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Watery Soup wrote:


I think increasing replays is a reasonable suggestion. I don't know what the discussion was before, where it was held, or why there's so much apparent hostility about the discussion. If the discussion happened a while ago (prior to, say calendar year 2020), it's possible that a disruption of the boon economy weighed more heavily on people than they would now.

The discussion seems to happen at least twice a year for as long as I've been on the boards.

Org Play has significantly increased the amount of replays. You have the ones given based on amount played listed in your Org Play screen, the GM replays that can be renewed at the cost of some extra paperwork, and a fairly large number of repeatable content.

The problem with more replays is you get a bunch of people who have already played the scenario and one person who hasn't. Now the people replaying need to be on best behavior to not spoil it for the one new person and the one new person is often making all the big decisions. It just isn't that much fun.

Think about runs of The Confirmation. Most people at the table likely have played it before. They know what to do at the various decision points like:

Spoiler:
does the group fight the minotaur, what do all those paintings mean and what are we supposed to do with them, who is this gillman and can we just ignore him, and what about Janira?


|Kintargo Area Map | Combat Slides |

Previous Spoiler:

One of these times I'm going to fight the blasted minotaur! ;-)

Sovereign Court

You can convert the 1e scenarios on the fly and run them for PF1e.

It would be cool if you could convert the 2e scenarios.

Grand Lodge

Male
GeraintElberion wrote:
You can convert the 1e scenarios on the fly and run them for PF1e.

Are you talking about the 3PP PF 1e scenarios? If so, one issue with that is you wouldn't be able to report it for PFS characters...


BretI wrote:
The problem with more replays is you get a bunch of people who have already played the scenario and one person who hasn't. Now the people replaying need to be on best behavior to not spoil it for the one new person and the one new person is often making all the big decisions. It just isn't that much fun.

Okay, it may not be much fun, but is it more fun than one person who hasn't played the scenario and nobody's allowed to play with them?

Because, ultimately, that's what it's coming to. Let's say you want to play Scenario #1d10 ⇒ 7-1d20 ⇒ 2 (Six Seconds to Midnight) right now. How long will you have to wait before a game fires?

It's a really long time under the current system. It would be shorter if someone were allowed to GM-replay it, and a group would be easier to find if some players could replay it. And there would be a sacrifice in quality, but would it be worth the benefit in availability?

I can see the case for yes. I can also see the case for no.

Grand Lodge

He/Him Human
Watery Soup wrote:
BretI wrote:
The problem with more replays is you get a bunch of people who have already played the scenario and one person who hasn't. Now the people replaying need to be on best behavior to not spoil it for the one new person and the one new person is often making all the big decisions. It just isn't that much fun.
Okay, it may not be much fun, but is it more fun than one person who hasn't played the scenario and nobody's allowed to play with them?

That’s actually not accurate to what is available. I have run scenarios for one person while everyone else replays for no credit.

What is being discussed is allowing those other people to get credit when doing so, which historically has not worked well due to a shift in table dynamics, as the rewards change demand.

Grand Lodge

Male Elf Wizard (You have to ask?)

They are not going to expand replays more than they have. They have been upfront and honest about it from the beginning regarding replays. I am going to play my CORE wizard through and then see what is after that. My primary interest is in 2e though. I have enjoyed being on the ground floor of that edition and in helping it get rolling along. I ran and played a lot of 1e, but I just enjoy 2e at the moment.


TriOmegaZero wrote:
I have run scenarios for one person while everyone else replays for no credit.

Do you believe that is a suitable solution for the current backlog?

I think that works on a small scale with a small group of people, e.g., the same 5 people at a FLGS who play every week and one person misses a week so they agree to replay without credit for that one person.

I don't see that happening for PbP in late 2020. If not enough people sign up for a game, I've not seen anyone volunteer to no-credit replay just to get the game to go.

TriOmegaZero wrote:
What is being discussed is allowing those other people to get credit when doing so, which historically has not worked well due to a shift in table dynamics, as the rewards change demand.

I don't contest that. And it may not work well now either.

The question is whether it would work better than the current system. At some point, if the current system really breaks down, just about any half-baked solution is going to be an improvement.

If people don't think there's a problem right now, then there's no reason to entertain any changes.


Xathos of Varisia wrote:
They are not going to expand replays more than they have. They have been upfront and honest about it from the beginning regarding replays.

Who is "they"?

To be clear, I think Paizo is neutral about PFS1 dying. They're probably going to cite stare decisis and let it die.

So it's up to anyone dissatisfied with that trajectory to make noise.

Silver Crusade

Watery Soup wrote:

I think that works on a small scale with a small group of people, e.g., the same 5 people at a FLGS who play every week and one person misses a week so they agree to replay without credit for that one person.

I don't see that happening for PbP in late 2020. If not enough people sign up for a game, I've not seen anyone volunteer to no-credit replay just to get the game to go.

I think one thing we might see here as the player:GM ratio dwindles is more people teaming up into consistent groups that play long series together, alternating GMs. I think it's already happening. In that scenario, I think it's downright likely that a table will decide to run one for no credit so the last person at that table can get the chronicle.


| Siege of Serpents | Siege of Enlightenment | Defy the Dragon | Settling Accounts | | Necessary Introductions | ◆◇↺
Watery Soup wrote:
Because, ultimately, that's what it's coming to. Let's say you want to play Scenario 7-2 (Six Seconds to Midnight) right now. How long will you have to wait before a game fires?

Dice roller picked one of the scenarios I can't even imagine playing once after I GMed it because the puzzle is such a core part of the adventure. But there are plenty of adventures that amount to "go to X, roll skill Y, kill Z, repeat" where having done it before does not ruin anything about the experience.

And if you are looking for an apprentice PF1 PBP GM, I'm interested. Two stars from 2 1/2 years IRL and VTT, and just finished up roughly my sixth PBP as player.

Silver Crusade

M Mutant Phalanx Fighter 3, Paladin 2, Wizard 4, Swashbuckler 1
Zin Z'arin wrote:
I think one thing we might see here as the player:GM ratio dwindles is more people teaming up into consistent groups that play long series together

I am in three such groups. Still running and playing other 1e games, too.

Grand Lodge

He/Him Human
Watery Soup wrote:
TriOmegaZero wrote:
I have run scenarios for one person while everyone else replays for no credit.
Do you believe that is a suitable solution for the current backlog?

I don’t believe there IS a solution to the backlog.

Sovereign Court

Otha wrote:
GeraintElberion wrote:
You can convert the 1e scenarios on the fly and run them for PF1e.
Are you talking about the 3PP PF 1e scenarios? If so, one issue with that is you wouldn't be able to report it for PFS characters...

Sorry, typo, that first 1e should have been 3.5


cmlobue wrote:
if you are looking for an apprentice PF1 PBP GM, I'm interested. Two stars from 2 1/2 years IRL and VTT, and just finished up roughly my sixth PBP as player.

Cool, let's do it. Two things first, though:

1. It's not an apprenticeship. You're the GM, I'm an advisor. I'll help you get everything set up, and I'll dot into Gameplay so I can follow, but I'm only posting in Discussion and mostly posting in response (not initiating discussions unless something is really going wrong).

2. Two stars is one more than I have, so this is less about what to do if a character decides to draw a sword on an NPC (an in-game problem) and more about how to make Google Slides publicly accessible (a PBP-specific logistical problem). It's not really about how to be a GM, but about how to be a PbP GM. Just want to be clear, I'm not offering a huge macroeconomic solution to the overall problem, this is a microeconomic solution to a very narrow problem.

If there are other people who want in, one of the things we can do is create a meta-thread like "New PbP GM Support Thread." (Hat tip to GM numbat, I think she did this a while back. She's also much better at it than I am so it was called "GM Training Camp" and other stuff I'm not really qualified to do.) Otherwise, we can probably discuss further on PM or E-mail.


Ruby Phoenix Tournament Games I've Played (Session Tracker)

You could always just play 2e or Starfinder, which will have plenty of support going forward.

Or just do whatever you want in 1e that you can get a big enough group of people to agree to. Got a dozen people who want to play the Confirmation over and over again for the next 10 years? Do it. Level the characters up and see how they do when they're 20th level.

If you're GMing or playing for Society credit, you're probably doing it for the wrong reason.

Also, if you're waiting for a class or permission or anything else to GM, stop.

It's not that hard. At all. Start your thread, ask here to borrow someone's slide deck and go to the recruitment thread and post. Mention that you're new. Someone with experience has not played your scenario or has a replay to burn and will watch and PM you when you need help.

The hardest part for me is still creating a new thread and remembering to make my slide deck editable by people with the link.

Liberty's Edge

Ietsuna's PFS Played Register | GM Ietsuna's PFS GM'd Register
GM PDK wrote:

As requested by Tyranius I'm moving this discussion here...

caps wrote:
I know of at least one 3PP that is making their own organized play; Frog God games. Right now they are only doing VTT but they may open to doing PbP down the road.
Intriguing. Do you have MOAR on this?

I do not know anything about the Frog God one. For a while I have been intrigued by NeoExodus, but have not really gone too deeply into that one. Is there anyone familiar with NeoExodus on the boards?


Masculine (He/Him) Software Engineer
GM PDK wrote:

As requested by Tyranius I'm moving this discussion here...

caps wrote:
I know of at least one 3PP that is making their own organized play; Frog God games. Right now they are only doing VTT but they may open to doing PbP down the road.
Intriguing. Do you have MOAR on this?

Here is the link to the Frog God Games Organized Play Discord.

As far as I can tell, they have no other website or anything. All the information is on that discord server.

---

EbonFist wrote:
Also, you could reach out to Frog God Games and see if they're actually opposed to PbP as a way of playing in their organized play.

I have asked them about play-by-post:

caps wrote:
Are any of the Organized Play games done via play-by-post/play-by-discord?
Michael Mars wrote:
All sessions are spoken [i.e. VTT] currently. I won't say it isn't going to happen, but I highly doubt it happening in the next 4 months

---

Ietsuna wrote:
I do not know anything about the Frog God one. For a while I have been intrigued by NeoExodus, but have not really gone too deeply into that one. Is there anyone familiar with NeoExodus on the boards?

That sounds intriguing!

---

BretI wrote:

Think about runs of The Confirmation. Most people at the table likely have played it before. They know what to do at the various decision points like:

** spoiler omitted **
GM RePete wrote:
** spoiler omitted **

Wait a second...

Confirmation:
There are people who *didn't* fight the Minotaur? Oh you mean the first time around...

---

phaeton_nz wrote:
@caps ... I too have my doubts about 2e, even after getting one PC to L5, .. especially at the high end of play, the numbers just don't feel right - although that's probably my statistical mind acting up imagining the spread compared to the base. But ... well .... prove me wrong. The wife doesn't like it either.

@phaeton_nz

The numbers are interesting. They feel really wrong to 5e players "what do you mean a 25 is a miss?!" But if you think about high level play in PF1e... it's broken. I was in a seeker-level game recently (APL 14 or so) where my Bard and the other Bard were able to stack our buffs for a total of +8 to hit and damage for the whole party! I don't understand how you can balance 1e encounters for parties that have that level of power and parties that *don't* at the same time.

2e solves that problem by tightly bounding all the numbers. They can make a monster hard (or easy) to hit for any given level and know that PCs at that level range will be able to hit it *and also* that those same PCs will miss sometimes. In 1e a monster that is hard for some PCs is nearly impossible for other PCs to miss.

I don't know if that addresses what you were talking about or not.

What I love about 2e is how it makes character customization so easy. In PF1e you have to jump through a lot of hoops to do certain things. For instance, if you want to be an archer you have to dedicate most of your feats to archery (or beg the GM to use EitR rules). In 2e you just get proficiency with bows through a general feat or an archetype. Boom. You're an archer.

Silver Crusade

EbonFist wrote:
The hardest part for me is ... remembering to make my slide deck editable by people with the link.

Oh, I don't even worry about that. The players will let me know right away ;)

Grand Lodge

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Male Elf Wizard (You have to ask?)
Zin Z'arin wrote:
Watery Soup wrote:

I think that works on a small scale with a small group of people, e.g., the same 5 people at a FLGS who play every week and one person misses a week so they agree to replay without credit for that one person.

I don't see that happening for PbP in late 2020. If not enough people sign up for a game, I've not seen anyone volunteer to no-credit replay just to get the game to go.

I think one thing we might see here as the player:GM ratio dwindles is more people teaming up into consistent groups that play long series together, alternating GMs. I think it's already happening. In that scenario, I think it's downright likely that a table will decide to run one for no credit so the last person at that table can get the chronicle.

The Org Play staff have repeatedly stated that they are not considering more replays for PFS1. If Frog God wants to set up their own Organized Play campaign for PF1 and build products for it, that's great. I think that is a wonderful idea for any edition of any game. Really, anyone could do that if they wanted to invest the time and money into doing so.

Paizo is done with PF1. They don't want to commit their resources into maintaining two versions of Pathfinder. That is understandable. To do so would mean diminishing returns on the investment into producing content when they can generate more return on one edition's content. They had to make a business decision for the best interests of Paizo and they did.

PF2 is wildly successful. It is selling better than PF1 did. It is reaching a new sector of the market and that was what it was meant to do. It's a good game. You can always play both games and Starfinder. No matter what the game is, it will always come down to the people at the table. That's why I continue to play CORE via PbP. I enjoy playing with the people at this lodge with both editions of Pathfinder.

Grand Lodge

Male
caps wrote:
What I love about 2e is how it makes character customization so easy. In PF1e you have to jump through a lot of hoops to do certain things. For instance, if you want to be an archer you have to dedicate most of your feats to archery (or beg the GM to use EitR rules). In 2e you just get proficiency with bows through a general feat or an archetype. Boom. You're an archer.

Kind of ironic, at least to me, since how they handled bows/archery in 2e is the first thing that soured me on it. My favorite high fantasy characters have always been archers: Legolas from LotR, Beleg from Silmarillion, Durin, Dayel, and Menion Leah from Sword of Shannara, and Fro from Hawk the Slayer, to name a few. Even moreso, Elven archers with longbows (Elven Ranger Archers are my favorite RPG character to play)...

2e nerfs longbows with the volley trait...and then they restrict certain archery feats among the different classes. Want PBS? Have to go fighter; no ranger archers with PBS unless you multiclass fighter (and even then, I think it takes to 4th level at the earliest to get PBS). The 2e Fighter class appears to have the more traditional archery feats as compared to other classes. In 1e, all the archer feats are available whether you go Fighter, Ranger, Warpriest, Divine Hunter, Zen Archer, Sniper, or whatever. To play the kind of archer I like to play, I'm kinda pigeon-holed to go Fighter and multi-class into Ranger which doesn't 'feel' the same to me...


Xathos of Varisia wrote:
The Org Play staff have repeatedly stated that they are not considering more replays for PFS1 ... Paizo is done with PF1.

One of the structural problems is that Org Play (a non-profit organization with the purpose of supporting players) and Paizo (a for-profit organization with the purpose of making money) are functionally the same. OPF decisions need Paizo's approval, and OPF leaders are Paizo employees.

There should be a distinction between what OPF wants and what Paizo wants; if they always want the same thing, then OPF is an accounting loophole.

Xathos wrote:
They [Paizo] don't want to commit their resources into maintaining two versions of Pathfinder.

I totally understand. Which is why I wouldn't expect any suggestion that actually calls for invested resources to be considered.

Adding replays doesn't cost Paizo anything. Allowing players to select boons (rather than have one assigned) doesn't cost Paizo anything. There are a lot of things that can be done that don't cost Paizo anything.

It costs Paizo nothing but electrons to keep their PFS1 PDFs on the site (I don't know how much the watermarking costs in terms of computational power, but it's probably not excessive). The costs for producing it has been sunk, and the product doesn't depreciate. Even from a capitalist point of view, not blocking players from using a product in new ways makes sense.

To be clear, I play more PFS2 than PFS1 at this point, and I think it's a better game. But I still enjoy PFS1 very much, and I don't understand the resistance people have to altering the system so that PFS1 can thrive for an extended period of time. Even if a change were to allow 2 more years instead of 1 more year before the critical mass of players dissipates ... why not?

Silver Crusade

Watery Soup wrote:
...not blocking players from using a product in new ways makes sense.

Are they *blocking* players from creating their own, alternate PFS system wherein there are more replays and new boons and 3PP content? I'm not sure that they are. The only thing stopping someone from banding together with a group of other players and creating an alternate PFS is simply momentum. You'd have to invest in some web-coding, and get a strong enough player base to keep it alive, but I don't see that Paizo is STOPPING anyone from doing that. They're just electing to not invest resources in doing it themselves.


Masculine (He/Him) Software Engineer
Otha wrote:
caps wrote:
What I love about 2e is how it makes character customization so easy. In PF1e you have to jump through a lot of hoops to do certain things. For instance, if you want to be an archer you have to dedicate most of your feats to archery (or beg the GM to use EitR rules). In 2e you just get proficiency with bows through a general feat or an archetype. Boom. You're an archer.

Kind of ironic, at least to me, since how they handled bows/archery in 2e is the first thing that soured me on it. My favorite high fantasy characters have always been archers: Legolas from LotR, Beleg from Silmarillion, Durin, Dayel, and Menion Leah from Sword of Shannara, and Fro from Hawk the Slayer, to name a few. Even moreso, Elven archers with longbows (Elven Ranger Archers are my favorite RPG character to play)...

2e nerfs longbows with the volley trait...and then they restrict certain archery feats among the different classes. Want PBS? Have to go fighter; no ranger archers with PBS unless you multiclass fighter (and even then, I think it takes to 4th level at the earliest to get PBS). The 2e Fighter class appears to have the more traditional archery feats as compared to other classes. In 1e, all the archer feats are available whether you go Fighter, Ranger, Warpriest, Divine Hunter, Zen Archer, Sniper, or whatever. To play the kind of archer I like to play, I'm kinda pigeon-holed to go Fighter and multi-class into Ranger which doesn't 'feel' the same to me...

I also love playing archers, and I really enjoy playing archers in 2e. 2e gives me a lot more options for playing different *kinds* of archers. You can take Double Shot + Triple Shot to be the 1e archer that stays in one place and spews arrows, but you can also be a more dynamic archer that moves around, hiding between rounds to make targets flat-footed, etc. which I personally find to be more fun.

The Archer archetype from the Advanced Player's Guide is the answer to your problem. APG also introduced a monk feat that lets you be a Zen Archer (flurry with bows) as well as Eldritch Archer (which has a lot of ways to play it and build it. They also added the Daikyo, which is basically a longbow with none of the pros OR cons of a longbow (no Volley) but it is an Uncommon and Advanced weapon, which means actually getting and using it does require jumping through a few hoops. I would rather just us a longbow, personally.

I will also point out, using a shortbow instead of a longbow is not that bad of a tradeoff, but if you want to stick with longbow and don't have point blank shot (yet), in my experience there are a lot of fights in 2e so far where you can move 30+ ft away from your target.


I expect some of the more restrictive archer stuff in 2.0 is to reign in the dominance that was 1.0 archers.

I also like the fact that there is a reason for someone to use a short bow instead of in 1.0 it was long bow only. Along the same lines as there is more than just a few types of armor's used in 2.0.

Grand Lodge

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He/Him
Watery Soup wrote:

I totally understand. Which is why I wouldn't expect any suggestion that actually calls for invested resources to be considered.

Adding replays doesn't cost Paizo anything. Allowing players to select boons (rather than have one assigned) doesn't cost Paizo anything. There are a lot of things that can be done that don't cost Paizo anything.

It costs Paizo nothing but electrons to keep their PFS1 PDFs on the site (I don't know how much the watermarking costs in terms of computational power, but it's probably not excessive). The costs for producing it has been sunk, and the product doesn't depreciate. Even from a capitalist point of view, not blocking players from using a product in new ways makes sense.

To be clear, I play more PFS2 than PFS1 at this point, and I think it's a better game. But I still enjoy PFS1 very much, and I don't understand the resistance people have to altering the system so that PFS1 can thrive for an extended period of time. Even if a change were to allow 2 more years instead of 1 more year before the critical mass of players dissipates ... why not?

The replay/end-of-life for PF1 thing has been argued ad nauseum on the boards in the last two years, and I really don't think there's any value to relitigating it here. All this kind of thing is going to do is reopen old arguments and revive bad feelings.

Grand Lodge

Male

Thanks for the info caps...but I must be missing something in the 2e ruleset (and that wouldn't surprise me one bit)...

I don't see how 2e gives you more options than 1e as far as archers go; in 1e just about all archery feats are open to you from the start. Whether you go Ranger, Fighter, Zen Archer, or some other ranged specialist, you're not restricted from the (formerly) traditional archery feats by class...

I saw the Archer Archetype (I got the 2e Humble Bundle) and read a little upon it. But it appeared to me, if I was a ranger, I couldn't choose that Archetype till 2nd level, taking Archer dedication. But I'd already have proficiency with bows from the ranger class (but I'm guessing my proficiency would be more advanced?)...and I wouldn't be able to take PBS till 4th level. Whereas, if I take fighter, I can get PBS at 1st level, yes? And it seems like you can get the better archery feats (Double Shot, Triple Shot) earlier with Fighter. While many of the same are offered with Archer, it takes longer to acquire them, at least from my limited understanding. But even as a fighter, I'd have to take a dip into some of the ranger feats (unfortunately sans most of the ranger abilities) to snag Deadly Aim to make him close to what I was playing in 1e...

I know I'm focused a lot on PBS but it seems pretty essential to me as it not only negates the Volley penalty, if you do use a shortbow you get +2 damage on your first increment...getting that at 1st level (only thru fighter) seems too good to pass up for another class where you'd have to wait till 4th level to get it...

Caps, I've played with and GM'ed for your characters; you're a good player and I respect your opinion. What I'm missing and where am I off?


Dennis Muldoon wrote:
The replay/end-of-life for PF1 thing has been argued ad nauseum on the boards in the last two years

I agree it has been argued before, but disagree that should be the end of it.

Two years ago, PF2 had been announced, and was being playtested. One year ago, PF2 had been released but its financial success was unknown. Both of those issues should factor in to the question of what would happen with PF1, and they have changed over the many iterations of this discussion, so I don't agree that discussions from that past necessarily warrant stare decisis. For example, Paizo may have wanted to keep the PFS1 door open in the past in case PF2 didn't work out, but now want to close it since PF2 is working out.

Does Paizo care what happens with PFS1 now? Do people who have already moved on care what happens with PFS1 now? If both answers are no, then why is there resistance to the people who do care right now having a discussion right now?

If PFS1 ends with some kind of orderly shutdown, a lot of people would be disappointed, but a lot of people would be relieved at the certainty. People would make their bucket lists of things to play, and know exactly how much time was left. And if some 3PP or subset of players wanted to create a new OP group, they'd know they weren't going to step on anyone's toes. If PFS1 ends with a disorderly shutdown, it's going to be like the Fame fiasco in PFS2 where there's an extended period of players having no clue how valuable anything is, and a lot of panicky, speculation-rampant discussion.

It feels like PFS1 is getting to that last scenario - everyone seems to suspect it's losing critical mass, so everyone is scrambling around to make their own personal plans, which accelerates the chaos.

Silver Crusade

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The sky is not falling.

There are still games being offered on these boards. I consistently have about a half-dozen PCs playing concurrently (this is my personal player threshold; I believe I could be in more games if I wanted them). I've GMed more this year than any year previous, and I assume others are doing the same.

I have every confidence that I'll continue to play my PCs for many years. Based on the activity on these boards, I don't think I'll run out of games before I'm ready to be done with this edition.

While I never agree that discussion should be shut down per principle, I *do* think that this discussion (which I've been actively participating in, admittedly) likely contributes to the perception of a problem where no such problem exists (at least, not to the degree one might assume from the tenor of the discussion).

The sky is not falling. Let's roll some dice.


Ruby Phoenix Tournament Games I've Played (Session Tracker)

You're basically asking Paizo to fix a problem they don't have.

They're getting the money out of the sales of the scenarios (and probably some pdf versions of rule books) without having to put any resources into it.

Even updating a policy requires someone going in somewhere and making a change to at least the wording. And, potentially revives hope in holdouts when what they really want is for people to adopt the new system and buy new books.

And we have seen enough issues with the site and boon tracking to know that if they let people select their boons, it is going to cost them something, if only in coding and coding is not cheap.

You're asking for an orderly shutdown when, in reality, there will be no shutdown, at least not one that Paizo directly influences.

I suspect in 10 years you'll still be able to buy all the 1E scenarios and download the guide. Just no one will want to. Because that will, literally require no effort on their part.

Or, it will cost more in server space each month than they earn on it, eventually and they'll put out an announcement and then close it all down.

Grand Lodge

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He/Him

TL;DR Have all the old arguments again if you want, but take it to its own thread.

You can disagree that there's been enough discussion on the matter, of course, that's your right. This lodge isn't the place to relitigate it, though. If you want to open up a new thread in the Organized Play section of the forums and have all the same arguments over again, knock yourself out. Having that discussion here, in the PbP lodge, is only going to cause strife and reopen old wounds. Beside that, Org Play leadership is much more likely to see it in a dedicated thread; they don't normally frequent this board. You're not going to convince anyone with the power to change anything by arguing about it here, in a thread meant to discuss PbP play.

Grand Lodge

Male Elf Wizard (You have to ask?)

I personally am more interested to see who is going to run a CORE 1-5 or 3-6 so I can try to play my L4 Wizard if it is a scenario I have not played in yet. I really am not interested in the Evergreens though.

Silver Crusade

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Xathos of Varisia wrote:
I personally am more interested to see who is going to run a CORE 1-5 or 3-6 so I can try to play my L4 Wizard if it is a scenario I have not played in yet. I really am not interested in the Evergreens though.

Do you have a request? I'm looking to start up a new game within the week. I prefer to run a scenario in CORE first, then run it in Standard. If you have a wishlist scenario that I happen to have already played (I only GM games I've already played), I'd be happy to run that for you.


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Zin'Zarin wrote:
Based on the activity on these boards, I don't think I'll run out of games ...

I hit up the recruitment thread with the intention of tracking the number of recruitment posts over time. I started in August 2018 intending to tabulate two years, but got bored in February 2019 (it's exhausting to differentiate between recruitment, and muster, and recruitment reposts). Here's the data I did get:

Aug 2018: 21 (convention)
Sep 2018: 9
Oct 2018: 4
Nov 2018: 15
Dec 2018: 10
Jan 2019: 14 (convention)

Then, I just skipped to the last three months, because this is primarily something I noted qualitatively over the past year, and wanted some quantitative data.

Aug 2020: 15 (convention)
Sep 2020: 4
Oct 2020 to date: 2

When people ask where da games at, it's often that they're told a convention is about to start, or just started. But people have noted how PFS1 has declined within the convention context. So there appear to be fewer games in conventions and fewer games outside of conventions. Expected? Yes. To this magnitude? I don't know.

Maybe more games are being run with stable groups; that could be a reason for fewer publicly advertised games. But that could also be a problem - PbP becoming some "in" club where if you're not in an exclusive group, you can't "break in". (I'll confess that I PM people I have played with to fill games, because it's easier for me.) And there exist Paizo-independent solutions, such as having a Google Sheet to track requests so that recruitment is more egalitarian.

---

Is this best discussed on the OP forums? I don't know. It doesn't look like every stakeholder in the Recruitment thread followed the discussion here; maybe they weren't concerned enough, or maybe as the discussion migrates away from the places it manifests itself, the discussion gets diluted with unfamiliar non-stakeholders.

We're not going to implement a massive macroeconomic change (like altering replays) in this thread (or in this thread alone), but it seems like a good spot to look at PFS1 PbP recruitment numbers and coordinate any microeconomic solutions that we've individually come up with.


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VC Australia - WA

Discussing PbP recruiting and how to coordinate efforts to help PFS1 and PFS1-core stay alive and meet the needs of those who wish to play is quite appropriate for this thread.

As Dennis pointed out, discussions of the campaign rules and decisions (such as but not limited to replays) is best taken elsewhere.

@Watery Soup - I am going to pull some numbers for you from our recent conventions in case it helps.


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VC Australia - WA

PbP conventions for 2020 - number of tables for each system (does merger standard and core for PFS1)

Jan
PFS1 40
PFS2 30
SFS 35

Mar
PFS1 46
PFS2 38
SFS 47

Sep
PFS1 43
PFS2 70
SFS 47

Note: as these are from the signup sheets, except for the current convention (Sep), there could be additional tables that were added during the con. PFS2 has short adventures in the mix that probably increases the overall table count.

Not sure how useful this information is but it may help bring perspective to the current situation. I don't have time to go hunting for past numbers. I will say that for the players and GMs who are active in both VTT and PbP the surge of VTT games and conventions to replace local games and conventions has left many starting to burn out or slow down. This has been a tough year for a lot of people.

That said, I encourage positive brainstorming to look at ways to help players to transition to GMing; coordinate requests and players; and work together to keep PFS1 alive and enjoyable for those of us who wish to continue to play.

If there are ways you think your VO team can provide assistance, please let us know.

Dark Archive

Tyrant's Grasp | | Age of Ashes | | Dead Suns | | ◆ | ◆◆ | ◆◆◆ | ◇ ◈ | ↺ | ★

Yup, those Con numbers at least are very off. By a bit more than half.

Folks are right. The discussion on campaign rules and replay decisions will do little good here. It should be shifted to Org Play forums.

Org Play Forums (Link)

Grand Lodge

Male

Thanks for the numbers, Numbat. I was pretty sure this was the first time that PFS1 sessions were fewest of the three...but I did not know that this Gameday's PFS1 numbers were similar to the last two conventions. When I first started looking at the signup sheets, there were far fewer PFS1 sessions...so glad to see it later picked up...

Dark Archive

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Otha wrote:
Thanks for the numbers, Numbat. I was pretty sure this was the first time that PFS1 sessions were fewest of the three...but I did not know that this Gameday's PFS1 numbers were similar to the last two conventions. When I first started looking at the signup sheets, there were far fewer PFS1 sessions...so glad to see it later picked up...

Yup our PbP Cons have been very nearly split into equal thirds. All three systems are maintaining well.

As Numbat stated if anyone has suggestions or improvements don't be afraid to shoot any of us a PM.

Grand Lodge

m Human Commoner 10
Zin Z'arin wrote:
Xathos of Varisia wrote:
I personally am more interested to see who is going to run a CORE 1-5 or 3-6 so I can try to play my L4 Wizard if it is a scenario I have not played in yet. I really am not interested in the Evergreens though.
Do you have a request? I'm looking to start up a new game within the week. I prefer to run a scenario in CORE first, then run it in Standard. If you have a wishlist scenario that I happen to have already played (I only GM games I've already played), I'd be happy to run that for you.

Interested as well in a 1-5 or 3-6. Seasons 1 thru 5 scenario arc sounds fun. Or whatever.


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I don't know how you've counted, numbat, but going back across publicly available Google Docs, this is what I see.

Outpost II (Spring 2019)
PF1: 96
PF2: 0
PF2Q: 0
SFS: 42

Gameday VIII (Fall 2019)
PF1: 50
PF2: 23
PF2Q: 2
SFS: 58

Outpost III (Spring 2020)
PF1: 33
PF2: 28
PF2Q: 10
SFS: 34

Gameday IX (Fall 2020)
PF1: 33
PF2: 59
PF2Q: 11
SFS: 34

Especially note the difference in 2020 PF1 numbers - you're counting quite a few more (47, 43) than are showing up on the spreadsheets (33, 33). If the signup numbers are planned tables, and you're pulling data from reported tables, that means that there are many PF1 (and SFS) tables that aren't on the signup sheet but are being reported (private recruiting? late additions?).

But whether it's 40-something or 30-something, it's pretty clear there's a significant drop from 2019. That by itself isn't a problem - one can argue that 33 games for a system that hasn't printed new material in a year is pretty good - but if that keeps sliding downward (especially if I'm right that non-convention recruiting has dropped too), there won't be enough games run aggregate over a year so that people can do things like start new characters, and that's the macroeconomic problem that I think is looming.

Dark Archive

Tyrant's Grasp | | Age of Ashes | | Dead Suns | | ◆ | ◆◆ | ◆◆◆ | ◇ ◈ | ↺ | ★

That is what was on the spreadsheet during the time of recruitment. There are more reported in as some games accrue enough players to split into 2-3 separate tables. Or more interest shows as tables close out and the GM goes to squeeze in another game halfway through the con with the same group of players. Not all end up making the spreadsheet. And the numbers on the spreadsheet also do not include the Specials.


VC Australia - WA

A) I may have made some errors, though I tried to be accurate, I was doing this quickly
B) I did include tables of specials. (Only the ones that fired, not all that were offered, for the specials.)

33+13=46 for March
33+10=43 for September

I included the comparisons because if the numbers for PFS1 are not sustainable then none of the others are either, except maybe PFS2 with the numbers from this last convention.

Of those 70 PFS2 tables, 15 are short adventures (quests and bounties).
Also, 26 of those 70 tables were marked open still indicating the tables were not full, some did not run at all.

Only 5 of the 33 PFS1 tables are still marked open.

So, if we can ever carve out enough time, we could look at the reporting data from the conventions and OSP. It would not catch everything but may help give us a slightly more accurate picture. Don't expect it to happen immediately though.

I think the current numbers show that things are a little more stable than maybe it feels like but regardless, the more important issue is how can we best meet the needs of players and GMs?


Masculine (He/Him) Software Engineer

Otha, I'm composing a response regarding archery. :)

--

If it's a question of having enough GMs, I can run a PFS1 table. The pace will be a bit slower. I can't commit to more than 1 major post every 2-3 days. I also can't start right away (will need to read the scenario and prep slides).

I have all of Season 6, Voice in the Void from Season 0, Between the Lines from Season 7, and a smattering of season 3 and season 5

Season 3,5 Scenarios:
Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-01: The Frostfur Captives
Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-02: Sewer Dragons of Absalom
Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-21: The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment
Pathfinder Society Scenario #5–02: The Wardstone Patrol
Pathfinder Society Scenario #5–08: The Confirmation
Pathfinder Society Scenario #5–22: Scars of the Third Crusade I won't run this one, as it burned me out the last time I tried

I'm happy to run other stuff if someone else provides the pdf by some sanctioned means.


I always think that the first step in getting a good answer is to ask the right question.

Fundamentally, are there enough [Paizo.com PbP] games running, in and out of conventions, to support the character advancement of interested players?

Secondary questions:

Do we have enough GMs to sustainably run those games? If not, what are the barriers to getting more GMs? (And here is where the answer of replays may be floated as a solution.)

Is interest staying the same, dropping to a new equilibrium, dropping without an equilibrium? How much of it is temporary (e.g., SIP-related or seasonal) and how much of it is permanent?

---

My observations: I think fewer games are running overall and a higher percentage are semi-open. They're run by request, and often have seats reserved, i.e., very few open recruitments for 6 seats. I don't expect that if I check the Recruitment thread every day, that my characters can find games.

My personal/microeconomic solution is to request nearly every game I play, and specifically trade GMing by running a series someone else wants in return f9r them running a series I want. This works for me, but on scale it's going to be unfair to new players if everyone does it (so I readily admit I may be part of the problem if there is one).

I think it's worth discussing how to encourage more people to be GMs, and how to get people to run more "random" scenarios. I think GM School is an excellent idea (whether it actually does anything or not, it lowers a barrier), and Iscenario support for rarely run scenarios (e.g., OPF will gift the scenario if it hasn't been run in X months/years) would help expand the diversity of games offered, but admittedly that may be outside the scope of this thread.

I also think a Google Sheet to organize requests would be helpful, but that's something I don't need buyin from anyone else to do, and will probably do myself the next time I want to run a game.


I just got into PFS1e at the start of Covid and started to GM a few months ago. Definitely enjoying it and don't plan to stop any time soon.

I think the biggest hurdle for me GMing more though is purchasing scenarios to play. Without support, the overall cost builds up. Have there ever been sales of old PFS scenarios?

Grand Lodge

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He/Him
MauveAvengr wrote:
I think the biggest hurdle for me GMing more though is purchasing scenarios to play. Without support, the overall cost builds up. Have there ever been sales of old PFS scenarios?

There have been a few of them show up in Humble Bundles from time to time. I don't remember seeing sales other than that.

Grand Lodge

Male Elf Wizard (You have to ask?)
Zin Z'arin wrote:
Xathos of Varisia wrote:
I personally am more interested to see who is going to run a CORE 1-5 or 3-6 so I can try to play my L4 Wizard if it is a scenario I have not played in yet. I really am not interested in the Evergreens though.
Do you have a request? I'm looking to start up a new game within the week. I prefer to run a scenario in CORE first, then run it in Standard. If you have a wishlist scenario that I happen to have already played (I only GM games I've already played), I'd be happy to run that for you.

Thank you for the response! I am up for pretty much anything. I saw someone else mentions Seasons 0-5 are fine with me. I have played 05, 13, and 17 from Season 0 in CORE, plus 4-19. I have ran a lot of the Season 0 sessions in regular play and played most as well. I have played none of the Season 1-3 scenarios in CORE and only ran or played a few of them in regular play. I just like to play CORE although I've got plenty of characters in regular play.


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MauveAvengr wrote:

I just got into PFS1e at the start of Covid and started to GM a few months ago. Definitely enjoying it and don't plan to stop any time soon.

I think the biggest hurdle for me GMing more though is purchasing scenarios to play. Without support, the overall cost builds up. Have there ever been sales of old PFS scenarios?

I believe that many players are willing to buy a module or scenario so that the whole table can enjoy the game. I definitely would always do that.

Grand Lodge

He/Him

Yeah, it's definitely possible to buy a scenario as a gift to someone else's account (I've done that before).

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