Cottonseed PFS PbP (2E)

Game Master Redelia

Keep us informed.

Death to resonance

I just placed my order. Aïe, my wallet.

A bit old, but I've been gone awhile. This is a misconception about me that I really need to correct though.

GM DarkLightHitomi wrote:

Reducing table variation requires limiting player agency, but without player agency, what point is there in playing? For that reason, and the lack of any reason to avoid table variation (seriously, the only reason I can think of anyone would want no table variation woukd be marketers trying to pretend that experience at the table is somehow related to brand and therefore want brand consistency. This is idiotic though, experience at the table is about 60% gm and 30% other players.), I simply and absolutely find restricting table variation to be a very bad design goal.

And I very much disagree with this.

I want to reduce table variation when I GM and I want reduced table variation at the tables that I play at because I want to expect what my character's capabilities are and to not be blind-sided by a GM's personal opinion about how the 'real world works' whether I play at my FLGS, on PbP, or at GenCon.

And while this is just my personal taste and not a morale judgement, I can see that I want to avoid GM DLH's tables.

This is not at all what I mean by table variation. This is what I'd call in-world consistancy and has nothing to do with the variation I'd like to have. This is why I regarded the cantrip in question as being in need of fixing.

The mechanic was written without consideration for what it actually represented, and therefore, it leads to this very type of inconsistency precisely because it relies on the gm to make a judgement call that could go either way.

===
Table variation is basically things like video game vs interactive novel, penny packet enemies with no larger strategy vs Tucker's Kobolds, cooperative storywriting vs writer-to-reader type of experience. To me, a campaign about the PCs being ordinary people on the run from an axe murderer is a completely valid campaign, despite the unfortunately common beliefs that PCs must be superheroes with "adventurer"/wanderer as their occupation.

The item takes 1d6 damage, as does the target. Clearly the item is striking the target.

First, if the object takes dmg, then why is there a question about using a vial of something dangerous?

Second, despite the above, you still get a problem. A feather needs to be moving significantly faster at a much higher energy than a pebble to do similar dmg, both because the smaller mass and also the broader striking area.

However, a light spell doesn't do anything to an object, rather it simply is attached to a carrier object. If you consider the cantrip in question to be a similar case of a magic effect that is merely attached to a physical object, then the consistent dmg to both target and object can be reasonably explained as the magic effect telekinetically moving, then twisting and exploding towards the target (much like a copper armor piercing effect that perverts the copper cone making the back into the front), dmging the carrier object and the target in a consistent fashion regardless of carrier object.

This would indeed break a vial, yet the dmg itself wouldn't be from what object carried the effect.

I don't think 'agency' is what you are saying it is, because to me it seems like you are advocating just making it all up on the fly, in which case we're moving more into a freeform storytelling experience - either we have mechanics or we don't.

This is so very wrong. The use of mechanics is NOT black-and-white. Frankly, roleplaying as opposed to rollplaying, is a freeform experience with a set of well defined terms to make communication easier and to add some randomizing structures to enhance tension and uncertainty while removing the single worst source of player-gm animosity (that being the gm arbitrarily deciding success/failure on everything).

Just because you have some mechanics does not mean that everyone must treat them like a boardgame.

Like mentioned above, players need to be able to accurately judge what they are capable of (in-so-far as their characters can make such judgements anyway), and stats are the single best way to achieve that even if you never rolled a single die.

Is this lodge going to convert from the 2e PbP Playtest lodge into the 2e PbP lodge or is it only for the playtest?

This Lodge will convert into the 2E Lodge once it goes live. Looking to keep it separate from the Flaxseed 1E Lodge to help avoid any confusion during recruiting.

I would like to be removed from this lodge.

My soon to be favorite Paizo website once August 1st gets here. Only 89 more days!

I'm never ready for these things.

Is this thread inactive? Or did it just dissapear from my campaign for me only?

Is this thread inactive? Or did it just dissapear from my campaign for me only?

Not just for you. When I first noticed it gone I also could not successfully open the link for it. Now that is working I hope to add it back to my campaigns. I think something happened when they renamed it.

Huh. Didn't disappear for me.

I believe it shifted to inactive status due to hitting the 3 month marker without new posts over in Gameplay. Once I bumped the thread it returned to my Campaigns page.

Yep, back again.
Thanks

same.

Perception is the skill to go to apparently for most stuff....so far in most of my games.

Where are all the con spoilers!

Abaddar is watching closely.
All spoilers will be punished.

The con spoilers are mostly in the brains of sleep-deprived and overscheduled con attendees. Some may be found in the PaizoCon Bloggery and more on the OfficialPaizo Twitch channel in the videos from the Con, though unfortunately, they are not well labelled yet.

There were also official spoiler cards given out at last nights banquet and we have been challenged by Jason to have all 100 listed in a forum or other social media post before he returns from vacation after the con. If we succeed the prize is to be a massive spoiler dump. So expect to see those appearing soon.

We did have a glimpse of the next world book and the Game Masters Guide (the latter due out this winter).

I know from the panel on the Future of Pathfinder that there is a Hellknight "initiate" archetype in one of the first release books. (I am pretty sure initiate was not the term used, it was more of a supplicant/want-to-be type role but I plan to watch the video to support my scrambled memory.)

I played Hunt for Blackfang on Friday morning and it was fun.

Anything specific you would like to know? I will try and return with more later.

Collection of spoiler cards! Still going through them.

Didn't really have anything in particular I wanted to know, just what's the most exciting thing that they've revealed.

I'm sure this is common knowledge but in the Secrets of Golarian panel the Paizo staff said they looked at the "New" Golarian (my words) with an eye to all the AP's happened and this is the world Golarian is. i.e. Who is the new Storm King in the Shackles. It's a Storm Queen now. They said they looked at the previous AP's closely for what they did put in there.

So I used to have my playtest points listed on my Organized Play tab. Now it says zero. Is that normal or has anyone else seen the same issue?

Yeah. They've said that they still have the numbers, just the display is broken and they haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.

Ah cool! I was hoping for that kind of answer.

PERSONNEL CHANGES AT FLAXSEED AND COTTONSEED LODGES

Hello everyone.

We've had some recent changes in our VO corps that I would like to announce.

PF1 and PF2

As I've said before, First Edition will always be welcome here at Flaxseed. We've had some internal discussion about whether we should have PF2 games running through this lodge as well. There's good arguments for it -- not splitting the player base, continuation of the campaign, cross-pollination. However, organizationally we just think it makes more sense to have to separate lodges. We don't want people looking for PF1 to have to stumble through 20 PF2 announcements and vice versa. We're going to use the Cottonseed Lodge that was founded for Playtest for PF2. That way there's less confusion, and that each edition feels fully supported by our PBP VOs.

WELCOMING TWO NEW VAs

With 'We Be Heroes' launching on June 15th, we thought it would be nice if Cottonseed Lodge had its own VA. So we're officially bringing in Lady Ladile as our new Flaxseed VA, and Numbat as our Cottonseed VA. Although that's the assignment, both VAs will be working in both lodges as we transition to supporting both editions.

Let's welcome both Numbat and Lady Ladile! Yay!

Welcome Numbat !
Welcome Lady Ladile!

Congrats to both of you!

Thank you for the warm welcome. I look forward to serving.

Congratulations Numbat! Can't wait for the first PFS2 session to get rolling.

The more I read about 2E the more excited I get. I can't wait to see how it all pans out.

Welcome Numbat and congratulations!

Thanks everyone! Looking forward to helping Numbat and serving the growing PFS2 community here :)

I am glad to see the excitement building here.

I had the privilege of playing in Hunt for Blackfang run by Stephen Radney-MacFarland on Friday morning of PaizoCon. It was a lot of fun.

I am looking forward to being contributing to an active, happy lodge and seeing lots of great play in the near future.

Aye, we are waiting.... to pounce into games, and offer them!

I am not sure if anyone has active Playtest games running but just in case, be aware of maintenance scheduled for Monday morning. To quote this post,
"On Monday, June 3, starting at 9:00 AM Pacific time, paizo.com be undergoing planned maintenance. Our team estimates paizo.com downtime will last between approximately 2-4 hours."

It may be worth having alternative methods of contact established to ward off or deal with a worst-case scenario.

Grats to the new VAs. You guys have responsibility now.

Hey, does great responsibility come with great power, or is that a one way thing? :)

PBP REGION ANNOUNCEMENT

I realize that this probably does not apply as much to PF2, but I don't want anyone to miss this announcement.

Hello Amazing PBP GMs --

Starting now until August 1st, we are going to be asking you to report all your games in progress. This is a change from our normal rules of 'report when you are done.' Almost done? Report it now. Started yesterday? Report it now. Want to know why? Please keep reading.

In mid-May, John Compton posted a blog about replays for PF1.

Secondly, we'll be taking a snapshot of all of the recorded organized play sessions on Paizo.com in mid-July. It will be imperative to make sure all of your game sessions are recorded by this point in time, as this snapshot will be set against an activity scale that will determine the number of "free" replays that are applied to your account. Essentially, the more regularly that you have played and GM'd, the more Pathfinder first edition replays you will be granted. This will allow those who are nearing the end of their playable material to have a similar gameplay "lifespan" to players who have just recently joined the organized play campaign.

Note, the blog did not specify whether that organized play activity was Starfinder, Pathfinder or ACG. It did not say *when* the snapshot would occur. I don't want our PBP players and GMs to lose out on potential replays because their game finishes just after the snapshot.

Reporting early is especially imperative for any games done through the Online Support Program. We want to make sure that we have time to process your reporting before the snapshot, and it always takes our team some time to do so.

Once August hits, we’ll be returning to our ‘report when done’ rule.

IMPORTANT

Keep track of that OSP Session Number if you are reporting it to the Online Support Program! This will make it easier to find and update the game with any changes! Remember that our Reporting Conditions Update Form will also ask for that information.

For non-OSP games at Cosmic Crit or Roll For Combat, you should ask the Crittermander Captains (for Cosmic Crit) or Glenn Parnell / GM Stephen (Roll for Combat) to make the changes to their reporting, as all their games should be reported through that lodge.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

are the 2E pbp games going to "muster" here after August?

are the 2E pbp games going to "muster" here after August?

That is correct Qstor! 2E will be here.

When I go to my sessions, it is saying I have 0 Playtest Credits in the summary, though my pathfinder GM and Starfinder GM credits are correct, even though I have over 20 playtest points. Is this going to be a problem when I receive credit to create a higher level character in August, or will that not matter, as long as I have the credits and the games are reported?

Yeah. They've said that they still have the numbers, just the display is broken and they haven't gotten around to fixing it yet.

I would still like to be removed from this lodge.

I would still like to be removed from this lodge.

Request acknowledged. I am in the process of finding out how to do this which I believe is tracking the right person down to make the change. My apologies that it was not done sooner.

I would still like to be removed from this lodge.

This should be done; if not, send me a PM and I will look for any more characters of yours to remove.

How do I re-dot into this lodge if I was previously and then removed it from my campaigns (I dont remember how - probably pushed the X button??).

I tried dotting Gameplay again but it doesnt seem to be adding it back.

Not sure if this works, but if you had hidden the thread, you can go to the overall PbP gameplay page, look for SHOW ∅ (top right hand corner), and click on it. That toggles between showing and hiding hidden threads, revealing threads that you've hidden. You can then search for "Cottonseed" (which might be a few pages down depending on when was the large post on the gameplay thread), then look for ∅ right at the end of the line. Clicking that toggles between hiding and showing thread. Hope this works.

Thanks Kuey! That did the trick.

I'm working on a PFS(2) Profile Template. I don't know if anyone else has yet. I'm trying to match it as close to the Bestiary blocks as I can, at least the Playtest ones for now.

If anyone else has one drafted up, I'd like to see your ideas. :)

Blake that is very helpful! When you finish, let us know! We'd be happy to fit another template in our GM Kit!

Gameday VIII
When making requests to change something on the signup sheet, please include the game system plus scenario number and name for the line you are referring to. This will make it much easier for us to find the relevant place on the ever-changing spreadsheet, especially with multiple people maintaining it.

Thank you

Hello, Online Peoples!

A bit late but general player signups for PbP Gameday VIII are officially open! You may sign up for up to 3 RPG games and/or 2 ACG games - and this includes Specials - at the link >>HERE<<. These limits are to ensure that everyone has a fair chance to find seating for games. Unlimited player signups will open later, on July 22nd.

Have fun and I hope that everyone gets the spots they've been hoping for! :D

Do we know how character numbering will work for 2E? I wasn't in on the playtest, but I'm very excited to play 2E.

Playtest started at -15XX. We believe PFS2 will start at -2XXX.