This is kind of an open, informal survey that I was curious about. What does everybody think of the Factions that Pathfinder Society has? Do you like them or dislike them? Have you seen any Factions that draw people, or Factions that are nearly uninhabited? What about the Faction missives and the missions inside?

I really like the Factions and the rivalries between the groups, but I don't so much like the missions. Nearly all the games I've ran or played in, the missions were pretty much "Okay, go on the mission, and you'll stumble across the MacGuffin your leader wants, or dump MacGuffin in certain place", which is pretty boring; I'd rather see something where you actually have to actively accomplish the goals, or go out of your way to do them. Plus, it'd be interesting to see missions that run contrary to another faction's mission (I can see why that'd be a bit rarer, considering that we're trying to keep PvP hostilities at a minimum). The point is, more interesting Faction missions, where some deviousness or creative thinking is necessary.

As for the Factions themselves, I see a slight imbalance in the numbers; most of the people I've seen play go for Cheliax or Qadira, and very few go to Osirion (Taldor and Andoran seem to be in the middleground). To anybody who can actually see these numbers, are my thoughts correct on that matter?

As to how to fix that (if I'm correct)... I have no bloody clue.

Anyways, those are my thoughts.

This is what I have so far from the tables I've reported.
Total for Andoran 164
Total for Cheliax 50
Total for Osirion 86
Total for Qadira 76
Total for Taldor 55

Andoran is quite in the lead in Michigan, but I've been running tables in Lansing for a large group of players and their local organizer has assumed the job of reporting their tables. They are significant because 8/12 of them are Qadiran.

Overall I think the faction system is working well and adds great distinction to the campaign. Osirion is pretty neutral, good for non-confrontational players. Andorans face off against Chelaxians. Taldans hate Qadirans. In particular I get into character when I'm playing a Taldan.

I like the factions and I wish they would allow them to be more oppositional under the rules--although in effect they can be regardless based on player assertiveness. If player from Faction A finds an item that player from Faction B needs and refuses to turn it over to them, it can cause a quandry. Most of my players are mature enough to handle these sorts of situations. Then I have another group that all share their faction missions and will help the others accomplish theirs.

I think the best faction missions are the ambiguous ones where you aren't exactly sure what is being asked for, or much of it is left to your discretion. It becomes more of a challenge than finding an item or delivering a letter.

I love how the factions have worked out so far. The spread while not even is such that most tables have 3 factions represented (and yet no matter what factions almost all need the same handout).

Andoran and Osirian are the most popular, though the only one not to get significant love would be Taldor with perhaps 3 representatives out of a group numbering around 50.

Fort the most part players complere tasks on their own, but don't hesitate to call in help from the group should they need a talker or some other special skill. I found this exceptionally amusing when one group asked another to 'have a talk' with an uncooperative NPC and was fooled into converting the guy into a rival faction.

Based on Prestige Points successfully completed from tables I've reported:

Andoran - 53
Cheliax - 33
Osirion - 43
Qadira - 35
Taldor - 31

Andoran (53) the clear leader, with Osirion (43) doing well.

Cheliax, Qadira and Taldor pretty even with only 4 points separating them.

Factions are a popular aspect of Pathfinder Society, this has been very successful.

When the concept of Pathfinder factions were first described a year or so ago, I rembember it being suggested that each year one faction may fall out of favour and be replace by another faction. It would be interesting to see new factions appear on the scene (I'm interested in Mwangi) but I think this would be difficult to implement, as scenarios already published don't contain faction missions for potential new factions. Or maybe new factions (or any factions) don't earn prestige for playing out of their region, their contacts just aren't there. Bit of a disadvantage to players of foreign factions, but may lead to players seeking scenarios in their region, or having back-up characters for play in other regions.

Tangentially related to new factions, I wonder what may happen if/when Paizo start releasing TianXia source material? May we see a second organised play campaign set in this region? Living Arcanis did this with the their oriental setting cut off from the core lands when the region was invaded from demons from beyond their world, and the gods raised a mountain range to seal them in. A hundred years later, and hidden passes through the mountains are starting to appear, and travel and trade between the two regions is starting to re-emerge, though the oriental lands are still struggling with their "inner demons", and resent the mainlanders abandoning them in their time of need. Their oriental campaign arc proved very popular. Though I suspect Paizo will keep the focus on the Absalom region to build the Society for some time to come.

These are the numbers from the games I've run in Espoo, Finland:

Total for Andoran 16
Total for Cheliax 50
Total for Osirion 17
Total for Qadira 10
Total for Taldor 10

I take it the Andoran popularity thing is mainly an American thing? Also, it seems the Finns's really do love their role-playing games with added Satan. ;)

So far the factions and the faction quests have received a very mixed response. Everything ranging from amusement to frustration. The quests you succeed at pretty much automatically ("Go pick up item X.") aren't nearly as fun as the ones that require some thought and role-play, and pretty much everyone hates the "Roll DC X or you fail." -missions.

I take it the Andoran popularity thing is mainly an American thing?

The quests you succeed at pretty much automatically ("Go pick up item X.") aren't nearly as fun as the ones that require some thought and role-play, and pretty much everyone hates the "Roll DC X or you fail." -missions.

Something I would really welcome seeing is once a year there being a faction exclusive scenario. You can only play this scenario if you are from Faction X. Perhaps make it a convention-only scenario. Each faction gets one to play, and they're all different. And very tough.

I would be interested to see other factions open up also, but this seems like it would be impossible to achieve. I can't see this happening until a few years down the road when PFS has really taken off. Perhaps there could be a spin-off organized play campaign on the other side of the world, or an alternate reality like "The Real World: San Francisco".

I have to admit I think I chose the right faction. Taldor definitely has the most intriguing missions, not these Qadiran/Osirion "fetch me this" crap.

Also I find the factions contribute a lot on a role-playing level, but scenarios themselves don't note them at all. The faction missions are stapled to the scenario and it shows.

And it seems Andoran missions are the hardest to complete. Most of them require skills not all that many of our characters have (Diplomacy, Move Silently/Hide). Osirion has had it easy, I can't recall seeing a single "roll a die" faction quest.

Something I would really welcome seeing is once a year there being a faction exclusive scenario. You can only play this scenario if you are from Faction X. Perhaps make it a convention-only scenario. Each faction gets one to play, and they're all different. And very tough.

I would be interested to see other factions open up also, but this seems like it would be impossible to achieve. I can't see this happening until a few years down the road when PFS has really taken off. Perhaps there could be a spin-off organized play campaign on the other side of the world, or an alternate reality like "The Real World: San Francisco".

I too would see other factions nice, but practically way too hard to do. It'd be a horrible job to include even more little items throughout the scenario and still make them sensible and non-conflicting. A resolution to this would be, of course, to leave some factions out of some scenarios. In all fairness this should be informed in the introductory text under the scenario.

My favorite picks for new factions would be Katapesh (To allow free trade (Pesh & Slaves) without interference) and Absalom (remain intependant, repel the interlopers!)

Here are the NY totals to date

Total for Andoran 119
Total for Cheliax 49
Total for Osirion 36
Total for Qadira 95
Total for Taldor 65

These are the numbers from the games I've run in Espoo, Finland:

Total for Andoran 16
Total for Cheliax 50
Total for Osirion 17
Total for Qadira 10
Total for Taldor 10

I take it the Andoran popularity thing is mainly an American thing? Also, it seems the Finns's really do love their role-playing games with added Satan. ;)

So far the factions and the faction quests have received a very mixed response. Everything ranging from amusement to frustration. The quests you succeed at pretty much automatically ("Go pick up item X.") aren't nearly as fun as the ones that require some thought and role-play, and pretty much everyone hates the "Roll DC X or you fail." -missions.

Completely off topic, but I'll be in Espoo Finland in August. :)

We'll be running Pathfinder Society games there, so if you're attending be sure to sign up! ;)

From what I've seen, Andoran is the faction that is closest to the "good" D&D campaigns that people have played in the past. Most other factions are self serving, neutral kind of organizations, so I'm guessing that most people (at least old timers) would gravitate to Andoran.

And it looks like I'm right based on some stats I've seen so far.

Some of the factions allow or promote borderline evil characters, the s%*!ty part about this is that Pathfinder has a "play nice" ruleset in place so that in the end, everyone has to play like a neutral good Andoran anyway.
"At no point should you betray, harass, or murder another Pathfinder in order to accomplish your missions."

Maybe a better Pathfinder directive would be "Accomplish the mission but don't kill any other Pathfinder operatives!". This way you could lie to a fellow Pathfinder, leave a fellow pathfinder sleeping, tied up, or lost somewhere, have some conflict, without player death. That would be bad for an ongoing game but it would be pretty sweet for a one shot game.

I've yet to play a Pathfinder scenario so maybe they are just trying to add some (mild) flavor to the campaign setting without tipping over the apple cart. I'll be at Gencon Indy this year, so I'll see how it goes. Should be fun.

Well, my main PFS character is Chelaxian, but he's hardly...evil, really. I've been playing it off as he's a Chelaxian Pathfinder because it usually sends him far, far away from Cheliax. Oh, he's not goody-goody, and he has a certain amount of national pride, but he likes to just...get away and experience the world.

Am I the only one who's disappointed there hasn't been a scenario located in Cheliax yet? Is Paizo saving Cheliax for "The Bastards of Erebus" AP or what? Or is Josh worried what all these Andorans-Gone-Wild are going to do if they get to visit Egorian? :)

Three of the factions are within 60 faction points of one another at the moment... and that's all I'm saying.

Am I the only one who's disappointed there hasn't been a scenario located in Cheliax yet? Is Paizo saving Cheliax for "The Bastards of Erebus" AP or what? Or is Josh worried what all these Andorans-Gone-Wild are going to do if they get to visit Egorian? :)

Tentatively scheduled Cheliax scenarios include #42 and #54 in season 1.

Tentatively scheduled Cheliax scenarios include #42 and #54 in season 1.

There are, yes. And I'm planned out through August 2010.

If there is one thing I have learned about Josh it is that he is organized!
PFS #22, Fingerprints of the Fiend should sate the appetite for those looking for Cheliax adventure!
BTW Josh I have spent my evenings on this web site!

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/01/

If there is one thing I have learned about Josh it is that he is organized!

Maybe it's just planning ahead?

I like the way the factions work. Like you said OP, instead of 'all of you go there and do this', it's like your character actually has a back story or something. Role-play opportunities abound.

Well, my main PFS character is Chelaxian, but he's hardly...evil, really. I've been playing it off as he's a Chelaxian Pathfinder because it usually sends him far, far away from Cheliax. Oh, he's not goody-goody, and he has a certain amount of national pride, but he likes to just...get away and experience the world.

Well, my main PFS character is Chelaxian, but he's hardly...evil, really. I've been playing it off as he's a Chelaxian Pathfinder because it usually sends him far, far away from Cheliax. Oh, he's not goody-goody, and he has a certain amount of national pride, but he likes to just...get away and experience the world.

To this day I have no idea how Pathfinder Society works but the CONCEPT sounds amazing. Living where I do though I've never really bothered to look too deeply into it as I fear I'd never get a chance to play anyway.

To this day I have no idea how Pathfinder Society works but the CONCEPT sounds amazing. Living where I do though I've never really bothered to look too deeply into it as I fear I'd never get a chance to play anyway.

I have no data to share, but I wanted to add my voice to those that believe the faction missions add a lot to the scenarios. I hope they continue to be a part of the whole system.

Three of the factions are within 60 faction points of one another at the moment... and that's all I'm saying.

...and the sand lovers quietly sneak around the outside to take the prize!

I like the idea of the factions, but the execution is wanting.

Many faction missions feel like they've been tacked on the module as an afterthought. Fetch-and-deliver quests with neon signs pointing at the macguffin are boring.

Occasionally there is ambiguity in the mission handouts, which can lead to conflict with another party member of a different faction, when the party members think they are after the same thing.

Overall, the role of the factions in the Society isn't very clear. I hope Seekers of Secrets will clarify it, but really, this is stuff that should be in the campaign guide.

Personally, I would scrap some of the limitations concerning intra-party conflict in the interests of better roleplaying and making the factions matter more, and throw in a reward for completing the main mission from the Pathfinder Society itself so the party members still have an incentive to watch each other's backs. The few times that was done in Living Greyhawk it worked brilliantly.

So... when will we know what the "winning" faction gets? Do they get more scenarios tailored to them? Do they get gold? Is the goal of organized play to get the factions spread out as evenly as possible?

Also, when is the season 1 organized play manual going to be available? A week before Gencon or on August 13th?

We moved away from rewarding a "winning" faction quite some time ago and you won't see any mention of it in the Season 1 (v2.0 Guide Book) that should be out around the 1st. The reason we moved away from it, was so we didn't discourage 4/5 of the player base by, essentially, calling them losers. We've settled on a different system for Prestige in Season 1.

The reason we moved away from it, was so we didn't discourage 4/5 of the player base by, essentially, calling them losers. We've settled on a different system for Prestige in Season 1.

See, but anyone not Andoran are losers. ;-)

We moved away from rewarding a "winning" faction quite some time ago and you won't see any mention of it in the Season 1 (v2.0 Guide Book) that should be out around the 1st. The reason we moved away from it, was so we didn't discourage 4/5 of the player base by, essentially, calling them losers. We've settled on a different system for Prestige in Season 1.

You keep on mentioning this new Prestige system in season 1, fancy giving us some details? Will it still be based on the factions?

See, but anyone not Cheliax are losers. ;-)

You keep on mentioning this new Prestige system in season 1, fancy giving us some details? Will it still be based on the factions?

We moved away from rewarding a "winning" faction quite some time ago and you won't see any mention of it in the Season 1 (v2.0 Guide Book) that should be out around the 1st. The reason we moved away from it, was so we didn't discourage 4/5 of the player base by, essentially, calling them losers. We've settled on a different system for Prestige in Season 1.

Since when did loosing mean "Now I'm discouraged, and considering quitting this game. Why did I decide to side with those lame clueless rebels, the Andorans." instead of "Curse those Chelaxians! We will try try again and get them next year around!"

We moved away from rewarding a "winning" faction quite some time ago and you won't see any mention of it in the Season 1 (v2.0 Guide Book) that should be out around the 1st. The reason we moved away from it, was so we didn't discourage 4/5 of the player base by, essentially, calling them losers. We've settled on a different system for Prestige in Season 1.

I report anything I'm head coordinating. However, one judge (I know of) said he doesn't report mods he's ran because "All it does is count towards the success of the factions." Wouldn't this be a further deterrent for reporting mods? I'm not trying to be critical, I'm just curious.

On a side note: are other regions (or factions) going to open up to PC's since the success of the PC faction-wise doesn't effect the overall success of their faction anymore?

Thanks a lot!

I may still announce who "won" the season, but there won't be a reward system for it.

Prestige Award will operate a little differently in Season 1, but I don't want to spill the beans yet.

There's another thread here where I say this about reporting:

"Reporting is a cascading effect. We need to know who's playing so that we know how many people we're hitting each month with our product so that we can track growth so that we can spend more money on the Society. The more people that play, the bigger budget we give to the Society (and potential things like player and GM rewards). We're talking about possibly simplifying the things you need to input on paizo.com, but we still need people to report their sessions."

On a side note: are other regions (or factions) going to open up to PC's since the success of the PC faction-wise doesn't effect the overall success of their faction anymore?

I may still announce who "won" the season, but there won't be a reward system for it.

Prestige Award will operate a little differently in Season 1, but I don't want to spill the beans yet.

There's another thread here where I say this about reporting:

"Reporting is a cascading effect. We need to know who's playing so that we know how many people we're hitting each month with our product so that we can track growth so that we can spend more money on the Society. The more people that play, the bigger budget we give to the Society (and potential things like player and GM rewards). We're talking about possibly simplifying the things you need to input on paizo.com, but we still need people to report their sessions."

I may still announce who "won" the season, but there won't be a reward system for it.

Anyhow, I am confident the rightful nation of Taldor will crush all these upstarts squarely.

The only worry I have is that our current DM is the only one to have chosen Cheliax, and that still feels wrong somehow :)

Joshua J. Frost wrote:

I may still announce who "won" the season, but there won't be a reward system for it.

Oh yes, please announce it anyways. Just for the fun of it.

Anyhow, I am confident the rightful nation of Taldor will crush all these upstarts squarely.

The only worry I have is that our current DM is the only one to have chosen Cheliax, and that still feels wrong somehow :)

I'd still like to see some basic stats at the end of this season.

Like:
1) Character distribution by faction levels 2+.
2) Character distribution by faction levels 5+.
3) Overall prestige points calculated by faction.
4) Number and percentage of prestige points lost by faction (non-maximum prestige in the scenario) (to see if some factions have missions that are too difficult)
5) Race distribution overall and by faction
6) Class distribution overall and by faction

Ummm... that's it. :)

From what I've seen, Andoran is the faction that is closest to the "good" D&D campaigns that people have played in the past. Most other factions are self serving, neutral kind of organizations, so I'm guessing that most people (at least old timers) would gravitate to Andoran.

I've had Andoran players call out "Don't free those slaves!" when a Cheliax character moves to do so. Fact is, the Cheliax may be the only faction that's actually honest about what they're out to do.

I'd still like to see some basic stats at the end of this season.

Like:
1) Character distribution by faction levels 2+.
2) Character distribution by faction levels 5+.
3) Overall prestige points calculated by faction.
4) Number and percentage of prestige points lost by faction (non-maximum prestige in the scenario) (to see if some factions have missions that are too difficult)
5) Race distribution overall and by faction
6) Class distribution overall and by faction

Ummm... that's it. :)

I'd still like to see some basic stats at the end of this season.

Like:
1) Character distribution by faction levels 2+.
2) Character distribution by faction levels 5+.
3) Overall prestige points calculated by faction.
4) Number and percentage of prestige points lost by faction (non-maximum prestige in the scenario) (to see if some factions have missions that are too difficult)
5) Race distribution overall and by faction
6) Class distribution overall and by faction

Ummm... that's it. :)

Gah, you're enjoying tormenting us with your pseudo-answers aren't you Josh? :P

As for the stats, I'd be really interested in finding out about 5 and 6 (though I'm not sure if that's possible with the current reporting system) - and whether it changes based on the new faction feat/trait system.

We don't collect race and class information.

We don't collect race and class information.