Starfinder Design Test Conclusion

 The results are in, and are as expected! 

Hi jay  murphy,

Thank you for completing the Starfinder Design test. The hiring team has decided not to offer you an interview at this time, but I want to personally commend you for completing the test and candidly sharing your views about game design with us. I look forward to your future contributions to the tabletop roleplaying game industry, and I encourage you to apply for other opportunities at Paizo as they become available.

Best Regards,

Jenny Jarzabski
Creative Manager

l particularly like the statement "I want to personally commend you for...candidly sharing your views about game design..."

Besides I am not corporate material, I knew this section of the test was going to take me out of the running for round 3. I just can't say that game design has to support the product line as a whole. What I mean, and everyone knows this, Pathfinder and WoTC's 5e are so much tools of the imagination, but a homogenous place built around the company's particular canon. Or they just become this "thing" which is essentially immutable and unchanging. And I get why you have to drive a product line in this way, repeat business. Sales. 

Jenny is probably a forever DM as well, and would love to sit at my table and have that breath of fresh air which comes from campaigns that embrace genre over rules. She is probably busy as all get out, but I think I will offer to run a game for her and her cohorts.

I know my ideas are not alien, just unprofitable. But damn if I do not get great gameplay from the players that I get to be a player too. I truly never know where things are going to go. I get surprised constantly and consistently. Fuck yeah!  

Starfinder Design Test

I threw my hat in the ring two weeks ago for a design editor position opening up at Paizo. I thought why not. Because I wanted to see if my experience to date in the world of rpg publishing would get my feet in the door. I think I came upon the announcement with like a day before they closed the application process. 

So I put it together, I think it was all online, and clicked send. Shortly thereafter I received their design test. The test is to evaluate your skills working with the Starfinder 2nd Edition, designed to give insight into my understanding of the game, my ability to work creatively within strict guidelines, and to give Paizo a better sense of myself as a gamer and professional.

Who doesn't want to know that? Besides, I know jack-shit about Pathfinder/Starfinder. Never ran a game of it, never read a rulebook. But I do consider myself a student of the art, and I like to think after all the projects I put myself through I got a handle on the business. At some point you become your own authority and a pro performs without a net. I'm going back over the completed document. Looking for anything I can re-sharpen. And sending it out after I get done typing this post. Ahead of deadline by twenty hours. 

I do not intend to take the job if offered. I have another job lined up which is close to home with better pay and benefits. Besides, I have worked from home enough to know social isolation leads to depression and drink. No, I am in it for the validation. Once again to see if I can hit a mark set by others, not myself. And if the offer does come forth probably the best way to get a freelance gig. Which suits me a whole lot better. I'll keep you all informed.

Gaming Opinions and Their Consequences

I have pretty strong opinions on how one should run a ttrpg as, and in the role, of Game Master/Dungeon Master/Judge/Keeper, Starmaster, etc. What usually strikes folks I am in discussion with is my unwillingness to change my mind. That I do not have much wiggle-room in my definitions and positions. They also can't get over the fact that I have no issues with "I" statements. Such as, "I believe this...", "I do that...", etc. They are struck by the fact I will not see things "their" way. 

The one which really starts the fireworks is when presented with the fact of "learning" modes, or models. As in there are people who cannot visualize, are unable to interact in a roleplaying game via theater of the mind. I state then the game form of ttrpg's is not for them. Requiring the Game Master to change their methods and best practices to accommodate  these divergent thought structures. I say no I won't, don't and should not because I would be compromising my beliefs from hard-fought practice and exploration. I think "gatekeeping" is the most scurrilous of accusations. I'm not. I have no problem what others decided to do with their dice and their social gatherings. It just isn't what I am about, or interested in. Going along to get along isn't me.

So my two game sessions I ran at the convention were spot-on home runs accomplishing my goals and rewarding players with a fantastic theater of the mind role-playing experience. One session was to explore a difficult genre, for me, and see if the subject matter translated well for a game session. It did. The other was to run a crunchy, old game system with folks who wanted to explore these modes of play. This was a good discussion of what worked in the system, and some of the improvements over rules implementation here in the last ten years of gaming or so. 

"c'est la vie"

Ghengiscon 2025 Preflight

 Leaving soon from the Western Slope to descend on Denver, CO and Ghengiscon 2025, Colorado's oldest and longest running game convention. Snow in the forecast so, even though it is an interstate highway I travel, I do have my standard kit in the truck; winter boots, hat, gloves, and a blanket tucked under the back seat. Nothing sucks like 4 hours of stopped traffic due to some "incident". This can range from anything like deep snow, white out conditions, avalanche, 8 car pile-ups, and my favorite - flaming semis. I've seen them all. 

I should get into town around 3pm, check in, and wander the convention hall for a new set of dice to purchase. 7pm is Rock Hard 1977. Billed as a board game, you attempt to rise from obscurity into a mega rock star. Never heard of it, never seen it, but going to play it - hard! Then at 11pm is the after hours party with all the sponsors and vendors. I wish I had a good pitch all figured out besides pointing an executive to my drivethru page. Sure would like to pick up a freelance writing project while I'm there. I'm not drinking so that will be a plus, and I am a bit of an extrovert so I will at least be able to gather names and what these people actually do.