GM Shared Prep

[trollbill]

FLite wrote:

FLite wrote:

trollbill wrote:

Now I am looking for clean maps for Void in the Void. Anyone got some?

Voice in the void you mean?

I have some very nice clean maps.

** spoiler omitted **

pictures of the maps assembled. (spoiler, obviously)

Nice! But I think that is a bit more than I am looking for.

[Pirate Rob]

Just wanted to take a moment and give a shout out to

Skyel

1,000th registered member of pfsprep.com

\o/ \o/ \o/

[graywulfe]

The pfsprep site seems to be down, did it change addresses?

[Iammars]

I seem to be able to access it fine.

[Preston Hudson]

No problems here.

[Pirate Rob]

Works for me, I even approved 2 new members this morning.

It's always possible it was down, my host doesn't quite manage 100% uptime, but unless somebody else wants to pay for something more expensive to try and get that 1% of downtime back...

we're stuck with what we've got.

[graywulfe]

Must be my network, I'm trying to reach it from work. My tablet is able to get there going through my 3G connection so the company network must block access. I will have to try from home later.

[Terminalmancer]

Whenever that happens to me the first thing I do is check one of the "Am I crazy or is this website down?" services.

Also: congratulations on the 1000th member! Awesome work keeping that site going. I use the thing all the freaking time, it is incredible.

[Woran]

graywulfe wrote:

Must be my network, I'm trying to reach it from work. My tablet is able to get there going through my 3G connection so the company network must block access. I will have to try from home later.

Must be the network. I can access it from home just fine, but at work it slows access to the point of timeout :(

[Masika]

I would love to be able to access the shared prep. The website pfsprep is up for me but no matter what I do I can not register as a user.

Some one help?

Is the OP still valid? I have sent an email.

[Woran]

You need pirate rob. Send him a PM here.

[Pirate Rob]

Problem solved, story time below:

Hey guys, registering for the site requires manual approval, (None of the automated systems I tried kept out enough of the spam bots).

Looks like around Thanksgiving I redid my email server passwords and broke the part of the site that sends me an email whenever somebody tries to register. So for the last month I haven't approved any registrations because I hadn't seen any.

I have now fixed that, and I approved the dozen or so humans waiting, while denying 3 bots.

Enjoy and happy holiday.
PS. Happy user # 1030 to Auke.

[Pirate Rob]

As a note, I'm having problems with automated emailed generated from the site at the moment. I've cleared everybody who was waiting for approval and hope to have email functionality restored soon.

[Pirate Rob]

Email functionality has been restored.

[Woran]

Hooray! Thank you Rob!

[Pirate Rob]

Yarrr,

First some stats:

July 2016 was our biggest month yet.
4410 unique visitors loading 46,532 pages and using 7.58GB of bandwidth. (Not including robots)

pfsprep.com is up for renewal at the beginning of September and while there's no doubt in my mind that I'm renewing it I'd like to be able to buy longer (and thus cheaper per month) hosting.

This is where you come in.

Everybody now has the ability to contribute via https://www.paypal.me/pfsprep (Should be a green background for Robert Hetherington in Berkeley)

Also, you probably don't want to select goods and services as that'll just cost you extra money.

Please note the site will continue to be free and nobody is under any obligation to donate, I've just had a couple people recently asked how they could contribute without having the skills/time to make prepwork so I thought I'd make that possible.

Thanks.

PayPal Fees:

PayPal balance or bank account
Free when sending money inside the US

Debit/credit card
2.9% plus $0.30 per transaction

Outside the US
0% to 2% fee when fully funded with your bank account or PayPal balance or 2.9% to 5.99% plus a fixed fee based on the payment currency if paying with a credit or debit card.

[Pirate Rob]

Just wanted to say thank you to the pair of donors (that asked to remain anonymous) that contributed $10 each. I really appreciate your support.

[Pirate Rob]

<3 HMM, CR, RB

[Pirate Rob]

And finally thank you to SY.

For those of you curious, combined donation were $80. Looking at the math I'm going to be changing webhosts, although I'm going to wait until after GenCon to avoid any disruptions when people may need them most.

Thank you very much to everybody who contributed some money and thank you to everyone else who's ever created material for the site.

<3

[Pirate Rob]

<3 BS.

Subforums recently added:

Quests:
Honor's Echo

Season 7:
7-98 Serpents' Ire
7-99 Through the Maelstrom Rift

Season 8:
8-00 The Cosmic Captive
8-01 Portent's Peril
8-02 Ward Asunder
8-03 Captives of Toil

Module:
Seers of the Drowned City

AP:
Strange Aeons

---
I know there's a lot of material coming out. Does anybody notice any missing subforums. I think I got them all but would appreciate knowing if anybody notices anything missing.

[Pirate Rob]

---

Swapping to a new topic

---

Order of the Amber Die.

I recently got several complaints about their posts, most specifically a rather lengthy chatbox post.

The posts mostly contained an explanation of their project and links to their facebook page and their Drop Box.

Adam Daigle talked about them on a Paizo Blog

A brief perusal of the material revealed an incredibly detailed rundown of their campaign, but I didn't see much in the way of material that would be helpful to PFS GMs.

Upon review I found their posts to be advertising for their project rather than PFS prep material and removed them.

I sent them an email explaining my decision and got a polite email back from their Visual Director/Business Affairs asking me to reconsider.

Questions:

Is there something I'm missing?

Do you want to see this sort of material on pfsprep.com?

How strict should we be about the relevance of information to PFS prep?

Do we need a policy regarding commercial entities?

Any specific opinions regarding Order of the Amber Die specifically?

Please feel free to PM or email me if you'd rather not post in public.

Thank you for helping keep pfsprep great, and I would really appreciate any thoughts or feedback you might have on this subject.

[Hmm]

Pirate Rob --

I did not see the posts in question, so I feel that I'm giving you blind feedback here. Not knowing what they posted, here's my opinions about materials posted in PFS prep.

If the Order of the Amber Die creates free materials that makes it easier for everyone to run a specific adventure, I'd like to see the materials that they create.

If their posts are instead a campaign summary that is irrelevant to prepping adventures for PFS, I don't want to see their posts in PFS Prep.

Does this make sense?
Hmm

[GM Aerondor]

If they are preparing PFS scenarios for a marathon run, it would be appropriate.

If they are preparing material that would be suitable for a run of an AP that is PFS sanctioned, again it would be appropriate.

Outside of that...it would seem to be a stretch. But like Hmm, I didn't see the posts in question.

All that said, occasional appropriate and non intrusive cross site advertising isn't necessarily a bad thing. From my two second look they appeared to be a group of hard core players rather than a company trying to sell a product, but maybe I missed that bit.

[Pirate Rob]

You can take a look at the links I provided regarding their material.

Their posts were basically a brief explanation about their group and those same links.

[thunderspirit]

I'm not convinced, after perusing the content of their Dropbox, that there's sufficient value in their offerings to merit inclusion.

There's something to be said for the module reviews, but it's a matter of how much it contributes to a GM's prep work.

[BartonOliver]

Looking through their content, the blog post, and facebook I can see the appeal of what they are doing, however I don't see the merit in any of it appearing on PFSprep. The reviews and perhaps even playthroughs make sense for Paizo to look at as a whole, but they don't appear to be adding much (in the way of prep materials) for GMs for the modules/APs they've been doing.

I'd support your decision either way, though.

[DM Khel]

Looking at the links, Rob, this is not at all what I look to pfsprep to provide. It's kind of fun stuff, but I don't see it as useful for gm prepping.

[Shifty]

When I'm setting up I am keen for A3/A4 sized maps already cacked up on Posterazor, stat sheets that might not have been included in the scenario, improved handouts, and any other 'missing' stuff from the scenarios (some have events that require a map, and no map!).

There was the most amazing re-edit of Perils of the Pirate Pact on there some time ago that broke it down to almost a screenplay - which was sensational.

As I GM a lot of PbP these days, I'd almost be tempted to throw in a shared Googleslide of all the maps and handouts good to go so a GM could just copy the slides and go.
I did that for Year of the Shadowlodge so my GM's would (at worst) be able to get the game going rapidly.

[Woran]

They provide nice and detailed material, but when I look on PFS prep, Im looking for statblocks, handouts and the like.
Their stuff is more an opinion piece, which is handy if you decide if you want to run something. Not a handy aid to use while running.
I think their stuff is very good here on the forum, where GMs can check if they want to run something. But not on PFSprep, where I come to find aids to help me run.

[Hmm]

Links to slideshows would be nice, but we cannot include Paizo art on PFSPrep, right? Otherwise, I'd totally link to slideshows that I've already knocked together.

Hmm

[thunderspirit]

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

Links to slideshows would be nice, but we cannot include Paizo art on PFSPrep, right? Otherwise, I'd totally link to slideshows that I've already knocked together.

Hmm

Not entirely true. Anything that's been up on the Paizo Blog is considered fair game under the Community Use Policy.

Quote:

You may use any of the text or artwork published in the Paizo Blog at paizo.com/paizo/blog, with the exception of excerpts of Planet Stories publications, Pathfinder Comics, and any logos and icons that aren't also in the Community Use Package. You may not use any photographs published in the blog (because those rights are usually not ours to offer). You may not use artwork, including maps, that have not been published in the blog, although you may create your own interpretations of material presented in our artwork and maps, provided that your interpretations don't look substantially similar to our materials.

[Ascalaphus]

... and the regular promotional blogs about upcoming scenarios do tend to feature artwork. Might not be the exact one you need, but sometimes it might. I should pay more attention to it.

[GM Lamplighter]

Yeah, I've been seeing them all over as well, and frankly I'm not into it. Watching other people play doesn't help me prep. It may have value on its own to people, but it's not what pfsprep is all about in my opinion.

It's also not supposed to be a forum for commercial folks to advertise - there are enough sites with annoying ads out there. The great thing about pfsprep is that I can go, get the things that will help me run an awesome game, and get on to prepping. I'm not there to make friends or chat or anything; there are already places for that, and I don't really want the distraction when I'm prepping.

So, yeah... no disrespect meant to the group, but I don't think it belongs on pfsprep at all.

[Fromper]

I have a question about what's legal to post on PFSPrep, based on Paizo's community usage policies.

I sometimes copy and paste maps from scenarios into jpg files, and edit them to make them the right size and printer friendly. That way, I can print them on plain 8.5x11 paper to use them with 1 inch squares at the gaming table.

Am I allowed to share those? Or does the fact that I'm copying Paizo's "pictures" prevent that?

[TetsujinOni]

Fromper wrote:

I have a question about what's legal to post on PFSPrep, based on Paizo's community usage policies.

I sometimes copy and paste maps from scenarios into jpg files, and edit them to make them the right size and printer friendly. That way, I can print them on plain 8.5x11 paper to use them with 1 inch squares at the gaming table.

Am I allowed to share those? Or does the fact that I'm copying Paizo's "pictures" prevent that?

As a historical note, cleaning up posts of the extracted map images in the google drive share which was the original form of PFS Prep was part of why we moved to the forum configuration.

No, that is expressly forbidden by the terms of the CUP and OGL combination which lets PFSPrep share what it does.

Full-up recreation of the maps using you own carto and cleared art assets is AWESOME, a TON of work, and welcome, though. I've seen a couple of sharable VTT maps (Feast of Sigils leaps to mind as one of the best) which were created using the carto in the scenario as inspiration... or the full-texture Bonekeep maps my wife made are around somewhere or other public, too.

The maps in the scenarios are extractable by you, for you, but cannot be shared. Link to the last official comment on this here

[Fromper]

That's what I thought, which is why I've never posted those when I've done it. But I was doing another set last night, and wanted to make sure I was remembering correctly.

Like I said, all I do is cut and paste the original map, enlarge it for 1 inch squares, and chop it up to fit on individual pieces of paper from a cheap home printer. No original artwork or anything - I'm not that artistic.

[Pirate Rob]

Based on the discussion here I let the Order of the Amber Die folks know their material didn't fit what we were hosting.

Thank you all very much for your opinion and feedback. I really appreciate it.

That said if you're really interested in in depth playthroughs of various Pathfinder material, check them out.

Also thanks to everybody that contributed hosting and domain services for pfsprep.com are paid up for 3 more years.

[Sir_Wulf]

Perhaps you could set up a separate part of the board for links to sites with potentially useful material that doesn't quite fit on PFSPrep.

[GM Lamplighter]

Asking a volunteer to set up another site may be a little much... especially if it's to accommodate requests that he's already said "no" to.

[KingOfAnything]

The "Other" forum is handy for random useful tools like the grapple flowchart.

[Terminalmancer]

Any chance you could take a look at allowing .odt files to be uploaded? I'm authoring stuff in LibreOffice and exporting it as PDF, but it would be nice to be able to upload the source files as well so people could update it if they need to.

[Pirate Rob]

Add .odt files to the list of uploadable files types.

[Terminalmancer]

Pirate Rob wrote:

Add .odt files to the list of uploadable files types.

I have successfully uploaded the .odt for my seeker-tier Race for the Runecarved Key statblocks and it is glorious. Well, as glorious as uploading open document format files can get. Thank you, Pirate Rob, I really appreciate it.

[orcmeal]

Does anybody have Hero Lab GM builds for the encounters in PFS #7-05 School of Spirits? I checked PFSprep. Thanks!

[HintOfBlu]

These are great! Thank y'all!

[PFWiki Scribe]

Just wanted to make folks aware of the "Recurring characters, concepts, and locations" update to PathfinderWiki that relates tangentially to the GM Shared Prep thread. I first introduced the project on the boards HERE, and have since competed seasons 1-7.

Basically, the listings allow you to see if a person, place, or thing appears in another Paizo publication, with other PFSRG scenarios listed first. GMs may find it useful for tracing thematic threads, or simply as a place to look up where further info on a given subject can be found.

Please feel free to post ideas for improvements/corrections in the thread I linked to above.

[Gary Pepper]

PFWiki Scribe wrote:

Just wanted to make folks aware of the "Recurring characters, concepts, and locations" update to PathfinderWiki that relates tangentially to the GM Shared Prep thread. I first introduced the project on the boards HERE, and have since competed seasons 1-7.

Basically, the listings allow you to see if a person, place, or thing appears in another Paizo publication, with other PFSRG scenarios listed first. GMs may find it useful for tracing thematic threads, or simply as a place to look up where further info on a given subject can be found.

Please feel free to post ideas for improvements/corrections in the thread I linked to above.

That is amazing thank you for this cross reference of related events and characters. I have always wanted to do more about lady foxglove.

[Pirate Rob]

As a note I've always found the wiki an invaluable part of my prep. It lets me learn about background and gives me the ability to answer background questions rather than just saying "outside the scope of the adventure"

[Hmm]

+1

I use the Wiki all the time so that I can get a sense of the setting where I am for a specific adventure!

Hmm

[Pirate Rob]

pfsprep.com is now updated with the remainder of season 8, the GenCon scenarios for season 9 and the Starfinder offerings.

Now we just need scenarios to drop so people can start filling them with wonderful prep.