CapnZapp
Legend
First off, I am aware of this:
Anyway, after having time to actually read through Devil in the Dreaming Palace I gotta say I'm disappointed.
I'm disappointed Paizo really think their response is enough to get them into the clear.
I'm disappointed anyone would find their response going far enough to make things good.
To me it's crystal clear that Pathfinder and D&D is about heroes fighting monsters. Yes, it's also about exploration and social interaction and equipping your character with loot (we'll get back to that shortly) and whatnot... but at the core of the game we have hundreds of pages that support a highly detailed simulation of heroes fighting monsters. Official adventures are combat encounter after combat encounter, with short brief interludes of doing other stuff sprinkled in.
The tl;dr is: if you're uncomfortable with replacing "heroes" with "cop heroes" and "monsters" with "criminal monsters" you should not give Paizo your money and you should skip this AP.
Let me explain:
First off, the module lets me down in my expectation we would get a real sense of time and place. The imagery of the module is all over the place. There's even pictures that could have been taken straight out of Victorian London (complete with genteelfolk in "modern" fashion).
What's the problem with that?
In order to get a handle on what the morality of the place says about expectations on local law enforcement, the fantasy game needs to tell us, or at least hint us in.
If Absalom gave off strong vibes of Ancient Rome, and was awash in details about who upheld the peace in that great old city (I actually don't know, and now I'm curious - during the Republic, wasn't the Senate nervous about soldiers in their city, and kept the legions as far away from the capital as possible? Later there was the Praetorian Guard, but did they bother with the crimes of regular folks? Anyway, I digress). Or, perhaps Tenochtitlan during the 1400s (religious priest cops?), or maybe Khanbaliq during the Yuan Dynasty (barbarian cops trying to understand a foreign civilization), or, for that matter, the capital of the Moon People that just does things differently. I mean, this is a fantasy game, there need to be no direct analog to any one (or three) historical methods of peacekeeping.
But there needs to be something. What we have now is pretty much nothing and everything. Do you play cops that has to comply with a modern protocol? Or is it the Wild West, where the fastest gun is the law? Or what?
And that's the problem, since it makes it easy to project whatever you, the customer, fancies the most.
While I can see why Paizo chose this approach (make the city as generic as possible so as many Paizo fans as possible will want to buy it), in the context of this discussion it creates the situation where you can (too) easily apply modern day morals to your fantasy game. It makes the AP an easy target for people getting upset with the state of law enforcement in the United States of 2020.
If the AP instead had presented an Absalom that (just for the sake of example) was modeled on Ancient Rome, and gave out a load of details on how the peace was kept there, the product would have been so much better for it. Questions like:
Questions questions.
Now, how do Agents of Edgewatch handle these issues? There are two main answers:
a) well enough
and
b) piss poor
If you accept that Pathfinder is about heroes fighting monsters, and you accept that the AP was conceived as hero cops fighting criminals-that-are-monsters, the answer is clearly "well enough". No questions are asked about the actions of law enforcement, because you aren't law enforcement, you're fantasy heroes that are in the right by default. You don't have to worry about bringing in the wrong person, because the AP makes it clear that you're on a story railroad and the guilty are placed in front of you, while the innocents are always safe. You never face moral dilemmas more than any other AP. You never have to face decisions real cops have to face.
If on the other hand you expect the AP to provide tools to tweak the game into something that even remotely resembles actual law enforcement, where questions such as "is this really the right guy" and "how do we take him without getting innocents in the crossfire" are always present, the answer cannot be anything else than "piss poor" and my only recommendation is "stay away".
Why?
Take the question about loot.
Did the AP create a subsystem where you hand in confiscated goods, the goods and tools of bad guys, and get, I don't know, "store credit" to equip your character as you level up?
Nope. The AP hands out specific items just like any other dungeon. It specifically hand-waves the issue by saying, and I quote "The guards’ only actual means of earning liquid cash is by requisitioning possessions and money from any criminals they catch breaking major laws—no trial required." which boils down to "you get to keep the loot, just like always". All questions regarding whether you did right are also handwaved, since, and again a direct quote, "the focus of this Adventure Path is fast-paced action rather than legal paperwork". The text tries to make this about skipping court proceedings. It is completely silent on the actual issue at hand: are you simply assumed to always make the correct decisions regarding loot? Apparently, that's not a question players need to worry about. Just like regular murderhobo heroes don't have to worry about killing monsters and taking their stuff.
What does it say then? It says "All findings are to be meticulously catalogued so as to prevent abuse of power, and any confiscated goods with identifiable owners must be returned." which turns out to have no impact whatsoever, since it means "you get to keep the loot, just like always". Loot is magically separated into two categories "stuff returned to the rightful owner" and "stuff you get to keep". And of course the adventure summary lists only the latter category.
This is just one indicator Paizo is trying to both eat the cake and have it too. One one hand you get to play just like normal, on the other hand, you get to have the moral high ground for free, no extra effort required.
But it gets worse. The free pass to play just like normal (greataxing monsters, fireballing them) hasn't even started yet!
The AP itself rather reasonably says
Sure, it's not enough if you expected actual support for anything else than "cop heroes fighting monster criminals", but it is at least short and inoffensive.
The final piece of the puzzle is the added layer of official rulings in the Player's Guide.
There it says that basically heroes can't cause lethal damage, period. It basically allows players to play heroes fighting monsters, and hero cops fighting monster criminals specifically, but magically nobody gets hurt.
It feels deeply illogical and insincere to expect people to just playing the game normally, except magically nobody ever gets hurt, as if that's going to solve anything. And I hope I have shown why this is so lazy compared to having a fantasy adventure that gives real insight into what morals are in place in this fantasy city, and what is expected from fantasy city watch members, AND how to tweak the game's character options so that these remain reasonably balanced against each other.
In conclusion, the only way to not be incredibly disappointed by this is to go into Agents of Edgewatch with open eyes: this is just like any other AP except you're in uniform. You still take names, you still fight monsters, you still keep their loot. Nothing changes.
It is in no way a module to support playing fantasy cops, and I fully acknowledge how it comes off as outright reprehensible for anyone unable to separate your fantasy gaming from parallels to modern day events. Don't be fooled by Paizo's attempts to salvage the situation. I see nothing else than a panicky attempt to salvage sales.
Zapp
I made two attempts to find the other threads the moderation message is talking about, but I couldn't find any. Assuming the message wasn't really saying "don't discuss the AP controversy at all" I am starting this thread since I can't find anywhere else to post. (Just wanted to make that clear - I'm not trying to evade moderation. I honestly believe I have something to say which wasn't said before simply because at that time, the module wasn't out.)
Anyway, after having time to actually read through Devil in the Dreaming Palace I gotta say I'm disappointed.
I'm disappointed Paizo really think their response is enough to get them into the clear.
I'm disappointed anyone would find their response going far enough to make things good.
To me it's crystal clear that Pathfinder and D&D is about heroes fighting monsters. Yes, it's also about exploration and social interaction and equipping your character with loot (we'll get back to that shortly) and whatnot... but at the core of the game we have hundreds of pages that support a highly detailed simulation of heroes fighting monsters. Official adventures are combat encounter after combat encounter, with short brief interludes of doing other stuff sprinkled in.
The tl;dr is: if you're uncomfortable with replacing "heroes" with "cop heroes" and "monsters" with "criminal monsters" you should not give Paizo your money and you should skip this AP.
Let me explain:
First off, the module lets me down in my expectation we would get a real sense of time and place. The imagery of the module is all over the place. There's even pictures that could have been taken straight out of Victorian London (complete with genteelfolk in "modern" fashion).
What's the problem with that?
In order to get a handle on what the morality of the place says about expectations on local law enforcement, the fantasy game needs to tell us, or at least hint us in.
If Absalom gave off strong vibes of Ancient Rome, and was awash in details about who upheld the peace in that great old city (I actually don't know, and now I'm curious - during the Republic, wasn't the Senate nervous about soldiers in their city, and kept the legions as far away from the capital as possible? Later there was the Praetorian Guard, but did they bother with the crimes of regular folks? Anyway, I digress). Or, perhaps Tenochtitlan during the 1400s (religious priest cops?), or maybe Khanbaliq during the Yuan Dynasty (barbarian cops trying to understand a foreign civilization), or, for that matter, the capital of the Moon People that just does things differently. I mean, this is a fantasy game, there need to be no direct analog to any one (or three) historical methods of peacekeeping.
But there needs to be something. What we have now is pretty much nothing and everything. Do you play cops that has to comply with a modern protocol? Or is it the Wild West, where the fastest gun is the law? Or what?
And that's the problem, since it makes it easy to project whatever you, the customer, fancies the most.
While I can see why Paizo chose this approach (make the city as generic as possible so as many Paizo fans as possible will want to buy it), in the context of this discussion it creates the situation where you can (too) easily apply modern day morals to your fantasy game. It makes the AP an easy target for people getting upset with the state of law enforcement in the United States of 2020.
If the AP instead had presented an Absalom that (just for the sake of example) was modeled on Ancient Rome, and gave out a load of details on how the peace was kept there, the product would have been so much better for it. Questions like:
- who do I answer to (as a "beat cop" or its equivalence)? Does my superior give a rat's ass about how I do things, or just that the masses stays quiet?
- do citizens get to complain at all, and if so, who listens? Maybe "community leaders" can get your ass fired, while the common man is powerless?
- do I simply get to keep the stuff I "confiscate" from criminals? (Likely not!) But if yes, do my superiors just take my word for it, or can I just rob any citizen and say I took stolen goods?
- if a citizen is killed during a bust, do I have to answer to someone? (Or am I judge jury and executioner in my ward?)
- the question of guilt: how do I know my suspect is actually guilty? What amount of force is justified when I'm sure? When I'm not?
Questions questions.
Now, how do Agents of Edgewatch handle these issues? There are two main answers:
a) well enough
and
b) piss poor
If you accept that Pathfinder is about heroes fighting monsters, and you accept that the AP was conceived as hero cops fighting criminals-that-are-monsters, the answer is clearly "well enough". No questions are asked about the actions of law enforcement, because you aren't law enforcement, you're fantasy heroes that are in the right by default. You don't have to worry about bringing in the wrong person, because the AP makes it clear that you're on a story railroad and the guilty are placed in front of you, while the innocents are always safe. You never face moral dilemmas more than any other AP. You never have to face decisions real cops have to face.
If on the other hand you expect the AP to provide tools to tweak the game into something that even remotely resembles actual law enforcement, where questions such as "is this really the right guy" and "how do we take him without getting innocents in the crossfire" are always present, the answer cannot be anything else than "piss poor" and my only recommendation is "stay away".
Why?
Take the question about loot.
Did the AP create a subsystem where you hand in confiscated goods, the goods and tools of bad guys, and get, I don't know, "store credit" to equip your character as you level up?
Nope. The AP hands out specific items just like any other dungeon. It specifically hand-waves the issue by saying, and I quote "The guards’ only actual means of earning liquid cash is by requisitioning possessions and money from any criminals they catch breaking major laws—no trial required." which boils down to "you get to keep the loot, just like always". All questions regarding whether you did right are also handwaved, since, and again a direct quote, "the focus of this Adventure Path is fast-paced action rather than legal paperwork". The text tries to make this about skipping court proceedings. It is completely silent on the actual issue at hand: are you simply assumed to always make the correct decisions regarding loot? Apparently, that's not a question players need to worry about. Just like regular murderhobo heroes don't have to worry about killing monsters and taking their stuff.
What does it say then? It says "All findings are to be meticulously catalogued so as to prevent abuse of power, and any confiscated goods with identifiable owners must be returned." which turns out to have no impact whatsoever, since it means "you get to keep the loot, just like always". Loot is magically separated into two categories "stuff returned to the rightful owner" and "stuff you get to keep". And of course the adventure summary lists only the latter category.
This is just one indicator Paizo is trying to both eat the cake and have it too. One one hand you get to play just like normal, on the other hand, you get to have the moral high ground for free, no extra effort required.
But it gets worse. The free pass to play just like normal (greataxing monsters, fireballing them) hasn't even started yet!
The AP itself rather reasonably says
Had that been all, I could have given Paizo a pass. A weak pass, but still, in line what every other fantasy adventure starting with "you apply for a job in the City Watch" has to say.
Sure, it's not enough if you expected actual support for anything else than "cop heroes fighting monster criminals", but it is at least short and inoffensive.
If you go "but if I want a more realistic feel where the choice in how to bring in perps isn't taken away from the players?" you're bound for disappointment. Will you find advice on how to change your character build to make, say, a Barbarian work in a world where lethal force isn't the automatic choice? Will you find a feat that allows spellcasters to cause non-lethal damage with their magic?
No to all these questions. I've heard forumists speculate in the AP enabling "merciful attacks" (a magical weapon property and a metamagic effect in PF1, respectively, that turns lethal damage into non-lethal damage) but no. There are a small selection of nonlethal options, but all of them suffer the problem of being far weaker from a minmax option. There are no non-lethal options that allow the Barbarian to keep making d12 attacks at no penalty. There are no options for the spellcaster, period. There is no attempt to rebalance the Barbarian against the Bard, to speak plainly. (Some warriors can thrive using the non-lethal options presented, but the Barbarian - created to wield two-handed big-dice damage weapons - cannot. And the Bard, being built with the expectation that social - peaceful! - interaction is only a small part of the game, becomes a no-brainer minmax choice in any campaign that frowns upon just killing foes).
There's even one option that even I (that aren't personally up in arms about modern day law enforcement) can see is so very very misguided. They offer nightsticks as a nonlethal option, as a . It's impossible to not ask "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING" when you realize that the imagery of cops beating suspects into unconsciousness using nightsticks is presented fully non-ironically as a reasonable option. I quote: "nightsticks
are designed to subdue foes without causing permanent injury." Yes, they really say that.
Now to put that into perspective. Since we're playing a game of pretend, where no actual monsters (human or otherwise) get hurt, but where monsters die by the score, and every level 20 hero has left behind a trail of corpses a mile long, nightsticks does come off as merciful.
So again, the question becomes: Can you play the game without drawing parallells to current events? If "yes", then okay. If "no", you should simply not give Paizo any money.
No to all these questions. I've heard forumists speculate in the AP enabling "merciful attacks" (a magical weapon property and a metamagic effect in PF1, respectively, that turns lethal damage into non-lethal damage) but no. There are a small selection of nonlethal options, but all of them suffer the problem of being far weaker from a minmax option. There are no non-lethal options that allow the Barbarian to keep making d12 attacks at no penalty. There are no options for the spellcaster, period. There is no attempt to rebalance the Barbarian against the Bard, to speak plainly. (Some warriors can thrive using the non-lethal options presented, but the Barbarian - created to wield two-handed big-dice damage weapons - cannot. And the Bard, being built with the expectation that social - peaceful! - interaction is only a small part of the game, becomes a no-brainer minmax choice in any campaign that frowns upon just killing foes).
There's even one option that even I (that aren't personally up in arms about modern day law enforcement) can see is so very very misguided. They offer nightsticks as a nonlethal option, as a . It's impossible to not ask "WHAT WERE THEY THINKING" when you realize that the imagery of cops beating suspects into unconsciousness using nightsticks is presented fully non-ironically as a reasonable option. I quote: "nightsticks
are designed to subdue foes without causing permanent injury." Yes, they really say that.
Now to put that into perspective. Since we're playing a game of pretend, where no actual monsters (human or otherwise) get hurt, but where monsters die by the score, and every level 20 hero has left behind a trail of corpses a mile long, nightsticks does come off as merciful.
So again, the question becomes: Can you play the game without drawing parallells to current events? If "yes", then okay. If "no", you should simply not give Paizo any money.
The final piece of the puzzle is the added layer of official rulings in the Player's Guide.
There it says that basically heroes can't cause lethal damage, period. It basically allows players to play heroes fighting monsters, and hero cops fighting monster criminals specifically, but magically nobody gets hurt.
It feels deeply illogical and insincere to expect people to just playing the game normally, except magically nobody ever gets hurt, as if that's going to solve anything. And I hope I have shown why this is so lazy compared to having a fantasy adventure that gives real insight into what morals are in place in this fantasy city, and what is expected from fantasy city watch members, AND how to tweak the game's character options so that these remain reasonably balanced against each other.
In conclusion, the only way to not be incredibly disappointed by this is to go into Agents of Edgewatch with open eyes: this is just like any other AP except you're in uniform. You still take names, you still fight monsters, you still keep their loot. Nothing changes.
It is in no way a module to support playing fantasy cops, and I fully acknowledge how it comes off as outright reprehensible for anyone unable to separate your fantasy gaming from parallels to modern day events. Don't be fooled by Paizo's attempts to salvage the situation. I see nothing else than a panicky attempt to salvage sales.
Zapp
Last edited:
