Yeah, you're right, I was probably a little too harsh there with some npcs. And I totally agree that some of them (the two A-named npcs) are definitely closer in "quality" than others. It's just that... I mean female options are just so crazy-powerful, being outsiders and rulers of nations and demigods... and then there's the dudes. I can see your reasoning why you're arguing it the way you do, thanks for explaining that there. I actually hadn't considered it from that perspective, and thought the opposite, to be honest - that you were aiming more for painting a picture of greater equality than there really is.
But also, woah, hey, can I ask about origins of these two things?
...what sexism there ever was has explicitly been stated to be an error and retconned completely out of existence.
and
To be fair, Demons are explicitly matriarchal just as devils are patriarchal, and Nocticula is both a major character and the Queen of Succubi...a certain number of succubi and thus potential hook-ups is kinda inevitable (a horrible idea, but one the PCs should be presented with).
Because, holy cow, I really wanted to like Erastil, but I just couldn't stand how paternalistic his original article made him sound. I mean, I could joke with a pal that it'd be hilarious if he just wanted everyone to be a homemaker, including even gods like Nethys and Iori, but that was just my personal reimagining and not source material so it always left me uneasy about him. Was it really an official retcon?
And then while I knew the Abyss was supposed to be more egalitarian than Hell, I didn't know they were actively changing it to be more oppositional in nature to Hell's patriarchy as well! I'd really love to know more dude!
The Paizo Blog also gave two extra romance options for Jade Regent, one female and one male.
That's just mechanical support. They're already specifically called out as such, if I properly recall, in the text of the AP itself, in the context of whether they're going to stick around with the party past their initial introductions. There's quite a few more I think that are missing from Shisumo's list, but I don't think any are really going to unskew the ratio it results in significantly.
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@xeose4:
The Erastil thing is from comments by James Jacobs, and more officially Inner Sea Gods (which revises a number of errors in deity articles like the Paladin of Asmodeus thing as well as Erastil's sexism).
The Demons being matriarchal to Hell's patriarchy is implicit in Lamashtu being the most powerful of them and, while I believe it's gone into in a couple of books, but again, I know it mostly from comments by James Jacobs on these boards. And as the creative director, his opinion is controlling on matters like this.
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The Paizo Blog also gave two extra romance options for Jade Regent, one female and one male.That's just mechanical support. They're already specifically called out as such, if I properly recall, in the text of the AP itself, in the context of whether they're going to stick around with the party past their initial introductions.
They aren't, actually. Kelda is described as maybe being a "a driver, guard, or scout" in Brinewall Legacy, and there's a sidebar in Frozen Shadows that uses the word "relationship," but in Jade Regent in particular that's a term quite distinct from a romance (you have Relationship Scores with everybody, but may not get into a romance with any of them). Ulf doesn't seem to have his future role spelled out at all.
There's quite a few more I think that are missing from Shisumo's list, but I don't think any are really going to unskew the ratio it results in significantly.
This is exactly the sort of thing I was referring to when I said some of the ones that didn't wind up having been explicitly mentioned as romances caught me off-guard.
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Amusing aberration hijinks aside...
Glad you were entertained. :P
I know it's satire...but that doesn't make its message correct. I understand what you're saying, I just don't entirely agree.
That's fine. I'm not asking you to agree. I'm merely musing in a way that explains a lot of what I see. I'm dead serious though when I say that Paizo should just made an AP with nongendered aberrations. I mean, everytime I turn around someone is lamenting someone, or something, not being suitably represented in Paizo products, or if they are, they're not being represented at a level that they desire.
I feel like they can't win. Paizo rocks socks at offering a very diverse cast of characters, including characters of all sorts of ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and social backgrounds. Yet, despite this, or perhaps directly as a result of this they are getting threads with people fussing over how many words were devoted to X NPC vs Y NPC based on their gender, ethnicity, and/or choices in clothing.
It seems grotesquely petty to me. So let's eliminate all this apparent bias by making everything equal. Give us genderless asexual aberration people and let people make their own damned romances. Most of the folk listed in these APs mentioned aren't even mentioned or presented as potential love interests, but we're assigning ratings to the NPCs based on how much we see them as a suitable romantic interest, the random art that's placed in the books, and so forth. Or complaining that potential romantic interests aren't given full stat blocks.
Does anyone else, anyone, find it goofy to expect stat blocks for random NPCs based on the chance that someone is going to decide that they're hankering for some hot PC on NPC action and you gotta have some stats for that?
GM: "A young man in his mid 20s with a short scruffy beard, who looks down on his luck and up to his tears in a bottle, glances up at you. In his eyes you see a mixture of despair, but also a glimmer of hope, for in you he sees a chance to make everything right..."
PC: "Hot damn, I love scruffy bearded dudes. What level is he? Is he a heroic character!?"
GM: "Um, no."
PC: "What's his statblock!?"
GM: "I'm pretty sure he's a first level commoner,"
PC: "What do you mean 'pretty sure'? Didn't they give a writeup!?"
GM: "He needs your help to rescue his family taken by half-fiend svirfneblin,"
PC: "That's not fair! He's not worth anything without a statblock,"
GM: "...racist," ಠ_ಠ
But this? By the universe they will never make everyone happy. Paizo includes an awesome cast of characters that are diverse in every sense of the word, includes more female characters that really mean something to the plot, who have intricate histories, motivations, goals, and are protagonists and helpers to the plots rather than bystanders or folks to be rescued, and son of a neothelid, Paizo's sexist now because there's not enough hunky man meats in the show with a certain level of f***ability.At no point have I ever called Paizo sexist. Nor would I. But this is a problem. Numbers don't lie (they can be misleading, especially when used by someone with an agenda...but I came in here with no agenda as such and am merely looking for the truth, I would've been overjoyed if the numbers disproved my point), and by every numerical metric we've been able to come up with there's a serious gender disparity between eligible female NPCs and eligible male ones. Period.
Is this the end of the world, or does it make Paizo inherently sexist? No, of course not. Is it a real issue that some people (particularly women and gay men) are having with the game and have a legitimate complaint regarding? Yes, it is.
If you say so. If it makes you feel any better, my satirical musings is a product of not merely this thread, but of many. Perhaps your thread just ended up as the lucky straw, so to speak. It just awoke in me the vision that, frankly, I think this whole mess is silly.
When I sit down and write up NPCs, I don't try to make sure there's a perfectly even spread of "hawtness" and "eligible bachelors / bachelorettes". Frankly, I'm surprised that Paizo even tries. Especially given all they do and still get criticized for not giving people a fair representation. It's just...mind boggling.
And that second bit means that it's a valid topic for conversation and should be addressed. People are having a real problem here, and feeling left out in an important part of the AP experience. That's not a petty issue easily dismissed with some mockery, it's a real problem for them that should be treated seriously. Or as seriously as one ever treats anything about a game where you pretend to be elves, anyway.
Pfft, don't give me that. Most of the APs have nothing to do with romancing NPCs that I know of. Most of the NPCs mentioned in this thread have nothing to do with the "Adventure Path Experience" as far as "romantic relations" go. Joana was back on Page 1 of this thread listing guys based on eligibility and hotness (poor overweight short guys).
I believe that Jade Regent has the AP with romancing or rivalry being a thing...an actual thing...that was part of the AP experience, as opposed to "here are some NPCs, maybe your PCs will shnu them". In that book, the things that jumped out at me were:
1) It's stupid to hear about skeletal guards randomly going off to kill people just to attract the PCs (a better plot hook could easily have been inserted).
2) This artwork doesn't fit the statblock and makes me mad because of how much interesting detail was put into a waste encounter that is broken mechanically, to an NPC who has no dialog, is serving his murderers for no apparent reason, and just fights to the death because, yet his existence was explained in detail and a portrait added.
2.A) Also, dat wight. He looks pretty manly. An eligable. I dig guys in uniform...
3) The frequency in which NPCs randomly fight to the death for the hell of it, even when they have nothing to gain, nothing to lose for not continuing a fight, and in some cases don't even make sense for them to oppose the PCs.
4) "Oh cool, there's a system for rivaling or romancing NPCs. A bad system, but a system, and that's a new and interesting feature, rather than the usual goblin bashing".
I'll give you that 3/4 of the NPCs that are potential rivals/lovers are women (1 young adventurous woman, 1 old woman, 1 elven woman, 1 human man). That said, since we're discriminating against those who aren't sexually attractive, it makes it 2/3 since I'm pretty sure old lady fetishes are pretty rare (but who am I to know, since I've never dated an old lady before).
I just feel that Paizo is never going to make everyone happy, unless there is an exact spread of specific NPCs in each game, and even then, haters gonna hate.
NEOTHELID LURV 4 EVAH
Paizo's sexist now because...
No one is calling Paizo sexist (not even rpgnet, last time I looked!). And you are a very silly boy/girl/aberrant entity. >:)
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Paizo's sexist now because...No one is calling Paizo sexist (not even rpgnet, last time I looked!).
My apologies for overstating. Generally when people mention a bias based on gender, I usually associate that with being sexist, what with sexist being biased based on gender. That said, I suppose, theoretically you could have an accidental bias (accidental prejudice?) or something. Meh, I dunno, it's been one of those weeks.
Honestly, it just felt really good to vent some stuff, and now I really want to see an AP with an aberration race of tentacled NPCs for the PCs. I may actually do that in one of my homebrew games, for the lolz.
And you are a very silly boy/girl/aberrant entity. >:)
Yay, my life is complete. ^_^
The Erastil thing is from comments by James Jacobs, and more officially Inner Sea Gods (which revises a number of errors in deity articles like the Paladin of Asmodeus thing as well as Erastil's sexism).The Demons being matriarchal to Hell's patriarchy is implicit in Lamashtu being the most powerful of them and, while I believe it's gone into in a couple of books, but again, I know it mostly from comments by James Jacobs on these boards. And as the creative director, his opinion is controlling on matters like this.
I quite like the matriarchal demons idea, might use that. I found the idea of Devils as patriarchal odd, given that most of the leading NPCs in Cheliax seem to be female. This is the kind of thing that bugs me re making most of the powerful NPCs (good & evil) female - it's done with no consideration for setting implications, so you end up with 'patriarchal' Asmodeus backing the House of Thrune, when nearly all the senior Thrune (& other Chelish) noble characters I've seen are female. I'm sure it can be justified in-setting; but I would like to see a justification. Eg: maybe the Chels think women are less subject to diabolical influence, so that Thrune being female-led acts as a sort of counterweight to potential Hellish corruption?
Re Erastil - as with other gods, my favoured approach is to have the cult vary geographically, so Erastil in the River Kingdoms, the Lake of Mists & Veils, and Mendev might be patriarchal, while in Cheliax or Nirmathas he's egalitarian. The Kingmaker write up for Erastil can be canon for the area covered in the AP (which seems less egalitarian or gynocratic than (former) Chelish territories), while the ISWG write-up can be canon for lands around the Inner Sea.
Sorry for the OT... :)
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I hadn't really thought about it a whole lot, but thinking about it, my homebrew campaign sort of paints demons in the setting as matriarchal somewhat accidentally. One of the major champaign-sized antagonists is a succubus queen, and in general the most powerful of the demons tend to be succubi, advanced (in terms of HD/class levels/etc) succubi, and maraliths, who tend to be the brains of the outfit.
The most major succubi had a husband (a balor) but he snuffed it in a battle with a hero, but she has been running the show of conquering the world her way since, which involves subversion and corruption with a bit of brute force when it's appropriate (and fun). As a result, while her husband was slain after trying to dominate the world with force, she has moved much closer to success in wrecking stuff without anyone even noticing. >_>
Her major lieutenants / champions are generally her daughters, with a few bruiser fiends (such as giant babau demons) and assassins. Most of the succubi are even pretty amiable and willing to work with mortals, and are often "on the level" so to speak. They're "trustworthy" insofar as your usefulness and/or amusement factor holds up, or if they like you, but it's all moving towards their ultimate schemes and if you make them angry you'll unfortunately probably live to regret it.
The demon queen, likewise, used her trickery to splinter one nation and drive its royal family into a civil war that she has been the puppet master of for some time, mostly as a means of crippling their society and to create a diversion from her ultimate plans, which will result in the resurrection of her husband in time for her to do a little prideful gloating about succeeding where he failed and then giving him the world as a friendly gift and reminder of who the real badass is.
/random musings
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That said, in the same campaign, we have the NPCs "Jum Jum", "Buckshot", and "Kallel D'tanni".
1. Jum Jum is a goofy goblin sorcerer who often comes off as gross, vulgar, rude, and...delightfully charming. When adventuring he's usually flinging Gaeloff's Seering Snot and similar spells and often has dirty, greasy hair. He walked around with maggots in his hair once after one of the PCs clobbered him in the head with a sword and it was left to heal naturally.
However, Jum Jum cleans up well. When he wants, he uses his magic to quickly freshen up and in a few moments is the goblin equivalent of Fabio, and his impressive confidence mixed with humorous casual approaches makes him surprisingly attractive with his silky green hair.
The party found over time that he's quick to forgive, and legitimately cares about friends and family, including the PC who clobbered him in the head with a sword, making him something of an unlikely candidate for some sort of sainthood to be certain. His magic is often flashy, weird, and in some cases just silly, and he often banters on about his extended family and their escapades.
His current signature spell is conjure prismatic donkey which is failed attempt a magical spell to summon a rainbow-colored unicorn to impress his first girlfriend (who dumped him for a jock, but that's okay, 'cause his donkey ran him over). It summons a magical donkey that he rides around on and - occasionally - says something, but when asked if it talked, it just makes donkey sounds.
"I just want you to know, that even though you stuck a sword through my brain, you're still one of the best friends I've ever had,"
2. Buckshot is a big orc warrior/barbarian/gunslinger (not Paizo gunslinger) that is both mildly psychotic and a barrel o' fun. He loves fighting with his guns both at range and melee, and loves participating in pit fights for money where he usually pistol-whips his opponents into submission. When he's not golf-clubbing his enemies with various firearms he actually proves that he can shoot the things and tends to prefer big explosions that blow stuff up.
Buckshot currently has a running arrangement with one of the PCs who he's helping out, mostly because he owes the PC a favor before he kills him himself, but he's a loyal lout who smokes cigars and has occasionally worn a dagger in his chest for a bit because he forgot that it was lodged there by his puny opponents.
Not one to mince words, he's usually direct, and doesn't care much for downers. When a number of the PCs were dealing with deep, painful, personal issues, Buckshot came in and told 'em what was what, and then turned to a few of the characters who were having relationship problems and said "There's plenty of Buckshot to go around! Haha!"
Both of these fine and handsome NPCs are currently quite eligible (though Jum Jum has a date scheduled at the moment with a priestess soon so he might have to pencil you in, though he's perhaps open to a menage troi).
"Enough of this mushy crap! You, your family loves you, stop being depressed. You, make up your mind about who you love and man up. And you two...well there's plenty of Buckshot to go around! Haha!"
3. Kallel D'tanni is a rich nobleman and a playboy. A womanizer to most, he keeps up his appearances as the lofty heir to his father's ill-gotten riches. However, Kallel has secrets of his own. He is secretly in love with one of his father's bodyguards and servants, a dragon-blooded woman named Masu, whom was raised as a young slave and eventually placed in a role of some power in their criminal organization because of her great power. Masu and him have had a secret relationship for some time, and despite the fact he is technically her boss he views her as his best friend and is often amused by the fact that she often acts timid with him despite the fact she could tear him to pieces with her bare hands if she wanted to.
Kallel plans to eventually take over his father's estate and business, at which point he intends to marry the dragon-touched Masu officially after his dad can't get upset about keeping up appearances and such. Despite his heart belonging to Masu, his body is a bit less caged, and Masu often comments on his laundry list of lovers, including a changling slave he gets along with, and various would-be-suitors from other noble houses and/or people interested into marrying into the house. However, most of his other relationships are just flings, though Masu questions if he really intends to make good on his promise or if he's just having fun with her. Still, he's never minded her scales and tail, and he was her best friend growing up, so she hasn't questioned it too much as in her heart she feels it to be true. He was always a good liar, just never to her.
He's pretty, with a tight and fit athletic body, short dusty-blonde hair, and usually wears a casual suit. He's prone to throwing his money around and buying people drinks. His bishonen beauty and casual charming gaze combines well with his flirty nature and makes him popular with the ladies, but who could steal his heart from the grasp of his dragon princess?
Masu: "You really are an ass-hole,"
Kallel: "But I'm a good kisser,"
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It's Going to Take a While...
For what it's worth, we've got at least several months before the concerns raised in this thread can be implemented in print. And, even once they are, it'll take way longer for that change to be perceived by the players.
Heck, Erastil's misogyny is a great example. That's been acknowledged as an error for years and corrected in print back in April, but it'll take a long time for that information to get to everyone.
And even if they balanced everything perfectly in Iron Gods, which I'd think is the absolute earliest we might see any changes from this thread, there's still years of adventures.
Or Maybe Not...
But many of us on the board are GMs and this is something well within our power to fix. It's easy enough for them to add some male love interests in their home games.
So, if you've upgraded an Adventure Path that way, go to the subforum for that path and let people know. If you're running a path and are worried there aren't enough male love interests, ask the people there for help.
Paizo can fix Iron Gods or the AP after that. And we know it's on their radar now. But we can fix the other 13.5 adventure paths right now.
Cheers!
Landon
But many of us on the board are GMs and this is something well within our power to fix. It's easy enough for them to add some male love interests in their home games.
Yeah, I add potential male & female romantic interests, and other PCs, to both the APs I'm running. In Curse of the Crimson Throne I added heroic Hellknight of the Nail Sir Jereth Rogare (the anonymous dude on the cover of Book 1), who has had a major part in rescuing a female PC from induction into the Gray Maidens, then solving the mystery of the Blood Veil and leading the assault on its source, before riding off into the dawn light with his comnrades in arms at the end of Book 2. In Rise of the Runelords new characters of mine include Alicia Scarnetti, Titus's glamorous & loose-moralled sister, who is about to be in a shotgun wedding with an equally promiscuous PC... :D
I'm sure I'd keep adding to the APs and making them my own whatever Paizo do. More canon romantic interest male NPCs would still be good, though. I guess it doesn't need to be 50-50, but at least 33-67 would be nice. :)
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Yeah, I add potential male & female romantic interests, and other PCs, to both the APs I'm running. In Curse of the Crimson Throne I added heroic Hellknight of the Nail Sir Jereth Rogare (the anonymous dude on the cover of Book 1), who has had a major part in rescuing a female PC from induction into the Gray Maidens, then solving the mystery of the Blood Veil and leading the assault on its source, before riding off into the dawn light with his comnrades in arms at the end of Book 2. In Rise of the Runelords new characters of mine include Alicia Scarnetti, Titus's glamorous & loose-moralled sister, who is about to be in a shotgun wedding with an equally promiscuous PC... :D
PC-PC romances can be good times :)
I actually only realized my players wanted romantic options in their game because of an involved PC-PC courtship. If that hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't have realized it until I ran Rise of the Runelords... and might have skipped the Shayliss encounter to my detriment.
In Rise of the Runelords, I added Telas Turtletamer, a gnome druid who helped wrangle the turtles in Turtleback Ferry. I also had a set of scenes on the Paradise, including a male half-elven prostitute... who stirred up plenty of sexual tension, but ended up being dropped like a bad habit once he wasn't in the way of their mission anymore.
I'm sure I'd keep adding to the APs and making them my own whatever Paizo do. More canon romantic interest male NPCs would still be good, though. I guess it doesn't need to be 50-50, but at least 33-67 would be nice. :)
Absolutely agreed, although outlining for 50/50 is probably best. Even if Paizo nails it, the writer's and artist's cultural preconceptions will make that drift back towards US norms.
But my point is more that: for all the older adventure paths, the community is actually in a better position to add more love interests than Paizo, just by comparing notes like we do about balance and plot holes.
Cheers!
Landon
Or Maybe Not...
But many of us on the board are GMs and this is something well within our power to fix. It's easy enough for them to add some male love interests in their home games.So, if you've upgraded an Adventure Path that way, go to the subforum for that path and let people know. If you're running a path and are worried there aren't enough male love interests, ask the people there for help.
Paizo can fix Iron Gods or the AP after that. And we know it's on their radar now. But we can fix the other 13.5 adventure paths right now.
Cheers!
Landon
This sounds legitimately quite cool. Much like the community modding PC games and adding new NPCs, romantic options, and so forth. A lot of people like myself tend to mod or add content to APs when we decide to run them, so this sounds like fun.
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I was in a bit of a hurry when I made my last post, so I just responded to the request for info, not the rest of xeose4's post. Allow me to corect that:
Yeah, you're right, I was probably a little too harsh there with some npcs. And I totally agree that some of them (the two A-named npcs) are definitely closer in "quality" than others. It's just that... I mean female options are just so crazy-powerful, being outsiders and rulers of nations and demigods... and then there's the dudes.
I can see your reasoning why you're arguing it the way you do, thanks for explaining that there. I actually hadn't considered it from that perspective, and thought the opposite, to be honest - that you were aiming more for painting a picture of greater equality than there really is.
Yeah, sorry for any confusion there.
Now, on to Ashiel's post:
That's fine. I'm not asking you to agree. I'm merely musing in a way that explains a lot of what I see. I'm dead serious though when I say that Paizo should just made an AP with nongendered aberrations. I mean, everytime I turn around someone is lamenting someone, or something, not being suitably represented in Paizo products, or if they are, they're not being represented at a level that they desire.
I feel like they can't win. Paizo rocks socks at offering a very diverse cast of characters, including characters of all sorts of ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and social backgrounds. Yet, despite this, or perhaps directly as a result of this they are getting threads with people fussing over how many words were devoted to X NPC vs Y NPC based on their gender, ethnicity, and/or choices in clothing.
Some of those complaints are indeed somewhat petty...but by no means all of them. And I think the reason they exist at all is Paizo's inclusiveness (as you mention). Paizo is so very wonderful about including most people that the few gaps there are stand out like sore thumbs...and given said inclusiveness, seem likely to be something overlooked rather than intentional...which means, at least to me, that if such gaps are pointed out, Paizo might well actually change things and close them. And that's really cool.
In short, a lot of it is constructive criticism, and intended as such. A way to make something already awesome even more so.
Now some is just whining and b#&@+ing or crazy people making unreasonable requests or demands, inevitably, but I don't think it's anywhere near the majority of it.
It seems grotesquely petty to me. So let's eliminate all this apparent bias by making everything equal. Give us genderless asexual aberration people and let people make their own damned romances. Most of the folk listed in these APs mentioned aren't even mentioned or presented as potential love interests, but we're assigning ratings to the NPCs based on how much we see them as a suitable romantic interest, the random art that's placed in the books, and so forth. Or complaining that potential romantic interests aren't given full stat blocks.
We're basing it on a combination of how attractive they are (either from picture or description), being single, and associating with the PCs for long enough for it to come up. That's it. The fact that so many more characters who meet that very simple criteria are women is both unfortunate and telling.
I'm a straight guy, but I know I'd be a little annoyed if the trend was reversed and there were no attractive women to romance. That'd suck. So, I feel that the people interested in men have quite a legitimate complaint.
Does anyone else, anyone, find it goofy to expect stat blocks for random NPCs based on the chance that someone is going to decide that they're hankering for some hot PC on NPC action and you gotta have some stats for that?
Yes, I do. Which is why I've included characters without stat-blocks on my lists in this thread. Heck, I've included one or two characters without even pictures. Demanding stats for love interests isn't what this thread is about at all.
Pfft, don't give me that. Most of the APs have nothing to do with romancing NPCs that I know of. Most of the NPCs mentioned in this thread have nothing to do with the "Adventure Path Experience" as far as "romantic relations" go. Joana was back on Page 1 of this thread listing guys based on eligibility and hotness (poor overweight short guys).
Uh...so the fact that my PCs have indulged in romantic trysts of some sort in every AP I've ever run is 'doing it wrong'? That's some serious crap right there. A lot of people play APs for the immersion, and romantic possibilities are a big part of that for me, and clearly for many others. You don't need rules for something for it to be important.
And when's the last time you saw a short overweight woman in an AP? Because I can't think of any...and that's a good reflection of the problem.
I believe that Jade Regent has the AP with romancing or rivalry being a thing...an actual thing...that was part of the AP experience, as opposed to "here are some NPCs, maybe your PCs will shnu them". In that book, the things that jumped out at me were:
Uh...spoilers? I'd actually like to play Jade Regent at some point.
And the fact that there are problems with that specific adventure or the fact that you, personally didn't primarily care about the romance elements are meaningless. Your preferences are not universal [I don't particularly desire most aberrations sexually, for example ;)], and assuming they are and people who feel differently are being 'petty' isn't cool.
I'll give you that 3/4 of the NPCs that are potential rivals/lovers are women (1 young adventurous woman, 1 old woman, 1 elven woman, 1 human man). That said, since we're discriminating against those who aren't sexually attractive, it makes it 2/3 since I'm pretty sure old lady fetishes are pretty rare (but who am I to know, since I've never dated an old lady before).
I'm not discriminating. I'm trying to make an accurate assessment of what the majority of people find attractive. there's a distinct difference.
I just feel that Paizo is never going to make everyone happy, unless there is an exact spread of specific NPCs in each game, and even then, haters gonna hate.
You're right. Perfection is impossible, and you can't please everyone. But if a lot of people are having a particular problem it should probably be addressed in some fashion, otherwise you'll wind up pleasing no one at all. Improvement, unlike perfection, is very possible indeed.
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Or Maybe Not...
But many of us on the board are GMs and this is something well within our power to fix. It's easy enough for them to add some male love interests in their home games.So, if you've upgraded an Adventure Path that way, go to the subforum for that path and let people know. If you're running a path and are worried there aren't enough male love interests, ask the people there for help.
Paizo can fix Iron Gods or the AP after that. And we know it's on their radar now. But we can fix the other 13.5 adventure paths right now.
Excellent point. And one I agree with entirely, for the record. :)
What Deadmanwalking wrote above pretty much sums up a lot of how I feel on the issue, but with emphasis on the 'as seriously as one ever treats anything about a game where you pretend to be elves, anyway.' I totally get how all of this can seem petty and nonsensical to some for whatever various reasons.
But when there have been so many sexy female NPCs and romance options when compared to the male ones, those who decry others for wanting more male ones or the topic itself as being petty or pointless, come across as being hypocritical in some ways. For some, they've already been catered to in that department with the numerous attractive female NPCs and female-only races (which again, outnumber the male-only ones). I'm not saying it's so, but it just sounds like a 'I got mine. I don't see a problem' attitude. That, or it comes across as implying that those who voice a concern or criticism aren't valid or genuine in said concerns and criticisms.
As I've said in other threads, I really don't mind the sexy female NPCs. I don't mind single-gender races, provided they have sensible reasons for being so (and yes, I'm aware how asking for sensibility or realism in a fantasy world can come across as silly).
My complaint isn't on the existence or presentation of those NPC females. I'm not saying Paizo is sexist or that presenting said characters is somehow 'wrong' or distasteful. I would simply like more male NPC romance options to be available. More charming noblemen, daring swashbucklers, bishonen, rascally rogues, suave vampire lords, more beefcake! (okay yeah, that last one is kind of petty :P) Etc. But that's the basic gist of it for me personally.
Romantic options can be wonderful additions to stories and adventures. I don't see how asking for a few more male options for interested parties is a bad thing.
I also recognize that Paizo is very inclusive and am very thankful for that. It's good to see examples of folk like me (a gay male) existing in the lore, and it's not something I take for granted. At all.
And on the subject of aberrations...Off-Topic
They'd find bizarre technology, priceless relics, incredible treasure, bits of forgotten lore - perahaps with accompanying articles in the adventure path books, like how Pathfinder #80 detailed the ancient Osirion deities, and maybe even secluded or locked away vaults or valleys which contain wildlife which has went extinct in all other areas of the world. For example, Shelyn's holy symbol was a real songbird native to Azlant that went extinct with Earthfall. :(
The adventure path could be called 'the Grand Expedition!' or some such.
Just my 2 cents.
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*everything before the following quote*
Okay, good points, I'm on board with what you seem to be saying now. It seems I may have failed my Perception check given on the cover from some of the other posters (like Joana wanting Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp).
Uh...so the fact that my PCs have indulged in romantic trysts of some sort in every AP I've ever run is 'doing it wrong'? That's some serious crap right there. A lot of people play APs for the immersion, and romantic possibilities are a big part of that for me, and clearly for many others. You don't need rules for something for it to be important.
You're not doing it wrong in the least. I'm just arguing that it's not part of the "AP Experience". There's plenty of interactive opportunities with PCs & NPCs in the games I GM/play too. There's also nothing wrong with modifying the AP to include romance or rivalries in it as a thing.
However, that's exactly what it is most of the time. A modification. The only AP that I've seen that actually makes it a thing is Jade Regent which discusses rivalries and romances with NPCs (as an optional thing that the books support if your GM wants to).
That's no different than homebrew games, honestly. In my current campaign that has reached 7th or 8th level or so (I need to double check) several members of the party have either developed an ongoing romantic relationship with an NPC, or has had a tryst with a few NPCs. None of said NPCs were ever created or added to the campaign with the intentions of them being "romantic interests".
It just happened organically when a PC decided that they liked an NPC for whatever reason and pursued that. The thing that's funny is it is often the most minor of NPCs that end up getting the most attention, which sometimes results in them becoming more major characters. One example is our Paladin who has ended up wooing a vampire*. The vampire was a very, very minor** character who was a messenger/errand girl for the head vampire. She ended up becoming a major character because the Paladin sort of made her become one.
*: I use an incredibly toned down revision of the vampire template.
**: She was merely a 2nd level adept with a bat familiar named Peggy.
Because of this: I'm legitimately rather concerned. Like I pointed out, Jade Regent is the only AP I know that really makes romance (or rivalry!) a real part of the AP experience. You might be legitimately missing out on stuff if your GM doesn't include that part of the AP. As a result, yeah, I think there should be more male NPCs in that book to woo (and Shalelu could have been a sexy Bishonen since she's already an elf; but the characters are from Rise of the Runelords and I think that was probably the most influential reason they showed up here as they did).
I'm putting myself in Paizo's shoes for a moment (or more specifically, whomever happens to be writing for an individual AP). If it were me GMing, I'm not expecting every campaign to include romantic interests. I'd really rather be working on the game, the campaign, rather than double checking to make sure that I have a suitable spread of NPCs catering to certain spread to make sure that it was "correct" for everyone.
GM: "Okay, so we have bishonen, the scantily clad bishonen, the bear, the scantily clad bear (in a thong), the Conan-look-alike, the not scantily clad Conan-look-alike ('cause Conan is scantily clad), the beautiful heroine, the scantily clad beautiful heroine, the loli, the...just going to leave it at the loli, the transgendered FtM human, the scantily clad FtM human, the MtF human, the scantily clad MtF human..."
A little while later...
"Okay, that's all of them. Oh crap, I forgot to assign their sexual orientations. Screw it, they are all bisexual. There, that'll do it,"
A little while later...
Player 1: "I really felt like this was one of the weaker adventures. It felt like I was walking through a shopping center for idealized stereotypes. Out of the 32 pages of the first adventure, 29 were devoted to the menagerie of fetish-stereotypes, and while the 92 individual NPCs who interact with the party were really daring, I felt like not enough of them got much 'screen time' and came off rather bland and didn't really add much to the 1 page of adventuring content, 1 page of backstory content, and 1 page of bestiary stuff."
Player 2:"Out of the 92 and one half NPCs presented in this adventure, there was a clear bias, intentional or not, because only 10% of the NPCs were Tian, 13% were Shoanti, and the only female Shoanti in the book had an Int of 8, which is inappropriate because..."
GM: "Son of a..."
This is doubly true when you consider how amazingly close to effortless it is to just drop an NPC into the game to cater to your players. If you have a group that's made of 4/4 women (I've GMed for all-female players before on quite a few occasions) and you're worried that they don't have enough beef to go around, then it's trivial to just drop a few male NPCs into the mix, do a gender-swap on existing NPCs, or even just change the way that the NPCs are presented.
Joanna wants Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp? Well suddenly Kroop is a handsome middle-aged man with a scruffly beard who's lost in the bottle and needs some wonderful heroine to pull him out and remind him what it is to be alive again. Mr. Plugg? Well he wasn't friendly to begin with, but now he's the dark-willed badboy who might develop a soft spot for a woman who's just as mean as he is. And instead of being a bald guy with a ponytail, he's now a dashing yet ruthless young swashbuckler who is mean and nasty but a sexy badboy.
Except, you might want to let him stay bald. We don't want to under represent bald people, because bald is beautiful, and we don't want to perpetrate a stereotypical social bias.
Jade Regent tries but even then you might decide you're not interested in any of the presented NPCs and so you might go for someone else entirely as well, making it all moot. Even in Jade Regent, I ended up adding NPCs to give the party something to do (not like that!) when they weren't interacting with the presented NPCs.
And when's the last time you saw a short overweight woman in an AP? Because I can't think of any...and that's a good reflection of the problem.
Um, wait. No, no it's not. It's a reflection of a problem but not the problem. Joana back on page 1 already implied she doesn't want any fat guys, so adding fat women isn't going to help anyone (except those turned on by some curves, mrawr!), or cutting down on the number of fat guys (so much hate for the weight) and adding more pretty guys (SRS wants manly, masculine men, with boyish faces, and hairless chests, so maybe that's what we should go for).
Maybe I should start a thread about how there's an obvious bias against men because they're the ones Paizo generally depicts as fat, rude, overweight, unclean, bald, boozers, heartbroken slobs, cowardly, etc. Honestly, now that you have drawn it to my attention, I want more fat, short, cowardly, drunkard, unclean, bald, heartbroken women in APs.
I'm not discriminating. I'm trying to make an accurate assessment of what the majority of people find attractive. there's a distinct difference.
You're not but others are. Which is why I said "we", as in posters in this thread.
Uh...spoilers? I'd actually like to play Jade Regent at some point.
Don't worry, I didn't and won't give anything away, other than that there are some undead somewhere in the game (which I mean, it's a Paizo AP, I don't think there's one without undead). Anything else I mentioned was mentioned without names, locations, or anything that would spoil anything (unless you were already reading through the AP) or already available in the Player's Guide (where the romancing stuff is mentioned).
And the fact that there are problems with that specific adventure or the fact that you, personally didn't primarily care about the romance elements are meaningless. Your preferences are not universal, and assuming they are and people who feel differently are being 'petty' isn't cool.
Actually I did care about the romance elements in Jade Regent. I had designed my character with the specific intention of pursuing the Ameiko romance (again, nothing not detailed in the Player's Handout) because it was going to be a thing. When I was playing through Curse of the Crimson throne, however, I didn't care about romance because it was something that if it would happen would be something that happened as an aside and more organically (I could totally see one of my PCs having a romance with Zallara).
And I'm not saying that wanting more beefcakes is petty. It's perfectly fine to ask Paizo (or your GM) for more of X. However, what I said that I found petty was:
Paizo rocks socks at offering a very diverse cast of characters, including characters of all sorts of ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and social backgrounds. Yet, despite this, or perhaps directly as a result of this they are getting threads with people fussing over how many words were devoted to X NPC vs Y NPC based on their gender, ethnicity, and/or choices in clothing.
It seems grotesquely petty to me.
If anything the first page of this thread shows that there's actually a much more even spread than I thought originally. I'm pretty happy to see that there's usually at least 4 guys per AP that could be romanceable, and given that the "worst offender" is Reign of Winter (an AP I've come to really despise) is the one filled with females (witches and fey man) it makes me pretty happy with it. >_>
On a side note, a lot of the Reign of Winter "ladies" are kind of laughable as obvious romantic interests unless you're trying really hard. :P
[I don't particularly desire most aberrations sexually, for example ;)]
I don't either! That's the beauty of it! :D
Excellent point. And one I agree with entirely, for the record. :)Or Maybe Not...
But many of us on the board are GMs and this is something well within our power to fix. It's easy enough for them to add some male love interests in their home games.So, if you've upgraded an Adventure Path that way, go to the subforum for that path and let people know. If you're running a path and are worried there aren't enough male love interests, ask the people there for help.
Paizo can fix Iron Gods or the AP after that. And we know it's on their radar now. But we can fix the other 13.5 adventure paths right now.
I think it would be fun for us all to do a "build a beefcake" workshop. I'd contribute if you guys decide to do that.
Having shared this thread and recent posts with a friend of mine that plays in my current ongoing campaign. She was amused and wondered what others would think about her character.
She, the player, plays a lolicon (*shudders*) elven vampire (she ages really slowly so despite having the mind of an adult, her body doesn't fit) who is bisexual but leans towards homosexuality given her attentions to NPCs. Besides regularly making me facepalm as her character tries to be sexy and fails at it horribly most of the time (coming off as as comically awkward in-universe as outside). She has a current romantic interest in an (ugh) underaged slave girl named Carill that the party purchased from some nefarious sorts to set her free, and Carill has a sort of adoration for her.
That said, I thought she was going to wreck Kallel D'tanni (the bishonen playboy mentioned in the previous post including Jum Jum and Buckshot). Of course, she also decided to throw in her opinions on what the APs need more of, and here's what she sent me.
Picture #1
Picture #2
Picture #3
Picture #4
EDIT: Actually, she insisted that I come back, and correct myself. The party most definitely did not purchase Carill, she did, and she wants it to be known that she is the one who bought her to free her.
I'm confused as to why my opinions are being continually singled out for derision.
I'm confused as to why my opinions are being continually singled out for derision.
Its the internet, somebody's gotta be derided:) maybe it twas a coin flip that decided:)
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On the character mentioned in Ashiel's post, I'm reminded a bit of Claudia from Interview With A Vampire. Adult mind, child body, though she viewed it as a curse and wanted an adult form. Seems like a classical concept for a vampire, as is the adoration (maybe leaning toward obsession?) for a particular individual (even a child). Could really play up the dark fairytale aspect with that.
Here's some examples of what I wouldn't mind seeing more of in Pathfinder.
Example 1 by Carolina Eade, which depicts an elven cleric of Shelyn. I really love her works, so vibrant and colorful, and stylish!
Example 2 and Example 3, both by dronio.
Example 4 and Example 5 by ElephantWendigo.
Example 6 and Example 7 by anndr.
And Example 8 by hgjart.
If anyone has the spare time, I definitely recommend browsing some of the above artists' galleries. Not only are there some excellent examples of attractive males (imo), but a lot of their stuff is just gorgeous work in general.
I'm confused as to why my opinions are being continually singled out for derision.
Mostly because I'm lazy. :P
On the character mentioned in Ashiel's post, I'm reminded a bit of Claudia from Interview With A Vampire. Adult mind, child body, though she viewed it as a curse and wanted an adult form. Seems like a classical concept for a vampire, as is the adoration (maybe leaning toward obsession?) for a particular individual (even a child). Could really play up the dark fairytale aspect with that.
Yeah, I loved Claudia in IWTV. She was really cool and kind of tragic. I kind of wish said vampire was a bit more like Claudia, but she kind of swishes back and forth between childlike and adulthood, but I think that's part of her theme to make her different.
I really, really wish that "dark fairytale" was the vibes that were commonly given off by her character (she's going to give me hell for this post later :P).
Here's some examples of what I wouldn't mind seeing more of in Pathfinder.
Example 1 by Carolina Eade, which depicts an elven cleric of Shelyn. I really love her works, so vibrant and colorful, and stylish!
Example 2 and Example 3, both by dronio.
Example 4 and Example 5 by ElephantWendigo.
Example 6 and Example 7 by anndr.
And Example 8 by hgjart.If anyone has the spare time, I definitely recommend browsing some of the above artists' galleries. Not only are there some excellent examples of attractive males (imo), but a lot of their stuff is just gorgeous work in general.
Those are some sexy fellows, but my god, the bush that that example #2. Manscaping dude, let's get some! Unless you enjoy lying on the carpet. :)
@Varisian Wanderer: some choice pics dude, and amazing variety too.
Those are some sexy fellows, but my god, the bush that that example #2. Manscaping dude, let's get some! Unless you enjoy lying on the carpet. :)
Who's to say that isn't for show, and that he just manscapes where it counts? :P
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I think it would be fun for us all to do a "build a beefcake" workshop. I'd contribute if you guys decide to do that.
Ask and ye shall receive.
Cheers!
Landon
I think it would be fun for us all to do a "build a beefcake" workshop. I'd contribute if you guys decide to do that.Ask and ye shall receive.
Cheers!
Landon
Sweet. I gotta help my dad with some plumbing stuff (found a leak in a pipe that's caused some problems) but later I'll jump right on that. :)
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*everything before the following quote*Okay, good points, I'm on board with what you seem to be saying now. It seems I may have failed my Perception check given on the cover from some of the other posters (like Joana wanting Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp).
Cool, glad we're in agreement on a fair bit. :-)
You're not doing it wrong in the least. I'm just arguing that it's not part of the "AP Experience". There's plenty of interactive opportunities with PCs & NPCs in the games I GM/play too. There's also nothing wrong with modifying the AP to include romance or rivalries in it as a thing.
However, that's exactly what it is most of the time. A modification. The only AP that I've seen that actually makes it a thing is Jade Regent which discusses rivalries and romances with NPCs (as an optional thing that the books support if your GM wants to).
That's no different than homebrew games, honestly. In my current campaign that has reached 7th or 8th level or so (I need to double check) several members of the party have either developed an ongoing romantic relationship with an NPC, or has had a tryst with a few NPCs. None of said NPCs were ever created or added to the campaign with the intentions of them being "romantic interests".
It just happened organically when a PC decided that they liked an NPC for whatever reason and pursued that. The thing that's funny is it is often the most minor of NPCs that end up getting the most attention, which sometimes results in them becoming more major characters. One example is our Paladin who has ended up wooing a vampire*. The vampire was a very, very minor** character who was a messenger/errand girl for the head vampire. She ended up becoming a major character because the Paladin sort of made her become one.
*: I use an incredibly toned down revision of the vampire template.
**: She was merely a 2nd level adept with a bat familiar named Peggy.
I think we're having a slight failure to communicate here. My issue is not that there are few characters of either gender that are explicitly designed as PC love interests, though I can see how the thread title might be misleading there, my issue is that the vast majority of the attractive characters the PCs are written as associating with over a reasonable time frame (the allies they make, the people they save, the leaders they must liaise with, etc.) are female. And often in circumstances where you're out in the wilderness or under time pressure and really can't run into anyone else very logically. In short, such romances developing organically is a supported option with women...but not nearly so much with men. Which sucks.
Because of this: I'm legitimately rather concerned. Like I pointed out, Jade Regent is the only AP I know that really makes romance (or rivalry!) a real part of the AP experience. You might be legitimately missing out on stuff if your GM doesn't include that part of the AP. As a result, yeah, I think there should be more male NPCs in that book to woo (and Shalelu could have been a sexy Bishonen since she's already an elf; but the characters are from Rise of the Runelords and I think that was probably the most influential reason they showed up here as they did).
I'm putting myself in Paizo's shoes for a moment (or more specifically, whomever happens to be writing for an individual AP). If it were me GMing, I'm not expecting every campaign to include romantic interests. I'd really rather be working on the game, the campaign, rather than double checking to make sure that I have a suitable spread of NPCs catering to certain spread to make sure that it was "correct" for everyone.
GM: "Okay, so we have bishonen, the scantily clad bishonen, the bear, the scantily clad bear (in a thong), the Conan-look-alike, the not scantily clad Conan-look-alike ('cause Conan is scantily clad), the beautiful heroine, the scantily clad beautiful heroine, the loli, the...just going to leave it at the loli, the transgendered FtM human, the scantily clad FtM human, the MtF human, the scantily clad MtF human..."
A little while later...
"Okay, that's all of them. Oh crap, I forgot to assign their sexual orientations. Screw it, they are all bisexual. There, that'll do it,"
A little while later...
Player 1: "I really felt like this was one of the weaker adventures. It felt like I was walking through a shopping center for idealized stereotypes. Out of the 32 pages of the first adventure, 29 were devoted to the menagerie of fetish-stereotypes, and while the 92 individual NPCs who interact with the party were really daring, I felt like not enough of them got much 'screen time' and came off rather bland and didn't really add much to the 1 page of adventuring content, 1 page of backstory content, and 1 page of bestiary stuff."
Player 2:"Out of the 92 and one half NPCs presented in this adventure, there was a clear bias, intentional or not, because only 10% of the NPCs were Tian, 13% were Shoanti, and the only female Shoanti in the book had an Int of 8, which is inappropriate because..."
GM: "Son of a..."
This is a reductio ad absurdum. It's also not what I'm advocating at all. Perfection isn't achievable, and trying for it is often a really bad idea...but you can still note problems and work to correct them. Improvement is very possible.
I'm advocating a more gender-balanced number of attractive people the PCs associate with. That's...actually not even that difficult, much less the kind of impossibility you're implying it is.
This is doubly true when you consider how amazingly close to effortless it is to just drop an NPC into the game to cater to your players. If you have a group that's made of 4/4 women (I've GMed for all-female players before on quite a few occasions) and you're worried that they don't have enough beef to go around, then it's trivial to just drop a few male NPCs into the mix, do a gender-swap on existing NPCs, or even just change the way that the NPCs are presented.
Joanna wants Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp? Well suddenly Kroop is a handsome middle-aged man with a scruffly beard who's lost in the bottle and needs some wonderful heroine to pull him out and remind him what it is to be alive again. Mr. Plugg? Well he wasn't friendly to begin with, but now he's the dark-willed badboy who might develop a soft spot for a woman who's just as mean as he is. And instead of being a bald guy with a ponytail, he's now a dashing yet ruthless young swashbuckler who is mean and nasty but a sexy badboy.
Except, you might want to let him stay bald. We don't want to under represent bald people, because bald is beautiful, and we don't want to perpetrate a stereotypical social bias.
Jade Regent tries but even then you might decide you're not interested in any of the presented NPCs and so you might go for someone else entirely as well, making it all moot. Even in Jade Regent, I ended up adding NPCs to give the party something to do (not like that!) when they weren't interacting with the presented NPCs.
And I'll reiterate: This is the same as saying you can House Rule a rules problem. It's true, but doesn't mean there isn't a problem, just that a GM can fix it, like all problems. The point of APs is, in large part, to minimize the need for such things.
Um, wait. No, no it's not. It's a reflection of a problem but not the problem. Joana back on page 1 already implied she doesn't want any fat guys, so adding fat women isn't going to help anyone (except those turned on by some curves, mrawr!), or cutting down on the number of fat guys (so much hate for the weight) and adding more pretty guys (SRS wants manly, masculine men, with boyish faces, and hairless chests, so maybe that's what we should go for).
Maybe I should start a thread about how there's an obvious bias against men because they're the ones Paizo generally depicts as fat, rude, overweight, unclean, bald, boozers, heartbroken slobs, cowardly, etc. Honestly, now that you have drawn it to my attention, I want more fat, short, cowardly, drunkard, unclean, bald, heartbroken women in APs.
I disagree, it's exactly the same problem. There's a mindset in play here of "Women tend to be young and conventionally attractive, men tend to not be." not consciously, but it's an undercurrent, and effects the characters made. That mindset needs to go away, allowing for more conventionally attractive men and more conventionally unatractive women. Ditto on personality traits. It's all one attitude, and thus all one problem.
You're not but others are. Which is why I said "we", as in posters in this thread.
Eh. I didn't think it was that bad, at least in this thread.
Don't worry, I didn't and won't give anything away, other than that there are some undead somewhere in the game (which I mean, it's a Paizo AP, I don't think there's one without undead). Anything else I mentioned was mentioned without names, locations, or anything that would spoil anything (unless you were already reading through the AP) or already available in the Player's Guide (where the romancing stuff is mentioned).
I'm aware...but people keep getting closer and closer to the line where there would be legitimate spoilers, so I'm trying to remind people to be careful. :)
Actually I did care about the romance elements in Jade Regent. I had designed my character with the specific intention of pursuing the Ameiko romance (again, nothing not detailed in the Player's Handout) because it was going to be a thing. When I was playing through Curse of the Crimson throne, however, I didn't care about romance because it was something that if it would happen would be something that happened as an aside and more organically (I could totally see one of my PCs having a romance with Zallara).
And I'm not saying that wanting more beefcakes is petty. It's perfectly fine to ask Paizo (or your GM) for more of X. However, what I said that I found petty was:
That's true to some degree, but again, not really relevant to what this thread is really about.
If anything the first page of this thread shows that there's actually a much more even spread than I thought originally. I'm pretty happy to see that there's usually at least 4 guys per AP that could be romanceable, and given that the "worst offender" is Reign of Winter (an AP I've come to really despise) is the one filled with females (witches and fey man) it makes me pretty happy with it. >_>
Some of those guys are really stretching it (in WotR and RoW especially)...I was going out of my way to present things indisputably.
On a side note, a lot of the Reign of Winter "ladies" are kind of laughable as obvious romantic interests unless you're trying really hard. :P
Eh, some of them are a bit marginal, but no more so than almost all of the male options. One woman even explicitly asks a PC on a date!
I don't either! That's the beauty of it! :D
Heh. :)
I think it would be fun for us all to do a "build a beefcake" workshop. I'd contribute if you guys decide to do that.
As might I.
I'm confused as to why my opinions are being continually singled out for derision.
Your thoughts are well-stated and clear. That makes it easier for someone to choose them as the thing to deride, because they're easy to paraphrase. Don't worry, it just means that your attacker is only thinking in concrete terms, and probably doesn't know what they want anyway.
I'm confused as to why my opinions are being continually singled out for derision.Your thoughts are well-stated and clear. That makes it easier for someone to choose them as the thing to deride, because they're easy to paraphrase. Don't worry, it just means that your attacker is only thinking in concrete terms, and probably doesn't know what they want anyway.
Attacker? Wait, who? What? Where? When? (O_o)
Joana's responses were indeed quite clear, and like I said, I was quite lazy since I was merely citing an example of things requested. In Joana's post s/he said s/he wants more Johnny Depp and Orlando bloom, and prefers the dudes without various unattractive hangups, be they weight, addictions, or general unattractiveness (such as bad teeth, hygiene, etc), even on a pirate ship that everyone was forced into (with one of the dudes cited being a villain, and the other being a guy who's been forced into servitude for 2 years and has given up most hope on life and crawled his way into a bottle, comparing them to another character who is a relatively recent arrival).
Which was part of my point that I agree with Deadmanwalking that there is a sort of problem, but I don't think it's the same type of problem. For example, Deadmanwalking notes that you don't generally see women portrayed in negative ways. Even if they're villains they usually have some sort of admirable characteristics, and if they aren't villains they're all that and a bag o' chips; whereas males get to fill the roles of the fools, addicts, grotesques, overweight, etc.
Deadmanwalking cited the fact you don't find fat women in the APs, or women with thinning hair, but you find lots of fat and/or bald dudes in APs. However, as Joanna points out, she doesn't want to see fat people either. She used weight to disqualify NPCs as potential suitors, and while it wasn't the only qualifier, it was definitely a negative influence. Ergo, making lots of flawed females (while realistic) isn't going to help much at all, since presumably those interested in female NPCs may judge them as Joanna would and discount them as potential interests.
So it would seem that the most direct solution for the "dating scene" is just to start pushing "more hotness" at male NPCs and throw more of them out. Instead of Nosferatu, give 'em Edward Cullen (okay, I just threw up in my mouth a little, so give them Lestate or Sexy Dracula or Vampire Hunter D instead), and let them be happy.
I do think that there is a problem, but I think it might possibly have been born from a solution (even if it was unintentional or ill conceived). Paizo does a lot to include strong female role models, and to include a greater number of female heroes, villains, and plot relevant characters who have a wide assortment of positive characteristics. Based on some posts, I think part of this might be a form of shout-out to the female fans and trying to make it clear that it's not a "boys club" and that women are movers and shakers in Golarion too (or it might just be that, like me, James Jacobs thinks heroic ladies are freakin' awesome).
As a result they're getting more spotlight and are often idealized. Even the villains. I mean, if Paizo is going to make a female villain, would you expect Maleficent or Madam Mim? Since someone has to be the fat slobs, it's gotta be the dudes (I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, but I think this is how it happens, and I don't even think that it's intentional). I do think that's a bit unfair, but I imagine that it might average out after a while.
I wasn't attacking Joanna or even anything that s/he said. Merely pointing out that her feedback shows a different but related problem. S/he doesn't want an even spread of negative qualities, s/he wants more "hawt man babes", and y'know, there's nothing wrong with that (let everyone have their hotness and be happy!). I merely think the lack of "hawt man babes" is a symptom of a different disease.
To leave on a happier note, check out this hotness that was linked in the Hypersexualization of Women thread (this is a hot dude by the way, god that sexy beast). :P
Cool, glad we're in agreement on a fair bit. :-)
I'm not half as unreasonable as people on these boards think I am. :P
I think we're having a slight failure to communicate here. My issue is not that there are few characters of either gender that are explicitly designed as PC love interests, though I can see how the thread title might be misleading there, my issue is that the vast majority of the attractive characters the PCs are written as associating with over a reasonable time frame (the allies they make, the people they save, the leaders they must liaise with, etc.) are female.
Okay, with you so far, and agreed. I do think a lot of them are female (as I mentioned before, I think part of this was born out of trying to be more inclusive and perhaps throwing the baby out with the bathwater).
And often in circumstances where you're out in the wilderness or under time pressure and really can't run into anyone else very logically. In short, such romances developing organically is a supported option with women...but not nearly so much with men. Which sucks.
Yeah, I can agree with that.
This is a reductio ad absurdum. It's also not what I'm advocating at all. Perfection isn't achievable, and trying for it is often a really bad idea...but you can still note problems and work to correct them. Improvement is very possible.
I'm advocating a more gender-balanced number of attractive people the PCs associate with. That's...actually not even that difficult, much less the kind of impossibility you're implying it is.
No it's not impossible to have more gender-balanced numbers of attractive people, but the thing is, it's just the same thing a different day in a different way. Again, I'm talking about the whole thing. Keep in mind that right now, there are threads talking about the hypersexualization of women in Pathfinder by citing characters like Seoni and ignoring characters like Kyra. There's a thread looking specifically for gods with particular genetic ethnic traits (not cultural, genetic, as in physical features that people are born without any control over, like skin, hair, and eyes). There's a thread about needing more beautiful men gods, where SRS demand that we need more hot "masculine" guys who aren't "feminine looking men", only he then goes on to detail that his idealized sort is...a feminine looking man (boyish face, swimmer's body, hairless chest/arms/etc). There's this thread, and that's not even touching the (mostly benign and enjoyable) Homosexuality in Golarion thread that's been running for years (and I hope it continues to go as I enjoy it).
The point that I was making with my scenario is that no matter what you do, someone is going to be unhappy or feel like something is unfair or unrepresented. If it's not men today, it's women tomorrow, it's someone of X genetic predisposition the day after, and someone with Y cultural background the day after that. People get upset about stuff.
Would I like to see more hot guys and flawed ladies? Well, sure. I'm an equalist so I believe everyone deserves the same in all things. However, I don't feel like Paizo - nor anyone - can cater to everyone. I mean, look at SRS and Joana (sorry Joana, I'm doing it again) where SRS wants masculine manly guys with boyish faces and hairless bodies and Joana doesn't want any fat dudes with flaws like drinking problems and wants Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom, meanwhile you and I might like to see a few more Madam Mims mixed in with our Maleficents (okay, that's a lie, I loved Sword & the Stone but give me Maleficent every day of the week and twice on Sundays).
But a little while later, people will be concerned about too many idealized men, and how Paizo is painting women in a bad light. Does that sound cynical? Probably, but that's what I've expect.
And I'll reiterate: This is the same as saying you can House Rule a rules problem. It's true, but doesn't mean there isn't a problem, just that a GM can fix it, like all problems. The point of APs is, in large part, to minimize the need for such things.
Yeah, in a sense, that's true. I don't think that GMs should have to "fix" everything, but frankly I'd rather Paizo work on actually getting the rules and mechanics in their APs right as there's a lot of cases where NPCs need to be fixed, encounters need to not conflict with the environmental rules, and NPCs need to not be doornail-dumb about things in encounters ("Hi, we don't actually have any problem with you, and we don't actually have any real loyalties to your enemies, but hey let's fight to the death because...you got any ideas?").
I actually support the idea of suggesting, or requesting, to Paizo to include more of *insert whatever in here*. I think that's a great idea, though I think the tone of a lot these things comes out differently than "Hey Paizo, can we get some more hot dudes and normal or even abnormal dudettes?"
Though I really like the idea of working on these things as a community even more. It sure beats the hell out of the endless parade of people complaining that Paizo isn't printing enough of *insert character type here* or "Your poster's got monkies and gnolls on it instead of Africans!" (ugh, I remember that too clearly).
Which is why after I get done with this post, I'm going to go cast some lots in the Build A Beefcake Workshop. It'll be a nice change of pace and might actually do some real good for once.
I disagree, it's exactly the same problem. There's a mindset in play here of "Women tend to be young and conventionally attractive, men tend to not be." not consciously, but it's an undercurrent, and effects the characters made. That mindset needs to go away, allowing for more conventionally attractive men and more conventionally unatractive women. Ditto on personality traits. It's all one attitude, and thus all one problem.
Well I've already explained what I think a largely contributing factor to that is. Even still, while I agree with your take on it (I'd like to see some more flawed women and more awesome guys) I'm not sure that will make everyone happy. No harm in trying I guess, but I imagine these sorts of things are always going to come up.
I'm aware...but people keep getting closer and closer to the line where there would be legitimate spoilers, so I'm trying to remind people to be careful. :)
Aye-aye. :)
That's true to some degree, but again, not really relevant to what this thread is really about.
Well, I think it's relevant because you were talking about romantic entanglement and used the term "AP experience", and I was politely pointing out that the only AP that courting NPCs has been part of the "AP Experience" is Jade Regent (to my knowledge). I'm not saying that you can't have those things in pretty much any of the APs, but I was pointing out that it's the only one where it's a real part of it.
Some of those guys are really stretching it (in WotR and RoW especially)...I was going out of my way to present things indisputably.
I appreciate that by the way. Thank you. :o
Eh, some of them are a bit marginal, but no more so than almost all of the male options. One woman even explicitly asks a PC on a date!
Yes, I recall that from playing through Reign of Winter. If I'm not mistaken that was the
Heh. :)
You know that it would be really cool. :P
As might I.
Woohoo~! *Ahem*, I mean, "And you have my axe,"
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Keep in mind that right now, there are threads talking about the hypersexualization of women in Pathfinder by citing characters like Seoni and ignoring characters like Kyra. There's a thread looking specifically...
NB: DIFFERENT PEOPLE WANT DIFFERENT THINGS. Some people want more Kyras, some want more Seonis, some want more Vencarlo Orisinis. Obviously Paizo cannot please everyone! That's not the point, and it's not illegitimate for people to post their wishes even where those contradict the wishes of other people.
Keep in mind that right now, there are threads talking about the hypersexualization of women in Pathfinder by citing characters like Seoni and ignoring characters like Kyra. There's a thread looking specifically...NB: DIFFERENT PEOPLE WANT DIFFERENT THINGS. Some people want more Kyras, some want more Seonis, some want more Vencarlo Orisinis. Obviously Paizo cannot please everyone! That's not the point, and it's not illegitimate for people to post their wishes even where those contradict the wishes of other people.
I didn't say that it was. I do, however, think that there are more productive ways to go about handling these concerns. In the hypersexualistion thread, the OP goes into a long (even compared to my posts :P) rant about hypersexualation of women, the evil that is the strait-white-male, power fantasies, and so forth. There he says:
It’s a weirdly consistent, borderline fetishistic constant throughout a LOT of Pathfinder materials, and while I’d love to see some real equivalence, I understand that’s not always possible. Failing equivalence, however, there’s another option: to not send that message at all, by no longer allowing material that perpetuates it.
That's fine and dandy, and I'm all for having more incubi and stuff shnuing players (though I've never had a PC that would touch a succubus with a 10 ft. pole, which is wise since they're oddly not immune to diseases and having been using sex as a weapon for a few eternities means most succubi probably die from AIDS or Syphilis more than they do from Paladins). However, here someone is basically telling Paizo that their option is either X or "don't print anything like this again".
That's a bit pushy for my tastes. I'm more of the "ask nicely" persuasion, or starting a nice movement in the community to fix stuff (like with the beefcake thread, which I've been formulating some ideas for but need to get all the formatting done). Asking nicely and showing real interest, I think, would be better for pretty much everyone.
It's easy for people to get offended. It's pretty much meaningless these days. It means something when people show that they care. That always means something.
I also think that instead of treating the symptom, we need to diagnose the cause of it and work on that. If a tend is identified, then we can look at it and examine the hows and whys of things.
For example...
-- DMW (Deadmanwalking) mentioned the "problem".
-- Wiggz suggested that a large part of it could be the demographics, since apparently females playing RPGs is still far less common than males, and as a result if the NPCs were intended to be romantic interests it would make more sense than a 50/50 spread.
-- DMW suggested that making it a 50/50 split could attract more female players (while that's a novel idea, nobody I know, be they male or female played or play this game for a d20 fantasy dating sim, so this seems a bit silly to me, but maybe it would work).
-- I suggested that a big contributor to the apparent bias comes from the inclusion of less idealized male characters and more idealized female characters, which I believe is already part of Paizo trying to be more appealing to women (essentially combatting the stigma that this is a boy's hobby, with lots of shirtless Conan clones running around), and not wanting to depict women in ways that could seem unappealing to women (no women with major physical or mental flaws).
-- I suggested that it might vary from writer to writer based on their ideas for characters, and it might be that in today's world where we've grown up to find great value in heroic feminine (notice I didn't actually say female) that it reflects in some of the writing.
So here we have a few theories here that could explain - in any combination - explain the frequency of the heroic idealized female contrasted with the frequency of the males and also unidealized males. So we could try to devise some strategies for fixing the cause.
If the cause really is about gaming demographics then the spread will change naturally as gaming demographics change. In this case, spreading the love of the game to more women would solve that naturally. Now female players aren't exactly an unheard of thing in my history of playing/GMing. Some of my earliest groups consisted entirely or almost entirely of female players. That said, I don't recall them going on much about romantic interests (one girl insisted that her PC put ranks into Profession [The Oldest] but I wouldn't call that romance) but I can't speak for everyone. The overall solution here would be to spread the word about the hobby - the whole hobby (not just "we have hot non-real men" aspects of it. I think Christina Stiles' Medusa's Guidebook for Gaming Girls might be promising for this side of things, though from what I've read the title might be a bit misleading (as it also includes a lot of information super relevant to everyone, not just women, such as introducing family, friends, and children to the game).
If it's because Paizo is trying to appear to be less of a boy's club and show more strong and idealized ladies, then they might be trying to fix the demographics bit but causing a temporary upset in the balance while trying to attain equilibrium. This is the problem with trying to counter-balance yesterday's unevenness, you create tomorrows unevenness, when you should just forget about it and make everything even and fair (this is a failure of pretty much any attempt to make things fair by giving and taking, rather than just giving or taking, as you don't balance things, just make a different imbalance). The solution here might be to pull back on the reigns a bit and be a bit more organic about it.
If it were because of writer preference, then maybe just letting people know that we'd like to see more of X, Y, or Z would be a good practice. Or let Paizo's editors do a bit of tweaking to the material before it goes out, which it seems that they already do based on the comments from Matt Goodall about Shattered Star.
Given Matt's comments, I'm personally leaning towards theory #2 (Paizo is going for more female characters in general) or theory #1 (that's it's a demographical choice).
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Here's a simpler way to put all this:
"Paizo, please keep an eye out to make sure that your Adventure Paths have a variety of NPC genders and body/appearance types that's more like the rest of your books."
Seriously, look at Ultimate Combat/Magic, or pretty much any sourcebook. You'll see people of all shapes and sizes. Bishonen men, ugly women, classic Beefcakes, BBWs, and that's just the Humans. Most of the people on this thread just want to see the APs having that same variety.
Adventure Paths need more STEVE HOLT!!!!!!!!!!
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Here's a simpler way to put all this:
"Paizo, please keep an eye out to make sure that your Adventure Paths have a variety of NPC genders and body/appearance types that's more like the rest of your books."
Seriously, look at Ultimate Combat/Magic, or pretty much any sourcebook. You'll see people of all shapes and sizes. Bishonen men, ugly women, classic Beefcakes, BBWs, and that's just the Humans. Most of the people on this thread just want to see the APs having that same variety.
Yup. Basically this.
Though I'd add that we also want such variety among the allies of the PCs specifically, as well as among villains and bit-players. Having all the allies be one gender, age, or attractiveness level while the villains or side-characters are others to make things more diverse wouldn't quite fix the problem, IMO.
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You can have all the debonair polite men you want...
But we're all villains! Haha, evil is sexy!
Trickery.
I am skipping a lot of post, but I think there are more opportunities for males to enter into relationships because there are more male gamers, and most writers are men. If I were to run an all female(player) party or even two females I would probably change a male to a female if they were interested in such things.
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I am skipping a lot of post, but I think there are more opportunities for males to enter into relationships because there are more male gamers, and most writers are men.
Sure. That's a reason for the problem, though, not inherently a reason there isn't one.
If I were to run an all female(player) party or even two females I would probably change a male to a female if they were interested in such things.
And again, good idea, I applaud you. But...that's a solution to the problem (and, as change in the material, one APs are intended to minimize the need for) not there not being a problem.
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i honestly have not noticed a problem:)
in that i play with kids and my wife, so sexuality rarely if ever surfaces in our games. but even still i've always found pathfinder's NPCs well made, vibrant with good to phenomenal artwork (also keep in mind i don't have CoT or any 3.5 APs so i can't attest to the NPCs or artwork of the early APs)
so no i don't think they need a Beefcake to Hottie chart up in their office making sure everything is exactly even:)
unless they're doing a cheesy calendar, then yes all should be even;)
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i honestly have not noticed a problem:)
in that i play with kids and my wife, so sexuality rarely if ever surfaces in our games. but even still i've always found pathfinder's NPCs well made, vibrant with good to phenomenal artwork (also keep in mind i don't have CoT or any 3.5 APs so i can't attest to the NPCs or artwork of the early APs)
The APs are pretty universally awesome, and I'd never dream of saying otherwise.
You're also totally right, for some people this issue will never even come up...but that doesn't make it not a problem, it makes it not a universal problem across gaming groups.
In short, the fact that you haven't had a problem (which is true of me, too, by the way...the majority of my Pathfinder AP groups have been guys, and one of the women was bisexual and played a character who was likewise) doesn't mean that there isn't a problem there. It just means you and I haven't run into it directly.
so no i don't think they need a Beefcake to Hottie chart up in their office making sure everything is exactly even:)
Neither do I, really. Advocating that's not the purpose of this thread. Indeed, I don't think most of us in this thread, not being involved in the creation and publishing of APs, are even really qualified to suggest how this problem should be solved in any detail, and however it is, it's not gonna be perfectly equal numbers. No, this thread is there solely to point out that this is a problem some people are having, and it's not all in their heads, the numbers really are quite uneven.
That's all. This thread is intended purely as a diagnostic tool, a question of "Is there a problem here?" followed by an answer to that ("Yes there is." in this case). That's really all.
Now, talking about how to solve the problem in broad strokes (more hot guys, more gender balance in general, etc.) is reasonable...but still more of a side-topic than what I really created the thread for, since I think most of it is pretty self-explanatory given the existence and nature of the problem.
unless they're doing a cheesy calendar, then yes all should be even;)
Agreed. ;)
Okay, folks. On the subject of male love interests, I want opinions on Quinn.
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Okay, folks. On the subject of male love interests, I want opinions on Quinn.
He makes me think of of a less haunted version of John Luther. Considering the "squee" I hear from the other side of the couch whenever Luther's on screen, I'd say he has a lot of potential!
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I agree, though as a straight guy, my opinions may have limited value here. :)
Actually, I'd argue that the Iconics have pretty much always had a pretty decent balance of attractive people of both genders (there are probably a few more women...but not all that many). There's a reason I did this thread about APs and not 'all Paizo material'. ;)
I agree, though as a straight guy, my opinions may have limited value here. :)
Actually, I'd argue that the Iconics have pretty much always had a pretty decent balance of attractive people of both genders (there are probably a few more women...but not all that many). There's a reason I did this thread about APs and not 'all Paizo material'. ;)
also, unless you throw them in there yourself, chances are they don't actually have any Iconic's in the AP (except in the action scene artwork:)
Okay, folks. On the subject of male love interests, I want opinions on Quinn.
Very nice :)
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Okay, folks. On the subject of male love interests, I want opinions on Quinn.
Love him.
And I agree with Deadmanwalking that Wayne Reynolds's male iconics are presented as far more attractive than the typical male NPC. Partially due to his talent and partially due, imo, to the fact that they're pregens and PC stand-ins to be played as the "heroes" of the story rather than as the supporting cast.
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Well, if we're gonna do Iconics, we should do them all, so let's do that. Like I said previously, most of them are good possibilities, let's list the ones which maybe aren't...
Lini - I have no idea how to call this one...I mean, objectively, she seems attractive enough but there's a serious uncanny valley thing going on for me with her proportions (Note: this isn't true of all Gnomes...just Lini)
Harsk - Maybe it's just me again...but he just doesn't seem at all attractive.
Ezren - I've heard mixed opinions on Ezren. I think he's decently attractive, but his age is a concern. I'd err on the side of including him with the good possibilities, though.
Alain - Kind of a giant dick. Which is a bit of a problem as a legitimate romantic possibility. Even if he is good looking.
Balazar - Combine my concerns about Ezren's age with a much less attractive guy in general and you'll see why I'm skeptical.
So, that's 10-11 good female possibilities (depending on whether you count Lini), and 8-9 good male possibilities (depending on whether you count one of the three I list) out of the 22 non-ACG Iconics, for a slight disparity in favor of more attractive women than men.
Of the ACG so far, there's one good possibility of each gender (both Quinn and Jirelle seem very attractive in their own ways).