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I still think Paizo could have saved a LOT of development time, and managed to put out a better balanced system by just licensing Ultimate Psionics as an official Pathfinder book.
Possibly, but when quite a few of your developers have stated on multiple occasions that they're not fond of the system, it's kind of an inevitability that they'd avoid it.
Same issue with DSP's other product, Path of War. Paizo devs (some, not all) have on more than one occasion stated their dislike for Book of Nine Swords. Thus it was a pretty safe bet to never expect a system like that from Paizo. Hence a third-party company like DSP, with developers like ErrantX who ARE fans of that system, being the ones to come up with a Pathfinder expansion/upgrade/conversion/inspired-by product.
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I still think Paizo could have saved a LOT of development time, and managed to put out a better balanced system by just licensing Ultimate Psionics as an official Pathfinder book.Possibly, but when quite a few of your developers have stated on multiple occasions that they're not fond of the system, it's kind of an inevitability that they'd avoid it.
I love 3.5 psionics. Before our group switched to Pathfinder and played a self-converted Rise of the Runelords, my ongoing homebrew game had a psion(seer), a wilder, a psychic warrior, a paladin who multiclassed into psychic warrior based on his backstory, a ninja lawyer binder, and a cleric with a codependent mind seed of the BBEG's love interest/right-hand as a cohort. The BBEG was a cerebromancer/binder (binder was a dip for epic vestige from the epic binder blog post), and the right-hand was a psion(telepath). Heck, the "Rogue Eidolon" handle comes from a double-meaning of the monster name and a Ghostwalk eidoloncer psion(telepath) character of mine.
Having said all that, I think that what we're putting out in Occult Adventures is going to reach a broader audience. Why? Because I think some of this stuff is amazingly awesome, so since it's got its own niche, I think psionics fans like me will want to use this too. But this book is going to have less of a footprint than psionics does for GMs, so some GMs who don't want to handle psionics' footprint (and while psionics was as balanced as any other mass-infusion of new spells [in other words, the powers were balanced by being better at some things and worse at others, so a group with psions and wizards both could cherrypick the best of both sides and increase their power over just having one, par for the course] if you incorporated and understood that footprint, it did have a fairly sizable one) will be able to get use out of Occult Adventures that they couldn't out of psionics.
In summary, I think this book will be exciting for psionics-lovers, psionics-agnositics, and psionics-haters alike, which, if I'm right, will be even better than releasing our own psionics would be (presumably psionics-haters would hate that and psionics-agnostics may remain agnostic) while also recognizing the hard work that DSP did by not stepping on their toes like our own psionics would (let's be real, DSP did a solid job with psionics, but if we put out our own psionics that were better in some ways and worse in others, a mixed bag so to speak, many people might buy ours just because its from us and so more visible, and miss out entirely on searching through 3pps and finding DSP's stuff).
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Oh I know it's not all of you guys. But there have been some who have come out and said they have no interest in a point-based casting system.
While I actually did really like the ACG it was kind of clear that some classes were more loved than others. That isn't even a balance thing, the most powerful class (the arcanist) was definitely not the most loved as it was powerful in a kind of rote assumed way. It really felt like some classes, particularly swashbuckler, investigator, and bloodrager, had a lot more work put into them than the other classes. Now all of those classes are great and probably the best balanced of the bunch, it was kind of weird seeing 3 swashbuckler specific items and feats for every 1 class specific item or feat for other classes.
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i myself have never been a fan of Psionics, maybe never will, i am however a huge fan of Brandon Hodges, and if he's heavily involved i cant imagine how it could be less then spectacular:)
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Fear not, your damning praise will be quickly silenced by all the "ha ha Failzo hates point-based psionics so they're giving us another vancian system where casters rule and martials drool' people ;-)I expect Occult Mysteries to be amazing though, because so many of the people at Paizo love the concept. They've been planning and ruminating on something they love and are excited about, and love is where the real magic comes from.
How good that there are droolbags so nothing get´s spilled on the floor.
Paizo is just more or less doing the same thing WoT and TSR before them has done. Milk the franchise for the most money they can. I think they got a bit bigger a lot faster than they have planned for and they want to sell more product to make more money.
I have not bought a new PDF/Book since Ultimate Camapaign though, not a fan of WAR art as I think it looks goofy and I never invested heavily in PF anyway compared with 3.5 as I knew it would go the same way.
I have a couple of APs, Ultimate Magic/Combat, Inner Sea World Guide, the core book and bestiary+ a few PDFs.
When you think about it that is a lot of fun right there and I am in a less is more mode atm playing Castles and Crusades and AD&D more than PF these days. Hell even having some fun with 5E not sure if I will buy into that heavily. Buying more and more bloat doesn't appeal to me and the last AP I cared about was Skull and Shackles although I am playing in Reign of Winter but I did not buy it.
Not saying it's the case in this particular instance, but: because what vocal posters say they want/say they're buying/say about how they're playing and what data shows the majority of customers actually do/what they buy/how they play are often radically different.Because the Customer is NOT Always Right.How can that not be true??There is absolutely no one better to judge the acceptable level of quality than the consumer.
I dont know if that's true.
The consumer as a whole is a broad term. The bigger the consumer base, the more base the product must be to appeal to the broadest group of people. Appealing to consumers on a broad level tends to make things dumbed down and uninteresting.
The Consumer is ultimately a big o' ball of bi-polarity. Too many people want one thing. I think its best if the product is simmply based on the image of what the devs think it should be, and that the community hopefully agrees enough to keep the company afloat.
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that people who are angry are more likely to express it than people who are satisfied?
Unless the subsequent books of 5th Edition radically change things up, it'll be like living back in 1979. By that, I mean 5th Edition will be OD&D, and Pathfinder will be AD&D. And we all know which version "won out" for all-around sales in that "edition war" (although OD&D DID last longer than 1st Edition, but still).
I don't. I was born in '91. What happened, exactly? The OD&D/AD&D/1st Edition/2nd Edition/Red Box stuff is confusing.
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I still think Paizo could have saved a LOT of development time, and managed to put out a better balanced system by just licensing Ultimate Psionics as an official Pathfinder book.
Your powers of precognition are amazing... are you psionic?
In regards to the Brawler, I think that it is an attempt to make a viable unarmed/grappling character who doesn't have to be a monk. Yes there is the Martial Artist and Pugilst archtypes, but they don't fit the bill for some. 3.0/3.5 did have the Reaping Mauler but it underwent a huge nerf in the 3.5 rules(Have to multiclass, only a 5 level PrC instead of 10)
Unless the subsequent books of 5th Edition radically change things up, it'll be like living back in 1979. By that, I mean 5th Edition will be OD&D, and Pathfinder will be AD&D. And we all know which version "won out" for all-around sales in that "edition war" (although OD&D DID last longer than 1st Edition, but still).I don't. I was born in '91. What happened, exactly? The OD&D/AD&D/1st Edition/2nd Edition/Red Box stuff is confusing.
OD&D was the original D&D and came out in 1974 and lasted to 1977 or so although briefly TSR had 3 D&Ds on sale at once- OD&D, AD&D and Basic D&D.
AD&D came out in 1977 and the last core book came out in 1979. Holmes D&D (AKA basic D&D) also came out in 1977 and you could go to level 3.
The expert set expanded basic D&D in 1981 IIRC and you could now go to level 14 while 1st ed in theory had unlimited advancement it was really for level 1-12 or so. he red boxed set came out 1983 and it was the Mentzer edition and to this day became the biggest selling D&D item of all time with 1-1.5 million units sold.1983 was the peak of D&D in a financial sense and probably in terms of the most people playing it. TSR got to 27 million dollars or close to 50 million in today's currency which is about twice 3.5 or 4 times the size of Paizo circa 2012.It was a brief heyday though.
As the 80's trickled on AD&D started to eat into BECMI sales as the focus started to shift towards AD&D with things like Dragonlance and the Temple of Elemental Evil and Unearthed Arcana. This kind of cost them the casual crowd though as the higher level options for BECMI were not as popular as things like the red box set. Or the D&D fad was over.
TSR got themselves in trouble in 1984 though as they assumed the double digit growth would continue and the market contracted by 20-30% instead and TSR had bloated to 300 odd employees or around 6 times the size of Paizo and 18 times the size of the current WoTC development team.This lead to the exit of Gygax and Frank Mentzer who was the lead on the Basic D&D line more or less.
AD&D became the flagship and by 1987 they started work on 2nd ed as 1st ed was a decade old and Dragonlance was kind of the big kahuna. 1987 also saw the Realms come out and gradually that displaced Dragonlance as the flagship product in 2E era.
So Greyhawk was the world and then Mystara (BECMI) became popular then Dragonlance then the Realms.
TSR shifted away from things like adventures and DM material towards settings and players option books starting around 1985.
Early D&D 101 more or less.
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Unless the subsequent books of 5th Edition radically change things up, it'll be like living back in 1979. By that, I mean 5th Edition will be OD&D, and Pathfinder will be AD&D. And we all know which version "won out" for all-around sales in that "edition war" (although OD&D DID last longer than 1st Edition, but still).I don't. I was born in '91. What happened, exactly? The OD&D/AD&D/1st Edition/2nd Edition/Red Box stuff is confusing.
1974 - Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson create Dungeon & Dragons.
1977 - Gygax doesn't want to share profits from D&D with Arneson, so he creates Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. In addition, John Eric Holmes creates the Basic Set, intended as an intro to the game. It is based on the original 1974 game, and covers levels 1-3.
1981 - Tom Moldvay revises the Basic Set, and expands it with another boxed set, the Expert Set, which adds levels 4-14.
1983 - Frank Mentzer revises the Basic and Expert sets, and adds another three boxed sets to further expand the rules (Companion for levels 15-25, Master for levels 26-36, and Immortals for post-level 36 / essentially gods).
1989 - Karma bites Gygax in the ass. Just as he published a new edition to basically kick Arneson out the door, TSR publishes AD&D 2nd Edition to kick Gygax out the door.
1991 - The Mentzer BECMI sets are slightly revised and collected into a single hardcover, the D&D Rules Cyclopedia.
2000 - Wizards of the Coast publishes 3rd Edition. This editions neuters in-game traps, however it ramps up the lethality of trap options. :P Monte Cook laughs evilly. All support for the Basic D&D editions is ceased.
2003 - WotC publishes an new edition, but they only number it as a "half edition" so as not to anger geeks worldwide. D&D v3.5 is born. Splatbook production goes into overdrive.
2008 - WotC publishes 4th Edition. Like 3rd edition, it throws away the entire previous system. It becomes the most polarizing edition of D&D ever. The edition wars truly begin in earnest, as the by-now widespread internet allows geeks from all over the world to insult each other and accuse each other of having BADWRONGFUN.
2012 - WotC essentially ceases all support for 4th edition, and begins playtesting for "D&D Next". Or 5th Edition, as anyone with a brain knows it will actually be known as.
2014 - WotC publishes 5th Edition. Like 3rd and 4th edition, it dumps the system that preceeded it for something brand new.
Unless the subsequent books of 5th Edition radically change things up, it'll be like living back in 1979. By that, I mean 5th Edition will be OD&D, and Pathfinder will be AD&D. And we all know which version "won out" for all-around sales in that "edition war" (although OD&D DID last longer than 1st Edition, but still).I don't. I was born in '91. What happened, exactly? The OD&D/AD&D/1st Edition/2nd Edition/Red Box stuff is confusing.1974 - Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson create Dungeon & Dragons.
1977 - Gygax doesn't want to share profits from D&D with Arneson, so he creates Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. In addition, John Eric Holmes creates the Basic Set, intended as an intro to the game. It is based on the original 1974 game, and covers levels 1-3.
1981 - Tom Moldvay revises the Basic Set, and expands it with another boxed set, the Expert Set, which adds levels 4-14.
1983 - Frank Mentzer revises the Basic and Expert sets, and adds another three boxed sets to further expand the rules (Companion for levels 15-25, Master for levels 26-36, and Immortals for post-level 36 / essentially gods).
1989 - Karma bites Gygax in the ass. Just as he published a new edition to basically kick Arneson out the door, TSR publishes AD&D 2nd Edition to kick Gygax out the door.
1991 - The Mentzer BECMI sets are slightly revised and collected into a single hardcover, the D&D Rules Cyclopedia.
2000 - Wizards of the Coast publishes 3rd Edition. This editions neuters in-game traps, however it ramps up the lethality of trap options. :P Monte Cook laughs evilly. All support for the Basic D&D editions is ceased.
2002 - WotC publishes an new edition, but they only number it as a "half edition" so as not to anger geeks worldwide. D&D v3.5 is born. Splatbook production goes into overdrive.
2008 - WotC publishes 4th Edition. Like 3rd edition, it throws away the entire previous system. It becomes the most polarizing edition of D&D ever....
3.5 was 2003, Gygax was out the door in 1985 not 1989.
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3.5 was 2003, Gygax was out the door in 1985 not 1989.
Corrected for 3.5. However, having an edition that Gygax didn't get profits from was one of the reasons that 2nd Edition was published. He might not have been with TSR anymore, but he was still entitled to a percentage from the AD&D sales. Not so for 2E.
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I can't get behind the idea that the reason is because you hired too many people.This won't be a popular response, but perhaps if the very clear priority of keeping the LGBT flag waving wasn't quite so front and center, if the social engineering and universal representation were left to the players and GM's themselves, the focus on these many other issues presented might be greater.
We can't get answers to any of dozens of questions in the FAQ, have classes coming out after months of playtests which immediately need tons of errata and the much-heralded Mythic ruleset is broken pretty much as soon as you get into the meat of it... but hey, we all know EXACTLY how much a sex-change potion will cost!
I find your choice of topic interesting. You see, creating an LGBT character doesn't really take any more effort that creating a heterosexual character. I have never seen anyone claim it does. Writing up a potion? About ten minutes. It's not a significant time expenditure at all. So, I am left with the impression that you have an issue that goes beyond the overall editing and rules quality of Paizo products. The use of the phrase "social engineering" is even more telling. I have never seen that phrase used by somebody who isn't bigoted against some other group.
I'm not saying the two are related, but in earlier pathfinder materials, the focus wasn't so great, the constant LGBT banner wasn't so zealously waved and many of these issues weren't near so pronounced either.If I remember correctly, homosexual characters in Paizo APs predate Pathfinder.
Can we skip the social agenda,Paizo sells fiction. There is no such thing as fiction that does not have a social agenda of some sort.
cut the rules bloat and just get back to what Paizo has always been best at - telling great stories through gaming?
You can ban anything you consider bloat at your table.
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Not only that, you can change anything you and your group may find unappealing with hardly any effort.
As far as the potion bit versus the FAQ goes, it is pretty easy (as mentioned above) to hammer out a simple magic item. The FAQ, on the other hand, likely requires conversation with multiple people and digging through rules and interpretations and, although I wish it didn't have to consider this, the consideration of if you should change things and how much/how little grar and screaming you are going to get out of it.
Every time there is a new answer, the forums have to decide which side gets the pitch forks and torches and what the rallying cries will be.
As far as the LGBT banner bit -- the gaming community and communities in general are made up of all sorts of people. The vast majority, regardless of what you may believe, are incredibly nice and creative people who all want to play a game that has heroes that resemble them. And they deserve it. So a bit of banner waving now and again is good for the game, the community, and the world. And this is how we continue to get great stories. For peoples of all sorts. That is why I love Paizo.
Sorry for the soapbox.
I'm not sure I could trust Mr. Hodges. After all I use Mac OS, and he's a PC. :)
Just more evidence of sound judgement on his part. ;)
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I was born in '91.
*Boggle*
Wow, is my spot in the old folk's home ready yet? :P
I was born in '91.*Boggle*
Wow, is my spot in the old folk's home ready yet? :P
Right there with you buddy. >.>
Right there with you buddy. >.>I was born in '91.*Boggle*
Wow, is my spot in the old folk's home ready yet? :P
Your still kids.....
You're still kids.....
Fine, fine. We're getting off your lawn. ;)
Chief Technical Officer
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I supported the recent legendary gamess mythic kickstarter, and the plan seems to be to send out the pdfs to us, then gather the feedback to fix every typo and only then send it to the printer.
I appreciate, that this might cause some trouble with retail, but would this be an option you would be willing to experiment with?
Crowdsourcing development and editing come with their own problems. Yes, you will probably catch and fix more mistakes, but the in-house effort spent to find each issue will be significantly higher. Let me give you a small-scale example:
Whenever we prepare to reprint a book, we have somebody—usually Jason—scan the FAQ queue and go through the main discussion threads for that product looking for things that need to be fixed. This is a process that might take a few days. Then, he and his team work on solving those problems if they haven't already been solved. During this process, they will also be investigating problem reports that are actually false positives; for example, somebody might have complained that a number in a stat block is wrong, but when we redo the math, we often find that we were right in the first place. This might take another few days. At the end of it, we have a list of changes that then go through editing, layout, and proofing, meaning more people spending more days. And the end result of that work gets summed up in an errata doc that's usually less than a page or two. In short, many man-hours of effort that result in maybe a dozen little changes.
Now image that we do that as an open call. Our days would turn into weeks, and maybe our errata doc would grow from a dozen items to two dozen, with each of the additional items very likely being far less noticeable than the previous dozen. It's the law of diminishing returns.
And crowdsourcing still won't catch everything. We're in our 6th printing of the Core Rulebook now, and in each printing, we've made corrections in response to our community identifying problems, which is a pretty similar effect to the crowdsourcing you describe. An amazingly high number of people have been using that book every day—it's referenced far more that any other book players use, for sure—yet we're *still* finding problems that nobody pointed out in the first five years the book was out.
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I still think Paizo could have saved a LOT of development time, and managed to put out a better balanced system by just licensing Ultimate Psionics as an official Pathfinder book.Possibly, but when quite a few of your developers have stated on multiple occasions that they're not fond of the system, it's kind of an inevitability that they'd avoid it.
Same issue with DSP's other product, Path of War. Paizo devs (some, not all) have on more than one occasion stated their dislike for Book of Nine Swords. Thus it was a pretty safe bet to never expect a system like that from Paizo. Hence a third-party company like DSP, with developers like ErrantX who ARE fans of that system, being the ones to come up with a Pathfinder expansion/upgrade/conversion/inspired-by product.
And this is the beauty of OGL and 3PP. The game is not limited to one developer/set of developers preferences and approach. Options and other ideas are always good.
One ACG criticism which I belive warrants some merit is the issue of disjunction between the class chapter (which was, AFAIK, written by Jason/Sean/Stephen) and the archetypes and feats chapters which are, again I'm guessing, outsourced to freelancers mostly. As a result, there's less coherency and consistency than it would be if everything would be written just by 3 guys. Of course the question is, whether such model is necessary to be able to put the book in a reasonable time at all.
I do think that Paizo needs to look at how they design archetypes and feats in particular, because that's where I see the most problems. A lot of archetypes are thematically awesome and mechanically underwhelming, across multiple books.
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I supported the recent legendary gamess mythic kickstarter, and the plan seems to be to send out the pdfs to us, then gather the feedback to fix every typo and only then send it to the printer.
I appreciate, that this might cause some trouble with retail, but would this be an option you would be willing to experiment with?
Crowdsourcing development and editing come with their own problems. Yes, you will probably catch and fix more mistakes, but the in-house effort spent to find each issue will be significantly higher. Let me give you a small-scale example:
Whenever we prepare to reprint a book, we have somebody—usually Jason—scan the FAQ queue and go through the main discussion threads for that product looking for things that need to be fixed. This is a process that might take a few days. Then, he and his team work on solving those problems if they haven't already been solved. During this process, they will also be investigating problem reports that are actually false positives; for example, somebody might have complained that a number in a stat block is wrong, but when we redo the math, we often find that we were right in the first place. This might take another few days. At the end of it, we have a list of changes that then go through editing, layout, and proofing, meaning more people spending more days. And the end result of that work gets summed up in an errata doc that's usually less than a page or two. In short, many man-hours of effort that result in maybe a dozen little changes.
Now image that we do that as an open call. Our days would turn into weeks, and maybe our errata doc would grow from a dozen items to two dozen, with each of the additional items very likely being far less noticeable than the previous dozen. It's the law of diminishing returns.
And crowdsourcing still won't catch everything. We're in our 6th printing of the Core Rulebook now, and in each printing, we've made corrections in response to our community identifying...
The change may be physically small, but the impact would be large. Also, I don't see how 3 weeks of subscriber's editing notes would be exponentially larger than 2 years of notes generated by the entire community. Likely it would be the other way round. But many/most of the 'initiated reader' editing mistakes would get caught that cause an FAQ backlog before the product even has its street date. As well as most of the copy/paste, spelling, and omission issues.
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Right there with you buddy. >.>I was born in '91.*Boggle*
Wow, is my spot in the old folk's home ready yet? :P
91 is when my baby sister was born <_<
91 is when my baby sister was born <_<Right there with you buddy. >.>I was born in '91.*Boggle*
Wow, is my spot in the old folk's home ready yet? :P
91 is the year before i met my wife:) i turned 15 that year
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I turned nine! :D
(We went to Lithuania shortly thereafter!)
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Problem with 3PP: Most do not accept 3PP.And this is the beauty of OGL and 3PP. The game is not limited to one developer/set of developers preferences and approach. Options and other ideas are always good.I still think Paizo could have saved a LOT of development time, and managed to put out a better balanced system by just licensing Ultimate Psionics as an official Pathfinder book.Possibly, but when quite a few of your developers have stated on multiple occasions that they're not fond of the system, it's kind of an inevitability that they'd avoid it.
Same issue with DSP's other product, Path of War. Paizo devs (some, not all) have on more than one occasion stated their dislike for Book of Nine Swords. Thus it was a pretty safe bet to never expect a system like that from Paizo. Hence a third-party company like DSP, with developers like ErrantX who ARE fans of that system, being the ones to come up with a Pathfinder expansion/upgrade/conversion/inspired-by product.
That's not a problem with the OGL or 3PP, it's a problem with the GMs who don't use it. The material is there, and it does some really great work in the design space of the system... for those that want to look at it.
And while many do not use it, it's there for those who are interested in mechanical ideas in the system that are in areas the 1st party designers don't/won't/don't have time to developed.
Yeah I wouldn't say that MOST GMs don't accept 3pp, but there are definitely a vocal subset who don't.
I imagine the majority of GMs allow "whatever I have books for", and if a player brings a 3rd-party supplement to the table they wouldn't much look twice. This was my experience with 3.5 - even as broken as some of that stuff was - and I doubt it's changed with Pathfinder.
Even among us exceptions here, the vocal minority that actually posts on Paizo, I'd still say it's closer to 50/50 do/don't allow 3pp than a sure majority one way or another.
its never come up for me, but if someone brought a 3PP supplement/adventure and asked me if they could use it or if i'd run it, i would do it every time, i personally have very limited fun money so i have to be very very picky in what i choose, so i generally stick with paizo but if something came along i just had to have i'd certainly look into it (i very much want Razor Coast but can't afford it)
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I'm sorry you had such a negative experience with the book, Dragon. While I don't agree with the premise of this thread in general, it is true that last year had a couple of significant challenges that may have contributed to some of the problems you cite.
Many of those factors (losing a core member of the design team, developing a bonus hardcover superadventure to support a huge Kickstarter campaign, and developing a book as visually complex and ambitious as the Strategy Guide) are not likely to occur in 2015, so I am personally optimistic about the future.
I am working on Occult Adventures (next year's Gen Con release) as a freelancer, and have had lots of opportunity to participate in the overall conception of the book. I've also worked closely with each member of the design team, all of whom have been uniformly terrific and on-point in every discussion I've had with them.
That book is going to be fantastic.
If we fell short of your expectations with the Advanced Class Guide, I'm confident that the books coming up will regain some of that faith you have lost. I have a lot of faith in them, and in those yet to come.
Erik,
I have full faith that Occult Adventures is going to rock, for the same reason I suspect that the ACG missed a lot of marks.When I interviewed you at PAX last year, I saw the excitement in your eyes when you talked about a type of occult psychic magic as a possible future endeavor for Paizo, and the possibilities that you guys might explore there. You mentioned how other members of the staff were also very interested in the idea, and since you've announced Occult Adventures we've heard from other people brought on to the project and that same ecitement can be seen universally. It's that love.
I think even if the blatant editing errors were not present in the ACG there's still be a higher than normal dissatisfaction with it, and I think that can be traced back to the very idea behind the book, the concept of hybrid classes. The idea...
I actually disagree with this. A lot of what I've seen, including my own thoughts, actually like the idea of the hybrid classes and it doesn't feel lazy to us. It's just the editing was done poorly.
Also consider me someone that is a fan of psionics, but not a fan of the spell point system. Not out of balance, but out of preference. I prefer Vancian and I've wanted a Vancian form of psionics for a long time. And 15 years hasn't shown that Vancian magic is unbalanced, rather the spells themselves need work. The concept of spell slots isn't inherently unbalanced, nor do I consider it "not real magic".
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91 is the year before i met my wife:) i turned 15 that yearIn '91 my wife and I celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary ...
I was four and wetting the bed being a regular bad ass!
I can't get behind the idea that the reason is because you hired too many people.This won't be a popular response, but perhaps if the very clear priority of keeping the LGBT flag waving wasn't quite so front and center, if the social engineering and universal representation were left to the players and GM's themselves, the focus on these many other issues presented might be greater.
We can't get answers to any of dozens of questions in the FAQ, have classes coming out after months of playtests which immediately need tons of errata and the much-heralded Mythic ruleset is broken pretty much as soon as you get into the meat of it... but hey, we all know EXACTLY how much a sex-change potion will cost!
I find your choice of topic interesting. You see, creating an LGBT character doesn't really take any more effort that creating a heterosexual character. I have never seen anyone claim it does. Writing up a potion? About ten minutes. It's not a significant time expenditure at all. So, I am left with the impression that you have an issue that goes beyond the overall editing and rules quality of Paizo products. The use of the phrase "social engineering" is even more telling. I have never seen that phrase used by somebody who isn't bigoted against some other group.
I'm not saying the two are related, but in earlier pathfinder materials, the focus wasn't so great, the constant LGBT banner wasn't so zealously waved and many of these issues weren't near so pronounced either.If I remember correctly, homosexual characters in Paizo APs predate Pathfinder.Can we skip the social agenda,Paizo sells fiction. There is no such thing as fiction that does not have a social agenda of some sort.cut the rules bloat and just get back to what Paizo has always been best at - telling great stories through gaming?You can ban anything you consider bloat at your table.
I thought it was funny that she posts about how she wants to live in a world where nobody cares if there is an LGBT character (assuming because it is just accepted at that point), but then complains where there are *gasp* two couples in one AP. I just assumed she'd shrug and say "Oh, two LGBT couples? No big deal."
Sounds less of a problem with Paizo and more of a problem with a person.
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Paizo sells fiction. There is no such thing as fiction that does not have a social agenda of some sort.
Eh, on this we'll have to disagree. I've read plenty of books whose only "agenda" was to tell an entertaining story, with no intent nor result to challenge any perceptions or status-quo. Doesn't make them any less entertaining IMO. So I can't say I agree with the idea that all fiction has an agenda, social or otherwise, beyond telling a tale.
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Paizo sells fiction. There is no such thing as fiction that does not have a social agenda of some sort.Eh, on this we'll have to disagree. I've read plenty of books whose only "agenda" was to tell an entertaining story, with no intent nor result to challenge any perceptions or status-quo. Doesn't make them any less entertaining IMO. So I can't say I agree with the idea that all fiction has an agenda, social or otherwise, beyond telling a tale.
It's all backstory that rounds out the characters. Why do we need to know that Shalelu has an estranged step-father? Why do we need to know that Ameiko's dad is a huge douche? Why do we need to know that Koya has always wanted to travel and leave Varisia? for all the same reason. Backstory. At the end of the day, it's all unimportant. But it makes the characters relatable and more real than saying "This is Hass Delgado, the elven blacksmith that's only here to craft your items.
Almost every author is grinding an axe of some sort, even if it's not a social agenda. Something drives the creative impulse in those who truly have it. It tends to be different from person to person though. And not everyone who's driven has talent.Paizo sells fiction. There is no such thing as fiction that does not have a social agenda of some sort.Eh, on this we'll have to disagree. I've read plenty of books whose only "agenda" was to tell an entertaining story, with no intent nor result to challenge any perceptions or status-quo. Doesn't make them any less entertaining IMO. So I can't say I agree with the idea that all fiction has an agenda, social or otherwise, beyond telling a tale.
I guess either I'm oblivious unless it's in-your-face blunt, or the authors I read are pretty good at hiding it.
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I just don't see why "I want to tell a story" can't be reason enough, as it's always been enough for me personally.
I guess I need someone to explain it to me. Because while I don't deny there are stories that are written with the purpose of "here's my opinion on this subject, set in the context of fiction", those aren't the sort of things I tend to read - I'm more a fan of the books that start with the premise of "wouldn't it be cool if X happened? Let's extrapolate from there".
I obviously can't refute the idea that SOME stories are written with that in mind, but the idea that ALL fiction is written for the purpose of axegrinding is so alien to me as to be unfathomable, so maybe someone just needs to put it in language I can comprehend. Maybe I need to list out some books/book series I enjoy and have someone tell me what the axes are being ground in them, because I can't see them for some reason.
Or maybe my definition of axegrinding is just more specific than some of yours, and thus many books I read just don't qualify by my definition but they do by yours?
I just don't see why "I want to tell a story" can't be reason enough, as it's always been enough for me personally.
I guess I need someone to explain it to me. Because while I don't deny there are stories that are written with the purpose of "here's my opinion on this subject, set in the context of fiction", those aren't the sort of things I tend to read - I'm more a fan of the books that start with the premise of "wouldn't it be cool if X happened? Let's extrapolate from there".
I obviously can't refute the idea that SOME stories are written with that in mind, but the idea that ALL fiction is written for the purpose of axegrinding is so alien to me as to be unfathomable, so maybe someone just needs to put it in language I can comprehend. Maybe I need to list out some books/book series I enjoy and have someone tell me what the axes are being ground in them, because I can't see them for some reason.
Or maybe my definition of axegrinding is just more specific than some of yours, and thus many books I read just don't qualify by my definition but they do by yours?
Like I said, one person's story-telling is another person's agenda pushing. If, for an NPC's background I wrote:
"Gary owns an inn, where he serves cool beer to patrons while his husband entertains them by playing the piano."
Some would say that is agenda pushing, while others wouldn't. I find that it reflects more on the person and less on the book. If you're always looking for agenda pushing, you're going to find it.
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Fair enough.