Cottonseed Lodge (PFS2)

Game Master Redelia

I forgot to add that if they typo the dice expression, which has happened occasionally, I just re-type/roll it for them as the attempt to roll the dice indicates an acceptance of the risk.

I do it the way Rinaldo does, but only because he was my first 2e PbP GM. I'm open to suggestions.

Live, most GMs have given up on secret rolls and just have the players do it. But it's a small community and nobody minds RPing crit fails. I imagine it's not a universal solution.

There are multiple ways, yes. I describe different ways in my PF2 PbPing guide. Since I post all my GM rolls in case of audits, my players can always peek over my screen. I'm also used to rolling in the open as a live GM. The only way to be truly secret is to roll behind a screen at the table.

That all makes sense! I think I'm going to have players roll (except for the beginning scenario rolls, which are easy enough to get the roll info at the start and do those as truly secret rolls). Thanks for the ideas :)

I personally just roll for the players anytime there something if that sort available and weave the results into what I'm going to say anyway.

In combat it's problematic though to wait for the GM though

Example: A player might want to recall knowledge about a creature before say deciding what type of bomb to hit it with or whether to draw their bow and fire at range or draw their club and close to melee, use or not a fear based spell etc.

Having to wait for a response can slow combat down to a crawl. So spoilered answers can be provided in advance but are problematic in their own way though.

'Automating' the Recall Knowledge action in combat requires significant trust and work up-front by the GM, although I've described some techniques in my guide.

However, when using block initiative, the overall slowing isn't that bad unless maybe if you're fighting a single opponent and the person using Recall Knowledge is in a dramatically different time zone from the GM. It's not ideal, but I've done it in games I've GMed, and I can say that of all the delays in the games, that was the most trivial.

In Pirate Bob's example, why wait? When the creature appears, that is the moment to determine who recognizes it and what they know of it. If the gm is waiting for the player to ask about what they know, that is a problem.

That is a function of PF2 rules. Recall Knowledge takes 1 action in encounter mode. It's not a non-action like PF1. So you can't roll for the PCs and say, "You all have one less action this round."

My home PFS GM has a unique solution. He has a table of randomly assigned numbers 1-20 attached to the usual 1-20 set. You roll, tell him what you rolled, he consults his chart and tells you what you know. It works actually pretty well in person and could be adapted to PbP pretty easily.

IE You roll an 11. He consults his chart and sees that 11 equals a 5. He sees you've failed the roll and gives you the appropriate result. You never know whether or not you succeeded or not. Works well.

I would consider a Recall Knowledge check as for being something specific and not about the immediate situation. For example, if the rogue wanted to recall knowledge of engineering for information about the support beams in the room to figure out if an intentional collapse would go as planned. That would be a specific check. I'm sorry, but it is very unreasonable to require someone to stare at a horse for several seconds to realize it's a horse. You either recognize something or you don't.

To remember useful information on a topic, you can attempt to Recall Knowledge. You might know basic information about something without needing to attempt a check, but Recall Knowledge requires you to stop and think for a moment so you can recollect more specific facts and apply them. You might even need to spend time investigating first. For instance, to use Medicine to learn the cause of death, you might need to conduct a forensic examination before attempting to Recall Knowledge.

Bolding is mine.

Recall Knowledge isn't for common knowledge; it's for specific actionable intelligence.

Exactly. Look at the example in what James quoted, the example is catching cause of death, something that requires an examination. Which is closer to that example, "trolls are weak to fire" or "knocking out these support beams will cause the west half of the building to collapse while leaving the east half intact."

To know vs to figure out.

I was confused for a bit, but it seems like you're arguing to change the rules to simply allow characters to know about creatures without an action.

However, here is more of that skill use's rules section:

The following skills can be used to Recall Knowledge, getting information about the listed topics. In some cases, you can get the GM’s permission to use a different but related skill, usually against a higher DC than normal. Some topics might appear on multiple lists, but the skills could give different information. For example, Arcana might tell you about the magical defenses of a golem, whereas Crafting could tell you about its sturdy resistance to physical attacks.

So "trolls are weak to fire" still falls in that 1 action use of Recall Knowledge.

Not really. You'd still need a check to know what a character knows about something, but no one needs to spend a few seconds to know that humans require food. To say that you actually have to pause for a moment to know something you already know is beyond stupid, but to take a moment when you need to apply knowledge to a new and unique situation makes perfect sense.

Since you do not retain knowledge of creatures from one scenario to the next, every troll is a new and unique situation.

I think the confusion is coming from the idea of answering questions one does not already know, such as Einstein figuring out e=mc^2 for the first time would require time despite being a mere fact of knowledge.

Since you do not retain knowledge of creatures from one scenario to the next, every troll is a new and unique situation.

That would be pfs not pf2. Only organized play separates each encounter like that. And frankly, it still doesn't apply because what is the first time for a player is unrelated to the character. The character may know all this stuff ahead of time or even have encountered creatures before ever seeing during actual gameplay. Therefore, even pfs can't actually assume a character is unfamiliar with every creature.

I'm sorry, but it is very unreasonable to require someone to stare at a horse for several seconds to realize it's a horse. You either recognize something or you don't.

You can believe it is a horse, but if you want to confirm it, you need to take the action.

Not really a big deal if you're just walking by a pasture, much more of a deal if it's actually a nightmare in the stable you're trying to hide in.

GM Blake wrote:

Since you do not retain knowledge of creatures from one scenario to the next, every troll is a new and unique situation.

That would be pfs not pf2. Only organized play separates each encounter like that.

We are in the PF2 PFS discussion thread.

Interesting Character wrote:

GM Blake wrote:

Since you do not retain knowledge of creatures from one scenario to the next, every troll is a new and unique situation.

That would be pfs not pf2. Only organized play separates each encounter like that.

We are in the PF2 PFS discussion thread.

And furthermore, you're posting in the PFS(2) PbP Lodge discussion thread.

EDIT: Back to the discussion for its own sake, to avoid players just deciding what they know, PFS declares you know nothing at the start of a scenario (unless they remake 'Seen It Once' boons, which I would buy a ton of with AcP).

Don't be ridiculous. If you think it's a horse, then you know a set if information about horses. Any confirmation would be a matter of determining if the horse is an actual horse, and is not related to how much us known about horses.

Why don't you each GM a game for each other see which way works better?

If you've never seen it, then you fail the check. If you pass the check, it's because you know what it is, and knowing what something is does not require time spent thinking about it. That's how "knowledge" works. Using knowledge is what takes time, or figuring out new knowledge.

If you've never seen it, then you fail the check. If you pass the check, it's because you know what it is, and knowing what something is does not require time spent thinking about it. That's how "knowledge" works. Using knowledge is what takes time, or figuring out new knowledge.

That is not how it works in PFS(2), however. Reasonable people can disagree with the implementation of knowledge in a tactical RPG, but it is not open for debate at the table. Nor is this particular forum the place for lobbying to change rules--or advocate deviating from the unified structure we operate under in PFS--as it is more likely to confuse new players and GMs. The PFS Discussion forum or the PF Rules forum would be the appropriate place to register your thoughts on the rules both as they are written and applied in PFS.

Then I'll close off with this, a popular interpretation of how things work does not make it correct. Sometimes there is a vagueness that allows multiple interpretations to be correct, sometimes only one interpretation is correct yet people can still interpret things incorrectly. Never assume the popular interpretation is the correct one, cause it's usually the wrong one.

Don't be ridiculous. If you think it's a horse, then you know a set if information about horses.

You have a set of assumptions. You could be wrong. Making the check will confirm your assumptions (assuming you succeed).

It sounds like it is time to change the subject. Much as I like how this started, the sharing of ideas on how to best facilitate PbP games is great, falling into bickering about rules is not.

@Interesting Character - unless the Organized Play team rule otherwise, we all need to continue to implement the rule that players must roll to see how much their character can recall about the creature in the stress of the moment.

Some scenarios do have room for players to attempt to recall knowledge about something they know in advance they will be facing, but if the team is in initiative then an action must be spent.

What other great ideas do people have to make the gameplay flow smoothly?

For those who were expecting a GM School to start - my sincerest apologies. Life keeps throwing me new challenges and I while I thought I would be able to start a group a few weeks back, I have to admit that at this time I can not commit to being consistently available. I don't want to start unless I know I can provide the support needed.

Hopefully, you have all been able to find other mentors and start your careers as GMs. If not, please speak up and indicate you wish to run a game and are looking for at least one or two experienced GMs to play so they may mentor if needed.

This is still a good place to come and ask questions and seek advice.

I wanted to repost this here. I truly am sorry that I was unable to make the GM School happen at this time.

With a responsive player and GM it tends not to be a big deal, just wanted to mention the only point as a player I've really felt any friction in how to roll and act with secret checks.

As an interesting note check out the skill feat Thorough Reports from Pathfinder Agent in LOWG for a way to learn more about creatures you've previously encountered.

As an interesting note check out the skill feat Thorough Reports from Pathfinder Agent in LOWG for a way to learn more about creatures you've previously encountered.

Whew, this seems like it could be really cumbersome to administer at the table, especially in non-pbp format. I'm picturing the player reading off a long list of every creature they've ever identified, just so the GM knows whether to give them the bonus.

I actually have some of my characters include a list of successful knowledge checks.

@ Numbat and Toz
It has been asked to go elsewhere for that particular topic. Feel free to invite me to a new thread if you really want to convince me of anything about it.

Not sure if this is the right tab to post this, so I apologize if it isn't. Not new to PFS or p2E but new to combining them. Currently running a 2E home game of AoA, looking to join a pbp game as a player. Is recruitment still done in gameplay (I saw that mentioned in the Flaxseed one). Just trying to get my bearings about where I need to look to join a game.

if you make a post in the Gameplay thread this will allow the lodge to show up in your Campaigns. Otherwise recruitment for games will be found underneath the recruitment tab.

if you make a post in the Gameplay thread this will allow the lodge to show up in your Campaigns. Otherwise recruitment for games will be found underneath the recruitment tab.

Awesome, thank you. I'll make a post in Gameplay to have it show up in my campaigns. It's been like four years since I've done a PBP game.

Well welcome back!!! If you need any assistance let me know.

Hi, everyone. Since one of my current games is winding down, I plan to offer a GM school session starting soon. GM school is intended for people who are new to GMing, new to GMing in Play by Post, or have a little bit of GM experience but still want to learn the basics. All students in this session of GM school will participate in a classroom, and also be placed at a table with a mentor. That table will play together through a scenario, with everyone acting as GM part of the time. I will be leading the classroom discussion. Your mentor will be an experienced GM. If you are interested in participating as a student, please fill out this google form.

***Announcement***

I have two major announcements: First, Outpost III has officially been announced. Please check out the link below!

Outpost III: Putting on the Ritz!

Secondly you may ask yourselves how can I play in some of those PFS 1E games if I have already done so. Well more good news has arrived!

This comes right from the top

Pathfinder Society 1st Edition GM Replays from the website are usuable! Please do the following:

For P1, because paper trumped online, just tell the GM and have them write replay at the top. It will come up with the error message on the site, but you can ignore that because the chronicle is the primary resource.

I have a general question prompted by discussion of the PlayDis con:

I have never even looked at Discord, so I don't know anything about it. What advantages does it have over using the forum? I'm curious as to why the people who like to use it do so. :-)

(And if this conversation has already been had, feel free to point me to a link and I'll happily read!)

I have a general question prompted by discussion of the PlayDis con:

I have never even looked at Discord, so I don't know anything about it. What advantages does it have over using the forum? I'm curious as to why the people who like to use it do so. :-)

(And if this conversation has already been had, feel free to point me to a link and I'll happily read!)

You're not the first person to be curious about the differences and I think Dennis made a pretty good post about it over at Flaxseed Station. And others should feel free to chime in here as well if they have anything to add!

Hope this helps :)

I think it has a pretty decent App, which makes it easier to use from a mobile device (aka while at work O:)).

Thanks, Ladile! Based solely on Dennis' post, the cons would far outweigh the pros for me. Hopefully someone else can talk about why they like it and add to the pro column. :)

Abraham Z. wrote:

Would you mind giving a sense of what you see as the advantages/disadvantages of Discord compared to the PbP format here at paizo.com?

I'll throw in my two cents on the advantages disadvantages. People who play on Discord more frequently than I do may correct me on some things:

Advantages:

Games seem to run faster

More accessible on mobile

Fewer site outages

Can post pictures, map screenshots, etc. in-stream with the gameplay

Disadvantages:

No character profiles (you can add some character info to your main alias, but you can't have a separate alias for separate characters)

I solved this pretty easily by just creating a bookmark for each player in my group. It honestly works faster to access a profile sheet, but if you have a lot of games that could mean a lot of bookmarks... though folders do exist. It took me a bit to figure out this trick but I haven't had the no profile issue since. I'm actually considering doing this for my Paizo games now so I have all my PC's a single click away.

No tagline info

I stole a trick from another GM to have the players post their tagline at the start of the thread and then I simply pin it to the top. Since posts are editable, it works pretty darn well as a header. You also don't run across the character limit on your header like you do with Paizo.

Spoilers are clunkier and no nested spoilers

I haven't tried to use many spoilers, but for what I do use them for, they would work fine. For things like secret rolls you can't use a GM screen, so if I have to make them, I just make a set of d20 rolls. I know what each roll matches up to, but the players don't.

I personally find it very challenging to search back in a game thread for things that happened previously

No way around this. But, when you do scroll back up to search, it is a lot easier to compose a post because your text box scrolls with you.

(As far as I know) you can't link to a specific post

This is correct. But I rarely use this on Paizo anyway so it isn't that necessary.

All that said, I've enjoyed the games I've played there, even if I prefer playing here. I'll likely sign up for a game or two in PlayDis Con.

_____________________

Other Possible Pros
* It is a lot easier to edit or delete posts to keep things looking nice and clean.
* The dice rolls cannot be previewed and cannot be edited once rolled. So if you have paranoia of roll manipulation, Discord can negate that concern.

Possible Con
* Things can get really busy on the screen and hard to keep track of all the stuff that happens. Posts from players tend to be 2 or 3 per round instead of the usual 1. (Player posts what they do as post 1. Dice are rolled as post 2. Player posts a RP reaction based upon the dice rolls as post 3. Player asks an OOC question as post 4... it can get busy).

_____________________

End opinion? I haven't had any major issues Playing or GM'ing over there. Will I keep playing over there? Probably not, but that's mainly because I will stay active over here and don't want to split my attention too much. Discon was a fun test of PbD.

Additionally, two things, bots and threads.

On paizo, you get one gamepkay thread, one discussion thread, recruitment, etc, and that's it. On discord, you can make and organize threads as desired. Need a thread to track player schedules? dome. Need a thread to track setting details, npcs, etc? done.

Bots can also be very useful, customizable, and manifold. There is no built in dice roller, rather a bot needs to get added to the server. Bots can be programmed in basically any way you want (there is even a pokemon game via bot I've seen and I've got a rough sketch of a rogue-like multiplayer game bot). Thus there is actually choice in the dice roller bots you can choose from, so you can pick the right one for the job. You can even have multiple bots. You can probably make a profanity filter bot if you wanted.

Of course, making a custom bot is a bit of work requiring programming and a host for the bot, but many premade bots exist that are easy to choose and activate for free.

Hey Guys. I'm keen to GM a game. How do I go about that?

Hey Guys. I'm keen to GM a game. How do I go about that?

@Fox-Pantom - You've already takn the first step, volunteering to run a game!

I see that you've also taken several other important additional steps, setting up a campaign thread, a recruitment thread, and even responding to player inquiries.

It also appears that you've experienced a few PbP games already as a player, which is always helpful in prepaing one for GMing a PbP game.

As you are already well one your way, I am not sure what other advice to offer at the moment other than I have found the fine folks on these forums to be as Knowledgeable as they are friendly, so if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask!

(And, I see you've already done that too!)

Happy Gaming!

Anyone who wants to sign up for GM school and has not yet done so needs to sign up in the next 24 hours. After that I am going to close signup for this session.

Dennis Muldoon wrote:

Abraham Z. wrote:

Would you mind giving a sense of what you see as the advantages/disadvantages of Discord compared to the PbP format here at paizo.com?

I'll throw in my two cents on the advantages disadvantages. People who play on Discord more frequently than I do may correct me on some things:

Advantages:

Games seem to run faster

More accessible on mobile

Fewer site outages

Can post pictures, map screenshots, etc. in-stream with the gameplay

Disadvantages:

No character profiles (you can add some character info to your main alias, but you can't have a separate alias for separate characters)

I solved this pretty easily by just creating a bookmark for each player in my group. It honestly works faster to access a profile sheet, but if you have a lot of games that could mean a lot of bookmarks... though folders do exist. It took me a bit to figure out this trick but I haven't had the no profile issue since. I'm actually considering doing this for my Paizo games now so I have all my PC's a single click away.

Dennis Muldoon wrote:

No tagline info

I stole a trick from another GM to have the players post their tagline at the start of the thread and then I simply pin it to the top. Since posts are editable, it works pretty darn well as a header. You also don't run across the character limit on your header like you do with Paizo.

Dennis Muldoon wrote:

Spoilers are clunkier and no nested spoilers

I haven't tried to use many spoilers, but for what I do use them for, they would work fine. For things like secret rolls you can't use a GM screen, so if I have to make them, I just make a set of d20 rolls. I know what each roll matches up to, but the players don't.

Dennis Muldoon wrote:

I personally find it very challenging to search back in a game thread for things that happened previously

No way around this. But, when you do scroll back up to search, it is a lot easier to compose a post because your...

Thanks, GM Top, those are good suggestions. I'll add a couple other tricks I saw GMs use during PlayDisCon that mitigated some of my frustration with the platform, in the hopes that they spread:

Actually, only some forms of Discord jump you back when you click a lonned link. Others take you right to the link.

Interesting. I've only played on the RfC lodge and the Cosmic Crit lodge, and had that experience on both.