Paizo Game Space
We're working on a lot of stuff:
A redesign of the Pathfinder Society website, along with new forums for each faction
and stat blocks to paizo.com, going to be biggest stat block database on the internet
More stuff I can't talk about.
Tonight i'm going to talk about one thing.
Today, Paizo is announcing a new way to play the games you love: Paizo Game Space.
[main screen ON, showing map with dragon]
Paizo Game Space is amazing software that lets you play with the people you know... anywhere in the world. All you need is the internet.
It's a virtual tabletop. Now VTTs aren't new. I'm gonna say "VTT" a lot because "virtual tabletop" is kind of a mouthful.
Virtual tabletops aren't new. There have been literally dozens of them before this. Some of them we like. Some of them we like a lot.
But none of them is exactly what we think a virtual tabletop should be.
We've talked to a lot of people and they all say the same thing:
We love playing on a VTT. We can keep our group together after people move away.
We love playing on a VTT. As Cosmo told me the other day, it lets him game in his underwear without all the catcalling and wolf whistles.
People love playing on a VTT. But they're kind of annoying!
You have to find the software. And download it. Install it. Will it run on a Mac? That's a big one for us at Paizo.
And then you get the fun part. IP addresses and firewalls and port forwarding and all that. Even network administrators don't want to deal with that stuff. That's work! We're here for fun.
So today, Paizo is reinventing the virtual tabletop.
Paizo Game Space runs right in your web browser. There's no software to install! None. Not even a plug-in.
If you can get to paizo.com, you and your friends can play on Paizo Game Space.
We're all about making life better for gamers. We've built Paizo Game Space to do just that. So let's take a quick look.
[.... demo ... ]
Here I've got the first combat from Rise of the Runelords, the Swallowtail Festival.
Smooth scrolling, panning, zooming
Drag tokens around. Resize dragon back to huge from "ginormous". Move it off map.
So here's the thing. Running a game in a VTT is fun, but the prep work is kind of a pain.
You still have to find a map, prepare it, resize it, load it, align the grid. And then you get to go looking for monster art and tokens and handouts and all the rest.
And for some of us that's fun, but sometimes you just want to play.
Paizo Game Space changes all that.
We're going to do the prep work for you.
When you run an adventure like Rise of the Runelords on Paizo Game Space, all the maps and handouts, all the monsters and NPCs, will already be right there for you.
Zoom in to FRUIT CART note, we had technical difficulties with the Swallowtail map, so instead we used a different flip-mat, so actually zoomed into carpet details instead of seeing individual fruits in fruit cart
The source for this map is about 200 megabytes. It's higher resolution than what we put in our PDFs. This is the original art we send to the printer. Maximum resolution.
Zoom out.
Let's take a quick look at combat. I want to emphasize something here about our approach.
We are not implementing the Pathfinder rules in Paizo Game Space. That would be crazy.
Our approach is, just don't be stupid by default.
Show Initiative tab.
So it knows a little about initiative.
Roll initiative. Modify a roll.
Start combat. Next, next. Round separator.
So it knows a little about initiative, it knows players and monsters go in order, and it knows about rolling dice. But if you need to change something you can.
Drag to reorder initiative. Click to delay or ready. Next, next. Take readied action.
OK, so that's a brief look at Paizo Game Space. I can't tell you how excited I am about this.
Let me answer a couple questions I know you have: When can I use it. And how much is it gonna cost.
When can I use it.
It's not quite ready yet. Don't worry, we're not going to wait until it's perfect. It turns out, software is never perfect.
So you'll be able to play with Paizo Game Space sometime this summer. And we'll keep making it better as we go.
How much will it cost?
Nothing. We haven't worked out all of the details yet. Or really any of the details.
But you'll be able to play a game on our virtual tabletop and not pay us a dime.
We'll have ways for you to give us money, don't worry about that. We like money.
But the main reason we're working on this is to build our community. Provide a place for you to gather.
A place to meet, talk, hang around, buy stuff. And now, game.
Thank you, and good night!
