Eberron has intrigued me, but ironically a bunch of the things which people like about it was what made me turn away from it. I dislike how vague the deities and such. The magitech of the setting is something I love, excluding a few things like the whole Last War and warforged aspect (I don't mind 'constructs as characters', but the entire setup of their creation bugs me).
There's definitely neat stuff there, though, and I enjoyed playing DDO in the setting since it avoided a lot of the things I didn't like.
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The warforged are in my top five favorite races. They invite such fascinating concepts and engaging emotional arcs. Living constructs? Cool. Living constructs designed for war now forced to coexist with the people who see them as nothing but a reminder of a traumatic and devastating conflict? Absolutely brilliant.
I also honestly kind of don't like how a lot of settings handle deities. Eberron's approach pleases me because its religions sound like real religions that a given culture might have complex relationships with. When I run Eberron, I have a lot of fun showing how, say, goblins and humans and orcs might worship The Dark Six differently, or how the more informal Sovereign Host might engage with the structured, organized Church of the Silver Flame. "Super-powerful beings that people worship like divine entities despite being basically just people" always sat oddly with me in certain other settings.
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Eberron's basically "the Roaring 20s, but in a magitek fantasy-intrigue-adventure pulp magazine".
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The subject seems to have veered way off course here and I hate to be the guy who gripes about it but the thread had been chock full of fantastic advice and discussion on the topic of fair, kind, and grounded discussion.
For the sake of maintaining the purpose of the thread, perhaps a new discussion on the topic of Ebberon is more appropriate than continuing it here? I personally am also fond of the setting and world but I think that it's watering down the message and topic here.
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In defense of "off-topic tangents", I think from time to time, they can serve as a bit of a cool-off , or as a coping strategy to help people ignore a troll by changing the subject. In this case, you're right, and I'll stop going on about this for my part. :P
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In the end, I just love setting design and settings in general. I only came to D&D when the Realms already were established, so I missed out on a lot of earlier stuff, but the magazines did a pretty good job making me intrigued with Greyhawk and Mystara. I also love Planescape to death. And special shout-out to the City of 7 Seraphs.
Then there's Aventuria, Kobold Press' Midgard, FGG's Lost Lands, Ptolus, the world of Numenera, and of course there's Golarion, which I also really like.
But in terms of personal ranking, the Realms and Eberron top them all. In a perfect world and a lot of time at my hands, I'd simply run games in all of them, but the last time I tried didn't turn out too well, so I try to focus on one for starters.
and ok, last post from me as well on that side-topic
Eh, the only published setting that really seized my imagination was the core setting for Lancer. A lot of TTRPG settings just feel like the side notes of someone else's campaign scrubbed of certain specifics to me
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In defense of "off-topic tangents", I think from time to time, they can serve as a bit of a cool-off , or as a coping strategy to help people ignore a troll by changing the subject. In this case, you're right, and I'll stop going on about this for my part. :P
Personally, I think they're pretty healthy for the community as a whole, when they're something like this. Common ground, a bit of a pause on the main discussion, low stakes interpersonal charter... I think Eberron is literally healing the forum right now, even if it's incredibly slight.
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My method for dealing with a lot of things without (hopefully) being disagreeable is to try to couch things in terms of how it feels to me, and try not to speak for anyone else. I dislike a lot of the 2e APs, but that doesn't mean they're bad. They're just not for me. I don't care for witches, but that's mostly because they never were that appealing to me. I'll just not discuss summoner, because all that'll happen is that I'll get irate. I try to avoid topics that will make me disagreeable.
I've also been making heavy use of the 'hide thread' function to try to keep myself calmer. A block function so that I wouldn't have to see some posters would be nice, but not something I absolutely need.
That said, something I think some people should keep in mind. Not everyone likes debates. I am pretty much allergic to debates, and find other people trying to drag me into them to be highly offensive and unwelcome.
To be clear, is that referencing me voicing my thoughts on what I like in Eberron? If so, I apologize--I tried to be clear that I was just trying to express my own feelings on the setting. The warforged and deities are among my favorite parts of the setting.
EDIT: I was in a hurry writing that question because I was about to go take a shower, but I've just run out in a towel because I had this thought in my head that I phrase my question really badly and I need to clarify a bit.
This was a backhanded apology! I said "sorry" and then refused to admit that I'd been obviously reacting to Cydeth's post to some degree. I could have definitely done a better job in the original post of validating Cydeth's opinion on warforged/Eberron deities and clarifying that it was purely a matter of taste, if I really felt the need to state my conflicting opinions at all, which was by no means necessary.
So, to phrase this more clearly: Was that referencing me voicing my thoughts on Eberron? If so, I apologize--I fell into the trap of, "Oh, they don't like Thing? I have to explain why I do like Thing!" Warforged are genuinely one of my favorite races, like, period, but I can totally see reasons someone else wouldn't like them or like their framing.
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To be clear, is that referencing me voicing my thoughts on what I like in Eberron? If so, I apologize--I tried to be clear that I was just trying to express my own feelings on the setting. The warforged and deities are among my favorite parts of the setting.
Oh, most definitely not! You weren't going through and countering my post point by point.
I was just trying to veer back on-topic, and was considering what posting habits get my dander up the most when in forums. Had someone trying to debate me into submission about how I chose to set up a planet in my novels a couple of weeks back, and it came to mind.
Edit: And I want to specify that it's a personal dislike of the entire setup, and a bunch of things not making much sense to me with the warforged. It's great that they work well for other people, but they don't work well for me (the automatons in Guns & Gears run into the same issues in my head, but I like them a little better). Anyway, not going into details, not the thread for it.
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started a new thread in case we want to move the discussion over there on our favorite campaign settings.
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And that folks is how all that should be done! Well done, everybody! :)
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Hmm tidies up, happy that her thread hosted so many friends recently.
"Remember! A clean thread is a happy thread!" chimes a somewhat short human with slightly pointy ears and big hands and feet. Despite her upbeat tone, she does not smile.
Why, after these posts, did THIS pop into my head?
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started a new thread in case we want to move the discussion over there on our favorite campaign settings.
Link’t.
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That a song like the one you mentioned popped into your mind is an indication that the memetic influences on the character are ringing somewhat true.
Thank you.
Contributor
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Sometimes you need longer than a short break to figure things out for yourself. I messed up a while ago, and I took time to reflect. Kobold Cleaver has posted some awesome things (Thing One and Thing Two) on Popper's Paradox, talking about why it is a mistake to tolerate the intolerant. If you haven't read them, please do.
An earlier post of mine was well-intentioned, but problematic. I think that part of the reason it was problematic was that I was searching for a solution for myself (how do I challenge and confront hate speech) but presented it as a broad suggestion for others that made it sound like we all should to be gentle to bad-faith actors who preach harm to others. So I took a break and thought things through. I researched some of the more insidious tactics of trolls, and decided that I was a bit off-base. Giving trolls cover is not my intent.
I still don't think I can personally tell a bigot that they are a bigot -- that's my personal hangup. I am more likely to post on a terrible post: "Flagged. Hate has no home here."
Or even perhaps...
But I think the forums are a much better place than they have been, not because of my polite discourse, but because those acting in bad faith were shown the door.
It's a sobering thought.
Hmm
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The forums are always a better place with you in them. <3
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I researched some of the more insidious tactics of trolls, and decided that I was a bit off-base. Giving trolls cover is not my intent.
Wow. That article was … eye-opening. Thank you for sharing HMM.
I’ve voiced arguments in support of the “ignore the trolls” and “flag and move on”. I’d like to withdraw those arguments and apologize to those that were hurt by them.
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I'd agree with that, once you have a furm policy of booting creeps, you can reasonably start to assume good faith, and find better, kinder ways to discuss things we're passionate about, like gane minutae, or how you execute story beats, or tangential hobbies we share beyond this, or pets, etc, etc, etc.
My only issue was ever assuming this can work before we remove bad actors. I think it's a good premise outside of that context as long as it's not used as a politeness bludgeon, a and that in itself is a messy grey area outside of dangerous contexts.
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Sometimes we all need a refresher. I'm kicking this thread back up to the top.
Just binge-read the entire thing. I missed it the first time because I don't frequent the Paizo General forum nearly as much as I do the Pathfinder2 forums.
Excellent stuff in here.
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HMM thought it would be useful to include my tip here:
It can often help to write posts with a goal in mind, and considering whether the goal is realistic, worthwhile, or appropriate before hitting submit. If you don't think the post you're writing has a clear goal, it might also be better to abstain from posting until you have a better idea.
Example Appropriate Goals:
"Contribute your perspective to an ongoing discussion in a constructive manner"
"Ask a question to obtain different perspectives"
"Provide entertainment, levity, or mirth"
"Propose a houserule or errata for peer feedback"
Example Inappropriate Goals:
"Getting a response from a developer"
"Accruing sympathy"
"Demand action from others"
"Refute someone else's subjective experiences or opinions"
"Convince the forum of the correctness of your opinion"
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Content Warning: I'm going to talk about this issue as if considering the feelings of others is an important element of communication. If you inherently contest that premise, we aren't going to agree about anything, so let's respectfully agree to disagree.
So, continuing from the blog post discussion...
I'm going to start by stating the obvious here: Negative criticism isn't fun to read. Criticism may be helpful, it may be necessary or interesting, but it isn't fun to read. We like to do well at things. We don't like it when people tell us we did badly at things. This is why it's usually polite to phrase criticism gently, especially when you're providing it unasked for and have a reasonable expectation of the creator reading it.
People need to remember that this company is small. Paizo creators aren't distant millionaires. We've seen that they do browse these forums, especially where it's relevant to what they're working on. I can only speak for myself, but if someone replied to this post with, "That post was so boring I could barely stand skimming it," I would feel like they were either trying to upset me or simply ambivalent to whether or not they did. I feel like that would be a common assumption to make--especially if the rest of their main point had nothing to do with my post itself.
Being polite is never exactly an obligation, but it's a way of demonstrating you value other people's feelings. I try to avoid wording my posts in ways that make it difficult for others to self-soothe (aka, "baiting") because it's polite. I don't like upsetting people, even accidentally.
The poster has since clarified that they didn't mean to come across as rude and weren't really interested in critiquing the writing itself. Whether or not the poster accidentally did come across as rude? Well, some posters think they didn't. Many think they kind of did. The poster has thus acquired new data for how their communications come across, and they can now decide for themselves whether this data matters to them.
There's not really any room for debate apart from, "I thought this was rude." / "I didn't." Politeness isn't an objective value.
tl;dr: Caring about how you come across to others is part of being a healthy member of a community. Someone telling you how you came across to them is not an attack on your freedoms.
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I don't think this is possible. These forums are not a place for dialogue in the slightest anymore, only agreeance and adoration is actually allowed.
There is no allowance for viewpoint diversity here, which is why I (and many many others) generally stopped posting and pretty much stopped buying products here a long time ago. As far as I can tell this place is still heading in a purity spiral direction with no mechanism in place to slow it.
This is so bad here that the simple act of pointing out the lack of viewpoint diversity is likely to get me banned or my post deleted. If somebody asked me to elaborate, the elaboration will likely get me or my post removed.
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There are not, or more specifically they are in such a narrow band they could fit on a postage stamp.
You can tell simply from the level of engagement. I was here for the original beta, which I still have along with the first several subscriptions and books. There used to be constant posts all day. Now you see posts frequently days or months apart and mostly from the same core group of "acceptable" people.
This would be apparent to anybody who spent more than 10 minutes looking through the forums both then and now.
I, for example, am self evidently not welcome here. I would not post my actual opinions on just about anything here, gaming or otherwise. Even just pointing out the problems with this forum would start the clock ticking to my inevitable removal. It would be a few days of posting before I would no longer be tolerated or deemed to be some undesirable descriptor for merely pointing out the blatantly obvious.
My guess is I'm probably one or two posts away as being labeled "disagreeable", as you have pointed out If I don't pretty quickly quiet myself.
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I mean, I don't post nearly as much as I did back in the beta either, so I don't think that's a good measurement to go off of. If anything, I think the rule against political discussion is more to blame, plus the upheaval with the edition change and real world events.
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I don't think this is possible. These forums are not a place for dialogue in the slightest anymore, only agreeance and adoration is actually allowed.
There is no allowance for viewpoint diversity here, which is why I (and many many others) generally stopped posting and pretty much stopped buying products here a long time ago. As far as I can tell this place is still heading in a purity spiral direction with no mechanism in place to slow it.
This is so bad here that the simple act of pointing out the lack of viewpoint diversity is likely to get me banned or my post deleted. If somebody asked me to elaborate, the elaboration will likely get me or my post removed.
In case you missed the news Pathfinder 2e sales have been through the roof this year. Earlier this year Paizo sold out of an 8-month supply of PF2e core rule books in 2 weeks.
I play my mystic healer as a tank, I'm sure most people disagree that's a good idea. Then there was that time I suggested it would be interesting to have more encounters in Starfinder without weapons, lots of people STRONGLY!!! disagreed with me on that, but no one got banned over it. Talk about the game and keep it civilized and there are no problems.
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There are not, or more specifically they are in such a narrow band they could fit on a postage stamp.
I used to think the game was losing players because the Forums seemed slower, but a lot of people moved to Discord or Reddit. The other platforms are more cell phone friendly than the Paizo forums. I just don't get the layout of Discord, so don't use it often, but on Reddit I see new players asking for advice every day.
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Yea...not sure why I'm bothering.
I'm not welcome here, and people who post here will deny that hell or high water, because admitting there is a problem would require some level of collective self-reflection that I know isn't possible. They would do so as I was labeled problematic in some way and removed. Nobody left here could admit this is a problem, and absolutely will not
Paizo is perhaps more suppressive than WotC. That's really saying something.
If you expect the Paizo forums to support unfiltered speech like that platform formally known as Twitter, perhaps your in the wrong place, or are posting off topic, you have yet to post anything about the game in this thread.
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Booboo the singing Ninja King has made their point. I've removed the flags and some provocative retorts. If the same point is made over and over then we will temporarily suspend any poster, especially as we are going into a long weekend.
We expect some to disagree, debate, complain and criticize the company or the game. One still needs to ensure the forums are a friendly and fun place. Feedback to the way Paizo runs the forums should be sent to community@paizo.com rather than make provocative posts.