Pathfinder Society 2: GM Stars, Replay, and Boon Carryover

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

But you're consistently going to put together those tables without filling them out with more experienced players? WHILE competing with adventurers league and PF2, and starfinder for low level players?

Certainly not. But it's what you have to do.

You can't tell people that something is going to work if they do something that they can't do: that's just not admitting that something isn't going to work.

I breezed over that one, but that is exactly what he said. LOL.

'You certainly can't do it, but that is what you'll have to do.'

Having organized for single table lodges and for metro areas, I am quite conversant with the possibilities and impossibilities of both.

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:

Blake's Tiger wrote:

...getting 3 new players simultaneously? That's not going to happen in my community.

No one has said that continuing PF1E play is going to be easy. Stop letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. That first player stays and plays 2E the first week, then the second player the next week, then the third shows up and hey, do you three want to try 1E for a weekend? Etc.

If we're talking about the generic new new player who just got into the hobby or just bought a Paizo product and that product was the newly released, hotly marketed PF2, then why would he or she want to bother playing PF1?

They'll be invested in PFS2 and focusing on not falling behind their peers in character advancement in PFS2.

You can lead a horse to water, etc etc.

I would argue that it is the other side ('no replays ever!') that is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good because they don't want to compromise.

Having organized for single table lodges and for metro areas, I am quite conversant with the possibilities and impossibilities of both.

.... for a metro area.

Which is not every PFS area.

My first lodge was my own table started in Kileen, Texas. Not a metro area, unless Austin being 45 minutes away counts.

Hey, at least the rules will still be in print?

Imagine the alternative.

...I've lived it.

Trust me, you don't want to.

5 replays a year (as a 5 star GM) was great when fresh content was coming in. With no fresh content, I also vote for 12 replays a year. That will allow tables to make, and give everyone PF1 at least once a month.

Though... if we're going to do it, can we at least nerf the Lissala Arc on replays? I don't care about other juicy chronicle boons, but I would love to see those particular ones nerfed for replayers.

Hmm

Blake's Tiger wrote:

I would argue that it is the other side ('no replays ever!') that is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good because they don't want to compromise.

** spoiler omitted **

Jokes aside, the 'Decimvirate' is listening. It's the 'Shadow Lodge' that's telling them and anyone who would like replays that they're evil and going bring about the downfall of PFS1.

I'm going to squirrel, here. I don't care about boons. I don't care about star benefits carrying over. I am happy to retire all of my characters and start fresh.

I completely understand that those things are important to other folks. I just want to make the point that some (or at least one) of us aren't that worried about them.

What I do care about is whether or not PF2, when it arrives, gives us a fun game that I want to run and players want to play. To the extent that I care about replay, I am concerned only that we have enough content available to keep tables firing; there will be a dearth of scenarios for PF2 at the outset.

Personally, and I get that this is not a universal opinion, I'd rather the powers that be spent their limited resources hammering out more and better PF2 content than mucking about with boon carryover and such.

If that's the route they take, I will understand that this doesn't mean Paizo doesn't love me anymore, or that they don't value all the effort I've put into PFS to date. It just means that they're focused on supporting the game which, unless something really weird happens, is going to be the core of organized play in the future. And that's a good thing.

Jokes aside, the 'Decimvirate' is listening. It's the 'Shadow Lodge' that's telling them and anyone who would like replays that they're evil and going bring about the downfall of PFS1.

Show me.

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:

Having organized for single table lodges and for metro areas, I am quite conversant with the possibilities and impossibilities of both.

.... for a metro area.

Which is not every PFS area.

Yeah I'm with you on this, as part of the Netherlands (with Lau), to make a convention work we have to get the whole country involved...people from all over need to come for us to get enough tables/slots/GMs/etc.

We are also fully open to have other countries come over and it has worked well so far, but to see Tonya say they aren't withdrawing support for PF1 is great, but I also agree we need some replay option, not everyone wants to go to PF2, and from the players, I've noticed some 3 or 4 star GMs who don't want anything to do with it (yet). This means we need an option for replays in case they don't want to move (GM headcount is critical for us, no matter what system).

On a personal level, I don't really have a view on how much the replay count should be, as I only GM Starfinder but I agree there should be a structure in place otherwise we risk alienating a lot of our players. (Only need a few to make quite a % difference)

What I do care about is whether or not PF2, when it arrives, gives us a fun game that I want to run and players want to play. To the extent that I care about replay, I am concerned only that we have enough content available to keep tables firing; there will be a dearth of scenarios for PF2 at the outset.

Personally, and I get that this is not a universal opinion, I'd rather the powers that be spent their limited resources hammering out more and better PF2 content than mucking about with boon carryover and such.

Oh, I agree with you.

Let's hope for an AMAZING first year of PF2 scenarios and AP to pull players back in and tempt them into trying out the new system.
Hmm

That's not a bad idea, even if it locks out The Waking Rune.

Jokes aside, the 'Decimvirate' is listening. It's the 'Shadow Lodge' that's telling them and anyone who would like replays that they're evil and going bring about the downfall of PFS1.

Thats NOT a tentacle next to my picture

Blake's Tiger wrote:

I would argue that it is the other side ('no replays ever!') that is letting the perfect be the enemy of the good because they don't want to compromise.

** spoiler omitted **

okay now i'm SURE i missed some sarcasm this morning...

Its kind of the point of the blog. Or rather a devil in a missing detail of the blog. A modest amount of replay has to be enough to sustain a community or its not going to work. No other plan for sustaining a community is really viable.

Like I said, show me. Or more importantly, show the Decemvirate. I'm just one that follows the guidelines like you.

Nah mate, that ain't the Shadow Lodge. That's just the lodge.

Blake's Tiger wrote:

Jokes aside, the 'Decimvirate' is listening. It's the 'Shadow Lodge' that's telling them and anyone who would like replays that they're evil and going bring about the downfall of PFS1.

Show me.

OK. Although, I'm a little concerned that this might break some part of TOS.

The 'Decimvirate' is listening:

. . . we've come to the conclusion that the "no additional replay" option is not the correct path forward for the community as a whole.

Ultimately there needs to be some form of expanded replay made available, otherwise we truly would be abandoning the current campaign, at least for our most ardent players and GMs who already consume materials as fast as (in some instances faster than) we can create it. This is especially true for small lodges who are already struggling to seat tables due to their players not having identical play progressions.

Whew. That's enough negativity...

Keep in mind that we're not asking for unlimited replays, but the 'Shadow Lodge' is equating 24 or even 12 per year to infinity (cite). We come saying being able to not worry about whether I've played the scenario at my FLGS or at a convention once or twice a month would be helpful to us, and the 'Shadow Lodge' says we should be happy with 1 to 5 replays a year (cite, cite).

Everyone --

Can we all stop sniping at each other? We knew from the start that some people want no replays. (I've stated clearly that I don't want unlimited replay myself, but that we need some replay to help tables make.) Others want more ability to replay.

So. Replay is now happening. That campaign decision has been made. Let's talk logistics rather than wasting time with old arguments.

Thank you.

Hmm

For the sake of forum civility, can you remove personal names out of those links?

Done.

Thank you!

Hmm

Removed a post and posts which needed the removed post for context.

Do not use profanity or other vulgar language on our forums.

To be fair to the argument (not the tone it's taken), we are now arguing how much replay is too much replay, although the argument against a double digit number is that it is 'the same as' unlimited replay.

I'd be interested to see how things progress with 12-24 replays.

I'm liking the sound of 12/year for everyone, with more as a reward for GMing. (Either Expanded Narrative in its current form, or perhaps a more accelerated schedule.)

To be fair to the argument (not the tone it's taken), we are now arguing how much replay is too much replay, although the argument against a double digit number is that it is 'the same as' unlimited replay.

Fair enough.

To be honest, in PBP mode where everything goes sloooower, 12 replays will equal infinity for many players. But we're weird. :)

Everywhere else, 12 replays equals once a month. If you have a weekly venue, that means that you're going to be still having to look at other options (APs, modules, PF2, Starfinder) to fill the gap for your most experienced players.

Hmm

12 per year sounds like a perfect amount for me. ^_^

I have no good sense how much replay is correct, on a personal level I have only ever replayed 1 scenario (a normal repeatable scenario), Even though I'm more than halfway through unretired scenarios. It was OK, but despite having no desire to see 1E end, I'm not entirely sure how fun replaying a lot of other scenario would be. I'm hoping to see more modules and APs locally as a good way to keep things interesting, but I do recognize that allowing a fair bit of replay is needed to keep enough people available to help fill tables (at least in theory).

To be honest, in PBP mode where everything goes sloooower, 12 replays will equal infinity for many players. But we're weird. :)

Actually, the effect in PbP will be different depending on a player's PbP consumption style.

If you only enroll in one game at a time, you'll never use 12 replays before they reset.
If you play as many as you can simultaneously, you could use up 12 as fast as 12 new games of scenarios you've played are posted.
And everywhere in between.

Here's the thing, I've heard people say they don't care if Stars or Boons carry (not a lot of people), heard people say they would prefer them to not carry (even less people), and A LOT of people say they should transfer in some capacity. This capacity being as some sort of Star recognition as well as permanent boons versus temporary, since most people hand-wave temporary and really focus on permanent as a way to add variety and create even more "unique" characters.

My assumption is Paizo WANTS people to play PFS2, so anything they do that encourages that should be a direction they move towards. So why wouldn't they allow some sort of permanent star/boon carry over? I literally have never in my life been at a table and heard someone complain that someone else has a cool boon, like EVER. Usually it's like "Wow you got a character with wings? Cool! Welcome! Oh you're some sort of construct, awesome, tell me more!". Generally the players are pretty mature and recognize that these people probably put in the time and effort to get said boons.

Look I don't think anyone is asking for a 1:1 boon transfer (that's just crazy lol), but something more than temp boons seems quite reasonable IMHO. I suspect you'll net more PFS2 players by rewarding PFS1 than you would if you did not reward them (or reward them minimally). Paizo has a good dedicated player-base, a base that they probably don't want to take for granted less they lose them to another system (or even their own previous system). Anyone remember 3.5->4th and what came out of that? :-P

In conclusion it's probably no surprise to anyone but my local lodge has been crushed hard by the announcement of PF2. This is partly due to people liking PF1 and therefore not being super excited about PF2, but also because it's just wildly unclear what sort of recognition will be given to PFS1 in PFS2. I have spoken with quite a few people and pretty much to the person they've all said if there was some sort of "permanent" recognition of PFS2 in PFS1 that they'be be more willing to try it. Which at the end of the day isn't this what Paizo wants, more people trying/playing PF(S)2?

And that's my 2 cents, cheers! :-)

Replay:

rather than a hard limit or expandable limit, why not just state a VO signature is required for replay. That puts it in local hands and encourages participation in the PFS corps. two birds with one stone ya know...

I thought it was a good solution...

Except you don’t have perfect VO coverage as it is, with some entire countries having only one VO. I know that I can’t be at every gameday here in Phoenix. Nor can my VAs.

So first off I am not still fighting for no replay. I admit that I think it would be preferable to me, but Michael answered my question earlier in this thread and I moved on. So absolutely we are talking about how much replay there will be as opposed to whether there will be replay at all.

Second I do understand how difficult it can be to organize a table, and actually have it go off. At my location I struggle every single session to get enough enough players so the table will fire. I would prefer, however, that struggle, and a game that I enjoyed to a game that I didn't enjoy because everyone(myself included) already knew what was happening. I rarely play Evergreen scenarios more than once, because they just aren't that much fun after the first play through.

Second I'm not arguing that replay will be the death of the campaign. I've heard people say that replay can have that effect, but this is the first OP campaign I've participated in so I don't have that experience. I am sure, however, that replay would kill the campaign for me. I am one of the players who wants to play 1e over 2e, and sure I will replay to make tables go off if its necessary because I want the the campaign to continue. Its only a matter of time though before I burn out on the entire campaign(which I currently love) if I'm constantly asked to play games I don't enjoy just to drag things out. There are lots of scenarios I haven't played that I would love to run both as a player and a GM, and new players will have the entire catalog to go through. Replay will kill my enjoyment of the game though.

Now I understand there may be regions where you also struggle to form a table, and the players, unlike me, have played most if not everything that's available, and don't think the same old scenario played for the 20th time will get boring. Fine. I accept that some replay options are necessary for these areas. I just don't want replay to be so common that its the norm. So that I'm unable to find a table I haven't played, because people want to play some random scenario yet again.

Now I understand there may be regions where you also struggle to form a table, and the players, unlike me, have played most if not everything that's available, and don't think the same old scenario played for the 20th time will get boring. Fine. I accept that some replay options are necessary for these areas. I just don't want replay to be so common that its the norm. So that I'm unable to find a table I haven't played, because people...

I think you need to include in your calculations the chance that a player replaying will ruin your play experience. I don't think its a guarantee. You doing it might ruin it for you but you might not even know that player 3 has played this before and player 4 has dm'd it.

Here's my situation, which I do not think is unique: I am a relatively new player who joined a very small PFS community (and my city's not small, it's just not a thing to play RPing games or games in the area). Even before the announcement of PF2/PFS2, I had trouble getting a table to play because the regulars had played through all the content. I would sign up for an older Season scenario, the table folded more often than not. If I had to sign up for the 2nd run of a current Season scenario, I would have a 50/50 chance that the people who signed up for it decided they'd rather play in the 1st run, and the table would fold.

That's my experience in my area with no replay (and new content every month), and I'm not even the one needing to use the replay. I just wanted to first play but was too late. I was, and to a large extent in my physical venue still am, that 'new player' that people keep referencing.

So add no new content to that environment, and I'm going to need the system to offer some level of replay.

To be honest, in PBP mode where everything goes sloooower, 12 replays will equal infinity for many players. But we're weird. :)

Excellent point. I see more PBP play in my future :-)

Oh, I hope so. Our tengu group was simply a pure joy.

Hmm

Oh, I hope so. Our tengu group was simply a pure joy.

Hmm

Definitely one of the high points of my PBP experience

"I'll have to put my beak in and see what the kids are up to before I hit Seeker. That's if I can ever get off this 'Slostice Scar' bunch of missions, it feels like I've been doing the same thing forever." an elderly tengu clad in mithril full plate opines, leaning against a darkwood quarterstaff. "I hope Grandmother has been keeping an eye out for 'em."

Though... if we're going to do it, can we at least nerf the Lissala Arc on replays? I don't care about other juicy chronicle boons, but I would love to see those particular ones nerfed for replayers.

I'd be fine with generic chronicle sheets containing only gold, XP, and prestige for the bonus, "transition" replays that we receive. That would solve the whole "boon fishing" problem and might allay the concerns of some of the "no replay" crowd.

So, time to throw my two cents in.

I ADORE the society. Many of my friends know it's somewhat taken over my life as I've volunteered to become a VA (Paperwork pending). So with that in mind, let me address things in some sort of order-

Replays- So long as we get some level of refreshing replays (Either 1 or 3) I think these will be fine. I fully plan on running 1e games at my store even if I have to go "Shadow Lodge" in some horrible dystopic future where there is no PFS1 support at all and have to manage my own players and chronicle recordings (Note: I know this isn't the case, just making the point). We just had 2 players join our store who love 1e and are excited to play through the wealth of stories we have available in those seasons, and while a lot of the old guard is happy to join them, replays will help make sure that tables fire for these new players by allowing old players to step in.

Stars/Glyphs ect.- I'm a little bummed that there will be no transfer at all. I get it, new system and all that, but a little bit of rep would have been nice, even if it was just to start out with my first glyph or something. I still really want to eventually get my 5th star, but I'll admit more than a little of the wind has been taken out of my sails. But I'm also excited to start earning glyphs for the new series, so I'm not to upset.

BoonsFrankly, this is the worst bit. What was mentioned earlier about "Legacy" boons that are things that remind us of our characters are far more what I expect. Trading in a race boon, something that I worked hard for and gives lots of flavorful and storytelling benefits, for a one time mediocre mechanical benefit is just coo coo bird. At the very least, race boons should be traded in for something of equivalent status, either a race boon for 2e or a item or something permanent that let's us give flavor and love to the new character. Like a "Scion of the Grand Lodge" sort of boon.

Now, your proposed one works fine for those little 1 off player boons I got that I was never really going to use anyways, just not for the big impactful hard to earn ones.

Just my 2 cents. Spend it wisely! In the end, I trust Tonya and Paizo to make good decisions for this campaign with the resources they have, and I'm looking forward to more years of society!

So I read through all the posts in this thread and one of the things that stuck out to me is people are lets just say "less than enthused" with the decision to effectively scrap good permanent boons for temp ones. There were some who were in favor (not vociferously so) and some who were ambivalent (perhaps new players?), but overall I'd say the response hasn't exactly been a full-throated endorsement of the decision.

So rather than put anyone else through the same pain that I just went through I've curated those "less than enthused" sentiments below. Enjoy! ;-)

While I like the prize table approach I think if you sacrifice permanent (race) boons you should get a permanent benefit in PF2.

Boons - it's been said a few times but what makes a boon fun is that it makes a character different - a permanent fun boon is waaaay better than a mechanical benefit.

Even if there's little or no mechanical benefit I'd far rather have a flavor boon.

Also, spending boons for one off bonuses (no matter how powerful) would be pretty soul destroying (bye bye vanarra, dhampir, ganzi - hello minor benefit on rolls).

GM boons are a thank you for the time effort and often money that GMs have put into making conventions fun. Printing, buying maps, buying minis etc... quite often you'll look round a convention hall and see GMs have scratch-built 3D terrain or created unique minis for important foes... We do it to make the gaming experience as fabulous as possible for our players, GM boons have always been really important to me in feeling that Paizo values that effort and investment.

I'm also in agreement that trading in a race boon should have some sort of permanent effect.

Boon Table: Ultimately, OP has to do what they believe is best for OP, but the described system doesn't really inspire me to volunteer to GM PFS 1 scenarios going forward. Specials, online, as long as some form of indefinite replay is going to be supported, probably. Running 3-5 tables of the same scenario over and over for PFS 1? No, that doesn't interest me.

I very much like the idea of trading in boons with a prize table methodology, but if I spend a race boon, I would want a similar type of benefit, something long-lasting and flavorful without being overpowered. Obviously, trading race boon for race boon would be nice (if not feasible at the start of PF2 content being released).

Honestly, I would like some promises about this sort of thing because I think it would help keep people engaged in 1e.

I'm not a big fan of the boon table for reasons mentioned by several other people already: some specialty boons are more far-reaching or permanent in v1, especially those for convention attendance and/or GMing (not to mention auctions) - boons which, essentially, had a cost in both money and time (either travel, admission to the event, and/or time preparing scenarios for GMing) and - forgive me if I'm misunderstanding this - they are being reduced to one-off number crunches? It sounds like expediency is taking precedence over respecting the previous playerbase, which might be necessary by logistics, but I wish there was another way to integrate those older boons into v2 play in a way that feels more 'fair.' Understanding that it's not feasible for the transition team given the complexity of the process doesn't make it sting less on the receiving end ^_^;

I'm not happy with the boon table scheme. Only getting weak temporary bonuses from sacrificing valuable 1st Edition boons that do cool stuff for your character would feel more like a slap in the face to most players who invested in 1st Edition.

My assumption is Paizo WANTS people to play PFS2, so anything they do that encourages that should be a direction they move towards. So why wouldn't they allow some sort of permanent star/boon carry over? I literally have never in my life been at a table and heard someone complain that someone else has a cool boon, like EVER. Usually it's like "Wow you got a character with wings? Cool! Welcome! Oh you're some sort of construct, awesome, tell me more!". Generally the players are pretty mature and recognize that these people probably put in the time and effort to get said boons.

Look I don't think anyone is asking for a 1:1 boon transfer (that's just crazy lol), but something more than temp boons seems quite reasonable IMHO. I suspect you'll net more PFS2 players by rewarding PFS1 than you would if you did not reward them (or reward them minimally). Paizo has a good dedicated player-base, a base that they probably don't want to take for granted less they lose them to another system (or even their own previous system). Anyone remember 3.5->4th and what came out of that? :-P

Boons: Frankly, this is the worst bit. What was mentioned earlier about "Legacy" boons that are things that remind us of our characters are far more what I expect. Trading in a race boon, something that I worked hard for and gives lots of flavorful and storytelling benefits, for a one time mediocre mechanical benefit is just coo coo bird. At the very least, race boons should be traded in for something of equivalent status, either a race boon for 2e or a item or something permanent that let's us give flavor and love to the new character. Like a "Scion of the Grand Lodge" sort of boon.

As far as Boons?

Something with flavor or history versus some random 'one-off' reroll or die bonus, please. A lot of resources were devoted to earning those in some cases, so turning them from Guinness to Miller Lite is not the solution...

Not super keen on the proposed means to deal with boons, from what I've seen "Check a box to get this one-time benefit" boons tend to either end up forgotten or deliberately held back "for when I REALLY need it." I'd rather see something similar tacked on to the PFS2 equivalent of those boons, in line with how some of this past year's con boons were able to scale by spending other boons (Such as the aquatic elf/gillman/merfolk boon)

As for boons... I'm not a fan of the proposed system, personally, because of what I value about boons. My favorite boons were always those that offered a new character option or design choice. Turning something that let me create a character I couldn't otherwise create, into a boring power-boosting numbers benefit, isn't especially valuable to me.

As far as the boon trade in or whatever, I also believe that if I turn in a GM race boon that I had to GM 5+ tables at GenCon to earn I ought to get one of comparable value, NOT a one or however many time mechanical value benefit!

As an aside, I have found that after the announcement of PF2 I have been GMing less PF1 and more Starfinder and I will continue to do so as I believe we are now in a time of diminishing returns for PF1. I also almost always take a SFS boon over a PFS boon if give the choice unless it is a race boon or something that I can use on a current PF1 character immediately. That's just my YMMV.

I also want to say that flavor boons, even if they give little no mechanical bonus are much preferred to anything that is one time use or boons that are only useful in very specific circumstances.

Permanent, thematic boons are something I am vastly more interested, rather than turning my collection of PF1 boons into a blank currency.

In terms of the 1e to 2e boon conversion. Your suggested change sounds lack luster and disappointing. Why can't you just let people trade in a race boon for a race boon? Your likely going to have season 1 or season 2 early race access boons anyways. So where is the harm in just letting them be exchanged. Those races generally get added a year later to the greater public anyways (e.g., legacy races in starfinder) so why are we splitting hairs about the 'long term' power gains here turning off new players. Its just silly if you ask me. To swap a character defining choice type boon that is 'no more powerful than any other for a extremely short term one off buff boon just sucks. Why bother at all. I have hundreds of normal chronicle sheets filled with that kind of 'boon' and 90% of them sit there unused. The 10% used are only for the bonekeep type...

I will also second (third? fourth?) the notion that _flavor_ boons are the best boons. I absolutely loath boons that offer one time benefits, or that can be only used in extremely limited situations. I am never going to remember that I get +1 to hit vs kobolds from cheliax on the third wednesday of the month.

Add me in on that. I've got a binder of boons that I won't bother to convert. I meant to bring them to SkalCon for charity auctions, but my chaotic panic of packing meant they got left at home.

Add me in on that. I've got a binder of boons that I won't bother to convert. I meant to bring them to SkalCon for charity auctions, but my chaotic panic of packing meant they got left at home.

Yup. Same (on both counts).

You can add me as well. I was super happy to have emptied my PFS boon folder a while back.

Hmm