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Author Topic: Paizo decides to cancel Slavery from future products  (Read 23998 times)

Palleon

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #30 on: December 22, 2021, 07:58:35 PM »
Is necromancy also canceled?  What is that if not slavery with extra steps?  How about Charm, Suggestion, and Dominate spells?  How about Bards using their high Charisma to seduce everything?  How is that not rape?  Everything is problematic once you start down this slope. 

Yes, the parts I elided from the quote above do mention rape and reprehensible use of magic.

I am not saying I agree with their views, but it’s covered in the current edition of Pathfinder’s standard mode of play.

Kanyenya

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #31 on: December 22, 2021, 08:11:38 PM »
Is necromancy also canceled?  What is that if not slavery with extra steps?  How about Charm, Suggestion, and Dominate spells?  How about Bards using their high Charisma to seduce everything?  How is that not rape?  Everything is problematic once you start down this slope.

They'll get to those eventually. War, combat, and violence will also be classified as "problematic".

jhkim

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #32 on: December 22, 2021, 08:17:12 PM »
Yes, the parts I elided from the quote above do mention rape and reprehensible use of magic.

I am not saying I agree with their views, but it’s covered in the current edition of Pathfinder’s standard mode of play.

Thanks, Palleon. Here's the full text from quick search:

Quote
You might find that your players don’t have much to say on the topic of objectionable content, and just assume that general societal mores will keep the most uncomfortable topics out of the game. That’s not always enough, as that approach relies on shared assumptions that aren’t always accurate. The following is a set of basic assumptions that works for many groups, which you can modify to fit your preferences and those of the other players.
  • Bloodshed, injuries, and even dismemberment might be described. However, excessive descriptions of gore and cruelty should be avoided.
  • Romantic and sexual relationships can happen in the game, but players should avoid being overly suggestive. Sex always happens “off-screen.” Because attempts at initiating a relationship between player characters can be uncomfortably similar to one player hitting on another, this should generally be avoided (and is entirely inappropriate when playing with strangers).
  • Avoid excessively gross or scatological descriptions.
The following acts should never be performed by player characters:
  • Torture
  • Rape, nonconsensual sexual contact, or sexual threats
  • Harm to children, including sexual abuse
  • Owning slaves or profiting from the slave trade
  • Reprehensible uses of mind-control magic
Villains might engage in such acts, but they won’t happen “on-screen” or won’t be described in detail. Many groups choose to not have villains engage in these activities at all, keeping these reprehensible acts out of mind entirely.
Source: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=488

That's not too different from my own practice. For example, when I ran my vikings game, I avoided touching on rape, pederasty, and slavery - which were common among historically raiding vikings. I could handwave that they were happening but we just weren't discussing them - but it wasn't functionally different from just saying they just didn't happen. Roughly the same norms have been true for non-historical fantasy.

Jam The MF

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #33 on: December 22, 2021, 08:21:28 PM »
Pathfinder 2nd Edition, and the "everything is a feat now" style of D&D; went in the opposite direction, of what i like about D&D.  I don't care if they drive Pathfinder 2E straight into a deep ditch. 

They have a tremendous amount of 1st Edition Pathfinder material out in print already.  The used market can provide a lot of material to the old guard, who no longer want to support their lunacy.  Your hard copy bookshelf doesn't have to bow the knee to Caesar.
Let the Dice, Decide the Outcome.  Accept the Results.

Ruprecht

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #34 on: December 22, 2021, 08:26:30 PM »
So Paizo is pro-slavery? I mean most of their adventurers that feature slavery pit the slaver types as bad guys?

This reminds me of TSR removing demons & devils when Gygax should have gone offensive and told the ignorant religious folks that the demons & devils are bad guys intended to be defeated and only an idiot would think it was otherwise.
Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing. ~Robert E. Howard

Ratman_tf

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #35 on: December 22, 2021, 10:40:21 PM »
-=-=-

The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
-Haffrung

Ratman_tf

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #36 on: December 22, 2021, 10:43:47 PM »
So are we getting stuff we don't like taken out of RPGs because they make us uncomfortable?

How about transgenderism? Socialism? People in wheelchairs? Those things make me feel oogy and I'd like WOTC to remove them from RPGs post haste or they are istaphobes and I will pitch a fit.
The notion of an exclusionary and hostile RPG community is a fever dream of zealots who view all social dynamics through a narrow keyhole of structural oppression.
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Spinachcat

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #37 on: December 23, 2021, 03:33:12 AM »
We can accelerate this process by writing fake outrage letters to Baizuo, and Hazards-of-the-bro.  If it takes something so easy as this to topple these titans then we can surely beat them.

THIS is a wonderful idea.

In the past, I used to be wary of the "acceleration-ism" concept, but I've come around seeing it's worth. While "we had to destroy the village to save it" sounded insane during the previous era of sanity, it takes on a new level of wisdom in an age of cultural insanity.

Spinachcat

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #38 on: December 23, 2021, 03:38:12 AM »
This sleeping in the same hotel room is a foreign concept to me.  What shit company requires employees on business travel to bunk together?!?!

Surprisingly common in my experience. Especially for small companies going to trade shows in expensive US cities.

However, this Paizo case sounds like a female employee being forced to share a room with a male with a penis, delusions and a dress. AKA, the exact situation in California's women's prisons resulting in a record number of rapes.

Spinachcat

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #39 on: December 23, 2021, 03:42:42 AM »
Is necromancy also canceled?  What is that if not slavery with extra steps?  How about Charm, Suggestion, and Dominate spells?  How about Bards using their high Charisma to seduce everything?  How is that not rape?  Everything is problematic once you start down this slope.

1) Stop noticing things! You're ruining the hobby! :)

2) Necromancy as slavery is a notable concept I've explored - its why clerics are so anti-undead, they're freeing the souls trapped by necromancers.

3) When have spells like Charm, Dominate and Suggestion ever NOT been distasteful uses of magic? You're forcing a creature to do something against its will. Definitely black magic.

S'mon

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #40 on: December 23, 2021, 06:51:49 AM »
This sleeping in the same hotel room is a foreign concept to me.  What shit company requires employees on business travel to bunk together?!?!

Surprisingly common in my experience. Especially for small companies going to trade shows in expensive US cities.

However, this Paizo case sounds like a female employee being forced to share a room with a male with a penis, delusions and a dress. AKA, the exact situation in California's women's prisons resulting in a record number of rapes.

The 'scandal' was the opposite, they would not let the trans and the woman share a room, likely from fear of liability. The woman apparently wanted to, but it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind.

Melan

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #41 on: December 23, 2021, 07:39:00 AM »
So... now that slavery had never existed in Paizoland... all those wars were about states' rights after all?  ;)
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Hakdov

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #42 on: December 23, 2021, 08:46:59 AM »
So... now that slavery had never existed in Paizoland... all those wars were about states' rights after all?  ;)

That's the wonderful thing about them tearing down all the confederate statues - soon, people will deny the very existence of slavery and the civil war. 

David Johansen

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #43 on: December 23, 2021, 09:24:48 AM »
Well, to quote Thor Ragnarok

Sir!  The slaves are revolting!

I don't like that word.

What? Revolting?

No, the other one, I prefer "prisoners with jobs."
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Spinachcat

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Re: Paizo decides to cancel Slsvery from future products
« Reply #44 on: December 23, 2021, 04:53:52 PM »
The 'scandal' was the opposite, they would not let the trans and the woman share a room, likely from fear of liability. The woman apparently wanted to, but it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind.

Baizou was doing something sane? I am stunned.

If employees of opposite sex choose to bunk up together, that's cool...after the company gets their liability document signed.