ElPapoFugitivo's page

ElPapoFugitivo wrote:

I think it depends somewhat on whether you're planning on playing or running? I ended up buying the Bestiary's 2 & 3 next after the core group, but that's because I run for my family and more monsters to fight was more useful than more character choices.

Ehh....there's 350 monsters in the Bestiary Number One. I think that should be enough for me, and it matches up perfectly with the Bestiary Box, so I never need miniatures. To me it's not about what the monsters are, so much as it's about what you DO with the monsters. How much character the monsters have, and so on. I feel if my players want more options in terms of monsters, there's a massive amount of resources for me to get more monsters from, including stat blocks, that don't require me to spend 40 bucks on a new tome that offers no real new rules and numerous amounts of re-tread monsters, or even ten bucks on the PDF.

As for my playing situation, I'm the only of y group who owns rulebooks and other supplements. They have their own dice, but that's about it. They rely on me to provide them with ways to play, so it's a fine line I balance between providing options for them as well as for me. I would LOVE to actually be a PC one of these days. But for now I' saddled with the DM position. It's actually become damaging to me in a way, because I feel I could be a much better DM if I was a PC once and a while. I am using Golarion as a setting, despite making my own stories for my characters within them, because having a well constructed, pre-made world at your disposal is so convenient for a DM.

I hear you on the tokens. I should have clarified, that I bought the Bestiary's because I run mainly published adventures and the newer ones often reference monsters in 2 & 3. That info is available elsewhere, but my kids dig the pictures :-).

I'll second the Inner Sea World Guide. My players don't use it much, but it makes ME feel less list when reading Modules.

And Ultimate Equipment, cause who doesn't like loot?

I think it depends somewhat on whether you're planning on playing or running? I ended up buying the Bestiary's 2 & 3 next after the core group, but that's because I run for my family and more monsters to fight was more useful than more character choices.

I like the idea of some sort of introductory statement. If I ever get around to running PFS I would certainly include something like it.

But, at the risk of being a Negative Ned, what is your recourse as a PFS judge if someone takes such a statement as an invitation to form their own personal metagame? Who quibbles at anyone else's expressed discomfort? Who thinks it's funny to express their discomfort at everything? Etc. etc. you can ignore trolls on the web (sometimes) but its harder at a table?

Is it possible for Paizo to strengthen up their 'Don't Bully' language and maybe require (or strongly suggest) every GM start each session with reinforcing the Official PFS stance? This might make it feel less like 'I just got some granola-eating, hippie,rad-fem, GM'.

Also, just cause I like carrots over sticks, maybe there could be some sort of 'Citizenship Boon' for players that GM's notice making a particular impact on fostering a fun and inclusive environment? I don't know if each individual GM would be allowed to award these, or if they nominate players to their VL and/or VC, but some sort of positive reinforcement, in a manner that's not too easily subverted into a joke, might be helpful.

Neil,

I'm not a woman, but I am a father of one, and I support the creation of strong female characters. We have a very difficult time finding fantasy literature for her. She LOVES Kyra, and that was a definite factor in my choosing Pathfinder over D&D when I decided to force RPG's onto my kids :-). More in that vein would be a big hit I'm sure.

Earlier in the thread people were mentioning that women gamers might be more interested in less "hack-and-slash" and more "problem-solving" or "roleplaying-focused" modules. Personally I wonder if this is the case?

I did find it funny, but not "ha-ha" funny that when actual women suggest a girls night, that's shouted down. But when no women that I saw (I may be mistaken, I admit) suggested that "RPG's are just too violent". That got lots of immediete support.

I'd also like to suggest that many of us, myself included would be well-served on our game nights to consciously pay attention to a few things.

1) How often to you let someone finish speaking before you start? (Leaving aside the issue of how long you let them speak before you start to formulate your response.)
2) How often do you answer questions that weren't actually asked? And by this I mean, the expression of an opinion is not necessarily an invitation for critique or argument. And neither is hesitation an explicit invitation for advice.
3) How often do you let anyone else have the last word. Especially, versus how often you fight to the bitter, exhausted end?

You might be surprised at how uninviting this behavior can be to strangers and newbs of any gender, regardless of how friendly you think your group is.

DeathQuaker, like I said before, I see a difference between official/public games and those organized and held by private individuals. If you are forming a gaming group that is going to play in your home and you want all women or all men, or whatever, that is your right, and I've got no problem with it at all.

Where I have the problem is when public or official games become segregationist. That is sending the wrong message IMO. And if someone were to do it, I would at the very least expect reciprocal "men's only nights" to keep it fair, the way they do at some swimming pools for instance.

Hi Samurai,

I know I said I was gonna hush up, but I can't help myself.

As I walks self back from the cliff, consider these two scenarios:

Person A says "I think X is a good idea."

Person B says "No, X won't work. Y is what you need."

Versus

Person A says "I think X is a good idea."

Person B says "That's an idea. Maybe we could also consider Y."

Do you see a difference? One is someone telling someone else that they know what's best for them. It''s taking away their freedom of choice. The other is expressing your view, possibly even your disagreement, but still leaving them the authority to chose on their own.

The difference is subtle perhaps. And I'm probably not even making my second conversation perfectly inclusive. But if we all (myself included) made subtle changes to the way we think and talk, things would be a lot better.

ElPapoFugitivo wrote:

So stop telling the women here that their experiences and reactions to those experiences are invalid.

The only person I see telling people their experiences are invalid is you.

ElPapoFugitivo wrote:

YOUR opinion is worthless. You don't know what it's like. I don't care how smart you are. How experienced you are. How sensitive you are. How you were bullied or made fun of for x or y problem you have. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!

If you want to keep this thread civil, I recommend you take a deep breath, take your finger off the caps lock button, and talk to people like they're people, and not "the problem."

When a women suggests that an all female game night would be helpful and a male responds with, "What's REALLY best for you is a mixed game night." That's invalidating their experience. If you're not seeing it, it's because you're not paying attention. And that's the crux of this issue. We all need to pay a bit more attention.

I'm not telling anyone their experience is invalid, I'm telling them that their application of that experience onto people and situations they do not understand is invalid.

Now I'm gonna take my own advice and hush up.

You write IMO, but you don't actually think about what it means. It's your opinion. And in this context YOUR opinion is worthless. You don't know what it's like. I don't care how smart you are. How experienced you are. How sensitive you are. How you were bullied or made fun of for x or y problem you have. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!

So stop telling the women here that their experiences and reactions to those experiences are invalid. You ARE the problem. Just stop.

Let THEM, tell US, what would make THEM feel better. You can disagree and not do it, but you CAN'T tell them they are wrong. That you know better than they do what would make them feel better. .

Stop it.

BNW, let me start by saying, while I don't post much, I have followed the boards for a while, and in general I agree with you more than not, so this isn't just a "You're Stoopid, anonymous person whom I'm judging based only on 3 sentences I just read"

But, in this case I disagree vehemently. The errorI think you, and a number of posters on this thread, fall prey to, is thinking that this is a problem for you to analyze and solve in any way.

It's not.

It's not about you. It's not about how you approach ideas. It's not about what words make you feel angry or defensive. Or what YOU can do so YOU feel like less of a jerk or weirdo or whatever.

It's

Not

About

YOU.

It's about the women who play this game. And the women who might want to play this game. And the women who never will play this game because of various and sundry reasons.

The OP asked how to be more inclusive of women. That's not a topic you, or I, or anyone with a penis gets to have an opinion that matters on. We have the 'privilege' of listening to some rather articulate and patient women explain some of those reasons to us. Our only acceptable response is to say "Okay, I hear you."

Then we take the information provided and do with it what we will. Maybe we think they're full of it and don't do anything. Maybe we don't think there's a problem and don't do anything. Maybe we make small changes to how we speak and interact. Maybe we have life-changing epiphanies and dedicate ourselves to the cause of feminism.

But whatever we do, it starts with simply listening.. Not saying "Yeah, but..." or "You're wrong about this..." Or "You should do this instead..."

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that not one if the women who've shared here are asking for your help analyzing their experience, their reactions to that experience, or even their thoughts on how to make future experiences better. They are giving their thoughts, take them or leave them, but it's not your responsibility to stress test their thought processes for them.

I said hush up. I meant hush up. Because, I believe you're wrong, EVERYTHING is to be gained by men shutting up about a whole host of women's issues and simply listening to what they say.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the men on this thread can take a step back from mansplaining what the women are doing wrong while discussing this issue and simply READ and ABSORB what they are saying.

It's not a question of whether you agree. Or whether it makes you feel bad. Frankly, WMP exists. The evidence is easily and widely available. Arguing against it or demanding additional proof is trolling on par with demanding more proof for evolution or climate change. The need says far more about you than about the state of reality.

So just hush up and listen. If you disagree, that's your right, but I'm certain neither the OP or the majority of readers here want to hear how offended you are.

On topic, I recently attended my first con since being a teenager (let's say 20 odd years). My wife, daughter and son accompanied me and we all played a PFS game. For what it's worth, my 10 year old daughter's excitement at the prospect grew exponentially when she learned a female GM had volunteered to run our table. And in at least one instance that female judge, rightfully, slapped me down for not giving my own daughter enough time to make her own decisions in-game.

It's not an easy topic to deal with. But it's a heck of lot easier if those of us with the power talk less and listen and reflect and change a bit more.

Someone else on these boards suggested business card sheet protectors in. 3-ring binder. Works well for me, though I've had some io the tiny pawns slip out, so I make sure they're buffered by a regular one.

Quick question the the iPad app: is it possible to modify the character's stat block shown in the right panel? I can figure out how to add basic hit points and initiative on the player names, but it always shows the base humanoid character info on the right. Also, along the same train of though, is there a way to add custom monsters to the data base?

If you're asking what I think you're asking, if you click on the red D20 next to the character and then hit Edit in the screen that pops up you can edit all sorts of options about the character.

I've yet to figure out the exact interaction of the various editable fields though. I feel like I'm constantly correcting the Perception bonus after adding skills and stats and abilities, etc.

How do I delete .cmpt files once I've saved them? I don't see a way from within the app, but I could very well be missing something.

Also, this may be something that you cant do with the ipad for one reason or another. Is there a way to get rid of that radial dial when changing numbers in certain fields? When I am editing monsters it is a huge pain to always scroll to the numbers I want. Why not just put a keyboard option?!

I think there should be a little button with an a pair of green arrows. If you click that it replaces the radial number dials with a keypad.

I'd also be interested to know if there's a way to delete files. My 7 year old went a bit crazy making up monsters. It clutters things up a bit.

Great program. It's helping this newbie GM out tremendously.

Thanks! I hadn't noticed a couple of those details. This helps tremendously.

I am curious to hear how things went. :)

Hi Urath,

Birthdays and Back-to-School time has interrupted our normal game flow, but we did get in one session. What I ended up doing was :

One bit of advice for parents running games with their kids...make sure you have a plan for dealing with disabled foes. I didn't think in advance (bad daddy,). And we had a bit of a "Do we KILL the sleeping cultist?" moment. Our cleric did her best role-playing yet though in adamantly refusing to, but, it would have been better if I'd had an easy alternative on hand besides "oh yeah, you guys have a lot of rope...and look..that building right there is empty."

The adventure is written so it can go "off the rails", really. Note the sidebar about Lawful Good Clerics and (especially) Paladins maybe having a problem with the idea of pretending to abandon their faith and join the cult. My players flat-out refused to do that.

So I had to run the investigation externally.

Just in case...
** spoiler omitted **

Thanks to both of you for the advice. As I walked in the door today the 7 year old was asking about ways to get a mask and robes. So perhaps I will run the investigation externally as suggested and set up a possible ambush one way or another to give them an access route.

Other than the issues with pruning down the options that Rot Grub mentioned, the issues I've run into in my limited experience that might call for advanced rule are:

1) Monsters from the Bestiary, not in the BB. Not a huge deal, you can substitute easily with creatures from the BB.
2) I didn't know what a swarm was (as I hadn't purchased the Bestiary or discovered the on-line rules yet). I ended up just ignoring this. It was fine, made the encounter much easier, but I don't think anyone felt cheated
3) Attacks of opportunity. I may NEVER add these in. Not because they are overwhelmingly difficult, but because I don't think the tactical element they add is really key to our group's experience.
4) Combat Maneuvers. I have sort of half-assedly added these in already. The mechanic isn't terribly difficult, and there are just a lot of situations where they want to push or trip someone. I don't work the number crunching aspect too hard, but I think these will become important to any players sooner or later.
5) Magic items. Similar to the monsters, I've run into a couple items listed as treasure that aren't in the BB. I suppose substituting isn't too hard (though estimating equivalent values based on CR might not be fun), for me it was easier to just look them up to see what they were.

Hope this helps.

Hi,

I'm in very nearly the same boat. I played Black Fang's dungeon with my wife, 9 and 7 year old. We followed that up with Crypt of the Everflame (which they enjoyed) and are now halfway through Masks of the Living God (which I've posted elsewhere as having just gone off the rails :-))

I DID end up purchasing the Core Rulebook (and Bestiary and APG), but mainly just because I wanted to read them. There are some core rule mechanics (swarm, combat maneuvers) that the modules mention, but I ended up mostly hand-waving them away, or using with a lot of hand-holding in very specific situations.

Going forward, I will probably introduce some more elements in when we tackle The City of Golden Death, but at this point, I don't foresee my wife or the 10 year old REALLY digging into the depth of character options available in the Core Rulebook for a while yet. The 7 year old, I expect will be a power gaming munchkin, but that's a totally different problem.

Good luck!

Hi Folks,

I've recently gotten back into gaming after a long hiatus, via the Beginner Box. I've run my kids (9 and 7) and wife through Black Fang's Dungeon and Crypt of the Everflame (which comprises all of their RPG experience). Currently, we are partway through the Masks of the Living God, and I've come to a crossroads and I'm hoping for some advice on how to proceed.

Any advice for a very inexperienced group and Gm from people who've had this module go off the rails? Thanks in advance