Paizo New Positions For Paizo Veterans!

Various Paizo staff have announced new roles at the company after what appears to have been a bit of restructuring.

• Jason Bulmahn, who created Pathfinder, is now Paizo's Director of Games. He said on Twitter: "As of today, I am now Paizo's Director of Games, overseeing all of our new games and game initiatives. This does remove me from the day to day management of the Pathfinder RPG, but it frees up my time to invent brand new games, like Pathfinder Quest! I've seen some folks asking if my change in position at Paizo means that I will be writing less content for the RPG. That is likely true, but to be fair, most of the content I have written lately (and am in the process of writing) is freelance work anyway. It does mean I am far less likely to contribute to our books as a matter of course, helping to fill gaps or pull together content quickly, but that has been a less and less common aspect of my job over the past few years anyway. And besides, the RPG team are all pros and have been delivering top notch content since 2nd Edition was launched. Trust me, the game is in very good hands. What this does do is free me up to make MORE games. Card games, board games, roleplaying games, and more. Joe and I have a lot of things cooking and you are not going to remotely suspect some of the things we have in store for you!"
• Michael J Sayre is Director of Rules and Lore, who said "Excited to announce that I have been promoted to the Director of Rules & Lore at Paizo. I'm happy to be looking forward to and plotting an amazing future with my spectacular team-Creative Director Luis Loza, Lead Designer Logan Bonner, Lead Developer James Case, Senior Developer Eleanor Ferron, Senior Designer Jason Keeley, Developer Landon Winkler, Designer Josh Birdsong, Designer Ivis Flanagan."
• Thurston Hillman is now Associate Publisher. "Today I accepted the role of Associate Publisher at Paizo. I'll be holding onto the Starfinder creative reins for a short bit longer as we sort out some management on that brand going forward, but I'm really grateful for the opportunity and trust that's been put in me by others."

 

[ReshiIRE]

I think Pathfinder, Starfinder and Paizo are in a good place. Let WoTC be the top dog. As long as Paizo treats its workers well and keeps making great products, they don't have to be at the top.

 

[Morrus]

many things seem like that until they happen

And a billion times more seem like that and don't happen.

 

[Gambit42]

I'm going to throw my random errant Wish spell out there at a new RPG I would like to see Jason make. Paizos take on OSR, specifically a modernized version of something akin to AD&D (obviously with all OGL scrubbed out). There especially has never been a good 2E retroclone/successor made (I'm not counting For Gold & Glory here), the only real attempt being the infamous Myth & Magic from about a decade ago which was plagued by a myriad of issues that had nothing to do what was written on the pages and never made it off the launch pad.

Everyone copies Basic, partly because Basic is easy, 2E was (aside from amazing campaign settings) all about options, character kits, fighting styles, specialty priests, weapon mastery, etc, it just requires more content than a single core rulebook and a smattering of adventures, and Paizo is very good at content and options. But overall, anything in the OSR realm would be cool. Pathfinder 1E was Paizos take on 3.5, Pathfinder 2E is Paizos take on PF1, 4E, and 5E thrown in a blender, I would like to see their take on the earlier stuff.

 

[Staffan]

When Jason mentions doing freelance work is that for Paizo? Is that odd?

I believe that around the time they were unionizing, some of the employees mentioned that one of the "benefits" to working at Paizo was that they got first dibs on freelancing as well. Given the cost of living in Seattle and the pay at Paizo, that was kind of necessary to make ends meet. So basically, the lead developer on a product would do their development work (outlines and such) on company time, and often a portion of the actual writing as a freelancer. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but something like that.

My understanding is that since then, Paizo has become more friendly to remote work so their employees can work in places where COL is lower. I have no idea if their salaries have also been increased.

 

[Vincent55]

And a billion times more seem like that and don't happen.

And a billion times more seem like that and don't happen.

Whatever Morty

 

[Vincent55]

I remember thinking that was a real possibility at one point. Then 5E dropped...

Still silently hoping for the day though...

Dropped is the right word like a led ballon, and they are getting so far away from what D&D is that many all over are just doing their things and some even their systems. Meantime Hasbro and wizards are moving more to digital stuff and, are going to be more in common with the way the video games are now with microtransactions and all the added content that you have to pay for on top of a subscription to see it and use the system. But I don't care, I have since moved on to other things like many.

 

[Incenjucar]

Paizo is doing great as is. It'll be nice if the player base continues to grow, and new revenue streams come on, but the important thing is that it remains sustainable so people can keep their jobs and players and GMs can get continued support.

 

[Kaodi]

Streetfinder, is that you?