vvincent's page

I blame Lundeen for this - not Bulmahn. This is exactly the kind of stuff Lundeen would pull when he was a Living Greyhawk campaign administrator back in the early 2000s. And then he's usually kill the thing he gave you in spectacular fashion.

Lundeen's a lawyer - so he knows how to screw over the players legally. And now he's got the biggest audience of them all. (shakes fist) Darn you Lundeen! Darn you to Heck!!!!!

For the record, I worked with Ron back in those days of LG, so I took the opportunity to poke at him a little here. Maybe that's why I have so little issue with some of this. I worked with him and Jason "back in the day" and trust them to do their best to make a good game better. If those charged with maintaining civility on this thread thought that I meant some sort of personal slight or attack, I very much apologize for how that came across. (Although Ron *did* have a wicked streak when it came to some of his traps, and I've yet to see anything that disabuses myself of that notion) :)

Vernon L. Vincent
Living Greyhawk somebody-or-other

Crager Muldoon wrote:

As I'm coming late to this well-reasoned discourse - what is the essential argument against goblins? Is it that they are being considered for inclusion in the CRB? Is it the stat bonuses? Is it that a 'core' race is someone equated with some elevated prestige or standard in the campaign world when no such prestige was evident previously?

Just trying to understand the acrimony of the commentary.

To me, "core" is what is most common, most representative of the fantasy world the game is reflecting. "Core" is be what players play, most GMs run, where all other things are more likely to be far more optional and varied. Since it's first, the oldest, most experienced characters will be core. So "core race" -- or "core ancestry" as it will be now -- is the most common set of creatures you will see adventuring in the game's setting. Not anything to do with prestige at all--indeed, in fact the opposite, in a way. But indeed rather sentient being so common and seen in society in the adventuring world that the majority of adventurers you will find in the world will most likely be one of those creature-types.

If you or anyone else disagrees as to what a "core race" should be I'd be curious as to your definition.

So that said, I think there's 2-3 "against goblins" camps.

1. That the canon lore up until now was that goblins were generally irredeemably, deeply sadistic monsters; 2e will reinvent them, effectively, as now both redeemable and varied in personality enough they would be equally as common an adventurer as an elf, half-orc, gnome, or dwarf, etc. This indicates there's going to be quite a paradigm shift in the setting. There are subgroups from hereon that
-- a. Think goblins should stay sadistic monster cannon fodder, and so effectively "humanizing" them, for lack of a better word, removes that cannon fodder from the game
-- b. just don't want to deal for any number of reasons, mostly personal in nature, with that presumed paradigm shift/don't want to deal with...

As far as I'm concerned - a Core race is one that appears in the Core Rulebook ("Core" being further generally defined to me as one of the essential components necessary for running the game, and without which running the game would not be possible).

So, within that framework - goblins as a "core" race causes me absolutely no discomfort or irritation at all.

As for how goblins fit into the campaign world - assuming that one is using Golarion - then I would expect the updated campaign materials to provide the necessary background for any possible shift in general attitudes. I think if the campaign world can generally accept medium-sized talking birds and anthropomorphic rats as non-threatening creatures, until individual exceptions prove otherwise - I think it can do the same for goblins. But that's just me.

I think any player predisposed to be a pain at the table will be a pain at the table, regardless of the tools at his or her disposal for facilitating that pain. I don't think we'll see an uptick in the number of problem players simply because of goblins. I do think we'll see an uptick in problem players who use goblins to be an irritant, but I expect that to die down as the novelty wears off.

Beyond that - all of this seems like little more than arguing on the minutae of a possible inclusion into a game, when the very play experience of that game is dominantly controlled by the people at the table and how they apply the rules.

Fundamentally, the game must be an enjoyable experience. And the tradition of home games is that the DM and the players usually customize the rules to some extent to improve on that experience. I expect nothing different here.

I blame Lundeen for this - not Bulmahn. This is exactly the kind of stuff Lundeen would pull when he was a Living Greyhawk campaign administrator back in the early 2000s. And then he's usually kill the thing he gave you in spectacular fashion.

Lundeen's a lawyer - so he knows how to screw over the players legally. And now he's got the biggest audience of them all. (shakes fist) Darn you Lundeen! Darn you to Heck!!!!!

As I'm coming late to this well-reasoned discourse - what is the essential argument against goblins? Is it that they are being considered for inclusion in the CRB? Is it the stat bonuses? Is it that a 'core' race is someone equated with some elevated prestige or standard in the campaign world when no such prestige was evident previously?

Just trying to understand the acrimony of the commentary.

In my opinion, there are (at a minimum) two people who can answer this question: the player and the DM. You might additionally include the other players at the table, but the player of the character and the DM are absolutely necessary.

As others have said, good and evil, law and chaos, are objective effects in the Pathfinder game. They are detectable and are used as magical qualifiers for effects (paladin smite, word of chaos, etc).

Assuming that there isn't a specific provision in the rules for how torture is defined (i.e. - unless the DMG or elsewhere says 'torture is an evil act'), you should probably use the dictionary definition for torture when evaluating it.

I just used dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/torture) and got this definition:

noun
1.the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.
2.a method of inflicting such pain.
3.Often, tortures. the pain or suffering caused or undergone.
4.extreme anguish of body or mind; agony.
5.a cause of severe pain or anguish.

So, within that context - you and your DM have to decide if torture, as defined, constitutes an Evil act. Assuming 'Yes', you would probably need to then decide what effects, if any, this evil act has on your character.

From a personal standpoint, in looking at the possible interpretations, only one part -"as a means of getting a confession or information" could be persuasive to me in not considering torture an evil act. All others seem to indicate the intentional infliction of pain for its own purpose, which few would argue is evil. But - again - this is a conversation between you and your DM, with possibly the others at your table.

Here's the other problem no one has addressed. GM's who will refuse to GM anything but Core Only when players want Normal games.

Well - this accounts for me. But it's not that I've refused - it's that I haven't volunteered. And for the reasons that Core-Only seems built to address. I shouldn't have to have mastered the equivalent of the Library of Congress in order to run this game. It's not that I'm a poor DM - it's that I simply don't have the hours to spend pouring over every book to familiarize myself with all of the possible combinations and interactions of classes, skills, feats, spells, and specialized mechanics. And if I had the time, I don't have the money to buy everything. It's simply not possible.

There comes a point where it just becomes a contest to see who has the bigger ... collection of books and the time to read them all.

Feiya - her turn on's

1) Wintery days
2) People who smile
3) Using shin-bones for toothpicks.

Her turn offs
1) Humpbacks
2) People who frown
3) The color green