How many years do you think has passed from the end of pathfinder 1e to the start of stafinder?


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BigNorseWolf wrote:
Rovagog/the devourer took a bite out of the space time continuum and the gods had to put it back

That's why so many things don't quite work the way they should. We're in the "Play-Doh and popsicle sticks" reality.


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Toxicsyn wrote:

Or maybe there is nothing before the Gap. Everything is a simulated reality.

Someone notify the Division of Unacceptable Organizations. We've got another Keeper of the Lie here.

Acquisitives

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

One thing to keep in mind is that there are few things that Paizo likes more than a needlessly overlong timeline.

If you take that into consideration, we could be talking about tens of millions of years.


Yakman wrote:

One thing to keep in mind is that there are few things that Paizo likes more than a needlessly overlong timeline.

If you take that into consideration, we could be talking about tens of millions of years.

Sadly a general problem with fantasy settings.


Eh, the Pathfinder backstory timeline is long, probably too long given medieval stasis. . . but I've definitely seen much much worse.

I think its partly a factor of American writers especially just not having a good sense of historical time. 300 years seems like forever, and so all the larger time units just blend together as equally huge. Sometimes this leads to writers treating 500 years as if it were a different planet, sometimes this leads to writers including a dynasty unbroken for 50,000 years. Generally, though, giant implausibly long time frames annoy me less than "From the ancient past, of the year 1500!" and the equivalent.

( Useful benchmark: 5000 years ago was when the Great Pyramids of Giza were built. This was *not* the first human civilization, nor even the beginning of civilization in Egypt. Egypt was, by this point, a mature, sophisticated civilization, hence why it could build giant structures that remain to this day. Plenty happened before that. And after? Note that in the Mediterranean world, there have been a minimum of two catastrophic civilization collapses between the Pyramids and the present. )


Metaphysician wrote:

Eh, the Pathfinder backstory timeline is long, probably too long given medieval stasis. . . but I've definitely seen much much worse.

I think its partly a factor of American writers especially just not having a good sense of historical time. 300 years seems like forever, and so all the larger time units just blend together as equally huge. Sometimes this leads to writers treating 500 years as if it were a different planet, sometimes this leads to writers including a dynasty unbroken for 50,000 years. Generally, though, giant implausibly long time frames annoy me less than "From the ancient past, of the year 1500!" and the equivalent.

( Useful benchmark: 5000 years ago was when the Great Pyramids of Giza were built. This was *not* the first human civilization, nor even the beginning of civilization in Egypt. Egypt was, by this point, a mature, sophisticated civilization, hence why it could build giant structures that remain to this day. Plenty happened before that. And after? Note that in the Mediterranean world, there have been a minimum of two catastrophic civilization collapses between the Pyramids and the present. )

I agree.

Another reason I think fantasy have long and static histories, besides the authors not really thinking about it when writing the setting, is the existence of long lived races.

A very old elf today could have been born shortly after the 30 year war and a dragon could have been around since Rome.
Having a reasonable progression of time would make it hard to integrate such long lived characters.

But what annoys me more than the too long histories is that everything is static for hundreds or thousands of years. Borders don't change, technology doesn't progress, etc.

No, strike that. Things actually regress. The most powerful objects are always some ancient artifacts build by lost civilizations. Thats even true for Starfinder with its various ancient superweapons, rune drives or artifact McGuffins. Its always about getting ancient stuff out of dungeons and ruins instead stealing cuttin edge technology out of labs.


Ixal wrote:

No, strike that. Things actually regress. The most powerful objects are always some ancient artifacts build by lost civilizations. Thats even true for Starfinder with its various ancient superweapons, rune drives or artifact McGuffins. Its always about getting ancient...

Works well for fantasy - echoes of "the glory that was Rome", but less so for Starfinder.

Ancient alien superweapons are a thing, but they should be mixed up with modern tech innovations.


Ixal wrote:
Yakman wrote:

One thing to keep in mind is that there are few things that Paizo likes more than a needlessly overlong timeline.

If you take that into consideration, we could be talking about tens of millions of years.

Sadly a general problem with fantasy settings.

Well, otherwise you have elves going "Ceasar? You mean dads friend?"


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BigNorseWolf wrote:
Ixal wrote:
Yakman wrote:

One thing to keep in mind is that there are few things that Paizo likes more than a needlessly overlong timeline.

If you take that into consideration, we could be talking about tens of millions of years.

Sadly a general problem with fantasy settings.
Well, otherwise you have elves going "Ceasar? You mean dads friend?"

That's not necessarily a flaw, mind. Long-lived races having different perspective on your own history can be simply a feature of living in the world. It just requires a willingness to, and interest in, writing a world where this actually matters and has relevance. Why does the neighboring elven kingdom not give the current human king much respect? Because from their perspective, his family *just* took power ( a century ago ), they don't feel like investing in dynasty until they are convinced it won't vanish tomorrow. Why do the dwarven clans hold a grudge over their alleged-allies not showing up for a battle 200 years ago? Because the survivors of that battle are still alive today, and tend to hold prominent positions in government. For the humans it was ancient history, but for the dwarves it stuff that happened to them, personally.

Scarab Sages

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Metaphysician wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Ixal wrote:
Yakman wrote:

One thing to keep in mind is that there are few things that Paizo likes more than a needlessly overlong timeline.

If you take that into consideration, we could be talking about tens of millions of years.

Sadly a general problem with fantasy settings.
Well, otherwise you have elves going "Ceasar? You mean dads friend?"
That's not necessarily a flaw, mind. Long-lived races having different perspective on your own history can be simply a feature of living in the world. It just requires a willingness to, and interest in, writing a world where this actually matters and has relevance. Why does the neighboring elven kingdom not give the current human king much respect? Because from their perspective, his family *just* took power ( a century ago ), they don't feel like investing in dynasty until they are convinced it won't vanish tomorrow. Why do the dwarven clans hold a grudge over their alleged-allies not showing up for a battle 200 years ago? Because the survivors of that battle are still alive today, and tend to hold prominent positions in government. For the humans it was ancient history, but for the dwarves it stuff that happened to them, personally.

It was done quite well in the Paksenarion trilogy where the elves took a hands off approach to the half-elven heir to the throne (after an attack) simply because they misinterpreted the humans actions. The humans thought he was an orphan escaped from an evil mage, the elves didn't realize the humans didn't recognize him as they were too young and misinterpreted the lack of action as lack of trust thinking him corrupted. So the elves just went "Here's a sword for him do what you thjnk is right" then waited for the humans to give him the sword that would mark him as king when they trusted him again. The humans thought the elves had given his wife a bridal gift because of their ties and never recognised the lost heir or the sword till much later.

I also rather liked the elven opening to the lord of the rings game where you grow up in a city that's overun then centuries later come back as part of a mixed race attempt to recover lost lore and your just listening to the humans and even dwarfs talking about this ancient city and your thinking "I played in the grove there oh and here's the library i studied in...all gone now."

Even the review one one my little pony episode where the reviewer is talking about how it must feel for the immortal ruler of the land to literally be watching history repeat itself in front of her as the same unification of her race is now beginning to happen with other races.

Of course you also have the tragic flipside of an immortal/long lived race befriending or falling in love with one who's not and watching them grow old and die in what seems like a heartbeat. Potentially resulting in an immortal protector watching over their children and childrens children for genrations while the descendants forget why this strange forest god is actually watching over them.


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Metaphysician wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Ixal wrote:
Yakman wrote:

One thing to keep in mind is that there are few things that Paizo likes more than a needlessly overlong timeline.

If you take that into consideration, we could be talking about tens of millions of years.

Sadly a general problem with fantasy settings.
Well, otherwise you have elves going "Ceasar? You mean dads friend?"
That's not necessarily a flaw, mind. Long-lived races having different perspective on your own history can be simply a feature of living in the world. It just requires a willingness to, and interest in, writing a world where this actually matters and has relevance. Why does the neighboring elven kingdom not give the current human king much respect? Because from their perspective, his family *just* took power ( a century ago ), they don't feel like investing in dynasty until they are convinced it won't vanish tomorrow. Why do the dwarven clans hold a grudge over their alleged-allies not showing up for a battle 200 years ago? Because the survivors of that battle are still alive today, and tend to hold prominent positions in government. For the humans it was ancient history, but for the dwarves it stuff that happened to them, personally.

There's certainly fun to be had with that kind of stuff, but it's hard to make it work in a world with a history that moves and changes as quickly as our real world does. How do centuries old elves react to how fast the human world changes? Not just kingdoms coming and going, but improvements in technology and the like. They've got to keep up or be swept aside.

In a dynamic world, elven and dwarven kingdoms need to keep up with and react to current human politics, not still be focused on centuries old problems. Not for any moral reasons, but because if they want to survive and prosper, they've got to deal with the existing reality.

Scarab Sages

thejeff wrote:
Metaphysician wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Ixal wrote:
Yakman wrote:

One thing to keep in mind is that there are few things that Paizo likes more than a needlessly overlong timeline.

If you take that into consideration, we could be talking about tens of millions of years.

Sadly a general problem with fantasy settings.
Well, otherwise you have elves going "Ceasar? You mean dads friend?"
That's not necessarily a flaw, mind. Long-lived races having different perspective on your own history can be simply a feature of living in the world. It just requires a willingness to, and interest in, writing a world where this actually matters and has relevance. Why does the neighboring elven kingdom not give the current human king much respect? Because from their perspective, his family *just* took power ( a century ago ), they don't feel like investing in dynasty until they are convinced it won't vanish tomorrow. Why do the dwarven clans hold a grudge over their alleged-allies not showing up for a battle 200 years ago? Because the survivors of that battle are still alive today, and tend to hold prominent positions in government. For the humans it was ancient history, but for the dwarves it stuff that happened to them, personally.

There's certainly fun to be had with that kind of stuff, but it's hard to make it work in a world with a history that moves and changes as quickly as our real world does. How do centuries old elves react to how fast the human world changes? Not just kingdoms coming and going, but improvements in technology and the like. They've got to keep up or be swept aside.

In a dynamic world, elven and dwarven kingdoms need to keep up with and react to current human politics, not still be focused on centuries old problems. Not for any moral reasons, but because if they want to survive and prosper, they've got to deal with the existing reality.

Each brings something to the table short lived races drive and innovation, long lived ones are more inclined to think about the long term consequences, in part because they remember what happened the last time even if the last time was a century ago. That "Brilliant new organization scheme" of yours they remember the last 5 times someone tried it and where it went horribly wrong. Maybe this time will be different because new technologies offer new possibilities or maybe it wont but they can tell you in precise detail from experience why it didn't work before.


Bit of a necro, but this reminds me of some stuff from the Midgard setting I was reading recently, specifically about the Grand Duchy of Dornig, the biggest remnant of the old Elven Empire still extant in the mortal world. Despite the natural assumption, the majority of its populace, and essentially all of its nobility and government are not elven. . . they are *half-elven*.

Partly this is simply a side effect of the elves having largely withdrawn from Midgard centuries ago, and this chunk of the old empire remaining largely because one particular epic level elf remained behind as its queen. However, it kind of does work as a way to keep a functioning government going that also meaningfully interacts with much shorter lived subjects and neighbors. Half-elves are longer lived than humans, so they are not quite as mayfly relative to their full blooded progenitors, but they aren't so long that they can't understand human concerns. . . or run into demographic/population growth rate problems. I can easily see this idea transplanted into other settings, where half-elves aren't a discounted minority, but a solution to the problem of "Why would a 1000 year old semi-immortal want to spend its time running a bureaucracy?"

( Granted, you do get problems if the person at the very top of the period, the godlike immortal queen from whom all authority ultimately descends, happens to. . . oh, lets say "fall into a deathlike slumber from which she cannot be awakened". But that's an issue for any government with assumed-immortals in it. *ahem* )

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