| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
They could have treated them like Folca and just not acknowledged them going forward, leaving the door open for people to employ their own headcanons. They've specifically chosen to deny us that freedom.deny us that freedom? Really?
Here's what the Creative Director of Paizo said about that.
As for how well handle canon going forward from previous drow-adjacent stories... we will be handling those when (and if) we do new stories that build off of that content. The stories we've already published, be they old (like Second Darkness) or relatively new (like Abomination Vaults) aren't going anywhere; the OGL remains, after all. We just aren't going into an OGL future.Which of your freedoms does that deny?
Now that they've done that once, who's to say they're not going to do it every time something they previously wrote becomes inconvenient?But no one is taking away your head canon. No one is even taking away the previously published material.
Obviously, the creators of a universe can make changes to that universe. That's a risk you take when you steep yourself in the lore of someone else's universe.
But if that's what is keeping you up at night, then there's not much anyone can do to manage that anxiety for you.
Let me elaborate on the Folca example I used.
Folca, we have been assured, is never going to be mentioned in published material again, and, because explaining his disappearance would require mentioning him, we will never be told why. Those of us who are invested enough in the setting to care can make up a story on our own to explain what happened. I, personally, like to imagine that Andoletta killed him. While this is not officially true, it's also not officially untrue. There's nothing official that disproves it.
If published material had just stopped mentioning drow, I'd be free to imagine that something happened to...
I think there might be some confusion here. “Just stop writing about them” is exactly what Paizo is doing with Drow. They are not undoing books that already happened. James Jacobs has been letting us know this is the plan moving forward and that there is at least one location where Drow were that is going to have something else going on eventually.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
The content of Golarion with "We aren't acknowledging the Drow going forward" and "The Drow are no longer a part of the setting at all" is probably functionally identical.
This is entirely correct. There's no difference between "Paizo will never talk about [x]" and "there's no [x] in the setting", since the process by which a given game refutes either premise is identical (i.e. "well, we're going to tell a story about [x]" a thing you are allowed to do.)
There's never any need to have a top-down conception of the whole setting in a way that makes sense (since it doesn't, Golarion isn't constructed like that) it just matters that the stories you're telling make internal sense.
Like the only way we're going to know how many Vampires live in the Ustalav sewers by going back there. It doesn't matter how many Vampires live in the Ustalav sewers if our stories aren't even in Ustalav.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am going to leave this one here (courtesy of Hillary Moon Murphy).
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43ip8?How-we-can-disagree-without-being-disagr eeable
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I understand why the Drow couldn't be retained as is or under that name, but deleting them rather than replacing them seems like a massive error. You could have replaced them with some cool original creation (it could have been as different as they wanted and I would've been fine), but instead we get a retcon that leaves half the darklands in limbo to the point where Golarion as a setting is now incoherent. If the drow were never there, what happened all the times they showed up? What species was the vampire the Sihedron heroes encountered when they went into the darklands? Who in the darklands has been taking all those slaves?
It's like in Doki Doki Literature Club when Monika deletes Sayori. This does not leave the rest of the game intact but without her in it. The whole thing is a glitchy mess now. I feel genuinely betrayed as someone who was invested in this setting, not because I particularly care about the drow, but because now the precedent is set that any aspect of the setting is liable to be awkwardly ripped away. I'm left wondering why I should let myself become invested in any aspect of the setting if this is just going to happen to it.
Yeah, while I'm pretty chill about the change overall, this aspect of it rankles, since I'm a bit of a continuity nerd (because I got a masters degree in history, I presume).
It's the same problem as with the removal of slavery, although at least Paizo has mentioned in some product I read lately (the Travelers Guide, I think?) that all nations manumissioned their slaves pretty much simultaneously (and Cheliax of course made them into wage slaves with punishing contracts... so just slavery 2.0, capitalist boogaloo), so at least now we know what happened.
I think that this, i.e. not using drow anymore but mentioning why they are now in-game gone in some product(s), would be a much better approach than just pressing the "delete" button, since it preserves continuity and leaves the same spaces open for new ancestries to come in and take over the few regions where drow were to be found.
BTW, to the Travelers Guide, of course it's awkward that we got a very fashionable dark elf lady there, too and it's a new book to boot. ^^
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
BTW, to the Travelers Guide, of course it's awkward that we got a very fashionable dark elf lady there, too and it's a new book to boot. ^^
I asked on release, and was told she's actually an Undine by someone who worked on the book - she doesn't have Elf-y eyes!
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I asked on release, and was told she's actually an Undine by someone who worked on the book - she doesn't have Elf-y eyes!
Oh, true enough, no elf eyes, just all the rest of the hallmarks of a drow. Well, now we got a solution to the "but I want to to play a ash-skinned, white-haired elf-like person", it seems. ^^
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
I’m fine with that?What's the point of buying a setting book if nothing in it is still going to be canon in a few years?
Thuvia is still a desert land with a famed alchemical export east of Rahadoum and west of Osirion. Elves are still Castrovelian aliens who came through portals from their home world. Sarenrae remains a goddess of redemption and the sun. Golarion's recognizable enough today compared to how it appears in the Inner Sea World Guide.
Ditching one Ancestry is not setting all of canon ablaze, not any more than it was for Paladins of Asmodeus or beards in Taldor.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ditching one Ancestry is not setting all of canon ablaze, not any more than it was for Paladins of Asmodeus or beards in Taldor.
Yeah, but paladins of Asmodeus were just a mistake and the beards thing was just weird. Both never showed up in actually printed adventures, as far as I know.
Drow were featured in quite a lot of AP's pretty prominently in one form or another, so of course it's a much bigger mental leap to ask to "unpeople" them from existence so suddenly.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ditching one Ancestry is not setting all of canon ablaze, not any more than it was for Paladins of Asmodeus or beards in Taldor.Yeah, but paladins of Asmodeus were just a mistake and the beards thing was just weird. Both never showed up in actually printed adventures, as far as I know.
Drow were featured in quite a lot of AP's pretty prominently in one form or another, so of course it's a much bigger mental leap to ask to "unpeople" them from existence so suddenly.
'Quite a lot? Prominently?' They're in Second Darkness (which I've seen near-universal disdain for before this news broke), a group almost no one in this discussion has mentioned feature in one book of Extinction Curse, they get a bit part in a single volume of Abomination Vaults, and that's all I personally know of. We haven't had them as a primary antagonist in something since before PF1.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
They could have treated them like Folca and just not acknowledged them going forward, leaving the door open for people to employ their own headcanons. They've specifically chosen to deny us that freedom.
Uh, what? No one is stopping you from having whatever headcanon you want.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
'Quite a lot? Prominently?' They're in Second Darkness (which I've seen near-universal disdain for before this news broke), a group almost no one in this discussion has mentioned feature in one book of Extinction Curse, they get a bit part in a single volume of Abomination Vaults, and that's all I personally know of. We haven't had them as a primary antagonist in something since before PF1.
Let's see. Second Darkness, Abomination Vaults, Shattered Star, Hell's Rebels (in the form of Shensen) are just off the top of my head and I am quite sure individual dark elves also appeared in other volumes. Of course there's extensive mention of them whenever an article about fleshwarping comes up. So, yeah, they were an organic part of the setting which now is being ripped out quite inorganically.
All I am mildly argueing for is using a more lore-friendly method of getting rid of them in the setting (canonically speaking) than just stuffing them into a dark closet and pretending they never existed. Have them emigrate to another dimension en masse due to some in-game event, which itself only needs to be mentioned in passing. It's not as if elves are strangers to using portals to GTFO when something bad happens. Much better than to pretend they never existed in the first place.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
If Paizo's concerned about legal risks, any further use of them is potentially problematic, even if only to create an in setting justification for not having them.
... A weird mass evacuation event also sounds like a lot more of a headache to design and plan around. As a GM I can be a lot more flexible with Paizo quietly sunsetting them in terms of how I proceed with my own material (I mean personally I would liked to see them finally just get folded into cavern elves where they should have been from the outset of PF2 and quietly massaged away the D&Disms, but this is fine too).
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
'Quite a lot? Prominently?' They're in Second Darkness (which I've seen near-universal disdain for before this news broke), a group almost no one in this discussion has mentioned feature in one book of Extinction Curse, they get a bit part in a single volume of Abomination Vaults, and that's all I personally know of. We haven't had them as a primary antagonist in something since before PF1.Let's see. Second Darkness, Abomination Vaults, Shattered Star, Hell's Rebels (in the form of Shensen) are just off the top of my head and I am quite sure individual dark elves also appeared in other volumes. Of course there's extensive mention of them whenever an article about fleshwarping comes up. So, yeah, they were an organic part of the setting which now is being ripped out quite inorganically.
All I am mildly argueing for is using a more lore-friendly method of getting rid of them in the setting (canonically speaking) than just stuffing them into a dark closet and pretending they never existed. Have them emigrate to another dimension en masse due to some in-game event, which itself only needs to be mentioned in passing. It's not as if elves are strangers to using portals to GTFO when something bad happens. Much better than to pretend they never existed in the first place.
To be fair with Shensen, literally no one would know she was born a Drow unless they read her NPC block in the back of Song of Silver. It has zero impact on her current character, she doesn't interact with Drow in any way in published material, and has a closer relationship with the Aquatic Elves of Kintargo. Using her as an example of prominent Drowness doesn't really help the argument that they were a prominent and major part of the setting.
And who knows, maybe them organically exiting the setting would also have been a no-no from a legal perspective, but whatever the truth of it I'll accept that how Paizo are handling it is the way they have to handle it moving forwards. Could be smoother than them being made up sure, but it is how it is, and we won't know the lore implications for a while anyway, not until they can start publishing stuff.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
In the end Paizos writers and their legal department have to decide to proceed. I just wanted to point out a maybe less painful way for Drow fans for them to exit the setting.
A bit too much IMO. I feel Evil is too often portrayed as both stupid and incompetent.That's how I feel the Xulgath are often portrayed.I hope the updates to the Darklands don't make the Sekmin overly grandiose. I feel like one of my favorite things about them is that they're both an extremely legitimate and dangerous threat but also kind of pitiable and a little bit lame in the sense of being mostly huddled up in old ruins griping about the good ol' days.
TBH Paizo's really good at writing villains who are both dangerous but also kind of losers (Belcorra comes to mind too, as well as a few characters and groups) so I just hope to see more of that.
Same with both Tar-Baphon and Geb, as well as Deskari and Baphomet (though in the case of the latter two that's more emphasized in the PC version of Wrath of the Righteous)!
It reminds me a lot of this musing RPG writer and Tumblr funnyman David J. Prokopetz wrote about Pathfinder's predecessor:
The thing about the default setting of Dungeons & Dragons is that evil is self-defeating not in a metaphysical sense, but in the sense of each individual force of evil being comprised principally of people who suck.
Mind flayers are so invincibly convinced of their own cleverness that their collective history is just an endless litany of them suffering completely predictable ass-kickings at the hands of their own creations, to the point that they’ve lost their empire and been forced to live in caves and still can’t figure out what they’re doing wrong.
Beholders assume that everybody everywhere is just as treacherous and scheming as they are, and consequently spend most of their time quivering in fortified bunkers freaking out about elves on the moon and completely failing to notice the adventurers on their doorstep.
Chromatic dragons are individually unstoppable, but are incapable of even the most basic coordinated effort because two chromatic dragons in
A lot of old school TSR stuff is made from the old comics code authority mindset, which stated that evil had to look as foolish/self defeating/some combination thereof as possible to avoid corrupting the youth or some such nonsense. Which leads to badly flawed if not outright silly villains, and people who want something a little more serious in terms of competition on that axis being edged out somewhat.
A bit too much IMO. I feel Evil is too often portrayed as both stupid and incompetent.Part of that is by design. If we had hyper-competent villains then questions of "why don't they just scry and fry the party before they can do anything?" and similar start to arise. Similarly, if a villain is too competent it can lead to the party feeling like they are being shut down or railroaded by the GM, whether or not the GM is doing that or using tactics against the party. What makes a good villain in a piece of media like a film or book is necessarily different than what makes a good villain in a TTRPG. They have different purposes to fulfill.
Tar-Baphon is a good example; if he's played entirely straight in a fight, such as the culminating battle of Tyrant's Grasp, it is entirely possible for him to nuke the party before they have any chance to react. He needs to be arrogant and a little bit dumb just so that he doesn't use his optimal tactics and turn the final fight into a slaughter.
its the age old question- is taking advantage of a loophole in game rules competence, cheating, cruelty on the part of the person running the game, or something else?
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
If they can’t be written out of the lore of the ORC without writing them into the lore of ORC, and writing about them at all feels like unethical use of someone else’s IP to the creative staff at Paizo, as in they know that nothing they have done to this point with Drow feel sufficiently divorced from the OGL to not have to reference the OGL in a product that even hinted at the existence of those who used to be Drow…there is no path forward that could make “just give us an ending” a feasible option.
Feel hurt and frustrated by the overall situation as much as you want, but please, please, please do not personally attack James Jacobs for being kind, compassionate and courageous enough to explain this all to us honestly instead of just making this decision and never telling us about it. Did people really want a situation where this was the decision made, but no one knew why and every, “when are we going to see another Drow story?” Was answered with “not at this time?”
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
... A weird mass evacuation event also sounds like a lot more of a headache to design and plan around. As a GM I can be a lot more flexible with Paizo quietly sunsetting them in terms of how I proceed with my own material (I mean personally I would liked to see them finally just get folded into cavern elves where they should have been from the outset of PF2 and quietly massaged away the D&Disms, but this is fine too).
Yeah, the reason you don't do a "they all went back to their home planet" or "they all got turned into fleshwarps" is that using the Drow at all without the OGL poses a legal risk, and saying "the drow are gone, you can't use them" is unnecessarily restrictive to people who still want to keep them in their own Golarion (which might have mind flayers and umber hulks too.)
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
You see all that stuff you mentioned, yeah all of that also applies to Drow. But apparently still not enough for them to just rebrand them.Except it doesn’t. Alien elf planet was not copied from DND.Hmm would you look at that Pathfinder Drow are descended from Pathfinder Elves who are aliens from another planet. Oh would you look at that, in the future of the setting the Drow get their own planet becoming aliens from another planet.
So what were you saying again?
They could also stick wacky waving arm inflatable tube people all over the darklands to greet visitors (they technically do with that one Fleshwarp). Wouldn’t change anything.
Not adding enough is not the issue, since the Drow as depicted in Pathfinder are Evil Underground matriarchal sensually clad demon worshipping white haired dark elves.
Castroval and the other elves are completely irrelevant.
That was literally called out as the issue by James. It is perfectly fine to complain that they didn't do more.
Go back and read the thread if you are not going to make good arguments.
… what are you going on about?
Doing/not doing more isn’t the issue, it’s that they copied the Drow wholesale from DND that’s the issue, it doesn’t matter how much they add to it, if they had done something completely original with them to begin with we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
He specifically stated that they were doing something slowly and that they were rushed to make a decision. So once again if you are going to make bad arguments go back and read the thread.
They have not been stopped from doing something unique, nor stopped from making one last OGL book giving them a farewell. They just chose to delete them wholesale, which is the worst way to do it.
The point of ORC is to completely separate from the OGL. Muddling the waters between content that is OGL and ORC would be a huge mistake. Moving forward, Paizo is committed to using the ORC license, and not using the OGL because the terms of use of the OGL have become unstable and attempts to use it risk another company claiming ownership of the material.
I don’t think it is at all constructive to keep insisting that consulting actual lawyers to understand the rules of licensing and to guide ethical business practices is the worst way of doing things.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
As a grognard Drow fan who's built a behind-the-scenes Drow adventure arc going through DnD modules from the Drow's POV (and hitting most of the "best of all time" adventure list), I can't say I would have noticed if Paizo had silently excluded Drow.
"We're going to the Sekmin portion of the Darklands."
"Cool."
So I find it mighty polite of Paizo to even bother to tell us, and to take the blow to their own plans for the sake of smoother transition than would have happened via Hasbro's legal shenanigans.
---
And yes, one can't officially play a Drow in PFS, but your head-canon is your own. In PFS1, I did play a Half-Elf pseudo-Drow, escaped from Drow slavers. It had zero relevance to any scenario and I don't even think his escape or subterranean origins ever arose except in his own dedication to freeing others. But he was a Drow to me! :-)
| 11 people marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, it's the difference between "A dragon, who happens to be red, that breathes fire" and "a red dragon". Since you can't say "we are the only people who can have a thing of this color" and "fire" is the normal thing that dragons can breathe.
But all the stuff about "they are evil, vain, bigger than other dragons, have hot tempers, are incredibly greedy" etc. is no longer going to be a thing that is true about "all dragons who are red" but may apply to specific dragons who happen to be read, because they are individuals.
The nice thing now is that you can now very easily have a very large powerful dragon who happens to have white scales, who is very kind and also breathes fire.