Michael Brock's page

There is no current plans to allow replay above what is currently in place.

Yes ma'am, torture is evil.

Michael Brock wrote:

Fromper wrote:

Everyone seems to be ignoring the second question in the original post. Exactly where is the line between "intimidation" and "torture"?

Yes torture is evil.

Intimidation is when you threaten to do physical harm that would cause maiming, injury, etc...

Torture is when you deliberatly cause pain and suffering to an individual and they are unable to defend themselves.

So let me get this strait.

The pathfinders have some vague information that a place is involved in smuggling that might be related to a kidnapping. (as if skyreach weren't the number two source of smuggled artifacts in the inner sea) A heavily armed and armored swat team of pathfinders kick in the door and find mook thug number 2, who oddly enough at seeing people apparently about to kill him, picks up a knife to defend himself.

This person can be shot with an arrow, decapitated with a sword , turned into a marmoset, have his blood boiled within his own veins, be bathed in acid, or even set on fire and be left to burn to death alive... and THEN have his body reanimated into an unholy mockery of life that exists to satiate an inexorable hunger for the tender flesh of the living and thats not an evil act.

But if you take someone you know is guilty of the most heinous crimes, who deserves to be decapitated on the spot, and instead smack him around a little for information then suddenly you've crossed the line...

We can list all kinds of situations. That isn't what this topic is about. If you want to discuss blood boiling, bathing in acid, setting on fire or many other acts, start your own thread instead of derailing this one.

Let me simplify. Torture is evil. I'm not arguing about it, I'm not debating it.

Torture is evil, plain and simple.

Torture is evil.

Everyone seems to be ignoring the second question in the original post. Exactly where is the line between "intimidation" and "torture"?

Yes torture is evil.

Intimidation is when you threaten to do physical harm that would cause maiming, injury, etc...

Torture is when you deliberatly cause pain and suffering to an individual and they are unable to defend themselves. It also includes inflicting such pain for the purposes of obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession or needlessly and excessively punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed (even if you can heal the damage afterwards).

As I tell my six year old, if you have to ask......

My experience with PFS play is running a few games and playing lots and lots of them. My experience with other OPs is minimal and confined only to Living Greyhawk. I stopped GMing PFS games because of the frustrations mentioned here- the mods were too easy and I couldn't challenge players. I had no power to improvise or create. I felt like a drone mindlessly carrying out what was put before me despite my numerous problems with it. Running "The God's Market Gamble" was the final straw.

I've sent you a PM. Please reply to that before I address any points further. I need clarification on some confusion I have.

What was the final straw on 3-18? Without mowing specifics, it is hard to know what you are talking about. As for the scenarios being too easy, it sounds as if you stopped GMing midway through season 3. I assume you haven't GMed any season 4 which has been received, across the board, as the most challenging season yet.

Also, not sure why you feel like a drone carrying out what is put before you. I've GMed nearly 200 tables of PFS and each game is an experience of its own. I add role playing flavor where possible depending on where the PCs are adventuring at. As far as I know, the players at my tables always have a good time. I haven't experienced this drone experience you report and need further info before I can understand what you are trying to describe.

Michael Brock wrote:

Anyhow, I will leave this thread to all of you to get back to theory crafting the best ways to make things better.

What is this "theory crafting" term you keep throwing around pejoratively? Good ideas are good ideas, and yes they are more likely to be had by people who have played a lot then people who haven't but...I don't know, this "theory crafting" business strikes me as a political buzzword, like when Kevin Spacey keeps saying "disorganized labor" in House of Cards. I don't get the point of it.

Theory crafting is when you have little or no experience with PFS organized play but know how best to fix its problems through theories instead of any real game experience to fall back upon. Good ideas are only good if they will actually work in practice and not just theoretically work because they sound good. Allowing players or GMs to play in any tier they wish may sound good, however it would cause a train wreck if actually implemented. There is no political buzzwords here. It is just an easy two word term to describe quickly what it took a paragraph to explain just now.

The same people have been asking for years, to just let players and/or GMs decide to play in whatever tier or subtler they like without restrictions. It simply isn't going to happen. I don't know how many times I have to say no before people stop suggesting it as a solution and come up with other solutions.

why not just have a discretionary allotment of extra enemies the GM can throw into the module, with notes like "If the players were not challenged by this conflict, you may choose to use 2 discretionary points to add these units to the next encounter"

So, if a GM only kills one character, and thinks he should have killed 3 with the last encounter, should he be allowed to add some extra enemies to every encounter to the end of the scenario? If you have a 5th or high per level PC, who for whatever reason doesnt have the gold or PP to raise dead, are you ok losing your character permanently because the GM decided he needed to give you more of a challenge, wasn't able to gauge properly, and TPKed the party? Because, there are GMs out there who would do such a thing.

And before anyone says, well people just won't play with that GM in the future, consider this. What if you only have one 5th level PC, have spent hundreds of dollars to go to a convention, only to die in the first slot. They signed up for all tiers higher than 1 and are now left with their entire con schedule being unable to play because one GM decided he wanted to give the party a bigger challenge and TPKed.

The BB Bash Chronicle sheets for players and GMs is not currently available to be issued. John and I have a new GM and player Chronicle on our list of things to do.

Michael Brock wrote:

Stonecunning wrote:

I have, it's usually just ignored. Right now I'm trying to get up the chain for a game I played on Thursday where two people would not. stop. joking. about. rape.

Seriously, going "up the chain" is a lot harder than it might seem because often "avoiding conflict" means "continue letting one person be awful."

Email me about this incident please. My email is mike.brock@paizo.com.

Just sent you a wall of text.

Received and thank you. As a former Special Victims Detective, I don't take jokes about such a heinous act lightly.

I have, it's usually just ignored. Right now I'm trying to get up the chain for a game I played on Thursday where two people would not. stop. joking. about. rape.

Seriously, going "up the chain" is a lot harder than it might seem because often "avoiding conflict" means "continue letting one person be awful."

If you are Shadow Lodge or Lantern Lodge, You are able to change factions once for free between now and Gen Con. Whenever you decide to do it is solely up to you.

Thread is locked. If you have a problem with our policies, contact the web manager.

The other big thing that a few have complained about is a lack of transcript/details. The intent was/is a sneak peak, that means some info, not all of it. That said, a Paizo Blog post with the bulletpoints, link to the video, and a comment that the details will be in future PFS Blog post should have been ready to go early today.

It took slightly longer than anticipated but it did go up early this afternoon, around 12:30 pm PST. LINK

Does anyone know if you can apply the GM credit to an out-of-tier character that is retired?

For example, my Shadow Lodge character is level 11. Do I need to save one of her last XP slots for the GM credit for Rivalry's End?

Yes, for 4-21 and 4-23, GM credit may be applied outside of tier range so characters who are deserving receive the "end game" reward for both factions.

Yes, save one of her last XP slots for GM credit.

Michael Brock wrote:

Just because we didnt post it immediately doesn't mean we aren't working on it.

No doubt. But the thing is, you really should have planned to have it posted much immediately. As it stands, the only way to access the information is to watch a 2-hour podcast that most people still don't know exists (one of our VTs posted a link to the podcast on Facebook, which is the first most people have heard of it). Once people know something is up, they're going to come here, and they're going to be disappointed (assuming they haven't already!).

Again, I apologize for the tone of my earlier posts, but if you take a step back I think you'll realize that this was not well-handled.

This was a sneak peak of a series of NORMAL PFS blogs that are going to happen over the next few months. We were waiting to release this info until those blogs. However, we saw an opportunity to give a sneak peak, we thought the fanbase would appreciate it, and we've never tried anything like that before.. I'm starting to think we should consider not having any future sneak peak podcasts and just have a podcast once we make an announcement on a blog. This will keep people from assuming we had bad judgement or a lack of consideration. I also sometimes sneak peak what a Monday blog will be on my public Facebook page on a Friday. I'm thinking I may stop those as well since they fall under the same type of criticism. Cest la vie I guess.

Just to make sure, you're saying that it's not necessarily a bad thing if somebody gets excluded from a game day for their level?

If the game days are announced in advance, and the person has full knowledge he has no character in the level range and would have to play a pre gen to participate, then I'm saying he has the option to play the pregen or find something else he can do for that one game day.

Additionally, if a game day is scheduled, the player shows up thinking one thing is scheduled to run at a particular tier, and it is changed the day of, this allowing him nothing in level of any of his characters. That isn't cool.

So, to sum up, if the coordinator posts all game days scheduled for the next month, and the player doesn't have a character for the level of one of those game days, then it isn't a bad thing they have to skip one day or use a pregen if they refuse to miss a game.

Michael Brock wrote:

And then we come full circle and I will quote Jiggy's post from last page.

"Unless I'm missing something, every single situation used as a case against the "Podcast System" can be solved by one or two people just deciding to NOT be the most important person for one day."

He's right, that would solve all our problems. But that's not something the campaign staff or an event coordinator can enforce.

If you energize your local player base with that attitude, you don't have to enforce it.

First, let me say that we appreciate all of the feedback provided thus far. It will be invaluable as we continue to discuss internally.

The option Mark presented on the podcast is only one option we are considering internally, and we still have many hours of discussions before we decide on what the best course of action we want to take that is best for the campaign. At this point, I am not discussing this topic in depth publicly as we still need to evaluate pros and cons internally. Your feedback will certainly help with those discussions.

I know one of the main problems we are focusing on is people not playing at tier, and instead, players that choose to play up every game.

A second, very real problem is the bullying of some players to play up, even when it is supposed to be a vote as to whether the table wishes to play up.

Another problem I've seen personally, is characters that sit down for Eyes of Ten and are far above where they should be in regard to WBL. The last Eyes of Ten I GMed, one 12th level character had the wealth of what a character who should almost be 15th level is supposed to have.

I will say I'm currently not a fan of double xps ideas that have been presented here. That isn't to say I can't be convinced otherwise. But, as others have mentioned, it adds yet another system on top of what we already have that just complicates things further, especially for new players.

This is a complicated problem and we will address what is best for the campaign in Guide 5.0 before season 5 starts. But, we need time to review this problem from several different perspectives, and come up with several different solutions, before we make that final decision. So, please don't take the one option presented as a final decision for the campaign going forward. I haven't made that decision yet.

It was a way to field questions immediately and talk "face-to-face" instead of a unemotional blog. Sorry you are disappointed in the method of delivery but we received an overwhelmingly positive response. You are the first to advise it is a complete lack of consideration and shockingly bad judgement. We will try to do better next time with just a plain old blog post and less questions answered with the immediacy we were able to provide.

Also, it was recorded and will be placed HERE if you would Ike to watch it for yourself and not rely on second and interpretations.

I hope the future tier 1s will be evergreen products that never have to be retired.

At the start of Season 5, parts 2 and 3 will be retired. Part 1 will remain an active scenario. Once we have a new Tier 1 only scenario in place, part 1 will then be retired. It is my goal to have 1-2 Tier 1 only scenarios placed on the regular publishing schedule for PFS and published each season, that capture the flavor of the season. This won't be specifically tied to a certain faction so they can remain an evergreen product.

You won't see the first one of these until early 2014 and is the reason we are keeping part 1 of First Steps live until tha time. In the future, I hope to have one of these release as a Gen Con release.

The thread is rapidly deteriorating to uncivilized. Everyone take a deep breath, clean it up, or thread will be locked.

Which also took care of transportation, lodging and food during the trip?

A greyhound bus will get you most anywhere for $98 or less. Likewise, mos places in Europe can get to any other EU country for less than €100. Save less than $10 or €10 a month and you can go the next year. Also, someone from your area may also be attending the same con and may not mind you riding with them, in which case it s $0. And before it is said it never happens, I usually let 2-3 people each year pile in my truck in Alanta for a free round trip ride to and from Gen Con in Indianapolis.

Some larger conventions like Gen Con or Origins, you are offered a free hotel room when running a minimum set number of games. I can think of at least four cons off the top of my head that offer free hotel room if you GM enough slots. Also, in my early 20s, I made friends with other players in other parts of the country. When a con was scheduled near my house, they would come and stay with me for free. When a con was near their house, I would come stay with them for free. This was also well before the use of Internet and emails was prevalent. We worked out all arrangements by telephone.

Pack food from home and bring it with you so you don't have to spend any money on food at the con. If you stock up on non-perishable food when you put the $10 a month aside for transportation, then you are fairly well covered.

Overall, you could attend a con if yo save up for a year, on less than $15 a month.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Curious, since this is the "Run As Written" thread, where exactly are we moving on to? Since the discussion is now over.

We are moving on to other issues in PFS. This topic has been debated the last four years ad nauseum. People have not offered a solution that is workable around the world, with both GMs who have 20 years of experience and GMs running their very first game. If you are going to have rules in place for "wiggle" room for GMs to make adjustments on the fly to make the game "more fun," then it has to be applicable to all GMs across the board for Organized Play. Since you think that is a workable option, what are your suggestions since you have posted no suggestions here, and only argued the debate with no solutions to how to fix this problem in this entire thread?

Are you willing to allow a first or second time GM some wiggle room, to run your characters in an adventure, when that character may not have enough for a raise dead and be removed from play permanently? If your character was removed from play permanently because the GM decided to "make the game more fun," are you ok with that decision and consequence without any complaining to me, a VC, or anyone else? You are just going to take it in stride? What if it happens three times in a row, and three different characters are removed from play because of permanent death, all due to GM fiat to make the game "more fun and interesting"? Something tells me the answers to all of those are probably not. I know it wasn't for one player who sent me a series of four emails over three weeks 15 months ago.

And guess what? When you allow just "a little wiggle room" for GMs to make things "more interesting and fun", it drives players away from the game. It doesn't bring them into it. I have proof of this. I have emails from players in 11 different countries. What proof do you have to offer that allowing GM fiat is going to help bolster the number of players? If GM fiat would help bolster numbers more than double in a year as things currently growing, I certainly would consider it. But your "plan" (amd again nothing has really been presented by you yet), would almost certainly make the player base decrease, not increase.

P.S. please don't read any kind of tone into anything typed above. When I challenge people's ideas, a good deal of the time they feel it is a personal attack. All the above was typed in a matter-of-fact tone with no animosity at all.

Whatever happened to "Story Trumps Rules"? I mean really, that's the whole reason I've played this game for almost 20 years.

The campaign coordinator started receiving emails every week advising a GM had added stuff to a scenario to make it "more challenging", and it had turned into between 1-6 character deaths. Since the GM had run something that was not in the scenario, the players wanted a free raise dead. After several months and a hundred emails or so, enough was enough. If you want artistic license, play a home campaign. I can't stress this enough. You've advised the same thing several times and it is time to move on. It isn't going to change,

PFS has a stricter set of guidelines. I have a weekly home game I GM and we don't use PFS. I like to use creative license to give my home players a challenge and experience. I don't use that same creative license in PFS. It isn't fair to players and other GMs.

So, this is the best answer. The OP can organize his own event and invite those people who dont mind playing with him. Or get one of those folks to do it if he lacks the capacity. VOs perma-banning people from gaming anywhere and in any event within their area seems like a huge overstep in authority.

This is the best answer. It isn't a huge overstep in authority. If someone is driving other players away, and causing store owners to not want to host PFS in their stores due to the actions of said players, it would be irresponsible not to take action. Taking no action would cause the playerbase and GM base to dwindle to nothing more than the problem player. That isn't conducive for growth. A lot of time, a VO has taken this very rare course of action because the store owner has requested it. VOs aren't out banning people willy nilly as it is being made to sound. They are banning people because of very real problems, and usually multiple incidents and warnings have happened before a banning takes place.

As far as I am aware, only one player has been banned during a first time incident and that was because of physical violence that occurred. Every other banning has occurred after no less than three warnings. If a player cant take corrective action after he or she has been given three or more warnings, then yes, they need to g form their own game day or event. VOs are taking responsible actions to ensure the continued growth of PFS in their area and I fully support that.

FWIW, while playing Day of the Demon with my paladin of Iomadae, he went unconscious in the foyer of the manor. I had made it clear that he would not accept a IH. Once unconscious, one of the other characters just couldn't resist casting IH upon him. It brought my paladin back from the brink of death.

However, when my paladin awoke, he could feel the evil coursing through him. Did it cause him to fall? Certainly not. He didn't willingly commit an evil act and certainly couldn't object to accepting the IH at the time it happened due to being unconscious. The character who cast it celebrated quietly causing grief to my paladin. I accepted that for what it was. What I also did was make my paladin take the sickened condition the rest of the scenario. I made sure it was known to the rest of the party that if my paladin was hit with IH again, he would become nauseated for the remainder of the scenario, and be useless to the party. It got the point across quite clearly to the party, through in character actions and without OOC arguments, that casting IH on a holy warrior was unacceptable. Luckily, the party, and player casting IH, was smart enough not to do it again because they didnt want to cripple the party further with a lion share of the adventure to finish.

I try to take these kind of situations and try to turn them into a teaching situation. Yes, the player with IH was able to "get" my paladin character by casting IH on him. However, he hurt the party by making it tougher on my paladin for the remainder of the scenario.

It will happen. It will just take more time as it is an extra load on the already very busy schedule.

Let me take a quick minute to congratulate Melbourne, Australia, VC Stephen White, on being awarded the third campaign service award.

Stephen was one of the original 13 Venture-Captains and the only VC in all of Australia. With Australia roughly the same size as the continental United States, it was a huge task to coordinate PFS for an entire continent and country. But, he did so with no complaints and we saw unprecedented growth in PFS. This is due directly to Stephen's efforts.

He has gone above and beyond to accommodate to his veteran and new players alike, and his phenomenal efforts have kept these players coming back, and in turn bringing more new players in.

Stephen was one of the first 5 star GMs outside the U.S. and the first in Australia. His example has led to others striving to GM as well as he does.

He has reached out and coordinated with the Australian library system to help coordinate regional and national gaming awareness days.

He has also been instrumental in supporting multiple regional conventions a year, paying significant out of pocket costs for both travel and convention product support for players and GMs. He is also on the committee to watch the new website for PFS Australia become a reality.

Congratulations Stephen. You are now PFS #703!

To clear up any confusion, from page 35, since people are quoting certain lines, don't forget this one:

"Scenarios are meant to be run as written, with no addition or subtraction to number of monsters (unless indicated in the scenario), or changes to armor, feats, items, skills, spells, stats, traits, or weapons."

Let me take a quick minute to congratulate Clearwater, FL, VC Kristie Schweyer, on being awarded the second campaign service award.

Kristie not only has been instrumental in supporting more than 10 conventions a year, some very large that have attendance of tens of thousands of players. She has also been the backbone of growth and community cohesion in Florida. She spearheaded the creation of the Florida PFS Website. The creation of the website brought the community together and growth exploded.

Congratulations Kristie. You are now PFS #702!

I've removed quite a few posts and replies that quoted them. The message boards are not a place to start bashing people. If you feel someone has wronged you, you email your VC or VL privately off the board. If it is a VO that you feel has wronged you, then you email me privately off the board.

CRobledo wrote:

Mike has said that Reign of Winter will eventually be a sanctioned event, but not quite yet. It would be at least until the next additional resources update at the end of the month where you may see the first chronicle sheets. So yes, you may start your sessions, but chronicle sheets will come in time.

Apparently I haven't been paying enough attention recently, would you happen to have a link to verify that? Not that I don't believe you, just operating under "trust but verify".

Verified

After reading posts here and on the VC board, I agree it doesn't belong in the Core Assumption. As I am out of the office for 3.5 weeks, I've emailed Mark and John and asked them to put together an FAQ for this topic.

We will evaluate whether we need a new section in the Guide 5.0 to cover this new FAQ, as well as the other questions on animals, familiars, etc...

Michael Brock wrote:

Convention GMs make the same exact preparations to GM a game, and GM for whoever shows up.

Most store games work that way too, in my experience.

And I've sent boons to FLGS game days when they ran 15 tables over a day or two. I sent boons to two stores in the past week.