I came to this idea shortly after Unchained was released, and was curious if there might be any rules in the works for 2E based on what characters -feel-
I've gone and made a list of bane/boons for PF1 via an emotions wheel (https://i.imgur.com/q6hcgsH.jpg), but our table hasn't gotten a chance to use it however.
Would PF2 possibly have something such as this on the horizon? It might encourage more emotional investment in characters, and more interesting interaction with the GM.
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Why would you want to turn roleplay into roll-play? I could see that, maybe, working in a game focused on psychology and how emotions manifest and affect behavior. But that game certainly isn't Pathfinder.
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I don't want the rules to dictate what a character feels, short of diplomancy or a mind-affecting spell, bardsong etc.
Which I guess actually are things in the game. So maybe it would actually be useful to have consistent, defined rules for what it means when an effect forces "despair" or "calm" upon you, so that all powers which inflict such things can reference the common table and not redefine them every time.
I mean, that's cool, but it seems like it would encourage roleplaying based on stats even more. I don't want characters having the most optimal emotions all the time.
I've occasionally, as a player, deemed that one of my own characters couldn't provide emotion components for spells at non-mechanically-mandated times. Something like that is as far as I'd take any statistical significance of emotional states.
...shouldn't we be the ones determining if our character is disgusted, amused, or enraged?
Absolutely. I've been toying with the idea that it an be represented with a tiny bonus, and penalty to break even.
Say, for example, a childhood friend of a PC doesn't live up to his word on a promise, and the PC tells me he feels betrayed.
I dig into my notecards, hand him the "betrayed" condition: "You take a -1 penalty on Diplomacy checks to alter attitude due to your bitterness, but gain a +1 bonus on Sense Motive checks to determine if someone is lying to you."
Something along the lines of that. Really miniscule bonuses and penalties. Duration being until another emotion overwhelms the previous one.
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So Masks: A New Generation uses emotions as conditions and they really help players guide their roleplay.
• If you’re Angry, take -2 to comfort or support someone or pierce the
mask.
• If you’re Afraid, take -2 to directly engage.
• If you’re Guilty, take -2 to provoke someone or assess the situation.
• If you’re Hopeless, take -2 to unleash your powers.
• If you’re Insecure, take -2 to defend or reject others’ Influence.
You can clear conditions in one of two ways, an ally can attempt to comfort and support you, or you can take an action in fiction that directly relates to your emotional condition:
• To clear Angry, hurt someone or break something important.
• To clear Afraid, run from something difficult.
• To clear Guilty, make a sacrifice to absolve your guilt.
• To clear Hopeless, fling yourself into easy relief.
• To clear Insecure, take foolhardy action without talking to your team.
Now these conditions relate specifically to how a game of Masks is played which is less concerned with the mechanics of how you do things, and more concerned with Why you do them.
But adding mechanics for feelings, influence, and self label images actually generates more, and more interesting roleplaying to a game than you’d think. I had been pondering starting a thread like this for a while, because my biggest peeve with Pathfinder is that it is called a roleplaying game but there aren’t any rules for roleplaying. Which means it’s really a tactical combat game where people play a role for no mechanical reasons whatsoever. The rules of the game offer no advice and incentives for playing into a role.
I think one of the reasons there are still people who refuse to let alignment go is because it’s the only mechanical incentive people have to play a role. To specifically make choices that define a character.
While I would love to see Pathfinder do something that Dungeons and Dragons still hasn’t done, I feel that there would be a backlash from people who believe that the roleplaying part should be optional, or who don’t think you can create mechanical incentives for roleplaying that won’t result in people trying to “optimise” their character’s emotions.
I think it could be done, but I don’t think we’ll see it in PF2E at least not from Paizo.
3pp hit me up if you want a “Friendship and Feelings” supplement for Pathfinder I’ve been working on a thing.
The roleplaying problem exists, but it's not about emotions only: your character has an INT score, but yet you do the thinking for him/her.
You character may have dumped CHA, but still your group is happy to bring him/her around.
It's up to you how much you want to roleplay those stats. My druid decided not to replace his dead animal companion immediately, though he had the time and money to, and I played for a while without it: a suboptimal choice made for RP reasons; another character of mine couldn't raise a finger against an hound archon: she was too scared to, not for mechanical rules but because of things happened in her past background. I could well say that my low-INT PC can't solve a puzzle though I know the answer.
That said, I would like to have rules about emotions. We already have fear, NPC attitude, charm spells, rage... why not include some conditions to cover some missing emotional status?
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I really don't like the idea of the GM determining the emotional state of my character based on how the DM feels my character should feel. No thank you. Now if a spell gets cast and I fail my save, that's a different story, I still get a save. This is entirely too situational and gives the DM too much discretion to decide ways in which to penalize or give boons to characters.
Side note: I take notes about the narrative based on my character's intelligence.
7-8 - pictures, misspelled words, etc.
9-10 - Cliff notes
11-13 - Add more details
14-16 - Very specific notes
17+ - Might as well be scrivener's chant going on.
Not necesarelly dictated by GM. Maybe it is something you decide yourself, the deal with penalty and bonus from it.
Why dictate? We have fear rules, but it's not that the DM decides that you are Shaken or Panicked without some mechanic happening.
It's probably not worth to codify everything with one or more conditions, but some more recurrent emotional status... why not?
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Making rules for specific emotion will just bog roleplay down. Also where would it stop?
You wake up
*GM rolls* "make a fortitude save"
"7"
"You fail, you woke up on the wrong side of the bed and are having a bad day, -1 to X"
Or you might have GMs dictating to people that they're so angry they can't sleep, or so sad they don't feel like pressing on, etc.
If you want it as something optional? Sure, knock yourself out, 3rd party that stuff, houserule it. Please do not codify it into the core rules of the game.
Not necesarelly dictated by GM. Maybe it is something you decide yourself, the deal with penalty and bonus from it.
You can already do that. Let's say your character is feeling angry and wants to hit something, you can tell the GM "I am rolling a voluntary will save to see if my character can handle his rage and prevent him from punching the closest person/thing/tree/etc." and make the roll. You or the GM could voluntarily set the DC.
If you want to do this type of stuff already, you can. Do not codify it where GMs are forced to deal with it.
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This wouldn't be my approach. I would do something like a rule for Courage:
Courage X: +X to attack rolls and melee damage, immune to Fear up to Fear X.
Then a Bard's Inspire Courage would give Courage 2, going up with levels, but you can also have spells or effects that use the same mechanic.
Rage could be handled in the same way, even having a Rage 0 status that only has drawbacks without benefits.
Nothing like arbitrary bad days, just a way to streamline the rules for some common emotions.
I really don't like the idea of the GM determining the emotional state of my character based on how the DM feels my character should feel.
I'm not sure where this idea is coming from. What I have in mind is quite the opposite; the player tells the GM what the PC is feeling, then gains a minor emotion status. Entirely player-driven. And yes, it's entirely possible and acceptable to not feel anything after something happens.
No saving throws. No rolls involved. Should the player feel his or her character might be overwhelmed with grief, ecstatically in love, etc, then the emotional state changes.
The idea also isn't directly tied to other class features that might exhibit changes in emotional status (such as Inspire Courage, Rage, or anything a Skald can do). How those function is already determined by what the abilities give, and how those abilities "behave" can be virtually described in any fashion the player desires. For instance starting a Rage could be described as the character entering a state of high-focus, forgoing their own defenses to bring down an opponent. It doesn't always have to be flavored as "angry."