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...and with one published Pathfinder module (Doom comes to Dustpawn) even featuring an elven spaceship the players can visit and explore, explicitly meaning elves even had spaceships.
Well ... one single group of elves living in Lirgen, sponsored by the Saoc Brethren, built a magically-powered spaceship. The Lirgen's Glory was more "Lirgen spaceship crewed by elves" than "elven spaceship". It's not like there was a Sovyrian starfleet orbiting Castrovel.
As a side note, the Azlanti also had magical spaceship technology. One of their aetherships, King Xeros, appears in an early Pathfinder Society Scenario. That makes Azlant and Lirgen the only two nations on Golarion to have developed some form of space travel, both of which were powered by magic (bottles of air, bound demons, magical crystal) and both of which were developed in the final days of their respective civilizations.
Personally I rather like the Gap, because it gives an interesting twist to the Precursors and Lost Technology tropes that are so common in SciFi. I'm neutral on the Drift. It just sounds like a twist on hyperspace from Star Wars, which fits the Space Opera vibe. I guess you could accomplish a similar effect by having spaceships travel through astral space or whatever, but this is a little more technology-oriented.
I also don't really mind having the standard stock fantasy races take a back seat. It's not that I think there's anything specifically wrong with elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, etc. It's just that they end up being the standard races in pretty much every fantasy game ever. I kinda like it when designers freshen things up a bit. I appreciated Earthdawn, for example, because it gave me Obsidiman and T'skrang and the like. I really enjoyed Dark Sun. My favorite parts of Pathfinder are still Numeria, Alkenstar, the other planets in the solar system, and everything else running in a non-traditional fantasy direction (heck, in my home campaign I turned Nidel into a BDSM Film Noir land of private detectives pounding pavement for silver pieces, arcane femme fatale, and mafioso with spiked chains).
I guess at this point in my life I've grown a little blasé toward Tolkienesque pseudo-medieval stuff. I'm excited about Starfinder specifically because it seems like it will scratch a new itch.
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I'm going to try one last time.
To those of you who don't understand why I'm irritated about elves: Take your favorite race, I don't care what race it is, one with a history. Now, take it and base the entire society on the worst tropes of the race in media, save for a handful of outcasts, and have that be the society in the game.
Not following you still. Those 'tropes' are what makes that race a 'race.' If they weren't elitist isolationist blaggards, they wouldn't be elves. They'd probably be kender.
Alternately: fantasy and sci-fi races are defined by their tropes. Even not following them (which you see occasionally in star trek with ferengi psychopaths or klingon scientists) still works with the trope to create something interesting.
I said 'the worst tropes', not 'all the tropes'. Because they aren't using all the tropes, at least not from my perspective.
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I'm interested to see how elves are portrayed in Temple of the Twelve, as it appears we will be running into Starfinder elves in this chapter. My hopes tend to align more with Mashallah and Benjamin's here in wanting to see some depth or variety beyond the "reclusive xenophobes" to them. It does kind of bother me that elves are prone to having a negative reputation; I've always been rather enchanted by elves myself, and would like to see them remembered by some of their better attributes again. Less Mirkwood, more Rivendell and Lothlorien. I'm hopeful we'll see a lot of this especially in the Forlorn.
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Is it canon that a god was entirely responsible for the drift? Did I not read somewhere recently that the secret was collected by some, so it was spread to mortals to level the playing field or something? I could be wrong, and/or it could have just been fanon speculation, but I just recall seeing that, recently, somewhere.
As far as I can tell, it is, which breaks my suspension of disbelief entirely.
According to the Geekdad preview on Drift:
The Drift was gifted to the races of Starfinder by Triune, an AI that ascended to godhood. See, no science necessary!
This was also mentioned multiple times in multiple other places.
The problem with this is that giving mortals a device that shreds the multiverse should have angered literally all other deities, resulting in a coalition of everyone against Triune alone, which would have been quick and bloody.
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To remove it from the setting, I'd have to rewrite half of it, at which point using a different setting is simpler.
Seems a pretty strong condemnation from someone who has never even read the setting.
Would you not be better served to hold off such strong and vehement condemnation on the entirety of the setting until such time as you've actually seen it?
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I'm going to try one last time.
To those of you who don't understand why I'm irritated about elves: Take your favorite race, I don't care what race it is, one with a history. Now, take it and base the entire society on the worst tropes of the race in media, save for a handful of outcasts, and have that be the society in the game.
Not following you still. Those 'tropes' are what makes that race a 'race.' If they weren't elitist isolationist blaggards, they wouldn't be elves. They'd probably be kender.
Alternately: fantasy and sci-fi races are defined by their tropes. Even not following them (which you see occasionally in star trek with ferengi psychopaths or klingon scientists) still works with the trope to create something interesting.
Indeed. Consider the Protoss. They are generally considered "space elves". Why is that? They don't have pointy ears. They don't live in trees. They don't use longbows. They don't sing jolly songs in the moonlight. What they are is arrogant isolationists. Those are the tropes that define what people understand a (post-tolkien) elf to be.
A race that is friendly, extrovert and humble isn't an elf, it's a tall kender.
Since starcraft was originally supposed to be a warhammer 40k game, Protoss are based on Eldar. And Eldar are space elves.
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After reading about the first page of posts, I feel that a lot of the issue stems from the lack of knowledge surrounding the Gap. Perhaps the Devs are in some ways mirroring the Mournland from D&D's Eberron campaign setting.
In Eberron a cataclysmic event, likely magical, completely wiped a country off the map. Keith Baker, the creator of Eberron, has said to this day that the purpose of not giving canon answers to the cause of the Mourning was to allow Dungeon Masters to come up with their own cause of the event, thus creating a mystery for the players to potentially solve. The Forgotten Realms Setting has tons of books that are considered canon unlike every novel written for Eberron, which are definitively not, so maybe we don't need an answer from them specifically.
Writing in amnesia on a galactic scale for Starfinder is probably not the route I would have gone, but I must admit that it still presents the opportunity for potential epic level adventure hooks, provided some tweaking to the PF/SF story. If anything, instead of saying "amnesia," you could follow Keith Baker's canon by saying that "people just don't know."
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Is it canon that a god was entirely responsible for the drift? Did I not read somewhere recently that the secret was collected by some, so it was spread to mortals to level the playing field or something? I could be wrong, and/or it could have just been fanon speculation, but I just recall seeing that, recently, somewhere.As far as I can tell, it is, which breaks my suspension of disbelief entirely.
According to the Geekdad preview on Drift:
The Drift was gifted to the races of Starfinder by Triune, an AI that ascended to godhood. See, no science necessary!This was also mentioned multiple times in multiple other places.
The problem with this is that giving mortals a device that shreds the multiverse should have angered literally all other deities, resulting in a coalition of everyone against Triune alone, which would have been quick and bloody.
...Unless the gods know something that mortals don't (which is already proven true) and the access to the Drift is the ultimate key to Golarion's return.
...Unless the gods need something from the Drift themselves, and their mortal vessels are the only way to get it. They might not like what Triune did, but it ultimately serves a majority of them.
...Unless direct intervention by the gods is still forbidden. All Triune did was show a secret to the mortals; the mortals still make the choice to do what they do.
There are plenty of good reasons why the gods don't act, with sufficient explanation which we don't yet have.
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I always do my own setting, good or not. I like world building.
The only thing I don't like about the Starfinder setting is the gap and making elves even more exaggeratedly aloof and xenophobic than before. The gap as a concept bores me because it's a mystery that will never be solved, yet I'm sure we'll have plenty of adventures dealing with it. And making elves even more insufferable, especially given how cool the other races are, is very disappointed. It's like they asked players what were the worst things they hated about elves, then turned it up to eleven.
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I'm interested to see how elves are portrayed in Temple of the Twelve, as it appears we will be running into Starfinder elves in this chapter. My hopes tend to align more with Mashallah and Benjamin's here in wanting to see some depth or variety beyond the "reclusive xenophobes" to them. It does kind of bother me that elves are prone to having a negative reputation; I've always been rather enchanted by elves myself, and would like to see them remembered by some of their better attributes again. Less Mirkwood, more Rivendell and Lothlorien. I'm hopeful we'll see a lot of this especially in the Forlorn.
Hopefully we won't have another Second Darkness on our hands. That was not a fun part of the adventure path.
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The Gap: the universe needs a big mistery, and this one keeps things compatable with the Pathfinder universe.The Gap isn't a mystery; mysteries can be solved. The Gap is a secret.
Both serve to add a bit of darkness and paranoia to the universe.I prefer less darkness and paranoia in my game universes.Yeah, a mystery isn't interesting when it's a base assumption that there will never be any answers or anything resembling answers.
See Aroden. Noone cares what happened about him because the "mystery" surrounding him is one of the least interesting parts of Pathfinder as a setting and falls flat.
Says you. From what I have seen there are tons of people who are still interested in what happened to Aroden.
Says you. From what I have seen there are tons of people who are still interested in what happened to Aroden.The Gap: the universe needs a big mistery, and this one keeps things compatable with the Pathfinder universe.The Gap isn't a mystery; mysteries can be solved. The Gap is a secret.
Both serve to add a bit of darkness and paranoia to the universe.I prefer less darkness and paranoia in my game universes.Yeah, a mystery isn't interesting when it's a base assumption that there will never be any answers or anything resembling answers.
See Aroden. Noone cares what happened about him because the "mystery" surrounding him is one of the least interesting parts of Pathfinder as a setting and falls flat.
And so the paths split: I (and in extensiom my girlfriend) think Aroden is boring af and we don't give anything about him
But well, I wish your players good luck discovering what happened to the old fart :P| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Says you. From what I have seen there are tons of people who are still interested in what happened to Aroden.The Gap: the universe needs a big mistery, and this one keeps things compatable with the Pathfinder universe.The Gap isn't a mystery; mysteries can be solved. The Gap is a secret.
Both serve to add a bit of darkness and paranoia to the universe.I prefer less darkness and paranoia in my game universes.Yeah, a mystery isn't interesting when it's a base assumption that there will never be any answers or anything resembling answers.
See Aroden. Noone cares what happened about him because the "mystery" surrounding him is one of the least interesting parts of Pathfinder as a setting and falls flat.
*jokes* Who's Aroden?
More seriously, I just don't care about him, once they said they finally told us that there's not a canon answer of what happened to him. In my opinion, it isn't a mystery if there isn't even an answer.
If the Gap actually had no effect on current races, as I'd originally heard it described, I wouldn't mind. For the most part I don't care about it, though.
I suppose my biggest problem in a lot of ways was that, while one of the designers goals was to bring in new races to be center-stage rather than the classic fantasy races, I didn't want that. I don't care about any of the new races, save for dislike in the case of the... can't remember their names, the ratfolk.
It's a design philosophy difference, really.
Says you. From what I have seen there are tons of people who are still interested in what happened to Aroden.The Gap: the universe needs a big mistery, and this one keeps things compatable with the Pathfinder universe.The Gap isn't a mystery; mysteries can be solved. The Gap is a secret.
Both serve to add a bit of darkness and paranoia to the universe.I prefer less darkness and paranoia in my game universes.Yeah, a mystery isn't interesting when it's a base assumption that there will never be any answers or anything resembling answers.
See Aroden. Noone cares what happened about him because the "mystery" surrounding him is one of the least interesting parts of Pathfinder as a setting and falls flat.*jokes* Who's Aroden?
More seriously, I just don't care about him, once they said they finally told us that there's not a canon answer of what happened to him. In my opinion, it isn't a mystery if there isn't even an answer.
If the Gap actually had no effect on current races, as I'd originally heard it described, I wouldn't mind. For the most part I don't care about it, though.
I suppose my biggest problem in a lot of ways was that, while one of the designers goals was to bring in new races to be center-stage rather than the classic fantasy races, I didn't want that. I don't care about any of the new races, save for dislike in the case of the... can't remember their names, the ratfolk.
It's a design philosophy difference, really.
Yeah, most of the core races simply don't interest me at all. Shirren have the cute baby jars that I appreciate, but, other than that, I'd strongly prefer the old race cast to be at the forefront over the new one.
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...they said they finally told us that there's not a canon answer of what happened to (Aroden).Do you have a source for that? I had thought there was an answer some inner circle of designers had settled on but resolved to never tell anyone. Is that not the case?
Let me see if I can find it. It's in the 'What's your opinion on the Aroden Mystery' thread...
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Here's a quote, though.
Because I don't have a personal theory.
I do not know how Aroden died, or why, or who did it, or in which room it happened. I don't find those things to be the interesting parts about him. In fact, it's kind of the one aspect of the character that I don't find particularly interesting.
The interesting thing to me is more in the "what now" aspect of what happens to the campaign world when "God" dies. What happens to institutions, to culture, etc. Add to that the idea that this also casts prophecy in doubt, and you've got a bunch of inherent questions that are more interesting to me than "who did it."
I never really considered "who did it" when I created Aroden. I left that to be determined later, to be woven into other stories by other authors, very likely stories that hadn't been considered yet, left for future development if we decided to develop it at all.
The "working theory" is more something James and others have pieced together in the time since Aroden's creation, tying in the few clues that I left with other cool stuff that they're planning to have a "maybe this is how it went down," but as I mentioned earlier, even that's flexible until we actually decide to address the issue. If we do.
I could outline an entire Aroden-focused Adventure Path with all kinds of insight into his life, his cult, and the ruins of his influence, but to be perfectly honest I'm not certain even that would answer the question of how he died.
I like that the people of Golarion don't know. So long as there's no "official" answer, the answer is free to be whatever you want it to be.
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Says you. From what I have seen there are tons of people who are still interested in what happened to Aroden.The Gap: the universe needs a big mistery, and this one keeps things compatable with the Pathfinder universe.The Gap isn't a mystery; mysteries can be solved. The Gap is a secret.
Both serve to add a bit of darkness and paranoia to the universe.I prefer less darkness and paranoia in my game universes.Yeah, a mystery isn't interesting when it's a base assumption that there will never be any answers or anything resembling answers.
See Aroden. Noone cares what happened about him because the "mystery" surrounding him is one of the least interesting parts of Pathfinder as a setting and falls flat.
Count me as one, but while true, now that we know it'll never be solved, I don't really care too much about it anymore. Even some of the adventures that are focused around his disappearance don't feel all that fun because in the end, they don't really mean much.
The main fun in mysteries and investigation is finding clues, putting them together, and trying to find the solution. But now it's been released that there is none. In a way, the mystery is solved by saying there is no solution, so there really isn't a point in delving into it for me. I'd rather do other adventures about exploration and discovery, which is more my jam.
I feel the Gap will be the same thing. A background setting event to give it some color, but ultimately, it will be unsolvable in PFS. Nothing wrong with it as that, but as a mystery, it just won't catch my eye.
You don't think there is anything mysterious about the Force?!Nope. It's not something that gets solved... it's not something that people sit around all day wondering what it is or where it comes from... It's just something that's 'there' and for people like Han Solo and Lando it's never influenced their lives in any way.
For the jedi, they get the 'it's created from life' speech which later is stupidly retconned to midichlorians and then ignored again.
That's like taking Pathfinder and claiming 'why does magic work' is the overall mystery of the setting.
Actually, Han has the force (or rather a sizable amount of midichlorians, which is why his kids are good at the force). He uses for minor luck and all, but the doesn't realize he is using it.
Developer, Starfinder Team
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For those who care, there is a canon reason for why and how the Gap happened. We worked that out very early in our worldbuilding. It's in a file the Creative Director maintains.
I don't expect we'll ever go into details as to the why or how, because those seem unlikely to be the most interesting stories to tell (though it is literally not my decision to make). But if we did, we'd have kept consistency with that reason from the beginning.
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For those who care, there is a canon reason for why and how the Gap happened. We worked that out very early in our worldbuilding. It's in a file the Creative Director maintains.
I don't expect we'll ever go into details as to the why or how, because those seem unlikely to be the most interesting stories to tell (though it is literally not my decision to make). But if we did, we'd have kept consistency with that reason from the beginning.
While I may not be a fan of your setting at this point, I will say this makes me happier overall. I personally found the Gap far less concerning than Aroden's death overall, though, so take that with a grain of salt.
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For those who care, there is a canon reason for why and how the Gap happened. We worked that out very early in our worldbuilding. It's in a file the Creative Director maintains.
I don't expect we'll ever go into details as to the why or how, because those seem unlikely to be the most interesting stories to tell (though it is literally not my decision to make). But if we did, we'd have kept consistency with that reason from the beginning.
... soooo, what I'm hearing is that if some enterprising young rogue were to break into the Creative Director's filing cabinet, we could have all the answers. Not that any of us would do that, of course. *wink, nudge* Say no more!
*begins humming Mission Impossible theme*
Actually, Han has the force (or rather a sizable amount of midichlorians, which is why his kids are good at the force). He uses for minor luck and all, but the doesn't realize he is using it.You don't think there is anything mysterious about the Force?!Nope. It's not something that gets solved... it's not something that people sit around all day wondering what it is or where it comes from... It's just something that's 'there' and for people like Han Solo and Lando it's never influenced their lives in any way.
For the jedi, they get the 'it's created from life' speech which later is stupidly retconned to midichlorians and then ignored again.
That's like taking Pathfinder and claiming 'why does magic work' is the overall mystery of the setting.
Or his kids can use the force because they are Anakin's grandchildren.
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Developer, Starfinder Team
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For those who care, there is a canon reason for why and how the Gap happened. We worked that out very early in our worldbuilding. It's in a file the Creative Director maintains.
I don't expect we'll ever go into details as to the why or how, because those seem unlikely to be the most interesting stories to tell (though it is literally not my decision to make). But if we did, we'd have kept consistency with that reason from the beginning.
... soooo, what I'm hearing is that if some enterprising young rogue were to break into the Creative Director's filing cabinet, we could have all the answers. Not that any of us would do that, of course. *wink, nudge* Say no more!
*begins humming Mission Impossible theme*
We'll you'd have to get past the warehouse raptors, defeat the Redemption Engine Security Device, avoid Blue Rover, figure out WHICH pile is the "filing cabinet," manage not to bury yourself in a stuffslide, recognize a Packet of True secrets in a slurry of Rejected Crud...
But sure!
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"So you're saying there's a chance!" - Dumb And Dumber.
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Leia becomes full Jedi in the EU. I wouldn't call that latent.
But the the eu doesn't exist anymore. And even then she didn't become a Jedi until after the yuuzhong vong invasion, which was a good 30 years after Endor.
For the purposes of the original trilogy, Leia may have had better luck than normal from latent force sensitivity, but not enough to define her character or be responsible for her successes.
I found the yuuzhen vong thing weird
I like the Idea of Leia and Han beeing more or less Force sensitive
both of them are not more or less badass because they used the force or not
since EU is non longer canon you can decide for yourself and make a headcanon
this thread has gone off the rails
what did you guys originally speak about
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That's why lots elves are still really paranoid compared to other races, because most of them are from before the gap, while most other intelligent beings were born after the gap, and don't really see the big deal.
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That's why lots elves are still really paranoid compared to other races, because most of them are from before the gap, while most other intelligent beings were born after the gap, and don't really see the big deal.
Dwarves have it even worse. Not only have many of them lived during the gap, but their races god has vanished too.
True, but they live such short lives that none alive today were born before his disappearance/the gap.
True, but they live such short lives that none alive today were born before his disappearance/the gap.
Their maximum age is 250 + 2d%. I'm pretty sure there are a good amount of dwarves alive from before the end of the gap.
Yes, but the gap happened/ended 300 years ago, so any dwarves who were born before the end of the gap would be in the twilight of their lives, and none would actually know how life was like back when Torag was around.
Yes, but the gap happened/ended 300 years ago, so any dwarves who were born before the end of the gap would be in the twilight of their lives, and none would actually know how life was like back when Torag was around.
Do we know for a fact that at the setting's start it has been 300 years since the Gap?
I still don't even understand why it would it the elves harder than other races... shorter lived races have a larger chance of having their entire lives erased which is somehow less traumatic?
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I still don't even understand why it would it the elves harder than other races... shorter lived races have a larger chance of having their entire lives erased which is somehow less traumatic?
Elves have to live with the trauma for centuries and most elves around today are gap survivors. Most other humanoids alive today are several generations removed from the gap and were unaffected by it.
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I still don't even understand why it would it the elves harder than other races... shorter lived races have a larger chance of having their entire lives erased which is somehow less traumatic?
If something does not happen in your memorable lifetime it usually has nearly no emotional impact on you.
Those races who have had generations come and go since the gap will most likely have the most adjustment to the fact it ever happened. Shorter lived races have to adapt faster since they have less overall time to live.
If your a super long lived race like the elves, and you lived through the gap and cannot remember it, it would be unnerving for as long as you live. Not knowing what you did, where you were, what happened, who you loved or hated, if you had children who grew up and left and now you have no idea of them, if you spent a century curing cancer and not only forgot you did it but the cure never became known, etc.
If in real life you suddenly could not remember the decade from when you were 11-20 and never could again how would you deal?
Your kids and their kids would only know it as a story, but you would be wondering about that decade all the time you lived. And if you lived for 800+ years that is a long time to think and your species most likely has not even had a full generation happen since the Gap. Your people are still in essence 'dealing with it'.
If something does not happen in your memorable lifetime it usually has nearly no emotional impact on you.
Those races who have had generations come and go since the gap will most likely have the most adjustment to the fact it ever happened. Shorter lived races have to adapt faster since they have less overall time to live.
Except it was never said to have any effect on any race outside of elves. Why were elves the only ones to go paranoid hermit when they're the race Least affected?
If in real life you suddenly could not remember the decade from when you were 11-20 and never could again how would you deal?
I'd deal better than me and three generations back of my whole species losing our entire lives worth of memories.
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Because of the races detailed the elves live the longest by far, the closest race after them are dwarves and they live only about half as long.
To the elves the gap only just happened about half a generation ago, to the rest of the universe it was something as far removed from them as the tragedies and famines 18th century are from us.
Hell, it's been less than two centuries since the Irish potato famine, and I doubt you'll find any modern irishmen traumatised by it. Just like I doubt you'll find any humans or kobolds crying about how the gap robbed people over 10 generations of their memories.
Do you know anyone who feels affected or really cares about what tragedies befell their ancestors 10 generations ago?
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Do you know anyone who feels affected or really cares about what tragedies befell their ancestors 10 generations ago?
French Revolution
Napoleon's warsSlave trade
Wiping out Native Americans and Incas
Jewish diaspora out of Israel
And those are only the first that came to my European mind
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Do you know anyone who feels affected or really cares about what tragedies befell their ancestors 10 generations ago?French Revolution
Napoleon's wars
Slave trade
Wiping out Native Americans and Incas
Jewish diaspora out of IsraelAnd those are only the first that came to my European mind
Do their descendants really think about those things? I never once knew a jewish person who lamented about how his ancestors had to live in Poland or Romania instead of Israel, in fact, most of them were happy they themselves didn't have to live in Israel.
Also never knew any french people who ever talked about or thought about the french revolution or the napoleonic wars, just as I meet no romanians crying over how their ancestors were second class citizens in their own lands when they were under foreign rule.
The public are not crying about Hungary and The Ottoman Empire using our country as their battleground in 1717, no. What they're crying about is what's happening now, all around them. They're crying about the poor funding of our healthcare, about the brutal job market, and about mass immigration. They're crying about how s!!!ty their leaders are, and about how corrupt the police force is. And they're crying about their loved ones, not the dead cousins and brothers of their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers who were killed as part of a war that happened centuries ago.
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There are those that do care about, say, their ancestors being merchandise. It's much more common in those whose ancestors were slaves in the 19th century than in Slavs whose ancestors gave us the word 'slaves' in the middle ages.