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***** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia 66 posts (156 including aliases). 18 reviews. 1 list. 1 wishlist. 17 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.


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Grand Lodge

try reposting the questions on the PFS board under GM Discussion :)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Deussu wrote:

Oh poo. Seems like I need to recruit a lot more players and GMs to get closer to that position...

Also congrats to all the new venture-captains, especially Croatia! I can't say anything but "Bok".

:D Bok right back at ya ;)

I was also really hoping you'd be on the list. I'm sure it won't be too long, Europe needs more VCs badly.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Chris Mortika wrote:

I'd like to note that Zrinka Znidarcic has one of the coolest names I've seen in years.

Now I'm blushing.. and wondering how in the world are you pronouncing it :D (its missing certain diacritical signs - surname is written Znidarčić so last two letters are pronounced like 'ch')

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Gorbacz wrote:
Paizo invades Europe using Churchill's initial plan for hitting the soft underbelly of Balkans!

Mwahahaha! Where do you think croatoan..erm.. I mean croatian comes from? ;)

yes, PFS exists even in strange exotic countries of central/southeast Europe :) Hopefully more people will crop up in the neighborhoods cause the PFS European map looks even funnier now

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Thank you Miles :)

I'll be using the conversion by Seraphimpunk and that's where the Aura was written so I had to ask.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

several quick questions!

- mechanical one: in the PFRPG revamp it says that Bengeirr has Aura of Chaos. Isn't that a level 8 ability? how does it work?

- story question:

spoiler:
Story basically says that Skelg plundered someone elses funerary ship, saved the doomed wife (but without mentioning any kind of relationship between them beforehand) and went off with spoils. I do not understand his motivation beyond 'get l00t' and fact he disregarded the customs of his people. Why did he do it?
Sounds like he had the revenge coming to him and I wonder what will happen if PCs start asking those questions

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Gary Teter wrote:
Let's take the "how do we find players and organize games" stuff to a different thread, partly to help Mike et al focus on this thread, and partly because I think it's a great topic for a thread.

Organization of open sessions is what has direct influence on size of tables. Therefore, if certain organizational tools help in keeping tables smaller, its a good thing to try and implement.

Rules are good and well but we are discussing what is happening when they are used in RL so I think this is more than relevant.

Besides, looks like we're all just spinning in circles by now :)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Laythe wrote:
..

Have you tried implementing Warhorn or any similar preregistration tool?

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

@Thod: Thank you for sharing the experiences :)

I am aware of differences between Con play and different kinds of regular games. What I proposed is connected to regular, local games that are open to everyone.
When Cons come to play (next big one here is in March) I'll probably go with a combination of preregistration and on the spot lists (depending on how many GMs I'll muster).

Also, there are certain specifics in my area - one single gaming store, no available paizo stuff, very small, almost closeted RPG scene that has barely even heard of PFS (although Pathfinder definitely won over 4th ed), and because all that, geeks mostly *have to* use computers to stay informed on anything connected with gaming in public (and that in itself is still extremely uncommon, unless board or cardgames are in question).
That's why this approach with preregistration has a better chance to work in my area

So I guess my bottom line is that this whole monster-thread boils down to exactly where we started - it would be best to keep tables at manageable size unless we as GMs have to choose between turning someone away and blowing the table up to 7 players in which case its preferable to *not* turn anyone away, be it by allowing larger groups or fragmenting tables to 3PCs + NPC

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Mok wrote:


There are plenty of problems with a registration system:

-Not friendly to walk-ins.
-Someone has to manage it, and that can be a chore.
-The vast bulk of gamers in my experience, bizarrely, aren't netizens the way people who post on forums are.
-Dealing with the complex web of each player having different characters that have played different modules needs in-the-moment face time.
-People don't show up or cancel at the last minute for all sorts of reasons.

I can see becoming draconian once you get to a high attendance level, where 40 people are showing up each week, but when it's 15-20 and there is normally enough space and time to just wing it, then only someone who is hard core and wants this to be a part time job is going to be on top of everything.

I also suppose you've got "anal culture" and "laid back culture" that emerges just from the participants, and can thus shape how this whole issue is perceived. We're composed of a lot of laid back people. What anal people are in our group who get wound up about things are greeted with a chorus of shoulder shrugs.

I'll try keeping it walk-in friendly with 5 people tables.. so it will be easier to squeeze more players.

Where I live, english is not native language so all players have to know english to use books so it ends up most of them (or all) are netizens. Also starting this thing up from scratch gives me enough space to lay ground rules.

I suppose I'll be running into these issues at some point but I'll stay an optimist for now :)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

I hope that changes for you because preregistration is an awesome thing. I know I barely started organizing PFS but it's a tool I wouldn't want to be without. It also helps players plan their time in advance and I can pull some of them off players list if it looks like we'll have more tables.

and I do hope it will stay like that :)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

cblome59 wrote:


Put yourself in the place of the guy being forced to go home. Now imagine you are a new player. Now imagine you drove 3 hours this morning to come play (Yes, this does happen in my Omaha group). What's the fair thing to do?

Don't you guys use some sort of registration tool? Its a hell of a risk to drive 3hrs if there is a chance of overflowing tables and it makes sense to give the organizers heads up to prepare more GMs than to demand of them to regularly be prepared to bend backwards to accomodate 'possible' player overflow?

I get the need to be flexible if someone just walks in but it makes more sense to ask people to preregister or something, just to have enough time to prepare everything. In the end that will help both GMs and players to have a better experience and those rare walk-ins shouldn't be a problem.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

There should be a poll on stuff like this

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Enevhar Aldarion wrote:
Changing the soft cap to five players and the hard cap to six players in public play situations where you will be playing with strangers would be good, but leaving the hard cap at seven players for home games where everyone is used to each other would be good too.

+1

While it is perfectly possible to GM 7 people and finish a scenario in time, it also makes for a significantly poorer roleplaying session.

I'd always prefer a smaller table of 3 even with the burden of a pregen because it will give those players the spotlight.

In the last game with 6 PCs, we sat down afterwards to discuss how it was. While we did end perfectly, with enough time for paperwork and cleaning up, guys did comment that it would've been a much more relaxed and interesting session if everyone had more time for roleplay. The scenario (First Steps 3) offered several engageing and fun encounters for interaction but everyone felt the pressure of time so on several occasions they decided to cut it short or not roleplay too much so that other PCs can step in more. In the end only 3-4 players got to shine.
And of course, in the last encounter I had to add enemies to make the whole thing more exiting (and it was, in the best possible way).

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Deussu wrote:


Ben Kingsley as Amenopheus is quite good.

oooh, yes, absolutely

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

At the end of October (27.-30.) a group of gamers in Croatia, named Section for Roleplay (SRP), are organizing a mini-convention named Zakonomikon (a bit of wordplay: 'zakon' means 'the law') so I'm planning on setting up several tables with an apropriate scenario.

Which one are good Cthulhu-ish ones?

One possibility would be 'Voice in the Void'. Any other good ones?

Btw, only possible Tier is the first one (highest level characters in Croatia are 2nd lvl, since last Friday :D)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

additional pics uploaded :)

2 are possible Osirion, 2 possible Sczarni

and I'll probably substitute Torch with Bruce the Father

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

OK, Bruce for Torch looks much better :D

and actually I found two interesting (and anonymous) suggestions for Osirion and Sczarni but the pics ar at my work computer so I'll upload them tomorrow

Thanks for the input guys :D

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Still thinking about Lantern (changed it)

Hopefully, no infringment is made :D and I crammed all the pics into my Picassa album, in case links get broken or something

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

1 person marked this as a favorite.

OK, what I got so far:

Lantern Lodge -Amara Li

Andoran -Major Colson

Cheliax -Paracountess Zarta

Quadira - Prince Aaquir

Taldor - Lady Gloriana

Silver Crusade - Ollystra Zadrian

Shadow Lodge -
Grandmaster Torch :D

I am still missing Osirion & Sczarni candidates.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

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c/p from the PF Organized Play Guide:

"All Previous Seasons: For the first three seasons of the
campaign, only five factions were available for characters
to ally with. As such, members of the five new factions
introduced in Season 3 playing older scenarios must
utilize faction missions from another faction, as follows.
• Grand Lodge faction PCs should treat Osirion faction
missions as their own for all pre-Season 3 scenarios.
• Lantern Lodge faction PCs should treat Qadira faction
missions as their own for all pre-Season 3 scenarios.
• Sczarni faction PCs should treat Taldor faction
missions as their own for all pre-Season 3 scenarios.
• Shadow Lodge faction PCs should treat Cheliax faction
missions as their own for all pre-Season 3 scenarios.
• Silver Crusade faction PCs should treat Andoran
faction missions as their own for all pre-Season 3
scenarios."

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Ryan Bolduan wrote:
I plan on sticking with the instructions given to me by Mr. Moreland - you will not receive a chronicle for a pregen.

It makes perfect sense for upper tier pregens.

But in my opinion, if people are just starting out and still getting to know PF, it seems sensible to allow pregens for first level only. If people like it, they will most definitely try to make their own character and it makes sense to let them keep the credit.

At least that was my (short) experience sofar.

Maybe its just a judgment call that differs from place to place.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Pirate Rob wrote:

Whenever I had a player not playing for credit I didn't report them to Paizo. I thought this was correct. This applied if they were playing a pregen or replaying for no credit. I have reported several events with no or limited player details because I did not have them. I always thought this was the right thing to do.

I'm not even sure how the thread got to this horrible derailment.

I'm probably butting in by continuing the derailment but it raises a good question - I had several premade characters playing at Tier 1 tables and basically I'd issue them their PFS number and report later just the number (for example I'd report player No. 1234-1) and I presume later the same player will register and also register their real character with a name but still with the same number and they'll get credit for.

Am I making a mistake?

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

I will only be GMing scenarios for public games because in my home group I will be GMing the APs as usual :)

so for now, I'll only be looking at normla, short scenarios because of space & time limitations

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Deussu wrote:
shadowcat wrote:
Deussu wrote:

Congrats you all!

I never gots mah emails regarding my VC application. It be conspiracy!

same here.. mayhaps it has something to do with location? (Europe)
Yes, must be a conspiracy. I hail from Europe (Finland).

I know you do :) I do to (albeit a bit further to the south - Croatia)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Thank you all! :D

Blackros wont be a problem because I happen to work in an archaeological museum myself so I will want to use (and abuse) that ;)

The player pool is still very small where I live so on the first event we had 14 people (2 GMs), second 13 (3 GMs) but between these two events I see about 20something people interrested so far.
Hopefully the start of the academic year will offer more space, people and *fingers crossed* GMs

I will deffinitely look to these lists a lot :D

@ Mark: yay! excellent!

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Now that we started with season 3 and after (almost) finishing First Steps, I am wondering what would be the best order of scenarios to plan out? So far I heard propositions for using Bloodcove Disguise and City of Strangers but those are worth only 1XP each (which is only 4XP with their sequels included)) and I need the whole scenario path or at least up to a certain point (level 6-7).

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated :)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Deussu wrote:

Congrats you all!

I never gots mah emails regarding my VC application. It be conspiracy!

same here.. mayhaps it has something to do with location? (Europe)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Nani Pratt wrote:
Start with First Steps, and then work your way through chronologically starting from City of Strangers (which is where the Shadow Lodge arc begins).

Exactly what I wanted to ask :D I've just started first PFS events in my area (well, whole country but its a small one) with First Steps (did No 1 & 2 sofar) and I'm wondering which scenarios to pick up after we're done with these three?

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Mosley Oakland wrote:
Can you imagine the incredible level of faction swapping that would occur if Christina Hendricks was the Taldor faction leader?! The shadow war would be over with one jpeg.

hahaha :D I would certanly *NOT* complain

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

There we go - voluptuous & beautiful :D I think my Morilla will look like this

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

Deussu wrote:

Shadowcat, I find these pictures to be good references to the faction leaders.

*copies pictures and uses them in the future*

Find me more!

:D working on it

oh, I found the same but coloured pic of Gregory Peck that looks even nicer for Major Colson: http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2011/102/9/d/gregory_peck___colorized_by_ northone-d3dth48.jpg

Atm I'm prepping First Steps II for PFS so I'll be trying to figure out Amara Li next. In the end I'll compile them all in one post (hopefully)

if anyone else has ideas, please share ;)

EDIT: possible Amara Li http://horpic.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/chinese_actress_Hao_Lei_1.jpg OR http://images.mylot.com/userImages/images/postphotos/2102502.jpg

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

also I'm not completely clear who I would like as Trade prince Aaquir but I would deffinitely want someone like Faran Tahir: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3353/3531149116_564ae76285_o.jpg (yeah, te prince has hair but looks nothing like a Quadiran)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

For the record, voluptuous and fat are two different things in my opinion.
Also, ones attractiveness (charisma if you will) does not depend on it.

As for the main topic, my Major Colson Maldris is: http://www.dse.nl/~jetse/images/Peck%20as%20Hornblower.jpg

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

for example, cheliax:

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/firefly/images/b/bb/Nandi.jpg

http://image.com.com/tv/images/processed/default/b6/c7/346355.jpg

one picture that means more than all the flavor text

Grand Lodge

Sorry for offtopic!

@Toadkiller Dog: I can't seem to find a way to Private Message you but I'd really appreciate if you can drop me an email on pathfinder. croatia@gmail. com :)

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I just can't get over the fact that some of the new faction Leaders look almost like undead and their pictures are completely unrelateable to me. Pathfinder art is usually top notch and I've seen so many wonderful profile pics for various NPC and therefore just cant understand what happened??

These people are supposed to be crucially important for whole PFS!

Only one I realy like is Ambrus - one look at him is enough to create a powerful first impression but the rest are plain underwhelming.
Torch is ok and Guaril is sleazy enough but still..

Only way to 'fix it' seems to be finding a corresponding pictures from movies or such so I'd appreciate any good ideas :D

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

I already went with what Dragnmoon & Deussu said. Reasoning is that players will very likely play with other GMs and there is no sense in holding anything back for anyone as I don't see how a GM would be able to keep track of god knows how many characters.

Once Chronicles are given out, thats that.

Also it makes more sense that PPs &FPs aren't directly connected with specific faction because already in the first First Steps adventure players are doing favours for different factions and as some of them say 'they repay their debts'. So it all checks out in my book.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

ok, got it :) thanks guys

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Captain, Croatia & Slovenia

1 person marked this as FAQ candidate.

we just wrapped the session and everyone was asking what about all the mundane items the players found during the adventure?

I get the part about magical equipment but what about ordinary, not so expensive stuff? Do the get to keep it or sell or what?

Grand Lodge

awesome :D I'll definitelly look trough the suggestions :)

I can't wait for that Basic Set to appear at some point.. it will be much easier to go trough rules for novices with it

Grand Lodge

yeah, scenarios seem like the best option. I can convert on the fly so that will work :) any other suggestions?

Silent Tide seems like an excellent adventure but I am worried a bit (I guess I aways expect the worst) if players get bogged down

hmm, 'Many favours..' you say? :) I'll take a look. EDIT looks like its 'Many fortunes..' but works both ways ;)

I own a copy of Godsmouth Heresy and in hopes of running it for my long term group, I'm keeping it jelously for a 'special occasion' or something like that :D

Grand Lodge

In hopes to spread the Gospel of Pathfinder further I am planning to do a workshopy presentation of the game (rules & how-to assembe a character) on a local Convention (place is Croatia, Europe).

I'd like to follow up that part with a short adventure that can show the new players how the system works and I need it to NOT be all action (although it mostly will be) but also draw them in with a bit of a story so they can experience the 'role'playing part.

I guess I could come up with something but I hope there is something better (and official) available (either 3.5 or PFRPG)

help? :D

EDIT: it should be playable in cca 3 hours and considering the players will be new, it will probably need to be much shorter than a module

Grand Lodge

also 'Council of Thieves' is in the line of what you miss form the days of CotCT. And in my opinion its a much more interresting campaign

Grand Lodge

thank you :)
I knew I saw it somewhere but couldn't remember.

well, tonight is Do or Die for my Legacy crew :D

Grand Lodge

I am completely missing the scale for Xotanis Grave. Help?

Grand Lodge

thanx guys :D

oh boy how the players are going to hate me..

Spoiler:
last session they lost another PC to Grovts Death gaze and almost TPKd thanx to the Get thing. They passed it by dimension dooring upstairs and then outrunning it to the door. and now, they'll have to go back

I thought I might've missed something. so the chute *is* the only way up then.

I'll try not using Ezer too much because it feels a bit Deus Ex Machiny to me and I do like the idea with lizardfolk.

Grand Lodge

a silly question - how are PCs supposed to get from A floor to C floor?
only way I see is the hidden chute but my guess is my group won't find it

Grand Lodge

we're transfering characters from 3.5 to Pathfinder in our old Age of Worms campaign.
Most of them claim to have had a custom made Amulet of Shield.
in my opinion it gives them a bit more edge than I am comfortable with but I want to be sure its not too powerful in case I do allow it..

so, if someone wanted to craft such an item (be it amulet or simply a brooch with the spell Shield on it) how much would it cost and would it loose properties once 101 hp of magic missle damage is done or not?

Grand Lodge

RotRL: loved the first two adventures but decided to bail out after the level of gruesome went far beyond what I wanted to handle at the time.. might come back to it eventually

CotCT: we're in the middle of Scarwall atm and decided to take a break - the adventure itself is not as engaging for me as a GM (kinda railroady and I was still learning how to cover the tracks when we started) but the PCs created such a tight and interresting party that makes the whole adventure one of the favourite ones for my group. I just hope I'll be able to provide an ending worthy of remembering.

SD: didn't play, don't really care for it after so many bad reviews but I might use first two for something else entirely

LoF: my personal favourite. I love the feel, the story with no specific villain until later in the game, the exploring, etc. ATM we're in the middle of 4th installment and I am a bit wary of the City of Brass as big dungeons slow things to a crawl (thats why we kinda decided to pause in Scarwall for a while). The party is not as tight as in CotCT even tho the group is identical but there is still enough time for their development.

CoT: I started this as a filler campaign for three PCs (three tieflings) and from a purely roleplaying standpoint it is a gem. The players really got into it from the start (although I am sorry for not making the whole freedom fighter angle more natural). The game time simply flew with so few PCs and they made an excellent team. We also did first half of the Sixfold Trial in a single session (together with auditions, whole preparation proccess and reading the entire play in 7 hrs) and they loved it. We're now waiting for another opportunity to continue and see how the story will develop.

Kingmaker: We only had a few sessions sofar and I have a feeling that the whole sandbox style might make sessions very dragged out. I liked the contained sandboxy part in LoF but I usually like having an overall arc. so I guess it will be interresting to see what happens and I'll have to take it as a challenge. The group seems quite excited and I do like the opportunity for them to be the movers and the shakers of an AP.

SS: I was tottaly psyched about it after it was anounced because I love games with Indiana Jones feel. But after going trough the first one I think I'll have to wait for the rest, just to be sure it really is what I hope.

CC: now that is something both me and my group just can't wait to get our hands on :D I just hope we will be able to finnish CotCT and LoF before it comes out.

I can't really put grades to each AP but I can say each has its own *thing* about them and that diversity is something I thoroughly enjoy, together with my players.

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