Will unionization fix quality issues?


Pathfinder Second Edition General Discussion

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Scarab Sages

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thejeff wrote:
Aaron Shanks wrote:
The creative team has told be they like to alternate AP themes between something traditional (like dragons, urban murder mystery, dungeon crawl, and magic school) and something as little wacky (like circus, international fight competition, and mammoth hunters).
I find this an interesting perspective because I'd expect the "urban murder mystery" and "magic school" to be thought of at least as non-traditional as "mammoth hunters". At least given the police focus of AoE.

Yes, I would have thought that Agents of Edgewatch and Strength of Thousands are more out there than what I expect Quest for Frozen Flame to be.


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NECR0G1ANT wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Aaron Shanks wrote:
The creative team has told be they like to alternate AP themes between something traditional (like dragons, urban murder mystery, dungeon crawl, and magic school) and something as little wacky (like circus, international fight competition, and mammoth hunters).
I find this an interesting perspective because I'd expect the "urban murder mystery" and "magic school" to be thought of at least as non-traditional as "mammoth hunters". At least given the police focus of AoE.
Yes, I would have thought that Agents of Edgewatch and Strength of Thousands are more out there than what I expect Quest for Frozen Flame to be.

“Magic school” is a premise that’s been pretty mainstreamed at this point, though the freshness of an African-inspired setting certainly has an impact.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Cori Marie wrote:
Charter subscriber is the tag for people that got in on the ground floor.

I miss that tag.


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keftiu wrote:
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Aaron Shanks wrote:
The creative team has told be they like to alternate AP themes between something traditional (like dragons, urban murder mystery, dungeon crawl, and magic school) and something as little wacky (like circus, international fight competition, and mammoth hunters).
I find this an interesting perspective because I'd expect the "urban murder mystery" and "magic school" to be thought of at least as non-traditional as "mammoth hunters". At least given the police focus of AoE.
Yes, I would have thought that Agents of Edgewatch and Strength of Thousands are more out there than what I expect Quest for Frozen Flame to be.
“Magic school” is a premise that’s been pretty mainstreamed at this point, though the freshness of an African-inspired setting certainly has an impact.

Sort of.

Not really as a D&D style adventure setting though. I certainly wouldn't think of playing as students and teachers in such a school as a traditional FRPG adventure, even if those schools have existed in the setting.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

What happens to your tag if you had an awesome tag, had to cancel your subscription due to the pandemic, but then resubscribed the moment you had reliable income again (including ordering all the backlog you missed out on)? What then?

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Look at my tags for the answer.


thejeff wrote:
keftiu wrote:
NECR0G1ANT wrote:
thejeff wrote:
Aaron Shanks wrote:
The creative team has told be they like to alternate AP themes between something traditional (like dragons, urban murder mystery, dungeon crawl, and magic school) and something as little wacky (like circus, international fight competition, and mammoth hunters).
I find this an interesting perspective because I'd expect the "urban murder mystery" and "magic school" to be thought of at least as non-traditional as "mammoth hunters". At least given the police focus of AoE.
Yes, I would have thought that Agents of Edgewatch and Strength of Thousands are more out there than what I expect Quest for Frozen Flame to be.
“Magic school” is a premise that’s been pretty mainstreamed at this point, though the freshness of an African-inspired setting certainly has an impact.

Sort of.

Not really as a D&D style adventure setting though. I certainly wouldn't think of playing as students and teachers in such a school as a traditional FRPG adventure, even if those schools have existed in the setting.

No love for Candlekeep?


keftiu wrote:
No love for Candlekeep?

There's also Strixhaven which is a MtG to D&D 5e cross-over setting which centers on a college of mages.


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Norade wrote:
keftiu wrote:
No love for Candlekeep?
There's also Strixhaven which is a MtG to D&D 5e cross-over setting which centers on a college of mages.

The Strixhaven book seems a closer fit, unless I'm forgetting something that focused more on Candlekeep.

It was also quite recent and I'd argue wasn't traditional either.


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Again, I never even suggested it wasn't common in fantasy. Lots of things are common in the genre that aren't traditional for D&D style RPG adventures. (I'd argue most of the fantasy genre isn't, really.)

Nor have I suggested there aren't other magical schools even in RPG settings. Just that if we're dividing the APs into traditional and non-traditional, I'd say it falls on the non-traditional side


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thejeff wrote:

Again, I never even suggested it wasn't common in fantasy. Lots of things are common in the genre that aren't traditional for D&D style RPG adventures. (I'd argue most of the fantasy genre isn't, really.)

Nor have I suggested there aren't other magical schools even in RPG settings. Just that if we're dividing the APs into traditional and non-traditional, I'd say it falls on the non-traditional side

Traditional is Gygaxian instant death dungeon slogs where carrying back the loot was all that mattered.

Anything else, with stories and named NPCs, is all ivory tower frippery. xP


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James Jacobs wrote:

Also, pretty much ALL of the Adventure Paths are, in some way, mandated. So it's not like a mandate automatically means the resulting product will be bad.

I was mandated to create a "classic fantasy adventure that felt like D&D but wasn't" with Rise of the Runelords. I was mandated to create a "Cheliax-themed adventure path" for Hell's Rebels. I was mandated to design an entire dungeon for "Abomination Vaults" and to create a new "hometown" out of Otari for that Adventure Path and the Beginner Box. To pick just three examples that I feel turned out well and am proud of.

Best we can do is to look at how things turned out and learn from our mistakes... but for my fellow employees and freelancers who are reading these threads and growing despondent about the negativity... it's hitting me as hard as you, and I feel like it's important to know that we've done a LOT more that we can all be proud of over the past 20+ years, going back to the D&D magazine era. Let's stay observant and accept our past mistakes and do better and learn from them, but please don't forget that you're all doing so much more good for the hobby and the world than harm.

I wouldn't still be at Paizo if I felt otherwise. It was the feeling that you (speaking again to my fellow employees and freelancers) were making the world a better place, if only one adventure or rulebook at a time, that resulted in me sticking it out at Paizo long enough that it's coming up on something that I've spent half my life helping to foster and create (more like 3/4 of my life if you include the fact that homebrew elements I was working on back in 7th grade are now part of Golarion).

The process of Unionizing is important and positive and I think will help quality of life for game writers here and beyond Paizo... but in the short term, the additional work and stress and turmoil caused by this enormous cultural change to the way things work will not fix quality issues. It'll introduce more quality issues, unfortunately. I feel like that's worth it, but...

I think you guys do a good job myself. I don't like everything you make, but I like a lot of it. Paizo has always felt like a small RPG company run by people who like to play these games as well as create content for them.

As far as I know Paizo was the most inclusive company for incorporating all the boxes that need to be checked to incorporate the maximum possible number of people.

I hope you make it through what looks like a very weird time for Paizo. It's been weird watching Paizo go from the cool, edgy outsider going up against the big bad corporation WotC and now Hasbro to now seemingly being the bad corporation doing evil things like the forums seem to suggest with the first RPG union in the industry and some kind of scandal.

Hopefully you can all keep this thing going and keep your head up in the process, Jacobs. Tough times will hopefully turn to better times again.


Did 5e turn Candelkeep into a school?


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If this thread could be closed because it's gone wildly off track and I've since started a second thread that I feel was better articulated, that'd be cool....


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Just hide the thread from yourself. Trying to force people to only talk about what you want where you want is for a blog, not for a forum that you don’t moderate.

No need to stress about this when you can sweep it under the rug.

Grand Lodge

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Deriven Firelion wrote:
Unions are employee organizations aimed at improving work conditions, wages, and all associated factors for employees. They have nothing to do with company work standards, product quality, or what not.

That is not universally true. There are a number of construction trades where the work product of union workers is generally of higher quality than those of non-union workers. That may not mean that the product the company there are working for is markedly better/worse, but the quality of the environment under which those products are produced certainly is.

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