Flaxseed Lodge (PFS1)

Game Master Redelia

Hello everyone, it seems like PF2 is gaining popularity and thus PF1 game are naturally becoming more scarce.

I have already tried to bring GMs I know in RL to play PbP and of course hope that they will also GM at some point in time.

Especially for players at lodges that have moved to PF2 this lodge is a great place to continue playing PF1, right? :-)

I believe that this Lodge is currently unbalanced towards players. PF1 games fill up fast and are almost always oversubscribed. The PF2 Lodge is actually a little different, not every advertised game fires and some are undersubscribed.

One explanation is that the people who GMed PF1 GMed a lot - and they primarily moved over to PF2. PF2 is a cleaner system, and easier to learn.

Either way, it does seem like more PF1 GMs are needed. If anyone wants to GM but finds a barrier to doing so, I'd put in some effort in helping clear those barriers. Not "run a GM clinic" level effort, but maybe "shadow a new GM's first PbP" level effort.

Just curious if anyone does PbP mostly from mobile. I like to check threads on my phone but it always seems like a pain to do any player or GM posts without a keyboard and mouse.

Any suggestions for PbP being more mobile friendly?

I'm currently doing two PFS1 games by pbp at the moment and I intend to do more when they are done. To be honest, I prefer PFS1 over PFS2. I'm actually finding it's harder to get PFS1 games to play lately.

I've been thinking about starting to GM on here. Only got into PFS about a year ago (and started PF maybe two years ago). A little foggy on some of the rules. Currently GM'ing Tyrants Grasp for a bunch of newbies (we're all learning rules as we go). Could definitely be talked into GM'ing a game or two, as long as people are patient with me.

Yeah, currently GMing 2 tables of new players and one has started GMing her own table. They are mostly nervous about open recruitment tables but I am warming them up to it. 2 is my limit GM wise but will likely take on more when my docket shrinks.

I definitely do think there has been a dwindling number of GMs for pf1 but that is to be expected. Seems hard to even get GM trades as of late.

Just curious if anyone does PbP mostly from mobile. I like to check threads on my phone but it always seems like a pain to do any player or GM posts without a keyboard and mouse.

Any suggestions for PbP being more mobile friendly?

Depends on what you call mobile.

I do most of my GMing on a tablet. I have the adventures as PDF, a scratch sheet in Google docs, maps are created on desktop in Google slides but I can do updates from my iPad. I even do the chronicles on my tablet.

I wouldn’t want to do this with just a phone, but tablet is alright.

I definitely do think there has been a dwindling number of GMs for pf1 but that is to be expected. Seems hard to even get GM trades as of late.

I don't think we have had so much of a dwindle in GM's. In fact we have gained several new ones. What looks to be happening is they are now spread across three different systems instead of solely focused in on one.

That and several are doing back to back online conventions due to the COVID environment. This has been a rare opportunity here for a lot of folks to try some of the big cons online such as PaizoCon and Gen Con to where they have been saving characters or focusing on those aspects during the summer.

Just curious if anyone does PbP mostly from mobile. I like to check threads on my phone but it always seems like a pain to do any player or GM posts without a keyboard and mouse.

Any suggestions for PbP being more mobile friendly?

I have been playing PbP almost exclusively on mobile from my phone for years now. I posted some advice in this post and some following ones on setting up push notifications and the like to make reading better; more importantly the tips I gave there make managing "which posts do I still need to reply to" much better than just using Paizo's site (where IMO it is easy to read a thread and then forget you need to go back and add a post of your own).

For GMing, which I have done very little of, I recommend creating a "template" for GM posts in combat with all the spoiler tags and formatting. Put the template in a Google Keep note (or Evernote or Google docs, or whatever) and then copy paste it and edit for the moment. If I recall correctly I usually duplicated my base template to create a template per table with the PC names already there. For a longer combat you could duplicate *that* one and populate it with the initiative order.

I would think for GMing that a good pdf reader app would be a must. I recommend Xodo for being blazing fast and having a good interface for interacting with Paizo's very well bookmarked PDFs.

That and several are doing back to back online conventions due to the COVID environment. This has been a rare opportunity here for a lot of folks to try some of the big cons online such as PaizoCon and Gen Con to where they have been saving characters or focusing on those aspects during the summer.

Ah that is true. I do forget about the plethora of online conventions as of late. I looked into quite a few but the time slots were often hard for me to make, playing live.

I often post on my phone but still make most major posts from a laptop.

The key is organization. Set up everything in advance on a laptop. Set posts can go into a text file, attacks into macros.

I don't think I can go exclusively mobile.

GM Tyranius wrote:

That and several are doing back to back online conventions due to the COVID environment. This has been a rare opportunity here for a lot of folks to try some of the big cons online such as PaizoCon and Gen Con to where they have been saving characters or focusing on those aspects during the summer.

Ah that is true. I do forget about the plethora of online conventions as of late. I looked into quite a few but the time slots were often hard for me to make, playing live.

Oof I hear you about the time slots thing. Gencon's specials are all going to be happening at 3 in the morning for me.

That and several are doing back to back online conventions due to the COVID environment.

Yeah, this is me.

I never thought I had a chance of reaching ☆☆ through PbP, but GMing the big online conventions has really helped get closer to this goal, plus I have 'met' some great new people.

But PFS 1e PbP remains my favorite form of the game, and I've got stacks to play and GM left.

My GM tables aren't going anywhere.

Maybe we can all advertise this PF1 lodge a bit more so that also those that are still interested in GMing / playing PF1 have the chance to experience the roleplaying opportunities of PbP and can do so with us. :-)

I'm not making the jump to PF2 so I'll be sticking around here GMing and playing PFS1 for as long as there are folk who want to continue playing it...

Chaos Monk wrote:

Just curious if anyone does PbP mostly from mobile. I like to check threads on my phone but it always seems like a pain to do any player or GM posts without a keyboard and mouse.

Any suggestions for PbP being more mobile friendly?

I have been playing PbP almost exclusively on mobile from my phone for years now. I posted some advice in this post and some following ones on setting up push notifications and the like to make reading better; more importantly the tips I gave there make managing "which posts do I still need to reply to" much better than just using Paizo's site (where IMO it is easy to read a thread and then forget you need to go back and add a post of your own).

For GMing, which I have done very little of, I recommend creating a "template" for GM posts in combat with all the spoiler tags and formatting. Put the template in a Google Keep note (or Evernote or Google docs, or whatever) and then copy paste it and edit for the moment. If I recall correctly I usually duplicated my base template to create a template per table with the PC names already there. For a longer combat you could duplicate *that* one and populate it with the initiative order.

I would think for GMing that a good pdf reader app would be a must. I recommend Xodo for being blazing fast and having a good interface for interacting with Paizo's very well bookmarked PDFs.

Thanks, that was the type of information I was looking for. The first thing I did when I started playing PbP was figure out how to get some form of notification for thread posts. I ended up using something that sent me an email whenever there was a new post in a thread.

@GM Otha: Same here! :-D

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Regarding mobile usage:

1.
I use autocorrect (or text replacement in iPhones) to easily format. For instance, I type sss and it automatically creates [spoiler=
and then I type ssss and it automatically crates [/spoiler]

I do this for bold and italic and Ooc and url and whatever else I need.

2.
I use speech to text on my mobile phone and then edit the mistakes that the machine did during my speech. Makes it really easy to post.

Maybe we can all advertise this PF1 lodge a bit more so that also those that are still interested in GMing / playing PF1 have the chance to experience the roleplaying opportunities of PbP and can do so with us. :-)

Yup! We have shared the word during PaizoCon Online as well as did a PBP 101 Panel during it. Plan to share the word as well during GenCon as well as the announcement of the next Gameday PbP Con.

I don't own a computer. I do all PbP on an android LG Stylo 3. I just use a couple notepad apps to write up my posts then copy & paste into the threads. I have shortcut links for each gameplay thread. I'm playing the Amiri pregen in one (*waves at GM Tyranius*) and I have a shortcut to the pdf of her sheet for easy access even though I also have an alias of her set up.

I would like to GM PbP soon since I've been playing & GMing PFS for 10 years, but I'm having a lot of trouble learning Google Slides.

I recommend my players importing as much information as they can onto the Paizo site, rather than keeping it in a PDF or on Google Sheets - specifically because I'm on my phone a lot. I don't have a super fancy phone with premium service - it took a minute or so to download the largest character sheet that someone linked to (8 MB!).

I just had an odd thought:

Can Merfolk Oracles select the Lame Curse???

Yes, but...

In some situations, your movement may be so hampered that you don't have sufficient speed even to move 5 feet (a single square). In such a case, you may spend a full-round action to move 5 feet (1 square) in any direction, even diagonally. Even though this looks like a 5-foot step, it's not, and thus it provokes attacks of opportunity normally.

Decided to give GM'ing a try on here. Found a scenario I'd be interested in GM'ing. Is this a good one? What is the process of doing recruitment and setting up everything? Want to make sure I do everything right.

Decided to give GM'ing a try on here. Found a scenario I'd be interested in GM'ing. Is this a good one? What is the process of doing recruitment and setting up everything? Want to make sure I do everything right.

That's a PFS2 adventure and this is the PFS1 lodge.

If you want to GM that PFS2 adventure, you should head over to HERE.

If you want to find a PFS1 adventure, you can check out pfstracker.net. It's got a lot of search functionality. You can narrow it down by level and season. You probably want to start with a low level scenario and I, personally like the later seasons, but that just an opinion.

I don't know if the link changed but that leads to First Steps Part I for me.

Decided to give GM'ing a try on here. Found a scenario I'd be interested in GM'ing. Is this a good one? What is the process of doing recruitment and setting up everything? Want to make sure I do everything right.

That is a great adventure MauveAvengr.

You also can check out 'Wounded Wisp' which is a good first adventure to learn about the past of the Society.

If you need any help to set up your table or the google slides then we will definitely support you!

The Wounded Wisp, as well as a few others (#5-08 The Confirmation, off the top of my head) are repeatable scenarios, meaning you can play - or GM - it once per character (rather than once per player). They tend to be straightforward and designed for low levels (I thinkt here's a 3-7 which is repeatable but most are 1-2.

There are actually a number of evergreen/repeatable scenarios.

Levels 1-2 (some are only level 1 replayable)
First Steps Part 1
The Confirmation
The Wounded Wisp
The Consortium Compact
The House of Harmonious Wisdom

Levels 3-6
From the Tome of Righteous Repose
Beyond the Halflight Path

I am certain there are others I have forgotten.

I bookmarked this page some time ago. It's a great list of the evergreens with explanations and information about them. It hasn't been updated since April of 2019, but I think it's still all correct. My Thanks to the Pittsburgh PFS group that maintains this site (and with which I have no affiliation.)

Evergreen Adventures List

@GM Otha: Same here! :-D

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Regarding mobile usage:

1.
I use autocorrect (or text replacement in iPhones) to easily format. For instance, I type sss and it automatically creates [spoiler=
and then I type ssss and it automatically crates [/spoiler]

I do this for bold and italic and Ooc and url and whatever else I need.

2.
I use speech to text on my mobile phone and then edit the mistakes that the machine did during my speech. Makes it really easy to post.

These are both really great ideas; thanks for sharing them.

Decided to give GM'ing a try on here. Found a scenario I'd be interested in GM'ing. Is this a good one? What is the process of doing recruitment and setting up everything? Want to make sure I do everything right.

Good scenario and it looks like you have the recruitment set up right. :) Thanks for saving a spot for Rogue Xeno. That is much appreciated among the community.

If you have any questions on setting up maps or anything let us know. I am on discord as Tyranius#2300 if you need a more immediate, fast answer.

Just created a Core character for some PbP and can't seem to change his faction. Looks like I can change factions for my other non-Core characters. Is this a bug?

Might be, if you can do it with your other characters. Send me a PM with your PFS # and character number along with the faction and I can take a look into it.

Does this Lodge have an Event number associated with it? Or do I have to create an Event number for Paizo PbP games or is it possible to use the current OSP number?

Does this Lodge have an Event number associated with it? Or do I have to create an Event number for Paizo PbP games or is it possible to use the current OSP number?

If the games are publicly recruited and follow the other restrictions of OSP, you can use the OSP number and report through that program.

If you are privately recruiting, you would need to create an event number of your own.

As Bret said. Let us know if you need help with either of those processes.

I recruited on this forum so I guess that counts as public.

For the purpose of OSP, 'publicly recruited' isuch stricter than elsewhere. It means you cannot reserve seats, and GM choice recruitment is not allowed.

For the purpose of OSP, 'publicly recruited' isuch stricter than elsewhere. It means you cannot reserve seats, and GM choice recruitment is not allowed.

Does that include not being able to reserve seats on modules and multi-part scenarios like Gallows of Madness or Destiny of the Sands? As a GM, it would be really nice to be able to reserve seats for those that played the earlier sections assuming you intend to run the whole thing.

If you mean can you offer seats first to those continuing in a multi+part story, yes that is allowed as long as the original recruitment was open and any replacements are made in an open manner

Can I poke at the word "open" a little?

To qualify for OSP, which of the following are allowed?

(a) Posting in the Lodge thread, and linking to a Google sheet or form that's offsite, or in general something that's not a thread in the Recruitment forum?
(b) Posting a thread in the Recruitment forum but not making a post in the Lodge thread?
(b1) Not making a general advertisement at all.
(b2) Making a general advertisement, but elsewhere (including on Discord or elsewhere not on paizo.com).
(c) Selecting people first come / first served?
(d) Selecting people using the Paizo random number generator?
(e) Selecting people using an offsite (e.g., Excel) random number generator?
(f) Selecting people based on the character or class they apply with (e.g., choosing party composition)?
(g) Un-selecting people based on the character or class they apply with (e.g., no tieflings in a Heaven-based scenario)?
(h) Selecting people based on opaque/unlisted criteria?

(Additions to the list welcome ... I only put down the ways I have or have seen recruitment done, all of which are arguably "open")

I also need to know where I stand, having put out a thread in the Recruitment forum, with two people in mind. Should I not have said those two seats were reserved in order to count? Does it make a difference that I accepted all ten applicants and split them into two tables? Can I only report the one table and not the other? If the two reserved seats end up split between the tables, does that void both tables for OSP?

Is asking all these questions going to make the people running the OSP look more closely at it and start making it more restrictive to prevent people from nitpicking the system?

Has anyone ever reported an OSP table and then had someone comeback and tell them it wasn't a legitimate OSP table?

Did I just put myself on a list to have ALL the games I've repored through the OSP audited, now?

Is PFS run much more like the IRS than I assume?

Is PFS run much more like the IRS than I assume?

I'm not sure what that means, but one thing that has been made clear to me is that OSP and PFS are separate entities.

I do think PFS is run a lot like the IRS. It relies a lot on self-reporting, and while there may be a significant amount of technical rule-breaking, very little of it is malicious. The rules are byzantine, so a fair amount of leeway is offered so long as it appears mistakes were made in good faith.

Has anyone ever reported an OSP table and then had someone comeback and tell them it wasn't a legitimate OSP table?

I have not, because I ask for clarification and try to avoid questionable situations.

I can only speak to the program from a VTT point of view and not if there are any specifics that PbP needs to run slightly differently due to the way games are run, but perhaps this will help those who might be confused.

The OSP website says this;

Qualifying games must be publicly recruited games open to everyone.

Did you post the game on one of our various Online lodges? If yes then you publicly advertised, it's all good!

This does mean that if you reserve seats for a game (or the initial game in a series, such as Gallows, if you're planning to run them all as one longer series) then you can't report to OSP since the entire point of it is to offer a chance at rewards to everyone, especially new players, not just the GMs friends over others (whether intended or not, that is essentially the result when a GM chooses specific players to invite rather than opening the recruitment to everyone).

The Online Support Program is not separate from the Society at all, it's been repeatedly, clearly stated that it is a support program for Society games, run by the volunteer Venture Officers, with the help of the Organised Play team.

EbonFist wrote:

Is PFS run much more like the IRS than I assume?

I'm not sure what that means, but one thing that has been made clear to me is that OSP and PFS are separate entities.

I do think PFS is run a lot like the IRS. It relies a lot on self-reporting, and while there may be a significant amount of technical rule-breaking, very little of it is malicious. The rules are byzantine, so a fair amount of leeway is offered so long as it appears mistakes were made in good faith.

The difference, from my perspective is that the IRS assumes mistakes are not done in good faith and rule-breaking IS malicious so they pay people who's only job is to randomly (or semi-randomly or not at all randomly, depending on your paranoia level) check that people are not breaking the rules and punish them when they are.

PFS is run largely by volunteers who assume everyone is just having fun (and probably recognize that there's not a lot of advantage to cheating anyway) and so don't go hunting for rule breakers and don't aggressively punish people who do break them.

So...the difference between "you paid us $1000 too little 2 years ago so now you owe us $2000" and "your bonus there should be +2 and not +3, please fix it going forward."

If you ARE acting in good faith, you're probably NOT going to have any trouble.

If you ARE acting in good faith [in PFS], you're probably NOT going to have any trouble.

I agree. Which is why Redalia's post concerns me - "GM choice is not allowed"? That was not my understanding.

I agree that OSP auditing people sets a very unfriendly tone. I thought "open" recruiting meant everyone had an opportunity to apply. I thought the rules were pretty lenient on public recruiting, not strict.

And in the games I've submitted through OSP, although I've acted in good faith, I can't say that I didn't have a reserved seat, and would have to dig around to check. Even in games where I have no reserved seats, I sometimes pick people I want, pick people I don't want, pick with the Excel RNG, and most often a combination, and I was unaware any of that could make a difference.

Contrast that to, say, online convention recruiting. That's a case where I assumed "GM choice is not allowed" fits better - the signups are handled by someone else, the GM can't veto a player, and seats can't be reserved.

I think I've seen guidelines in the past that say half (or maybe it was more than half) seats had to be open.

How you select from the open seats is up to you.

I've done lots of different ways in the past. Some FCFS, some for new players, some random, and often a mix of them (especially for PF1 - reserving seats for folk new to PF or PBP).

My understanding is that if you want to reserve a seat or two, you are fine. Often I'll run a game for one person because they have expressed an interest in it, and then just had open recruitment for the rest.

All that said, I am nothing to do with the OSP, and am venture-nothing.

Edit: I must have missed Redalia's post. That certainly makes it look as if I have been doing things wrong, so maybe we do need official clarification.

I'm sure in the past I have cherry picked characters on a variety of grounds - party balance, level as well as characters that have adventured together before and thus "know" each other in game.

Let me see if I can answer as many questions as I can. As many have said already. Here is the criteria set in place for the Online Support Program.

OSP Information

Also to clarify OSP is only for PFS 1E and SFS. Pathfinder 2nd edition will not use OSP as it will use the Achievement Point system to get boons from once it goes live.