Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Can you explain why it's preferable to dilute the brand in that way and to include dungeon dressing in with figures, rather than the way it is "usually" done* (where dungeon dressing bits are bundled separately)?
Unfortunately, no, I can't explain it. This is the way WizKids wants to do it, so that's the way we're doing it. The alternative seems to be no dungeon dressing for anyone.
I don't think WK has had as much luck as they'd like to have with some of the one-offs like the army builder sets we did for goblins and undead. I prepped an orc set and a kobold set that never got released (although the figures did) because these sets were underwhelming sales wise.
I know WK has started to include some dungeon dressing stuff in their unpainted lines. Perhaps strong sales there will have them reconsider?
I dunno.
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How much more of the surface of Golarion will be detailed out in the future? I know there has to be more and am waiting to see it.
Also any plans on an actual Epic ruleset?
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If I was going to port your unpublished Nex material into the World of Greyhawk, where should I place it?
I still use your old Greytalk materials in my campaign just about every week, by the way. The Whispering Cairn and your planar stuff for Occult Adventures are the best of your best, IMO.
A new Erik Mona adventure cannot come out too soon.
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Have you ever 'run out of steam' as a DM but felt obligated to keep going (not due to personality clashes or anything - the players are still into it, but you've just got a better idea for a campaign or have begun to get bored with the old one)?I abandon campaigns so frequently that I've lately begun to make it a feature, rather than a flaw. My Kings of Absalom game, which I've run for several different groups, is more of a series of interlinked events rather than a continuous ongoing campaign. That gives us a chance to game together for several weeks without setting up a sense that it's something we're going to be doing together forever. Even so, I've fallen off the wagon a bit in terms of circling back to reunite the groups for the third round of the campaign, so even the pros peter out from time to time.
Any tips for how to recapture the motivation/inspiration when a game begins to be a drag rather than a pleasure?It's been a while since I tried this, but most of my gaming is from my own notes or off the top of my head. Sometimes when things along those lines peter out, my tactic is to try running a "packaged" adventure instead.
Cool. Thanks, Erik.
I nearly always run published adventures, but I homebrewed for twenty years before I started doing that. Maybe I should try your tactic in reverse and go back to running off the cuff.
Cheers.
Can you explain why it's preferable to dilute the brand in that way and to include dungeon dressing in with figures, rather than the way it is "usually" done* (where dungeon dressing bits are bundled separately)?Unfortunately, no, I can't explain it. This is the way WizKids wants to do it, so that's the way we're doing it. The alternative seems to be no dungeon dressing for anyone.
I don't think WK has had as much luck as they'd like to have with some of the one-offs like the army builder sets we did for goblins and undead. I prepped an orc set and a kobold set that never got released (although the figures did) because these sets were underwhelming sales wise.
I know WK has started to include some dungeon dressing stuff in their unpainted lines. Perhaps strong sales there will have them reconsider?
I dunno.
Thanks again.
I seem to be very much in the minority, but the inclusion of dungeon dressing has taken the gloss off the PFBattles sets for me since they started. Nonetheless, I think you've done an excellent job in piece selection and "rarity" in terms of which pieces are included as duplicates.
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A new Erik Mona adventure cannot come out too soon.
Agreed.
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Will you publish material for Modiphius' Conan game?
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Do Oparians have any mechanical difference from humans besides their sub-type?
Ever thought of creating domains/subdomains for worshipping Worldscape deities in the comics?
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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So here's my question: Occult Adventures introduced some brand new elements, but none seem quite so potentially destabilizing as the Akashic Records. I understand that it's difficult to reach the (metaphysical?) place, but if a character succeeded in doing so, couldn't they effectively answer every great mystery in the Pathfinder Campaign Setting? Aroden's death, the gnome's exodus, the one true creation story, the annotated history of the aboleth empire, the biographies of every creature whether mortal, monstrous, and divine - all for the casual perusal of whoever managed to find the place.
Yes. Theoretically they could do that. Making it happen means knowing how to manipulate the plane itself, which is something that would require a high degree of psychic development not common in mortals.
You could give a cave man my laptop and he'd technically have access to every secret found on the internet, but he probably wouldn't know how to access it. He wouldn't even understand the keyboard. Sure, maybe there's a YouTube video of Ancient Rome or something playing, and he can see the pictures, but he doesn't understand the language, and can only truly understand a very small part of what he is saying.
Now imaging that multi-armed outsiders called Masters of Karma are floating around the rooms of my apartment looking for cave men, and that they bounce them out immediately when they find them meddling with my laptop (or try to, anyway).
Messing around with the Akashic Record is dangerous and unpredictable, and should be an adventure in and of itself rather than something you just plane shift into and start using like a microfiche machine at the library.
Also, in the 10 years between when this question was first posted and today, I've had this conversation with James Jacobs, and so he covers some of this topic in Planar Adventures, which has a small section on the Akashic Record.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Just read first part of hollow mountain and was just wondering if what was briefly mentioned there about Aroden was going to be brought up and expanded upon in the article on him for issue #100 of the Ap (Also kind of curious if where Harsk and Amiri have gone to will be expanded upon really hoping its to recruit Lini and co.)
That article has now come out, and we get a bit more of the scene from Aroden's perspective, as well as a good deal about "what happened next" in that Aroden article in Pathfinder #100.
Incidentally, the entire thing is a series of encounters in my Kings of Absalom game, the sort of captstone of what would be the first volume if the campaign ever became a published Adventure Path (which it won't). One PC takes on the role of Aroden and relives several scenes from the god's mortal life, with this one being the big climax.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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I should point out that the comics to date have sort of glossed over what happened to Amiri and Harsk. Harsk reappears in next month's "Spiral of Bones," so all is well with him. I think we once planned to fill in this hole with a back-up story, but we haven't gotten around to doing so just yet.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Just curious. I haven't done any deep research into the matter, but is Scientology/Dianetics connected in any way with any of the research you did for the Occult book?Because the alternate history I've heard of espoused by Scientology bears a great deal of resemblance to what you related. I wonder if it's even an offshoot of the earlier cults you talked about.
I haven't done much reading on Scientology (although for some reason I read all 10 of Hubbard's Mission Earth novels), but I suspect there is a lot of shared DNA.
I know from parallel reading that Hubbard was tight with Jack Parsons, who was a devotee of Alistair Crowley and heavily involved in Crowley's OTO. A lot of Crowley's stuff crosses over with some of the "shared world" concepts of Theosophy (although he would roll his eyes at the accusation), so there's bound to be some connectivity there.
Also, there is what appears to be a very real connection between Scientology's "Bridge to Freedom" and similar concepts in the Ascended Master cults The Church Universal and Triumphant and the I Am Activity, which are direct descendants of Theosophy. I think the connection is specifically with stuff from the pre-CUT Summit Lighthouse era, but now we're delving into things that are parallel to my interests and not in the bullseye of my knowledge, so I'll politely bow out.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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I love what you did in Crooks, for Mutants & Masterminds. Any chance that Paizo will ever dip it's toes into the (admittedly tiny) superhero RPG market, or would that just be a bad idea and split the company's focus too much, from a financial standpoint?
Never say never!
Adding a third RPG line would presently involve staffing up to the point where we exceed our current (enlarged) office space, so while I have lots of ideas on how a company could pull off something like this, Paizo is currently not that company.
Thanks for the kind words on Crooks! That was a fun book to put together.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Any interesting tidbits you learned since you started dipping your toes into miniatures ordering?
Oh, I've learned lots of things. Here are a few:
More paint steps doesn't always mean better figures. After a point, the reverse is almost always true. More paint steps is often more opportunities for mistakes.
People don't appreciate oddball choices very much. As with everything, people's wallets are far more conservative in their tastes than it might seem. The more generally useful, the better a mini will sell. Yes, you've gotta throw in choices from the heart or fun one-off pieces, but don't get crazy with it.
Beauty is the most important part of approving paint masters, but achievability at the factory level is also critical.
Thin, wispy things like lashunta antennae are damn difficult to pull off credibly.
Everything would be much, much better in terms of pretty much everything if customers would tolerate a slightly bigger figure format, but the aforementioned conservatism of gamers (and reasonable desire to mix and match figures collected over a lifetime) will probably prevent that from ever happening, even though it should. :)
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I should point out that the comics to date have sort of glossed over what happened to Amiri and Harsk. Harsk reappears in next month's "Spiral of Bones," so all is well with him. I think we once planned to fill in this hole with a back-up story, but we haven't gotten around to doing so just yet.
...
That pretty much answers the question I came here to ask... :)
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Have you got a favourite Motown act?
And on a similar theme: Which song is best - Reach Out I'll Be There, Bernadette, or Standing in the Shadows of Love?
I don't go as deep into Motown as I probably should, but I do like me some Martha and the Vandellas.
Of the three Four Tops songs you mentioned, I'm gonna have to stick with I'll Be There. The others are fantastic, but that one will be around in another 200 years.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Crossposted in AMA threads: it's a Paizopaloozaganza!
Erik.
Eeeeeeerrrrriiiiiiiic.
Super-serious series of questions*:
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If you could have 1d4 different super-powers, what would they be and why?
(Assume corollary powers required to make a given power work are part of it; i.e. Since you'd need super tensile strength/durability to, you know, not-die when you made use of your super-strength power, you get them both when you say "super strength" as a singular option.)
Why?
I'm afraid I don't have time for questions like this, especially not when grouped together in enormous lists.
If I could have a superpower it'd be to stop time so I didn't have that excuse. This being a non-comics world, I'm afraid it's of no use.
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I should point out that the comics to date have sort of glossed over what happened to Amiri and Harsk. Harsk reappears in next month's "Spiral of Bones," so all is well with him. I think we once planned to fill in this hole with a back-up story, but we haven't gotten around to doing so just yet.
Much chance of Lini appearing back in the comic anytime in the near future?
Crossposted in AMA threads: it's a Paizopaloozaganza!
Erik.
Eeeeeeerrrrriiiiiiiic.
Super-serious series of questions*:
*
If you could have 1d4 different super-powers, what would they be and why?
(Assume corollary powers required to make a given power work are part of it; i.e. Since you'd need super tensile strength/durability to, you know, not-die when you made use of your super-strength power, you get them both when you say "super strength" as a singular option.)
Why?
I'm afraid I don't have time for questions like this, especially not when grouped together in enormous lists.
If I could have a superpower it'd be to stop time so I didn't have that excuse. This being a non-comics world, I'm afraid it's of no use.
You and me, both, sir. You and me, both. :D
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Congrats on the big announcement today!
I have only one question, can we expect to sometime be able to get a pocket edition of Occult Adventures.
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Hi. Do you know or can you offer insight into which was the first story/author to use Sorcerers in the way we think about today?
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When 1st Edition came out, seems like Paizo was doing a balancing act between carrying the 3.5 torch and making its own game. Over the years it looks like more and more you stepped out of D&Ds shadow (for instance your post about not missing mind flayers that much). And now 2nd Edition feels like Paizo is moving out and setting up its own shop, so to speak. So, how much has this effort effected 2nd Edition? As in, is PF2E cutting the last strings from D&D, or has this effort pretty much been over for a few years?
Confession time: are you secretly Aroden fleeing Golarion?!
(This might should go in the conspiracy theories surrounding Aroden thread, but I was here, so...)
Mr. Mona: what super-secret project that you can't tell anyone about are you currently working on?!
(I will also accept information about any non-secret project that you are currently working on that you would like to share, but haven't had enough of an opening or opportunity to do so, to date, or pretty much anything else you want to mention, like, what you had for lunch, or something that's irritated you lately, or whatever.)