RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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So, right now, I am prepping my GenCon scenarios. I am quite pleased at the overall mission, but I also have some reservations. I wanted to start an open thread for discussion of some of these issues.
1) I was under the impression that the product page and scenario description would list the factions present in each scenario, but I see that this is not the case. Is this information something that the GM should withhold, or is it public knowledge? Was this an oversight?
2) How should a GM nudge a player towards finding their faction mission, if at all? There is one particular faction mission that I have recently read which seems to be incomprehensible given the faction's Season 5 goals. There is no prompt for the player to know that this is their faction mission. To me, that is rather frustrating.
3) What shoud be the approximate success rate of new faction missions? From the one I have read, I am guessing somewhere around 1/5. Is that accurate, or am I being too harsh on my players?
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The faction head letters, which should be going out with the Monday blog, note which scenarios might interest members of each faction, similar to what we did with Lantern Lodge and Shadow Lodge faction head letters a few months ago. In addition, the faction head letters will have additional prompts for players with regards to their factions' season goals. As faction goals evolve, change, and are realized, people will begin receiving updates from the faction heads in the same format.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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The faction head letters, which should be going out with the Monday blog, note which scenarios might interest members of each faction, similar to what we did with Lantern Lodge and Shadow Lodge faction head letters a few months ago. In addition, the faction head letters will have additional prompts for players with regards to their factions' season goals. As faction goals evolve, change, and are realized, people will begin receiving updates from the faction heads in the same format.
Should the table GM be prepared to address some of these issues? Give people an INT check to piece it together? I'm just not sure that I can sit there with a straight face and refuse a player this boon when they did everything right IC.
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Developer
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I imagine light prompting might be in order as people get a feel for the new format. Perhaps the best way would be to take two minutes to ask your players if they've heard about the new format, give the 1-minute rundown if they're unfamiliar, then pass out copies of the faction head letters. Hopefully the news combined with the ooc "you might consider playing X if you're Y faction" note at the end of each letter will provide the necessary nudge in the right direction.
In time I hope players will begin printing these out for themselves (or at least reading them without the GM having to do the heavy lifting), but for now you might have the most luck with having a copy of each letter handy.
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Also, a lot of those faction letters get spamfiltered. Not an issue for me, because I watch my filter, but other players may not get them. I don't feel that I can really expect my players to have read their faction head e-mail briefings.
I agree with you, and that's why we learned from the spam messages a few months ago and will altering the way in which those are sent out. Players should be receiving one email that provides them links to all of the letters on these messageboards.
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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I imagine light prompting might be in order as people get a feel for the new format. Perhaps the best way would be to take two minutes to ask your players if they've heard about the new format, give the 1-minute rundown if they're unfamiliar, then pass out copies of the faction head letters. Hopefully the news combined with the ooc "you might consider playing X if you're Y faction" note at the end of each letter will provide the necessary nudge in the right direction.
In time I hope players will begin printing these out for themselves (or at least reading them without the GM having to do the heavy lifting), but for now you might have the most luck with having a copy of each letter handy.
Frankly, I fear that I may not have time to let the PCs read an entire mission from their faction head, and I also fear that I don't have the resources to carry around *that* many 1-page letters. With all due respect, I find the reliance on the letters to be a bit clunky...
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I'm going to re-post what I said in the other thread:
I think this is up to us as GMs to get right. I think we should have a printout of what each factions' goals for the season are and we should have these handy for people to review when we sit down.
Then, I think it is important that we learn how to get a player to spot his chance at a mission, and make sure to give him the opportunity to seize that chance.
I know I will be making this a big part of my prep. And not just for the reason that a faction player will want to get his kudos. I will also be prepping this for the reason that I listed in the other thread: I want that Silver Crusade guy to have the chance to get in there and mess with the Sczarni smuggling network he just discovered when he realizes there is no Sczarni at the table. I think that would be fun for him (and for me as a GM).
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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Another concern: What about those who join the campaign too late to receive their faction e-mail? Will they still be responsible for the contents of it? I find it really hard to tell a newbie that they should have read an e-mail that was sent 4 months before they joined the campaign.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Another concern: What about those who join the campaign too late to receive their faction e-mail? Will they still be responsible for the contents of it? I find it really hard to tell a newbie that they should have read an e-mail that was sent 4 months before they joined the campaign.
This is why we GMs should have a printout of the faction goals. I would also say that we should have it noted on this printout what scenarios each faction should be on the lookout for.
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Another concern: What about those who join the campaign too late to receive their faction e-mail? Will they still be responsible for the contents of it? I find it really hard to tell a newbie that they should have read an e-mail that was sent 4 months before they joined the campaign.
Faction goals for Season 5 are all listed in the 5.0 Guide. New players are expected to read the guide, if not (they are THAT new) then have the conversation when you explain to them what factions are.
Just want to be sure that I am understanding something.
On the chronicle sheets where the boons are listed, if you are not of the faction listed, the GM is to cross off the boon? Or can others gain them if they help that faction achieve their goals?
That is what I was assuming, but if a GM is less than attentive, they might miss that.
Perhaps they should add in "xxxx faction" somewhere in the boon text
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32
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Another concern: What about those who join the campaign too late to receive their faction e-mail? Will they still be responsible for the contents of it? I find it really hard to tell a newbie that they should have read an e-mail that was sent 4 months before they joined the campaign.Faction goals for Season 5 are all listed in the 5.0 Guide. New players are expected to read the guide, if not (they are THAT new) then have the conversation when you explain to them what factions are.
The faction mission which I am concerned about does not advance the goal put forth in the GtoP.
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I like the new faction missions (at least, the 1 that I've seen).
Clearly, all of the new faction letters will go into my store binder. I think that I'll need a bigger binder soon :-)
One thing I request. Please VERY CLEARLY label the new faction letters with what range of scenarios they are applicable for. At the top or bottom of the letter itself. A year or 2 from now I'm going to probably have 3 or 4 different letters and it needs to be VERY clear which ones go with which scenarios.
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Developer
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As a public service announcement to GMs, #5-01 The Glass River Rescue does not explicitly state that only members of the featured factions receive the respective boons in the Faction Notes section. It should say such. Those boons are for members of the respective factions only.
This is not an issue for the other two scenarios released yesterday, but please be advised that this is the intention for these faction-related goals and their boons.
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Not having seen any of the season 5 scenarios yet (other than the special, which I'll be GMing at GenCon), I'm already not liking what I'm seeing in this thread.
Are you saying that the emails sent this Monday will be the only hint to players that particular scenarios have stuff specific to their faction? That's really a lousy way to distribute information.
Personally, having characters in almost every faction, I just tried to do my faction missions and completely forgot about the season long goals for season 4. I can't imagine season 5 being much different, except that there are no faction mission handouts.
And especially if there's going to be special boons if you play a particular faction PC in a particular scenario, it would be nice to know that in advance, so we can use that information when deciding which character to play. For the final Shadow Lodge and Lantern Lodge scenarios, that wasn't a problem, because everyone was talking about it for months in advance. But if this type of thing is on every scenario, I think we'll need a better way of distributing the information.
Putting it in the product description would be the obvious solution.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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Not having seen any of the season 5 scenarios yet (other than the special, which I'll be GMing at GenCon), I'm already not liking what I'm seeing in this thread.
Are you saying that the emails sent this Monday will be the only hint to players that particular scenarios have stuff specific to their faction? That's really a lousy way to distribute information.
[. . .]
And especially if there's going to be special boons if you play a particular faction PC in a particular scenario.
I'm already contemplating what to do about this for Pacificon; we've got people signed up to play season 5 scenarios already. I'm sure Gen Con has as well (and rather more of them), but somebody else will have to think about that.
I know I'd be annoyed if I found out that I'd ended up playing the scenario with the "wrong" character, and missed out on the chance of picking up a faction-specific boon.
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I'm going to re-post what I said in the other thread:
I think this is up to us as GMs to get right. I think we should have a printout of what each factions' goals for the season are and we should have these handy for people to review when we sit down.
Then, I think it is important that we learn how to get a player to spot his chance at a mission, and make sure to give him the opportunity to seize that chance.
I know I will be making this a big part of my prep. And not just for the reason that a faction player will want to get his kudos. I will also be prepping this for the reason that I listed in the other thread: I want that Silver Crusade guy to have the chance to get in there and mess with the Sczarni smuggling network he just discovered when he realizes there is no Sczarni at the table. I think that would be fun for him (and for me as a GM).
I hope each table at EG this Monday will have time to discuss this new format. I still find it a bit confusing.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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I hope each table at EG this Monday will have time to discuss this new format. I still find it a bit confusing.
Different = Confusing. Right there with you, my friend. (-:
Don't worry; we'll cover this a few times in the next month so everyone understands. I'll need all you guys explaining it to your table-mates as you play during the next few months, as well, so that "different" eventually becomes "normal."
See you Monday.
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I know from experience with Rivalrys End and Way of Kirin that faction specific scenarios can be quite frustrating for both players and GMs as everyone tries to line up character X with scenario Y to get a boon. It is doubly frustrating when players sit at a table to play the scenario and then realize they will never get the really cool boon since this character is the wrong faction and their correct faction character may not be the right level at that time to play the scenario. For a couple of retirement scenarios it was workable. If a similar format is being set out for an entire season then I foresee a lot of unhappy players when they miss out on boons and a lot of unhappy GMs as they struggle to accommodate players of correct factions and levels for specific scenarios.
Another issue I have witnessed is that even with a faction mission immediately in hand it is often unclear for players as to what their faction mission is supposed to be. As a GM I often look at faction missions and realize that some absurd assumptions by whoever wrote the mission have been made. Also, many GMs tend to make some of the simplest faction missions overly complicated simply because they don't think that players should be able to easily accomplish faction missions.
PFS missions need to be fun. They need to be designed to be played in a slot for Cons and in game stores. They need to not be unnecessarily complicated. They should also be fun for all of the players for various factions to play. Players and GMs do not want more paperwork before a game starts. It reduces game time which equals reducing fun time.
I simply ask for designers to not make this overly complicated. This new mechanic may work fine but it needs to be tested before you sink too much into it.
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I know from experience with Rivalrys End and Way of Kirin that faction specific scenarios can be quite frustrating for both players and GMs as everyone tries to line up character X with scenario Y to get a boon. It is doubly frustrating when players sit at a table to play the scenario and then realize they will never get the really cool boon since this character is the wrong faction and their correct faction character may not be the right level at that time to play the scenario.
Based on the only 5th Season Scenario I've seen the faction boons are cool, thematic and interesting but not all THAT powerful. They are definitely less powerful than the faction missions for Rivalry's End or Way of the Kirin. While I think your concern is valid and needs to be monitored I don't expect it to be a huge deal.
I DO see people trying somewhat to get their characters into the "right" scenarios. But that should be a good thing. It certainly looks (no experience yet, obviously) like the scenarios will be more fun to everybody at the table if there are people in the appropriate factions present.
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What i got from the the secundary missions and the new "factions missons" (i would prefer to call it faction opportunities), is the anyone who heard the briefing and know what the faction stands for, could do it. Yes, you have to pay attention to the back story and to the surrounding, but as much as i have read, everything make sense.
Everythink that make the players pay attention to the backstory and study is good in my book.
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I imagine light prompting might be in order as people get a feel for the new format. Perhaps the best way would be to take two minutes to ask your players if they've heard about the new format, give the 1-minute rundown if they're unfamiliar, then pass out copies of the faction head letters. Hopefully the news combined with the ooc "you might consider playing X if you're Y faction" note at the end of each letter will provide the necessary nudge in the right direction.
In time I hope players will begin printing these out for themselves (or at least reading them without the GM having to do the heavy lifting), but for now you might have the most luck with having a copy of each letter handy.
Has anyone organised the 8 letters from the faction heads into a print-friendly format?
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Has anyone organised the 8 letters from the faction heads into a print-friendly format?
I just uploaded something similar to what you are asking for :) Does that work?
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This link is the full text of the missives, nothing too fancy - I find that it gives a more complete idea of what players should be doing. For example, in
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This link is the full text of the missives, nothing too fancy - I find that it gives a more complete idea of what players should be doing. For example, in ** spoiler omitted **
Agreed. I had to think a bit on how the players would know to look for their season goals.
There are a few points in the first three scenarios that have me wondering if a GM who gets it dropped in their lap at the last moment might miss on a few of them.
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I would say you get and qualify for whatever you were at the time.
If you WERE Qadira for Scenario "Fluffy Bunnies" and got the boon, it applies. If you change later, it still applies. Similar to how faction traits and vanities do not disappear when you change factions.
If you were Andoran for Scenrio "Fluffy Bunnies" and did NOT get the boon, then change to Qadira, you do not "retroactively" get it.
I do not see it working any other way.
