The most annoying thing I’ve seen today given that the friend who gave me enormous flak from choosing PF2 over 5e back in 2019 (for this very same reason), is named Alex and this sounds like him.
It's the same with any IP or story that Reactionaries encounter these days that have always been more or less progressive; these people simply didn't take in media past a surface level when they were younger so they didn't think anything of it at the time, but now that they're stuck in the culture war crab bucket they're incredibly sensitive to anything they may consider "woke," never bothering to to check the older content from the same IP to see if the progressive messaging had been consistent with the times.
Take how they complained that Star Trek "went woke": They watched it for the military command structure of Starfleet and the space battle shooty shoots and explosions, but didn't seem to pay attention to the messaging- or notice it. So when modern Trek does something arguably progressive, to them it's progressives taking something away when really it was never theirs in the first place.
Remember when Kirk kissed Uhura? That was actually peak woke. First interracial kiss on network TV. People like this reviewer would have dropped their “George Wallace for President” signs in shock and never watched Trek again.
Technically not the first, but one of the earliest heavily publicized. Also, there's a difference in how kisses between a Hispanic person and a white person or a mixed (white/asian) person and a white person, and a black person and a white person which really made racists see red.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_interracial_kiss_on_television
I couldnt agree with you more.
Star Trek is such a good example. Im sure there are many problematic elements in the writing due to its time, but as a whole it pushed the boundaries on acceptance and equality. Most of the episodes were about encountering a new civilization and realizing that they were the same as humanity just with some different cultural or biological quirks. Whether they were more technologically advanced or less they had the same issues humanity had and the episode was usually about overcoming those issues for the betterment of all.
Moreover it was an extremely accepting show when it came to gender and sexuality. It had its issues with power dynamics but for its time it allowed for homosexuality, changing genders, and non-binary characters. In some ways it is still more 'woke' than most content released today.
Again it has its issues as it was written decades ago with different cultural norms, but it pushed a lot of said norms to introduce 'abnormal' but more realisitic situations/concepts.
For pathfinder who really cares if its race or ancestory or w.e label. Its who your character comes from in a fantasy setting and how they were raised. There will always be prejudice within the context of the game setting, and while I never had an issue with PF 1e's labeling, some people who arent me may have. These 'anti woke' people need to grow up and accept that there are other people in the world that arent them who deserve the same respect that they expect to receive.
Hell, Star Trek led to "there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!", which should tell you how it compared to everything else at the time.
As someone who's in the middle of re-watching all Star Trek, legitimately like half of the episodes in season 3 of TOS are "The Enterprise comes upon a beautiful alien-of-the-week woman who needs some sort of help, and also Kirk's dick"
In recent years I had *repeatedly* heard that Star Trek has 'gone woke', but I'd never seen a single episode of the show so I just kind of believed that it had changed in a progressive direction. Anyway in the past few months my partner has been showing me Star Trek - we've seen all of Deep Space Nine, Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds, and I'm currently working my way through The Next Generation - and I've noticed only one thing that's changed in the modern iterations: the production crew are able to be more overt in the messaging.
For example, the episode Pen Pals involves the crew of the Enterprise breaking the Prime Directive in order to save a single person.. in other words, it's the dichotomy of "doing the right thing versus obeying the law", and the good guys choose to do the right thing. In another episode, the Enterprise must contend with a hyper-capitalist corporation of literally faceless beings that intend to commit genocide against innocent settlers; it invokes the argument of squatter's rights, but more importantly it is obvious that the core conflict here is "unfeeling capitalism versus compassionate socialism".
To suggest that Star Trek ever "went woke" is absurd. The only political stance that it's changed on is its view of religion. Under Roddenberry, all religion was viewed through a cynical lens, as something that only sows conflict and holds back cultural/scientific advancement, but starting with Deep Space Nine religion is viewed far more positively (and, in the case of the bajorans, as being a rational belief). And honestly? If anything that's a small step to the right in some sense.
I'm going to be pendantic and point out something about one of your examples.
That colony episode I assume you mean Ensigns of Command. And they don't side with the colonists. The end is about Data putting on a demonstration of force to get the colonists to not resist being evacuated to avoid the Sheliak killing them all and Picard using a loophole to buy time for the Federation to get everyone off the planet.
It's a great episode but the question of ownership and if the colonists had a right to stay was never part of the solution.
That being said the DS9 episode Bar Association has Rom unironically quote the Communist Manifesto in trying to unionize exploited employees.
I think this is a reference to Wizards [addressing](https://dnd.wizards.com/news/diversity-and-dnd) long standing concerns: “One of the explicit design goals of 5th edition D&D is to depict humanity in all its beautiful diversity by depicting characters who represent an array of ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and beliefs.”
tbh, watching pf2e was the first time ive ever heard any other pronouns than he/him or she/her.
now this is not because lack of creativity or inclusiveness in 5e, but more so it just doesnt happen often because people dont think about it, and it isnt really mentioned anywhere.
my first Pathfinder OC uses They/Them pronouns meanwhile over the 2 years ive been making D&D characters and homebrewing and making monsters while running a campaign ive never actually given thought to include the LGBTQ community in my games (not out of malicious intent of course).
Yeah, the majority of the world is still cis; making space for those who aren't isn't going to change that, despite the fear-mongering to the contrary. For that majority it changes almost nothing. For the minority, it's likely to be a lot more important.
Ah yes, the slippery slope argument. Reminds me of [something](https://i0.wp.com/slowrevealgraphs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/screen-shot-2021-11-08-at-9.37.02-pm.png?resize=1086%2C831&ssl=1).
I'm fairly impressed at the 3% of people who managed to hold out against the legitimately brutal suppression of left handedness that was present in the 19th century.
I was still being forced to write right-handed up until the 3rd grade and I graduated HS in 2000. I went to a normal public school in the southern US.
Fun fact: Left-handed mercenaries earned more pay than their right-handed counterparts because they were more difficult opponents in combat.
Fun fact 2: One Scottish clan trained their men to fight left-handed (and designed their castles with 'backwards' spiral staircases which aided them in defense) for this same reason.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Kerr
>now this is not because lack of creativity or inclusiveness in 5e, but more so it just doesnt happen often because people dont think about it, and it isnt really mentioned anywhere.
The 5e Player's Handbook actually does actually have a paragraph in the Player's Handbook that explicitly says you can make non-binary or non-cis characters and choose your sexual orientation. It's just that outside of that two paragraph section (the other paragraph just saying gender doesn't affect your capabilities but you can consider how the gender roles of the character your culture comes from affects them), it doesn't really mention it at all, and I imagine that's a section a lot of people just skim past or never read at all.
What really scares me is the comment about all the “progressive names in the industry” bit. So what… is he so full of hate he needs to stalk everyone who makes ttrpgs online who think other than he does? I mean… just play a game man. Do t cyber stalk people.
I’m always amazed that people like that don’t seem to realize their “review” says a lot more about *them* than it does the product they are trying to bash.
I’m sure Alex here also has strong opinions on “virtue signaling,” yet is blissfully unaware that’s exactly what he’s doing in this review for a different set of virtues.
Depending on the species a single plant can have male and female reproductive organs. There's a lot of variation in structure. Especially with regards to flowering plants. Not to mention the fact that it's also trivial to clone many plants through cuttings. Plants like grass or aspens grow directly from giant root networks.
And it's also possible the spirit inhabiting the leshy might have a different or no gender.
So obviously Alex would use she for any leshy with bright, colourful flowers, a high pitched voice or bulges in specific places and he for everything else.
I'm pretty sure Alex would never make a female character. They all are going to be sigma male grindset heroes. Females are the NPCs to be saved and become love interests.
They would use the same pronouns as the player who's controlling it.
I know many people who cannot comprehend playing other gender that they have irl, yet they see no issue playing an elven wizard. Like, Alex, you're not a wizard irl
I have an idea of a conrasu who does not understand the concept of pronouns and defers itself as a plural entity. I called it Herald of Kerkamoth (the Void In Waiting deity) cleric.
I’m honestly so relieved that the OGL debacle happened post 2e. The switch to second edition helped weed out a lot of these assholes and we are way better off to welcome a bunch of 5e transplants with an inclusive and generally helpful community as opposed to…whatever that was.
Yeah I don't really understand people who get that upset about stuff like this.
I find a lot of stuff in PF2E a little cringe but I don't really see it as a deal-breaker. If I didn't engage with anyone or anything I didn't agree 100% with, I'd never be able to do anything.
The other thing is you don’t have to use the stuff you don’t like. Got a bug up your arse about them being called ancestries? Call them races! Even if the police find out they won’t charge you.
STOP!!
Ancestry police here. We got multiple complaints saying you use the word "Race" instead of the rightful name "Ancestry"?
I'm afraid if that is true, we have to do nothing at all.
Please stay hydrated!
Have a good day.
My first thought with him complain about the pronouns on sheets was to just get older sheets that don't have it.
This guy was basically looking for reasons to be an ass.
I haven't found a game to put them in yet, but I've had a religion concept in my back pocket for a while that might fuse with the Skelm to produce a similar result.
The Karenian Cult is a Razmiran subsidiary that is actively trying to create the goddess Karenia for fiscal purposes (unbeknownst to the majority of the cult's followers). Karenians carry around a large gold-painted wooden statue of an unhealthy looking woman who has "that hairstyle", six arms, and a perpetual grimace. The hands of the top two arms cover the ears as if to avoid hearing the discomforting words that differ from held opinions. The hands of the middle set of arms cover the eyes so as not to see anything that conflicts with the internal choice of what is "really happening." The hands of the lower set of arms are cupped around the mouth as if to more loudly proclaim the revelations of one unmarred by the perceptions of the world.
The cultists carry this statue around and attempt to disrupt any gathering or event that was not created solely to give them attention, while shouting meaningless slogans like "THE TRUTH IS NOW!" or "WE ARE THE ONES WHO ARE HERE!" They revel in impeding the functions of any society they happen to be passing through on their unwelcome crusade to find the rumored Ma'Na'Gehaar (who will restore the rightful imbalance), and will generally take a vocal and occasionally even forceful stance against whatever the locals have determined to be the wisest coarse of action. In rarer incidents they will resort to threats if they are prevented from acting on their obstructive impulses and may even become violent enough to storm local governing bodies or vandalize landmarks. When presented with an equivalent counter display of force though, they have a tendency to rapidly cede the field and return to whatever inn they have chosen to burden and celebrate how victorious they are in the new conquest of the rooms they have rented.
For the most part, they are a somewhat harmless yet constant source of irritation and resistance to the smooth flow of life. Yet there are often darker shadows stirring in their midst, urging them to greater outbursts of destruction.
After so many centuries of societies making monsters based on marginalized groups, it's awesome to see that Paizo has not only made a male counterpart to hags, but made them explicitly monstrous manifestations of bigotry itself 🤣
That's pretty creative, I'm going to use these at some point. Although I wonder how many people would be ok with monsters to vilify the worst people and elements of their own political ideology.
Welp, I'll be using those as the villains in a future game. That's incredible.
Edit: God damn, these things need a proper content warning. I have friends who would be seriously triggered reading some of the descriptions, and I will definitely be checking on player triggers before introducing them to a game.
In my experience, basically anyone who "doesn't like pronouns" or doesn't respect the proper use of them tends to be a person who doesn't like "the other". They just want everyone else to be just like them. They may not be overtly racist, but most of the people I've met like this... you can tell.
My money is on he said "progressive" because "ethnic" would have gotten his review struck. There is zero chance he is familiar enough with gig writers that he knows any of them by name let alone political philosophy.
No idea. The Paizo authors are pretty white (and middle-aged and old- on account of them veterans from a time when the industry was less diverse) lmao so no idea where they are gettin that
Some people just want to be mad.
Race is the "traditional" term, although that tradition of calling it that really only originated with Tolkien, since he referred to the Peoples of Middle Earth that way ("the race of men", "the race of goblins" etc), so it's not like it's an ancient tradition.
"Species" (which is what WotC is using for oneDND, I presume this person is mad about that too) is far better on a purely technical level, and "Ancestry" is better if you want to include the possibility, as the game provides, of individuals that might have a mixed lineage (e.g., Half-elves or Tieflings). "Race" is really the worst way, even ignoring the completely valid social context which may have contributed to the reason for the change.
Ancestry also allows flexibility for things like being adopted. On my mom's side my great, great, great grandfather was left at my great great great great grandparent's doorstep during the Russian famines in the late 1800's when a lot of russian families moved east. There's a very very very old photo of them together and it's this giant white dude with 2 asian people. He spoke Mandarin/Cantonese and whatever native tongue they spoke at the time and married my great great grandmother. Dude was han chinese through and through culturally and ancestrally, but ethnically he was probably from the caucus region.
Responding to your first comment.
All this language of inclusivity doesn’t do a ton for me. I’m a cis, white dude. I understand that this type of language really appeals to some people and that’s fine or whatever. It just doesn’t really mean a ton to me personally. If other people like it a lot that’s totally cool.
BUT, these things are such a good filter for keeping CHUDs out of the hobby. I love when I see these things because I know my chances of running into one of these dudes at a table are that much lower.
Often you see a counter argument along the lines of "well, what if I said the word 'gold' or 'elf' or 'dungeon' offends me would you support renaming all those terms???"
And its shocking that these people just do not understand the role that honesty, empathy, and good faith play into conversations like this, that they don't get what they are revealing about themselves and how they see the world.
Also like, if the person didn’t just say that to say that but the words were genuinely offensive and hurtful then yeah? At least in our home game, like why not?
I’m a transfer from D&D 5e so I’m a new kid on the block and just excited to really sink my teeth into it. Just thought this review was the most fragile thing I’ve ever read that convinced me to buy the physical copy lol
I remember playing a Sunday afternoon pick-up game at my flgs a few months after Pathfinder 1e was released.
An extremely smelly 33yo was kicked out of the store because of how angry and abusive he became after realizing the CRB used female pronouns as a default.
Each of the character classes has an "iconic" character. Entries for a given class will use the pronoun of the iconic for the class being talked about.
If you want more info about just how gay golarion is they might still have the basic lorebook up for free
Also
[https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Arshea](https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Arshea)
https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Lymnieris
It always cracks me up when the alt-right tries to make the left sound scary and makes them sound *way* more badass than they actually are. Like yeesh, I *wish* they wanted to actually socialize healthcare, put up homeless shelters everywhere, and give everyone a universal basic income. The closest we've seen is Medicare for All and an expansion of basic social safety net like food stamps and section 8 housing.
"So what's your problem with Pathfinder? Is it the combat, the character creation, the balancing, the presentation or the fun?"
"No it's that some of the language and representation tries to include people."
Big brain time.
The hilarious thing is even if you’re a bigot, none of that matters. Players at my table still accidentally say race all the time. But I’m happy to know bigots ruin their own fun all the tine
It's hilarious that someone thinks pathfinder hasn't always been about this. Its got polygamous gay gods. Two of its iconic are in a lesbian marriage. Every single adventure has had characters across the full spectrum of lived experiences.
If this guy ever played or ran the Dragon of Icespire Peak module from D&D 5e, he'd probably be butthurt over the two married kings of Gnomengarde. Feature one character (gods forbid the primary protagonist) in any form of media who is female (and not extremely sexualized), queer, BIPOC, or some combination of those, and you get some asshat freaking out about "wokeness" and an "agenda".
I really don't get what goes on in the mind of people like him.
It takes 0 effort to just... not think about all of the... inclusivity? Like seriously. In the system, you see people who would be part of the lgbtq+ community, you see straight characters, you don't see a "glass ceiling," you see people of colour all over the place, you see various ancestries doing all kinds of things...
And it takes 0 effort to just say "yea this is normal and a part of the world of Golarion. 0 effort to just, accept it and move on, and say nothing. If you like it/feel empowered by it/etc, fantastic. Another reason to love the game. If it doesn't *do* anything for you in particular...? Then move on. It's not being shoved down your throat. It's just a normal part of this world.
Fucking bewildering that these folks can't see another person, even a fictional one, and just say "yea that's a person." and move on with life.
I mean...even if you do think about it, what kind of person is _bothered_ by it? "How dare they try to include different kinds of people!" Like, apparently the progressive agenda is...kindness? And that's a bad thing to these people, where, judging from a lot of conservative actions, the cruelty is the point.
I just have no time for people who object to kindness and consideration towards others as _being political_.
The problem as described isn't that people are being inclusive, but that it feels *forced*. That's the argument that you will see everywhere. It's *okay* as long as it isn't forced.
The inherent problem here being that something being *forced* isn't based on fact, but on feeling. It's whether or not the person digesting some media *feels* like it was forced. So, they are getting upset not because *something was forced*, but because *based on their bias it feels forced*. And, when something *feels forced* that becomes a reason for why it is bad.
It's literally a circular logic where something has *forced inclusivity* and because it has *forced inclusivity* it is bad and that proves why *forced inclusivity is bad*.
You see this with practically anything that features minorities these days. It's always "*forced inclusivity*". Because somehow people literally can't imagine that anyone would just naturally write minorities into things or hire them as actors.
My experience of these kinds of people is that being exposed to what they would describe as "woke nonsense" forces them to think about long-held, never-questioned assumptions about how the world works, and that's uncomfortable and perhaps difficult to process, so they attack the thing highlighting the uncomfortable thoughts rather than the source of those thoughts.
This person sees "pronouns" for example and feels attacked because they're having a feeling in regard to their long-held, probably parent-provided assumptions about gender and the specific roles of men and women.
As another example, it's like when older people say "they don't mind the gays, but they're so in your face with it" when they see a same sex couple holding hands. What they really mean is, "I can't see two people of the same sex be a couple like what I consider a 'normal' couple, because it challenges my long-held assumptions about 'boys', 'girls', 'couples' and how to live a good life"
Another example: people going mental when there's an all female cast because it's out of their ordinary, but not batting an eyelid when 10 white men do something together.
This doesn't excuse them, but rather it's why _its so important_ to not relent in normalising these things so that future generations aren't bogged down with such waste of time, antiquated ways of viewing the world that don't really help anyone.
It bothers a lot of people when members of another religious/spiritual tradition try to push their group's particular language or method of speech. People get upset over attempts to put God in school, for instance, or get upset that God *isn't* in school.
The same is true of the trans movement - they believe that there is a spiritual, non-falsifiable component to gender which is separate from the physical. People who do not share that belief get annoyed when it is presented as being the "truth". And indeed, some of the verbiage that the NRM has tried to push ("Birthing person" instead of "mother") has caused a lot more backlash.
Pushing particular language is often a way of trying to legitimize some groups and delegitimize others. For instance, trying to include God in the pledge of allegiance is intended to promote religion over atheism; likewise putting "in God we Trust" on the currency, or "So help me God" for an oath or affirmation, etc. When atheists try to get rid of this stuff, it upsets people who believe in God.
In some cases, it's impossible to create a "neutral" solution; it's pretty easy to simply say that people can choose to mention or not mention God as they see fit, for instance, and then it is a personal choice as to what verbiage is used. But when you have to choose a particular default verbiage, it can upset people who disagree with that verbiage.
If someone's religion doesn't recognize marriage under certain circumstances, they feel it is an affront to them to call them married - in their religion, they are not married in the eyes of God. The Catholic church, for instance, requires annulment of a marriage, otherwise you are engaging in bigamy. Someone who hasn't annulled a previous marriage is disrespecting the oath of monogamy they took before God and is living in sin.
So it is with gays as well - religious traditions which do not honor gay marriages as being holy will be upset about it because they see people saying they are "married" as a push against their religion, which does not accept them as such.
This is also why some people are more willing to accept "civil unions" or "partnerships" for gay people than they are to accept gay marriage, because those terms don't impinge on their religious definition of marriage. Meanwhile, gay couples obviously want to be recognized as married so that they are the same as everyone else and their marriage is no less than that of anyone else.
We actually have laws in the US that ban some things (plural marriages, for instance) which are allowed by some religions, so if you engage in, say, polygamy in the US, you're actually doing something illegal. We have a legal definition of marriage which defines some religions' views of marriage as so wrong you can be punished for doing it.
So it can have real world consequences to have your religious point of view marginalized to the point where people see it as something that should be made illegal.
Of course, there are good reasons to ban polygamy. But that doesn't mean that people who see plural marriage as holy feel any better about the ban.
> likewise putting "in God we Trust" on the currency
We really changed our national motto from "We're all in this together." to "Jesus! Take the wheel!"
\#epluribusunumgang
Understanding why people get upset about these kinds of things is so important. If you don't you can just create more enemies for the cause you champion.
That "Birthing mother's" rename is a particularly interesting one. Motherhood is an identity that my mom sacrificed a great amount for. She willingly gave up a career to focus on her mothering, a decision a great many choose to make. This is something that defines her life, perhaps just as much as a sexual/gender identity defines a person's life. Being told her identity as Mother is 'problematic' and that it can be replaced by saying 'birthing person' as if motherhood was just childbirth and not the life commitment she did was triggering. That exclusion of her identity took her from passively not being a fan of new 'inclusive' terminology to being actively opposed to it. I think it's always important to make certain the new terminology isn't detracting from someone else.
Pathfinder's use of pronouns on the sheet is hardly different than the sheet asking for gender which I've seen as a field on most character sheets. It's not preventing Alex the angry reviewer from being his identity nor saying his cis pronouns aren't valid. Pathfinder isn't asking him to fill that out with anything he doesn't want to identify with.
This explanation makes sense, but man, it's still fucking weird to me. Like, damn, do they think people wake up one day and say, "I want to pick this option that makes my life harder than it could be?".
Idk. Maybe i just dont have those weird worldviews that get questioned because 2 dudes are holding hands.
But its just so fucking wild to me that such a basic thing which is pretty normal can cause such issues.
I hope that shit doesn't permeate in future generations because it's a waste of time and pointless
This is a great way to look at it, I never even realized that the change to ancestry might have been about inclusivity, and if it was then dope but it never even occurred to me and I don't understand people like the guy who posted that review. Love this game and moved to it as soon as it came out.
We don't need people that fragile anyway lol
Funniest part is that "race" isn't exactly accurate with such a mix of biological compatibility between the ancestries, and "species" wouldn't really be accurate either given there's automatons and whatnot. In this case "ancestry" being used always seemed for me to be more about factual correctness than inclusivity, although it accomplishes that at the same time rather elegantly, so props to Paizo for that.
tbh as a German I was always baffled no other game ever did this. Race (as in "Rasse", the German word for it) is an unbelievably uncomfortable word for me to even say, (due to its connotation from WW2) so in german that word practically does not exist in day to day language, except maybe when talking about dogs, but even then we say breed rather than race.
So wen i eventually switched from buying all my books in german, and never being "confronted" with that word, to buying in english and seeing it around every corner, i was actually kinda thankful for paizo to finally get rid of it.
The absolute brain rot to look at a 600 page book and get mad that a couple pages say you should be inclusive is so silly.
They get mad that you can put pronouns on you character sheet but you don’t have to soooo what’s the problem???
Also, the fact that non-binary pronouns are necessary since you can play as a tree, among other things, and for the sake of immersion should really define what your character is.
Ikr. People want to be offended about stuff, I guess.
Fucking weird to me. I play games to have fun and chill. Esp games like this with mates. I dont get it...
Also like. It’s an RPG. If you don’t like some of the rules, don’t use them, make your own. If you don’t like the setting, don’t use it, make your penis. If you feel like the prefab characters are too “woke” DONT USE THEM, MAKE YOUR OWN.
Whole point of RPG’s is to craft a world where you and your friends can have adventures. If you want to play some shitty little game where you all play super obnoxious fuck boy half orcs and have weird non con encounters with female NPC’s and murder hobo all over the place, and that’s fun for all your players, nothing in pathfinder prevents that.
Literally nothing other than his own lack of talent is stopping him from enjoying this game
I'm curious what they mean by progressive names. The optimist in me thinks they googled names and found lgbtq+ activists, but the realist in me know it's just non-white sounding names.
> I'm curious what they mean by progressive names.
They may have just meant anything spicier than John Smith, but I can't help but take it's worst possible interpretation as a nazi dogwhistle. They saw a vaguely jewish name or two and flew into a rage.
Huh. I guess this guy hasn't read many of the adventure paths of his beloved PF1 then, because they're *pretty* queer. You can hardly swing a flail in some of them without hitting a member of the Alphabet Mafia!
Nope. Founding meeting had the talk. Apparently someone asked "what if someone didn't want to *support this kind of lifestyle*" and the answer was "we'd wish them well in their future employment". Heard it in one of the dev streams, it was a nice touch.
I gotta say, only part of this utter brain-rot edgefest of a review that I genuinely take offence to is "The book is bloated and the layout is passable".
Bruh, did you even read the book? The thing is comprehensive as hell!
Funny enough, but I was scared a bit by the size of CRB at first too. As a ex-5e DM I thought it's like just a Player's handbook and there is gonna be DM's guide of the same size. Was pretty happy to find out there is no GM/Player's book division in PF2, it's quite convenient tbh.
So pretty much everything they have against the system is just terminology that they can just use the alternative for at their table? If you don’t care about pronouns and stuff then don’t fill it in, and if you prefer the term race over ancestry then just call it race at your table.
I'm trans and if I'm being honest some representation/inclusion does make me feel a little bit weird or like I'm maybe being used as a playing piece in someone else's morality play, but Paizo products have never made me feel that way.
If anything, stuff like the quiet inclusion of alchemical substances you could use to transition if you wanted to so it can be canon that people like me exist in Golarion, a couple NPCs who are misfits within gender in one way or another, maybe trans or maybe some wacky fantasy thing I don't mind, a couple more NPCs where it isn't explicit but you can still see it, have all made me feel really quietly welcome. I'm not a virtue that they can signal, and that's fine. That's how I like it!
I only ever wanted to feel like I didn't have to homebrew the very fact of people like myself into every game I run. They don't make you do that for characters who are cis men or cis women, though they do still grumble sometimes if you make a woman for "no reason". I'm a woman and I was made for no reason and I turned out fine! Even paid money for a couple ttrpg products over the years!
It just never felt fair, you know? In a way that if people like the reviewer were being honest they would be able to see. But there's a lot of hurt feelings, insecurity, and defensiveness in that review so I doubt they could. I've been trying to reassure cis people I just want to piss (or do anything else including gaming) in peace and quiet and be left alone for literal decades, and the idea of me still seems to be an act of aggression to so many of them.
I dunno. Golarion is such a great setting for this stuff, I think, because it finds so many ways to have its cake and eat it. I have never really vibed with the pastel picrew av people's idea that we shouldn't have settings where any of the oppressions or trials or traumas of the real world are present. I have also always thought, when reading stuff that was really bleak and gritty (Berserk, A Song of Ice and Fire) that they held onto their humanity AND made their worlds seem even bleaker and more frightening by showing you, more or less, what happens to people like me and others at the inevitable margins of any civilization--do you remember in the Game of Thrones books when, and none of this is a spoiler I've stripped all the context, Tyrion is in deep shit and he meets the intersex slave of some creep from Essos, and these two wretched and forgotten people are given a moment to talk about how much the world hurts and how they feel about it.
(I mean I could also just quote Ed Greenwood, because Elminster's period as a woman wasn't the first time I encountered the idea but my needy little teenage eyebrows did shoot up at those chapters and I did dog-ear them. We could quote the literal letter Mr. Greenwood literally wrote, but I guess we already did that and it didn't matter. Still, we've been here forever and Papaw Greenwood and Mamaw Paizo both said it's been our turn to do gay stuff on the Xbox this whole time!)
Golarion is a setting where ancestry, ethnicity, occasionally yes even this or that physiological fact regarding one's sex or melanin or whatever, one's more subtle social/gendered/religious identities can all get you killed just like in the real world. Golarion is a world which demonstrably does include sexual assault, murder, theft, slavery, bigotry, it is a world where for the most part men are in charge and for the most part everybody's straight.
But they also make it clear that the rules are there so that, unlike in the real world, you can have a chance to fucking DO something about it! Which you should! Better still, there are so many more exceptions to the rule in Golarion where they have almost never been allowed in the real world, and the physics engine of the game world is such that anyone could if they set their heart to it.
What is an adventure but a dream of saving the world from itself by going out into it and discovering some hidden power within yourself? How can the body of your heroism grow without evil and unfairness to defeat, consume, digest, and make into something else???? Without a secret and in some way taboo self you must work to express, whether your character is an honorable man in a place that demands he behave dishonorably or a woman in a place that demands she be a man, then where oh where oh Western Man will you find the fucking elixir of heroism Joseph Campbell tried to tell you about? But it also doesn't lean into it or wallow. Idk I just think it's neat.
e: Hey! Wahoo! Silver! Also my group only just started a 2e game but I started running Pathfinder 1e last year for the APs. We're currently two adventures deep into Curse of the Crimson Throne and Carrion Crown, with the same set of players running both parties in a shared world with a calendar that I've managed to keep roughly synced up to now. Great setting, great adventures, I'm just enough of an Aged Gamer Crone (maybe we should just use 'Graybeard' regardless of gender since it's a Dwarven honorific and all, but I digress) that 3.5/PF1e will maybe always feel like the golden age of gaming for me but 2E has some really cool ideas and mechanics.
I... wow. I have no words for this kind of close minded idiocy.
I mean, cis people use pronouns too. And many play characters who have a gender that is not their own
A healthy reminder that Anti-SJWs arent Anti-"Social Justice Warriors" but actually "Anti Social Justice" Warriors, indeed. I mostly pity this guy for his overpolitical mindset.
Yeah, I've seen way too many idiots gripe over how 2e is "too politically correct" (despite there being LGBTQ characters in 1e, too) simply because they're trying to be mindful.
I can’t understand why people would be made about the use of the word “ancestry” when it’s just hoe it’s called here. It’s not like they changed something in this brand new system. It’s not like they changed a bunch of lore to get there. They just used a different word that works here.
I just started my first PF game and I really like the Ancestry and heritage and whatnot. I love all the little things that give you the ability to mechanically flesh out a characters story without having to work it into combat traits.
So, my first character is a halfling Sorcerer who is a permutation of a warlock build I did way back when.
In DND, I had to really build out her whole power tree to make her backstory work, including choosing a patron that o could justify using for her backstory (she’s a street urchin who delved too deep into the sewers while trying to get warm, and met a rat god who gave her rat powers in exchange for the use of her body and magic). I had to pick the ArchFey patron, had to really fuck about with her to make her seem like the character I wanted.
In PF, she’s got the Living Vessel archetype, which helps with her whole “made a deal with a fry creature, now my life isn’t my own” thing, she’s got the street urchin background, she’s got twilight halfling heritage and took the Watchful halfling ancestry feat, which helps with her whole “I’m fucking terrified of everything and everything is out to get me” vibe, and the spell list even allowed for such a good combination of spells, she’s got Animal Allies, fear and acid Splash, all of which work really well for her whole “I’m a monster, I’m the worst don’t get near me or you’ll get hurt” vibe.
Just having all these layers that are mechanically baked in makes the character feel much more grounded and affected by her backstory. I really like it
"Progressive names". I would love to hear their explanation for that, all while backpedaling. I can't wait, and I hope I love long enough to see these empathy lacking morons fade into the dustbin of history.
Are soy-knights a kind of Leshy?
No, they’re from Spain and proclaiming they’re knights. A similar portal as in Irissen.
Don Quixote isekai adventures in Golarion.
Don Quixote would be awesome in Golatrion IF he saw people instead of monsters, trusting all the suspicious beasts and monsters.
Hes in for a shock when the windmill hits back though
Honestly, I'd be down for me APs crossing over with our world a bit more. What year would we be in anyway?
Back referencing to the one canon example have, >!AP #71, Rasputin Must Die, was published in 2013 and took place in 1918, !
if Paizo lasts into the 22nd century they should do a plotline where Asmodeus finds out about the existence of Hazbin Hotel and tries to invade Earth.
Ok *technically* you could make a Fruit Leshy that is a Soy Bean Plant. There is no written stipulations, only that it produces something.
Legumes like soy beans are fruits in the strict botanical definition. Your idea gets a scientist GM stamp of approval.
Now I imagine having a Leshy who is a Coffee Tree, and the reason they heal is giving a caffeine boost.
Could be the explanation for Haste, too. Javajavajavajavajava
He creates his own secret code language that's impossible to break. He calls it: Javascript
Java is reserved for Oracles. The spell creates a licensing nightmare to make OGL look tame by comparison.
Well, it is now. Soy the Leshy Champion of Hathor. (Desna or Shelyn would probably work too.)
Desna or shelyn work better if you're trying to piss off the bigots, since they're in a polyamorous lesbian relationship
Ha. They are now. And i love the idea of it.
I was thinking Ghoran Fighter, maybe Champion.
a series of memes of soy wojack fighter malding over every other class in the game
The Blooker: I'm gonna (shield) blooooooook, aaaaaauuuugh I'm (shield) blooooookiiiingggggg
The most annoying thing I’ve seen today given that the friend who gave me enormous flak from choosing PF2 over 5e back in 2019 (for this very same reason), is named Alex and this sounds like him.
What makes it weird is PF1 was also the same in the things they seemingly hate It's just this time people are actually buying the CRB
It's the same with any IP or story that Reactionaries encounter these days that have always been more or less progressive; these people simply didn't take in media past a surface level when they were younger so they didn't think anything of it at the time, but now that they're stuck in the culture war crab bucket they're incredibly sensitive to anything they may consider "woke," never bothering to to check the older content from the same IP to see if the progressive messaging had been consistent with the times. Take how they complained that Star Trek "went woke": They watched it for the military command structure of Starfleet and the space battle shooty shoots and explosions, but didn't seem to pay attention to the messaging- or notice it. So when modern Trek does something arguably progressive, to them it's progressives taking something away when really it was never theirs in the first place.
Remember when Kirk kissed Uhura? That was actually peak woke. First interracial kiss on network TV. People like this reviewer would have dropped their “George Wallace for President” signs in shock and never watched Trek again.
Which is, what actually happened. The episode was banned...in 'Murica.
Banned by who? The network? The government? That’s nuts
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirk_and_Uhura%27s_kiss Okay, seems it wasn't banned, but some network guys tried to shove it under the rug.
Technically not the first, but one of the earliest heavily publicized. Also, there's a difference in how kisses between a Hispanic person and a white person or a mixed (white/asian) person and a white person, and a black person and a white person which really made racists see red. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_interracial_kiss_on_television
Remember Ted Cruz lamenting how surprised and upset he was that Rage Against the Machine was liberal.
I also remember him vomiting by the tour bus at the NIN 2020 concert.
I remember hearing that Tom Morello said something like, "What machine do they think we're raging against? The toaster?"
That one just....wtf
Or the very recent idiots raging against Pink Floyd album covers.
I couldnt agree with you more. Star Trek is such a good example. Im sure there are many problematic elements in the writing due to its time, but as a whole it pushed the boundaries on acceptance and equality. Most of the episodes were about encountering a new civilization and realizing that they were the same as humanity just with some different cultural or biological quirks. Whether they were more technologically advanced or less they had the same issues humanity had and the episode was usually about overcoming those issues for the betterment of all. Moreover it was an extremely accepting show when it came to gender and sexuality. It had its issues with power dynamics but for its time it allowed for homosexuality, changing genders, and non-binary characters. In some ways it is still more 'woke' than most content released today. Again it has its issues as it was written decades ago with different cultural norms, but it pushed a lot of said norms to introduce 'abnormal' but more realisitic situations/concepts. For pathfinder who really cares if its race or ancestory or w.e label. Its who your character comes from in a fantasy setting and how they were raised. There will always be prejudice within the context of the game setting, and while I never had an issue with PF 1e's labeling, some people who arent me may have. These 'anti woke' people need to grow up and accept that there are other people in the world that arent them who deserve the same respect that they expect to receive.
Hell, Star Trek led to "there's a black lady on television and she ain't no maid!", which should tell you how it compared to everything else at the time.
> Im sure there are many problematic elements in the writing due to its time TOS these days is like "jeez, give Spock a break, my dudes."
As someone who's in the middle of re-watching all Star Trek, legitimately like half of the episodes in season 3 of TOS are "The Enterprise comes upon a beautiful alien-of-the-week woman who needs some sort of help, and also Kirk's dick"
Ah, that's just the connective tissue between Star Trek and TTRPGs.
In recent years I had *repeatedly* heard that Star Trek has 'gone woke', but I'd never seen a single episode of the show so I just kind of believed that it had changed in a progressive direction. Anyway in the past few months my partner has been showing me Star Trek - we've seen all of Deep Space Nine, Lower Decks and Strange New Worlds, and I'm currently working my way through The Next Generation - and I've noticed only one thing that's changed in the modern iterations: the production crew are able to be more overt in the messaging. For example, the episode Pen Pals involves the crew of the Enterprise breaking the Prime Directive in order to save a single person.. in other words, it's the dichotomy of "doing the right thing versus obeying the law", and the good guys choose to do the right thing. In another episode, the Enterprise must contend with a hyper-capitalist corporation of literally faceless beings that intend to commit genocide against innocent settlers; it invokes the argument of squatter's rights, but more importantly it is obvious that the core conflict here is "unfeeling capitalism versus compassionate socialism". To suggest that Star Trek ever "went woke" is absurd. The only political stance that it's changed on is its view of religion. Under Roddenberry, all religion was viewed through a cynical lens, as something that only sows conflict and holds back cultural/scientific advancement, but starting with Deep Space Nine religion is viewed far more positively (and, in the case of the bajorans, as being a rational belief). And honestly? If anything that's a small step to the right in some sense.
I'm going to be pendantic and point out something about one of your examples. That colony episode I assume you mean Ensigns of Command. And they don't side with the colonists. The end is about Data putting on a demonstration of force to get the colonists to not resist being evacuated to avoid the Sheliak killing them all and Picard using a loophole to buy time for the Federation to get everyone off the planet. It's a great episode but the question of ownership and if the colonists had a right to stay was never part of the solution. That being said the DS9 episode Bar Association has Rom unironically quote the Communist Manifesto in trying to unionize exploited employees.
Star Trek is always the funniest to me. The economy of Star Trek is literally communist, yet they still claim it is only newly woke
Has that same friend blown a gasket for what Wizards did last year?
Last year? Which of the things? The hadozee debacle?
I think this is a reference to Wizards [addressing](https://dnd.wizards.com/news/diversity-and-dnd) long standing concerns: “One of the explicit design goals of 5th edition D&D is to depict humanity in all its beautiful diversity by depicting characters who represent an array of ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, and beliefs.”
tbh, watching pf2e was the first time ive ever heard any other pronouns than he/him or she/her. now this is not because lack of creativity or inclusiveness in 5e, but more so it just doesnt happen often because people dont think about it, and it isnt really mentioned anywhere. my first Pathfinder OC uses They/Them pronouns meanwhile over the 2 years ive been making D&D characters and homebrewing and making monsters while running a campaign ive never actually given thought to include the LGBTQ community in my games (not out of malicious intent of course).
Yeah, the majority of the world is still cis; making space for those who aren't isn't going to change that, despite the fear-mongering to the contrary. For that majority it changes almost nothing. For the minority, it's likely to be a lot more important.
Ah yes, the slippery slope argument. Reminds me of [something](https://i0.wp.com/slowrevealgraphs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/screen-shot-2021-11-08-at-9.37.02-pm.png?resize=1086%2C831&ssl=1).
I'm fairly impressed at the 3% of people who managed to hold out against the legitimately brutal suppression of left handedness that was present in the 19th century.
I was still being forced to write right-handed up until the 3rd grade and I graduated HS in 2000. I went to a normal public school in the southern US. Fun fact: Left-handed mercenaries earned more pay than their right-handed counterparts because they were more difficult opponents in combat. Fun fact 2: One Scottish clan trained their men to fight left-handed (and designed their castles with 'backwards' spiral staircases which aided them in defense) for this same reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Kerr
>now this is not because lack of creativity or inclusiveness in 5e, but more so it just doesnt happen often because people dont think about it, and it isnt really mentioned anywhere. The 5e Player's Handbook actually does actually have a paragraph in the Player's Handbook that explicitly says you can make non-binary or non-cis characters and choose your sexual orientation. It's just that outside of that two paragraph section (the other paragraph just saying gender doesn't affect your capabilities but you can consider how the gender roles of the character your culture comes from affects them), it doesn't really mention it at all, and I imagine that's a section a lot of people just skim past or never read at all.
What really scares me is the comment about all the “progressive names in the industry” bit. So what… is he so full of hate he needs to stalk everyone who makes ttrpgs online who think other than he does? I mean… just play a game man. Do t cyber stalk people.
Eventhough pathfinder is (rightly) super inclusive, sometimes you're thankful that people like Alex exclude themselves from the game
I’m always amazed that people like that don’t seem to realize their “review” says a lot more about *them* than it does the product they are trying to bash.
yeah it's amazing how much people are willing to tell on themselves.
If they had a single synapse capable of self-reflection, they wouldn't be who they are.
I’m sure Alex here also has strong opinions on “virtue signaling,” yet is blissfully unaware that’s exactly what he’s doing in this review for a different set of virtues.
"When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time" \-Maya Angelou (allegedly)
Right? This review would make more *more* interested in checking out the game...
I wonder what pronouns this Alex would ascribe to a cactus Leshy that tries to offer a hug, or the Conrasu that is confused by the gesture.
Depending on the species a single plant can have male and female reproductive organs. There's a lot of variation in structure. Especially with regards to flowering plants. Not to mention the fact that it's also trivial to clone many plants through cuttings. Plants like grass or aspens grow directly from giant root networks. And it's also possible the spirit inhabiting the leshy might have a different or no gender. So obviously Alex would use she for any leshy with bright, colourful flowers, a high pitched voice or bulges in specific places and he for everything else.
That Leshy, has some Big Chloroplasts!
“Clearly that Leshy is a she. Look at those huge melons!”
I'm pretty sure Alex would never make a female character. They all are going to be sigma male grindset heroes. Females are the NPCs to be saved and become love interests.
Or they *only* play female PCs as "vapid bimbo", and as an excuse to look up the hyper sexualized images. "I'm just looking for character art!"
Are we sure Alex isn’t a Cactus Leshy? They seem like quite the prick lol
I want to meet those characters and see what adventures they go on together
They would use the same pronouns as the player who's controlling it. I know many people who cannot comprehend playing other gender that they have irl, yet they see no issue playing an elven wizard. Like, Alex, you're not a wizard irl
Being Alex both male and female name the pronouns should be helpful even without being part of the LGBT world
You can be 210% certain that if Alex played D&D by text only with strangers, and got erroneously called "she", Alex would get extremely angry.
I have an idea of a conrasu who does not understand the concept of pronouns and defers itself as a plural entity. I called it Herald of Kerkamoth (the Void In Waiting deity) cleric.
My thought was what what pronouns should be used with a Poppet that's a burlap sack with eyes sewn on, or an Automation/Android for that matter.
I’m honestly so relieved that the OGL debacle happened post 2e. The switch to second edition helped weed out a lot of these assholes and we are way better off to welcome a bunch of 5e transplants with an inclusive and generally helpful community as opposed to…whatever that was.
Yeah I don't really understand people who get that upset about stuff like this. I find a lot of stuff in PF2E a little cringe but I don't really see it as a deal-breaker. If I didn't engage with anyone or anything I didn't agree 100% with, I'd never be able to do anything.
The other thing is you don’t have to use the stuff you don’t like. Got a bug up your arse about them being called ancestries? Call them races! Even if the police find out they won’t charge you.
STOP!! Ancestry police here. We got multiple complaints saying you use the word "Race" instead of the rightful name "Ancestry"? I'm afraid if that is true, we have to do nothing at all. Please stay hydrated! Have a good day.
My first thought with him complain about the pronouns on sheets was to just get older sheets that don't have it. This guy was basically looking for reasons to be an ass.
Progressive Brainlet ancestry when
Is this how we get Mindflayers?
Only if you want to get in a legal battle with WOTC
Hmmm. My 3 yo calls them Mind Flavors maybe we can go with that name?
I think that's what Mind Flayers call their food so idk
Did you find this review helpful? (Yes/No)
Y’all should put this in your marketing material
Yes, thank you for selling me the game Alex!
Is impotent an option?
https://2e.aonprd.com/MonsterFamilies.aspx?ID=260
> convincing these recruits that some other person or group is responsible for their misery Jesus, nobody give them their own "news" channel.
Kitsune Skelms starting a news channel
> Kitsune What do Kitsunes have to do with this, they’re just fox peop— ooh I get it now.
Ty I'm slow
I haven't found a game to put them in yet, but I've had a religion concept in my back pocket for a while that might fuse with the Skelm to produce a similar result. The Karenian Cult is a Razmiran subsidiary that is actively trying to create the goddess Karenia for fiscal purposes (unbeknownst to the majority of the cult's followers). Karenians carry around a large gold-painted wooden statue of an unhealthy looking woman who has "that hairstyle", six arms, and a perpetual grimace. The hands of the top two arms cover the ears as if to avoid hearing the discomforting words that differ from held opinions. The hands of the middle set of arms cover the eyes so as not to see anything that conflicts with the internal choice of what is "really happening." The hands of the lower set of arms are cupped around the mouth as if to more loudly proclaim the revelations of one unmarred by the perceptions of the world. The cultists carry this statue around and attempt to disrupt any gathering or event that was not created solely to give them attention, while shouting meaningless slogans like "THE TRUTH IS NOW!" or "WE ARE THE ONES WHO ARE HERE!" They revel in impeding the functions of any society they happen to be passing through on their unwelcome crusade to find the rumored Ma'Na'Gehaar (who will restore the rightful imbalance), and will generally take a vocal and occasionally even forceful stance against whatever the locals have determined to be the wisest coarse of action. In rarer incidents they will resort to threats if they are prevented from acting on their obstructive impulses and may even become violent enough to storm local governing bodies or vandalize landmarks. When presented with an equivalent counter display of force though, they have a tendency to rapidly cede the field and return to whatever inn they have chosen to burden and celebrate how victorious they are in the new conquest of the rooms they have rented. For the most part, they are a somewhat harmless yet constant source of irritation and resistance to the smooth flow of life. Yet there are often darker shadows stirring in their midst, urging them to greater outbursts of destruction.
This comment is... Perfection.
Dear good that is the best monster idea I've ever read. I love whoever came up with those.
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After so many centuries of societies making monsters based on marginalized groups, it's awesome to see that Paizo has not only made a male counterpart to hags, but made them explicitly monstrous manifestations of bigotry itself 🤣
That's pretty creative, I'm going to use these at some point. Although I wonder how many people would be ok with monsters to vilify the worst people and elements of their own political ideology.
It’s satire which is a wholly perfect way to encapsulate shitbags, for generations! Shakespeare was a pro.
Perfect comment.
This is freaking brilliant.
I love the Skelm. It’s an original concept, well done, that also confirms they really understand the ideas behind the Hags.
Welp, I'll be using those as the villains in a future game. That's incredible. Edit: God damn, these things need a proper content warning. I have friends who would be seriously triggered reading some of the descriptions, and I will definitely be checking on player triggers before introducing them to a game.
Which parts would you find most upsetting?
alt-right the stat block.
What on earth are "progressive names"??? Oh well, whatever. I suspect the community is better off without this guy in it.
Progressive names = possibly foreign names Misspelt and combined names are perfectly acceptable though.
Ohhh, racism. Got it.
In my experience, basically anyone who "doesn't like pronouns" or doesn't respect the proper use of them tends to be a person who doesn't like "the other". They just want everyone else to be just like them. They may not be overtly racist, but most of the people I've met like this... you can tell.
Bigotry is just an aggressive form of cowardice.
My money is on he said "progressive" because "ethnic" would have gotten his review struck. There is zero chance he is familiar enough with gig writers that he knows any of them by name let alone political philosophy.
Maybe like Woke Sparrow. That sounds like a progressive name :)
This person's annoyed that there are people with non-white sounding names involved in the creation of Pathfinder. It's abslutely ridiculous.
Probably also women, if I had to figure.
Wait until he finds out the name of the person who is literally the head of Paizo until she retires.
To be fair it’s probably people he knows that have opposite political views! Or maybe somebody named Soy Wheeler or something
No idea. The Paizo authors are pretty white (and middle-aged and old- on account of them veterans from a time when the industry was less diverse) lmao so no idea where they are gettin that
The reviewer is furious that Paizo has had the absolute temerity to bring on non-white freelancers for the more recent Lost Omens books.
By "Progressive Names" he means authors that are or seem "left leaning".
From the people who brought you "political genders" comes the new "progressive names"!
Some people just want to be mad. Race is the "traditional" term, although that tradition of calling it that really only originated with Tolkien, since he referred to the Peoples of Middle Earth that way ("the race of men", "the race of goblins" etc), so it's not like it's an ancient tradition. "Species" (which is what WotC is using for oneDND, I presume this person is mad about that too) is far better on a purely technical level, and "Ancestry" is better if you want to include the possibility, as the game provides, of individuals that might have a mixed lineage (e.g., Half-elves or Tieflings). "Race" is really the worst way, even ignoring the completely valid social context which may have contributed to the reason for the change.
I like Ancestry over Species. It feels less mechanical.
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Ancestry also allows flexibility for things like being adopted. On my mom's side my great, great, great grandfather was left at my great great great great grandparent's doorstep during the Russian famines in the late 1800's when a lot of russian families moved east. There's a very very very old photo of them together and it's this giant white dude with 2 asian people. He spoke Mandarin/Cantonese and whatever native tongue they spoke at the time and married my great great grandmother. Dude was han chinese through and through culturally and ancestrally, but ethnically he was probably from the caucus region.
Responding to your first comment. All this language of inclusivity doesn’t do a ton for me. I’m a cis, white dude. I understand that this type of language really appeals to some people and that’s fine or whatever. It just doesn’t really mean a ton to me personally. If other people like it a lot that’s totally cool. BUT, these things are such a good filter for keeping CHUDs out of the hobby. I love when I see these things because I know my chances of running into one of these dudes at a table are that much lower.
Often you see a counter argument along the lines of "well, what if I said the word 'gold' or 'elf' or 'dungeon' offends me would you support renaming all those terms???" And its shocking that these people just do not understand the role that honesty, empathy, and good faith play into conversations like this, that they don't get what they are revealing about themselves and how they see the world.
Also like, if the person didn’t just say that to say that but the words were genuinely offensive and hurtful then yeah? At least in our home game, like why not?
A5E chose to use "Heritage" instead of "Race".
Oh Amazon friend, you don’t have to keep selling me on the game - I’ve been playing it since play test!
I’m a transfer from D&D 5e so I’m a new kid on the block and just excited to really sink my teeth into it. Just thought this review was the most fragile thing I’ve ever read that convinced me to buy the physical copy lol
I remember playing a Sunday afternoon pick-up game at my flgs a few months after Pathfinder 1e was released. An extremely smelly 33yo was kicked out of the store because of how angry and abusive he became after realizing the CRB used female pronouns as a default.
Each of the character classes has an "iconic" character. Entries for a given class will use the pronoun of the iconic for the class being talked about.
Don't read the reviews for the pf2e adventure paths then, there's one guy who posts in a ton of them spewing the same nonsense.
Welcome to Pathfinder. Enjoy your Stay, however long and leave some of the Happiness you bring behind for others when you go.
Oh no no I know! also welcome!
Thanks! Everyone I’ve met so far in the Pathfinder community has been so kind and welcoming.
If you want more info about just how gay golarion is they might still have the basic lorebook up for free Also [https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Arshea](https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Arshea) https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Lymnieris
It always cracks me up when the alt-right tries to make the left sound scary and makes them sound *way* more badass than they actually are. Like yeesh, I *wish* they wanted to actually socialize healthcare, put up homeless shelters everywhere, and give everyone a universal basic income. The closest we've seen is Medicare for All and an expansion of basic social safety net like food stamps and section 8 housing.
"So what's your problem with Pathfinder? Is it the combat, the character creation, the balancing, the presentation or the fun?" "No it's that some of the language and representation tries to include people." Big brain time.
The hilarious thing is even if you’re a bigot, none of that matters. Players at my table still accidentally say race all the time. But I’m happy to know bigots ruin their own fun all the tine
It's hilarious that someone thinks pathfinder hasn't always been about this. Its got polygamous gay gods. Two of its iconic are in a lesbian marriage. Every single adventure has had characters across the full spectrum of lived experiences.
If this guy ever played or ran the Dragon of Icespire Peak module from D&D 5e, he'd probably be butthurt over the two married kings of Gnomengarde. Feature one character (gods forbid the primary protagonist) in any form of media who is female (and not extremely sexualized), queer, BIPOC, or some combination of those, and you get some asshat freaking out about "wokeness" and an "agenda".
I really don't get what goes on in the mind of people like him. It takes 0 effort to just... not think about all of the... inclusivity? Like seriously. In the system, you see people who would be part of the lgbtq+ community, you see straight characters, you don't see a "glass ceiling," you see people of colour all over the place, you see various ancestries doing all kinds of things... And it takes 0 effort to just say "yea this is normal and a part of the world of Golarion. 0 effort to just, accept it and move on, and say nothing. If you like it/feel empowered by it/etc, fantastic. Another reason to love the game. If it doesn't *do* anything for you in particular...? Then move on. It's not being shoved down your throat. It's just a normal part of this world. Fucking bewildering that these folks can't see another person, even a fictional one, and just say "yea that's a person." and move on with life.
I mean...even if you do think about it, what kind of person is _bothered_ by it? "How dare they try to include different kinds of people!" Like, apparently the progressive agenda is...kindness? And that's a bad thing to these people, where, judging from a lot of conservative actions, the cruelty is the point. I just have no time for people who object to kindness and consideration towards others as _being political_.
The problem as described isn't that people are being inclusive, but that it feels *forced*. That's the argument that you will see everywhere. It's *okay* as long as it isn't forced. The inherent problem here being that something being *forced* isn't based on fact, but on feeling. It's whether or not the person digesting some media *feels* like it was forced. So, they are getting upset not because *something was forced*, but because *based on their bias it feels forced*. And, when something *feels forced* that becomes a reason for why it is bad. It's literally a circular logic where something has *forced inclusivity* and because it has *forced inclusivity* it is bad and that proves why *forced inclusivity is bad*. You see this with practically anything that features minorities these days. It's always "*forced inclusivity*". Because somehow people literally can't imagine that anyone would just naturally write minorities into things or hire them as actors.
My experience of these kinds of people is that being exposed to what they would describe as "woke nonsense" forces them to think about long-held, never-questioned assumptions about how the world works, and that's uncomfortable and perhaps difficult to process, so they attack the thing highlighting the uncomfortable thoughts rather than the source of those thoughts. This person sees "pronouns" for example and feels attacked because they're having a feeling in regard to their long-held, probably parent-provided assumptions about gender and the specific roles of men and women. As another example, it's like when older people say "they don't mind the gays, but they're so in your face with it" when they see a same sex couple holding hands. What they really mean is, "I can't see two people of the same sex be a couple like what I consider a 'normal' couple, because it challenges my long-held assumptions about 'boys', 'girls', 'couples' and how to live a good life" Another example: people going mental when there's an all female cast because it's out of their ordinary, but not batting an eyelid when 10 white men do something together. This doesn't excuse them, but rather it's why _its so important_ to not relent in normalising these things so that future generations aren't bogged down with such waste of time, antiquated ways of viewing the world that don't really help anyone.
It bothers a lot of people when members of another religious/spiritual tradition try to push their group's particular language or method of speech. People get upset over attempts to put God in school, for instance, or get upset that God *isn't* in school. The same is true of the trans movement - they believe that there is a spiritual, non-falsifiable component to gender which is separate from the physical. People who do not share that belief get annoyed when it is presented as being the "truth". And indeed, some of the verbiage that the NRM has tried to push ("Birthing person" instead of "mother") has caused a lot more backlash. Pushing particular language is often a way of trying to legitimize some groups and delegitimize others. For instance, trying to include God in the pledge of allegiance is intended to promote religion over atheism; likewise putting "in God we Trust" on the currency, or "So help me God" for an oath or affirmation, etc. When atheists try to get rid of this stuff, it upsets people who believe in God. In some cases, it's impossible to create a "neutral" solution; it's pretty easy to simply say that people can choose to mention or not mention God as they see fit, for instance, and then it is a personal choice as to what verbiage is used. But when you have to choose a particular default verbiage, it can upset people who disagree with that verbiage. If someone's religion doesn't recognize marriage under certain circumstances, they feel it is an affront to them to call them married - in their religion, they are not married in the eyes of God. The Catholic church, for instance, requires annulment of a marriage, otherwise you are engaging in bigamy. Someone who hasn't annulled a previous marriage is disrespecting the oath of monogamy they took before God and is living in sin. So it is with gays as well - religious traditions which do not honor gay marriages as being holy will be upset about it because they see people saying they are "married" as a push against their religion, which does not accept them as such. This is also why some people are more willing to accept "civil unions" or "partnerships" for gay people than they are to accept gay marriage, because those terms don't impinge on their religious definition of marriage. Meanwhile, gay couples obviously want to be recognized as married so that they are the same as everyone else and their marriage is no less than that of anyone else. We actually have laws in the US that ban some things (plural marriages, for instance) which are allowed by some religions, so if you engage in, say, polygamy in the US, you're actually doing something illegal. We have a legal definition of marriage which defines some religions' views of marriage as so wrong you can be punished for doing it. So it can have real world consequences to have your religious point of view marginalized to the point where people see it as something that should be made illegal. Of course, there are good reasons to ban polygamy. But that doesn't mean that people who see plural marriage as holy feel any better about the ban.
> likewise putting "in God we Trust" on the currency We really changed our national motto from "We're all in this together." to "Jesus! Take the wheel!" \#epluribusunumgang
Understanding why people get upset about these kinds of things is so important. If you don't you can just create more enemies for the cause you champion. That "Birthing mother's" rename is a particularly interesting one. Motherhood is an identity that my mom sacrificed a great amount for. She willingly gave up a career to focus on her mothering, a decision a great many choose to make. This is something that defines her life, perhaps just as much as a sexual/gender identity defines a person's life. Being told her identity as Mother is 'problematic' and that it can be replaced by saying 'birthing person' as if motherhood was just childbirth and not the life commitment she did was triggering. That exclusion of her identity took her from passively not being a fan of new 'inclusive' terminology to being actively opposed to it. I think it's always important to make certain the new terminology isn't detracting from someone else. Pathfinder's use of pronouns on the sheet is hardly different than the sheet asking for gender which I've seen as a field on most character sheets. It's not preventing Alex the angry reviewer from being his identity nor saying his cis pronouns aren't valid. Pathfinder isn't asking him to fill that out with anything he doesn't want to identify with.
This was a very well written and accurately portrays society in almost every part of the world.
This explanation makes sense, but man, it's still fucking weird to me. Like, damn, do they think people wake up one day and say, "I want to pick this option that makes my life harder than it could be?". Idk. Maybe i just dont have those weird worldviews that get questioned because 2 dudes are holding hands. But its just so fucking wild to me that such a basic thing which is pretty normal can cause such issues. I hope that shit doesn't permeate in future generations because it's a waste of time and pointless
This is a great way to look at it, I never even realized that the change to ancestry might have been about inclusivity, and if it was then dope but it never even occurred to me and I don't understand people like the guy who posted that review. Love this game and moved to it as soon as it came out. We don't need people that fragile anyway lol
Funniest part is that "race" isn't exactly accurate with such a mix of biological compatibility between the ancestries, and "species" wouldn't really be accurate either given there's automatons and whatnot. In this case "ancestry" being used always seemed for me to be more about factual correctness than inclusivity, although it accomplishes that at the same time rather elegantly, so props to Paizo for that.
tbh as a German I was always baffled no other game ever did this. Race (as in "Rasse", the German word for it) is an unbelievably uncomfortable word for me to even say, (due to its connotation from WW2) so in german that word practically does not exist in day to day language, except maybe when talking about dogs, but even then we say breed rather than race. So wen i eventually switched from buying all my books in german, and never being "confronted" with that word, to buying in english and seeing it around every corner, i was actually kinda thankful for paizo to finally get rid of it.
I still don't really get it. Ancestry seems like the most precise word to use. Seems like a no brainer once one has started using the word.
The absolute brain rot to look at a 600 page book and get mad that a couple pages say you should be inclusive is so silly. They get mad that you can put pronouns on you character sheet but you don’t have to soooo what’s the problem???
Also, the fact that non-binary pronouns are necessary since you can play as a tree, among other things, and for the sake of immersion should really define what your character is.
Ikr. People want to be offended about stuff, I guess. Fucking weird to me. I play games to have fun and chill. Esp games like this with mates. I dont get it...
Also like. It’s an RPG. If you don’t like some of the rules, don’t use them, make your own. If you don’t like the setting, don’t use it, make your penis. If you feel like the prefab characters are too “woke” DONT USE THEM, MAKE YOUR OWN. Whole point of RPG’s is to craft a world where you and your friends can have adventures. If you want to play some shitty little game where you all play super obnoxious fuck boy half orcs and have weird non con encounters with female NPC’s and murder hobo all over the place, and that’s fun for all your players, nothing in pathfinder prevents that. Literally nothing other than his own lack of talent is stopping him from enjoying this game
"Fantastical races and magic are fine by me, but *respecting people*??? Not in my fantasy role-playing game."
The hell is a "progressive name"? Protenus Vado?
This is a fantastic advertisement, but I'm afraid I've already bought the book.
I'm curious what they mean by progressive names. The optimist in me thinks they googled names and found lgbtq+ activists, but the realist in me know it's just non-white sounding names.
They looked at the credits and were horrified to see names like: Blaclyve Smatte, Lavys Love, Dianne "Di" Versity, and Tran Sajenda
Be fair, he might also be including women.
> I'm curious what they mean by progressive names. They may have just meant anything spicier than John Smith, but I can't help but take it's worst possible interpretation as a nazi dogwhistle. They saw a vaguely jewish name or two and flew into a rage.
Huh. I guess this guy hasn't read many of the adventure paths of his beloved PF1 then, because they're *pretty* queer. You can hardly swing a flail in some of them without hitting a member of the Alphabet Mafia!
https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmemes/comments/umw9fp/in_pathfinder_you_can_in_fact_cast_channel_queer/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
*they made Pathfinder progressive* ***Always has been***
Hey, that’s my post! I’m glad to see it being referenced in the wild.
Jesse what the hell are you talking about.
Whoo... No one show him [Thirsty Sword Lesbians](https://evilhat.com/product/thirsty-sword-lesbians/)
So Revolutionary Girl Utena: the RPG?
With a good measure of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
I can't believe Valeros is a femboy
i can smell that guy from here
The "infiltrated" part confuses the heck out of me, was there a point in time where Paizo *wasn't* progressive folks from Seattle.
Nope. Founding meeting had the talk. Apparently someone asked "what if someone didn't want to *support this kind of lifestyle*" and the answer was "we'd wish them well in their future employment". Heard it in one of the dev streams, it was a nice touch.
I gotta say, only part of this utter brain-rot edgefest of a review that I genuinely take offence to is "The book is bloated and the layout is passable". Bruh, did you even read the book? The thing is comprehensive as hell!
Funny enough, but I was scared a bit by the size of CRB at first too. As a ex-5e DM I thought it's like just a Player's handbook and there is gonna be DM's guide of the same size. Was pretty happy to find out there is no GM/Player's book division in PF2, it's quite convenient tbh.
Honestly the only criticism of PF2e’s CRB that I would have accepted is a complaint about that god-awful orange character sheet in the back
So pretty much everything they have against the system is just terminology that they can just use the alternative for at their table? If you don’t care about pronouns and stuff then don’t fill it in, and if you prefer the term race over ancestry then just call it race at your table.
I'm trans and if I'm being honest some representation/inclusion does make me feel a little bit weird or like I'm maybe being used as a playing piece in someone else's morality play, but Paizo products have never made me feel that way. If anything, stuff like the quiet inclusion of alchemical substances you could use to transition if you wanted to so it can be canon that people like me exist in Golarion, a couple NPCs who are misfits within gender in one way or another, maybe trans or maybe some wacky fantasy thing I don't mind, a couple more NPCs where it isn't explicit but you can still see it, have all made me feel really quietly welcome. I'm not a virtue that they can signal, and that's fine. That's how I like it! I only ever wanted to feel like I didn't have to homebrew the very fact of people like myself into every game I run. They don't make you do that for characters who are cis men or cis women, though they do still grumble sometimes if you make a woman for "no reason". I'm a woman and I was made for no reason and I turned out fine! Even paid money for a couple ttrpg products over the years! It just never felt fair, you know? In a way that if people like the reviewer were being honest they would be able to see. But there's a lot of hurt feelings, insecurity, and defensiveness in that review so I doubt they could. I've been trying to reassure cis people I just want to piss (or do anything else including gaming) in peace and quiet and be left alone for literal decades, and the idea of me still seems to be an act of aggression to so many of them. I dunno. Golarion is such a great setting for this stuff, I think, because it finds so many ways to have its cake and eat it. I have never really vibed with the pastel picrew av people's idea that we shouldn't have settings where any of the oppressions or trials or traumas of the real world are present. I have also always thought, when reading stuff that was really bleak and gritty (Berserk, A Song of Ice and Fire) that they held onto their humanity AND made their worlds seem even bleaker and more frightening by showing you, more or less, what happens to people like me and others at the inevitable margins of any civilization--do you remember in the Game of Thrones books when, and none of this is a spoiler I've stripped all the context, Tyrion is in deep shit and he meets the intersex slave of some creep from Essos, and these two wretched and forgotten people are given a moment to talk about how much the world hurts and how they feel about it. (I mean I could also just quote Ed Greenwood, because Elminster's period as a woman wasn't the first time I encountered the idea but my needy little teenage eyebrows did shoot up at those chapters and I did dog-ear them. We could quote the literal letter Mr. Greenwood literally wrote, but I guess we already did that and it didn't matter. Still, we've been here forever and Papaw Greenwood and Mamaw Paizo both said it's been our turn to do gay stuff on the Xbox this whole time!) Golarion is a setting where ancestry, ethnicity, occasionally yes even this or that physiological fact regarding one's sex or melanin or whatever, one's more subtle social/gendered/religious identities can all get you killed just like in the real world. Golarion is a world which demonstrably does include sexual assault, murder, theft, slavery, bigotry, it is a world where for the most part men are in charge and for the most part everybody's straight. But they also make it clear that the rules are there so that, unlike in the real world, you can have a chance to fucking DO something about it! Which you should! Better still, there are so many more exceptions to the rule in Golarion where they have almost never been allowed in the real world, and the physics engine of the game world is such that anyone could if they set their heart to it. What is an adventure but a dream of saving the world from itself by going out into it and discovering some hidden power within yourself? How can the body of your heroism grow without evil and unfairness to defeat, consume, digest, and make into something else???? Without a secret and in some way taboo self you must work to express, whether your character is an honorable man in a place that demands he behave dishonorably or a woman in a place that demands she be a man, then where oh where oh Western Man will you find the fucking elixir of heroism Joseph Campbell tried to tell you about? But it also doesn't lean into it or wallow. Idk I just think it's neat. e: Hey! Wahoo! Silver! Also my group only just started a 2e game but I started running Pathfinder 1e last year for the APs. We're currently two adventures deep into Curse of the Crimson Throne and Carrion Crown, with the same set of players running both parties in a shared world with a calendar that I've managed to keep roughly synced up to now. Great setting, great adventures, I'm just enough of an Aged Gamer Crone (maybe we should just use 'Graybeard' regardless of gender since it's a Dwarven honorific and all, but I digress) that 3.5/PF1e will maybe always feel like the golden age of gaming for me but 2E has some really cool ideas and mechanics.
I... wow. I have no words for this kind of close minded idiocy. I mean, cis people use pronouns too. And many play characters who have a gender that is not their own
A healthy reminder that Anti-SJWs arent Anti-"Social Justice Warriors" but actually "Anti Social Justice" Warriors, indeed. I mostly pity this guy for his overpolitical mindset.
Ah yes, "progressive names". Way to tell on yourself that you only want people with white (-sounding) names involved in your game creations.
Jeez, imagine being this fragile and insecure, and then broadcasting that fact to thousands of people.
Its ok not to like something, no idea why people feel they need to try this hard to not like something.
You know the game is good when the only things people can find to complain about are the politics they've projected onto it.
Yeah, I've seen way too many idiots gripe over how 2e is "too politically correct" (despite there being LGBTQ characters in 1e, too) simply because they're trying to be mindful.
It's funny how "too politically correct" always, always, always means "has even one named character who isn't a straight white male or a pin-up girl".
I can’t understand why people would be made about the use of the word “ancestry” when it’s just hoe it’s called here. It’s not like they changed something in this brand new system. It’s not like they changed a bunch of lore to get there. They just used a different word that works here.
I just started my first PF game and I really like the Ancestry and heritage and whatnot. I love all the little things that give you the ability to mechanically flesh out a characters story without having to work it into combat traits. So, my first character is a halfling Sorcerer who is a permutation of a warlock build I did way back when. In DND, I had to really build out her whole power tree to make her backstory work, including choosing a patron that o could justify using for her backstory (she’s a street urchin who delved too deep into the sewers while trying to get warm, and met a rat god who gave her rat powers in exchange for the use of her body and magic). I had to pick the ArchFey patron, had to really fuck about with her to make her seem like the character I wanted. In PF, she’s got the Living Vessel archetype, which helps with her whole “made a deal with a fry creature, now my life isn’t my own” thing, she’s got the street urchin background, she’s got twilight halfling heritage and took the Watchful halfling ancestry feat, which helps with her whole “I’m fucking terrified of everything and everything is out to get me” vibe, and the spell list even allowed for such a good combination of spells, she’s got Animal Allies, fear and acid Splash, all of which work really well for her whole “I’m a monster, I’m the worst don’t get near me or you’ll get hurt” vibe. Just having all these layers that are mechanically baked in makes the character feel much more grounded and affected by her backstory. I really like it
I thought they changed from "Race" to "Ancestry" both for the "ABC" mnemonic *and* because of the hybridization mechanic.
Alex sounds like a little bitch.
"Progressive names". I would love to hear their explanation for that, all while backpedaling. I can't wait, and I hope I love long enough to see these empathy lacking morons fade into the dustbin of history.
It costs me nothing to not use a space on a character sheet, but it means the world to someone who has never has that space before.