The Flaxseed Pathfinder Lodge: Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Game Master Redelia

I think the issue is not problematic enough to warrant any punitive actions. Real life happens. And when it happens, it take precedence over play time. So long as we have GMs willing to step in and help out games, and so long as we have players who notify the VOs when such a situation happens so that they can recruit replacement GMs, we're fine.

Unfortunately this is going to occur. Especially since real life happenings tend to preclude getting online to let people know about the situation.

Don't take it personally. It's just one of those things you need to accept when you play online.

I'd like to add an addendum: if you're concerned about GMs disappearing, one concrete thing you can do is to become a GM. Run games and don't disappear. Add to the growing base of GMs so as to help alleviate the load on certain GMs who feel an obligation to take on (maybe too many) games to help the community.

Be a part of the solution.

Two-thirds of the games that 'die' or 'stop' have been due to the *players* no longer posting.

This could be part of it too. If we assume that drops are statistically the same among players and GMs, GM drops might still seem like they happen more often. When a player drops, a GM has several ways of handling it but the game almost always marches on-- others take their turns, eventually the game finishes and everyone except the dropped player gets their Chronicle. It's unlikely that anyone would say anything in the Flaxseed about it. However, when a GM drops, the whole game is dead in the water and people are more likely to bring it up here.

But of course, that assumes that GM drops are no more likely than player drops. And I don't know that that's really the case-- maybe GMs really are just burning themselves out during GameDays. Just my 2 copper.

I think the issue is not problematic enough to warrant any punitive actions....

I'd like to add an addendum: if you're concerned about GMs disappearing, one concrete thing you can do is to become a GM. Run games and don't disappear. Add to the growing base of GMs so as to help alleviate the load on certain GMs who feel an obligation to take on (maybe too many) games to help the community.

Be a part of the solution.

a) I am not suggesting punitive actions. However - limiting PbP Gameday games to 2 or 3 simultaneous games as player or gm is not unreasonable to consider.

b) You may not be pointing the "concrete solution" at me, but I GM a few games on PbP year round - including organizing and growing my local circle's pbp presence. But i do limit my GM'd games to 3 or less to avoid burnout proactively, the same way i've avoided burnout slowly climbing to 5 stars for years.

I'd like to add an addendum: if you're concerned about GMs disappearing, one concrete thing you can do is to become a GM. Run games and don't disappear. Add to the growing base of GMs so as to help alleviate the load on certain GMs who feel an obligation to take on (maybe too many) games to help the community.

Be a part of the solution.

My New Year's resolution in a nutshell! Coming in 2017: GM Mjolbeard!

b) You may not be pointing the "concrete solution" at me, but I GM a few games on PbP year round - including organizing and growing my local circle's pbp presence. But i do limit my GM'd games to 3 or less to avoid burnout proactively, the same way i've avoided burnout slowly climbing to 5 stars for years.

Then you're already a part of the solution, aren't you? I'm inviting those who do not GM to become GMs. It's the only way to ensure the hobby continues and we have adequate GMs for the amount of players we have.

James Martin wrote:

I think the issue is not problematic enough to warrant any punitive actions....

I'd like to add an addendum: if you're concerned about GMs disappearing, one concrete thing you can do is to become a GM. Run games and don't disappear. Add to the growing base of GMs so as to help alleviate the load on certain GMs who feel an obligation to take on (maybe too many) games to help the community.

Be a part of the solution.

a) I am not suggesting punitive actions. However - limiting PbP Gameday games to 2 or 3 simultaneous games as player or gm is not unreasonable to consider.

b) You may not be pointing the "concrete solution" at me, but I GM a few games on PbP year round - including organizing and growing my local circle's pbp presence. But i do limit my GM'd games to 3 or less to avoid burnout proactively, the same way i've avoided burnout slowly climbing to 5 stars for years.

Each person has their own limit and needs to find and understand what it is to not burn themselves out. Just doing 2-3 games would drive me nuts as I consistently (3+ years now) run roughly 10 games and playing in another 5-6 (posting multiple times in a day). But I know that is what I am comfortable with at my workload and family life. I plan if I have vacation of something big coming up to not begin more games or tone it down around those areas.

One of the things I'm curious about was how the Special, SKy Key Solution, affected things. It was definitely a high-pressure scenario to run, and I know that a lot of GMs felt that it led to GM burnout.

I strongly agree with this, Hmm. As a GM that GM'd this special, I suffered a lot from it and I feel like I needed some time to recover from having one game plus a special running at the same (obviously except the many games I play as a player). I know some other GM that felt the same way.

Let me suggest two things that have already been said, but I strongly agree with them so I feel the need to highlight them:

1) As James Martin said: "become a GM, run games and don't disappear." Also I'd like to add: the more the GMs on PBP, the better the GMs can answer the strong demand for games.

2) As many others said: don't GM and play in too many games at the same time. There will still be games after a gameday. And again after the after gameday. GM burnout is a condition that does not affect us at the same rate. GMs: Take care of yourself! :)
I know they have a lot to think about during a gameday, but I'd be glad if overseers could do a little bit of prevention about the matter.

For me there is definitely a sweet spot in terms of playing that is hard to land. If I'm not GMing or playing enough games, I get bored and sign up. Too many, though and I am stretched too thin, losing too much of my day to PbP.

Before Gameday V there was some talk about backup GMs who could substitute or backup GMs who left. Sounded like a good idea to me. My problem is that I don't have the materials on hand, so I'd have to buy it, read the scenario and understand the material before I put my GM hat on.

I'm pretty certain there's a GM/play spike during every gameday, so this could be the normal rate of burnout. This also could be people are actually talking about it, which is GOOD. The last thing we need are silent failures.

Well, part of the reason I'm asking this is that I am joining the Online Venture Team soon (it's no longer a murky date, but a confirmed one.) This means that I'll be part of the team putting together the next PBP gameday.

One of the things I wanted to discuss was the running of challenging specials during a gameday. As much as I would love to run Cosmic Captive in PbP sometime (mainly so that I can get a chance to run it CORRECTLY -- it's so hard to prep that I made tons of mistakes while running it live) I'm worried that it would kill all other play during a gameday because it's more demanding prep-wise than Sky Key Solution was. It could be done, but if we do it I'm strongly going to suggest that GMs limit what else they'd run. I would also suggest that we muster it by route, so that GMs could say: "Water" "Fire" or "Earth" and not have to prep all three.

Other older specials may not be nearly so bad. I would love to run Siege of the Diamond City, which is a charming special and not that challenging to prep. That one might be more like running a regular scenario for GMs.

So, opening the floor here. Pretend you're planning the next PBP Gameday. What would you do to make things run smoothly for all?

Hmm

I would love to finally play Siege, myself. Oh, that wasn't the question, was it? :) Sorry I don't have the experience to comment on how to run a PbP special.

I had a look through my reported games.
Gameday 3: 10 games (to be fair three were Confirmation games)
Gameday 4: 7 games
Gameday 5: 6 games

So, I personally would not like to see a limit of three games being run. One thing that was different (apart from the multitable) was in GD3&4, there was limited scenario support. It was maxed out at 3 scenarios.

This time it was uncapped. This may have encouraged GMs to pick up more scenarios "for free" than they would normally do. Running a game you have prepped well in advance or even better run before, is much easier than doing it for the first time. Especially if you are doing two or three or four or five others.

I'd advocate for moving back to limiting scenario support to three scenarios. Help folk self-limit a bit. You can always provide some bonus scenarios as prizes to make up for the "Saving" in up front scenario support.

I coordinated the mustering of tables for Sky Key Solution on Myth-Weavers. Based on my experience there, I would make the following suggestions for organizing tables for future specials.

1. Get your list of GMs early. Find out on what forum they plan to run their game, Paizo, Myth-Weavers etc. and what subtiers and game modes they are comfortable running (CORE or Classic).

2. Publish only the list of GMs and the forum they are running on.

3. Have players sign up by subtier with the PC they are looking to play, but NOT for a specific table. (If they only want to play on a specific forum have them note that was well.) That way if you have a lot of players looking for subtier 10-11, you can arrange the GMs as needed and get a better table balance. This is pretty much how we do it at the local conventions.

4. Delegate to one or more people (probably the VA of each forum or another VO) the task of organizing tables.

5. Publish the preliminary table setup and a way to facilitate table swapping.

6. Set a date (say a week prior to start) to finalize tables.

Personal Opinion: Players should be given the expectation if they signed up to play with a PC that PC MUST be available to start by the date the tables are finalized, not the date the special actually starts.

Maybe it's just me, but it bothered me that there were players who signed up with PCs that they had to change at the last minute because the PC they wanted to play was still stuck in another game that hadn't finished.

For me I'm less concerned about people having real life hit them and more concerned about people who vanish for a week and then come back later like nothing happened. Communication is important and I'm a lot more likely to forgive spotty posting if I get a heads up in a PM or something. I had a few people sign up for a slot 2 scenario with a character who was running in slot 1. One of them was nice enough to PM me and let me know they would be unavailable. The other just went no-com and didn't respond to my PMs. After checking their post history I realized the situation, but if it comes to me searching your campaign list to decide if I need to find an alternate, that is a good sign that if more than 6 sign up for my game and you're one of them that you're first on the chopping block.

Also, for the people who use the Flaxseed thread, just a simple post here would help us know. At least the information is there and can get disseminated to everyone. It leaves a much better taste in our mouth if there's at least a post that took 2 minutes to show that you care about the games you are having trouble posting in. Yes, it's not always possible (mostly in cases of medical emergencies), but I bet that oftentimes it is.

I'd like to add an addendum: if you're concerned about GMs disappearing, one concrete thing you can do is to become a GM. Run games and don't disappear.

^^^

This was pretty much my entry point to PbP GM'ing.

With regards to the number of games, I'm not sure. GM's know their limits, and for each of us it varies wildly, I see some GM's and I wonder how they wrangle ten tables, but then they might have a lot of spare time. I get people telling me to slow down a lot in my life, and wonder how I fit it all in, but I just have good time management and can multi-task effectively.

I find there have been times when I have had half a dozen tables on the go and it was a breeze as they were all running along, but then you get ONE table where people think posting once a week is ok and throw tantrums when the game moves past them. Worse, you get a group of dithering non-decision makers and I reckon you could just about hear my screams all the way across the Pacific.

Six tables can be fine, one table can break you.

I agree with Shifty, the speed and posting quality of the groups really makes a big difference.

I think Wei-Ji has been in a couple of tables I have GM'd where I was seriously on the verge of saying 'Rocks fall, you all die'. I suspect he would have also thanked me for the sweet sweet release.

I was very tempted to TPK Wei Ji and co in my PbP. Thankfully, I am not a killer GM.

I've been in situations as both player and GM where the players couldn't figure out what to do in a particular encounter, but were too stubborn to give up. But without a flow of ideas posting seems to grind to a halt.

Wei-Ji hs the patience of a saint when it comes to some of these players, in his shoes I would have thrown the rules to the wind and gone PvP on some of my party.

Is, is sending the party to jail considered pvp? Because, umm..... yeah, it came close once. *YAY botched Heal check*

I went a little overboard as a player for this game day, it's amazing how different the games have worked out.

7-00 Skykey Solution - 707 Posts - Completed Oct 11th

6-23 Darkest Abduction - 411 Posts - Completed Oct 11th

Quest Honor's Echo - 299 Posts - On final Quest

MOD Emerald Spire Floor 1 - 148 Posts - GM abandoned Last update Nov 26th

7-17 Thrall's of the Shattered Gods - 394 Posts - Completed Nov 29th (Waiting on Chronicle Sheets)

7-14+ Faithless and Forgotten Trilogy(part 1) - 193 Posts - Completed Nov 29th.

7-25 Orders from the Gate - 262 Posts - Complete Nov 23rd

8-10 Wounded Wisp - 191 Posts - Completed October 13th

8-10 Wounded Wisp - 217 Posts - Completed September 27th

Quest Phantom Phenomena - 463 Posts - Completed Nov 14th

We Be Goblins Free - 175 Posts - Completed October 12th

I feel your pain shifty. I've had some tables that blew through a scenario in a matter of weeks, and then other tables where every single decision was debated for weeks and weeks, almost to the point where I was about to tell the table "This is where you're going, here's your perception check, here's your initiative, and you need to attack it with a melee weapon."

As far as table limits go, I think if we just stress something along the lines of "you know your limits, don't over extend yourself, and if you do, let the lodge know." Then we should be fine. It's a bit unfair to limit those that can handle all of their tables because of the few who have things come up and can't finish out what they start. That being said, if certain GM's exhibit a pattern of dropping out of their games and abandoning players, then we may have to revisit this.

I suspect the amount of orphaned games being brought up isn't so much that we're actually having more orphaned games, just that we're being notified more about the ones that are happening. This is good, it means we can handle and delegate games to GM's that can finish them out for players, especially VO's. Once I get settled and have my wifi back I plan on taking up my share of orphaned games to make up for the games of mine that were finished out by other GM's here when I was in the ICU.

Either way, I fear that if we try to wrangle the pbp community with a ton of rules, people will be less likely to play. We already have a lot of "online specific best practices" (or so I call them), like abilities such as Opportune Parry and Riposte and Misfortune, where players state the conditions for those abilities to go off, rather than the "after the roll but before the results are known" that most of them have. Adding even more stuff to the load, especially something as drastic as limiting people to how many games they can run, could possibly have a very detrimental effect on the medium.

3. Have players sign up by subtier with the PC they are looking to play, but NOT for a specific table. (If they only want to play on a specific forum have them note that was well.) That way if you have a lot of players looking for subtier 10-11, you can arrange the GMs as needed and get a better table balance. This is pretty much how we do it at the local conventions.

5. Publish the preliminary table setup and a way to facilitate table swapping.

I think that your third idea would help a ton, as GMs then have only one subtier to prep. The downside is players like me, and that is where I think it becomes important how your fifth idea is implemented.

I care far, far more about who the other people at the table are than about which character I am playing.

. . .

In general, and for the whole group: my local group makes sure that each venture-agent has the phone number of every player for their store, and that helps a LOT. Would it be possible to implement a version of that system here? For example:

7-05 School of Spirits - 259 Posts - Completed Nov 27th

3-23 The Goblinblood Dead CORE - 492 Posts - Completed Dec 9th

7-07 Trouble In Tamran - 219 Posts - Ongoing

I think that your third idea would help a ton, as GMs then have only one subtier to prep.

Actually my intent was the the GMs would hopefully be flexible about subtier.

We organized 5 tables on the Sky Key Solution on Myth-weavers. Originally when we offered tables we were going to offer two 1-2 tables, and one each of 3-4, 5-6, and 7-8. (We assumed there wasn't going to be a need for 10-11 as there aren't that many players with high level PCs on Myth-Weavers.)

We ended up switching the 5-6 GM to a 3rd 1-2 table a couple of weeks before hand because we didn't have enough players to fill that subtier and we had a number of new players sign up to try PFS.

Pirate Rob --

Do you need someone to take over Emerald Spire? I'm trying to get abandoned games cleaned up.

Hmm

No, we were arguably 2/3s of the way through so I made sure we all got chronicle sheets and are calling it, thank you though.

Good deal. Did we really do over 700 posts in Sky Key? Wow. I see we did! That scenario should have been worth 2 GM tables, it was so long!

(Or maybe I'm just verbose!)

Hmm

But it's hard being so grammatically affluent all the time..... and I'm gonna try to dip my toes in pbp GMing again, this time with a PC not on the fritz. Finalizing the last two scenarios to choose from, then From the tome of Righteous Repose will be opened.

Good deal. Did we really do over 700 posts in Sky Key? Wow. I see we did! That scenario should have been worth 2 GM tables, it was so long!

(Or maybe I'm just verbose!)

Hmm

We rocked that sucker, Hmm! I've played whole modules that have had less posts, lol...

Reesa had 147 by herself, counting gameplay and discussion.

My biggest issue is learning patience as a GM in play by post, finding a balance between if I should roll their saving throws or if I let them, or If I should perception checks for a surprise round or let them. Then if I let them, how long do I wait before I bot them.

Patience is definitely a big issue of mine as a pbp GM.

My biggest issue is learning patience as a GM in play by post, finding a balance between if I should roll their saving throws or if I let them, or If I should perception checks for a surprise round or let them. Then if I let them, how long do I wait before I bot them.

Patience is definitely a big issue of mine as a pbp GM.

I feel like everybody's balance here is a little different and it's something you'll eventually become comfortable with and find a balance that works for you.

One of the biggest things is just being communicative with your players and setting expectations. It doesn't really matter who rolls those dice, whatever solution though should be fair, fast and fun.

When I play I don't mind the GM rolling anything for me, especially if it keeps the game moving. I usually post at least once a day, though I may not post in a game when it looks like someone else is "in the spotlight". I will try to use "push posts" when I see that the group sees to be deciding on a direction.

The last couple of months I havne't been quite a deep with my posts as I've had to deal with my own real life events (as a few on here are aware of). However, I have always found people on here to be helpful and cooperative. I only hope they see me in a similar light.

I sometimes wonder if dropping games occurs because players don't like the playstyle, are uncomfortable talking about it (cause saying "the way you guys play is stupid so I'm gone" seems rather rude even if worded nicely), and pbp is so easy to drop compared to f2f.

I wonder just how often playstyle is a problem as no one really seems to awknowledge playstyle as anything more than the way overly simplistic "combat vs intrigue." I know I've had major issues with playstyle to the point that I've felt like I was recruited to join a hockey team only to find a baseball team, then got called out as not-a-teamplayer because I didn't bring a bat.

In fact, that is why I only play pfs sparingly, because all the pfs gms I've had treat the story the same way Halo does, as not but a backdrop for the "true game" of handling encounters, thus the beginnings and endings are handled more like "cutscenes," and between encounters is fastforwarded. I like it well enough, but it is certainly not my preference for play.

So maybe they drop because they aren't enjoying the game as much but haven't really recognized why they aren't enjoying it (much like how it the author of The Alexandrian years to really understand disassociated mechanics and how they were the source of things he didn't like).

If you are playing PFS in PbP you kinda know that story is gonna be second fidle in most cases.

Why this assumption ?

Agreed. It doesn't have to be that way.

I think we've all been in that type of situation-- you join a game hoping to play your favorite style, only to discover they're playing a very different one. Maybe you just like the fights, and the other characters keep wanting to talk to each other. Maybe you want immersion, and people keep mentioning stats.

We can all identify the problem. But what's the solution? It'd be nice if there was a way to agree ahead of time on a play style, but can you quantify something like that?

It doesn't and newer scenarios are a lot better at this. But my personal experience is that many scenarios walk you from fight to fight with the occasional knowledge and social skill roll in between.
Also I'm pretty sure it's easier to get good RP going on in a more long term campaign where you get to know characters and players better.
Also PFS sort of provides disincentives to RP creative solutions since most social encounters are supposed to be handled by meeting a target number for Diplomacy checks and give GMs little leeway in resolving encounters due to the run by the book requirement.

In any case I don't think I'd recommend PFS to folks who are into the hobby mainly for RP and character development. In that case you'll likely be better served in trying to find a group for a long term campaign such as an AP.

Sure - GM's could put more information into their campaign description on their play style. I was shown this, and continue to do so and teach all my new gm's to do so.

example:
'I post once a day, and i want players to post close to once a day. If not, i may bot you.'

It's a matter of clearly describing expectations.

I think we've all been in that type of situation-- you join a game hoping to play your favorite style, only to discover they're playing a very different one.

[...]

It'd be nice if there was a way to agree ahead of time on a play style, but can you quantify something like that?

Just talk about it.

In F2F I keep telling people I like to run scenarios that doesn´t rely exclusivele in combat. I want a mix of combat, investigation, social, skills, and so on (and I recognize no scenario can have all of them). And other GMs do something similar, talking about they prefer to run uncomplicated scenarios for CORE, darker themes, or chalenging encounter. So you can have an idea.

But in PBP I'm not seeing the same thing, we offer to run an scenario, we say how are we going to select the players and that's all.

Without touching the third rail of this discussion, I suspect that the different ideas of roleplay start to clash a bit when forced in one direction or the other.

Aside from energy, this has been probably the most significant issue. Saying "I prefer roleplay, and I'm not in a rush." may or may not help mitigate it.

If you are playing PFS in PbP you kinda know that story is gonna be second fidle in most cases.

I do not know that, no. I have found that different GMs have different levels of storytelling.

Honestly, I see more better roleplaying on PbP games. Now, that not always the case. Just like any tabletop game, it always depends on the players and the GM. Ive seen some fave to face games that take a single slot scenario and make it stretch an entire day just from roleplaying (benefit of home PFS games. Time constraints are hardly ever an issue) and I've seen tables blow through a scenario in record time with hardly even asking the "quest giver" what his name was.

The best advice I can give you, find a GM that has the perfect mix of the two for your personal taste. Every player is different, every GM is different. Personally, I enjoy making characters that are well built, mechanically sound, and a little on the "oh wow is that even a legal thing?" side. Then, I love to take that character and roleplay the hell out of them. I always have huge detailed backstories, personalities, and relationships with other characters. I have a swashbuckler/ninja who absolutely wrecks combat, and solo'd a dragon without ever getting hit. He also owns the tavern vanity and has a three page history, and a slew of personality traits and quirks. He's also my "go to" character for when I run a scenario for gathering players and sending them to the scenario intro. My CORE characters tend to be off the wall, and use seldom seen things to decent effect. Take my Halfling sorceress for example. She's the bartender at the previously mentioned character's tavern, and she has the arcane bloodline. Her bonded object is a Halfling sling staff, and she has a pony. Her staff actually does decent damage as a ranged weapon, and her spells are ones such as color spray and grease. She's a massive party face when it comes to skills. And she talks. A lot.

Therefore, I enjoy playing with GM's who can handle characters who are moderately powerful, can play the "stats game", but also can roleplay the heck out of NPC's and situations. I've found several on here that have that perfect mix, and I usually sign up for every game they run. You'll almost always see me in Shifty's, EndlessForms', Tyranius', Our Mysterious Benefactor's, Norv's, and several others' games.

Tl;dr: Find a GM that plays like you like, and sign up for all of their games.

Evil: With an attitude like that I can really only come up with one response... You are cordially invited to play in the next scenario I run.

And please remember that we players of PC's are not customers of the GM's. They are players to on the other side of that screen.

So if we expect them to be open about the game they want to run we should also be open about the game we want to play in.

And please remember that we players of PC's are not customers of the GM's. They are players to on the other side of that screen.

So if we expect them to be open about the game they want to run we should also be open about the game we want to play in.

Exactly. That is the main thing to having fun in these games. Communicate with the GM as to what you want. If the players are all about roleplaying over rollplaying, then the GM can easily accommodate that most of the time. The key to making pathfinder fun is to, well, know what everyone's definition of "fun" is and make it happen.

There's no wrong way to eat a Reese's, and there's no wrong way to play rpg's. Different strokes for different folks, potato potahto, I mean, I could go on forever.

Evil: With an attitude like that I can really only come up with one response... You are cordially invited to play in the next scenario I run.

Invite accepted. Let me know when it is. I always have characters available.