I want to say that I'm extremely proud that Paizo did not use "children play this game" as an excuse to not include gay/les/bi characters or topics.
I do wish, however, that there was a gay/les/bi iconic (and, I hasten to add, one that wasn't stereotypical). Alain, for example, could come out of the closet, stop overcompensating with regards to proving his masculinity by constant conquests of women, and become the lgbt representative among the iconics.
Paizo has outright stated that every iconic is to be considered bisexual.
I want to say that I'm extremely proud that Paizo did not use "children play this game" as an excuse to not include gay/les/bi characters or topics.
I do wish, however, that there was a gay/les/bi iconic (and, I hasten to add, one that wasn't stereotypical). Alain, for example, could come out of the closet, stop overcompensating with regards to proving his masculinity by constant conquests of women, and become the lgbt representative among the iconics.
Sorry, I'm gonna have to disagree there. I've never found the themes of sexuality or sexual identity to be a part of D&D (or Pathfinder)and I don't see how Paizo could add them without simply pandering to the GLBT community. If you want queer characters just throw them into your campaign. After all, it's not part of the listed character creation process and the only effect it has on your gameworld is what you DM says it does.
Paizo has outright stated that every iconic is to be considered bisexual.
Really?! Where?
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Sorry, I'm gonna have to disagree there. I've never found the themes of sexuality or sexual identity to be a part of D&D (or Pathfinder)and I don't see how Paizo could add them without simply pandering to the GLBT community. If you want queer characters just throw them into your campaign. After all, it's not part of the listed character creation process and the only effect it has on your gameworld is what you DM says it does.
Would you also consider it pandering to the breeder community if one of the iconics was married and had kids?
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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Sorry, I'm gonna have to disagree there. I've never found the themes of sexuality or sexual identity to be a part of D&D (or Pathfinder)and I don't see how Paizo could add them without simply pandering to the GLBT community. If you want queer characters just throw them into your campaign. After all, it's not part of the listed character creation process and the only effect it has on your gameworld is what you DM says it does.I want to say that I'm extremely proud that Paizo did not use "children play this game" as an excuse to not include gay/les/bi characters or topics.
I do wish, however, that there was a gay/les/bi iconic (and, I hasten to add, one that wasn't stereotypical). Alain, for example, could come out of the closet, stop overcompensating with regards to proving his masculinity by constant conquests of women, and become the lgbt representative among the iconics.
Although I protest the use of the term "queer", I otherwise agree with this post. Given that sexuality isn't really part of the defined parameters of the game, what's the point in even referencing it one way or the other for the iconics? Sure, you might include that data for an NPC if it's relevant to the plot of an AP, but aside from that, who cares? Let the players and GMs decide for their characters/NPCs and leave it at that.
Sorry, I'm gonna have to disagree there. I've never found the themes of sexuality or sexual identity to be a part of D&D (or Pathfinder)and I don't see how Paizo could add them without simply pandering to the GLBT community. If you want queer characters just throw them into your campaign. After all, it's not part of the listed character creation process and the only effect it has on your gameworld is what you DM says it does.
1st ed. Ad&D begs to differ as does The book of erotic fantasy. Now each group must come to a consensus of what is or is not too much for their group/table. For some sex in many forms, GLBT issues and characters, and kink will be OK. Some will have no problems addressing necrophilia, sex slavery, and the sexualization of children. But to deny that sexuality and taboos have had a long term place in the game is not true.
Edit: Additionally one of the Conan modules made around the release of the first movie had some involved seduction rules in one of them for 1st ed due to that being a relevant subplot in the story.
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Paizo has outright stated that every iconic is to be considered bisexual.Really?! Where?
It was in a thread where the topic of the gay/les iconic came up and people was asking speculating on who it was. I believe it was James who made the comment you could just consider them all bi or something to that effect. I don't think Paizo intends to out their iconic, though they have assured us one of them is.
Although I protest the use of the term "queer", I otherwise agree with this post. Given that sexuality isn't really part of the defined parameters of the game, what's the point in even referencing it one way or the other for the iconics? Sure, you might include that data for an NPC if it's relevant to the plot of an AP, but aside from that, who cares? Let the players and GMs decide for their characters/NPCs and leave it at that.
Sorry, I don't use the term 'queer' to be offensive, but it's a great word encompassing everyone of a deviant sexuality.
But my point was this: unless I'm mistaken, most of the iconics don't even have a defined sexuality as of right now. How would it not be pandering if they said "Look, this one is gay! Enjoy yourselves, gay community."
Zon Kuothon is a god that tourtures people.
Also reading the ask mersierel questions thread could give some important hints.
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Although I protest the use of the term "queer", I otherwise agree with this post. Given that sexuality isn't really part of the defined parameters of the game, what's the point in even referencing it one way or the other for the iconics? Sure, you might include that data for an NPC if it's relevant to the plot of an AP, but aside from that, who cares? Let the players and GMs decide for their characters/NPCs and leave it at that.Sorry, I don't use the term 'queer' to be offensive, but it's a great word encompassing everyone of a deviant sexuality.
But my point was this: unless I'm mistaken, most of the iconics don't even have a defined sexuality as of right now. How would it not be pandering if they said "Look, this one is gay! Enjoy yourselves, gay community."
Most don't but some do, like Alain is portrayed as a womanizer. So if that is ok then so would be mentioning in passing one of them liked the same gender. I mean the choices is either give fair and equal treatment to everyone or completely remove it. Which I am opposed to cause sex and sexuality is big parts of everyone's life in RL and to me to make believable characters you have to at least consider their views on it. Even if it never comes up in the game, as it could still have a impact. (by not coming up I mean you don't need to talk about sex for it to impact the game)
Marking this thread waiting for the fun to begin
****gets A chair and some POPCORN****
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I like the iconics to be fully 3 dimensional. Some of them will be left handed and some of them will be right handed. Some of them will like celery and others won't. Some of them will be gay and some won't.
I never play a character in DnD as if it's only what I rolled up in the character creation process. Rather, I give it all these features and more. I make characters which are cowardly, others that are proud. I make characters that are prone to anger and others that are wise beyond their years. I make characters that are cooking afficionados and others that couldn't make toast. Sexuality in any healthy individual goes far beyond who is sleeping with whom and ties into matters of self-security and self-identity, perception of law vs. chaos, etc.In short, I make and roleplay characters, not just numbers on a character sheet.
And part of the fun of characters is their diversity. Everyone is unique. And living with and working with different characters with different values, perceptions, and motivations as we grow up and grow old is a big part of life as well. For that reason, I think that tossing sexual diversity out the window and just saying "everyone is bi" is cutting something significant out of the game.
I don't think James was saying they all was bi, only that we the fans could consider them that way. I took it to mean more that Paizo wasn't ready to revel which iconics bat for which team yet.
For the record I agree with the first part of your post.
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In short, I make and roleplay characters, not just numbers on a character sheet.
Holy crap, you managed to bleed that into this discussion?
I miss the days when things like homosexuality were the "big issues" that got forced into tangentially-related conversations, rather than things like the Roleplay VS Rollplay fallacy.
Being in a discussion that's actually about "big issues" and having RvR forced in makes me feel like I'm in bizarro world. :P
I like the iconics to be fully 3 dimensional. Some of them will be left handed and some of them will be right handed. Some of them will like celery and others won't. Some of them will be gay and some won't.
I never play a character in DnD as if it's only what I rolled up in the character creation process. Rather, I give it all these features and more. I make characters which are cowardly, others that are proud. I make characters that are prone to anger and others that are wise beyond their years. I make characters that are cooking afficionados and others that couldn't make toast. Sexuality in any healthy individual goes far beyond who is sleeping with whom and ties into matters of self-security and self-identity, perception of law vs. chaos, etc.In short, I make and roleplay characters, not just numbers on a character sheet.
And part of the fun of characters is their diversity. Everyone is unique. And living with and working with different characters with different values, perceptions, and motivations as we grow up and grow old is a big part of life as well. For that reason, I think that tossing sexual diversity out the window and just saying "everyone is bi" is cutting something significant out of the game.
Lilith, I agree with your approach to gaming. In fact, this is exactly how I do it as well.
Adding sexuality to pathfinder is a big complicated mess, particularly when you start trying to wade through all of the "let's be politically correct" tape. I worry that adding little notes like "he's gay," "she's asexual," or "she's transgendered" are going to push the game away from what it's designed to do: let you tell your own story.
I can't think of a single aspect of the game (please, correct me if I'm wrong) that in any form tells you that gay is wrong or promotes heterosexuality. Even the succubus, a classic concept of women vs. straight men, is gender neutral in what she's willing to seduce. If anything the game still has a ridiculous amount of sexist notions in it that are simply legacies of D&D and modern culture.
But my point was this: unless I'm mistaken, most of the iconics don't even have a defined sexuality as of right now. How would it not be pandering if they said "Look, this one is gay! Enjoy yourselves, gay community."
If the human sexuality researchers are correct about the %-age of homosexuals staying near constant in the totality of humanity having one or 2 as we are over 20 iconics now would actually be just being truthful.
Purely my opinion mind you that it should be overt so that folks of all orientations can be exposed to difference as well as being able to see similarities in "Iconic" figures in a hobby they engage in.
In short, I make and roleplay characters, not just numbers on a character sheet.Holy crap, you managed to bleed that into this discussion?
I miss the days when things like homosexuality were the "big issues" that got forced into tangentially-related conversations, rather than things like the Roleplay VS Rollplay fallacy.
Being in a discussion that's actually about "big issues" and having RvR forced in makes me feel like I'm in bizarro world. :P
lol, I know exactly how you feel.
In short, I make and roleplay characters, not just numbers on a character sheet.Holy crap, you managed to bleed that into this discussion?
I miss the days when things like homosexuality were the "big issues" that got forced into tangentially-related conversations, rather than things like the Roleplay VS Rollplay fallacy.
Being in a discussion that's actually about "big issues" and having RvR forced in makes me feel like I'm in bizarro world. :P
If you want big issues how about a qillipoth variant tiefling that is an abortionist.
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I suggest somewhere there could be mention of a black market for "cursed" Belts of Gender Changing. Even just as a throw-away line in a splat book somewhere it would introduce the T of LGBT into Golarion without being overt. In Quantium, maybe, given the city's love affair with magic and the fact that Katapesh has already been written up.
The RotRL player's guide handled it well with Sandpoint's open secret about the love affair between the guy running the theater and that one paladin. It was nice, subtle, and had exactly as much fanfare as the het relationships have. No more and no less.
Do the iconics have to be out loud and proud? No. Because in the end it doesn't really matter. And it's a powder keg. Take Valeros and his drinking and whoring. If he were gay and still drinking and whoring he'd get blasted as a sex-crazed stereotype by one side while the other side just went "eeeeeewwwww" and whined. It'd be whining all around. Just backing off and defaulting to "they're bi, leave it alone" is actually the best solution in terms of trying to not set off that keg.
Once/If the iconics were retired, that's another story. If, say, Ezren settles down with a nice man after hitting level 20 and conjuring his own kingdom out of plot holes and dust then that's great. Never did it require "and he's gay" pasted at the end of a character description.
Now let's open the powder keg on the hotter gender. If Seoni were suddenly outed as a lesbian there'd be the camp that just drools about it, the camp that started whining about lesbians being portrayed as scantily clad sex objects yet again, and the camp that as always just goes "eeeeewwww" and whines. Whining all around. And drool.
Amiri isn't much better with the whole gung-ho barbarian-ness. Whining about how lesbians aren't all butch, whining about how she's not hot enough to be a lesbian, and the ever present "eeewww".
Or they could always handle it the way James Jacobs is handling Merisiel. In the "Ask Merisiel" thread in the off-topic forums she keeps hitting on an uninterested Kyra. Merisiel is bad at subtle.
I keep mentioning the camp that goes "eeewww" because there always is one. There's one whining about het relationships, one whining about too much gore, one whining about complex plots, railroading, pink Gnome books, and one about LGBT stuff. Someone's always gonna whine "eeeewww". The questions is, is it small enough to ignore? Usually, yes. I only hope when (yes, when) Paizo decides to handle more LGBT issues the group that whines "eeeeewwww" stays small enough to ignore.
Marking this thread waiting for the fun to begin
****gets A chair and some POPCORN****
*pulls up a chair next to Lobo along with a airline style beverage cart*
Would you like coffee or tea?
Marking this thread waiting for the fun to begin
****gets A chair and some POPCORN*****pulls up a chair next to Lobo along with a airline style beverage cart*
Would you like coffee or tea?
Are you in the rocking Pan-Am stewardess outfit TCG?
If so Tea please.
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I keep mentioning the camp that goes "eeewww" because there always is one. There's one whining about het relationships, one whining about too much gore, one whining about complex plots, railroading, pink Gnome books, and one about LGBT stuff.
And don't forget the "eeewww" crowd for the opposite of each of those - too little gore, simplistic plots, etc. You are definitely right that there is always an "eeewww" crowd.
I seriously hope Paizo will do some kind of Book of Vile Darkness title for the core line or at least lets a third party publisher release a compatible one (without taking it down and applying black bars to everything).
Also...
If you want big issues how about a qillipoth variant tiefling that is an abortionist.In short, I make and roleplay characters, not just numbers on a character sheet.Holy crap, you managed to bleed that into this discussion?
I miss the days when things like homosexuality were the "big issues" that got forced into tangentially-related conversations, rather than things like the Roleplay VS Rollplay fallacy.
Being in a discussion that's actually about "big issues" and having RvR forced in makes me feel like I'm in bizarro world. :P
One of my players created that exact character (except she also ate the--well, you know).
Creative Director
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While we've certainly written up short character bios for most of our iconics... you'll note that one thing that we generally avoid nailing down in those bios are the sexual preferences for said iconics. This is on purpose, both because we want to save those types of reveals for a more appropriate context (say, a novel or some other sort of fiction that might star some of them), and because, as they are intended to be pre-generated characters, so that any player can pick them up and play them as straight, gay, bisexual, transgender, or whatever they want.
We may, some day, present something for the iconics that reveals a lot more about them. I certainly know a fair amount more about them than what's presented in their histories. And that includes which ones are gay or actual bisexual—and it's not necessarily the "obvious" ones.
The comment, "Assume they're all bisexual" was meant mostly to say, "They can be whatever sexual orientation you want them to be in your game if you play them as characters."
Since they're not (yet) in the category of NPC in Golarion... we haven't yet taken that step with them is all.
In any case, we've had openly gay characters in Pathfinder products since Pathfinder #1. In most cases, though, their sexuality isn't really all that important to the story is all, so it tends to be understated. Straight, gay, or otherwise.
Marking this thread waiting for the fun to begin
****gets A chair and some POPCORN*****pulls up a chair next to Lobo along with a airline style beverage cart*
Would you like coffee or tea?
Are you in the rocking Pan-Am stewardess outfit TCG?
If so Tea please.
The extremely sexist stylized 60's version, yes.
*hands Dragonsong a teacup.
While we've certainly written up short character bios for most of our iconics... you'll note that one thing that we generally avoid nailing down in those bios are the sexual preferences for said iconics. This is on purpose, both because we want to save those types of reveals for a more appropriate context (say, a novel or some other sort of fiction that might star some of them), and because, as they are intended to be pre-generated characters, so that any player can pick them up and play them as straight, gay, bisexual, transgender, or whatever they want.
We may, some day, present something for the iconics that reveals a lot more about them. I certainly know a fair amount more about them than what's presented in their histories. And that includes which ones are gay or actual bisexual—and it's not necessarily the "obvious" ones.
The comment, "Assume they're all bisexual" was meant mostly to say, "They can be whatever sexual orientation you want them to be in your game if you play them as characters."
Since they're not (yet) in the category of NPC in Golarion... we haven't yet taken that step with them is all.
In any case, we've had openly gay characters in Pathfinder products since Pathfinder #1. In most cases, though, their sexuality isn't really all that important to the story is all, so it tends to be understated. Straight, gay, or otherwise.
Thanks for stepping in, James. You really know how to steer the tone of a conversation. <3
I sorta figured that this is where your team was headed. You've been pretty careful to leave sexuality out of the game, particularly at points in which it could have easily been a factor.
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While we've certainly written up short character bios for most of our iconics... you'll note that one thing that we generally avoid nailing down in those bios are the sexual preferences for said iconics. This is on purpose, both because we want to save those types of reveals for a more appropriate context (say, a novel or some other sort of fiction that might star some of them), and because, as they are intended to be pre-generated characters, so that any player can pick them up and play them as straight, gay, bisexual, transgender, or whatever they want.
We may, some day, present something for the iconics that reveals a lot more about them. I certainly know a fair amount more about them than what's presented in their histories. And that includes which ones are gay or actual bisexual—and it's not necessarily the "obvious" ones.
The comment, "Assume they're all bisexual" was meant mostly to say, "They can be whatever sexual orientation you want them to be in your game if you play them as characters."
Since they're not (yet) in the category of NPC in Golarion... we haven't yet taken that step with them is all.
In any case, we've had openly gay characters in Pathfinder products since Pathfinder #1. In most cases, though, their sexuality isn't really all that important to the story is all, so it tends to be understated. Straight, gay, or otherwise.
This is what I think Sean FitzSimon was trying to get at earlier in the thread - that with iconics being (in some sense) a blank canvas, they need not have a defined sexuality, leaving that choice to the player.
That choice should always be for the player. No one's trying to shove sexuality into a deep dark corner by not "outing" the iconics.
Marking this thread waiting for the fun to begin
****gets A chair and some POPCORN*****pulls up a chair next to Lobo along with a airline style beverage cart*
Would you like coffee or tea?
Are you in the rocking Pan-Am stewardess outfit TCG?
If so Tea please.
The extremely sexist stylized 60's version, yes.
*hands Dragonsong a teacup.
Thankee-sai!
Marking this thread waiting for the fun to begin
****gets A chair and some POPCORN*****pulls up a chair next to Lobo along with a airline style beverage cart*
Would you like coffee or tea?
Are you in the rocking Pan-Am stewardess outfit TCG?
If so Tea please.
The extremely sexist stylized 60's version, yes.
*hands Dragonsong a teacup.
Tea..Earl grey, hot Engage
why is every body being so civil! where is all the good stuff! besides Tiny coffee golems mustache and stewardess outfit.
While we've certainly written up short character bios for most of our iconics... you'll note that one thing that we generally avoid nailing down in those bios are the sexual preferences for said iconics. This is on purpose, both because we want to save those types of reveals for a more appropriate context (say, a novel or some other sort of fiction that might star some of them), and because, as they are intended to be pre-generated characters, so that any player can pick them up and play them as straight, gay, bisexual, transgender, or whatever they want.
We may, some day, present something for the iconics that reveals a lot more about them. I certainly know a fair amount more about them than what's presented in their histories. And that includes which ones are gay or actual bisexual—and it's not necessarily the "obvious" ones.
The comment, "Assume they're all bisexual" was meant mostly to say, "They can be whatever sexual orientation you want them to be in your game if you play them as characters."
Since they're not (yet) in the category of NPC in Golarion... we haven't yet taken that step with them is all.
In any case, we've had openly gay characters in Pathfinder products since Pathfinder #1. In most cases, though, their sexuality isn't really all that important to the story is all, so it tends to be understated. Straight, gay, or otherwise.
Ah, yes, that's pretty much what I thought. 'You can consider them bisexual' isn't the same as 'they are bisexual.' Thanks for clarifying James.
I was going to start a thread asking which characters in Golarion products have been named as LGBT since I'm about to introduce a friend to the game (and, in fact, to rpgs in general) who's gay, and I wanted to be able to show a degree of verisimilitude between Golarion and the real world in this respect. But having searched for threads on homosexuality on the messageboards, and seen how incendiary the last ones turned out, I thought better of it.
But having searched for threads on homosexuality on the messageboards, and seen how incendiary the last ones turned out, I thought better of it.
That's the problem with the internet though, isn't it? Without tone and inflection it's easy to interpret a statement that was supposed to be interpreted as "I'm not sure I understand where gay people are coming from" to "All gay people are morally wrong and terrible!"
I haven't been witness to very much out-and-out hatred on the paizo forums, since most people here are concerned with the overall tone and friendliness of the place. But hot damn, there are some short fuses.
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I never thought of the iconics as pre-made PCs because their character sheets aren't listed in the books in which they first appear. So, players can't play them.
I've always assumed they were NPCs.
Oh, really? Yeah, they're actually the pregens used in Society play if someone shows up and doesn't have a character. In fact, each one exists at multiple levels: 1st, 4th, and 7th.
If they were NPCs, then I would agree with you that including their sexuality in their bio would be appropriate.
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And I do appreciate the fact that Paizo has acknowledged diversity in sexual orientation in their published material. I started off my comments in this thread by saying that I'm extremely proud of the fact that they've done so.
But I'd still like to see one of the Iconics come out as non-stereotypically LGBT.
And again... the disconnect I think you're having is the fact that the iconics are not NPCs. They're PCs. And as such, we try to err on the side of locking them in with as little character "baggage" as possible, so that if folks DO want to play them as characters, they get to customize them more to make them feel like their own characters rather than playing someone else's character.
At some point, we may make the switch from these iconics being more detailed people in their own right (and thus more like NPCs) and less things we invented primarily to give to artists as art reference for class and race types and things we invented secondarily to give folks some pregenerated characters to use if they didn't have time to make their own characters for an adventure at the last minute, say, at a convention.
The fact that we have straight, gay, lesbian, and bisexual people working at Paizo and making some pretty important decisions at Paizo more or less ENSURES that we'll continue to have straight, gay, lesbian, bisexual, etc. characters show up in our products. And that means that, if we SOME DAY do more with our iconics than short blog posts about their life history condensed down to 500 some words, stats for conventions/adventures, and art reference... things like sexuality will be revealed as appropriate for the situation.
It's not the right time to do so now. Mostly because we don't have the right VENUE to out them yet.
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I never thought of the iconics as pre-made PCs because their character sheets aren't listed in the books in which they first appear. So, players can't play them.
I've always assumed they were NPCs.
Actually... in Pathfinder #1, they had character sheets as PCs, presented SPECIFICALLY as pre-generated PCs. And since the cover of Pathfinder #1 is the first place our first iconic appeared... that's more or less exactly what happened.