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I suspect you're right on all of that, but few of the APs I can think of have an in universe set of rules the PCs have to follow (ie don't use lethal force unless situation Y) as opposed to alignment 'rules' or meta rules of 'This campaign is about Pirates, maybe don't be a paladin'. So that does make it a bit different.Some might of course, but for many when you run you an AP you have a social contract between the party and GM, in that this is what the story is going to be.
The players ignoring the story and other party members to play rabid cops is no different than showing up to play Wrath of the Righteous with Antipaladins or Hellknights in Council of Thieves or a Hobgoblin slaver in Ironfang Invasion.
So make sure everyone is on level with the expectations of what the story will entail and ask, or find a different game. Agents of Edgewatch is not unique in having to worry about disruptive players derailing the story, and I fully expect there to be sidebars or call outs in the adventure that amount to “hey, don’t do this”.
There are, just not the same amount of attention is leveled at them because it’s assumed you’re not playing a psychopath. Curse of the Crimson Throne and Hell’s Rebels for example, if you use lethal violence as the answer for every situation you run in to you’re gonna have issues.
I think we should all take a deep breath and a step back and give Paizo the benefit of the doubt for now. In four weeks, the first adventure will be out to subscribers, and then we can argue based on what's really in the book and not what every one is projecting onto it.
Amen to this...
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I do have to say that if undead are people rather than monsters, that kinda makes becoming undead not be as undesirable as player condition as mechanics want it to be :p
Like, real life logic aside, in Pathfinder setting it would create a LOT of questions. Like make aeons and psychopomps kinda evil leaning.
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Why worry about Psychopomps and Aeons when you can question if something like Shining Oath tramples on a sentient being's free will, since it seems to preclude allowing undead to exist without interference?
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Why worry about Psychopomps and Aeons when you can question if something like Shining Oath tramples on a sentient being's free will, since it seems to preclude allowing undead to exist without interference?
Because I woke up about hour ago and was being morning groggy and forgot about tenets of good and specific oaths xP
Champions probably shouldn't be police officers, since there's a good chance the demands of your deity probably conflict with the demands of the law.
Like you would prefer to send almost anybody else to deal with an orc who is accused of a crime than a Toragite Paladin.
We now have literally an "order of operations" for the Paladin's code, and it says "don't break your god's rules" is more important than "following the law". So Paladin cops would automatically be suspect (admittedly "do good" is more important than "be lawful" which would suggest they're not a bad choice.)
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I think Paizo should delay it if they can (irrespective of the content - I’m similarly supportive of pulling security contracts from police groups, even if those specific police are quite nice). In my view, the content of the AP is only of marginal relevance.
If they can’t, I think they should donate a proportion of every issue sold to an appropriate cause (giving up a slice of the profit in one AP isn’t going to ruin the company).
Having said that, I also think they should ignore my view (as a wealthy, white Australian) and listen to the members of the community who are most closely affected by the current systemic racism within policing.
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I mean, whole reason I was hyped for this ap for half a year WAS because its city guard ap :p Being "not actual city guard but working for city guard" would be kindaaaaaaaa... Half assed change?
Like if you are going to change away from being city guard, you might as well for real just cancel the entire ap(which again seems bit unrealistic for me in terms of their finances)
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Well yes, that is exactly right. When a demon stops feeling and acting like one, they cease to be a demon. It does not contradict a view that all demons are evil.
So while I admit to having been too vehement about zero possibility for redemption of individual supernatural evil beings, the broader point of them inherently drawn towards evil and as such not subject to being on equal starting ground in the eyes of the law as free-willed humanoids still stands.
Reliably identifying creatures in Pathfinder and Golarion is pretty hit or miss (and for good in-universe reasons involving lots of different creatures and shapeshifting). Even assuming this is true (and it's not entirely), knowing that something is a demon is not really a thing most of the time. You might think that guy over there is a demon, but you don't know beyond a reasonable doubt.
That being the case, from the perspective of law enforcement, you pretty much need to treat everyone you suspect of wrongdoing the same in terms of what legal stuff you do to them. After all, any part of your assumptions about their nature, guilt, or innocence could easily be wrong.
I mean, you can certainly bring cold iron weapons if you suspect a demon (or silver for a vampire), but you can't stab random people just because you think they are a demon or vampire, even if you're personally morally certain.
Being pedantic, I'll mention that Arueshalae never loses the demon type. She lost the evil subtype and replaced it with the good subtype upon her complete redemption. She never stops being a demon. In my opinion, that makes it more meaningful.
Ah! You're right, my bad. I was thinking of losing the Evil subtype (which would, in PF2, translate into losing Fiend).
The point that all those standards are tendencies rather than hard rules stands, though.
Why worry about Psychopomps and Aeons when you can question if something like Shining Oath tramples on a sentient being's free will, since it seems to preclude allowing undead to exist without interference?Because I woke up about hour ago and was being morning groggy and forgot about tenets of good and specific oaths xP
I mean, Shining Oath straight up says how it works when you find a Good undead. If they couldn't be Good that text is meaningless.
And, like all Oaths, it's added to the Code after all other tenets. So a Liberator, for example, cannot prioritize it over respecting other people's choices about their own lives (or unlives, in this case).
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Champions probably shouldn't be police officers, since there's a good chance the demands of your deity probably conflict with the demands of the law.
Like you would prefer to send almost anybody else to deal with an orc who is accused of a crime than a Toragite Paladin.
We now have literally an "order of operations" for the Paladin's code, and it says "don't break your god's rules" is more important than "following the law". So Paladin cops would automatically be suspect (admittedly "do good" is more important than "be lawful" which would suggest they're not a bad choice.)
The Toragite Paladin is still Lawful (due process) and Good (protect the innocent). They will not summarily execute the orc. Or Torag will express his displeasure in no uncertain terms.
As long as the local law respects Good values, there is no reason a LG Paladin would not uphold it. That is after all part and parcel of being Lawful : avoid breaking the law as much as you can.
But the thing about the Champion class is that you know they have a pre-existing conflict of interest that does not place "following the law" at the top.
A paladin observes the following tenets in order:
- Don't perform acts anathema to your deity or evil acts.
- Don't harm innocents or allow one to be harmed through inaction.
- Act with honor, don't lie or cheat.
- Respect the lawful authority and follow the laws.
Mostly these things would make for an ideal officer, but the "do what your god says first and foremost" is a problem since you don't want the state to privilege a certain faith in that way. Moreover, that person would be deeply unpopular in police departments since you know they're not going to have your back if you're in the wrong (which is likely good, but they wouldn't hire that guy.)
But the thing about the Champion class is that you know they have a pre-existing conflict of interest that does not place "following the law" at the top.
A paladin observes the following tenets in order:
- Don't perform acts anathema to your deity or evil acts.
- Don't harm innocents or allow one to be harmed through inaction.
- Act with honor, don't lie or cheat.
- Respect the lawful authority and follow the laws.Mostly these things would make for an ideal officer, but the "do what your god says first and foremost" is a problem since you don't want the state to privilege a certain faith in that way. Moreover, that person would be deeply unpopular in police departments since you know they're not going to have your back if you're in the wrong (which is likely good, but they wouldn't hire that guy.)
More than the state privileging certain faths, it's more that the deity anathemas are pretty bad in and of themselves, for some cases:
Iomedae: refusing a challenge from an equal. This is pretty bad if you want the police officer to be able to de-escalate a situation.
Torag: show mercy to the enemies of your people is...well, horrible. I don't think I need to explain why it'd be bad for ANYONE, let alone a police officer.
Others are less clear cut, like Sarenrae (deny a repentant creature an opportunity for redemption but also fail to strike down evil can come in conflict by themselves, let alone for a police officer who shouldn't really be striking down anyone, evil or not, except in very few circumstances) or Shelyn (the whole art thing can get really weird) but that'd depend a lot on GM.
Erastil, Abadar and Irori would have very few problems (if any) following the champion's code and their deity code in a non-evil city (which IIRC Absalom is...True Neutral? Or did that change in 2E?)
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Mostly these things would make for an ideal officer, but the "do what your god says first and foremost" is a problem since you don't want the state to privilege a certain faith in that way.
This depends a lot on specific faith. Paladins of Abadar are great cops because 'undermine a law-abiding court' is one of his Anathema. Iomedae and Sarenrae aren't great deities for Paladin cops (both encourage non-police behavior in some specific ways, as noted above), but unless you consider 'arresting someone' to be showing mercy (which I would not) Torag is fine, Shelyn is generally okay (though the art thing is a bit odd for a cop, I'll grant), Erastil is pretty great if they're a cop in their own community and view it as their home, and Irori is verging on ideal.
Moreover, that person would be deeply unpopular in police departments since you know they're not going to have your back if you're in the wrong (which is likely good, but they wouldn't hire that guy.)
This makes a lot of assumptions about the police department in question. It's certainly true of corrupt departments, yes, but not all departments will be corrupt, and even among those that are ostracizing Paladins is a huge red flag that they might wish to avoid being seen to do.
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Credit to Sutter, but that's not a promising omen for how this story is going to go.
Mostly these things would make for an ideal officer, but the "do what your god says first and foremost" is a problem since you don't want the state to privilege a certain faith in that way.This depends a lot on specific faith. Paladins of Abadar are great cops because 'undermine a law-abiding court' is one of his Anathema. Iomedae and Sarenrae aren't great deities for Paladin cops (both encourage non-police behavior in some specific ways, as noted above), but unless you consider 'arresting someone' to be showing mercy (which I would not) Torag is fine, Shelyn is generally okay (though the art thing is a bit odd for a cop, I'll grant), Erastil is pretty great if they're a cop in their own community and view it as their home, and Irori is verging on ideal.
I mean, arresting someone is mercy, unless you think taking prisoners instead of killing them isn't mercy, which would be strange.
By definition, mercy is "Compassion or forgiveness shown toward someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.". If you have a deranged lunatic trying to kill you, and you beat him, and choose to arrest him instead of killing him, you're showing compassion. Whether you're a cop or not in this case is irrelevant.
So yes, I beleive a Torag champion would have serious issues trying to be a by the book cop...unless he never fights "enemies of his people" which...who are those again?
Man the more you look at it the worse it gets. At least 1E specified a few outs, like getting information out of them.
This comes back to my major unaddressed complaint about he paladin during the playtest- "Do right by your deity" should not have been above "do good" or "be lawful".
Even if you interpret what Torag tells you as "that orc is resisting arrest, better kill him" having the out of "well, the regulations say not to" is big.
If I was reordering the Paladin tenets (from above) I would separate "don't do anathema" and "don't do evil" leave "don't do evil" at the top and move "don't do anathema" to the bottom of the list.
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There's no real definition for who 'enemies of your people' are. So...GM and/or player's choice? It's very vague.
And I would not characterize turning someone over to the legal authorities to be tried and executed or imprisoned indefinitely as 'merciful' (both are arguably worse than a quick death, depending on point of view), but I'll grant it's very much up to interpretation.
There's no real definition for who 'enemies of your people' are. So...GM and/or player's choice? It's very vague.
And I would not characterize turning someone over to the legal authorities to be tried and executed or imprisoned indefinitely as 'merciful' (both are arguably worse than a quick death, depending on point of view), but I'll grant it's very much up to interpretation.
To be fair, "it's up to interpretation" has been a giant thorn on the Paladin's (or Champion's) side for ages so this is nothing new.
Like PossibleCabbage, I too said in the playtest that I thought placing Anathema at the top of the code was a bad idea, given how they'd conflict quite a bit with the rest of it. But what's done is done, and you can always house rule it to the bottom.
Plus from an in-universe perspective there's been quite a lot of Paladins as members of city watches so, eh.
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from james l. sutter's twitter account
I think they need to pull the product.
If the Sutter is reacting that badly, they need to take the hit and pull it. If the rest of the AP is less bad, great. Start with the second installment in August and continue on as scheduled.
I was willing to wait and see, and was more skeptical than objecting, but I have a lot of respect for Sutter. If he he feels the way he wrote it can be seen as glorifying cop violence, however unintentionally, then the responsible thing to do would be to take the loss and try to move on as best as possible.
Man that sucks.
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from james l. sutter's twitter accountI think they need to pull the product.
If the Sutter is reacting that badly, they need to take the hit and pull it. If the rest of the AP is less bad, great. Start with the second installment in August and continue on as scheduled.
I was willing to wait and see, and was more skeptical than objecting, but I have a lot of respect for Sutter. If he he feels the way he wrote it can be seen as glorifying cop violence, however unintentionally, then the responsible thing to do would be to take the loss and try to move on as best as possible.
I'm not positive this follows. In many cases, particularly with something like this, an author is going to be their own worst critic. Possibly by quite a bit. I'm much more worried than I was before the tweet, but I wouldn't assume that all people (who agree on this issue) reading it will react as badly as the author himself feels is deserved. They certainly might, and it might be that bad, but it also might not.
This is particularly true since, as they've noted, they can still edit the AoE Player's Guide to note problematic areas in the AP and suggest ways to deal with them. That can do a lot in regards to some of these issues.
Man that sucks.
Here, I couldn't agree more.
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Whether or not James is just being overcautious or if the AP is actually bad... Paizo really needs to release their statement on it. Because their response is being preempted by individual contributors now and that's gonna alter the whole rollout.
Perhaps selfishly, I strongly hope that they do not pull this product. Partly because that would be financially disastrous for them (and I really like these folks as people and a company), and partly because I very much believe my players can handle a story about solving crimes and saving lives without showcasing brutality, tastelessness, and so forth.
I dunno. Unless this AP literally promotes players beating poor people for information or similar grotesquities...
Paizo could potentially have understood the problem with the current police culture in the U.S. (I mean, the Seattle PD has not been blameless by any metric) years ago. That this was a blind spot for them is a thing that is plausible (though none of these issues are new, NWA got in trouble for speaking on it in 1988), but they're still trying to sell a thing that is very badly timed and possibly might just be inappropriate as entertainment fare going forwards.
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Pulling it right now, the absolute worst time to release an adventure like this, would not be a bad precedent.
That second part is a slippery slope fallacy, an illegitimate claim (and in bad taste with those "" if im being honest) to detract from the issue.
Then again, police brutality and the slaughter of black people isn't exactly a phenomenon that just happened, it's been happening. For awhile.
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Slippery Slope is a fallacy, and you're highlighting why, you're bringing up a bunch of possible far flung what-ifs and "where does it stop", not some immediate effects, to distract from current and pressing issues.
"If I eat spoiled food, I get sick" is a direct line of events.
"If they can cancel the cop AP while protests are occurring over police brutality, they can cancel future products over anything" is a fallacy since it's purely disjointed hypothetical, it's nebulous with no connection to currents events and their after-effects. It's also disrespectful to the events in question, since it's diminishing it and comparing it to hypothetical nothings.
As for the quote, and "justification for silencing things", that's what we call dogwhistles.
If there's any way that Paizo can push AoE back and run AV (and maybe FotRP), then I hope that they give serious thought to doing so. Otherwise, donating to Black Lives Matter and similar charities would be a very good idea.
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If there's any way that Paizo can push AoE back and run AV (and maybe FotRP), then I hope that they give serious thought to doing so. Otherwise, donating to Black Lives Matter and similar charities would be a very good idea.
(NB: "Black Lives Matter" isn't a charity. It's not even a movement/coalition of organizations. The latter would be the Movement for Black Lives, which has a program - the Vision for Black Lives - and to which (IIRC) about a dozen large groups and dozens more small have affiliated. Black Lives Matter is two things: a slogan, and a social media hashtag that some MBL activists use to propagandize and to coordinate with each other.)
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If the author of the opening adventure says, “I’ve realized that elementals of Pathfinder #157 Devil at the Dreaming Palace can be read as pro-police violence or anti-protestor,” unless there was significant rewrites during development (certainly possible, but unlikely given Mr Sutter’s talents) then Paizo pretty much has no choice than to delay the release so they can reassess the content or cancel it to demonstrate a commitment to their posted commentary. Donating to charities is not a “get out of jail free” card.
Weren't the physical copies of the AP printed months ago? I'm not sure rewriting them is possible.
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On June 4th...
We will be addressing Agents of Edgewatch directly in an upcoming blog.
On June 8th...
We're working on it now and hope to get it up ASAP.
Today...
Our statement is coming VERY soon; it's going through its final rounds of preparation and will be out ASAP.
How long does it take to make a public statement? Paizo is a company full of socially sensitive, supportive writers and professional media personnel. Its been at least 14 days since they committed to making a statement and they have probably been thinking about it longer than that. Either the content of the AP is socially sensitive or its not, either they are going to release it as scheduled, or they aren't.
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Weren't the physical copies of the AP printed months ago? I'm not sure rewriting them is possible.
Simple. If the content is not what they want to publish, then the recall anything they have already shipped to the distributors and destroy the lot. If they still want to publish it, task the development team with rewriting any questionable content and republish. Is that gonna be expensive? Sure, but as I keep getting told, there is often a cost to being socially progressive and responsible.
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I'm wondering if "releasing the backmatter for people who don't want to support the story being told" would be on the table.
The product itself would almost certainly be doable as a PDF. I actually hadn’t thought of that as a compromise for those of us who’d like to keep supporting the company without supporting the adventure.
How feasible that would be to tie into the subscription model, yo no se.