Faction Journal Cards

Monday, April 13, 2015

You may recall that back in November we first announced the idea of Faction Journal Cards, a new way to contribute to your faction's goals while also being able to experience the fun of factions in any adventure—even sanctioned Modules and Adventure Paths. Mike and I have both released some spoilers since then, showing off bits and pieces of the Silver Crusade's card to illustrate how the cards work.

I'm pleased to announce that the Faction Journal Cards are now available for download and use in Pathfinder Society Organized Play! The download includes an introduction explaining how to use the cards, but I'll also break the main concepts into a quick Q&A here.

Do I have to do anything special to get a Faction Journal Card?
Nope, you get one for free so long as you are a member of the faction. These cards are 100% voluntary, so you can ignore them if you want.

How do they work?
Let me summarize this quickly. Each card has three boons that your character can earn by completing certain goals on the back of the card. If you fulfill one of the goals during an adventure, you get to check one of the goal's checkboxes when you're receiving your Chronicle sheet. You unlock the boons based on how many goal's you have completed.

I am the GM more often than I play. Do these cards offer me anything?
Yes, there is a special faction goal that appears on each card and rewards a participant when she is the GM and applies the Chronicle sheet to that character. To get the full benefits of the card, you'll still need to play, but at least you're not missing important opportunities by applying GM credit to a character.

Some of these goals are really open-ended. Is that on purpose?
Yes. As noted, some are open-ended and others are very precise, and that's by design. It broadens the opportunities that PCs have to pursue these objectives, rather than forcing them to cherry-pick the one or two scenarios that would work—even tougher if you've already played that adventure. What this means is that there is a little GM interpretation involved in whether or not a PC actually fulfilled an objective. The Faction Journal Cards' introductory page advises GMs to err on the side of leniency when making that call.

One Liberty's Edge goal requires me to free slaves. Can I just find a random slaver, beat him up, and profit?
No, those conditions need to be part of the adventure you're playing. If the scenario involves slaves or other captives already, get ready to check off a box. If a scenario doesn't involve them, save it for another day. Remember that these goals (and cards) are supposed to be minimally disruptive to the game, and starting a fight that's not part of the adventure puts a burden on the GM and steals the spotlight from the other players.

I changed my faction after earning a few boons. What happens?
When you change your faction, you lose all benefits of any other faction's card.

I completely filled out my Faction Journal Card. Now what?
The good news is that we're hoping to release updated card sets for future seasons, each with some familiar goals and some new ones.

I would also like to thank both our new assistant developer Linda Zayas-Palmer for her valuable assistance in finishing this project and a local group of venture-officers and Pathfinder Society enthusiasts who have provided important feedback and playtesting as we have played through The Emerald Spire Superdungeon.

Get going and download the Faction Journal Cards! I'm excited to hear what you think of these!

John Compton
Developer

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Tags: Factions Pathfinder Society
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Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

Michael Brock wrote:


Iff wrote:

Can I use these cards when playing a pregenerated character? I seem to remember that all premades are considered part of the Grand Lodge. Does that mean I can only work towards those goals and apply the credit to my own character if my own character is part of the Grand Lodge as well?

For an example: I'll be playing my first PFS game this week. I have a 1st level character made (allied with the Exchange), but I won't play her yet. Instead, I'll play Kyra. How would this work in terms of these new factions cards?

No. You have to play your actual character to check off a box for your character's faction.

can we please revisit this ruling?

There are a number of new players in our area, and they often have to play pregens while getting enough characters up to a level where they have a character for whatever game is going on that night.

Once their character is second level, it is bad enough having to play a game and then get told "you don't get anything for playing tonight until your character reaches level X" (Especially if they have several hanging chronicles already.)

Allowing Pregen credits applied to level 2+ characters to also qualify for faction card credit would give them an immediate reward and incentivize them to keep coming.

4/5 *

Some of your regulars need to start new characters and play some games for the new folks, then.

Grand Lodge

Ascalaphus wrote:

I'd like to suggest a layout tweak for season 7: lines to fill in stuff.

If you have to recover named texts, then lines to fill in the names of those texts. If you have to visit foreign lands, lines to fill in those lands.

Also, a line to fill in the character's name. And the season number.

...

Lines for GM initials on the card would be good too.

Scarab Sages 4/5

Ms. Pleiades wrote:
Ascalaphus wrote:

I'd like to suggest a layout tweak for season 7: lines to fill in stuff.

If you have to recover named texts, then lines to fill in the names of those texts. If you have to visit foreign lands, lines to fill in those lands.

Also, a line to fill in the character's name. And the season number.

...

Lines for GM initials on the card would be good too.

GMs don't need to initial the cards, and I think that's one of the positive selling points. Much like the Inventory Tracking Sheet, it's up to the player to manage the faction card, so it's less likely to add too much extra work for the GM.

5/5 5/5 *

Just to verify - The Liberty's Edge Faction Journal Card creates a new option for a follower vanity at cost of 2PP?

Sovereign Court 5/5 RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8

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Amusing timey-wimey moment today.

The Exchange:
Tried to recruit Grandmaster Torch in the Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch, missed by 1

Grand Lodge 4/5 **** Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento

GM Lamplighter wrote:
Some of your regulars need to start new characters and play some games for the new folks, then.

They do. We usually have a high tier, and a low tier each thursday. But if the new player has played the low tier, and that leaves the high tier game. Or if the low tier game is full because it is a new season 6 the veterans haven't played and many of the veterans have played the high tier, that can also result in a new player playing the high tier.

In short, with all good will, new players wind up having to play pregens in high tier games, and can wind up with several stacked up sheets they are waiting to apply.

Allowing them to check off boxes on the faction cards would be a good reward.

Scarab Sages 4/5 **

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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path Subscriber
Matthew Morris wrote:

Amusing timey-wimey moment today.

** spoiler omitted **

LOL, almost did the same thing for Sovereign Court - then realized we didn't "want his kind".

#SovereignCourtisthe1%

1/5

Matthew Morris wrote:

Amusing timey-wimey moment today.

** spoiler omitted **

My core merchant managed that, thanks to a reroll.

Scenario spoilers:
Silent Tide. As it turns out, a random group of Pathfinders being able to open 5 boxes that Torch's best couldn't is a fairly convincing argument.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

I've been tempted to meet those NPC recruitment goals by recruiting faction leaders from other factions, who are often quite qualified. But I decided that was going too far.

VCs seem like fair game to me though. It makes sense to me that the various factions are trying to get their hooks into them.

Sovereign Court

I've got a quick question about the Sovereign Court Card.

--CONSPIRATOR (4+ goals): Your contact can now perform any of the following services when called: pay any Prestige Point costs
associated with getting you out of jail, recover your body and equipment for free if you died in an urban setting, or purchase
and deliver to you any item worth up to 10 gp per faction goal you have accomplished (returned at the end of the adventure).--

The first part or Conspirator states your contact can pay any prestige point cost for getting you out of jail. I read that as I don't have to pay any prestige points to get out of jail. It comes from my contact.

The third part lets me "borrow" an item for an adventure. If I "borrow" something like a potion and use it, I would then have to pay for it or would I just not have to return it? Dark Archive has a similar reward, pasted below. Does this function the same way? Most items that are multiple use are worth much more than 160 gold, the maximum cost of an item you could "borrow".

--MASTER LIBRARIAN (7+ goals): Before the start of an adventure, you may requisition up to three alchemical or magic items
(except wands or scrolls with multiple spells) whose total gold piece value is equal to 100 times your character level or less.
You and your allies may use these items freely, but Zarta expects you to return any unused items at the end of the adventure.--

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

They seem clear to me. Conspirators do indeed get you out of jail, but keep in mind they only function inside municipal limits.

And borrowing items - you don't have to return them if they no longer exist. Basically it's "use it or lose it".

Dark Archive

Ascalaphus wrote:

I've been tempted to meet those NPC recruitment goals by recruiting faction leaders from other factions, who are often quite qualified. But I decided that was going too far.

VCs seem like fair game to me though. It makes sense to me that the various factions are trying to get their hooks into them.

My local PFS group was halfway through Eyes of the Ten when the Faction Cards were released... Consequently, one of the first boxes my Asmodean Oracle (Diplomacy mod +20) checked off was the successful recruitment of a member of the Decimvirate to the Dark Archives.

Silver Crusade 1/5

Wait a second...that was something that seemed quite clear to my, but on second thought...

Do three checkboxes mean "This goal can be achieved three times" or do they mean "You have to fulfill this condition three times to achieve the goal"? To me it was obviously the first one, but I'm not so sure now...

5/5 5/55/55/5

You have to do it three times to get the goal. The ones with more boxes are the low lying fruit.

Silver Crusade 1/5

Journal Cards wrote:
Once all of a goal’s boxes are checked, you have completed that goal.

Whoops. Thanks, BNW.

Sovereign Court

Ascalaphus wrote:

They seem clear to me. Conspirators do indeed get you out of jail, but keep in mind they only function inside municipal limits.

And borrowing items - you don't have to return them if they no longer exist. Basically it's "use it or lose it".

Thanks, that clears things up for me. I can't wait to use these new cards!

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Scarlet Song wrote:
Ascalaphus wrote:

They seem clear to me. Conspirators do indeed get you out of jail, but keep in mind they only function inside municipal limits.

And borrowing items - you don't have to return them if they no longer exist. Basically it's "use it or lose it".

Thanks, that clears things up for me. I can't wait to use these new cards!

You shouldn't wait, either. Pretty soon we're going into next season, with new faction cards. If you've checked at least a box on a S6 card though, you can keep working away on that.

So, make sure you get that first checkmark!

Grand Lodge 1/5

Is there a good list of what cities have "a population of 5,000 residents or more" so I know both when I'm in one, and when players at my table are in one. I know most scenarios don't list the actual populations of where you are at.

4/5 ****

The Pathfinder Wiki is pretty good.

Scarab Sages 4/5

The Inner Sea World Guide has several, I believe, and either the Dragon Empires Primer (just the capital cities) or Dragon Empires Gazetteer should have some for Tian-Xia. I'm guessing a lot of the splat books for various nations have that information as well. There's not really a single official source, because a lot of the smaller cities aren't detailed until there is a book on the specific region. They also won't appear on the PRD, because it's Golarion specific information.

For a central source, the Wiki is a good for a quick check, as Robert pointed out.

If John is paying attention, it's not a bad idea to include population in the "Where on Golarion" section of a scenario, if that information is available to him for the specific city/region. But I think in most cases the GM has enough information to make a call on whether it's likely 5,000 or more people.

Sovereign Court

I couldn't find the answer in this thread, but with 371 posts I wouldn't be surprised if I missed it.

Liberty's Edge has a goal that requires use of vanities, but I don't see these in any Core-Legal source. Do we have access in Core to vanities solely for the purpose of this goal, or are Core characters just not able to get this goal?

Paizo Employee 4/5 Developer

Andrew Klein wrote:

I couldn't find the answer in this thread, but with 371 posts I wouldn't be surprised if I missed it.

Liberty's Edge has a goal that requires use of vanities, but I don't see these in any Core-Legal source. Do we have access in Core to vanities solely for the purpose of this goal, or are Core characters just not able to get this goal?

The Liberty's Edge goal in question does not require access to other vanities, as it does provide one other follower type in the goal's text.

4/5 5/55/55/55/5

Can someone talk me round to their faction and get the tick off if I then use my free swap to come across?

The Exchange 5/5

Shifty wrote:
Can someone talk me round to their faction and get the tick off if I then use my free swap to come across?

watching this closely for a reply.....

Grand Lodge 5/5

Mt reading suggests that no you have to pay the 1 prestige to switch factions for the purposes of the goal

Faction Cards wrote:
that PC must then join the Dark Archive by spending only 1 Prestige Point per character level

Emphasis mine. I'd be happy to learn I was wrong though.

Sovereign Court

John Compton wrote:
Andrew Klein wrote:

I couldn't find the answer in this thread, but with 371 posts I wouldn't be surprised if I missed it.

Liberty's Edge has a goal that requires use of vanities, but I don't see these in any Core-Legal source. Do we have access in Core to vanities solely for the purpose of this goal, or are Core characters just not able to get this goal?

The Liberty's Edge goal in question does not require access to other vanities, as it does provide one other follower type in the goal's text.

Thanks for the response. I misunderstood the goal, and stupidly so. I read the "as an additional follower option" as being a reward for completing that goal. Why I saw it that way, and not as giving another vanity option on how to train the former slave, I couldn't say.

4/5 5/55/55/55/5

Joe Ducey wrote:

Mt reading suggests that no you have to pay the 1 prestige to switch factions for the purposes of the goal

Faction Cards wrote:
that PC must then join the Dark Archive by spending only 1 Prestige Point per character level

Yeah I sort of took it the same way initially, but is the emphasis on the must join, or the part about the discounted membership?

It's a bit like someone trying to sell you something at a store, so you agree to purchase, but then use the gift cards you got at Christmas - still a valid sale :p

As we specifically get a once off free pass it seems now is a good time to lock in the choices and it would be nice if the player doing the selling got the tick, even if the Society ended up footing the notional bill...

I accept I might well be WRONG though :) I'm just trying to be generous as I switch out factions.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Joe Ducey wrote:

Mt reading suggests that no you have to pay the 1 prestige to switch factions for the purposes of the goal

Faction Cards wrote:
that PC must then join the Dark Archive by spending only 1 Prestige Point per character level
Emphasis mine. I'd be happy to learn I was wrong though.

That's my reading too. The other factions that have recruiting goals use the same wording.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

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Joe Ducey wrote:

Mt reading suggests that no you have to pay the 1 prestige to switch factions for the purposes of the goal

Faction Cards wrote:
that PC must then join the Dark Archive by spending only 1 Prestige Point per character level
Emphasis mine. I'd be happy to learn I was wrong though.

This. It'd fix a significant obstacle to recruiting.

Right now I'm basically waiting for the free transfer period to end before this goal becomes something other than "I'm only paying this prestige as a favor to you personally".

The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Apologies for the thread necromancy, but I'm not able to figure out how to run adventures from a year or two ago.

Do the Faction Journal Cards replace the faction missions in Seasons 5 and 6, or do both systems run in tandem? (That is: are Dark Archive characters rewarded for gaining information about Mendev's defenses? Or does that Chronicle boon no longer apply?)

If they run in tandem, are players still responsible for knowing what their character's faction leader's missions were during earlier seasons?

5/5 5/55/55/5

They run in tandem. The boon is still on the chronicle and usually involves the PC doing something rather specific during the adventure.

The DM should probably get the information to the player somehow, either by providing the letter as an old school faction mission or having a meeting with the character.

5/5

We had a scenario come up last game session. We were in the Emerald Spire

Spoiler:
The Tomb of Yarrix. A player who is Dark Archive ran into the room with the mummy ahead of the party and wrote a contract with the evil mummy to get them to join the Dark Archive and complete one of the Dark Archive Faction card boxes. The party attacked the evil creature on sight and the player stated we could not because he made a contract with it guaranteeing it safe passage and no harm from the pathfinder society. He then told the GM he could not allow us to attack the creature because there is a rule stating players cannot interfere with preventing faction missions. Is this something that is allowed? I am new to Pathfinder and thought this was crazy that a player can basically force the entire party to ignore the main evil and force us to aid it to be released onto the world. The GM handled it diplomatically by allowing the player to do this and basically telling the rest of us to ignore it and that we would not be penalized for it on the chronicle sheets in any way. I still felt it was wrong just based on allowing a big evil guy to be let loose. The player claims we were just being murder hungry.

Any guidance on what the rules truly are for things like this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Riggamortis wrote:
He then told the GM he could not allow us to attack the creature because there is a rule stating players cannot interfere with preventing faction missions.

The player was likely referring to the No PVP rule. However, what constitutes PVP is under the purview of the GM, not the player.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Its not the most out there interpretation I've seen. If its the scenario I think it is, the player does have a vested interest in keeping their end of the bargain and you should try to find some way to play along, even if it's not quite the PVP rule.

"Hold me back! I'm gonna tear your unnatural head off you...hey.. guys.. no seriously, HOLD ME BACK.. you get the left arm..."

1/5

Riggamortis wrote:
He then told the GM he could not allow us to attack the creature because there is a rule stating players cannot interfere with preventing faction missions.

I've not seen such a rule. There is the OOC "don't be a jerk" rule which can certainly be invoked in some situations, but this is one where that rule might apply both ways.

The fundamental problem I have with what the player did is that the game has an asymmetry with regards to character actions and OOC protections. Essentially, the player is gaming the system by having his character take IC actions because he as a player knows that OOC restrictions apply.

If a character made a deal with an evil creature and tried to prevent the party from killing the creature, it's highly likely the party would see the character as being an agent of evil and kill the character as well. As a GM, I will not allow a player to game the system. I won't allow characters to take actions which disadvantage the party and simultaneously enjoy protection under the very OOC rules meant to bolster a better experience for all.

The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Riggamortis, how far ahead of the rest of the party was the Dark Archive agent, anyways? It sounds like a couple of minutes, at least.

Back in the early days of the PFS campaign, factions were in a "cold war" competition. Several players considered it fair game to sabotage other faction missions.* Since faction missions were the only way to get prestige points, the were some hurt feelings.

A previous campaign coordinator suggested that the PvP rule extend to faction missions. (For example, there's a Season 0 adventure where the Cheliax mission is to "rescue" a batch of slaves from one ship, and send them off to another ship where they'll be taken as slaves in Cheliax. If an Andoran PC found out about that, she wouldn't be allowed to interfere.)

The campaign doesn't use factions in the same way any more.

* Indeed, if you read back through archival messageboard posts, there were players who were building "false front" PCs, who would join a faction to intercept the faction leader's messages and try to sabotage their missions.

5/5

The player was with us at the door. He had expressed an interest in having the monster join the dark archive and we let him go in first. The archive faction requirement is a skill roll basically to get them to join. None of us understood why he made a contract deal to help the evil creature escape as that is not what the faction card says to do.

The Exchange 5/5 RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Did he use Diplomacy? That takes at least a minute, in and of itself. Did he write out a contract?

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Well, you can't really try to claim credit for recruiting people you then kill before the session is over.

As a GM I think you have to either veto certain recruitments - you can't always just "press recruit" on the BBEG to win the adventure - but sometimes recruiting an NPC can be a creative solution that wins you an encounter.

5/5

He wrote a contract out.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Riggamortis wrote:
He wrote a contract out.

there's something cool for him on the chronicle when he does this. I think the DM handled it the best way possible: he let you know you wouldn't be in trouble, and that it was a wink wink nudge nudge to let the other PC get away with it.

Pathfinders are going to do a LOT of crazy things. Just roll with it. It'll make sense eventually.

4/5 5/55/55/5 *** Venture-Lieutenant, Minnesota—Minneapolis

Riggamortis wrote:
The party attacked the evil creature on sight and the player stated we could not because he made a contract with it guaranteeing it safe passage and no harm from the pathfinder society. He then told the GM he could not allow us to attack the creature because there is a rule stating players cannot interfere with preventing faction missions. Is this something that is allowed?

The journal cards are not faction missions. Faction missions are something from older season scenarios and no one is required to do them any more. I tend to look them over for each scenario, and decide if they add to the scenario or not. I will also avoid giving them out if I think the scenario will run long.

There are rules about cooperating with your fellow pathfinders. In general, you shouldn't undermine each other's goals. The thing is, if there were Silver Crusade characters in that same adventure they could claim that making such a contract undermined their own goals.

Liberty's Edge 5/5

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I haven't played that level yet, so I dont know how you gain knowledge of what's there. So please correct me if my assumptions are wrong.

1) I'd question how they even knew the bad guy was there, and how did they know it would be amenable to diplomacy, and how did they know it would fit their faction card?

2) this sound a lot like OOC knowledge being used for character benefit.

3) this sounds a lot like meta-gaming.

I'd be very suspicious that the player has played, read, and/or run the nodule before, and I wouldn't allow them to blatantly, essentially cheat, to do this.

Basically, its up to the GM to nip stuff like this in the bud!


Andrew Christian wrote:

I haven't played that level yet, so I dont know how you gain knowledge of what's there. So please correct me if my assumptions are wrong.

1) I'd question how they even knew the bad guy was there, and how did they know it would be amenable to diplomacy, and how did they know it would fit their faction card?

2) this sound a lot like OOC knowledge being used for character benefit.

3) this sounds a lot like meta-gaming.

I'd be very suspicious that the player has played, read, and/or run the nodule before, and I wouldn't allow them to blatantly, essentially cheat, to do this.

Basically, its up to the GM to nip stuff like this in the bud!

1) You are informed someone is there. It was logical to assume that it would meet the requirements.

2 & 3) It was.

The real problem was that he blurted out what he wanted to do and the BBB responded with "Tell me more". He then locked himself in a room with it and negotiated the deal.

It was a complete dick move, but legal by the actions.

2/5 *

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Complete dick move is then Illegal according to the primary rule of PFS ...dont be a dick..

1/5

Minos Judge wrote:

The real problem was that he blurted out what he wanted to do and the BBB responded with "Tell me more". He then locked himself in a room with it and negotiated the deal.

It was a complete dick move, but legal by the actions.

If I were the GM in that situation, I would have looked for a way to have a win-win. Let the player strike a deal...then have the party encounter the BBEG *wink* later on *wink* and fight the final battle.

Or work it so that the player gets credit for the recruitment, but the BBEG still triggers a fight.

Dark Archive

BretI wrote:
Riggamortis wrote:
The party attacked the evil creature on sight and the player stated we could not because he made a contract with it guaranteeing it safe passage and no harm from the pathfinder society. He then told the GM he could not allow us to attack the creature because there is a rule stating players cannot interfere with preventing faction missions. Is this something that is allowed?

The journal cards are not faction missions. Faction missions are something from older season scenarios and no one is required to do them any more. I tend to look them over for each scenario, and decide if they add to the scenario or not. I will also avoid giving them out if I think the scenario will run long.

There are rules about cooperating with your fellow pathfinders. In general, you shouldn't undermine each other's goals. The thing is, if there were Silver Crusade characters in that same adventure they could claim that making such a contract undermined their own goals.

As the person in question, I can tell you that there were not completing faction goals. Had another PC had a goal that involved killing the monster, I would have considered neither of our needs to outweigh the other and let the chips fall where they may. In this situation, one player wanted to complete a faction goal, and the other player wanted to kill the monster that had agreed to join the pathfinder society and share it's knowledge, in a infernally enforceable contract, fully witnessed by the needed parties(some devils in the scenario). Characters would not be allowed to murder regular society npcs, and this solution would have shaved 20 minutes off the slot had we not stopped to argue about it. In this scenario, I had deliberately stepped aside from participating in a combat so that the players who wanted to have fun fighting things could do that more.

I think you are going to have a very tough sell convincing me that rules regarding faction missions should not apply to faction journal card goals. Do you really think it should be allowed for one PC to deliberately undermine another PC's faction journal goals, denying them a mechanical benefit, because their right to kill whatever they please is more important? These rules were made to outright stop interparty and player conflict. All the other PCs received full rewards for the adventure and were not penalized in any way, shape, or form. Killing evil monsters is not the goal of the society, recovering knowledge and artifacts from the past is. We had not been sent by the society to kill this monster. My characters action were directly aligned with the Society goals, and there were no Silver Crusade PCs present. That didn't matter to the other player in question, he just wanted to kill things. Said PC had never player his character as particularly concerned about morality. Earlier in the dungeon we had lost out on a good boon because we didn't work with the bad guy.

There really wasn't another solution to this problem that wouldn't have resulted in Player vs Player combat, which isn't allowed. I asked the other player nicely before-hand to not be a jerk and mess up my character's stuff, but the player refused. I only invoke the rules to prevent the PC's actions when we couldn't work out some sort of agreement or compromise, and the GM agreed with me that those were actually the rules to govern the situation. We were at an in-pass, and one of us was going to be unhappy with the outcome. I tried very hard not to be the jerk in the situation.

The campaign administration has ruled that deliberately sabotaging another character faction mission counts as PVP and is not allowed. It's not the in guide explicitly, but their interpretation of the rules in the guide. I don't have a link handy, but it has come up before and been ruled on, it shouldn't be that hard to find.

There was a full contract written out, signed, and witnessed. The GM allowed me to make a Linguistics check for that faction goal instead of a Diplomacy check, but it was in game time consuming.

The level in question clearly announced the big bag guy's presence ahead of time, and it was not hard to infer that the monster was probably a spell caster, that is why I decided to try and convince it to join the Dark Archive instead of having to kill it. Many of my different characters offers the bad guys a peaceful solution in many scenarios, it's just rare that a monster shows some sense and agrees. I had not read the module ahead of time or used out of game knowledge, I was perfectly willing to accept an answer from the GM saying that the monster wasn't a spell caster and didn't meet the faction card goal requirement. I'm not really seeing how that could be out of character knowledge or meta-gaming. My character in question had a genius level intelligence, the logic beyond the decision was not out of his grasp.

I didn't actually prevent any character from coming into the room while I negotiated, but I did close the door and no one opened it. I honestly thought the other Players would be pleased at a creative solution that saved us some time with no mechanical downside. It didn't occur to me that the particular party would object to my idea, which I announced to them ahead of time. No one objected to it ahead of time, though once their players heard what I offered the bad guy(helping him escape so he could join the Dark Archive) they snickered and said they would just kill the monster anyway no matter what I wanted to do. I did know that they weren't allowed to do that, which did influence my out of character decision to continue with the negotiation based on their out of character comments. I suppose I could have been more considerate of their desires at that point, but I don't think that my desires should count for nothing.

TLDR: I let the other players know what I was doing ahead of time, thought they would be happy, and tried to work the problem out. The GM agreed that them deliberately messing up my faction goal was against the rules of PFS. My character could have solo-ed an early fight and I didn't because I know they liked fighting things.

Dark Archive

N N 959 wrote:
Riggamortis wrote:
He then told the GM he could not allow us to attack the creature because there is a rule stating players cannot interfere with preventing faction missions.

I've not seen such a rule. There is the OOC "don't be a jerk" rule which can certainly be invoked in some situations, but this is one where that rule might apply both ways.

The fundamental problem I have with what the player did is that the game has an asymmetry with regards to character actions and OOC protections. Essentially, the player is gaming the system by having his character take IC actions because he as a player knows that OOC restrictions apply.

If a character made a deal with an evil creature and tried to prevent the party from killing the creature, it's highly likely the party would see the character as being an agent of evil and kill the character as well. As a GM, I will not allow a player to game the system. I won't allow characters to take actions which disadvantage the party and simultaneously enjoy protection under the very OOC rules meant to bolster a better experience for all.

This campaign is not about killing evil creatures, and there are evil members of the society(NPCs, like the head of the Dark Archive). Our PCs are not allowed to kill them because they are evil. The campaign explicitly encourages players to make characters with a darker theme by having a faction that encourages and rewards such behavior.

Also, the campaign admins have approved a chronicle sheet with an artifact on it that can force your character to switch alignments to evil and atone at the end of the scenario or be reported dead, and the boon can be used repeatedly. And said boon had already switched the character in question two steps towards Lawful Evil from Chaotic Neutral(So LN), in that very scenario.

Killing a PC because they made a deal with an evil creature is very blatantly against the rules of PFS. It is not uncommon for a scenario or faction goal to actively promote such behavior.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

Victor:
You realize the adventure specifically says you have to kill that creature to escape, right?

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