How Pathfinder Got Rid of Race and Made It Bigger, An Open Letter

[RJGrady]

CW: Inclusivity, no pulled punches, also exasperatingly long.

Fighting racism and other isms in games means sometimes you have to call out your friends. The people at Paizo, the people who created Pathfinder in general, are great folks. Paizo took an early and consistent stand for dignity and social justice before it was mainstream. Thank you for that. And now I'm going to call them out.

Pathfinder 2e made the decision to toss the word "race" and use the term Ancestry. Race, of course, is a loaded term. Its original and strict meaning just means a group of descent. Of course, the era of empire and colonization, followed by a rash of pseudoscience in the 19th and early 20th centuries, have made it a particularly loaded term. It's really hard to argue against the term "race" pretty quickly raising a lot of real world implications any time it's used. So kudos for that. It also conveniently sidesteps whether we are talking about species, subspecies, ethnicities, or perhaps even on-human classes of beings like robots or demons. But changing a term doesn't mean anything if you don't challenge the underlying issues.

Early on in P2E, the decision was to "make ancestry matter." It wasn't something something that you simply chose when you made a character, and largely forgot as you advanced in your class. I'm going to show my hand here early and say that there are some problematic implications of saying your character is particularly defined by race and class, and that race is something that follows you throughout your destiny. You can say, okay, you are pulling those terms a little out of context. But the game itself pulls the terms out of context, avoiding a larger real world meaning that colors how those terms are used. D&D gives you a race and class. Everquest, race and class. World of Warcraft, race and class. Pathfinder 2e... ancestry and class. It really seems like a stretch to say it's some coincidence that all these games just happen to ask you a lot about your race and class, despite being mechanically independent and only sharing certain themes. Game designers, do you not hear those words when you repeat them often enough? Or have they been said so many times they've lost a connection to their underlying meaning? Are you the kind of person who in the 21st century could post "What race do you hate?" do the general forum of a roleplaying game message board without flinching?

So let's talk about ancestry mattering. There are several aspects to your ancestry. There is your origin. There is your history, which is related. There are stereotypes. And of course, the truth of those stereotypes depends on what what is your esseence. Now, the good part of choosing an ancestry is that all it truly demands is your origin. I mean that, we're off to a good start. As far as history goes, I would expect to see some matters that relate to how a history and culture shape a person. At this point, it has to be considered, to what extent is my history describing a character, and to what extent is it prescribing? Am I adding traits that are logical because of where my character is from and how they were shaped, or do the traits exist to make sure the character conforms to preconceptions of what someone of that ancestry should be? Like, if someone grows up in the USA, I would expect them to speak primarily English, with some speaking primarily Spanish or one of a few Asian languages in the case of certain populations. But if I were describing someone from Kenya, would I say they probably have farmer skills? There are lots of people working in Kenyra in agriculture, though some are not strictly speaking farmers but laborers, mechanics, and so forth. But there are also plenty of non-farmers, such as former army cook and later government economist Barack Obama, Sr. While he grew up in a village and participated in traditional culture, I would not expect him to have exceptional farming skills. For someone to learn a language, such as English, I would expect them to either know it natively, learn it academically, or acquire it through experience. It doesn't say anything about who they are as a person, really. But for someone to be a farmer, or a miner, or a priest, I would expect those characteristics and skills to hinge on opportunity and choice--not, necessarily, ancestry. More to the point, there are farmers of many different ethnicities, and they share many characteristics in common, but don't really share a definable ancestry.

Stereotypes raise some tricky issues. Now, stereotypes share a purpose in the human mind. I couldn't shop for groceries if I didn't know what to expect when I ate a banana. I would find it paralytic if I wondered, every time I approached a cashier, if we shared a language in common -- even though, on occasion, I might be surprised and, in fact, they don't speak useful English and require more than the meager Spanish I know. I stereotype doctors as having a university education, and I think of Germans as being predominately light-skinned people of European origin who speak primarily German. Now, imagine I want to characterize a people as being horse-riders, almost from birth. To a great extent that is true of many peoples who have committed to the life of a born rider. Many Native Americans, over the course of generations, adapted to a lifelong training as riders, beginning when they were very young; the medieval Mongolians, likewise. Japanese samurai were dedicated riders, and while not usually born to the saddle, might train from a very early age if they were to have a military career. In Plato's Republic, Socrates describes a system of education for the ruling elite that begins with expert horsemanship from an early age. In my roleplaying game, I want to make it possible to access this type of exceptional training. At this point, I want to ask a question, though. Is there a quantifiable difference between someone who learned to ride as barely more than a toddler, because they were raised by horseman of the Mongolian steppes, and someone who learned to ride as barely more than a toddler because they were raised by a family of Spanish trick riders? Or even someone who was put on a horse at a young age, and simply spent the next couple of decades riding every minute they weren't sleeping? Is proficiency with an axe something that naturally occurs as a part of being raised among dwarves, or is it something characteristic of dwarf culture but not something every dwarf necessary learns? If I saw all dwarves are trained in traditional weapons, unlike all humans, am I saying dwarves are programmed, destined, or raised for war? In what way is dwarven axe proficiency different or the same as the use of the Welsh longbow, or the Australian boomerage? Moving on, if dwarves are dour and stubborn, is it because that is their nature, or is that just a generality? If a dwarf is gregarious and broad-minded, do they stop being a dwarf? Do they need an exceptional explanation to be a dwarf not raised among stern, unyielding clansman as similar to the stones themselves as to other warm-blooded creatures? To what extent are stereotypes "true?" To the extent they are true, to what extent are they useful or necessary?

I'm going to skip the whole debate of how fantasy races correspond to real world people, and go right to humans. Human heritages are pretty straightforward. You can be a half-elf, half-orc, skilled, versatile, or, apparently, Wintertouched. Being a half-elf or half-orc is pretty straightforward. It doesn't mean you belong to any particular ethnicity, it means you have some non-human DNA. Specifically, "You gain the elf trait and low-light vision. In addition, you can select elf, half-elf, and human feats whenever you gain an ancestry feat." So basically you get a minor nonhuman superpower (low-light vision), and you can do things both humans and elves can do. That's satisfyingly non-racist. Now, there are some oddities about treating a nonhuman person and a human mating as though it were kind of just cross-cultural, but in the real world, people are of mixed ancestry, so it's nice how matter-of-factly this is treated. Skilled and Versatile give me pause. Are we saying humans are more capable than other people? Are we saying they are just generally more flexible? There are good in-game reasons to do this, particularly if humans aren't all that powerful otherwise compared to other people. But I'm going to come out here and say this smacks of European and European-American exceptionalism. It's kind of the center of white culture to assume white as the default, and white people as being "regular," of white people having access to pretty much any choice or destiny without limitation, and of having a superior and more knowledgeable cultural than "primitive" or brown people. You can actually twist this around and use those heritages to create a Skilled hunger-gatherer, or a Versatile black prince who trained as priest but is also a skilled rider. The presentation, however, is that humans are "regular," the colorless ancestry. And that's a problem in itself. Every single time a nonhuman ancestry gives something that is a skill or trait and not a superpower, you come closer to suggesting a nonhuman ancestry is an ethnicity. By implication, then, ethnicities are not "regular" human ancestries. Wintertouched is actually a little better. It gives you cold resistance. It notes, "This heritage is most common among the Jadwiga of Irrisen, due to their descent from Baba Yaga, and certain Erutaki touched by the spirits." That's... actually good. It's common, not mandatory. It isn't actually restricted to a certain ethnicity, so anyone can take who can furnish an explanation (in fact, I know real world, European-Americans who seem to have this power for inexplicable reasons). It also serves a useful purpose: it gives a resistance that is otherwise not available to humans, the ability to walk barefood in the snow. It doesn't really say much about a person beyond having this ability, and that certain origins are more likely to have this power. So, good job on that.

Let's dig deeper, looking at Feats. Arcane Tattoos states, "You have tattoos on your body corresponding to one of the ancient Thassilonian schools of magic." And that's cool. This feat exists to support the flavor that there is a Thassillonian style of magic, and that it's primarily learned by humans. You could also presumably gain this feat by living in that region, or being taught by a Thassilonia magician. There isn't a restriction, so good on that. This feat isn't racist to humans. ... But is there actually a good reason an elf couldn't get those tattoos? Or why a person couldn't have these powers with a completely different origin to their powers? All it does is give a cantrip. Elves can't have a cantrip? You can't get this power from a magical birthmark, or a distinct magical ancestry? So, I have to downgrade this one, from a cool bit of flavor, to being based on a stereotype, not really a necessary distinction.

Haughty Obstinancy is another feat, which states: "Your powerful ego makes it harder for others to order you around." So, this isn't racist, at least, against various groups of humans. It doesn't imply anything about Thasillonians, or Belgians. But is there something about this that is particularly human? First of all, I'll note there are real-world human cultures were powerful egos are anathema, so this is a little ethnocentric, a little bit of an erasure. It also feels to me this is masculine-coded. But let's set that aside. What this feat says is that if you know someone is human, you might imagine they have a powerful ego, whereas if there are an elf, you don't. In other words, ancestry is personality. That sounds an alarm bell for me. Further, this isn't necessary or useful as a distinction at all, since can't a member of any ancestry have a powerful ego? Halflings are generally considered vain, not arrogant, but wasn't a Smeagol once a being very much like a halfling? This feat exists purely to reinforce a stereotype about humans. By implication, stereotypes about other ancestries are also valid. There is no argument whether this stereotype is true or not, the game says it's true, which means the developers are saying it's true, and when you implement this in your game, you are saying this is true. When you go out on St. Patrick's Day and perform drunkenness and perform parodies of Irish culture and arts, and talk about being 1/16th Irish with an Irish temper, you are saying you are basically fine with this feat. Just imagine for a minite, if instead of a Human Ancestry, we had an Irish Ancestry, and there was an Irish feat, Irish Temper. From there we can extrapolate Inscrutable Motives for an Oriental Ancestry, and Natural Rhythm for your African Ancestry (which your American mixed-ancestry black can take due to their Half-African Heritage). But wait, I can hear some of you thinking, these are about different non-human ancestries, not ancestries within the human race.

Don't worry, I've got you. We've got:

Know Oneself
Access Vudrani ethnicity
You center yourself and call to mind the Vudrani monastic ideals of mindfulness and self-knowledge. You fail the save against the emotion effect instead of critically failing.

Quah Bond
Access Shoanti ethnicity
You grew up among the Shoanti tribes, with the spirits watching over you, and they offer you guidance. You gain the trained proficiency rank in the skill listed for your quah (or another skill of your choice, if you’re already trained in that skill). You gain the Assurance skill feat in that skill, as the spirits’ help guides your actions.
Lyrune-Quah Religion
Shadde-Quah Athletics
Shriikirri-Quah Nature
Shundar-Quah Diplomacy
Sklar-Quah Intimidation
Skoan-Quah Medicine
Tamiir-Quah Acrobatics

I particularly appreciate that we get not only a stereotype for the Quah, but stereotypes for the individual tribes. Know Onself, sadly, requires access through the Vuldrani ethnicity, so you won't be able to learn it from a storefront in Los Angeles, California without some kind of feat or permission from the GM.

So here are two feats that show that stereotypes about the personalities, characteristics, and skills of human ethnicities are "true." There is no ambiguity, the game says these differences exist, and when you implement these rules, you are saying these differences exist. There are stand-ins for mysterious, mystical Orientals in P2e, and there are stand-ins for traditional tribal people who are all known for one fascinating exotic skill. Don't worry, there are higher levels feats as well, to make sure at 5th level you can "swim like a fish" due to your ancestry, or that, "You’ve learned to split your focus between multiple classes with ease," very handy for people from members of one class who wish to participate in other, and are able to by virtue of their ancestry.

P2E has been designed to ensure that ancestry is not just an inconsequential choice you make at character creation, but one that shapes you throughout your life and career as you advance in your class.

[Albatoonoe]

While I don't necessarily disagree, there is a few different perspectives to look at this through.

First, the dissemination of culture was very different in the past versus now. Even the next town over could have different customs and ideas that affect each individual coming from that place. Without the easy access to travel and information that we have in the modern era, you'd see a lot stronger affects of a person's culture and how they were raised. I don't think it is a good or a bad thing, but I don't think it is necessarily inaccurate.

Compare to Starfinder where there are few feats affected by your species and background is replaced by theme. I see it as a trend towards generalism as knowledge and communication become easier accessed. Of course, this lead to stereotypes and bigotry that we are still dealing with today, so it is not something that should be approached lightly. I'm an unsure myself if Paizo has handled it successfully.

Secondly, there is the consideration for the fiction that these stories draw upon. Take a look at the big one, Lord of the Rings. Frodo and Sam carry the ring because of who they are and where they are from. Hobbits are considered simple, incorruptible folk. Then you have the skills and knowledges that Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli bring to bear. It is a big part of these stories.

Like before however, this doesn't give the concept of a free pass. There is unfortunate racial coding in the villains of the books that Tolkien later admitted to and regretted.

I think it is a tough subject and I'm glad it is being brought up, but I'm not sure there is a clear cut answer here. Thank you for giving me something to chew on for a bit.

[RJGrady]

I'll note that while the hobbits of the Shire are simple, incorruptible folk, there are are hobbits in Bree that serve ale to Strider and don't blink.

[swoosh]

Quote:

You can actually twist this around and use those heritages to create a Skilled hunger-gatherer, or a Versatile black prince who trained as priest but is also a skilled rider.

This statement and its surrounding commentary needs to be called out.

The notion that a skilled non-white person is somehow a fundamental subversion of norms or "twisting around" of anything is dangerously close to mimicking the ethnocentrist, imperialistic mindset the rest of your post claims to be critical of.

[RJGrady]

I am stating a hunter-gathered is skilled. What is your problem with that?

[Staffan Johansson]

I see your point, but I think you're missing one aspect: pretty much all the non-physical things you mention are feats. That means it's something you choose.

In other words, it's not that all dwarves learn to fight with certain weapons. It's that training with certain weapons are common in dwarven culture, so dwarves have an easier path to training with those weapons. It's not that all elves know magic, but it's more common so many know a cantrip. It's not that all Nidalese can see in poor light, but some have acclimated to the land's gloom and developed low-light vision. And so on.

It should also be noted that the last time a discussion about ancestral feats came up, one of the devs (not sure if it was James Jacobs or Jason Bulmahn) chimed in and mentioned that the rules for making PCs are for making PCs, not NPCs. So while dabbling in the arcane is more common among elves than among humans, that doesn't mean that a large portion of the elven population has the Otherworldly Magic feat and know how to cast a cantrip. It's still rare, just not as rare as among humans. NPC design should be informed by ancestral and class options, but not beholden to them.

[Draco18s]

Just want to point out that some of us (cough, me) play bestial races (sorry, ancestries) because we don't want to be human or even humanoid.

I like being a dragon, bird, lizard, otter, dolphin...Let me enjoy my fantasy and lean hard into those facets and be different.

If you were to boil it down to "write your species here" and it mechanically doesn't mean anything, your game has already turned me off and I'll go find a game that does do something with it.

For Pathfinder 2, that means ancestry feats.
I love it. It lets me play a character with not just different abilities, but wildly different abilities. The further from human I get the more interesting and varied I can be and really express myself.

I've gone so far off the deep end, I have a character that is a collection of five ravens. I call him a "flock-mind" (rather than hive-mind, due to the avian collective noun). Thinking and BEING him is so far removed from the human condition that its actually a challenge and I love it. (And I'm still looking for a TTRPG system that would adequately support him).

[mrspaghetti]

Sometimes an elf is just an elf, and a gnome is just a gnome. Introspection is usually great but this thread is proof that it can be taken too far IMO.

[mrspaghetti]

Draco18s wrote:

(And I'm still looking for a TTRPG system that would adequately support him).

You should check out Champions. You can pretty much do anything you can imagine.

[BlessedHeretic]

mrspaghetti wrote:

Sometimes an elf is just an elf, and a gnome is just a gnome. Introspection is usually great but this thread is proof that it can be taken too far IMO.

Honestly this. I was about to write a rather large reply but this sums it up perfectly.

[Malk_Content]

I think there is no winning move when it comes to games and these issues. Don't make enough mechanical differences and you are erasing the differences between peoples, do too much and you are enforcing stereotypes. Give options as you level up that you pick and choose from, making it seem like your racial identity is a mechanical choice. Dont give options and all members of an ancestry are the same. Think having ancestries with -2 int is fine makes you a racist and will get your thread closed, until of course Lizardfolk come out with exactly that and it's not racist.

The answer to have far to go alleviating one issue before you start to raise up another is going to be different for everyone and across time.

[Temperans]

Golarion doesn't have our racist view (except any that may have potentially subconsciously leaked from the devs).

However, just like any world has racists, even if they are not talked about in the stories written by the devs.

* There is an NPC in Sandpoint that hates goblins and hangs their ears.
* Meanwhile, a few elves are know to see other races as inferior.
* Cheliax is known to be colonializing, and we know how that goes specially with an evil nation.
* Half-Elves and Half-Orcs are known to often be alienated by their parents races.
* Aasimars can face discrimination based on their beauty causing jealousy.
* Meanwhile, Tieflings are outcast due to their look and blood, heck even in Cheliax they are only second-class citizens.
* Halflings are the most likely to be exploited for labor, and are the most common slaves. They have an entire organization just to free slaves.

Golarion is full of racism in different areas for different reasons. Just like it would happen in a real world. People who dont think so have not read enough lore. People who dont want it are too sensitive.

Its weird, but its because injustice exists in the game, that we the players can play as heroes.

[Squiggit]

Nocte ex Mortis wrote:

I know roughly where this comes from, and I’m honestly curious how Wizards is going to pull off changing the dokkalfar, sorry, the Dark Elves, a race directly ruled by a deicidally driven demon goddess, and the Orcs, a race that sprung up from the blood of a Chaotic Evil god that was in the process of trying to murder his, like, seventh or eighth major deity.

I mean, the precedent for having non-evil drow and orcs in WOTC IP are decades old. For all the hand wringing I've seen online about this 'change', it's not exactly a new premise and the notion of making formerly 'always evil' species more nuanced has been an ongoing design trend for a long time (with a couple notable exceptions like 5e retconning gnolls to be more irredeemable than demons for some reason).

[Nocte ex Mortis]

Squiggit wrote:

Nocte ex Mortis wrote:

I know roughly where this comes from, and I’m honestly curious how Wizards is going to pull off changing the dokkalfar, sorry, the Dark Elves, a race directly ruled by a deicidally driven demon goddess, and the Orcs, a race that sprung up from the blood of a Chaotic Evil god that was in the process of trying to murder his, like, seventh or eighth major deity.

I mean, the precedent for having non-evil drow and orcs in WOTC IP are decades old. For all the hand wringing I've seen online about this 'change', it's not exactly a new premise and the notion of making formerly 'always evil' species more nuanced has been an ongoing design trend for a long time (with a couple notable exceptions like 5e retconning gnolls to be more irredeemable than demons for some reason).

Like I said, I am honestly curious to see how they’re going to do it. That wasn’t sarcasm, I was just pointing out their starting point. The Gnoll situation is super duper weird, yeah. I still can’t wrap my head around that one.

As for racism in Pathfinder and Starfinder, yes, it undoubtedly exists because people are scum. It doesn’t exist, however, because the writers are projecting hidden American/European ethnocentrism into the books.

[PossibleCabbage]

My favorite thing about getting rid of "race" is that I no longer get weird looks from people who have no background in this type of game when I try to walk them through character generation.

No more:
"And your race..."
"Really?!"
"It's just the term the game uses for whether you're a human, or an elf, or whatever... it's traditional- dates back to the less enlightened 70s when these types of games were just getting started, and no one has bothered to change it through several iterations."
"Well, why not?"

[Malk_Content]

I also think the whole orc/drow/goblin thing is just in vogue now. People have complained about racism,so they've changed. Hasn't actually stopped devs printing pretty much the same "mistakes" again in other less iconic/scrutinised places.

Case in point is PF2e where orcs are getting reformed* but their last release has Skulks who described as having no redeeming qualities and are a pernicious unremovable scourge of most major settlements.

*I actually like the new orcs, their semi flexible stat line is a cool mechanical design space.

[RJGrady]

Staffan Johansson wrote:

I see your point, but I think you're missing one aspect: pretty much all the non-physical things you mention are feats. That means it's something you choose.

I don't see how being able to choose feats really refutes my central point. Like if I'm missing one aspect, I'm REALLY missing it because I don't get how that's a refutation at all.

[Rysky]

Do you remove all the straight content from your game too?

[Salamileg]

RJGrady wrote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

I see your point, but I think you're missing one aspect: pretty much all the non-physical things you mention are feats. That means it's something you choose.

I don't see how being able to choose feats really refutes my central point. Like if I'm missing one aspect, I'm REALLY missing it because I don't get how that's a refutation at all.

It's a refutation because you said that "If I saw all dwarves are trained in traditional weapons, unlike all humans, am I saying dwarves are programmed, destined, or raised for war?", which isn't valid because not all dwarves are trained in weapons. Because it's something that you have to choose rather than it just being given to you as part of picking dwarf, that means that not all dwarves know how to use those weapons.

For the record, while I disagree with you, I'm glad this was posted and I'm really glad the internet has been having conversations about race in fantasy lately. But how Paizo has handled ancestry is, in my opinion, one of the best in the industry (and other companies like WotC could learn a thing or two from them).

[glass]

Nocte ex Mortis wrote:

I like, for the most part, how Paizo has set it up, but please, PLEASE, stop trying to inject real-world issues into our escapist fantasy imagination time. Or at least do us a courtesy and ask first.

When I first started to hear about "privilege", I struggled to understand what it meant. Now I understand; it meant this.

See, for you it is "inserting" real world issues into your "escapist fantasy". For the people who suffer everyday with the b*~*+%!& of racism, misogyny, rape culture, homophobia, transphobia, or all of the above, it is about removing real those issues so they can get in on the escapism too.

And so they are not accidentally perpetuated through the game, thereby compromising efforts to fight them in the the real world, of course.

_
glass.

[NECR0G1ANT]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

I don't much care if PF dev team wants to scour all the flavor and verisimilitude out of the game to have a watered down world perfectly free of any sort of realism like culture or stereotypes. I'll put that all in there myself in my personal games just like I generally remove all the LGBT content they have been putting in the game. Personal games with cultural details can be as the players and DM wish it. My players are quite fine with evil orcs, devils and demons, and the like.

Let the people who are sensitive to these issues even in completely made up fantasy games force all the companies to scour anything resembling any bad things from all their creations and the world. As long as the rules are solid, we can add the flavor and details back in personal games.

As I see it this is the new social religion. Just like all the religious folks forced censorship on games and other things. The new social religion will be forced on companies. If they want to survive with minimal PR problems, they'll adapt and so will the player bases.

Why do people who don't value diversity or inclusion always claim that companies that do are just being coerced into it? I also saw this in recent comments thread on the Paizo Blog.

I genuinely want an answer from you.

[Salamileg]

glass wrote:

See, for you it is "inserting" real world issues into your "escapist fantasy". For the people who suffer everyday with the b+@+~#*~ of racism, misogyny, rape culture, homophobia, transphobia, or all of the above every day, it is about removing real those issues so they can get in on the escapism too.

I was just about to make another comment saying exactly this, you put it well. I'm a bisexual trans woman, and tabletop RPGs were a method for me to explore my gender identity early on. Seeing a world where people like me are considered normal is not only comforting, but makes me a bit more hopeful as well.

Ultimately, I'm okay with things like homophobia, racism, etc. being present in my games. As long as the people being homophobic/racist/etc are never looked at as the good guys. If an NPC wants to erase orcs off the face of Golarion, sure, add them in, but I'm going to be incredibly uncomfortable if they're not considered evil.

[scary harpy]

I can already tell that this thread will be closed by the moderators sooner than later. So, I will add my two cents now.

I enjoy the inclusiveness of diversity in Pathfinder. I also welcome the changes of Goblins, Kobolds and Orcs.

Beware: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Mitflits have replaced Kobolds as a disposable, weak adversaries for low-level players.

As someone from Paizo explained, these are necessary evils for a rpg; otherwise, beginning characters are in a fight to the death with two rats...and the rats might win!

My view is different. Instead of Kobold or Mitflit, why not an evil Halfling or Gnome? (The GM can apply a weakened template to any of them.) Would killing the vile Gnome or Halfling would bother the players?

Why could this uncomfortable? Perhaps because all Halflings and Gnomes were not labeled 'Something Evil' and stated to all worship some evil entity...and, therefore, are not designated as unworthy to live.

I understand Mitflits are fey and I'm not asking for their redemption. I am saying racism can take many forms.

[Gortle]

PossibleCabbage wrote:

My favorite thing about getting rid of "race" is that I no longer get weird looks from people who have no background in this type of game when I try to walk them through character generation.

No more:
"And your race..."
"Really?!"
"It's just the term the game uses for whether you're a human, or an elf, or whatever... it's traditional- dates back to the less enlightened 70s when these types of games were just getting started, and no one has bothered to change it through several iterations."
"Well, why not?"

Species is probably more the correct term rather that Race. Given what Paizo have done with it Ancestry is a good term - as it reflects on your origin, the abilities you developed before you begain training in your class, and the abilities that you continue to develop.

[Donald]

I think you're reading too much into thing and looking for issues that are not there.

Arcane Tattoos is uncommon unlocked by Human, so Elves or any ancestries can take it with GM permission or (presumably) a Boon for PFS. How into tattooing are the other ancestries? Does it make sense in world that they would have developed this trick?

Haughty Obstinancy is Human only- if it stated it was based on racial superiority, I could agree. The 'powerful ego' can be for any number of reasons, assuming one cause is narrow minded.

RJGrady wrote:

But I'm going to come out here and say this smacks of European and European-American exceptionalism. It's kind of the center of white culture to assume white as the default, and white people as being "regular," of white people having access to pretty much any choice or destiny without limitation, and of having a superior and more knowledgeable cultural than "primitive" or brown people.

Except all Humans get these Heritages: Tian, Ulfen, Mwangi, and so forth. Assuming "white" as default is a personal perspective and I don't think it's generally true among people.

RJGrady wrote:

Know Onself, sadly, requires access through the Vuldrani ethnicity, so you won't be able to learn it from a storefront in Los Angeles, California without some kind of feat or permission from the GM.

But it is accessible. This is not a modern world where there's workshops at the local YMCA or Community College. Some knowledge isn't spread around and has to be sought out and earned. Same with Ancestral weapons and other handed down parent to child skills. The Quah Bond requires having lived in a certain location to be noticed by the spirits of the Shoanti, I'd like to know the real world equivalent of that.

Look hard enough and you can find problems with anything. Paizo has done well making an inclusive environment and shouldn't be nickel and dimed.

[Gorbacz]

WotC's "peoples" is a good choice too, doubly so by triggering all the people who draw a straight line between that word and communism.

[Orithilaen]

I don't think there's any problem, in abstract, with ancestry mattering a lot. The issue as I see it is whether, in a particular case, the "race"/"ancestry" operative in fantasy games works as an analogue or cipher for differences among human groups (as opposed to, say, hypothetical differences among intelligent species).

There is clearly reason to worry there. One reason is that this was true for Tolkein's races, and he is obviously a major source of the tropes from which D&D and Pathfinder are built. Another reason is that fantasy roleplaying and fantasy literature has often portrayed races as rather homogeneous, so in the absence of portraying rich ethnic diversity within races, differences among races come to function as a substitute.

That said, my tentative view is that this largely isn't true for Pathfinder ancestries. It's helpful that Paizo has portrayed a high level of diversity among humans, and increasingly among non-humans as well. If I think about how Pathfinder represents and frames real-world "racial" difference, its discussion of human ethnicity seems like the better place to look. There are issues there but primarily not mechanical ones.

Heritages don't seem so important to this discussion because per the rules, they can represent within-group differences as well as across-group differences.

[AnimatedPaper]

Salamileg wrote:

I'm fairly certain there are LGBT people who work at Paizo (and the lead designer of 5e is gay, since WotC has also been brought up in this thread). Paizo isn't doing these things because they're being pressured by "the new social religion", Paizo are doing these things because they want to.

Many of Paizo's current and former employees throughout the lifetime of Pathfinder are LGBT. James Jacobs, who identifies as Bisexual, is one of the more prominent, but there's others. The pride blog post this year and last year featured some of them speaking about their experiences.

[QuidEst]

It's a very long post, so I'll just be picking and choosing some parts to respond to.

RJGrady wrote:

Is proficiency with an axe something that naturally occurs as a part of being raised among dwarves, or is it something characteristic of dwarf culture but not something every dwarf necessary learns? If I saw all dwarves are trained in traditional weapons, unlike all humans, am I saying dwarves are programmed, destined, or raised for war? In what way is dwarven axe proficiency different or the same as the use of the Welsh longbow, or the Australian boomerage?

As mentioned already, only some dwarves have this. The dwarves who take that feat to represent the training have it.

RJGrady wrote:

Moving on, if dwarves are dour and stubborn, is it because that is their nature, or is that just a generality? If a dwarf is gregarious and broad-minded, do they stop being a dwarf? Do they need an exceptional explanation to be a dwarf not raised among stern, unyielding clansman as similar to the stones themselves as to other warm-blooded creatures? To what extent are stereotypes "true?" To the extent they are true, to what extent are they useful or necessary?

Sure, no problem. You want a gregarious and broad-minded dwarf who wasn't raised by stern, unyielding clansmen like unto the stone they live in? There's a feat the addresses that specific request: Surface Culture

Dwarves from cultures that don't include that exposure by default can either get GM permission, or use their skills to represent acquiring that familiarity from other sources.

RJGrady wrote:

Skilled and Versatile give me pause. Are we saying humans are more capable than other people? Are we saying they are just generally more flexible? There are good in-game reasons to do this, particularly if humans aren't all that powerful otherwise compared to other people.

Look, Most Writers Are Human. And it's not like they can go consult an elf, or hire an elven writer. Most players are too. So, most of the world and most of the characters are going to be human. If humans don't have some simple, useful options that work for every class, it's a big point of friction in the game. That's feats and skills. I don't think it's reasonable to map "humans of every game ethnicity" to one real-world ethnicity. Certain concessions have to be made because 100% of players are going to be human.

What's the alternative? What specialties do humans as a whole have? It tends to be pretty boring an non-fantasy stuff like "really good at throwing things", "sweating", and "livers that process caffeine and hot peppers". It gets weird if you try to make a game where elves are missing things we tend to take for granted in humans.

RJGrady wrote:

Haughty Obstinancy is another feat, which states: "Your powerful ego makes it harder for others to order you around." So, this isn't racist, at least, against various groups of humans. It doesn't imply anything about Thasillonians, or Belgians. But is there something about this that is particularly human?

Sure? For nearly every above-ground region that's been covered on Golarion, humans are the most populous. (Again, 100% of the writers, contributors, and players are humans.) They run a lot of nations. I think a trend of haughty humans is something that could emerge in the setting.

RJGrady wrote:

Just imagine for a minite, if instead of a Human Ancestry, we had an Irish Ancestry, and there was an Irish feat, Irish Temper. From there we can extrapolate Inscrutable Motives for an Oriental Ancestry, and Natural Rhythm for your African Ancestry (which your American mixed-ancestry black can take due to their Half-African Heritage).

No thanks, I will not. Again, I don't think it's reasonable to map "available to all fantasy humans" to "available to one real world group".

RJGrady wrote:

Know Onself, sadly, requires access through the Vuldrani ethnicity, so you won't be able to learn it from a storefront in Los Angeles, California without some kind of feat or permission from the GM.

There's no storefront in Los Angeles, California in the game; people have to travel places by boat or caravan unless they're really high level. If I run a game set in 1750, then I'm going to want a reason for why a character in Spain knows yoga.

RJGrady wrote:

P2E has been designed to ensure that ancestry is not just an inconsequential choice you make at character creation, but one that shapes you throughout your life and career as you advance in your class.

Yeah, I agree. I would like there to be a difference between playing a leshy and playing a human. I'd like there to be a difference between playing an ancestry that lives as long as four hundred years, and an ancestry that lives as long as sixty years. I'd like being part daemon to have effects. I'd like to be able to play a shapeshifter. I'd like Nidal to have some options that are different from Galt.

Also, they're choices now. Dwarves don't default to skill with axes; it's an option they can take.

[NECR0G1ANT]

scary harpy wrote:

I can already tell that this thread will be closed by the moderators sooner than later. So, I will add my two cents now.

I enjoy the inclusiveness of diversity in Pathfinder. I also welcome the changes of Goblins, Kobolds and Orcs.

Beware: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Mitflits have replaced Kobolds as a disposable, weak adversaries for low-level players.

As someone from Paizo explained, these are necessary evils for a rpg; otherwise, beginning characters are in a fight to the death with two rats...and the rats might win!

My view is different. Instead of Kobold or Mitflit, why not an evil Halfling or Gnome? (The GM can apply a weakened template to any of them.) Would killing the vile Gnome or Halfling would bother the players?

Why could this uncomfortable? Perhaps because all Halflings and Gnomes were not labeled 'Something Evil' and stated to all worship some evil entity...and, therefore, are not designated as unworthy to live.

I understand Mitflits are fey and I'm not asking for their redemption. I am saying racism can take many forms.

I too like that Kobolds, Goblins and Orcs are ancestry options, but I don't think that this means they won't also serve as antagonists. The Bestiary has entries for all of them, and one official Paizo Adventure has orcs as disposable mooks.

Just because they have an ancestry option doesn't mean they can't also simply be adversaries.

[QuidEst]

RJGrady wrote:

Staffan Johansson wrote:

I see your point, but I think you're missing one aspect: pretty much all the non-physical things you mention are feats. That means it's something you choose.

I don't see how being able to choose feats really refutes my central point. Like if I'm missing one aspect, I'm REALLY missing it because I don't get how that's a refutation at all.

You seem to be treating a lot of this stuff like stereotypes that the game is showing are true, but that's not accurate. The game is showing that those stereotypes (if you insist on thinking of them in that way) are sometimes true. It's not even giving you a default that you get options to trade out; it presents a list of options to choose from. Being raised in dwarven culture may lead to training in axes, but it may not. Being raised in elven culture may lead to training in bows, but it may not. Elven culture itself is not going to lead to being trained in axes, that's something you'd just go and learn normally.

[Rysky]

Who's claiming no on an anti-slavery adventure???

Quote:

Things which are viewed as "bad" or "wrong" are subjective

You're incorrect, just because things were "okay" somewhere or at some time does not make them okay. Rape? Slavery? That's evil, pure and simple.

[Nocte ex Mortis]

glass wrote:

Nocte ex Mortis wrote:

I like, for the most part, how Paizo has set it up, but please, PLEASE, stop trying to inject real-world issues into our escapist fantasy imagination time. Or at least do us a courtesy and ask first.

When I first started to hear about "privilege", I struggled to understand what it meant. Now I understand; it meant this.

See, for you it is "inserting" real world issues into your "escapist fantasy". For the people who suffer everyday with the b*~~+~*# of racism, misogyny, rape culture, homophobia, transphobia, or all of the above, it is about removing real those issues so they can get in on the escapism too.

And so they are not accidentally perpetuated through the game, thereby compromising efforts to fight them in the the real world, of course.

_
glass.

I believe you missed the point where it was specifically asking to stop correlating the ancestries/races in Pathfinder with European/American ethnocentrism. Let them just be what they are, fantasy races, and then add things in from there. Golarion is an incredibly fleshed-out world, with its own history, nations, people, conflicts, religions, and issues. Hoo boy, its issues. Use them.

If I made you feel like I was belittling the way you play the game, or the things you find important, I sincerely apologize.

[Deadmanwalking]

Most of your complaints seem to be specifically with Ancestry Feats, and how they enforce steretypes onto specific Ancestries. Which is, to me, weird and inconsistent since the [url=https://2e.aonprd.com/Feats.aspx?ID=751]Adopted Ancestry[/b] General Feat exists and allows, say, a Dwarf with Haughty Obstinacy or a Human with Dwarven Weapon Familiarity. And, as others have noted, because nobody has to take a particular Ancestry Feat, but others have delved into that, so I'm gonna focus on the other side of things where anybody can also get almost any Ancestry Feat.

It is, due to that Feat, pretty straightforwardly true that anyone can have any Ancestry Feat not predicated on physiological differences, and may do so easily. They are cultural and most common within that culture, but anyone who spends time with said culture can pick them up.

Now, the Uncommon Ancestry Feats from the LOCG that are given access by an ethnicity are another matter and work differently...but you seem to have rather profoundly misunderstood how the Rarity system and Access work. Access is described as follows on p. 488 of the core rulebook in the GMing section:

Quote:

Unless you decide otherwise, the players can choose from any common options they qualify for, plus any uncommon options granted by their character choices—primarily their ancestry and class. By default, a character who tries hard enough might eventually find an uncommon option,...

Emphasis mine.

So, if you can find a Yoga studio (or whatever), you almost certainly can, in fact, learn Know Oneself with months or years of training, regardless of your ethnicity (a non-human would need Adopted Ancestry, as their meditative practices are designed with humans in mind), as that would be 'trying hard enough'. Yoga studios are just pretty thin on the ground outside Vudra in Golarion. And if you get a Shoanti Quah to adopt you (another 'trying hard enough' example), you can likewise grab Quah Bond with no issues. And so on.

In short, while cultures and the particular traits and skills they instill in most members are represented mechanically in PF2, there are absolutely no prohibitions on violating those norms rather wildly, by say, playing a Goblin raised by the Shoanti with the Quah Bond Feat, or playing a Shoanti who lacks that Feat or any other mechanical tie to being Shoanti, or anything similar on either side. Those are totally valid and mechanically possible characters.

[Donald]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

From what I've noticed, "PC" people are too busy trying to banish and expunge media as an excuse for the apparently bad RL behavior of other people who aren't "PC".

IMO railing against "PC" is a bad way to start a post and poisons the well against your arguments.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

... it's bad to publish slavery-themed adventures as every "PC" person is claiming,

No one is claiming this.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

...how can we have evil things in the world, which create conflict, which cause good people to rise up and quell the conflict?

We can and do, no one is saying there should be no evil in the game. We're just saying evil is a choice for every intelligent being to make and no one on this plane is born into it.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

We still need a platform to compare ourselves to, to view what progress we made and to compare further and better finetune what we can maximize of our potential; destroying that platform makes us worse off with nothing to compare ourselves to, not better.

That platform is the past. It is not being destroyed, it's being left behind.

[Malk_Content]

On the "are companies/people in earnest support of these things" front.I believe Paizo are absolutely 100% earnest. And good for them for promoting things they believe in, even if I dont align 100% myself.

On the other hand it is basically impossible to show whether anyone does or does not mean it when including such elements or announcing support for a cause. That proof would involve people publicly stating such, which would then immediately remove any benefit gained in the first place. I can give personal anecdotes but that doesn't mean much.

Back on the topic of ancestry I think Paizo are striking a fantastic balance between determined traits, cultural traits and individual expression. The fact that any ancestry can be any class without mechanical handwringing is evidence of this in my eyes. The ancestries are incredibly diverse within themselves

[Malk_Content]

Donald wrote:

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

From what I've noticed, "PC" people are too busy trying to banish and expunge media as an excuse for the apparently bad RL behavior of other people who aren't "PC".

IMO railing against "PC" is a bad way to start a post and poisons the well against your arguments.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

... it's bad to publish slavery-themed adventures as every "PC" person is claiming,

No one is claiming this.

While the slavery example I have no knowledge of, the idea of bad things not being allowed to be represented even as a bad thing is true. Naughty Dog are being criticized right now for

Spoiler:

including the action of Dead Naming in The Last of Us 2. Even though it is clear this is considered a bad thing done by people the player is not meant to like.

[NECR0G1ANT]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

And no, I don't have a people with people being "PC" and having "PC" beliefs. What I have a problem with is that these very same "PC" people with their "PC" belief system ruins the very same creativity and conflict pool that creators can draw upon that resides in stories and games, both of which are necessary to a good game and good story.

Well, since Paizo is writing in more diversity stuff (what you call “PC beliefs”not because people are making them, but because they actually want to. I certainly don’t think diversity has ruined 2E, although you may disagree.

IMO diversity is good. For example, it’s better for there to be more kinds of elves and dwarves than what Tolkien imagined. I like Tolkien, but I think fantasy writing in general it too derivative of him.

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

As a common example, in this day and age, slavery is practically universally viewed as bad. So, if slavery is bad, and it's bad to publish slavery-themed adventures as every "PC" person is claiming, (such as the good guys going to free the slaves from a slaver who is either evil or corrupted by greed) because it contains themes and content that people will almost always dislike or view it as being non-"PC", then what's the point of now making a freedom...

I don’t think this criticism makes much sense. Paizo recently published an AP where the PCs fight slavers, so clearly they aren't too "PC" for that.

[thenobledrake]

It really gets my hackles up that when a complaint is along the lines of "I don't want to see the language used to harass me, belittle me, and mark me as other and less than sprinkled into the games I play and treated as acceptable behavior for good people." gets construed as "'they' are trying to take all the bad stuff out of the game."

No, we're just trying to get all the bad stuff accurately labeled.

[Malk_Content]

thenobledrake wrote:

It really gets my hackles up that when a complaint is along the lines of "I don't want to see the language used to harass me, belittle me, and mark me as other and less than sprinkled into the games I play and treated as acceptable behavior for good people." gets construed as "'they' are trying to take all the bad stuff out of the game."

No, we're just trying to get all the bad stuff accurately labeled.

The Naughty Dog criticism shows that it can be the former.

[Rysky]

Malk_Content wrote:

thenobledrake wrote:

It really gets my hackles up that when a complaint is along the lines of "I don't want to see the language used to harass me, belittle me, and mark me as other and less than sprinkled into the games I play and treated as acceptable behavior for good people." gets construed as "'they' are trying to take all the bad stuff out of the game."

No, we're just trying to get all the bad stuff accurately labeled.

The Naughty Dog criticism shows that it can be the former.

No, it's a criticism of does the villain need to use deadnames and slurs to be the villain? What does it add?

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Rysky wrote:

Who's claiming no on an anti-slavery adventure???

Quote:

Things which are viewed as "bad" or "wrong" are subjective

You're incorrect, just because things were "okay" somewhere or at some time does not make them okay. Rape? Slavery? That's evil, pure and simple.

You can't have a slavery campaign because it's overtly sensitive to those who have been negatively affected by slavery, and therefore it must be changed to a different theme that is more appropriate for all audiences, not just those unaffected by it.

At least, that's the argument being presented more often than not. I disagree with it for obvious reasons I've already stated, but it's not going to stop people from using the above as an excuse to eradicate the historical implications the stuff has provided to give us what we have today.

You can argue that there are some things that are never okay. That's fine. My addendum to your argument merely is that these things are not okay now, but it was considered okay in previous times, where there were no such sentient constructs as morality, simply because it hasn't come to fruition. Whether you agree with that sentiment or not is your decision. But I at least acknowledge that it has happened, whether I liked it or not, and look to it as a reminder of what I don't want, and can reference it to others so they may hopefully do the same.

[thenobledrake]

Darksol the Painbringer wrote:

At least, that's the argument being presented more often than not.

No it isn't.