While I love Paizo and their invention of the Adventure Path, I've noticed a trend in almost all the Adventure Paths (even those from Dragon Magazine) published so far. From Cauldron to the Council of Thieves it seems like you have to do something evil to win. Or more likely make a deal with an evil entity to gain an advantage. This is seriously getting kind of repetitive.
Examples:
What's next? "In order to have righteous victory over the forces of evil, you just have to make an alliance with Charles Manson and Jeffrey Dahmer... sure they murder people and eat them, but don't worry they're CHAOTIC NEUTRAL. I'm not kidding, I don't know how many times I've come across an NPC description: from a merchant who regularly poisons his rivals (it's just business), to the latest Madjaw from Mother of Flies who sometimes eats the flesh of human victims! (hence the Dahmer reference) Yet when I look up their alignment stats, what do I see: CHAOTIC NEUTRAL. ?!?!??!?
Is this an example of the standard player cop-out: "Oh I'm not evil I'm chaotic. Now excuse me while I kill the farmer and his family for the XP."
So what's with the constant call to corruption? Is it for bored white kids tired of playing goody 2-shoes? Aping the thrill choosing evil choices in all those Bioware games? (KOTOR, Dragon Age, etc) The H.P. Lovecraft fetish Paizo seems to exhibit? "It's cruel uncaring universe and there's nothing you can do about it muhaha!"
Is there something against heroes actually taking the heroic path? Is it seen as more "adult" to choose to compromise their principles? On a side note: I once read on these boards that James Jacobs admitted it was harder to find an appealing concept to attach to Assimar characters. Something he felt would make them interesting to play. Because being good is boring? I would propose that playing one should be more difficult and rewarding than playing the standard self-serving scoundrel. Cause doing the right thing is HARD. Remember that the Dark Side isn't better, just the quick and easy path, despite what the Sith fanboy posers keep saying.
Anyways, that's my piece. Thanks for listening to my rant. Am I right? What's the story? What do you think?
P.S. I'm also wondering about the hard-on you seem to have for soul destruction. In almost every issue of the latest path there's mention of someone's soul getting erased. Or an innocent's soul getting sent to Hell. Is it for the lurid horror factor? Or is it a game mechanic thing made up to deal with the ease of raise dead spells? It's also kind of confusing. In modern mythology only God can condemn you there (despite what that silly "Send Me to Hell" movie says), and in Pathfinder mythology I would think Pharasma would get miffed at all these demons robbing her of souls to judge. But then again this is your creation, just wondering where you're taking this.
