[PFS] GD-VII AoA GM Thread (Inactive)

Game Master Dennis Muldoon

I included a link to Player Handout #1 in my slides for the players to consider, and implemented the Rule of Two.
Per the scenario's guidance, I passed along the suggestion to attempt the players' own faction's missions first or missions they felt best suited their strengths. Two of the five players are Dark Archive, and that's the first mission they chose.

Mine chose GL. 2 of my players are GL.

I encourage everyone to use the Rule of 2. If you wait for everyone to chime in on every decision in this scenario, you're going to lose a lot of time.

I see a few tables that haven't gotten into a mission yet. Just for scale, if this were at a F2F game, 4-5 minutes would have passed already (as of this posting), which is a long time to debate. At this point, please take the first mission that gets two votes and get going rather than waiting for everyone to weigh in. That way your table has time to accomplish several missions, and you set the right pace expectation for your players.

Hey guys - make sure to check out the recruitment page of this thread. That's where you can see where the Aid Tokens currently are (I wasn't getting notifications on it, not sure if that was the case for others)

Thanks Cwethan. It's concerning that you weren't getting notifications. Everyone, please do check out the Recruitment tab, which has instructions for passing the aid tokens as well. If you're table currently has one (I would have posted in your thread), then please be like Cwethan and pass it quickly! The more they circulate around the house, the more total good they do. When passing, please look at the Recruitment tab and pick someone who's table hasn't had one in a while. If that means passing to a table on another forum, post the pass in the recruitment thread and include a note asking me to post it on the new table.

If you've never visited a tab in one of your campaigns, you don't get notifications of new posts there.

**cough** I know why I didn't have the notifications, just wanted to nudge people towards visiting :p

Psst. Dennis didn't know.

Yeah, I never use the recruitment tabs in my games, only in these GM threads.

If you started with an aid token and have not passed it yet, please encourage your players to do so soon. They work best when they're being constantly passed around. Also, don't forget our friends on RPGGeek, Discord, and Ethelnir's Spanish table. If you would like to pass to one of those, let me know and I'll post it there.

Token 7 to table #: 1d3 ⇒ 2

Discord table benefits from an Inspire Courage.

Is there a trick to getting tables to use or pass their Aid Tokens?

My current table is in the middle of deciding how to boost their token, so it's not as bad as previous specials, but I usually have teams that sit on their tokens while I post daily, "Use it or pass it."

Is it fair to give them a time limit?

Passed that Aid Token to Discord.

GM Blake, I think it's fair to give them a time limit if you've given them a reminder and they're still sitting on it.

Got it

Think I may end up with a 4-man table, and that's after grabbing someone from the waiting list :p

(definitely four, with a fifth who checked in last weekend and did some of the Prep missions, but haven't heard from since Saturday)

Who is the player you haven't heard from? I'll check in with them.

Lienna (player is Wendon)

The Issue may be they are not receiving notification of campaign updates (yeah, I know, they should still be checking in, but it happened to one of my players, who's now back in the swing of things after a nearly a week of absence.)

Sovereign Court Success Criteria?

How many noble families must the PCs persuade to achieve a success?

(On page 27 it says two, but on page 28 it says three.)

Finally found the answer in the GM Discussion forum thread.

The PCs must convince three families to achieve the Sovereign Court faction success.

Beat me to it. Thanks, Lorenzo!

Hey RPG GM's,

In helping your table choose their next missions, you should know that ACG tables only have the option of contributing to 5 of the 7 missions; they don't have a way to contribute directly to Liberty's Edge or Silver Crusade. Perhaps consider that as a tiebreaker if your group is debating.

And, just between you and me, the Grand Lodge objective is the worst for the ACG. That will be last choice for pretty much every table.

A bit of an unorthodox request as I am using my inside connection, but... OMB's table could use a back-uo GM to just get us started on the Silver Crusade mission.

He should be back Monday.

Backups, are one of you available to get them started today?

Thank you, GM Blake, that was exactly an appropriate use of your 'inside connection.'

I've posted once to keep things moving, but it would be better if one of the other backups moved in if help is needed for longer.

RPG GMs, the Dark Archive mission has been completed, and that faction’s special condition on page 10 is in effect. No new groups may start the Dark Archive mission; those groups already in progress may complete the mission and report the success towards one of the other missions.

Dennis - I accidentally logged a Scarab Sages success by mistake. (The first is correct, the 2nd should have been Libertys Edge - which Ive now logged separately).

Ok, I'll remove the duplicate. Thanks.

Hey all, don't forget to report successes as they come in; an accurate count can help other GMs guide their tables to missions that need more work. Speaking of which, Silver Crusade could use some love. Remember that ACG does not contribute directly to that one, so it will need some extra attention from the RPG side.

Almost done with Silver Crusade. Just need to kill the last minotaur!

My table is in the Ivory Labyrinth (and the table I'm playing at is in the Ivory Labyrinth).

The more I run/play in these newer specials the more I think the scaling skill DCs were not a great idea, at least not as implemented.

In subtier 1-2 it's almost always worth just having everyone make checks as even the hard DC (18) is possibly obtainable by an untrained PC unless there is a dump stat or ACP getting in the way.

In 10-11 the easy DC (21) is not necessarily obtainable untrained and the average (27) almost certainly requires training.

Hey all, don't forget to report successes as they come in; an accurate count can help other GMs guide their tables to missions that need more work. Speaking of which, Silver Crusade could use some love. Remember that ACG does not contribute directly to that one, so it will need some extra attention from the RPG side.

Noted. I'll attempt to nudge the players towards that mission after finishing this one. Speaking of which, Noble Cause - I assume we can report faction success after we persuade the 3rd family, or should we wait for the entire mission to be completed?

Go ahead and report it when they have reached the success requirement; earlier reporting helps others plan.

Dear overseer, please pass my aid token to greenclaws table for me.

Dear overseer, please pass my aid token to greenclaws table for me.

Got it.

Silver Crusade got some love :)

Anything else I should steer my table towards?

The card game side can't contribute to Liberty's Edge or Silver Crusade. And Grand Lodge is rather... intimidating.

Right now, Grand Lodge has the fewest reported success.

My table just finished Grand Lodge and have started Scarab Sages.

Already finished Grand Lodge, so I'll nudge 'em towards Liberty if they are indecisive.

It looks like The Exchange has been pushed over the edge to 100%!!!

Was that your doing Dinkerty?

We finished Silver Crusade this afternoon.

We're in the first encounter of Grand Lodge now.

***OVERSEER ANNOUNCEMENT***

The Exchange has secured and distributed a fresh supply of weapons and armor, including
highly valuable gear for the Pathfinders’ use.

Table GMs, the Exchange mission has been completed, and that faction’s special condition on page 10 is in effect. No new groups may start the Exchange mission; those groups already in progress may complete the mission and report the success towards one of the other missions.

---------

I inadvertently posted the wrong message in a few tables before realizing my mistake and correcting them. Please double check that I posted the finished message for Exchange in your thread, rather than Grand Lodge.

For those interested, a particularly eloquent (and loud) freedom speech from one of my players for the Liberty's Edge mission.

My table has begun the final encounter of the Grand Lodge faction mission. They've completed the Sovereign Court, Dark Archive, and Silver Crusade faction missions.

Does the House need us to focus on any particular mission next?

Exchange is unavailable... Liberty's Edge is one that the cards can't do, so maybe that?

Yeah, if you've already done GL then I think whatever sounds good to them. Your group is moving quick!