Nidome |
Michael Brock wrote:Could we get it on the chronicle sheets going forward?Mistwalker wrote:As much as I would like to, we (Paizo) don't have the time to go back and add that to more than 130 Chronicle Sheets.Mike,
Can we get a small line added to the chronicle sheets?
"Purchased items: __________ gp"It would likely be neater than various scrawls, may address some of the comments/concerns raised in the various threads, and hopefully ensure that all the GMs and players know that they only need to enter the gp value on that line and not record every purchase in notes section.
Personally I'd rather not as I still intend to list all of my purchases on there. Just having a total like that will severely slow down any audit that involves checking purchases, listing them will speed it up and I'm willing to spend the extra time if I believe that there is a genuine benefit to it.
Greasitty |
Mike, thanks very much for responding so actively to our feedback. I just wanted to chime in to say that being allowed to make our own variation of the ITS to our own needs and ability completely voids my concerns. I can print them out when possible, and make a nice one on paper with a pen in those more usual housebound times. That makes all the difference.
Bardez |
ZomB |
As a player I like it. It improves my tracking of what I have and at a time when I need it - and not when I later trawl through old character sheets and find stuff I didn't know I had - and helps stop me from buying the exact same slotted item twice (yup I've done this).
It also formalises that I buy stuff away from the table and just turn up with my completed shopping list - which has met with occasionally variable GM reaction in the past. It should therefore save table time.
As a GM it might help me look at major items at a glance and see what the PCs force multipliers are, and identify odd items I am not familiar with. The standard(ish) list format should make this straighforward rather than trying to read these from multiple parts of a custom character sheet (which therefore doesn't happen).
Many (most?) players' ITS will likely be an electronic copy that is continually updated and reprinted. Therefore it doesn't help with the perceived issue of consumables that are never actually consumed. Though all items being used will have to be on the ITS once. Also items could "accidentally" change over time with each reprint as long as the total is in line.
The most useful ITS to me as a player would group simlar items together no matter when they were bought. Electronically sorted ITS will likely be commonplace. This will put purchases in a random chronicle order and make auditing harder - though as auditing is extremely rare and player use is common - this seems acceptable.
The ITS really only comes into its own for players, GMs and audit purposes if the entire PC history is on it. Only for PCs started from 14th August. It won't be as useful for older PCs. Not sure how useful, but certainly not as useful.
There appears to be a risk the ITS could become rather big and sprawling over time, and partially self-defeating, especially if it is hand written or the PC uses a lot of consumables.
Romaq |
Scroll, scroll... DAMN MY EYEBALLS!
If someone has a link for an 'editable PDF' of the Inventory Tracker, or if Paizo could do something even more beautiful and put an editable ITS in their next update of the Rulesbook (or stuff it in the .zip), that would be a beautiful thing.
1) It looks like we can scare up our own ITS in a spreadsheet. I have spreadsheets mapping my inventory to containers, and I even have nested containers for organization... my merchant tools are in a "Merch" bag I keep in my Handy Haversack, the spreadsheet properly accounts for nested weight between sheets. It looks like all I really have to do is make a "Chron Sheet #" comment field for "date of purchase". If I have something that works happy for me, I'll see about shoving the spreadsheet into the community PFS drive for review and use by others if desired.
2) Hero Lab is working on containers. Eventually. Maybe. Once that happens, my spreadsheets won't be as useful because I can have Hero Labs do that work for me. Would someone have ideas they can suggest to Hero Lab on how to tie larger purchases to the Journal Entry for Chronical Sheets, and when they have container print-outs, have the container print show the title of the journal entry it is tied to? I would love, love love Hero Lab to print my ITS for me. I bought Hero Lab so I wouldn't have to deal with these kinds of issues. It mostly does that just fine. Having Hero Lab produce my ITS for me would be glorious. I'll do ITS because it is necessary, but I want my focus on the game, not the "bean counting" because too many OTHER people find a need to be dishonest.
3) I plan to have my prior game's inventory handy, print off new inventory sheets and print the grocery list of what I'd like to buy. When the game starts and I am allowed to get gear, I want to hand all three to the GM, let him review it and "rubber stamp" the purchase on the NEW chron sheet so I can go ahead and use the stuff I found on Hero Lab complete with the text that describe how it works and the stats. My handwriting in that tiny space on the chron sheets does not help. I expect things to get "strange", because we won't have time for this before the game, we won't have time for this during the game, and after the game all anyone wants to think about is going home. So I hope there is a great deal of patience on both sides of the GM screen, because it will be needed.
Tamago RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16 |
Chris Mortika wrote:And if they are 16 different potions, just so I can make sure I have the exact right answer for every problem, including in this scenario we are about to play. No need to check and make sure I actually purchased them, correct?I can't speak for Calybos1, Mike, but the 16 potions and 14 scrolls don't strike me as odd at all (for spellcasters). I'd ask about the 3rd-leel wands.
Are they written on the player's character sheet? If so, I'd give the player the benefit of the doubt and assume he actually spent the gold.
Tamago RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16 |
Step 1: Player shows up with ITS Sheet
Step 2: GM Glances at it to ensure no red flags jump out
Step 3: GM says, "ok, when I hand out the chronicles, make sure you put the note indicating how much was spent on this ITS sheet"
Step 4: Play
Step 5: GM fills out and signs chronicle sheets like normal.
Step 6: Player writes note on chronicle sheet for purchases on ITS sheet.
This is the way it should be. It most closely mirrors the way things are *actually done* at real PFS tables, while still incorporating the ITS for ease of GM review.
Scott Romanowski |
I've just skimmed previous posts so I may have missed this.
With an electronic ITS, we track the purchases on the Chronicle and the GM signs it. E.g., "Buy ITS lines 45-49, 2450gp, 2PP". I think we'd also need to track expenditures if we want to prevent a player from accidentally or intentionally forgetting to update those parts of the ITS when printing out a new copy. So the player should write something like "Expend ITS lines 4, 15, 21. Line 24, used 3 charges; 27, used 10 charges; 32, used 1 copy" (the last line would be for a scroll with multiple copies of a spell).
Do that make sense?
thistledown Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East |
Chris Lambertz Digital Products Assistant |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The character sheet and inventory sheets (with a fillable version) are now available as a download here.
thistledown Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East |
thistledown Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East |
Chris Lambertz Digital Products Assistant |
thistledown Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East |
MisterSlanky |
I had a very interesting experience this weekend, and one that was eye opening (I haven't done this in a very long time).
I ran the Blakros Matrimony and prior to play I asked for character sheets and chronicles of all the players at the table. I did this not as an audit, but rather in an attempt to a) get a sense of whether players had participated in the Blakros quests to increase the interaction in the scenario and b) make sure that I tempered <redacted climax> to their level of capability fighting that specific creature(s).
It turns out that in 5 of the 6 cases (the 6th being a set of chronicles I personally supervised), the contents were consistently a mess. One character accidentally (truly accidentally, he was apologetic and corrected it on the spot) bought a weapon he did not have the fame to own. At least two of the characters were missing key critical chronicle information (such as PFS/character number and/or name). Several did not have any of their gold expenditures listed on the right side of the page and only one actually had all equipment purchased listed on their chronicles. Finally not all chronicles earned were present. All-in-all, due to both GM and player inaction, both the chronicles, and player character sheets were questionable. I ran the game anyway, but it did concern me.
I've not been ultra-vocal about concerns, but I have indicated that I'm worried about the extra time this could/would add to the game day. While I'm still up in the air on that side of the topic, the state of these chronicles has turned me from opposed to the new system to fully in support. If my random spot audit of five players yielded 80% poor results, the change was/is needed, even if this was an outlier. In fact, it turned me on to even the possibility of more frequent spot audits as well (perhaps one a game day). We as both players and GMs need to get better with this recordkeeping, and I see that now.
kinevon |
Apologies if this has been asked before but... do I have to go back and fill in the ITS from my existing chronicles for all of my characters?
That will be a lot of work. I have 7 characters of level 13, 11, 10, 8, 8, 8, and 2 (the level 2 I'm not worried about).
It has been noted as optional for older chronicles, but required starting on the 15th for all characters.
rknop |
I've not been ultra-vocal about concerns, but I have indicated that I'm worried about the extra time this could/would add to the game day. While I'm still up in the air on that side of the topic, the state of these chronicles has turned me from opposed to the new system to fully in support. If my random spot audit of five players yielded 80% poor results, the change was/is needed, even if this was an outlier. In fact, it turned me on to even the possibility of more frequent spot audits as well (perhaps one a game day). We as both players and GMs need to get better with this recordkeeping, and I see that now.
Almost certainly it's not an outlier. I don't know if most character records are that bad, but they're certain so common that it's not just a few people who haven't kept up.
And, the problem is worse than you think. The changes won't fix anything. Already it was the rule that GMs were only supposed to sign chronicle sheets once the right side was filled out, and that characters were supposed to keep them up to date. Nothing on that has changed in the rules, so I don't know why we should expect anything to change on that in the practice.
Nothing that's been done will encourage GMs to actually do things right (i.e. only sign off on fully completed sheets, look at character sheets and chronicle records). Given that, most GMs still won't be doing these things. The rare GM that decides to do so is going to be faced with what you're faced with: potentially even up to hours of work of trying to figure out and get all characters' records into order, cancelling a game because there aren't enough legal and documented characters present (the documentation being the issue), running with all pregens, or just allowing things to slide and going ahead anyway.
Unless it becomes standard for GMs to refuse to let characters to play unless their documentation is close to complete, the rare GM who does that is going to get a reputation as a real ogre-- even though they are the ones doing it right and following the rules.
It's a real problem. I fear the only real way to deal with it is either only to play with players you always play with and thus that you can make sure their records are in order (as you saw with that one), or just be lax and allow players to get by without showing all of their documentation. In practice, the latter is what happens right now-- even more so, because so few GMs even ask to see the documentation at all.
Jiggy RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32 |
The changes won't fix anything.
Actually, I suspect they'll help, and here's why:
We both know that most people don't read the rules - instead, when they join the game they learn from experience and from what they're told. Used to be, a new player would be handed their first chronicle sheet and they'd ask what it was.What are they told?
"This is your record of having played this adventure. It shows you how much gold and Prestige you got for it, and also you can buy any of these items as soon as you have enough gold to do so."
That's it.
If the player examines the chronicle they might notice the "Items Bought" section, but since it's outside what they were told, they'll probably assume it's optional (and we both know they won't read that part of the Guide - or even if they do, they'll give their experiential learning precedence over what they read). So that's where it stops.
Now, as you noted, the ITS doesn't actually change anything - at least not technically. But it does change presentation. The GM description of what the chronicle sheet is for (above) won't change, but then the GM hands them their first ITS.
"What's this?"
It's gonna be pretty hard for the GM to answer that question without making a first impression of "you're supposed to track your purchases", and that first impression of expectations is what's important.
Now, not every GM will hand out an ITS to a new player, but there's another "chance" for them to notice it: it's right next to the character sheet in the Guide. When a new player checks out the Guide, they're not reading about purchase tracking: they're reading about factions and how many build points they get.
They're also printing out the character sheet.
None of that will have them accidentally see the purchasing rules, but printing the character sheet is hard to do without noticing the ITS right next to it.
"Hey, what's that page after the character sheet in the Guide?"
No, the ITS doesn't change how things work. But I suspect it will make existing rules more visible, leading to more new players being made aware early on. I think that will help.
Bbauzh ap Aghauzh |
And frankly, it is the responsibility of the leadership (myself included) of the campaign to make sure that players are being educated on the rules. Based on what MisterSlanky said, it appears that the veteran players and GM's and the V-O's (including MisterSlanky when he was V-C of the Twin Cities) were lax in making sure this was taught correctly.
David Bowles |
I suspect that every region will have their own tendencies in this area. I'm a bit OCD, so it's likely that I'll convert all my PCs over to the sheets.
For GMing, I have to admit that I've never looked inventory. However, I've never ran a table where someone had endless consumables or something that seemed out of place for their level. In fact, I've counseled more players on making smart purchases than anything else.
I suppose the inventory sheet makes it a lot easier to analyze someone's purchasing history. If PFS leadership really wants to make this a serious issue, I'll comply, but I've never had cause so far.
pauljathome |
The whole uproar on the boards, together with the new guide and the new sheet, have the chance of raising awareness of the issue.
I know that it has caused me to get my personal chronicle sheets into order and is causing me to try to start following the new rules (which is, of course, mostly following the old rules that weren't being followed) and seeing how difficult that ends up being. I think that there is a fair chance that, after people adapt, it won't really be much harder to follow the rules than to just sign chronicle sheets (which is what I used to do). But I'm carefully watching to see what my actual experience is.
No idea when, if ever, I'll decide its convenient to do spot audits as are recommended (NOT required). Certainly won't happen in general until most or all players have their chronicles and ITS in some kind of order.
Last night, at a table of L1 or L2 newbies, nobody had their chronicle sheets in order. First time they'd been asked. Took next to no time, of course, since they had at most 3 sheets.
I think that is where the biggest gain potentially is. New characters and new players.
rknop |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The whole uproar on the boards, together with the new guide and the new sheet, have the chance of raising awareness of the issue.
Possibly... but I suspect this is one of those cases where it's relevant that only 3% of the player base (or whatever the real number is -- suffice that it is "small") reads the fora.
I would actually predict that many people will be caught by surprise at a random time between 1 and 52 weeks from now when a GM finally asks them for an ITS. The player will respond that they've never heard of such a thing, only to be told that they were supposed to be keeping one since August 2013. The player will respond that no previous GM has said anything about this.
This would more closely match what already goes on with the required paperwork.
Our only hope is that the small number of people motivated to pay attention due to the furor here, together with the other whatever-sized (but probably small) number of people who will actually read the new Guide and discover the ITS for themselves, will be enough to spread the word so that some people know about it. I would not bet that way myself; I would be surprised if it didn't continue to be a mess of players who don't have the documentation they're supposed to have, and GMs who don't give out or check the documentation they're supposed to be giving out. Pleasantly surprised, but surprised.
What I really expect is that a minority of groups in various places, because somebody there cares, will have their stuff in order. Players who mostly or entirely play in one of these groups will be in order. As for the bulk of the population, it will be the rare player who has things in order.
In the online world, I predict PbP players have things in order much more commonly than VTT players. PbP naturally gives itself to a more considered, less time-pressured situation. Already in the VTT community there's a vocal subset who thinks it's unreasonable for GMs even to ask for chronicle sheets, and that it's OK to drop out of games at the last minute and leave tables short because the GM had the audacity to ask for that.
(And if it sounds like I'm being all doomy and gloomy-- years of experience have shown me that predicting people will be lazy and do the minimum that they can do to continue existing in the system they're in is a very safe prediction to make.)
Scott Romanowski |
I wrote a short guide for new players, explaining how to fill out a chronicle sheet. It's intended for after the GM explains everything. That is, it's mainly to remind them what they did and to make it easier for them fill out their second chronicle sheet. I'm open to comments and criticisms for version 3.
I agree with pauljathome that if we get new players doing this it'll show the biggest return.
Todd Lower |
I wrote a short guide for new players, explaining how to fill out a chronicle sheet. It's intended for after the GM explains everything. That is, it's mainly to remind them what they did and to make it easier for them fill out their second chronicle sheet. I'm open to comments and criticisms for version 3.
I agree with pauljathome that if we get new players doing this it'll show the biggest return.
I would add the same kind of document for the ITS for new players. I would think that it would be at least as confusing as the chronicle sheet.
pauljathome |
pauljathome wrote:The whole uproar on the boards, together with the new guide and the new sheet, have the chance of raising awareness of the issue.Possibly... but I suspect this is one of those cases where it's relevant that only 3% of the player base (or whatever the real number is -- suffice that it is "small") reads the fora.
But the percentage of VOs who noticed is likely a lot higher. And hopefully they'll use their influence to try and change their local cultures.
I know that the VC up here is doing exactly that. In the 2 PFS sessions held Sunday and Tuesday clear announcements about the ITS were made.
There will doubtless be a lot of regional variation. And it definitely remains to be seen how successful the efforts to change local culture will end up being. But I'm more optimistic than you are.
MisterSlanky |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And frankly, it is the responsibility of the leadership (myself included) of the campaign to make sure that players are being educated on the rules. Based on what MisterSlanky said, it appears that the veteran players and GM's and the V-O's (including MisterSlanky when he was V-C of the Twin Cities) were lax in making sure this was taught correctly.
I would like to point out they were all new players from after my era. ;-)
Funky Badger |
After session 1 I buy 3 Potions of Mage Armour.
During Session 2 I use two of them.
After Session 2 I buy 2 Potions of Mage Armour (I like to have three at the start of a session).
How I currently record that is 1 line on my sheet with the number of potions next to.
Would I now need five lines on the ITS, one for each individual potion?
Todd Lower |
After session 1 I buy 3 Potions of Mage Armour.
During Session 2 I use two of them.
After Session 2 I buy 2 Potions of Mage Armour (I like to have three at the start of a session).How I currently record that is 1 line on my sheet with the number of potions next to.
Would I now need five lines on the ITS, one for each individual potion?
Remember, this is just a tool, you need to note somewhere that you have used two potions, and replaced them. I would probably put on my chronicle sheet that I replaced two potions expended give the cost of gp's spent and reference the ITS line number.
thejeff |
After session 1 I buy 3 Potions of Mage Armour.
During Session 2 I use two of them.
After Session 2 I buy 2 Potions of Mage Armour (I like to have three at the start of a session).How I currently record that is 1 line on my sheet with the number of potions next to.
Would I now need five lines on the ITS, one for each individual potion?
That's probably the best way to handle it on the ITS. A better approach is probably needed, but none comes to mind.
Remember that the correct current way to handle it would be write on each Chronicle how many potions you bought and how many you used. You can (and probably should) also track the current number on your character sheet, but before the ITS, the Chronicle was the official record.
FLite Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento |
Funky Badger |
Funky Badger wrote:After session 1 I buy 3 Potions of Mage Armour.
During Session 2 I use two of them.
After Session 2 I buy 2 Potions of Mage Armour (I like to have three at the start of a session).How I currently record that is 1 line on my sheet with the number of potions next to.
Would I now need five lines on the ITS, one for each individual potion?
That's probably the best way to handle it on the ITS. A better approach is probably needed, but none comes to mind.
Remember that the correct current way to handle it would be write on each Chronicle how many potions you bought and how many you used. You can (and probably should) also track the current number on your character sheet, but before the ITS, the Chronicle was the official record.
Currently make a note of any bought (but not those drunk) on the chronicle sheet and keep a tally of those available on the character sheet.
wakedown |
Here's how I dealt consumable stacks and their use on the new ITS.
Say, for example, I bought 3 alchemist's fires on session #1. I would add a single row showing I bought them on session #1.
Say I throw 2 during session #3. I actually wrote "3,3" in the expended box (tiny, mind you).
Then, if I buy two more at the end of the session, I add a new row for buying those two.
When I throw that last, final one (say, in session #5) that I bought in session #1, I add ",5" in the expended box.
It seems to work out OK as long as the quantity we're talking about is ~3-4.
I figured if I bought a stack of more than 4, I'd actually simply put a * or ** or *** in the expended box, and then in the margin at the bottom, I'd have a key for that where I record the session number and the quantity expended in parenthesis.
* = S#3 (2), S#5 (4), S#7 (3)
It's not perfect, but it's workable. :)
Scott Romanowski |
Imagine an electronic ITS (eITS) that has columns for charges/uses bought and remaining, and that you could filter to show only those items you still have. You could then sort it to put all the lines of "potions of mage armor" together. You use that as your inventory on the character sheet. If each line of the eITS had a reference number, then you could quickly go back to the correct line of the eITS to mark off expended items.
You could do this with a handwritten ITS (hITS) if each line of the hITS was numbered. Your inventory would have a line like "potion of mage armor *3 (13, 34)" to show the two sources. In this case, you may want to write the items expended on the Chronicle sheet, and -- instead of just checking off charges -- mark them off with the chronicle number.
ETA: wakedown had the same idea
Funky Badger, if we're trying to track purchases, unless you track expenditures, what's to detect a careless player who bought six potions of mage armor at level 3, is now 9th level, remembers using some of them but not sure if it was 3, 4, 5, or 6. Or a necklace of fireballs. I've had one time where I've noted an item used but not updated my inventory. Luckily I remembered I used the item as I was preparing for the next scenario.
SCPRedMage |
When it comes to tracking bulk consumables, what I did for my alchemist is simply use the consumables section to track the number used, not purchased; as an example, so far, over the course of his career he's used 21 vials of alchemist's fire, so in the consumables section I have a line for alchemist's fire with 21 check boxes marked. If you go over his chronicle sheets, you'll find he's made 30 alchemist's fires, and thus should have nine left.
Jiggy RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32 |
SCPRedMage |
SCPRedMage wrote:If you go over his chronicle sheets, you'll find...Isn't the whole point of the ITS to make it so you don't have to go over players' chronicle sheets?
Yeah, except for the part where I'm not going to spend the time to go through all the chronicles of my consumable-heavy level eight alchemist to put everything on an ITS; it's a lot of work that I'm not required to do.
FLite Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento |