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Yeah, I don't think police is synonymous with violence, or at least they shouldn't be :P
As has been noted elsewhere, to a certain extent the concept of law and therefore law enforcement is rooted in the threat of violence to be meted out against the violator of those laws. That said, while violence can never be fully removed from the toolbox of the state as a means to carry out its will, there's a pretty substantial spectrum of options one could theoretically employ before even nonlethal violence would have to be placed on the table.
For myself, when I'm playing good-aligned characters I pretty much always make sure to have nonlethal options available to me for fights where the cause doesn't seem to justify the death penalty for whoever I'm fighting. (This is true for games outside Pathfinder or similar systems as well; I'm a huge fan of gel rounds in Shadowrun, because I might be a thief but that doesn't mean I have to be a fragging murderer.) Saps, unarmed strikes (yay PF2 means that's not a completely terrible idea without a specific build for it!), daze, maxxed-out Diplomacy or even Intimidation, anything else I can get my hands on. PF1 had a handful of feats (Stage Combatant, Sarenrae's Mercy, Merciful Spell, Virtuous Creed [Mercy]) or other abilities that made nonlethal damage a relatively easy thing to accomplish; I have every reason to hope that the Agents of Edgewatch supplementary materials will do the same. Especially since, although AoE itself has long since gone to printer, Paizo may still be working on the Player's Guide, and that would be an excellent place to drop in a feat or three to specifically address these issues if they haven't done so elsewhere already.
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1. The basic mission for which police exist is to prevent crime and disorder as an alternative to the repression of crime and disorder by military force and severity of legal punishment.
2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of police existence, actions, behavior and the ability of the police to secure and maintain public respect.
3. The police must secure the willing cooperation of the public in voluntary observance of the law to be able to secure and maintain public respect.
4. The degree of cooperation of the public that can be secured diminishes, proportionately, to the necessity for the use of physical force and compulsion in achieving police objectives.
5. The police seek and preserve public favor, not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to the law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws; by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of society without regard to their race or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humor; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
6. The police should use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to achieve police objectives; and police should use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
7. The police at all times should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police are the only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the intent of the community welfare.
8. The police should always direct their actions toward their functions and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary by avenging individuals or the state, or authoritatively judging guilt or punishing the guilty.
9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
Do we have any clue when that blog post is coming?
Creative Director
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Do we have any clue when that blog post is coming?
We're working on it now and hope to get it up ASAP. We'll also be able to use the Player's Guide (which, unlike the print product, is something that we have capacity to adjust before it goes public) to address concerns.
Do we have any clue when that blog post is coming?We're working on it now and hope to get it up ASAP. We'll also be able to use the Player's Guide (which, unlike the print product, is something that we have capacity to adjust before it goes public) to address concerns.
Thank you!
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Yeah, I don't think police is synonymous with violence, or at least they shouldn't be :PAs has been noted elsewhere, to a certain extent the concept of law and therefore law enforcement is rooted in the threat of violence to be meted out against the violator of those laws. That said, while violence can never be fully removed from the toolbox of the state as a means to carry out its will, there's a pretty substantial spectrum of options one could theoretically employ before even nonlethal violence would have to be placed on the table.
You say that, but that is culture shock to me since while on some level that isn't wrong, its not how local police here is perceived(as "they COULD use non violent options, but don't" I mean), so the idea that any police force is perceived as violent thugs makes me wonder "Why are they allowed to exist? Police isn't supposed to be like that"
Like what kind of police goes for violent solutions as the first solution? :/ (well okay the fascist police or ones that behave like street gang :P Police having that type of reputation does explain to me why people hate the word itself, but its still really shocking to me)
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You say that, but that is culture shock to me since while on some level that isn't wrong, its not how local police here is perceived(as "they COULD use non violent options, but don't" I mean), so the idea that any police force is perceived as violent thugs makes me wonder "Why are they allowed to exist? Police isn't supposed to be like that"
Like what kind of police goes for violent solutions as the first solution? :/ (well okay the fascist police or ones that behave like street gang :P Police having that type of reputation does explain to me why people hate the word itself, but its still really shocking to me)
There are a few things about culture in the US you need to keep in mind in regards to this:
#1. Police are employed at a very local level. They're city or county employees, and don't need to get permission from or get selected by people at other levels.
#2. Pursuant to point #1, many police departments are not this bad. The number that are is shocking and awful, but it's not universal. The police where I live have not done anything about our protesters, and don't generally have a bad reputation with the community, nor have I found a lot of stories of malfeasance researching them. Of course, we're not a big city and not exactly diverse by most standards, but it's still true.
#3. Even when and where this is true, many people don't believe it. If you've never had a bad experience with police (and people in certain categories often haven't), many don't believe that this is true of the police, and given point #1 above,
#4. Perhaps most importantly, and the reason for #3, the police aren't like this with everyone, it's certainly not exclusive to black people, but it is mostly those who they do not view as their proper constituents. People they see as criminals, or 'not like them', which is to say any minority group, lower economic strata, or other similar things. If you're white, well dressed, wearing certain specific styles of clothing, or several other things depending on where you are the police generally use nonviolent resolution methods. Only if you fall outside the category of 'good citizens' do the cops generally behave in this manner. So...people in the privileged group the cops treat well are not super incentivized to care and change things.
#5. This didn't happen suddenly. To some degree, there's been a gradual change in policing practice towards being more militaristic and authoritarian over the last few decades. Inertia is a thing, and gradual changes often go unnoticed. Now, they were super racist prior to this period, but prior to this period nobody but white people had much say in anything, which is how they stayed in power then.
So yeah, lots of different factors at play there, and those are just the ones I'm aware of.
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There are a few things about culture in the US you need to keep in mind in regards to this:You say that, but that is culture shock to me since while on some level that isn't wrong, its not how local police here is perceived(as "they COULD use non violent options, but don't" I mean), so the idea that any police force is perceived as violent thugs makes me wonder "Why are they allowed to exist? Police isn't supposed to be like that"
Like what kind of police goes for violent solutions as the first solution? :/ (well okay the fascist police or ones that behave like street gang :P Police having that type of reputation does explain to me why people hate the word itself, but its still really shocking to me)
Just to clarify, I've been shocked by USA's police for years before this. Points 2-5 are something I already knew, I only keep getting shocked since I keep learning details that are just absurd or horrifying to me.
Like umm, I never realized before that US police are locally employed, that is weird to me.
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Just to clarify, I've been shocked by USA's police for years before this. Points 2-5 are something I already knew, I only keep getting shocked since I keep learning details that are just absurd or horrifying to me.
Like umm, I never realized before that US police are locally employed, that is weird to me.
I mean, technically it depends, there are State Troopers and federal law enforcement of various sorts (like the FBI), but yeah, most cops are employed by the city or county. Which means that it's hard to do sweeping police reforms, and it often has to be done piecemeal instead.
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One thing that I find many people forget (even Americans) is that the United States of America is not a monolithic society. It's right there in the name. States. As in plural. The US is roughly comparable to Europe in size, with more than three hundred million citizens. We are a collection of different people that often work together and have similar values, but just as often have wildly differing ideas about how society should function. Each state is an autonomous entity, bestowed with all rights not explicitly limited to the federal government. This is why laws (and policing) can vary so wildly from one part of the country to the next. It also helps explain the electoral college, but that's a different kettle of fish.
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Yeah, I don't think police is synonymous with violence, or at least they shouldn't be :PAs has been noted elsewhere, to a certain extent the concept of law and therefore law enforcement is rooted in the threat of violence to be meted out against the violator of those laws. That said, while violence can never be fully removed from the toolbox of the state as a means to carry out its will, there's a pretty substantial spectrum of options one could theoretically employ before even nonlethal violence would have to be placed on the table.You say that, but that is culture shock to me since while on some level that isn't wrong, its not how local police here is perceived(as "they COULD use non violent options, but don't" I mean), so the idea that any police force is perceived as violent thugs makes me wonder "Why are they allowed to exist? Police isn't supposed to be like that"
Like what kind of police goes for violent solutions as the first solution? :/ (well okay the fascist police or ones that behave like street gang :P Police having that type of reputation does explain to me why people hate the word itself, but its still really shocking to me)
I don't know if you are of the BIPOC community or not, so please take what I'm about to say in that context.
What you are saying is exactly what most white privileged people say, who are from predominantly white privileged neighborhoods. White people don't often view police in the same way as BIPOC people do, because our experiences are drastically and fundamentally different. This is food for thought.
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The question isn't the premise of Agents of Edgewatch but its execution.
I trust Paizo as a company to set many things right in the Player's Guide. I also think that, after this AP, we'll see a lot of things going into the product line that will improve things in 2021 and onward. I'm extremely hopeful, in fact, because Lisa Stevens is heading this company and she's displayed exemplary leadership across the industry, not just at the helm of Paizo, for several decades.
I am however very wary of buying and playing Agents of Edgewatch. And that's because recent product gave me a barometer of where things are currently at.
Extinction Curse is a fine AP if you ignore the tone-deaf way it handles legal jargon clearly and unabashedly owed to contemporary law enforcement. In volume 2, the sheriff in town deputizes the PCs to go out and kill a non-resisting, albeit LE, citizen. The cop even tells her newly deputized citizen-cops to not worry, 'we'll chalk it up to self-defense'. Take note: the cop licenses a premeditated killing of a citizen (who, it turns out, will not physically resist the PCs) based on a complete lie.
That, right there, is how at last some of Paizo editors and their cadre of writers think law enforcement should handle things from an in-world perspective. It's grotesque because it crosses the line from PCs meting out vigilante justice (itself a difficult issue) to PCs executing a fellow citizen while acting in the name of law enforcement.
Note that there are *only two* ways to fix this issue.
1. Don't use contemporary, real-world jargon owed to the American criminal justice system. Don't talk about "warrant" "arrest" "deputizing" or thresholds of evidence and culpability - all of which Extinction Curse did, and then some. Use, if you must, archaic jargon that lacks painful resonances to the real world right now.
2. If you must use contemporary jargon, enlist the services of people with actual knowledge of the criminal justice system to help you avoid plot-lines that script PC actions which are, frankly, inexcusable, tone-deaf, and traumatizing. Yes, my PCs can raise above the challenge that evil NPCs pose them in-world. But no, I'm not willing to offer my PCs plotlines that your module author thinks are eminently lawful when they grossly are not. Your module authors aren't bad people, but they may not always be fully equipped to handle specialized jargon carefully unless supervised or guided.
The problem with Agents of Edgewatch is that it will likely *have* to use contemporary jargon to some degree. You can't create substitute legal language, explain it to GMs, and still write a 50-page module. So we're down to #2. So let me ask Paizo, simply and straightforwardly:
Did your line editors consult with outside experts knowledgable in criminal law?
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We’ve already had this discussion in the GM thread but
In volume 2, the sheriff in town deputizes the PCs to go out and kill a non-resisting, albeit LE, citizen.
outright lying is damaging your cause, not helping.
The villain in question does resist, and by that point has killed a f&$~ ton of people, among other heinous crimes.
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We’ve already had this discussion in the GM thread butIn volume 2, the sheriff in town deputizes the PCs to go out and kill a non-resisting, albeit LE, citizen.outright lying is damaging your cause, not helping.
The villain in question does resist, and by that point has killed a f~%% ton of people, among other heinous crimes.
The sheriff also explictly says "bring them in alive" and is not happy with PCs who don't do so.
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We’ve already had this discussion in the GM thread butThe sheriff also explictly says "bring them in alive" and is not happy with PCs who don't do so.In volume 2, the sheriff in town deputizes the PCs to go out and kill a non-resisting, albeit LE, citizen.outright lying is damaging your cause, not helping.
The villain in question does resist, and by that point has killed a f~%% ton of people, among other heinous crimes.
Sounds like Windjammer's experience was A) someone with either an agenda or who didn't read or didn't read for comprehension telling him about it, B) playing under a GM who did their own creative modification, or was part of A above, or C) has their own agenda willing to spout mistruths to accomplish it or didn't read for comprehension.
I'm going to wager it was A or B, and that they are not actually using their own first-hand knowledge of the AP. Which is, in and of itself, a problematic way of inserting one's self into an argument.
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I see. The new consensus is that a person about to be arrested screaming "Help me! These people are trying to kill me!" - without even exercising physical means of self-defense or trying to flee her home -is unlawfully resisting arrest and deserves to get killed.
With that kind of readership response, Edgewatch's plot lines should not pose any problems whatsoever.
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The sheriff also explictly says "bring them in alive" and is not happy with PCs who don't do so.
Did the sheriff solicit pre-meditated killing as an option? Yes or no?
What exactly does the module say PCs have to do and say before the sheriff NPC believes the killing happened because PCs acted in self-defense?Actual quotes from the module will be just fine. We can do without the name-calling.
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I see. The new consensus is that a person about to be arrested by citizens screaming "Help me! These people are trying to kill me!" - without even exercising physical means of self-defense or trying to flee her home -is unlawfully resisting arrest and deserves to get killed.
With that kind of readership response, Edgewatch's plot lines should not pose any problems whatsoever.
Again, I think you are misrepresenting, for some reason, what's actually written in the text of the AP. And you just actively ignored the part where the Sheriff wants this person brought in alive.
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I see. The new consensus is that a person about to be arrested by citizens screaming "Help me! These people are trying to kill me!" - without even exercising physical means of self-defense or trying to flee her home -is unlawfully resisting arrest and deserves to get killed.
With that kind of readership response, Edgewatch's plot lines should not pose any problems whatsoever.
Dude, those lines that she says are clearly, to both the GM with prior knowledge and to the party, are a disingenuous attempt to manipulate her emotionally abused bodyguard/boyfriend into attacking the party. She has a boss statblock, with battle tactics presented. And this is after she has set up multiple deadly traps and encounters before you even reach her, one of which involves a corrupt cop!
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I see. The new consensus is that a person about to be arrested by citizens screaming "Help me! These people are trying to kill me!" - without even exercising physical means of self-defense or trying to flee her home -is unlawfully resisting arrest and deserves to get killed.
...what kind of players do you game with?
No.
The PCs go to the menagerie and say, "hey, we've got a warrant to arrest your boss." Either the ticket taker or the bruisers tell the PCs to get bent. The PCs try to enter, because hey, legal warrant, the bruisers attack. Maybe the PCs kill them, maybe not - the bruisers aren't noted as using nonlethal tactics that I noticed, so if they do end up dead then that is the very definition of self-defense. Note that the bruisers are trying to kill the PCs for entering a circus, not anyone's home.
The PCs then talk their way past a bunch of encounters explicitly written to be talked past until they get to the Heavenly Gallery, which again is part of the circus and not anybody's home, where they get directly assaulted in first strike attacks by various creatures. Literally, every opponent until Stallit is stated to attack the PCs first, either physically or magically (in the case of enthrall spells by the lamias). Stallit doesn't attack until the PCs refuse to back down, but again, the most likely result of talking to him is him attacking first, since all that's required is the PCs not turning around and walking away.
Finally, they get to Dusklight, and she doesn't attack first. She calls for help and presents herself as under attack, but the PCs have no reason to attack at this point. They have a warrant, they tell her to come quietly. Mazael probably objects, the PCs turn their persuasion efforts on him, he eventually stands down. So again, the PCs tell Dusklight to come along, still without attacking. And then we get to the actual fight, because the mod says Dusklight would rather die than leave her circus, and who here actually believes that doesn't mean she wouldn't happily kill rather than leave? And there's still no sign of anything in her tactics to suggest nonlethal preferences.
That is literally how I would expect my players to handle the entire thing, beginning to end. Moreover, I believe that is absolutely the way the mod is written to encourage.
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The sheriff also explictly says "bring them in alive" and is not happy with PCs who don't do so.Did the sheriff solicit pre-meditated killing as an option? Yes or no?
No, she absolutely does not. I'm not even sure where you're getting the impression from. Acknowledging that you might have to kill someone in self-defense is light-years away from saying that you should totally straight-up murder them.
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No, she absolutely does not. I'm not even sure where you're getting the impression from. Acknowledging that you might have to kill someone in self-defense is light-years away from saying that you should totally straight-up murder them.The sheriff also explictly says "bring them in alive" and is not happy with PCs who don't do so.Did the sheriff solicit pre-meditated killing as an option? Yes or no?
Going in with the intent to bring a law-breaker and heinous mass-murderer, alive, but given the right to defend yourself, lethally if need be, is the exact opposite of justifying premeditated killing.
The nuance here, though, is whether the group of players use that as an excuse to just kill. Which, frankly, is often the case from my experience.
That is not the fault of the AP though, that is the fault of players who choose to be bloodthirsty hooligans instead of the upstanding citizens the AP assumes they are.
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It's poorly timed for sure, but I don't see this as problematic as many people think it is.
For starters, I doubt the scenarios in the AP will in any way remotely resemble the situations with modern policing. I trust Paizo to steer far away from methods employed by modern police. Also, I expect the antagonists to be the worst of the worst. This is a world where you have cults devoted to demons, multiple gods of murder, and numerous monsters that eat or otherwise violate innocents. I expect those to be the opponents PCs will face, not folks committing minor misdemeanors.
Secondly, this is a fantasy setting that bears little connection to the real world. Even if you think police or the concept of police is pure evil, I don't see how non-evil police in the setting is any harder to swallow than Gods being real or magical healing
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I see. The new consensus is that a person about to be arrested screaming "Help me! These people are trying to kill me!" - without even exercising physical means of self-defense or trying to flee her home -is unlawfully resisting arrest and deserves to get killed.
With that kind of readership response, Edgewatch's plot lines should not pose any problems whatsoever.
I mean, you are being disingenous and making it sound worse than it is.
Like my main problem with scene is that pcs are still civilians so with civilian warrant you'd think they would be punished for not following orders and getting suspect arrested alive. But you outright claim that she tells you to go kill her and that she is helpless when she clearly isn't. And nothing in scene forces pcs to attack her before she attacks you first, pcs can focus on talking her bodyguard down and she would according to her tactics attack them before they would attack her.
Also while I agree that name calling is unwarranted(though I'm confused about who you are referring to?), you are indirectly insulting the "readership" by implying you have more righteous ethics than they do.
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That is not the fault of the AP though, that is the fault of players who choose to be bloodthirsty hooligans instead of the upstanding citizens the AP assumes they are.
Well I think the problematic element may be, that if the players choose to be actual murderers in this scenario (let's say they manage to creep in stealthy/invisible and attack first), the book as written does not have the authorities challenge their claim to self-defense and basically lets them go free without any consequences as long as they have the wits to not brag about it to the face of the law.
Which is... maybe fine? As long as the GM is clear that the party is acting Evil and has appropriate repercussions in store for when the world finds out. But perhaps the book should have spelled out more clearly what those repercussions would be if/when the authorities find out that Evil deeds were committed in their name.And for Agents of Edgewatch it becomes a must; I am sure Paizo has thought about it even before the current protests, as I have found this line in the Paizocon AMA thread:
Patrick's had to navigate some strange hoops about how PCs who are supposed to be the police act vs. how PCs tend to act in dungeons...
In the end it probably will be more Evil-unfriendly AP even compared to Wrath of the Righteous...
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That is not the fault of the AP though, that is the fault of players who choose to be bloodthirsty hooligans instead of the upstanding citizens the AP assumes they are.Well I think the problematic element may be, that if the players choose to be actual murderers in this scenario (let's say they manage to creep in stealthy/invisible and attack first), the book as written does not have the authorities challenge their claim to self-defense and basically lets them go free without any consequences as long as they have the wits to not brag about it to the face of the law.
Which is... maybe fine? As long as the GM is clear that the party is acting Evil and has appropriate repercussions in store for when the world finds out. But perhaps the book should have spelled out more clearly what those repercussions would be if/when the authorities find out that Evil deeds were committed in their name.
And for Agents of Edgewatch it becomes a must; I am sure Paizo has thought about it even before the current protests, as I have found this line in the Paizocon AMA thread:
Patrick's had to navigate some strange hoops about how PCs who are supposed to be the police act vs. how PCs tend to act in dungeons...In the end it probably will be more Evil-unfriendly AP even compared to Wrath of the Righteous...
I don't think that its Paizo's responsibility to put into every AP the repercussions of players choosing to play their characters as murder-hobo's. That should be solely at the discretion of the GM. And a good GM would be able to come up with something on the fly for what to do if the players choose to murder first and ask questions later. There is an entire circus of potential witnesses to such a crime.
Or perhaps, the GM knowing the players and how they choose to act, shouldn't run this AP (or at the very least not complain about it if they choose to.)
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I see. The new consensus is that a person about to be arrested by citizens screaming "Help me! These people are trying to kill me!" - without even exercising physical means of self-defense or trying to flee her home -is unlawfully resisting arrest and deserves to get killed....what kind of players do you game with?
No. ** spoiler omitted **...
I haven't read Extinction Curse, so thank you for this. A couple points (none being legal advice):
1. Under most modern civil and common law conceptions of property, the right to exclude others from property extends to a business owner and her agents as well as to a homeowner and his agents. This is probably complicated by the circus either renting or squatting on its grounds, but tenants can typically exclude everyone but their landlord and her agents. Squatters do not have a right to exclude.
2. Police and their deputies entering property without the owner's consent are no more entitled to a self-defense defense to assault, battery, or wrongful death (at tort) or murder (at criminal law) than anyone else. Trespass forfeits self-defense. What they have is a qualified immunity for their uses of force as long as they are acting pursuant to lawful authority and with lawful means. This is important because. . .
3. At common law, a person's use of self-defense, to be legitimate, must be in response to immanent threat of bodily harm, proportional to that threat, and having exhausted one's duty to retreat. Charging someone with a sword is not self-defense to that person having hucked a brick at your car, for instance, because 1) you can still probably drive away, 2) even if you couldn't, cars today protect people from bricks, and 3) by leaving your car, arming yourself, and closing distance you are escalating. A police officer or deputy executing a search or arrest warrant isn't supposed to retreat (though they are supposed, and supposedly trained to, deescalate if they can). They're supposed to execute their warrant. So they need an analytically different legal protection for their actions. Proportionality and response to immanent threat are still supposed to govern officers' uses of force, though this can be a trivial bar to overcome ("I feared for my life" is a common refrain from police shooters).
I mean, if you tell the maniac clown gnome barbarian to go get someone, I don't think you can trust that person to follow the rules.
Extinction Curse is the AP where you're supposed to be able to play a maniac clown gnome barbarian- do not play one in AoE.
Like normally, in a game of Pathfinder, it's generally acceptable to roleplay as someone who's probably (or definitely) a bad person. It's going to read very badly if you're going to do this in AoE though.
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Given all that, Zim, and with the acknowledgement that this is the circus AP and not the good cop AP, what changes if any would you make to the scenario as I presented it?
(Still not legal advice)
I just wouldn't get deputized. Far too much risk to my life, everyone else's, and my legal liability. I also wouldn't deputize civilians if I were acting on behalf of a police department, for the same reason (the rationale for officer immunity is far weaker and more open to challenge for deputized civilians, and could expose the department to liability).
As far as writing decisions go, I'm not going to comment. I'm in no position to, not having read the AP, and not knowing what anything I say could have unforeseen impacts or knock-on effects.
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It is always good to put yourself in the shoes of other people. A fantasy world will be different than ours but it still reflects us and can help understand the actions of others.
The AP of course is likely focused on violence but most APs have enemies than can be taken prisoner and defeated in other ways. I will be concerned though if everyone is evil and has the moral of “fights to the death.“ that seems unlikely here, but cultists in these games often are portrayed that way so maybe there could be a misstep for Paizo to make.
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Just because a significant portion of American police are trained to murder innocent civilians doesn't automatically mean that anything with police in it is negative
This is an odd statement because the latter half does not jive with the former. I agree with the latter, but the former is a bit outrageous. No, American police are not trained to murder innocent civilians
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Just because a significant portion of American police are trained to murder innocent civilians doesn't automatically mean that anything with police in it is negativeThis is an odd statement because the latter half does not jive with the former. I agree with the latter, but the former is a bit outrageous. No, American police are not trained to murder innocent civilians
so, they are untrained naturals?
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I feel like some of these replies are missing the point. Obviously Agents of Edgewatch isn't going to involve the PCs going after innocent minorities, but it's still a product that glorifies police-like characters (I know they're city watch but most players will equate them to modern police), and will likely involve them using violence as the system is still largely built around combat. Police brutality in Paizo's home country, the USA, is hardly a new issue (and unprovoked police violence against Black Americans predates the Black Lives Matter movement by quite a bit) but the issue is currently more visible than ever. Given that context the AP is in poor taste, to say the least, even more so after the police attacks on peaceful protests across the country.
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I feel like some of these over-generalized criticisms are missing the point.
It is not always wrong for police to use violence and sometimes police violence is the only way to protect innocents. This is why police exists in the world.
It is very wrong to use excessive and racially-targeted violence, of course, but there is literally nothing known about the AP which indicates that it will be 'glorifying' or 'promoting' excessive and unjustified use of force. These accusations are based on literally nothing.
There are also underlying assumptions in this fantasy game which make it far less problematic than in real life, such as evil alignments, evil deities, evil monsters etc. Saying that e.g. playing out a lethal assault on an evil murder cult is somehow glorifying real-life police violence against unarmed people is about the same lazy logic as saying that casting a summon animal spell in combat is promoting real-life animal cruelty.
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so, they are untrained naturals?
No, that’s a ludicrous statement. Police are not trained to murder, and certainly not trained to murder innocent civilians. Just because someone is trained in defense and/or other violent forms of combat, does not mean the results of that training is intended to be murder nor is it targeted at innocent civilians. I find that depiction to be disgusting and an outrageously inaccurate representation of their training methodologies
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I mean even if its fantasy game, they should be sensitive about it :P Just because its fictional police with fictional criminals doesn't mean it can't come across as bad, especially in this climate.
Like if AP features even single gang of usually evil aligned ancestry, it can come across as "members of minorities are evil and THAT is why they are criminals, so they are okay to kill" even if that wasn't writer's intention.
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I have seen the reactions you speak of many times on the internet, but the logic shouldn't work like that. If you have 1 bad minority representative, 1 bad majority representative, 1 good minority representative - that should be enough to clearly acknowledge that being a minority does not automatically make one a bad person.
However, we shouldn't also have an image that criminal gangs are paragons of diversity and inclusiveness.
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Given that context the AP is in poor taste, to say the least, even more so after the police attacks on peaceful protests across the country.
Again, one good response to 'many people are doing X really wrong in the real world' is to put out a work of fiction where they do X right (X, in this case, being policing). That's a laudable and useful thing to do in fiction, and can easily be applied to this situation.
As for the recent protests, that absolutely does make the timing unfortunate...but APs are written more than a year in advance, so they rather lack the ability to control that or meaningfully change when it'll be released. Not without severely damaging profits for the most essential line of books to Paizo's bottom line, anyway.
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So I think the real world issue is largely rooted in the fact that a police officer is almost never called to the scene of an active crime in progress where force is a reasonable response. Most often it's "crimes that already happened" where you just show up, take statements, collect evidence (if any) and then leave. If there's actually a situation that requires intervention it's almost always something involving a domestic dispute, a mental health crisis, or something else that would be better handled by social services or at the very least "the threat of violence" inherent in the cops showing up is deeply inappropriate. This is compounded by the tendency for very bad police institutions to have very aggressive, hostile, and self-dealing cultures. (A good thing you can work into your own AoE game if it's not in the AP is - "have the PCs expose members of their own organization who are bad actors, and make the response to this positive.")
But in fiction we get cops showing up to crimes in progress from whence action scenes commence (chases, fights, tense negotiations, that sort of thing) all the time because drama matters more than realism in fiction usually (you can't tell stories about nice days, in other words). I assume AoE is going to be somewhat like this.
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I mean, keep in mind that the writer of book 6 in this AP handed in their manuscript over a year ago. Paizo's flexibility on this boils down to either releasing it as written and trusting that they wrote this with enough sensitivity and care that it holds up still in light of the current spotlights (rightly) bearing down on police behavior... or pulling the AP entirely if they feel it doesn't meet appropriate standards for the conversations it will spark.
I suspect the former is how it will play out. I very much hope that is the case, too, as we all know Paizo pulling an entire AP could come pretty close to ruining them as a company completely (especially after the wobble-shocks of COVID and a weird GenCon, etc.).
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I feel like some of these over-generalized criticisms are missing the point.
It is not always wrong for police to use violence and sometimes police violence is the only way to protect innocents. This is why police exists in the world.
It is very wrong to use excessive and racially-targeted violence, of course, but there is literally nothing known about the AP which indicates that it will be 'glorifying' or 'promoting' excessive and unjustified use of force. These accusations are based on literally nothing.
There are also underlying assumptions in this fantasy game which make it far less problematic than in real life, such as evil alignments, evil deities, evil monsters etc. Saying that e.g. playing out a lethal assault on an evil murder cult is somehow glorifying real-life police violence against unarmed people is about the same lazy logic as saying that casting a summon animal spell in combat is promoting real-life animal cruelty.
Congratulations, you're missing the point in exactly the way I was saying people were missing the point.
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Today police are universally, without exception, the armed thugs of capital which is everywhere without exception dependent upon exploitation.No, just no
While I typically haven't agreed with zimmerwald1915's narrative lately, and the rhetoric is quite inflammatory, outright dismissing what they are saying, instead of engaging with what the reasons might be for why they feel that way, certainly does not help the general positive forwarding discourse on why #Blacklivesmatter needs to be a thing.
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You know who has an even worse track record of racism and violence that police in the United States (a track record that is inexcusable and horrific by itself)? Vigilantes and explorers, two archetypical themes of RPGs.
Admonishing the developers of Paizo for giving players an AP where character moral accountability should be measured first by oaths sworn to serve a community in the role of protector will not be enjoyable or appropriate for all players. Which is fine and important to admit. Not everyone should play this AP, especially if you are worried your table will be likely to run it in a fashion that will promote harmful stereotypes and indulge power fantasies of authoritarian brutality in enforcing Law and order. But that was every bit as true a year ago when this AP was being shaped, and will remain true long after every police force in the USA has been defunded and those resources have been reappropriated into restorative justice and community support initiatives.
So the question isn't whether this AP is appropriate now, but whether it is ever appropriate to have an AP where the story is shaped by the PCs belonging to an official branch of a state authority, especially one empowered to exercise that authority violently in certain situations? And if the answer is no, because of the lived history of these institutions in many countries around the world, then we need to go after Kingmaker, and stop it from being reprinted, as well as well as Wrath of the Righteous, and prevent that from being remade into a video game. And then if we look at the track record of resistance movements that have turned into brutal authoritarian regimes around the world, we better shut down any APs like Hell's Rebels, Curse of the Crimson Throne, Council of Thieves as well.
Exploring the nature of power, and what a few individuals with an extraordinary amount of power can do is at the heart of very many different kinds of role playing games, especially D&D and its derivatives. Pretending like it is perfectly acceptable to engage in this act of imagination when the only limits of the player's actions and accountability are ones that the players chose for themselves, and not ones where they will be held accountable by in world organizations and associations of people, like governments, seems to feed pretty heavily into a delusional fantasy that it is perfectly fine for parties of adventurers to wander unknown "wildernesses," looting the wealth of the "monstrous" and "savage" other, accumulating power until they can establish themselves often as literal gods amongst the civilization they create, but it would be wrong to explore how that power gets used when the player characters are surrounded by non-player characters that have to be treated as deserving of being treated like actual people.
Again, I have no idea how well Agents of Edgewatch will address the many potential pitfalls of an adventure set within the framework of expecting players to act with legal accountability to the NPCs around them, but that is something I look forward to finding out when I get a chance to read the actual AP, and it doesn't seem like something that can be decided just from its theme.
"It is wrong to glorify the role of law enforcement in our fiction and ignore its impact on upholding oppressive institutions" is not the same thing as saying that we must never explore the ways in which laws are enforced, or could be enforced better, in a fantasy setting where the consequences for failure does not have to be continuing the very real cycle of paying for peace and economic prosperity of some with the death of people of color. Do we really want to rule our role-playing games as a space that is off-limits to exploring the possibilities of how troubled institutions of justice can be challenged, changed, or even abolished and recreated into something better?