Yeah...I would say most of DM Becketts definitions of Fantasy and what belongs in pathfinder should all be read with "In my very personal opinion I don't like X in Y"
Just off the top of my head, guns/gunpowder weapons figure prominently in Solomon Kane stories by Robert Howard, the Shadowfall series by Tad Williams, Brent Weeks Lightbringer series, and The Powder Mage series by Brent McClellan. Hell...Orcs even had gunpowder in Lord of the Rings.
I also would make the same argument that there is no problem with Asian elements in fantasy and gaming. Tian Xia is handled quite well by Paizo, and I don't see an issue with classes like Ninja or Samurai being used for character in Avistan, anymore than I have a problem with a class called a Barbarian being used outside of a grecco-roman setting. A ninja is just a mystical assassin, while a Samurai is a variant cavalier (literally)
And while the answer to all those questions is unambiguously "Yes.", the question "Do guns belong in this particular setting I'm developing or campaign I want to run?" depends on whether you plan on including them and if one of your players wants to use them. If the answer to either of those questions is "Yes.", then I would submit the answer to that question is "Yes." as well.
So your saying that if my group is running a Stone Age game and one player wants to use a firearm, the answer should be yes...
And while the answer to all those questions is unambiguously "Yes.", the question "Do guns belong in this particular setting I'm developing or campaign I want to run?" depends on whether you plan on including them and if one of your players wants to use them. If the answer to either of those questions is "Yes.", then I would submit the answer to that question is "Yes." as well.So your saying that if my group is running a Stone Age game and one player wants to use a firearm, the answer should be yes...
Hey if Cyborg from the Teen Titans makes sense in a stone age setting thanks to magic sending him there. Furthermore, the same is true with Ash Williams ending up in medieval England. And he explicitly has a boomstick. I fail to see why anyone would have problem with it.
Edit @ RDM42:
I think you mean the GM lacks the imagination to add the gunslinger to the campaign. The player is responsible for bringing a character. They should bring the character they want to play. If the character they want to play has a gun, that's not a lack of imagination on their part. It's what they want to play. And yes because the setting *can* accommodate guns, it most certainly *should* if a player wants to use them.
Anzyr the point he's making is that he [and presumably most of the players] want to play a chronistic Stone Age game. One where nobody and nothing is out-of-era.Hey if Cyborg from the Teen Titans makes sense in a stone age setting thanks to magic sending him there. Furthermore, the same is true with Ash Williams ending up in medieval England. And he explicitly has a boomstick. I fail to see why anyone would have problem with it.And while the answer to all those questions is unambiguously "Yes.", the question "Do guns belong in this particular setting I'm developing or campaign I want to run?" depends on whether you plan on including them and if one of your players wants to use them. If the answer to either of those questions is "Yes.", then I would submit the answer to that question is "Yes." as well.So your saying that if my group is running a Stone Age game and one player wants to use a firearm, the answer should be yes...
They want to play a Stone Age campaign with Pathfinder magic, otherwise they are not reading my posts. If they are suggesting a stone age campaign without pathfinder magic that is not high fantasy, they aren't really playing Pathfinder anymore, and any further commentary on what is or isn't appropriate in a non-pathfinder game is irrelevant.
I will assume they have read and understood my posts and are suggesting a high fantasy stone age campaign with pathfinder magic, thus my answer remains "Yes."
Anzyr the point he's making is that he [and presumably most of the players] want to play a chronistic Stone Age game. One where nobody and nothing is out-of-era.Hey if Cyborg from the Teen Titans makes sense in a stone age setting thanks to magic sending him there. Furthermore, the same is true with Ash Williams ending up in medieval England. And he explicitly has a boomstick. I fail to see why anyone would have problem with it.And while the answer to all those questions is unambiguously "Yes.", the question "Do guns belong in this particular setting I'm developing or campaign I want to run?" depends on whether you plan on including them and if one of your players wants to use them. If the answer to either of those questions is "Yes.", then I would submit the answer to that question is "Yes." as well.So your saying that if my group is running a Stone Age game and one player wants to use a firearm, the answer should be yes...They want to play a Stone Age campaign with Pathfinder magic, otherwise they are not reading my posts. If they are suggesting a stone age campaign without pathfinder magic that is not high fantasy, they aren't really playing Pathfinder anymore, and any further commentary on what is or isn't appropriate in a non-pathfinder game is irrelevant.
I will assume they have read and understood my posts and are suggesting a high fantasy stone age campaign with pathfinder magic, thus my answer remains "Yes."
And yet pathfinder magic lacks time travel.
It's feasible that Pathfinder Magic might show up in a Stoneage world. The Pathfinder rulebooks even have some Stoneage gear [although I pitty the Wizard lugging around Spell Stone Tablets.]
There isn't any actual explicit time traveling magic in Pathfinder. Sure you might hop into a slow-time plane and come out a thousand years in the future having aged only a year, but it doesn't work in reverse.
There are other planes of existence and planets in Pathfinder. There's no reason the Gunslinger has to be from the future. Heck, with how many fantasy settings are built over a past glorious age civilization (some of which are *our* past glorious age civilization), the gunslinger could be from the past who ended up in a fast time plane.
Edit @ Milo v3: As you can see from the above, a little thought on the subject provides solutions.
There are other planes of existence and planets in Pathfinder. There's no reason the Gunslinger has to be from the future.It's feasible that Pathfinder Magic might show up in a Stoneage world. The Pathfinder rulebooks even have some Stoneage gear [although I pitty the Wizard lugging around Spell Stone Tablets.]
There isn't any actual explicit time traveling magic in Pathfinder. Sure you might hop into a slow-time plane and come out a thousand years in the future having aged only a year, but it doesn't work in reverse.
There's nothing guaranteeing that those other planes and planets have firearm technology, and more importantly there's nothing that gives one player the right to crush the game of multiple people.
If this were only about the GM and one player I'd say the GM should consider being flexible, but that isn't always the case.
If the GM proposes a Stone Age campaign and the group jump all over it [or one of his players does and the rest jump on the bandwagon] and a single player disagrees, he needs to either adapt to the game or quit the game.
A stone age campaign. Sure, the player is the problem. A high fantasy stone age campaign? No. The gunslinger makes as much sense as anything else. Gunslinger in an ancient world is a story concept that works and I have provided examples of it doing just that. If the other player's disagree, it's because they find it silly. And as I have said before, if the other players can't tolerate what they deem to be silliness, then I believe the problem is with them. If you can provide me a reason other then "I don't like it." or "I find it silly." I would consider conceding this point, but I don't believe such a reason exists.
It's feasible that Pathfinder Magic might show up in a Stoneage world. The Pathfinder rulebooks even have some Stoneage gear [although I pitty the Wizard lugging around Spell Stone Tablets.]
There isn't any actual explicit time traveling magic in Pathfinder. Sure you might hop into a slow-time plane and come out a thousand years in the future having aged only a year, but it doesn't work in reverse.
There are other planes of existence and planets in Pathfinder. There's no reason the Gunslinger has to be from the future. Heck, with how many fantasy settings are built over a past glorious age civilization (some of which are *our* past glorious age civilization), the gunslinger could be from the past who ended up in a fast time plane.
Edit @ Milo v3: As you can see from the above, a little thought on the subject provides solutions.
Except those don't exist in my groups setting. I'm not going to completely rewrite the whole cosmology of the setting just to justify how one person can play opposite to theme.
This isn't about sense Anzyr, it's about 'feel.'
High Magic in a Stone Age doesn't defy Stone Age the same way certain technological advances do.
A group of players have a right to want to play the type of game they want to play. There's nothing wrong with that and you should stop saying there is.
What is not right is for one single player to expect the rights to crush the game of the whole group.
I think we are going to have to agree to disagree on this issue. To me if someone playing a gunslinger in a high fantasy stone age campaign "crushes the game", that is a weakness of the game. If the other player's would go so far as to prevent a player from playing the character they want to play based on "I don't like it." or "I find it silly.", I see the problem being the other players. The one thing a player gets to control in Pathfinder is their character. It should be the one they *want* to play.
Except those don't exist in my groups setting. I'm not going to completely rewrite the whole cosmology of the setting just to justify how one person can play opposite to theme.It's feasible that Pathfinder Magic might show up in a Stoneage world. The Pathfinder rulebooks even have some Stoneage gear [although I pitty the Wizard lugging around Spell Stone Tablets.]
There isn't any actual explicit time traveling magic in Pathfinder. Sure you might hop into a slow-time plane and come out a thousand years in the future having aged only a year, but it doesn't work in reverse.
There are other planes of existence and planets in Pathfinder. There's no reason the Gunslinger has to be from the future. Heck, with how many fantasy settings are built over a past glorious age civilization (some of which are *our* past glorious age civilization), the gunslinger could be from the past who ended up in a fast time plane.
Edit @ Milo v3: As you can see from the above, a little thought on the subject provides solutions.
Sure they do. Pencil in Amerik as an unexplored planet and there it is. Super easy.
Milo v3: As you can see from the above, a little thought on the subject provides solutions.And the GM may reject those solutions. Gate is problematic enough to be banned before that even comes up.
Solutions are easy. I can provide many with but a thought. You'll note there was not one solution to the issue, nor was that list in any way exhaustive. Or time consuming. It's such a de minimus effort I find it strange that anyone would be bothered *not* to do it.
The game exists for the players and the GM. For god sakes compromise. Trust me, your artistic vision as GM is not so special that you can't find a way to work with some fluff and allow a player a character. And for the player, if everybody else truly feels as if your character will break immersion it may not be the right game. People are yelling back and forth as if there's a correct answer to this question, when it depends on the group and should probably be focused on finding a way to make all the players and the GM as happy as possible.
This is well written. Everyone can play their table how they want to, but at my table, player's will always be allowed to play the character they want to.
Sure they do. Pencil in Amerik as an unexplored planet and there it is. Super easy.
There is only one planet... and it's more flat than it is a planet. If I did add in another planet I would have to explain why people haven't come from it before, and why the previous plotlines with cosmic events had no interaction with this element of the cosmology before.
Easy is relative. Not everything can be added in without a thought. In some settings players have spent long enough in it that certain factors about cosmology are known, to simply shove something major in requires a large amount of finesse to explain it.
|
It seems reasonable enough to simply declare up front that anybody who wants to play a PC of an 'opposition race typically in the GM's hands' [Orcs, Goblins, etc etc etc] can't be on good terms with their home people, because the GM doesn't want to have to deal with the complications it creates.
And what if one player wanted a goblin ambassador (on good terms with their home people) and another wanted to play a drow ex-insider whose connections would complicate the desired plotline (for example an information broker who ticked off the wrong person)?
And something more on-topic, since I'd started a response to an earlier post and forgot about it:
Arguing about whether the amount of brutality in GoT precisely matches that in history is missing my point.I don't think it does. If you set GOT as the realistic level for brutality the question isn't why are you telling a brutal story but why does anyone (or almost everyone) tell something else? You don't need a reason to stick to reality you need a reason to diverge from it. Its why we don't see a lot of worlds where people are left handed or women are stronger than men or most of the world is uninterested in sex or....
I've read plenty of stories where most of the world might as well be completely uninterested in sex for all the attention it gets in the story.
Starting with Lord of the Rings. There's barely any romance in those books and the only reason we know sex exists is because of the painstaking geneological history. For all we know, in Middle Earth sex might exist solely for reproduction. And despite being an Army of Evil the orcs are arguably less brutal than, say, the Boltons, or even the propaganda of Tolkien's time. There was, for example, no mention of orcs spearing human babies on their swords and no sexualized violence. This is because sex and graphic violence was at best irrelevant to and at worst detracted from the story he wanted to tell, which was about fellowship, divine providence, and the triumph of humility and simplicity over industrialism and greed.
Not all departures from history require explanation in-story. Having everyone in a world be left-handed or ambidextrous doesn't change anything about how the world works. This is especially true in fantasy settings with more tenuous connections to actual history. When my GM describes a country as "economically and culturally similar to 1950s America, but with a constitutional monarchy instead of a democratic republic" we can agree that such a country could have developed without comparing its development against that of the actual USA.
On the other hand, a gun in an otherwise stone-age setting does take some justification and further it had the potential to greatly change the dynamic of the game going forwards. How do people react to this totally foreign weapon? Will it attract thieves? What happens when local magic-users try to analyze it? And can the gunslinger actually maintain their weapon (and produce powder and ammo) in a setting that doesn't have basic smithing? The other players might object not not only the existence of the gun but the implications for the setting.
And sweeping these kinds of issues under the rug as if the gun wasn't unusual for the stone age setting can strain suspension of disbelief for some.
Genre fight! Genre fight!
The elements that make up a particular literary genre are no less arbitrary than the elements of what makes "authentic" jambalaya.
There is a line between jumbalaya and not jumbalaya.Its fuzzy, you're not sure where it is, but you do know that at some point This is not jumbalaya
|
I have had that experience. My friend wants to create a primitive game where reading and writing are not present, thus no wizards, alchemists, established religions, from his perspective. But the thing that did get to me was our discussion regarding halflings. In the 5th ed of Dnd, the artwork shows them with a larger head. I said that I didn't understand the design. He said, "Well they have a body of a child, like your kids, so they are going to have a bigger head." I disagreed with him because they, halflings, are full adults, a different species of humans, why are they going to follow the same rules of development, especially when they grow tufts of hair on their feet and only grow to three feet.
It seems that the bulk of this thread is spent trying to define 'fun' for someone else.
I, as a player, enjoy well defined worlds and campaigns where certain things may or may not exist, either at all or in the hands of the players. I have played three Golarion-based campaigns under a GM who blanket refuses Gunslingers, firearms, Summoners, or Ninjas for reasons of personal taste. Even though I'm very interested in playing a summoner and I think a Bolt Ace could be cool to play, I knew what the Table's rules were and have made three very enjoyable characters within those rules.
This GM also limited us to the races in the Plater's Guide. I have some interesting ideas for a tiefling character or a skinwalker. However, I wasn't going to insist on playing one.
I enjoy when everyone at the table fits a theme. We have one player who seems to always want to play something counter to the theme in varying degrees (LG when everyone else agreed to a quasi-criminal background; greedy-bastardy when everyone had agreed to play goody-goody) and the table has always managed to accomidate him with some retooling of his character, but even he wouldn't try to insist on an Android just because it's in one of the Paizo books.
This is how my current table plays and what I enjoy most. That doesn't mean that someone who allows everything under the sun is a bad GM or a player who wants to play an Awakened caribou in an urban, diplomatic campaign is a bad player. However, the fact that those things might be fun for someone else does not mean that my GM is a bad or tyrranical GM for keeping player options limited.
I have had that experience. My friend wants to create a primitive game where reading and writing are not present, thus no wizards, alchemists, established religions, from his perspective. But the thing that did get to me was our discussion regarding halflings. In the 5th ed of Dnd, the artwork shows them with a larger head. I said that I didn't understand the design. He said, "Well they have a body of a child, like your kids, so they are going to have a bigger head." I disagreed with him because they, halflings, are full adults, a different species of humans, why are they going to follow the same rules of development, especially when they grow tufts of hair on their feet and only grow to three feet.
Halflings evolved from humans and one of the fastest more radical ways to get evolution going is to mess with how a creature ages? Thats what we did with dogs... a dog is effectively a wolf that remains a puppy its entire life.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
In defense of the Stone Age campaign, which is really an aside that I probably shouldn't fuel:
I disagree with the premise that if it is possible within the Pathfinder library of material that it should be allowed and worked in else the GM who spent his time creating the campaign is dictatorial. Example:
Me: "Dear friends, for our next game, I'm going to run a fictitious, pseudo-Earth-based Stone Age campaign where magic is possible. We'll be playing humans only. Since paper and an alphabet have not been invented, spontaneous casters make more sense. Also, religion is animistic, so oracles make more sense than clerics, but we can discuss. Please get your character concepts to me at least two weeks before we start."
Player 1: "Aw, shucks. I really wanted to play a wizard this time; I've been playing spont casters for the last two games."
Me: "OK. Let's say you're someone who has learned to harness magic by creating patterns, and you record your spells as a series of colored beads on strings."
Player 1: "Sweet. Thanks."
Player 2: "Hey, Blake, I've been dying to play a gunslinger since they were released. Can I be one who gated through from a more advanced world?"
Me: "You know, that's an interesting concept, but it's just not going to play out well in this setting. First of all, you'll run out of ammo after the first five battles, and with no means to make more, you'll be wasting most of your class features. Secondly, such an alarmingly advanced tool is going to shift the focus of the campaign from survival and exploration to everyone's reaction to your thunder stick."
Player 2: "I thought you'd sat that, so what about the Bolt Ace?"
Me: "Good compromise, but you'll find the same problem when you run out of quarrels."
Player 2: "I'll invest skills in Craft: Boyer."
Me: "I see that you're very interested in playing this, but you do realize that there won't be anying magical crossbows or quarrels lying around in loot, right?"
Player 2: "Player 1 can take Craft Magical Arms and Armor to help us out."
Player 1: "Um, the build I had in mind doesn't really have room to spend a feat on that."
Me: "I'd say you could play a bolt ace if you were willing to accept that your character will be significantly under powered compared to the rest as time goes on, and I don't think you'd have fun. The other problem is that the standard knowledge of someone in the Stone Age and someone from a world where they've invented crossbows is significantly different. You could dramatically change the world simply by understanding how to collect, plant, and irrigate a garden."
In this hypothetical situation, my reasons for disallowing firearms are in the player's best interests because who wants to be a gunslinger with no bullets. My reasons for disallowing the class are also that the player won't enjoy being handicapped. My reasons for disallowing gating in from tomorrow-land is that even the simplest advanced knowledge provides the player with an unfair advantage over his peers in this Stone Age campaign.
There: Reasons other than, "I don't want to" or simply "It doesn't fit my theme."
Can he even use his Craft skills without modern equipment and tools?
That reinforces my first reason: he'll be playing at a disadvantage compared to his peers and, hypothetically, I know him well enough to know he won't have fun. Let's say he's up for the challenge. What happens when he loses his crossbow (let's say due to his own terrible tactical error so I don't have to counter the dozens of ways I fudge things to not abuse my players)? Now the only class features he can use are his HP, BAB, Saves, and other Martial WPs. He's going to have to be the guy who plays Pillars of Eternity on Hard Ironman to enjoy keeping with that character.
Regarding the advantage of the technical knowledge: the disruption is not on his mechanical capabilities, but in redirecting the focus of the story onto himself (inadvertantly or not).
P.S. Pleas don't focus on this one line, but he doesn't need to make a flint hatchet when he brings a steel one that will presumably last "forever."
An aside to the aside: An interesting campaign might be where a powerful wizard has discovered a plane where man is still in the Stone Age. He hires some guilable or desperate folk to go through a gate and document what they see, also impressing upon the the need to keep a code of non-interference (whether they do or not). The adventurers need to conserve/protect their resources in a primitive world until the wizard reopens the gate a week later. Something happens to prevent the characters return (the wizard dies of a stroke, the characters get lost running from a dinosaur, etc).
On the original topic: Since this is fantasy, I wouldn't feel at all bad putting Stone Age man next to dinosaurs and megafauna that all come from different epochs.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Pretty sure if you do that campaign, the Stargate people are gonna want their cut:-D
Pretty sure if you do that campaign, the Stargate people are gonna want their cut:-D
If that meant that they'd start producing more Stargate anything episodes, I'd give it to them!
In defense of the Stone Age campaign, which is really an aside that I probably shouldn't fuel:
I disagree with the premise that if it is possible within the Pathfinder library of material that it should be allowed and worked in else the GM who spent his time creating the campaign is dictatorial. Example:
I would be ok with this reasoning and will concede the point. Good post.
Pretty sure if you do that campaign, the Stargate people are gonna want their cut:-DIf that meant that they'd start producing more Stargate anything episodes, I'd give it to them!
They didn't pay anything for ripping off Fringeworthy.
Everyone can play their table how they want to, but at my table, player's will always be allowed to play the character they want to.
Have you no limitations at all? No books? No classes? No spells, No feats, no tech? No settings? Wealth? Do you not set Point buy? Do you allow rolling if they dont want point buy? If so, do you not set the die rolling parameters?
Claiming that Guns, Ninja and Samurai [and pretty much anything else Pathfinder's given even the slightest sideways glance at] isn't fantasy is pretty crazy in my mind.
Now, of course you're welcome to say you don't like that stuff in your fantasy, but I sure as hell like it in mine and my fantasy is no less fantasy than yours is.
Really depends. Guns and technological firearms are expressly not fantasy, but part of either the western or the sci-fi genre. Fantasy generally implies more European or romantic, so knights, dragons, wizards, demons, etc, . . . but is not only those. It's just that those sources make up the majority of what is considered Fantasy. However, there are others, such as One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights) are also part of the source material, so Ninja and Samurai, do fit in in a fashion.
Fantasy, as a genre, is distinct from sci-fi, horror, and other genres. Ninja's and Samurai can fit, I just feel that Paizo did it terribly wrong, making the same kind of racist mistake that is common to trying to include anything not "western" in the otherwise pretty westernized fantasy setting. Either they are unique and special, just because, so we have things like the Katana being both special and better than the Longsword or Bastard Sword, just because it's Asian, or kind of reinforcing that they are separate. You don't see a lot of Taldan Ninja's or Mwangi Samurai, but you do see Tian-Min Fighters, Paladins, and Wizards. Tengu Rogues, Hongalesse Barbarians, Cavaliers, and Shamans, etc. . .
All despite the fact that there should have been plenty of crossover.
White Wolf (Onyx Path) has done a similar thing with their Gypsy and Kindred of the East supplements, (and even a bit with their Mummy books too), so it's not just a Pathfinder issue. Later materials, like the Kindred of the Ebony Kingdom (Africa) did start to fix the problem by introducing the new material as similar (within the context), but not exclusive (Asian) or superspeacial...
this probably has been covered by now, but your getting your Romanticism mixed up with fantasy. Specifically the genre your thinking of is romanticism.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Heck, just look at all the Modern Fantasy stuff like Dresden Files and Supernatural. Or is Modern Fantasy also not fantasy?Like Noir, Westerns, or Horror, it is it's own category, though like other combos (Firefly is both Sci-Fi and Western, Star Wars is both Sci-Fi and Fantasy), it does blend some elements of both. In this case, the genre you are looking for is "Urban Fantasy".
FINALLY, for the first time i can legitimately point out the one true scottsman fallacy
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Everyone can play their table how they want to, but at my table, player's will always be allowed to play the character they want to.Have you no limitations at all? No books? No classes? No spells, No feats, no tech? No settings? Wealth? Do you not set Point buy? Do you allow rolling if they dont want point buy? If so, do you not set the die rolling parameters?
I don't mean to be snarky (well, not that snarky), but weren't you going outside every single existing parameter of the rules when you invented the Thief class back in 1974? I don't understand why a person who invented new material that early in the game's use would be a proponent of limitation rather than experimentation.
While that may be true, it seems that firearms (and those who use them) are very frequently in opposition to the elements that make it "Fantasy". For example, the animated film Wizards and more recently Princess Mononoke. Both are fantasy films, but the guns are destroying the fantastic.Really depends. Guns and technological firearms are expressly not fantasy, but part of either the western or the sci-fi genre.Nah. They are more common elements of other genres, but firearms are very much part of fantasy.
princess mononoke was a comment on shinto beliefs being in opposition to their heavily urban life style. Ultimately the movie at the end says that you shouldn't focus one way or the other. For instance both sides are seen as both good and bad at various points. The Ironworks overseer cares for the lepers and whores, the Guardian spirits defend the forest. but also the Ironworks is destroying the land and works with hunters and dare to take on the god of life and death, while the guardian spirits stuck in their old ways throw themselves at them to their ultimate demise.
the movie teaches that technology is powerful(the villager for instance is cursed with a bullet that gives him incredible strength) but can be misused and harmful to those around, and tradition while noble can also make your demise inevitable(the boars and how they throw themselves at the entrenched hunters).
so like the movie, I say guns in fantasy are perfectly fine when used in moderation.
yeah beckett really seems to be using the no true scotsman fallacy.
In some fantasy. Not in all fantasy.
if that was against me, i did say when used in moderation.
In some fantasy. Not in all fantasy.
Same as how Dwarves and Elves are fine in some fantasy, but not all fantasy.