I would certainly appreciate more discussion from the mods as to what is going on. Understanding comes from conversation, not being told what is and isn't right.
I. How is that not a violation of rule 2. The whole big feelings thing and the entire tone of that is just *hilariously* condescending and disrespectful.
Especially with "Community members are encouraged to ask questions or seek advice, and should be able to expect respectful and courteous answers" being most of that rule and this is a mod shutting down a question with condescension
The people who are most attracted to being a moderator are usually the people who *really* shouldn't be moderators. Same goes for any position of authority really.
I’m of mixed descent and found that mod’s post very jarring as I read more of their comments. I’ve also lived all around the world, and in most places locals *enjoy* seeing their foreigners try out and experience their culture. [This mod’s view is pretty icky.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/jXANNFDoWz)
Whether its just eating traditional Mongolian food, trying out a yukata, or chasing down some balut with a San Miguel, experiencing other cultures should be a *joy.*
As another example, I took my very non-asian SO to meet with an elderly Japanese couple (late 80s) last year, and they were so fascinated by how much Japanese she knew — as well as the interest she had in learning more about the culture.
They also asked about her country’s background. In the end, we all swapped gifts and celebrated the exchange.
It’s a pretty cool memory for us to have met with people who lived through WW2 Japan, and hearing their perspective on Japanese culture spanning their whole lives was fascinating.
Gatekeeping the ability to have an opinion and then labeling other opinions as ‘racism’ or the perpetuation of stereotypes is just braindead.
Princess said to make an entirely new post if you want to discuss it. It's locked under the top comment.
edit: lmao. Then deleted the post when it was made.
Seconding this, and we also need to know from u/luck_panda and u/Princess_Pilfer if rule 1 applies to mods, in addition to rule 2.
Deciding what parts of other cultures should and should not be shared or discussed, without consent or other agreement from said culture is both dismissive and demeaning to the culture and its people.
This is some incredibly problematic behaviour. Elsewhere in the post, before locking the thread, u/Princess_Pilfer has said
> Properly understanding requires *tons* of education and/or lived experience that most people simply do not have, and that nobody can have on every topic. At some point you have to just ask yourself if you're willing to continue to do harm merely because you don't understand how it's harmful.
They have made it clear that they do not have an understanding of the topic, as demonstrated by the harm they are perpetuating.
u/luck_panda has also demonstrated racism in the Tian Xia megathread:
>Druids and European based stuff, the reason that isn't an issue is because they are default to the setting. They are normalized.
Claiming that traditional western fantasy themes aren't an issue in a western fantasy setting, but traditional eastern fantasy themes in an eastern fantasy setting are an issue is another example of internalized racism.
Please cease with the breaking of rules 1 and 2. Hold yourselves accountable and step down, at least until you educate yourselves on the topics at hand and apologize to the community.
For any interested in what it said:
[https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cd1inl/\_/l199h4l/#comment-info](https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cd1inl/_/l199h4l/#comment-info)
I also like how the first point is an outright lie. There's no iaido techniques other than quick draw, and the abilities of pf1e samurai aren't quite in. (A marshal ranger kinda sorta does this but not exactly the same and is like telling someone that wants Synthesist to take Meld Into Eidolon and shut up, or something.)
"No it's not. Everything you would want for "samurai" is already in the game. The thing that makes it flavorful for people is the racism"
That guy was a fucking mod? I went back and scrolled through his comments and I am seeing some wild shit. I have low standards for mods to begin with but this guy is surprising me
Lmao I’m Japanese, if people wanna be a samurai go for it. Heck, back in pf1e days I loved playing ninja even if it’s just a “Japanese flavored rogue” and to no surprise, my Japanese husband loved playing the pf1e samurai.
It’s frankly more offensive thinking a samurai is just another fighter but Asian/japanese flavored, way to ignore the culture and the artistry behind those classes lol
I have to wonder how much "defenders" even know about what they're complaining about. I've researched Japanese mythology, as well as Japanese history. It's not hard to find out what Samurai are. In some aspects the Champion is closer to a Samurai than the Fighter. And that's just the narrative the class has.
what was the homebrew
edit:
>You may not understand it, but you don't have to! That's the thing about these complex problems.
>In the future you should try to understand how it is harmful rather than how much it must make you confused and scared.
I'm getting mixed signals, lmao
https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/60YYQxpH-samurai-class-en-v4
It was this. They claim it was taken down because it violated Pathfinder Infinite rules and was being marketed. It was a fan-made post on r/Pathfinder2eCreations that was, as far as I can tell, not on PFI and was never commercially available or marketed as such. They also claim that it only came to their attention due to users reporting it as marketing, but I find that difficult to believe and would like to see evidence to back that claim up as it makes little sense on the surface.
I'm incredibly leftist to the point I annoy my friends and people like this are more harmful rhetorically than some right wingers are lol
Can sum up the entire issue with one of their responses:
* *Either one works. The difference between Monk and Samurai in this case however is the difference between the MAGA uncle who can't stop saying "those people are taking our jobs" and using racial slurs and the 70 year old uncle who says, "Open borders are great, all the immigrants can come in and I love their food."*
WHAT? If you've got an issue w "orientalism" in classes then Monk is... absolutely the same fuckin thing as Samurai? A p2e monk isn't a fat guy who sits there and copies the Bible 300 times a month, it's predy *clearly* culturally influenced by the exact same area of the world as samurai - east Asia. So what is doing a Chinese class ok but Japanese class racist cause...then you're saying all Asians are the same? What?
It's super clear this mod is pretty ignorant and just power tripping, they don't have an actual stance or moral line here, it's purely "well monks already in the game so it's ok, but I can feel smug by yelling at people over samurai!"
all I could gather about the discrepancy was something something imperialism
because japan is the only Asian country who has done shitty things to their neighbors, I guess
God help this mod if he ever learns about the incredibly deep rivalry between the monasteries of Sengoku Japan and the Samurai. The massacre of the Mount Hiei monks, the ongoing gun-armed resistance of the Ikko-Ikki, their involvement in numerous assassinations...
It's almost like it was a conflict between two classes who found their positions in a changing Japan to be in conflict with each other. And that lumping them together is directly ignorant and reductive of the history of Japan.
So he is breaking rule 2, by being condescending. He is deciding what is racist to people. So he thinks he understands all about those complex problems.
As a person married to an south east asian person who often gets racist looks or comments, I ask for that mod to step down since he has the same attitude of those racist.
Nah dude you don't understand because you're not Asian yourself. And you're definitely not a specific type of Asian minority. So you can't possibly comprehend the position of privilege you are speaking from. And can't empathize with how much pain having an asian theme assassin or knight archetype can cause to you. You just don't know dude.
Edit: clear sarcasm. Also dudes causing the commotion just a obnoxious dick.
Mod commented below.
>It's not indifference, we can and have had these discussions before and largely agree. That they are also problems. If you would like to start that discussion in a seperate thread/s, I will be happy to have it. I have it on discord regularly.
>But that in this specific context they're not relevant, so bringing them up is little more than what-about-ism and serves no purpose except to distract from the problem being discussed (ie the orientalism built into those 2 popular ideas specifically.) And we're not going to indulge that distraction by dignifying it with a lengthy response in a place that is supposed to be about a completely different topic.
I mean, 'they' kind of ruined the discussion space. That's...that's why this is a post now. The mod in the Tia Xia pin said this isn't a discussion, we are just wrong and that is the way it is lmao.
*You can have these discussions in other threads but you will be called a segregating Japanese nationalist when you do, then we are going to come in and tell you to take it elsewhere.*
Edit: I made a pretty thorough post requesting for an Q&A and they removed it with zero feedback.
*We just want a discussion lmao*
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cda30n/can\_we\_get\_a\_qa\_about\_the\_handling\_of\_tian\_xia/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cda30n/can_we_get_a_qa_about_the_handling_of_tian_xia/)
> The mod in the Tia Xia pin said this isn't a discussion, we are just wrong and that is the way it is lmao.
WTF is the subreddit even for, if not discussion?
This is one of the last sub's keeping me on reddit. If we can't discuss things, I'll just fuck off to lemmy full time. The PF community there is tiny, but at least we're allowed to discuss shit.
> You can have these discussions in other threads but you will be called a *segregating Japanese nationalist* when you do.
\> Mod says Samurai class is pointless and racist because Monk exists
\> Sees nothing racist and ignorant about conflating two groups that were literally diametrically opposed in the history of Japan.
They truly are not sending their best anti-Orientalists here. Said would roll in his grave if he saw this sort of conflation of the history of a nation to make a supposedly enlightened point.
I couldn't find it in the post, do you have a link handy? Because jesus that's bad.
Like, I kinda get the argument that samurai wouldn't really have anything not covered by cavalier or archer, but saying that monk fills that role is insane. I saw one person hoping that a samurai class would have stance dancing based on weapon handedness (although that exists in just about every armed martial art, not just the ones popular among samurai), but other than the word "Stance" that doesn't really match anything the monk does.
I genuinely thought they were using monk as an example of existing orientalism in the system, not as a fucking *solution*
See, I thought of that but there's also something people like to play with in samurai about stances and duels that's not super covered by them. You have to sort of homebrew that in, plus a large class fantasy of the samurai usually revolves around Iai which is an existing action. People who like to play it want to emulate akira kurosawa films which often feature duels, quick moving fighters, and exciting fast swordplay sometimes involving switching stances.
Personally, I think you could probably buff swashbuckler and give it a samurai archetype to incorporate a couple of those ideas and be fine, roughly. Making it a whole new class feels weird to me, and if you wanted mounted archery stuff well you can probably play around with existing classes to achieve that.
It does seem extremely racist to just go 'just play a monk' as the solution though. Like, that's tone deaf as fuck. Sure, samurai often used martial arts to supplement \[and most actual kills were done via archery and spears\] but this ain't exactly trying to imitate real life 1 to 1.
I reaaaaaly don't feel like this is the place for a full-blown discussion on it, but Said is far from the authoritative source on Orientalism. There is still a considerable scholarly debate as to whether his is the be all, end all position on Orientalism and it's profoundly frustrating to me that the default position is just to assume him as an authority without presenting other perspectives.
But, that is kind of the zeitgeist of the frustration here. There's a lot (the majority) of people who are not social scientists and just want to play the things they see in media. The place for regulating content should be at the table, not in the forum. The forum should be a safe space for people to discuss what they want to do, and if there's something misrepresentative or insensitive, it should be good-faith discussed, not deleted and banned. That's not teaching, its policing.
I referenced him because the pinned controversial post talked about him and his book, even though he barely talked about the "Far East" at all in his work.
I also think its pretty clear the mods in question have shut down a lot of good faith curiosity about how you can handle stuff like this, using words like Orientalism and names like Said as if it makes them an authority, without having even read the texts they're trying to use as weapons.
The fact that all the quotes of the mod violating this subreddit's own rules keep getting deleted is telling.
You lack integrity. You know who you are. Have honor, own your faults, we all have them. Clearly the community sees you, the least you could do is apologize and do better.
Japan studies major chiming in.
It's definitely not faulty to confront our limited perceptions of Japanese people and culture in media to samurai and ninjas and what have you. That being said, they are still *insanely* popular in pop culture created and consumed *by* Japanese people. For example, Cyan Garamonde in Final Fantasy, Shuro in Dungeon Meshi, etc... There are countless examples of the samurai character archetype in Japanese media of the otherwise European-inspired genre that traces its roots to the western medieval fantasy RPGs that eventually gave birth to Pathfinder. I could probably delve into the popular ninja archetype's origins in Japanese theatre (as opposed to the actual historical Japanese agents/assassins/etc) and other cultural examples, but I'll leave it at that for now. It's understandable to see why we wouldn't want to reduce the full body of Japanese culture to these tropes *alone,* but acting as a moderator to scrub examples of these tropes as if they're inherently misrepresentative and harmful leaves... a weird taste in my mouth.
Of course, there's also nuance in that the experiences of a person born and raised in Japan will not be the same as that of, say, a Japanese-American. The latter may see a white person in a yukata and cringe ↩, knowing how stripped of its cultural context it might be by those who see these bits and pieces of Japanese culture as that of an exotic, far-away land. The former may see the very same and be excited to see a foreigner indulge and share in such a culturally familiar piece of fashion. It's hard to say if one perspective inherently invalidates the other, especially when there are so many other factors and societal biases that might come in play - colorism in Japan, the legacy of American paternalism, how conservative or progressive the individual person is, etc.
I don't believe Pathfinder has that much of a market share in Japan \[citation needed\], so it's not really likely that we'd be hearing many people weighing in on these issues from that particular perspective, which is a bias to account for as well. One thing's to say, though, and that no culture is a monolith, and people will disagree with each other about things no matter where they're from... which is, of course, very different from how many might buy into this simpler, easy-to-digest image of Japan as this bushido-workaholic country where everyone thinks pretty much the same. (It's not.) That makes it hard to adopt a strict, scorched earth "talking about this is bad" policy as a moderator. Are we making this online community a safer space for discussion, representation, and celebration of this culture to flourish beyond pigeonholed stereotypes, or are we counterintuitively stifling it by whittling down what aspects are and aren't acceptable to discuss and explore?
I could probably ramble about this forever, so I'll try to cap it off. Being a Japan studies major doesn't inherently make me correct - I'm as susceptible to bias as anyone else (and I doubtless can't use it to speak for the incredibly broad umbrella of all AAPI people as a whole) - but it does give me a bit more material to work with when it comes to dissecting, at the very least, this particular angle of this whole... well, whatever this has become.
To bring this back to a system discussion... yeah, I think it'd be silly to make Samurai and Ninja their own classes in 2e like they were in 1e. But I think it should at *least* be a little bit easier to get [Wooden Double](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1416) on a Rogue.
I think the issue stems from mods squashing any discussion around it, instead of just openly inflammatory/racist takes. There’s a lot of nuance to be had around certain aspects of it, and it can be acknowledged as problematic while also recognizing there’s ways to flesh out these fantasies in non-harmful ways. But mods are clean locking/deleting/banning any takes around the subject at all that aren’t “new setting is perfect” or “here’s why Paizo used to be racist and now isn’t”
Tecmo Koei, was Koei, a Japanese company, make a game called Samurai Warriors. I was introduced to it, by a Japanese exchange student. I'd be doubtful as to what faithful representation there is of Samurai in there, any more than Yoshimitsu was, or Afro Samurai was.
Mods being daft, sheltering using using their race as a defense for their own shit takes and poor choices.
About the theatre ninjas. Japan really embraced it. I am an otaku and a theatre major and it seems the "theatre ninja" which is the name we now call anyone in black moving the scene pieces since its origin in Japan, is a trop they really adopted in the end. In many Japanease media they use the ninja as a warrior now and not as a theatre worker.
It would ofc make no sense, as a Ninja is an secret agent and the color black is VERY expensive to make, making you very noticeable. But looking at games, shows, and mangas, they are using it themselves in this way.
This I think comes again to "Jrpgs is racist" vs "No, I make Jrpgs for a living and I like that ppl call it [Jrpg](https://kotaku.com/ff16-yoshi-p-jrpg-square-enix-yoshida-previews-ps5-1850169822) because I am proud of japan". It's like "french filma" and "German theatre" you kinda know what you getting just by the name.
as someone who was PART of the discord, i can say this STINKS of one of the moderators there.
he would constantly make everything relate to racism, even if you just asked "hey, how should i make a monk" he'd launch in a long tirade about how monks just EXISTING was orientalist, and not so subtly shame you for wanting to play one.
also, he runs a westmarches/living world that sucks hella ass
I was really hoping things would improve into an actual conversation but by all accounts it sounds like the mod that caused all this controversy is being told to keep their head down to not make things worse, another mod is showing up to in fact defend their stance and insist nothing is wrong, and the rest of the mod team is actively ignoring everything and hoping this blows over so they can pretend the problem was solved, even though this is going to get _so_ much worse when the Character Guide is released and we start discussing stuff like the Magical Girl archetype and anything else which has a very specific flavor based on a very specific culture.
I don't know. I _really_ hope the mod silence is because they're having a long and nuanced discussion about the correct path forward, and aren't simply having contempt for us even though a lot of the discussions are "there are serious problems with racism and orientalism but I still think the mods are acting in bad faith." It really feels like disagreement with the mods is being conflated with disagreeing with the cause itself, because the mods aren't willing to discuss the idea that they aren't perfect.
When all you have is a (ban)hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Either a mod went Rogue, or they're doing some serious scorched earth policy on anything that can be considered vaguely offensive.
**EDIT:** I did some digging, Reddit is returning HTTP 429 messages when the page attempts to load, enough people are looking at this that it is getting rate-limited ATM. It should start working better if you check back in a bit, ideally.
If the reason comments are being removed is to protect people from upsetting content, then there is no reason to try and remove this comment that shows what has been deleted by the moderation team. Anyone clicking this link will be knowingly and willingly going to see the removed comments, whatever they might contain.
https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cbzpbf/tian_xia_real_world_parallels_and_a_serious_moment/
And this is the deleted thread that this post is in reference to:
https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cczitp/what_is_going_on_with_this_subreddit/
Sadly the API isn't perfect and doesn't always get posts/comments before they are deleted.
I just want to provide this so that people can have some proper context as to what is actually going on here. There are a lot of people claiming their posts were unjustly removed, and others claiming that everything being removed is being removed for the right reasons, so letting people actually see what is happening strikes me as important in this situation.
There are indeed a fair number of unhelpful and inflammatory comments that were removed from the most recent thread, but many more that are far less clear cut. I encourage people to take a look and come to their own conclusions based on a more complete set of data.
**Edit:** Here is the link for this post as well. The site appears to be struggling to keep up ATM, so it may or may not load properly.
https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cd1inl/the_mods_have_been_abusing_power/
The mods have stepped up their game. Now they are deleting comments so quickly they don’t have time to be archived.
I wonder if that is a reaction to these archives being posted.
Just scanning through this... what's upsetting? Sounds like people are having a meaningful conversation about the social implications of gaming tropes.
Just so it's clear for you and anyone else, anything that's highlighted red means it was deleted by moderators. Those are chains that were quashed by moderation. Green for edits (I edited my initial comment a lot in there, as can be seen lol), blue for self-delete.
I see. I don't really understand why they would delete that section in red. Just sounds like the author is defining and elaborating on Orientalism. Important info and perspective.
So, that *is* a post made by a moderator, which is why that one section in the original post shows up as red. They chose to self-edit that part. It's the many comments in the thread that are red which a lot of people are upset about--comments they don't feel were deserving of moderation and deletion.
Yeah.... with that as context it's clear that a lot of what is getting deleted is purely critique of mod actions.
The mod responsible needs to be gone.
I'm just deeply confused as to what rule most of the red comments in that post broke. Is it that they're having a conversation that doesn't agree with the OP?
Might be worth actually getting a hold of the community team from Paizo at this point for my reason in this same thread
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/SjLYtx6KSO
Ah yes, my previous comment got removed without any explanation at some point after I went to bed. That sure doesn't feel like it is trying to squash any legitimate discussion /s
To the mods that may feel targeted by this: I know this is a volunteer job, but that doesn't give you the right to abuse your power like this. Seeing as this is the main social media I get when trying to find Pathfinder 2e stuff, I would wish for this space to actually be a safe discussion space that can in fact tackle the tougher questions about representation in the TTRPG space.
I don't give a fuck about ninja and samurai being unrepresented gameplay wise, but if people have legitimate discussions in good faith about them, why does that get removed? And don't tell me it doesn't, this thread is proof of that behavior, but oh well, saying that will get my comment removed.
Sadly, there will be no apology, or even acknowledgement that things could have been handled better.
Pharasma forbid anyone ever admit fault, or try to understand why people disagree with how they have been behaving.
If anything, I expect another post where they double down, unfortunately.
Tbh, the whole pinned thread about Tian Xia seemed a bit weird to me. Not the content of the thread itself, I think the writer has good intentions and a discussion about racist tropes in fantasy literature is always welcome, but the fact it was pinned like some kind of manifesto?
What was the goal of the pinning of that thread? Making people aware of the racist tropes? My understanding of the Tian Xia world guide was that it was a GOOD AND NUANCED take on eastern cultures, so why the need to pin the thread? Shouldn’t we instead be praising Paizo for creating such a product, instead of moralizing people who want to play a different flavour of sword soldier in their fantasy game?
Yeah I was like wtf why is this pinned and then I read it and it was a big nothing burger….someone got lonely and couldn’t find the right place to discuss their ideas on race/culture and power tripped and pinned it here.
I’m an Asian American who is super excited for TX and this whole fiasco is just discouraging me and my excitement
One would assume that if a book was created with the expressed purpose of developing a culturally rich land inspired by real world cultures from a respectable outlook with people from these cultures working on the project, that the official subreddit would do nothing but go out of their way to praise the diversity of expression in the book.
"Paizo wrote one of THE GREATEST sourcebooks of all time. Just look at how RICH Tian Xia is in lore and how REAL and ALIVE the cultures within seem."
Not.
"Think twice about buying this book, because as a hobbyist you are prone to make harmful racial stereotypes if you play in a culture that isn't the same as the one your grew up in. This book was written in order to give a nuanced look on an east asian inspired continent. However, we know that in spite of this book, you as a consumer cannot be trusted not to continue harmful racial stereotypes in your games."
I too was SUPER EXCITED for this book and the upcoming character guide. But the posts from yesterday gave me (English is my second language, so part of the nuance of the post may be lost on me...) the impression that I shouldn't be excited for this book. Or even worse, that I am not ALLOWED to be excited for this book. I can't help but wonder why.
Irony would have it that the user that other people are taking issue with, had posted not that long ago how happy they were to both be and feel represented in the new books.
Suffice it to say, there’s nothing problematic or wrong with what’s in the book.
Literally just someone with no actual problems in their life wanting to use the tiny bit of power moderation gives them to soapbox and feel superior
I'm all for conversations like this but the mod in question didn't want to have a conversation, they wanted to preach, and when their own logic was employed against them they deleted comments and got incredibly defensive and condescending, against rule 2 of the subreddit.
You can see it in a few responses in the deleted items thread somewhere in this comment section, there's a part where someone challenges the mod if their "respect cultures" ideology extends to Druids, holy people in Celtic culture that are often "made tropes" by being hippie beast men, and the mod all but laughed at the user with their entire logic being "well Irish people are white so they've never been oppressed" (uhhhh guess the Troubles didn't happen)
Or their just flippant dismissal of why Monk doesn't also count under the same "orientalism" logic, their only response was some ridiculous tortured analogy about MAGA boomers. The real answer is they can't soapbox and virtue signal over a canonized class everyone plays like they can over some homebrew...
I read through that post you mentioned like 3 times, and just didn't understand what they were trying to convey with the hole thing. It just left me flabberghasted
You guys missed the part where the moderator did martial arts, so of course he's an authority on Asian culture
/s
This shit is pathetic. We need a new pf2e sub.
I saw that too and was so confused. Allegedly he has a degree in martial arts history which is fine and all but it doesn't make him as much of an expert as he thinks he is. I have a degree in East Asian history with an emphasis on history of religion and while I know a lot about China and Japan, there are still many things I couldn't speak to.
China in particular is an extremely diverse place. It's HUGE and while there are a few broad strokes that cover a lot of China, being an expert in martial arts history is barely scratching the surface. Dude needs to stay in his lane.
> I have a degree in East Asian history with an emphasis on history of religion and while I know a lot about China and Japan, there are still many things I couldn't speak to.
I have a similar degree and most of my coursework was about sociocultural and linguistic shifts during the Meiji and Taisho eras.
The problem here is that the mod in question presents themselves as having a much broader range of expertise than they actually do, *especially* about Japanese culture and history (and that's being very generous). [You can see a number of examples here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1c25f7t/spoilers_from_badluckgamers_interview_with_james/kzabqxg/) And when you suggest correction on matters of history, they take it as an attack on their character or worse, read it as if the person offering correction is trying to justify racism.
Heeey, fellow historian! My studies focused more on pre-modern, especially Heian-period, but needless to say I've done my fair share of study all up and down the timelines of Japan and China.
Yeah, one of the most glaring inaccuracies I remember from that mod is saying that ninja are a concept invented by Ian Fleming for James Bond novels or something like that. The specific idea of men in black clothing and masks may have come out of James Bond stories. I don't know enough about ninja history to know what they may or may not have worn.
HOWEVER, it's pretty easy to debunk the notion that the shinobi/ninja concept was only invented by Fleming. Like you mentioned in that linked post, a lot of modern ideas of ninja are over 100 years old at this point. And it's pretty easy to find reputable resources that show "shinobi" was used for some sort of sneaky mercenary well before even the Tokugawa period. They may not be what we think of as ninja *today*, but the idea has been there for centuries and *we have primary source documents from premodern times to support that*.
Quick correction to myself about the black clothing: Even glancing at Wikipedia debunks this pretty soundly. [This is a print by Hokusai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja#/media/File:Hokusai-sketches---hokusai-manga-vol6-crop.jpg) (for those that don't know, Hokusai is the artist who made that iconic Great Wave print that's *everywhere*) that depicts a ninja in loose black clothing and mask. It's from 1817. It kinda predates Fleming by, y'know, over 100 years.
So maybe luck panda should sit this out and shut up instead of pushing his own weird, uninformed, ignorant ideas on people in the name of activism because his takes are anything but.
I went ahead and [dug up the thread from last time](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/11gepml/paizo_tian_xia_coming_20232024/jaoidwo/). You can see he makes the same claim about the use of the word "ninja".
And the part that makes this such a pain in the ass to deal with is that he's just a bad messenger for what is a good message. Orientalism is bad, there are a lot of bad depictions of non-Western European cultures in games generally, Pathfinder 1e specifically had a lot of *bad* Orientalist shit going on in Tian Xia, the TTRPG industry as a whole does a pretty fucking bad job at Asian representation, and there's no justification for a samurai or ninja class to exist independently in PF2e. All of those things are true.
I don't envy the position of the rest of the mod team at all. They're caught between defending someone who is frequently giving objectively wrong information while positioning themself as an expert and refusing any correction, or not defending them and making a mob of people who *are* racist feel like they've "won". (And it's obvious what the right decision is there because racism is a lot more harmful than one guy who bothers some people, so here we are.)
The irony of him claiming we all just have to accept his view because it is based on experts in the field and we are just laymen while he has the history he has arguing with you over stuff like the origins of the mythical version of the ninja.
Orientalism is definitely bad, though trying to identify what is and isn't orientalism can be difficult (obviously at the extreme ends it can be obvious, but there are a lot of stuff that isn't so obvious), but the mod in question is the wrong person to be championing the fight against it.
I agree. It's frustrating, especially because he won't accept that there are other experts in similar fields, AND that he's not the sole representative of Asian people, and therefore doesn't have the right to make sweeping generalizations saying what is and isn't bigoted.
There's a very interesting phenomenon that most people come across when studying countries outside their own. You have one extreme of interaction that's undeniably racist (i.e., racist caricatures), and one extreme that's clearly not racist (i.e., eating sushi), and a *whole lot of gray area* in between. And that gray area is full of disagreement on what is and isn't cultural appropriation. It's especially common when you look at responses from people native to a given country like Japan compared to descendants of those people, like Japanese Americans. Something a native Japanese person thinks is fine might be offensive to a Japanese American.
I think a large part of the issue that led to this is that a *lot* of the discussion around samurai and ninja genuinely falls in that gray area. I agree with the sentiment that samurai and ninja don't need to be their own class, and I agree that, prior to this Tian Xia book, both Paizo and D&D have used a lot of Orientalist themes in their Asian-inspired settings. But wanting to play a samurai or ninja as depicted in pop culture isn't inherently Orientalist and I think that's where the mods' behavior is inappropriate and harmful.
There are people who do want the racist stereotypes of previous "Oriental Adventures" types of fantasy Asia, yes. But a lot of people who expressed interest in samurai or ninja mechanics here seem to be coming from a place of wanting to live out their favorite Naruto or Kurosawa fantasies and that's not automatically a bad thing. The mods, however, seem to be assuming bad intentions from anyone and everyone who expresses a desire to play pop culture-inspired samurai or ninja. They made their entire Orientalism manifesto for some reason, pinned it, and then when people respond poorly they more or less just seem to accuse people of being outright racist. Luck panda in particular says people are "telling on themselves" because they want to play out something they saw in Japanese media. They come off patronizing at best and can't figure out why people don't appreciate their points.
Romanticized samurai stories are essentially the cowboy Western genre of Japan and romanticized depictions of the Edo period predate WWII. Wuxia is essentially the same sort of thing for China. It would be one thing if people here assumed "samurai" was acceptable for all warriors all over Tian Xia, regardless of their real world inspiration, but that's not really what's happening here. People specifically want to play a samurai or ninja from a Japanese-inspired place and the mods are getting their undies in a bunch over it because they are under the mistaken impression that these depictions don't originate in Japan to begin with.
Thinking a martial arts degree makes you any kind of authority on Japanese culture is;
1) rediculous. That's likes saying you shoot guns a lot, so you know about American culture and will defend it.
2) It's extremely racist? Kind of feels like *he* is reducing an entire culture to a stereotype. It feels like his entire concept of Asian culture starts at Monk and ends at Samurai. If it ain't about dudes karate chopping each other, it's beyond his knowledge.
Yep, got removed for no reason. I [posted as well](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cd1qia/comment/l1907cp/?context=3) and it just seems like we are going to get banned because we are calling out mods who are abusing power in this subreddit.
Where is the safe space? Isn't this supposed to mirror Paizo's goals? Paizo is supposed to be safe for everyone >!(not counting people who are T.R.A.A.S.H. or similar of course)!<, this doesn't feel safe.
EDIT: ~~Ok, on the Discord they said the reason they had to remove my post and the Pathfinder2eCreations post was:~~
>~~"The samurai homebrew is literally againts the PFI rules and it was deleted because it breaks those rules. I don't know what they want with this one. They were spreading it around and it got back to us from USER reports.~~
>~~that person got their post deleted because they marketed it~~
>~~and it's literally against the Pathfinder Infinite rules~~
>~~like lmfao"~~
~~Now, I don't know how PFI rules work, I thought since it was a free document it wouldnt be an issue, so I might have been in the wrong about this one. And also, the document was on~~ [~~scribe.pf2e.tools~~](http://scribe.pf2e.tools)~~, does PFI affect it?~~
EDIT 2: Maybe they were mentioning another Samurai homebrew. So we still don't know why the Samurai from PF2eCreations have been removed.
EDIT 3: Damn, they dogpiled on the homebrew samurai like it was the worse thing ever and that there was no proofreading, calling it dogshit and all. Not even r/ChillPathfinder2e was safe. I will probably be moving to the [Pathfinder RPG](https://discord.gg/pathfinder) Discord and the ChillPF2e and r/Pathfinder_RPG subreddits. I suggest people who are unhappy with these mods to do the same.
It's not against PFI either:
[https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/409641/Samurai-Archetype-BUNDLE](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/409641/Samurai-Archetype-BUNDLE)
as far as I understand the PFI rules are pretty concrete and i assume if paizo has it up they probably follow them better than some guy on the internet
Well, looks like I got threatened with a ban!
"Do not submit another post with a topic that is not about Pathfinder2e, as it is against the subreddit rules.
If you make another post that does not pertain to Pathfinder2e, you will receive a temporary ban."
Waiting for this to be removed too. It’s very understandable that people want to argue here where the problem is, that’s not going to get anywhere when the mod(s) in question are aggressively removing posts and comments highlighting this. Only sure fire way to get this to stick is to post it somewhere they can’t remove it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/LwLAK5tRr8
My post on it got removed lol
I guess mine got removed first because I posted links to his questionable comments
Fun, this post was removed, along with other harmless comments from u/AAABattery03 talking about the Rule 7 and from u/majikguy who has been posting useful links.
The claim is that a character class named Samurai with features derived from tropes established by both Hollywood and Japanese media sources both past and present in a fictional "eastern" continent in a fictional universe (Golarion) is harmful to actual real people of Japanese descent because it reinforces "harmful" stereotypes. Which, obviously, to anyone with half a brain can realize that there's a difference between fiction tropes and real life and actually harms no one.
It's like claiming a "gunslinger" class based on tropes from American and Italian westerns is offensive to Americans from the American west and causes literal harm to real Americans, because this fictional character class reinforces stereotypes of americans from the past being gun-toting "shoot first and ask questions later" outlaws or sheriffs. The claim is obviously ridiculous.
And these classes are set in a world that is not our world! They aren't supposed to be literally from Japan or America or Europe. They're from Tian-xia, Andoran, or Cheliax.
We're talking about a universe with nations that:
\* Are inspired by revolutionary France and all the tropes there (Galt)
\* Insipred by revolutionary USA (Andoran)
\* Is led by slaving, devil worshiping despots (Cheliax)
\* Is led by undead
\* Is a horror filled torture country (...several)
\* Led by tech-powered barbarians
\* Worships vaguely-egyptian inspired deities.
Golarion is a kitchen sink world filled with every trope and storytelling hook that exists in our world. You know, like a real world. Having character classes reflect aspects of that fictional world does not harm people in our real one.
Apparently, much like the monk class, Samurai is racist.
I don't get it either. I read over the post from yesterday and I thought it was actually interesting and made some decent points, but saying that Monk IS racist because it plays into a martial arts fantasy, therefor being a 'mystical Asian' class I guess, and Ninja and Samurai fall into that same category of reinforcing harmful stereotypes.
If you talk about a samurai, you're saying that every Asian is a samurai, but since not all Asians are samurai, you're a racist. And the only thing more racist than talking about samurai is claiming that you like samurai and also you're aware that not every Asian is one, because you're clearly lying to cover up how racist you are.
At least, that's what I've been able to gather, but it's kind of hard because the mod keeps deleting everything
Even with your paraphrase/digest/summary it still took me minutes to understand. Am I just that bad at my Perception for insight, or that Acrobatic(INT) DC was just too high?
Don't worry, the mod says you don't need to understand it. You just need to understand that not understanding is racist, and that trying to understand is also racist. That's another reason not to talk about the samurai at all: either way, you're a racist. You are allowed to sticky a wall of text about how racist it is to talk about samurai, though, but only if you have a degree in martial arts. The degree proves that you know the difference between the Vietnamese and Samurais, you see. There's no other way to tell them apart. That's how you know that Japanese people making anime about their own history are racist against Asians as a whole: what if a Korean watches the anime and is upset that Japanese samurais aren't Korean? Or if an American watches the Japanese anime, they might think their Chinese friend is a ninja, and it's only okay to call every Japanese person you meet a ninja (apparently), not Asians in general. If you, an American, call a Chinese man a samurai, that's actually due to Japan's racist anime as it turns out. And since the Japanese keep making anime about samurai, it means every Japanese person is racist: another good reason to never speak of samurai again. Besides, you don't need to talk about samurai in Pathfinder, because as it turns out the Fighter class based on western European knights is exactly the same as a samurai (there are no differences at all), so quit your racist complaining.
I have nothing new to add. I'm just here to express that I fully agree with the idea of this post and condemn the mod(s) who are perpetrating this without any attempt at discussion whatsoever.
As soon as I saw that discord message I had my concerns. It definitely gave me the vibe of the power hungry type, the I'm always right type. The whole "if you disagree with me then you're a racist or an x, y or z. and I'll use my power to silence/punish you." Etc.
Be careful not to become what you hate. Moderation can very quickly become censorship and authoritarianism, as it has for a lot of people who have believed they are morally right. And labelling everyone who disagrees with you in a derogatory way will only lead to people taking a personal dislike to you and whoever you represent.
Wait they banned people discussing the samurai because it was racist? In that case we should ban the Wayang because they are linked to my wife's culture and belief and they aren't giant like bhima ... (By the way, I own 5 wayang puppet, they all have name and role linked to the Mahabharata). Lets erase the whole Tian Xia book too (I am sarcastic)
Make no sense. That mod is a stain on this community and should step down
The thing I hate most after reading through this post, OP's post in question, the original Tian Xia post, and all of the related deleted comments (thanks u/majikguy's comment), is that the actions of the mods bring about the opposite of what the mods intend. We are not creating a space where people can discuss and learn about these topics, we're creating a space where if anyone dissents they are sent to the shadow realm. We're creating an echo chamber. And one that doesn't even do a good job at holding up the ideals that the mods propagate.
I've been silently frustrated with this community for a long time and I initially thought I was in an incredibly small minority. It turns out everyone who disagrees (even if they just disagree on application and not intent) was just pushed out for being vocal about it. They're either banned, have their comments/posts removed, or discussion is locked by mods. Why are people so convinced they're right so concerned with stopping any dissenting conversation on the topic?
FYI, the speculated mod, based on their Discord username (which I am not sharing), is very likely the organizer of the PF2e Subreddit Discord (often considered just the PF2e discord). So it's likely they are extremely entrenched both here and of course there.
So don't expect their behavior to change.
When Paizo's twitter account didn't change their Icon to the original one after pride month because a single person complained about it, the majority of the community cheered.
Every time Paizo does something to shine light on other cultures, hires on writers of the homes they are taking inspiration from, the community takes note and points out how good it is.
The entire community talks about how bad 1e was and enjoys every step Paizo makes to be more inclusive and work to a better more inviting growing into a much better company and everyone loves it.
The entire community seems to love the steps taken and push for a better, more inclusive experience, sure there may be some bad actors here and there but they aren't the majority.
So yeah... If the OP wasn't made none of this chaos would have started. People fight the hardest when they feel they have been unjustly attacked, which often causes a retaliation spiral.
It just keeps getting worse. Folks ask questions, Mod says this thread isn't the proper place to discuss them (fair), create another thread TO discuss their concerns, and then that thread, created at the direct invitation of a mod, gets nuked.
We are in another self-reinforcing overmoderation cyclone like the one just before TGT ended. Stay the course, friends.
This isn't a reddit only problem, the PF2E discord is just as bad if not way worse than the reddit modderation. I got banned for saying I don't play overweight characters much and prefer my characters to be more stereotypical ''peak human performance'' types like Conan or Aragorn since it allows me to play something that is very hard to attain IRL.
They said this is offensive and fatphobic and banned me for it after putting me on mute for an hour to shit talk me and only after that did they ban me.
Hopefully we can push that even higher. The absolute radio silence from the rest of the mod team on this issue is not a good look for them and getting them to acknowledge this at all would already be a good thing. Even if they all come out in support of this unhinged behavior at least it would demonstrate some backbone.
All I know is that that post didn't deserve the @everyone tag in the discord and I'm willing to bet that's the biggest problem/reason this whole thing has flared up
Considering the effect this has on the game, I suppose it's significant enough to contact Paizo about abusive community leaders. Perhaps at worst we can get whoever the problem children are banned from Paizo Products for vandalizing the image of the IP. It's not like the reddit is some tiny fan community, it's a defacto resource next to official content.
This sounds like it also extends to the discord server, and there was someone who said they witnessed a senior developer posting normal things right after a mod was gloating about banning people. It's not a good look to say the least.
From what I have seen, the mods here have good intentions but are just woefully uninformed on what problematic content actually is. The post by the mods recently that mentioned Samurai and Ninja as problematic just shows a severe lack of understanding of what makes something problematic, in my opinion.
It’s one thing for the stance to be “we believe paizo is making the right call by not including samuari or ninja’s because it’s problematic.”
But nobody can make samuari?? What?? What about Japanese people
I feel like there’s a belief that depictions of Japanese culture are specifically harmful in a way that depictions of other Asian cultures aren’t, which just feels wrong
its literally just virtue signaling and trying to make a non issue into something else. not to mention the mods have a history of power abuse when even the smallest amount of the community disagrees with them
Especially because posts like those didn't seem malicious in any way and this was a great opportunity to inform them about stereotypes and how they can be harmful.
Progress cannot be made without education. Asian hate and discrimination towards eastern cultures is a serious issue, but a big part of it is systemic and the best way to handle to systemic issues is through information and clarification.
I understand that, potentially, posts like these can be used to dog whistle, but I believe this community has proven time and time again to be an inclusive space that curbs such attempts if they are made in bad faith.
Instead of blanket bans, it should be checked whether a post is actually bad faith or just ignorance.
About samurai and ninja classes, because here is evidently the place to discuss such a thing...
The best (and in my opinion) only way of making such concepts more nuanced and based on real culture is ... giving them more representation. Are samurai and ninjas cliche? Of course they are. But they don't have to be. The problem is that the removal of such options will probably reinforce "racist" attitude more, because from where all the people will draw patterns for a "good", nuanced representation?
I don't frequent this subreddit much, I have a pathfinder game with some friends so I like checking it in search of news, to see some cool character concepts and sometimes to read table drama from other players. I don't know much about Golarion or Paizo, so when I saw the Tian Xia pin I didn't know what it was, so I clicked it.
What I got was a very strange, preachy and non-relevant post about orientalism and asian racism on tabletop games. About how samurai or ninja would be racist because they are stereotypical and simplify a culture (and very popular in anime which is japanese so no clue what that point is about).
What does this even mean? So how about Druids and the celtic culture? What about the new Animist, a class that turns a real current religion and cultural system into make believe buffs? What about Monk? What about Barbarian whose name is an insult towards certain tribes assigned the "evil savage" role? What about it all?
What is the point of the post? To show off that you read Said and aren't racist? Was it a PSA to not give your character a naginata as a weapon? Like, what was the point? "We will be more careful and serious about it from now on"? Who are you, what does that mean? Are you going to ban a table drama post because they talk about a homebrewed katana weapon? What is there to "get more serious about" in a subreddit for a tabletop game?
I just don't get the need to make such a weird "I am very smart" post and pin it.
grandfather longing rain future poor rob vegetable coordinated smell apparatus
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They already deleted the thread u/Any_Measurement1169 opened as a Q&A to explain their thought processes.
It seems to be the only reaction they have when the peasants start asking questions, we saw this before during the TGT debacle.
Good luck trying to impeach them. They are also the discord mods, so they treat this place like their own little sandbox playground whilst doing zachistkas. I think it’s time for me to switch to a different sub.
I think the Tian Xia post revealed that a greater portion of the player base aren't demented yahoos who understand that this is just a game; and that they just want to have fun with their friends going on fantasy adventures. The mods didn't seem to like that.
Whichever mod that's deleted comments in this thread, you are wrong, you're violating rules 1 and 2, and you need to step down because you're not cut out for this.
I'm not making this out of nowhere. There is context for this, including some comments of mine being deleted. You're power-tripping, virtue-signaling, and violating your own rules and you need to stop. The whole bunch of you probably need to just stop because this isn't the first time you've created a problem that didn't need to exist simply because you're projecting your own weird ideas.
I know you have strong feelings about this, my guy, and it's scary!!!!! but you should learn to think about perspectives outside your own and you'll become a better person :)
I wonder if the folks at Paizo who handle community management would like to know that mods on their very popular Subreddit are banning Asians who express anything other than “mod approved” views on Tian Xia.
This subreddit is unfortunately led by some pretty overbearing people.
In the linked Discord on the right, one of the moderators had essentially called me racist for asking (yes, asking) why rice wasn't considered a japanese dish. Long and short of it, dude wouldn't elaborate, told me to drop it, and said I was being "insensitive" about the whole thing.... to which he explained nothing about it. I promptly left that server and joined another 2e server and have yet to have any real problems there.
So unfortunately this isn't the first time the moderators of this community have done something like this. This place needs a rehaul of who is in charge, as does the Discord.
When someone is openly and actively being racist, you tell them to fuc* off.
When someone just doesn’t know better, you talk to them! They will listen and try to learn, and improve for the future!
The mods are generally trigger happy to strike anything that has to do with even the most remotely controversial things.
I guess that applies to literal game book content as well lol.
Heck even referencing cultural stuff is a problem apparently (Tia Xia is obviously going to be based off of Asian culture like wth caused the mods to rip entire posts, sheesh).
At least one of the mods is more interested in tone policing this subreddit than addressing actual issues that occur. That's why people get their posts deleted and people banned for little to no reason. Ultimately it matters more to them how you say something than what you say and if you say it "too condescendingly," they delete your comment for being mean or something because heaven forbid you express a summary of your feelings on a matter.
As was proven by Touch Grass, the only way to effect change here is prolonged and consistent protest.
Keep up the pressure until the mod(s) realize they are on the wrong side of this one.
Just wanted to say I don't think you all are going to get the meaningful discussion from the mods that you are hoping for. I saw on Discord that the one mod that is the center of attention is going to create something for PFI that centers on the archetype indicated with renamed mechanics, copy pasted feats, and whatever flavor they add. Proceeds will actually go to good things but the underlying gist is just to mock all of you.
Edited - Accidentally misspelled underlying.
I would certainly appreciate more discussion from the mods as to what is going on. Understanding comes from conversation, not being told what is and isn't right.
there's only 1 mod posting in the megathread and they seem to have a rather. interesting approach to some topics.
[удалено]
I. How is that not a violation of rule 2. The whole big feelings thing and the entire tone of that is just *hilariously* condescending and disrespectful. Especially with "Community members are encouraged to ask questions or seek advice, and should be able to expect respectful and courteous answers" being most of that rule and this is a mod shutting down a question with condescension
Exactly.
Yeesh. I always try to give mods the benefit of the doubt, but that is very much *not* "kind and respectful".
I never give mods the benefit of anything. They don't have power in their own lives and have to act like Judge Dread on a public forum.
Not to be that guy, but I think it's Judge Dredd.
The people who are most attracted to being a moderator are usually the people who *really* shouldn't be moderators. Same goes for any position of authority really.
Wow. That response absolutely REEKS of small name, big ego. Edit: And the comment I replied to is gone, too.
I’m of mixed descent and found that mod’s post very jarring as I read more of their comments. I’ve also lived all around the world, and in most places locals *enjoy* seeing their foreigners try out and experience their culture. [This mod’s view is pretty icky.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/jXANNFDoWz) Whether its just eating traditional Mongolian food, trying out a yukata, or chasing down some balut with a San Miguel, experiencing other cultures should be a *joy.* As another example, I took my very non-asian SO to meet with an elderly Japanese couple (late 80s) last year, and they were so fascinated by how much Japanese she knew — as well as the interest she had in learning more about the culture. They also asked about her country’s background. In the end, we all swapped gifts and celebrated the exchange. It’s a pretty cool memory for us to have met with people who lived through WW2 Japan, and hearing their perspective on Japanese culture spanning their whole lives was fascinating. Gatekeeping the ability to have an opinion and then labeling other opinions as ‘racism’ or the perpetuation of stereotypes is just braindead.
FYI, every single comment thus far that pointed out how that comment violates rule 2 has been removed. Yours will likely follow suit lol.
Heh, Rule 2 only applies to us mere commoners. ;)
u/luck_panda and u/Princess_Pilfer can we get clarification on if rule 2 applies to mods as well? I think it'd be good for the discussion.
Princess said to make an entirely new post if you want to discuss it. It's locked under the top comment. edit: lmao. Then deleted the post when it was made.
Seconding this, and we also need to know from u/luck_panda and u/Princess_Pilfer if rule 1 applies to mods, in addition to rule 2. Deciding what parts of other cultures should and should not be shared or discussed, without consent or other agreement from said culture is both dismissive and demeaning to the culture and its people. This is some incredibly problematic behaviour. Elsewhere in the post, before locking the thread, u/Princess_Pilfer has said > Properly understanding requires *tons* of education and/or lived experience that most people simply do not have, and that nobody can have on every topic. At some point you have to just ask yourself if you're willing to continue to do harm merely because you don't understand how it's harmful. They have made it clear that they do not have an understanding of the topic, as demonstrated by the harm they are perpetuating. u/luck_panda has also demonstrated racism in the Tian Xia megathread: >Druids and European based stuff, the reason that isn't an issue is because they are default to the setting. They are normalized. Claiming that traditional western fantasy themes aren't an issue in a western fantasy setting, but traditional eastern fantasy themes in an eastern fantasy setting are an issue is another example of internalized racism. Please cease with the breaking of rules 1 and 2. Hold yourselves accountable and step down, at least until you educate yourselves on the topics at hand and apologize to the community.
Let's see how long this stays up. Really not a good look.
Aaaaand it's gone.
That didn't take long. It just crossed 200 too. Be Kind and Respectful and don't quote mods being nasty to community members.
Rule 8 is "The rules don't apply to the mods" I guess
Came back to check on this, sure enough it's gone. Fortunately I screenshotted it.
For any interested in what it said: [https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cd1inl/\_/l199h4l/#comment-info](https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cd1inl/_/l199h4l/#comment-info)
People save this link. Showd all the removed messages. This mod is power crazy and thinks their views are factual.
I also like how the first point is an outright lie. There's no iaido techniques other than quick draw, and the abilities of pf1e samurai aren't quite in. (A marshal ranger kinda sorta does this but not exactly the same and is like telling someone that wants Synthesist to take Meld Into Eidolon and shut up, or something.)
"No it's not. Everything you would want for "samurai" is already in the game. The thing that makes it flavorful for people is the racism" That guy was a fucking mod? I went back and scrolled through his comments and I am seeing some wild shit. I have low standards for mods to begin with but this guy is surprising me
Still is.
He's a mod and he's the only one that's commenting in the megathread. So. uh. It's a whole time.
Lmao I’m Japanese, if people wanna be a samurai go for it. Heck, back in pf1e days I loved playing ninja even if it’s just a “Japanese flavored rogue” and to no surprise, my Japanese husband loved playing the pf1e samurai. It’s frankly more offensive thinking a samurai is just another fighter but Asian/japanese flavored, way to ignore the culture and the artistry behind those classes lol
I have to wonder how much "defenders" even know about what they're complaining about. I've researched Japanese mythology, as well as Japanese history. It's not hard to find out what Samurai are. In some aspects the Champion is closer to a Samurai than the Fighter. And that's just the narrative the class has.
what was the homebrew edit: >You may not understand it, but you don't have to! That's the thing about these complex problems. >In the future you should try to understand how it is harmful rather than how much it must make you confused and scared. I'm getting mixed signals, lmao
https://scribe.pf2.tools/v/60YYQxpH-samurai-class-en-v4 It was this. They claim it was taken down because it violated Pathfinder Infinite rules and was being marketed. It was a fan-made post on r/Pathfinder2eCreations that was, as far as I can tell, not on PFI and was never commercially available or marketed as such. They also claim that it only came to their attention due to users reporting it as marketing, but I find that difficult to believe and would like to see evidence to back that claim up as it makes little sense on the surface.
I'm incredibly leftist to the point I annoy my friends and people like this are more harmful rhetorically than some right wingers are lol Can sum up the entire issue with one of their responses: * *Either one works. The difference between Monk and Samurai in this case however is the difference between the MAGA uncle who can't stop saying "those people are taking our jobs" and using racial slurs and the 70 year old uncle who says, "Open borders are great, all the immigrants can come in and I love their food."* WHAT? If you've got an issue w "orientalism" in classes then Monk is... absolutely the same fuckin thing as Samurai? A p2e monk isn't a fat guy who sits there and copies the Bible 300 times a month, it's predy *clearly* culturally influenced by the exact same area of the world as samurai - east Asia. So what is doing a Chinese class ok but Japanese class racist cause...then you're saying all Asians are the same? What? It's super clear this mod is pretty ignorant and just power tripping, they don't have an actual stance or moral line here, it's purely "well monks already in the game so it's ok, but I can feel smug by yelling at people over samurai!"
AFAIK he thinks Chinese stereotypes are fine but Japanese ones aren’t
all I could gather about the discrepancy was something something imperialism because japan is the only Asian country who has done shitty things to their neighbors, I guess
And China has never done it ever. Right...
shhhh dont worry about it
God help this mod if he ever learns about the incredibly deep rivalry between the monasteries of Sengoku Japan and the Samurai. The massacre of the Mount Hiei monks, the ongoing gun-armed resistance of the Ikko-Ikki, their involvement in numerous assassinations... It's almost like it was a conflict between two classes who found their positions in a changing Japan to be in conflict with each other. And that lumping them together is directly ignorant and reductive of the history of Japan.
As a practicing pagan, should I be offended by the "Witch" class? It literally is a charactiture of my spiritual beliefs.
So he is breaking rule 2, by being condescending. He is deciding what is racist to people. So he thinks he understands all about those complex problems. As a person married to an south east asian person who often gets racist looks or comments, I ask for that mod to step down since he has the same attitude of those racist.
Nah dude you don't understand because you're not Asian yourself. And you're definitely not a specific type of Asian minority. So you can't possibly comprehend the position of privilege you are speaking from. And can't empathize with how much pain having an asian theme assassin or knight archetype can cause to you. You just don't know dude. Edit: clear sarcasm. Also dudes causing the commotion just a obnoxious dick.
Mod commented below. >It's not indifference, we can and have had these discussions before and largely agree. That they are also problems. If you would like to start that discussion in a seperate thread/s, I will be happy to have it. I have it on discord regularly. >But that in this specific context they're not relevant, so bringing them up is little more than what-about-ism and serves no purpose except to distract from the problem being discussed (ie the orientalism built into those 2 popular ideas specifically.) And we're not going to indulge that distraction by dignifying it with a lengthy response in a place that is supposed to be about a completely different topic. I mean, 'they' kind of ruined the discussion space. That's...that's why this is a post now. The mod in the Tia Xia pin said this isn't a discussion, we are just wrong and that is the way it is lmao. *You can have these discussions in other threads but you will be called a segregating Japanese nationalist when you do, then we are going to come in and tell you to take it elsewhere.* Edit: I made a pretty thorough post requesting for an Q&A and they removed it with zero feedback. *We just want a discussion lmao* [https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cda30n/can\_we\_get\_a\_qa\_about\_the\_handling\_of\_tian\_xia/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cda30n/can_we_get_a_qa_about_the_handling_of_tian_xia/)
> The mod in the Tia Xia pin said this isn't a discussion, we are just wrong and that is the way it is lmao. WTF is the subreddit even for, if not discussion? This is one of the last sub's keeping me on reddit. If we can't discuss things, I'll just fuck off to lemmy full time. The PF community there is tiny, but at least we're allowed to discuss shit.
It's not a sub for discussion, but a place for the mods to lecture us from the looks of it.
> You can have these discussions in other threads but you will be called a *segregating Japanese nationalist* when you do. \> Mod says Samurai class is pointless and racist because Monk exists \> Sees nothing racist and ignorant about conflating two groups that were literally diametrically opposed in the history of Japan. They truly are not sending their best anti-Orientalists here. Said would roll in his grave if he saw this sort of conflation of the history of a nation to make a supposedly enlightened point.
I couldn't find it in the post, do you have a link handy? Because jesus that's bad. Like, I kinda get the argument that samurai wouldn't really have anything not covered by cavalier or archer, but saying that monk fills that role is insane. I saw one person hoping that a samurai class would have stance dancing based on weapon handedness (although that exists in just about every armed martial art, not just the ones popular among samurai), but other than the word "Stance" that doesn't really match anything the monk does. I genuinely thought they were using monk as an example of existing orientalism in the system, not as a fucking *solution*
See, I thought of that but there's also something people like to play with in samurai about stances and duels that's not super covered by them. You have to sort of homebrew that in, plus a large class fantasy of the samurai usually revolves around Iai which is an existing action. People who like to play it want to emulate akira kurosawa films which often feature duels, quick moving fighters, and exciting fast swordplay sometimes involving switching stances. Personally, I think you could probably buff swashbuckler and give it a samurai archetype to incorporate a couple of those ideas and be fine, roughly. Making it a whole new class feels weird to me, and if you wanted mounted archery stuff well you can probably play around with existing classes to achieve that. It does seem extremely racist to just go 'just play a monk' as the solution though. Like, that's tone deaf as fuck. Sure, samurai often used martial arts to supplement \[and most actual kills were done via archery and spears\] but this ain't exactly trying to imitate real life 1 to 1.
I reaaaaaly don't feel like this is the place for a full-blown discussion on it, but Said is far from the authoritative source on Orientalism. There is still a considerable scholarly debate as to whether his is the be all, end all position on Orientalism and it's profoundly frustrating to me that the default position is just to assume him as an authority without presenting other perspectives. But, that is kind of the zeitgeist of the frustration here. There's a lot (the majority) of people who are not social scientists and just want to play the things they see in media. The place for regulating content should be at the table, not in the forum. The forum should be a safe space for people to discuss what they want to do, and if there's something misrepresentative or insensitive, it should be good-faith discussed, not deleted and banned. That's not teaching, its policing.
I referenced him because the pinned controversial post talked about him and his book, even though he barely talked about the "Far East" at all in his work. I also think its pretty clear the mods in question have shut down a lot of good faith curiosity about how you can handle stuff like this, using words like Orientalism and names like Said as if it makes them an authority, without having even read the texts they're trying to use as weapons.
The fact that all the quotes of the mod violating this subreddit's own rules keep getting deleted is telling. You lack integrity. You know who you are. Have honor, own your faults, we all have them. Clearly the community sees you, the least you could do is apologize and do better.
At that point, the faulty mod and the one defending him should step down. They are hurting their cause more than helping it.
Japan studies major chiming in. It's definitely not faulty to confront our limited perceptions of Japanese people and culture in media to samurai and ninjas and what have you. That being said, they are still *insanely* popular in pop culture created and consumed *by* Japanese people. For example, Cyan Garamonde in Final Fantasy, Shuro in Dungeon Meshi, etc... There are countless examples of the samurai character archetype in Japanese media of the otherwise European-inspired genre that traces its roots to the western medieval fantasy RPGs that eventually gave birth to Pathfinder. I could probably delve into the popular ninja archetype's origins in Japanese theatre (as opposed to the actual historical Japanese agents/assassins/etc) and other cultural examples, but I'll leave it at that for now. It's understandable to see why we wouldn't want to reduce the full body of Japanese culture to these tropes *alone,* but acting as a moderator to scrub examples of these tropes as if they're inherently misrepresentative and harmful leaves... a weird taste in my mouth. Of course, there's also nuance in that the experiences of a person born and raised in Japan will not be the same as that of, say, a Japanese-American. The latter may see a white person in a yukata and cringe ↩, knowing how stripped of its cultural context it might be by those who see these bits and pieces of Japanese culture as that of an exotic, far-away land. The former may see the very same and be excited to see a foreigner indulge and share in such a culturally familiar piece of fashion. It's hard to say if one perspective inherently invalidates the other, especially when there are so many other factors and societal biases that might come in play - colorism in Japan, the legacy of American paternalism, how conservative or progressive the individual person is, etc. I don't believe Pathfinder has that much of a market share in Japan \[citation needed\], so it's not really likely that we'd be hearing many people weighing in on these issues from that particular perspective, which is a bias to account for as well. One thing's to say, though, and that no culture is a monolith, and people will disagree with each other about things no matter where they're from... which is, of course, very different from how many might buy into this simpler, easy-to-digest image of Japan as this bushido-workaholic country where everyone thinks pretty much the same. (It's not.) That makes it hard to adopt a strict, scorched earth "talking about this is bad" policy as a moderator. Are we making this online community a safer space for discussion, representation, and celebration of this culture to flourish beyond pigeonholed stereotypes, or are we counterintuitively stifling it by whittling down what aspects are and aren't acceptable to discuss and explore? I could probably ramble about this forever, so I'll try to cap it off. Being a Japan studies major doesn't inherently make me correct - I'm as susceptible to bias as anyone else (and I doubtless can't use it to speak for the incredibly broad umbrella of all AAPI people as a whole) - but it does give me a bit more material to work with when it comes to dissecting, at the very least, this particular angle of this whole... well, whatever this has become. To bring this back to a system discussion... yeah, I think it'd be silly to make Samurai and Ninja their own classes in 2e like they were in 1e. But I think it should at *least* be a little bit easier to get [Wooden Double](https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=1416) on a Rogue.
I think the issue stems from mods squashing any discussion around it, instead of just openly inflammatory/racist takes. There’s a lot of nuance to be had around certain aspects of it, and it can be acknowledged as problematic while also recognizing there’s ways to flesh out these fantasies in non-harmful ways. But mods are clean locking/deleting/banning any takes around the subject at all that aren’t “new setting is perfect” or “here’s why Paizo used to be racist and now isn’t”
I don't think I have anything to add to the discussion, but I just wanted to say I liked the >cringe ↩ with a reaction tag
I love the idea that Cringe is a condition a monster could give you that wastes one reaction.
Tecmo Koei, was Koei, a Japanese company, make a game called Samurai Warriors. I was introduced to it, by a Japanese exchange student. I'd be doubtful as to what faithful representation there is of Samurai in there, any more than Yoshimitsu was, or Afro Samurai was. Mods being daft, sheltering using using their race as a defense for their own shit takes and poor choices.
You tellin me Ieyasu Tokugawa wasnt running around with a cannon spear? Seems sus.
About the theatre ninjas. Japan really embraced it. I am an otaku and a theatre major and it seems the "theatre ninja" which is the name we now call anyone in black moving the scene pieces since its origin in Japan, is a trop they really adopted in the end. In many Japanease media they use the ninja as a warrior now and not as a theatre worker. It would ofc make no sense, as a Ninja is an secret agent and the color black is VERY expensive to make, making you very noticeable. But looking at games, shows, and mangas, they are using it themselves in this way. This I think comes again to "Jrpgs is racist" vs "No, I make Jrpgs for a living and I like that ppl call it [Jrpg](https://kotaku.com/ff16-yoshi-p-jrpg-square-enix-yoshida-previews-ps5-1850169822) because I am proud of japan". It's like "french filma" and "German theatre" you kinda know what you getting just by the name.
Love how over a third of the online subreddit liked that post in the hour and it got removed. Hehe.
as someone who was PART of the discord, i can say this STINKS of one of the moderators there. he would constantly make everything relate to racism, even if you just asked "hey, how should i make a monk" he'd launch in a long tirade about how monks just EXISTING was orientalist, and not so subtly shame you for wanting to play one. also, he runs a westmarches/living world that sucks hella ass
Sounds like they hate it when conversations aren't about them lol
Get em.
I was really hoping things would improve into an actual conversation but by all accounts it sounds like the mod that caused all this controversy is being told to keep their head down to not make things worse, another mod is showing up to in fact defend their stance and insist nothing is wrong, and the rest of the mod team is actively ignoring everything and hoping this blows over so they can pretend the problem was solved, even though this is going to get _so_ much worse when the Character Guide is released and we start discussing stuff like the Magical Girl archetype and anything else which has a very specific flavor based on a very specific culture. I don't know. I _really_ hope the mod silence is because they're having a long and nuanced discussion about the correct path forward, and aren't simply having contempt for us even though a lot of the discussions are "there are serious problems with racism and orientalism but I still think the mods are acting in bad faith." It really feels like disagreement with the mods is being conflated with disagreeing with the cause itself, because the mods aren't willing to discuss the idea that they aren't perfect.
When all you have is a (ban)hammer, everything looks like a nail. Either a mod went Rogue, or they're doing some serious scorched earth policy on anything that can be considered vaguely offensive.
Sure sounds like a rogue mod on the loose.
[Seems like the rest of the mod team approves.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cd1inl/comment/l19xks1/)
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**EDIT:** I did some digging, Reddit is returning HTTP 429 messages when the page attempts to load, enough people are looking at this that it is getting rate-limited ATM. It should start working better if you check back in a bit, ideally. If the reason comments are being removed is to protect people from upsetting content, then there is no reason to try and remove this comment that shows what has been deleted by the moderation team. Anyone clicking this link will be knowingly and willingly going to see the removed comments, whatever they might contain. https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cbzpbf/tian_xia_real_world_parallels_and_a_serious_moment/ And this is the deleted thread that this post is in reference to: https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cczitp/what_is_going_on_with_this_subreddit/ Sadly the API isn't perfect and doesn't always get posts/comments before they are deleted. I just want to provide this so that people can have some proper context as to what is actually going on here. There are a lot of people claiming their posts were unjustly removed, and others claiming that everything being removed is being removed for the right reasons, so letting people actually see what is happening strikes me as important in this situation. There are indeed a fair number of unhelpful and inflammatory comments that were removed from the most recent thread, but many more that are far less clear cut. I encourage people to take a look and come to their own conclusions based on a more complete set of data. **Edit:** Here is the link for this post as well. The site appears to be struggling to keep up ATM, so it may or may not load properly. https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cd1inl/the_mods_have_been_abusing_power/
The mods have stepped up their game. Now they are deleting comments so quickly they don’t have time to be archived. I wonder if that is a reaction to these archives being posted.
Just scanning through this... what's upsetting? Sounds like people are having a meaningful conversation about the social implications of gaming tropes.
Just so it's clear for you and anyone else, anything that's highlighted red means it was deleted by moderators. Those are chains that were quashed by moderation. Green for edits (I edited my initial comment a lot in there, as can be seen lol), blue for self-delete.
I see. I don't really understand why they would delete that section in red. Just sounds like the author is defining and elaborating on Orientalism. Important info and perspective.
So, that *is* a post made by a moderator, which is why that one section in the original post shows up as red. They chose to self-edit that part. It's the many comments in the thread that are red which a lot of people are upset about--comments they don't feel were deserving of moderation and deletion.
Yeah.... with that as context it's clear that a lot of what is getting deleted is purely critique of mod actions. The mod responsible needs to be gone.
I think that’s his point
I see "could not connect to reddit" at the links
That’s a browser problem on your side probably. Check here: https://undelete.pullpush.io/about
I'm just deeply confused as to what rule most of the red comments in that post broke. Is it that they're having a conversation that doesn't agree with the OP?
Might be worth actually getting a hold of the community team from Paizo at this point for my reason in this same thread https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/SjLYtx6KSO
Ah yes, my previous comment got removed without any explanation at some point after I went to bed. That sure doesn't feel like it is trying to squash any legitimate discussion /s To the mods that may feel targeted by this: I know this is a volunteer job, but that doesn't give you the right to abuse your power like this. Seeing as this is the main social media I get when trying to find Pathfinder 2e stuff, I would wish for this space to actually be a safe discussion space that can in fact tackle the tougher questions about representation in the TTRPG space. I don't give a fuck about ninja and samurai being unrepresented gameplay wise, but if people have legitimate discussions in good faith about them, why does that get removed? And don't tell me it doesn't, this thread is proof of that behavior, but oh well, saying that will get my comment removed.
Sadly, there will be no apology, or even acknowledgement that things could have been handled better. Pharasma forbid anyone ever admit fault, or try to understand why people disagree with how they have been behaving. If anything, I expect another post where they double down, unfortunately.
We should leave this here as well: https://undelete.pullpush.io/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cbzpbf/tian_xia_real_world_parallels_and_a_serious_moment/
Tbh, the whole pinned thread about Tian Xia seemed a bit weird to me. Not the content of the thread itself, I think the writer has good intentions and a discussion about racist tropes in fantasy literature is always welcome, but the fact it was pinned like some kind of manifesto? What was the goal of the pinning of that thread? Making people aware of the racist tropes? My understanding of the Tian Xia world guide was that it was a GOOD AND NUANCED take on eastern cultures, so why the need to pin the thread? Shouldn’t we instead be praising Paizo for creating such a product, instead of moralizing people who want to play a different flavour of sword soldier in their fantasy game?
Yeah I was like wtf why is this pinned and then I read it and it was a big nothing burger….someone got lonely and couldn’t find the right place to discuss their ideas on race/culture and power tripped and pinned it here. I’m an Asian American who is super excited for TX and this whole fiasco is just discouraging me and my excitement
One would assume that if a book was created with the expressed purpose of developing a culturally rich land inspired by real world cultures from a respectable outlook with people from these cultures working on the project, that the official subreddit would do nothing but go out of their way to praise the diversity of expression in the book. "Paizo wrote one of THE GREATEST sourcebooks of all time. Just look at how RICH Tian Xia is in lore and how REAL and ALIVE the cultures within seem." Not. "Think twice about buying this book, because as a hobbyist you are prone to make harmful racial stereotypes if you play in a culture that isn't the same as the one your grew up in. This book was written in order to give a nuanced look on an east asian inspired continent. However, we know that in spite of this book, you as a consumer cannot be trusted not to continue harmful racial stereotypes in your games." I too was SUPER EXCITED for this book and the upcoming character guide. But the posts from yesterday gave me (English is my second language, so part of the nuance of the post may be lost on me...) the impression that I shouldn't be excited for this book. Or even worse, that I am not ALLOWED to be excited for this book. I can't help but wonder why.
Irony would have it that the user that other people are taking issue with, had posted not that long ago how happy they were to both be and feel represented in the new books. Suffice it to say, there’s nothing problematic or wrong with what’s in the book.
Literally just someone with no actual problems in their life wanting to use the tiny bit of power moderation gives them to soapbox and feel superior I'm all for conversations like this but the mod in question didn't want to have a conversation, they wanted to preach, and when their own logic was employed against them they deleted comments and got incredibly defensive and condescending, against rule 2 of the subreddit. You can see it in a few responses in the deleted items thread somewhere in this comment section, there's a part where someone challenges the mod if their "respect cultures" ideology extends to Druids, holy people in Celtic culture that are often "made tropes" by being hippie beast men, and the mod all but laughed at the user with their entire logic being "well Irish people are white so they've never been oppressed" (uhhhh guess the Troubles didn't happen) Or their just flippant dismissal of why Monk doesn't also count under the same "orientalism" logic, their only response was some ridiculous tortured analogy about MAGA boomers. The real answer is they can't soapbox and virtue signal over a canonized class everyone plays like they can over some homebrew...
I read through that post you mentioned like 3 times, and just didn't understand what they were trying to convey with the hole thing. It just left me flabberghasted
You guys missed the part where the moderator did martial arts, so of course he's an authority on Asian culture /s This shit is pathetic. We need a new pf2e sub.
I saw that too and was so confused. Allegedly he has a degree in martial arts history which is fine and all but it doesn't make him as much of an expert as he thinks he is. I have a degree in East Asian history with an emphasis on history of religion and while I know a lot about China and Japan, there are still many things I couldn't speak to. China in particular is an extremely diverse place. It's HUGE and while there are a few broad strokes that cover a lot of China, being an expert in martial arts history is barely scratching the surface. Dude needs to stay in his lane.
> I have a degree in East Asian history with an emphasis on history of religion and while I know a lot about China and Japan, there are still many things I couldn't speak to. I have a similar degree and most of my coursework was about sociocultural and linguistic shifts during the Meiji and Taisho eras. The problem here is that the mod in question presents themselves as having a much broader range of expertise than they actually do, *especially* about Japanese culture and history (and that's being very generous). [You can see a number of examples here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1c25f7t/spoilers_from_badluckgamers_interview_with_james/kzabqxg/) And when you suggest correction on matters of history, they take it as an attack on their character or worse, read it as if the person offering correction is trying to justify racism.
Heeey, fellow historian! My studies focused more on pre-modern, especially Heian-period, but needless to say I've done my fair share of study all up and down the timelines of Japan and China. Yeah, one of the most glaring inaccuracies I remember from that mod is saying that ninja are a concept invented by Ian Fleming for James Bond novels or something like that. The specific idea of men in black clothing and masks may have come out of James Bond stories. I don't know enough about ninja history to know what they may or may not have worn. HOWEVER, it's pretty easy to debunk the notion that the shinobi/ninja concept was only invented by Fleming. Like you mentioned in that linked post, a lot of modern ideas of ninja are over 100 years old at this point. And it's pretty easy to find reputable resources that show "shinobi" was used for some sort of sneaky mercenary well before even the Tokugawa period. They may not be what we think of as ninja *today*, but the idea has been there for centuries and *we have primary source documents from premodern times to support that*. Quick correction to myself about the black clothing: Even glancing at Wikipedia debunks this pretty soundly. [This is a print by Hokusai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja#/media/File:Hokusai-sketches---hokusai-manga-vol6-crop.jpg) (for those that don't know, Hokusai is the artist who made that iconic Great Wave print that's *everywhere*) that depicts a ninja in loose black clothing and mask. It's from 1817. It kinda predates Fleming by, y'know, over 100 years. So maybe luck panda should sit this out and shut up instead of pushing his own weird, uninformed, ignorant ideas on people in the name of activism because his takes are anything but.
I went ahead and [dug up the thread from last time](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/11gepml/paizo_tian_xia_coming_20232024/jaoidwo/). You can see he makes the same claim about the use of the word "ninja". And the part that makes this such a pain in the ass to deal with is that he's just a bad messenger for what is a good message. Orientalism is bad, there are a lot of bad depictions of non-Western European cultures in games generally, Pathfinder 1e specifically had a lot of *bad* Orientalist shit going on in Tian Xia, the TTRPG industry as a whole does a pretty fucking bad job at Asian representation, and there's no justification for a samurai or ninja class to exist independently in PF2e. All of those things are true. I don't envy the position of the rest of the mod team at all. They're caught between defending someone who is frequently giving objectively wrong information while positioning themself as an expert and refusing any correction, or not defending them and making a mob of people who *are* racist feel like they've "won". (And it's obvious what the right decision is there because racism is a lot more harmful than one guy who bothers some people, so here we are.)
The irony of him claiming we all just have to accept his view because it is based on experts in the field and we are just laymen while he has the history he has arguing with you over stuff like the origins of the mythical version of the ninja. Orientalism is definitely bad, though trying to identify what is and isn't orientalism can be difficult (obviously at the extreme ends it can be obvious, but there are a lot of stuff that isn't so obvious), but the mod in question is the wrong person to be championing the fight against it.
I agree. It's frustrating, especially because he won't accept that there are other experts in similar fields, AND that he's not the sole representative of Asian people, and therefore doesn't have the right to make sweeping generalizations saying what is and isn't bigoted. There's a very interesting phenomenon that most people come across when studying countries outside their own. You have one extreme of interaction that's undeniably racist (i.e., racist caricatures), and one extreme that's clearly not racist (i.e., eating sushi), and a *whole lot of gray area* in between. And that gray area is full of disagreement on what is and isn't cultural appropriation. It's especially common when you look at responses from people native to a given country like Japan compared to descendants of those people, like Japanese Americans. Something a native Japanese person thinks is fine might be offensive to a Japanese American. I think a large part of the issue that led to this is that a *lot* of the discussion around samurai and ninja genuinely falls in that gray area. I agree with the sentiment that samurai and ninja don't need to be their own class, and I agree that, prior to this Tian Xia book, both Paizo and D&D have used a lot of Orientalist themes in their Asian-inspired settings. But wanting to play a samurai or ninja as depicted in pop culture isn't inherently Orientalist and I think that's where the mods' behavior is inappropriate and harmful. There are people who do want the racist stereotypes of previous "Oriental Adventures" types of fantasy Asia, yes. But a lot of people who expressed interest in samurai or ninja mechanics here seem to be coming from a place of wanting to live out their favorite Naruto or Kurosawa fantasies and that's not automatically a bad thing. The mods, however, seem to be assuming bad intentions from anyone and everyone who expresses a desire to play pop culture-inspired samurai or ninja. They made their entire Orientalism manifesto for some reason, pinned it, and then when people respond poorly they more or less just seem to accuse people of being outright racist. Luck panda in particular says people are "telling on themselves" because they want to play out something they saw in Japanese media. They come off patronizing at best and can't figure out why people don't appreciate their points. Romanticized samurai stories are essentially the cowboy Western genre of Japan and romanticized depictions of the Edo period predate WWII. Wuxia is essentially the same sort of thing for China. It would be one thing if people here assumed "samurai" was acceptable for all warriors all over Tian Xia, regardless of their real world inspiration, but that's not really what's happening here. People specifically want to play a samurai or ninja from a Japanese-inspired place and the mods are getting their undies in a bunch over it because they are under the mistaken impression that these depictions don't originate in Japan to begin with.
Thinking a martial arts degree makes you any kind of authority on Japanese culture is; 1) rediculous. That's likes saying you shoot guns a lot, so you know about American culture and will defend it. 2) It's extremely racist? Kind of feels like *he* is reducing an entire culture to a stereotype. It feels like his entire concept of Asian culture starts at Monk and ends at Samurai. If it ain't about dudes karate chopping each other, it's beyond his knowledge.
So, it make my wife an authority in south east asian culture because... She is from Indonesia. This mod hurt this community more than anything else.
I laughed out loudly when I read that shit. Beyond pathetic
Honestly, these mods can be absolutely wild. Just completely out of touch.
Is the mod ink from the discord??
Ex-discord member here, yeahhh this REEKS of ink.
From what I hear, he's one of the discord mods. Evidently the most "vocal" mod, both here and there. Check out r/chillpathfinder2e instead
Totally agree. These mods are just as bad on the discord. Just screams chronically online and virtue signaling.
Yep, got removed for no reason. I [posted as well](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/comments/1cd1qia/comment/l1907cp/?context=3) and it just seems like we are going to get banned because we are calling out mods who are abusing power in this subreddit. Where is the safe space? Isn't this supposed to mirror Paizo's goals? Paizo is supposed to be safe for everyone >!(not counting people who are T.R.A.A.S.H. or similar of course)!<, this doesn't feel safe. EDIT: ~~Ok, on the Discord they said the reason they had to remove my post and the Pathfinder2eCreations post was:~~ >~~"The samurai homebrew is literally againts the PFI rules and it was deleted because it breaks those rules. I don't know what they want with this one. They were spreading it around and it got back to us from USER reports.~~ >~~that person got their post deleted because they marketed it~~ >~~and it's literally against the Pathfinder Infinite rules~~ >~~like lmfao"~~ ~~Now, I don't know how PFI rules work, I thought since it was a free document it wouldnt be an issue, so I might have been in the wrong about this one. And also, the document was on~~ [~~scribe.pf2e.tools~~](http://scribe.pf2e.tools)~~, does PFI affect it?~~ EDIT 2: Maybe they were mentioning another Samurai homebrew. So we still don't know why the Samurai from PF2eCreations have been removed. EDIT 3: Damn, they dogpiled on the homebrew samurai like it was the worse thing ever and that there was no proofreading, calling it dogshit and all. Not even r/ChillPathfinder2e was safe. I will probably be moving to the [Pathfinder RPG](https://discord.gg/pathfinder) Discord and the ChillPF2e and r/Pathfinder_RPG subreddits. I suggest people who are unhappy with these mods to do the same.
It's not against PFI either: [https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/409641/Samurai-Archetype-BUNDLE](https://www.pathfinderinfinite.com/product/409641/Samurai-Archetype-BUNDLE)
it's not against PFI and apparently that was posted by PAIZO itself. So I *really* don't understand what the mod's talking about.
as far as I understand the PFI rules are pretty concrete and i assume if paizo has it up they probably follow them better than some guy on the internet
Yeah I’d like that mod to come here and please specify which PFI rule that post broke? It should be easy to point to one, right?
Well, looks like I got threatened with a ban! "Do not submit another post with a topic that is not about Pathfinder2e, as it is against the subreddit rules. If you make another post that does not pertain to Pathfinder2e, you will receive a temporary ban."
What a ridiculous reach in logic lol.
Wanted to link you in with the comment I just made in this same thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/SjLYtx6KSO
Waiting for this to be removed too. It’s very understandable that people want to argue here where the problem is, that’s not going to get anywhere when the mod(s) in question are aggressively removing posts and comments highlighting this. Only sure fire way to get this to stick is to post it somewhere they can’t remove it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder2e/s/LwLAK5tRr8 My post on it got removed lol I guess mine got removed first because I posted links to his questionable comments
Fun, this post was removed, along with other harmless comments from u/AAABattery03 talking about the Rule 7 and from u/majikguy who has been posting useful links.
Common moderator L.
I got banned from that discord about a year ago for reporting that mod for starting fights and harassing people on other subreddits. Fun times.
So mixed up…..what is wrong with talking about samurai?
Nothing, but a mod is acting like there is, and that is the issue from what I have seen.
The claim is that a character class named Samurai with features derived from tropes established by both Hollywood and Japanese media sources both past and present in a fictional "eastern" continent in a fictional universe (Golarion) is harmful to actual real people of Japanese descent because it reinforces "harmful" stereotypes. Which, obviously, to anyone with half a brain can realize that there's a difference between fiction tropes and real life and actually harms no one. It's like claiming a "gunslinger" class based on tropes from American and Italian westerns is offensive to Americans from the American west and causes literal harm to real Americans, because this fictional character class reinforces stereotypes of americans from the past being gun-toting "shoot first and ask questions later" outlaws or sheriffs. The claim is obviously ridiculous. And these classes are set in a world that is not our world! They aren't supposed to be literally from Japan or America or Europe. They're from Tian-xia, Andoran, or Cheliax. We're talking about a universe with nations that: \* Are inspired by revolutionary France and all the tropes there (Galt) \* Insipred by revolutionary USA (Andoran) \* Is led by slaving, devil worshiping despots (Cheliax) \* Is led by undead \* Is a horror filled torture country (...several) \* Led by tech-powered barbarians \* Worships vaguely-egyptian inspired deities. Golarion is a kitchen sink world filled with every trope and storytelling hook that exists in our world. You know, like a real world. Having character classes reflect aspects of that fictional world does not harm people in our real one.
Apparently, much like the monk class, Samurai is racist. I don't get it either. I read over the post from yesterday and I thought it was actually interesting and made some decent points, but saying that Monk IS racist because it plays into a martial arts fantasy, therefor being a 'mystical Asian' class I guess, and Ninja and Samurai fall into that same category of reinforcing harmful stereotypes.
If you talk about a samurai, you're saying that every Asian is a samurai, but since not all Asians are samurai, you're a racist. And the only thing more racist than talking about samurai is claiming that you like samurai and also you're aware that not every Asian is one, because you're clearly lying to cover up how racist you are. At least, that's what I've been able to gather, but it's kind of hard because the mod keeps deleting everything
There is no escape! Were damned no matter what.
Even with your paraphrase/digest/summary it still took me minutes to understand. Am I just that bad at my Perception for insight, or that Acrobatic(INT) DC was just too high?
Don't worry, the mod says you don't need to understand it. You just need to understand that not understanding is racist, and that trying to understand is also racist. That's another reason not to talk about the samurai at all: either way, you're a racist. You are allowed to sticky a wall of text about how racist it is to talk about samurai, though, but only if you have a degree in martial arts. The degree proves that you know the difference between the Vietnamese and Samurais, you see. There's no other way to tell them apart. That's how you know that Japanese people making anime about their own history are racist against Asians as a whole: what if a Korean watches the anime and is upset that Japanese samurais aren't Korean? Or if an American watches the Japanese anime, they might think their Chinese friend is a ninja, and it's only okay to call every Japanese person you meet a ninja (apparently), not Asians in general. If you, an American, call a Chinese man a samurai, that's actually due to Japan's racist anime as it turns out. And since the Japanese keep making anime about samurai, it means every Japanese person is racist: another good reason to never speak of samurai again. Besides, you don't need to talk about samurai in Pathfinder, because as it turns out the Fighter class based on western European knights is exactly the same as a samurai (there are no differences at all), so quit your racist complaining.
I have nothing new to add. I'm just here to express that I fully agree with the idea of this post and condemn the mod(s) who are perpetrating this without any attempt at discussion whatsoever.
As soon as I saw that discord message I had my concerns. It definitely gave me the vibe of the power hungry type, the I'm always right type. The whole "if you disagree with me then you're a racist or an x, y or z. and I'll use my power to silence/punish you." Etc. Be careful not to become what you hate. Moderation can very quickly become censorship and authoritarianism, as it has for a lot of people who have believed they are morally right. And labelling everyone who disagrees with you in a derogatory way will only lead to people taking a personal dislike to you and whoever you represent.
Wait they banned people discussing the samurai because it was racist? In that case we should ban the Wayang because they are linked to my wife's culture and belief and they aren't giant like bhima ... (By the way, I own 5 wayang puppet, they all have name and role linked to the Mahabharata). Lets erase the whole Tian Xia book too (I am sarcastic) Make no sense. That mod is a stain on this community and should step down
The thing I hate most after reading through this post, OP's post in question, the original Tian Xia post, and all of the related deleted comments (thanks u/majikguy's comment), is that the actions of the mods bring about the opposite of what the mods intend. We are not creating a space where people can discuss and learn about these topics, we're creating a space where if anyone dissents they are sent to the shadow realm. We're creating an echo chamber. And one that doesn't even do a good job at holding up the ideals that the mods propagate. I've been silently frustrated with this community for a long time and I initially thought I was in an incredibly small minority. It turns out everyone who disagrees (even if they just disagree on application and not intent) was just pushed out for being vocal about it. They're either banned, have their comments/posts removed, or discussion is locked by mods. Why are people so convinced they're right so concerned with stopping any dissenting conversation on the topic?
inb4 /Pathfinder2e2
FYI, the speculated mod, based on their Discord username (which I am not sharing), is very likely the organizer of the PF2e Subreddit Discord (often considered just the PF2e discord). So it's likely they are extremely entrenched both here and of course there. So don't expect their behavior to change.
And both places are a cesspool of cringe power tripping wanna be's hiding behind social activism
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When Paizo's twitter account didn't change their Icon to the original one after pride month because a single person complained about it, the majority of the community cheered. Every time Paizo does something to shine light on other cultures, hires on writers of the homes they are taking inspiration from, the community takes note and points out how good it is. The entire community talks about how bad 1e was and enjoys every step Paizo makes to be more inclusive and work to a better more inviting growing into a much better company and everyone loves it. The entire community seems to love the steps taken and push for a better, more inclusive experience, sure there may be some bad actors here and there but they aren't the majority. So yeah... If the OP wasn't made none of this chaos would have started. People fight the hardest when they feel they have been unjustly attacked, which often causes a retaliation spiral.
And trying to lock down discussion on mod abuse is only going to stoke the fires more. It's a take as old as time.
The situation is out of control.
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It just keeps getting worse. Folks ask questions, Mod says this thread isn't the proper place to discuss them (fair), create another thread TO discuss their concerns, and then that thread, created at the direct invitation of a mod, gets nuked. We are in another self-reinforcing overmoderation cyclone like the one just before TGT ended. Stay the course, friends.
Lol. Go to the discord and they'll tell you to stop talking about it, just go to reddit.
🍿
Pass that popcorn over here, please.
🍿😉🫱🍿
Bad moderators in reddit is such a commmon thing unfortunately.
This isn't a reddit only problem, the PF2E discord is just as bad if not way worse than the reddit modderation. I got banned for saying I don't play overweight characters much and prefer my characters to be more stereotypical ''peak human performance'' types like Conan or Aragorn since it allows me to play something that is very hard to attain IRL. They said this is offensive and fatphobic and banned me for it after putting me on mute for an hour to shit talk me and only after that did they ban me.
Congrats OP, you're number 204 in the top posts of all time!
Hopefully we can push that even higher. The absolute radio silence from the rest of the mod team on this issue is not a good look for them and getting them to acknowledge this at all would already be a good thing. Even if they all come out in support of this unhinged behavior at least it would demonstrate some backbone.
It's number 67 now
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All I know is that that post didn't deserve the @everyone tag in the discord and I'm willing to bet that's the biggest problem/reason this whole thing has flared up
Considering the effect this has on the game, I suppose it's significant enough to contact Paizo about abusive community leaders. Perhaps at worst we can get whoever the problem children are banned from Paizo Products for vandalizing the image of the IP. It's not like the reddit is some tiny fan community, it's a defacto resource next to official content.
This sounds like it also extends to the discord server, and there was someone who said they witnessed a senior developer posting normal things right after a mod was gloating about banning people. It's not a good look to say the least.
100% I can’t play the game without using this subreddit regularly
From what I have seen, the mods here have good intentions but are just woefully uninformed on what problematic content actually is. The post by the mods recently that mentioned Samurai and Ninja as problematic just shows a severe lack of understanding of what makes something problematic, in my opinion.
It’s one thing for the stance to be “we believe paizo is making the right call by not including samuari or ninja’s because it’s problematic.” But nobody can make samuari?? What?? What about Japanese people
How would Paizo making samurai be problematic? Don't we already have vikings and gunslingers?
Druids exist as an entire class already as well!
Knights too.
Well yeah, but that's all "white people culture", which is considered okay to be cartoonized.
I’m not disagreeing with you. But it’s semi clear it’s the stance they chosen
Oh yeah, I'm just actually asking. I read the post and I still don't understand. Is it as dumb as it seems or am I being a bigot?
That’s what people have been saying and what has been deleted in abundance from the thread
I feel like there’s a belief that depictions of Japanese culture are specifically harmful in a way that depictions of other Asian cultures aren’t, which just feels wrong
its literally just virtue signaling and trying to make a non issue into something else. not to mention the mods have a history of power abuse when even the smallest amount of the community disagrees with them
Especially because posts like those didn't seem malicious in any way and this was a great opportunity to inform them about stereotypes and how they can be harmful. Progress cannot be made without education. Asian hate and discrimination towards eastern cultures is a serious issue, but a big part of it is systemic and the best way to handle to systemic issues is through information and clarification. I understand that, potentially, posts like these can be used to dog whistle, but I believe this community has proven time and time again to be an inclusive space that curbs such attempts if they are made in bad faith. Instead of blanket bans, it should be checked whether a post is actually bad faith or just ignorance.
seems about right for how mods act on reddit. RESTEKPE MUH AHTORITEE!
About samurai and ninja classes, because here is evidently the place to discuss such a thing... The best (and in my opinion) only way of making such concepts more nuanced and based on real culture is ... giving them more representation. Are samurai and ninjas cliche? Of course they are. But they don't have to be. The problem is that the removal of such options will probably reinforce "racist" attitude more, because from where all the people will draw patterns for a "good", nuanced representation?
I don't frequent this subreddit much, I have a pathfinder game with some friends so I like checking it in search of news, to see some cool character concepts and sometimes to read table drama from other players. I don't know much about Golarion or Paizo, so when I saw the Tian Xia pin I didn't know what it was, so I clicked it. What I got was a very strange, preachy and non-relevant post about orientalism and asian racism on tabletop games. About how samurai or ninja would be racist because they are stereotypical and simplify a culture (and very popular in anime which is japanese so no clue what that point is about). What does this even mean? So how about Druids and the celtic culture? What about the new Animist, a class that turns a real current religion and cultural system into make believe buffs? What about Monk? What about Barbarian whose name is an insult towards certain tribes assigned the "evil savage" role? What about it all? What is the point of the post? To show off that you read Said and aren't racist? Was it a PSA to not give your character a naginata as a weapon? Like, what was the point? "We will be more careful and serious about it from now on"? Who are you, what does that mean? Are you going to ban a table drama post because they talk about a homebrewed katana weapon? What is there to "get more serious about" in a subreddit for a tabletop game? I just don't get the need to make such a weird "I am very smart" post and pin it.
grandfather longing rain future poor rob vegetable coordinated smell apparatus *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They already deleted the thread u/Any_Measurement1169 opened as a Q&A to explain their thought processes. It seems to be the only reaction they have when the peasants start asking questions, we saw this before during the TGT debacle.
Honestly the Pathfinder Discord channel associated with this group is even worse. Was banned, a mod apologized, but did not unban me. Ridiculous.
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Good luck trying to impeach them. They are also the discord mods, so they treat this place like their own little sandbox playground whilst doing zachistkas. I think it’s time for me to switch to a different sub.
I think the Tian Xia post revealed that a greater portion of the player base aren't demented yahoos who understand that this is just a game; and that they just want to have fun with their friends going on fantasy adventures. The mods didn't seem to like that.
I should add I am already prepared to be banned just trying to get news out there
I am spartacus.
I am Spartacus
I am Spartacus!
Whichever mod that's deleted comments in this thread, you are wrong, you're violating rules 1 and 2, and you need to step down because you're not cut out for this. I'm not making this out of nowhere. There is context for this, including some comments of mine being deleted. You're power-tripping, virtue-signaling, and violating your own rules and you need to stop. The whole bunch of you probably need to just stop because this isn't the first time you've created a problem that didn't need to exist simply because you're projecting your own weird ideas. I know you have strong feelings about this, my guy, and it's scary!!!!! but you should learn to think about perspectives outside your own and you'll become a better person :)
Mods abusing power, then deleting posts highlighting their abuse of power. Typical behavior, really.
The modern TTRPG space is … interesting. Reminder to take long walks outside and hug the people you love from time to time.
We need to rise up. Can we impeach this mod?
What a blatant zachistka from mods despite it being a civil discussion (mostly). They should step down.
Reddit moderator moments
This post is not long for this world
It is not but who cares as long as people see it
I wonder if the folks at Paizo who handle community management would like to know that mods on their very popular Subreddit are banning Asians who express anything other than “mod approved” views on Tian Xia.
This subreddit is unfortunately led by some pretty overbearing people. In the linked Discord on the right, one of the moderators had essentially called me racist for asking (yes, asking) why rice wasn't considered a japanese dish. Long and short of it, dude wouldn't elaborate, told me to drop it, and said I was being "insensitive" about the whole thing.... to which he explained nothing about it. I promptly left that server and joined another 2e server and have yet to have any real problems there. So unfortunately this isn't the first time the moderators of this community have done something like this. This place needs a rehaul of who is in charge, as does the Discord.
Yeah, thats very Ink-core.
When someone is openly and actively being racist, you tell them to fuc* off. When someone just doesn’t know better, you talk to them! They will listen and try to learn, and improve for the future!
The mods are generally trigger happy to strike anything that has to do with even the most remotely controversial things. I guess that applies to literal game book content as well lol. Heck even referencing cultural stuff is a problem apparently (Tia Xia is obviously going to be based off of Asian culture like wth caused the mods to rip entire posts, sheesh).
At least one of the mods is more interested in tone policing this subreddit than addressing actual issues that occur. That's why people get their posts deleted and people banned for little to no reason. Ultimately it matters more to them how you say something than what you say and if you say it "too condescendingly," they delete your comment for being mean or something because heaven forbid you express a summary of your feelings on a matter.
Reddit has weird mods. Who would have thought? Many discussion boards and forums die because of mod abuse.
I recall Reddit at some point discussing giving Redditors the right to vote out their mods. Clearly they were talking out their ass.
As was proven by Touch Grass, the only way to effect change here is prolonged and consistent protest. Keep up the pressure until the mod(s) realize they are on the wrong side of this one.
Can someone provide a link to the alternative discord with different mods?
Just wanted to say I don't think you all are going to get the meaningful discussion from the mods that you are hoping for. I saw on Discord that the one mod that is the center of attention is going to create something for PFI that centers on the archetype indicated with renamed mechanics, copy pasted feats, and whatever flavor they add. Proceeds will actually go to good things but the underlying gist is just to mock all of you. Edited - Accidentally misspelled underlying.