who wanted to uber their characters with the least amount of in-game cost possible, and did not consider whether it broke the games of their customers.
I do buy third party adventures because I like reading them and looking at the pretty pictures. I've never run one, however. I've never found one I trusted enough. Likewise, I buy third party rulebooks on occasion, but I only ever borrow and adapt what I find in them. That's because, more-often-than-not, I can recognize they are imbalanced at first glance. I am not ashamed to say that on several occasions, the changes I made to third party stuff were very close to the Paizo versions that eventually came out afterwards.
It was hardly a necrothread for the reason I bumped it :p
I'd also be interested in a PM with stuff you had in mind with the last sentence you mentioned. Not here since it'd derail!
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I think its very unrealistic to criticize 3PP and their quality when a very large chunk of them have werecabbages, freelancers, and even Paizo staff or creative gaming "family" contributing to them. Open Design, Fire Mountain Games, Frog God Games, and there are a number more, these are just the ones that register recently in my memory banks.
In addition, a number have set the bar on their quality extremely high, using Paizo's own material as a standard. One that sticks out about this is Alluria Publishing, who in my opinion struggled some financially due to their committment to quality.
Companies like Super Genius Games, John Brazer Enterprises, and Rite Publishing, while not usually as ambitious in the length of their works have all made materials I would to be excellent smaller additions to my ongoing campaigns like Kingmaker, RotRL, etc.
And these are just the ones I personally am interested in. I know other members of my extended gaming group rave about Dreamscarred Psionic material, 4 Winds, and some of the other 3PP books. One of my gamers is actually a new 3PP publisher (Magic Skull Games).
I know there were times in the past (pre-Pathfinder) where 3PP disappointed me in the quality or playability of their works. I have to say that currently I spend almost as much on 3PP today as I do on paizo products. I just cherry pick the stuff I like the best, and I find them to be just as satisfying as Paizo products on many occasions.
TL;DR - Don't dismiss 3PP out of hand, check them out, a lot of them are excellent and very much worth your time.
...what's a werecabbage?
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Were-cabbages are members of a creative freelancers guild...
If you check out their current membership and alumni, you will see a lot of familiar names from Paizo and major 3PP companies. Members
This much talent in any other one grouping would probably cause the earth to shift on its axis :)
I think a large part of the issue some people have with 3PP materials revolves around the sense of balance and tone of the campaign (or setting).
Frog God Games (and Necromancer Games before them) goes for a "1st Edition Feel" as part of their design goals and approach. That generally means a more "test of survival" approach to adventure design than some like.
Regardless of who freelances for whom, the Developers of the publisher are going to alter the material to make it match the publisher's philosophy for design.
Were-cabbages are members of a creative freelancers guild...
If you check out their current membership and alumni, you will see a lot of familiar names from Paizo and major 3PP companies. Members
This much talent in any other one grouping would probably cause the earth to shift on its axis :)
Or they could all pull in their own directions and fall apart... we shall see.
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Frog God Games (and Necromancer Games before them) goes for a "1st Edition Feel" as part of their design goals and approach. That generally means a more "test of survival" approach to adventure design than some like.
Actually, I'd say FGG goes back all the way back to 0E. After all, some of their stuff was originally written for 0E / Swords & Wizardry. For example, Spire of Iron & Crystal.
But they also offer Swords & Wizardry versions, if you want to get the FULL "0E feel".
Frog God Games (and Necromancer Games before them) goes for a "1st Edition Feel" as part of their design goals and approach. That generally means a more "test of survival" approach to adventure design than some like.Actually, I'd say FGG goes back all the way back to 0E. After all, some of their stuff was originally written for 0E / Swords & Wizardry. For example, Spire of Iron & Crystal.
But they also offer Swords & Wizardry versions, if you want to get the FULL "0E feel".
Fine. But that wasn't my point.
My point is that each Publisher has its own "feel" for what its products should be like. The same freelancer can submit work to several publishers, and each publisher will "tune" it toward a different tone/feel that they consider appropriate for their products.
It is less a matter of 3PP products being "not as good as" Paizo's, it is more, I think, a matter of aiming for a different tone/feel. If people expect the same tone/feel as Paizo, they are going to be disappointed in 3PP products fairly often. Some may also occasionally find that a given 3PP's products are "more in tune" with their expectations, and refer to them as "better".
My point is that each Publisher has its own "feel" for what its products should be like. The same freelancer can submit work to several publishers, and each publisher will "tune" it toward a different tone/feel that they consider appropriate for their products.
It is less a matter of 3PP products being "not as good as" Paizo's, it is more, I think, a matter of aiming for a different tone/feel. If people expect the same tone/feel as Paizo, they are going to be disappointed in 3PP products fairly often. Some may also occasionally find that a given 3PP's products are "more in tune" with their expectations, and refer to them as "better".
I think you're right. Certainly in my case, part of my aversion to 3PP is that they dont 'feel' the same as Paizo material (as a general rule). It's not that I think they're better or worse, I just have a tone and mood that I'm comfortable with.
.Although I still havent seen any example of what the OP was talking about - some mechanical feature produced in a Paizo product which covered the same ground as had already been done by a 3PP and which did it "worse".
It's always disappointing to see a bunch of time and effort put into writing something that has already been done by another. Especially so if the 3rd party offering is better written and works better mechanically and in actual play.
It's always disappointing to see a bunch of time and effort put into writing something that has already been done by another.
This could be the same arguement against every printing 'Pathfinder' in the first place.
Or 3.5... or 3E... or 2E...
The entire gasming industry is based on reinventing the wheel!!
Everyone thinks they can 'fix' what they see as a problem with the game, Sometimes this leads to houserules... sometimes to 3pp... sometimes to whole new editions.
Although I still havent seen any example of what the OP was talking about - some mechanical feature produced in a Paizo product which covered the same ground as had already been done by a 3PP and which did it "worse".It's always disappointing to see a bunch of time and effort put into writing something that has already been done by another. Especially so if the 3rd party offering is better written and works better mechanically and in actual play.I didn't want to post specifics since it would have caused the thread to devolve into an off-topic tangent debating the minutae of whether one feat was objectively better or worse than others, but since this has been running for a while I'll throw up a couple examples that I can vaguely drew my eye. I'm sure there were others, but it's been a while since I compared Paizo rules and mechanics to 3rd party rules and mechanics.
Paizo: Antagonize
Open Design: ProvokePaizo: Crane Wing
Super Genius Games: Acrobatic Dodge
Cheers. As you say, it depends on what you think is "worse" but I appreciate some context as to what you were referring to.
I do generally think that the quality of 3PP has gone up somewhat over time. It may be the case that increasing internet connectivity helps push better stuff to the fore or that better feedback is available or I don't know what else, but I feel like most of the 3PP I've seen for Pathfinder tends to be at least reasonable, while I remember 3.5 3PP as sort of a minefield of products that, while there were certainly gems in there, were largely a minefield of just really dubious stuff that often betrayed a deep ignorance about or apathy for how anything should work. Stuff that just felt like it was put together by a deeply enthusiastic person who - just incidentally - had maybe played 3.5 once, a few years ago, but was pretty sure they remembered how most of the stuff worked. I don't think 3PP developers should be beholden to not creating material that doesn't combine with some arcane combination of random stuff to break the game; even holding Wizards to that standard is kind of harsh, but I think it's reasonable to expect material to look like someone who has basic familiarity with how the rules work has looked at it ever. (In general, monster books were the most frequent offenders, I think; even though Wizards' monster design in 3.5 was just utter garbage, a lot of 3PP developers somehow managed to do worse.)
When and if we do something with Vudra will have to wait for us to decide when and if we ever want to do something with psychic magic. If we do, then it waits until after that's done. If we don't we may or may not use Dreamscarred's psioncs rules... but frankly, as much as I don't like the power point method and the fact that it basically forces the player and the GM to learn a new system in order to do effects in the game that would already be covered by existing methods of using magic... I doubt we'll use those rules. We'll see.
I would've said "gives a good reason for players and GMs to be exposed to new and enjoyable options".
Really, the similarities with psionics outnumber the differences for one thing. Manifesting a power requires a casting stat of 10 + power level. DCs are 10 + power level + casting modifier. Saving throws work the same way. You get bonus points just like bonus spell slots. Mechanically it's very similar.
I get it that "psionics have no champion at Paizo". Fair enough. I honestly don't expect you to develop adventures based on rules you don't like. I just wish you would.
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Necrothread aside, I think Paizo has a greater interest and investment in testing material before release, so though some may opine that their versions of certain feats, monsters, whatever, are not as balanced as they'd like, I still trust Paizo more than a third party.
This statement shows that you, like a lot of folks in this thread, don't have a working comprehension of the reality of the publishing world we're in here. Here's a quick example to illustrate, if no one minds the opinion of a humble contributor to both Paizo and 3PPs, in regards to adventure playtesting.
I wrote From Shore to Sea as an Open Design project, to be published by Paizo. For starters, the incredible braintrust of the 250+ contributors nurturing the project from birth to maturity, keeping an eye out for the slightest of inconsistencies (both mechanically and plot-wise) is unprecedented, and by the time the adventure was actually scripted, it had already been gone over, and over, and over, with a fine-toothed comb by dozens of loyal contributors...dozens more, in fact, than Paizo even has on staff. The contributors brought mechanic elements not only of that book, but its companion book Sunken Empires, into their home games, and tested mechanics thoroughly in the real world. And that was all just during the planning stages, long before there was even a complete document to playtest.
Once we had a working final draft, further wheels were set in motion. I have, sitting on my hard drive, over 20,000 words of playtest data on the adventure from literally all over the world. ALL of it helped shape and craft the final turnover. Before we handed the final draft over to Paizo, the adventure was playtested by nearly 15 groups over the course of 6 weeks, most of whom turned in pages of detailed feedback on the adventure and all aspects of it. And that's pretty much the modus operandi of EVERY Open Design project, adventure or otherwise. As a result, FS2S changed very little from that playtest draft to the final published version.
Compare that level of oversight, by contrast, to another Paizo adventure I wrote: Feast of Ravenmoor. Unlike FS2S, it was written in a vacuum, without outside contribution or hundred of eyes looking over my shoulder. I did playtest it 3 times with my home group before turnover, but looking at the final published results, it is obvious from my perspective that the playtest data wasn't heeded (with no bitterness or chippiness implied here, but the oft-maligned BBEG isn't even the same creature type as my turnover, and the carefully-balanced pivotal encounter that I slaved over to get right and playtested thoroughly was totally reworked), which means the accumulated braintrust this time around was basically myself, my editor, and the developers that put their hands/eyes on it before publication...none of whom played the adventure before sending it off to the printer.
So, which is better? Worse? I'll let the reviews speak to that, but I think for you to say that Paizo has "a greater interest and investment in testing material" , or Steve saying that 3PPs don't have a "consistent set of understandings of what the rules mean, how they should be applied and how options should be balanced" are statements born of ignorance of the realities of the various publishing houses and the skills of the freelancers and designers performing the work. Quite frankly -it's insulting. Even James and other developers have said as much on the boards here -that they don't have time to playtest adventures in-house. They can hope that the freelancer does it, of course, but that's unlikely given the deadlines most of us work under. That is exclusive, of course, of some rules materials and public playtests, but I've got to say that in my experience as a prolific freelancer for both 3PPs and Paizo, that you've got a much larger, and certainly loyal and devoted, brain trust in Open Design -a 3PP -than elsewhere. To discount that -and perpetuate a distrust of products as a result, just shows a lack of understanding of the interests and investments of the hardworking contributors, freelancers, and designers putting in the hours behind those pages, not to mention, as has been stated above, that those folks are often the same people writing and designing your "auto-trusted, stamp-of-approval" content from Paizo.
If I recall correctly, isn't it the freelancer's responsibility to playtest the feats / archetypes / spells / etc? The awesome devs at Paizo already have enough on their plate that playtesting everything is just infeasible.
As I understand it, the freelancer turns over their work, then development and editing go over it, and often (sometimes? Usually? Rarely?) make changes. How can a freelancer possibly playtest that?
Personally, the existence of something like the Prone Shooter feat in a published book makes me doubt the existence of any inherent superiority of quality of that publisher's material over all other publishers. That's like Fast Forward Entertainment levels of bad.
The freelancer theoretically playtests their version of it, if they have the time for it. They then turn it over, and the developers and editors poke at it with +5 Sticks of Poking. Then it gets released. I think.
I've been wondering about this for a while, and it would be great to get an official comment on it. It's wholly possible I missed a step there, but that's what I've gathered from my many hours spent searching for tidbits about the process of design and development at Paizo.
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Necrothread aside, I think Paizo has a greater interest and investment in testing material before release, so though some may opine that their versions of certain feats, monsters, whatever, are not as balanced as they'd like, I still trust Paizo more than a third party.This statement shows that you, like a lot of folks in this thread, don't have a working comprehension of the reality of the publishing world we're in here.
.... I think for you to say that Paizo has "a greater interest and investment in testing material" , or Steve saying that 3PPs don't have a "consistent set of understandings of what the rules mean, how they should be applied and how options should be balanced" are statements born of ignorance of the realities of the various publishing houses and the skills of the freelancers and designers performing the work. Quite frankly -it's insulting. Even James and other developers have said as much on the boards here -that they don't have time to playtest adventures in-house. They can hope that the freelancer does it, of course, but that's unlikely given the deadlines most of us work under. That is exclusive, of course, of some rules materials and public playtests, but I've got to say that in my experience as a prolific freelancer for both 3PPs and Paizo, that you've got a much larger, and certainly loyal and devoted, brain trust in Open Design -a 3PP -than elsewhere. To discount that -and perpetuate a distrust of products as a result, just shows a lack of understanding of the interests and investments of the hardworking contributors, freelancers, and designers putting in the hours behind those pages, not to mention, as has been stated above, that those folks are often the same people writing and designing your "auto-trusted, stamp-of-approval" content from Paizo.
Extremely well said ... and pretty much 100% accurate!
Frog God Games (and Necromancer Games before them) goes for a "1st Edition Feel" as part of their design goals and approach. That generally means a more "test of survival" approach to adventure design than some like.Actually, I'd say FGG goes back all the way back to 0E. After all, some of their stuff was originally written for 0E / Swords & Wizardry. For example, Spire of Iron & Crystal.
But they also offer Swords & Wizardry versions, if you want to get the FULL "0E feel".
Fine. But that wasn't my point.
My point is that each Publisher has its own "feel" for what its products should be like. The same freelancer can submit work to several publishers, and each publisher will "tune" it toward a different tone/feel that they consider appropriate for their products.
It is less a matter of 3PP products being "not as good as" Paizo's, it is more, I think, a matter of aiming for a different tone/feel. If people expect the same tone/feel as Paizo, they are going to be disappointed in 3PP products fairly often. Some may also occasionally find that a given 3PP's products are "more in tune" with their expectations, and refer to them as "better".
Remember though that a lot of people were upset by the "feel" of the gunslinger, ninja, etc, and that is 100% official. 3PP or official the person running the game is still the one that creates the flavor and feel of the world. You are not required to use 100% of ANY product, and you have free reign to adapt/alter/tweak as you see fit. If you don't like the tone of a class, keep the core and change the flavor and fluff to fit your world. That way you are not discounting the product or the writers vision.
SGG put out a ninja book with a few alt versions of the class that had no eastern flair at all. The crunch was barely changed, but if you put them in a game and didn't call it a "ninja" no one would have been the wiser.
This statement shows that you, like a lot of folks in this thread, don't have a working comprehension of the reality of the publishing world we're in here. Here's a quick example to illustrate, if no one minds the opinion of a humble contributor to both Paizo and 3PPs, in regards to adventure playtesting.
I wrote From Shore to Sea as an Open Design project, to be published by Paizo. For starters, the incredible braintrust of the 250+ contributors nurturing the project from birth to maturity, keeping an eye out for the slightest of inconsistencies (both mechanically and plot-wise) is unprecedented, and by the time the adventure was actually scripted, it had already been gone over, and over, and over, with a fine-toothed comb by dozens of loyal contributors...dozens more, in fact, than Paizo even has on staff. The contributors brought mechanic elements not only of that book, but its companion book Sunken Empires, into their home games, and tested mechanics thoroughly in the real world. And that was all just during the planning stages, long before there was even a complete document to playtest.
Once we had a working final draft, further wheels were set in motion. I have, sitting on my hard drive, over 20,000 words of playtest data on the adventure from literally all over the world. ALL of it helped shape and craft the final turnover. Before we handed the final draft over to Paizo, the adventure was playtested by nearly 15 groups over the course of 6 weeks, most of whom turned in pages of detailed feedback on the adventure and all aspects of it. And that's pretty much the modus operandi of EVERY Open Design project, adventure or otherwise. As a result, FS2S changed very little from that playtest draft to the final published version.
Compare that level of oversight, by contrast, to another Paizo adventure I wrote: Feast of Ravenmoor. Unlike FS2S, it was written in a vacuum, without outside contribution or hundred of eyes looking over my shoulder. I did playtest it 3 times with my home group before turnover, but looking at the final published results, it is obvious from my perspective that the playtest data wasn't heeded (with no bitterness or chippiness implied here, but the oft-maligned BBEG isn't even the same creature type as my turnover, and the carefully-balanced pivotal encounter that I slaved over to get right and playtested thoroughly was totally reworked), which means the accumulated braintrust this time around was basically myself, my editor, and the developers that put their hands/eyes on it before publication...none of whom played the adventure before sending it off to the printer.
So, which is better? Worse? I'll let the reviews speak to that, but I think for you to say that Paizo has "a greater interest and investment in testing material" , or Steve saying that 3PPs don't have a "consistent set of understandings of what the rules mean, how they should be applied and how options should be balanced" are statements born of ignorance of the realities of the various publishing houses and the skills of the freelancers and designers performing the work. Quite frankly -it's insulting. Even James and other developers have said as much on the boards here -that they don't have time to playtest adventures in-house. They can hope that the freelancer does it, of course, but that's unlikely given the deadlines most of us work under. That is exclusive, of course, of some rules materials and public playtests, but I've got to say that in my experience as a prolific freelancer for both 3PPs and Paizo, that you've got a much larger, and certainly loyal and devoted, brain trust in Open Design -a 3PP -than elsewhere. To discount that -and perpetuate a distrust of products as a result, just shows a lack of understanding of the interests and investments of the hardworking contributors, freelancers, and designers putting in the hours behind those pages, not to mention, as has been stated above, that those folks are often the same people writing and designing your "auto-trusted, stamp-of-approval" content from Paizo.
I apologize.
I didn't intend any insult (Shore to Sea was what introduced me to open design in the first place - since then I've been a major patron on Just about every OD project going). My remark was a combination of a poorly expressed idea, a generalization and, as you say, ignorance of the realities of publishing. Please forgive me.
I love Open Design, and love being a patron. Here's to hoping there's another joint Paizo/Open Design project!
And I have to second (third?) what Brandon said ... I *love* Paizo, but they'll readily admit they're flat out, and I'm *sure* that Open Design projects get more play testing than Paizo projects. That doesn't mean one's better or one's worse - it's just something to be aware of before commenting on them.
And be sure you look at my tags before concluding too much about what I'm inferring ... I'm both a maximal Paizo subscriber AND a regular contributor to Open Design projects.
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Bygones, Steve. You only gave voice to something an unfortunate number of Pathfinder gamers perceive regarding 3PPs. And note that my statements aren't absolute to 3PPs universally, especially considering that Open Design has a luxury that few others do -a brain trust of hundred of trained eyes, rules freaks, and devoted playtesters spotting errors, inconsistencies, mechanical flubs, and rules loopholes throughout the creative process, which is something Paizo can only hope to match with their public playtests, which are often for only very small portions of otherwise much larger works. I hope I'm not mistaken otherwise, because I can't defend every 3PP, but I do hope to shed a little light on the darkness of that unfortunate distrust of non-Paizo material.
I've been on the bad side of 3PP myself, as a gamer. I recoil at the memory of some AEG books that nearly broke my campaign when some PCs showed up with some shiny new feats, so I understand where a lot of these posters have been, and where they think they might be headed opening up to 3PP material.
But for many of the 3PPs that have been around for a while -Open Design, SGG, Frog God, Green Ronin (among others) -the difference in product often begins strictly at turnover, and not a moment sooner. In other words, if you've got Vaughan, Owen, Pett, Kortes, or myself all turning in the same quality freelance work regardless of publisher, the difference only comes down to development. And if folks can't trust the writing skills of your favorite Paizo freelancers coupled with the development skills of such luminaries as Wolfgang Baur, Chris Pramas, or Owen Stephens, then...well...I just don't know what to tell you guys. =-)
And for the record, to the OP, I totally agree. I think 3PP material is a GOLDMINE, and wish there was more use of it in general. I worry that there's a perception out that that freelancers using that material is maybe lazy. But I've said it in public seminars and I'll say it again here: if I ever tackle another campaign world, I daresay I won't write a single feat, item, or mechanic. There is SO MUCH out there, that I'd rather concentrate on the flavor material, and rely on previously published OGL material that's already been vetted and playtested in the open market, and shown to be worthy. Talk about saving some work, right?
Lastly, like gbonehead says, I ain't dissing on my Paizo folks! But to infer that you can only trust Paizo material because the quality of their playtesting is superior to some 3PPs is a core fallacy exhibited by many in this thread.
Given the high amount of Pathfinder stuff published every month, I'd be surprised if some stuff got even a cursory playtest.
Since the beginning of this month, there have been 66 Pathfinder RPG products released (including our own)...the volume of Pathfinder stuff out there is tremendous.
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Actually, I was just talking about Paizo. A typical month sees a 96-page AP volume, a 64-page Campaign Setting, a and 32-page Player Companion. Every other month brings a 64-page Module, and approximately every 3-4 months there's a 256+ page RPG hardcover released, as well as a novel. Add in a few Pathfinder Society Scenarios, the weekly web fiction, and a few other special offerings (like RotRL Anniversary Edition) and Paizo is pushing out a LOT of pages every month with the Pathfinder logo attached.
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Actually, I was just talking about Paizo. A typical month sees a 96-page AP volume, a 64-page Campaign Setting, a and 32-page Player Companion. Every other month brings a 64-page Module, and approximately every 3-4 months there's a 256+ page RPG hardcover released, as well as a novel. Add in a few Pathfinder Society Scenarios, the weekly web fiction, and a few other special offerings (like RotRL Anniversary Edition) and Paizo is pushing out a LOT of pages every month with the Pathfinder logo attached.
I wonder how you playtest novels.
Actually, I was just talking about Paizo. A typical month sees a 96-page AP volume, a 64-page Campaign Setting, a and 32-page Player Companion. Every other month brings a 64-page Module, and approximately every 3-4 months there's a 256+ page RPG hardcover released, as well as a novel. Add in a few Pathfinder Society Scenarios, the weekly web fiction, and a few other special offerings (like RotRL Anniversary Edition) and Paizo is pushing out a LOT of pages every month with the Pathfinder logo attached.I wonder how you playtest novels.
Sending it to the editor/proofreader, I presume.
I prefer that everything be filtered through first party.
Not because I believe Paizo is inherently better at balancing, but because Paizo has a vision for their product and a direction they want it to go.
Why 3PP stuff could be well balanced, it may not push the game in the direction Paizo wants it to go.
Thus far, I've enjoyed the direction Paizo is guiding the ship.
I allow 3PP myself if a player really wants it and we can tie it into the flavour of my setting, but I'd prefer that 3PP stuff to get redone by Paizo.
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To caedwyr's original point: Yes, I just wish that everything wasn't so frequently developed in a vacuum. In 3.x it may have been much harder to know who may have already developed what in the massive world of books out there but in the PF age there's this website I've heard of that gathers tremendous amounts of 3pp stuff for your convenient perusal and consideration. For me one of the PROMISES of the OGL is the very concept that you build on what's come before, not always just putting your fingers in your ears, pencil to paper, and ignoring everything else out there. Perhaps everything else out there is garbage. Or perhaps you'll find something that will save you weeks of head scratching, erasing, and playtesting. LOOK before you develop. Someone may have already done what you're thinking of doing and quite possibly, better than what you were going to come up with. Why not take that and expand it instead of recreating that very same thing and then doing it worse?
Just my random 2 cents.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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To caedwyr's original point: Yes, I just wish that everything wasn't so frequently developed in a vacuum. In 3.x it may have been much harder to know who may have already developed what in the massive world of books out there but in the PF age there's this website I've heard of that gathers tremendous amounts of 3pp stuff for your convenient perusal and consideration.
Just my random 2 cents.
Maybe, but just because something already exists, doesn't mean you can't/shouldn't develop something similar. The Bard, Magus, Psychic Warrior and Vanguard are all varients of the 'stabacadabra' So do we 'need' my Damascarran? No. Do I feel it fills a niche the others don't? Yes. Can someone do it better? Likely. Did I know about the Vanguard when I wrote it? No. I did buy it to compare however.*
Likewise, Paizo has the advantage of being the 'mother' company. The Vanguard might be too strong for Golarion's flavour. The Damascarran might be too weak.** There's nothing keeping Paizo from taking either class*** and 'reinventing it' to their standards. Unless they do, more options is a good thing, even if they're similar.
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