Tiona Daughtry's page

There are many reasons I’m utterly disgusted with the direction that an entertainment industry which is almost the only viable socialization many disabled people have, is making it even harder to, without ‘houseruling’ properly represent characters with distinctly imbalanced abilities as potential heroes. Yes, I know some people get tired of my argument, but I’m going to make it again, and make it clearly. You see, if we have to *houserule* ourselves into a game, because, RAW we cannot be counted ‘heroes’, we aren’t being represented, and we aren’t being seen. And the last is scarily important, not only for *us* to see ourselves, but for the rest of the world to start seeing that we have value.

It's only been a handful of years since Fox News was trying to say that poor people having a refrigerator and a microwave meant that they weren’t ‘really poor’, or ‘really needy’. I regularly end up encountering people online in intellectual discussions (wherein I usually am more than capable) who seem to think that my relying on disability payments to survive, when I cannot work a standard job is ‘stealing from them’. I often see people judging me when I walk into a store, force an electrical shopping cart out of where they’ve been jammed so that they’re otherwise unable to be gotten so that I can ride it. Yes, I’m physically strong enough to pull it out a few feet. One of the many things that I deal with is asthma, as well as severe coordination issues that often leave me slipping and falling unexpectedly. But, because I don’t ‘look disabled’, people act like I’m some kind of monster taking services from other people. And that’s why letting *them* see that we come in all forms, and can be the pivot ‘hero’ position in a difficult situation is important. If they do not see us as having a valid, viable, part of their regular media consumption, they’re likely to assume that we’re worthless, helpless, a waste of space and drain on resources from ‘normal people’.

When you cannot see someone else as a valuable and valid person, that’s when and where abuse comes in. If people do not regularly see that broad judgments about a person’s abilities is wrong, they won’t ever learn to value those who are unlike them. It creates or increases poor treatment of those othered, and that is never a good society. So, really, it is in everyone’s best interests to start showing people of mixed abilities in media forms, and yes, gaming is a media form.

I personally feel disenfranchised by the hobby of roleplaying as a whole because it’s so much harder, without instituting house rules (which doesn’t get the spotlight that’s needed on the issue) to play a character with a realistic (as in, mimicking our real world) set of strengths and weaknesses. I feel betrayed when I see a major company claim that they’re ‘promoting diversity’ but have built rules around systems that do not allow for characters to have those significant differences in ability. And, further, I feel that I should no longer financially support an industry that is silently sending the message to the world that *I* and those like me are not worthwhile, that we’re worthless, and a waste of resources. Considering how much money I put into ttrpgs over the years, I’d say that the industry has benefited from my support. I’m certainly not the only one who feels this way, either. We’re tired of being told that we’re ‘too much effort’, when we’ve been having to adapt to a world our bodies and minds aren’t built for. We’re the ones who have been making adjustments for others, and the ones we’ve been making adjustments for are the ‘normals’. It’s time that we got some reciprocity.

As for showing absolute viable disabled characters? I do that, repeatedly in my writing. Of characters in books I already released (self-published on amazon), I have quite a few characters with distinct limitations, differences. Heck, the very first of my books, Dragon Fang, Phoenix Fire, had the battle priest who was also the tactician of the group having the distinct limitation of being both near-sighted and night-blind. More, that the big trial he had to pass when they’d gone into the tomb of the Dragonmage? He had to face the weaknesses of his faith wherein he could summon *no light*, and had to just have faith as he moved, to recognize that sometimes we don’t have the answers, or can’t use them. But he’s far from the only one.

Selah Calasti spent the time from about 2 years old to her mid 30s suffering from a curse which left her physically withered to the extent that she had little muscle mass, almost no fat at all on her body. Her stats would have had at most a 6 in both str and con, average dex at that time, and a penalty to charisma due to the physical appearance her curse left her with. Years before they found a way to remove the curse, she saved *twice* saved the lives of both a man who was treated as the son of two gods (Kelu’s status there was ‘odd’) and her own husband, not with strength, but learning how to act from a position of weakness, and find ideas, methodology, which worked with her limited abilities, and did all of that within about a 2 month span. By the time she’d had the curse removed, she’d faced death so many times that she was no longer fazed by the idea of dying, because she knew that she should have died many times already.

Beyond that, in books already released: Innovator Reliss, who had the minor disability of having lost the final joint of her pinky on one hand due to an accident when experimenting with a machine. Rhiann, son to Selah and Telin, lost his left foot just above the ankle due to a magically enhanced serpent’s bite, and lives with the limp and movement difficulties, despite having an extremely well-crafted prosthesis created by his adopted daughter, within finding out the truth of her knowledge. That prosthesis is actually melded to his leg, which helps, but is not perfect. His biological daughter, Yossa, was blind from birth, though later regained sight, and I went into the difficulties she had, when she and a cousin were torn from the world they knew and trying to find a way back, including her emotional response to a rescuer saying that she looked like her mom, and she told him that those words meant nothing to her, couldn’t mean anything to her. Because she had no reference point for it.

A couple of books I’m not ready to release have another character, Qedel, who is completely aphonic. Considered cursed by his mother, he’d had to be fostered to Rhiann, and honestly saved his mother from a very dangerous manipulatory game by some assassins from the same group which had initially trained both of his birth parents (they’d left that group long before his birth, changing sides pretty dramatically). Later in his timeline, you see him as a widower with a half-grown daughter, and he ends up courting and redeeming a demon cultist who hadn’t had a choice in what she’d become. Yes, a *mute* person courting, and who has a half-grown daughter that he’s raising, and trying to get things to work out.

So my upset at games refusing to show us without sugar-coating us if we even appear makes a lot of sense. I want us to be seen, accepted, as what we are, and the most important stage in that is to show people that we can be capable, heroic, as we are, and that recognizing that the world is not fair is the best first step in making it a touch fairer. I’m tired of being told that I’m ‘too much effort’. I’ve spent my life trying to cater to normal people, and I’m no longer going to be supporting organizations which pretend to be ‘diverse’ while not supporting our visibility or existence as viable people.

In the end, it's this simple: if we are not allowed at the gaming table without having to 'pretend to be normal', we're not invited in the first place. If we aren't treated as equals, including equal access and appearance, you aren't supporting true diversity. Just as, being a left-handed person, I'm treated as a second-class citizen by companies making a lot of physical tools, I'm being treated as a second-class citizen by companies that do not make accessibility and representation the default, rather than an 'accommodation'.

*grins* I can understand that. My husband also has dyscalculia, so I'm familiar with it. But it's always fun to see how at least some gaming groups don't just 'handwave' magic, and try to come up with logic for *why* a situation works. And, as a writer, that's something I attempt a lot in my writing too. It just occurs to me that probably a whole heck of a lot of groups out there don't want to put forth the effort in making things make sense.

This potentially might only happen in groups like mine, where literally every player has dm'd at some point (and several of us dm regularly). But we're also all neurodiverse, and have a good grounding in solid science, which makes magic 'interesting'. Now, I hadn't closely looked at the rope trick spell in pathfinder's rules before deciding that that was the effect I was using to explain how a rather distressingly competent shady character just strolled out of the kitchen of a private small air-ship (the equivalent of a balloon not unlike the one in the Island at the Top of the World, an old disney movie), while said ship was in flight.

I ended up pointing out that I am sort of merging 3.5 and pathfinder 1 to a degree, and the campaign setting is custom, so yes, I could use the 3.5 version of the spell that allows you to 'pull in the rope' from the inside, to hide it, which the pf1 version doesn't have. Still, it brought up an enormous question by my science-minded players (and I don't mind this at all, only find it is something I doubt many groups really get into). We discussed the spell for a bit after he'd vanished again (as all of them are dms sometime too, I thought I'd point out to the players, who will keep their characters knowledge separate) the spell used to allow him to simply seem to appear where it would otherwise make no sense...but we had to question, how does a spell like that, which anchors to a physical space in a way, work when anchored to a vehicle that is now in motion? It led to some very interesting questions, overall, as well as completely 'outside the box' potential tactics for the spell.

Anyone else have similar experiences, where good, long-time players, will discuss the scientific oddities relating to magic in game? Wanting to come up with practical 'logical' reasons for how something worked?

(Btw, for those curious, yes, my players were very wary to have a completely covered assassin/bounty hunter character step out of a previously unoccupied room... And yes, there was appropriate 'I don't trust this guy' to the fact that his 'introduction' was along the lines of, 'You can relax now. If I was trying to kill you, you would be dead. No, instead, you seem to be a piece of a very interesting puzzle.")

As a neurodiverse dm who is a c-ptsd survivor, I figure maybe I need to poke my snout in here. (yes, you can envision me as a dragon, if you want, as that is one nature that seems to fit.) Firstly, there are some very simple, positive things that can help you to deal with, but the actual changes you need to make will depend heavily on exactly what your personal triggers are, and what your personal strengths and limitations are. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. Especially not in mental health.

To get you started, however, I'm going to suggest that you answer some questions to yourself. (I'll give some pointers on what the answers might mean, but much of this work is going to be yours by necessity, though I'm more than willing to respond more if asked more in depth). The fist one has to do with what, specifically, is the response that your mind is giving you that makes you want to cancel?

Is it because you're overwhelmed by how society's been falling into an infinite vortex of depravity? If so, maybe the idea would be to suggest that someone else take the helm for a while (my gaming group has pretty much everyone experienced in dm'ing, and, when one person needs to take a break, someone else gets to step up and handle their game, so it works in cycles. But not all groups are that well balanced).

Is the issue, instead, that you feel that there are specifics about the game that you're dm'ing that just aren't working? That could suggest that maybe you need to change the pace or theme, even slightly.

Is the issue health-related, outside issues that just creep in and you haven't had sufficient time/effort to process life so that you can be at your full creative best? That usually signs that you need to slow down the game pacing, or maybe take a short hiatus. Many times our minds and bodies try to tell us things that we don't really understand, but learning to question our own unease helps to solve the issues therein.

Since you're now using roll20, are you not getting *sufficient feedback* from your players, so that you can feel confident that your plans are hitting them in all the right ways? Many people rely upon body language to identify how people are handling things. If you aren't getting that (due to not having a visual of each player as they're going through things), you may feel almost like you're trying to traverse a maze blind. Coming to recognize that, and perhaps have another monitor dedicated to video chat might ease the anxiety there.

I'm not unfamiliar with anxiety, and many times, what it most takes is identifying exactly what is causing it. And, while the list of questions I asked was far from exhaustive, it probably gives you some ideas on where to go to fix the problems you're having.

Now, before I get into the main post about what game designers are failing to see themselves doing, I’m going to point out that I, myself, qualify as disabled, and have for many years. Due to neurodivergence and other issues, I could be considered as operating under at least 4-5 oracle curses *every single day*, as well as a few other significant difficulties. And, to merely survive in our society, I’ve had to learn tactics to work around those limitations. But, by most game-system’s outlook, I would be considered an ‘invalid character’ due to those wildly varied abilities and weaknesses, many of which are ‘situational’.
I’m going to tell you, now, about an incident some 10 years ago or so, wherein, I, living in a subsidized apartment building, was awoken shortly after going to bed by a fire alarm. My building, and the one next to ours, as well as one car in the parking lot, had been victims of arson. Despite my own difficulties, including partial situational mutism, I went into the burning building on 3 separate times to make sure that everyone else got out, while we waited on the fire department, including aiding a mother who had clashed heavily on me for my attempts to keep the fire door closed (which may have saved her and her 3 children’s lives). I got them out, and, myself, physically lifted the stroller with her youngest to get them up the stairs. I coordinated with police and fire workers, and helped to communicate with our many Ethiopian and Somali refugee neighbors who spoke little English (and I don’t speak their language, but at least had some experience as an ESL tutor), in making sure no one was hurt and the facts we did know got relayed.
That’s not exactly saying I’m non-viable as a hero, but rather, that I’d had to learn to work around difficulties, disabilities, because that was necessary for survival. What I’m upset about is the game design tactic that seems to be attempting to utterly erase those of us who have had to overcome huge limitations and imbalance to not only survive, but thrive. And, honestly, to be heroes. The fact is, it’s not your abilities that make you a hero…there are far too many people out there who have all sorts of powerful abilities, but choose not to use them to aid others. Yet, there are an equal number of people, born with limitations of one form or another, who are taught that they *can’t* be a hero, because of those limitations. We need to show them that they can, and that they are just as worthy as the powerful ones. Honestly, we often, because of how we’ve had to adapt to a world that does not think we are viable, have already come up with a multitude of ways to overcome our society’s biases against our validity.
What we need is not a ‘level playing field’, but, rather, a situation where even the least, the weakest and most vulnerable, can contribute. We need acknowledgement that disabled heroes exist, and that we are valid. That means that we need game systems that recognize that even a character with absolutely wild numbers of weaknesses can still contribute to the whole. And, as a disabled writer and gamer, I try to craft those situations, recognizing that someone working from a position of innate weakness can see holes in an enemy’s defense that stronger characters/players won’t see. So, we aren’t a burden, nor something that people don’t want to see. Disabled people, especially disabled children, need to see examples of their disability truly shining, truly proving their worth. It may mean the difference between life and death for them, for us. So, don’t try to level the playing field blindly, but, instead, try to work in situations where a weakness becomes a strength, and where having to adapt is viewed as a useful skill.
Because we deserve a chance to shine, just like ‘normal or exceptional’ people do. We’re all exceptional, just some of us would be considered ‘non-viable characters’ with how game systems work at the moment.

not at all surprising. Thankfully, both of the people who dm me semi-regularly are pretty good at adjusting to odd tactics. I try to return the favor when I'm behind the screen. I have learned that tactics just mean approaching problems from a different direction. Only most people have trouble even seeing the other directions.

Alassirana

Stop, take a step back, and try to listen. In a good role playing game, a significant part of the actual role playing, is determining *how* the characters approach a given obstacle. By strongly limiting the character variation, you are, also, in fact, sorely limiting the direction any obstacle can be approached from. Having a reasonably wide differences in what characters can do allows for them to modify their approach in ways that reflect character background, goals, etc. If you do not, in fact, allow characters to go 'off-script', you are essentially 'railroading' them, and that has, in my experience, always been considered a very bad thing (note several rulebooks across editions pointing that out). If you do not allow for creative problem solving through the use of character skills, feats, and a potentially 'non-optimal' ability setup, you are, in fact, forcing the characters to solve the problems one way. That is my objection, and why I consider this game to be so mechanics driven to avoid real storytelling. The stories told by my gaming friends almost always consist of ways they've looked at a situation and 'arranged the battlefield' to give them better odds, changed the situation so that it became solvable, rather than a slog-fest. It is clear from what I've seen in the forums that this game attempts to make it outright *impossible* to adjust the odds for overcoming an obstacle more than just a couple of points on a die roll. As players, we are supposed to look at situations, realize that the odds aren't in our favors, and come up with effective ways, based on our individual characters, to change that around. We get a really good feeling at looking at that ambush, and throwing the monkey wrench into it so that the enemies are at a severe disadvantage instead of likely to demolish us. That is what PF1 was really good at, and 3.5. We had options to change the inherent situation so that it was in our favor. This system refutes that entirely. Having options, having many different ways to approach a situation is what a role playing game really thrives on. It is, in fact, just as integral, or moreso, than the conversations, both between players and between players and npcs. Solving problems is what heroes do, and we're not being allowed the freedom to do that.

perhaps, to me, one of the most integral parts of role playing is that the rules allow, and possibly encourage, solving any given situation 'off-script'. By strictly limiting the range of possible actions and the viability of any option, you make it difficult to impossible to solve challenges in a way that is 'unexpected'. Forcing us to follow a script to succeed at encounters is not 'role play'. It is in a way forbidding us to even consider alternate viewpoints or solutions. There was something I saw in either 3.0/3.5 or Pathfinder 1 that is important. Experience is generally awarded for overcoming a difficulty, rather than merely killing monsters or disarming a trap. By focusing on 'anything that neutralizes the problem' as acceptable, you have all sorts of options available, and it doesn't seem that this edition really considers that a lot of us do, in fact, want to be able to solve things all sorts of different ways.

I realized that maybe an actual example of variant approaches should help. This references one of the games I myself am running, a copy of the original Temple of Elemental Evil updated to PF1 rules. We have the Earth Temple, which has 4 earth elementals who rise up, but don't go hostile unless players enter specific parts of the room or try to steal the items on the altar. Meranthryl, our sorcerer, who is focused extensively on charm and diplomacy, decides that he'd like that chest, contents unseen, but doesn't fancy fighting the elementals, which he has already figured out likely would attack if he just 'tries to take it'. Instead, he recognizes that he'd just picked up a lodestone (literally, he was the party member who actually succeeded in the strength check to do so). He carefully goes as close as he imagines is safe, and attempts to find a language in common with the elementals. This part is entirely outside of the original module's 'script', so, yes, I do have to wing it. One of the elementals rolls high enough to seem to understand at least a bit of abyssal, and, discovering that, Merahnthryl begins negotiations, offering the lodestone, which is an elemental earth magic, in exchange for the chest. He has significant bonuses, which overcome the difficulty in communicating in what amounts to a pidgin dialect, and convinces the elemental to trade. Yes, this is completely *not* the intended scenario for the adventure. But that does not make it wrong, or bad in any way. I reward creativity like that. So do all of the other dms I play with. Finding alternate solutions to a situation is always cause for at least a compliment, if not other rewards. The problem I see with PF2, is that your chances for success in much of anything are terrible, and characters do not have enough chance for a 'personal niche' to pull something like this off. And these are the sorts of problem solving we do pretty much *Every* game session in our group. Being told that we just don't have the ability to alter a situation sufficiently to have a *good* chance of success is not acceptable, and, for us, roleplay is extensively about each character having enough unique going for them that they can solve situations in vastly different ways than 'originally intended'. And that, in fact, is what I see a distinct dearth of here.

Having characters that are mechanically different on several levels, does, in fact, allow and encourage parties to alter their approach to obstacles to favor a specific combination of skills/talents/etc. With everything being so mechanically equal, it really doesn't seem that this ruleset even considers that your paladin is much more concerned with converting the enemy than killing them. Or that your fighter might have an interest in engineering, and see how he could cause a rock fall that would eliminate the threat the enemy poses. It is, in fact, largely based on what you focus on and how you attune it. Also, no one being really good at anything is completely unenjoyable. And the rules as written seem to enforce this standpoint. It is hard to make the story 'about the characters' if they don't really have any choices in how they handle the situations. If they have to approach just about every encounter the same way, well, a lot of us will simply give up and find something else to do. It's not engaging, and not allowing us to feel ourselves as doing anything worthwhile. And that last is, in fact, important.

Part of my problem is, what I've seen from the rules as they are is they make a lot of options that, for example, my regular gaming groups use, completely impossible. The way the focus is on forcing mechanics, there is a lot less leeway to even approaching a given scenario in different manners. You get an encounter, and don't have enough varied abilities to 'alter the battleground' by having reasonably effective chances to communicate, to convince enemies to change sides, to ambush those who think to ambush you, etc. The way it seems, with the extremely low success rate on almost everything, and no one having a significant ability to manipulate the situation, you're forced to approach almost every single encounter the same way. We adapt our encounters constantly in the older versions, reimaging the situation until we can find a solution that works for us. But, really, with the inherent limitations, and the inability to make your characters distinct, you really can't get away with what, for a lot of us, is a standard amount of creativity. I also, personally, find that forcing characters to be optimal or not have any real chance of success eliminates many of the opportunities to really get into the storytelling part of it...everyone is, in effect, completely average. Differences, major differences, between characters, such as things that make a situation more likely to play out one way over another, are, in fact important. Right now, there is no real incentive, even, for creative problem solving, and much deincentivation to do so. Because no one, really, even stands out as a proper hero anymore.

The difference is whether the focus is on absolute mechanics, having rules for every single situation, or whether the focus is to lay a groundwork with reasonable precedent when someone does something unexpected. What I have seen, so far, is that this particular iteration of the game seems to be intended to strictly limit possible choices in situations, and largely that in response to their demand that PFS GMs follow the modules exactly no matter what group they end up with. What I have seen seems to indicate a 'you can't do that' implication to things that are outside of the rules. I, thankfully, in 3.5 and Pathfinder 1, have dms that recognize that the rules are only guidelines, must be adjusted when the situations call for it, and recognize that that those situations happen very often, in response to characters recognizing potential options that were not initially intended. It does seem, from what I've seen here, that there are a lot of things where you are more or less told you don't have a chance to do something 'unexpected'. That makes it a Roll playing game, rather than a role playing game, which acknowledges that just about anything is possible, whether it's likely or not is another thing. By largely trying to tell characters that you can really only do these specific options, it keeps you from adapting. And that is the difference I'm noting.

From what I've seen of the playtest pdf, it seems likely that it would be better described as the latter, rather than the former. But I would, personally, like your opinion on the matter, because that does, in fact, dictate whether I will follow the matter any further. Do you want to focus on mechanics to the exclusion meaningful choices beyond race and class, or do you want to create a game that elicits a shared storytelling experience between creative dms and players? Making that decision clear will also make it far easier to tell what you need to do to make the game fit your vision. Partially, at least, because it will allow you to focus on players who would be interested in your product, rather than those who have vastly different interests. The choice is yours, and I'd like to see what choice you make. It will, in turn, decide my next steps.

I think I have figured out what the heart of the problem could be defined as. The focus of the game has shifted from 'role play' to 'roll play'. It is more about rules, mechanics, and absolute balance than it is about telling shared stories of outrageous exploits and wild dares. That is exemplified by the lack of distinction between characters of same race/class. I think, in the end, Paizo must make it clear whether they will be a 'role playing game' or a 'roll playing game'. And that, in fact, is what will decide people on whether they will play it or not. I don't play the latter, some people do. That's their choice, but I do have mine, and that is not to settle for just mechanics.

Part of my problem is that I absolutely resent being more or less *forced* to be optimal (also, almost no game I'm in has used rolling in character generation since 2nd edition, for very good reason). I flat out wouldn't play 12-man trials and 4 man group dungeons in the video game I play (ESO) even if my having visual snow did not render me effectively blind in most group combat situations. I really, really can't help but be offended at being told that essentially you can only approach a situation more or less 2-3 ways at most...yeah. I role play in order to be able to, for example, talk to an enemy, discover that they're fighting us because they're starving, and offer food to change their minds. I want to be able to actually do things like remember I have remote viewing as a domain ability and see how the room is set up for what we've already figured out is the boss, so that when we enter the room, clever strategy gives us a total win before the guy gets a chance to react. The DMs, in fact, like us doing those, even if they upset the plots because they show creativity, and let us see things they've never thought of. Being forced to only have 2-3 options at all in a situation, yeah, not a role playing game at all. Not really.

I was brought into a game in Pathfinder 1's playtest. More or less because our group switches out between campaigns/gms, at the last time I've been playing Imara, my human (varisian) cleric of calistria, she was 16th level and just finished runeforge. I thoroughly enjoyed the pathfinder 1 playtest. The game was, very clearly, an enhancement on 3.5. Perhaps more telling is my almost instinctive reaction to this one. Historically, I'm the girl who has often spent 3-4 hours rolling up 7-8 random characters in whatever system happens to be available, for the sheer joy of seeing what I could create. It is very, very telling that I found it almost impossible to finish creating one in this playtest. It flat out cannot even get to actual playing, because I feel entirely personally demeaned by the way the game seems to imply that more than maybe a 2 point variance in stat placement is in fact 'dangerous and unwelcome'. There is really no chance to diversify your characters using the normal character generation rules. And that is very distressing in a game where you're supposed to invest yourself in that character, their strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. The fact is, I can tell already that it is actually impossible for me to feel for a character generated in here, because they are absolutely average. They really can't be distinct. I have good reason to believe my entire gaming group will have the same general perception. Yes, I said that it was personally demeaning. It is, in fact, personally demeaning to be told by the game designers that having a distinct, unique character endangers the playability of the game. It says that I am not actually trusted to be able to create a character that both can survive and work in a group effectively if that character is anything other than average. Yeah. Not acceptable in any way, shape, or form. Which, I guess, means that I need to look elsewhere, because I really can't see how they'll fix this problem without scrapping their entire idea, and that's unlikely.

I will point out that the latter of the two options asked for clarification is probably more accurate. I do point out that oftentimes, taking a liability to allow more ability in other areas is in fact a very good idea, and makes a character more 'real'. The fact is, these characters are all so very heavily limited (like the class feats that when you choose one out of maybe three at one level, it flat out dictates your choices at higher levels, and you can't customize the character around it). When you are more or less obsessed with 'absolute numerical balance', it takes away the fact that this is, in fact, supposed to be a game about immersing yourself in another person and understanding them, and working with both their strengths and weaknesses. When all the characters are absolutely equal by the numbers, it's almost guaranteeing that there are really only 2-3 ways of approaching any given situation, and that more or less prevents players and characters from any true freedom of action. Having more variability encourages the creation of new tactics, focused around each group's strengths and weaknesses (and quirks).

part of this problem is that the way the rules are run, and how stat bonuses are derived and forced to be placed in specific spots, you really won't have much of any variety. I can't differentiate my character from anyone else's, in any meaningful way. Nothing is distinct enough to separate them from others. The extent of balancing is such that you can't make enough decisions about the character abilities to actually feel significantly 'you'. I honestly did attempt to create a character in this system, and found myself so stringently limited that I couldn't get any feel of that character being an individual at all. They are mostly a bunch of cardstock fill-ins. And that is inherently unplayable, because there is absolutely nothing to identify with. It is all 'prefab' assembly. You can only put things together a few different ways, really. And that is what I have an aversion to. I thoroughly enjoy playing a character that is distinct, and has interesting limitations. and not all of that can be strictly roleplayed. By taking those limitations, I'm stronger in other areas, which I should be. That's what being an individual is all about, and I am upset because this game is taking away that opportunity for individuality. It's disappointing, because i really don't have any hope that things will fix themselves. Everyone is focused on more or less being 'the same', and that is not fun or rewarding in the slightest.

it might also be worth it to consider actual real world mythology, which is one of the inspirations to the game. Consider, for example, Oedipus, whose name actually means pierced foot, and who was known to have damaged feet from how he'd been exposed. That did not, in any way, keep him from defeating the sphinx in the riddles, or keep him from his destiny of killing his father. Tyrisius, the blind seer, was blind long before the issue with killing fornicating snakes (twice even), that dealt with his gender change. He was also blind long before his heroism in the Trojan War. The fact is, forcing players to be 'average' is a very bad, and in fact, dangerous thing. Average is not good for teaching us much of anything. It's really the province of things like those shooter games, where you neither can nor should really customize your character. I don't play those, wouldn't want to, because I want to be a hero, and, for me, being a hero means that i have to overcome limitations. Which means I have to have limitations. Being average really makes that impossible, which means that I probably will be stopping my purchasing of new role playing products, since it's apparent that just about all of them are moving to this frightening level of 'averageness'. Trying to force me to be 'normal' or 'average' is an outright insult. And needs to be taken that way. Besides, that kind of character generation almost guarantees cookie-cutter characters, and that's never been fun.

I realized, while I was doing something else, that perhaps I'm not clear on something important to gaming in general. Honestly, I loved the fact that in the older pathfinder, diversity was celebrated, not only in racial and sexual diversity, but in disabilities. The drawbacks system was beautiful and useful. One thing I hate, though, is when people try to make everything more or less 'average'. Where character creation is an assembly line of prefab pieces. Where most characters really aren't all that different from each other in nature. I've never been able to be 'average' in real life, and I find it offensive to be told that I more or less have to be in role playing. And, honestly, what I view the 'goal' of role playing games is to get the sense that you've been dealt a really bad hand, yet you still find some way to overcome the challenge, probably not the way the dm imagined it, but because you came up with something totally off the wall that worked, no matter how bad the odds were. I also write stories, and one of my most riveting characters in those stories, in my opinion, is Vashk'al'Rhi'n. As a part of his 'backstory', when he was five, living among what amounted to a rebellion group against his people's leader, he'd been killed, reanimated as a corpsefolk, and turned against the Rhi'na'n, those he would consider 'his people', before his father and allies managed to overcome the leader, the Mayisna, and a debt owed by another person in the group to what amount to the fey ended up bringing Vashk back to life. The fact was, where he was moved to after that, everyone knew he'd been dead, and undead. The vast majority of the people in town hated and feared him. Which made it very powerful when he could prove himself merciful against his tormentors, when he ended up making it his life's work to protect people who he considers victims of society. He did this not because he was really capable, but because he could overcome his own weaknesses. And that, in my eyes, is what the game's about, proving ourselves to be more than our weaknesses. But when a game really doesn't give you much of a chance to have those weaknesses, it really steals away from the victories you have. So, yeah, I really don't enjoy this kind of 'balanced' game system. It's really scary to think that I hardly was able to force myself through the character creation process with this playtest one time. Much of my life I've spent hours creating random characters for fun. This system takes away that fun. I really can't say it any other way. It forces me to be 'average'.

Now let me say, I've played lots of variations off of D&d, and really got into the older pathfinder. However, I've noticed a strong bias in recent years, across the board, and definitely affecting this playtest version, toward 'absolute balance', and I'm going to illustrate why that's a problem. Perhaps as background, I should point out that I personally have been dealing with a host of mental and physical difficulties all my life, and one of the things I have always loved about rpgs is that you can take a character with pretty significant drawbacks, and really make them shine, with a little work. The problem I see right now is that this game and others are trying to basically demand that all player characters be on essentially the same level playing field. It does not really allow for what I consider 'exceptional' characters, because no one is really 'unbalanced' enough to show that even characters with significant drawbacks are valuable in the right situation. I resent the ableist viewpoint that you shouldn't go to 'extremes' with a character. It's a personal shot against people like me who have limitations but find ways to adapt to them. It is, therefore, a significant disappointment that the game industry in general is making it very difficult, if not impossible, to play characters that could be very fun to play, but require more delicate 'work' to put in. What I've seen of this makes it really, really hard to get into the game, because it's all a participation medal situation, rather than a challenge to be overcome with strategy and teamwork. It's too easy, too fair. And that's largely where it's going to lose players like my group. Because it simply isn't enough of a challenge to be fun. Sorry. I simply can't enjoy or support limiting players from expressing their uniqueness with characters that have such extremes.

I have to recount something that was one of the most amusing and almost unbelievable things I've ever seen happen in a game, though, from my position as a dm, I will admit to allowing the players to try just about anything. If they can describe it well, it has a better chance of success, and the dice are the final arbiter.

The campaign is a pathfinder update of the Original Temple of Elemental Evil. The party has just discovered the Earth Temple on the dungeon level 1. They realized that the elementals will neither attack them, nor pursue them, so long as they don't get within 10' of the pyramid in the center of the room. At the south end of the pyramid, between 2 of the earth elementals, is a bronze coffer, closed.

The party explores both small 'cubby' rooms at the south end of the temple, and, for reasons of chaos, or fate (Istus is interested in the sorcerer Meranthryl for some reason, it seems), our tiefling sorcerer Mertanthryl is the only player character who seems to be able to move the Stone of Weight that they find in one of these rooms. (he rolled a 22 on his strength check to carry it)...

Meranthryl is really curious about the coffer, but doesn't want to fight the elementals. So, between pantamime and attempting in 3 languages, he tries to convince the nearest earth elemental to trade him the coffer and its contents for the stone of weight he has. On his third attempt, the dice get in his favor, and it seems that the elemental can understand just enough draconic to make sense of what he's saying. I have him roll an opposed diplomacy check against the elemental's sense motive, and Meranthryl rolls more than twice what would beat the elemental (no situational bonuses involved). So, somehow, the sorcerer not only managed to communicate with this elemental, but struck a bargain with it.

The elemental picks up the coffer on the other side of it, puts it on the other side of him (the side Meranthryl is on), then holds out his hands. Meranthryl drops the stone of weight gently into the elemental's hands, and the elemental largely goes back to just standing there. Meranthryl drags the coffer back to the rest of the party, and I decided I had to award full xp for the encounter, as the party, while not 'defeating' the elementals, managed to neutralize the encounter, and acquired something of value from it.

We seem to have a diplomancer in our midst. But, this gives me ideas for plots of my own...*evil grin*

(note: at the time of the encounter, the party was all 4th level), so this was a really good set of rolls).