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To put this in context I've been collecting pathfinder since near the beginning and one thing that has always struck me is how the Pathfinder society come across as pretty unlikable. Between Seeker of secrets, What happend in the Elando story and the current fiction the society comes across as a bunch of Elitest jerks.
Now my question is this supposed to be the case? Reading shatted star and the entombed with the phareoes module series the society in them comes across as much more reasonable and likable (As well as many of the society characters in the adventure path fiction). So is the society as presented in Seeker of secrets the norm (I believe it has been mentioned there were a fair few mistakes in that) or is it more a case of early work which is now no longer cannon?
I've always liked them. But have disliked individuals.
Greg
EDIT: I make them jerks or lovable depending on how I need them.
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I thought they were awesome before Seekers of Secrets came out and eagerly dove into the book to find out how I could play a PC who was part of the Society. I was almost physically sickened by what I read about the initiation process. Being press-ganged by Shackles pirates or inducted into the Church of Razmir is more humane and respectful of the dignity of the individual than the process of joining the Pathfinder Society. Since reading that book, I haven't wanted my PCs to have anything to do with them, unless it's to find a way to bring them down. If the initiation process has been retconned to be less like the multiple years of virtual slavery presented as canon in that reference, it needs to be publicly stated, like elves not trancing as depicted in Elves of Golarion or there being no paladins of Asmodeus in Golarion. Dave Gross's reference in the current webfiction to Varian Jeggare not having to go through the process due to his noble birth just makes me despise them more: Not only are they sadistic jerks, they're elitist sadistic jerks.
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I thought that the apprenticeship process for pathfinders was perfectly reasonable. I wouldn't want a PC to have to go through it in-session, unless it was the basis for a campaign, but as an idea for the level of training they provide their agents, most, before sending them out into the field it seems reasonable. Also I believe Seeker also included mention of field commissions, a way in which people can become members without going through the years long apprenticeship process.
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My problem with it on a mechanical level is that they seem hypocritical, their primary purpose is the honest recording of events into the unknown yet hire and use members who would be interested in anything but. My best example of this is the sczarni faction which often is seeking to use the society of their own amoral aims yet are expected to accurately report on the missions they are heading out on. How do they expect them to reliably report on anything they run into when they are part of a large criminal organization who's job is to be anything but honest?
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Here is the problem I see, you are now mixing the in game organization Pathfinder Society, with the real-world organization Pathfinder Society Organized Play. For organized play, they stretched the boundaries to provide more interesting options for players in the Organized Play group.
As far as the Sczarni go, the Society only cares about the accuracy of details relevant to the mission. If while on a mission for the society they also smuggle stolen goods across a border, that detail is not relevant to the Society's purpose, nor is the meeting with your contact to exchange said smuggled goods for payment.
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My problem with it on a mechanical level is that they seem hypocritical, their primary purpose is the honest recording of events into the unknown yet hire and use members who would be interested in anything but. My best example of this is the sczarni faction which often is seeking to use the society of their own amoral aims yet are expected to accurately report on the missions they are heading out on. How do they expect them to reliably report on anything they run into when they are part of a large criminal organization who's job is to be anything but honest?
Members of the sczarni faction in PFS aren't supposed to be actual pathfinders. If you reread the description of the faction, they are the smugglers more or less hired to do the dirty jobs that the pathfinders don't want to be caught directly involved in. They have enough dealings that they scratch each others backs when they both have business in the same area... similar to politicians giving jobs to donors.
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My problem with it on a mechanical level is that they seem hypocritical, their primary purpose is the honest recording of events into the unknown yet hire and use members who would be interested in anything but. My best example of this is the sczarni faction which often is seeking to use the society of their own amoral aims yet are expected to accurately report on the missions they are heading out on. How do they expect them to reliably report on anything they run into when they are part of a large criminal organization who's job is to be anything but honest?
It also seems to me that there's a conflict in flavor between the rigorousness of Pathfinder training and the fact that the vast majority of Pathfinders still maintain strong loyalty to some organization outside the Society. That goes for the Sczarni for sure, but also to the Silver Crusade and all of the national factions.
In real life, training like that is used by militaries (and cults) to instill an exclusive primary loyalty to the training organization. And it usually works.
Also keep in mind that if some figures do come across as having an elitist attitude, it's because they've in most cases have earned their stripes, paid their dues.
With the exception of any Pathfinders of noble birth, who are explicitly stated in Killing Time as exempt from the humiliations inherent in initiation. If scrubbing chamberpots and giving up all your worldly possessions is so necessary to Pathfinder training, then why don't the nobility have to do it? And if it's not necessary but just something they can do because they're the Pathfinders and can get away with it, then it's nothing more than childish hazing like you'd go through to get into a fraternity -- except that lasts a semester and this involves several years of menial servitude, public floggings, and exacting obedience to every order issued by a Pathfinder.
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I'm also not crazy about the idea that the Pathfinder Society is some sort of paramilitary organization. When the campaign setting first came out, it sounded a lot more like a loose affiliation of like-minded individuals (like an explorer's club) and that's how I treat it when I'm GMing.
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Just because they engage in a large degree of training does not make them paramilitary. They are training their members to better be able to deal with the incredible variety of strangeness and danger that can be encountered on their missions.
One more thing, I got the distinct impression in reading the available material that the "hazing" aspect was common only in the earliest part of the training experience. As apprentices advance in their training that aspect drops off. At least that was my impression.
The way I look at it, the hazing serves a valuable purpose to the Society. They are only interested in individuals with the will and determination to persevere through any difficulty to reach their goal. After all trainees can leave at any time they are in fact not slaves and retain the right to abandon their training and leave.
I would imagine a large part of the "hazing" is punctuated by reminders of this fact.
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Just like in the real world money can get you things that people without money do not have access to. Is it good? No. Is it realistic? Yes. Hypocrisy, nepotism, etc. exist in any organization of decent size. The larger and more powerful contain these all the more.
I have no problem with the Pathfinder Society being a petty and corrupt organization. I have a problem with the Pathfinder Society being a petty and corrupt organization and simultaneously being held up as a group every PC wants to join. Society membership is the carrot in many Paizo adventures.
Even if offered a field commission -- not the normal kind which allows you to apply your discovery or work on the Society's behalf to your final project but still requires you to report to Absalom, give up all your stuff, and clean chamberpots for the Pathfinder muckamucks until they deem you worthy to be one of them, but the special once-in-a-generation kind that lets you skip all the menial work altogether -- why would a Chaotic Good character who values the rights of individuals above all else want to be associated with a group that routinely treats people like that, even if they're not her?
And I don't see how conditioning people to obey orders blindly makes them more able to think quickly on their feet when alone in unpredictable circumstances, as agents usually are. Seems like the Society is working against itself in being so regimented.
EDIT: I get that people can disagree whether the initiation is worthwhile or not. The problem for Paizo is that there are people, like me, who were turned from liking the Society to hating it by the description in Seekers of Secrets. It makes me want to not participate in organized play or run the Shattered Star AP, for example. Without the regimented process detailed, everyone could like the Pathfinders. Now, fewer people do.
Just because they engage in a large degree of training does not make them paramilitary. They are training their members to better be able to deal with the incredible variety of strangeness and danger that can be encountered on their missions.
The type of organization that has trained agents that perform specific missions on behalf of a central authority is what I mean by "paramilitary".
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Okay, in my opinion, you are focusing on one small piece of the training. I don't see the hazing as teaching them to obey orders blindly, I see it as teaching/proving perseverance.
Second, in my opinion, it is impossible for an organization the size of the Pathfinder Society to not suffer from corruption and pettiness. I don't see the Society as a whole as petty and corrupt, merely some members. An organization can suffer from pettiness and corruption without itself being petty and corrupt.
How is being "required to obey any request from one of their handlers without hesitation" -- not just when they're first there but at any time during the several years of their initiation -- not conditioning them to obey orders blindly? Any time an organization has to specify that its initiates are "not exactly slaves," it's not anything I want to be a part of. Paizo has adventures in which PCs are press-ganged into actual slavery and inducted into a an actual cult, and in both cases, they have more freedom than Pathfinder initiates.
Anyway, the question isn't "Is the Pathfinder Society justified?" or "Is the Pathfinder Society realistic?" but "Is the Pathfinder Society likeable?" That's necessarily a question of opinion, not fact, but for me the answer is emphatically No. I despise them. There are obviously people who think that kind of brutal initiation just makes a society more badass. One of them wrote that section of the book. But if they hadn't and had left the process of joining the Society to GM adjudication, they could still like the Pathfinder Society, and so could I.
I played my first Pathfinder Society scenario just before I read Seekers of Secrets. I had a good time. I intended to play more. I opened Seekers of Secrets excited to learn more about what my PC was involved with, and what I read in that first chapter made me swear off organized play entirely because what I read was so repugnant to me. The CN rogue I ran in the Society game would never submit to the initiation process; I couldn't even envision her going through that humiliation as part of her backstory. I have never played another Pathfinder Society session.
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I am not sure I am reading the same thing you are reading (Seeker of Secrets p4-7). It seems to me that initiation and training has the following:
1) The entrance exam.
No problem here, a simple evaluation of aptitude.
2) The Oath.
Also no problem, every organization wants its members to be loyal.
3) Training and Duties.
Lets see: isolated and then trained for a period of time with a duration of around 3 years. Hmmm, sounds familiar. Sounds like most old style boarding schools. They were not allowed to leave most of the time either.
Duties: They must perform tasks that help teach them. Again, sounds pretty reasonable. And of course they have to take care of the place by scrubbing the floors etc., just like most people in an old boarding school.
4) Rules and Discipline:
The rules are basically the same as most boarding schools. I see no problems here.
Punishments, again, similar to old style boarding schools.
This is all like old style boarding schools. It makes sense to me. People would clamor to join these old style boarding schools and this is the treatment people might receive inside. Afterwards the friendships they developed is what created the 'old boys club' concept. That is what the Pathfinder Society really is. One big 'old boys club' with cliques of different groups inside the society. Not really a paramilitary organization.
The main difference I can see is age. Boarding schools were usually for the young whereas this seems to be for people of mid to upper teens and beyond.
- Gauss
Regarding the whole chaos vs law thing. The Pathfinder Society is listed as neutral. I see nothing in the training system that violates that. Yes, there is obedience to individuals in the society but that is not obedience to a nation or even to laws. Even Chaotic characters obey other people for whatever reasons. Friendship, Fear, power lust, personal code, whatever.
Those who have a hard time obeying will just have a more difficult time with the rules and orders of those in charge. However, this will be on a personal (individual level) rather than an organizational level.
A Lawful character would chafe under a Chaotic Master while a Chaotic character would chafe under a Lawful Master. It cuts both ways. A Good character under an Evil Master would probably be ridiculed and abused while an Evil character would probably be punished and maybe washed out by a Good Master. It all depends on what the personality matches are.
Ultimately, this is no different than going to school. Yes there are a few rules. That does not mean school is an inherently lawful organization. There are chaotic elements as well. This probably balances out to neutral.
- Gauss
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Okay, in my opinion, you are focusing on one small piece of the training. I don't see the hazing as teaching them to obey orders blindly, I see it as teaching/proving perseverance.
Second, in my opinion, it is impossible for an organization the size of the Pathfinder Society to not suffer from corruption and pettiness. I don't see the Society as a whole as petty and corrupt, merely some members. An organization can suffer from pettiness and corruption without itself being petty and corrupt.
It also teaches them to keep their cool in rough situations, like dealing with foreign customs.
But then again, im a mason. we invented the third degree.
People would clamor to join these old style boarding schools and this is the treatment people might receive inside. Afterwards the friendships they developed is what created the 'old boys club' concept. That is what the Pathfinder Society really is. One big 'old boys club' with cliques of different groups inside the society.
And the stereotype of 'old boys' clubs' is as what? Elitist jerks who use and benefit from nepotism rather than personal merit and look down on those who don't have the old school tie, er, wayfinder. Again, makes them realistic in-world, but it doesn't make them likeable. And for some reason, they're held out again and again in Paizo adventures (not merely Society scenarios) as being "the cool people your PC wants to help."
Just makes them look worse in my eyes if, as in the current webfiction, they don't even treat all initiates equally but give special dispensation to those of noble birth.
Okay, in my opinion, you are focusing on one small piece of the training.
I don't think I'm focusing on anything in particular, considering I just ignore the parts I'm not interested in.
I figure the Pathfinder Society does basically two things: (a) they run lodges around the world, and (b) they publish chronicles based on tales that their members submit. Neither of which requires much of a hierarchy or a training regime or secret missions or whatever.
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... I played my first Pathfinder Society scenario just before I read Seekers of Secrets. I had a good time. I intended to play more. I opened Seekers of Secrets excited to learn more about what my PC was involved with, and what I read in that first chapter made me swear off organized play entirely because what I read was so repugnant to me. ...
I had one view of the Society before Seeker of Secrets came out. And realized one of my characters would seriously not fit the mold. I was a little disappointed at first, but I found a way to get around it.
I play him as a spy who has infiltrated the organization.
Just because the majority of NPC Pathfinders operate a certain way, doesn't mean your character has to.
Also, this thread is about the fictional organization on Golarion and not the Organized Play group. If you want to discuss PFSOP you should start a thread in the PFS section of the board.
I'm only discussing OP in the sense that reading Seekers of Secrets made me not want to participate in it. I don't want to cooperate with the Society in non-OP games, either.
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I think they're walking a fine line.
Too likable and you get a Mary-sue organization like the Harpers.
The Society seems much more lifelike to me because it isn't a bunch of do-gooders (with the edge cases being ends-justify-means types).
But then, I prefer to think of the PFS as more like the Royal Geographic Society in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The world-spanning paramilitary organization bit—albeit necessary for an org play framework—kinda turns me off.
It has been stated on the boards multiple times by James Jacobs that the unpleasant aspects of the Pathfinder Society were overplayed considerably in Seekers of Secrets than how they were originally intended. Quick, to the James Signal!
It has been stated on the boards multiple times by James Jacobs that the unpleasant aspects of the Pathfinder Society were overplayed considerably in Seekers of Secrets than how they were originally intended.
I always think it's a little odd when the folks at Paizo essentially say "Oops, we wrote the wrong book". ;-)
'Nobles can be exempy from the training'
Bit odd since higer class types tend to go boarding schools more, afaik.
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Grave robbers are rarely likeable sorts.
Apologies for the double post earlier. Flagged for deletion. :P
It has been stated on the boards multiple times by James Jacobs that the unpleasant aspects of the Pathfinder Society were overplayed considerably in Seekers of Secrets than how they were originally intended.
I've missed it if it's been stated explicitly, but I know that's been the unspoken sentiment I've gotten from the devs. And Seekers of Secrets is out of print now, without the controversial sections repeated in any other source book that I'm aware of. But from what I've seen of the Pathfinder Tales stories (admittedly, not a lot), the depiction of the Society seems to be getting pettier and more corrupt, the more that's published about them, which makes it odd that they're still held up as the ideal of the disinterested knowledge-seeking adventurer-hero in modules and APs.
I always think it's a little odd when the folks at Paizo essentially say "Oops, we wrote the wrong book". ;-)
Also, this. :)
Joana, by today's standards an old boys club is a bad thing. However, by historical standards it brought us many advancements and was the standard way of doing business. Most of the organizations of that era were elitist. After all, that was the era of the monarchy and the nobility. If you judge that by today's (democratic) standards of course it will seem like a bad organization.
- Gauss
P.S. Paizo has to walk a fine line when writing stuff like this. They want a gritty 'real' world feeling but if they go too far into that they get this thread. A modern negative response to a historical style organization. Most historical organizations would not be popular today. We have different standards today.
But that's the question posed by the thread: not "Is the Pathfinder Society unlikeable to the people of Golarion?" but "Is the Pathfinder Society unlikeable to you as a player?"
I'm simply answering yes, it does repulse me as a player, and I don't want my PCs to have to support it. Historically, women and minorities were discriminated against; it would certainly be okay for modern players not to like a "realistic and historically accurate" in-world organization that admitted only white males to its ranks and to object to multiple storylines in APs and modules that involved helping such an organization or held up membership in it as a desirable goal for PCs.
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But that's the question posed by the thread: not "Is the Pathfinder Society unlikeable to the people of Golarion?" but "Is the Pathfinder Society unlikeable to you as a player?"
I'm simply answering yes, it does repulse me as a player, and I don't want my PCs to have to support it. Historically, women and minorities were discriminated against; it would certainly be okay for modern players not to like a "realistic and historically accurate" in-world organization that admitted only white males to its ranks and to object to multiple storylines in APs and modules that involved helping such an organization or held up membership in it as a desirable goal for PCs.
While I think the hazing thing is something that should be changed, as it has caused a lot of grief, the Pathfinder Society is known for having male and female members of many races and cultures. As such, it is more open than most of the old boys clubs of old. In one game, I could easily see someone play a tiefling character, a halfling, a human of any number of ethnic groups in Golarion, a half orc, an elf and a dwarf.
I think that the society usually comes across as a neutral self-interested organization that does a lot of exploration. If more of the focus was on its paralleling the Royal Society and less as an old boys club, it might help ease some concerns. (One could argue that such bad treatment of incoming recruits is one of the reason for some factions, such as the Shadow Lodge, keeping an eye on the organization.)
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I never liked the idea of working for shadowy people who hide their identities and quarantine any information brought back that they deem too dangerous for anyone to know, other than their mysterious selves, who, for all anyone knows, are a bunch of liches and rakshasa or whatever.
If I were to use them in a game I'm running, they'd be more like an old gentleman's society of explorers and two-fisted adventurers (very much like the Aeon Society of Gentleman, in Adventure!), not some vast multinational masked conspiracy of silence that's got agents looting the entire planet. They'd have useful information, and you might have to grease some palms or schmooze some retired explorers (and listen to their interminable stories of their past exploits, in the smoking lounge), but there'd be no initiation or 'lodges' or Decemvirate.
My players would likely have zero interest in joining the group anyway, since it basically amounts to 'go on this adventure and keep most of what you find, unless we decide it's important or whatever' whereas the non-Pathfinder adventuring group gets to 'go on this adventure and keep everything you find.'
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Okay, in my opinion, you are focusing on one small piece of the training.I don't think I'm focusing on anything in particular, considering I just ignore the parts I'm not interested in.
I figure the Pathfinder Society does basically two things: (a) they run lodges around the world, and (b) they publish chronicles based on tales that their members submit. Neither of which requires much of a hierarchy or a training regime or secret missions or whatever.
That was in response to Joana and I was being bad about quoting and slow about posting so my replies to people are not right after them. My bad.
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I always think it's a little odd when the folks at Paizo essentially say "Oops, we wrote the wrong book". ;-)Also, this. :)
I always think that people overestimate Paizo's ability to catch all "errors" in setting material books. Especially when said book was likely written by a freelancer and James and most of the staff were in the process of nearly being overwhelmed by the publishing of the RPG Main Book.
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Joana, by today's standards an old boys club is a bad thing. However, by historical standards it brought us many advancements and was the standard way of doing business. Most of the organizations of that era were elitist. After all, that was the era of the monarchy and the nobility. If you judge that by today's (democratic) standards of course it will seem like a bad organization.
- Gauss
P.S. Paizo has to walk a fine line when writing stuff like this. They want a gritty 'real' world feeling but if they go too far into that they get this thread. A modern negative response to a historical style organization. Most historical organizations would not be popular today. We have different standards today.
The thing is, the strictness of boarding schools and the power of old boys' clubs created and enforced the standards of Victorian culture. That culture was much more highly structured and regimented than our present Western (especially American) culture.
That is to say, the strict boarding school style of education produced a certain kind of person. That kind of person is very different from what the Pathfinders are portrayed as being.
In the real world, when you have training like that, you end up with something way different from Pathfinders. You end up with soldiers, monks, or Victorian gentlemen. Not PCs.
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My players love the Pathfinder Society... which is kind of funny, because I just included them to namedrop Sheila Heidmarch (we're going to be running Shattered Star next and I thought it would be a good "Easter Egg"). But they got to talking about how she's short-staffed and they signed right up.
Did I make them go through years of hazing and scrubbing chamber pots? No, because that's a giant waste of resources and she's not an idiot.
Now, she has her own agenda separate from the Decemverite, but so does every other Pathfinder and Venture Captain. And I think if you focus on their agendas, you'll have a lot more fun with the society and with its members.
And if some people have to scrub chamber pots until they're ready to be field agents, that puts them in good stead with apprentices and monks and soldiers all over Golarion.
Cheers!
Landon
I always think it's a little odd when the folks at Paizo essentially say "Oops, we wrote the wrong book". ;-)Also, this. :)
I do remember reading a post by Jacobs where he said something to the effect of being displeased that they sent Seekers off to print without letting him go over it first, especially since the Society was one of his babies. Because of this, there was a great deal that they got "wrong" in that book.
I don't remember why it ended up bypassing him, though he did make mention of that too . . .
Trinite: Boarding schools were around for a centuries prior to the Victoria era. That is only one version of boarding schools. Pre-Victorian boarding schools and boarding schools that were not British had other standards. Some of those will match the Pathfinder Society more closely on what kind of person they produced.
- Gauss
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I personally view the Pathfinders like a combination of the Rosicrucians, the Masons, and the British Museum. They've got all sorts of rites, rituals, and whatnot, but they're a secret society that's also constantly in the middle of a membership drive.
As for the more draconian parts of Seeker of Secrets, I think these are the "official rules" which, like the pirates' code, are more like "guidelines." The "once you flunk out, you can never return again" rule? What if someone has a very large check book, wealthy relatives, or makes some huge discovery which they won't share unless they're let back in to the clubhouse?
Scrubbing chamberpots for three years? How utterly horrid when a full third of the Pathfinder apprentices can likely cast Prestidigitation or Unseen Servant. If the underclassmen are given the job of keeping the place up, there's going to be some work trade going on.
Another way to look at it is that if you've got a society utterly brimful with dangerous and valuable secrets, the very last thing you're going to want is a maid service. Yes, you want people to clean up the place and empty the chamberpots, but you need someone with a security clearance, and the only way you're going to get that is to get people invested in being a member of your organization such that they don't mind doing chores.
It should also be pointed out that a successful Pathfinder learns about how to do intrigue, and if you're going to do intrigue, you need to know how to do a number of tasks. One of the best ways to sneak into any household is to get a job as a servant, but you're going to utterly fail your "Impersonate the Piss Boy" exam if you don't know how to be a piss boy.
Of course, not everyone is going to pass every exam either.
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For what it's worth, the Pathfinder's "pitch" to independent adventures in my campaign is basically "If you turn in good journals and let us have first crack at any relics you discover, in exchange we'll help you identify items, take care of dangerous (cursed or just scary) items for you, and pay full market value for anything we take off your hands."
Now, who knows what actually happens to all those terrible relics, but it seems pretty reasonable to me. Obviously, not everyone who works with the Pathfinders is a full member.
I personally view the Pathfinders like a combination of the Rosicrucians, the Masons, and the British Museum.
Sign me up!
Cheers!
Landon
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KAM has the right of it. I also run the Society that way.
I guess that half of the problem is that Golarion lacks a Global Do-Gooder Organization and folks are trying to project Harpers onto the Society (and run into a wall of "elitist jerks"), and the other half is that Seekers of Secrets was not the most fortunately written book ever (despite having some very good parts!).
I've totally fallen into some sort of alternate universe where Seeker of Secrets was not an awesome book (one of my favorites!) and the PFS Field Guide that replaced it wasn't stone cold boring.
No one has said a single word about the Field Guide in this thread.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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I see the Society more like 'Warehouse 13' than secret conspiracies to rule the world. Indeed, Eando's problem with the leadership wasn't so much discovering the Serpent people, but that they thought the Society could control/catagorize their artifacts safely.
Indeed, the oppositon between the Grand Lodge and the other factions is simply who wants to determine what is 'the greater good?'. The national factions want to use the Warehouse, er Society, to strengthen their nations.* The Crusade wants to 'steer' them towards what they consider good. The Scarzini, while the least ethical, are at least the most honest about what they do.
*