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Okay, I am starting to feel like the only person who likes a wide range of themes to their fantasy.
Sure I prefer pirates to ye heroic do gooder knight, but if we got a 'your a lucky farm hand, who save the world from an evil dragon' AP I wouldn't be on the boards saying "meh", rather I'd be looking for ways to get my headspace into it.
For from kingmaker to skull and shackles, we have seen people just saying it isn't their thing.
Yet, I don't think I have seen anyone actually explain why they don't like them.
If you don't like a specific theme, I.d love to know why. Why is it that you think everything is better with pirates, but that ninja can go dunk their heads? Or what ever combo applies to you? If you only like standard fair, what the.hell is it, and why do you like it, but not other things.
I don't like pirates for several reasons:
1. By and large people consider pirates to have cannon and other gunpowder based weapons and I hate gunpowder in my fantasy games.
2. I'm not interested in spending a lot of time struggling with swim mechanics.
3. There are going to be several limitations to the types of characters you can play. Paladins won't work well, heavily armored warrior types will be at a severe disadvantage, magic will trump most of the intriguing challenges with ship to ship combat, heavily sea focused characters won't be of much use for land and vice versa, etc etc.
4. Pirates have just never been my thing. People get a lot of enjoyment out of romanticizing them but there's nothing remotely romantic about them in reality. They're evil bastards who ought to be staked out over anthills in the desert.
Having said all that, I'm still curious to see what Paizo's going to do with them and unless there are a bunch of non-optional rules for cannons I'll probably keep my subscription so I can read the AP or lend it to a friend to DM. If you can easily modify the adventure to remove the impact of gunpowder it won't be such a big deal but if it's an intregal part of the AP then that'll be a deal breaker for me.
Not that I'm really complaining. Carrion Crown is exactly what I'm looking for in an AP and I don't mind Paizo producing a product that satisfies other people's ambitions at the cost of my own.
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It's an interesting question. I personally don't like ninja's I find them to be fairly humourless and therefore I find it difficult to come up with a concept for them. Plus I have played a lot of Legend of the Five Rings so I was kind of jaded towards the whole oriental fantasy mythos. Been there, done that.
So when Jade Regent came out I was very meh about the whole thing. However when I realised it was an epic journey to the east and it would be Inner Sea characters discovering Tian Xia I got excited again.
I think the thing is that people have a playstyle they prefer. Some get attracted to dark and gritty street level games, others to knightly tales of daring do, others like pirates, someone else might like guns etc. etc.
The thing is each person has a play style they like and the more other options and styles intrude then the less comfortable they are. I think this comes from what we liked as kids and what we grew up reading and watching.
I like big heroic campaigns, I like the good guy beating the bad. Corny and simplistic? Sure, but it's what I like. This is because I grew up reading the Dragonlance books and Lord of the Rings. I liked Arhurian legend, Doctor Who and Robin Hood, my films of choice were Star Wars and Indiana Jones. Those shining heroes have always stuck with me. If my influences had instead been Lovecraft, Fritz Leiber and Morecock I'm sure my character choices would be different.
Most of the AP's have a theme and this is where we get to the crux of the matter. I ran Legacy of Fire and loved it but then I must have seen the Golden Voyage of Sinbad about 50 times. If that is not a big thing for you then I can see how you would not get excited. That's it in a nutshell, some things resonate with you, others don't.
I don't like pirates for several reasons:
1. By and large people consider pirates to have cannon and other gunpowder based weapons and I hate gunpowder in my fantasy games.
2. I'm not interested in spending a lot of time struggling with swim mechanics.
3. There are going to be several limitations to the types of characters you can play. Paladins won't work well, heavily armored warrior types will be at a severe disadvantage, magic will trump most of the intriguing challenges with ship to ship combat, heavily sea focused characters won't be of much use for land and vice versa, etc etc.
4. Pirates have just never been my thing. People get a lot of enjoyment out of romanticizing them but there's nothing remotely romantic about them in reality. They're evil bastards who ought to be staked out over anthills in the desert.
Having said all that, I'm still curious to see what Paizo's going to do with them and unless there are a bunch of non-optional rules for cannons I'll probably keep my subscription so I can read the AP or lend it to a friend to DM. If you can easily modify the adventure to remove the impact of gunpowder it won't be such a big deal but if it's an intregal part of the AP then that'll be a deal breaker for me.
Not that I'm really complaining. Carrion Crown is exactly what I'm looking for in an AP and I don't mind Paizo producing a product that satisfies other people's ambitions at the cost of my own.
+10
Note I like the Horror and Ninja Ideas, and the idea of the other APs, but not the Pirate ones.
If you don't like a specific theme, I.d love to know why. Why is it that you think everything is better with pirates, but that ninja can go dunk their heads? Or what ever combo applies to you? If you only like standard fair, what the.hell is it, and why do you like it, but not other things.
It isn't that I don't like this theme or that theme. I just want them to fit coherently into the world. Most fantasy settings are based in a psuedo-Western Medieval world. Most of the character classes are from Western themes.
I don't want Ninjas in Camelot.
I'm not saying that there aren't places for these themes but they only really make since if they are used alone rather than lumped together in a big mass of unrelated ideas.
If I want Ninja I will play in a psuedo-Japanese Feudal society. It will have Samurai instead of Paladins. It won't have Conan the Barbarians and Gandalf-clones.
For a long time I've hated desert settings because of their connections to things on Earth; I've gotten over it by completely severing the real world from fantasy. In contrast, I've learned to connect things I like to something I would generally avoid; Victorian and (American) Western themes for example (their connection is that they existed simultaneously). I really don't mind mixing and matching styles (pirates with ninjas with cowboys with space invaders) as long as it's done well.
Returning to the topic, there is one theme/style/fiction/etc. that I simply cannot appreciate and often puts me at odds with other gamers: Middle Earth. By Middle Earth themes, I mean halflings, lean/immortal elves in mithril/mithral armor, monolithic evil, horrible concepts of magic, and so on. Now let me explain my reasons (the major ones anyway).
1 - Elves should be short, mischievous, and fey-like, not a race of immortal superhumans. Forgotten Realms furthered the problem by crediting elves with the creation of magic (maybe not completely, but that's how I remember it). Golarion suffers from this too, but other influences have kept such nonsense under control.
2 - Halflings/hobbits should not exist beyond Tolkien's world. I have no rational reason behind this, I simply hate halfings.
3 - Magic that is, by nature, good or evil. This has spread to so many fantasy worlds and it's really getting old. I like the idea that ignorant and superstitious humans might consider some (or all) magic "evil", but from a universal/GM perspective magic cannot be good or evil. While certain magic varieties might change or "taint" things, the intention is really what matters.
4. Pirates have just never been my thing. People get a lot of enjoyment out of romanticizing them but there's nothing remotely romantic about them in reality. They're evil bastards who ought to be staked out over anthills in the desert.
Aren't all D&D games romanticizing life in a medieval setting that was in realty often miserable and depressing. We want the romance of Dungeons and Dragons not the reality of Turnips and Threshing.
I can't defend pirates and piracy, but it interesting to note that the typical sailor on a pirate vessel had more rights than a sailor in any of the world's navies. Many pirates were actually privateers, mercenaries that were commissioned by recognized governments.
Aren't all D&D games romanticizing life in a medieval setting that was in realty often miserable and depressing. We want the romance of Dungeons and Dragons not the reality of Turnips and Threshing.
I figured someone was going to ask this. And you're right. The difference to me is that the medieval ages are long past and little more than a collection of jumbled (and inaccurate) ideas that are usually mixed up and confused with the Renaissance. There's very little in the way of realism about the so-called medieval setting in RPGs to actually speak of.
Pirates live in the here and now, however, even if there's nothing in common with the pirates of today and those of the movies. People die at the hands of pirates all the time while westerners go to the movies and laugh at Jack Sparrow or walk around with eye-patches, peg legs and shouting Arrr. Or play rpgs pretending to be pirates themselves. I just don't find that amusing or interesting.
I can't defend pirates and piracy, but it interesting to note that the typical sailor on a pirate vessel had more rights than a sailor in any of the world's navies. Many pirates were actually privateers, mercenaries that were commissioned by recognized governments.
It's not about the rights of the individual so much as it's the atrocities they committed that concern me. Granted, we all commit atrocities with our dice and imagination behind the guise of our characters but again, pirates are too real for my taste. As I've said before, I'm fine with Paizo satisfying those who are interested in such games, I just don't happen to be one of them.
Generally speaking, I think it's easier to take a "generic" adventure and adapt it to have a specific gimmick than it is to take an adventure with a certain gimmick and adapt it to have a different gimmick.
If you don't like a specific theme, I.d love to know why. Why is it that you think everything is better with pirates, but that ninja can go dunk their heads? Or what ever combo applies to you? If you only like standard fair, what the.hell is it, and why do you like it, but not other things.It isn't that I don't like this theme or that theme. I just want them to fit coherently into the world. Most fantasy settings are based in a psuedo-Western Medieval world. Most of the character classes are from Western themes.
I don't want Ninjas in Camelot.
I'm not saying that there aren't places for these themes but they only really make since if they are used alone rather than lumped together in a big mass of unrelated ideas.
If I want Ninja I will play in a psuedo-Japanese Feudal society. It will have Samurai instead of Paladins. It won't have Conan the Barbarians and Gandalf-clones.
Ninja and the pirates of the age of sail existed in the real world simultaneously.
Golarion has technologies and a number of societies which mark it as being post medieval(late renaissance, actually). Golarion isn't really one of those 'psuedo-western medieval worlds.'
And you know what, it sticks together remarkably well for such a diverse setting.
Aren't all D&D games romanticizing life in a medieval setting that was in realty often miserable and depressing. We want the romance of Dungeons and Dragons not the reality of Turnips and Threshing.I figured someone was going to ask this. And you're right. The difference to me is that the medieval ages are long past and little more than a collection of jumbled (and inaccurate) ideas that are usually mixed up and confused with the Renaissance. There's very little in the way of realism about the so-called medieval setting in RPGs to actually speak of.
Pirates live in the here and now, however, even if there's nothing in common with the pirates of today and those of the movies. People die at the hands of pirates all the time while westerners go to the movies and laugh at Jack Sparrow or walk around with eye-patches, peg legs and shouting Arrr. Or play rpgs pretending to be pirates themselves. I just don't find that amusing or interesting.
How do you feel about Civil War reenactments, war games using real life units, the million World War 2 video games and the modern and Vietnam era war video games, or movies and RPGs about the wild west with sheriffs, outlaws, and gunslingers? Civil wars still happen now, thieves, gangs, and outlaws still exist, though they have nothing in common with the rustlers, outlaws, and gangs seen in Western movies but westerners still watch westerns, do cowboy shootouts, and dress up pretending to be Confederate and Union soldiers in reenactments all the time.
You are certainly entitled to find pirates uninteresting, but as with any era of history covered by an RPG or other media the pirates of pop culture have zero to do with real life pirates. Do you find sniper rogues, ninjas, and assassins unamusing because there have been many people murdered in modern times by snipers or other killers, or been mugged/robbed/defrauded by modern thieves? Or dislike zealous clerics and paladin/crusaders because overzealous people of almost all religions have done awful things?
Anyways, I've kinda swerved all over the place with this comment, and I totally support your feeling that pirates are non-interesting even though I don't share it. I just wanted to point out that disliking pirates because of a personal preference is definitely ok, but disliking fantasy romanticized pirates because of modern pirates while being ok with other romanticized fantasy cliches that have origins that aren't so romanticized is odd to me. Not that there's anything wrong with that, everyone has different things they are and aren't comfortable with, I just was wanting to point out many other romanticized modern things are at least as bad or worse than pirates in reality.
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Pirates - I don't really care one way or the other. I can see their place in things, mainly due to movies.... and not those "Sparrow" movies either. I liked the first one, shut off the second 30 minutes into it and have not watched any of the others. I lived a few years in southern Spain when I was very young (under 10) and I loved sitting in our yard looking out across the Sea of Gibraltor at Africa and dreaming while reading Treasure Island. We had moved there from Hawaii, and before Hawaii it was the Azores Islands. Each had aspects I identified with Pirates and to a lesser extent Gypsies.
But I don't want to roleplay one in PF. An encounter or really short adventure while fighting some form of pirate? Ya I can go for that. Just don't drag it out.
Samurai / Ninja / and to an extent monk... No Thank You. At all. Never really understood the appeal. I am not defending my views, just stating my side. Someone earlier summed it up for me rather succinctly: I do not want Ninja's in Camelot(or Hogwarts). The OP asked for reasons so I will state mine.
I am OLD by the standards of most on this board. I did not grow up with the influence of anime, pokemon, Final Fantasy, etc. I was already enlisted when the Nintendo came out. I am not drawn to it in the way many others might be because of it. My 'fantasy' is more traditional. Castles, Dragons, Knights, Elves, Faeries, ala Northern and Western Europian. The best example I can give is the original Forgotten Realms Setting. Starting from Vaasa draw a line due south, past Tantras to the Pirates Isles. Just South of the pirate isles turn your scissors west in a straight line Candlekeep. Throw everything east and south out. THAT is the perfect world for me.
Arabian/Egyptian - Facinating to me in real life... no interest in roleplaying there.
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I can handle a diversity of themes. I LIKE high action/adventure pure-concentrated-awesome games. I like genre mishmash and Eberron and magic trains. If I want a hard-edged, generic game, I'll play that. Those already exist. Rise of the Runelords still sits there, being awesome, a prototypical D&D campaign with lots of unique, surprising features. With that out of the way, paizo should be free to have fun with Indiana Jones APs and Pirate APs and Numeria aliens&supertech APs.
I'm not personally a fan of Asialand or L5R or whatever. I find the cultures ossified and over-formalized, and there's too many Weaboos in the fanbase of such things. However, I realize that other people do like those things, so I don't begrudge an AP set in such a setting. I just wouldn't be able to run it with any particular passion.
however, I'd PLAY in it, if only to be the Blithe Spirit who shakes things up, or be the "F~@% you, my honor is my own" Ronin.
How do you feel about Civil War reenactments, war games using real life units, the million World War 2 video games and the modern and Vietnam era war video games, or movies and RPGs about the wild west with sheriffs, outlaws, and gunslingers? Civil wars still happen now, thieves, gangs, and outlaws still exist, though they have nothing in common with the rustlers, outlaws, and gangs seen in Western movies but westerners still watch westerns, do cowboy shootouts, and dress up pretending to be Confederate and Union soldiers in reenactments all the time.
Well remember, I gave 4 reasons for not being interested in an AP centered on pirates. My previous post is only in regards to one aspect of my opinion. I also never really said it was a rational opinion. :)
I don't really have an opinion about Civil War re-enactments or similar war games. They don't really interest me, particularly when they're just refighting battles that have already been fought. What brings me to RPGs are the stories a group crafts together. I'm not really in it for the battles. That's just a part of the storytelling to me.
It's the nature of pirates that I don't like. Generally speaking (and I mean it when I say generally) they prey on the weak. I realize that's not always the case (the reason for the use of "generally") but by and large they're in the business to take what doesn't belong to them and they frequently rejoice in cruelty and bloodshed. It's all about the plunder.
I think that's very different from warfare. In most wars at least one side is fighting for their survival, their way of life, their beliefs, their people, families, whatever. There's a lot more meaning in that kind of thing.
I know Paizo is going to approach the pirate thing from more than one perspective and I think that's great. I'm just saying why I don't like pirates in general and everyone is absolutely free to disagree with me.
I might be able to enjoy the occasional movie or novel about pirates but ultimately I don't want to portray one, especially for a long term campaign.
Perhaps a pedantic response, but I mean it earnestly:
Zombieneighbours, why don't you enjoy basketball? Instead of your Wed night Pathfinder game, why not play Wed night basketball with the same group of friends?
You may retort with all sorts of reasons, ranging from not being very good at shooting hoops, to having a negative association with sports because you were picked on by jocks in highschool, to not enjoying getting sweaty and the possibility of sprained ankles. All of it comes down to "basketball isn't your thing, but Pathfinder is." Which is fine. You don't need to play basketball, you can play Pathfinder.
If my FLGS starting stocking basketballs next to the RPG books that I like to buy, I wouldn't start buying basketballs just because they were there. And if my ongoing subscription for RPG books starting charging me for basketballs, well, I'd be miffed.
I want to play in an RPG setting that is inspired from the stories I grew up with, where I can play a hero going on grand adventures. *shrug* I shouldn't need any explanation beyond that.
How do you feel about Civil War reenactments, war games using real life units, the million World War 2 video games and the modern and Vietnam era war video games, or movies and RPGs about the wild west with sheriffs, outlaws, and gunslingers? Civil wars still happen now, thieves, gangs, and outlaws still exist, though they have nothing in common with the rustlers, outlaws, and gangs seen in Western movies but westerners still watch westerns, do cowboy shootouts, and dress up pretending to be Confederate and Union soldiers in reenactments all the time.Well remember, I gave 4 reasons for not being interested in an AP centered on pirates. My previous post is only in regards to one aspect of my opinion. I also never really said it was a rational opinion. :)
I don't really have an opinion about Civil War re-enactments or similar war games. They don't really interest me, particularly when they're just refighting battles that have already been fought. What brings me to RPGs are the stories a group crafts together. I'm not really in it for the battles. That's just a part of the storytelling to me.
It's the nature of pirates that I don't like. Generally speaking (and I mean it when I say generally) they prey on the weak. I realize that's not always the case (the reason for the use of "generally") but by and large they're in the business to take what doesn't belong to them and they frequently rejoice in cruelty and bloodshed. It's all about the plunder.
I think that's very different from warfare. In most wars at least one side is fighting for their survival, their way of life, their beliefs, their people, families, whatever. There's a lot more meaning in that kind of thing.
I know Paizo is going to approach the pirate thing from more than one perspective and I think that's great. I'm just saying why I don't like pirates in general and everyone is absolutely free to disagree with me.
I might be able to enjoy the occasional movie or novel about pirates but...
That's cool, your feelings and opinions are your own and don't at all need to coincide with mine or even be rational. I don't see fantasy pirates as any better or worse than fantasy rogues robbing someone blind or a group of adventurers kicking in the door and slaughtering a dozen kobolds and taking their stuff. I am in agreement with you about not wanting my players to play ravaging pirates taking joy in slaughter and preying on the weak, just like I'd prefer in Kingmaker that when they get to army building they don't invade cities to pillage and burn, putting all the inhabitants to the sword. But playing as privateers raiding merchant ships with a letter of marque, "pirates" who raid slave ships as a way of fighting slavery, or somewhat "good" pirates who always are merciful to those they capture and fight more bloodthirsty pirates all seems like it will be a lot of fun to GM for me.
Anyways, I just wanted to get a clarification of where your head's at in regard to pirates and I think I understand where you're coming from better now. Thanks for the reply and hopefully either the pirate AP has stuff you can use or the next one Paizo puts out is more to your liking.
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Perhaps a pedantic response, but I mean it earnestly:
Zombieneighbours, why don't you enjoy basketball? Instead of your Wed night Pathfinder game, why not play Wed night basketball with the same group of friends?
You may retort with all sorts of reasons, ranging from not being very good at shooting hoops, to having a negative association with sports because you were picked on by jocks in highschool, to not enjoying getting sweaty and the possibility of sprained ankles. All of it comes down to "basketball isn't your thing, but Pathfinder is." Which is fine. You don't need to play basketball, you can play Pathfinder.
If my FLGS starting stocking basketballs next to the RPG books that I like to buy, I wouldn't start buying basketballs just because they were there. And if my ongoing subscription for RPG books starting charging me for basketballs, well, I'd be miffed.
I want to play in an RPG setting that is inspired from the stories I grew up with, where I can play a hero going on grand adventures. *shrug* I shouldn't need any explanation beyond that.
I do not play basket ball because I dislike the machismo of competitive nature of team sports, lack the skill set to be good at it and lack knowledge of the local teams. Their may well not even be any local teams on account of this being the UK, where we play rugby cricket and football, like the rest of the world, rather than made up 'special sports' ;) All that explains why I do not like it, saying 'it is not my thing' is merely a statement that I do not enjoy it.
Their is nothing wrong with trying to understand those reasons. The man who does not ask why, is lacking in imagination.
In that Spirit:
Why only 'the stories you grew up with?'
I am a big music fan, it holds a place of being almost medicinal when it comes to the bouts of depression I suffer from. The artists who I listened to when I was young hold great meaning for me, from the levellers and lead zepplin to Tracy Chapman and 10,000 maniacs, they all influence my taste greatly and will be with me til I die.
But the idea that my love of them would in some way stop me wanting to discover 'Sister Wife' by Alex Winston today, or my having gotten into hiphop, left field electronica, triphop, Drum and Bass, Punk, Ska and Dubstep is alien to me.
It is the same with AP themes. Sure I cut my teeth hunting Xenomorphs in a home brew system and battling chaos warped cultists in middenhiem and matured on a diet of Vitae and Quintessence, but I don't see any reason to limit my fun to Modern occult horror, old world murder hobos and Bug hunts with the Colonial marines.
It is the same with AP themes. Sure I cut my teeth hunting Xenomorphs in a home brew system and battling chaos warped cultists in middenhiem and matured on a diet of Vitae and Quintessence, but I don't see any reason to limit my fun to Modern occult horror, old world murder hobos and Bug hunts with the Colonial marines.
I agree
I don't like pirates for several reasons:
1. By and large people consider pirates to have cannon and other gunpowder based weapons and I hate gunpowder in my fantasy games.
Why?
2. I'm not interested in spending a lot of time struggling with swim mechanics.
The swim Mechanics are hardly complicated.
3. There are going to be several limitations to the types of characters you can play. Paladins won't work well, heavily armored warrior types will be at a severe disadvantage, magic will trump most of the intriguing challenges with ship to ship combat, heavily sea focused characters won't be of much use for land and vice versa, etc etc.
Every campaign has limits on it. I you wouldn't play the same character in CotCT as RotRL, or KM. For every avenue closed of, another opens, for instance a Weather witch is a dull choice in most games, but likely great fun in a pirate game.
Besides, constraints drive adaption. Having to move away from old favorates provides the oppotunity to try things you never would have otherwise.
Pirates, not so much. Privateers, on the other hand, interest me.
i like them all. my main reason for not purchasing carrion crown is i can only get one ap this year and i chose jade regent because it sounded more appealing (i dig epic journeys), and also because before running pathfinder we spent a good deal of time in 3.5 edition castle ravenloft.
tho if have some extra cash i plan on getting the odd cc book (it does sound like an awesome ap).
that said i'm a huge pirates fan.
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I've never been a huge fan of ninjas. It's just never been my thing and they feel so over done. I do love the whole Samurai thing though. Something about the honor and sometimes notable lack of it that puts me in the right headspace to enjoy it. I'm pretty easy going with it though. I can find something to like about almost any genre and I do enjoy a little genre mixing from time to time.
That said, Ravenloft specifically was a huge part of my initial gaming group so the horror stuff is always kind of fun to me. And the one nautical game I played was amazingly fun but that was mostly because I had a really imaginative and I might even say girly GM. Which made for a much brighter game with fey, unicorns, gay mermen and things I like to see occasionally but never really get to. Very sweeping, very story-centric and a whole lot of fun. I don't expect a pirate game to be anything like that but I still love the pirate stuff. I've got the romanticism of The Goonies permanently seared into my brain and it's happy there, right next Lost Boys. =P
I don't like pirates for several reasons:
1. By and large people consider pirates to have cannon and other gunpowder based weapons and I hate gunpowder in my fantasy games.
Why?
Personal preference. I realize gunpowder has a very long history in the real world but I just don't like to mix it up with magic, swordplay and archery. If I'm playing in a game that has gunpowder I'd prefer it to be set in a more modern era.
2. I'm not interested in spending a lot of time struggling with swim mechanics.
The swim Mechanics are hardly complicated.
It's not complicated. It's just boring. Most of the time swim checks amount to either moving a little bit, not moving at all, or moving in the wrong direction. In a sea-based campaign, chances are it won't be long at all before everyone has some sort of magic to compensate for it, in which case, what's the point? It's just a lot of pressure on the DM to either find out a way to make the water environment challenging/ interesting or just handwaving it away as a minor obstacle that's automatically overcome because it's not worth the trouble.
Every campaign has limits on it. I you wouldn't play the same character in CotCT as RotRL, or KM. For every avenue closed of, another opens, for instance a Weather witch is a dull choice in most games, but likely great fun in a pirate game.
Besides, constraints drive adaption. Having to move away from old favorates provides the oppotunity to try things you never would have otherwise.
This I agree with. I think it's the best argument for having a sea-based campaign. I've known lots of people who have wanted to play water-related races and classes over the years.
Unfortunately it's never really been that interesting to me. I think that in a sea-based campaign magic overwhelmingly resolves most of the challenges I'd be interested in confronting. You don't need a cannon, for example, when your wizard can cast fireball (or any of the other blast types of spells). You don't need fins or gills when someone can cast waterbreathing, water walk, etc. Casters don't even get as much of a disadvantage from not being able to wear armor since armor is such a huge disadvantage to everyone at sea.
The only thing I can think of that might be somewhat more interesting at sea than on land is combat underwater but I think that'll be so slow and frustrating that it'll just get tedious. That's just me, anyway.
I do realize that Paizo might have some brilliant ideas up their sleeves that'll blow me away, which is why I intend to keep my subscription. But the question isn't whether my mind can change but why I'm not interested in a pirate-centric campaign and these are my reasons.
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My $0.02.
Of the recent APs, I've been wildly enthusiastic about Kingmaker (the sandbox nature and kingdom-building aspects are great and more than make up for the pedestrian storyline) and Serpent Skull (lost cities in the jungle make my heart go pitty-pat).
I was skeptical of Carrion Crown based on the initial descriptions of the modules (since I have NO desire to, for example, "explore the blasphemous traditions of vampires," as one module said -- vampires are monsters who use sentients as food and need to be annihilated, and if I wanted anything else I'd go play White Wolf) but I was reassured that you didn't NEED to ally with monstrously evil things to complete the storyline and I've since become enthusiastic about that as well.
Jade Regent leaves me colder than cold, primarily because Far Eastern cultures are the least interesting to me of any modeled in Golarion. Literally, I would prefer an AP set ANYWHERE else in Golarion to one headed to Tian Xa. I don't care about China and Japan (in the gaming sense -- obviously I care about them as countries in the real world). I don't care about the culture. Ninjas and samurais bore me to tears. The last thing on God's green Earth I want to do is spend all evening roleplaying a frakkin tea service or bragging on my character's calligraphy. The cultures are too rigid and stratified, the cultural touchstones are utterly foreign to me so I have zero emotional attachment, and I'm simply not interested in Tian things as I would be in areas modeled on India or Greece or Mesopotamia or wherever. An AP can overcome a lot, but utter apathy is insurmountable.
Now with the pirate AP I'm cautiously enthusiastic. I despise gunpowder in my fantasy games -- I never have allowed it and I never will in games I run, and as a player I have less than zero interest in it, in that its presence instantly makes me much less interested in a situation than I would be without it. In my version of Golarion, there is no such thing as gunpowder, just as there is no crashed spaceship in Numeria. I want my fantasy fantastic, and gunpowder is mundane. And not only that but it messes up a system where damage and protection is based on muscle-powered weapons and leather/metal armor. So insofar as there will be story-critical gunpowder elements in it, I cringe. I will rewrite any references to gunpowder if I run the AP, and nobody in my group seems to like gunpowder in their fantasy games any more than I do so my guess is anyone else who runs it will do the same. However, it gives people a chance to play aquatic characters, which is very cool, and it's sandbox, which is even cooler, so I will definitely buy it.
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Jade Regent leaves me colder than cold, primarily because Far Eastern cultures are the least interesting to me of any modeled in Golarion. Literally, I would prefer an AP set ANYWHERE else in Golarion to one headed to Tian Xa. I don't care about China and Japan (in the gaming sense -- obviously I care about them as countries in the real world). I don't care about the culture. Ninjas and samurais bore me to tears. The last thing on God's green Earth I want to do is spend all evening roleplaying a frakkin tea service or bragging on my character's calligraphy. The cultures are too rigid and stratified, the cultural touchstones are utterly foreign to me so I have zero emotional attachment, and I'm simply not interested in Tian things as I would be in areas modeled on India or Greece or Mesopotamia or wherever. An AP can overcome a lot, but utter apathy is insurmountable.
+1
I will buy into the first 3 installments (the northern journey) but once it hits the pseudo-Asian lands I will drop my sub(s).
I agree with this post 100%: I have zero desire for Asian themed content and was disappointed to hear the announcement of this AP. I would have much preferred a separate Tian Xia Bestiary vs. what is being purposed for B3 so maybe I'll have to wait and see how much of an impact this AP will have on that product (and others) before picking it up.
Luckily it looks like I may just be out in the cold for just a few months through AP 52-54, Bestiary 3 and Dragon Empires. Hopefully there will be plenty of previews for B3, a few Asian themed monsters I can add to the pile of "never use", a few dozen would be an issue.
To me it's just a question of what I will eventually use (or even just mine/re-skin) and as it stands it looks like the last three AP installments will have zero potential use and a Bestiary with dozens of creatures that will never see the table.
A far better explanation than I could offer myself would be Greg Stafford's short essay on Genre vs Generic.
Context: he's defending a roleplaying game where the valid character choices are incredibly restrained (you can only play "knights") and why the setting is likewise restrained.
Puts on Grognard hat..
I've been around since the start and have played in every genre available. I'm also a movie buff and will watch anything that has Samurai,Knights,Flying Carpets, Pirates or Cowboys in it.I love the old Universal Monster movies although modern horror tends to leave me cold
Golarion lets me play in all the genres I am happy with without having to buy ten, twelve or fifteen other systems to play them.
Having said that I do appreciate that others might see things differently.
Off the AP's so far the only one I have been ambivelent about has been Second Darkness and even that had it's moments.
I'm looking forward to the pirates game. I'm able to seperate fact from fiction.
Yes, pirates in history(and present) were murderous psychos... but the pirates of the silver screen were often swashbuckling heroes... THAT I look forward to.
I'm fairly sure that whatever kind of AP this is... we're meant to be the heroes of the story. Now if the first adventure involves boarding a passenger ship, killing everyone on board and making the women and children walk the plank... I'll be out ;)
As for the Gunpowder. I agree, I like it to be VERY rare... But unless this AP crisscrosses with other 'traditional' D&D elements, I'll be fine with cannons. Honestly I've played LOTS of different settings... from Star Wars to 1890's... and I'll PROBABLY just think of it as a seperate setting using the Pathfinder rules...
Ninjas... I love ninjas. As a rule. However I'm not fond of GAMES about ninjas. Or more specifically Oriental cultures. I had friends who were VERY into Anime when i was in college, and I think I'm just Japaned out. Sneaky rogue assassins.. .I'm IN!!! Kimonos, tea, etc... ehhhh....
Kind of the same thing with Arabian culture settings. We played Al-Qadim for a summer, and I LOVED my character... but I wasn't fond of the setting. i just don't have as a good a reason for that one...
Maybe it's just changing cultures is too much to process... There are adventures and mysteries and puzzles to solve... I don't really want to have to 'think about' HOW I walked into the tavern... The little tiny nuances that SHOULD be ingrained in a character born there... But are still foreign to me. Takes me OUT of the game too much as opposed to slipping into character and enjoying the adventure.
HORROR I LOVE... I'll play any kind of ghost/monster hunting game you've got!!!
Jade Regent leaves me colder than cold, primarily because Far Eastern cultures are the least interesting to me of any modeled in Golarion. Literally, I would prefer an AP set ANYWHERE else in Golarion to one headed to Tian Xa. I don't care about China and Japan (in the gaming sense -- obviously I care about them as countries in the real world). I don't care about the culture. Ninjas and samurais bore me to tears. The last thing on God's green Earth I want to do is spend all evening roleplaying a frakkin tea service or bragging on my character's calligraphy. The cultures are too rigid and stratified, the cultural touchstones are utterly foreign to me so I have zero emotional attachment, and I'm simply not interested in Tian things as I would be in areas modeled on India or Greece or Mesopotamia or wherever. An AP can overcome a lot, but utter apathy is insurmountable.+1
I will buy into the first 3 installments (the northern journey) but once it hits the pseudo-Asian lands I will drop my sub(s).
I agree with this post 100%: I have zero desire for Asian themed content and was disappointed to hear the announcement of this AP. I would have much preferred a separate Tian Xia Bestiary vs. what is being purposed for B3 so maybe I'll have to wait and see how much of an impact this AP will have on that product (and others) before picking it up.
Luckily it looks like I may just be out in the cold for just a few months through AP 52-54, Bestiary 3 and Dragon Empires. Hopefully there will be plenty of previews for B3, a few Asian themed monsters I can add to the pile of "never use", a few dozen would be an issue.To me it's just a question of what I will eventually use (or even just mine/re-skin) and as it stands it looks like the last three AP installments will have zero potential use and a Bestiary with dozens of creatures that will never see the table.
Why? Okay, I get that you don't like Asian stuff, but what is it about it that you do not like? Why do you not like it?
Puts on Grognard hat..
I've been around since the start and have played in every genre available. I'm also a movie buff and will watch anything that has Samurai,Knights,Flying Carpets, Pirates or Cowboys in it.I love the old Universal Monster movies although modern horror tends to leave me cold
Golarion lets me play in all the genres I am happy with without having to buy ten, twelve or fifteen other systems to play them.
Having said that I do appreciate that others might see things differently.
Off the AP's so far the only one I have been ambivelent about has been Second Darkness and even that had it's moments.
A very healthy position if you ask me ;)
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Why? Okay, I get that you don't like Asian stuff, but what is it about it that you do not like? Why do you not like it?
Wasn't always the case. Back in the day I both ran and played in a 1st ed OA campaign. It was different but fun because most of it was based off of historical medieval era Japan and China - still wasn't super exciting, but it was a distraction.
No one wanted to be a one armed boxer, drunken master, or a master of the flying guillotine - to us it was just utterly stupid. Later Wuxia style movies just induced more rancor and disdain (and their influence on such horrid movies like the Matrix - utter trash). Running up walls and such idiocy was contrary to intelligence, but it got pushed so hard we see modern treatments of it in some rpgs.
For me the culture and their concepts of honor, what they constitute as horror, etc, are just alien to me. A samurai who kills someone because they looked at him the wrong way is behavior I associate with the US penal system and gang culture, not what I would consider "honorable". Something akin to the honor killings found in Islamic culture - I just can't get my Western brain to wrap around the concept.
A monster with a bowl of water in its head (and three anuses) is just stupid, not horrific - sorry.
If I ran the last three parts of the Jade Regent it would quickly devolve into comedy, spoofs and the such. There are very few serious Eastern fantasy stories that were out there to influence otherwise. None in the mainstream - and I don't want to dig through piles of cartoons to find a gem. So instead we have over the top anime, Kill Bill, elongated arms, and attacking with hair. To me its all a bad joke and I can't take any of it seriously.
If people like it, great. Asian themed cinema and culture is not something which gets my adventure blood boiling and the DM wheels spinning. When I use an Ogre Mage I just re-skin it to look like a more horrific version of the Western concept of an ogre - with magical abilities (progeny of witchcraft, etc). Most other Asian based creatures are impossible to re-skin and are thus useless to me as a DM.
If you love martial arts, ninjas, samurai and the wandering monk concept great, more power to you. Just isn't my thing nor has anyone in my group expressed any desire to play (even our resident Japanophile). It just doesn't move us and I sure as hell won't spend money on it if I can avoid it.
Again, not trying to insult anyone - this just my opinion. Not trying to start a fight with anyone because I know how much people here love this stuff.
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I'm kind of ambivalent to Pirates. They never appealed to me as something that I'd want to play in an RPG. Continuous seafaring adventures wasn't something that I was into, my only exposure to these types of things were Flynn's Captain Blood and Disney's Treasure Island.
I grew up in the 80's so between Sho Kosugi's movies, Shogun Assassin (aka Lone Wolf And Cub) and Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Golden Harvest and Shaw Brothers movies I had a healthy exposure to Asian action film. I was also just getting into actual anime (not Robotech, but Gundam, Heavy Metal L-Gaim, Aura Battler Dunbine and Giant Gorg) as well and liked the backstories of the characters and the sometimes complex moral conflicts in those stories that I found lacking in Western Animation.
The first time I saw Bruce Lee was probably in Fists Of Fury, but the movie that I saw after that was Way of the Dragon. His consistent dismantling of Chuck Norris at the end of that movie flicked a switch in my head. "Holy Crap. Someone OTHER than the white guy can be the hero and badass! And the white guy CAN get his butt kicked!" I dont know about anywhere else in America but in my neighborhood, we loved Ninja, Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan not only because they were cool but because they weren't the same old corny old soldiers or cops or cowboys that we'd been watching prior. You didn't have to be white to be cool or kick ass. Granted I still loved Steve McQueen and all of my other white heroes but now I had other options. I never considered, even as a kid, Blaxploitation to be serious (well maybe Shaft...) it was just buffoonery to me.
So I grew up accepting Ninja and Samurai right alongside the fantasy tropes of movies like Hawk the Slayer, Dragonslayer (Why dont more people appreciate this movie? I know it came out the same summer as Raiders and got overwhelmed by it but it's a REALLY good movie!) and John Boorman's Excalibur. In my head ninja and Samurai stuff were happening in another part of the world around the same time as Western Feudalism. I've run into people who dont want to mix asian stuff into their western fantasy games and I just kind of stare at them incredulously.
"So wait...Dragons and Elves are fine, but Ninja and Samurai and Wu Jen are what not realistic? All of those stories and movies about the white guy visiting another culture and learning their ways and then being accepted by that culture are fine? But God forbid the other way around? Huh."
You've got to see these things from my point of view because I was enamored of the western fantasy tropes especially from films, but there were NEVER anyone who looked like me in them. And I was fine with that, for a while anyway. But as far as RPG's went, all of that exclusionary BS was going out of the window if I was running or playing. A white washed world was never something that I was interested in being part of. The same would hold true if someone told me we were going to be playing in an African setting with no Western Fantasy aspects. Or an Asian setting that was to be completely homogenous.
Which brings me to the Horror games. I played CoC exactly once when I was about 17-18 years old at a con and will probably never play it again. I'm not partial to HP Lovecraft and the closest I've ever gotten to his works is my love for Stuart Gordon's film, Re-Animator and From Beyond. I've been told that his work is fairly racist and so I wont be bothered with it.
It's another reason, strange as it may sound that I don't play in games that take place before or after the Civil War in America, like Westerns. I'd want to at least play a character that resembles me and to do that would have to introduce a whole new bag of worms that I know that I wouldn't be comfortable dealing with especially with white players at the table. I'm not saying that all white people are racist asshats. What I am saying is that I never know who might be a racist asshat and who might not be, so better not to put myself in a position to find out at a gaming table where I'm trying to have fun.
So in short, Maybe to Pirates. YES to Ninja. NO to straight horror RPG's but yes to horror aspects in them.
Inspirational Quotes for any RPG
"Pathfinder's not medieval. It's the Wild West with swords and plate mail. It pulls in stuff from all over - Caine from Kung Fu, Celtic bards and druids, Vancian wizards, knight hospitallers with Biblical powers, Conan, Cugel the Clever, Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser, demi-humans from Tolkien. These guys, all together in the same hodgepodge of a world, enter a very big hole in the ground to fight a zoo of monsters from mythology, folklore, sci-fi, Hammer horror movies, HP Lovecraft, kids' toys and Paizo’s fevered imagination.” - adapted from ENWorld poster Doug McCrae
~
“And why the heck not? Rigorous historical play can be fun, but that's usually not what we're about in these games. Letting our cleric of Bast and her kung-fu monk best friend go mano-y-mano with a high priest of Cthulhu for the broken shards of Excalibur in a back alley of Sanctuary while the city is under siege by an army of Barsoomian apes under the sorcerous command of Yyrkoon of Melnibone is just fun! “- trollsmyth
I like a wide variety of themes. I have no problem with ninja's mixing with pirates as long as the world remains coherent. The fish out of water story (a ninja in a western style setting) is ok by me so long as it's tied to the world. IE a samurai dealing with the cultural differencs of living and adventuring in cheliax is an insteresting story for me. So bring on the pirates and the ninjas and whatever else you can come up with, so long as it's well done, I'll be interested.
If you don't like a specific theme, I.d love to know why. Why is it that you think everything is better with pirates, but that ninja can go dunk their heads? Or what ever combo applies to you? If you only like standard fair, what the.hell is it, and why do you like it, but not other things.
And I'd like to know why some people don't like the taste of liver and onions.
This is a foolish thread, with a foolish premise. There is a reason why the phrase "there is no accounting for taste" exists. Getting people to justify their preferences is a fool's errand and bound to fail, because generally it's impossible to actually justify one's taste to someone who does not share it in any way that will satisfy that person. (And I can't believe there's an entire thread topic going in this silly direction. Please don't.)
(To those that manage to do so - my hat's off to you. You're a rarity.)
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Not an attack, I promise:
For me the culture and their concepts of honor, what they constitute as horror, etc, are just alien to me. A samurai who kills someone because they looked at him the wrong way is behavior I associate with the US penal system and gang culture, not what I would consider "honorable". Something akin to the honor killings found in Islamic culture - I just can't get my Western brain to wrap around the concept.
"Honour" killings have a long history in Western culture too - the example that immediately comes to mind is the Roman Verginius, who killed his daughter because a patrician despot wanted to rape her. It comes up a lot in Early Modern and 18th century literature (Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, the Gothic novel etc). I'll bet there are some ugly stories from the culture of reprisals in formerly occupied France, Poland etc circa 1945.
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If you don't like a specific theme, I.d love to know why. Why is it that you think everything is better with pirates, but that ninja can go dunk their heads? Or what ever combo applies to you? If you only like standard fair, what the.hell is it, and why do you like it, but not other things.And I'd like to know why some people don't like the taste of liver and onions.
This is a foolish thread, with a foolish premise. There is a reason why the phrase "there is no accounting for taste" exists. Getting people to justify their preferences is a fool's errand and bound to fail, because generally it's impossible to actually justify one's taste to someone who does not share it in any way that will satisfy that person. (And I can't believe there's an entire thread topic going in this silly direction. Please don't.)
(To those that manage to do so - my hat's off to you. You're a rarity.)
Save that I can describe the reasons that lead me not to like Liver.
It tastes strongly of iron. It has an unpalatable texture, something like the bastard child of ice cream and cardboard when well cooked (or chewing leather when poorly cooked). I also have conceptual difficulties with eating liver, due to its role in a living animal that causes me to feel queasy at the through of eating it. All this is compacted by a range of social stimuli associated with having attended boarding school, where the institutional nature of meat times meant choosing between eating horribly badly cooked liver and not eating, social pressures to did like it and scalding from my late grandmother for not liking it.
On the other hand I do love onions, fried, roast or raw, and find the throught of spoiling the best of vegetables with liver to be repugnant. The sweetness of perfectly cooked onions would clash unpleasantly with the iron taste of the liver.
Our reasons for liking and disliking food is relatively difficult to quantify, because so much of the reason for a like or dislike is wholly biological. This is less true for the cerebral pleasures of the RPG, where matters of taste are far more influenced by our internal logic, and our experiences, be it that we find it difficult to suspend our disbelief with regards to a subject matter or that we find themes clash in an aesthetically displeasing manner.
Taste can be accounted for, be it through psychology, or criticism.
This isn't about justification. They are entirely entitled to their views. They reply of their own free will, and their is nothing wrong with wanting to understand their reasoning.
Perhaps it would be best that you either contribute to the thread, or ignore it. Either option would be more constructive. Because some of use are clearly finding the discussion interesting, even if you don't.
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Not an attack, I promise:
For me the culture and their concepts of honor, what they constitute as horror, etc, are just alien to me. A samurai who kills someone because they looked at him the wrong way is behavior I associate with the US penal system and gang culture, not what I would consider "honorable". Something akin to the honor killings found in Islamic culture - I just can't get my Western brain to wrap around the concept."Honour" killings have a long history in Western culture too - the example that immediately comes to mind is the Roman Verginius, who killed his daughter because a patrician despot wanted to rape her. It comes up a lot in Early Modern and 18th century literature (Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus, the Gothic novel etc). I'll bet there are some ugly stories from the culture of reprisals in formerly occupied France, Poland etc circa 1945.
Thanks for the civility - I’ll try to explain it as best I can:
In the west you have killing for Honor, I agree there are a ton of examples in history - even in modern times. You have the classic duels with swords or with pistols, the shotgun wedding (to restore the daughters honor), gang retaliations, etc. I suppose (to me at least) the difference is killing for Honor as a personal choice, and Honor Killings which is a social institution in many cultures.
You can have similar asinine reasons for killing people in the West - for real or imagined slights. These things are not restricted to which part of the world you come from, but Eastern/Asian culture places greater emphasis on family honor then what can be rationalized away (again, for me). Killing yourself is one thing, getting someone else to take their life because of someone else’s mistake or failing, is something I will never accept. The lives of an entire family suicided away because of one slight is absurd. Doesn't seem like it makes for very good heroic fantasy Rp.
Now a pseudo-medieval world can have all the crappy trappings of a real medieval world (barbarity, serfdom/slavery, faux honor) or it can be played up to be slightly more idealistic - the latter we get from books, movies and our own take on what we feel are right and wrong on how a magical pseudo-medieval society might work. So while I can Excalibur things up for fake Europa, I don't feel like that option exists for a fantasy feudal Japan. As a matter of fact I don't think that changing things would help (downplaying honor) and it would hollow things out. Maybe it's because there are less examples of a fantasy/idealized medieval orient growing up, I don't know. Maybe if there were more sword and sorcery (or even sandal) movies depicting ancient China or Japan in cinema growing up then it would be a different story. All I had as a kid to stimulate my imagination were terribad kung-fu movies. I ran 1st ed OA for a few years (on and off), there was little inspiration and motivation to continue running that game.
On the flips side there was Robin Hood, Excalibur, a slew of Harryhausen movies (that would make me want to play in an Arabian based campaign) depicting aspects of ancient Greece, India, Arabia and parts unknown.
For me it's a cultural disconnect and it's just unappealing. I guess to sum up it's a combination of an alien culture + poor sources of inspiration.
/snip/
That's a fantastic response, BTW.
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I find that examples of both pirates and ninjas are easily adaptible to western cultures of the medevil era. I mean the easiest is Pirates, most pirates undoubtedly stem form a more temperate or tropical ocean/sea area where they dressed differently often in loose clothing, and wielded weapons of the areas that where light, as well as traditional seafarer weapons axes, spears hooks and whatnot. The european and modern pirates though stem from the preexsisting concepts the vikings did when they raided their european nieghbors, which the spainsh ( the ideal pirate, and inspiration for those of the caribbean pirates) So if you reverted the pirate back to its roots..ie the viking it isn't that hard to see they are just more or less a regional recasting, I mean in esscense the viking, and the pirate, are no different that greecian marines.
As for ninjas, I'm sorry to say already exsist in western culture. Many countries had them, in fact we've all fought against them in rpgs, and watched them in movies, or read in stories. They may not all dress in black and wield semi mystic power, but they are there. They are spys, assassins, and secret agents. Now I know what your thinking, they are martial artists aswell. Well asia ins't the only land that has martial arts, i mean come on what is Boxing or wrestling if not a martial art! I mean so you can have your ninjas like any other and not be the whole hey I'm a mystical martial artist sent to kill you and be asia, you could be a whole redhaired irishmen gifted in stealth whos' connection to Arawn makes you extremely deadly and you grapple and punch people to death, and perfer knives to shurikens.
I mean yeah A whole AP around a theme or idea you like boxes you in, but to not look over all the material, like some said they would not, and others who said they would doesn't mean that if you use a little imagination, and digging that you can't put elements, even whole classes into games.
And to those who don't like gunpowder in thier games I am not hurt, though I am going to welcome it, only because i've played the whole sword and sorcery staples various times in lands like Arthurian england, Charlamnge, rome, evne conanesgue and tolkienesgue. A little expansion into this new terrioritory has made me want to do a I shudder Steampunk style game.
I'm saying this to encourage you all to maybe revisualize the ideas and maybe found something unique in it and throw it out there to see if your players will like it, if not you can always get rid of the idea. Thats my opinion, I love these concepts and will work with them as I can, remember when in doubt think out side the box first, and if you can't retool it into anything you'd even consider than discard, it takes time but could pay off in the end
And pardon my spelling and grammer, I know its bad, but my editor is in rehab!
Sailing ships are a weird environment. In my experience they *hugely* favor arcane casters, who love to have a water gap between them and their opponents; they also favor archers to a somewhat lesser degree. Every time we have seen wooden ships in a game, the arcane casters have essentially ruled play. Paizo seems to like to stock their pirate ships with mostly melee fighters and rogues. This is a recipe for Sudden Ship Death Syndrome as soon as you reach level 5, if not before.
Other than that I would be fine with pirates. But I don't really want a reprise of our Riddleport arc in Second Darkness, where the PCs owned every ship they came across. And I don't mean metaphorically. They ended up with a whole fleet--the only limiting factor was ability to find crews for them all. They had a well-developed ship-clearing drill and nothing the setting seemed naturally to produce was able to cope with it.
Similarly, my CoT party just caught a whole lot of rebel Hellknights on a ship, with the result that there are no longer any rebel Hellknights in Westcrown. Yay us!--but it was not an interesting fight, and I wouldn't want to see a lot more like it.
If Paizo seems able to fix this I would play in a pirate AP.
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People get a lot of enjoyment out of romanticizing them but there's nothing remotely romantic about them in reality. They're evil bastards who ought to be staked out over anthills in the desert.
People also romanticise adventurers.
It's all about the plunder.
You've just described most Pathfinder Society characters. Your average adventurer will kill anything that gets in it's way. They are a raging racist who is more then happy to kill certain people simply because "everyone of that race is evil." They also steal anything that isn't nailed down and will often lie to law enforcement and flee the scene of a crime they committed.
Doesn't stop people from playing them though.
I'm just not a big fan of the "adventurer" as seen in 4th ed and a large majority of Pathfinder Society characters. I can play one and have fun with it. But I'm going to be honest and acknowledge their alignment is not good (at best it's neutral). I'm not going to be a hypocrit and loot an entire dungeon and then say "I'm lawful good." This is a big part of my dislike for the alignment system and paladins. The hypocricy can be overwhelming.
NOTE: This is in response to Wander Weir, but not directed at him. He and his players may all play lawful good characters. They may uphold the law (or even a predefined set of ethos that doesn't involve stealing everything they can from someone's grave). They may do good deeds with no expectation of reward. They may refuse to kill anyone until that person has been given a fair and impartial trial where they are judged by a body of peers.
But if they do play in such a high minded manner, they're certainly the exception to the rule in my experience.
I usually avoid oriental fantasy like it's the plague, and therefore am planning on avoiding Jade Regent, unless my players come up with a really good bribe.