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Josh Sawyer Q&A Thread

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MajorMace

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I'm actually eager to bathe my eyes in the glory of the pillars TTRPG sheer autism.
 
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Joseph Stalin

Totally not Auraculum
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796
I'm actually eager to bathe my eyes in the glory of the pillars TTRPG sheer autism.

He began producing lore for his TTRPG in May: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...rnity-tabletop-rpg.132384/page-5#post-6711080

Just two months ahead of the Avowed reveal, hmmm...

The supposed Reddit leak mentions that Avowed will respect the already established lore of the setting, so maybe that's what Sawyer's working on in the background.
 

FreeKaner

Prophet of the Dumpsterfire
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Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿErdogānīye


So Josh's work on Pillars of Eternity lore isn't abandoned. And I'm sure none of that lore will make it into Avowed, that game he's totally not working on. :P


This type of detailing of the world to add verisimilitude and flavour is what he does best, he should keep to it. I also was very fond of this detail when I first played PoE.
 
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Joseph Stalin

Totally not Auraculum
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I honestly believe he would be a good loremaster for a series like Elder Scrolls, since he obviously gives a damn about keeping the various elements coherent and cohesive, and seems to have a distaste for retcons.
 
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Joseph Stalin

Totally not Auraculum
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Jul 16, 2020
Messages
796
Just went through his Twitter posts of the last few months. Something inside this man has broken. He was always leftist, and never ashamed of that, but now he's just spamming this shit left and right.
 

santino27

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My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Just went through his Twitter posts of the last few months. Something inside this man has broken. He was always leftist, and never ashamed of that, but now he's just spamming this shit left and right.
The George Floyd/BLM stuff coming right in the middle of the pandemic has had that effect on a lot of people, I think.
 

NPC451

Literate
Joined
Jun 20, 2020
Messages
46
Wonder who Josh is talking about here.

MvzAKJo.png

Has Obsidian ever created anything that wasn't visually a mediocre pastiche, or worse a bland photo-realism?
With Feargus and his tastes with holding the purse strings I'm bracing for the worst.
 

Shrimp

Arbiter
Joined
Jun 7, 2019
Messages
1,038
A glimpse into why Josh cares so much about balance. He will deliberately sabotage your PnP campaign if you allow it.


Who's gonna tell him that to this day people still do challenge runs of decade old games where they intentionally limit themselves by placing arbitrary restrictions on themselves?
Honestly what a profoundly dumb mindset. Most people aren't infants who need Mr. Balance to dictate which colour of toy car they're allowed to play with.
 

Robert Erick

Educated
Joined
Jan 4, 2019
Messages
51
I can't stand reading Josh's posts. He writes like a block of concrete. I have to puzzle together what he's talking about by reading the replies to his posts.
 

Quillon

Arcane
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Dec 15, 2016
Messages
5,214
autism intensifies

https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/625354433757347840/can-you-define-bushido-breaking-cheatsglitches

Can you define bushido breaking cheats/glitches??

In my mind it’s anything that “breaks the frame” of gameplay: using console commands, rule- or stat-altering mods, anything involving data manipulation outside of the save/load interface.

Console commands are obviously meant primarily as dev/debugging tools. We leave many of them in there for player curiosity, personal debugging, and goofing around but they aren’t intended for use in normal play. Mods are obviously manipulating how the game works; that’s the whole point. Using mods for any sort of ordinary play is fine, but they’re banned from the Ultimate because they’re against the spirit of the challenge. Similarly, hopping out of the game to back up an Ultimate run save game is against the spirit of the challenge. However, forerunning a parallel save game with an identical character build and progression strategy isn’t against the spirit of the challenge.

Let me ramble for a while about personal challenges and standards.

When I was young, I lazily attended some taekwondo and kyuki-do classes. For a brief period, I was somewhat disciplined about going to kyuki-do and eventually I was ready to test for my green stripe (fairly low-ranking belt between yellow and green). Side note, but my friend Jeremy was testing for his blue belt (IIRC) and eventually went on to be a 2nd Dan black belt because he’s epic.

Anyway, there was a regional test in Janesville and the grandmaster of the federation showed up to run things. Naturally, he was a stonefaced older Korean guy. Second side note, but Troy Denning, of Dark Sun fame, was also on the review board because he’s a black belt in kyuki-do. Jeremy and I joked about wearing Dark Sun patches on our uniforms even though it would invariably mean doing 100 pushups (Korean martial arts… strict).

Before the tests kicked off, there was a red belt or black stripe who had to do a ceremonial opening. And you know what? This dude did a really bad job. Sloppy form, mumbling, inattentive. About 80% of the way through, Grandmaster Kim stopped him and said (paraphrased), “This is not how you do this. Do it again.” He wasn’t mean, but he was very clear and direct: there is a standard, and you are not meeting it.

When the baby belts (like me) did our tests, Grandmaster Kim was pretty chill and applauded everyone because it’s like, okay the test was to see if you could do the martial arts equivalent of tying your shoes and you did it, great.

When it came to the advanced belts (blue and higher), I noticed that Grandmaster Kim applauded people who did exceptionally well. If they met the bare minimum to pass, he would nod but he would not applaud. If they did not do well enough to pass, he would calmly tell them what they needed to improve on and continue with the other tests. I don’t recall him ever being harsh or mean-spirited, but he was firm and consistent: there is a standard. You are an advanced belt, so you know the standard. If you greatly exceed the standard, I will applaud you. If you meet the standard, I will acknowledge you. If you do not meet the standard, I or your instructor will tell you what you need to do to meet it during your next test.

Because I was a low-ranking belt but was friends with someone who eventually became a full black belt, I was aware of the time and effort it took to achieve that. For a while I “woulda shoulda coulda”’d about reaching higher ranks but the fact was that I simply didn’t put in the time and effort. There was an external authority to recognize if I did, but also, internally, I knew that I had not met the standard because I did not do the work.

When you’re playing a single-player game, there’s no one there to judge you for how you play (and I took measures to remove judgmental language from difficulty modes), but I think people also understand the spirit of playing the game - especially when it comes to optional challenges. If you opt into Trial of Iron, you’re doing so because of the challenge it poses, the change in the experience, and the satisfaction you will get when you complete it. If you manually backup your save game, you’re blunting the impact of all three of those things, especially the satisfaction at the end.

When we (Obsidian) review submissions for the Ultimate, we are an external authority verifying (or disqualifying) those submissions. We’re doing that because we intend to hold those players up as exemplars of extraordinary planning and perseverance for the rest of the community. When we first got the woven patches for the Ultimate, someone at Obsidian asked me if I made any more than the 50 for the first 50 to complete the challenge (for those keeping track, we have verified that 10 people have completed the Ultimate).

I said no, of course not. Why would I? He said well, so you could keep one for yourself. I had never even considered that because the patches are only for people who have completed the Ultimate. If I wanted a patch, I would have to do the work, the same as anyone else.

There’s always room to debate what is or is not fair play, but I think most players implicitly understand essentially the same standard.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Efe

Erudite
Joined
Dec 27, 2015
Messages
2,597
guess he does have some redeeming qualities.
though his example of "mastery" contradicts some of the god challenges.
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
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May 29, 2010
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Not sure what his problem with the Forecaster was. Doesn't seem out of place with the other Psykers from the first one.
 

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