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I am trying to establish a place for both Player's as well as DM's that are interested in or currently playing/running open PFS games here on the these boards. In general, there are a lot more players than there are DM's, but in an effort to perhaps create a place so that people may be able to locate others, please feel free to post, noting your interest. Introduce yourselves, and if you are looking to play or run a game, drop a mention.
I'll also share a few tips and instructions, for those that are interested in trying it out but not sure how to, on things you may find helpful.
If you are interested, like I said, just drop your name, and we will see where this goes. If you are about to start running a game and willing to seat a few other players, let others know. Or if you are knew to the game, maybe others will be willing to help introduce you.
Also, if you have some experience with online play, (preferably PbP, but all styles), I'm interested in hearing some of the difficulties you have encountered relating to that form of play. For example, forms of cheating, or not being able to confirm if a player is entitled to a "shirt reroll", how you dealt with it, and what you might like to see done about it.
Hi, I'm a burgeoning hopeful PFS GM. I would be completely willing to start GMing but funds are extremely tight and I do not own any of the modules.
That said, I think it would be a neat idea if there was some central repository of Google Drive Drawings with maps that GMs have made that other GMs could use. Not just maps but any of the various electronic things (custom drawn faction letters, NPCs, etc.). Would be a great resource to help gain new GMs as well as make the game more cohesive and better for players.
I wonder how much PbP PFS GM shortage there is actually, does anyone know a rough estimate?
I checked the Google Drive link, which is very nice and looks like lots of hard word; though with all these assets (maps, mobs, etc.) a PbP GM would still need to have the complete PFS module to run - yes?
I am interested in doing some PbP PFS GMing. But for me personally, time constraints to gather the 'know-how' to run a decent game, just leaves me short.
It would be great if there was a step by guide, written by a vet PbP PFS GM, with links and pics. If it were concise and easy enough, and people saw how easy it is, we might get a flood of GMs
Ala:
1. advertise here... (details)
2. create game here... (details)
3. when to use copy/paste, when to narrate your own
4. PP, GP, Fame, Chronicles
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Here are some step by step instructions and tips. :)
Once you have established this, and gotten a few players, (you will find that you will often have way too many players and need to decide who is in or out), you will have the option to "Create and Link to a Game thread" at the very top of the first post. I personally would wait to do so until you know for sure what you are going to be running, and who is actually going to be playing. Also, it allows you a little bit of time to begin to prep for the game. I've downloaded a free program called FoxIt Reader, that allows me to copy individual sections from a PDF, so for example I can copy a single picture from a PDF page. I take the character pictures from the scenario, and the monster pictures from the scenario and Bestiary, copy them, then open Paint, paste them, shrink it down, and then save the file into one location. I also copy a great deal of the text from the scenario's that is supposed to be read to players. Once you decide that, you can create the other thread, which will be in THIS area, and will become linked if you wish. If you do link them, you will see a display at the top of each page with tabs "Campaign Info", "Gameplay", "Discussion", "Recruitment",
"Players", and "Character", which will make it easier for you later to simply click on the tab when you need.
For me, I find that Google Pictures works by far the best of any free map-maker, as well as gives an easy way to show character portraits. Again, using Foxit Reader, I will just copy the map straight out of the scenario, and post it up as a Google Drawing. I then include the pictures of the Player Characters, and any monsters or NPC's they may encounter. Once you have the Google Drawing, I save it so that anyone with the link may edit, and this means that the players can actually move themselves on the map.
When you click on that, another window should open up, just select Drawings. Yet another window should open up, with a blank background that is colored like a chess board.
You should also see options:
untiltled drawing
file, edit, view, insert,. . .
Select the Insert option, and when the drop-down box opens, select Image. A small window will open asking you to locate the image you want to insert, (the map picture right now, but later all of the PC's, NPC's, and Monsters to, using the same steps). Simply select the blue button "Choose an Image to Upload", and then find your picture.
Once it is uploaded, just stretch it out (manually) so it takes up the full area. From there, Select File, on the page itself, not on the top options bar, then select Share. Go ahead and name the drawing whatever you want, (it really doesn't matter), and then the options for who can access and edit it will come up in another window, as well as the url (go ahead and copy/paste that somewhere for later). I personally like to set the options to View - "Anyone with the Link" and Access - "Can Edit".
At this point, I begin to cover up the sections of the map I do not want them to see yet, such as later rooms, or hidden areas. Note that one of the reasons I use Foxit Reader to copy the picture is because it just selects the basic map, but does NOT copy any of the special DM notes such as the locations of traps or the numbers and letters that the scenario utilizes.
Select View, and zoom into the map fairly close, just so as you edit, you can get pretty specific. You can either Insert and select Shapes[b], or you can just push the hot button (I'm not sure what they are actually called ha ha), that looks like a darker square with a circle at the top left (just below the "A" in Arrange option), and find an appropriate shape for what you want. For example, a square if you want to black out a square shaped room. Resize the shape to what you want, and then fill it in so it covers completely what you want it to cover. Now if you click on something else on the map, then click on that black square, you can hit Delete and remove it completely, (for when they do get there).
It seems complicated, but honestly, once you get the hang of it, I can honestly do all the maps for a scenario (usually 3-5) completely in under an hour.
For the below, look at my game real fast for an example of what I'm talking about: HERE
and Race line will appear beneath the characters picture every time that character posts. I put in using the URL code from Paizo the link to the Map, so each time I make a post as my DM avatar, a link to the map (which is automatically updated every time) is there for people to use.
If you are not familiar with the Paizo boards codes, just below any post you make is an option that says "How to format your text" with a button that says SHOW. Push that and then just glance through the options. Essentially, before and at the end of whatever you want to use the code for you will type in "
With the * being the specific code. So if you want to make something appear bolded, the code will be "[ b ]" and at the end "[ /b ]", (without the spaces).
Feel free to ask any questions you may have, or offer suggestions.
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I have about 20 GMs who say they run PbP. I am sure there are many more who haven't heard about me yet, nor that I'm trying to gather information for an Online GM database.
My plan, in the very near future, is to offer a PbP "gameday" (which is really just a game that starts and should finish by the end of a certain month to qualify) that would see boon support. More on this to come shortly. :)
Nice Beckett
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I've run a handful of PFS scenarios as PbP on the forums here.
It's definitely more work and a larger overall time commitment than running in the store, especially depending on how you do maps (I use Photoshop for mine).
All of the games I've run complete in about 3-4 weeks. I'd say I probably spend 4 hours a week running them, so it's a total commitment of ~15 hours to run a PFS PbP. Running a game in the store takes about 2 hours of prep (I like to draw the maps ahead of time) and obviously the ~4 hours in the store.
I've seen folks tend to roleplay better via PbP, and without an enforceable time limit, they can really do more unscripted things outside the scenario (this is a good thing).
There's definite some best practices a new GM can adopt. For example, I recommend that the GM rolls all Perception/Initiative checks and posts a round summary to kick off combat and for each round of combat.
I make no claims I'm the perfect PFS/PbP GM, but feel free to peek at one of the games for insight into how I run it. I've culled some best practices from over a dozen PbP games I've played in for years.
(That thread starts with Tide of Twilight and follows with God's Market Gamble, so avoid it if you don't want spoilers for those scenarios)
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I agree with Wakedown. As for the Perception/Initiative checks, I am on the fence. On the one hand, that does greatly speed up the game. On the other, as a player, I like to roll for my self as much as possible. When I run a game, I tend to have the player's roll most of the time, and occasionally will roll for them, placing the rolls in a spoiler.
Sometimes, for NPC's, I will roll an actual dice, (offline), or simply roll a d20 without any mods or explanation. Another tactic I have seen is to have everyone roll 1-3 rolls in their first post in the discussion threads, (for Init, Perception, Sense Motive, Saves, and maybe a skill or two that they know will be coming up), and when the time comes, simply use that roll.
Do to deployments, and just some general army stuff, sometimes I can not post for a few days, so my games sometimes last a bit longer, but 3 weeks is a good general time. They also tend to be around the 500 posts mark.
When it comes to Chronicle Sheets, I am still experimenting, myself. In the past what I did was print them out, scan them, with the character's info, and then email them out, but I didn't like the quality. I've been copying them from Adobe to another free program called PDF24 Editor which will allow me to take just one page (chronicle Sheet) and make it it's own PDF file. Save it, open it back up in Adobe and use the free editing options to fill in the blanks, lock it, sign it, and then send that out, which looks so much better, but is a lot more work. I have not looked recently, (last 2+ weeks), but there is something of a PFS legal issue about digitally signed chronicle sheets, and if you do a Google or Paizo Boards search for digital Chronicle Sheets, there are a few posts with links to programs that will create and digitally sign unofficially, official chronicle sheets, but I haven't really looked into it being a cursory view.
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I see an average of 4-7 weeks, but at this point, with a over a dozen PbP's complete, my groups are just a continuation of the same groups or invited players that I know post on a fairly regular basis. Groups of four move much quicker than five or six players. I have had a group of four players finish a scenario in sixteen days, but that was above average posting. Obviously these are players that post multiple times daily.
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Not really.
What issues have you had that made you bring up this question?
As to length of a game. If the DM is on point and the players are fairly regular, 6 weeks is the average. (Don't know where Beckett got 3 weeks, since none of his games were that short ;D )
As for re-rolls, I believe them. Why wouldn't I? One d20 roll is not going to break the game for me.
I am a big fan of the GM rolling the Initiative checks. I also roll player saving throws and some skill checks. I inform players about this before the game starts so they are aware. I have yet had anybody complain to me about it. Finally, I feel my games run very smooth for those extra lines of text.
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When I DM, I will try to group certain monsters together, for ease of play, but will roll players Init normally, and if someone posts early, that's fine, but their action goes in order, and I try to do a sort of end of the round narrative, again in order.
Another tactic I've learned is to place everyone into Initiative Groups. Usually 3, but more or less depending on how many people are involved. so for example, it will look like this:
Aron
Bob
Charlie
Thug 1
David
Thug 2
BBEG
Ed
Thug 3-5
Then I will say that is up, and knows to get their actions ready. A lot of DM's are learning as they go, so feel free to offer suggestions, or speak up if you do not like something. In my experience, most just haven't thought of a better way to do it, but are willing.
Something else I advice, and does help a lot is if the players will begin all of their in-character posts that involve an action with . That makes it a lot easier to put things in order, but is difficult to do from a cell phone, so it doesn't always happen.
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One thing that will happen is that players will disappear. This is a well-known issue for PbP games in general, but it's a problem in PFS where there are issues of player credit involved. I've had a couple of games where one out of six disappeared. Both were season 1, where six were a bit overpowered anyway, so it wasn't a big deal. I've known other games that have had to re-recruit half-way through the game because half the party had disappeared.
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My understanding is, (and I have asked for clarification and never received an official answer), is that as long as they have completed either 3 encounters or more roughly half of the scenario, they receive XP. They do receive a Chronicle Sheet, either way, and if they, (or the party) completes Faction Mission(s) (or received XP if only one), they receive that too, just like if time had run out for a "play slot".
That's what I also tend to do, if it's reasonable. (Traps, Fights, NPC negotiations, are all encounters)
A game that fizzles out, from the GM, well if that's the case then it's probably not going to be reported and/or Chronicle Sheets given.
One small point, as this has happened to me, it does not have to be the DM that actually reports or gives out (and signs off) on Chronicle Sheets. We had a Severing Ties game and the VC or VL running it just vanished. They reported it, (for everyone but me) and would not respond to PM or email, so to avoid everyone else getting left out, I bought the scenario and signed off Chronicles for them.
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I have a simple question I cant seem to find the answer too.
Is it allowable to play a char in BOTH VTT and RL. Meaning I have my cleric/ranger. May I play him in a VTT, get the Chronicle sheet, and apply it as normal, then actually be allowed to use that in my store?
Or is a BTT or PbP char, just that, unable to be used in other ways. My medical condition often leaves me at home, though i must prefer to play at a table.
However if a Char is a Char is a Char, and all things apply together then playing and once I am good at it, GMing online games would be an amazing way for me to fill in those weeks I cant make it.
All in all, I guess I want to know If online play is separated from in person play for some reason, and do you actually gain xp and a full chronicle sheet that can be printed and added to my char for play at the table.
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Hey StarcryX,
You do indeed get all the benefits of a Chronicle if you play an online game, and you can certainly use that character offline if you want to! Of course, you'll need to print out the online Chronicles (or scan in/photograph the offline ones) and make sure everything is updated both online and offline, but there's no other problems, really.
Just keep in mind that if you're involved in a long-term online game (e.g., a play-by-post game) you can't also play that character in a face-to-face (or other online) game. They're effectively locked out of commission until you finish that PbP (or whatever).
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For whatever it's worth, I've been working on an Android app that should hopefully speed up the rate of PbP gameplay, making it a more viable option for some. Unfortunately I will probably charge for it, and also unfortunately it's not ready yet. Parsing the HTML from paizo is kind of a nightmare.
Just wanted to mention it because I hope to release the initial version in two weeks. It will be full of bugs no doubt, but it should still help some.
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As an avid PBPer and semi-internet famous(which doesn't mean anything) I'd like to check in. I do most of my gaming now in PBPs. A few of you know me actually. A PBP moves as fast as people want it to move. If you want to hear fast, I've been known to run Mists of Mwangi in 8 days, but for me the average is 2 weeks. I like active games, slow ones disinterest me.
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Well in that case, everyone was able to post at similar times so we'd get into small sprees and they were playing low tier with some 2s and a 5.
The important thing is your shared expectations. If everyone agrees to post whenever possible(meaning more than 1/24 hours) things can progress really quickly. I am also in the camp of rolling reactive checks like perception/initiative/saves which speed things up. And as far as dungeon crawls go which MoM kinda is, I summarize non-important rooms with what kind of stuff they find based on perception checks and move on to the next one.
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Part of it is responsiveness, part of it is style. Some people are put off when you rush them through too fast. I avoid that, but have had players off because they thought even I was rushing through too fast. I've also had players put off because of things going too slow.
To me, if you summarize the rooms that don't have anything particularly in them so as to get on to the next action bit, you're losing too much of the experience of playing an RPG. It may be a valuable tradeoff, if you don't want your game to be too slow, but it's not one I'd prefer to make myself.
As for responsiveness: if you have people who are able to respond multiple times a day, and are all online, yeah, a PbP can move along pretty well. You need to find a group of players who are able to do that. Much more common is people who can post at most once a day. Then, when you get into combat, it can take a few days to complete just one round, depending on the phasing of when people are available. If one person doesn't log in, that can hang things up for a few days. To work around that, you either need to make sure you have players who won't do that, or you need to be willing to enforce a "24-hour rule", whereby players who don't post actions for their characters simply don't get to act in that round. Even then, this only works if it's occasional. If you have one or two characters not acting every round because they don't keep up, it doesn't matter how fast you as GM want to go, the game's just going to break down, with half the players not actually playing.
Every group is different. However, I would say based on my extensive experience that two weeks to complete a PFS scenario is extremely fast, and is an outlier in the distribution. Very, very few PbP games will actually accomplish that. Two to three months seems to be more typical. If either the GM or players gets slow to respond, it can drag beyond that.
(I just completed one scenario that took five months to complete. Ugh! And, now that I'm posting chronicles, it sounds like only two of the five players are even still online. The rest were "sort of" there for the last combat, but have vanished. Another problem with PbP; players can (and too often do) simply disappear in the middle of the scenario.)
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Interesting. What does this app do, D-Kal?
Right now it just interfaces with the paizo boards, essentially acting as a single-purpose dedicated browser. It helps for making text more readable (my mobile browser makes it too small to read, and then I have to zoom in and then scroll back and forth), as well as making posting faster (I am including quick-action buttons such as "ooc", a dice composer, "speech", "thought", etc). Right off the bat this will allow people on Android devices to stop saying things like "posting from phone, someone roll for me" or "will post when I get to a computer".
Later I will add a notification service to let players know in semi-real-time when they have new posts in their games, and then add things like interactive map support, "buzz" notifications to alert a player that you are waiting on them, and more.
Eventually I hope to have it backed by my own servers to make a fully persistent gaming experience whereby players can log on at their convenience, meaning it's a PbP when not everyone is on, and it's a VTT when they are. I would add automatic reporting and character profile registration/management from in-app, add resource trackers for everything from HP to spells to Prestige to arrows, etc. But that's going to be months away and going to require a lot of money (so I don't starve to death or get evicted).
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A lot of the problems with PBP people have been talking about in this thread are only problems because we allow them to be. As a player and DM in many swiftly moving and complete PBPs I can tell you the key is the hold everyone to a higher standard. The excuse of 'This is PBP we you just have to deal with people posting infrequently' only flies if you let it.
The moment we start holding each other accountable is the moment PBP as a medium can evolve. Play by post is no different than playing face to face or playing in a chat room. When you're committing to a game, you're committing to three to six other people and you owe it to them to keep up as much as you can. If you can't post more than once a day but everyone else can (and wants to) perhaps you should step away and find another game better suited to your posting availability.
dot
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In case anyone is still following this, I thought I would post an update to let people know that my app is on the market. You can find it here. It has very basic functionality for reading and drafting posts right now, but I hope to add more in the future.
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Let me add, one thing this app does very well is to allow you to scan very quickly all the games you are currently in (or have as active) and see which ones have new posts all at once, (including any subfolders, like Discussion or Campaign). That by itself is a really great feature, rather that trying to go through each and every game ne at a time to see if anything has changed. from touching the icon to opening the app, it is an average of about 5 seconds, give or take, to load and it's al right there.
Also for posting, the hotkeys are pretty amazing, and very easy. I almost wish that there was a similar app just for the message boards. :)
Now, that being said, if you are not playing in games through the Paizo message boards, (and I would guess through the right forums), it will not help you. They do not have to be specifically PFS games, either. Any game works, as long as it's in your message board's "Campaigns Tab", as far as I can tell.
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Hey D-Kal, I bought the app just yesterday. It's good stuff!
A few random comments (using Google Nexus S with latest Android OS - yeah it's a little old :P)...
- At one point it started refusing to load ANYTHING. I had to manually kill the process and restart it before it would load again. I can't pinpoint a cause, either - I'd just opened it back up again after looking at something in the web browser and nothing at all would work.
- It would also often randomly crash when I tried to open it up again after pressing the home button and doing other things before going back to it. Again, can't really pinpoint a reason. It would just give me the "Wayfinder has stopped working" error message... and then work fine right after.
- It'd be nice if we could add select non-campaign threads to follow, even just ones we've posted in. Or, better yet, the entire forum! I love to browse the Paizo forums on my phone but posting can be a real pain in the arse. This might not be very feasible though.
- I realise this is a really basic functionality version at the moment, but the UI needs some polish ;)
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I have had similar issues and D-Kal has been fantastic with updates that have fixed issues. I couldnt use it at all originally but its getting better and better.
Something that may help is if you (through Paizo) either select games that are over as Inactive in the Campaign section, or for games other people have run, request that the DM remove your character from the Characters tab and also your main avatar from the Players tab. This should remove those games from you list.
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@Alice - I've considered making it a full Paizo browser. What I'd like to do is add swiping left and right from the campaigns screen to see other kinds of threads you're in (like recruitment threads, advice threads, etc). That's going to be quite a bit of work though.
I'm aware of the bugs you mentioned as well. It's actually just that I haven't coded the app to handle saving and re-loading the instance state. This is a basic thing all apps should have, but I'm rather pressed for time, so right now I'm focusing on making it work for people who are there for good, rather than switching in & out of it.
Next release I'll be fixing a bug with posting that some users have reported. I will probably also try to add page navigation functionality as well as timestamps in that release.
And yes, I know the UI needs some polish, but I've not had any time to get creative with graphics. What I need is some kind of graphic artist or something. I can do crazy magic with UI elements in Android, but actually making the .png resource files... I'm just not an artist. Hopefully I'll have time to draft & implement something for version 2! Probably a few months away though.
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I just wanted to post her with the saying that I am looking for a play-by-post group as a new player to Pathfinder was considerable experience in AD&D 2nd, D&D 3 and D&D 3.5.
Welcome! I think you're in the right place. Browse around the Recruitment forum and have a look for any games you're interested in. Keep in mind that GMs will likely have their own house rules, stat generation methods, and settings, so all I can do is suggest that you be open to adapting the character you want to play. :) Unless you're looking for PFS, in which case go wild.
Is Google+ and Google Hangout the same thing? Does it imply voice chat or play-by-post?
Google Hangouts run through Google+, so, yes. And it is voice chat. Typically not video chat, but it's a potential as well.
As for the topic of those "Chronicle Sheets" that was debated earlier in this thread: Have you considered the possibility of a digital signature? Every GM could publish a public PGP key on their character page, leave the Sheet in a purely digital form (without printing and re-scanning) and simply send a signature along with it. That may sound more complicated than doing it the old fashioned way to someone not familiar with PGP, but it really is a simple matter.
An alternative to properly sign PDF files with the mechanism that is implied in the format would require an x509 certificate. But I believe there are a lot Certificate Authorities that provide them for personal use for free, as long as you don't want an actual smartcard, but just the plain certificate...
Regards,
Feuerrabe
Interesting idea for sure, but probably a little too technical for most of the GMs around here... :) Especially considering many of them will print out the Chronicles and sign them with ink before scanning them again!
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If you're still interested in PFS PbP, check out the first official PbP game day coming up in early October!