Who here misses the edginess of 3.5 Edition Golarion?

[Unicore]

James Jacobs wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Deserk wrote:

Concerning the Cult of the Dawnflower, I think it's a bad idea and a lack of respect to the past authors as well as to the setting to completely retcon it out of existence. You should instead have had the leaders of the Cult evolve and moderate it's beliefs, or have it shown that it was not actually Sarenrae that was answering their prayers.

Except that it was always an error to start with. It was a mistake those authors made that got into print without being properly reviewed by those responsible for the setting lore - James, I think.

Setting mistakes slip through, just like rules mistakes. They don't need to be bound by either one, just because it made it into print. Errata it and move on.

Correct. The original author of Sarenrae is me, remember. I've been building her story up in a fantasy setting since the late 1980s. If anything, the lack of respect to the past authors is exactly what the Cult of the Dawnflower was doing, and in part why it bothered me so much.

It also came into print during an era of Pathfinder where we did NOT have anyone in a position of being responsible for setting lore. I was pretty much just working on Adventure Paths and that's about it when this unintentional and regrettable element got into print.

I've been trying to "errata it and move on" for over a decade. It's not working yet, obviously, since it keeps getting referenced in threads as being canon. Which returns to why I'm so frustrated with our lack of a proper and viable method of correcting lore errors in print. Best I could do was to "resolve it in-game" as best as possible. For many years I wanted to do it as an Adventure Path so that we could have spent six months showing how it was an error, but that never got to be.

It must be really frustrating that people won't let past lore mistakes lie. I wonder what would happen if you put out a more playful pdf or blog post document that addressed all of the false histories (stuff that was wrong) as rumors and myths and then explicitly corrected the those mistakes, but came up with reasons in world why some people might have tried to advance those false narratives?

I know every word you put in print will get read with scrutinizing eyes, but maybe by explaining that forces of evil, or of opposing political factions desperately wanted people to believe that these things were true might appease the people who are having so much trouble letting go of them and thinking that the ideas need defending?

Or not. I mean even if 6 people on the internet insist that that a past revision of the either the mechanical rules or the lore of the world was more in line with the stories they want to tell, there really isn't much gained in trying to stop them from house ruling their own version of Golarion, as long as that material never gets referenced in future material and friendly websites with permission to post Golarion lore make sure not to reinforce false ideas, right?

[Kasoh]

Rysky wrote:

Edit: ninjaed by James so that made me realize and add that by leaving that stuff unchanged you are being disrespectful to the creator and writer himself, James Jacobs. He says that’s not what Sarenrae represents. His words on the matter hold a lot more weight than what some other writer wrote in error, especially given what’s being discussed.

You're right. Though, I suspect that the Creative Director is in a unique position amongst other writers for Paizo. Now, I don't know how it works at Paizo or what contracts were signed, but my understanding is that James Jacobs essentially sold parts of his homebrew campaign setting to Paizo for the Lost Omens setting. It belongs to the company and when a freelancer writes for Paizo, what they write is the property of Paizo.

In cases where the original author is no longer employed at Paizo or only worked on a specific project they have no say in what gets done with material they wrote because it doesn't belong to them anymore.

Right now, the desires of Paizo and James Jacobs align because he is the one making those decisions. That can change and if it does, those decisions will be made by someone else and the original authors will have to accept that. Unless there's some return rights clauses in contracts. I dunno. Broadly speaking, I do know that accepting freelance or staff writing work for a company means you shouldn't get too attached to your creative vision as it is subject to change at the desire of the company.

[Davor Firetusk]

I'm entirely sympathetic to how frustrating watching others mess up your work can be. But Unicore I don't think your approach is going to move the needle when it comes to lore. While we can rather endlessly debate rules, at the end of the day the face empirical testing at the gaming table. Lore is always more mutable, and rarely if ever subject to the same type of in game scrutiny. This particular example is oddly applicable because I never really made most of the connections others have in this thread. I tended to associate Dawnflower as just more militant. More similar to the split between political and militant branches of the IRA as one possible subconscious inspiration for that particular misunderstanding. Again sticking just to Saerenrites I've seen in play there is a range of interpretations to those tenants outside myself as well. Since it is qualitative and not readily subject to empirical testing just posting more information to try and correct it isn't likely to move the needle much.

[James Jacobs]

Unicore wrote:

It must be really frustrating that people won't let past lore mistakes lie. I wonder what would happen if you put out a more playful pdf or blog post document that addressed all of the false histories (stuff that was wrong) as rumors and myths and then explicitly corrected the those mistakes, but came up with reasons in world why some people might have tried to advance those false narratives?

I feel like that would backfire, in that it would only continue to push the error into a place where folks aren't allowed to forget about it.

And I also am not comfortable doing things that make fun of the game. I grew up a huge fan of D&D, and there was a point during the transition to 2nd edition where a lot of jokey, silly stuff started getting into print like this and it made me feel like the people I admired for their creativity in creating my favorite game were making fun of me and the game I liked so much. Similarly, the April Fools stuff that often goes around for game content always made me feel uncomfortable. It feels too much like me trying to make fun of something I like in a defensive move to "pre mock" something that I worry that a bully might mock me for if I don't try to get out in front of it and own it, I guess.

[Unicore]

James Jacobs wrote:

Unicore wrote:

It must be really frustrating that people won't let past lore mistakes lie. I wonder what would happen if you put out a more playful pdf or blog post document that addressed all of the false histories (stuff that was wrong) as rumors and myths and then explicitly corrected the those mistakes, but came up with reasons in world why some people might have tried to advance those false narratives?

I feel like that would backfire, in that it would only continue to push the error into a place where folks aren't allowed to forget about it.

And I also am not comfortable doing things that make fun of the game. I grew up a huge fan of D&D, and there was a point during the transition to 2nd edition where a lot of jokey, silly stuff started getting into print like this and it made me feel like the people I admired for their creativity in creating my favorite game were making fun of me and the game I liked so much. Similarly, the April Fools stuff that often goes around for game content always made me feel uncomfortable. It feels too much like me trying to make fun of something I like in a defensive move to "pre mock" something that I worry that a bully might mock me for if I don't try to get out in front of it and own it, I guess.

That makes perfect sense, which is also why I put a big "or Not" at the end. I do think that with something like the "cult of the dawnflower" in particular, it could be true in world that certain members of the Taldor court or more sinister, evil-aligned sects could have an interest in trying to spread false information about the teachings of Sarenrae and her followers and the Cult of the Dawnflower sounds exactly like a lie that someone trying to discredit her would try to tell. I wouldn't have thought that sounded like mockery, but maybe for the folks who originally wrote those sections of lore, they might.

[Phillip Gastone]

YawarFiesta wrote:

He is a paternalistic deity, not a mob boss. He is kinda insufferable, like parents pressuring you to settle down and have children because that is what they believe to be better for you.

Humbly,
Yawar

"I know this nice boy/girl who would LOVE to dance with you at the festival tonight. They are visiting their Aunt Geutrude. You remember Aunt Geutrude don't you? Anyway, they don't know anyone else in town and it would be so nice if you could show them around some."

I'm suddenly thinking that there might be a version of Sadie Hawkin's day in some towns.

[CorvusMask]

As a Finnish person aka from country with lot of reasons to be suspicious of Russia, never heard of "Russians have super high temper and have one in five chance of attacking you for bumping shoulders" before :p

I do think you are falling into trap of analyzing middle eastern civilizations through lens of historians with biases towards europe :'D

Like how historians ignore/downplay/vilify Persian Empire which among many things is impressive for 1) being one of most historically important empires 2) was fairly egalitarian for its time 3) started around as being built rather than conquered iirc 4) got provoked by greeks to attack them when they kept supporting revolts :p 5) western historians love to stan Alexander the Great, who among other things burned a library, killed a man by tying them to chariot because they wanted to roleplay a well known hero and died by alcohol poisoning.

Well anyway back to the topic, I do actually understand why its hard for outdated lore to die: Because chances are that someone who reads it actually really loves the lore even if its outdated and refuses to let it die :'D

Like I'm on the side of not liking Paladins of Asmodeus or Cult of Dawnflower, but I can understand why people might like it.

[Unicore]

Nothing in Golarion is "based" on the real world. "Influenced by?" Sure, but "based" on, as in "expected to faithful represent the inspiring material in a way that is historically and geographically accurate," is an impossibly high standard with no value in replicating.

Since that is the case, that Golarion cultures are influenced by some real world and some fictional inspirations, it is up to the designers to decide what aspects of those sources to integrate and what aspects to leave behind.

For Golarion, there is a stated goal to create a game world that is welcoming of all players. There is nothing to be gained by even trying to pretend like negative stereotypes about a certain group of real world people need to be replicated in a world of magic and fantastical science, so debating whether those stereotypes are even accurate in the real world is irrelevant to this game. Even if it were true (which I am a firm believer that it is not), an idea like "desert people are harsher in temperament enough to corrupt a goddess of kindness and mercy into almost the exact opposite of that," adds nothing of value to the fantasy stories that the developers want to tell.

James' point about how toxically people can bend these kinds of mistakes is well made, obviously.

[Ixal]

Unicore wrote:

Nothing in Golarion is "based" on the real world. "Influenced by?" Sure, but "based" on, as in "expected to faithful represent the inspiring material in a way that is historically and geographically accurate," is an impossibly high standard with no value in replicating.

In my eyes Golarion is far more than just "influenced" by the real world as it mirrors a lot of things very closely even though there is no in world reason to do so.

Galt is pretty much a copy of revolutionary France, of course in the far east is a China like country (and also other Asian countries like Tibet) with a social structure similar to real Asian countries and Asian sounding names.
The country that is very similar to what we imagine how Persia (actually Sassanid) looked like has satraps and not vassals.
And what cross do the Mendevian Crusade reference?

Sure, is it more different than for example Warhammer Fantasy, but there are a lot of similarities and very often they are intended.

[CorvusMask]

I do notice though that Pathfinder Tales books and CRPGs do have plenty of prejudice in them, so not really sure why some people really hungrily want the campaign setting book detail who discriminates who as if they were rules :p

[James Jacobs]

CorvusMask wrote:

I do notice though that Pathfinder Tales books and CRPGs do have plenty of prejudice in them, so not really sure why some people really hungrily want the campaign setting book detail who discriminates who as if they were rules :p

It's worth noting that for novels and computer games, the creators have a LOT more control over the actual content, and we don't have to worry as much about bad actors presenting things, either as a GM or a player, in a way that is insensitive or otherwise awful.

You can absolutely tell stories about prejudice without being prejudiced yourself, but the more people you invite into that circle to help you tell the story, the less control you have and the more opportunity there is for problems to arise from one of the new storytellers.

There's stories we can safely tell in less interactive methods like novels, or limited interactive methods like a single player CRPG (both of which also, it's important to remember, have very different tolerances for what can be portrayed), that aren't appropriate for a tabletop RPG where the actual end user experience is so uncontrolled. It can (and it's best when it does) result in a better experience than we could hope for when you get the best GM and players possible, but it can go the other direction as well.

[Unicore]

First of all, I personally know men who can get pregnant and would be highly offended by an attempt to essentialize biology in the role of creating gender stereotypes, but even that argument is really not necessary because this is a magical fantasy world.

If you want to force certain social ideas on your version of Golarion, for what ever reasons you have, that really not my business. Go for it, as long as the world you create is fun for you and your table, and don't lead you all to projecting the fantasies you are playing out in a game on to the rest of the world, then you do you.

But the developers don't need to be beholden to these arguments. "Good" and "Evil" are what the game says they are in this context. If the creative director says Good gods don't try to force social constructions of identity on people in their world, then that is a tenant of what is good in Golarion. End of discussion. Maybe their can be fun stories about characters and non-player characters struggling with the complexities of their gods tenants and anathmas, but it is not a core part of what defines the deity.

[Unicore]

Golarion is certainly not hard historical fantasy. That was never any of its creator's intentions. If you want to play it that way, you are already going to be having to be doing a lot of homebrewing.

[YawarFiesta]

Unicore wrote:

Golarion is certainly not hard historical fantasy. That was never any of its creator's intentions. If you want to play it that way, you are already going to be having to be doing a lot of homebrewing.

Hard as internally consistent under its own set of rules. Golarion has lots of blank spaces to be filled by the GM, but that doesn't make it a loose setting.

A loose setting would be something that doesn't adhere logically to it own established rules.
Humbly,
Yawar