Fantastic Racism: Having Fun With It


Advice


We all know that Pathfinder has creatures with alignment subtypes that strongly incline them towards certain actions, as well as several other non-alignment typed creatures that tend to strongly stick to certain alignments.

In a recent thread there was a paladin that was (perhaps correctly so) quick to jump on the wagon of a reincarnated wizard becoming evil due to their new body, before being tricked via illusion to kill his lover while she was disguised as something resembling a demon. The OP had mentioned that the bugbear wizard knew that the paladin only ever worked to redeem evil humans and elves.

While we can all agree that racism is a terrible thing, and also likely agree that within the pathfinder system there are a few situations where giving the benefit of the doubt isn't really that good of an idea.

To me, that just gives potential room for more satisfying stories. We know that in Mendev, for instance, tieflings are executed when found out (Blood of Fiends). What happens when a Mendev crusader moves to the Puddles District of Absalom, where there are many tieflings, most establishing their own culture, reproducing, working their jobs, everything that normal people are doing, but also with groups that live up to the fiendish reputation the crusader has spent years nursing? This is just one example of many.

So if you have a character that's racist and you decide that the next plot hook is going to play into that fact, what do you do with it?


And now, a Very Special Episode Module of Pathfinder RPG....

In my experience, if a player is playing a racist/speciesist character, I generally don't have to go out of my way to work it into the plot--it'll come up in its own time.


You can get even better stories if both sides have a legitimate reason for what they believe.

Dump the idea that 'we're EVIL', and move to something like England vs. France, or Lannister vs. Stark.

When both sides have actual motivations, you'll move up to the next level of storytelling.


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Fantastic racism is best when it's childishly amusing.

"Look, your god is nice and all but I'm an elf, we have *real* gods to worship."

"I'm not saying you humans are weak, I'm just saying if you don't have tusks maybe you should stick to standing on the second rank."

"I don't hate elves, I just can't tell the difference between the males and the females."

"Mercy-kill you for a reincarnation gone wrong? And get Gnome blood on my sword? No way dude."

Grand Lodge

Well, to be fair, the first Gnomes on the material realm, had no souls.

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