I have heard from one person that gender flipping/ name changes of a pregen for play are disallowed, while someone else said it doesn't matter because it has zero impact upon game mechanics.
Is there an official policy on this that I can't find? I'm not even sure where to look or how to do a search query for something like that.
But gender flipping/ name changes on a pregen have ZERO impact on game mechanics. Suppose you have a new player who is just curious about Pathfinder and has zero clue about the game. Maybe someone young, maybe someone older. Maybe male, maybe female. She has her heart set on being a ranger, but she feels uncomfortable being Harsk, a male dwarf. The dwarf race is ok, but role playing a guy has her feel uncomfortable. Or maybe he really wants to play a Sorc, and while Seoni looks really cool, and that's the kind of character he'd like to play, he doesn't want to play a chick.
So I have to tell those people to "suck it up or leave"? Or do I allow people to make the gender-flip/ name change to be comfortable with their pregen and enjoy the game?
And I am *NOT* going to be the one to tell another player to "suck it up or leave". Nobody to my knowledge in our group ever has said it like this. But I feel very, very strongly that gender-flipping and name changes to pregens should be explicitly and officially allowed, as this has ZERO impact upon game mechanics, but may go a long way towards helping new players feel welcome to the game and empower them to create their own character their own way on the NEXT game they play.
And if some GM were to ever push the issue to turn a player away who felt uncomfortable with the gender/ name of a pregen, I'm inclined to walk away from that table as well. I'd much rather refer the GM to something official that says gender-flip/ name changes on pre-gens are acceptable. So... where's the official reference on this issue?
I've been very pleased and happy with Pathfinder Society on how welcome and inviting they have been. I brag about it to my friends and family. Don't disappoint me on this issue that has ZERO impact upon game mechanics.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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Welcome to Society! I'm sorry this issue has come up. Unfortunately, there seem to be a small number amongst us who allow rules to come first over fun. Most GMs, even those who are normally rules-focused, understand that in roleplay situations, things do not need to be as strict. This question has come up before, in http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2py4v?Changing-the-name-and-sex-of-a-pregen#1 . The short answer is that, as per Mark Moreland, you may change the name, gender and roleplaying fluff of a pregen so long that you do not modify their stats. Some GMs allow other changes to pregens, and some do not. In that area, you should expect table variation.
I thought the Society had a strict policy against reskinning of ANY kind. I'd assume gender flipping is a form of reskinning...
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I thought the Society had a strict policy against reskinning of ANY kind. I'd assume gender flipping is a form of reskinning...
I wouldn't say that there is a strict policy. Before we derail, I'd like to make it clear that Mark has authorized changing the gender and name of pregens in an official ruling in the thread that I linked to.
Now for the inevitable derail - there have long been arguments over the extent of skinning in PFS - arguments over yellow tengu, cavaliers riding pigs that behave like dogs and lots of other things. Some GMs allow it, some do not. Expect table variation. For me, I will allow reskinning if the reskinning is not something that affects the change in a mechanical nature. For instance, I don't mind it if somebody says that their shield has been painted with the symbol of Cheliax, even though that is not part of the description of "shield". I don't mind if somebody has some unique clothing not described in any of the outfits available for purchase. I don't mind if the cavalier selects a particular breed of horse for their mount. I'd probably allow a piratey druid to say that their axe beak looks like a parrot.
I might allow them to change the animal of the mount, so long as there was no statistical difference. That would be a bit iffy.
I would not allow someone to say that their sword looks like a breadstick, that their wand looks like a raygun or their firearm looks like a modern firearm.
If you wish to reskin something about your character, expect table variation. Some GMs will allow it, some will not. If you do reskin, please do not reskin to something else that is represented in the rules.
Ok, thank you for the info. I'll look over the thread and print out the relevant portion. For me, this isn't about "reskinning" in terms of changing fluff, but an issue of a given player's comfort with gender identity issues, particularly a new player who has not had time to adjust to the culture of RPG gaming. My wife is disinclined to play a male character. She just can't wrap her mind around HER roleplaying as a male. In my case, I'm having fun role-playing a female Sorc, and my wife has no problem with that. Or if she did, she'd have to live with it. MY character, my choice. My attitude is like the guys who create female game avatars because, "If I'm going to stare at a butt all day, I'd like it to be a nice one."
My concern would be for some young man or young lady (preteen) that might want to play PFS, but might have a hard time with being told they *have* to play a pregen of a gender they do not identify with. So on something of that nature, it hits a higher, more important peg than a "reskin/ color change" thing.
Anything *ELSE*, I'd ask the player to just work with what is on the sheet, and that I would be VERY happy to help them build a Ninja that prefers to wear pink for their NEXT game, but for THIS game please go with what they've got on the paper please. :)
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On the question of reskinning, I once asked about changing the fluff for a trait, and Mark Moreland said it was ok.
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A link to Netopalis' thread reference, since it nailed the answer to the OP's question:
Mark Moreland's Response Here
There
at least the question is answered before this goes off the rails into a thread about gender identity/freedom of choice/why reskinning should be allowed/cake vs. pie/mmo avatars/paladin alignment/rogues being terrible/etc
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I thought the Society had a strict policy against reskinning of ANY kind. I'd assume gender flipping is a form of reskinning...
I disagree.
A reskin is an alteration that cannot be otherwise accounted for by the rules, like "I would like my riding dog to look like a gigantic Chihuahua." This would be a reskin since there's no legal version of a medium-sized dog that approximates a Chihuahua. [pausing for Goblin dog jokes...]
Since both genders are completely legal and do not carry any game mechanic differences, there's no "reskin" required to swap genders on a pre-gen character. It's the exact same thing as saying "I want the samurai's horse to be black instead of brown." Both black and brown horses are legal, and there is no difference in game between them, so this is not a reskin. A purple horse is a different issue, since there's not any normal way to have a horse be purple.
If there were some in-game difference between the genders, swapping genders on pre-gens would be a problem. As it is, if someone wants to paint Valeros's leather armor bright yellow, what difference does it make? It's still leather armor, and yellow paint is available, so...
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There is at least 1 scenario I can think of where a NPC will react differently towards male or female PCs. Just saying.
*runs away!*
I was thinking it, but wasn't going to say it. I prefer to let the players change their fluff on any pregen they play.
But really funny story from when I played that one...
So I don't remember what she was, but there's that female magical creature (devil? demon?) that seduced/mind controlled the male PCs into lusting after her. My friend was playing a male, gay character, and tried to argue that he'd be immune, like a female would. Since we were playing with a group of players who always play together, and know the story of that PC, we all backed her (the player is female) up on it.
The GM decided to stick with RAW from the scenario, which says how PCs respond by gender, not sexual orientation. Some of us were willing to let it go once he made his decision, but the player argued enough that we could tell he was getting frustrated. Given that it was the last slot of a long convention, and the GM was just tired, I think she might have broken his spirit on that one.
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RPG Superstar 2008 Top 16
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I thought the Society had a strict policy against reskinning of ANY kind. I'd assume gender flipping is a form of reskinning...
The whole "reskinning" issue came up when someone wanted to use the stats for an allowed animal companion, describing the creature as something that wasn't allowed. There was some related discussion about reskinning equipment (e.g.: "My sailor PC's weapon is a greatclub in the stats, but I'm saying it's actually a boat oar").
There was some concern that inventive optimizers could find annoying ways to pervert such flexibility (i.e.: "My character can talk to burrowing mammals, so he should be allowed to talk to his giant mole animal companion, which uses the stats for a riding dog").
Because of a few frustrating examples of that sort of behavior, reskinning was forbidden under most circumstances.
Despite that, as long as a player's reskin of a pregen doesn't cause any problems, any GM I know would allow the requested changes.
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There is at least 1 scenario I can think of where a NPC will react differently towards male or female PCs. Just saying.
*runs away!*
You should never feel the need to run when you're right. :-)
It's a legitimate concern. But there are also some scenarios where NPCs react differently to members of different factions. Does this mean that we need to define the factions for each pre-gen and not let players change them?
What if players play a level 7 pre-gen because their characters are out of tier? Can they only apply the credit to a character in the same faction? Do they just get no prestige for that scenario? Or do they have to change factions when they take credit for the scenario?
We need to decide how restrictive the pre-gen characters are supposed to be. If you play Valeros, must you become Valeros and only act exactly like the GM expects Valeros to act? If so, we need to include tactics, morale, and suggested dialogue with the pre-gens so players have a better chance of getting it "right". Of course, then we would have to decide at what point the GM steps in and says, "No, you can't do that--Valeros wouldn't do that. You need to do this instead."
Oh, and we'd also have to come up with a different way to introduce new players to the game.
(Of course, the opposite extreme of completely generic/blank slate pre-gens would cause its own issues. When new players aren't familiar enough with the classes to decide what they want to play, I always suggest that they read the backgrounds and quotes and pick a pre-gen based on who they want to play.)
Thank you, everyone. The response from Lamontius with the link to Mark Moreland is the one I'm looking for, with the specific example cited: "7th-level Kyra as a male named Londar" ... "there's nothing wrong in my book with making this change."
And thank you, Dorothy Lindman... we are close enough (Bellingham, WA) I hope to meet you at the ECCC, or perhaps you'll drop in on a Sunday game session at Eagles. :)
The key for me is where you have people new to the game, unacquainted with the culture of role-play, being forced to "gender bend" to play an off-the-shelf pregen just to find out if they would be interested in the game at all in the first place.
Pathfinder for me has been about possibilities. I've been publicly praising Pathfinder Society because repeated comments by another group I interact with: "Pathfinder Society is just too limiting!" My level 5 Sorc has the characteristics I wanted and I am free to play the role the way I want in a way I was not allowed by the other group. I was told, "You are doing too much with your character!" I'm very happy the "limiting" Pathfinder Society doesn't seem to feel that way.
However, when this topic came up, I was surprised I was told gender-flipping/ name changes were not allowed. I was prepared to be very surprised and disappointed if the system that allows me so much freedom to explore my character would force some kid who wants to play a Sorc to *have* to play his Seoni pregen as a "gurl", or my wife who isn't comfortable role-playing a guy to have to play a level 7 "Valeros" instead of "Valeri". It has ZERO impact upon the game mechanics of the character. Even if an NPC might react different, that is still external to the mechanics of the character itself, and no mechanics of game-play, internal to the character, would be changed by gender-flipping/ name-changes.
Thank you for the support, and I will keep a copy of the statement by Mark Moreland in my bag of goodies as the most close thing I have to date on an "official" PFS policy.
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And thank you, Dorothy Lindman... we are close enough (Bellingham, WA) I hope to meet you at the ECCC, or perhaps you'll drop in on a Sunday game session at Eagles. :)
We'll definitely be at ECCC. We're also running scenarios at Dragonflight and GeekGirl Con, and we'll do short demos at PAX. If any of your crew plan to get to any of those conventions, look us up!
I've been publicly praising Pathfinder Society because repeated comments by another group I interact with: "Pathfinder Society is just too limiting!" My level 5 Sorc has the characteristics I wanted and I am free to play the role the way I want in a way I was not allowed by the other group. I was told, "You are doing too much with your character!" I'm very happy the "limiting" Pathfinder Society doesn't seem to feel that way.
Pathfinder Society does have to be limited in certain ways, just to make the whole "let's be sure we're all playing the same game" thing possible. I think they've done a pretty good job of only limiting the things that matter, and there's usually a well-defined, well-explained reason for the limitation.
On the flip side, I find PFS very liberating, because I only have to commit to as many games as I want to. If my work schedule heats up, I can skip games for several weeks without disappointing 6 other people who were counting on me to show up every week. If I get bored with a character, I can just stop playing it without forcing a GM to deal with continuity issues or stranding a party that depended on that particular character. I can switch characters to suit my mood ("No, this has really been an earth breaker kind of week"). Best of all, I can GM when I actually want to instead of feeling pressured into running every week for the rest of my natural existence.
Like I said earlier: in my case, the benefits of PFS far outweigh the limitations, which is why PFS is a good fit for me.
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Yellow Tengus, still verboten?
Verboten unless they look precisely like this. ;)
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There is at least 1 scenario I can think of where a NPC will react differently towards male or female PCs. Just saying.
*runs away!*
I was thinking it, but wasn't going to say it. I prefer to let the players change their fluff on any pregen they play.
But really funny story from when I played that one...
** spoiler omitted **
Huh...I haven't read the scenario in the spoiler, but I thought for certain that the old
That is, I can't recall the last time I've seen "charms male/female targets" in Pathfinder material, but I do recall seeing variations of "charms characters that would be attracked to caster's gender" instead.
To the point that the latter is the norm for Pathfinder, I believe. That has me wondering if that scenario was misread or if that entry involved was the odd one out.
I understand PFS limitations because of the format, and they are reasonable limitations. The 3.5e group had limits I felt were more arbitrary in nature.
Anyway, I'm happy with the official policy, and if this issue comes up in PFS games I will have my copy of Mark Moreland's position on the matter. Nothing happened at a game to cause any issues, I just want to be firmly grounded should the issue arise in a way that causes a player new to the game distress.
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There is at least 1 scenario I can think of where a NPC will react differently towards male or female PCs. Just saying.
*runs away!*
I was thinking it, but wasn't going to say it. I prefer to let the players change their fluff on any pregen they play.
But really funny story from when I played that one...
** spoiler omitted **
I've run into several scenarios where NPCs have different psychological reasons to react differently to men or women, nothing sexual involved.
Regarding a succubus encounter: as a GM, if I don't know the character is gay until the moment that would make a character immune, I have to admit, I would be skeptical whether that was merely a player tactic or an actual character aspect. Not sure how I would handle that, especially if I were at a con and had never met any of the players before. That would be tricky.
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Regarding a succubus encounter: as a GM, if I don't know the character is gay until the moment that would make a character immune, I have to admit, I would be skeptical whether that was merely a player tactic or an actual character aspect. Not sure how I would handle that, especially if I were at a con and had never met any of the players before. That would be tricky.
Oh, I can definitely see being reluctant to let a player just spontaneously decide their PC is gay to avoid a negative effect. But in this case, the ranger being gay was a long established part of the character's back story. The other players at the table were all friends who confirmed it for the GM, because they knew the PC. As a GM, I'd probably have allowed that one, even if it was my first time meeting these people.
But now to take this full circle back to the original question... What happens if a male NPC/monster tries magical seduction like that on female PCs, and someone is playing the Kyra pregen? It has been established in the comic books that Kyra is a lesbian, so is she immune? Or does the person playing her have to choose to play up her published personality to get that immunity?
Ok, maybe I'm trolling just a little. But it is an amusing question to consider.
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are these examples actually happening in level 1-ish PFS scenarios, with gender-specific or sexual-orientation-specific compulsions and such?
the one example above is a 5 to 9 scenario, which I would never inflict on a brand new player with a pregen no matter what
herble berble convention slot only game going corner case berp derp and such aside
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I've run into several scenarios where NPCs have different psychological reasons to react differently to men or women, nothing sexual involved.
A person who knows nothing about the scenario and asks to switch a pregen's gender is not affecting the outcome of that scenario any more than if they had just selected a pregen that was naturally of the gender that they wanted to switch to.
No harm - no foul.
A person who switches the gender of a pregen specifically to avoid an effect in a scenario is playing with knowledge that they should have declared to the GM in advance, and there are bigger problems than the gender of the pregen.
In other words, the only situation in which switching the gender of a pregen is an issue is if that player is already trying to cheat.
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Regarding a succubus encounter: as a GM, if I don't know the character is gay until the moment that would make a character immune, I have to admit, I would be skeptical
My basic rule of thumb is that if it isn't written down on the character sheet somewhere (sheet includes back story notes) then it has no mechanical benefits. I'll make exceptions if the player has made that character facet manifest either at the table or in the past (ie, I'll trust other players telling me something is true).
There is a reason that I fill in (and print out) the background section in Hero Lab :-). There are all kinds of things that may have a mechanical advantage and should be reported. For example, my druid has a VERY strong emotional attachment to her Animal Companion, That is recorded. That bond could have major effects on dominate, charms, etc.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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If someone really got their knickers in a twist over something do monumentally inconsequential the simplest solution would be to not call it a pregen anymore but rather to call it an original PC based on a pregen.
That's fine at first level, but not for 4th/7th level pregens.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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As has already been officially ruled: It doesn't matter at all what the level of the pregen is, they are permitted to be renamed and gender-swapped.
That's fine at first level, but not for 4th/7th level pregens.
Oh, I'm well aware of that. I was simply pointing out that the suggested alternate technique of 'calling it an original PC based on a pregen' wouldn't work anyway except at 1st level; you can't create an 'original PC' for playing at 4th or 7th level.
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As far as I am concerned, the player can change any aspect of that character that doesn't have a direct mechanical affect however they want. Saying that the player must keep the pregen exactly as is in all details even ones like name, gender that make no mechanical difference is just unreasonable and overly rigid.
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I will allow them to change the sex of the character. My only caveat is that they must use the iconic miniature that represents that character. It might get confusing, but I didn't start the whole gender-bending thing, the player did.
And if they don't own the miniature? I'd like to understand why this matters, but it's escaping me at the moment.
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I will allow them to change the sex of the character. My only caveat is that they must use the iconic miniature that represents that character. It might get confusing, but I didn't start the whole gender-bending thing, the player did.
??? Why?
And what do you do if two newbies show up and both want to play pregen fighters? They can't both use Valeros minis, even if you let them change the name/gender to avoid confusion.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I will allow them to change the sex of the character. My only caveat is that they must use the iconic miniature that represents that character. It might get confusing, but I didn't start the whole gender-bending thing, the player did.
I don't see how it would get confusing unless you make it so. Why would you, as a GM, be hostile to someone switching the gender and name?
