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A topic I’ve been chewing on for ages, but now seems like the best time for it.
I’ve been thrilled to see the move in blog posts and in the new 2e books towards more nuanced representation, both in terms of getting away from “everyone of X ancestry is evil!” with fantasy groups (orcs, goblins, gnolls, etc) and especially in regards to the African equivalent in the lore. The description of the World Guide where it’s mentioned that the Expanse will be described from a local perspective - and in doing so, admitting that the previous material had come from a place of uncritical colonialism recreated - made me giddy! But it leaves one group that’s forever soured me on the lore: the Varisians.
Romani people have have had a pretty terrible time of it in terms of representation, especially in tabletop, and Golarion continues this unfortunate tradition pretty awfully. “Here’s a group of swarthy humans that wear scarves and read tarot from within their covered wagons” isn’t a nod to a real-world culture, it’s furthering a false image of an existing group just as blankly as “the jungle savages of the Dark Continent” does, to say nothing of the Szcarni providing in-fiction justification to the stereotype of Romani being thieves and criminals. The Varisians as they currently exist in the lore are a harmful stereotype played completely straight, and it just seems to have no place in a modern product, especially one making a visible effort to handle these things better. And please, stop saying gypsy. It’s a racial slur. It doesn’t belong anywhere in your game.
Fingers crossed for 2e to right this wrong.
Creative Director
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This is something we're still working on sorting out.
The goal:
Varisians will have some cultural influence rolled in from Spanish culture and elements, and will continue to be rounded out and not be stereotyped. In fact, they were originally intended to be a completely NON-Earthly analogue, an ethnicity that was completely fabricated and with no obvious ties to real-world cultures, but that collapsed in the haze of miscommunications and distractions pretty early on, alas. Furhtermore... While most (not all) Sczarni are Varisian, Varisians are not all Sczarni. The VAST majority of Varisians are diverse in their backgrounds.
The Sczarni are a sometimes good/sometimes bad group of bandits/smugglers. They could play a villainous role in a nation that's beset with highway robbery, for example, or they could play a heroic role in a nation overwhelmed with tyrrany and the Sczarni could be smuggling people to safety or working as rebels. As the inventor of the Sczarni (they're from my hombebrew, where their role is more of a woodland rebel type thing similar to what you see in Nirmathas in Golarion), they were always intended to be an edgier version of Robin Hood's crew... sort a cross between rural swashbucklers and organized crime. In retrospect, in "Burnt Offerings" it might have been better to make sure to include a better example of some chaotic good Sczarni front and center in Sandpoint, or to have killed some of the art we let get into print that was a bit too racially charged, in hindsight, that set us on the wrong path.
In any event, it's something we've bene working to address in various books along the way, but the small snippets in the Core Rulebook weren't enough to get into details.
Hopefully we'll be able to make it more clear going forward as we tackle these topics, but for the moment we're focusing on Garund's representation more strongly. I think we've done a GREAT job so far at giving Garund a lot more diversity and variety and compelling stuff, and the orcs are on their way as well.
Thanks for the feedback though, and we'll keep trying to do better.
EDIT: I've tried VERY hard to never EVER use the word "Gypsy" in print, and have scrubbed it whenever it shows up in print or in a blog, and have tried hard to get that point across to our designers, developers, and editors. If the word HAS shown up in print, please let me know so I can both make sure it doesn't happen again and can fix it in reprints.
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This is something we're still working on sorting out.
The goal:
Varisians will have some cultural influence rolled in from Spanish culture and elements, and will continue to be rounded out and not be stereotyped. In fact, they were originally intended to be a completely NON-Earthly analogue, an ethnicity that was completely fabricated and with no obvious ties to real-world cultures, but that collapsed in the haze of miscommunications and distractions pretty early on, alas. Furhtermore... While most (not all) Sczarni are Varisian, Varisians are not all Sczarni. The VAST majority of Varisians are diverse in their backgrounds.
The Sczarni are a sometimes good/sometimes bad group of bandits/smugglers. They could play a villainous role in a nation that's beset with highway robbery, for example, or they could play a heroic role in a nation overwhelmed with tyrrany and the Sczarni could be smuggling people to safety or working as rebels. As the inventor of the Sczarni (they're from my hombebrew, where their role is more of a woodland rebel type thing similar to what you see in Nirmathas in Golarion), they were always intended to be an edgier version of Robin Hood's crew... sort a cross between rural swashbucklers and organized crime. In retrospect, in "Burnt Offerings" it might have been better to make sure to include a better example of some chaotic good Sczarni front and center in Sandpoint, or to have killed some of the art we let get into print that was a bit too racially charged, in hindsight, that set us on the wrong path.
In any event, it's something we've bene working to address in various books along the way, but the small snippets in the Core Rulebook weren't enough to get into details.
Hopefully we'll be able to make it more clear going forward as we tackle these topics, but for the moment we're focusing on Garund's representation more strongly. I think we've done a GREAT job so far at giving Garund a lot more diversity and variety and compelling stuff, and the orcs are on their way as
...
Appreciate the response, and the thoughtful consideration both!
In a perfect world, I’d love to see Romani authors consulted for the Varisians; something to help nuance their actual cultural inspirations, rather than either playing a bad stereotype straight or throwing out that connection entirely. That along with making them more of a fantasy culture and less of a “gypsy” fantasy would be a dream.
As for the Sczarni, I’m not sure how possible it is to rehabilitate a group that proves an ethnic stereotype of criminality true, even if they are sometimes good - and their tiny snippet in the 2e core just describes them as sometimes-violent thieves and con artists with none of that positive element to round it out. Without the wordcount for nuance, I’d argue its inclusion is just hurting things.
You’ve earned a lot of trust so far, and this reply helps a lot! Here’s hoping things can keep getting better for marginalized folks seeing themselves in your game. (As an aside, seeing Filarina, the Gray Maiden character, turned from a mildly transphobic gaffe to a heartfelt and genuine-feeling trans woman as different content release really warmed my heart. Would love to have folks from other groups have that experience, too.)
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Creative Director
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As for the Sczarni, I’m not sure how possible it is to rehabilitate a group that proves an ethnic stereotype of criminality true, even if they are sometimes good - and their tiny snippet in the 2e core just describes them as sometimes-violent thieves and con artists with none of that positive element to round it out. Without the wordcount for nuance, I’d argue its inclusion is just hurting things.
That may be the case. My goal there was to include them specifically to pull back on the stereotype. This section went through a lot of massage and rewriting, but in the end I fear that the small window of text availalbe for them may indeed have done more harm than good... (originally, this chapter in the book was about a page longer but that extra text, which included a bit more info on all of the organizations to help round them out, had to be trimmed to make space for the domain information on page 441).
In hindsight, I should have cut the word "Varisian" from the Sczarni description entirely in the Sczarni, since they SHOULD include dwarves and goblins and Taldans and whatever as well. I'll see if we can't get that fixed in a reprint.
Hmm, I always felt like the stereotype angle was undercut by the setting itself when you consider bigger picture, although the Thassilonian servitude period could have analogies to real gypsy/romani people. Ustalav is essentially all or primarily Varisian, yet which obviously take on all societal roles with a very settled population, so equivalent to majoritarian populations in "not Transylvania" not just marginal "gypsy rogue" niche. Which is kind of weird blending/reversal of dynamic there, but certainly not one solely pushing a gypsy stereotype per se. Then Varisia itself, where longstanding Varisian population existed without other significant human populations for thousands of years post-Thassilon, despite traditional gypsy stereotype essentially premised on other more settled/developed population to interact with / be dominated by. To the extent they were nomadic or semi-nomadic, cattle raising is more coherent focus to support such a population.
I don't quite get why they would be cast as Spanish now, AFAIK that would be more applicable to Chelish? The only reason I can think is the aspect of particularly Andalusia for a certain gypsy/roma influence, but that would be weird way of getting away from such influence (by doubling down on specific manifestation of it). I don't know, maybe people of Caucasus like Circassian/Abkhaz/Ossetes/Dagestanis could be model instead? Iranic/Indoeuropean caste mythology seems good fit for Thassilon period, relevant to gypst/romani, but Caucasus people maybe a lens allowing focus on freer cultural development without specific stereotype tendency? (albeit they might have own stereotypes to avoid) What I've seen (pics) of ancient Caucasus tower ruins seems like cool setting for "post-Thassilon / pre-Chelish" ancient heritage.
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You can just use romani, you don't have to do the / thing.
I agree.
Also, I'm not really sure how bringing in Spanish influence will help either (especially since, as Quandary points out, Chelaxians are already the not-Southern Europeans). In response to the thing about how Ustalavic Varisians are less stereotypical: that's true, but sadly setting materials about Varisians seem to focus more on the "standard" Varisian which is based on Romani stereotypes. Portraying the variety of Varisian lifestyles might mitigate things somewhat, but what Paizo really needs to do is consult some Romani sensitivity readers, and do some research about what they were actually like. Not that their culture needs to be an exact replica, but it's a good way to avoid harmful portrayals.
I'm glad Paizo is making the effort to fix this, though!
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As for the Sczarni, I’m not sure how possible it is to rehabilitate a group that proves an ethnic stereotype of criminality true, even if they are sometimes good - and their tiny snippet in the 2e core just describes them as sometimes-violent thieves and con artists with none of that positive element to round it out. Without the wordcount for nuance, I’d argue its inclusion is just hurting things.
That may be the case. My goal there was to include them specifically to pull back on the stereotype. This section went through a lot of massage and rewriting, but in the end I fear that the small window of text availalbe for them may indeed have done more harm than good... (originally, this chapter in the book was about a page longer but that extra text, which included a bit more info on all of the organizations to help round them out, had to be trimmed to make space for the domain information on page 441).
In hindsight, I should have cut the word "Varisian" from the Sczarni description entirely in the Sczarni, since they SHOULD include dwarves and goblins and Taldans and whatever as well. I'll see if we can't get that fixed in a reprint.
Given how brief the ethnic descriptions are in core, the only material on the lore of the Varisians as presented... is that they’re criminals. Not ideal!
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The Sczarni seem reasonable enough to me inasmuch as almost all real world minority groups that experience prejudice develop organized criminal societies (other than slaves, who generally form rebellions instead). It's a defensive measure in many ways given their inability to advance in society or protect themselves via legitimate means.
But those pressures still result in real criminals who commit real crimes and are generally pretty unpleasant in many ways. As one of the only groups that actually seem to be viewed and treated as a marginalized minority in-universe in a lot of places, it seems reasonable to me that the Varisians would have such an organization.
In some ways it's unfortunate that they're listed in the corebook, for reasons already mentioned, but I don't think having a group like them existing is a problem any more than villainous groups of any other ethnicity existing is a problem. It just needs to be made very clear that they're a distinct minority within the Varisian population, which I've generally felt the books have done okay at.
That aside, I'd agree entirely that a more nuanced take on the Varisians is an unambiguous good, though I'll note that the majority of Ustalav's population being Varisian already provides something of a view of more settled Varisians.
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I feel like it's too late for that, but if they ever develop the culture in more detail it would be good to de-emphasize the Romani (g**sy is a slur) elements a bit and introduce some fictional ones so they are more than just "Hollywood Romani people".
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I feel like it's too late for that, but if they ever develop the culture in more detail it would be good to de-emphasize the Romani (g**sy is a slur) elements a bit and introduce some fictional ones so they are more than just "Hollywood Romani people".
Or, y’know, actually take elements from real Romani culture, at least.
Vampire: the Masquerade had a similar issue, and their “fix” was to retcon that group to have nothing to do with Romani people at all, and that frustrates the hell out of me. I’d so much rather see it done better than thrown out.
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Creative Director
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As I mentioned above; we're doing our best to address things. But that goes both ways; folks posting here should also avoid using racist language as well... and if you don't realize you're using racist language, then when it's pointed out to you, PLEASE take it as a learning moment to make yourself a better person and don't be insulted or get defensive.
I kinda feel sick to my stomach at the implication that "my intention" was to promote racist stereotypes, but I can see how that's had the effect, and I wish I could fix it retroactively, but I can't. I can only work to fix it going forward.
We ALL can do better.
As I mentioned above; we're doing our best to address things. But that goes both ways; folks posting here should also avoid using racist language as well... and if you don't realize you're using racist language, then when it's pointed out to you, PLEASE take it as a learning moment to make yourself a better person and don't be insulted or get defensive.
I kinda feel sick to my stomach at the implication that "my intention" was to promote racist stereotypes, but I can see how that's had the effect, and I wish I could fix it retroactively, but I can't. I can only work to fix it going forward.
We ALL can do better.
(Thumbs up emoji)
Also, to clarify I do still think they should include parts of real Romani culture, but that it could be interesting to distinguish them a bit more as they are still a fantasy group. Even if they didn't and kept them as not!Romani just portrayed in a more sensitive way, I'd be happy.
Also, according to Wikipedia an estimated million Romani are in the USA, so not exactly something local ignorance can be used as an explanation for. Though as an American I do know that there isn't much knowledge about what they're really like outside the communities themselves in my experience. Not that any of that excuses it, of course.
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Maybe it's just having grown up on Ravenloft's Vistani (Human-but-not-normal! Possessed of strange insights never shared with an outsider! Half-breeds get their own racial category and can never be "real" Vistani! LEAVE NO STEREOTYPE UNTURNED!), but the Varisians (taken as a whole) have always struck me as a far better approach... but then again, the Sczarni haven't exactly been prominent in the stuff I've run, so, there's that.
I will say, that where the Rise of the Runelords Player's Guide stuck a line about opportunistic bilking into the Varisian writeup, at least 2E saves the unfortunate implication for the Sczarni entry...
Still. Room to improve, and glad to see that's the intention going forward.
Gypsy is a racial slur? In the famous Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the word gypsy was very frequently used by almost everyone in the film, I remember. So I thought that word is not a racial slur at all. Well, if using that word would anger many people, I would stop using it.
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Gypsy is a racial slur? In the famous Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the word gypsy was very frequently used by almost everyone in the film, I remember.
The characters using it were, notably, either self-consciously racist, directly under the power of the self-consciously racist characters, part of a society where the self-consciously racist characters were permitted to rise to positions of power (that is to say, a racist society), or members of an oppressed people using the term when interacting with their oppressors.
While we're bringing up problematic setting elements, does it bother no one that the Prophets of Kalistradae are the Elders of Zion in all but name?
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*slur* is a racial slur? In the famous Disney film The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the word *slur* was very frequently used by almost everyone in the film, I remember. So I thought that word is not a racial slur at all. Well, if using that word would anger many people, I would stop using it.
Disney isn't the be all end all of what is acceptable, after all they also did "Song of the South"
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Or awareness that the other one is a slur and thus unacceptable is still growing rather than 100% known. Having a censor built in for it is probably on the list of stuff the tech team has a list of.
That is a different way of saying the same thing. Why did the list the tech team got given, in this telling, omit the word "gypsy?" Because whoever was writing it, or their boss, didn't think it so bad.
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As I mentioned above; we're doing our best to address things. But that goes both ways; folks posting here should also avoid using racist language as well... and if you don't realize you're using racist language, then when it's pointed out to you, PLEASE take it as a learning moment to make yourself a better person and don't be insulted or get defensive.
I kinda feel sick to my stomach at the implication that "my intention" was to promote racist stereotypes, but I can see how that's had the effect, and I wish I could fix it retroactively, but I can't. I can only work to fix it going forward.
We ALL can do better.
I'm going to threadjack a little, but it's related to what you just said.
I'm not terribly familiar with the official Pathfinder setting, so I'm reading through the Age of Lost Omens section. It seems in your Africa analog ( Mwangi Expanse) you had a kingdom ruled by the Gorilla King? Inhabited by demon infused talking apes?
I don't know how you can know calling Romani the "g word" isn't okay, but not know that black people have been called Apes, demons, and etc. How can you not know that this would be perceived as incredibly racist?
This is a situation where some sensitivity and improvement, and maybe a consultant could help.
Yes that was a nation (was, Gorilla king dead now), but it wasn't the forefront for talking about the Mwangi and in fact a lot of the stories were about those native to the Expanse having to deal with the demon worshipping simians.
So while I can see what they were trying to do, I don't disagree with any of what you said or suggested and second it as well, especially that last part.
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Yeah, the Mwangi Expanse was virtually packed with racially insensitive and colonialist tropes. Fortunately, Paizo seems to be consciously taking steps to make it better.
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Yeah, the Mwangi Expanse was virtually packed with racially insensitive and colonialist tropes. Fortunately, Paizo seems to be consciously taking steps to make it better.
Quite frankly, I'm not impressed. Especially at their attempts at decolonization - and that they seem to have mostly eschewed these in favor of simply retconning the colonialism (and so regressing the world).
I think we should reserve judgement about that until the Lost Omens World Guide where they'll surely go into things in more detail. If they don't, that means you can then write it however you want in your own game, so that's not exactly bad either IMO.
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I think we should reserve judgement about that until the Lost Omens World Guide where they'll surely go into things in more detail. If they don't, that means you can then write it however you want in your own game, so that's not exactly bad either IMO.
I can write whatever I want in any event. What Paizo writes is significant not because I am married to it, but because they reach hundreds of thousands of readers regardless of what anyone in particular thinks of their stuff.
True.
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Paizo takes this topic very seriously. As do I. And step one, as I've mentioned, is to be open minded and learn from past mistakes.
The inclusion of a Gorilla King was NOT intended to be racist. It's unfortunate that the real world has a history of equating Africans with gorillas, and that's an awful and horrific and depressing example of the cruelty and ignorance of humanity that puts another tick in the mark of maybe we're a failed species that deserves extinction. I try hard NOT to fall down the misanthropic route, as tempting as it is, and do what I can to make things better for the world as much as I can.
The inclusion of a Gorilla King and the charau-ka was intended to follow in the tradition of animal-humanoids, like lizardfolk, ratfolk, catfolk, gnolls, serpentfolk, tengu, and so on, not as a commentary on African people.
It may have been a bit of rose-tinted glasses that we could include a Gorilla King without sending the wrong message. And certainly the world in which we were living in, even just 15 years or so ago when we first introduced the Gorilla King to the game, was less observant from a white privilege standpoint. Pathfinder was a smaller game with a smaller audience. Culture was different.
In those 15 or so years, things have changed. Some for the worse, sure, but it's important to remember that there are positive changes as well. Part of those changes, as tiny as they might be on a global scale, are the changes we are making to Golarion and Pathfinder... and among those tiny but important changes are decisions like the removal of the Gorilla King from a part of the setting by hard-coding his defeat into the history. And we'll be looking at ways to portray ALL evil ancestries, be they charau-ka or orcs or goblins, in a more open-minded light.
The game, at its core, is about fighting monsters, so don't expect all of these ancestries to be always-good going forward. Likewise, we won't be portraying dwarves and elves and humans as always good either.
As long as the overall momentum of the change in the setting is a net positive, that's what's important. I'm sorry that some of the content we published in the past may have been taken as offensive, but it was done out of ignorance, and as we learn more, we're trying to adjust and change things while still maintaining the game as a fun, exciting fantasy-based adventure RPG.
Keep the feedback coming, and I hope you'll continue to check out what we'll be doing in the future, cause it's the future we can change and adjust, not the past. We can only learn from the past.
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Killer reply, and one a certain World’s Greatest could stand to emulate.
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That may be the case. My goal there was to include them specifically to pull back on the stereotype. This section went through a lot of massage and rewriting, but in the end I fear that the small window of text availalbe for them may indeed have done more harm than good... (originally, this chapter in the book was about a page longer but that extra text, which included a bit more info on all of the organizations to help round them out, had to be trimmed to make space for the domain information on page 441).
In hindsight, I should have cut the word "Varisian" from the Sczarni description entirely in the Sczarni, since they SHOULD include dwarves and goblins and Taldans and whatever as well. I'll see if we can't get that fixed in a reprint.
Hmmm...if you are going for more of a Spanish flair in the culture but also a bit of Robin Hood, then why not provide a Varisian folk hero "the Fox" who exists as a legendary Zorro figure for the people?
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Good stuff by JamesExcellent reply. Please know that there are plenty of us out here who interpreted things, such as the Gorilla King and Sczarni, in the manner in which they were intended by you and others, and never inferred any racism whatsoever. While I think it's unfortunate that many people these days seem to want to interpret things in the worst possible light, I understand your reasoning and rationale for changing things up. Thanks for all you do, James.
I'm with you there. I find it's best to live life assuming positive intent from others unless given reason to think otherwise. I've never had such a reason with Paizo.