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If you won't even read a single simple article that I link to, why would you read anything else I offer up? Oh, right, I keep forgetting your real motive.You are trying to put a lot of words into Crystal's mouth. I think what she (and others here) are trying to convey, is that you still mostly see the world though your straight white male privilege. I'm gonna ignore your pro-male/anti-feminism arguments/baiting until you can give some cites.Prove to me what i gain for nothing other than being white and male.
My real motive is that i believe in absolute equality or as close as possible. creating inequality to force temporary psuedo equality only does more damage.
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So about that thar Golarion!
Still wonder if Samsarans can reincarnate as different genders. Seems particularly notable considering "reincarnation romances" can easily be a thing with those folks.
I would assume so. reminds me of star trek with the symbiotic race. New body, "wrong"gender. still in love but what about the other person?
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So about that thar Golarion!
Still wonder if Samsarans can reincarnate as different genders. Seems particularly notable considering "reincarnation romances" can easily be a thing with those folks.
Woah. Now there's a thought. Would Samsaran reincarnation necessarily result in a sexual identity that was the same as a past life, or could it change?
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I would assume so. reminds me of star trek with the symbiotic race. New body, "wrong"gender. still in love but what about the other person?So about that thar Golarion!
Still wonder if Samsarans can reincarnate as different genders. Seems particularly notable considering "reincarnation romances" can easily be a thing with those folks.
If my nerd cred still holds, didn't the Tril have laws preventing those relationships from lasting between the death of the hosts?
Would Samsaran culture have similar dictates?
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I would assume so. reminds me of star trek with the symbiotic race. New body, "wrong"gender. still in love but what about the other person?So about that thar Golarion!
Still wonder if Samsarans can reincarnate as different genders. Seems particularly notable considering "reincarnation romances" can easily be a thing with those folks.
If my nerd cred still holds, didn't the Tril have laws preventing those relationships from lasting between the death of the hosts?
Would Samsaran culture have similar dictates?
I cannot recall honestly. That is one thing the race book really lacks is much about the society of these things
Contributor
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In RW Samsara (South Asian reincarnation) (hence the name), yes, you could be reincarnated as either gender.
In the patriarchal version, women wanted to become men in the next life, because nirvana was only for the mens.
This isn't universally held in Buddhism now...
If Golarion is more open-minded than our world, I'd think that Samsarans could come back as either gender and it was karmically meaningless which one an individual was.
But since you can remember some memories of your past lives, I'd imagine that Samsarans would be among the most enlightened in terms of how the genders treat each other.
I hope this is true.
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I doubt that Samsaran would have such laws. They are all about enlightenment--and what is more enlightened than being able to see beyond the physical body and connect with the endless and eternal spirit within?
I think he meant more like not keeping any attachments to a prior life. not just love/sex.
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If my nerd cred still holds, didn't the Tril have laws preventing those relationships from lasting between the death of the hosts?
Would Samsaran culture have similar dictates?
Depends on their philosophy regarding their reincarnation, I suppose.
If they consider each life to be a discrete new experience, and it to be important somehow to move past the old life and embrace the new, to avoid stagnating their spiritual journey, then avoiding the same profession, same location and / or same people as in one's most recent life would be encouraged, if not mandated.
If they instead consider the whole point of their journey to be to experience the world through different eyes and different forms, then they might find it useful and healthy to travel to places and re-connect with folk that they knew in their previous incarnation, so that they can fully realize the differences and similarities of these serial lives they lead.
And, if they aren't all of one mind on the notion, it's possible that different factions of Samsarans could believe very strongly that one of these options is the right and proper way to do things, and the other option is wrong and unhealthy...
The Samsaran concept of war would be an unusual thing, perhaps even preferring to imprison someone for life and try to 're-educate' and convert them, and to prevent them from 'escaping' into a new incarnation to continue the fight by killing them!
But regarding to Samsaran sexuality, specifically, I would imagine that most Samsaran would be bisexual, having experienced multiple lives as male and female, although some might have preferences, and like being a man better, or feeling more comfortable in the body of a woman. As with the above concept, either of these viewpoints could be seen as the 'right way to think' or 'unhealthy,' depending on the individual Samsaran (with those who fully embrace the individual incarnation and consider carryover from past lives to be distractions from *this* life perhaps considering leftover feelings of attraction to be 'missing the point' of being this gender in this life, and fully exploring the moment, while others finding it unhealthy to block out the feelings and memories and carryover beliefs of their previous lives, and equally think that others are 'missing the point' of being a Samsaran entirely by dividing their existence up into such discrete incarnations and denying themselves the fullness of their serial existence).
Or, in other words, my usual reply. Yes. To both. :)
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Hey, it worked for Aang and other Avatars.So about that thar Golarion!
Still wonder if Samsarans can reincarnate as different genders.
Curse you! I was half way through typing that when I seen your post!
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So about that thar Golarion!
Still wonder if Samsarans can reincarnate as different genders. Seems particularly notable considering "reincarnation romances" can easily be a thing with those folks.
I would certainly include this in my own campaigns, since it opens up a ton of interesting things and much more varied things, from the character's background.
As for their sexuality, it depends on if you wanted to keep real world biological hard-wiring or not. I'd honestly not define it, and go on a character by character basis the potential struggle between residual memories of a loved-one at odds with their new body's sexuality, and how they would handle it. Could you love someone in the same capacity if your body simply didn't respond to them sexually because the wiring was now different? How would this situation express itself? Really complex and interesting to explore.
And I so want to steer this ship back to Golarion and away from identity politics. :)
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I think you're confusing "patriarchy" with "patriarch," Beckett. One is an evil and oppressive system that promotes inequality between the genders, and the other is a man in a position of authority, who can -- as can all humans -- be wise or foolish as he skews as an individual.And what makes a 'patriarchy' inherently evil? Any more than a matriachy/I don't recall saying that a matriarchy would be good, anywhere. :-)
Determining whether people should be allowed to hold positions of power based on something as arbitrary and meaningless as XX chromosomes vs XY chromosomes is wrong. End of story.
I still don't see how it is an 'evil and oppressive system' automatically. And this goes back to as others have said, why isn't every country in Golarion subject to an (evil) descriptor?
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I haven't played Shadowrun in a really long while, but an ever-present theme in the setting is racism. My general policy as GM (since I always got stuck running the game) was if the players want to tackle and role-play the issue (racism), great, it's in. If they don't, I often still had it influence NPCs and work behind the scenes, but I didn't bring it up n game anymore than reminding them sunlight makes plants grow or Nadja Daviar has nice legs. Whatever issues I want to incorporate into a Sixth World adventure, I'm failing if the players aren't having fun.
All that to say this: Paizo has introduced and developed many areas of their world with dark, complex, grey areas. Sometimes the good guys do evil, and bad guys do good. Innocents suffer hunger, oppression, and slavery in what are considered goodly nations. If the GM and players want to build on those hooks and explore them, great! If they just want to kill orcs and drop divine nukes on undead, great! If they want somewhere down the middle, surprise - also still great! And if for whatever reason, a 10' pole isn't long enough to touch LGBT PC and NPCs (however briefly and tangentially mentioned), that's the GM's and player's prerogatives. And it also remains Paizo prerogative to keep right on including them; they've even (repeatedly) said they will.
...if an inquisitor* of Erastil honestly believes that a good old fashioned modify memory or some similar spell to 'fix' a trans person is better than using a girdle or a polymorph to 'fix' the person, and is getting the spells to back it up, what harm is he doing? Then what happens if a GLBTALPHABETSOUP NPC friend of the character's goes to said inquisitor?
With the right GM and players, it could be a complex and nunced scenario to play out. Especially since, if Golarion humanoid brains work like Earth human brains, modify memory isn't going to alter an LGBT peep's brain structure, hormone balance, cognitive abilities, or other biological differences. Confuse them for a bit, sure, but you can't "pray away the ghey" with just modmem. How much of their identity is the inquisitor willing to sacrifice to "make things right" in his eyes?
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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@Jeff,
Unless you're a Paladin, "Good" isn't a one step and you fall. (I'll ignore that said Inquisitor could still be Lawful Neutral).
I made a post the other day that I joked about making a maximum bluffer who would threaten foes with "You're just an illusion I created. Surrender or I'll stop concentrating on you." RAW possible? Yeah, silly as hell? Yeah. Now you get into the entire mind body influence. Repressed memory therapy has made people believe things happened that never did. Would someone maxed out with bluff and the like in the game be able to do all these things? Maybe. And would it work the other way? Sure. Rules should be consistent.
And the road to hell is paved with 'good reasons'. Fictional example (to keep the RL out of it) Molly completely messed up her friends' brains in Proven Guilty. She did it for good reasons, the effects weren't what she intended. If my hypothetical inquisitor 'fixes' his gay friends, everyone is happy, goes riding off into the sunset, then they go bugnut crazy, in an alignment system does that make him evil? (RL example) was every shrink prior to (IIRC) 1974 evil without realizing it?
If it does, then baleful polymorph should have the evil descriptor because you're changing their body 'and' mind.
Which ever side you're on in the argument of 'fixing' vs. 'natural' such a NPC or cult of 'em makes for wonderful story telling oportunities. Do you just kill the (good) inquisitor? Do you convince him he's wrong? OR what if it works without a hitch? He comes in performs his bluff/sense motive/magic trick/MacGuffin and Billy's happy he's attracted to Sally. Then what? I should have specified that my hypothetical inquisitor isn't abducting people off the street and converting them. IT's more:
"Bless me father, I have sinned."
"What is your sin my son?"
"I have lusted after Ted."*
"Oh, well here's this MacGuffin, take two of these and find a wench."
Aside, most every one of my lesbian friends** has had some sexual abuse in their childhood. Most have put it in the past, and it has become part of who they are. Said inquisitor would likely see himself blessed with the ability to help them put that trauma behind them. Assuming he doesn't know that Causation != Coorelation, he could assume that the trauma of abuse was the catalyst for their sexuality. So he's honestly helping them and doing good.
*
**
Edit: Speaking of modify memory Liz removed one of the posts I was replying to. Amusingly I'm specifically talking about homosexuality in Golarion.
Edit 2: Removed some snark.
Edit 3: Might need to remove the 'white male privilige' stuff too. That's not germain to the topic either, after all.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Awwwwww, that one was going into my scrapbook.
On topic, I came into this thread many moons ago thinking Paizo was being a bit too "here's my agenda"-ish in their editorial policy regarding homosexuality. I didn't really see why it mattered in the context of the game, or how it was doing anything other than riling up those who are opposed to it. My preference was to ignore the issues rather than have it dredged up in another environment (gaming products).
Since then, this thread has blossomed, and I've heard a lot more from those who view the inclusion in a positive light. I guess I hadn't internalized that the inclusion wasn't intended to antagonize, but to provide something positive to a segment of the audience outside my view. These days, my view is still "it's pretty much irrelevant," but I don't feel obligated to not antagonize, and I acknowledge that for some, it's a pretty big deal. If I can live with feats and spells that cater to a different style of play, I feel fairly certain I can live with something like this that caters to a different set of priorities and doesn't even have any effect on the game mechanics.
Awwwwww, that one was going into my scrapbook.
On topic, I came into this thread many moons ago thinking Paizo was being a bit too "here's my agenda"-ish in their editorial policy regarding homosexuality. I didn't really see why it mattered in the context of the game, or how it was doing anything other than riling up those who are opposed to it. My preference was to ignore the issues rather than have it dredged up in another environment (gaming products).
Since then, this thread has blossomed, and I've heard a lot more from those who view the inclusion in a positive light. I guess I hadn't internalized that the inclusion wasn't intended to antagonize, but to provide something positive to a segment of the audience outside my view. These days, my view is still "it's pretty much irrelevant," but I don't feel obligated to not antagonize, and I acknowledge that for some, it's a pretty big deal. If I can live with feats and spells that cater to a different style of play, I feel fairly certain I can live with something like this that caters to a different set of priorities and doesn't even have any effect on the game mechanics.
I know what you mean. Being asexual, I tend to feel that way about ALL sexuality, but for some strange reason, humans are generally obsessed with sex and sexuality (including the ones in my playgroup). I've since come to view the inclusion of notes about an NPC's gender/identity and orientation to be very helpful in gaming interactions that I have no actual experience with.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Thank you for the clarification RS, I didn't remember off the top of my head when it was removed from the DSMIV.
Directly, if Inquisitor Ivan above was 'healing' the people and they 'reverted' later, than is it an intentionally evil act? If they didn't have side effects or damage, is it still evil?
And if it is always evil... then wouldn't things like the girdle of gender change also radiate evil?
Then.. What about baleful polymorph? It is changing the person's mind, permanently, so why doens't it have the evil descriptor?
See, I look at these as good storylines to tell, in the context of Golarion.