Does the Pathfinder Society (in-universe) fulfil their stated purpose?


Pathfinder First Edition General Discussion


The Pathfinder Society is supposedly about exploring things and sharing the information discovered, but there's a startling level of censorship and restrictions on the entire "sharing" part.

First, reports to Venture-Captains are read and then passed on at said Venture-Captain's discretion; any amount of information can be covered up here with any number of excuses.

Second, what's passed on to the Decemvirate has only a small fraction released in the Pathfinder Chronicles; this is the first point where a general audience has the chance to read what others have been doing, and it's already been through two layers of censorship!

Third, the Pathfinder Chronicles aren't even meant for distribution outside of the Pathfinder Society itself! (Though there are inevitably leaks, possibly intentional in nature).

Unless there's something very important I'm missing, the Pathfinder Society blatantly ignores its supposed goal through its basic organizational structure.

Possible mitigating factor: Are Pathfinders allowed to write books/share reports with groups outside of the Pathfinder Soceity without censure or penalty?

Silver Crusade

Um, this is the first I've heard that the Pathfinder's goals are to share the information they find with non-Pathfinders. Do they have that as a statement somewhere?


Huh. I guess it's mostly been a personal extrapolation based off of the origins of the group (Seekers of Secrets page 26; explicitly to share information amongst each other and with whoever happened to be around, until the first volume was written for everyone to read) and from what scholars of all stripes tend to do.

Silver Crusade

Ah.


Does the Pathfinder Society have any rules against sending information to other people in addition to the Venture-Captain/Decemvirate?

Silver Crusade

Hmm, good question. They might do NDAs but other than that I'm not for sure.


Isn't this entire question up to the players? If that's the case... I charge and loot the corpse.


The Decemvirate are really obviously Evil. Like, incredibly so.

If their stated goal is anything besides "empowering the Decemvirate" then the answer to your title is "No".


Everything I've read/heard about the Decemvirate leads me to believe that they are, in fact, the real BBEGs of Golarion.

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