Pathfinder 1E Paizo Bites- A Rant

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Judging by the harsh reaction the Dark Sun article garnered towards not only Paizo, but to Dave Noonan, I think its only fair to him and other authors if game companies take responsibility for the development changes they make.

I think it ALSO shows, yet again, that fans of settings(or anything for that matter) need to just calm down.

 

[rowport]

I took Matt's excellent advice and sent an e-mail to Paizo regarding my opinion of the Dark Sun Dragon & Dungeon mags. But, as it bugs me immensely seeing so much negative flak going there way here, I am posting my message as a counter balancing viewpoint...

"Matt & Crew-

I loved the Dark Sun Dungeon & Dragon issues. My group is planning a new campaign to kick up soon, and plans to incorporate elements from both issues. I especially appreciate the portability of some of the main ideas- I think it will be fairly easy to use some of the elements in a desert setting with gladiator arenas. Actually, we plan to use some of the Gladiator articles from last year as well.

My favorite issues tend to be the cross-overs- there is lots of good stuff to pull into campaigns. The gladiators, incursion, and now Dark Sun issues spring right to mind. I was also especially impressed with Dragon 310-313, with lots of character ideas. Thanks for the great work! Keep them coming!"

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

On the WotC Dark Sun forum I posted some of my complaints in a thread there.

That said, I am a long time Dark Sun fan who has done a good amount of fan authorship. There are themes in Dark Sun which I firmly believe shouldn't have been altered, but were done so in the issues.

To me it is water under the bridge, but I wanted to point something out. Some of the reasons for the changes were to make the published product fit the greater D&D rules better. I think this decision had to have been by someone who wasn't vested in Dark Sun as a fan of Dark Sun might have been. For instance, so many of the arguments for including, say, paladins and arcane bards into Dark Sun could be made for including them in Oriental Adventures. Afterall, they are in the D&D PHB, and with mental gymnastics anyone could imagine them fitting into an Oriental Adventures game. A further example, why create some new fangled divine classes (shugenja, shaman) for OA, surely the D&D clerics and druids could substitute just fine.

How much of the PHB classes were ditched for Oriental Adventures so as to fine-tune the "feel", compared to these Dark Sun issues.

Fact is, Oriental Adventures is proof enough that the entire collection of standard D&D classes don't work for certain specialized settings. Dark Sun was specialized enough for a 3.5 conversion/update of it to warrant appropriate treatment, like OA was/is given.


In the end, I believe the accelerated publishing cycle (authoring and editing) of the magazine world is the number one culprit with the preceived "flaws" with Paizo's Dark Sun revival. I firmly believe that of the retired settings, Dark Sun was nearly unique in the vast number of alterations from the base D&D races, classes and other rules. Were Paizo to decide to try another "retired world" revival, I don't think there is nearly the number of landmines they'd potentially set off. So I hope Paizo isn't discouraged from reviving other "retired" worlds!

I'd LOVE to see a complete Savage Coast revival, hire Frank Brunner for that job today!


Regards,
Eric Anondson

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Seems to me, the more ammunition the jerks have, the more likely you are to detect them earlier, as they're more likely to take more potshots. How much ammunition they have after they fail to play in your game is irrelevant, isnt it?

This is true to a certain extent. (Heck, I think most of us are in agreement here even if viewing/presenting our views from different angles.)

I guess it's just the bottled-up frustration of wasted time; Time spent talking to them, prepping for them, planning out a game for them, and then having all that time go down the drain. Grrrr...

(And, to be honest, having confirmed our remaining in Florida for another year means it's time to seek out 2-3 new players, so I'm probably also feeling the building dread of the upcoming endeavor...)

 

[SemperJase]

if you significantly alter a writer's original work, then the author should have the right have a disclaimer stating such next to his byline....To do otherwise is immoral.

It is strange to me that people are morally offended on Noonan's behalf, even when he acknowledges Paizo had the right (presumably legally and ethically) to make any changes they saw fit. The complaints show an ignorance of the publishing industry.

People here have tried to draw parallels between books and periodicals. As already pointed out, they are significantly different. Pick up any book on freelance writing for periodicals and you will learn to expect editors to revise anything they want without the need to consult with the writer. This is mostly the result of production cycles and deadlines. It just is not practical for editors to always consult with the writer. Magazines would not get published on time and people here would be ranting about a late issue instead of editorial revision.

Writers do have a choice. They can choose to submit future work elsewhere if they are not satisifed with editorial decisions. A freelancer waiting for a call from an editor asking to approve all changes is going to have a long, disappointing wait. That's just the way the world turns. It is unreasonable to expect Paizo to work differently than any other magazine publisher.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Fact is, Oriental Adventures is proof enough that the entire collection of standard D&D classes don't work for certain specialized settings. Dark Sun was specialized enough for a 3.5 conversion/update of it to warrant appropriate treatment, like OA was/is given.

This, I think, is the crux of the anti-Paizo-DS views (not to be confused with "anti-Paizo", which is a different issue entirely)... The idea that DS had to be made more "3E friendly" is alien to most DS fans because it was never "2E friendly" to begin with.

That make sense?

In the end, I believe the accelerated publishing cycle (authoring and editing) of the magazine world is the number one culprit with the preceived "flaws" with Paizo's Dark Sun revival.

This I can see completely... I would request of Paizo that, if doing further revivals, that the scheduling for those specific articles be given more time than their more usual items, and for all the reasons Eric has posted here. After all, these are complete worlds, some of which have volumes of information that had grown over a multitude of years. While Dark Sun wasn't as expansive as, say, Toril (which includes Al'Qadim, Kara-Tur, and Mazteca), it was growing and doing so at a comparible rate as FR. This guarantees that such articles are going to get put under a microscope by those familiar with the setting and those that don't like what they see changed are bound to bump heads with those that like the new treatment.

 

[Vocenoctum]

In the end, I believe the accelerated publishing cycle (authoring and editing) of the magazine world is the number one culprit with the preceived "flaws" with Paizo's Dark Sun revival. I firmly believe that of the retired settings, Dark Sun was nearly unique in the vast number of alterations from the base D&D races, classes and other rules.

While I'm sure the publishing cycle reduced the back and forth nature, I think it's more about page count.
As I mentioned in another thread, 30 pages isn't a Hard Cover rulebook. I think the races were done very well, and equipment I haven't looked for, but how many pages would developing new classes have taken?

I also think the paladin is fine in DS though, so that's me. I was more turned off by the Monk. I think they trod on Psychic Warriors too much for the setting. Bards as Psionic bards work better than Bards as Assassins IMO.

 

[jasper]

I have no clue what these people are doing. An editor edits. They do not change or rewrite material. I edit a medical journal. I can imagine the reaction of the scientific crowd if I changed some numbers or switched a sign. My job is to clean up the manuscript, not change the science.

Jasper translates with his babel fish ...
Hi since I have specfic knowledge in ONE specfic field aka science editing, I now know how to tell them there other editors in totally unrelated fields how to do their jobs..

Yea yea yea me.
end of translation.

Just because you have total xp in one field does not give full multiclassing privilieges to the other field.
Thank you move along and try just plain water.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

It is strange to me that people are morally offended on Noonan's behalf, even when he acknowledges Paizo had the right (presumably legally and ethically) to make any changes they saw fit. The complaints show an ignorance of the publishing industry.

Actually, I don't think about knowledge of the publishing industry or the lack there-of, but is actually more psychological. See, when folks first see the article and go, "what the..!", it's the author's name that is immediately targeted for any negative opinions. Later, when they find out that the author had originally held closer to the original setting and that it was somebody else that made the changes, they are prone to feel a little guilty about being upset with the author (even if they are not aware of it).

This is why it seems to be "morally offensive" to people that accreditation for the article wasn't made to reflect who did what and why; they (which includes me, I will admit) would rather have not incorrectly targeted their expression of displeasure at the author and now, knowing more of the details driving the changes, rightly blame Paizo for not indicating in some manner what was changed, why it was changed, and by whom.

Or, consider it this way: Those whom have yet to see David Noonan's letter or the earlier post made by our friendly neighborhood Paizo representative still consider David Noonon the "culprit". I wouldn't be surprised if 6 months from now we still get the occassional comment from somebody condemning DN for "what he did" and we (those participating in this thread and those just reading it) will have to inform them of the actual details of the situation. When that happens, $10 (US) says that they'll then immediately direct some resentment towards Piazo for this very reason (and likely more so, having 6 months of misdirected displeasure to vent).

It's human nature, dude, although I'm not sure if that deserves a or a :\ . Possibly a .

 

[Henry]

SECOND WARNING:
I earlier posted a request for no more insults directed at others. The other users have toned down as well since then; Let's please keep the tone civil.



now, on to d4's point:

athas.org is mentioned several times in the Dungeon issue.

Earlier poster irdeggman had said:

One interesting thing though is their (Paizo) lack of recognition of the "official" fansites existence. Dragon 319 had no mention of Athas.org at all, as far as I could see - and I tried to look.

So I'm happy to see it was just missed. It's nice for Paizo to give a location for an alternate version.