[GM school] Silverhex Chronicles

Game Master Redelia

I would be willing to run my part next.

I would prefer to run later, maybe as second or third.

I would be willing to run my part next.

Thanks, that's fine for me.

Sounds good, everyone come check in. Klonac, can you please provide the game link again?

Game Link

Kaervek and Colin, who would like to run their quest next?

I can run mine.

I can run mine.

OK, sounds good.

Can you please provide the link again so everyone can check in?

Gameplay link

Kaervek, are you ready to run your quest?

Yes.

--- Gameplay link ---

With all the student games completed, all that is left is for me to run the remaining quests so that you can get full rewards. There will also be a lesson we need to do on reporting and making chronicle sheets, since there are some weirdnesses about GM school in PF1 where there are no bounties.

I'll be taking a day or two to prepare, and then we can start the next quest.

Cany post today; minor hand injury making typing too painful.

I wanted to let everyone know the plans after the current quest. There is one quest left, and that one will be run by EbonFist. He is the Venture Agent for Flaxseed, so another useful mentor/resource for you to know, as well as being our player who has come to fill out our table. He will be using this set of threads for his quest. As you would guess, Sam will be back to join you.

While that last quest is ongoing, I'll be working with you on filling out chronicle sheets and reporting, if needed. Have all of you filled out sheets and reported other games? (I'm trying to determine how much depth we need to go into on this)

I have many experienced filling out chronicles and report games with RPG chornicle and without.

For VTT games that don't use RPG chronicle (the VA has a shared Google Sheet for reporting), I export the chronicle pages from PDF and fill them manually via Adobe Acrobat Pro.

There're rare cases where player earned different amount of prestige (pregen special with secondary success tied to individual action, and the season 2 scenario that still do faction mission) which RPG chronicle does not accommodate, nor does it have to automatically indicate replaying. So I just put them all in the reporting note.

I have done nothing like that before.

I have filled out chonicle sheets on paper and recently also online - for this I export the chronicle pages from PDF and fill them manually using the PDF edit function of the Microsoft Edge browser.

I have not used RPG chronicles yet.

Happy new year, everyone!

OK, everyone, thank you for your patience with this very long run of GM school.

At this point in a normal game, the GM would report the game (on this website, unless it was a convention game; for a convention game, the organizer will provide a link to use to report) and give out chronicle sheets.

For GM school, I would usually post instructions for how to report, and have you each make one chronicle sheet for one other student. However, I know all of you other than Klonac already know how to report and issue chronicle sheets, so I'm going to just report and issue sheets in the next few days, and I'll show him later how to do that stuff.

I do want to emphasize that reporting is really important, because that's how Paizo knows there are still some of us playing PF1. It's important to be accurate on chronicle sheets, because it can be a lot of work to sort out the mess if an error is discovered later.

I want to make sure that all of you are aware that the PFS1 guide is actually not accurate about filling out chronicle sheets. It has not been edited in years, and since then there have been rulings by campaign leadership that apply to all campaigns. GM initials and signatures are no longer required, nor is player name. However, I would encourage you to still use the GM signature area because signing the PDF locks it so the user can't edit it. Because I care about privacy, I sign with my online name, not my real world name, and I think that provides the best of both worlds.

I'll get the sheets to all of you in the next day or so.

Do you have any thoughts or questions as we wrap up GM school?

I went from 3 stars to 5 stars(met all the requirement but missed the deadline for December's Org Play update by mere hours) during this GM school, and I still learned a lot from this journey. After finishing my part of the quest, I listened to Redelia's advice and start focusing on improving my roleplaying skill as a GM. Although the roleplaying freedom provided by the scenario/modules vary, it's very satisfying to be able to provide players with an immersive experience. My players once told me that the town of Ravenmoor is very eerie and unsettling when we're playing through that module, and being able to create such atmosphere without being face-to-face (we're playing on Roll20, Silicon Valley Organized Play) makes me very happy.

I also became a Venture-Agent during this GM school, and is now responsible for running games in-person every other Sunday. I have 4 dedicated players that are all probably twice of my age and more, and they're the relaxed type of players that just want to experience the story, fight some bad guys, and not worrying about all the crazy stuff(monsters, obstacles, etc) that one might encounters in PFS play. I've since learn to pull my punches in combat, and select scenarios that don't have combats that are too difficult. For some of my players (mostly the online VTT folks) that enjoy a good combat, I will give them a good workout. For those who are just trying to relax, I will try to make it simpler for them so that they don't walk out of the store frustrated and can have a good time instead.

Besides that, I've created this shopping list/guide to help my players and their characters to prepare for some common things that a Pathfinder agent will have to deal with. Often time the boss will have this one trick, be it invisibility or flying or miss chance, that makes the fight extra difficult. By preparing counters to those trick, you can make those battle much smoother. The Pathfinder Society Field Guide, besides being a setting book for character options, actually contains a field guide section that talks about 18 different dangers/obstacles/foes that a Pathfinder agent might encounter and come with suggested way to deal with them. It's worth a read.

By the way, some of my GM friends put their custom insignia/emblem/stamp on the PDF to sign the chronicles instead of signing their name. Those are very cool.