Pathfinder Is Still Bad

[Nirallus]

IHIYC arghhhhhhh!!!! Sorry troll thread/poster got to me.

The thread he's referring to:
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2togf?An-ex ... I-optimize

Might be a salt mine or a journey down the rabbit hole, depending on your view.

[Kaelik]

Oh God. "I'm Autistic, so it's totally cool when I tell other people they are subject to an evil mind plague and are a scourge on humanity, but then for some reason they say that I'm being dogmatically opposed to them playing the way they want, even though I'm totally not saying their way of playing is wrong."

I mean, yeah, he's probably a troll, but he isn't saying anything Zak S didn't say.

[Covent]

Yeah sorry for even bringing it up, I did not link, as I thought we were supposed to avoid that.

Is that not true?

[virgil]

Yeah sorry for even bringing it up, I did not link, as I thought we were supposed to avoid that.

Is that not true?

Eh, sorta. The rule came about back when we had a "threads that make us cry" topic and certain posters would literally troll other forums and post the link before the topic had replies in anticipation of people to make fun of. That's when the rule came into effect; and as far as I can tell, that's been the litmus test of acceptable behavior.

[Covent]

Ah ok. I will use my best judgement and in the majority of cases abstain then.

Just wanted to make sure I did not break a major rule as I like this place.

[Occluded Sun]

The host is quite tolerant of mistakes made in good faith. I wouldn't worry.

[Covent]

So Paizo just announced a new game/continuation of Pathfinder called Starfinder.

Basically Pathfinder in the future in space.

But, don't worry guys this is totally going to be completely backwards compatible!

Normally I would get excited about getting sci-fi chocolate in my fantasy peanut butter, but I am kind of burned out on Paizo right now, so I am going to call train wreck.

[malak]

While the size and scope of the new game make a full public playtest infeasible, we'll be starting to bring in key community members to check it out in the next few months

[Kaelik]

While the size and scope of the new game make a full public playtest infeasible, we'll be starting to bring in key community members to check it out in the next few months

Only a long train of proven cock sucking skills will get you into the exclusive club where you can tell us how much you love sucking our cock. And you had goddam better tell us that it tastes like candy.

[Axebird]

That's kind've hilarious, considering they still advertise Pathfinder on the basis of running a huge public playtest.

This imaginative tabletop game builds upon more than 10 years of system development and an open playtest involving more than 50,000 gamers to create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time best-selling set of fantasy rules into the new millennium.

[Kaelik]

That's kind've hilarious, considering they still advertise Pathfinder on the basis of running a huge public playtest.

This imaginative tabletop game builds upon more than 10 years of system development and an open playtest involving more than 50,000 gamers to create a cutting-edge RPG experience that brings the all-time best-selling set of fantasy rules into the new millennium.

To be fair, the Open playtest was just a chance to listen to people tell them their cock tastes like candy while other people say it doesn't, and then are ignored.

This time they will respond to just as much criticism as last time, literally zero, they just cut out the time they had to spend actually listening to it.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I confess a morbid curiosity for how this will turn out.

[OgreBattle]

I confess a morbid curiosity for how this will turn out.

Threads on "Is a lasergun gunslinger OP??" with suggestions of "since laserguns are too advanced for gunslinger brain to comprehend he should kill himself on a 1"

[malak]

While the size and scope of the new game make a full public playtest infeasible, we'll be starting to bring in key community members to check it out in the next few months

The fun thing is it doesn't even make sense if you interpret it in a friendly way.

There's too much material for the work of quality control to be distributed among a larger group. What?

[Sir Aubergine]

While the size and scope of the new game make a full public playtest infeasible, we'll be starting to bring in key community members to check it out in the next few months

The fun thing is it doesn't even make sense if you interpret it in a friendly way.

There's too much material for the work of quality control to be distributed among a larger group. What?

"We could make an honest attempt to gather and collate qualitative and quantitative data from a huge sample of gaming enthusiasts, but that would be hard work."

[Orca]

Paizo, collectively, have a real inability to ever admit they were wrong. Which is generally difficult to make work with a playtest so skipping that is no great surprise.

It'll be interesting to see if Paizo can write a bunch of entirely new rules without having a panic attack and overcomplicating them. That's the other common problem they have.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page= ... Here#61777

"5) what do you think abut the martial/caster disparity at high levels?
James Jacobs wrote:


5) I think it's a myth propagated by people with agendas.
Do you still feel this way? ಠ_ಠ
Yes."

So, what form of mental retardation does JJ have?

[Whipstitch]

The same kind that caused my sister's boyfriend to talk about his OP Vow of Poverty monk as I whupped his ass in Steampunk Rally.

[maglag]

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page= ... Here#61777

"5) what do you think abut the martial/caster disparity at high levels?
James Jacobs wrote:


5) I think it's a myth propagated by people with agendas.
Do you still feel this way? ಠ_ಠ
Yes."

So, what form of mental retardation does JJ have?

Can you still call it a "mental retardation" when his product is the current leader of the market?

There's people willing to pay money for that. There's more people willing to pay money for that than there are people willing to buy the two latest official versions of D&D.

What would be retarded would be for him not to make mountains of money out of the opportunity he got. There is a demand, and he provides the supply.

[nockermensch]

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page= ... Here#61777

"5) what do you think abut the martial/caster disparity at high levels?
James Jacobs wrote:


5) I think it's a myth propagated by people with agendas.
Do you still feel this way? ಠ_ಠ
Yes."

So, what form of mental retardation does JJ have?

Can you still call it a "mental retardation" when his product is the current leader of the market?

Wait, so did Pathfinder regain the top spot? Because 5e was on the lead, last time I checked.

[Kaelik]

Can you still call it a "mental retardation" when his product is the current leader of the market?

There's people willing to pay money for that. There's more people willing to pay money for that than there are people willing to buy the two latest official versions of D&D.

What would be retarded would be for him not to make mountains of money out of the opportunity he got. There is a demand, and he provides the supply.

Yes. I still can.

It's certainly possible that he has done extensive market research, and that market research told him that lying about how Fighters are totally the bomb will get more sales for the material that is sold entirely based on artwork to a group of people who have been cultivated to reject even the concept of criticism.

But I think it is much more likely that he actually believes his dumb shit proclamations, and that his success is based on other factors, and he could totally sell just as well if fighters didn't suck so much balls, or if he admitted that fighters suck balls.

[Sergarr]

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page= ... Here#61777

"5) what do you think abut the martial/caster disparity at high levels?
James Jacobs wrote:


5) I think it's a myth propagated by people with agendas.
Do you still feel this way? ಠ_ಠ
Yes."

So, what form of mental retardation does JJ have?

The one that causes the individual to ignore reality if it makes them believe they're flawless, obviously. It's really how they've done it from the start, from the moment of "open playtesting" and afterwards, like with all errata being dubbed as "clarification of the rules".

It's saying something that this strategy appears to be a smashing success on RPG market. Turns out, people don't need actually good mechanics - they just need to be told that mechanics are good, and voila - every existing fault is then perceived as an "exception that only confirms the rule", and subsequently ignored.

It's kinda like grognardism, only, like, taken to the next level - from "I'm always right on the table, you stupid munchkin, eat Rule 0" to "I was always right from the very beginning and have no meaningful faults whatsoever, munchkins are just simply a figment of your imagination/stupid broken houserules, and could not possibly exist within the realm of My Perfect Ruleset".

Come to think about it, the Bear World seems to work on the same principle, as well, if silva is to be believed...

[Prak]

http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2l7ns&page= ... Here#61777

"5) what do you think abut the martial/caster disparity at high levels?
James Jacobs wrote:


5) I think it's a myth propagated by people with agendas.
Do you still feel this way? ಠ_ಠ
Yes."

So, what form of mental retardation does JJ have?

Can you still call it a "mental retardation" when his product is the current leader of the market?

There's people willing to pay money for that. There's more people willing to pay money for that than there are people willing to buy the two latest official versions of D&D.

What would be retarded would be for him not to make mountains of money out of the opportunity he got. There is a demand, and he provides the supply.

Look, just because Trump's a millionaire doesn't mean he's not a fucking idiot. Same concept. It's like idealogues are somehow business savants.

[Lurky Lurkpants]

On this subject, I have to share my very favorite instance of Paizo's "We have always been at war with Eastasia" attitude.

Golarion's deities are meant to be complex and challenging and in some ways "realistic." And that means that sometimes, the faiths of these deities will be presented in ways that can be... touchy, I guess, is the word.

Erastil's element of sexism is one such area. He's a lawful good deity, and the simple and safe route would have been to make him a super friendly and progressive kind of deity that everyone can like. But that's not a type of deity we're really interested in presenting for Golarion. By introducing an element of sexism into the religion, Sean created a VERY interesting bit of flavor—suddenly, this lawful-good faith isn't necessarily the most progressive or nicest faith. He has something that some folks don't mind, but others (which would include both Sean and myself) find pretty backwards-thinking and close-minded. This makes for some interesting roleplaying opportunities.

Now, taking a bigger view of things, I'd like to say that I'm pretty proud at how we've handled gender roles in Paizo products. As folks have mentioned above, we DO have a lot of strong female roles and characters. When we were designing our deities, I made a special point to have as balanced a split between male and female deities as possible—the same went for our iconic characters. So when we DO go and include something more close-minded in the game, like Erastil's "sexism" (which is more something that comes out of dusty traditionalism than active misogyny, I would say), it can both add a realistic (however unfortunate that may be) element to that character while not, when taken as a part of the whole of the work we've done on Golarion, representing the whole.

Well... since I created Erastil for my homebrew game decades ago, I like to think that I'm the subject matter expert on him. As with all the deities, I gave Sean a large list of notes to build off of, but his addition of those elements to Erastil were NOT intended and were, in fact, an error as surely as if we'd said he had a pig's head instead of a stags head, or if we said his name was spelled Arastil instead of Erastil, or if we had given him a pick-axe as his favored weapon instead of a longbow.

[/b]It was flat-out an error[/b]. I would have caught it had I been the one to develop the article, but I was not that devloper—I was working on the adventure and trusted others to develop the article, but it was an error of mine to not say in print to Sean "Erastil, as a good deity, should be progressive and welcoming and supportive of ALL members of a family." That element of his personality was so engrained in my mind that I simply never thought that someone would take him in a different direction.

Good deities absoulutely CAN have flaws. Iomedae is really impatient and humorless. Desna is impulsive and doesn't think of the long-term ramifications of her actions. Cayden Cailean is a drunkard. Torag is too bound by traditions. Shelyn is blinded by her love for her brother. Sarenrae is a bit too forgiving. They CAN have flaws, and that makes them more interesting, but which flaws are the RIGHT flaws for any one deity to have is more or less up to me, as Paizo's Creative Director, to approve.

And I do not want to be in a position where something that looks like misogyny is upheld by a good deity... ANY good deity, but ESPECIALLY one who's supposed to be all about family and community. It's just nonsensical. And as such, it has been fixed.

And the reason this thread is sparking up old and kind of obnoxious arguments is not only one reason why I really hated that inappropriate bit of lore that accidentally got created in error for Erastil, but also why threads that continue to pick at almost-healed wounds tend to open them back up to fester.

The main reason I object to giving Erastil a flaw like this is that it makes it look like Paizo is saying "It's both lawful AND good to behave in this way." I have no problem at all with a lawful good non-deity character having this sort of flaw, but giving this specific flaw to the DEITY OF FAMILY AND COMMUNITY is an outright fundamental design error that flies in the face of what Paizo stands for AND Erastil's 30 year history—even if he's only been in print for a third of that time.

So yes... this thread is fine as a place for folks to look to see if a bit of lore has been corrected... but please keep it to that purpose and do not use it as a place to reopen old and tired and pointless arguments.

And yeah I know appealing to folks to drop a subject is a fool's game on the Internet, but if folks can't keep to the topic's actual subject, I'll just have the thread closed. Feel free to start up a different thread with the subject of "I prefer Erastil this way..." or something like that. It's just not an appropriate topic to dwell on in this one. Thanks!

James Jacobs, 2010: Flying in the face of everything Paizo stands for.

[Covent]

Wow...

Do you have links for those?

I would love to show the originals to a friend of mine and grin.