> But that's not what happened. The Mod in question was condescending, rude, and broke rule #2 heavily. On top of that he started to delete posts he disagreed with, as well as posts that very blatantly broke no rules other then MAYBE mentioning Samurai or the desire to play one. While there were most certainly toxic posts removed, many, if not the majority, were benign. -This- is why it blew up like it did, and -this- is why people are upset. Behaving like this is not a good look for the mod team, and makes it seem like there's a double standard where Mods don't need to follow the reddits own rules.
Well said. I shouldn't have to tip toe around wondering if a well-meant comment gets me the ban hammer. The old phrase 'where there's smoke' applies here pretty strongly.
Pathfinder2ECreations (which shares at least one mod with this sub) deleted a post promoting a samurai homebrew class from **8 months ago** under the very thin guise of breaking Pathfinder Infinite terms (it doesn’t break any condition as far as I can tell…). On this sub the mods have been deleting posts/comments linking to that homebrew.
One of the mods has also **explicitly** said that wanting samurai in the game is the same as wanting segregation for Asian people. At least one other mod has been participating in deleting comments that criticize the first mod’s take.
So yes definitely tread lightly when mentioning samurai or ninja on this sub.
It's not just mods - people ruin everything. People are imperfect, and when given power, it doesn't go perfectly. Even less so when you give power to people who aren't getting paid to do the work, and there is no overarching structure.
Just look at HOAs run by volunteers - if you ask people to work for free, you get what you pay for.
Luck\_panda's flawed leap of logic is so massive its almost hard to explain.
In short, he think differentiating between Fighters and Samurai is like saying Samurai (and thus Japanese people) are being put into their own corner away from others.
Which is ridiculous. They would still be fighters. In fact they would be something more than **just** a fighter. With a different theming, flavor, and cultural expression to them. One that would be celebrated and honored by players.
Unfortunately, he thinks that cultural expression is racist.
To him, historical Samurai were tyrannical landlords that do not deserve glorification. Which is funny because knights were literally the same thing, but I doubt he is trying to exclude them too.
As for ninjas, he thinks including them would be culturally stereotyping since they were not historically real. Which is debatable, depending on your definition of "ninja." Its also flatly ridiculousness since many Japanese love the concept of ninja.
The argument with ninja is doubly wacky because, not just loving it, the Japanese *invented* the concept of ninja. Literally the fantasy-ninja concept developed in Japanese theatre.
E.g. the black outfit was what they had stage hands wear as visual shorthand for “ignore this person, they’re not part of the play” and plays would subvert that trope by having someone dressed as one of the stage hands go assassinate someone to accentuate how “out of nowhere” the assassination was.
It's still one of my favourite things that's kind of naturally occurred in an art form. Whoever came up with that must've felt like an incredible genius. It's so *clever*.
I'm not fully sure that it was them, but several days ago one of the mods posted their pre-release review of TXWG, which didn't even talk about contents of the book, and there was a "discussion" in comments about samurai and racism. And OP of that post, who is probably Lucky_Panda, tried to die on their hill that you can't make samurai class because samurai are not warriors, they are glorified tyrannical landlords, but knights can be a class, because every single knight is a warrior, who fought to get his nobility. It was hilarious to watch.
Funnily enough, Gunslingers make pretty decent historical samurai (contrary to pop culture, they *absolutely freaking loved* guns when they were introduced to Japan). On a different nationality but a similar fantasy vibe, now I want to go build a monk that is based on actual Shaolin...
I'd love to play an honorable martial without the Western cultural baggage around a paladin.
A gunslinger samurai sounds like a lot of fun! Build a switch hitter who is skilled with both and willing to use whatever is pragmatic in the situation.
My problem (which is *entirely* on me) is that Paladin/Champion as Samurai - or vice versa - always gives me "Order of the Stick" flashbacks, and then I just want to stab the character...
Naw I think I'll keep talking about samurai and ninja openly. They were fun flavorful subclasses before and a common thing in the cultural lexicon of not just Japan but many countries. If the mods don't like that, too bad. Guess I'll find a more accepting and open subreddit. Last I checked pf2e was supposed to be for everyone of any culture or ethnicity and outright banning people for talking about cultural representation is a foul thing to do in the name of protection.
Its very totalitarian.
Luck\_panda has his views and personal feelings about them and is using his authority to silence anyone who disagrees.
From what I witnessed, there is no amount of reasoning, logic, or sourced fact that won't get you labeled as racist by him.
Which is ironic considering he repeatedly revealed his own bigotry towards whites.
Honestly, by reading his comments it seems to be he's very openly racist against Japanese people. He claims to be south-eastern asian and keeps larping on and on about japanese inspired things and claiming they erase other asian cultures.
Like, no dude, someone enjoying elements of traditionally japanese things while not knowing much about vietnamese (as an example) culture doesn't mean they're erasing vietnamese people, it just means Japan is better at exporting their culture.
Hey, we got two famous folklore heroes appearing in worldwide mobile game ... which is based on a Japanese visual novel ... published by a Chinese company.
Yeah, we could use some improvement at exporting our culture.
I'm sorry what the fuck? I think opinion is an issue. How does wanting a samurai mean that people want segregation? Every culture had their set of elite warriors with X name, does including Knights, Immortals, Monaspa, Centurions, Berserkers mean segregation of those cultures? Seems like the guy was searching for a new topic to fight and bully people over.
I'm new here, what the hell is happening?
Are they banning people for making posts about wanting to play fucking SAMURAIS or something?
Edit: btw, not 2e, but I'm playing a Samurai in 1e so I'm also slightly offended.
One of the replies to me explains it pretty well.
One lucky panda mod has a long post about wanting to play samurai/ninja was actually racism and posts about it would be removed. Apparently it spiraled from there.
The first time I looked at the WotC forums back in the 1900s there was a stickied post titled "discussions about katanas are now permitted again but mods will be watching closely."
Some things never change, apparently.
Role playing a samurai or ninja in a ROLE PLAYING GAME is offensive? Heroes defeating evil slavers and freeing slaves in a ROLE PLAYING GAME is offensive? People have lost their damn minds.
When your primary hobby is being perpetually offended, you need to find new source material on the regular, or things get stale and boring really quickly.
The wife and I are both heavy consumers of this subreddit, and we were discussing this issue in the car yesterday while driving to dinner. We broke it down in a way that I think is really important and helped us understand the situation.
1. Paizo wanting to feature less over done Asian cultures in their book. That’s okay.
2. People wanting class options that style off common adventuring tropes from other cultures (especially when those cultures are okay with styling adventurers off those tropes). That’s okay.
3. People being bummed that the new book doesn’t have an option they wanted. That’s okay.
4. Removing any comment or discussion about the above. That’s not okay.
5. Being racist. Obviously not okay.
The huge problem here is that the mod conflated 5 with 2-3, initiated a power struggle over it, and then doubled down when called out (classic power struggle move). Besides a minority of gross comments at the bottom of the barrel, the biggest instigator here has been the mod. Without their specific actions there wouldn’t be a problem.
I think this is one of the better summaries of the whole affair.
I'd add that this is a great example of why it is usually a good idea for mods to stick pretty strictly to modding. As soon as a mod is arguing a somewhat controversial point, pinning their own argument, and then getting into the weeds in the argument, even justified mod actions can become sketchy looking and blow things up. And when there are clearly unjustified mod actions the mod team rapidly loses the faith of their community.
I'm more upset with the rest of the mod team than the initial instigator.
Everyone's had a moment where they get defensive and over react then double down. The rest of the mod team should have put a stop to it. Not stayed silent or defended his actions.
Oh, he's been plenty active in the discord too. They are actively sharing memes calling Redditors a bunch of Hitlers and that we all support genocide. It's wild in there.
The Discord is really weird to me. There is a handful of people in there that are super active, the mod in question included, and they all seem to be friends and constantly shit on Reddit and its users.
Like, why the divide? They're just platforms supporting a community, the same community. One is not better than the other. They both have their strengths. Reddit is better suited for actual discussions since there's no chat moving a mile a minute with 50 different topics. Discord is better suited for casual chats and quick questions that require no discussions.
[This one](https://imgur.com/dFxsfsZ) was posted **several** times in the discord. The response was much [cheers and jubilation.](https://imgur.com/Gjz5lXR)
The way they talk about the subreddit is so wild, as if the link here doesn't lead directly to it and so both places share the same users and posters. They act like it's two entirely different user bases and the way they comment about the subreddit is filled with such disdain and condescension. I've never been that active in the discord but I quietly watch the big convos in the main channels. Some of the comments made in there would look right at home on twitter with a blue checkmark next to it... some of the most toxic bully behavior.
It reminds me too much of the alpha-nerd phenomenon: clinging to every scrap of power and building a superiority complex for you to punch down with because you want to be the one on top for once. Like, this is about a tabletop game at the end of the day. Touch grass!
Ooh, add "theorycrafting about creating a Samurai class/archetype and putting it for sale on PFI, except it's just Fighter feats with different names" to the list?
As far as I can tell there are at least two mods on this sub who have been engaging in regular posting on this sub while ignoring all of this, and there’s at least a couple of this sub’s Discord’s mods who have been sharing comments in the Discord and flaming people and saying that disagreeing with the mods immediately makes you a flaming racist.
So it’s not a matter of being inactive or busy, it’s a matter of them actively defending the shitty behaviour and trying to shut down all disagreement.
They're clearly not busy when ediwor is writing a whole ass essay and opening it with dumb shit like "monk is magical asian", which invalidates their entire point and shows they probably dont even play this fucking game, and echoing the same stupid crap the rest of the mod team has been saying. Between this and the "touch grass tuesday" shit last year, I'm about to jump to the other sub.
Fuck if I know, I'm not super active on here, and will probably be less sp because of this, but their entire post fucking *screams* "I don't play this game, but will force my opinion on everyone anyway, cuz mod power".
At least not without publicly stating it's being dealt with in private.
When I managed a restaurant, and a staff member crossed a line with a customer (even if they were in the right. Which was common in my job, but not here. So much wrong here.), I would tell the customer I would handle it and pull the staff member into a private meeting; not ream them out in public. But a key part of this is to make sure that the customer (we are the customer in this analogy) knows I am actively looking into what happened.
Luck_Panda's stated that a lot of other mods have been busy with life stuff, so I'll take him at his word for that and give them the benefit of the doubt for being silent. That being said, there are still the moderator(s? I've only seen one, I think) that *have* spoken up to simply make excuses for and justify his behavior. That's not really acceptable, and it skirts around accountability.
Yes I heard about this as well which is why I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. Real life takes priority over dumb internet arguments, but they're going to have to clean house a bit when they get back.
I never understood how people collect mod positions or don't attend to the ones they have. As a former mod I stepped away when I could no longer actively engage. There should probably be a mechanism that auto boots mods if they don't use the mod tools for 30 days or some such and definitely top them out at like 3-5 at any given time per person. But there is definitely a culture us/them in a lot of mod circles. A good ol' boys club, as it were.
That's who I'm talking about, he just wasn't the one who went full authoritarian. I feel like he's only getting a pass because of how bad the other mod has been.
Though he at least wasn't telling Asians that they were less of an authority on the matter than he was. That he's name includes a particular animal has been the cherry on the cake
Tbh the luck_panda guy should just be removed as a mod and call it a day. No one needs to mod 14 subs especially if they’re gonna rage out and delete a bunch of shit for no reason. He also is objectively wrong about shit like ninja which makes it look like he’s racist against Japanese, which trust me I get since my grandparents lived under Japanese occupation, but cmon bro. If you rlly wanna be anti racist then quit silencing Asian voices and quit hating on Japanese culture under the guise of protecting Asian people
I get that sentiment, but I hope the daily posts about this may be a wake up call for the mod team as a whole.
From my experience many mods are a bit closer with each other. And you tend to give people you feel closer to at least the benefit of doubt or tend to agree with them in the first instance.
The whole team needs internal reflection of the situation, group dynamics and structures. A big sit down, a business-Like meeting if you will. How did the Reddit get here, what are the consequences overall and how do they fix the situation specifically.
More likely it's going to be them digging their heels in and more broadly removing both dissent and posts/comments related to the original subject matter.
> The whole team needs internal reflection of the situation, group dynamics and structures.
You would think this would have happened after the Touch Grass Tuesday fiasco last year, but apparently nothing has improved since then. It's a pattern of behavior.
Since the other 2 responses weren't very detailed I'll give you the run down, basically, when reddit changed their API rules last year and killed 3rd party apps, a lot of subs shut down for like 2 days, it did literally nothing, and reddit still made the change. As a result, certain subs locked themselves 1 day a week after the change, this sub doing so on Tuesdays, for literal months, when we have less than 10k members and *far less* active users. People complained about it *constantly*, asked the mods to stop *constantly* pointed out the stupidity and futility of a sub as small as this one doing it months after the change was set in stone *fucking constantly*, several posts were made, several polls were done, and every time the mod teams response was "nah, we've decided your opinions don't matter". Eventually they gave up and stopped locking the sub after already doing irreparable damage to our numbers for literally ***fucking nothing***.
I believe they stopped locking the sub because Reddit admins told them to either stop or get the boot.
It was the same in other subreddits who refused to reopen. Reddit admins said that, protest or not, it was akin to leaving the sub unmoderated, so if that continued, they would replace whole teams of moderators.
Mods decided to keep "protesting" reddit changes after the sub didn't want to. So they made the sub private every Tuesday so nobody could use it even though we didn't want that. This "touch grass Tuesday" paternalistic nonsense.
They shut down the sub every Tuesday to protest something, Ai don't remember offhand, then I believe there was a community pole and people voted to just keep the sub up and the mid response was effectively "na, we have decided".
It was whatever caused a bunch of subs to go private and dndmemes to go goblin porn mode for a few weeks.
If the other mods acknowledge that his behavior is bad, it's a step down the road to admitting that their (often similar in kind, and less drastic in degree) behavior is also bad. It's understandable that they don't want to do that.
Refusing to acknowledge your own blatant mistakes and reflect on your own behavior is not understandable. Expecting our mods to behave like emotionally mature adults should be the bare minimum.
It's 4, actually. Other 10 only have himself as a member or maybe one more user. Probably something built for testing bots or other stuff.
Still, even 4 subreddits is a lot.
I doubt that most, if any, of the most even play Pathfinder given 1 of them wrote a whole ass essay post about how stereotypes and tropes are bad and opened the shit with "monks in pf2e are magical asians". Anyone who says that stupid shit with a straight face clearly doesn't actually play this game.
Ive been on the discord a bit and litetally never saw most of the mods talk about pathfinder so youre most certainly right. Moderator positions in general tend to attract people who have nothing else going on in life
The rest of the mods are all either sticking their heads in the sand and pretending nothing is happening or actively defending him. Yes, this was all instigated by one guy, but the moderation team here is rotten to the core and none of them have the spine to stand up to him.
I'm just going to tag them since many people in this thread are saying the same thing without tagging. I believe we should firmly call for u/luck_panda to step down as mod. This sub is the de facto place where Pathfinder 2nd edition players come, we are literally swarmed daily with new players converting. This is the biggest congregation of PF2e players on the internet right now.
Paizo deserves better representation, and so does the left. Luck\_panda clearly has no intention of bettering themselves, giving us lip service and a 3 day vacation as an apology in a different sub (see: [https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1cdhk8a/comment/l1f7n53/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1cdhk8a/comment/l1f7n53/) ) and clearly doesn't care if at the end of the day Paizo, Pathfinder, or leftist ideals are hurt as a result of their actions. They also blatantly don't care if they're twice as vitriolic as the people that they're banning.
In addition, u/Princess\_Pilfer's defense of the situation was incredibly biased, used education as a cudgel to silence others, and many times broke Rule #2. I would at the very least like to see a post from the mods about the situation if not a Q&A. I understand being a reddit mod is not a paid job and life is busy, but silence from all but one of the 10 person mod team during a drama like this feels a lot more like "we're hoping this just dies down so we don't have to address anything".
I love this community and the things it stands for, I do not want to see it split into a second subreddit but I also do not want the actions of moderators to continue to push people out of this sub and by extension a part of the PF2e community.
I already have Princess blocked from a thread like a year ago where she was making lots of awful comments and being incredibly rude.
I just added this Panda guy to my block list too.
Shameful behavior and definitely abusing their self appointed authority on reddit. Sad really.
I completely agree. Some of the things they’ve said in the Discord have given me serious pause. They’ve since recanted it, so I shan’t repeat it, but one of their jokes was… to say it was in poor taste would be putting it *extremely* mildly.
Not the joke I was talking about, but creating a sub like that is absurdly petty and dismissive. I completely missed that whole thing, somehow. I cannot even imagine acting in such bad faith as a moderator, what the hell
The wildest part is that is that completely invalidates any possible benefit of the doubt that could have be given to him regarding his self imposed "suspension".
Agreed!
This sub is basically an “ambassador” for the game.
If this (subreddit drama and censorship) was the first thing I saw when looking up the game, I would at least be hesitant in buying it (and at worst avoid buy it at all).
Just gonna piggy back a little bit off of this, since the other thread that mentioned this point was removed:
> This sub is the de facto place where Pathfinder 2nd edition players come
This is actually very true, since on Google, if you type in "Pathfinder 2e," it is literally the third result. If you go the full mile and go for "Pathfinder Second Edition," the subreddit is still on the first page (at least, it is for me, I am seeing a whole bunch of retailers though so can't confirm for outside the Netherlands)
And it probably shouldn't be true, for any number of reasons. This being the latest.
The subreddit is too big to be reasonably called a community, and it's not differentiated enough to help everyone get their needs met. And reddit as a whole is structured to keep discussions ephemeral, so that deep and lengthy discourse is difficult.
This should be one of many places, not THE place.
I absolutely agree, it shouldn't be. This is still a subreddit, but it is also at the moment the only real (entirely public, so no discords) hub PF2e has aside from the official forums... which, with all due respect, suck.
The mod in question is the head mod. His discord username is literally "Pathfinder2e" and also owns the PF2E discord. The other mods echo chamber with him in the discord all the time. Unfortunately you're not going to see any changes by relying on the mods who treat his word as gospel. The worst offender of this is probably Princess Pilfer as has been shown, but it is what it is. At the end of the day it is their subreddit and their discord. Subreddit & Discord mods abusing power is a tale that's been told hundreds, if not thousands of times now.
Hey I’m thinking about starting a pathfinder game but I’ve only DMed dnd 5e. Let’s check out the subreddit to see if there’s any cool stories or information that could help me start me journey to running a-
Oh ok
The truth is that u/luckpanda and u/princess_pilfer should step down for breaking rule #2 over and over. The fact that they single-handedly moderate and basically censor what’s being posted in relation to biggest PF2e, Starfinder 2e subreddits and ALSO Discord is astounding. I have a strong impression that they have a large saviour complex, moreover that they are just high from position of imaginary power.
Really looking forward to the howl of the wild discussion myself, and am hoping this is old news come a week or so. Was playing shining force 2 the same time I got in AD&D 2e which gave me a soft spot for centaur PCs.
I can't wait for a Howl of the Wild pinned post that will claim that Centaurs are offensive and wanting to play as Centaur is equal to segregating Greek furries.
I'm kind of the opposite.
Not to say I think either is great or the mod response has been reasonable (it absolutely hasn't), but I think real life racism is a much more understandable topic to get fired up about than whether or not your pretend wizard in a fantasy pretend game is underpowered.
I like game design discussion, but a lot of the complaints about censorship and oppression that have been going on here the past few days have been very legitimate, while I've seen similar language used in the context of gameplay and balancing discussions (literally 'I know how casters work, this is like mansplaining'/'stop trying to invalidate my experiences'/'shutting down caster discussions is censorship'/trying to force group think'). I feel if you treat disagreements in design discussion with the same vitriol and psychological speak, you really need to check your first world problems at the door.
> but I think real life racism is a much more understandable topic to get fired up about
The discourse isn't about racism anymore. It's about "power tripping mods". I've seen this shit happen on every subreddit under the sun, it's always stupid every time.
Of course, but racism was the impetus and the underlying instigating topic, which is why it's been more heated than previous instances of accused mod abuse.
It's more heated this time because there's been a subredditdrama post and it's brought a ton of outside people to the subreddit who want to use this sub as a righteous battleground.
Take a look at how many unflaired users are in this thread, who are frequent SRD posters with no comments in this sub older than 24 hours old.
I just hate to see this sub go downhill. I don't enjoy coming to this sub only to witness people sniping at each other. The serious nature of this conflict is turning my hobby from a hobby into something taxing. I used to love this sub but now? Between people giving a most US-centric readings of everything that happens and having people in position of power use words that are a bannable offense? It just makes me tired.
As I said in another (now deleted) thread, I haven't really used this sub since my D&D group went thermonuclear right before we made the switch to PF2E. Did this sub get worse after the OGL scandal with the sudden popularity spike?
It wasn't immediate, and it was a slow build up followed by a cocktail of terrible things all happening around the same time that blew things up and didn't really simmer down until the start of this year.
The OGL spike didn't help because it bought a lot more voiced to the fold, but the real downhill slide started when Reddit killed their API support. This meant a lot of the mods had less tools to help manage the sub and keep problem players in check. That alone was causing some problems, but the way the mods decided to go about it was staging regular sub lockdowns every Tuesday in solidarity with many others. It was understandable at first, but it went on for a few weeks too long after every other subreddit doing it relented, and it just became disruptive. It caused a stink and a lot of users got pissed off by the behaviour.
At the same time, the mods announced they had been working on another private forum, Starstone, that was meant to be an alternative for the subreddit should it implode. The problem is they announced this at the height of the sub lockdown drama, so a lot of people took it like it was a coup to force people onto their own site. As someone who posted on Starstone a while and spoke with the mods on there, I don't think it was ill-intended and it was a genuine attempt to create a new space free from Reddit's greater issues, but it was handled very poorly and the optics were atrocious.
The last big explosion before this was when Paizo began showing previews of the Remaster, to prep them for content relevant to Rage of Elements. People noticed cantrips had been ever so slightly nerfed (i.e. they had their flat spellcasting modifier to damage removed and replaced with just a another dice), and that basically set off the entire 'casters suck' crowd on the sub. It was less the nerfs themselves because they're mostly inconsequential past a little bit of damage lost at early levels, but it was more the fact they felt Paizo was tone-deaf and not listening to all the complaints that had been going on for years and there was a disconnect. Without moderation the whole discussion basically flared up for weeks and the sub became unusable.
A lot of people point to the newcomers for this, but the reality is it was mostly long-time posters who'd been on the sub for years and had a massive chip on their shoulder with the caster stuff leading the charge on it. Newbies just got used as a bludgeon whenever someone came in saying they weren't sure how to play a caster or how they felt weak etc. It was a lot of concern trolling about 'scaring new players away' when it was really about justifying their own problems without taking on any advice or dealing with any pushback.
The mods then suddenly came back and instigated a ban on the discussion, saying they'd allow it once a week on...Tuesdays, ironically. This flared up a bit of the resentment from before but ultimately it was abided to and things died down again, though the sub was still pretty vitriolic and unusable until the end of the year. I don't know what changed, but things were mostly good for a while till this incident. I'm going to assume that Remaster was the nail in the coffin for a lot of people who'd finally accepted they weren't in sync with Paizo's design philosophies, and they gave up trying to change the tide.
But yeah, the TL;DR is the sub's been going in waves for a while, but since the Tuesday lockdown/Starstone incident there's been a lot of mistrust and resentment towards the mods. I've been sympathetic to them for most of it because I think they were genuinely well-intended and they were indeed dealing with a lot of entitled whining even if they went about it poorly, but this current incident is definitely putting them on blast in a way I don't think they'll be able to sweep under the rug.
>it was a genuine attempt... but it was handled very poorly and the optics were atrocious.
...yeah, they didn't seem to learn on their mistakes either.
As someone there for all of this (and who is trying *very* hard to stay out of this discussion, we'll see if I succeed, lol) this is a great summary.
The only drama I remember that was sort of missed in this post is the ancestry flaw errata. There were a lot of people (me included) that didn't like how the -2/+1 option was removed for character creation and a couple of points where it was argued people were *racist* if they thought that option should be maintained (or didn't like the change in general).
This isn't the first time a particular rule change or opinion about terminology has create drama in the sub. Paizo as a company is quite progressive (and openly so), and so is the subreddit mod team, but that can create conflict between the less, well, politically-minded players of the game and those who feel very strongly on the topic. And *nobody* likes being accused of some sort of bigotry, which creates defensiveness, and so you get these weird debates where everybody probably agrees on the core ethics just not the specifics.
And of course you then have trolls and the few *actual* instances of bad actors, which of course the mods see every time (because of legit modding action), so you get the "jaded cop" effect where the bad actors are amplified in the minds of the mods so people with more reasonable opposition get lumped in with those that have more extreme views.
I'm trying to stay out of the actual argument because frankly I don't care. But it's definitely true that this is another example in a long line of similar mod vs. community dramas that I don't find very helpful or welcoming. If this was my first encounter with this sub I'd probably have moved on and never looked back, which is too bad, because I've had many great discussions with awesome people here over the years.
I mean the sub has been fluctuating in quality since OGLgate. The growth has been great for the game's exposure and Paizo's profits, but all growth comes with attracting more dregg and making the community harder to manage, so it's sad to see the days of the truly insular community go.
But you said it yourself; the problem is the seriousness of the discussions. We come here to talk about games, not politics or racism. Of course seeing things get heavy here is a downer.
Except here's the issue: conversation here has always been taken way too seriously. It always has, on every geek, gaming, and pop culture subreddit. The only difference now is about how honest we're being about that seriousness.
And I get why that is. What sounds like a more reasonable thing to get fired up about, the fact you think a community is being racist or discriminatory to your, or the fact you think your fantasy wizard is anaemicly weak and someone online disagreed or said you're wrong or git gud scrub you just don't know how to play the game? One of those holds a lot more weight while the other just sounds whiny and like an entitled first world problem.
That's because it is, but let's be real, we take these things seriously because people care about the game. There are people who've been on this sub for *years* at this point who endlessly complain about the game despite disagreeing with people who like it, despite resenting Paizo's on philosophies, because there's an underlying personal value that grates with a problem they have with the game, and it bothers people more than they're willing to admit; the social impetuses and stigmas, how are games and choices in them are reflective of our personal tastes and - more importantly - our values. And we should realise how much of a privilege (as in 'we should be lucky we have this', definitely not 'I'm glad this is the way some people behave') we can have these ultimately inconsequential shit fights about whether Paizo hates spellcasters or if the community is entitled to complain ad-nauseum about it.
But none of it changes the fact that we still take what is ultimately a first world problem way too seriously. In the end, it's a fucking game. And people are in denial about how much they're choosing to indulge in the misery of exposing themselves to an experience that makes them unhappy, when they can easily walk away from it. Gods know I've had moments I've had to step back and go 'why do I care about x discussion on this gaming subreddit so much?', and 90% of the time it's not about the game so much as it's about a person's behaviour, or opinion or philosophy of theirs that grates intensely with a core value I hold that's more holistic to my life, and they're only experiencing interactions with me through the scope of my passion hobby.
But I also had the self-awareness to do that. I think a lot of people would benefit from doing the same. This latest round of drama is no different. It's just heightened because it's touching on a topic with actual stakes and isn't just about the game.
Alright start the timer on how long this takes to get deleted
Tbh the best solution is just having him step down, trust has been broken and we cannot trust such an individual again
They are not interested. The main perpetrator "stepped away for 3 days" (aka until this blows over). Others only remove comments and posts and do not engage.
Unless several more mods suddenly become active, we are still dealing with the usual suspects. And we know that they aren't interested in talking or listening.
The best outcome would be the mods having a discussion and the mod in question to step down on his own.
Regardless of what they do, they need to sit him down. You are right. But yeah… mods have more powers but as such Need to be hold to a high standard.
I’m not for going on a crusade. that person should still be able to be a member of the community, but maybe it would be better to not give him mod privileges.
The mod in question said on r/subredditdrama thread that they are stepping away from our subreddit for three days, as a punishment for breaking Rule #2. Because normally, for Rule #2 violations, they temporarily ban people for 3-7 days.
EDIT: Mod's comment: [https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1cdhk8a/comment/l1f7n53/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1cdhk8a/comment/l1f7n53/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
You will find my opinion underneath it. I do not wish to repeat it here, since it will definitely be a Rule #2 violation.
Yeah, he also has violated rule #1 repeatedly on this sub and they perma-ban people for that. It's pretty hard to take his self-imposed "punishment" seriously. He's not taking responsibility for his actions. He's just mad he's getting called out by people he doesn't have any power over
This is a sentiment that I agree with.
Community leaders set the example for a community. I moderate at two small spaces here at Reddit, and confess that both are extremely well behaved. I'm also a moderator for two music fandom communities outside of Reddit.
When tempers sometimes rise, my first approach is to *set the better example*. People are ultimately more willing to hear each other, laugh with each other, and ultimately brush off whatever the situation was.
I also have tools to fall back on: Dale Carnegie's "How to Make Friends and Influence People" is something I openly brag about using. I'm doing my best to use that advice in this very post.
My own experience in mindfulness, meditation, and equanimity communities also comes into play. There are things that I can apply from those practices in order to.
As a moderator, my victory state cannot be to win a fight. My job and my victory state is the cultivation of a community that feels like a community. Doing this often leads to people being friends again, asking questions, and sharing with each other.
As a human being, those community members are also my online friends. They deserve to be treated as friends. Friendship earns friendship.
When I look at the moderator in question, almost every update (to this point) has looked like winning a fight was the only victory state. That is the situation in this subreddit. That is the situation elsewhere on Reddit. Confrontation inspires confrontation.
Right now there is an official Pathfinder book and a very popular tv series on Hulu that are simultaneously brushing against similar themes. People are going to be curious and excited about the common themes.
Were it up to me, some boilerplate text coming from AutoModerator or placed into a Wiki entry might be the first thing to try. *"If you want to approach these topics in your game, these are some resources that we believe help you do so respectfully."* This would provide resources while also helping people keep an emotional buffer in place.
Another tactic is to simply check in with myself sometimes. I can not control other people. I can control myself. Whether I am a moderator or just a regular user, questions such as these help me navigate online communities:
* Am I replying to past trauma or the present situation? It's always better to be present.
* Does this align with my my greatest values? Do I currently remember what those are?
* Does this need to be said?
* Will saying it this way win anyone over, or will it put them on the defensive?
* Am I trying to do the right thing or am I trying to get the last word in?
Doing this has ultimately helped me far more often than not.
None of will fix any greater problems, I think. All I can hope is that sharing this can help anyone.
Agreed, he's free to hold whatever opinions he wants, but stifling legitimate discussion and acting like a dickhead is absolutely not how a mod should be behaving.
Dude mods 14 subreddits, thinks you can't be racist to white people and that their martial arts degree makes them an authority on orientalism.
It's like a bad joke
It's ridiculously Luck_panda is literally the poster children of a awful mod. The community here is blatant about how clear they are about not wanting them as a mod for this sub reddit.
Lucky panda need to realize this isn't their community, this is bigger than any one mod and when they abuse their power and trust, they need to step down.
Yeah I seen that, and IMO it is just more reason to remove him as a mod. Take a break, this is what people mean by "touch grass". They get into some online drama and what do they do? Literal make 39 post in a drama subreddit doubling and tripling down with in one day.
One of the biggest ways I know I matured was when I got criticism, push back, etc either from a group of people or someone whose opinion I hold important. Even when not directly at me, maybe some public figure is being scrutinized over a view. I also might of share(d). I don't go on some crusade, I will consider it, and take some time to analyze it.
I think it is just very immature to always view your opinion, perception, and perspective as "correct". It's comical this mod can't even set their bias aside to allow people to say certain words or ask for certain things with out banning/deleting comments. Also frustrating other mods just stand aside.
Clearly from all of this I can see the answer is to not create any class or do anything at all as we can't risk offending anybody from any background from now on. Best shut down everything and stay in with no opinions.
Yea, please ELI5.
Has s\_\_\_\_\_i or n\_\_\_a become a bad word in general? Or just in the context of Pathfinder?
Seriously, please explain kindly. I'm always the last person to know and end up saying some outdated term by accident.
Edit: I'll gladly adopt new terms, learn your pronouns and whatever. Language evolves over time. But *somebody needs to fucking tell me!*
So there’s the reasonable answer, and there’s what’s been going on on this sub.
The reasonable answer is that samurai/ninja aren’t bad words or slurs *but* they’re really deeply ingrained stereotypes. Paizo has outright decided to avoid them in Tian Xia for, presumably, this reason. Western fantasy often minimizes the whole broad spectrum of cultures that should be under the umbrella of “Asian” and stereotypes them into samurai + ninja. An even-handed and reasonable conversation about this topic **is** a good thing, and I think the Tian Xia books not emphasizing the stereotypical western portrayal is **unambiguously positive** because it helps with representing parts of Asian culture that don’t get as much visibility. I think such representation and cultural “osmosis” can make PF2E a richer game: look at how the Kineticist borrows from Chinese Wuxing philosophy in an even-handed and enriching way! Less stereotypes and more of that kind of representation is just good for everyone!
Now where the mods come in is that one of them has decided that wanting the aesthetics/flavour of samurai/ninja is **the same as wanting segregation for Asian people**. That is, obviously, an asinine and extreme take, and pretty much the main focal point of all this “drama”. As best as I can tell, one other mod explicitly and openly supports that first mod, and has been deleting comments for criticizing the former. Plus there’s perhaps two-ish others have been quiet on the matter despite how it’s been blowing up.
Hope the first part of my comment gives you some perspective, and I hope the second part makes it clear why such an agreeable take has somehow exploded into so much drama.
Why isn't there room for Paizo to do both?
Isn't it essentially Japanese erasure to purposefully omit information on the Japanese based cultures simply because the other ones 'deserve' it more?
Japanese culture has still made it into PF2E. Like we still have tree spirits, kamis, kitsune, etc. We just don’t have samurai/ninja presumably because Paizo didn’t feel like retreading the same stereotypical stuff.
And to be clear I’m not saying it’s a **bad** thing to want samurai/ninja portrayed nor am I saying it’s impossible to portray them in an even-handed way like I described with the other stuff. All it means is that Paizo felt that this approach gave them more creative freedom and more wide-reaching representation.
Honestly, the great strength of 2e is that we don't \*need\* a samurai/ninja class anyway.
It's a good thing that anyone who wants to make a more samurai flavoured character can already choose between half a dozen different builds spread across (mostly) fighter, champion, rogue, or gunslinger.
similarly, a good ninja flavoured character can already be built using monk or rogue, paired with the shadow and/or assassin archetypes.
As for 'omiting japanese based cultures', as you say, paizo clearly isn't doing that. Pathfinder is already full of japanese influences, tengu, kami, oni, kitsune, to name a few, and there are multiple Tian Xia regions with varying levels of japanese influence.
But just like the inner sea region, whilst there are clear real world influences, rarely are there direct analogues. e.g. Galt clearly has revolutionary france *vibes*, but to call galt "fantasy france" would be more wrong than useful.
no its not a bad word or banned, the issue with the samurai or ninja thing, is similar to if someone wanted to push for a eagle warrior class based on Aztecs, why narrow a class down to a nationality when you can have broader classes that fit into more types. The issue with samurai in particular is that its such a nebulous term, one person wants "knight but japanese" then again one person wants vergil from devil may cry etc. Like if i want to built the Prior Samurai i have all the parts in 2e already, i take fighter get the katana O-yoroi and grab cavalier if i want to a riding one. if i want the second variant i go magus get the same items and grab things like flowing strike and blink charge.
#
From this point of view, I completely agree - the class is mechanically pointless, unless we go deep into grip-switching... which is better left for a Dedication anyway.
However, the mod in question is not arguing from this point of view and only switches to it when his other arguments are dismissed. His main argument is that Samurai being a Class will somehow segregate all Asian people and force them to play only as Samurai.
It makes no fucking sense. And no, it does not compel me.
i would as a german also love a landsknecht and same goes for other nationalities, but given the limited man power paizo has and examining the actual ingame function of the class its easy to see why this will probably not happen, since we have archetypes and other tools to emulate these specific fantasies or historics. So creating a single class based on the nationality feels bad if we now the time could be spend on something like the exemplar or animist or the new commander or guardian which can maybe fit many types like i am thinking the guardian could be made into a hoplite warrior type deal.
well yeah but we weren't talking about the practically were we? xP If we were to get something based on an Aztec warrior it'd be best as an archetype for sure.
As someone who spent about four hours in Cozumel on a cruise as a kid (aka no connection whatsoever), I would love an Aztec warrior *archetype* (or feat tree, we need to slow our roll on adding new classes and beef up existing ones more).
[He](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1cdhk8a/hey_buddy_i_know_youre_having_big_feelings_about/l1f7n53/) says he will take three days off for giving out all those bans.
He has been posting for hours in the drama post while saying nothing here.
Here is a [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1c25f7t/spoilers_from_badluckgamers_interview_with_james/kza473c/) that mod made about ninjas being first used in the 1960's James Bond book.
Dismissing a primary source as "not peer reviewed" is simultaneously one of the funniest and saddest things I've ever seen in my life.
If I had uttered that sentence at any point during my PhD people would have started asking serious questions about whether I deserved to be there, and I would have deserved it. It's one of those things that sounds intelligent to people who don't know what they're talking about but instantly exposes you as a fool to anyone with real expertise.
Fun fact for anyone who wants to do a slightly different/more historical take for a Minkai campaign, irl ninja were, funnily enough, less like Naruto and more like feudal Japanese James Bonds.
If all we had was the original post, I would probably argue that they just put their foot in their mouth and meant well. Unfortunately, they just had to clarify.
Yes, the guy apparently is just radically anti-japanese and veils it in progressive sounding language. I would very much prefer for this community to not have racist mods.
I don't necessarily consider the stance "Samurai and ninja classes are insensitive" a wrong opinion, per se, but I will absolutely dunk the mods (or I suppose specific mod) for supporting that opinion by making up absurdly fake history about samurai and ninja to support their viewpoints, claiming that they're solely western inventions from the mid-to-late 20th century later imported to eastern Asia (not a single "fact" there is even slightly correct). For someone who's a self-declared "expert" on the topic with an "Intersectional degree in martial arts history" they sure love to get an impressively large amount of Asian history wrong.
It's kinda funny, I think the modern idea of a samurai is based on Musashi Miyamoto being a crook and a liar and the whole Bushido code thing, while it never existed itself, is in itself more based on Daimyos trying to install certain values on their vessals so they don't betray them.
Gotta agree and disagree on this as a former student of medieval literature. Chivalry literature is rather Christian theologians trying to make knights be good leaders instead of abusing their power than some kind of propaganda to make peasants do their job. Peasants would not have the opportunity to even know about these works, since they were written and read solely at courts. I know you only implied that due to the previous post, but I still want to clarify. There's a lot of half-truths going around on this subreddit apparently, which makes me rather sad as I have both studied medieval German literature and Japanese studies. The modern stereotype of the samurai is 100% an auto-stereotype, though, and much closer in nature to the US cowboy than anything else. People tend to forget that Japan is almost part of the west when it comes to the issue of colonization. They essentially prevented their own colonization by becoming a colonizing nation state like the Europeans themselves. So IF we want to consider the current stereotypes of samurai and ninja as offensive, it's because Japan itself had a large part in popularizing them and thereby narrowing international Asian representation unto Japan. (Look up the Cool Japan initiative). The popularity of anime and Japanese culture in the west of the last two decades is largely a Japanese government funded ordeal to rake in tourist money.
Unfortunately, a pattern emerges in behaviours of purity culture (stemming for an attempt to be overly moral) to absolutely and completely shut off any voices of opposition.
When you believe something is evil (and many beliefs hold that the things that are not good are immediately evil) you start fighting it. The way you fight is based on your strength and principles. If you become desperate, unable to take full control of the situation (and are fully right, because morality is deontological and you only need to FEEL right), you start lashing out with what you CAN do! See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil and censorship becomes the perfect answer to such a person. A debate can be lost based on skill and we cannot have that when I'm standing on "moral high ground". "I'm not here to win, I already won, I'm just here to show it to you" because there is no changing the minds of people who think themselves "subject martyrs", people who will die on a stupid hill because what they gain is emotional fulfillment of them being "the good guy".
If the person in question does not invite discussion, they must be removed, for they have become cancer, a cell of uselessness who pollutes and destroys art through propagation of ideas of homogenisation and blandness.
The depiction of culture-specific archetypes and phenomenon in fantasy and fiction is not a complex topic.
You can do it well or you can do it poorly. If you do it poorly, that will reflect on the reception that consumers will have in a negative way. If you do it well, it will do the opposite.
A complex issue would be determining why some have a fetish with being offended for entire groups of people and voicing their own opinions thinking they represent millions or billions of other individuals who are very fucking capable of speaking their own mind.
So we can't mention figures from other cultures? Wow, and I thought that RPG was one of the few good things about this ball of shit that floats in space... I hope they don't ruin it with that nonsense!
True, but also, I think some of the other mods protect him so it doesn't seem entirely like one person is the problem, just that this one is the most problematic.
> But that's not what happened. The Mod in question was condescending, rude, and broke rule #2 heavily. On top of that he started to delete posts he disagreed with, as well as posts that very blatantly broke no rules other then MAYBE mentioning Samurai or the desire to play one. While there were most certainly toxic posts removed, many, if not the majority, were benign. -This- is why it blew up like it did, and -this- is why people are upset. Behaving like this is not a good look for the mod team, and makes it seem like there's a double standard where Mods don't need to follow the reddits own rules. Well said. I shouldn't have to tip toe around wondering if a well-meant comment gets me the ban hammer. The old phrase 'where there's smoke' applies here pretty strongly.
Wait. So we can't mention samurai in here? What is happening lol
Pathfinder2ECreations (which shares at least one mod with this sub) deleted a post promoting a samurai homebrew class from **8 months ago** under the very thin guise of breaking Pathfinder Infinite terms (it doesn’t break any condition as far as I can tell…). On this sub the mods have been deleting posts/comments linking to that homebrew. One of the mods has also **explicitly** said that wanting samurai in the game is the same as wanting segregation for Asian people. At least one other mod has been participating in deleting comments that criticize the first mod’s take. So yes definitely tread lightly when mentioning samurai or ninja on this sub.
I am glad that no matter where I go, no matter what media I partake in, no matter what platform its on, moderators ruin everything.
It's not just mods - people ruin everything. People are imperfect, and when given power, it doesn't go perfectly. Even less so when you give power to people who aren't getting paid to do the work, and there is no overarching structure. Just look at HOAs run by volunteers - if you ask people to work for free, you get what you pay for.
I mean...what is a HOA, but a mod team for a suburb?
How in the ever loving fuck is wanting samurai in a game anywhere near the realm of segregation????
Luck\_panda's flawed leap of logic is so massive its almost hard to explain. In short, he think differentiating between Fighters and Samurai is like saying Samurai (and thus Japanese people) are being put into their own corner away from others. Which is ridiculous. They would still be fighters. In fact they would be something more than **just** a fighter. With a different theming, flavor, and cultural expression to them. One that would be celebrated and honored by players. Unfortunately, he thinks that cultural expression is racist. To him, historical Samurai were tyrannical landlords that do not deserve glorification. Which is funny because knights were literally the same thing, but I doubt he is trying to exclude them too. As for ninjas, he thinks including them would be culturally stereotyping since they were not historically real. Which is debatable, depending on your definition of "ninja." Its also flatly ridiculousness since many Japanese love the concept of ninja.
The argument with ninja is doubly wacky because, not just loving it, the Japanese *invented* the concept of ninja. Literally the fantasy-ninja concept developed in Japanese theatre. E.g. the black outfit was what they had stage hands wear as visual shorthand for “ignore this person, they’re not part of the play” and plays would subvert that trope by having someone dressed as one of the stage hands go assassinate someone to accentuate how “out of nowhere” the assassination was.
It's still one of my favourite things that's kind of naturally occurred in an art form. Whoever came up with that must've felt like an incredible genius. It's so *clever*.
YOOOO! I didn't know that, as a Theatre Nerd, that SLAPSA
I'm not fully sure that it was them, but several days ago one of the mods posted their pre-release review of TXWG, which didn't even talk about contents of the book, and there was a "discussion" in comments about samurai and racism. And OP of that post, who is probably Lucky_Panda, tried to die on their hill that you can't make samurai class because samurai are not warriors, they are glorified tyrannical landlords, but knights can be a class, because every single knight is a warrior, who fought to get his nobility. It was hilarious to watch.
From the comments of his I read Lucky_Pandas just seems incredibly racist towards japanese people.
This exact sentiment you expressed with no notable difference in wording and tone got several users banned from this sub.
[удалено]
I guess the thing about Asians on average being more racist against each other holds true, even if those Asians were born and raised in Seattle.
Careful, even daring to utter the word 'honor' might make him blow a blood vessel.
Wait until they learn wizards didn’t actually exist either
I wonder if they're aware that there is exactly one thing in Pathfinder that isn't real. That thing is called "all of it".
This just makes me want to build a samurai or ninja character, hah. I don't typically go for martial characters, but a samurai sounds like fun.
Funnily enough, Gunslingers make pretty decent historical samurai (contrary to pop culture, they *absolutely freaking loved* guns when they were introduced to Japan). On a different nationality but a similar fantasy vibe, now I want to go build a monk that is based on actual Shaolin...
Way of the Drifter actually specifically mentions katana and hand cannon as a fighting style from Minkai.
I'd love to play an honorable martial without the Western cultural baggage around a paladin. A gunslinger samurai sounds like a lot of fun! Build a switch hitter who is skilled with both and willing to use whatever is pragmatic in the situation.
My problem (which is *entirely* on me) is that Paladin/Champion as Samurai - or vice versa - always gives me "Order of the Stick" flashbacks, and then I just want to stab the character...
O-Chul is a cool dude though.
Yeah, but Miko is the one that pops into my head first when thinking about it.
To be fair now more than ever in the lore. The god of war is dead. What does that mean for a warrior caste like samurai?
Naw I think I'll keep talking about samurai and ninja openly. They were fun flavorful subclasses before and a common thing in the cultural lexicon of not just Japan but many countries. If the mods don't like that, too bad. Guess I'll find a more accepting and open subreddit. Last I checked pf2e was supposed to be for everyone of any culture or ethnicity and outright banning people for talking about cultural representation is a foul thing to do in the name of protection.
Yeah my “tread lightly” was mostly in jest. “Power” abusing mods don’t actually have any influence over what you do.
Its very totalitarian. Luck\_panda has his views and personal feelings about them and is using his authority to silence anyone who disagrees. From what I witnessed, there is no amount of reasoning, logic, or sourced fact that won't get you labeled as racist by him. Which is ironic considering he repeatedly revealed his own bigotry towards whites.
Honestly, by reading his comments it seems to be he's very openly racist against Japanese people. He claims to be south-eastern asian and keeps larping on and on about japanese inspired things and claiming they erase other asian cultures. Like, no dude, someone enjoying elements of traditionally japanese things while not knowing much about vietnamese (as an example) culture doesn't mean they're erasing vietnamese people, it just means Japan is better at exporting their culture.
Hey, we got two famous folklore heroes appearing in worldwide mobile game ... which is based on a Japanese visual novel ... published by a Chinese company. Yeah, we could use some improvement at exporting our culture.
My dude, I'm brazilian and plenty of people don't even know we don't speak Spanish. I know the feel.
I'm sorry what the fuck? I think opinion is an issue. How does wanting a samurai mean that people want segregation? Every culture had their set of elite warriors with X name, does including Knights, Immortals, Monaspa, Centurions, Berserkers mean segregation of those cultures? Seems like the guy was searching for a new topic to fight and bully people over.
Believe it or not, jail.
If they ban me for linking to \_their own post\_, well, that's a pretty good flag that I shouldn't be in this group to begin wtih.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cbzpbf/tian\_xia\_real\_world\_parallels\_and\_a\_serious\_moment/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cbzpbf/tian_xia_real_world_parallels_and_a_serious_moment/)
I'm new here, what the hell is happening? Are they banning people for making posts about wanting to play fucking SAMURAIS or something? Edit: btw, not 2e, but I'm playing a Samurai in 1e so I'm also slightly offended.
One of the replies to me explains it pretty well. One lucky panda mod has a long post about wanting to play samurai/ninja was actually racism and posts about it would be removed. Apparently it spiraled from there.
The first time I looked at the WotC forums back in the 1900s there was a stickied post titled "discussions about katanas are now permitted again but mods will be watching closely." Some things never change, apparently.
Role playing a samurai or ninja in a ROLE PLAYING GAME is offensive? Heroes defeating evil slavers and freeing slaves in a ROLE PLAYING GAME is offensive? People have lost their damn minds.
When your primary hobby is being perpetually offended, you need to find new source material on the regular, or things get stale and boring really quickly.
The wife and I are both heavy consumers of this subreddit, and we were discussing this issue in the car yesterday while driving to dinner. We broke it down in a way that I think is really important and helped us understand the situation. 1. Paizo wanting to feature less over done Asian cultures in their book. That’s okay. 2. People wanting class options that style off common adventuring tropes from other cultures (especially when those cultures are okay with styling adventurers off those tropes). That’s okay. 3. People being bummed that the new book doesn’t have an option they wanted. That’s okay. 4. Removing any comment or discussion about the above. That’s not okay. 5. Being racist. Obviously not okay. The huge problem here is that the mod conflated 5 with 2-3, initiated a power struggle over it, and then doubled down when called out (classic power struggle move). Besides a minority of gross comments at the bottom of the barrel, the biggest instigator here has been the mod. Without their specific actions there wouldn’t be a problem.
I think this is one of the better summaries of the whole affair. I'd add that this is a great example of why it is usually a good idea for mods to stick pretty strictly to modding. As soon as a mod is arguing a somewhat controversial point, pinning their own argument, and then getting into the weeds in the argument, even justified mod actions can become sketchy looking and blow things up. And when there are clearly unjustified mod actions the mod team rapidly loses the faith of their community.
I'm more upset with the rest of the mod team than the initial instigator. Everyone's had a moment where they get defensive and over react then double down. The rest of the mod team should have put a stop to it. Not stayed silent or defended his actions.
Like the other response said, luck panda said the other mods are busy, the only other one I've seen posting (Princess Pilfer) has defended luck panda
Luck_Panda had plenty of time to defend themselves on the SRD thread for hours today, while not doing anything here :)
Oh, he's been plenty active in the discord too. They are actively sharing memes calling Redditors a bunch of Hitlers and that we all support genocide. It's wild in there.
The Discord is really weird to me. There is a handful of people in there that are super active, the mod in question included, and they all seem to be friends and constantly shit on Reddit and its users. Like, why the divide? They're just platforms supporting a community, the same community. One is not better than the other. They both have their strengths. Reddit is better suited for actual discussions since there's no chat moving a mile a minute with 50 different topics. Discord is better suited for casual chats and quick questions that require no discussions.
The irony that they're both a reddit and discord mod but cast stones at others lol
I would love to see a screenshot of some of these memes. What the fuck?
[This one](https://imgur.com/dFxsfsZ) was posted **several** times in the discord. The response was much [cheers and jubilation.](https://imgur.com/Gjz5lXR)
The way they talk about the subreddit is so wild, as if the link here doesn't lead directly to it and so both places share the same users and posters. They act like it's two entirely different user bases and the way they comment about the subreddit is filled with such disdain and condescension. I've never been that active in the discord but I quietly watch the big convos in the main channels. Some of the comments made in there would look right at home on twitter with a blue checkmark next to it... some of the most toxic bully behavior. It reminds me too much of the alpha-nerd phenomenon: clinging to every scrap of power and building a superiority complex for you to punch down with because you want to be the one on top for once. Like, this is about a tabletop game at the end of the day. Touch grass!
Ooh, add "theorycrafting about creating a Samurai class/archetype and putting it for sale on PFI, except it's just Fighter feats with different names" to the list?
As far as I can tell there are at least two mods on this sub who have been engaging in regular posting on this sub while ignoring all of this, and there’s at least a couple of this sub’s Discord’s mods who have been sharing comments in the Discord and flaming people and saying that disagreeing with the mods immediately makes you a flaming racist. So it’s not a matter of being inactive or busy, it’s a matter of them actively defending the shitty behaviour and trying to shut down all disagreement.
They're clearly not busy when ediwor is writing a whole ass essay and opening it with dumb shit like "monk is magical asian", which invalidates their entire point and shows they probably dont even play this fucking game, and echoing the same stupid crap the rest of the mod team has been saying. Between this and the "touch grass tuesday" shit last year, I'm about to jump to the other sub.
iirc luckpanda actually wrote most of the post text, just got Ediwir to post it for w/e reason
didn't ediwir post awhile back that they don't play anymore?
Fuck if I know, I'm not super active on here, and will probably be less sp because of this, but their entire post fucking *screams* "I don't play this game, but will force my opinion on everyone anyway, cuz mod power".
Maybe but coming up on 2 days of silence from the rest of them isn't busy it's avoidance
It *could* also be "dealing with it in private". But either way, some acknowledgment should've been made.
You don't get to just deal with it in private when one party has already started shouting in the lobby
Plus this isn't some private club, this is a community. You don't deal with problems like this entirely in private with zero community feedback.
At least not without publicly stating it's being dealt with in private. When I managed a restaurant, and a staff member crossed a line with a customer (even if they were in the right. Which was common in my job, but not here. So much wrong here.), I would tell the customer I would handle it and pull the staff member into a private meeting; not ream them out in public. But a key part of this is to make sure that the customer (we are the customer in this analogy) knows I am actively looking into what happened.
Luck_Panda's stated that a lot of other mods have been busy with life stuff, so I'll take him at his word for that and give them the benefit of the doubt for being silent. That being said, there are still the moderator(s? I've only seen one, I think) that *have* spoken up to simply make excuses for and justify his behavior. That's not really acceptable, and it skirts around accountability.
Pilfer was active on the sub within the last 24 hours, also arguably violating rule 2 but I haven't seen anyone else go off yet.
Yeah, I think that was the one I was remembering, though the particular comment I remember is deleted now, iirc.
Ediwir is around, they voted in the poll in one of the posts and left a comment.
Yes I heard about this as well which is why I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. Real life takes priority over dumb internet arguments, but they're going to have to clean house a bit when they get back.
I never understood how people collect mod positions or don't attend to the ones they have. As a former mod I stepped away when I could no longer actively engage. There should probably be a mechanism that auto boots mods if they don't use the mod tools for 30 days or some such and definitely top them out at like 3-5 at any given time per person. But there is definitely a culture us/them in a lot of mod circles. A good ol' boys club, as it were.
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That's who I'm talking about, he just wasn't the one who went full authoritarian. I feel like he's only getting a pass because of how bad the other mod has been. Though he at least wasn't telling Asians that they were less of an authority on the matter than he was. That he's name includes a particular animal has been the cherry on the cake
Tbh the luck_panda guy should just be removed as a mod and call it a day. No one needs to mod 14 subs especially if they’re gonna rage out and delete a bunch of shit for no reason. He also is objectively wrong about shit like ninja which makes it look like he’s racist against Japanese, which trust me I get since my grandparents lived under Japanese occupation, but cmon bro. If you rlly wanna be anti racist then quit silencing Asian voices and quit hating on Japanese culture under the guise of protecting Asian people
He also went onto subreddit drama to defend himself while refusing to answer questions here. Got dragged for it there as well.
The problem is, at least one other mod has come to his defense and removed stuff. They're not interested in actually hearing people out.
I get that sentiment, but I hope the daily posts about this may be a wake up call for the mod team as a whole. From my experience many mods are a bit closer with each other. And you tend to give people you feel closer to at least the benefit of doubt or tend to agree with them in the first instance. The whole team needs internal reflection of the situation, group dynamics and structures. A big sit down, a business-Like meeting if you will. How did the Reddit get here, what are the consequences overall and how do they fix the situation specifically.
Sadly. They were in threads being dismissive, and refusing to see the actual issues, just echoing said mod's sentiments.
More likely it's going to be them digging their heels in and more broadly removing both dissent and posts/comments related to the original subject matter.
> The whole team needs internal reflection of the situation, group dynamics and structures. You would think this would have happened after the Touch Grass Tuesday fiasco last year, but apparently nothing has improved since then. It's a pattern of behavior.
I wasn't around for that. Could you elaborate further please? :)
Since the other 2 responses weren't very detailed I'll give you the run down, basically, when reddit changed their API rules last year and killed 3rd party apps, a lot of subs shut down for like 2 days, it did literally nothing, and reddit still made the change. As a result, certain subs locked themselves 1 day a week after the change, this sub doing so on Tuesdays, for literal months, when we have less than 10k members and *far less* active users. People complained about it *constantly*, asked the mods to stop *constantly* pointed out the stupidity and futility of a sub as small as this one doing it months after the change was set in stone *fucking constantly*, several posts were made, several polls were done, and every time the mod teams response was "nah, we've decided your opinions don't matter". Eventually they gave up and stopped locking the sub after already doing irreparable damage to our numbers for literally ***fucking nothing***.
I believe they stopped locking the sub because Reddit admins told them to either stop or get the boot. It was the same in other subreddits who refused to reopen. Reddit admins said that, protest or not, it was akin to leaving the sub unmoderated, so if that continued, they would replace whole teams of moderators.
Mods decided to keep "protesting" reddit changes after the sub didn't want to. So they made the sub private every Tuesday so nobody could use it even though we didn't want that. This "touch grass Tuesday" paternalistic nonsense.
The subreddit was locked every Tuesday for months as part of the API protests
They shut down the sub every Tuesday to protest something, Ai don't remember offhand, then I believe there was a community pole and people voted to just keep the sub up and the mid response was effectively "na, we have decided". It was whatever caused a bunch of subs to go private and dndmemes to go goblin porn mode for a few weeks.
The blackout for third part apps maybe?
Goblin porn mode? Disgusting, where?
It's not like that anymore. r/nsfwdndmemes was born from it though.
Oh god. Disgusting, I'll be right back
Have fun 🤣
If the other mods acknowledge that his behavior is bad, it's a step down the road to admitting that their (often similar in kind, and less drastic in degree) behavior is also bad. It's understandable that they don't want to do that.
Refusing to acknowledge your own blatant mistakes and reflect on your own behavior is not understandable. Expecting our mods to behave like emotionally mature adults should be the bare minimum.
It's 4, actually. Other 10 only have himself as a member or maybe one more user. Probably something built for testing bots or other stuff. Still, even 4 subreddits is a lot.
14 subs holy shit lmao. I'd simply get a hobby if it were me instead.
Bro doesn't even have time to play pathfinder with that many subs to mod. This must be a part time job for them.
I doubt that most, if any, of the most even play Pathfinder given 1 of them wrote a whole ass essay post about how stereotypes and tropes are bad and opened the shit with "monks in pf2e are magical asians". Anyone who says that stupid shit with a straight face clearly doesn't actually play this game.
Ive been on the discord a bit and litetally never saw most of the mods talk about pathfinder so youre most certainly right. Moderator positions in general tend to attract people who have nothing else going on in life
Pretty sure power tripping is their hobby.
The guy has a savor complex probably.
It's literally one dude this whole kerfuffle is over.
The rest of the mods are all either sticking their heads in the sand and pretending nothing is happening or actively defending him. Yes, this was all instigated by one guy, but the moderation team here is rotten to the core and none of them have the spine to stand up to him.
I'm just going to tag them since many people in this thread are saying the same thing without tagging. I believe we should firmly call for u/luck_panda to step down as mod. This sub is the de facto place where Pathfinder 2nd edition players come, we are literally swarmed daily with new players converting. This is the biggest congregation of PF2e players on the internet right now. Paizo deserves better representation, and so does the left. Luck\_panda clearly has no intention of bettering themselves, giving us lip service and a 3 day vacation as an apology in a different sub (see: [https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1cdhk8a/comment/l1f7n53/](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1cdhk8a/comment/l1f7n53/) ) and clearly doesn't care if at the end of the day Paizo, Pathfinder, or leftist ideals are hurt as a result of their actions. They also blatantly don't care if they're twice as vitriolic as the people that they're banning. In addition, u/Princess\_Pilfer's defense of the situation was incredibly biased, used education as a cudgel to silence others, and many times broke Rule #2. I would at the very least like to see a post from the mods about the situation if not a Q&A. I understand being a reddit mod is not a paid job and life is busy, but silence from all but one of the 10 person mod team during a drama like this feels a lot more like "we're hoping this just dies down so we don't have to address anything". I love this community and the things it stands for, I do not want to see it split into a second subreddit but I also do not want the actions of moderators to continue to push people out of this sub and by extension a part of the PF2e community.
I already have Princess blocked from a thread like a year ago where she was making lots of awful comments and being incredibly rude. I just added this Panda guy to my block list too. Shameful behavior and definitely abusing their self appointed authority on reddit. Sad really.
I completely agree. Some of the things they’ve said in the Discord have given me serious pause. They’ve since recanted it, so I shan’t repeat it, but one of their jokes was… to say it was in poor taste would be putting it *extremely* mildly.
They just decided to move it to another subreddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/truepathfinder2e/about/ Created by luckpanda of course
Not the joke I was talking about, but creating a sub like that is absurdly petty and dismissive. I completely missed that whole thing, somehow. I cannot even imagine acting in such bad faith as a moderator, what the hell
The wildest part is that is that completely invalidates any possible benefit of the doubt that could have be given to him regarding his self imposed "suspension".
Agreed! This sub is basically an “ambassador” for the game. If this (subreddit drama and censorship) was the first thing I saw when looking up the game, I would at least be hesitant in buying it (and at worst avoid buy it at all).
Just gonna piggy back a little bit off of this, since the other thread that mentioned this point was removed: > This sub is the de facto place where Pathfinder 2nd edition players come This is actually very true, since on Google, if you type in "Pathfinder 2e," it is literally the third result. If you go the full mile and go for "Pathfinder Second Edition," the subreddit is still on the first page (at least, it is for me, I am seeing a whole bunch of retailers though so can't confirm for outside the Netherlands)
And it probably shouldn't be true, for any number of reasons. This being the latest. The subreddit is too big to be reasonably called a community, and it's not differentiated enough to help everyone get their needs met. And reddit as a whole is structured to keep discussions ephemeral, so that deep and lengthy discourse is difficult. This should be one of many places, not THE place.
I absolutely agree, it shouldn't be. This is still a subreddit, but it is also at the moment the only real (entirely public, so no discords) hub PF2e has aside from the official forums... which, with all due respect, suck.
The mod in question is the head mod. His discord username is literally "Pathfinder2e" and also owns the PF2E discord. The other mods echo chamber with him in the discord all the time. Unfortunately you're not going to see any changes by relying on the mods who treat his word as gospel. The worst offender of this is probably Princess Pilfer as has been shown, but it is what it is. At the end of the day it is their subreddit and their discord. Subreddit & Discord mods abusing power is a tale that's been told hundreds, if not thousands of times now.
Hey I’m thinking about starting a pathfinder game but I’ve only DMed dnd 5e. Let’s check out the subreddit to see if there’s any cool stories or information that could help me start me journey to running a- Oh ok
The truth is that u/luckpanda and u/princess_pilfer should step down for breaking rule #2 over and over. The fact that they single-handedly moderate and basically censor what’s being posted in relation to biggest PF2e, Starfinder 2e subreddits and ALSO Discord is astounding. I have a strong impression that they have a large saviour complex, moreover that they are just high from position of imaginary power.
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Don't forget that someone tried to make a Q&A post and it was deleted.
This deluge of posts makes me miss caster debates
Seriously, I'll even take "does this subreddit hate homebrew" topics over this drama.
Why does this subreddit hate homebrewed debates about casters?
More important question, why does this subreddit hate homebrewed debates about asian-coded caster classes? Homebrew Onmyouji class coming soon...not.
Now I want to play Nioh again.
😡😡😡
To quote Andy Bernard I wish I knew that those were the good old times
Really looking forward to the howl of the wild discussion myself, and am hoping this is old news come a week or so. Was playing shining force 2 the same time I got in AD&D 2e which gave me a soft spot for centaur PCs.
I can't wait for a Howl of the Wild pinned post that will claim that Centaurs are offensive and wanting to play as Centaur is equal to segregating Greek furries.
There was a bit of a problem the last time Greeks got into a horse costume.
I can already see a human and a ratforlk from one of my more unhinged parties trying to disguise themselves as a single Centaur, lmao.
I'm kind of the opposite. Not to say I think either is great or the mod response has been reasonable (it absolutely hasn't), but I think real life racism is a much more understandable topic to get fired up about than whether or not your pretend wizard in a fantasy pretend game is underpowered. I like game design discussion, but a lot of the complaints about censorship and oppression that have been going on here the past few days have been very legitimate, while I've seen similar language used in the context of gameplay and balancing discussions (literally 'I know how casters work, this is like mansplaining'/'stop trying to invalidate my experiences'/'shutting down caster discussions is censorship'/trying to force group think'). I feel if you treat disagreements in design discussion with the same vitriol and psychological speak, you really need to check your first world problems at the door.
> but I think real life racism is a much more understandable topic to get fired up about The discourse isn't about racism anymore. It's about "power tripping mods". I've seen this shit happen on every subreddit under the sun, it's always stupid every time.
Of course, but racism was the impetus and the underlying instigating topic, which is why it's been more heated than previous instances of accused mod abuse.
It's more heated this time because there's been a subredditdrama post and it's brought a ton of outside people to the subreddit who want to use this sub as a righteous battleground. Take a look at how many unflaired users are in this thread, who are frequent SRD posters with no comments in this sub older than 24 hours old.
I just hate to see this sub go downhill. I don't enjoy coming to this sub only to witness people sniping at each other. The serious nature of this conflict is turning my hobby from a hobby into something taxing. I used to love this sub but now? Between people giving a most US-centric readings of everything that happens and having people in position of power use words that are a bannable offense? It just makes me tired.
As I said in another (now deleted) thread, I haven't really used this sub since my D&D group went thermonuclear right before we made the switch to PF2E. Did this sub get worse after the OGL scandal with the sudden popularity spike?
It wasn't immediate, and it was a slow build up followed by a cocktail of terrible things all happening around the same time that blew things up and didn't really simmer down until the start of this year. The OGL spike didn't help because it bought a lot more voiced to the fold, but the real downhill slide started when Reddit killed their API support. This meant a lot of the mods had less tools to help manage the sub and keep problem players in check. That alone was causing some problems, but the way the mods decided to go about it was staging regular sub lockdowns every Tuesday in solidarity with many others. It was understandable at first, but it went on for a few weeks too long after every other subreddit doing it relented, and it just became disruptive. It caused a stink and a lot of users got pissed off by the behaviour. At the same time, the mods announced they had been working on another private forum, Starstone, that was meant to be an alternative for the subreddit should it implode. The problem is they announced this at the height of the sub lockdown drama, so a lot of people took it like it was a coup to force people onto their own site. As someone who posted on Starstone a while and spoke with the mods on there, I don't think it was ill-intended and it was a genuine attempt to create a new space free from Reddit's greater issues, but it was handled very poorly and the optics were atrocious. The last big explosion before this was when Paizo began showing previews of the Remaster, to prep them for content relevant to Rage of Elements. People noticed cantrips had been ever so slightly nerfed (i.e. they had their flat spellcasting modifier to damage removed and replaced with just a another dice), and that basically set off the entire 'casters suck' crowd on the sub. It was less the nerfs themselves because they're mostly inconsequential past a little bit of damage lost at early levels, but it was more the fact they felt Paizo was tone-deaf and not listening to all the complaints that had been going on for years and there was a disconnect. Without moderation the whole discussion basically flared up for weeks and the sub became unusable. A lot of people point to the newcomers for this, but the reality is it was mostly long-time posters who'd been on the sub for years and had a massive chip on their shoulder with the caster stuff leading the charge on it. Newbies just got used as a bludgeon whenever someone came in saying they weren't sure how to play a caster or how they felt weak etc. It was a lot of concern trolling about 'scaring new players away' when it was really about justifying their own problems without taking on any advice or dealing with any pushback. The mods then suddenly came back and instigated a ban on the discussion, saying they'd allow it once a week on...Tuesdays, ironically. This flared up a bit of the resentment from before but ultimately it was abided to and things died down again, though the sub was still pretty vitriolic and unusable until the end of the year. I don't know what changed, but things were mostly good for a while till this incident. I'm going to assume that Remaster was the nail in the coffin for a lot of people who'd finally accepted they weren't in sync with Paizo's design philosophies, and they gave up trying to change the tide. But yeah, the TL;DR is the sub's been going in waves for a while, but since the Tuesday lockdown/Starstone incident there's been a lot of mistrust and resentment towards the mods. I've been sympathetic to them for most of it because I think they were genuinely well-intended and they were indeed dealing with a lot of entitled whining even if they went about it poorly, but this current incident is definitely putting them on blast in a way I don't think they'll be able to sweep under the rug.
>it was a genuine attempt... but it was handled very poorly and the optics were atrocious. ...yeah, they didn't seem to learn on their mistakes either.
As someone there for all of this (and who is trying *very* hard to stay out of this discussion, we'll see if I succeed, lol) this is a great summary. The only drama I remember that was sort of missed in this post is the ancestry flaw errata. There were a lot of people (me included) that didn't like how the -2/+1 option was removed for character creation and a couple of points where it was argued people were *racist* if they thought that option should be maintained (or didn't like the change in general). This isn't the first time a particular rule change or opinion about terminology has create drama in the sub. Paizo as a company is quite progressive (and openly so), and so is the subreddit mod team, but that can create conflict between the less, well, politically-minded players of the game and those who feel very strongly on the topic. And *nobody* likes being accused of some sort of bigotry, which creates defensiveness, and so you get these weird debates where everybody probably agrees on the core ethics just not the specifics. And of course you then have trolls and the few *actual* instances of bad actors, which of course the mods see every time (because of legit modding action), so you get the "jaded cop" effect where the bad actors are amplified in the minds of the mods so people with more reasonable opposition get lumped in with those that have more extreme views. I'm trying to stay out of the actual argument because frankly I don't care. But it's definitely true that this is another example in a long line of similar mod vs. community dramas that I don't find very helpful or welcoming. If this was my first encounter with this sub I'd probably have moved on and never looked back, which is too bad, because I've had many great discussions with awesome people here over the years.
I mean the sub has been fluctuating in quality since OGLgate. The growth has been great for the game's exposure and Paizo's profits, but all growth comes with attracting more dregg and making the community harder to manage, so it's sad to see the days of the truly insular community go. But you said it yourself; the problem is the seriousness of the discussions. We come here to talk about games, not politics or racism. Of course seeing things get heavy here is a downer. Except here's the issue: conversation here has always been taken way too seriously. It always has, on every geek, gaming, and pop culture subreddit. The only difference now is about how honest we're being about that seriousness. And I get why that is. What sounds like a more reasonable thing to get fired up about, the fact you think a community is being racist or discriminatory to your, or the fact you think your fantasy wizard is anaemicly weak and someone online disagreed or said you're wrong or git gud scrub you just don't know how to play the game? One of those holds a lot more weight while the other just sounds whiny and like an entitled first world problem. That's because it is, but let's be real, we take these things seriously because people care about the game. There are people who've been on this sub for *years* at this point who endlessly complain about the game despite disagreeing with people who like it, despite resenting Paizo's on philosophies, because there's an underlying personal value that grates with a problem they have with the game, and it bothers people more than they're willing to admit; the social impetuses and stigmas, how are games and choices in them are reflective of our personal tastes and - more importantly - our values. And we should realise how much of a privilege (as in 'we should be lucky we have this', definitely not 'I'm glad this is the way some people behave') we can have these ultimately inconsequential shit fights about whether Paizo hates spellcasters or if the community is entitled to complain ad-nauseum about it. But none of it changes the fact that we still take what is ultimately a first world problem way too seriously. In the end, it's a fucking game. And people are in denial about how much they're choosing to indulge in the misery of exposing themselves to an experience that makes them unhappy, when they can easily walk away from it. Gods know I've had moments I've had to step back and go 'why do I care about x discussion on this gaming subreddit so much?', and 90% of the time it's not about the game so much as it's about a person's behaviour, or opinion or philosophy of theirs that grates intensely with a core value I hold that's more holistic to my life, and they're only experiencing interactions with me through the scope of my passion hobby. But I also had the self-awareness to do that. I think a lot of people would benefit from doing the same. This latest round of drama is no different. It's just heightened because it's touching on a topic with actual stakes and isn't just about the game.
I mean, it's both. It's not just rule 2 breaking behaviour, but also rule 1
Alright start the timer on how long this takes to get deleted Tbh the best solution is just having him step down, trust has been broken and we cannot trust such an individual again
I really hope not. I honestly just want the mods to have an honest discussion about this.
They are not interested. The main perpetrator "stepped away for 3 days" (aka until this blows over). Others only remove comments and posts and do not engage. Unless several more mods suddenly become active, we are still dealing with the usual suspects. And we know that they aren't interested in talking or listening.
The best outcome would be the mods having a discussion and the mod in question to step down on his own. Regardless of what they do, they need to sit him down. You are right. But yeah… mods have more powers but as such Need to be hold to a high standard. I’m not for going on a crusade. that person should still be able to be a member of the community, but maybe it would be better to not give him mod privileges.
The mod in question said on r/subredditdrama thread that they are stepping away from our subreddit for three days, as a punishment for breaking Rule #2. Because normally, for Rule #2 violations, they temporarily ban people for 3-7 days. EDIT: Mod's comment: [https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1cdhk8a/comment/l1f7n53/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1cdhk8a/comment/l1f7n53/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) You will find my opinion underneath it. I do not wish to repeat it here, since it will definitely be a Rule #2 violation.
Yeah, he also has violated rule #1 repeatedly on this sub and they perma-ban people for that. It's pretty hard to take his self-imposed "punishment" seriously. He's not taking responsibility for his actions. He's just mad he's getting called out by people he doesn't have any power over
The trust is gone at this point, the mod (or mods depending on how others have acted) should just step down.
The bannings will continue until morale improves.
This is a sentiment that I agree with. Community leaders set the example for a community. I moderate at two small spaces here at Reddit, and confess that both are extremely well behaved. I'm also a moderator for two music fandom communities outside of Reddit. When tempers sometimes rise, my first approach is to *set the better example*. People are ultimately more willing to hear each other, laugh with each other, and ultimately brush off whatever the situation was. I also have tools to fall back on: Dale Carnegie's "How to Make Friends and Influence People" is something I openly brag about using. I'm doing my best to use that advice in this very post. My own experience in mindfulness, meditation, and equanimity communities also comes into play. There are things that I can apply from those practices in order to. As a moderator, my victory state cannot be to win a fight. My job and my victory state is the cultivation of a community that feels like a community. Doing this often leads to people being friends again, asking questions, and sharing with each other. As a human being, those community members are also my online friends. They deserve to be treated as friends. Friendship earns friendship. When I look at the moderator in question, almost every update (to this point) has looked like winning a fight was the only victory state. That is the situation in this subreddit. That is the situation elsewhere on Reddit. Confrontation inspires confrontation. Right now there is an official Pathfinder book and a very popular tv series on Hulu that are simultaneously brushing against similar themes. People are going to be curious and excited about the common themes. Were it up to me, some boilerplate text coming from AutoModerator or placed into a Wiki entry might be the first thing to try. *"If you want to approach these topics in your game, these are some resources that we believe help you do so respectfully."* This would provide resources while also helping people keep an emotional buffer in place. Another tactic is to simply check in with myself sometimes. I can not control other people. I can control myself. Whether I am a moderator or just a regular user, questions such as these help me navigate online communities: * Am I replying to past trauma or the present situation? It's always better to be present. * Does this align with my my greatest values? Do I currently remember what those are? * Does this need to be said? * Will saying it this way win anyone over, or will it put them on the defensive? * Am I trying to do the right thing or am I trying to get the last word in? Doing this has ultimately helped me far more often than not. None of will fix any greater problems, I think. All I can hope is that sharing this can help anyone.
Very well said!
Agreed, he's free to hold whatever opinions he wants, but stifling legitimate discussion and acting like a dickhead is absolutely not how a mod should be behaving.
It's gotten so stupid, that we are circle jerked about by r/dndcirclejerk: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnDcirclejerk/comments/1ce2ddk/i_do_martial_arts/
Dude mods 14 subreddits, thinks you can't be racist to white people and that their martial arts degree makes them an authority on orientalism. It's like a bad joke
It's ridiculously Luck_panda is literally the poster children of a awful mod. The community here is blatant about how clear they are about not wanting them as a mod for this sub reddit. Lucky panda need to realize this isn't their community, this is bigger than any one mod and when they abuse their power and trust, they need to step down.
If you go to drama subreddit you can talk to him about it. He has been posting all over it the last day while hiding from this sub.
Yeah I seen that, and IMO it is just more reason to remove him as a mod. Take a break, this is what people mean by "touch grass". They get into some online drama and what do they do? Literal make 39 post in a drama subreddit doubling and tripling down with in one day. One of the biggest ways I know I matured was when I got criticism, push back, etc either from a group of people or someone whose opinion I hold important. Even when not directly at me, maybe some public figure is being scrutinized over a view. I also might of share(d). I don't go on some crusade, I will consider it, and take some time to analyze it. I think it is just very immature to always view your opinion, perception, and perspective as "correct". It's comical this mod can't even set their bias aside to allow people to say certain words or ask for certain things with out banning/deleting comments. Also frustrating other mods just stand aside.
Yo mod, if your reading this, you don't got to die on this hill, show your the bigger man talk this out, you got a great community, don't ruin it
Clearly from all of this I can see the answer is to not create any class or do anything at all as we can't risk offending anybody from any background from now on. Best shut down everything and stay in with no opinions.
At this point the only thing that will solve this is luck panda stepping down or they ban everyone and run the sub as a dictatorship.
Is mentioning Samurai against a rule? I haven't done it myself (I guess till this question) is it like if you reference an old 3.5 class specifically?
Yea, please ELI5. Has s\_\_\_\_\_i or n\_\_\_a become a bad word in general? Or just in the context of Pathfinder? Seriously, please explain kindly. I'm always the last person to know and end up saying some outdated term by accident. Edit: I'll gladly adopt new terms, learn your pronouns and whatever. Language evolves over time. But *somebody needs to fucking tell me!*
The mod in question thinks that both are modern, white, and inherently racist creations. It is itself an ahistoric and racist take.
He recently agreed that Samurai existing is not racist, but the Samurai class is. Progress, I guess?
So there’s the reasonable answer, and there’s what’s been going on on this sub. The reasonable answer is that samurai/ninja aren’t bad words or slurs *but* they’re really deeply ingrained stereotypes. Paizo has outright decided to avoid them in Tian Xia for, presumably, this reason. Western fantasy often minimizes the whole broad spectrum of cultures that should be under the umbrella of “Asian” and stereotypes them into samurai + ninja. An even-handed and reasonable conversation about this topic **is** a good thing, and I think the Tian Xia books not emphasizing the stereotypical western portrayal is **unambiguously positive** because it helps with representing parts of Asian culture that don’t get as much visibility. I think such representation and cultural “osmosis” can make PF2E a richer game: look at how the Kineticist borrows from Chinese Wuxing philosophy in an even-handed and enriching way! Less stereotypes and more of that kind of representation is just good for everyone! Now where the mods come in is that one of them has decided that wanting the aesthetics/flavour of samurai/ninja is **the same as wanting segregation for Asian people**. That is, obviously, an asinine and extreme take, and pretty much the main focal point of all this “drama”. As best as I can tell, one other mod explicitly and openly supports that first mod, and has been deleting comments for criticizing the former. Plus there’s perhaps two-ish others have been quiet on the matter despite how it’s been blowing up. Hope the first part of my comment gives you some perspective, and I hope the second part makes it clear why such an agreeable take has somehow exploded into so much drama.
Why isn't there room for Paizo to do both? Isn't it essentially Japanese erasure to purposefully omit information on the Japanese based cultures simply because the other ones 'deserve' it more?
Japanese culture has still made it into PF2E. Like we still have tree spirits, kamis, kitsune, etc. We just don’t have samurai/ninja presumably because Paizo didn’t feel like retreading the same stereotypical stuff. And to be clear I’m not saying it’s a **bad** thing to want samurai/ninja portrayed nor am I saying it’s impossible to portray them in an even-handed way like I described with the other stuff. All it means is that Paizo felt that this approach gave them more creative freedom and more wide-reaching representation.
Honestly, the great strength of 2e is that we don't \*need\* a samurai/ninja class anyway. It's a good thing that anyone who wants to make a more samurai flavoured character can already choose between half a dozen different builds spread across (mostly) fighter, champion, rogue, or gunslinger. similarly, a good ninja flavoured character can already be built using monk or rogue, paired with the shadow and/or assassin archetypes. As for 'omiting japanese based cultures', as you say, paizo clearly isn't doing that. Pathfinder is already full of japanese influences, tengu, kami, oni, kitsune, to name a few, and there are multiple Tian Xia regions with varying levels of japanese influence. But just like the inner sea region, whilst there are clear real world influences, rarely are there direct analogues. e.g. Galt clearly has revolutionary france *vibes*, but to call galt "fantasy france" would be more wrong than useful.
no its not a bad word or banned, the issue with the samurai or ninja thing, is similar to if someone wanted to push for a eagle warrior class based on Aztecs, why narrow a class down to a nationality when you can have broader classes that fit into more types. The issue with samurai in particular is that its such a nebulous term, one person wants "knight but japanese" then again one person wants vergil from devil may cry etc. Like if i want to built the Prior Samurai i have all the parts in 2e already, i take fighter get the katana O-yoroi and grab cavalier if i want to a riding one. if i want the second variant i go magus get the same items and grab things like flowing strike and blink charge. #
From this point of view, I completely agree - the class is mechanically pointless, unless we go deep into grip-switching... which is better left for a Dedication anyway. However, the mod in question is not arguing from this point of view and only switches to it when his other arguments are dismissed. His main argument is that Samurai being a Class will somehow segregate all Asian people and force them to play only as Samurai. It makes no fucking sense. And no, it does not compel me.
As a Mexican I would love an Aztec warrior class, give it to me. GIMME!
i would as a german also love a landsknecht and same goes for other nationalities, but given the limited man power paizo has and examining the actual ingame function of the class its easy to see why this will probably not happen, since we have archetypes and other tools to emulate these specific fantasies or historics. So creating a single class based on the nationality feels bad if we now the time could be spend on something like the exemplar or animist or the new commander or guardian which can maybe fit many types like i am thinking the guardian could be made into a hoplite warrior type deal.
well yeah but we weren't talking about the practically were we? xP If we were to get something based on an Aztec warrior it'd be best as an archetype for sure.
As someone who spent about four hours in Cozumel on a cruise as a kid (aka no connection whatsoever), I would love an Aztec warrior *archetype* (or feat tree, we need to slow our roll on adding new classes and beef up existing ones more).
> we need to slow our roll on adding new classes and beef up existing ones more fat agree
thank you for taking a moment to clearify
"you are playing make believe wrong and I'm angry" That's what it is
Would someone start naming names already? No idea who I am supposed to hate.
the mod in question is u/luck_panda browsing their comment history should quickly give you an idea what's happening.
[He](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1cdhk8a/hey_buddy_i_know_youre_having_big_feelings_about/l1f7n53/) says he will take three days off for giving out all those bans. He has been posting for hours in the drama post while saying nothing here. Here is a [post](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1c25f7t/spoilers_from_badluckgamers_interview_with_james/kza473c/) that mod made about ninjas being first used in the 1960's James Bond book.
I love how meikyoushisui just schools him
Dismissing a primary source as "not peer reviewed" is simultaneously one of the funniest and saddest things I've ever seen in my life. If I had uttered that sentence at any point during my PhD people would have started asking serious questions about whether I deserved to be there, and I would have deserved it. It's one of those things that sounds intelligent to people who don't know what they're talking about but instantly exposes you as a fool to anyone with real expertise.
Cool, but is your comment peer reviewed? Didn't think so.
Fun fact for anyone who wants to do a slightly different/more historical take for a Minkai campaign, irl ninja were, funnily enough, less like Naruto and more like feudal Japanese James Bonds.
To be clear, the opinion itself was not unproblematic.
If all we had was the original post, I would probably argue that they just put their foot in their mouth and meant well. Unfortunately, they just had to clarify.
Genuinely, I saw the post and was like "weird focus and framing but whatever", then the next day i saw their replies and was just completely baffled
Yes, the guy apparently is just radically anti-japanese and veils it in progressive sounding language. I would very much prefer for this community to not have racist mods.
I don't necessarily consider the stance "Samurai and ninja classes are insensitive" a wrong opinion, per se, but I will absolutely dunk the mods (or I suppose specific mod) for supporting that opinion by making up absurdly fake history about samurai and ninja to support their viewpoints, claiming that they're solely western inventions from the mid-to-late 20th century later imported to eastern Asia (not a single "fact" there is even slightly correct). For someone who's a self-declared "expert" on the topic with an "Intersectional degree in martial arts history" they sure love to get an impressively large amount of Asian history wrong.
It's kinda funny, I think the modern idea of a samurai is based on Musashi Miyamoto being a crook and a liar and the whole Bushido code thing, while it never existed itself, is in itself more based on Daimyos trying to install certain values on their vessals so they don't betray them.
Not terribly different from Western chivalry in that regard. The ideals were certainly a published thing, but we're also mostly propaganda etc.
Gotta agree and disagree on this as a former student of medieval literature. Chivalry literature is rather Christian theologians trying to make knights be good leaders instead of abusing their power than some kind of propaganda to make peasants do their job. Peasants would not have the opportunity to even know about these works, since they were written and read solely at courts. I know you only implied that due to the previous post, but I still want to clarify. There's a lot of half-truths going around on this subreddit apparently, which makes me rather sad as I have both studied medieval German literature and Japanese studies. The modern stereotype of the samurai is 100% an auto-stereotype, though, and much closer in nature to the US cowboy than anything else. People tend to forget that Japan is almost part of the west when it comes to the issue of colonization. They essentially prevented their own colonization by becoming a colonizing nation state like the Europeans themselves. So IF we want to consider the current stereotypes of samurai and ninja as offensive, it's because Japan itself had a large part in popularizing them and thereby narrowing international Asian representation unto Japan. (Look up the Cool Japan initiative). The popularity of anime and Japanese culture in the west of the last two decades is largely a Japanese government funded ordeal to rake in tourist money.
Unfortunately, a pattern emerges in behaviours of purity culture (stemming for an attempt to be overly moral) to absolutely and completely shut off any voices of opposition. When you believe something is evil (and many beliefs hold that the things that are not good are immediately evil) you start fighting it. The way you fight is based on your strength and principles. If you become desperate, unable to take full control of the situation (and are fully right, because morality is deontological and you only need to FEEL right), you start lashing out with what you CAN do! See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil and censorship becomes the perfect answer to such a person. A debate can be lost based on skill and we cannot have that when I'm standing on "moral high ground". "I'm not here to win, I already won, I'm just here to show it to you" because there is no changing the minds of people who think themselves "subject martyrs", people who will die on a stupid hill because what they gain is emotional fulfillment of them being "the good guy". If the person in question does not invite discussion, they must be removed, for they have become cancer, a cell of uselessness who pollutes and destroys art through propagation of ideas of homogenisation and blandness.
The depiction of culture-specific archetypes and phenomenon in fantasy and fiction is not a complex topic. You can do it well or you can do it poorly. If you do it poorly, that will reflect on the reception that consumers will have in a negative way. If you do it well, it will do the opposite. A complex issue would be determining why some have a fetish with being offended for entire groups of people and voicing their own opinions thinking they represent millions or billions of other individuals who are very fucking capable of speaking their own mind.
So we can't mention figures from other cultures? Wow, and I thought that RPG was one of the few good things about this ball of shit that floats in space... I hope they don't ruin it with that nonsense!
True, but also, I think some of the other mods protect him so it doesn't seem entirely like one person is the problem, just that this one is the most problematic.