Harrow Reading

Violet Hargrave's page

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber. Organized Play Member. 54 posts (95 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. 1 wishlist. 2 Organized Play characters.


RSS

1 to 50 of 54 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>

6 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'm fairly certain I'm on the record several times over as originally being inspired to start working for Paizo by Crystal. So... here's hoping I will soon be inspired to try a lot of other awesome and fulfilling things.


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Done.

Andrew Mullen wrote:
If anyone has any unchained monk experience I'd love some advice! I've only played a chained monk, and that game fell apart after 2 sessions.

I've played a ton of monks, all of them chained. My recollection though is the only real changes are you lose some of the more eccentric higher level abilities, and you just plain have full BAB so you don't end up playing Schroedinger's bonuses when you might potentially kill something on the first hit.

So... basically save all your starting cash for a fancy shirt or buy some shuriken, pump up str, consider power attack, split the rest between dex and wis, maybe squeeze in the int for combat expertise and improved whatever, otherwise enjoy shopping for style feats?


1 person marked this as a favorite.

Suddenly I'm slightly embarrassed that I dropped everything and slapped together a character with a class I'd never actually looked at in such a hurry last night. Although I AM happy with the backstory I slapped together to rationalize super minimalist equipment purchases.


I think I'm pretty much all set, yeah.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I just finished throwing this sheet together last night, which by default auto-fills and calculates a fair bit, but it's laid out as a single page and it's a spreadsheet, so hard coding in any numbers you'd rather track yourself is as easy as just typing them in.

As for Starfinder itself, it's still very much all designed with a grid in mind, but relative to Pathfinder, spellcasting is pretty de-emphasized, guns are pretty much the default, and a 5' step takes a move action, so going abstract should be a little easier. Less likely to be dealing with flanking, or allies being in the blast zone for spells, at least.

Optimization is pretty much a non-issue. There's only 7 classes, size has much less of an effect on things, starting attributes have a hard cap of 18 even after racial bonuses, and point buy is 1 to 1, and stat boosts down the road are spread more evenly, and almost completely decoupled from gear.

And as far as skills and low combat go, it's still built on the d20 skeleton, so combat is still hugely emphasized and the skill system is basically the same as Pathfinder. You have more skills to work with generally, both from every class getting at least 4, and the list being quite a bit shorter. DCs scale better. And the less combat focused classes are a hell of a lot more viable than their rough Pathfinder equivalents. But, these are all tweaks to what's still the same basic system, so if you just don't like it, that won't likely change.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The sites I usually use for sharing character sheets for online campaigns still haven't set up good Starfinder templates, so I made my own.

Online Starfinder Sheet v1.0

It's pretty straightforward. Make a copy. Fill in your attributes/race/class/theme/level/skill ranks and it will automatically update basically everything else. Archetypes are supported. Multiclassing is not, particularly, mostly just because I couldn't think of a way to support it without adding a separate field to track your level, archetype, and first level class choice in each class, and that'd ruin the aesthetics.

That said, nothing should actually break too badly if you start inserting extra rows or overwriting cells, so "not supported" just means it won't automatically take into account racial skill bonuses for races it doesn't know about, or force you to track your own saves if you're multiclassing.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'm pretty sure one of the following is true:

A: If you play a phrenic adept mystic, you never gain access to healing touch at all, perpetually 2 fewer connection powers than a non-phrenic would, begin knowing only a single first level spell, and don't gain access to the full compliment of spells known, nor connection spell for a given spell level until the next spell level is unlocked.

B: Sometime between writing the archetype rules and the final release of the game, healing touch was moved from being a level 9 ability to level 1, and nobody updated the archetype rules with a fix.

The feat question when multiclassing meanwhile is a separate issue, but I'd say by both the letter and the spirit of the rules, if you want to be a multiclassed phrenic adept mystic with access to healing touch, even if you don't take a single level in mystic until level 10 or higher, you don't gain a feat at level 9.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Feros wrote:
Dragon78 wrote:
What powers does the redkind have? Alignment?

Spoiler:
Neutral Evil Fey, they can change shape into a cat, child, snake, or spider. They morph shadows around them into disturbing shapes that can cause observers to be shaken. They have spell-like abilities that let them find out what you are afraid of and create that image. Their primary weapon is their claws and they occasionally hang out with a bogeyman.

Strangely, if you can't see it, it has a hard time seeing you. You get partial concealment by closing your eyes, and full concealment by covering yourself with a blanket...much like the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal! :D

(OK, much like a monster-under-the-bed, so rather cool!)

I still don't have my copy of this one, but I am so very happy to hear that the

Spoiler:
blanket weakness
survived the editing process.

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Fairly sure that one's an intentional omission. Aging rules have always been a bit confusing/prone to abuse, and there's a general move towards simpler rules with less fiddly bits in SF, at least in terms of tracking numbers (see the lack of non-lethal damage, touch AC, CMB/CMD).


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Specifically, the idea is that while Pathfinder goes:

Here's the new AP about acrobats in Geb.
... So here, have a new campaign setting book on Geb.
... and here, have a new player companion about acrobatics.

Starfinder will go more like this:

Here's the new AP about the goatspiders of Rygel 9. There are articles in the back with everything you need to play goatspider PCs, and an overview of Rygel 9.

This both keeps them from having to spread resources thinner supporting literally twice the regular load of books, and makes logistical sense since intergalactic-scale space fantasy stuff isn't really suited to broadly covering the details of a general geographic region and revisiting it regularly. It's more, here is this one-off planet we really don't have any plans for beyond setting this one adventure there.


9 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Just tossing it out there, but speaking as a trans woman working in fields with significantly higher than average levels of rampant sexism, I'm in as close a position as one can find in the real world to being in the shoes of a drow man with access to a sex-shift serum, and "I'd rather be dead than take that option" is the general stance taken under such conditions.

Dysphoria is, in fact, that bad, and there's this innate sense of solidarity that comes from marginalization and general solidarity with one's gender that shouldn't really be taken lightly.

Plus honestly, this whole conversation hinges on the notion of drow men being a slave-caste plotting rebellion, which really doesn't mesh at all with how they're depicted in Second Darkness. It's much more real-world-patriarichal-stuff-flipped-around, with drow men owning their own businesses, exercising some political influence via their masculine wiles, etc.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
evilnerf wrote:
Ikiry0 wrote:
Aerotan wrote:
The family looking a little different is something He's always frowned on, and his worshippers tended to ostracise those who deviated from the norm.
I think you might be reading a little too much maliciousness into a Lawful Good faith.
People have been doing this for years. There is one poorly worded line in one book, and now all everyone talks about is how he's basically the god of misogyny.

Yeah, it's been rather explicitly stated that the "traditional values" Erastil upholds emphatically don't include sexism, racism, homophobia, or transphobia, as there never having been a time where anyone in Golarion held those as "traditional values."

Lashuntu culture on the other hand does have a long tradition of strictly defined gender roles, and a generally pro-nature population historically against getting together in big cities, which relatively recently they've pulled a total 180 on. As it happens Castrovel is also the one pact world remaining where farming and hunting are still thriving lifestyles.

I would figure he still has a fair number of worshipers there, and since he IS an LG god, and the radical shift in lashuntu social structure is a good thing, there'd have to be some kind of overprotective-parent-learning-to-let-go sort of thing softening his stance on some issues, while focusing more on his other areas of concern.

There's a lot of potential for positive queer themes there, particularly since it's already so easy to approach the lashunta restructuring from that direction.

There's a lot of other good potential plot seeds baked in there too, but that's beyond the scope of this thread really.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I'd say Envoy, moreso than any other class, looks like hot garbage if you're looking at it side by side next to any Pathfinder class, but when you get your head around how Starfinder's rules differ the "small" bonuses they toss around are actually quite significant.

It does underwhelm at first level though. Sadly I missed the part of the GenCon demo with ship combat, where they'd shine, and just had to deal with standing still to give small bonuses the rest of the party ignored.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I don't know how fair it really is to make this complaint since a stated design goal for Starfinder was to downplay direct involvement of the pantheon in how things play out, and the sole divine caster class is very specifically more of a contemplative guru sort of class than an active church representative, but looking at Starfinder's core 20 deities, none of them really strike me as being particularly concerned with what any of the others are doing. Plus there's an alarming trend towards "this is the deity this race traditionally worships" which kind of inherently drags in some implied racial alignments (and weird ones at that).

Just going down deity by deity here...

Abadar- He's doing pretty damn well for himself lately, and probably has the most direct footprint on the setting via Abadarcorp, but there's no real cause for his followers to work on advancing and no one prominent that'd take issue with his faith's current prosperity. Feels like there's a missed opportunity here fading Erastil and Gozreh into the background rather than playing up a March Of Progress vs. Green Faith conflict.

Besmara- OK Besmara was always one of my favorite minor deities and is absolutely in a prime position to stir the pot with pretty much anyone, but there'd be space pirates to do that whether she was in the mix or not.

Damoritosh- I outright dislike his existence. Being our big war god, he's kind of stealing a seat from Gorum, and doesn't seem nearly as fun. Plus honestly, he's an explicitly evil deity who's specifically cited as the chief deity of the one core race that quite recently declared a war of subjugation against the rest. Which really recolors that from the space opera trope of two big empires butting heads on principle then making up to the vesk being an unambiguously villainous faction with no real business being in the core 7 race options, particularly if you play his obvious plot card of trying to get the Silent War going again.

Desna- In a similar boat with Abadar. Spacefaring societies existing at all should have her pretty content, no real ambitions or conflicts.

The Devourer- Another one I really just don't like being in there. Destroying everything is already Rovagug's domain, and aside from having that sort of kaiju charm, the threat posed by Rovagug casts a huge shadow over both the setting for both games. Took a big team-up of other major deities to seal him away, and now the place he was sealed away in is missing. It's a bad move to recast that portfolio and role in the setting to someone who doesn't have that pantheonic team-up backstory. Plus, while evil, it seems very passive about it, and with the entropy theme feels more like it should be NE than CE, to match up with daemons.

Eloritu- Basically just Nethys. The search for the other runes bit makes for nice plot hooks, but not much is going on here otherwise.

Hylax- I do like having a super chill peaceful bug goddess, but she's too innately passive to drive any conflicts. Also it's weird to me that she's so into free will and tied to shirrens but then she's LG. CG feels like it'd make more sense.

Ibra- Even worshipers of Ibra don't seem to have a clear handle on Ibra's motives or mandates.

Iomedae- There's no world wound, no apparent lingering Chelish empire to worry about (outside the continued presence of the hellknights, but they seem to be downplaying the hell end of things), and her more traditional enemies didn't seem to make the cut. I do really like having her around as a sort of anachronistic vestige of knightly values (even if that is a weird role for the youngest deity in the book), but there's not much for her followers to go crusading against. Damoritosh's forces are allies, the Devourer's are fringe cultists.

Lao Shu Po- Kind of feels like she's picking up the slack from shelving Calistria, Norgorber, and Achaekek, which gives followers something to do, but not making a big splash keeps her in a passive/supporting role when telling stories, and again we have an evil deity as the main patron of a core 20 race.

Nyarlathotep- He seems like the most active mover and shaker in the pantheon, although Mythos stuff always strikes me as too tied to material plane power struggles to really feel like a religious conflict thing.

Oras- I appreciate there basically being a Church of Science, but again, without someone like Erastil to object to rapid change, there's no fodder for conflicts here.

Pharasma- Pharasma still hates Urgathoa. That's the one clear conflict from the old core 20 still going strong, and there's a lot to play up with it with the whole Corpse Fleet angle.

Sarenrae- It's weird for Sarenrae to be around when Rovagug isn't. She's still a generally all around great goddess for any good character to worship, and her church colonizing the sun is amusing but her church kinda feels like they have no pressing matters and can take a long vacation.

Talavet- Doesn't like Nyarlathotep, likes telling stories. No real strong plot threads coming to mind here.

Triune- The whole drift drives breaking off chunks of other planes thing would be a fantastic plot hook for a truly epic campaign with other deities feeling their domains are under direct threat or laying the groundwork for some terrifying multiphase sinister plot from Triune... but to follow through on that, drift drives would need to stop being used and that just breaks the whole setting.

Urgathoa- Again, clear conflict here with Pharasma, and she basically has her own whole planet. Eox being a pact world strikes me as a weirder thing for everyone to be cool with then Geb having a thriving fruit trade though.

Weydan- Feels fairly redundant, honestly.

Yaraesa- She's another advancing knowledge deity in a pantheon where that arguably describes about 8 others. Appropriate for the science fantasy setting to have some redundancy there, but things are pretty well covered.

Zon-Kuthon- It really feels like he should have way more of a spotlight than he does, with exploring the mystery of how he went all Hellraiser and/or Shelyn trying to fix him (or falling to a similar fate) being a general background element of the setting and/or the meat of at least one AP, but... it kind of feels like the Devourer's cult and Nyarlathotep are stealing that limelight, and he doesn't really seem like a natural antagonist for anyone else. If anything having a lot of weird new alien races to interact with makes the spooky S&M religion feel a bit quaint, and between drift travel and high tech vehicles in general the shadow plane feels like it's not going to come up much.

So... for clear conflicts here, we have:
Abadar vs. Besmara - LN vs. CN
Pharasma vs. Urgathoa - TN vs. CE
Iomedae vs. Nyarlathotep? - LG vs. CE but not really an active conflict

And everyone else is just kinda... hanging around being passively worshipped, not really interacting or plotting anything.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Violet Hargrave wrote:
And I'm sure when I get the time to read all the way through the setting section I'll find a lot more to comment on (or have a lot to say about the lack of things to comment on) but, this is already a long post for me just trying to get a discussion going.

Not so much, as it turns out.

The main thing to jump out at me is Hylax further muddying the waters on shirren pronouns (she's a she, described as a queen and mother, which would presumably put her in the host gender by my reckoning, as hosts are referred to as such earlier, which strengthens my case that the "they" bit in Dead Suns was something of an error or a specific character opting for gender-neutral pronouns, but I still think this is something that needs an official writers bible yesterday).

Arshea getting a random shout out in the Other Gods blurbs is interesting, being a fairly minor deity in-fiction then and now, with a big fandom out-of-fiction for the combination of gender fluidity and general sex-positivity, but that's only vaguely referred to in this write-up. Meanwhile, notably absent are any mentions of Gozreh (the core 20 deity with gender fluidity) and Erastil (I'd be curious where he sits on quite a lot of things, but notably lashuntas breaking with traditional social structures).


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Sara Marie wrote:
Violet Hargrave wrote:
Does that include it popping up in subscriptions eventually?
Unfortunately, that will still have to be done by hand. However, if you wanted to make the process easier for customer service, you could subscribe to #2 and then backorder #1 and put it in your sidecart.

That... seems to have made things slightly harder for CS in my case, given that I now have 2 copies in here.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Because.


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Arutema wrote:
Cayden Cailean and the universe's worst drunk driving accident.

Fortunately, his clerics are hard at work rolling sticky balls around everywhere hoping to collect enough random debris to form a suitable, if cow heavy, replacement.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Does that include it popping up in subscriptions eventually?


7 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Ikiry0 wrote:
Well, it could be be a verb if there was a jackass transmutation mage going about putting people in bodies they don't want.

A- That still wouldn't quite be grammatically correct.

B- That's not the context it's being used in here.
C- There are, in the real world, a surprisingly large number of people with surprisingly large platforms constantly spouting elaborate fiction about a terrible trans cabal forcing children to be trans, who routinely throw the "-ed" on in that exact sort of context, which is what makes it such an upsetting thing for us to see when deployed accidentally.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Aerotan wrote:
So, very slight necro, but I notice that the Serum of sex shift doesn't say the set of characteristics you choose need to match the conventional combinations. Is there any particular reason a drinker can't choose some features from one sex and some from another? Say, the obvious primary characteristics of a male human, but with the rounded features, body mass distribution, and proportions of a female?

If I properly recall, the item is rather explicitly worded to allow for that, and also explicitly says it only works when taken voluntarily. Both of which are pretty great aspects of it, and why I mentioned the only thing that strikes me as even potentially worth complaining about is being SO good and convenient as to be arguably trivializing.

Also, there's no -ed at the end of transgender. It's an adjective, not a verb.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The rules for a forced march still inflict nonlethal damage, as was the case in Pathfinder, but nonlethal damage is no longer tracked independently. It's just regular damage, with a caveat about what happens if it takes you to 0 HP.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, this means a forced march just straight up hurts you, and removing the fatigue only happens if you fully restore the lost HP/stamina?

Also, does this mean DR helps against forced march damage?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Autopilot/autocontrol can be activated as a swift action after a drive or race action.

Race is a full action however, and a full action now consumes your swift.

Is the idea that you turn the autopilot on with your swift at the start of your next turn, or was this rule written with Pathfinder's action economy in mind?


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

My concern here is twofold:

A- It's important to have a standard in place for how people write about one of the core 7 races in all upcoming official Starfinder material.

B- It's important to have that standard make sense, and not cause offense to any actual real world people.

What we have as established precedent here so far is one specific NPC whose gender is host, and whose pronouns are they/them/themself.

Without altering that, moving forward, the obvious standards to run with so as not to contradict that would be:

#1- "They" is the generally accepted pronoun for all host shirrens, with males using "he" and females using "she."

#2- "They" is the generally accepted pronoun for all shirrens regardless of gender when speaking in common because more accurate terms don't exist or don't translate well.

#3- That one particular shirren whose pronouns have been established does not fit within the typical shirren gender expressions and personally feels more comfortable going with "they" as a result.

#1 I have a serious serious problem with, because the singular they, in the real world, is used very specifically when referring to people whose gender is unknown (i.e. each player draws a card at the start of their turn), or for whom there otherwise aren't appropriate pronouns to use (i.e. my friend bought a binder so hopefully people will mistake them for a woman less often). In both these cases, the idea is that we are actively avoiding the use of a gendered pronoun because we don't want to use a gendered pronoun for someone not of that gender.

On the other side of that coin, as someone who is trans, and does fit nicely into the standard gender binary, I am acutely aware of how painful it is to have people actively avoid using gendered language when referring to me (usually in overtly bigoted terms like "it thinks it's a woman" but some people refer to all trans people as "they" to achieve the same effect). All three of the shirren genders are pretty explicitly referred to as being innately gendered, with all the societal expectations that entails, so it's rude and confusing to refer to any one of them in explicitly gender neutral terms.

#2 is better, although potentially insensitive towards shirrens if they do have gendered pronouns in their own language (although I can totally see a case where they wouldn't as the whole individual identity thing is relatively new to them).

#3 I like because it's always nice to see more non-binary representation, but doesn't help to establish a setting bible for other writers to use, and still leaves this as something I'd really hope gets pinned down before I ever end up needing to know this for professional reasons.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Andy Brown wrote:
Violet Hargrave wrote:
Lashuntas- If I am reading between the lines correctly, roughly half of all lashuntas are now explicitly trans, and there is specific language differentiating a given lashunta's actual gender vs. their dimorphic body type. I am absolutely delighted to see that, even if I don't necessarily think the designers meant to do it. A+

I'm not sure which lines you're reading between here.

Any gender can become either body type. Historically, the stresses to go one way or the other were generally forced to a specific gender, now they aren't.
I don't see how that makes half of the Lashunta trans when body type has nothing to do with gender.

Pre-Starfinder, lashuntas had certain societal expectations and enforced gender presentation forms strictly tied in with certain easily readable physiological features, which largely became noticeable at puberty when certain epigenetic changes begin to occur.

Now, due to a combination of society becoming less sexist and caste-based, and advances in controlling those epigenetic changes, there is a new emphasis on allowing lashunta children to decide for themselves which sort of changes they'd prefer to go through at puberty.

If that isn't something you can read as "lashuntas are all kinds of trans positive" I don't know how to make it any clearer.


7 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
MageHunter wrote:
I think for shirren sex the idea is that male means they have sperm, females have eggs, and the host has the 'incubator' plus some certain traits. Unlike humans that seems to be the only biological difference, so I don't think shirren care too much about pronouns. Also they are telepathic as well as having a bug language, so their language might get weird. They is probably best.

Oh yeah, there is a fantastic argument to make for (nearly) every shirren just using they. Not really the sort of social structure that enforces gender roles, being formerly of a hive mind potentially leaving them still easing into the whole singular-address concept, no physiological differences other races can consistently pull out/language not mapping one to one and wanting to save the hassle.

It's just the notion of a happy trio with matching "his/hers/theirs" towels where I have an issue. Three gendered pronouns is fine, no gendered pronouns is fine. Gendered pronouns but only for 2/3 of the commonly occurring genders while the third is ungendered is a bizarre misappropriation of an important real-world concept.

And this really isn't the thread to elaborate on my "biological sex" comment. Alternative phrasing there if you'd like: "Yay there's no accidental invalidation of trans people or dog whistles for hate groups in how this text is worded."


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
captain yesterday wrote:
Host Shirren go by the singular they.

That strikes me as just about the worst possible standard to set here, honestly.

First off, as I already suggested, when your cis population breaks down into 3 genders, and you want to refer to one of them as female, it should really be the one that actually carries the children, because that's going to be the closest mapping onto how humans see things. This would also apply to anthropomorphized seahorses, but here we really don't even have the biologist's pedantry to fall back on, since host shirrens contribute genetic material, and thus clearly the "sperm moves with flagella, egg sits there, so that's actually the male" logic doesn't particularly apply.

More importantly though, people in the real world who use the singular they as a pronoun specifically do so because it is the only gender neutral third person pronoun with any traction in English, and we are not using it here as a gender-neutral pronoun. We're using it as a very specifically gendered pronoun. That gets downright confusing, because hey, now what do we say if we're trying not to specify the gender of a given shirren because we don't know it, or how do we talk about non-binary shirrens? And there's kind of a real world issue here over what you're implying about actual people who go by they.

Deadmanwalking wrote:
Violet Hargrave wrote:
Humans- Eh, they're humans. Iconic is explicitly a lesbian though, so that's a good precedent. B+
Technically, we don't know that, actually. She could be bisexual or pansexual just as easily. Or even asexual. All we know is that she once loved a woman.

Absolutely true if we're going by her backstory. I could have sworn someone with authority had gone into more detail since though.

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:


Perhaps a slightly less provocative title might be in order for the thread?

When I saw the initial thread it felt like it was a trolling exercise, and not a legitimate thread.

Really? I'm just used to that sort of phrasing for general catch-all discussions about this sort of thing. Have a better suggestion offhand?

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:


As far as the Vesk go, I have to wonder if the females are the dominant gender, or males, or if they are more like hobgoblins in that regard: ie, 'everyone fights, nobody quits'.

I feel like of all the core races, vesk are rather intentionally painted with the broadest brush, not setting anything down past "the big tough warrior race." Safe to assume none of the core 7 have any real sexism, so hobgoblins fits better here as a rough analogy than orcs or gnolls, but there's some interesting cultural implications in the women having the sort of mate-attracting-markings you tend to see with male birds. Dead-lifting displays to turn a fella's head now and then?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Hmm. I just shared a few thoughts on this topic over here, and that really doesn't seem like a good precedent to run with. All well and good for a specific individual NPC, but if someone's setting up a writing guide for shirren going forward, I have a big long lecture to give someone.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

This feels like something I should cross-post over to here:

Let's queer up Starfinder!


18 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I picked up my copy of Starfinder over GenCon, and as I read through it, I'm pondering ways to throw characters around who aren't all cis and straight. Let's start with a quick look through the races!

Androids- Specific thought was given to the notion that a race that doesn't reproduce sexually is going to have a whole lot of agender, genderfluid, and non-binary people, and this is even reflected in the iconic operative. A

Humans- Eh, they're humans. Iconic is explicitly a lesbian though, so that's a good precedent. B+

Kasathas- Nothing really jumps out at me here since they're basically just humans-with-more-arms, but there is a note about barely perceivable gender differences which... none of the artists seem to have caught. C-

Lashuntas- If I am reading between the lines correctly, roughly half of all lashuntas are now explicitly trans, and there is specific language differentiating a given lashunta's actual gender vs. their dimorphic body type. I am absolutely delighted to see that, even if I don't necessarily think the designers meant to do it. A+

Shirrens- Between having 3 genders, and a culture explicitly based around celebrating individualism, this is hands down the race I'm most excited about in the specific context of making queer as hell characters, but also the one with the greatest need to clarify a hell of a lot of things first. Like, what is the whole pronoun situation here? If I had to guess, I'd say males go he/him, hosts go she/her (specific reference in the stat block to 'queens' and all), and females have their own pronoun set going on. This is something that really needs to be sorted out officially before anyone can really properly write about any non-male shirren NPCs.

Also having 3 genders calls for a lot of specialized terminology for attraction. If you're straight, or ace, that's fine. A certain percentage of them being trisexual is a given. If you're specifically only interested in others of your own gender, that's manageable. But, what if you're, say, a host who's only interested in other hosts and females? Or exclusively into males? There is a need here for a fairly robust lexicon. D for now, real easy to up to an A with a well-thought-out blog post or something.

Vesk- I appreciate the women being larger on average and not having breasts as non-mammals, but that's just realism. Potentially some ground to explore with trans vesk doing interesting things to alter the color of their scales, but nothing really hinted at in-text. C.

Ysoki- Explicitly called out as having no real cultural gender signifiers, and a lot of notes about living on the fringes and standing up for each other. B

Moving on to the equipment section...

Serum of Sex Shift- This is the one thing in the book explicitly created with trans characters in mind. It's right here in the core book, comes across as the latest in a line of similar items (to the point where I'm 95% sure Amber Scott wrote this entry), and it is very carefully worded to avoid any awful garbage like "biological sex," language that excludes non-binary people, or you know, the core race with three genders. So, definite A for effort, although there is a definite cis-writer's-take-on-being-trans, come to a decision, hop into a building, tada, one-and-done angle here which is arguably dismissive of what we have to deal with in reality.

And I'm sure when I get the time to read all the way through the setting section I'll find a lot more to comment on (or have a lot to say about the lack of things to comment on) but, this is already a long post for me just trying to get a discussion going.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

If I may step in here and try to address the original issue in good faith here...

ColbyMunro wrote:
I am running a west marches game, which means the game can consist of anywhere between 12 and 20 players who alternate in and out of sessions. Despite getting a large number of people interested, I'm having issues convincing my female friends to sign up to play. I would really enjoy ... to be more focused on character development and interparty politics

As plenty of other people have pointed out, those are two distinct, unrelated goals you have for attracting players. Also, they're both sorts of players you are inherently going to chase off by running in the West Marches format.

If you really want PCs playing off each other in interesting ways, you need a group where everyone is on the same page tone wise, making a considerable investment in their characters and eachothers' characters, along with the greater world of the setting and whatever the main thrust of your campaign is. If you're keeping everything very floaty, light, and friendly to people constantly jumping in and out, you don't really have the bedrock for that sort of serious character development to build on.

Meanwhile women, as a general rule of thumb, really aren't keen on interacting with creepy dudes, and especially aren't keen to put ourselves in situations where women are vastly outnumbered by men (who, statistically, are less likely to have their back in a clear unqualified fashion when a creepy dude reveals himself). So group size is against you, as is the wild card of new people constantly dropping in and out.

The simplest solution on both fronts here would be to not run a West Marches game, and instead just run a traditional campaign with a reasonable sized party, players who all know and like each other already, meeting on a regular schedule. But I assume you're really married to the West Marches idea for one reason or another.

On that assumption, you can probably spur on more character interaction in a few ways. Mandatory backstories, maybe throwing in some suggested hooks or traits to tie people to some aspect of the setting so they have that in common/to argue about. Push people into interacting around the campfire at the end of the adventuring day rather than skip to morning. Work in a lot of NPCs with serious agendas and obvious material reasons to help or hinder them.

Meanwhile, to get more women playing, the most obvious thing to do would be to just ask those women you know who you've presumably invited and presumably are on the fence about agreeing what concerns are holding them back and address those. Keep in mind though that women tend to be very much conditioned to just quietly avoid situations we aren't comfortable with rather than speak up, particularly in situations where there is a creepy dude present at a social gathering (and again, if you have 12-20 players, at least one of them is almost certainly a creepy dude).

Honestly, I can't really suggest any quick tips to help there. Personally speaking, I don't think I could be talked into a seat at a table with a bunch of men I don't really know at all, especially if they're all friends/acquaintances of the male GM. I'd need to know anyone who proved to be a creep would be dropped from the game no questions asked, without any resentment from anyone or the dropped creep then having an axe to grind with me, and any group who's going to make that sort of promise up front is kind of intimidating in its own somewhat creepy way.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Crystal Frasier wrote:
Lissa Guillet wrote:
Selene Spires wrote:

Okay...maybe people here can help me with my social anxiety I am having over the LGBT minger/mixer. I would have to go presenting as a guy...but calling myself a Trans woman. I feel...like people might not believe me...or even get hostile. I hope I will be able to present as woman for it...but right now that will be a long shot.

I wouldn't give it a second thought. Lots of trans women who have trouble getting things together before a big event early and before transition. We all understand. I know, many lgbt cons have had little ribbons for preferred pronouns that you can pick up and I can't imagine an LGBT mixer wouldn't have some method for that these days to. Every one has to start somewhere. I went to my first support meeting "en homme" as we called it in the day. Worked up to changing at the center and eventually just being able to handle everything before hand. Took some work and some time and I'm sure you won't be alone. Go, say hi, meet some people, find some resources. You'll be great.
What Lissa said. Remember that all trans women start out presenting as guys. It's not a comfortable place to be, but it's not something any of us would look down on you for <3

I went to an LGBT-focused gaming convention not too long ago, presenting in as masculine a fashion as you can imagine, with a big shiny "She/Her" ribbon hanging off my ID badge, and not once was I so much as accidentally misgendered.

I still felt like some kind of horrible confusing fraud the whole time of course, but that was 100% internal.

And of course with any luck, a couple months from now I might be going to a con on HRT under my dead name, which should also be a weirdly awkward experience.


6 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Catching up on the last week's worth of posts here, it seems there's some call for a general reminder that being trans is not a sexuality.

Whether you are assigned the wrong sex at birth and who you are attracted to are two completely different variables, and "I'm trans" is never an appropriate response when asked whether you are attracted to people of the same sex/opposite/both/neither.

I'd say they're completely unrelated, if not for the fact that for whatever reason trans people are SIGNIFICANTLY more likely to experience same-sex attraction than cis people, statistically speaking.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

This is actually super super handy for a project I'm working on, thanks!


4 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Tequila Sunrise wrote:
What are your thoughts on the safety pin thing, and other passive indicators of alliance/friendliness? (Happy Humanist symbols, rainbow accessories, etc..) Do they make you feel even a tiny bit better when you see them? Do you even tend to notice small symbols like these?

A well-intentioned but incredibly stupid, and honestly harmful idea.

First off, there's the stupidity of the whole "secret symbol" aspect, which supposes that somehow, all the at-risk people will be aware of what wearing a pin means when they see you, but not one single neo-nazi is going to hear about it and wear one to lull people into a false sense of security.

Moreover, why the hell should anyone act like being a decent empathetic person who stands up to bigotry be a secret club you need a badge for? It gives the impression that decent people are rare and need to stay hidden, to be sought out and whispered to, in a world where bigots are everywhere.

If your goal is to make marginalized people feel safe, and/or make it known you are a decent person, you need to make your views on people's basic humanity known to everyone present, and do so actively. Bring up racism, transphobia, homophobia, and misogyny in conversations anywhere you go, and in a way that makes it clear these are things you find disgusting, with no place in society. Make a particular point of bringing this up in front of people who "don't like to talk about politics." If you do that often enough to earn a reputation for it, not only will you not need to wear anything to indicate that you're someone marginalized people can safely talk to, you're going to make bigots extremely uncomfortable around you, and when bigots are uncomfortable and nervous, that's when marginalized people can feel safe.


5 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
thejeff wrote:
I don't actually want to justify, I'm just not sure how to deal with it as a accepted backdrop in a setting. I'm not really happy with the "you can't be good unless you're an active abolitionist" approach.

The ultimate motivating factor behind every argument on PC alignment I've ever seen is this bizarre assumption that every PC is inherently good, because the PCs are the protagonists which makes them "the good guys."

Absolutely nothing with regards to morality, storytelling, or the rules of the game supports this, and it is therefore not a valid base assumption to come into an argument with.

In addition to the Good and Evil alignments, there is this third option called Neutral. Generally speaking, people who are Neutral understand the difference between right and wrong, and consider themselves to be fundamentally good people because they avoid doing things they know are wrong. What sets them apart from Good people however is that they sometimes recognize what the right thing to do in a situation would be (abolish slavery, remove an evil dictator from power, etc.) but opt not to do it for understandable reasons (it would take years of draining effort/be a huge personal risk/is something someone more motivated probably has covered).

Evil people also largely consider themselves to be good people, doing things they would openly admit are the wrong thing if looked at in a vacuum, but finding ways to rationalize them as special exceptions (obviously slavery is wrong but this guy tried to kill us and knows where the villain of the week is, so it's OK to chain him up and make him lead us to him).

If you are not playing a character who always does what's right, no matter how personally inconvenient or risky, don't put Good on your sheet. It's simple, and I've never met anyone who refused to allow neutral characters. Outside of PFS games, it's also totally possible to play an Evil character, who ends up going along with the plot and saving the world for purely pragmatic reasons (you live in the world, it's where you keep your stuff, and speaking of stuff, monsters drop major loot).

Knight who says Meh wrote:
Rationalize would probably have been a better choice. I would probably drop the "active" requirement but I don't think "good" characters should support or excuse slavery. I think if you're searching for the ancient macguffin to save the world you could probably ignore the evils of slavery and still count as "good."

OK now here's the thing. This entire conversation even happening in the first place is hugely offensive to a huge swath of people, as you are making an academic game out of discussing basic human rights. That is never a pure academic hypothetical without any real world impact, and if you think it is, you're not qualified to be discussing it. This "balanced scales" argument in particular though is something being actively applied to justify awful things in the real world, today, with people turning a blind eye to some serious crimes against humanity "in pursuit of a greater good." Ponder this in whatever combination of maintaining civility/trans rights/refugee intake/deportations/prosecution of terrorists you'd prefer.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Bob_Loblaw wrote:
I don't even know if I'm transgender. I don't know how to know. Some of my friends say that I am and others say that I would know. Some tell me not to worry about it either way and just focus on being happy. That last one is really hard if you don't know who you are.

Something a lot of people tend to say: If you're even in a position where you find yourself asking "Am I trans?" then you are absolutely trans. There's even a website based on the premise- amitransgender.com

Feels like a joke, but as you'll generally find for yourself when you start getting pushback from intolerant people, cis people never lose sleep over what their gender is. At all. Not one single night. It's weird, right?


6 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Selene Spires wrote:

I also have been thinking about the people I plan to come out too...how will they react and will it change the dynamics of the relationship? I am not exactly the same person I was two weeks ago..I feel I am still me though...just more me...if that makes any sense.

I feel I am acting more naturally...it feels great, but the back of mind is asking "Do they know?" I guess it has always been there...but now it is dieing...

In my experience, you're entering into the most torturous period of being trans right now. Once you hit the point where you stop lying to yourself and looking for alternative explanations for why you might even be considering that maybe you're trans and fully embrace it, it's a bit like that need to tell everyone else who you really are is a snowball you just pushed down a hill, and it's just going to keep growing and gaining momentum.

That said, feeling incredible anxiety over actually telling people is both totally natural, and frankly a good survival instinct. People's reactions to learning people are trans are totally unpredictable, often dangerous, and if anything, it's the people who claim to love you unconditionally who are most likely to turn on you, with the people you hardly know being way more likely to be totally accepting.

On the upside, the people with the worst reactions to coming out tend to be the ones with the deepest denial that you might be, so you can get pretty heavy handed in testing the waters. Bring up stories about trans people in the news around people, and feel free to make your feelings clear on them. The people who jump right in with prior knowledge tend to be safe to come out to. The ones who are legitimately horrified but had no idea that, oh, government officials literally think of us as animals probably aren't safe to come out to yet, but they'll get there if you keep bringing these stories up.

I've never hit a point with anyone where it wasn't still hard to really pull the trigger on saying "I'm trans" though. Even with friends who just came out to me about the same. Gotta give the bandaid a final tug in the end, but don't feel bad about how much time you need to spend slowly and carefully peeling it to get a good grip.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Hrothdane wrote:
Crystal Frasier wrote:
Trump has never really cared about LGBT issues, but Putin hates the queer community, and Bannon HATES trans people. I honestly think this is laying the groundwork for an anti-LGBT event aimed at splitting the main queer community from the trans and/or bi community. Or more likely, Trump doesn't see any conflict of interests in leaving the Obama protections for LGBT federal employees AND pushing through FADA by executive order—trying to have his cake and eat it, too.
I didn't know that Bannon had it out specifically for us...that's incredibly scary D:

A not-at-all-insignificant percentage of articles published on Breitbart are just absolutely viscious libelous hit pieces written about random trans people nobody's heard of, accusing them of everything from terrorism to pedophilia, and providing entire family trees to stalkers.

Plus they're who started that whole "drop the T from LGBT" thing.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Cthulhusquatch wrote:
In the past couple weeks I was doxxed by a neo-nazi website and outed as LGBT... it was related to the possible march in Whitefish... because I opposed it and I am from the area... and opposed their harassment of a child. That is always fun, especially with my own far right past. I really didn't get it as bad as it could have been.. probably because that particular website prefers going after women and children. I also still intimidate many of those people.

For what little comfort it is, Team Nazi is so far past the point of reserving doxxing for prime targets that dedicated doxxing boards are starting to just look like phone books, and the last time I've heard of anyone getting so much as bunch of pizzas they didn't order was something like 2 years ago. Still distressing to see first hand, sure, but as a harassment tactic it seems to have totally lost its teeth.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Wei Ji the Learner wrote:
Crystal Frasier wrote:


Really sick of this "crazy trans lady is a murderer" trope, when we're so frequently the victims in violent crimes and so rarely the perpetrator.

Looking for good stories that treat trans-people right and perhaps maybe even as protagonists without Mary Sue/Gary Stu Complex.

What would be a good place to start?

Aside from Crystal's list, the two best recommendations that come to mind are:

Sense8- Full disclosure, I haven't watched past the first episode, but I've seen it talked up by enough people, but it's written and directed by trans women, and if I properly recall the trans character in the main cast is played by a trans actress, so my understanding is it's nicely handled.

Kamen Rider W- Arguably I'm cheating here. If this character reads as a cis man to you, never mind. Otherwise, hey, Kamen Rider W is a Japanese superhero show where the titular hero is this weird two-minds-in-one-body fusion of a dorky wannabe noir detective and his partner (in the sense of running a detective agency, and also in the sense of portraying them as a couple to the fullest extent one can get away with under applicable broadcasting standards), who while never specifically stated to be such reads pretty clearly as trans (or at the very least, really pushing back against gender norms) and a shockingly positive portrayal of someone on the autism spectrum. Neither is ever specifically called out by anyone, and both take a back seat to generally being the more competent of the two, to the point where a later plot arc involves the dorky wannabe noir detective's feelings of inferiority.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

1) I seem to recall a tease about radically changing how AC works (or basic combat math in general in some way). Anyone willing to get into the specifics on that?

2) There's a really noticeable difference in general artistic sensibilities in what's been revealed so far and typical Pathfinder art. Is the generally less rough and angular look to things just happenstance of trying out different artists, or the result of trying to give the whole game a different vibe?

3) With Pathfinder/Golarion, a lot of staff writers have staked their claim to a degree on particular regions and cultures at this point. Have people started calling dibs on aspects of Starfinder yet? Alternatively, what's everyone really excited to tackle in the short term?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

If we're looking at this from a visualization standpoint, for things that are roughly humanoid, I always tend to picture slams as the same sort of motion as a backhanded tennis swing, just without the racket. Big ol' swing of your big beefy forearm from your chest outward to knock aside wimpy little humans cowering before you.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Timitius wrote:
3. Timing of the end of the submission period. Around the holidays is just too busy for some people.

That was definitely a big factor for me. Aside from personally dealing the holidays, I find all my professional writing work tends to cluster up around the very end of the year as various editors and artists take time off. I only managed to find time to sit down and think of one submission, and wrote it about an hour or two before the deadline.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Kalindlara wrote:
My appointment with my endocrinologist is in March. So... we'll see if I make it that long. I'm fairly assured in my own strength, but with the turn things took in November, I can't say with certainty that it will still work out. Who knows what measures will have been taken to stop people like me by then? I still don't have valid ID... and I don't know if I ever will, for similar reasons.

I can relate to all of that in a pretty active and immediate way. This is a handy resource for some of the ID stuff if you do want to try and tackle it. In particular, I BELIEVE that site has info on how to get an up to date passport with $100 and a note from any physician that you're seeking/getting any sort of treatment, no specific need to be actively on HRT/getting any sort of surgery.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
The Doomkitten wrote:
Something to be noted: I hardly play Overwatch at all. It's a great game, don't get me wrong, but I'm generally too busy, and in the rare occasions that I have time to play some vidjagaems, I prefer to spend them trying to make some progress in single-player games. But I absolutely love the characters, the lore, the worldbuilding, etc etc., so I read the comics and try to absorb as much media about it as possible.

Honestly, I've always been terribly fascinated with how little the plot/backstory/fandom of Overwatch has to do with the actual game itself or vice versa.

Blizzard: Here's a bunch of cool women (and some men in culturally stereotyping Halloween costumes). You can either draw heartwarming fanart of them all being super queer, or play this game where they all shoot each other in the general proximity of a car loping about at 5 mph.

No particular reason for the two activities to intersect at all.

Today's announcement was very nice though either way.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Iammars wrote:
So, I, uh, did a thing today.

It's amazing what a relief it is just to get that out in the open, isn't it?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

If the idea is to go for an anniversary issue, there's something to be said for not focusing on any specific theme, and trying for as diverse a set of articles as possible, and just throw in a little of everything.

That or look way back to the ideas initially laid out for Pathfinder The obvious implication of naming the whole book line for the Pathfinder Society (and this magazine after their Wayfinders) is that someone was planning to focus adventures on the exploration of deep uncharted wilderness, but somehow things got sidelined into predominantly urban settings. And/or a serious look at the non-human core races who really tend to fade into the background.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Set wrote:

Congratulations to all who got in, especially those first-time submitters! It's great to see a constant stream of new blood, with fresh new ideas!

Also, remember that you might get mysterious emails from editors, wanting to ask a quick clarifying question the day before they turn over your polished piece for publishing.

Try not to be like me and find one of them a few months later in your spam folder. Ahem. :)

Amusingly enough, I saw this just after replying to the acceptance e-mail and dumping out my spam without looking at any of it.


3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Funnily enough, when I was first coming out as trans, I started a blog called "Secret Gamer Girl," specifically in reference to how "Gamer Girl" (and Geek Girl, and other variations) is a loaded, derisive term, rooted in a baseless sense of entitlement that games are an explicitly male space and any women in them are an aberration (with the "Secret" part referring to all the double-standard-loaded "Fake Geek Girl" talk I overhear from people who think I'm a guy).

Of course, now it's been a few years and I've gotten so used to people using that or a variation to refer to me that personally it just feels like my name now. Still, in other contexts I find it's better to avoid describing someone as "a gamer" regardless, and there's rarely call to specify that you're referring to a woman (particularly since if I recall, statistically slightly more women play games than men in the first place). Just say, "all the other women from my gaming group agree that ____" or "what? Every woman I know is into RPGs," or "oh yeah, I play a ton of ____."

1 to 50 of 54 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | next > last >>