Official Gen Con 2015 Feedback thread


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Shadow Lodge *

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber

This was my first GenCon so I can't compare it to anything else. My experience was overwhelmingly positive -- for anything I don't mention, assume my reaction was "Wow! That was Awesome!" I also only played the specials, so I can't comment on play during the day.

For the Thursday Special, mustering in the hall was being announced by Tiers 1-5, 3-7, 5-9 etc. That led to us putting together a group of Level 2 6s & 4 7s, when the actual Tiers were split 5/6 and 7/8. We played up, and struggled through most of the enounters. (Successfully, but it meant we were *slow*.) Having the outside musterers on the same page as the inside musterers would have been great.

The Friday and Saturday specials were two of the best tables I have ever played at -- and I've been doing this for 30+ years. So, you know, extra props to everyone. The end of the Friday special was a little unclear, but we were able to suss it out.

Our Sunday special got off to a very slow start. The pregen characters were awesome, but extremely complex. Our poor Brawler player was paralyzed by all the feat choices available to her. (Fortunately I played the Magus, because no one else at the table had any familiarity with the class at all.) Also, our GM was awaiting a go signal to be announced over the loudspeaker from HQ as had happened in *every other special*. The upshot was, between players trying to figure out what their characters could do, and the GM finally realizing he could start, we didn't start play until an hour had passed. That meant we were rushing to catch up all the rest of the slot. We finished just on time, but missed out on all the RP sections.

In summary:
Straighten out Thursday night tier Mustering
Simpler pregens (or have them available ahead of time for prep)
Announce start of play for all Specials

Sczarni 5/5 * Venture-Lieutenant, Washington—Pullman

1 person marked this as a favorite.
claudekennilol wrote:

As to the specials themselves, Aid Tokens really need to be handled better in future scenarios. Right now they're too easily exploitable. Two tables can hand them back and forth and reap the benefits while other tables will never see them (this is the first special I've ever had one actually show up at my table). I know this is more of a campaign management thing, but it's still feedback. I don't really have a suggestion about what could be done to improve this, though.

It is a possibility that people could do that.

My suggestion would be upon seeing this send someone over to those tables, inform them that your table is struggling and could really use an aid token. Stingy people are going to be stingy but I like to think most people in that situation would give theirs away.

5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I have nothing but good feedback for this Gen Con.
I GMed 7 slots, and had 6 wonderful tables, and one average table. For those of you who GM at cons, you know that these numbers are phenomenal.

General:
I got a chance to try the Goblin Attacks missions just before the final slot ended on Sunday. The GM I had for that, D'Artagnan, (yes, I had to wikipedia Three Musketeers to figure out how to spell it), showed far more enthusiasm than we had any right to expect at 12:00 on Sunday. I appreciated it. The quests themselves were great fun, but highly dependent upon having an enthusiastic GM. Good job getting the right folks for the job, as far as I could tell.

For headquarters:
The preassigned tables were a huge lifesaver. Not having to move between slots was also deeply appreciated. The laminated pregens in a booklet I think saved a ton of table time, too, as I could just had a new player a book of the appropriate level and say, "I've put the world at your fingertips. Pick your poison!" Seriously, you guys were amazing, for my money.

For the other GMs:
I seriously heard a GM beside me get applause as he was handing out chronicle sheets. I dunno what went on at that table, but kudos!

For the players:
Almost every player at my tables took the time to shake my hand and thank me for a good experience, and that means a lot, especially when you're tired and your voice is starting to go. It made this Gen Con a truly amazing experience for me, and sent me back home refreshed and revitalized, and newly in love with our shared hobby. Thank you for a great Gen Con.

Silver Crusade

As others have mentioned, great con. I played every single PFS time slot plus one at Scotty's (was originally signed up for two). Muster felt smoother than last year, although I missed seeing the tiers for Thurs/Fri specials on the hallway signs.

Assistants were very helpful and on two particular occasions, very accommodating despite the pressure placed on them.

Announcements during the specials were still hard to hear, the addition of the text slides were a great idea! Hopefully, those slides will run more smoothly next year. I also hope there will be additional speakers placed in the back of the room so everyone can hear.

I liked that the specials were time based to prevent some groups from pushing the rest but still felt very rushed with all of the content/encounters. It was a challenge to keep up with everything going on. I really enjoyed the plot elements of the Th/F specials this year but mechanically did not feel as smooth as last year's Friday special. I'm still not entirely clear on the take away from Friday night. My group lost a lot of time trying to sort out the pre-gens on Sunday and, regrettably, had to hand-waive the final encounter.

Mileage varied with GMs but on the whole were good, some great! GM fatigue or unpreparedness for another sub-tier was an issue once or twice. It's understandable since my eyes were heavy a few times and didn't have much time between slots, so anything that can be done to help them prepare and give them time to freshen up is a good thing.

Also, Core vs normal tickets seemed problematic every time I heard them mentioned. Organizers, players, and GMs had to regularly clarify who had which type of ticket. Also, GenCon staff did not seem familiar with the difference so when I was at event registration to see if a normal ticket was available for a particular scenario, I was told yes but that I had to go to customer service to complete the exchange. At customer service, they exchanged the ticket I had for another scenario to get a new one I wanted using the numbers provided from event registration. Luckily, I caught that they gave me a core ticket. There was, in fact, no normal tickets available so all of the transactions had to be reversed.

Grand Lodge 2/5

pH unbalanced wrote:
Our Sunday special got off to a very slow start. The pregen characters were awesome, but extremely complex. Our poor Brawler player was paralyzed by all the feat choices available to her. (Fortunately I played the Magus, because no one else at the table had any familiarity with the class at all.) Also, our GM was awaiting a go signal to be announced over the loudspeaker from HQ as had happened in *every other special*. The upshot was, between players trying to figure out what their characters could do, and the GM finally realizing he could start, we didn't start play until an hour had passed. That meant we were rushing to catch up all the rest of the slot. We finished just on time, but missed out on all the RP sections.

I was playing the brawler and my one complaint was that the scenario was too rp-heavy/skill-based. Normally that's not a bad thing. But we skill-rolled our way through everything and only had one combat at the end. Then we defeated the iconic BBGG (big bad good guy) in two rounds. I only used my martial flexibility as a swift action for boring ol' Power Attack because we had him completely owned. He was tripped and grappled by the end of the first round. The second round when I got to him I was going to use my move action to gain Improved Grapple and Greater Grapple, but he would've been dead before I even had a chance for my grappling to matter. How often do you get to be an assassin in PFS (never..) and I never even had a chance to do anything about it.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East

Rycaut wrote:


But also I had a LOT of tables of new players at this year's con. Which is great for the hobby (I ran for two people who had never played an rpg before hopefully they both will play again - one at one of my we be goblins free tables and one at my True Dragons table. ). I also handed out nearly 10 new pfs numbers to players without them (my whole we be goblins table and half of my true dragons table and some players at other games). Not quite what I expected but I ran with it.

I was a little disappointed to have the opposite experience. I love having new players at my tables, but only got a few of them at 1 of my 7 tables. And five of those games were tier 1-2! I have a 10-15 minute crash course on golarion I like to give to new people, that generally gets someone saying "that's where my character will be from!"

Grand Lodge 2/5

thistledown wrote:
Rycaut wrote:


But also I had a LOT of tables of new players at this year's con. Which is great for the hobby (I ran for two people who had never played an rpg before hopefully they both will play again - one at one of my we be goblins free tables and one at my True Dragons table. ). I also handed out nearly 10 new pfs numbers to players without them (my whole we be goblins table and half of my true dragons table and some players at other games). Not quite what I expected but I ran with it.
I was a little disappointed to have the opposite experience. I love having new players at my tables, but only got a few of them at 1 of my 7 tables. And five of those games were tier 1-2! I have a 10-15 minute crash course on golarion I like to give to new people, that generally gets someone saying "that's where my character will be from!"

I've been playing PFS for almost two years now and I know I'd still appreciate a crash course on Golarion lore.

1/5 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
claudekennilol wrote:

This was definitely the best year so far.

I only skimmed through some of the comments, so I think this has pretty much been covered, but I'll throw it in again just to add in to the conversation.

The sound (i.e. the announcements/speeches done over the speakers) was horrible in the back of the hall. If it wasn't for the slides it would have been completely unintelligible. Obviously that brings me to my next point, the slides not being sync'd up killed anything we were supposed to hear. Being in the front of hall everything was fine as the speakers were right there. (by front I mean where HQ was set up and by back I mean where the entrances were).

As to the specials themselves, Aid Tokens really need to be handled better in future scenarios. Right now they're too easily exploitable. Two tables can hand them back and forth and reap the benefits while other tables will never see them (this is the first special I've ever had one actually show up at my table). I know this is more of a campaign management thing, but it's still feedback. I don't really have a suggestion about what could be done to improve this, though.

One of the things that can be done straight-up to fix the garbling on speakers is holding the microphone at a conversational distance from the mouth and not trying to be louder than normal. This can cause extreme distortion and even ear-pain for those closest to the speakers. Make the system do the work for the speaker, not the speaker do the work for the system. Sound checks in advance might help with that, especially if there are guest speakers and such.

Aid tokens were being deflected by our table left and right on Thursday, because we hadn't run into a good situation to use the one we'd already had. We'd asked about combining them for a greater effect and we were told that was not possible as written, perhaps to get them moving more in the future that might be an option if there's a 'stacking'?

Though, admittedly, by Friday they had some sort of rotation worked out because the stacking effect wasn't as pronounced (or there weren't as many aid tokens out)

4/5

Jeffrey Fox wrote:

One thing I would like to note is that some of the Gen Con reporting doesn't have date's attached. Which if a player or gm is looking for a session in their history means it will be at the top of the list rather then the bottom.

This could lead to a rise in people reporting missing scenarios, and will most likely generate more report an error submissions.

So we might need to stress to the data entry folks that putting a date in is important even if the GM forgot to fill it out. I understand the normal scenarios are a bit harder to guess dates, but the specials shouldn't be.

I personally had 2 scenarios that didn't have dates put in which I fixed, one was a special, and I know I entered the date on all my tracking sheets.

This happened to me as well - with two of the specials I ran.

Also looks like an error with my Sunday game (7-03) which is showing an error message that implies this "player" has played the scenario before (I ran it on Friday) - I thought I hadn't included a GM character number for just that reason - I shouldn't get a GM boon for that second running but should get table credit.

(and I always forget what does the "GM 2" indicate? that shows up on my specials as well as some other scenarios)

Grand Lodge 2/5

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:
Aid tokens were being deflected by our table left and right on Thursday, because we hadn't run into a good situation to use the one we'd already had. We'd asked about combining them for a greater effect and we were told that was not possible as written, perhaps to get them moving more in the future that might be an option if there's a 'stacking'?

Don't deflect them. Just use them. You getting it, using it, and giving it away takes almost just as much time as saying "hey, we've already got one (some) give it to someone else". You've got two and don't need them? Well, hit everyone with a cure, unless literally no one has taken damage. At one point we had three sitting on our table so we used them up as fast as we could.

Horizon Hunters 4/5 5/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Indiana—Indianapolis

Rycaut wrote:
(and I always forget what does the "GM 2" indicate? that shows up on my specials as well as some other scenarios)

Prestige.

4/5

Rycaut wrote:
(and I always forget what does the "GM 2" indicate? that shows up on my specials as well as some other scenarios)

GM 2 means your character gets two prestige for the scenario because you applied the gm credit to it. It's for record keeping, and doesn't reflect module or 1 prestige products accurately.

I fixed the dates for the specials, since I had the time.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

This was my first time GMing at Gencon. I ran 2 slots (The Sky Key Solution and the new Quest). A lot of the people I had for the quest weren't just new to Pathfinder, but new to d20 gaming in general it felt. They all had fun but I feel we could do better when it comes to helping them learn. Its not easy trying to teach 6 people how to play a RPG in a one hour period. Less then half the people I had even had dice and one entire group had no dice at all (I had extra dice of course but they had to pass around 2 d20s between the 6 of them).

So 2 Suggestions I would make for the future, would be to prove the GMs doing quest with extra dice maybe. I would go as far as to suggest a free d20 to players that complete all 6 parts of a quest but that would just lead to more experienced players clogging up the quest waiting line.

Also I would suggest we have some (a lot of) copies of the Basic Rule Cheat Sheet from the back of the Game Mastery Book. This would be a tremendous aid when helping new players learn the rules.

4/5

Oh I had something happen I have never had at a con before - I had an entire TABLE without dice (thankfully I keep a second bag of extra dice on hand for just such an occurrence ) - 6 players and not a single d20 between them. Not for a wander by and play scenario (the Quests) but for a full 4 hour session.

It happened again with a single player at another table.

The basic rules cheat sheet should be included with the pregen packets (at least the level 1s but every pre-gen I used was actually at higher levels - I had multiple people never having played an RPG before playing at higher than 1st level tier tables or scenarios (thankfully both were playing at tables with special pre-gens - one at a table of We Be Goblins Free - that was the table without any dice, and another at my table of True Dragons)

Grand Lodge 2/5

Dice used to be included at the table with the ticket (and tickets used t be cheaper). That may have been back when it was still DnD and not pathfinder, though. (I'm talking about Gencon ten years ago).

Now I feel old..

Grand Lodge 4/5

Michael Tracey wrote:

Fantastic time for my first GenCon. I was the person in the GM meeting that discussed hearing people say, "What is going on in that room?" and mentioned signage changes. Thanks to whoever brought up the solution of the flippable easels, that was a very smart idea. I'd also like to suggest that Paizo inquires at costs for purchasing the step sign (between the escalators) that is on each step and viewable on the bottom, that had the Settlers of Caton advertisement on it, with a sign that has a huge arrow pointing up to Sagamore and some compelling Pathfinder art. It may be price prohibitive, but getting more people knowing what is going on upstairs would be great.

The had those on at least one flight of stairs last year, without the arrows. Somewhere there's a picture of my fiance sitting on them.

Michael Tracey wrote:

Secondly, I remember seeing some card game in the Paizo section downstairs. How about two tables of quests (one quest/person only) on the vendor floor, and then they could direct the players upstairs to finish them?

I don't know how feasible any of these suggestions are budgets and GenCon rules in consideration, but thought that I'd bring them up, just in case.

All that is really up to the folks at Paizo and where they want to focus their efforts in the dealer hall. That space is really expensive as I understand it.

Grand Lodge 4/5

claudekennilol wrote:

Dice used to be included at the table with the ticket (and tickets used t be cheaper). That may have been back when it was still DnD and not pathfinder, though. (I'm talking about Gencon ten years ago).

Now I feel old..

There haven't been dice included with the packets in the last 5 years of PFS (as long as I've been volunteering for it), and I don't remember getting any in the years when I played RPGA, going back into the early 2000's. I can't speak about games before that because I didn't play D&D at Gen Con when I attended prior to 3E coming out.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Dennis Gregg wrote:

This was my first time GMing at Gencon. I ran 2 slots (The Sky Key Solution and the new Quest). A lot of the people I had for the quest weren't just new to Pathfinder, but new to d20 gaming in general it felt. They all had fun but I feel we could do better when it comes to helping them learn. Its not easy trying to teach 6 people how to play a RPG in a one hour period. Less then half the people I had even had dice and one entire group had no dice at all (I had extra dice of course but they had to pass around 2 d20s between the 6 of them).

So 2 Suggestions I would make for the future, would be to prove the GMs doing quest with extra dice maybe. I would go as far as to suggest a free d20 to players that complete all 6 parts of a quest but that would just lead to more experienced players clogging up the quest waiting line.

We actually had dice sets at the Kid's Track HQ for the kids, but if you really needed a set you could have borrowed one. We didn't really make that public knowledge, maybe we can do something about it in the future.

Dennis Gregg wrote:

Also I would suggest we have some (a lot of) copies of the Basic Rule Cheat Sheet from the back of the Game Mastery Book. This would be a tremendous aid when helping new players learn the rules.

That's an interesting idea, we should be able to add that to the printing list depending on budgets and costs.

Grand Lodge 2/5

Jon Cary wrote:
claudekennilol wrote:

Dice used to be included at the table with the ticket (and tickets used t be cheaper). That may have been back when it was still DnD and not pathfinder, though. (I'm talking about Gencon ten years ago).

Now I feel old..

There haven't been dice included with the packets in the last 5 years of PFS (as long as I've been volunteering for it), and I don't remember getting any in the years when I played RPGA, going back into the early 2000's. I can't speak about games before that because I didn't play D&D at Gen Con when I attended prior to 3E coming out.

I don't think it was pathfinder, but it was an RPG in the sagamore room. Specifically I know I got multiple sets of dice in 2006.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/5 RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8

Steven Huffstutler wrote:
claudekennilol wrote:

As to the specials themselves, Aid Tokens really need to be handled better in future scenarios. Right now they're too easily exploitable. Two tables can hand them back and forth and reap the benefits while other tables will never see them (this is the first special I've ever had one actually show up at my table). I know this is more of a campaign management thing, but it's still feedback. I don't really have a suggestion about what could be done to improve this, though.

It is a possibility that people could do that.

My suggestion would be upon seeing this send someone over to those tables, inform them that your table is struggling and could really use an aid token. Stingy people are going to be stingy but I like to think most people in that situation would give theirs away.

Or to have a general rule that Aid Tokens can't be given to tables that have already received one. While this isn't great for smaller conventions, for something like GenCon it's easily a possibility when we have 170 tables.

Grand Lodge 4/5

pH unbalanced wrote:


In summary:
Straighten out Thursday night tier Mustering
Simpler pregens (or have them available ahead of time for prep)
Announce start of play for all Specials

Tier mustering was the same for Thursday and Friday Specials. There's a disconnect between the way the subtiers work out for the Specials and the way they work out for every other scenario in PFS. When we set up the GMs and mustering we need to look at matching the subtiers based on the scenario... or talk John Compton into re-working the subtiers for Specials. I think the former is easier for everyone.

The complex pregens were part of the nature of having 7th-level pregens, but the feedback on the design of the scenario really needs to go to the development team by writing a review of the scenario on the scenario's product page here on Paizo.com

We didn't announce the start of play for the pregen scenarios because there wasn't any interaction between the tables, no overseer GM and no real need to do so. Your GM could start play as soon as you had your table seated. As far as I can tell, your table is the only one that experienced that problem. If that's the case, then I'm not sure we should interrupt 100 other tables just to remind your GM that they can start running the game.

Did anyone else run into a delayed start on Saturday night or Sunday morning because their GM thought they had to wait for an announcement?

Grand Lodge 4/5

Rycaut wrote:
So if as a GM I haven't gotten credit for a scenario I ran I should talk to someone? (I'm missing credit last I looked for True Dragons)

Give it a week as there were a few (relatively very few) tables that hadn't gotten reported by the end of the convention. If it's still not in by the end of the week, then submit a problem report through the website.

Shadow Lodge *

Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Jon Cary wrote:

We didn't announce the start of play for the pregen scenarios because there wasn't any interaction between the tables, no overseer GM and no real need to do so. Your GM could start play as soon as you had your table seated. As far as I can tell, your table is the only one that experienced that problem. If that's the case, then I'm not sure we should interrupt 100 other tables just to remind your GM that they can start running the game.

Did anyone else run into a delayed start on Saturday night or Sunday morning because their GM thought they had to wait for an announcement?

Understood, but there *was* a start of play announcement on Saturday night. It was chained together with another announcement (that I don't recall at this moment) which was probably the real reason behind there being an announcement in the first place, but it also included the information that it was time to start. I suspect that was what confused our GM.

EDIT: Upon reflection, I think the Saturday announcement was regarding Campaign Service award winners.

Shadow Lodge 4/5 5/5 RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8

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Also, since reporting issues have been mentioned, as someone that did a bit of the reporting, here are some observations and suggestions.

First, there were a plethora of issues on the reporting sheets I was handed to enter. Players without numbers was a common one--these people didn't get credit and likely never will unless they contact campaign leadership. GMs and musters can help with this, by picking up a handful of new PFS numbers from the infobooth (or bringing them from home!) and distributing it to new players. There were also numerous issues where player and even GM handwriting was illegible. I had multiple instances of PFS numbers that I couldn't decipher, which is going to lead to some reporting issues down the road. This can be helped by having the GM verify at the table that the numbers are all readable. If they aren't, write them in clearly above the garbled ones. Lastly, scenario check boxes were often forgotten by the GMs--namely the #6-99 special. I received over half of the sheets from that special, and easily 75% of those sheets didn't have the check boxes noted on them.

Second, there are a lot of people at GenCon. To put it in perspective, we had 10 slots with 170 scheduled tables at each. Assuming that on average, 150 of those tables fired at each slot, that's still 1500 tables over 4 days. Each reporting sheet took about 1 minute to enter onto the Paizo site. That's 1500 minutes of entry time, or 25 hours of work just to enter those reporting sheets. Not including times where the sheets needed to be revised, numbers needed to be clarified, check boxes needed to be filled, and GenCon's atrocious internet needed to be reset. That is an insane amount of paperwork being done.

So what could make this overall process better?
1) Legible reporting sheets, as I mentioned before. Players and GMs need to do this. The rest of HQ staff can verify the litany of swearing that was produced every time I got a sheet with an error.
2) Cleaning up the Paizo reporting form. There is a lot of blank space on the reporting sheet, and the format makes it difficult to quickly tab between the two most important reporting zones: PFS number and prestige earned. My ideal reporting sheet might look something like this. The layout makes more sense to me than what is currently being used.
3) Getting a stable internet connection for reporting during the event. It might already be as good as we’re going to get it, but having the four people stop reporting for 5 minutes while the internet is being reset means 20 sheets aren’t getting reported during that time. It adds up when the internet goes down as consistently as it was, which was about 4-5 times an hour during the convention.

I'm stoked that Todd didn't get stuck with more than 50 reporting sheets, as last time he told me he had over 250 sheets that he had to report the week after GenCon. And having spent about 4 hours of my convention time this year reporting, I feel your pain Todd.

1/5

Jon Cary wrote:
claudekennilol wrote:

Dice used to be included at the table with the ticket (and tickets used t be cheaper). That may have been back when it was still DnD and not pathfinder, though. (I'm talking about Gencon ten years ago).

Now I feel old..

There haven't been dice included with the packets in the last 5 years of PFS (as long as I've been volunteering for it), and I don't remember getting any in the years when I played RPGA, going back into the early 2000's. I can't speak about games before that because I didn't play D&D at Gen Con when I attended prior to 3E coming out.

I played and GM'ed RPGA going quite a ways back in the 90's and I never remember dice being included then either.

I faintly remember demoing the D&D basic set one year for TSR one year and maybe giving away a die as part of the demo but that was way over 20 years ago.

Sovereign Court 4/5 *

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber

Wizards gave away dice sets if you did a certain number of delves when 4E first came out, but you had to do a lot of delves. Maybe that is the answer to the mystery?

Silver Crusade 5/5

Walter Sheppard wrote:

Also, since reporting issues have been mentioned, as someone that did a bit of the reporting, here are some observations and suggestions.

First, there were a plethora of issues on the reporting sheets I was handed to enter. Players without numbers was a common one--these people didn't get credit and likely never will unless they contact campaign leadership. GMs and musters can help with this, by picking up a handful of new PFS numbers from the infobooth (or bringing them from home!) and distributing it to new players. There were also numerous issues where player and even GM handwriting was illegible. I had multiple instances of PFS numbers that I couldn't decipher, which is going to lead to some reporting issues down the road. This can be helped by having the GM verify at the table that the numbers are all readable. If they aren't, write them in clearly above the garbled ones. Lastly, scenario check boxes were often forgotten by the GMs--namely the #6-99 special. I received over half of the sheets from that special, and easily 75% of those sheets didn't have the check boxes noted on them.

Second, there are a lot of people at GenCon. To put it in perspective, we had 10 slots with 170 scheduled tables at each. Assuming that on average, 150 of those tables fired at each slot, that's still 1500 tables over 4 days. Each reporting sheet took about 1 minute to enter onto the Paizo site. That's 1500 minutes of entry time, or 25 hours of work just to enter those reporting sheets. Not including times where the sheets needed to be revised, numbers needed to be clarified, check boxes needed to be filled, and GenCon's atrocious internet needed to be reset. That is an insane amount of paperwork being done.

So what could make this overall process better?
1) Legible reporting sheets, as I mentioned before. Players and GMs need to do this. The rest of HQ staff can verify the litany of swearing that was produced every time I got a sheet with an error.
2) Cleaning up the Paizo reporting form. There is a...

This bears repeating. Though I will say I do like the current reporting sheet, as it gives some extra space if I need to write down an unreadable PFS number.

I brought a page of PFS numbers with me from home, so for the one run of Returned to Sky that I had a brand new player I was able to save some time by handing him one of the new PFS numbers I had with me from home. I developed a procedure early on for making things as easy for myself and reporting staff as I could.

After players fill out reporting sheet:

1: Check their handwriting to make sure it was legible, double check their PFS number, and confirm their faction. There were a couple of times where I had to write somebody's PFS number in under where they had written it, because I couldn't tell what it said. As a general rule, if you the GM can't read their number, then HQ probably won't be able to read it either.

2: Have that player introduce their character, level and classes, and have them tell you if there is anything particularly weird about their character that they need you as a GM to know. In addition to letting everyone get to know each other, it gives you the GM a chance to prefill out as much of their chronicle as possible, crossing out faction boons, items and other stuff as needed.

3: Repeat steps 1 and 2 with the rest of the table. It doesn't take as much time as I might make it sound like, and that makes getting people to their next slot (or out the door if it's the final slot of the day) that much easier.

Liberty's Edge

My thoughts, as a player who exclusively plays PFS at gen con, and probably should be considered a newb (included is my suggestions for improvement: Sorry long post

The bad:
1. We had a GM thrown onto our table because they were missing GMs on Sunday, I realize this happens, the problem is that the combat and roleplay required a lot more time than given GM our experience was soured

Solution -- (only for such occurrences like last minute GM changes) have maps ready for them so the GM can focus on reading ahead. Have one or two of these maps available just for such occasions. Make sure the scenarios printed have all the needed info (ours was missing several pages). Have an adventure specialist to help expedite questions for the GM. These GMs especially need runners. running cold means they need a few extra minutes to a whole half hour of run time that they won’t be getting if they have to grab things from HQ or character cards

2. Those announcements in the middle of a timed event detracted from the excitement and the flow of the game, it pulled me out of the narrative and as I was told repeatedly it was a timed event, probably ruined the timing. I’m really appreciative of the miniature, however it was stolen by someone at my table, so I didn’t even get to enjoy the spoils of that announcement. (Good job on your wins! sucks about my miniature.)

Solution – make those announcements at the beginning or end of the event, or alternatively put them up on the screen and let us read them at our leisure, or make sure the special is planned specifically to create a timing break.

3. pregen characters are an abysmal stand in for regular characters of the same level, I was forced to use pregen twice this week, this caused problems at my table, it may not be much but that missing ability point can be pretty unhealthy at higher level

solution -- redo the pregens, have an equipment grab-bag for when the pregens are used in specials. Alternatively make sure the pregens have the same ability scores as their PC counterparts. Maybe even have society submitted build of the character and divide it into categories, like for instance have two versions of merisiel, one of them slightly better at skills, maybe even give her a sense motive

4. maybe not the place to address but some of the workers were not the nicest, not the GM’s but the orange shirts. One or two in particular especially who worked the boon table, I heard more than one complaint about. The marshalls outside the front door were the nicest they could be all things considered (really everything I heard was almost exclusively about the boon table and maybe one or two other issues)

Solution – sorry I got nothing for people’s attitudes

5. Boons -- a lot of boons read “On your next character…..” For many people this boon is meaningless. I have one character that I’ve been playing since 2013 and he’s at 3rd level. What use will I have for a new character? Same applies to new players. What good is a boon?

Solution --- Don’t get me wrong, I understand they are a push to keep you playing Pathfinder, but it seems you can do that still if you increase the cost of boons if people specifically want to purchase them (like 4 wood tokens) or a dice (6 wood tokens) or a miniature (10 wood tokens) or maybe offer a chance for a reroll at the table with an extra token, or offer a not so awesome circumstantial boon just straight up handing the token back for a reroll or something. I don’t know I have several boons just collecting dust at this point because I’ve never started a new character.

GMs
GMs are still under the impression they can’t make ad hoc rules to adjudicate an unusual circumstance from a player. Since I am a king of the unusual this usually means my ideas aren’t adjudicated at all or are done so poorly

Also when I am rolling well a gm shouldn’t tell me to put away my dice, there are few times when I actually roll better than a 4 and the gm asked me to retire my dice because I rolled too many crits. Seriously, that’s probably the only crits I will see for the next 4 years

Solution remind them all that sometimes you have to just go with the enjoyment of the game, maybe every turn remind them to adjudicate to the spirit not the letter

Disabled entrance -
You don’t have one, this needs to be fixed and they should be seated before anyone (provided they have real tickets), no questions asked. This should also apply to those with babies

Better [almost]
Marshalling gets better and better each year, maybe have a place where the single table representative (the table lieutenant) will enter the door for his or her team just a few minutes prior to all the doors opening. Get their assignments and then return to the outside, the mad dash and crowding of marhsalls is still a bit much

Seating all the real tickets and getting them together with groups. I was fifteen minutes early and scrambling for a seat in the special

It has gotten better but it is still a problem.

THE GOOD that could be made better?

I had two great GM’s (I know Gm thread) and several players I really liked. I wouldn’t mind meeting up with them next year. I wish there was a way to do this via forums other than stating my name. Perhaps a way to do this is to offer the players there own table tracking sheet or to have one available online that people aren’t required to fill but it would be nice.

The good
HQ answered questions fast
The overheads on the specials were terrific
physical rewards for group success
The marshalls were incredibly patient you all rocked
The GREAT, no seriously the great
The two specials I played kicked butt
Actually the marshal’s belong here
Using cards instead of pregen sheets with all the powers spelled out
Thursday nights special GM, that guy let our group have a lot of fun while we ran roughshod over those enemies. We just worked together so well and while he thought we weren’t RPing enough with the enemies we were RPing between each other way more than I have at any other pathfinder event. He was truly excellent and I just wish I had his name

Grand Lodge

Nefreet wrote:

Warhorn please?

I've never needed a ticket to play at a Con, and from the one game I played I struggled to even find a group.

Every Con I've been to used Warhorn. I've heard it said that GenCon is too large, but I don't see why that matters.

From what I understand, the ticketing system is required by the convention authority, otherwise I totally agree, The Indianapolis Convention Center people enforce this, and they are (from what John Compton had said to me) very rigid about these sorts of things.

As for me...

I loved Gen Con, I will return once I go back to Australia and make a massive vacation of it every couple of years.

My only grumbles (just 3 in total) are some of the reporting (of which I have already asked for correction), the size of the convention center as opposed to the crowd involved and the poor timing of a One Direction concert on the friday thereof.

Apart from that, it is a massive undertaking that I appreciate not only Paizo (the reason I was there), but the locals (99% friendly) and the many vendors and staff that kept it all rolling. Also shout out to my fellow GM Volunteers at the Con, I know HQ keeps our heads out of the clouds, being the beating heart of the con, but we're the backbone, and I enjoyed all those I interacted with. Thanks to all!

***Edit***

As this was my first time to Gen Con, I had expectations I wanted to meet for myself and for the experience as a whole, and they were all exceeded.

Again, Huzzah, Paizo staff for running this massive thing!

1/5 5/5

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Dumagand wrote:

...the size of the convention center as opposed to the crowd involved and the poor timing of a One Direction concert on the friday thereof....

Be GLAD you weren't there for Motorcross, Cart Series, NASCAR, or any year when the Chicago Bears played the Indianapolis Colts (American Football) in an exhibition preseason game.

If you thought a concert was bad...

*shudders at the horrifying memories*

Silver Crusade 5/5

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:
Dumagand wrote:

...the size of the convention center as opposed to the crowd involved and the poor timing of a One Direction concert on the friday thereof....

Be GLAD you weren't there for Motorcross, Cart Series, NASCAR, or any year when the Chicago Bears played the Indianapolis Colts (American Football) in an exhibition preseason game.

If you thought a concert was bad...

*shudders at the horrifying memories*

Pretty much this. At least we just had to deal with kids (and their parents). It could have been MUCH worse.

Silver Crusade 4/5

claudekennilol wrote:
thistledown wrote:


I was a little disappointed to have the opposite experience. I love having new players at my tables, but only got a few of them at 1 of my 7 tables. And five of those games were tier 1-2! I have a 10-15 minute crash course on golarion I like to give to new people, that generally gets someone saying "that's where my character will be from!"
I've been playing PFS for almost two years now and I know I'd still appreciate a crash course on Golarion lore.

Yeah, if you have that in writing, please share!

Walter Sheppard wrote:

Also, since reporting issues have been mentioned, as someone that did a bit of the reporting, here are some observations and suggestions.

First, there were a plethora of issues on the reporting sheets I was handed to enter. Players without numbers was a common one--these people didn't get credit and likely never will unless they contact campaign leadership. GMs and musters can help with this, by picking up a handful of new PFS numbers from the infobooth (or bringing them from home!) and distributing it to new players. There were also numerous issues where player and even GM handwriting was illegible. I had multiple instances of PFS numbers that I couldn't decipher, which is going to lead to some reporting issues down the road. This can be helped by having the GM verify at the table that the numbers are all readable. If they aren't, write them in clearly above the garbled ones. Lastly, scenario check boxes were often forgotten by the GMs--namely the #6-99 special. I received over half of the sheets from that special, and easily 75% of those sheets didn't have the check boxes noted on them.

Well, they're looking for suggestions for future years, so here's one: Have volunteers walking around to the tables during the games and confirming that the reporting sheets are filled out correctly and legibly while everyone's still at the table. That would be the ideal if you can get enough extra volunteers to do it. The easier option is to just constantly remind GMs to do this.

Paizo Employee Publisher, Chief Creative Officer

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Jon Cary wrote:
JBurz wrote:

Negative Feedback

I'm wondering if four specials is almost too many.

My understanding is that the decision to have 4 Specials this year was driven by Gen Con, based on the number of seats filled in previous years. I expect we'll see multiple Specials in the future because that sells more tickets.

While this is the correct context, and Gen Con did ask us to experiment with a "special" every day, their desires are not the only factors in our decision-making process. Four specials certainly put a strain on our editorial operation that led to judges getting their adventures a bit later than we would have preferred, so when we're making our plans for next year, we're certainly going to take all factors into account before making programming decisions.

Paizo Employee Publisher, Chief Creative Officer

7 people marked this as a favorite.
Fromper wrote:
This is a Paizo problem, not a problem with the GM volunteers. The problem is that Paizo considers the Friday before GenCon to be an acceptable deadline to have all scenarios distributed to the GMs. If they made the deadline two weeks earlier than that, and made sure everyone on their staff knew it 6 months in advance, then you wouldn't have nearly as many complaints about unprepared GMs.

I agree that this is a Paizo problem. We consider the Friday before the show to be the final deadline on which we can deliver adventures to prevent an abject failure and total systemic catastrophe, and unfortunately based on several issues this year that "final day" was indeed the only day by which it was possible to deliver the final versions of some scenarios. As others have mentioned, we tried to supply "everything but the maps" versions of a few not-quite-finished scenarios to help people prep, but this is an area where we can clearly do better.

I actually don't find the Friday before the show to be "acceptable." I had to "accept" it this year, but that's not quite the same thing, and we hope to have a far superior solution in place for 2016.

Grand Lodge 4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Quake_Hammertide wrote:

My thoughts, as a player who exclusively plays PFS at gen con, and probably should be considered a newb (included is my suggestions for improvement: Sorry long post

The bad:
1. We had a GM thrown onto our table because they were missing GMs on Sunday, I realize this happens, the problem is that the combat and roleplay required a lot more time than given GM our experience was soured

Solution -- (only for such occurrences like last minute GM changes) have maps ready for them so the GM can focus on reading ahead. Have one or two of these maps available just for such occasions. Make sure the scenarios printed have all the needed info (ours was missing several pages). Have an adventure specialist to help expedite questions for the GM. These GMs especially need runners. running cold means they need a few extra minutes to a whole half hour of run time that they won’t be getting if they have to grab things from HQ or character cards

When we have to pull a GM off their assigned duty to fill in a table that is short a GM, we try to get one that has played or run the scenario before, or that has it prepped already. We can't always do that, and the experts on those scenarios are generally the other GMs sitting around the one that is filling in. That's their best resource as many of the HQ staff is not prepped on adventures and many of them are not GMs in their own right. In fact, several of the volunteers at HQ are spouses of our Venture-Officers who play infrequently but are enthusiastic to support their SO's hobbies. Using them for HQ staff frees up others who *are* GMs to, you know, run games.

As far as the materials are concerned, we have some map packs and flip maps that HQ has accumulated over the years, and we picked up some new ones this year, mostly geared towards supporting the "evergreen" scenarios like Confirmation and Wounded Wisp. We didn't hammer out a loan checkout system for them, but we may do that for next year as the checkouts for the pregens seem to have worked fairly well.

Quake_Hammertide wrote:

2. Those announcements in the middle of a timed event detracted from the excitement and the flow of the game, it pulled me out of the narrative and as I was told repeatedly it was a timed event, probably ruined the timing. I’m really appreciative of the miniature, however it was stolen by someone at my table, so I didn’t even get to enjoy the spoils of that announcement. (Good job on your wins! sucks about my miniature.)

Solution – make those announcements at the beginning or end of the event, or alternatively put them up on the screen and let us read them at our leisure, or make sure the special is planned specifically to create a timing break.

I presume that you're referring to the Special on Friday night. The timing of those announcements was based on when the ENnies let out (~10 PM). It would be in bad taste to announce how many you'd won *before* the event is finished. We did pause the timer for the event while Erik was up on stage talking. That doesn't help with the end of slot timing but it did keep the doomsday timer from progressing while he was talking.

Quake_Hammertide wrote:

3. pregen characters are an abysmal stand in for regular characters of the same level, I was forced to use pregen twice this week, this caused problems at my table, it may not be much but that missing ability point can be pretty unhealthy at higher level

solution -- redo the pregens, have an equipment grab-bag for when the pregens are used in specials. Alternatively make sure the pregens have the same ability scores as their PC counterparts. Maybe even have society submitted build of the character and divide it into categories, like for instance have two versions of merisiel, one of them slightly better at skills, maybe even give her a sense motive

This is a development issue and outside the scope of Gen Con organization. The pregens provided for non-Special tables are the same ones that are available for all PFS players to use, we just printed them and laminated them for use at Gen Con and other events that have direct support from Paizo (Paizocon and Pax Prime, I believe). The pregens are, as I understand it, intentionally designed to not be optimized. If you want an optimized character, the intention is that you play your character rather than a pregen.

Quake_Hammertide wrote:

4. maybe not the place to address but some of the workers were not the nicest, not the GM’s but the orange shirts. One or two in particular especially who worked the boon table, I heard more than one complaint about. The marshalls outside the front door were the nicest they could be all things considered (really everything I heard was almost exclusively about the boon table and maybe one or two other issues)

Solution – sorry I got nothing for people’s attitudes

If you have problems with one of the volunteers, please contact myself, one of the other Leads, or the new Campaign Coordinator (when announced) directly via email with all the details you can remember about the incident. Every volunteer has a badge with their name on it.

Quake_Hammertide wrote:

5. Boons -- a lot of boons read “On your next character…..” For many people this boon is meaningless. I have one character that I’ve been playing since 2013 and he’s at 3rd level. What use will I have for a new character? Same applies to new players. What good is a boon?

Solution --- Don’t get me wrong, I understand they are a push to keep you playing Pathfinder, but it seems you can do that still if you increase the cost of boons if people specifically want to purchase them (like 4 wood tokens) or a dice (6 wood tokens) or a miniature (10 wood tokens) or maybe offer a chance for a reroll at the table with an extra token, or offer a not so awesome circumstantial boon just straight up handing the token back for a reroll or something. I don’t know I have several boons just collecting dust at this point because I’ve never started a new character.

We can discuss this with the new Campaign Coordinator once they come online. I understand the frustration of having boons you can't use, but there are alternatives. There's at least one boon trading thread here and you could always look for players around you that are willing to trade on-site. Boons are transferable until you put the characer and player information in at the top. There are plenty of players that would love to have those "on your next character" options but didn't get a chance at them.

Quake_Hammertide wrote:

GMs
GMs are still under the impression they can’t make ad hoc rules to adjudicate an unusual circumstance from a player. Since I am a king of the unusual this usually means my ideas aren’t adjudicated at all or are done so poorly

Also when I am rolling well a gm shouldn’t tell me to put away my dice, there are few times when I actually roll better than a 4 and the gm asked me to retire my dice because I rolled too many crits. Seriously, that’s probably the only crits I will see for the next 4 years

Solution remind them all that sometimes you have to just go with the enjoyment of the game, maybe every turn remind them to adjudicate to the spirit not the letter

If you have specific instances you can quote, please contact myself, one of the other Leads, or the new Campaign Coordinator (when announced) directly via email with all the details you can remember about the incident.

Quake_Hammertide wrote:

Disabled entrance -
You don’t have one, this needs to be fixed and they should be seated before anyone (provided they have real tickets), no questions asked. This should also apply to those with babies

Better [almost]
Marshalling gets better and better each year, maybe have a place where the single table representative (the table lieutenant) will enter the door for his or her team just a few minutes prior to all the doors opening. Get their assignments and then return to the outside, the mad dash and crowding of marhsalls is still a bit much

If someone needs special seating due to disabilities, we can accommodate that if we're aware of it ahead of time. Please contact someone at HQ and we can be sure those players are seated at a table with easy access. It's easier if it's a full table of 6, but even if not then we can seat a partial. This has to be arranged before we send out the Marshals to the muster points with the clipboards, however. You could even email us in advance of the event and we'd be happy to get that set up.

I'm not sure about the babies issue, it hasn't come up before. I don't see a problem with doing the same thing for them as it's unlikely to be a huge number of players that have that issue. I will discuss with the Leads team and see what we can hammer out for next year.

Quake_Hammertide wrote:

Seating all the real tickets and getting them together with groups. I was fifteen minutes early and scrambling for a seat in the special

It has gotten better but it is still a problem.

I'm not sure which Special you're referring to. The muster on Thursday night was certainly a mess, but things were smoother on later days as we put the generic ticket holders into a line around the corner from the main hall where the real ticket holders were assembled and held them there until 7 PM, which is the earliest Gen Con allows us to seat generics. Most if not all the real ticket holders were seated by that point as we started muster for them at ~6:45 PM.

Quake_Hammertide wrote:

THE GOOD that could be made better?

I had two great GM’s (I know Gm thread) and several players I really liked. I wouldn’t mind meeting up with them next year. I wish there was a way to do this via forums other than stating my name. Perhaps a way to do this is to offer the players there own table tracking sheet or to have one available online that people aren’t required to fill but it would be nice.

The good
HQ answered questions fast
The overheads on the specials were terrific
physical rewards for group success
The marshalls were incredibly patient you all rocked
The GREAT, no seriously the great
The two specials I played kicked butt
Actually the marshal’s belong here
Using cards instead of pregen sheets with all the powers spelled out
Thursday nights special GM, that guy let our group have a lot of fun while we ran roughshod over those enemies. We just worked together so well and while he thought we weren’t RPing enough with the enemies we were RPing between each other way more than I have at any other pathfinder event. He was truly excellent and I just wish I had his name

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not sure that we can re-format the pregens into cards of some sort as the format is provided by Paizo.

1/5 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

The pre-gen thing got me to thinking about them again...

Are there any plans to *sell* the binders like they had at the convention with all the pregens on them?

Given how prohibitive the cost is for an individual player to print, and laminate the entire package, I know I would be willing to pay a modest mark-up on what it cost Paizo to make those, and a couple of my GMs were also curious about that.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Erik Mona wrote:
Jon Cary wrote:
JBurz wrote:

Negative Feedback

I'm wondering if four specials is almost too many.

My understanding is that the decision to have 4 Specials this year was driven by Gen Con, based on the number of seats filled in previous years. I expect we'll see multiple Specials in the future because that sells more tickets.

While this is the correct context, and Gen Con did ask us to experiment with a "special" every day, their desires are not the only factors in our decision-making process. Four specials certainly put a strain on our editorial operation that led to judges getting their adventures a bit later than we would have preferred, so when we're making our plans for next year, we're certainly going to take all factors into account before making programming decisions.

Thanks for the clarification, Erik. I was going based on the information that filtered it's way down to me.

1/5

Erik Mona wrote:
Jon Cary wrote:
JBurz wrote:

Negative Feedback

I'm wondering if four specials is almost too many.

My understanding is that the decision to have 4 Specials this year was driven by Gen Con, based on the number of seats filled in previous years. I expect we'll see multiple Specials in the future because that sells more tickets.

While this is the correct context, and Gen Con did ask us to experiment with a "special" every day, their desires are not the only factors in our decision-making process. Four specials certainly put a strain on our editorial operation that led to judges getting their adventures a bit later than we would have preferred, so when we're making our plans for next year, we're certainly going to take all factors into account before making programming decisions.

Erik,

Thanks for the response. My feedback stems mostly from the fact that it makes for a few too many late nights, but also that I could see that all of these scenarios were great - even if they didn't always live up to that potential.

4/5

3 people marked this as a favorite.

One thought that might help in the future - if you have a scenario such as True Dragons which is "special" but not an "interactive" could you run it over MULTIPLE slots? You would still have specials on every day - but you would then have GMs who might run the same scenario multiple times (I find as a GM that my 2nd or 3rd+ run of a given scenario is typically the best - why I rarely mind rerunning scenarios) .

This would also allow development to focus on just one or two specials instead of 4 - increasing the probability that all of the specials are available for GMs as early as possible.

It would also allow many GM's to RUN one slot and PLAY the other (and I would strongly suggest arranging for GM's to somehow get preferential signup for that special - so a GM who wants to both play and run would have that option). Especially for a special which will be the 5 star exclusive many people may not get another chance to play it (if they don't have a 5 star GM locally or timing/scheduling doesn't work out) and the GMs trusted to run a special should be the ones who can manage to play w/o metagaming. Especially with the True Dragons scenario I actually don't think having read the whole scenario would make a huge difference when playing with a group due to the nature of the high degree of role playing (there are a few minor exceptions such as whether or not your group recruits a certain NPC).

True Dragons in particular I think could easily have been running all convention long - and lots of players and GMs would have had a blast playing and running it.

Paizo Employee Publisher, Chief Creative Officer

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Yeah, I think I'd run True Dragons throughout the whole show, and just try to pack Sunday with other awesome stuff in general.

I suspect Gen Con wants to keep people in seats as long as possible, and if Sunday starts to look like an "optional" day, they lose a lot of attendance as people drive home early, etc.

4/5 ****

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Just wanted to take a moment to say thank you Erik for taking some time to check in and help clarify various stuffs.

I look forward to working with Paizo next year and having GenCon be even more awesome than ever.

Paizo Employee Publisher, Chief Creative Officer

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Right back atcha! :)

1/5 * Venture-Agent, Missouri—Blue Springs

I had a great time at my first GENCON!

I played 5 PFS scenarios (7-00, 7-01, 7-02, Kobolds and Aspis)
I'm glad I went with some experienced GenConners who also happened to be my Venture Lts and GMs, so they explained how Mustering worked, so it wasn't bad. I liked how mustering is pretty much a 'Looking For Group' in real life!

I loved the pregen adventures! The kobold adventure was silly, fun, yet still serious enough to keep my attention. The Aspis one...zomg, more of those! I really liked being on the other side of a scenario, really hoping for more of those in the future.

GM's overall were great: Experienced, knew the rules, and were well prepped. I only really had an issue with one, and that in hindsight, isn't really worth getting worked up over.

The Sagamore was great, occasionally hard to hear, both at the table, and hearing the mike for the speakers, bit of echo, but what are you going to do in a room of that size?

Really, about my only actual complain was I only got one button. I don't really know of a better way to do it, but it would have been nice to have had a supply in Sagamore, instead of having to fight through the merch hall every day, just to find them 'out' at that particular moment. But...free buttons, big deal!

Oh, and Scotty's brewhouse 'converted' into a Pathfinder bar was an awesome experience!

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Robert Hetherington wrote:
I look forward to working with Paizo next year and having GenCon be even more awesome than ever.

As do I. :)

Grand Lodge 3/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Robert Hetherington wrote:

Just wanted to take a moment to say thank you Erik for taking some time to check in and help clarify various stuffs.

I look forward to working with Paizo next year and having GenCon be even more awesome than ever.

As well as the clarifications, the thank you talk to the demo crew went a long way.

I saw a fraction of what a crazy convention Erik had: performing job interviews, interviewed for tv and print, meetings and seminars, the Ennies, constantly conducting business when the rest of us were having fun...

Erik is one of the most approachable guys imaginable, and he loves to talk about Pathfinder, books, minis, etc with the fans (like me). I know that he only had time to put in token appearances at some events he attends regularly.

Bottom line, I know that he had to make an extra effort to get out and be involved the way he was, even if it was less than he may like. And I appreciate it a lot.

Lantern Lodge 5/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Two point I would like to make as general feedback for Gen Con.

1. The audio visual were great! However, I was running at Blue 25 on Thursday night, which was one of the front corners of the room. Many of the tables in the wings were not able to see the screens or hear the speakers. I know a lot of time and effort went into the AV presentations, as they always do but many of the tables in my area did not get the benefit of them. I understand that more screens and speakers cost dearly but I wouldn't mind having the benefit of them as a GM and for my players regardless of where we are assigned to sit. Many of the tables around me and myself included got a bit lost between acts III and IV due to our inability to see and hear what was going on.

2. Please reconsider you policy about character death when the player is forced to play a pregen character like in True Dragons of Absalom or Serpents rise, and here's why: Many new players were sitting at these tables for the first time, with no real experience with the character they were playing or the game in general. On Sunday morning the GM at the table next to me found a True Dragons chronicle and on it in red ink was the word DEAD! Underlined twice. On top of the chronicle was a brand new, never to be used again pathfinder ID number. This is a player that will never come back to your game! As a business model this is a poor policy. Gen Con is designed to attract new players in a competitive market. I believe Paizo can do better on this one.

3. That being said I had a great time, met many great players, reconnected with some players from previous years in will be returning for my fourth year as a Tier I GM next year.

1/5

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Christopher Fuller wrote:

2. Please reconsider you policy about character death when the player is forced to play a pregen character like in True Dragons of Absalom or Serpents rise, and here's why: Many new players were sitting at these tables for the first time, with no real experience with the character they were playing or the game in general. On Sunday morning the GM at the table next to me found a True Dragons chronicle and on it in red ink was the word DEAD! Underlined twice. On top of the chronicle was a brand new, never to be used again pathfinder ID number. This is a player that will never come back to your game! As a business model this is a poor policy. Gen Con is designed to attract new players in a competitive market. I believe Paizo can do better on this one.

I think as a general policy events like We Be Goblins and True Dragons of Absalom should award a full chronicle to every player even if their character dies during the scenario. The only time a pregen death should result in a dead chronicle is during a "normal" scenario.

That would give Paizo a fun way to intro players to pathfinder, why not have tables of an intro scenario with goblin pregens and 3d terrain at the front of the hall running continuously? Encourage the new players to have fun and teach them the basics at the same time. Who cares if they manage to kill their goblins? They still get the chronicles and walk away with brand new PFS numbers.

Silver Crusade 4/5

Jessex wrote:
Christopher Fuller wrote:

2. Please reconsider you policy about character death when the player is forced to play a pregen character like in True Dragons of Absalom or Serpents rise, and here's why: Many new players were sitting at these tables for the first time, with no real experience with the character they were playing or the game in general. On Sunday morning the GM at the table next to me found a True Dragons chronicle and on it in red ink was the word DEAD! Underlined twice. On top of the chronicle was a brand new, never to be used again pathfinder ID number. This is a player that will never come back to your game! As a business model this is a poor policy. Gen Con is designed to attract new players in a competitive market. I believe Paizo can do better on this one.

I think as a general policy events like We Be Goblins and True Dragons of Absalom should award a full chronicle to every player even if their character dies during the scenario. The only time a pregen death should result in a dead chronicle is during a "normal" scenario.

That would give Paizo a fun way to intro players to pathfinder, why not have tables of an intro scenario with goblin pregens and 3d terrain at the front of the hall running continuously? Encourage the new players to have fun and teach them the basics at the same time. Who cares if they manage to kill their goblins? They still get the chronicles and walk away with brand new PFS numbers.

This probably deserves its own thread.

On the one hand, I see your point: Don't penalize newbies playing for the first time.

On the other hand, a lot of people really do want to "win" the scenario, and try not to die. But if the players know it doesn't matter if they die, one guy might just go around trying stupid/suicidal stuff just for the heck of it, and screw things up for everyone else.

As a compromise solution, I'd say make death not matter for anyone playing their first ever PFS scenario as one of these pregen kobold/goblin scenarios. But you probably won't tell them that in advance, so they won't intentionally do stupid things to try and die, figuring it doesn't matter. Just a thought.

Silver Crusade 5/5

Jessex wrote:
Christopher Fuller wrote:

2. Please reconsider you policy about character death when the player is forced to play a pregen character like in True Dragons of Absalom or Serpents rise, and here's why: Many new players were sitting at these tables for the first time, with no real experience with the character they were playing or the game in general. On Sunday morning the GM at the table next to me found a True Dragons chronicle and on it in red ink was the word DEAD! Underlined twice. On top of the chronicle was a brand new, never to be used again pathfinder ID number. This is a player that will never come back to your game! As a business model this is a poor policy. Gen Con is designed to attract new players in a competitive market. I believe Paizo can do better on this one.

I think as a general policy events like We Be Goblins and True Dragons of Absalom should award a full chronicle to every player even if their character dies during the scenario. The only time a pregen death should result in a dead chronicle is during a "normal" scenario.

That would give Paizo a fun way to intro players to pathfinder, why not have tables of an intro scenario with goblin pregens and 3d terrain at the front of the hall running continuously? Encourage the new players to have fun and teach them the basics at the same time. Who cares if they manage to kill their goblins? They still get the chronicles and walk away with brand new PFS numbers.

They did that this year with the Goblin 3d Invasion, and with the new quest line.

Grand Lodge 4/5 ***

Overall, I found the marshalling process and the marshals to be excellent. I had the joy of playing with some very skilled and prepared GM's. I had a great experience at my table for the Thursday night special. There were a lot of things going on, we rushed from one area/combat to another, but for the most part we finished everything.

While I really enjoyed the plot and content of the Saturday and Sunday specials, there was WAY TOO MUCH content, too many encounters, and not enough time for me and the others at my tables to figure out what we were doing with the never-before-seen pregens. It was also clear that our very competent GM's couldn't push the scenarios along fast enough without skipping some encounters in their entirety. Both of these specials were incredibly unique and thematic in my opinion, and the storylines lent themselves to some outstanding roleplaying opportunities, which my Sunday GM adjusted wonderfully. Sadly, the roleplaying plus the time it took to figure out completely unfamiliar 7th level pregens (which were built wonderfully by the way) left our table with a shortage of time to complete the mandatory encounters. In my opinion, the GM's were set up to fail by exceedingly complex scenarios and inadequate time to prepare.

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