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So this is something I've been kinda wondering about .-. I've been doing my thesis(yay, I shall never get it done) on video game writing related stuff and quite lot of book material mention importance of world bible.
To those who haven't heard the term before, setting bible is essentially document that compiles all the info about setting and characters to a document so that when writers add new stuff to setting, they can cross reference new material with document that its consistent and its also so that artists do consist art with setting. Like, if dwarves of settings are supposed to be celtic, the bible ensures that artists don't do nordic dwarves on accident instead.
I've been kinda wondering about this because there are a lot of time when campaign setting books slightly contradict each other as if writer remembered same event slightly differently and there has been lot of "well artists never got this creature right so let's change it" type of deal ._. Do P&P rpgs in general have setting bibles or is that just video games & movies & television series?
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I figure they do, though if I had to guess it would be closer to a style guide (of which there has been a definitive style guide mentioned a few times here and there). I would assume they have some sort of master lore document, but freelancers and what have you have mentioned visiting (one or both versions) of the pathfinder wiki for direction where lore consistency is concerned.
Faint memory here, though, but I believe the Eberron competition in the way back times of 3.whatever, a setting bible type document was the final submission for the competitors.
The closest single document you're going to get is probably the Inner Sea World Guide, which is a basic primer of most of the world info for Golarion's focus area to date.
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The closest single document you're going to get is probably the Inner Sea World Guide, which is a basic primer of most of the world info for Golarion's focus area to date.
Maybe on the consumer end, but his question is what does Paizo have internally for production purposes. World Guide is a pretty good jumping off point, but by now that itself is what, six years old? I doubt internally that Golarion's current revision in ISWG is the entirety of the main canon document.
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I think the fact that the Pathfinder Society was apparently founded in both the Pig's Paunch tavern and the Wounded Wisp tavern suggests that if Paizo does have such a book, it's not really doing the job. That said, they have claimed that they do have written material in-house containing answers to questions like "What really happened to Aroden?" so that, if they change their minds and decide to publish material that hints at the answer, all of that material will be internally consistent. So ... maybe?
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I've been kinda wondering about this because there are a lot of time when campaign setting books slightly contradict each other as if writer remembered same event slightly differently and there has been lot of "well artists never got this creature right so let's change it" type of deal ._. Do P&P rpgs in general have setting bibles or is that just video games & movies & television series?
It seems to me like they do have a lot of information, but it's on someone's computer (or in their head) and not as immediately available to other writers (particularly those writing off-site, such as contributing authors who don't work in the same office) as a book on a shelf somewhere. (And it's probably a *huge* amount of data, and not something that could be mailed to every author, or read in a short amount of time for someone working on a deadline.)
Ideally, there'd be some sort of compartmentalization, and separate 'bibles' for people working on elves or working on Thuvia or working with sorcerer bloodlines, that functioned similar to the occasional 'everything we know about Azlanti' threads you can find on these boards, so that the writer can have up to the current-release information on that specific subject without having to read every word ever written on Golarion, but that would be a full-time job for someone, and I'm not ssure if Paizo has that kind of resources.
And so we get the occasional wonkiness, like elves being drawn with normal-looking eyes, or references to clerics of things that can't have clerics (like Walkena, in Heart of the Jungle and the NPC Guide), because some rules of the setting (like that clerics of philosophy, from the Core rules, don't exist in Golarion) are either not as readily available as they could be, or are not consulted as often as they should be.
In any event, I would assume that James Jacob's brain is the 'setting bible' for Golarion, much as Keith Baker's brain was the 'setting bible' for Eberron, and Ed Greenwood's brain was the 'setting bible' for the Forgotten Realms. :)
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I do wonder how hard it would be to compile such a document and give relevant parts to freelancer writers/artists ._. Especially if they don't have readily available one already.
The most silliest minor lore contradiction I've have seen is Amaya Kaijitsu's article in song of silver claiming she is result of Lonjiku's frustration about Tsuto existence and Ameiko's rebelliousness... When Ameiko is 18 in RotR and Amaya(the youngest out of three) is apparently adult in Council of Thieves, so obviously Lonjiku didn't cheat on his wife because of Ameiko when she was two or three years old. I think its rather clear in that case writer of article just misremembered something. Its kind of why I wonder if such document is available to writers, just reading Ameiko's backstory on Jade Regent's book 1 would have reminded writer that Ameiko has nothing to do with why Amaya was born.
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It doesn't exist.
One would have to buy all the novels.
And all the PFS Scenarios.
And all the Wayfinders and all the Companions, and all the Chronicles, and APs, and Hardbacks, and Modules,
.... And then reference it.
It's in the hearts and minds of the senior designers -- and their memories of what products contain what.
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Well, I guess thats why you usually do bible before producing all the materials .-. Easier to do it and then update it rather than compiling it afterwards. So what you said doesn't mean it doesn't exist even if it feels unlikely
And aren't wayfinders basically non canon extra materials? And you forgot comics which are actually canon in their bonus materials
The closest thing to a setting bible is available to everyone: The PathfinderWiki
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We have a number of different setting bibles, both internal and public, that we use, so the short answer to your question is yes.
There are a number of different core documents we use when tracking world continuity, the first and foremost being our library of published material. Because we release everything in PDF format (for the most part), we maintain an internal, searchable database of all canon material so that we can easily look across the last 10 years' worth of material for prior uses of proper nouns, appearances of given monsters, spells, magic items, and so forth. This means that our primary source of continuity is the same as our fans are using.
We also make heavy use of the PathfinderWiki, which—while fan-generated—is by far the most comprehensive single document on our setting. There are gaps in the wiki for sure, but the huge amount of time required to generate and maintain the wiki at its current level are far beyond what Paizo has or has ever had the resources to commit to for something official or internal. As a member of the creative team here at Paizo, I also serve as something of a liaison between the editorial department and the wiki, as I've been an administrator on the site since before I had ever written a single word of freelance for Paizo much less worked here. That means that I can direct the wiki in ways that will benefit both the community at large as well as folks at Paizo and our authors working around the world.
Finally, we have a number of internal documents that track long-term plots and secrets, from small stuff that we're sure no one but us has even noticed to larger questions like Aroden's fate, the origins of the universe, and so on. These exist primarily so that we can plant seeds and hints here and there in our work and ensure that we're not contradicting future plans, but until these secrets or plots see print in one of our books, they're subject to change to meet the needs of the brand, our fans, and ourselves as creative forces that are subject to evolve our own ideas of what's cool. So while these documents are likely the closest to what the OP meant as a "setting bible", they're also the least set in stone and the most malleable over time.
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One would have to buy all the novels.
And all the PFS Scenarios.
And all the Wayfinders and all the Companions, and all the Chronicles, and APs, and Hardbacks, and Modules,
.... And then reference it.
Just as a point of clarity, "Wayfinder" is a fan publication and does not contain official setting canon unless that material is later picked up in a Paizo-published source or something from one of our licensors.
