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They've done this.It's why the team is busy putting out a hundred little fires because toxic individuals come to this community and start tossing around Molotov cocktails.
It's why we can't have political discussions any more, because folks couldn't be trusted to be respectful.
My formerly hidden conspiracy theory was that the *goal* of these toxic individuals is to completely destroy the community by forcing the community to police itself too proactively.
The 'tinfoil hat' tier is that foreign entities that despise everything Paizo supports have taken an active interest in such and are funding it.
And the problem is acknowledging this thing enables them.
You may be right. We have individuals that appear on the boards and outright say that they hate Pathfinder and don't play it anymore because of (reasons) but here's a bunch of ways your crappy game can be better like this OTHER game that I approve of.
I don't understand it myself. I don't care for some types of music, or TV shows, or whatever. And I don't spend time wandering to sites that support those and telling the fans why this thing sucks and why it should play X music instead of Y.
It just seems like a waste of time and energy. Why not do something that you enjoy more and support that, unless you just like causing mischief?
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You say "sensitive" when I think "aware" would be more apt. It's not so much that people are behaving worse than they had previously, it's that we are more aware of which actions have a negative impact on games, communities, and individuals and as such aren't to be tolerated.
Like, sure people have been yelling at each other and using slurs and what have you in tabletop spaces on the internet for decades, but who knows how many people that we'd be better off having in this hobby were driven away by this sort of thing? I'd certainly rather play with those people than with the people that drove them off.
I don't think driving off the socially awkward is very healthy for this kind of hobby in particular.
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I feel like there's a world of difference between "socially awkward" as in "I don't know what I should do" and the sorts of behavior we should not tolerate such as "I refuse to learn what I should do" and "I do not respect people's boundaries no matter how clearly delineated they are" and "I refuse to consider the viewpoints of others as valid."
It's one thing to not know, it's a different thing to refuse to listen and to learn.
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Civilized entities may disagree while remaining civil to one another.
There is a whole culture built around this discovery called 'etiquette'.
It does not take a lot to be decent and respectful.
But due to that, it is often overlooked because it doesn't seem like it would be necessary.
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I'm all for disagreeing and conversation on the topic. That said, when it becomes just this aggressive litany of hatred over what is essentially a difference of opinions on how something should be done I tend to tune out the ranter.
It is possible to disagree without being disagreeable. And once that line is crossed and it is just a repetitive hate hate hate without anything that could generously be called constructive criticism, you've lost a lot of your audience and any hope of finding a common ground.
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So my question is this....what can we, as a community, do to help police ourselves ?
I only started posting on Paizo's message boards a few weeks ago. Quickly learning from the mistakes of others I resolved to always try and be polite, especially when disagreeing with others, and to stay out of slanging matches.
That said, while there are some posters whom I would not reply to, I think most try to be friendly and helpful, and most of the heated arguments I've seen seem to spring from some sort of misunderstanding or folks taking offence when none was intended.
Well said....
All criticisms are useful for design.This is incredibly naive to the point of being a flat out falsehood. In fact, an overwhelming majority of opinions masquerading as criticisms are a waste of time. Time that is better spend designing/creating/etc.
I got a secret for you. All criticisms are opinions. There is no such thing as an objective criticism.
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Criticism can be relevant or not. Relevant criticism is stuff that gives the recipient a sense of what worked and what didn't, and why. Saying it sucks gives very little to interpret.
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The relevant criticism has been stated and restarted regarding what's wrong with the shifter and kineticist. Every time though the designs' defenders will attack at strawman of its critics. Also amusingly in both cases Legendary Games has more or less fixed the class. The current playtest for the legendary version of shifters is currently up and looking good, basically addressing every problem anyone had with the Paizo shifter.
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I mean, as a veteran of this hobby since like 1988 it's kind of strange to me that people as a whole seem so averse to "fixing it yourself" and instead wait for some official body to fix it for you.
It seems like a lot of the energy one could devote to making someone at Paizo feel bad because you don't like the Shifter could be better devoted to changing the Shifter until you like it. This is even effective exercise at phrasing one's complaints constructively.
I mean complaints like:
- Every full BAB class (except the barbarian who gets rage powers which are feat equivalent and the Paladin which is stacked with class features) gets bonus feats, so the shifter should get bonus feats.
- So many of your class features are predicated on wild shaping, but wild shaping prevents, you know, talking which is a pretty important part of this game, whereas shaping back wastes the use of wild shape, and you don't really have class features to fall back on once you're out of wild shape like the druid does, so the Shifter should get wild speech as a bonus feat (otherwise it's a tax.)
are things you can fix pretty trivially on your own. This doesn't really help in PFS, but a lot of fun things aren't doable in PFS, so you can always play something other than a Shifter there.
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I'm not adverse to fixing something myself. I'm adverse to paying for something that I have to fix myself. If I have to fix someone's homebrew class that they distribute for free I wouldn't be so vitriolic. This a game made by professionals charging a premium rate. so I expect to receive a professional product. This is the same as me calling and remanding a refund from my ISP when they fail to meet their promised network uptime, or taking in my warrantied appliance when it breaks, or kevetch about windows 10 being a straight downgrade of windows 7. I can fix all of these things myself with enough effort but I'm paying for them so I shouldn't have to. I could lay my own cable line, fix my own appliances, and use regedit and basic coding to make Windows 10 better, but that would mean I'm paying for labor that I then have to do myself anyways.
To put it another way, as a fellow old timer. Do you expect your car to turn on when you turn the key? If the engine fails to turn over after basic troubleshooting do you take it to the shop or do you break out the tools and fix the problem yourself? Would you be satisfied if the shop refused to help you because you could fix it yourself?
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So you would find Paizo's content more acceptable if you didn't have to pay "a premium rate" for it. Have I understood your post correctly?
I'm curious as to how d20pfsrd and its sister sites fit into this equation... it sounds as though accessing the content at no charge would be the perfect solution to your complaint. ^_^
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I mean, as a veteran of this hobby since like 1988 it's kind of strange to me that people as a whole seem so averse to "fixing it yourself" and instead wait for some official body to fix it for you.
It seems like a lot of the energy one could devote to making someone at Paizo feel bad because you don't like the Shifter could be better devoted to changing the Shifter until you like it. This is even effective exercise at phrasing one's complaints constructively.
I mean complaints like:
- Every full BAB class (except the barbarian who gets rage powers which are feat equivalent and the Paladin which is stacked with class features) gets bonus feats, so the shifter should get bonus feats.- So many of your class features are predicated on wild shaping, but wild shaping prevents, you know, talking which is a pretty important part of this game, whereas shaping back wastes the use of wild shape, and you don't really have class features to fall back on once you're out of wild shape like the druid does, so the Shifter should get wild speech as a bonus feat (otherwise it's a tax.)
are things you can fix pretty trivially on your own. This doesn't really help in PFS, but a lot of fun things aren't doable in PFS, so you can always play something other than a Shifter there.
Another big help is for online play. When you have a new GM every few weeks having to get all of them to okay some homebrew shifter class gets tedious and fairly difficult. Most will just say no since it's not official and are afraid of homebrew's balance.
Plus you know, we kind of are paying for this, if most people were happy with "fix it yourself for your home game" people wouldn't be buying all this new material to use.
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I mean, I don't advocate buying books for a single thing that's in the book. I think if we all scanned our shelves for RPG books, we'll find parts of them that we never used, don't plan on using, and may never use, but there's still enough stuff in that book that your purchase of it was merited.
Like I can guarantee I'll never see like half the archetypes in Horror Adventures, and I don't like the sidebar about spells changing your alignment, but I like the book.
So buy Wilderness Adventures if you're keen on things like the Green Knight, the Saurian Champion, the Venomfist, the Water Dancer, the Terrakineticist, the Geomancer, the Season Witch, the Stormwalker, etc. or for the Exploration, Herbalism, Salvaging, Trophy, or Weather Rules, all of which are pretty good in my estimation, and then with that you also get the Shifter; which you can fix in your spare time if that's something you're inclined to do.
I mean, primarily the reason I buy these things is that they give me ideas of things I can include in my game or use when I get to play, not that they're full of content that springs fully formed like Athena from Zeus's forehead, but YMMV.
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To put it another way, as a fellow old timer. Do you expect your car to turn on when you turn the key? If the engine fails to turn over after basic troubleshooting do you take it to the shop or do you break out the tools and fix the problem yourself? Would you be satisfied if the shop refused to help you because you could fix it yourself?
Thing is, the car turns over. The problem seems to be that people thought they were getting a tricked out sports car and instead got a moderately priced sedan instead. The shop cannot help fix that.
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Thing is, the car turns over. The problem seems to be that people thought they were getting a tricked out sports car and instead got a moderately priced sedan instead. The shop cannot help fix that.
In this case, it's more like finding out the car can't pass inspection...
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So buy Wilderness Adventures if you're keen on things like the Green Knight, the Saurian Champion, the Venomfist, the Water Dancer, the Terrakineticist, the Geomancer, the Season Witch, the Stormwalker, etc. or for the Exploration, Herbalism, Salvaging, Trophy, or Weather Rules, all of which are pretty good in my estimation, and then with that you also get the Shifter; which you can fix in your spare time if that's something you're inclined to do.
I mean, primarily the reason I buy these things is that they give me ideas of things I can include in my game or use when I get to play, not that they're full of content that springs fully formed like Athena from Zeus's forehead, but YMMV.
Trying to talk people out of their disappointment comes across as dismissive and condescending, and has been one of the biggest contributors to conversations turning nasty......
Just sayin ;)
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So you would find Paizo's content more acceptable if you didn't have to pay "a premium rate" for it. Have I understood your post correctly?
I'm curious as to how d20pfsrd and its sister sites fit into this equation... it sounds as though accessing the content at no charge would be the perfect solution to your complaint. ^_^
Yes and I can always jettison Microsoft entirely and just use Linux, but that still results in a more cumbersome experience than staying on the subscription. Now only that but I like a large portion of Paizo's output and as such want to keep it going for my group. That does not mean complaints about when I don't like the content are illegitimate.
Hell if I didn't complain about the bad then my compliments about the good would be meaningless, because anyone who gives nothing but unconditional praise is fundamentally wasting their time. It means they're doing no evaluation whatsoever, and their opinion holds no value.
Thing is, the car turns over. The problem seems to be that people thought they were getting a tricked out sports car and instead got a moderately priced sedan instead. The shop cannot help fix that.
If we're going with that scenario though, if I pay a sportscar price for a sedan I'd be rather upset and possibly litigious.
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With the exception of food, I'm not sure I've ever bought anything that I was disappointed with where my disappointment was not fundamentally rooted in being upset with myself for falling for marketing (which is, by nature, inherently deceptive.)
What I will say, though, that being genuinely angry at a RPG book (a thing by its nature you don't use all of) because a dozen or so pages are not up to your standards is something I cannot bring myself to comprehend. I mean, even if Paizo had spent those dozen pages personally insulting me, I could still find value in the rest of the book (though I would wonder why they couldn't just fill those pages with more Kineticist stuff instead, since they had space to personally insult me at great length.)
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So buy Wilderness Adventures if you're keen on things like the Green Knight, the Saurian Champion, the Venomfist, the Water Dancer, the Terrakineticist, the Geomancer, the Season Witch, the Stormwalker, etc. or for the Exploration, Herbalism, Salvaging, Trophy, or Weather Rules, all of which are pretty good in my estimation, and then with that you also get the Shifter; which you can fix in your spare time if that's something you're inclined to do.
I mean, primarily the reason I buy these things is that they give me ideas of things I can include in my game or use when I get to play, not that they're full of content that springs fully formed like Athena from Zeus's forehead, but YMMV.
Trying to talk people out of their disappointment comes across as dismissive and condescending, and has been one of the biggest contributors to conversations turning nasty......
Just sayin ;)
Not to speak for Possible Cabbage, but perhaps they were trying to highlight and focus on all the great things in the book and show a positive side for it in the hope that, although people are disappointed in some parts of the material, there are still a lot of good things in UW.
If we're going with that scenario though, if I pay a sportscar price for a sedan I'd be rather upset and possibly litigious.
Fortunately, the price was the same regardless.
Still, I think this was more about the advertising being more than the actual product, not unlike the unrealistic hamburger from your favorite fast food place or the truck that can tow an unreasonable amount of things to the beer that doesn't attract people like they show on TV. It feels like there are those that think that the commercial didn't sell the product correctly.
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Hell if I didn't complain about the bad then my compliments about the good would be meaningless, because anyone who gives nothing but unconditional praise is fundamentally wasting their time. It means they're doing no evaluation whatsoever, and their opinion holds no value.
Wow.
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Thanks Chris. :)
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Not to speak for Possible Cabbage, but perhaps they were trying to highlight and focus on all the great things in the book and show a positive side for it in the hope that, although people are disappointed in some parts of the material, there are still a lot of good things in UW.
Agreed, and I think someone highlighting things they liked about a product is in and of itself not a problem.
It only becomes a problem when it is repeatedly the response to people expressing concerns or criticisms.
There has been a litany of "it's only a small part of the book" or "change it yourself" if anyone mentions disappointment.
That's what makes people expressing concerns/confusion/disappointment feel they are being treat dismissively, and it's actually very understandable, and perfectly normal human behavior. ;)
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Still, I think this was more about the advertising being more than the actual product, not unlike the unrealistic hamburger from your favorite fast food place or the truck that can tow an unreasonable amount of things to the beer that doesn't attract people like they show on TV. It feels like there are those that think that the commercial didn't sell the product correctly.
Yeah, me too. I was happy with the shifter - it’s not right to suggest it’s not a professionally produced product. It may be very, very different from what you wanted. You might have read the prerelease hype and formed the wrong impression as a consequence.
The hobby is big though and Paizo try to please a large number of people’s disparate tastes. Aiming their product at a group that doesn’t include you isn’t a failure of design.
Not to speak for Possible Cabbage, but perhaps they were trying to highlight and focus on all the great things in the book and show a positive side for it in the hope that, although people are disappointed in some parts of the material, there are still a lot of good things in UW.Agreed, and I think someone highlighting things they liked about a product is in and of itself not a problem.
It only becomes a problem when it is repeatedly the response to people expressing concerns or criticisms.
There has been a litany of "it's only a small part of the book" or "change it yourself" if anyone mentions disappointment.
That's what makes people expressing concerns/confusion/disappointment feel they are being treat dismissively, and it's actually very understandable, and perfectly normal human behavior.
At least for myself, those discussion points may be a way to try to understand the criticism and deal with it. Sure, it is understandable to be upset about something. That said, if you told me that a two minute scene ruined a two hour movie for you, I'd have questions and want to know if there was nothing else that salvaged the show. Did you only go to see it for that two minute section and nothing else?
As for changing it yourself .. well, I'm always in the camp of doing that. I think that comes from not having these new fangled message boards until recently and having to muddle through on my own. That and experimenting with system to change what I don't like or would like to see done differently. I do not think it comes from a place of dismissal but rather the idea that the game is little more than a tool box that one can use to do whatever with.
That, coupled with the idea or expectation that Paizo is going to make some sort of retraction of the shifter may be where that is coming from. This may be the product the wanted to put forth; if that is the case, there is no correction or new version coming.
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Still, I think this was more about the advertising being more than the actual product, not unlike the unrealistic hamburger from your favorite fast food place or the truck that can tow an unreasonable amount of things to the beer that doesn't attract people like they show on TV. It feels like there are those that think that the commercial didn't sell the product correctly.Yeah, me too. I was happy with the shifter - it’s not right to suggest it’s not a professionally produced product. It may be very, very different from what you wanted. You might have read the prerelease hype and formed the wrong impression as a consequence.
The hobby is big though and Paizo try to please a large number of people’s disparate tastes. Aiming their product at a group that doesn’t include you isn’t a failure of design.
The hype was certainly part of the problem, it built up an expectation, amplified ten fold by the general enthusiasm for the concept itself.
However, and speaking only for myself, that's not where I sit with the class now.
Even if there had been zero hype, zero inflated enthusiasm, I would still find the existing class lack luster and not interesting enough to play.....which is a shame both because the concept is something just begging to be done well, and I know what kind of results Paizo usually produces. IMO...this falls very short of their normal efforts.
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Most of my friends don't go on forums. Many of them don't care for optimization.
All of them can tell the shifter was bad both mechanically and thematically. Paizo has soured their reputation this time with my friends. A few think Paizo is just out of ideas and that PF is close to over.
We have a 7 man group in one of my games. PF has enough content that everyone can be mechanically fresh and distinct from one another. We actually need a steady stream of classes coming out to maintain interest. Only 2 of us (myself included) dislike 5e, the other's complaint is that they are running out of classes to play and that the archetypes aren't all that different.
This is PF's advantage. It may be more complicated but it has more material to keep people wanting to play it. Paizo's ability to make a shifter that seems to please 1 in 20 people is a critical failure. And I honestly can't see why anyone would prefer this class over druids, Beastkin berserker, Feral Champion, Feral Hunter.
If anyone can explain how the Shifter is sufficient, I would be happy to hear such a perspective.
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Of the people I play with, only one other person (the most optimization-focused, and one of two who use the forums) has had any problem with the class. The others range from "find it fine" to "actively excited to play one". So... every group is different, I suppose.
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Maybe that's part of the problem for me....I'm not an optimizer, and have had only a passing interest in people trying to compare dpr and so forth. I'm more interested in what a class inspires me to do at character creation.
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Sure, it is understandable to be upset about something. That said, if you told me that a two minute scene ruined a two hour movie for you, I'd have questions and want to know if there was nothing else that salvaged the show. Did you only go to see it for that two minute section and nothing else?
A movie isn't the best parable since when you go watch a movie you (usually) go to get the full experience, not just to watch a 2-minute scene.
In contrast it's perfectly reasonable to buy an RPG book but only be interested in specific sections of it. A few years back I picked up the Faction Guide because I wanted to know more about the Red Mantis Assassins for an upcoming campaign. That's only a 2-page spread in a 50 page book, but honestly it was all I cared about. If those two pages had turned out to be a recipe for a red velvet cake shaped like a mantis then it doesn't matter how well written the rest of the material was, I would have been very disappointed in the book.
I find that's how I read most RPG books - there are specific sections I really like and usually draw me to the book in the first place , then there are things I could take or leave, and finally some I actively avoid.
Possible lesson....for both sides....
As I read both MR.H and Kalindlara's comments....
They both seem to play off of "my friends feel this way"....
Which at least to me comes across as more dismissive efforts.
Does it come across that way to others as well ?
Regardless of which side of the argument is using it ?
Is this one of those things we should maybe try to "check" ourselves from resorting too ?
EDIT: Not trying to pick at either of you...just noticing trends in the conversation that may be how we so often end up degrading into toxic back and forths ;)
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Great. Now I want cake.
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If those two pages had turned out to be a recipe for a red velvet cake shaped like a mantis then it doesn't matter how well written the rest of the material was, I would have been very disappointed in the book.
Are you sure?
I'd love a faction dessert guide.
How is stating what a group of people feel being dismissive? It’s the opposite I’d say.
If the group of people are all there, and actively participating in the conversation...no problem.
But in this situation it can come across as trying to weight your opinion with numbers....at least it does to me :P
It just kind of jumped out at me seeing the two opposing posts back to back ;)