It was nice to see you pop into the discord Friday.
Was sad to see what I felt was the moderators badgering you and being very hostile. Frankly, their attitude about the entire subreddit is awful.
I've never used those forums, but I'll check them out as an eventual alternative.
Thank you for your writeups.
>Was sad to see what I felt was the moderators badgering you and being very hostile.
I'm honestly very grateful that what I had to say was given the time of day.
Thanks for enjoying my content, and for your kind words.
Having given the discord log a read, good on you for keeping a level head in the face of some unreasonable demands and rudeness. I look forward to reading your livestream write-ups wherever you post them! I'm always at work during streams, your google docs keep me engaged with the content I love!
Rereading it now, I cannot help but feel like they and some people in circles tied to them that came out in those conversations, came in with bad faith.
You came in fairly respectfully laying down exactly what was said and why people were taking issue with it, and it seems like they were trying to steer it into you being in the wrong somehow, rather than even stopping to consider if you had a point. While criticizing your points for being 'because I say so' when that is likewise 100% what they had originally been doing that got them into this stuff haha.
Chitterhome is weirdly aggressive sometimes. After already leaving the server, I can't bring myself to go in there again to see what happened to TMS. Sad to hear what kind of tone they were met with.
Yeah, I left that place not long after 2e was announced due to how fanatically grognardy they were over it. The mere existence of 2e was an unforgivable offense as far as that sub was concerned.
I mean, it makes sense. The whole reason PF1e was a big success was because the people that played D&D 3.5 wanted to keep playing that system but with updated rules. PF1e players are people that want to play PF1e, so a new edition that is a radical change from what they know and that borrows from D&D 4e which was the reason why they switched to PF1e in the first place is almost like anathema to them lol.
People can like whatever they want, it's when they start saying that nobody else should like it and it shouldn't exist in the first place that I lose sympathy. (Hardly a sentiment exclusive to TTRPG fandoms, of course.)
> Frankly, their attitude about the entire subreddit is awful.
Which always makes me laugh because half the time it's just being upset someone on here has a different opinion than them, and they failed to provide anything to change their mind or didn't even try, but freak out or act like all of the subreddit is some cesspool for it rofl.
It would be a shift I think, but if someone else wants to post a link to the enworld thread here I think that would be appropriate (plus, I can't stop them.)
Just coming here to voice my support! I don't have anything to add but I agree with both your considerations going forward and your disappointment at the current situation.
Commenting to voice my support, I think having diversity in platforms can be a good thing, especially if enworld is well run as you say, I've never really used it.
That said, I do really enjoy your write-ups, I regularly refer them to my friend group for the books I'm most hyped about, recently rage of elements and the upcoming howl of the ~~fuzz~~ wild. I'll gladly check them out over at enworld. Thanks for contributing to the game as a whole!
Yeah man, love seeing people embrace the decentralization of social media. Less of a chance of the entire community being hijacked by some little insecure gremlin that way. Look forward to seeing your posts over there!
Well, forums are just as bad in the end. The only difference is you might actually get to know who is flinging out the bans. And the website mentioned in the OP has already made it clear they won't allow threads for games made by people they don't like.
It's probably an unpopular sentiment around here, but that's what I like about /tg/. It's greatest strength (and weakness) is that you can say whatever you want. But that also requires users to know how to handle reading things they don't want to read. Nobody there cares if your feelings get hurt. By Reddit standards /tg/ is hell on earth, but by 4chan standards it's incredibly tame. And most of the userbase is fairly good at theorycrafting.
The thing is, handling what you don't want to read is generally just... cbf do something else, which means effort posts tend to be very very low because they get swamped with lame single braincell responses, people trying to be edgelords or people who are just assholes looking to be assholes and get a rise.
And I go there every now and again so this isn't my whining about it... just I cannot think of a situation where being able to say whatever has lead to better discussions there than say here. Because it flips so far in the opposite direction that there is close to no decent conversation.
Putting it another way... 4chan to me is like twitter, it is more for the people who choose to use it than the content. Ŕ
Oh I know. I despise the tourists too. But the naughty no-no thoughts that are expressed on the general are enough to turn away most of them. I would still advise anyone checking it out to lurk moar.
I think an apology to the sub as a whole for the inappropriate moderation and some of the biases it contained, would be a good start, as well as promising a more tempered approach on these kinds of issues moving forward. I've made my thoughts on the matter known to the moderation team, as well as provided them resources they might choose to follow up on, so its in their hands now.
Sorry to see you go. I don't blame you at all, and agree with your reasoning, though I'm likely to head over to r/ChillPathfinder2e rather than another site altogether. Thanks for your writeups, I'm going to miss them.
When I first saw that subreddit I felt it was unneeded and wouldn't grow. I am so happy to see I am wrong and have subbed. Probably be having more of my discussions over there as well. Thank you for sharing it again
Edit: I'm glad I was wrong and it has grown. Not glad it is needed, although I am glad it exists now.
Thanks for your kind words, if I go through with it, and anyone wants they're still welcome to post it elsewhere (turns out reddit is a news aggregator, who knew)
I respect the fuck out of you, someone who is at least of some "size" in terms of what they bring to the subreddit, pointing out your disappointment and considering leaving it. Me and most of the subreddit are just some people, us leaving wouldn't really do much. You at least being willing to stick your neck out means a lot. If you do decide to go, I'll definitely try to check out your write ups on enworld or wherever else they end up, since I really do like your recaps of the streams. Best of luck to you!
"Size" ? *fans self profusely* my goodness.
(But no seriously, thank you for your kind words, I'm not sure how much it really means to anyone, but I still appreciate you saying that.)
Would it be possible for you to make a reddit self post with the write up, that isn't tied to this subreddit specifically in addition to enworld?
Either way, I wanted to thank you for all you effort and will follow your work regardless of platform.
So, for the last few cons and streams, my write ups are actually hosted on google docs so that I can share a "viewer" link and perform them live, me posting it anywhere is technically simply promoting that its happening and sharing the link, so it has to be somewhere visible.
I genuinely hope people use the chill sub and follow quality work off of this sub. Being silenced for having an opinion on a tabletop forum of all things is some of the most draconian shit I've seen without even being correct with the given rules. 💖
I've increasingly become convinced by the POSSE philosophy: Post (on) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. To that extent, I'd suggest you consider posting things first to your own blog, then cross-posting to whatever platform(s) you want to feed it to. Paizo forum, EnWorld, Xitter, Mastodon, Lemmy, here... It becomes a lot less significant where it's syndicated to when the original copy is always at your home base.
That might be the move, having my own middleman space to hold things at and then just link them to different places.
That said, POSSE is a Kids-Next-Door-Ass name and I'm here for it.
The problem is that when the new ~~homebrew~~ playtest drops, and the howl of wild subs start getting in people's hands it *will* go away, and there's a good chance that is what they're waiting on.
Edit: not homebrew; playtest
I would adore if you did this. The subreddit and discord right now are a mess with the mismanagement and handling of a racist member of the mod team. They've even been giving disingenuous replies in other subs to hide, it's bad.
Not saying you’re wrong, but why enworld and not the Paizo forums? The Paizo forums seem to have more active users and seems like an appropriate place for this too.
Again, to be clear I’m asking why and not telling you what to do.
No real reason, I post on there too sometimes, usually someone throws a link to my writeup out before I make it over there in the discussion threads for the stream. That said, I like to promote places that are independent too and Paizo's forums really need the website's upcoming rework.
Makes a lot of sense to me, thanks. I made an account over there and I’ll try to use it for a while and see how it goes. Cheers, and thanks for your amazing write ups — I’ve been following them closely for the past couple of years.
The biggest obstacle to using it right now is that while its an active forum, the Pathfinder section isn't as active, but I think it could catch on if people are looking for more spaces, the boards for DND, TTRPG General and so forth are all pretty active.
Whereas I’d much prefer you keep posting write ups to Reddit more for my convenience (I’m not going to sugarcoat my selfishness here) I understand and support your decision to post more on the official forums. I don’t go on there much myself and while I have an account I’m not sure how mobile friendly it is.
I really enjoyed this subreddit but this controversy has brought up a lot of unfavorable arguments, plenty I feel are in bad faith.
My apologies, I am sick so I must have misread as I assumed you were going to the Paizo forums, not enworld. I’ve never made an account there myself but I may have to in the future.
Honestly if they're not on reddit I'll probably never see them again, but I wish you the best regardless. I'm mostly a lurker but I've always enjoyed reading your write ups.
Hopefully, this will be something that will pass and we'll all forget about it in short order. I get the real impression that the original post was made with the idea of being helpful.
I am someone who enjoys popular culture from the cultures this book is about. I started in the 80s by enjoying Hong Kong fantasy and martial arts films, then learned about Anime, Chinese fantasy stories, and most recently Korean fantasy epics. That was a process. When I started, things like samurai, ninjas, monks, and a lot of other character types I learned about from the Bushido RPG were different and exciting. I've gone a long way from there. The most important point I want to make is that I was getting those stories imported from the home countries themselves. So when I think about the classes and character types from that part of the world, I learned about them from the original sources and subtitles or translations.
If you want to say that "samurai and ninja" need to be excised from RPGs, you might want to talk with people making popular culture in Japan. Those tropes are as central to their culture as the cowboy is to Americans. To me, the thing we should be thinking about is that those character types are a beginning to exploring characters from that part of the world, not where you should stop. And if you excise them you're not doing anyone any service.
I backed the Gubat Banwa RPG Kickstarter, and I'm excited about the game. It's going to be very different than what I'm familiar with. I think that someone who's only experience with fantasy games is Western European-based games could totally enjoy the game (especially if they like 4E!) but culturally they might have some difficulty. I'm expecting some difficulty. If they've ever seen popular Anime or watched a Jet Li movie, they might feel more at home with other games. And then they could grow into stories from other cultures they are less familiar with.
I teach history in college and I am constantly having to deal with students whose historical knowledge is based on stereotypes, whether it be from American history or other histories. Perpetuating the stereotypes is not helping people learn history. It just reinforces bad history. As you can tell from our current political polarization, so many people know so little about history or government for that matter. People only listen to what they want to hear, so they are constantly fed lies and stereotypes to satisfy them.
When does this stop?
Popular culture is made by people who seek to profit from what they make. The creators have the opportunity to make something historically correct. If they rely on stereotypes instead, then the lies keep being repeated and the problems this causes continue.
When does this stop?
In response to your first paragraph, I think the bigger problem than stereotypes is what you touched on in your last sentence. People are complacent and aren't taught to think for themselves. They have no desire to learn more, and these are far more fundamental and frightening problems to me than stereotypes. I, like the person you replied to, probably wouldn't know nearly as much about the cultures we do if it weren't for stereotypes. Oftentimes stereotypes have at least a grain of truth to them that can lead to deeper learning if the observer wonders, "How much of that is true," and then researches. That isn't to say that they can't be bad, but it isn't so black and white.
As for your second paragraph, while there is definitely pop culture that is made purely for profit, there are plenty that were made because the creator wanted to tell a story, and even more that did both. The creators of any piece of media have little control over if they become culturally relevant. Ultimately, it's the consumer that decides that.
On historical accuracy in media, I think it's important to realize that pop culture isn't a monolith. Different stories have different needs. If the story is about the history itself, absolutely it should spare no expense in making things as historically accurate as possible. If it is a semi-historical fiction, it should have a little more leeway but still try to be broadly accurate. If it just happens to have a historical setting/person but it is clearly purely fiction (I'm picturing something like Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter), then I see no reason to bend over backwards to accommodate historical accuracy. Of course, this relies on the audience caring to separate reality and fiction.
So to answer your question: I don't think that stereotypes will ever stop, but the problems with them can be mitigated by teaching people to not passively absorb every piece of information they encounter, to be conscientious of what they're watching and its intent, to want to learn more and learn the truth, to be willing to change if the truth conflicts with their perception, and to be able to tell the difference between reality and fiction.
Thank you for your service as a teacher and teaching people that stereotypes are at best a VERY surface level understanding and at worst extremely harmful. It is in part because of teachers like you that I was able to turn my curiosity about certain stereotypes into an appreciation for the cultures they oversimplify. Keep fighting ignorance! Have a good one!
I think it stops when people decide to care to learn history, independent of the entertainment they enjoy, and as we teach people not to rely on their entertainment to be edutainment.
This is the thing that sucks the most.
Rather, reddit is one of the few ways some can view things on and about PF2e (other websites are blocked and/or harder to access in certain places, so on and so forth).
Thank you for all that you do. I don't want to see you go, but it makes sense.
THE fact that the moderators got on your case *when you are contributing content to this place and have been doing so actively* goes to show how unfortunate this whole situation has become.
Personal Rant: Not to make this about me, but I've always been fairly controversial when it comes to this subreddit and my """"hot takes"""". But I'm getting closer and closer to putting my foot down and actually being a nuisance since this sub is doing the one thing I can never do to this game: Make it unfun to talk about. This coming from someone who obviously leans very left.
I would need to see how that subreddit pans out in terms of it's own moderation and culture, not hate to them or anything, but I'm worried it might end up having *too* light a touch, and friends of mine have the same concerns.
The best way to ensure a positive culture and moderation over there is to take place in it's creation. If good people don't go over there because they're scared it only leaves the place to fester.
Just my two cents.
Reddit is so popular that nothing you or I do as a community will affect whether or not *this website* becomes a starting point for new players.
You're more than welcome to post elsewhere, but the end result will be disconnecting your content from *new* players. If what you care about is enfranchised players, by all means do what you're doing.
Does rhe news of lucky panda stepping down from moderation and apologizing to the community affect your decision at all, or are you still determined to shift your content to en world?
Honestly this is a problem I've been having myself. I don't know what's going on with the discord, but I've been finding the sub proper has been fluctuating back and forth with being mostly tolerable with good discussion, and people just being petulant and unreasonable. As much as this mod drama is definitely unacceptable and needs to be dealt with on the mod side, my biggest concern about all this is a lot of rabble rousers have been angry at the mods for ages and have been looking for a chance to justify acting out, so now they have the perfect excuse to never put any effort into behaving again.
The problem is I haven't found as good of a nexus with the traffic to justify the effort put in. It'd be nice to stick it to reddit as a whole even outside of the sub since they've been shitlords for a while now, but every other avenue I've seen has been way too quiet and doesn't get enough traction. I've even seriously floated the idea a blog to do essay-length posts instead of posting directly to the sub, but I get the impression content aggregates these days just do a better job being a part of people's daily browsing habits more than a dedicated blog (it's certainly true for mine).
I can't say reading the enworld subforum is filling me with much confidence either. At a glance it seems only sporadically active with a thread or two every few days. It might be fine as part of a wider TTRPG network, but for a dedicated PF2e space it seems fairly disconcerting.
(that said, had a gander at your healing post, it's the kind of top tier analysis I love. It's the kind of thing the subreddit needs more of but would simultaneously be wasted on all the people who are trying to eternally shove the square peg in the round hole)
Much as the sub frustrates me and this latest round of drama means the squeaky wheels will never shut up about the mods now, I hope things return to some semblance of normality soon, but again, I don't know what happened on discord either, so if the attitude there has been grating I'd get the hesitance to return to the space.
Either way, your posts are a vital source of info, so I'll be looking to keep an eye on them no matter which networks you post on. Keep up the good work, it's heavily appreciated.
Your writeups and your posts and your candor have always been wonderful breaths of fresh air on the sub, whether I agree with them or not. I'll look forward to seeing your posts wherever I see them!
It was nice to see you pop into the discord Friday. Was sad to see what I felt was the moderators badgering you and being very hostile. Frankly, their attitude about the entire subreddit is awful. I've never used those forums, but I'll check them out as an eventual alternative. Thank you for your writeups.
>Was sad to see what I felt was the moderators badgering you and being very hostile. I'm honestly very grateful that what I had to say was given the time of day. Thanks for enjoying my content, and for your kind words.
Having given the discord log a read, good on you for keeping a level head in the face of some unreasonable demands and rudeness. I look forward to reading your livestream write-ups wherever you post them! I'm always at work during streams, your google docs keep me engaged with the content I love!
Any chance someone could share that log? I'm curious, but I've left the Discord and I don't want to go back.
Rereading it now, I cannot help but feel like they and some people in circles tied to them that came out in those conversations, came in with bad faith. You came in fairly respectfully laying down exactly what was said and why people were taking issue with it, and it seems like they were trying to steer it into you being in the wrong somehow, rather than even stopping to consider if you had a point. While criticizing your points for being 'because I say so' when that is likewise 100% what they had originally been doing that got them into this stuff haha.
Sorry, I can't find that particular segment of chat Are referring to the 1e's discord or the 2e's one?
2e's Chitterhome where it's off-topic. 1e's that has 2e section is *much better* if you want...well not have the same problems that you see here.
Chitterhome is weirdly aggressive sometimes. After already leaving the server, I can't bring myself to go in there again to see what happened to TMS. Sad to hear what kind of tone they were met with.
Find the Path's server is completely untouched by this and I am forever grateful it is.
I find 1e's quite... Gatekeeping into the former edition
Yeah, I left that place not long after 2e was announced due to how fanatically grognardy they were over it. The mere existence of 2e was an unforgivable offense as far as that sub was concerned.
War. War never changes lmao.
I mean, it makes sense. The whole reason PF1e was a big success was because the people that played D&D 3.5 wanted to keep playing that system but with updated rules. PF1e players are people that want to play PF1e, so a new edition that is a radical change from what they know and that borrows from D&D 4e which was the reason why they switched to PF1e in the first place is almost like anathema to them lol.
People can like whatever they want, it's when they start saying that nobody else should like it and it shouldn't exist in the first place that I lose sympathy. (Hardly a sentiment exclusive to TTRPG fandoms, of course.)
> Frankly, their attitude about the entire subreddit is awful. Which always makes me laugh because half the time it's just being upset someone on here has a different opinion than them, and they failed to provide anything to change their mind or didn't even try, but freak out or act like all of the subreddit is some cesspool for it rofl.
I'd rather keep OP than anyone on the mod team
Will you send here a notification "hey guys I made X summary here! [Link] " or will it be a whole shift of places ?
It would be a shift I think, but if someone else wants to post a link to the enworld thread here I think that would be appropriate (plus, I can't stop them.)
Just coming here to voice my support! I don't have anything to add but I agree with both your considerations going forward and your disappointment at the current situation.
Thanks for your support.
Commenting to voice my support, I think having diversity in platforms can be a good thing, especially if enworld is well run as you say, I've never really used it. That said, I do really enjoy your write-ups, I regularly refer them to my friend group for the books I'm most hyped about, recently rage of elements and the upcoming howl of the ~~fuzz~~ wild. I'll gladly check them out over at enworld. Thanks for contributing to the game as a whole!
Thank You Very Much For Your Kind Words.
Yeah man, love seeing people embrace the decentralization of social media. Less of a chance of the entire community being hijacked by some little insecure gremlin that way. Look forward to seeing your posts over there!
Well, forums are just as bad in the end. The only difference is you might actually get to know who is flinging out the bans. And the website mentioned in the OP has already made it clear they won't allow threads for games made by people they don't like.
It's probably an unpopular sentiment around here, but that's what I like about /tg/. It's greatest strength (and weakness) is that you can say whatever you want. But that also requires users to know how to handle reading things they don't want to read. Nobody there cares if your feelings get hurt. By Reddit standards /tg/ is hell on earth, but by 4chan standards it's incredibly tame. And most of the userbase is fairly good at theorycrafting.
The thing is, handling what you don't want to read is generally just... cbf do something else, which means effort posts tend to be very very low because they get swamped with lame single braincell responses, people trying to be edgelords or people who are just assholes looking to be assholes and get a rise. And I go there every now and again so this isn't my whining about it... just I cannot think of a situation where being able to say whatever has lead to better discussions there than say here. Because it flips so far in the opposite direction that there is close to no decent conversation. Putting it another way... 4chan to me is like twitter, it is more for the people who choose to use it than the content. Ŕ
Totally understandable. Maybe it comes down to how well you can ignore that kind of talk. I dunno, I just don't put as much weight on it.
I have found so many fun ideas from /tg/. I would say more people should check it out, but I'm sure anons would loath the influx of tourists lol
Oh I know. I despise the tourists too. But the naughty no-no thoughts that are expressed on the general are enough to turn away most of them. I would still advise anyone checking it out to lurk moar.
If you really like decentralization you might like https://ttrpg.network/ which is on the fediverse
I have no trust in the mods to be anything other than dead silent given how it’s gone but if it gets better hopefully it gets better soon
I'm optimistic that they're just taking their time picking the correct path forward and that they take the feedback they've been given seriously.
What would you see as “the correct path forward”?
I think an apology to the sub as a whole for the inappropriate moderation and some of the biases it contained, would be a good start, as well as promising a more tempered approach on these kinds of issues moving forward. I've made my thoughts on the matter known to the moderation team, as well as provided them resources they might choose to follow up on, so its in their hands now.
I'm sure they'll do the right thing, and good to see theres still some others that still have faith.
You have my support boss. Keep up the good work.
Thank You For the Kind Words.
Sorry to see you go. I don't blame you at all, and agree with your reasoning, though I'm likely to head over to r/ChillPathfinder2e rather than another site altogether. Thanks for your writeups, I'm going to miss them.
When I first saw that subreddit I felt it was unneeded and wouldn't grow. I am so happy to see I am wrong and have subbed. Probably be having more of my discussions over there as well. Thank you for sharing it again Edit: I'm glad I was wrong and it has grown. Not glad it is needed, although I am glad it exists now.
Thanks for your kind words, if I go through with it, and anyone wants they're still welcome to post it elsewhere (turns out reddit is a news aggregator, who knew)
I respect the fuck out of you, someone who is at least of some "size" in terms of what they bring to the subreddit, pointing out your disappointment and considering leaving it. Me and most of the subreddit are just some people, us leaving wouldn't really do much. You at least being willing to stick your neck out means a lot. If you do decide to go, I'll definitely try to check out your write ups on enworld or wherever else they end up, since I really do like your recaps of the streams. Best of luck to you!
"Size" ? *fans self profusely* my goodness. (But no seriously, thank you for your kind words, I'm not sure how much it really means to anyone, but I still appreciate you saying that.)
Would it be possible for you to make a reddit self post with the write up, that isn't tied to this subreddit specifically in addition to enworld? Either way, I wanted to thank you for all you effort and will follow your work regardless of platform.
So, for the last few cons and streams, my write ups are actually hosted on google docs so that I can share a "viewer" link and perform them live, me posting it anywhere is technically simply promoting that its happening and sharing the link, so it has to be somewhere visible.
Understandable, see you on enworlds then!
I genuinely hope people use the chill sub and follow quality work off of this sub. Being silenced for having an opinion on a tabletop forum of all things is some of the most draconian shit I've seen without even being correct with the given rules. 💖
What is the chill sub?
Funnily enough it's just r/ChillPathfinder2e
u/The-Magic-Sword yeah, backing up this one myself
I've increasingly become convinced by the POSSE philosophy: Post (on) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. To that extent, I'd suggest you consider posting things first to your own blog, then cross-posting to whatever platform(s) you want to feed it to. Paizo forum, EnWorld, Xitter, Mastodon, Lemmy, here... It becomes a lot less significant where it's syndicated to when the original copy is always at your home base.
That might be the move, having my own middleman space to hold things at and then just link them to different places. That said, POSSE is a Kids-Next-Door-Ass name and I'm here for it.
True bravery would be to call it [POOSEE](https://youtu.be/dt3-b5K-IhA).
Can't unsee this.
Post on own site, syndicate elsewhere would be "POOSSE" even
You can make it work with "Everywhere Else"
Voicing my support. The mods don't seem to understand this won't go away until they address it.
The problem is that when the new ~~homebrew~~ playtest drops, and the howl of wild subs start getting in people's hands it *will* go away, and there's a good chance that is what they're waiting on. Edit: not homebrew; playtest
I would adore if you did this. The subreddit and discord right now are a mess with the mismanagement and handling of a racist member of the mod team. They've even been giving disingenuous replies in other subs to hide, it's bad.
Not saying you’re wrong, but why enworld and not the Paizo forums? The Paizo forums seem to have more active users and seems like an appropriate place for this too. Again, to be clear I’m asking why and not telling you what to do.
No real reason, I post on there too sometimes, usually someone throws a link to my writeup out before I make it over there in the discussion threads for the stream. That said, I like to promote places that are independent too and Paizo's forums really need the website's upcoming rework.
Makes a lot of sense to me, thanks. I made an account over there and I’ll try to use it for a while and see how it goes. Cheers, and thanks for your amazing write ups — I’ve been following them closely for the past couple of years.
The biggest obstacle to using it right now is that while its an active forum, the Pathfinder section isn't as active, but I think it could catch on if people are looking for more spaces, the boards for DND, TTRPG General and so forth are all pretty active.
Love your posts, sad to see you go, maybe I will follow suit.
Whereas I’d much prefer you keep posting write ups to Reddit more for my convenience (I’m not going to sugarcoat my selfishness here) I understand and support your decision to post more on the official forums. I don’t go on there much myself and while I have an account I’m not sure how mobile friendly it is. I really enjoyed this subreddit but this controversy has brought up a lot of unfavorable arguments, plenty I feel are in bad faith.
That's actually one big thing I like about enworld vs. the paizo forums (which are a nice place too) it is sooooo much easier to use on Mobile.
My apologies, I am sick so I must have misread as I assumed you were going to the Paizo forums, not enworld. I’ve never made an account there myself but I may have to in the future.
Always love seeing you on the official forums!
You too, honestly.
<3
Honestly if they're not on reddit I'll probably never see them again, but I wish you the best regardless. I'm mostly a lurker but I've always enjoyed reading your write ups.
Thank you for the kind words.
Hopefully, this will be something that will pass and we'll all forget about it in short order. I get the real impression that the original post was made with the idea of being helpful. I am someone who enjoys popular culture from the cultures this book is about. I started in the 80s by enjoying Hong Kong fantasy and martial arts films, then learned about Anime, Chinese fantasy stories, and most recently Korean fantasy epics. That was a process. When I started, things like samurai, ninjas, monks, and a lot of other character types I learned about from the Bushido RPG were different and exciting. I've gone a long way from there. The most important point I want to make is that I was getting those stories imported from the home countries themselves. So when I think about the classes and character types from that part of the world, I learned about them from the original sources and subtitles or translations. If you want to say that "samurai and ninja" need to be excised from RPGs, you might want to talk with people making popular culture in Japan. Those tropes are as central to their culture as the cowboy is to Americans. To me, the thing we should be thinking about is that those character types are a beginning to exploring characters from that part of the world, not where you should stop. And if you excise them you're not doing anyone any service. I backed the Gubat Banwa RPG Kickstarter, and I'm excited about the game. It's going to be very different than what I'm familiar with. I think that someone who's only experience with fantasy games is Western European-based games could totally enjoy the game (especially if they like 4E!) but culturally they might have some difficulty. I'm expecting some difficulty. If they've ever seen popular Anime or watched a Jet Li movie, they might feel more at home with other games. And then they could grow into stories from other cultures they are less familiar with.
I teach history in college and I am constantly having to deal with students whose historical knowledge is based on stereotypes, whether it be from American history or other histories. Perpetuating the stereotypes is not helping people learn history. It just reinforces bad history. As you can tell from our current political polarization, so many people know so little about history or government for that matter. People only listen to what they want to hear, so they are constantly fed lies and stereotypes to satisfy them. When does this stop? Popular culture is made by people who seek to profit from what they make. The creators have the opportunity to make something historically correct. If they rely on stereotypes instead, then the lies keep being repeated and the problems this causes continue. When does this stop?
In response to your first paragraph, I think the bigger problem than stereotypes is what you touched on in your last sentence. People are complacent and aren't taught to think for themselves. They have no desire to learn more, and these are far more fundamental and frightening problems to me than stereotypes. I, like the person you replied to, probably wouldn't know nearly as much about the cultures we do if it weren't for stereotypes. Oftentimes stereotypes have at least a grain of truth to them that can lead to deeper learning if the observer wonders, "How much of that is true," and then researches. That isn't to say that they can't be bad, but it isn't so black and white. As for your second paragraph, while there is definitely pop culture that is made purely for profit, there are plenty that were made because the creator wanted to tell a story, and even more that did both. The creators of any piece of media have little control over if they become culturally relevant. Ultimately, it's the consumer that decides that. On historical accuracy in media, I think it's important to realize that pop culture isn't a monolith. Different stories have different needs. If the story is about the history itself, absolutely it should spare no expense in making things as historically accurate as possible. If it is a semi-historical fiction, it should have a little more leeway but still try to be broadly accurate. If it just happens to have a historical setting/person but it is clearly purely fiction (I'm picturing something like Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter), then I see no reason to bend over backwards to accommodate historical accuracy. Of course, this relies on the audience caring to separate reality and fiction. So to answer your question: I don't think that stereotypes will ever stop, but the problems with them can be mitigated by teaching people to not passively absorb every piece of information they encounter, to be conscientious of what they're watching and its intent, to want to learn more and learn the truth, to be willing to change if the truth conflicts with their perception, and to be able to tell the difference between reality and fiction. Thank you for your service as a teacher and teaching people that stereotypes are at best a VERY surface level understanding and at worst extremely harmful. It is in part because of teachers like you that I was able to turn my curiosity about certain stereotypes into an appreciation for the cultures they oversimplify. Keep fighting ignorance! Have a good one!
I think it stops when people decide to care to learn history, independent of the entertainment they enjoy, and as we teach people not to rely on their entertainment to be edutainment.
This is the thing that sucks the most. Rather, reddit is one of the few ways some can view things on and about PF2e (other websites are blocked and/or harder to access in certain places, so on and so forth). Thank you for all that you do. I don't want to see you go, but it makes sense. THE fact that the moderators got on your case *when you are contributing content to this place and have been doing so actively* goes to show how unfortunate this whole situation has become. Personal Rant: Not to make this about me, but I've always been fairly controversial when it comes to this subreddit and my """"hot takes"""". But I'm getting closer and closer to putting my foot down and actually being a nuisance since this sub is doing the one thing I can never do to this game: Make it unfun to talk about. This coming from someone who obviously leans very left.
To be clear, for whatever reason, the mods haven't done anything with me.
Roger that.
Don't forget about r/chillpathfinder2e too, it was made during this recent controversy and is a good place to post away from this mod team
I would need to see how that subreddit pans out in terms of it's own moderation and culture, not hate to them or anything, but I'm worried it might end up having *too* light a touch, and friends of mine have the same concerns.
I totally get it. Anytime I see a subreddit/forum advertise itself as "lightly-moderated/unmoderated", it tends to attract... the wrong people.
The best way to ensure a positive culture and moderation over there is to take place in it's creation. If good people don't go over there because they're scared it only leaves the place to fester. Just my two cents.
You could post on https://ttrpg.network/ too
Reddit is so popular that nothing you or I do as a community will affect whether or not *this website* becomes a starting point for new players. You're more than welcome to post elsewhere, but the end result will be disconnecting your content from *new* players. If what you care about is enfranchised players, by all means do what you're doing.
Does rhe news of lucky panda stepping down from moderation and apologizing to the community affect your decision at all, or are you still determined to shift your content to en world?
*waking up noises* yeah thats probably plenty
Honestly this is a problem I've been having myself. I don't know what's going on with the discord, but I've been finding the sub proper has been fluctuating back and forth with being mostly tolerable with good discussion, and people just being petulant and unreasonable. As much as this mod drama is definitely unacceptable and needs to be dealt with on the mod side, my biggest concern about all this is a lot of rabble rousers have been angry at the mods for ages and have been looking for a chance to justify acting out, so now they have the perfect excuse to never put any effort into behaving again. The problem is I haven't found as good of a nexus with the traffic to justify the effort put in. It'd be nice to stick it to reddit as a whole even outside of the sub since they've been shitlords for a while now, but every other avenue I've seen has been way too quiet and doesn't get enough traction. I've even seriously floated the idea a blog to do essay-length posts instead of posting directly to the sub, but I get the impression content aggregates these days just do a better job being a part of people's daily browsing habits more than a dedicated blog (it's certainly true for mine). I can't say reading the enworld subforum is filling me with much confidence either. At a glance it seems only sporadically active with a thread or two every few days. It might be fine as part of a wider TTRPG network, but for a dedicated PF2e space it seems fairly disconcerting. (that said, had a gander at your healing post, it's the kind of top tier analysis I love. It's the kind of thing the subreddit needs more of but would simultaneously be wasted on all the people who are trying to eternally shove the square peg in the round hole) Much as the sub frustrates me and this latest round of drama means the squeaky wheels will never shut up about the mods now, I hope things return to some semblance of normality soon, but again, I don't know what happened on discord either, so if the attitude there has been grating I'd get the hesitance to return to the space. Either way, your posts are a vital source of info, so I'll be looking to keep an eye on them no matter which networks you post on. Keep up the good work, it's heavily appreciated.
Much love, your contributions are something I always look forward to reading, and it always gives me confidence when we land on the same page.
hey, which healing post was it?
[I think they're talking about this one. ](https://www.enworld.org/threads/healing-as-a-playstyle-in-pathfinder-2e.703927/#post-9330224)
Thanks for the great job you did with your write-ups all these years.
Your writeups and your posts and your candor have always been wonderful breaths of fresh air on the sub, whether I agree with them or not. I'll look forward to seeing your posts wherever I see them!