Do take into account, there also seems to be a vocal group (Minority or majority? How would I know?) who is against Numeria.
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Do take into account, there also seems to be a vocal group (Minority or majority? How would I know?) who is against Numeria.
You'll find vocal groups for everything over here, and if they were to be to be taken into the account, there would be zero campaign setting books, because you will find always a few who really really don't like something.
There was a very vocal anti-Distant Worlds sentiment back in the day, yet Distant Worlds is the only Campaign Setting softcover so far that had to be reprinted because the initial print run sold out completely. And that's even with the initial print run being bigger than usual, since Vic predicted that this one will be smoking hot.
So much for vocal groups relating to actual sales, for the matter.
And since Distant Worlds are closely related thematically to Numeria, it makes me believe that anything Numeria-related will sell like crazy.
Point taken.
Now to just wait for that little fix to the Orcs of Golarion book.
Then again, if one never comes (highly likely), I'll just laugh heartily while doing my own corrections.
Sincubus, I'm going to gift you whatever book comes out. You don't have to read it, but it's my hope that you do. I'm not a huge fan of the Tian Xia stuff either, so I totally understand where you're coming from.
For Numeria in particular, I'm as much excited to see how the Kellids interact with the technic league as I am to learn about the technic league. I studied a lot of the history of technology as it related to imperialism, so huge disparities in technological levels is very interesting to me. You know that joke about spearmen in the Civilization games taking on tanks? That happens here. Except instead of tanks, they are indestructible creatures of steel.
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Then again, both Gilgamesh or the Iliad were set in contemporary settings (or at least not noticeably primitive settings from the author's perspective) and miss most of the other properties of D&D style fantasy; no non-human races, no casters. I think dropping them into the same category with the Hobbit and a different category from the Princess of Mars isn't great categorization. The Princess of Mars seems to have a long history behind it of a contemporary person finding his way to an alien land with strange alien creatures, even if most of the medieval works confined themselves to Earth and attached themselves to truth more.I really like the idea of a Numeria AP but it is a bit of a stretch to say that Princess of Mars pre-dates The Hobbit therefore "Sci-Fi and S&P pre-dating most traditional fantasy".
To be blunt, Gilgamesh dates back to the 18th Century BC and The Iliad has been regarded as 'fantasy' (rather than history/religion) for more than a thousand years.
I'm not so hot on Gilgamesh but the Iliad was not set in a contemporary setting. It had different technology, different uses of technology, the culture was different and the people were different. It was explicitly indentified with a past 'silver age' by the Archaic Greeks. The Archaic and Classical Greeks actually misconstrued ancient (to them) buildings as Silver Age constructions and decided they had been built for certain mythic purposes.
Homer's work definitely has casters and non-human races.
In any case, I was talking about the attitudes to Homer/Gilgamesh/whatever of people many years later.
We can go round and round on this but I should probably declare a specialism, I have an MA in Ancient Greek History.
I'm not dropping them in a category with The Hobbit, I am dismissing the idea that we should have a 'this genre came first' contest.
If I wanted to play genres contests I'd probably go with Robin Hood, King Arthur and The Faerie Queene... but that is a daft game to play and one I'm not really a fan of.
However, I find the idea of folding Princess of Mars in with medieval exploratory fiction to be a bit odd. The Princess of Mars needs The Enlightenment and Jules Verne in order to exist, as far as I can tell. To paint it as analogous with The Mabinogion and The Faerie Queene seems a little odd. I'm sure it has its influences but...
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After reading the pages of this numerian topic I doubt people want Red Caps, Kelpies, Minotaurs and Dragons at all, they seem more into robots, It's, space hippo's and terminators dressed in reallife clothes and armed with lazershields and guns.I'll pray this doesn't go from worse to EVEn worse, turning this cool pathfinder into a horror spacelazer warhammer based something...Highly doubtful, considering the mindset of most Pathfinder players.
That's quote the leap from "a lot of gamers like robots and technology and aliens in their fantasy" to "a lot of gamers hate fey, traditional monsters, and dragons".
It's not a choice between one or the other. People are more than capable of having both.
I like having redcaps, kelpies, minotaurs, and dragons in the game. I also like having robots, androids, aliens, technology, spaceships, augmentation, etc. in the game.
That's what I'm hoping to see, at least in part, in a Numeria book. I want to see where they go with it. I want to see how those barbarian tribes deal with the Annihilator and how their culture reacts to it. I want to see alien ghosts. I want to see arcanists and mundane experts haphazardly unlocking wonders locked away in that alien wreckage. I'm hoping to see more on Brigh. I want more details on just where that huge ship came from and what kind of people were on it. I want to know if Numerian dragons are hoarding some of that tech and starmetal or if they're avoiding the stuff. I want to know how Numerians live. HOw they dress, how they get by, and how the presence of technology and alien relics has affected all of that. I want to know how the fey have reacted and adapted to the presence of both alien technology and possible alien flora and fauna that may have survived the crash. I want to see if this hints at anything about fey of other planets.
Geez, now I really want this book.
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How about the best of both worlds with red caps, kelpies, minotaurs, and dragons using technology, robots, cybernetics, spaceships, and androids against barbarian humans? For example, red caps that use cybernetic legs equipped with plasma jets for extra leaping power, and a blood tank hooked into their head under a cap that pumps combat drugs into the blood absorbed by their chain-scythe? Or a kelpie pod that forms itself into a mass of bio-organic seaweed, which can animate trees and other life forms, and spreads through charming animals then using pods to take them over to produce more organic seaweed copies? etc.
How about the best of both worlds with red caps, kelpies, minotaurs, and dragons using technology, robots, cybernetics, spaceships, and androids against barbarian humans? For example, red caps that use cybernetic legs equipped with plasma jets for extra leaping power, and a blood tank hooked into their head under a cap that pumps combat drugs into the blood absorbed by their chain-scythe? Or a kelpie pod that forms itself into a mass of bio-organic seaweed, which can animate trees and other life forms, and spreads through charming animals then using pods to take them over to produce more organic seaweed copies? etc.
so...a variant shadowrun? ;)
Anything made will be disappointing to many people because adding tech to Society will have a huge impact.
Unless the crunch is for GM's only, then the players will be disappointed.
I suggest you leave Numeria open to a third party publisher. It won't impact Society and most people will need to tweak the material to fit their campaigns anyways.
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Would folks LIKE a Numeria book?
Yes! Do it. Please. Those who don't want to use it won't buy it, but those of us that do will be ridiculously happy. Even if I'll never use most of the options given, I'll be happy at least knowing that they are there. I'd like Numeria to be less of a blind spot, both on the map and conceptually. We've been good. Give us some nice golem-mechs. :)
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Anything made will be disappointing to many people because adding tech to Society will have a huge impact.
Unless the crunch is for GM's only, then the players will be disappointed.
I suggest you leave Numeria open to a third party publisher. It won't impact Society and most people will need to tweak the material to fit their campaigns anyways.
Guns didn't kill PFS, people killed ... sorry, wrong meme. Neither will Numerian tech (likely because it won't be made into Additional Resources).
Creative Director
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Anything made will be disappointing to many people because adding tech to Society will have a huge impact.
Unless the crunch is for GM's only, then the players will be disappointed.
I suggest you leave Numeria open to a third party publisher. It won't impact Society and most people will need to tweak the material to fit their campaigns anyways.
Just because we add something to Golarion doesn't mean we add it to Pathfinder Society. And the day we decide we can't explore part of Golarion because it won't work for the Pathfinder Society organized play program will be a sad day indeed.
Also... not fond of the idea of farming out one of the parts of the world I've wanted to explore and detail since the start of Golarion.
When (not if) we do Numeria stuff... I suspect that it'll be relatively "quarantined," but we'll see.
the day we decide we can't explore part of Golarion because it won't work for the Pathfinder Society organized play program will be a sad day indeed.
+1 doesn't really cover it, so forgive me, but I must express myself as follows: <3
When (not if) we do Numeria stuff... I suspect that it'll be relatively "quarantined," but we'll see.
While I certainly wouldn't expect ALL of it to see PFS play, I would hope that some dribs and drabs would be legalized. And man, talk about making chronicle sheets more interesting!
I agree with JJ in the fact there is no pathfinder lodge in Numeria so I dont see a conflict, Numeria has kept its stuff inside and kept those greedy thieving Pathfinders out.
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The point I'm trying to make is that Numeria is kind of like psionics. The content doesn't fit in every game and if it was published by Paizo the expectation is that it would be incorporated. Of course a GM can wholesale veto the material, but the last thing you want as a publisher is to have GM's in the habit of denying players your materials. Then the players just stop buying it out of fear it was a waste of money for them.
Now, what I would be satisfied with is as follows.
1. Robots are just powerful constructs: unless the plan is for magitech it is perfectly acceptable for machines to be a subtype that has no connections at all to magic.
2. The tech that's lying around works like the Mi-Go tech: it takes a skill check or even a feat to use correctly and no one can create it or repair it. Mostly barbarians would wield these weapons as if they were improvised. Since they are.
3. The technic league are just another bunch of power mad arcanists: nothing special to them, maybe an archetype or two, but ultimately there is nothing that would separate them from other power mad arcanists.
4. The innards of the Silver Mount is the ultimate super dungeon: as a GM with ridiculously clever players I find that the standard dungeon, without "magical auras" that hamper divination, teleportation or basic spells like stone shape, standard dungeons pose no real challenge. A labyrinth made from material they cannot manipulate or see through (lead bonded polymers are a legitimate option or just add star metal to the list of things you can't detect through) would become an adequate challenge for high level play.
Actually, yeah, make Numeria part of the mythic playtest. Heck, that might be the perfect way to introduce it.
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I see your point, but you could say the same thing about guns, Space, or Asian setting stuff. Paizo introduced both of those things even though many GMs may not have wanted them. Presumably that wasn't a mitigated disaster for the company, so I can't see Numeria being much more problematic.
I would seriously doubt that a Numeria book would instantly result in Technic League agents becoming members of the Pathfindef Society.
However, am adventure set in Nhmeria (or the Red Redoubt of Karamoss) could feature a few villainous robots and members of the Technic League, and the only items added might one on the Chronicle sheet. Make the rest of it unavailable. Easy. If you don't like the tech stuff, don't play that scenario and you'll never see the tech goodies, unless someone else really flaunts it.
Honestly, I've always liked more setting options because quite honestly, I've become bored with standard, Tolkien fantasy tropes. I want something new and exciting and I am really happy to see some fleshed out areas of Golarion that go against that norm. At least for me, it's always better to have the options for people that like them because it's much easier to forbid them if you don't like them than to make them if you do.
I like that we have an asian setting, other planets, and firearms, even if I run a campaign that is more Slavic in nature. Neither of these have destroyed the game and ruined the setting. If anything, I find that sticking to only 'standard' fantasy troupes feels at best 'safe' and at worst 'lazy'. I love that Paizo is going out of their way to flesh out other cultures and other genres. It really helps to open your mind to other folklore and stories that are equally as enchanting as what we are used to in an RPG setting. I would have never been interested in a campaign using elements from African and Indian mythology, and now, thanks to reading about Garund and Vudra, I plan on expanding such areas in my on campaign.
I'd guess that I and many others would be severely disappointed if they cheapened the technology to "just magic". I really want Paizo to stuck to their guns on this and make it full on technology. While they should listen to the naysayers in terms of PFS and sales, I hope they don't let their hate ruin what could be an awesome adventure.
Uhm having slavic mythology mixed with asian mythology and norse, greek and egyptian, with a little bit of tolkien and lovecraft is a WHOLE lot different than having lazer guns and terminator-like robots walking around with fairies hand in hand.
I can take some robot stuff, but lazerguns are a step too far in my opinion. When I was very small I got myself the second edition monster manual from D&D (I just loved animal,dinosaur and monster pictures), and even when I was 6 years old or so I didn't liked the Giff (the modern dressed humanoid hippo with the gun) in the book it seemed out of place in there.
And its not unique to mix robots with fairies, just look at Final Fantasy, Star Wars, D&D Space Adventures and all those books the talking bag is throwing around, so its far from unique.
And i'm not against a numerian book or even multiple, but I just won't like my favorite part of pathfinder (Adventure Path) to be overrun with the lazer stuff, the only thing I like are the barbarians on the planet.
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You have this weird obsession with Giffs when Paizo probably won't put anything as silly as hippo-people. James doesn't really like silly (see double weapons and dual wielding shields) so I doubt you will see hippo people. And he already said that like firearms are stuck in Alkenstar, lasers will be stuck in Numeria. It's why we didn't get firearms in the Pirate adventure because they knew people like you would whine and get up in arms. At least they had the option for it. So this fear of everything being 'overrun' by lasers is just as invalid as being afraid of everything being overrun by firearms.
Sure, it may not be 'unique', but it's different enough from the standards that it'd be a breath of fresh air in DnD. It's why I personally enjoyed Dark Sun and Eberron far more than Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk. And nothing beats Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.
And no offense, but from the Bestiary thread, you have this habit on stepping on what everyone likes and that's something you really got to kick. It's ain't cool. What you like doesn't make what we like any more invalid. Just because it doesn't fit your view of fantasy doesn't mean that people who like it shouldn't get to see it come to life.
And for Christ's sake, stop bring the damn Giffs into every conversation about Numeria. There aren't going to be hippo people. Period.
If Anything...lasers would be even rarer and more limited than guns. After all, Alkenstar can manufacture guns, but the nearest laser factory is probably Verces.
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but the nearest laser factory is probably Verces.
Oh man.
To be entirely honest, I'm even more excited about Verces than I am for Numeria. Verces is an absolute lock for my most favoritest planet in the solar system outside Golarion, and easily the world I most want more material for.
I've just been in love with the planet and people taking shape in my head ever since reading Distant Worlds. That mix of high technology and magic, the cybernetic and the fantastic, WANT. WANT SO MUCH. So many ideas just keep springing fully formed from the possibilities that part of Distant Worlds presented. Natural fey living in and powering ecospheres within the massive cities or just living as usual fey in the wilds, while digital fey live in world-spanning networks. Paladins that cross over between the God-Vessel and Augmented castes to become cybernetic angels. Bards performing masterful feats of combined magical, electronic, and musical expertise in blaring dancehalls. That combination of retro-sci-fi and modern aesthetics, from the fashion to the architecture.
Fact: Verces has been on my mind pretty much every day since reading Distant Worlds.
It should also be pointed out that being totally in love with Verces has not rendered me incapable of being in love with "traditional" fantasy elements as well, before that starts up again.
It's all about Aucturn man :)
I'd guess that I and many others would be severely disappointed if they cheapened the technology to "just magic". I really want Paizo to stuck to their guns on this and make it full on technology.
I'm with you on that. I'm not particularly expecting to like the technology stuff - but making it 'magic in disguise' would be less likely to get me interested, I think.
.I'm hoping I get nostalgic about the Barrier Peaks. :)
Nice, I thought Numeria was bad enough... Now I learned about a far worse place called Verces which do in fact have lazers. (again fine for on-their-own adventure, but not for a precious adventure path)
Hate to break it to you Sincubus (and by hate, I mean love), but one of the adventures in the Reign of Winter adventure path is going to be on *gasp* another planet!! Sound the alarms! The end of the world is nigh! It's going to ruin Pathfinder just like ninjas and firearms did! Oh wait...
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Hate to break it to you Sincubus (and by hate, I mean love), but one of the adventures in the Reign of Winter adventure path is going to be on *gasp* another planet!! Sound the alarms! The end of the world is nigh!
That's actually *shock* TWO ADVENTURES *horror* in Reign of Winter! One on Traixus, one on Verces.
Hope Sincy has blood pressure meds handy...
I don't remember Verces being mentioned for any part of Reign of Winter. But I remember Triaxus wich interest me more to be honest.
I'll pray this doesn't go from worse to EVEn worse, turning this cool pathfinder into a horror spacelazer warhammer based something...
The people who work for Paizo love roleplaying games but at the end of the day Paizo is a business. They are going to make a decision based on what they believe/know the players of the Pathfinder rules want. If they believe this would be a successful product then it will happen.
No one is forcing you to buy the product.
There is already so much Pathfinder and Golarian product out there you'd have YEARS worth of material to start playing with. One companion guide or adventure path is not going to ruin the entire system for you.
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lazer
And I don't mean to be a troll but this has annoyed me all the way through this thread. The word is correctly spelled "laser". It's an acronym for Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
what will probably be done is a campaign setting that deals with Numeria, possible modules and APs, and a players companion for "People of Conflict" consisting of information about, Mendev, Numeria, Brevoy, and the Worldwound. just like they did for Irrisen (Land of Witches CS, People of the North PC, Witchwar Module, and Reign of Winter AP.)
this seems the most likely direction they would take due to current trends.
I like pretty much all of the Distant Worlds setting material, although honestly I would rank Castrovel, and Akiton above Verces in interest (Simply because they are different flavors of fantasy than the typical quasi-medieval situation in most RPGs/fantasy books. Whereas Verces seems to appeal to more common tropes)
First I heard we are going to Verces however in Reign of Winter? Triaxus makes sense, since it's the most "fantastic" of the distant worlds (and so the less likely to tick certain people off), what with it's empires of dragons and such. In fact I have been thinking of Just throwing the Mhrati Empire from the Midgard setting onto the world whenever I get a chance to finally play in that setting.
Also, we DESPERATELY NEED a Distant Worlds Hardcover.
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A Numeria AP with the requisite support books would be best.
I had a PFS scenario draft called Shards of the Silver Mount a while back and tackled some ideas pertaining Numeria.
Wizard Archetype: Technomancer: some unique spells such as detect construct and an explanation for why the Gearsmen dont go farther than Numeria:
1. What the Archivist (my name for the 'leader' of the Gearsmen) is looking for is in and around Numeria.
2. There is a Power Generation Field encompassing most of Numeria that radiates from the Silver Mount. This field is what powers the Gearsmen, at times the field may pulse and radiate a bit farther or may shrink which is another reason you havent seen them elsewhere.
3. This field also serves to maintain a constant connection to the Silver Mount and the 'Archivist' which is why sometimes the Gearsmen act erratically when they get internal messages.
I like pretty much all of the Distant Worlds setting material, although honestly I would rank Castrovel, and Akiton above Verces in interest (Simply because they are different flavors of fantasy than the typical quasi-medieval situation in most RPGs/fantasy books. Whereas Verces seems to appeal to more common tropes)
I just bought the Distant Worlds PDF (pretty much because of this thread) and just flipped through the solar system section real quick. Basically what I want to do now is design a one-shot set on Castrovel and tell my group that we're doing "high fantasy with a lot of magic."
Just let them play through it as-is. Then at the end of the session an NPC stretches an arm to the night sky, extends a finger towards a pin point of light and tells them that the rest of their quest (if they chose to accept it) lies on Golarion.
I actually love asian mythos and Ninjas and find it silly that you compare that with robots, Laserguns and mobile phones which don't fit in with the stuff I've read so far from Pathfinder.
And I can live with any planet AP, just don't mix it with technical laserstuff and I'll live and don't overdo the bestiaries with mechanical lasermonsters.
I actually love asian mythos and Ninjas and find it silly that you compare that with robots, Laserguns and mobile phones which don't fit in with the stuff I've read so far from Pathfinder.
And I can live with any planet AP, just don't mix it with technical laserstuff and I'll live and don't overdo the bestiaries with mechanical lasermonsters.
I see no difference between a robot with a beam attack then a dragon with a breath weapon except the dragons gonna fly and lay waste to your settlement.
one of the adventures in the Reign of Winter adventure path is going to be on *gasp* another planet!!
WHAT. How did I not know that? Oh man that makes me so happy.
Also, we DESPERATELY NEED a Distant Worlds Hardcover.
+10,000
I actually love asian mythos and Ninjas and find it silly that you compare that with robots, Laserguns and mobile phones which don't fit in with the stuff I've read so far from Pathfinder.
And I can live with any planet AP, just don't mix it with technical laserstuff and I'll live and don't overdo the bestiaries with mechanical lasermonsters.
Thing is, there are close minded people like you that hated the Tian Xia setting when it was announced. People made the same arguments you did about it not fitting with what they considered fantasy, even calling us "weeabos" that only wanted overpowered, tank-slicing katanas (much like your remarks about us wanting Griffs and 'lazors'). And lo and behold, we got that setting and the haters realized that they could just not run it if they didn't like it. Some, like a friend of mine, went from hating it to falling in love with the Tian Xia adventures. And Golarion wasn't teeming with firearms and ninjas like everyone thought.
Point is, you don't have to like it and you don't have to buy it. But don't go around tell us we shouldn't like it either.
I see no difference between a robot with a beam attack then a dragon with a breath weapon except the dragons gonna fly and lay waste to your settlement.I actually love asian mythos and Ninjas and find it silly that you compare that with robots, Laserguns and mobile phones which don't fit in with the stuff I've read so far from Pathfinder.
And I can live with any planet AP, just don't mix it with technical laserstuff and I'll live and don't overdo the bestiaries with mechanical lasermonsters.
There is also no difference between a robot and an iron golem. Or a Clockwork golem. That's a robot.
Odraude, don't let Sincubus pull you out of your cool. Just ignore them.
This is becoming transparent. Paizo is going to take the feedback into account, sure, but they're also smart people. They can see what is going on here. We all can.
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I don't remember Verces being mentioned for any part of Reign of Winter. But I remember Triaxus wich interest me more to be honest.
I think James Jacobs just put the nix on Verces showing up in the Ask JJ thread. "Two planets are featured in Reign of Winter, and one of them is Golarion" basically, and I think Triaxus was explicitly mentioned already.
I could see Verces fitting the theme if it involved Darkside, but I think people might be reading too much into its appearance on the list of destinations for Baba Yaga's Hut.
(but I do so very much want a Verces adventure, or a Verces anything)
(no, I want the Verces everything)
If we get to see more pictures of Amiri - Barbarian Space Princess, I'm all for some Verces action.
Heck, I'd not mind some Valeros of Akiton pictures either, but enough of my blathering.
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I fear Akiton Valeros might have to be played Disney-safe as far as dress code goes.
I think that's also why the module Sapphic Drider Empresses of Akiton was cancelled. :(
I see no difference between a robot with a beam attack then a dragon with a breath weapon except the dragons gonna fly and lay waste to your settlement.
That one is easy to explain. Dragon's don't need their joints to be oiled nor do they need their 9 volts replaced every so often. Robots don't need to be fed cattle nor do they need to sleep on beds made of vast hords of treasure. I hope this helps you see the difference. ;-)
On a more serious note: While I am new to Pathfinder and am still exploring the earlier works, I welcome any and all new options presented to me. I then select those I want to use and ignore those I don't. But I would always rather have more options then less.