How to ask about rules in the Pathfinder Society forums


Pathfinder Society

1/5 Contributor

Earlier today I started a thread in this forum that was--very justly--moved to the general rules forum.

I thought I had been careful to word the questions I was asking in the thread to make them particularly germane to Society play, but agree that I didn't do a good enough job.

However, in the future, I'd like to be able to ask rules questions in this forum, for two very particular reasons.

(1) The general rules and advice forums seem to be mainly geared towards character "optimization." Questions that aren't about increasing DPR and the like are, according to my possibly imperfect observation, often ignored. I've found this to be especially true when the subject of the questions and the tenor of their asking is likely to lead to reasoning or rules interpretations that limit, rather than expand, player options.

(2) Right now I'm playing Pathfinder exclusively in PFS, so my rules clarification questions are inevitably to do with situations that have arisen in Society play, and the opinions/rulings I am seeking are for Society games.

How would the other frequenters of this forum suggest I phrase/frame questions in the future so that the discussions that arise from them are useful for Society players, and so hopefully lead to any such new threads (perhaps) staying in the Society forums?

Cheers,

Christopher

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/5

Make sure your questions is about something where PFS differs from general play, e.g. purchasing magic items, crafting, the gunsmithing feat, teaching tricks to animals, etc.

For general rules questions, I'm not sure there is a way. This isn't the right place for them, even if PFS is your only playing environment. If the general rules forum isn't helping, then I'm not sure what to suggest.

Sovereign Court 1/5

The problem, as I see it, is that many rules questions are left to GM adjudication. In PFS, we kind of have a head GM in Mike Brock. If he were willing, he could solve any possible rules issue, just like the GM in your home game could. I don't know his work load (it's likely substantial), but if he answered rules questions here in the PFS forum, it would be the same as e-mailing your GM before the session and getting a rules item clarified. Just like PFS already has house-rules, his rulings here would only apply to society play.

Unlike a homegame, there are hundreds of posts a day looking for rules clarifications. I don't doubt this would be a large undertaking, but I think it can be done. Perhaps PFS would be willing to create an internal rules team consisting of 5-star/respected GMs and mod writers to assist.

Liberty's Edge 4/5 5/5

RtrnofdMax wrote:
Unlike a homegame, there are hundreds of posts a day looking for rules clarifications. I don't doubt this would be a large undertaking, but I think it can be done. Perhaps PFS would be willing to create an internal rules team consisting of 5-star/respected GMs and mod writers to assist.

If you ask Mike to weigh in on rules minutiae, it takes him away from doing more useful things like supporting conventions, getting material added to Additional Resources, and generally making PFS better.

The idea of a 'rules council' has been suggested before, but the discussion soon highlighted that this would create more problems than it solves.

Sovereign Court 1/5

Ya are probably right on all points, but we can't choose to not do things simply because they are hard. And you know there are plenty of people willing to help.

Even if the rules cabal were to set their sights very low and only choose to answer one question a week, it would be an improvement.

1/5 Contributor

Oh, I don't think Mike Brock (or any other Paizonian) should be expected to answer every little rules question that comes up. I'm, frankly, just more interested in what the PFS community has to say about rules clarifications than the community at large. I guess it's just a taste thing, and so probably not that important, now that I put it out there like that.

Silver Crusade 2/5

I have found that if you ask that it stay in the PFS forums as you need a PFS specific ruling, it tends to stay here. Further, if it does get moved, you can always flag the post to move it back.

Grand Lodge 4/5

The goal with PFS (well, one of them) is to stick as close to the core rules as possible. With that in mind, neither Mike nor Mark are going to issue rulings here unless there's something PFS-specific that needs to be addressed. If it's a rules question that applies equally to home games then the correct place to ask it is in the Rules forum. Developers read those forums and will address anything they feel needs clarification (which they've done in the past)

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

As someone who frequents the rules boards, I share your frustration about not getting helpful answers. Many people answer with houserules (and accuse you of elitism/rules lawyering if you say anything about it), others answer based on failing to understand basic tenets of english (but accuse you of nitpicking/munchkinism if you point out that "and" is different than "or"), others answer based on how they think things were meant to be (and get mad at you if you quote a developer stating that the intent is different than they thought), and so forth.

There are a few helpful posters (Grick, for instance, is thorough in his research, objective in his explanations, and always cites his sources - he will very seldom steer you wrong), but they're vastly outnumbered.

What it ultimately comes to is this: rules mastery takes work. Lots of it. Those of us who are invested in it keep libraries of links to FAQ blogs, developer commentary, and so forth. It involves following 15-page threads through to their conclusions. It involves checking the FAQ on your own initiative on a regular basis. It involves learning to read through someone's impassioned, illogical and personal-attack-ridden post, tune out the crap, figure out the points they're failing to make, speculating on what would have to be true to make the position correct, and then going and digging for it yourself.

Ultimately, you just have to decide how much of a priority it is. How many hours are you willing to put in? How much nonsense are you willing to sort through in search of legitimate information? The answer will be different for everyone (which is okay). Just pick a spot on the continuum, put in the work to get there, and then decide how you'll handle issues that take more work than that. (Many good GMs have a general policy for this; something like "Err on the side of the player", or "Err on the conservative side for whoever's using the ability", or whatever.)

TLDR: Mastering the rules takes work. Decide how much you're willing to put into it, and then come up with a policy for handling the rest. Good luck! :)

1/5 Contributor

Thank you, Jiggy, that's a very helpful perspective.

Mastering the rules is important to me, and I think I'm definitely a conservative interpreter. I could do with a little less "No, no, no" in my immediate reactions and a little more "Let's figure out how to do what you want within the rules," actually, and I'm working on that.

As it happens, the thread that got moved did eventually yield some useful information (well, after one guy cursed me out for wanting to "nerf" something or other), and I came away from it able to make a sound argument for giving the player a break on at least some of what he wants to do--hopefully he'll meet us partway on some other things.

Still deafening silence on some other issues (nobody wants to talk about the times 3/4 adjustment Small characters make to the values on the Carrying Capacity table, for instance, and questions about the accuracy of HeroLab when it comes to weight and encumbrance scare people silent), but them's the breaks.

Thank you all!

Grand Lodge 2/5 RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Can you direct me to those threads?

1/5 Contributor

Jiggy wrote:
Can you direct me to those threads?

Sure! Sent you a PM.

4/5

I get frustrated on the rules forum because lots of people say "well, it should work this way" "this is what is intended" when really all I want is a ruling that will apply to PFS. A lot of the people on the rules forum do not play PFS, and that is most certainly not the audience that I want to talk to when asking a rules question for PFS.

Lone Wolf Development

Christopher Rowe wrote:
Still deafening silence on some other issues (nobody wants to talk about the times 3/4 adjustment Small characters make to the values on the Carrying Capacity table, for instance, and questions about the accuracy of HeroLab when it comes to weight and encumbrance scare people silent), but them's the breaks.

If you're seeking answers regarding Hero Lab that pertain to features not commonly worried about by players, it's quite likely nobody here on the Paizo forums truly knows the answer. Heck, I work for the company and *I* sure don't know the answer, else I would be posting it for you. :)

Please consider posting your Hero Lab questions directly on our support forums - specifically, the sub-forum for the Pathfinder data files. Here's a link. The developers are available there and should be able to get you an accurate answer to your question. :)

Hope this helps!

1/5 Contributor

lonewolf-rob wrote:

If you're seeking answers regarding Hero Lab that pertain to features not commonly worried about by players, it's quite likely nobody here on the Paizo forums truly knows the answer. Heck, I work for the company and *I* sure don't know the answer, else I would be posting it for you. :)

Please consider posting your Hero Lab questions directly on our support forums - specifically, the sub-forum for the Pathfinder data files. Here's a link. The developers are available there and should be able to get you an accurate answer to your question. :)

Hope this helps!

Thank you, Rob, it certainly does. A user in another thread (up in the Rules forum of shady repute ;) ) just said that the program does take the appropriate calculations into account, but I might mosey over to y'all's place to visit anyway.

1/5 Contributor

And hey, presto, user Mathias at the Lone Wolf Development forums reports that the various calculations that need to be taken into account figuring weight and encumbrance for Small characters are already built in to Hero Lab.

He also said that the bug erroneously making the free first set of clothing weightless is on their list of things to be fixed.

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