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*runs into room*
*throws glitter in the air*
*runs out*
ARRRRRRRGH! Do you know hard it it is to get rid of-
Hmmm, glitter that walks would be good idea for mythic high-CR undead.
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*runs into room*
*throws glitter in the air*
*runs out*ARRRRRRRGH! Do you know hard it it is to get rid of-
Hmmm, glitter that walks would be good idea for mythic high-CR undead.
Strikes me more as a magically-animated Construct than an Undead. A Glitter Golem.
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Peers, whether they consider themselves allies or not, don't get a say. Don't care if it makes them uncomfortable or doesn't align with their philosophies or stirs up unresolved/unconscious feelings... doesn't matter. If peers take offense at how an individual presents their identity, then the peers have the problem (and aren't really allies or true friends either).I think this is very well said. It also stands to reason the conflict presented by such a situation could make for an interesting story, if that's something the players want to explore.
Edit: I just realized your name is Ambrosia SLAAD, not SALAD. I'm sure you get that a lot.
yeah it was kinda a common joke time was YAPYAPYAPYAPYAPYAP
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I think this is very well said. It also stands to reason the conflict presented by such a situation could make for an interesting story, if that's something the players want to explore.
Peers, whether they consider themselves allies or not, don't get a say. Don't care if it makes them uncomfortable or doesn't align with their philosophies or stirs up unresolved/unconscious feelings... doesn't matter. If peers take offense at how an individual presents their identity, then the peers have the problem (and aren't really allies or true friends either).
{activates At Will--Ramble (Ex)} Yeah, if your home gaming group is ready for such topics, I don't think anyone will try to stop you. But you need to know your group really well. Not every player wants to disclose which topics are particularly sensitive to them, because that can make them vulnerable by revealing personal history and/or real world trauma. Players may initially be ok roleplaying through sensitive topics thinking it'll be handled maturely and thoughtfully, only for some of the group to act like it's a license to handle it otherwise... and then blame the players who were (rightly) offended. Or they just want to hang out for a few hours with friends eating junk/fast food, playing a game, and decompressing from dealing with daily real world issues.
For players willing to roleplay topics that hit close to home, it's vitally important to frame the conflict on the actual problem. If you have an Archie Bunker-type antagonist, the central conflict isn't that NPCs or PCs are non-straight, non-human, or whatever; the conflict comes from Bunker acting as a loud-mouthed intolerant *sshole. Attempts to present the game from a both-sides position or that the targeted NPCs/PCs are somehow complicit for being targeted are naive and/or wrong-headed (at best).
And even with the best of intentions by everyone in the group, you can end up exploring previously unconsidered plot elements and complications that leave participants with unpleasant experiences of the game (and other players).
I think you can include such topics and conflicts in home games, but it should be opt-in by the entire group. I also think the presence of such plot conflicts centered on sensitive topics can often run counter to providing a welcoming fun experience to players who are mostly strangers just looking for a fun diversion.
Edit: I just realized your name is Ambrosia SLAAD, not SALAD. I'm sure you get that a lot.
Doesn't happen much anymore; the Slaad Thread is mostly dead these days.
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Serum of Sex Shift- This is the one thing in the book explicitly created with trans characters in mind. It's right here in the core book, comes across as the latest in a line of similar items (to the point where I'm 95% sure Amber Scott wrote this entry), and it is very carefully worded to avoid any awful garbage like "biological sex," language that excludes non-binary people, or you know, the core race with three genders. So, definite A for effort, although there is a definite cis-writer's-take-on-being-trans, come to a decision, hop into a building, tada, one-and-done angle here which is arguably dismissive of what we have to deal with in reality.
Owen decided we should have the Serum in Starfinder at a cheap price, and came to me about rewording it to be less problematic. I've never been a huge fan of the Serum/Elixir of Sex-Shifting personally; In RPGs you always have the choice of representation as escapism vs. representation as analogous, and I tend to err on the side of analogous, but I could also see Owen's perspective of wanting this to be readily available not only as a solution for trans characters, but also a tool for other characters learning empathy by trying on different identities for a weekend or a month or a year. It does lose some of the authenticity of the real-world experience of trans people, but it also makes the game world an easier portal for escapism if you want to leave that stress behind.
It seems like a good approach would be to leave it open to group interpretation (I stress group interpretation, 'cause I wouldn't leave this just up to the GM) how freely available and widely-known that serum is.
It does lose some of the authenticity of the real-world experience of trans people, but it also makes the game world an easier portal for escapism if you want to leave that stress behind.
Mind you, Starfinder is also a science-fiction setting. It does tend to come off a bit odd if they go 'Problems work exactly the same in it as they do now'. It's why Star Trek tended to work with analogy rather than 'X modern problem, exactly the same'
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I'll admit to some fondness for the transhumanist bent of vending machines that sell sodas to radically reshape your body for just a few credits
TAKE MAH MONEH!!
Now, if only there were more readily available means of neural uploading. :)
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I'm still amazed by the fact that, in a sci-fantasy world with serums of gender-bending and operating tables stuffed with nanomachines that can raise the dead, we still have no way to readily change the race of our character.
What if a character really is an Ysoki inside, stuck in the human body they were born in ? Or a Lashunta sociologist searching for a deeper understanding of the Shirren society ?
You could even build entire plot hook out of that !"Come, ladies and gentlemen, and try our new, very special take on the escape room theme ! Thanks to the latest innovations in morphological serums, you too can experience the thrill of being a Golarion Kobold trying to protect their lair against a boarding party of adventurers ! Can you work together as a group and escape with your treasure under attack ?"
Orrrr....
...the 'TRUE' dark history of 'Space Goblins'... revealed!
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Strikes me more as a magically-animated Construct than an Undead. A Glitter Golem.*runs into room*
*throws glitter in the air*
*runs out*ARRRRRRRGH! Do you know hard it it is to get rid of-
Hmmm, glitter that walks would be good idea for mythic high-CR undead.
I'm still amazed by the fact that, in a sci-fantasy world with serums of gender-bending and operating tables stuffed with nanomachines that can raise the dead, we still have no way to readily change the race of our character.
What if a character really is an Ysoki inside, stuck in the human body they were born in ? Or a Lashunta sociologist searching for a deeper understanding of the Shirren society ?
You could even build entire plot hook out of that !"Come, ladies and gentlemen, and try our new, very special take on the escape room theme ! Thanks to the latest innovations in morphological serums, you too can experience the thrill of being a Golarion Kobold trying to protect their lair against a boarding party of adventurers ! Can you work together as a group and escape with your treasure under attack ?"
There is the option of death and reincarnation until you get the race you want, though with the cost-per-cast nature of that spell, it could get expensive, potentially to a degree that that trans-race character couldn't possibly plan for.
I suppose "Stick your brain in a permanent simulation might be the best option such characters have, although that's a weird case of escapism within escapism, and who knows how deep that goes?
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That and 'Dying repeatedly' is kinda on the traumatic end. You might end up paying more for the psychologist than the mystic there.
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My character, Mad Snack Rattigan, sees himself as a vesk in every way that matters, even though he was born a ysoki.What if a character really is an Ysoki inside, stuck in the human body they were born in ? Or a Lashunta sociologist searching for a deeper understanding of the Shirren society ?
I kind of love the idea of the goalposts having moved, to such a degree that some members of some races *hate* the idea of 'tourists' taking a serum or using a spell or going to a 'transmog spa' for a racial makeover and coming out as a Vesk, which, to the Vesk purist, would be cheating and cheapening what it means to be born a Vesk.
Same argument as already exists in some circles, just moved to a new level of absurdity. (Much like the 'brown and white will fight side by side to be jerks to green' comment upthread, as the fights continue, with increasingly silly levels of 'us vs. them' divisiveness.)
Meanwhile, while some would indeed be 'tourists,' and cycle through racial types and perpetuate all the worst clichés and stereotypes of the race they claim to be 'experiencing,' there would be others who are absolutely sure down to their core that they are Vesk born into the wrong bodies, and that by transitioning to be a Vesk, physically, they are just correcting a mistake that caused them to be born a Lashunta, or whatever.
{Pharasma scowls at the notion that she could make a 'mistake' and assign a Vesk soul to inhabit a Lashunta baby, or, what she considers a ridiculous assumption, that a *soul* could be a 'Vesk' soul, or a 'Lashunta' soul...)
Obviously this notion is more 'racequeer' than 'genderqueer,' but it's a big tent.
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(Pharasma scowls at the notion that she could make a 'mistake' and assign a Vesk soul to inhabit a Lashunta baby, or, what she considers a ridiculous assumption, that a *soul* could be a 'Vesk' soul, or a 'Lashunta' soul...)
If anything, I would guess that Pharasma considers such occurrences all part of the natural order of incarnation and reincarnation, aka The Plan. She probably attaches no stigma to it as she would eye color or handedness.
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What, specifically, don't you get?
At the risk of looking out of touch, i just don't get why people are so concerned with what other people have going on in their pants/bedroom. I don't get why people feel the need categorize others and then use it against them. I don't get why someone would want to transition (nor am i saying anything negative about it), or why another person would criticize that person for it. I'm very much a "I mind my business, you mind yours" kinda person, and I respect and support anyone's right to life, liberty, and their pursuit of happiness. I guess it's like having friends from overseas and you just don't quite get their customs and social cues, try as you might.
tl;dr: I'm trying to understand it and be supportive at the same time
I would say that I am all for inclusion of any and all individuals. I guess my curiosity question is this. Going old schoolish and looking at the 3/3.5 Forgotten Realms core book or Ebberon. In the NPC blurbs I do not remember any of the history section mentioning orientation. Sure some may have had family's but does not mean that they were not Gay or Lesbian. So I wonder how much of that was play group interpretation. Sure I understand it was not specifically mentioned that someone/NPC was not Gay, Lesbian, or Transgender. But, it also did not mention they were not. I think allot of that fell on individual groups. To be totally honest, in early RPG days our party was equal opportunity murder hobos we did not really think about orientation.
In my humble opinion expressed gender identity in popular fantasy scifi novels would go a long way in exposing fans to different communities and orientations. In a game and setting orientations can be tweaked as needed for inclusion, but does not have as big a potential impact as novel. It can be explored and expressed in much greater detail.
Dave2
True but, my point being is that the assumptions to me were interesting enough. The play group is what can make things inclusive or welcoming rather than a game book or setting book. If a group does not like inclusion then it does not matter how many times LBGTQ is mentioned it will simply not be a part of that groups game. It was the assumptions made that NPCs where either LBGTQ or not that I found interesting. As for me you could mention that most all were LBGTQ and that would be fine. The groups I have plaid in has bounds with NPCs, but does not mention orientation unless it would add something interesting to the story.
Dave2
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Ya know who I think would be surprisingly open to same sex relationships? The Vesk. I imagine the pressures of battle drives together many comrades into a love relationship. In fact, I bet at least quite a few are far less worried about their partners sex as they are about how good they are at fighting.
Ya know who I think would be surprisingly open to same sex relationships? The Vesk. I imagine the pressures of battle drives together many comrades into a love relationship. In fact, I bet at least quite a few are far less worried about their partners sex as they are about how good they are at fighting.
While I bet there are problematic examples of it out there, I love the gay warrior couple trope. The couple from the Commander 2016 set of Magic: The Gathering was wonderful. I really liked the warrior couples (all men) connected by chains in the Pathfinder campaign setting. Not to mention the real life examples, including the recently discovered letters from a separated gay couple in World War 2.
In this setting, I imagine it would be just as easy for a straight Vesk couple to start under the pressures of war. I'm not 100% sure, but it seems like the Vesk would be pretty equitable about genders and warfare.
Ya know who I think would be surprisingly open to same sex relationships? The Vesk. I imagine the pressures of battle drives together many comrades into a love relationship. In fact, I bet at least quite a few are far less worried about their partners sex as they are about how good they are at fighting.While I bet there are problematic examples of it out there, I love the gay warrior couple trope. The couple from the Commander 2016 set of Magic: The Gathering was wonderful. I really liked the warrior couples (all men) connected by chains in the Pathfinder campaign setting. Not to mention the real life examples, including the recently discovered letters from a separated gay couple in World War 2.
In this setting, I imagine it would be just as easy for a straight Vesk couple to start under the pressures of war. I'm not 100% sure, but it seems like the Vesk would be pretty equitable about genders and warfare.
Exactly! That's one reason I loooove it.
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"I'm ah, not very much into muscle and brawn and blood spraying all over the ah, place and ah, much ah, prefer someone for their ah, brains. But there's not um, a lot of ah, Vesk that are big on the ah, brains thing.
So, ah, what would um, be a good way to ah, hook up with a brainier um, Vesk? Is there a DataBook meet-up page or um, something?"
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"I'm ah, not very much into muscle and brawn and blood spraying all over the ah, place and ah, much ah, prefer someone for their ah, brains. But there's not um, a lot of ah, Vesk that are big on the ah, brains thing.So, ah, what would um, be a good way to ah, hook up with a brainier um, Vesk? Is there a DataBook meet-up page or um, something?"
I like the ooc comment, but I find the bold one to be inexplicably infuriating. I know people that mutter and use filler words like that, and every time, I want to tell them to just hold their tongue until they have any idea what it is they're trying to say. Have done so on more than one occasion, though usually with more polite language. Buddy of mine's always listening to music/watching movies in the background, so he does this constantly. I've muted him and just walked out of conversations before. It's horrible. I would much rather listen to a cat try to climb a chalk board. I don't know why.
Got me thinking, though. Since "masculine" seems to be a default trait among the Vesk, irrespective of gender, I wonder if it plays any role at all in gender identify. Like, would it just be "they're weak, ergo they're bad?" I don't quite follow with some posters' assertions that they probably don't care about the physical sex of their partners so much, given their sexual dimorphism. I do wonder, however, if they don't have entirely different expectations. They're also "different" enough that I could see them not caring about the sex or gender of other species. Sort of like "I don't care whether you're male or female; you're not Vesk. That alone condemns you to mediocrity." I also wonder, since Vesk females tend to be more brightly colored, whether or not that expectations carries over into their fashion. (What little they likely have, anyway.) Don't know, though. The male Vesk on their race page is wearing, like, bright pink armor. Probably not, I guess.
The male Vesk on their race page is wearing, like, bright pink armor. Probably not, I guess.
His armour is white and orange, the pink tint is simply light from his purple energy sword.
You can see it better in this image: http://static3.paizo.com/image/content/Starfinder/PZO7101-Vesk2.jpg
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The male Vesk on their race page is wearing, like, bright pink armor. Probably not, I guess.His armour is white and orange, the pink tint is simply light from his purple energy sword.
You can see it better in this image: http://static3.paizo.com/image/content/Starfinder/PZO7101-Vesk2.jpg
My bad. I didn't review the image before posting. Thank you for the correction.
More about the serum than queering things up but the serum lets you have a lot of say over what your new form looks like, doesnt it? So you could knock back two of them and have a permanent ideal body of your original sex? No more blemishes, scars, eye stigma, crooked teeth? Sure it is a little pricey for the average citizen but not exactly beyond their means and i dont see most people doing this repeatedly but dang... can it cause you to regrow limbs or otherwise regenerate? Its already causing the growth or removal of several organs and presumably height and body mass so getting your arm back doesnt seem like a stretch.
There is actually I believe an even cheaper potion that lets you alter your appearance a good bit. It is sort of the plastic surgery in a vial option so most of the scar/blemish/crooked teeth stuff looks like it would be super easy to fix just drink the serum and fix what you want fixed.
It won't regrow limbs but cosmetic stuff seems like it is fully able to alter.
Starfinder Design Lead
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Serum of Sex Shift- This is the one thing in the book explicitly created with trans characters in mind. It's right here in the core book, comes across as the latest in a line of similar items (to the point where I'm 95% sure Amber Scott wrote this entry), and it is very carefully worded to avoid any awful garbage like "biological sex," language that excludes non-binary people, or you know, the core race with three genders. So, definite A for effort, although there is a definite cis-writer's-take-on-being-trans, come to a decision, hop into a building, tada, one-and-done angle here which is arguably dismissive of what we have to deal with in reality.
While I am a huge Amber fan, and was thrilled she accepted my offer to work on the book, I actually wrote the serum of sex shift. I did my best to be respectful and get the opinion of people with more relevant life experiences than my own.That said any dismissiveness is entirely unintentional, and where the writing is lacking in that regard I take sole responsibility.
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"I'm ah, not very much into muscle and brawn and blood spraying all over the ah, place and ah, much ah, prefer someone for their ah, brains. But there's not um, a lot of ah, Vesk that are big on the ah, brains thing.So, ah, what would um, be a good way to ah, hook up with a brainier um, Vesk? Is there a DataBook meet-up page or um, something?"
I think that the Vesk regarding being sapiosexual as abnormal and thus in many ways their equivalent of queer would be very interesting, and make a certain amount of sense.
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I rather like the idea of androids being sexually androgynous. It makes sense in the way that when one chooses to undergo renewal,the new consciousness may not match the body's "furniture" per se.
It's also a fun concept that an android character could be several people over its existence. For example, the adventure paths typically run from levels 1-20. At the end of each path you could choose to renew and start over each time as an entirely new gender and class,but in the same body.
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I rather like the idea of androids being sexually androgynous. It makes sense in the way that when one chooses to undergo renewal,the new consciousness may not match the body's "furniture" per se.
It's also a fun concept that an android character could be several people over its existence. For example, the adventure paths typically run from levels 1-20. At the end of each path you could choose to renew and start over each time as an entirely new gender and class,but in the same body.
Certainly saves on having to hunt down new character art.
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I think it'd be cool if having brighter colors was associated with being tougher, kinda like tree frogs and poison.
So the women are more colorful, naturally, and sometimes men wear flamboyant colored armor to look more dangerous on the battlefield.
The implication being, "I don't care if you can see me! I'm still gonna reduce you to a smear on the wall!"
And I'm sure when I get the time to read all the way through the setting section I'll find a lot more to comment on (or have a lot to say about the lack of things to comment on) but, this is already a long post for me just trying to get a discussion going.
Not so much, as it turns out.
The main thing to jump out at me is Hylax further muddying the waters on shirren pronouns (she's a she, described as a queen and mother, which would presumably put her in the host gender by my reckoning, as hosts are referred to as such earlier, which strengthens my case that the "they" bit in Dead Suns was something of an error or a specific character opting for gender-neutral pronouns, but I still think this is something that needs an official writers bible yesterday).
Arshea getting a random shout out in the Other Gods blurbs is interesting, being a fairly minor deity in-fiction then and now, with a big fandom out-of-fiction for the combination of gender fluidity and general sex-positivity, but that's only vaguely referred to in this write-up. Meanwhile, notably absent are any mentions of Gozreh (the core 20 deity with gender fluidity) and Erastil (I'd be curious where he sits on quite a lot of things, but notably lashuntas breaking with traditional social structures).