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Sorry for the downer and if this has been brought up elsewhere.
Five years ago Paizo announced the complete removal of slavery from their setting. Slavery would not appear, even as enemy actions. This was discussed to death here: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs43jn5&page=1?The-Slavery-Thing
Luis Loza Developer said there
As this matter has come up multiple times, I just want to pop in here and let everyone know our stance at the moment, since it seems there's some confusion on how this is exactly being handled.
Slavery will no longer be the focus of our stories, but that doesn't mean it's suddenly been retroactively removed from the setting as if it never existed. Places like Vidrian and Absalom are still defined by their relationship with slavery, even if the practice has been fully ended. We might still bring it up from time to time, such as when noting historic events and the like.
If you want to continue playing heroes that defeat slavers and liberate people, please go ahead. If you want to tell stories that include it to showcase the evil and cruelty of villains, please go ahead. What you should not expect is for us to tell those stories going forward. We won't be doing adventures like Broken Chains and others that keep slavery in the spotlight, even as an institution to dismantle. We understand that this matter, like many other sensitive matters, are not ones that players want to necessarily interface with without having bought in or agreed to it first. Rather than force someone to opt out of these stories, we prefer taking the option of allowing groups to actively choose to include them in their games.
What does this mean for the Firebrands, Bellflower Network, Gray Corsairs, and others? At the moment, nothing. They can still do good and help people in ways that don't require fighting slavers. They might need to help liberated people get established in life. They could work to fight other forms of tyranny. They could go around rescuing the victims of kidnapping. We won't be having them deal with slavery directly going forward, however, and we'll make sure to expand or realign the focus of such groups when we get the chance going forward.
There's going to be a lot of nuance and figuring out exactly where we want other aspects that are tied to or similar to slavery land exactly within the Lost Omens setting. It's going to take work and time to make sure we continue to tell inclusive, exciting, and engaging stories and this will just be another aspect to keep in mind.
(emphasis added)
This year the adventure, Society Scenario #7-14: Brastlewark at War, Part 2: The Gnome Liberation was released. I played it today, and I was extremely distrubed, almost to the point of using the X-card. I have just purchased the module, so I can confirm its intent without my GM's influence.
(pg 3)(King)was forcing the townspeople to infuse deadly war machines with
their innate primal magic.
rackett’s smile is broad but doesn’t
quite reach his eyes “I’ll get right to it A
little while ago, Pathfinder agents rescued
some gnome workers escaping Cheliax Given
the emergency nature of that sudden assignment,
they could only rescue a few gnomes who had
already escaped, but had to leave dozens of others
behind in Brastlewark We’re here to finish the job of
getting those workers out of the grip of the despotic
Drum Thornfiddle,
(pg 3) Ok, that's forced labor, which is another word for slavery when applied to a group of people (gnomes) sorted by race. This is clearly slavery based on ancestry.
When did Paizo start allowing villains to enslave people again? It's very hard for me to reconcile Luis Loza's statement of not doing stories about liberating slaves with this adventure's premise.
Let's move on to the war crimes. I take serious issue when heroes commit war crimes. Notably, Star Wars characters use false surrender all the time in their cartoon series, and that's ruined a franchise I loved even when it was objectively terrible.
We know you’re Pathfinders, and not Eagle Knights or soldiers In
this case, that works to our advantage If Andoran brings a large force
into Brastlewark, the Chelaxian military might respond by threatening
the civilians We can’t have that We need small team who can
improvise, move fast, deal with any threats, and get out
First, this story is about adventurers at war. A real war. That has consequences. Notably, you are limited in looting the dead in a war. You can take weapons and food off of fallen foes, but not valuables. Nearly Every Country on Earth holds looting fallen soldiers as unethical. That may be meaningless to characters on Golarian, but it means something to me as a player. There is no warning about this in-game or out-of-game.
“This operation was put together quickly. We need to get
those civilians out while we’re attacking. If we try to do it afterward,
it’ll be too late. You were near, and you’re the only ones who can do
this. Andoran asked specifically for our help, since we aided them
before in getting some gnome refugees across the border a short time
ago.”
Second, We are not the Red Cross nor other relief, because we carry weapons. We are not uniformed soldiers of the party at war, clearly. As I understand it, the pathfinders here would be unpaid mercenaries.
On Earth, Art. 47 of Protocol I deals with Mercenaries. Amended in 1989, the pathfinders meet the new legal standard.
A mercenary is also any person who, in any other situation:
Is specially recruited locally or abroad for the purpose of participating in a concerted act of violence aimed at :
Overthrowing a Government or otherwise undermining the constitutional order of a State; or
Undermining the territorial integrity of a State;
Is motivated to take part therein essentially by the desire for significant private gain and is prompted by the promise or payment of material compensation;
Is neither a national nor a resident of the State against which such an act is directed;
Has not been sent by a State on official duty; and
Is not a member of the armed forces of the State on whose territory the act is undertaken.
Yep. I'm playing a mercenary in this game. Is that ethical?
Article 3
A mercenary, as defined in article 1 of the present Convention, who participates directly in hostilities or in a concerted act of violence, as the case may be, commits an offence for the purposes of the Convention.
And yes, most of Earth would consider my character a criminal. This is where I would X-Card.
I'm fine with a little murder, but war crimes are not what I want in Pathfinder society. I understand Golarian is different, and I'm fighting the actual forces of hell. This isn't like the Worldwound, with an enemy not of my plane. I'm fighting ordinary Chelixian soldiers. Humans and Kin, not outsiders. (outdated terms, I know) That's the line in the sand where I X-card.
To be clear, The soldiers in the adventure were straight from NPC core, no devilish powers or undead. I don't mind fighting as a mercenary against mindless undead. They're a public disease. Fighting my fellow kin, however, holds me to a higher ethical standard.
Third, I don't want to detail every war crime a mercenary acting like an adventurer might commit. It's a long list. I want you to know that the role of Adventurer and soldier is not an easy swap. It has consequences.
I would like the community's opinions on this topic. Am I being too harsh on the slavery angle? Is there a justification I didn't consider for mercenaries in this war? This was a stream of consciousness essay, so I haven't hardened my opinions by any means.
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I do get where you're coming from, but I think the issue is complex.
In terms of the depiciton of slavery, I would agree that the situation presented here fits the technical definition, but is in something of a gray area with regards to Paizo's stated proscription. What they seem to be avoiding is depiction of institutionalized slave trade. While a local despot conscripting the populace into abusive labor is obviously immoral, it lacks some of the evocative gratuitousness of, say, a galley-ship beaching on a coastal community and dragging villagers into their hold, or a bustling market of humanoid chattel. Partly because it is intra-community rather than inter-community -- the King is himself a gnome and the whole arrangement never leaves the town. Partly because we Americans have a particular relationship with the multifaceted history of forced labor.
As for the whether these are warcrimes angle… Kinda? Maybe? But, like, the stats are in NPC Core for a reason, occasionally you're gonna be killing those guys. Human or zombie or freaky little imp thing, sometimes guys are standing in the way of good-intentioned fantasy violence. That's the kind of game this is! It's not the way we should necessarily act in real life, but you picked up a rulebook where "Fighter" is one of the core options and "Sneak Attack" is the central feature of another.
Actually, wait, "I'm fine with a little murder". So are you just getting bogged down in the legal status of your actions? Because you objected to the conditions of the people you're liberating enough to write the first half of the post; why should it matter exactly how you came about the goal to stop it? Are you soldiers? Humanitarian aid? Mercenaries (I'd argue that would require getting paid by the party at war with your opponents)? …Does it matter? You're trying to liberate an opressed and abused people, and some armed combattants who are active participants in that opression and abuse stand intentionally between that just goal and the point of your sword. This game is, at its core, a fantasy violence simulator. I don't see much point in dragging out the legalese of the Geneva Conventions.
Whatever discomfort you feel with a given narrative is yours to own, I'm not gonna tell you what emotions to experience. If you feel this is going to be a problem going forward, it seems to me everything you needed to know going in was in the blurb for the adventure, which you should have been able to access by whatever means you signed up for the session. I would suggest reading those more carefully in the future to avoid putting yourself in a situation where you feel this kind of disquiet -- on a certain level that is your responsibility.
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Okay, this is a troll post. Indicating looting as something you want removed, although it is one of the essential parts of most fantasy TTRPG's, is already a clear statement of intent that you are trying to make a point about how the removal of slavery was kinda hypocritical by Paizo, given that we as players are murdering and looting people and monsters all the time.
Just wanted to point that out, in case some dev sees this and manages to miss the obvious trolling. Flagged and moving on, otherwise.
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I don't have much to comment here, but I've noticed lately trend of progressive influencers on social media getting tired of "Modern D&D murder is perfectly okay, but scared of anything that might cause emotional or sociopolitical tension". Like idea that characters who have grown up in monarchy would never be classicist and characters need to be clean rather than messy.
It's something I've observed because Paizo rulebooks tend to read sanitized, the paizo setting & adventure books discuss fantasy sociopolitical issues, then video games and novels discuss more real life sociopolitical stuff. It kinda reads to me that paizo writers also want to discuss real topics through fiction, but there is bit of disconnect between company politics and the actual practice.
Either way thing about war crimes is that their point is "If you don't do these things, we don't do these things either", someone being put into trial over war crimes is more of symbolical act of "This went too far and wasn't sanctioned", hence why politicians get away with war crimes all the time. They are supposed to be mutually beneficent agreement that neither side does it, hence why as it often happens, the moment one side breaks them other side also does them in real life.
I'm bit confused because you seem to dislike more the actual label of "real life war crime" than "what the action in context of the game" is? Like again being noted that killing surely is fine despite killing not being okay in real life
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Okay, this is a troll post. Indicating looting as something you want removed, although it is one of the essential parts of most fantasy TTRPG's, is already a clear statement of intent that you are trying to make a point about how the removal of slavery was kinda hypocritical by Paizo, given that we as players are murdering and looting people and monsters all the time.
Just wanted to point that out, in case some dev sees this and manages to miss the obvious trolling. Flagged and moving on, otherwise.
This is what I get for putting out a stream of conscious post. Looting is fine when adventurers do it. Soldiers are not adventurers. I'm unhappy that developers think you can just swap hats. And again, a previous adventure in this line had pathfinders against an undead army. No issues there for me.
I'm not saying my emotions are logical by any means. I had an upsetting experience at my game night, and wanted to share.
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I don't have much to comment here, but I've noticed lately trend of progressive influencers on social media getting tired of "Modern D&D murder is perfectly okay, but scared of anything that might cause emotional or sociopolitical tension". Like idea that characters who have grown up in monarchy would never be classicist and characters need to be clean rather than messy.
It's something I've observed because Paizo rulebooks tend to read sanitized, the paizo setting & adventure books discuss fantasy sociopolitical issues, then video games and novels discuss more real life sociopolitical stuff. It kinda reads to me that paizo writers also want to discuss real topics through fiction, but there is bit of disconnect between company politics and the actual practice.
Either way thing about war crimes is that their point is "If you don't do these things, we don't do these things either", someone being put into trial over war crimes is more of symbolical act of "This went too far and wasn't sanctioned", hence why politicians get away with war crimes all the time. They are supposed to be mutually beneficent agreement that neither side does it, hence why as it often happens, the moment one side breaks them other side also does them in real life.
I'm bit confused because you seem to dislike more the actual label of "real life war crime" than "what the action in context of the game" is? Like again being noted that killing surely is fine despite killing not being okay in real life
I don't want to make this about real-world issues, but the past five years and especially last fall have left my stomach churning at the thought of war crimes. I'm convinced we need to hold our fictional heroes to higher standards on this topic.
I'm uncomfortable with war crimes because my country is committing them and my allies are dying in them.
If I had a traumatic experience of killing in self-defense, I would expect my opinion on fictional murder to change as well. Until then, I'll continue to enjoy slasher movies.
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I do get where you're coming from, but I think the issue is complex.
In terms of the depiciton of slavery, I would agree that the situation presented here fits the technical definition, but is in something of a gray area with regards to Paizo's stated proscription. What they seem to be avoiding is depiction of institutionalized slave trade. While a local despot conscripting the populace into abusive labor is obviously immoral, it lacks some of the evocative gratuitousness of, say, a galley-ship beaching on a coastal community and dragging villagers into their hold, or a bustling market of humanoid chattel. Partly because it is intra-community rather than inter-community -- the King is himself a gnome and the whole arrangement never leaves the town. Partly because we Americans have a particular relationship with the multifaceted history of forced labor.
As for the whether these are warcrimes angle… Kinda? Maybe? But, like, the stats are in NPC Core for a reason, occasionally you're gonna be killing those guys. Human or zombie or freaky little imp thing, sometimes guys are standing in the way of good-intentioned fantasy violence. That's the kind of game this is! It's not the way we should necessarily act in real life, but you picked up a rulebook where "Fighter" is one of the core options and "Sneak Attack" is the central feature of another.
Actually, wait, "I'm fine with a little murder". So are you just getting bogged down in the legal status of your actions? Because you objected to the conditions of the people you're liberating enough to write the first half of the post; why should it matter exactly how you came about the goal to stop it? Are you soldiers? Humanitarian aid? Mercenaries (I'd argue that would require getting paid by the party at war with your opponents)? …Does it matter? You're trying to liberate an opressed and abused people, and some armed combattants who are active participants in that opression and abuse stand intentionally between that just goal and the point of your sword....
Thank you for your response. You are correct on most accounts, except that my emotional response to war crimes vs. murder is not logical. I don't want to make this about real-world issues, but the past five years and especially last fall have left my stomach churning at the thought of war crimes. I'm convinced we need to hold our fictional heroes to higher standards on this topic.
I'm uncomfortable with war crimes because my country is committing them and my allies are dying in them.
If I had a traumatic experience of killing in self-defense, I would expect my opinion on fictional murder to change as well. Until then, I'll continue to enjoy slasher movies.
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Sometimes stuff shows up that that we have a visceral reaction to that we don't expect, especially when it gets too close to something in real life. And while content warnings are great, sometimes you think you'll be fine with something and its only in the middle of something that you realize "Nope, I'm actually not fine with this".
I've definitely walked away from a game table before because I had a discomforting experience with something our characters were doing. And if it had been a different night or even a different character, I probably have been fine with it. And once you feel the discomfort, other things you'd normally be fine with simply add to the discomfort.
All that to say, I get it. I don't have any solutions for you. This is a module I'd probably be fine playing myself. And I could get into a long discussion over war crimes and mercenaries and whatever. But I don't think that would add anything. Its frustrating thinking you're going to have fun and then something at the table upsets you. I hope you have a better experience the next time you sit down and play Pathfinder.
Community & Social Media Specialist
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Hey all! Just jumping in here to say that this doesn't feel like a troll post to me at all. It seems OP has genuine concerns about the depictions in the Society Scenario and is absolutely allowed to express their discomfort around it, especially since it was done in the civil manner we hope to see on our forums! Thank you for this feedback, and I'll pass it along to the team!
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Community & Social Media Specialist
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Oh, another note! Thank you also, OP, for emphasizing that the issues you took up with here were personal and based on our past statements rather than bringing up politics, as that would be against our guidelines. Everything here seems valid as far as feedback is concerned. I don't consider all opinions that disagree or express negativity to be automatically baiting.
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Hey all! Just jumping in here to say that this doesn't feel like a troll post to me at all. It seems OP has genuine concerns about the depictions in the Society Scenario and is absolutely allowed to express their discomfort around it, especially since it was done in the civil manner we hope to see on our forums! Thank you for this feedback, and I'll pass it along to the team!
Thank you, Maya. I feel better knowing that this will be passed along. There are many companies that do not take feedback of this nature, and I will continue to purchase Paizo products because I know they listen.
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I think the specific pivot with Cheliax is that the systems of oppression were supposed to be subtler than straight up "chattel slavery." Things like "debt bondage" and "prison labor" and "you're paid in scrip you can use at the company store and nowhere else" seem legitimate for Paizo to use to indicate "Cheliax is a bad place where the strong exploit the weak."
Like you could contextualize the gnome thing via "this is a work gang from a prison, they were imprisoned for things other than 'being a gnome', and they were sent to the prison designed for small people." This certainly isn't good, but modern societies split the hair between this sort of thing and "the kind of slavery we all agree is bad."
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For my two cents, I don’t have a problem with Cheliax’s actions as described in this scenario/adventure. I mean morally I do have a problem - forced labor is bad. But as a situation happening in the middle of a war I find it a perfectly valid situation to come up and - most importantly - be designed for the PCs to stop.
Where I do actually agree with you is having a real problem with the Pathfinder Society’s involvement here. This isn’t the first (just the most recent and extreme) of the Society having its agents officially claiming to be neutral while simultaneously having their agents commit military actions against one side’s forces, sometimes invading that nation to do so. This particular adventure is especially egregious, as it has a Society leader using his authority in the Society to order Pathfinder agents to participate in the action of the National military unit he is also an officer of.
If this ethically dubious blurring of lines was an intentional arc about war’s murkiness I might disagree but could see something interesting there. But nothing in the depiction of this crisis or the PFS scenarios seem to even hint they’re thinking about it beyond “Cheliax bad so free-reign to @&)& ‘em”
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Pathfinder Society has taken sides in other political affairs, hasn't it? Isn't that why they'd been banned in some countries and had to work to establish lodges via diplomacy (even if their true colors are showing now)? And yes, Cheliax was among them.
Initially (early PFS1) I'd had the impression PFS was neutral re: alignments, mainly to allow a breadth of PCs, even to the point of having evil NPC Pathfinders (with evil being forbidden for PCs more for table harmony and real-world, PG-13 reasons). Then PFS purged evil members over multiple seasons, yet PFS still had the hurdle of overcoming its (kinda deserved) murder hobo reputation. Scenarios changed to reflect this.
I'm not sure when (or if) PFS acquired an honest reputation for political neutrality since many missions have involved political manipulation, I believe even assassination (where playing a Paladin put you in a bind). Sure it's in PFS's interests to maintain they're neutral, and maybe there's been a re-imagining I've missed, but I haven't scenarios reflect said neutrality.
Occurred to me that looking at factions might illuminate this. Early factions often competed, where different PCs might have to undermine each other to achieve their own faction's goal for a scenario. (That was disliked!) One faction even represented criminal interests. So quite a contentious lot, but let's look at what we have now:
Envoy's Alliance: friendship
Grand Archive: scholarship
Horizon Hunters: exploration
Radiant Oath: leans goodness & Holy, so anti-Cheliax
Verdant Wheel: pro-nature, anti-undead so anti-Cheliax (and anti-exploitive corporations which many countries have); likely anti-war in natural habitats in general.
Vigilant Seal: anti-dangerous relics, so friction with Cheliax
So mostly neutral with one shining beacon of goodness and two others wary of evil's harm. While PFS interests also might conflict with Andoran ones, it's less overt and broad. While if I were a Chelaxian leader I'd have to consider PFS as non-neutral threats, especially Radiant Oath members.
Hmm, didn't PFS work with Bellflowers too?
ETA: In this war arc I imagine most sides will have evil antagonists among them, such is the ugliness of war. Maybe even reasonable folk too, caught in the maelstrom or subject to evil commands. Hard to finesse such gray stories, what with black & white clarity as a temptation, but I hope Paizo does tackle grayer issues.
As for this scenario (and one vs. undead I just played), Cheliax is definitely doing evil deeds that some PFS factions cannot abide. So yeah, I wouldn't expect neutrality on this.
I love that AceofMoxen has standards about the behavior of player characters, about slavery, and about war crimes. I hope to learn from this discussion.
Paizo's policy statement on slavery came out in December 2021 when I was converting the Ironfang Invastion adventure path to Pathfinder 2nd Edtion and my players' characters had declared that they would have no truce with the Ironfang Legion so long as they held war captives as forced labor. The policy had a big impact on my campaign: How can I remove slavery from Ironfang Invasion?
Now I am running Strength of Thousands. This adventure path was written in 2021 before the non-slavery policy, so I won't be bothered if slavery shows up. But I am sweating over international treaty issues.
Second, We are not the Red Cross nor other relief, because we carry weapons. We are not uniformed soldiers of the party at war, clearly. As I understand it, the pathfinders here would be unpaid mercenaries.
My PCs are students at the Magaambya recently promoted to teachers in the 3rd module Hurricane's Howl. While performing archaeology near the border between the Mwangi Expanse and Sodden Lands, bandits from the Sodden Lands raided a nearby Mwangi Expanse village and fled with loot and kidnapped villagers. One of the victims was a Magaambya student visiting home. The party rushed off in pursuit.
I set up the staff and teachers of the Magaambya Academy as extremely helpful (Common Sense versus The Plot). I needed an excuse why a few 14th-level teachers of the Magaambya would not teleport over and take care of this 9th-level adventure themselves. I invented treaties between the Sodden Lands and the Mwangi Expanse. Hot pursuit after bandits is allowed, but only by forces near the raided village. The PCs could conduct the rescue but the teachers back that the Magaambya could not.
My players, however, already fought all those raiders and freed all the captives. In the process, they learned that the bandits control the town of Jula through intimidation and have been expanding their raids further and further, now into the Mwangi Expanse. The players want to free Jula but what about the treaty? The hot pursuit has ended.
The party is not soldiers nor mercenaries. They have served in the previous module as law enforcement. They also have conducted rescue efforts and economic development (my players love being helpful). And they are uniformed in that they all have the traditional masks of Magaambya mages. They would be reckoned as an authorized peacekeeping force of the Mwangi Expanse. But they are outside the Mwangi Expanse in the Sodden Lands.
A twist showed up with the Risks & Rewards playtest. I promoted a 3rd-level NPC whom I designed to show the rough conditions in Jula to a 10th-level playtest daredevil: Kittyhawk, Playtest Daredevil. The module intended for the party to persuade influential townsfolk of Jula to organize a rebellion against the bandits. Instead, Kittyhawk is leading them to individual town council members to gain legal authority to operate as law enforcement in Jula. Interestingly, they switched to stealth and deception rather than combat during this transition period.
As for Society Scenario #7-14: Brastlewark at War, Part 2: The Gnome Liberation the Pathfinder Society is not mercenaries. They are an international exploration and adventuring club. View them as well-armed civilians with lots of trouble-solving experience. I have described to my new players that adventurers have a special status in Golarion society. The nations typically lack the armies to defend small villages against monsters, so the villages rely on freelance adventurers to protect them, usually paid in loot. That is why the villages have no trouble with warriors and wizards wandering in in full gear, refusing to put their weapons under lock and key and keeping dangerous animal companions by their side like house pets.
Also remember that Golarion is a less-modern society, based very roughly on 17th-century Earth but with magic. Those were the days when nations would commission privateers to conduct legal piracy on their behalf. I am not versed in the laws governing privateers, which varied from century to century, but I read that many privateers went beyond their commissions into full piracy.
On the other hand, modern players have more modern sensibilities and would be more comfortable with modern law or perhaps the U.S. law of the late 19th century Old West, when bounty hunters would seek out wanted outlaws.
I improvise from the many possibilities, trying to keep ahead of my players' concerns.
If this ethically dubious blurring of lines was an intentional arc about war’s murkiness I might disagree but could see something interesting there. But nothing in the depiction of this crisis or the PFS scenarios seem to even hint they’re thinking about it beyond “Cheliax bad so free-reign to @&)& ‘em”
The module Hurricane's Howl tried to keep at least one captive out of reach of rescue until the end to justify the party taking matters into their own hands. Some players would care about the legalities, and this would give an excuse. Other players would simply think that killing evil bandits needs no excuse. My players made good use of Sending and Umbral Journey to track down and reach the captives early. They are serious about maintaining the good reputation of the Magaambya Academy, so I am putting more work into giving them solid justification.
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Forced labor based on abilities (even innate ones) is NOT slavery. It is extremely disgusting, but it is not equivalent to a humanoid/sentient being actually owning another one.
Liberating forced laborers is in no way a war crime. In fact, it is only doing a good deed. Not taking part of the war per se.
Or do heroes need to stop doing good and punishing bad guys just because there is an official state of war ?
Not to mention that Freedom fighters are definitely not mercenaries.
Note also that PFS agents do not take their equipment from looting bodies. The loot goes to the Society.
And doing non-lethal damage is always possible, so you don't even need to kill the bad chelaxian people.
Finally, AFAIK the fictional VC has no power to order the PCs around. Your PC can totally refuse the mission.
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I'll note my point that I'd prefer the game adhere to a definition of morality and the concept of "war crime" no later than the seventeenth century. Otherwise, fantasy reminiscent of the past simply becomes modernity in a less technologically advanced world. This is important to me because such things represent a problem in that my suspension of disbelief simply ceases to function. Frankly, with many elements of the second edition, I find it difficult to believe that a world built on such principles would work.
OK, I'll bite.
Which part of the world had a 'definition of morality' that included 'the good gods are in a polyamorous lesbian relationship?' (That was in first edition, right?)
The fictional world's morality is what we make it, and if we include Native American, African, and Asian societies in 'pre-17th century morality,' we can probably have a historical basis for almost whatever we want.
On reflection, my real point here is that the game provoked an emotional reaction in me that nearly lead to me using the X-card. It is clear that the adventure thought this would be just a fun hop into and out of a war. I want to bring attention that "War" is a serious word, especially between or among human-ish creatures. I have no problem exterminating the undead or Demons. Humans and Kin have an innate right to mercy.
On the slavery, it's not an x-card topic for me (at least, in this manner), but I did want to, again, illuminate that this adventure needs a content warning, in my opinion.
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Liberating forced laborers is in no way a war crime. In fact, it is only doing a good deed. Not taking part of the war per se.
Or do heroes need to stop doing good and punishing bad guys just because there is an official state of war ?
Just to note, in case you haven't read the adventure, the PCs are coordinating with the eagle knights, and fight next to them (against humans in uniform!) at the final battle.
If the Pathfinders did just take advantage of the war to liberate Forced laborers, that would be a complex topic. There are recent historical parallels that are highly controversial.
Again, my larger, less emotional, point is that this adventure is hitting controversial topics and is written without a content warning of the complexity.
Forced labor based on abilities (even innate ones) is NOT slavery. It is extremely disgusting, but it is not equivalent to a humanoid/sentient being actually owning another one.
I really didn't want to argue this. Can we just agree that this statement is controversial? The circumstances crossed into 'temporary' enslavement for me. If you read the adventure and found it disgusting, but not slavery, that's valid.
Finally, AFAIK the fictional VC has no power to order the PCs around. Your PC can totally refuse the mission.
My friend is running this game multiple times at Gen Con and needs to practice it. If I refuse, I go home instead of spending time with my friends.
If the adventure had content warnings, I could have refused in advance, and played MTG with different friends instead.
The way an evil person will make "forced labor" for the imprisoned seem not like slavery is by paying them a (very low) wage. And of course, during the course of the imprisonment it would be unfair for the innocent to pay for their food and lodging, so they will need to pay for that somehow...
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The way an evil person will make "forced labor" for the imprisoned seem not like slavery is by paying them a (very low) wage. And of course, during the course of the imprisonment it would be unfair for the innocent to pay for their food and lodging, so they will need to pay for that somehow...
I agree with you, but the adventure does not go into that much detail, and I fear further conversation along this line is why the slavery threads were locked.
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Likewise, when I play fantasy games, I generally prefer more archaic worldviews and morality. I understand that not everyone likes this, as you demonstrated with your example. But just as you defend your right to your own vision, I will also defend my right to a realistic, archaic world.
It really feels like a lot of your point here is getting into the common myth of progress - but there is not linear progress going from a worse world to a better world over time. A setting 300 years into our own planet's future should not guarantee that humanities morals have advanced well beyond what we currently experience, and if you use a setting of 1700s-era Earth, you'll find a tremendous variety of moral perspectives and worldviews across the planet. If you wanted to take more "modern" worldviews - acceptance of trans folks, abolition in response to slavery, anti-carceral justice systems, women's liberation, bodily autonomy, etc - there are plenty of examples across the world's history to point to.
I do think there's a fair criticism that going for classic fantasy aesthetics and tropes can clash with the desire to present these differing worldviews and moralities. The structures of a society will influence the worldviews of those present in the society, and there can be some odd moments of unintentional clashing from this in many settings that are combining classic fantasy tropes with a more "modern" morality. A highly authoritarian system of absolute monarchy combined with feudalism where the majority of people are owned as part of the land of their local lord will have impacts on the way this society views the world. It would be very strange to combine this society with a commonly-held worldview that placed significant respect on individual rights and the autonomy and freedom of all of the society's members. I think we should assume that fantasy settings can have a very wide variety of morals and worldviews, but that those should be a plausible result of the structures that impact the people holding those worldviews.
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It's always a problem applying real-world standards to fantastic/fictional settings. It's also always problematic to apply present day standards to events that happened hundreds, maybe thousands, of years ago.
If you're triggered by FRPG settings and events, perhaps whatever game that caused the trigger isn't for you.
I suppose one of your options here is to make an FRPG based on a real land or country here on Earth and incorporate real-world/modern sensibilities into it.
That sounds fun.
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Much like humans are a presumed baseline in most RPGs (for ease of understanding alternate POVs if nothing else), modern ethics work well as the baseline for ethical issues (which can already be awkward to finesse or a subject of ignorance/naivete). Golarion/Paizo isn't trying to recreate or capture historical vibes, at least not as a whole. The regions that do mirror Earth cultures draw from centuries if not millennia apart. There would be no singular archaic moral system, there'd be scores, making Golarion quite a difficult setting to adventure in. Philofinder.
So yeah, it's a convention, much like word puzzles in Common mirror word puzzles in English (something James Jacobs has pointed out irks him about using those). Philosophical puzzles & moral dilemmas mirror real world ones, without further steps to adjust for possible schools of thought and philosophical development on a world with scores of sapient species, access to the wisdom of deities, and no dominant ethos.
I'm reminding of how the Dalai Lama talked about how India embraced secularism, needing to because it had a multitude of different cultures & religions who would never agree if metaphysical claims were factored in. Maybe Golarion's similar re: gender & sexual ethics (et al). Or maybe Elves simply laughed at the quaint, backwards folk.
As for (over-)representation, RPGs are escapism for marginalized groups too, who appreciate the inclusion (and have expressed as much). Being not-marginalized on Golarion means yes, we will see more representation than on Earth, esp. archaic Earth. But there's no objective norm to measure such percentages as accurate or not, esp. with fantasy cultures.
Escapism's also why institutionalized slavery got deleted, Erastil was reconfigured, and other changes were made to adopt to the trauma of real world players. If there were an upside, it wasn't worth the downside. And yep, that's a judgment call, but Paizo also encourages tables to go as gray and gritty as the players enjoy or go full rainbow Ponyfinder if desired. It's a shared setting only in the materials, not the GMs' final incarnations.
And apparently this scenario did overstep for one (therefore likely others too), and they can make adjustments as needed. IMO this includes the GM running it for public PFS games. They might need to inform their players, heck, even survey their players, to establish how gray they're gonna go with issues.
Paizo also encourages tables to go as gray and gritty as the players enjoy or go full rainbow Ponyfinder if desired.Last I checked (TBF, it's been a hot minute), Ponyfinder was still using the OGL. Have they done anything using Remastered 2E under the ORC yet?
I have no clue about a Remaster or whether OGL even impacts it much. I only know of its existence on the lighter end of PF2's breadth.
ETA: I should say PF's breadth, as I couldn't have told you which edition they first or last came out during. Pretty art though. :-)
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Liberating forced laborers is in no way a war crime. In fact, it is only doing a good deed. Not taking part of the war per se.
Or do heroes need to stop doing good and punishing bad guys just because there is an official state of war ?
Just to note, in case you haven't read the adventure, the PCs are coordinating with the eagle knights, and fight next to them (against humans in uniform!) at the final battle.
Just played this today. The final battle was clearly self-defense for the Pathfinders.
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I'm worried this sounds harsh, but I meant it sincerely: if the current modern illegality of mercenaries is enough to cause distress over embodying them in fiction, I think roleplaying something other than a combat-focused game that's currently telling a war storyline might be the correct choice, rather than demanding that storyline change.
The Pathfinder Society has a long history of fatal violence against human agents of the Chelish state, both covertly and in open battle, just like they've opposed many other tyrannical empires, nations, and cult over the years. They've also acted as agents of many states in the past, including a lot of work for Andoran. I don't feel any worse about the Society fighting and killing Chelish soldiers than I would about the idea of clashing against a belligerent Mzali, Nex, or Taldor.
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I'm worried this sounds harsh, but I meant it sincerely: if the current modern illegality of mercenaries is enough to cause distress over embodying them in fiction, I think roleplaying something other than a combat-focused game that's currently telling a war storyline might be the correct choice, rather than demanding that storyline change.
No, that's fair. Thank you.
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Just played this today. The final battle was clearly self-defense for the Pathfinders.Liberating forced laborers is in no way a war crime. In fact, it is only doing a good deed. Not taking part of the war per se.
Or do heroes need to stop doing good and punishing bad guys just because there is an official state of war ?
Just to note, in case you haven't read the adventure, the PCs are coordinating with the eagle knights, and fight next to them (against humans in uniform!) at the final battle.
I mean, this is why soldiers need to be clearly defined as not adventurers. "Self-Defense" when you enter a hostile country with intent to disrupt its war effort, and have already (probably) killed up to four soldiers? What should Chelixian conscripts do? Ask the Pathfinders politely to leave after breaking and entering, plus probably killing their friends? Again, these guys are NPC core Guards template, no deals with devils. They may have signed onto the local militia to fight the occasional monster.
You can't just swap hats into soldiering, just like you couldn't swap hats into policing in Agents of EdgeWatch. Paizo plans at least two years in advance and picks the worst timing. I'm sorry.
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(Continuing to respond to The Raven Black)
We know you’re Pathfinders, and not Eagle Knights or soldiers In
this case, that works to our advantage If Andoran brings a large force
into Brastlewark, the Chelaxian military might respond by threatening
the civilians We can’t have that We need small team who can
improvise, move fast, deal with any threats, and get out
This part of page 3 is the brothersome part. It implies that the pathfinders can be seen as a lesser threat to Chelax and will use that deception to "deal with threats." That creates a contradiction in the Pathfinder Society's future. The adventure offers no off-ramp for sabotaging the Society's Semi-neutral status. I've played several adventures about fixing the Society's mistakes, and making a new one should be handled with more care.
I'm not saying this shouldn't be a topic, just that it needs a careful hand, and this adventure was not careful.
And in the case of Ironfang Invastion, and in general with all Nimrathas military forces, they are largely unlawful combatants, as they don't wear uniforms that identify them as combatants, nor are they in the chain of command of the government. Many Nimrathas forces and the player squad in this AP effectively acted on their own initiative. And because of this, they, like most guerrilla forces, are formally unlawful combatants without usual immunity for actions for combatants.
Having run Ironfang Invasion I know that the Chernasardo Rangers, one of the Nirmathi military forces, wear a green-and-gray uniform mostly designed for camouflage in the forest. Page 6 of Fangs of War under "Seeking Allies" says, "She explains that the Rangers are active all throughout the Southern Fangwood, that they wear distinctive ponchos of gray and green, and that they maintain three hidden bases in the Southern Fangwood." The uniform is visible in the picture Deadly Rivalry, though the artist used a lot more brown than gray and the poncho looks more like a cape. I do not know the uniform policies of the other militias, such as the Foxclaws and Irgal's Axe.
Lost Omens World Guide describes the government of Nirmathas as "Meritocracy," but really it is close to anarchy, a loose coalition of local rule. Elected Forest Marshal Weslen Gavirk tracked the independent militias and could request their aid. The Chernasardo Rangers were recognized by him as an official militia, and in the 6th module he recognized the player characters as their own militia.
Furthermore, in the 1st module, Trail of the Hunted, the party and other refugess from the invaded village of Phaendar were civilians. They had fled the Ironfang Legion and hid in the Fangwood Forest, though they had fought to hold a bridge that the villagers escaped over. The Ironfang Legion sent out patrols to find and capture them, and the refugees fought back. The Ironfang Legion itself was an illegal army, a division of the Molthune army that deserted and chose to conquer land in Nirmathas as a new country for themselves.
In my own campaign, the ranger Zinfandel was a Chernasardo Ranger recruit training under crippled and retired Chernasardo Ranger Aubrin the Green. Though the module put Aubrin into a situation that would probably kill her, my PCs rescued her and she appointed the party as scouts under her authority. And they adopted the Chernasardo uniform whenever they got ahold of the appropriate cloth. When they rescued Chernasardo subcommander Cobb Greenleaf in the 2nd module, he recognized them as Chernasardo Rangers. Later the party became known as the Chernasardo Elite since they were higher level than other Chernasardo Rangers. My players like to play by the rules of their characters' society.
The Chernasardo uniforms gave a bit of fun in Fangs of War when the party entered the heavily-trapped armory in Fort Nunder. One trap was a wood golem: "This golem activates upon several different conditions: if it sees any creature not wearing a gray-and-green poncho (such as those the Chernasardo Rangers wear),..." The party walked by that trap unscathed.
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Just played this today. The final battle was clearly self-defense for the Pathfinders.Liberating forced laborers is in no way a war crime. In fact, it is only doing a good deed. Not taking part of the war per se.
Or do heroes need to stop doing good and punishing bad guys just because there is an official state of war ?
Just to note, in case you haven't read the adventure, the PCs are coordinating with the eagle knights, and fight next to them (against humans in uniform!) at the final battle.
I mean, this is why soldiers need to be clearly defined as not adventurers. "Self-Defense" when you enter a hostile country with intent to disrupt its war effort, and have already (probably) killed up to four soldiers? What should Chelixian conscripts do? Ask the Pathfinders politely to leave after breaking and entering, plus probably killing their friends? Again, these guys are NPC core Guards template, no deals with devils. They may have signed onto the local militia to fight the occasional monster.
You can't just swap hats into soldiering, just like you couldn't swap hats into policing in Agents of EdgeWatch. Paizo plans at least two years in advance and picks the worst timing. I'm sorry.
I regret not having the scenario, because some of what you describe does not fit what I played.
We entered Cheliax, left border patrols behind (no killing soldiers), found the escaped gnomes, accompanied them on the way back to Andoran (still no killing soldiers) and, for our final combat, happened on a Chelish contingent with the war machine and a commandant officer ordering his soldiers to use it on us, saying something like "We saw it reduce walls to ruin. Let's see if it does the same to pathfinders."
We fought and killed the Chelish soldiers who were actively trying to kill us and brought the gnomes to Andoran.
End of the story.
Nothing like mercenaries or war criminals here IMO, at least on our side.
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What I mean is that while the Ironfang Legion certainly committed actions that are illegal by modern moral standards and the definition of war crimes, systematic resistance to them still makes the characters combatants, and since they acted independently, they are still unlawful combatants.
Notably, neither armed force in Ironfang Invasion was a regular army. The PCs' militia was an ad hoc, irregular force whose connection to Nirmathas began and ended with being made up of Nirmathi citizens and operating (mostly, Glimmerhold and Kraggodan don't count) in Nirmathi territory. It was not answerable to the country's government, such as it was. Meanwhile, the Ironfang Legion had renounced its allegiance to Molthune and would not purport to be the army of a state until after the armistice, when it became necessary to constitute a state in order to have something its neighbors could recognize and make treaties with.
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I regret not having the scenario, because some of what you describe does not fit what I played.We entered Cheliax, left border patrols behind (no killing soldiers), found the escaped gnomes, accompanied them on the way back to Andoran (still no killing soldiers) and, for our final combat, happened on a Chelish contingent with the war machine and a commandant officer ordering his soldiers to use it on us, saying something like "We saw it reduce walls to ruin. Let's see if it does the same to pathfinders."
We fought and killed the Chelish soldiers who were actively trying to kill us and brought the gnomes to Andoran.
End of the story.
Nothing like mercenaries or war criminals...
That sounds a lot like 7--06, which is the 'Part 1' of that plot.
The newest 'Part 2' 7-14 has the Venture Captain have the PCs aid in an active Eagle Knights mission to savatoge a military facility and kidnap/kill a chelaxian figure. The Venture-Captain in question is both a VC and a still-active and commissioned Eagle Knight, and the adventure deeply blurs the line between him giving you a 'Pathfinder Society' mission and an 'Andoran Military objectives' one imo.
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People are tossing around the word "unlawful" a bunch, leading me to wonder whose law they're talking about? UN & Geneva Conventions? For example, on Golarion does a soldier caught fighting/spying out of uniform receive worse repercussions than a soldier caught in uniform? Does the treatment of POWs have a civil norm? Who could possibly hold others accountable? Or maybe deities have a say? With the primary god of war dead, maybe whatever semblance of civility has evaporated (though being chaotic himself, maybe the opposite!).
People are tossing around the word "unlawful" a bunch, leading me to wonder whose law they're talking about? UN & Geneva Conventions? For example, on Golarion does a soldier caught fighting/spying out of uniform receive worse repercussions than a soldier caught in uniform? Does the treatment of POWs have a civil norm? Who could possibly hold others accountable? Or maybe deities have a say? With the primary god of war dead, maybe whatever semblance of civility has evaporated (though being chaotic himself, maybe the opposite!).
Wikipedia has a page on Unlawful Combatant. A more enlightening alternative name is unprivileged combatant, because being an unlawful combatant is not against the law. Instead, it means that the combatant is not protected by the Geneva Convention. This idea grew out of an earlier agreement about Hors de combat, that a soldier who is not fighting, because the soldier surrendered or the soldier was off shift and out of uniform without a weapon, is not a legitimate target to kill. An irregular who fights out of uniform is not given the privilege of Hors de combat. They are always a valid target.
However, one reason allowed by the Geneva Convention that a person might fight out of uniform is:
4. Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war; often dubbed a levée after the mass conscription during the French Revolution.
Since Phaendar in Ironfang Invasion was invaded without warning, the civilians, including player characters, who fought back in defense would fall under rule about the lack of time to form regular units. They would still be lawful combatants. But once they fled into the Fangwood Forest and had time to organize into a resistance militia, they would have to adopt a command structure and "a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance," that would serve in lieu of a uniform. My player characters did this without knowing the detailed rules. The module said an NPC would suggest that they organize under the Hemlock Banner as a symbol to rally the refugees.
The Wikipedia page on Prisoners of war says, "In Europe the treatment of prisoners of war became increasingly centralised, in the time period between the 16th and late 18th century. Whereas prisoners of war had previously been regarded as the private property of the captor, captured enemy soldiers were increasingly regarded as state property." That is the stage where I placed the Ironfang Legion. Their captives of war were assigned to forced labor that served the legion. My players still viewed that as enslaved. Other GMs might make other decisions about war captives in this adventure path.
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So Earth laws? Earth norms? And a bit modern at that. It's better than nothing, but do we have anything from Golarion/Paizo? What standards are devs using? Is there even univocality among them? Is the lack why we're seeing what some think are discrepancies?
With Golarion individuals able to unleash the power of armies, how might that alter norms? A high-level officer isn't simply social capital, perhaps useful for barter; they're a significant hazard to contain...or invaluable to corrupt what with all of Golarion's options. For top-tier, killing won't be the best option, as that allows resurrection. And then there are teleportation raids & rescues, etc. Heck, I would worry less about the saboteur that needs a disguise than the brazen one that flies in and teleports out. And are clone backups still around?
And then does Cheliax care about anybody else's views? Andoran might to various degrees, but how do they hold individuals accountable? Under what grounds if not Andoran citizens? Is it back to "might is right" and "possession (of you) is 9/10 of the law"?
So yeah, here we are noting how fuzzy the boundaries on slavery can be while our interpretation of war crimes (if we even can delineate that with rigor) may not be crimes on Golarion. Or they might fight fiercer against such inhumanity.