A Tailor's page

I've been fairly outspoken about this situation and what actions I believe should have been taken, but overall I'm happy with the way things have been handled in the aftermath. It's reassuring to see Paizo take a willingness to hear the criticism and to hash out this new agreement quickly. I don't like that things ended up going this way ultimately, but I am also not in the business of scorning better in pursuit of perfect.

Despite my criticisms, everyone at Paizo still makes and has made one of my favorite games. One of the few worlds that has dared to be as kaleidoscopic as ours. One of the few communites that I truly enjoy being a part of, even when it isn't pretty or convenient. Overall, I'm just glad Paizo was willing and able to do something actionable in light of the outpour of support for AoN. It's not a situation without nuance and I do think there are still criticism that can be levied at both parties involved, but I am not the best equipped to engage in those discussions and there are better times to have them.

Right now, I am happy to enjoy the relief of an amicable conclusion. Thanks to everyone at Paizo for their time and their willingness to hear my comments out and of those with views similar to mine. I am reminded why I buy your books with a smile on my face.

Thanks to Paizo, AoN, but also specifically Maya and Jim.

I was gonna write some big Simpsons reference about how Maya showed up and xe saved my player piano from my burning house, but honestly I just wanna say thank you and give props. I'm really happy to see that people are appreciating the work Maya does repeatedly.

You can strongly feel like other people are overeacting or taking it too seriously without repeatedly insinuating that they are just going to flay you or burn you at the stake.

I'm getting exceedingly tired of poking my head in here and seeing that kind of speech when I've seen a lot of people with the most immediate negative reactions here go out of their way to reassess and reconsider the tone. Myself included. This'll probably be my last post discussing the topic because I feel like I've stated my positions pretty clearly repeatedly and that I don't have much substantially to add without going in circles.

Also, there are plenty of people who are closer to holding my opinion who have acting incredibly inappropriate and unbecoming. I've seen a ton of needless disrespect and passive flaming. But that has not been the standard in this thread and it just serves to increase tension. I've been clumsy with my wording at times, too. I'm not demanding perfection from those I disagree with, just... please rethink the framing sometimes.

People feel hurt by this decision because they feel like it flies in the face of the values they support Paizo on behalf of. I can't speak on behalf of everyone, but I know I was truly crestfallen to see this response because I stepped into Pathfinder to escape callous, business-first decisions and I'm gonna be a bit defensive when it seems like those winds are changing. I love Paizo's products and the artists who bring them to life, but if the idea is that they are pulling support from AoN over monetary concerns, why would the response not be to demonstrate a greater loss from stepping away from that arrangement? Like, even if you fundamentally disagree with the notion that distancing from AoN is a mistake, the mechanics of the situation are pretty clear.

But the second that topic gets brought up, I see so many get pidgeonholed into just being destructive. Hate-filled online ragers who just want the company to burn. That's pretty cruel and I know some of you know that. To immediately twist the position of "please stop doing things that make me not want to support you as a company," into "you just want Paizo to die," is as nonsensical as twisting "I don't feel like this action is worth revoking support over," into "you are a shill who just wants to blame AoN."

I feel like a lot of conversations are being had past other people at this point and I just don't know how that is going to stop, so I'm just going to quit here and leave it at that. I want Paizo to reconsider this action and at the very least issue a different response or apology regarding this ordeal. That's the stuff that would ease me as a consumer and as someone who has an bookshelf filled with 2e. If you don't agree with me or think I'm hysterical or unreasonable, that's fine.

Furthermore, if you do agree with me, don't take the opportunity to turn my exhaustion and frustration as an opportunity to wage ridiculous internet war against some imagined foe. If I can leave this topic on one note, it's this: the employees at Paizo and the people passionate enough to talk about this stuff openly aren't an army threatening your way of life. They're the people who could be sitting at your table. Please treat them as such.

This genuinely isn't pointed at anyone in particular.

Let's stop the heated language and accusations of bad faith. If you're feeling upset, maybe step away from the keyboard and cool off. The thread will still be here when you come back. It doesn't help anyone and it won't make you feel any better, believe me. I ask if only for the sake of Maya, who is doing a phenomenal job but is only one human*.

*I've yet to see conclusive evidence "Maya" isn't four Skittermanders in a trenchcoat, which I remind you is an approximate total of twenty-four arms.

Hopping in to plus one this. Maya has not adequately proven xe isn't a Skittermander ruse.

Sincerely, as heated as I feel towards certain aspects and approaches, I will reiterate that it is important to take people in good faith here, even if you disagree with them. This situation has hurt my desire to engage with Paizo financially, but I don't think that has to or should extend to every single person, nor do I think people keeping their subs or reconsidering are supporting the "new, evil Paizo!"

This is an important conversation and a potential inflection point and I think passion is warranted. Being cruel and eating each other alive is not.

I think we're very close to if not past the real damage threshold and that's very disheartening. I'm openly highly critical of Paizo's response and I don't think that me or people who feel similarly put off by this whole incident are above criticism, but it can be a little frustrating to see a lot of people seemingly assume the worst.

I know, realistically, it really isn't about people like me and more about the unhelpful vitriol on places like Reddit right now, but it's still frustrating to see some voices at times imply or state that the people angry at this course of action or response by Jim are wanting to poison the game or happy with its death or harm of the company that makes it. I do think cooling the temperature is the right call as of now, but I just hope that more people are willing to understand that being fervantly disappointed or upset about this scenario isn't a battle line. Even the people who have really rubbed me the wrong way and that I disagree with fully aren't enemies. They play the game I love. I just hope that more people keep that in mind as a whole when levying criticism. That goes for me, too.

It's been a long while since I've poked my head in on this discussion and it's evolved in some pretty notable ways. I want to give specific mentions to both Owen's commentary as well as OceanshieldwolPF's. I think they both made excellent contributions. I also want to apologize to Maya for flying a little too close to the sun on a previous post. I sincerely haven't been trying to worsen the discussion.

All that said, I do think it's important to heed Owen's input and be aware that the critical parts of this conversation do need to ensure some level of constructive element. I also want to reassess something I asserted earlier on that I can say more confidently with the context added by people who have posted in this thread: I cannot fathom this being an internally popular decision at Paizo. The majority of people who have made this company special to me were almost certainly not involved in this decision and this response and they have to deal with the fallout.

I think that contributes massively to my distaste for this response as a whole. This feels very much like a management decision that was difficult, but had some internal, sympathetic logic to it that was dashed fiercely following it's concluding paragraph. I am not here to litigate whether or not AoN could have done a better job communicating as a partner. Certainly, it seems suffice to say that they could have, but I believe it is unfair to frame this situation as a failure or act of malice by them. They were backed into a corner and also faced with poor communication from a body that has all of the negotiating power and sway and gave them relatively short notice that they needed to scrub a ton of content from their website.

The question that seems to go unasked but we all know the answer to has been "and then what if they fail to reach the deadline?" And that answer is just simply legal action. And Paizo, the company, putting a ton of valuable volunteer workers in a tough spot where they need to do a ton of extra work that diminishes the value of their resource at threat of DMCA is going to feel sour because it simply is a sour thing to do. And it's deeply hurtful to see that the tone from the end of the blog post seems to have influenced the discussion of some of the pro-Paizo sentiment here.

I am never going to criticize someone for wanting the game to thrive or for the employees to be treated with dignity and respect. At no point during this have I stated a desire for Pathfinder or any of Paizo's work to cease, but it is so massively disheartening to see certain responses jumping to that. This is before we even get into the context that this is a situation involving people who love these games so much that they spend so much free time and effort to make sure it is supported and accessible. Paizo is a part of making Pathfinder, 100%, but they are only a part. And I don't think you'd find anyone who works on the game seriously argue otherwise.

And when I sit on this conflux of situations, it just makes my dislike for this specific response greater and greater. Being in an unfair situation and having to do unfair things happens, but they don't have to happen like this. So much of this situation were bad decisions in execution. There did not need to be a lapse in communication to begin with. There could have been resources allocated to making this process more palatable and sympathetic on people providing labor for Paizo's product, both within and without the company. There could have been a response drafted by someone more well equipped to speak diplomatically on this matter. And these choices were not taken, categorically.

I've been pretty sincere about my love for the game and my lack of desire to leave it, but I strongly feel that, at the bare minimum AoN deserves a public apology for how this was handled. And I don't think it's unreasonable to expect Paizo, the company, to do that. And, frankly, I would want Paizo upper management to apologize to their own staff at this point if they haven't already. This situation, as has been repeatedly noted, has been awful for them and didn't need to. Paizo, the people who make the game I love, have been negatively affected by this course of action and I don't think it's contradictory for me to expect better from a publisher I want to buy from while also caring for the artists who produced something dear to me.

Those are two roads in the same damn town.

Edit: I need to watch the Patreon FAQ and will correct inaccuracies in this post after doing so.

A Tailor wrote:

I think there has been a lot of criticism towards Paizo as a corporate entity, but there's only one commenter in this thread that truly has lacked respect towards the views and positions of others. Only one who seems to be desperate to paint other fans as killing the game. I don't think they deserve further mention or engagement with their bad faith interactions.

And remember, bit dogs holler.

cool bait. having actually been in the discourse trenches for years, I think the pathfinder community actually doesn't get enough criticism, considering how toxic 90% of it is most of the time.

That's perfectly fine. You're more than entitled to feel that way and I'm not gonna sit here and act like you're clueless or naive. There's been plenty of incredibly toxic behavior that I've witnessed online in the time that I've been part of the community. Hell, overreactions with things like the Psychic remaster kept me away from engaging in forums like these. I felt like this moment in time required my voice and you are well within your rights to disagree with me and to disrespect my opinions. A majority held belief does not, in fact, automatically validate itself by being held by a majority.

But I'm not going to accuse you of poisoning the game for disagreeing with me. I'm not going to make it a point of treating you like an enemy, but I've seen some(not much, but a vocal minority) supportive sentiment towards Paizo skew towards characterizing a difference in perspective as an opposing force and I feel strongly that that's truly absurd and should not be engaged with. Regardless of how you interpret me, people are upset by this decision and their reasons amount to more than petty internet reactions. Even other long time volunteers outside of AoN have been vocally critical about this. We all, ideally, want the game to succeed.

I wouldn't be here in the first place if I didn't feel like this put Paizo and Pathfinder in a compromising position.

Edit: Also, believe it or not, you can go see my earlier posts in the thread. That was not intended as bait. There is a specific user that I don't think should be engaged with and that snide comment was meant to distance myself from getting responded to by that one user. I'm sorry I didn't convey my point more carefully.

I am not a fan of this development, but it doesn't diminish the value of AON's utility. Even with a delay in new content, the value of the website is still immense.

Personally, I understand that the ultimate cause of all this is the Diamond situation. Paizo is struggling and doing what they have to do to stay afloat.

I just reactivated four of my subscriptions. I want to do my part to keep the company afloat during these dark times. And in a few years, I hope I can look back and say, "Yeah, that sucked, but we made it."

I know that the righteous negativity that I conveyed earlier might be perceived as one of wanting Paizo to pay or fail for this slight, but I respect you making this decision because I do want to look back on this moment and say the same. I want to be able to buy Impossible Magic or some book three years from now and just go, "it sucked that things were rough for a bit."

This is just very much a Rubicon moment for me and I feel like if the march doesn't stop here, the South bank is not going to be a game or community I recognize.

I have been mired in a lot of emotions before making this post. I want to be sympathetic because I do ultimately feel like the team at Paizo has been through utter hell recently. I am typically content to not speak up much and let other, more enfranchised players and community members speak up. I assume that many within the company have already acknowledged how truly bad this makes you look, which is also likely contributing to a desire to not reach out to AoN and strike up a new deal. I can foresee this situation creating some hurt feelings and animosity. Unfortunately, I do not have sympathy for this.

AoN has been a beacon of getting people excited, interested, and involved in Pathfinder for the half decade I have been involved in the game. The work they put in for this community is not just valuable, it is indespensible. I have spoken kindly about the company culture at Paizo specifically because of AoN. I have happily spent a ton of money on Demiplane because of the good will Paizo earned. I have advocated for this game repeatedly and I have to look like an ass because of these higher management positions.

And I want to make it crystal clear that I cannot fathom this being an internally popular decision. The justification is weak. The thought-process is exceptionally poorly executed and communicated. And the words towards the end feel truly, utterly insulting. And I don't know how to contend with that. I want to be respectful and understanding, but I cannot view this as anything but a betrayal against everything this community stands for and has pushed for. Born out of desparation? Almost certainly, but the second you start eating your fans is the second we find ourselves in the situations that neccessitated the ORC and Pathfinder as a whole in the first place.

I am massively disappointed in this action and if things don't change swiftly, I can't see myself recommending the game or purchasing anything more from Paizo. This company can do better and the fact that AoN correctly read that they needed to get ahead of the company's statement speaks dismally to the communications you chose to have with them, your most devoted fans. This is a pretty shameful moment.

To be clear, I don't want to discount Maya's energy and response in this thread. Xyr approach has been everything this whole sordid affair has required and has been the one uplifting inkling of a situation that I find little to no pleasure in. Thanks, Maya.