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This is a quest for information. In another thread, I had commented that in my local lodge that it's been getting harder for the veteran players to keep up their enthusiasm for playing as many Tier 1-5 scenarios as are being published. John Compton was nice enough to answer as follows:
That's understandable.
Near the beginning of my time as an organized play developer, there was a very vocal push to have a 1st-level-appropriate adventure released every month. We adjusted our level balance to accommodate this, getting about 10 or 11 Tier 1–2/1–5 scenarios per season (usually breaking from that in June or July). It's a little hard to tell whether our mix is right, for we tend not to get messageboard posts identifying that the tier spread over a multi-year period has been just right; we tend to hear more about when something's not meeting a person's or a region's expectations. Implicitly, it seems the mix is working fairly well.
Is this the right ratio? Has the campaign evolved in some way that might require we revisit these numbers? One way or another, it would be a good topic for a new thread. I'd happily read along.
The Season 8 numbers, as a fairly representative data set:Tier 1 (Quests): 1
Tier 1–2: 0 (A slight anomaly, given that's when we moved to doing some higher-level evergreen adventures)
Tier 1–5: 10
Tier 3–7: 5
Tier 5–9: 5
Tier 7–11: 4
Tier 12–15: 1
Tier 1–11: 2Total: 28
As I remember, the push for a-level-1-accessible-adventure-per-month came about in season 5, after season 4 had only 6 Tier 1-5 scenarios. As I recall, the plan for season 5 was modified partway through so that we ended up with 8 Tier 1-5 scenarios that year. Since then we have gotten 10 tier 1-5 scenarios, plus other level-1-accessible-adventures. Of course, that means we are spending less of our time in mid- and high-level play.
So, how is your local lodge responding to the current ratios? Are you still finding this number of low level scenarios necessary? Are you having experienced players drop out and only come back for high level games? What would happen in your lodge if we had another season like season 4 with only 6 Tier 1-5 scenarios but an epic subplot with 6 Tier 7-11 scenarios?
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Some things that have changed since Season 5 that may effect the optimal number include:
-replay is far more accessible, making it possible for experienced players to participate in tables with new players
-the total number of low-level scenarios has greatly increased, providing a much larger catalogue to work from
-more people have a greater variety of experience, since people have been picking up the game at different times over the last 9 years. It has become easier to find things a new player and a player who started three years ago still have in common to play.
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I'll add a driving motivation for myself (since I can't speak beyond local experience).
I'm shifting more than half of my attention to Starfinder. I run a weekly group through the AP, and have GMed more Starfinder scenarios at Cons than I have Pathfinder scenarios.
As a reaction, I'm trying to play only high Tier Pathfinder scenarios. I have half a dozen PCs that are Level 10-11, and a dozen that are 12+.
I have a stronger attachment to those characters than my lower level ones, so I'm trying to retire them before my limited time gets any more restricted.
Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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If we had less 1-5 scenarios, a lot of veteral players over here would get in trouble.
We generally go trough 1-5's faster then the others. If new players join our lodge, we try to get them started on some evergreens, but that will get you to lvl 2. After that you need to scedule 1-5's as normal.
There are never enough new people in one go that you can give them a separate table. You always fill up the other spots with more experienced players. Since its lame that they would bring a bunch of lvl 5's to a low tier party, they generally also pick a low lvl character.
It doesnt matter if the new player sticks around, those 1-5s have been played. Of course you try to get people into 3-7's as fast as you can, but that doesnt always work.
So generally, we use up 1-5s more then the other scenarios, so we need more of them. Is 10 too much? That I dont know. But I'm pretty sure that if we only get only 6, that would be a problem.
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Certainly, though I don't feel that way myself. But as an experienced player, I think it's helpful for me to make an effort to step back, think about how new and potential players see the game, and consider, with limited resources, what serves the interest of keeping the game going for everyone.
I've mentioned that twice. I really think in the middle years of PFS, it's a risk that it won't continue in an area more than a year or two, if campaign leadership and organisers serve only people who are already seasoned and don't actively support replacement of players and GMs who leave.
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I'd say the current mix is good. Organizing tier 1-5 scenarios is easiest because people always have characters to play them with. With higher tier scenarios it's more about chance because the character tier spread is much wider.
For next week our local group had scheduled a new 1-5 and a 7-9. The 1-5 filled up within a few hours. There weren't enough players for the 7-9, or even a 5-9 that was tried as its replacement. When the second table was replaced with a second copy of the new 1-5 scenario it instantly got several signups from mostly veteran players.
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Certainly, though I don't feel that way myself. But as an experienced player, I think it's helpful for me to make an effort to step back, think about how new and potential players see the game, and consider, with limited resources, what serves the interest of keeping the game going for everyone.
I've mentioned that twice. I really think in the middle years of PFS, it's a risk that it won't continue in an area more than a year or two, if campaign leadership and organisers serve only people who are already seasoned and don't actively support replacement of players and GMs who leave.
In no way was I suggesting not supporting new players. I'm just asking the question that with 80+ scenarios available for new players, does the same level of new product targeted at them need to continue. Personally, I think part of supporting new players is giving them the opportunities to play important, beloved oldies that help them catch up on major plotline events.
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However, it's a careful balancing act.
One needs to fill tables to maintain a viable community.
If all that is presented on the agenda is older scenarios that the more experienced Society players have already played, then they will simply not show up to days when those are presented.
They won't want (for the most part) to take 'no credit' for them, nor will there be enough need for a pile of folks who have played them already to GM it, if there's only one or two people in a given area who haven't played the older scenarios in question.
So in a way, keeping the lower levels available for veteran and new players alike can help build the community to a given point.
The drawback would be if the veteran players completely dominate the sign-ups for tables of new scenarios, so there is nothing for the new people to play, and with a dearth of GMs because the scenarios are new.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Rhein Main South
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I think the mix of last season was very well, the only thing I would have liked would be a full replayability for House of harmonious wisdom, it makes sceduling it a bit problematic. (Every one to replay it will bring a level one, while others think it is a normal 1-5 and come with higher leveled Characters)
Also very much appreciating the newfound love of 12-15, these scenarios are very liked in the community and are a reason some of our players now actively try to get theri cahracters to level 12 and not swich them around ever so often.
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It helps me to visualize how many play opportunities there are at each level when I make a quick chart:
1 13
2 12
3 17
4 17
5 22
6 12
7 16
8 11
9 11
10 6
11 6
The distribution looks good enough to me besides the dreaded "I'm stuck at level 6" drop-off.
I think if these 12-15s continue being a huge success maybe a 16-19 (maybe even 16-20?) could be attempted. Having a second way to reach 20 besides Race for the Runecarved Key would be awesome.
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I personally have setup characters to ultimately be dedicated to a season. Having a nice progression within a session has allowed my characters to be themed off the season I have played. This has also helped my player base enjoy a dedicated storyline. I am for the current progression of season 7 and 8. I just wish there were 7 more sessions to finish off a level progression. As a lot of us run out of 1 - 5 sessions, this where we will need new modulars and sanctioned adventure paths to help fill the void.
For example the timeline of how I ran Season 8:
Character Start
8-01, 8-05, 8-06 Level 2
8-14, 8-08, 8-10 Level 3
8-12, 8-16, 8-18 Level 4
8-21, 8-22, 8-02 Level 5
8-07, 8-19, 8-23 Level 6
8-03, 8-09, 8-11 Level 7
8-99, 8-15, 8-24 Level 8
8-13, 8-17, 8-04 Level 9
8-20, 8-00, add, Level 10
add, add, add, Level 11
add, add, add, Level 12
8-25
Venture-Captain, Finland—Oulu
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In my city we have a huge demand for Tier 1-5 scenarios, and when a new 1-5 is offered alongside an old non-Tier 1-5 that people haven't played, they go for the new 1-5. This week I had to reschedule The Gauntlet! to 2018 and offer another table of The Shores of Heaven myself to meet the demand, because the veteran players opted for The Shores of Heaven instead of the Gauntlet.
Level 6 dump is real. Also, players seem to play characters less and less as they go up in levels, instead opting to create new characters.
New players appear constantly so I need to schedule Tier 1-5 scenarios steadily, which leads to having less timeslots available for higher tier games.
tl;dr A growing community like mine needs many new Tier 1-5 scenarios.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht
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Yes, playing in general is concidered way more important here then what is played.So Tineke, Starglim and Steven, you are not seeing signs of low-level-burnout among your experienced players?I have not. Our old guard snaps up every new scenario, regardless of level.
As a player in Tineke's group, I agree. Sure, I'd like to play more high-level games, but sometimes that's just not possible. New people join in and need to level up, or veterans make new characters and have to start from the beginning. It just happens. I'm glad I get to play at all.
For me personally, the real pinch is getting new characters leveled at all. I've been playing fanatically for 3 years now, and with 220+ scenarios played, I've done most of them by now. Sure, GM credit helps up to a certain point, but getting out of that 1-5 tier is still a chore. I'm glad there's a boon out there that lets me start a character on level 2, that helps a lot. At some point, there's the possibility I've overtaken Paizo's catalog and either have to stop playing for credit (or not appearing at all anymore), or constantly GM stuff I might have already GMed before. Neither of which is really fun. But that's the risk you take when you play once, maybe twice a week, while Paizo's output is literally half that.
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The current mix seems just about right to me. We run all the new content in our lodge. We *always* schedule a 1-5 in each slot of our big game days, and then fill out our other tables with higher tier stuff.
One thing we always suggest to new players is to always start a new level 1 character when their previous character hits level 3. We get "batches" of characters this way, and everyone can always play a 1-5 with at least a character, if not 3 or 4.
Also, keeping your lodge's characters involved in talking about character concepts makes veteran players always wanting to try something new. Adding some discussion in your lodge's social media, newsletter, slack team or however you communicate to the players in your region really helps.
And finally, so that those Veteran players *do* get to play higher tier, plan private events months in advance to send them through seeker arcs and high level modules. Something special for just them.
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When i was running a smaller group (sadly we lost the venue) we had a constant influx of new people but not enough to make a table by themselves, so we'd have to toss a couple of vets onto the table with them.
If we had enough people for two tables, great. if we didn't, finding a low level scenario everyone could play was an absolute pain in the tail.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
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I think if these 12-15s continue being a huge success maybe a 16-19 (maybe even 16-20?) could be attempted. Having a second way to reach 20 besides Race for the Runecarved Key would be awesome.
I don't understand the obsession with getting to 20th level. You don't actually get to play at 20th level, and playing Race for the Runecarved Key at 19th level seems like it would be very boring (I played it at 15th level and it was boring).
It seems like a Pyrrhic victory to me.
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For me its not so much about reaching level 20 as it is about getting more opportunities to play some of my favorite characters. I love the new seeker level scenario options because they are scenarios as opposed to modules or AP chapters allowing me to potentially play the characters a few more times before I'm forced to retire them.
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I like the current scenario level range mix. In organizing games at my location, I like to try to make sure we have at least one low-level scenario offered every session. New scenarios at level 1-5 make it easier to get enough players to make a table. I also want to applaud the effort in recent years to offer more Seeker content. I see it as a reward to those who have participated and helped run the campaign over a long period and I very much appreciate the opportunity to play stuff with characters who would otherwise be retired.
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I think if these 12-15s continue being a huge success maybe a 16-19 (maybe even 16-20?) could be attempted. Having a second way to reach 20 besides Race for the Runecarved Key would be awesome.I don't understand the obsession with getting to 20th level. You don't actually get to play at 20th level, and playing Race for the Runecarved Key at 19th level seems like it would be very boring (I played it at 15th level and it was boring).
It seems like a Pyrrhic victory to me.
I'm sure everyone has different answers but as BNW said it is partly a completionist thing and partly just because it be fun to play that character who was unplayable and awful until like level 8 but finally came together later.
I'm the kind of gamer who does every secret boss, unlocks every cool item, replays the game to get faster times and better scores. I played Final Fantasy XI (their first MMO) for maybe like 8 years and hadn't stopped until I had finally completed absolutely everything including having a relic weapon for my Dragoon. For an idea there isn't really another game comparison to how much effort went into making that weapon; it took the combined efforts of 20-40 people about a year of work and about $3-5k in USD game currency. Today I play MOBA games where I sometimes get to play against professionals in ranked games.
So a lot of this mindset just carries over into Pathfinder for me. I'm in complete agreement I'm an extreme outlier. It would just be fun for me personally.
Also you can replay Race for the Runecarved key for no credit to make a legal table as a level 20 character and you can also apply the boon to have a character gain a level to reach 21.
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Right now we're having a little trouble making more than 1 PFS table at both locations I go to locally. I'm scheduled to run a 5-9 this weekend as the sole PFS scenario. I'm very curious if it's going to make. Three of the potential players did just play it at a convention in October, but a couple of the others are already planning on playing the SFS scenario.
I think I'm ok with the current mix, since new 1-5s are what we can pretty consistently get to make. 7-11s are getting to be tough, though we can still pull them off about once a month. I've been playing more 7-11s online lately than in person because of that.
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I'd like more 7-11's, as I've got quite a backlog of characters waiting for more 10-11 games to come out so they can retire. (Currently only 1 I can get credit for)
Yep, once a character reaches 10th level you are lucky if you can advance them even 1 level a year, since many 7-11s will get played at the lower tier depending on who shows up to the table.
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In 10 years of running PFS (I ran a slot 0 for season 0), I've seen very few people every hit level 7 before deciding to create a new PC because the new rulebook came out and it has shiny stuff.. of the 161 players on my local warhorn, only 11 have level 7 characters. Some have played over 200 games, and don't have a level 7 character yet. I have seen several players with 100+ games played who don't have a level 5 yet.
I hate that many of the storylines start in the low levels and end in the high ones.... because I could never get a group together for the end of the storyline. We've run maybe 10% of the 7-11s.... but we have some players who have run out of 1-5 and 3-7, don't have a level 7 character, and there are currently no other characters in 5-9 tier...
I guess what I'm trying to say, is that each state/region/group has different needs to keep it going. Its hard to generalize what's "needed" based on just what your group is seeing. Looking at your data set for season 8 I would have said there are too many 7-11 and I would remove 2 and add them to 3-7. But that's just based on what I see in my community.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Earl, could you tell us more about how that local situation developed? It sounds strange to me - how did people exhaust the 1-5/3-7 range without ending up at level 7+?
What kind of scheduling methods do you use?
Do people have difficulty actually reaching higher level, or do they just really prefer lower level play?
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It can be hard to play Tier 5-9.
People in general don't like to play down. Generally the adventure is less fun because its too easy and is less rewarding.
So lets say you've got 4 players that have been chugging along and 3 of them have level 4 characters, and one has a level 3 character. Along comes 2 new players, "dependable Steve" and "little Bobby".
Rather than have the new players play up at tier 4-5 (something discouraged by the guide) The 4th level players are responsible and make brand new characters. The player with the 3rd level character thinks hmmm I'm going to be playing with a bunch of lvl 1s I might as well make a new character as well instead of playing down.
These players have a jolly time for about 2 months (say 9 scenarios) with little bobby only showing up half time. Then another new player shows up. The original players now have 2 lvl 3/4 characters each, Dependable Steve has a 4th level character and little bobby has a 2nd level character.
Well little bobby can keep playing his character but the other players make new 1st level characters to play with the new players.
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If you want to be welcoming to new players but can only run 1 table at a time it can be extremely difficult to get to higher level material.
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Owner - Enchanted Grounds, President/Owner - Enchanted Grounds
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Happy to see that the increased number of tier 1-5 adventures is (largely) a good thing, as this is definitely something I championed.
I still think we should see three scenarios a month. I realize there is now Starfinder (though I, personally, am not seeing much interest in this campaign - it seems limited to a half dozen or so players). If there were always a 1-5, always a 3-7, and then alternating 5-9/7-11 scenarios each month, I think a lot of these road blocks would stop popping up. While it makes me happy to see SFS continue Paizo's growth into the new and exciting, I really wish PFS would be seen as more "worth it" to dedicate those resources to.
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Things seem all right locally. We get enough in that our VC has been scheduling at least one 1-5 every game day (with one occasional exception) and they've been filling up and going off. We have a fair number of new players.
Of course because we run so many 1-5s the drop-off at level 6 hits us pretty hard still.
Starfinder is having... interesting effects on us. Time will tell how it goes.
I would also like another scenario a month, but I expect SFS is eating up every new resource the PFS team has been able to muster. :)
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I know it is slightly offtopic but it is something Pirate Rob briefly touched on but the other side. Playing as a level 3 multiple times in a tier 4-5 as 4 person and barely in tier multiple times last convention was brutal. There is no reward. I think it just make more sense to get the tier gold.
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I guess what I'm trying to say, is that each state/region/group has different needs to keep it going. Its hard to generalize what's "needed" based on just what your group is seeing.
I agree, but maybe this thread can provide some anecdotal evidence for Paizo to draw from.
I'll give two data points since I moved in 2015 and have long experience with two different areas.
Atlanta (as of 2.5 years ago): In need of more 7-11 scenarios. Many players had exhausted them and had one or more characters stuck at level 10.
DFW: Does not need more 7-11. We have a relatively high cycle rate for players. 7-11 tables rarely have enough sign-ups to make. The players who want to play them (like me) are also the most frequent GMs for the lower tier scenarios.
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It's also worthwhile to note that due to the way tiers are set up, and what levels the pregens are at (not suggesting yay or nay on any alternatives for pregens), that there is the possibility that a 7-11 that runs at a venue that doesn't have everyone 'in high tier' will be forced to take along L7 pregens, sometimes just to make the table happen.
So in a way the person playing the L7 pregen is 'playing up' in a scenario, perhaps because they know that the likelihood of seeing that scenario run anytime in the near future is slim to none.
Not necessarily because they want 'better rewards' but the 'opportunity cost' is such that it's either 'risk a L7 pregen in a high-tier run' or 'possibly never get to play this scenario'.
There have been at least a half-dozen scenarios I've played in where this has applied to me personally, perhaps even more.
...and before someone chimes in with the 'well, just GM it' mantra, it *DOES NOT HELP* if there are not enough players to fill the table *in the first place*.
Not everyone is capable of just picking up a scenario and running it 'cold' or even 'with prep' without a good solid play-through first.
A good step the past couple of seasons is getting some 3-7 'evergreens' out there, to help bridge that insane 'L6' gap that kind of kills play, but if there was a need in the campaign, I think it is in addressing that concern, rather than any higher-tier concerns (at least in my physical area?).
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If you play across a few different areas then the 1-5 content also gets more diluted - We try to run a 1-5 table every month. in three different meetups.
This really means the 1-5s get the most dragging out and the evergreens only work so long for the longer term players. I like the number, we get good mileage out of the ones that come out for scheduling and when a new one comes out we (mostly) know everyone can play them. (apart from a few season 0 over the three years running we appear to have had a go at them all and are trying to give them a second run when they can be planned.
This means we can much more easily find a high level one to fill in than another not new 1-5 to schedule so the releases make this an easier job :)
The high levels have a ton of cool plot points and thread endings/continuations but the 1-5s are the main scheduling...
