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I like this problem.You know you're in trouble when you get to the table and ...
... there are 8 players signed up for your table, plus 2 unscheduled walk ins.
It happened last night at our low level table. Luckily, there were two other tables scheduled for higher level adventures, so we sent a couple of the newbies to PFS who had other D&D/Pathfinder experience to the higher level tables with level 4 and 7 pregens, and played with 7 at our table.
It just made mustering very difficult, since we thought some of the 8 signups wouldn't show, but they kept walking in late, just at the exact moment we were about to start with the people we had. Not ultra-late, so no justification to tell them they're too late and send them away, but late enough that we thought we had everyone sorted out, then someone else gets added to the mix.
As the GM of one of the high-level tables, I don't. I've found that level 7 pregens are usually more trouble than they're worth (although I should admit that the presence of good ol' reliable Kyra probably saved this party).
I've also made it a personal policy not to run 7-player tables anymore. This particular problem at our FLGS should clear up somewhat once EotT is over, as it's tying up a lot of our regular GMs.
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Nosig, super simplified version:
We run 4-6 tables each game night.
We post the scenarios a month ahead of time online, where folks can sign up to GM or play ahead of time.
Like any game store, there are folks who regularly GM on a rotating basis.
Like any game store, there are folks who will never, ever GM.
Right now, there is a table of EoTT running that is locking up 6 of our regular GMs.
So, you have a smaller GM pool and players who aren't stepping up and occasional walk-ins.
(Most of the time it works out because the regular GMs will sign up to cover tables ahead of time and most folks exercise common sense ("Oh, there's 16 people signed up for this game but only 2 GMs and the game is in 2 days...hmmm...well, I don't want to GM, so I won't sign up.") but some folks seem to lack that critical thinking skill.)
We have an awesome rock star who usually will run a pick up game if worse comes to worst with walk-ins and overflow. That awesome person is Fromper.
Fromper is a GD superhero who repeatedly and consistently will drop out of a game as player to run a new table if there are walk-ins or a GM pulls out at the last second. He deserves like a million medals of PFS service for his sacrifices.
However, when the regular GMs want to play, have signed up to play well ahead of time and are there specifically to play, they deserve that time and shouldn't have to worry about having a back up scenario pre-prepped to run and losing out on their playing time.
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Fromper is a GD superhero who repeatedly and consistently will drop out of a game as player to run a new table if there are walk-ins or a GM pulls out at the last second. He deserves like a million medals of PFS service for his sacrifices.
Quoting this so I can favorite it again.
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Aw, thanks for the kudos guys. Shucks, I'm blushing. :P
Yeah, last night, I could have stepped up to split off the table and run something else. But after GMing two weeks in a row, including at the last minute last week, I really wanted to just play this one. Especially since I had my 4th level PC in the right faction for that adventure (5th season) that I really wanted to play and get up to 5th level, which I got to do.
If it had actually reached the point where we had to send people home without playing, I probably would have pulled First Steps out of the folder at the store and run that for the newbies rather than sending anyone home. I still feel bad that we had to send two people home without playing last week, because my improv table that time couldn't accommodate everyone.
But we managed to avoid getting quite that far this time, even though it meant having a 7.5 player table. We had an 8th person, but she was a Pathfinder newbie who kept saying she'd be just as happy to watch the first time before diving in to play. And she meant it - she stuck around and contributed to the table by talking with everyone and "sharing" a pregen with the guy playing Amiri. I made sure she got a Pathfinder id # and the link to our web page for weekly sign ups, and she seemed to really enjoy herself, so I do think she'll be back.
It was pretty chaotic, as you'd expect from a table with that many people, but it actually ended up being the most fun 7+ person table I've ever been at. I felt sorry for our GM, who was the real hero at the store yesterday, for putting up with us. :P Especially the self-immolating tiefling. That player is NEVER going to live that one down.
I will be glad when the group playing Eyes of the Ten is done, and we get all those GMs back. This GM shortage the last couple of weeks has been rough. Just looking at our schedule for the first week after they're done with that, we've already got 6 GMs signed up, as opposed to only 3 or 4 right up to the last minute the last couple of weeks.
... nobody shows up.
I'm kinda expecting this on Saturday. I'm trying to start up PFS at one local store on a somewhat more regular basis (2-3 Saturdays a month). I also know that I have to compete with the Magic crowd, the latest D&D getting the initial 2-3 month groups to see if it works, the other card games (too many of them actually), and any other event the store wants to hold. This is before I add on the eventual running of the Adventure Card Guild organized play.
On top of that, I know for a fact that Labor Day weekend will likely see a similar thing as the location is going to be smack dab in the middle of an annual holiday festival. Streets around there will get blocked off for several blocks, and crowds will make it difficult to get stuff in. Hell, I don't think the card gamers will show up that weekend.
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When the GM says that, "It's my job to kill you. That's what the GM does."
Later on in that session one of the NPCs cast silence as a standard action and then my arcane trickster wasn't allowed to sneak attack from stealth. I get the feeling this GM was still stuck in 3.5
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Fromper is a GD superhero who repeatedly and consistently will drop out of a game as player to run a new table if there are walk-ins or a GM pulls out at the last second. He deserves like a million medals of PFS service for his sacrifices.Quoting this so I can favorite it again.
What these guys said. Fromper rox.
I hate 7 person tables with a passion. If I get seated at one, I'll offer to split the table into 2 three player tables (and produce copies of all the Pregens to drop in), or to just sit one out. I'll pull out several scenarios I have ready to run - or even run something cold....
Friends don't stick friends with playing at a 7 person table....
With you 100%.
At the last con I was at, they didn't have any pre-registration for events, so on Saturday morning I ended up slotless.
One of the staff said "oh, I'm sure we can fit a 7th player in somewhere," but I thanked him and declined - I didn't want to do that to anyone on either side of the screen.
I ran a table of 10 once, but it only worked at all because it was a pick-up game at the very tail end of a con, and we treated it as a clog event rather than anything resembling a serious event. The hook alone took an hour and a half :)
in your opinion, would it have been better to have had the organizer put you together a "pick-up game" with 2 or 3 other players and and a judge who was running the game "cold"? I mean rather than offering to seat you as the 7th player at a table? (I ask because this is what would likely have happened in my home town).I hate 7 person tables with a passion. If I get seated at one, I'll offer to split the table into 2 three player tables (and produce copies of all the Pregens to drop in), or to just sit one out. I'll pull out several scenarios I have ready to run - or even run something cold....
Friends don't stick friends with playing at a 7 person table....
With you 100%.
At the last con I was at, they didn't have any pre-registration for events, so on Saturday morning I ended up slotless.
One of the staff said "oh, I'm sure we can fit a 7th player in somewhere," but I thanked him and declined - I didn't want to do that to anyone on either side of the screen.
Well, sure, an option to play would definitely be better than no option to play :)
I have no issues with a module being run cold; 3 of the 5 slots I played in appeared to have been run cold, and having run games and even rulesystems cold, I'm pretty forgiving in that regard.
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This reminds me of the time that Ezren solo'd a pair of mooks by bull rushing one of them out a window and beating the other one down with his staff (critical hit). The rest of the party was in the next room dealing with two more mooks, and Ezren finished his pair off faster than the rest of the party combined.
Anytime someone says "shining moment of awesome," I think of that day.
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I want a high strength score on my wizard just in case I get hit by a pre-nerf antagonize. And we all know that every pfs bbeg is running around with that feat. Pre-nerf too.
Your table is screwed if anybody has a negative strength modifier, because they are as good as dead.
The highest Strength at the table is 7, and you are going into <redacted> which has multiple encounters with Shadows...
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actually, the reason I asked was that on a different thread, several persons are advising just the opposite. In that thread, we are advised that if the judge is running the game "cold" we should walk away - even if it means the game fails to run and everyone else is sent home.
I'm pretty forgiving. Most people aren't, and there's a difference between running an event cold and running an event poorly.
I've been at tables where the GM was horrific, but definitely didn't run it cold. And I've been at tables where the GM ran it 100% cold yet the game was awesome. Depends more on the GM than whether it was cold or not.
I can think of one GM whose table I'll do my damndest not to sit at ever again, and there's other GMs for whom I'd sit at their table in a second no matter what they were running.
I wonder how many of the people advising you to abandon the table have been on the other side of the screen.
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I have no issues with a module being run cold; 3 of the 5 slots I played in appeared to have been run cold, and having run games and even rulesystems cold, I'm pretty forgiving in that regard.
Ironically enough, that's how I got pulled into the first of many games of spycraft I ran: I had never even heard of the system before and someone said "hey, you mind running?" for the first half of the game I kept assuming it was d20 modern, which it definitely is not...
Ironically enough, that's how I got pulled into the first of many games of spycraft I ran: I had never even heard of the system before and someone said "hey, you mind running?" for the first half of the game I kept assuming it was d20 modern, which it definitely is not...I have no issues with a module being run cold; 3 of the 5 slots I played in appeared to have been run cold, and having run games and even rulesystems cold, I'm pretty forgiving in that regard.
Yeah- it makes a fairly good case for a Stargate TTRPG IMHO...
Edit: I've never had such problem in my home campaigns (I've never run a PFS game because my 20-pt buy games got a lot complaints simply because point-buy.)
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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Hey, my sorcerer Fabrizio has a 14 strength. Casting blood money was just a bonus. He's really in it for the rock hard abs.
Psh. I played through The Confirmation with a 18 Strength sorcerer, who cast shocking grasp for 5d6+5. That was enough to incinerate a zombie, but only made the minotaur mad...
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RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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When the BARD is the TANK.
Pfft, my wife has a (non-PFS) bard who's a front-lining, katana-wielding survivalist. In PFS, I have a bard who routinely tumbles behind baddies to give flanks or otherwise be mobile behind enemy lines.
If you think a bard in the front is trouble, you don't know Pathfinder bards. ;)
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You peer over to the character sheet of the player next to you and see:
Human Barbarian
"Dual Talent" Racial trait
.
.
STR: 8
DEX: 20
CON: 20
INT: 7
WIS: 7
CHA: 7
The player sees you looking and says, "I wanna see if this works out. I'm tired of getting knocked down."
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RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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You peer over to the character sheet of the player next to you and see:
Human Barbarian
"Dual Talent" Racial trait
.
.
STR: 8
DEX: 20
CON: 20
INT: 7
WIS: 7
CHA: 7The player sees you looking and says, "I wanna see if this works out. I'm tired of getting knocked down."
Just make him an Urban Barbarian with Dervish Dance and a clear spindle ioun stone, and watch him go!
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Just make him an Urban Barbarian with Dervish Dance and a clear spindle ioun stone, and watch him go!You peer over to the character sheet of the player next to you and see:
Human Barbarian
"Dual Talent" Racial trait
.
.
STR: 8
DEX: 20
CON: 20
INT: 7
WIS: 7
CHA: 7The player sees you looking and says, "I wanna see if this works out. I'm tired of getting knocked down."
Depressing that this would actually work in many a scenario.
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I don't know how many times I've said I have a bardbarian which I must pronounce with a silent d. I'm always being placed up front as some kind of meat shield, but then they all quickly realize the meat shield just cast expeditious retreat and with spring attack I may start in front but don't necessarily stay there.
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When the BARD is the TANK.My bard is always the tank, and that includes when there're classic tank classes in the party. I haven't been grouped with anyone who has a higher AC since level 2 (after I got my mithril breastplate).That was the fate of my bard too. In every PFS session he played, the rest of the group (casters and archers, all) would cry in unision: "Finally, someone with ARMOR! You stand up front."
Of course, after he got killed for the third time and no longer had any hope of the Prestige or gold needed to rez him, I put him away. Frontliners don't exist; my bard was the last one.
Yeah - but I actually designed my bard to be the frontliner - and he tanks even when fighters or palis are about. (both of which rarely seem to use shields)
His damage is mediocre at best - but between tanking, buffing, and the occasional illusion he pulls his weight in combat.