
Untitled
By: a guest on
Jan 6th, 2014 | syntax:
None | size: 5.20 KB | hits: 171 | expires: Never
>You can say bad things about Paizo, but you can't deny they are doing their best to be inclusive when it comes to sexuality and race
Allow me to elaborate on that issue without risking a ban then. See quite frankly, their depiction of inclusion on sexuality and race, is hamfisted at best and insultingly insensitive at worst. The main problem being their stance upon the bearing of equality and alignment. Canonically within Golarion, there are certain given concretes and certain areas in which the mentality is more of a guideline. Sexuality is something that has had a certain stand taken. The official response has been that being against LGBTQ or LGBTQ marriage, is that it is being inherently against equality period and no positively (ie. good) aligned deities are against homosexuality or gay marriage period. People have requested access to a good deity with similar beliefs to their own only to be rejected. Others have come up with deities that they theorize to support their beliefs, only to have Paizo staff fill them in on the truth of the situation. Good deities unanimously support LGBT rights. Even the deities of life (or strong conservative traditionalists such as Erastil) don't care, so long as they raise a baby (eg. adoption counts in this scenario). This offends some people, who now have characters or beliefs labelled evil or in the case of a best scenario (which it usually reads not to be - it tends to be evil) neutral.
Meanwhile, Slavery is an area of more malleable connotations. Its not inherently evil, but morally ambiguous. With the possibility of it being seen as allowable/acceptable by Lawful Good or Neutral Good deities and characters. An example of this is the Church of Saerenrae within Qadira as it has slaves. Its causing a schism within the faith, but technically their alignment has not changed. This sect is "redeeming their enemies" and tolerant of slavery. Other than that there is no real reason to believe they are treated any different than Qadiran slaves typically are. In other nations such as Jalmeray, Molthune, Osirion, Qadira, Rahadoum, Sargava and the Shackles, slavery is quite legal without shifting them from their neutral disposition.
Racism is likewise of a liquid nature with regards to its affect on alignment. Likewise it is also, inherently not evil but morally ambiguous. For example, a character might hold a racist disposition towards orcs. Orcs are typically evil. A lawful good character can hold a racist disposition towards orcs without violating his alignment. In fact, he could quite literally kill orc babies under the presumption that he could be preventing further criminal or otherwise negative effects that should come to pass if these babies are allowed to live and/or propagate, as well as making an act of mercy in the event that any orcs who would have been capable of raising said babies have been slain, or would impart similarly "evil" tendencies and mindset. This is something seen in Rise of the Runelords/Jade Regent. You have the ability to slaughter entire goblin tribes with little to no repercussions on alignment as these beings are quite commonly of evil alignment. What about the origin story of the drow? A people who, hearing of the aboleths plan to destroy the human civilizations, stayed behind to protect their homes, only to be buried under the surface where their anger festered and an evil god perverted the species. As such, they turned black and cruel. A race that cannot integrate back into their home society which fled such disaster.
Now reconsider your initial statement. They are doing their best to be inclusive. But at what cost? Cognitive dissonance? They are quite clearly taking the stance that gender identity and sexuality are more important than racism and slavery. Their depictions of demographics in general are poorly drawn caricatures (see Ezren the archetypal atheist douchebag) or have their gender identity or sexuality inserted very maladroitly. The forum to which paizo has most of its communication is heavily moderated to the point that there is also a degree of censorship in that posts are arbitrarily deleted or edited by Paizo forum mods and staff based on content they find inappropriate to this discussion. Its an echo chamber where good praise resonates and criticism is erased or left only to be mocked. Hell, you know the shit is bad when people argue in hopes that an iconic (Alain) is LGBTQ as that would be a redeeming feature (as if somehow sexuality or gender identity are determinant of a characters overall literary/figurative value).
That being said, I'm all fine and dandy for inclusion of topics such as sexualization, racism, sexuality or gender identity etc. Don't get me wrong. But haphazardly polarizing these topics on a such an antiquated alignment system which renders in game effects as distinct benefits or consequences for actions or beliefs pertaining to their alignment is at the very best poorly thought out or illogical. Ideologically, ones personal beliefs regarding such topics, as a game designer, should not interfere with the implementation of rules or narrative within a given setting. By that I mean, either adopt a more fluid display of character alignment, or a less reflexive categorization to things you are morally opposed to.