| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Either Torag's asking some kind of zen contradiction-riddle of his followers or he's pretty on board with Dwarves giving no quarter to goblins whether they're ALL tiny, psychotic pyromaniacs who kill for fun and aren't averse to eating babies every now and then or not.
I'm reminded of my last alchemist character, a goblin Winged Marauder Alchemist who operated as the group's scout, artillery, and magic item provider (man I love Master Craftsman as a feat).
Part of a character arc was when she came to terms with the dwarven barbarian in the group; a worshipper of Torag who got into a lot of fights with my characters over perceived problems. We enjoyed that aspect of the characters, their petty jibes and their grudging respect for one another.
If Torag suddenly can't be bigoted, and thus his followers can't be, that eliminates a huge aspect of what can make roleplaying fun. Conflict, even minor conflict such as an argument, is part of what makes the game enjoyable, or we wouldn't have fun being challenged by interesting encounters and puzzles.
Erm...about the whole "Good is never, ever, ever, ever, ever bigoted in any way" thing...
So a deity would automatically disapprove of the numerous good-aligned characters that are prejudiced against Goblinoids, Orcs, or Drow? Because I'm pretty sure there's a lot of them and they're still good guys despite hating people from those races.
Dwarves hate goblins and orcs (or Drow, giants, and dragons). That's built into your racial abilities; you hate them so much you're really good at hitting them.
Torag, a lawful good deity, approves of this. In fact, he approves of this so much that his paladin code instructs paladins of Torag that the enemies of their people must be defeated at any cost. Mislead them if you must. Do not accept their surrender. Don't give them a second chance. They are your people's enemies. Kill them, while conducting yourself in a way that honors Torag.
Either Torag's asking some kind of zen contradiction-riddle of his followers or he's pretty on board with Dwarves giving no quarter to goblins whether they're ALL tiny, psychotic pyromaniacs who kill for fun and aren't averse to eating babies every now and then or not.
don't forget Iomedae's strong dislike/hatred for tieflings
| 9 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think at this point the thread is devolving a bit.
By and large though, we all seem to be on the same page; this isn't a matter of bigotry being bad or not. It's a matter of the double-standard that's been presented to us. Why? Why is hating goblins okay, or dragons, or orcs, or whatever, but even having a gentle dislike over trans people not?
Like I said before, I'm a trans girl, so I'm of the minority this kind of change would (perceivably) be presented in order to appease and keep safe, but I'm arguing that blatant inconsistencies like this make the world less believable, less immersive, and most importantly, less fun. I don't want perfectly safe. I want strife. I want interesting. I want situations I have to think my way out of because not everything is handed to me on a silver plate. That's boring and can be in some cases sycophantic.
I'm not a fan of some of the Torag bigotry myself and wouldn't have a paladin code like that. Having said that however, bigotry against fantasy races is pretty different from bigotry against something that really exists. I can feel more comfortable saying that a race that doesn't exist shouldn't exist, than I would be in saying that about something which is actually real. Maybe orcs are objectively things that deserve to die, I've never met one so couldn't say... (though in my Golarion they aren't automatically...)
And I think it's that need to ignore basic verisimilitude to keep Golarion "comfortable" that is leading to the complaints. It's the same deal with the claim that patriarchy just didn't develop in Golarion's cultures.
Is it ok? Is there a Good god who promotes hatred or oppression of certain races for being that race?
Yes. As was discussed earlier, Torag supports the hatred of goblins, orcs, and other classical enemies of dwarfkind. Another individual pointed out that Iomedae is bigoted against tieflings.
-rest of the post-
Well, I agree with the essence of your post, but I think you're missing the crucial bit that I addressed; this is a double-standard, and any feminist can tell you those are bad. I do feel that any Good god worth flying spit will help guide and deal with a 'monstrous' race that turns out to be not so monstrous, but in many cases the general mood is "it's okay to kill them because members of this race are generally evil". Otherwise many more priests would refuse service to adventurers due to their vocation of killing things indiscriminately for loot, glory, and the greater good.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
A couple random thoughts:
1) Having a major good aligned god that condones misogyny is a terrible message, and I very much understand Mr. Jacobs' What? Oh Hell No! response to that.
A good aligned god of communities should care about both the community and the members that community. If all he cares about the community, and views the members as just cogs, he shouldn't be good aligned.
Erastil's misogyny was pretty mild as that goes, but I can certainly see the issue with the whole "women need to stay in the kitchen and raise babies" thing.
After having thousands of years of that, running into it in your escapist fantasy as the teaching of a good aligned god (i.e., a god that's meant to appeal to players) is complete rubbish.
2) Accusing the Paizo staff of pandering to the SJW agenda is honestly pretty amusing.
Hate to break it to you, but they're not pandering to SJWs; they are SJWs. Always have been. A pretty significant chunk of Paizo's staff (including the editor-in-chief) are LGBTQ, even.
Hence their massive push for inclusiveness. They have no desire to marginalize themselves.
And interestingly enough, it hasn't appreciably hurt their business. Trying to appeal to as many different types of people as possible is apparently working out pretty well.
My general impression is that if inclusiveness offends you, Paizo's fine with not getting your money.
Is it ok? Is there a Good god who promotes hatred or oppression of certain races for being that race?Yes. As was discussed earlier, Torag supports the hatred of goblins, orcs, and other classical enemies of dwarfkind.
Dang. I feel like that should be addressed more than like, trying to say "Being a bigot is compatible with being good".
-rest of the post-Well, I agree with the essence of your post, but I think you're missing the crucial bit that I addressed; this is a double-standard, and any feminist can tell you those are bad. I do feel that any Good god worth flying spit will help guide and deal with a 'monstrous' race that turns out to be not so monstrous, but in many cases the general mood is "it's okay to kill them because members of this race are generally evil". Otherwise many more priests would refuse service to adventurers due to their vocation of killing things indiscriminately for loot, glory, and the greater good.
I'm sorry, I didn't intend to over look any double standard. I agree that it's not cool for "Mysogynist/transphobe" to be outside the domain of goodness, but not 'Racist". You seem to be taking this to mean "Let mysogyny/transphobia also be traits of good people" and I'm taking it to mean "Eradicate racism from good gods. Either make them not racist, or not good."
Promote the idea that good gods and their religions preach fighting evil, which is wholly different from fighting 'evil races'. Orcs, goblins, drow, etc are not things to be fought and killed, unless they're aggressors disrupting the peace and lives of innocents.
Treat adventurers who kill indiscriminately as NOT GOOD. Because being a racist indiscriminate mass murderer is NOT A GOOD THING. People who kill others purely for money and glory, who say they serve a greater good, without working to make sure they are actually fighting evil and harmful elements of the world are NOT GOOD PEOPLE.
Do not promote the idea that it's cool for "Is a bigot" to be a flaw of good gods, doing so only makes the setting hostile to people from those groups that might want to get into Pathfinder or even tabletop games in general.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A couple random thoughts:
1) Having a major good aligned god that condones misogyny is a terrible message, and I very much understand Mr. Jacobs' What? Oh Hell No! response to that.
A good aligned god of communities should care about both the community and the members that community. If all he cares about the community, and views the members as just cogs, he shouldn't be good aligned.
Erastil's misogyny was pretty mild as that goes, but I can certainly see the issue with the whole "women need to stay in the kitchen and raise babies" thing.
After having thousands of years of that, running into it in your escapist fantasy as the teaching of a good aligned god (i.e., a god that's meant to appeal to players) is complete rubbish.
2) Accusing the Paizo staff of pandering to the SJW agenda is honestly pretty amusing.
Hate to break it to you, but they're not pandering to SJWs; they are SJWs. Always have been. A pretty significant chunk of Paizo's staff (including the editor-in-chief) are LGBTQ, even.
Hence their massive push for inclusiveness. They have no desire to marginalize themselves.
And interestingly enough, it hasn't appreciably hurt their business. Trying to appeal to as many different types of people as possible is apparently working out pretty well.
My general impression is that if inclusiveness offends you, Paizo's fine with not getting your money.
After reading the aforementioned Deity articles on Erastil I see nothing implying a hatred of women whatsoever.
The claims of misogyney are grossly overstated.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I think we've hit a miscommunication, Malficius. I'm not advocating Bigotry as a trait a lot of Good aligned people should have. I'm advocating internal consistency to prevent suspension of disbelief from being shattered, and for some level of strife, even between good characters, to be present because it creates good roleplaying opportunities. If there's no conflict, everything is boring.
Additionally, I'm disliking what feels like a large amount of author tract being dragged into the game.
One other note though; "Indiscriminate" and "Racist" are mutually exclusive. Just... pointing that out.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
People aren't saying it's 'cool' for bigotry to be a flaw for someone to have, but that HAVING said flaw doesn't intrinsically make them Evil.
It doesn't have to be accepted in-world as a good thing, it just needs to be accepted that people aren't perfect, and morality isn't black and white.
And I am saying, leave such grayness for people, not gods (and beings made of goodness or evil). Though, when I said cool I meant like, acceptable or attractive or something. Like, it's not right to have a double standard, make good gods not actively do and promote bad things. Because by doing so, and labeling that god as good, you are saying those bad things are good things. Or at least are accepted as such within the setting. Because gods aren't mortals, they are the measure by which alignment is defined. They are the cornerstones of the setting.
If a 'good' god thinks women should stay in the kitchen, and men should be the breadwinners, that makes this a 'good' stance, that people trying to be 'good' will persue.
So don't allow those stances in your good gods. Leave them for your gray gods and your evil gods.
If a person, even through inaction, allows oppression and injustice to thrive or persist, they aren't being very good. They're being neutral. A god actively holding and spreading beliefs that promote or preserve oppression and injustice, such as those from bigotry, is actively spreading evil. Not making a little mistake, not having a tiny character flaw, but inherently and intrinsically pushing ungood agendas. If you are the embodiment of an aspect of goodness, this is not an acceptable state.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
We have a different view on this Malficus. What you're doing is treating "Good" and "Evil" as objective forces. with the outer planes, they might be. But the gods are treated as individuals with their own foibles, prejudices, and thoughts. With those thoughts and prejudices come different ways of thinking what the real "good" for the world is. they have expanded viewpoints, but they are very much people, and should be treated as having their own personalities, rather than be homogenized like Dragonlance. I know that a lot of people hated how homogenized Dragonlance deities were; my old GM wouldn't shut up about it when the setting was brought up.
we're speaking from different viewpoints here. you're addressing objective good. DP and I are addressing subjective good. Until we can agree which to discuss, we're not going to make headway.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If a good Ranger starts going "All the giants I see are evil, I will destory all giants!" that ranger is straying from good.
Is he straying from good if he says, "I don't like giants, so I leave them be and try to avoid dealing with them. There are some giants that are credits to their species, and I'm friends with them, but they are the exception." ?
Is he straying from good if he says, "I have great respect for the noble savages, the giants. They aren't as smart as humans, mind you, but we should treat them well and leave them alone." ?
Is he straying from good if he says, "I like giants, and willingly work alongside them, but I think they're inherently better-suited to the wilderness. I don't think it's a great idea for a giant to try to assimilate into smaller humanoid society, and would vocally express my disquiet if one made the attempt." ?
If these beliefs were translated into real-life minorities, we'd certainly regard them as prejudiced. They are prejudiced. But they can still be good. A dwarf paladin can make "offensive" elf jokes and try to avoid working with elves and still be Lawful Good as long as he still acts to help and save elves in times of trouble.
| 14 people marked this as a favorite. |
From what I've seen all Erastil has proposed is that BOTH parents settle down.
That perhaps adventurers should be from necessity rather than a full business.
He's not espousing misogyny, he's espousing taking responsibility for your offspring once they happen.
The human body degrades and its hardwired into the brain to want to pass on our genetics in some form.
Adventuring is not the every-person's job, it's an incredibly specialised job that few are capable of carrying out.
Erastil knows that eventually adventurers get old, slip up and die.
Better to know when to retire, settle down, have a family, make sure that family's well looked after.
Maybe this isn't about contemporary gender politics outside of the setting, but about making sure that a child doesn't need to come home one day to find out both of their parents were killed during a dragon hunt, or that a bloodline isn't cut short because someone put their own glory before common sense.
Erastil's old, very old.
He's seen gods go out to fight things out of necessity and come back changed if they came back at all.
There's so much you can do with this angle that you won't touch because gods forbid someone have experiences that might reinforce their view.
How many comrades has Erastil seen die? How many times has he seen young adventurers run away from home to pursue the exact thing that cost so many their lives?
How many parents pray to him so that their child might come back from their quest alive?
How many times can Erastil not fulfil that prayer?
Look past your own personal baggage.
See the stories we could tell.
Don't write a safe character.
Write a compelling one.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Or at least are accepted as such within the setting. Because gods aren't mortals, they are the measure by which alignment is defined. They are the cornerstones of the setting.
So don't allow those stances in your good gods. Leave them for your gray gods and your evil gods.
If a person, even through inaction, allows oppression and injustice to thrive or persist, they aren't being very good. They're being neutral.
I heartily disagree with this notion. Gods throughout all of history, including the modern era, have been believed to be Good while still having inaccurate or negative traits. The fact that the good gods of Golarion follow a morality that is seen in the modern day as "liberal" or "forward-thinking" makes no sense, because it implicitly assumes that "conservative" or "traditional" thinking is wrong.
Say that I am a female (which I am), and I believe that women as-a-whole are just as deserving of various punishments and cruelties as a man (which I do believe; cruelties should not be evoked upon ANYONE no matter their gender, but punishments such as imprisonment or getting hit if you throw the first punch are also gender-neutral). Am I advocating violence against women and thus would be considered "evil"? No, and neither would a deity that believes that justice is blind, even-handed, and equal-opportunity. If a man punches you, either turn the other cheek or punch him back. If a woman punches you, either turn the other cheek or punch her back.
Let's take another view. A god believes in the sanctity of life and thus is against the aborting of a child so long as it was created in a loving or at least consensual union (obviously fetuses born of rape are exempt from this and can be removed freely). Is the fact that they are expecting something of their female followers in regards to their body a bad or negative trait? In my personal opinion I would say yes, but that does not equate to that god being non-Good. I disagree with their tenants, but I do not holistically declare that they are 'obviously' a Neutral or Evil god.
Gods that are purely of goodness or pure baby-eating evil are, frankly, boring. Sure, you could always give the justification of "but just homebrew it or houserule it!", but that isn't what various Paizo writers do. They "errata" it in, overwriting things that they disagree with on a personal level instead of leaving it in and offering their own viewpoint that, while biased (as all viewpoints are, including my own), is also merely a suggestion and is in no way official. It's a problem that I have with the writing of Pathfinder; don't get me wrong, I love the system and I believe that it is a fun and entertaining tabletop game. However, when the fluff-writers overwrite and self-censor to the point of making everything black-and-white, or when the crunch-writers reduce the effectiveness of a character option because it's "not realistic" while systematically ignoring that wizards use mind-control and an entire country exists because a witch got bored and ran a social experiment in the snow, I find it difficult to really enjoy the game without feeling punished or, dare I say it, discriminated against.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
War is Lawful Good (Iomedae).
Roses are Neutral Good (Shelyn)
Beer is Chaotic Good (guess who Pharasma)
Money is Lawful Neutral (Abadar).
Sending people to the afterlife is Neutral (Cayden Cailean okay you're bad at this)
Starting senseless bloody wars is Chaotic Neutral (Gorum)
Saving the world is Lawful Evil (Asmodeus)
Poison is Neutral Evil (Norgorborkbork)
Earthquakes (and the earthquake spell, logically) are Chaotic Evil (Rovagug).
There. We're done with paladin debates forever. I have comprehensively settled what alignments mean based on Golarion gods. I am confident this list will be respected and oft-referred to whenever someone is in doubt.
I'm not a fan of some of the Torag bigotry myself and wouldn't have a paladin code like that. Having said that however, bigotry against fantasy races is pretty different from bigotry against something that really exists. I can feel more comfortable saying that a race that doesn't exist shouldn't exist, than I would be in saying that about something which is actually real. Maybe orcs are objectively things that deserve to die, I've never met one so couldn't say... (though in my Golarion they aren't automatically...)And I think it's that need to ignore basic verisimilitude to keep Golarion "comfortable" that is leading to the complaints. It's the same deal with the claim that patriarchy just didn't develop in Golarion's cultures.In what way does what I said break verisimilitude? I'm saying that wanting to persecute members of an objectively always evil group within the context of the game makes some sense for a 'good' person, while wanting to persecute a group that isn't objectively always evil is a different kettle of fish.
Lets look at two possible statements from an author:
1) "It's okay to kill orcs in my game world because they're always evil."
2) "It's okay to kill blacks in my game world because they're always evil."My point is only that those two statements would not equally influence how I viewed that author.
Except that canonically, orcs aren't always evil. They just have a major, possibly cultural predisposition towards malice. :P
If a man punches you, either turn the other cheek or punch him back. If a woman punches you, either turn the other cheek or punch her back.
Actually, that's a double-standard that's based in some logic. The logic is in turn based on a good deal of stupid, but there's some sense. Women are physically weaker than men, on average, so the expectation was (and still is in most parts) that hitting a woman is wrong for the same reason hitting your younger siblings is. "Don't pick on your little brother, he's not as strong than you."
If a punched by a person, in general, your choice is to either turn the other cheek or punch them back. If they're clearly weaker than you, though, or unable to take a punch, you probably should turn the other cheek. This logic is likely to favor women somewhat, for the aforementioned physical differences, but definitely not always.
All this is fully moot for me, though, since if anybody remotely capable of punching me does so, I'm going down like a ton or two of bricks. :)
From what I've seen all Erastil has proposed is that BOTH parents settle down.
That perhaps adventurers should be from necessity rather than a full business.He's not espousing misogyny, he's espousing taking responsibility for your offspring once they happen.
The human body degrades and its hardwired into the brain to want to pass on our genetics in some form.
Adventuring is not the every-person's job, it's an incredibly specialised job that few are capable of carrying out.
Erastil knows that eventually adventurers get old, slip up and die.
Better to know when to retire, settle down, have a family, make sure that family's well looked after.
Maybe this isn't about contemporary gender politics outside of the setting, but about making sure that a child doesn't need to come home one day to find out both of their parents were killed during a dragon hunt, or that a bloodline isn't cut short because someone put their own glory before common sense.
Erastil's old, very old.
He's seen gods go out to fight things out of necessity and come back changed if they came back at all.
There's so much you can do with this angle that you won't touch because gods forbid someone have experiences that might reinforce their view.
How many comrades has Erastil seen die? How many times has he seen young adventurers run away from home to pursue the exact thing that cost so many their lives?
How many parents pray to him so that their child might come back from their quest alive?
How many times can Erastil not fulfil that prayer?
Look past your own personal baggage.
See the stories we could tell.
Don't write a safe character.
Write a compelling one.
Bravo, that's exactly how I want to imagine Erastil.
If a good Ranger starts going "All the giants I see are evil, I will destory all giants!" that ranger is straying from good.
Is he straying from good if he says, "I don't like giants, so I leave them be and try to avoid dealing with them. There are some giants that are credits to their species, and I'm friends with them, but they are the exception." ?
Is he straying from good if he says, "I have great respect for the noble savages, the giants. They aren't as smart as humans, mind you, but we should treat them well and leave them alone." ?
Is he straying from good if he says, "I like giants, and willingly work alongside them, but I think they're inherently better-suited to the wilderness. I don't think it's a great idea for a giant to try to assimilate into smaller humanoid society, and would vocally express my disquiet if one made the attempt." ?
If these beliefs were translated into real-life minorities, we'd certainly regard them as prejudiced. They are prejudiced. But they can still be good. A dwarf paladin can make "offensive" elf jokes and try to avoid working with elves and still be Lawful Good as long as he still acts to help and save elves in times of trouble.
I am not trying to avoid this, I think they are all great questions to ask. Like, take the time to look into and question what boundaries an individual, well meaning person has. Explore the other side too, maybe with different characters.
"I know good giants and am friends with them, and I know many bad ones. What is the norm for giants? Why is it that way?"
"Why is giant culture different from ours? Is it right to try and change giants to be more like us? Do giants want that?"
"I know a giant who likes working with us, and wants to join out society. What issues do we need to address to allow that, what compromises need to be made (Like how it'd be hard for him to enter buildings)? Why does he want to leave giant society?"
A lot of these question, and yours, come down to like, how much is a person willing to go out of their way to deal with and learn about these issues. And mortals, very often, especially in a setting where travel is long and dangerous, reasonably lack the time and resources to really look into those. They do need to try their best, and work hard. And sometimes, bigger issues come up and compromises are made.
A person, making racist jokes, who doesn't act on it, is still racist. Their words affect others, making the space hostile for the target of their jokes, and teaching others that this is an accepted way to think. Perhaps they never really reflected on their actions, or perhaps they just don't know better, like they honestly believe those things, and are otherwise working or succeeding at being good
Gods don't have those excuses. They're ancient and undying, they have the time and resources to know these things, or to have given their views the proper thought. When a Good God says "Giants belong in the wilds", "Goblins are wild and untame-able", "Women should know their place", "Marriage is between a man and a woman" these become written laws of goodness. Religions work to spread these beliefs, and people striving to become Good and godly people, will follow these beliefs and take action based on them. A person trying to work out how they feel about their own world views, or sacrificing morals for pragmatism does not define and set the mood of a setting. A Good God holding harmful opinions, or promoting bigoted views, does.
And especially, when those views reflect real world ones, they're given a lot more weight. Like you said, if the racism was say, some 'good god' of the Taldane people, preaching the savagery and ignorance of the Mwangi people, and how they need someone to educate and keep them in line, that would be horribly offensive. Why is this racist god accepted as good? And worse, how would this make real world black people feel? When they see that promoted as Good, when you have gamers arguing in forums about why it's proper that their paladin go about restraining and educating the primitive Mwangi, to follow the right path, as just a blanket setting-wide statement, it would be pretty obvious that this is not a place for them.
I'm not saying every god either looks at their actions and rejects the actively bad habits and beliefs, or embraces them. But if a god, for whatever reason, maintains a bigoted stance; then they aren't good, they're neutral at best. They might even focus on order or liberation or whatever, but their teachings promote inequality and prejudice as well. They're grey, they're neutral.
And I'm not saying good gods can't make errors, or fumble in a way that hurts the cause of good. But a good god shouldn't hold beliefs that actively encourage them, and should take action to amend their mistakes. If they don't, why should we call them good?