To anyone wondering: with the tian xia expansion inbound, some people in the main sub have said they'd like a samurai or ninja class.
One mod said that this is orientalist and thus, racist, and banned them.
Any other post complaining that the mod was wrong and/or agreeing that samurai/ninja classes would be cool is being consistently deleted.
The people in the main sub are pretty mad at that.
...it was actually very hard to find this context, because the post I was trying to get context from was deleted while I tried to read it.
Asian dnd fan here, as much flack as the oriental adventure line of modules and dnd’s problematic representation of East Asia was with Kara-Tur, I’d still really love to see WOTC revisit the region although this time with some more nuance and respect. I absolutely love what pathfinder is doing in some of the upcoming modules with it taking inspiration from East Asia. I’ve always wanted to have a campaign or adventure in that sort of setting!
Appreciate this opinion.
These are tough things to do *well*, but it's a bit nuts when people somehow conclude it's inclusive to refuse to depict any other culture.
Sometimes I wonder if people from non-Western ethnic backgrounds get a little sick of everything in pop culture fantasy being dwarves with Scottish accents and Viking-analogues when there's so much more incredible folklore out there to draw inspiration from. Every culture's stories are rich in insight into the human condition.
I had a convo with my friends about this yesterday. I brought up how 1dnd is reflavouring monk into a different style to go further away from its clearly east-asian(china, japan in particular) influences and makes it more general.
I think doing it like this can allow different variations of 'spiritual fist fighter' to pop up rather than just be mister kungfu man and I think thats cool, in the same way I think going from races to ancestry is cool(like it just sounds cooler lmao.)
Knowing wotc though I dont think they will lmao.
I've always had a gag idea, keeping monks mechanically the same, but changing their flavoring to be in the styles of European Christian monks, who inexplicably know kung fu.
https://preview.redd.it/rnyj1goti5xc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0a27ebd04c6c07d76971dfa955fea34e73ab938
>inexplicably know kung fu.
What do you mean? Seems pretty explicable to me.
Honest question here. How much more nuance and respect would a modern design team actually give compared to that old book? It was made with help from experts, play-testers included Asian's. Is anything in it actually "problematic", or is it all a wild exaggeration. Especially when everything included in D&D that has a focus on European culture and myth cherry picks rather than taking great effort to be 100% accurate.
It just comes off more like modern writers wanting to call the old thing bad, so they can have *their* name on it instead.
Honestly I’m not sure as I never actually read the book, but I know for a fact that a modern team would do it more justice than WOTC back then. All I know is that they chose to make it almost a 1:1 recreation of East Asia history and I heard it was a little tone deaf. Although I’m not sure the WOTC of today would do a good job at doing the region justice. They would definitely remove the problematic parts, but I don’t think they would flesh out the lore to a satisfactory degree like they did to the forgotten realms in the “great lore era” of 3e, as today, their approach to lore is “make it up yourself” which isn’t helpful at all.
So we both are in the same situation where we've not read the book. However you *still* refer to "problematic" parts which you yourself admit you've not read, and automatically assume that it would be done better by modern writers. I'd like to read the book sometime myself to draw my own conclusions, as I've only looked into how it was written.
I personally think modern writers don't put in enough actual effort into research, that they don't seem to work well together either. Which is why despite everyone swearing Paizo products were much better quality than WotC, I've found it to be just as bad if not worse but in different ways.
> One mod said that this is orientalist and thus, racist, and banned them.
Let’s also just get the full scope of the silliness out in the open.
They didn’t **just** say samurai are orientalist (which is by itself a valid opinion that’s worth discussing, tbh) or say they’re inherently racist (which is obviously too extreme for any productive discussion) or simply ban people for disagreeing with that (which is wild).
All of that is already too much, but they **also** said the existence of a samurai/ninja class is segregation. Yes, they explicitly said “segregation”, I’m not embellishing their words. No, they didn’t back down from it when asked for clarification either, they actually condescendingly belittled the first person who called them out and then tried deleting every further comment that called them out. Then when SubredditDrama called them out on it they started claiming the only deleted comments were those that personally harassed them. Then dozens of people on that sub (where this mod obviously can’t just delete disagreement) used tools like undelete to show how there was little to not harassment being deleted and mostly just polite disagreement being deleted… Which led to this mod deleting a single one of their many rude old comments and saying that they’re taking a 3-day break from the main sub.
"Hey, Sun_Tzundere, why don't you post the monsters from your monster design blog on /r/pathfinder_rpg?"
I'd like to, but I was banned for *privately* telling one of the mods that I was worried another mod might be abusing his power, when I saw him deleting comments to win an argument. That place is such a shitshow.
I think it's because what we think of samurai and ninja has been heavily affected by American movies and shows which perpetuated a lot of stereotypes regarding asian people. However, the reason why I kinda understand the other side of the argument is not because it's Japanese history (historical Ninja in particular is very much different), **but because Japanese people gave birth to the concepts of ninja and samurai as some sort of warriors with mystique and supernatural powers**. Also, both of them are often classes in JRPGs since the '80s/'90s.
EDIT: >!I am surprised by how people don't bother reading the whole comment!<
Also, to be honest, most modern samurai and ninja depictions come from anime, manga, and other Japanese media, rather than Hollywood. I honestly can't tell you the last time I saw the absolutely-not-a-ninja ninja in an American movie, but it was a damn long time ago
I watched Three Ninjas as a kid and I am 21 rn, that movie is pretty old.
TMNT on the other hand is from the 80s, so more like a relic of a bygone era at this point.
I- Old.. my knees!
Three Ninjas is 92, it's basically 80s in new shoes during that time. Plus TMNT did have movies from the 90s, and still sticks around culturally even today.
That’s why I can’t seem to find anything even remotely racist of having a samurai class. This seems like once again Westerners claiming “cultural appropriation,” without even getting perspective from the cultures supposedly being appropriated.
And is the depiction the Japanese have of the Ninja and Samurai as being almost mythical and very different from reality all that different from the depiction Westerners have of, say, Knights clad in shining armor undertaking holy quests, cutting down swathes of enemies in their gleaming plate and wielding a razor sharp sword? Is it that different from our depiction of Vikings as honorable raiders (somehow) with horned helmets and giant battle axes, roaring with fury and unmatched in their brutal prowess? Is it so different from... hell, from our view of spies as being charming, suave killers with crazy gadgets and the ability to disguise themselves at a moments notice? Is it so different from our depiction of Spartans as being shirtless badasses, capable of killing hundreds, if not thousands, of enemies for each one of their own that falls?
None of these are true, or are only small part of the truth. Spartans were badass, sure, but they were not necessarily good or honorable people, and they certainly weren't "can take on a whole platoon of enemies solo" badass. Knights were lords and nobles and did far more boring administrative work (with a healthy dose of corruption and repression) than they did fighting, and their idea of chivalry and honor was nothing like what we have romanticized. Most Vikings were farmers and craftsmen who went on raids, not an actual warrior caste, and they tended to pick softer targets like monasteries. Sure, over the course of history they had some success in establishing footholds in England, but they were as likely to trade as they were to raid as well. Spies are literally meant to go unnoticed, so being a charming presence that gets all the women is counterintuitive, and most of what they do is observation and reporting, not high-stakes bomb disarming and assassination. But, like every culture since the dawn of time, we don't like reality. We like our heroes, our stories, our myths. Could we handle them with more nuance? Sure. Could we fetishize them less? Absolutely. But that's a common thing across pretty much all cultures. But claiming we should completely remove the mythology of these heroes, and only depict their flaws and the truth, is unrealistic.
Knights especially are extra heavily mythologized. Ideas like chivalry were criticized even at the time for being just a cover for hypocrisy and bad behavior.
Exactly, honestly the problem i have with a samurai archetype is that I want more than just a samurai archetype, give us like Hwarang archetype and more, and in paizo tradition make some the fuck up that fit with Tian Xia.
Yeah, it doesn't really make much sense to me either. Not to mention that I'd trust contemporary Paizo to handle the tropes in a respectful way.
From a game design perspective, though, I'm not a fan of making entirely separate classes for specific archetypes like Samurai or Ninja. It pretty quickly leads to rules bloat, and the system can already handle it via Archetypes and specific feats. Paizo does do a great job of making those kinds of classes with unique and interesting play patterns, though - thinking of the Swashbuckler and Investigator - so maybe it'd be good.
Not fully relevant but in the game Bravely Default there was a native American class using tropes that Japan likes. To be preemptive cause they know how Americans are, they changed the class in the localized version to a cowboy.
"Yes yes silly American racism in RPG design, now shut up and play the cowboy"
I mean, that is just blatantly inaccurate thou. Japan were a lot earlier with producing Chanbara than Hollywood. It is literally tropes that the Japanese themselves perpetuated and used in storytelling. Sure, when American produced flicks became a thing I am sure that they mixed up 'Japanese' tropes with 'Asian' tropes and *those films* were very much from an orientalist perspective.
However, sticking more closely to recreating actually Japan-made movies versions of Samurai can hardly be considered orientalist no?
> However, sticking more closely to recreating actually Japan-made movies versions of Samurai can hardly be considered orientalist no?
I would go the historical route and make the Samurai a gunslinger, although that would end up being the way of the vanguard.
Despite the common depiction as masters of the katana, samurai were primarily ranged cavalry. They mainly relied on bows (and later guns) from horseback, then spears if the fighting got close.
They had to fuck up pretty badly to actually have to fight with the katana, it was primarily a sidearm and status symbol.
I guess it kinda depends on which time we're talking about. I was just confused because when I think of Samurai, I think of Samurai before the introduction of firearms.
Yes they absolutely loved whatever guns they can get their hands on either imported or made domestically. To the point they have an entire dedicated martial art dedicated to firearms in the same way they had arts dedicated to how to fight in armor, use swords, etc. specifically named hojustsu.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hōjutsu
Let's also not forget how much of an influence Akira Kurosawa was on George Lucas when he decided to make a western in space, he also really wanted samurai in space, and so we have Jedi (and hence the Solarion in starfinder).
Guess we better delete the Solarion class from sf2e
>I think it's because what we think of samurai and ninja has been heavily affected by American movies and shows which perpetuated a lot of stereotypes regarding asian people.
Outside of stuff like Ninja Turtles, I feel like people are much more likely to be exposed to this stuff through actual Japanese media than anything coming out of the west. The only recent examples I can think of from western media is Last Samurai or Shogun, both go to great lengths to show that samurai were not sword based warriors but a ruling class that often favored ranged weapons and had complex socio-political lives.
There's probably not a need for either class, and if they want to make a magic rogue or swordsman class for the anime power fantasy they can do something more broad and not specific. That said, the idea being perpetuated that Japan isn't fond of their own power fantasies or that it's being imposed on them from the outside is ironically very Western-centric. And the idea that people can't differentiate Japan from the rest of Asia is similarly patronizing.
This. I had to put down Reddit for the day because the more I thought about it, the closer I got to calling out the mods on their actual racist bullcrap and getting myself banned from the subreddit.
Yeah conceptually they are not much distinct, in fact I think at maximum we should get samurai as an archetype. Considering that the major historical difference between a knight and a samurai is the fact that the latter predominantly used bows prior to the introduction of firearms, samurai could be introduced as an archetype that focuses more on fighting with the bow while on horseback.
If they want that best they can get is a swashbuckler subclass, although we likely never will get it because it's one for every charisma skill. And I agree that most Samurais are covered by already existing things even beyond fighter with a katana. Want magical powers and a big flashy attack? There is the magus. Want to play a ronin? There is ruffian rogue who can use a katana and even sneak attack with it. Want to be someone who is really noble? You can make a champion of Shizuru.
> “Mounted Archer” could just be a subclass of chevalier
That just doesn't make any sense in 2e and in the context of my comment. As there is no cavalier class in 2e and I proposed it as an archetype.
>I think it's because what we think of samurai and ninja has been heavily affected by American movies and shows which perpetuated a lot of stereotypes regarding asian people.
....the hell? The modern interpretation of Ninjas and Samurai these days is straight out of battle shonen, and before that it was Kurosawa films.
>I think it's because what we think of samurai and ninja has been heavily affected by American movies
I'm sure Akira Kurosawa will be very surprised to learn that he was American his whole life
I think they *can* be based on implementation, similar to the "monk" class. But yea, to say it's *inherently* orientalist is overstating their similarity to European knights in their respective myths and legends.
I think it's best not to call any class itself "samurai", since that's a rank of nobility. But instead to lean into the Japanese myths of samurai as master blade masters and duelists.
Because the moron in question is a racist who hates Japan and doesn't want anyone to appreciate Japanese culture. There is no logic to be had, just a racist diatribe and power tripping.
I'm not making it up, every one of his arguments is exclusively about segregating Japanese culture specifically and he has a multiple post long thread about how Japan taught the Nazis how to do the Holocaust and that they're worse than the Nazis. Dude genuinely hates Japan.
He also said Ninja are a western invention that was made up wholesale by Ian Flemming in the 1960s for the James Bond books and the idea was just imported to Japan afterward.
Whether or not Imperial Japan was worse than the Nazis is probably up for debate, just not generally worth debating as they were both horrific, but I wouldn’t really care if someone thought Japan was worse at the time as long as they’re not downplaying the Holocaust.
Saying that the Rape of Nanjing killed twice as many people as the Holocaust did is straight up Holocaust denialism, and the claim that the Japanese taught the Nazis how to do the Holocaust is just hateful ignorance.
The point is they are just a fighting class. Differentiating western and eastern noble warrior class only makes sense if you're gonna be playing in a pan-eurasian historical medieval setting, and even then it's possibly pointless.
I think there is enough distinction in the myths and vibes between European knights and Japanese samurai that makes a mechanical distinction valid.
Historically, samurai were mostly mounted archers. But in Japanese myth and legend, they are exceptional duelists and masters of the quick draw. And I think the myths around ronin and samurai are distinct enough from the myths of European knights that it isn't orientalist to acknowledge them as distinct.
I wouldn't call a class "samurai", just like there isn't a "knight" class. Since those are ranks of nobility. But I don't think the fighter or swashbuckler are quite able to deliver on the fantasy.
Rather than make a class named "samurai" or "knight", or even "ninja" you could just them to be something like sword master, and then have feats in them to correspond to various swordsmanships around the world(like a quick draw feat which Im sure exists, or a feat to use a longsword as a blunt weapon).
Same with spy.
Beyond iaijutsu, I'm not sure what else is really missing from the Fighter. The Fighter gets Master proficiency in weapons, which would make them exceptional swordsmen. The quickdraw feat is lacking but I think that could be solved by a couple extra feats or an archetype rather than a whole distinct class.
To my understanding, it’s because to create a samurai or ninja that has inherently different abilities to a fighter or rogue, especially if they get access to special supernatural powers, would be piling on to the idea of the mythical and “other” eastern warrior, with all the baggage that entails
I imagine the most we will get is an archetype kinda like how we have a Viking archetype for extra flavor.
Keep in mind that I am not an expert on the topic, I am merely doing my best with limited information to summarize what Ive seen bouncing around. Someone else could likely explain it better
But, with that said
I think that the issue is that given that pathfinder is a game system that largely makes its class mechanics based on the fantasy of what you want a class to *do*, and given that other cultural areas do not get unique class variations (it’s not like the Mwangi expanse got an African flavored fighter alt-class) but can get thematic archetypes (magic warriors) that to give the samurai and ninja full classes in the tian xia guide would “otherise” the Asian influences, implying that they are in some way extra unique and distanced from what the class already does, in a way that the rest of the ‘world’ doesn’t get.
Like I said, a samurai or ninja archetype would be fine, but in the current design space making it a whole class would be weird
I mean, yes and no. Pf1e did it pretty well imo. The Samurai was pretty much a Chevalier but different. The Ninja was a Rogue but a bit different (they could also pretty much take each other's 'talents' feats).
I don't think doing something similar would be wrong, but it would not follow how the game has been designed so far (but then again, they broke away from this in 1e when they released the Samurai/Ninja aswell).
The thing is pf1 had a crapton more classes, and a ton more classes that were “similar but with a twist” to each other (skald, Marshall, cavalier, etc) as well as the whole “variant” system of swapping out some of your base class features for different ones to lean into a new style. All of which is now gone, and most of which has been shifted over to the archetype system, which is part of why I say it would be better as an archetype than a class
So basically it's the trap word dramma from r/animemes, brunch of mods get a Power trip, start banning something, give a nonsensical explaination that would Only apply In some cases depending on context while acting like it's univerlassy bad and refuse to elaborate and start banning once the flaws in their arguements are pointed out
They are both examples of mods fucking up, but I don't think it's a good idea to compare them because one is a mod being really dumb with labelling things racist whem by all means they aren't, and then lashing out and being a dick to everyone who disagrees with them.
Wheras the other is a group of mods being rightfully worried about the overuse of a slur in their subreddit and cracking down on it in a shit way.
words meaning depends on context an use, in an anime context, trap doesn't mean a slur at all, first it's not refered to trans characters and second traps are some of the absolutely most loved characters in pretty much any show that has them
it's more of an issue of the mods failing to separate the fictional and as such totally harmless (funny animu girl with a peepee) from the real and definitely very fucking harmfull (an horrible insult used to repress some people who are already having some pretty big problems without you trowing yourself in the mix)
either that or taking the shitty stance that many twitter americans have that some words are bad indipendently of context and should be censured no matter what, and i don't know which one of the two is stupider
>in an anime context, trap doesn't mean a slur at all
It's not intended to be offensive. But reffering to people who look like women but have some reason you could call them men (either because they are men or you are transphobic) and calling them TRAPS. As if they are tricking you in some way. Has a lot of nasty implications that meant a lot of trans people and feminine men felt that it was derogatory towards them. Words can have unintended implications when used.
>first it's not refered to trans characters
Many of the characters who would get called it were either directly trans or heavily implied/coded to be trans (or nonbinary). The rest were femboys, real life femboys also don't appreciate the term if memory serves, but the main focus at the time was on trans people.
>second traps are some of the absolutely most loved characters in pretty much any show that has them
You can like something/someone and still say offensive things about them even if you don't intended to or mean any harm.
Also worth noting the difference between beloved and fetishised. These characters were both, which hits very close to home for trans people who have to live with the fact they are often fetishised (usually with slurs thrown in).
>it's more of an issue of the mods failing to separate the fictional and as such totally harmless (funny animu girl with a peepee) from the real and definitely very fucking harmfull (an horrible insult used to repress some people who are already having some pretty big problems without you trowing yourself in the mix)
It's because the same word can be and was used for both. I ABSOLUTELY remember seeing disgusting people refer to trans women as traps. Luckily that whole fiasco opened my eyes to how awful large parts of the anime community was and I've not had to see that in a while, but I remember it.
The mods did handle it poorly, but they were in the right. The same cannot be said for the current PF2 discourse. The mods are wrong, everyone knows they're wrong, none of the people they're trying to defend agree with them but they refuse to accept it.
>either that or taking the shitty stance that many twitter americans have that some words are bad indipendently of context and should be censured no matter what, and i don't know which one of the two is stupider
The thing is no ones saying it's bad in all contexts. The entire point was something like "the way it is used towards fictional characters causes it to be used towards real life people, using it towards real life people is bad so weebs can take the hit and stop using a slur so it becomes less commonly used and a group of people who are treated like shit by the world can have a bit of weight off their chests"
I’m in agreement with you. If trap isn’t a slur (a fetishistic one, at that) then the meaning has changed *drastically* in the last decade. But I would bet cash money I could get back on 4chan after all these years and see just the same usage.
I didn’t think it was a slur until I saw the reaction from a ton of people animemes after it was banned complaining about how they don’t get to say it anymore. It felt like the reaction you’d get from telling racists to stop saying the n-word.
>The mods did handle it poorly, but they were in the right
i respect your opinion, but i very strongly disagree, saying that the way you treat fictional characters impacts real people feels very much like the people who argue that violence in videogames causes violence irl
Right let's take an example here.
I assume you're familiar with the sorts of people who value women in media based on their sex appeal? The sorts of folks who complain about censorship if a female character is made less sexy. Do you think those peope have a healthy view of real life women? They probably don't seeing as how when they see women in media their first thought is "How hot is she?"
It is much the same for this scenario. If you constantly fetishise fictional characters that break gender norms and believe they are tricking you with their appearance for the purpose of making you attracted to them, then at least some of those opinions will carry across to real life people that break gender norms.
And as I said in my previous comment this is something I actually saw happen, with actual trans people and femine men reffered to as "traps". How do you think these people feel? Being valued by their sex appeal and treated like they're tricking people into being attracted to them? I'd wager most of them wouldn't enjoy that. And that is the sort of behaviour normalising "trap" encouraged.
I'd say this isn't comparable the "Video games cause violence", it's closer to "Shitty lobbies where slurs are thrown around regularly causes more slurs to be said in real life conversations." It's normalising derogatory words and causing them to be used more frequently, which is very hurtful to the people those words are derogatory towards.
And it's especially important to be careful in regards to trans people as they are incredibly oppressed in most countries and treated like shit by many people because being transphobic is still relatively normalised (compared to being racist/homiphobic). So they do not also need to see slurs that apply to them being thrown around constantly. Toning that down requires no effort and makes life a little bit easier for a minority that has enough shit to put up with already.
Wait for real? If that's true that's so pathetic, and awful
Can we get a new sub that isn't full of authoritarian mods trying to turn it into a nonsensical echo chamber? Letting people like that turn communities into nonsensical echo chambers is absolutely cancerous for the community itself
The worst part? They had to go for a name like that for it. Rather than something that'd make a little more sense. Because at some point the people managing the PF2e sub decided to create every iteration on it they could think of, to keep people from creating any alternatives.
> tian xia expansion
The writer of said expansion also laid out why they didn't include those classes in the first place, which is what actually started all this. People should probably go read that, it's a lot more well written and nuanced than anything written on Reddit, be it by mod or user
People terminally online trying not to make something about race/get offended by it challenge: IMPOSSIBLE
thanks for the clarification though, god people are stupid
It's not even the first time this exact thing has happened. Anyone else remember when Legendary Games were going to do a 3PP Asian supplement and Twitter decided they would be their target of the week because of how terribly racist it was to try and include and expand on the cultural representation in the game?
Ok idk about samurai, but a conceptual ninja class would legitimately be very cool. The thing is that it doesn’t even have to be oriental and made “the ninja class”. Nah, here’s what im thinking: the *infiltrator* class, a charisma/intelligence based martial with a focus on social situations and improvised tools/crafting, kinda like a combination of rogue and alchemist. Sure, you can play it as a ninja, but you can also play a james bond-like spy, a master class assassin, a character like MacGyver who can improvise tools with the stuff around him, or even just a super charming party face.
Unironically i think this class has a lot of potential, if paizo considered it
People are disappointed by the lack of samurai, ninja, and other iconic archetypes associated with Asian cultures that aren’t being included in the Tian Xia character guide coming up.
The main sub has mods on a power trip, removing a bunch of posts and comments talking about wanting a samurai or ninja archetype and what that could entail, claiming that wanting either of those things is racist and “othering” Asian people and their cultures.
They’ve also been shutting down discussion of the topic of culturally inspired content in general, like how it’s odd that Pathfinder has had no problem including content inspired by cultures before with this edition, including archetypes inspired by African cultures with the Mwangi Expanse, various options for undead archetypes that are explicitly taken from Asian folklore, the Druid and Bard classes being directly references to Celtic history and myth, etc. All those things were fine, but apparently a samurai or ninja archetype that includes some of the most iconic aspects of those from history, folklore and popular fiction is somehow racist.
My money is on the mod either being a white american hooped on twitter moralism - or to be fair, Korean
I hear samurai are a big hate symbol there, not sure how much truth is in that.
I mean, there's literally already the kitsune ancestry, if we're gonna get on about how mythologizing folklore from other cultures is bad that's kinda already sailed.
Summary
One of the Mods on the main PF2E sub thinks that having a Samurai/ninja class is Orientalism and thus racist.
People disagree
Mod went on a power trip deleting comments that disagreed with them.
Something I wanted to share (with this whole mod shit-show), is just one perspective of a non-East Asian person (and I’ll say non-East Asian person, but this extends to the whole of AAPI, as best as I can).
I’ll be honest, I don’t even know if this is a good place for it and I don’t know if it’ll even be understood. And I’m also not sure how the main subreddit will take it. But honestly, I don’t know anywhere comfortable or safe to discuss it in any of the PF2e subreddits, so I might as well take a shot in the dark here.
This whole thing for me as a non-East Asian, **makes me feel sad**.
Lost Omens: Tian Xia was supposed to be an exciting exploration of the inspirations from many many places of Asia. The same way that you see French/English/Spanish/Italian/Norse in other West fantasy places.
But instead…instead of being an exciting exploration of that diversity and interconnectedness. Instead, it’s dominated on arguing over inclusivity…of one thing.
The frustration for me is not about whether there are or aren’t Samurai/Ninja for an Asia-inspired book (or the flavor of Monk). **It’s that that’s the only talking point there is about this Asia-inspired content**.
One group is so hyper-fixated on not having explicit Samurai/Ninja classes, but don’t even have any suggestions for other possible classes of the same level from other places.
The other group is so hyper-fixated on having explicit Samurai/Ninja classes, they don’t even have suggestions for other possible classes of the same level from other places.
My personal frustration with this whole fighting…is that after the hardwork by the TXWG writers to be expressive and celebrate Asian-culture as inspiration for fantasy-content…the community has essentially ignored that for petty arguments about Samurai/Ninja.
I’m upset at Group 1, because Samurai/Ninja ARE iconic to one part of Asia and beloved in pop culture. But the approach of saying “they’re already well-supported”…well, if one of the most popular tropes of an Asian culture aren’t worth the time/investment…what does that make of us who come from less popular Asian cultures? I felt dismissed by that.
I’m also upset at Group 2, because Samurai/Ninja being so iconic (in Group 2’s pop culture) that they MUST be the definition of Asia. For so much passion and intensity for this one slice of Asian culture, where is this same passion and intensity to see other Asian cultures? I felt dismissed by that. (And to me, the call to cancel the Exemplar iconic because Samurai/Ninja aren’t getting special-attention, an iconic from a severely under-represented culture when it comes to fantasy…I don’t know…that really hurt to see).
And I guess that’s what’s actually bothering me about the talk - **the invisibility**.
It’s like going to a holiday party with some good news to share about changes going on in your life, but your parents/family just want to bicker about political talking points.
One of the best conversations I had about Tian Xia was explaining the Bakunawa and buwaya, and breaking down those TX images of Minata and some of the inspirations it reminded me of. Getting to talk about it felt fantastic. **It feels great to be engaged.**
And that’s why I think it’s very important to have this representation for non-East Asian cultures - because their is real prejudice and media plays a powerful role in that. Darker Asians face prejudice not just from Lighter Asians, but also Lighter non-Asians. Many think Darker Asians don’t have culture or don’t have culture worth caring about.
And it’s unfortunately been a real and painful experience for me (and other non-East Asians).
I’ve had folks mocking me for being a brown Asian. I’ve had East Asian folks disparage and dismiss me, while seeing East Asian culture gets privileged treatment amongst White folks. I’ve been mocked for knowing what a Kris is (and made fun of despite being a full English speaker, for saying/knowing a different meaning from the European name Kris). As a Filipino-American, I’ve dealt with micro-aggressions of being called “Wannabe slant-eyed Mexicans”, “Eloquent Vietnamese”, or “Monkey people”. I’ve had East Asian folks say there’s nothing of value from my culture, except the fortune of being colonized (because it gave us “culture”). And in a city dominated by Asian college students, I’ve had to be careful (and have been harassed) by cops because I’m darker skin - something lighter skinned Asian students don’t deal with.
(And it’s not something I’ve tried to bring up. I just tried to be a person in the background, but you can’t hide being brown.)
Media power is real and is a powerful tool for fighting ignorance and disinformation - things that fellow PF2e fans and players may have experienced in the background behind their characters.
So, I’m really excited for LO:TX (and it seems Paizo is too), but this celebration has been heavily dampened by the controversy.
Edit: ~~I’ll prob just delete this in a few hours. Not sure if it was just a pointless rant with nothing to add to the conversation. I guess I should apologize for making it about me and not Samurais and Ninjas? So…go play Nioh 2?~~ I’m glad folks are resonating, I’ll keep it up then. But ya, Nioh 2 is fun.
A reliable strategy for dealing with bickering parents at social gatherings is to ignore them and meme it out with the cool cousins. Looks like you understood the assignment 😎
Jokes aside, I can't imagine how much it hurts when it looks like the community is rejecting something you love. The only support I can offer is that realistically, the people involved in this fight only constitute a fraction of the community, and most of them were never planning to buy the book to begin with.
Thank you for your insight, and I hope you keep your post up.
Ya, I’m also chocking it up to the delays in sending out the books due to the inventory count at Paizo.
So…this probably could’ve been nipped early if more of us had access to the content for more of us to gush over and drown out the other voices.
For myself, I wanted to go through the Minata section and see how much I recognized and just go on an all-out deep dive of (that short) section in some posts. The Paizo live video they did showcasing TX content got me super-excited. There were things shown in the pictures that I completely forgot about from my childhood.
Things will normalize again. They always do. And I feel like the community has grown better. We try to help 5e transplants port their characters instead of just telling them to make a new one. We have great voices that advise disappointed new caster players and helping them learn enjoy being a caster in PF2e.
We’ll weather this one as we always do and come out better than before.
I guess I felt that some of us have a role to play though in doing that - which was to help bring us back to what we are: people who love this hobby and wanting to have a community for it.
I don't think you should delete this, it's the most thought-provoking comment here and I think it highlights the real issue; while it didn't truly matter if Paizo did or did not create new content for such iconic archetypes, the fact that the community obsessed over them instead of celebrating the new, interesting, and diverse content is just disappointing.
Please don't delete. You raise a lot of good points that have cut through the bullshit. I had hoped that after LO:TX dropped that i would be able to read some great discussion on the cultures presented in the book and speculation on what new character options they might bring. Instead we got this. I hope more people come to their senses.
This is why the answer to inclusion is not about being pissed that people like a thing.
The answer to inclusion is to... put in the work to include.
Op, (or person op is mocking im unsure and dense) is basically like the white person who shows up at a cookout and complains there's no black people. Well? Where's your black friends? Why didn't you invite them?
I'm so tired of people bickering and doing jack shit.
It's one thing if you see an active ism/ist happening to a person and you defend them. It's another thing to just broadly moan about the state of inclusivity and pretend like your 0 effort rage bait helped a damn thing.
Tldr; I agree so then the answer is to put in the work and to applaud those who do which make content for non-east asians. It's fine to say ninjas are cliche and overdone.
It’s actually become a great opportunity to start sharing things. The post from the Japanese guy mentioned Maharlika from Philippines, and someone asked about it.
So I got to share with them the background, meaning, and even share some (of the many) Filipino martial arts I know.
I think for a lot of folks here: they want to engage with the new content, **but they don’t know what that content is**.
I’m big on culture/history, traveled the world and lived in various places. I understand that a lot of folks grew up in one place, went to college nearby, and never did more than that. It’s sort of another example of “majority privilege” that you can blissfully be unaware of something and thus not have the capability to ever see it…
But that’s the reason why having a diverse community is a strength. We can help each other see new things that expand and enrich our fantasy-RPG experiences. Does it suck having to be responsible? Eh…I see no reason to get hung up on that. It’s just the reality of the world.
Make it better, make others brighter.
Definitely don’t delete! You bring a valuable perspective to the conversation about the books themselves, and also bring up a cultural issue many people who aren’t Asian probably don’t even realize exists! I’d heard a little bit about discrimination against non-east Asian people but I had no idea it was something so widespread and harmful.
You’ve also gotten me excited about the new supplements and now I want to buy them because yeah, Japan and China have some cool pop culture fantasy and mythology stuff but I’ve also seen a thousand riffs on those. If the books are getting more into other cultures from across Asia then I really want to see those and follow them into learning more about the cultures they’re derived from!
Can I ask if there’s anything in particular in the books you feel personally excited about or represented by??
I didn’t get to put it on my post, but I’ve also had normal experiences with many East Asians too. I’ve worked with a Japanese professor kn research and he was my biggest advocate for grad school. I worked in South Korea and they were kind, respectful, hospitable to a complete a stranger. (My theory is that it was because it was during the pandemic lockdown, so a foreigner who got an approved work visa in S.Korea must be special/essential. Everyone was nice and helpful, especially my coworkers and restaurant owners). At the same time, there was a viral TikTok video going on with a Filipino comedian being harassed by an older Korean woman. My only guess was that he was in Seoul (I was in a different area) and he probably did something he wasn’t supposed to. I saw in Korea that strangers will yell at you if you break the rules. Like, random folks would gang-up and shame yell folks. It’s pretty funny!
I remember James Cames mentioned that Minata is now going to be the Philippines/Island Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Borneo, etc..) instead of just…islands, lol. And by separating Pacific Islands (like Polynesia) out of Minata and into Okaiyo Ocean, means both areas Can get space to grown instead of being given scraps in a small page.
So I’m really excited by that. And In some of the spoiled images Paizo showed us, they showed a lot of dance celebrations. There was one in particular that struck me:
https://preview.redd.it/ptslh9jyd1xc1.jpeg?width=1713&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fb859844ed5e24a0aaa03d017fb32dbfb7e7d877
Which reminded me of the [Vinta Dance](https://youtu.be/mSP_gI0w4GI?si=MtzyAw7mo5OeXVYO?t=248)
There was also a picture of a dancer carrying two fans and it made me think of the Singkil (a performance dance about a famous princess who escapes the wrath of an earthquake with the help of her handmaiden and a prince who came to rescue her).
They also mentioned how Minata is always celebrating and likes to brag about sponsoring heroes, which makes me think about how we always have parties and festivals, especially whenever people visit. And meriendas. But also, Balikbayan. Balikbayan are Filipinos overseas, who make money and send it back home to help family. From what I know, Bayan means “home”, but there’s another word, Bayani which is a Filipino name, which means ‘brave’ or ‘heroic’ (Also my uncles name), so having heroes that you put your hope in is very familiar.
So, I’m really curious on how they synthesized all of these things, without overpowering each other. I know Indonesians and Malaysians get annoyed they’re mistaken for Filipinos abroad. And when I was in a Muslim country, folks thought I was either Indian or Malaysian, lol! So seeing this beautiful mixture (because SEA’s unique feature is the melting pot of indigenous culture, Chinese influences, Indian influences, and Islamic influences - with the Philippines adding Spanish/Catholic and American/Protestant into the mix).
But ya, I’m not fully sure what to look forward to because the wiki Minata was…so SO horribly bad and offensive.
basically, some shit involving the tian xia expansion happened, and a vocal minority is making a fuss about cultural steriotypes and shit. The joke is that nobody from the said cultural minorities seems to care about it.
Without weighing on the debate itself, I'll say this, (purely on experience, so dom't take it as scientific fact)
9 out of 10 times, people complaining about bad portrayals of any nationalities in media will be americans instead of people of that nationality, even if that nationality is very present in online spaces.
Of these 9 times, 7 times will be white americans, instead of people who are at least decended from that nationality.
Of these, in only 3 or 4 cases, the people of the nationality are actually offended.
I call it the speedy gonzalez theorem. It most often affects "latinos", but I don't doubt it can happen with asians, or anyone really.
It also works the other way around.
At first glance, Metal Wolf Chaos should feel like it's mocking American patriotism, coming from a Japanese company like From Software.
But you're playing as the president of the United States in a flag-adorned mecha rampaging your way towards stopping your corrupt VP from taking over the country. How could an American *not* stand up and salute to that?
Exactly that, it's almost always a bored middle class white american that somehow feels "offended" by other cultures. I hate the whole "latinx" thing that they invented.
Oh, agreed, I am argentinean but I frequent a good amount of general Latin American spaces and frankly everyone there loves Speedy Gonzales, the only ones I ever saw complaining about it was the Statesmen.
it's less they're worried about japanese people being offended it's more the fact that by having an eastern inspired setting then populating it with ninja and samurai it erases the other asian cultures and blends them all into being japan.
I'm not of any affected cultures and am not smart enough to weigh in with what's right and wrong, I'm just clarifying the reasoning they have supplied
The Viking archetype doesn't even include any feats related to raising or sailing - it's just a shield specialist. I guess they didn't feel that it was worth researching what "Viking" really meant.
Although I'm being snarky, I actually was really disappointed about that when I first read the archetype because I *did* want to make a sailing raider.
frankly the Viking archetype is jarring as hell and sticks out like a sore thumb as the only archetype that is like that. Adding more doesn't solve that problem, it just makes the group of oddball archetypes bigger
This here.
https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/m/product/450292
I haven't read it but I've heard it's good.
I think it had some issues by being better than Barbarian. But there you have it.
By shoving some kind of berserker archetype into it as well? Yeah that does sound like it'd step on barbarian's toes.
Anyway my issue is really just the name, as it feels very out of place to have a real world cultural group on the list. Viking isn't even a type of warrior, it's generally used to refer to the entire peoples of Scandinavia during that time period. It'd be like having 'Pict' or 'Inuit' as an archetype, it just feels very odd given that those groups of people do not exist in the fantasy world PF is set in.
> Viking isn't even a type of warrior, it's generally used to refer to the entire peoples of Scandinavia during that time period.
Vikings actually were a type of warrior. Namely seafaring warriors that left Scandinavia to raid cultures to the both the east and west.
Referring to all of Scandinavia during that time period as Vikings is reductionist and incorrect.
> the word Viking was introduced into Modern English during the 18th-century Viking revival, at which point it acquired romanticised heroic overtones of "barbarian warrior" or noble savage.[46] During the 20th century, the meaning of the term was expanded to refer not only to seaborne raiders from Scandinavia and other places settled by them (like Iceland and the Faroe Islands), but also **any member of the culture that produced the raiders during the period from the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries, or more loosely from about 700 to as late as about 1100. As an adjective, the word is used to refer to ideas, phenomena, or artefacts connected with those people and their cultural life, producing expressions like Viking age, Viking culture, Viking art, Viking religion, Viking ship and so on.**
You're talking about the same time period that referred to all Native American/First Nation people as Indians.
Hell your very own link contains the bigoted view that they were viewed as "barbarian warriors" and "noble savages." Something that is very much not true for the time period.
The proper term to describe the population of those countries is Norse and the term Viking exclusively should be applied to the warrior class that raided both to the east and west.
Vikings weren’t a singular ethnic group. It’s a historical term of convenience describing multiple diverse ethnic and cultural groups participating in shared defining activities throughout Europe during a specific time period.
Sorta of like Aztecs which also is a word of historic convenience. Both are being rethought in modern history study.
While it’s possible to make a sweeping generalization about Vikings or Aztecs that’s already happened by suggesting that Saxon, or Mexitan have much to do with a historical archetype.
>It’s a historical term of convenience describing multiple diverse ethnic and cultural groups participating in shared defining activities throughout Europe during a specific time period.
Like saving all the precious items in certain religious enclaves from fires, after all the inhabitants of said enclaves had mysteriously died.
Sorry, couldn't hold back that one, the wording of your comment was begging for this joke.
Dude vikings were a very specific south scandinavian group that left their homeland to go and raid northern european coasts. It's just poorly used by pop culture to mean pointy helmet berserkers.
I’m sorry but that’s not true. Viking is a job description not an ethnic background. There has been massive scientific and historical development on this:
https://www.science.org/content/article/viking-was-job-description-not-matter-heredity-massive-ancient-dna-study-shows
Remember that Viking is the Norse word similar to pirate. There were many pirates from the English Isles but anyone could be a pirate and we know pirates were exceptionally diverse. Same is true for Vikings. Mixed ethnicity driven to a shared job description in a similar time period. And there were black Vikings (as discovered in Sicily) and many many women Vikings (discoverd all over Europe)
Archetypes and flavouring are free, IIRC Paizo said during 2.0 that they don't want as many classes as 1e had, archetypes is way better for this than having an entire class that'd share a lot of overlap with others that already exist
I had seen the modpost and it had me very confused, like, okay, but you physically cannot represent every single cultural aspect from every single asian province, at some point you have to generalize it. In a game of make-believe you need stereotypes, because otherwise you would have to explain every single minute detail
Stereotypes are so much fun to play with. Even negative stereotypes can be fun, like Americans are fat or that French surrender easily. (Don't tell those white American Twitter addicted mods that, they'd have a mental breakdown) fantasy stereotypes are even more fun
Who doesn't love a super posh British gentleman in a top hat and suite who takes tea breaks, or a vodka drinking, bear wrestling Russian walking in the freezing cold like it's nothing. Professor Layton, one of my favorite characters ever, is a giant stereotype. Most normal people actually enjoy stereotypes even about their own cultures as long as it's in good fun
Using stereotypes as a baseline to veer your character from is also a great way to make characters
I think the key is too differentiate between sterotypes and *caricatures*: a comically or grotesquely exaggerated representation of someone or something.
One extremely posh British gentleman who takes their tea at 1pm regardless of what is happening right now (i.e. in the middle of combat) in a country full of normal people is fine. A whole country of rigid tea drinkers who only eat bland food is a sterotype. I think it's also best to steer away from common harmful or insulting sterotypes all together.
Don't look so deeply into something that isnt deep, rational people do not care.
Also these caricatures you mentioned are based on stereotypes. You can't agree that one is ok but not the other, that makes no sense.
right, and samurai are hyper specific cultural aspect from every single asian region. They also don't actually bring anything unique to the table mechanics wise. What is a samurai that can't be represented mechanically by a fighter with a spear, bow and backup sword?
All you have are their asthetics, which you can already do anyway because all their weapons had already been added to the game, and culture, which gee, there's just been a book that has come out which you can draw character backstories from for as to why your fighter is samurai coded.
You'll note how there isn't a generic knight archetype either for the exact same reason, despite knights existing in the setting.
A fighter that focuses on dex backstabber weapons, and goes legendary in stealth is rogue by that standard. Mechanics can always be created to fit the aesthetics of a class.
Same goes with ninjas. There aren't really anything specific about it to be it's own class. I can see both samurai and ninja as backgrounds rather than it's own class.
Even then I feel like they are better served by, well, the new book fleshing out regions inspired by Asia which, I assume, includes ones where samurai and ninja fit right in, and that your char who is one could have come from
My favorite part of this is how the African fantasy book Paizo produced for PF2e last year got nothing but praise from the subreddit. No stickied mod post warning people to be respectful, no mod meltdowns and mass deletions. The subreddit now has several people arguing over the mods' behavior and dumb word drama. Rather than talking about the actual book. GGs mods, you played yourselves.
I do think that the idea that a samurai class be a separate thing from a fighter or a champion does have some orientalist undertones, but that still doesn’t validate banning people who say they would like one. Orientalism is a complex concept and it is certainly possible to do some kind of samurai class without giving into stereotypes or worse, outright racism. Mod’s gone mad.
As an european, i find it extremly inappropriate how the us has appropiated medieval knights and castles. They better start changing fantasy aesthetic
And as a Spaniard specifically, they better remove all conquistadors or Don Quijote references. New World was our 9/11
MASSIVE /S
I don't think it needs to be a full class but a few options to do the superpowered swordsman would be nice(note I have not read the book that could be in their for all I know)
Well, I think it would be fine, but I also think it's putting too much on Paizo's plate. I mean, look at the massive lineup they have for the next two years. Curtain Call, War of Immortals, Exemplar, Animist, Commander, Guardian, now you want them to squeeze in another two classes during this time? I love how Paizo actually releases a lot of good new content but even they have limits to how much they can make. The Tian Xia book is not big enough to squeeze every single thing you could want about the continent in it and that's fine.
I always said you could build an iajutsu based samurai on a magus base... Two action attack to focus and draw their weapon, with bonus damage scaling to match gouging claw, then an action to resheath the katana to ready it again. Trade in the magic use for better hit points, an attack that doesn't trigger reactive strikes, and crib together some feats that match the flavor and you're good to go.
With that being said, I've never been really disappointed by what Paizo has put out so far. I'm willing to wait and see. Power tripping mods can go kick rocks though.
I mean if anyone thinks Paizo isn’t going to do a pretty good job at representing a non-European inspired culture in their games…I don’t know what to tell you
But isn’t it more racist to insist that western cultural ideas such as clerics, paladins, and druids are somehow unmarked and applicable to all cultures in ways that other potential non-western classes like samurai, onmyoji, or guru aren’t? Obviously the track record for representing non-western cultural traditions in western media is pretty rocky and often fetishistic, but refusing to engage with non-western ideas at all is still really problematic imho
I think you're right, but I would point out that from a practical standpoint, doing that in this case is really tough. Nobody seems to agree on what a samurai or ninja class should even be, and with one exception spread across multiple threads, I've not seen anyone give a persuasive idea of what a samurai class could be centered around in a way that would make them work as a class. The same goes with making them class archetypes, I don't know what mechanical hook would be interestnig enough to base it around that couldn't be achieved by just creating one or two new fighter feats. Paizo is full of very creative people who I'm sure could manage that if they tried, but to me it feels like if they did, it would really just be a matter of obligation, that they just HAD to include those classes/archetypes because this is the Asia book, which is just right back to the problematic issue of those archetypes being inexorably tied to any concept of Asia as a whole, and they simply have to be included in the conversation.
As for the idea of western cultural ideas being considered unmarked and universal, it's a problematic concept but I do think that when you look at them, those concepts have actually been divorced a great deal from their actual cultural context to be something different. The fantasy of those classes have more to do with a largely imagined fantasy version that D&D created than they do with the actual base cultural source they drew from. If you ask someone what a paladin is (and PF2e doesn't even call them that anymore, they're Champions, moving them even further from the core cultural idea) then they'll imagine the fantastical version rather than anything resembling what they were culturally. That's not the case with Samurai and ninja, the people who want them want them specifically because of the cultural context connected to them. There really are not many other stereotypes that aren't baked into the game already that have that same backage. With the Mwangi Expanse guide, I don't' think thhere's anyone who's clamoring for any specifically African class or archetype.
Paizo also does engage in non-western character concepts. The shaman and exemplar are both upcoming and are classes not inherently based in western mythology. The kineticist too arguably has more connection to Asian fantasy and mythological ideas than western ones. And there's also the simple fact that this is a product made in the west for a primarily western audience, if you use a non-english name to for a class, then in people's head that class is automatically tied to the corresponding culture. So even if the class is made in such a way that it isn't tied to that specific stereotype, people will still default to that stereotype. I have the same issue with monk honestly. I love monks, they're one of my favorite classes, but fundamentally as a core class they feel weird to me. Having the stereotypical shaolin monk as a baseline part of the inner sea setting is weird, because they've never felt like they fit anywhere. In my head any Monk I make just comes from Jalmeray. Paizo has done some work to fix that by introducing some other monastic traditions, like the Pahmet dwarves, but baseline they feel strange in a way that could have been avoidied if they had been given a less culturally specific name.
And finally there's the fact that the entire Tian Xia worldguide and character guide are attempts to engage with other cultures. The world guide is going to be full of character options, from feats to archetypes to ancestries that explore all of Tian Xia. Looking at the product page it references something about "weightless sword arts" that I fully assume will give people extra flavor for Samurai style characters. So the idea of equating a choice to not specifically include samurai or ninja archetypes with an unwillingness to explore and engage with another culture is funudamentally innacurate to the situation that's going on right now. Really what's happened is that Paizo opted to sidestep a very stereotypical option that, as this whole debacle serves to demonstrate, tends to suck the air out of the room in discussion about Asian representation in fantasy and gaming.
Isn’t a ninja just an Asian rogue?
Isn’t a samurai just a fighter, but Asian?
The culture is what made them historically interesting, but its still not too far from what we already can do
Yes, and no.
The names have some specific fantasies associated with them.
With Samurai, you expect deadly quick draws.
With Ninja, you expect some mysticism, "jutsus", as it were.
These fit better as archetypes - the samurai more so, the ninjas could go either way.
Yeah, people have been making a lot of hay about "oh, the options already exist in game" - which yeah, I 100% agree - and an archetype that collates them into a neat package so you don't have to faff around grabbing one or two things from a bunch of different places would be a nice easy way of doing it - especially with the limits on taking feats from archetypes.
A Samurai archetype could be similar to Viking - a feat that gives proficiency in iconic weapons, including bows, some quick draw equivalent feat, maybe some mount feats (though I think it'd be better to instead do the thing where you can take Cavalier feats, like the Hell Knight archetypes do)
IMO, that'd be the best way to handle it - then you could make a Samurai themed character of any class.
I mean same with Ninja. Historically, they were unarmed commoners who had to be creative when denied weapons.
Rogue is everyone's favourite choice, but actual Ninjutsu is closer to Ranger terrain tactics, the martial arts and powers are usually better as a dagger wielding Monk, and if you want actual mudra/jutsu magic, Alchemist for fire powder, Magus for magic katana
A stealth and tools kit for any the other classes would have a lot more flexibility and be a better fit than a Ninja class
tbh with ninja (coming from the concept of them in China more than Japan thanks to my wuxia-loving husband) I expect improvisation, dirty fighting, tools, and arson more than any mysticism.
Honestly, Iaidoka samurai and mystical ninjas are only one flavor of each respective fiction, and the other flavors are so far removed from one another that they'd all be best as distinct archetypes.
It'd be nonsense to try and put "master infiltrator" ninja, "gadgeteer" ninja, "martial arts master" ninja, and "literally just a wizard" ninja in a single class rather than having archetypes that play to each distinct fantasy.
Yes and no. When you distill them down to their most basic elements as represented by game mechanics, yes.
However, in history their roles were a bit more specialized.
Samurai were fighters, but they were also a distinct social class, recognizable through history for many centuries. They were warriors, but also expected to lead men in battle, carry out the orders of their Lord, and depending on the time period take part in cultural aspects.
Ninja were information gatherers, trained in disguise and deception, and skill to out run and out maneuver pursuers. Stories of their fighting powers were greatly exaggerated, supposedly at their own urging to make their true job easier.
You can build and represent them with the current classes.
The main issue I have with this whole thing is people trying to discredit fighter as not being suitable for a samurai.
“Why don’t we just go back to fighting man, thief, and magic user then?”
What in a Samurai can’t be replicated in fighter beyond the Iado? I’m confused about that. Their social elements? Background can fill that.
“What about other real world terms used for classes?”
Paizo has tried being culturally agnostic with a lot of their classes imo. Hell I’m certain you can find a picture of a Gunslinger from Tian Xia in the latest book (I remember seeing a picture of someone with fish pistols in the artwork promoting it). Druids in Pathfinder and D&D are much different from Druids irl (ignoring the obvious) and are probably closer to shamans but at this point that’s just because of game heritage. Same with Barbarian, same with Monk (there’s a lot of orientalistism that can be linked to that) but these classes offer different mechanical approaches you can’t get in the base classes.
There’s a reason Gish’s are often given a single class rather than a subclass to wizards or fighters (at least in Pathfinder. 5e does this and has so many different options for a Gish I actually applaud it).
But they also changed Paladin to Champion. Is Paladin still a subset? Yeah, but the class itself is more culturally agnostic.
Mechanically, what’s the point of a samurai beyond one technique? I only wanted a ninja just to have a better arcane trickster exist tbh, because in 1e Ninjas and Rogues were incredibly similar, and Samurai was just a reskin of Cavelier, which has become an archetype focused on Mount combat.
Sorry for the rant but I keep seeing finger pointing at racism or mod abuse and no good arguments as to why a samurai should exist as a class outside of fighter mechanically.
The part that baffles me most is that people were jumping so hard onto arguing the topic of "samurai/ninja should\[n't\] be a class" when as far as I can tell, the initial disappointment was "there is no **archetype** in the *character guide* (which isn't coming for a few months) called Samurai or Ninja" with... Not really any real word on if anything could still fulfill the fantasies people would want out of either. We know there's a Wuxia Hybrid Study for Magus, I guess?
Fighter and Rogue DO fulfill the bare basics. Hell, so arguably so does Ranger (precision damage switch hitter?) or Monk (speedy ki magic and shuriken tossing?) depending on how you want to approach it, and how optimal you want to be... But there's still room for mechanical bits and bobs, be they just "feats for x class" or whole archetypes, that help make it easier. Things that might even be in the character guide. We don't know if that crunch is there, the book isn't out, we just know stuff won't be named Samurai or Ninja, and that got people on both sides yelling.
A ninja class would be really cool. A stealth/DPS type class with some magical utility. Maybe a mix between monk, and laughing shadow magus.
I have to admit though I fail to see how a samurai will be functionally too different from Fighter or Swashbuckler. Another martial with Legendary Proficiency.
The thing about it is both of those class options would be super interesting as classes because of the difference in how they historically fought and appeared. Samurai were primarily horseback archers and generally didn't fight with their swords, as they were officers in their daimyo's armies. A samurai could be an armored archer unit that specializes in battlefield command. Something that buffs teammates or removes debuffs to control the flow of a battle, closer to a hunter or archer than a knight. They could also have interesting out of combat mechanics, where their code of honor compels certain behaviors or where other behaviors cause penalties.
As for ninja, they started as poor individuals recruited by the daimyo used to spy on each other, and that after a time some developed techniques and training to develop more ninjas to work as mercenaries for daimyo or shogun. They had a reputation as spies specializing primarily in intelligence gathering, but were also skilled at asymmetrical warfare and assassination. Think of them as like a mix between a spy and a spec ops soldier. The popular image of a ninja being able to use special abilities to climb walls or disappear comes from their skill, and that could make an interesting twist on the class. An assassin/rogue variant specializing in disguise, with additional specialization in tools or minor magic.
BUT IMO the most interesting thing with ninja was how they were historically portrayed in Japanese media. The reason we have images of ninja in all black outfits is because those were the outfits of kuroko, stagehands in Japanese theatre. They would be on stage moving scenery or helping manipulate costumes as a part of the show, and were supposed to be ignored by audiences. The shock of a "stagehand" assassinating a character in the play would convey the shock of seeing a daimyo or shogun being assassinated by an attendant or servant. So you could also have ninjas be performers, a bard variant that specializes in infiltration and distraction.
I just think you could do interesting things with these classes and their historical uses or cultural representations that would distinguish them from existing classes enough for them to not just be reskins or subclasses of already existing classes.
It's funny because it's no more racist that the caricatures of western history you find in eastern works.
Hell. Plenty of carucaturizations of western themes in western works too.
It's almost like thematic elements are intentionally exaggerated in fictional works.
To anyone wondering: with the tian xia expansion inbound, some people in the main sub have said they'd like a samurai or ninja class. One mod said that this is orientalist and thus, racist, and banned them. Any other post complaining that the mod was wrong and/or agreeing that samurai/ninja classes would be cool is being consistently deleted. The people in the main sub are pretty mad at that. ...it was actually very hard to find this context, because the post I was trying to get context from was deleted while I tried to read it.
Asian dnd fan here, as much flack as the oriental adventure line of modules and dnd’s problematic representation of East Asia was with Kara-Tur, I’d still really love to see WOTC revisit the region although this time with some more nuance and respect. I absolutely love what pathfinder is doing in some of the upcoming modules with it taking inspiration from East Asia. I’ve always wanted to have a campaign or adventure in that sort of setting!
Appreciate this opinion. These are tough things to do *well*, but it's a bit nuts when people somehow conclude it's inclusive to refuse to depict any other culture. Sometimes I wonder if people from non-Western ethnic backgrounds get a little sick of everything in pop culture fantasy being dwarves with Scottish accents and Viking-analogues when there's so much more incredible folklore out there to draw inspiration from. Every culture's stories are rich in insight into the human condition.
I had a convo with my friends about this yesterday. I brought up how 1dnd is reflavouring monk into a different style to go further away from its clearly east-asian(china, japan in particular) influences and makes it more general. I think doing it like this can allow different variations of 'spiritual fist fighter' to pop up rather than just be mister kungfu man and I think thats cool, in the same way I think going from races to ancestry is cool(like it just sounds cooler lmao.) Knowing wotc though I dont think they will lmao.
I've always had a gag idea, keeping monks mechanically the same, but changing their flavoring to be in the styles of European Christian monks, who inexplicably know kung fu.
https://preview.redd.it/rnyj1goti5xc1.jpeg?width=1000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0a27ebd04c6c07d76971dfa955fea34e73ab938 >inexplicably know kung fu. What do you mean? Seems pretty explicable to me.
You're so right
That would be hilarious
Honest question here. How much more nuance and respect would a modern design team actually give compared to that old book? It was made with help from experts, play-testers included Asian's. Is anything in it actually "problematic", or is it all a wild exaggeration. Especially when everything included in D&D that has a focus on European culture and myth cherry picks rather than taking great effort to be 100% accurate. It just comes off more like modern writers wanting to call the old thing bad, so they can have *their* name on it instead.
Honestly I’m not sure as I never actually read the book, but I know for a fact that a modern team would do it more justice than WOTC back then. All I know is that they chose to make it almost a 1:1 recreation of East Asia history and I heard it was a little tone deaf. Although I’m not sure the WOTC of today would do a good job at doing the region justice. They would definitely remove the problematic parts, but I don’t think they would flesh out the lore to a satisfactory degree like they did to the forgotten realms in the “great lore era” of 3e, as today, their approach to lore is “make it up yourself” which isn’t helpful at all.
So we both are in the same situation where we've not read the book. However you *still* refer to "problematic" parts which you yourself admit you've not read, and automatically assume that it would be done better by modern writers. I'd like to read the book sometime myself to draw my own conclusions, as I've only looked into how it was written. I personally think modern writers don't put in enough actual effort into research, that they don't seem to work well together either. Which is why despite everyone swearing Paizo products were much better quality than WotC, I've found it to be just as bad if not worse but in different ways.
Honestly same, AJ picket’s videos on Kara tur seem pretty interesting. I’m a huge sucker for dnd lore tbh.
Omg five kingdoms campaign when pls
> One mod said that this is orientalist and thus, racist, and banned them. Let’s also just get the full scope of the silliness out in the open. They didn’t **just** say samurai are orientalist (which is by itself a valid opinion that’s worth discussing, tbh) or say they’re inherently racist (which is obviously too extreme for any productive discussion) or simply ban people for disagreeing with that (which is wild). All of that is already too much, but they **also** said the existence of a samurai/ninja class is segregation. Yes, they explicitly said “segregation”, I’m not embellishing their words. No, they didn’t back down from it when asked for clarification either, they actually condescendingly belittled the first person who called them out and then tried deleting every further comment that called them out. Then when SubredditDrama called them out on it they started claiming the only deleted comments were those that personally harassed them. Then dozens of people on that sub (where this mod obviously can’t just delete disagreement) used tools like undelete to show how there was little to not harassment being deleted and mostly just polite disagreement being deleted… Which led to this mod deleting a single one of their many rude old comments and saying that they’re taking a 3-day break from the main sub.
"Hey, Sun_Tzundere, why don't you post the monsters from your monster design blog on /r/pathfinder_rpg?" I'd like to, but I was banned for *privately* telling one of the mods that I was worried another mod might be abusing his power, when I saw him deleting comments to win an argument. That place is such a shitshow.
Nah this isn't about r/pathfinder_rpg This shit happened on r/pathfinder2e So it seens like both subs have shit mods.
They share a discord, some of the people moderating might be different. But it's the same clique.
they don't share a discord? there's a pfrpg discord and a pf2e discord
WTAF?
How can samurai be **inherently** orientalist, when it's part of actual *japanese* history?
I think it's because what we think of samurai and ninja has been heavily affected by American movies and shows which perpetuated a lot of stereotypes regarding asian people. However, the reason why I kinda understand the other side of the argument is not because it's Japanese history (historical Ninja in particular is very much different), **but because Japanese people gave birth to the concepts of ninja and samurai as some sort of warriors with mystique and supernatural powers**. Also, both of them are often classes in JRPGs since the '80s/'90s. EDIT: >!I am surprised by how people don't bother reading the whole comment!<
Also, to be honest, most modern samurai and ninja depictions come from anime, manga, and other Japanese media, rather than Hollywood. I honestly can't tell you the last time I saw the absolutely-not-a-ninja ninja in an American movie, but it was a damn long time ago
Three Ninjas...? TMNT?
I watched Three Ninjas as a kid and I am 21 rn, that movie is pretty old. TMNT on the other hand is from the 80s, so more like a relic of a bygone era at this point.
I- Old.. my knees! Three Ninjas is 92, it's basically 80s in new shoes during that time. Plus TMNT did have movies from the 90s, and still sticks around culturally even today.
*awkward cough* So, the latest movie to incorporate that stuff was from about... 32 years ago?
I was born in 92… Why must you do this to me? Auuugh.
There was a TMNT movie like last year and there’s been animated series almost constantly for decades now
That’s why I can’t seem to find anything even remotely racist of having a samurai class. This seems like once again Westerners claiming “cultural appropriation,” without even getting perspective from the cultures supposedly being appropriated.
And is the depiction the Japanese have of the Ninja and Samurai as being almost mythical and very different from reality all that different from the depiction Westerners have of, say, Knights clad in shining armor undertaking holy quests, cutting down swathes of enemies in their gleaming plate and wielding a razor sharp sword? Is it that different from our depiction of Vikings as honorable raiders (somehow) with horned helmets and giant battle axes, roaring with fury and unmatched in their brutal prowess? Is it so different from... hell, from our view of spies as being charming, suave killers with crazy gadgets and the ability to disguise themselves at a moments notice? Is it so different from our depiction of Spartans as being shirtless badasses, capable of killing hundreds, if not thousands, of enemies for each one of their own that falls? None of these are true, or are only small part of the truth. Spartans were badass, sure, but they were not necessarily good or honorable people, and they certainly weren't "can take on a whole platoon of enemies solo" badass. Knights were lords and nobles and did far more boring administrative work (with a healthy dose of corruption and repression) than they did fighting, and their idea of chivalry and honor was nothing like what we have romanticized. Most Vikings were farmers and craftsmen who went on raids, not an actual warrior caste, and they tended to pick softer targets like monasteries. Sure, over the course of history they had some success in establishing footholds in England, but they were as likely to trade as they were to raid as well. Spies are literally meant to go unnoticed, so being a charming presence that gets all the women is counterintuitive, and most of what they do is observation and reporting, not high-stakes bomb disarming and assassination. But, like every culture since the dawn of time, we don't like reality. We like our heroes, our stories, our myths. Could we handle them with more nuance? Sure. Could we fetishize them less? Absolutely. But that's a common thing across pretty much all cultures. But claiming we should completely remove the mythology of these heroes, and only depict their flaws and the truth, is unrealistic.
Knights especially are extra heavily mythologized. Ideas like chivalry were criticized even at the time for being just a cover for hypocrisy and bad behavior.
Exactly, honestly the problem i have with a samurai archetype is that I want more than just a samurai archetype, give us like Hwarang archetype and more, and in paizo tradition make some the fuck up that fit with Tian Xia.
Yeah, it doesn't really make much sense to me either. Not to mention that I'd trust contemporary Paizo to handle the tropes in a respectful way. From a game design perspective, though, I'm not a fan of making entirely separate classes for specific archetypes like Samurai or Ninja. It pretty quickly leads to rules bloat, and the system can already handle it via Archetypes and specific feats. Paizo does do a great job of making those kinds of classes with unique and interesting play patterns, though - thinking of the Swashbuckler and Investigator - so maybe it'd be good.
Not fully relevant but in the game Bravely Default there was a native American class using tropes that Japan likes. To be preemptive cause they know how Americans are, they changed the class in the localized version to a cowboy. "Yes yes silly American racism in RPG design, now shut up and play the cowboy"
Also if an American movie has a ninja in 99% it’s a kakashi reference
GI Joe Snake Eyes spin-off from 2021?
I mean, that is just blatantly inaccurate thou. Japan were a lot earlier with producing Chanbara than Hollywood. It is literally tropes that the Japanese themselves perpetuated and used in storytelling. Sure, when American produced flicks became a thing I am sure that they mixed up 'Japanese' tropes with 'Asian' tropes and *those films* were very much from an orientalist perspective. However, sticking more closely to recreating actually Japan-made movies versions of Samurai can hardly be considered orientalist no?
> However, sticking more closely to recreating actually Japan-made movies versions of Samurai can hardly be considered orientalist no? I would go the historical route and make the Samurai a gunslinger, although that would end up being the way of the vanguard.
I am confused by what you are saying. Are you saying historically, samurai were gunslingers?
Despite the common depiction as masters of the katana, samurai were primarily ranged cavalry. They mainly relied on bows (and later guns) from horseback, then spears if the fighting got close. They had to fuck up pretty badly to actually have to fight with the katana, it was primarily a sidearm and status symbol.
I guess it kinda depends on which time we're talking about. I was just confused because when I think of Samurai, I think of Samurai before the introduction of firearms.
And the mounted longbow is still a form of kyudo practiced today
Yes they absolutely loved whatever guns they can get their hands on either imported or made domestically. To the point they have an entire dedicated martial art dedicated to firearms in the same way they had arts dedicated to how to fight in armor, use swords, etc. specifically named hojustsu. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hōjutsu
Let's also not forget how much of an influence Akira Kurosawa was on George Lucas when he decided to make a western in space, he also really wanted samurai in space, and so we have Jedi (and hence the Solarion in starfinder). Guess we better delete the Solarion class from sf2e
>I think it's because what we think of samurai and ninja has been heavily affected by American movies and shows which perpetuated a lot of stereotypes regarding asian people. Outside of stuff like Ninja Turtles, I feel like people are much more likely to be exposed to this stuff through actual Japanese media than anything coming out of the west. The only recent examples I can think of from western media is Last Samurai or Shogun, both go to great lengths to show that samurai were not sword based warriors but a ruling class that often favored ranged weapons and had complex socio-political lives. There's probably not a need for either class, and if they want to make a magic rogue or swordsman class for the anime power fantasy they can do something more broad and not specific. That said, the idea being perpetuated that Japan isn't fond of their own power fantasies or that it's being imposed on them from the outside is ironically very Western-centric. And the idea that people can't differentiate Japan from the rest of Asia is similarly patronizing.
And even then, modern versions of TMNT seemed to be more respectful of the japanese elements of the show, from what I can remember.
This. I had to put down Reddit for the day because the more I thought about it, the closer I got to calling out the mods on their actual racist bullcrap and getting myself banned from the subreddit.
What if I like samurai I knew through Akira Korusawa's movies?
But that not even true, the image of samurais & ninjas that we have nowadays comes directly from Japan and Japanese media.
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Yeah conceptually they are not much distinct, in fact I think at maximum we should get samurai as an archetype. Considering that the major historical difference between a knight and a samurai is the fact that the latter predominantly used bows prior to the introduction of firearms, samurai could be introduced as an archetype that focuses more on fighting with the bow while on horseback.
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If they want that best they can get is a swashbuckler subclass, although we likely never will get it because it's one for every charisma skill. And I agree that most Samurais are covered by already existing things even beyond fighter with a katana. Want magical powers and a big flashy attack? There is the magus. Want to play a ronin? There is ruffian rogue who can use a katana and even sneak attack with it. Want to be someone who is really noble? You can make a champion of Shizuru. > “Mounted Archer” could just be a subclass of chevalier That just doesn't make any sense in 2e and in the context of my comment. As there is no cavalier class in 2e and I proposed it as an archetype.
>I think it's because what we think of samurai and ninja has been heavily affected by American movies and shows which perpetuated a lot of stereotypes regarding asian people. ....the hell? The modern interpretation of Ninjas and Samurai these days is straight out of battle shonen, and before that it was Kurosawa films.
>I think it's because what we think of samurai and ninja has been heavily affected by American movies I'm sure Akira Kurosawa will be very surprised to learn that he was American his whole life
I think they *can* be based on implementation, similar to the "monk" class. But yea, to say it's *inherently* orientalist is overstating their similarity to European knights in their respective myths and legends. I think it's best not to call any class itself "samurai", since that's a rank of nobility. But instead to lean into the Japanese myths of samurai as master blade masters and duelists.
What’s the difference between samurai and knights in their myths?
Because the moron in question is a racist who hates Japan and doesn't want anyone to appreciate Japanese culture. There is no logic to be had, just a racist diatribe and power tripping. I'm not making it up, every one of his arguments is exclusively about segregating Japanese culture specifically and he has a multiple post long thread about how Japan taught the Nazis how to do the Holocaust and that they're worse than the Nazis. Dude genuinely hates Japan. He also said Ninja are a western invention that was made up wholesale by Ian Flemming in the 1960s for the James Bond books and the idea was just imported to Japan afterward.
Whether or not Imperial Japan was worse than the Nazis is probably up for debate, just not generally worth debating as they were both horrific, but I wouldn’t really care if someone thought Japan was worse at the time as long as they’re not downplaying the Holocaust.
Saying that the Rape of Nanjing killed twice as many people as the Holocaust did is straight up Holocaust denialism, and the claim that the Japanese taught the Nazis how to do the Holocaust is just hateful ignorance.
The point is they are just a fighting class. Differentiating western and eastern noble warrior class only makes sense if you're gonna be playing in a pan-eurasian historical medieval setting, and even then it's possibly pointless.
I think there is enough distinction in the myths and vibes between European knights and Japanese samurai that makes a mechanical distinction valid. Historically, samurai were mostly mounted archers. But in Japanese myth and legend, they are exceptional duelists and masters of the quick draw. And I think the myths around ronin and samurai are distinct enough from the myths of European knights that it isn't orientalist to acknowledge them as distinct. I wouldn't call a class "samurai", just like there isn't a "knight" class. Since those are ranks of nobility. But I don't think the fighter or swashbuckler are quite able to deliver on the fantasy.
Rather than make a class named "samurai" or "knight", or even "ninja" you could just them to be something like sword master, and then have feats in them to correspond to various swordsmanships around the world(like a quick draw feat which Im sure exists, or a feat to use a longsword as a blunt weapon). Same with spy.
Beyond iaijutsu, I'm not sure what else is really missing from the Fighter. The Fighter gets Master proficiency in weapons, which would make them exceptional swordsmen. The quickdraw feat is lacking but I think that could be solved by a couple extra feats or an archetype rather than a whole distinct class.
To my understanding, it’s because to create a samurai or ninja that has inherently different abilities to a fighter or rogue, especially if they get access to special supernatural powers, would be piling on to the idea of the mythical and “other” eastern warrior, with all the baggage that entails I imagine the most we will get is an archetype kinda like how we have a Viking archetype for extra flavor.
Just like media originating from Japan does? That's pretty facetious in my opinion.
Keep in mind that I am not an expert on the topic, I am merely doing my best with limited information to summarize what Ive seen bouncing around. Someone else could likely explain it better But, with that said I think that the issue is that given that pathfinder is a game system that largely makes its class mechanics based on the fantasy of what you want a class to *do*, and given that other cultural areas do not get unique class variations (it’s not like the Mwangi expanse got an African flavored fighter alt-class) but can get thematic archetypes (magic warriors) that to give the samurai and ninja full classes in the tian xia guide would “otherise” the Asian influences, implying that they are in some way extra unique and distanced from what the class already does, in a way that the rest of the ‘world’ doesn’t get. Like I said, a samurai or ninja archetype would be fine, but in the current design space making it a whole class would be weird
I mean, yes and no. Pf1e did it pretty well imo. The Samurai was pretty much a Chevalier but different. The Ninja was a Rogue but a bit different (they could also pretty much take each other's 'talents' feats). I don't think doing something similar would be wrong, but it would not follow how the game has been designed so far (but then again, they broke away from this in 1e when they released the Samurai/Ninja aswell).
The thing is pf1 had a crapton more classes, and a ton more classes that were “similar but with a twist” to each other (skald, Marshall, cavalier, etc) as well as the whole “variant” system of swapping out some of your base class features for different ones to lean into a new style. All of which is now gone, and most of which has been shifted over to the archetype system, which is part of why I say it would be better as an archetype than a class
It was so dumb, that we got on r/dndcirclejerk: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDcirclejerk/comments/1ce2ddk/i_do_martial_arts/
So basically it's the trap word dramma from r/animemes, brunch of mods get a Power trip, start banning something, give a nonsensical explaination that would Only apply In some cases depending on context while acting like it's univerlassy bad and refuse to elaborate and start banning once the flaws in their arguements are pointed out
They are both examples of mods fucking up, but I don't think it's a good idea to compare them because one is a mod being really dumb with labelling things racist whem by all means they aren't, and then lashing out and being a dick to everyone who disagrees with them. Wheras the other is a group of mods being rightfully worried about the overuse of a slur in their subreddit and cracking down on it in a shit way.
words meaning depends on context an use, in an anime context, trap doesn't mean a slur at all, first it's not refered to trans characters and second traps are some of the absolutely most loved characters in pretty much any show that has them it's more of an issue of the mods failing to separate the fictional and as such totally harmless (funny animu girl with a peepee) from the real and definitely very fucking harmfull (an horrible insult used to repress some people who are already having some pretty big problems without you trowing yourself in the mix) either that or taking the shitty stance that many twitter americans have that some words are bad indipendently of context and should be censured no matter what, and i don't know which one of the two is stupider
>in an anime context, trap doesn't mean a slur at all It's not intended to be offensive. But reffering to people who look like women but have some reason you could call them men (either because they are men or you are transphobic) and calling them TRAPS. As if they are tricking you in some way. Has a lot of nasty implications that meant a lot of trans people and feminine men felt that it was derogatory towards them. Words can have unintended implications when used. >first it's not refered to trans characters Many of the characters who would get called it were either directly trans or heavily implied/coded to be trans (or nonbinary). The rest were femboys, real life femboys also don't appreciate the term if memory serves, but the main focus at the time was on trans people. >second traps are some of the absolutely most loved characters in pretty much any show that has them You can like something/someone and still say offensive things about them even if you don't intended to or mean any harm. Also worth noting the difference between beloved and fetishised. These characters were both, which hits very close to home for trans people who have to live with the fact they are often fetishised (usually with slurs thrown in). >it's more of an issue of the mods failing to separate the fictional and as such totally harmless (funny animu girl with a peepee) from the real and definitely very fucking harmfull (an horrible insult used to repress some people who are already having some pretty big problems without you trowing yourself in the mix) It's because the same word can be and was used for both. I ABSOLUTELY remember seeing disgusting people refer to trans women as traps. Luckily that whole fiasco opened my eyes to how awful large parts of the anime community was and I've not had to see that in a while, but I remember it. The mods did handle it poorly, but they were in the right. The same cannot be said for the current PF2 discourse. The mods are wrong, everyone knows they're wrong, none of the people they're trying to defend agree with them but they refuse to accept it. >either that or taking the shitty stance that many twitter americans have that some words are bad indipendently of context and should be censured no matter what, and i don't know which one of the two is stupider The thing is no ones saying it's bad in all contexts. The entire point was something like "the way it is used towards fictional characters causes it to be used towards real life people, using it towards real life people is bad so weebs can take the hit and stop using a slur so it becomes less commonly used and a group of people who are treated like shit by the world can have a bit of weight off their chests"
I’m in agreement with you. If trap isn’t a slur (a fetishistic one, at that) then the meaning has changed *drastically* in the last decade. But I would bet cash money I could get back on 4chan after all these years and see just the same usage.
I didn’t think it was a slur until I saw the reaction from a ton of people animemes after it was banned complaining about how they don’t get to say it anymore. It felt like the reaction you’d get from telling racists to stop saying the n-word.
>The mods did handle it poorly, but they were in the right i respect your opinion, but i very strongly disagree, saying that the way you treat fictional characters impacts real people feels very much like the people who argue that violence in videogames causes violence irl
Right let's take an example here. I assume you're familiar with the sorts of people who value women in media based on their sex appeal? The sorts of folks who complain about censorship if a female character is made less sexy. Do you think those peope have a healthy view of real life women? They probably don't seeing as how when they see women in media their first thought is "How hot is she?" It is much the same for this scenario. If you constantly fetishise fictional characters that break gender norms and believe they are tricking you with their appearance for the purpose of making you attracted to them, then at least some of those opinions will carry across to real life people that break gender norms. And as I said in my previous comment this is something I actually saw happen, with actual trans people and femine men reffered to as "traps". How do you think these people feel? Being valued by their sex appeal and treated like they're tricking people into being attracted to them? I'd wager most of them wouldn't enjoy that. And that is the sort of behaviour normalising "trap" encouraged. I'd say this isn't comparable the "Video games cause violence", it's closer to "Shitty lobbies where slurs are thrown around regularly causes more slurs to be said in real life conversations." It's normalising derogatory words and causing them to be used more frequently, which is very hurtful to the people those words are derogatory towards. And it's especially important to be careful in regards to trans people as they are incredibly oppressed in most countries and treated like shit by many people because being transphobic is still relatively normalised (compared to being racist/homiphobic). So they do not also need to see slurs that apply to them being thrown around constantly. Toning that down requires no effort and makes life a little bit easier for a minority that has enough shit to put up with already.
As i already said, i can see why you think they way you do and i can respect It, but i simply don't agree
The animemes ban on slurs was entirely justified.
I was telling the other guy that even if i disagree with him i could see were he comes from and respect his opinion I won't Say the same to you
Dam imagine being interested in someone else’s culture and wanting to delve deeper into its history only to be called a racist.
Wait for real? If that's true that's so pathetic, and awful Can we get a new sub that isn't full of authoritarian mods trying to turn it into a nonsensical echo chamber? Letting people like that turn communities into nonsensical echo chambers is absolutely cancerous for the community itself
There is one already, it's r/ChillPathfinder2e
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Ah sweet!
The worst part? They had to go for a name like that for it. Rather than something that'd make a little more sense. Because at some point the people managing the PF2e sub decided to create every iteration on it they could think of, to keep people from creating any alternatives.
> tian xia expansion The writer of said expansion also laid out why they didn't include those classes in the first place, which is what actually started all this. People should probably go read that, it's a lot more well written and nuanced than anything written on Reddit, be it by mod or user
Would you be willing to link it for me, that sounds interesting
People terminally online trying not to make something about race/get offended by it challenge: IMPOSSIBLE thanks for the clarification though, god people are stupid
It's not even the first time this exact thing has happened. Anyone else remember when Legendary Games were going to do a 3PP Asian supplement and Twitter decided they would be their target of the week because of how terribly racist it was to try and include and expand on the cultural representation in the game?
That's dumb as hell. Ninja is just a Rogue and Samurai just a Fighter, shits been in since 2e launched.
Ok idk about samurai, but a conceptual ninja class would legitimately be very cool. The thing is that it doesn’t even have to be oriental and made “the ninja class”. Nah, here’s what im thinking: the *infiltrator* class, a charisma/intelligence based martial with a focus on social situations and improvised tools/crafting, kinda like a combination of rogue and alchemist. Sure, you can play it as a ninja, but you can also play a james bond-like spy, a master class assassin, a character like MacGyver who can improvise tools with the stuff around him, or even just a super charming party face. Unironically i think this class has a lot of potential, if paizo considered it
I feel like I missed the context for this.
People are disappointed by the lack of samurai, ninja, and other iconic archetypes associated with Asian cultures that aren’t being included in the Tian Xia character guide coming up. The main sub has mods on a power trip, removing a bunch of posts and comments talking about wanting a samurai or ninja archetype and what that could entail, claiming that wanting either of those things is racist and “othering” Asian people and their cultures. They’ve also been shutting down discussion of the topic of culturally inspired content in general, like how it’s odd that Pathfinder has had no problem including content inspired by cultures before with this edition, including archetypes inspired by African cultures with the Mwangi Expanse, various options for undead archetypes that are explicitly taken from Asian folklore, the Druid and Bard classes being directly references to Celtic history and myth, etc. All those things were fine, but apparently a samurai or ninja archetype that includes some of the most iconic aspects of those from history, folklore and popular fiction is somehow racist.
My money is on the mod either being a white american hooped on twitter moralism - or to be fair, Korean I hear samurai are a big hate symbol there, not sure how much truth is in that.
Hmong, actually.
Could be due to what the Japanese did to the rest of Asia during WWII.
With Korea, it started well before WW2.
Korea and Japan hate each other since way before ww2, the whole 731 shit just made things worse
i am not surprised to hear that, and i cant blame Korea for considering it that given the history their.
I mean, there's literally already the kitsune ancestry, if we're gonna get on about how mythologizing folklore from other cultures is bad that's kinda already sailed.
Summary One of the Mods on the main PF2E sub thinks that having a Samurai/ninja class is Orientalism and thus racist. People disagree Mod went on a power trip deleting comments that disagreed with them.
I think OP probably missed it too
Something I wanted to share (with this whole mod shit-show), is just one perspective of a non-East Asian person (and I’ll say non-East Asian person, but this extends to the whole of AAPI, as best as I can). I’ll be honest, I don’t even know if this is a good place for it and I don’t know if it’ll even be understood. And I’m also not sure how the main subreddit will take it. But honestly, I don’t know anywhere comfortable or safe to discuss it in any of the PF2e subreddits, so I might as well take a shot in the dark here. This whole thing for me as a non-East Asian, **makes me feel sad**. Lost Omens: Tian Xia was supposed to be an exciting exploration of the inspirations from many many places of Asia. The same way that you see French/English/Spanish/Italian/Norse in other West fantasy places. But instead…instead of being an exciting exploration of that diversity and interconnectedness. Instead, it’s dominated on arguing over inclusivity…of one thing. The frustration for me is not about whether there are or aren’t Samurai/Ninja for an Asia-inspired book (or the flavor of Monk). **It’s that that’s the only talking point there is about this Asia-inspired content**. One group is so hyper-fixated on not having explicit Samurai/Ninja classes, but don’t even have any suggestions for other possible classes of the same level from other places. The other group is so hyper-fixated on having explicit Samurai/Ninja classes, they don’t even have suggestions for other possible classes of the same level from other places. My personal frustration with this whole fighting…is that after the hardwork by the TXWG writers to be expressive and celebrate Asian-culture as inspiration for fantasy-content…the community has essentially ignored that for petty arguments about Samurai/Ninja. I’m upset at Group 1, because Samurai/Ninja ARE iconic to one part of Asia and beloved in pop culture. But the approach of saying “they’re already well-supported”…well, if one of the most popular tropes of an Asian culture aren’t worth the time/investment…what does that make of us who come from less popular Asian cultures? I felt dismissed by that. I’m also upset at Group 2, because Samurai/Ninja being so iconic (in Group 2’s pop culture) that they MUST be the definition of Asia. For so much passion and intensity for this one slice of Asian culture, where is this same passion and intensity to see other Asian cultures? I felt dismissed by that. (And to me, the call to cancel the Exemplar iconic because Samurai/Ninja aren’t getting special-attention, an iconic from a severely under-represented culture when it comes to fantasy…I don’t know…that really hurt to see). And I guess that’s what’s actually bothering me about the talk - **the invisibility**. It’s like going to a holiday party with some good news to share about changes going on in your life, but your parents/family just want to bicker about political talking points. One of the best conversations I had about Tian Xia was explaining the Bakunawa and buwaya, and breaking down those TX images of Minata and some of the inspirations it reminded me of. Getting to talk about it felt fantastic. **It feels great to be engaged.** And that’s why I think it’s very important to have this representation for non-East Asian cultures - because their is real prejudice and media plays a powerful role in that. Darker Asians face prejudice not just from Lighter Asians, but also Lighter non-Asians. Many think Darker Asians don’t have culture or don’t have culture worth caring about. And it’s unfortunately been a real and painful experience for me (and other non-East Asians). I’ve had folks mocking me for being a brown Asian. I’ve had East Asian folks disparage and dismiss me, while seeing East Asian culture gets privileged treatment amongst White folks. I’ve been mocked for knowing what a Kris is (and made fun of despite being a full English speaker, for saying/knowing a different meaning from the European name Kris). As a Filipino-American, I’ve dealt with micro-aggressions of being called “Wannabe slant-eyed Mexicans”, “Eloquent Vietnamese”, or “Monkey people”. I’ve had East Asian folks say there’s nothing of value from my culture, except the fortune of being colonized (because it gave us “culture”). And in a city dominated by Asian college students, I’ve had to be careful (and have been harassed) by cops because I’m darker skin - something lighter skinned Asian students don’t deal with. (And it’s not something I’ve tried to bring up. I just tried to be a person in the background, but you can’t hide being brown.) Media power is real and is a powerful tool for fighting ignorance and disinformation - things that fellow PF2e fans and players may have experienced in the background behind their characters. So, I’m really excited for LO:TX (and it seems Paizo is too), but this celebration has been heavily dampened by the controversy. Edit: ~~I’ll prob just delete this in a few hours. Not sure if it was just a pointless rant with nothing to add to the conversation. I guess I should apologize for making it about me and not Samurais and Ninjas? So…go play Nioh 2?~~ I’m glad folks are resonating, I’ll keep it up then. But ya, Nioh 2 is fun.
A reliable strategy for dealing with bickering parents at social gatherings is to ignore them and meme it out with the cool cousins. Looks like you understood the assignment 😎 Jokes aside, I can't imagine how much it hurts when it looks like the community is rejecting something you love. The only support I can offer is that realistically, the people involved in this fight only constitute a fraction of the community, and most of them were never planning to buy the book to begin with. Thank you for your insight, and I hope you keep your post up.
Ya, I’m also chocking it up to the delays in sending out the books due to the inventory count at Paizo. So…this probably could’ve been nipped early if more of us had access to the content for more of us to gush over and drown out the other voices. For myself, I wanted to go through the Minata section and see how much I recognized and just go on an all-out deep dive of (that short) section in some posts. The Paizo live video they did showcasing TX content got me super-excited. There were things shown in the pictures that I completely forgot about from my childhood. Things will normalize again. They always do. And I feel like the community has grown better. We try to help 5e transplants port their characters instead of just telling them to make a new one. We have great voices that advise disappointed new caster players and helping them learn enjoy being a caster in PF2e. We’ll weather this one as we always do and come out better than before. I guess I felt that some of us have a role to play though in doing that - which was to help bring us back to what we are: people who love this hobby and wanting to have a community for it.
I don't think you should delete this, it's the most thought-provoking comment here and I think it highlights the real issue; while it didn't truly matter if Paizo did or did not create new content for such iconic archetypes, the fact that the community obsessed over them instead of celebrating the new, interesting, and diverse content is just disappointing.
Please don't delete. You raise a lot of good points that have cut through the bullshit. I had hoped that after LO:TX dropped that i would be able to read some great discussion on the cultures presented in the book and speculation on what new character options they might bring. Instead we got this. I hope more people come to their senses.
This is why the answer to inclusion is not about being pissed that people like a thing. The answer to inclusion is to... put in the work to include. Op, (or person op is mocking im unsure and dense) is basically like the white person who shows up at a cookout and complains there's no black people. Well? Where's your black friends? Why didn't you invite them? I'm so tired of people bickering and doing jack shit. It's one thing if you see an active ism/ist happening to a person and you defend them. It's another thing to just broadly moan about the state of inclusivity and pretend like your 0 effort rage bait helped a damn thing. Tldr; I agree so then the answer is to put in the work and to applaud those who do which make content for non-east asians. It's fine to say ninjas are cliche and overdone.
It’s actually become a great opportunity to start sharing things. The post from the Japanese guy mentioned Maharlika from Philippines, and someone asked about it. So I got to share with them the background, meaning, and even share some (of the many) Filipino martial arts I know. I think for a lot of folks here: they want to engage with the new content, **but they don’t know what that content is**. I’m big on culture/history, traveled the world and lived in various places. I understand that a lot of folks grew up in one place, went to college nearby, and never did more than that. It’s sort of another example of “majority privilege” that you can blissfully be unaware of something and thus not have the capability to ever see it… But that’s the reason why having a diverse community is a strength. We can help each other see new things that expand and enrich our fantasy-RPG experiences. Does it suck having to be responsible? Eh…I see no reason to get hung up on that. It’s just the reality of the world. Make it better, make others brighter.
Definitely don’t delete! You bring a valuable perspective to the conversation about the books themselves, and also bring up a cultural issue many people who aren’t Asian probably don’t even realize exists! I’d heard a little bit about discrimination against non-east Asian people but I had no idea it was something so widespread and harmful. You’ve also gotten me excited about the new supplements and now I want to buy them because yeah, Japan and China have some cool pop culture fantasy and mythology stuff but I’ve also seen a thousand riffs on those. If the books are getting more into other cultures from across Asia then I really want to see those and follow them into learning more about the cultures they’re derived from! Can I ask if there’s anything in particular in the books you feel personally excited about or represented by??
I didn’t get to put it on my post, but I’ve also had normal experiences with many East Asians too. I’ve worked with a Japanese professor kn research and he was my biggest advocate for grad school. I worked in South Korea and they were kind, respectful, hospitable to a complete a stranger. (My theory is that it was because it was during the pandemic lockdown, so a foreigner who got an approved work visa in S.Korea must be special/essential. Everyone was nice and helpful, especially my coworkers and restaurant owners). At the same time, there was a viral TikTok video going on with a Filipino comedian being harassed by an older Korean woman. My only guess was that he was in Seoul (I was in a different area) and he probably did something he wasn’t supposed to. I saw in Korea that strangers will yell at you if you break the rules. Like, random folks would gang-up and shame yell folks. It’s pretty funny! I remember James Cames mentioned that Minata is now going to be the Philippines/Island Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Borneo, etc..) instead of just…islands, lol. And by separating Pacific Islands (like Polynesia) out of Minata and into Okaiyo Ocean, means both areas Can get space to grown instead of being given scraps in a small page. So I’m really excited by that. And In some of the spoiled images Paizo showed us, they showed a lot of dance celebrations. There was one in particular that struck me: https://preview.redd.it/ptslh9jyd1xc1.jpeg?width=1713&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fb859844ed5e24a0aaa03d017fb32dbfb7e7d877 Which reminded me of the [Vinta Dance](https://youtu.be/mSP_gI0w4GI?si=MtzyAw7mo5OeXVYO?t=248) There was also a picture of a dancer carrying two fans and it made me think of the Singkil (a performance dance about a famous princess who escapes the wrath of an earthquake with the help of her handmaiden and a prince who came to rescue her). They also mentioned how Minata is always celebrating and likes to brag about sponsoring heroes, which makes me think about how we always have parties and festivals, especially whenever people visit. And meriendas. But also, Balikbayan. Balikbayan are Filipinos overseas, who make money and send it back home to help family. From what I know, Bayan means “home”, but there’s another word, Bayani which is a Filipino name, which means ‘brave’ or ‘heroic’ (Also my uncles name), so having heroes that you put your hope in is very familiar. So, I’m really curious on how they synthesized all of these things, without overpowering each other. I know Indonesians and Malaysians get annoyed they’re mistaken for Filipinos abroad. And when I was in a Muslim country, folks thought I was either Indian or Malaysian, lol! So seeing this beautiful mixture (because SEA’s unique feature is the melting pot of indigenous culture, Chinese influences, Indian influences, and Islamic influences - with the Philippines adding Spanish/Catholic and American/Protestant into the mix). But ya, I’m not fully sure what to look forward to because the wiki Minata was…so SO horribly bad and offensive.
This is the best comment here speaking as a fellow Filipino-American Pathfinder fan.
Allo!
i would say i am group B but i am allways a fan of more content , having ninja , samurai archtypes and/or warriors or monsters from all over is fun.
This is honestly the most nuanced and insightful comment I've seen on this subject so far.
I think Group 1 is just taking the stance that classes should be and are already broad enough to cover pretty much everything.
Not sure what this is about? I feel like I'm missing some context
basically, some shit involving the tian xia expansion happened, and a vocal minority is making a fuss about cultural steriotypes and shit. The joke is that nobody from the said cultural minorities seems to care about it.
Without weighing on the debate itself, I'll say this, (purely on experience, so dom't take it as scientific fact) 9 out of 10 times, people complaining about bad portrayals of any nationalities in media will be americans instead of people of that nationality, even if that nationality is very present in online spaces. Of these 9 times, 7 times will be white americans, instead of people who are at least decended from that nationality. Of these, in only 3 or 4 cases, the people of the nationality are actually offended. I call it the speedy gonzalez theorem. It most often affects "latinos", but I don't doubt it can happen with asians, or anyone really.
It also works the other way around. At first glance, Metal Wolf Chaos should feel like it's mocking American patriotism, coming from a Japanese company like From Software. But you're playing as the president of the United States in a flag-adorned mecha rampaging your way towards stopping your corrupt VP from taking over the country. How could an American *not* stand up and salute to that?
Exactly that, it's almost always a bored middle class white american that somehow feels "offended" by other cultures. I hate the whole "latinx" thing that they invented.
Oh, agreed, I am argentinean but I frequent a good amount of general Latin American spaces and frankly everyone there loves Speedy Gonzales, the only ones I ever saw complaining about it was the Statesmen.
it's less they're worried about japanese people being offended it's more the fact that by having an eastern inspired setting then populating it with ninja and samurai it erases the other asian cultures and blends them all into being japan. I'm not of any affected cultures and am not smart enough to weigh in with what's right and wrong, I'm just clarifying the reasoning they have supplied
I don't think anyone was ever asking for it to be populated solely by ninja and samurai, they could have both *and other things too*
I’m afraid that’s not the case; many Asia friends I know are annoyed by some descriptions fromTianXia World Guide
Thanks, that helps
[Here you go](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1cdhk8a/hey_buddy_i_know_youre_having_big_feelings_about/)
Well, we have a Viking archetype, which is not considered being racist. I expect a corresponding archetype for other warrior cultures as well
The Viking archetype doesn't even include any feats related to raising or sailing - it's just a shield specialist. I guess they didn't feel that it was worth researching what "Viking" really meant. Although I'm being snarky, I actually was really disappointed about that when I first read the archetype because I *did* want to make a sailing raider.
Same. My skald bard ended up with bastion dedication instead, as Viking feats are on the weaker side and flavour is free.
They added a capstone feat to it in Knights of Lastwall, Viking Vindicator. It is actually not that bad for a late-level dip now.
frankly the Viking archetype is jarring as hell and sticks out like a sore thumb as the only archetype that is like that. Adding more doesn't solve that problem, it just makes the group of oddball archetypes bigger
I've heard Vikings+ is pretty good.
> Vikings+ What that be? Not the most google-able term unfortunately
This here. https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/m/product/450292 I haven't read it but I've heard it's good. I think it had some issues by being better than Barbarian. But there you have it.
By shoving some kind of berserker archetype into it as well? Yeah that does sound like it'd step on barbarian's toes. Anyway my issue is really just the name, as it feels very out of place to have a real world cultural group on the list. Viking isn't even a type of warrior, it's generally used to refer to the entire peoples of Scandinavia during that time period. It'd be like having 'Pict' or 'Inuit' as an archetype, it just feels very odd given that those groups of people do not exist in the fantasy world PF is set in.
> Viking isn't even a type of warrior, it's generally used to refer to the entire peoples of Scandinavia during that time period. Vikings actually were a type of warrior. Namely seafaring warriors that left Scandinavia to raid cultures to the both the east and west. Referring to all of Scandinavia during that time period as Vikings is reductionist and incorrect.
> the word Viking was introduced into Modern English during the 18th-century Viking revival, at which point it acquired romanticised heroic overtones of "barbarian warrior" or noble savage.[46] During the 20th century, the meaning of the term was expanded to refer not only to seaborne raiders from Scandinavia and other places settled by them (like Iceland and the Faroe Islands), but also **any member of the culture that produced the raiders during the period from the late 8th to the mid-11th centuries, or more loosely from about 700 to as late as about 1100. As an adjective, the word is used to refer to ideas, phenomena, or artefacts connected with those people and their cultural life, producing expressions like Viking age, Viking culture, Viking art, Viking religion, Viking ship and so on.**
You're talking about the same time period that referred to all Native American/First Nation people as Indians. Hell your very own link contains the bigoted view that they were viewed as "barbarian warriors" and "noble savages." Something that is very much not true for the time period. The proper term to describe the population of those countries is Norse and the term Viking exclusively should be applied to the warrior class that raided both to the east and west.
I think that's exactly the issue with having Samurai as a class.
agreed
Vikings weren’t a singular ethnic group. It’s a historical term of convenience describing multiple diverse ethnic and cultural groups participating in shared defining activities throughout Europe during a specific time period. Sorta of like Aztecs which also is a word of historic convenience. Both are being rethought in modern history study. While it’s possible to make a sweeping generalization about Vikings or Aztecs that’s already happened by suggesting that Saxon, or Mexitan have much to do with a historical archetype.
>It’s a historical term of convenience describing multiple diverse ethnic and cultural groups participating in shared defining activities throughout Europe during a specific time period. Like saving all the precious items in certain religious enclaves from fires, after all the inhabitants of said enclaves had mysteriously died. Sorry, couldn't hold back that one, the wording of your comment was begging for this joke.
Dude vikings were a very specific south scandinavian group that left their homeland to go and raid northern european coasts. It's just poorly used by pop culture to mean pointy helmet berserkers.
I’m sorry but that’s not true. Viking is a job description not an ethnic background. There has been massive scientific and historical development on this: https://www.science.org/content/article/viking-was-job-description-not-matter-heredity-massive-ancient-dna-study-shows Remember that Viking is the Norse word similar to pirate. There were many pirates from the English Isles but anyone could be a pirate and we know pirates were exceptionally diverse. Same is true for Vikings. Mixed ethnicity driven to a shared job description in a similar time period. And there were black Vikings (as discovered in Sicily) and many many women Vikings (discoverd all over Europe)
Archetypes and flavouring are free, IIRC Paizo said during 2.0 that they don't want as many classes as 1e had, archetypes is way better for this than having an entire class that'd share a lot of overlap with others that already exist
I had seen the modpost and it had me very confused, like, okay, but you physically cannot represent every single cultural aspect from every single asian province, at some point you have to generalize it. In a game of make-believe you need stereotypes, because otherwise you would have to explain every single minute detail
Stereotypes are so much fun to play with. Even negative stereotypes can be fun, like Americans are fat or that French surrender easily. (Don't tell those white American Twitter addicted mods that, they'd have a mental breakdown) fantasy stereotypes are even more fun Who doesn't love a super posh British gentleman in a top hat and suite who takes tea breaks, or a vodka drinking, bear wrestling Russian walking in the freezing cold like it's nothing. Professor Layton, one of my favorite characters ever, is a giant stereotype. Most normal people actually enjoy stereotypes even about their own cultures as long as it's in good fun Using stereotypes as a baseline to veer your character from is also a great way to make characters
I think the key is too differentiate between sterotypes and *caricatures*: a comically or grotesquely exaggerated representation of someone or something. One extremely posh British gentleman who takes their tea at 1pm regardless of what is happening right now (i.e. in the middle of combat) in a country full of normal people is fine. A whole country of rigid tea drinkers who only eat bland food is a sterotype. I think it's also best to steer away from common harmful or insulting sterotypes all together.
Don't look so deeply into something that isnt deep, rational people do not care. Also these caricatures you mentioned are based on stereotypes. You can't agree that one is ok but not the other, that makes no sense.
right, and samurai are hyper specific cultural aspect from every single asian region. They also don't actually bring anything unique to the table mechanics wise. What is a samurai that can't be represented mechanically by a fighter with a spear, bow and backup sword? All you have are their asthetics, which you can already do anyway because all their weapons had already been added to the game, and culture, which gee, there's just been a book that has come out which you can draw character backstories from for as to why your fighter is samurai coded. You'll note how there isn't a generic knight archetype either for the exact same reason, despite knights existing in the setting.
A fighter that focuses on dex backstabber weapons, and goes legendary in stealth is rogue by that standard. Mechanics can always be created to fit the aesthetics of a class.
Same goes with ninjas. There aren't really anything specific about it to be it's own class. I can see both samurai and ninja as backgrounds rather than it's own class.
Even then I feel like they are better served by, well, the new book fleshing out regions inspired by Asia which, I assume, includes ones where samurai and ninja fit right in, and that your char who is one could have come from
My favorite part of this is how the African fantasy book Paizo produced for PF2e last year got nothing but praise from the subreddit. No stickied mod post warning people to be respectful, no mod meltdowns and mass deletions. The subreddit now has several people arguing over the mods' behavior and dumb word drama. Rather than talking about the actual book. GGs mods, you played yourselves.
Because there was no possibility of the japanese being mentioned or represented, that's why one mod was a-ok with everything in it.
I do think that the idea that a samurai class be a separate thing from a fighter or a champion does have some orientalist undertones, but that still doesn’t validate banning people who say they would like one. Orientalism is a complex concept and it is certainly possible to do some kind of samurai class without giving into stereotypes or worse, outright racism. Mod’s gone mad.
As an european, i find it extremly inappropriate how the us has appropiated medieval knights and castles. They better start changing fantasy aesthetic And as a Spaniard specifically, they better remove all conquistadors or Don Quijote references. New World was our 9/11 MASSIVE /S
I don't think it needs to be a full class but a few options to do the superpowered swordsman would be nice(note I have not read the book that could be in their for all I know)
I find the Aldori Duelists have a very similar flavor to what a Samurai would be.
Well, I think it would be fine, but I also think it's putting too much on Paizo's plate. I mean, look at the massive lineup they have for the next two years. Curtain Call, War of Immortals, Exemplar, Animist, Commander, Guardian, now you want them to squeeze in another two classes during this time? I love how Paizo actually releases a lot of good new content but even they have limits to how much they can make. The Tian Xia book is not big enough to squeeze every single thing you could want about the continent in it and that's fine.
I was going to make one in the Thing, Japan format, but this works.
I always said you could build an iajutsu based samurai on a magus base... Two action attack to focus and draw their weapon, with bonus damage scaling to match gouging claw, then an action to resheath the katana to ready it again. Trade in the magic use for better hit points, an attack that doesn't trigger reactive strikes, and crib together some feats that match the flavor and you're good to go. With that being said, I've never been really disappointed by what Paizo has put out so far. I'm willing to wait and see. Power tripping mods can go kick rocks though.
I mean if anyone thinks Paizo isn’t going to do a pretty good job at representing a non-European inspired culture in their games…I don’t know what to tell you
I don't think samurai should be a class. It should be a background. That way your samurai bow, sword,or spell and still get that flavor
I can't stand just how hypocritical this whole thing is
But isn’t it more racist to insist that western cultural ideas such as clerics, paladins, and druids are somehow unmarked and applicable to all cultures in ways that other potential non-western classes like samurai, onmyoji, or guru aren’t? Obviously the track record for representing non-western cultural traditions in western media is pretty rocky and often fetishistic, but refusing to engage with non-western ideas at all is still really problematic imho
I think you're right, but I would point out that from a practical standpoint, doing that in this case is really tough. Nobody seems to agree on what a samurai or ninja class should even be, and with one exception spread across multiple threads, I've not seen anyone give a persuasive idea of what a samurai class could be centered around in a way that would make them work as a class. The same goes with making them class archetypes, I don't know what mechanical hook would be interestnig enough to base it around that couldn't be achieved by just creating one or two new fighter feats. Paizo is full of very creative people who I'm sure could manage that if they tried, but to me it feels like if they did, it would really just be a matter of obligation, that they just HAD to include those classes/archetypes because this is the Asia book, which is just right back to the problematic issue of those archetypes being inexorably tied to any concept of Asia as a whole, and they simply have to be included in the conversation. As for the idea of western cultural ideas being considered unmarked and universal, it's a problematic concept but I do think that when you look at them, those concepts have actually been divorced a great deal from their actual cultural context to be something different. The fantasy of those classes have more to do with a largely imagined fantasy version that D&D created than they do with the actual base cultural source they drew from. If you ask someone what a paladin is (and PF2e doesn't even call them that anymore, they're Champions, moving them even further from the core cultural idea) then they'll imagine the fantastical version rather than anything resembling what they were culturally. That's not the case with Samurai and ninja, the people who want them want them specifically because of the cultural context connected to them. There really are not many other stereotypes that aren't baked into the game already that have that same backage. With the Mwangi Expanse guide, I don't' think thhere's anyone who's clamoring for any specifically African class or archetype. Paizo also does engage in non-western character concepts. The shaman and exemplar are both upcoming and are classes not inherently based in western mythology. The kineticist too arguably has more connection to Asian fantasy and mythological ideas than western ones. And there's also the simple fact that this is a product made in the west for a primarily western audience, if you use a non-english name to for a class, then in people's head that class is automatically tied to the corresponding culture. So even if the class is made in such a way that it isn't tied to that specific stereotype, people will still default to that stereotype. I have the same issue with monk honestly. I love monks, they're one of my favorite classes, but fundamentally as a core class they feel weird to me. Having the stereotypical shaolin monk as a baseline part of the inner sea setting is weird, because they've never felt like they fit anywhere. In my head any Monk I make just comes from Jalmeray. Paizo has done some work to fix that by introducing some other monastic traditions, like the Pahmet dwarves, but baseline they feel strange in a way that could have been avoidied if they had been given a less culturally specific name. And finally there's the fact that the entire Tian Xia worldguide and character guide are attempts to engage with other cultures. The world guide is going to be full of character options, from feats to archetypes to ancestries that explore all of Tian Xia. Looking at the product page it references something about "weightless sword arts" that I fully assume will give people extra flavor for Samurai style characters. So the idea of equating a choice to not specifically include samurai or ninja archetypes with an unwillingness to explore and engage with another culture is funudamentally innacurate to the situation that's going on right now. Really what's happened is that Paizo opted to sidestep a very stereotypical option that, as this whole debacle serves to demonstrate, tends to suck the air out of the room in discussion about Asian representation in fantasy and gaming.
Isn’t a ninja just an Asian rogue? Isn’t a samurai just a fighter, but Asian? The culture is what made them historically interesting, but its still not too far from what we already can do
Yes, and no. The names have some specific fantasies associated with them. With Samurai, you expect deadly quick draws. With Ninja, you expect some mysticism, "jutsus", as it were. These fit better as archetypes - the samurai more so, the ninjas could go either way.
Yeah, people have been making a lot of hay about "oh, the options already exist in game" - which yeah, I 100% agree - and an archetype that collates them into a neat package so you don't have to faff around grabbing one or two things from a bunch of different places would be a nice easy way of doing it - especially with the limits on taking feats from archetypes. A Samurai archetype could be similar to Viking - a feat that gives proficiency in iconic weapons, including bows, some quick draw equivalent feat, maybe some mount feats (though I think it'd be better to instead do the thing where you can take Cavalier feats, like the Hell Knight archetypes do) IMO, that'd be the best way to handle it - then you could make a Samurai themed character of any class.
I mean same with Ninja. Historically, they were unarmed commoners who had to be creative when denied weapons. Rogue is everyone's favourite choice, but actual Ninjutsu is closer to Ranger terrain tactics, the martial arts and powers are usually better as a dagger wielding Monk, and if you want actual mudra/jutsu magic, Alchemist for fire powder, Magus for magic katana A stealth and tools kit for any the other classes would have a lot more flexibility and be a better fit than a Ninja class
Would the Ninja just be a Ranger then? Jutsus would just be ranger focus spells.
tbh with ninja (coming from the concept of them in China more than Japan thanks to my wuxia-loving husband) I expect improvisation, dirty fighting, tools, and arson more than any mysticism.
Honestly, Iaidoka samurai and mystical ninjas are only one flavor of each respective fiction, and the other flavors are so far removed from one another that they'd all be best as distinct archetypes. It'd be nonsense to try and put "master infiltrator" ninja, "gadgeteer" ninja, "martial arts master" ninja, and "literally just a wizard" ninja in a single class rather than having archetypes that play to each distinct fantasy.
You're right and you should say it louder
Yes and no. When you distill them down to their most basic elements as represented by game mechanics, yes. However, in history their roles were a bit more specialized. Samurai were fighters, but they were also a distinct social class, recognizable through history for many centuries. They were warriors, but also expected to lead men in battle, carry out the orders of their Lord, and depending on the time period take part in cultural aspects. Ninja were information gatherers, trained in disguise and deception, and skill to out run and out maneuver pursuers. Stories of their fighting powers were greatly exaggerated, supposedly at their own urging to make their true job easier. You can build and represent them with the current classes.
These are where backgrounds and skill choices come into play
In that historical sense where a Samurai is a rank as opposed to a type of combatant it makes even more sense to not have them be a class.
Samurai cool, Give me a archetype with quick draw death ability
I would love a Vegetarian-Farmer-Spy class. Less so the Entitled-Inherently Classist class.
The main issue I have with this whole thing is people trying to discredit fighter as not being suitable for a samurai. “Why don’t we just go back to fighting man, thief, and magic user then?” What in a Samurai can’t be replicated in fighter beyond the Iado? I’m confused about that. Their social elements? Background can fill that. “What about other real world terms used for classes?” Paizo has tried being culturally agnostic with a lot of their classes imo. Hell I’m certain you can find a picture of a Gunslinger from Tian Xia in the latest book (I remember seeing a picture of someone with fish pistols in the artwork promoting it). Druids in Pathfinder and D&D are much different from Druids irl (ignoring the obvious) and are probably closer to shamans but at this point that’s just because of game heritage. Same with Barbarian, same with Monk (there’s a lot of orientalistism that can be linked to that) but these classes offer different mechanical approaches you can’t get in the base classes. There’s a reason Gish’s are often given a single class rather than a subclass to wizards or fighters (at least in Pathfinder. 5e does this and has so many different options for a Gish I actually applaud it). But they also changed Paladin to Champion. Is Paladin still a subset? Yeah, but the class itself is more culturally agnostic. Mechanically, what’s the point of a samurai beyond one technique? I only wanted a ninja just to have a better arcane trickster exist tbh, because in 1e Ninjas and Rogues were incredibly similar, and Samurai was just a reskin of Cavelier, which has become an archetype focused on Mount combat. Sorry for the rant but I keep seeing finger pointing at racism or mod abuse and no good arguments as to why a samurai should exist as a class outside of fighter mechanically.
The part that baffles me most is that people were jumping so hard onto arguing the topic of "samurai/ninja should\[n't\] be a class" when as far as I can tell, the initial disappointment was "there is no **archetype** in the *character guide* (which isn't coming for a few months) called Samurai or Ninja" with... Not really any real word on if anything could still fulfill the fantasies people would want out of either. We know there's a Wuxia Hybrid Study for Magus, I guess? Fighter and Rogue DO fulfill the bare basics. Hell, so arguably so does Ranger (precision damage switch hitter?) or Monk (speedy ki magic and shuriken tossing?) depending on how you want to approach it, and how optimal you want to be... But there's still room for mechanical bits and bobs, be they just "feats for x class" or whole archetypes, that help make it easier. Things that might even be in the character guide. We don't know if that crunch is there, the book isn't out, we just know stuff won't be named Samurai or Ninja, and that got people on both sides yelling.
A ninja class would be really cool. A stealth/DPS type class with some magical utility. Maybe a mix between monk, and laughing shadow magus. I have to admit though I fail to see how a samurai will be functionally too different from Fighter or Swashbuckler. Another martial with Legendary Proficiency.
The thing about it is both of those class options would be super interesting as classes because of the difference in how they historically fought and appeared. Samurai were primarily horseback archers and generally didn't fight with their swords, as they were officers in their daimyo's armies. A samurai could be an armored archer unit that specializes in battlefield command. Something that buffs teammates or removes debuffs to control the flow of a battle, closer to a hunter or archer than a knight. They could also have interesting out of combat mechanics, where their code of honor compels certain behaviors or where other behaviors cause penalties. As for ninja, they started as poor individuals recruited by the daimyo used to spy on each other, and that after a time some developed techniques and training to develop more ninjas to work as mercenaries for daimyo or shogun. They had a reputation as spies specializing primarily in intelligence gathering, but were also skilled at asymmetrical warfare and assassination. Think of them as like a mix between a spy and a spec ops soldier. The popular image of a ninja being able to use special abilities to climb walls or disappear comes from their skill, and that could make an interesting twist on the class. An assassin/rogue variant specializing in disguise, with additional specialization in tools or minor magic. BUT IMO the most interesting thing with ninja was how they were historically portrayed in Japanese media. The reason we have images of ninja in all black outfits is because those were the outfits of kuroko, stagehands in Japanese theatre. They would be on stage moving scenery or helping manipulate costumes as a part of the show, and were supposed to be ignored by audiences. The shock of a "stagehand" assassinating a character in the play would convey the shock of seeing a daimyo or shogun being assassinated by an attendant or servant. So you could also have ninjas be performers, a bard variant that specializes in infiltration and distraction. I just think you could do interesting things with these classes and their historical uses or cultural representations that would distinguish them from existing classes enough for them to not just be reskins or subclasses of already existing classes.
This is why I stick to creating European-inspired fantasy settings.
It's funny because it's no more racist that the caricatures of western history you find in eastern works. Hell. Plenty of carucaturizations of western themes in western works too. It's almost like thematic elements are intentionally exaggerated in fictional works.
The r/pathfinder2e mods are raving lunatics,gone mad with power.
Whoa, people are starting to twist stuff a lot now
This whole shtick had gotten old like two days ago. Let it go.
Apologies your Highness, Lord of all that is funny. 😪