The Flaxseed Pathfinder Lodge: Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Game Master Redelia

Completely! Thanks a lot Lady Ladile!

Of course you can always re-play the confirmation for the 500th time with a new toon. LOL.

Or any of the other repeatable modules.

Or any of the other repeatable modules.

Gallows of Madness: three repeatables. Each worth 3XP.

Gallows is only repeatable at level one. Limits you to a maximum of three replays using slow tracking on different ones. Slow track the first section, do the other two sections normal track. Rotate the order to get three replays.

Plus doing it as a GM the same way.

Note I have only played it once, and took full credit on all sections.

Couldn't you endlessly replay them, if you switched characters between each part (and thus played each part at 1st level every time)? You wouldn't get the bonus chronicle at the end, and doesn't sound like a great way to experience that wonderful module, but you could...

You could endlessly play two parts of it. I don’t see any way to play all three parts on each character endlessly.

Not on each character but as each section gets you three XP, it is your flexible friend as a launchpad for a new character. The chronicles are neat too.

Playing Gallows can provide 3 PCs with a full set of chronicle sheets without needing to slow track, using a total of 3 replays.

*play at level 1
&Replay

Play 1:

Part 1*, Part 2/Part 3

Play 2:

Part 2*, Part 1/Part 3&

Play 3:

Part 3*, Part2&/Part 1&

Can also get a full GM set and a 2/3rds set by GMing p1 later.

Can also swap/mix and match the GM and player chronicles.

You could endlessly play two parts of it. I don’t see any way to play all three parts on each character endlessly.

Yeah, I wasn't very clear. I meant more that you could endlessly play part 1 over and over again, with a different level 1 character each time, if you wanted (or part 2, or part 3), if your only goal is to level up. Not recommended, but doable. As you and Rob have illustrated, you can only get the full set a few times.

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.

Is the OSP for this lodge still going?

I submitted a game for entry a few weeks ago and it still has not been reported.

I submitted two games in January (and was a player in one submitted in December) that were never reported. They said they were backlogged because of the holidays, and a few weeks later they said they never got my submissions.

I created my own event and just reported my own games. It's no more work than using the OSP.

The only thing is, I already reported it and do not want duplication of efforts. Also, I can not issue the boons for my winners, which can only be given out by OSP staff.

OSP slows down reporting things a lot. I don't like OSP, I don't see any point in using it. .
Doing it is just extra work for some people. And I'm already embarrassed to bother those people to report the games I've played.

And if I don't bother them then my games remain unreported for a few months.

I still have PFS SFS games I played in October last year that were reported by OSP and there is still no report on Paizo site.

OSP slows down reporting things a lot. I don't like OSP, I don't see any point in using it.

I was trying to get the race boon for running. Now it seems too much work for a first edition race. So I may no longer even report anything to OSP.

The only thing is, I already reported it and do not want duplication of efforts.

I'll be a little more diplomatic than neodam, but because they've claimed to not have received my submissions, I'm not terribly concerned about duplicated efforts.

Also, I can not issue the boons for my winners, which can only be given out by OSP staff.

Interesting. I thought boons were only given out at conventions. If you're really interested in something only they can give you, I guess you have fewer options.

I've made 8 characters and all are human. I'll move through the Core races and the free ones and deal with race boons in 2027 or so. :)

@Venture-Leadership - is there a OSP reporting thread that gets monitored for issues like these? I.e. is there a place people could share this kind of feedback where it would get in front of the right eyes to make a difference?

@Venture-Leadership - is there a OSP reporting thread that gets monitored for issues like these? I.e. is there a place people could share this kind of feedback where it would get in front of the right eyes to make a difference?

The games get reported in batches. I know that a few are waiting in limbo currently due to awaiting the new information for the 2020-2021 OSP.

If you have more questions and to answer your question there is indeed an OSP channel in the OrgPlay Online discord server that is monitored closely.

Just as a note for those that are reporting via OSP.

Always keep your confirmation email and make sure you get one after reporting. I've gotten mine immediately after reporting each game.

When I had to correct an error I just replied to that email with the correction.

But I've only done a couple via OSP and am not looking to get the GM boon. I like it as I can offer players in my occasional pugs a shot at a boon.

As far as I am aware everything which is reportable on Paizo and that was submitted before Feb 1 has been reported, in fact most games submitted are reported within a week (depending on if life decides to throw us a hurdle, etc) if you’ve reported something on the OSP site and aren't seeing it in Paizo then please reply to the confirmation email you received when you reported the game to let us know. There have been some scenarios/modules that simply could not be reported on Paizo (such as Cradle of Night or the more recent Starfinder scenarios) but we keep trying those so as a soon as they can be reported they are, it’s also possible that a report got missed since were only human, but if a GM doesn’t reply to the confirmation email to let us know there’s a problem we don’t know.

For scenarios reported after Feb 1 we are still waiting on the details of what form the OSP for 2020-2021 will take, hence nothing has been reported yet as we can’t. If you decide you’d rather report on your own instead then that’s absolutely fine, but we would ask that you spend a moment to reply to the confirmation email and let us know otherwise when we do get the new OSP and report the games you’re going to start seeing duplicates and we’d rather not cause you problems like that :)

Again, apologies to anyone who has experienced issues with the OSP, it’s the first year it’s been available and we’re a very small team dealing with over 1000 games reported via it. If you have a problem,reply to the confirmation email and we’ll do our best to help.

I wonder if they won't surprise everyone with a PFS1 version of the AcP beginning on Day X instead of doing an OSP.

As far as I am aware everything which is reportable on Paizo and that was submitted before Feb 1 has been reported, in fact most games submitted are reported within a week (depending on if life decides to throw us a hurdle, etc) if you’ve reported something on the OSP site and aren't seeing it in Paizo then please reply to the confirmation email you received when you reported the game to let us know.

Done it once already, no response and no reporting. What next? Edit: Session IDs 831/832

I've also got three scenarios that have not been reported. I've responded to the emails, been contacted by Finegas, and still nothing. Some of them are back from December at this point. I don't care so much as the GM, but my players want to see them get reported. It looks like there is some epidemic of randomly unreported PbP OSP scenarios going around.

Edit: I'm not trying to sound unappreciative, but I want to lend more information on the side of "For some reason some scenarios are not reported". My ID numbers are 837, 862, and 949

If you decide you’d rather report on your own instead then that’s absolutely fine, but we would ask that you spend a moment to reply to the confirmation email

For those of us who are new PbP GMs (and at least in my case a new PbP player as well), it would be helpful if someone from the OSP could sell us on it a little.

1. Was the OSP created to solve a problem? What was the previous problem? What was the previous workaround? Is there a benefit to reporting through the OSP (boons, etc) that we can't get through direct reporting?

2. Can someone clarify the relationship between Paizo, OPF, and OSP? It's often difficult for us newbies to know whether we should be complaining to Paizo, the OPF (which pretty much seems to be all Paizo employees anyway), or the OSP (which as you can tell many of us use the Paizo forums to do, probably because we're conflating all three).

3. If the OSP is comprised of well-meaning lay volunteers, does the OSP need volunteers? For routine game reporting, it takes me less than a minute to do on my own. If 20 games are reported in a week, and 15 of them just need numbers punched in, I'm happy to spend 15 minutes/week helping out so that others can focus on the 5 non-routine submissions. On the other hand, if you're swamped because there are 200 games/week submitted and 180 are invalid, I don't know PF or PFS well enough to help with that but I will help by shutting the F up.

*takes off GM hat, puts on VC shirt*

1. The OSP is the solution to online play missing out on the benefits afforded in person games, such as the Retail Incentive Program and convention support. It's a compromise to give boon availability to players and GMs who cannot make it to physical gamedays and conventions due to living circumstances. Online games need to be reported through the OSP in order to be tracked and rewards applied.

2. The OPF is the legal entity set up to segregate Paizo from the volunteer corp. The OSP is managed by the venture officers who are under the OPF now instead of Paizo. (The transition has been long and drawn out and is not fully complete, making this harder to understand.)

3. Yes, we always need volunteers with the time and energy to make OP happen, but the transition to OPF has also had to come with a new NDA that is only just now getting out to current and prospective volunteers. Once that is smoothed out, things will hopefully improve some. Not being on the online VO team, I can't speak to their workload or workflow hiccups.

Hopefully those quick and dirty answers cleared things up more than they confused things!

I will like to volunteer to help with OSP reporting.

1. The OSP is the solution to online play missing out on the benefits afforded in person games, such as the Retail Incentive Program and convention support. It's a compromise to give boon availability to players and GMs who cannot make it to physical gamedays and conventions due to living circumstances. Online games need to be reported through the OSP in order to be tracked and rewards applied.

I have never been offered any boons or boon rolls for playing in a non-convention in-person game. At conventions, someone in a special shirt comes around and tells everyone to roll a d20; I assume that's the boon roll but I've never received one so I don't know what I'm missing.

From the wording in the quote, it sounds like the OSP does not offer boons for non-convention play either. That is, outside of conventions, there are no additional rewards for reporting through OSP, and it sounds like it causes someone else trouble.

If that's the case, I will continue to report my individual PbP games myself and make sure to report convention PbP games through OSP (I requested to GM two games at Outpost).

2. The OPF is the legal entity set up to segregate Paizo from the volunteer corp. The OSP is managed by the venture officers who are under the OPF now instead of Paizo. (The transition has been long and drawn out and is not fully complete, making this harder to understand.)

As long as I'm not missing something that's making me more confused than everyone else, I'm okay with that. There is some baseline confusion here, and I appear to be baseline confused rather than confused above the baseline.

3. Yes, we always need volunteers with the time and energy to make OP happen, but the transition to OPF has also had to come with a new NDA that is only just now getting out to current and prospective volunteers. Once that is smoothed out, things will hopefully improve some. Not being on the online VO team, I can't speak to their workload or workflow hiccups.

Frankly, I'm not going to sign a bunch of legal documents with Paizo/OPF/OSP/OMG just so I can volunteer for menial data entry. Assuming that my understanding of point (1) is correct above, I think everyone is just happier if I report non-convention scenarios myself. It's not much work for me, and it allows the OSP to focus on stuff I can't do, like prep all the sweet, sweet boons I'm going to get at Outpost.

Please correct me if that doesn't sound like the global efficiency maximum.

I have never been offered any boons or boon rolls for playing in a non-convention in-person game.

Were they are officially supported Retail Incentive Program stores?

From the wording in the quote, it sounds like the OSP does not offer boons for non-convention play either. That is, outside of conventions, there are no additional rewards for reporting through OSP, and it sounds like it causes someone else trouble.

The OSP offers GM incentive boons and randomly assigned player boons. You can find out more about the requirements to earn the rewards at this site. Edit: Note that Flaxseed Lodge is a recognized location for OSP support.

Frankly, I'm not going to sign a bunch of legal documents with Paizo/OPF/OSP/OMG just so I can volunteer for menial data entry.

Nor does anyone expect you too, as VOship comes with more responsibilities than that. If the workload is too much, I'm sure the online team will reach out to other volunteers for assistance first. It has to be balanced with the concerns having too many reporting agents on a single event database can cause.

The entire VO team is now aware and we are working the issues. We are compiling a list of all that still needs reported. Once that is complete we will work diligently to get you all reported into the system.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

-VC Tyranius

@Watery Soup- TOZ has the main points. Before OSP your friendly local stores were offered additional boons per the Retail Incentive Program. Online play was not offered this until very recently per the OSP. This is our version. You can certainly report your own games but you will not receive or be eligible for the OSP boons at that point for those games.

Were they are officially supported Retail Incentive Program stores?

I have no idea how to find out, much less know what the answer is.

I know on occasion the players have been asked if we spent more than $10 at the store. I have always assumed that was a store rule, rather than a Paizo/OPF rule.

The OSP offers GM incentive boons and randomly assigned player boons.

I was asked to make a boon roll for Gameday scenarios. I have never been asked to make a boon roll for any non-convention scenario.

---

Altogether, this is what I see from my end:

Of the 6-ish PFS1 F2F games I've played at conventions, I've been asked to make boon rolls at 100% of them.

Of the 10-ish PFS1 F2F games I've played outside of conventions, I've been asked to make boon rolls at 0% of them.

Of the 2 PFS1 PbP games I've played at conventions, I've been asked to make boon rolls at 100% of them.

Of the 6-ish PFS1 PbP games I've played outside of conventions, I've been asked tp make boon rolls at 0% of them.

If the boon rolls are supposed to be made at non-convention games (F2F or PbP), there are an awful lot of GMs doing it wrong.

And I guess I'm one of them.

There is no requirement to participate, so the stores and GMs may have not known or not cared. It is up to you if you wish to report under OSP with the restrictions and rewards or report under your own event without restrictions or rewards.

@Watery Soup- TOZ has the main points. Before OSP your friendly local stores were offered additional boons per the Retail Incentive Program. Online play was not offered this until very recently per the OSP. This is our version. You can certainly report your own games but you will not receive or be eligible for the OSP boons at that point for those games.

Puts on Venture Agent hat

Not quite.

Regular game days have two separate things, Retail Incentive Program (RIP) and Regional Support Program (RSP) that do different things.

RIP has no reporting requirements and provides a small in-game reward for spending money at the hosting location. I believe it has to be a public venue with regularly scheduled public games. You can’t have a private game in someone’s house and give RIP benefits for splitting the cost of a pizza delivery.

Retail Incentive Program (RIP) is separate from Regional Support Program (RSP).

RSP offers a chance for player and GM boons. This does require paperwork. As a VA, I had to apply for the RSP program. I had to define the event reporting number used for reporting games in RSP. I would then oversee the rolls for player boons and sign off on a sheet for the GMs running games. Once the GM had run enough qualifying games at RSP locations (they didn’t all have to be at the same location), they would earn a boon. The player boons are random and supposed to be 10% chance.

OSP is Online Support Program and is most similar to RSP.

RIP, RSP, I always get them mixed.

Note: I hadn't seen Bretl's post when I wrote this one below, so I don't know if that makes any of my questions awkward. Reading Bretl's post, it sounds like my F2F locations participate in RIP but not RSP, and if that makes sense, then that's at least one mystery solved.

---

Can we be clear about the restrictions and rewards, then, so I can make an informed decision?

Restrictions:
- Must be VTT or PBP. All my PBP games so far have been PBP on Paizo.com, so this is no extra work for me. Is Discord VTT?
- Must be publicly recruited. I already recruit through Flaxseed, but sometimes only partially. Does it count if I recruit 1 of 6 publicly? What about 5 of 6?
- Online conventions don't count for OSP? So they get the same boons as OSP, but through a different source? What is an example of a "boon supported event"?
- Must use the OSP number. This is trivial, and I can certainly submit the game through the OSP site (and I'll reply by E-mail if that's the best way to report problems). There is a loophole here in that it only says I have to use the OSP number; I am going to infer that someone is going to be really mad if I use the OSP number on a self-reported game, but mention it so you can close the loophole.

Rewards:
- GMs get 1 boon for the first 6 reported scenarios, another after 12 scenarios, and another after 24 scenarios? And for Feb 1, 2020 onward, the boons haven't been announced yet? Are these the same, similar, or dissimilar from the boons that GMs hypothetically get through the F2F RIP? (I'd like to know for overlap purposes, on the assumption that I end up GMing both F2F and PbP fairly regularly.)
- Players get a 10% chance at a boon every session? F2F, the procedure usually is that the Person In Charge calls out two numbers and anyone who rolls those two on a d20 get a boon. Is that acceptable in a PbP? F2F, when someone gets a boon, the Person In Charge takes them to a table and they come back with a piece of paper. How do I report to the OSP that a player has successfully rolled for a boon? Is there a list of boons they get or can get? Are the F2F boons the same, similar, or dissimilar to the ones the OSP hands out?

And to be clear, these rewards are attached to the OSP, meaning that they stack with whatever benefits the OPF or Paizo gives to GMs (boons or other rewards or stars/glyphs, which I also have no idea how to manage, but that's a whole other thread)?

---

I don't want to give the impression that I'm ungrateful for the work you put in. Thank you.

Fundamentally, I have a lot of fun playing the game, so I don't want to spend 6 weeks having unreported games hanging over my head just so I get 1/6th of a boon. If anything, I worry that there's something awesome that I'm shortchanging my players on, just because I don't check my E-mail as often as I check the forums.

I still have PFS SFS games I played in October last year that were reported by OSP and there is still no report on Paizo site.

Check again. It seems like a bunch were reported today.

I was going to hit "Reply" to your previous post but didn't want to cut out all the part I wasn't replying to.

For OSP, no one at the "table" makes the roll. It is generated by the OSP team.

That's why you have to include your e-mail (and why it used to be that everyone had to include their e-mai.) If a boon is generated for someone at your table, you (as the GM) get an e-mail with said boon that you pass on.

Also, it doesn't actually matter how long the delay is for your players since the chronicle sheet is the article of record (and you should be delivering them even if the reporting hasn't gone through.)

If you have a character with 6 legitimate scenario chronicle sheets it is 3rd level whether all or only part or even none of those games have been reported.

Online conventions don't count for OSP because they have their own boon support. It would basically be double dipping.

And yes, OSP stacks with the other benefits of being a GM (stars, glyphs, etc.)

And, I've been told that you have to do the majority of your recruiting for a scenario in public. If you have 2 seats taken up by people you know IRL and come here for the other 4, that's legit. If you have a group of 6 guys sitting around your living room and you decide to do an online game, OSP is not allowed. That leaves a lot of gray space, but you get the idea.

Basically, it's like the faction journal cards, it's not going to make or break anyone's experience but it's a nice little boost and a nice way to reward online GM's for consistently GMing.

OSP Player Information

@Watery Soup- You have a few different things sort of merged together it sounds like. It can be quite confusing as there is a lot going on.

The delay thing may not bother me as much for me in the future, but to give you an idea of why it's annoying ...

My OSP The Confirmation just posted today. Coincidentally, I just finished another run of The Confirmation that finished today and posted it myself. So when I log in to see if The Confirmation posted, and found it on a different character, is it because I did the new one wrong or is it the old one done right?

I know the backlog wasn't cleared on Friday, because I logged in and did a total audit before I went to a convention, to make sure I had printed out all my Chronicles from PbP. If I end up running The Confirmation at the convention, which characters can I apply the credit to? No quick answer - I had to pull out my binder of paper handouts and manually check for The Confirmation in each character's section.

Add on top of this the transcription errors (the Paizo site autofills character data so you can tell you've typed in the PFS number wrong) and sometimes I have waited for my sessions to post wondering whether the reporters are just slow or whether they've typed in my PFS number wrong.

When printing out a hard copy of everything and flipping through a binder page by page is the faster, more reliable system and submitting it online is the slower, error-prone system ... sigh.

Basically, it's like the faction journal cards ...

LOL don't get me started. I hate those things, and also Day Job rolls. All small benefit-to-effort ratios.

I hate people asking me whether something they did qualifies for a faction check mark. "Hey, so I was supposed to free some slaves so we killed that slaveowner, that counts, right?" No. Clue. And now I have to go read a page of text on your faction before I can initial your card?

You got me started ... :)

In 2E, I have to leave half an hour at the end of every session to explain friggin' Earn Income. "So you take your character level and subtract two to get your task level but there's a floor of task level zero so when you crit succeed you get success for a level 1 task if you're character level 1 and level 1 task if you're character level 2 and yes numerically that's the same as a regular success but don't worry, it's less confusing once you're level 2. Oh wait now this guy is Horizon Hunters and have some boon that I've never heard of so you get Level minus zero? Let me figure that out while all the new players ask why that guy gets ten times as much gold for the same roll."

Reporting, faction cards, and downtime. Easily three of the Four Horsemen of the PFS GMing Apocalypse.

neodam wrote:

I still have PFS SFS games I played in October last year that were reported by OSP and there is still no report on Paizo site.

Check again. It seems like a bunch were reported today.

Yep, I see my sessions reported accurately now.

I for one really liked faction journal cards. I think they added a bit of extra interest to the scenarios and supported those of us who were into our factions and their goals.

Not all of my characters are/were, but the ones that were, really liked them.

Bring back FJC for second edition.

neodam wrote:

I still have PFS SFS games I played in October last year that were reported by OSP and there is still no report on Paizo site.

Check again. It seems like a bunch were reported today.

I have checked. I have found only 3 PFS games reported but only those that GM Zer0darkfire have mentioned in his post (I am in his games). I still don't see my 5 SFS games reported.

And as for boons goes, people, don't get me wrong I don't care for boons. Usually I even don't read chronicle sheet so I don't know boons I have What is my point here, since OSP started, 109 games that I have played was reported through OSP (20 - PBP and 89 - VTT). I didn't won a single boon. I don't even know any of the online players who have won boon, and we often in VTT (Roll20) sessions talk about it.

That's why I don't see the purpose of OSP reporting. For me OSP just means that I will have to wait a couple of months to see game that I have played to be reported on Paizo page, and I really like that all my games are reported on Paizo page.

I know my English is bad, sorry for that.

If you do not see a session reported at this point either the GM has not reported the session to us, or it was reported and there was an issue, like your org-play ID was reported wrong, or what have you. (unless it is a VTT session reported in the last week.)

As far as the delayed reporting for PbP, it was a very specific, small set of PbP sessions that were not reported in the transition time between now and when Hilary stepped down. Those were hunted down and corrected yesterday. It, as stated, was a small set of sessions and only for PbP.

As far as winning OSP boons, a player has a 10% chance of winning a boon for playing and that is system "rolled" when the session is reported by the GM. Looking at stats, it's been roughly closer to 8% of actual players who have won. (and a number of those players did not provide an email address so that numbers drops a little more since that removes them from the stat pool since we have to look them up manually)

A lot of people have stated our emails go to spam, so it's possible some people have received boons and did not see them in spam.

If you're not seeing a session reported please talk to your GM, or email us the name(s) of the GM(s) , the scenario(s) played, as well as the date played (and include your org play number in the email)

As far as participating in OSP, it is optional.

Thanks

IronHelixx, RVC - Online Play

You said back here that an attempt would be made to contact a player by PM if they got a boon but had not submitted an email.

Are you saying that those who did not supply an email were never included in the boon rolling or just that it is likely they never got their boons?

I like the OSP and will continue to use it for my publicly recruited games, but obviously there has been some frustration based on the chatter here. Thank you all for taking the time to clarify some things.

If they did not provide an email they do not show in the stat pool so the number looks lower. And a small percentage of people have responded to inquests.

Makes sense, thanks!

Let me try to offer some constructive suggestions instead of just complaining.

1. My complaint: the OSP does not lower any of the barriers I have to GMing or playing.

My suggestion: identify the barriers that prevent non-players from playing, or players from GMing (I'll assume the number of people who go from non-players to GM is very small).

For me:

a. I know form-filled PDFs exist (having filled them out), but am not good enough with PDF writers to create them. Is this not possible, so that, say, data put in on a standard format on one page auto-populates into a printable Chronicle on another? This may take effort and access to a PDF writer, but this is one of those things that can be decentralized amongst many volunteers (10 people doing a season each could probably knock it off in a month or so).

b. There are three ways PbP games tend to start: a bunch of players get together and ask for a game to be run, a GM decides which scenario is run and then asks for players, and miscellaneous. Technology exists to combine the first two, and some kind of matchmaking algorithm can easily be implemented. By "easy," I mean that I could probably make an Excel sheet to do it; my assumption is that someone with Python capabilities could do it even better.

c. Boons that extend a player's capabilities (e.g., access to races) make sense to experienced players, but are relatively useless to newer players (who created a human fighter as their first character and don't want to create a new character just to use a boon). But other types of boons are way more valuable to new players, such as the Welcome to Pathfinder boon (the only boon I have ever used is the "your -1 character gets a 'get out of death free' card). Examples of boons I think would be valuable for newer players that would be worthless to experienced players: retrain a Knowledge skill to another Knowledge skill (new players might pick engineering over religion thinking engineering is more useful), or retrain one Dex-based skill for another Dex-based skill, etc.; get a volunteer to shadow GM the first game you GM; add any common supply to your backpack after an adventure begins (so if a new player's human fighter 1 forgot to buy torches, they don't have to walk around in the dark).

2. My complaint: the delay in reporting is problematic, but even if the delay I experienced was an anomaly, the lack of transparency makes OSP reporting a barrier.

My suggestions:

a. Send two E-mails: one stating that the session has been submitted to the OSP, and another confirming that the session has been submitted from OSP to Paizo.com. This will make it clearer where everything stands - and who to contact if there's a problem.

b. The second E-mail can contain the results of your boon roll, for the GM's records. This way, if someone complains that they've played N sessions and never gotten a boon, there's an audit trail.

c. Pull the autofilled data that submission on Paizo.com provides. Those of us with longer PFS numbers are particularly vulnerable to transcription errors - my seven-digit number has been mistyped twice (both F2F games) and multiple times some information (e.g., faction) has not matched what I wrote on the sheet (for the record, one GM went back and corrected the faction, and two GMs refused to on the grounds that nobody cares, which only makes me roll my eyes harder at the factions). For F2F games, these errors are more or less inevitable, but for PBP games, a technological solution exists - input the PFS number, and use the autofilled data as a check. (I will admit that at least once I have put in the wrong PFS number and caught myself because I immediately noticed the name didn't match.)

---

I'm not one to snipe from the sidelines. If you're skeptical about some of these proposals (such as the Excel sheet) and want me to put some work in up front to demonstrate what I mean, I'm certainly willing to do that. And if someone has better suggestions for improvement that just need some legwork, I'm happy to work on those too.

Not gonna sign any papers, though. I'm CG, not LE. Lawyers can go

***spoiler omitted***

For those of us who are new PbP GMs (and at least in my case a new PbP player as well), it would be helpful if someone from the OSP could sell us on it a little.

1. Was the OSP created to solve a problem? What was the previous problem? What was the previous workaround? Is there a benefit to reporting through the OSP (boons, etc) that we can't get through direct reporting?

2. Can someone clarify the relationship between Paizo, OPF, and OSP? It's often difficult for us newbies to know whether we should be complaining to Paizo, the OPF (which pretty much seems to be all Paizo employees anyway), or the OSP (which as you can tell many of us use the Paizo forums to do, probably because we're conflating all three).

3. If the OSP is comprised of well-meaning lay volunteers, does the OSP need volunteers? For routine game reporting, it takes me less than a minute to do on my own. If 20 games are reported in a week, and 15 of them just need numbers punched in, I'm happy to spend 15 minutes/week helping out so that others can focus on the 5 non-routine submissions. On the other hand, if you're swamped because there are 200 games/week submitted and 180 are invalid, I don't know PF or PFS well enough to help with that but I will help by shutting the F up.

TOZ pretty much covered it but in case you wanted a response from an online VO i'll quickly go over it.

1. Games played in 'meatspace' get access to the Regional Support Program (RSP) to reward players and GMs with the chance at boons and encourage them to play Society games at irl lodges. For a long time those playing online did not have access to this, the online VOs spent a lot of time advocating for it and we eventually got the Online Support Program (OSP), which rewards people for playing games at online lodges. No-one is ever required to report games via the OSP and can freely report their games to their own events if they like, though only games report via the OSP can get the chance at the related player & GM boons.

2. TOZ nailed it. OSP isn't something that has a 'relationship' with anyone, it's a program to reward people playing at online lodges just like RSP is for physical lodges.

3. Thank you for the offer but more volunteers isn't the answer as you would need to be a venture officer to help with it.

Let me try to offer some constructive suggestions instead of just complaining.

1. My complaint: the OSP does not lower any of the barriers I have to GMing or playing.

My suggestion: identify the barriers that prevent non-players from playing, or players from GMing (I'll assume the number of people who go from non-players to GM is very small).

For me:

a. I know form-filled PDFs exist (having filled them out), but am not good enough with PDF writers to create them. Is this not possible, so that, say, data put in on a standard format on one page auto-populates into a printable Chronicle on another? This may take effort and access to a PDF writer, but this is one of those things that can be decentralized amongst many volunteers (10 people doing a season each could probably knock it off in a month or so).

b. There are three ways PbP games tend to start: a bunch of players get together and ask for a game to be run, a GM decides which scenario is run and then asks for players, and miscellaneous. Technology exists to combine the first two, and some kind of matchmaking algorithm can easily be implemented. By "easy," I mean that I could probably make an Excel sheet to do it; my assumption is that someone with Python capabilities could do it even better.

c. Boons that extend a player's capabilities (e.g., access to races) make sense to experienced players, but are relatively useless to newer players (who created a human fighter as their first character and don't want to create a new character just to use a boon). But other types of boons are way more valuable to new players, such as the Welcome to Pathfinder boon (the only boon I have ever used is the "your -1 character gets a 'get out of death free' card). Examples of boons I think would be valuable for newer players that would be worthless to experienced players: retrain a Knowledge skill to another Knowledge skill (new players might pick engineering over religion thinking engineering is more useful), or retrain one Dex-based skill for another...

So.. pretty much all these issues are actually nothing to do with OSP, just to help you understand, the Online Support Program is simply a reward program for running publicly open games to help attract new players, nothing more.

Chronicles on form fillable pdfs is an issue that Paizo would have to work on when publishing their scenarios and is entirely in their hands, given the extra work for an already small and overworked team it's not something I'd expect soon if at all, in regards to matchmaking for games there is the warhorn.net site and many other online places where people congregate and this happens, if you're wanting an 'ok cupid' (for lack of a better term) for GMs and players and I would suggest that is certainly something you could work on yourself or find people interested in doing but it's unlikely to be something Paizo offers directly and not at all related to the OSP.

And again, boons are not decided upon by the venture officer staff, they are provided to us by the Organised Play team at Paizo and we distribute them appropriately, be it for cons, OSP, etc. All of these ideas might well help lower the barrier to GMing, but they are issues that you would need to directly bring to Paizo and the Organised Play team. We can certainly pass your comments on, but you're far more likely to see a better, open discussion of them if you post on the Pathfinder Society forum on these message boards.