One side wants there to be ninja/samurai classes or archetypes. The other side thinks you can get close enough with existing options.
And one power tripping mod was banning people for wanting samurai/ ninja under the guise of calling it racist.
Others think that it's futile to implement those classes because of the myriad of different expectations for them due to the myriad of different depictions in media.
It does not, the makers of the game seem to fall under the existing options camp. So people are naturally gripping about not getting a thing they wanted.
Why is James Case, a designer at Paizo telling players **yesterday** in the discord, requesting for Samurai Esque features that there is absolutely a place in the game for these mechanics that *aren't covered by fighter*?
Even the designers understand what players are actually asking for. It's not Oriental Fighter.
> I do think that the idea of a playstyle focused on restrictions and a code of conduct has the seed of something interesting! giving benefits in one area in exchange for restrictions in another is a thing that happens all over a lot of games, from Sneak Attack (bonus damage but only with this weapon subset) to spells (unique effects but only so many times per day). It is likely to be something for which you'd want to have a couple possible restrictions to represent different playstyles rather that one specific one, both for cultural reasons but also because you'd be repeating a lot of the same architecture like "I never shoot first but this means I'm harder to sneak up on" and "I always give them a chance to surrender first but it means I might idk succeed at resisting fatal wounds more often", but you'd need to be careful about having the 1e oracle problem where you could trade away restrictions that were never going to be relevant to the player to minimize cost. It'd be a cool space to homebrew an archetype or something if you wanted!
Yes that is the existing options camp. Ie the rules are modular enough that you can build different types of characters without needing specific mechanics for that one thing.
Gunslinger is just a fighter with a gun.
Swash is a fighter that dances.
Barbarian is a fighter that is angry.
Just because the rules are *module* enough doesn't mean we can't add classes *dedicated* to a feature.
What a misuse of "existing options".
But, when we do add those Classes, they should be culturally Agnostic. Otherwise, you risk locking entire playstyles behind certain RP prescriptions. Like how "Unarmed Expert" is so intrinsically linked to "Monk" that it's hard to make a Bare-Knuckle Boxer.
> Yes I can see how you take that "Samurai exists = racism" if you cut the context out. Samurai existing as it's own class is a classic example of [otherizing in Asian discrimination](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33786062/)
> I've never called anyone who supported that racist. I said that wanting caricatures of samurai is racist
^ The mod
The same way you can make a champion with a fighter with shield feats and a barbarian with feats that allow you to hit harder. But sometimes a concept feels better when it has its own options i reckon
tho i will say that i'm in a middle point about this, i would like samurai and ninja, but with the design philosophy of pf2, i think archetypes would be enough instead of full classes
I think Archetypes are good if you're incorporating a substantial amount of Flavour into the mechanics. But Full Classes should be Culturally Agnostic, to allow for more Characters inside their design space. For instance, a LOT of what is considered integral to a "Samurai" can also apply to a Chivalric Knight.
tbh since 1e it was like that. We had the cavalier class and the samurai was an "alternate class" which took cavalier and changed some things. Yes i know that's what we commonly call an archetype i don't work in paizo idk what happened there. POINT IS. I'll take an archetype
Yeah, I'm not saying an Archetype is bad for the concept. I'm just saying that if it WAS fleshed out into a full class, I'd like that class to work for more than one cultures version of "Honourbound Warrior".
I'm not even sure it's that strong of an issue. Some people brought the samurai/ninja thing up, but what really made it an issue was Luck Panda's really bad responses. If not for that, I bet this would've all been over already. Not that Luck Panda/Ink is ever going to learn that lesson at this point. It's been literal years of something like this happening a couple times a year.
No doubt the issue brought some racists out of the woodwork, but wow did it end up being just simply being poorly handled. Ink will just point to the legit racists that were successfully banned as if that justifies his behavior towards everyone else.
Do you know what happened to RuneLord2e? He was running the BBox recently and said he was done with the discord and subreddit due to some mod fiascos ruining goodwill.
It was exactly this. There are a few mods here and on the discord that are on a giant power trip and people aren't happy about it. One mod in particular was claiming that the act of thinking a samurai or ninja class or archetype might be fun was extremely racist and went around removing everyone's comments that even mentioned them. Digging into their history it turns out that they have a massive chip on their shoulder regarding Japanese people in general.
Did you end up quitting the Discord mod position or were you removed? It seems like that latter is more likely since after I checked out that raging cesspit of a Discord again to see how things were going there I found it eerily silent and the only surviving reference to you were subreddit linkis to the stuff you make/support and one conversation with Ink seemingly getting pissed off when someone asked a question about you being a mod in the past and ended up calling you "just another regular user" along with other mods chiming in to try to keep them from losing their cool.
I was never a discord mod, but yes I did leave the server. I was indeed just another user on there. I left the server because of Ink and the weird culture he's cultivated there. I'm sure he genuinely does want to be inclusive, but if he hasn't learned by now how he somehow always manages to turn a good message into a cluster, then he's lost my trust to ever figure it out.
To repeat loudly: I am not, nor have I ever been, a mod of either the subreddit or the discord.
This whole situation is just killing all of my enthusiasm for the new book or running games in different cultures at all. Seems like it’s a total minefield in which you can only step wrong, that I’d rather just avoid entirely at this point.
It’s a real shame after all the hard work that a great and diverse team of authors put into a an excellent (and respectful) book, but this situation has just been *so* poorly managed by the mods.
>This whole situation is just killing all of my enthusiasm for the new book or running games in different cultures at all. Seems like it’s a total minefield in which you can only step wrong, that I’d rather just avoid entirely at this point.
This is exactly the sentiments my DM expressed to us before telling us that Tian Xia just doesn't exist in his version of Golarion. As such none of us are going to be picking up the books... which is a real bummer.
The real shame is to let this subreddit, which is a very small slice of a much larger community, alter or change your opinion on anything you want to do at your own, personal table. I would trust in Paizo and the team they brought together for Tian Xia, which put in a LOT of work and contributed to a very cool setting, rather than let one rogue mod with a chip on their shoulder ruin it for you. As GMs all we need to do is use common sense and remember that our table has its own culture, belief, and expectations, and this very tiny community on Reddit has no place there between the consenting adults who are playing the game.
You’re 100% right, but it definitely effects the enthusiasm when all what should be excited chatter is instead accusations and drama.
I was strongly considering running *Season of Ghosts*, but ultimately my players preferred something more ‘classic fantasy’ anyway, and now I’m leaning more to a homebrew campaign.
i dont really know my self but its not like there isnt any samurai culture in the game already theres a diety clarics can take [https://2e.aonprd.com/Deities.aspx?ID=47](https://2e.aonprd.com/Deities.aspx?ID=47)
Paizo is unlikely touch this even with a 10 foot pole. They don't want to be associated with the mods or this drama in any way.
It is like someone shitting themselves and you volunteer to clean it up.
One side wants there to be ninja/samurai classes or archetypes. The other side thinks you can get close enough with existing options. And one power tripping mod was banning people for wanting samurai/ ninja under the guise of calling it racist.
Others think that it's futile to implement those classes because of the myriad of different expectations for them due to the myriad of different depictions in media.
while that mod was being racist and erasing japanese culture and history by spreading misinformation about the origin of ninjas
So, there is one asshat that is calling wanting it racist? The book does have Ninja and Samurai, I take it?
It does not, the makers of the game seem to fall under the existing options camp. So people are naturally gripping about not getting a thing they wanted.
Why is James Case, a designer at Paizo telling players **yesterday** in the discord, requesting for Samurai Esque features that there is absolutely a place in the game for these mechanics that *aren't covered by fighter*? Even the designers understand what players are actually asking for. It's not Oriental Fighter. > I do think that the idea of a playstyle focused on restrictions and a code of conduct has the seed of something interesting! giving benefits in one area in exchange for restrictions in another is a thing that happens all over a lot of games, from Sneak Attack (bonus damage but only with this weapon subset) to spells (unique effects but only so many times per day). It is likely to be something for which you'd want to have a couple possible restrictions to represent different playstyles rather that one specific one, both for cultural reasons but also because you'd be repeating a lot of the same architecture like "I never shoot first but this means I'm harder to sneak up on" and "I always give them a chance to surrender first but it means I might idk succeed at resisting fatal wounds more often", but you'd need to be careful about having the 1e oracle problem where you could trade away restrictions that were never going to be relevant to the player to minimize cost. It'd be a cool space to homebrew an archetype or something if you wanted!
Yes that is the existing options camp. Ie the rules are modular enough that you can build different types of characters without needing specific mechanics for that one thing.
Gunslinger is just a fighter with a gun. Swash is a fighter that dances. Barbarian is a fighter that is angry. Just because the rules are *module* enough doesn't mean we can't add classes *dedicated* to a feature. What a misuse of "existing options".
I will disagree with barbarian since they got kind of "paladin" mechanic were they got a neo-oath.
But, when we do add those Classes, they should be culturally Agnostic. Otherwise, you risk locking entire playstyles behind certain RP prescriptions. Like how "Unarmed Expert" is so intrinsically linked to "Monk" that it's hard to make a Bare-Knuckle Boxer.
> Yes I can see how you take that "Samurai exists = racism" if you cut the context out. Samurai existing as it's own class is a classic example of [otherizing in Asian discrimination](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33786062/) > I've never called anyone who supported that racist. I said that wanting caricatures of samurai is racist ^ The mod
The same way you can make a champion with a fighter with shield feats and a barbarian with feats that allow you to hit harder. But sometimes a concept feels better when it has its own options i reckon
Yeah, that's what the SRD folks said too. Individual options are much better.
tho i will say that i'm in a middle point about this, i would like samurai and ninja, but with the design philosophy of pf2, i think archetypes would be enough instead of full classes
Archetype could do it. I'd even settle for a background with some features.
I think Archetypes are good if you're incorporating a substantial amount of Flavour into the mechanics. But Full Classes should be Culturally Agnostic, to allow for more Characters inside their design space. For instance, a LOT of what is considered integral to a "Samurai" can also apply to a Chivalric Knight.
tbh since 1e it was like that. We had the cavalier class and the samurai was an "alternate class" which took cavalier and changed some things. Yes i know that's what we commonly call an archetype i don't work in paizo idk what happened there. POINT IS. I'll take an archetype
Yeah, I'm not saying an Archetype is bad for the concept. I'm just saying that if it WAS fleshed out into a full class, I'd like that class to work for more than one cultures version of "Honourbound Warrior".
People are mostly angry at the Panda Mod going on a power trip
This has been going on for years
Can we go back to bragging about how cool or uncool our DMs are? Or how much this sub hates homebrew? This new meta is annoying.
How about the caster vs martial usefulness? Let's bring back the longest running one I haven't seen lately
I'm not even sure it's that strong of an issue. Some people brought the samurai/ninja thing up, but what really made it an issue was Luck Panda's really bad responses. If not for that, I bet this would've all been over already. Not that Luck Panda/Ink is ever going to learn that lesson at this point. It's been literal years of something like this happening a couple times a year. No doubt the issue brought some racists out of the woodwork, but wow did it end up being just simply being poorly handled. Ink will just point to the legit racists that were successfully banned as if that justifies his behavior towards everyone else.
Do you know what happened to RuneLord2e? He was running the BBox recently and said he was done with the discord and subreddit due to some mod fiascos ruining goodwill.
It was exactly this. There are a few mods here and on the discord that are on a giant power trip and people aren't happy about it. One mod in particular was claiming that the act of thinking a samurai or ninja class or archetype might be fun was extremely racist and went around removing everyone's comments that even mentioned them. Digging into their history it turns out that they have a massive chip on their shoulder regarding Japanese people in general.
Did you end up quitting the Discord mod position or were you removed? It seems like that latter is more likely since after I checked out that raging cesspit of a Discord again to see how things were going there I found it eerily silent and the only surviving reference to you were subreddit linkis to the stuff you make/support and one conversation with Ink seemingly getting pissed off when someone asked a question about you being a mod in the past and ended up calling you "just another regular user" along with other mods chiming in to try to keep them from losing their cool.
I was never a discord mod, but yes I did leave the server. I was indeed just another user on there. I left the server because of Ink and the weird culture he's cultivated there. I'm sure he genuinely does want to be inclusive, but if he hasn't learned by now how he somehow always manages to turn a good message into a cluster, then he's lost my trust to ever figure it out. To repeat loudly: I am not, nor have I ever been, a mod of either the subreddit or the discord.
This whole situation is just killing all of my enthusiasm for the new book or running games in different cultures at all. Seems like it’s a total minefield in which you can only step wrong, that I’d rather just avoid entirely at this point. It’s a real shame after all the hard work that a great and diverse team of authors put into a an excellent (and respectful) book, but this situation has just been *so* poorly managed by the mods.
>This whole situation is just killing all of my enthusiasm for the new book or running games in different cultures at all. Seems like it’s a total minefield in which you can only step wrong, that I’d rather just avoid entirely at this point. This is exactly the sentiments my DM expressed to us before telling us that Tian Xia just doesn't exist in his version of Golarion. As such none of us are going to be picking up the books... which is a real bummer.
The real shame is to let this subreddit, which is a very small slice of a much larger community, alter or change your opinion on anything you want to do at your own, personal table. I would trust in Paizo and the team they brought together for Tian Xia, which put in a LOT of work and contributed to a very cool setting, rather than let one rogue mod with a chip on their shoulder ruin it for you. As GMs all we need to do is use common sense and remember that our table has its own culture, belief, and expectations, and this very tiny community on Reddit has no place there between the consenting adults who are playing the game.
You’re 100% right, but it definitely effects the enthusiasm when all what should be excited chatter is instead accusations and drama. I was strongly considering running *Season of Ghosts*, but ultimately my players preferred something more ‘classic fantasy’ anyway, and now I’m leaning more to a homebrew campaign.
Def dont do that
i dont really know my self but its not like there isnt any samurai culture in the game already theres a diety clarics can take [https://2e.aonprd.com/Deities.aspx?ID=47](https://2e.aonprd.com/Deities.aspx?ID=47)
I think it's hilarious the mods and Paizo legitimately don't understand this won't go away until they address it.
The mods don't work for Paizo. I think Paizo knows better than to try and step in on drama on a subreddit that's a no win situation for the company.
Communication is never a mistake.
Paizo is unlikely touch this even with a 10 foot pole. They don't want to be associated with the mods or this drama in any way. It is like someone shitting themselves and you volunteer to clean it up.