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I’m super excited about the upcoming World Guide, in that we’ll be seeing some less-loved parts of the core setting and with certain problematic areas redeemed in the current writing, but now my hype has jumped the tracks thinking about the rest of the world. We’re getting close to enough lore on at least parts of Arcadia, and the Mwangi being handled better has me very curious about southern Garund. I’d love to see some more nuanced and less stereotypical takes on Tian Xia and Casmaron from diverse authors, too.
Anyway! I know it’s early days yet, but I’m hoping more people are here with me!
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I've been crying out for Vudra and Arcadia for years now, so... yeah.
Southern Garund? Yes please.
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Hear hear!
Seeing the approach Paizo is taking towards less bigoted (and frankly more interesting as a result) writing, it's exciting to think about exploring some truly non-European fantasy in the setting.
It would be especially good if
1) a similar metaregion structure was applied to non-Garund/Avistan continents (honestly, that structure is really good for learning and for running campaigns, it would be a shame to just have a south Garund book look like ISWG again with an overwhelming nation-by-nation look with no rhyme or reason to it)
2) each continent got more than one book each (though with how much content there is to cover that's maybe wishful thinking but hey)
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Oh sweet and merciful Lady of Graves, yes!
I so want to run a Tian Xia game: I maintain that there's some great ideas and usable stuff in there. But hoooo boy: The lows are real low. I've been pondering how I'd rework parts of it myself, so an official take would be really intriguing.
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Yes! I'm especially interested in reading about Vudra, the rest of Kelesh, and southern Garund.
It would be cool if they had meta-regions for the world in general with the Inner Sea being just one, and each having several of its own. The Crown of the World, Southern Garund, Sarusan, Azlant, Vudra, and the Empire of Kelesh are obvious ones, but I'm not sure how to split up Arcadia and the remainder of Casmaron. As for Tian Xia, I think it should have 3 meta-meta-regions: the Lung Wa successor states, Hongal+the peninsula Minkai is on, and everything south of those. Or just ex-Lung Wa and everything else, but that would be really awkward to show on a map.
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Oh sweet and merciful Lady of Graves, yes!
I so want to run a Tian Xia game: I maintain that there's some great ideas and usable stuff in there. But hoooo boy: The lows are real low. I've been pondering how I'd rework parts of it myself, so an official take would be really intriguing.
Tian Xia needs a lot of love and a lot of nonwhite authors.
I would LOVE to run a game set in Sarusan, but the likelihood of getting a book on that continent before PF3 is unlikely at best. I am itching to see even a little more information made available about Golariaustralia.
From what I've seen they seem to want to keep it as the mystery continent, but I hope we'll at least get some hints.
Yeah, I pretty much would like to know more about the lands of Vudra and perhaps even the rest of Casmaron. We get so much Avistani content.
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The rough thing from a business standpoint is that your players will want to use the published game options, which are mostly for Avistan. So if you set an adventure path in Vudra, either you need a party of "fish out of water" or you need a big book of character options from all over Casmaron.
It's early in the life cycle of the new game, and I imagine they're wary of taking a risk on a product that might not hold a lot of appeal.
Personally I'd love some Bollywood-style fantasy. Check these examples out, courtesy of www.reddit.com/r/bollywoodrealism:
https://gfycat.com/pepperyclumsyhoneybadger
https://gfycat.com/fickleickyblackbuck-rajini-funny-action-scenes-superstar -rajinikanth
https://external-preview.redd.it/zDeGy9oUxSp_PjqLLlYutFkAExr4KE8QdXiPTIrLXb 0.gif?width=435&format=mp4&s=ee80a7181153a79ef25b49eae204444ab34ee9 fc
https://gfycat.com/AdvancedElderlyBass
One vote here for getting off Golarion and into space. There was some pretty neat first edition material on Golarion's solar system and the other planets, asteroids, etc. there. I'd love to see this used in second edition. I'm much more a fan of fantasy space adventures (think a less deliberately silly Spelljammer) than I am of the Starfinder approach.
In order I’d love to see:
Tian Xia
Underwater cultures
Casmaron
Arcadia
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Yeah, I pretty much would like to know more about the lands of Vudra and perhaps even the rest of Casmaron. We get so much Avistani content.
They really should have just let Tar-Baphon nuke the whole continent. It had very little of value in it to begin with, and it's entirely played out at this point. Good riddance to it.
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I'm really excited about the upcoming adventures in and around Absalom and hope we get more set in less developed areas.
I've really enjoyed all the content we've gotten for the Avistani part of Golarion and would like to see more of it developed but focusing more on the Saga Lands and the Broken Lands.
The area I'd really, really like to see more of is the Impossible Lands. I'd like to see an AP set in the Mana Wastes and Alkenstar but touching on Geb and Nex. An AP that lets us explore Jalmeray and Vudra would be next on my Golarion wish list.
SM
In order I’d love to see:
Tian Xia
Underwater cultures
Casmaron
Arcadia
Ooh, good point, it would be really neat to hear more about underwater cultures.
Ooh, good point, it would be really neat to hear more about underwater cultures.In order I’d love to see:
Tian Xia
Underwater cultures
Casmaron
Arcadia
Aren’t we getting a little in LOWG?
Seems like it, yeah.
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the good thing about the campaign setting being hardcover now, is perhaps you can stuff the less popular interesting stuff that doesn't sell as well with, with the more popular parts that do sell well.
I would love to have a campaign in vudra, but fine with a fish out of water approach: I like campaigns where the character and players discover a new setting at the same time.
^What did you think of Jade Regent?
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^What did you think of Jade Regent?
I don't know what Berhagen thinks, but I know that I enjoy what I've read of it, and would probably enjoy playing in it even more. Out of all the APs, I think it comes the closest to capturing the same sense of wonder I got from Tolkien.
♫ Far over the Crown of the World so cold, to forests deep and empires old... ♫
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I would love to have a campaign in vudra, but fine with a fish out of water approach: I like campaigns where the character and players discover a new setting at the same time.
That presumes that the setting isn't cobbled together out of the shallowest possible stereotypes. All players would be familiar with those - some might be hurt by them.
But even if the setting isn't composed of the shallowest possible stereotypes, it is still better served by a premise other tha a fish out of water. Because in that premise it will necessarily be presented as exotic and foreign, when it's supposed to be a real, grounded place where people live.
Since it was mentioned, Jade Regent is how to do this wrong.
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I would love to have a campaign in vudra, but fine with a fish out of water approach: I like campaigns where the character and players discover a new setting at the same time.
The problem with "fish out of water" stories is that they assume only a familiar Western probably-white bunch of heroes can save the day or have agency, or at the very least that the "exotic" locals are reduced to set dressing instead of capable full people. It's overdone at best and a colonialist power fantasy at worst.
I'd much rather see players forced to play more diverse character than do "white people swoop in to fix everything" again.
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I want more about underwater cultures so I can run "fish out of water" stories literally anywhere on land.
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Forcing people to do what they don't want to do will send players away to another rule set Keftiu. Regardless of intent. Besides there is nothing wrong with wanting to play a chelish human who homeland is Andoran vacationing down in Nex that ends up being drawn into an adventure from unforeseen circumstances.
Nothing wrong with playing Locals either.
what is wrong is being forced to do so.
Yes, that’s why the fanbase had a mass exodus when you had to play bad guy agents of Cheliax in Hell’s Vengeance, I remember now.
Adventure Paths are about a curated experience. There’s nothing more restrictive about “play people from this region” than the premise of just about any other one, and it has the upside of finally getting us out of the colonial hero-tourist tropes that have been done to death.
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Regardless of intent. Besides there is nothing wrong with wanting to play a chelish human who homeland is Andoran vacationing down in Nex that ends up being drawn into an adventure from unforeseen circumstances.
There is no such thing as a "Chelish human whose homeland is Andoran." "Chelish" means "a subject of the throne of Cheliax," nothing more, nothing less.
And Keftiu has already said what is wrong with this setup. Cannot the Garundis solve their own problems? Must they depend upon white saviors? And where do the backwards, savage Avistanis get off being the heroes to more civilized peoples, anyway?
I would like to see 2e kitsune.
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Oh and I should play as a Garundi just because the game at the table is being placed there? But what if I wanted to play an obnoxious dwarf that hails from Avistan. and who says that Avistanis are backwards and savage.
It’s not “you can only play characters from wherever your game is set,” it’s “if your game is set in places that heavily draw from real-world cultures reduced to exoticism and colonialist power fantasies for a gawking white Western audience, consider empowering the people from those places instead.” It feels like you’re arguing in bad faith here.
Your heroes can be locals all over the Western-inspired parts of the world, but anywhere that goes abroad so far assumes an outsider perspective, rather than giving the natives agency as PCs. Why not extend that courtesy to everyone, and give us more varied options for who our heroes actually are?
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cheliaxian
That is outdated. Per the 2E CRB, so-called "chelaxians" are ethnic Taldans, and it's only chauvinism that says otherwise.
and who says that Avistanis are backwards and savage.
An honest appraisal of the state of the productive and cultural developments of the various continents. Kelesh in Casmaron is a true world power built on wishcraft of all things. Nex, Geb, and the Magaambya are the seats and wellsprings of arcane magic on Golarion. Arcadia is industrial. Avistan is a feudal backwater mired in religion and superstition.
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I feel like "the writer and the GM take the players on a tour through a fantasy culture which is somewhat like a real world culture which the characters are not particularly familiar with" is a reasonable thing to have, it's just that this takes some skill to do well.
I mean, hell "tour through an unfamiliar fantasy culture" happens all the time. I don't know if anybody's groups were really acquainted with Irrisen before playing Reign of Winter, since "playing Reign of Winter" is probably the best way to understand Irrisen.
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I feel like "the writer and the GM take the players on a tour through a fantasy culture which is somewhat like a real world culture which the characters are not particularly familiar with" is a reasonable thing to have, it's just that this takes some skill to do well.
I mean, hell "tour through an unfamiliar fantasy culture" happens all the time. I don't know if anybody's groups were really acquainted with Irrisen before playing Reign of Winter, since "playing Reign of Winter" is probably the best way to understand Irrisen.
It’s more that we only ever see these places from an outsider perspective, while those more culturally Western get to be treated as familiar - which then easily skews into colonialist tropes and racist treatments of the locals as incapable, accidentally or no. So much of the 1e material on the Mwangi talks about “lost” civilizations, primitives in the wilderness, and how colonial powers handle the locals, with almost nothing from a neutral authorial voice or a native perspective. That’s frustrating enough from a worldbuilding perspective, but outright troublesome when that part of the setting has clear real-world analogues with similar problems in presentation.
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To get back away from this particular mire: I would adore a Vidrian-based AP that focused on hunting escaped colonial authority figures (like those of various trading companies, or the Order of the Coil), before transitioning to a larger threat that skewed more high-level - but with a theme throughout of “this is how the people of this region can tackle a problem.”
And you could do so, so much with an Arcadia AP or three.
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I mean, a bunch of APs appeal to players to play someone who is "from this place, or at least has deep connections to it". I don't know why we couldn't do this sort of thing outside of Avistan so long as the players are sufficiently clued into "what kind of a place this is."
Since like, I don't know if most players knew much about Nirmathas before Ironfang Invasion, Numeria before Iron Gods, or Kintargo before the AP which is not to be named.
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Since like, I don't know if most players knew much about Nirmathas before Ironfang Invasion, Numeria before Iron Gods, or Kintargo before the AP which is not to be named.
One of these things is not like the others - a single small *ahem* city is not alike to a whole country.
Anyway, Nirmathas's and Ravounel's real-life analogues (Switzerland's forest cantons and Iberian Galicia respectively) are fairly obvious. Numeria is its own thing not alike to anything in real life, but its conceit was striking and well-known long before its AP, which was highly requested.
I don't think you need to know the first thing about Switzerland or Galicia to grok those APs though.
Regardless of intent. Besides there is nothing wrong with wanting to play a chelish human who homeland is Andoran vacationing down in Nex that ends up being drawn into an adventure from unforeseen circumstances.There is no such thing as a "Chelish human whose homeland is Andoran." "Chelish" means "a subject of the throne of Cheliax," nothing more, nothing less.
{. . .}
With the life extension means available to the more powerful people of Golarion, it would certainly be possible to have a few remaining Chelish Humans whose homeland is Andoran, which used to be part of Cheliax only a bit over a century ago. (By the way, AP hook . . . .)
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I would love to have a campaign in vudra, but fine with a fish out of water approach: I like campaigns where the character and players discover a new setting at the same time.The problem with "fish out of water" stories is that they assume only a familiar Western probably-white bunch of heroes can save the day or have agency, or at the very least that the "exotic" locals are reduced to set dressing instead of capable full people. It's overdone at best and a colonialist power fantasy at worst.
I'd much rather see players forced to play more diverse character than do "white people swoop in to fix everything" again.
This. That kind of story happens all too often in RPGs. And it's not just a Pathfinder thing either. One of the biggest problems with D&D's Tomb of Annihilation was that it assumed all of the PCs were outsiders from the northern European inspired parts of the setting.
I think a Vudra AP should start in Vudra, and encourage (not "force") people to play characters from there. If they want to have something semi-familiar to start with they could use the city of Radripal, Danamsa from Distant Shores. Most APs have a Player's guide, they could put relevant info about Vudra there for players and provide more detail in the books for the GM. Jade Regent was possible to run before the Dragon Empires Gazetteer released.
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I feel like with campaign traits, it's going to be really easy to give players an understandable role for their characters even in a society that the players don't understand well. Level 1 characters don't need to understand everything about their homeland, really "what the background tells you about your role in it" and "what the gazeteer tells you about your home town" should be sufficient.
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To get back away from this particular mire: I would adore a Vidrian-based AP that focused on hunting escaped colonial authority figures (like those of various trading companies, or the Order of the Coil), before transitioning to a larger threat that skewed more high-level - but with a theme throughout of “this is how the people of this region can tackle a problem.”
And you could do so, so much with an Arcadia AP or three.
I would love this, oh so much.
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I would love to have a campaign in vudra, but fine with a fish out of water approach: I like campaigns where the character and players discover a new setting at the same time.The problem with "fish out of water" stories is that they assume only a familiar Western probably-white bunch of heroes can save the day or have agency, or at the very least that the "exotic" locals are reduced to set dressing instead of capable full people. It's overdone at best and a colonialist power fantasy at worst.
I'd much rather see players forced to play more diverse character than do "white people swoop in to fix everything" again.
This. That kind of story happens all too often in RPGs. And it's not just a Pathfinder thing either. One of the biggest problems with D&D's Tomb of Annihilation was that it assumed all of the PCs were outsiders from the northern European inspired parts of the setting.
I think a Vudra AP should start in Vudra, and encourage (not "force") people to play characters from there. If they want to have something semi-familiar to start with they could use the city of Radripal, Danamsa from Distant Shores. Most APs have a Player's guide, they could put relevant info about Vudra there for players and provide more detail in the books for the GM. Jade Regent was possible to run before the Dragon Empires Gazetteer released.
Well from the inner sea you don’t have to western, you can also be kelishite, mwangi, osirion, etc. so that doesn’t have to be an issue. Also it might be an issue created by people from the inner sea that they want to solve.
While I think starting in Vudra could work in my experience starting out with a character from a culture too foreign to them is hard for quite some players. I guess with a player’s guide that could be solved (and AP appropriate backrounds) to an extent. Still I found that having restricted character (backgrounds) is an issue to many gaming groups ....(although definitely not all of them).
I mean, a bunch of APs appeal to players to play someone who is "from this place, or at least has deep connections to it". I don't know why we couldn't do this sort of thing outside of Avistan so long as the players are sufficiently clued into "what kind of a place this is."
Since like, I don't know if most players knew much about Nirmathas before Ironfang Invasion, Numeria before Iron Gods, or Kintargo before the AP which is not to be named.
I agree it would require sufficient background. Also it does require appropriate consideration by writers and GM to make it work out.
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I would love to have a campaign in vudra, but fine with a fish out of water approach: I like campaigns where the character and players discover a new setting at the same time.That presumes that the setting isn't cobbled together out of the shallowest possible stereotypes. All players would be familiar with those - some might be hurt by them.
But even if the setting isn't composed of the shallowest possible stereotypes, it is still better served by a premise other tha a fish out of water. Because in that premise it will necessarily be presented as exotic and foreign, when it's supposed to be a real, grounded place where people live.
Since it was mentioned, Jade Regent is how to do this wrong.
You assume that something can’t be simultaneously exotic and a real grounded place were people live? Have you travelled much? From my experience you can easily have both....
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You assume that something can’t be simultaneously exotic and a real grounded place were people live? Have you travelled much? From my experience you can easily have both....I would love to have a campaign in vudra, but fine with a fish out of water approach: I like campaigns where the character and players discover a new setting at the same time.That presumes that the setting isn't cobbled together out of the shallowest possible stereotypes. All players would be familiar with those - some might be hurt by them.
But even if the setting isn't composed of the shallowest possible stereotypes, it is still better served by a premise other tha a fish out of water. Because in that premise it will necessarily be presented as exotic and foreign, when it's supposed to be a real, grounded place where people live.
Since it was mentioned, Jade Regent is how to do this wrong.
Your experience as an outsider whose country has pre-exoticized those places and in most cases colonized them?
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political views have no real place anywhere.... especially in politics
I always think this is so funny.
Just to be generous, you could mean political as pertaining to how a governing entity should set it's laws and budgets, or political in a more relaxed sense meaning, like, literally opinions people have about the world.
The ideas that are being discussed are whether it's better to write adventures in regions outside of the Inner Sea with the PCs as visitors from the Inner Sea as default assumption, or as local PCs from the region in questions. Thus clearly the latter.
There are lots of reasons of convenience or comfort that the former is useful, as a touchstone, requiring almost no extra information to be learned, and as a trope.
But the trope's roots are in colonial privilege, and the extra effort required would both benefit players and GMs and make the game more accepting and less infused with the occasionally subtle toxicities of colonialism, and the erasure of non-White people it tends to entail.
So basically, this discussion literally belongs here, it's not politics anymore or less than any other discussion of interpreting Paizo products outside of maybe a treatise on governance in Taldor.