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I have played Pathfinder since 2010 but I have never played in Golarion. I understand that the core rule book for second edition will be Golarion Infused which I am fine with but I would like to express my hope that the Golarion lore is clearly identified such that I can easily tell my players to just ignore those section when playing in a homebrewed world. I think this would also help third party publishers know what they can safely use under the OGL.
For example in ancestries I hope they do something like
Dwarves
General Description (similar to the current CRB which is relatively generic fantasy)
Dwarves are a stoic but stern race, ensconced in cities carved from the hearts of mountains...
In Golarion Section
In Golarion dwarves live in the nation of [blank] and do [blank] to [blank] for [blank] [blanks] a [blank]... *
*I don't actually know what dwarves do in Golarion
The DnD 5e players handbook has a lot of little subsections that describe how races exist in specific DnD proprietary campaign settings and I think it works well. It shouldn't be limited to just ancestries either of course.
Of course that's probably more of a concern for the actual release than the upcoming playtest but still I wanted to put my hope out there.
It would be like saying to do this for all Race description from the Core Rulebook. The Pathfinder 1e CRB has some race descriptions in it that are not really much like they actually portray the races, so it's even more confusing.
You either put something there, or nothing. We're past the point of "generic" elves, and probably have been since Eberron.
What I'm saying is: If you have a custom setting, they might as well ignore anything besides the Ability Score adjustments anywways, and should have since years ago.
It would be like saying to do this for all Race description from the Core Rulebook. The Pathfinder 1e CRB has some race descriptions in it that are not really much like they actually portray the races, so it's even more confusing.
You either put something there, or nothing. We're past the point of "generic" elves, and probably have been since Eberron.
What I'm saying is: If you have a custom setting, they might as well ignore anything besides the Ability Score adjustments anywways, and should have since years ago.
To be clear I am suggesting doing this for all races and classes in the book. Generic races are currently the standard for Pathfinder and DnD 5e does exactly what I am describing with a generic race description which can be easily plugged into any setting and a setting specific subsection which described how they interact with that setting.
My custom setting uses generic races for the most part as is pretty standard for the fantasy genre. For example the dwarves in my setting would be pretty indistinguishable from Tolkien dwarves, Warcraft dwarves, or forgotten realm dwarves. The places they live and their interactions with the nations and gods of the world are what is different.
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It feels like when you sit down to build your own setting one of the first things you do is ask "What are the people like? What are elves, etc. like? and you write down stuff you like without worrying about what it says in the core rules of the system you are using.
So when it comes to mechanical details, you just have to go through and say "this can go in unchanged, that needs a slight tweaking, and this other thing needs to be replaced entirely".
So I'm not sure how "deinfusing Golarion" even helps. Like the Adventurer's Guide is heavily Golarion focused, but you're still talking about "an Assassin Guild", or "A college of good, nature focused mages" so you just ask yourself "Do we have one of those? How is it different?"
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I agree strongly! There should be less Golarion in 2E, not more. I especially don't want Golarion as a core mechanic, e.g. ancestral heritages or some such.
Making Golarion part of the mechanics would force homebrewers to extract/replace those aspects that are Golarion. We would have to replace whole ancestral mechanics, item names, etc. which is a real pain.
I hope they handle Golarion like they handled gods in 1E, they are there for optional flavor but have no bearing on the mechanics of the game.
The Core book should be a very blank slate. Sell other books with lore, but keep the Core books free of Paizo lore.
Bardarok, thank you very much for posting this, I was about to post about it myself. I think it's extremely important.
Ancestries by nature are going to be packed with golarion.
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Id prepare for disappointment.
Yeah I'm still not sure whether to get 2e depending on how Golarion-tied the mechanics end up, can't be bothered removing all of it when I can just play various game systems that aren't tied to a setting I dislike.
This is Paizos chance to really give PF a life of its own. What a sneaky yet fun way to get folks wrapped into Golarion. For homebrewers you may need to do some mix and macthing to make it work. Assuming your goblins, if you even have them, dont love garbage and fire.
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Id prepare for disappointment.
I would be very disappointed. It would:
A. leave homebrewers with a lot of workB. mess with licensing
C. make it harder for homebrewers to communicate between each other and with stock player
D. make things more confusing for new players
D is a big one for Paizo. Jason has stated a few times now that 2E should be simpler for new players, where I think lore makes it more difficult. It presents more barriers to entry.
The only potential silver lining I can see on this is that it would force us to customize more, providing more depth for our campaigns. We generally do that already though.
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I really do agree that having an "In Golarion" section everywhere it's relevant is the cleanest and most elegant way to handle the infusion. It provides a guide to GMs and players who do want to run in Golarion, it provides a guide to new GMs homebrewing their own setting for the first time how they might go about that task, and it is easily stripped out or ignored when irrelevant to a given campaign. There's no reason not to do it this way.
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I really do agree that having an "In Golarion" section everywhere it's relevant is the cleanest and most elegant way to handle the infusion. It provides a guide to GMs and players who do want to run in Golarion, it provides a guide to new GMs homebrewing their own setting for the first time how they might go about that task, and it is easily stripped out or ignored when irrelevant to a given campaign. There's no reason not to do it this way.
The one major reason I'd be against this (and I forgot this major point from my last post is that) Golarion anchors roleplaying expectations and posibilties. One of the great things about core is that it provides that blank slate in which players can build upon with their imagination. If Golarion is core to core, that puts up artificial constraints to roleplaying with Pathfinder.
This might sound like an abstract point, but if you read two books with and without the "In Golarion" section, I'd bet reading the one with "In Golarion" would have your campaigns more closing heel to Golarion.
I think that's bad for roleplaying and a barrier for people who are looking for something unlike Golarion.
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This is Paizos chance to really give PF a life of its own. What a sneaky yet fun way to get folks wrapped into Golarion. For homebrewers you may need to do some mix and macthing to make it work. Assuming your goblins, if you even have them, dont love garbage and fire.
Giving PF a life of its own is a tricky thing though.
I agree that presenting Golarion lore in the CRB could help folks get "wrapped into Golarion" if that is something they want to do. Having a robust setting associated with it does make the system stronger.
However, in my opinion, one of the most important things about tabletop RPGs is the opportunity to tell your own story as a player and a GM. For me as a GM that often means making my own settings. I am expecting to need to do some mixing and matching to homebrew. I already needed to to that in PF 1e which, in the core mechanics line, had no Golarion infusion. If the Golarion infusion of Pathfinder 2e makes it significantly harder to run a homebrew setting I think that makes the system worse.
I think the devs can get the best of both worlds if they present the Golarion lore in such a way that it is easy to deinfuse. Hence my original post with a suggestion as to how that might be done.
I think a lot of things we have seen the last few years are sort of feeling out the waters for the this new edition. I am betting that is a major reason why Book of the Damned, Adventurer's Guide, Ultimate Wilderness, etc are Golarion infused. Clearly sales were not hurt to any significant degree, otherwise they wouldn't be going forward with the Golarion infusion
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If you're not using Golarion, I don't understand why you would need to use Pathfinder's new edition. Either keep using old version if it suits your needs, or use another game system, whether setting-neutral or whose setting dynamic is closest to your own. Like, even if P2E was setting neutral, I don't see why you still wouldn't be making appraisal of all those other options which might still be equally/better for your game than P2E.
I dont think uncoupling ancestries will be much harder than uncoupling the current cleric domains. Though it probably will require more work than in the past.
If you're not using Golarion, I don't understand why you would need to use Pathfinder's new edition. Either keep using old version if it suits your needs, or use another game system, whether setting-neutral or whose setting dynamic is closest to your own. Like, even if P2E was setting neutral, I don't see why you still wouldn't be making appraisal of all those other options which might still be equally/better for your game than P2E.
Inertia mostly. I have been playing Pathfinder for eight years and I played DnD 3/3.5 for eight years before that. I am interested in pathfinder 2e because it shares a lot of DNA with what I know and looks like it will be more to my liking than DnD 5e is. Plus I like some of Piazo's corporate policies in regards to inclusivity in their works and want to support them. But you are right I probably need to shop around now since it seems 2e will be a pretty big break from 1e and I do like getting new content occasionally so i would prefer a currently supported system. Plus I do see the problems with 1e pathfinder, many of my friends would rather play 5e now since it is simpler.
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If you're not using Golarion, I don't understand why you would need to use Pathfinder's new edition. Either keep using old version if it suits your needs, or use another game system, whether setting-neutral or whose setting dynamic is closest to your own. Like, even if P2E was setting neutral, I don't see why you still wouldn't be making appraisal of all those other options which might still be equally/better for your game than P2E.
Because I'd be wanting to play a better balanced form of Pathfinder which is easier to get players into? Why would I have to like Golarion to like mechanical improvements to Pathfinder?
I was always on the lookout of which systems can do my games better than Pathfinder, some of my campaigns are in Mutants and Masterminds or Window for example.
If it is anything like Ultimate wildneress, I don't think it will be too difficult to separate the too. They kept the setting content in it's own section(s).
When I play a homebrew world, I would need to be told how the different ancestries fit into it. I suspect that they're just going to be answering that for their setting. It shouldn't be hard to handle, because it's something that already needed to be addressed- the new info just overrides the old.
In the past, I didn't assume that homebrew setting elves are from another planet, and in the future I won't assume that their homeland of sorts is a place called Kyonin.
Hmm. Some custom ancestry feats might be a good way to get players more invested in ties with the setting?
When I play a homebrew world, I would need to be told how the different ancestries fit into it. I suspect that they're just going to be answering that for their setting. It shouldn't be hard to handle, because it's something that already needed to be addressed- the new info just overrides the old.
In the past, I didn't assume that homebrew setting elves are from another planet, and in the future I won't assume that their homeland of sorts is a place called Kyonin.
Hmm. Some custom ancestry feats might be a good way to get players more invested in ties with the setting?
I mean, this already seems to be the case. For example, from the Goblin Blog, we have four:
Burn It!
Junk Tinker
Razor Teeth
Very Sneaky
The only one of those that is remotely setting neutral is Very Sneaky. The other three assume the Golarion Goblin, which has an affinity for fire, likes to make items out of trash, and has rows of sharp teeth.
I mean, this already seems to be the case. For example, from the Goblin Blog, we have four:
Burn It!
Junk Tinker
Razor Teeth
Very SneakyThe only one of those that is remotely setting neutral is Very Sneaky. The other three assume the Golarion Goblin, which has an affinity for fire, likes to make items out of trash, and has rows of sharp teeth.
Goblin definitely has me worried since my settings had goblins based on the mechanics of being super sneaky and nomadic riders since that's what their mechanics were. I'm going to have to ban a lot of ancestry feats.
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Goblin definitely has me worried since my settings had goblins based on the mechanics of being super sneaky and nomadic riders since that's what their mechanics were. I'm going to have to ban a lot of ancestry feats.I mean, this already seems to be the case. For example, from the Goblin Blog, we have four:
Burn It!
Junk Tinker
Razor Teeth
Very SneakyThe only one of those that is remotely setting neutral is Very Sneaky. The other three assume the Golarion Goblin, which has an affinity for fire, likes to make items out of trash, and has rows of sharp teeth.
Why not just make your own list of ancestry feats, picking and choosing from the other races creating the feel you want for your custom world?
Goblin definitely has me worried since my settings had goblins based on the mechanics of being super sneaky and nomadic riders since that's what their mechanics were. I'm going to have to ban a lot of ancestry feats.I mean, this already seems to be the case. For example, from the Goblin Blog, we have four:
Burn It!
Junk Tinker
Razor Teeth
Very SneakyThe only one of those that is remotely setting neutral is Very Sneaky. The other three assume the Golarion Goblin, which has an affinity for fire, likes to make items out of trash, and has rows of sharp teeth.
Yes, quite. I mean I'm sure there'll be ancestry feat for your goblins, after all, the other part of the old "Skilled" trait was +4 to Ride. I'm 100% sure you'll have Ancestry feats for riding goblins. But of the rest I expect most of them to reinforce the Golarion Goblin. I mean, they included it because it's iconic to the setting, it'd be weird not to reinforce that iconic status.
As for the other races, I expect it to be much more generic. Only the Gnome was a departure in old PF, the rest were pretty much stock fantasy through and through. Humans may be an issue for homebrews depending on how finely they go for Ancestries (as in, will it be something like Avistani/Garundi/Tian or even more refined, Chelish/Andoran/Ulfen), but I doubt they'll be much trouble, especially in Core.
We'll have a better idea when we get future Ancestry blogs I'm sure.
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Why not just make your own list of ancestry feats, picking and choosing from the other races creating the feel you want for your custom world?
Because that's a lot more effort to do for a system I haven't decided on whether to actually invest a good amount of time into. Plus if a game requires frakensteining to match a setting, it's generally faster to just not use that game for the setting (and then because I'm not interested in golarion probably not use the game outside of one-shots of certain homebrew campaign concepts).
I'm happy with how PF has tried departing from the "stock" of many races.
Why would they make Racial feats that don't represent Golarion goblins? Sounds like a role for third parties. new Ancestry system is supposed to reinforce the race's unique quirks. Only reason core rulebook races in PF are so inaccurate is because it was just copy paste of 3.5. (Like wtf, there is no mention of Gnome bleaching or Halfling slavery whatsoever).
I literally didn't know what Bleaching really was until yesterday. All I knew was that golarion gnomes had to do something or they died.
But yeah, looks like 2e races are going to be a lot less useful if you don't play golarion.
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Separating mechanics from fluff is dead simple. Strip the fluff.
Stripping setting stuff from the core rules is also dead simple. Just recreate the content to your own homebrew without even touching the mechanics.
If you are making a homebrew world, this process is already an important first step. If you’re looking for a setting agnostic ancestry descriptions in order to show your players how you run content, then you’re probably fine with P1e’s stuff but frankly, just write something out or tell your players how you run those ancestries. Half the fun of home brewing your own world is coming up with your own flavour.
If that’s to your interest you probably shouldn’t be using published material anyway (in terms of fluff, mechanics obviously should be kept), or at the very least using it for inspiration but otherwise configuring it to your own liking.
Separating mechanics from fluff is dead simple. Strip the fluff.
Stripping setting stuff from the core rules is also dead simple. Just recreate the content to your own homebrew without even touching the mechanics.
If you are making a homebrew world, this process is already an important first step. If you’re looking for a setting agnostic ancestry descriptions in order to show your players how you run content, then you’re probably fine with P1e’s stuff but frankly, just write something out or tell your players how you run those ancestries. Half the fun of home brewing your own world is coming up with your own flavour.
If that’s to your interest you probably shouldn’t be using published material anyway (in terms of fluff, mechanics obviously should be kept), or at the very least using it for inspiration but otherwise configuring it to your own liking.
Except now the fluff isn't just in the fluff. In 1e it was very easy to not have crazy junk loving pyro goblins because the only mechanical aspect of it was saying "we don't use golarion content", but now i'd have to ban half the ancestry feats in the game to try and avoid golarion fluff.
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So here is how I would handle "I have not previously had pyromaniac goblins".
If nobody ever plays a goblin, or all goblins avoid the "Burn it!" feat, then I don't have to do anything. If a player does want to take that feat, during the pre-campaign character check/chat I would just say "hey, the goblins we have seen so far aren't really especially into burning things. Are you maybe from a different tribe that really has a thing for fire? Why is this tribe so obsessed with fire, and what else is true about them?" and then we can figure out what these different goblins are like, where they live, how they get along with their neighbors, etc.
If we can't figure out a way to work the "pyro goblins" (doubtful, but w/e) into the game world, I'll just say "is there something else you could take maybe? How about we make up a new feat right now that fits the specific circumstances of your character better."
Like I don't have time (or the interest) to come up with every goblin band, swordfighting academy, fishing village, wizard school, etc. on the face of the planet. So if a player wants to come up with one for their character to have a background with to explain something, I'm happy to work with them- this is much easier than coming up with this stuff on my own because I've got someone else to do most of the work.