S'mon's page

My PC group includes an 11,000+ year old Azlanti paladin buried by Sorshen beneath the Sunken Queen. I don't think she will think much of Sorshen's protestations "You have to like me, I'm CN now!"

We're currently on Book 6 of Shattered Star, and have played most of Runelords too (not Runeforge or Book 6, so Karzoug still alive). I'm looking forward to using parts of Return of the Runelords in my campaign but I expect it'll turn out very different from canon.

Crimson Throne - King Eodred Arabasti of Korvosa is sick. His young wife Ileosa is pretty, but not well regarded.

Shattered Star - The Pathfinders are establishing a Lodge in Magnimar under Venture Captain Sheila Heidmarch.

The Pathfinder Beginner Box also has some stuff.

@OP: I would contribute to a male-romantic-interest thread (Sir Jereth Rogare, Hellknight of the Nail, in my Curse of the Crimson Throne game was pretty cool, in a Judge Dredd/Robocop sort of way), only 'beefcake' is the male equivalent of female 'cheesecake', ie it's all about the visuals, and I can't get past the terrible thread title. If you weren't going for that, you should have chosen a better title. Sorry.

Do you feel that some of the female iconics as presented in their class entry (i.e. the "iconic" iconic picture) are being objectified?

Eh, no. I think they're all clearly subject of action, not object. I haven't really seen seriously objectifying FRPG artwork since the 3e D&D era with companies like Mongoose and the Avalanche Press book covers. I think Paizo artwork is gratuitously sexy (good for sales) and the costumes often impractical, but it's nothing like '90s Clyde Caldwell stuff, or even Larry Elmore (much as I love Elmore).

Well, I had Ameiko & Lonjiku talk mostly in Tian, so the PCs couldn't understand it amyway. :)

I like the approach of having the comics and audio dramas in different continuities, it's like having different GMs running their own campaigns. :)

Keep in mind that right now, there are threads talking about the hypersexualization of women in Pathfinder by citing characters like Seoni and ignoring characters like Kyra. There's a thread looking specifically...

NB: DIFFERENT PEOPLE WANT DIFFERENT THINGS. Some people want more Kyras, some want more Seonis, some want more Vencarlo Orisinis. Obviously Paizo cannot please everyone! That's not the point, and it's not illegitimate for people to post their wishes even where those contradict the wishes of other people.

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.

I mostly add extra NPCs, put more emphasis on stuff that captures the players' fancy, and omit optional chunks. With Curse of the Crimson Throne so far the PCs have avoided about 1/4 of the potential encounters. I find 'unused potential' is a very useful technique for creating the feel of a living world, especially when NPCs do some of the stuff PCs didn't, or the monsters survive and stick around for later. With Rise of the Runelords it's mostly been about moving NPCs around so they're not encountered in their written 'default' locations; this makes the setting seem more dynamic.

OK, if I run this I'll know not to run it in Pathfinder! Seems like a good candidate for 1e AD&D...

Hi all - looking at the possibility of starting an AP campaign with my son, friend's son etc. Would need to be suitable for children aged 7. I'm not so worried about the mechanical stuff, I've found (using the Beginner Box and the stuff at the back of the Dark Waters Rising hardback) that I can handle the rules-crunch fine, and they pick up on a lot of stuff about the d20 system very quickly, but I'd like something that was mostly PG-rated, not much R stuff which I'd need to edit. A couple I've just bought and am wondering might be suitable are Skull & Shackles and Shattered Star; I was also wondering about Jade Regent? I'm currently running Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne for adult groups; both are on the edge of what I'd consider ok.

What if they only told her it was dead?
Today I came across stuff about Old Megus the Swamp Witch (Jade Regent #1) and my group are immediately thinking of seeking her out for advice. So I just had the idea that Megus could have taken away Nualia's child to raise it in the Brinestump swamp...

Has anyone else done anything with this? Any old threads?

You could have someone apologise for the mayor's bad behaviour, and ask the PCs to stick around. Ameiko seems the obvious one as they like her, maybe Brodert Quink too.

When the Paladin IMC did a Detect Evil in the glassworks, I had the goblin band radiate faint Evil. I'm thinking that Lamashtu-touched Goblins on a mission of Evil might radiate Evil if checked for, even if goblins normally wouldn't.
Given the range it would take more than one evening to properly scan the whole town I reckon, but I think it's an excellent idea to have him detect faint evil from the house with the closet goblin, have to argue with the parents to be let in - "But it's just the boy's imagination!" - and potentially save the family. If he succeeds you can make clear that he got one over on the AP. For me, if I were playing the Pally that'd be immensely satisfying. :)
I think departing from the RAW slightly here would be a very good call. You can describe it as "very faint evil, almost too little to register", and I don't think it sets a bad precedent.

Given how hard it is to find a ship on the open sea otherwise, I'd think this sort of thing was standard practice for all the Shackles pirates.

Given that London, England's population prior to the plague was in the millions, I've long felt that Paizo understates urban populations.

The city population numbers look to be copied over from 3e, but unlike 3e I haven't seen any statement that they are adult population only. 3e D&D seems to have copied them loosely from Gygax's 1e AD&D DMG and World of Greyhawk. They are not that far off high medieval Europe outside the metropoles like Paris & London (although national & rural populations tend to be far sparser), but they don't fit particularly well with the 17th/18th century vibe of most Golarion material. Korvosa and Magnimar feel like they should be big cities with tens of thousands of people, not "Is this a town or a city?" - which is the vibe I get from populations of 16,000-18,000.

'Herbs for birth control' are exactly a feature of realistic historic medieval humanity.

No, although the Romans had one until it went extinct - couldn't be farmed and was over-harvested. Medieval European birth control involved abstinence before marriage, and late marriage - there's no evidence of birth contol after marriage; fertility rates seem to have been at or close to the biological limit (about 1 child per 12-18 months). Whereas nomadic hunter-gatherer populations do seem to control fertility within marriage (about 1 child per 3-4 years) but not by herbs; typically they avoid procreative sex until the previous child can walk.

The intimation that you ignore or erase male/female strength variance from the in-game context is shocking, and laughably irrealistic to believe that players can/will actually expunge such conceptions from their mind. I mean, in the most gender equal locale you could imagine on modern Earth, no serious person could ever REMOTELY imagine that to be true.

I frequently see people on the Internet claim to believe IRL that men and women are equally strong by nature, and that to believe otherwise is sexist. The people saying this seem to be sedentary males, but sedentary males make up the majority of Internet posters in general. :)

I've seen female players confused and disconcerted by the radical gender equality that seems standard in most Golarion societies. I had a player come to the table with a character background for her female paladin in Curse of the Crimson Throne where she'd overcome gender expectations of a traditional patriarchal society to become a warrior, and wasn't happy when I said "But most of the senior NPCs in Korvosa are female!"

I often find gender difficult to deal with in Paizo stuff. I've seen NPC backgrounds where female NPCs overcome patriarchal gender norms, but those gender norms rarely if ever seem to exist elsewhere in the material. Occasionally it's explained well, as in the Sandpoint guide at the back of Rise of the Runelords - from reading that I had a good idea of gender norms in Sandpoint, how people would regard Kendra Deverin as mayor, etc. But often it just comes over as a heavy-handed and thoughtless editorial policy, as in Skull & Shackles, where I'm left at a loss as to how the mixed-sex pirate crews are supposed to function. In general comparing Runelords and Crimson Throne from 2007-8 with the later AP issues I own, the problem seems to be getting worse with the more recent material.

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.

EDIT: And what's up with the 'S' and 'A' names, now that I list them?

Hey, you missed me!

S'mon wrote:

Edit: Just wanted to mention what female players find attractive - usually they're looking for co-equal* characters, not damsel in distress types. Rescuing a female NPC may make her more attractive to the male NPC rescuer, at least if she's not totally drippy - the Princess Bride does this trope well, as does Star Wars ep IV - but male characters who need rescuing can be a turn off, unless they elicit a mothering response and/or handle captivity with great wit & equanimity - Johhny Depp can pull off the latter kind of character, Leonardo diCaprio the former, but it's a challenge for most GMs. So creating a strong male NPC potential love interest can be challenging. Vencarlo Orisini is done well IMO, eg he's shown in action being highly competent, before needing rescue later.

*IRL a superior competence man may be more attractive ('hypergamy'), but in power-fantasy RPGs the player probably doesn't want her female PC to be overshadowed by her NPC boyfriend/husband. His having a few extra levels on her may be fine, but not in a way to overshadow her - eg a martial or multiclass NPC could be somewhat higher level than his PC Wizard or Druid girlfriend, but won't risk outshining her at least by the time she's 5th level or so.

This is getting into tricky territory. Setting aside the issue of whether this might be a case of overgeneralization...

I didn't mean it as a universal rule. In fact I can think of one big exception from my own experience; when I ran a short OGL Conan campaign, the two female players both played Conanesque female barbarian types (they might have looked like Red Sonja, but their 'tude was way more Conanesque happy warriors). Both of their PCs soon acquired handsome youths to follow them around adoringly and be their sidekicks, pretty much the traditional female NPC role for swords & sorcery male PCs/protagonists; the players absolutely loved this! :D The NPCs youths were handsome, brave, not incompetent, but not nearly as competent as the PCs, and they did often need rescuing etc.

So yeah, there is a space for puppy-dog male NPC love interests, as much as Sean Connery/Vencarlo Orisini type veterans, and mature adult Han Solo types, etc too.

I've personally mostly sworn off romances at the table. Between awkward weirdness and the occasional GM making a pass at me in the guise of an npc problem, I'd rather leave that bit out, personally.

As GM I generally prefer the PC to make the first move. At most I'll say

Unfortunately RoTRL seems by far the easiest. I've not read all of Shattered Star, but it seems the best choice.

BTW Pathfinder/3e is a particularly hard system on the GM. I find running an AP in a pre-3e D&D ruleset (1e AD&D via the OSRIC retroclone is my current favourite) is VASTLY VASTLY easier than running it in the system it's written for. >:)

Did they save Aldern during the goblin raid? That's all it needs for him to become obsessed with one of them. I think the boar hunt isn't necessary.

It definitely sounds like these guys are in line for a Darwin Award. Of all the PCs to abandon for a laugh(?!) abandoning your *Cleric* is the most collossally stupid idea I've ever heard of.
I wouldn't make any major changes to the adventure such as free-roaming shadows; just letting nature take its course, have the monsters be reasonably proactive/aggressive, and without Clerical healing they'll likely all soon be dead. Just make sure they know OOC that leaving the Cleric behind is a really stupid thing to do, then if they insist go on and run it fairly to their likely demise.

I don't what books you pick, but if every teacher I know pick readable books that weren't organized in the most confusing way, with horrible lack of clarity, I'd read the textbooks more often. Right now I use them only as reference and rely more on google to gain understanding. I read lots of books cause I love reading, and textbooks are usually (thankfully not always) the most horribly written pieces of junk. Well to be fair, some are written more like reference books then textbooks, which helps only after I know what is going on.

I'm a law lecturer/professor - I do choose books for clarity, but law text books are always going to be pretty heavy going. The good students read them, the bad ones don't. Hopefully they at least Google. ;)

I agree with Wrong John Silver (good post!) As GM, I want my female players' PCs to have potential romantic interests, same as the men. As a player, I'm a straight man but my PCs are often straight women, and some romantic opportunities for them would be great, too.

Given the huge number of 'cute girl' potential romantic interest NPCs there are in most of the APs, I definitely think the occasional 'cute guy' NPC wouldn't hurt.

BTW I do sympathise with the writers on this; I've been GMing for many years and it was only recently that I consciously created a potential romantic interest male NPC. I was very gratified when he was then pursued by 2 female and 1 male PC (and the third female probably would have too if she wasn't shy). :D He married one of the female PCs two sessions ago; I'd say it was a big success. But I found it quite hard to create the character - I couldn't just go with "what I'd like", or "what I'd want to be like"; I had to place myself in others' shoes, think of female-oriented romance movies and what sort of characteristics the male romance interest tends to have. I ended up with "Iain Glen's Sir Jorah Mormont as played by Colin Firth", which worked excellently. :D

S'mon wrote:

It wasn't Said who was engaging in sleight of hand. It's the US academics who use it to teach US students.

If so it seems to me that it would be so incompetent an attempt as to be basically irrelevant.

Anyone who
a) has actually read even just the first two paragraphs of Said's book, and
b) is taken in by any such sleight of hand

is wildly terrible at reading comprehension.

Orientalism wrote:

Americans will not feel quite the same about the Orient, which for them is much more likely to be associated very differently with the Far East (China and Japan, mainly).

Under thirty seconds into the book.

I don't know; I've read a bunch of US gamers posting on (eg) EN World who seem to have been taken in (and I think rpgnet is worse, but I try hard to avoid the political areas there and only go to the d20 forum). Are they all morons? I guess they probably weren't paying a lot of attention; maybe they never read the book* and just heard what they expected to hear.

*If every student I told to read a book actually read it, I'd be a happy lecturer. :)

Japan's unprecedented rapid industrialization that spat in the face of the Europeans and Americans who wished to pick the island nation's resources apart as they did China...

Just on a factual point, Japan is very resource poor and was never much sought after for its resources by Western powers, though they did want it as an export market for their own goods. From what I can see, Japan came into conflict with Western powers because it wanted to be a peer, with its own 'place in the sun', and while Russia after 1905 was forced to cede Japan a sphere of influence, the US in particular would not accept a challenge to US hegemony in the western Pacific.

Japan is a very interesting case. I don't think it's generally appreciated in the West how critical Japan's example was in ending Western global supremacy through its example - a resource poor non-Western nation that repeatedly proved itself at least the equal of the great Western empires, ending what had been an influential myth of white-Western invincibility. American victory over Japan obscured this from the American POV, but that was after Japan had previously defeated Russia in 1905 and the British, French and Dutch Pacific empires in 1941, as well as driving the American empire back to her own side of the Pacific. Events such as the Fall of Singapore contributed to a perception that Western global imperial domination was no longer tenable.

S'mon wrote:

How do other Varisians see the Sczarni? Are they the social rejects, the unwanted outcasts? Or are they looked up to as the defenders of Varisian culture against the Chels, the way many Sicilian immigrants to the US once saw the Mafia?

Given what I've read, it's a little of both.

The Sczarni see themselves as defenders of Varisian culture, or more accurately, they think that it's okay to deceive and rob non-Varisians as payback for the many years of cultural abuse at the hands of Taldans and Chelaxians. They're not as interested in preserving Varisian core values as much as taking what they want because they feel the world owes them.

Most average Varisians, both nomadic and settled, view the Sczarni as a cultural black eye. Because the Sczarni stir up trouble by the very nature of their enterprises, they're essentially the source of most modern prejudice against Varisians, the reason people think all Varisians are thieves and liars. Most Varisians that DO hold to their traditions and stuff hate the Sczarni as a result, and refuse to associate with them.

It's sort of a vicious cycle. People are racist against Varisians because they think they're criminals by nature, and as a result, some Varisians become embittered and join Sczarni families to get vengeance and survive, which feeds into the negative stereotype of the Varisian criminal, etc.

So that would imply the Sczarni are low-status rejects among the Varisians, even if they tend to avoid preying on other Varisians? That would seem to tally with the non-clan-based gang structures described for the Sczarni, and put them pretty firmly in the Bruderbond model. So comparing them to criminals in London, where I live, they'd bear more resemblance to eg the Afro-Caribbean street gangs (with no status in respectable Afro-Caribbean society) than to the more common family based or hybrid criminal organisations of the old east-end English Cockneys, or the more recent Turks & Kurds, Romany Gypsies, Irish Travellers etc, which are more of a Sicilian Mafia model, though usually on a smaller scale.

if someone decries Orientalism that will be met with this was a historical reality, or a depiction of what happened. Doesn't matter if it is slavery, despotism, Islamic or Arab war bands, or the loss of...

Most Western 'Orientalist' fiction is heavily romanticised and sanitised compared to the reality - but most Western 'Medievalist' fiction is equally sanitised and romanticised, of course.

I used to know a renegade Arab princess from the Gulf, who told me absolutely hair-raising stories of what goes on there even today, absolutely horrible, horrible stuff. Far worse than you'll see in 'Sheikh's Harem' Orientalist potboiler fiction, never mind 'Lawrence of Arabia' type romanticised tales.

If you are interested in a thorough discrediting of Said, there is this: Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism. In it he goes through how Said was very fast and loose with his theories, he made a range of what would later turn out to be false accusations which he used to attack many different people and mar the reputation of an entire scholarly discipline. This group have contributed much to our historical knowing of the history of the world, through Assyrianology, Indian, Arab and Mesopotamian studies. They were only interested in studying and learning more about the non-Western world and grasping histories not the West's own; but Said publicly and intellectually shamed them greatly by attacking even their intent to analyse other cultures, and calling that whole endeavour into question.

Yes, it seems to be primarily a Shaming exercise. Said wanted Europeans to feel bad about their interest in other cultures. Then he was taken up by US Universities as a tool for 'educating' their students to feel ashamed of themselves (involving a bit of a sleight of hand, since 'Oriental' in American-English refers to the Far East, not Said's Middle East).

Operating within a Marxist-influenced postcolonialist framework, he doesn't seem to have been interested in encouraging genuine objective inquiry, or in encouraging Westerners to see their culture as just one among many world civilisations. The paradigm is one in which power hierarchies are hardwired in; in particular the West is inherently 'on top' and definitional. In Western Liberalism/Neoliberalism the West is uniquely Good, the universal culture to replace all others. In the New Left-Marxist frame the West is uniquely bad, the demonic civilisation that holds the world in thrall. Neither allow for what IMO would be the healthier attitude of seeing the West as just one among many cultures, with some unique features, and very influential globally over the past 500 years, but in many other ways not so different from other civilisations, and with no divine or diabolic mandate to be the universal culture.

A bad GM who won't take advice isn't going to get better. If the other players want you to take over, I'd go with that. Maybe one of them can GM later, and not suck.

If it was just about you and him my advice might be different, but you have to consider the rest of the group. If they're not enjoying the game either, you actually have a moral duty to resume GMing rather than let them suffer.

BTW my impression is that maybe Serbs are a bit stubborn in general? :) I'm from Northern Ireland, we have a similar reputation. Sometimes stubborness is bad, as in refusing to take good advice. But sometimes a willingness to offend if necessary can be a good thing, and IMO booting a sucky GM who refuses to try to improve is one of those times.

Speaking as a straight female gamer, I've found the APs to be frustrating. The female NPCs are all attractive and intriguing (even those who aren't described as particularly sexy in the text get sexy art because fantasy artists like drawing sexy women), while the male NPCs are often explicitly called out as middle-aged or unattractive, in a not-very-subtle attempt to not be competition to the (presumably male) PCs for the hot chicks. Jade Regent is the one exception, in providing an attractive and available male NPC for romance.

I own every Paizo AP from RotRL to WotR and was definitely made to feel like I was not the target audience. It's one of the factors that led to me cancelling my AP subscription last month.

Yep, I think that's a problem. It tends to be a problem in general with stuff written by straight male writers - 'romance option' = 'hot chicks', whether those characters are straight or gay. To a lesser extent it's also a problem for other players playing straight female PCs; where straight male & gay female PCs get a buffet of attractive options, straight female PCs face slim pickings and a lot of NPC competition! I noticed this running Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne. In my homebrew 4e game I made the conscious decision to include a potential romantic interest straight male NPC, which worked out very well - he married one of the female PCs last night. :)

I suspect the people drawn to roleplaying games these days tend NOT to be heteronorm for the most part!)

Probably more than in the general population, but not the majority of RPGers, no. I've played in a lot of different RPG groups in London and I'd guess somewhere between 1/10 and 1/5 of players not heterosexual, including new players.

"It couldn't hurt to include more non-evil, single men or non-dead straight couples, is all."

I thought of one! :D In RoTRL Sheriff Belor Hemlock is in a heterosexual,non-evil, non-dead relationship with Kaye Tesarani, madam of the Pixie's Kitten. That's practically normal. :D
Not all the LGBcetera relationships are sweetness & light either, Queen Ileosa/Sabina Merrin is pretty dysfunctional. I think I agree with your point though; in particular more married couples with children would be nice.

S'mon wrote:

The monastery has one monk, right? :D The theatre is the only thing that really strikes me as incredibly implausible.

Thing is... Sandpoint is based on my real-world home town, Point Arena. Which is about only 1/3 the population, and it DOES have a big theater.

How big is the professional acting troupe? Do they have a starring diva from L.A.? :D

Edit: As there seems to be a lot of decent farmland nearby, I thought of salted beef as a possible export.

So, pirates are traditionally a lusty lot, right?

I recently acquired Skull & Shackles. The two other full APs I own, and am running, are Curse of the Crimson Throne and Rise of the Runelords. Runelords is chock-full of relationship stuff, CoCT too has plenty of relationship stuff among the NPCs and fairly clear indications of possible romantic interests, eg Trinia and Vencarlo. So far, from what I've read of Skull & Shackles, all this stuff seems weirdly lacking. I've not read the whole AP yet, but I've read book 1 in full and everything seems weirdly asexual. I initially assumed, following Fritz Leiber, that 'cabin girl' meant a provider of intimate services to Captain Harrigan, but even that doesn't seem to be indicated in the text.

I was wondering if
(a) this is addressed at all elsewhere, maybe in a later book, or if there was a conscious design decision to omit it and go for more of a 'Disney theme park' feel, and
(b) What have other GMs done to fill in the blanks?

I'm really going to try something similar, maybe even Shalelu because they're enemies and my party is five so little to no tag along NPC's required.

I think I'd be careful about having Shalelu being kidnapped, unless it emerges naturally from play, as Ameiko Kajitsu has a scripted kidnapping and it might seem repetitive. It worked well for me to have a kidnapping during the goblin raid because it was happening 'right there' and could have gone either way - Bruthazmus might have got away, or been caught. If you use the listed hardback stats (I'm using AD&D for this AP) Shalelu is pretty tough and would be unlikely to be overpowered 'on stage' unless a bunch of the NPCs were working together, eg Bruthazmus along with Nualia & co.

The main thing I think it needs is more active/less scripted NPCs; your idea of Nualia fleeing Thistletop is a good one. Eg I just ran session 2 and had Bruthazmus kidnap a local girl, Lena Tesarani (a younger sister of the Pixie's Kitten madam) during the Sandpoint raid; the PCs along with Ameiko & Shalelu ambushed him and the goblins with him on the Lost Coast road, killed him and rescued the girl. I also had a lot of extra goblins during the raid running around doing stuff.
I plan to use other NPCs more actively too; when I played Burnt Offerings as a player I felt that the NPCs were too static (sitting in dungeon room X waiting to be killed) and that this hurt the game, so I'm making them as dynamic as possible and not worrying about preserving the 'plot' - they have their plans, but these can be derailed by player action.

Andoran: Post-revolution America as idealized by Northerners.

Post-1930s US Northerners, too - it has a tax & spend government that maintains a welfare state, as far as I can tell the revenue for this comes from taxing the business interests. The first historical welfare state was late 19th century Germany, in America the welfare state only dates from the 1960s on.

Making fun of PC is itself a crime... to the tumbrels with you!

Not at all. When we've had such things previously, they've always ended up either:

1. Squicky.
2. Seriously sexist.
3. Silly, in a bad way.
Often all three.

We do have romantic relations sometimes, but mostly between PC's or PC-controlled NPC's (cohorts etc). I as GM don't feel comfortable roleplaying romantic reactions to some quickly-scripted up NPC.

So I just prefer not to deal with it, and most of the people I've played with agree.

Funny, the one relationship I find squicky is the the PC and Player-controlled NPC cohort, where the two are run by the same player! I believe there's a word for that... >:)

Whereas I'm fine playing love-interest NPCs. They tend to be long term relationships IMCs though. I recently played a male NPC proposing marriage to a female PC, I spoke in-character and that was tough though, but in much the same sense it would be IRL, especially when the player took 20 minutes to give an answer (she said YES!) :D

It is necessary. Just as it's necessary to move beyond having every PC and NPC in the game be white. And why it's important to show women in positions of power (be they bad like Queen Ileosa or good like Mayor Kendra or whatever.) It's called diversity, and it's a Good Thing. If diversity isn't something that you're interested in, Paizo products might not be for you.

Just musing on this: I can't say I'm 'interested' in Diversity in the 'Celebrate Diverstity!' political sense. On the other hand I think having the occasional gay or lesbian character works well, and obviously most of Golarion's humans aren't white. Sometimes so many female characters in positions of bureaucratic (Deverin) or military (Croft) authority are a bit difficult in a quasi-medieval setting though. Given that few of the Golarion nations are Seattle-style Liberal utopias I have some trouble imagining how they attain their positions. There were a lot of political, cultural and technological developments that made senior female professional women somewhat common in the latter part of the twentieth century, but they are still pretty rare in our societies, I have trouble imagining how the (eg) Cheliaxan society is so accommodating.

Just played the Pathfinder Beginner Box with my 5.5 year old, Bill (using the rules!) Bill wanted to play an Orc Boss called Korkas, so he was Korkas, Boss of Orcshire, exploring Black Fang's Dungeon. Lots of fun roleplaying with his incompetent and cowardly orc minions, Samael and Tomael (RIP Tomael, roasted by the dragon). B)
He didn't kill the dragon (we were an hour in and his attention was slipping, so he made me play Korkas while he played Black Fang and chased me away!) but Korkas did get out with the giant ruby and a scroll of new life stolen from the dragon's hoard. :)

I'd definitely recommend the Pathfinder Beginner Box for parents wanting to introduce their kids to D&D. Bill made a good choice of PC too, as the Orc Boss is tough enough to survive a few fights. The 'Evil Fighter' 'Evil Rogue' 'Evil Cleric' and 'Evil Wizard' should also make good pregens for solo play. Or you could use the free Hero Builder Starter Edition for Beginner Box to make a 3rd or 4th level PC - http://wolflair.com/index.php?context=hero_lab&page=starter_edition

My boy is 5 - he loves to 'play D&D' with me, but that actually comes down to just playing together toy-style with my figures, 99% of the time (I always lose) :). For a regular game attention span is the big issue. Lots of good ideas on this thread; I like the idea of 'freeforming' an adventure, I did a bit of that last year and I think that might work better than trying to use rules. He is not interested in the kind of 'newbie quest' adventures you get in Beginner Boxes sadly; he wants to be killing the dragon right away. :)

Try the taunting, now consider how low magic and no magic crafting effects a spellcaster. Yeah, dcs get lower, can't cover the weaknesses as well. Mmmm, it balances out more than you think, but as we've covered this before, you haven't tried it have you?

Or to put it another way, if a wizard cops a crit, his con will not be buffed by a con boosting item. Dex will be lower than in a high magic setting. Mmmmm, balance.

Yes, my experience of GMing high level 3.5 (haven't played high level PF yet) was that the casters crafted stuff for themselves first - CON boost, INT boost and DEX boost, as you say - and the non-casters got the leftovers. Even if I included powerful weapons or armour that the Fighter could use, the casters insisted they be sold for gp, the cash distributed to make the relatively cheap stat-boosters they craved.

So easy item crafting & purchase actually INCREASED the class imbalance.

Full 3.5 & PF often seem very magic item dependent games, but the Beginner Box much less so, in my experience. The Beginner Box PCs IMC don't feel item dependent; partly because they are not constantly fighting powerful monsters; there is the occasional Ogre or Black Fang >:), but most of what they face is of CR lower than their level (currently 2-4). There are no crafting rules in the BB, and IMC there are only healing potions and a few random items typically available to purchase, so a +1 magic sword, +2 attribute booster, or +1 ring of protection is a nice bonus to help you kill more goblins, not a necessity.

With the lack of crafting rules, limited item purchase, and a few other things (no opportunity attacks, armour check penalties, or DEX cap by armmour) I also find the BB balance between classes is much better than in core PF. The Cleric does not overshadow the Fighter, for instance. The Wizard goes from weak at 1st to strong at 5th, but never dominates.

How have other people experienced this issue?