Steve Jackson Games and Paizo® Publishing Announce Munchkin Pathfinder®

Messageboard Golem · Aug 16, 2012

Steve Jackson Games and Paizo® Publishing Announce Munchkin Pathfinder®

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game from Paizo Publishing is one of the world’s best-selling fantasy roleplaying games, in the true spirit of the classic dungeon crawl. Now Steve Jackson Games is proud to announce that Pathfinder is getting the full Munchkin treatment in a brand new core set...combining the unique features of the Pathfinder setting with Munchkin's irreverent sense of humor.

"We’re honored to be working with Paizo on Munchkin Pathfinder," said Andrew Hackard, Munchkin Brand Manager for Steve Jackson Games. "Pathfinder is a wonderfully rich world to play in."

Steve had no direct comment, as he was snickering and rubbing his hands together in contemplation of parodying TWO of the most popular fantasy roleplaying games of all time.

"We all love Munchkin here at Paizo Publishing, so this is a match was a no brainer," Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo Publishing stated matter of factly. "But of course," she whispered conspiratorially, "I really just wanted to see John Kovalic draw our iconic sorceress, Seoni!"

Munchkin Pathfinder will be a 168-card set, designed by Steve Jackson and Andrew Hackard and illustrated by John Kovalic. It will be playable as a standalone game or with any other Munchkin set. Look for it in stores in Fall 2013.

About Steve Jackson Games

Steve Jackson Games, based in Austin, has been publishing games, game books, and magazines since 1980. Its best-selling game is Munchkin, with well over 2 million copies of the games and supplements in print worldwide. Other top sellers are GURPS (the Generic Universal RolePlaying System), Zombie Dice, and Illuminati. Past hits have included Car Wars and Toon. Steve’s very first game, Ogre, recently drew almost a million dollars’ worth of Kickstarter support for a super-deluxe edition to be released next year.

The company news page, the Daily Illuminator, is the oldest continuously running blog on the Internet.

For more about Steve Jackson Games, visit www.sjgames.com.

About Paizo Publishing

Paizo Publishing&reg, LLC is a leading publisher of fantasy roleplaying games, accessories, board games, and novels. Paizo's Pathfinder® Roleplaying Game, the result of the largest open playtest in the history of tabletop gaming, is currently the best-selling tabletop roleplaying game in hobby stores. Pathfinder Adventure Path is the most popular and best-selling monthly product in the tabletop RPG industry. Paizo.com is the leading online hobby retail store, offering tens of thousands of products from a variety of publishers to customers all over the world. In the ten years since its founding, Paizo Publishing has received more than 50 major awards and has grown to become one of the most influential companies in the hobby games industry.

Argyle King · Aug 16, 2012

As someone who enjoys products from both companies, this is fantastic news for me. I hope this partnership leads to more things in the future. In particular, I'd love to see what the writers for PF could come up with for a GURPS adventure. With the quality that I -as a customer- have come to expect from SJ Games in general and the quality of Paizo's writing, I have currently feel that such a partnership is a gateway to great products.

Nikosandros · Aug 16, 2012

Johnny3D3D said:
As someone who enjoys products from both companies, this is fantastic news for me. I hope this partnership leads to more things in the future. In particular, I'd love to see what the writers for PF could come up with for a GURPS adventure. With the quality that I -as a customer- have come to expect from SJ Games in general and the quality of Paizo's writing, I have currently feel that such a partnership is a gateway to great products.

I might be misreading, but I see no announcement for a partnership. More like SJ Games licensing the Pathfinder brand (and a bunch of connected IP, I'm sure) in order to release a Munchkin expansion.

Argyle King · Aug 16, 2012

Nikosandros said:
I might be misreading, but I see no announcement for a partnership. More like SJ Games licensing the Pathfinder brand (and a bunch of connected IP, I'm sure) in order to release a Munchkin expansion.

You are correct. However, a project which turns out well today might lead to something else tomorrow. That's probably just wishful thinking on my part, but I don't think it would be outside the realm of possibility.

Your post brings up a question though. How involved in the end product will Paizo be? From following SJ Games, it appears that they prefer to have the owner of a license work closely with them on a project. An example of that would include Terry Pratchett having a hand in GURPS Discworld. I would expect some of the Paizo staff to be consulted about the project.

prosfilaes · Aug 17, 2012

I'm not sure I'm seeing the advantage of a more general SJGames/Paizo joinup. Unlike the White Wolf/SJGames licensing, I can't see a GURPS Golarion as something anyone is really salivating over. If you're a successful writer for Paizo/Pathfinder, I think you're going to find writing for GURPS a paycut. Paizo certainly isn't going to take people working for them and send them over to write for SJGames. I could see a deal being made to adapt Abydos for Golarion, but ultimately I think Paizo would rather make a Abydos/Hollowfaust type city in Golarion then try and adapt.

SJGames and Paizo are great at coexisting in the same ecosystem, but I don't see what IP they'd really want to play with. I may be wrong--Muchkin Pathfinder did surprise me, and I'm not betting against Muchkin Golarion/Pathfinder 2/Shattered Star--but I'm not seeing it.

Argyle King · Aug 17, 2012

prosfilaes said:
I'm not sure I'm seeing the advantage of a more general SJGames/Paizo joinup. Unlike the White Wolf/SJGames licensing, I can't see a GURPS Golarion as something anyone is really salivating over. If you're a successful writer for Paizo/Pathfinder, I think you're going to find writing for GURPS a paycut. Paizo certainly isn't going to take people working for them and send them over to write for SJGames. I could see a deal being made to adapt Abydos for Golarion, but ultimately I think Paizo would rather make a Abydos/Hollowfaust type city in Golarion then try and adapt.

SJGames and Paizo are great at coexisting in the same ecosystem, but I don't see what IP they'd really want to play with. I may be wrong--Muchkin Pathfinder did surprise me, and I'm not betting against Muchkin Golarion/Pathfinder 2/Shattered Star--but I'm not seeing it.

I'm aware it's a long shot, but it would (imo) be cool if it were to happen.

For me, I'd be happy with maybe a one or two shot deal in which somebody from Paizo does a guest writing session for a GURPS Dungeon Fantasy adventure or perhaps a Pyramid article. On the flip-side, I think it would be pretty cool to see what Steve Jackson might do if allowed to put his own spin on a Paizo product -even if it was just something small.

CountPopeula · Aug 17, 2012

I just can't imagine this offering anything that the base Munchkin game doesn't. The other games, like The Good, The Bad, and the Munchkin or Munchkin Zombies have good themes that give Steve Jackson and John Kovalic something to work with to poke fun at different genres. Pathfinder is just slightly different D&D. They already have 8 sets based on D&D, and I don't see how this is going to do anything different than Munchkin already does.

Argyle King · Aug 17, 2012

CountPopeula said:
I just can't imagine this offering anything that the base Munchkin game doesn't. The other games, like The Good, The Bad, and the Munchkin or Munchkin Zombies have good themes that give Steve Jackson and John Kovalic something to work with to poke fun at different genres. Pathfinder is just slightly different D&D. They already have 8 sets based on D&D, and I don't see how this is going to do anything different than Munchkin already does.

I think it will help introduce the two companies to an audience which may not be familiar with their products. I have plenty of friends who know that Pathfinder is a rpg, but they would have no idea what Golarian is. Likewise, I have friends who are aware of the game Munchkin, but are not entirely sure what it is.

As for humor, there are plenty of good jokes to be had about D&D edition wars, Pathfinder being the 'real' D&D, and etc. Just poke around the various fora on gaming websites.