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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.
Man, this is a pretty big 180 from not even two pages ago when you said:
Or, they can release it, no matter what it says and those who are okay with it, will buy it and run/play it. For those who don’t like it, don’t buy it, don’t play it. And we all move on.
Sutter hasn't even said "there's stuff in there that's pro-police violence" he says some things in there could be read as such.
They should release it and let people judge for themselves. I'm sure more than one person here would be willing to write an in-depth review to let other potential buyers know.
But these calls for the whole thing to be delayed or cancelled when we don't even have the Player's Guide to judge is pretty extreme.
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How long does it take to make a public statement?They already released the public statement.
They released a public statement on Black Lives Matter, in the comments of which Eric Mona said there would be a separate statement on Agents of Edgewatch.
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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.
This kind of messaging is really tricky. My fiance (a white woman) recently spoke out in solidarity with the black students at the school where she works. While the students and many of her cowrokers seemed to appreciate it, there were a lot of coworkers who didn't, including people of color. The school's leader is angry with her, and she's become worried about losing her job. Which would be a noble sacrifice *if* she was sure she had done the right thing. But given that her words hurt some of the people she's trying to be an ally for, it isn't really clear that she did do the right thing.
That was one internal meeting on how to address these issues. In order to release a statement, Paizo needs to have multiple meetings like that. Now, I'm willing to bet Paizo is more sensitive than this other institution. But they have to try and make sure that their words don't cause harm to a much, much wider audience. And they also have to deal with financial realities. The company is probably trying to keep their lights on and avoid lay-offs, as most of the global economy is, and they are probably thinking long and hard about whether they can afford to lose this product.
I want a statement from them as well, but I get why they are taking their time with making sure they say it right. I mean, just think of all the questions they avoid answering because they don't want to get it wrong on silly things like rules readings, errata, or new content.
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They released a public statement on Black Lives Matter, in the comments of which Eric Mona said there would be a separate statement on Agents of Edgewatch.How long does it take to make a public statement?They already released the public statement.
No, he said there would be a blog on Agents of Edgewatch. Blogs are pretty different things from statements, at least the way Paizo does them. Blogs have art. Blogs often have fiction, rules elements, even in a few cases entirely new mechanics. Blogs touch on a much wider set of stakeholders than a statement or a press release does, and one imagines this one in particular they want to make very sure they get right.
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They should release it and let people judge for themselves.
There is an awful lot at risk to stake your future on a hope that your product is okay despite concerns expressed by the one who wrote it. Though Chick-fil-a, Papa Johns, and Hobby Lobby have managed to weather some pretty bad national media and Paizo being in a nitch market is certainly not going to suffer a national mainstream backlash if their AP isn't sensitive enough, so maybe all of this is nothing but a bunch of hot air. And if the gaming community is as misogynistic, homophobic, and racist as many people claim, this AP, regardless of its tone isn't going to be more than a blip in the grand scheme anyway.
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No, he said there would be a blog on Agents of Edgewatch...
That's splitting hairs. Paizo's blog IS a public statement and given the nature of the subject matter, I cannot imagine they would water it down by combining this one with a bunch of ancillary, possibly unrelated stuff. Either this isn't really a big deal, in which case it shouldn't take long to publish your commentary or it is a big deal, in which you would throw a lot of resources at it immediately and make your statement as fast as possible to avoid or minimize the speculation.
In cases like this the longer you take to respond, the less sincere your comments are generally received. Take too long and the assumption is you are more concerned about your own business interests, ie CYA, than you are with taking a stand with the protest. I'm not saying that is the case here. They did take a rather responsive stance with their BLM statement, but to be fair, that was fairly easy. Virtually everyone is in agreement with the outrage against police corruption, so it wasn't like they were really going out on much of a limb. Nonetheless, I think everyone agrees with their statement and supports Paizo for making it.
Having been involved with Paizo as a community leader for more than a decade and having had to deal with harassment and other claims, I had it drilled into my head that perception is reality, even if the perception isn't reality. Its been said a few times, no matter what Paizo does, people are gonna complain. Better to just come out and say what you're gonna say and let the chips fall where they may. The longer you wait to formulate the "perfect" response, the less likely people will listen to or care what it is.
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They should release it and let people judge for themselves.There is an awful lot at risk to stake your future on a hope that your product is okay despite concerns expressed by the one who wrote it. Though Chick-fil-a, Papa Johns, and Hobby Lobby have managed to weather some pretty bad national media and Paizo being in a nitch market is certainly not going to suffer a national mainstream backlash if their AP isn't sensitive enough, so maybe all of this is nothing but a bunch of hot air. And if the gaming community is as misogynistic, homophobic, and racist as many people claim, this AP, regardless of its tone isn't going to be more than a blip in the grand scheme anyway.
Given the current economical situation it's probably a much bigger risk to not release it. I mean, the books are printed at this point, ready to be distributed. If they delay, that's just extra storage cost, plus the fact that I doubt they have anything to release instead. To say nothing of cancelling, in which case every single cent invested in the AP is a complete loss (Ok, maybe you could salvage the maps. Maps are always good! GIMME DEM MAPS.)
Then again, I'm a biologist, not an economist. So ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As for backlash? I pretty much think it'll mean zilch. I'll point out only 35 people even bothered to participate in the current discussion, and Mr. Sutter's tweet hasn't exactly broken the twitterverse, to put it mildly.
But we'll just have to wait and see. I do wish they'd release their statement sooner rather than later but I ain' losing sleep over it. Plenty of other things doing that already!
As for backlash? I pretty much think it'll mean zilch. I'll point out only 35 people even bothered to participate in the current discussion, and Mr. Sutter's tweet hasn't exactly broken the twitterverse, to put it mildly.They should release it and let people judge for themselves.There is an awful lot at risk to stake your future on a hope that your product is okay despite concerns expressed by the one who wrote it. Though Chick-fil-a, Papa Johns, and Hobby Lobby have managed to weather some pretty bad national media and Paizo being in a nitch market is certainly not going to suffer a national mainstream backlash if their AP isn't sensitive enough, so maybe all of this is nothing but a bunch of hot air. And if the gaming community is as misogynistic, homophobic, and racist as many people claim, this AP, regardless of its tone isn't going to be more than a blip in the grand scheme anyway.
I expect a lot of people are doing what I was up until today. Watching and waiting.
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Honest question does anyone here have any knowledge of how financally sound Paizo is right now?
It's all well and good saying they should just cancel 6 months worth of content they have been working on for over a year but my understanding is they have nothing ready to replace it also add in the costs of stuff that has already been printed, transport (Since I'm fairly certian part 1 is already on a ship on the way there) cost to either store or destroy said books (As said part 1 is most likely on it's way and there is a good chance part 2 maybe even part 3 are ready/getting printed) plus any fee's they could potentually incur from there printer for doing this that all adds up to a lot of costs.
Now at this point I admit no one outside Paizo staff know how good there finances are but I would be suprised if they havent already taken a hit from the corona virus situation so combine that altogether and this is potentually something that could make the company go bust.
So if the option is release this and potentually offend people or go out of buisness well thats not a fair choice to ask anyone to make.
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I think the risk assessment is do we cancel it, lose income, likely lose customers who will get their RPG fix from a rival company and maybe have to fire people we just got in the company. Or do we release it and risk a potentially huge backlash including boycott of the company's products.
Hard to decide and hard to implement properly.
I sure wish people had more faith in both Paizo and their fellow GMs and players.
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I think the risk assessment is do we cancel it, lose income, likely lose customers who will get their RPG fix from a rival company and maybe have to fire people we just got in the company. Or do we release it and risk a potentially huge backlash including boycott of the company's products.
Hard to decide and hard to implement properly.
I sure wish people had more faith in both Paizo and their fellow GMs and players.
When someone at Paizo has already said “I think I dropped the ball on this,” what faith do you want us to have?
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Also the thing thats getting me is there has been a 'police ap' out for years now and no one seems to have batted an eyelid I believe it's called Zeitergeist made by En publishing. You play actual constables and it's been out for multiple systems (including I believe Pathfinder) for about 10ish years now.
So all this argument of whether it's appropriate to ever release a 'police' Ap is pretty much mute because ones already been out there to no small amount of praise for years already.
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I'm going to wait to read the book before I overreact.
And then I'll probably just not overreact.
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It read more like backside covering to me.
And also said “can be read as”.
I would also expect if he feels that strongly he will be on the paizo boards afterward in the GM thread for the book suggesting changes in hindsight.
I am prepared to wait and let more people read it to make that judgement . I of course fully expect some people to not be objective in the slightest. But such is the way of things.
It seems unlikely that they would cancel it with such short notice. It it was cancelled or delayed then that element of the announcement would probably have been made.
The delay in any kind of announcement is likely to be about how to manage this. And presumably said announcement will include the players guide referred to as a method of adding explanatory narrative that can’t be added to physical books . And that means writing it (far more carefully than usual) earlier than was originally intended .
As to the reference of “potentially huge backlash” - I do wonder if that it potentially overstating the size of the market / customer base paizo has. The tweet being discussed currently has 16 or 18 replies. And the posters in this thread who are vocally talking about this number only in the dozens . A fraction of the board users , subscribers , customers etc
What do those calling for this to be pulled suggest Paizo do for the next 6 months in the place of the AP instalments? Legitimate question here .
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When someone at Paizo has already said “I think I dropped the ball on this,” what faith do you want us to have?I think the risk assessment is do we cancel it, lose income, likely lose customers who will get their RPG fix from a rival company and maybe have to fire people we just got in the company. Or do we release it and risk a potentially huge backlash including boycott of the company's products.
Hard to decide and hard to implement properly.
I sure wish people had more faith in both Paizo and their fellow GMs and players.
Point of order - when you use quotation marks actually use a quote from the person. The tweet from James does not have that quote in it.
If there is another message where he has made that quote then please provide a link
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Also the thing thats getting me is there has been a 'police ap' out for years now and no one seems to have batted an eyelid I believe it's called Zeitergeist made by En publishing. You play actual constables and it's been out for multiple systems (including I believe Pathfinder) for about 10ish years now.
So all this argument of whether it's appropriate to ever release a 'police' Ap is pretty much mute because ones already been out there to no small amount of praise for years already.
That is just because nobody comments on old products
Like XCOM Chimera Squad sure did attract lot of people claiming game was too "politically correct", but nobody has started making conversation about police brutality in it since its few months earlier.
When someone at Paizo has already said “I think I dropped the ball on this,” what faith do you want us to have?I think the risk assessment is do we cancel it, lose income, likely lose customers who will get their RPG fix from a rival company and maybe have to fire people we just got in the company. Or do we release it and risk a potentially huge backlash including boycott of the company's products.
Hard to decide and hard to implement properly.
I sure wish people had more faith in both Paizo and their fellow GMs and players.
Paizo writers in general are really sensitive to these kind of things, whenever in past people have accused them of anything potentially offensive they get apologetic really fast.
Like it could be that bad or it could be you are imagining it way worse because its always easy to imagine things being way worse than it is.
Anywaaaaaaaaaay, I do think its unreasonable to say that they should just cancel whole ap if you are aware of how little this industry pays in general and that it would most likely result in paizo having to fire employees.
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When someone at Paizo has already said “I think I dropped the ball on this,” what faith do you want us to have?I think the risk assessment is do we cancel it, lose income, likely lose customers who will get their RPG fix from a rival company and maybe have to fire people we just got in the company. Or do we release it and risk a potentially huge backlash including boycott of the company's products.
Hard to decide and hard to implement properly.
I sure wish people had more faith in both Paizo and their fellow GMs and players.
Point of order - when you use quotation marks actually use a quote from the person. The tweet from James does not have that quote in it.
If there is another message where he has made that quote then please provide a link
If you want the direct quote, I think “pro-police violence” is more damning than my own choice of ‘dropped the ball,’ but if we want to be semantic, sure.
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I do wonder what exactly is the context here... I assume in this case the book was already printed, so they would be unable to make changes to print version, so it could be anything really.
Like from Sutter's tweet it might be anything from "Oh, now a riot breaks out and its combat encounter" to "PCs have diplomatically options to taking care of riot, but also can just do it as encounter". Both of which would be pretty tone deaf in current context (former coming across as "oh, police are forced to use violence because of prostestors" and latter as "oh, violent solution is as good as diplomatic one").
It could be something else too, but that is what it sounds like just on basis of my imagination and tweet. It could be something worse (like text explicitly encouraging use of force or treating it as good thing somehow) or it could be something less bad too, but latter is unlikely to me since so far I have no reason to believe Sutter is overreacting too much.
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likely lose customers who will get their RPG fix from a rival company
if that would concern Paizo, they shouldn't have ended PF1 then.
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Also the thing thats getting me is there has been a 'police ap' out for years now and no one seems to have batted an eyelid I believe it's called Zeitergeist made by En publishing. You play actual constables and it's been out for multiple systems (including I believe Pathfinder) for about 10ish years now.
So all this argument of whether it's appropriate to ever release a 'police' Ap is pretty much mute because ones already been out there to no small amount of praise for years already.
That's because Zeitgeist is 1. 10-year old obscure third party content (as much as I love it) and 2. You do not play as cops. You are essentially a child's idea of a secret agent as opposed to the real CIA. In fact, the actual cops in that are routinely shown to be craven obstructionists whenever you aren't using them as funny little mooks to accompany you.
And yeah, that's 95% of Hythlodeus' posts in general.
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likely lose customers who will get their RPG fix from a rival companyif that would concern Paizo, they shouldn't have ended PF1 then.
Yeah, Zeitgeist is, hahaha, wait for it, this will be funny, not as much as Hythlodeus, but still, hold on, so, a product of its zeitgeist :D
*shades*
Don't thank me, I'm just the best at what I do.
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That's because Zeitgeist is 1. 10-year old obscure third party content (as much as I love it) and 2. You do not play as cops. You are essentially a child's idea of a secret agent as opposed to the real CIA.
Then again, playing "the real CIA" would be as bad as or worse than playing cops :V
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That's because Zeitgeist is 1. 10-year old obscure third party content (as much as I love it) and 2. You do not play as cops. You are essentially a child's idea of a secret agent as opposed to the real CIA.Then again, playing "the real CIA" would be as bad as or worse than playing cops :V
American cops are apparently glorified street gangs descended from slave catchers, CIA destabilizes other nations and performs experiments their citizens, they are different flavor of bad :p
Oh, absolutely. I was saying that as a point in ZG's favor - you're fighting a more nebulous SPECTRE, not bonking protesters on the head or overthrowing regimes.
(So James Bond without imperialism.)
The PCs in Zeitgeist's job is to stop people from trying to blow up the country and eventually the world, in the vaguest terms. Looting is bad, nonlethal damage is free - hell, honestly, you're just a bunch of Batmans.
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What do those calling for this to be pulled suggest Paizo do for the next 6 months in the place of the AP instalments? Legitimate question here .
Nothing of course. There's no way for them to release a new AP installment from a standing start in less than 6 months, let alone an entire AP.
However, they'll be releasing Starfinder APs, PFS and SFS scenarios, and a few hardcovers between now and January. If the first installment is the only one that is genuinely problematic in this way, July is their single biggest month of releases each year. Skipping the AP for that one month would hurt, but their cash flow might survive.
If they need to release something (entirely possible), then as PossibleCabbage suggested, perhaps they can release just the backmatter as an alternate AP installment. At this point it would have to be a PDF only, but they might be able to at least recover printing costs that way.
How much back matter is in the new AP instalments ? I thought they scaled it down but assume there will be some pretty interesting Absalom stuff in there
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I for one have been looking forward to this AP for some time. If Paizo cannot handle the themes of this AP in a balanced and sensitive manner, nobody can. If anything, the fact that they wrote this AP long before the current protests probably helped them do this correctly.
One important theme of this AP is that the party never leaves Absalom City during this AP. That means that the PCs are a part of the local community in a way that they never were in any previous AP.
Among other things, I would be shocked if the PCs lack clear guidance as to when the use of lethal force is justified or even required.
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...Wait, are you looking through 2e threads just to find posts you can comment about how much you like 1e more?likely lose customers who will get their RPG fix from a rival companyif that would concern Paizo, they shouldn't have ended PF1 then.
nah, I'm childish, but not THAT childish. I'm just saying, if losing customers to a rival company would be on their mind, a system change wouldn't have happened. It's obviously nothing they worry about that much
How much back matter is in the new AP instalments ? I thought they scaled it down but assume there will be some pretty interesting Absalom stuff in there
This month was 35 pages, including the adventurer toolbox and the "What's coming next/credits" page. They'd possibly want to take out some of that too though, so assume around 30-35 pages of actual content, including the covers (inside and outside), ToC, the articles, the new items/spells/monsters, but leaving out the major NPCs, which runs 6-8 pages (6 in this month's case).
That's the kind of thing a player's guide would be good for. It isn't the best way to present the information, but better than nothing, or a "stage" that involves beating protestors (assuming the worst case; hopefully they didn't go there).
Edit: Especially in a cop AP, where having an infodump encounter presented as a precinct briefing by a senior officer would be wholly appropriate.
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It's unlikely they could skip the first volume without a drastic rewrite. It sets the stage for everything else.
Not necessarily. Burnt Offerings, for instance, introduces only a few recurrent plot points (e.g., the Catacombs of Wrath), and most of its content does not point to the further plot of its AP.
If Paizo cannot handle the themes of this AP in a balanced and sensitive manner, nobody can.
Bear in mind that Paizo outsources the production of most AP content to recurrent freelancers, and that its editorial touch is so light that "wrong" interpretations of whole cultures and religions slip through. Message discipline, especially as to "balance and sensitivity," is one thing we should absolutely not expect.
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The writer for book 6 confirmed on reddit that they turned in their manuscript over a year ago. Maybe emergency rewrites go a lot faster, who knows. Just wanted to clarify that for people who think they're currently building this AP or something.
Short of minor changes in later volumes, my guess would be what's been written is what we'll see. Especially on a large scale.
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Amazing this thread is going on so long. While real world situations lately have been pretty bad, this AP is still just part of a game.
It's fantasy. This AP has been on deck for awhile now, the timing to current events is coincidence but the OP title adds "Is Ever?", that's just crazy IMHO <---- please note the emphasis on opinion.
Should we never see movies or TV shows with corrupt cops (like The Shield, Chicago PD, Copland, etc) ever again?
Perhaps we should go back and critique every AP for questionable content? Maybe start raging at some novels or movies while we are at it too?
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I'm not sure why you seem so incensed at the concept of critiquing media and art. You know even shows about "good cops" have the cops acting horribly evil and it being shown as good, yeah? Any show that indicates that a suspect asking for a lawyer is an admission of guilt is part of the problem.
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@Sunderstone, Yes you should.
Something being problematic doesn’t mean you should burn everything attached to it and never deal with it and associated media ever again, you should however be critical of the problematic parts, why they’re problematic, and not accept that they simply have to be.
As for “coincidence”, police brutality and targeting minorities has been a long glaring issue in America, it’s not an isolated case that just popped up overnight.
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I'm not sure why you seem so incensed at the concept of critiquing media and art. You know even shows about "good cops" have the cops acting horribly evil and it being shown as good, yeah? Any show that indicates that a suspect asking for a lawyer is an admission of guilt is part of the problem.
Bingo.
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Amazing this thread is going on so long. While real world situations lately have been pretty bad, this AP is still just part of a game.
It's fantasy. This AP has been on deck for awhile now, the timing to current events is coincidence but the OP title adds "Is Ever?", that's just crazy IMHO <---- please note the emphasis on opinion.
Should we never see movies or TV shows with corrupt cops (like The Shield, Chicago PD, Copland, etc) ever again?Perhaps we should go back and critique every AP for questionable content? Maybe start raging at some novels or movies while we are at it too?
There are people whose raison d’être seems to be going through everything paizo publishes (and every decision they make) and commenting on who it might offend and how (or how they themselves are offended)
That includes actively ignoring large parts of the published content or at least being highly selective with what they pull out
And I agree “if ever” is clearly an absurd comment. If that were true there would be people making the same comments from back when this was announced. I don’t think there were even though (as has been pointed out) police violence was a thing when it was announced .
But the thread was titled the way it was deliberately . For maximum attention. I am sure many of us have posted threads on a similar basis to try and get more people to read and comment. I know I have - but in my case it is more hyperbole of in game circumstances
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@Sunderstone, Yes you should.
Something being problematic doesn’t mean you should burn everything attached to it and never deal with it and associated media ever again, you should however be critical of the problematic parts, why they’re problematic, and not accept that they simply have to be.
As for “coincidence”, police brutality and targeting minorities has been a long glaring issue in America, it’s not an isolated case that just popped up overnight.
But was there an uproar over this AP when it was announced ? There might have been. I can’t remember
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Any show that indicates that a suspect asking for a lawyer is an admission of guilt is part of the problem.
I agree, but my point is about the AP in general (being a fantasy roleplaying game), that's all. I realize folks feel strongly about current events (yes, I realize current events also go back a long ways), it's just that those that are worried about this particular AP are free to not buy it, edit it, etc.
I'm not "incensed about critiquing" any media, my words were meant to convey that if one feels that strongly about this AP, they should go over all the other APs with a fine tooth come and rant about those as well.I do find the OPs thread title (specifically the last two words of it) just crazy, but he's entitled to an opinion just as I am.