okay so now we will see the yellow tengu (bigbird) with the wholly mammoth companion (snuffleupagus) traveling with Kermit (grippli boon for GenCon 2013). Hell, we could add in a drum-playing goblin (special boon from GenCon 2012) named Animal and a half-orc female bard (Miss Piggy). What's next? Elmo?!? <.< >.> O.O
This piece of information, and many others like it, are available in the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play: http://paizo.com/products/btpy84k4
When you give them the traits yourself, your violating their character.
No ... no, I'm not. I'm really not. If you consider people making inaccurate--not inappropriate, mind you, just inaccurate--assumptions about a list of numbers on a page to be a violation of some mythical persona that exists only within your mind, you need to relax. Or get some perspective. Or both.
I play my dumb character as dumb. Every once in a while if the entire group is stuck and I see a solution, I'll suggest it as "NOW ME JUST GENTLE GIANT BUT MAYBE WE TRY THIS," and then phrase whatever the idea is as stupidly as possible so it sounds like a terrible idea. It's kind of a fun game, although I admit it gets tiresome if I do too many games with him in a row.
If people are playing stupid characters, they shouldn't be solving all the problems. I've no objection to telling them so.
I would say that you need to take them. Otherwise you have open trait slots that could be filled later in the name of "correcting a mistake." Allowing people to do that opens the door for abuse.
Also, I can't imagine why you wouldn't want them. They're available in a free web document, so you don't need the APG. And even if you can't find anything particularly appealing, just take Reactionary and something from your faction, you know?
Requiring VOs to audit characters, however, will require a massive increase in the number of VOs, and would probably require something below VL to be established.
Well, rolling til he gets a 1 or a 20 seems to slow down the game. The coin toss was a suggestion to speed up healing after a battle? I guess the whole 1 point in UMD just to do something seems like a lame meta-gaming thing to do.
I think it's kind of funny. "I dunno, man, I shake it long enough and sometimes healing comes out. Of course, sometimes it just fizzles and there's this little puff of smoke, but I'm sure it's nothing."
I don't know how I feel about the idea of asking for Paizo gift certificates--that seems a little tacky. Plus, $20 for 30 games? That's just insulting. But a shot glass with a logo on it, that I would GM 30 games for. Even if it's only worth $5.
Maybe I'm weird. But I'd rather see something directly related to what we're doing, be it in-game boons or campaign-related goofiness, than just "here's a few bucks."
On the other hand I do like the discount idea on scenarios. I don't know if that's any different. Hmm.
I think this is the essential question. The only thing I can come up with is that if a GM were truly "punching the clock" with no regard whatever for running a good game, it might be easier (and more cost-effective) for that person to just run one game over and over. Probably that person would pick a short scenario that didn't require much in the way of GM work to run.
A, they'll run out of people to run it for, eventually.
B, if they don't, I still don't see why this is a bad thing. Hell, if they run it 2500 times they'll hit the ten thousand hour mastery mark! They'll be the undisputed BEST GM EVER for that particular scenario. People will travel from across the country to play this one scenario at the hands of this one GM. This GM might suck at every other thing. But humans get better at stuff with practice. This is not a bad thing.
Drogon wrote:
If re-GM credit is allowed, I guarantee that players will come along and point at that fact as justification that replay should also be allowed.
So we tell them, not entirely unlike a parent telling a child that some things are for adults, that if they want unlimited credit, they can GM or GTFO.
You know what I'm not going to miss about faction missions?
How godawfully arbitrary they are.
Last night I played
Fortune's Blight:
and got the Andoran mission, which required that I find a book--easily done--and pass a DC 20 Linguistics check so that I could understand it myself and report to the faction head the minute I got back to Absalom, despite the fact that I was bringing him the book which could then be read by, I dunno, people who aren't morons like my Paladin?
Or how about whichever mission had to bring back the Harpy feathers? Dude needed a DC 25 Knowledge Nature to PLUCK SOME FEATHERS OFF THE THING. Give me a BREAK.
The inflexibility of GMs in interpreting these is also problematic. I remember on the boards here someone complaining about
Penumbral Accords:
which required one faction to pick up a tea cup from a museum display. But apparently this tea cup is SO FRAGILE that it requires a DC 15 Sleight of Hand check to pick up. But then once it's in your possession, it's fine, it can just be tossed in a pouch or whatever. And her GM wouldn't let her pick it up without SOH, then cast Mending, which would result in THE EXACT SAME THING.
TL;DR: I am all for faction handouts. But if we're going to keep them, let's get rid of this idea of throwing a dart at a board for a skill, rolling 3d10 for difficulty, and then coming up with some flavor text to fit it.
4. Faction missions give new players something to directly connect with. They can hold the paper in their hands and get a better idea of what they should be doing in the scenario. Without the missions, I think new players will have a harder time earning their prestige at all, since they might not know the gaming tropes that will help them get the "secret mission" prestige.
I agree very much with this. If you guys absolutely feel the need to phase out faction missions, maybe you could lose them in the higher tier stuff, but the 1-5s could keep them? A few GMs in our area go to the trouble of printing them in color and cutting out along the jagged parchment-background edges to give them that "real" feeling, and I've seen it have a serious impact on immersion for new players.
JadeS wrote:
In five years, I've played every scenario and almost every faction. I think the campaign will lose something without these elements.
This isn't hyperbole, by the way. JadeS was the first person I played under at a local game day, is one of the most prolific GMs in the region, and actually has played all of the scenarios.
Edit: Wait, is prolific the right word? Umm ... you know what I mean.
Are you concerned about being "forever level 1"? Then take your appropriately-tiered chronicle now and grow your character. Was this an isolated incident to make a table happen so you're not worried about falling behind? You can choose to take a delayed high-tier reward. Need to spend lots of cash to clear some conditions? You can choose the high-tier reward, spend its gold on condition removal, then hold the rest of the chronicle until you qualify. Did your high-level buddies steamroll the scenario so that you don't have any extra expenses/consumables to cover? You can choose to take level-appropriate wealth right now. Kind of an iffy situation? You get to use your best judgment.
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Tristan Windseeker wrote:
Jiggy wrote:
For the delayed credit idea, you could probably go either way on the whole "activate the held credits at the in-between level or at the first level of the subtier" issue, and it wouldn't be a huge deal.
Yeah, I'm also ok with either holding til the first level of the high tier or the level right before. This would be up to campaign staff.
This could actually lead to a huge simplification of three separate sets of rules: Pregen Credit, GM Credit, Player Credit.
Default for all three: Hold the credit until the level of the tier played (players) or the first appropriate level within the tier (GMs).
Pregen Option: Start a new character.
GM Option: Don't take credit.
Player Option: Take the lower tier rewards.
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Tristan Windseeker wrote:
Why not have it so that if you play a character up, it is treated as if you played a pregen of the appropriate level?
In other words, if you play a level 2 character up in a 1-5 scenario, you "hold" the credit as if you had played a pregen until you hit level 3.
This is a really good idea. I like the way you phrased it so I'm quoting you, but I'm also going to tip my hat to Ferious Thune, who had the same idea at about the same time.
(Note: I'm not saying one copied the other; the length and timing of posts makes it an obvious coincidence.)
This idea allows us to play our own characters, in whatever tiers we need to play them, and get full rewards, without breaking the WBL that people seem to find so very important.
In fact, we could roll this into a revision of the pregen rules: Instead of holding Pregen credit for the level of the Pregen, hold it for the subtier that was played. That way I can't use a level 7 pregen to get Tier 10-11 wealth several levels early while taking on no real risk.
Robert Matthews 166 wrote:
The only problem I see with that is you can die and then continue playing your character. You could die playing up and then die again. You would also be able to plan around that future death because you know for a fact that it's coming.
Not at all. It doesn't work that way for pregens--if you assign a dead pregen credit to an existing character that character dies immediately, not once that credit takes effect. In fact, since you wouldn't be playing a pregen, you wouldn't even have the option of assigning to an empty character slot--the death is the death is the death.
We just make it so you can use the items on that chronicle to resolve conditions, then whole the whole thing (plus gold earned, minus gold spend) for the appropriate level, and boom.
In fact, the only drawback to this plan is that someone could play a level 2 character in enough Tier 4-5 slots that they would eventually jump up several levels once they finally hit 3 ... but so what? They're just hurting themselves by crippling their cash on hand. I think it's brilliant.
Frankly, I am disappointed at all of the talk about pregens. One of the big selling points for PFS has always been "You can go to a convention and play *your own* character!" If we're telling people to use pregens so much, then it really guts that argument. It undermines character attachment and investment. It's simply not a realistic option.
This. A thousand times this. The whole point of PFS is the portability of your character. How many times have we told people, "You deal with extra rules so you can play your character anyway. If portability isn't an issue, go play a home game." We cannot sacrifice that in favor of forcing pregens on people, especially--dare I say it--when we can't get updated pregens to save our damn lives.
Also, I want to restate the following:
Patrick Harris @ SD wrote:
Actually a really good point has come up a few times during the last 50-odd posts:
If Season 5 is going to encourage people to want to play characters of specific factions in specific scenarios, then Season 5 is a bad time to start making it difficult for people at different subtiers to play together. "Shut up and play a pregen" is (edit: might be) a valid argument in the current system, but not when scenarios are targeted to specific characters.
Finally, I'm going to take a stab at this:
Michael Brock wrote:
If you have one or two, you explain to them that your current tables are full or not really new player friendly due to level discrepancy. As someone advised above, our playerbase is intelligent and a reasonable person will realize and understand that reasoning for what it is. You invite them back for the next game day and make sure you set aside a table specifically for them, as well as any new walk ups you get.
Trust me. i have experience scheduling local game days that barely managed to scrape one table together, and that was with walk-ins. ... Only 3-4 times did the new player not come back. D you really think the new player is going to have a positive first experience playing a level 1 character at a table full of level 4-5s?
Mike, I'm not disputing your experience, and it certainly trumps my few months of running an event, but I never once turned new players away, and I'm not aware of anyone in our area doing that. I'm incredibly uncomfortable with this being the accepted practice of game days, and I don't think I'm going to be alone with that.
I get that WBL is a problem, and I'm all for a solution, but making it harder to get a table together is not the way to do it--especially when that means turning away new players, who are, rather by definition, absolutely essential for the continued growth of PFS.
Actually a really good point has come up a few times during the last 50-odd posts:
If Season 5 is going to encourage people to want to play characters of specific factions in specific scenarios, then Season 5 is a bad time to start making it difficult for people at different subtiers to play together. "Shut up and play a pregen" is a valid argument in the current system, but not when scenarios are targeted to specific characters.
I would argue against making wealth completely uniform. Variety is the spice of life--if everyone has the exact same amount of money at all times, that's just going to get really boring.
If we want to keep to the WBL curve but still reward people for playing up, why not give people who play up 1/2 the difference between high and low tier?
Brief discussion on what playing up does to the balance of the game. In order to stop playing up which causes balance issues they will be...
Chronicle Wealth change: No changing past wealth, but Season 5 will use an across the board wealth will be based for your characters sub tier, or the sub tier you play in. Which ever is lower.
If it's only two going? I vote for Sczarni, and Sczarni. A faction whose stated objective is "use the Society for personal gain" has no place in a group game except as an enemy.
The game you describe sounds incredibly dull to me.
This campaign is not meant to be hero-centric. Pathfinders are not, on the whole, heroes. They're tomb raiders. Grave robbers. Murder hobos. Scum.
If we take out all the conflict and make everything PG, we're taking out the fun.
I was more making the statement that PFS is NOT done poorly. It is in fact done extremely well.
That doesn't mean there's no room for improvement.
Also, a thought I had while I wandered off to do dishes: If I could run Dalsine Affair over and over for credit, I'd probably never run anything else. So maybe this idea does have some drawbacks, in that it could easily encourage hyperspecialization, which isn't ideal.
Many of you are saying that GM credit encourages people to just run a scenario once without getting to know it. You don't support extra GM credit because you think that will just become more widespread.
But isn't the point of this to encourage people to run a scenario more than once? If the trouble with GMs is they don't get to know the scenarios well, and running a scenario four times is the only way to get good at it, isn't this exactly what we should be doing to encourage that very phenomenon?
I am guessing (but really really hoping I'm wrong) that it's going to be that level 1-2 characters playing in 4-5 are going to get the level 1-2 wealth (and so on for all tiers).
*Crosses fingers that I'm wrong.*
I hope not. It's going to make it that much harder to balance tables--if a Level 5 can get his L5 gold for playing T1-2, there's no reason not to play down and get easy money. Similarly, if a L1 has to face the danger of a T4-5 but doesn't get the reward, there's basically no reason to be willing to play up.
(Note: I don't mean whole tables playing up/down, I mean one or two people playing out of tier because that's how the math works out when the table composition isn't negotiable.)
Mike, what are the chances of getting these bullet points answered in some text form after the podcast? Either as a blog or post? For those that aren't connected into the podcasting world.
I am confident that the messageboards will be chock-full of people debating this stuff seconds after it's broadcast.
Rogue Eidolon wrote:
It seems from the mid-season descriptions that Osirion is done for sure and that the other faction is either going to be Cheliax or Taldor, probably Cheliax. All the other factions described mainly successes, whereas Osirion and Cheliax both seemed in serious trouble, with Taldor describing a tepid lack of success.
Keep in mind that a faction head can be replaced; it has happened before. That doesn't necessarily mean that the faction itself is going under.
Of course, it doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't.
If your concern is that you can't keep track of what you've run, download a list of scenarios and mark off the ones you've run. Take it with you to game days. All set.
Also, I am taking steps to control my disorder (which, as I said, is a disabling condition for me), so events in the past should not reflect against my future behavior.
This is a great theory, and the Americans with Disabilities Act might agree when it comes to workplace conduct etc, but the simple truth is that human beings don't spontaneously forget about past behavior simply because someone is making an effort to change. And yes, I do--I really do--understand having a mental disorder affect your behavior in ways you can't control (believe me, I really do)--but you can't just ask people to ignore that.
What it comes down to is this: People are trying to have fun, and if your behavior prevents that from happening, that's bad. The fact that you're legally disabled doesn't give you the right to prevent other people from having fun, just so you can.
So, while I applaud your decision to "take steps to control your disorder"--that's not sarcasm, I know it's a huge first step, and I'm glad for you that you're taking it--you do need to keep in mind that beginning this process isn't a blank-slate button.
I guess a phone call to my credit card provider regarding a non delivery of item is in order.
If Paizo cant be bothered telling us what is going on, i will threaten their license to trade. At least the ombudsman fine will give me some satisfaction.
I don't know about you but I used Amazon Payments to contribute to the Kickstarter. So if you do this, Amazon will get fined, which they probably won't even notice. If they do, they'll pass it on to Kickstarter, who probably won't even notice. And even if they do, they'll probably write it off as someone who doesn't understand how Kickstarter works, because they've said over and over again that they have no way of enforcing the rewards promised, let alone due dates. Then, if they do decide to yell at the funded company, it's going to be Goblinworks, not Paizo.
When you're playing in a game, the GM has the final word on a tough call where the rules are grey; the same thing applies here - just accept and move on to the next post. There's more fun to be had.
If people are too lazy to type more than one word, they're probably too lazy to type more letters than are necessary. So why use 10 for girlfriend when you can use 8 for roommate or use 6 for friend?
Because that's not the reason. The reason is the assumption that she's in the game because she's connected to a male. Yes, I'm sure someone will tell me that the comment didn't speak to the gender of the person she's the girlfriend of, but we all know that assumption part one carries with it assumption part two: She's probably someone's girlfriend (because that's the most likely scenario) and that someone is probably male (because that's the most likely scenario).
So we circle wide and wind up right back where we started: With an assumption that isn't based on any evidence whatsoever, and is defended by people who made the same assumption and don't understand how the gender politics involved are damaging when perpetuated.
And then people who understand how this all works get chastised for being too politically correct. So please, continue. But know that you're wrong.
That was not the conclusion I would have jumped to.
They are both playing because they like to play. The relationship being the likely reason they're at the same table, but also an impediment to getting the problem to just LEAVE.
It's the same as if your GM's best friend is a complete douchenozzle so you can't kick him out because the GM would get pissy about it, except it involves male/female relations.
Don't pretend like that doesn't happen.
Then why haven't all the posts asking if she's someone's girlfriend asked if she's someone's friend? Or roommate? Or "friend or roommate or girlfriend"? They all go right to girlfriend, and that's because of the gender of the player. Which is a common problem in gamer culture that I'm going to continue pointing out when I see it.
I grant you that your poor illustration caused me some confusion, and the irony is not lost on me.
However, I understood the point of the initial poster, because it wasn't actually an original bit of thinking. His point--that in a situation like this, she's probably playing because she's dating someone--is something I disagree with, which I expressed via sarcasm, because I knew if I tried to jump right into an explanation, everyone would accuse me of being overly sensitive.
But since we're already there, I'll go ahead and actively dispute this conclusion, in this case particularly, because I don't see any reason--beyond the player's gender, of course--to assume that it's true.
Further, the fact that many--male--gamers feel it safe to leap to that conclusion is a factor in women not feeling welcome at game tables. I do not say this because that's my assumption--I say this because female gamers of my acquaintance have said as much to me, several times, over the past decade and a half.
So I got the f~~!ing point, Rynjin, I just think it's wrong, and that defending it is asinine.
So, whose girlfriend is she? I'm assuming somebody's dating her to make it worth your group's time to put up with this kind of behavior.....
Because everyone knows there's no possible way that a female gamer could exist without dating someone in the group--or if she did, surely she wouldn't indulge in the exact same behavior that any number of male gamers have exhibited over the years. That would just be weird!
Honestly, people with Int 8 or 9 can probably make B's in most college classes, and A's in subjects of interest to them.
It has often been said that an easy scale for RPG->RL understanding of the Intelligence score is to multiply by ten and call it IQ. This makes sense, because an IQ of 100 is average, as is an Int 10. This makes the Forrest Gump comparison apt, because in the movie, his IQ was 75; that would be the equivalent of a 7-8 Int, which is what we're talking about.
Now, I'm not a cognitive expert, so I'm using Wikipedia as my source: Feel free to nitpick that if you must. That said, this article says that 90-109 is average, 80-89 is "dull normal," and 70-79 is "mild disability." (50-69, for the serious stat dumpers, is "moderate disability.")
I'm going to try to use my words carefully here so we don't get lost in a political-correctness derail. But looking at it from the IQ perspective, I absolutely disagree with your statement quoted above. I'm not saying it's impossible for someone with a low IQ to be in college and/or be good at it, but I don't think the average Int 8 or 9 cruises through courses in their major, either. Especially upper division courses in four year programs.
But shifting safely back to fantasy realms, that's okay! Because the 8 Int probably has an 18 Str, and can pick up and throw the wizard, who with his 8 Str loses movement speed for giving a piggyback ride to your average halfling. In order to be really good at one thing, you're not so great at something else. That's how a balanced system is supposed to work, y'know?
With a degree of seriousness, while I love scenarios that reward/promote roleplaying, at this time I have no plans to create a no-combat adventure as part of the regular scenario rotation.
