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James Jacobs' quote and Mark Moreland's quote are not necessarily mutually exclusive, although they do appear to be.
James Jacobs was speaking in a hypothetical general sense.
Mark Moreland was speaking in a very specific sense.
Jacobs and Moreland do seem to agree, that if one were to exist, it would be exceedingly rare. Jacobs goes on in the thread you linked, to say, that a half-drow has yet to show up in any of their products. Moreland says that if one did exist, it would be a novel or AP focus, and not a dime-a-dozen PC.
So, for all intents and purposes, until, and unless, Paizo has a Golarion specific product with a half-drow in it, assume they don't exist in Golarion.
For PFS, the possibility of one existing is so infinitesimal in Golarion, it is scientifically and mathematically correct to say they don't exist and that they are not appropriate for a PC.
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Besides non-evil drow still existing in Golarion canon(in Second Darkness, disproving the "irredeemable" part), there's still that matter that James Jacobs's(the creative director of the setting) statement on the matter directly contradicts the statement.
Again, I'm not talking about PFS' ban on any drow-related characters. I'm talking about the statements made to justify that ban that innacurately paint the setting.
Using Second Darkness, a 3.5/OGL AP, is not a valid example of what Pathfinder Golarion has become.
I am also unfamiliar with Second Darkness, so I can't comment or refute what you say without a direct example rather than hearsay on it.
And frankly, I'm really not all that concerned about such a rare corner case "innacurately paint the setting."
I'll continue to quote Mark Moreland on this, and until or unless Mark Moreland and/or James Jacobs comes on here to directly clarify the two seemingly contradictory posts, I'll continue to say that half-drow don't exist in Golarion.
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I guess I'll have to continue quoting James Jacobs on that and reassuring other people that are interested in getting into the setting that they(and non-evil drow) do exist then.
Using Second Darkness, a 3.5/OGL AP, is not a valid example of what Pathfinder Golarion has become.
Those APs did not suddenly become non-canon with the ruleset change.
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How do the elf PCs with darkvision that keep popping up in play get it? I thought it was from the ARG, and they were said to have some Drow blood? (which is why my PC is always careful when asking who has Darkvision at the table, not singleing out the Elves so that I don't insult anyone - you know asking "Hay elf, you part drow?" just doesn't go over well).
It should be via magic or some odd feat/class combo. The darkvision racial trait from the ARG for elves is not allowed in PFS per the AR.
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I guess I'll have to continue quoting James Jacobs on that and reassuring other people that are interested in getting into the setting that they(and non-evil drow) do exist then.
That's your choice if that's what you want to do, just make sure you inform them that Pathfinder Society version of Golarion they don't exist, period. (not just that they are banned, but they flat out don't exist in PFS Golarion.)
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Are we now establishing that general Golarion and PFS Golarion are two different settings?
Nope. But you apparently have decided to ignore one developer who posted in July of 2012 to quote another developer who posted in April of 2010 to inform your non-PFS friends that Golarion has half-drow and good aligned drow.
I can’t stop you from doing so. And frankly I don’t care if you do.
But if you do this, and then they decide to play PFS at some point, I don’t want the same argument for being able to play Drow to suddenly pop up again.
So apparently, for you, they are two different settings.
For everyone else, PFS uses the same setting as everyone else.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Well they kind of are...
After all, in Golarion Proper, you can craft items, wizards start with different feats, there's an entire class that bumps up Leadership, etc.
None of those things are true in PSF!Golarion.
(Which of the two is the evil mirror can be determined on who has goatees)
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Well they kind of are...
After all, in Golarion Proper, you can craft items, wizards start with different feats, there's an entire class that bumps up Leadership, etc.
None of those things are true in PSF!Golarion.
(Which of the two is the evil mirror can be determined on who has goatees)
That's an interesting thought.
Venture-Lieutenant, West Virginia—Charleston
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Well, those are mechanical differences, not flavor differences.
In regards to the allowing of all other races, I feel as if it would be taxing on GMs. A GM should play an NPC as reacting to a character's race - how would that Taldan noble respond to Catfolk, who he may have never seen or heard of before? How would he react to Drow? As it stands right now, we have several races that invoke strong emotions, and that is easy to keep track of because there are so few. If all Pathfinders were weird races, however, it would put a Dhampir on a GM's ability to respond to races, which really renders the RP value of playing a particular race moot.
Also, I can't reliably spell Svirfneblin.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Personally I'd call the crafting a flavor difference, YMMV*
Funny bit about reacting to race.
Golemworks spoilers
Finally, the player looks down at the pic and back up at me. (keep in mind the player's paler than I) "Is this because I'm black?" Good laugh had by all.
*
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I guess I'll have to continue quoting James Jacobs on that and reassuring other people that are interested in getting into the setting that they(and non-evil drow) do exist then.
you also forgot from your own link:
They're VERY rare. I'm pretty sure we haven't had one show up in any of our products yet... and we've had some pretty outlandish critters show up in our products.
So, none have shown up in ANY Paizo product (back in 2010; but I'm pretty current in Paizo products and I don't think I have seen one yet).
And you expect that even one would show up randomly in the Pathfinder Society? I'm pretty sure the ramifications of a half-drow would be large enough that ANY showing up anywhere would mean they get taken away for *insert reason here (experimentation, hate, execution, incarceration)*
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Are we now establishing that general Golarion and PFS Golarion are two different settings?Nope. But you apparently have decided to ignore one developer who posted in July of 2012 to quote another developer who posted in April of 2010 to inform your non-PFS friends that Golarion has half-drow and good aligned drow.
I wasn't aware the creative director of the setting's statements had an expiration date.
But if you do this, and then they decide to play PFS at some point, I don’t want the same argument for being able to play Drow to suddenly pop up again.
Again, I'm not arguing to play drow in PFS. I'm talking about the existence of half-drow in the setting and not discouraging people from even bothering with the setting in a non-PFS venue when they otherwise would have.
I guess I'll have to continue quoting James Jacobs on that and reassuring other people that are interested in getting into the setting that they(and non-evil drow) do exist then.you also forgot from your own link:
They're VERY rare. I'm pretty sure we haven't had one show up in any of our products yet... and we've had some pretty outlandish critters show up in our products.So, none have shown up in ANY Paizo product (back in 2010; but I'm pretty current in Paizo products and I don't think I have seen one yet).
And you expect that even one would show up randomly in the Pathfinder Society? I'm pretty sure the ramifications of a half-drow would be large enough that ANY showing up anywhere would mean they get taken away for *insert reason here (experimentation, hate, execution, incarceration)*
Didn't forget, and again(for possibly the fourth time so far in this thread), I'm not talking about playing half-drow in PFS. I'm talking about them existing in the setting.
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@Mikaze: Not an expiration date, per se, but simply that, as the statement gets older, and there are no documented half-drow, the more likely that things in the background may have made the statement no longer 100% accurate. Especially if it was off-the-cuff, instead of a planned statement.
Do you have an actual citation in Second Darkness for a half-Drow/half-Elf NPC?
Without some citation for an existing Drow/Elf half-breed, there is no support for there being such a creature in Paizo Golarion.
Note: This in no way is meant to invalidate the decision of any home game GM that he/she will allow one of their players to play such a PC, but that is home game territory, and not something to wave in front of a player at a PFS event, unless and until you are recruiting them by such device into a home game. In other words, don't get their hopes up for having a PFS half-Drow PC.
And, again, this is not the proper forum for Golarion setting discussions, I believe that there is a forum on these boards specifically for that topic of discussion. This forum is for discussion of PFS specific things, not Golarion general things.
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@Mikaze: Not an expiration date, per se, but simply that, as the statement gets older, and there are no documented half-drow, the more likely that things in the background may have made the statement no longer 100% accurate. Especially if it was off-the-cuff, instead of a planned statement.
Do you have an actual citation in Second Darkness for a half-Drow/half-Elf NPC?
Second Darkness was where the non-evil drow turned up, not the half-drow mention.
As for that statement, apparently it got a renewal.
Half-drow exist. They're very rare, and are not allowed as PFS characters. They have the same stats as a regular half-elf, but their history is such that you need GM permission to have one—not all GMs want this flavor in their campaigns, after all. As with any unusual race choice.
And that's entirely the point I was trying to make.
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@Mikaze: Not an expiration date, per se, but simply that, as the statement gets older, and there are no documented half-drow, the more likely that things in the background may have made the statement no longer 100% accurate. Especially if it was off-the-cuff, instead of a planned statement.
Do you have an actual citation in Second Darkness for a half-Drow/half-Elf NPC?
Second Darkness was where the non-evil drow turned up, not the half-drow mention.
As for that statement, apparently it got a renewal.
Half-drow exist. They're very rare, and are not allowed as PFS characters. They have the same stats as a regular half-elf, but their history is such that you need GM permission to have one—not all GMs want this flavor in their campaigns, after all. As with any unusual race choice.And that's entirely the point I was trying to make.
Yeah, that was me that asked that question. I was going to bring it up here.
But frankly, I think the number of people that would refuse to consider a campaign world because half-drow may or may not exist, is probably like 1/2 person per million. Seriously.
Its also a disingenuous argument to make, to expect me to know about a 2010 quote by James Jacobs when I had a much more recent 2012 quote by Mark Moreland on the PFS threads. I started playing pathfinder society and thus pathfinder in 2011.
So I had every right to state that half-drow don't exist in Golarion, because that's what a Paizo developer told all of us on the public boards here.
The fact that James Jacobs and Mark Moreland seem to be in disagreement is at most interesting. It would be interesting to see if Mark Moreland decided to comment further, but I doubt it would happen.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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But frankly, I think the number of people that would refuse to consider a campaign world because half-drow may or may not exist, is probably like 1/2 person per million. Seriously.
But are they half-elves, half-orcs, or half-drow? :-)
More seriously, if someone was bound and determined to play a half drow, I'd ask 'why'? and help them build a character to match the reason why. (Well, unless it was 'to be different from everyone else.')
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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More seriously, if someone was bound and determined to play a half drow, I'd ask 'why'? and help them build a character to match the reason why. (Well, unless it was 'to be different from everyone else.')
That one can be done without being half-drow, too:
Just play a NG human who's just a decent, well-adjusted adult with no neurotic quirks, weird fetishes, tragic history, ulterior motives, moral ambiguity, mysterious schemes, emo antiheroism, superiority complexes, 'bad boy' tropes, unique destiny, zany antics, or delusions of grandeur.There, now you're different from everybody else.
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More seriously, if someone was bound and determined to play a half drow, I'd ask 'why'? and help them build a character to match the reason why. (Well, unless it was 'to be different from everyone else.')That one can be done without being half-drow, too:
Just play a NG human who's just a decent, well-adjusted adult with no neurotic quirks, weird fetishes, tragic history, ulterior motives, moral ambiguity, mysterious schemes, emo antiheroism, superiority complexes, 'bad boy' tropes, unique destiny, zany antics, or delusions of grandeur.There, now you're different from everybody else.
Ironic that normal is the new different.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Off topic:
More on topic, I'd think Grand Lodge is the least 'special snowflake' group.
Hmm...
Now I'm wondering what factions best fit the Warehouse 13 cast.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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I would hazard a guess, in-world, that well-adjusted characters with few inner demons don't normally get the urge to go off and risk their lives in order to find fabulous treasures to sell to the Pathfinder Society.
--+--+--
Out of character, there are some better reasons:
1) There is no consistent table GM to rein in a player's stanger ideas, the way a home campaign GM could.
2) We are responsible for carrying our role-playing with us, from table to table. I could try to form a relationship with NPCs, but that's not going to happen, when most of them are never seen again, and the table GM I have this afternoon may not agree with the GM I had a couple hours ago, who played along when I presented my female half-elf as Drangle Dreng's teen-age sweetheart.
So, I need to establish a PC presence for role-playing that remains consisntent from table to table, with new colleagues, a new GM, and very few continuing characters. That means, almost always, I need the PCs characterization to be easy for the other people at the table to grasp. I can't have a rivalry with Doug's archer PC, because if Doug is not at the table, that's going to be very subtle. Rahter, I need to have a friendly rivalry with every archer. I'm not going to be clear if I wear heraldry that makes a claim for a Great House in Brevoy. Rather, I need to set my sights on overthrowing Major Maldriss and taking over the Andoran faction. A paladin, homesick for Molthune, is going to get lost at the table. A nagaji paladin, forcibly time-shifted into 4713 from the Thassilonian empire at its zenith, can be homesick in a much clearer way. ("You mammals, with your hot-blooded passions, flitting from one distraction to the next, could never understand the perfect grief I suffer."
Unless you have a team of characters who role-play together, PFS rewards extreme PCs.
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I would be much more interested in seeing Ratfolk than Drow, personally. But more than either of those, I'd like to see the legalization of the Genie-blooded races...I'm patient though, and I can understand why they would want to wait for a bit, considering that they just recently began allowing Tieflings and Aasimars (both of which are considerably more powerful than any of the Genie-blooded races, IMO)
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@Mikaze: Not an expiration date, per se, but simply that, as the statement gets older, and there are no documented half-drow, the more likely that things in the background may have made the statement no longer 100% accurate. Especially if it was off-the-cuff, instead of a planned statement.
Do you have an actual citation in Second Darkness for a half-Drow/half-Elf NPC?
Second Darkness was where the non-evil drow turned up, not the half-drow mention.
As for that statement, apparently it got a renewal.
Half-drow exist. They're very rare, and are not allowed as PFS characters. They have the same stats as a regular half-elf, but their history is such that you need GM permission to have one—not all GMs want this flavor in their campaigns, after all. As with any unusual race choice.And that's entirely the point I was trying to make.Yeah, that was me that asked that question. I was going to bring it up here.
But frankly, I think the number of people that would refuse to consider a campaign world because half-drow may or may not exist, is probably like 1/2 person per million. Seriously.
Its also a disingenuous argument to make, to expect me to know about a 2010 quote by James Jacobs when I had a much more recent 2012 quote by Mark Moreland on the PFS threads. I started playing pathfinder society and thus pathfinder in 2011.
Disingenuous? After linking directly to that quote?
:/
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@Mikaze: Not an expiration date, per se, but simply that, as the statement gets older, and there are no documented half-drow, the more likely that things in the background may have made the statement no longer 100% accurate. Especially if it was off-the-cuff, instead of a planned statement.
Do you have an actual citation in Second Darkness for a half-Drow/half-Elf NPC?
Second Darkness was where the non-evil drow turned up, not the half-drow mention.
As for that statement, apparently it got a renewal.
Half-drow exist. They're very rare, and are not allowed as PFS characters. They have the same stats as a regular half-elf, but their history is such that you need GM permission to have one—not all GMs want this flavor in their campaigns, after all. As with any unusual race choice.And that's entirely the point I was trying to make.Yeah, that was me that asked that question. I was going to bring it up here.
But frankly, I think the number of people that would refuse to consider a campaign world because half-drow may or may not exist, is probably like 1/2 person per million. Seriously.
Its also a disingenuous argument to make, to expect me to know about a 2010 quote by James Jacobs when I had a much more recent 2012 quote by Mark Moreland on the PFS threads. I started playing pathfinder society and thus pathfinder in 2011.
Disingenuous? After linking directly to that quote?
:/
But ignored the one I quoted?
Last major living campaign that allowed unrestricted access to drow, there ended up being nearly 100 times the number of "good" drow running around than existed in that setting's lore.
-j
Damn... Now I want to go to Gencon.
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Pathfinder Society Campaign Coordinator
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Grippli are, IIRC, the GM boon for GMing at GenCon this year, and should be available to GMs at other, later cons.Who cares about them evil elves?? I want to play a frickin tree frog!
[beg]Grippli[/beg]
They are available for GMing at Gen Con, but only if you volunteer as a Tier 1 GM. There is no guarantee they will be made available at other later cons, or ever.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Sometimes I think Origins is the redheaded stepchild of the cons :P
(Seriously, I've no idea of a concept for a grippli character. Now if I somehow got such a boon, I bet I could suck a friend into PFS with it...).
Realistically, while there are other concepts I'd love to try, opening up the Aasimar/Tiefling, when mixed with the Blood of books, gives me enough concepts to play with for years.
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Sometimes I think Origins is the redheaded stepchild of the cons :P
It's actually now possibly a bigger con for LFR than GenCon is. And, it's the primary con for Legends of Arcanis. It seems like most OP conventions put at least a little more focus on one or the other.
Seriously, I've no idea of a concept for a grippli character.
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RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
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Well that's kind of a given, Mike :P
That's akin to the other ideas that plauged me this morning. (and are PFS legal)
Unbreakable Raksasha blood tiefling with nunchucks
Raksasha blood monk with the staff feat tree
Arcane Duelist raksasha blood tiefling focusing on illusions and the whip.
Raksasha blood lore warden pumping everything into the bastard sword... Hoooooooooooo!
There's also a brick joke I'm planning with Enuck, my Lore Warden to living monolith build...
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Venture-Captain, Germany–Hannover
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It´s well known that Golarion is human centered and they did a real good job at it. There seems to be a demand for playing other races and them having a bigger part in the world though. I really loved Menzoberranzan.
As for Grippli:
Toad from Wind in the Willows
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There's no real contradiction between the two. One says Half-Drow are rare, and the other says that Half-Drow can't be PC's in PFS. (the rarity having a great deal to do with it, I suppose. There may be no more than 2-5 Half-Drow on the whole planet)Not ignored. It's taking the creative director of the setting's word on what's true for the setting over PFS.
This is not a slight against Mark Moreland. It's just taking the word of the guy what created the setting as being more accurate.
Even if there were a contradiction between what Mark and James said, Mikaze was correct in listening to James when it comes to the fluff of the campaign world, what with James being the creative director and Mark just being a general developer. Sort of like how Jason Bulmahn, being the lead designer, would be the guy to listen to when it comes to the crunchy rules stuff.
Which isn't to say the developers don't all get along, or that the top dogs can't make mistakes. It's just that, all else being equal, Andrew is resting his argument on someone who has less say on the matter than the person Mikaze is referencing.
So yeah, half-drow do apparently exist in the pathfinder setting. They are functionally identical to half-elves, but they're really rare almost to the point of non-existence. It's just that they are restricted in organized play and haven't shown up yet (and may never) in publication.
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Venture-Captain, Germany–Hannover
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This can´t be a high reliability organisation here, because it´s clearly indicated that decisionmaking in the face of catastrophic error is strictly hierarchical, lower clerks show no flexibility at all but wait for the highest ranking member decisions, which can only compute their area of expertise.
So yes there are those known as Drow and the afflicted bastards these despicable minions of evil chaos inflicted on the world, but we don´t talk about them and we keep them under the table or in the cellar (read dungeon).