So...are there enough male love interests in the APs?


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I wouldn't sweat it. Not going to string you up over one NPC ;)

Just add some Dudes in Dismay next time. And maybe even some Pugs in Peril :)

Silver Crusade

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I do have to wonder why that particular NPC got flipped to female in the final version though. Especially since

Spoiler:
there's been plenty of beautiful female genies in distress
already in previous AP's. If it was because of the art, that's quite the misread art order on the artist's part.

We're way past due for a beautiful male equivalent. :)

C'mon, bishounen genie/possible love interest in chains waiting to be rescued. We can do this. Future generations are counting on this.


Odraude wrote:
Just add some Dudes in Dismay next time.

To be fair ... he did have a dude in dismay instead of a damsel in distress. And Paizo changed it for some reason.


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My thoughts are that, when the writers are putting in an 'instant ally', and don't want the party to attack first and question later, too many of them are playing safe by making them female. Classic tropes, I think. Appeal to chivalry? Women are seen as innately less threatening if they're not obviously hostile? Less likely to be seen as a rival (except, clearly, romantically by straight women)? 'Why are they asking for help and not sorting out it out for themselves'? 'Will they ask us rather than tell us what to do?' There are lots of subtle reasons why the writers might think females more sympathetic to the party than males.

What I don't think is that it's 'put in female love interests'. Because I'm not interested in running love interests for my daughter's characters but they still play an important part in the story; they can't just be dropped.


Interesting - I wonder what the dudes to damsels dismay/distress ratio is...

How would you set the criteria for such a comparison - Can hiring the party for a mission enough to rank as dismay... I suppose immediate threat of death to the NPC should be the indicator.

Paizo Employee

Empty Graves:
The middle part of the adventure revolves around rescuing a dude in distress. And there's a great scene at the beginning that could easily result in romantic leads for a bunch of interesting men and women.

Good job Paizo!

Cheers!
Landon


Shadows of Gallowspire:
Book 6 of Carrion Crown actually turns on a "dude in distress" - the majority of the book is dedicated towards breaking into Renchurch, a desecrated temple of Pharasma that now serves as the heart of the Whispering Way in Ustalav, in order to rescue Count Galdana. Count Galdana's introduced in the prior book, and he's intended to be a handsome and likeable guy.

Though I'll admit to being guilty of substituting Kendra Lorrimor for the Count, as Kendra's potentially with the party from the very beginning of the AP (as she was in my game), and thus has a significantly higher emotional resonance with the party.

There have been some groups that handled the rescue by actually killing the Count, since the Whispering Way needs the Count alive...

And art orders going sideways have had some impact in the APs.

Shadows of Gallowspire, again:
The final boss of the AP being a staff magus was a direct result of an art order mix-up. If the art comes back perfectly usable yet wrong, then Paizo usually changes the statblock to match the art, because that's usually more cost effective than trying to get the art redone.


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Joana wrote:
This is a fantasy game. As long as the "likes girls" crowd is getting Samaritha, Aerys, Sasha, Ameiko, Sandara, and Arueshelae, the "likes guys" crowd should get options just as attractive, not the old, fat, bald guy who pees himself in terror when combat starts.

Some great posts.

There is a serious lack of male hotness in the deity department as well. Every god of love/sex/beauty/charm is female or is designed to appeal to heterosexual male taste (like Cayden). Even Arshea seems based on the idea that the ideal of male beauty is a masculine-looking woman.

Plus, there really should be a Lust alternative to Calistria because I reject the association between physical eros and negativity.

Courtly love is fine for those who are into it, but I think it's a waste of time because it's about family money (and the patriarchy that generally is its foundation) more than anything else.

Liberty's Edge

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SRS wrote:

Some great posts.

There is a serious lack of male hotness in the deity department as well. Every god of love/sex/beauty/charm is female or is designed to appeal to heterosexual male taste (like Cayden). Even Arshea seems based on the idea that the ideal of male beauty is a masculine-looking woman.

As noted in the other thread...Arshea is not a good example for this, simply because he/she needs to look gender-ambiguous.

Agreed more generally, though.

SRS wrote:

Plus, there really should be a Lust alternative to Calistria because I reject the association between physical eros and negativity.

Courtly love is fine for those who are into it, but I think it's a waste of time because it's about family money (and the patriarchy that generally is its foundation) more than anything else.

Uh...since when is Calistria inherently a negative association? She's Neutral aligned, not Evil. You can be a CG Cleric of Calistria and a great person, if you like. Indeed, Good aligned worshipers tend to focus more on the lust aspect as they focus less on vengeance.


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SRS wrote:
Courtly love is fine for those who are into it, but I think it's a waste of time because it's about family money (and the patriarchy that generally is its foundation) more than anything else.

Courtly love, as I understand it, wasn't about family money and the patriarchy.

It was very much about (in theory platonic) love outside of the standard arranged marriages. It was about the knight or the troubador dedicating himself to the noble, usually married, lady.

Most of the songs were about the man's love for the lady who was too pure and virtuous to give in. Most of the stories were about the tragedies when she did.
That's a simplification of course and it's really a messed up ideal. But it's not the inheritance and patriarchy thing.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:
Uh...since when is Calistria inherently a negative association? She's Neutral aligned, not Evil. You can be a CG Cleric of Calistria and a great person, if you like. Indeed, Good aligned worshipers tend to focus more on the lust aspect as they focus less on vengeance.

I know I was a bit confused when I found out Ca;istria was CN and not CE.


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thejeff wrote:
SRS wrote:
Courtly love is fine for those who are into it, but I think it's a waste of time because it's about family money (and the patriarchy that generally is its foundation) more than anything else.

Courtly love, as I understand it, wasn't about family money and the patriarchy.

It was very much about (in theory platonic) love outside of the standard arranged marriages. It was about the knight or the troubador dedicating himself to the noble, usually married, lady.

Most of the songs were about the man's love for the lady who was too pure and virtuous to give in. Most of the stories were about the tragedies when she did.
That's a simplification of course and it's really a messed up ideal. But it's not the inheritance and patriarchy thing.

Well, there's a couple of things going on here.

Courtly love, as originally envisioned, existed as a failsafe--a pressure valve, if you will--to the family money and patriarchy. In a world where inheritances, family alliances, and lines of succession were paramount, there was little opportunity for lovers to marry and pledge themselves to each other, outside of adultery. Courtly love allowed for all those feelings of love to be expressed without mucking up lines of succession, family property, and so on. Of course, there was still tons of adultery anyway.

Then, in Victorian times, there was a reimagining of the medieval courtly love, as part of the post-Romanticism movement--see the Pre-Raphaelites. Here, courtly love was seen as an ideal, just the perfect thing where true love goes beautifully unrequited. This, of course, being a Victorian ideal, a world where giving into one's passions is forever attractive but socially, utterly base.

So, yes, one can say that it's a messed up ideal. But I know what it means to love in present times without consummation, and there really is a freedom to be had, and a separation from heartache and fear that so many of my less celibate friends fell prey to.

In fantasy, all these ideals can be explored, in all these eras. That's a strength.


My experience with Kingmaker campaign was the opposite.

All of the potential female interests are either

-Taken
-Taken AND gay
-Non-humanoid
-Trying to kill you
-Trying to kill you AND evil fey (more than one)

Meanwhile you have a few good looking candidate men

-Kesten
-Akiros
-Dovan (pretty damn bishie, but also evil I grant)
-Varn (for an old guy he still has good looks)
-Irovetti (also evil I grant)


well, from my own experiences i can tell you with 100% certainty, there are no homosexual people written into Kingmaker, so you can thank your GM for that one!


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captain yesterday wrote:
well, from my own experiences i can tell you with 100% certainty, there are no homosexual people written into Kingmaker, so you can thank your GM for that one!

Page 15 of Blood For Blood mentions that Kisandra Numesti and Satinder Morne are lovers. I did have to look that up just to be sure that wasn't GM fluff.


CommandoDude wrote:

My experience with Kingmaker campaign was the opposite.

All of the potential female interests are either

-Taken
-Taken AND gay
-Non-humanoid
-Trying to kill you
-Trying to kill you AND evil fey (more than one)

Meanwhile you have a few good looking candidate men

-Kesten
-Akiros
-Dovan (pretty damn bishie, but also evil I grant)
-Varn (for an old guy he still has good looks)
-Irovetti (also evil I grant)

Good looking sure, but I don't think Dovan, Varn, or Iorvetti are even the slightest bit plausible love interests, due to either being evil and trying to kill you or dead. (And if you're including good looking guys, you can't forget the Horned Hunter and Baron Drelev, who are AT LEAST as likely love interests as Irovetti :P)

As for female love interests, there's Lily in part 2 (about as plausible a love interest as Kesten), Quintessa in part 4 (specifically lists being interested in the PCs), and Ilora in part 5 (at least as likely as Akiros to be a love interest)


CommandoDude wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:
well, from my own experiences i can tell you with 100% certainty, there are no homosexual people written into Kingmaker, so you can thank your GM for that one!
Page 15 of Blood For Blood mentions that Kisandra Numesti and Satinder Morne are lovers. I did have to look that up just to be sure that wasn't GM fluff.

Touché

Liberty's Edge

Spoilers, guys, spoilers. I may actually get to lay Kingmaker some day...


I'd love to spoiler it, but for some reason you can't edit posts after about an hour :/

Liberty's Edge

It's not that bad so far, names devoid of context tend to be quickly forgotten, IME, but it was getting worse, not better. I figured it was best to head it off at the pass, so to speak...


Deadmanwalking wrote:
Spoilers, guys, spoilers. I may actually get to lay Kingmaker some day...

it has zero impact on the campaign, if that helps:)

also sorry, totally forgot:)

Silver Crusade

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Deadmanwalking wrote:
Spoilers, guys, spoilers. I may actually get to lay Kingmaker some day...

This is perhaps the strongest argument ever for always buying books in mint condition.

Silver Crusade

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Mikaze wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
Spoilers, guys, spoilers. I may actually get to lay Kingmaker some day...
This is perhaps the strongest argument ever for always buying books in mint condition.

Your Bibliophile-ness is spreading...


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Mikaze wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
Spoilers, guys, spoilers. I may actually get to lay Kingmaker some day...
This is perhaps the strongest argument ever for always buying books in mint condition.

Suddenly the payment option for renting another wizard's spellbook took on an entirely different and rather darker meaning.


Deadmanwalking wrote:
SRS wrote:

Some great posts.

There is a serious lack of male hotness in the deity department as well. Every god of love/sex/beauty/charm is female or is designed to appeal to heterosexual male taste (like Cayden). Even Arshea seems based on the idea that the ideal of male beauty is a masculine-looking woman.

As noted in the other thread...Arshea is not a good example for this, simply because he/she needs to look gender-ambiguous.

Agreed more generally, though.

SRS wrote:

Plus, there really should be a Lust alternative to Calistria because I reject the association between physical eros and negativity.

Courtly love is fine for those who are into it, but I think it's a waste of time because it's about family money (and the patriarchy that generally is its foundation) more than anything else.

Uh...since when is Calistria inherently a negative association? She's Neutral aligned, not Evil. You can be a CG Cleric of Calistria and a great person, if you like. Indeed, Good aligned worshipers tend to focus more on the lust aspect as they focus less on vengeance.

From what I've read, Calistria's idea of lust is related to the concept of feminine wiles, the Seven Deadly Sins, manipulation, and even torture. The whole bit about liking wasps because they can sting someone over and over is a negative sexual metaphor.


SRS wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:
SRS wrote:

Some great posts.

There is a serious lack of male hotness in the deity department as well. Every god of love/sex/beauty/charm is female or is designed to appeal to heterosexual male taste (like Cayden). Even Arshea seems based on the idea that the ideal of male beauty is a masculine-looking woman.

As noted in the other thread...Arshea is not a good example for this, simply because he/she needs to look gender-ambiguous.

Agreed more generally, though.

SRS wrote:

Plus, there really should be a Lust alternative to Calistria because I reject the association between physical eros and negativity.

Courtly love is fine for those who are into it, but I think it's a waste of time because it's about family money (and the patriarchy that generally is its foundation) more than anything else.

Uh...since when is Calistria inherently a negative association? She's Neutral aligned, not Evil. You can be a CG Cleric of Calistria and a great person, if you like. Indeed, Good aligned worshipers tend to focus more on the lust aspect as they focus less on vengeance.
From what I've read, Calistria's idea of lust is related to the concept of feminine wiles, the Seven Deadly Sins, manipulation, and even torture. The whole bit about liking wasps because they can sting someone over and over is a negative sexual metaphor.

No offense but you have seriously misinterpreted Calistria then, she is more complicated then that.

Liberty's Edge

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SRS wrote:
From what I've read, Calistria's idea of lust is related to the concept of feminine wiles, the Seven Deadly Sins, manipulation, and even torture.

What you're missing are three things:

#1: Calistria is not only the Goddess of Lust, she's also the Goddess of Trickery and Vengeance. A lot of the stuff you're talking about falls under those other two areas. Neither of which are Evil on their own, though they can be if taken to extremes.

#2: Manipulation isn't necessarily Evil, nor is Calistria listed as such. Manipulation, like violence, or most other acts, is morally neutral in and of itself, it's why and how it is used that determines its morality (or lack thereof).

#3: The only reference to torture per se is her Inquisitions list. Which, if you've read anything about the Gods, was clearly designed by either blind idiot monkeys or (much more likely) someone who'd never read anything about said Gods. Zon-Kuthon, who is basically a Cenobite, lacks Torture, and Calistria (who is, once again, the Goddess of Vengeance) lacks Vengeance. Just as some examples of how awful and inappropriate that list is. In short, that list should be methodically ignored by everyone, ever.

Sorry, that last one's a sore spot.

SRS wrote:
The whole bit about liking wasps because they can sting someone over and over is a negative sexual metaphor.

That's a vengeance metaphor, not a sexual one.

Calistria is nice and friendly and fun...right up until you mess with her. And at that point she will wreck your life, because, well, Goddess of Vengeance, but it's all reactive. Calistria just basically doesn't hurt people who haven't messed with her first. And that's just a brief summary, there's a lot more to her than that.

Or, to put it briefly, what captain yesterday said.


my guess is you get a lot of inquisitors:)

Liberty's Edge

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captain yesterday wrote:
my guess is you get a lot of inquisitors:)

Nah, only a few, and mostly of obscure Gods to boot (Tiefling Inquisitor of Ragathiel comes to mind). It just upsets me because, I mean, how do you not give the Goddess of Vengeance the Vengeance Inquisition? Or Zon-Kuthon Torture? How do you f~$* that up?

It's one of three things ever I think Paizo legitimately just messed up on completely (the others being the race building rules in the ARG and Rogues and Ninjas not being equally able to get each other's stuff). And the only one that's a complete thematic screw up, which I care about more than mechanical ones (which the other two clearly are).

It'd be like the Goddess of Trickery not getting the Trickery Domain. It doesn't make sense.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:
It'd be like the Goddess of Trickery not getting the Trickery Domain. It doesn't make sense.

Yes, you'd think we'd get that, but we don't! Hahaha, fooled you!

Trickery.

Sovereign Court Senior Developer

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Deadmanwalking wrote:

#3: The only reference to torture per se is her Inquisitions list. Which, if you've read anything about the Gods, was clearly designed by either blind idiot monkeys or (much more likely) someone who'd never read anything about said Gods. Zon-Kuthon, who is basically a Cenobite, lacks Torture, and Calistria (who is, once again, the Goddess of Vengeance) lacks Vengeance. Just as some examples of how awful and inappropriate that list is. In short, that list should be methodically ignored by everyone, ever.

Sorry, that last one's a sore spot.

That was fixed in the second printing of Ultimate Magic. Zon-Kuthon was added to the Torture deities list, and Calistria was added to the Vengeance deities list. It's not on the PRD, since the deities' names are not open content, but it's in the second printing!

Liberty's Edge

Rob McCreary wrote:
Deadmanwalking wrote:

#3: The only reference to torture per se is her Inquisitions list. Which, if you've read anything about the Gods, was clearly designed by either blind idiot monkeys or (much more likely) someone who'd never read anything about said Gods. Zon-Kuthon, who is basically a Cenobite, lacks Torture, and Calistria (who is, once again, the Goddess of Vengeance) lacks Vengeance. Just as some examples of how awful and inappropriate that list is. In short, that list should be methodically ignored by everyone, ever.

Sorry, that last one's a sore spot.

That was fixed in the second printing of Ultimate Magic. Zon-Kuthon was added to the Torture deities list, and Calistria was added to the Vengeance deities list. It's not on the PRD, since the deities' names are not open content, but it's in the second printing!

I did not know this! That's awesome, I'll have to hunt down a later copy and look at the list.

Thanks Rob!


Mechalibur wrote:
CommandoDude wrote:

My experience with Kingmaker campaign was the opposite.

All of the potential female interests are either

-Taken
-Taken AND gay
-Non-humanoid
-Trying to kill you
-Trying to kill you AND evil fey (more than one)

Meanwhile you have a few good looking candidate men

-Kesten
-Akiros
-Dovan (pretty damn bishie, but also evil I grant)
-Varn (for an old guy he still has good looks)
-Irovetti (also evil I grant)

Good looking sure, but I don't think Dovan, Varn, or Iorvetti are even the slightest bit plausible love interests, due to either being evil and trying to kill you or dead. (And if you're including good looking guys, you can't forget the Horned Hunter and Baron Drelev, who are AT LEAST as likely love interests as Irovetti :P)

As for female love interests, there's Lily in part 2 (about as plausible a love interest as Kesten), Quintessa in part 4 (specifically lists being interested in the PCs), and Ilora in part 5 (at least as likely as Akiros to be a love interest)

(true true true)

In my campaign Lily was a love interest...for the female witch (taken and gay I tell you!) while Quintessa...yeah she got instafried by a fireball spell, blew straight through her CON. Oh well, she was Chaotic Neutral anyways (as are most of the Characters it seems in the campaign), not a good fit for my Lawful Neutral Cavalier. I forget who Ilora was though.


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In reading through this thread, I feel like there needs to be an important distinction made between "romantic partners" and "opportunities for implied and/or outright explicit sexual behavior", since not to generalize, but Paizo definitely provides far more of the later for straight male PCs. There is an all-female-staffed brothel in Wrath of the Righteous with detailed ways for how each (of the FIVE!) female brothel worker interacts with the PCs - and no interaction outlined by any male brothel worker (not that it matters, since as I stated, the brothel workers are all female).

Additionally, the presentations of love interests by Deadmanwalking don't do justice to the vast inequality in the presentation of the mentioned love interests. In Wrath of the Righteous, for example:

show spoiler:
Jahrles is a cowardly guard who stirs dissent in the crowd unless cowed or diplomacied into submission. He is never mentioned again in any capacity in the entire AP and his interactions with the PCs aren't outlined aside from that single skill check. whatever attraction someone might feel to his art, he is in no way, shape, or form, intended or encouraged to be a love interest.

Jeskar Helton is given a face-shot of him in his possessed state. When the players meet him, he is covered in vomit and puke (as his picture shows). There is no other art of him. It's stated he immediately leaves town IF he survives, and stays only if the PCs are able to nurse him and coddle him back to his rigidly patriarchal faith that is stated to be extremely denigrating towards women, viewing them as housewifes at best and inferior at worst, as stated multiple times in much of Erastil's material. He is in no way presented in an attractive or appealing light.

the succubus, Arueshalae, has multiple artwork, detailed stats, detailed backstory, unique gear, prestige class levels, and is integral to the storyline (with the addition of being hinted at across multiple APs, and returned too if needed all of the subsequent APs). While both are stated in-text to have the possibility of becoming romance options for the PCs, the difference between the care with which each was crafted is staggering.

I know that it's very difficult to rate and judge these things, especially when so many people are voicing dissent and derision, but I feel like not including the number of times someone is given artwork, whether or not a character is specifically mentioned as available to take a romantic/sexual interest in the PC, and whether they have more than an incidental interaction with the PCs is just blatant misinformation. Wrath of the Righteous, imo, is one of the APs that has catered the most, of any AP aside from Curse of the Lady's Light, to male gamers, while not only not giving female/non-hetero gamers anything at all, but deliberately shafting them with the excuse of "oh she's a succubi, she can just take a male form if you're not running the game for an exclusively male group. don't worry, they won't care right?". I mean, this is a campaign where male players are given TWO Demon Princes of Lust (Nocticula and Shamiraz) to sleep with, on top of the possibility of sleeping with or courting innumerable other succubi, as well as having seated female rulers fawn over and court them. There is no single male love interest, in any Pathfinder AP ever, who even comes close to the same level of power, either in rule or in stats, of these NPCs.

I don't mean to deride your work in any way, Deadmanwalking, I think this is a fantastic thread and your enthusiasm is excellent. I just feel like there's another layer here that isn't being addressed, and ignoring it makes the issue seem like it's not so pressing, or so large, when to me, it's simply ridiculous to put two characters from Kingmaker, say Lily and Akiros, on the same level. One, the players have to work spare and redeem, and is clearly not intended to be a romance option. Lily is flat-out stated to be sexually interested in the PCs and will aggressively pursue them, if the GM so desires. I feel like, for a lot of these characters, it's "what can the players do DESPITE Paizo's intentions", rather than "are they encouraged to do more with this npc than kill or forget about them". When the final tallies of love interests look like they're just one or two off from even, but that's so NOT the non-straight-male players' exerperiences, I can't help but feel that something is way off here.

Liberty's Edge

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xeose4 wrote:
In reading through this thread, I feel like there needs to be an important distinction made between "romantic partners" and "opportunities for implied and/or outright explicit sexual behavior", since not to generalize, but Paizo definitely provides far more of the later for straight male PCs. There is an all-female-staffed brothel in Wrath of the Righteous with detailed ways for how each (of the FIVE!) female brothel worker interacts with the PCs - and no interaction outlined by any male brothel worker (not that it matters, since as I stated, the brothel workers are all female).

Well, as succubi, they're whatever gender they feel like being...but I don't actually disagree with you here at all. All pictures are of them as female and they are all presented that way in all text as well.

WotR:
I think you're being seriously unfair to both Arles and Erastil here, actually. For one thing, Erastil was never portrayed as actively misogynistic to the extent you imply, and what sexism there ever was has explicitly been stated to be an error and retconned completely out of existence. Arles, meanwhile, while presented as a problem, is a fallen Paladin...and still a NG one at that, and not a coward per se. He's given up hope and is sure everyone's going to die...which isn't quite the same thing at all. He's crtainly a more sympathetic character than Nurah Dendiwar, who I also included.

Now I won't deny that Arushalae is by far the best love interest in the AP...but Aravashnial is probably second, going by wordcount and description, and he's certainly male. I included a lot of characters of both genders who don't match up to those standards, and heck, I even mention several of the males as highly marginal. In short, I disagree that they're as bad as you say they are, but agree they're notably less good than many of the female options.

xeose4 wrote:
I know that it's very difficult to rate and judge these things, especially when so many people are voicing dissent and derision, but I feel like not including the number of times someone is given artwork, whether or not a character is specifically mentioned as available to take a romantic/sexual interest in the PC, and whether they have more than an incidental interaction with the PCs is just blatant misinformation. Wrath of the Righteous, imo, is one of the APs that has catered the most, of any AP aside from Curse of the Lady's Light, to male gamers, while not only not giving female/non-hetero gamers anything at all, but deliberately shafting them with the excuse of "oh she's a succubi, she can just take a male form if you're not running the game for an exclusively male group. don't worry, they won't care right?". I mean, this is a campaign where male players are given TWO Demon Princes of Lust (Nocticula and Shamiraz) to sleep with, on top of the possibility of sleeping with or courting innumerable other succubi, as well as having seated female rulers fawn over and court them. There is no single male love interest, in any Pathfinder AP ever, who even comes close to the same level of power, either in rule or in stats, of these NPCs.

To be fair, Demons are explicitly matriarchal just as devils are patriarchal, and Nocticula is both a major character and the Queen of Succubi...a certain number of succubi and thus potential hook-ups is kinda inevitable (a horrible idea, but one the PCs should be presented with). An equivalent situation with male seducers of some sort seems possible, and would be equally one-sided. Now male seducers of this type are rare in Pathfinder bestiaries at the moment...a situation this thread is (in some part) here to talk about, but the gender balance of the things seducing you being one way in a particular adventure doesn't seem problematic on it's own.

Which is why this thread is about establishing whether there's a pattern of such things. And that it appears there is.

xeose4 wrote:
I don't mean to deride your work in any way, Deadmanwalking, I think this is a fantastic thread and your enthusiasm is excellent. I just feel like there's another layer here that isn't being addressed, and ignoring it makes the issue seem like it's not so pressing, or so large, when to me, it's simply ridiculous to put two characters from Kingmaker, say Lily and Akiros, on the same level. One, the players have to work spare and redeem, and is clearly not intended to be a romance option. Lily is flat-out stated to be sexually interested in the PCs and will aggressively pursue them, if the GM so desires. I feel like, for a lot of these characters, it's "what can the players do DESPITE Paizo's intentions", rather than "are they encouraged to do more with this npc than kill or forget about them". When the final tallies of love interests look like they're just one or two off from even, but that's so NOT the non-straight-male players' exerperiences, I can't help but feel that something is way off here.

No offense taken. :)

To some degree, when doing this kind of thing, I try to play devil's advocate. I'm aiming for a message nobody can dispute. So...if I err for inclusion on marginal male characters and the numbers still come out almost universally with significantly higher numbers of female possibilities, it means more than if I throw out more of the men. It's harder to argue with and more compelling if I err on the side of inclusion for men. Additionally, as a straight guy, I'm perhaps a bit tone-deaf in determining whether male characters are attractive, perhaps exacerbating this tendency as (again) I strive to err on the side of inclusion.

And I have, in fact, noted that a lot of the male possibilities seem a lot more obscure and unavailable than the female ones. And I'll note it here again for the record: The female romantic possibilities I list tend to be easier to access, so to speak, than the male ones. They're more obvious, and more obviously intended as romantic possibilities, generally speaking.


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Been buying and reading a bunch more APs recently. From everything I've seen in the APs, Paizo have absolutely zero interest in catering romantically to straight female PCs. Partial exception for Curse of the Crimson Throne (Vencarlo Orisini although he's old; maybe Grau Soldado - who isn't officially statted though, so even that's a stretch). James Jacob's tendency to make most powerful NPCs (good & bad) female by default exacerbates this; it means there's little opportunity for a relationship to develop spontaneously either.


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IT LIVES!!!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sczarni

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My half-orc female bard recently married a male Evil Cleric of Besmara NPC in a society game. I'm still blushing. (even though it was obvious GM discretion)


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S'mon wrote:
Been buying and reading a bunch more APs recently. From everything I've seen in the APs, Paizo have absolutely zero interest in catering romantically to straight female PCs. Partial exception for Curse of the Crimson Throne (Vencarlo Orisini although he's old; maybe Grau Soldado - who isn't officially statted though, so even that's a stretch). James Jacob's tendency to make most powerful NPCs (good & bad) female by default exacerbates this; it means there's little opportunity for a relationship to develop spontaneously either.

You know, it's funny to me. Paizo includes more powerful female characters, female characters who are important to plots and games rather than scenery, and generally just representing more female characters in a game that is oft-criticized for being a "male-game" in a "male-dominated" (you can interpret the quotation marks as half-sarcasm) subculture.

And the result of that? Paizo suddenly hates strait women. Why? Because there's not lots of nice beefcakes / bishonens runnin' around wagglin' their sparkling abs and there are apparently too many female characters that are very detailed and could be, maybe romantic interests for interested PCs.

Paizo's next adventure path should include an all star cast of genderless tentacled aberrations that reproduce asexually after absorbing the bodily secretions of other species and pirating their good DNA and immune system information in a quest for cognitive evolutionary supremacy. Every one of these NPCs should be a potential romantic interest, and exactly half of them can be rescued by the PCs, and exactly half of them must rescue the PCs. One half of them can be picky about their genetic data harvesting, and the other half can just jump at every sample they can find, so halve the PCs can try to prove that their genetic information is worthwhile, while the other half can just enjoy the attention.

And when they love you, you know it's just for your brain, and the fact your developed a resistance to Chicken Pox at the age of 7.


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Woohoo, Apostae AP!

Liberty's Edge

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@S'mon: I'd actually argue that CotCT avoids the gender imbalance almost entirely (see my post about it on the first page for details), but it seems to be an isolated incident in that regard, and I agree with your point more generally.

@Carla the Profane: Congrats. :) And I have no idea how you'd do a thread like this regarding PFS scenarios...but perhaps someone should.

@Ashiel: I think you're exaggerating to some degree. I certainly like the strong female characters, as do many others. But...if there's an unattractive middle aged or old NPC odds heavily favor them being male, and a vastly disproportionate number of helpful, attractive, young NPCs are also female, which is a potential issue.

Liberty's Edge

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Another set of data, no more comfortable than what Deadmanwalking put together:

The following is every NPC in an Adventure Path module described explicitly in the text as either potentially offering "romance" to a PC or being a "romance" or a "romantic interest."

Rise of the Runelords – Shalelu (f)
Curse of the Crimson Throne – none
Second Darkness – Samaritha (f)
Legacy of Fire – Almah (f), Garavel (m)
Council of Thieves – Calseinica (f)
Kingmaker – none
Serpent's Skull – none
Carrion Crown – Kendra Lorrimor (f)
Jade Regent – Ameiko (f), Shalelu (f), Koya (f), Sandru (m)
Skull and Shackles – Sandara (f), Pierce (m), Tessa (f)
Shattered Star – Natalya (f), Koriah (f)
Reign of Winter – Nadya (f), Greta (f), Ringeirr (m), Solveig (f)
Wrath of the Righteous – Arusehelae (f)
Mummy's Mask (through the 3rd chapter) – Muminofrah (f)

Obviously, since I'm limiting myself to specific words in the text, some characters (Lady Smythee from Raiders of the Fever Sea springs to mind as an obvious example) who are definitely put into a romantic light are excluded from the list... but even so, the trend is evident. And frankly, a bit appalling. Most are either explicitly bi or "sexuality as suits your PCs" (inasmuch as they are written in such a way as to avoid gendered language toward their paramour), but the gender count is... yeah. Lesbian characters have way more options than straight women, which is really weird to me.


Ashiel wrote:

You know, it's funny to me. Paizo includes more powerful female characters, female characters who are important to plots and games rather than scenery, and generally just representing more female characters in a game that is oft-criticized for being a "male-game" in a "male-dominated" (you can interpret the quotation marks as half-sarcasm) subculture.

And the result of that? Paizo suddenly hates strait women.

They don't hate 'strait' women (or gay men). They just don't think. This is just one of the many things they don't think about; I've complained elsewhere about the tendency to make most of the powerful NPCs female (as a political statement, according to Jaccobs) while giving zero consideration to what this implies for the societies depicted.

I still enjoy their stuff. I buy loads of it. I do like it that potential romance and relationships are included in many of their adventures, the way they are in the source fiction. It's just ironic that one of the most Politically Correct gaming companies in the industry make adventures that run best with all-straight- male player groups - indeed my gay male player for one AP has his PC courting a female NPC, since there are no real male romantic interest NPCs, as I said. If a player wants a male romantic interest NPC, I have to create him myself.

Liberty's Edge

@Shisumo:

Ouch. Yeah, at 17 to 4, those are not good stats.

Still, an excellent idea, thanks for contributing. :)

@S'mon:

I disagree with you regarding women in charge, which I think is a separate issue from the one this thread was created to discuss...but obviously agree with you on pure numbers of available love interests.


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Deadmanwalking wrote:

@S'mon: I'd actually argue that CotCT avoids the gender imbalance almost entirely (see my post about it on the first page for details), but it seems to be an isolated incident in that regard, and I agree with your point more generally.

@Carla the Profane: Congrats. :) And I have no idea how you'd do a thread like this regarding PFS scenarios...but perhaps someone should.

@Ashiel: I think you're exaggerating to some degree. I certainly like the strong female characters, as do many others. But...if there's an unattractive middle aged or old NPC odds heavily favor them being male, and a vastly disproportionate number of helpful, attractive, young NPCs are also female, which is a potential issue.

You're obviously (because I say you are, clearly, that's all I need) just trying to perpetuate the status quo that hinders 103% of tentacled asexual aberrations from enjoying our favorite hobby. >:(

Otyoughs aren't enough, and Paizo dropped mind-flayers, which was obviously because they were too empowering (and not because of intellectual property reasons), so now that just leaves us with fish faced aboleths and their hypersexualized oiled up fish-slaves, and who wants ugly fish-slaves?

Voice in the Back: "Hey now, I take offense to that, because I like aboleths and their fishy water breathing oil. It makes me hot and tingly when I think about it!"

You're influenced by the society man, and you don't even realize in because it's what you've been brought up to believe, you sheep! They're clearly an example of the bigotry of the writers who want to keep aboleths in the purple-male patriarchal-enforced sexual fantasy of being subservient to an infinitely intelligent ancient tentacled aberration that keeps them under control by addicting them to the life-changing secretions from their tentacles that render them unable to even exist away from their masters who control them in both mind and body.

Voice in the Back: "But Ashiel, I think you're overreacting. There is a lot of cool interesting things about aboleths and their machinations, and they're one of the strongest and most interesting monsters you can come across, and I think that the purple-male patriarchy might be in your head, because aboleths are hermaphrod--"

DON'T YOU DARE USE THAT WORD AS IT WAS INTENDED! D:<

@Deadmanwalking: It's called satire, and it's the best way that I know how to describe what I see, the way that I see it. And you know, it's the best way I know to be honest about it. I'm not one that gets up and defends Paizo on every little thing. In fact, there are many records of me on these very boards arguing the piss out of topics with James, Sean, and others, and I'm one of the first people who will actively criticize crap that they do from time to time.

But this? By the universe they will never make everyone happy. Paizo includes an awesome cast of characters that are diverse in every sense of the word, includes more female characters that really mean something to the plot, who have intricate histories, motivations, goals, and are protagonists and helpers to the plots rather than bystanders or folks to be rescued, and son of a neothelid, Paizo's sexist now because there's not enough hunky man meats in the show with a certain level of f***ability.

And you leave the sexy old men alone!
I <3 my Ezren. There are very few companies that will let an old man be sexy, but my God, Ezren is like the Dos Equis guy with a staff. Handsome, smart, and dead sexy.

Give Us
More, Sexy,
Old Ezrens!

Dem muscles, dem calves, dat staff. No satire this time.

Paizo, I Beg You
The next adventure path, as I said, should contain 0% humanoids outside of the people in the party. Make them all asexual genderless sentient aberrations that are interested in romancing everybody, but make some of them uninterested, and some overly interested, for those who want the adventure of wooing and for those who want to party at the inn and wake up in a bed full of sexy DNA-pirating aberrations.

It's a win/win. Just make sure that 25% of them are villains, 25% of them are helpful to the protagonists, 25% of them come to the rescue of the protagonists, and 25% are there to be helped by the protagonists. Under no condition should any of those 25%s overlap with one another, because it would be disempowering in an extreme way for the once helpful aberration to later need to be rescued, because then it becomes a tentacle in distress, and that's a worn out old trope that Paizo needs to stop pushing onto its consumerbase because we're in 2014 and we shouldn't be thinking in the primitive year of 3134YY when the aberrations first started that before time traveling back to 2014.

(I'm being satirical again, but no less truthful.)


Deadmanwalking wrote:
@S'mon: I'd actually argue that CotCT avoids the gender imbalance almost entirely (see my post about it on the first page for details), but it seems to be an isolated incident in that regard, and I agree with your point more generally.

I just went back over your list - I'm currently running CoTCT and we're one session into Book 3, so this was very handy. :) Good list, though my group definitely had *no* interest in Laori Vaus, she's lucky they haven't attacked her yet! :D Krojun is the one character I've got my eye on for the later books; Sabina Merrin is cool but I'm not seeing any likely place for romance within the scope of the campaign.

I agree that CoTCT is well balanced. If I came over harsh upthread, it was because I've been running CotCT awhile, and only recently acquired a bunch more APs. Initially I just expected them to be much like CoTCT, so I was a bit shocked, first with Skull & Shackles, then with the others, at the huge imbalance you've noted.


Look, we can all compromise. Half of us can have our sexy old ladies and the other half can have our sexy old men.

Paizo's Got Our Back.

Liberty's Edge

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Deadmanwalking wrote:

@Shisumo:

Ouch. Yeah, at 17 to 4, those are not good stats.

Still, an excellent idea, thanks for contributing. :)

I was looking at your list and thinking, "Those are mostly judgment calls, and although I pretty much agree with all of them, I wonder what the text itself says?" Some of the omissions caught me off guard, too, because I thought I remembered romance being explicitly mentioned in places it turned out not to be. The Children of Westcrown, for instance, in Council of Thieves, or either of Jakardros or Vale in Hook Mountain Massacre. (The latter of which is - to my admittedly straight male eyes - a pretty good option, with full-body art of a handsome, athletic guy who is unambiguously allied with the party and even has some meaningful ways to approach him written into the text...) But neither of them, nor several other places where I thought I'd see something. It was... enlightening.

Liberty's Edge

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Amusing aberration hijinks aside...

Ashiel wrote:
@Deadmanwalking: It's called satire, and it's the best way that I know how to describe what I see, the way that I see it. And you know, it's the best way I know to be honest about it. I'm not one that gets up and defends Paizo on every little thing. In fact, there are many records of me on these very boards arguing the piss out of topics with James, Sean, and others, and I'm one of the first people who will actively criticize crap that they do from time to time.

I know it's satire...but that doesn't make its message correct. I understand what you're saying, I just don't entirely agree.

Ashiel wrote:
But this? By the universe they will never make everyone happy. Paizo includes an awesome cast of characters that are diverse in every sense of the word, includes more female characters that really mean something to the plot, who have intricate histories, motivations, goals, and are protagonists and helpers to the plots rather than bystanders or folks to be rescued, and son of a neothelid, Paizo's sexist now because there's not enough hunky man meats in the show with a certain level of f***ability.

At no point have I ever called Paizo sexist. Nor would I. But this is a problem. Numbers don't lie (they can be misleading, especially when used by someone with an agenda...but I came in here with no agenda as such and am merely looking for the truth, I would've been overjoyed if the numbers disproved my point), and by every numerical metric we've been able to come up with there's a serious gender disparity between eligible female NPCs and eligible male ones. Period.

Is this the end of the world, or does it make Paizo inherently sexist? No, of course not. Is it a real issue that some people (particularly women and gay men) are having with the game and have a legitimate complaint regarding? Yes, it is.

And that second bit means that it's a valid topic for conversation and should be addressed. People are having a real problem here, and feeling left out in an important part of the AP experience. That's not a petty issue easily dismissed with some mockery, it's a real problem for them that should be treated seriously. Or as seriously as one ever treats anything about a game where you pretend to be elves, anyway.

Also, OT on the word hermaphrodite:

Spoiler:
I can see both sides of the hermaphrodite issue that came up in the other thread. It's technically quite possibly accurate, but it's also a sensitized word for intersexed people and maybe should have been avoided for the same reason you don't see a lot of people talking about 'burning all their f*ggots'...despite that being a technically accurate word usage for burning firewood.

Liberty's Edge

Shisumo wrote:
I was looking at your list and thinking, "Those are mostly judgment calls, and although I pretty much agree with all of them, I wonder what the text itself says?" Some of the omissions caught me off guard, too, because I thought I remembered romance being explicitly mentioned in places it turned out not to be. The Children of Westcrown, for instance, in Council of Thieves, or either of Jakardros or Vale in Hook Mountain Massacre. (The latter of which is - to my admittedly straight male eyes - a pretty good option, with full-body art of a handsome, athletic guy who is unambiguously allied with the party and even has some meaningful ways to approach him written into the text...) But neither of them, nor several other places where I thought I'd see something. It was... enlightening.

Indeed! I felt the same way about doing this thread as a whole. I honestly just hadn't noticed the degree to which the gender disparity issue in potential love interests appears to be true in recent APs.

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