Paizo To Make Kingmaker Bestiary... For D&D 5E!

kenmarable · May 11, 2019

Parmandur said:
On the one hand, she is a former employee with potentially an axe to grind. On the other, her narrative is plausible and would be excellent motivation for being an ex-employee with an axe to grind.

This certainly seems...bad...for the long term survivability of the business and game line.

Plus a lot of what she says isn't even opinion/inside-knowledge but publicly verifiable facts: Their previous Kickstarters for Pathfinder Online, and the current state of that project. Their Kickstarter with Ninja Division for Starfinder minis including their public posts about "I know people are worried based on Ninja Division's past, but it will be fine" and how that one turned out. The $999 shipping charge for many foreign addresses on this crowdfunding. Or even crowdfunding these books when they have simply published similar books as this as standard business for years. And so on.

So whatever narrative she wraps around it, all of those are facts about their crowdfunding history that anyone can see. So whether it's bad luck in choosing business partners or whether the narrative she puts around it is accurate is a big question, but at the very least she does a great job of bringing together that whole history - much of which is public knowledge. Make of it as you will. As you say, it certainly does not look good for long term prospects.

kenmarable · May 11, 2019

Olaf the Stout said:
She makes many good points. In addition to being forced to buy the AP in order to have the chance to buy the Bestiary, there were several red flags she pointed out that made me wary of backing this one.

That said, she also sounds very salty. Does anyone know what led to her no longer working for Paizo?

I don't recall specifics (and most of it, of course, wasn't real public), but the general impression seemed to be the "employee spoke up about harassment and workplace culture issues and gets fired" vs "employee is not a good fit and does not work with our customers well" sort of two sides that seems unfortunately common (especially it seems with women in male-dominated industries, but that's my editorializing).

Reading between the lines, as well as reading accounts of many other former employees, I 100% believe her version. More specifically, it seems to be a cultural view at Paizo that the customers are always right even when they are harassing and abusing the employees. It's telling that several former employees and formerly frequent freelancers won't even go to Paizo forums anymore because they claim that it is too toxic because Paizo is afraid that clamping down on that will drive customers away and hurt the business. Employees need to be friendly and nonconfrontational with customers.

Now, of course, that's just one side, and I'm quite open about my opinion on it. But seeing the same story across many former employees/freelancers, and giving up on the Paizo forums myself a while ago, it does seem quite believable.

So I suppose one person's "salty" is another person's "done putting up with BS."

billd91 · May 11, 2019

kenmarable said:
Reading between the lines, as well as reading accounts of many other former employees, I 100% believe her version. More specifically, it seems to be a cultural view at Paizo that the customers are always right even when they are harassing and abusing the employees. It's telling that several former employees and formerly frequent freelancers won't even go to Paizo forums anymore because they claim that it is too toxic because Paizo is afraid that clamping down on that will drive customers away and hurt the business. Employees need to be friendly and nonconfrontational with customers.

Now, of course, that's just one side, and I'm quite open about my opinion on it. But seeing the same story across many former employees/freelancers, and giving up on the Paizo forums myself a while ago, it does seem quite believable.

As a long-time participant on the Paizo site, I don't think it's any more toxic than here - and also pretty strongly moderated. There are times I've considered it more tightly moderated than here.

S'mon · May 11, 2019

kenmarable said:
Employees need to be friendly and nonconfrontational with customers.

That was never exactly Price's strong suit... she had a really negative effect on the tone* of the Paizo forums when I was posting there, and it seems to have been what eventually got her fired (twice). OTOH I don't particularly doubt her inside-dirt take on Paizo's business, it certainly seems plausible, and not particularly out of line for small businesses struggling to get by. Of course she leaves out all the good things about Paizo, things which likely attracted her there in the first place.

*When you register at Paizo forums you get a note "We want our forums to be a fun and
happy place", asking posters to be polite and kind. The vast majority of posters take the message on board. Paizo's employee Jessica Price was a very notable exception!

S'mon · May 11, 2019

kenmarable said:
I don't recall specifics (and most of it, of course, wasn't real public), but the general impression seemed to be the "employee spoke up about harassment and workplace culture issues and gets fired" vs "employee is not a good fit and does not work with our customers well" sort of two sides that seems unfortunately common (especially it seems with women in male-dominated industries, but that's my editorializing).

I think Lisa Stevens has always done her best to be fair to everyone at her company, and is not a whip-cracking instrument of Patriarchal Oppression.

CapnZapp · May 11, 2019

This could be something akin to a new Osborne effect.

The Paizo effect: giving off the appearance (true or false) to be desperate enough that your future product really will tank.

Olaf the Stout · May 11, 2019

Only 900 backers so far, which is less than I would have expected.

Morrus · May 11, 2019

The only reason I haven’t backed yet is that I’m unfamiliar with the crowdfunding site being used. But I’m sure I will before the end.

Parmandur · May 11, 2019

Olaf the Stout said:
Only 900 backers so far, which is less than I would have expected.

It's not a terribly excellent deal, financially, and it could he that the natural audience (Pathfinder players) all ready have the original AP and don't want a PF2 version.

S'mon · May 11, 2019

Parmandur said:
It's not a terribly excellent deal, financially, and it could he that the natural audience (Pathfinder players) all ready have the original AP and don't want a PF2 version.

$50 pdf certainly seems high for a kickstarter. $80 for the print version, when I'd expect to pay around $60 retail for the AP hardback.