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But why is a cop so much worse than a pirate or an assassin or a necromancer or a vigilante or a soldier or any of the other roles and classes we are given to play?
Pathfinder is generally a game about killing things and taking their stuff. This isn't a bad thing, usually. In fact, everyone here enjoys Pathfinder. But I'd guess that 75% of the system is built around combat and loot. That will necessarily shape the way you can interact with things in the system.
Playing an evil character may be uncomfortable for some people, but there is not a real-world rash of devil worshipers committing crimes against the populace. If there was, I probably wouldn't want to play that AP, either.
There's an extra level of distaste specifically because cops are involved that wouldn't be there otherwise. The real-world problems with policing are the same things that Pathfinder is built around, and that makes me deeply uncomfortable. Even if we discount the police violence that's happened recently (of which there are too many examples), we get into asset forfeiture, protecting the guys on your "side" no matter what, and the long legacy of policing issues being ignored by the majority.
It's not the concept of doing bad things, it's the concept of doing bad things while you're supposed to be protecting the people you're harming. It's that stacked on top of these issues existing right now and for far too long in our society. It's that playing a good cop is feeding into the copaganda problem.
The idea of swapping out the player characters' role to private investigators makes the AP a lot less distasteful to me.
The idea of swapping out the player characters' role to private investigators makes the AP a lot less distasteful to me.Because its so much better as a society when we outsource our state sanctioned violence to outside parties. Then their racist and classist behavior is just the fault of individuals that society bears no responsibility for.
Exactly.
The idea of swapping out the player characters' role to private investigators makes the AP a lot less distasteful to me.Because its so much better as a society when we outsource our state sanctioned violence to outside parties. Then their racist and classist behavior is just the fault of individuals that society bears no responsibility for.
I mean, do you plan on your players being classist and racist? Most adventures kind of hinge on your characters being outside parties to begin with.
I mean, do you plan on your players being classist and racist?Setting aside that "classist" is a non-term, yes.
If that's the case then I don't think it matters what adventure you run or what adventures paizo publishes.
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Probably the least distasteful way to play cops in this AP will be to play officers who are corrupt, but are corrupt in favor of the community and the powerless at the expense of the powerful. Through the magic of fiction we can fiat that the PCs don't lose their jobs for doing this (until it's time for them to do in the narrative) which they absolutely would IRL.
Like the watch in Discworld is not a model of "good cops" it's a model of "corrupt cops whose corruption benefits the masses, and comes at the expense of the elites" (a thing that also describes the despot of Ankh-Morpork.)
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Like the watch in Discworld is not a model of "good cops" it's a model of "corrupt cops whose corruption benefits the masses, and comes at the expense of the elites" (a thing that also describes the despot of Ankh-Morpork.)
See also Azdak and Shauwa (well, one's a judge rather than a cop, but he still does the "injustice that favors the poor and the weak" thing).
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I mean, do you plan on your players being classist and racist? Most adventures kind of hinge on your characters being outside parties to begin with.The idea of swapping out the player characters' role to private investigators makes the AP a lot less distasteful to me.Because its so much better as a society when we outsource our state sanctioned violence to outside parties. Then their racist and classist behavior is just the fault of individuals that society bears no responsibility for.
I think what Kasoh was getting at (and I may be wrong, so take it with a grain of salt) is that:
- If we assume the cops are going to be doing questionable things
- And them doing these questionable things will be presented as "good"
- And this is a problem.*
Then why is it not a problem if the only thing we change is that it's no longer cops, but third party vigilantes? How exactly is presenting mercenaries doing questionable things as "good" any better than doing it with cops?
*Note: I base this on this line from Thebazilly's original post:
"It's not the concept of doing bad things, it's the concept of doing bad things while you're supposed to be protecting the people you're harming. It's that stacked on top of these issues existing right now and for far too long in our society. It's that playing a good cop is feeding into the copaganda problem."
The idea of swapping out the player characters' role to private investigators makes the AP a lot less distasteful to me.Because its so much better as a society when we outsource our state sanctioned violence to outside parties. Then their racist and classist behavior is just the fault of individuals that society bears no responsibility for.
I understand that this train of thought has its own issues, and I'm still examining my own feelings on the matter. I didn't state this point clearly enough, and I apologize.
I'm not advocating for state violence to be outsourced (that's a big yikes), just that the degree of separation from reality alleviates my personal discomfort a bit. Private mercenary groups in the real world are a whole other can of worms.
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I mean, do you plan on your players being classist and racist? Most adventures kind of hinge on your characters being outside parties to begin with.The idea of swapping out the player characters' role to private investigators makes the AP a lot less distasteful to me.Because its so much better as a society when we outsource our state sanctioned violence to outside parties. Then their racist and classist behavior is just the fault of individuals that society bears no responsibility for.I think what Kasoh was getting at (and I may be wrong, so take it with a grain of salt) is that:
- If we assume the cops are going to be doing questionable things
- And them doing these questionable things will be presented as "good"
- And this is a problem.*Then why is it not a problem if the only thing we change is that it's no longer cops, but third party vigilantes? How exactly is presenting mercenaries doing questionable things as "good" any better than doing it with cops?
*Note: I base this on this line from Thebazilly's original post:
"It's not the concept of doing bad things, it's the concept of doing bad things while you're supposed to be protecting the people you're harming. It's that stacked on top of these issues existing right now and for far too long in our society. It's that playing a good cop is feeding into the copaganda problem."
I would argue that mercenaries, unlike cops, aren't assumed to be held to the same duties and responsibilities cops are. If society tells us cops are supposed to protect us, and then they betray that, that's doubly bad. If a "mercenary" does something bad, then they haven't broken a general social understanding to do so. It doesn't make what the mercenary does any less wrong, but in an absolute value sense it is less wrong than if a cop did it. Additionally, the hot button issue that started this all is cops doing bad things, to oversimplify. If it's no longer cops doing bad things, and instead the local crazy wizard, then it's less relevant to current topics and also less relevant to what is currently the issue in America (and other countries) and also becomes not copaganda.
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Indeed, sometimes any person might have no real choice but to use violence.
As a trainer for non-violent protests and non-violent communications, I can state unequivocally that there is always an option that allows you to be a non-violent person.
But I agree that many people cannot see a non-violent solution in the moment, and even those who can may not choose that option.
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I would argue that mercenaries, unlike cops, aren't assumed to be held to the same duties and responsibilities cops are. If society tells us cops are supposed to protect us, and then they betray that, that's doubly bad. If a "mercenary" does something bad, then they haven't broken a general social understanding to do so. It doesn't make what the mercenary does any less wrong, but in an absolute value sense it is less wrong than if a cop did it. Additionally, the hot button issue that started this all is cops doing bad things, to oversimplify. If it's no longer cops doing bad things, and instead the local crazy wizard, then it's less relevant to current topics and also less relevant to what is currently the issue in America (and other countries) and also becomes not copaganda.I think what Kasoh was getting at (and I may be wrong, so take it with a grain of salt) is that:
- If we assume the cops are going to be doing questionable things
- And them doing these questionable things will be presented as "good"
- And this is a problem.*Then why is it not a problem if the only thing we change is that it's no longer cops, but third party vigilantes? How exactly is presenting mercenaries doing questionable things as "good" any better than doing it with cops?
*Note: I base this on this line from Thebazilly's original post:
"It's not the concept of doing bad things, it's the concept of doing bad things while you're supposed to be protecting the people you're harming. It's that stacked on top of these issues existing right now and for far too long in our society. It's that playing a good cop is feeding into the copaganda problem."
Mercenaries as a whole aren't, but we're talking about mercenaries acting in place of a police force (which is what they would be in this case), in which case they should be held to the same standards you expect from the position. They're filling the same role, giving them a pass, or implying it's not as bad when they slip because they're not "actual" cops is just a horrible position to take. In this case the absoute value wouldn't be less wrong.
And sure, it wouldn't be "copaganda" as you like to call it, but it would be worse, because you're endorsing vigilantism which has, historically, proven to be as bad, or worse, than state-backed police actions.
Not that it would be anything new, mind you. A lot of published adventures already go this way. But it doesn't make them better.
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Like the watch in Discworld is not a model of "good cops" it's a model of "corrupt cops whose corruption benefits the masses, and comes at the expense of the elites" (a thing that also describes the despot of Ankh-Morpork.)See also Azdak and Shauwa (well, one's a judge rather than a cop, but he still does the "injustice that favors the poor and the weak" thing).
It does seem reasonable as a good-aligned PC to just assume "when in doubt, assume that the people who write the rules have already tilted things in their favor in how the rules are written, so it's best to err against them in order to level the field."
Mercenaries as a whole aren't, but we're talking about mercenaries acting in place of a police force (which is what they would be in this case), in which case they should be held to the same standards you expect from the position. They're filling the same role, giving them a pass, or implying it's...I would argue that mercenaries, unlike cops, aren't assumed to be held to the same duties and responsibilities cops are. If society tells us cops are supposed to protect us, and then they betray that, that's doubly bad. If a "mercenary" does something bad, then they haven't broken a general social understanding to do so. It doesn't make what the mercenary does any less wrong, but in an absolute value sense it is less wrong than if a cop did it. Additionally, the hot button issue that started this all is cops doing bad things, to oversimplify. If it's no longer cops doing bad things, and instead the local crazy wizard, then it's less relevant to current topics and also less relevant to what is currently the issue in America (and other countries) and also becomes not copaganda.I think what Kasoh was getting at (and I may be wrong, so take it with a grain of salt) is that:
- If we assume the cops are going to be doing questionable things
- And them doing these questionable things will be presented as "good"
- And this is a problem.*Then why is it not a problem if the only thing we change is that it's no longer cops, but third party vigilantes? How exactly is presenting mercenaries doing questionable things as "good" any better than doing it with cops?
*Note: I base this on this line from Thebazilly's original post:
"It's not the concept of doing bad things, it's the concept of doing bad things while you're supposed to be protecting the people you're harming. It's that stacked on top of these issues existing right now and for far too long in our society. It's that playing a good cop is feeding into the copaganda problem."
Every adventure I have seen has had vigilante-ism as a portion of it. The most popular genre of movie for the past decade have been vigilante super heroes. Being a vigilante looks like it's the preferred method of escapism. This is the wrong hobby for being morally opposed to taking matters into your own hands.
Every adventure I have seen has had vigilante-ism as a portion of it. The most popular genre of movie for the past decade have been vigilante super heroes. Being a vigilante looks like it's the preferred method of escapism. This is the wrong hobby for being morally opposed to taking matters into your own hands.
Yes, I know. I'm not opposed to vigilantism as escapism at all, I rather enjoy it.
I'm asking you to tell me why it's ok to use vigilantism as escapism, but not using being a police officer as escapism, when both have been involved in morally repugnant activities in the real world for a very, very long time (vigilantism for more than police, since it's existed for way longer.)
You can certainly always choose to be non-violent yourself. That does not always mean there's a non-violent solution. Being non-violent yourself does not always stop violence that others have started.
Of course not.
But seeing a way to resolve a situation non-violently and being able to offer a way to de-escalate violence greatly improve the chance of the situation resolving in a way that doesn't create more harm, or even diminishes the harm that occurs.
If all the solutions you can imagine for resolving a situation require you to use violence, then violence will obviously occur.
If people can see a choice, then it gives them independence and agency. Which is certainly healthier than being under a compulsion to act violently every time.
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Gotta say; “we dismissed peoples’ concerns” and then locking the comments on the post is a little bit of mixed messaging.
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Gotta say; “we dismissed peoples’ concerns” and then locking the comments on the post is a little bit of mixed messaging.
I'll admit I was surprised too, particularly because it didn't seem that bad.
Or y'know, at least about as heated as this thread, which is still open...while that one's still locked.
Gotta say; “we dismissed peoples’ concerns” and then locking the comments on the post is a little bit of mixed messaging.
Because we don't work for them, we could literally be anybody who made an account for any purpose and for the most part aren't involved in their creative process, unlike their employees.
Every adventure I have seen has had vigilante-ism as a portion of it. The most popular genre of movie for the past decade have been vigilante super heroes. Being a vigilante looks like it's the preferred method of escapism. This is the wrong hobby for being morally opposed to taking matters into your own hands.Yes, I know. I'm not opposed to vigilantism as escapism at all, I rather enjoy it.
I'm asking you to tell me why it's ok to use vigilantism as escapism, but not using being a police officer as escapism, when both have been involved in morally repugnant activities in the real world for a very, very long time (vigilantism for more than police, since it's existed for way longer.)
If I had money to bet it's because vigilantism is more entrenched in the genre (not that I think that's a bad thing), while Police Officer/investigator/Private Eye Adventure is more of a novelty in the hobby. Also the realities of what it means to be a police officer are more known than the realities of a vigilante, so there's more room for filling in the blanks with what you want as a vigilante.
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Gotta say; “we dismissed peoples’ concerns” and then locking the comments on the post is a little bit of mixed messaging.
It’ll be temporary. CS do the lions share of moderation and they’re flat out, atm. There were some apologist talking points creeping in (after hours, Seattle time as is so often the case). They didn’t lock it to dismiss concerns, but there are parameters of the discussion they will tolerate.
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Gotta say; “we dismissed peoples’ concerns” and then locking the comments on the post is a little bit of mixed messaging.I'll admit I was surprised too, particularly because it didn't seem that bad.
Or y'know, at least about as heated as this thread, which is still open...while that one's still locked.
I've seen some of the now deleted comments and especially one was so distasteful (and in no way comparable with anything posted in this thread) that I wouldn't even want to quote it here.
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Yeah, I’m glad they locked it. Fingers crossed they get some more CS resources soon, even if temporarily. Current staffing is clearly insufficient, at the moment. I’d be confident that if they had 110 emails in the CS queue rather than 1100 the thread cleanup would have been far quicker.
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You can certainly always choose to be non-violent yourself. That does not always mean there's a non-violent solution. Being non-violent yourself does not always stop violence that others have started.Of course not.
But seeing a way to resolve a situation non-violently and being able to offer a way to de-escalate violence greatly improve the chance of the situation resolving in a way that doesn't create more harm, or even diminishes the harm that occurs.
If all the solutions you can imagine for resolving a situation require you to use violence, then violence will obviously occur.
If people can see a choice, then it gives them independence and agency. Which is certainly healthier than being under a compulsion to act violently every time.
I absolutely agree with this, if there are meaningful options other than 'fight' and 'die' or 'fight' and 'let someone else be hurt or killed'. There aren't always such options. In a perfect world, there would be, but this isn't that world, and self defense is both a fundamental right, and sometimes the only option someone has to avoid death, while fighting to defend others is often laudable and correct if they are in real danger.
That's exactly as true for police as everyone else, and no more.
How do people know what comments caused the lock? Just timing of being able to see it before removed?
Incidentally I am pretty sure (as many above) that the lock was not to prevent people from carrying on raising concerns. I wasn't able to see the truly unpleasant comments so it actually kind of read like they didn't like how many people were disagreeing with the need for a statement
But it seems clear that some people who did disagree took it way further than that :-(
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You can certainly always choose to be non-violent yourself. That does not always mean there's a non-violent solution. Being non-violent yourself does not always stop violence that others have started.Of course not.
But seeing a way to resolve a situation non-violently and being able to offer a way to de-escalate violence greatly improve the chance of the situation resolving in a way that doesn't create more harm, or even diminishes the harm that occurs.
If all the solutions you can imagine for resolving a situation require you to use violence, then violence will obviously occur.
If people can see a choice, then it gives them independence and agency. Which is certainly healthier than being under a compulsion to act violently every time.
I absolutely agree with this, if there are meaningful options other than 'fight' and 'die' or 'fight' and 'let someone else be hurt or killed'. There aren't always such options. In a perfect world, there would be, but this isn't that world, and self defense is both a fundamental right, and sometimes the only option someone has to avoid death, while fighting to defend others is often laudable and correct if they are in real danger.
That's exactly as true for police as everyone else, and no more.
I agree with this, but I think Paizo could improve their APs to make more options possible in a given situation. Instead of making all the enemies fight to the death (what I’m seeing so far in Reign of Winter) they could have more nuanced behavior.
if there are meaningful options other than 'fight' and 'die' or 'fight' and 'let someone else be hurt or killed'.
I don't think you mean to dismiss peoples' choice to 'die' rather than fight as "not meaningful". That would erase hundreds of years of Quaker pacifism, and other non-violent religious sects' (such as the Mennonites) moral teachings.
To say that someone can't make that choice, that it is "not an option" is to impose your own moral code on everyone else. But there are and have been generations of people who would disagree with your view of what choices someone has.
I agree that most people would discard that option quickly. And of those who do see it as a good option, some decide they don't want to make that choice at that moment. But it is there for people who have a broad view of what their options are and a moral code that puts nonviolence higher than any other value.
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Surrender? Then you have the whole prisoner problem. What to do with them? Most of the time the PCs have no way to hold a large or any number of prisoners and there is no place nearby where they can offload them. Letting them leave? See the problems with fleeing. So whats left? Kill them?
If the PCs are members of the city guard in this AP, presumably they can hand prisoners over to NPC guards to haul off to prison. ("Book 'em, Danno.")
If killing enemies rather than letting them surrender is easier and more profitable, many players will choose that route. The only way to change that is to make surrender a more attractive option.
In my games, if the players accept an intelligent enemy's surrender, the enemy gives up their weapons, may pay a ransom and/or provide information, and then just vanishes from the story. I don't worry about where they go, or whether they'll come back looking for revenge -- you beat them, they leave, they're gone.
Yeah, this is unrealistic, but it also incentivizes the PCs to accept surrender, knowing that they won't have to drag prisoners through the rest of the dungeon.
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The one thing that I keep coming back to on AoE is that if the inspiration for the adventure is "let's let our players be a fantasy version of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, Agatha Christie, Philip Marlowe, Thomas Magnum, Veronica Mars, Shawn Spencer, etc. etc. et al why was "the PCs are law enforcement officers" baked into the story since all of the above were private investigators, and not cops.
The "private detective" genre has a much richer vein of stories to mine from than the "police procedural" genre anyway.
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I agree with this, but I think Paizo could improve their APs to make more options possible in a given situation. Instead of making all the enemies fight to the death (what I’m seeing so far in Reign of Winter) they could have more nuanced behavior.You can certainly always choose to be non-violent yourself. That does not always mean there's a non-violent solution. Being non-violent yourself does not always stop violence that others have started.Of course not.
But seeing a way to resolve a situation non-violently and being able to offer a way to de-escalate violence greatly improve the chance of the situation resolving in a way that doesn't create more harm, or even diminishes the harm that occurs.
If all the solutions you can imagine for resolving a situation require you to use violence, then violence will obviously occur.
If people can see a choice, then it gives them independence and agency. Which is certainly healthier than being under a compulsion to act violently every time.
I absolutely agree with this, if there are meaningful options other than 'fight' and 'die' or 'fight' and 'let someone else be hurt or killed'. There aren't always such options. In a perfect world, there would be, but this isn't that world, and self defense is both a fundamental right, and sometimes the only option someone has to avoid death, while fighting to defend others is often laudable and correct if they are in real danger.
That's exactly as true for police as everyone else, and no more.
Actually, I think they have been making more of an effort in regards to this. I'm running Age of Ashes, and to my experience it seems like all or at least almost all of the intelligent enemies have flee/surrender/barter/etc. triggers in their encounters. A number of non-intelligent ones, too.
Hell, at least one of the book-end bosses has post-battle dialog options written in, though of course they also include ways to get some of that information should the players (as players are wont to do) kill them all...
Anyways. I have read but not prepared Extinction Curse to run in the fall, and I can't recall the nature of surrender conditions in that one, but if you're telling me Reign of Winter is "everybody fights to the death," then they've already been making significant improvements!
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The frustration of not being able to kill bad people, even when you know they are bad should be at the heart of an investigation story/adventure. You don't just have to overpower your enemies, you have to find a way to prevent them from doing bad things without doing bad things yourself, often by outsmarting them or getting one step ahead of them. That is one of the most fundamental tropes of the detective genre.
I don't have high hopes that this AP defaults to that mentality, but I am hoping that it is at least built in that player might want to play this AP this way rather than just want to kill all of their enemies.
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I think Paizo could improve their APs to make more options possible in a given situation. Instead of making all the enemies fight to the death (what I’m seeing so far in Reign of Winter) they could have more nuanced behavior.
Perhaps, but do you run your games exclusively RAW? Do you really need Paizo to tell you when to let an enemy run away vs fight to the death? I regularly tailor their written encounters to meet the needs of my campaign. I really don’t care much what they provide as tactics since those were written with no knowledge of my player’s characters or their gaming style and are often invalidated by party tactics anyway. YMMV
I really wish the AP would come out if for no other reason than to stop the wild speculation about what it might say and we can get down to the business of arguing where (not if) it might have some problematic text.
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I don't think you mean to dismiss peoples' choice to 'die' rather than fight as "not meaningful". That would erase hundreds of years of Quaker pacifism, and other non-violent religious sects' (such as the Mennonites) moral teachings.
I said meaningful choices other than those two. That definitionally means I said choosing to die was meaningful, which, for the record, does align with my real beliefs on the subject. Choosing to die is a very meaningful choice under just about any circumstances, as is choosing to let others die.
To say that someone can't make that choice, that it is "not an option" is to impose your own moral code on everyone else. But there are and have been generations of people who would disagree with your view of what choices someone has.
I agree that most people would discard that option quickly. And of those who do see it as a good option, some decide they don't want to make that choice at that moment. But it is there for people who have a broad view of what their options are and a moral code that puts nonviolence higher than any other value.
I'm not going to get into an in depth debate on the value of total pacifism here. I have opinions, but this isn't the right thread to have that discussion.
It was not my intent to exclude total pacifists and their choices in the language of my initial post on the police and violence. I should have added 'unless they're willing to die or see others die', or something similar, to the end of the sentence regarding non-police (police, in any society, have an obligation to not be that kind of pacifist), and I regret that I didn't in hindsight.
I simply don't tend to think of 'let violent people murder my loved ones' as a valid choice in my own head or emotionally understand how someone could make it, and while I know intellectually that some people can and do, I don't always internalize that and consider it when talking about things like options in hypothetical situations, so I'm sincerely sorry that I left out a codicil like the one above to clarify my intent and include those who would indeed make that choice.
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The one thing that I keep coming back to on AoE is that if the inspiration for the adventure is "let's let our players be a fantasy version of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, Agatha Christie, Philip Marlowe, Thomas Magnum, Veronica Mars, Shawn Spencer, etc. etc. et al why was "the PCs are law enforcement officers" baked into the story since all of the above were private investigators, and not cops.
The "private detective" genre has a much richer vein of stories to mine from than the "police procedural" genre anyway.
Nitpick: Holmes and Spencer were consulting detectives whose main or major customers were police departments.
Nitpick the Second: Christie was an author, and didn't insert herself into her stories as a character under her own name. Poirot was one of her characters.
The one thing that I keep coming back to on AoE is that if the inspiration for the adventure is "let's let our players be a fantasy version of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, Agatha Christie, Philip Marlowe, Thomas Magnum, Veronica Mars, Shawn Spencer, etc. etc. et al why was "the PCs are law enforcement officers" baked into the story since all of the above were private investigators, and not cops.
The "private detective" genre has a much richer vein of stories to mine from than the "police procedural" genre anyway.
Nitpick: Holmes and Spencer were consulting detectives whose main or major customers were police departments.
Nitpick the Second: Christie was an author, and didn't insert herself into her stories as a character under her own name. Poirot was one of her characters.
Sure, but the consulting detective is not themself a police officer, likewise the medical examiner is not themself a police officer. There's no reason the AP couldn't have allowed for either of those roles explicitly.
And for the second one, I misspoke- I meant Miss Marple (also a Christie Character, and not a cop.)
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The one thing that I keep coming back to on AoE is that if the inspiration for the adventure is "let's let our players be a fantasy version of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, Agatha Christie, Philip Marlowe, Thomas Magnum, Veronica Mars, Shawn Spencer, etc. etc. et al why was "the PCs are law enforcement officers" baked into the story since all of the above were private investigators, and not cops.
My guess is because PIs in stories tend to work alone (or sometimes with one clearly subordinate sidekick -- looking at you, Dr. Watson) whereas police procedurals do make room for a small group of people with distinct but complementary roles like the typical adventuring party.
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There's no reason the AP couldn't have allowed for either of those roles explicitly.
Does it not? (Serious question. I haven't read the player's guide, and probably never will since I don't plan to play any 2E games.)
And for the second one, I misspoke- I meant Miss Marple (also a Christie Character, and not a cop.)
It is a fair cop though :V