Mad Brew Labs

Yesterday was an interesting day for tabletop roleplaying games and crowdfunding (or at least interesting for me). I managed to publish my Age of Patronage article just as the Gamerati published an edited video of Lisa Stevens, CEO of Paizo Publishing, answering a question I submitted for a Google Hangout that Peter Adkison read to her.

I had asked for her thoughts on patronage and its impact on the tabletop gaming industry. I also asked if Paizo might ever utilize crowdfunding and she alluded to something to come in the near future. Then late last night Gamerati dropped a link to the Kickstarter below in the comments of the video. [UPDATE: Sometime in the night, the preview for the Kickstarter was taken down, but I did manage to grab the video and the important bits of the proposal and they are contained below. I'll leave the hyperlink in for posterity's sake.]:

From the Pathfinder MMO Technology Demo Kickstarter:

Our First Step

This Kickstarter will fund the Technology Demo of the Pathfinder Online Massively Multiplayer Online RPG.  The Technology Demo will be fully playable, integrating account management, character creation, a virtual world server, multiple simultaneously connected clients, middleware used for rendering landscapes and characters, basic game mechanics, and player communications.  The demo will only support a few simultaneous users exploring a couple of small locations, so the general public won’t be able to play it, but we will produce a short video of the demo that everyone will be able to experience, and a special longer video exclusively for backers of this Kickstarter.

Your support of the Technology Demo will help us raise awareness of Pathfinder Online and will show potential investors what the game is really about.  Funding this demo will also signal to potential partners that Pathfinder Online has an audience that’s large enough and dedicated enough to allow the long-term success of the MMO. Nothing speaks louder than a ton of people putting up money to show their support of a new concept—that’s the genius element of Kickstarter!

What Do I Get?

Since this Kickstarter isn’t meant to fund the final video game, we had to think outside the box a little bit. Pathfinder Online is based on the world created by Paizo Publishing for their tabletop Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, so we thought it would be pretty cool to work with Paizo to create an RPG book that details one of the locations that Pathfinder Online characters will start in. We settled on the town of Thornkeep—that’s the very same “hive of scum and villainy” that the Pathfinder Online community named in our first online poll back in January! To make Thornkeep come alive, we’ve enlisted the talents of veteran game designer Rich Baker. Rich is going to give you everything you need to run a Pathfinder RPG game in Thornkeep, including the surrounding woods and a detailed dungeon below the ruins upon which Thornkeep was built. This very same dungeon will also be built as part of our technology demo, providing a great window into how tabletop design will make the transition to the digital medium.

And that’s just the first half of a 64-page book! The remaining sections will be written by our Pathfinder Online design team, letting you into Goblinworks’ design philosophy and giving you inside information gleaned from the development of our technology preview. The Thornkeep book will be produced to Paizo’s usual quality standards—perfectbound, printed in full color, with lots of all-new original artwork, including a brand new beautiful cover painting by fan-favorite Pathfinder artist Wayne Reynolds (the cover you see here is a mock-up).

We didn’t stop there either! We’ve built up a wide range of Goblinworks-themed merchandise, from posters and T-shirts to an entire day spent playing Pathfinder and dining out with the Goblinworks staff at one of the world’s finest restaurants! We have a reward level for every pocketbook, so give them a look and tell us what you think!

Listening to: Mastodon – Blood Mountain – This Mortal Soil

Oh how I’ve tricked the villagers beyond my dilapidated walls. No horrors have crept out of my laboratories for some time, and the peasants have been lulled into a false sense of security. But I’m still lurking… deep beneath the ruins above.

The Rumors of My Death…

Not that I really think anyone cares, but I’m still lurking around the blogosphere and various social networks. I’m still very much immersed with all things roleplaying, but have not had much to say and not a lot of time to say it anyways. IRL, my career in software development has snowballed and I find I no longer have the time I used to devote to writing for Mad Brew Labs.

The Night’s Watch

Something else taking up time is a new podcast I’m co-hosting for Bald Move: The Night’s Watch. My co-host, A.Ron Hubbard, and I are covering Game of Thrones television series, HBO’s adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice & Fire. Tomorrow, our coverage of the season 1 finale will go live at baldmove.com and on iTunes. If you want to find out more, check out the blog feed, fan us on Facebook, tweet at us @BaldMove, or circle us on Google+.

A New Outlook on Gaming

Of course the lack of time is just part of the equation. I also find myself in new territory as far as gaming is concerned. I no longer search for satisfaction in published systems (though still have fun playing them); instead find myself more interested in my own rules. I’m not creating new mind-blowing concepts, I’m just making familiar mechanics work the way I want them to and find I gain a great deal of fulfillment in doing so.

Late last year, I failed a 24 hour RPG challenge, but that initial concept is now in use at my table. I’ve often thought about writing about the process, but feel it would mostly fall on deaf ears. Maybe once I get the document edited to my liking, I’ll publish it here and explain some of the design choices I made.

Future Contributions

As I settle into a new work schedule, I hope to begin integrating time to return to writing and creating stuff for this hobby, so don’t delete me from your feeds just yet. I’m re-writing my free Pathfinder RPG online character creator, VentureCaptain.com from the ground up, but this time I’m building it with accounts in mind and as a subdomain of a much larger site: GamingKeep.com.  GK will roll up all the RPG-related web apps I’ve worked on using an integrated account system.

So if you liked my Savaged Tools (a Savage Worlds dice roller, initiative draw, and logging tool), you’re going to see some similar (and expanded) functionality for PFRPG too. It’s all pie in the sky, and honestly, could end up in the geek project graveyard, but I’m working on the infrastructure now. I even plan on putting tools for my own RPG on GamingKeep, so as long as my interest in my homebrew continues, so will work on this site. I won’t even deign to put a timeline on the project, but I hope to have the site updated within six months (it is only me, and I have a new day job, after all).

I think we may be seeing a virtual table-top integrated with Pathfinder in the near future. While at GenCon, I spied some of SmiteWorks’ people speaking with various Paizo luminaries as well as Lisa Stevens herself intensely demoing something at the SmiteWorks booth Saturday. For those unfamiliar with SmiteWorks, they are the producers of the Fantasy Grounds VTT.

 

During the Future of Paizo seminar at this year’s PaizoCon, Eric Mona and Lisa Stevens touched on integrating Pathfinder in technology. They of course mentioned the iFumble and iCrit (I abhor the iPrefix) iPhone apps that basically digitize their Critical Hit & Fumble card decks. They also mentioned their deal with HeroLab for character generation (my own VentureCaptain.com offers a free, unofficial character generator).

During the seminar, Lisa actually says:

We know there’s a lot of virtual tabletops out there, and this is something that, you know, we even have people in our office that are purposely doing games on virtual tabletops to learn what that’s like and what kind of limitations are there. What things they’d like to see and stuff like that.

There will be sometime in the future, there’ll be a way, or maybe multiple ways, to play Pathfinder games on a virtual tabletop in an official sort of way… We’ve been exploring, and talking to people… There’s a lot of questions. We’re actively exploring those questions, and when I mean actively… it’s a very high priority thing for the company to be looking at this question.

The Purple Golem Meets SmiteWorks?

It’s all speculation on my part, and d20Pro has a long standing relationship with Paizo, so maybe we’ll see more than one VTT integrate Pathfinder in a more official capacity.

Listening to: Gama Bomb – Tales from the Grave in Space – Slam Anthem

 

Paizo ^[1] and WizKids ^[2] announced the Pathfinder Battles pre-painted miniature line yesterday, ^[3] just a few days before GenCon 2011, so I expect they will have samples at their booth (see interactive GenCon exhibit hall map ^[4]). This announcement comes practically on the heels of their first foray, the Pathfinder Beginner Box Heroes ^[5] 4 mini set. The first set, Heroes and Monsters, includes 40 figures and will debut in December with the second 60 figure set to follow June, 2012 called Rise of the Runelords. No doubt we can expect some sort of collected hardcover anniversary edition of the Adventure Path of the same name.

Random Expensive

The good news is pre-painted miniatures are back (after D&D minis’ slow decline) and the promotional images make the sculpts and paint job look pretty good. The bad news is that they are random and expensive. Also, the look & feel of the minis is just a bit too stylized [anime] for my tastes.

• $3.99 for a single, random mini with a medium base (or two small based miniatures).
• $5.99 for a single, random mini with a large base

I think those prices are exorbitant for a single sight-unseen, random miniature.  A standard Pathfinder mini from Reaper usually costs around $5.99. ^[6] Yes, I may have to paint it, but I know what I’m getting. Random is synonymous with Collectable in this instance, and I’m not a fan of catering to the collector or speculative markets. It is standard practice in those markets to make things rare so people buy mass quantities of your product just to obtain key pieces… which are in turn sold on the second hand market for even steeper prices.

Case in point, the huge black dragon miniature offered through Pathfinder Battles. According to the press release, it can only be obtained through retailers who have purchased at least a case of minis. I can just imagine what unscrupulous retailers might do on eBay with these. Well, I guess it’s helping out brick & mortar shops; they need all the help they can get to survive.

Cost Effective?

On the discussion tab of the product page, ^[7] Lisa Stevens (CEO of Paizo) points to the reasoning behind the randomness is because it gives them the ability to produce a wide range of miniatures while still being cost effective:

Randomized miniatures also allow you to provide more variety. Not only can you introduce more figures at once, but the fact that you make make some of them rarer than others means you can produce plenty of the figures that everyone needs, like goblins or skeletons, and fewer of the figures that have narrower appeal, like strange monsters or iconic figures.

Another factor to think about is the brick-and-mortar retailer. It’s much easier for a retailer to stock single booster packs than individual packaged minis.

Conclusion

Paizo has earned a reputation with me for producing quality material and backing that up with exceptional customer service and fan support. They obviously are successful because they make good business decisions while I’m just vocal consumer with no experience with miniature manufacturing. Even so, WizKid’s business model seems to take advantage of the collector syndrome, which I’m not a fan of exploiting.

My strategy would have been to release themed sets, much like the Pathfinder Beginner Box Heroes and like D&D tried to do but with better quality. I’d love to see a set of 10 or 20 figures for each Adventure Path or sets for PCs when major supplements like the Advance Player’s Guide are published. Then you can still produce those misfit minis that are needed, but not popular, because you’re not selling them singly. The press release does state that Encounter Packs of visible non-random re-sculpts/re-paints from the parent sets will be available, but I wonder if it will be enough to satisfy me.

Listening to: Celtic Frost – Into the Pandemonium – Mesmerized

References

[1] Paizo, the publisher of Pathfinder

[2] WizKid, the manufacture of MageKnight/Clix

[3] The Pathfinder Battles press release

[4] An interactive GenCon 2011 Exhibit Hall Map I created

[5] Pathfinder Beginner Box Heroes announced around PaizoCon 2011

[6] A Reaper unpainted, metal Pathfinder miniature

[7] Pathfinder Battles product page

 

Intellectual property infringement was popular this week in the world of roleplaying games. We have seen an entire game company disappear seemingly after Berin Kinsman^[1] discovered and ousted obvious plagiarism and copy & paste jobs from two different products. And a small kerfuffle erupted over Paizo Publishing enforcing their rights as owners of copyrighted works.

RPG Plagiarism

From a Google+ post by Berin: Anaithnid Games’^[2] The Operation^[3] cuts and pastes swaths of John Wick’s Wilderness of Mirrors.^[4]

From John Wick’s Wilderness of Mirrors:
My game is about spies. My game is about spies. More specifically, it’s about creating the kind of atmosphere present in a James Bond or Jason Bourne
novel. Players want to be James and Jason and we should let them do just that. Not first level chumps who have to work their way up the ladder to become Mr. and Mrs.
Smith, but the kind of characters who can walk beside The Saint and Mrs. Peel without feeling like scrubs.

From Anaithnid Games’ The Operation:
This is a game about spies. Players want to be James Bond or Bourne or Burke when they play. Not first-level chumps who have to work their way up the ladder to become Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The kind of characters who can stand beside The Saint, Nathan Ford or Mrs. Peel without feeling like total losers.

Apparently, this is not the first product to be so blatantly copied. Berin also reported that this was after Anaithnid Games’ copied portions of Sword Edge Publishing’s Sword Noir.^[5] Luckily RPGNow/DriveThruRPG were swift in removing the infringing products, which is something that cannot be said of the digital book purveyor that Amazon.^[6] Since Berin reported the infringement, Anaithnid Games has disappeared from the web, even closing their Facebook fan page.

Paizo Publishing - This is fair use of the image, because I'm using it to clarify a news report

Infringing Upon Paizo

Geek Related^[7] first alerted me to the tempest in the teacup concerning a recent request from Paizo for the administrator of an Obsidian Portal^[8] campaign log to remove copyrighted images of scanned item cards from his pages.

Paizo has a long history of excellent fan support, and even provides a generous amount of imagery through their community use policy^[9] and community use package.^[10] Which, no one has to use, but you would be far more restricted in the use of that imagery if you only applied fair use as provided by US law.^[11]

There seems to be a lot of pissing and moaning about what Paizo did,^[12][13] and comparisons to what WotC & TSR did in the past. I also saw a lot of armchair attorneys talk about things they don’t understand (and I’ll admit, I’m not a lawyer either but have lots of experience/knowledge concerning IP). Posting scanned images of protected works, not matter how small they are or whether or not you posted copyright disclaimers does not absolve you of copyright infringement. It’s not transformative, like say the case of the pixel art cover to the album Kind of Blue.^[14]

This sense of entitlement concerning Paizo’s property is unfounded, and I think I have a very liberal philosophy about intellectual property. Paizo was even pretty polite from what I’ve gleaned from the discourse; Obsidian Portal and the offending user should be grateful they merely asked the service to resolve the situation instead of bringing legal action (cease & desist notifications, etc.) to bear.

Yeah, you bought the cards. Sure, make scans so you can create copies for personal use. But once you post them on a commercial site and make them available to the public, you’ve crossed the line. Be smart, gamers.

Listening to: Nine Inch Nails – The Crow OST – Burn

References

[1] Piracy, Plagiarism, & Hot Coffee by Berin Kinsman
[2] Anaithnid Game’s now dead Tumblr blog
[3] Anaithnid Game’s The Operation [no longer available]
[4] John Wick’s Wilderness of Mirrors
[5] Sword Edge Publishing’s Sword Noir
[6] Recent copyright infringement woes on Amazon
[7] Paizo Copyright Flap on Geek Related
[8] Obsidian Portal hosts online campaign journals
[9] Pathfinder Community Use Policy
[10] Pathfinder Community Use Package
[11] Copyright Fair Use
[12] Justin Mason complains about being asked to remove infringing material in the comments
[13] Eric Mona chimes in on the kerfuffle on ENWorld
[14] Kind of Screwed, fair use but still bulldozed

 

Last night GenCon released the Exhibitor List & Map^[1] so future attendees can see where their favorite game companies will be positioned in the new expansion. That’s right, this year’s exhibit hall will not be in the same place as last year, but rather in the shiny new areas along Capitol Street. GenCon even made a video to walk you through the new area.

Exhibitor List (PDF)

Listening to: Passenger – Passenger – In My Head

References

[1] GenCon Community – Exhibitor News Post

The ePawn Virtual Game Board

E3^[1] usually doesn’t have much to offer the traditional roleplaying and board game world. However, at this year’s E3 a 23” virtual game board was introduced. Behold the ePawn:

Gamespot reports that the large touchscreen device will retail for approximately $400.^[2] Gamespot also declares that the unit is a touchscreen, though I haven’t see anything directly from ePawn that says it responds to touch (but it would make sense).

What ePawn does claim is that it can track 100 objects simultaneously that have been configured (possibly using fiducials^[3]) to work with ePawn. In fact, it can track orientation and altitude (how high above the screen) of an object.^[4]

Another interesting specification is the ePawn does not come with an embedded CPU or memory. It works in tandem with a smartphone, tablet, or computer. So game designers can work with platforms they already know (their SDK supports Windows, Android, and iOS).

While I’m not exactly thrilled when the acronym DRM is said in the context of positive features, the ePawn provides a seamless DRM in the tracking technology. Which means game providers can limit their game to only work with their objects (which, of course, would be sold at a premium).

The Virtual Mat

There’s another virtual tabletop tool in development, and it’s called the Virtual Mat.^[5] What separates Virtual Mat from something like MapTool^[6] is that it presents the game space in 3D. It accomplishes this by re-using the models and animation from Neverwinter Nights.^[7] This means you’ll need to own NWN to use its resources. That being said, the NWN mod community^[8] has provided a ton of free resource that could be used.

Virtual Mat is written in Java (using the jMonkeyEngine^[9]), so it makes the software fairly cross-platform. However, like most virtual table tops, Virtual Mat has no plans to implement actual rules, but it is trying to hook a lot of the animations and models present in NWN along with common virtual tabletop elements like fog-of-view.

Listening to: Crowbar – Sever the Wicked Hand – Echo An Eternity

References

[1] The Electronic Entertainment Expo is an annual trade show for the video game industry

[2] Gamespot’s E3 2011 Gaming Hardware & Accessories report

[3] A fiducial is a mark that can be recognized by imaging technology

[4] ePawn’s official website

[5] Virtual Mat’s home page

[6] RPTools’ MapTool Virtual Table Top

[7] Bioware’s Neverwinter Nights

[8] Downloads can be found on Bioware^[7] and IGN’s NWN Vault

[9] Virtual Mat thread on jMonkeyEngine

Wow, there’s a lot of dust around here!

Things have been pretty busy elsewhere in my life, so I have unfortunately had to concentrate my energies there. But enough excuses, let’s get to the RPG-related content.

ENnies Blog Shout-out

First, I’d like to give a shout-out (back?) to Tony Law and the ENnies Blog. Tony interviewed me (and many other ENnie nominees and winners) and the interview went live this morning. The interview was completed before I gave my controlling interest in Nevermet Press to Jonathan Jacobs, who is now the sole proprietor.

Pathfinder RPG App

Even though the Labs appear to have been abandoned since GenCon, I can assure you I have only secreted myself away from the villagers with their burning torches and nasty pitchforks while I gave life to my newest endeavor.

If you cannot tell from the screenshots, it is a web-based character generator for the Pathfinder RPG. I cannot say when I’ll be finished; I am currently on my 3^rd re-write of the code at the moment in an attempt to get the app to perform decently on any browser but Chrome (Chrome IS the fastest browser when complex JavaScript routines are concerned).

The character generation takes place completely on the client side through the liberal application of JavaScript until the final step where the app creates a PDF of the character and stores it for a limited time on the server (the app automatically redirects to the (Character Gen Sample) PDF in the browser).

Here is the list of features that have been developed so far:

• Point buy Ability Score calculation (though you are free to break it)
• Favored Bonus points distribution (including Half-Elf bonus favored class)
• All racial features for the 7 Core Races
• All selectable class features for  the 11 Core Classes
• Validation logic for all 176 Core Feats
• Skill bonus calculation
• Saving Throws, BAB, CMB, & CMD calculation
• Hit Point calculation using ½ Hit Die + 1 (and max HPs at 1^st level)
• Save to PDF

As far as things to come, I want to add equipment and spell selection, with automated calculations for attack, damage, and save DCs. I plan on introducing Traits from the PDF enhancement as well. I also want to look into implementing random Ability Score generation options as well as random options for Hit Points.

Since I am in the middle of development, I do not want to reveal the project’s web address (it is actually live), but any parties interested in testing the app when the time comes, feel free to leave a comment below. I would also like to thank the handful of people who have already given me feedback on the project during its infancy.

For now, I’m sticking to the core rulebook only. Once the core rules are hammered out, then I will consider adding material from other sourcebooks. The core of the web app will certainly be free, but I am considering charging a small fee to store characters in a database.

Listening to: Danzig – Deth Red Sabaoth – The Revengeful

The 2010 ENnies Awards at GenCon should be called the Year of Pathfinder. While the very awesome Year of the Shadow Lodge event was taking place at Pathfinder Society, Paizo took home 12 awards (10 Gold and 2 Silver and totally swept the Best Monster/Adversary category) and non-Paizo Pathfinder related products took earned Pathfinder another 3 (KW, City Guide, & d20PFSRD) awards for a total of 14 Gold and 3 Silver ENnies! In fact, only a single product from Paizo, Campaign Coins, didn’t place.

The ENnies began with a special a Special Recognition Award to DTRPG for their efforts raising money for Haitian relief… which really recognizes the charity of all the gamers that bought the Haiti Bundle that allowed DriveThru to donate to the cause.

The following is the list of award winners. I’ve bolded winners that matched my picks, but congratulations to all the winners!

Fan’s Choice Best Publisher

Gold Paizo Publishing

Silver Fantasy Flight Games

Product of the Year

Gold Pathfinder

Silver Eclipse Phase

Best Game

Gold Pathfinder

Silver Shadowrun 20th Anniversary Edition

Best Supplement

Gold Mysteries of the Hollow Earth

Silver Player’s Handbook 3

Best Setting

Gold Day After Ragnarok

Silver Rome: Life & Death in the Republic

Best Monster/Adversary

Gold Pathfinder Bestiary

Silver Pathfinders Classic Monsters Revisited

Best Adventure

Gold Pathfinder Adventure Path #31: Stolen Land

Silver Trail of Cthulhu:  The Armitage Files

Best Regalia

Gold Cthulhu 101

Silver Battletech: 25 Years of Art & Fiction

Best Miniatures Product

Gold D&D Minis

Silver Gaming Paper

Best Aid/Accessory

Gold Pathfinder GM Screen

Silver Gaming Paper

Best Electronic Book

Gold The Great City Player’s Guide

Silver Pathfinder Society #29:The Devil We Know, Part 1: Shipyard Rats

Best Free Product

Gold Advanced Player’s Guide Playtest

Silver Lady Blackbird

Best Rules

Gold Diaspora

Silver Hero 6th Edition

Best Writing

Gold Eclipse Phase

Silver Victoriana 2nd Edition

Best Production Values

Gold Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook

Silver Shadowrun 20th Anniversary

Best Cartography

Gold Pathfinder City Map Folio

Silver Aces & Eights: Judas Crossing

Best Interior Art

Gold Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook

Silver Shadowrun 20th Anniversary

Best Cover Art

Gold Pathfinder Bestiary

Silver Eclipse Phase

Best Blog

Gold Kobold Quarterly

Silver Gnome Stew

Best Podcast

Gold Atomic Array

Silver All Games Considered

Best Website

Gold Obsidian Portal

Silver d20pfsrd.com

Listening to: Fear Factory – Obsolete – Edgecrusher

Blue Yonder is a podcast concerning general geekery like Star Wars/Trek, sci-fi/action movies, and general gaming. Wednesday, their 22^nd episode went live and it features an interview with me, where I talk about RPGs and Gen Con.

I did get some information wrong, due to not having it not readily available to me and speaking from memory (which mine can be rather hazy) and gut feeling. I’d like to clarify that GenCon didn’t come to Indy until 2003 and it’s I6 Ravenloft (not I9, which is Day of Al’Akbar). Most of anything else is just my opinion of whatever topic we’re discussing, so don’t take it as gospel truth.

Besides the interview with me, the guys at Blue Yonder have another cast focusing exclusively on Roleplaying Games. I’m also providing a list of their other episodes which many readers might find interesting too:

• 22: Interview with Mad Brew Labs
• 21: Inception
• 20: Game Collecting
• 19: RPGs
• 18: Ultimate Geek House
• 17: Geek Babes Draft
• 16: FPS
• 15: Massively Multiplayer
• 14: Practical Jokes
• 13: Madden ’84
• 12: Geek Colorblindness
• 11: Iron Man 2
• 10: Wars vs. Trek, Part 2
• 09: Zombie Draft
• 08: Wars vs. Trek, Part 1
• 07: Gaming Ethics
• 06: Geek Bliss
• 05: Bad Asses
• 04: PAX East, Part 3
• 03: PAX East, Part 2
• 02: PAX East, Part 1
• 01: Geekdom

Listening to: Kingdom of Sorrow – Behind the Blackest Tears – God’s Law in the Devil’s Lan