Wait, aren't Ancestry Feats, Hitpoints, Speed.etc Bio-Essentialist too? Doesn't it all have to go? (LONG!)

[TriOmegaZero]

Honestly, players jumping immediately to combat is way overplayed. Not every encounter needs to be combat.

[PossibleCabbage]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Honestly, players jumping immediately to combat is way overplayed. Not every encounter needs to be combat.

Like I've been playing these games for like 30+ years. I have heard many stories of people I don't know being in a hurry to fight anything and everything (I would say "Anything that moves" but we all know Gazebos are stationary), but I've never actually seen this happen. Even when I was 8 and playing a game with other 8 year olds, we still wanted to figure out if we could talk it out with the monsters first.

[TriOmegaZero]

Literal quotes I've heard.

"I don't really care about box text, I just want to shoot it."

"I appreciate all the work you put into prepping this, but we didn't come here to talk the whole session. So we're going to take off."

(Yeah, I should have put them at the evergreen table instead of the intrigue scenario.)

[Guntermench]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Honestly, players jumping immediately to combat is way overplayed. Not every encounter needs to be combat.

Why not? It's like 70% of the rules.

[TriOmegaZero]

To break up the monotony of "Roll initiative, enemies die before acting, move on."

[PossibleCabbage]

I mean, you maintain "it's fine to kill devils" by insisting "devil's aren't people" which implies "your player character should not be literal devil."

You can have a story where the literal denizens of Hell are sympathetic, but that doesn't really work well with stories where the heroes are supposed to kill them. Like "Crowley works together with Aziraphale to prevent the Apocalypse" can't really coexist with "Crowly should die because he is a demon." When you let PCs be Orcs, Drow, etc. then you're telling the former kind of story not the latter!

So if you want to keep Aboleths on the "kill it with fire" list, you don't let PCs be Allgolthu.

[Ravingdork]

Guntermench wrote:

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Honestly, players jumping immediately to combat is way overplayed. Not every encounter needs to be combat.

Why not? It's like 70% of the rules.

I for one prefer a 75/25 split of combat to roleplay.

[Temperans]

Just to note I am not saying "its fine to kill devils because they are not people". I am saying that "devil might be people (intelligent creatures), that doesn't stop them from being evil creatures who torture souls".

Yeah you can play a game where the denisens of hell are sympathetic, plenty of games do it. But you can make literally anything sympathetic and people will like it.

Case and point there is a literal anime where the Chtulu Elder Gods become anime girls and people like that. Despite you know... them being monsters that cause madness and suffering.

[Martialmasters]

Session zero

Context

Campaign world

These deal with the supposed issues better than any rules change or systems change.

[graystone]

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Honestly, players jumping immediately to combat is way overplayed. Not every encounter needs to be combat.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Literal quotes I've heard.

"I don't really care about box text, I just want to shoot it."

"I appreciate all the work you put into prepping this, but we didn't come here to talk the whole session. So we're going to take off."

(Yeah, I should have put them at the evergreen table instead of the intrigue scenario.)

Yep, that's why some people play: to smash imaginary foes with their friends not get into a bunch of talking: I think it's a cathartic release for people that talk all day to beat up some bad guys and get rid of some stress. They aren't bad players per se, but they don't mix well with players that want thoughtful intrigue and subterfuge. Some just like things to be black and white while others like shades of grey: neither is wrong.

Myself, I can play either but I've seen the whole spectrum over the years.

[FormerFiend]

I had a very long, somewhat sanctimonious post written up regarding the - to my mind - false equivalency between orcs/drow & algholthus, but I'm going to trim it down to this; if you can't see how certain fictional, fantasy creatures can be more susceptible to harmful coding & applicability towards real world racism & bigotry than others & just leave it at the level of "they're fictional creatures", I consider that to be a rather one dimensional, shallow read of the situation.

[Rysky]

Malk_Content wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Malk_Content wrote:

Rysky wrote:

I'm confused, when did stat numbers become flavor?

They were always a mechanical narrative link.

”My character is really strong” is flavor.

“My character has a 17 Strength instead of just 16” is not.

"My character is really strong!"

OH whats their strength?

"8"

Mechanics interact with and reinforce flavour.

Youre not disagreeing with me.

Them having low strength and therefore not being strong is flavor.

Them having high strength and therefore being strong is flavor.

Youre above example didn’t address anything I said, the character is simply lying.

“I’m hard to kill (high HP)” is flavor.

“I’m squishy (low HP)” is flavor.

“I have 152 HP instead of 150 HP” is not flavor.

[graystone]

FormerFiend wrote:

I had a very long, somewhat sanctimonious post written up regarding the - to my mind - false equivalency between orcs/drow & algholthus, but I'm going to trim it down to this; if you can't see how certain fictional, fantasy creatures can be more susceptible to harmful coding & applicability towards real world racism & bigotry than others & just leave it at the level of "they're fictional creatures", I consider that to be a rather one dimensional, shallow read of the situation.

On the flip side, some people bring in their own personal bias and find "harmful coding & applicability towards real world racism & bigotry" because they expect it to be there: IE, they are looking to be offended. I don't see how you can know how others view the material as what people see as coding or microaggressions is seen through the lens of their own experiences: If anything, I think equating a fantasy race with a real one is the actual "one dimensional, shallow read of the situation".

*shrug* Maybe I'm getting too old for the new social/cultural zeitgeist.

[Malk_Content]

Rysky wrote:

Malk_Content wrote:

Rysky wrote:

Malk_Content wrote:

Rysky wrote:

I'm confused, when did stat numbers become flavor?

They were always a mechanical narrative link.

”My character is really strong” is flavor.

“My character has a 17 Strength instead of just 16” is not.

"My character is really strong!"

OH whats their strength?

"8"

Mechanics interact with and reinforce flavour.

Youre not disagreeing with me.

Them having low strength and therefore not being strong is flavor.

Them having high strength and therefore being strong is flavor.

Youre above example didn’t address anything I said, the character is simply lying.

“I’m hard to kill (high HP)” is flavor.

“I’m squishy (low HP)” is flavor.

“I have 152 HP instead of 150 HP” is not flavor.

I mean yeah if you get overly granular and nitpicky of course it falls apart. A character who has invested in being tough is going to have more than a 2hp difference at that point (A fidhter with 18 con and toughness hits this at level 10, not including ancestral HP, a fighter not invested in being tough with sayn14 con and no toughness would only have 120hp, much bigger gap than 2, and a wizard with the same would only have 80.) A character whom is invested in being strong is going to have more than a 1p difference at level one (I mean you had to use an example that the games base rules don't even allow to make your point.)

Sure you can say you are strong when you are not. That isn't divorcing mechanics from flavour, that's presenting a different flavour from the supporting mechanics (the character is maybe delusional, lying or perhaps comes from an ethnocultural background were their low score would be considered strong even if isn't in a wider context.) None of that divorces flavour from mechanics.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

I wish I could say I were surprised that a discussion about the nuances of ancestries and their mechanics looks like it's devolving into whether it is okay to kill orcs on sight, and if not a member of a humanoid species which may well easily be evil or good, how is that different from killing a living embodiment of evil, but I'm not.

[Malk_Content]

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

I wish I could say I were surprised that a discussion about the nuances of ancestries and their mechanics looks like it's devolving into whether it is okay to kill orcs on sight, and if not a member of a humanoid species which may well easily be evil or good, how is that different from killing a living embodiment of evil, but I'm not.

I'm just going to ignore it, it really does detract from the more interesting parts of the conversation.

If you want a game which is just kill the bad guys on sight, so long as your table is all for it I say go ahead. I can understand why you'd choose PF2 as your game for that as it has varied and interesting tactical combat afterall. In the same way if someone molded out all the base building and story from xcom because they just enjoyed the combat I wouldn't sat that's bad. So long as they recognise they are playing the game outside of its designed specifications and aren't surprised that they need to make minor tweaks to further support that (in this case the GM saying "okay orcs are the bad guys in this adventure.")

That's pretty much all I have to say on the topic, so any more posts here from me will be on the other topics.

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

Meant to say more but got pulled away by some moderately stressful RL situations.

Temperans wrote:

you could literally play a lawful good Lich Paladin

Now that would be a heck of a character concept. Champion into Sorcerer until like level 16 when you gain you first 6th level slot. Take Lich dedication as your level 17 class feat.

Of course, even then it falls to whether your GM will buy that the ritual for becoming a lich which is typically described as requiring acts of great evil (non-rules text) and becoming a being that must struggle for the rest of their days against selfish and destructive impulses does not conflict with Paladin cause.

This... strikes me as an unserious example of a realistic circumstance. Granted vampire, ghost, and ghoul Champions are all significantly more viable, while simultaneously being a much more intelligible story (including an NPC from Carrion Crown)

[Sibelius Eos Owm]

This seems like a good time to remind everybody that the concept of a Thermian argument is not particularly new, nor the distinction between Watsonian and Doylist criticism. I am sure we are all more than capable of identifying that all things that exist in our fantasy worlds were created to be a certain way, yes?

Further reminder, all humanoid creatures in 2e, "reason and act like humans" (CRB 633); they are equally capable of the same moral and philosophical breadths.

[siegfriedliner]

Mostly I see any coding for fantasy races to better reconcile medieval xenophobia than our current prejudice - Orcs always seemed like vikings to me (strong religious focus on battle and a strong tradition of raiding other cultures).

They are undoubtedly people with a vibrant culture even if they play the role of the bad guy in a lot of story centred on people living in fantasy England.