I am reading a Pathfinder comic series taking place in and around Sandstone, where group D&D2 is. The coolest thing about this material is that it even includes game content! Stuff like breakdowns of bandit groups in the area, with stat blocks for NPCs, and even brand-new encounters and maps! This stuff can definitely help me flesh out the campaigns in the area with extra material, and also understand the feel of the area better so I can run it better. TSR never went this far with their pure narrative content (I don't even think they ever published comics at all); the game stuff was game stuff, and the novels were novels. Paizo has definitely been stretching the envelope here too.
PathfinderWiki wrote:Other bonus features are more than 30 pages of encounters, characters, and world detail for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, including a brand-new poster map of the region explored in the Pathfinder comic!
I am now trying to determine a couple of things.
1) Should I make these comics unlockable for players, or should I rather reserve them as material I can adapt into adventures for them to play?
2) To what extent these comics are related to the campaigns in the area, and to what extent they spoil these campaigns, or the campaigns spoil them?
Once I've figured all this out—which will entail A LOT of reading on my part—I'll be able to decide how best to give this material to the players in the area. I am also about to get into Pathfinder novels, and I'll have the same questions to solve about them.
Once I manage to sort some of this stuff out, I will be able to start giving players material to read between sessions. This material won't be mandatory, but for players itching to spend more time in the world, it should be very enjoyable, and it'll also improve their role-playing, as they'll be able to understand the area more, and therefore the place of their characters in it.
I've started with Varisia, since we have two groups there, and both are mine, but I will also look up material for dan's Taldor campaign. I won't read that, I'll just point it out to dan to save him the time of looking for it himself.