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Gerund posted:How easy is it to convert to 4E? Pretty easy, I'd say. The roles give bonuses based on the character's stat modifiers, so you'd have to play with those a bit, perhaps. There's some magic items in the city, but that should be fairly easy to convert for 4e, I'd imagine. I don't actually know exactly how 4e handles magical treasure, so I don't want to say "no problems at all" but that part of the city rules should be easy to drop or modify as necessary. Slight tweaking of events as there's a couple that involve assassination attempts or monsters; you'd have to use the 4e versions. It does assume a hex-based map (or a map with a hex overlay ala the 1e FR set, if you remember), but that's not inherently PF or 3.5 so shouldn't be too much of a barrier. Gerund posted:Does the "fluff" of the city make it that-adventure only? No, there's actually very little fluff at all in the city descriptions. The whole thing is designed to be as location- and group-agnostic as possible. It's literally a list of buildings with build costs and benefits to them. Most of the benefits are just modifiers to the various kingdom attributes (bonuses to the Stability or Economy rolls, for example). Gerund posted:How much does it cost to purchase just that, without any pathfinder crap? You can't; it's an 10 page article in the Adventure Path book. The PDF of that runs $14. Whether that's worth it or not, I can't say. I think the Adventure Paths are a pretty good value whatever system you choose to use, but YMMV.
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Apr 21, 2010 20:48
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Tolan posted:So they've released the second chapter in the Kingmaker AP, which has an article about building your kingdom. A couple folks had expressed some interest in it, so here's a quick rundown. Father Wendigo fucked around with this message at 03:23 on Apr 22, 2010 |
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Apr 21, 2010 21:14
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Father Wendigo posted:Tolan, I can't thank you enough for this rundown. Enough time had passed that I had forgotten about Kingmaker, but I'm now left with pause as to wether I should get this in PDF or print. My pleasure; the Pathfinder guys do pretty kick-rear end campaign/adventure work, regardless of what you think of their rules. I'm always happy to pimp that end of it out. I've been thinking about trying to run Kingmaker in Fantasy Grounds or something but I'm not sure I have the prep time.
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Apr 21, 2010 21:17
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I got invited to play in a Pathfinder game this weekend. I'm a pretty big 4e fan but I'm kind of hurting for a regular game and I don't believe in knocking something until you try it. I'm thinking about playing a monk who subscribes to Nietzschean philosophy and is striving to be the ubermensch. I guess I'll see how it goes?
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Apr 21, 2010 23:13
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mixitwithblop posted:for all that grognards hate anime my 4e campaigns never seem to have The Bath Scene or The Hot Springs Scene, just saying
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Apr 22, 2010 02:56
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Bruce Boxliker posted:I got invited to play in a Pathfinder game this weekend. I'm a pretty big 4e fan but I'm kind of hurting for a regular game and I don't believe in knocking something until you try it. Sounds good. If you're playing in the Golarion campaign setting, there's actually a deity called Irori that promotes similar ideals. Might have an additional hook there.
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Apr 22, 2010 15:06
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Anyone else out there playing 4E in the Golarian setting?
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Apr 25, 2010 14:39
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Argali posted:Anyone else out there playing 4E in the Golarian setting?
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Apr 25, 2010 23:02
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Argali posted:Anyone else out there playing 4E in the Golarian setting? I just bought the Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting to see if it's got cool stuff to use for 4e. I'm a bit unsettled by the stereotypical not-Asians and the not-Africans and the other humans. I thought we were better than this. I mean the quote about the Tian in their writeup caused me to roll my eyes so hard I still have a headache.
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Apr 25, 2010 23:08
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Mikan posted:I mean the quote about the Tian in their writeup caused me to roll my eyes so hard I still have a headache. well come on what is it
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Apr 25, 2010 23:27
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It's a whole package kind of thing. The Tian:
So basically the Tian are Japanese businessmen and Chinese emperors There's also the not-Africa group, portrayed by a shirtless black dude with tribal tattoos and some kind of spear who all live in the jungle. Some of them are basically Deejay from Street Fighter, some of them are dudes who try really really hard to be like all of the white races and adopted the white man's decadent ways but still dress like their ancestors while denying any connection to them, just about all of them are tribal dudes with some kind of "noble savage" element And then the not-Gypsies (guess what! they steal from anybody not of their kind and can't be trusted and are all con artists but are so sensual and might be magic), a whole bunch of other racist grandpa style stereotypes. There's also a nationality called the Chelaxians who I keep misreading as the Chillaxians
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Apr 26, 2010 00:34
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Mikan posted:There's also a nationality called the Chelaxians who I keep misreading as the Chillaxians A people known for their easy going demeanor and production of good times. Isn't their rendition of India redeemable? I know it probably isn't but the adventure that took place there seemed decent aside from the "super powerful boss battles".
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Apr 26, 2010 00:49
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I dunno I only got the book today after a trip to the used bookstore and skimmed through the races chapter It's weird because skimming through the other parts it actually looks like a cool setting with some neat ideas but then you've got the racist grandpa races chapter
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Apr 26, 2010 00:54
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The regular kingdoms are actually kind of cool. They're generic but different enough that they aren't as boring as Greyhawk but not as obviously "inspired" as they were in the Forgotten Realms from what I've read. I hunted down information of the India analogue, the Vudrani. Just seems like pre-Islam India combined with the basics of Hinduism, the caste system, and general regional culture. Even if it turns out to be terribly flawed as it's expanded upon, at least they have an India analogue. I think India is mostly excluded because most game developers don't know much about India outside of Apu, the scientist from Short Circuit, and Temple of Doom.
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Apr 26, 2010 01:29
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I'd honestly just ignore them. They're flavor best used in tiny doses. The meat of the setting works just fine without them. I think one of the Paizo guys has a hard-on for "Oriental Adventures"-type stuff, which is why that stuff's there. I'm kinda not looking forward to the adventure path that's based on a trip over the arctic circle to Tien for that reason. The basic idea seems holy gently caress cool (Marco Polo.. only with Baba Yaga & her daughters and it's across the North Pole) but then you realize you're going to have half the Path dealing with the horrible Japanese ^_^ stereotypes and.. But yeah, the basic Western European bits are pretty well done.
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Apr 26, 2010 03:01
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I don't even mind pulling from actual Asian myth or anything, since practically every setting ever is just a mishmash of different Western myth. I want to see more games like Weapons of the Gods But the writeups irritate me for two reasons, I guess. It's really lazy to straight up place a real world culture into a fantasy game. I hate when they do that. It's even worse to straight up place a racist stereotype of a real world culture into a fantasy game. I don't even know how they managed to put these in an actual book, I still can't make it all the way through the Varisians writeup A game that actually pulled from Indian myth and legends to create its own thing would own; a game that includes guys who are basically from Fantasy India (Japan/Russia/Ireland/whatever) reminds me of bad 80s RPGs. Everything else in the book looks pretty cool actually, there's a neat fantasy setting in here that is completely hindered by lazy fantasy versions of real world stereotypes. The art owns. I like what I've read of the organizations and evil stuff and different areas and the take on religion and they even did a few cool things with the 3.5 ruleset, as much as you can with it I guess. The art owns. I know I said that already. I honestly didn't expect to say this when I picked it up, but I would totally adventure in this setting. But I can't take the human groups seriously at all, if they had done even the slightest thing to change them up or do something new or the descriptions weren't White Wolf levels of racism (Tian, Varisians, Mwangi are the worst) then (and I hate to say this) I would totally recommend the Pathfinder setting to other people. You don't know how much it pains me to say that by the way.
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Apr 26, 2010 03:35
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I'll have to dig out the Pathfinder issue with the writeup on Varisians and see if it's got that lovely "Gypsy scum!" tinge to it. I seem to remember some mention at Paizocon last year of them wanting to do more Vudrani (the India-analogue) stuff. I'll have to keep an ear out this year and try to sneak in some "please don't pull the stereotypes out!" comments. My recollection is they went with the old "it's easier for people to get a handle on the culture if you can say 'it's Chinese, but <x>'". I think the best decision they made was to leave out game mechanics as much as possible. Almost all of the campaign stuff is system-agnostic. Obviously, they're eyeing Pathfinder/3.5 when they write it, but there's very little crunch in the fluff.
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Apr 26, 2010 03:41
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Out of curiosity, does one of you all who's got the books have a breakdown of the writer credits and their biographies It would be kinda cool to see one of these companies pull in an actual area specialist to write that 'it's Irish/Chinese/Etc, but <x>' fantasy cultures flavors because you'd get someone fluent enough with the dominant myths, legends, tropes and symbols that they could effectively defamiliarize the setting.
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Apr 26, 2010 03:53
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FedkaTheConvict posted:It would be kinda cool to see one of these companies pull in an actual area specialist to write that 'it's Irish/Chinese/Etc, but <x>' fantasy cultures flavors because you'd get someone fluent enough with the dominant myths, legends, tropes and symbols that they could effectively defamiliarize the setting. That would infer that companies would have the intelligence to use the large pool of unemployed history/area studies/theology/mythology BA degree holders. I think it's mostly a "who you know" deal instead of hiring someone specialized in that area. Most these people probably just go watch anime or eat lucky charms for example in order to get their inspiration. The people at White-Wolf really love anime, a lot, for instance. The Pathfinder people seem to mostly just be rehashing and reworking old tropes. It's not perfect by any means but it is mostly a step in the right direction. I'm also pretty sure someone at Pathfinder probably had a hand in Oriental Adventures.
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Apr 26, 2010 04:40
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My Pathfinder game yesterday went pretty well. My monk seems pretty cool, I like the reworked skill system too. Overall it was a fun time but there was 4e stuff I missed. We were all 3rd level and my dude got hurt pretty bad after the fighting and our healing resources were the druid's one cure light wounds; made me miss healing surges pretty bad. I'll probably end up going back though.
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Apr 26, 2010 05:48
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The old Campaign Setting came out a while back before they had fleshed out the human races beyond the two main continents. The thing you have to realize about the races is that they are NOT nationalities. The individual kingdoms have different mixes of human races and the humans that live there will have cultures specific to that nation or region. The main thing to pull from the race descriptions is the physical descriptions of how they look and maybe some the discussion of their origins and languages. For example, both the Taldane and Chelaxians are descendants of the Ancient Azlants who bred with different barbarian tribes long ago. The main thing to pull from the book is the description of the human nations on Avistan and Garund, and to realize that there are other continents out there and people do visit from them. I'll happily admit that the not-Japan race is handled poorly, but Asia seems to be something nerds get very wrong all the time. In it's defense though, there is a sourcebook that will come out which will describe not-Asia and James Jacobs has claimed that they are really carefully researching not only China and Japan, but also Thailand, Cambodia, and other smaller Asian nations that they will be incorporating into the book to show that the continent is as varied and complex as the continents already detailed. Also, the adventure path that involves trekking across the crown of the world sounds epic as hell and I'm looking forward to it.
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Apr 26, 2010 06:28
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I'm glad they're trying to improve things. The whole thinly veiled real world cultures + fantasy thing isn't going to win my favor any time soon no matter what they do, but it is good to see they realize there's a problem. I just hope (using the Tian as the example, since you mentioned them) they don't just take their research and include (Thailand cultural event) + (Cambodian belief) and consider themselves finished. Cultural beliefs and events that actually belong to Tian, with inspirations from real life culture, would be better than just lifting straight from the source and adding the slightest of fantasy to it. It's also a little frustrating that they have basically ASIA. Most RPGs do this. There's a lot of differences between Japan and China and Thailand and Singapore and and and, yet they still lump all of them together as Asia. Meanwhile you've got a billion and one different Western types. The only nice thing I can really say about the setting guide is that they separated the Japan/China knockoff from the India knockoff, most settings just smash those together too. (Asia is Asia as far as RPGs are concerned) Did they expand on the Varisians anywhere? Right now they read like Paizo thought WoD: Gypsies wasn't stereotypical enough I hate to get caught up on this since the rest of it is actually kinda cool and I might track down some more Pathfinder stuff if I can find it cheap, but even putting aside how I feel about using real world cultures (lazy) the presentation is troubling. It does seem really, really easy to rip out all of the stereotype stuff at least  Haven't read the whole thing yet but I don't think it would disrupt the rest of the setting much to ignore the terrible parts of the writeups
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Apr 26, 2010 07:05
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Yes, they had a section in one of the early adventure paths (Runelords, I think) on Varisians. I can dig it out later and give you some information there, if you like. What stuff are you interested in? There have been two points I can recall that they've emphasized nationality in the Adventure Paths. In Rise of the Runelords, the very first book, one of the main families in Sandpoint is Tien (they run the Glassworks in town, and there's a plot point about the family).. but the plot action doesn't actually have much to do with the family being Tien. There's also mention of the Sczarni, who are portrayed as the Varisian mafia, but they don't play a direct role in the path per se. In Curse of the Crimson Throne there's a lot of Shoanti involvement, and I think they handled that pretty well, though the picture of the Shoanti ambassador in Edge of Anarchy is cringe-inducing. One of the major villians in the Path is Vudrani, too, though that's mainly because they're rakshasa posing as a noble family. Beyond those and the Gamemastery adventure set in Vudra, I don't think they've actually made a lot of noise about an NPC's nationality. Could be wrong, though, there's a lot of NPCs.
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Apr 26, 2010 13:24
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Tolan posted:Yes, they had a section in one of the early adventure paths (Runelords, I think) on Varisians. I can dig it out later and give you some information there, if you like. What stuff are you interested in? Anything that makes them more than two-dimensional "gypsies are all thieves and con artists" really
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Apr 26, 2010 13:28
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There is a short blurb about them in the "Rise of the Runelords" Players Guide. I'll just copy it here.quote:Passionate and fiercely independent, Varisians lend their name to their homeland, Varisia. While these clannish wanderers can be found throughout the world, nowhere are larger populations found than in the land of their ancestors.
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Apr 26, 2010 14:24
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No.
Hypnobeard fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Apr 26, 2010 |
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Apr 26, 2010 15:01
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Mikan posted:Anything that makes them more than two-dimensional "gypsies are all thieves and con artists" really Anonymous Zebra posted:There is a short blurb about them in the "Rise of the Runelords" Players Guide. I'll just copy it here. Tolan posted:
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Apr 26, 2010 16:07
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NorgLyle posted:Wouldn't it be easier just to type 'no'? Maybe? I don't know what Mikan uses as his criteria for "two-dimensional thieves and con-artists"; the stuff I quoted, at least, provides a view that's not all thieves and con-artists. So instead I'm providing some background for him to make up his own mind, and maybe stimulate some discussion.
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Apr 26, 2010 16:51
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scarf-wearing dancing/traveling fortunetellers isn't two-dimensional gypsy at all no sir
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Apr 26, 2010 16:58
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Tolan posted:Maybe? I don't know what Mikan uses as his criteria for "two-dimensional thieves and con-artists"; the stuff I quoted, at least, provides a view that's not all thieves and con-artists. it's still really awful and racist though
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Apr 26, 2010 17:11
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There ya go.
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Apr 26, 2010 17:34
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Mikan, if you don't like elements that are drawn from the real world then I'm going to be honest and say that the setting probably not going to be good for you. First and foremost, the two continents detailed in the setting are essentially Europe and Africa with hints towards a large middle-eastern empire being located to the east. There is even a nation that is essentially Egypt (I blame Eric Mona for that one) right down to the pyramids and naming schemes. Across the oceans there is an India-like nation that is only vaguely described as well as the aforementioned Asian nation. There is also an unsettled continents known as Arcadia which is said to be temperate, heavily forested and populated by an aggressive native population that has fought off all attempts at colonization. Even looking at the individual nations, you are going to see that they drew themes from real-world examples. Andoran is based on post-revolution America, and Galt is post-revolution France. The ancient Azlant civilization has parallels to Atlantis, and I'm sure there are a bunch of others that I'm not remembering.
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Apr 26, 2010 20:07
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The more I hear, the more I am convinced Golarian was Paizo's way of having their own "Realms".
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Apr 26, 2010 21:45
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There's nothing wrong with taking elements from real world stuff - every setting does it to some extent - it's just a matter of what you do with those elements. Like the Iron Kingdoms and Khador; Khador is heavily influenced by Russia, but still feels unique. Pulling things from the real world and placing them in the setting without any changes at all feels lazy. Parts of the setting are cool and interesting and then other parts are like somebody copied a history textbook but added the words dragon and magic every few sentences. There's no attempt to hide the source or even play with it, just Fantasy Not-India and Fantasy Not-Gypsies. There's no creativity in placing real world analogues in a fantasy setting without any alterations. (Unless you're doing that specifically and play with the idea; Golarion doesn't seem to be doing that) The racist, stereotypical descriptions aren't helping. A lot of settings at least attempt to hide their stereotypes by changing up a few details or creating a location by pulling from different cultural groups, but the Pathfinder campaign setting has groups that don't differ at all from real world stereotypes. It reads like something out of a really old RPG, and not in a good way. It's that last part that really bothers me. I could handle a setting that's literally Historical Earth Plus Fantasy; it wouldn't be terribly creative, but there are some cool things you could do with it. Instead I'm getting Historical Earth Plus Fantasy (As Told By A Senile Racist) Strip all that out and present these Earth cultures as well-rounded groups of individuals and it probably wouldn't be so bad
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Apr 26, 2010 21:53
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I'm a bit confused, then. Varisians, for example, are presented in a superficially "lol gypsies" way. Yes, they wear scarves; yes, they travel nomadically about a region; yes, they are generally distrusted by peasants in that region. The scarves are a cultural artifact that describes the bloodline/clan of the person wearing it. The nomadic behavior is rooted in the cataclysmic events that happened about 10k years prior to current gametime--escaping rampaging magical disaster. The distrust is engendered by a particular clan of the Varisians that specializes in non-violent crime. Does this make them a well-rounded group of individuals? Does the background detail matter if the surface detail implies something racist?
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Apr 26, 2010 22:15
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Tolan posted:Does the background detail matter if the surface detail implies something racist? No. If you're making a not-Gypsy and you put in the usual anti-Gypsy calumnies you can put in all the background detail you like and it won't mean poo poo, you've still made a racist not-Gypsy culture. Anonymous Zebra posted:The ancient Azlant civilization has parallels to Atlantis .... The name 'Azlant' is lazy as gently caress, might as well have called it Exicom
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Apr 26, 2010 22:45
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fritz posted:.... Well I'll be damned, it is an Atlantis-knockoff, my point about the name remains tho.
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Apr 26, 2010 22:47
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fritz posted:No. If you're making a not-Gypsy and you put in the usual anti-Gypsy calumnies you can put in all the background detail you like and it won't mean poo poo, you've still made a racist not-Gypsy culture. The only calumny I can see them referenceing is that "they're all thieves". The nomadism, living as entertainers, clothing choices, etc, aren't calumnies because they're not negatives. Unless you'd rather have the Varisians be living in grinding poverty because of the racism of the Chelaxians who've settled Varisia? That would be closer to the reality of it, I think, since that's basically what happened to Romani in historical Europe: ghettoized and "othered" by pretty much everyone. Not suggesting that including that "oh hay some of these guys are thieves" was a good move, but is leaving that out enough to take off the taint?
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Apr 26, 2010 23:04
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Tolan posted:The only calumny I can see them referenceing is that "they're all thieves". The nomadism, living as entertainers, clothing choices, etc, aren't calumnies because they're not negatives.
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Apr 26, 2010 23:12
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hey guys, it's all well and good to bitch about racist ethnic cariacatures, but everything in an rpg setting is a cariacature, and much of it has a racist subtext. i mean, tribal elves who live in the forest, who have bows and feathers in their hair? good indians surface goblins, wierd raiding creatures that come out of the wilds riding wolves to raid and burn? bad indians i mean poo poo, the whole idea that there are evil swarthy barbaric races out there that you're allowed to kill. . . that's pretty bad do we all remember the dark stalkers or whoever from 4e? evil shadow jews. i'm not even sure if the guys who drew them know that- they probably jsut based the look on old mythical stereotypes, not realising that they too have been influenced by unpleasant concepts like antisemetic caricature it's a lot harder to avoid this stuff than you'd expect, and sometimes people riff on it deliberatly, although that doesn't nesecarily turn out very well. i took the pcs in my game to a fantasy version of africa during the pre-neoimperialist period, and despite my best efforts, apart from other big problems with the plot, it still came across as 'white people save black people'. and on a more legitimate front, it's ok to have fantasy egypt in your game. there's nothing wrong with taking people where they want to go, and a lot of people enjoy going to historical or cultural sites in games, the same as they enjoy certain fantasy tropes. i tink mikan has a point above but still, 'oh golly we get to go to egypt' is still a pretyt legit thing for somebody to enjoy in a game. honestly the worst thing about pathfinder is the fantasy america that deftly dodges the worstthings about america's history PeterWeller posted:The more I hear, the more I am convinced Golarian was Paizo's way of having their own "Realms". happyelf fucked around with this message at 23:20 on Apr 26, 2010 |
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Apr 26, 2010 23:14
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