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Use boons as a way to give some the chance to get a first look at new races, as a in game play test and then open them up because whatever anyone says to the contrary not everyone can go to cons to hope to maybe get a boon.
What area are you in? This summer we had a brand new game store host a mini-con with 15 tables over the course of three days. That's enough for prize support and boons. If you know some PFS players that would like to play, consider organizing a mini-con yourself.
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I am against opening anymore races freely. These have great potential for power creep. Why invite more?
I think conventions are important for the health of the gaming community and con boons are a very good way of keeping this alive.
I like the idea of rare race boons/ archetype boons. I would love to see more of the later. Maybe not more of them, but used more(I love the idea of one assassin boon)
Opening these con only races I think takes from the reward of cons.
Now I have gotten race boons for cons I have DMed at. I freely give them away to people that actually want them(I have had a person try to sell for money what I am giving away). I KNOW I am not the only one that does this. So the arguement that you NEED to go to a con is silly. There are races boons out there for people if you are polite and show interest for it.
If having an ifrit would really make someone love the game more I would happily give them mine.
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I'd vote to include more races. I like having options, and really become upset when people start calling it a freakshow. I've been gaming 18 years, elves and dwarves are cool but I like trying something different out.
The idea of changing up what races are available does sound appealing though. I'd love to see Samsaran's as a playable race at some point. Since this is expressing opinions, the races I'd like to see removed are halflings and gnomes. The small-sized races always seem to cause the biggest headaches for me. Sorry if you love them!
34 next week, have a home group that I play with weekly for the demographics.
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I am against opening anymore races freely. These have great potential for power creep. Why invite more?
I think conventions are important for the health of the gaming community and con boons are a very good way of keeping this alive.
I like the idea of rare race boons/ archetype boons. I would love to see more of the later. Maybe not more of them, but used more(I love the idea of one assassin boon)
Opening these con only races I think takes from the reward of cons.
Now I have gotten race boons for cons I have DMed at. I freely give them away to people that actually want them(I have had a person try to sell for money what I am giving away). I KNOW I am not the only one that does this. So the arguement that you NEED to go to a con is silly. There are races boons out there for people if you are polite and show interest for it.
If having an ifrit would really make someone love the game more I would happily give them mine.
Then why be against letting any player have that race without begging a con chaser? So your arguement is that is fair to only have them come from cons because you must have someone else that goes to cons to get them from? wow
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I've been wanting to play a Sky Druid since the ARG came out. Similarly, my youngest is dying to play a Water Singer Bard. So I'd love to see the elemental races opened up.
I'd never thought of rotating exotic races out, but I'm intrigued by the thought -- done well (with plenty of notice before hand) I think it's a great idea. I do actually prefer Core races and race-restricted games.
Other races I would like to play: Fetchling, Changeling, Android, and Skinwalker.
I don't like con boons -- my travel is all planned around work and family, so I don't often have a chance to attend (or have vacation time remaining). But, you know, marketing. I don't pretend to know how important they are to that.
PS: I'm 46, and have been playing RPGs for, dear lord, 34 years. Can that be right? I think it is.
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Use boons as a way to give some the chance to get a first look at new races, as a in game play test and then open them up because whatever anyone says to the contrary not everyone can go to cons to hope to maybe get a boon.What area are you in? This summer we had a brand new game store host a mini-con with 15 tables over the course of three days. That's enough for prize support and boons. If you know some PFS players that would like to play, consider organizing a mini-con yourself.
I don't know that many players locally, couldn't fit three tables in that shop, and don't think the dog would like to share the back yard for three days.
Organizing a con isn't a realistic possibility for a lot of people.
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Use boons as a way to give some the chance to get a first look at new races, as a in game play test and then open them up because whatever anyone says to the contrary not everyone can go to cons to hope to maybe get a boon.What area are you in? This summer we had a brand new game store host a mini-con with 15 tables over the course of three days. That's enough for prize support and boons. If you know some PFS players that would like to play, consider organizing a mini-con yourself.
I don't know that many players locally, couldn't fit three tables in that shop, and don't think the dog would like to share the back yard for three days.
Organizing a con isn't a realistic possibility for a lot of people.
Some struggle to have a table with enough players to play at all.....
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I'm OK with what's already allowed for society play although I do think the Aasimars' stats and racial abilities make them a bit too capable. I'm partial to the small races, so I'd be happy with the Ratfolk being brought in. To me, the Kobold seems a bit too nerfed to me to be an effective small race for society play.
IMO Ratfolk could make excellent INT based casters and I think their racial abilites could bring a lot of interesting possibilities to the party. I particularly would love to play in a party with a Ratfolk Witch or Wizard. Playing with 2 Ratfolk Magus that used their swarm for synergy could be very interesting too. Some players may be put off by playing with a rat-like humanoid, but the way I see it if we can have Tengu (ever gotten close to one and smelt their feathers!) in parties then we ought to allow Ratfolk. :)
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Then why be against letting any player have that race without begging a con chaser? So your arguement is that is fair to only have them come from cons because you must have someone else that goes to cons to get them from? wow
I have stated why I am against lettign anyone pick the boon. If you reread my post you will see that. I feel you maybe upset that I agree there should be con only boons and skipped past that.
The idea is to make cons more appealing. I never said beg. Asking politely is not begging.
But yes, There needs to be a reward for cons. The game will become very regionalized and that is unhealthy if there were no cons.
You make it sound like con boons are needed for play with that type of arguement. You can fun wiuth core materials.
If it were nto for people that were rude and unscrupulous I would have given all my boons aways. The fact that I have to find ways to keep people from selling them makes it harder to give away.
The more I read this the more I side with rotating non core races. For me personally, it's about the character concept and background. I have boons that I haven't created characters yet, because of wanting to finish my characters I have flushed out.
For the record, I play a Tengu, but it took awhile before creating him because of flushing out a concept.
If Paizo revisits the elves and dwarfs with their own companion books, you will see a spike in core races. Sometimes, I thinks it's the flavor of the day with folks.
But the bottom line is to have fun.
Jiggy ... 42 years of age I've been playing for almost 30 years.
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Then why be against letting any player have that race without begging a con chaser? So your arguement is that is fair to only have them come from cons because you must have someone else that goes to cons to get them from? wowI have stated why I am against lettign anyone pick the boon. If you reread my post you will see that. I feel you maybe upset that I agree there should be con only boons and skipped past that.
The idea is to make cons more appealing. I never said beg. Asking politely is not begging.
But yes, There needs to be a reward for cons. The game will become very regionalized and that is unhealthy if there were no cons.
You make it sound like con boons are needed for play with that type of arguement. You can fun wiuth core materials.
If it were nto for people that were rude and unscrupulous I would have given all my boons aways. The fact that I have to find ways to keep people from selling them makes it harder to give away.
Why do cons need to give exclusive stuff to draw people? And i definitely call BS on the "you are just fine with just core" when you want some people to have more. players should have more or less equal choices in this game. hell this crap is half of why i keep considering NOT playing PFS anymore
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I'd prefer less of the exotics, but I'm indifferent in the end. If people are excited for them, let's open some slots so there is much happiness and joy.
And 45 years old.
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You wouldn't happen to have a Sylph, would you?
No sorry. My local VC theorized they would give them out for winter cons. So maybe in a few months.
Andrew. Cons are heatlhy for the state of the game. Anythign to encourage and promote a healthy wide community is a good thing. If you do not like cons for any reason that is fine. But for the community as a whole they are a good thing.
Plus making the races rare makes them more special. I sat at a few tables where I was the only non-aasimar.
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You wouldn't happen to have a Sylph, would you?No sorry. My local VC theorized they would give them out for winter cons. So maybe in a few months.
Andrew. Cons are heatlhy for the state of the game. Anythign to encourage and promote a healthy wide community is a good thing. If you do not like cons for any reason that is fine. But for the community as a whole they are a good thing.
Plus making the races rare makes them more special. I sat at a few tables where I was the only non-aasimar.
The "it's special because i can do it and you cannot" belongs in preschool at best, i would hope the PFS players are more mature. Cons are fine, good to play with new people, but they should never be the key to all of the good things the game has to offer.
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Venture-Captain, Germany–Hannover
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We had a Con here too and i gmed there 4 games there, 1 was cancelled due to time problems.
It was a real nice and cool experience and given i have the time and possibility i would do it again. But not necessarily for the GM chronicle.
I can be so honest to admitt that i was really looking forward to the boon.
A fact that i didn´t like myself one inch.
I also saw some other persons there being really greedy about boons, race boons and give-aways.
I didn´t like that either.
For me, it´s way more important and nice to have a good game, provide others and myself with fun and an interesting experience, creating a lot of atmosphere and positive tension.
I can add that putting up this Con wasn´t easy, there were nearly none of my players. Because some have small kids and couldn´t come because of them, others had to work or work so much under the week that it was to difficult and a lot of other stuff. Also travelling here in Germany can be interesting and a small Con like that should not be too straining on the purse. But i think this here is not about the Con/money/availability argument.
Tieflings and Aasimar are indeed stronger because of the backup books they have. ARG, Faiths of..., Blood of... which is quite a lot.
What saddens me there is that even though there are books about demons and empyrials, those did not get that much support. I would have liked to see a stronger demonic/empyrial influence somewhere for characters. because those books are really cool too.
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Wow
If I felt like a child to have something you do not, I would not give them away. So it is willfully ignorant to say that. I understand that the PFS team is trying to make some feature of the world more special by makign it rare. As my example above you ignored. I do not want to play in a PFS world as much that everyone has some rare race.
If you think race boons are "all of the good things the game has to offer.". Then you hrdly look into the depth of this game.
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I think that new races should be boon only but that boon should come on scenario sheets.
PFS is a marketing tool Pathfinder, so new races and other new material should be Incorporated into PFS by default but limited. New races should be given as boons on chronicle sheets that are tied to an in game reason
for that race maybe Pathfinders find and come to a treaty or Pathfinders go to a new area of the world and discover a new race and open relations with them and they join the society.
I have no problem with new races classes as I have done most of my gaming in a more racially diverse world.
as for my age Jiggy I am 49.
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A couple of opinions to share:
1. I like the idea of restricting each player to one character of some of the rarer races. For my own self, the one weird race that I really wanted to play was a sylph, and once I made that character I don't need to play a bunch more sylphs. (Shout out to our Western PA Venture Captain, Matt, for helping connect me with the requisite boon!)
2. I'd be OK with rotating races in and out of playability, in theory, but it seems like kind of a logistical hassle.
3. I have satisfied some of my jones for playing odd races in my local Kingmaker game. I played an ifrit and, when that character died, my new character was an aasimar. I know that availability of non-PFS games varies from place to place, but I would encourage people to use that to try out some of the things that they REALLY REALLY want to play, but don't have the right boons to make in PFS.
4. Please, please, please hold the line and don't open up a bunch of the evil races for PFS. The elemental races make sense as unusual, but plausible, Pathfinders. I don't feel like it's nearly as believable to have a bunch of kobold, hobgoblin and drow Pathfinders. This is, of course, just my opinion but it's the element of this debate that I feel most passionately about.
For statistical purposes, I am 38. I mean, I really am 38, but only use that information for statistical purposes and not so that you can pretend to be me, and steal my credit cards.
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+1 to rotating the more exotic races (I hate the term monstrous races when you have gnomes and half-orcs as core races). I was actually surprised to see that the Tian Xia races didn't become opened up after seasons 3 and 4, since season 3 was all about opening lodges across the sea, and season 4 sort of cemented that.... buuut I can see reasons for limiting the exotic races. I know there's many aasimars now in our area. Some of them I know were picked just because Blood of Angels opened up cool RP opportunities for them, but more I know were picked for their perceived mechanical advantages. At the same time, I know my GF was super happy for like two days when I told her Tengu had opened up, since that's all she ever wanted to play. It seems like a seasonal or yearly rotation for exotic races strikes a good balance between limiting options to discourage power creep, but also giving people who don't get to cons the chance to try out some of the other race flavors.
Heck, I'd even love to see holiday boons that open up themed races. (John Compton! Hear me! It's not too late to issue a boon for halloween allowing you to make a dhampir or skinwalker!)
Edit: 24 for your chart, Jiggy.
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5) Characters of Seasonal or Annual and are underneath a specific level cannot be "Grandfathered" into the next season/year.
5a) Seasonal characters must reach a minimum of at least Level 4. If a Elemental-kin character cannot it is considered "retired".
5b) Annual characters must reach a minimum of at least Level 6. For example a Tiefling that is one adventure away from Level 6, that player must find a way to increase the level to 6 or retire their character.
I do think that most of your siggestions are reasonable but I was wondering why this needs to be added to your system. I cannot think of any compelling reason to do so and I was wondering what your thinking was.
aasimaars aren't overpowered at all. they might lack an attribute penalty and they might have a series of subraces, but look at the options in blood of angels as different species that bear similar qualities
think of aasimaar not as one race with 7 options, but 7 races under one genus. they have no attribute penalties, but they don't have anything really outstanding either
darkvision? handed out like candy, much like many other sensory abilities
resistances, negligible past level 3 when they no longer negate the lions share of energy damage
spell like ability? early entry into a few prestige classes is hardly a big deal, most of those prestige classes are inferior to sticking with your main class anyway. no favored class bonus, hindered progression in a variety of things, and generally the diversity isn't worth the loss of power gained from specializing.
martial weapon proficiency? inferior to most weapon familiarity traits possessed by other races.
other than the fact you can find an aasimaar subrace designed for your class, humans, dwarves, half elves, half orcs, and tengu tend to be better at a variety of tasks by having more generally useful talents or options that make them better at specific roles.
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Andrew. Cons are heatlhy for the state of the game. Anythign to encourage and promote a healthy wide community is a good thing. If you do not like cons for any reason that is fine. But for the community as a whole they are a good thing.
I disagree. Cons do not promote a healthy wide community. What cons promote is Pathfinder increasing its market share in large communities where there is already a plethora of gaming opportunities including real campaigns to participate in if you want to play something creative and wacky. Also as threads like this show, the foster a very real division within the PFs community as proven by the fact that every time race boons are discussed it threatens to get ugly. So no, I would not call that fostering a healthy wide commmunity. They are in fact promoting narrow regional communities built around major metropolitan areas with a few elite community members who are able to more between cons.
What promotes a healthy wide community is reaching out to places which are marginalized gaming-wise. Places with low population, places outside the USA. I assume that you live within driving distance of a major metropolitan area in the US which hosts a major con because you have a distinct lack of perspective as to what PFS looks like to someone out in the styx and I am glad that the leadership's actions over the past year do not reflect the same lack of perspective.
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Use boons as a way to give some the chance to get a first look at new races, as a in game play test and then open them up because whatever anyone says to the contrary not everyone can go to cons to hope to maybe get a boon.What area are you in? This summer we had a brand new game store host a mini-con with 15 tables over the course of three days. That's enough for prize support and boons. If you know some PFS players that would like to play, consider organizing a mini-con yourself.
Since we are mentioning the 15 table limit for boon support, I just want to point out that the boons sent out to events of just 15 tables with prize support are not races except for the DM boon. It is highly disingenuous to suggest that this is a good solution since many of the races are sent out only to the largest events in their area and some are even reserved only for the big name cons as far as I know.
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Love the "i earned the boon" folks not wanting others to have nice things too....
I can say not only "I earned my boon" but I was the one started the cry, "If you want a boon, earn it" (look it up my favorited by others).
And I send a lot of my boons to people genuinely not in a position to get them.
Truthfully I'd stop/reduce the number of new race boons, and ban new Assimar/Tieflings that use the "Blood of" books.
And I have one from each "blood of" book that I dearly love.
I would do it to support the human-centric nature of the campaign. I support Assimar/Tieflings because they are written deeply into the mythos of Golorian, whether its in that Tia Xia assimar place or Cheliax or the Worldwound. Tengus less so but they've begun too seep into the culture.
So my desire is purely to protect the 'culture' of Golorian, not to be unfair to new players. Perhaps a 'one uncommon race character after "your 4th pc reaches 3rd level" would be fair.
I would write some boons that open up/encourage character concepts from the core races that aren't that common. For example, one to allow your elf/halfing/gnome/dwarf to ignore their Con/Str/Cha penalties so that cool Barbarian/Ranger/Bard concept in the back of your mind becomes slightly more common/viable.
Hope that helps.
Kerney
Since we are mentioning the 15 table limit for boon support, I just want to point out that the boons sent out to events of just 15 tables with prize support are not races except for the DM boon.
Our last local con was a 15 table one, and only the GMs received the racial boons. To top it off, we had more people willing to GM than there were tables (this was before any mention of a boon), so obviously simply attending a convention is insufficient for receiving a piece of paper to open up a race. Also, for larger conventions, don't you usually have to play a couple tables and roll for you boon, likely leaving you without a new race to play.
Locally I've only seen a couple tengus, and they quickly died/were retired. Tieflings are rather rare since no one wants to deal with the stigma or the -2 to a stat when there's human and aasimar. These two are, by far, comprise most of the current characters.
I'd be happy to see more races opened, and the yearly rotation sounds like a fun idea. It gives people something to look forward to and speculate over. Since most of the players I know spend a lot of time crafting their characters, I don't believe there'd be an influx of the newly opened race (at least not locally at any rate). Since people, even with "broken aasimar" tend to choose humans for the feat, skill, no penalty, I doubt that would change.
Between all the locked character builds (race, class, feats, alignment, diety, et al.) and some of the randos at tables, PFS pushes me further into preferring home campaigns where diplomacy and hand-crafted tables guide character development.
And I'm 24.
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Also, shouldn't PFS be the "try it and buy it here!" campaign setting? How about you buy the book/PDF with the race, you get the boon? THERE! Capitalism and variety at their level best!
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Interesting thread. I like the idea of rotation (including retiring non-core races), because races would change over time. There's the additional benefit (from my PoV) that countries/areas with few cons can gain access to a wider range of races without having to travel far and wide with no guarantee whatsoever to get a race boon (which is pretty much the situation in many european countries).
Retiring (for a time, letting them be part of the "cycle of races" after a while maybe) aasimar, tengus and tieflings would be a good idea, but with a problem. I know quite a few players in my area who only have one character, which they've played until level 6 or 7, which happens to be an aasimar. So basically retiring these races would mean that all the PFS play these people have done is for nothing (in terms of progression). Consequently, I believe that allowing every PFS player to keep one aasimar/tiefling/tengu above level two at the moment the changes are in effect would allow a reasonable amount of the representatives of these races while not allowing Golarion to be swarmed by the planetouched.
Oh, and I'm 35.
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I would like to echo the sentiment raised by several previous posters. I believe and annual switch up of which additional races become broadly legal would an excellent idea. Not only would it keep things fresh, but it also allows those who cannot make cons a chance to play the characters they want while keeping aasimar, tiefling, and tengu boons from previous years a viable trade commodity.
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think of aasimaar not as one race with 7 options, but 7 races under one genus. they have no attribute penalties, but they don't have anything really outstanding either
The lack of an attribute penalty, along with some nice stat combos for certain classes, is really outstanding. Its not an accident that you're seeing a lot of these: they've been
darkvision? handed out like candy, much like many other sensory abilities
and still an amazing ability, especially if your DM pays a lot of attention to lighting.
spell like ability? early entry into a few prestige classes is hardly a big deal, most of those prestige classes are inferior to sticking with your main class anyway. no favored class bonus, hindered progression in a variety of things, and generally the diversity isn't worth the loss of power gained from specializing.
Most of my characters that can memorize a daylight DO memorize a daylight. An extra third level spell is pretty beefy.
martial weapon proficiency? inferior to most weapon familiarity traits possessed by other races.
They get martial weapon proficiency?
other than the fact you can find an aasimaar subrace designed for your class, humans, dwarves, half elves, half orcs, and tengu tend to be better at a variety of tasks by having more generally useful talents or options that make them better at specific roles.
That subrace is the kicker. Since you are only making one character the subrace tailored to your class/build is better than a generic one size fits all all around abilities you might get from another race.
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i like the idea of retiring certain races and bringing in some new ones...
as to it being unfair ?...not really.. its no less fair than for those who spend money to go a Con and get a boon ( which could become useless) but hey.. it happens!
I would love to see races that are added have companions.
makes cash for Paizo and adds new flavor to PFS.
It could be neat if they can tie it into the story plot of the year..
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Venture-Captain, Germany–Hannover
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If you compare aasimar to halflings, it gets pretty obvious how strong aasimar are. As for darkvision, i wish halflings had at least low-light vision!
I have to point out that the online game days are a good way to earn gm boons now. But those are not everyones thing and not 100% comparable to face to face gaming. After all, this game is a team expirience and about making friendships too,isn´t it?
As for some people who don´t like non-core races, i have a question there.
Why don´t you like them? What´s so bad about them?
From the exception of evil races that would not it in good and aasimar/tieflings having a lot of support.
I mean, especially if you are running games a lot instead of playing, why you need to limit players in what they do as long as it is within reason?
I like the idea of opening up additional races but I don't think it should be a free for all.
I like the idea of race boons becoming available to players if they finish a mini PFS campaign arc. Drogon is likely more elegant in explaining that I.
Long and short of it: make it player decision. I really like the idea of tying a race boon to a chronicle. Rats of Round Mountain, for instance, could have had a Ratfolk race boon. But the only way to get it was to get through the adventure and earn both prestige, or not kill a single ratfolk, or save the ratfolk fairy godmother, or whatever. And, by being put in Tier 7-11 adventures, you are prompting people to get their PCs to that level and play them (and play them well). Oh, and make sure that a pre-gen player can't get the boon. Actual PCs, only.
Another idea that was mentioned that I like was the idea of providing more race boons to GMs, but linked to their stars. That is, once you get your first star, you get a race boon that allows you play races A or B, two stars you get a race boon for races A or B or C or D, etc..
I am also thinking that for the star link to work properly, that the boon get's added to your downloads so that it get's the appropriate watermark, and PFS management has a good handle on what is going on with the extra races.
Another idea would be for Paizo to award race boons to veteran players, based on how many games they have registered as played. They would not get them as frequently as GMs, but it would still reward long time players, and possibly make the race boons less likely to be abused.
Keep convention race boons as they are.
Now, combining all three of those would open up a fair bit of races to PFS, but in a controlled manner. And it would also allow players and GMs who are unable to attend large cons a chance to play with some new races.
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Also, shouldn't PFS be the "try it and buy it here!" campaign setting? How about you buy the book/PDF with the race, you get the boon? THERE! Capitalism and variety at their level best!
Agreed. I recommended the same thing for the ARG, but there was no love for the concept. Although we hadn't previously had watermarked Chronicles, I think--now that we've popped that cherry, there might be room for maneuvering in the future.
including retiring non-core races [... snip ... ] So basically retiring these races would mean that all the PFS play these people have done is for nothing
Rotation could not possibly work if it made characters retroactively illegal. The only thing affected by rotation would be which new characters one could make at any given time.
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I'm for limiting all of the exotic races in PFS and I'm also for allowing almost every race to be played as well.
These races are exotic because they have low populations in the game world. But since the Pathfinder Society is itself an organization that has access to innumerable locales across the continents and into other worlds they would be expected to have the odd {insert race here} as an agent of their organization. In essence the Society is not representative of the Inner Sea or Golarion and would have an increased ratio of the odd-ball race(I'm sure we have some Akitonians in the society).
So how do we solve this oxymoron:
Well first we should close the current races being offered: Aasimar/Tiefling/Tengu with an effective date that is immediately enforced (i.e. no 30 day notice - to minimize gaming the system).
A while ago I advocated making an Exotic Race Boon Chronicle sheet that would limit all players to 1 active exotic race at a time unless the PC died or reached lvl 12 or unless he/she had received a race boon from a convention. The boon itself would be treated like a chronicle sheet and must be reported the first time the player uses the PC in a PFS game.
So after 18 or so months my views have evolved a bit.
I still would advocate for a race boon that allows every player the opportunity to play an exotic race as I described above but with the following addendum.
Uncommon race: Aasimar/Tengu/Tiefling/Elemental-kin; with a limit of 1 per player unless you received a race boon from a different source.
Rare races: Given out at regional conventions and to VO Regions where there is a high table count (exact number to be kept internal to PFS management) of PFS games tallied quarterly.
Very Rare race: Fetchling/Vishkanya/Grippli, etc. would only be given out only at major conventions(150+ tables) or special events.
But will this solution stifle this topic from ever being raised again?
The answer, sadly, is no.
As gamers we love to argue the merits of our positions, its a time-honored tradition.
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Uncommon race: Aasimar/Tengu/Tiefling/Elemental-kin; with a limit of 1 per player unless you received a race boon from a different source.
Rare races: Given out at regional conventions and to VO Regions where there is a high table count (exact number to be kept internal to PFS management) of PFS games tallied quarterly.
Very Rare race: Fetchling/Vishkanya/Grippli, etc. would only be given out only at major conventions(150+ tables) or special events.
I think that this is an eminently reasonable way to split the difference between the extreme positions we have seen. The one improvement that needs to be made is that instead of apportioning the rare and very rare races based on absolute number of tables it should be relative to the maximum size of event in a geographic area. For example, any event with an above average number of tables in a particular region would get rare races and the largest event in a region would get very rare races.
It would be a shame to go through all the discussion to overhaul the system only to find that the very rare boons remain relevant only to big name cons in the USA (which I am certain 150+ table events exclusively are) rather than helping to reach out to other areas.
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Options good. Restrictions on things that don't upset game balance bad.
I'm actually really amused that suddenly people are talking about game balance, after years of shouting "Balance doesn't exist!".
Anyway, I'm in favor of removing humans from PFS play. That extra feat and skill points, as well as the floating bonus just make them too overpowered. If you look at the Guide to the Guides, humans are always considered a blue option for anything. Maybe humans could be given out as boons in conventions or to VCs, but as it is, they're just too much of a "must have" race.
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A while ago I advocated making an Exotic Race Boon Chronicle sheet that would limit all players to 1 active exotic race at a time unless the PC died or reached lvl 12 or unless he/she had received a race boon from a convention. The boon itself would be treated like a chronicle sheet and must be reported the first time the player uses the PC in a PFS game.
You'd be interrupting peoples ability to play with this. Lets say someone has a level 8 that's been stuck for a while because of a lack of high level games and a level 3, both weirdos. You'd essentially kill one of their characters and either write them out of the high level games (possibly for months) or off their level 3 and force them to start over at 1.
This would severely harm individuals for... what gain exactly? The events that someone sees at a table don't necessarily reflect the larger campaign world as it is anyway (hey, didn't we save that guy? Hey didn't we KILL that guy? How come your level 19 doesn't have their own country by now?) So if you have a local mutant freak squad, that doesn't say anything other than... you have one society group of mutant freaks.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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Wow, I had no idea so many people would volunteer their ages based on my comment.
I'll put in my bid for oldest VO - 64.
I know I'm not the oldest PFS player, though - last year I was at a con and wasn't the oldest player at the table (for the first time, AFAIK). Not only that - it was the first ever RPG experience for the older player (I started in the mid '70s). It may have been his first game, but he was the uncontested star of the table.
We were making plans on how to tackle the orphanage. Everybody was agreed on the plan (the details of which escape me now). Then, as we were setting up, his character goes completely off-script and marches up to the door. He proceeds to act out the role of the pushiest, most overbearing door-to-door evangelist you've ever met (he was playing a cleric), and totally monopolises the attention of Auntie Baltwin. This allowed the rest of us to sneak in the back unobserved, and have a good look around.
Oh yes - before that, he'd shaken down all the other characters for a few gold as a contribution to this thing he had called 'health insurance'; if we paid him, then he'd see we got patched up if we got wounded.
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Uncommon race: Aasimar/Tengu/Tiefling/Elemental-kin; with a limit of 1 per player unless you received a race boon from a different source.
(Not really picking on you -- this was just the easiest instance of this idea to quote.)
I don't like this idea at all, because it seems way more restrictive to me than what we have now. At least in my region, most people have multiple active characters at a time -- which makes it easier to have the right character for a given tier or faction. And if they do any amount of GMing -- they have even more. I expect any given character to be active for two or three years -- which is an awful lot of time to block your ability to make a second non-core character.
Which doesn't even bring up how you would try to enforce it. How is a GM supposed to know what other characters a player has?
I think the only viable ways to have limitations are by Boon Chronicle sheet, or by Date of first Chronicle -- anything else is going to be impossible to verify at the table.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area South & West
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It would be a shame to go through all the discussion to overhaul the system only to find that the very rare boons remain relevant only to big name cons in the USA (which I am certain 150+ table events exclusively are) rather than helping to reach out to other areas.
The really big cons (PaizoCon, GenCon) are a lot larger than that. I believe GenCon had something like 120 simultaneous tables for the special, and around 1000 tables overall.
That's where you may get the really rare race boons (Goblins, Grippli).Around here (SF Bay Area) we have three local regional cons which run to more than 150 tables (helped somewhat by being scheduled over a holiday weekend, so there are four days of gaming).