Cottonseed Lodge (PFS2)

Game Master Redelia

Thanks guys! I'll make a character then and proceed to try and make it into an adventure.

I have a couple questions before though:

-Is the Shoony ancestry sanctioned for organized play already?
-Where is the best place to try and make it into a campaign? I like Organized play but I also want to have something to play in between.

Okay, so all the quests on Gen con are capped at 4 players. Is that the actual cap for a quest, or is Paizo just choosing to cap them at 4 players?

Okay, so all the quests on Gen con are capped at 4 players. Is that the actual cap for a quest, or is Paizo just choosing to cap them at 4 players?

That is generally for signup. I do not know in the specific case of GenCon, but previous online conventions wanted to leave some seats open for ‘walk-ups’, the people who didn’t get preregistered. Quests tend to fit well with people looking for a game now, and with 4 seats filled the table is legal even if there are no last minute additions,

Thanks guys! I'll make a character then and proceed to try and make it into an adventure.

I have a couple questions before though:

-Is the Shoony ancestry sanctioned for organized play already?
-Where is the best place to try and make it into a campaign? I like Organized play but I also want to have something to play in between.

Not right now.

The Guide and Character Options determine what is allowed in society play. You can find links to these for all the campaigns from the Organized Play site.

That said, you could play one in a module or AP and receive credit towards one of your society characters.

As for making it into a campaign, watching here and the recruitment threads is a good start. You also might want to play more scenarios so that you meet more GMs. People dropping out is a problem in the longer modules and APs, so many GMs want to see that the players will stay with it.

Thanks guys! I'll make a character then and proceed to try and make it into an adventure.

I have a couple questions before though:

-Is the Shoony ancestry sanctioned for organized play already?
-Where is the best place to try and make it into a campaign? I like Organized play but I also want to have something to play in between.

1) The Shoony ancestry as far as I know is not yet sanctioned for Organized Play. My assumption is that when it is sanctioned it will be made available via the Organized Play achievement point system. At the moment, the only freely available races are those found in the Core Rule Book and Kobolds from the upcoming Advanced Players Guide.

2) Getting into a Campaign is trickier. There are always campaigns advertising themselves in the Recruitment Forum, but the process of getting into one can be complex. I actually recommend being an amazing player in Organized Play PBPs first, because then you will have a fantastic character post history that GMs can look at, and go... "Oh, that person can really roleplay!"

Besides, I've found that 80 percent of the APs that open up are invitation-only where players will recommend to their GM a really fun player that they interacted with in another campaign. I've gotten most of my longer campaigns not through individual recruitments, but because I got recommended by another player who had fun playing with me in an OrgPlay game.

And... Ninja'd by Bret!

Ok, that sounds good then, I'll be a more active member of Organized Play :D

Any advice on building a character for PF Society in terms of backstory? Usually the ones I made didn't ring with me because I made them as if I was going to play in a campaign, with ongoing story and such.

Ok, that sounds good then, I'll be a more active member of Organized Play :D

Any advice on building a character for PF Society in terms of backstory? Usually the ones I made didn't ring with me because I made them as if I was going to play in a campaign, with ongoing story and such.

Honestly I usually backfill a bit. I like to play a few scenarios with my character so I can kinda develop a voice for them. Usually that involves making up some 'relevant stories' on the fly when asked questions. For example if a question comes up where I do particularly well on a check to recall knowledge, I'll make up where I learned it from on the fly and incorporate that into their backstory. After a few scenarios I kinda finish ironing it out and fill in the gaps. Either way, I usually try to avoid detailed backstories until I know how I'm going to RP the character. I only have a couple characters with detailed backstories out the gate, and one of them is just me expanding on an old character. The other was me hamfisting a stupid character concept into a PFS-worthy PC.

Any advice on building a character for PF Society in terms of backstory? Usually the ones I made didn't ring with me because I made them as if I was going to play in a campaign, with ongoing story and such.

I would say start with why did they join the society and why are they in the faction they chose. The reasons don’t have to be good, but having a reason does help. I have one character that is in Dark Archives because they met Zarta and liked them. I have a different character that joined Grand Lodge because that is what the society was all about, and if they were to be in the society they would be in the group that really understood it.

After that, try to get an idea where your character came from. This doesn’t have to be an exact city/village/etc, you could just start with what country they are from.

Then try to tie those together and have a couple of adventures to find out more about the character. The advice that DebugAMP gives above is good.

^^^ What Bretl said. Definitely at least answer at the very least the questions of why you're here in the first place, both with regards to the society and your faction. At least picking a county does help to give you a starting point on finding your voice.

DeBug and Bretl definitely have some good advice. I usually find a character concept or build I want to play with and a basic backstory-esque outline more than full story to explain some of their character or an idea of how they would respond to things and then edit, modify or fill in as things go and I figure out a voice for them. I've had characters that have taken full use of the first level rebuild rules as their first (and occasionally second) iteration was either terrible or not fun to play.

Generally, before I play a character I tend to want to know where they came from (as Bretl said general area/country is fine), what they do (class or profession), and why they do it or joined the society. Again general, fuzzy or barely defined is fine, just enough to have a basic sense of who the character is, which can allow you to start reacting in character.

i view this as a continuation of what's already been said, but I aspire to answer as many of these questions as I can for all of my characters.

I say "aspire" because sometimes I don't have answers for all these questions at beginning, and for some of my characters I haven't answered *any* of your questions yet.

In general I find this more helpful than a backstory for helping me roleplay a character, although usually if I answer all of these questions part of a backstory reveals itself.

I like to keep my backstories simple but strong, and let them grow a bit with the character.

In the case of Pip, I knew from the beginning she was going to be a gnome bard. Why? Because this was my first character, and I adore both gnomes and bards. I wanted to try PF2 out with a race and class that I knew would engage me. Although there were some cool new gnome heritages, I went with fey-touched. I knew that this gnome definitely still felt the fey connection.

Ancestry done, I looked through backgrounds and found Barrister, and I suddenly knew: this gnome is a defense attorney, and furthermore... she defends Pathfinders in trouble. At that point, I knew that she would pass out business cards every adventure and tell people that she was with the Envoy's Alliance Legal Defense fund.

With those pieces in mind, I thought about where and why a nature-loving fey-touched gnome would have learned about law. I decided she was from Absalom. One thing that I remembered from the PF1 Absalom campaign setting books was the detail that badgers were important in Absalom. The book had said that leash laws in Absalom were a convoluted subject and that a well-trained badger with a leash was welcome everywhere. This made me realize that Pip's family must have been badger trainers who had gotten in trouble with the law, causing their youngest to learn everything she could about badger leash laws. When she'd successfully defended them, it set her on course to be a barrister that helps people, and loves animals!

One final bit of back story came when I found this avatar. The hair was absolutely a gnome color, but the tawny skin tone to me spoke a bit of backstory, and I added a grandmother for Pip who was a gnomish mwangi druid who came to Absalom, and gave Pip the mwangi language for her character.

It was only when I played an adventure set in Bhopan, a fey-touched Mwangi island, that I knew the exact place where Pip's grandmother came from. I discovered part of her backstory naturally, through play.

So currently, this is how Pip's back story reads:

Pip’s grandmother, Mahana, was a gnomish druid from the Mwangi island of Bhopan, off the shores of Nex. Mahana regaled Pip all through her childhood with tales of animal headed-people, verdant jungles and a fairy king.

The rest of Pip's family were gnomes who had trained badgers in East Gate for generations. When her Uncle Acorn Hooray got sued by a land-grubbing neighbor, Pip successfully defended him by referring to Absalom’s ancient badger lease laws. She soon became obsessed with all aspects of legal work. She currently works as a defense attorney for the Envoy's Alliance, helping out Pathfinders in trouble everywhere.

It's two short paragraphs, but it tells enough of a story to color how Pip is: friendly, willing to try new things, tenacious, caring. Someone who might do anything to protect and help out her team. All of my characters start like this. A short backstory, rooted in the setting, and then changing over time with the adventures that they play. They grow and change and discover new aspects of themselves.

the ones I made didn't ring with me because I made them as if I was going to play in a campaign, with ongoing story and such.

I don't understand why that needs to stop, just because you're playing individual scenarios. I do see why people think that, but I just don't agree.

I make my characters for me more so than anyone else. My hope for my characters is that they evolve, grow, and change just as any character in a campaign would. And just because nobody but me gets to see that in my characters doesn't make it any less fun (at least for me).

I want to see how my characters turn out, and I record all the things I've "discovered" about my characters so all those little seedlings of personality can grow.

For example, I picked Artisan as a background for my alchemist because it mechanically offered an INT boost. Prior to my first game, I decided she was a glassblower (I'm a chemist, and in the old days, every chemistry department had an associated glassblower that would make specialty glass vessels, and many older chemists still have glassblowing skills). That's as much as I thought about it and I didn't really expect anything more.

In my first game, someone asked if she could recycle used glass. I said yes, then everything kind of snowballed - I spent several hours in a Wikipedia rabbithole reading about glass recycling, and ended up on a page about how medieval stained glass was made. I realized that, for someone who spent most of her life up to that point making glass, she was going to have a lot of glass-related reasons for everything in her life. She was non-religious (because I wanted to create a non-religious character), but I decided the reason was because some religions ordered more high-profit stained glass from her than others so she had weird ideas about religion.

As she's become more of an alchemist than glassblower (she's level 6 now), she's started Crafting alchemical items in her downtime rather than Earn Income. I realized that she would be ordering less high quality sand, and her suppliers may be wondering what's going on. Her last adventure ended in Absalom and her current one started in Nex; I realized that she would take that opportunity to swing through Osirion/Katapesh and wrap up her professional relationships with the glassblowing world, and that became her unconventional intro post in her current PbP adventure.

My champion took bard dedication and learned dancing lights and message so he can amuse and chat with his friends at raves. My sorcerer is a noble who's pissed off the royal court by "abandoning" her position to adventure with "foreigners" - she doesn't know it yet, but she's going to face an assassination attempt and that's probably going to change her personality. My rogue (playing Fall of Plaguestone) is basically roleplaying through what will become a Charlatan background, and everything in that game will basically become a prequel to the PFS character.

I get that, for many people, 100% of what their characters are happens during a session and they end up in a weird stasis in between. But, honestly, it doesn't need to be that way. Go ahead and create a character with real motivations and a continuing storyline, and even if it's not for anyone else, do it for yourself.

[/rant]

I think that so long as your character feels strongly about their career in the Society, it is really okay for their ongoing story to be about their discoveries within the Society and the relationships they make along the way. We're a small enough community that we often do get to go on missions with a player character we have played with before, and that becomes a fun reunion. You still have an ongoing campaign, but your ongoing campaign is the Society!

As the others have pointed out, a lot of character growth and development tends to be organic as you create the character.

This one started off as just a Primal Sorcerer. Then I thought, why don't I take the Aspis Agent background and decided it would be because she was an Ekujae elf that had worked with them until she realized they were enslaving her people after I did some research on the Mwangi and saw that was a thing.

She became a Magic Warrior because after I read the class I thought, what better way for a person that wanted to make amends for what she did to a people that hate her then to don the mask of their traditional heroes so she could spend her life making amends in anonymity. And everything kept going from there as she's done adventures.

I even have a nice little personal backstory about how she became Wolf specifically that I made up just for me to help me shape how she'll act.

I also tend to base a lot of character behaviors off of different characters I've enjoyed and wanted to emulate.

Memorable Players

So let's talk about what makes you a memorable player that others will always want to invite to a table. Here are the qualities that I think they share:

Roleplay: They have a really strong sense of self in every scene, and bring it out in varied ways.

Generosity: They interact with everyone in the party, and help to set up roleplay interactions that make other people shine. They not only bring out their own characters, but help bring out other people's. They'll also put in time to help others achieve their goals.

Teamwork: They're good team players. This can mean a variety of different things. Perhaps they have great strategy, and can help their teams figure out how to overcome a tough fight. Perhaps they're good at supporting others while always finding a way to contribute. Perhaps they help a struggling newbie, or in out of character, do something helpful for the other GMs and players like create a spreadsheet of the party's skills for a skill encounter so that the party can send the right assets to the right places. Maybe they're the person who takes notes, or keeps track of treasure so that they can remember that item that you got six pages ago that your party needs now. There are a variety of paths to being a helpful player.

Observant: They read through your gameplay, and they notice stuff. They can help solve mysteries and puzzles because they were paying attention.

Plot-Moving & Mission Oriented: They know how to use pushes and hooks, and are willing to make decisions so that the group doesn't dither.

Fun: They favorite stuff they like, and provide supportive comments for others. They have good senses of humor, and splash it liberally into their posts. Maybe they have lots of energy and enthusiasm, and it's infectious! Maybe they create hilarious filks, or do great combat descriptions. But they are fun to have at the table, and make everyone else happy to be there.

Effective: They create characters that pull their weight in a party, even if quirky, weird or experimental. They aren't an 'empty seat' that offers little to the party.

If you can pull off half of these, invitations will come flying your way for campaigns of all sorts. I'd be curious to see what qualities other GMs and Players have on their own lists.

One more addendum:

When I have done recruitment threads, and I look through an applicant player's post history to consider who I'm going to invite to my table, seeing evidence of any of these qualities will move that player much higher in the list.

If a player has all or most of these qualities, they may be the first person I take, and then I'll build the rest of the party around them, specifically.

I would encapsulate a list of good qualities with the "Yes, and ..." principle. It's an improv technique/game/lesson where people are forbidden from saying, "No" or even "No, but ..." Basically, being able to suspend disbelief and roll with whatever comes along, whether it's normal or crazy or intended or unintended.

Some of my favorite moments are when the scenario is on the verge of derailing, and people are furiously repairing the railroad tracks with duct tape.

Dear Cottonseeders:

The PF2e Humble Bundle is officially counting down. 20 days left for some solid deals.

Love always,

A conscientious Flaxseeder!

Thanks TriShadow! That is definitely a great deal, especially if you are looking for a second copy of the physical rulebook or one to pass along to a friend.

Whoa, the posts were really helpful!

I have no words to thank everyone to contributed to answer me about everything I asked. Hope we find each other in game soon, and that the posts made also help other people with my doubts :)

Can confirm: The community here is great. :) I am still in the process of finding my own "PbP legs" but I felt so welcome here from the start, so a big thank you from me as well.

Great news! Looks as if the Advanced Players guide is sanctioned before release.

Blog Post Link

But no common access tengu. :'(

However the fact that it's so quick could almost be worth the trade off... Almost.

I might be willing to run something if there was a little clarity on what's happening with Gameday. I was planning to run 2 during Gameday - if it's going to be delayed significantly, I'll run them outside Gameday.

Gameday generally starts the very end of August beginning of September. We are hashing out some last minute details but should have an actual announcement soon. I can let you know that the planned start date is Sept 1st though.

Okay, thanks!

But no common access tengu. :'(

However the fact that it's so quick could almost be worth the trade off... Almost.

I think everyone wants tengus back!

I'm thinking of starting a witch when the new book is out. Is the iconic witch out yet that I could use to replay some evergreens before I create my own?

One concept I was thinking of was a Star based witch who is dedicated on defeating the minions of the Great Old Ones.

Is the iconic witch out yet

Nope

Oh God... Witch class is exactly what I've been looking for a long time, a familiar-centric caster! Until the summoner gets released (if it ever does) this will do the trick. For the meantime I'll just make another character.

I have been so CONSERVATIVE in making characters. I've made two so far. Pip, who is actually getting played, and Teki who is staying a GM baby until I get the opportunity to look at APG and see just what the Blessed One archetype entails...

I think that my next one will be either an investigator or a swashbuckler. Race open for now on both concepts... I am not yet at 80 AcP, so any tengus that I might want to make are on hold for now.

(I've been assuming that Tengus will take the same amount of AcP as Leshies and Iruxis. I so wanted them to be a commonly available race.)

Hmm

I wanted Tengus common, too, not so much for me but for others. When they announced access to Kobolds, I figured we were out of luck and was correct. I hope they're only 80 AcP (or less). They can put Catfolk, Aasimar, and Tiefling versatile heritages at 120 AcP.

I also wish they weren't trying to be so dynamic with the AcP race access--having some available for a fixed period of time and then rotating. I could understand holding some for specific story arcs and releasing them after the story arc, but taking them away is rough.

I have a character for every faction because I've run Initiation that many time, but I focus on my "play" character and run quests on my GM credit character.

Wait... They are rotating races out? Was this something announced on Twitch? Of course, they can't rotate races out yet as they have rotated any in.

I agree that I want Tengu to be a lower cost ancestry, and I would not mind if Aasimar / Tiefling was a bit higher.

Because I have been manning the Starfinder table locally, PBP is my main venue for PF2.

Hmm

We haven’t decided how often to change things, but plan on leaving this in place for a minimum of three months, to give players time to reach their goals.

February 6th Blog

But there is no way to actually select them, is there?

No. We’re just discussing the stated plan, which they have not yet contradicted, for once they activate the AcP system.

I've been making new PCs at a much faster clip than I did when Starfinder came out! I'm up to 7, and I'll have to make at least one more pretty soon for Bounties since my lowest level PC is almost 2nd level.

I've been thinking about creating my first PFS2 character here to play a few play-by-post scenarios, but there's something that is confusing me. In the additional ressources, I've noticed it says options are available for characters from a given region and that you simply have to pick an origin. However, in the blog post about the AcP system, one of the options is "you are treated as being from a particular region for the purpose of accessing character options". Is that so you can have access to options from two different regions, or can we not pick any regional options without spending achievement points? I was thinking of taking the "Winter's child" background on my first character. Could I do that?

You pick one region when you create your character. However you may have a character that has ties to two regions, so want to take a second region as well. That would be the AcP.

At least that is my understanding of it.

Teja here grep up with the Kellid, but has spent a lot of time trying to locate her (Varisian) father in Varissa. When I get enough AcP, I'm thinking of taking the extra region for her.

Home Region

slotless
Prerequisites All Factions Tier 0
Cost 0 Fame
Whether it's because you grew up there or have since learned to call it home, one nation is especially familiar to you. Choose one nation (such as Varisia or Taldor) when you purchase this boon. For the purpose of fulfilling prerequisites and Access conditions for uncommon character options, you are treated as being from that nation as well as the larger region in which it's found (such as the Saga Lands for Varisia or the Shining Kingdoms for Taldor).

Special You can purchase this boon multiple times, but each time you purchase it, you lose your previous home region in order to become so familiar with a new one. Before doing so, you must retrain any options that listed being from the previous home region as a prerequisite, and any options to which you would no longer have access.

Note that it's slotless and free, so everybody mechanically be from a region for the purpose of accessing things.

The AcP boon World Traveler can give extra options.

Note that the All Factions boons also have Multicultural Training (slotless, 2 fame) to get access to a second culture (you normally get 1 as part of character creation)

and Secondary Initiation (slotless, 2 fame) to count as being a member of an org for fulfilling prerequisites)

Oh nice. So I can score it now! Just need to wait to have a feat available.

OP Guide wrote:

Home Region

slotless
Prerequisites All Factions Tier 0
Cost 0 Fame
Whether it's because you grew up there or have since learned to call it home, one nation is especially familiar to you. Choose one nation (such as Varisia or Taldor) when you purchase this boon. For the purpose of fulfilling prerequisites and Access conditions for uncommon character options, you are treated as being from that nation as well as the larger region in which it's found (such as the Saga Lands for Varisia or the Shining Kingdoms for Taldor).

Special You can purchase this boon multiple times, but each time you purchase it, you lose your previous home region in order to become so familiar with a new one. Before doing so, you must retrain any options that listed being from the previous home region as a prerequisite, and any options to which you would no longer have access.

Note that it's slotless and free, so everybody mechanically be from a region for the purpose of accessing things.

The AcP boon World Traveler can give extra options.

Note that the All Factions boons also have Multicultural Training (slotless, 2 fame) to get access to a second culture (you normally get 1 as part of character creation)

and Secondary Initiation (slotless, 2 fame) to count as being a member of an org for fulfilling prerequisites)

So is this *in addition* to the home region that you get just by creating your character and declaring where they are from? Or is this the means by which you do that? In other words, does everyone get 1 region "for free" or two?

One free region. If you want another you pay fame.

Aside from the RP aspect (which you can do for free), this is mechanically only necessary if you want feats that are gated by being from two different regions.

One free region. If you want another you pay fame.

Not what Multicultural Training actually gets you. Common mistake.

Home Region grants a Region, e.g. Old Cheliax, the Broken Lands, or Mwangi Expanse, and you can gain access to things limited to Region.

Multicultural Training grants an extra Ethnicity, e.g. Kellid, Varsian, Pahmet, and you can gain access to things limited to Ethnicity. Teja, above, can have Home Region (the Saga Lands)--Mammoth Lords and Varisia are both Saga Lands--and ethnicity Kellid OR Varsian. For 2 Fame, Multicultural Training would allow Teja to have Home Region (Saga Lands) and both Kellid AND Varisian ethnicity. So Teja could have Mammoth Speaker background and take Arcane Tattoos (Varisian ethnicity requirement) and some later future Kellid feat.

An example of what you can do now is Shoanti/Varisian to take both Arcane Tattoo and Quah Bond feats.

It would not let you, for example be a Zenj champion take Magic Warrior (Mwangi Expanse requiement) and have access to an Aldori Dueling Sword (Broken Lands) or Hellknight Armiger (Old Cheliax).

Does anyone know if there will be Quests higher than 1-4? I have a 5L Wizard that has 59 xps and was wondering.

Does anyone know if there will be Quests higher than 1-4? I have a 5L Wizard that has 59 xps and was wondering.

Quest 5, 7, and 8 are tiers 3-6

ok. thank you. I had checked PFS Sessiontracker and it lists 8 as 1-4 but I just checked it's link to the store and it states the 3-6. It does not list 5 or 7. Doesn't list a 9 either.

Any chance of someone running one of them soon?

Note that it's slotless and free, so everybody mechanically be from a region for the purpose of accessing things.

The AcP boon World Traveler can give extra options.

Note that the All Factions boons also have Multicultural Training (slotless, 2 fame) to get access to a second culture (you normally get 1 as part of character creation)

and Secondary Initiation (slotless, 2 fame) to count as being a member of an org for fulfilling prerequisites)

Thank you! I had somehow missed that. I guess I should do a thorough re-read of the organized play guide before I make this character.

ok. thank you. I had checked PFS Sessiontracker and it lists 8 as 1-4 but I just checked it's link to the store and it states the 3-6. It does not list 5 or 7. Doesn't list a 9 either.

Any chance of someone running one of them soon?

I am thinking about squeezing in a quest before Gameday. Any you want more than the others?

I can do 5 or 7 for sure, and I can't remember if I've played 8. I definitely have not played 9. (I like to play something before I run it.)

The reviews weren't very positive on 5, 7, or 8, but 7 looks interesting.