Ancestry and Class Surveys

PossibleCabbage wrote:

Marc Radle wrote:

That may be, but plenty of folks play Pathfinder but don’t use Golarion as thier campaign setting, so that should not be relevant. Plus, the Pathfinder rule set is not the same as the Golarion setting, so Golarion-specific rules really should not be baked into the core Pathfinder rules in any case

I believe one of the major changes for Pathfinder 2nd edition is that the core rules are no longer setting neutral. So things like "Clerics of philosophies" are right out. If you want to run a game in a setting which is not the default one, you will need to change some things.

But since the bestiary will almost surely have rules for building all sorts of nasty things using PC rules (for major antagonists who happen to be a specific type of thing), it'll be easy to lift those for PC rules without giving explicit PC support.

If Golarion Lore is a requirement for this system, then that's something that needs to change.

I'm fine with using your lore to give examples and design your APs, but it should not be automatically assumed that you are using Golarion lore when you play PF2.

Yep, That' my take on it too. I actually like Golarion, but I want PF2 to be able to support other settings, like PF1 did, right out the gate.

Also, if goblins are okay as a core ancestry, Drow are sure as hell okay as a supplement one. They might be an an elven heritage, whatever, but they are just as valid.

I always seen it as Paizo mostly ignoring drow, sans the Second Darkness AP, where they are strictly villains (which was okay, being oldschool, going back to the roots, yadda-yadda, but they even said there that there's room for non-evil Drow). Drow as a player race isn't really a thing on Golarion, at least that is the feel I got from their presentation. I always thought that to be too extreme and one-sided. Still, the Advanced Race Guide is extremely usefull if I want to play FR, for example, since it reflects the fluff a lot better, IMO than anyothing WotC did.

Also, this ignoring could be personal preferences among the writers/developers, or could be that Drow are essentially a D&D poster-childs and they have the professional courtesy of not "stealing" them. their mascots are goblins.

Still, I think drow should be among the first ancestries outside the core, simply just because people love them (and I suspect, despite Paizo's tendency to avoid them, tons of people still plaed them, yes, even in games settled on Golarion), myself included. Actually, I prefer Golarion in almost every instance over FR, but the portrayal of the Drow is one of the few examples.

Well it's the only class I actually got to play so, I gave them an earful on the Ranger,

I guess that's about all I can do from here. I'll keep an eye on how things change over the next year but I don't know if I'll get another chance at playtesting. Nobody I know seems willing to give the playtest another shot unless something major changes in Character creation. Might find a one-shot at a local store maybe

I don't even like drow that much except in certain contexts, but it would still be a VERY good idea from a business perspective to provide drow heritage etc feats for elf in the final book. Because part of the whole point of this PF2 exercise is drawing off customers from The Brand. So they should want to make things easier for Brand players who favor certain races to transition to this system right away.

By the same logic, while they undoubtedly can't do a "dragonborn" they would be well advised to include kobold or lizardman in core, as well as the tiefling/aasimar planetouched.

Well it's the only class I actually got to play so, I gave them an earful on the Ranger

Did you let them know how awesome snares are? ;)

I honestly don't know much about Golarion or even where to start. But I'm also on the more worthless end of their market since I don't go in for adventure paths, so that's hardly relevant. It sounds like a theme park for old sci-fi and fantasy comics. Ancient aliens land, vikings land, pirates land and so on and so forth. It all seems pretty culturally disconnected for a world with teleportation.

But where would someone start to get an idea of what it's about; what's a good primer?

I honestly don't know much about Golarion or even where to start. But I'm also on the more worthless end of their market since I don't go in for adventure paths, so that's hardly relevant. It sounds like a theme park for old sci-fi and fantasy comics. Ancient aliens land, vikings land, pirates land and so on and so forth. It all seems pretty culturally disconnected for a world with teleportation.

But where would someone start to get an idea of what it's about; what's a good primer?

This is pretty definitive

I honestly don't know much about Golarion or even where to start. But I'm also on the more worthless end of their market since I don't go in for adventure paths, so that's hardly relevant. It sounds like a theme park for old sci-fi and fantasy comics. Ancient aliens land, vikings land, pirates land and so on and so forth. It all seems pretty culturally disconnected for a world with teleportation.

But where would someone start to get an idea of what it's about; what's a good primer?

Golarion is the setting where you can pretty much run any med-fan adventure whatever its specifics, hence the variety

I think they did a quite good job of fusing the whole parts in a somewhat cohesive world that makes some sense and giving it a strong identity

Their usual advice is to ignore the places that cater to a theme you do not like and focus on those who support the themes you love

In addition to the aforementioned product there are some websites out there that give info on Golarion though often wiki-style rather than a global overview

So a question about these surveys, we haven't done much in the way of high level play but it's on the agenda (my group seems to feel that around level 4-5 is when the game improves markedly so we've focused on that). Should I wait until we've run some like 9th level or 15th level sessions to fill them out (I did the ancestry one but haven't finished the class one)? Can I fill them out again later?

I guess my question is, if humans have all these wonderful sub-cultures, where are the other races sub-cultures? You have Varisians and Tians and so forth, but you don't really list those distinction for non-Human races and that feels lackluster. I would really like to see some cultural diversity among non-Human races so that Dwarves from this part of the world have a different culture and maybe even language than Dwarves from this part of the world. Perhaps these Halflings over here don't speak Halfling as their mother tongue, but speak Varisian instead.

AD&D and descendants tend to have an anthropocentric world. It's also why you have things like all elves speaking the same elvish language, all dwarves speaking the same dwarvish, all halflings speaking the same halfling, etc.

I've been going through and marking "I haven't played this class" for all the classes I've GM'ed for, but it feels like "I have GM'ed for this class" should have been an option.

Also, there's no Crane Flutter on the 1-6 monk feat list, which is a shame because I think it might be the best feat.

I honestly don't know much about Golarion or even where to start. But I'm also on the more worthless end of their market since I don't go in for adventure paths, so that's hardly relevant. It sounds like a theme park for old sci-fi and fantasy comics. Ancient aliens land, vikings land, pirates land and so on and so forth. It all seems pretty culturally disconnected for a world with teleportation.

Honestly, that was my first impression of the setting too. I said "well, this is even more of a kitchen sink, than FR, like, literally, they've dumped everything and its uncle into it...". And that's true. And it somehow works and 'in general' doesn't feel disconnected (at least for me). Maybe because the writers actually embraced the kitchen sink aspect of it and went nuts. It has its own appeal and also has its own distinct style.

The novels also helped a lot to give it its identity, for me.

Looks good, thanks for pointing me at a good start. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize that all their books were in the same world as they seem pretty different.

If the intent is to solidify Golarion as the place of Pathfinder games, they really aught to field the full tech and magic span in the first core book.

Looks good, thanks for pointing me at a good start. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize that all their books were in the same world as they seem pretty different.

If the intent is to solidify Golarion as the place of Pathfinder games, they really aught to field the full tech and magic span in the first core book.

Yeah. I'm not big on Golarion at all, but it really does seem like they should probably get guns and gunslingers going as of the release Core book if that's the setting they're pushing, so people argue about it less later.

ErichAD wrote:

Looks good, thanks for pointing me at a good start. It took me longer than I'd like to admit to realize that all their books were in the same world as they seem pretty different.

If the intent is to solidify Golarion as the place of Pathfinder games, they really aught to field the full tech and magic span in the first core book.

Yeah. I'm not big on Golarion at all, but it really does seem like they should probably get guns and gunslingers going as of the release Core book if that's the setting they're pushing, so people argue about it less later.

Guns are only common in roughly 1 or 2 places (Alkenstar (powder) and Numeria (lasers)) both of which are geographically fairly isolated and distant from the majority of the Inner Sea.

I'd like Gunslingers in Core, but it's totally reasonable for that to wait since guns in Golarion are purposefully isolated to keep the "no guns in my fantasy" crowd from rioting.

I see the merit in both ways. But I think for the purpose of framing the breadth of the world, and distinguishing Golarion from generic D&D settings, it's going to be more valuable in the long run.

And it further prompts a move away from "rarity" to regional and cultural restrictions which I think will be needed as the game moves forward.

I see the merit in both ways. But I think for the purpose of framing the breadth of the world, and distinguishing Golarion from generic D&D settings, it's going to be more valuable in the long run.

That would be really difficult. Some of Golarion is really fleshed out (Cheliax, Varisia, Nidal the S&M theme park), but most are either real world expies (Ustalav, Osirion, Galt, etc) or generic fantasy lands with a boxed cultural transplant (Lands of the Linnorn Kings, Tian), or something right out of D&D (Numeria is basically expedition to the Barrier Peaks/Blackmoor, ancient world rulers are snakemen because of course they are), or so much flavorless, anachronistic powder (Andoran, Taldor and several of the random countries they never got around to publishing a paperback on).

Honestly given how tied Golarion is to 1e, and how big the departure is for some elements of 2e, I think they'd be better off starting over with the setting as well. The cultures, expies and anachronisms (in several cases crossing a border changes the tech level significantly) make Golarion a hit-or-miss mismatch.

ErichAD wrote:

I see the merit in both ways. But I think for the purpose of framing the breadth of the world, and distinguishing Golarion from generic D&D settings, it's going to be more valuable in the long run.

That would be really difficult. Some of Golarion is really fleshed out (Cheliax, Varisia, Nidal the S&M theme park), but most are either real world expies (Ustalav, Osirion, Galt, etc) or generic fantasy lands with a boxed cultural transplant (Lands of the Linnorn Kings, Tian), or something right out of D&D (Numeria is basically expedition to the Barrier Peaks/Blackmoor, ancient world rulers are snakemen because of course they are), or so much flavorless, anachronistic powder (Andoran, Taldor and several of the random countries they never got around to publishing a paperback on).

Honestly given how tied Golarion is to 1e, and how big the departure is for some elements of 2e, I think they'd be better off starting over with the setting as well. The cultures, expies and anachronisms (in several cases crossing a border changes the tech level significantly) make Golarion a hit-or-miss mismatch.

Taldor is one of the real world nations, it is the Byzantine Empire.

I see the merit in both ways. But I think for the purpose of framing the breadth of the world, and distinguishing Golarion from generic D&D settings, it's going to be more valuable in the long run.

And it further prompts a move away from "rarity" to regional and cultural restrictions which I think will be needed as the game moves forward.

I'm agreeing with this. Actually, the fact that Golarion is (by and large) more "renaissance", than forced medieval-but-not-really is one of the things I much like about it. What could I say, I like settings like that (WHFRP, Ravenloft's various domains, Aarklash of the old Confrontation wargame, etc.).

Honestly, I'd even like firearms being presented as more common, at least in the more central, more developed nations. PF1 assumed emerging guns, but surely, 10 years should be enough to get their hands on a bunch of pistols and muskets and reverse-engineer it.

I wish the surveys had asked what feats you would never take in each section. This would have potentially pointed out problem feats. If a large section of the respondents give the same answer, there is a problem there. Now that problem may just be people underestimating a feat, but in that case something should be done to show it is worthwhile.

ErichAD wrote:

I see the merit in both ways. But I think for the purpose of framing the breadth of the world, and distinguishing Golarion from generic D&D settings, it's going to be more valuable in the long run.

And it further prompts a move away from "rarity" to regional and cultural restrictions which I think will be needed as the game moves forward.

I'm agreeing with this. Actually, the fact that Golarion is (by and large) more "renaissance", than forced medieval-but-not-really is one of the things I much like about it. What could I say, I like settings like that (WHFRP, Ravenloft's various domains, Aarklash of the old Confrontation wargame, etc.).

Honestly, I'd even like firearms being presented as more common, at least in the more central, more developed nations. PF1 assumed emerging guns, but surely, 10 years should be enough to get their hands on a bunch of pistols and muskets and reverse-engineer it.

you'd be surprised how long it took for firearms to spread irl, before large engineering and chemical factories. For instance the first recorded military use of a gun in Europe was at Agincort in 1415, a single man was shot dead, it took decades for firearms to be widespread after that, and for another comparison the first firearm, the ancestor of all later firearms was the 10th century Fire Lance, beginning as what amounts to a roman candle on a lance, it evolved into a blast stick style shot weapon (basically a sawnoff shotgun full of stones to be fired during a charge, then used as a lance). 10 years is nothing on that sort of time scale, artificer based crafting means really slow transmission of technology and ideas.

Why are you collecting demographic information in these surveys?

I'm not big on Golarion at all, but it really does seem like they should probably get guns and gunslingers going as of the release Core book if that's the setting they're pushing, so people argue about it less later.

The same logic dictates they include Oracle in CRB, since that is likewise common in specific region (Tian Xia instead of Mana Wastes). I don't see any more problem with CRB ignoring one regional focus than another. Although my personal preference for firearms is they be integrated with Alchemy & Alchemist and not assume rapid-fire gunslinger trope, which plausibly would benefit being co-developed with Alchemy, I just don't see the necessity from 'generic Golarion setting' stand point, it is regional focus after all.

Fair Warning: I'm not big on guns, period, but regionally marginalized and Medeival-Renaissance-trope appropriate rather than anachronistic 19-20c gunslinger theme makes them MUCH more tolerable... I'd rather the 19-20c gunslinger trope be saved for "EarlyModernFinder" rather than pull the rug from under timetravel plot by saying 'wow, it's just the same basically!'

Yeah. I'm not big on Golarion at all, but it really does seem like they should probably get guns and gunslingers going as of the release Core book if that's the setting they're pushing, so people argue about it less later.

I'd rather not see guns in a FRPG. I want Paizo to leave them out of 2e.

Fuzzypaws wrote:

Yeah. I'm not big on Golarion at all, but it really does seem like they should probably get guns and gunslingers going as of the release Core book if that's the setting they're pushing, so people argue about it less later.

I'd rather not see guns in a FRPG. I want Paizo to leave them out of 2e.

Golarion fundamentally changes if they do, and it would require an apocalypse to justify.

Why are you collecting demographic information in these surveys?

It's been five months and Paizo didn't see fit to answer this simple question.

Scott Romanowski wrote:

Why are you collecting demographic information in these surveys?

It's been five months and Paizo didn't see fit to answer this simple question.

I can only think that Paizo is collecting demographic information so they can favor the survey results from certain types of people, and disfavor survey results from others. That is not they type of behavior I want to see in a company I buy from -- everyone's opinion should be evaluated on the opinion's merit, regardless of who submitted it.
Paizo, I think you made a huge mistake.

Or maybe they want to know among which age/education/location/ethnicity groups the playtest is popular so that they can focus their marketing or sales in these areas.

Or they're just curious who is filling the survey.

Some people's ability to attribute The Most Malicious And Hurtful Intent Possible Whenever Possible never fails to amaze me.

I can only think that Paizo is collecting demographic information so they can favor the survey results from certain types of people, and disfavor survey results from others. That is not they type of behavior I want to see in a company I buy from -- everyone's opinion should be evaluated on the opinion's merit, regardless of who submitted it.

I don't think it has to be anything nearly that sinister.

It could be an attempt to collect data points that show Paizo who their hard-core audience is.

If they already have a good idea of what their audience looks like, using demographic information can help them figure out if the survey results are representative of their audience as a whole or just an active minority.

If they have other demographic data regarding the industry, they can use the survey data to figure out where their audience is and if the game isn't appealing to a key area.

We know based on an interview on Know Direction that the demographic data allowed the designers to put some survey responses in context - Jason mentioned that folks who wanted wands to be more than spells in a stick tended to be from the younger portion of the audience and speculated that there might be some Harry Potter influence in there.

Demographic data has a whole host of useful applications. The more Paizo knows about its audience, the better they can cater to their fans.

Scott Romanowski wrote:

Why are you collecting demographic information in these surveys?

It's been five months and Paizo didn't see fit to answer this simple question.

I can only think that Paizo is collecting demographic information so they can favor the survey results from certain types of people, and disfavor survey results from others. That is not they type of behavior I want to see in a company I buy from -- everyone's opinion should be evaluated on the opinion's merit, regardless of who submitted it.
Paizo, I think you made a huge mistake.

Jumping to conclusions is not thinking.

I mean, in case survey data comes back where people are highly polarized, any piece of information that lets you figure out why or what to do about it is better than throwing your hands up and saying "I dunno."

Being able to filter for various categories and seeing if that adds clarity to the point of contention is a lot better than "wading into forum arguments" after all.

Folks, I am pretty sure I have spoken to this before, but let me be clear.

We did not grab demographic info to remove results. Rather we got the information to get an idea of the composition of our audience. This gives us a better understanding of where the RPG market is as a whole, and I am happy to say that it continues to get younger and more diverse with each passing year.

Never, at any point in our process, did we discount survey results based on demographics.

Folks, I am pretty sure I have spoken to this before, but let me be clear.

We did not grab demographic info to remove results. Rather we got the information to get an idea of the composition of our audience. This gives us a better understanding of where the RPG market is as a whole, and I am happy to say that it continues to get younger and more diverse with each passing year.

Never, at any point in our process, did we discount survey results based on demographics.

Is there any possibility of sharing more in-depth results with us? Possibly the full results? I could understand if you want to keep it to yourself (you did take the time effort and money to commission the surveys for yourself, not potential competitors, and it could reignight flame wars of people using this information to prove Paizo is horrible because of any little detail they dredge up). But It's always fascinating to see were the fandom is. Like that D20PFSRD survey on PF1 class and race options from like a year ago. The demographic info could be rather fascinating to see if there are certain aspects that under-represented groups particularly like or don't like. Considering Paizo's well known interest in diversity, this is probably something you were looking at as well. If you can use that info to widen the appeal (without alienating existing customers of course), then that's something I think everyone can support. Having a wider playerbase results in a healthier game, more potential players and GMs for your group and more financial incentive to give us more material. Win win.

I am happy to say that it continues to get younger and more diverse with each passing year.

As someone who is about to turn 72, I'm not sure whether that pleases or distresses me. :-)

. Considering Paizo's well known interest in diversity, this is probably something you were looking at as well. If you can use that info to widen the appeal (without alienating existing customers of course), then that's something I think everyone can support. Having a wider playerbase results in a healthier game, more potential players and GMs for your group and more financial incentive to give us more material. Win win.

You would think so, wouldn't you? But I'm constantly amazed at how distressed some people seem to be about efforts to make gaming more inclusive. There would absolutely be a backlash. Which is sad.

Genuinely surprised that people would think that asking for details on the person taking the test is something shady. It's pretty standard practice to ask that kinda thing, right?

Assuming that Paizo is going to discount a subset of survey results because of the <insert demographic categories here> of the respondents is quite paranoid.

And I don't see any evidence that Hanlon's Razor would apply in this case. Collecting voluntary demographic information about your player base is eminently reasonable, and is one item that can help add nuance to the interpretation of survey results.

"Overall, player opinions were slightly negative about this change. Players under the age of 25 in general were neutral about it. Players over the age of 50 nearly universally hated it. There is a strong correlation between the age of the respondent and their opinion of this change."

vs.

"Overall, player opinions were slightly negative about this change."

Which one of these is more useful? Well, if you have a goal of not alienating your older fans, the first one is. But you can't have that particular analysis without asking about player age on the survey (you can do other potentially useful analyses from other survey questions, but you're definitely missing out on a subset of useful data).

Waiting half a year for an answer is very far from "jumping". Please check the facts before accusing people of being rash.

Folks, I am pretty sure I have spoken to this before, but let me be clear.

If someone had replied with this in the five months that this thread had been idle, there would have been no issue. Silence was very suspicious, especially given how quickly you replied now. It is good to learn that you are using the information to learn about the market as a whole.

My demographic: "None Of Your Business". I'm a gamer; that's all you need to know.

interpretation of survey results.

"Overall, player opinions were slightly negative about this change. Players under the age of 25 in general were neutral about it. Players over the age of 50 nearly universally hated it. There is a strong correlation between the age of the respondent and their opinion of this change."

vs.

"Overall, player opinions were slightly negative about this change."

Which one of these is more useful? Well, if you have a goal of not alienating your older fans, the first one is. But you can't have that particular analysis without asking about player age on the survey (you can do other potentially useful analyses from other survey questions, but you're definitely missing out on a subset of useful data).

Given your example, whether or not you knew the ages of the respondents, the data in your example shows that the overall results were negative, so don't make the change.

The demographics I could see being useful to evaluating opinions on rules are things like:

* Have you updated all your v1 rulebooks with all the errata?
* Of the non-RPG, two-player games you've played, what is the largest number of pages in their rulebooks. Convert to the equivalent number of 55 in^2 of text per page if the rules are not printed on 8.5x11" paper.
* Do you answer rules questions in the forums?
* When you answer rules questions in the forums, do you cite book and page?

Wouldn't "people who give definitive answers to rules questions from up-to-date rulebooks" be a better demographic than something people can't control, like age?

"If you don't answer my question, I'm going to assume it's because the answer is the worst possible answer" is not a fair place to have a conversation from - that's not a question, it's a threat.

Of course you got a reply quickly - you escalated a simple question into a threat against the devs because you didn't like that your question went unnoticed. That doesn't exactly speak to the best intentions on your part.

Also, much as you'd like to pretend otherwise, demographics have a heck of a lot of real-world significance - companies wouldn't spend literally millions of dollars on that sort of market research otherwise. A lot of the data you get from a survey is practically meaningless if you don't know who you are getting the data from, especially since roleplaying games are now diverse enough that failing to have a target audience is pretty much a death sentence.

I can only think that Paizo is collecting demographic information so they can favor the survey results from certain types of people, and disfavor survey results from others. That is not they type of behavior I want to see in a company I buy from -- everyone's opinion should be evaluated on the opinion's merit, regardless of who submitted it.

Paizo, I think you made a huge mistake.

If someone had replied with this in the five months that this thread had been idle, there would have been no issue. Silence was very suspicious, especially given how quickly you replied now. It is good to learn that you are using the information to learn about the market as a whole

Everyone take notes on what not to sound like while posting on a public forum. I'd rather argue ad nauseum with someone about +lvl to underwater basket weaving than read this kind of entitled drivel.

To sum up:

Because this person didn't get a direct developer response to one out of thousands of questions posted on the forums, they saw fit to assign nefarious intent and admonish the devs for their imagined issues. Then, when a dev stops by to quell these outlandish accusations with an even keeled response, the poster then uses that as further evidence that their conspiracy was well founded. Then the poster goes on to advise Paizo, without credentials, about how to *properly* run a survey, and what *they* would do that would be better.

Folks,

People were free to keep their demographic information blank or prefer not to answer. We respect that some folks may not want to share that information.

It is important for us to know who are audience is, and demographics are a part of that. That is just smart design.

As for silence on this issue.. I may not have answered this particular issue in this thread, but that does not mean we did not address it.

All that said, I think this thread has run its course.

This thread is locked.