February Update— Achievement Points , Stars, Novas, Spotlights and Conventions!

pauljathome wrote:

Michael Sayre wrote:

The overall rewards for everyone have increased.

Uh,that's not really true. [...]

Sure it is. Did you get three race boons a year just for GMing regularly on your way to 5 stars before? Because now if you're an active GM you do, plus your bonus points for convention GMing. If you do 7+ slots at a major con, you get an ancestry boon's worth of points plus a free rebuild and three free resurrections. And if you don't want/need an uncommon ancestry you've got e.g. many lifetimes' worth of free resurrections.

At the end of the day this is one of the most generous programs we've ever had. The World Guide is a core assumption. Every weekly player gets enough points for a new ancestry over the course of the year and a twice-monthly GM who GMs a con can clear three. A highly active GM who runs weekly games and attends multiple cons might clear a year with 6 or more. And that'll apply to every GM, not just the ones who make it to GenCon or get lucky on an RSP roll.

Like Bob said, everyone has a subjective/biased line where we think it's 'better.'

However, to be fair, it is incorrect to say that overall, rewards are increased for everyone. It is more accurate to say that [you predict] that on average more PFS participants will be getting more rewards, because a portion will be getting less.

You talk about the "every week" player or GM. We're not all "every week" players but we were Con GMs. I GMed 6-8 slots at GenCon and walked away with 1 race boon/rebuild and 8-10 table boons, all of which were tradable so I could hunt for someone with what I wanted that wanted what I didn't, then I GMed 1 or 2 local Con tables for a race boon. Then I GMed 1-3 PbP tables each of 2 Online Cons for a race boon each and a random chance at table boons. Then I GM PbP maybe 6-10 games a year and play a similar number. I'm currently at 81 points (once the calculations are fixed) after 6 months of PFS(2), including a 6 table GenCon, of which only 4 were PFS(2), because, you know, other systems need support too.

I'm not saying it's not fair, and I'm not saying it needs to be overhauled, but a subset of us (particularly a subset of onliners) are not seeing increased rewards. It may very well be healthier for the Campaign, but that's a different statement.

It's a fair point that while the way both programs were designed and intended to be deployed should mean that everyone has reaped net gains under the new system, centralization of the reward system and the decrease in regional variance as a result may mean that some people are reaping fewer rewards under the new system than they were previously.

It's also a fair point that automation of the system means that things that used to be common practice, like someone doing a 4/3 PFS / SFS GM turn at GenCon and then being able to grab all PFS boons at the 7+ table reward level doesn't pan out the same way; you shouldn't be getting less overall, but you may very well be getting less for your system of choice. If nothing else that does tell me that I need to sit down and talk to the team about whether or not there's elements of the system we should be taking a second look at, particularly as regards convention rewards, so that we're not creating an undue pressure for GMs to run only PF2 and opt out of running Starfinder if they want to get the con reward they came in for.

While this discussion is still fresh, I'd like to make a tiny request/question on behalf of a few of my players (and I believe at least one TOZ) - are there any plans to make new Playtest Point boons that only cost 1 or 3 points? Some folks finished the playtest with odd numbers such that they'll only have 1 or 3 left after buying stuff, leaving those (literal) odd points to stare at and taunt them forever, as things stand now.

As for Achievement Points, everyone I've spoken to so far in my region is extremely excited, and hoping the system comes online before our February 28th convention!

Thanks again for all the work on this!

While this discussion is still fresh, I'd like to make a tiny request/question on behalf of a few of my players (and I believe at least one TOZ) - are there any plans to make new Playtest Point boons that only cost 1 or 3 points? Some folks finished the playtest with odd numbers such that they'll only have 1 or 3 left after buying stuff, leaving those (literal) odd points to stare at and taunt them forever, as things stand now.

As for Achievement Points, everyone I've spoken to so far in my region is extremely excited, and hoping the system comes online before our February 28th convention!

Thanks again for all the work on this!

I'll run the question about the lingering playtest points by the team next week and see if there's anything we can do about creating an avenue for those to be redeemed and zeroed out with some cheap boon options.

The easiest thing to do is to roll any remaining PtP into AcP. Creating a temporary program to account for people who have an odd balance of points. They are effectively the same thing, with PtP just being a focused reward. Generally speaking we should try to keep it simple. Set a final date after which all residual PtP is converted to AcP and then we close out the PtP program.

I have to say that I find it silly if tengu are uncommon race in 2e because of how they appear EVERYWHERE in world in strangest of places :p

Especially if dhampirs/aasimars/tiefligs/etc aren't uncommon ;P

pauljathome wrote:

Michael Sayre wrote:

The overall rewards for everyone have increased.

Uh,that's not really true. [...]

Sure it is. Did you get three race boons a year just for GMing regularly on your way to 5 stars before? Because now if you're an active GM you do, plus your bonus points for convention GMing. If you do 7+ slots at a major con, you get an ancestry boon's worth of points plus a free rebuild and three free resurrections. And if you don't want/need an uncommon ancestry you've got e.g. many lifetimes' worth of free resurrections.

At the end of the day this is one of the most generous programs we've ever had. The World Guide is a core assumption. Every weekly player gets enough points for a new ancestry over the course of the year and a twice-monthly GM who GMs a con can clear three. A highly active GM who runs weekly games and attends multiple cons might clear a year with 6 or more. And that'll apply to every GM, not just the ones who make it to GenCon or get lucky on an RSP roll.

Sry Michael this is just wrong. First there are no major conventions with the highest scaling in continental europe as of now, second there was a very big benefit of doing multiple smaller conventions in the old system that is no longer in the new system. (For example in 2018 I got over 12 race boons for running around 24 tables at conventions. Which is not possible in the new system)

The easiest thing to do is to roll any remaining PtP into AcP. Creating a temporary program to account for people who have an odd balance of points. They are effectively the same thing, with PtP just being a focused reward. Generally speaking we should try to keep it simple. Set a final date after which all residual PtP is converted to AcP and then we close out the PtP program.

I'd be quite happy with this. It's simple and useful.

Bob Jonquet wrote:

The easiest thing to do is to roll any remaining PtP into AcP. Creating a temporary program to account for people who have an odd balance of points. They are effectively the same thing, with PtP just being a focused reward. Generally speaking we should try to keep it simple. Set a final date after which all residual PtP is converted to AcP and then we close out the PtP program.

I'd be quite happy with this. It's simple and useful.

Ditto

pauljathome wrote:

Michael Sayre wrote:

The overall rewards for everyone have increased.

Uh,that's not really true. [...]

Sure it is. Did you get three race boons a year just for GMing regularly on your way to 5 stars before? Because now if you're an active GM you do, plus your bonus points for convention GMing. If you do 7+ slots at a major con, you get an ancestry boon's worth of points plus a free rebuild and three free resurrections. And if you don't want/need an uncommon ancestry you've got e.g. many lifetimes' worth of free resurrections.

At the end of the day this is one of the most generous programs we've ever had. The World Guide is a core assumption. Every weekly player gets enough points for a new ancestry over the course of the year and a twice-monthly GM who GMs a con can clear three. A highly active GM who runs weekly games and attends multiple cons might clear a year with 6 or more. And that'll apply to every GM, not just the ones who make it to GenCon or get lucky on an RSP roll.

The problem is you're using the word everyone, when there are definitely patterns of playing/GMing that now get demonstrably lower amounts of awards. I'm one of them. I've GMed at GenCon and the level I GMed at now results in fewer rewards than I got under the previous system. I typically GM at a local con (historically I did this for AL, but I intend to do PFS going forward because I like your system better) and the rewards I'll get under the new system are way lower (due to the "premier" and "premier plus" being the only cons that scale up more than home games) than the rewards I would have gotten under the old system.

On average this system may result in more rewards for your population of players and GMs, but it does not do so for everyone and it does not do so for me. I'm not an active week to week PFS GM or player, so for me it definitely results in fewer boons, and that was not something I was expecting when I signed up for this system site unseen last year by volunteering for last GenCon. I signed up expecting to be able to qualify for at least an ancestry boon for PFS2, and based on the numbers I can see I'm actually 8 points short. Fortunately I have no burning desire to play a Leshy, Iruxi, or Hobgoblin, so I'll bank the points and move on with my life, but it's still missing expectations for me.

As a GM at smaller conventions, I don't think these point requirements equate to the PFS1e system at all. I likely GM at 1-4 cons a year with 1-6 slots across a weekend (1 Friday, 3 Sat, 2 Sun is a common balance). I typically need to man the table / marshall which doesn't have any ACPs.

So in the previous set-up, I was guaranteed one boon (likely a race boon) and more often then not got another table boon (so lets say 2 average, or 6-8 race boons per year). I ended up using all of these or trading them around to players at local chapters. Due to the size of these cons I don't get the premiere ACP multiplication and there is only possibly one event that exists that would qualify and in the end I've got to spend $200.00 to attend a con just to GM (i.e., not super useful or great).

In the current system I'm going to have 2x8 (GM slot), 2x4 (Play slot), 1x0 (Marshall Spot), and 1x0 (Can't get to con on Friday slot). Or a total of 24 points per con. In a year with 4 cons that is 96 points. Outside of cons I likely GM a 1/mo for 3 mo (24 points) and play 1/mo for 6 mo (24 points) due to availability in my area or online. Thus my 1 year I am accumulating 144 = 96+48 points as a maximum (likely less depending on con size/slots). That is ~1-2 race boons.

PFS1e System = 6-8 race boons.
PFS2e System = 1-2 race boons. (3-4x LESS)

I love that I can accumulate points just by playing and thus players can work towards things. But you've significantly cut down on my access to interesting options as a little local GM who can't afford to attend massive cons in other countries. This is something I don't greatly enjoy as my support is necessary for many local cons to even happen.

Here are a few suggestions for the system to improve it:

1. Decrease the ACP cost basis from people GMing at gencon to a more normal average player baseline. I'd say 48 points (i.e., 1 play per month for a year) is a much more normal baseline for a 'common uncommon race' like a Leshy. I think that being part of Paizo at large you are highly overestimating how frequently the average player can play a game, gm a game, or have a con to attend. You want players (the biggest bucket) to be able to afford these boons and if it takes an average 1/mo player 2 years to get a race boon you aren't going to sell books to more casual players. It also won't help smaller PFS communities grow who rely on drawing in casual players.

2. Give ACP points for people who marshall at conventions as they are equally as important. Since they miss out on play credit and thumbing their nose for a 4-5 hour slot I'd say give them 16 points or something nicer than a typical GM point allocation.

3. Confirm that you will give ACP rebates for options where the cost is reduced in the future. If via the campaign hobgoblins get decreased to 80 ACP vs. 120 ACP then those players should get 40 ACP back. In 1e if one of 6-8 race boons was made available, it was fine because I had so many that the early access was enough. However, now I am buying options to the detriment of me buying future options in a timely manner, so if you do reduce a cost I shouldn't be penalized for it (i.e., losing extra ACP and losing early access to other new options that come down the line due to lack of ACP). I'd be seriously peeved if I spent a year getting a hobgoblin and then end up losing half a year of ACP due to a downstream campaign decision.

4. Continue to give con GM boons or table boons in addition to ACP. Most the time we give these to local players or trade around which spawns it's own interest and motivation to get GMs out. If you set the bar too high, you'll miss out on GM participation for people who would reluctantly GM 1 game to help/boon hunt, but who refuse to GM massive slot counts.

Every weekly player gets enough points for a new ancestry over the course of the year and a twice-monthly GM who GMs a con can clear three.

If you want a new uncommon race, "weekly player" could be on that list. A more realistic scenario is a player can earn enough points for a new ancestry every two to three years.

Getting a race boon for running a single PFS1 or SFS game at a con is a great help in getting people who normally don't run any games at all to run a game. For a small supported con, it can be a big difference in getting to the required 15 tables at all, or without overworking the people who like to GM more.

Based on what I've been told, Regional Support Program games will also be considered premiere. Because of this the only difference between a weekly RSP gaming store game and a con game is that the scenario being run will be sponsored by Paizo for the con. As far AcP is concerned, there will be no incentive or benefit for running con games compared to RSP games. Even when you compare regular games to premiere games, the difference is quite minimal.

For people who don't like to GM, the difference between running one game and running eight to get an ancestry boon can be massive.

It is great that players can now earn the ability to buy boons just by playing, but the incentive to run con games with these rules is pretty much nonexistent. I don't have numerical suggestion on how much more beficial running games at con should be, but it should be enough to entice people to run games.

Based on what I've been told, Regional Support Program games will also be considered premiere. Because of this the only difference between a weekly RSP gaming store game and a con game is that the scenario being run will be sponsored by Paizo for the con. As far AcP is concerned, there will be no incentive or benefit for running con games compared to RSP games. Even when you compare regular games to premiere games, the difference is quite minimal.

This is news to me. Where did you hear it?

Darafern wrote:

Based on what I've been told, Regional Support Program games will also be considered premiere. Because of this the only difference between a weekly RSP gaming store game and a con game is that the scenario being run will be sponsored by Paizo for the con. As far AcP is concerned, there will be no incentive or benefit for running con games compared to RSP games. Even when you compare regular games to premiere games, the difference is quite minimal.

This is news to me. Where did you hear it?

From our local venture officer.

I do not feel that RSP games should be the equivalent of Premier sessions ran at conventions. Maybe the team should reexamine the point values for various types of games played/ran. I know Bob used 16 as the point basis for Premier Plus con games, but that's not what the Guild Guide shows. It shows 12. Now, if running 8 sessions at Gen Con were to be worth 16 instead of 12, that would be 128 AcP instead of 96 AcP which would be more in line with what Michael has been posting.

Remember, the goal here is to accomplish more than one thing. The program is trying to incentivize GMing while also rewarding players. The players who GM are going to earn more points and will be able to purchase more rewards with their AcP than those who only play. Those who GM a lot are going to have a lot of points. Those who only play will have to either play a lot of sessions or build up their points over time to purchase the higher priced rewards.

Again, I think the team might want to go over the current point earning structure to provide more categories and possibly increase the AcP earned for GMing the major cons while also incorporating a RSP system into the points. If we go 8/10/12/16 for normal GMing/RSP/Cons/Premier Plus Cons and do 4/5/6/8 for players using the same type of sessions as GMs, that might help out. Of course, lowering the Acp price for the rewards could work just as effectively.

Final point: You can rack up a lot of AcP pretty quickly just GMing a lot. I'm at 445 by my calculations using the point values in the Guild Guide. I can buy 3x anything on that list and have points left over. GMing is going to be the primary way to generate a lot of AcP and that I feel is the right thing to do so as to incentivize GMing.

NECR0G1ANT wrote:

Darafern wrote:

Based on what I've been told, Regional Support Program games will also be considered premiere. Because of this the only difference between a weekly RSP gaming store game and a con game is that the scenario being run will be sponsored by Paizo for the con. As far AcP is concerned, there will be no incentive or benefit for running con games compared to RSP games. Even when you compare regular games to premiere games, the difference is quite minimal.

This is news to me. Where did you hear it?

From our local venture officer.

This may or may not end up being true. The final version of the AcP May very well be affected by what the Paizo tech team is able to do with the source code. Meaning that exactly what qualifies as a premier or premier plus event might be slightly different. At the moment, I believe the intention is that all local play whether public or private will be considered “standard” for rewards. Unless the rules for RSP would be changed, it would not change the AcP reward because essentially any and all events that do not qualify as a convention could be designated for RSP. If that is true, then essentially all events could be rated as premier and there would be no distinction between GameDays and conventions which would significantly impact convention incentives.

All events that qualify as conventions would automatically be given premier rewards.

All top “tier” conventions (75+ tables) would automatically be boosted to premier plus rewards. There is talk to extend those rewards to all tier two (61-74) as well, but that is not yet confirmed. Also, for regions who do not have any or few events that qualify for premier plus status, the RVC would be granted a number of discretionary designations to elevate the largest events in their area to receive premier plus awards even if they do not meet the table minimums.
Keep in mind, this is all simply proposed rules. The final version of the AcP rules are still pending final approval.

Bob has made some great points about Playtest Points being converted to AcP.

Reducing the number of systems in play makes it easier for some of us (who helped run both the Playtest/2e @Gen Con launch) as well as the Tech team.

Then keep the old Playtest options for purchases in-place, but as AcP purchases, this still provides the access needed without forcing folks to decide right away.

This year it's looking like I'm not going to get to any 'Premier Plus' I'll be lucky to get to a 'Premier' or two, and I don't have the desire or will to relearn all the stuff I screwed up trying to run 2e at Gen Con.

The other drawback to this new system that hasn't been addressed is portability.

In the PF1/SF system, if I GM at a convention and pick up a Boon I don't want, but I know someone who does, I can gift/trade for someone.

Under the current system as indicated, the purchased Boon is locked to a given player/GM.

This could also have a chilling effect on participation. If folks want to play 'x' race or character, and then are told "Oh, no, you can't play that until you've played twenty games (or GM'd 10)" they may very well feel inclined to either look at other options to spend their entertainment time/money or just not play at all. EDIT1: If I can give someone the Boon to play the race they want to play, they're probably going to stick with the system longer than some imaginary milepost that they have to 'grind' towards.../endEDIT1

EDIT2: One may end up with folks who play Pregens for every single game they play at (gotta build up dem dere points!), potentially disrupting game play either deliberately (out of irritation) or unintentionally (the pregens tend to be 'weaker' than player-created characters)... /EDIT2

Having the option to gift/trade Boons would help mitigate this slightly, imo. Whether it'd have enough of an impact to justify the complication? Who knows?

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:

Donald wrote:

How many conventions do you GM at?

PaizoCon, GenCon, Origins, Phoenix ComiCon, RinCon, SkalCon. At my peak, I was at maybe 6-7 cons in a year? Not counting online cons.

I was asking Toz.

HAHA. I did the same thing you did when I first started to be active on the forums.

If you see a name that has a purple color, it is an alias. Over over the name to see the profile that the alias is from.

When you do that, you will see that Steven, TOZ, and Grandmaster TOZ are all from the same profile. A fair number of people here will use an alias at various time.

If Tengu are gated behind ACP, then it may be a while longer to play PFS2, if ever.

In the meantime, I'll continue to volunteer to run PFS1 and Starfinder, at least until someone tells me that neither of these are desired at cons I can get to.

We see what the price will be so you need to play (or GM) enough tables to get about 80 points. The races will cycle so in amount of time, new races will be put up.

Really hope you do. You will have playing until you can get to you "most wanted" race.

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

If Tengu are gated behind ACP, then it may be a while longer to play PFS2, if ever.

In the meantime, I'll continue to volunteer to run PFS1 and Starfinder, at least until someone tells me that neither of these are desired at cons I can get to.

We see what the price will be so you need to play (or GM) enough tables to get about 80 points. The races will cycle so in amount of time, new races will be put up.

Really hope you do. You will have playing until you can get to you "most wanted" race.

If I wanted to *grind* for a race I'd play WoW.

I don't want to do that with OrgPlay (in any way/shape/form).

Gary Bush wrote:

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

If Tengu are gated behind ACP, then it may be a while longer to play PFS2, if ever.

In the meantime, I'll continue to volunteer to run PFS1 and Starfinder, at least until someone tells me that neither of these are desired at cons I can get to.

We see what the price will be so you need to play (or GM) enough tables to get about 80 points. The races will cycle so in amount of time, new races will be put up.

Really hope you do. You will have playing until you can get to you "most wanted" race.

If I wanted to *grind* for a race I'd play WoW.

I don't want to do that with OrgPlay (in any way/shape/form).

Playing Pathfinder is a grind? No where close my friend.

Your position make me very sad, Jim. I understand your position, it just makes me sad.

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

Gary Bush wrote:

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

If Tengu are gated behind ACP, then it may be a while longer to play PFS2, if ever.

In the meantime, I'll continue to volunteer to run PFS1 and Starfinder, at least until someone tells me that neither of these are desired at cons I can get to.

We see what the price will be so you need to play (or GM) enough tables to get about 80 points. The races will cycle so in amount of time, new races will be put up.

Really hope you do. You will have playing until you can get to you "most wanted" race.

If I wanted to *grind* for a race I'd play WoW.

I don't want to do that with OrgPlay (in any way/shape/form).

Playing Pathfinder is a grind? No where close my friend.

Your position make me very sad, Jim. I understand your position, it just makes me sad.

Playing in any system with a long-term stable of 'surrogate characters' to satisfy a participation/time sink requirement makes me sad.

I don't want Pathfinder to be like that, and I don't want to feel like I have to do that.

I want to have fun and just play MY character.

:>

Sharing of boons in 1E really got to the point where it was creating almost as many problems as it was being effective. We experienced waaay more issues with boon manipulation to outright copy/pirating that something had to be done. Unfortunately, because of the way the boons were distributed, it made it virtually impossible to stop the cheating. Unfortunately, I think this led to the decision that boons for 2E, and probably SFS once it gets incorporated into the AcP, will not normally be shareable. That may not be ideal for some, but its an unfortunate side-affect when we have such a rampant problem with cheating.

Perhaps there will be an opportunity to open up some sharing options in the future, but I would expect that to also be gated behind the AcP, similar to the boon that allows the player to shift a boon from one character to another. Only time will tell.

Though it is also possible that the intent is the boons are already shareable, but if so, the PtB have not expressed that in any official capacity I am aware of. I try to pay very close attention to the rewards rules because they will significantly affect how we manage them at the premier plus events.

Abuse was a problem, but it's not going to change no matter how restrictive the rules get -- in fact, some less-than-helpful folks may make the abuse WORSE if things get restrictive.

I don't want to see that. We don't need that.

I truly hope the goal is to aim for more inclusive rather than more exclusive.

Convention/time-gating the 'best stuff' isn't a good idea, though.

How to fix that?

I don't have a good idea atm.

HAHA. I did the same thing you did when I first started to be active on the forums.

If you see a name that has a purple color, it is an alias. Over over the name to see the profile that the alias is from.

Thanks, I did not know that. Seems dumb, tho. Pick a name and stick to it.

If I wanted to *grind* for a race I'd play WoW.

This. I buy a book to get more options. Then Paizo says you can't use those options until you play X number of times.

If you're going to restrict things, put it in the Game Masters section and make it NPCs only. Don't dangle options and then say, nah!

Gary Bush wrote:

HAHA. I did the same thing you did when I first started to be active on the forums.

If you see a name that has a purple color, it is an alias. Over over the name to see the profile that the alias is from.

Thanks, I did not know that. Seems dumb, tho. Pick a name and stick to it.

He says to people with a bundles of characters to play.

I want to have fun and just play MY character

To be fair, it was a number of years before expanded races were added to PF1 and even then they were slow to get in the hands of players in any meaningful volume. We have improved the distribution system over time, but remember that PF2 is only six months old. While the campaign does recognize a wide swath of ancestries, it is still core-ancestry centric. I think we would be doing a disservice to open up too many "premier" rewards too quickly as it will very quickly diminish their value and make it increasingly difficult over time to keep the rewards program fresh.

I think it could be argued that the rates for the ancestry unlocks might be a bit too high. Maybe they should be something more like 48-60 for the "lesser" two, and 80-100 for the hobgoblin to get closer to the release rate of the PF1 boons, but admittedly the exact points are a matter of circumstance and personal bias.

Admittedly, it is often easier for those of us who are very active both locally and at conventions to accept a higher points threshold, and we can lose sight of the casual player. Perhaps the conversations we are having will influence the decision making of the Paizo team and they will reconsider some of the AcP costs. Until the tech team works out their issues with the source code, we have time to rework the rules.

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

If I wanted to *grind* for a race I'd play WoW.

This. I buy a book to get more options. Then Paizo says you can't use those options until you play X number of times.

If you're going to restrict things, put it in the Game Masters section and make it NPCs only. Don't dangle options and then say, nah!

In PFS, not your home games. Which has always had forbidden/unlockable content.

If you don’t want anything restricted that is the realm of home games, not society play.

Seems dumb, tho. Pick a name and stick to it.

Some people like to post in character and their language is reflective of that avatar. Also, many of us are office-holders, be that a VO or otherwise and some like to use their avatar associated with their title, usually their default alias, to post when their comments are official or from the perspective of their role as a community leader, and then switch to another alias that does not come with the title tag when they are posting their personal opinions.

EDIT--I often find it is easier to just assume that any post from a person I don't immediately recognize is just another one of TOZ's aliases until I discover otherwise. :-D

Gary Bush wrote:

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

If Tengu are gated behind ACP, then it may be a while longer to play PFS2, if ever.

In the meantime, I'll continue to volunteer to run PFS1 and Starfinder, at least until someone tells me that neither of these are desired at cons I can get to.

We see what the price will be so you need to play (or GM) enough tables to get about 80 points. The races will cycle so in amount of time, new races will be put up.

Really hope you do. You will have playing until you can get to you "most wanted" race.

If I wanted to *grind* for a race I'd play WoW.

I don't want to do that with OrgPlay (in any way/shape/form).

Non-sequitur, but I didn’t have to do any grinding to unlock the races in Battle for Azeroth, just completing the zone story lines was enough to get me to Exalted.

Granted that required me to play Battle for Azeroth so there’s that...

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

If I wanted to *grind* for a race I'd play WoW.

This. I buy a book to get more options. Then Paizo says you can't use those options until you play X number of times.

If you're going to restrict things, put it in the Game Masters section and make it NPCs only. Don't dangle options and then say, nah!

Slight correction. Paizo, as in the creators of the game do not restrict what you play and we are all able to play whatever we want, in OUR campaigns. But, remember that PFS is led by a subset of Paizo staff, focused specifically on the PFS campaign. That campaign belongs to them. Its their campaign. We are all just table judges and players.

That's not to say they are not open to feedback and uncountable changes have been spurred by community feedback. However, having restricted content from books is not a new concept. It dates back to the launch of OP and for the most part has served us very well. There really is very little incentive for them to deviate much from that methodology.

Its an unfortunate truth that the campaign cannot be all things to all people.

@Wei Ji the Learner, if you refuse to participate in PFS2 unless you can immediately start play with an Uncommon ancestry, you'll be waiting a long time. In fact, you won't ever play unless transferable AcP is implemented or tengu are declared Common.

Is playing as another ancestry really worse than not playing PFS at all? I guess you could just GM until you get enough ACP.

Gary Bush wrote:

HAHA. I did the same thing you did when I first started to be active on the forums.

If you see a name that has a purple color, it is an alias. Over over the name to see the profile that the alias is from.

Thanks, I did not know that. Seems dumb, tho. Pick a name and stick to it.

I actually started switching between this one and the main one to make sure there were enough posts on it to show the 'aka TOZ' on the TriOmegaZero main, so people could easily tell. I use the Grandmaster alias for my play-by-post GMing.

Donald wrote:

Wei Ji the Learner wrote:

If I wanted to *grind* for a race I'd play WoW.

This. I buy a book to get more options. Then Paizo says you can't use those options until you play X number of times.

If you're going to restrict things, put it in the Game Masters section and make it NPCs only. Don't dangle options and then say, nah!

In PFS, not your home games. Which has always had forbidden/unlockable content.

If you don’t want anything restricted that is the realm of home games, not society play.

And in truth, PFS is far more open with options than a lot of GMs.

Its is certainly far more permissive than my home game :-D

You're not one of those 'Core Only' GMs are you? :P

Some people like to post in character and their language is reflective of that avatar.

This never happens!!! *Woof*!

You're not one of those 'Core Only' GMs are you? :P

No, but I do control wealth, magic, purchasing availability, and level advancement more than the basic rules. I don't allow the worship of evil deities or evil PCs. And I have a short list of spells that I ban. I like options as much as the next person so I'm not a big fan of core only material. In my home group where I have the authority to approve/ban any rule from any source if I feel it necessary for the campaign, I don't really see the need to ban entire books out of hand.

You're not one of those 'Core Only' GMs are you? :P

That would be me!!!! *Raises hand* (Well with races at least)

*loads anti-Core rounds into weapon system*

As I mentioned:

I didn't like restricted races in PF1 either. This is a chance to change things.

I play primarily in PFS games. Hence wanting the change.

Understood. I just don't think that change is something the majority of the leadership, both OPF and Paizo, want so its not likely to get a lot of traction. I think we might be able to compromise and get them to reduce the costs, but to make those things open access is extremely unlikely unless we can come up with a significant change in the rewards and incentives program.

*loads anti-Core rounds into weapon system*

Oh Man... Another alias!!!

As I mentioned:

I didn't like restricted races in PF1 either. This is a chance to change things.

I play primarily in PFS games. Hence wanting the change.

A new edition is also a chance to start GMing, and then you could unlock character content faster.

@Wei Ji the Learner, if you refuse to participate in PFS2 unless you can immediately start play with an Uncommon ancestry, you'll be waiting a long time. In fact, you won't ever play unless transferable AcP is implemented or tengu are declared Common.

Is playing as another ancestry really worse than not playing PFS at all? I guess you could just GM until you get enough ACP.

I agree. I absolutely LOVE reptiles and magic and was really hoping lizardfolk would be immediately available (or Kobolds, instead of lame goblins) and have int as their base stat. None of this was what I wanted. So what did I do? I worked with what I had, which was only core, and made a few funny pcs based on interesting things, like characters from books I'm reading or something that makes me smile enough. So I played games, now I'm running games, and saving up those sweet sweet points and when lizardfolk is buy able you can bet a lizardfolk Druid is nearly the only thing I'm playing for a while.

I also have a friend that played almost exclusively tengu in 1e and he was the same. "I don't wanna do anything pf2 until tengu are legal" well, that's a long way away. "I think lizardfolk will be an acceptable substitute until tengu come out" well they still, sadly, cost points. "well I guess I'll start Gming or playing a substitute until I can play my substitute until tengu are a thing."

Its kinda funny, but he was also like, the only starfinder gm at our store since 2e came out for most of the time, and starfinder was a big hit at our store for like 6 months, but 1 table monopolized it so everyone else was sorta like "well, since Pf2 is coming out I guess I'll just give up on trying to do starfinder since nobody wants to play anymore since the main group kinda quit for Pf2 as well and nobody really wants to do starfinder now"

Long rambling short, playing a substitute race might not be as fun, but at least it WILL get you to the race you want. Unless you just do a bunch of gming, which will make it faster.

Personally tengu should be common and free. With them being widely available in 1e for like 3 years, they should be common. They're basically just fluffy halflings really lol. It couldn't possibly be THAT bad to make a few new races free and common, especially when they're essentially reskinned core races.

And to be fair, promise my last thing, we are all humans in real life. This is a fantasy game. Sometimes people just wanna play as something that doesn't look like a human. To REALLY fantasize about something foreign and alien-like that they can pretend to be. To REALLY escape bland humanity. Almost everyone does at some point. Even if it's only slightly so (like a gnome or elf or lizard or goblin (why would anyone wanna do this for a disgusting goblin tho, personal rhetorical joke, do not answer))

*loads anti-Core rounds into weapon system*

you seem to know how to have a fun game lol

The easiest thing to do is to roll any remaining PtP into AcP. Creating a temporary program to account for people who have an odd balance of points. They are effectively the same thing, with PtP just being a focused reward. Generally speaking we should try to keep it simple. Set a final date after which all residual PtP is converted to AcP and then we close out the PtP program.

Allowing PtP to buy AcP boons is, frankly, a near-perfect solution. I know some folks might want to hold onto their PtP boons for when they make characters with certain ancestries down the line (Tengu and Kitsune seem the most vocal crowds from my personal experience on the boards), but allowing others to transfer them to AcP is both simple and elegant.

+1 from me to this idea!

Also, I'm kind of curious on the increasing prices. What's the reasoning behind making things like resurrections or rebuilds more expensive each time you do it? Does the base price reset each "season", or does that carry over?

This point got lost in some of the other discussion, but I've been thinking a bit about it and I think it makes sense.

a) For resurrection, you can still buy that with fame, so the ACP version is really the backup. In cases where its a new character (with an ancestry boon, or similar 'expensive') boon w/o enough fame to on the character to pay for it the usual way. Or a second death before you've had a chance to build up a safety net of fame. 6.25 scenarios are needed to buy the normal fame based resurrection ritual, which doesn't have increasing cost, but can't be shared between characters.

b) For rebuilds, I see it as pretty amzing to have that offered at all. The campaign has traditionally been very cautious about post-level 1 rebuilds. The un-limited (and fairly cheap) under level 5 option, is a huge boon (no pun originally intended) for us. That they offer the 5 and up one as well, at increasing cost is still a nice relaxing of the rules, but at a steep enough cost that people won't show up week to week with a different build.