Susan Tedeschi, Dar Williams, Maia Sharpe, Gaelic Storm (Nancy Whiskey)
Gaelic Storm's a regular performer in my hometown, and I actually hung out with them once at Irishfest. :-)
I like Dar Williams, but am not familiar with Maia Sharpe or Susan Tedeschi -- I'll check them out. Thanks!
Well, I love Seattle something fierce. I love going to San Francisco, although I'm not sure I'd want to live there.
Trust me, you don;t. I always tell folks that Seattle is SF as it should be, without the smell, the violent homeless, the crime, the high prices and the antipathy to cars.
How long have you been gaming? And what have you played, RPG-wise?
Oh, and James Sutter has been doing a excellent job, I am very impressed with the quality of the fiction coming from you guys. And, since I am a fairly well known reviewer, I think I can say I know what I am talking about.
Ah, no love for the Babylon 5 references... Wouldn't be the first time.*
*=All meant in humor.
Do you still get time to actually Play RPGs? (If so, which are you currently playing?)
Ah, no love for the Babylon 5 references... Wouldn't be the first time.*
*=All meant in humor.
You must have missed my response.
Saw Gaelic Storm live in my home town of Idaho Falls a few years ago, now its the standard for my 2.5 mile run five ties a week
Ever hear of CircaPaleo?
Nope. Will look them up.
How long have you been gaming? And what have you played, RPG-wise?
I grew up playing board and card games. My first RPG experience was when I moved out to Seattle six years ago. It was a 3.5 campaign that lasted four sessions, IIRC. Then my boyfriend at the time asked me if I'd be interested in playing in a campaign with his friends Lisa and Vic. I said yes, and have been in that game ever since. (I think we're going on 4 years, now.) I have been GMing a campaign for a different group of friends for almost a year now, and have been playing in a campaign run by another friend (although it's on hiatus right now) for about the same length of time.
I also tried out a few shorter indie RPG games (Lady Blackbird and a few others whose names I can't recall) with my friends Richard and Skaff while I was hosting a podcast with them. I also tried a veritable cavalcade of board games with them, and continue to play everything I can get my hands on, board-game-wise, with different groups of friends.
I play a bunch of different computer/video games as well, in my ever-diminishing free time.
Oh, and James Sutter has been doing a excellent job, I am very impressed with the quality of the fiction coming from you guys. And, since I am a fairly well known reviewer, I think I can say I know what I am talking about.
I will pass along the compliment! :-) But you should also feel free to tell him yourself in his Ask James Sutter thread.
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Do you still get time to actually Play RPGs? (If so, which are you currently playing?)
See above. :-)
You must have missed my response.Ah, no love for the Babylon 5 references... Wouldn't be the first time.*
*=All meant in humor.
Oh, found the response. Silly me I thought you were answering someone else. Lack of quotes threw me off.
Very nice :)
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I didn't feel like Kosh would have bothered including your post.
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You have officially won Coolest Project Manager of a Game Company Ever (TM). Let there be much throwing of internet confetti.
Is there any truth to the Rumor that the Paizo staff has been secretly replaced by life-like constructs that do not require meals or sleep?
Is there any truth to the Rumor that the Paizo staff has been secretly replaced by life-like constructs that do not require meals or sleep?
None whatsoever.
You mentioned Arshea in one of your posts before. Do you have any more interesting anecdotes about em?
You mentioned Arshea in one of your posts before. Do you have any more interesting anecdotes about em?
Hmm, not that I can think of. You should probably go to the developers for that. :-)
Dear Jess. Can I call you Jess? Or does Product Overlord Price suit your fancy better?
Anyway, how often do you get to make creative contributions to Golarion?
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Dear Jess. Can I call you Jess? Or does Product Overlord Price suit your fancy better?
I answer to a number of monikers and epithets. Both of the above will work, as will "Your Divine Radiance."
Anyway, how often do you get to make creative contributions to Golarion?
Scroll up a bit; I think there's a post up there that will answer your question.
Contributor
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Dear Jess. Can I call you Jess? Or does Product Overlord Price suit your fancy better?I answer to a number of monikers and epithets. Both of the above will work, as will "Your Divine Radiance."
The German style for a Kurfurstin? Durchlaucht?
Which means "your Transparency"... or "Lambentness"
You mentioned Arshea in one of your posts before. Do you have any more interesting anecdotes about em?Hmm, not that I can think of. You should probably go to the developers for that. :-)
Any specific developers?
Is there any truth to the Rumor that the Paizo staff has been secretly replaced by life-like constructs that do not require meals or sleep?None whatsoever.
Do you think the rumor may started during the production crunch for the GenCon products?
Any specific developers?You mentioned Arshea in one of your posts before. Do you have any more interesting anecdotes about em?Hmm, not that I can think of. You should probably go to the developers for that. :-)
Wes would be a good start. :-)
Do you think the rumor may started during the production crunch for the GenCon products?Is there any truth to the Rumor that the Paizo staff has been secretly replaced by life-like constructs that do not require meals or sleep?None whatsoever.
Quite possibly.
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What's the most exotic place you've lived?
Madison, WI. On a clear day, you can see the earth come up over the horizon.
I think this is now my favorite thread. :D
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What is the earliest memory you have of being a gamer?
I guess that depends on how you define "gamer." If you're talking board games, card games, etc. I'd say it was probably playing cards with my mom, my great-aunt and my grandma. I think I was four or five, and my great-aunt would pretend to cheat so I could catch her and correct her on the rules (so, any rules-lawyerish tendencies I have, I come by honestly). I also remember designing a board game about some sort of high fantasy quest and drawing the board and forcing my two-year-old sister to play it with me. She got out of it by trying to eat the pieces.
If you're talking video games, my parents didn't really see any value in them, so I didn't get to play them unless I was visiting friends. My college roommate and best friend fixed that hole in my life one evening when I came back from classes in a rotten mood. She sat me down on the couch, put a controller in my hands, and told me to shoot things until I was in a better mood. I found it very cathartic.
If you're talking RPGs, see above. :-)
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making sure meetings stay structured and on-topic,At Paizo? Is this even possible? What exactly is "off-topic" at Paizo? ;)
We've got a lot of very busy people here, and it's the people who are already busiest who seem to get pulled into the most meetings, so if I'm running the meeting, I tend to try to guide us away from discussion on anything that doesn't directly pertain to the reason the meeting was called in the first place. The last thing I want is for someone to have to stay late or come in over the weekend because what should have been a half-hour meeting ended up being two hours because everyone got distracted by a tangent. If people want to get together outside the meeting to discuss the tangent, that's great, but no one should have to sit there while people have a discussion that they're not involved in during a meeting they were required to attend.
We've got a lot of very busy people here, and it's the people who are already busiest who seem to get pulled into the most meetings, so if I'm running the meeting, I tend to try to guide us away from discussion on anything that doesn't directly pertain to the reason the meeting was called in the first place. The last thing I want is for someone to have to stay late or come in over the weekend because what should have been a half-hour meeting ended up being two hours because everyone got distracted by a tangent. If people want to get together outside the meeting to discuss the tangent, that's great, but no one should have to sit there while people have a discussion that they're not involved in during a meeting they were required to attend.making sure meetings stay structured and on-topic,At Paizo? Is this even possible? What exactly is "off-topic" at Paizo? ;)
Ye gods... I wish we had someone like you running the meetings at my organization!
How are you today?
Pretty busy getting ready for Gen Con. How are you? :-)
And from another non-GenCon-goer, how much time do you get to have non-Paizo-related fun while there?
This is my first Gen Con, barring some time back in I think 2001 or so when I wandered in for a few hours.
Thank you!
Are you a PMP?
Are you a PMP?
Nope.
How did your seminar at PAX go yesterday?
Oi, good question - I hope it ends up on youtube soon :)
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It went pretty well, I think. It was a full house, which surprised me since Seattlites don't tend to like to get up early on weekends. :-)
We got started 10 minutes late, because of how long it took to seat everyone, so we didn't have time for Q&A, which was sad, but they gave us another room to go to for that, and quite a few people followed us there. I got interviewed for a couple documentaries, so that was neat.
Polygon covered it here (although they misattributed stuff I was saying to Cameron, but she's rad, so that's okay). And The Stranger spent more column inches on it than anything else (here), so that's success, I guess. :-) There seemed to be a lot of people filming it, so it should be up on YouTube soon.
My main contribution was less anything I said on the panel and more the organization of the panel itself. All the participants are industry vets with a lot to say, strong opinions (that don't always match those of other panel participants), and a ton of stories to tell. When we first got together, we had a lot of different opinions as to what the panel was even about. So most of what I did in our prep sessions was say, "OK, it sounds like we need a three-part structure, here: define the problem, explain why anyone should care, and explain how to fix it. Now, what are the points we want to make about each of those?" A lot of us are also on a similar panel for GeekGirlCon, so I tried to push this one to be more data-driven and action-item-oriented (because that gets PAX people to listen), and hopefully we can make the GeekGirlCon one a bit more about personal experiences.
So, you know, even though I got invited to be on the panel because I'm a game writer, I ended up mostly being a project manager. :-)
It was a little strange, in a way -- I've been out of videogames for a year, now, and it was an interesting reminder of how different that world is from tabletop. (PAX in general, a few weeks after Gen Con, was a bit jarring -- I skipped the expo hall last year, and it's gotten a lot more like E3 since I ventured in last; Gen Con has a far gentler atmosphere.) The conversations taking place in videogames are related to the ones that take place in tabletop spaces (especially as concerns inclusivity and diversity), but they're also filtered through an industry that has a lot more at stake, money-wise, and therefore is a lot more afraid to just... try things. The industry has closer ties to TV and movies, as well (there's a significant number of writers who do or have done both), but it tends to lag far behind non-interactive media as far as storytelling innovation, and the development cycles taking multiple years mean that a lot of times what's innovative when the writer tries it isn't, really, by the time the game gets on shelves.
All of which is to say, tabletop gaming is in a better place to innovate story-wise, and to improve things diversity- and inclusiveness-wise. Our dev cycles are so much shorter, and we publish so much, and so much faster, and the risk in trying something new is much less -- if people don't like something, well, next month it'll be something different, and we didn't sink tens of millions of dollars and 3 years of dev time into it. So there's a lot more freedom there, and we don't have a marketing department with their fingers around the purse strings screaming at us not to rock the boat, just make more things exactly like the ones that have already sold well! (Our marketing department consists of Jenny, who's an awesome person and not afraid of new things.)
I do occasionally get a bit nostalgic -- going down to LA to rub shoulders with Hollywood types and sit in on actors recording scripts I wrote was pretty heady -- but then I do things like this panel and remember what a slog getting anything done was, and am glad I am where I am now.
It was cool to meet you at GenCon and chat about Madison and Marshfield. Now that things are mostly on schedule should we expect it to stay that way?
Mostly. We lost about 5 weeks between prepping for and attending Gen Con and Paizocon, and we were only 4 weeks ahead going into them, so we have some catching up to do. We've prepared as best we can for Emerald Spire, but it's also going to throw a bit of a wrench in things.
Those should be minor, however. The sort of things that could cause major delays would be unforeseen giant projects like the card game. :-)
As a player or as a GM?