Interview with a Designer: John Bennett

This time I interviewed John Bennett, who discusses Shadows over Vathak and his career as a designer and developer.

The Emerald Spire Review – Part 1

 I recently started an open call for guest bloggers, and here's the first guest blog, a review of the Emerald Spire Superdungeon, written by Neal Powell. The review is published in two parts, here's the first one!

Miniature Showcase: Pathfinder Battles Yeti

In these 4 photos of the yeti from Pathfinder Battles—Rise of the Runelords (#44), I used plaster-of-paris to construct a snowy berm for the foreground and some mountainous shapes for the background. The lighting and atmosphere were contrived to suggest either outdoor mountainous terrain or the inside of a snowy cave.

Click images to enlarge

The Golden Guardian on Paizo's blog

I just noticed there was some discussion about the Golden Guardian on Paizo's blog a few days ago. Thanks for the shout-out, John!

Also featured in that blog post are two illustrations by Marek Madej. I admit I had not heard of Marek before, but I was really impressed with the picture of the kobold (minor spoiler warning!) ...who is an NPC in my Pathfinder scenario.

Naktok (illustration by Marek Madej)

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The Golden Guardian released

Well look at that! It's a glorious day. :-) Read more about it on the product page on paizo.com!

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This blog post uses trademarks and/or copyrights owned by Paizo Inc., which are used under Paizo's Community Use Policy. We are expressly prohibited from charging you to use or access this content. This blog post is not published, endorsed, or specifically approved by Paizo Inc. For more information about Paizo's Community Use Policy, please visit paizo.com/communityuse. For more information about Paizo Inc. and Paizo products, please visit paizo.com.

Interview with a Designer: Jade Ripley

In the Interview with a Designer series, I interview people working in the RPG industry, whether as freelancers authors, illustrators, cartographers, developers, or in other positions. This time I interviewed Jade Ripley who is probably best known for his work with Dreamscarred Press. Welcome, Jade!

Miniature Showcase: Pathfinder Battles Minotaur

The minotaur from Pathfinder Battles—Heroes & Monsters (#30) is one of my favorite pre-painted figures (I have 3). When I first started taking pictures of miniatures, I practiced with the minotaur a lot. You can see a sampling of those photos below, including one that's silly. Also pictured are Pathfinder Battles—Heroes & Monsters: Half-Orc Barbarian (#25) and Pathfinder Battles—Shattered Star: Tower Girl (#7).

The one in row 2, far right, is actually a reflection in water, which is a technique I use sometimes to help achieve an eye-level-or-lower angle when doing macro photography (see the photos immediately before and after it).

Click any image to enlarge 

Superstar effort

Back in January, I wrote about my concerns about falling participation in Paizo's RPG Superstar contest, noting how comments had dropped by about 40 percent from previous years. I urged everyone to stay involved, even if they didn't make the Top 32, and make sure to give the competitors the feedback they want and need to improve.

Now, with the contest is in its final week for the year, seems like a good time to look back and see how we did, and I'm happy to say that participation (at least based on comments) is back on an upswing.

Archetypes, part III: Archetype length

I was going to write a much longer post this week, but alas, I've been busy working on a new project and so I'll just discuss archetype lengths this time.

Bursting onto the Scene

RPG Superstar finalists Brian J. Fruzen, Monica Marlowe,  Kalervo Oikarinen, and Christopher Wasko have already demonstrated superior creativity and RPG design skills, and I believe they all have it in them to produce professional-quality designs and products. In some sense, they have already arrived as notable talents in RPG design. But, there has to be a winner, and given the prominence of Paizo and RPG Superstar in the industry, the winner most certainly will be bursting onto the scene:

The Superstar Adventures

I was chatting with one of the Final Four the other week and it was pointed out to me that I have a horrible track record picking winners when it comes to the Superstar module. Curious, I decided to take a look back through the years to see what I had voted for and how widely my opinion diverged from everyone else's.

It ended up being fascinating. And, since we're in the fallow period of Superstar as we wait for the module pitches to be revealed in one week, I thought it might be fun to take a look at all those previous pitches.

Keep in mind, I only have so much space, so I'm really going to try to narrow these down to the core of the pitch (whenever I can, I'm letting the author do the talking by taking the summary line from the pitch). You're going to have to take a closer look to get all the nuance (as well as some great advice from judges that I think would help any would-be designer when it comes to adventures). The winning module is in capitals.

Archetypes, part II: Going through the original class

In the second part of this series of articles, I'll have a look at the class whose abilities I'm going to replace with new ones.

One Wraith or Two?

The wraith in these 4 photos is one of my favorite Pathfinder Battles figures. He's somewhat translucent, so I infused him with laser light to suggest negative and/or eldritch energy. The red swirls are d6's tumbling and swooping through the scene while the shutter was open. Of all my figures, I think I've photographed him the most. Orik Vandercaskin isn't bad, either. The face on his shield is well done, and he's a good figure for action shots.

Archetypes, part I: Outlining your archetype

In the past few weeks, I've discussed the different rounds of RPG Superstar -- magic items, maps, monsters, and encounters. The adventure proposal round wasn't a very strong round for me last year, and I'm probably not going to write anything about adventures at this point even though there are many useful things I learned while writing my Pathfinder Society adventure, the Golden Guardian.

Instead, I'll discuss archetypes (which used to be a round in RPGSS), describing my process of designing them.