Concerns about the Campaign Setting


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

101 to 150 of 198 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>
Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

I much prefer the imbalance in Golarion. It makes it easier to cast the players as heroes and central pieces of the story.

If Golarion would have LG nations populated by Angel Summoners who Battle Terror, Evil and Naughtiness, it would that much harder to have the players feel like The Right Stuff. That's what I love about some of the APs - the players are really the only ones who know what's going on and have the means to stop it. There's no tagging along Drizzts, Elimnsters, Gods, Half-Gods and other "better than you" NPCs.

Compare that to, say, 4E Scales of War - "of course, yes, you guys are heroes but we have Bahamut, seven Archon Legions and Mr. Miyagi on the line, so please take the spot between those two epic Solars and try to look remotely useful". Blergh.

Silver Crusade

Gorbacz wrote:

If Golarion would have LG nations populated by Angel Summoners who Battle Terror, Evil and Naughtiness, it would that much harder to have the players feel like The Right Stuff. That's what I love about some of the APs - the players are really the only ones who know what's going on and have the means to stop it. There's no tagging along Drizzts, Elimnsters, Gods, Half-Gods and other "better than you" NPCs.

Who's asking for that?

Lastwall and Andoran aren't making that hard for you. How would one Garund nation hurt?

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Mikaze wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:

If Golarion would have LG nations populated by Angel Summoners who Battle Terror, Evil and Naughtiness, it would that much harder to have the players feel like The Right Stuff. That's what I love about some of the APs - the players are really the only ones who know what's going on and have the means to stop it. There's no tagging along Drizzts, Elimnsters, Gods, Half-Gods and other "better than you" NPCs.

Who's asking for that?

Lastwall and Andoran aren't making that hard for you. How would one Garund nation hurt?

For me, Lastwall and Andoran fill the Good quota for Golarion, and that's considering that Andoran is more leaning towards Neutral, Lumber Consortium and all. And Lastwall has it's hands full (literally), so no danger of them suddenly becoming Harpers Redux and jumping across the world saving kittens.

Our tastes obviously differ - I prefer a world which is indifferent to many things so that the heroes can do their stuff without asking "hey, why do we have to deal with this, let's go and ask Elminster or some other member of Global Paladin Order".

Contributor

Mikaze wrote:
It's just that some ethnicities rarely get a fair break in fantasy literature. I can only think of two series that feature a heroic black central protagonist: Earthsea, and we all know how the adaptations of that screwed that up, and the Imaro books, and that's it. :(

This is actually not that uncommon (although I'm sure not going to disagree that fantasy protagonists tend to be mostly white). Just listing 2010 fantasy releases of which I'm aware (caveat: I haven't read all these books and am going by what other people have written about some):

Farlander, Col Buchanan
Redemption in Indigo, Karen Lord
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms/The Broken Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin
Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor
Shadow Blade/Shadow Chase, Seressia Glass (urban fantasy)

(plus, if I were inclined to be all shamelessly self-promoting and whatnot, I might throw my own work in there, but the character in question doesn't really take center stage until the second book, and then it's still an ensemble cast, just smaller. So that might not perfectly qualify.)

There are probably lots more that I just don't know about; I don't generally read YA, but I'm dimly aware that YA fantasy is also very open to minority/ethnic protagonists. It's probably been making bigger strides toward inclusiveness than adult fantasy has.

I'm not going to argue that white/straight/male isn't still the default for fantasy lit -- it certainly is -- but there's a good chunk of other stuff out there.

/threadjack.


Continuing on the subject of black characters in fantasy fiction - it's never really mentioned prominently in the books, but to add some D&D-fiction: Akabar bel Akash from Azure Bonds and Song of the Saurials is from the Forgotten Realms nation of Turmish, which is supposed to have a dark-skinned populace.

(For that matter, the heroine in The Alabaster Staff is supposed to be from the Mesopotamia-inspired Unther, so you'd think she'd be just a tad darker than she is on the cover).

Then again, I may not be the best judge on this, seeing as I'm from a country where my father, growing up in what is now one of the most ethnically diverse parts of the most ethnically diverse cities in the country , was able to go the first 20 years or so of his life finding some Germans to be rather swarthy.

Contributor

Mikaze wrote:
the Imaro books

For the record, we tried to get Charles Saunders to write a Pathfinder novel, but he isn't interested in tie-in fiction.


James Sutter wrote:
Mikaze wrote:
the Imaro books
For the record, we tried to get Charles Saunders to write a Pathfinder novel, but he isn't interested in tie-in fiction.

Awww, that's too bad. I liked Imaro.

I get the sense that somebody high up at Paizo is a pulp and old school fantasy fiend who burned his way through Appendix N and just kept going.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
Gorbacz wrote:

If Golarion would have LG nations populated by Angel Summoners who Battle Terror, Evil and Naughtiness, it would that much harder to have the players feel like The Right Stuff. That's what I love about some of the APs - the players are really the only ones who know what's going on and have the means to stop it. There's no tagging along Drizzts, Elimnsters, Gods, Half-Gods and other "better than you" NPCs.

...

For me, Lastwall and Andoran fill the Good quota for Golarion, and that's considering that Andoran is more leaning towards Neutral, Lumber Consortium and all. And Lastwall has it's hands full (literally), so no danger of them suddenly becoming Harpers Redux and jumping across the world saving kittens.

Our tastes obviously differ - I prefer a world which is indifferent to many things so that the heroes can do their stuff without asking "hey, why do we have to deal with this, let's go and ask Elminster or some other member of Global Paladin Order".

This is more or less where I stand on the topic. But the bottomline, for me, is a dark, interesting world that begs for adventurers, regardless of alignments.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Mikaze wrote:
Psimaster wrote:
Xephs and Half Giants are described as dark skinned and for Half Giants rangeing to Black. Half Giants are desert, and Xephs are often drawn with Dredlocks :) So we could have Tribal Kingdomes of them in the South of Sargava :) or East for Half Giants :) They both tend to be good and tend to be dark :)
Sorry, missed this. I'd love it if those races could show up in official Golarion, but from everything that's been said on official psionics I doubt that'll be the case.

The creative director isn't a fan of xephs or half giants, so chances of them showing up officially in Golarion are slim indeed.

If/when we officially explore psionics in Golarion, we WILL have some PC race options that are skewed toward psionics, but they'll most likely be brand new races, races inspired by real-world mythology, or races that already exist in the core that are ret-conned to fill the role.


James Jacobs wrote:


If/when we officially explore psionics in Golarion, we WILL have some PC race options that are skewed toward psionics, but they'll most likely be brand new races, races inspired by real-world mythology, or races that already exist in the core that are ret-conned to fill the role.

How did you feel about the Maeneds?

Paizo Employee Creative Director

KnightErrantJR wrote:
James Jacobs wrote:


If/when we officially explore psionics in Golarion, we WILL have some PC race options that are skewed toward psionics, but they'll most likely be brand new races, races inspired by real-world mythology, or races that already exist in the core that are ret-conned to fill the role.

How did you feel about the Maeneds?

Even less interested in them.


What's on your short list for historically/mythologically/fictionally-inspired psionic races? Classes? ........monsters?

I'm really hoping to see you guys take it in a new direction, narratively. I think there's fertile ground out there, and I have high hopes for what's been implied by Vudra so far.


Evil Lincoln wrote:

What's on your short list for historically/mythologically/fictionally-inspired psionic races? Classes? ........monsters?

I'm really hoping to see you guys take it in a new direction, narratively. I think there's fertile ground out there, and I have high hopes for what's been implied by Vudra so far.

Hahah...

I thought I was in the "Ask James" thread!


Evil Lincoln wrote:

What's on your short list for historically/mythologically/fictionally-inspired psionic races? Classes? ........monsters?

I'm really hoping to see you guys take it in a new direction, narratively. I think there's fertile ground out there, and I have high hopes for what's been implied by Vudra so far.

Well, if Mr. Jacobs is considering RW psionic races,

Personally I'd vote for the Vidyadhari (Vidya = science, natural magic, wisdom, technology, psychic powers in Sanskrit) from Indian legend.

The sexual dimorphism of the Castrovel race (Lashunta) also resembles the Yakshas/Yakshinis, who have short, rotund, hairy males and shapely, nymphlike females.

Other possibilities might be the Theosophical "root races" such as the Lemurians (who overlap into the Cthulhu Mythos).

Paizo Employee Creative Director

Evil Lincoln wrote:

What's on your short list for historically/mythologically/fictionally-inspired psionic races? Classes? ........monsters?

I'm really hoping to see you guys take it in a new direction, narratively. I think there's fertile ground out there, and I have high hopes for what's been implied by Vudra so far.

Nothing, yet, to be honest. Beyond the fact that we know Vudra and the planet of Castrovel are psionic themed... that's about all I'm willing to say. PUBLICLY, that is!!! heh heh

Liberty's Edge

I think that good nations. like good individuals, can struggle with their past as well as with present problems. Andoran struggles with the Lumber Consortium and I would expect good PCs press to weaken the Lumber Consortium. ( Other nations have their own challenges: Lastwall would seem to some to be a very rigid place, Nimrathas might seem disorganized to some, Kyonin is a bit isolationist, and Mendev has a dark past and is not a beacon of light in the present.) Perhaps part of the job of player character heroes is to help good nations become better and try to spread some good elsewhere. There may be a few inspirational NPCs in Golarion, but I think that Golarion is set up so that the main heroes are the player characters.

I think that there is ample room in Garund and Tien Xia for a few beacons of light amid a large number of neutral or evil nations. They need not be large or prominent but they might be something important to characters.

Similarly, good characters can emerge from very dark places. I think that what matters is that Golarion present a variety of nations and cultures, so that there are things that interest different players and GMs.

Contributor

I personally love maenads from mythology, but the idea of maenads as a psionic race has always croggled me. Wild crazed drunken women are suddenly psionic? What the ____ ?

I think non-psionic maenads and bacchi could be a lot of fun however.

Silver Crusade

Gorbacz wrote:
Mikaze wrote:
Gorbacz wrote:

If Golarion would have LG nations populated by Angel Summoners who Battle Terror, Evil and Naughtiness, it would that much harder to have the players feel like The Right Stuff. That's what I love about some of the APs - the players are really the only ones who know what's going on and have the means to stop it. There's no tagging along Drizzts, Elimnsters, Gods, Half-Gods and other "better than you" NPCs.

Who's asking for that?

Lastwall and Andoran aren't making that hard for you. How would one Garund nation hurt?

For me, Lastwall and Andoran fill the Good quota for Golarion, and that's considering that Andoran is more leaning towards Neutral, Lumber Consortium and all. And Lastwall has it's hands full (literally), so no danger of them suddenly becoming Harpers Redux and jumping across the world saving kittens.

Our tastes obviously differ - I prefer a world which is indifferent to many things so that the heroes can do their stuff without asking "hey, why do we have to deal with this, let's go and ask Elminster or some other member of Global Paladin Order".

My issue isn't with differing tastes though. It's the matter of reducing the question of having a good aligned nation in Garund to a false dichotomy(either "grimdark" or "epic-level NPCs everywhere doing everything" and nothing in between).

Liane Merciel wrote:

This is actually not that uncommon (although I'm sure not going to disagree that fantasy protagonists tend to be mostly white). Just listing 2010 fantasy releases of which I'm aware (caveat: I haven't read all these books and am going by what other people have written about some):

Farlander, Col Buchanan
Redemption in Indigo, Karen Lord
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms/The Broken Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin
Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor
Shadow Blade/Shadow Chase, Seressia Glass (urban fantasy)

(plus, if I were inclined to be all shamelessly self-promoting and whatnot, I might throw my own work in there, but the character in question doesn't really take center stage until the second book, and then it's still an ensemble cast, just smaller. So that might not perfectly qualify.)

There are probably lots more that I just don't know about; I don't generally read YA, but I'm dimly aware that YA fantasy is also very open to minority/ethnic protagonists. It's probably been making bigger strides toward inclusiveness than adult fantasy has.

I'm not going to argue that white/straight/male isn't still the default for fantasy lit -- it certainly is -- but there's a good chunk of other stuff out there.

/threadjack.

That's what happens when you get disenfranchised with fantasy lit...you wind up missing this. Thanks for the suggestions, I'm definitely looking into them. Probably have to order online, as I can't remember seeing any of them on the shelves of my local bookstore(not that they keep decent stock anyway...).

James Sutter wrote:
Mikaze wrote:
the Imaro books
For the record, we tried to get Charles Saunders to write a Pathfinder novel, but he isn't interested in tie-in fiction.

God that would have been awesome... Just...man...

Kudos for trying to get him onboard though! (and still mighty curious about the novel that's supposed to be set in Garund. Was it related to the pitch to Saunders?)

Silver Crusade

William Ronald wrote:

I think that good nations. like good individuals, can struggle with their past as well as with present problems. Andoran struggles with the Lumber Consortium and I would expect good PCs press to weaken the Lumber Consortium. ( Other nations have their own challenges: Lastwall would seem to some to be a very rigid place, Nimrathas might seem disorganized to some, Kyonin is a bit isolationist, and Mendev has a dark past and is not a beacon of light in the present.) Perhaps part of the job of player character heroes is to help good nations become better and try to spread some good elsewhere. There may be a few inspirational NPCs in Golarion, but I think that Golarion is set up so that the main heroes are the player characters.

I think that there is ample room in Garund and Tien Xia for a few beacons of light amid a large number of neutral or evil nations. They need not be large or prominent but they might be something important to characters.

Similarly, good characters can emerge from very dark places. I think that what matters is that Golarion present a variety of nations and cultures, so that there are things that interest different players and GMs.

Wholeheartedly agreed. Good nations don't have to be boring, and can have plenty of problems that need confronting. And doubly agreed on the desire for variety.


James Jacobs wrote:

The creative director isn't a fan of xephs or half giants, so chances of them showing up officially in Golarion are slim indeed.

Man, that guy rains on all your parades! You should TP his cubicle or something...


I'm not sure that I really like the 'nations/regions have alignments' thing. It does makes sense if one is talking about something involving extraplanar intrusion, like the World-Wound. In other cases, I'm somewhat inclined to ignore it.

That said, if the OP wanted to nudge Alkenstar from LN to LG, I'd think that would be an easy fix for her Golarion. It wouldn't be a radical change. Making Cheliax into a 'good guy country', that's a radical change.

That's not to say that you should be unwilling to make radical changes to the setting, mind you! My advice is to do with it what you will.

You'll probably get your published, 'official' example of a good nation in Garund before I get less cheesecake in the art dep't. ;)


Mikaze wrote:
I've been sitting on this post for over a month now....

I understand your concern. However, what we really need to ask here is: Does Golarion need to be politically correct? Do we want it to be politically correct?

At its basis, political correctness is about being prudent enough to avoid hurting sensitivities in an otherwise heterogeneous group of people. However, taken to the extreme, it can also mean we become intolerant to all ideas that differ from a neutral norm, greatly destroying diversity and the expression of individuality.

In Golarion's case, yes, there are things we could deem stereotipical and that out of context could be taken as offensive (there being a greater amount of fair-skinned people being good than dark-skinned ones), but we have to be careful about how deep we dig, in order to avoid reading stuff between the lines that isn't there to begin with.

As a kitchensink setting in the lines of Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, Golarion has a mainly eurocentric focus, taking a lot of influences from what we could call "traditional contemporary fantasy" (which really is the foundation of D&D and all the subsequent members of the legacy). The "basic scenarios" are mainly structured according to Western cultural standards, which steems from three sources: Greco-Roman Culture, Germanic Culture, and Christianity. By that token, it is to be expected that the majority of the setting will be heavily influenced by the cultural perspectives of those three foundational elements.

The tales, stories and traditions that steem from those cultural pillars lend themselves to picture the world in a particular, we could say almost caircaturesque way, where the "norm" consists of mainly eurocentric societies (kings, feudalism, knightly orders, and ecclesiastic hyerarchies for the most part, in Golarion's case adding stuff closer to the Age of Elightment and the Agricultural Revolution), while everything else is pictured in the traditionally exotic perspective that used to pervade said culture (heavily influenced by XIX century literature as well, which has greatly shaped the way modern Western culture sees the rest of the world): All Middle-Eastern cultures in Golarion have an Arabian Nights feel, all Hindi cultures have a Sandokan/Sinbad feel, all Septentrional Africa/South American cultures have a Professor Challenger/Tarzan feel, and so on. And as good as all those works are, they are ultimately caricatures of the cultures they picture, and that derives into the way Golarion is presented.

Does that mean we should rewrite Sandokan to properly detail the incredibly diverse Indian culture, or add new adventures of Professor Challenger to better describe the different aspects of the Precolombine civilizations? I would say no, since we don't like those books because of their capacity to properly present those cultures, but because their presentation of them is evocative in a particular way. I think the same could apply to Golarion, which is conductively inspired by those works, their derivatives or the sources those works steem from.

But as I say, it all has to start with the question of how much are we giving in to political correctness, whether we will sacrifice political correctness to content, or creativity to political correctness, and what really is the worth of each decision in terms of player satisfaction/off-putness.


I'm totally cool with the Tarzan stuff, orientalism, etc. Bring it on!

PS
Feudalism is itself a bit of fantasy, and not actually a useful model for the cultures and polities of Medeival Christendom. Most contemporary historians, except a few Marxist holdouts, have moved beyond it.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

On colours:

Spoiler:
Put me down for more diversity, both good and evil. The negative stereotypes (Fu Manchu was mentioned) do have their place, but for every Fu Manchu, there should be a Charlie Chan (and before anyone gripes about Chan, remeber he was liked and respected by the police force). For every Waziri (Who were a kick aft tribe before Tarzan got involved) there can be a cannibals. Also the Azlanti city in the middle of Serpent's skull looked to me to be a nod to Opar.

On nations alignments:

Spoiler:
I think national alignments are 'trends' more than hard and fast rules. A Chelaxian mayor may be fighting slavery by means of 'taxes' and 'fines' and a secret worshiper of Cadyn. A Taldor noble may be living fairly simply, pumping the taxes and fees (and some of his own coin) into keeping the infrastructure of his domain intact. Both of these give more hooks than 'Always LE'. How far can the Chelaxian mayor's bribes go? How are the noble's children feeling wearing last year's fashions to the ball? Or how do they feel when they go outside the province and see how their serfs are better off, but their own estates can't compare?

On psionics

Spoiler:
Well there were psionics in Burrough's Africa :-) Personal preference is to have most psionics coming from the darklands and Castrovel

Contributor

ewan cummins wrote:

I get the sense that somebody high up at Paizo is a pulp and old school fantasy fiend who burned his way through Appendix N and just kept going.

Have you perhaps seen our Planet Stories line? :)


James Jacobs wrote:

The creative director isn't a fan of xephs or half giants, so chances of them showing up officially in Golarion are slim indeed.

If/when we officially explore psionics in Golarion, we WILL have some PC race options that are skewed toward psionics, but they'll most likely be brand new races, races inspired by real-world mythology, or races that already exist in the core that are ret-conned to fill the role.

I'm mostly agreeant, here. While I've always been a fan of half-giants (see jotunkin, for example) and elan seemed like a pretty cool concept, the other XPH races just seemed like new races for their own sake - like we really need new psionic races just to use psionics effectively. WotC did a lot of new rules for the sake of making new rules, and I'm glad Paizo has avoided this trend so far. I'm not opposed to new races (or new psionic races), I just want them to be cool and interesting.

Silver Crusade

Klaus van der Kroft wrote:
Mikaze wrote:
I've been sitting on this post for over a month now....

I understand your concern. However, what we really need to ask here is: Does Golarion need to be politically correct? Do we want it to be politically correct?

At its basis, political correctness is about being prudent enough to avoid hurting sensitivities in an otherwise heterogeneous group of people. However, taken to the extreme, it can also mean we become intolerant to all ideas that differ from a neutral norm, greatly destroying diversity and the expression of individuality.

Except what I've been asking for is for more diversity. Not some uniform innoffensive grey, but examples of people presented as people, not lumped under homogenous descriptors, and showcasing the positive and negative aspects of these cultures and what they're capable of.

I've never asked, "hey can we not have evil Bekyar?" I've asked, "hey can not have just evil Bekyar?" Same for the good-aligned nations.

Klaus van der Kroft wrote:

In Golarion's case, yes, there are things we could deem stereotipical and that out of context could be taken as offensive (there being a greater amount of fair-skinned people being good than dark-skinned ones), but we have to be careful about how deep we dig, in order to avoid reading stuff between the lines that isn't there to begin with.

As a kitchensink setting in the lines of Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk, Golarion has a mainly eurocentric focus, taking a lot of influences from what we could call "traditional contemporary fantasy" (which really is the foundation of D&D and all the subsequent members of the legacy). The "basic scenarios" are mainly structured according to Western cultural standards, which steems from three sources: Greco-Roman Culture, Germanic Culture, and Christianity. By that token, it is to be expected that the majority of the setting will be heavily influenced by the cultural perspectives of those three foundational elements.

On that, I have to disagree. A huge part of what drew me to Golarion was that it wasn't mainly eurocentric like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. I came for Varisia, but I also came for Osirion and Vudra and the Mwangi Expanse. What won me over was that they presented non-European-derived cultures with equal standing and importance. Same thing with the non-white ethnicities. Hell, Golarion is the first RPG setting I can think of that actually remembered that there's more than one ethnic grouping of "black" people.(though I would still love to see the Mauxi, Bonuwat, etc have their own separate write-ups) When I first got the CS, my reaction was "FINALLY! Some love for everyone else!"

To go to a strictly eurocentric view of the setting, and viewing all of these cultures through a 19th Century European lens would be to tear a lot of the life out of the setting, and severely sell short all the real world cultures being derived from for their fictional analogues. I don't want Kipling's view of India. I want the Vudran(or as neutral as humanly possible) view of Vudra, just for one example.

Sure, keep some of the evocativeness of the pulps, but we don't have to bear the worst of the baggage they left us.

Dark Archive

Liane Merciel wrote:


Farlander, Col Buchanan
Redemption in Indigo, Karen Lord
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms/The Broken Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin
Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor
Shadow Blade/Shadow Chase, Seressia Glass (urban fantasy)

/threadjack

Except that some of those books are not that good, really. If someone wishes to see good example of racial diversity - Wheel of Time by late Robert Jordan is great example. The series start as typical white-centric fantasy, but soon gains a plethora of characters of other races, some of them presented as what would in DND terms be considered as extremely influential NPCs.

/threadjack


Mikaze wrote:
Except what I've been asking for is for more diversity. Not some uniform innoffensive grey, but examples of people presented as people, not lumped under homogenous descriptors, and showcasing the positive and negative aspects of these cultures and what they're capable of.

I'm completely with you, Mikaze.

Why should trying to expand the number of stories that can be told in Golarion be a bad thing?


You know all this talk of representativeness and ethnic diversity has reminded me it's some time since we saw an illustration of a blonde-haired succubus. Or a red-head for that matter. Or of a Vudrani or Garundi one... And that's pretty strange - since succubi operate all over the world, I assure you.
<beetles off to do something about it>


You know, its a bit tangential to the issue, but still somewhat relevant. The Forgotten Realms was actually more racially diverse in description than in the artwork depicting the setting. I know a few others have mentioned this across the boards, but, yeah, its true.


James Sutter wrote:
ewan cummins wrote:

I get the sense that somebody high up at Paizo is a pulp and old school fantasy fiend who burned his way through Appendix N and just kept going.

Have you perhaps seen our Planet Stories line? :)

Indeed I have! I've purchased several titles for myself or as presents for my father.

Planet Stories rules!

Dark Archive

Mikaze wrote:
A huge part of what drew me to Golarion was that it wasn't mainly eurocentric like Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk. I came for Varisia, but I also came for Osirion and Vudra and the Mwangi Expanse.

Ditto.

When the Pathfinder Society was announced, and two of the five 'big players' an Egyptian and Arabic/Persian nation (and one was a nation of flat-out devil-worshippers!), I was all aflutter.

In a manly way. Grunt. Scratch self.

Greyhawk and the Realms, as much as I've loved them both in their day, tended to place their major non-white cultures farther from the main action of the setting than Golarion has.

Sovereign Court

I know the Angel Summoner thing was a bit of a false dichotomy but it made me think of this: the ultimate example of playing a hero in a world with much, much more powerful heroes!

The Exchange

I like to keep people and nations more complex than a simple two letters. Arcanis was my favorite 3.5 campiagn and it was very loose on aligment, you have some things that scream evil like the nation devoted to the evil aspects of the three "darker" gods, to the more questionable extremists of the father god of the pantheon or evil preist of the goddess of life eradicating nuetral or good undead servants of the god of death. Yes it was fairly euro-centric for the players, with a roman themed nation at the heart of so much of the story, though black,indian and asiatic characters were also very much a part of the story.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

KnightErrantJR wrote:
You know, its a bit tangential to the issue, but still somewhat relevant. The Forgotten Realms was actually more racially diverse in description than in the artwork depicting the setting. I know a few others have mentioned this across the boards, but, yeah, its true.

For Gold and Glory was a good example of diversity in their art showing the different ethnic groups of the Realms.

Contributor

nightflier wrote:
Liane Merciel wrote:


Farlander, Col Buchanan
Redemption in Indigo, Karen Lord
The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms/The Broken Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin
Who Fears Death, Nnedi Okorafor
Shadow Blade/Shadow Chase, Seressia Glass (urban fantasy)

/threadjack

Except that some of those books are not that good, really. If someone wishes to see good example of racial diversity - Wheel of Time by late Robert Jordan is great example. The series start as typical white-centric fantasy, but soon gains a plethora of characters of other races, some of them presented as what would in DND terms be considered as extremely influential NPCs.

/threadjack

Actually they've all gotten a great critical response. Apart from Farlander (which has still gotten very good reviews across the SF/F blogosphere), every one of the books on that list earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly and very positive reviews elsewhere, and Jemisin's is probably the breakout fantasy debut of 2010.

Now, it is true that many of them are a different sort of fantasy than the heroic adventuring type, and that people who strongly prefer swords-and-spells fantasy (which I'm not denigrating, as that's what I write!) or who simply had different expectations may not get on with the quieter literary type, but if you are looking for something a little different -- and I get the sense that several people in this thread are looking for that, or are at least open to it -- then you may find those books rewarding. They are all very good at what they are trying to do.

Having said that, yes, I'll readily agree that WoT also moves toward inclusiveness in its later books (I'm assuming you're referring primarily to Tuon; there are other characters who qualify, but Tuon's the biggest example, IMO). But I'd also argue that's pretty much the same time the series goes off the rails, so I would, personally, hesitate to make a wholehearted recommendation there. ;)

(I'd love to keep discussing this topic but it might be better to split off to a thread in the books subforum if we're gonna keep up the threadjack. Or not, if people are finding it useful or interesting where it is.)


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
Mikaze wrote:

Except what I've been asking for is for more diversity. Not some uniform innoffensive grey, but examples of people presented as people, not lumped under homogenous descriptors, and showcasing the positive and negative aspects of these cultures and what they're capable of.

I've never asked, "hey can we not have evil Bekyar?" I've asked, "hey can not have just evil Bekyar?" Same for the good-aligned nations.

+1


GeraintElberion wrote:
I know the Angel Summoner thing was a bit of a false dichotomy but it made me think of this: the ultimate example of playing a hero in a world with much, much more powerful heroes!

Ahhh, the Mitchell & Webb Angel Summoner/BMX Bandit sketches. I remember them when they were on Radio 4.... :)

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
William Ronald wrote:
I think that good nations. like good individuals, can struggle with their past as well as with present problems.

I have to admit I have problems with assigning alignments to nations, especially Good ones. Rulers on the other hand are not an issue as some may be good, bad, or just plain ugly, but every nation in Golarion seems to be struggling for the same goals,economic and/or political domination, the means they use may vary, but not by much.


As a side note... the Psionic Maenad is sort of still the Greek Maenad...
They were said to be wronged by some god in the past. Similar to the Greek legend. They are seafarers, also similar to the Greeks. They have a sonic scream which is also a Greek mythological thing if you look sideways to the siren. And Psionics is named from the Greek Psyche or Mind. And they have dark hair which is a medeterainean trend... Someone was thinking in that direction...

Contributor

Psimaster wrote:

As a side note... the Psionic Maenad is sort of still the Greek Maenad...

They were said to be wronged by some god in the past. Similar to the Greek legend. They are seafarers, also similar to the Greeks. They have a sonic scream which is also a Greek mythological thing if you look sideways to the siren. And Psionics is named from the Greek Psyche or Mind. And they have dark hair which is a medeterainean trend... Someone was thinking in that direction...

I'm sorry, "sort of still" doesn't work for me. I want my maenads as a pack of wild drunk women tearing people to shreds, sort of like Girls Gone Wild but with more blood. If they're not eating men alive, they're not real maenads.


Set wrote:

Ditto.

When the Pathfinder Society was announced, and two of the five 'big players' an Egyptian and Arabic/Persian nation (and one was a nation of flat-out devil-worshippers!), I was all aflutter.

In a manly way. Grunt. Scratch self.

Greyhawk and the Realms, as much as I've loved them both in their day, tended to place their major non-white cultures farther from the main action of the setting than Golarion has.

Greyhawk? Hmmm...naw, I don't see it that way at all, based on the published setting materials.

I quote;

The PostMonster General wrote:

In general, the skin color of an individual is of no particular importance. The dark Flan complexion shows up quite often in most nations.

(WoG Guide, page 14)

The Flan gave their name to the entire eastern zone of Oerik. The book says that the typical Flan complexion is

bronze- or from copper to 'the deepest brown.'

The typical Oeridian complexion is tan to olive skin.

The Suel are mostly fair skinned, even near albonioid....but curly to kinky hair is common. Keep in mind that's a Suel trait, not the result of mixture with other peoples.

I'm leaving out the Baklunish, although they are pretty important in the West, and their influence does penetrate into parts of the central region.

On page 14 of the Guide, we are treated to a table showing the racial/ethnic admixtures of the various regions/countries. It's far from homogenous.

I think you've misjudged the published, 'canonical' version of Greyhawk's world. It's a lot less 'mostly just white folks' than you think.

Like all published campaign worlds, WoG can and should be changed by the DM as he likes. I'm not one of those stuffy 'by the book' purists who will tell you that you are doing it wrong, just because your version of something differs from my version. I don't think mine is 'better' just because (in this particular respect) it more closely conforms to the original source materials.

Most of the old GH art was black and white, so it's not like you quite got the range of skin, eye, and hair colors described in the setting material.

Dark Archive

ewan cummins wrote:
Set wrote:
Greyhawk and the Realms, as much as I've loved them both in their day, tended to place their major non-white cultures farther from the main action of the setting than Golarion has.
Greyhawk? Hmmm...naw, I don't see it that way at all, based on the published setting materials. [SNIP]

The Flan, Oeridians and Bakluni are all described as kinda/sorta Greek or Middle Eastern/Semetic in coloration, all of which fits under the subset of 'caucasian' or 'white,' even if none of them but the Sueloise come anywhere near the actual color white, which almost none of us real-world 'white' people do.

Sorry for leaving the implication that by 'white,' I meant white-as-in-the-forum-background, and not 'caucasian,' which, in Greyhawk, covers everyone (human) not from Hepmonaland or the Amedio Jungles. I will try to be more specific.

Silver Crusade

Well, got Halflings of Golarion. I was grateful for the Osiriani halfling art. That and maybe the lady on page 7 makes two examples out of all the Race of Golarion books, but it's something. Still wish the skin colors went the full range instead of all the way to ivory to just medium-brown, but there's still hope the other races will get representation at the darker end of their possible scales.

Liane Merciel wrote:

Actually they've all gotten a great critical response. Apart from Farlander (which has still gotten very good reviews across the SF/F blogosphere), every one of the books on that list earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly and very positive reviews elsewhere, and Jemisin's is probably the breakout fantasy debut of 2010.

Now, it is true that many of them are a different sort of fantasy than the heroic adventuring type, and that people who strongly prefer swords-and-spells fantasy (which I'm not denigrating, as that's what I write!) or who simply had different expectations may not get on with the quieter literary type, but if you are looking for something a little different -- and I get the sense that several people in this thread are looking for that, or are at least open to it -- then you may find those books rewarding. They are all very good at what they are trying to do.

Yeah, heroic fantasy seems more behind the curve than general fantasy lit. I really wish that were not the case.

Still, major thanks for the suggestions. Keeping them in mind for the next big book order.

Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:
Psimaster wrote:

As a side note... the Psionic Maenad is sort of still the Greek Maenad...

They were said to be wronged by some god in the past. Similar to the Greek legend. They are seafarers, also similar to the Greeks. They have a sonic scream which is also a Greek mythological thing if you look sideways to the siren. And Psionics is named from the Greek Psyche or Mind. And they have dark hair which is a medeterainean trend... Someone was thinking in that direction...

I'm sorry, "sort of still" doesn't work for me. I want my maenads as a pack of wild drunk women tearing people to shreds, sort of like Girls Gone Wild but with more blood. If they're not eating men alive, they're not real maenads.

To be fair, similar arguments could be made about Oreads, Sylphs, and Undines in PFRPG. (I never gave up the Bacchae from Planescape, and rolled mythological maenads into their ranks so I wasn't lacking for them...)

Silver Crusade

Speaking of the art again: Gonna take the dive and commission a painting of Nantambu. Something that features the people along with its architecture, canals and bridges.

Now to hunt down an artist whose rates I can afford. Shooting for the same quality you'd find in an official Pathfinder book.

Contributor

Mikaze wrote:
To be fair, similar arguments could be made about Oreads, Sylphs, and Undines in PFRPG. (I never gave up the Bacchae from Planescape, and rolled mythological maenads into their ranks so I wasn't lacking for them...)

I think the Oreads, Sylphs, Undines and Ifrits work pretty well, both for mythology and as a substitute for product identity elemental genasi, who I never much liked the name of to begin with.

I'd probably prefer gnome or kobold to oread from a mythology perspective, but as those two have even stronger associations with the history of D&D, it's easy enough to use oread as the word.

Silver Crusade

Kevin Andrew Murphy wrote:
Mikaze wrote:
To be fair, similar arguments could be made about Oreads, Sylphs, and Undines in PFRPG. (I never gave up the Bacchae from Planescape, and rolled mythological maenads into their ranks so I wasn't lacking for them...)

I think the Oreads, Sylphs, Undines and Ifrits work pretty well, both for mythology and as a substitute for product identity elemental genasi, who I never much liked the name of to begin with.

I'd probably prefer gnome or kobold to oread from a mythology perspective, but as those two have even stronger associations with the history of D&D, it's easy enough to use oread as the word.

On the flipside, I was fully expecting elemental fey when I saw those names listed before the book's release, both because that's what they were in previous editions, and because it meshes with real world mythology better. I personally would have preferred new names for the new elemental planetouched while keeping the door open for some interpretation of those fey. Which goes back to different strokes for different folks, in the end. :)

Dark Archive

Mikaze wrote:
On the flipside, I was fully expecting elemental fey when I saw those names listed before the book's release, both because that's what they were in previous editions, and because it meshes with real world mythology better. I personally would have preferred new names for the new elemental planetouched while keeping the door open for some interpretation of those fey. Which goes back to different strokes for different folks, in the end. :)

[tangent] I'm not really liking 'fey' as a type. I kinda wish that elementals and fey both just used the outsider type (perhaps with the native subtype, in some cases). Too many 'types' for critters from other planes, IMO, which fey pretty much always were, but are now even more explicitly with the First World connection. [/tangent]


I dont much like the Created Psionic Races, but I like the Half Giants thought I turned those Jotuns into a more Norse theme, just by turning the cosmetics into blond, fair skinned blue eyed northerner. And the +2 from fire to cold. And I liked the Elan. Jeff de Luna has a lot of Indian Psionics going on in his Vudra thread. Fey is definately a Type. They are a thing unto themselves. But I dont see them as outsiders as they are attached to nature.

101 to 150 of 198 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Lost Omens Campaign Setting / General Discussion / Concerns about the Campaign Setting All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.