Yeah, two of my tables from the SIEGE last year were never reported. I've asked about it 5 times, then just gave up. Poor Qadira.Here are my totals.. tho not totally accurate as I'm STILL waiting for my Gamicon tables to be report *stern look at Todd*
Total for Andoran 94
Total for Cheliax 39
Total for Osirion 75
Total for Qadira 55
Total for Taldor 54
I had on the order of 5 sessions from that event that never were reported. I, too, have given up. But not on the Con itself, my friend and I will be there again this year! 5th level, here we come!
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16
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There have been threads here in the past, concerning people deliberately failing their faction missions. "I hate Cheliax, so I'll 'join up', find out what the Paracountess wants, and make sure it doesn't happen!" The players who participated in that thread noted that their characters put this quest on hold when they were sitting with another PCs from the same faction, so as to not mess up those allied characters' opportunities for prestige.
Now, doing a stunt like this -- even at a different table, a different convention, a different month -- would justifiably upset your allies.
Director of Brand Strategy
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Now, doing a stunt like this -- even at a different table, a different convention, a different month -- would justifiably upset your allies.
I don't think there's a rule we can make to force people to try to succeed at their mission. If someone wants to take that approach, they bring the ire of their fellow faction members on themselves and I don't have any sympathy.
That said, we're doubling the number of factions to give people more options. Hopefully one of the ten will be something that inspires people to support instead of sabotage their faction's progress.
Venture-Lieutenant, California—Los Angeles (South Bay)
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Now, doing a stunt like this -- even at a different table, a different convention, a different month -- would justifiably upset your allies.I don't think there's a rule we can make to force people to try to succeed at their mission. If someone wants to take that approach, they bring the ire of their fellow faction members on themselves and I don't have any sympathy.
That said, we're doubling the number of factions to give people more options. Hopefully one of the ten will be something that inspires people to support instead of sabotage their faction's progress.
Some players may say that their characters are not designed to complete faction missions, which may annoy other players whose characters are working hard to complete faction missions. However, I think that we can at least try to encourage people to participate. (Several characters in an adventure I played in did not have any ranks in diplomacy, but I did encourage my fellow players to try aid another to boost a diplomacy role. Remember, aid another can be one way to help participate in a scenario. Or other characters can try to create a distraction or do something else to help someone complete the faction mission.)
Perhaps one way of introducing the factions might be to compare them with existing factions. So, perhaps faction Z might appeal to Taldor players and have some similarities to it while faction Y might appeal more to Andoran players. Perhaps one reason to explain why faction missions from earlier adventures work so well is similarity in factions or similarity in how a faction works.
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There have been threads here in the past, concerning people deliberately failing their faction missions.
Having been the poster child for this practice ... and now a VC - *gasp!* ... I'll respond to this one personally tonight when I'm not on a train running late for a gameday.
Cheers :-)
Stephen (Slip)
Pathfinder Society 4-Star GM
Venture-Captain, Australia
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Early in Season 0, a Paladin at my table had trouble with his faction mission involving poison. He chose not to complete his mission, claiming it violated his Paladin's ethics. This got me thinking about possibilities and consequences around not completing a faction mission. My character Slip was an experimental proof of concept:
Slip, a halfling sold into child slavery, never knew his Osirion homeland. Instead he lived a subservient life in Cheliax, careful never to reveal his efforts to undermine his Chelish oppressors while appearing to work for them.
When Pathfinder Society Organised Play began in Season 0, it filled a void left by the retirement of 3.5 era Living Campaigns, including Living Arcanis in which secret societies often pitted one player's mission directly against another.
Supporting Pathfinder at three local convetions per year, I was GM far more often than player, Slip advanced through entire levels on GM credit alone. On the rare occasion I was able to play, it was always among my homegroup when one of my friends was preparing a scenario for an upcoming convention. We have a long history gaming together and enjoy between-character banter and double-dealings.
However, when I posted on these boards that Slip had been deliberately failing Chelish faction missions, the backlash was resounding! At first I thought the criticism unfair, being judged without knowing the dynamics of my gaming group. But being the face of Pathfinder Society at local events, I realised it would be hypocritical of me as GM to pull someone in line, while I was seen to be pushing boundaries with my own character. I could see how failing faction missions could become disruptive at public events, or if it became widespread. So I decided it was time to pull my own character into line!
After some consideration, I decided that Slip could still be fun to play, having lived the life of a model slave, he worked his way into Cheliax Faction as a means to escape Chelish captivity and discover his Osirion homeland. In return, all he had to do was complete his assigned missions.
So while I understand Paladins occasionally turning down faction missions, I no longer support character concepts built around this practice. No matter how "clever" you think your concept is, if it runs against the spirit of the campaign, you need to re-think your concept. And if your character impedes any other player's faction mission, any GM should stop you in your tracks.
I hope this helps put this matter into context.
Cheers,
Stephen (Slip)
Pathfinder Society 4-Star GM
Venture-Captain, Australia
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I have only GMed around 20 PFS games. There were a couple games i GMed around the holidays for the New York City PFS, but i don't think they have been posted yet. I began just about this time last year in Raleigh NC at Game Theory Store, GMing for Steve Miller. Now i am running an occasional game with some friends at home here in Brattleboro Vermont.
So here are my numbers from the 18 or so games that have been reported that I have GMed over the last year.
Number of prestige points the factions have accumulated from the session I have GMed.
Andoran 81
Osirion 40
Qadira 29
Taldor 18
Cheliax 13
I hope these numbers help.
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It will be interesting to see if the numbers change next season. If the PA will matter outside of spending limits, and that fosters any kind of competition between factions, I would expect much less cross-factional assistance amongst the players. It will make Knowledge skills, Linguistics, & Disable Device, valuable commodities and more players will place at least some ranks in them.
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Initially back in november 09, at the Carnage on the Mountain convention in Vermont, when I made my first character for PFS, I had to choose a faction. I chose Andoran both because i liked it and because i thought the factions were in competition for control of Absolom, and I wanted to do my small part to help that faction win. I realized by the end of the convention, that the Osirion faction would have more closely fit the character I had made.
I was told the only way out of a faction for a character was in a pine box ( and with rase dead not even that is nessarily the case). I was told the only way to have a character in another faction was to create another character. Then I learned that the developers were down playing the competitiveness between the factions. When the "replay rules" came along, it initially seemed like a little nudge to go ahead and create new characters for different factions. So i created one for Cheliax and another for Osirion and another for Qadira. I now know that the replay rules were there as a last resort to get a 4 person table if you only had 3 people.
It will be interesting to see how things shake up with 11 factions. I think that some people chose Andoran because they wern't quite sure where else to put their character.
For example I have a 3rd level Magus, an elven fighter/mage or blade singer or what ever, who is part of the Andoran Faction. In his backstory, i wrote that he was part of the guard in Kyonin. From the character's perspective, he would find Cheliax repellant, Qadira untrustworthy, Taldor uninteresting, Osirion a curiosity, and Andoran some what interesting. However his true loyalties would be to Kyonin, not any of those other factions. I chose Andoran for him, because out of the five factions it seemed to be the best fit.
It will be interesting, if we are allowed to have our characters change factions, and with more choices, how things reshuffle with 10 factions on the board.
I think Twilight knight makes an excellent point about some possible changes.....we shall see if cross faction cooperation continues. Those skills disable device, knowledge local etc will become even more valuable now.
think one of the main reasons for cross faction cooperation was because of the spending limits.
We all knew that with better gear we had a better chance of completing our missions. It was in everyone's best interest that faction missions were completed, because this would result in better gear. Besides, you never knew when you might need to ask someone else for a helping slight of hand, or they might need a knoweldge check.
I am looking forward to see what is being planned for the next season, and what the new factions will be.
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Adding mine in:
Andoran: 113/127 (88.98%)
Cheliax: 43/54 (79.63%)
Osirion: 120/133 (90.23%)
Qadira: 72/81 (88.89%)
Taldor: 89/97 (91.75%)
Taking out my DM credits makes it this:
Andoran: 91/104 (87.5%)
Cheliax: 37/48 (77.08%)
Osirion: 114/127 (89.76%)
Qadira: 56/62 (90.32%) (Yes this % should be higher than above)
Taldor: 81/89 (91.01%)
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Including GM Credit:
A 65 / 71 = 91.55%
C 23 / 30 = 76.67%
O 34 / 38 = 89.47%
Q 25 / 26 = 96.15%
T 43 / 45 = 95.65%
Excluding GM Credit:
A 65 / 71 = 91.55%
C 21 / 28 = 75.00%
O 34 / 38 = 89.47%
Q 15 / 16 = 93.75%
T 29 / 31 = 93.55%
I'd also like to point out my averages over my time GMing are going down. If you'd like, I can make a graph that plots these percentages... :)
/I will have lower percentages than the Kyles. This I promise you! :P
//I keed I keed!
///Maybe...
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Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau
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Here are the totals from the games I've run. I haven't seen our local coordinator post the store totals.
Total for Andoran 110
Total for Cheliax 49
Total for Osirion 71
Total for Qadira 30
Total for Taldor 96Around here Quadira doesn't get much love.
That would involve the hand tallying of three years worth of numbers! If there is an easier way, let me know so I can add to the count. Keep in mind, from my account I can only see MY numbers; add in the numbers of five other GMs and that becomes a daunting task.
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That would involve the hand tallying of three years worth of numbers! If there is an easier way, let me know so I can add to the count. Keep in mind, from my account I can only see MY numbers; add in the numbers of five other GMs and that becomes a daunting task.
Hi Arnim,
No need to provide the totals from other GMs to this thread, we're only Prestige totals for sessions we've GMed personally.
Go to My Pathfinder Society > Sessions tab > Show GM Sessions
then scroll to the bottom of the page, it provides a summary of Prestige totals for each Faction. Easy!
Cheers,
Stephen (DarkWhite)
Pathfinder Society 4-Star GM
Venture-Captain Australi
