Incremental Changes

Thank you guys very much!

A group of us played The Slave Master's Mirror on Thursday afternoon. It was rather enjoyable. Not too long. Not too complicated. It required some planning and crafty thinking from the PCs, but didn't bog down in that. And we finished it in about 4 hours.

I haven't played or GMd the latest ones but I thumbed through it. I really like the back of the book additions. I especially like the inclusion of the map without the mobs location. Will make printing up map easier.

I haven't played or GMd the latest ones but I thumbed through it. I really like the back of the book additions. I especially like the inclusion of the map without the mobs location. Will make printing up map easier.

That's actually something I'm curious about. Are the maps in the back sufficiently tag-free, or would folks prefer that they not even have the titles?

Thanks for including Bestiary stat blocks in the scenario, means one less book to have to bring to the game and reference during it.

Duncan7291 wrote:

I haven't played or GMd the latest ones but I thumbed through it. I really like the back of the book additions. I especially like the inclusion of the map without the mobs location. Will make printing up map easier.

That's actually something I'm curious about. Are the maps in the back sufficiently tag-free, or would folks prefer that they not even have the titles?

In my opinion, and this is without seeing them, I would have to say that, if the map title gives too much information, then I would say no name. If the names are generic enough, and don't include the encounter number, they should be fine.

That's actually something I'm curious about. Are the maps in the back sufficiently tag-free, or would folks prefer that they not even have the titles?

Seeing as you can no longer copy the image out of the PDF (in season 6 PDFs) then having a completely tag-free version at the back of the PDF would be great.

By-the-way: was that a deliberate decision to change the ability to copy the tag-less map out of the PDF? In season 6 PDFs if you try to do this all you get is a blank (black) image, previously you would get the base image without any tags etc. so it was easy to copy the image/map into a graphics app and print out for a game, or use directly in a VTT.

By-the-way: was that a deliberate decision to change the ability to copy the tag-less map out of the PDF? In season 6 PDFs if you try to do this all you get is a blank (black) image, previously you would get the base image without any tags etc. so it was easy to copy the image/map into a graphics app and print out for a game, or use directly in a VTT.

No, it wasn't.

Thank you for the efforts to make running these games easier. I never had any aspirations to to gain many GM stars.but as I am so close to 2 stars and I see the efforts you make, I begin to wonder if I will hit three just for love of the game. For a while.now, I have.hated having to prep adventures, especially the one with NPC codex or young/advanced templates. I absolutely hated.how irritating it was to look up NPC.codex characters on the PRD was. You don't even tell us what class they are. I also cannot express how troublesome constantly having to.remember the young/advanced template modifiers are. I found that just writing a note card with the modifiers was not enough as I still had to go look at the base creature and often just used those numbers forgetting to apply young /advanced modifiers because I was trying to keep the table moving and getting people out by 12 midnight at the 5 hour mark, after begining at 7pm.

No, it wasn't.

Ah, thanks for pointing me to that thread. :)

That's actually something I'm curious about. Are the maps in the back sufficiently tag-free, or would folks prefer that they not even have the titles?

It depends what the title is, really.

'Peaceful Glade' is going to cause a lot less paranoia and metagaming, than 'Treant Ambush'.

Thank you for the efforts to make running these games easier. I never had any aspirations to to gain many GM stars.but as I am so close to 2 stars and I see the efforts you make, I begin to wonder if I will hit three just for love of the game. For a while.now, I have.hated having to prep adventures, especially the one with NPC codex or young/advanced templates. I absolutely hated.how irritating it was to look up NPC.codex characters on the PRD was. You don't even tell us what class they are. I also cannot express how troublesome constantly having to.remember the young/advanced template modifiers are. I found that just writing a note card with the modifiers was not enough as I still had to go look at the base creature and often just used those numbers forgetting to apply young /advanced modifiers because I was trying to keep the table moving and getting people out by 12 midnight at the 5 hour mark, after begining at 7pm.

Raymond, it really pays to check this out GM Shared Prep before running a scenario/module. Many of the scenarios already have the stat blocks done for you. I find it invaluable to prepare the stat blocks ahead of time on full sheets of paper (one-sided if possible). If the stats don't already exist, it usually doesn't take that long to do up your own and then you can upload your work onto the site to share with all.

Thanks, guys, for these changes - they really help on the prep time. Love having the Appendix at the back with maps and monsters. I agree with leaving even the titles off the map - I doubt a GM will be unable to figure out which unlabeled map matches which labeled one. The fewer clues the better when you're putting a map down.

One comment on The Wounded Wisp, which I've been prepping for a run this weekend, and could certainly make newer scenarios seem less onerous and more like their cleaner, crisper forebears of older seasons...

Wounded Wisp contains *six* handouts, and four of them are insanely long reads for the usual PFS player I run for. Essentially a GM is handing out two full pages of text that each player might soldier through reading *sequentially*. This can really add bloat to a slot.

I know my typical handout experience is that if there is a single handout, and it's written very clearly - it would get passed around the table and most folks would read it (excepting the people who are roleplaying PCs who don't care or cannot read well).

Because there are a whopping *four* handouts, I can imagine player's eyes glazing over at some of the more dense handouts in this scenario. Say what you will about gamers, generational differences, etc and catering to people without high amounts of patience, but a little editing of the handouts would've potentially gone a long way to making the scenario more appreciated by a wider audience.

I took a quick (<60 second pass) to revise the first handout to be easier to read and "grok" for players and to hopefully speed up enjoyment of the scenario and have it be less of a "reading assignment" (which can greatly slow down a play through as six people pass a note around).

The spoilers below contain information from a hand-out from Wounded Wisp, so don't pop them if you're not supposed to!

I'd totally appreciate at least a quick editing pass to streamline scenarios, especially handouts, as this would help address some of the speed and length issues with recent seasons fitting in a typical store slot.

I'm sorry wakedown, but that revision takes out a lot of the flavor trying to be given to Selmius. Yes, it conveys the same bullet points, but creates a gray character to me. I get almost none of the arrogant, pretentious, rambling scholar that the initial handout oozes.

I can see cutting extraneous handouts, as six can be a bit much if they're all long. However, I hope they keep the insights into NPC's character in the writing.

.. but that revision takes out a lot of the flavor trying to be given to Selmius. Yes, it conveys the same bullet points, but creates a gray character to me. I get almost none of the arrogant, pretentious, rambling scholar that the initial handout oozes.

Fair enough, and that's the trade-off of budgeting for reading a lot of text to working to make a tight crisp 4 hour run. With four handouts from Selmius, Adolphus, Fimbrik and Ambrus Valsin... are you that enthused to read four notes from four separate rambling scholars? And then wait as five other gamers at your table do the same?

If conveying the personality of a rambling scholar (and I'd prefer to limit it to one or less per scenario) is a goal, then having an illusion appear for the GM to roleplay does a better job of accomplishing that with ~2 minutes of table time versus the ~10 minutes of "silent reading" that verbose hand outs result in. My point being that in Wounded Wisp, I can literally see 30 minutes of the slot simply being "processing the handout letters". Your region might have tables full of 6 players who love that... alas mine would rather prefer to do more roleplaying (and roll-playing) and a little less reading. And we have some slooooow readers here, who will literally hold up a hand and suggest the table waits until they are finished processing a handout.

Thank you for lowering the reference count and scenario length! Those are the two main issues I had with Seasons 3-5.

As for handouts, I would prefer (as a GM) they be kept to no more than two full pages worth, with each handout limited to around 300 words.

As for maps in the back, please just keep them player-friendly so that GMs can offer them as-is. Titles aren't necessary.

I would also like to thank you for adding more roleplaying scenes to the scenarios. Scenarios that were primarily hack-and-slash or too "rail-roady" made PFS seem gray and cardboardish. In my opinion, that is what drives players away from PFS. I am the sole remaining PFS player/GM of my original 6-player group of friends.

Wakedown: our group read the handouts aloud, once, which didn't take much time at all and kept all of the information. I think when I GM it, I will read them first before handing out the printed copy, since it allows me to add the tone better than someone reading it cold... good idea!

The immersive lore of this scenario is one of the best parts of it - I would hate to drop all of that just for the sake of shaving a few minutes.

Sniggevert wrote:

.. but that revision takes out a lot of the flavor trying to be given to Selmius. Yes, it conveys the same bullet points, but creates a gray character to me. I get almost none of the arrogant, pretentious, rambling scholar that the initial handout oozes.

Fair enough, and that's the trade-off of budgeting for reading a lot of text to working to make a tight crisp 4 hour run. With four handouts from Selmius, Adolphus, Fimbrik and Ambrus Valsin... are you that enthused to read four notes from four separate rambling scholars? And then wait as five other gamers at your table do the same?

If conveying the personality of a rambling scholar (and I'd prefer to limit it to one or less per scenario) is a goal, then having an illusion appear for the GM to roleplay does a better job of accomplishing that with ~2 minutes of table time versus the ~10 minutes of "silent reading" that verbose hand outs result in. My point being that in Wounded Wisp, I can literally see 30 minutes of the slot simply being "processing the handout letters". Your region might have tables full of 6 players who love that... alas mine would rather prefer to do more roleplaying (and roll-playing) and a little less reading. And we have some slooooow readers here, who will literally hold up a hand and suggest the table waits until they are finished processing a handout.

That's why you have the players read the handouts out loud (so everybody can get the same information at the same time) and then the players can refer to the handouts later if they need to refresh their memeory about what they say.

Has anyone considered adding some feedback fields to the session reporting screen to capture the "time to run" or other metadata related to running a scenario?

Has anyone considered adding some feedback fields to the session reporting screen to capture the "time to run" or other metadata related to running a scenario?

Sure have!

To echo what some others have said, I find the flavor of the handouts is fairly important for the players' experience and very important for the campaign as a whole...

I absolutely love handouts, my feedback isn't necessarily about the efficacy of handouts to convey persona but that this scenario (at least in my experience) can suffer "handout fatigue".

Perhaps using Selmius's handout is a bad example, but you have to imagine the broader player base playing through the scenario.

* GM hands out Selmius's note*

* Later: GM hands out note #2 *

* Later: GM hands out note #3 *

* Later: GM hands out Ambrus Valsin's note #4 *

At least in my local circles of gamers, I see far less people saying: "sweet! - another lengthy, detailed note for us to read" than "holy geez! another super long note in a hard-to-read small script font! hey GM - can you just summarize it for us?"

As a GM, it's on me to cater to the player base and do my best to keep all my players engaged. I can certainly see handing out notes to a single player to read for everyone, but even then, I can see folks getting impatient as the party bard orates Valsin's note #4 after going through the earlier notes. (To which, I've also seen this actually depersonalize the note's original author, as the PC "acts" out the note in their character personality moreso than conveying the original author's tone - I have a certain recent memory of a Shakespearian bard who was given note-reading duties).

TLDR: My point is less about conveying the personality of Selmius and more about "scenario time budget" and balancing lengthy handouts for the less attentive, detail-oriented players.

Specifically, with Wounded Wisp... 2 handouts would've been better for the experience of my tables than 4 and better kept the scenario to an ideal length. If we stopped at the first two and had the 3rd and 4th be in-character GM portrayal, I think the scenario would've been stronger.

I'll try to avoid this being a full on discussion of Wounded Wisp, as it was more of me weaving my own personal, cautionary tale of hand out word counts and how those are budgeted against scenario length (in the broader discussion of resolving scenarios running too long recently).

Thanks, guys, for these changes - they really help on the prep time. Love having the Appendix at the back with maps and monsters. I agree with leaving even the titles off the map - I doubt a GM will be unable to figure out which unlabeled map matches which labeled one. The fewer clues the better when you're putting a map down.

I agree here.

By accident I realized that in Adobe Reader you could double-click on those images to select (which in the case of 6-08 gets both maps, since apparently it is copying the whole page), and it gets all layers. I would prefer that we could have a way to only get the map (without getting a layer that is all black).

Stepping in here to discuss the various handouts for Wounded Wisp...

Hope that sheds some light on the whole magical writing process! :)

This is great! Some of these changes will make me very happy

Stepping in here to discuss the various handouts for Wounded Wisp...

Awesome, that insight is super helpful to hear how 2 handouts became 4 handouts.

I'd really like to see more 7-11 mods.
Thats my favorite play area, and it's quite a bummer that they seem to be getting reduced as PFS grows. I understand the want to draw in and keep new players, but the ability to effectively level characters started seems to be diminishing.

<<MY. GOD. HE'S CHANGING THE SCENARIO AS WRITTEN!@!@!@!@!11 RAWR>>

"What do you like about him? He's just a good-looking rebel who plays by his own rules."

wistful sigh

Could we get some changes to reduce the amount of stuff players have to carry?

I've got a couple of the Pathfinder Tales books, and recently looked into using the boons associated with them. As I read it, you need to bring the books with you to each game you play that character. Not a problem if you did it in PDF, but since these are paperbacks that can get to be pretty hefty.

Is it really that much of a problem that you couldn't just have the GM initial once on the sheet, and after that not need the book? It isn't like the boons require looking something up in the story.

Is it really that much of a problem that you couldn't just have the GM initial once on the sheet, and after that not need the book? It isn't like the boons require looking something up in the story.

This is how it used to be for the Tales boons...did they change the wording on them? I haven't used (or seen) one in a llllooooonnnnggggg time.

Prince of Wolves says right in the file:

In order for the Chronicle sheet to be considered legal for play, the player must show to the GM a copy of Prince of Wolves, either in printed or digital format.

BretI wrote:

Is it really that much of a problem that you couldn't just have the GM initial once on the sheet, and after that not need the book? It isn't like the boons require looking something up in the story.

This is how it used to be for the Tales boons...did they change the wording on them? I haven't used (or seen) one in a llllooooonnnnggggg time.

You should only need to bring the book once along with the Chronicle sheet ready for the GM to sign and date.

Because Pathfinder Tales novels are stories first, there is no easy way to sanction items, spells, feats, or other special abilities whole cloth. Instead, each book allows a player access to one single-use boon, which a player may access by showing his or her copy of a Pathfinder Tales book to the GM of any sanctioned Pathfinder Society event and having the GM initial the box next to the corresponding boon. Once all four boxes have been initialed, the player may also apply the Prolific Reader boon to a single character.

Bolded for emphasis, though I recognize this newer format reads a little differently than the one for earlier books. The Pathfinder Tales boons are nice, one-time use extra that shouldn't place a long-term burden on the player. Bring your qualifying novel (or watermarked digital file) to the game, get the sheet signed, and feel free to keep the book at home thereafter. After all, I find the Pathfinder Tales novels are best enjoyed when you're not actively playing a scenario.

As a side note about the Tales novels: so far I've read all of them through Queen of Thorns (plus Liar's Blade which I skipped ahead to read) and overall the quality is good to excellent.

Some feedback on the new scenario setup and in particular how that was implemented on Wounded Wisp:

Monsters
- I would really appreciate it if the templated monsters are included. The Wounded Wisp uses 2 templated monsters (Area D1) that are not included in the appendix. These are more important than including monsters that I can print from the bestiaries or the PRD. Even if the templated monsters were optional I prefer to have these over standard monsters out of a bestiary. I understand that this is more work than just lifting a monster from an existing source.
- Please try to avoid having monsters / NPC's over a page break (page 14/15)

Maps
- I prefer to have these without any text. Please keep the compass roses.

Map packs / flipmats
Can you include the used map packs / flipmats in the GM resources box? That would ease preparation even more.

Handouts
I usually print these 6 times, so I have an adequate supply for all my players. That saves time at the table.

Yes, monster stats across page breaks are annoying. It'd be nice to keep all the info for a given encounter either on one page, or on a two-page spread.

Yes, monster stats across page breaks are annoying. It'd be nice to keep all the info for a given encounter either on one page, or on a two-page spread.

+1

I had the opportunity to prepare and run Wounded Wisp and must complement you and an excellent inclusion in the early pathfinder career series. This one was definitely a good fit with Confirmation and I look forward to running it again.

The appendix at the end was such a shock having run and prepared over so many games to see almost everything I needed right there. It took a lot less work to get all the other material I needed making the final preparation time shorter and allowing an easier consolidation of preparation materials.

Look forward to running this again, now that i Have all the maps printed out it will be easy to always have this one on hand to run when needed.

One other change which would be useful for those of us who run games online would be if the maps didn't have bits of squares at the edges. It is quite awkward having to crop out sections of partial squares to get a nice clean map to match up to the Roll20 grid.

Another nit on Wisp, regarding stat blocks...

One thing I wonder about the less encounters...

Is that going to shift importance/balance even more in favor of casters over fighter types? This is kind of top of mind to me just because I had a sorcerer roll over every single combat in a season 6 7-11 (played on low tier) using the same spell.

Casters will have less reason to conserve resources, allowing them to be relatively even stronger. X/day items and abilities also get a big boost vs sustained items and abilities, since they now would be used in a higher percentage of encounters than previously.

Yes, monster stats across page breaks are annoying. It'd be nice to keep all the info for a given encounter either on one page, or on a two-page spread.

I asked a while ago about why a PDF scenario had to worry about word count, and the reason for that was that extra editing would be involved (and fair enough), but adding page breaks like this would be a godsend, and should require no real extra editing.

Managing a clean layout will help GMs comprehend all the content easily, ensuring better games are run, and maybe even helping newer GMs to take on GMing.