The Improvements So Far

Monday, June 8, 2015

Back in November 2014, you may recall the Pathfinder Society team held a marathon meeting to address a long list of feedback and devise numerous concrete objectives for how to improve the Pathfinder Society Organized Play campaign. In the spirit of the main announcement for today, let's take a look at what Mike and I shared back then and see where things are now.

Factions

Factions were getting a bit unwieldy as promoting faction goals relied on playing the right scenario with the right character. Updating faction documentation on the website was also behind schedule. We proposed getting new art for each of the revised factions, getting the website text updated, and producing the faction journal cards. As you can see by the links, we've hit all of these goals, albeit a little later than projected.

Scenario Length

As scenarios developed deeper stories and greater complexity, the adventure gradually ran longer and longer—even extending beyond the 5-hour soft limit. What's more, numerous locations couldn't manage to complete some of the average-length scenarios because the venue or weeknight schedule only allowed for 4 4.5-hour games.

Beginning back in January, I began trimming the number of encounters in higher-level scenarios while also watching for exceptionally time-consuming encounters in lower-level adventures and adjusting as necessary. Based on the feedback I've read, the first month or two after the change was a bit hit-or-miss in meeting this goal, but what I've read since suggests that it's getting easier to run the new scenarios in a 4-hour slot (not including set-up and paperwork).

Scenario [Preparation] Difficulty

With the Pathfinder Reference Document so easy to reference from home, scenario authors and I felt more comfortable including increasingly complex and diverse options from the Pathfinder RPG hardcover line. The trouble was that this made scenarios harder to prepare and run—especially in the unenviable but occasionally necessary circumstance of running an adventure cold.

Beginning in December 2014, we began including full Bestiary pages in the back of scenarios, reducing the books that a GM might need to juggle to the “character option” books such as Advanced Player's Guide for a feat or a spell. We also returned to the practice of including full stat blocks for creatures with simple templates that substantially modify their statistics (e.g. the advanced simple template, but not the fiendish one). It's a little harder to measure how well we've limited the number of subsystems and complicated mechanics, but it's certainly been on my mind while writing outlines, working with the author, and developing adventures.

Season Plotline

By 2014, Pathfinder Society had developed a reputation for basing its season-long plotlines off a recently released Adventure Path, and it was increasingly apparent how much this tied our hands regarding what kinds of stories we could tell and pushing the Society toward year-long goals that did not always support its main agenda of exploration, documentation, and scholarship.

It's a little hard to share a lot on this front without giving away too much, but as you probably picked up from the recent blog announcing the Year of the Serpent, we're cooking up a fun new season that tips its hat to the upcoming Hell's Rebels Adventure Path but focuses on its own story near and dear to the Pathfinder Society's interests. All of that includes traveling to a large number of destinations—many familiar and many new—in the name of exploring, reporting, and cooperating.

The Story So Far

If you're following along with that first blog I linked to back in November, you may notice one big entry that I haven't talked about yet: the Story So Far project. As the organized play campaign gets older, the accumulated wealth of stories, NPCs, and other developments can make it tough to know what has happened already, how the current season might tie in, and what the underlying assumptions are when playing an older adventure.

The project really picked up steam when Linda Zaya-Palmer joined the team, and I am happy to announce that the first wave of Story So Far handouts is now complete and available for download. These five cover the first five unified season plot arcs in a very low-spoiler sort of way, providing enough information to give a newer player helpful context without identifying who a mysterious benefactor or a hidden traitor might be—all in a few hundred words. Pass them out before an adventure tied to that season's metaplot, and let us know how they work. Based on feedback, we're looking into addressing major plot arcs and unifying threads (like the Blakros family and Grandmaster Torch) in a similar fashion.

John Compton
Developer

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Tags: Factions Pathfinder Society Pathfinder Society Scenarios
Grand Lodge 4/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Bravo, sirrah!

4/5

Well I have been enjoying Pathfinder Society for a couple seasons now and hope you continue to keep up the good work. All your changes have been improvements on something I was already quite happy with. I am looking forwards to the new season.

4/5 *

Great improvements over the past year. Congrats to everyone on getting so much good stuff done in such a short time!

Scarab Sages 4/5

3 people marked this as a favorite.

I agree, this season has been a vast improvement over Season 5 and I have in general been a fan of many of the changes that have been implemented over the past year. The scenarios have been much easier to run and complete in time and I have greatly enjoyed the story arcs this season.

However, one thing that never seems to be on the PFS "to-do" list is sanctioning of APs and modules. I know it's not a top priority but I think it should at least make the list. The last AP backlog sanctioning we got was Carrion Crown in the fall of 2013. It is getting dangerous close to two years since we have seen one of the older APs sanctioned.

Furthermore, Iron Gods has been finished for some time and we still have yet to see the chronicles. I put my own game on hiatus and know another GM who has done the same because we were expecting it to be sanctioned as it came out (a la Mummy's Mask). And now we're half-way through Giantslayer so it's going to start falling way behind if those don't get taken care of soon. And with the themes of Season 6 being technology and Numeria, I would have thought Iron Gods sanctioning would be have been near the top of the list.

I realize that it takes a ton of unappreciated work to complete these momentous projects and that there are probably higher priorities that cause these sanctionings to be pushed back again and again, but if they never even make it onto the "to-do" list, it becomes increasingly unlikely that they will ever be done. And that's too bad, because some of those old APs are great and opening them up to the PFS community might spark some new interest in them.

Again, great job on all of the changes this season and on everything done this far. I am looking forward to running all four specials at GenCon this year and coordinating all of that took a huge amount of effort, I am sure. Thanks again to our intrepid PFS team!

Grand Lodge 3/5

Huzzah!

Shadow Lodge 5/5 5/5

A+ vote of pure awesome.

Liberty's Edge 2/5 5/5 **

4 people marked this as a favorite.

I can't provide any quantifiable numbers, but I can personally attest that I absolutely love the inclusion of the monster statblocks in the module packet; it makes things much, much easier to handle, especially when running cold.

Grand Lodge

Thankyou so much, your listening and reacting to feedback is why this is the best organised play system to day !

Lantern Lodge 5/5

The Story So Far is perfect.

I can picture say, laying out the season 3 recap and saying "this is why you're talking to a bunch of ratfolk," with a bit of context readily apparrent.

Well done.

Grand Lodge 4/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.

I love it! Makes prep work much simpler! Thank you!

If it's not too much trouble, adding [CL5] or somesuch after each magical item the players find/encounter would take a lot of time out of my prepwork (or gameplay, as I often forget to look that up beforehand.) Being able to quickly calculate the spellcraft DC will make a big difference for me.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ***

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Any chance we can get the watermarking removed from the Story so Far pdfs? It looks super ugly since there's that line through it on both sides.

Sovereign Court 3/5 5/5

The missing stat blocks in scenarios has always been my biggest frustration with GMing PFS. I'm glad that you've been including them, for the most part, but I'd still like to see even more of the templated-creatures included--not just the simpler templates. Plus, some of the included stat blocks have been lacking for editing and proofreading. So, it's definitely heading in the right direction, there, if you ask me.

Scenario length has been been my 2nd biggest frustration--whether playing or GMing. We have to be mindful of the game stores that welcome us--often without charging us to use their space. Making headaches for the staff because our scenarios are running too long is rather bad form. I haven't been able to play enough of the recent scenarios to say whether this has been improving or not, sadly, but it's greatly appreciated that it's a priority for you guys.

Regarding the "Story So Far" document: Is there a reason it only covers seasons 2 through 6? I mean, I know seasons 0 and 1 didn't really have "over-arching" plotlines, but it would still be nice for newer players to get some sort of overview about what the Society was doing during those years.

Grand Lodge 4/5

I really appreciate the hard work everyone has put into making PFS better and better. I look forward to sharing The Story So Far with my players.

Scarab Sages 5/5 5/55/55/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yay

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/5

Good work!

Liberty's Edge 4/5 *

John, what is the use license on "The Story So Far"? Would it be permissible for me to reproduce the text on our region's web site? Could I capture them as images to display? Or do you prefer that we just give out printed versions?

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Phoenix plans on just linking to the download so as to prevent site overhead when the document is updated.

4/5

Nice work! Concise and to the point without overburdening the players with info.

Silver Crusade

Very nice

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I started PFS with season 6 and since then had the chance to play and run a couple of older scenarios, and came to the conclusion, that PFS scenarios are getting better and better.

So keep up the good work.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, California—Los Angeles (South Bay)

I think that there has been a lot of improvement. The stat blocks save me prep time. Scenario length is a concern, but I think that it has improved. (Sometimes I have to keep a tight rein on time, as this can be an issue at local venues.)

I enjoyed the summary of the past several seasons. I think some key events from Season 0 would be good, showing the diversity of scenarios from that season.

*

Nice progress, & better response to the players. That is why Paizo is so awesome.

Thanks for the 'story so far' :)

Community & Digital Content Director

2 people marked this as a favorite.
James McTeague wrote:
Any chance we can get the watermarking removed from the Story so Far pdfs? It looks super ugly since there's that line through it on both sides.

Yup! Should be removed now.

Paizo Employee 2/5 RPG Superstar 2014 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 32

Thanks for all your hard work making PFS the awesome experience that it is! I'm definitely going to share "the story so far" with my group. Many of them are just now jumping on board. Seems like a great resource for them.

Liberty's Edge 3/5 *

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The Story So Far download link isn't working for me. It just brings me back to the home page.

Paizo Employee 4/5 Developer

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Michael Hallet wrote:
The Story So Far download link isn't working for me. It just brings me back to the home page.

Try this link. If that doesn't work, you can also find them by clicking the "Products" link on the Pathfinder Society landing page and then clicking the link for "Free Products."

Dataphiles 3/5

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Thanks for everything you guys do to provide us with an amazing organized play campaign. It is amazing the work you guys put in so we have a fun way of spending our free time.

The added bestiary entries have been a great help in prepping games, and my experience with the new scenarios was they easily fit within a 4 hour convention slot even with the opportunity for some great roleplaying.

The Story So Far is great, and I can't wait to start using it in my home group for PFS.

Liberty's Edge

I'll throw in another topic. The post seems to suggest the current Faction Journal Cards might be considered for the current season 7 and were just released early. Is this true? Or are season 7 FJCs inbound?

5/5 5/55/55/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Thank you for putting the critters in the back and doing the templates. Makes it much, MUCH easier to run off of the tablet.

Dark Archive RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Wonderful writing Linda! The story-so-far cards look like they will make an excellent way to easily summarize meta-plot before running some of the older scenarios that are linked to that meta-plot.

Grand Lodge 4/5 *

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, LO Special Edition, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

This is great! It will help all the new players way more than my ramblings. Thanks!

Liberty's Edge 4/5 *

I printed the cards and took them to our game last night, and got a very positive response. Thanks, Linda and John! :)

4/5

Though it is sort of funny that the metaplot starts with season two.

4/5 *

Season 0 and 1 didn't have a meta-plot - the "we're Pathfinders!" plot was new and strong enough.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

1 person marked this as a favorite.
XainMexi wrote:
I'll throw in another topic. The post seems to suggest the current Faction Journal Cards might be considered for the current season 7 and were just released early. Is this true? Or are season 7 FJCs inbound?

There have been annoucements that S7 will have new cards.

As you have noticed, some of these cards are very strongly tied to the current season, particularly the ones about collecting bits of Sky Key.

Silver Crusade 4/5

The faction cards, shorter scenarios, and the varied locales have all been well received locally.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Brett Carlos wrote:
The faction cards, shorter scenarios, and the varied locales have all been well received locally.

Agreed - lots of excitement especially among players who've only joined us in the last 1-2 years at seeing this document!

4/5

GM Lamplighter wrote:
Season 0 and 1 didn't have a meta-plot - the "we're Pathfinders!" plot was new and strong enough.

Oh I realize that, but it still looks a little odd.

Grand Lodge 4/5

David Neilson wrote:
GM Lamplighter wrote:
Season 0 and 1 didn't have a meta-plot - the "we're Pathfinders!" plot was new and strong enough.
Oh I realize that, but it still looks a little odd.

Unfortunately, any summary of the few plotlines that existed would be either worthless or incredibly spoiler heavy.

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