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Good stuff.
Mok, I have been thinking the same thing.
I was talking to an old LG buddy/author/organizer yesterday about what he misses about LG: the opportunity to really contribute to help shape and change the campaign.
We all recognize that PFS is growing faster than Paizo's ability to handle and manage it.
After seeing all the good stuff that came out of LG (from which many Paizo staffers got their start) from volunteers, I cannot help but wonder if and when PFS management should be turned over to volunteers...which would then be managed by Paizo Staff.
I hope that the current VC recruitment is a step in that direction and I believe that volunteers could manage and lead this campaign as well as, if not better than, the overworked and admittedly overstretched current staff (no offense, Mark/Hyrum).
I hope to see a future where there is a new "Circle of Eight"/VCs/volunteers who take active leadership in keeping the PFS Player Guide maintained and current. I wish that same group had responsibility for approving PFS scenarios and working with writers (yeah, I know Paizo has strict content guidelines, but I believe in finding ways to make it work). This would allow for the greater variety that you seek, Mok, and, hopefully, address the bottleneck that slows down the pace of modules (which would help in other areas).
After all, I look at JP as a VC and remember all the cool LG mods he's written and his experience in LG, and wonder why can't we tap into his (and other VCs) to address some of the issues that PFS faces?
I ramble, Mok, but I agree.
-Pain
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new here to gming so my 2 cents not as valuable... but after running master of the fallen fortress and prepping several other scenarios for later use. i have to agree on one point.
A lot of encounters, not that the encounters i have run through so far are overly difficult. but they are time consuming (espescially if the dice are against the party). I did feel like we had to limit rp a bit yesterday. but that may have been due to taking time for character creation out of the 4 hour block. we started the session about 20 minutes late to insure everyone had their character created properly.
I wont go so far as to say they are bad or too many. in fact not having played other living campaigns. I have nothing to compare them to. but i do like them. my players yesterday found it a fun session. they enjoyed the rescue element and one even said that was the most fun in a single session He has had in a long time.
one thing i intend to do (and some one stop me now if it is illegal) is write up the Introduction for the party and each separate faction (to include their faction missions)ahead of time and pass them out to players. in these i plan to give as much background as they would have as a party. then i intend to write up another set of information that they can discover via knowledge checks, to hand out if they make said checks as soon as they sit down. this way within 5 minutes of sitting down they have everything they need to start the session back ground wise. I Hope this will improve their experience and save on time.
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One of the things that continues to puzzle me is how Living Greyhawk was able to have a large volunteer organization, with regions broken up for all over the world, and that modules were written for each region all by volunteer submissions, but all of this isn't feasible with PFS.I played a lot of Living Greyhawk and saw consistent module design and writing. In fact, very little of PFS modules really compares to the quality I saw with LG. PFS modules have way too many encounters and vast background details that are ever adequately communicated to the players in game.
WOW! I wasn't sure where to start on this one, but I think I'll start with these comments. Maybe I'll add more later, maybe not.
I can remember for the last three or four years at least, while a lot of volunteer work was going into running the regions and metaregions, it was not a smooth ride. Finding volunteers to play the role of triad or write decent modules was like pulling teeth. Now I'm not saying it was this way 100%, because it wasn't. But I specifically remember triad members who were just plain burnt out. As far as modules being written by volunteers and how great they were, lets just say that they weren't any better or any worse than what you can find with PFS. LG had plenty of bad mods. Bad enough, that I still remember the names of the authors of those mods. Some that got to the point where you would play a character you didn't care about, because you knew there was going to be a TPK. (Can we say death by boxed text.)
To the Second paragraph, I guess I already partially answered that. However, the number of encounters is way off. I still have copies of my LG mods and glancing through them, they have just as many encounters, and I can remember struggling to get through them in the 4 hour time slot as well. And please, LG mods had way more information in them then what was needed. A PFS scenario prints out in about 20 pages (+/-), the average LG mod printed out in 40-50 pages, half of which was background. (Or answers to questions the players never asked.) One thing my current (Old LG) group has commented on, is how nice it is to not have 10 pages of intro for every scenario, like LG used to have in their mods.
Now, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed LG very much. Especially since I was able to go to conventions at the time and meet new people. LG probably is the reason I am playing today. But PFS scenarios are just as good, if not better. And if you or your GM haven't noticed, there is usually at least one optional encounter in every scenario. And there is plenty of room for roleplay.
Sorry, that got a little long. There's a reason everyone always remembers the "good ole days" and often forget about all the bad that went with it. PFS is not LG, good or bad. And there are a lot of us that love to play it. The group that I played LG with, is now playing PFS. We enjoy PFS and roleplay a lot. We often have to skip the optional encounter, but we always have a good time. And the only time LG gets mentioned is when we talk about the guys that are still fighting their way through the Shieldlands back in Minnesota. (They continued playing LG even after it was disorganized, writing their own mods and continuing story lines.)
The biggest point I can make is that with PFS, like anything else in life, it is what you make of it.
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RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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Mok,
Are you folks running the PFS scenarios in 4-hour slots, or 5-hour slots?
And I will concur with you, that in the majority of the Society adventures that I've run, and that I've read after playing through, there is a lot of backstory that doesn't get related to the PCs. I have found myself usually giving the party more background knowledge about encounters than the written scenario indicates, so that they understand the storyline.
The most recent example, which I ran just a couple of weeks ago: "Delirium's Tangle" has a terrific backstory, with pathos and details about the background of the city in which the adventure is set. And as the module is presented, there's no way the players could get any of that information.
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And I will concur with you, that in the majority of the Society adventures that I've run, and that I've read after playing through, there is a lot of backstory that doesn't get related to the PCs. I have found myself usually giving the party more background knowledge about encounters than the written scenario indicates, so that they understand the storyline.
When we played through the Heresy of Man adventures, I really didn't quite get what was going on. I don't doubt that the GMs were presenting what they were suppose to, and some of the failed dot connection was probably our fault, but in the end, it was hard to see where the edges of the scenarios connected other than a few recurring NPCs.
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Personally, I believe the modules are written just fine and are of much better quality than those of LG over the last couple of yearsof it's run. One of the disadvantages of having huge pools of writers, is that the quality is often less (or much less) than a smaller group with more scrutiny. Yes, there are some less-than-good PFS scenarios, and there can be the occasional plot or text that doesn't seem to make sense, but IMO, it is much less pervasive than it was in LG.
Often, it is the GM who, largely, controls the pace of the game and has a large control over the amount of role-playing. I see too many GM's that run their tables in three hours (or less) and I think that is cheating the players of experiences. It's not a race. If my table is running slow because they are having a good "role"-playing session, I let them run with it. I cut out the optional encounter, and might "reduce" another, non-essential combat into mostly cinematic action, or perhaps eliminate it entirely. OTOH, if they are a "roll"-playing table, then I try to reduce the NPC interactions to skill checks and release the needed information more quickly and directly so they can get on to the next combat. The GM is more than just a storyteller, s/he needs to be pace-controller. Being prepared, having visual implements (maps, tokens, pictures, etc), and "livening" up the NPC's is really all that is needed to bring the author's ideas to life and make for a great play experience.
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Let's be clear here:
There were some parts of LG that were good, others that were less good.
Similarly, there are some parts of PFS that are good, and others that are less good.
We all want to create an environment that has the best qualities of both.
I can see Mok's PoV and I completely understand Shieldknight's rant. After all, since each region was independently controlled, experiences varied widely. Some parts that were good in some areas were less good in others. And vice versa.
However, this is the dawn of something new and we have new opportunities to create something awesome. Things have significantly changed since the LG days; we have technology and opportunities that didn't exist back then.
I just feel we should be able to find ways to really tap into the volunteer community...amazingly good (and less good) things came out of the LG volunteer community and I expect the same from the diverse PFS community.
I feel lucky to be into PFS at an early stage as much as I feel lucky that I can type my thoughts here now, and get feedback on them.
There are the good ol' days right now, right here. And don't any of you forget it. Today, right now, is the best times ever.
I really believe that. Let's have fun with this.
-Pain
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When we played through the Heresy of Man adventures, I really didn't quite get what was going on. I don't doubt that the GMs were presenting what they were suppose to, and some of the failed dot connection was probably our fault, but in the end, it was hard to see where the edges of the scenarios connected other than a few recurring NPCs.And I will concur with you, that in the majority of the Society adventures that I've run, and that I've read after playing through, there is a lot of backstory that doesn't get related to the PCs. I have found myself usually giving the party more background knowledge about encounters than the written scenario indicates, so that they understand the storyline.
as a onlooker after playing hersey of man 1, I had to throw some help for a GM who I know, is a good GM, but doesn't know the setting the best.
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I know there are some scenarios with great backstory that is difficult to get into the hands of the players.
I ran Mists of Mwangi (for the umpteenth time) yesterday. There's a lot of backstory available for those with Knowledge(History), Knowledge(Local) or Diplomacy(GatherInfo), however no character at the table had any Knowledge skills! so they wandered in completely unprepared, and missed most of the backstory, history of the place and description.
Sometimes I run scenarios, and the players get all the info up to DC25, other times I'll run the same scenario, and the players miss out on the lot because they all chose to optimise their builds for combat. Sometimes it's all there for the taking, if anyone at the table had the knowledge.
I often ask players at the table "so, why did your characters join the Pathfinder Society, an organisation that documents history and explores lost cultures?" when they have no Knowledge skills between them.
So while I acknowledge it's sometimes difficult to get this information off the page and into the hands of the players, it's often as much the player's fault as it is the fault of the scenario.
Cheers,
DarkWhite
Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I often ask players at the table "so, why did your characters join the Pathfinder Society, an organisation that documents history and explores lost cultures?" when they have no Knowledge skills between them.
So while I acknowledge it's sometimes difficult to get this information off the page and into the hands of the players, it's often as much the player's fault as it is the fault of the scenario.
Yeah, I see this an awful lot, and it makes me sad.
But I can see Mok's point of view, too. Sometimes I read the stories of the modules and think, "That's awesome. It's gonna be a blast showing it to the players." Then I get in the midst of the game, and there's no time. I have learned to really sit down with the modules before I run them and figure out how I'm going to impart the story, even if the group has not a single rank of knowledge skill among them.
The upper level modules, I wills say, are the truest challenge. Some of those combats can go super long, and I think that should be taken into account with future modules. I have done more than one "BBEG soliloquy" to get everything wrapped up, and wished I hadn't had to resort to the cheese.
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I know the PFS games are now tied to a five hour slot, but I think that's a mistake as it doesn't fit with a lot of convention timing, and makes more problems for FLGS evening play. Unless stores want to stay open till midnight there is just a reality that people have to be able to get off from work and have dinner before getting to the store.
PFS Scenarios are still made under the assumption of only 4 Hour slots, that has not changed. The only thing that changed was that PFS at GenCon went to 5 hour slots, but that did not change that the Scenarios are made for 4.
The vast majority I have run all have finished within 4 hours.
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I ran Mists of Mwangi (for the umpteenth time) yesterday. There's a lot of backstory available for those with Knowledge(History), Knowledge(Local) or Diplomacy(GatherInfo), however no character at the table had any Knowledge skills! so they wandered in completely unprepared, and missed most of the backstory, history of the place and description.
I see this happen occasionally. In these types of cases, I try to remind the party that they are in a large city with a lodge and hiring someone to perform tasks for them (like reciting historic information) is always available...for a price. Paying for information that they should already know is the price for having a combat optimized character.
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I often ask players at the table "so, why did your characters join the Pathfinder Society, an organisation that documents history and explores lost cultures?" when they have no Knowledge skills between them.So while I acknowledge it's sometimes difficult to get this information off the page and into the hands of the players, it's often as much the player's fault as it is the fault of the scenario.
Cheers,
DarkWhite
My first session was Saturday, I had one Society member and three New to society players. the society member was playing his first scenario but is a registered member and had a character made under the guidelines. Osiron Faction. He was a Divination wizard with traits to support knowledge checks.
The session Went off great because every time something came up He was making knowledge checks and relaying the info to the party who between the three had knowledge arcane and knowledge nature.
For future New players i intend to emphasize the importance of Knowledge skills to the flavor and often successful completion of faction missions.
everyone loves the meat shield, until he kills the Kobold you needed to question.
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No it's not. It's the price of NOT having a combat-optimized bard or wizard. ;)
Exactly why players should create more balance characters. Not every fighter needs to be able to hit for 100 points of damage in a round, but be useless when the GM asks for a skill check or will save. And not every bard needs to be completely inept in combat so he can auto-succeed on a knowledge check. But if you follow either of these formulas, be prepared to only be 50% effective in completing the overall goal and likely have to "pay" for you optimization in one form or the other.
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau
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With PFS the modules generally are so filled up with encounters that you can't actually be laid back and spend much time with being immersed in the world. Instead you have to power through to the next encounter to be finished in time. I find in general all I can do is make quick one-liners as we have to move on to the next encounter.
Until I read this thread, I hadn't realized how much of a problem this is. Looking back over the games I have run since PFS started though, I can see where he is coming from.
At some tables, I see lots of roleplay, at others I see exactly what you are describing. Much of this can be attributed to various player styles, but to some degree, the pressure to finish in 4 hours pushes this to happen. Maybe a scaling back on the number of combat encounters would help. I know, having run both the City of Strangers and Before The Dawn series, that some scenarios are built to have some GREAT roleplay opportunities. The 4-hour window to finish does hurt these, if a GM hasn't properly prepped for this.
YMMV
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If built well, you can still have optimized beaters or meat shields or strikers or whatever and still have skills...you just have to usually pick where you want to focus those skills.
Kinda like real life.
I have a 1 barbarian/2 cleric - he is primarily meant as a healing beater. But he also can be very diplomatic, perceptive, knowledgeable about religion and can decently sense motive and bluff. All of these synergize and make sense from a RP viewpoint as well as an optimizing viewpoint. I would like more skill points, but hey, that's the life of a cleric - holiness first, empathy second, other stuff after - somewhat similar to a priest in the real world.
Now, I also have a rogue/ranger/fighter who can do shite-tons of damage in any give round (if my dice like me) - but can also perform nearly any skill you ask of him. Again, the nature of the character lends to that synergy of damage and skills. Just don't ask him to be a meat shield - he'll probably get lucky and dodge a few hits, but he's going down faster than a lustspawn in a seedy bar.
My point...optimizing a character doesn't just mean "all beater" or "all meat shield" or "all skills" - the key is to have a nice strong balance...hence "optimize".
And that doesn't mean you have to give up the RP side; typically only the length of the mod compared with the time allowed is what I see takes away from RP possibilities.
And on an opposite note - when a character is nowhere near optimized "because of RP reasons" - don't expect your table to be all happy about that. Some won't be bothered by it, seeing it as you're just having fun - great! But others play organized play for what it really is - something that requires you to be able to survive with other people you've never met before to complete some challenge. If you want to only roleplay and not rollplay...that's what home games are for...or at least expect to get wiped from time to time playing in org play.
Think of it like going for a round of golf with your buddies on a Saturday morning (home game) vs. playing a pro tournament that typically airs on your local TV station (org play) if you need a different type of example. One you're meant to have more fun and don't care if you play badly, the other you are expected to bring your A-game and "roleplay" secondly. Both however, you can have plenty of fun as long as everyone knows there are a variety of personalities and skill levels.
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My point...optimizing a character doesn't just mean "all beater" or "all meat shield" or "all skills" - the key is to have a nice strong balance...hence "optimize".
I understand what you are saying, but when players talk about optimization, they are typically making reference to a character that is "uber" at only 1-2 things (damage dealing, unhittable, healbot, knowledge monkey, etc) and sub-optimal, to terrible, at most, if not everything else. Seems to be used interchangeably with Min/Max, an "old school" term with a negative connotation. "Optimized" and "balanced" are usually used to describe opposite concepts and don't, necessarily, follow the Webster's definition.
Some classes are more easily optimized (using your definition) than others. It can be a challenge to maximize a fighter's damage output and still have room left to overcome starving for skill points. Or to make a cleric competent in combat without nerfing his casting/healing power. Not saying impossible, just challenging. YMMV
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No it's not. It's the price of NOT having a combat-optimized bard or wizard. ;)Exactly why players should create more balance characters.
I think you missed my point a bit. My wizard has a 7 strength, 7 wisdom, and 7 charisma. He's completely combat optimized (control/buff/debuff). He can also, however, make every knowledge check in the game with at least +21 (with spellcraft and linguistics at the same level to boot).
Personally, I think every character can be at least minimally "optimized" and still bring a good roleplay reason for their decisions along with some secondary skills/stats to back it up. For instance, my wife wanted to play a pirate with a rapier and bombs. At first I was going to take her fighter/alchemist/duelist, but the optimization just wasn't there. Then I tried pure fighter using bombs from the equipment chapter of the APG (or maybe the Armory, can't remember). That didn't give me the numbers I wanted either, so she ended up going alchemist/duelist.
Optimization seems to have a bad connotation among many gamers. That's unfortunate because when playing in an organized society EVERY character should be mostly combat optimized. Parties rarely get TPK'd from a failed diplomacy or knowledge check (they still have to lose the following combat first). Nearly every time someone dies it's because they weren't combat optimized enough.
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Not saying impossible, just challenging. YMMV
No, I think that you are wrong, it is impossible. With a point buy system it is impossible to be very good to great in one area without showing a coresponding weakness somewhere else. With the level playing field that is created under this system you will never see a Rembrandt, it is just not possible. So I make my choices and try to play the weaknesses that I left my character with so that I am not the fighter with the 6 INT that is solving the puzzle in the story.
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No, I think that you are wrong, it is impossible. With a point buy system it is impossible to be very good to great in one area without showing a corresponding weakness somewhere else. With the level playing field that is created under this system you will never see a Rembrandt, it is just not possible. So I make my choices and try to play the weaknesses that I left my character with so that I am not the fighter with the 6 INT that is solving the puzzle in the story.
Rembrandt wasn't an adventurer who risked death every time he painted :-). My point was that you don't HAVE to be great in one area and have a glaring weakness in another. You don't HAVE to play a fighter with an 18+ STR, Power Attack, a Greatsword, INT of 7, and no skills. It's just that I see those all the time. Also, some classes are better equipped to be balanced (like Demoyn's wizard), because their combat-related ability scores mesh nicely with skills and their feats are not necessarily dependent on BAB or feat chains. Significantly optimized PC's (using the min/max definition) have glaring weaknesses and depend on a favorable party mix to overcome them. When that doesn't happen, they are significantly gimped and this could lead to a TPK. Balance PC's (or optimized using Ricky Bobby's definition) are able to be competent in combat while still maintain some ability to contribute when their "weapons" are stowed.
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In my mind, there are a few character types: Min/Max, Optimized, Balanced and Gimped.
- *Min/Max: 18-20 in a stat or two, 7-8 in almost all else
*Optimized: 16-18 in a stat or two, 7-8 in one or two, 10-14 in the others
*Balanced: 16 in main stat, 12-14 in every other stat possible, 10 in one or two if you have to
*Gimped: never less than 10, but still as low as possible - typically your hardcore RPer who believes in a rags to riches story or maybe a person who doesn't know how to count :) (I actually saw a guy at an org play table one time not use his full point buy "for RP reasons" - yeah, that's a good idea.......)
Now, in Org play especially, you really want a good mix of Optimized with Balanced IMO. Home game...have whatever mix you want; in org play, you need to have survivability and utility, as TK started to point out, and Min/Maxers tend to burn bright but way too fast, whereas gimped tend to never even burn (except when actually set on fire...).
The takeaways? If you build a Min/Maxer, be prepared to do that one thing good and sit back through everything else. If you build a gimp, be prepared to get eaten by the druid's animal companion by accident. If you build Op'd or balanced...prepare to have the most fun! (said in the corniest way possible)
The caveat to all this? If you have a 20 STR half-orc fighter with 7 CHA, 7 WIS and 7 INT...then very rarely should that PC be contributing in any positive manner to puzzles, clues, tactics not involving mashing heads in, wooing the noble's wife, etc. When it comes to tearing arms off of a stormtrooper or scaring little children though, call him in.
That is where we as players mess the game up sometimes...even if someone is not all that fond of RPing...they need to RP their character as they built it.
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I would agree with the running scenarios cold problem. In many of the previous living style campaigns, a scenario might be 30 to 50 pages long (some were way longer than that), and some went into a bit more detail about knowledge or gossip the PCs could gather. Most had a lot more boxed text. Anyone who played LG long enough can probably remember mods where you had half a page or more of boxed text.
The PFS scenarios are not organized that way. They have a limited word count so a judge can prep it without having to spend all day just reading it. But that means that a judge needs to prep it and add character to it and make the NPCs come alive. You do that and you should be able to bring some of the back story in. I love judging the scenarios with a certain mad painter them. Its more than just reviewing the stat blocks like LG sometimes was.
Now that assumes that the players actually want to role play and that they ask the NPCs questions.
That said, some do have back story that is almost impossible to bring out.
I actually think though, that the PFS scenarios have been more original than many of the LG scenarios were, especially the Cores.
I do agree though that I miss the chance to shape storylines, and the sense of a bigger plot that you often had in the LG Regional scenarios.
Yes, I know we have the Shadow Lodge story, but so far that has been a bit vanilla and boring. I would love to see a story arch in PFS like you see in the Adventure Paths.
Venture-Agent, Virginia—Hampton Roads
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With PFS the modules generally are so filled up with encounters that you can't actually be laid back and spend much time with being immersed in the world. Instead you have to power through to the next encounter to be finished in time. I find in general all I can do is make quick one-liners as we have to move on to the next encounter.Until I read this thread, I hadn't realized how much of a problem this is. Looking back over the games I have run since PFS started though, I can see where he is coming from.
At some tables, I see lots of roleplay, at others I see exactly what you are describing. Much of this can be attributed to various player styles, but to some degree, the pressure to finish in 4 hours pushes this to happen. Maybe a scaling back on the number of combat encounters would help. I know, having run both the City of Strangers and Before The Dawn series, that some scenarios are built to have some GREAT roleplay opportunities. The 4-hour window to finish does hurt these, if a GM hasn't properly prepped for this.
YMMV
My FLGS on Wed nights closes at 10 PM. We can't start any earlier than 6 PM due to people getting off of work and such.
Typical game get a 4 hour time slot due to this and it can be hard to finish a module without jsut "bashing" through it. Fighting is faster than role-playing. I would love to see less combat intensive games and reduce the encounters to allow for more of a role playing side of the game and please please please work in more of the backstory into the adventure.
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Yes, I know we have the Shadow Lodge story, but so far that has been a bit vanilla and boring. I would love to see a story arch in PFS like you see in the Adventure Paths.
I don't mind seeing the odd set of adventures for PFS form a storyline, but my personal belief is that it is very important to keep most of the scenarios so that they can be run separately, at any time and in any order.
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I don't mind seeing the odd set of adventures for PFS form a storyline, but my personal belief is that it is very important to keep most of the scenarios so that they can be run separately, at any time and in any order.
+1...although, I like to see a "special" mod or series released at major conventions. The four "extra" scenarios released each year at GenCon are perfect for this.
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I don't mind seeing the odd set of adventures for PFS form a storyline, but my personal belief is that it is very important to keep most of the scenarios so that they can be run separately, at any time and in any order.+1...although, I like to see a "special" mod or series released at major conventions. The four "extra" scenarios released each year at GenCon are perfect for this.
What they could try would be something done a couple of times in LG and LFR has been doing a lot is creat a "mini-series" with some specific PC options and a very tight story arch. Players run that character through the arch. I enjoy that, although some players don't care for trying to commit a character to story arch.
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I miss many things about LG, but I really love PFS right now. I think the quality of the mods in PFS is OUTSTANDING! If nothing else, how about the maps, missions, and artwork? Yes, some can get very rail-roady, and I often let the players in on some of the backstory so they enjoy the story more.
I would really like to see some more regionalization out of PFS. In the LG days, it was very cool to travel and play mods you didn't already have access to. I also prefer to see some story arcs with recurring characters. We have a little of this in PFS, such as Grandmaster Torch or the Shadow Lodge, but this could be better developed.
Overall, I am very pleased that Paizo is running the show now!