Pathfinder 1E Paizo Bites- A Rant

[BryonD]

“What Has Gone Before” section of the first article specifically states that the articles use material from the Expanded Psionics Handbook (ala the half-giant) and are set 300 years in the future of the setting. Setting the articles far in the future was David Noonan’s idea, which we wholeheartedly supported as a means to explain the changes the articles presented. That section also notes that what happens in the setting is up to you.

Thanks
Matthew Sernett
Editor-in-Chief
Dragon

Hello Matthew,

I am completely in the "tis your right to do whatever you want camp". But, to me, this quote shows a troubling lack of understanding of what you customers may want. I am assuming that in this case the ENworld community is fairly representative of the overall Dragon base.

Moving the setting forward is a perfectly valid hand-wave for maintaining versimiltude between the 2e and 3e versions of Dark Sun. But players were not looking for a way to get from their old 2e Dark Sun games to a new, different 3e game. They wanted aid getting their old Dark Sun game, just tweaked to 3e.

If you offered a Civil War game and then provided a WWII game instead and simply said that you have moved forward 75 years, then that would not be what the readers were looking for. Obviously, that is more extreme than this case, but the fundamentals are the same. Players invested in a setting want support for that setting, not another similiar setting that could conceivably be reached from the current one.

I think that in game design there is a strong individual draw to express a personal vision of how the game should work. 99 times out of 100 that is a good thing. But in cases like this, the vision is established. People were not looking for an artist to do their re-interpretation of the exterior. They just wanted an engineer to tune up the connections under the hood.

 

[Belen]

So why does your experience and expectations seem so different from Dave Noonan's, Monte Cook's, Chris Pramas', Matthew Sernet, Darrin Drader's and others? They seem to have a much different idea about work-for-hire contracts and the publishing end of the business than you do. I don't think the ad hominem attack on you was justified or correct, but it does seem that you have different ideas about the business than virtually all the other published authors who've commented so far.

I became disenchanted by the entire RPG industry (not the game, the business practices) during my tenure as a writer. I decided that I was not willing to work in a system that shows little loyalty to its writers'.

While I did not work under a "work-for-hire" contract, many of the staff did. In some cases, much of the freelance work was taken, then rewritten. The freelancers got paid by the word. While this only happened once, and I only knew about it because the person worked on my team, in one case, once the freelance work had been rewritten, the guy got paid only for the original words that remained.

In my experience, RPG writers rarely were given good faith treatment.

However, most of them were very happy to be writing. Why? Because they were fans of the game. They wanted to live the dream of writing for a game they loved. Their rights as authors did not matter so much as their name in an RPG book.

In the end, I quit just before they sold their entire body of work to another publisher. The only person that received a dime for the guy who started the company. No one else was able to receive any money for their creative work because they had signed contracts that said they would be paid upon publication only.

Now, I have seen some of the body of work in print since. The publisher felt no need to put the authors names in it, although the name of the guy who sold the company did appear.

Maybe that is a large part of the reason why I am offended for Mr. Noonen.

I do know that working for a non-profit society who publishes their own publications has shown me that authors can get respect, which is why I left in the first place. I was unwilling to work in an industry where I could not get the same treatment I allowed others.

Now, I still love DnD, and I still buy a ton of books, but I also am willing to make a case for what I believe in.

 

[rounser]

I am assuming that in this case the ENworld community is fairly representative of the overall Dragon base.

ENWorld doesn't represent the D&D community at large. Our opinions are rather meaningless in the greater scheme of selling things, as publishers like to point out from time to time...

 

[reiella]

I became disenchanted by the entire RPG industry (not the game, the business practices) during my tenure as a writer. I decided that I was not willing to work in a system that shows little loyalty to its writers'.

[ Trimmed Quote so my reply will be longer although, it's all relevant ]

So, more or less, your complaint lies against the industry standard rather than against Paizo specifically? With Paizo's actions just being "representative" of a climate that's negative towards writers?

 

[Belen]

[ Trimmed Quote so my reply will be longer although, it's all relevant ]

So, more or less, your complaint lies against the industry standard rather than against Paizo specifically? With Paizo's actions just being "representative" of a climate that's negative towards writers?

Correct. I do not hate the people at Paizo. I disagree with their culture and their business model.

 

[dsfriii]

Personally I am not on either side. I just thought both dragon and Dungeon had way to much DS material in it. (Not a fan at all.) So both issues were a waste of money...

 

[satori01]

In the last couple of pages a number of posters have expressed the opinion that given a limited and possibly "inaccurate" treatment of Dark Sun, in the widely distributed pages of Dragon/Dungeon, these posters would prefer to not have Dark Sun themed issues.

At this point I agree with them, NO more Dark Sun issues in any sort of printed material, or mass read media,(excepting the internet). Apparently the consquences of any design judgements are too dearly felt to be attempted.
(And there was much rejoicing!)

Sigh, this reminds me of the purist/pragmatist debate concerning Peter Jackson's LOTR. As a long time Tolkien reader, certain choices made, I wish had been made differently, however my ire was not enough for me to wish the movies had never been made.

One would think anything that brings positive exposure to the setting would on the whole be lauded by the Dark Sun community.

Well, I guess not....

 

[diaglo]

Sigh, this reminds me of the purist/pragmatist debate concerning Peter Jackson's LOTR...

please don't mention that hack job.

 

[JPL]

Edit: Nah, skip it.

 

[BryonD]

ENWorld doesn't represent the D&D community at large. Our opinions are rather meaningless in the greater scheme of selling things, as publishers like to point out from time to time...

In general I agree with you. I have stated numerous times that I actually think ENworld is a distinctly BAD representation of the overall community.

However, I would speculate that in the Dark Sun Dragon adaptation case, the difference between ENworld and non-ENworld D&Ders is nearly non-existent. I may be wrong. But I really think that Dark Sun players want their old dark sun to just be re-tooled. Whether or not they are on ENworld does not matter.